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Governments across the world are today urging their nationals to leave Tokyo as soon as possible amid fresh safety fears. The U.K. Foreign Office is recommending that all Britons leave the area for their own safety, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommended citizens who don't need to be in Japan leave and France told its citizens with no reason to stay in Tokyo to get out. But the White House has not yet told Americans to get out of Tokyo, although it is 'working around the clock (to) determine the whereabouts and well-being' of U.S. citizens there. The...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that all the water is gone from one of the spent fuel pools at Japan's most troubled nuclear plant, but Japanese officials denied it. If NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is correct, this would mean there's nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. Read more at source.

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress Wednesday that Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis appears "more serious" than the 1979 Three Mile Island partial reactor meltdown. Chu's comments came in response to a question comparing the incidents from Representative Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, as Chu was testifying before the House of Representatives' Energy and Power Subcommittee. "I think the events unfolding in Japan actually appear to me to be more serious than Three Mile Island," Chu said. "To what extent, we don't really know right now. They're unfolding on an hour-by-hour basis and there are conflicting reports." "That's one of...

WASHINGTON—Japan's nuclear disaster is putting new pressure on President Barack Obama's energy strategy, which has relied on calls to expand nuclear power to win support for a broader effort to promote alternatives to coal and oil. On Tuesday, the White House resisted calls from Democratic congressional leaders for a special review of U.S. nuclear-plant safety in the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis—a move similar to one ordered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) on Tuesday called for reviews of U.S. nuclear-plant safety. Rep....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Radiation from nuclear plants damaged in Japan's earthquake is unlikely to reach US territory in harmful amounts, US nuclear officials said Sunday. "Given the thousands of miles between the two countries, Hawaii, Alaska, the US Territories and the US west coast are not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity," the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said in a statement. "All the available information indicates weather conditions have taken the small releases from the Fukushima reactors out to sea away from the population," the statement read. The office also said it sent two boiling-water reactor experts...

Gregory Jaczko, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, discusses the outlook for construction of new nuclear-power reactors in the U.S. and the disposal of nuclear waste. Jaczko, speaking with Margaret Brennan on Bloomberg Television’s “InBusiness,” said the NRC will start making decisions on applications to build new U.S. reactors in 12 to 18 months.

President Obama is looking for help in collaring American nuclear power. On Friday, the Department of Energy asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to reconsider its refusal to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste storage project. In doing so, Mr. Obama continues his relentless quest to throttle this politically incorrect form of clean energy while pretending to sustain it. In June, a three-judge NRC panel said the Obama administration cannot halt the licensing of the facility without approval from Congress. Now the administration hopes the full five-member commission will overturn the earlier ruling and end the project once and for all....

A close associate of convicted businessman Tony Rezko testified in Rod Blagojevich’s trial this afternoon that a onetime National Republican Committeeman loaned him $600,000 — no questions asked. As it turned out though, there was a hitch. Businessman Joseph Aramanda, testifying under a letter of immunity, said Springfield lobbyist and onetime National Republican Committeeman Bob Kjellander was “very receptive,” to loaning him the money so Aramanda could build up his pizza franchises. Prosecutors appear to be trying to link money that was in Aramanda’s account to earlier testimony, which indicated that more than half a million dollars was routed through...

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has joined Kanaka Maoli, and other community representatives in criticizing the Army’s radiation monitoring plan for Depleted Uranium (DU) contamination at the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA) in the center of Hawai’i Island. In an article written by Alan D. McNarie for the Big Island Weekly –”NCR to ARMY: DU Monitoring Plan Won’t Work” the NRC said: “We have concluded that the Plan will provide inconclusive results for the U.S. Army as to the potential impact of the dispersal of depleted uranium (DU) while the Pohakuloa Training Area is being utilized for aerial bombardment or...

Anti-nuclear power activists petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday to investigate their claims of design flaws in new Westinghouse Electric Co.'s reactors that could lead to radiation emissions. Both the company and the regulator rejected claims the yet-to-be-built reactor would likely corrode and said regular inspections would catch any deterioration early on. The AP1000 Oversight Group — named for the "Advanced Passive" Westinghouse AP1000 design — said the commission should suspend license approval of the nuclear reactor until the design "defects" are corrected. The group alleges the space between the outer shield building and the structure that contains the reactor...

<p>Westinghouse Electric Co. must prove that the building it designed to shield its nuclear reactors can withstand natural disasters such as strong earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes before the reactors are approved for a Georgia power plant, a federal agency said yesterday.</p>

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision. Klein said, Those who would distort the science of Yucca Mountain for political purposes should be reminded that it was a year ago today that the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity, in which he stated that ‘The public must be able to trust...

TORONTO - There are still no leads in the case of an eastern Ontario scientist who disappeared without a trace last month, leaving his colleagues mystified. Lachlan Cranswick hasn't been seen since Jan. 18, when he left work at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre in Chalk River, northwest of Ottawa. His nearby Deep River house was reportedly left unlocked and his car was in the garage. His wallet, keys and passport have all been accounted for......

NOTE: Photo included. SNIPPET: "On Jan. 18, Lachlan Cranswick left the Chalk River nuclear facility, where he worked, and took a bus to Deep River, the small town on the Ottawa River where he lived. The 41-year-old physicist, whose job entailed running experiments for the National Research Council, had just finished some work for a researcher overseas and left his findings on his desk, to be mailed later. Sometime that night or the next morning, he took his garbage bins outside for pickup. Then, he vanished without a trace. When he didn't show up for work for several days and...

A project to build the nation's first new nuclear plant in 30 years is eligible for $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees -- even though the Westinghouse Electric Co. reactors to be used in the plant don't have final Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval. President Obama announced Tuesday that the loan guarantees will be offered to four electric utilities that would own the expanded Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga. Two new reactors are to be built there at a cost of about $14 billion. The main sticking point now is the commission's criticisms of Cranberry-based Westinghouse's design for buildings to house...

Cuban nationals land at Florida nuclear plant: NRC Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:38am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A group of Cuban nationals who fled their country by boat landed in the cooling canal of a nuclear power plant along Florida's coast on Thanksgiving Day, according to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission event report issued Friday. The plant's operations were not disrupted by the incident, according to the report. The Turkey Point nuclear power plant control room received a call from an individual stating that he was a member of a group of 33 Cuban nationals that had landed in...

Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with Westinghouse Electric Co. next week to discuss the safety of its proposed AP1000 nuclear-reactor design. Toshiba Corp.'s Westinghouse unit will address the commission's concern about the structural integrity of the silo-shaped shield building that would contain the reactor and trap radioactivity in an accident, NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko said. Containment buildings at existing reactors were poured at the site as a solid piece of steel-reinforced concrete, Jaczko said. Westinghouse wants to piece the building together from sections, he said. "When you're dealing with the kinds of accident scenarios that we look at, or...

LACEY TOWNSHIP, N.J. – The nation's oldest nuclear power plant has been granted a new license allowing it to operate for another 20 years. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission dismissed objections from anti-nuclear and environmental groups and issued the license Wednesday to the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in Lacey Township, N.J., about 50 miles east of Philadelphia and 75 miles south of New York City. ... Oyster Creek's boiling-water reactor is considered obsolete by today's standards.

President Obama won't allow radioactive waste to be buried at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, rejecting the long-controversial project after 20 years of planning at a cost of at least $9 billion. Obama and Energy Secretary Steven Chu "have been emphatic that nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain is not an option, period," said department spokeswoman Stephanie Mueller. The budget plan Obama released yesterday "clearly reflects that commitment," she said. "The new administration is starting the process of finding a better solution for management of our nuclear waste," she said in an e-mail. The decision leaves unresolved a long-term plan for...

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent a letter on Wednesday to PPL Corp. warning of a “chilling effect” on reporting safety concerns at the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station. Surveys, interviews and allegations from PPL employees at the nuclear plant in Salem Township have shown an increasingly negative perception in recent years in the company’s attitude toward employees raising safety concerns, according to the letter. It also noted that, in 2008, NRC regulators observed “that not all first-line supervisors and mid-level managers were fully supportive of efforts to improve the work environment.” PPL has revised its plans several times to improve...