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The most useful reporting I've found so far has been from World Nuclear News' regularly update article, along with the and the NISA press releases/

The sad truth is that most people don't actually understand [anything] in the United States

Fixed that for you. I'm sure somebody will be along with the next iteration soon

I wouldn't be the person to cast that stone if I were you. I visited your blog and saw plenty of evidence of ignorance there. For example, there's this gem:

Nuclear power is fossil fuel based. Do you really think uranium comes from anywhere different than coal? It's a shiny rock we find in the ground, that eventually replenishes from meteors or volcanic activity drawing it out of the center of the earth; tons and tons of this shit isn't popping up all over the planet all the time, it takes something major to make more. To make matters worse, we can only derive 5% of the energy potential from nuclear fuel without breeding it into weapons grade nuclear material (and then summarily using said weapons grade nuclear material for the non-weapons purpose of generating 20 times the electricity we normally could), which of course violates a treaty or two.

There are so many things wrong with what you have written on that blog but I'll just address a few things from this quote.

• Fossil fuels come from...fossils! They are produced from carbon, hydrogen, and other trace elements that came from decaying organic matter.
• Nuclear power, or more precisely nuclear fission, is performed through the use of much heavier elements, generally isotopes with a higher atomic mass than iron. The most common materials are uranium, plutonium, and thorium - none of which are present in great quantities in organic material.
• There are vast reserves of fissile materials, far greater than the reserves of fossil fuels. For example here is a report on uranium. Note that with fast breeder reactors there is enough uranium for approximately 2,500 years of energy production. The situation is even better with thorium which is three to four times as abundant than uranium.
• The thorium cycle is very proliferation-resistant due to the fact that the products of the reaction are very undesirable for making weapons and are difficult to separate out. Thus the boogieman of nuclear proliferation can be dealt with by using technologies which do not promote using reactors and fuels which are readily used in weapons.

I could go on but I think I've made my point. Ignorance abounds in many places and you shouldn't have the hubris to paint an entire nation with a broad brush when you exhibit a heady measure of it yourself.

The sad truth is that most people don't actually understand [anything] in the United States

Fixed that for you. I'm sure somebody will be along with the next iteration soon

I wouldn't be the person to cast that stone if I were you. I visited your blog and saw plenty of evidence of ignorance there. For example, there's this gem:

Nuclear power is fossil fuel based. Do you really think uranium comes from anywhere different than coal? It's a shiny rock we find in the ground, that eventually replenishes from meteors or volcanic activity drawing it out of the center of the earth; tons and tons of this shit isn't popping up all over the planet all the time, it takes something major to make more. To make matters worse, we can only derive 5% of the energy potential from nuclear fuel without breeding it into weapons grade nuclear material (and then summarily using said weapons grade nuclear material for the non-weapons purpose of generating 20 times the electricity we normally could), which of course violates a treaty or two.

There are so many things wrong with what you have written on that blog but I'll just address a few things from this quote.

• Fossil fuels come from...fossils! They are produced from carbon, hydrogen, and other trace elements that came from decaying organic matter.
• Nuclear power, or more precisely nuclear fission, is performed through the use of much heavier elements, generally isotopes with a higher atomic mass than iron. The most common materials are uranium, plutonium, and thorium - none of which are present in great quantities in organic material.
• There are vast reserves of fissile materials, far greater than the reserves of fossil fuels. For example here is a report on uranium. Note that with fast breeder reactors there is enough uranium for approximately 2,500 years of energy production. The situation is even better with thorium which is three to four times as abundant than uranium.
• The thorium cycle is very proliferation-resistant due to the fact that the products of the reaction are very undesirable for making weapons and are difficult to separate out. Thus the boogieman of nuclear proliferation can be dealt with by using technologies which do not promote using reactors and fuels which are readily used in weapons.

I could go on but I think I've made my point. Ignorance abounds in many places and you shouldn't have the hubris to paint an entire nation with a broad brush when you exhibit a heady measure of it yourself.

The IAEA says that some people returned(though children were apparently forbidden to do so).

I can only assume that the PR/morale implications of driving away a few grandparently types, who are going to die soonish anyway, at bayonet point just wasn't worth it(and/or they had their hands full with more important things, like making sure that opportunistic looters weren't exporting cesium and strontium coated parts and food items to every grey and black market in the area...).

The real cost of nuclear power is interrest , amortisation, capital, insurance. The fuel and the production cost *nothing*. Cost of nuclear pwoer all counted

production cost

So it is quite clear to me, if solar *win* one day, it is only because of the heavy burden financially and insurance on the nuclear power. Otherwise nuclear electricity, even counting decommissioning and fuel cost, is dirt cheap. *cheaper* than coal, gas , oil, or whatever.

A real citation. Not a BS media OMG all cancer in the area is TMI fault. I read the engineering reports. Here is a more creditable source: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull472/htmls/tmi.html. The follow up medical studies that are done half properly (ie not by green peace) don't show anything out of the ordinary. You should also note that the high altitude cities get more radiation that folks next to TMI.

Heres another hint on how easily it would be to prove "100 times worse than reported" exposer rates. Get a geiger counter. Oh... its only reading normal background levels.......... Which is why these media pieces don't do that.

They are building many nuclear reactors:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90884/6640166.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_by_country#Countries_with_nuclear_power_plants

http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/index.html (search/highlight "China" on that page)

And I think they are trying to control the supply of materials used for motors and batteries.

Go figure :).

A good read. Learned a lot.

"Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and their Remediation: Twenty Years of Experience"
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/Pub1239_web.pdf

Signatories to the NPT are required to sign a "safeguards agreement" with the IAEA, which lays out how the IAEA will monitor the country's compliance with the NPT. Iran did so, and then in 2005 the IAEA, after several warnings, concluded that Iran was not in compliance with its safeguards agreement.

According to the Chairman of IAEA Standing Advisory Group on Safeguards Implementation, this is in effect a declaration of NPT violation:

Formally IAEA Board of Governors (BOG) decisions concern compliance with safeguards agreements, rather than the NPT as such, but in practical terms non-compliance with a safeguards agreement constitutes non-compliance with the NPT.

Iran was then referred to the UN Security Council for the violation, as provided for in the NPT. Incidentally, as a signatory of the UN Charter, Iran also agrees to abide by all decisions of the UN Security Council. Security Council resolution 1696 demanded that Iran halt its uranium enrichment program; resolutions 1737 and 1747 have followed up and imposed sanctions for noncompliance (the two follow-up resolutions passed unanimously). Iran has so far violated all three resolutions.

Great theory - unfortunately, the naysayers have got this one down cold, because real world reactors, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder, are few and far between : http://www-frdb.iaea.org/auxiliary/commercialFR.html. Those are the designs - unfortunately, even France's reactors aren't producing power any more. Read and click through on the wikipedia links - the other TEST reactors aren't doing squat all either-
It's fucked up beyond all recognition - we all have the technology and designs - but no one builds and runs them - why not? Follow the money - in whose obvious interests is it to NOT have fast breeders? The petro-chemical incumbents (includes the coal industry), who benefit from enormous lobbying and astroturfing to make sure hemp is kept illegal as well as never-ending wars to fuel (pun intended) their rapacious greed and theft of the public purse.

I was proud to be a "hippy" - and I find it so sad that nuclear power is demonised so much as it is. Solar, tidal, geothermal, wind - all these have a place, but we've been sitting on a solution with our thumbs up our butts for so long, because too many "useful idiots" and nimbys muddy the waters and ignore the continuing, continuous pollution caused by the incumbents - mostly in the name of "being green" being synonymous with "anti-nuclear-power".

In India, construction is expected to start early in the next decade on the first 300 MW(e) advanced heavy water reactor, which has been developed for co-generation applications. The reactor is designed to operate with 233U-Pu-Th fuel; it uses boiling light water as a coolant and heavy water as the moderator.

The article seems a little misleading. The article makes it appear that just by using thorium, it is possible to get better fuel efficiency (burnup). The reality is that the article is talking about using liquid fluoride based reactors, a technology that we havent been able to make commercial use of yet, and it is unlikely we will see those types of reactors for many years. Comparing liquid fluoride reactors to any type of light water reactor (the kind in use in the US) is like comparing the gas mileage for a car to an airplane. They use different fuel types due to design, and you wouldnt buy a hummer just because the car salesman says it gets better gas mileage than an airplane. The article should talk about the difference between LWRs and gen4 reactors, and how by using a gen4 reactor you can make efficient use of thorium, expanding our fuel options and reducing proliferation threats. When thorium fuel is used in an LWR, you actually get much worse fuel economy (about 5% to 10% at best compared to traditional uranium cycles), for the same cost. Wikipedia's thorium fuel cycle has some pretty good information about thorium in LWRs. http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TE_1450_web.pdf is a great document prepared for the IAEA and has some good bullet points about thorium viability.

Assuming we stick with the old tech in use today (ignoring breeder reactors etc.) about 200 years from mineral reserves and depending on how economically efficient it becomes to extract from sea-water about another 10000 years after that.

Info
IAEA Report

Assuming it becomes the worlds main power source we would of course improve the tech, while upping the amount of power stations around the world so it hard to say whether the tech improvements would out-weigh the increased use. But I'd say we're still looking at a minimum of 5000 years worth of power, which is a pretty decent number.

A lot premature. Barack has accomplished very little in terms of peace. They could have just waited 10 years and then give him a prize if he really did anything good. They've been giving many of these prizes years after the actual achievements, so what's the rush?

After all, the USA could still start a war with Iran, and so much for world peace then. You can say they are making nukes for all they want, but there's no real evidence yet[1].

[1] http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2009/MA200919.html

By Iran I refer to it's leadership as they are the ones who determine the course of the nation.

Ok, thanks for that clarification

Murdering it's own citizens just because they protest against the elections being rigged is a pretty good start but of course you can also throw hanging homosexuals in there too as being things that put Iran pretty high up on the evil list. Beating women because they don't conform to a specific dress style, torturing men for having western style haircuts, that sort of thing. It's hard to suggest that that is not an evil regime.

All pretty nasty stuff, but unfortunately hardly unique. For instance our nice ally Saudi Arabia also executes people for "Homosexual activity".

I mentioned this already in my post, I guess you didn't bother to read it all. Iran is breaching the NPT because they have not allowed full inspections of their nuclear sites and examination of all relevant documentation surrounding nuclear activity. This is a condition imposted on all NPT signatories including Iran.

The inspections are required by the safeguard agreement, an annexe to the NPT. Not allowing inspections breaches the safeguard agreement, not the NPT. To breach the NPT Iran would have to run a weapons program. No evidence has ever been presented that Iran is running a weapons program.

Iran did break its safeguard agreement before 2002, in the construction of it's first enrichment plant, but that has since been inspected (including surprise inspections). No evidence of transfer of materiel to a military program has been found.

For the second enrichment plant (near Qom, I wonder why) Iran can't possibly be breaking the treaty - it's not yet in use and so not covered. If Iran had signed the famous "additional protocol" it would be in breach, but it didn't, so it isn't.

Here's a place to find some of the detail, which is sadly lacking from most of these discussions http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2008/09/analysis-of-latest-iaea-report-on-iran.html

And for the raw stuff here's what the IAEA say themselves: http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2009/gov2009-35.pdf

To date, the results of the environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP indicate that the plants have been operating as declared (i.e. less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment).5 Since March 2007, 26 unannounced inspections have been conducted at FEP. Twenty-five of these inspections were successfully implemented. For one inspection, carried out on 19 May 2009, access to the facility was not granted by Iran within the agreed time because of an ongoing security drill being carried out at the facility by Iran which had been notified in advance to the Agency. The Agency has initiated discussions with Iran on arrangements in connection with unannounced inspections that would allow the Agency to meet its safeguards objectives within the required timeframe under similar circumstances

One hiccup in 26 inspections.

The Agency has continued to monitor the use and construction of hot cells at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and the Molybdenum, Iodine and Xenon Radioisotope Production (MIX) Facility. There have been no indications of ongoing reprocessing related activities at those facilities. While Iran has stated that there have been no reprocessing related R&D activities in Iran, the Agency can confirm this only with respect to these two facilities, as the measures of the Additional Protocol are not available.

Iran hasn't signed the additional protocol, they don't have to allow inspections at random.

The Agency has continued to monitor the use and construction of hot cells at the T

Neither one of them would front he kind of lies made by either the NYT or the POTUS.

IAEA on the NYT "Pravda":
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2009/MA200919.html

This is careful language couched in diplomatic terms, that translates into a denunciation of "Bullshit!"

Obama at G20? He completely warped the facts and shadow-boxed an agenda. The anti nuke talk has no concrete actions behind it, and is intended only to portray the nuclear states as "anti-nuclear" so they can maintain their monopoly under the appearance of moral high-ground, as they plan destruction for Iran.
http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=621785

I found an interesting document from the IAEA. Now, I'm not a big fan of UN run organizations (most are socialist leaning), but this is report is fairly unbiased and presents good arguments on both sides.

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/te_1123_prn.pdf

This report talks about making nuclear plants profitable compared to other energy sources and gives a bit of analysis surrounding the energy debate. A good read.

When is the last time you read about a major radiological disaster at a nuclear power plant?

Would you accept a nuclear fuel processing plant? Then here's a juicy one, an actual criticality event that sustained a chain reaction for a couple of hours:

http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TOAC_web.pdf

Try
http://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/publications.asp
and search for "radiological accident". Also interesting are the reports on the accidents in San Salvador, Soreq, Nesvizh, Istanbul, Tammiku, Samut Prakarn and Goiania.

I see your point now but I think it is largely already accounted for.

The extra protections, then safety switches and procedures, actual lock out tag out and demanding on site compliance is all an expense that can be built into the plant and operating costs rather then account for a disaster. So I guess what we could ask in addition would be could any of the expense of handling something like a Chernobyl scale disaster be either accounted for with the extra safety protections or would those protections be in addition to any disaster. If I could guarantee that when X, Y, and Z are followed, no accident on that scale would happen, then would that be in addition to the costs of an incident if it did happen or could the costs of it not happening be considered the costs of it happening.

I guess that pretty important because from a cost benefit analysis, it would seem the prevention would be the most beneficial route. Most of Chernobyl is tolerable as far as radioactivity is concerned as long as you stay away from the concrete and metal. Well, maybe not exactly at ground zero but there are people living since one year after the disaster less then 8-10 miles away with no obvious effects. The original evacuation zone was 30km or about 18 miles in diameter. They evacuated about 200,000 people, now I believe the total number is more around 330,000. The Ukraine claimed to have spent about $100 billion US by 200 and planed on another 6 billion in 2000 with 6.4 of it's annual budget allocated thereafter. This doesn't include the almost 1 billion dollars in donations from other countries and private aid organizations or the costs of direct assistance given during and immediately after the incident. Also not included in that is 1 billion US in changed to other plants in either safety mechanisms or training brought about with foreign aid or the costs of the new containment domes planned to be placed over the failing concrete domes made in the heat of the issue. I don't have links but I believe one is supposed to costs of around 505 million US for the one containment dome and 200 million for the other. As rough guess would be something close to around 3-6 billion dollars total not counting the costs of lands lost. Personal and real property losses, health treatment from the effects of radiation and relocation costs.

However, it should be stressed that something like Chernobyl can't really happen today because of differences in core designs as well as physical safety measures built into the plant that cause a safe fail shutdown instead of a run away reactor. It's one of the requirements of the IAEA which is followed by almost every country now. Section 5.40. of IAEA SAFETY STANDARDS (PDF warning) states that:

"The principle of fail-safe design shall be considered and incorporated into the
design of systems and components important to safety for the plant as appropriate: if
a system or component fails, plant systems shall be designed to pass into a safe state
with no necessity for any action to be initiated."

6.2 states, "The reactor core and associated internal components located within the reactor
vessel shall be designed and mounted in such a way that they will withstand the static
and dynamic loading expected in operational states, design basis accidents and external
events to the extent necessary to ensure safe shutdown of the reactor, to maintain the
reactor subcritical and to ensure cooling of the core."

This design consideration has been designed from the start or has been or is in the process of being retrofitted into almost every nuclear plant. We can talk about if an incident could happen or it this design would fail on the premise of a terrorist strike or war or something of the sort but we would have bigger problems then a Chernobyl type incident when that comes around.

And killed the total of, what, 60 people?

That's a bit of a misleading statistic. Although 59 people died directly from overexposure to radiation and thyroid cancer, many more, infact an estimated 4000 more will or have died as a result of the accident.
Source: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Focus/Chernobyl/pdfs/pr.pdf

Really? According to the IAEA http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html world uranium prices have quintupled in the last 8 years, part of the reason the State Government of Western Australia have decided to start mining yellowcake (the other reason being ideology and the lack of protesting in WA)

Don't think that the demand isnt there. It is.

none of them can sustain fusion.

The only man made devices that have produced true fusion are Hydrogen bombs. (They are not sustainable)

Everything else is 'getting close', and has been since the late 1950's.

I stand by my comment. We need workable controlled fusion to make a fusion powered drive. Until then it is not science, just fiction.

Get real people, or go hang out with Fleischmann and Pons.

http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/ST/NA/NAAL/agri/pbu/agriPBUmain.php

I would like to help a slashdotter. Have a look at: http://www.iaea.org/About/Jobs/profstaff.html and http://www.iaea.org/About/Jobs/genstaff.html and consider if you can stand that US citizens are not everybody's darling any more. I would appreciate welcoming a brother in mind!

I would like to help a slashdotter. Have a look at: http://www.iaea.org/About/Jobs/profstaff.html and http://www.iaea.org/About/Jobs/genstaff.html and consider if you can stand that US citizens are not everybody's darling any more. I would appreciate welcoming a brother in mind!

"Large scale deployment" is in the eye of the observer.

Denmark has 13 GWe of electrical production capability, with wind at 3 GWe (peaking), about 2 nuclear power plants worth of wind (well, not really a fair comparison because nuclear is stable base power).

Compare with the US at 932 GWe total electrical production capability.

(soure)

Signatories to the NPT are allowed to enrich Uranium as part of a civilian program.

Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the Agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol. This is especially important in the light of the many years of undeclared activities in Iran and the confidence deficit created as a result. The Director General therefore urges Iran to implement all necessary measures called for by the Board of Governors and the Security Council to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

Signatories to the NPT are allowed to enrich Uranium as part of a civilian program.

Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the Agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol. This is especially important in the light of the many years of undeclared activities in Iran and the confidence deficit created as a result. The Director General therefore urges Iran to implement all necessary measures called for by the Board of Governors and the Security Council to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

Signatories to the NPT are allowed to enrich Uranium as part of a civilian program.

Although Iran has provided some additional detailed information about its current activities on an ad hoc basis, the Agency will not be in a position to make progress towards providing credible assurances about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran before reaching some clarity about the nature of the alleged studies, and without implementation of the Additional Protocol. This is especially important in the light of the many years of undeclared activities in Iran and the confidence deficit created as a result. The Director General therefore urges Iran to implement all necessary measures called for by the Board of Governors and the Security Council to build confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear programme.

The policies of the present Israeli Government have obstructed the peace process in the Middle East and all initiatives to free the region of the Middle East of weapons of mass destruction, and in particular of nuclear weapons, have failed.

No less than 4 UN general resolutions and 5 IAEA resolutions. Is there a problem here?

damn right i'm posting anonymously.

It is possible to detect 0.01 MBq of iodine-131 at a distance of 2-3 m. This is a tiny fraction of the recommended discharge level in a patient.

For example, it is possible to detect 0.01 MBq of iodine-131 at a distance of 2-3 m. This is a tiny fraction of the recommended discharge level in a patient.

Going to the original source the actual statement is:

Yeah. Sure. "The people is dumb".

Let's see...

> The 4,000 deaths of cleanup workers at Chernobyl is completely unexcusable.

This estimation was touted by the IAEA, which runs in order to disseminate nuclear powerplants, and by the OMS (censored by the IAEA for all nuclear-related matters).

Moreover the IAEA announced "4,000 deaths, grand total, definitive and scientific (United Nations) estimation" in September 2005 (it wasn't definitive, nor sci, nor UN) before discreetling backing up in April 2006 ("9000, stated only for a subset of the Soviet population and for solid cancers"). Here is an overview and an article.

> 800 deaths are objectively fewer than the 105,000 reported in Wikipedia.

On WP (en and fr) there are too many pro-nuke agit-propers, eager to relay disinformation and censor facts.

> 4,000 deaths are objectively fewer than "the six-figure death counts that opponents of nuclear power once cited".

The most famous report published by the opponents (titled TORCH) was published AFTER IAEA's report.

The IAEA estimation ("4000 ...") is mainly based upon scientific material from E. Cardis (who served as the scientific secretary for the study which leaded to the report), and they properly credited her. Know what? As soon as the ''4000 deaths'' thesis was published she declared that 30,000 to 60,000 cancer deaths is "the right order of magnitude". See New Scientists and Nature. Her most recent study leads to "By 2065, models predict that about 16,000 (95% UI 3,400 72,000) cases of thyroid cancer and 25,000 (95% UI 11,000 59,000) cases of other cancers may be expected due to radiation from the accident and that about 16,000 deaths (95% UI 6,700 - 38,000) from these cancers may occur).". Abstract: no less than 6,700, approx 16,000, maybe up to 38,000 ... remember that the main "opponents" report (TORCH) authors estimated that 30,000 to 60,000 may die. Therefore the 'total mortality' estimation published by the very expert committed by the IAEA are more on the same ballpark of published by scientific "opponents" than IAEA's.

The IAEA's "4,000 total" is ridiculous. Quoting it, as you did, is at best naive.

> don't see people debating the accuracy of the numbers they use
> Grow up

Yeah. Sure. Good advice, chief. Thanx! Here is my hint: avoid propagating lies. The ongoing propaganda campaign "eat nuke! good for health! yummy!" is already well funded, they don't need any help.

http://www.iaea.org/

Go away, please.

please point out the justification for it without getting into any religious tirade

13. In February 2003, Iran acknowledged that it had imported in 1991 natural uranium, in a variety of forms, which it had not previously reported to the Agency, and that it had used some of these materials, at locations which had not previously been reported to the Agency, for testing certain parts of the UCF conversion process (i.e. uranium dissolution, purification using pulse columns and the production of uranium metal). On a number of occasions between February and July 2003, Iran stated that this information, along with documentation provided by the foreign supplier, had been sufficient to permit Iran to complete indigenously the detailed design and manufacturing of the equipment for UCF. Iran repeatedly stated that it had not carried out any research and development (R&D) or testing, even on a laboratory scale, of other more complex processes (e.g. conversion of UO2 to UF4 and conversion of UF4 to UF6) using nuclear material.

14. Following the discovery by the Agency of indications of depleted UF4 in samples of waste taken at the Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories (JHL) at TNRC, Iran acknowledged, in a letter dated 19 August 2003, that it had carried out UF4 conversion experiments on a laboratory scale during the 1990s at the Radiochemistry Laboratories of TNRC using depleted uranium which had been imported in 1977 and exempted from safeguards upon receipt, and which Iran had declared in 1998 (when the material was de-exempted) as having been lost during processing. In October 2003, Iran further acknowledged that, contrary to its previous statements, practically all of the materials important to uranium conversion had been produced in laboratory and bench scale experiments (in kilogram quantities) carried out at TNRC and at ENTC between 1981 and 1993 without having been reported to the Agency.

please point out the justification for it without getting into any religious tirade

13. In February 2003, Iran acknowledged that it had imported in 1991 natural uranium, in a variety of forms, which it had not previously reported to the Agency, and that it had used some of these materials, at locations which had not previously been reported to the Agency, for testing certain parts of the UCF conversion process (i.e. uranium dissolution, purification using pulse columns and the production of uranium metal). On a number of occasions between February and July 2003, Iran stated that this information, along with documentation provided by the foreign supplier, had been sufficient to permit Iran to complete indigenously the detailed design and manufacturing of the equipment for UCF. Iran repeatedly stated that it had not carried out any research and development (R&D) or testing, even on a laboratory scale, of other more complex processes (e.g. conversion of UO2 to UF4 and conversion of UF4 to UF6) using nuclear material.

14. Following the discovery by the Agency of indications of depleted UF4 in samples of waste taken at the Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Laboratories (JHL) at TNRC, Iran acknowledged, in a letter dated 19 August 2003, that it had carried out UF4 conversion experiments on a laboratory scale during the 1990s at the Radiochemistry Laboratories of TNRC using depleted uranium which had been imported in 1977 and exempted from safeguards upon receipt, and which Iran had declared in 1998 (when the material was de-exempted) as having been lost during processing. In October 2003, Iran further acknowledged that, contrary to its previous statements, practically all of the materials important to uranium conversion had been produced in laboratory and bench scale experiments (in kilogram quantities) carried out at TNRC and at ENTC between 1981 and 1993 without having been reported to the Agency.

An RTG doesn't count. If they use plutonium, it's Pu-238 (alpha emitter) with a half life of less than 90 years, not Pu-239 which has a 90,000 year half life (fewer watts per gram) and can support a chain reaction (so it's needed for other things). There are lots of them scattered about the former Soviet Union so if you're doing any hiking there, avoid heat-emanating ceramic objects.

When not using solar panels (conspicuous and vulnerable) Americans like to power their satellites with RTGs. The Soviets put 35 reactor-powered satellites in orbit and only a few RTG-powered satellites. What was forbidden by the treaty was nuclear weapons, specifically including tests. An interstellar spacecraft powered by nuclear explosions would be a great way to sneakily test your weapons in full view of everyone.

Oh, so you'd prefer radon 220 that causes lung cancer, or what about radium 226 that causes bone cancers - it has a quite modest half life of only 1600 years, or thorium which cause birth defects, or what about the benign noble gases like xenon, argon or krypton that decay into something deadly or iodine 131 or ceasium. Did you know that pressurised water reactors are allowed too purge these gasses into the atmosphere 20 times a year as part of normal operations as officially permitted by the NRC or would you prefer to maintain your illusion that the ageing nuclear reactors in the U.S will be a squeaky clean source of electricity for your EV-2. That 's not fearmongering, thats understanding the operational issues.

No, it's FUD.

The longest-lived isotope of radon is 222Rn, with a half-life of 3.8 days. Gaseous emissions of nuclear power plants are sequestered and allowed to decay for some time before the result is emitted. Compared to the natural release of radon from the underground natural decay of uranium, the additional release of post-sequestration radon is negligible. The gas consists primarily of actual fission products (at least, those which are gaseous at atmospheric temperatures) and any gases which result from the coolant reacting with various particles. More radon is actually released during the mining of uranium than from nuclear power plants, but that release is still low compared to natural release (have you checked your basement for radon, just in case?), and the health risk to workers at uranium mines can be mitigated.

Radium is also a solid at atmospheric temperatures, and is a precursor to radon, meaning the emission of radium is minimized by the nuclear process. Any 226Ra produced by the nuclear reaction (though the concentration is known to be trace, if any at all) would be contained within the fuel rod or pellet. As with radon, most radium uncovered in the nuclear power process results from mining, not the operation of the power plant, and so the radium can be fully contained at the mine site.

you mean Yucca mountain that had a earthquake of 7.4 on the Richter scale in the early '90's. ... That's not fearmongering, that's called understanding what a political solution looks like.

Still FUD. It's not even true. The 7.4 earthquake happened near Landers, California, more than 200 miles away. It triggered an aftershock of 5.6 centered about 8 miles from the site, an event considered to be of the greatest significance to the site in the past 20 years.

Yeah, like the way they had to cool down av reactor housing with garden sprinklers because the river levels were so low during the heatwave, such forward planning and preparation for an event that can induce a meltdown.

More FUD. Had the power plants' internal temperatures reached unacceptable levels, it would have (by law) been shut down, so there was never any danger of a radiological accident occurring. The plants were operating normally, and the concern was simply that the plants would have to be shut down in the midst of a tremendous heat wave that had already claimed the lives of a number of elderly and ill citizens. They were taking whatever measures they could think of to keep that particular plant operating, but they would have shut it down had conditions required it.

Like First Energy "safe" who persuaded the NRC to delay inspection of safety components past the due date only to find that a pressure vessel had corroded through 6 of it's 6 1/2 inch thickness. If you are going to operate these devices safely into thier old age then you have to increase the safety inspections, and that is not profitable for the operator. profit vs safety what a great tradeoff. That is not fearmongering, that is called considering yourself lucky if you were in Toledo on new years day 2002.

FirstEnergy

A wild population of insects was tested by nature and evolution - they were tried and found true! If a mix of wild and GM mosquitos shows a better survival of the GM type you should have learned that your lab-conditions are not replicating the wild and not conclude that your GM moquitos are better! Envorinmentally and ecologically a better method to fight Malaria is to eradicate insects by the Sterile Insect Technology (SIT) as developed by the Laboratories of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This method has no other consequences on the environment but eradicating a single species out of a familyof hundreds. This was succesfully proved by the eradication of the TseTse Fly from Sansibar and the eradication of the Screw-worm Fly from Lybia. http://www-naweb.iaea.org/nafa/ipc/index.html Bill Gates should not have donated to a vaccine-company (which he bought himself before) but to the SIT for mosquitos which is being developed by the IAEA Labs in cooperation with the Center of Desease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, the Queen Mary University, London and the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands

...the occurrence of a cover-up. That's inexcusable. The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO) and the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) would be all over Hokuriku's and Shika station's ass for that.

However, it sounds like what really happened was a subcritical multiplication, wherein fission does occur, but does not quite achieve a self-sustaining rate. The event could have been initiated any number of things; for a boiling water reactor, it could have been control rod misposition. Hence, the blurb about only increasing power by less than 1%. There is a standard requirement that when shutdown, a nuclear reactor will have sufficient negative reactivity to ensure that a recriticality does not occur.

Further, because of the self-regulating (self-shutdown) aspects of non-Soviet (i.e., Western, including Japanese) reactor designs, the consequences of this event are minor: no radiation releases, maybe some minor fuel cladding degradation, at worst, elevated isotope levels in the reactor coolant.

On further reflection, my only caveat to the above was that it appears the unit was in a refueling outage - so a manual operator action was required to ensure no further criticality. I think the statement about an automatic shutdown system failure could be misleading; in a refueling condition, such systems may not be in service at all.

I'd be interested in the deeper technical details when they come out. More on the Shika (also Shiga) reactor here.

It is not possible to prove a negative. No matter what Iran does, there will always be "uncertainties" simply because logic dictates that it must be so.

Neither of which is required under the terms of the NPT. Iran did implement Additional protocol, for a time, until it became obvious that the US didn't care.

Rights to enrichment are explicitly guaranteed to all signatories of the NPT, and were in fact the major reason why the treaty was signed in the first place. By denying Iran its treaty rights, the US is invalidating the treaty.

Hardly. US lobbying caused the UN to pass that resolution. We really want to bomb them, but we need time to prepare, so diplomacy is being pursued as a delaying tactic, possibly leading to an excuse. This is the same thing that happened with Iraq and WMDs, but people have short memories.

Then why is Israel allowed to produce HEU? Or India? Or any other country? The NPT guarantees to all signatories the right to enrichment, don't forget this! Without the NPT, no country would have any business telling other countries what to do at all.

It is not possible to prove a negative. No matter what Iran does, there will always be "uncertainties" simply because logic dictates that it must be so.

Neither of which is required under the terms of the NPT. Iran did implement Additional protocol, for a time, until it became obvious that the US didn't care.

Rights to enrichment are explicitly guaranteed to all signatories of the NPT, and were in fact the major reason why the treaty was signed in the first place. By denying Iran its treaty rights, the US is invalidating the treaty.

Hardly. US lobbying caused the UN to pass that resolution. We really want to bomb them, but we need time to prepare, so diplomacy is being pursued as a delaying tactic, possibly leading to an excuse. This is the same thing that happened with Iraq and WMDs, but people have short memories.

Then why is Israel allowed to produce HEU? Or India? Or any other country? The NPT guarantees to all signatories the right to enrichment, don't forget this! Without the NPT, no country would have any business telling other countries what to do at all.

Everything I quoted above was directly from the IAEA. I didn't say that Iran was producing highly enriched uranium, but the IAEA does have serious concerns about the dual use equipment that Iran has been collecting at PHRC, especially after some particles of highly enriched uranium were found there. So far, Iran has been unwilling to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve this.

See also:
GOV/2006/27 paragraphs 24-25
GOV/2006/38 paragraph 17
GOV/2006/53 paragraphs 24-25

Everything I quoted above was directly from the IAEA. I didn't say that Iran was producing highly enriched uranium, but the IAEA does have serious concerns about the dual use equipment that Iran has been collecting at PHRC, especially after some particles of highly enriched uranium were found there. So far, Iran has been unwilling to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve this.

See also:
GOV/2006/27 paragraphs 24-25
GOV/2006/38 paragraph 17
GOV/2006/53 paragraphs 24-25

Everything I quoted above was directly from the IAEA. I didn't say that Iran was producing highly enriched uranium, but the IAEA does have serious concerns about the dual use equipment that Iran has been collecting at PHRC, especially after some particles of highly enriched uranium were found there. So far, Iran has been unwilling to cooperate with the IAEA to resolve this.

See also:
GOV/2006/27 paragraphs 24-25
GOV/2006/38 paragraph 17
GOV/2006/53 paragraphs 24-25

Iran has not addressed the long outstanding verification issues or provided the necessary transparency to remove uncertainties associated with some of its activities. Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities; nor has Iran acted in accordance with the provisions of the Additional Protocol... The Agency remains unable to make further progress in its efforts to verify the correctness and completeness of Iran's declarations with a view to confirming the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme.

For version 0.5.1 (might be old by now) of kpdf, the thumbnails in the side pane do page numbering as you want. I'm not sure about the rotation because I have not needed to do that in years, but that would be a useful feature. It's on the wish list and you can fall back to Kghostview if you run into something that really needs rotating. It should show up under View->View Mode of Konqueror as an option when you look at pdf files.

Kpdf also has browser like navigation buttons that are very helpful in large documents. For an example of aids to navigation and not needing to rotate see the very useful Idaho National Laboratory Ge(Li) Gamma Sectrum Catalog (warning, this is an 89MB file). This document makes me think rotate has been done automatically, which would explain my never needing to do it. For an example of text searching where you thought there was not text because the file is obviously an image of an ancient, manually typed manuscript, see here. Those features, combined with Konqueror's ability to split tabs, have made it so I have not printed someone else's pdf in two years.

KDE just keep rocking.