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An old glass jar inside a beaten up old safe at the bottom of a waste pit may seem an unlikely place to find a pivotal piece of 20th century history. But that's just where the first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made has been found - abandoned at the world's oldest nuclear processing site. See a gallery of images of the find and where it came from The potentially dangerous find was made at Hanford, Washington State, the site of a nuclear reservation, established in 1943 to support the US's pioneering nuclear weapons program. Hanford made the plutonium-239 for Trinity, the first ever nuclear weapon test, on 16 July 1945. Just three-and-a-half weeks later, more Hanford plutonium was used in the nuclear strike on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.

Chubu Electric Power Co.'s plan to decommission two long-suspended nuclear reactors and build a new reactor in their place at its Hamaoka power station is mainly due to the old reactors' deteriorating economic efficiency and the heavy cost expected for retrofitting the current facilities to meet the latest quake-resistance standards. The Hamaoka nuclear plant covers about 1.6 million square meters in Omaezaki, Shizuoka Prefecture, and is located near the potential epicenter for a major earthquake expected to strike the Tokai region someday. The power company completed retrofits of the station's Nos. 3, 4 and 5 reactors in March.

The author of a book that strikes down uranium exploration in Canada is applauding the New Brunswick government for its recent roadblocks to mining the element in the province. Jim Harding, a retired environmental and justice studies professor and author of Canada's Deadly Secret: Saskatchewan Uranium and the Global Nuclear System, made a stop in Moncton yesterday on a cross-country tour to chastise any move towards mining the radioactive rock. Harding argued the thesis of his book, which flatly states uranium creates more problems than solutions, backing his claim on a timeline of Saskatchewan's mining experience.

After a tragedy we often ask: Why did this happen? How did this happen? Could we have prevented it? The tragedies of Sept. 11, 2001, still raise these questions. In looking ahead as much as looking back, imagine how much worse those losses would have been if the terrorists had used a nuclear weapon. For decades, nuclear weapons were thought to make us safer by deterring the first strike by another nation. Today we need to re-evaluate the roles and dangers of nuclear weapons in the world. Let's ask ourselves: Does it help the United States to have nuclear weapons? Would the whole world be safer if no one and no nation had even one of these weapons? Is the mere existence of nuclear weapons a threat?

With heating fuel and gas prices fluctuating, and two of Vermont's major electrical contracts coming to a close, it's no surprise that energy cost issues have galvanized the current race for the state's top job. Gov. James Douglas places the responsibility for the electrical supply in the hands of the state's utilities. He said on Friday the government should collaborate with utilities as they strike new deals with the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and Hydro-Quebec, but it should not dictate where companies buy power.

The US Air Force plans to establish a new Global Strike Command responsible for nuclear bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile forces, senior air force officials announced Friday. The move is part of an organizational shake-up prompted by recent nuclear mishaps that were blamed on a decade-long slide in the air force's stewardship of its nuclear forces.

An earthquake with a magnitude of around 7 may have hit the construction site of a nuclear power plant in Aomori Prefecture twice in the past 6,000 to 7,000 years, researchers said Friday. The researchers urged the government and Electric Power Development Co., commonly known as J-Power, which is building the Oma Nuclear Power Plant on the Shimokita Peninsula, to review their safety procedures for ensuring the plant's quake resistance, because they did not take into account the possibility of such a strong temblor striking the plant site.

In a unique move to propagate the message of nuclear weapon free world, 102 Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bomb survivors have reached Kochi. With India making the right moves to strike the nuke deal, the Japanese Hibakushas or the atomic attack survivors are worried about the safety of the world.

CPI (M)'s Kerala unit today said the move to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal was aimed at bringing India closer to the U.S. to enforce American 'hegemony' over the Asian nations. The U.S, which does not like China's emerging stature as another economic super power, apprehends that it cannot impose its hegemony in Asia if India, Russia and China forged closer ties, CPI-M politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, who is also Kerala unit secretary, said here. America wanted to "strike the nuclear deal" to turn New Delhi as its strategic partner, he said The American initiative to see through the nuclear deal was a clear ploy to get India's support for its 'secret imperialistic designs; at a time when others, including the Latin American nations, "are found to be refusing to toe the U.S. line," Vijayan said.

The Tokyo High Court is expected to propose that two reactors at a nuclear power plant in an area where a powerful earthquake is feared to strike be permanently shut down until their safety is confirmed as part of a settlement plan, sources involved in the case said. If the settlement is reached, it is expected to have a huge influence on discussions on the safety of nuclear power plants, say experts.

Russian strategic bombers may soon be deployed at airbases in Cuba, Venezuela and Algeria as a response to the U.S. missile shield in Europe and NATO's expansion, Russian daily Izvestia said on Thursday. Moscow has strongly opposed the possible deployment by the U.S. of 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and an accompanying tracking radar in the Czech Republic as a threat to its national security. Washington says the defenses are needed to deter a possible strike from Iran, or other "rogue" states.

America's twin crises of sky-rocketing energy costs and catastrophic climate change effects shouldn't be a convenient excuse to push nuclear power as a viable replacement for coal, oil and natural gas power-generating plants. The nuclear disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and the near-disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 are reasons enough to strike nuclear power from the list of acceptable non-fossil and carbon energy sources. The nuclear power

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

An appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling striking down Initiative 297, Washington state's voter-approved measure that would have barred the federal government from shipping waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all existing waste there is cleaned up.

PLYMOUTH - Entergy Corp. plans to bar roughly 250 Pilgrim nuclear power plant workers from the site if a new contract agreement can't be reached by the time their current contract expires at the end of the day Thursday. The Utility Workers Union of America Local 369 plans to hold a vote Wednesday in Plymouth that would give the Braintree-based union's negotiators the authority to go on strike at the Entergy plant.

24 reasons to shut San Onofre Nuclear (Waste) Generating Station Today 1) Diablo Canyon's operators have stated that they feel terrorists would be much more likely to strike San Onofre, and that is one of the factors making them feel safe from terrorism. If there's any truth to their opinion, the correct response is surely to shut San Onofre!

America's twin crises of sky-rocketing energy costs and cat- astrophic climate change effects shouldn't be a convenient excuse to push nuclear power as a viable replacement for coal, oil and natural gas power-generating plants. The nuclear disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and the near-disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 are reasons enough to strike nuclear power from the list of acceptable non-fossil and carbon energy sources.

America's twin crises of sky-rocketing energy costs and catastrophic climate change effects shouldn't be a convenient excuse to push nuclear power as a viable replacement for coal, oil and natural gas power-generating plants. The nuclear disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and the near-disaster at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 are reasons enough to strike nuclear power from the list of acceptable non-fossil and carbon energy sources.

Russia called on the United States on Saturday to take Moscow's concerns into account when it reviews plans to deploy a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe to counter nuclear threats. Washington has proposed a missile shield to deflect what it sees as the risk of nuclear strikes from Iran on Europe, but the administration of President Barack Obama, who is lukewarm on the plan, is reviewing options. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference that a system deployed in Eastern Europe would be seen by Moscow as a threat to Russia.

North Korea keeps shooting its long range missiles now and then. These missiles do not just reach all important targets; they can also deliver a nuclear message. Its leaders, or rather leader, has effectively made the world believe that he is unpredictable, that one day he could really strike American or South Korean targets. Japan, Russia and China are all concerned, but not as badly as the other two countries. He has the gun; he seems to have the will to use it. The missing element is the excuse. (Of course, the other side of the argument is that he is already using them and reaping the benefits at least from the immediate south.) Now there are many of us who think that we are too far away or too detached to be concerned about this issue.