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E.g., 10/08/2013
1 May 2013
Feature

Three Mile Island: The driver of US nuclear power’s decline?

Nathan HultmanJonathan Koomey

It is tempting to attribute variations in support for nuclear power to prominent accidents such as Three Mile Island in the United States or Fukushima in Japan.

1 May 2013
Corporate sustainability issue

Industry self-governance: A new way to manage dangerous technologies

Stephen M. MaurerSebastian von Engelhardt

Advanced technologies for making chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons can be purchased from hundreds of companies around the world. But negotiating treaties to regulate this trade would take years—and even then, many governments lack the will or resources to enforce them.

1 May 2013
Nuclear notebook

Russian nuclear forces, 2013

Hans M. KristensenRobert S. Norris

Russia is in the middle of modernizing its nuclear forces, replacing Soviet-era ballistic missiles with fewer improved missiles. In a decade, almost all Soviet-era weapons will be gone, leaving a smaller but still effective force that will be more mobile than what it replaced.

1 May 2013
Americas
Corporate sustainability issue

Climate change: Corporate sustainability in the supply chain

Timothy M. Smith

Traditionally, corporate sustainability efforts have focused on the direct impacts of a company’s waste or the emissions associated with its operations, buildings, and vehicles.

30 April 2013

A proposed endgame for the Iranian nuclear crisis

Ozzie Zehner

Iran's civilian fuel cycle has reached a point of no return, and no amount of external pressure can reverse this Iranian nuclear achievement.

Columnists
30 April 2013

Shooting down the Star Wars myth

Pavel Podvig

It has been 30 years since US President Ronald Reagan called for development of a missile defense system that was supposed to make nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete." The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) launched by Reagan's famous "Star Wars" speech in March 1983 has survived to the present day, but with ever-lower expectations. Long gone is the vision of a missile defense system that could "counter the awesome Soviet missile threat." That has been replaced with the hope that a few dozen interceptors with a spotty test record will protect the United States from an attack by a few nonexistent missiles from North Korea or Iran. What has not changed is the controversy that surrounds missile defense and its role in the nuclear age.

30 April 2013

Iran centrifuge magnet story technically questionable

Herbert Lin

 

Article Highlights

  • Based on an Institute for Science and International Security report, the Washington Post recently claimed that Iranian agents tried to buy 100,000 highly specialized, ring-shaped magnets allegedly intended for centrifuge machines, supposedly signaling a major expansion of Iran's nuclear program.
  • The magnets in question are not highly specialized and have many uses besides centrifuges; for example, such ceramic ring magnets have been used in loudspeakers for more than half a century.
  • On an issue as important as Iran's nuclear program, analysts and reporters should not jump to conclusions that are unsupported by evidence.

Andrew T. Nelson

Dr. Andrew T. Nelson is a research scientist in the Materials Science and Technology Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He received his B.S. in Engineering Mechanics followed by his M.S. and Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Ozzie Zehner

Ozzie Zehner is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley STSC and author of Green Illusions (GreenIllusions.org).  He researches the social, cultural, political and economic conditions influencing energy policy priorities and project outcomes.  His work also incorporates symb

Herbert Lin

Dr. Lin obtained his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Whitehead Institute in 1993. He also received his MD degree from Harvard Medical School in 1995 as part of the Harvard/MIT Division of Health Science and Technology program.

Robert S. Norris

Norris is a senior fellow with the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC.

Columnists
29 April 2013
Climate Change

Your money or your life?

Dawn Stover

When I moved to a neighborhood known as the "murder capital" of New York City, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone held a knife to my throat and demanded my wallet. I would hand it over, of course. It's only money, right? But it didn't happen like I thought it would. I left a Christmas party late one night and heard someone running behind me as I approached a subway entrance. When I whirled to look, I was struck with a heavy object. I tumbled down the staircase and scrambled to my feet -- still in possession of 30 cents and two subway tokens.

Analysis
22 April 2013
Nuclear Energy

China moves cautiously ahead on nuclear energy

Hui ZhangShangui Zhao

From 2005 to 2011, China rapidly developed its nuclear power capacity. In 2010 alone, it began operations at two new reactors and broke ground on 10 more, accounting for more than 60 percent of new reactor construction worldwide and making the Chinese nuclear industry by far the fastest-growing in the world. By the end of 2010, China had 14 nuclear reactors in operation with a total capacity of about 11 gigawatts electric, or GWe.

Shangui Zhao

Zhao is chief of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Division at the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center of China in Beijing.

Columnists
18 April 2013
Nuclear Weapons

Could a nuclear-armed Iran be contained?

Kingston Reif

The answer is "probably," but prevention via diplomacy is still the best course.

Columnists
16 April 2013
Biosecurity

Who would use chemical weapons?

Laura H. Kahn

The combatants in Syria are pointing fingers at each other. Syrian officials claim that the rebels used chemical weapons in a March 19th attack against Khan al-Assal, a town near Aleppo; the rebels say the Syrian government was the culprit. Whichever is the case, at least 25 people died and many others were wounded in the assault. The UN has decided to investigate: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Swedish scientist Ake Sellstrom, a former weapons monitor for the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM), to lead the investigation.

10 April 2013

إلقاء نظرة جديدة

Alexandr Vurim (AR)

مناقشات اجتماع المائدة المستديرة هذا شاحذة للفكر، وقد حفزتني على إلقاء نظرة جديدة على بعض القضايا التي تحيط بتحول المفاعلات البحثية في كازاخستان من اليورانيوم عالي التخصيب إلى اليورانيوم منخفض التخصيب.

Columnists
9 April 2013
Nuclear WeaponsNuclear Energy

Science, art, and the legacy of Martyl

Kennette Benedict

Martyl Langsdorf, the artist who created the Doomsday Clock, died on March 26th at the age of 96 in Chicago. Known to many friends and fans simply as Martyl, she was a petite and vivacious woman who had an outsize influence on public consciousness about nuclear weapons through her design of the clock that first graced the cover of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947, and continues to be used today.

Analysis
5 April 2013
Nuclear Weapons

Interview with Siegfried Hecker: North Korea complicates the long-term picture

Bulletin Staff

Pronouncements from Pyongyang during the past few weeks have been ominous, among other things threatening the United States and South Korea with preemptive nuclear attacks. North Korea announced on April 2 that it would restart its nuclear facilities, including its 5-megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon, north of the capital, which had been disabled and mothballed since an agreement in October 2007.

5 April 2013

الأمر صعب، لكنه يستحق العناء

Pablo Cristini (AR)

في مقالته الثانية في اجتماع المائدة المستديرة، وصفني الكسندر فوريم بأنني أمثل "منظورا تقليدياً" نحو تحول المفاعلات البحثية من اليورانيوم عالي التخصيب إلى اليورانيوم منخفض التخصيب.

3 April 2013

Adquiriendo una nueva perspectiva

Alexandr Vurim (ES)

Este análisis en la Mesa Redonda ha sido muy provocador y me ha hecho ver de otra manera ciertos temas que rodean la conversión de los reactores de investigación de Kazajistán de uranio altamente enriquecido (HEU) a uranio poco enriquecido (LEU).

3 April 2013

Difícil pero vale la pena

Pablo Cristini (ES)

En su segundo ensayo de la Mesa Redonda, Alexandr Vurim me caracterizó como alguien con una "perspectiva convencional" sobre la conversión de reactores de investigación de uranio poco enriquecido (LEU) en vez de uranio altamente enriquecido (HEU).

Opinion
3 April 2013
Biosecurity

Lessons not learned: Insider threats in pathogen research

Derrin Culp

In the classic film Dr. Strangelove, Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper was the ultimate insider threat. As the nuclear-armed B-52s that Ripper unilaterally dispatched proceeded toward their Soviet targets, the American president confronted Air Force Gen. Buck Turgidson in exasperation: "When you instituted the human reliability tests, you assured me there was no possibility of such a thing ever occurring." To which Turgidson replied, "Well, I don't think it's quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir."

Derrin Culp

Culp is a research associate at the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, a unit of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

Columnists
2 April 2013
Nuclear Weapons

Shooting down the Star Wars myth

Pavel Podvig

It has been 30 years since US President Ronald Reagan called for development of a missile defense system that was supposed to make nuclear weapons "impotent and obsolete." The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) launched by Reagan's famous "Star Wars" speech in March 1983 has survived to the present day, but with ever-lower expectations.

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