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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 US: Berkshire Eagle: Editorials The big lie made clear
2 WorldNetDaily: Painful circumcision
3 US: St. Petersburg Times: Opinion Damaged credibility
4 Scotsman.com: New Blow to Blair over Iraq
5 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] North's sign of desperation
6 Korea Herald: [Commentary]Lessons from history
7 Xinhuanet: China hopes for early six-party talks
8 ITAR-TASS: Russia hails readiness of NKorea to stop nuklear programm
9 ITAR-TASS: Russia, Mongolia favour continuation of 6-way talks on DP
10 AU The Age: Defusing the nuclear threat -
11 Cape Argus: City man on nuke charges
12 US: Baltimore Sun: Time to strike a blow for energy efficiency
13 ic Wales: Concern over Soviet weapons
14 People's Daily: Sino-US statement on nuclear energy conducive to coo
NUCLEAR REACTORS
15 US: [epa-impact] Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Pow
16 US: Rutland Herald: Vt. Yankee settlement questioned
17 Xinhuanet: Russia welcomes DPRK readiness for freezing nuclear activ
18 Toronto Star: Bruce unit's return to service short-lived
19 US: Brattleboro Reformer: VY hearings turn to cash, pollution
20 Globe and Mail: Electrical problem closes down Bruce reactor
21 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
22 US: NRC: Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station; Notice of Withdrawal of
23 US: NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power Plant
24 US: NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority, Notice of Receipt of Applicatio
25 US: NRC: SUNSHINE ACT MEETING
NUCLEAR SAFETY
26 Germant Plants Centers For Nuke Plant Accident Victims
27 Vaccines Linked to Gulf War Syndrome
28 EUpolitix - Nuclear battle underway
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
29 [CMEP] Yucca Mountain Court Date January 14 and Chair of Yucca
30 US: Knox News: Waste site cleanup successful
31 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Utah legislators get lots of freebies from lo
32 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada set to make final Yucca stand
33 RGJ: Citizen Alert contest winner a Yucca proponent
34 RGJ: Congress could have avoided court battle over waste dump
35 Enquirer Columbus Bureau: Ohio wins new uranium plant
36 Paducah Sun Editorial: Plant decision speeds up changes
37 Paducah Sun: Future impact of plant closure economically and job wis
38 Paducah Sun: History of USEC
39 Paducah Sun: Cleanup, closure gutted Oak Ridge -
40 Paducah Sun: 2001 closure surprised Piketon community -
41 Paducah Sun: Employees unsure of future but not surprised -
42 Paducah Sun: Local support, big incentives not enough to sway USEC -
43 Paducah Sun: Paducah already has new-industry efforts -
44 Paducah Sun: Kentucky package strong was one of the largest offered
45 Paducah Sun: Lost jobs could start being replaced this week -
46 Irish Examiner: De Rossa seeks tougher controls on nuclear waste
47 Courier Journal: Paducah nuclear plant will close
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
48 U.S. Newswire: DOE Dedicates New National Isotope Production Facilit
49 Paducah Sun: DOE UF6 conversion hearing tonight
OTHER NUCLEAR
50 Bush's Space Program: A Future Armada?
51 Google News Alert - nuclear
52 EUpolitix: France clings to fusion dreams
53 Xinhuanet: Politics threatens to dominate nuclear fusion debate
54 War Wire: Europe could go it alone on ITER energy project: Raffarin
55 AFP: Europe could keep ITER, warns France
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Berkshire Eagle: Editorials The big lie made clear
January 13, 2004 Pittsfield, MA
The study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
stating that the Bush administration "systematically
misrepresented" the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
doesn't break new ground but, combined with assertions by former
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that the White House was plotting
a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq before September 11, 2001, the
picture of a White House spoiling for war and willing to
misrepresent the truth to justify it is cast in even sharper
relief. The administration intentionally misled the American
people in embarking upon a strategy that has done perhaps
irreparable harm to long-held American principles.
The administration's case for a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq was
poor from the beginning, but with congressional Democrats afraid
to speak out against it in an election year and the media in full
flag-waving mode, it went essentially unchallenged. It was only
after the fact that it became apparent, as the Carnegie study
makes clear, that the White House didn't use intelligence
evidence to build a case for invading Iraq, but instead
manipulated and misrepresented intelligence to justify an
invasion it was long determined to launch.
The record is clear and cannot be disputed. Iraq had no
biological weapons, let alone the "massive stockpile" the
administration claimed it had. The White House claimed Saddam
Hussein had seven biological agents factories -- he had none. The
administration said the Iraqi leader had huge chemical weapons
stockpiles, including mustard and sarin gases -- he had no
chemical weapons. The White House claimed Iraq had restarted its
nuclear weapons program, buying uranium from Africa and procuring
enrichment equipment. In fact, Iraq had no nuclear weapons
program, no equipment, and no uranium.
The president continues to link the invasion of Iraq to the war
on terrorism even though there is no evidence that Iraq was a
threat to anyone outside its borders and no evidence of a link
between Mr. Hussein and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who, in
fact, was a sworn enemy of the Iraqi dictator. According to Mr.
O'Neill, who was in a position to know, White House
neoconservatives began plotting an invasion of Iraq shortly after
the president took office in 2001, which means the White House
cynically exploited the tragedy of September 11 to advance its
schemes. While the administration squanders time, money,
soldiers' lives and America's prestige on the Iraqi misadventure,
al-Qaida continues to engage in terror, and has now taken
advantage of postwar Iraqi chaos to move into that country.
The sanctimonious Washington Republicans who asserted that
President Clinton deserved impeachment not because of his affair
with Monica Lewinsky but because he lied about it are predictably
silent about the lies that emanated and continue to emanate from
the White House. No one died in Monicagate, and Monicagate did
not give comfort to our enemies while alienating our allies.
America will not soon recover from the Iraq war and the shameful
deceit that preceded it.
Associated Press
*****************************************************************
2 WorldNetDaily: Painful circumcision
JANUARY 13 2004
Israeli cable-television viewers were probably yawning when both
CBS and CNN reported last Tuesday that Libya had obtained illicit
nuclear weapons technology from Pakistan.
Broadcasting to Israel via the British Sky satellite network, CBS
reporter David Martin spoke with appropriate drama as he revealed
that Bush administration officials possess significant evidence
of the alleged transfer. CNN's John King was equally serious in
his similar report.
Why would Israelis yawn about something that was probably
ultimately aimed at their own annihilation? Well, Israeli
security experts and government leaders have spoken about the
Pakistani-Libyan connection for some time now. In other words,
the news was not news here in Israel – the intended nuclear
ground-zero.
The Pakistani government has denied that it played any role in
the reported technological transfer. Israeli security analysts
tend to believe President Pervez Musharraf when he insists that
he knew nothing about the reported illegal activity.
But that doesn't mean the dirty deed did not take place. In fact,
a senior Pakistani official at the country's Atomic Energy
Commission basically admitted to the Associated Press that
clandestine transactions had probably occurred, even if totally
under the table: "Pakistan should not be blamed for any
individual's wrongful act," he stated, adding ominously that "We
do not know who has been helping Iran, North Korea or Libya."
This is a chilling revelation indeed, especially after Pakistan
admitted in late December that some of its senior nuclear
scientists had probably passed on strategic information to the
radical Shiite Islamic regime in Iran.
All this simply underscores the fact that Saddam – as nefarious
as he was – did not represent the biggest WMD threat in this
tense and volatile region, if he actually possessed the banned
weapons at all.
The country that keeps Israeli strategic planners awake at night
is Iran, believed to be on the verge of acquiring atomic weapons.
But they also bear in mind that the neighboring South Asian
Muslim nation of Pakistan openly deploys the bomb, even if it is
an ostensible American ally. Pakistani scientists can apparently
fairly easily share the technical know-how to assemble the
ultimate weapon with Israel's many Middle East enemies, whether
or not their current national leader is aware of it.
Of course, Israel's friendly neighbors are busy pointing the
finger (you can guess which finger) back at the Jewish state's
thinly veiled nuclear arsenal. Egypt has been doing that for some
years now, demanding that the U.S., U.N. and E.U. disarm Israel
before it suddenly unleashes it dreaded atomic sword.
Saying he is now ready to scrap his WMD development programs,
Libya's exotic dictator Moammar Gadhafi is making this the
centerpiece of his new anti-Israel crusade as well.
Now Syria is joining the crying chorus. Its unelected despot,
Bashar Assad, basically admitted on Jan. 6 that his Baathist
regime possesses at least some mass-destruction weapons (probably
stockpiles of Sarin nerve gas, as the White House has charged).
But he also insisted that his WMDs are a necessary defense
against alleged "Israeli aggression" aimed at his notorious
police state. "It is natural for us to look for means to defend
ourselves," he told the London Telegraph.
More haunting was Assad's next statement to the newspaper: "It is
not difficult to get most of these weapons anywhere in the world,
and they can be obtained at any time."
No wonder U.S. government nuclear sniffers were ardently
patrolling several large American cities over the recent
holidays!
The very fact that countries – along with terrorist groups like
al-Qaida – can now apparently purchase mass-destruction weapons
and /or technology on the black market will prompt Israel to keep
her nuclear powder dry, whatever Mubarak, Gadhafi and Assad say.
Regional security experts assume that Israeli leaders control
significant chemical, and possibly even biological, arsenals,
along with several hundred atomic warheads. However, there is no
question that they do not have very much land to defend (the tiny
country is merely the size of New Jersey).
More to the point, eight out of 10 Israeli Jews live along the
narrow coastal plain – about 100 miles long and just 10 miles
wide in most places. As Saddam demonstrated when he shot off his
Scuds in 1991, this fact alone is a strategic nightmare in an age
of proliferating long-range missiles.
If and when Libya, Syria, Iran and, yes, even Egypt and Iraq
become functioning participatory democracies (don't hold your
breath), they can then begin to demand that Israel be disarmed of
all its mass destruction weapons. More than that, when popularly
elected Muslim governments truly abandon their blind hatred for
the "Zionist entity" in their midst – which even the U.S.-backed
Mubarak has not really done – then Israel can begin to destroy
her not-so-secret nuclear warheads.
Until the day arrives when the medieval Middle East is brimming
with love and brotherhood instead of hatred and war (i.e., when
Messiah reigns in Jerusalem), don't look for the world's only
Jewish state to willingly give up its vital non-conventional
shield. But in the wake of Saddam's overdue ouster and Gadhafi's
subsequent change of heart, do expect increasing international
demands for it to do so, no matter how suicidal such a
circumcision would be.
David Dolan is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has
lived in Israel since 1980. He reported for CBS Radio for over
12 years.
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
*****************************************************************
3 St. Petersburg Times: Opinion Damaged credibility
The secretary of state put his reputation on the line when he
made an exaggerated case for a war in Iraq that has violated the
tenets of his own doctrine.
Published January 13, 2004
No one's reputation has suffered more damage than Secretary of
State Colin Powell's as a result of the Bush administration's
misrepresentations of the threat posed by Iraq in the months
leading up to war. Other administration officials, such as Vice
President Dick Cheney, were more reckless than Powell in making
allegations that turned out to be exaggerated or untrue, but none
of them enjoyed Powell's reputation for careful language and
prudent action on matters of war and peace. In fact, Powell's
seemingly meticulous presentation at the United Nations of Iraq's
illegal weapons programs was a turning point in marshaling
domestic and international support for the White House's decision
to go to war.
Last week, a wan Powell made a half-hearted effort to vindicate
some of his prewar assertions in light of postwar realities. He
acknowledged that our government has found no "smoking gun"
linking Saddam Hussein's regime to al-Qaida, much less to the
Sept. 11 attacks. But Powell still claims that it was "prudent"
to have considered "the possibility of such connections" prior to
the war.
Yet Powell's Feb. 5 U.N. presentation claimed much more than
"the possibility of connections" between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Powell spoke then of "a sinister nexus . . . between Iraq and the
al-Qaida terrorist network." And he added: "Iraqi officials deny
accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not
credible."
Powell also made a seemingly detailed case against Iraq's
supposed weapons of mass destruction, using satellite photographs
and other data that he said showed specific sites of illegal
weapons and facilities. Yet the large U.S. contingent searching
for evidence of illegal weapons in Iraq has effectively
disbanded, having turned up nothing approximating a direct threat
from chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
A newly released report from the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace concludes that the Bush administration
systematically misrepresented the threat posed by Iraq. Whether
Powell and other administration officials purposely exaggerated
that threat or were genuinely misled by conflicting reports of
Iraq's weapons capability, it is clear in retrospect that the
White House relied on a flawed rationale to justify launching a
pre-emptive war in the face of broad opposition at home and
abroad.
A case could have been made for going to war to remove Hussein
from power on strictly humanitarian grounds. It is essentially
the same argument the Clinton administration used to justify
going to war in the Balkans - in the face of virtually unanimous
Republican opposition in Washington - to remove Serbian tyrant
Slobodan Milosevic from power. Milosevic, like Hussein, engaged
in systematic murder and torture on a genocidal scale that
destabilized a strategically vital region.
Milosevic ultimately was removed without the loss of a single
American life in combat. Hussein, too, has been removed, and the
world is a better place with him behind bars. But the end of his
regime has come at a dear price. Hundreds of American soldiers
have been killed, and thousands have been gravely wounded. Iraqis
have suffered on a far broader scale, and they are still a long
way from establishing a stable, democratic government to replace
the Hussein regime.
U.S. credibility also has suffered as a result of the dishonest
case our government made for war. And no one's credibility has
been damaged more than Powell's. Before Iraq, Powell was known
for his adherence to what became known as the Powell Doctrine:
Commit to the use of force only when our vital interests are
threatened; only when Congress and the American people broadly
support the military goals; only when our forces have a clear
goal and exit strategy; and only when we are able to apply
overwhelming military power to achieve victory.
Powell allowed himself to be used to sell the American public
and the world community on a war policy that violated the
fundamental tenets of his own doctrine. No wonder he looked like
such a dispirited short-timer as he tried to defend himself last
week. [Last modified January 13, 2004, 01:33:02]
Petersburg Times.All rights
*****************************************************************
4 Scotsman.com: New Blow to Blair over Iraq
Tue 13 Jan, 2004
By James Lyons, Political Correspondent, PA News
Prime Minister Tony Blair was dealt a fresh blow over Iraq today
when a second senior Washington insider said intelligence was
misrepresented.
Former US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill has revealed he saw
no evidence that Saddam Hussein possessed a chemical and
biological arsenal.
George Bush was planning the invasion of Iraq from the moment he
became US President, Mr O’Neill said.
His claims have been dismissed as the bitter attack of a sacked
man by President Bush’s supporters.
But they were backed today by Greg Thielmann, director of the
Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs Office at the US
State Department until his retirement last year.
Mr Theilmann told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m
afraid I think the American public was seriously misled.”
The US administration “twisted, distorted, simplified”
intelligence in a way that led Americans to “seriously
misunderstand what the nature of the Iraq threat was”, he said.
“I’m not sure I can think of a worse act against the people
in a democracy than a President distorting critical
information,” he said.
“For a President to abuse that sacred trust ... is to me a very
serious development.”
Mr Theilmann said he was “not as knowledgeable about the
British side of the question”.
But he said: “I am disappointed by some of the statements made
by Prime Minister Blair, even though I understand how difficult
it is for a close ally of the United States to confront the
United States on the use of intelligence information.”
British intelligence was still sticking to claims that Saddam
attempted to obtain nuclear material from Niger even though the
US now acknowledged that was based on forged documents, Mr
Theilmann said.
Mr Blair would not have been working on more evidence than the
Bush administration, he told Today.
“It is unlikely that any really important intelligence here
would not have been shared,” he said.
“We are talking about intelligence of extraordinary importance,
intelligence that can make the difference between war and peace.
“I find it very difficult to believe that major intelligence
has been withheld from one party to the other.”
2004 Scotsman.com
*****************************************************************
5 Korea Herald: [EDITORIAL] North's sign of desperation
2004.01.14
As a "private" U.S. delegation that made a visit to North Korean
nuclear facilities last week was briefing Congressional leaders
back in Washington, Pyongyang again sent out an offer of a
nuclear freeze in exchange for oil supplies and economic aid. The
true intent behind the announcement, repeated three times in less
than a month, is hard to read but it strongly indicates that
North Korea is becoming desperate.
The worst possible scenario is that the North may now be
counting down to a major experiment to declare itself a nuclear
power. Having withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
about a year ago, it is legally free to detonate a nuclear device
in some place on its territory and thereby earn equivalent status
to Pakistan or Israel.
A more realistic view is that Pyongyang is simply increasing
pressure on the United States to win concessions ahead of the
resumption of the six-way talks, which also involve South Korea,
China, Japan and Russia. A guided nuclear tour for a group of
influential Americans, coupled with a simultaneous appeal for
economic aid, is certainly a more refined form of blackmail. But
Washington seems unimpressed.
After the North's offer of a nuclear freeze a week ago, U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Stalinist state had
taken a "positive step." However, Washington made no visible
response, except for continuing consultations with its two key
allies, Seoul and Tokyo, on the methodology of offering some form
of written security guarantee for Pyongyang.
North Korea announced that the U.S. experts were shown its
"nuclear deterrent," but it is not clear yet whether the object
was an atomic bomb or a weapons making technology, as the group
refuses to reveal details of its tour. If the visitors actually
saw a nuclear weapon in Yongbyon, it would not surprise officials
in Seoul or Washington, as their intelligence organizations have
already concluded that the North has at least one or two nuclear
bombs.
What concerns officials of the two allies most at this moment is
why the North Koreans have suddenly become so "open" about their
nuclear program. And speculation naturally extends to whether the
change in their attitude has anything to do with the recent
renunciation of nuclear development programs by Iran and Libya,
following the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"We live (survive) in our own way" is a common public slogan in
the North, but it is not difficult to imagine that the communist
leaders there must feel a noose tightening around their necks
after they witnessed what happened to the three aspirants for
nuclear arms in the Middle East. They must have also keenly
watched the capture of Saddam Hussein, pulled from a spider hole
in Tikrit.
A freeze in the nuclear program in return for compensation was
proposed by the North on Dec. 15 last year as the first step in a
package-deal solution of the nuclear issue, and the same
statement was repeated through Pyongyang Radio on Jan. 6 and last
Monday.
Observing the fast pace of North Korean activity over the past
few weeks, however, we can reasonably expect that a certain
change will take place in the status quo, whether it be out of a
genuine fear of sharing the fate of Saddam, or another crafty
scheme for survival. The allies must watch the North patiently
and confidently, in the belief that it will not take too long for
the North to realize that a nuclear bomb cannot be a true
guarantee of its security.
*****************************************************************
6 Korea Herald: [Commentary]Lessons from history
2004.01.14
Regardless of whether they like him or not, or they use the same
code with him or not, as the popular jargon goes, people will
watch President Roh Moo-hyun on TV this morning. They will listen
to him attentively to find out what he has to say - with gnawing
anxiety in their hearts rather than expectations for good news.
The president will surely have a lot to say when he faces the
nation in his New Year's news conference. As everybody knows, it
is not specifically because he loves to talk. It has little to do
with his rhetorical talent, but because there are so many serious
issues confronting the nation as well as his administration,
which has turned into a virtual lame duck within a year. The
issues are so huge that the president cannot attempt to dodge
them skillfully - even with his nimble tongue.
Among the most prominent issues are the slow economy and
unemployment, the yawning income gap between the rich and poor,
the loud conflicts among different interest groups aggravating
social instability and, no doubt, the ongoing investigations into
numerous political funding scandals which have shaken the nation
through the past year.
Also on top of the list are the North Korean nuclear issue and
the loopholes in the alliance with the United States, as well as
the recent diplomatic disputes with China and Japan over
historical questions. Roh must not be unaware of the poor
coordination between his Blue House advisors and Foreign Ministry
officials in handling major foreign affairs as well.
It is hard to believe, though, that our president has enough time
to worry about all the outstanding issues of national concern
when his own fate as a politician is in jeopardy. It looks
certain that he will put his all into empowering the small
pro-government Uri Party so that it can emerge strong enough
through the general elections in April to support him staunchly
during his next four years in office. Otherwise, he must be
prepared for more hellish times ahead. Or, so he believes.
This can be a risky gamble, because the funding record of the Roh
camp in the 2002 election appears far from tidy. Should we
compare it with the notoriously filthy report card of the
opposition Grand National Party? Roh hopes so. He even offered to
put his presidency to a confidence vote, with little regard for
the constitutional propriety of his proposal. Unfortunately,
people seem little touched by his appeal based on his now
well-known value relativism.
Looking back a year, Roh must recognize how disappointed, and
even betrayed, the people now feel about his governance. His
trademark "moral integrity" has been disgraced by one graft
scandal after another involving various men in his inner circle.
The prosecution's latest disclosure pointed to the president's
role in taking unlawful money from businesses before and after
his election. His proud principle of "independent diplomacy" has
also gone nowhere, as it proved easily bendable while handling
sensitive issues involving foreign countries.
Therefore, we are curious to hear what the president has to say
to sum up his first year as chief executive, which has been
chaotic beyond tolerance. Is he going to pass the buck again to
the powerful opposition and the antagonistic press? Is he going
to blame again the unsupportive anti-reform forces and the
diehard vested rights in our society?
If he is tempted to do so, the president is advised to look
farther back a decade ago, and even a century ago, in order to
define his role as national leader within the broader framework
of the nation's history and its future course.
It is sad that the past decade has seen the nation failing to
keep up with its once phenomenal economic development, despite
notable advances in political democratization. Roh's promise to
double the per capita national income to the $20,000 level during
his tenure seems an unrealistic goal. The nation has yet to find
viable growth engines, not to mention overcoming the disharmony
among different economic players. The failure to ratify the
nation's first ever free trade agreement with a foreign country
is another worrisome matter.
At the same time, Roh must find it no less alarming that the
nation's security environment mirrors the region's geopolitics at
the outset of the 20th century in certain respects. In January
1904, Emperor Gojong of the Joseon Dynasty tried in vain to
proclaim neutrality as war between Japan and Russia seemed
imminent amidst the heated power struggle on the peninsula among
foreign imperialists.
The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed on Sept. 5, 1905 ending the
Russo-Japanese War, acknowledged Japan's paramount political,
military and economic interests in Korea. It followed the famous
Taft-Katsura Agreement in July of the same year, which recognized
Japanese domination of Korea as a quid pro quo for its
recognition of U.S. hegemony in the Philippines. These led to the
Protectorate Treaty of November 1905 and eventually to Japan's
annexation of Korea in 1910.
The six-nation nuclear talks - involving the two Koreas, the
United States, China, Japan and Russia - maintain the basic power
matrix of a century ago. Korea's domestic situations then and now
have certain parallels as well. This is where the nation has to
take a lesson if it is not to repeat the tragic experiences of
last century. This is a vital reason that the nation must
overcome internal divisions under strong leadership.
By Lee Kyong-hee
Editor-in-Chief
*****************************************************************
7 Xinhuanet: China hopes for early six-party talks
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-13 21:06:27
BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- China hopes the second round
of six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue will start as soon
as possible and China is in constant talks with various parties,
saidChinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan here Tuesday.
ˇˇˇˇKong said two senior Chinese officials had left Beijing
Sunday for the United States for discussions on the issue with
James Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State.
The two officials are Fu Ying, head of the Asian Affairs
Department of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and Ning Fukui, an
ambassador-level official with the Foreign Ministry in charge of
affairs concerning the Korean Peninsula, said Kong.
Fu and Ning are also expected to meet other senior US
officials,said Kong.
In August 2003, China, the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Russia and Japan
held the first round of six-party talks in Beijing. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 ITAR-TASS: Russia hails readiness of NKorea to stop nuklear programme
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]
13.01.2004, 11.55
ULAN BATOR, January 13 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia welcomes
Pyongyang’s readiness to stop its nuclear programme, Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov said at a ceremony of awarding to him
honorary doctorship of the Mongolian State University.
Commenting on North Korea’s statement expressing readiness to
mothball a reactor in Yongbyong, he said “this is a step forward
that will give reasons to count on a constructive answer from
the US”.
Ivanov noted a positive response to Pyongyang’s statement from
American Secretary of State Colin Powell.
“This can become a good basis for the continuation of the
negotiating process,” he said.
“Ensuring a nuclear-free status of the Korean Peninsula and
retention of it in the sphere of nuclear non-proliferation,
ensuing security of all states located there, the development of
peaceful cooperation in Northeast Asia meets the interests of
Russia.”
Ivanov added that the issue of nuclear non-proliferation on the
peninsula “should be solved only by a peaceful, negotiating
process”.
“Such solution could allow forming in this subregion a system of
relations of states that would strongly guarantee the stability
and peaceful cooperation, including rapprochement of both parts
of Korea,” he said.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
9 ITAR-TASS: Russia, Mongolia favour continuation of 6-way talks on DPRK
[ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia]
13.01.2004, 08.41
ULAN BATOR, January 13 (Itar-Tass) - Russia and Mongolia "fully
support the efforts towards a negotiated settlement of the
nuclear problem of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
(DPRK) on the basis of ensuring a non-nuclear status of the
Korean Peninsula," says a Joint Statement signed here on Tuesday
by the Foreign ministers of the two countries, Igor Ivanov and
Luvsangiyn Erdenechuluun.
The sides also "come out in favour of providing guarantees of
security and creating normal conditions for the socio-economic
development of the DPRK". The Joint Statement points out that
Mongolia and Russia "favour the earliest continuation of the
six-way negotiating process started in Beijing, a search for and
finding of mutually acceptable accords which would contribute to
asserting peace, security and cooperation on the Korean
Peninsula and in Northeast Asia as a whole".
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
10 AU The Age: Defusing the nuclear threat -
www.theage.com.au
January 14, 2004
The US is negotiating over nuclear weapons with regimes it had
previously vowed to overthrow, writes Joseph Cirincione.
The past few weeks have brought remarkable changes in some of the
most difficult and dangerous global nuclear proliferation
threats. Rather than heading towards military conflicts, the
United States seems to be moving towards negotiated solutions
that could end the nascent nuclear weapons programs in Iran,
Libya and possibly also North Korea.
It is unclear whether these breakthroughs, which are still
tentative but hold extraordinary promise, are the result of the
American success in Iraq or of failures there. Has the US been
able to work out deals with Iran and Libya, two of the world's
most difficult regimes, because they feared being next in the
Bush Administration's crosshairs, or because the US is so tied
down in Iraq that the Administration must seek diplomatic
solutions?
Much of the news coverage and analysis of these developments has
treated them as if they were entirely unrelated. Yet the pattern
that emerges when we connect the dots is at least as important as
the events themselves. It signifies not only substantial progress
towards stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, but an as-yet
unacknowledged shift: Washington is now negotiating with regimes
it had previously vowed to overthrow.
To recap recent developments: the North Korean Government has
offered to freeze its nuclear programs and not test any weapons,
in exchange for political and economic concessions from the US.
Libya has agreed to publicly disclose and dismantle all nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons programs; to limit its missiles
to a range of less than 300 kilometres; and to open the country
immediately to comprehensive inspections to verify its
compliance.
Together with information coming from Iran, officials are now
cracking open the international network of suppliers and
middlemen that allowed both countries, and North Korea, to
accumulate the high-tech equipment necessary to build nuclear
weapons. Pakistan has emerged as the key supplier to all three.
The US, bogged down in Iraq and paying high costs for a
still-uncertain outcome, now clearly prefers talking to fighting.
Iran announced it would suspend its once-secret program to enrich
uranium and allow expanded inspections by the International
Atomic Energy Agency. Iran's decision came after two days of
intense negotiations between top Iranian officials and the
British, French and German foreign ministers.
These nuclear U-turns have profound implications. For the past
decade, many have seen these countries as the central nuclear
danger. While there are about 30,000 nuclear weapons in the
world, most are in the hands of Russia and the United States,
with China, France, Britain, Israel, India and Pakistan
accounting for another few hundred. It is now unlikely that any
of these states would use these weapons, except if war should
break out in south Asia. The greatest danger was that Iran, Iraq,
North Korea or Libya would acquire nuclear weapons and either use
them, threaten to use them or transfer them to a terrorist group.
So why the change? Conservative pundits are quick to claim that
the leaders of Libya and Iran are co-operating because they fear
the same fate that befell Saddam Hussein.
Perhaps. Little evidence supports this conclusion and both
countries deny it. Still, the war in Iraq must have had some
effect. But going further to claim that the US could initiate
military attacks on these nations is sheer bluster. With mounting
casualties and costs and few allies in Iraq, the Administration
cannot even bolster its troops in Afghanistan, let alone mount
major new military operations in other nations. Nor would the US
have any international or domestic support for new wars. Libya
and Iran must know this.
It seems clear that with Libya, Iran and North Korea, it is money
that matters. The major condition of the EU's new trade and
co-operation agreement with Iran is that the country end its
uranium enrichment program. That deal is worth billions. The
Europeans are now committed to using their "soft power" to
leverage good behaviour from the nations that have strong
economic ties with Europe. Similarly, Libya began negotiations
years ago with America and other nations to get out from under
the international and US sanctions that had crippled it.
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's acceptance of responsibility for the
destruction of Pan Am flight 103 led to the suspension of UN
sanctions, but it became clear he would also have to end his
pursuit of nuclear and chemical weapons before Washington would
lift its sanctions. Other factors probably helped push him along,
but right now the evidence indicates that the greatest incentive
was restoring economic relations.
What is also clear is that the co-operation between Europe and
the US has struck the right balance between force and diplomacy.
Negotiated agreements, not military operations, are making
headlines. The threat of US force is still there - and should be
- but it is Europe's diplomatic engagement strategy that is now
dominant.
The US, bogged down in Iraq and paying high costs for a
still-uncertain outcome, now clearly prefers talking to fighting.
Bush seems to have turned to Secretary of State Colin Powell, who
has taken centre stage and is getting results. Powell has begun
promoting a new "strategy of partnerships", cleverly
reinterpreting the Administration's policy pronouncements as if
this were how it was always intended to be. It's classic
Washington politics, but it's also effective diplomacy.
Many obstacles remain. The Libyan case seems the most clear-cut.
Gaddafi realises there is no pan-Arab nationalist revolution to
lead, so he would like to end his days as the leader of a
prosperous, secure Arab nation. The Iranian case is more
complicated. With several factions vying for government control,
each needs to walk a fine line in opening up to the West without
appearing to surrender to imperialism. Some may want to play for
time, yield a bit on the nuclear program, hoping to restart it
some time in the future.
North Korea, with its mercurial leadership, is the most
difficult. On North Korea, the Administration does not have a
partner with the confidence and clout of Britain or the EU, and
remains deeply divided on whether to negotiate with the Pyongyang
regime or to overthrow it. But if the Administration can overcome
its internal divisions and work closely with its international
partners, it has the tools to resolve all these cases.
Once these problems are solved, we can turn our attention to
other, less dramatic ones. Like how to get rid of the 20,000
nuclear weapons and 1000 tonnes of nuclear bomb material stored
in Russia before al-Qaeda figures out a way to buy some of it -
or to steal it.
Joseph Cirincione is co-author of the new Carnegie report WMD in
Iraq: Evidence and Implications. This article first appeared in
The Washington Post.
Copyright © 2004. The Age Company Ltd advertise| contact us
*****************************************************************
11 Cape Argus: City man on nuke charges
ONLINE EDITION POWERED BY IOL Tuesday 13th January
SOUTH AFRICA
By Murray Williams
A prominent Cape Town businessman has been arrested in the
United States for allegedly exporting to Pakistan "triggers"
that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons.
Asher Karni, 50, of upper Three Anchor Bay, is a respected
member of the city's Jewish community.
He was arrested as he stepped on to US soil at Denver
International Airport in Colorado on holiday with his wife on
New Year's Day.
An official of his company said he had been freed on bail early
today after being held for the past 12 days.
Karni has been charged with "exporting, attempting to export or
conspiring to export products with nuclear weapons applications"
without the required export licence.
He allegedly ordered "triggered spark gaps"- high-speed
electrical switches that can be used as detonating devices in
nuclear weapons - from hi-tech firm Perkin Elmer
Optoelectronics, in Massachusetts.
A newspaper in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News, reported that
the parts are on a US government list of items that may not be
shipped to certain countries, including Pakistan, without a
special US export licence.
The licence was intended to stem the proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
He allegedly sent the order for the parts from South Africa
through an export company in New Jersey.
Karni was formally charged with violating two laws - the Export
Administration Act and the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act.
Jeff Dorschner, a spokesman for the US Attorney in
Colorado, said the charge sheet also alleged that Karni had
"structured the transaction in a way that concealed his true
purpose".
He alleged Karni claimed in export documentation that the parts
were destined for a hospital in South Africa, when he "well
knew" they were destined for Pakistan.
This action had resulted in a further charge of submitting false
or misleading information on an export declaration.
The Rocky Mountain News confirmed that the triggered spark gaps
could in fact be used to destroy kidney stones.
But Perkin Elmer had said that no hospital had ever ordered more
than a handful of them and even the largest hospitals had very
few.
Karni had allegedly ordered 200 and had received and sold the
first consignment of 66.
Dorschner said Karni had been "in federal custody", but would
not say where.
Karni's company in Cape Town is Top-Cape Technology CC in Green
Point.
A spokeswoman for Karni said his arrest had caused an outcry
among the Jewish community. The woman, who did not give her full
name, described Karni as "honest and full of integrity". She
said he was a "very religious man" and that he had served as an
acting rabbi.
A "huge sum of money" had been donated to secure Karni's
bail.
A "prominent" US rabbi had flown to Colorado to be a character
witness.
Karni appeared at a hearing at midnight SA time where a judge
had to decide whether he should remain in custody or be released
pending further legal proceedings.
News of his release on bail came from Top-Cape early today.
Karni's wife is described as "extremely distraught".
In a statement last night, Karni's attorney in Cape Town said
his client was an "unfortunate casualty of the 'orange alert'
security situation in the US".
Karni had had "no idea that the parts could be used for nuclear
weapons ... has fully co-operated with the investigation ... and
has made a full and frank disclosure of his business dealings
all along to both South African and US authorities".
Karni had been unaware he required a permit to export the parts
from the US. He admitted to selling them to Pakistan, but said
they had been destined for a hospital there.
©2004 The Cape Argus. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
12 Baltimore Sun: Time to strike a blow for energy efficiency
sunspot.net - op/ed
By Gigi Kellet and Ed Osann
Originally published January 13, 2004
ACONFLUENCE of events has placed energy policy at the forefront
of our national and state agendas over the last few years. The
energy crisis in California and fluctuating oil and gas prices
have forced decision-makers to examine our energy policy with
much closer scrutiny.
The Northeast's electricity blackout in August underscored the
consequences of our overreliance on a large, unstable and
overtaxed power system. The recurrence of these supply and
transmission problems highlights the need for conservation and
energy efficiency as well as moving toward renewable energy
sources, such as wind and solar power.
Like most states, Maryland is facing tough fiscal times. Budget
deficits are forcing many state programs to be curtailed, while
an uneven economic recovery is forcing businesses and families to
also cut back. At the same time, temporary rate caps on our
electric bills soon will be lifted and natural gas prices have
been increasing, further straining our budgets.
Unfortunately, as our total energy consumption continues to grow,
most of our energy needs are met either by polluting fossil fuels
or inherently risky nuclear sources. Every unnecessary kilowatt
we consume because of inefficiency puts our health and
environment at additional, unnecessary risk.
Maryland's energy consumption, unchecked, will require the
construction of more power plants and transmission lines to meet
our energy needs and put us further down the road of overreliance
on environmentally and economically unsustainable energy sources.
One way to combat these trends is to make use of new technologies
that can reduce energy consumption and lower energy costs. Energy
efficiency is the cheapest, fastest, cleanest way to address our
energy needs.
Many products on the market today allow us to perform the same
tasks with less energy, offering us some win-win opportunities to
save money and reduce pollution. New equipment such as commercial
air conditioners, commercial clothes washers, traffic lights and
ceiling fans can reduce consumer energy bills and reduce air
pollution. Other states have established standards for several of
these products, and Maryland could easily adopt such standards as
well.
The General Assembly took a modest step last year to encourage
energy efficiency when it passed the Maryland Energy Efficiency
Standards Act. This bill would establish energy efficiency
standards for nine categories of new appliances and commercial
equipment purchased in the state beginning in 2005.
These efficiency standards for new products would save
Marylanders $600 million by 2020 and help protect the environment
by avoiding the emissions resulting from energy production and
consumption. But Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. vetoed this popular
bill, which enjoyed the support of businesses such as Baltimore
Gas and Electric Co. The General Assembly will consider an
override of that veto this week.
If it becomes law, this bill will help Maryland's utilities
balance their power loads by reducing peak summer electric use in
Maryland by over 200 megawatts in 2010 and by over 400 megawatts
in 2020. The electricity saved in 2010 alone would be enough to
meet the needs of about 75,000 typical Maryland households that
year. Through 2020, these energy savings would reduce the
emissions of harmful nitrogen oxides by over 2 million pounds per
year while making significant reductions in emissions of gases
that contribute to smog and global warming.
The General Assembly has the opportunity to once again promote
this much-needed energy efficiency measure. Our leaders in
Annapolis have indicated their support for a legislative override
of the governor's veto. While an override is extremely rare,
Maryland's constitution provides this important tool for the
legislature to act when a preponderance of opinion - 60 percent
of the members in each chamber - favors such action.
The Maryland Energy Efficiency Standards Act takes a common-sense
approach to improve the reliability of our electricity system,
reduce pollution emissions into our air and the Chesapeake Bay
and save Marylanders money. Its enactment would be welcome
throughout the state.
Gigi Kellett is an energy advocate with the Maryland Public
Interest Research Group (MaryPIRG). Ed Osann is Maryland
representative for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
2004 by The Baltimore Sun.
*****************************************************************
13 ic Wales: Concern over Soviet weapons
Jan 13 2004
The deal involved Europe's biggest Soviet army weapons cache,
Russia's prime minister and the leader of a separatist enclave
in Moldova known as a gunrunner's haven.
As described in a confidential 1998 agreement obtained by The
Associated Press, Russia and Trans-Dniester would share profits
from the sale of "unnecessary" arms and ammunition chosen from
40,000 tons of material stored in an arms depot in the breakaway
region.
The transaction is only one piece of an arms-dealing puzzle in
Trans-Dniester where the decade-old depot also contained
hundreds of portable surface to air missiles until last month -
when concerns they could end up in terrorists' hands prompted
Russia to announce it had withdrawn them.
A former Moldovan official says the tiny region even was the
repository of rocket-mounted "dirty bombs," or warheads designed
to scatter deadly radioactive material that have gone missing.
That widely publicised claim remains unresolved, with officials
not even sure the dirty bombs ever existed.
But an AP investigation involving interviews with a dozen
officials and experts reinforced suspicions that Trans-Dniester
is a hotbed of legal and illegal weapons transactions that are
largely unregulated.
Moldova's western neighbour, Romania, shares that view.
Trans-Dniester is a "black hole of trans-border organised crime,
including drug smuggling, human trafficking and arms smuggling,"
Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana told AP.
Weapons from Trans-Dniester have turned up in Chechnya,
Georgia's breakaway Abkhazia region, and in the hands of
insurgents in Africa, a government minister of another country
in the region told AP. The official spoke on condition he not be
identified further.
Experts say that just about every sort of weapon is available.
"If I were in search of most commodities related to weaponry ...
this would be the place to go," said William Potter, director of
the Centre for Non-proliferation Studies at the Monterey
Institute for International Studies in California. "Even if I
did not find the weaponry, I would find the individuals who
could get me that weaponry."
Reputed gunrunning sources include arms and ammunition from the
huge Soviet army depository near the northern town of Kolbasna -
including tens of thousands of assault rifles and other small
arms and weaponry attractive to terrorists. The depository is
guarded by Russian peacekeepers.
Additionally, at least six factories are believed to be churning
out grenade and rocket launchers, Makarov pistols and
Kalashnikov assault rifles, mortar tubes and other relatively
low-tech weapons under contract to the Russian military - and
possibly skimming off surplus production to sell to arms
dealers, diplomats in the region told AP.
Some, like Tiraspol's Tochlitmash and Elektromash, are believed
to be dual use plants, with civilian and secret military
production lines.
Ruslan Slobodeniuk, whose business card identifies him as
Trans-Dniester's "deputy foreign minister," said Elektromash - a
Soviet-era factory in Tiraspol spouting smoke and steam from all
corners into the winter skies - made only transformers.
"We are ready to show our factories to journalists," he told the
AP.
Authorities did not respond to a request for a tour of
Elektromash.
The 1998 arms deal between Russia and Trans-Dniester involved
the Soviet army repository - 40,000 tons of ordnance, arms and
ammunition dumped in this remote speck of south-eastern Europe
in the early 1990s as the Soviet Union broke up and Moldova
became independent.
The negotiators: then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin
and Igor Smirnov, self-named president of the separatist
enclave.
Moscow and Tiraspol, Trans-Dniester's capital, would split
profits from the sale of "unnecessary weapons, ammunition,
military assets and materials," according to the 1998 agreement
that bears their signatures.
There seems to be no public record of the deal but Russian and
Western officials confirmed its existence to the AP as part of a
one-page memorandum on what to do with the huge weapons cache -
Europe's largest.
It was superseded a year later by a pact providing for a full
withdrawal to Russia of all military equipment.
One Russian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said
his understanding was that the deal was never enacted, but
Western diplomats were sceptical, saying nobody will ever know
how much of what was sold, to whom, or at what price in that
one-year window - or the criteria used to determine what was
"unnecessary."
The authoritarian Smirnov has answered to no one since breaking
Russian-speaking Trans-Dniester away from Moldova in 1992 after
a brief war, sparked by fears that Moldova would seek
reunification with Romania.
Tiraspol is caught in a Soviet-era time warp, left over from
Moldova's former Soviet republic status. Located between Romania
and Ukraine, Moldova was part of Romania until 1940 and most
people speak Romanian or Ukrainian. Trans-Dniester, however, was
never part of Romania.
Some Trans-Dniester soldiers sport fur hats with the Red Star
emblem, and creaky Volga sedans vie for parking spots with
Western cars on the cracked pavement lining crude "bloks" - ugly
prefab apartment blocks of raw concrete badly in need of repair.
There are still about 2,000 Russian troops in the breakaway
region, officially acting as peacekeepers.
Business dealings by Smirnov associates often include smuggling
of all kinds -including weapons by the truckload, say diplomats
and experts.
Though less than two hours by air from most European capitals
and only 50 miles to the south-east of Chisinau, Trans-Dniester
is as inaccessible as some of the continent's most remote
regions.
To the east lie 250 miles of border with Ukraine. Unguarded
fields are broken by thick stretches of fir and bisected by
twisting dirt paths where a truck could surreptitiously slip
away en route to the Black Sea port of Odessa and an outlet to
hotspots in Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Customs officials at the three major international crossing
points are corrupt, as are those at railway crossings, say
diplomats in the region, all speaking on condition of anonymity.
Oazu Nantoi, a well-connected former Moldovan government
official in Chisinau, cites the example of a senior Ukrainian
customs official in conversation with his Moldovan counterparts
in 2001.
"After some quantity of vodka, the official said: 'Guys, pay us
Ł1.2 million a week, and we'll close the borders"' to illegal
traffic, Nantoi said, citing an official present at the talks.
"'All it takes is Ł1.2 million a week -cash."'
Almost as porous are the unofficial borders to Moldova, bordered
to the west by Romania. Both countries are high on the list of
Europe's most corrupt nations.
Illustrating the depth of the smuggling problem even at
controlled crossing points, a Moldovan examination two years ago
of temporary customs stamps used by Trans-Dniester found 350
counterfeit versions.
Smirnov's son, Vladimir, heads the Trans-Dniester customs
service. He is also said to be the major silent partner in
Sheriff, the enclave's business consortium with fingers in
everything from Trans-Dniester's mobile phone network, to gas
stations, supermarkets and the still-growing gargantuan sports
complex on Tiraspol's outskirts.
Western diplomats estimate the sports complex has already cost
Ł108 million -twice as much as Moldova's annual budget.
Nantoi, who now runs the non-governmental Institute for Policy
Studies in Chisinau, asserts Trans-Dniester was the repository
of dozens of dirty bombs -warheads designed to scatter deadly
radioactive material - which now are missing after years of
storage near Tiraspol military airport.
Nantoi showed AP what he said was a Russian military document
dated Oct. 18, 1994, urging "prohibition" of work with the
warheads - 24 ready to use, 14 dismantled - because of dangerous
radiation.
Another document from May of that year recorded the "burning and
burying" of uniforms contaminated by high radiation.
Nantoi said reports reached him in 1998 that Alazan rockets -
inaccurate, short range missiles typically used by the Soviets
for weather experiments - had been fitted with warheads modified
to carry radioactive material. The rockets and warheads since
appeared to have disappeared from storage.
"I could not discover what had happened to them," he said.
Moldova's government has declined comment. Valery Litzkai, who
acts as Trans-Dniester's "foreign minister," described the dirty
bomb reports as a "smear campaign."
"There are no weapons here," he told AP.
Potter, of the Monterey Institute, said some former Soviet
government officials believed the documents could be authentic
but considered it unlikely that Russian units would keep such
crude weapons "considering their access to much more
sophisticated weaponry."
Dismissing the dirty bomb allegations as just one part of an
anti-Trans-Dniester campaign, Litzkai and other Trans-Dniester
officials assert there have been no major finds of weapons in
terrorist hands that can be proven to have come from their
enclave.
Still, even they cannot deny evidence of arms trading.
Moldovan police four years ago halted a truck leaving
Trans-Dniester. Inside were Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles,
detonators, plastic explosives, members of Trans-Dniester's
army, and Lt. Col. Vladimir Nemkov, a deputy commander of
Russian peacekeepers in the enclave.
Other officials denied the incident ever happened. Litzkai
confirmed the incident but suggested it was a setup.
Asked about Nemkov's whereabouts now, Litzkai shrugged, then
paused for effect.
"He disappeared."
icWalesTM is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror Plc.
*****************************************************************
14 People's Daily: Sino-US statement on nuclear energy conducive to cooperation
: FM
Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, January 13, 2004
The statement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy is
conducive to Sino-US cooperation in this field, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Tuesday.
The statement on the peaceful use of nuclear energy is
conducive to Sino-US cooperation in this field, Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said Tuesday.
The document was jointly signed Monday by visiting US Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham and Zhang Huazhu, chairman of the
China Atomic Energy Authority.
It aims to increase cooperation in the peaceful use of nuclear
energy, nuclear non-proliferation, and counter-terrorism between
China and the United States, Kong said.
By stating the mutual desire and setting the fields of
cooperation, the document will exert a positive influence in the
region and the world, the spokesman said.
Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
15 [epa-impact] Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:48:55 -0500 (EST)
http://www.epa.gov/fedreg/EPA-IMPACT/2004/January/Day-13/index.html
http://www.epa.gov/fedreg/
=======================================================================
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices]
[Page 2012-2013]
>From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr13ja04-104]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket Nos. 50-275 and 50-323]
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Unit
Nos. 1 and 2; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant
Impact
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering
issuance of an exemption from title 10 of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR) part 50, section 50.68 for Facility Operating
License Nos. DPR-80 and DPR-82, issued to Pacific Gas and Electric
Company (the licensee), for operation of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant
(DCPP), Unit Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, located in San Luis Obispo
County, California. Therefore, as required by 10 CFR 51.21, the NRC is
issuing this environmental assessment and finding of no significant
impact.
Environmental Assessment
Identification of the Proposed Action
The proposed action would exempt the licensee from the requirements
of 10 CFR 50.68, ``Criticality Accident Requirements,'' for handling
the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents of the Holtec HI-STORM 100 Cask
System.
The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's
application dated October 8, 2003, as supplemented on November 25,
2003.
The Need for the Proposed Action
10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) sets forth the following requirement that must
be met, in lieu of a monitoring system capable of detecting criticality
events:
Plant procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any
one time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be
safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions
feasible by unborated water.
The licensee is unable to satisfy the above requirement for
handling of the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents of the Holtec HI-STORM
100 Cask System. Section 50.12(a) allows licensees to apply for an
exemption from the requirements of part 50 if the regulation is not
necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule and other
conditions are met. The licensee has stated that compliance with 10 CFR
50.68(b)(1) is not necessary for handling the 10 CFR part 72 licensed
contents of the cask system to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action
The NRC has completed its evaluation of the proposed action and
concludes
[[Page 2013]]
that the exemption described above would continue to satisfy the
underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1). The details of the staff's
safety evaluation will be provided with the letter to the licensee
approving the exemption to the regulation.
The proposed action will not significantly increase the probability
or consequences of accidents, no changes are being made in the types or
amounts of effluents that may be released off site, and there is no
significant increase in occupational or public radiation exposure.
Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental impacts
associated with the proposed action.
With regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed
action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites. It does
not affect nonradiological plant effluents and has no other
environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant
nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed
action.
Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action
As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered
denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action'' alternative).
Denial of the application would result in no change in current
environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of the proposed action
and the alternative action are similar.
Alternative Use of Resources
The action does not involve the use of any different resource than
those previously considered in the Final Environmental Statement for
the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Unit Nos. 1 and 2, dated May 1973.
Agencies and Persons Consulted
On December 15, 2003, the staff consulted with the California State
official, Mr. Steve Hsu of the Radiologic Health Branch of the
California Department of Health Services, regarding the environmental
impact of the proposed action. The State official had no comments.
Finding of No Significant Impact
On the basis of the environmental assessment, the NRC concludes
that the proposed action will not have a significant effect on the
quality of the human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined
not to prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed
action.
For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the
licensee's letter dated October 8, 2003, as supplemented on November
25, 2003. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the
NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North,
Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically
from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site,
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not
have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents
located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by
telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to
pdr@nrc.gov.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th day of January 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stephen Dembek,
Chief, Section 2, Project Directorate IV, Division of Licensing Project
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-680 Filed 1-12-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
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16 Rutland Herald: Vt. Yankee settlement questioned
January 13, 2004
By SUSAN SMALLHEER Herald Staff
MONTPELIER - Members of the Public Service Board Monday
questioned the proposed $20 million Entergy Nuclear settlement,
suggesting that the Legislature should be involved in how the
money is spent and that more benefit should be felt in southern
Vermont.
Entergy Nuclear reached the $20 million settlement with the
Douglas administration in November, finally gaining state support
for the controversial 20 percent power increase at Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant.
After saying for months that the project did not meet state
criteria for "public good," since the state's utilities and
ratepayers could be left holding the bag if the reactor proved
less reliable under the power increase, the Department of Public
Service endorsed _the controversial project.
Under the settlement, Entergy could contribute up to $20 million
over nine years, including $8 million toward Gov. James Douglas'
Clean and Clear Water Initiative, whose main goal is ridding Lake
Champlain of algae.
Additionally, $4.5 million could be paid out to Vermont utilities
to cushion rate shock in the event the plant does shut down
unexpectedly because of the power increase, and $2.1 million
would be used to help Vermonters with their heating bills.
Finally, $200,000 would be spent on economic development and
marketing.
The deal has been criticized for not targeting the benefit toward
Vermonters who bear the burden of living with a nuclear reactor
in their neighborhood.
Entergy Nuclear is expected to clear $20 million in profit on the
additional 110 megawatts of power, the state has estimated.
Deena Frankel, an analyst with the Department of Public Service,
said the department had sought some economic benefit from
Entergy, since the new power is not expected to be used by
Vermont ratepayers.
"Is this some version of 'The Price is Right?'" asked Raymond
Shadis, staff adviser to the anti-nuclear New England Coalition.
Frankel, who did not participate in the settlement negotiations,
was asked by Chairman Michael Dworkin whether there should be a
"linkage" between Entergy's settlement and the residents near the
plant.
"Some benefit should be assigned there," Dworkin said. "The
department's MOU (memorandum of understanding) doesn't offer
any."
Frankel said that 60 percent of the Clean and Clear Water funds
would be eligible for statewide projects, and southern Vermont
projects are free to apply.
"The board can make a different choice," she said.
Dworkin, along with fellow members David Coen and John Burke,
asked why other people, including the Legislature, weren't
consulted in the decision on how the money would be spent.
Burke questioned whether members of the Legislature wouldn't
reduce any state appropriation to the cleanup of Lake Champlain
to reflect the Entergy cash.
The bulk of the $8 million is targeted for one of Gov. James
Douglas' new pet projects, the Clean and Clear Initiative, which
is targeted at cleaning up phosphorus in Lake Champlain, but will
also include environmental work throughout the state.
Immediately after the deal was announced in November, House
Speaker Rep. Walter Freed, R-Dorset, and Senate President Pro Tem
Peter Welch, D-Windsor, called a press conference and criticized
the deal as not doing anything to help the Vermont communities
that live with Vermont Yankee day in and day out. They suggested
the money be used toward economic development in that section of
the state.
Dworkin said that the Public Service Board, which must approve
the $20 million settlement, really didn't have the expertise in
state budget matters that the Legislature did.
And Dworkin pointed out that it appears that Entergy Nuclear
doesn't care where the money is spent by state government, and is
mostly concerned about the timing of the payments.
The $20 million could prove to be less than that amount; it is
based in large part on the plant's generating record in the next
several years.
Frankel was on the stand for the bulk of the day. Also testifying
Monday in the first of four days of hearings on the $60
million-plus project was Arnold Gunderson, a former nuclear
industry executive turned whistleblower, who is concerned that
the 31-year-old reactor can't withstand the additional pressures
of the additional power generation.
Attorneys for Entergy Nuclear had tried to get most of
Gunderson's testimony thrown out; he is testifying on behalf of
the New England Coalition, a Brattleboro-based anti-nuclear
group.
But the board ruled that Gunderson's testimony, along with that
of two other New England Coalition experts, David Lochbaum of the
Union of Concerned Scientists of Washington, D.C., and Paul
Blanch, another nuclear industry executive/whistleblower, would
be heard.
Gunderson, who now teaches at Burlington High School, had
prepared a blistering critique of the so-called power uprate and
its environmental effects, saying that the state had failed to do
even a baseline environmental review of the effects.
Burke questioned Gunderson on his testimony, in which he stated
that Vernon schoolchildren - the elementary school is across the
street from the plant - would receive increased doses of
radiation because of the power increase.
Gunderson said that one way the children would be more vulnerable
was from the expected dry storage of spent nuclear fuel in
canisters outside the plant. Those canisters or casks emit
radiation, Gunderson noted.
Vermont Yankee will run out of storage for its old fuel in 2008,
and the power increase is expected to make that shortage even
worse.
Gunderson also noted that he and the other New England Coalition
witnesses had to sort through 390,000 pages of documents, which
Entergy had initially failed to turn over.
He noted that Entergy officials had their own concerns about
"fuel reliability."
The reliability of the plant's operation is a big factor in the
power increase; other reactors which have recently increased
power ran into costly reliability problems.
Gunderson also pointed out that a chemical biocide -
glutaraldehyde - that Entergy Nuclear plans on using in its
cooling towers, could aggravate schoolchildren's asthma and he
noted that the manufacturer advised against "generating aerosols
and mists."
The biocide would be contained in the large plumes of steam that
come out of the plant during the warmer months.
Because the plant would be generating additional heat in the
power increase, Gunderson noted that an additional 200,000
gallons of water containing the biocide would be pumped into the
Vernon countryside a day.
Entergy Nuclear attorney Victoria Brown argued that Gunderson,
Lochbaum and Blanch's testimony was not timely nor relevant.
But when it came for Brown's turn to cross examine Gunderson to
try to rebut his statements, she asked him a minimum of
questions.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
Copyright © 2003 and Barre-Montpelier
*****************************************************************
17 Xinhuanet: Russia welcomes DPRK readiness for freezing nuclear activities
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-13 19:51:33
MOSCOW, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov welcomed on Tuesday the Democratic People's Republic of
Korea's (DPRK) readiness to freeze its nuclear activities and
urged the United States to respond "constructively."
"We welcome Pyongyang's readiness to freeze its nuclear
program,Ivanov said in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, where
he was on an official visit."
"Undoubtedly, this is a step forward, which allows us to hope
for a constructive response from the United States," he was
quotedby the Itar-Tass and Interfax news agencies as saying.
Pyongyang said that it is set to refrain from testing and
producing nuclear weapons and stop operating nuclear power
industry for a peaceful purpose as first-phase measures of the
package solution.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell has called Pyongyang's
announcement "a positive step" which may help concerned parties
toresume talks designed to settle the nuclear issue.
Ivanov expressed satisfaction over Powell's response, saying
"this can provide a sound foundation for continuing the
negotiatingprocess."
Ivanov repeated Russia's stance on the settlement of nuclear
problem on the Korean Peninsula through "exclusively peaceful
means and through negotiations taking mutual concerns into
consideration."
"A nuclear-free Korean Peninsula, the peninsula's further
participation in the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the
securityof all states located there, and the development of
peaceful cooperation in North-East Asia are the interests of
Russia and other countries," Ivanov said. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
18 Toronto Star: Bruce unit's return to service short-lived
TheStar.com -
Tue. Jan. 13, 2004. | Updated at 08:06 PM
Nuclear reactor shut down 3 days after restart
Had been idled since '98; could be back up today
JOHN SPEARS BUSINESS REPORTER
The latest nuclear reactor to return to service from a prolonged
shutdown has been forced to shut down again after three days of
operation.
Unit 3 at the Bruce A nuclear station shut down at 6:15 a.m.
yesterday, said Duncan Hawthorne, CEO of Bruce Power LP, which
operates the plant.
He said the shutdown was triggered when sensors detected electric
current leaking from an electric cable in a heat pump.
The malfunction triggered the unit's shutdown system, which drops
shutdown rods into the reactor core. The rods halt the nuclear
reaction by absorbing neutrons, which are the particles that
split uranium atoms in the reactor fuel.
But Hawthorne said the problem is "not a big deal" and should be
quickly corrected.
Unit 3 had been taken out of service in 1998 along with the three
other units at Bruce A. Unit 4 returned to service in October.
There are no current plans to restart the two remaining units.
Unit 3, which can churn out up to 750 megawatts of power, was
running at about 50 per cent power when the shutdown was
triggered, Hawthorne said. A 750-megawatt plant can supply about
250,000 homes.
Coincidentally, Bruce Power had been preparing for a mandatory
test of the shutdown system when yesterday's shutdown was
triggered. The test, which monitors the reactor's behaviour
during a shutdown, is required by the Canadian Nuclear Safety
Commission.
Because the monitoring equipment for the test was in place,
yesterday's real-life shutdown should be able to provide the same
data as a test shutdown, Hawthorne said. "It just means that we
started the test earlier than we thought we would."
The safety commission will examine the reactor's performance
before the reactor is permitted to power up again, but Hawthorne
said the unit could be back in service today.
Both Bruce Power and Ontario Power Generation Inc. have taken
longer than expected in returning nuclear reactors to service
after long lay-ups.
Bruce Power had hoped to get both units 3 and 4 back in service
last spring. Ontario Power Generation was nearly three years late
returning the first reactor to service at its Pickering A
station, shut down in 1997.
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
19 Brattleboro Reformer: VY hearings turn to cash, pollution
January 13, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
By TOBY HENRY Reformer Staff
MONTPELIER -- As the last round of Public Service Board hearings
on Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant's proposed power increase
began Monday, discussions focused on the distribution of $20
million and a witness's testimony that the boost could spread
industrial poisons.
James Matteau, executive director of the Windham Regional
Commission, directed his questions to the Department of Public
Service's consumer affairs director, Deena Frankel, in trying to
sketch out which state organizations would benefit from the $20
million that Yankee owner Entergy has agreed to pay.
According to an agreement reached with the department last year,
Entergy will provide the money to a variety of state projects,
including $10 million for Lake Champlain clean-up efforts, in
exchange for the department's support of a 20-percent power boost
for the Vernon plant. The department had previously withheld its
support on the grounds that the "uprate" did not provide a clear
economic benefit for Vermonters.
The Lake Champlain clean-up money has generated some criticism
from Matteau and Brattleboro area residents, who have argued that
it would make more sense to spend the money on the Connecticut
River, whose water the 31-year-old plant uses for cooling.
Frankel told Matteau that 60 percent of the "environmental
benefit fund" would go to sources throughout the state. Pressed
for an example, she cited only the state's Better Backroads
program, an initiative to help preserve gravel roads near lakes.
Matteau also said he wondered why the state Agency of Natural
Resources was not "present and accounted for," noting that,
according to state regulations in Act 248, the agency is directed
to appear as a party and provide evidence in decisions which may
have an effect on statewide environmental issues.
In conversations during a board recess, Matteau said he was
considering filing an objection to the ANR's absence.
Later, former nuclear executive Arnie Gundersen, a witness for
the anti-nuclear New England Coalition, said drift from the
plant's cooling tower could increase after the power is
increases. On at least one occasion, the plant has used nalco, an
anti-bacterial agent containing gluteraldehyde, to keep down the
growth of micro-organisms in its cooling system, and Gundersen
warned that a post-uprate plant could distribute quantities of
the chemical in excess of the state limit of 0.2 parts per
million.
In December, Entergy itself submitted evidence that there would
be an increase in drift with greater power output. Gundersen said
that as the "plume" of steam rises from the plant's cooling
tower, the chemical, which can cause skin irritation and
breathing problems, would eventually reach a dust-like, pure form
after the water has evaporated. Nalco is not recomended for
situations where it is likely to be dispersed in this aerosol
manner, he said, adding that it could spread over a
three-quarter-mile area that would encompass the nearby Vernon
Elementary School.
Responding to questions from board member John Burke, Gundersen
said the drift eliminator on the plant's tower array, a device
used to limit the speed and spread of the plume, is probably
already "maxed out" at the present power level. A drift
eliminator with a higher operating capacity could help limit the
spread of the disperesed chemical, Gundersen said.
Board Chairman Michael Dworkin later said he was concerned that
the costs to ratepayers in the event of a plant shutdown before
the operating license expires in 2012 could run very high.
Dworkin said that calculations indicate increased ratepayer costs
of $15 million to $21.1 million for a shutdown of the plant in
the last 18 months of its operating life.
He added that these shutdown estimates assume that dry cask
storage -- a method of storing nuclear waste on-site -- will have
been granted to the plant, even though the plant has yet to apply
for such a permit.
If the plant does not pursue a dry-cask storage application, it
may have to close before the end of the decade because it has
exhausted all available space in its on-site spent fuel pool.
Dworkin noted that the high ratepayer expenses associated with
such a situation should create "a significant degree of concern."
Associated Press
*****************************************************************
20 Globe and Mail: Electrical problem closes down Bruce reactor
[globeandmail.com]
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2004
By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
After being restarted on Thursday following a six-year shutdown,
one of Ontario's nuclear reactors abruptly closed yesterday
morning because of an electrical fault.
The problem occurred at the Bruce nuclear generating station,
where a short circuit in a cable caused the plant's unit three
reactor to unexpectedly go off-line.
The reactor was mothballed in 1998 after years of poor operating
performance.
Company officials at Bruce Power say they hope to restart the
reactor again today, but the shutdown comes at a sensitive time.
Ontario is about to face its worst cold snap in years, with two
of the province's other 15 nuclear reactors off-line for repairs
or planned maintenance. In total, the three plants have enough
capacity to meet the needs of about 700,000 homes.
The provincial agency that operates Ontario's power market, the
Independent Electricity Market Operator, says it expects near
record electricity usage later this week if temperatures turn out
to be as cold as forecast, but it says generating plants should
be able to handle these needs without brownouts or blackouts.
"We're not anticipating any problems meeting that demand,"
spokesman Terry Young said.
Ontario has had tight power supplies for much of the past two
years and extreme weather usually causes nervousness about
shortages. But Mr. Young said Ontario can import power to meet
high demand and shortage fears should be eased because utilities
have expanded generating capacity by about 7 per cent in the past
year.
Besides the unit three reactor, another reactor at Bruce is not
running because of equipment problems, and a third reactor, at
the Pickering station operated by Ontario Power Generation, has
been disconnected from the electricity grid since November for
routine maintenance.
Environment Canada, in its latest five-day forecast, is
predicting blustery temperatures dipping to -25 degrees on
Thursday in the Toronto area and even lower in other parts of the
province.
Bruce Power spokesman Steve Cannon blamed unit three's shutdown
on a short circuit in an electrical cable connected to a pump,
which caused a circuit breaker to trip. "This was not a major
problem," he said.
He said the company has regulatory approval to operate the
reactor at about 50 per cent of full power while it is being
restarted and that he expects station operators to turn the power
plant back on today .
Bruce's unit eight reactor is currently shut to repair what the
company calls "erosion" in three steam generators.
Mr. Cannon says these repairs have been completed and that the
company is waiting for approval from federal nuclear regulators
to restart the reactor.
Ontario Power Generation idled its No. 6 reactor at Pickering for
regular maintenance in November.
© 2004 Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
21 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
FR Doc 04-678
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices] [Page 2014] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja04-106] [[Page 2014]]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for public
comment a proposed revision of a guide in its Regulatory Guide
Series. Regulatory Guides are developed to describe and make
available to the public such information as methods acceptable to
the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's
regulations, techniques used by the staff in evaluating specific
problems or postulated accidents, and data needed by the staff in
its review of applications for permits and licenses.
The draft guide is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-
7003, which should be mentioned in all correspondence concerning
this draft guide. Draft Regulatory Guide DG-7003, ``Standard
Format and Content of Part 71 Applications for Approval of
Packaging for Radioactive Material,'' is the proposed Revision 2
of Regulatory Guide 7.9. This revision is being developed to
provide guidance on the preparation of applications for approval
of packaging to be used for the shipment of Type B and fissile
radioactive material.
This draft guide has not received complete staff approval and
does not represent an official NRC staff position.
Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting
data. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Rules and
Directives Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555; or they may be
hand-delivered to the Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Copies of
comments received may be examined at the NRC Public Document
Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Comments will be most
helpful if received by March 9, 2004.
You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive
rulemaking web site through the NRC home page
(http://www@nrc.gov">http://www@nrc.gov). This site provides the
ability to upload comments as files (any format) if your web
browser supports that function. For information about the
interactive rulemaking web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher,
(301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@NRC.GOV. For technical information
about Draft Regulatory Guide DG-7003, contact Ms. N.L. Osgood at
(301) 415-8513 (e- mail NLO@NRC.GOV). Although a deadline is
given for comments on these draft guides, comments and
suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides
currently being developed or improvements in all published guides
are encouraged at any time.
Regulatory guides are available for inspection at the NRC's
Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD; the
PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555;
telephone (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4209; fax (301) 415-3548;
e-mail PDR@NRC.GOV. Requests for single copies of draft or final
regulatory guides (which may be reproduced) or for placement on
an automatic distribution list for single copies of future draft
guides in specific divisions should be made in writing to the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555,
Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, or by
fax to (301) 415-2289; e-mail DISTRIBUTION@NRC.GOV. Telephone
requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory guides are not
copyrighted, and NRC approval is not required to reproduce them.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd day of
December 2003.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Mabel Lee, Director, Program Management, Project Development and
Support, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 04-678 Filed 1-12-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-U
*****************************************************************
22 NRC: Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station; Notice of Withdrawal of
FR Doc 04-679
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices] [Page 2011-2012] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja04-102]
Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has granted the
request of FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (the licensee)
to withdraw its December 17, 2001, as supplemented by letter
dated June 4, 2002, application for proposed amendment to
Facility Operating License No. NPF-3 for the Davis-Besse Nuclear
Power Station, Unit No. 1, located in Ottawa County, Ohio.
The proposed amendment would have modified the facility technical
specifications (TS) pertaining to TS 3/4.3.1, ``Reactor
Protection System (RPS) Instrumentation,'' to delete an Action
involving either reducing core thermal power and the high neutron
flux reactor trip setpoint, or monitoring quadrant power tilt
when an RPS channel is inoperable. Additionally, changes were
[[Page 2012]] proposed to the content and format of TS Tables
3.3-1 and 4.3-1 to enhance TS clarity.
The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of
Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on
November 25, 2003 (68 FR 66136). However, by letter dated
November 26, 2003, the licensee withdrew the amendment request.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendment dated December 17, 2001, as
supplemented by letter dated June 4, 2002, and the licensee's
letter dated November 26, 2003, which withdrew the application
for license amendment.
Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's
Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North,
Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor),
Rockville, Maryland.
Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from
the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web
site, .
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the
NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, or
301-415-4737 or by email to .
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 5th day of January, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stephen P. Sands, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate
III, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear
Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-679 Filed 1-12-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-U
*****************************************************************
23 NRC: Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Diablo Canyon Power Plant,
FR Doc 04-680
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices] [Page 2012-2013] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja04-104]
Unit Nos. 1 and 2; Environmental Assessment and Finding of No
Significant Impact The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)
is considering issuance of an exemption from title 10 of the Code
of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) part 50, section 50.68 for
Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-80 and DPR-82, issued to
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the licensee), for operation of
the Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP), Unit Nos. 1 and 2,
respectively, located in San Luis Obispo County, California.
Therefore, as required by 10 CFR 51.21, the NRC is issuing this
environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact.
Environmental Assessment Identification of the Proposed Action
The proposed action would exempt the licensee from the
requirements of 10 CFR 50.68, ``Criticality Accident
Requirements,'' for handling the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents
of the Holtec HI-STORM 100 Cask System.
The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's
application dated October 8, 2003, as supplemented on November
25, 2003.
The Need for the Proposed Action 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) sets forth
the following requirement that must be met, in lieu of a
monitoring system capable of detecting criticality events: Plant
procedures shall prohibit the handling and storage at any one
time of more fuel assemblies than have been determined to be
safely subcritical under the most adverse moderation conditions
feasible by unborated water.
The licensee is unable to satisfy the above requirement for
handling of the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents of the Holtec
HI-STORM 100 Cask System. Section 50.12(a) allows licensees to
apply for an exemption from the requirements of part 50 if the
regulation is not necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of
the rule and other conditions are met. The licensee has stated
that compliance with 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1) is not necessary for
handling the 10 CFR part 72 licensed contents of the cask system
to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC has
completed its evaluation of the proposed action and concludes
[[Page 2013]] that the exemption described above would continue
to satisfy the underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.68(b)(1). The
details of the staff's safety evaluation will be provided with
the letter to the licensee approving the exemption to the
regulation.
The proposed action will not significantly increase the
probability or consequences of accidents, no changes are being
made in the types or amounts of effluents that may be released
off site, and there is no significant increase in occupational or
public radiation exposure. Therefore, there are no significant
radiological environmental impacts associated with the proposed
action.
With regard to potential nonradiological impacts, the proposed
action does not have a potential to affect any historic sites.
It does not affect nonradiological plant effluents and has no
other environmental impact. Therefore, there are no significant
nonradiological environmental impacts associated with the
proposed action.
Accordingly, the NRC concludes that there are no significant
environmental impacts associated with the proposed action.
Environmental Impacts of the Alternatives to the Proposed Action
As an alternative to the proposed action, the staff considered
denial of the proposed action (i.e., the ``no-action''
alternative). Denial of the application would result in no change
in current environmental impacts. The environmental impacts of
the proposed action and the alternative action are similar.
Alternative Use of Resources The action does not involve the use
of any different resource than those previously considered in the
Final Environmental Statement for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant,
Unit Nos. 1 and 2, dated May 1973. Agencies and Persons Consulted
On December 15, 2003, the staff consulted with the California
State official, Mr. Steve Hsu of the Radiologic Health Branch of
the California Department of Health Services, regarding the
environmental impact of the proposed action. The State official
had no comments.
Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the
environmental assessment, the NRC concludes that the proposed
action will not have a significant effect on the quality of the
human environment. Accordingly, the NRC has determined not to
prepare an environmental impact statement for the proposed
action.
For further details with respect to the proposed action, see the
licensee's letter dated October 8, 2003, as supplemented on
November 25, 2003. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a
fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One
White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike
(first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records
will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading
Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site, . Persons who do not
have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by
e-mail to .
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th day of January 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stephen Dembek, Chief, Section 2, Project Directorate IV,
Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear
Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-680 Filed 1-12-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
24 NRC: Tennessee Valley Authority, Notice of Receipt of Application for
FR Doc 04-681
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices] [Page 2012] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja04-103]
Renewal of Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, Facility
Operating License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and DPR-68 for an
Additional 20- Year Period The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC or Commission) has received an application, dated January 6,
2004, from the Tennessee Valley Authority, filed pursuant to
Section 104b of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 10
CFR part 54, to renew Operating License Nos. DPR-33, DPR-52, and
DPR-68 for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3,
respectively. Renewal of the licenses would authorize the
applicant to operate the facilities for an additional 20-year
period. The current operating licenses for the Browns Ferry
Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, expire on December 20, 2013,
June 28, 2014, and July 2, 2016, respectively. The Browns Ferry
Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3, are boiling-water reactors
designed by General Electric Corporation, and are located in
Limestone County, Alabama. The acceptability of the tendered
application for docketing, and other matters, including an
opportunity to request a hearing, will be addressed in subsequent
Federal Register notices.
Copies of the application are available for public inspection at
the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland, or electronically from the Publicly Available Records
(PARS) component of the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS) under accession number ML040060355. The
ADAMS Public Electronic Reading Room is accessible from the NRC
web site at .
In addition, the application is available on the NRC web page at
, while the application is under review. Persons who do not have
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC's PDR
Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by email to .
The staff has also verified that a copy of the license renewal
application for the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant, Units 1, 2 and 3
has been provided to the Athens-Limestone Public Library, at 405
South Street E, Athens, Alabama, 35611.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th day of January, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental
Impacts, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of
Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-681 Filed 1-12-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
25 NRC: SUNSHINE ACT MEETING
FR Doc 04-766
[Federal Register: January 13, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 8)]
[Notices] [Page 2013] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja04-105]
Agency Holding the Meeting: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
DATE: Weeks of January 12, 19, 26, February 2, 9, 16, 2004.
Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
Status: Public and closed.
Matters to be Considered: Week of January 12, 2004 Wednesday,
January 14, 2004 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Status of Office of Chief
Information Officer Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public
Meeting). (Contact: Jacqueline Silber, (301) 415-7330).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov. Week of January 19, 2004--Tentative
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 1:30 p.m. Discussion of Security
Issues (Closed--Ex. 1). Week of January 26, 2004--Tentative There
are no meetings scheduled for the Week of January 26, 2004.
Week of February 2, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the Week of February 2, 2004.
Week of February 9, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the Week of February 9, 2004.
Week of February 16, 2004--Tentative Wednesday, February 18, 2004
9:30 a.m. Briefing on Status of Office of Chief Financial Officer
Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting). (Contact:
Edward L. New, (301) 415-5646).
*The schedule for Commission meeting is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call
(recording)--(301) 415- 1292. Contact person for more
information: Timothy J. Frye, (301) 415- 1651.
* * * * * Additional Information By a vote of 3-0 on January 6,
the Commission determined pursuant to U.S.C. 552b(e) and Sec.
9.107(a) of the Commission's rules that ``Affirmation of
SECY-03-0224 (Sequoyah Fuels Corp; State of Oklahoma's Petition
for Review of LBP-03-25)'' be held on January 8, and on less than
one week's notice to the public.
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html. * * *
* * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301) 415-1969). In addition,
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic
message to dkw@nrc.gov. Dated: January 8, 2004.
Timothy J. Frye, Technical Coordinator, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 04-766 Filed 1-9-04; 12:06 pm] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
26 Germant Plants Centers For Nuke Plant Accident Victims
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 21:20:17 -0500
News magazine Der Spiegel reported in an advance
copy of its Monday
issue that Germany planned to establish seven
centers across the country
in which people in a radius of up to 100
kilometers (60 miles) could be
treated in case of a nuclear emergency.
If it's good enough for Germany it should be
good enough for the USA and the other 42 countries
with NPPs as well as those countries within 10,000
miles of any other country with an NPP- Chernobyl
fallout caused officials in Oregon to warn the
public not to rely on rain water if that were
their man source of drinking water. This being
7,000 to 8,000 downwind of Chernobyl.
Write your local papers and and ask why if
Germany is doing this, your community, state,
province, prefecture, country, etc. isn't doing
so. Not to beat a dead horse but most people,
other species and the rest of the environment are
nuclear guineapigs to the nuclear industry.
Military connection or not.
http://www.spacewar.com
http://snipurl.com/3shj
http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040111164235.3sourdwz
.html
Germany buys anti-radiation pills for people near
nuclear plants
BERLIN (AFP) Jan 11, 2004
Germany has bought 137 million potassium iodide
tablets to protect
people living near nuclear power plants from
radiation exposure in case
of disaster, the environment ministry said Sunday.
A ministry spokesman said the move was unrelated
to current terrorism
fears but was based on a recommendation by
radiation protection authorities.
Potassium iodide is thought to protect the thyroid
gland from absorbing
radiation.
News magazine Der Spiegel reported in an advance
copy of its Monday
issue that Germany planned to establish seven
centers across the country
in which people in a radius of up to 100
kilometers (60 miles) could be
treated in case of a nuclear emergency.
The majority of the tablets would be available at
such centers.
Germany has agreed to phase out its 19 nuclear
power plants over the
next two decades due to safety concerns.
All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence
France-Presse.
*****************************************************************
27 Vaccines Linked to Gulf War Syndrome
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:47:07 -0600 (CST)
Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE):
Free Americans Proclaiming Total Emancipation and Working Towards
Democracy. NOTE: Thanks to truthout.org for this. -- kl,
pp
Secret Document Links Vaccines to Gulf War Syndrome: Report
Agence France-Presse
Monday 12 January 2004
Medical problems linked to the war in Iraq, dubbed Gulf War
syndrome, were probably caused by vaccines administered to soldiers
before their departure to the region, according to the findings of a
medical report revealed in British newspaper The Times.
The confidential report by senior army specialist Lieutenant
Colonel Graham Howe, who examined a British soldier who suffered
osteoporosis and depression after the Gulf War, found that "secret"
injections he received prior to his expected deployment to the Gulf
"most probably led to the development of autoimmune-induced
osteoporosis".
The theory has added credibility as the soldier in question,
ex-Corporal Alex Izett, did not end up going to the Gulf as his
regiment, based in Germany, was not deployed there.
Last year Izett was granted a 50 per cent invalidity pension by the
British War Pensions Agency, the newspaper reported.
The Defence Ministry, while denying the vaccine claim, has not
challenged that award.
A copy of the medical report, dated September 22 2001 but never
made public, was revealed to the paper by Izett himself.
Gulf War Syndrome is a term popularly applied to a vast range of
symptoms, from memory loss, chronic fatigue and dizziness to swollen
joints, depression and lack of concentration.
About 100,000 US troops as well as thousands of British, Canadian
and French troops who took part in the 1990-1991 operation against
Iraq have reported one or more of these problems.
But the British Government has refused to recognise its existence.
Veterans' groups on both sides of the Atlantic are convinced that a
host of physical and psychological ailments are linked to military
service during the 1991 war.
About 45,000 British soldiers who served in the war were given
wide-ranging vaccinations to help them cope with the possible effects
of chemical or biological attack, which some doctors give as a reason
for the host of symptoms the soldiers have displayed.
===========================================================================
===============
) : t r u t h o u t 2004
*****************************************************************
28 EUpolitix - Nuclear battle underway
MEPs on Tuesday invoked the wrath of green groups by voting
through a controversial package of nuclear safety laws.
Parliamentarians were voting on the first reading of three
proposals on nuclear waste, nuclear installations, and loans for
nuclear power stations.
But environmentalists claim that the waste proposal promotes an
â€out of sight, out of mind’ approach to nuclear waste, rather
than looking for a long term solution.
And they complain that parliament has taken out a clause in the
safety proposal that would have obliged member states to set up a
separate legal fund to cover the cost if decommissioning nuclear
power plants.
“The European parliament has fallen into transport commissioner
Loyola de Palacio’s PR trap”, said a spokesman for
environmental group Greenpeace.
“They are supporting an empty directive on safety and a
dangerous one on waste.”
European Commission sources say the package will in any case
probably not make it to a council meeting before the new member
states join in May, when it may be even harder to push through.
The proposals may in any case run into difficulty with member
states’ governments, with the UK, Germany, Sweden and Finland
forming a blocking minority to prevent it being approved.
Commission sources say that Italy may soon increase the size of
this minority by adding its objection to the chorus.
And after enlargement Lithuania and the Czech Republic look
likely to support the objectors.
Concerns centre around fears that the nuclear package may
compromise the powers of national nuclear authorities.
Published: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:26:47 GMT+01 Emily Smith “The
European Parliament has fallen into transport commissioner Loyola
de Palacio’s PR trap." Greenpeace
©2004 EUpolitix.com
*****************************************************************
29 [CMEP] Yucca Mountain Court Date January 14 and Chair of Yucca
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:18:50 -0600 (CST)
***please forward widely***
***apologies for cross-posting***
January 13, 2004
this email contains two (2) items: an alert and a statement.
*** A L E R T ***
DC Circuit Court of Appeals to Hear Yucca Mountain Oral Arguments
January 14
The culmination of nearly two decades of fighting by the State of
Nevada and environmental groups from around the country against the
proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain will take
place tomorrow with three hours of oral arguments in a courtroom in
Washington, DC. The arguments will cover six separate cases which have
been consolidated and deemed "complex" by the court, allowing more time
than usual for the three-judge panel to ask questions. The legal briefs
for the arguments have already been submitted, which is why such a
complex topic can be covered in such a short time.
Public Citizen is a co-plaintiff in the case against the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, charging that in drawing site
boundaries, the EPA violated the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, the Energy
Policy Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act; EPA arbitrarily
gerrymandered the Yucca site boundary to meet radiation release
standards; and the rule arbitrarily limits the regulatory compliance
period to a time that precedes the time of the known peak hazard from
the repository. Attorney Geoff Fettus, with the Natural Resources
Defense Council, is representing the environmental groups in this case.
While the verdicts are unlikely to be known for as long as six months,
a victory in any of the six cases could force the U.S. Department of
Energy to abandon Yucca Mountain as a potential site for a high-level
nuclear waste repository. We are optimistic.
For more information on the six cases, see a summary prepared by the
State of Nevada posted at:
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_waste/hi-level/yucca/
articles.cfm?ID=10882
For more information on why DOE's Yucca Mountain plan is so dangerous,
go to:
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/nuclear_waste/hi-level/yucca/
========================================
*** S T A T E M E N T ***
Chair of Yucca Mountain Oversight Panel Resigns Over Conflict of
Interest
Keeping with this email's Yucca Mountain theme, we bring you a bit of
older news that is still an important victory for independent oversight
of DOE's efforts to store nuclear waste at Yucca. The Nuclear Waste
Technical Review Board is an independent government panel. According to
its website, www.nwtrb.gov, "Its sole purpose is to provide independent
scientific and technical oversight of the U.S. program for management
and disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel from
civilian nuclear power plants." Following is a statement from Public
Citizen on the resignation of Dr. Michael Corradini, the panel's chair,
after he was accused of bias for testifying to Congress in favor of
Yucca in 2001 and publishing a pro-Yucca opinion piece in a Wisconsin
newspaper in October 2003.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Brendan Hoffman (202) 454-5130
Michele Boyd (202) 454-5134
January 1, 2004
Chairman's Resignation Good News for Good Science
Statement by Wenonah Hauter
Director, Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment
Program
The resignation of Michael Corradini from the Nuclear Waste Technical
Review Board is a welcome resolution to the ongoing conflict-of-interest
scandal. His clear bias in favor of Yucca Mountain as the site for the
country's first permanent high-level nuclear waste repository, apparent
even before his appointment, has tainted much of the good work done by
the board's ten other members done over the past year and a half. As
the only independent government panel studying the feasibility of the
Yucca Mountain repository, an unbiased and critical eye is necessary to
ensure the government's decision is supported by scientific evidence.
Perhaps most regrettable is the fact that Corradini was appointed in
the first place, even after having testifying to his support of the
Yucca plan in front of Congress. It should not have taken him this long
to resign after other board members began calling in April for that to
happen, fearful that the panel's credibility and independence were in
jeopardy. In appointing a new chairperson, President Bush should seek
the input of the other NWTRB members. With the U.S Department of
Energy's submittal of its Yucca Mountain license application expected in
less than a year, we can't afford to waste time with more biased input.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization
based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit
www.citizen.org.
**********
If you would like to be removed from the CMEP ListServ, send an email to listserv@listserver.citizen.org with the words "unsubscribe CMEP" in the message.
Questions about the CMEP ListServ can be directed to CMEP-request@LISTSERVER.CITIZEN.ORG.
To learn more about this and other Public Citizen Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program campaigns, visit our website at http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
-Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
*****************************************************************
30 Knox News: Waste site cleanup successful
By News Sentinel staff
January 13, 2004
The cleanup of a 20-acre waste site near the Y-12 nuclear
weapons plant in Oak Ridge has significantly reduced the area's
groundwater contamination, according to the U.S. Department of
Energy.
The environmental project involved the excavation of about
80,000 cubic yards of waste from the "Boneyard/Burnyard" area.
The site is about a mile and a half west of the Y-12 National
Security Complex.
Hazardous wastes were burned and buried at the old site between
1943 and 1970, and over the years some of the materials leeched
into the groundwater.
DOE officials said the cleanup effort produced a measurable
reduction in the amount of radioactive uranium in surface waters.
Before the project, the average uranium concentration was 400
picocuries per liter of water. Ten months after the cleanup, that
level had dropped to about 8 picocuries per liter, which is
within drinking-water standards.
"We are pleased that this remedy has performed as promised," DOE
cleanup manager Steve McCracken said in a statement released to
news media.
Sevenson Environmental and STEP Inc. performed the cleanup tasks
under subcontracts with Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE's environmental
manager in Oak Ridge.
Copyright 2004, Knoxville News-Sentinel Co.
*****************************************************************
31 Salt Lake Tribune: Utah legislators get lots of freebies from lobbyists
January 13, 2004
By Dan Harrie
The Salt Lake Tribune
What does electricity monopoly PacifiCorp have in common
with Utah soda-pop distributors and radioactive-waste disposal
company Envirocare?
All put hired lobbyists on Utah's Capitol Hill during the
annual legislative session and all are generous with freebies to
state lawmakers.
The three were among last year's Top 10 purveyors of free
meals, Jazz tickets and golf rounds, according to financial
disclosures filed by 5 p.m. Monday. The legal deadline for the
filings is midnight; any report mailed to the state elections
office with a Monday postmark will be considered filed in time.
Utah Power parent PacifiCorp, which of late has scrambled to
deflect a barrage of public animosity because of widespread
power outages in December, spent $5,152.86 on goodies for
legislators, making it the No. 4 big spender.
The Utah Soft Drink Association was second, plying lawmakers
with more than $11,000 worth of food and (nonalcoholic) drink
during its annual legislative reception. And Envirocare ranked
ninth, spending $3,064.61 on meals and a couple of tickets to
political and business fund-raisers for legislators.
As usual, the University of Utah was the top gift-giver,
laying out some $18,190.62 for lawmakers and other officials,
including school trustees. The single biggest expense is the
school's annual legislative chili bash. But it also doles out a
fair share of free basketball and football tickets.
Individual lobbyists who sell their persuasive powers to
lots of different clients also made the list. Rob Jolley -- who
represents such corporate giants as AT and Qwest -- was the
third most prolific spender by picking up the tab for $5,724.06
worth of food and entertainment for state officials.
Former state Sens. Blaze Wharton and Paul Rogers, who now
are partners in a lobby firm, spent more than $8,000 between
them. But the lobbyists for such interests as Delta Air Lines,
The Boyer Co. and Salt Lake County Mayor Nancy Workman reported
separately, so the two ranked in the No. 6 and 7 spots,
respectively.
The Deseret Morning News was the No. 8 on the list, giving
away $3,375 worth of newspapers on Capitol Hill.
Utah law allows unlimited spending by lobbyists on elected
officials, just as it permits campaign contributions without
restriction.
Lobbyist spending easily topped $100,000, the bulk of it
during the 45-day annual legislative session in January and
February.
Rep. Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake City, once again is proposing
to try to plug the dike of lobbyist gift-giving -- a measure he
has pushed for several years without success.
This time he has changed his legislation from an outright
ban on such gifts to one limiting them to a value of no more
than $15. That way, lawmakers still could allow lobbyists to
pick up the check for dinner or lunch. But Jazz tickets and
other more expensive goodies would be taboo.
The limit is structured as a rule rather than a law, so it
would apply only to House members. Becker notes his bill has
passed the House twice before only to be ditched in the Senate.
"We shouldn't be beholden either in reality or in appearance
based on the gifts lobbyists give to us," said Becker.
A few lobbyists privately support the notion of limits.
"Some tell me they are tired of expectations from
legislators that they get freebies all the time, " Becker said.
The Top 10
University of Utah
$18,190.62
Utah Soft Drink Association
$11,000-plus
Rob Jolley
$5,724.06
PacifiCorp (Utah Power)
$5,152.86
Utah State University
$5,000-plus
Blaze Wharton and Paul Rogers
$8,000-plus, combined
The Deseret Morning News
$3,375
Envirocare
$3,064.61
Utah Bankers Association
$2,942
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
32 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada set to make final Yucca stand
Today: January 13, 2004 at 11:15:29 PST
By Suzanne Struglinski
WASHINGTON -- Nevada's 20-year fight against Yucca Mountain
will come down to three hours of arguments before the U.S. Court
of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday.
The state's legal team will argue that three federal agencies
and Congress moved a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca
forward while violating a variety of federal laws and the U.S.
Constitution. Lawyers for the agencies say there were no
violations.
The state has already lost its battle in Congress, which
approved the site in 2002, so now it turns to the legal arena
where a new set of rules applies.
"The beginning of our legal fight marked the end of Yucca
Mountain being a political pawn and placed the issue of Yucca
Mountain, of nuclear waste, into the hands of federal court that
does not have the bias of the nuclear industry," Rep. Shelley
Berkley, D-Nev., said. "We can be treated no worse by the judges
than we have by the Department of Energy and President Bush."
The state, along with Las Vegas and Clark County in some cases,
has challenged the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission and the Energy Department on several legal
issues, trying to stall or kill the construction and operation
of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump.
The appellate court is expected to hear six lawsuits during a
three-hour hearing Wednesday morning. The state and other groups
are claiming that the government has violated the Constitution
by forcing the nuclear dump on Nevada; has violated several laws
regulating clean water and nuclear waste; and has changed the
rules about Yucca Mountain to put the repository in Nevada.
It's a case that could break the government's case or further
pave the wave for nuclear waste to come to Nevada.
The state has spent at least $100 million fighting Yucca
Mountain and has been preparing for these cases since 1982.
"We didn't just throw something at the ceiling and see what
would stick," said Joe Egan, the Washington-area attorney who
will argue three of Nevada's six legal challenges. "We had a lot
more things we could have done, but we picked what we thought we
would have a chance of winning."
Egan said if the court sides with the state in any instance it
could mean the end to the Energy Department's plans to store
77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. Nevada's attorneys expect a decision sometime before the
end of the year, and regardless of the outcome, expect the issue
to move to the Supreme Court.
"I think this is a serious forum in which Nevada and the
environmental community can raise their objections to a process
that has been governed by politics rather than by law and
science," said Geoffrey Fettus, an attorney with the Natural
Resources Defense Council.
Fettus will argue the case against the Environmental Protection
Agency the NRDC and six other environmental groups filed.
Egan, appointed Nevada's Special Deputy Attorney General in
September 2001, spent the last few days making final
preparations for the courtroom appearance, but he was extremely
confident he was more than ready for the case.
"We are like track athletes in the starting block, we are
ready," Egan said.
All the attorneys arguing for Nevada's six legal challenges
held an all-day practice session Monday to make sure everything
was in place.
The length of the argument, before federal Judges Harry
Edwards, Karen LeCraft Henderson and David Tatel, is a rare
occurrence. The court was originally supposed to hear the case
in October, but then pushed the hearing back and put the cases
on the "complex" docket, which allow for more time in the
courtroom.
"I'm personally not aware of the court having ever considered a
greater number of cases dealing with the same issue," Egan said.
The state's constitutional case was filed a little over a year
ago, but some cases against the Energy Department were brought
in December 2001.
Nevada has lost previous attempts to get judicial relief. Bob
Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear
Projects said the deemed earlier arguments too premature since
the Energy Department had not reached all its conclusions yet.
But now with the department's recommendation and Congress'
approval of the plan almost two years old, the court will have
to wade through complex legal questions to determine if the site
can move forward.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., described the politics behind nuclear
waste as "incredibly complex" since no one wants to keep the
waste in their state. "The court doesn't look at politics, it
doesn't look at the emotional side of the issue," he said. "It
looks at compliance with the law. The effort with the court has
a much better chance because the facts and the law are on our
side."
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., called Wednesday a "pivotal day" for
Nevada.
" We are in good hands and I am confident that the attorney
general will make a compelling and convincing argument to defeat
Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's repository for nuclear
waste," Porter said in a prepared statement. "The political
expediency of the past and callous disregard of science, health
and safety will not prevail."
Nevada officials are expecting a crowd at the hearing.
Loux, Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, Senior Deputy
Attorney General Marta Adams along with the seven members of the
Governors Commission on Nuclear Project, which include Las Vegas
Councilman Larry Brown, Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams
and former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., all plan to attend
the arguments.
Judy Treichel, director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force,
will also be in the courtroom Wednesday. The task force is a
party in the case against the EPA.
"We've been on the front lines for a long time and I want to
see the battle," Treichel said. "We'll finally be able to get
answers on the legal aspects of what's been going on here."
Peggy Maze Johnson, executive director of Nevada-based Citizen
Alert, also a party on the EPA case, will also be there. She
said she felt "really positive" about the case and wanted to be
sure to be in the courtroom to share the what happens with other
people during town hall meetings planned for the spring.
"It's been so long coming that I want to hear the arguments
firsthand what the attorneys are saying," Johnson said. "I want
to hear for myself what their arguments are."
Meanwhile, the nuclear industry is watching the cases just as
closely and is just as confident Nevada will not prevail.
"This is another step in a long journey," said Bob Bishop,
general counsel for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "No matter
what happens, the result is not going to be the cancellation of
the Yucca Mountain project and the naming of another site
elsewhere."
The NEI, whose membership is made up of commercial nuclear
facilities, has lobbied in favor of Yucca Mountain. The nuclear
plants want the government to take the spent nuclear fuel as
promised decades ago.
Bishop said Nevada thought it was going to prevail in Congress
in 2002 but did not.
"I anticipate Nevada will seek every avenue to make sure this
doesn't happen," Bishop said. "Any time any agency takes an
action they will likely sue."
Bishop points to Nevada v. Watkins, a case decided in the 9th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals more than 10 years ago. The suit
challenged the '87 law that singled out Yucca as the only site
to be studied as the spent fuel storage site.
Nevada lost that case because the court rejected its
constitutional arguments on the law. The Supreme Court denied an
appeal.
*****************************************************************
33 RGJ: Citizen Alert contest winner a Yucca proponent
RGJ.com"
Reno Gazette-Journal
1/12/2004 10:28 pm
McQueen High School senior Scott Shaffer doesn’t agree with
opponents of the Yucca Mountain project, but it didn’t stop him
from entering and winning the Citizen Alert art contest designed
to raise awareness against the proposed nuclear waste repository
in Southern Nevada.
“I guess there’s some irony in that but I just like the art,”
Shaffer, 17, said. “It’s not so much who sponsored the contest.
What I like is expressing what I can show about Nevada.”
U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and a strong opponent of the Yucca
Mountain project, congratulated Shaffer and other 11 contest
winners during a ceremony Monday afternoon at the Reno high
school. Ensign said he had no idea that one of the students
opposed his view but didn’t try to change the 17-year-old
artist’s mind.
“We talk to high school students all the time,” Ensign said. “We
didn’t today because we don’t have the time.”
Ensign posed for photos with the contest winners and praised the
art work of the “Discover the Beauty Within” contest that began
after former Gov. Bob Miller declared “Nevada is not a wasteland”
when speaking in opposition of the Yucca Mountain project in
1997.
“It’s important that we Nevadans help educate the rest of the
county why we don’t think it is a good idea to ship their nuclear
garbage to our state,” Ensign told the students. “Through your
art, you are doing your part back here to raise awareness, and I
am every impressed.”
Although Ensign personally congratulated him, Shaffer said it
would have been inappropriate to tell the senator about his
opinions on the nuclear repository.
“I was quite honored that someone as high as he is would come
down here to see me,” Shaffer said. “It’s not like I was going
down to his office to display my art. Since he came to see me, I
wanted to welcome him, as much as I can. To show an opposing view
would not have helped that much.”
Shaffer was probably one of the few students honored who
understood the political ramifications of the project, teachers
said.
The contest’s theme was to show the natural beauty of Nevada,
not make a political statement, said third-grade teacher Leslie
Zundel of Lina Juniper Elementary School.
“In third grade, students have a global awareness of what is
right and wrong,” said Zundel, whose students placed first and
second in the kindergarten-third grade division. “They know that
it is not OK to throw trash out of a car. As for the political
aspect, I don’t think they understand that yet.”
Ensign said he was pleased to see many northern Nevadans opposed
the Yucca Mountain Project.
“It’s like when southern Nevadans care about Lake Tahoe even
though it is in Northern Nevada,” Ensign said. “And northern
Nevadans are passionately against the nuclear dump even though it
is in Southern Nevada. This ceremony today is about kids learning
and being educated about Nevada — that we are all in this
fighting together.”
Shaffer’s political views have been partially shaped by family
discussions, said his parents, Don and Claudia Schaffer of Reno.
“We have dinner-table talk about current events, and the kids
want to know where we stand on Yucca Mountain,” Don Shaffer said.
“We’d prefer not to see a nuclear dump in our backyard, but I’ve
been all over this state hunting, and there is a lot of space out
there where nobody is going to inhabit or set up shop. If this
can help bring economic growth to Nevada, that’s what we need as
much as anything else.”
Ensign’s visit to the school comes two days before a three-judge
panel of a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. is
expected to hear Nevada’s arguments in lawsuits to stop the
project.
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc.Newspaper. Use
*****************************************************************
34 RGJ: Congress could have avoided court battle over waste dump
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
1/12/2004 11:20 pm
Nevada has spent more than a decade fighting the federal
government’s plan to dump nuclear waste below Yucca Mountain, 100
miles from Las Vegas. The battle that begins in a federal court
in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday may be the most important,
however.
The state has put a lot of its anti-Yucca Mountain eggs in the
judicial basket in recent years, spending $4 million on the legal
battle in hopes of demonstrating that the project, foisted on
Nevada by a politically pointed Congress in 1987, isn’t legal.
The Energy Department originally was supposed to study three
sites to determine which would be best for the radioactive waste
that has been piling up at nuclear power plants — none of them in
Nevada — for decades now. In a show of power by a Louisiana
senator, however, Congress told the department to forget the
rules and concentrate on a single site in Nevada.
Since then, Nevada officials argue, the rules have been changed
regularly to ensure that nothing will disqualify Yucca Mountain
from becoming the nation’s nuclear waste dump.
Will the court agree? We probably won’t know until summer.
Regardless, however, we all will have paid a very high price for
Congress’ decision to let politics, instead of science, rule. How
much better it would have been had DOE been allowed to proceed as
originally planned.
Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc.Newspaper. Use
*****************************************************************
35 Enquirer Columbus Bureau: Ohio wins new uranium plant
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
$1.5B project, 500 jobs go to Piketon
By Spencer Hunt Enquirer Columbus Bureau
COLUMBUS - In the conclusion of an economic duel between two
states, Ohio beat Kentucky on Monday to get a $1.5 billion
uranium enrichment plant that promises to create up to 500
high-paying new jobs.
USEC Inc. chose to put the company's new enrichment technology
project at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, a
jobs-hungry community in southeast Ohio. USEC closed the plant
more than two years ago.
[map] The Piketon plant competed for the project with USEC's
Paducah, Ky., facility, the nation's only operating uranium
enrichment plant.
The new plant will use a more-efficient technology to enrich
uranium for use in nuclear power plant reactors. The
Maryland-based company is the world's leading supplier of uranium
fuel for nuclear power plants.
The centrifuge process will be built at the sprawling 640-acre
enrichment plant that has been idled since 2001. A test of the
new process is scheduled for 2005 at Piketon, with full
production expected by 2010.
The decision promises economic revival for a region of Ohio
that's been linked with nuclear power since the Cold War and is
desperate for good-paying jobs.
"You've just given this facility a new lease on life," Rep. Rob
Portman, R-Ohio, told USEC executives, Gov. Bob Taft and other
officials who gathered in Columbus to make the announcement. "We
are going back to the future, back to a plant with a proud
history and a proud work force."
Portman worked for the past two years with other elected
officials to help bring the new production technology to the
eastern edge of his congressional district.
It was a big win for Taft and development officials who promised
more than $125 million in tax breaks, state grants and
low-interest loans to entice USEC. Ohio has lost more than
100,000 manufacturing jobs since the recession began in 2000.
Taft has made finding new jobs his top priority, committing more
than $1 billion to create new high-tech businesses in Ohio over
the next 10 years.
"This announcement is tremendous news for southern Ohio," Taft
said. "I want to commend everyone who had a role in making this
happen."
The Piketon plant began life in 1954, turning out enriched
uranium for atom bombs. It was converted to produce uranium for
commercial power plants in the 1960s.
USEC shut down the plant more than two years ago in response to
decreased worldwide demand for uranium. Operations were shifted
to Paducah.
The U.S. Department of Energy kept about 1,350 workers doing
maintenance and environmental cleanup work.
William Timbers, USEC's president and chief executive, said
construction will begin in 2006 and create up to 300 construction
jobs. Workers at the plant could expect to make an average of $24
an hour.
The new plant comes two decades after the Energy Department spent
$3 billion to develop the technology at the Ohio plant. The
project was abandoned in favor of a different uranium enrichment
method. Buildings and infrastructure once used for this project
remain at the Ohio plant.
The company chose its Ohio site over its Paducah plant largely
because existing buildings from 1980s tests would reduce costs,
Timbers said.
Dan Minter, president of the Piketon workers' union, said USEC's
decision will revive an area with 8 percent to 12 percent
unemployment and a 26 percent poverty rate.
"Those statistics tell you clearly we are well-advantaged to
having additional jobs and not additional lost jobs," Minter
said.
The company will close its Paducah enrichment plant in 2010.
There are about 1,200 USEC workers at Paducah.
Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher released a statement expressing his
disappointment.
"Kentucky made a competitive offer, but USEC ultimately decided
Ohio was a better fit," Fletcher said. "Clearly, this is another
example of how we must make Kentucky more competitive and
attractive for these types of economic opportunities and job
growth."
Ohio lawmakers changed state laws to help pump up the tax
incentives, grants and financing. Bruce Johnson, Taft's economic
development director, said the state will recoup its lost tax
revenues "in a few years."
He said the state will take in roughly $1 million a year in taxes
from new employees and jobs created by the factory.
Greg Bauer, the mayor of Portsmouth, estimates that at least one
out of every six Piketon workers will come from his town.
"This should help with the economic bad news we've been dealing
with here the past few years," Bauer said.
Starts, stops, changes in direction mark uranium program in U.S.
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, has been
operating for nearly 50 years. A look at the history of uranium
production in the United States:
1940s - The U.S. government begins work on uranium enrichment as
a defense initiative to produce material for the atomic bomb. The
first gaseous diffusion plant, K-25, goes online in 1945 in Oak
Ridge, Tenn.
1950s - Uranium conversion operations begin at a government-owned
plant in Paducah, Ky., in 1952. That same year, Pike County,
Ohio, is chosen for the new Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant,
which goes on line in 1954. Full production starts two years
later.
1964 - The power industry begins buying lower-grade uranium from
the Ohio and Kentucky plants for use in commercial nuclear power
plants.
1976- The Department of Energy breaks ground at the Ohio plant on
a $4.4 billion centrifuge technology plant, which would replace
the gaseous diffusion process of enriching uranium.
1985 - Energy Dept. briefly tests, then abandons work on
centrifuge technology in favor of another more promising uranium
enrichment method: Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation process.
Uranium enrichment operations cease at Tennessee plant.
1991 - The Ohio plant is reconfigured to eliminate its ability to
produce military-grade uranium.
1993 - Russian Federation agrees to ship uranium from old
warheads to the United States to be sold commercially to nuclear
power plants.
1995 - First shipment of Russian uranium arrives at the Ohio
plant. A plan for privatizing plant operator, the U.S. Enrichment
Corp., is sent to President Clinton.
1996 - The Privatization Act is signed into law.
1998 - The government sells the government-owned corporation now
known as USEC Inc. for $1.9 billion in a public stock offering.
Stock for the Bethesda, Md.-based company finishes its first day
at $14.25 a share.
1999 - USEC abandons the atomic vapor process after spending $100
million because it says additional work on the project would take
too long, cost too much and provide too little profit.
2000 - Amid plunging stock prices, lower earnings and junk bond
credit ratings, USEC announces it will shut down the Ohio plant.
2001 - USEC stops uranium enrichment operations at its Ohio plant
and consolidates work at its Kentucky plant. About 530 workers
lose their jobs.
2002- USEC moves shipping and transfer operations from Ohio to
Kentucky; Energy Dept. renews its agreement with the company
regarding the import of Russian uranium; Energy Dept. announces
it will build plants in Ohio and Kentucky that will be used to
convert spent uranium into a more stable form.
2003 - USEC announces it will open in Ohio by 2005 a 50-person
facility to test centrifuge technology.
2004 - USEC announces it will open at its Ohio site a new
commercial plant by 2010 that will employ 500 to enrich uranium
using centrifuge technology.
--The Associated Press
Southern Ohio's uranium plant
Facts about the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in
Piketon, Ohio:
The $1.2 billion plant began production in 1954.
It initially enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, but that
mission changed in the 1960s to commercial nuclear power plants.
The plant has 109 buildings on 640 acres, which USEC Inc. leases
from the U.S. Energy Department's 3,708-acre site.
Gaseous diffusion took place in three separate mile-long,
93-acre process buildings.
The site was chosen Monday for the $1.5 billion plant to process
uranium with centrifuge technology because it has existing
infrastructure from a 1980s centrifuge testing project and
stable seismic conditions.
Centrifuge processing will take place in tall, spinning
cylinders housed in two primary buildings of 7.5 acres each and
a 20-acre assembly building.
The site along the Scioto River was selected in 1952 based on
its size and relatively flat terrain, the availability of large
amounts of electrical power, a dependable source of water, local
labor and suitable transportation routes.
The plant was put on standby in 2001 when uranium enrichment
operations were consolidated at Paducah, Ky.
About 1,200 workers maintain it and do environmental cleanup.
Piketon's population is about 1,900.
--The Associated Press
Gannett reporter Jim Siegel and the Associated Press contributed
to this report.
[Cincinnati.Com]
Copyright1995-2004. The Cincinnati Enquirer, a Gannett Co.
*****************************************************************
36 Paducah Sun Editorial: Plant decision speeds up changes
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Editorial.
NEW ERA
An era in Paducah history came to an end Monday, with the
announcement that USEC Inc. will build a gas centrifuge plant in
Portsmouth, Ohio.
The news was disappointing but not unexpected. Although local and
state officials aggressively pursued the $1.5 billion project,
hoping to keep USEC in Paducah, they were well aware that the
Ohio site had several key advantages.
Two decades ago, the federal government spent $3 billion in
Portsmouth, in an abortive effort to develop centrifuge
technology. The residue of that project — most notably, a large
building designed to house gas centrifuges — gave Portsmouth a
significant head start over Paducah.
Further complicating Paducah's bid to land the plant was the cost
of building the facility in a seismic zone. The New Madrid Fault
hasn't produced a major earthquake in almost 200 years, but the
need to reinforce the centrifuge buildings against the
possibility of a big quake was a factor in Portsmouth's favor.
The Paducah plant's history of efficient operations impressed
USEC officials. In the end, however, the quality of the western
Kentucky-southern Illinois workforce — and the community's strong
and consistent support for the uranium enrichment industry —
weren't enough to put Paducah over the top.
Now western Kentucky must prepare for a future without one of the
area's largest employers. When the Portsmouth centrifuge plant
opens in 2010 or 2011, the Paducah facility will shut down.
In the early 1950s, the opening of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant helped to usher in the Atomic Age. The plant was a key part
of the nation's defense industry and the anchor of western
Kentucky's economy, providing more than 2,000 top-notch
industrial jobs
By the time USEC decided to move to the next generation in
uranium enrichment technology, the nuclear industry and the
Paducah area had undergone major changes.
The former government facility was privatized in 1998. Since then
USEC, struggling to maintain its position in a changing world
market for processed uranium, has shut down its Portsmouth
gaseous diffusion facility and eliminated more than 600 jobs in
Paducah.
Within the next few years, the number of workers employed in
cleaning up the Paducah site will exceed the number of plant
employees.
In fact, the cleanup in Paducah will require a larger workforce —
about 700, after a uranium waste conversion facility is built on
the site — than the Portsmouth centrifuge plant.
The cleanup jobs are temporary, but a realistic estimate is that
it will take at least 15 years to remove most of the
contamination from the site.
In effect, western Kentucky has a double cushion against the
impact of losing USEC — the length of time required to build the
centrifuge plant and the cleanup operation, which provides jobs
that compare in pay to the USEC jobs.
It's important to note that the economy of the region is not as
dependent on the enrichment plant as it was 20 years ago.
The fact the local job market has absorbed the job losses at USEC
and remained relatively strong bodes well for the future.
Unquestionably, community leaders would rather face the future
with the centrifuge plant than without it. But Portsmouth's gain
does not spell disaster for western Kentucky.
The region is entering a period of economic transition, much as
it did in the early 1950s.
During the 1950s heavy industry became the backbone of western
Kentucky's economy, replacing agriculture.
But the economy is a living, changing organism. In the shadow of
the factories, the Paducah area began to grow new types of
businesses. The health care industry emerged as a major employer.
Retailers thrived on changing lifestyles and the increased
mobility of consumers. The river industry strengthened its
traditional position in the region's economy.
In the computer age, diversification is the most important sign
of economic health. The area's economy has diversified, but it
needs to continue to grow and add more good employers.
Local officials have worked hard to develop industrial parks and
other incentives for industries to locate in the region. In time
these efforts should begin to pay off.
It's unlikely, however, that the region will be able to depend on
a few major employers. The next era in Paducah history will be
shaped by the area's overall economic climate, not by the
decisions of a handful of corporate officials or political
leaders.
*****************************************************************
37 Paducah Sun: Future impact of plant closure economically and job wise
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Impact of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant
1,270 workers have a $251 million economic ripple effect on the
region, based on a state model of how money turns over.
High-paying manufacturing jobs have the greatest economic impact
among nine industrial sectors.
USEC is one of area’s highest-paying employers with estimated
annual payroll and benefits of $123 million to $140 million.
Breakdown: $97,000 to $110,000 per worker.
USEC and employees evenly share $200,000 in annual charitable
contributions. Last year, half the workers supported United Way,
raising more than $100,000 at average $77 per worker.
Plant spends $11 million to $13 million annually on goods and
services supplied mostly by local business.
$32,000 annually in business memberships.
Factors affecting the Paducah plant job outlook in 2010
Plant probably will be phased out over a few years as gas
centrifuge is phased in, so not all workers will immediately lose
jobs.
73 percent of current plant workers will be eligible for full
(519 people) or partial (427 people) retirement pension in 2010,
assuming employment doesn't change. Currently, 34 percent are
eligible.
Since 1999, about 330 laid-off plant workers have obtained jobs
with cleanup contractors that employ about 580. Plant is a
complex Superfund site, and major cleanup will take until 2019
under a new state-federal agreement.
A factory to convert 38,000 cylinders of plant uranium
hexafluoride (UF6) waste into safer material will be built
starting next spring. It will generate 100-150 construction jobs
over two years and 150 operational jobs for 20 to 25 years.
Industrial park improvements funded by the Energy Department
through the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization (PACRO)
have helped save 1,150 jobs and created 45 jobs through
low-interest loans for small businesses started by displaced
nuclear workers. The money also has helped develop a regional
industrial park in north Graves County. PACRO's desire to create
jobs by recycling plant nickel is contingent on lifting of Energy
Department ban on selling decontaminated scrap metal.
*****************************************************************
38 Paducah Sun: History of USEC
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
1976: Department of Energy breaks ground at Piketon, Ohio, on a
$4.4 billion gas centrifuge technology plant to replace the
gaseous diffusion process of enriching uranium.
1985: DOE briefly tests, then abandons $1.5 billion in centrifuge
work in favor of the more promising Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope
Separation process, or AVLIS. Uranium enrichment operations cease
at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
1992: Congress creates government-owned U.S. Enrichment Corp.
1998: Government sells USEC for $1.9 billion in a public stock
offering.
1999: USEC abandons $100 million in AVLIS research as not
cost-efficient. Research turns to gas centrifuge.
2001: USEC closes Piketon enrichment plant and merges work with
Paducah, the only plant of its type left running in the nation.
2002: USEC says a test gas centrifuge plant will be built in
Piketon by 2004.
2003:USEC competitor Louisiana Energy Services seeks regulatory
approval for a $1.2 billion gas centrifuge plant in New Mexico
and signs contracts with several nuclear utilities to buy half
the plant’s first 10 years of production. LES includes Urenco, a
European firm using gas centrifuge for decades, and Exelon,
USEC’s biggest customer and the largest nuclear utility in the
nation.
2004: USEC picks Piketon over Paducah for a 500-job commercial
gas centrifuge plant to replace the outdated Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant starting in 2010. Rationale: Piketon already has
centrifuge buildings and lacks Paducah’s earthquake hazards. USEC
intends to apply in August for a plant license.
2006-07: USEC must pay $500 million in federal debt from
privatization and find a partner to share the $1.5 billion plant
cost to begin construction.
GASEOUS DIFFUSION: Used by the Paducah plant during nearly 52
years of operation, at peak requiring 2 billion watts of
electricity daily, more than the state of Texas and twice that of
St. Louis. The massive power — costing hundreds of millions of
dollars annually, accounting for 55 percent of the plant’s total
production expenses — is needed to run huge machinery in more
than 300 acres of cavernous buildings to separate the useful and
non-useful isotopes of uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for nuclear
fuel. The gas is pushed through miles of piping containing
billions of holes smaller than two-millionths of an inch.
GAS CENTRIFUGE: Used in Europe for several decades, the process
enriches UF6 by spinning it at high speeds in hundreds of tall
cylinders. The Energy Department spent nine years building a
centrifuge plant at Piketon, then abandoned it in 1985 after
brief testing. The department was intent on developing a laser
technology called AVLIS that later proved too costly and
inefficient.
USEC has decided to re-establish a 500-job gas centrifuge plant
in Piketon to replace the Paducah diffusion plant by 2010.
Centrifuge uses only about 5 percent of the power needed for the
gaseous diffusion process and produces much less waste.
*****************************************************************
39 Paducah Sun: Cleanup, closure gutted Oak Ridge -
Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
When USEC closed the plant in Tennessee in 1985, only one-sixth
the jobs remained at lower pay. They're still cleaning up.
The same year the Department of Energy abandoned plans for gas
diffusion plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
"We went from 3,000 employees down to about 500 — boom," said
Jimmy Hendrix, president of the plant nuclear workers' union
when operations ceased in 1985. "We've been in a cleanup mode
ever since."
Because of the abrupt shutdown, uranium-enrichment machinery in
the sprawling plant wasn't cleaned out. Despite continued
efforts, major buildings are still unsafe for new industrial
uses, said Hendrix, now a union regional representative.
There is plenty of time to decontaminate the Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant, which won't close until at least 2010, Hendrix
said. "The challenge you have in Paducah is to get those
buildings clean. A customer is not going to come in if there's
liability for cleanup."
Oak Ridge cleanup jobs peaked at 1,000 around 1990 and are down
to 800 now. Although the Energy Department says 400 more obs
have been created by converting the plant into the East
Tennessee Technology Park, Hendrix questions the numbers.
"There have been some jobs created," he said. "But we went from
$18- to $20-an-hour jobs down to $9 to $10 an hour."
In October, the DOE inspector general criticized the agency's
own program, run since 1996 through the Community Reuse
Organization of East Tennessee (CROET). An audit said it was
hard to confirm cost savings and noted that only a small part of
the 1,300-acre complex was being used.
As of late 2002, the Energy Department had paid British Nuclear
Fuels $219 million to clean up three large plant buildings for
reuse, but the report said reusing two of the buildings remained
"highly questionable." It could verify only $4 million in cost
savings out of $51 million spent with lead cleanup contractor
Bechtel Jacobs since 1997.
The report said the money probably should have been spent
cleaning up and tearing down the most contaminated buildings. It
recommended stopping cleanup funding for buildings other than
those formally owned by CROET.
Larry Clark, DOE industrialization director, said the 800
cleanup jobs exist because of the work in the three buildings,
and the personnel are now highly trained. The areas will
eventually be cleaned up and could attract a large employer that
wants to be cost-efficient and favors a brownfield site, one
that has been used for industry and then abandoned, over a new
industrial park, he said.
Clark said his group gained from the report, despite not
agreeing with all its conclusions, and is working to implement
some of the recommendations. "They're not in the business of
painting a rosy picture and finding all the positives," he said.
The audit came shortly before CROET, Bechtel Jacobs and the
Energy Department received the 2003 Phoenix Award for solving
environmental problems by converting the enrichment plant for
other industrial use.
The technology park houses nearly 40 firms ranging from cleanup
to Dienamic Tooling Systems, which makes sheet metal stamping
dies for the automotive industry. The park is divided into the
Heritage Center, covering 125 main buildings, and the Horizon
Center, a 1,000-acre greenfield site.
Jim Campbell, president of the East Tennessee Economic Council,
said the 400 new jobs are with private firms generally unrelated
to the federal government.
"Almost all of them are small operations with 10 to 15 people or
fewer," he said. "The underlying message is it takes a lot of
work and concerted effort by a lot of groups to lead to
success."
Abundant water, cheap power, rail service, highways and other
factors that produced gaseous diffusion plants 50 years ago in
Oak Ridge, Paducah and Piketon, Ohio, remain as recruiting tools
for the outdated complexes if they can be cleaned up, Campbell
said.
"The circumstances Paducah is facing are different from ours,"
he said. "Hopefully DOE and its contractors up there (Paducah)
will do the right things in preparing those sites for brownfield
uses."
Oak Ridge, a community built on technology, has growth
advantages that Paducah doesn't have, such as Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and the former Y-12 weapons complex, Campbell said.
Hendrix said Paducah has powerful political clout on Capitol
Hill, but has less plant land and far fewer nuclear spinoff
businesses than Oak Ridge.
"The bottom line is, I don't think there will be jobs created in
the long run," he said. "They're all going to be short-term
jobs. After that, you'll have people taking retirement."
Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Stopped production in 1985, dropping the work force from about
3,000 to 500. Closed in 1987. More than 800 people now do
cleanup work.
Since 1996, plant has been marketed as East Tennessee Technology
Park. Using Energy Department funding, park has attracted some
40 tenants, creating 400 jobs.
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant Piketon, Ohio
Stopped production in 2001. Work force has dropped from 2,000 to
1,200 to keep the plant in "cold standby." Another 300 do
cleanup work.
Energy Department money has improved area industrial parks,
creating 740 jobs, including 550 at one expanded local factory.
*****************************************************************
40 Paducah Sun: 2001 closure surprised Piketon community -
Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
community
Officials there see Paducah's shutdown as less abrupt because
Dan Minter graduated from high school in the early 1980s, when
uranium near Piketon, Ohio, a town of 1,700 in the Appalachian
foothills.
He remembers community elation over preserving $40,000-a-year
jobs through the gas centrifuge process and bitter
disappointment when the government abandoned it in 1985 as too
costly.
Minter went on to work at the 1950s-era Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion Plant, just outside Piketon, that centrifuge was
supposed to replace. He saw employment peak in the 1980s at
3,200, and was president of the nuclear workers' union when the
plant closed in 2001 as USEC Inc. merged operations with
Paducah. Ironically, USEC returned to gas centrifuge — a process
used for three decades in Europe — as the technology of the
future.
"Since about 1998, we had had an operating plan that required
both (Piketon and Paducah) plants until at least 2005," Minter
said, referring to a commitment by USEC President and Chief
Executive Office William "Nick" Timbers.
But in a nuclear disarmament deal, USEC began importing enough
cheap enriched uranium from the former Soviet Union to displace
one of the plants, Minter said. "That's when the apple cart got
turned over."
The mothballed centrifuge buildings are chiefly why USEC has
chosen Piketon for a 500-job gas centrifuge plant to replace the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant by about 2010. Compared with
Piketon's fast-track closing, Paducah has more time, a stronger
economy and a better chance to replace the 1,270 enrichment jobs
with other work, notably in environmental cleanup, Minter said.
"Paducah's situation won't be as abrupt, whereas with us it was
almost turning the switch off," he said. "Paducah's
environmental challenges appear to be greater than ours. That
makes cleanup more lengthy and costly, which you would think
would mean more employment needs."
Employment dropped from 1,700 to 1,200 when the Piketon plant
closed in 2001. The 1,200 remain to keep the factory in what the
government calls "cold standby." Three hundred others work for
cleanup contractors, about the same number as when the plant
closed, Minter said.
He thinks that when the Paducah plant closes, it will be put on
standby as the only backup plant to centrifuge, and the Piketon
diffusion plant will be taken out of service. That would
preserve more Paducah jobs than if the Paducah plant were shut
down, he said.
Through the Southern Ohio Diversification Initiative (SODI),
community leaders hired a marketing firm to help displaced
Piketon workers find jobs. Coordinator Jennifer Chandler said
SODI has used more than $14 million in Energy Department and
USEC money to leverage $2.3 million more in government funding.
The money has created 740 jobs paying $5 to $6 an hour less than
those at the Piketon plant, she said. Some former plant workers
got management jobs with other companies. Despite the efforts,
Pike County unemployment hovers around 9 percent, twice the
state average.
"Closure is a tough thing," Chandler said. "It's going to be
difficult, but the Paducah plant will be operating until the end
of the decade. You'll have a lot more time than we did."
SODI invested money in a four-county area in buildings,
industrial parks and a small-business revolving loan fund. About
100 new jobs are entrepreneurial, and 640 are industrial. Mill's
Pride, a cabinet maker, generated 550 of the industrial jobs by
expanding in a Pike County industrial park. Ninety jobs sprang
from a foreign-trade zone in a greenfield site in nearby Ross
County, Chandler said.
"It's hard to estimate how many lost jobs were replaced," said
Minter, SODI vice president. "We have a poverty rate of 26
percent, and our household income is less than $25,000 a year. A
lot of folks have to drive 60 to 100 miles to find income that's
even remotely equivalent."
An Ohio State University study determined that for every 10 lost
enrichment jobs, 11 other jobs dried up in places such as
convenience stores, car lots and medical offices, he said.
Minter said the Paducah plant has plenty of buildings, scrap
metal and "a city worth of professionals" to market, not to
mention work done by the Paducah Area Community Reuse
Organization to help industrial parks.
"I would only argue that you can never plan too soon," he said.
"We thought we had until 2005 before any decision to shut down
our plant would ever take place."
*****************************************************************
41 Paducah Sun: Employees unsure of future but not surprised -
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Some gaseous diffusion plant workers see too many variables that
could change the situation before 2010.
By Shelley Street, The Paducah Sun Molly Harper
mharper@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Monday's announcement that a $1.5 billion gas centrifuge plant
would be built in Ohio was no surprise for USEC Inc. employees,
but some stressed many changes could come before the Piketon
plant's scheduled opening.
"I don't think we should definitely consider this a death knell
for the plant," said Phillip Foley, who takes over today as
president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy
Workers Local 5-550. "It's not as if they're going to go pull the
plug in six years and that will be the end of it."
Several people questioned USEC's ability to afford the $1.5
billion Piketon plant.
"One and a half billion dollars is quite a bit of money in this
day and time," said Marshall Pullen, who has been a materials
handler for 30 years. "We're just waiting."
The plant's future is also dependent on continued uranium deals
with Russia, Foley said.
"Some people believe that this will just blow over," instrument
and computer mechanic Marty Logsdon said. "I'm more of a
pessimist. When they say they're going to do this, I believe it."
Other businesses might eventually show interest in the plant's
buildings, including a machine shop and fabrication shop, Foley
said. "There are a lot of possibilities. There are a lot more
opportunities at the plant than enrichment."
The Paducah plant could stay open beyond 2010 if energy demands
increase and cannot be met by the Ohio operation, said Leon
Owens, whose last day as the PACE local president was Monday.
When the plant does close, environmental cleanup could keep
workers busy for years, he said. He cited Oak Ridge, Tenn., where
cleanup still continues years after the plant there closed.
Several employees said they expected the new plant to be awarded
to Ohio after Paducah's disadvantages — such as a standing
building in Piketon and Paducah's location near an earthquake
fault-line — were discussed publicly. Others cited the amount of
research and money invested in the Piketon site.
"There are just some things you can't do anything about," said
maintenance procedure writer Ray Boren of Kevil, who has worked
at the plant for 27 years.
David Richards, a utilities operator and new operations
committeeman for the plant nuclear workers' union, said the
decision was announced early Monday morning in a meeting of
senior plant managers and union leaders. It was then disseminated
through supervisors to plant workers.
Employees are disappointed in the decision and feel they could do
the work as well as Piketon's employees, Boren said, but they
know the closing is "a long ways away."
"I can't see the plant changing production until the other
process is proven and they have the pilot plant running," he
said.
Steve Nicol, Cascade frontline manager from Kevil, said he would
be near retirement age by the time the Paducah plant is phased
out, but he may seek a job in the plant's transition and cleanup.
Some employees are considering returning to school for training
in other fields, Logsdon said. Logsdon's banking his own future
employment on the disposal of old storage cylinders used at the
plant. He needs 15 more years of employment at USEC before he can
retire, he said.
After 16 years at the plant, Logsdon said he no longer lets talk
of the plant closing worry him.
"I used to let it bother me. Now I know there's just too much
other important stuff to worry about," said Logsdon, whose wife,
Deanne, received a liver transplant in 1999. "Whatever happens, I
know the Lord is going to take care of me."
*****************************************************************
42 Paducah Sun: Local support, big incentives not enough to sway USEC -
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
The Ohio site was selected because a suitable plant is already
there and Paducah is affected by an earthquake fault.
By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Associated Press Piketon choice announced: William 'Nick'
Timbers, president and CEO of USEC Inc., smiles after announcing
during a news conference Monday in Columbus, Ohio, that USEC’s
new $1.5 billion facility will be located in Piketon. Ohio Gov.
Bob Taft (background) was on hand for the announcement.
The announcement was expected, but that didn't remove the sting
from the words spoken by USEC Inc. President Nick Timbers.
"I am here today to announce that USEC has chosen Piketon, Ohio,
as the site of our American centrifuge commercial plant,"
Timbers said Monday at a news conference in Columbus, Ohio, with
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft. Piketon was competing with Paducah for the
$1.5 billion gas centrifuge plant that in 2010 will replace the
Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant.
An existing building in Piketon and Paducah's location on the
edge of an earthquake fault were too much for Kentucky to
overcome, Timbers said. The decision was made by USEC managers
who reviewed incentives and benefits of building in Ohio or
Kentucky.
"Both contained economic incentives underpinned by strong
community support," Timbers said. "The efforts of both locations
to secure this new enrichment facility were impressive. Either
site would be a good home for our new commercial plant."
Timbers said Piketon was picked based on economic incentives
offered by each state and local communities, and a
"determination as to which best addressed schedule, risk and
cost."
Regarding scheduling, he said deployment of the new technology
will be at least a year earlier because of the presence of a
centrifuge building constructed in Piketon 20 years ago by the
U.S. Department of Energy. After operating for a short time, DOE
abandoned the facility, saying that instead it wanted to pursue
a different enrichment technology, known as AVLIS.
The building, which Timbers described as the size of 20 football
fields, also provided considerable cost savings, estimated
earlier at $300 million.
He said Paducah's proximity to the New Madrid Fault not only
would have required increased construction costs, but would have
increased risk factors if a major earthquake hit.
Ohio officials put the value of the incentive package at $125
million. Kentucky officials would not reveal the value of their
package, saying they had signed a confidentiality agreement with
USEC. Economic Development Secretary Gene Strong said Kentucky's
package had a higher value than the one submitted by Ohio.
Construction of the plant will begin in 2006 and should be in
full operation by 2010, employing 500.
Timbers said he was confident the company would have the plant
financing in place by 2006, although some financial analysts
contend USEC will have a difficult time raising the money.
"The company is doing quite well, and the stock hit a 52-week
high at the end of the year," Timbers said when a reporter asked
about financing. He said the key has been restructuring from a
company operated by the government to one operated as a private
corporation. The Department of Energy ran the enrichment
operation until 10 years ago when it was turned over to USEC.
"We've restructured the company so that the business model today
works, is effective and has a sound foundation," Timbers said.
"We'll be developing a financial package that will be prepared
in time, based on a number of opportunities that we have here
and abroad to ensure the financing is in place by the time the
shovel needs to go into the ground in the 2006 time frame."
He did not elaborate on the financing options.
After the new plant opens, the 1,270-worker Paducah Gaseous
Diffusion Plant will close.
"Kentucky has been and will be an important part of USEC's
business," Timbers said. "The existing Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant will continue to be the engine that drives USEC's business
for the remainder of the decade."
He said the Paducah plant has the ability to increase production
above current levels as the demand for uranium fuel increases.
He also said it "supports the security interests of our nation"
by reducing dependence on foreign production of nuclear fuel.
Since DOE abandoned the intended Piketon centrifuge plant 20
years ago, the method has been refined and now is considered an
efficient and viable "second-generation" enrichment process,
Timbers said.
In centrifuge, uranium is enriched in tall, spinning cylinders,
using one-third the electrical power required by the 60-year-old
gaseous diffusion process used in Paducah.
USEC said the Piketon plant will produce enough enriched uranium
to fuel 30 power plants, each large enough to provide
electricity to a city the size of Memphis, Tenn.
*****************************************************************
43 Paducah Sun: Paducah already has new-industry efforts -
Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
BARKLEY THIELEMAN/The Sun Bad news: McCracken County
Paxton collect their thoughts before a news conference Monday
announcing the loss of a new gas centrifuge uranium enrichment
project to Piketon, Ohio.
Community leaders have a big head start trying to offset the loss
of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a 52-year-old monument to
the Cold War, now that they know it will close starting in 2010.
"How many communities lose a plant and have six or seven years to
keep it and have the benefits of a work force here while they can
go out and diversify and bring new industry in?" Mayor Bill
Paxton asked.
Counterparts in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Piketon, Ohio, which lost
diffusion plants earlier, say Paducah's biggest ally is time —
something they had little of when they received word of shutdown.
Through Department of Energy money, Tennessee and Ohio have
replaced some of their lost uranium-enrichment jobs with a mix of
plant cleanup work, business lured to industrial parks and
abandoned enrichment buildings dotted with other employers.
The Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization has used DOE money
to construct ready-for-occupancy buildings in several county
industrial parks, to develop the regional industrial park in
north Graves County, and to help laid-off enrichment workers find
jobs. But annual Energy Department funding of reuse organizations
nationwide has been cut from $40 million to $14.5 million since
1999, and the Paducah group's share has sunk from $8 million to
$300,000.
Some in Congress want to do away with the program, said PACRO
Director John Anderson, who is meeting with DOE officials this
week trying to stop the bleeding.
"We think if we can hold onto DOE funding, we'll be as well
positioned as we can be to try to be of assistance," he said.
"For the sake of this community, it appears that our delegation
has to fight to prevent sunsetting the program."
Anderson said PACRO and the nuclear workers' union have saved 335
jobs by helping plant workers find other employment. The $7,456
administrative cost of holding onto each of those jobs is among
the lowest among reuse groups nationwide, he said.
Aside from big financial questions, PACRO's ability to market
plant assets depends on how fast they are cleaned up and whether
they are safe enough for replacement industry. One near-term
project — to create jobs by cleaning and recycling contaminated
scrap nickel at the plant — depends on Energy Department
willingness to lift a safety-related ban on recycling scrap
metal.
The six-year head start also gives the 1,270 plant employees
ample time to look for other work in cleanup or elsewhere. The
number who will actually need jobs in 2010 is uncertain, but
nearly three-fourths would be eligible for full or partial
retirement if they stay that long.
Another huge question is whether USEC can actually pay for the
$1.5 billion centrifuge plant. In September, and again Monday,
the nuclear workers' union detailed a possible "perfect storm" of
market events over the next two years that could force USEC to
shut down the Paducah plant and abandon plans for gas centrifuge.
The study said USEC keeps paying $45 million a year in dividends
while saddled with $500 million in privatization debt, $36
million in annual interest, a "junk bond" credit rating and low
profitability for at least two more years under older, cheaper
uranium contracts.
USEC calls the study misguided and a continuation of public
relations that began during an extended strike at the plant that
began a year ago. William "Nick" Timbers, company president and
chief financial officer, expressed confidence Monday that USEC
will have the money in place when gas centrifuge plant
construction begins in two years. He would not elaborate on
financing options.
USEC faces heavy competition, and analysts disagree whether the
market can support two new uranium enrichment plants. Louisiana
Energy Services has sought regulatory approval to build a $1.2
billion gas centrifuge plant in New Mexico and signed contracts
with several nuclear utilities to buy half the plant’s first 10
years of production.
Led by Urenco, a European firm that has used gas centrifuge for
decades, LES includes three of the nation’s largest nuclear power
companies — Exelon, Entergy and Duke Energy. Exelon is USEC’s
biggest customer and the largest nuclear utility in the United
States. Fuel fabricator Westinghouse Corp. also is part of the
consortium.
The LES plant has heavy support from Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.,
chairman of the powerful Senate Energy Committee. Late last year,
he put language in a 1,100-page energy policy bill to greatly
accelerate regulatory approval and require the Energy Department
to accept LES waste. The bill failed for unrelated reasons, but
is again being debated.
Urenco also could win a federal trade case within a year,
allowing it to export "any excess supply" of enriched uranium to
the United States, said Phil Potter, Washington-based policy
analyst for the nuclear workers' union. That would afford USEC
stiff competition from both existing foreign enrichment and new
domestic enrichment, he said.
"Urenco is kind of a double-edged sword," Potter said. "There are
still some threats to Paducah that the government, USEC and the
union, for that matter, have to keep trying to address."
The Tennessee Valley Authority will support efforts to offset
losing the Paducah plant, said Mark Medford, executive vice
president of customer service and marketing. From 1998 to 2002,
TVA helped attract or retain 16,000 jobs and leverage in capital
investments in 28 counties in Kentucky, he said. "Paducah has a
fair amount of lead time between now and 2010, and we're intent
to bring all those resources to bear to help."
TVA officials met with USEC senior managers last fall at USEC
headquarters in Bethesda, Md., to learn what the company needed
in power cost savings, he said. "We worked with the state and
USEC to make the best offer we could, not only for the gas
centrifuge plant but also for the remainder of the gaseous
diffusion plant operation."
Medford declined to say how much TVA offered, but pointed out
that Ohio's advantages — having existing gas centrifuge buildings
and lacking Paducah's seismic hazards — amounted to "hundreds of
millions" of dollars, too much to overcome.
*****************************************************************
44 Paducah Sun: Kentucky package strong was one of the largest offered by state
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
Kentucky's incentive package to USEC Inc. was one of the largest
the state has ever offered, according to Kentucky Economic
Development Secretary Gene Strong.
"It was a very strong, competitive package, but we had some
hurdles to jump over that dictated the decision by USEC" to build
the plant in Piketon, Ohio, Strong said. The two biggest hurdles:
Ohio already had a building that would cost $300 million to
duplicate here, and Paducah's earthquake-fault proximity meant
higher construction costs.
Strong would not reveal the value of Kentucky's package, saying
former Gov. Paul Patton had signed a confidentiality agreement
with USEC.
Ohio officials released details of their package, saying it was
valued at a minimum of $125 million. The package is being made
public, although portions of it will require formal approval by
public agencies.
"Our package was more competitive than Ohio's," Strong said. "It
was one of the highest packages I've ever seen."
Strong has been Kentucky's economic development secretary for 10
years. One of the largest packages offered and accepted by a
private company was $147 million offered to Toyota in 1986.
Strong said that since Kentucky will not have to ask the
legislature or any boards to approve any part of the USEC
package, he feels it necessary to honor the confidentiality
agreement.
Paducah Mayor Bill Paxton said he was pleased at the package. "I
feel extremely confident that the state gave a very competitive
package," he said. "I'm familiar with it enough to know that for
a state this size (and) for the number of jobs that it (was)
going to entail ... it was a very aggressive proposal."
McCracken County Judge-Executive Danny Orazine said "the word we
got out of Frankfort was that it was almost excessive (because)
it was such a good package."
After USEC stops production in Paducah around 2010, several
hundred workers will be required to maintain the plant. Others
are expected to be offered jobs assisting in contamination
cleanup.
Strong expressed confidence that the region will rebound with new
jobs. "The entire region is ripe for economic development,"
Strong said. "We'll redouble our efforts to help find new
industry."
Gov. Ernie Fletcher, who took office Dec. 9, said there was
little he could do to entice USEC. "This is a decision that was
essentially made under the previous administration," Fletcher
said. "Kentucky made a competitive offer, but USEC ultimately
decided Ohio was a better fit. Clearly, it is another example of
how we must make Kentucky more competitive and attractive for
those types of economic opportunities and job growth."
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield said they
were disappointed but not surprised. McConnell said he would
continue to seek cleanup funds and money to construct a plant to
recycle depleted uranium.
"The excellent work force at Paducah has served our country well
for decades and I am confident they will continue their
outstanding work as long as USEC operates the Paducah plant,"
McConnell said.
Whitfield said the region will survive. "Paducah is a very
progressive community that is moving ahead with the development
of a major industrial park in Graves County to attract new
business and industry," he said.
U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning said Paducah "deserved to have this plant"
because workers "dedicated their lives to the security of our
nation by helping to build a strong weapons system."
Ohio's incentive program was worth at least $125 million. Here's
a breakdown of the incentives, followed by the value to USEC.
State Incentives
Job creation tax credit, $10.8 million.
Manufacturing machinery sales tax exemption, $53.48 million.
Research and development tax credit, to be determined.
Research and development sales tax exemption, to be determined.
Machinery and equipment tax credit, to be determined.
Grants
Business development, $5 million.
Three small grants, $850,000.
Infrastructure Assistance
Roadwork, $2 million.
Water development, $5 million.
Financing
State financing assistance, $20 million.
Ohio Air Quality Development bonds, to be determined.
Work Force Development
Employee training, $2 million.
Local Tax Incentive
Ohio Enterprise Zone Program, $26 million.
*****************************************************************
45 Paducah Sun: Lost jobs could start being replaced this week -
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Civic leaders see an announcement by an employer as the first
step toward what they are calling economic diversification.
By Jimmy Nesbitt The Paducah Sun
BARKLEY THIELEMAN/The Sun Chairman reacts: Ken Wheeler
(center), chairman of the Greater Paducah Economic Development
Council, addresses the media Monday with McCracken County
Judge-Executive Danny Orazine (left) and Paducah Mayor Bill
Paxton listening.
City and county officials have a five-year plan to replace the
1,270 jobs lost when the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant closes
in 2010, and expect to announce the first step this week with a
commitment from a company that will eventually bring more than
100 jobs.
Paducah Mayor Bill Paxton, who spoke Monday morning at a press
conference at City Hall, said an announcement could come "in the
next day or so," but he wouldn't provide details.
Although he was disappointed with the announcement that USEC Inc.
will locate its $1.5 billion plant in Piketon, Ohio, Paxton said
the loss of the plant allows the community to diversify its
economy. He hopes to lure industries to Paducah that have
benefits and salaries that are competitive with the wages and
benefits at the plant.
Paxton and McCracken County Judge-Executive Danny Orazine
received a call around 9 a.m. Monday from a USEC official who
confirmed the company's decision.
"I don't think that was really a surprise to anyone here in the
community," Orazine said.
"Even though we're disappointed, I'm still upbeat with what our
future holds for us, because we're going to have at least until
the end of this decade before this plant is closed."
Orazine said he is counting on growth at the regional industrial
park in northern Graves County, the Information Age Park and the
industrial park on Olivet Church Road to offset the loss. "We've
already started putting a lot more money in economic
development," Orazine said. "These seeds are going to pay off.
We're just going to have to work a lot harder."
The loss of the plant to Piketon wasn't "because of our effort,"
Orazine said. "Ohio just beat us out."
USEC officials have said Paducah's proximity to the New Madrid
Fault coupled with the lack of an existing building for the
plant, which Ohio has, put it at a disadvantage.
"(When) you factor in the time that it would have taken to build
a similar building here in Paducah, it was just entirely too much
to overcome," Paxton said.
Ken Wheeler, chairman of the Greater Paducah Economic Development
Council, said at the press conference that Paducah "can compete
with any community in the nation" for new industry.
"We're going to tell you things this week that will emphasize
that fact," he said.
Residents around the plant also weren't surprised by the
announcement. Marshall Bobo, 70, who lives about two miles
northeast of the plant on Gibson Road, said he "figured it would
happen.’’
"I hate to see the people there lose their jobs," he said. "I
hate to see anyone lose his job."
*****************************************************************
46 Irish Examiner: De Rossa seeks tougher controls on nuclear waste
[Irish MEP Pronsias de Rossa has called for tougher EU
controls on nuclear waste.]
13/01/2004 - 8:18:32 AM
Irish MEP Pronsias de Rossa has called for tougher EU controls on
nuclear waste.
Mr de Rossa also said it was unacceptable that countries like
Ireland had no say in decisions about nuclear facilities in EU
member states.
The Labour Party MEP said such decisions had the potential to
affect all European citizens.
The European Parliament is examining two reports this week
focusing on the management of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.
© Thomas Crosbie Media 2004.
*****************************************************************
47 Courier Journal: Paducah nuclear plant will close
courier-journal.com/
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Company to shift fuel operations to Ohio by 2010
By JAMES MALONE
jmalone@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
associated press
McCracken County Judge-Executive Danny Orazine, left, and
Paducah Mayor William Paxton spoke yesterday about the future of
the plant.
PADUCAH, Ky. The company operating the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion
Plant said yesterday that it will build a $1.5billion factory to
produce nuclear reactor fuel in Piketon, Ohio, instead of
Kentucky and eventually will close its uranium-processing
operations in Paducah.
United States Enrichment Corp. of Bethesda, Md., said the Paducah
plant, with about 1,200 workers, will continue operating until
about 2010, when the Ohio plant is expected to come online.
With the new plant, USEC will separate uranium using new
centrifuge processing technology spinning it in finely balanced
cylinders rather than with giant compressors and filters used at
Paducah. The change is expected to use far less electricity and
produce less byproducts and waste. The new plant also will have
fewer workers about 500.
USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said Ohio had three clear
advantages: a "significantly better" incentive package; existing
buildings the company could use at Piketon; and a lower risk of
earthquakes.
Civic and government leaders in Paducah for weeks had steeled
themselves for the announcement, which they described as
disappointing but not surprising.
But Jim Rodgers, 43, an electrician at the Paducah plant, said
many of the workers "were taken aback" by the news, which he said
leaves them to brace for the unknown.
"I'll be cutting back on a few things," he said.
USEC had announced in December 2002 that Piketon would be the
site of a pilot plant for the new technology, a move that all but
assured that it would get the full project, local leaders said.
At a City Hall news conference, Paducah Mayor William F. Paxton
said Kentucky aggressively courted the new plant but was never
able to overcome what he called a "$300million disadvantage"
caused by the Ohio plant's already having the specialized
buildings in place.
The government developed a centrifuge at the Piketon plant, the
sister plant to Paducah, in the 1980s but later scrapped the
project.
"I have no second thoughts about the job that we did. It just
wasn't meant to be," Paxton said of Kentucky's effort.
Elaine Spalding, president of the Paducah Area Chamber of
Commerce, said the city was fortunate to get a six-year heads-up
on the closing. "Most places get 90 days' notice," she said. "I
don't think you'll see an economic impact here for a long time."
Donna Steele, who today leaves her post as vice president of
Local 5-550 of the Paper, Energy, Chemical and Allied Industrial
Workers Union that represents about 850 workers at the Paducah
plant, said some workers had long believed the new plant would go
to Ohio.
"Everybody had been expecting it, so it's hard to say people were
shocked," she said.
But Rodgers said his future could mean going back to school to
train for a new job.
"I have two kids who will be in college in three years," Rodgers
said. "We may be looking at going to a smaller home, and we may
be looking at liquidating some things."
The end of production at the Paducah plant will not affect
another 500 workers in various environmental cleanup projects at
the site. Ken Wheeler, chairman of the Greater Paducah Economic
Development Council, a local development group, said that the
government has pledged to build a plant within two to three years
to process some of the uranium waste at the site, and that the
new facility will employ about 150 people.
Ohio officials valued their incentive package of grants, loans
and tax breaks at $100million. Stuckle said that in addition to
Ohio's incentives, constructing new buildings in Kentucky to
withstand earthquakes would have delayed the project for a year
and added to the cost.
Kentucky officials maintained the earthquake threat in Paducah
was overstated.
USEC has said the proposed plant, in addition to employing about
500 people, will need an undetermined number of related
consultants and contractors. About 300 construction jobs will be
created when the plant is built.
The Paducah plant pays wages of more than $20 an hour some of
the highest in Western Kentucky. Steele said the chances of
finding a similar paying job in the region "would be slim to
nothing."
Kentucky Economic Development Secretary Gene Strong said there
would have been a "significant reduction" in employment even if
Paducah had landed the new plant.
Strong said Kentucky's offer was "very aggressive and
competitive" but declined to reveal it. He added that the offer
was based on "sound financial strengths and the ability to
protect taxpayer dollars in the event the project didn't happen
according to plan."
Strong said he was notified at home Sunday night about USEC's
decision. The existing buildings in Ohio and the earthquake
concerns were "detrimental" to the tune of "hundreds of millions
of dollars," he said.
Stuckle said USEC will have to attract outside investors to
finance the new plant. She said USEC will build the pilot plant
and then demonstrate the technology to bring potential investors
aboard.
Kentucky officials were aware of USEC's financial needs, Strong
said.
"When you're giving away taxpayers' monies and you're in that
sort of situation, I think taxpayers deserve to have a certain
level of protection that a company will deliver what they say and
if they don't deliver that then you have the ability to recover
the portion the company did not demonstrate as proposed," Strong
said.
USEC has leased the 50-year-old Paducah plant from the Department
of Energy since 1994, when the federal government privatized its
uranium-production operations. The company went from
quasi-government to private sector in 1998.
Yesterday's announcement trumped one USEC made three years ago
when it said that it would shift all of its uranium-enrichment
production from Piketon to Paducah. The Ohio plant is still on
standby, however.
Larry Stovesand, owner of Paducah Ford, said that the USEC
announcement was disappointing but that he's going ahead with
plans for a dealership expansion.
"It doesn't scare me," Stovesand said. "And in the next 10 years,
a lot of things can change."
In Ohio, the announcement was greeted with broad enthusiasm.
"I think the future is a lot brighter," said Marvin Jones,
executive director of the chamber of commerce in Chillicothe,
where about one-fourth of the workers at the Piketon plant live.
Jones said there had been rumors circulating in the last week
that the plant would go to Piketon.
Blaine Beekman, executive director of the Pike County (Ohio)
Chamber of Commerce, said the decision means another generation
of workers will have good-paying jobs.
John E.L. Robertson, a local historian in Paducah, said overall,
the gaseous diffusion plant has been good for the area, even with
the health problems it brought for some workers.
"Paducah was wilting and dying before it came," he said.
"It turned the community around. This is a major hit to our
economy."
Copyright 2003 The Courier-Journal.
*****************************************************************
48 U.S. Newswire: DOE Dedicates New National Isotope Production Facility
at Los Alamos National Laboratory
1/12/04 12:11:00 PM
To: National Desk, Energy Reporter
Contact: Hope Williams, 202-586-5806, or Joe Davis,
202/586-4940, both of the U.S. Department of Energy
WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Secretary of Energy
Spencer Abraham announced today the commissioning of the Nation's
newest isotope production facility located at Los Alamos Neutron
Science Center (LANSCE) in New Mexico. When the $23 million
state-of-the-art facility reaches full-scale operation later this
spring, it will greatly enhance security of supply of short lived
medical isotopes in the United States.
"The short lived isotopes produced by this facility and other
accelerators in the DOE complex provide vital isotopes required
to diagnose, treat and research serious illnesses such as heart
disease and cancer," Secretary Abraham said. "The radioisotopes
produced by the new beam spur at the Los Alamos accelerator
center will help assure the uninterrupted supply of these
isotopes." LANL Laboratory Director Pete Nanos, joined facility
sponsor William D. Magwood IV, chief of DOE's Office of Nuclear
Energy, Science and Technology, and Senator Jeff Bingaman in a
ceremony today to dedicate the new facility.
Speaking before 150 invited guests, Magwood applauded the
Laboratory's success in completing the first dedicated isotope
facility in more than twenty years and completing the more than
50,000 hours of construction on the facility without a single
lost workday.
The facility, built over the last five years, houses a new beam
line and equipment needed to direct part of the 100 million
electron volt proton beam from the existing LANSCE accelerator to
a new target station designed exclusively for the production of
isotopes. LANSCE delivered the first proton beam to the new
facility at 11:34 p.m. on Dec. 23, 2004.
The new facility will allow the production of more than 30
different types of isotopes in significant quantities and
provides the flexibility to insert and retrieve targets while the
LANSCE accelerator continues to operate in support of vital
science and national security missions.
Some of the key isotopes that will be produced by the facility
include copper-67, arsenic-73, germanium-68 and strontium-82.
These isotopes are important to the treatment of cancer and other
illnesses because the isotope can be targeted directly to the
cancer with minimal side effects and their short half-life
assures that the isotope does not remain in vital organs such as
the liver. Additionally, hospitals and research institutions
across the nation use isotopes such as germanium-68, produced by
this facility, every day to calibrate medical imagining
equipment.
Additional information on the Department of Energy's isotope
program may be found on the nuclear energy web site at
http://www.nuclear.gov.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
*****************************************************************
49 Paducah Sun: DOE UF6 conversion hearing tonight
Tuesday, January 13, 2004;Paducah, Kentucky
UF6 conversion hearing set by DOE Tonight's meeting will take
comments on environmental impact statements for Paducah and
Piketon, Ohio, plants.
Staff Report
The Department of Energy will hold a public hearing at 6 tonight
to take comments on two draft environmental impact statements for
plants to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at Paducah
and Piketon, Ohio, into safer material.
The meeting is set for the DOE Environmental Information Center,
115 Memorial Drive, off Blandville Road. Information: Walter
Perry, 865-576-0885.
Starting this spring, Uranium Disposition Services will build a
factory at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and a similar one
in Piketon to convert 38,000 cylinders of UF6 into safer
substances that might be used commercially. UF6 is mildly
radioactive and emits toxic hydrogen fluoride when exposed to
moisture in the air.
The Paducah conversion plant is expected to generate $60 million
in work, including 100-150 construction jobs over two years and
150 operational jobs for 20 to 25 years.
UDS will help sell the hydrogen fluoride and look for oxide
markets to help the Energy Department pay for part of the
approximate $100 million construction costs of each of the
plants.
*****************************************************************
50 Bush's Space Program: A Future Armada?
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 13:53:54 -0600 (CST)
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
PM Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Bush's Space Program: A Future Armada?
President Bush is expected to make a statement Wednesday regarding U.S.
government plans for space. The following analysts are available for
interviews:
BRUCE GAGNON, globalnet@mindspring.com, http://www.space4peace.org,
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/articles/bush_plays_with_fire.htm
Director of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
and author of the recent article "Bush Plays with Fire: Launching a
Dangerous Space Policy," Gagnon said today: "The U.S. never signed the 1979
Moon Treaty that was created at the United Nations to prevent a rush of
land claims and military bases on the moon.... Scientists have discovered
valuable resources on the moon including helium 3, a fuel that is seen as a
replacement for the dwindling supply of fossil fuels back here on Earth....
Within hours after Chinese taikonaut Yang Liwei ventured into space in 2003
.. Lt. Gen. Edward Anderson, deputy Commander of U.S. Northern Command,
said that 'In my view it will not be long before space becomes a
battleground.' Just as the Spanish Armada and British Navy were created to
protect the interests and investments in the 'new world,' space is viewed
today as open territory to be seized for eventual corporate profit."
ALICE SLATER, aslater@gracelinks.org,
http://www.gracelinks.org/nuke/starwars,
http://www.accuracy.org/press_releases/PR041703.htm
Director of the Global Resource Action Center for the Environment, Slater
said today: "The plan to establish a 'beachhead' on the moon, taking the
'high ground' from which to dominate and control the military use of space,
is clearly articulated in the documents of the U.S. Space Command. It will
create a new arms race to the heavens. Russia and China, which have been
thwarted by the U.S. during the past several years in their annual call at
the United Nations for negotiations on a treaty to prevent the
militarization of space, will not stand idly by...."
KARL GROSSMAN, kgrossman@hamptons.com,
http://www.fair.org/extra/writers/grossman.html
Professor at the State University of New York, Grossman is author of the
book "The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet."
He said today: "Accidents have happened in the U.S. space nuclear program
-- including the 1964 disintegration of a plutonium-powered satellite
spreading lethal plutonium widely on Earth. NASA's Project Prometheus will
use nuclear-propelled rockets. More atomic-powered space devices will place
us at great risk. Consider if Columbia had been nuclear-powered: there
would be radioactive debris spread over Texas and Louisiana. Billions were
wasted on nuclear-propelled rocket projects in the 1950s and '60s before
they were cancelled because of the still-present danger of an atomic rocket
crashing back to Earth.... Moreover, there have been great advances in
safely powering and propelling spacecraft. Solar-electric propulsion and
solar sails are now safely propelling spacecraft."
MICHELLE CIARROCCA, ciarrm01@newschool.edu,
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/axisofinfluence.html
Ciarrocca is senior research associate at the World Policy Institute and
co-author of the report "Axis Of Influence: Behind the Bush
Administration's Missile Defense Revival." She said today: "The Bush
administration's push to establish a permanent U.S. presence on the moon
could be a first step in carrying out the goals outlined by Rumsfeld's
Space Commission.... No fewer than eight Pentagon contractors were
represented on the space commission, marking a serious and direct conflict
of interest."
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
_________________________________________________________________
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51 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 19:23:31 -0800
GCU installs accelerator for nuclear physics research
Daily Times, Pakistan
... for Advanced Studies in Physics (CASP) at Government College University
(GCU) has installed a 100-Kilo Electron Volt (KEV) accelerator for research
in nuclear ...
DECONSTRUCTED: North Korea's Nuclear Programs
Arms Control Today
... declared that he will only support an agreement with North Korea that
contains measures to verify the complete and irreversible end of Pyongyang’s
nuclear ...
TIME for another nuclear accord
Ha'aretz, Israel
... Minister Golda Meir and US President Richard Nixon reached an understanding
under which the United States would stop pressuring Israel to sign the
nuclear non ...
US success with Libya exposes Pakistan's nuclear know-how
Minneapolis Star Tribune (subscription), MN
... has created a new and potentially embarrassing problem: Pakistan --
a vital US ally in the war on terror -- appears to have been a main supplier
of nuclear know ...
ELMHURST College, Northwestern Memorial create joint nuclear ...
Chicago Sun Times, IL
Elmhurst College has signed a collaborative agreement with Northwestern
Memorial Hospital to prepare students for a career in nuclear medicine
technology. ...
NUCLEAR pact marks milestone in US-India relations
Straits Times, Singapore
NEW DELHI - Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee yesterday said a
ground-breaking nuclear and high-tech agreement with the United States
marked a key ...
US to Boost India Military, Nuclear Defense Contracts
Moscow Times, Russia
NEW YORK -- US President George W. Bush said the United States and India
will expand cooperation on missile defense, civilian nuclear power, civilian
space ...
TOWARD a More Responsible Nuclear Nonproliferation Strategy
Arms Control Today
For nearly half a century, the United States has attempted to “delegitimize”
the use of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.
...
AUSTRALIAN opposition to abandon nuclear waste dump in SA
Radio Australia, Australia
Australia's Opposition leader, Mark Latham has promised that a Labor Government
will not build a nuclear waste dump in South Australia. ...
ISRAELI arrested in Denver for shipping nuclear-related parts to ...
Ha'aretz, Israel
... was arrested at Denver International Airport on January 2 on suspicions
he illegally shipped high-tech equipment to Pakistan that could detonate
nuclear weapons ... Israeli accused of sending nuclear parts to
Pakistan - Jerusalem Post Bond set for man accused of sending nuclear-weapons
parts to ...
This once-a-day News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)...
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52 EUpolitix: France clings to fusion dreams
Paris is demanding that Europe go ahead with plans to build a
nuclear fusion plant, even if it misses out on international
funding.
Cadarache in the south of France is currently Europe’s
candidate to host the International Thermonuclear Energy Reactor,
known as ITER, but has met with stiff competition from Japan.
French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced on Monday
that the EU should be prepared to go it alone.
“We have to have ITER, even if we do it ourselves”, Raffarin
told journalists, adding that “This is the energy of the
future, the wealth of the 21st century.”
With the USA throwing its support behind Japan – a move which
many believe to be a backlash for France’s opposition to the
war in Iraq – Paris’s chance of winning ITER seem to be
dwindling.
Russia and China appeared to support France’s bid before
Christmas, but Japan has launched a diplomatic offensive to win
them over before a decision is taken next month.
And having already failed to win the support of South Korea,
France seems resigned to making plans on its own.
“The Europeans could do it – possibly with Canada”, said
Raffarin.
“We won’t let go of this – we’re in a negotiation phase
and we’re determined.”
The commission on Tuesday said that building ITER alone was
“scientifically and technically feasible” but cautioned that
the €10 billion needed was “a significant amount of money”.
Supporters of nuclear fusion say it provides an attractive
long-term energy option, because the basic materials needed for
its generation are in plentiful supply, and fusion reactors would
not produce fissile materials that could be used in nuclear
weapons.
But opponents point out that decades of research into fusion have
failed to produce results, and call instead for investment in
renewable energy sources.
A spokesman for environmental group Greenpeace called it “a
boffin’s dream,” adding, “ITER has been a glint in
scientists’ eyes for 50 years – it won’t deliver anything
for another 50 at least”. Published: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:34:23
GMT+01 Emily Smith “We won’t let go of this – we’re in a
negotiation phase and we’re determined.” Jean-Pierre Raffarin
©2004 EUpolitix.com About EUpolitix | About the Forum | Contact |
*****************************************************************
53 Xinhuanet: Politics threatens to dominate nuclear fusion debate
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-01-13 14:34:04
PARIS, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- French Prime Minister
Jean-Pierre Raffarin said Monday that Europe could construct an
experimental nuclear fusion reactor on its own if pushed to do
so.
Raffarin was speaking in reaction to a comment from US Energy
Secretary Spencer Abrahams that the US favors a Japanese site for
the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) which
France also wants to host.
"We have to have ITER even if we have to do it ourselves," a
determined Raffarin told journalists. "The Europeans could do it,
possibly with Canada. We won't let go of this."
Raffarin's remarks immediately sent shockwaves across the
worldsince France has been competing with Japan for the
construction site of the multi-billion dollar project and this is
the first time France has voiced its resolve to host ITER so
directly.
The project in question is the world's largest-yet nuclear
fusion power plant whose technology is touted as a solution to
global energy problems. Once finished in 2050, ITER will generate
clean, safe and inexhaustible electricity.
There are two bidding sites for the project. One is
Rokkasho-mura, a remote fishing village in northern Japan. The
other is theFrench southeastern town of Cadarache.
ITER's participants -- the EU, the United States, China,
Russia,Japan, South Korea and Canada -- are divided into two
groups. The United States and South Korea back Rokkasho-mura.
France is busy enlisting Russian and Chinese support for its
Cadarache site.
Both countries have spared no effort in highlighting the
advantages of their respective sites but what started out as a
purely technical issue as to ITER's location has taken a
distinctly political turn with the United States stepping forward
and publicly airing its backing for Japan.
On Jan. 9, Abraham openly expressed US support for Japan to
host the ITER, claiming Rokkasho-mura provides a superior site
forthe project.
This was the first time the United States has publicly
revealedits preference for the Japanese site and has thrust
previously hidden competition firmly into the spotlight.
Observers believe the outright US opposition to France's bid
indicates Washington's retaliation for France's condemnation of
the US invasion of Iraq.
In response, EU Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin has
rebuked the US, terming Abraham's remarks "inappropriate and
inopportune" coming at a time when evaluation of the bidding
sitesis still going on.
Raffarin's remarks Monday raised the stakes. With the EU as
itssteadfast supporter, France -- a forerunner in nuclear
technology -- showed it is prepared to fight its corner with the
US.
The French premier left leeway for France, however, saying
theyare still ready to cooperate with the United States on the
project.
ITER's partners failed to choose between the two sites at a
meeting in Washington on Dec. 20, and will gather again next
monthto try to resolve the issue.
Nuclear fusion is a process in which a massive amount of
energyis produced when atomic particles fuse together. It is the
opposite of nuclear fission used in existing nuclear power plants
and nuclear weapons.
If successful, ITER will be the world's first commercially
viable fusion reactor and could herald a world energy revolution.
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
54 War Wire: Europe could go it alone on ITER energy project: Raffarin
WAR.WIRE
PARIS (AFP) Jan 13, 2004
Europe could go it alone on the ITER experimental nuclear fusion
reactor project but its hand remains extended to the United
States, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said.
The multi-billion-dollar International Thermonuclear Experimental
Reactor (ITER) project will be located either in the French
southeastern town of Cadarache, chosen as the European Union's
bid, or the northern Japanese village of Rokkasho-mura.
Last week US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said, during a
visit to Tokyo, that Japan offers "the superior site" for the
project.
ITER aims to be a test bed for what is billed as the clean, safe,
inexhaustible energy source of the future, emulating the sun's
nuclear fusion. The project, however, is not expected to generate
electricity before 2050.
Among the project's backers, the EU has won support from China
and Russia to site ITER at Cadarache. Japan has the backing of
South Korea and now the United States.
The six partners tried to choose the winning bid at a meeting in
Washington on December 20, but failed to decide. A fresh meeting
has been called for next month to review the results of the
current evaluation study.
"The Europeans could do it ourselves, perhaps with Canada,"
Raffarin told reporters here Monday.
"We are talking, the door is always open to the United States
(but) there is a real determination," he added.
WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
55 AFP: Europe could keep ITER, warns France
PARIS, Jan 13 (AFP) - Europe could go it alone on the ITER
experimental nuclear fusion reactor project but its hand remains
extended to the United States, French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre
Raffarin said. The multi-billion-dollar International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project will be located
either in the French southeastern town of Cadarache, chosen as
the European Union's bid, or the northern Japanese village of
Rokkasho-mura.
Last week US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said, during a
visit to Tokyo, that Japan offers "the superior site" for the
project. ITER aims to be a test bed for what is billed as the
clean, safe, inexhaustible energy source of the future, emulating
the sun's nuclear fusion. The project, however, is not expected
to generate electricity before 2050. Among the project's backers,
the EU has won support from China and Russia to site ITER at
Cadarache.
Japan has the backing of South Korea and now the United States.
The six partners tried to choose the winning bid at a meeting in
Washington on December 20, but failed to decide. A fresh meeting
has been called for next month to review the results of the
current evaluation study. "The Europeans could do it ourselves,
perhaps with Canada," Raffarin told reporters here Monday. "We
are talking, the door is always open to the United States (but)
there is a real determination," he added. © AFP
© copyright 2003 Expatica Communications BV Expatica,
Expatica.com
*****************************************************************
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