Last February there was an "incident" at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Radioactive particles escaped from the geological repository for wastes associated with nuclear weapons production. A drum of waste exploded and released the radioactive particles which were detected up to twenty miles away.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) said last year that about half of the four hundred and thirty four existing power reactors around the world will be shut down by the year 2040. The cost of decommissioning these two hundred reactors was estimated to be about one hundred billion dollars. The head of the IEA said that this cost was a rough estimate and that the cost could well be twice as much.
After decades of poorly regulated nuclear weapons development and manufacturing and decades more of cleanup efforts, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in central Washington State is still one of the most radioactively polluted areas on the entire planet. Shortage of money, poor oversight and incompetence are still hampering cleanup efforts.
The U.S. Air Force has a variety of radiation detectors that are used to detect radioactive materials that might be smuggled into the U.S. by terrorists. One detector is small enough to fit in a back pack. Other detectors are designed to be used on aircraft or container ships.
