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A Toronto man is under arrest after he allegedly tried to smuggle pressure transducers into Iran. Pressure transducers can be used in centrifuges to produce nuclear material. The National Post graphics team illustrates how they work.

FUKUSHIMA, JAPAN - Even as it struggled to contain the world's worst nuclear disaster in a quarter-century, Tokyo Electric Power Co. late last month quietly set out big plans for the future: It proposed building two new nuclear reactors at its radiation-spewing Fukushima Daiichi power plant. 18 Comments Weigh In Corrections? Graphic Graphic: Japan's nuclear emergency Video Video: The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has finally plugged a leak of highly radioactive water that had been draining into the Pacific. (April 6) More on this Story Amid nuclear crisis, Japan's Tepco planned new reactors Radioactive water no longer leaking into sea, nuclear plant operator says Japanese utility dumps radioactive water into Pacific to ease storage woes View all Items in this Story Tokyo Electric, known as Tepco, informed Fukushima prefecture on March 26 of its desire to start building the reactors as early as next spring, local officials said. That was just two weeks after an explosion at the utility's tsunami-crippled complex set off a cascade of catastrophes. The proposal was then included in a formal report submitted to authorities in Tokyo on March 31 as part of an annual process designed to assess Japan's future electricity supply.

As revealed in The Whitehaven News, the option of storing spent fuel in underground vaults, is becoming a possible alternative to reprocessing for Britain's expected fleet of new nuclear reactors and a graphic illustration of the mountain of spoil, as large as the Egyptian pyramids, that would be created by an underground repository has been reproduced by a Welsh council that feared such a repository coming to Wales.

In Saturday's National Post Kathryn Blaze Carlson writes about the future of the nuclear industry. Below some crucial numbers on the industry. Listen to Kathryn Carlson on nuclear power

PRIVATELY, the Federal Government is not happy that uranium miner Rio Tinto has launched an attack on its recently stated opposition to nuclear power. But publicly, Government ministers were polite yesterday in responding to a pro-nuclear submission made by Rio Tinto over a white paper on government energy policy. Treasurer Wayne Swan moved quickly to ground debate, declaring yesterday: "We don't agree with Rio Tinto on that point." Climate Change Minister Penny Wong was equally dismissive, but civil: "Rio Tinto is entitled to their view." After lobbing the hand grenade which has reignited the nuclear debate, the uranium mining giant ran for cover yesterday.

Charlie Wolf died on January 28, 2009, more than six years after he had been diagnosed with brain cancer and more than five and a half years after doctors said he would be dead. During that period, Wolf was not only fighting for his life, he was fighting the federal government for the compensation he was entitled to as a former worker in federal nuclear weapons facilities who contracted cancer as a result of exposure to radionuclides in the work place. Just as Wolf experienced the nightmare of radiation treatments, chemotherapy, and bone marrow transplants, he also experienced the nightmare of trying to negotiate a claim for compensation through a government bureaucracy clearly intent upon limiting its liability. The entire story of Wolf's battle with cancer and the government was graphically detailed in a July 22, 2008 Rocky Mountain News story by Laura Frank, and I urge readers to download the article and see for themselves the ordeal Wolf suffered through as a result of the government's attempts to avoid culpability. Sadly, even after providing copious documentation and successfully challenging the government's decision to deny his claim, Wolf died before receiving full compensation and benefits.

"Nuclear power accounted for nearly 20 percent of the electricity generated in the United States in 2008. Oklahoman graphics illustration Multimedia Photoview all photos More Info By the numbers Nuclear power statistics * 19.6: Percentage of U.S. electric generation derived from nuclear reactors in 2008 * 14: Percentage of electricity generated by nuclear power worldwide in 2008 * 31: States with operational nuclear reactors * 6: States that derive the largest percentage of their electricity from nuclear power * 104: Number of operational nuclear reactors in the U.S. * 1982: Year Public Service Co. of Oklahoma canceled plans to build a nuclear plant near Inola Source: Nuclear Energy Institute, Oklahoman archives Advocates such as the Nuclear Energy Institute claim it is the country's "largest source of clean-air, carbon-free electricity, producing no greenhouse gases or air pollutants." Nuclear also has the lowest operations and maintenance costs of any fuel source, NEI spokesman Mitch Singer said. But none of that matters to Oklahoma's two largest power companies. "We have no plans to build or explore a nuclear option," Oklahoma Gas and Electric Co. spokesman Brian Alford said. "It's cost prohibitive for utilities of our size.""

"* Bill to spur development of 12 nuclear plants * Would delay carbon caps and weaken permit price cap * Maintains U.S. goal to cut emissions 17 pct by 2020 (Adds quote from Republicans, background, graphics) By Timothy Gardner WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The U.S. climate change bill expected to be unveiled on Monday contains incentives to spur development of a dozen nuclear power plants, but delays emissions caps on plants that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, industry sources said on Friday."

"epco's litany of deliberate violations of the most elementary safety standards, enabled by the collusion of one government after another, is a graphic demonstration of the intolerable danger posed by the capitalist economic order itself, reports Mike Head. A huge explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan following a major earthquake and tsunami The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) is the conglomerate at the centre of Japan's nuclear radiation emergency at Fukushima. Its operations over the past several decades epitomise the government-backed pursuit of corporate profit, at the direct expense of lives, health and safety. Tepco is the fourth largest power company in the world, and the biggest in Asia, operating 17 nuclear reactors and supplying one-third of Japan's electricity. It has a long, documented history of serious safety breaches, systemic cover-ups of potentially fatal disasters, persecution of whistle-blowers, suppression of popular opposition and use of its economic and advertising clout to silence criticism."

"A competition between nuclear waste dumps has pulled the Nuclear Regulatory Commission into an unusual reconsideration of its rules to allow moderately radioactive materials to be diluted into a milder category that is easier to bury. At issue is whether a site in Utah that is licensed to accept only the mildest category of radioactive waste, called Class A, could accept far more potent materials, known as Class B and C wastes, by blending the three together. Even low-level radioactive waste is a growing problem, with few licensed repositories to dispose of it. The problem dates from the early 1980s, when Congress said that the federal government would take care of high-level waste, like spent fuel from nuclear power plants, but that the states would have to find sites for low-level material, like the radiation sources used in cancer treatments and industrial X-rays, and filters used in nuclear plants."

"The American nuclear industry, primed to begin new construction projects for the first time in 30 years, is about as eager for an operating problem at an old reactor as the oil industry was for a well blowout on the eve of opening the Atlantic coast to oil drilling. Nonetheless, a nuclear reactor where a hidden leak caused near-catastrophic corrosion in 2002 has experienced a second bout of the same problem. In 2002, the plant, Davis-Besse, in Oak Harbor, Ohio, developed leaks in parts on the vessel head, allowing cooling water from inside the vessel, at 2,200 pounds per square inch of pressure, to leak out."

TWO decades after the $6 billion Shoreham nuclear power plant was closed, the Long Island Power Authority has announced plans to hire a consultant to advise it on what to do with a 58-acre waterfront property where the plant's decommissioned remains are located. The authority's 1.1 million customers have never received energy from the Shoreham plant, the only fully licensed nuclear power reactor never to go into commercial operation, and are still paying off its remaining debt - now $3.3 billion - in their electric bills.

The American atom bomb known as Fat Man being prepared for dropping on Nagasaki during World War II. Soviet spies gave its design to Moscow and Moscow in turn gave the secrets to Beijing. In time, China entrusted the design information to Pakistan. A.Q. Khan, Pakistan's rogue atomic pioneer, then sold them on the global back market.

Thinking about making over your home or business so that it runs greener? What about going nuclear? That seems to be what at least two utilities are hoping customers will opt for as concerns grow about the damage created by planet-warming emissions from highly polluting sources like coal and from other fossil sources like gas.

As the world seeks low-carbon forms of energy production to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming, the champions of nuclear power have been re-branding the industry as one of the world's greenest. Last month, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency said "nuclear energy is virtually carbon-free" across its life cycle and "the only carbon-mitigating technology with a proven track record on the scale required."

Scientific American has a thoughtful article this month about the trade-offs between energy and water. Many big power plants - nuclear, coal, biomass and of course, hydroelectric - use lots of water. Conversely, making water drinkable, and piping it into big cities, can require plenty of electricity. This potentially forces a choice between the two.

WITH the federal government offering the nuclear industry $18.5 billion in loan guarantees and billions more in production tax credits and insurance against bureaucratic delays, at least a few new reactors seem certain to be built. But how many? Worries about carbon dioxide and galloping demand for electricity might seem to be setting the stage for a renaissance of nuclear power. But reactors, it turns out, are not at the top of the list for stopping global warming, at least in the United States, at least not any time soon.