Word: reactors
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...Nuclear plants even emit less radioactivity than coal plants, since there are natural radioactive materials mixed in with the coal, which are vented into the air. The footprint of a nuclear plant is miniscule compared to the hundreds of windmills required to generate the electrical output of a single reactor. Nuclear plants also avoid the highly toxic chemicals used in solar-panel production, and again, a single reactor can generate more electricity than many square miles of solar panels exposed to constant sunlight. And the nuclear plant can do this in any weather and around the clock...
...growing stronger in the last few months. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled on April 9 a revamped centrifuge capable of enriching uranium at faster speeds that, according to the State Department, would be unnecessary for peaceful nuclear power. The Arak heavy water plant and the Bushehr atomic reactor, both almost completed, could combine to produce dangerous quantities of plutonium for nuclear warheads. Furthermore, according to the “Weekly Standard,” a thus far unreleased report by the International Atomic Energy Agency documents that Iran was recently testing sophisticated weapons technology for nuclear warheads...
...alert for tsunamis. And their cargo was unstable. HEU must be stored and shipped in certain geometrical configurations - long, flat sheets, for instance - so that it does not spontaneously start a nuclear chain reaction, spewing out heat and radioactive by-products. When it has been used in a nuclear reactor, as some of the Chilean HEU had been, it becomes radioactive. Twelve hours before the earthquake, the NNSA engineers had overseen the fitting of 1,500-lb. (680 kg) protective impact limiters on the material, designed to shield it from the force of an explosion - or, indeed, an earthquake...
...sparked looting and led the country's President to declare a state of emergency. Within minutes of the quake, Bieniawski had gathered the NNSA officials in a hotel lobby, where the group spent the next four hours trying to make contact with two sites - a military base and research reactor - where the uranium had been stored. Unable to reach one of the sites by phone, the head of the Chilean nuclear agency, Fernando Lopez-Lizana, eventually had to drive there himself. (See pictures of the removal of the Chilean uranium...
...tsunami, so eventually the team decided to use the port of Valparaiso, 50 miles (80 km) to the north. On the evening of March 2, the officials and security teams met at the Lo Aguirre military base about 25 miles (40 km) from Santiago, which contained a military reactor built in 1977 for unspecified "defense purposes." The power was out, and moments before the convoy pulled out, the earth shook with yet another strong aftershock, with its epicenter at Valparaiso. As the convoy left, Bieniawski took out his phone, called up the sound track for the Pirates of the Caribbean...