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Authorities lifted a tsunami advisory and electricity was restored after a powerful 7.4-magnitude quake jolted northeastern Japan on Wednesday night in waters near the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. At least one person died in the coastal city of Soma and dozens more were injured in the quake, local news agency Kyodo reported, … Read more
Russian forces have threatened safety at several nuclear power plants in Ukraine including Chernobyl, but the risk of a serious radiation release is thought to be low Physics 15 March 2022 By Matthew Sparkes Satellite photo of Chernobyl power plant taken on 10 March Maxar/DigitalGlobe/Getty Images Three weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, concerns are growing … Read more
The catastrophic disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986 was caused by an explosion at the Reactor 4 Unit. This expelled a sizeable quantity of radioactive material into the surroundings, alongside a partial meltdown of the reactor core. The last few decades have seen substantial international efforts to safely contain and decontaminate the … Read more
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given orders to increase the alert level of Russia’s nuclear forces and has made veiled nuclear threats. The blatant aggression against Ukraine has shocked Europe and the world. The war is a tragedy for Ukraine. It also exposes the limits of the West’s … Read more
Chernobyl’s nuclear power plant and all the facilities in the Chernobyl exclusion zone have been completely disconnected and are now without electricity, Ukraine’s state energy company has announced. Russian forces attacked the defunct nuclear facility on the very first day of the invasion (Feb. 24), seizing it after heavy fighting and taking its roughly 210 staff hostage, Live Science … Read more
The green energy revolution promised by nuclear fusion is now a step closer, thanks to the first successful use of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system to shape the superheated hydrogen plasmas inside a fusion reactor. The successful trial indicates that the use of AI could be a breakthrough in the long-running search for electricity generated from nuclear fusion — bringing its … Read more
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Shortly after Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, both governments said that the Russian military had taken over the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. In a tweet, the Ukrainian Ministry of … Read more
People around the world watched via livestreamed security camera as Russian forces attacked and took over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant—the largest in Europe—on Friday morning local time. Amid the shelling and gunfire, a fire broke out at a training facility in the complex and was later extinguished, according to news reports. The incident raised … Read more
People around the world watched via livestreamed security camera as Russian forces attacked and took over Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant—the largest in Europe—on Friday morning local time. Amid the shelling and gunfire, a fire broke out at a training facility in the complex and was later extinguished, according to news reports. The incident raised … Read more
Shelling at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has injured two people and caused a fire, but it is unlikely to release radiation unless the situation gets significantly worse Physics 4 March 2022 By Matthew Sparkes A fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant following a Russian attack on 4 March Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant/Anadolu Agency … Read more