nuclear

The production of renewables in Europe is so strong that it is forcing nuclear power plants to work

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In Europe there is a division around the closure of nuclear. Some countries have already disconnected them at all, such as Germanyor are in the process of doing so, like Spain. Meanwhile, France keeps them as a pillar of its electrical system. However, the arrival of spring has evidenced something that was suspected: the rise of renewables have forced nuclear plants to stop. A lot of light and little demand. The production of renewable energy has saturated the electrical networks in several European countries. According to Bloombergthe immediate consequence has been the fall in electricity prices, which on holidays (Easter and Easter) and with low demand have even become negative. In Spain, five of the seven nuclear reactors They stopped or reduced their burden And, in the case of France, its electric company, known by its acronym EDF, has cut its atomic production in an average of 4GW daily in March, double a year earlier. Negative prices When talking about negative price it may seem that electricity will be free, but it is not. This means that the electric market, based on time auctions, can yield negative prices when there is too much supply and very little demand. In those hours, producers or electrical companies have to pay to place their energy on the network. Renewables, which have legal priority of access, continue to function. On the other hand, nuclear cannot lower their power so quickly and operate in these conditions, especially in countries such as Spain where the tax burden has increased by 71% since 2019, According to PWC. The clean boom. The rise of renewables is promoting many countries to operate with energy 100% cleanrecently Spain He joined this new coverage. Yes, it is true that the increase in installed total capacity has grown vertiginously in a few years, reaching almost 700 GW According to the Global Energy Review 2025. In this commitment to clean generation systems, storage systems also enters batteries either Reservoirsin addition to creating A good electric structuredespite the fear of companies around The uncertainty of the closure of nuclear. What about nuclear energy? If the nuclear operate less hours and with low prices, they lose profitability. And if they also have to stop and restart due to demand variations, costs rise and technical risks increase. As has detailed The New York medium, France, with 70% of its electricity still of nuclear origin, is seeing how that technical rigidity collides with a system in transformation. EDF has warned that frequent variations hinder maintenance and routine tests. Spain already has put closing date To all its reactors between 2027 and 2035, and other countries follow that path. Forecasts According to Staffan Bergh, chief analyst of Bodecker Partners: “We will see many more hours with negative prices, and these will only increase during spring.” In this line the analyst explained that it is not necessary to install more renewable, but in knowing how to use them well, manage them better and complement them with intelligence. Image |Nuclear forum Xataka | A Tesla co -founder has done business with tariffs: it extracts rare land from old batteries without going through China

The US promised them very happy resurrecting its nuclear industry. Now a problem with tariffs has been created

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The commercial war that He has started United States this April has given much to talk about, especially for Tariff dispute with China. This situation has put an old energy problem on the table: the dependence of foreign uranium. An uncomfortable dependence. The policies of the current American administration They have made clear their position not to continue towards the change of the energy transition. The Trump approach is placed in fossil fuels, but in nuclear matters it was preceded by Biden. In this specific case the energy constant is has maintained Between both governments, which in the road map left that nuclear energy should triple. In this way, the United States has been importing 99% of Uranium concentrate to make fuel for your reactors. In addition, the 54 nuclear centrals of the country generate about a fifth of all the electricity it consumes, According to Ciphernews. Who are the suppliers? As detailed in the same medium, most of the uranium has come from Canada, Kazakhstan, Australia, Russia and Uzbekistan, and although this mineral It was exempt of tariffs, the situation can vary Seeing the stage. In short, the issue has generated a stir in the energy sector and has exposed a structural vulnerability in its nuclear supply chain. A bet towards national mining. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA)last year the national production of uranium concentrate multiplied by thirteen, but still is not enough to meet the demand. However, Scott Melbye, president of Uranium producers of America, He has assured that at least six companies have restarted mining operations in the country. It was not always like that. USA It was the largest uranium producer of the world in 1980, but in the following decades other countries ate the land, as was Canada and Kazakhstan because the extraction costs were lower. The situation worsened with a nuclear disarmament agreement of the USSR and for 20 years the half of the US nuclear fuel came from the recycling of Soviet uranium. After all this situation, in which it began more and more to depend on the uranium of others came the Fukushima accident in 2011. After this tragedy many countries, including USA, They reduced their investment in nuclear energy. Western mining companies paused operations, while Kazakhstan, with state support, Increased its production without worrying about profitability. Russia also continued to sell cheap uranium, even after the end of the disarmament agreement in 2013. Will it be self -sufficient? The orientation of Trump’s policies It seems to point towards the reactivation of its internal nuclear supply chain. Although uranium is still free of tariffs, global tension, technological advances and energy urgency are pushing the country again to look at their own subsoil. The big question is whether this rebirth will be sufficient and sustainable in the long term. Image | Pxhere and Gage Skidmore in Flickr Xataka | The uranium is listed up after the nuclear resurgence. And a company wants to start extracting it in Greenland

China has a new hydrogen pump. It is so destructive that it seems nuclear

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The hydrogen pump is The most terrifying weapon created so far by the human being. A conventional atomic bomb as the ones that launched the USA about the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and with which The Second World War concluded In 1945, it triggers a very powerful explosion and the release of a huge amount of energy by firing a uranium -235 or plutonium -239 nucleus. However, a hydrogen pump is even more devastating. It is also known as the thermonuclear weapon, and, very broadly, it uses a small atomic fission pump as a detonator device for induce fusion of the fuel composed of two hydrogen isotopes: deuterium and tritium. The energy that is able to release one of these bombs can be much higher than that of a conventional atomic weapon. In fact, the “Tsar bomb”which is the most powerful thermonuclear weapon so far, was thrown by the Soviet Union on the Barents Sea in 1961 and reached a power of 50 megatones. China has just tested a new type of hydrogen pump To understand with some precision how the bomb that China has developed works and why it is not a nuclear weapon it was necessary to briefly review what are the principles of operation of atomic bombs and thermonuclear weapons. The Complete Prohibition Treaty of Nuclear Essays approved by the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 1996 prohibits any type of nuclear test. Unfortunately, this agreement has not come into force because it has not been ratified by all countries that have nuclear weapons. This weapon uses magnesium hydride (MGH₂) because it is a chemical compound capable of storing hydrogen in a solid way In any case, as I mentioned, the bomb that China has tried is not a nuclear weapon. Unlike the hydrogen pump in which we have investigated a few lines above this weapon uses as a magnesium hydride fuel (MGH₂) because it is a chemical compound Able to store hydrogen in solid way. This fuel is stable from a thermodynamic point of view, but it has a peculiarity: it reacts in a violent way when it comes into contact with water or acidic substances, releasing hydrogen. Once its release has occurred, this chemical element enters into combustion, reaching a temperature of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. However, its destructive capacity is not the consequence only of the temperature reached by the fireball it produces; His devastating power is also linked to the fact that he calls her lasts for more than 2 seconds. It may seem little time, but it is not. It is a long time. In fact, the flame of a TNT explosion hardly lasts 0.12 s, so its destructive capacity is much lower. Of course, the explosion of this hydrogen pump is approximately 60% less powerful than that of a TNT device in terms of pressure. What China has carried out for the moment is just a test, but this country already has a factory capable of producing 150 tons of magnesium hydride per year. It is evident that this nation is serious with this weapon. Presumably it can be used to destroy drone swarms, end objectives endowed with state -of -the -art shields or ravage a wide area of ​​land, among other possibilities. Hopefully neither China nor any other country decides to use this type of weapons in the future. One last note: we do not know what the appearance of this pump is, although it weighs 2 kg, so it is not very large. Of course, the explosion you can see in the cover image of this article is real. Image | 705 Research Institute | PFC Lukas J. Blom More information | SCMP In Xataka | In the Cold War, USA designed something more intimidating than the atomic bomb: a nuclear missile that pursued goals

Now there is a naval base with six nuclear submarines

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In recent months, satellite images have revealed some of the latest military key in China. In October 2024 a new missile launch point was discovered in A strategic island. In November it was the appearance of a mysterious ship whose dimensions left few doubts of their reach, and a few weeks ago the largest military center of the planet. The latest: a base with six surprises. A hidden base. What happened has been possible through a Image update Satellite on Google Earth. Only then, Naval Analyst Alex Luck He found something That was not before: the presence of at least six nuclear submarines in the first submarine base in Qingdao, in the province of Shandong, China. The same, located at a strategic point with direct access to the yellow sea, the Eastern China Sea and the Japan Sea, has been a high military sensitivity installation for years, but now it can be observed with relative clarity from public services of digital cartography. In other words, the active existence of a secret base of nuclear submarines where, as explained by the analyst, several docked nuclear submarines are identified, a revelation that confirms not only the sustained expansion of the Chinese underwater fleet, but also its growing commitment to reinforce strategic deterrence through naval power. The submarines. The images from the space show at least six docked nuclear submarines, including two of Type 091 classtwo of class Type 093A and unidentified, in addition to a dry dike submarine that could be dismantled. Also, According to the analysta Type 092currently out of service and replaced by the most modern Type 094. Said form, we would be facing five nuclear propulsion submarines (although these with conventional weapons), and at least one with nuclear ballistic capacity (SSBN). Plus: The base, which as we said until now had remained under a relative veil of secrecy, points to a centerpiece in the growing maritime expansion of China. A Chinese submarine Type 094 Evolutionary deterrence. China currently has some 600 Nuclear Ojivasa modest figure compared to more than 5,000 from the United States, but enough to unleash a winter global nuclear in case of conflict. We have commented beforealthough Beijing maintains a policy of “Not first use” Of nuclear weapons, the country has begun to diversify its strategic arsenal, traditionally dependent on terrestrial and aerial platforms, through an expansion of its underwater force with nuclear capacity. A THREAT INITIATIVE NUCLEAR REPORT He stressed that the Navy of the Popular Liberation Army (Plan) operates both nuclear propulsion submarines and a robust diesel-electric submarines, the latter being the back spine of its underwater power. However, the recent focus seems to modernize and expand its naval nuclear component, with expectations that its total fleet reaches 65 units by 2025, According to estimates of the US government, and 80 by 2035. China goes very seriously. In the last fifteen years, China has built twelve submarines of nuclear propulsion: two Type 093 (Shang I class), four Type 093A (Shang II) and six Type 094 (Jin Class), the latter equipped with ballistic missiles launched from submarines (SLBM) as The JL-2 (CSS-N-14) and the most advanced JL-3 (CSS-N-20), thus representing the first marine nuclear dissuasion truly credible of the country. Each submarine Jin class can transport up to 12 missiles, and They were shown Publicly during the parade for the 70th anniversary of the Foundation of the Republic of Popular in 2019. In parallel, the imminent construction of the new Type 096 is expected, which will operate together with the Type 094 during the 2030s, as part of that Objective marked by Xi Jinping of significantly strengthening this strategic branch. The underwater race. No doubt, the discovery of this active and visible base from satellite is One more sample How the limits of strategic surveillance They have diluted in the era of digital cartography. However, and beyond the technological anecdote, the finding illustrates the growing role that marine deterrence will play in the Chinese nuclear strategy. With a fleet every time more advanced And a leadership determined to project power in the Western Pacific, the submarine program of the plan represents a critical dimension in the new geopolitical balance. The challenge does not reside solely in the number of submarines, but in its technology, capacity for stealth, autonomy and strategic armament. As China continues to develop Its presence under the waters, Qingdao’s revelation serves as a reminder that the next great struggle for nuclear supremacy may not be seen from the surface, but observe (as now) from orbit. Image | Google (Via Alexluck), United States Naval Institute In Xataka | Satellite images have discovered something: China is building the largest military center on the planet In Xataka | Satellite images leave little doubt: China is building a mysterious ship, and has an unusual size

a nuclear missile that pursued goals

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In 1945 the Second World War. He did not do it with him Atomic bombardment From the United States to Japan, but it is evident that these two events marked a turning point in the conflict. However, tranquility did not last long, since the US and the USSR entered the Cold war. In technological, it was a period in which both powers entered a war of spatial, technological and military development And, perhaps, one of the biggest follies was the United States Diamondback missile. Nuclear explosion. In that period, the two blocks They took run in the development of Nuclear bombs. Only 10 years after the end of World War II, the world’s nuclear arsenal was from some 3,000 heads. In 1965, they exceeded 37,000 nuclear weapons, and followed the climb to the peak of 1986: 7,300 nuclear weaponsbelonging 40,159 to the USSR and 23,317 to the United States. Not only were many bombs, but also bombs as devastating and unimaginable as the Tsar pump. And beyond these pumps of several tons of weight, from the ground and sea the ballistic missiles could be launched that were huge again and weighed very much. An idea occurred to the United States: what if we develop a nuclear missile that can be armed in airplanes and is not focused on destroying terrestrial objectives, but aerial? Sidewinder. In the middle of the century, the US was investigating the development of an air-aire missile with objective monitoring capacity. It was not an American idea, but of Nazi researchers who designed missiles with rocket propulsion systems. They did not implement it, but they did create a prototype: the Blohm & Voss BV 143. It was an anti-buque plain pump. The allies collected this information when the war ended and, in 1946, in the Naval Ordnance Test Station (or NOTS) in California, an American research team began to develop an air-Aire missile that could persecute its “prey”. In 1951 the project received official financing and, after years of evidence, in 1956 the missiles Sidewinder They went into service. Diamondback. Seeing the success of the Sidewinder program, the United States Navy wondered if they could do something like that missile, but big. In 1956, in the NOTS they began to make designs for a missing missing objectives that, in addition, had the ability to carry a nuclear head. They baptized him as Diamondback. Diamondback sketches China Lake Alumni video image It would be very far in power of other nuclear weapons of the time, since it would have “only” 0.75 kilotons, but in an air-air missile, the resulting explosion would be a real barbarity. Its specifications were much more advanced than those of a Sidewinder and would be faster, reaching higher speeds. Mach 3 Thanks to a double impulse system with liquid propulsion, it would have a much larger operational range and a flight roof of up to 24,000 meters. In this video, we can see some of the developments and prototypes of the American base: Air-Aire, but to the beast. The idea of ​​putting a nuclear head on a missile may seem curious, but in the marine minds it made sense to end entire formations of enemy bombers flying in closed formation. The explosion of a Sidewinder could end enemy fighters and a bomber if it gave at the indicated point, but a missile of 0.75 kilotons would spray in the air to its goal and those who fly next to it. It was also designed to supply the deficiencies of the original Sidewinder not only in terms of scope, speed and destructive capacity, but in mobility. The liquid fuel allowed it to maintain energy and speed throughout the flight, optimizing those possible final maneuvers if the objective intended to escape. In addition, the guide system did not settle for infrared, but also had a passive radar that not only increased the probability of impact, but allowed to achieve objectives from any angle. The Air-Aire missiles of the moment could only be guided by the heat of the propellants, so they had to launch while behind the target. The advanced monitoring system allowed to launch it from any angle | China Lake Alumni video image He did not set. In spite of everything, the project just lasted a year. Prototypes were not created and the missile did not leave the design table because the Navy did not have, in those moments, specific needs to assemble nuclear missiles and its development with the technology of the time would have been complete and extremely expensive. The Sidewinder prevailed. A year later, the United States did developed an air-aire missile with a 1.5-kilotons nuclear eyes and deployed for almost 30 years in the US and Canadian air forces. He Air-2 Genie It had more power than diamondback, a similar weight, it also reached Mach 3 speeds … but it wasn’t guided. Precisely, the terrifying diamondback was not so much the nuclear eye, but the very advanced monitoring system, a characteristic that the AIM-26a Falcon of the 60s (less powerful and slower than what Diamondback wanted to be). Thus, Diamondback remained a sample of that nuclear ecstasy in which the two powers entered. The one who followed on his way, and with an overwhelming success, was the Sidewinder. Over the years, the missile evolved with greater speeds and benefits, as well as the implementation of semi -active radar systems with which he wanted to flirt the diamondback. And, since its launch in the mid -50, it is part of the military arsenal of countries throughout the world, inspiring Soviet developments such as the K-13 or the PL-2 Chinese. Maybe, as they point out in TWZDiamondback was a “too much and very soon” for the navy, but it is evident that it would have been an incredible technological piece and – another deterrence in nuclear war. In Xataka | Satellite images reveal the dimension of war drums in China: the largest military base on the planet

It was an abandoned nuclear power plant. Now he has a second life as the most silent acoustic laboratory on the planet

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Two gigantic cooling towers of almost 150 meters high flank what clearly seems to be a nuclear power plant in a rural Washington area. It is actually the acoustic laboratory NWAA Labs, one of the most silent buildings on the planet. An abandoned nuclear power plant. The laboratory was built on the vestiges of a pharaonic project that never saw the light, the nuclear washington Projects of Elma. Plants 3 and 5, part of what was intended to be the largest nuclear energy complex in the United States, were abandoned in the 80s without fissting a single atom. Designed to resist all kinds of impacts and earthquakes, the structures would have been extremely expensive to demolish, so the NWAA Labs adapted to them. The reactor is the reverberation chamber, the turbine room is the anecoic chamber and the old reactor control room is the laboratory control room. The facilities, still marked, remain a “disturbing” maze. The ideal facilities. The NWAA Labs is a project by Ron Sauro, an electrical and mechanical engineer formed in Stanford that combined its beginnings in NASA with being the keyboardist of the group The Rivieras, authors of a gold record in 1963. After a life designing sound systems, Sauro saw the unique potential of this nuclear power plant abandoned to bombing proof. The outer structure, with walls of 1.5 meters thick and eight layers of reinforcement bars, is designed to support an earthquake of magnitude 10 and the direct impact of an explosion of 10 megatons on its roof. The interior structure is isolated from the surrounding terrain by a ditch that minimizes the transmission of vibrations and noise. In another ditch within this, a circular and steel circular container is erected, originally intended for the nuclear reactor. The entire installation rests on a sandstone layer of more than 3,000 meters thick. An almost absolute silence. Thanks to these structures, the NWAA Labs presumes to have the two largest reverberation cameras in the world. Salas where the sound bounces up to 28 seconds without absorbent material, which allows to measure the sound power of a source or the absorption capacity of a material. In addition to the reverberation cameras, the laboratory has anechoic cameras designed to absorb sound and simulate a space without reflections. In these rooms, silence is almost absolute. The background noise is -43 dB (below the human hearing threshold). In the old turbine room, 198 meters long by 106 wide by 24 high, the reflections take so long to arrive (more than 160 ms) that do not interfere with some measurements. Who uses this laboratory. The NWAA Labs performs tests for the audio industry. The speakers are 20% of their business: over here more than 3,000 speakers of some 300 professional brands and high fidelity have passed. But it is also offered to other industries, which prove construction materials, acoustic insulation here, and even noisy washing machines or aircraft cabins. The laboratory also attracts musicians, video game and filmmakers, fascinated by their acoustics and post-apocalyptic aesthetics. Image | Walter Siegmund (CC By 2.5)

This nuclear reactor is different from everyone else. It has been expressly designed for data centers

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The proliferation of large data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) raises a very serious energy problem. Both, in fact, that the US Department of Energy is considering the possibility that companies that have large data centers Dedicated to the training of AI models install in their vicinity A small nuclear power plant that is able to meet your energy needs. This strategy would also reinforce the US bet for energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases. What is not clear is yet what investment the technology companies and what subsidies will contribute the government will assume. At the moment some of the great technology firms have already invested in nuclear energy, although not necessarily in fission. Microsoft, for example, It has an agreement with Helion Energy to obtain in the future energy from its reactors of nuclear fusion. An extra modular reactor adapted to the needs of data centers The image we have published on the cover of this article is a recreation made by the American company Aalo Atomics of its extra modular reactor Aal Pod. This machine has a lot in common with SMR reactors (Small Modular Reactro compact modular reactor) of which We have spoken to you in other articlesbut, according to its creators, they uncheck of the latter in something very important: its modularity is even greater. This peculiarity is precisely the According to them It makes it suitable for data centers. However, the reactor of Fourth Generation Nuclear Fission Aalo POD has another quality that, on paper, is very attractive: its enormous flexibility. And, again according to his designers, he can work in a completely independent way of the electricity grid, coupled to it, and even, hybrid. In this way, the owners of the data centers can use the strategy that better solves their needs by balancing the electricity produced by the reactor and the one that is capable of giving them the existing electrical infrastructure. Sounds good. Each Aalo POD incorporates five aal-1 micro-recruitors matched with a single electricity generating turbine The prototype that Aal Atomics has made known is capable of delivering 50 MWE (electric megawatts), but its modularity allows you to climb this machine to be able to deliver several hundred MWE, and even thousands of MWE. The image we have is a recreation, but it allows us to intuit what the architecture of this reactor is. Interestingly, it looks more like a linear particle accelerator than a conventional nuclear fission reactor. An interesting note: Each Aal POD incorporates five micro-recruitors Aal-1 paired with a single electricity generating turbine. However, this is not all. The heart of the Aalo Atomics strategy consists in developing a production technology that allows to manufacture the modules of each Aal Pod Industrial and chain. As if they were cars. Or reaction turbines for airplanes. According to this company, this approach will allow them to install their reactor with the data centers in less time, occupying less space and for less money than a conventional SMR reactor would cost. In addition, again according to Aalo Atomics, each micro -reactor can be resumed at any time without the need to stop others with which it is matched and refrigerated by sodium, so it is not necessary to have a water source close. The promises of this company on paper paint well. Now the important thing is to materialize everything you have announced in a final product that lives up to expectations. Data centers continue to proliferate. And they don’t rest. Image | Aalo Atomics More information | Aalo Atomics In Xataka | Nuclear fission has been waiting for a type of fuel to take off. And he already caresses it with the tip of the fingers

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe has been closed by the war in Ukraine. Now the United States wants to reopen

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At the beginning of the Ukraine War, the first thing the Russian Army did It was taking control of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe: Zaporiyia. During these three years, the Kremlin has established a military base and has been the objective of attacksso it has remained closed. Recently, the United States has decided to reopen this booty. Your part of the cake. There was no agreement with any of the two parties around To the rare earthsnow the focus is positioned in the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. In a telephone call, Trump suggested to Zelenski that the United States could help to manage, and possibly possess, Ukraine nuclear energy plants, according to a statement by the US presidential administration to which which has had access Reuters. All this to guarantee the energy security of Ukraine. The problem with “property.” From the same medium They have pointed out that the problem came with the word: “property.” The Ukrainian president has revealed that he would have no problem that the US investing money, only in the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant to rebuild it once again recover it. However, reject in a resounding way Give the central because they do not want to lose energy sovereignty in the country. A strategic central. The control of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe has reinforced Moscow’s power over the region, making it an energy pressure tool. According to The Washington PostRussian Foreign Minister has declared that the transfer of the central to any other nation is “impossible”, a position that highlights the strategic importance. A great loss for Ukraine. The largest nuclear plant in Europe is a great booty of war. In fact, for the nation of Zelensky it has meant a very large loss, since before the occupation it represented 20% of the country’s electrical production, such as They have reported in The Washington Post. In addition, the Ukrainian nation is now forced to allocate its limited resources to avoid a nuclear crisis. However, since the Russian occupation it has remained closed. Security problems From the closure of the plant, both parties They have accused mutually bombarding her repeatedly, so they had to close it for the risk of attacks and the growing concern for the integrity of cooling systems. Until today, the nuclear power plant has not produced energy again and has been negatively reflected in the Ukrainian electricity network. Can it be reactivated? The central was operated by Energoatom a Ukrainian public society. Its executive director, Petro Kotin, has warned in an interview for The Guardian on the problems that exist safely restart the Zaporiyia nuclear power plant. The senior executive stressed that there is a lack of trained personnel, the damage to infrastructure and the insufficiency of cooling water, after the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam in 2023 reduced access to the water of the Dnieper river. In an assumption that Ukraine recovered control of the central, Kotin explained that the restart process would take a long time between two months and two years, depending on the state of the nuclear plant. Moscow’s position. Russia has made it clear that it has no intention of giving control of the Zaporiyia plant and has plans to reactivate the plant, but it has not yet specified when it would happen. According to The Washington Postthe future of the Zaporiyia plant remains one of the main challenges that will define not only the energy balance of the region, but also the course of the Ukraine War. Image | DPA Germany Xataka | A Russian drone has opened one of the greatest engineering works. The problem: it was the sarcophagus of Chernobil reactor 4

700 tons of nuclear waste have arrived in Germany from England. Germans are not quite happy

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A very particular shipment has landed on the German coasts. The special ship for the transport of nuclear waste Pacific Grebe docked in the port of Nordenham, northwest of Germany, transporting highly radioactive waste from the United Kingdom. Upon arrival, It was received by antinuclear activists and a strong police device. The controversial delivery. In total, seven castor nuclear containers, each four meters long and with a weight of more than 100 tons. More than 700 tons of nuclear waste in total only with this shipment. It’s about high -level waste (HLW) subject to a vitrification process. That is, mixed with liquid silicates and sponsored in stainless steel cylinders that are sealically sealed once the glass solidifies. These cylinders are then introduced into Castor containers, made of cast iron and stainless steel, a robust armor against radiation. They are German waste. The remains of the reprocessing of nuclear fuel used in former German centrals, which until 2005 was sent to facilities such as Sellafield’s in the United Kingdom and Hague, in France. Although Germany closed its last nuclear centrals in 2023, it has the contractual obligation to recover waste. This is the second of the three shipments planned from Sellafield to complete the repatriation of German nuclear waste. The first arrived in 2020 and was stored in Bibliis. Shipments from France concluded in November 2024. Once in Nordenham, Castor containers are moving with cranes to a special train. Before embarking on the ground, technicians make measurements to ensure that radiation levels comply with legal limits. The train takes the remains to a Intermediate storage In Narderaichbach (Bavaria), next to the old nuclear power plant in ISAR. The exact route remains a secret for security reasons. Why protests? The arrival of new waste has revived the debate and nuclear opposition in Germany. Groups like Ausgestrahlt (“Irradiada”) and Castor-Stoppen (“Stop the Castor”) have organized the protests. They argue that every movement of these materials “entails a huge risk” and criticize that the waste moves to Temporary storesinstead of waiting to have a deep geological cemetery definitive. Move them now, They say“only postpone the problem and do not solve it”, and ask that the waste only transports once towards their final destination. More protests are expected along the route that will presumably follow the train, including cities such as Bremen and Göttingen. There is a strong police deployment around these transports. The temporary stores. Germany faces the challenge of managing about 27,000 cubic meters of accumulated radioactive waste for 60 years of nuclear energy. For now, these materials are stored in 16 temporary stores distributed throughout the country. The search for deep geological storage to bury them definitively is underway, but it is a long and complex process, As Finland has demonstratedwhose example now follows countries that are closing their nuclear plants; Germany and Spain at the head. In short. Germany is fulfilling its international obligations by bringing its own nuclear waste back. It is what promised the United Kingdom and France. But each shipment reopens the wound of an unresolved problem: the lack of a permanent and safe home for the most delicate legacy of its nuclear era, which generates restlessness and protests between part of its population. Image | Download a Castor container in 2001-Dennis140 (CC-BY-SA) In Xataka | Switzerland will come true the invention of Nobel Carlo Rubbia: a nuclear power plant that reduces 80% of radioactive waste In Xataka | France has presented a striking plan for its nuclear waste: converting them into forks and pans

The US was prepared for total destruction in the cold war. This map for nuclear apocalypse illustrates it

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The launch of Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bombs It was a turning point. Practically, marked the end of the Second World War while starting a Cold war in which the United States and Russia were carried away by nuclear ecstasy. The two powers engaged in a nuclear career without controlbut it is not that they developed the crazy bombs: there were also lists of enemy objectives. And on an interactive map prepared by Future of Life We can see about 1,000 objectives to which the United States would launch a nuclear bomb. But there were many more. The map. In 2015, a study of the United States Strategic Air Command was declared – SAC – that showed a thousand potential objectives in the case of nuclear war. If this possibility flew over the heads of some with the recent Ukraine War, imagine the stage in a cold war in which you could have the feeling that the enemy could squeeze the “button” at any time. There are more than 800 pages in which the objectives of these strategic bombings with nuclear weapons are detailed to erase any enemy presence. In it map From the George Washington University we can not only appreciate some of the main objectives, but the secondary objectives of each of them. For example, if we select Berlin, we can see the objective list And consequences of that study of 1956. Beyond the cities, another priority was the aerodromes, keys to a Soviet counterattack, specifically those located in Belarus. Easting east. Apart from military objectives such as strategic points and aerodromes, the listIt includes more than 1,200 cities of the Soviet block. It is where we can see that more dots are gathered on the map of Future of Life and range from cities of Eastern Germany to China. Moscow would fall into the Red Square, directly (and on this map we can see the Impact of different bombs in any city). The Asian giant, will fight or not next to the Soviet block in case of war, was something that did not matter to SAC. He treated them as hostile, selecting military objectives, but also the Beijing capital. And something that several of the bombed cities have in common is that the SAC already assumed objectives of “population.” The bombs. The plan was well mounted because there was not only a list of objectives, but also the type of weapons that would be used. They would use a combination of atomic and thermonuclear weapons with yields between 1.6 to 15 megatons. Far from the 50 megatons of the Soviet Zar pump, but much more than the 16 kilotons of Little Boy and the 21 kilotons of Fat Man, which wreaked havoc in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The megabomba. We have talked about the tsar pump, or tsar bomb, and in the United States there was also talk of it in 1956. It is not only the bomb that has caused the largest nuclear explosion so far, but it was 3,000 times more powerful than ‘Little boy’. The Russians had that bomb and the United States wanted an equal. In the declassified material, it is detailed how the SAC wanted a 60 megatones bomb. Not only did they identify him as something key in order to be tremendously deterrent but, in case of Soviet surprise attack, they could launch it at a strategic point to “ensure significant results even with a very small force.” In that nuclear ecstasy, the nuclear physicist Edward Teller (“Father” of the bomb H) proposed 1,000 metatones dissositive and up to 10 gigatons. 10 gigatons equals explosive power 670,000 times greater than that of the Hiroshima bomb. Luckily they did not do it, since affirmed that “would contaminate the earth”In the end, the US did not develop such a monstrous bomb. Nor the 60 megatones that the SAC wanted. And the media. And, within the plan, it also specified how the pumps would be launched. There were two systems: for the delivery of B-47 bombers, the United States would use its bases in the United Kingdom, Morocco and Spain. They would also use the B-52 from the US, although they were starting their journey. For the missile system, the eyelets would be loaded in the Snark, Rascal, Cross Bow and IRBM missiles. The first was a failure in the evidence and the great priority of President Eisenhower were the IRBM. These intermediate -reach ballistic missiles projected scope of up to 2,700 kilometers and the idea was to deploy them and throw them from the United Kingdom. Insured mutual destruction. But well, the United States had its Soviet axis attack plan, but the USSR also had its own. In the Soviet plans the Western military infrastructure, the industrial centers and large cities in both the US and its allies entered. They would do it by hydrogen pumps, tactical pumps that could mount on torpedoes and missiles released from mobile platforms. But although the logic could not reign in the massive development of weapons, the fear and that position of both ‘Mad’ countries did, or ‘insured mutual destruction’ that marked that, if a country launched a nuclear attack, automatically the other would respond with a proportional force. This led to threats over the years (such as the deployment of American missiles in Türkiye and Italy or the subsequent crisis of Cuba missiles, but fortunately it did not reach more. And what happens today. In 1986, the two countries reached the zenith of their nuclear arsenal and, from that moment, they dismantled much of their arsenal. The USSR came to have more than 40,000 heads while the United States reached 23,317, but as we say, different pacts and that tension that dissipated with the fall of the Berlin wall caused them to get rid of much of its arsenal. The problem is that other countries -china- have developed and are found enhancing its own nuclear arsenaland in recent years there is a kind of new … Read more

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