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A reactimeter is a diagnostic device used in nuclear power plants (and other nuclear applications) for measuring the reactivity of the nuclear chain reaction (in inhours) of fissile materials as they approach criticality. [1]
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is an intergovernmental organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. It was established in 1957 as an autonomous organization within the United Nations system; though governed by its own founding treaty, the organization reports to both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and is headquartered at the UN Office at Vienna, Austria.
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion reactions, producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter.
The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
A nuclear and radiation accident is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "an event that has led to significant consequences to people, the environment or the facility. Examples include lethal effects to individuals, large radioactivity release to the environment, reactor core melt." The prime example of a "major nuclear accident" is one in which a reactor core is damaged and significant amounts of radioactive isotopes are released, such as in the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.
The International Nuclear Information System (INIS) hosts one of the world's largest collections of published information on the peaceful uses of nuclear science and technology.
France is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, but is not known to possess or develop any chemical or biological weapons. France is the only member of the European Union to possess independent (non-NATO) nuclear weapons. France was the fourth country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, doing so in 1960 under the government of Charles de Gaulle. The French military is currently thought to retain a weapons stockpile of around 300 operational (deployed) nuclear warheads, making it the fourth-largest in the world, speaking in terms of warheads, not megatons. The weapons are part of the national Force de frappe, developed in the late 1950s and 1960s to give France the ability to distance itself from NATO while having a means of nuclear deterrence under sovereign control.
Moruroa, also historically known as Aopuni, is an atoll which forms part of the Tuamotu Archipelago in French Polynesia in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is located about 1,250 kilometres (780 mi) southeast of Tahiti. Administratively Moruroa Atoll is part of the commune of Tureia, which includes the atolls of Tureia, Fangataufa, Tematangi and Vanavana. France undertook nuclear weapon tests between 1966 and 1996 at Moruroa and Fangataufa, causing international protests, notably in 1974 and 1995. The number of tests performed on Moruroa has been variously reported as 175 and 181.
Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats or limited force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons and is related to but distinct from the concept of mutual assured destruction, according to which a full-scale nuclear attack on a power with second-strike capability would devastate both parties. The central problem of deterrence revolves around how to credibly threaten military action or nuclear punishment on the adversary despite its costs to the deterrer. Deterrence is one strategy to achieve peace and avoid conflict escalation in peace and conflict studies.
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FNI, FASc, FRS, Hon.FRSE was an Indian nuclear physicist who is widely credited as the "father of the Indian nuclear programme". He was the founding director and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), as well as the founding director of the Atomic Energy Establishment, Trombay (AEET) which was renamed the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. TIFR and AEET served as the cornerstone of the Indian nuclear energy and weapons programme. He was the first chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission and secretary of the Department of Atomic Energy. By supporting space science projects which initially derived their funding from the AEC, he played an important role in the birth of the Indian space programme.
Neutron capture is a nuclear reaction in which an atomic nucleus and one or more neutrons collide and merge to form a heavier nucleus. Since neutrons have no electric charge, they can enter a nucleus more easily than positively charged protons, which are repelled electrostatically.
The Lucens reactor was a 6 MW experimental nuclear power reactor built next to Lucens, Vaud, Switzerland. After its connection to the electrical grid on 29 January 1968, the reactor only operated for a few months before it suffered an accident on 21 January 1969. The cause was a corrosion-induced loss of heat dispersal leading to the destruction of a pressure tube which caused an adjacent pressure tube to fail, and partial meltdown of the core, resulting in radioactive contamination of the cavern.
The Piqua Nuclear Power Facility was an organic cooled and moderated nuclear reactor which operated just outside the southern city limits of Piqua, Ohio in the United States. The plant contained a 45.5-megawatt (thermal) organically cooled and moderated nuclear reactor. The Piqua facility was built and operated between 1963 and 1966 as a demonstration project by the Atomic Energy Commission. The facility ceased operation in 1966. It was dismantled between 1967 and 1969, and the radioactive coolant and most other radioactive materials were removed. The remaining radioactive structural components of the reactor were entombed in the reactor vessel under sand and concrete.
Homi Nusserwanji Sethna was an Indian nuclear scientist and a chemical engineer, gaining international fame as the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (India) during the time when the first nuclear test, codename Smiling Buddha in Pokhran Test Range in 1974 was conducted. He was the primary and central figure in India's civilian nuclear program as well as the construction of nuclear power plants. In 1991, he was appointed as Sheriff of Mumbai.
The State of Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons. Estimates of Israel's stockpile range between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads, and the country is believed to possess the ability to deliver them in several methods, including by aircraft, as submarine-launched cruise missiles, and via the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental range ballistic missiles. Its first deliverable nuclear weapon is thought to have been completed in late 1966 or early 1967; which would make it the sixth country in the world to have developed them.
These are lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents.
Nuclear ethics is a cross-disciplinary field of academic and policy-relevant study in which the problems associated with nuclear warfare, nuclear deterrence, nuclear arms control, nuclear disarmament, or nuclear energy are examined through one or more ethical or moral theories or frameworks. In contemporary security studies, the problems of nuclear warfare, deterrence, proliferation, and so forth are often understood strictly in political, strategic, or military terms. In the study of international organizations and law, however, these problems are also understood in legal terms. Nuclear ethics assumes that the very real possibilities of human extinction, mass human destruction, or mass environmental damage which could result from nuclear warfare are deep ethical or moral problems. Specifically, it assumes that the outcomes of human extinction, mass human destruction, or environmental damage count as moral evils. Another area of inquiry concerns future generations and the burden that nuclear waste and pollution imposes on them. Some scholars have concluded that it is therefore morally wrong to act in ways that produce these outcomes, which means it is morally wrong to engage in nuclear warfare.
Kamaluddin Ahmed, FPAS, was a Pakistani particle physicist and a professor of physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University.
Joseph Albert Falcon was an American mechanical engineer, and business executive, who served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1992-93. Falcon was credited for his contributions in the energy field, which "encompassed nuclear power, geothermal facilities, fossil fuel-fired plants, alternative energy sources, and the geopolitics of oil and energy economics."
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