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The developers behind a proposed Elmore County nuclear plant have now applied for another site in western Idaho. Alternate Energy Holdings Inc., which shifted its proposed plant from Owyhee County to a site near Hammett in early 2008, has asked for a comprehensive-plan amendment for a remote, 5,100-acre site in northern Payette County. Company officials said in August that delays in the Elmore County process led them to consider other options, though spokesman Martin Johncox said Tuesday that AEHI is not leaving Elmore County. "If we indeed want to build a nuclear power plant, we have to press forward, and...

Federal agents have seized six computers, two cameras, two cellphones and hundreds of files from a Los Alamos, N.M., physicist who for two decades has criticized the government’s nuclear agenda as misguided. A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman in Albuquerque, Darrin E. Jones, said that the action on Monday was part of “an ongoing federal investigation” and that he could provide no details. The physicist, P. Leonardo Mascheroni, said he was told that the seizures were part of a criminal investigation into possible nuclear espionage. Dr. Mascheroni also declared his innocence. “If I were a real spy,” he said Tuesday...

Survival methods and military techniques that can be used during an a nuclear attack.

For three long years, the United States, Britain, and France kept the secret while their intelligence services shared information they had been gathering on what appeared to be a top secret underground nuclear weapons plant near Qom. At the very last minute, just four days before the allies planned to shock the world by revealing detailed information on the secret nuclear plant, the Iranian government sent a tersely worded letter acknowledging the existence of the site to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and pledged to open it for future inspections. “Someone leaked,” says Danielle Pletka, vice president of the...

In these days, President Obama has declared a war on nuclear capabilities around the world. With the watch of Iran's nuclear program, North Korea's missile launches, and the discussions with Russia about the missile defense systems in Europe, Senators Lugar and Nunn have been a help.

"Iranian Supreme National Security Council Advisor: 'Circumstances May Arise Under Which Iran Will Require Uranium Enriched to 63%'" SNIPPET: "Talks began today, October 19, 2009, in Vienna between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency about the proposal made a few weeks ago by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in advance of the October 1, 2009 talks between Iran and the 5+1 in Geneva."

The recent defection of the daughter of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s film advisor to Germany is the latest clue to a non-military "cold war” against a nuclear Iran. Iranian filmmaker Narges Kalhor, whose father is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cultural affairs advisor and a media spokesman, has applied for political asylum in Germany.

Representatives from Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and three western states have convened in two-day talks in Vienna on October 19-20 to discuss supply of nuclear fuel for Tehran reactor. Informed sources close to the talks in Vienna said that the US has in a series of secret meetings informed its European partners of Washington's decision on acceptance of uranium enrichment in Iran. The sources reiterated that a number of Washington's EU allies have voiced strong protest against the decision, calling it a too big concession to Iran and a second blow to their stance by the US...

Iran would not agree in multilateral talks this week to ship a portion of its low-enriched uranium stockpile to other countries for further refinement, but would instead seek to purchase more highly enriched material from abroad for use in a Tehran research reactor, state media quoted anonymous officials as saying (see GSN, Oct. 16). If Iran balks at the understanding, reached earlier this month in talks with the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany, the nation could eliminate the possibility of a compromise with Western powers aimed at creating additional time for negotiations over its disputed nuclear...

PARIS — For decades, scientists have dreamed about turning thorium — an element that is less radioactive and produces less nuclear waste than uranium — into an alternative fuel for nuclear energy. Recent technological developments may be bringing the dream closer to reality. As a naturally occurring metal that is substantially more abundant than uranium, its most common isotopic form, thorium-232, can be converted by irradiation to uranium-233, which is suitable for use in nuclear fuels. The United States is estimated to have 400,000 tons of thorium, Turkey 344,000 tons and India 319,000 tons, according to a 2008 joint report...

PARIS — From the time the world’s first commercial nuclear power plants were switched on in the late 1950s, installed generating capacity rose rapidly over two decades. It leveled off in the 1980s as new building programs were scrapped in the wake of the accident at Three Mile Island, among other factors. Contractors generally designed plants to last for 40 years — a standard enshrined in the United States in the adoption by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or N.R.C., of a 40-year licensing regime. A large part of the world’s installed nuclear power capacity is now coming to the end...

The U.S. may soon get its first nuclear reactor in more than 30 years. UniStar Nuclear Energy — a joint venture between Baltimore-based Constellation Energy and the EDF Group — has proposed a new reactor for southern Maryland capable of generating 1,600 megawatts and powering 1.3 million homes twenty-four hours a day. To put this in context, the largest wind power installation in the world, the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas, generates 735 megawatts — but only when it’s windy. Nuclear, by comparison, is massive. Having cleared the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the New York Public Service...

WASHINGTON — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Thursday that it had rejected a design by Westinghouse for a new reactor because a key component might not withstand events like earthquakes and tornadoes. The rejection raises the possibility of delays in building 14 planned reactors in the United States, including two twin-reactor projects in Georgia and South Carolina that are leading the pack. ~~~SNIP~~~ In a conference call on Thursday with reporters, David Matthews, director of the division of new reactor licensing in the commission’s Office of New Reactors, said staff members were not convinced that a crucial part of the...

News that Air Force Generals were sacked by the President for recent mishaps, incidents and failures in exercises at nuclear missile batteries hidden across the Western United States has been widely questioned by the Airmen and Airwomen based at these facilities. It's time that somebody brought out the truth that the politicians in Washington DC seem desperate to hide' one NCO reported in a blog sent out yesterday NCO's at Minot ND's Air Base are quick to point out that nothing abnormal, or unexpected has occurred over the past year that could possibly have warranted the removal of these Air...

On Iran, China increasingly seems to be the odd man out. Not only have the French taken a surprisingly hard line in international efforts to regulate the Iranian nuclear program, but there are signs that Russia may be stiffening its resolve as well. China, by contrast, seems invariably to caution patience. Meanwhile, Chinese firms are expanding into the Iranian market at the same time that many international actors are leaving. There was a time not so long ago when China would have been expected to undermine Western policy. In the 1960s and 1970s, the People's Republic worked to chip away...

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held a hearing this morning to certify that H.R. 3200 -- the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August -- has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure. Under reconciliation, the bill can be passed by a simple majority vote in the Senate -- just 51 votes -- and will be given preferential treatment on the House floor as well. The Dems have apparently invoked the “nuclear option” to shut out Republicans and ensure the bill is passed before...

Forget the British… and the Americans for that matter… the French are coming! Without any direct stimulus money behind it, the Federal Railroad Administration recently called for proposals on high-speed rail lines in the United States.Over 80 groups showed interest, but one stood out in particular stood, thanks to an offer of more than 1,000 pages.It came from SCNF, the firm that runs France’s national railroad and made the TGV high-speed railroad that links Paris to the rest of Europe.Its American proposal details four major high-speed rail centers – one linking the major urban centers of California, another for Texas,...

Following the Nuclear Supplier Group's waiver in September 2008, India seems ready to take its place in the world of nuclear trade -- not just as a purchaser, but as a supplier, too. It appears that Kazakhstan is in line to be India's first customer for indigenously developed 220 megawatt electric (MWe) Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs). The proposed sale seems likely to follow the civil nuclear agreement signed by the two countries in January 2009. In addition to Kazakhstan, a number of Southeast Asian and African countries are also in serious talks with the Indian state-owned nuclear industry major,...

This is what Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said at last Friday’s prayer meeting in Tehran about the Geneva talks between Iran and the UN Security council big five plus Germany: ‘The meeting was a great victory for the Islamic Republic of Iran to such an extent that even the Western and Zionist media had to admit defeat....Prior to the talks, they (Westerners) used to speak of suspension and sanctions against Iran, but after the talks, there has not been any word of suspension or sanctions, rather, Iran's package of proposals was the axis.’ Ayatollah Khatami is correct. As a result of...

The time has not yet come for more sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said yesterday. At a joint press conference in Moscow, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said sanctions now would be counterproductive. Mr Lavrov said every effort should be made to deal with Iran using diplomatic means. Mrs Clinton said the U.S. agreed it was important to pursue diplomacy with Iran. But she kept the way open for sanctions further down the line. 'At the same time that we are very vigorously pursuing this track, we are aware that we might...

When I wrote this expose on nuclear-powered laptops in 2005, it was nothing but a juvenile April Fool's joke. It was a prank that most people "got" right off the bat, but it also naturally suckered in a few of the gullible into thinking the dawn of portable nuclear power had arrived. Gag or no, I've remained obsessed with the idea of personal nuclear power ever since. The realist in me understands that it's probably the worst idea ever, what with the radioactivity, hazardous waste, and Iran to think about. But I remain deeply intrigued with the idea. Now comes...

Russia and the United States have tentatively agreed to a weapons inspection program that would allow Russians to visit nuclear sites in America to count missiles and warheads.

US President Barack Obama's recent decision to cancel the deployment of an anti-missile defense (AMD) system in Eastern Europe was met with approval by the Russian authorities. In exchange, speaking at the recent G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev changed his position regarding sanctions against Iran. While Russia had, until recently, vetoed UN Security Council resolutions against the Iranian nuclear program, Medvedev suddenly hardened his rhetoric, mentioning sanctions as a possible course of action. Either way, it is quite clear that Russia, which borders Iran on the Caspian Sea, does not fear the emergence of its...

An audacious weekend assault by Islamic militants on Pakistan's army headquarters is again raising fears of an insurgent attack on the country's nuclear weapons installation. Pakistan has sought to protect its nuclear weapons from attack by the Taliban or other militants by storing the warheads, detonators and missiles separately in facilities patrolled by elite troops. Analysts are divided on how secure these weapons are. Some say the weapons are less secure than they were five years ago, and Saturday's attack would show a "worrisome" overconfidence by the Pakistanis. While complex security is in place, much depends on the Pakistani army...

(snip> Now comes word that nuclear batteries may actually become an honest-to-God reality, no foolin'. Researchers at the University of Missouri say they've achieved the unthinkable, and that a pint-sized power cell based on radioactive decay can last a ridiculously long time: a million times as long as a conventional battery, enough to keep putting out a charge for hundreds of years. Nuclear batteries already exist, but historically they have been quite large (and used only on things like spacecraft). The new design involves the use of a liquid semiconductor, which is less susceptible to damage from nuclear radiation than...

Iran most likely will develop a nuclear capability far sooner than the NIE timeline of around 2015... Much of the analysis both classified and from think tanks, mistakenly presupposes Iran will only pursue an implosion device... In the mid 1970’s feeling threatened by Soviet expansion by its Cuban surrogates in Angola, the South African government started down the road to becoming a nuclear power. Similar to Iran today, they settled on the production of uranium as the fuel and developed a gun type of weapon. Between 1982 and 1989 they completed 6 lightweight (750 kg/1,650 lb) weapons with an estimated...

Pakistan's nuclear weapon bases have been attacked by al-Qaeda and the Taliban at least three times in the last two years, it has emerged. The allegations, by a leading British expert on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, increased fears that terrorists could acquire a nuclear device or could trigger a nuclear disaster by bombing an atomic facility. In a paper for the respected anti-terrorism journal of America's West Point Military Academy, Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at Bradford University, detailed three attacks since November 2007 and raised the spectre of more incidents in the future. He said...

Nuclear physicist Dr Adlene Hicheur, arrested in France after allegedly plotting to carry out al-Qaeda terrorist attacks, had previously worked at a British scientific research laboratory, it can be disclosed. Dr Hicheur, 32, worked at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot, Oxfordshire, four years ago where he was carrying out research into nuclear physics. It is understood that MI5 and the Metropolitan Police have been in contact with the French secret service - the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence - and are trying to establish whether there are any UK links to the terror plot. The scientist was arrested with...

Tehran threw President Barack Obama a badly needed "lifeline" for his Iran policy at last week's nuclear discussions in Geneva: It promised U.N. access to a recently declared nuclear site and committed "in principle" to ship low-enriched uranium, or LEU, abroad to make fuel rods for producing medical isotopes. If Geneva had been a "bust," Obama would have been committed to mustering international endorsement for what his secretary of state calls "crippling" sanctions against Iran -- even though no serious observer believes that Russia and China would support measures anywhere close to that. By year's end, Obama's Iran policy would...

Security: After Iran admits building a second enrichment facility inside a mountain, the Pentagon shifts money from other programs to urgently fund the mother of all bunker-buster bombs. Why the need for speed? At the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh last month, President Obama announced, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has been building a covert uranium enrichment facility near Qom for several years." U.S. officials said they knew for some time that the facility existed. The announcement was made after U.S. officials learned Iran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency of Qom's existence. Our knowledge of the facility built in...

Defense: As the failure of engagement with Iran grows more apparent, the administration that has talked very softly may be getting the mother of all sticks ready. Guess we need high-tech Cold War weapons after all.Western intelligence sources have told London's Times that Iran has perfected the means to develop and detonate a nuclear bomb and is merely awaiting word from its supreme leader to produce its first one. Should the order be given, it would take just six months to enrich enough uranium and another six months to assemble the warhead. Time's up. Recently, and perhaps not coincidentally, Defense...

Iran's ambassador to the UN, Mohammad Khazaee, sent a letter of protest to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonin which he wrote that "there is no explanation for Israel's continuing threats against Tehran". He was referring to an interview given by former Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh to the Sunday Times in which he said that if Iran were not further sanctioned by this Christmas Israel would attack the country. Sneh told the paper that if Israel were forced to attack the Islamic Republic on its own it would do so, remarks the Iranian ambassador deemed "irresponsible". He said he hoped the...

PARIS - French agents have arrested a researcher from Europe's top atomic lab on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda, fuelling fears that terrorists could be targeting the nuclear industry. The 32-year-old man, who was detained along with his brother, works for the prestigious European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources. ''The inquiry will doubtless say what were the objectives in France or elsewhere and indicate perhaps that we have avoided the worst possible scenario,'' said Brice Hortefeux, the French Interior Minister. An intelligence source told Le Figaro that ''this is a very high...

French agents have arrested a researcher from Europe's top atomic lab on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda, fuelling fears that terrorists could be targeting the nuclear industry. The 32-year-old man, who was detained along with his brother, works for the prestigious European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources. ''The inquiry will doubtless say what were the objectives in France or elsewhere and indicate perhaps that we have avoided the worst possible scenario,'' said Brice Hortefeux, the French Interior Minister. An intelligence source told Le Figaro that ''this is a very high level'' case....

Researchers have demonstrated a penny-sized "nuclear battery" that produces energy from the decay of radioisotopes.As radioactive substances decay, they release charged particles that when properly harvested can create an electrical current. Nuclear batteries have been in use for military and aerospace applications, but are typically far larger. The University of Missouri team says that the batteries hold a million times as much charge as standard batteries.

13:0408/10/2009 NOVOSIBIRSK, October 8 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's new military doctrine will contain some changes to the situations that could trigger the use of nuclear weapons or preventive strikes against potential foes, the secretary of Russia's Security Council said on Thursday. Russia will soon adopt a new military doctrine that aims to transform the Armed Forces into a more effective and mobile military force. Their structures will be "optimized" through the use of combined arms units performing similar tasks. "In respect to the possibility of preventive or nuclear strikes we will formulate some provisions that will be somewhat different from...

At a landmark session that included the highest-level bilateral contact between U.S. and Iran in years Iran and six world powers put nuclear talks back on track The meeting ended with a pledge to meet again this month. Disputes, however, surfacing shortly after its conclusion indicated a rough road to agreement ahead. Iran accepted a demand Thursday at the talks in a villa outside Geneva to allow U.N. inspectors into its covertly built enrichment plant, in a move that appeared to defuse tensions that had been building for weeks. Western officials at the session said the Islamic republic had also...

Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joke about Iran's nuclear capability and the atomic bomb at their meeting in Tehran on Saturday. The man in the middle is laughing, but he dosen't know why. Edisto Joe

THE current disagreement between our intelligence agencies and those of our allies regarding Iran's nuclear program reveals the debased state of our $75-billion- a-year intel system. The Germans, French, Israelis and now the Brits agree that Iran has an active nuclear-weapons program, differing only as to how swiftly Tehran can field warheads. The US intel community's holding out. It's worried about political risks. A reassessment's supposedly under way, but we're clinging to our comforting conclusion that Iran gave up on designing nuclear weapons in 2003.

North Korea’s armed forces are capable of carrying out 13 kinds of viral and bacterial attack, the South Korean Government said yesterday in one of the most detailed assessments of the dictatorship’s biological weapons arsenal. In a submission to the South Korean National Assembly, the Defence Minister also said that the North had 5,000 tonnes of chemical weapons, believed to include mustard gas, phosgene and sarin. Among its biological agents are cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, typhoid fever and dysentery. Despite the alarming assessment, Kim Tae Young also said that his country’s armed forces had the capacity pre-emptively to destroy...

Conservatives for years have been contending that the United Nations is a useless, ineffective organization that caters to dictators and rouge nations. In an interview yesterday International Atomic Energy Agency (an independent organization that reports to the UN) director-general Mohamed ElBaradei spoke about the security in the Middle East. He also identified what he saw as it’s greatest threat. Was it Iran? No. Syria? Nope. Lebannon or Lybia? Not even close. Al Quaeda? No. Hamas? No.

The West must press home its advantage after catching Iran red-handed Iran’s agreement to allow a United Nations inspection team to visit its secret nuclear facility in Qom shows, as the White House remarked guardedly, that it is moving “in the right direction”. There is a very long way still to go. This concession, wrung from Iran’s nuclear negotiator at last week’s confrontation with the five Security Council permanent members plus Germany, was a desperate attempt to play for time. Iran had been caught red-handed by Western intelligence, which revealed the Qom plant at a moment calculated to cause maximum...

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.

The most widely touted outcome of last week's Geneva talks with Iran was the "agreement in principle" to send approximately one nuclear-weapon's worth of Iran's low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for enrichment to 19.75% and fabrication into fuel rods for Tehran's research reactor. President Barack Obama says the deal represents progress, a significant confidence-building measure. In fact, the agreement constitutes another in the long string of Iranian negotiating victories over the West. Any momentum toward stricter sanctions has been dissipated, and Iran's fraudulent, repressive regime again hobnobs with the U.N. Security Council's permanent members. Consider the following problems: •...

TEHRAN, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported. ...

Next week, investigative journalist and author Dr. Paul L. Williams will be tried in a foreign court for his investigative work on reports of al Qaeda terrorists at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. But he broke no American statute and his alleged violation of Canadian law took place not in Canada, but at his home in Pennsylvania. Williams got into a legal jam with the Canadians while discussing his book The Dunces of Doomsday on the nationally syndicated “Coast-to-Coast AM” radio program with George Noory. To make matters more bizarre, Williams had been advised by the Ontario Provincial Police to...

SNIPPET: "Senior staff members of the United Nations nuclear agency have concluded in a confidential analysis that Iran has acquired "sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable" atom bomb. The report by experts in the International Atomic Energy Agency stresses in its introduction that its conclusions are tentative and subject to further confirmation of the evidence, which it says came from intelligence agencies and its own investigations. But the report's conclusions, described by senior European officials, go well beyond the public positions taken by several governments, including the United States."

JERUSALEM, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Long strident in its calls for tougher international action over Iran's nuclear programme, Israel has fallen silent as world powers try to convert last week's talks with Tehran into a lasting deal. Israeli officials have declined comment on Thursday's meeting in Geneva, which yielded agreements to open a newly disclosed Iranian uranium enrichment site to inspection and follow-up negotiations. While experts in Israel and abroad voiced scepticism about the value of such moves, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning government appeared to have adopted the "wait and see" attitude of the United States and its European...

The new Iranian uranium enrichment site will be inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on October 25, the director-general of the agency, Mohamed ElBarade, said in Tehran. (AFP)

Federal investigators say the public faces little danger from 25 pounds of radioactive material reported missing from a South Carolina nuclear fuel plant, but at least one expert from a private group said any amount of uranium could be dangerous in the wrong hands.“It poses very little risk,” Hannah said. “Because of the very small amount of radiation, even if you had the worst of motivations … it's not very useful for that kind of device.”