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homunculus (3)

The International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran has tripled its production of >20% enriched uranium in the past three months, while adding 2,600 new uranium centrifuges to its main enrichment facility in Natanz. The agency has not received a "satisfactory explanation" of how 20kg of uranium metal went missing from an Iranian research laboratory. Iran has been blocking IAEA inspections, and the agency "is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities". In recent years, Russia and China have chosen to limit UN sanctions against Iran, whose government denies it aims to make atomic weapons.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Feb 24, 2012 - 220 comments

Australian Labor Party's 46th National Conference starts today in Sydney. Key agenda items - Gay marriage, refugees, and Uranium sale to India. Follow it live.
posted by vidur on Dec 1, 2011 - 39 comments

A Political Meltdown: For decades, Canada has been a world leader in the production of medical isotopes. So why did the government announce that it was dumping the entire program? (alt)
posted by Orange Pamplemousse on Apr 9, 2011 - 22 comments

The first nuclear reactor was in Africa, 2 billion years ago. Two billion years ago, there was enough uranium 235 in a naturally occurring deposit in Africa to fuel a nuclear fission reaction. In 16 separate locations, spontaneously occurring fission reactions went on for some hundreds of thousands of years, cycling multiple times per day. A picture of Fossil Reactor 15. The American Nuclear Society info site.
posted by bq on Mar 20, 2011 - 46 comments

It has gone by many names. "National Reactor Testing Station" (1949-1975), "Energy Research and Development Administration" (1975-1977), "Idaho National Engineering Laboratory" (1977-1997), the "Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory" (1997-2005), and now the "Idaho National Laboratory" (2005-present). It has been the site of more than 50 nuclear reactors, which has resulted in a fair bit of environmental impact. In 2000, the US Department of Energy published (and has since made available on the web) a history of the laboratory over its first 50 years: "Proving the Principle."
posted by rmd1023 on Sep 4, 2010 - 11 comments

It was revealed today that on July 20th about 1.8kg of yellowcake uranium was seized in Chisinau, Moldova. The asking price was 11 million dollars. [more inside]
posted by atypicalguy on Aug 24, 2010 - 55 comments

Removing 600 kilos of enriched U-235: the story of how, in 1994, the United States secretly removed from Kazakhstan enough purified uranium to make 24 nuclear weapons. (Full article with one photo.) Russian bomb-grade uranium is now being used in U.S. power plants.
posted by exogenous on Sep 21, 2009 - 50 comments

Earlier this week this story about illegal uranium sales was in the news. Had they been thinking they could have ordered online here and here. BTW, check out what else customers are buying.
posted by Xurando on Dec 1, 2007 - 28 comments

Depleted uranium is now understood to have many medical consequences unique to its modern application as munitions, due to its incendiary, aerosolizing behavior when pulverized. (Rosalie Bertell explains, youtube) It has become a leading candidate for the cause of Gulf War syndrome, and was associated with massive increases in cancer and birth defects in Basra. The EU has called for a moratorium on its use four times, and WHO is deeply concerned with its consequences, but the USA (with Canadian complicity) and Russia continue to use it in Iraq and elsewhere. (prev: 1 2 3 4 5)
posted by mek on Aug 22, 2007 - 52 comments

From Hunter to Hunted "In his quest to free slaves around the world, Aaron Cohen thought he’d seen it all. Then he went to Myanmar."
posted by homunculus on Jul 1, 2007 - 25 comments

Enriched uranium unearthed from man's garden A German man obtained and buried it in his garden, raising concerns about the security of Germany's nuclear reactors. The German version of the article is more funny, since he explains how he tried to convince the authorities for 15 years that he had enriched uranium in his garden...
posted by yoyo_nyc on Mar 2, 2007 - 23 comments

Blighted Homeland. "From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day." A series of articles and photo galleries examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo (previously discussed here.) [Via Gristmill, BugMeNot.]
posted by homunculus on Nov 24, 2006 - 13 comments

The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed. "The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false. Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful 'black propaganda' campaign with links to the White House." (Via Sic Semper Tyrannis.)
posted by homunculus on Jun 7, 2006 - 24 comments

Punks, Politicos and Scientists of The World Unite! Depleted Uranium Bill passes the house. To pass the bill, Dr. McDermott took a less traditional route, working with bands like Anti-Flag and speaking to people outside the political sphere.
posted by usedwigs on Jun 1, 2006 - 16 comments

Niger Venezuela is planning to sell uranium to Iraq Iran.
posted by EarBucket on Mar 14, 2006 - 51 comments

Robert Parry disentangles the Plame game. He uncovered the Contra/Cocaine story. Now he's got a very sensible hypothesis on Plame. Lots more good stuff at Consortium News.
posted by warbaby on Jul 22, 2005 - 64 comments

I know this has been on everyone's mind, but I just read this article today and was astounded at my lack of foresight. Silly me, here I was worrying about global warming when what I need to be fretting about is the decrease in fuel's impact on the structure of international banking! Will we run out of fossil fuel before it's too late to save the environment from pollution and greenhouse gasses? The abiotic nuts think we've got plenty more. Personally, I think we can kiss the marvel that is suburbia goodbye and start contemplating the fact that the focus on the post-post industrial revolution will not be information, but rather agriculture. And since solar panels and windmills and the like are made of materials that are extracted, transported, and fashioned by using oil-powered machinery, my money's on the folks who're stockpiling uranium for all those shiny new nuclear plants we're going to need. So, do we have a plan? You bet we do! Oh. Well, we'll just rely on the advancement of technology to allow us to weasel out of it! Me? I've actually always wanted a horse.
posted by Specklet on Apr 14, 2005 - 67 comments

The site of the world's first nuclear reactor? Gabon. About 1.7 billion years ago several deposits of uranium in Oklo, Gabon spontaneously began to undergo nuclear chain reactions fed by small drips of water. These natural breeder reactors ran for almost a million years, producing both intense heat and plutonium byproducts. Aside from the strangeness of naturally occurring reactors, Oklo provides the only existing case of how highly radioactive waste behaves over a period of tens of millions of years -- exactly the problem faced by the DOE's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.
posted by blahblahblah on Feb 16, 2005 - 19 comments

That American forces use depleted uranium in our weapons isn't news, but these statistic are a little spooky. According to Bob Nichols at the Dissident Voice, we've unleased 4,000,000 pounds of DU in Iraq. That's the radioactive equivalent of 250,000 Nagasaki bombs (pdf) says Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, former chief of Naval Staff in India. And since it's dust...it travels with the wind, which means Europe will see some fallout. It also turns out that most of the soldiers didn't know they were using DU, didn't know what DU was, and are now suffering reactions to it.
posted by dejah420 on Apr 6, 2004 - 32 comments

"The depleted uranium being used in the Middle East is a repeat of the deception of Navajos, the abuse of the innocent. 'The United States government knew all along the uranium mining would kill Navajos....' said Badoni, among Navajos organizing opposition to further uranium mining on the Navajo Nation....declassified documents in the United States reveal that both the buyer, the United States government, and Ottawa, then the world's largest supplier, withheld information from Native miners that could have saved their health and their lives."

The ongoing, deadly fallout in a certain nation where development (and use) of weapons of mass destruction has never been in doubt.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Aug 18, 2003 - 10 comments

The jig is up. Robert Jospeh, a top aide to Bush national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, worked with Dick Checny's office and "insisted" the uranium intel be included in Bush's State of the Union speech.
posted by the fire you left me on Jul 18, 2003 - 16 comments

Tenet Had to be Pushed to Take Responsibility. George W. Bush may believe that the yellowcake controversy is over, but the underlings of the fall guy Tenet in the CIA are already starting to sing. The administration have gone out of the way to stress that they still trust the CIA, despite the brewing scandal. So maybe we should all pay attention to these leaks?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly on Jul 12, 2003 - 37 comments

is george george tenet the administrations fall guy on niger/uranium issue? should he be? and where does our vice president fit into the puzzle?
posted by specialk420 on Jul 11, 2003 - 87 comments

Bizarre results showing elevated levels of NON-depleted uranium in Afghan civilians who showed symptoms of uranium poisoning following Operation Enduring Freedom. "Uranium levels found in the Afghan civilians’ urine are 4-20 times higher than those of a control group and the isotopic signature is that of Non-Depleted Uranium. The only explanations of this finding are either anomalous geological and agricultural conditions (fertilizers) or the presence of uranium extracted from the front-end of the fuel or weapons production cycles. [...] There are no geological, commercial and agricultural phenomena or activities and uses in the environs of the contaminated populations that might explain the contamination." This is very odd. [via wrh; these preliminary results are unpublished but UMRC’s Gulf War Veterans’ studies are in peer-reviewed journals]
posted by Bletch on Jun 29, 2003 - 13 comments

Not as easy to understand as those self-install satellite dishes The video the army remembered to forget? Just like he Treasury Department's amnesia regarding Hemp for Victory.
posted by KidnapCounty on Jun 4, 2003 - 15 comments

Medical consequences of attacking Iraq. In a brief, but vivid, editorial, pediatrician and anti-nuclear activist Helen Caldicott decries the use of U-238 (aka "depleted uranium") weapons. (via boing boing)
posted by xowie on Oct 12, 2002 - 36 comments

Turkish Police Seize 33lbs of Weapons-Grade Uranium. The destination of the Uranium is still under investigation but it was seized 155 miles from the Iraqi border.
posted by Mick on Sep 28, 2002 - 43 comments

NATO Ducks Uranium Ban Amid Clamor for Research.

NATO partners split on dangers of depleted uranium weapons.

"U.S. attack jets fired some 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition during NATO's 1999 campaign to end Serb repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. About 10,000 rounds were also fired in neighboring Bosnia in 1994-95."

Of course, this doesn't count rounds used during the Gulf War.
posted by Mr. skullhead on Jan 9, 2001 - 1 comment

left-over gun shells poisoning the environment US and NATO forces left enough low-level depleted uranium shells lying around in bosnia/kosovo to cause an environmental hazard. I wrote whitehouse.gov and the d.o.d. about how important i think it is that we clean up this mess, pronto. i love using the word, pronto. this is important, and could really affect us if we don't fix it now.
posted by bliss322 on Jan 7, 2001 - 26 comments

'Gulf War Syndrome' cause? An interesting potential link (via thewebtoday).
posted by Sean Meade on Nov 15, 2000 - 5 comments