Free Republic

The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble written by Khosrow B. Semnani, and published by the Hinckley Institute of Politics, University of Utah has concluded a strike would include four sites and irradiate up to 100,000 Iranian citizens and soldiers. The four locations include: Isfahan: The Nuclear Technology/Research Center in Esfahan (ENTC) is supposed to be the main location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Semnani predicts 1,000 workers here will be killed, and up to 70,000 casualties in the surrounding areas from toxic plumes: 71,000 Natanz: One-hundred miles north of Isfhahan, this location has been in use for about 12 years and...

Butterflies in the Fukushima Region Plagued by “Genetic Damage” and “Severe Abnormalities” A study of the pale grass blue butterfly in the regions around the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, site of the 2011 radiation disaster, has revealed that the insects are giving birth to mutants at an alarming rate. Indeed, the butterflies collected from younger generations have more abnormalities than butterflies born directly after the power plant began leaking radioactive particles into the environment. That means the genetic damage caused by the radiation leak has been inherited by subsequent generations. Above, you can see images taken from the study, published...

Gov't admits nuclear substances found in waste, unreported to IAEA TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The Japanese government admitted Thursday that nuclear substances have been found in the waste of domestic facilities subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspection, but left unreported to the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Top government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said in a news conference that the matter will be reported to the IAEA soon, but did not say how much nuclear material was involved. The chief Cabinet secretary said an investigation last year of records led to the discovery of nuclear substances that were unaccounted for in waste at...

Unknowns about radioactive materials warrant vigilance amid delayed gov't action What does it mean that, in addition to the radioactive iodine and cesium that the government has heretofore focused on, extremely dangerous plutonium has been found in soil over 40 kilometers away from the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, and the likewise toxic strontium has been found in Yokohama, some 250 kilometers from the power station? Radiochemical expert Michiaki Furukawa, who is a professor emeritus at Nagoya University and serves on the board of the non-profit organization Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), says that some reports about plutonium have...

Plutonium detected 45 kilometers from nuke plant Small amounts of plutonium have been detected in samples of soil taken at locations including a spot 45 kilometers away from the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. This is the first time that the government has detected plutonium outside the nuclear plant since the accident. The science ministry announced on Friday that the plutonium was detected in samples taken from 6 locations in the towns of Futaba and Namie, and Iitate Village in Fukushima Prefecture --- all located northwest of the nuclear plant. The radioactive substance is believed to have been released by...

Reports indicate the fire came within 50 feet of the grounds of the Los Alamos lab where plutonium was stored in a fabric material building. This is unexplainable, unacceptable, and came within feet of causing the worst disaster in US history.

Updated : Jun 27, 2011 N. Korea's HEU Stocks May Exceed its Plutonium Stockpile in 3 Years A nuclear expert in the United States projects North Korea will obtain over 40 kilograms of high enriched uranium in three years. Olli Heinonen, former Deputy Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency posted on 38 North, a website devoted to North Korean issues that Pyongyang would be capable of producing 1.8 tons of low enriched uranium if all 2-thousand centrifuge machines at its enrichment facility in Yongbyon were operated at full capacity. He said an additional 8-hundred centrifuges would be able to...

Intelligence analysts are sifting through phone numbers and email addresses found at Osama bin Laden’s compound to determine potential links to Pakistani government and military officials while U.S. officials and analysts raise concerns about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear materials. According to three U.S. intelligence officials, the race is on to identify what President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has called bin Laden’s “support system” inside Pakistan. These sources sought anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters. “My concern now is that we cannot exclude the possibility that officers in the Pakistani military and the intelligence...

The New York Times is proving that, when it comes to nuclear power, it isn't a one-note newspaper. Not every anti-nuclear story has to be written by Matt Wald. The paper has versatility -- this time reporters Jo Becker and William J. Broad get into it. "Doubts Growing About U.S. Plan for Plutonium," said the page-one, column-one headline yesterday. Whose doubts? Well, it turns out they all belong to Edwin Lyman, resident lamenter at the Union for Concerned Scientists who has nothing but doubts about nuclear. Lyman is a lugubrious presence at every nuclear event in Washington, ruing that the...

Higher MOX Fuel Concentration Weighed for U.S. Reactors Monday, April 11, 2011 The federal Tennessee Valley Authority and Energy Department have conducted talks on potentially substituting mixed-oxide fuel derived from nuclear-weapon material for one-third of the low-enriched uranium in several U.S. power reactors, a substantially higher proportion of MOX fuel than a crippled Japanese nuclear plant had used, the New York Times reported on Sunday (see GSN, April 5). Any TVA move on the proposal has been put off pending a review of the behavior of MOX fuel at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was severely damaged last...

A nuclear expert has warned that it might be 100 years before melting fuel rods can be safely removed from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant.The warning came as levels of radioactive iodine flushed into the sea near the plant spiked to a new high and the Wall Street Journal said it had obtained disaster response blueprints which said the plant's operators were woefully unprepared for the scale of the disaster. Water is still being poured into the damaged reactors to cool melting fuel rods. But one expert says the radiation leaks will be ongoing and it could take 50 to 100...

Heavy fuel rod damage feared; trenches fill up with toxic water Plutonium that may have come from a reactor core at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant was detected in soil on the premises, indicating fuel rods suffered heavy damage, Tokyo Electric Power Co. has revealed. Although Tepco said late Monday the amount detected, based on soil samples taken a week ago, is extremely small and not enough to harm human health, the latest finding indicated not just heavy damage to fuel rods but also that strong radioactive materials may be leaking from at least one reactor containment vessel. A...

Plutonium detected in soil at Fukushima nuke plant TOKYO, March 29, Kyodo Plutonium has been detected in soil at five locations at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday. The operator of the nuclear complex said that the plutonium is believed to have been discharged from nuclear fuel at the plant, which was damaged by the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami. While noting that the concentration level does not pose a risk to human health, the utility firm said it will strengthen monitoring on the environment in and around the nuclear plant. Meanwhile,...

Expert: Pakistan building fourth plutonium reactor Published: 02.10.11, 20:54 / Israel News An independent expert says Pakistan has begun building what appears to be a fourth plutonium reactor, increasing concerns that the volatile nation is creating more nuclear material than it can safeguard.

Russia has shut down its last weapons-grade plutonium reactor. The move came after a pledge this week from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a 47-nation nuclear security summit in Washington. Plant bosses pressed the red "stop" button to commence decommissioning process at 0400, the official Russian news agency reported. The ADE-2 reactor opened in 1964 in Zheleznogorsk, then a secret city known as Krasnoyarsk-26. Some 2,500 miles east of Moscow, the military production complex was founded in 1950 on the orders of Joseph Stalin. ...The cost of disposing of the Russian plutonium would be $2.5bn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov...

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton laughs after signing the Plutonium Disposition Protocol with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Siegfried Hecker, sitting in a cold conference room, was asked by his North Korean hosts if he would like to see their "product." "Yes," Dr. Hecker replied. "Do you mean plutonium?" Hecker, former director of the U.S. weapons lab at Los Alamos and familiar with the hazardous properties of plutonium, was surprised when two technicians carried a small red metal box into the room. Inside was a white wooden box containing two glass jars -- they looked like marmalade jars -- one containing a piece of plutonium metal, the other plutonium powder. He later asked if he could hold the...

North Korea may be able to produce up to 14 to 18 nuclear warheads by 2019 if the multilateral talks for its denuclearization fail, a scholar said Tuesday. "If North Korea is able to refurbish its fuel fabrication plant, that production rate could continue indefinitely with its arsenal reaching 14-18 weapons by 2019," said Joel Wit, a visiting fellow at the U.S. Korea Institute at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in a report. Wit was discussing the North's nuclear fuel reprocessing plant at its Yongbyon nuclear facilities being reactivated after it declared a boycott of the...

SNIPPET: "Search at Grundy County plant called part of ongoing probe" SNIPPET: "But a source said the owner of the plant, which processes lamb and goat, was taken into custody at his home in Chicago. Documents and records were taken from the plant and from a Chicago travel agency on West Devon Avenue, also owned by the same person, the source said."

Russia has reneged on an agreement to deliver a total of 10 kilograms of plutonium-238 to the United States in 2010 and 2011 and is insisting on a new deal for the costly material vital to NASA’s deep space exploration plans. The move follows the U.S. Congress’ denial of President Barack Obama’s request for $30 million in 2010 to permit the Department of Energy to begin the painstaking process of restarting domestic production of plutonium-238. Bringing U.S. nuclear laboratories back on line to produce the isotope is expected to cost at least $150 million and take six years to seven...