International

The head of a House panel with oversight of U.S. nuclear weapons expressed hope Tuesday that the United States and Russia might be able to work together, in a post-Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty world, to prevent a nuclear standoff on NATO borders. Citing Russian noncompliance dating back about a decade, the Trump administration announced […]

Westinghouse got roped into a brewing political battle in Washington this week, when the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee ordered the White House to turn over records of the Donald Trump administration’s exploration of possible nuclear-power exports to Saudi Arabia. Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) directed the administration to by March 5 produce any records […]

The looming potential for the United Kingdom’s “hard exit” from the European Union could impact procedures for shipping radioactive waste and spent reactor fuel to and from the nation, the U.K. Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said this week. Following a 2016 referendum, the U.K. is due to leave the EU on […]

The looming potential for the United Kingdom’s “hard exit” from the European Union could impact procedures for shipping nuclear waste and spent reactor fuel to and from the nation, the U.K. Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said this week. The U.K. is due to leave the EU on March 29, but the […]

Westinghouse got roped into a brewing political battle in Washington on Tuesday, when the Democratic-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee ordered the White House to turn over records of the Donald Trump administration’s exploration of possible nuclear-power exports to Saudi Arabia. Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) ordered the administration to by March 5 produce any records […]

A second face-to-face between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was the biggest nuclear news of this week’s State of the Union address. From the dais in the House of Representatives, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he and Kim plan to meet Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam to continue […]

A planned second face-to-face between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was the biggest nuclear news of Tuesday’s State of the Union address. From the dais in the House of Representatives, Trump told a joint session of Congress that he and Kim plan to meet Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam to continue the […]

The United States will suspend its obligations under the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Saturday, meaning it will be free to deploy missiles with a range of 310 miles to 3,100 miles anywhere in the world by Aug. 2. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the news early Friday morning. The U.S. […]

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Thursday kept its metaphorical Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, citing continuing aggressive posturing by nuclear-armed nations. “The risks associated with nuclear weapons, over the long term, are increasing for three reasons: expensive programs to modernize nuclear arsenals, expansive nuclear doctrines, and a decisive turn away from […]

WASHINGTON — The United States still intends to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty next week, unless Russia destroys weapons the Trump administration says violate the Cold War accord, a senior State Department official told reporters here Thursday. The administration says Russia can only verify its compliance with the INF Treaty by destroying weapon […]

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) plans this year to drill two more boreholes in one of the five locations being evaluated for a deep geological repository for the nation’s used nuclear reactor fuel. These will be the second and third boreholes drilled in the Ignace area in northwest Ontario. The first […]

The government of the United Kingdom on Wednesday officially began its search for a site for a geologic disposal facility for its stockpile of higher-activity radioactive waste. “There is no preferred location for a GDF and we are adopting a consent-based process to identify a suitable area to host the facility. A suitable site will […]

Congress would have to affirmatively, rather than tacitly, approve any agreement to allow exports of U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, under bills introduced in both chambers Tuesday by a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced the No Nuclear Weapons for Saudi Arabia Act in the Senate, while […]

The government of the United Kingdom on Wednesday officially began its search for a site for a geological disposal facility for its stockpile of higher-activity radioactive waste. “There is no preferred location for a GDF and we are adopting a consent-based process to identify a suitable area to host the facility. A suitable site will […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Dec. 7 it helped send more than 1 kilogram of highly enriched uranium back to China from the Nigerian Research Reactor-1 at Ahmadu Bello University near Zaria, Nigeria. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency worked with the Chinese government and the U.N.-chartered International Atomic Energy Agency to repatriate […]

A pair of nuclear doves in the Senate demanded this week that Energy Secretary Rick Perry brief them about his negotiations to bring U.S. nuclear-power technology to Saudi Arabia. In a Tuesday letter to Perry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee members Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) also told Perry the United States should indefinitely suspend […]

A pair of nuclear doves in the Senate demanded Tuesday that Energy Secretary Rick Perry brief them about his negotiations to bring U.S. nuclear-power technology to Saudi Arabia. In a letter to Perry, Sens. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — also told Perry the United […]

Energy services multinational Wood said Monday it has won a contract to remove and process 47 cubic meters of radioactive waste from the retired Dungeness A nuclear power reactor at Kent in the United Kingdom. The contract covers designing, building, and managing systems for retrieving the wet material, currently held in tanks at the facility, […]

The U.K. Defense Minister announced an additional $512 million (400 million British pounds) investment in funding for the nuclear armed ballistic missile Dreadnought-class submarine program on Thursday. The Defense Ministry said this new funding release supports the building phase of the program and will “safeguard” 8,000 jobs that support the submarine program and its supply chain. […]

WASHINGTON — The day the United States said it could leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by early February, hawkish think-tankers and former government officials shared weapons shopping lists for the post-treaty world — which in one case included in-theater nuclear missiles. The defense hawks spoke on a panel hosted by the Air Force […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said this week it expects to spend £3.1 billion ($3.9 billion) in its upcoming 2019-2020 budget year. Just over £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion) of that will be spent on its nuclear cleanup, reprocessing, and waste management operations around the nation. The remaining money be directed toward non-site-specific activities, […]

The Port Hope Project in Ontario, Canada, is scheduled Monday to begin retrieval of radioactively contaminated soil from a third and final location in the municipality. The project, involving 2,000 cubic meters of historic low-level radioactive waste near a sewage treatment plant, is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month. Contractor Amec […]

WASHINGTON — The day the United States said it could leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty by early February, hawkish think-tankers and former government officials shared weapons shopping lists for the post-treaty world — which in one case included in-theater nuclear missiles. The defense hawks spoke on a panel hosted by the Air Force […]

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) said this week it expects to spend £3.1 billion ($3.9 billion) in its upcoming 2019-2020 budget year. Just over £2.9 billion ($3.7 billion) of that will be spent at its nuclear cleanup, reprocessing, and waste management facilities around the nation. The remaining money be directed toward non-site-specific operations, […]

The Port Hope Project in Ontario, Canada, is scheduled this week to begin retrieval of radioactively contaminated soil from a third and final location. The project, involving 2,000 cubic meters of historic low-level radioactive waste near a sewage treatment plant in Port Hope, is scheduled to be completed by the end of the month. Contractor […]

Three Democratic senators on Monday appealed to President Donald Trump to confer with Congress before formally withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Sens. Bob Menendez (N.J), Jack Reed (R.I.), and Mark Warner (Va.) communicated their concerns in a letter first reported by Politico. In October, Trump announced the United States would cease complying with […]

An executive with a background in nuclear cleanup is set next year to assume leadership of the company managing decommissioning of the United Kingdom’s Magnox nuclear reactors. The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) on Monday announced the selection of Lawrie Haynes as chair-designate of Magnox Ltd. He will take over on Sept. 1, 2019, when […]

Lawmakers set the stage for the nuclear weapons debate to come in the next Congress with a wave of bills and rhetoric that burned the post-Thanksgiving fog from Washington this week. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — upon whom partisans and the press have heaped presidential buzz — provided a capstone Thursday with a speech at […]

WASHINGTON — William Bookless, nominated to be second-in-command at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), defended the agency’s plan to build two nuclear-warhead-core factories in the face of a double-edged inquisition from a pair of Senate Democrats here Thursday. Facing pressure from a third Democratic lawmaker during his confirmation hearing, the physicist and longtime […]

A bill introduced Wednesday by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), and supported by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), would prohibit the Trump administration from extending the primary U.S.-Russia nuclear arms-control treaty beyond 2021 without renegotiating the deal to curtail shorter-range Russian missiles.  The ‘‘Stopping Russian Nuclear Aggression Act’’ would prohibit the executive branch from spending any money […]