Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Alarm systems at Britain's nuclear weapons factory were put out of action for 10 days by last summer's floods, leaving tens of thousands of people without warning in the event of a nuclear accident. Floods near Reading: Parts of the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Burghfield came within 2 to 3 hours of being overwhelmed by the waters Photo: AP The floods disabled key radiation alarm systems, designed to detect an impending nuclear accident at the Atomic Weapons Establishment site at Burghfield, in Berkshire, according to secret documents seen by Channel 4 News.

The last five strontium-fuelled lighthouses along the Barents Sea coast are now being replaced with solar technology. All together, 153 of the radioactive lighthouses have been removed as part of a Russian-Norwegian project. Since year 2000, Murmansk regional authorities have together with the Norwegian Finnmark county governor removed all the radioactive lighthouses (RITEGs) from the Russian Barents Sea coast. As many as 85 of the lighthouses were located in Murmansk Oblast, while 68 of them were in Arkhangelsk Oblast.

The chairman of Marathon Resources has made a formal apology to the owners of Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary for his company's misconduct at the site in outback South Australia. The company dumped thousands of uranium drill samples in plastic and calico bags in two large trenches in the sanctuary last year.

Gerald Hasenkamp was in excruciating pain. Cancer had invaded his colon, his mouth, his lungs and finally his bones. When his wife, Dee, tried to prop him up in bed, his collarbone snapped. When a nurse tried to take a blood sample, his arm broke. Finally, the doctors told Dee Hasenkamp that she had to tell her husband to let go. His fight was over.

In the wan light of a snowy spring morning, belongings scattered on the floor of an abandoned kindergarten speak of a time before the children of Pripyat lost their innocence. Musty sandals and ballet slippers for tiny feet. Cardboard pictures of Lenin as a young boy and as a youthful leader-the Soviet equivalent of baseball cards. In the next room, dolls in various states of dress and dismemberment, lolling on metal cots where the children once napped. Finally, on the gymnasium wall, photos of the children themselves-doing calisthenics, climbing monkey bars, balancing on boards.

Japan Atomic Power Co. will continue operating Japan's oldest commercial-basis light-water reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, through 2016, scrapping its initial plan to suspend its operation next year, its chief said Thursday. Hiroshi Morimoto, president of Japan Atomic Power, conveyed the decision in a meeting with Fukui prefectural officials. Japan Atomic Power had intended to cease operating the boiling-water No. 1 reactor in 2010 to coincide with planned start of operations of two new reactors - No. 3 and No. 4 reactors - at the Tsuruga nuclear plant.

Some 50,000 anti-nuclear protestors demonstrated in Berlin on Saturday against Germany possibly reversing a decision to abandon atomic energy and extending the life of its nuclear power plants. The marchers, backed by 400 tractors, demanded that Germany stick to its commitment to close all nuclear plants by 2020 and also called for the closure of a radioactive dump at Gorleben in eastern Germany. The police refused to give an estimate of the crowd but organisers - ranging from the Greens to members of the Protestant church - put the figure at 50,000 people, marching from the Berlin train station to the Brandenburg Gate.

An investigation team has found three times more highly radioactive plutonium in the disused nuclear waste depot in Asse than the inventory states, the German Environment Ministry announced Saturday. The waste depot, near the town of Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony, was taken over by the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) from the allegedly careless former proprietor Helmholtz Zentrum in January. The BfS is currently carrying out an investigation on the site and has begun medical tests on former workers. A new investigation has revealed that 28 kilogrammes of radioactive plutonium are stored in the underground shaft depot, three times as much as the environment ministry of Lower Saxony previously understood to be there.

that once produced plutonium for our nation's atom bombs. That's how I spent my Labor Day weekend. Located just outside of Richland, in eastern Washington State, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation spans 586 square miles on high desert plains. The mighty Columbia River marks the site's eastern boundary where its waters once served as the depository for a few of the reactors' contaminated effluent. Belly-high barbwire fencing, with phallic smoke stacks positioned next to its aging boxy structures, surrounds Hanford's dry austere landscape. The aura of this rough terrain, taken from the Wanapum tribe only 66 years ago, is evocative to say the least. Hanford's 3-B Reactor. Photo by Chelsea Mosher At noon on this particular Saturday a group of us climbed onto a bus in Richland to tour Hanford's notorious B Reactor, which was designated a National Historic Landmark in August of 2008. Constructed by DuPont in just 11 months back in the early 1940s, B was the first full-scale plutonium production plant in the world. This summer the Department of Energy, along with the help of the Fluor Corporation, provided regular public tours of the reactor, hoping that one day the facility will be turned into a national museum of sorts.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.5 shook Shizuoka Prefecture and its vicinity, including the Tokyo metropolitan area, at 5:07 a.m. Tuesday, injuring 112 people and causing two nuclear reactors to automatically shut down. The Meteorological Agency said that while the temblor will not lead to the massive quake feared in the Tokai region - the so-called Tokai quake - it will further study the data on this quake.

A three-part exhibit titled "Against Nuclear Arms" opened Monday at the United Nations as testament to the victims of the atomic bombings in Japan and 40 years of nuclear tests carried out in Kazakhstan. The exhibit is being presented by the Japan and Kazakhstan missions as part of ongoing efforts for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation. It will be on display until Sept. 30.

People apparently opposed to nuclear power in Alberta have depicted their views on at least one billboard that touts the controversial technology. Bruce Power, an Ontario company exploring nuclear development in the province, has put up billboards pitching the power source as a clean energy alternative in four Alberta communities. But one of the company's ads recently was painted over with a glowing, dead cow with a nuclear symbol branded on its rump and the slogan "A New Brand of AB Beef." There was also a radioactive symbol painted in the "o" in Bruce Power's name. Albert Cooper, a spokesman with Bruce Power, shrugged off the graffiti. "It's not a big deal," he said. "We simply replaced the board and moved on." Still, photos of the billboard were circulated among anti-nuclear advocates.

Israel recently asked the United States to assist in the establishment of a nuclear power plant in the southern Negev desert, Yedioth Aharonoth reported Friday. For the time being, no response was received from Washington. The government needs America's approval so it can build an internationally monitored civilian reactor while avoiding monitoring of Israel's other nuclear capabilities.

Green party top candidate Jürgen Trittin told Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag that shutting down old nuclear power stations would be a condition of entering a government coalition following September's election. "The Green party will not sign any coalition contract that softens the withdrawal from nuclear power. On the contrary, we will insist that older nuclear power stations are shut down ahead of schedule," he said. In an interview spelling out the Green party's position ahead of the election campaign, Trittin also effectively ruled out any cooperation with the hard-line socialist Left party on a national level.

40 year old rusty spent nuclear fuel containers from Russia's abounded submarine base Gremikha were shipped to Murmansk this week. The voyage from Gremikha to Murmansk normally takes one day. This is the same route as the Russian retired submarine K-159 took when it sank northeast of the inlet to the Kola Bay in August 2003. The vessel which is sailing with the highly radioactive spent fuel this week is the 35 year old Serebryanka. The rusty spent nuclear fuel containers have been stored outdoor at Gremikha for 40 years, posing a grave radiation threat. They contain uranium fuel from some of the Soviet Union's first nuclear powered submarines, at that time were based at Gremikha. The submarines reloaded their deadly radioactive spent fuel to the onshore open-air storage site.

Britain's lack of clarity on the future of the Trident missile system is helping to aid nuclear proliferation, an influential committee of MPs has said. Refusals by Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme and North Korea's insistence it will weaponise its plutonium stocks are down in part to no commitment from the UK to disarm, the foreign affairs committee said. The committee said the group of five recognised nuclear powers had "failed to live up to its nuclear disarmament commitments". "We commend the steps that the government has taken to scale down and de-escalate the UK's nuclear arsenal," MPs wrote. "We welcome the prime minister's announcement that the new Trident submarines are to carry fewer missiles than the current boats, and we recommend that the government should do more to highlight this and other nuclear disarmament steps which it has taken."