The authoritative guide to ensuring science and technology make life on Earth better, not worse.

Nuclear Energy

Plutonium pellet. US Energy Department public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

The history of nuclear power’s imagined future: Plutonium’s journey from asset to waste

By William Walker | Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Waste, Nuclear Weapons

VC Summer nuclear site in South Carolina, with operating unit 1 in the background and abandoned twin unit Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactor construction in the foreground; Tim Mousseau ©2018. Used with permission.

US attorney details illegal acts in construction projects, sealing the fate of the “nuclear renaissance”

By Tom Clements | Nuclear Energy

Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant as seen from nearby Amesbury, Massachusetts. Credit: ThePessimus. Public domain image accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

As US nuclear exports decline, experts fear international safeguards will too

By Jessica Lovering, M. Granger Morgan | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk

Rebranding Chernobyl

By Julian Hayda | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk

Nuclear power won’t fix Iraq’s energy crisis

By Nils Holst | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Voices of Tomorrow

A Japanese rat snake is fit with a GPS transmitter that will allow researchers to track its movements over the next several weeks. Photo credit: Hannah Gerke. Used with permission.

Radioactive snakes may monitor Fukushima fallout

By Susan D’Agostino | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk

Arak IR-40 heavy water reactor, Iran. Credit: Nanking2012. CC BY-SA 3.0 Accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

How Iran’s research reactors prove the nuclear deal is still working

By Samuel M. Hickey | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk

Illustration of a conceptual spacecraft enabled by nuclear thermal propulsion. Credit: NASA

Is using nuclear materials for space travel dangerous, genius, or a little of both?

By Susan D’Agostino | Analysis, Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Opinion

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN. This field of ceramic nose-cones represents, in miniature, all the warheads in the US nuclear arsenal at the height of the Cold War, along with the nuclear submarines, bombers, and ballistic missiles designed to deliver them. Estimates put the warhead count at around 25,000. Denver sculptress Barbara Donachy created this installation to show what such a concentration of nuclear weaponry would look like all in one place. Her display contains 33,561 pieces representing 31,000 warheads, 1,799 ballistic missiles, 324 intercontinental bombers, and 37 nuclear submarines. Amber Waves of Grain installation by Barbara Donachy, Boston Science Museum, Boston, Massachusetts. February 13, 1985. Photograph copyright by Robert Del Tredici, The Atomic Photographers Guild. Used with permission.

Will Canada remain a credible nonproliferation partner?

By Susan O’Donnell, Gordon Edwards | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion

SMR research in lab

Can small modular reactors help mitigate climate change?

By Arjun Makhijani, M.V. Ramana | Climate Change, Nuclear Energy

It’s time to reignite US-Russia cooperation in space. Nuclear power may hold the key

By Stephen Buono, Jake Hecla, Vladimir Kobezskii, Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin, Katie Mummah | Nuclear Energy

Houston, are we going to have a problem with space nuclear power?

By Beau Rideout | Nuclear Energy, Nuclear Risk, Opinion, Voices of Tomorrow