Ranking Nuclear Security By Country

The Nuclear Threat Initiative, which is headed by former US Senator Sam Nunn, has released a study of 32 nations that have nuclear capabilities - both nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear programs - that ranks each country by taking into account on-site security, political stability, economic conditions, security and safety, international commitments (such as nuclear nonproliferation), and other factors.

The 122-page report is titled the “Nuclear Materials Security Index” and its accompanying Web site is www.ntiindex.org. Australia came out on top, the report says, because it has reduced its holdings of weapon-useable materials to “a small amount” and did well on the overall indicators. It received 94 out of 100 possible points.

Among the nine countries known to possess nuclear arms, Britain came out on top with a score of 79. The report credits its high status to concrete security measures as well as “its commitment to and follow-through on international obligations.”

The United States scored 78 — a fairly good ranking, the evaluators said, considering its possession of a sprawling nuclear complex that dates to the earliest days of the atomic era.

Japan received a score of 68 because of its vast stores of plutonium, its relatively poor measures with security personnel and its lack of an independent regulatory agency.

A surprise nation on the list is Iran. It claims no ambitions for making bomb fuel even while global leaders worry that its growing atomic program seeks just that capability. The study team said that Iran was included in the analysis because of its possession of highly enriched uranium for a research reactor in Tehran.

Iran received an overall score of 46, its standing undercut by what the report judged to be corruption, political instability, and poor procedures for nuclear control and accounting. Of 32 nations, it ranked 30th.

Pakistan, with a security score of 41 and a nuclear complex that is undergoing rapid growth, ranked 31st.

North Korea came in last with a score of 37. The report cited a total of 10 indicators that came in below the global average, including site and transportation security as well as political stability.

The full report is here.

The index is based on information that is widely available and doesn't require special intelligence gathering means. Israel's ranking is based on the fact that the country refuses to divulge information about its program - refusing to confirm or deny its nuclear program. Thus, security protocols are rated low, even though its believed to be quite secure.

It's an issue repeated with China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

As for international treaties and agreements, more than 70% of countries without nuclear materials have ratified the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT), but several countries with weapons-usable nuclear materials have signed but not ratified the agreement: Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Vietnam haven't signed the convention.

Ultimately, the goal is reducing the chances of nuclear weapons proliferation, and exposing the public to the dangers of weapons materials falling into the wrong hands.

Germany Shuts Down Nuclear Plants With No Plan For How To Make Up Energy Difference

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Japanese quake/tsunami, Germany made the rash decision to shutter nuclear power plants across the country.

I say it was a rash decision, because instead of figuring out whether the country could actually handle the decision to take that many nuclear power plants offline, it decided that it would take the plants offline and see whether the country could handle the loss after the fact.

Nuclear plants have long generated nearly a quarter of Germany’s electricity. But after the tsunami and earthquake that sent radiation spewing from Fukushima, half a world away, the government disconnected the 8 oldest of Germany’s 17 reactors — including the two in this drab factory town — within days. Three months later, with a new plan to power the country without nuclear energy and a growing reliance on renewable energy, Parliament voted to close them permanently. There are plans to retire the remaining nine reactors by 2022.

As a result, electricity producers are scrambling to ensure an adequate supply. Customers and companies are nervous about whether their lights and assembly lines will stay up and running this winter. Economists and politicians argue over how much prices will rise.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Let’s just go for renewables,’ and I’m quite sure we can someday do without nuclear, but this is too abrupt,” said Joachim Knebel, chief scientist at Germany’s prestigious Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He characterized the government’s shutdown decision as “emotional” and pointed out that on most days, Germany has survived this experiment only by importing electricity from neighboring France and the Czech Republic, which generate much of their power with nuclear reactors.

Then there are real concerns that the plan will jettison efforts to rein in manmade global warming, since whatever nuclear energy’s shortcomings, it is low in emissions. If Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy, falls back on dirty coal-burning plants or uncertain supplies of natural gas from Russia, isn’t it trading a potential risk for a real one?

The world is watching Germany’s extreme energy makeover, as politicians from New York to Rome have floated their own plans to shut or shelve reactors.

The International Energy Agency, generally a fan of Germany’s green-leaning energy policy, has been critical. Laszlo Varro, head of the agency’s gas, coal and power markets division, called the plan “very, very ambitious, though it is not impossible, since Germany is rich and technically sophisticated.”

Even if Germany succeeds in producing the electricity it needs, “the nuclear moratorium is very bad news in terms of climate policy,” Mr. Varro said. “We are not far from losing that battle, and losing nuclear makes that unnecessarily difficult.”

Experts are expecting to see blackouts, brownouts, and economic losses as a result of a power generation system that is now far less robust and far more susceptible to disruptions because so much generating capacity is being taken offline in such short time without any new capacity being brought online.

The problems may not be felt immediately within Germany's borders, but they will be soon enough as other countries scramble to find generating capacity and are more likely to turn to gas and coal plants to make up the difference. The net result will be a worsening of air quality over Europe, and despite advances made on wind and solar power, there are times when those sources will not be sufficient to provide capacity.

Turning the back on nuclear power is a tremendous mistake, and one that Germans and the rest of Europe will come to regret.

Cuomo Administration Seeks To Close Indian Point, But Lacks Suitable Energy Generating Alternatives

Governor Andrew Cuomo, fresh off his major win on the Marriage Equality Act, is setting his sights on closing the Indian Point nuclear power plant 35 miles north of New York City. The state recently adopted a new power plant siting law, which conceivably would make constructing new power generating facilities easier in the state, but the problem is multifold.

Mr. Cuomo is not the first politician or the first governor to take that position, but newly passed state legislation will make it easier for him to do so.

The meeting was the first high-level meeting between Entergy, the company that runs Indian Point, and the Cuomo administration, and it was convened at Entergy’s request.

Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly taken the position in speeches that he wants to close the plant. But his administration had not delivered the message so directly to the company, or in such strong words, and company officials left the meeting alarmed.

The encounter seemed to mark a heightened determination to close the plant, and recent events put considerable leverage in the governor’s hands to make his wish a reality.

On the day of the meeting, lawmakers were in the process of approving legislation to streamline the siting of new power plants in New York, a step that, for the first time in nearly a decade, makes replacing Indian Point and the huge amount of power it generates more feasible. The last siting law expired at the beginning of 2003.

At the same time, the licenses for Indian Point’s two reactors expire in 2013 and 2015. The state can derail the process by refusing to provide permits related to the plants’ use of water from the Hudson River as a coolant. Last year, the State Department of Environmental Conservation rejected a crucial permit application from Entergy; the company is challenging the move.

For the Cuomo administration, closing Indian Point would be a major step toward reshaping the state’s energy policy. Replacing the plant would take years and require a long-term energy strategy. The plant produces 2,000 megawatts and provides 25 percent of the power in New York City and Westchester.

Public worries about the plant, in Buchanan, about 35 miles north of Midtown, flared after the recent catastrophe at the Japanese nuclear plant in Fukushima, and after a report highlighting the Indian Point plant’s proximity to a fault line. But replacing it with natural gas plants or other more conventional options could bring its own environmental and emissions concerns.

It would take years before power plants are built that can replace the 2,000 megawatts produced by Indian Point. The plant produces 25% of New York City and Westchester's power needs. That can't be easily replaced and the alternatives are likely to worsen air quality in the region or cause other environmental issues.

Then, there's the issue of constructing new transmission lines that would bring power down from Canada and upstate New York. Those power lines are consistently opposed by NIMBY-types and further limit power producers and users from getting power - even if it's from hydropower or green-power sources like wind or solar.

Russian Plane Crash Victims Included Major Russian Scientists Involved In Iranian Nuclear Effort

Among those killed in that Russian plane crash earlier this week were several scientists working on the Iranian nuclear plant at Bushehr.

Five Russian scientists who assisted in the design of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant were among the 44 fatalities of Monday's Russian plain crash, Moscow's International News Agency RIA Novosti reported Thursday.

The Tupolev-134 plane broke up and caught fire upon making an emergency landing outside the northern city of Petrozavodsk. A preliminary investigation ruled out the possibility of a technical failure.

Russian aircraft, particularly the TU-134 have been notoriously prone to accidents, so it isn't all that surprising that the plane went down. That will be cold comfort to not only the Russians, but the Iranians, who were relying on the Russian assistance for completing an Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

This will be a setback to the Iranian nuclear ambitions since these were among the top scientists working on the project. It will also hamper Russian nuclear energy initiatives around the world, since these were major figures in the Russian nuclear community.

Inexcusable Omissions at Indian Point

Indian Point nuclear power plant sits 40 miles north of the heart of New York City, and supplies a significant portion of the region's power. Yet, the plant lacks basic fire safety and security systems according to documentation obtained by New York Attorney General Eric Scheiderman.

The aging plant 24 miles from the city is missing basic smoke-eating tools, even as it sits on an earthquake fault and has suffered two fires since 2007.

Such safety shortcuts, approved for years by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, face new scrutiny in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuke plant.

Indian Point's two active reactors are divided into 275 fire zones, of which 198 lack automatic fire suppression systems, according to records that plant owner Entergy gave the NRC in 2009.

That means 72% of the facility lacks things like sprinklers and automatic deluge water sprays.

One vulnerable hot spot is the spent-fuel pool at Indian Point 3, where radioactive and superheated fuel rods are kept cool. A spent-fuel pool triggered Japan's nuke accident.

Records also show:
There are no manual fire suppression systems such as hydrants or fire extinguishers in 111 fire zones - 40% of the plant.

Fire detection systems common to most major office buildings such as smoke, heat or flame detectors are unavailable in 173 zones - 63% of the plant.

The data is contained in a little-noticed March 28 petition from Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to the NRC alleging that most of the plant's 275 fire zones violate minimum federal fire safety regulations.

"Indian Point's ongoing failure to comply with federal fire safety requirements is both reckless and unacceptable," he told The News.

The NRC approved the current status of fire safety in the 1980s, but in 2006 it told Entergy to justify in writing why it should keep the exemptions.

These kinds of basic fire safety and suppression systems have been mandated for years, but Entergy and the prior operators managed to convince the NRC (the federal nuclear watchdog) to grant exemptions to these rules. In some instances, the company claims that fire suppression requirements aren't necessary for some areas because they are concrete and not capable of burning.

While those areas shouldn't be able to burn, there is always the potential for emergencies that aren't anticipated, and having fire suppression systems and alarms available to detect such emergencies is a good idea.

Here's hoping that the NRC requires that Entergy impose these necessary safety upgrades with all due haste. While the likelihood of a major earthquake is quite low in the region, the power plant has suffered from several fires in recent years and notification systems for the surrounding region have also been found to be inadequate. The plant's safety and security systems should be updated as part of the recertification process and the company should be forced to assume the costs without passing the costs on to rate payers.

As we saw with Fukushima in Japan, the ability to protect the spent fuel pools and other critical areas from overheating is a major concern and the plant should be upgraded in accordance with lessons learned from that nuclear disaster.

IAEA Acknowledges That Syria Attempted To Build Nuclear Reactor

For the first time, the IAEA has unequivocally stated that Syria was in the process of building a covert nuclear reactor at a site destroyed in a presumed Israeli airstrike in September of 2007.

By aligning the IAEA with the United States, which first asserted three years ago that the bombed target was a nuclear reactor, the comments will increase pressure on Syria to stop stonewalling agency requests for more information on its nuclear activities.

Amano spoke during a news conference meant to focus on the Fukushima nuclear disaster after a visit to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to discuss clean-up efforts at Japan's tsunami-ravaged nuclear plant.

"The facility that was ... destroyed by Israel was a nuclear reactor under construction," he asked in response to a question from The Associated Press, repeating to the AP afterward: "It was a reactor under construction."

Previous IAEA language has been more circumspect. In a February report, Amano had said only that features of the bombed structure were "similar to what may be found at nuclear reactor sites."

Israel has never publicly commented on the strike or even acknowledged carrying it out. The U.S. has shared intelligence with the agency that identifies the structure as a nearly completed nuclear reactor that, if finished, would have been able to produce plutonium for the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

In 2008, the Bush administration released images of the site that had been taken prior to the Sept. 6, 2007 strike [ed: added link to Time's publication of those images]. The New York Times reported at the time that the undated photos, taken inside the reactor, showed the rods responsible for controlling heat inside a nuclear reactor. The report said the engineering was similar to that of a North Korean site, and that one of the images showed the manager of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant at the location with Syria's top nuclear official.

The timing of this news may be an attempt to increase pressure on the Syrian regime, but I doubt that it will do much to stop Assad from cracking down on dissidents within the country.

Syria was caught with its hands in the proverbial nuclear cookie jar and couldn't open the site up for inspection at the time of the attack because it would have revealed the extent of the Syrian nuclear program. That's why the Syrians didn't play up the airstrike in the international media or even in domestic agitation towards Israel because it would have resulted in even stronger sanctions by the UN, IAEA, and the US.



So, while the Syrians admitted that the airstrike damaged some portion of Syria's nuclear infrastructure, they weren't about to let on just how badly damaged their nuclear program was as a result of the airstrike.

The regime's stonewalling of the IAEA and UN to investigate the site meant that the Syrians could scrub the site of useful information and delaying access meant that the IAEA couldn't view the scene as it was when the airstrike took place. Yet, the IAEA was still able to conclude that the Syrians were working on a clandestine nuclear reactor when Israel blew it up before it could become operational.

Japan's Nuclear Emergency and the Future of Nuclear Power

The ongoing crisis in Japan at several of the country's nuclear reactors is sure to fuel a renewed debate over the future of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel and other alternative energy sources.

Concerns over a possible meltdown and containment failure hearkens back to crises at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, both of which effectively ended the development of nuclear power in the United States.

Yet, there are lessons to be learned from the ongoing situation in Japan.

For starters, it took a massive 9.0 earthquake and the ensuing tsunamis and the failure of several backup systems to bring the Fukushima to the point of failure. The reactors at issue were first brought online in the early 1970s, and the technology has progressed significantly since then. Lessons learned from Fukushima will be incorporated into the development of nuclear reactors in Japan and elsewhere.

It appears that while the reactors survived the earthquake and its aftershocks intact, not as much attention was paid to the tsunami threat, which caused significant damage as seen by before/after photos here and a legacy of trying to achieve a perfect solution to a crisis rather than one that would be adequate to avert a crisis:

In the hours after the blast at Reactor No. 1, nuclear advocates argued that Daiichi’s problems were singular in many ways and stemmed from a natural disaster on a scale never before experienced in Japan. They pointed out that the excavation of fossil fuels has its own history of catastrophic accidents, including coal mine collapses and the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Some also said there might have been missteps in handling Reactor No. 1. A quick alternative source of water for cooling the destabilizing core should have been immediately available, said Nils J. Diaz, a nuclear engineer who led the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2003 to 2006 and had visited the Daiichi plant.

Mr. Diaz suggested that the Japanese might have acted too slowly to prevent overheating, including procedures that might have required the venting of small amounts of steam and radiation, rather than risk a wholesale meltdown. Fear among Japanese regulators over public reaction to such small releases may have delayed plant operators from acting as quickly as they might have, he said — a problem arising in part from the country’s larger nuclear regulatory culture.

“They would rather wait and do things in a perfect manner instead of doing it as good as it needs to be now,” Mr. Diaz said. “And this search for perfection has often led to people sometimes hiding things or waiting too long to do things.”

With virtually no natural resources, Japan has considered nuclear power as an alternative to oil and other fossil fuels since the 1960s. It has regarded its expertise in nuclear power as a way to cut down on its emission of greenhouse gases and to capture energy-hungry markets in Asia.

Japan is one of the world’s top consumers of nuclear energy. The country’s 17 nuclear plants — boasting 55 reactors — have provided about 30 percent of its electricity needs.

However, there should be significant concern over the reactors recently built or conceived in China, which is criss-crossed with numerous active faults. The Sichuan quake revealed that the Chinese authorities did not adhere to its own building code standards, and that substandard building techniques and materials led to countless deaths and injuries. Schools that should have been seismically resistant to the Sichuan quake collapsed killing all within.

A nuclear plant built with similar quality of construction would be a disaster waiting to happen and one can't rely on the Chinese government to give assurances that these structures were built to specification.

However, the Japanese building codes exceed anything seen in China or the United States. They are built to resist earthquakes but failures in the backup systems exposed a weak point in the technology and procedures that will have to be addressed.

UPDATE:
Conflicting reports over whether another tsunami is imminent - no significant quakes are reported in the vicinity, but there are reports that a hydrogen explosion involved reactor 3, the other reactor at Fukushima that was of serious concern.

Iran Suffers Major Setback In Nuclear Ambitions

Iran has been building a nuclear reactor at Bushehr with the assistance of the Russians. It's a project that dates back more than 30 years and has been punctuated with setbacks, delays, and technical issues, to say nothing of the concerns by the US and other countries that the reactor was a cover for Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions.

The Russian deal includes taking back the spent fuel, which reduces the chances that the Iranians could divert some percentage of the nuclear materials into their weapons programs.

Iran hoped to get the reactor up and running as the reactor was fueled, but now comes word that all of the fuel will need to be removed so as to conduct additional tests and carry out modifications.

Iran will remove the fuel from the reactor of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr, a top official said on Saturday, citing technical advice from Moscow.

The plant, which has seen a roller-coaster ride since its construction began in the 1970s, was scheduled to generate electricity from April 9, and the latest development signals a likely delay in achieving that aim.

"Based on the recommendation of Russia, which is in charge of completing the Bushehr atomic power plant, the fuel inside the reactor core will be taken out for a while to conduct some experiments and technical work," Iran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the ISNA news agency.

"After the experiments, it will again be installed in the core of the reactor." He did not specify when the experiments would be completed.

Iran had started loading the fuel into the plant on August 21, which Moscow at that time said was the "physical launch" of the facility.

In January, Iran's former atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said the plant would be ready to generate electricity on April 9 after operations began on November 27.

The decision to remove the fuel, also supplied by Russia, is the latest development in the more than three-decade old history of the plant, which was first launched by the US-backed shah using contractors from German company Siemens.

Syria Operating Another Uranium Processing Plant Near Damascus?

Syria is playing a real dangerous game with international inspectors and Israel. The country is trying to stay a step ahead of both the IAEA and Israel while it attempts to establish a nuclear processing capability.

Syria is suspected of harboring a uranium conversion reactor near the town of Marj as Sultan, near Damascus, according to a publication released Wednesday by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security based on reports by the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The facility is related to the nuclear reactor project at al Kibar that was bombed by Israel in September 2007, and it was reportedly used for processing uranium, according to the report.

The report said the facility's operational status is still unknown, but Syria is suspected of clearing out the buildings before mid-2008 in efforts to disguise previous activities conducted at the site.

Syria has continued to refuse requests by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the Marj as Sultan facility, as well as other sites that may be related to the nuclear reactor project, the report said.

Satellite images of the site near Marj as Sultan, obtained by the ISIS, reveal that on July 25, 2008, there was considerable activity involving the pouring of material on the ground as well as trucks and other vehicles that could have been related to the operation.

It doesn't appear to be a large scale operation, but it could be a signal that Syria was attempting to carry out a distributed enrichment program that was more difficult to attack in one fell swoop. ISIS reports that there were three related facilities, and this one near Damascus is included in that number.

Israel carried out airstrikes against a purported nuclear facility in Syria in 2007, and the Syrians didn't muster much of a response diplomatically, which suggested that the Syrians didn't want to bring any more attention to their nuclear ambitions and capabilities.

The problem for inspectors is that to an untrained eye, the buildings and structures would appear to be nondescript commercial buildings and endeavors. That's the problem for inspectors - Syria is trying to hide their program in plain sight, and using these kinds of structures to deflect attention and prying eyes in the sky.

Iranian Regime Fires Foreign Minister While Minister Was Visiting Senegal

If the Iranian regime, led by the mad mullahs and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, wanted to send messages to both the Iranian people and observers, they did so loud and clear today. The regime fired Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who had been the foreign minister since 2005.

Ahmadinejad doesn't rule alone, despite his title of President. He requires the consent and approval of the mullahs, which is led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei had blocked Ahmadinejad's attempts to dump Mottaki for several years, but apparently Ahmadinejad managed to get his way.

It has been well known that the Iranian leader had long sought to replace Mr. Mottaki but had been prevented from doing so until now by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in appointing the heads of several key ministries.

The move was a victory for the president and an apparent extension of his powers, though it remained unclear what changes at the upper echelon of Iranian politics allowed for the firing.

President Ahmadinejad appointed Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, as the country’s acting foreign minister until a permanent replacement is found.

In a separate letter issued on Monday, Mr. Ahmadinejad expressed gratitude to Mr. Mottaki for his services during his five-year tenure. "Hereby, I thank you for your services as efforts during your tenure in the Foreign Ministry," read the letter.

Consider this a further consolidation of power in Ahmadinejad and his minions and a further reduction in the power of the mullahs to control the domestic and foreign policy agendas.

Expect Iran to continue taking a still more confrontational stance on its nuclear ambitions as Iran's nuclear energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, will take over as interim foreign minister. Expect him to try and communicate Iran's nuclear ambitions within a clearly delineated civilian spin, even as Iran remains as bellicose as ever and Iran's rivals remain wary of Iran's intentions. Indeed, this could be a change in marketing tact about Iran's nuclear ambitions but will not change Iran's intentions to develop not only the enrichment capabilities, but nuclear weapons to go along with it.

On that front, it appears that the Stuxnet worm has done more to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions than years of diplomacy and cajoling.

Stuxnet Worm Continues Hampering Iranian Nuclear Ambitions

The Stuxnet worm infestation of Iranian computer systems continues to do what negotiations, foreign policy, diplomacy, and threats of military action have not. It's thwarted Iranian efforts to ramp up their enrichment program and operate the nuclear reactor at Bushehr.

Despite claims by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others that the infestation was under control and that enrichment activities have restarted, security experts around the world are saying that they're seeing ongoing indications that the virus continues to operate with impunity.

The American and European experts say their security websites, which deal with the computer worm known as Stuxnet, continue to be swamped with traffic from Tehran and other places in the Islamic Republic, an indication that the worm continues to infect the computers at Iran's two nuclear sites.

The Stuxnet worm, named after initials found in its code, is the most sophisticated cyberweapon ever created. Examination of the worm shows it was a cybermissile designed to penetrate advanced security systems. It was equipped with a warhead that targeted and took over the controls of the centrifuge systems at Iran’s uranium processing center in Natanz, and it had a second warhead that targeted the massive turbine at the nuclear reactor in Bashehr.

Stuxnet was designed to take over the control systems and evade detection, and it apparently was very successful. Last week President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after months of denials, admitted that the worm had penetrated Iran's nuclear sites, but he said it was detected and controlled.

The second part of that claim, experts say, doesn’t ring true.

Eric Byres, a computer expert who has studied the worm, said his site was hit with a surge in traffic from Iran, meaning that efforts to get the two nuclear plants to function normally have failed. The web traffic, he says, shows Iran still hasn’t come to grips with the complexity of the malware that appears to be still infecting the systems at both Bashehr and Natanz.

“The effort has been stunning," Byres said. "Two years ago American users on my site outnumbered Iranians by 100 to 1. Today we are close to a majority of Iranian users.”

He said that while there may be some individual computer owners from Iran looking for information about the virus, it was unlikely that they were responsible for the vast majority of the inquiries because the worm targeted only the two nuclear sites and did no damage to the thousands of other computers it infiltrated.

No one quite knows who created the worm, but it appears to have been stunningly successful at damaging Iranian nuclear efforts. The worm was specifically designed to attack supervisory control and data acquisition systems manufactured by German industrial giant Siemens that handle speed controls on certain machinery. The target is so specific that it has thus far hit enrichment centrifuges and nuclear power turbines - the very equipment essential to Iranian nuclear ambitions while doing no damage to other systems.

The worm wreaks havoc with the speed controls - causing them to speed up and slow down unexpectedly, which can damage or destroy the centrifuges or cause power spikes in turbines. The Iranian government can't get a handle on this, and the US security experts have seen a spike in the number of requests for information about the virus from Iran, which indicates that the problems continue - although they suggest that it could also be due in part to increased interest in learning about the virus.

Since no one quite knows who created it, security officials around the world have expressed concern over potential vulnerabilities to their own infrastructure, including here in the US.

Speculation continues that it may have been a government financed/backed cyberwar effort since the worm is so sophisticated that no single hacker could have developed the worm.

Iran Begins Fueling Nuclear Reactor at Bushehr

Iran is busy fueling a nuclear reactor at Bushehr, which is expected to generate 1,000MW of power. They claim that the reactor is for purely civilian purposes and the US recently withdrew its opposition to the reactor. The US dropped its opposition following assurances from the Russians that they would secure the supply chain and prevent spent fuel rods from being processed in Iran to obtain plutonium - a critical element for certain designs of nuclear weapons.

The move comes as the European Union is pressuring Iran to hold talks on its nuclear program next month. The West accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons, which Iran denies, saying the plant is only for civilian power. Nuclear fuel requires enrichment to 3.5 percent, while weapons grade fuel requires enrichment to 90 percent.

The progress at the nuclear reactor was reported by Iran’s state-run Press TV on Tuesday. The nuclear reactor would begin operating after all 163 fuel rods are inserted into the core, and is expected to begin generating electricity by early 2011, according to Press TV. Iran has declared plans to build 20 nuclear power plants in the next 20 years.

The New York Times reports that Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said the country had succeeded in its “peaceful nuclear activities” despite political pressure and sanctions. “The Bushehr power plant is a major project which will help us to take one step toward future alternative energy supplies,” he said. “We will also pursue our peaceful nuclear activities in other areas.”

Since June the UN, the EU, and the US have passed sanctions against Iran. On Friday, reported Reuters, EU Foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton urged Iran to conduct talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna in November with United States, Russia, France, Britain, China, and Germany.

The Bushehr nuclear reactor has a long history of delays. Iran began building the plant in 1975, but its contract with Germany was derailed by the Islamic Revolution four years later. Iran inked a deal with Russia to finish the plant in 1995, but it was repeatedly delayed.

The latest delay was in August, when the fuel rods were delivered to the plant and scheduled to be loaded into the nuclear reactor. Many questioned if the delay came from the Stuxnet computer virus found on computers at the site, as The Christian Science Monitor reported. Iran denied the virus was the reason for the delay.

Iran Unveils Its Ambassador of Death

It's that time of year when Iran announces its latest weapons systems amid great fanfare (and frequently more than a little photo editing assistance). It announced a new unmanned missile system - realistically it's a form of a UAV that may have a payload system.

The news comes on the heels of Iran fueling its Bushehr nuclear reactor. Iran framed the missile as both the ambassador of death and a "message of hope."

The Iranian military displayed the drone, dubbed the Karrar - or "striker" - at a ceremony attended by top officials. State media say it can carry out long-range attacks up to 1,000 kilometers carrying a 200-kilogram bomb.

President Ahmadinejad called the Karrar a symbol of death to Iran's enemies.

But he also argued the drone serves as "a messenger of salvation and dignity for humanity". The Iranian leader said it is aimed at deterring any act of foreign aggression.

As tensions continue to rise over Iran's disputed nuclear program, so too have discussions of a possible military action by Israel to disrupt it. Israel has not ruled out a strike, in the face of Iranian officials' repeated vows to destroy what it refers to as the Zionist entity.

On Saturday, Iran began loading its long-delayed Bushehr nuclear power plant with fuel. Inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Agency were on hand to witness the launch of the Russian-built reactor.

Right. This missile is meant to act as a purported deterrent against a possible strike against Iran from Israel or the US. Iran continues building up its long range capabilities against its enemies in the region. That not only includes the Israelis or US bases, but the other Arab countries in the region.

Of course, Iran has been working on its long range strike capabilities for years now, and not all of its efforts have been successful. Despite obtaining missile technology from the North Koreans, the Iranians have had issues with the technology.

It also again highlights the need for missile defense for the US to protect its strategic interests in the region.

Iran Ramping Up Enrichment Efforts

Every day brings Iran that much closer to having the means and wherewithal to build nuclear weapons. Its centrifuges are spinning furiously away enriching uranium to ever higher levels and it is merely a function of time before the enriched uranium can be made into weapons grade.

All the while, the Iranian regime claims that they will be further expanding their enrichment efforts. They want to build a total of 10 enrichment facilities around Iran, which should be a clarion call for the world to scrutinize every inch of the country for illicit nuclear weapons programs. At the same time, the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr is set to go live, with an assist from the Russians:

Iran plans to begin construction of 10 uranium enrichment centers across the country by next year, state-run media is quoting Iran's nuclear chief as saying.

After a cabinet meeting Sunday, Ali Akbar Salehi told IRIB, a state network, that work on one of the centers will be started by March 2011.

Over the weekend, a top Iranian lawmaker defended his nation's right to enrich uranium in the future after Iran and Russia confirmed that Russians will start loading a nuclear reactor in the Islamic republic with fuel next week.

The August 21 arrival of fuel at the Bushehr facility, which Iran says will create atomic energy but other nations fear could be used for nuclear weapons, marks a key step toward its completion, Russia said Saturday, according to Iranian media.

PSE&G Moving Ahead With Plan To Build New Nuclear Plant In Salem Cty, NJ

PSE&G is moving ahead with its plan to build New Jersey's fifth nuclear power plant in Salem County alongside one of the other nuclear power plants. It requires Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, but it also requires approvals from other agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps owns the site in question, and the utility needs to get approval to purchase the site that is currently used as a dredge disposal site.

To build the plant, it must secure 84 acres of wetlands from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The agency currently uses the land as a dredge-disposal site, the company's report states.

The company applied in May for an early site permit, which is designed to resolve safety and environmental questions about the proposed location. The company has not chosen a reactor design and has not decided whether it actually will invest in a new nuclear plant.

The NRC's application review is expected to take three years.

The NRC hosted a public meeting last month over the proposal even before PSEG filed its formal application. Testimony was divided between environmentalists who opposed expanding nuclear power in New Jersey and local residents and politicians who supported the jobs and tax revenue a new plant would generate.

"We wanted to get the issue out there," PSEG spokesman Joe Delmar said. "One of the reasons we picked the location we did was it was next to existing plants. Any new plant would have similar impacts as existing plants. From an emergency planning standpoint, the plants operate under the same guidelines."

According to the 136-page environmental report, PSEG also plans to build new 500-kilovolt transmission lines and a new causeway to the island, filling in 45 acres of wetlands and temporarily affecting 24 acres more.

The company rated the expected effects on the environment based on three categories: small, moderate and large.

The only large effect was deemed to the local tax base, since the plant presumably would contribute more in local tax revenue. The power plant pays for all municipal services in Lower Alloways Creek Township, which as a result does not have a local-purpose property-tax levy.

So, if the utility jumps through all the regulatory hoops, it would be at least three years before a shovel can get in the ground to start construction, and it would be years before the new reactor goes online.

The PSE&G application before the NRC can be found here.

US Moving Ahead With Nuclear Weapons Reduction and Nonproliferation Initiatives

President Barack Obama signed the New START treaty today, reducing the current level of US and Russian nuclear warheads by 30%.

The new treaty will shrink the limit of nuclear warheads to 1,550 per country over seven years.

But the two quickly turned serious when they took to the podiums, hailing the moment as an important step to improving the U.S.-Russian relationship and the safety of the world.

Obama, who said last year in a London summit that the American-Russian relationship had started to "drift," said that problem was fixed.

"Together, we stopped that drift, and have proven the benefits of cooperation," he said, arguing that the deal lets the two country start talking about cooperation on missile defense.

Medvedev said that at some points signing the deal — with the old START treating expiring last December — looked like "Mission Impossible."

But he was as upbeat as Obama in hailing it.

"This is a win-win situation — no one stands to loose because of this agreement," he said. "The entire world community has won.

Obama has been no fan of nuclear weapons and this is a feather in his cap for winning the treaty. Not only can this result in further cost savings for both the US and Russians, although the Russians are ever more reliant on their nuclear stockpile to offset a clear US technological advantage in conventional weapons, but it means that the dismantled weapons can provide another source of uranium for civilian nuclear power plants once the weapons grade uranium is processed into LEU. The treaty still needs to be confirmed by the US Senate, but I expect that to happen.

Meanwhile, a series of initiatives that began with the Bush Administration continues to bear fruit. The US has been working with various nations to shut down high enriched uranium reactors and convert it into a low-enriched uranium. The latest such country is Chile, which transported a shipment to the US for reprocessing:

Even as aftershocks from last month's magnitude 8.8 earthquake shook their equipment, U.S. and Chilean engineers worked together to carefully extract Chile's last HEU. It was no simple operation — the radioactive material was carefully loaded into specially designed casks and then lowered into two huge shipping containers for the ocean voyage. All told, 60 tons of metal were needed to keep just 18 kilograms (40 pounds) of HEU from leaking radioactivity.

After two and a half weeks at sea, including passage through the Panama Canal, a specially outfitted double-hulled ship arrived under U.S. Coast Guard escort at the Charleston Weapons Station in South Carolina last month.

Customs agents and nuclear inspectors made radiation checks as the containers were loaded onto flatbed trucks and then driven to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where much of it will be converted to safer fuel and resold for nuclear power.

A year ago, Obama made a promise to lead a global effort to recover all of this material within four years — ambitious because it not only requires years of planning and diplomacy, but also highly specific technology and expertise.

No other country but the U.S. has put all these elements together — even Russia depends on U.S. help to safely dispose of uranium.

The U.S. has already helped convert or verified the shutdown of 67 reactors in 32 countries from HEU to low-enriched uranium, or LEU, which is much harder to weaponize. It also has secured HEU supplies in more than 750 vulnerable buildings and removed 2,691 kilograms of weapons-grade nuclear material for safer storage.

To help keep his promise, Obama has proposed a 68 percent increase in the Global Threat Reduction Initiative's budget to $559 million for fiscal year 2011, not only to recover more HEU but also to prevent smuggling of nuclear material by strengthening export and border controls and port security.

Next year's $2.7 billion budget for nuclear nonproliferation work begins to do this for plutonium as well, committing $300 million for a plant at Savannah River to convert 34,000 kilograms of plutonium recovered from warheads to fuel for nuclear power.

The program is operated through the National Nuclear Security Administration, which is part of the Department of Energy. It's important to note that the US is actually assisting the Russians in dismantling their nuclear inventory:

# Monitored downblending of over 352 MT of former Soviet weapons-origin HEU (enough for more than 14,000 nuclear weapons) for use in U.S. power plants, providing 10% of U.S. electricity.
# Downblended over 108 MT (enough for approximately 2,376 nuclear weapons) of surplus U.S. HEU into LEU for use as nuclear reactor fuel, with an additional 12 MT packaged and shipped for downblending (total of over 120 MT). Downblended over 11 MT of Russian civilian HEU to LEU.
# Downblending an additional 17.4 MT of HEU for the Reliable Fuel Supply initiative.
# Working to dispose of at least 68 MT of U.S. and Russian weapons-grade plutonium by converting it into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for commercial nuclear power reactors. Continuing construction of the U.S. MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility.
# Ended 43 years of weapons-grade plutonium production in Seversk by shutting down two reactors. Completed 53% of the Zheleznogorsk fossil fuel plant to replace the last reactor, to end all weapons-grade plutonium production in Russia.
# Monitoring safe storage of over 9 MT of Russian weapons-grade plutonium (nearly 1,125 warheads) to ensure its non-military use.

All this is on the heels of the consummation os a 2008 deal with India for that country to reprocess US nuclear materials for its own civilian nuclear program.

PSE&G Proposes New Nuclear Plant In Salem County, New Jersey

PSE&G currently operates four nuclear power plants in New Jersey and is considering the construction of a new unit at its Salem facility. The company is in the process of submitting a permit application to keep its options open:

The owner of three nuclear power plants in Salem County plans to get paperwork moving to build a fourth in May.

PSE&G, owner of the Salem 1 and 2 and Hope Creek plants, will submit an early-site permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for what would be New Jersey's fifth nuclear power plant and the first built here since 1986.

The application does not obligate the company to build a plant but merely identifies a location and explains why it is secure and environmentally suitable, said Joe Delmar, spokesman for PSE&G.

The company is sole owner of Hope Creek and majority owner of Salem 1 and Salem 2, all in Lower Alloways Creek Township.

"It does not designate what kind of reactor technology it will use. We don't know if it will be one unit or two or what its megawatt output will be," he said.

The new nuclear unit would allow the utility to decommission some of its more polluting coal and oil plants as well as provide more power as energy consumption is expected to increase as more people bring more tech items into their homes and businesses.

Siting the waste would still be a concern, but PSE&G's efforts are buoyed by the loan guarantees proffered by the Obama Administration to help defray the expected astronomical costs of constructing a nuclear power plant in the US.

Obama's Nuclear Power Gambit

President Obama announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees for construction of two nuclear power plants. That's a good start, but it ignores key problems with getting the nuclear power industry jump started.

Loan guarantees do nothing to stop the NIMBYism that thwarts construction of any and all kinds of power plants or transmission lines. The President can throw his support to the nuclear industry, but environmentalists who oppose nuclear power can undermine the President's agenda by mounting opposition campaigns to prevent construction; when that happens the loan guarantees are meaningless.

We need strong and effective leadership on pushing ahead with a nuclear power renaissance in the US; the necessity of building new nuclear power plants is here to stay as the US needs a stable source of power that doesn't include emissions found with oil, gas, or coal and which has a smaller footprint per megawatt of power produced than wind or solar.

It means showing decisive leadership and devoting far more than loan guarantees to nuclear power.

It means finally building and bringing on line the national waste depository at Yucca Mountain.Yet, the President is pushing the same line as Harry Reid:

Sanford accused Obama of making a "Chicago-style" political play to help Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who faces a tough re-election bid in a state where the Yucca Mountain plan was unpopular. But the White House points out that the president opposed the site since he was campaigning as a candidate, on the grounds of scientific and security questions.

Reid echoed those security concerns, saying any transportation of nuclear materials across the country could open a vulnerability.

"Leave it on-site where it is," he said last year. "You don't have to worry about transporting it. Saves the country billions and billions of dollars."

Currently, 70,000 tons of radioactive waste are stored at more than 100 nuclear sites around the country, and 2,000 tons are added every year.

It saves the country billions of dollars in security costs for maintaining more than 100 secure facilities rather than a single facility? And what of the billions collected in taxes from the nuclear plant operators to fund Yucca Mt. and the national waste repository? Where's that money?

It means making sure that transmission lines needed to distribute the power from the new power facilities gets built.

It means standing up to Democrats like Harry Reid who have opposed Yucca Mountain and working closer with Republicans to finally give the US reason to hope that there's a coherent national energy policy in the offing. And it would mean an effective national energy policy that doesn't even have to refer to global warming and climate change to be successful - one can completely avoid that entire area of science all while advocating for nuclear power precisely because it would reduce particulate emissions, promote national security by reducing reliance on imported oil from unstable parts of the world, extend supply and reserves of oil causing a drop in the costs, and can actually seed the growth of electric vehicles since the energy production would not merely shift emissions from the tailpipes of vehicles to smokestacks, but eliminates the emissions altogether.

Why Copenhagen Will Not Matter

For all of the talk about how Copenhagen will result in reductions in global emissions of carbon dioxide, the sad truth is that emissions will continue to rise globally, particularly because of China. In fact, while China has embarked on the most vigorous expansion of nuclear power in its history, and hopes to quadruple its reliance on nuclear power to generate electricity (and which generates its own concerns over safety), emissions from China are set to increase 72-88% by 2020.

Electrical demand is growing so rapidly in China that even if the industry manages to meet the ambitious 2020 target, nuclear stations will still generate only 9.7 percent of the country’s power, by the government’s projections.

Bringing so much nuclear power online over the next decade would reduce the country’s energy-related emissions of global warming gases by about 5 percent, compared with the emissions that would be produced by burning coal to generate the power.

“For anyone concerned about carbon dioxide emissions, it’s heartening, but it’s only a piece of the puzzle,” said Jonathan Sinton, a China specialist at the International Energy Agency in Paris.

China, which by most estimates overtook the United States in 2006 to become the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is seeking sharp improvements in the energy efficiency of its economy.

But the economy is growing so fast that even if the country can meet its goals, total emissions will rise 72 to 88 percent by 2020, Mr. Sinton said.

That's right folks. Even with all the hoopla surrounding Copenhagen and all the dire warnings about global warming and the need to engage in reductions in emissions, China's output is set to dwarf the emissions to date.

And China isn't forsaking coal powered plants either. It needs to build a whole lot of those as well, in addition to the nuclear power facilities to generate the power it needs.

Colorado On Cusp Of Approving First New Uranium Mill Since Cold War

With all of the focus on global warming/climate change and the need to find reliable energy sources that can produce power in sufficient quantities to meet existing and predicted demand, nuclear power is seeing something of a resurgence. Some countries, like China, are looking at nuclear power in a serious way and are in the midst of acquiring sources for uranium to power all the power plants they expect to build in the coming decade.

The US is also looking at nuclear power, but opposition remains steadfast. In Colorado, a private corporation is one permit away from being able to break ground on the first new uranium mill since the Cold War. It would produce uranium for power plants the world over, and given that prices for uranium per pound are currently $46 and expected to rise to over $70 within a few years, it's a good bet.

There are four mills currently in the US, although one is not actively producing uranium because of the recovery costs.

I've detailed some of the issues in the past and have included two books on the subject in my reading lists, Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World and Atomic Awakening.

Yet, we've got noted experts like Daryl Hannah opposed to a power source that would produce zero emissions and would be capable of leading to a revolution in powering our national economy.

The US remains the world's largest consumer of uranium, while Russia is the largest producer.