Sen. Bennett Backs Nuclear Power

While nuclear energy may not be a central campaign issue for Sen. Bob Bennett as he seeks re-election in 2010, the three-term Republican lit up a group of university professors Friday when he voiced support for nuclear power development...
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IAEA Tracks Illicit Possession of Nuclear Materials

The International Atomic Energy Agency last year received reports of 15 cases of illicit nuclear material possession or related incidents and 16 cases involving the theft or loss of sensitive substances, the organization announced last week in its annual report for 2008...
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Pakistan Could Face Internal Threat to Nuclear Weapons

A U.S. analyst has said that terrorists are not likely to acquire a ready-to-use nuclear bomb in Pakistan, but that does not rule out the potentially devastating intersection of extremism and sensitive materials in the South Asian nation, Rediff.com reported last week...
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Austin and San Antonio Look at Nuclear Differently

On Monday, Austin Energy is due to deliver a much-anticipated report on the city's long-term energy priorities. The report follows a series of town hall-style meetings that focused mainly on reducing Austin's dependence on fossil fuels in favor of cleaner sources such as wind and solar power...
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Nuke Energy Buyers for STP

NRG Energy, CPS Energy's partner in a plan to expand the South Texas Project nuclear plant, has obtained signed, tentative agreements with buyers for more than half the power that would come from an expansion of the facility, a key official with the project said Wednesday...
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Wash. college seeks money from nuclear industry

A local college was poised to step in and educate new workers, but state lawmakers declined to provide money for the program during the economic downturn. Now the college is scrounging for cash from companies that stand to benefit most when the program gets off the ground...
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Indian Point to Operate for 20 More Years

Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York state has no safety issues that preclude extending operations for 20 years, the staff of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said...
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OPINION: Keeping track of radioactive material

In a positive development, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking steps to tighten its oversight of radioactive devices that contain potentially dangerous isotopes...
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Nuclear Responsibility

A senior US official acknowledged on Wednesday that the growing demand for atomic energy in response to climate change was adding to the challenges of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons...
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Financial Snags at STP?

While NRG Energy can work with a reduced investment by CPS Energy in an expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear plant, delays by CPS could hurt the progress of the project, a key official of an NRG subsidiary said Tuesday during a meeting with the Express-News editorial board...
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Energy bill requires doubling nuke use

To satisfy House Democrats' low-cost solution to global warming, Americans would have to double their reliance on nuclear energy by 2030...
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MOX provides good news for nuclear energy field

Aug. 1 marked the second anniversary of the beginning of construction of the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant at the Savannah River Site. It seems everyone knows the role that SRS played in winning the cold war by producing prodigious quantities of plutonium and tritium, but not everyone knows the role that SRS continues to play in our nation's nuclear posture...
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Shutdown of nuclear reactors a risk to cancer and heart disease patients

Nuclear reactors save lives, according to the thinking of some doctors. Anti-nuke activists might not see it that way, but when two aging facilities in Canada and the Netherlands recently shut down, a number of healthcare professionals and their patients became concerned, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday...
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DOE Grants $67M in Nuclear Research

The US Department of Energy has awarded $377m of grants for energy-related basic research to US university laboratories, national laboratories and other institutions...
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Thorium Power Reports Second Quarter 2009 Financial Results

Thorium Power, Ltd., the leading developer of non-proliferative nuclear fuel technology and provider of comprehensive advisory services for civil nuclear energy programs, today announced financial results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30, 2009...
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Editorial: So where's the nuclear power?

America is paying a hefty price for more than a generation of "no nukes," not the least of which is a painful attempt to wean itself from the dirtier energy sources that contribute to climate change, threaten economic growth and sometimes dangerously influence foreign policy...
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My Plan to Drop the Bomb

The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 marked an end and a beginning. The close of World War II ushered in the Cold War, with a precarious peace based on the threat of mutually assured destruction. Today, the world is at another turning point. The assumption that nuclear weapons are indispensable to keeping the peace is crumbling....
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NRC says plant records falsified

A contract foreman with Columbia’s Westinghouse nuclear fuel plant has been fired and the company cited by federal regulators after inspectors found that the foreman falsified safety records at the Bluff Road facility...
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U.S. Broadening Counterproliferation Focus

The U.S. intelligence community is increasing its focus on spotting "over-the-horizon" WMD threats and assessing the internal workings of potential proliferators, the head of the U.S. National Counterproliferation Center said last week...
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Harry Reid Completes Two-Decade Battle to Block Nevada Dump Site

U.S. Senator Harry Reid has finally stopped the so-called "Screw Nevada" legislation that has plagued my old home state for the last 22 years. Last week, the Senate Majority leader used his hard-won "juice" to negotiate an agreement with the White House and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, dealing a death blow to the Yucca Mountain project ...
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San Antonio Mayor tells CPS to rethink nuke options

CPS Energy officials said Wednesday the utility will explore options shy of a 40 percent investment in two new nuclear reactors after Mayor Julián Castro expressed strong reservations with that option...
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NRC wants to tighten oversight of often-lost radioactive devices

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to apply stronger oversight to frequently lost radioactive devices -- items a Scripps Media investigation found have been recycled into metal used to manufacture consumer and other products. For years, the metal industry has asked the government to do a better job regulating items containing radioactive isotopes, such as X-ray machines, industrial sensors and gauges...
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Obama to chair UN nuclear non-proliferation meeting

US President Barack Obama will chair a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament next month, the US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday...
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Why Nuclear Power Is Part of Our Future

America is falling behind in the race to develop green energy technologies. As John Doerr, a partner at the venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, recently told a U.S. Senate energy panel, “The United States led the world in the electronics revolution, and we led in biotechnology and the Internet. But we are letting the energy technology revolution speed by us.”...
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EPRI Study: U.S. Should Build 45 New Nuclear Power Plants

The results indicate that the full portfolio could reduce the cost to the U.S. economy of reducing emissions by more than $1 trillion by 2050. Deployment of the full portfolio could result in an 80 percent increase in the real wholesale cost of electricity by 2050 relative to current costs, compared with a projected increase of more than 210 percent with a limited portfolio...
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All Technologies Vital for Optimum Electricity Future

Can the USA curb CO2 emissions, satisfy growing electricity demand and limit electricity costs all at the same time? Yes it can - but only if it uses a full portfolio of power technologies. That's the message from updated analyses released by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)...
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Resources for IAEA

A US-led push for increases in the budget of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resulted only in a 2.7% boost after a difficult period of negotiation by its board of governors...
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U.S. Senate Approves $6.47 Billion for NNSA

The U.S. Senate last week passed legislation that would provide $6.47 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nation's nuclear arsenal and conducts nonproliferation efforts around the globe, according to a release from Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.)...
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Iran Can Build Nuclear Warhead, Intelligence Sources Believe

Western intelligence sources believe Iran has achieved the technical capacity to construct and set off a nuclear warhead within one year of an order by its supreme religious leader, the London Times reported today...
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Thorium Like "Unleaded Gas"?

Cars that once took leaded gasoline now run on a newer, less toxic and environmentally more benign gas: unleaded. The same concept holds true for the 104 nuclear power plants that supply 20 percent of this country's electricity, Seth Grae says, as well as for the dozens of new reactors expected to come online worldwide in the next few decades...
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