Free Republic

In a move that could signal the beginning of the end for the expensive and unreliable Biden-Harris green energy ideology, 14 of the world's biggest banks have announced they are lining up behind President Donald Trump's plans for nuclear energy in the world's future. Online reporting cited documentation of the plans by the Financial Times: The statement said, "Banks and funds totaling $14 TRILLION in assets have just signed an unprecedented statement in support of nuclear power. They'll be presenting the pledge to support the goal of tripling nuclear THIS MORNING at the Rockefeller Center in New York City to...

One person was killed and more than 100 were hospitalized Friday in an explosion at the world's largest uranium enrichment plant in central Russia's Ural mountains.The incident in a workshop at the Ural Electrochemical Combine in Novouralsk happened after a cylinder with depleted uranium hexafluoride was "depressurized" at about 9 a.m. local time, according to Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which owns the plant. Local news outlet E1 referred to the incident as an explosion..... Vyacheslav Tyumentsev, head of the Novouralsk Urban District, told residents not to panic."I appeal to the residents of Novouralsk with a request not to panic,...

The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at Fukushima's nuclear reactors have “died”; a subterranean "ice wall" around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site. Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-meter high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods...

Amid concerns of a new disaster should a quake destroy the pool cooling off radioactive nuclear fuel rods at Fukushima's Reactor No. 4, Japan on Saturday arranged a tour for journalists and declared the situation manageable -- but also very long term. "I don't think the situation is unstable," said Goshi Hosono, Japan's environment minister and the man in charge of the cleanup. He was speaking to reporters after his first tour of the twisted and partly destroyed building that houses the reactor. Hosono said he expected workers to begin removing fuel from the reactor's storage pool next year. Work...

In 1958, America accidentally dropped a nuclear weapon on two little girls’ playhouse For certain rural residents of the Carolinas during the Cold War, apocalyptic anxiety hit disturbingly close to home. In 1958 and 1961, the American Air Force lost nuclear weapons over the skies of South and North Carolina, respectively, raining potential apocalypse on the folks below. In both incidents, complete catastrophe was avoided thanks to that ever-potent combination of foresight and unmitigated dumb luck. And in the former incident, the bomb fell square on some unsuspecting children's playhouse. The first accident occurred over Florence, South Carolina on March...

Japan’s six reactor Fukushima Daichi nuclear complex has inadvertently become the world’s bell-weather poster child for the inherent risks of nuclear power ever since the 11 March Tohoku offshore earthquake, measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, triggered a devastating tsunami that effectively destroyed the complex. Ever since, specialists have wrangled about how damaging the consequences of the earthquake and subsequent tsunami actually were, not only for the facility but the rest of the world. The Fukushima Daichi complex was one of the 25 largest nuclear power stations in the world and the Fukushima I reactor was the first GE designed...

Organism's ability to distinguish strontium from calcium could help in dealing with nuclear waste. Common freshwater algae might hold a key to cleaning up after disasters such as Japan's Fukushima nuclear accident, scientists said yesterday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California. The algae, called Closterium moniliferum, are members of the desmid order, known to microbiologists for their distinctive shapes, said Minna Krejci, a materials scientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. But the crescent-shaped C. moniliferum caught Krejci's eye because of its unusual ability to remove strontium from water, depositing it in crystals that form...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Sunday another reactor of its quake-hit Fukushima nuclear power plants had lost its cooling functions, while at least 15 people at a nearby hospital were found to have been exposed to radioactivity. The utility supplier notified the government early Sunday morning that the No. 3 reactor at the No. 1 Fukushima plant had lost the ability to cool the reactor core. The reactor is now in the process of releasing radioactive steam, according to top government spokesman Yukio Edano. It was the sixth reactor overall at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 plants to...

A leak of highly radioactive nuclear fuel dissolved in concentrated nitric acid, enough to half fill an Olympic-size swimming pool, has forced the closure of Sellafield's Thorp reprocessing plant. The highly dangerous mixture, containing about 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium fuel, has leaked through a fractured pipe into a huge stainless steel chamber which is so radioactive that it is impossible to enter. Recovering the liquids and fixing the pipes will take months and may require special robots to be built and sophisticated engineering techniques devised to repair the £2.1bn plant.