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Peter L. Galison, the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University will speak about the difference between "nuclear wastelands" and "clear wilderness" as the topic of the second lecture in the university distinguished lecture series. The lecture series is a forum to present distinguished scholars from an array of disciplines. Galison is the second speaker in this series. Galison is considered to be one of the premier historians and philosophers of science in the world. Science historians are scholars who study the history of science and are interested in making historical sense of the natural sciences. Philosophers of science are interested in how science is done and in how it affects society.

The White House science adviser on Thursday acknowledged that the US likely would build new nuclear power plants, but added that challenges to embracing nuclear power remain. "We are probably going to see some new nuclear power plants in this country," said John Holdren, the President Barack Obama's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Those new plants will be of a new generation and have better safety characteristics, Holdren told an annual science policy forum that the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Washington.

According to Eli Kintisch of Science Magazine and ScienceInsider, President-elect Obama will nominate Dr. John Holdren to be Science Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Holdren currently serves as the director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as well as Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

On May 13, 2009, President Obama has turned to Gregory B. Jaczko, a PhD physicist with critical views of the nuclear power industry to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), which is the foremost agency overseeing atomic energy. Senate confirmation was not required because Jaczko was already a member of the commission. At present, he is the only Democrat on the NRC, but that is expected to change soon. Former Chairman Dale Klein and Kristine Svinicki are Republicans, but two seats on the five-member commission are vacant. Although no more than three members of any one political party can be appointed to the commission, it is expected that President Obama will name two additional Democrats, creating a 3-2 majority. Born October 29, 1970, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and raised in Albany, New York, Dr. Jaczko earned a bachelor's degree in physics and philosophy from Cornell University in 1993, and a doctorate in theoretical particle physics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1999. Always interested in politics as well as science, while still at graduate school Jaczko applied for an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, which paid him to work with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) as a Congressional Science Fellow. At the same time, he worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University teaching science and policy.

President-elect Barack Obama's next senior science adviser, Harvard academic and vociferous climate change advocate John Holdren, is a proponent for clean coal and advanced nuclear energy, according to his previous speeches and policy work. But the types of coal and nuclear generation that Holdren advocates is years away from commercial development, and it's questionable whether he will encourage near-term private-sector expansion of the two sectors. Obama Saturday named the head of the Harvard Kennedy School's Science, Technology, Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as his next Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.

The National Science Board is seeking public comment on a draft report, "Building a Sustainable Energy Future," released this week. Comments are being accepted through May 1, according to info released to the news media. Comments made be made to NSBenergy@nsf.gov. The National Science Board is the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation and advises the President and Congress on science and engineering issues. The new report recommends a strategy to move from an energy economy dependent on fossil fuels to one that "thrives on sustainable and clean energy."

Scientists have puzzled for years about why uranium contamination in groundwater continues to exceed drinking water standards in an area located at the south end of the Hanford Site. The Department of Energy wants answers to why the uranium persists. Now, an innovative system has been installed for field experiments to better understand this complex site and to support future cleanup decisions. The site is one of three Integrated Field Research Challenge, or IFRC, locations supported by DOE's Office of Science to investigate fundamental science issues important to contaminant transport and groundwater remediation. New insights may offer scientific advances in environmental cleanup beyond Hanford.

Rodney C. Ewing1 and Frank N. von Hippel2 The recent action to shelve Yucca Mountain as the potential geologic repository for U.S. "spent" (i.e., no longer usable) nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level nuclear waste (HLW) (1) brings to a close a 30-year effort to develop and implement a policy for nuclear wastes in the United States. Selection by Congress in 1987 of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site to be investigated condemned the United States to pursue a policy that had no backup if Yucca Mountain failed politically or technically. 1 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1005, USA. 2 Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08542-4601, USA. E-mail: rodewing@umich.edu E-mail: fvhippel@princeton.edu

Rodney C. Ewing1 and Frank N. von Hippel2 The recent action to shelve Yucca Mountain as the potential geologic repository for U.S. "spent" (i.e., no longer usable) nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level nuclear waste (HLW) (1) brings to a close a 30-year effort to develop and implement a policy for nuclear wastes in the United States. Selection by Congress in 1987 of Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the only site to be investigated condemned the United States to pursue a policy that had no backup if Yucca Mountain failed politically or technically. 1 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1005, USA. 2 Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08542-4601, USA. E-mail: rodewing@umich.edu E-mail: fvhippel@princeton.edu

The Nuclear Industry Embraces Junk Science [Henry Payne] Global warming makes strange bedfellows. Thirty years ago, the U.S. nuclear industry was a victim of junk science. Media and green fear-mongering in the wake of Three Mile Island led Americans to believe nuclear energy was unsafe, could cause a "China syndrome," and even a nuclear holocaust (a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Herblock of the Washington Post in 1979 showed a mushroom cloud emerging from a TMI cooling tower). As a result, nuclear energy was shunned and not a single power plant has been built in the U.S. since. But now, as the same media and green fear-mongers attempt to destroy the coal industry for causing global warming, killer hurricanes, and coastal flooding, the nuclear industry has jumped aboard the junk-science bandwagon.

"U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch is asking a national panel to take a fresh look at the science behind the government's program for compensating people who were injured by exposure to atomic-testing fallout and the uranium industry. Sponsor of the original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), Hatch put the request in a letter Monday to the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board of the National Academy of Sciences. His letter comes two weeks after the Utah Republican panned bipartisan legislation in Congress to expand RECA as overbroad and too expensive. "When I worked to enact the original RECA law to help Utahns exposed to radiation, the policy was based on scientific evidence -- an absolute must when you're talking about Hatch RECA letter (pdf) these types of programs," he said Tuesday. "The goal of the letter to the National Academy of Sciences [NAS] is to see whether or not new scientific data exists to justify expanding the RECA program; in the past it did not," he added. "I want NAS to examine the data and talk with Utah radiation victims to see if that is justified before anyone puts more taxpayer dollars on the line." Companion bills in the House and the Senate would expand RECA eligibility to those who suffered from exposure in seven states: New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Nevada. Only those in certain counties in three states are now eligible to apply for payments from the fund of $50,000, $100,000 or $150,000, depending Advertisement on whether they were exposed as millers, miners, ore transporters, atomic program employees or downwinders. The Utah counties now covered include: Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington and Wayne. The federal government's current program has paid nearly $1.5 billion to more than 22,000 people. Some 4,776 of them are Utahns who have received nearly $275 million from the federal program. "

I am writing to announce that a new book, which my father authored, has just been published on the subject of depleted uranium. It's title is "A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science". It is a science book, written for the layperson, detailing how science has been falsified to serve the political interests of covering up the health effects of internal contamination by radionuclides from nuclear weapon testing, commercial nuclear power plants and DU weapons. I forward to you a review of the work as it has been igniting a significant interest in the news world and I feel you may have interest to report on it as well. It is a rude awakening, and I ask you personally if you will help spread awareness of this shocking volume.

Three weeks into his job as head of the White House Office of Science and Technology, presidential science adviser John Holdren has laid out clear positions on myriad issues facing the Obama Administration. Speaking this morning with ScienceInsider, Holdren discussed why he thinks the United States doesn't need to design and build any new nuclear weapons. He warned of likely delays beyond 2015 in replacing the space shuttle after its 2010 retirement and the possibility that U.S. astronauts, in the interim, might arrive at the international space station aboard a Chinese vehicle. He shared his concerns that reporting requirements for spending stimulus money could shackle U.S. scientists. And he lamented the recent decision by the Texas state school board to modify science standards in ways that might undermine the teaching of evolution, warning that it was a "step backwards."

Word came Thursday that Virginia's uranium mining study has gotten the go-ahead from a top panel of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. At last, science and rational thought seem to be prevailing in this decades-long dispute. The National Research Council (NRC) is part of nation's premier scientific organization. Earlier this year, the General Assembly voted to request the NRC study whether a 119 million pound deposit of uranium ore in neighboring Pittsylvania County could be safely mined and milled, without risk to the environment. Since the early 1980s, Virginia has had a moratorium on mining and milling in place, due to concerns as to whether it could be done safely.

Word came Thursday that Virginia's uranium mining study has gotten the go-ahead from a top panel of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. At last, science and rational thought seem to be prevailing in this decades-long dispute. The National Research Council (NRC) is part of nation's premier scientific organization. Earlier this year, the General Assembly voted to request the NRC study whether a 119 million pound deposit of uranium ore in neighboring Pittsylvania County could be safely mined and milled, without risk to the environment. Since the early 1980s, Virginia has had a moratorium on mining and milling in place, due to concerns as to whether it could be done safely.

Steve Chu could be a groundbreaking energy secretary for the energy research efforts of President-elect Barack Obama's Administration in several ways. It's not just that Chu will be the first life-long scientist- and a Nobel prize-winning physicist at that-to run a department which spends more than $15 billion a year on physical science research, including weapons work. (Previous energy secretaries have usually been political allies of the president, which Chu isn't; a Naval Admiral and a power industry official have previously held the post.) But his selection, and new clues from Obama's transition team, could signal some big changes in the way that the United States conducts science to tackle the energy challenge.

"According to a report by researchers at the Oak Ridge Insitute for Science and Education, undergraduate degrees in health physics (the science of radiation protection) increased slightly in 2009 -- cotninuing a recent trend -- but the number of doctorate degrees awarded hit a 40-year low. The report, "Health Physics Enrollments and Degrees Survey, 2009 Data," surveyed 24 academic programs -- including the University of Tennessee -- with students majoring in health physcis or in "an option program equivalent to a major." ORISE reported that a total of 154 degrees in health physics -- B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. -- were awarded in 2009, but only nine of those were Ph.D.s."

"What usually comes to mind when one hears about radiation is nuclear energy or anything that is radioactive. But few realize that radiation has numerous benefits, and agriculture is one of the areas that largely gain from it. The Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) of the Department of Science and Technology which is the sole agency of the government that advances and regulates the safe and peaceful applications of nuclear science and technology in the country, identifies agriculture and natural resources as among its priority areas. Researchers from PNRI have been developing improved crop varieties through mutation, a non-conventional method of plant breeding which uses mutational agents (mutagens) such as radiation or chemicals e.g. ethyl methyl sulfonate (EMS)"

"A safety breach at Australia's Lucas Heights nuclear facility on Monday has exposed management and training flaws at Australia's nuclear science agency. The breach occurred at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization's (ANSTO) radio pharmaceutical production house in August 2008, when a worker dropped a vial containing a radioactive substance within a containment cell. ANSTO chief executive Adrian Paterson told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra that two major investigations had looked into the incident. The organization's own safety team completed their inquiries in September 2009, and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency finished its report last January"

"Official says he headed review of project A member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has disqualified himself from an upcoming key vote on the Yucca Mountain repository, saying he may have a conflict. George Apostolakis, a former nuclear science and engineering professor, disclosed he headed a panel that conducted a review on the nuclear waste project from March 2007 to March 2008 for Sandia National Laboratories, the lead science agency at Yucca Mountain. For that reason, he said in a statement Thursday, "I have concluded that I should recuse myself." The commission is expected to rule this summer whether the Department of Energy should be allowed to terminate licensing for a project it no longer wants to build. A panel of law judges within the NRC has decided that DOE cannot end the Nevada project unilaterally. The commission, which is the nuclear safety agency's ruling body, will determine whether that decision should be upheld or reversed. Apostolakis was one of three commissioners who had been urged to step aside on the Yucca Mountain vote, but for another reason."

We all have heard the expression that some simple technological matter is not "rocket science." The commercial production of electricity by use of nuclear energy in a nuclear power plant is not rocket science, either. In principle it could not be much simpler. Put simply, radioactive decay produces heat. We can capture this heat and use it to turn water into steam that turns a turbine and produces electricity.

Project Scope A National Academies committee will provide technical and strategic advice to the DOE-EM's Office of Engineering and Technology to support the development and implementation of its cleanup technology roadmap. Specifically, the study will identify: o Principal science and technology gaps and their priorities for the cleanup program based on previous National Academies reports, updated and extended to reflect current site conditions and EM priorities and input form key external groups, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, Environmental Protection Agency, and state regulatory agencies. o Strategic opportunities to leverage research and development from other DOE programs (e.g., in the Office of Science, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, and the National Nuclear Security Administration), other federal agencies (e.g., Department of Defense, Environmental Protection Agency), universities, and the private sector. o Core capabilities at the national laboratories that will be needed to address EM's long-term, high-risk cleanup challenges, especially at the four laboratories located at the large DOE sites (Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Savannah River National Laboratory). o The infrastructure at these national laboratories and at EM sites that should be maintained to support research, development, and bench and pilot scale demonstrations of technologies for the EM cleanup program, especially in radiochemistry.