Robert Alvarez

Spent reactor fuel, containing roughly 85 times more long-lived radioactivity than released at Chernobyl, still sits in pools vulnerable to earthquakes.

More than a year after the Fukushima nuclear power disaster began, the news media is just beginning to grasp that the dangers to Japan and the rest of the...

Nuclear power remains expensive, dangerous and too radioactive for Wall Street.

March 5, 2012 -- Is the nuclear drought over?

When the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) recently approved two new nuclear reactors near Augusta, Ga., the first such decision in 32 years, there was plenty of hoopla.

It...

The legacy of human suffering from amassing nuclear arsenals remains ignored in the current debate over eliminating these horrific weapons of mass destruction.

Lest we forget, the Energy Employee Illness Compensation Program Act, which I helped draft and push for, was enacted 11 years ago this week. It was based...

Japan's nuclear disaster should serve as a wake-up call for the United States.

Now that many Americans have stopped paying attention to Japan's nuclear catastrophe, shocking new details about its severity are finally coming to light.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently revealed that the cores of three of the...

A recent government decision callously put thousands of kids in harm's way.

May 5 is Children's Day, a Japanese national holiday that celebrates the happiness of childhood. This year, it will fall under a dark, radioactive shadow.

Japanese children in the path of radioactive plumes from the crippled nuclear reactors...

Recently, a senior scientist with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made this comment to the news media about radioactive fallout being detected in milk in the United States from the nuclear catastrophe in Japan:

"Radiation is all around us in our daily lives, and these findings...

A drained spent fuel pool in the U.S. could lead to a catastrophic fire that would result in long-term land contamination substantially worse than what the Chernobyl accident unleashed.

As recent satellite photographs show, the spent fuel pools at Units 3 and 4 at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi...

Japan's government and nuclear industry, with assistance from the U.S. military, is in a desperate race to stave off multiple nuclear reactor meltdowns -- as well as potential fires in pools of spent fuel.

As of Sunday afternoon, more than 170,000 people have been evacuated near the reactor sites as...

We shouldn't have another nuclear catastrophe to realize there are better, much safer ways to make electricity.

In the aftermath of the largest earthquake to occur in Japan in recorded history, thousands of residents living within 12 miles of six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear station have been advised to...

There's no transforming our energy future without completely overhauling the Energy Department.

"While we are investing in areas that are critical to our future, we are also rooting out programs that aren't needed and making hard choices to tighten our belt," Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently declared, when...

As Egypt and the Middle East rise, Wall Street and congressional Republicans continue to ignore the financial reforms the world is demanding.

The dramatic rise in food prices is fueling a great deal of discontent in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere. It's a deep undercurrent propelling many of the poor, who...

Yesterday President Obama held a meeting with the leaders of indigenous people in the U.S. One important issue is the fact that tribal people, because of their subsistence lifestyle, are the most vulnerable group of humans to environmental contaminants.

In 2002, researchers with the Centers for Disease Control

Wonder why America can't seem to keep up with nations like Germany and China when it comes to an advanced energy policy? Perhaps it's because the Energy Department spends ten times more on nuclear weapons than energy conservation.

Although it's been 20 years since the Cold War ended, the U.S....

According to a recent New York Times article, thyroid cancer in the U.S. has been on the rise for nearly 40 years.

The long-standing explanation that this is due to better diagnostics is no longer accepted. This also means that the impacts of radioactive iodine fallout...

In a recent report to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) in the Energy department is "unable to overcome technical challenges" to producing tritium (H3) in a commercial power reactor for the U.S. nuclear arsenal. As...

Chernobyl: The Gift That Never Stops Giving

August 13, 2010 · By Robert Alvarez

The threats to human health and the environment from Chernobyl fallout, scientists are now finding, will persist for a very long time.

It's been 24 years since the catastrophic explosion and fire occurred at...

The radiological legacy of U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist for many years to come. The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of the Rongelap Atoll in 1954 following a very large thermonuclear explosion which deposited life-threatening quantities of...

In the aftermath of the foiled "underwear bomber" attack on Christmas day, there's a major push to install whole-body x-ray scanning machines at airport screening areas.

The effort is being led by former Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, now a paid consultant for a manufacturer of these x-ray machines....

Yesterday, President Obama announced that the Energy department will provide an $8.3 billion loan guarantee to the Southern Co. for its proposed nuclear power plant near Augusta, GA. "The loan guarantee program for new nuclear power plants not only will further the nation's commitment to clean energy, Obama said, "but...