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THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS Japan plans to turn over to the United States more than 700 pounds of weapons grade plutonium and a supply of highly-enriched uranium, a victory for President Barack Obama's efforts to secure nuclear materials around the world. Despite its international pledge not to possess excess stock of plutonium, Japan has large amounts of the weapons-grade material. The amount to be returned to the U.S. this time is a fraction of Japan's overall stockpile. Even though the majority of Japan's public favor nuclear phase-out, the government recently introduced a draft long-term energy policy proposing maintaining nuclear power as...

US presses Japan to hand back 300 kg of plutonium IANS | Tokyo January 27, 2014 Last Updated at 04:34 IST Japan's key ally the US has been pressing the country to return more than 300 kg of mostly weapon-grade plutonium that it exported to Japan for research purposes during the Cold War era, media reported. The plutonium that is stored at a fast critical assembly in Tokaimura in Japan's Ibaraki prefecture could be used to produce 40-50 nuclear weapons, reported Japan's Kyodo News, citing unnamed Japanese and US government officials, according to Xinhua. Japan has strongly resisted the demand...

Activists raise alarm about radiation from Japan, but nuclear researchers say their fears are unfounded.Cynthia Papermaster has stopped eating fish from the Pacific Ocean. The Berkeley resident also tries to stay out of the rain, and even leaves her rain boots outside of her house. The reason? She's worried about radioactive fallout from the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station following the March 2011 tsunami and earthquake in Japan. "It's all one planet," she said. "The radiation will spread around the world." Papermaster, an activist with the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Social Justice Committee, is part of a...

Iran will pursue construction at the Arak heavy-water reactor, Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif was quoted as saying on Wednesday, despite a deal with world powers to shelve a project they fear could yield plutonium for atomic bombs. France, one of the six powers that negotiated Sunday's interim pact with Iran to curb its disputed nuclear program, said in response to Zarif's statement that Tehran had to keep to what was agreed in the Geneva talks. The uncompleted research reactor emerged as one of several big stumbling blocks in the marathon negotiations, in which Iran agreed to restrain its atomic...

Archaeologists digging in Turkey have found the guardians of the "Gate to Hell" -- two unique marble statues which once warned of a deadly cave in the ancient Phrygian city of Hierapolis, near Pamukkale. Known as Pluto's Gate -- Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin -- the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition. It was discovered in March by a team led by Francesco D'Andria, professor of classic archaeology at the University of Salento.

SNIPPET: "I rarely attend trials, but this one is special. On July 24, 2013, the main hearing in the case of German businessman Rudolf M. and Iranian-Germans Gholamali K., Kianzad K., and Hamid Kh. opened at Hamburg’s Higher Regional Court. The defendants are charged with exporting 92 German-produced specialized valves for use in Iran’s Arak plutonium reactor and arranging the shipment of 856 nuclear-usable valves from India to Iran in 2010 and 2011. The reasons why the UN Security Council has ordered Iran to halt the construction of the Arak reactor are compelling. If this nuclear plant comes online in...

An economic analysis of what is in spent nuclear fuel. As a nuclear reactor fissions heavy metal U235 and Pu239, the atoms are split into two randomly sized pieces. Many of these fission products are unstable and rapidly decay into other products. After nuclear reactor fuel has cooled in a pool of water for a few years, and then sat in dry cask storage for another 10--30 years, what is it made of? Is it dangerous waste that needs to be isolated from humanity for 100,000 years or is it precious material waiting to be partitioned and sold? The answer...

American weapons expert calls 'Quds' facility 'very scary' One of the America’s foremost experts on nuclear weapons calls Iran’s secret “Quds” nuclear facility very scary and a sign the Islamic regime might be close to taking on the world. In an exclusive March 20 report with updates on March 24, March 25 and April 10, WND revealed the vast “Quds” site. Iranian scientists are trying to perfect nuclear warheads at this underground facility previously unknown to the West. According to WND’s source, an officer who has been assigned to the regime’s Ministry of Defense, the site, approximately 14 miles long...

The secret, one-on-one nuclear negotiations President Barack Obama launched with Iran have run into a blank wall. A senior Iranian team member, Mostafa Dolatyar, said Friday, Dec. 14 in New Delhi that the diplomatic process for solving the nuclear issue with Iran was in effect going nowhere, because the demand that Tehran halt its 20-percent enrichment of uranium “doesn’t make sense.” He went on to say: “They [the world powers] have made certain connections with purely technical issues and something purely political. In so far as this is the mentality and this is the approach from 5 + 1 (the...

The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble written by Khosrow B. Semnani, and published by the Hinckley Institute of Politics, University of Utah has concluded a strike would include four sites and irradiate up to 100,000 Iranian citizens and soldiers. The four locations include: Isfahan: The Nuclear Technology/Research Center in Esfahan (ENTC) is supposed to be the main location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Semnani predicts 1,000 workers here will be killed, and up to 70,000 casualties in the surrounding areas from toxic plumes: 71,000 Natanz: One-hundred miles north of Isfhahan, this location has been in use for about 12 years and...

Butterflies in the Fukushima Region Plagued by “Genetic Damage” and “Severe Abnormalities” A study of the pale grass blue butterfly in the regions around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, site of the 2011 radiation disaster, has revealed that the insects are giving birth to mutants at an alarming rate. Indeed, the butterflies collected from younger generations have more abnormalities than butterflies born directly after the power plant began leaking radioactive particles into the environment. That means the genetic damage caused by the radiation leak has been inherited by subsequent generations. Above, you can see images taken from the study, published...

Gov't admits nuclear substances found in waste, unreported to IAEA TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Japanese government admitted Thursday that nuclear substances have been found in the waste of domestic facilities subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, but left unreported to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Top government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said in a news conference that the matter will be reported to the IAEA soon, but did not say how much nuclear material was involved. The chief Cabinet secretary said an investigation last year of records led to the discovery of nuclear substances that were unaccounted for in waste at...

Unknowns about radioactive materials warrant vigilance amid delayed gov't action What does it mean that, in addition to the radioactive iodine and cesium that the government has heretofore focused on, extremely dangerous plutonium has been found in soil over 40 kilometers away from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and the likewise toxic strontium has been found in Yokohama, some 250 kilometers from the power station? Radiochemical expert Michiaki Furukawa, who is a professor emeritus at Nagoya University and serves on the board of the non-profit organization Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), says that some reports about plutonium have...

Plutonium detected 45 kilometers from nuke plant Small amounts of plutonium have been detected in samples of soil taken at locations including a spot 45 kilometers away from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. This is the first time that the government has detected plutonium outside the nuclear plant since the accident. The science ministry announced on Friday that the plutonium was detected in samples taken from 6 locations in the towns of Futaba and Namie, and Iitate Village in Fukushima Prefecture --- all located northwest of the nuclear plant. The radioactive substance is believed to have been released by...

Reports indicate the fire came within 50 feet of the grounds of the Los Alamos lab where plutonium was stored in a fabric material building. This is unexplainable, unacceptable, and came within feet of causing the worst disaster in US history.

Updated : Jun 27, 2011 N. Korea's HEU Stocks May Exceed its Plutonium Stockpile in 3 Years A nuclear expert in the United States projects North Korea will obtain over 40 kilograms of high enriched uranium in three years. Olli Heinonen, former Deputy Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency posted on 38 North, a website devoted to North Korean issues that Pyongyang would be capable of producing 1.8 tons of low enriched uranium if all 2-thousand centrifuge machines at its enrichment facility in Yongbyon were operated at full capacity. He said an additional 8-hundred centrifuges would be able to...

Intelligence analysts are sifting through phone numbers and email addresses found at Osama bin Laden’s compound to determine potential links to Pakistani government and military officials while U.S. officials and analysts raise concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear materials. According to three U.S. intelligence officials, the race is on to identify what President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has called bin Laden’s “support system” inside Pakistan. These sources sought anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters. “My concern now is that we cannot exclude the possibility that officers in the Pakistani military and the intelligence...

The New York Times is proving that, when it comes to nuclear power, it isn't a one-note newspaper. Not every anti-nuclear story has to be written by Matt Wald. The paper has versatility -- this time reporters Jo Becker and William J. Broad get into it. "Doubts Growing About U.S. Plan for Plutonium," said the page-one, column-one headline yesterday. Whose doubts? Well, it turns out they all belong to Edwin Lyman, resident lamenter at the Union for Concerned Scientists who has nothing but doubts about nuclear. Lyman is a lugubrious presence at every nuclear event in Washington, ruing that the...

Higher MOX Fuel Concentration Weighed for U.S. Reactors Monday, April 11, 2011 The federal Tennessee Valley Authority and Energy Department have conducted talks on potentially substituting mixed-oxide fuel derived from nuclear-weapon material for one-third of the low-enriched uranium in several U.S. power reactors, a substantially higher proportion of MOX fuel than a crippled Japanese nuclear plant had used, the New York Times reported on Sunday (see GSN, April 5). Any TVA move on the proposal has been put off pending a review of the behavior of MOX fuel at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was severely damaged last...

A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster. Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods. But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100...