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The "ultra-secure uranium warehouse of the future" in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is now built, if not quite ready for work. Part of Complex 2030-the Bush Administration's ambitious and semi-secret plan to revamp the nation's aging infrastructure for building nuclear weapons-the warehouse will provide one location for the nation's supply of the highly enriched uranium (HEU) that makes for a powerful nuclear bomb.

The effect of radiation is not a subject I blog on a great deal, although it is a subject I have studied a great deal. Indeed, my uncle, a former nuclear physics professor at MIT, started our family Radon testing business, which was sold off years ago.

Brendan Koerner asks, If not Yucca, where? Where do we stash all the nuclear waste? For the time being, metal casks scattered around the country are holding the existing waste, but those casks only last about 100 years, and we need a sturdier, longer-lasting option. So, if Nevada manages to tie up Yucca in lawsuits for all eternity, that leaves us with...

Remember the feds' controversial plan to store all of the country's spent nuclear fuel deep inside Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert some 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Las Vegas? Well it looks like that proposed resting place for the country's nuclear waste has apparently been, well, laid to rest. When President Obama unveiled his budget last month, he essentially eliminated funding to prepare the site as the nation's nuke graveyard. The scant funds still to be allotted, according to the Las Vegas Sun, will just be enough to allow the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)-the body responsible for managing civilian nuke power-to hold planned hearings on licensing the facility's construction.

John Fleck at the Albuqeurque Journal's blog noted an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that says that switching over control of national labs to the Department of Defense could have an adverse effect on the caliber of scientists who could be brought in to the labs for their research. Some experts who have studied or worked with the labs fear that change could reduce the quality of research. "They've already made it much harder for themselves to attract good people," said Hugh Gusterson, a professor of anthropology and sociology at George Mason University who has spent years studying the culture of scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, talking about the management changes. A further shift, he said, "will just compound the difficulty."

Areva, a French nuclear construction company, said this week that its project to build the world's most powerful reactor remained mired in delays and was over-budget by 2.3 billion euros, or about $3.3 billion. The price tag of the plant in Olkiluoto, Finland - the first of a fleet of so-called evolutionary power reactors that Areva foresees building in coming years - was about $4.3 billion in 2003 and costs have steadily increased. The reactor was meant to have gone online early this summer but Areva no longer is committing to any dates for its completion. Patrice Lambert de Diesbach, an energy analyst with CM-CIC Securities in Paris, said the latest developments were "bad news" for Areva and "should be sanctioned by the market."

Areva, a French nuclear construction company, said this week that its project to build the world's most powerful reactor remained mired in delays and was over-budget by 2.3 billion euros, or about $3.3 billion. The price tag of the plant in Olkiluoto, Finland - the first of a fleet of so-called evolutionary power reactors that Areva foresees building in coming years - was about $4.3 billion in 2003 and costs have steadily increased. The reactor was meant to have gone online early this summer but Areva no longer is committing to any dates for its completion. Patrice Lambert de Diesbach, an energy analyst with CM-CIC Securities in Paris, said the latest developments were "bad news" for Areva and "should be sanctioned by the market."

It will be exactly 30 years tomorrow since the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident occurred on a three-mile (five kilometer) slip of land in the Susquehanna River in the shadow of Harrisburg, Pa. Until that day, few people had ever heard of Three Mile Island-now there are few who haven't. Once a majestic symbol of nuclear power, the plant would become synonymous with its dangers after one of its two reactors-the newer one, known as Unit 2-nearly melted down on March 28, 1979, just months after it was fired up.

Turns out Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is battling environmentalists and public fear of nuclear meltdowns on his new pro-nuke bill less than he's battling the lingering stigma that Homer Simpson and his scofflaw boss Mr. Burns generated at their Springfield nuclear power plant. homer simpson Where does this bit of wisdom on the hurdles facing the nuclear industry revival come from? From the staid Wall Street Journal, which Tuesday blogged about a Canadian professor who's been talking up the Simpson factor on north-of-the-border radio shows in the wake of the regulatory rejection of a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan.

Turns out Colorado U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is battling environmentalists and public fear of nuclear meltdowns on his new pro-nuke bill less than he's battling the lingering stigma that Homer Simpson and his scofflaw boss Mr. Burns generated at their Springfield nuclear power plant. homer simpson Where does this bit of wisdom on the hurdles facing the nuclear industry revival come from? From the staid Wall Street Journal, which Tuesday blogged about a Canadian professor who's been talking up the Simpson factor on north-of-the-border radio shows in the wake of the regulatory rejection of a nuclear power plant in Saskatchewan.

"A new statistical analysis of an almost-secret topic - what it costs to build nuclear reactors in France - may have some lessons for a "nuclear renaissance" in the United States. France, nuclear advocates often point out, gets about 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, or roughly quadruple the proportion that this country does. "

"There's a pending application before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an export license to ship 160 kilograms of uranium (enriched to 93.5 percent U-235) from the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge to France for use as fuel in the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) near Grenoble. According to information from Y-12, it would be the first shipment of highly enriched uranium to France since 1991. Information about the shipment was reported several days ago on the blog maintained by the International Panel on Fissile Materials, which indicated the fuel needs for the French reactor previously had been provided by Russia."

"The Iowa Sierra Club reports that 330 Iowans have asked Gov. Chet Culver to veto a bill that would allow utilities to charge customers for a feasibility study on future nuclear plants in the state. Here's the full release: Des Moines - In response to the House and the Senate passing House File 2399, a bill that will allow utilities to charge their customers to pay for nuclear power feasibility, more than 330 Iowans wrote to Governor Chet Culver calling on him to veto the bill. MidAmerican Energy wants to charge its customers $15 million to examine the achievability of constructing a new nuclear power plant in Iowa. HF2399 provides changes in the law that governs the Iowa Utilities Board's rules for determining electricity rates, setting the stage for MidAmerican Energy - and other utilities - to pay for costs associated with studying and planning a new facility, including one that could transition away from coal before construction begins."

"A few weeks ago the New Mexico Environmental Law Center's media director, Juana Colon, suggested I should write a blog post about policymakers' recent embrace of nuclear power as just a way to enrich the world's economic elites while at the same time continuing to subject poor and minority communities to various kinds of radioactive pollution, and therefore continue to encourage wasteful energy consumption. Her words were actually a lot angrier and profanity-laced, largely because the office had been preoccupied with a series of preposterous pro-nuclear pieces of legislation during the state legislative session (Such as declaring nuclear power green energy [PDF] and seeking that it become part of the governor's clean energy efforts [PDF]) Adding to that, President Obama had also just announced his intention to increase the subsidies the public would lavish on the nuclear industry. I've thought a lot about Juana's suggestion and there are a lot of interesting aspects to the nuclear power puzzle that deserve some ink."

Online blog covering nuclear news

Want to know what a top-secret truck moving "special nuclear materials" around the country looks like? Check out this photo, which comes from a blog at the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The photo was released after a Freedom of Information Act request from an environmental group. "It's big and blue - and rumbling down an interstate near you. But if you were parked next to a nuclear warhead at the gas station, would you know it?" writes Chronicle reporter Robert Pavey. The Chronicle covers the Savannah River Site (SRS), a big-bomb producing facility back in the day, by which I mean the Cold War era. The Chronicle just published a series of stories on SRS's critical role in disposing of plutonium from about 10,000 dismantled bombs. So what does this top-secret transporting of nuclear materials have to do with New Mexico? Patience, patience.

Want to know what a top-secret truck moving "special nuclear materials" around the country looks like? Check out this photo, which comes from a blog at the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. The photo was released after a Freedom of Information Act request from an environmental group. "It's big and blue - and rumbling down an interstate near you. But if you were parked next to a nuclear warhead at the gas station, would you know it?" writes Chronicle reporter Robert Pavey. The Chronicle covers the Savannah River Site (SRS), a big-bomb producing facility back in the day, by which I mean the Cold War era. The Chronicle just published a series of stories on SRS's critical role in disposing of plutonium from about 10,000 dismantled bombs. So what does this top-secret transporting of nuclear materials have to do with New Mexico? Patience, patience.

Almost every plan for limiting carbon dioxide output includes keeping old nuclear plants running. But as those plants age, they turn up new problems. The latest is at a plant owned by Progress Energy in Crystal River, Fla., where a gap was found inside the thick concrete of a containment dome. Diagram A schematic of the void was provided by Progress Energy. The plant had been temporarily shut in late September so workers could replace the aging steam generators - which required them to cut a hole in the dome. (The steam generators at many aging nuclear reactors were intended to last the life of the plant, so no way for swapping them out was designed.)

Almost every plan for limiting carbon dioxide output includes keeping old nuclear plants running. But as those plants age, they turn up new problems. The latest is at a plant owned by Progress Energy in Crystal River, Fla., where a gap was found inside the thick concrete of a containment dome. Diagram A schematic of the void was provided by Progress Energy. The plant had been temporarily shut in late September so workers could replace the aging steam generators - which required them to cut a hole in the dome. (The steam generators at many aging nuclear reactors were intended to last the life of the plant, so no way for swapping them out was designed.)

"For the first time ever, Y-12 is opening its original Pilot Plant -- Building 9731 -- to public viewing this weekend as part of the Secret City Festival in Oak Ridge, and some media members and a few Y-12 retirees got a preview of the facility this morning. The tour included a look at the Pilot Plant's Alpha calutrons, the only ones left in the world, as well as a couple of the Beta calutrons. The calutrons were used during the wartime Manhattan Project to test the electromagnetic separation processes used to separate the U-235 needed for the atomic bomb -- Little Boy -- ultimately dropped on Hiroshima, Japan."

"French nuclear giant AREVA were force to issue a profit warning yesterday. It has had to find an extra 400 million euros to cover the additional costs of building its so-called flagship European Pressurised Reactor at Olkiluoto in Finland. This is on top of 2.3 billion euro provisions put aside in previous years and brings the current estimated overrun to an eye-watering 2.7 billion euros. The initial cost of the project was 3.2 billion euros. While the rocketing costs of the OL3 EPR have dragged down AREVA's results for years, this is the first time that they have sent the company into the red. The company's financial health has already been suffering thanks to the Olkiluoto project, as it struggles to build up its reserves for planned future investments. But that's not the end of it. This announcement of another enormous cost overrun will not be the last. This newly announced 400 million is based on the assumption that OL3 will be operational by end of 2012 and not the middle of 2012. However, it became clear last week that the end of 2012 milestone will - at best - be completion date for construction. It will then take at least another six months before the newly finished power plant can go into commercial operation. That would mean roughly another extra 400 million euros being added to the project's budget."