• Troubled $1.2 billion nuclear detection program cancelled

    After news hit that DHS was planning on spending additional money to procure a troubled nuclear detection system that has been plagued with problems, the Obama administration decided to scrap the $1.2 billion program

  • Crystals developed to detect chemical and nuclear bombs

    Researchers are currently exploring the use of crystals to help detect radioactive materials as well as chemical bombs; using a $900,000 grant awarded by the National Nuclear Security Administration Office’s Nonproliferation Research and Development arm, scientists from Fisk University and Wake Forest University are studying the viability of using strontium iodide crystals to screen cargo containers for dangerous explosives

  • Japan halts shipments of radioactive beef

    The Japanese government is coming under fire for only halting shipments of contaminated cattle now, four months after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami that led to the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi atomic energy station; authorities recently discovered that 637 cattle had been fed hay contaminated with radioactive cesium and then shipped from farms in northern prefectures including Fukushima

  • Troubled radiation screening program gets additional $300 million

    The Advanced Spectroscopic Portal (ASP) procurement program has hit another snag in its short-lived, yet troubled life; a recent unreleased Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that DHS plans to spend more than $300 million dollars to purchase several hundred ASPs, radiation detection equipment, that has not been fully tested and may not even work at all

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  • New radiation detector unveiled, does not rely on helium-3

    Princeton Security Technologies, Inc. appears to have a solution to the quickly dwindling helium-3 stockpiles; on Tuesday the company announced that it had developed and delivered the first commercially available nuclear materials detector that does not rely on helium-3

  • Japan's prime minister pushes to end nuke program

    Japan could soon be following in the footsteps of Germany and shut down its nuclear energy plants; at a televised press conference on Wednesday, Prime Minister Naota Kan pushed to end Japan’s nuclear program; “Japan should aim for a society that does not depend on nuclear energy,” Kan said

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  • U.K. awards 160 million Pound nuclear decommissioning contracts

    The decommissioning of one of U.K. oldest nuclear plants — Sellafield, located close to the village of Seascale on the coast of the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England — has taken a giant step forward thanks to the awarding of three waste retrieval contracts worth more than 160 million Pounds

  • 45 percent of children in Fukushima exposed to thyroid radiation

    A survey revealed that 45 percent of children living near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have been exposed to thyroid radiation; following the nuclear disaster and the revelation that radiation was leaking from reactor no. 1, researchers tested more than 1,000 children from newborns to age fifteen in the Fukushima Prefecture; children were found to have been exposed to 0.04 microsievert per hour or less in most cases

  • New York governor determined to close Indian Point nuclear plant

    The Indian Point nuclear power plant, located thirty-five miles north of New York City, is facing increasing pressure from Governor Andrew Cuomo and senior officials say the governor is determined to shut it down; the governor’s hand has been strengthened by new legislation that streamlines the approval process for siting new power plants in New York, a move that would make it easier to replace Indian Point; closing the nuclear plant would be a major step toward reshaping the state’s energy policy as the plant produces 2,000 megawatts and provides New York City and Westchester with 25 percent of their power — but the nuclear disaster in Japan caused by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami raised fresh concerns about the plant, which is located near a fault line

  • Los Alamos nuclear waste safe from wildfire

    A wildfire is raging near the Los Alamos national Lab; the fire, in some places, is only yards away from the lab’s outside perimeter — and it is eight miles from the so-called Area G; the Area G site is a 63-acre storage facility where thousands of drums of nuclear waste sit, many of which are outdoors started; the good news is that there is no danger that the fire will reach Area G because in 2000, an even more intense fire burned 90 percent of the forest that covered the area between the current fire and the nuclear waste disposal site, making it impossible for the current wild fire to reach the nuclear material on storage

  • DHS tests three radiation detection systems at Belmont Stakes race

    DHS officials recently announced that it had tested three developmental systems designed to detect radiological weapons at the Belmont Stakes horse race in New York held on Saturday, 11 June; DHS tested two mobile Stand-Off Radiation Detection Systems; the third device tested was a Roadside tracker which scans for radiation sources in vehicles

  • Exigent helps Navy hospital monitor radiation

    Last week Exigent Security Products announced that it will supply a large amount of radiation detection systems to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland; the latest shipment is the third order from the Navy medical center and is for the company’s Radiation Detection Area Monitors which will be used to monitor radioactive materials used to treat patients

  • Iran pushes ahead with nuke plans, despite seismic warnings

    Iranian officials have chosen to ignore the warnings of top scientists and continue with the construction of nuclear facilities near earthquake prone regions; according to an official with the International Atomic Energy Agency, in a top level meeting Iran’s leaders recently decided to move ahead with plans to construct nuclear facilities, despite Iranian scientists’ warnings that “data collected since the year 2000 shows the incontrovertible risks of establishing nuclear sites in the proximity of fault lines’ in Khuzestan as well as nineteen other Iranian provinces; Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world with major fault lines covering at least 90 percent of it

  • Japanese firms purchase radiation detection devices

    Universal Detection Technology (UNDT) recently announced that it has shipped radiation detection devices to companies across Japan including those in heavy industries, telecommunications, and electronics; according to UNDT, Japanese companies have been purchasing a range of devices including dosimeter systems to measure cumulative radiation exposure and advanced survey meters and surface monitors that detect the amount of contamination on surfaces

  • Glimmer of hope for Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project

    Over the last twenty-five years, the United States has spent around $15 billion on the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository which was supposed to offer a solution to the growing nuclear waste problems at U.S. nuclear power plants; in what some charged was a political move by President Barack Obama to secure Nevada’s Democratic tilt, the administration defunded the project, and funding for work on the site was terminated altogether effective with the 2011 federal budget passed by Congress on 14 April 2011; some in Congress want the project to continue, and the House Appropriations Committee has added $35 million for the project in the 2012 energy spending bill; this is far cry from past appropriations for the project — typically around $400 million a year — and even one of the supporters, Representative Mark Simpson (R-Idaho) described it as symbolic gesture; there is also a case now being heard in federal court, in which the administration is charged with overstepping its bounds by cancelling the project without congressional permission