Free Republic

USS Ronald Reagan Moved After Detecting Radioactive Plume Off Japan Ship's Crew Was Exposed to Low Level of Radiation By LUIS MARTINEZ March 14, 2011 The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and other US Navy ships in the waters off the quake zone in eastern Japan were repositioned after the detection of a low-level radiation plume from the troubled Fukushima nuclear plant located 100 miles away.

There were growing fears in Israel last night that Hamas missiles could threaten its top-secret nuclear facility at Dimona. Israeli officials say that Hamas has also acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles with an even longer range. Many fear that as the group acquires ever more sophisticated weaponry it is only a matter of time before the nuclear installation at Dimona, 20 miles east of Beersheba, falls within its sights. Dimona houses Israel’s only nuclear reactor and is believed to be where it stores warheads for its nuclear missiles. Israel’s worst nightmare is that soon all its cities will be...

RiskWorld Home Page Radiation Risk and Ethics by Zbigniew Jaworowski* (Reprinted with permission from Physics Today, 52(9), September 1999, pp. 24-29, American Institute of Physics.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The established worldwide practice of protecting people from radiation costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year to implement and may well determine the world's future energy system. But is it right? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The psychosomatic disorders observed in the 15 million people in Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia1 who were affected by the April 1986 Chernobyl accident are probably the accident’s most important effect on public health.2 These disorders could not be attributed to the...

WASHINGTON (AP) - About 40 percent of the nation's nuclear power plants have begun moving spent fuel out of cooling pools and into massive dry casks, embracing a storage approach that a National Academy of Sciences panel said offers safety advantages. The nation's 64 active nuclear power plants, which together house 103 reactors, all now store nuclear waste in pools of water after it is removed from reactors. Eventually, the spent fuel is supposed to be shipped to a national nuclear waste dump planned for Yucca Mountain in Nevada. As Yucca Mountain has been delayed, utilities are increasingly moving some...

America's nuclear plants are unprepared for modern-day, large-scale terrorist attacks, according to one member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. But a government takeover of security at the nation's nuclear facilities is opposed both by the nuclear power industry and by the federal agency charged with regulating it. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) released Monday what he called "a blistering, scalding indictment of the inadequacies that exist" in both federal and private industry efforts to secure nuclear facilities. "Black hole after black hole is described and left un-addressed," Markey said, announcing the issuance of his report. "Post 9/11, a nuclear...