An Expert’s Look At The Proposed 2012 DOE Budget

March 3rd, 2011 | National Security News Service | | Leave a comment

Bob Alvarez is one of the world’s foremost experts on the United States nuclear weapons program. He is widely credited with opening up the secret history of the Department of Energy as an aide to former Energy Secretary Hazel O’Leary and former Senator John Glenn. Alvarez is known for his unvarnished candor and his willingness to educate newbies about the National Nuclear Security Administration and their stewardship of what he calls “national sacrifice zones” that are the nation’s nuclear weapons complex. Continue reading An Expert’s Look At The Proposed 2012 DOE Budget

Little Progress Disposing of 34 Metric Tons of Surplus Weapons Grade Plutonium

January 26th, 2011 | National Security News Service | | Leave a comment

Nuclear Waste Container coming out of Nevada Test Site. Photo: Bill Ebbesen
Nuclear Waste Container coming out of Nevada Test Site. Photo: Bill Ebbesen
Too slow, too expensive, too risky: the multi-billion dollar Mixed Oxide Fuel (MOX) program, under construction at the Savannah River Site, continues to be controversial. A technology chosen by the United States in the mid-1990s to contribute to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, today it is being held out as a solution for America’s energy future.

In 1996, the U.S.-Russian Independent Scientific Commission on Disposition of Excess Weapons Plutonium was put in place to propose options to decrease risks of nuclear proliferation. In the framework of the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) signed by the United States and Russia, the two countries had indeed committed to dispose of 34 metric tons of their surplus weapons plutonium to reduce the threat that this material could be stolen or diverted. Continue reading Little Progress Disposing of 34 Metric Tons of Surplus Weapons Grade Plutonium

Oil and Gas Companies Are Not Invited to Nuclear Energy Giant’s Birthday Party

January 18th, 2011 | National Security, National Security News Service | | Leave a comment

Areva, the atomic energy giant 80% owned by the French government, is launching a new international advertising campaign to celebrate its 10th birthday. The 60-second animated film entitled “Energy: One Powerful Story” shows nuclear energy as a vector for human progress since ancient time. A hundred artists worked for months to create it. The goal of Areva is to highlight its commitment to developing innovative and sustainable solutions for clean energy that could play a role for future generations in a carbon-free world. Continue reading Oil and Gas Companies Are Not Invited to Nuclear Energy Giant’s Birthday Party

Dangerous High-Level Nuclear Waste with Nowhere to Go

January 11th, 2011 | National Security News Service | | Leave a comment
Alvin Ward Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant. Photo: NRC
Alvin Ward Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant. Photo: NRC

Many nuclear power advocates appeared in front of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future in Augusta, Georgia, on Friday in support of a permanent repository for nuclear waste and supported the concept of reprocessing nuclear waste.

Environmentalists opposed reprocessing because there is no permanent waste repository and reprocessing creates more waste. They believe reprocessing wastes taxpayer dollars on special interests.

BRAC went to Augusta because the Department of Energy’s massive nuclear facility, the Savannah River Site, and the Southern Company’s two huge new nuclear power plants under construction are nearby.
Continue reading Dangerous High-Level Nuclear Waste with Nowhere to Go