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Sep 13, 2012

Look Ma, No Bubbles! New Material Boils Without the Froth

A new nanomaterial vanquishes the bubbles that normally pop up with boiling, a finding that may point to ways to help prevent explosions in nuclear power plants, researchers say. To understand how this material works, imagine a hot skillet. When its surface is warm, water on it will bubble. However,...

Nov 8, 2012

'Powerships' May Replace South Korea's Offline Nuclear Reactors

Floating power plants offer a unique solution to South Korea's possible power shortages after the country shut down nuclear reactors containing uncertified parts. The four powerships from Turkey can each produce about 150 megawatts of power for South Korea if the Korean government goes ahead with plans to rent them....

Jun 7, 2013

Calif. Nuclear Power Plant Set for Retirement

Southern California's embattled San Onofre nuclear plant will be permanently shut down, its operators announced today (June 7). The facility, which sits on a beachfront stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego, will be the largest to be retired in the United States in the last five decades, the Associated...

Aug 20, 2013

Cosmic Rays May Reveal Damage to Fukushima's Nuclear Reactors

Radiation is still leaking from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant after the 2011 tsunami-related meltdown in Japan, making any damage assessment dangerous for both humans and machines. Instead, high-energy particles created by cosmic rays striking the Earth's atmosphere could provide an X-ray-style image of the damage from a much safer...

Aug 21, 2013

Fukushima Radiation Leak: 5 Things You Should Know

Japan's nuclear regulator has raised the threat level of a radioactive leak at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant from 1 to 3 on a 7-point scale. Officials said Tuesday that a storage tank has leaked 300 tons of radioactive water into the ground. The rating upgrade, which has to be...

Sep 27, 2013

Small Nuclear Reactors Vulnerable to Big Risks (Op-Ed)

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This article is adapted from one that appeared on the Huffington Post on Sept. 23, 2013. Negin contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Nuclear power proponents pinning their hopes on...

Oct 11, 2013

Government Shutdown Closes Nation's Nuclear Labs

The nation's nuclear labs are preparing to furlough more than 20,000 employees and shutter their science experiments, except for work essential to national security, because of the ongoing government shutdown. Starting Tuesday (Oct. 15), workers at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will ready the lab for a hard closure, said...

Oct 15, 2013

ITER Fusion Reactor to Postpone Basic Physics Research

In light of construction delays of the first fusion reactor being designed to generate self-sustaining reactions, a committee has decided to postpone some basic physics research and other studies considered non-essential to the project's target, Nature.com reports. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) is being built in southern France to...

Oct 23, 2013

The Promise of Fusion is Real, If it's Properly Funded (Op-Ed)

Gregory Scott Jones is a writer who specializes in covering supercomputing. He contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. If energy research was an elementary school playground, the study of magnetic fusion might be the kid in the corner all alone, throwing pebbles at the ground with...

Nov 6, 2013

World's 10 Worst Polluted Places Named

Remote industrial towns, e-waste processing centers and the site of an infamous nuclear disaster top 2013's worst polluted places, according to a new list from the New York-based nonprofit Blacksmith Institute. The toxic locations are not ranked, but they include Chernobyl, Ukraine, which is still suffering the consequences of a...

Nov 15, 2013

Japan Scales Back Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals

Japan is slashing its greenhouse gas reduction goals in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident, which has caused the country to replace its nuclear power with coal, natural gas and other greenhouse-gas emitting forms of energy. Instead of reducing greenhouse gases by 25 percent from their 1990 levels, Japan's...

Dec 11, 2013

Fracking Could Dispose of Nuclear Waste, Scientist Says

SAN FRANCISCO — Nuclear waste could one day be disposed of by injecting it into fracking boreholes in the Earth, at least if one scientist's idea takes hold. The method, presented here Monday (Dec. 9) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, would mix nuclear waste with other...

Dec 30, 2013

Debunking Myths on Nuclear Power (It's Not For Making Bombs) (Op-Ed)

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. It is the received wisdom that nuclear weapons and nuclear power are inseparable. Consequently, any country that builds a civilian nuclear power station is able to build an atomic...

May 14, 2014

Did Kitty Litter Cause a Radiation Leak?

So-called green kitty litter may be a good idea for eco-conscious cat lovers, but it's a bad idea for nuclear waste storage. That's the assessment from an investigation into a radiation leak that occurred at the only nuclear waste storage site in the United States, the underground Waste Isolation Pilot...

Jul 22, 2014

Fukushima's Ice Wall Makes Sense

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Engineers at Fukushima nuclear power plant have been trying to create a £185m ice wall to isolate contaminated water from mixing with groundwater. However, there has been a steady...