nuclear reactor

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Robot Emerges From Fukushima With a First Clue

Removal of tiny fuel debris sample is first step toward much bigger cleanup at Japanese plant

(Newser) - A robot that has spent months inside the ruins of a nuclear reactor at the tsunami-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant delivered a tiny sample of melted nuclear fuel on Thursday, in what plant officials said was a step toward beginning the cleanup of hundreds of tons of melted fuel debris. The...

UN Nuclear Watchdog Issues Warning on Chernobyl

IAEA says it has lost contact with systems reporting on nuclear material at plant in northern Ukraine

(Newser) - The International Atomic Energy Agency has been keeping tabs on nuclear-linked sites in Ukraine as the war there waged by Russia continues, and recent news is concerning. Per Reuters , the international group that reports to the United Nations on nuclear power and technology worldwide, says it has lost contact with...

Report Holds 'Deeply Troubling' News on N. Korea's Nuclear Reactor

Yongbyon nuclear reactor, inactive since 2018, seems to have been restarted

(Newser) - North Korea appears to have restarted the operation of its main nuclear reactor used to produce weapons fuels, the UN atomic agency said, as the North openly threatens to enlarge its nuclear arsenal amid long-dormant nuclear diplomacy with the United States. The annual report by the International Atomic Energy Agency...

Metal Panel Found in 1991 Could Hold Earhart Clues

It'll be tested using a nuclear reactor

(Newser) - The quest to discover what happened to Amelia Earhart has turned to ... a nuclear reactor. Popular Mechanics reports scientists at Penn State University are focusing not on Earhart herself but her plane, a Lockheed Model 10-E Electra. In 1991, longtime Earhart searcher Ric Gillespie found an aluminum panel on the...

How Trump's Moon Plan Might Actually Pan Out

There really are plans to mine the moon

(Newser) - President Trump issued an executive order last month allowing US companies to mine the moon, but—is this really possible? Sure enough, Popular Mechanics lays out enough of the science, current projects, and history of moon-mining enthusiasm to make it seem real. "We've just been moving in a...

After Khashoggi Murder, Feds OK'd Saudi Nuclear Permits

Sen. Tim Kaine slams 'eagerness to give Saudis anything they want'

(Newser) - Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine cried foul Tuesday after learning that the Trump administration approved the transfer of nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia on two occasions after the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The Department of Energy informed the Senate on Tuesday that licenses to export the sensitive technology...

Removal of Fuel From Melted Reactor Begins

Milestone reached in Fukushima cleanup

(Newser) - The operator of the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has begun removing fuel from a cooling pool at one of three reactors that melted down in the 2011 disaster, a milestone in the decades-long process to decommission the plant. Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday that workers operating from a control...

Satellite Images Show 'Rapid' Work at N. Korea Nuke Site

This shows the need for a deal, monitoring group says

(Newser) - North Korea is talking the talk on denuclearization but there's no sign yet of it walking the walk, according to the monitoring group 38 North. The group says satellite images taken June 21—more than a week after President Trump's Singapore summit with Kim Jong Un—show that...

Truth of One of Most Daring, Mysterious Airstrikes Revealed

Israel confirms it was behind 2007 Syria strike

(Newser) - The Israeli military confirmed Wednesday it carried out the 2007 airstrike in Syria that destroyed what was believed to be a nuclear reactor, lifting the veil of secrecy over one of its most daring and mysterious operations in recent memory. Although Israel was widely believed to have been behind the...

Belgium Getting Residents Ready for Nuclear Accident

Country's 7 nuclear plants are aging, cracking, leaking

(Newser) - Over 4 million boxes of iodine tablets have begun arriving in pharmacies across Belgium as the country prepares for a possible emergency involving one of its seven aging nuclear reactors, AFP reports. According to CNN , iodine tablets, which help with radiation buildup in the thyroid gland, will be provided free...

Toshiba Throws In Nuclear Towel: Chapter 11 for Westinghouse

Challenges proved too great—and may be nuclear industry harbinger

(Newser) - More fallout from Toshiba's reported "nuclear" loss last month, this time in the form of a bankruptcy filing. In what the AP says was a "largely expected" move, Toshiba noted in a statement Wednesday that its Westinghouse nuclear unit has submitted a Chapter 11 petition to the...

Robot Enters Fukushima Reactor, Doesn't Fare So Well

'Scorpion' robot's crawling function fails before it could locate melted fuel

(Newser) - Robot probes sent to one of Japan's wrecked Fukushima nuclear reactors have suggested worse-than-anticipated challenges for the plant's ongoing cleanup. The plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the remote-controlled "scorpion" robot was sent into Unit 2's containment vessel Thursday to investigate the area around...

To Understand Toshiba's $6B Nuclear Loss, Go South

Bloomberg looks at what's behind company's financial woes

(Newser) - The chairman of Japanese electronics and energy giant Toshiba resigned Tuesday after the company logged such massive losses—a projected $6.3 billion—in its nuclear business that it must sell its lucrative computer-chip business to avoid going belly-up. Well, maybe $6.3 billion. Reuters reports that a day of...

Fukushima Woman First to Speak Out About Her Cancer

'Don't rock the boat' culture has left cancer patients scared to talk after nuclear meltdown

(Newser) - She's 21, has thyroid cancer, and wants people in her prefecture in northeastern Japan to get screened for it. That statement might not seem provocative, but her prefecture is Fukushima, and of the 173 young people with confirmed or suspected cases since the 2011 nuclear meltdowns there, she's...

Energy Source Could Power Earth 'for 30M Years'

But ITER, a thermonuclear plant, faces all sorts of challenges

(Newser) - Hoping scientists will find a brilliant alternative to oil and coal? How about a thermonuclear reactor that will hit temperatures ten times hotter than the sun and "could solve the world's energy problems for the next thirty million years," writes Raffi Khatchadourian in the New Yorker . The...

IAEA: There's Activity at N. Korea Reactor Site

But agency can't confirm if reactor has been restarted

(Newser) - North Korea vowed to restart its Yongbyon reactor in April, and the International Atomic Energy Agency today indicates that the country continues to head down that path. Relying largely on satellite imagery, the IAEA's chief noted that "activities have been observed at the site that are consistent with...

Japan Will Go Nuclear Power-Free (Again) Tomorrow

Last reactor will be turned off

(Newser) - Japan will soon be completely without nuclear power. Again. The country is switching off the last of its 50 nuclear reactors—reactor 4 at Oi in western Japan—for maintenance tomorrow, and it's unclear if or when it will go online again, reports CNN . The country went completely nuclear...

Teen Builds Nuclear Reactor, Booted From Science Fair

... on a technicality

(Newser) - Wyoming's Conrad Farnsworth has done something maybe 60 people around the world have managed to do: achieve nuclear fusion. Which is to say, he built a nuclear reactor in his father's garage, reports the Casper Star-Tribune . Not bad for a high school student, though his feat is actually...

Fukushima Workers Battle Radioactive Flood

Experts warn plant is still accident-prone

(Newser) - More than two years after a quake and tsunami crippled Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, workers are battling yet another crisis, the New York Times finds. Huge amounts of groundwater have been pouring into the plant, leaving workers struggling to contain a flood of 75 gallons of radioactive water...

North Korea's New Threat: We're Restarting Reactor

Ban Ki-moon fears country is on a 'collision course'

(Newser) - The latest in the almost-daily series of threats from Pyongyang is a vow to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor and other facilities to "bolster up the nuclear armed force" and provide electricity, according to a rep for the country's Department of Atomic Energy. The Yongbyon reactor was shut...

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