Radioactive wasp nests at SC nuclear weapons site raise worries about possible contamination, leaks
Investigators found 'hot' nests inside a nuclear weapons facility in South Carolina, with scientists warning it could be evidence of a possible leak or contamination that wasn't previous detected.
The US Department of Energy said the nests are not believed to pose a risk to workers or the surrounding community.
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'This is an indicator that there are contaminants spread across this area that have not been completely encased and protected,' Dr. Timothy Mousseau, a biologist at the University of South Carolina, told the New York Times.
4 Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found a wasp nest on July 3.
AP
A total of four contaminated nests have now been found at the facility near Aiken, around 20 miles east of Augusta, Georgia, according to federal officials.
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A first nest was discovered by workers at the Savannah River Site (SRS) — which produced material for nuclear weapons during the Cold War — in early July, as disclosed in a report from the Department of Energy, which owns the site.
The discovery of a further three radioactive wasp nests 'indicate[s] that much greater effort must be made to assess the possible risks and hazards of what appears to be a significant source of radioactive pollutants,' Mousseau, who has studied the effect of radiation on wildlife in Chernobyl and Fukushima, told the Times.
'This could indicate that there is some new or old radioactive contamination that is coming to the surface that was unexpected,' he said.
Wasps usually don't venture farther than 100 yards from their nests — so Mousseau said the risk of a member of the public being stung by a radioactive wasp is low.
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He suggested that one simple explanation for the radiation readings on that nest is that the insects found a discarded piece of contaminated wood and used some of the pulp to build their nests
This isn't the first time evidence of contamination of local wildlife was found at the site.
4 The workers sprayed the nest with insect killer, removed it and disposed of it as radioactive waste.
andRiU – stock.adobe.com
In 2017, radioactive bird droppings were discovered on the roof of a building at the site, raising fears the animals were carrying nuclear contamination over large distances, according to a Department of Energy report at the time.
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Officials say the radiation levels in the nests are low, and no risk is posed to workers.
4 The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said.
Getty Images/fStop
'The US Department of Energy is managing the discovery of four wasp nests with very low levels of radioactive contamination,' the manager of the Energy Department's office at Savannah River, Edwin Deshong, said in a statement.
'The nests do not pose a health risk to SRS workers, the community, or the environment,' he said.
Workers at the site uncovered the first radioactive wasp nest close to a tank used to store nuclear waste.
4 If there had been wasps found, they would have significantly lower levels of radiation than their nests.
ptoscano – stock.adobe.com
'The wasp nest was sprayed to kill wasps, then bagged as radioactive waste,' the federal report read.
'The ground and surrounded area did not have any contamination.'
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The Savannah River Site was built in the 1950s at the start of the Cold War to produce materials for nuclear and hydrogen weapons, including plutonium and tritium.
After the end of the Cold War, production of material for nuclear weapons slowed down considerably.
In 1996, the Department of Energy began cleaning up the site, although progress has been slow.
Cleanup is not expected to be completed until 2065, according to the Department of Energy.
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The Verge
14 hours ago
- The Verge
AI could turn your town nuclear
These days, Paducah, Kentucky — population 27,000 and home to the National Quilt Museum — prides itself as 'Quilt City.' But decades ago, it was also called the 'Atomic City' — a moniker it could soon regain as AI's energy needs bring Paducah's nuclear past back to life. The Department of Energy (DOE) operated a uranium enrichment plant in Paducah for more than 60 years until the plant shuttered in 2013 amid a downturn in nuclear energy. The same year, Paducah was designated a UNESCO 'creative city' for its quilts, a title it now boasts on its website (along with a city-led initiative to make Paducah more 'considerate and kind'). Today, the enrichment facility is in the spotlight again after a Peter Thiel-backed startup announced plans to revive the shuttered plant. In July, Donald Trump's administration also chose Paducah as one of four sites where it says it'll partner with private companies to develop AI data centers and energy projects. Big Tech — thirsty for enough electricity to power its AI ambitions — wants to make nuclear energy cool again. It's all playing into the Trump administration's plans to remake the US power grid without solar and wind power. If they manage to revitalize nuclear energy in America, the US is going to need more enriched uranium. And that supply chain could bring big changes to even small cities like Paducah. Big Tech — thirsty for enough electricity to power its AI ambitions — wants to make nuclear energy cool again General Matter emerged from stealth mode earlier this year, led by former SpaceX engineer Scott Nolan. Peter Thiel, who cofounded PayPal and the datamining company Palantir that's selling software to the Trump administration to surveil people who migrate to the US, joined General Matter's board. And Nolan stood in the Oval Office with Trump on May 23rd as he signed executive orders ostensibly aimed at ushering in 'a nuclear energy renaissance.' At an August 5th event in Paducah, General Matter shared details about its vision for the facility. It says it'll develop what it considers the 'the nation's first U.S.-owned, privately developed uranium enrichment facility' on the site and that it has signed 'a multi-decade, one hundred-acre lease' with the DOE. General Matter plans to start enriching uranium in Paducah by the end of the decade and 'produce the fuel needed for the next generation of nuclear energy, central to America's aspirations in AI, manufacturing, and other critical industries,' according to a statement on X. (A DOE press release says enrichment operations aren't planned until 2034, however, and that construction is slated to start in 2026.) That doesn't quite answer some key questions about the company's plans. (General Matter didn't respond to several emails from The Verge.) Will the company rely on the same outdated technology the shuttered plant has always used or build something new? If it does plan to revamp the facility with modern technology, does it plan to produce the same kind of low-enriched uranium that America's existing nuclear reactors run on, or does it think it can be one of the first plants to produce more highly enriched uranium (called HALEU) for advanced reactors? The answers to those questions will define how ambitious of a project this really is, and the impact it could have on power grids across the US. The recent DOE press release notes that General Matter is one of four companies the agency selected in October of last year to provide enrichment services for HALEU, although the DOE also announced plans to contract General Matter for low-enriched uranium in December. Enrichment is just one step, and kind of a headache, in the nuclear supply chain. Uranium first has to be mined and milled. Naturally occurring uranium has low levels of the isotope U-235 that nuclear fission reactors split to release energy. The uranium has to be converted into gas and then enriched to about a 5 percent concentration of U-235 to make fuel for a traditional reactor. Following a boom in nuclear power plants built in the 1970s and 1980s, however, the industry lost ground to gas-fired power plants generating electricity at lower costs. Nuclear reactors and uranium enrichment plants shuttered across the US. But now, the opposite is happening. Microsoft and Meta have inked deals over the past year to revive old reactors. Other tech giants, including Amazon and Google, have committed to supporting companies designing advanced reactors that are supposed to be smaller, easier, and cheaper to build — potentially solving many of the problems that have plagued the nuclear energy industry for years, if they can eventually prove that these technologies are going to be able to perform at commercial scale. That's all driving up demand for uranium enrichment, now seen as a significant bottleneck in the nuclear energy supply chain. General Matter isn't the only operation seeking to enrich uranium in Paducah. The DOE has had a deal with another company called Global Laser Enrichment (GLE) since 2016 to sell it leftover tails, depleted uranium, from years of enrichment for nuclear weapons and reactors at the site. GLE has been developing a new way to enrich uranium using lasers that's supposed to be efficient enough to re-enrich uranium tails so that they can be used to make fuel again. General Matter similarly plans to re-enrich depleted uranium tails in Paducah, according to the DOE press release, although we still don't know what kind of technology it will use to do so. Laser technology has yet to be used to enrich uranium at commercial scale. Over the past decade, there just wasn't enough demand for more uranium enrichment capacity in the US to move forward, says Nima Ashkeboussi, vice president of government relations and communications at GLE. Then Russia — a major supplier for nuclear fuel globally — invaded Ukraine, and in 2024, and the US barred imports of uranium from Russia. GLE applied for a license in June to finally start re-enriching the depleted uranium tails at a site adjacent to the Paducah plant, and expects to hear back from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in about 18 months. If all goes well, GLE plans to have its facility up and running by 2030 so it can start making the low-enriched uranium traditionally used by existing nuclear reactors. If at least one of the advanced reactors makes it to commercial operation, Ashkeboussi says that'll be a market signal that it can start producing more highly enriched uranium (called HALEU) that next-generation reactors need. For now, only Russia has the capability to commercially produce HALEU. But already, data centers and AI have been a major driver in reinvigorating nuclear energy, Ashkeboussi tells The Verge. 'We see that as a huge growth potential,' he says. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have worked toward onshoring the nuclear supply chain again. The US currently has the capacity to enrich about a third of the uranium its nuclear reactors need. For Joe Biden, nuclear energy supported US climate goals of slashing planet-heating pollution by transitioning away from fossil fuels in the power grid. Trump is sabotaging US climate commitments and renewable energy projects, but still says nuclear energy has a role to play when it comes to making sure US tech companies have enough electricity to dominate the AI market. The plans for Paducah seem to fit neatly into the Trump administration's vision for AI, which it released last month. In short, the plan includes fast-tracking the development of energy-hungry data centers in conjunction with primarily fossil fuel and nuclear power plants by limiting environmental reviews. 'It seems their mindset is construction and production at all costs.' The rush to build, especially as the Trump administration simultaneously guts the Environmental Protection Agency and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, has raised some flags over how much oversight and community participation there will be with these new projects. 'I don't have any confidence in what the administration is doing to protect public health and safety. It seems their mindset is construction and production at all costs,' says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists that has been critical of the environmental and security risks nuclear energy can pose. Nuclear energy has been a divisive technology among people concerned about climate change and pollution. It's a carbon pollution-free source of electricity. But uranium mining near the Grand Canyon has already sparked opposition from environmental advocates and the Havasupai Tribe over how it could affect nearby communities and the water sources on which they rely. And the federal government has yet to solve decades of wrangling over where to store radioactive waste from nuclear reactors. Adding to those concerns, the Trump administration wants to build on federal lands and even repurpose polluted Superfund sites for all this infrastructure. The shuttered enrichment plant in Paducah itself is a Superfund site, which means it's on a list of places so contaminated that the Environmental Protection Agency has stepped in to prioritize their cleanup. That legacy shows the pitfalls and hurdles that policymakers and companies will have to try to avoid if they want to bring nuclear energy back to small-town USA. 'Regardless of what's happening with the Trump administration, this is a massively bipartisan undertaking regarding uranium enrichment. There is a lot of support for it right now. I think there's a lot of momentum to really get it right,' says Rowen Price, senior policy advisor for nuclear energy at the nonprofit Third Way, which supports nuclear energy. Local lawmakers, for their part, have shown optimism over Paducah potentially playing a pivotal role in the future of AI and energy in the US. General Matter's $1.5 billion proposed project in Paducah is supposed to create 140 jobs, according to Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY). 'Just a few years ago, the idea of Kentucky leading the next wave of nuclear energy development may have seemed ambitious,' Sen. Danny Carroll (R-KY) wrote in an op-ed in the Lexington Herald-Leader. 'Paducah is again at the center of America's nuclear future.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Justine Calma Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All AI Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Analysis Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Climate Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Energy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Environment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Report Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Science Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
Fox News
16 hours ago
- Fox News
Russia and China tick Doomsday Clock toward midnight as Hiroshima bombing hits 80 years
Wednesday marks the 80th anniversary of when the U.S. employed the first ever nuclear bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima, followed by the bombing of Nagasaki three days later on Aug. 9. But despite nearly a century of lessons learned, nuclear warfare still remains a significant threat. "This is the first time that the United States is facing down two nuclear peer adversaries – Russia and China," Rebeccah Heinrichs, nuclear expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital. Heinrichs explained that not only are Moscow and Beijing continuing to develop new nuclear capabilities and delivery systems, but they are increasingly collaborating with one another in direct opposition to the West, and more pointedly, the U.S. "It's a much more complex nuclear threat environment than what the United States even had to contend with during the Cold War, where we just had one nuclear peer adversary in the Soviet Union," she said. "In that regard, it's a serious problem, especially when both China and Russia are investing in nuclear capabilities and at the same time have revanchist goals." Despite the known immense devastation that would accompany an atomic war between two nuclear nations, concern has been growing that the threat of nuclear war is on the rise. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – which collectively killed some 200,000 people, not including the dozens of thousands who later died from radiation poisoning and cancer – have been attributed with bringing an end to World War II. But the bombs did more than end the deadliest war in human history – they forever changed military doctrine, sparked a nuclear arms race and cemented the concept of deterrence through the theory of mutually assured destruction. Earlier this year the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved forward the "Doomsday Clock" by one second – pushing it closer to "midnight," or atomic meltdown, than ever before. In January, the board of scientists and security officials in charge of the 78-year-old clock, which is used to measure the threat level of nuclear warfare, said that moving the clock to 89 seconds to midnight "signals that the world is on a course of unprecedented risk, and that continuing on the current path is a form of madness." Despite the escalated nuclear threats coming out of North Korea, and international concern over the Iranian nuclear program, the threat level largely came down to the three biggest players in the nuclear arena: Russia, the U.S. and China. The increased threat level was attributed to Russia's refusal to comply with international nuclear treaties amid its continuously escalating war in Ukraine and its hostile opposition to NATO nations, as well as China's insistence on expanding its nuclear arsenal. But the Bulletin, which was founded by scientists on the Manhattan Project in 1945 to inform the public of the dangers of atomic warfare, also said the U.S. has a role in the increased nuclear threat level. "The U.S. has abdicated its role as a voice of caution. It seems inclined to expand its nuclear arsenal and adopt a posture that reinforces the belief that 'limited' use of nuclear weapons can be managed," the Bulletin said. "Such misplaced confidence could have us stumble into a nuclear war." But Heinrichs countered the "alarmist" message and argued that deterrence remains a very real protectant against nuclear warfare, even as Russia increasingly threatens Western nations with atomic use. "I do think that it's a serious threat. I don't think it's inevitable that we're sort of staring down nuclear Armageddon," she said. Heinrichs argued the chief threat is not the number of nuclear warheads a nation possesses, but in how they threaten to employ their capabilities. "I think that whenever there is a threat of nuclear use, it's because adversaries, authoritarian countries, in particular Russia, is threatening to use nuclear weapons to invade another country. And that's where the greatest risk of deterrence failure is," she said. "It's not because of the sheer number of nuclear weapons." Heinrichs said Russia is lowering the nuclear threshold by routinely threatening to employ nuclear weapons in a move to coerce Western nations to capitulate to their demands, as in the case of capturing territory in Ukraine and attempting to deny it NATO access. Instead, she argued that the U.S. and its allies need to improve their deterrence by not only staying on top of their capabilities but expanding their nuclear reach in regions like the Indo-Pacific. "The answer is not to be so afraid of it or alarmed that you capitulate, because you're only going to beget more nuclear coercion if you do that," she said. "The answer is to prudently, carefully communicate to the Russians they are not going to succeed through nuclear coercion, that the United States also has credible response options. "We also have nuclear weapons, and we have credible and proportional responses, and so they shouldn't go down that path," Heinrichs said. "That's how we maintain the nuclear peace. That's how we deter conflict. And that's how we ensure that a nuclear weapon is not used."
Fox News
18 hours ago
- Fox News
Space-based missile-killing Golden Dome tech aims for crucial test before Trump leaves office: Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is designing a space-based missile interceptor and aims to test the technology for potential integration into President Donald Trump's "Golden Dome" defense shield within the next three years. The defense contractor revealed this week that it hopes to test a satellite defensive weapon capable of destroying hypersonic missiles by 2028. If successful, this would mark the first time in history the United States has deployed interceptors in space to destroy enemy missiles before they reach the homeland. Lockheed is still weighing different technologies, ranging from lasers to kinetic satellites that could maneuver and strike high-speed targets in flight. "We have missile warning and tracking satellites made by Lockheed Martin in orbit today that provide timely detection and warning of missile threats," said Amanda Pound, mission strategy and advanced capabilities director at Lockheed Martin Space, told Fox News Digital. "We are committed to making space-based interceptors for missile defense a reality, leveraging our decades of experience, investments, and industry partnerships, to be ready for on orbit testing in 2028." Lockheed's space interceptor project directly supports Trump's "Golden Dome for America" initiative, first unveiled in May 2025. The ambitious missile defense concept calls for a global constellation of satellites armed with sensors and interceptors, designed to detect, track and eliminate advanced missile threats – including hypersonic and ballistic weapons – before they can strike U.S. soil. The idea echoes President Ronald Reagan's 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative, often dubbed "Star Wars," which was dismissed at the time as science fiction. But today, the technologies once seen as far-fetched are rapidly advancing, according to defense leaders. Gen. Michael Guetlein, appointed by the Trump administration to head Golden Dome, emphasized that key components of the system already exist, expressing confidence in achieving a test-ready platform by 2028. Still, it's no easy feat. "Intercepting a missile in orbit is a pretty wicked hard problem physics‑wise," said Jeff Schrader, vice president of Lockheed's space division. "But not impossible," he added, noting breakthroughs in maneuverability and guidance systems. Analysts caution that to make the Golden Dome vision a reality, the U.S. may need to launch thousands of interceptors into orbit. Some have compared it to the Cold War–era "Brilliant Pebbles" program, which proposed a similar space-based missile shield but was eventually shelved due to skyrocketing costs and technical hurdles. Golden Dome is currently projected to cost $175 billion, with $25 billion already approved by Congress. But long-term estimates range anywhere from $161 billion to over $830 billion over two decades – raising questions about the program's affordability and long-term sustainability. Meanwhile, Lockheed is bolstering ground-based missile defense systems to complement the orbital layer. In March 2025, the company's Aegis Combat System aboard the USS Pinckney successfully simulated the interception of hypersonic medium-range missiles during the FTX-40 exercise, codenamed Stellar Banshee. The company is also advancing infrared seeker technology for interceptors, which would enhance the tracking and targeting of fast-moving missiles in their terminal phase. Lockheed remains a central player in the Pentagon's broader missile defense and hypersonic weapons development effort. It is the prime contractor for the Next Generation Interceptor (NGI), which is targeting an initial operating capability by the end of fiscal year 2028. Simultaneously, the company is fulfilling Navy contracts for its Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapons system. Sea-based deployment of CPS is expected to begin between 2027 and 2028. President Trump has publicly stated he wants Golden Dome operational by the end of his term. But industry officials warn that supply chain limitations and the Pentagon's slow-moving procurement system make full deployment by 2029 unlikely.
