• 45 percent of children in Fukushima exposed to thyroid radiation

    A survey revealed that 45 percent of children living near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been exposed to thyroid radiation; following the nuclear disaster and the revelation that radiation was leaking from reactor no. 1, researchers tested more than 1,000 children from newborns to age fifteen in the Fukushima Prefecture; children were found to have been exposed to 0.04 microsievert per hour or less in most cases

  • New York governor determined to close Indian Point nuclear plant

    The Indian Point nuclear power plant, located thirty-five miles north of New York City, is facing increasing pressure from Governor Andrew Cuomo and senior officials say the governor is determined to shut it down; the governor’s hand has been strengthened by new legislation that streamlines the approval process for siting new power plants in New York, a move that would make it easier to replace Indian Point; closing the nuclear plant would be a major step toward reshaping the state’s energy policy as the plant produces 2,000 megawatts and provides New York City and Westchester with 25 percent of their power — but the nuclear disaster in Japan caused by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami raised fresh concerns about the plant, which is located near a fault line

  • Germany approves plan to shutdown nuke plants

    On Thursday Germany’s parliament overwhelmingly voted in favor of approving the country’s plans to end its nuclear program by 2022; Germany’s eight oldest reactors, which were closed shortly after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, will remain off while the country’s nine other nuclear plants will be shut down in stages

  • Nebraska floods test a nuclear power plants new safety measures

    U.S. nuclear officials are closely monitoring two atomic energy plants in Nebraska that are in danger of being inundated with water as the Missouri River continues to creep ever closer; the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant has been closed for refueling since April and will remain off until the flooding subsides, but officials are worried about keeping the recently removed fuel rods cool as the facility’s parking lot has been flooded

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  • China secures nukes ahead of major storms

    Nuclear power plants along China’s coast are hardening their facilities in advance of the major typhoon storm systems that are expected to hit the country this year; the storms will create massive waves that could cause casualties and property damage; experts expect the Jiangsu and Fujian provinces to be hit the hardest in the east and the Guangdong and Hainan provinces in the south

  • Obama official says Yucca Mountain nuclear storage site has no chance

    On Monday a senior Department of Energy official said that the long-term nuclear storage facility in Yucca Mountain, Nevada was no longer a viable option; Daniel Poneman, the deputy Energy Secretary, said, “We do not see Yucca Mountain as a solution here. It is time to turn the page and try to find a better set of solutions”; in 2002 Congress approved Yucca Mountain as the designated long term storage site for nuclear waste from atomic reactors in the United States and preparations were under way for the deep underground facility, but in 2010 President Obama withdrew funding for the project

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  • Nebraska nuclear plant on flood alert

    Levees in northern Missouri were failing late Saturday and Sunday as a result of massive release of water from upstream dams; farmland and houses in two Missouri counties — Holt and Atchison — were flooded and residents evacuated; two Nebraska nuclear power plant place on flood alerts

  • "Melt-through" at Fukushima nuclear plant

    Japan has admitted that molten nuclear fuel in three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant has burned through pressure vessels, not just the reactors’ cores — creating a “melt-through,” which is a more serious problem than a melt down

  • Grids complicate Germany’s nuke exit

    Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a daunting challenge as her cabinet must implement a plan that replaces 23 percent of the nation’s energy output as nuclear power plants are phased out; to successfully end its nuclear energy program with minimal disruptions, Germany must first build a $14.4 billion expansion of its electrical grid; electrical cables are needed to bring energy generated from offshore wind farms in the north to its manufacturing centers in the south; in addition, high-volume lines stretching to France must be built to allow for energy imports to cover any shortfalls; but Germans have long been opposed the building of new overhead power lines; the country must construct as much as 2,235 miles of cables by 2020

  • Iran pushes ahead with nuke plans, despite seismic warnings

    Iranian officials have chosen to ignore the warnings of top scientists and continue with the construction of nuclear facilities near earthquake prone regions; according to an official with the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a top level meeting Iran’s leaders recently decided to move ahead with plans to construct nuclear facilities, despite Iranian scientists’ warnings that “data collected since the year 2000 shows the incontrovertible risks of establishing nuclear sites in the proximity of fault lines’ in Khuzestan as well as nineteen other Iranian provinces; Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with major fault lines covering at least 90 percent of it

  • Glimmer of hope for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project

    Over the last twenty-five years, the United States has spent around $15 billion on the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository which was supposed to offer a solution to the growing nuclear waste problems at U.S. nuclear power plants; in what some charged was a political move by President Barack Obama to secure Nevada’s Democratic tilt, the administration defunded the project, and funding for work on the site was terminated altogether effective with the 2011 federal budget passed by Congress on 14 April 2011; some in Congress want the project to continue, and the House Appropriations Committee has added $35 million for the project in the 2012 energy spending bill; this is far cry from past appropriations for the project — typically around $400 million a year — and even one of the supporters, Representative Mark Simpson (R-Idaho) described it as symbolic gesture; there is also a case now being heard in federal court, in which the administration is charged with overstepping its bounds by cancelling the project without congressional permission

  • Germany to scrap nuclear power by 2022

    Germany yesterday announced plans to become the first major industrialized power to shut down all its nuclear plants in the wake of the disaster in Japan; phase-out due to be wrapped up by 2022; it means that the country will have to find the 22 percent of its electricity needs currently covered by nuclear reactors from another source; Monday decision is a U-turn for Chancellor Angela Merkel, and means that the current government has adopted the timetable for a nuclear phase-out set by the previous Social Democrat-Green coalition government a decade ago; it also cancels Merkel’s decision from November 2010 to extend the lifetime of Germany’s seventeen reactors by an average of twelve years, which would have kept them open until the mid-2030s

  • Agreement reached on European Union stress tests

    Yesterday European Union officials reached an agreement on the parameters of nuclear stress tests and will soon begin conducting safety reviews at nuclear power plants; the tests will review the resiliency of 143 nuclear facilities in the face of natural disasters like earthquakes and tornadoes in addition to terrorist attacks; the move to conduct safety reviews was triggered by the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan; events in Japan sparked anti-nuclear protests across Europe and leaders have called for a “comprehensive and transparent risk and safety assessment” at all atomic energy facilities in the European Union

  • Simple method of dealing with harmful radioactive iodine discovered

    Iodine radioisotopes are produced by fission of uranium fuel in a nuclear reactor; radioactive iodine is of concern because it is highly mobile in the environment and selective uptake by the thyroid gland can pose a significant cancer risk following long term exposure; furthermore, iodine-129, which is a type of radioactive iodine, has an extremely long half life of 15.7 million years, so is one of the most significant long term hazards faced by the population due to its emission during the geological disposal of nuclear waste; a University of Sheffield expert has discovered a novel way to immobilize radioactive forms of iodine using a microwave

  • Following Fukushima: how much radioactivity in the Oceans?

    A result of the loss of electricity at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan on 11 March, overheating led to significant releases of iodine, cesium, and other radioisotopes to the environment; Japanese officials recently raised the severity of the nuclear power plant incident to level 7, the highest level on the international scale and comparable only to the Chernobyl incident twenty-five years ago; the National Science Foundation awards rapid-response grants to establish ocean radionuclide levels from Fukushima