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The U.S. Department of Energy said on Wednesday it will study the environmental risk of importing spent nuclear fuel from class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany that contains highly enriched uranium, a move believed to be the first for the United States. The department said it is considering a plan to ship the nuclear waste from class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Germany to the Savannah River Site, a federal facility in South Carolina. The 310-acre site already holds millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste in tanks. The waste came from reactors in South Carolina that produced plutonium for nuclear weapons from 1953 to 1989.   true       The Energy Department said it wants to remove 900 kilograms (1,984 pounds) of uranium the United States sold to Germany years ago and render it safe under U.S. nuclear non-proliferation treaties. A technique for the three-year process of extracting the uranium, which is contained in graphite balls, is being developed at t

A volcanic eruption in Alaska that sent a plume of ash and smoke high into the sky forced a regional airline to cancel flights on Wednesday, even as scientists downgraded a rare red alert warning for volcanic activity. Pavlof class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Volcano , which has been spewing ash and lava for years in an uninhabited region nearly 600 miles (966 km) southwest of Anchorage, began erupting with new intensity this week and prompted Alaska scientists to issue their highest volcanic alert in five years on Monday. Regional airline PenAir began cancelling flights late on Tuesday from Anchorage to a pair of Aleutian Island destinations, Cold Bay and Dutch Harbor, because of a mix of high winds and volcanic ash from Pavlof class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Volcano , PenAir spokeswoman Missy Roberts said.   true       Cancellations continued through Wednesday as the airline continued monitoring activity hourly. PenAir serves many communities that are off the

Kentucky may be well positioned to meet a carbon emission target for power plants set by federal regulators, even as U.S. Senate candidates there blast the plan, saying it will cripple the state's class="mandelbrot_refrag"> coal industry. The Environmental Protection Agency seems to have listened to feedback from state officials before the rollout on Monday, said John Lyons, Kentucky's assistant secretary for climate policy. The result: the Bluegrass State may be able to meet EPA targets between now and 2030. "I appreciate EPA’s stakeholder process. Undoubtedly they did listen to our concerns," Lyons told Reuters. Shedding the carbon intensity of its fleet by 400 pounds of CO2/MWh will rely on retiring class="mandelbrot_refrag"> coal plants and shifting to class="mandelbrot_refrag"> natural gas , measures already planned to meet separate EPA rules on slashing mercury emissions. "How far down the road that gets us

An isolated Alaska class="mandelbrot_refrag"> fishing community filed a federal lawsuit on Wednesday challenging a decision by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell that stopped it from building a road through a wildlife preserve to an all-weather airport. King Cove, in the Aleutian Islands chain, is inaccessible by land. It is seeking to reverse Jewell's decision last December that halted the community's a plan for the 10-mile (16-km) road using land exchanged as part of a 2009 plan approved by Congress. Jewell cited the potential for "irreversible damage" to wildlife in the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, home to many shorebirds and waterfowl, posed by the gravel road that would have linked King Cove to the airport in Cold Bay.   true       No roads lead in or out of King Cove, a coastal community of about 1,000 residents where the chief industry is class="mandelbrot_refrag"> fishing . Supporters of the road cite access to healthcare a

class="mandelbrot_refrag"> Antarctica pact partners have set up a new protected geological site on the frozen continent in a bid to preserve rare minerals that could shed light on the region's history and evolution over millions of years. _0"> At a meeting in Brazil last month, the signatories to the Antarctic Treaty designated the Larsemann Hills region of the continent as an Antarctic Specially Protected Area. Geological analysis shows that one billion years ago, the nearby Stornes Peninsula was a shallow inland basin, rich in boron and phosphorus, the key chemical constituents of the rare minerals.   true       At the time of their discovery, four of the minerals - boralsilite, stornesite, chopinite and tassieite - were new to science, while the rest were extremely rare elsewhere. "It's fantastic to see these extremely unusual, unique minerals being protected, and being recognized for their geological significance," Chris Carson, the he

Kenyan authorities seized 228 whole elephant tusks and 74 others in pieces as they were being packed for export in the port city of Mombasa, police and wildlife officials said. Poaching has surged in the last few years across sub-Saharan Africa, where gangs kill elephants and rhinos to feed Asian demand for ivory and horns for use in traditional medicines. Wildlife authority Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officers and police confiscated the ivory in a raid at a warehouse in the port city of Mombasa, KWS said in a statement.   true       “The ivory was ... was being prepared for loading and export to a destination we are yet to establish," Nelson Marwa, Mombasa County commissioner, told journalists in Mombasa. "Our officers had to break into the store to access them.” A Reuters reporter at the scene said the tusks were being packed in sacks made of nylon and sisal. Police arrested one suspect and were searching for another who escaped, Marwa said, noting that the suspect

India's southern coast could witness the arrival of this year's monsoon in the next day or so after sporadic rains in recent days heralded the arrival of the wet season that is crucial to farmers in Asia's third-largest class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy . "Conditions have turned favorable for the monsoon onset in about 24 hours," an official of the class="mandelbrot_refrag"> India Meteorological Department (IMD) told Reuters on Thursday. In a typical year, the monsoon begins on or around June 1 but government forecasters had forecast a five-day delay and below-average rainfall in this year's wet season. Rains are vital to rejuvenate an class="mandelbrot_refrag"> economy battling its longest economic slowdown since the 1980s and to cool inflation that has averaged nearly 10 percent for the past two years. The farm sector accounts for 14 percent of India's nearly $2 trillion economy, with two-thirds of