Nuclear Reactors

The Soviet Union most likely has resumed operation of some nuclear plants without making the safety improvements promised in the wake of the Chernobyl accident, Energy Secretary John S. Herrington said Tuesday. "Our best estimate is they started Chernobyl up probably too soon to do all the upgrades they said they were going to do," Herrington said after testifying at a Senate hearing. "We are reasonably sure they are operating reactors today without the upgrades they promised."

As Masahiko Goto sees it, the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington is not a ship. It's a floating nuclear disaster waiting to happen near one of the world's biggest cities. Its recent deployment to a port near Tokyo was welcomed by brass bands, an open-house crowd of 30,000 and promises of greater security for Japan and the region. But to opponents here, it all boils down to two nuclear reactors and one big question: Are they safe? "It is unthinkable that we have reactors floating in the bay," said Goto, a lawyer who is leading an effort to have the ship banned from Japan.

India signed five deals Friday to purchase more than $7 billion in hardware and expertise from Russia, including an aircraft carrier, a fleet of MIG-29 fighters, defense and space technology and at least 12 civilian nuclear reactors. On the minds of both parties, analysts said, was a nation not present at the signing. "China will be the ghost in the room," wrote analyst C. Raja Mohan in an opinion piece this week in the Indian Express. Having a working aircraft carrier -- India's only carrier, the 50-year-old British-built Viraat, rarely leaves port -- should allow India to expand its presence in the Indian Ocean.

Spent nuclear fuel stored at commercial reactors across the nation may be vulnerable to terrorist attacks that would set off fires and disperse radiation to surrounding areas, nuclear experts warned Wednesday. A report by the National Academy of Sciences recommended that all the nation's 103 commercial reactors be examined by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and that measures be taken to reduce the potential for fires if the plants were attacked. Louis J.

The U.S. said Sunday that North Korea must act within days on a pledge to halt its nuclear weapons program, after the Pyongyang government failed to meet a Saturday deadline to shut down and seal a nuclear reactor. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Washington was prepared "to hold on for a few more days" after his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei, asked the U.S. for patience.

"Wrap your imagination around the idea of a nuclear power plant with no safety-grade pumps, chillers or coolers," reads the Westinghouse Electric Corp. brochure. "Simpler to construct . . . affordable for the power producer." As Indonesia goes shopping for its first nuclear reactor, Westinghouse is lobbying hard here for its latest model, the $1.7-billion AP600. The Westinghouse push comes in the midst of heated competition between the United States and Japan to shape Indonesia's nuclear future.

Russia brushed aside strong U.S. criticism Wednesday and said it had agreed with Tehran to speed up construction of an $800-million nuclear reactor in Iran and to consider building another. The United States, which has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction, fiercely opposes the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

North Korea has resumed the construction of two nuclear reactors suspended under a 1994 agreement with the United States, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday. North Korea restarted work on a 50,000-kilowatt reactor in Yongbyon and a 200,000-kilowatt reactor in Taechon -- both of which produce plutonium -- Japanese daily Nihon Keizai said, quoting unidentified U.S. government and other sources. Japan's Foreign Ministry said it could not confirm the report.

On the desolate, wind-whipped seacoast of North Korea is one of the more improbable construction projects in the world. Dropped into the barren landscape are a golf driving range, an indoor swimming pool, two gymnasiums, tennis courts, a sauna, a karaoke bar and 2,000 modern apartment units, all for construction workers. There are also half a dozen restaurants and canteens, including one specializing in the cuisine of Uzbekistan for hundreds of workers from that country.

KLEINENSIEL, Germany - When the German government shut down half the country's nuclear reactors after the Fukushima disaster in Japan, followed two months later by a pledge to abandon nuclear power within a decade, environmentalists cheered. A year later, however, criticism of the nuclear shutdown is emerging from a surprising source: some of the very activists who pushed for the phaseout. They say poor planning of the shutdown and political opportunism by the government have actually worsened the toll on the environment in Germany, and Europe, at least in the short term.