Reactor no 3 lost off-site power for about 24 hours after the attack. Reactor no 3 lost off-site power for about 24 hours after the attack. A drone strike that cut off external power to a nuclear reactor in the United Arab Emirates this week has revived concerns over the safety of nuclear plants during wartime. Reactor no 3 at the Barakah nuclear plant lost vital off-site power for about 24 hours after the attack on Sunday, forcing it to rely on emergency diesel generators. The UAE's defence ministry said on Tuesday that three drones targeting the plant had originated from Iraqi territory, suggesting a pro-Iranian proxy group was most likely to have been behind the strike.

Will Gulf states join war? What is the UAE's Barakah nuclear plant, nearly hit by a drone? A drone attack that caused a fire close to the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant in the United Arab Emirates has raised further concerns about nuclear security and military escalation in the Gulf as discussions of peace between Iran and the United States hang in the balance. Barakah was the first nuclear power station to be built on the Arabian Peninsula. What is the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant? Barakah is a nuclear energy plant located in Al Dhafra, the largest municipal region of the emirate of Abu Dhabi.

It's time to make a plan for nuclear waste With growing interest in nuclear power, handling waste should be part of the deal. Geologist Tuomas Pere walks down a disposal tunnel inside the Posiva Onkalo nuclear waste repository on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. Today, nuclear energy enjoys a rare moment of support across the political spectrum in the US. Interest from tech companies that are scrambling to meet demand for massive data centers has sparked a resurgence of money and attention in the industry. That newfound interest is exactly why it's time to talk about an old problem: nuclear waste. In the US alone, nuclear reactors produce about 2,000 metric tons of high-level waste each year.

A worker checks the radiation level inside the control room of reactor No 4, where the Chornobyl disaster happened in 1986. A worker checks the radiation level inside the control room of reactor No 4, where the Chornobyl disaster happened in 1986. In February 2025, a cheap Russian drone tore through Chornobyl's confinement shelter. Workers warn the site of the world's worst nuclear accident is not safe yet The dosimeter clipped to your chest ticks faster the moment you step off the designated path inside the Chornobyl nuclear power plant. Step back, and it slows again - an invisible line between clean ground and contamination.

What are Russia's gains from the Iran war? 'We are not losers; we are winners' But the calm is deceptive. Two soldiers scour the skies, hands firmly gripping anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks parked on a small, dilapidated bridge on a tributary of the Pripyat River. Danger is all around, both in the surrounding land, which still carries the legacy of the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster, with pockets of intense radioactive contamination, and above, where Russian drones and missiles launched from just across the border in Belarus, a short distance to the north, regularly pass overhead. The area is known as the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ), a restricted area of approximately 30km (19 miles) in diameter, comparable in size to Luxembourg, established to contain the spread of contamination. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, briefly occupying the CEZ and the surrounding area, large swaths of it have become militarised, adding another layer of restriction to an already tightly controlled and hazardous environment. Yet despite the CEZ's many dangers, four decades on from the Chornobyl disaster, small communities of scientists, elderly returnees and soldiers have carved out lives among its abandoned buildings, while wildlife thrives in the surrounding forests.

Small modular reactors and microreactors could power AI data centers and factories, but outdated rules and public fears are stalling America's nuclear energy future.

This story appears in the April 2026 print edition. While some stories from this issue are not yet available to read online, you can explore more from the magazine . Get our editors' guide to what matters in the world, delivered to your inbox every weekday. The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world. Three Mile Island's cooling towers have until recently served as grave markers for America's nuclear-power industry. A s we drove through southwest Memphis, KeShaun Pearson told me to keep my window down--our destination was best tasted, not viewed. Along the way, we passed an abandoned coal plant to our right, then an active power plant to our left, equipped with enormous natural-gas turbines. Pearson, who directs the nonprofit Memphis Community Against Pollution, was bringing me to his hometown's latest industrial megaproject.

Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (Tepco) said Saturday that an alert system did not work during a test operation held the day prior as part of the restart of the No. 6 reactor at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture. The company is working to identify the cause of the problem, but failure to resolve it soon may affect its plan to restart the reactor on Tuesday. According to Tepco, the problem was confirmed at 12:36 p.m., and it stopped the test operation. The alert system is designed to activate when a control rod is being pulled out of the reactor while another rod is already out. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor would be the first of Tepco's nuclear reactors to be restarted since the March 2011 accident at its tsunami-crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

At a crucial moment for climate change, these technologies show us where we're heading. I know it's a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out. For 25 years, has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year's version has some stars, including gene resurrection (remember all the dire wolf hype last year?) And of course, the world of climate and energy is represented with sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers . Let's take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech.