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During the Vietnam War, the hell that was soldiers' daily lives sometimes was complicated by their exposure to plastic explosives and their neurotoxic effects. Back home, munitions workers faced similar nightmares. Though not wandering the jungle in search of Viet Cong, workers on the front lines at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant knew that at any moment they could be injured or die in an explosion. And those who were lucky or smart enough to survive could have ended up like Mary Ludlow. Ludlow, a Wisconsin resident, worked two stints at the plant in the late-1960s, totaling about six months. Ludlow left the plant a second time, and for good, when her then-husband decided to pursue a graduate degree at Iowa State University in Ames.

During the Vietnam War, the hell that was soldiers' daily lives sometimes was complicated by their exposure to plastic explosives and their neurotoxic effects. Back home, munitions workers faced similar nightmares. Though not wandering the jungle in search of Viet Cong, workers on the front lines at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant knew that at any moment they could be injured or die in an explosion. And those who were lucky or smart enough to survive could have ended up like Mary Ludlow. Ludlow, a Wisconsin resident, worked two stints at the plant in the late-1960s, totaling about six months. Ludlow left the plant a second time, and for good, when her then-husband decided to pursue a graduate degree at Iowa State University in Ames.

During the Vietnam War, the hell that was soldiers' daily lives sometimes was complicated by their exposure to plastic explosives and their neurotoxic effects. Back home, munitions workers faced similar nightmares. Though not wandering the jungle in search of Viet Cong, workers on the front lines at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant knew that at any moment they could be injured or die in an explosion. And those who were lucky or smart enough to survive could have ended up like Mary Ludlow. Ludlow, a Wisconsin resident, worked two stints at the plant in the late-1960s, totaling about six months. Ludlow left the plant a second time, and for good, when her then-husband decided to pursue a graduate degree at Iowa State University in Ames.

In a rebuttal to recently retired Atomic Energy Commission Chief Anil Kakodkar's claims about success of India's 1998 thermo-nuclear explosions, a former senior nuclear scientist K Santhanam said Kakodkar's was "ignoring facts" and called him a liar.In an interview to a news channel on Sunday, Kakodkar had claimed that yield of thermo-nuclear explosions was more than 45 kilo tons and India had credible thermo-nuclear bombs in its arsenal. Santhanam, a senor nuclear scientist from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was responsible for monitoring the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosions. "Figures don't lie, but liars will figure. He chose to ignore facts for his own reasons," Santhanam said in an interview to an Indian news agency PTI on Monday in reply to Kadodkar's claims. "There are several inaccuracies in his (Kakodkar's) statement. The DRDO was a major partner in the 1998 tests and not what Kakodkar has claimed...that we only provided logistical support. That is very far away from truth," Santhanam said.

In a rebuttal to recently retired Atomic Energy Commission Chief Anil Kakodkar's claims about success of India's 1998 thermo-nuclear explosions, a former senior nuclear scientist K Santhanam said Kakodkar's was "ignoring facts" and called him a liar.In an interview to a news channel on Sunday, Kakodkar had claimed that yield of thermo-nuclear explosions was more than 45 kilo tons and India had credible thermo-nuclear bombs in its arsenal. Santhanam, a senor nuclear scientist from Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was responsible for monitoring the 1998 Pokhran nuclear explosions. "Figures don't lie, but liars will figure. He chose to ignore facts for his own reasons," Santhanam said in an interview to an Indian news agency PTI on Monday in reply to Kadodkar's claims. "There are several inaccuracies in his (Kakodkar's) statement. The DRDO was a major partner in the 1998 tests and not what Kakodkar has claimed...that we only provided logistical support. That is very far away from truth," Santhanam said.

Chronology of events surrounding crippled Fukushima nuclear plant A school building, which was submerged as a result of a tsunami on March 11, stands in an area of Yamamoto, Miyagi Prefecture. (Mainichi) TOKYO (Kyodo) -- The following is a chronology of events regarding the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station in Fukushima Prefecture, triggered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern and eastern Japan. March 11 -- Magnitude 9.0 earthquake forces power plant's Nos. 1-3 reactors to suspend operations automatically (Nos. 4-6 reactors were shut down, undergoing regular checks). Prime Minister Kan declares nuclear emergency, directing local residents in 3-kilometer radius of plant to evacuate. March 12 -- Kan inspects stricken plant. Radioactive steam is vented from No. 1 reactor's containment vessel. Hydrogen explosion rips No. 1 reactor building. Government expands evacuation zone to 20 km radius of plant. March 14 -- Hydrogen explosion rocks No. 3 reactor building. No. 2 reactor's fuel rods are exposed as water recedes inside reactor vessel. March 15 -- Kan scolds Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) officials at company head office. Explosion is heard near suppression chamber of No. 2 reactor's containment vessel. Explosion is also heard at No. 4 reactor. Government directs residents in 20-30-km ring of plant to stay indoors. A tsunami crests the embankment of the Heikawa River in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, before sweeping into the city on March 11. (Mainichi) March 16 -- Damage is feared to have been done to No. 3 reactor's containment vessel, forcing workers to retreat. March 17 -- Ground Self-Defense Force helicopters drop water on No. 3 reactor building. Fire engines spray water from ground. March 18 -- Nuclear safety agency gives crisis involving Nos. 1-3 reactors preliminary value of Level 5 on nuclear accident scale of 7. March 19 -- Tokyo firefighters spray water at No. 3 reactor. Government announces detecti

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

FirstEnergy Corp. faces disciplinary action because its Davis-Besse operators "failed to recognize the hazard to the station's operations" caused by a June 25 explosion inside the electrical transmission switchyard, according to a letter the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sent to the utility. The NRC's letter, dated Monday, said operators should have immediately recognized the explosion met federal emergency action level conditions for declaring an alert. The agency said it will allow FirstEnergy to explain in greater detail what happened before deciding whether to proceed with enforcement. The explosion occurred as repairs were being made to electrical equipment. There were no injuries or radiation releases and the nuclear reactor never stopped operating.

The controversial salt-mine nuclear waste storage facility in Asse, Lower Saxony is not only crumbling but also contains unknown amounts of explosive, it has emerged. Officials who confirmed the reports are now scrambling to get them removed. A spokesman for the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) confirmed a DDP report on Friday, saying, there was some there, but only a small amount of old stocks. He said the explosive was stored, "so that obviously there is no danger for the running of the store, or for the waste." The explosives would be rapidly removed, he added.

"The weaknesses of federal regulatory agencies have been exposed by recent high-profile accidents. Guest columnist Tom Carpenter fears the Department of Energy will reduce its oversight of cleanup at the nation's nuclear waste sites.\n\nBy Tom Carpenter\n\nSpecial to The Times\n\nPREV of NEXT\n\n \n\nRelated\n\nMillions of gallons of oil gush continue to rush unabated from BP's mile-deep well in the Gulf of Mexico, and 11 workers are dead from the massive explosion that caused the biggest oil spill in decades. Weeks before this event, the news was dominated by the preventable explosion that killed 29 West Virginia coal miners.\n\nIn both cases, the not-so surprising news was that the mine and the oil rig had abysmal records of safety violations before the explosions yet were still allowed to operate by the captive regulatory agencies.\n\nWhere is the government accountability? It is the government's job to assure that ultra-hazardous industries operate safely and responsibly.\n\nIs nuclear next? The Department of Energy sits on the nation's biggest nuclear nightmare. Its inventories of highly radioactive and toxic wastes defy comprehension. Washingtonians are familiar with the DOE's No. 1 accomplishment, the Hanford nuclear site, which holds the lion's share of the nation's radioactive detritus. Suffice it to say that the escape of even a small fraction of such material into the environment would constitute a Chernobyl-sized catastrophe."

"July 16, 1945 marked the beginning of the Nuclear Age. On that day, the United States conducted the first explosive test of an atomic device. The test was code-named Trinity and took place at the Alamogordo Test Range in New Mexico's Jornada del Muerto Desert. The bomb itself was code-named "The Gadget." The Trinity test used a plutonium implosion device, the same type of weapon that would be used on the city of Nagasaki just three and a half weeks later. It had the explosive force of 20 kilotons of TNT. The names associated with the test deserve reflection. "The Gadget," something so simple and innocuous, was exploded in a desert whose name in Spanish means "Journey of Death." Plutonium, the explosive force in the bomb, was named for Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld. The isotope of plutonium that was used in the bomb, plutonium-239, is one of the most deadly radioactive materials on the planet. It existed only in minute quantities on Earth before the US began creating it for use in its bombs by the fissioning of uranium-238. "

Everyone's got a notion of how the last century went, in terms of nuclear explosions. There was Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. There were some nuclear tests out in the desert, and the ocean. But would you believe there've been over 2000? In this map, which takes into account all the documented nuclear tests since 1945, two things really stand out. The few days in 1945 that saw the only use of nuclear weapons on humans register, when measured on the unfeeling scale of kilotons, as two small blips, aberrant in their location but unremarkable in their size. Then you see the key: The scale is not linear. If it was, the larger explosions would cover most of the map. That's the thing with nuclear weapons: It's easy to lose your sense of scale when it comes to how powerful they are, or what havoc they can wreak.

Everyone's got a notion of how the last century went, in terms of nuclear explosions. There was Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. There were some nuclear tests out in the desert, and the ocean. But would you believe there've been over 2000? In this map, which takes into account all the documented nuclear tests since 1945, two things really stand out. The few days in 1945 that saw the only use of nuclear weapons on humans register, when measured on the unfeeling scale of kilotons, as two small blips, aberrant in their location but unremarkable in their size. Then you see the key: The scale is not linear. If it was, the larger explosions would cover most of the map. That's the thing with nuclear weapons: It's easy to lose your sense of scale when it comes to how powerful they are, or what havoc they can wreak.

There have been many accidents and thefts of uranium in India's atomic research centres and other facilities giving rise to doubts about the security of Indian nukes. Risks related to India nuclear proliferation are many while their security arrangements are far from satisfactory. The world must take note of it before it is too late. On 29th December 2009, two research students died in the fire in laboratory of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) caused by an explosion, what was described as a 'loud bang'. It is not yet clear if the bang was caused by an explosion or triggered by a chemical reaction, however this has exploded the myth of the security of India's nukes. The centre's director and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Sreekumar Banerjee said that the fire broke out at 12.05 hours in the lab on the third floor of the modular lab of BARC. However, two scientists associated with the centre have claimed that no research involving radioactive material is conducted in the modular lab. Nevertheless, security has been beefed up at BARC following intelligence inputs that the country's prestigious nuclear facility faced terror threat.

There have been many accidents and thefts of uranium in India's atomic research centres and other facilities giving rise to doubts about the security of Indian nukes. Risks related to India nuclear proliferation are many while their security arrangements are far from satisfactory. The world must take note of it before it is too late. On 29th December 2009, two research students died in the fire in laboratory of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) caused by an explosion, what was described as a 'loud bang'. It is not yet clear if the bang was caused by an explosion or triggered by a chemical reaction, however this has exploded the myth of the security of India's nukes. The centre's director and Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Sreekumar Banerjee said that the fire broke out at 12.05 hours in the lab on the third floor of the modular lab of BARC. However, two scientists associated with the centre have claimed that no research involving radioactive material is conducted in the modular lab. Nevertheless, security has been beefed up at BARC following intelligence inputs that the country's prestigious nuclear facility faced terror threat.

"Views from the Chernobyl exclusion zone twenty three years after the accident at the nuclear power plant. Communities, families and the land are still suffering after the power plant explosions in 1986. Pripyat, Ukraine. 04/06/2009. On 26 April 1986, the most serious accident in the history of the nuclear industry occurred at Unit 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the former Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union. The Nuclear power plants were presented as being an achievement of Soviet engineers, where nuclear power was harnessed for peaceful projects. The slogan "PEACEFUL ATOM" was popular during those times. But, the explosions that rupture the Chernobyl reactor vessel and the consequent fire that continued for 10 days or so resulted in large amounts of radioactive materials being released into the environment."

"With the renewed interest in nuclear weapons I have been struck by how few people there still are who have seen one explode. There are a few survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and there are a small number who witnessed some of the above ground test explosions. But the last American above-ground test was in 1962 and the last above-ground test by any country was conducted by the Chinese in 1980. This means that the Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis-to say nothing of the Iranians and North Koreans-have never seen a nuclear explosion. In the main, this is a very good thing: the fallout from such a test is a real health hazard. But there is a downside. We have lost the experience of watching a nuclear explosion-perhaps the most powerful lesson about nuclear bombs there is."

"They've tried nearly everything else to seal the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, so why not just nuke it? No, that's not an original idea. In fact, you can read that suggestion on the pages of one of Russia's leading daily newspapers, Komsomoloskaya Pravda, which claims that the Soviets deployed specially-designed nuclear explosions to extinguish well fires on at least five separate occasions. The idea was to harness the impact of the explosions that, among other things, would push tons of rocks into place and seal any leaks. The newspaper reports that authorities used a 30 ton atomic explosion triggered at an underground depth of six kilometers on Sept. 30, 1966, to extinguish burning gas wells in Urt-Bulak, an area about 80 kilometers from Bukhara. "

Here's one direct and obvious effect of the economic stimulus package passed in February: The toxic sites where scientists ushered in the nuclear age are getting cleaned up. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, a dump that contains refuse of the Manhattan Project and that was sealed up decades ago is finally being explored, thanks to $212 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But experts aren't sure what they'll find inside the dump. At the very least, there is probably a truck down there that was contaminated in 1945 at the Trinity test site, where the world's first nuclear explosion seared the sky and melted the desert sand 200 miles south of here during World War II [The New York Times]. It may also contain explosive chemicals that could have become more dangerous over the years of burial.

Here's one direct and obvious effect of the economic stimulus package passed in February: The toxic sites where scientists ushered in the nuclear age are getting cleaned up. In Los Alamos, New Mexico, a dump that contains refuse of the Manhattan Project and that was sealed up decades ago is finally being explored, thanks to $212 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. But experts aren't sure what they'll find inside the dump. At the very least, there is probably a truck down there that was contaminated in 1945 at the Trinity test site, where the world's first nuclear explosion seared the sky and melted the desert sand 200 miles south of here during World War II [The New York Times]. It may also contain explosive chemicals that could have become more dangerous over the years of burial.

"A nuclear explosion was set off 37 years ago, near Krestishche village in Krasnograd district, Kharkiv Region. It was the first in Ukraine and probably the only one in the European part of the Soviet Union. Scientists had determined that a large gas condensate field in the area which was discovered in 1970 could hold up to 300 billion cubic meters of fuel. In 1971, 17 wells were already operating in the Krasnograd district. But an accident occurred when drilling a new well at the field in July 1971. Gas came to the surface before the well reached its planned depth and the force of the spewing gas condensate reached 400 atmospheres, throwing two workers into the air. Engineers took days deciding what to do to stop the well. The nearest village was just 500 meters away. Residents were told to not light any fires and to stay out of their homes and not turn on any lights. Unable to stop the gas, the engineers decided to light it. By the next day, the burning flare was tens of meters high. Several attempts were made during the next year to put out the fire. Filling the well with tons of concrete slabs did not work - they flew apart like toys. Such flares are normally put out by capping the well. But for this case, specialists from Moscow offered an original solution - an underground nuclear explosion."

Boxun News, a Chinese-language Web site based outside China, reported that an unnamed expert has claimed that there was a nuclear explosion near the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake, based on witness reports and the discovery of concrete rubble believed to have come from an underground military installation. The news of this nuclear explosion has raised questions about the cause of the earthquake.

eil says: The tour kicks off with our guide, Yuri, telling us about the zone, how polluted it still is (or isn't, in some areas). This is the monument to the firemen who died after the explosion. The monument was erected by the firemen themselves. After the explosion, firemen raced to the plant within two minutes of hearing the alarm, unknowingly exposing themselves to lethal doses of radiation

The explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is being described as caused by a "hydrogen build-up" The situation harks back to the "hydrogen bubble" that was feared would explode when the Three Mile Island plant in 1979 underwent a partial meltdown. The hydrogen explosion problem at nuclear power plants involves a story as crazy as can be. As nuts as using nuclear fission to boil water to generate electricity is, the hydrogen problem and its cause cap the lunacy. Eruption of hydrogen gas as a first reaction in a loss-of-coolant accident has been discussed with great worry in U.S. government and nuclear industry literature for decades.

In the 1980s, climate scientists in Russia and the U.S. theorized that all-out nuclear war between the superpowers would result in a "nuclear winter," as smoke from the atomic explosions blackened the sky and sent summer temperatures plummeting below freezing - killing crops and eventually starving all those who survived the initial explosions. Now that the risks of an all-out U.S.-Russian exchange have diminished, scientists are looking at the climactic effects of regional nuclear war - and the predictions are still sobering.

Agency to build three new facilities here for storage, modernization The National Nuclear Security Administration approved a long-term plan Tuesday that keeps nuclear weapons assembly work at the Pantex Plant and cements its role in high-explosives manufacturing. Pantex, located 17 miles northeast of Amarillo, assembles and dismantles nuclear weapons, modernizes older warheads and stores tons of plutonium weapons cores, the nuclear hearts of modern atomic bombs and long-range missiles. The plan, unveiled Tuesday by NNSA Administrator Tom D'Agostino, includes three new Pantex facilities: an underground plutonium-storage complex, new high-explosives pressing operations and a $172 million weapons-surveillance facility where warheads and bombs can be monitored for signs of aging

Hundreds of former Canadian soldiers will receive compensation for being assigned to participate in atomic bomb test explosions by the U.S. and British militaries in the 1960s, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday. Defense Minister Peter MacKay said the soldiers were involved in operations in the United States, Australia and the South Pacific from the end of World War II until the international treaty banning atmospheric test explosions was signed in 1963.