Reactor

Engineers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant worked all day Friday attempting to connect a newly restored power line to reactors No. 1 and 2, but their task was repeatedly interrupted by the need to withdraw workers because of high radiation levels. The team said they hoped the task would be completed sometime Friday evening or in the early morning hours Saturday. It is not clear yet, however, whether restoring power to the two damaged reactors will help with cooling. Some engineers believe the cooling pumps were irretrievably damaged by the hydrogen explosions that wracked the reactor buildings in the first four days after the March 10 magnitude 9 Tohoku quake, or by corrosion from the seawater that has been pumped into the reactor.

WASHINGTON - The United States and five other countries have agreed to offer a joint proposal to Iran at a high-level meeting next week in an effort to open a path for negotiations to curtail Tehran's disputed nuclear program and to ease the threat of war. When they meet in Baghdad on Wednesday, the six powers will offer to help Iran fuel a small reactor used for medical purposes, and to forgo seeking further United Nations economic sanctions....

Dangerous levels of radiation escaped a quake-stricken nuclear power plant after one reactor's steel containment structure was apparently breached by an explosion, and another reactor building in the same complex caught fire, Japan's leaders told a frightened population. Authorities warned that people within 20 miles of the crippled reactors should stay indoors to avoid being sickened by radiation. The fast-moving developments at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) plant, 150 miles north of Tokyo, catapulted the 4-day-old nuclear crisis to an entirely new level, threatening to overshadow even the massive damage and loss of life spawned by a devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Strange, jellyfish-like creatures swarming a coastal nuclear power plant: It might sound like the premise of a cult horror flick, but the invasion has prompted officials at the Diablo Canyon facility in San Luis Obispo to curtail operations for at least a few days. The plant's operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, cut power generation from one of the plant's two reactors to 25% of its capacity, spokesman Tom Cuddy said Wednesday. The other reactor was shut down this week for what PG&E described as routine refueling and maintenance, a procedure that could take about a month.

The nuclear crisis at the Daiichi complex in Fukushima, Japan, has turned a spotlight on the severe dangers involved in storing spent nuclear fuel in pools. But the danger is not new. In 2003, I cowrote a report with a group of academics, nuclear industry executives, former government officials and other researchers warning that spent fuel pools at U.S. nuclear power plants were vulnerable. The drainage of a pool might cause a catastrophic radiation fire, we reported, which could render an area uninhabitable greater than that created by the Chernobyl accident (roughly half the size of New Jersey)

Another fire at Japan's stricken Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) nuclear power complex broke out early Wednesday and authorities said about 70% of another reactor's fuel rods had been damaged by the spate of accidents and breakdowns since Friday's earthquake and tsunami. The ominous disclosure, after authorities insisted throughout the previous day that damage to the overheating reactors was negligible, compounded a sense of escalating hazards and fear five days after the disasters expected to take historic peacetime tolls on Japan's people and economy.

Strange, jellyfish-like creatures swarming a coastal nuclear power plant: It might sound like the premise of a cult horror flick, but the invasion has prompted officials at the Diablo Canyon facility in San Luis Obispo to curtail operations for at least a few days. The plant's operator, Pacific Gas & Electric, cut power generation from one of the plant's two reactors to 25% of its capacity, spokesman Tom Cuddy said Wednesday. The other reactor was shut down this week for what PG&E described as routine refueling and maintenance, a procedure that could take about a month.

For the first time since the magnitude 9 earthquake and the tsunami struck Japan nearly two months ago, workers on Thursday entered a damaged reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. The recovery team began a project to lower radiation levels by installing six ventilation machines that would absorb isotopes from the air in the No. 1 reactor, said company spokesman Taisuke Tomikawa. Because of the high danger of exposure, teams were expected to spend only 10 minutes at a time inside.

Japan's nuclear safety agency reported an emergency at a second reactor Sunday in the same complex where an explosion occurred Saturday, according to the Associated Press. Officials at the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency told the Associated Press early Sunday that the cooling system had malfunctioned at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Officials said they were informed of the emergency by Tokyo Electric, the utility which runs the plant, according to the Associated Press.

For the first time since the March earthquake and tsunami, workers on Thursday entered the No. 1 reactor at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Co. The recovery team began a project to install six ventilation machines that would absorb isotopes from the air inside the building, said company spokesman Taisuke Tomikawa. Due to the high risk of radiation exposure, teams were expected to work in shifts inside the reactor. The goal is to lower radiation levels so that workers can replace the facility's cooling systems that were damaged by the tsunami, causing a hydrogen explosion that released damaging radioactivity into the air, soil and water.

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.

Southern California Edison officials said that they are now seeing the same unusual type of wear on steam generator tubes at both of the San Onofre nuclear plant's reactor units, which have been shuttered for months. Officials found excessive wear in recent months on more than 300 tubes that were installed as part of the $671-million replacement of the plant's four steam generators. The new steam generators, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, were installed within the last two years, which made the rate of deterioration startling.

The head of the federal agency overseeing the nation's nuclear power toured the troubled San Onofre plant Friday and promised that the facility's reactors would not restart until officials find the root cause of the mysterious equipment problems that have closed them for the last two months. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko toured the darkened plant along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D- Calif.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) and talked to Southern California Edison officials about the unusually fast degradation of steam generator tubes that carry radioactive water in the plant's two working reactor units.

A consortium of utilities in the South won government approval Thursday to construct two new atomic energy reactors at an estimated cost of $14 billion, the strongest signal yet that the three-decade hiatus of nuclear plant construction is finally ending. Several new projects will test whether new technology and streamlined government licensing can help the industry avoid the economic and safety disasters that have tainted its past, nuclear experts say, though critics condemned the action by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The San Onofre nuclear power plant came under renewed scrutiny last week after a small radiation leak and the discovery of extensive tube damage. The leak and the tube wear "at no point posed a danger to the community or to workers on site," said Jennifer Manfre, spokeswoman with Southern California Edison, which operates the facility. But the incidents raised concern among environmental groups, which for years have kept a close eye on the plant near San Clemente following other safety problems.

Robert Egan has a pretty good feel for how desperate the CIA is for scraps of information about North Korea. Egan has served barbecue to North Korean diplomats at his restaurant in Hackensack, N.J., for 15 years, and he has visited Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, several times. He also has fed details about his customers to U.S. authorities, even plucking stray hairs off their suits so American officials could trace the DNA. Not surprising, he has found FBI surveillance equipment hidden in his office.

Another fire at Japan's stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex broke out early Wednesday, compounding the spree of disasters expected to take historic peacetime tolls on the nation's people and economy. The latest blaze broke out in the No. 4 reactor at the nuclear complex on the northeast coast where a plume of radiation escaped Tuesday, sending background radiation levels soaring to degrees that authorities conceded were harmful to anyone with prolonged exposure. With the confirmed dead and known missing topping 10,000 and untold thousands of others suspected to still be buried in the sodden wreckage littering the northeast shores of Honshu island, government leaders urged calm and patience as hardships persisted four days after the worst earthquake in Japan's recorded history.

More than four months after it was crippled by an earthquake-generated tsunami, Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has stabilized and workers are on track to achieve a "cold shutdown" within six months, government and utility officials say. Officials made a positive prognosis this week after scaling several hurdles in decommissioning the facility, which was damaged March 11 when the tsunami disabled the plant's cooling system. The flooding led to partial meltdowns of the reactors, which released radioactivity into the atmosphere and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of nearby residents.