• Iran launches plutonium path to the bomb

    Iran makes an important — if symbolic — step toward joining the nuclear weapon club; the Busher plant will allow Iran to produce bombs from plutonium, in addition to bombs made from uranium enriched at a facility at Natanz

  • Iran has reached a nuclear breakout capacity; holds enough uranium for bomb

    UN experts acknowledge Iran has enough uranium for one nuclear bomb; Iran has produced 839 kg of low enriched uranium hexafluoride — more than 200 kg more than previously thought; earlier estimates that Iran is about 12 months away from the bomb now appear dated

  • Calculations show Iran's 2 February launch used beefed-up rocket

    Calculations show that Iran’s 2 February missile launch involved a more sophisticated and powerful rocket than had been initially thought; this two-stage vehicles, with more powerful fuel, are capable of lifting a nuclear warhead farther; Europe — but not yet the United States — is now within Iranian missile range

  • Iran, preparing for a nuclear break out, seeks sophisticated defensive system

    Iran is about 12 months away from its first nuclear weapon; this means that there is a 12-month window for a military attack on Iran without risking a nuclear retaliation; Iran is desperate to acquire the most sophisticated defensive system in the world — Russia-made S-300 anti-aircraft missiles; the system can track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12; it has a range of about 200 km and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters

    • view counter

  • NNSA ships more high-risk nuclear material out of Livermore

    Latest shipment reduces high-security nuclear material onsite by an additional 20 percent; part of the government’s plan to consolidate nuclear materials at five sites by 2012, with significantly reduced square footage at those sites by 2017

  • Israeli official: Gaza operation "pre-introduction" for dealing with Iran threat

    Israeli ambassador to Australia says “Israel’s efforts in Gaza were to bring about understanding that we are ready to engage in a decisive way” over Iran and its nuclear aspirations

    • view counter

  • World's largest supercomputer will be used for nuclear stockpile research

    IBM to build a 20 petaflops supercomputer, called Sequoia, for the Lawrence Livermore lab; a petaflop stands for a quadrillion floating-point operations per second; to put Sequoia’s computing power in perspective, what it can do in one hour would take all 6.7 billion people on Earth with hand calculators 320 years, if they worked together on the calculation for 24 hours per day, 365 days a year

  • Countdown toward Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities has begun

    Iran has launched its first domestically made satellite into orbit; missile carrying satellite can be used to carry nuclear warheads to Israel — and to Europe; the world has not found a way to stop or slow down Iran’s nuclear weapons program; this means an Israeli attack on Iran is becoming more likely

  • U.S. court dismisses Pacific nuclear test lawsuits

    Between 1946 and 1958, the United States conducted 67 nuclear tests at the Bikini and Enewetak atolls; the residents of the two islands were removed before the tests and settled elsewhere; the residents were awarded more than $1 billion, and a judicial panel says this is enough

  • Ireland examines need for radioactive waste facility near Shannon

    Terrorists may try to smuggle nuclear materials into the United States through Ireland; Irish government will build radioactive waste facility near Shannon airport in case radiological screening of aircraft bound for the United States discovers such material

  • UN: Destroyed Syrian facility resembled a nuclear reactor

    On 6 September 2007 Israel destroyed a remote facility in north-east Syria; Israel and the United States claimed the facility was a nuclear reactor in the making (Syrian officials offered many different, and contradictory, explanations about the facility); Syria engaged in elaborate “landscaping,” importing tons of fresh soil to alter the site before admitting outsiders; these outsiders — IAEA inspectors — have now concluded the the site looked like a nuclear reactor

  • U.S. lost, and never found, a nuclear weapon in 1968

    A U.S. Air Force bomber carrying four nuclear bombs crashed in Greenland in 1968; three of the weapons were recovered; the fourth is still under the ice

  • Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository too small

    Congress has placed a 77,000-ton limit on the amount of nuclear waste that can be buried in Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository (the repository will open in 2020 at the earliest); trouble is, the 104 active U.S. nuclear reactors, together with the Pentagon, produce that amount of waste in two years