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"Vice President Joe Biden says the Obama administration will spend what it takes to ensure the security and quality of the United States' nuclear arsenal. Biden said in an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal Friday while the Obama administration seeks to reduce nuclear weapons worldwide, the United States will maintain an "effective nuclear arsenal" to protect national security. "For as long as nuclear weapons are required to defend our country and our allies, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal," Biden said. Highlighting a 2009 warning from the Strategic Posture Commission about a lack of attention to the U.S. nuclear complex, Biden said he and Obama propose spending $7 billion implementing a nuclear-security agenda."

"In a major victory for environmental advocates, New York State has ruled that outmoded cooling technology at the Indian Point nuclear power plant kills so many Hudson River fish, and consumes and contaminates so much water, that it violates the federal Clean Water Act. The decision is a blow to the plant's owner, the Entergy Corporation, which now faces the prospect of having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build stadium-size cooling towers, or risk that Indian Point's two operating reactors - which supply 30 percent of the electricity used by New York City and Westchester County - could be forced to shut down. Entergy officials said that they were "disappointed" in the ruling and that they might fight it in court. The original federal licenses for the two 1970s-era reactors expire in 2013 and 2015, and a water quality certificate is a prerequisite for a 20-year renewal by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But a prolonged appeal in New York could delay a shutdown, Diane Screnci, a spokeswoman for the commission, said late Saturday. An Entergy spokesman said that converting Indian Point's cooling system would cost $1.1 billion and would require shutting both reactors down entirely for 42 weeks. "

"Raise your hand if US taxpayers are responsible to pay for the most expensive mistakes you make in your business. Chances are, the only hands that just went up are attached to nuclear power executives and, if that unfair advantage were removed we would see the end of nuclear power in this country. Nuclear Power Plant The five decades old Price-Anderson Act sets a cap on liability by power plants and their insurers for damages arising from nuclear accidents. After $300 million in damages are paid by insurance, the US taxpayer takes over to address catastrophic liabilities, including cleanups, property damage, health care, and lives lost. Including some other payments made into accident funds, the utility industry is on the hook for no more than $10 billion for all accidents that could ever occur at all nuclear plants in the nation. Raise your hand if you think just one major accident would result in far more damage claims than that. In England, the system works about the same, with each nuclear plant responsible for no more than £140 million and similar systems exist in Europe, Japan, and Canada. "

"Shattering a taboo dating from the Cold War, the Obama administration revealed Monday the size of the American nuclear arsenal -- 5,113 weapons -- as it embarked on a campaign for tougher measures against countries with hidden nuclear programs. The figure was in line with previous estimates by arms-control groups. But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized that it was the very disclosure of the long-held secret that was important. "We think it is in our national security interest to be as transparent as we can about the nuclear program of the United States," she told reporters at a high-level nuclear conference in New York, where she announced the change in policy. "We think that builds confidence." "

"ALL eyes are on Faisal Shahzad, the man charged with the attempted bombing in Times Square on Saturday. But perhaps we ought to be concerned a bit less with Mr. Shahzad, a failed terrorist now in custody, and significantly more with Sharif Mobley - a New Jersey native, a former high school wrestler and, until shortly before he moved to Yemen to allegedly join Al Qaeda, a maintenance worker at five nuclear power plants along the East Coast. Since his arrest by Yemeni security forces in March, American law enforcement officials have taken pains to emphasize that Mr. Mobley's low security clearance makes it unlikely that he passed crucial details about American nuclear-plant security to Al Qaeda."

"It is, in the words of the Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen, "a place we must remember to forget." On a wooded island more than a hundred miles northwest of Helsinki, in the town of Eurajoki, Finnish engineers are digging a tunnel. When it is done 10 years from now, it will corkscrew three miles in and 1,600 feet down into crystalline gneiss bedrock that has been the foundation of Finland for 1.8 billion years. And there, in a darkness that is still being created, the used fuel rods from Finland's nuclear reactors - full of radioactive elements from the periodic table as dreamed up by Lord Voldemort, spitting neutrons and gamma rays - are to be sealed away forever, or at least 100,000 years. "

Japan is racing to gain control of the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plan. Where does the most detailed data come from? Updated daily The 9.0 magnitude earthquake and following tsunami last week has seen Japan struggle as it battles to control the nuclear meltdown of power plants in the north-east of the country. Fukushima nuclear power plant in particular has been closely scrutinised as reports flow in on the progress of the plant - Japan's nuclear board raised the nuclear alert level from four to five last week and the latest update this afternoon warns of products such as dairy and spinach being restricted for shipping. Explosions and reports of nuclear fuel rods melting at the power plant have meant progress on the situation has been closely followed.

What's powering your home appliances? Multiple warhead ballistic missiles like the ones deployed at this site north of Russia's border with Kazakhstan are being dismantled. Some nuclear material goes to the United States. For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it's fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones. "It's a great, easy source" of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers. Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America's 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama's efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did.

What's powering your home appliances? Multiple warhead ballistic missiles like the ones deployed at this site north of Russia's border with Kazakhstan are being dismantled. Some nuclear material goes to the United States. For about 10 percent of electricity in the United States, it's fuel from dismantled nuclear bombs, including Russian ones. "It's a great, easy source" of fuel, said Marina V. Alekseyenkova, an analyst at Renaissance Capital and an expert in the Russian nuclear industry that has profited from the arrangement since the end of the cold war. But if more diluted weapons-grade uranium isn't secured soon, the pipeline could run dry, with ramifications for consumers, as well as some American utilities and their Russian suppliers. Already nervous about a supply gap, utilities operating America's 104 nuclear reactors are paying as much attention to President Obama's efforts to conclude a new arms treaty as the Nobel Peace Prize committee did.

Repairing a cracked containment wall will force Progress Energy to keep the Crystal River nuclear plant offline longer than anticipated. Progress Energy shut down the plant on Sept. 26 for a major maintenance project that was expected to last only into December. But on Friday the utility told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it now plans a major repair: removing and replacing part of the containment wall, which has developed a gap below the surface. "It is clear that the repairs will require us to extend our outage," Progress Energy spokeswoman Jessica Lambert said.

Repairing a cracked containment wall will force Progress Energy to keep the Crystal River nuclear plant offline longer than anticipated. Progress Energy shut down the plant on Sept. 26 for a major maintenance project that was expected to last only into December. But on Friday the utility told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it now plans a major repair: removing and replacing part of the containment wall, which has developed a gap below the surface. "It is clear that the repairs will require us to extend our outage," Progress Energy spokeswoman Jessica Lambert said.

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.)

ou've probably already seen XKCD's radiation chart, which we shared here on TH last week. That chart did a nice job of putting the dangers of radiation in perspective, and probably helped soothe some worried souls -- at least it got people tweeting about the amount of radiation eating a banana exposes you to. Well, in case you didn't get your fill of information about how radiation impacts the human body, this infographic, designed by the folks at Geary explores that angle in greater detail: