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March of 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which reduced support for the industry to an atomic level-until now. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that 21 companies are applying to build 34 new power plants in the U.S. Here's a look back at nuclear's radioactive history. 1969. Year the oldest nuclear plant operating in the US, located in Oyster Creek, NJ, was issued its license. 1973. The last year a license was issued for the construction of a new nuclear plant in the U.S.

Green Party leaders in the UK have attempted to reign in a growing split within the party over the role of nuclear power in tackling climate change. This week saw a prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Party revealing that he was now "reluctantly" supporting new nuclear power stations because of growing concerns about climate change. Chris Goodall, now facing calls to be deselected as Green candidate for the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency, wrote a column in the Independent on Monday where he also raised his concerns with the growing economic incentive to use coal power.

Prof John Whitelegg, Green Party spokesperson on sustainable development and one of 12 Green councillors on Lancaster city council, discusses why renewables, rather than nuclear power, should be the focus for economic recovery. It is true that a small number of Greens, feeling the urgency of the climate crisis, have suggested a nuclear re-think as a lesser of two evils. But it's also true that the Green Party overwhelmingly thinks they're wrong.

$35 million project is underway that will expand the capacity of the Department of Energy's nuclear landfill to 1.7 million cubic yards, but that won't come close to meeting future disposal needs in Oak Ridge. Hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding is being used to accelerate cleanup projects -- including demolition of old nuclear facilities at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- and that's generating massive amounts of low-level radioactive waste. That's prompting serious talk about expanding the current facility to its maximum limit, 2.2 million cubic yards, and the likely need for a new Oak Ridge landfill. Both of those actions will require the approval of the state of Tennessee and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Turkey's long-running dream of having a nuclear power plant is surrounded by uncertainty despite the fact that a recently concluded tender on the construction of the country's first nuclear power plant is about to be finalized. Energy and Natural Resources Minister Taner Yıldız said the final decision on the tender would be made in June, but it seems that incertitude about the matter will not be cleard up easily even if the tender is discussed at a Cabinet meeting. As only one company entered the tender and the price offered is considerably high, the Cabinet will not be able to make an easy decision. Moreover, the global economic crisis has taken its toll on funds that were to be allocated to the nuclear power plant contract.

On the Fourth of July weekend of 1957, Darrell Robertson was on a train from Fort Lewis, Wash., to southern Nevada. He was one of hundreds of young men with orders in hand to take part in a training exercise that they were told was crucial to the fight against communism. Advertisement The native of Lamar was headed deep into the burnt landscape of the Mojave Desert, to a place called Camp Desert Rock. There, between 1945 and 1958, the U.S. military conducted 106 atmospheric nuclear tests. At the time, Robertson said, military brass believed a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets was likely. They were intent on developing a group of troops hardened by repeated exposure to radiation. They thought exposure to radiation was like sunning on the beach: First you burn, then you tan.

Since last summer, 36 states have had nowhere to dump the radioactively tainted metal, material and products that have come to light within their borders. In July, a waste site in Barnwell, S.C. -- which served two-thirds of the country as the burial place for material contaminated with low-level radioactivity -- shut its doors after battling neighborhood opposition for years. With no disposal site for most states -- including California, Texas, Florida and New York -- castoff radioactive material is piling up at factories and, in turn, increasingly getting lost, said John Williamson, administrator of Florida's Bureau of Radiation Control.

Mack Davis, 64, a retired Oak Ridge National Laboratory worker, said he spent 11 years of his 40-year career working in the lab laundry washing the hot clothes of rad workers. He thinks that exposure was the chief culprit for his cancers. "That laundry was hot, hot, hot," Davis said today by telephone. "I was exposed to all of that stuff on the clothes," Davis said. "That place was really hot." He said he ultimately developed four types of cancer, but was unable to collect under Part B of the compensation program. The findings he received indicated there was only a 42.5 percent chance that the rad exposures caused his cancer.

Progress Energy said Friday it has pushed back by 20 months its schedule for bringing on-line two planned new nuclear reactors in Florida, after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said its review of the plant site will take longer than expected. Progress also said it will spread out over five years certain early-stage costs for the new reactors that it could legally bill to ratepayers entirely in 2010, an apparent bid to tamp down customer anger over rate increases linked to the project that took effect earlier this year.

Department of Energy Manager Gerald Boyd said it's "sort of doubtful" that Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge, will complete the demolition of K-25 by the end 2011 - when the company's contract is due to expire - and federal officials are starting to make other plans. Last year, DOE extended and modified the BJC contract, valued at $1.48 billion, to allow the contractor to finish work on the mile-long and massively contaminated building that once processed uranium for the nation's Cold War arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Department of Energy Manager Gerald Boyd said it's "sort of doubtful" that Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge, will complete the demolition of K-25 by the end 2011 - when the company's contract is due to expire - and federal officials are starting to make other plans. Last year, DOE extended and modified the BJC contract, valued at $1.48 billion, to allow the contractor to finish work on the mile-long and massively contaminated building that once processed uranium for the nation's Cold War arsenal of nuclear weapons.

"Exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky won £150,000 ($220,000, 165,000 euros) in libel damages on Wednesday over a claim he was linked to the murder of ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko. A judge in London said there was "no evidence" that Berezovsky -- a fierce critic of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin -- was behind the poisoning by radiation of Litvinenko in 2006. "I can say unequivocally that there is no evidence before me that Mr. Berezovsky had any part in the murder of Mr. Litvinenko," said judge David Eady, handing down his ruling at the High Court. "Nor, for that matter, do I see any basis for reasonable grounds to suspect him of it," he added."

"The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will lead the first international, multidisciplinary assessment of the levels and dispersion of radioactive substances in the Pacific Ocean off the Fukushima nuclear power plant-a research effort funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. "This project will address fundamental questions about the impact of this release of radiation to the ocean, and in the process enhance international collaboration and sharing of scientific data," said Vicki Chandler, Chief Program Officer, Science at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. "It is our hope that through this adverse event, we can increase our current knowledge about various natural and man-made sources of radioactivity in the ocean, and how they might ultimately impact ocean life and health around the world." The shipboard research team includes scientists from WHOI, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Oregon State University, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Univ. of Hawaii, Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), and the Univ. of Tokyo (Japan). They will collect water and biological samples and take ocean current measurements in an area 200 km x 200 km offshore of the plant and further offshore along the Kuroshio Current. Their work will build on efforts by Japanese scientists and lay the foundation for expanded international collaboration and long-term research of questions related to releases from the Fukushima plant."

Duke Energy says first two tests were sufficient, denies waning interest Duke Energy, which has been testing French-made mixed-oxide nuclear fuels in its Catawba 1 reactor to gauge the suitability of similar fuels to be made at Savannah River Site, has exercised an option not to conduct a third 18-month testing cycle. Sign up for breaking news alerts from The Chronicle "It was used for two operating cycles and we made a decision that an additional cycle is not required," said Rita Sipe, a nuclear media relations spokeswoman for Duke Energy. The reason, she said, is that the first two cycles provided sufficient data that will be analyzed as part of the evaluation process for MOX, which is made by blending plutonium from dismantled nuclear bombs with conventional reactor fuels.

Duke Energy says first two tests were sufficient, denies waning interest Duke Energy, which has been testing French-made mixed-oxide nuclear fuels in its Catawba 1 reactor to gauge the suitability of similar fuels to be made at Savannah River Site, has exercised an option not to conduct a third 18-month testing cycle. Sign up for breaking news alerts from The Chronicle "It was used for two operating cycles and we made a decision that an additional cycle is not required," said Rita Sipe, a nuclear media relations spokeswoman for Duke Energy. The reason, she said, is that the first two cycles provided sufficient data that will be analyzed as part of the evaluation process for MOX, which is made by blending plutonium from dismantled nuclear bombs with conventional reactor fuels.

Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato has expressed anger at the central government and Tokyo Electric Power Co., saying both "betrayed" the people of Fukushima Prefecture with repeated assurances about the safety of nuclear power plants. "We feel we were betrayed [by the central government and TEPCO]," Sato said during an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun on Thursday, nearly a month after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and the outbreak of a series of accidents at the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. "The central government and TEPCO repeatedly told us, 'Nuclear power plants are safe because they've got multiple protection systems,' and, 'Earthquake-proof measures have been taken,'" Sato said.