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North Korea has restarted production of plutonium fuel, a senior U.S. State Department official said on Tuesday, showing that it plans to pursue its nuclear weapons program in defiance of international sanctions. The U.S. assessment came a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it had "indications" that Pyongyang has reactivated a plant to recover plutonium from spent reactor fuel at Yongbyon, its main nuclear complex. The latest developments suggest North Korea's reclusive regime is working to ensure a steady supply of materials for its drive to build warheads, despite tightened international sanctions after its fourth nuclear test in January....

With the production of 50 grams of plutonium-238, researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have restored a U.S. capability dormant for nearly 30 years and set the course to provide power for NASA and other missions. ... Researchers will analyze the sample for chemical purity and plutonium-238 content, then verify production efficiency models and determine whether adjustments need to be made before scaling up the process. ... There are currently only 35 kilograms, or about 77 pounds, of plutonium-238 set aside for NASA missions, and only about half of this supply meets power specifications. This is...

Astudy conducted by the US based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) estimated that Israel had 115 nuclear bombs in its possession in 2014. The study was composed by the institute's founder David Albright, and was part of a more comprehensive study on the worldwide inventory of plutonium. The study estimated that Israel produced plutonium at a rapid pace in the past 50 years since the inception of its nuclear reactor in Dimona, acquiring 660 kilograms of plutonium, taking into account an estimation error of 150 kilograms. A single nuclear bomb requires 3-5 kg of plutonium, the study estimated....

Israel is not a party to the just signed Geneva Agreement, which includes the United States, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany; she may decide to bomb the Arak reactor and thereby eliminate one certain route for Iran to gain a nuclear weapon. Recall that India's 1974 nuclear test explosion used Pu-239 made in the CIRUS "research" reactor, which had been constructed in the 1950s with US-Canadian assistance. Israel has a lot of experience in destroying such reactors. In 1981 they bombed Osiris, a similar reactor under construction with French help in Iraq. In September 2007, in Operation "Mivtza Bustan"...

Two environmental organizations have asked the US Department of Energy to cancel experiments with plutonium at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF). Representatives from the groups claim the experiments could contaminate the massive laser facility and possibly expose workers and the public to the toxic element. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Tri-Valley CAREs, in Livermore, California, charge that existing environmental impact statements do not include an adequate assessment of the environmental, safety, and proliferation aspects of zapping plutonium with beams from NIF’s 1.8-megajoule laser. The experiments are to be conducted in NIF’s massive 10-meter-diameter target chamber...

Column one: Iran, Obama, Boehner and Netanyahu Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe. On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israel’s Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM. On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before. The missile and the launch pad indicate...

Chronic lapses in safety procedures at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico may have led to a radiation leak that has forced a prolonged shutdown across the state of the only permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository, federal inspectors said on Wednesday. The inspectors, in a sharply critical report, sought to explain how a barrel of plutonium-tainted debris from the nuclear weapons lab near Santa Fe ended up improperly packaged before it was shipped off for burial 300 miles away at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. The leak of radiation, a small amount of which escaped to the surface...

A 55-gallon drum of nuclear waste, buried in a salt shaft 2,150 feet under the New Mexico desert, violently erupted late on Feb. 14 and spewed mounds of radioactive white foam. The flowing mass, looking like whipped cream but laced with plutonium, went airborne, traveled up a ventilation duct to the surface and delivered low-level radiation doses to 21 workers. The accident contaminated the nation's only dump for nuclear weapons waste — previously a focus of pride for the Energy Department — and gave the nation's elite ranks of nuclear chemists a mystery they still cannot unravel. Six months after...

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...