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Not-so-Fabulous Five

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

January 19, 2017 6:00 AM EDT

To some, “Fabulous Five “ brings back memories of the 1991 recruits for the University of Michigan’s basketball team—Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson. The five powered Michigan to the NCAA Division I championship games in 1992 and 1993.

Others may recall the “Fab Five,” a made-for-TV movie about a 2006 cheerleader scandal at a high school in Texas.

No one hearing “Fabulous Five” thinks about the performance of the nuclear reactors owned and operated by Entergy between 2011 and 2015. The performance during those five years was anything but fabulous, unless fabulously bad counts. Read more >

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UCS to the NRC: Stop Dragging Your Feet on Important Nuclear Security Updates

, senior scientist

January 18, 2017 6:00 AM EDT

Yesterday, UCS sent a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) chairman Stephen Burns urging the NRC to quickly issue new versions of two outdated security documents that play a critical role in defining how nuclear plants can be adequately protected against terrorist attacks. Read more >

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Trump and the Nuclear Codes: How To Launch a Nuclear Weapon

, co-director and senior scientist

January 17, 2017 11:13 AM EDT

There has been a lot of talk about the fact that after his inauguration, Donald Trump will have his finger on the “button” used to launch nuclear weapons. But the president does not actually have a “button.”

Instead when he becomes president he will be given nuclear codes that enable him to launch a nuclear strike.

What does that actually mean? Read more >

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Frazzled at FitzPatrick

, director, Nuclear Safety Project

December 27, 2016 6:00 AM EDT

Fission Stories #199

The James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plant near Oswego, New York has one boiling water reactor (BWRs) with a Mark I containment design. Water flowing through BWR cores is heated to boiling with the steam flowing through turbine/generator to make electricity. Steam exits the turbines and flows past thousands of tubes within the condenser. Water from the lake flowing inside the tubes cools the steam and transforms it into water. The condensed steam is pumped to the reactor vessel to make more steam. Read more >

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