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5th Bomb Wing flunks nuclear inspection
Last August six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles were mistakenly loaded onto a B-52 Stratofortress at Minot Air Force Base in South Dakota and flown to Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana — a serious violations of the U.S. Air Force’s regulations regarding flying nuclear weapons over U.S. terrotiry; heads rolled; the Defense Threat Reduction Agency came back to Minot on 17 May to conduct an inspection of how nuclear weapons were being handled now — and issued a scathingly critical report
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Iranian-born U.S. citizen charged with nuclear smuggling
The Iranian-born engineer worked for seventeen years at Palo Verde nuclear plant, about fifty miles west of downtown Phoenix, the largest U.S. nuclear plant; he loaded software onto his laptop, and took the laptop to Iran
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IAEA: Iran evasive about its nuclear program
Iran’s march toward the bomb continues unabated; the U.S. intelligence community may have concluded that Iran had “halted” its nuclear weapons program in 2003, but a UN atomic agency says indications are to the contrary
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Jimmy Carter: Israel has 150 nuclear bombs
Former president breaks a 40-year taboo which saw U.S. officials — and Israeli officials — refuse to make explicit references to Israel’s nuclear arsenal
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Civilian nuclear facilities in Sichuan confirmed safe
The Chinese government has identified 32 radioactive sources in the earthquake-devastated Sichuan area - hospitals, research centers, factories, but no power plants; 30 sources have already been located and removed; the two remaining sources have been cordoned off and are being excavated
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Nuclear proliferation looms, I
Owing to rising oil prices and worries about climate change, there is a growing interest in nuclear power generation; forty countries have told the UN nuclear agency of plans to develop nuclear power generation capability; experts worry that this interest in nuclear technology is fueled at least in part by interest in nuclear weapons - especially in Middle Eastern countries terrified about the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran
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Unassuming fungi lock depleted uranium out of harm's way
Common fungi, found in most back gardens, could help clean up battlefields contaminated with depleted uranium
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Next-generation nuclear fuel may be too hot to handle: report
It sounded like a good idea: Enrich the uranium used to power nuclear reactors further so that operators will be able to extract more electricity from a given amount of fuel; trouble is, burn-up rates above a certain point would violate U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety standards unless new methods were devised for packaging the fuel
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Iran accelerates march toward the bomb
The Bush administration December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate asserted that Iran had “halted” its nuclear weapons plans; that assertion did not impress the Iranians, as their effort to acquire nuclear bombs, far from having been “halted,” is now accelerating
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Cannister containing iridium 192 stolen in Japan
Worries about a dirty bomb increase as a container containing 48.4 pounds of iridium 192 is stolen from an inspection company in Japan
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Regional nuclear war would create near-global ozone hole
A limited nuclear weapons exchange between Pakistan and India using their current arsenals could create a near-global ozone hole, triggering human health problems and wreaking environmental havoc for at least a decade, according to a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder
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U.S. officials warn of Al-Qaeda's nuclear ambitions
DHS, DOE, and intelligence officials tell Congress al-Qaeda is continuing its pursuit of a nuclear weapon; monitoring the progress of the organization in reaching this goal is difficult: “We must find something that is tactical in size but strategic in impact,” says one official
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Company profile: Radiation Watch
Company’s products are versatile, offering performance over a wide dynamic range of measurement, from very low to very high values, in one instrument
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Nuclear detectors in Washington state detect radioactive cat
DHS has radiation monitors along Interstate 5 to make sure no radioactive material is being smuggled into the country; the monitors are so sensitive that they detected a sick cat in a car driving at 70 miles per hour (the cat was taken home after cancer radiation treatment at the vet)
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Fear of dirty bomb threat as U.K. ships plutonium to France
Sellafield had an ambitious, £473 million plan: Make new nuclear fuel out of mixture of plutonium and uranium oxides recovered from used fuel; the plan flopped, and the company had to turn to its chief competitor, French firm Cogema, to fulfill its orders for the fuel material; trouble is, shipping the material to France on an unarmed ferry is dangerous, as the material could easily be used to make a dirty bomb
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