"Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life."
"TOKYO -- The temperature fell to minus 8.7 degrees Celsius on Sunday morning near Japan's crippled nuclear power plant, causing water pipes and valve seals to rupture, leaking tons of water."
"Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant discovered Sunday that the damaged pipes spilled nearly eight tons of water from 14 locations. Two additional water leaks were discovered today, according to plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company.
"U.S. law enforcement agencies are exposing people to radiation in more settings and in increasing doses to screen for explosives, weapons and drugs. In addition to the controversial airport body scanners [2], which are now deployed for routine screening, various X-ray devices have proliferated at the border, in prisons and on the streets of New York. Not only have the machines become more widespread, but some of them expose people to higher doses of radiation. And agencies have pushed the boundaries of acceptable use by X-raying people covertly, according to government documents and interviews."
"The United States must urgently work to find a new central site to house its spent nuclear fuel and probe whether Japan's nuclear disaster has any safety implications for storage at the country's plants, a federal panel said on Thursday."
Here, courtesy of the Federation of American Scientists, are some recent Congressional Research Service backgrounders that may be useful to environment/energy reporters, on chemical facility security, nuclear power plant design and seismic safety considerations, and proposed Keystone XL pipeline legal issues.
"Japan's energy minister admitted on Tuesday that no records were kept of top level discussions in the critical early days on how to respond to the world's worst nuclear disaster in 25 years."
"ONAMI, Japan -- In the fall, as this valley’s rice paddies ripened into a carpet of gold, inspectors came to check for radioactive contamination."
"Onami sits just 35 miles northwest of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which spewed radioactive cesium over much of this rural region last March. However, the government inspectors declared Onami’s rice safe for consumption after testing just two of its 154 rice farms.
"WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday blocked Vermont from forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor to shut down when its license expires in March, saying that the state is trying to regulate nuclear safety, which only the federal government can do."
"Japan's push to restart nuclear reactors shut for maintenance by proving their safety through stress tests and plans to let them operate for as long as 60 years have sparked an angry response from the public, wary of atomic power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster."
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