FBI Raids University of Floridas Nuclear Power Institute

The nuclear space power institute at the University of Florida has been raided by the FBI.

Supervisory Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Rhew in Tallahassee said search warrants were served at the university’s Innovative Nuclear Space Power and Propulsion Institute.

Rhew would not comment on the target of the investigation, but University of Florida spokesman Steve Orlando said the FBI was in the office of professor Samim Anghaie, the Iranian-born director of the institute.

Rhew would not comment on the investigation but did say no arrest warrants have been issued.

Court documents filed by the United States Attorney in Tallahassee describe a criminal and civil investigation into “fraudulent” invoices that resulted in funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to Professor Samim Anghaie, 59, his wife, Sousan, 54, and their two adult sons.

Federal officials would not talk about the details of their investigation, which UF reacted to by placing Anghaie on leave with pay. He could not be reached for comment.

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Note:  There is no indication that this story has any ties to terrorism or terror activities.  We  post it as a story of interest to our readers.

Kuwaiti Professor Fantasizes Of Biological Attack On US

In this speech Kuwaiti Professor Abdallah Nafisi openly speaks of how he fantasizes of a biological attack at the White House and prays for the bombing of a nuclear plant on Lake Michigan. Perhaps even more disturbing is the laughter his speech draws from the audience.

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Miniature Nuclear Reactors Could Become Terror Risk

Miniature nuclear reactors, once the stuff of science fiction, soon may be coming to a town near you — that is, if terrorists don’t pick them off on the way.

Reactors being developed by Hyperion Power Generation of Santa Fe, N.M.; NuScale Power of Corvallis, Ore., and the giant Japanese conglomerate Toshiba use different nuclear fuels, but all rely on the same basic design: a self-contained cylindrical nuclear reactor that is factory-sealed and produces electricity for years without any human oversight or maintenance.

Each reactor would be transported to a site, buried underground, hooked up to a power grid and started up.

After five to 20 years, depending on the design, the nuclear fuel would exhaust itself and the cool reactor would be dug up and shipped back to the manufacturer.

The companies hope to have their minireactors on the market and running within the next decade, marking what could be the beginning of a nuclear-energy renaissance.

But critics say there are safety and security risks, as well as the possibility that the reactors could fall into the hands of terrorists. And those risks, they say, outweigh any benefits the minireactors may bring.

“Our concern is that it really takes a concerted effort to protect a nuclear power plant from terrorist attack,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s just not plausible that you could deploy these small reactors widely to communities and the developing world with no infrastructure and no experience with operating and protecting a nuclear reactor.”

Michael Greenberger, professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and the director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security, said the minireactors’ size will make them attractive to terrorists.

“Anything that’s portable, provides technology, would assist terrorists in their goal to perfect a nuclear weapon, and it’s very dangerous to the United States,” Greenberger said.

But the companies that are designing the minireactors say they will be safe in every way.

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Iran Said to Have Enough Nuclear Fuel for One Weapon

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard L. Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

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