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Mammoth UK nuclear plant receives final government thumbs-up
Eight years after it was first proposed, the UK government today gave the final go-ahead for Hinkley Point C, a new nuclear power plant to be built in Somerset. The two-reactor site is expected to become operational in 2025, at which point the majority of live nuclear power stations in the UK will be decommissioned, or only a few years away from the same fate. Point C is slated to generate 3,200 megawatts -- roughly 7 percent of the UK's total consumption and well over double the output of any currently operational site. The first new nuclear plant to be built in the UK in decades, it'll also be one of the priciest projects the world has even seen, with conservative estimates putting construction costs alone at £18 billion.
Stuxnet pinned on US and Israel as an out-of-control creation
Ever since Stuxnet was discovered, most of the accusing fingers have been pointed at the US, Israel or both, whether or not there was any evidence; it was hard to ignore malware that seemed tailor-made for wrecking Iranian centrifuges and slowing down the country's nuclear development. As it turns out, Occam's Razor is in full effect. An exposé from the New York Times matter-of-factly claims that the US and Israel coded Stuxnet as part of a cyberwar op, Olympic Games, and snuck it on to a USB thumb drive that infected computers at the Natanz nuclear facility. The reason we know about the infection at all, insiders say, is that it got out of control: someone modified the code or otherwise got it to spread through an infected PC carried outside, pushing Obama to either double down (which he did) or back off. Despite all its connections, the newspaper couldn't confirm whether or not the new Flame malware attack is another US creation. Tipsters did, however, deny that Flame is part of the Olympic Games push -- raising the possibility that there are other agencies at work. [Image credit: David Holt, Flickr]
Fukushima plant operator uses modded robot vacuum to suck up radioactive dirt (video)
A few months ago, back when Japan was freshly reeling from that devastating earthquake and tsunami, it became obvious that robots could help survey radiation levels in Fukushima, even if they were powerless to lower them. Now, Tokyo Power Electric Co., the company that operates the damaged nuclear plant, is experimenting with an ad hoc system designed to clean at least some of the radioactive dirt from the reactors. What you see in that clip below is an industrial-grade vacuum cleaner attached to a Warrior, the most heavy-duty of iRobot's mobile bots. The idea is that workers can control the system from a safe distance, and let the robot handle the dirty work of removing toxic sand and debris. Head past the break to see it in action, combing the floor of the (eerily) empty plant.
