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Tag Archives: Uranium
British police arrest man on terrorism charges after uranium is found in package at London airport
Police in the United Kingdom arrested a man on terrorism charges Saturday after trace amounts of uranium were discovered in a cargo package at Heathrow Airport in London two weeks ago.
The suspect, a man in his 60s whose identity has not been released, was arrested at a home in northwestern England. He was booked at a police station and released on bail today.
Trace amounts of uranium were found in a package at Heathrow Airport in London on Dec. 29, 2022.
(iStock)
“The discovery of what was a very small amount of uranium within a package at Heathrow Airport is clearly of concern, but it shows the effectiveness of the procedures and checks in place with our partners to detect this type of material,” Richard Smith, the head of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Counter-Terrorism Command, said in a statement on Sunday.
“I want to be clear that despite making this arrest, and based on what we currently know, this incident still does not appear to be linked to any direct threat to the public.”
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The UK’s Border Force originally detected a “very small amount of uranium” in a cargo package containing scrap metal during a routine screening at Heathrow Airport on Dec. 29.
British police emphasized that there is no ‘direct threat to the public.’
(AP Photo/Max Duncan)
A search of the suspect’s home address did not turn up any material that could be a threat to the public, according to police.
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The package arrived at Heathrow Airport on a passenger flight from Oman, The Guardian reports. It was bound for an “Iranian business with premises in the UK,” according to the British newspaper.
Mossad chief warns of Iran’s growing advanced weapons supply to Russia, efforts to enrich uranium
The chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency has warned that Iran plans to deliver more weapons to Russia, while Tehran continues to deny that it has supported Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
David Barnea, Mossad’s chief, spoke to employees at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem and stressed that his agency is “still warning about Iran’s future and intentions, which it is trying to keep secret,” including Tehran’s efforts to “deepen and expand the supply of advanced weapons to Russia.”
Iran has allegedly provided Moscow with weapons over the past few months, starting with a shipment of Shahed-136 “Kamikaze” drones. Tehran has repeatedly denied supplying Russia with any weapons, saying that it “has not and will not” do so.
But Barnea said in a speech to his agency’s employees that they had shared intelligence with Western allies earlier in the year that proved Iran planned to share the drones with Russia, with plans to prepare more deliveries in the coming months, Iran International reported.
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Barnea also called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – also known as the Iran nuclear deal – an “absurd” agreement, echoing criticisms voiced by Prime Minister-Elect Benjamin Netanyahu.
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – JUNE 1: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) attends David Barnea’s (C) oath-taking ceremony as the new head of the Israeli national intelligence service, Mossad in Tel Aviv, Israel on June 1, 2021. Yossi Cohen (L), the outgoing head of Mossad, also attended the ceremony.
(Photo by GPO/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
In a previous Fox News Digital interview, Netanyahu said that the deal is “probably dead” after “the entire world saw what the true face of this regime is.”
INCOMING ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU SAYS HE HAS FORMED NEW COALITION GOVERNMENT
“We are warning about Iran’s intention to expand its uranium enrichment program, and its intention to increase its influence over friendly Muslim countries in the region in various ways,” Barnea said.
FILE – This undated photograph released by the Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate shows the wreckage of what Kyiv has described as an Iranian Shahed drone downed near Kupiansk, Ukraine. As protests rage at home, Iran’s theocratic government is increasingly flexing its military muscle abroad. That includes supplying drones to Russia that now kill Ukrainian civilians, running drills in a border region with Azerbaijan and bombing Kurdish positions in Iraq. (Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate via AP, File)
(Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate via AP, File)
Iran reportedly reached 60% enrichment of uranium at its Fordow enrichment plant, marking a dangerous step closer to the country’s goal of obtaining nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had informed the agency that it had started to enrich uranium at the higher levels.
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Weapons require 90% purity, but the level Iran has reached far exceeds its 20% produced prior to the 2015 nuclear deal, meaning that the country far exceeded the 3.67% cap the deal had mandated.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Iran July 19, 2022.
(President Website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS )
“Is this the country that the free world wants to sign any agreement with?” Barnea asked. “Our eyes will remain open, we will be doubly alert.”
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“I repeat my promise, as I said here last year as well, that Iran will not have nuclear weapons . . . never. This is my commitment, this is the institution’s commitment.”
Iran says more than 120kg of uranium enriched to 20% | Iran
Iran has amassed more than 120kg of 20% enriched uranium, well above the level agreed to in the 2015 deal with world powers, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency has told state television.
“We have passed 120 kilograms,” said Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s atomic energy organisation. “We have more than that figure. Our people know well that [western powers] were meant to give us the enriched fuel at 20% to use in the Tehran reactor, but they haven’t done so.
“If our colleagues do not do it, we would naturally have problems with the lack of fuel for the Tehran reactor.”
The Tehran reactor was originally supplied to Iran by the US in the 1960s to produce radioisotopes for use in medical treatments and agriculture, and has since been modified to run on 20% enriched uranium, which the country began producing in 2012.
In September the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had boosted its stocks of uranium that had been enriched above the percentage allowed in the 2015 deal with world powers.
It estimated that Iran had 84.3kg of uranium enriched to 20%, up from 62.8kg when the IAEA last reported in May.
Under the deal, Iran was not meant to enrich uranium above 3.67%, well below the 90% threshold needed for use in nuclear weapons.
Under the 2015 agreement China, France, Germany, the UK and the US had agreed to lift some sanctions against Iran if Tehran cut back its nuclear programme.
But since Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the deal in 2018, Tehran has progressively abandoned its commitments under the agreement, and the US has imposed fresh sanctions in response.
On Friday, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said he was optimistic that talks on reviving the 2015 deal would make progress, provided Washington fully resumed its commitments.
Speaking during a visit to Syria, Amir-Abdollahian reiterated that Iran would “soon” return to the nuclear talks with world powers, which include indirect negotiations with the US, Iranian state media reported.
The talks, which aim to bring Washington and Tehran back into compliance with the 2015 nuclear pact, were adjourned in June after the hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi was elected Iran’s president.
“Of course, we will soon return to the Vienna talks and we are keeping our eyes on the issue of verification and receiving the necessary guarantees for the implementation of commitments by the western parties,” state media quoted Amir-Abdollahian as saying.
Amir-Abdollahian did not give details of the verification and monitoring mechanism Tehran was seeking. But Iran has often voiced concern about the need to verify that US sanctions lifted under the accord are not kept in place by Washington.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
Custom Game Boy Knockoff Runs on a Tiny Nuclear Generator
Although the Sega Game Gear seemed perpetually starved for fresh batteries, even the Game Boy had a strong appetite for Duracells and Energizers. Modern portables like the Switch simply need an overnight charge, but to ensure he can continue playing Tetris in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, Ian Charnas created a nuclear-powered handheld that needs no batteries whatsoever.
When you think of nuclear power, what comes to mind is probably a giant power plant with those distinctly curved cooling towers generating enough power to light up several cities. But smaller versions exist too, allowing military vehicles like submarines and aircraft carriers to remain deployed for months on end without the need to return to port for a fill-up. That’s not the approach Charnas took, however, because while anyone can purchase uranium ore, refining it for use in large-scale reactors is highly regulated.
Radioactive decay, where an atom loses energy by emitting electrons, is technically known as nuclear power if you find a way to harness the process to generate electricity, and that’s exactly what Charnas has done with this clever hack. Instead of using uranium, however, he takes advantage of a hydrogen isotope known as tritium. If you’re into watches, you’re most likely familiar with tritium as it’s used to illuminate a watch face without the need for LEDs or even batteries. The tritium is sealed inside a glass tube that’s coated on the inside with a phosphor material that glows as electronics emitted from the material hit it, similar to how old CRT TVs worked. These tritium tubes can glow for as long as 25 years, which is how Charnas was able to harness them as a power source.
If something appears to glow, it means it’s emitting light, and if something emits light, a solar cell can harness the illumination to generate usable electricity. Charnas created a sort of nuclear battery by sandwiching a bunch of tritium tubes between two solar cells and then sealing the whole thing up so all of the light emitted by the tubes had no way to escape and was only exposed to the cells. The result was a whopping 1.5 microwatts of electricity—which is not a lot. For the nuclear battery to power something like a hairdryer, Charnas would need to build 1.2 billion of them—that’s a lot.
Because the original Game Boy, arguably the most iconic Tetris-playing device of all time, runs on four AAs, Charnas instead turned to a cheap modern knock-off that requires considerably less power to play the block-stacking game on a segmented LCD display. The nuclear battery still wasn’t strong enough to power the handheld in real-time, but by using it to slowly charge a thin-film solid-state battery (which exhibits very little power leakage) Charnas found that he could play Tetris for an impressive 55 minutes before the batteries needed a recharge.
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Unfortunately, 55 minutes of playtime required an entire two months of charging, which makes the nuclear battery a less than ideal solution compared to the modern convenience of power outlets. But should the world ever return to the dark ages where electricity is no longer readily available, Charnas will at least have a welcome distraction from the misery every few months.
Iran says it has further enriched its uranium, drawing widespread condemnation
Iran has taken steps to enrich uranium metal to a 20 percent purity and manufacture nuclear reactor fuel, the United Nation’s top nuclear watchdog announced Tuesday.
With the use of “indigenously-produced uranium” Iran will reportedly use fuel to supply the Tehran Research Reactor, but the U.S. and allied nations have called the move “worrying.”
US-IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL STALEMATE A ‘MISTRUST-AND-VERIFY SITUATION,’ FORMER CIA CHIEF SAYS
State Department spokesperson Ned Price said it was “another unfortunate step backwards” as the U.S. has engaged in indirect talks on nuclear nonproliferation with Iran since April.
Price told reporters Tuesday that the move will not give Iran any leverage as the U.S. seeks to re-establish a nuclear agreement with the Middle Eastern nation, and said the “window for diplomacy remains open.”
Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — which Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of in 2018 — Iran is not permitted to enrich uranium past a 3.67 percent purity threshold, which is all that is needed to power a commercial-grade power plant, according to the Arms Control Association.
But International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Tuesday that Iran had breached the regulation.
“Today, Iran informed the Agency that UO2 [uranium dioxide] enriched up to 20 percent U–235 would be shipped to the R&D laboratory at the Fuel Fabrication Plant in Esfahan, where it would be converted to UF4 [Uranium tetrafluoride] and then to uranium metal-enriched to 20% U–235, before using it to manufacture the fuel,” an IAEA spokesman said in a statement to Fox News.
BIDEN SAYS IRAN WILL NOT GET A NUCLEAR WEAPON ON HIS WATCH
Uranium-235 can be used to fuel nuclear power plants and nuclear reactors that run naval ships, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But it can also be used for nuclear weapons – prompting concern from Western nations.
In a unified statement condemning Iran’s plan, foreign ministers from France, Germany, and the United Kingdom called the move “concerning” and an “escalation of its nuclear violations.”
“Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon,” the group said.
“We strongly urge Iran to halt all activities in violation of the JCPoA, without delay and to return to the negotiations in Vienna with a view to bringing them to a swift conclusion,” the foreign ministers continued. “Iran is threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks despite the progress achieved in six rounds of negotiations to date.”
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There are no set plans for direct talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Price said the U.S. is not pushing Iran on a hard deadline when it comes to the negotiating table but said the administration is continuing to assess the situation.
Professor Eyal Zisser of Tel-Aviv University and former head of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies told Fox News this announcement “is part of the Iranian game to put pressure on the United States and to get a better deal.”
Zisser explained that the Iranians can feel how much Washington wants the deal, so they are adding pressure and creating a crisis to get a better deal.
Rich Edson contributed to this report.
Iran begins process of making enriched uranium metal; U.S., E3 dismayed
VIENNA/WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) – Iran has begun the process ofproducing enriched uranium metal, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Tuesday, a move that could help it develop a nuclear weapon and that three European powers said threatened talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Iran’s steps, which were disclosed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and which Tehran said were aimed at developing fuel for a research reactor, also drew criticism from the United States, which called them an “unfortunate step backwards.”
U.S. and European officials made clear that Iran’s decision would complicate, and potentially torpedo, indirect U.S.-Iranian talks seeking to bring both nations back into compliance with the 2015 deal, which was abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The deal imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme to make it harder for Tehran to develop fissile material for nuclear weapons in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. After Trump withdrew, Iran began violating many of its restrictions.
Tehran has already produced a small amount of uranium metal this year that was not enriched. That is a breach of the deal, which bans all work on uranium metal since it can be used to make the core of a nuclear bomb. read more
“Today, Iran informed the Agency that UO2 (uranium oxide) enriched up to 20% U–235 would be shipped to the R&D laboratory at the Fuel Fabrication Plant in Esfahan, where it would be converted to UF4 (uranium tetrafluoride) and then to uranium metal enriched to 20% U–235, before using it to manufacture the fuel,” an IAEA statement said.
A confidential IAEA report seen by Reuters said the agency had confirmed that Iran had taken the second of the four steps described, making clear it has begun the process.
Britain, France and Germany said on Tuesday they had “grave concern” about Iran’s decision, which violates the nuclear deal formally named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). read more
“Iran has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon,” they said in a joint statement issued by Britain’s foreign ministry.
“With its latest steps, Iran is threatening a successful outcome to the Vienna talks despite the progress achieved in six rounds of negotiations,” they said, and urged Iran to return to the talks, which began in April and adjourned on June 20. No date has been set for a next round.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Washington was not setting a deadline for the talks but noted “that as time proceeds Iran’s nuclear advances will have a bearing on our view of returning to the JCPOA.”
Price said the United States found it “worrying” that Iran was continuing to violate the agreement “especially with experiments that have value for nuclear weapons research.
“It’s another unfortunate step backwards for Iran,” he said.
Reporting by Francois Murphy in Vienna and by Humeyra Pamuk and Arshad Mohammed in Washington;
Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, Jonathan Landay and Simon Lewis in Washington and by David Milliken in London;
Writing by Francois Murphy and Arshad Mohammed
Editing by David Goodman and Sonya Hepinstall
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Uranium compound achieves record anomalous Nernst conductivity
Science Advances has found that large spin-orbit coupling and strong electronic correlations in a system of uranium-cobalt-aluminum doped with ruthenium resulted in a colossal anomalous Nernst conductivity. Uranium and actinide alloys are promising materials to study the interplay among a material’s topology and strong electron correlations, which could someday have applications in quantum information technologies. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory” width=”800″ height=”530″/>
Research published in Science Advances has found that large spin-orbit coupling and strong electronic correlations in a system of uranium-cobalt-aluminum doped with ruthenium resulted in a colossal anomalous Nernst conductivity. Uranium and actinide alloys are promising materials to study the interplay among a material’s topology and strong electron correlations, which could someday have applications in quantum information technologies. Credit: Los Alamos National Laboratory
New research has demonstrated that a magnetic uranium compound can have strong thermoelectric properties, generating four times the transverse voltage from heat than the previous record in a cobalt-manganese-gallium compound. The result unlocks a new potential for the actinide elements at the bottom of the periodic table and point to a fresh direction in research on topological quantum materials.
“We found that the large spin-orbit coupling and strong electronic correlations in a system of uranium-cobalt-aluminum doped with ruthenium resulted in a colossal anomalous Nernst conductivity,” said Filip Ronning, lead investigator on the paper published today in Science Advances. Ronning is director of the Institute for Materials Science at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “It illustrates that uranium and actinide alloys are promising materials to study the interplay among a material’s topology and strong electron correlations. We’re very much interested in understanding, tuning and eventually controlling this interplay, so hopefully one day we can exploit some of these remarkable responses.”
The Nernst response occurs when a material converts a flow of heat into an electric voltage. This thermoelectric phenomenon can be exploited in devices that generate electricity from a heat source. The most notable current example is the radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) that were developed in part at Los Alamos. RTGs use heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium-238 to generate electricity—one such RTG is currently powering the Perseverance rover on Mars.
“What’s exciting is that this colossal anomalous Nernst effect appears to be due to the rich topology of the material. This topology is created by a large spin-orbit coupling, which is common in actinides,” Ronning said. “One consequence of topology in metals is the generation of a transverse velocity, which can give rise to a Nernst response as we observe. It can also generate other effects such as novel surface states that may be useful in various quantum information technologies.”
The uranium system studied by the Los Alamos team generated 23 microvolts per kelvin of temperature change—four times bigger than the previous record, which was discovered in a cobalt-manganese-gallium alloy a couple of years ago and also attributed to these sorts of topological origins.
Demonstration of unconventional transverse thermoelectric generation
More information:
T. Asaba et al, Colossal anomalous Nernst effect in a correlated noncentrosymmetric kagome ferromagnet, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1467
T. Asaba et al, Colossal anomalous Nernst effect in a correlated noncentrosymmetric kagome ferromagnet, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1467
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Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
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Uranium compound achieves record anomalous Nernst conductivity (2021, March 26)
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