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An investigation has been launched after France's state-owned EDF power company said unidentified drones had flown over seven of its nuclear plants. The first unmanned aircraft was spotted on 5 October and there had been further sightings up to 20 October, EDF said. Who is behind the drones is unclear but pressure group Greenpeace has denied any involvement. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says measures are being taken to "neutralise" the drones. Under French law, no aircraft is allowed to enter a 5km-wide (three-mile) zone around a nuclear plant, nor fly below 1,000m (3,300ft) there. The air force is responsible for...

In case you were too consumed with Ebola news yesterday to notice this, here’s a belated FYI that America’s going to put the Middle East’s oil barons out of business before your grandkids are out of college. Assuming the Ebola doesn’t get us first, I mean. Lockheed has a webpage dedicated to its new breakthrough in compact fusion reactors but this write-up in Aviation Week is the most thorough explanation I’ve seen of how it would actually work. If I understand it correctly, which I probably don’t, the problem with current fusion reactors is that they’re too darned big and...

Lockheed Martin, the aerospace and defense conglomerate based in Bethesda, Md., is claiming to have made a major breakthrough in nuclear fusion, which could lead to development of reactors small enough to fit on the back of a truck within a decade. In the simplest terms, nuclear fission breaks a single atom into two whereas nuclear fusion combines two atoms into one. Fusion, the holy grail of nuclear power, creates three to four times as much energy as fission. More importantly, fusion’s key advantage over fission is that it does not produce cancer-causing radioactive waste. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Tom McGuire, who heads the...

Russia is currently in the process of expanding and modernizing its navy. This might have something to do with Moscow’s apparent appetite for military conquest — although Russia also has a few nuclear submarines that are dangerously past their prime, considering the fissile materials that are still stored onboard. In 2009, one rusted behemoth was transported to a factory in the far eastern port city of Vladivostok, close to the Korean peninsula, for decommissioning. With the vessel fully out of water, the pictures offer an amazing perspective on how massive and complex even an outdated class of nuclear submarine really...

Most clear-thinking people can see by now that there isn't going to be a functioning global carbon emissions abatement scheme in the foreseeable future. Whether or not that's a good thing (and I think it is) is a separate question. Because regardless, we should look at the world as it is. Now of course, excessive carbon emissions into the atmosphere remain a serious concern and a real problem. So what can we do to solve it? First, let's look at the main sources of carbon emissions. The two big ones are energy production and agriculture, which is set to explode...

Energy officials in Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday that they are embarking on a plan to build a nuclear reactor “for peaceful purposes,” Israel’s NRG News reported, quoting the London-based “Al-Hayat” Arabic-language daily. Senior sources in the Muslim kingdom told the newspaper that construction of the reactor is expected to begin before the end of the calendar year. “Construction of the first Saudi nuclear reactor will take ten years, according to the plan, although we hope that we can complete the task in less time,” the newspaper said, quoting Saudi sources. The kingdom’s ultimate goal, the report stated, is to establish...

As the crisis unfurled at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011, the prime minister’s office issued a series of evacuation orders in reaction to worsening developments without sufficient information and expert knowledge, according to testimony by a former top government official. In testimony to the government’s Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, then Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tetsuro Fukuyama, who was in charge of evacuating residents, detailed how government officials were forced to issue evacuation orders in a flurry. The Asahi Shimbun recently obtained a copy of his testimony. “We only...

Dr. Matthew Kroenig, associate professor and the international relations field chair at Georgetown University, spoke at a the Heritage Foundation on Iran’s nuclear proliferation efforts and his newest book, A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat. Although one may think that Kroenig is advocating for a military option, he said, “I argue that we should try to solve this problem, the Iranian nuclear challenge, diplomatically, if possible.” But, if diplomacy fails, Kroenig suggested that “there will come a time to attack Iran.” And, adding to the discussion, he asked the question, “Are we prepared to live with a...

It's one of the most famous monster stories of all time. And now Godzilla has had a reboot - complete with incredible special effects and an amazing cast - for a new blockbuster due for release this summer. A new extended trailer for the movie, which stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, shows the back story of Bryan's nuclear physicist character Joe Brody, as well as the first proper look at the terrifying monster.

The electricity price index soared to a new high in January 2014 with the largest month-to-month increase in almost four years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, data from the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, indicates that electricity production in the United States has declined since 2007, when it hit its all-time peak. The U.S. is producing less electricity than it did seven years ago for a population that has added more than 14 million people. ... Between 2007 and 2012, the nation's annual coal-fired electricity generation declined by about 25 percent,...

Researchers at a laboratory in California say they've had a breakthrough in producing fusion reactions with a giant laser. The success comes after years of struggling to get the laser to work and is another step in the decades-long quest for fusion energy. Omar Hurricane, a researcher at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, says that for the first time, they've produced significant amounts of fusion by zapping a target with their laser. "We've gotten more energy out of the fusion fuel than we put into the fusion fuel," he says. Strictly speaking, while more energy came from fusion than went into...

Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook Transatomic Power (TAP) is developing an advanced molten salt reactor that generates clean, passively safe, proliferation-resistant, and low-cost nuclear power. This reactor can consume the spent nuclear fuel (SNF) generated by commercial light water reactors or use freshly mined uranium at enrichment levels as low as 1.8% U-235. It achieves actinide burnups as high as 96%, and can generate up to 75 times more electricity per ton of mined uranium than a light-water reactor. Transatomic Power has greatly improved the molten salt concept, while retaining its significant safety benefits. The main technical change we...

Updated (Jan 19, 2014 at 01:45 am) The pattern is not completely clear, and there are pieces missing from the puzzle, but I have found enough bits of evidence to convince me that it is more likely than not that someone purposely initiated the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident. This is a difficult story to tell; it’s not easy to revise history. It’s even harder to it successfully when there is sure to be disbelief, dismissal, and efforts to discredit. I prefer being respected and strive to avoid the potential of being marginalized as a crackpot. However, I feel a...

How a Candle Caused a Nuclear Emergency At noon on March 22, 1975, both Units 1 and 2 at the Brown's Ferry plant in Alabama were operating at full power, delivering 2200 megawatts of electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority. Just below the plant's control room, two electricians were trying to seal air leaks in the cable spreading room, where the electrical cables that control the two reactors are separated and routed through different tunnels to the reactor buildings. They were using strips of spongy foam rubber to seal the leaks. They were also using candles to determine whether or...

"....Not everyone is equipped to operate and maintain a reactor, or to monitor radiation levels inside a plant and on its own employees. Nuclear energy officials feared they would soon lack the manpower to operate the country's current reactors as their licenses were renewed, let alone the new ones."It's at all levels, from the managers on down,"Koehl said of his company's needs, adding that specialty engineers and people with other industry-tailored skills are particularly hard to find.That includes Jesse Wells, who has coordinated 18 of STP's planned outages, the monthlong powering down of a reactor to refuel it and perform...

In 1990, Germany’s bown coal-fired power stations produced almost 171 billion kilowatt hours of power. At the time, many old eastern German plants were still in operation. It was a situation that the German government wanted to change, with the aim being that of radically reducing the output of the CO2-polluting lignite plants, but that’s not happening. In 2013, it rose to 162 billion kilowatt hours, the highest level since reunification in 1990, according to preliminary figures from AGEB, a collection of industry associations and research institutes. […] Power output from anthracite coal also rose, by eight billion kilowatt hours...

A private organization that monitors radiation data from network points across the United States issued email alerts today for two Western U.S. cities, Reno, Nev., and St. George, Utah. The alerts came from the the Nuclear Emergency Tracking Center, which explains its mission is to provide radiation monitoring information from hundreds of sites in Japan and the U.S., including those run by the Environmental Protection Agency. The warning pinpointed an area “of concern” in St. George, Utah, where background radiation levels more than doubled today from the typical reading. In Reno, “the current background radiation level has increased suddenly...

The first preliminary nuclear deal the six world powers (US, Russia, China, UK, France and German) signed with Iran before dawn Sunday, Nov. 24, at the end of a four-day marathon, failed to address the most questionable aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, i.e. its clandestine military dimensions. The accord confined itself to aspects of uranium enrichment and stockpiles. UN inspections were expanded – but not applied, for instance, to Iran’s concealed nuclear sites - or even the Parchin military base where Iran is suspected of having tested nuclear-related explosions. Israel, the Gulf States and others are therefore highly dubious of...

How will the world replace fossil fuels? Can it be done fast enough, cheaply enough and on a sufficient scale without nuclear energy? For all the optimism about the prospects of wind, sun and tides to power our future, the evidence suggests the answer is no. Scrambling to find an alternative fuel to generate some 30 percent of its power, Japan had no choice but to turn to coal and gas. A few years ago, it promised that in 2020 it would produce 25 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than in 1990; last week it said it would, instead, produce...

I have watched a TV programme called ‘Fear Factor.’ In the series there are contestants who have to confront their worst fears to see who bails out and who can fight the fear and get through.