Free Republic

Iran has conducted defence drills at its sensitive nuclear facilities, a senior commander told media on Sunday, adding that fresh aerial war games will be launched across the country next week. "This year, we carried out tactical drills which resembled real combat in Fordo, Tehran, Natanz, Bushehr and Isfahan," where the country's nuclear plants are located, the Mehr news agency quoted Ahmad Mighani as saying. Mighani did not specify when exactly the exercises were conducted.

If Barack Obama were to marshal America’s vast scientific and strategic resources behind a new Manhattan Project, he might reasonably hope to reinvent the global energy landscape and sketch an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years

Russia has pledged to open Iran's first nuclear energy reactor within a few months. Officials said Iran's nuclear reactor at Bushehr would begin operations in the summer of 2010. They said Iran and Russia have agreed to the launch of the 1,000 megawatt facility, constructed by the state-owned Atomstroyexport, in July. "July is the start of the phase for the physical launch," Atomstroyexport official Vladimir Pavlov said. In a briefing on March 18, Pavlov, responsible for construction of Bushehr, said Atomstroyexport has concluded all assembly and installation. He said he did not envision any technical obstacles. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir...

(picture) - at the time, the world's fastest - the subs were the bane of American sailors. Now, the reactors that powered those submarines are being marketed as the next innovation in green power. Environmentalists say the technology is outdated and potentially dangerous, and marketing it as green energy is an abuse of nuclear power's good green name. The Russians are not alone in pushing the idea that the next generation of nuclear reactors should have more in common with the small power plants on submarines than the sprawling installations of today. But the kinds of marine reactors the Russians...

Iran and Russia have agreed on another start-up date for the nuclear energy reactor at Bushehr. Officials said the two countries agreed to begin operations of the 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactor in late 2010. They said the Bushehr reactor, built by Russia, was undergoing its final stage of tests. "2010 is the year of Bushehr," Rosatom director Sergei Kiriyenko said. In a briefing in Moscow on Jan. 21, Kiriyenko said Bushehr would be completed by the end of 2010. He said Russia's state-owned prime contractor Atomstroyexport had not reported delays in the final stage of Bushehr, a $1 billion project...

U.S. Department of Energy scientists say they've created a computer algorithm that allows a substantially enhanced view of nuclear fission. The Argonne National Laboratory scientists said the algorithm, known as the neutron transport code, enables researchers for the first time to obtain a highly detailed description of a nuclear reactor core. "The code could prove crucial in the development of nuclear reactors that are safe, affordable and environmentally friendly," laboratory officials said in a statement. To model the complex geometry of a reactor core currently requires billions of spatial elements, hundreds of angles and thousands of energy groups -- all...

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- The United Arab Emirates picked a South Korean-led consortium for a $20 billion contract to build and help run four nuclear power reactors, officials said. The New York Times said the nuclear power reactors would be the first in the Middle East. Under the deal announced in Abu Dhabi Sunday, Korea Electric Power will lead a group that includes Westinghouse and the American subsidiary of Toshiba. The power company is to build, design and help operate the plants for the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp.

SNIPPET: "AUSTRALIA'S most notorious terrorist Willie Brigitte will be free from jail next year having served less than half his sentence for conspiring to blow up the nation's only nuclear reactor and the power grid. The Caribbean-born Muslim convert made headlines in 2007 when he was sentenced in France to a maximum nine years, following his arrest in Sydney, for joining an al-Qaida-backed Pakistani terror cell out to bomb Lucas Heights nuclear plant, the national electricity grid or a military base. The French Justice Ministry is considering releasing the 41-year-old, on an early-release good-behaviour plan."

N.Korea 'Helping Burma with WMD'North Korea is helping Burma with the acquisition of so-called weapons of mass destruction, with the U.S. claiming that the North Korean ship Kangnam is headed for the Southeast Asian country. The Burmese junta "has bought technologies on the open market that are potentially usable in a nuclear program, and North Korean arms companies involved in the nuclear trade have become active" in Burma, the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday said quoting speculation by U.S., Asian and UN officials. "North Korea has used [Burmese] ports and airstrips to transfer arms and contraband to third countries, including...

According to a news report, General Petraeus warned Congress yesterday that Israel might preemptively attack Iran. Petraeus also failed to say that the U.S. would act to restrain Israel. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday that an Israeli attack is unlikely at the moment, based on his tame assessment of Iran’s nuclear timeline.

A Syrian site bombed by Israel in September 2007 had the characteristics of a nuclear reactor, the UN nuclear watchdog agency said in a report it issued Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency also said its probe into Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program is deadlocked. The two reports are being shared with the 35 nations on the IAEA board. The Iran report also goes to the UN Security Council. Syria denied the allegations that the site, located deep in the Syrian Desert, was an atomic reactor. The regime claimed that the complex destroyed by IAF warplanes was an agricultural research...

CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that Russia will help Venezuela develop nuclear energy — a move likely to raise U.S. concerns over increasingly close cooperation between Caracas and Moscow. Chavez said he accepted an offer from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for assistance in building a nuclear reactor. "Russia is ready to support Venezuela in the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes and we already have a commission working on it," Chavez said. "We are interested in developing nuclear energy." Putin offered Chavez assistance in developing nuclear energy during a meeting in the Russian city of...

here may be a workable way to solve most of America's energy problems, end dependence on foreign oil and dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions with little pain. Remarkably, while proposals for renewed offshore oil drilling, new atomic power plants, expanded carbon trading and other proposed tactics abound in this year's presidential campaign, no one mentions the single most promising technique.This may be because its name contains the word "reactor." Combined with the fact that it depends on a sophisticated form of nuclear technology, that appears to make the notion of power plants using the Integral Fast Reactor anathema to today's...

According to new information leaked by western intelligence sources, a special ground forces unit reached the Syrian reactor from Iraq. In the weeks that preceded the bombing of the site, the force stayed in Iraqi territory with the knowledge of the U.S. military, and with its assistance. The details are reported by www.sigint.co.il, which does not name the unit because of censorship but says it is "an operational unit which works alongside a well-known intelligence organization." The unit reportedly stayed near the Iraqi-Syrian border during August and September of 2007, documented the site's construction and "marked" it before its destruction....

The Arab-Israeli region of the Middle East is filled with rumors of war. That is about as unusual as the rising of the sun, so normally it would not be worth mentioning. But like the proverbial broken clock that is right twice a day, such rumors occasionally will be true. In this case, we don’t know that they are true, and certainly it’s not the rumors that are driving us. But other things — minor and readily explicable individually — have drawn our attention to the possibility that something is happening. SNIP Rumors now are swirling that the Israelis are...

Rockwall man boasts of nuclear reactor, but no arrest made Thursday, January 10, 2008 By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News A 22-year-old Rockwall man's Internet boasts that he had made a mini-nuclear reactor in his garage resulted in a visit recently by federal authorities. Representatives with the FBI and the Texas Department of State Health Services' Radiation Control Program took away the man's science equipment on Friday – but not because he was doing anything dangerous or illegal. Rather, the man's parents, with whom he is living, asked that the equipment be removed, officials said. The man, who...

Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs. The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The...

Excerpt - Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi arrives in Paris Monday for a high-profile visit set to usher in multi-billion-euro nuclear and aviation contracts, even as critics lashed President Nicolas Sarkozy for welcoming the former pariah. Staying in a heated Bedouin tent pitched near the Elysee presidential palace, Kadhafi is expected during the five-day visit to approve the purchase of three billion euros (4.4 billion dollars) of Airbus planes, a nuclear reactor and possibly Rafale fighter jets. ~ snip ~

Analysts Find Israel Struck a Nuclear Project Inside Syria By DAVID E. SANGER and MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 — Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. The description of the target addresses one of the central mysteries surrounding the Sept. 6 attack, and suggests that Israel carried out the raid to demonstrate its...

N. Korea puts new demand, may delay nuclear shutdown By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent Mon Jul 2, 3:49 PM ET North Korea has said it wants to get promised shipments of oil before shutting down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, delaying again a key obligation under a February nuclear agreement, U.S. officials said on Monday. Administration critics of the agreement said the demand was further evidence of North Korean bad faith, but two other senior officials said they believe the agreement was on track and any delay in shuttering Yongbyon would not be prolonged. Chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said last...