"Despite repeated assurances that American nuclear plants are better equipped to deal with natural disasters than their counterparts in Japan, regulators said Thursday that recent inspections had found serious problems with some emergency equipment that would have made it unusable in an accident."
"In a development that is likely to delay efforts to bring the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station under control, the plant’s operator said Thursday that one reactor, No. 1, had sustained much more damage than originally thought and was leaking water."
"Some U.S. nuclear plants are not in full compliance with rules set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to respond to explosions and fires, a self-regulatory body for the nuclear industry has found."
"Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Tuesday that Japan would abandon plans to build more nuclear reactors, saying his country needed to 'start from scratch' in creating a new energy policy."
"A recent report by a federal watchdog agency says pipes meant to carry radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation could leak, spray or even explode."
"The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident exposed flaws in the Japanese government's measures to guard the country's reactors against earthquakes and tsunamis. U.S. officials in recent years also have worried that Japanese officials haven't taken enough precautions to protect the facilities from terrorist attacks, according to diplomatic documents released over the weekend on the WikiLeaks website."
"Corroded cooling water pipes at the Byron nuclear power plant in Illinois could have caused a nuclear catastrophe. The plant, owned by Exelon Corp., is just one example of regulators from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission failing to penalize safety failures."
"Levels of radioactive substances have jumped in the Pacific seabed off Japan near the nuclear power plant crippled by a massive tsunami in March, according to the plant operator."
"Environmentalists trying to halt U.S. uranium projects are emphasizing the foreign ownership of mining companies. A key issue: Companies that mine uranium and other hardrock minerals do not pay royalties to the U.S. government. Several companies that mine or are seeking permits to mine U.S. uranium are based in Canada."
"For the first time in more than 30 years, the construction of new nuclear power plants is under way in the United States despite the ongoing nuclear crisis at Fukushima in Japan." That's according to Standard & Poor's, the profit-driven credit rating agency that painted a rosy picture of Wall St. financial institutions as they were melting down in 2008.
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