International

Taxpayers in the United Kingdom are on the hook for up to £122 million in costs associated with a botched contract for decommissioning of the nation’s Magnox nuclear facilities, the U.K. National Audit Office said in a blistering report Wednesday. The U.K. Nuclear Decommissioning Authority announced in March that it would terminate the contract awarded in […]

The Russian Federation sharply cut its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads over the past six months, putting the nuclear power within 11 warheads of meeting its disarmament obligations under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the U.S. State Department said Monday. The bilateral treaty, known as New START, requires the U.S. and Russia to […]

The Trump administration threw signal after signal this week that it could walk away from an international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons — a deal the president’s own secretary of defense said is good for U.S. national security. The Washington Post reported Thursday that President Donald Trump plans to decertify Iran’s compliance […]

A Swiss anti-nuclear group that advocated for a United Nations ban on nuclear weapons this summer received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “is receiving the award for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for […]

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would not say Wednesday whether the State Department believes the United States should remain party to an international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Speaking a day after Secretary of Defense James Mattis told lawmakers that remaining in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was in […]

The United States would benefit from remaining part of an international agreement to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said in congressional testimony on Tuesday. However, the top Pentagon official warned the U.S. might walk away from the accord anyway. President Donald Trump has roundly criticized the Joint Comprehensive […]

The Russian Federation sharply cut its number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads over the past six months, putting the nuclear power within 11 warheads of meeting its disarmament obligations under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the U.S. State Department said Monday. The bilateral treaty, known as New START, requires the U.S. and Russia to […]

Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) is accepting public input through Nov. 30 on the draft version of its latest update to the five-year plan toward development of a geologic repository for the nation’s spent nuclear fuel. The NWMO expects by 2023 to select the single site for construction of the repository 500 meters below […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it helped South Africa on the road to producing a medical isotope using low-enriched uranium instead of weaponizable highly enriched uranium. The conversion effort wrapped up in August, allowing the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation’s NTP Radioisotopes SOC to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 without highly enriched uranium, […]

A Japanese newspaper reported the United States and Japan are preparing to extend a longstanding bilateral nuclear-cooperation agreement, which the U.S. State Department would neither confirm nor deny Monday. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday the Japanese and U.S. governments were “making arrangements to enable the automatic extension” of thei agreement. which was signed in 1988 and set to expire […]

Canada’s Port Hope Project is scheduled by the end of November to complete the first of four storage cells of an above-ground engineered mound for storage of radioactive waste, with transport and storage due to start early in 2018. The Port Hope Project, one part of a broader radioactive waste cleanup program covering two municipalities […]

A Japanese newspaper reported the United States and Japan are preparing to extend a longstanding bilateral nuclear-cooperation agreement, which the U.S. State Department would neither confirm nor deny Monday. Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported Sunday the Japanese and U.S. governments were “making arrangements to enable the automatic extension” of thei agreement. which was signed in 1988 and set […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it helped South Africa on the road to producing a medical isotope using low-enriched uranium instead of weaponizable highly enriched uranium. The conversion effort wrapped up in August, allowing the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation’s NTP Radioisotopes SOC to produce the medical isotope molybdenum-99 without highly enriched uranium, […]

Canada’s Port Hope Project will by the end of November complete the first of four storage cells of an above-ground engineered mound for storage of radioactive waste, with transport and storage due to start early in 2018. The Port Hope Project, one part of a broader radioactive waste cleanup program in Ontario, will ultimately place […]

Thomas Gardiner An amendment to a U.S. House spending bill passed last week added another layer of open opposition to plans for an underground nuclear waste repository across the border near Lake Huron in Ontario, Canada. The House on Sept. 14 approved government-wide appropriations legislation for fiscal 2018. Included in that bill was an amendment […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it returned the final tranche of highly enriched uranium from a Kazakh reactor to the material’s point of origin in Russia. The U.S. stockpile steward and nonproliferation agency said in a press release it worked with Kazakhstan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics to repatriate the weapon-grade uranium from the […]

A treaty to ban nuclear weapons garnered 51 signatures from United Nations member states this week after it became eligible Wednesday for signing, despite strong objections of the body’s nuclear-armed nations. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which not a single nuclear-armed U.N. member supports, must be ratified by 50 nations to enter […]

A treaty to ban nuclear weapons garnered 50 signatures from United Nations member states Wednesday, the first day it was eligible for signing, despite strong objections of the body’s nuclear-armed nations. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which not a single nuclear-armed U.N. member supports, must be ratified by 50 nations to enter into […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration said Tuesday it returned the final tranche of highly enriched uranium from a Kazakh reactor to the material’s point of origin in Russia. The U.S. stockpile steward and nonproliferation agency said in a press release it worked with Kazakhstan’s Institute of Nuclear Physics to repatriate the weapon-grade uranium from the […]

The cleanup contractor for the Dounreay fast reactor site in Scotland said Tuesday it has begun extracting all leftover radioactive fuel elements from the nuclear facility. The majority of the core fuel was extracted shortly after the test reactor closed in 1977. However, roughly 1,000 fuel elements remained inside after they were found to be […]

Szuhsiung Ho, a nuclear engineer and naturalized U.S. citizen born in Taiwan, was sentenced Thursday to a prison term and a fine for conspiring to help the Chinese government produce unauthorized nuclear materials using U.S. expertise, the Justice Department said. Ho received a two-year prison sentence and a year of supervised release, plus a $20,000 […]

Workers have cut three of six planned holes in the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, a nuclear waste storage facility at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site, the U.K. National Decommissioning Authority announced Tuesday. The holes will be the means by which the waste material will be extracted from the silo on its way to permanent disposal. […]

Workers have cut the first of six planned holes in the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo, a nuclear waste storage facility at the United Kingdom’s Sellafield site, the U.K. National Decommissioning Authority announced Tuesday. The holes will be the means by which the waste material will be extracted from the silo on its way to permanent […]

Szuhsiung Ho, a nuclear engineer and naturalized U.S. citizen born in Taiwan, was sentenced Thursday to a prison term and a fine for conspiring to help the Chinese government produce unauthorized nuclear materials using U.S. expertise, the Justice Department said. Ho received a two-year prison sentence and a year of supervised release, plus a $20,000 fine […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency ceremonially opened a $150-million facility in Kazakhstan to store and distribute nuclear-power fuel for peaceful uses, the United Nations-chartered body announced Tuesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank Storage Facility at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk will eventually distribute LEU to IAEA member states that […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it helped remove 1 kilogram of Chinese highly enriched uranium from Ghana, clearing the last cache of such nuclear weapon-usable material out of the West African nation. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said in a press release it cooperated with Ghana, China, and the International Atomic […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said Tuesday it helped remove 1 kilogram of Chinese highly enriched uranium from Ghana, clearing the last cache of such nuclear weapon-usable material out of the West African nation. The semiautonomous Department of Energy agency said in a press release it cooperated with Ghana, China, and the International Atomic Energy […]

The International Atomic Energy Agency ceremonially opened a $150-million facility in Kazakhstan to store and distribute nuclear-power fuel for peaceful uses, the United Nations-chartered body announced Tuesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) Bank Storage Facility at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk will eventually distribute LEU to IAEA member states that […]

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is allowing the Energy Department to send Belgium only about half the highly enriched uranium by weight the country sought for production of medical isotopes, according to a letter the commission sent to a group of nonproliferation advocates who opposed the transfer. An export license filed by DOE’s semiautonomous National Nuclear […]

A United Nations treaty that seeks to ban nuclear weapons is legally unsound and would make the world less safe, a senior White House nuclear-security official said Tuesday during an unapologetically blunt address to domestic and international policy wonks at a Washington think-tank. The United Nations voted July 7 to adopt the Treaty on the […]