Nuclear Energy // Current TV

Venezuela, France mull nuclear energy deal

PARIS, France (AP) -- The French and Venezuelan foreign ministers say they are looking... more

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Senate gives final OK to US-India nuclear deal

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Wednesday voted to overturn a three-decade ban on atomic trade with India, giving final congressional approval to a landmark U.S.-India nuclear cooperation accord and handing President Bush a rare foreign policy victory in his final months in office.

The accord, which the Senate passed 86-13, will allow American businesses to begin selling nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and U.N. inspections at India's civilian, but not military, nuclear plants. The pact, which the House approved Saturday, marks a major shift in U.S. policy toward nuclear-armed India after decades of mutual wariness.

It now goes to Bush for his signature.

Bush hailed the Senate's vote, saying in a statement that the legislation approving the accord "will strengthen our global nuclear nonproliferation efforts, protect the environment, create jobs and assist India in meeting its growing energy needs in a responsible manner."

Congressional approval caps an aggressive three-year diplomatic and political push by the Bush administration, which portrays the pact as the cornerstone of new ties with a democratic Asian power that long has maintained what administration officials consider a responsible nuclear program. Administration officials also have championed the opportunities for U.S. companies to do business in India's multibillion-dollar nuclear market.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the pact protects U.S. national security and nonproliferation efforts while building "a strategic partnership with a nation that shares our democratic values and will exert increasing influence on the world stage."

"With a well-educated middle class that is larger than the entire U.S. population, India can be an anchor of stability in Asia and an engine of global economic growth," Lugar said.

Opponents say lawmakers, eager to leave Washington to campaign for the November elections, rushed consideration of a complicated deal that they said could spark a nuclear arms race in Asia. The extra fuel the measure provides, they say, could boost India's nuclear bomb stockpile by freeing up its domestic fuel for weapons.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the accord "will almost certainly expand the production of nuclear weapons by India" and help dismantle the architecture of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global agreement that provides civilian nuclear trade in exchange for a pledge from nations not to pursue nuclear weapons.WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate on Wednesday voted to overturn a three-decade ban on... more

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Cancer treatment under threat from transport restrictions

The UK nearly ran out of cancer treatment isotopes last week after just one delivery... more

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India and France in nuclear deal

India and France have signed a major co-operation pact which paves the way for the... more

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Nuclear power to come with a designer label

New nuclear power stations in the UK could come with cool new looks, thanks to the... more

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CFR: History of Iran’s Nuclear Program

The up-and-down history of Iran's flirtation with nuclear weapons, and where the... more

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Portable Nuclear Power Shows Promise - NuScale Power for Nuclear Energy - Popular Mechanics

New technology gets us closer to a solution for using NUCLEAR ENERGY safely!!!

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oil and energy news

LG Electronics will buy a 75 per cent stake in Conergy’s solar module plant in... more

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The looming nuclear nightmare in the backwoods of North Carolina

Looking for weapons of mass destruction? Try the backwoods of North Carolina. The site is easy to find. You don't need infrared telemetry, informants, or a global positioning satellite. Just follow the railroad tracks deep into the heart of the triangle area to the gleaming cooling tower of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant, which rises like a concrete beacon out of the forest.

It may not look like much-a run-of-the-mill nuke, but inside the confines of the steel fence that rings the plant, resides one of the most lethal patches of ground in North America. Shearon Harris is not just a nuclear power-generating station, but a repository for highly radioactive spent fuel rods from two other nuclear plants owned by Progress Energy.

Those railroad tracks? They're for hauling nuclear waste. The spent fuel rods are carted by rail from the Brunswick and Robinson nuclear reactors to Shearon Harris, where they are stored in four densely packed pools, filled with circulating cold water to keep the waste from heating up. The pools are interconnected and enclosed within one building. That building is attached to the reactor itself. Together, they form the largest radioactive waste storage pools in the country.

All this makes Shearon Harris a very inviting target for would-be terrorists. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has fingered Shearon Harris as one of the most vulnerable terrorist targets in the nation.

Potential atomic terrorists don't have to steal plutonium, take a crash course in physics, or concoct a bomb to manufacture a radiological nightmare scenario in the heart of the Carolinas. All they have to do is penetrate the security fence of a lightly guarded commercial reactor and find a way to ignite the pools of high-level radioactive waste. The easiest method is to disrupt the circulation of the water system that keeps the pools cool.

The resulting fire would be virtually unquenchable. Moreover, because the water system that feeds the waste pools is also connected to the Shearon Harris reactor, a pool fire could also trigger a nuclear meltdown. And so it goes.

An uncontrolled pool fire and meltdown at Shearon Harris would put more than two million residents of this rapidly growing section of North Carolina in extreme peril. A recent study by the Brookhaven Labs, not known to overstate nuclear risks, estimates that a pool fire could cause 140,000 cancers, contaminate thousands of square miles of land, and cause over $500 billion in off-site property damage.

Looking for weapons of mass destruction? Try the backwoods of North Carolina. The site... more

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France: uranium leaked in several nuclear incidents

Several incidents at nuclear sites have shook France in recent days. In... more

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Don't Fall For Nuclear Power

While the presidential hopefuls trade barbs and accuse each other of flip- flopping, they agree with President Bush on their enthusiastic support for nuclear power.

Sen. John McCain has called for 100 new nuclear power plants. Sen. Barack Obama, in a July 2007 Democratic debate, answered a pro-nuclear power audience member, "I actually think that we should explore nuclear power as part of the energy mix."

Among Obama's top contributors are executives of Exelon Corp., a leading nuclear power operator in the nation. Just last week, Exelon released a new plan called "Exelon 2020: A Low-Carbon Roadmap." The nuclear power industry sees global warming as a golden opportunity to sell its insanely expensive and dangerous power plants.

But nuclear power is not a solution to climate change — rather, it causes problems. Amory Lovins is the co-founder and chief scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado. He makes simple, powerful points against nuclear: "The nuclear revival that we often hear about is not actually happening. It is a very carefully fabricated illusion ... there are no buyers. Wall Street is not putting a penny of private capital into the industry, despite 100-plus percent subsidies." He adds: "Basically, we can have as many nuclear plants as Congress can force the taxpayers to pay for. But you won't get any in a market economy."

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The presidential hopefuls are wrong on nuclear power. Wind, solar and microgeneration (generating electricity and heat at the same time, in smaller plants), on the other hand, are taking off globally, gaining billions of dollars in private investments. Lovins summarizes: "One of the big reasons we have an oil problem and a climate problem today is we spent our money on the wrong stuff. If we had spent it on efficiency and renewables, those problems would've gone away, and we would've made trillions of dollars' profit on the deal because it's so much cheaper to save energy than to supply it." The answer is blowing in the wind.
While the presidential hopefuls trade barbs and accuse each other of flip- flopping,... more

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Iran given two-week deadline to end nuclear impasse

Iran was given a fortnight to agree to freeze its uranium enrichment programme... more

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US 'to open Iran base in weeks'

The US has refused to deny reports that it will establish a US diplomatic presence... more

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Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste!

"Over the past few decades a series of studies has called stereotypes [about... more

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Inexorable Comeback of Nuclear Energy

Oil prices are sky high. Greenhouse gases are driving up temperatures around the... more

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Iran test-fires missiles for second day

Iran today test-fired missiles in the Gulf for a second consecutive day, Iranian state... more

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Uranium spills into two French rivers

French officials barred residents in three towns from using two rivers in southern... more

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India's Communists to Decide Strategy on Nuclear Deal Tomorrow

Excerpt: India's Communist parties will tomorrow decide their strategy on... more

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Forty years of the NPT

The cornerstone of international peace, the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, is 40... more

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YouTube - Surprise! ... Obama's people are Clinton's people

Democrats and ruplicans are the same.. they belong to the corporatocracy... more

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