Today, the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee included a $25 billion preemptive bailout of the nuclear industry, in the form of loan guarantees for new reactors, in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill.

The Energy Department has been legally obligated to relieve nuclear plants of radioactive spent fuel since February 1998, but hasn't lived up to that requirement, because, quite simply, the government hasn't found a permanent place to put it.

President Barack Obama is poised to ask Congress to agree to $9 billion more in loan guarantees for the nuclear energy industry, a Democratic aide said Thursday, in a renewed push for nuclear power as the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the risks of fossil fuel production.

Nuclear accidents may occur more often as atomic technology spreads and countries build more reactors, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Yukiya Amano said.

Here we go again. With the Obama administration's promise of federal loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants at a cost of $8.3 billion, the radioactive monster is rising from a long dormancy, pumped to life by the lobbyists for nuke designers, nuke contractors, nuke operators and nuke consultants and their generous spending.

Nuclear power is a public health and financial disaster waiting to happen. Tell President Obama not to risk our future with taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for the nuclear industry.

The proliferation of nuclear power is simply not worth the costs to public health and the environment or the extraordinary and endless financial costs to the American taxpayer.

The chances of default on the government-backed loans are "very high-well above 50 percent," according to the Congressional Budget Office. "If they go belly-up, taxpayers get to pay it," said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear. "

The discovery of water flowing across the floor of a building at the Indian Point 2 nuclear plant in Buchanan, N.Y., traced to a leak in a buried pipe, is stirring concern about the plant’s underground pipes and those of other aging reactors across the country.

The Department of Energy has done a poor job of tracking nuclear materials it has loaned under licenses to contractors, educational institutions and other organizations, according to an investigation by DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman and his staff.

In a Dine creation story, the people were given a choice of two yellow powders. They chose the yellow dust of corn pollen, and were instructed to leave the other yellow powder—uranium—in the soil and never to dig it up. If it were taken from the ground, they were told, a great evil would come.

The nuclear power industry suffered an embarrassing blow today when the operator of the Bradwell-on-Sea plant was found guilty of allowing a radio­active leak to continue for 14 years.

Wielding a novel argument about the potential impact of a terrorist attack on nuclear facilities, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace is aiming to set legal precedent requiring tougher environmental reviews for nuclear power plants and radioactive waste storage nationwide.

What is most revealing about the financial meltdown and economic crisis, however, is that it illustrates that corporations — if left to their own worst instincts — will destroy themselves and the system that nurtures them. It is rare that this lesson is so graphically illustrated. It is one the world must quickly learn, if we are to avoid the most serious existential threat we have yet faced: climate change.

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

As the world seeks low-carbon forms of energy production to reduce the emissions blamed for global warming, the champions of nuclear power have been re-branding the industry as one of the world’s greenest.

After three decades without starting a single new plant, the American nuclear power industry is getting ready to build again.

More and more Washington lawmakers are claiming that nuclear power should be part of the energy mix as America starts to shift away from carbon-emitting fuels. A hard look at the facts shows that the deadly hazards associated with nuclear power haven't gone away, and that renewables like wind energy would be a better economic bargain.

As steam billowed out of two giant hourglass towers in the distance, John McCain visibly stepped up his support Tuesday for nuclear power, an embattled industry that he argues must be part of America's energy future.

The Bush administration sharply increased its cost estimate for building and operating the first national repository for spent nuclear fuel, throwing a potential curveball into the political debate over the project's future.

Sylvie Eymard's Provence farmhouse kitchen should be the picture of French rural calm. But the stockpiles of bottled water, disinfectant rinse and disposable paper plates hint at something strange.

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Friday nuclear power was "not a panacea" for U.S. energy woes but it is worth investigating its further development.

Axelrod hides behind loose lobbying law. His corporate clients do business in DC. One of them, Exelon, lobbied Obama two years ago on a nuclear bill; the firm's executives and employees have contributed $236,211 to the campaign.

As Congress debates whether to limit carbon-dioxide emissions, one of the most vocal supporters of such legislation -- the nuclear-power industry -- is poised to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall if restrictions take effect.

It is alarming that the nuclear power industry is talking about resuming uranium mining near a Navajo reservation.

Are children under 5 years old who live near nuclear power plants in Germany more likely to develop leukaemia or not? Germany's powerful Green Party thinks so and has seized upon the results of a new study to renew its calls for the closure of all German nuclear facilities.

The federal relicensing system used to ensure that America's 1970s-era nuclear plants are safe for future decades is coming under fire following an audit that found key safety evaluations lacked critical documentation.

Obama is the largest beneficiary of money from companies that have a stake in nuclear energy's future. The Braidwood plant's owner, Exelon Corp., has donated $275,000 to Obama over his career.

Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the cooling water they need to operate.

Global warming and rocketing oil prices are making nuclear power fashionable, drawing a once demonized industry out of the shadows of the Chernobyl disaster as a potential shining knight of clean energy.

While idealistic young people are swooning over Obama's message of hope, faith and change -- no one inside the beltway has any doubts about the corporate connections.

A German study has found that young children living near nuclear power plants have a significantly higher risk of developing leukemia and other forms of cancer, a German newspaper reported on Saturday.