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You can't beat for drama the struggle of Japanese operators to manage the emergency cool-down of nuclear reactors in the tsunami zone. For the things that matter most, though—life and safety—the nuclear battle has been a sideshow. Hundreds were feared dead when entire trains went missing. Whole villages were wiped out with the loss of thousands of inhabitants. So far one worker at one nuclear plant is known to have died in a hydrogen explosion and several others have exhibited symptoms of radiation poisoning. As for environmental degradation, video testifies to the brown murk that the tsunami waters became when...

Japan has asked the United States for additional equipment to help provide water and other resources to keep quake-damaged nuclear reactors cool, the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Monday.

Fukushima: Reactors and the Public All weekend long, as the dreadful news and heart-wrenching images from Japan kept coming in, I wondered how press coverage of the nuclear reactor situation would be handled. The temptation seemed irresistible to play the story for drama and maximum fear, citing catastrophic meltdowns, invoking Chernobyl and even Hiroshima, along with dire predictions about the future of nuclear power. My first thought was that the Japanese reactors were going to have the opposite effect than many in the media suppose. By showing that nuclear plants can survive so massive an event, theyÂ’ll demonstrate that...

BOSTON - Thanks to global warming, nuclear energy is hot again. Its promise of abundant, carbon emissions-free power is being pushed by the president and newly considered by environmentalists. But any expansion won't come cheap or easy. The enormous obstacles facing nuclear power are the same as they were in 1996, when the nation's last new nuclear plant opened near the Watts Bar reservoir in Tennessee after 22 years of construction and $7 billion in costs. Waste disposal, safe operation and security remain major concerns, but economics may be the biggest deterrent. Huge capital costs combine into an enormous price...

U.S. Aid Helps N. Korea Build Nukes, Congress Told By Lawrence Morahan CNS Staff Writer 17 April, 2000 (CNSNews.com) - North Korea's nuclear production capacity will increase from a dozen nuclear bombs a year to 65 a year by 2010, thanks in large part to American taxpayer money, two renowned U.S. nuclear scientists told congressional leaders last week. North Korea observers have long suspected the communist dictatorship is using Western humanitarian aid to starving North Koreans to feed Kim Jong Il's million-man army. But an aid policy initiated by the Clinton administration in the mid-1990s to finance two light...

Nuclear power plants in Russia have been targets of terrorist threats, and Norway has invested in security measures for their neighbors. "There have been threats against nuclear plants in Russia. There are examples but I don't want to go into details," Ole Harbitz, director of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA), told TV 2. The NRPA is alarmed by the threats and Norwegian authorities have used nearly NOK 200 million (USD 31.5 million) in recent years to help secure various nuclear facilities in Eastern Europe. Security measures against meltdowns and other potential accidents remain far inferior here than at facilities...

Oct. 12, 2005 — A four-month ABC News investigation found gaping security holes at many of the little-known nuclear research reactors operating on 25 college campuses across the country. Among the findings: unmanned guard booths, a guard who appeared to be asleep, unlocked building doors and, in a number of cases, guided tours that provided easy access to control rooms and reactor pools that hold radioactive fuel. ABC News found none of the college reactors had metal detectors, and only two appear to have armed guards. Many of the schools permit vehicles in close proximity to the reactor buildings without...

FORT MONROE, Va. (8/23/2005) — Most local headlines in Charleston, S.C., probably won’t grab national attention: a road is closed for construction, local officials debate a proposed law, a man is shot in a small town outside Charleston. But how about this for a headline: “Run for Your Lives: Charleston will blow up this week.” A military training exercise, Sudden Response 2005, is using Charleston as the setting of a nuclear disaster to improve the United States’ readiness if such an event should occur. At Fort Monroe, Joint Task Force Civil Support, a unit composed of servicemembers from all branches...

" India has a developed and growing high tech sector. It also has a major service sector thanks to the growth of outsourced US call-center jobs being relocated there. It's economic growth has been high and steady for the past decade, due in large part to its highly educated, english speaking, middle-class, which now numbers about 300 million,( the entire population of the United States). While there is still great poverty in India, it is being reduced steadily and gradually, its overall GDP growth is widely expected to be about 7.2% for 2005, that is very near China's expected growth...

North Korea has resumed the construction of two nuclear reactors suspended under a 1994 agreement with the United States, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday. North Korea restarted building a 50,000-kilowatt reactor in Yongbyon and a 200,000-kilowatt reactor in Thaechon _ both are plutonium-producing graphite-based _ Japanese economic daily Nihon Keizai said, quoting unidentified U.S. government and other sources. Japan's Foreign Ministry said it couldn't confirm the report. North Korea had suspended the construction of the two reactors under the 1994 deal in exchange for energy aid and two light-water reactors that are less likely to be used in nuclear...

WASHINGTON - Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said Tuesday the kingdom has plenty of oil in the ground to meet global demand for now and would raise production if prices rose too high. "I stand here to tell you that Saudi Arabian reserves are plentiful, and we stand ready to raise output as the market dictates," al-Naimi said in a speech. He acknowledged that the perception of a tight market has contributed to higher prices. "Very high or unstable prices are not in the interest of producers," he said, adding that oil producers also suffer when the world economy slows....

The western world is only now waking to the nightmarish specter of China providing nuclear technology know-how to Pakistan and North Korea. China’s nuke know-how can be stamped: "Made in Canada". CANDU manufacturer, the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), is among other things, the Mother of all Proliferators. Reid Morden, former president and CEO of AECL, could star in his own made-for-television spy novel. Morden’s credentials in the spy industry come from Canada’s main intelligence agency, CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service, an agency Morden headed up. "On October 13, 1995 the second phase of a Canadian deal with China...

WASHINGTON, March 14 - Like the taxis in Havana, American nuclear power reactors are in heavy use, important to the economy and really, really old. The most modern was ordered in 1973. Now after decades, four huge electric companies are expressing strong interest in new reactors, and they would like a new plant to reflect some of what has been learned of the operation. Entergy, Exelon and Dominion have each applied for advance approval on sites where they might build reactors, although they have not committed to actually ordering one. The fourth, Duke Power, met with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...

After years of dormancy, the U.S. nuclear industry is stirring again, hoping that a friendly White House and Congress will provide the tax dollars it needs for its first expansion in years to build more plants in places like Clinton, Ill. New construction likely is years away, but as part of its speeded-up permit process, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reached an initial conclusion last week that no environmental problems stand in the way of Exelon Corp. adding new reactors at its plant in Clinton, in central Illinois. A day later, President George W. Bush delivered a strong pitch for the...

WASHINGTON Westinghouse Electric was to present a bid to China on Monday for building four large nuclear reactors, backed by a pledge of nearly $5 billion in financial assistance from the U.S. government that Washington hopes will give the company an edge over competitors from France, Germany and other countries. .

China has big plans for nuclear power, hoping to build 27 new reactors at a cost of $1 billion each in order to quadruple capacity by 2020. That should take China to 36,000 megawatts, according to Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the China Atomic Energy Authority. “It is not easy to realize the target of 36,000 megawatts by 2020. It means we should build 27 nuclear power generators each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts by then,” said Zhang, also vice minister of the Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense. With nine nuclear power generators in operation, China...

A vanity thread. I've been saying the Israelis have been restrained by Washington from taking out the Iranian reactors until 'after the elections.' Now I am willing to call (two) shots: Boris says (a) 25% probability that they will hit the Iranian sites within a week; (b) 90% chance before 2004 comes to an end. Right now I think 50/50 that it will be a joint attack with the U.S. versus going alone. Any other freepers with crystal balls welcome to participate. --Boris

US likely to approve exports of nuclear reactors to China: official The United States' nuclear regulator said Tuesday it is likely to approve the export of US-designed reactors to China soon, giving American companies access to a multi-billion-dollar market. Nils Diaz, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, told reporters it was reviewing export licenses for Westinghouse's recently approved "state of the art" AP-1000 reactor. He said he was unaware of any significant objections to exporting the technology to China. "The commission will actually vote on this issue hopefully in the next couple of months," Diaz told a news conference. "The...

The recent announcement of a deal for Israel to acquire thousands of Precision-Guided-Munitions (PGM) went largely unheralded by Elite-Media, who mostly yawned and ho-hummed the sale. One source, the Seattle Post Intelligencer did little more than the intellectually lazy approach, recycling an AP report but the numbers in the report were very telling: 3000 2000-pound laser-guided bombs, 1000 1000-pound laser-guided bombs and 500 500-pound precision-guided bombs. The most important number noted above is the huge number of 2000-pound PGM’s – these are heavy, penetrating munitions needed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. The PGM’s also have a satellite-targeting option allowing the...