Security

The United Kingdom’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has announced that it will establish a Plutonium Ceramics Academic Hub with the Universities of Manchester and Sheffield. The announcement follows a decision by the U.K. government in January to immobilize the country’s inventory of civil separated plutonium at the Sellafield nuclear site, mitigating the material’s long-term safety and security risks.

Social media this past weekend streamed with reactionary posts following a drone strike last Friday at the site of the destroyed reactor from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. The drone—armed with a warhead—ripped a hole in the New Safe Confinement (NSC), a large structure built to prevent any radioactive release from the damaged reactor unit 4 and to protect it from any external hazard. The drone strike caused a fire that was still smoldering in places as of Monday morning, and left a hole larger than 500 square feet. Efforts continue to mitigate the consequences of the fire and extinguish isolated smouldering areas of the NSC's insulation material.

Due to damage to the external and internal cladding of the NSC's arch and main crane system equipment, the safety boundaries and operational conditions of the NSC complex have been compromised, according to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Facebook page.

In the past year and a half, the International Atomic Energy Agency has established the Nuclear Security Training and Demonstration Center (NSTDC) to help countries strengthen their nuclear security regimes. The center, located at the IAEA’s Seibersdorf laboratories outside Vienna, Austria, has been operational since October 2023.

Williams

President Trump has selected Brandon Williams to head the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Williams is a former one-term congressman (R., N.Y.),from 2023 to the beginning of 2025. Prior to political office he served in the U.S. Navy. Williams’s run for office gained attention in 2022 when he defeated fellow navy veteran Francis Conole, a Democrat, but he lost the seat last November to Democrat John Mannion.

“I will be honored to lead the tremendous scientific and engineering talent at NNSA,” Williams said, thanking Trump, according to WSYR-TV in Syracuse, N.Y.

Pointing to the consequences of ignoring the perils of nuclear weapons, Rafael Mariano Grossi at last week’s Nobel Peace Prize forum called for diplomacy and dialogue to reduce nuclear tensions.

Read Grossi’s full speech and watch his keynote address here.

A drone targeted and damaged an official vehicle of the International Atomic Energy Agency on December 10 as it traveled toward the front line in eastern Ukraine during a rotation of IAEA teams at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP). In a video message, IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi condemned the strike as an “unacceptable” attack on IAEA staff working to prevent a nuclear accident during a military conflict.

U.S. and Israeli officials are now confirming that an October 25 Israeli attack in Iran destroyed an active top secret facility for nuclear weapons research, Axios reports. The strike is said to have significantly hampered efforts by Iran to resume weapons research, despite ongoing denials from the country’s leaders that there is an active weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has reported that Ukraine’s operating nuclear power plants reduced electricity production yesterday morning as a precautionary measure following widespread military activities across the country that reportedly targeted its energy infrastructure.

The little-known Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) was highlighted recently on the popular NPR show “All Things Considered” and was accompanied by an online feature.

A man killed in a car bomb last week in Enerhodar, Ukraine, may have been targeted because of his ties to Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

The International Atomic Energy Agency received information from both the Russian Federation and Ukraine about the suspected assassination, which occurred in the town where most of the plant staff live, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

A new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office finds that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not taken the steps needed to address the potential economic and societal radiological risks that could arise from a “dirty bomb.”

Walt Kirchner

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) is seeking qualified candidates for two open positions. The ACRS is the world’s oldest organization devoted to reactor safety and is statutorily mandated by the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended. Today, the ACRS reports directly to the NRC’s commission and provides an independent expert technical review of and advice on matters related to the safety of existing and proposed nuclear facilities and on the adequacy of proposed reactor safety standards. The ACRS also advises the commission on health physics, radiation protection, and nuclear waste disposal facility issues.

The ACRS is a part-time advisory group consisting of a maximum of 15 members who are well-recognized experts in technical areas that are key to nuclear safety and whose membership represents a diverse breadth of experience in all aspects of the nuclear enterprise: industry, universities, national laboratories, and government.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and Romania’s National Commission for Nuclear Activities Control (CNCAN) recently celebrated 15 years of collaboration in advancing radiological security.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts announced criminal charges this week against two men for allegedly smuggling and conspiring to violate export controls relating to the sale of laser equipment to the Russian nuclear industry.

The military conflict with Russia that began in February 2022 has left Ukraine with “dangerous instability” of its national grid, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.

Following a meeting in Kyiv with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on September 3, Grossi promised to take a more proactive stance in protecting the country’s energy infrastructure—especially where nuclear safety is vulnerable. During recent months there have been numerous missile and drone attacks, with some directly causing the disconnection of several nuclear power plants.

The water level in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant cooling pond continues to decrease, creating a serious safety threat.

“If this trend continues, ZNPP staff confirmed that it will soon become challenging to pump water from the pond. Maintaining the level of the pond is made more difficult by the hot summer weather,” said Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in an update issued August 2.

A major milestone has been reached in the construction of a plutonium pit production facility at the Savannah River Site, located near Aiken, S.C.

After 18 months of work involving local trade unions, the dismantlement and removal (D&R) of commodities and equipment throughout the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), previously installed by the Mixed Oxide (MOX) project, was completed in June 2024, the Department of Energy reported on July 24.

Security watchdogs with the International Atomic Energy Association are reporting continuing issues at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant due to the military invasion from Russia.

IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi said in his weekly briefing on Ukraine that Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant staff experienced another power outage in the nearby city of Enerhodar—where most of the workers live—and a shortage of tap water that has also affected the plant.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has posted an unclassified version of its annual report to Congress on the results of the agency’s security inspection activities in 2023.

The report covers the NRC’s security inspection program, including force-on-force exercises, for commercial nuclear power reactors and Category I fuel cycle facilities. It keeps Congress and the public informed of the NRC’s oversight of the protection of the nation’s civilian nuclear power infrastructure and strategic special nuclear material.

An external radiation monitoring station was taken out by shelling and fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine the last week of June.

This brings the total to four of the plant’s 14 radiation monitoring sites that are out of commission, further reducing the effectiveness of its off-site capability to detect and measure any radioactive release during an emergency, said IAEA director general Rafael Mariano Grossi.