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Posts Tagged ‘uranium’

North Korean Nuclear Work Poses Greater Threat Than Iran, Amano Says

March 12, 2012 Comments off

GSN

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano on Saturday said he believes the threat posed by Iran’s atomic activities is eclipsed by the dangers of North Korea’s known nuclear-weapon efforts, Kyodo News reported (see GSN, March 9).

The North’s development of nuclear weapons, which includes two nuclear tests to date, is a “threat to East Asia,” the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.

“The problem (with North Korea) is serious and its impact on the world is larger” than Iran, Amano said. His organization and a number of governments around the world worry that Iran is seeking a nuclear-weapon capability; Tehran maintains that its atomic development program is strictly peaceful (see related GSN story, today).

The veteran Japanese diplomat said he hopes to dispatch IAEA monitors to North Korea to verify implementation of a recently agreed-to shutdown of Read more…

Categories: Iran, North Korea, nuclear technology Tags: , , , ,

IAEA Confirms Iran Has Started 20% Uranium Enrichment

January 10, 2012 Comments off

zerohedge.com

ranian technicians at the Uranium Conversion Facilities in Isfahan. (File photo)

The geopolitical foreplay is getting ridiculous. At this point it is quite obvious that virtually everyone involved in the US-Israel-Iran hate triangle is just itching for someone else to pull the trigger. And the latest report out of the IAEA will only precipitate this. Who – remember the IAEA? The same IAEA which did not find nukes in Iraq in 2003 only to be overriden by Dick “WMD” Cheney to “justify” an invasion. As RIA reports:  “The International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran has started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level, which can easily be turned into fissile warhead material. “The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement. However, IAEA Spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that all nuclear materials and operations in the Fordo facility are “under the Agency’s containment and surveillance.”” Naturally, that leaves the Read more…

Categories: Iran, nuclear technology Tags: , , , , ,

Madness Just Hit Record Highs: US Unable To Account For 36,000 Pounds Of Its Own Weapons Grade Uranium And Plutonium!

September 16, 2011 1 comment

infiniteunknown

Nuclear missile storage - Flickr/BWJones The U.S. Is Unable To Account For 36k Pounds Of Its Own Weapons Grade Uranium And Plutonium (Business Insider, Sep. 15, 2011):

Under special nuclear cooperation agreements, the United States sent 38,580 pounds of enriched uranium and plutonium to more than two-dozen foreign agencies and is unable to account for 36,000 pounds of the material.

The Government Accountability Office report says these 27 cooperation agreements, set up to facilitate cross border research, have no accountability and the U.S. has no way to enforce control.

Because there is no reporting process in place, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has been Read more…

Categories: nuclear technology, Uncategorized, United States Tags: , , , ,

GE uranium enrichment plans raise fears: report

August 22, 2011 Comments off

france24

The Exelon Byron Nuclear Generating Stations in Byron, Illinois. US conglomerate General Electric is seeking permission to build a $1 billion plant for uranium enrichment by laser, a process which has raised proliferation fears, The New York Times said.
AFP – US conglomerate General Electric is seeking permission to build a $1 billion plant for uranium enrichment by laser, a process which has raised proliferation fears, The New York Times said Sunday.

After testing the enrichment process for two years, GE has asked the US government to approve its plans for a massive facility in North Carolina that could produce reactor fuel by the ton, the report said, citing GE officials.

“We are currently optimizing the design,” Christopher Monetta, president of Global Laser Enrichment, a subsidiary operated by GE and Japan’s Hitachi, said in an interview with the newspaper.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to Read more…

Categories: General Electric, nuclear technology Tags: , , ,

North Korea poised for nuclear weapon test next year

August 15, 2011 Comments off

theaustralian

NORTH Korea will conduct another nuclear weapons test within 12 months, according to senior US sources with access to Washington’s intelligence assessments.

This will bring much closer the day when North Korean nuclear weapons could threaten Australia. And it could trigger explosive reactions in northeast Asia.

The senior US sources believe the test could come sooner rather than later, although next year is regarded as the most likely.

“2012 is an auspicious year from the North Korean point of view,” said one senior American.

“It’s an election year in the US and an election year in in South Korea. And the North Koreans have publicly declared their desire to be a fully functional nuclear weapons state by 2012.”

For most of the past decade, sources say, North Korea has been systematically involved in nuclear proliferation.

At a meeting in 2003, senior North Koreans told representatives of the Read more…

Categories: North Korea, nuclear technology Tags: , , , , , , , ,

China starts 14th nuclear reactor and Canadian Uranium Producers Optimistic

August 9, 2011 Comments off

nextbigfuture

1. The second unit at China’s Ling Ao II nuclear power plant entered commercial operation on 7 August, China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co (CGNPC) announced. The 1080 MWe Chinese-designed CPR-1000 pressurised water reactor (PWR) achieved first criticality on 25 February and was connected to the grid on 3 May. CGNPC said that the unit entered into commercial operation following 168 hours of successful test operation. It becomes China’s 14th operating nuclear power reactor.

17 other CPR-1000s already under construction. Work is planned to begin on at least five more during 2011.


2. Mid-year reports from two Canada-based uranium producers share an air of quiet optimism despite feeling the effects of events in Japan.

The first half of the year saw Denison produce 679,000 pounds U3O8 (261 tonnes U). Even before the events of 11 March, Denison had revised its uranium production forecast for 2011 downwards to 1.2 million pounds U3O8 (462 tU). This figure remains unchanged despite revisions to Denison’s ore processing plans for the remainder of the year subsequent to its acquisition of uranium exploration and development company White Canyon, including the Daneros mine in Utah.

Cameco’s first-half uranium production totalled Read more…

Categories: China, nuclear technology Tags: , ,

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

July 25, 2011 1 comment

guardian

The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P W Botha

The secret military agreement signed by Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and P W Botha of South Africa. Photograph: Guardian

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa‘s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for Read more…

Categories: Israel, nuclear technology, South Africa Tags: , , , , ,

Iran’s acceleration of its nuclear programme angers the west

July 20, 2011 Comments off

guardian

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inspecting the Natanz nuclear plant

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, inspects the Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran. Photograph: Iran’s Presidency Office Handout/EPA

Western capitals have reacted angrily to an announcement by Iran that it is installing more advanced centrifuges in a uranium enrichment plant with the aim of accelerating its nuclear programme.

“The installation of new centrifuges with better quality and speed is ongoing,” Ramin Mehmanparast, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters at his weekly press briefing.

“We have announced it and the agency [the International Atomic Energy Agency] has full supervision of them. They are fully aware that Iran’s peaceful nuclear activity continues to progress. This is another Read more…

Categories: Iran, nuclear technology Tags: , , ,

Court Papers Suggest Pakistani Interest in Thermonuclear Weapon

July 19, 2011 Comments off

globalsecuritynewswire

The United States in federal court documents offered its first open suggestion that nuclear-armed Pakistan could be seeking to build a thermonuclear weapon, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported on Sunday (see GSN, July 7).

The Justice Department has charged a Chinese woman living in the United States with illegally exporting high-tech paint coatings that could aid Pakistan’s nuclear weapons development. As the ex-managing director of a Chinese branch of PPG Industries, Xun Wang is accused of shipping the material five years ago in direct disobedience of the Pittsburgh-based company and nonproliferation guidelines issued by the U.S. Commerce Department.

Pakistan holds nuclear arms outside the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and is a known past proliferator of sensitive technology and information through the black market operation once led by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. As such, the United States has placed a number of restrictions on the trade of sensitive goods with the South Asian nation.

The U.S. Justice Department questions in court filings whether the paint coating shipments could Read more…

Categories: nuclear technology, Pakistan Tags: , , , , , , ,

AP uranium mine may be world’s largest: DAE

July 19, 2011 2 comments

thehindubusinessline

Estimates of reserves revised to 49,000 tonnes

Rawatbhata (Rajasthan), July 18:

The Tummalappalle uranium mine in the Cuddapah district of Andhra Pradesh has the potential to become the largest uranium mine in the world, according to the Department of Atomic Energy.

The earlier estimated reserves at the mine were 14,000 tonnes, but it has since been revised to 49,000 tonnes, said Dr Srikumar Banerjee, Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy, on Monday, during an interaction with the media at a function to mark the start of construction of two nuclear-power reactors at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan.

Excavation

Dr Banerjee said the survey work was ongoing and that the reserve estimates may even Read more…

Categories: India Tags: , , ,