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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Reuters: Iran Demands Changes to IAEA Text on Nuclear Aims
2 Korea Herald: Seoul may offer energy aid to N.K
3 US: UCS: Hobson's Right Choice: Zero Funding for New Nuclear Weapons
4 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Panel says no to nuke research
5 US: Las Vegas RJ: Reagan axed MX from Nevada
6 UCS: BulletinWire: Russia: Flying, but not spying, under Open Skies
7 Business Gazette: U-TURN ON £3M OF NUCLEAR CASH
NUCLEAR REACTORS
8 US: NRC: NRC Board to Hold Prehearing Conference June 21 - 23 in Roc
9 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo will get safety review
10 UPI: Putin defends role in Iranian nuke plant -
11 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point drill praised, criticized
12 US: NRC: NRC Staff Approves Transfer of Operating License for Kewaun
13 US: TheDay.com: Millstone Booklet Unchanged After Critical Report
14 US: Oak Ridger: Workers exposed to low-level radiation at Browns Fer
15 Reuters: Europe thinks again on scrapping nuclear power
NUCLEAR SAFETY
16 [du-list] Just DU It: Depleted Uranium and the Real Costs of
17 US: Tennessean: Six workers at TVA work site inhaled radioactive mat
18 US: chillicothe gazette: Senators push nuke workers bill -
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
19 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast tests find added solvents
20 FT: BNFL: Operating losses widen at nuclear fuel group
21 ANS: ANS takes action on Yucca Mountain
22 OA Online: Conference set on proposed New Mexico uranium plant
23 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Siting plan for Tooele landfill in the works
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
24 IAEA: G8 Summit Announces Action Plan on Non-Proliferation
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
25 Hanford News: Reagan's 1956 Hanford visit a mystery
26 Idaho Statesman: WGI is part of group that seeks to manage INEEL
27 Oak Ridger: 1 million hours, no lost time - again
28 C&EN: GOVERNMENT & POLICY - DOE DEFENDS 'HOT' REPOSITORY DESIGN
29 Oak Ridger: BWXT Y-12 fined for explosion, fire
30 Tri-Valley Herald: Sandia computer lab links with scientists across
31 Hanford News: CH2M Hill Hanford hires environmental health chief
OTHER NUCLEAR
32 Google News Alert - nuclear
33 [du-list] 50,000 troops in gulf illness scare
34 IAEA: Press Arrangements for the IAEA Board of Governors Meeting
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Reuters: Iran Demands Changes to IAEA Text on Nuclear Aims
Fri Jun 11, 2004 07:29 AM ET
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran said on Friday it wants changes to a
tough draft resolution that rebukes Tehran for failing to
cooperate fully with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, whose board votes
on the text next week.
The United States says Iran's nuclear program is a front to build
an atomic bomb, but Tehran denies this. The draft resolution will
be debated at a meeting of the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) beginning on Monday.
The draft deplores Iran's failure to cooperate fully with a U.N.
investigation into suspicions that Tehran might have a covert
nuclear weapons program. Diplomats said Iran wants sections cut
or changes to soften the wording.
"The draft reflects American and some European countries'
stances," Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani told
Iranian state television on Friday.
"If the board does not make necessary changes, it means the
Europeans are ignoring their commitments," Rohani said before the
meeting of the 35-nation IAEA board. "It will influence Iran's
decision (on cooperation)."
But several diplomats said the Iranians were pleased the text
contained no trigger mechanism for the board to report Tehran to
the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions in the event
Iran's cooperation remained sluggish.
Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are limited to generating
electricity and wants a softening of the draft to reflect that.
The text was sent to IAEA board members earlier this week.
Diplomats said Iran also seeks the removal of a section that
calls on Iran to end operation of a uranium conversion facility
and reverse its decision to begin constructing a heavy water
research reactor that would produce weapons-useable plutonium.
WARNING FROM RUSSIA
A non-aligned diplomat told Reuters Iran would have trouble
convincing the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to soften the text,
given it is based almost verbatim on a report on Iran prepared by
IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei -- although Rohani denied this.
"We can't be seen to be contradicting (ElBaradei's) report," said
the diplomat. European and NAM states make up the majority of the
board.
© Reuters 2004. All
Rights Reserved.
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2 Korea Herald: Seoul may offer energy aid to N.K
2004.06.12
Incentives drawn up for North to comply with CVID
By Choi Soung-ah
With the next round of the six-nation talks on resolving North
Korea's nuclear standoff just around the corner, Seoul is drawing
up a comprehensive plan to provide the Stalinist state
substantial amounts of energy assistance, according to a
government official.
The aid is to be offered as incentive, or remuneration, for
Pyongyang to comply with the complete, verifiable and
irreversible dismantling (CVID) of its nuclear program, which the
United States has been insisting on since the six-way talks began
last August.
Seoul is also considering a "comprehensive plan" to propose that
other participating nations also offer North Korea energy aid,
including diesel fuel, at the upcoming third round of the formal
talks expected to take place June 23-26 in Beijing.
"But we must first convince the United States and Japan of the
need for assistance at this point," the official saids, asking
not to be identified. He stressed this would only be possible if,
and when, all participating sides work to put the talks to good
use, by producing a realistic and concrete outcome.
"If this third round of talks ends with no progress, skepticism
about the usefulness of the six-party talks is feared likely to
spread among the participants."
During the last round of talks in February, Seoul offered to
provide energy aid to Pyongyang if it commits to abandoning any
nuclear ambitions.
China and Russia supported the initiative and agreed to chip in.
The United States and Japan expressed "understanding" although
they stopped short of committing themselves to the plan.
But the proposal was ultimately scrapped as the North did not
agree to give up its nuclear program under the CVID context then
demanded by the U.S. and other countries.
And the talks between South and North Korea, China, the United
States, Japan and Russia, ended without any solid agreement,
except to hold working- level talks to prepare for the next round
of the official meeting. Another round of these will take place
June 21-22 in Beijing.
Now, the Seoul government wants to try to persuade Pyongyang
with a new energy assistance offer at the forthcoming nuclear
talks.
The nuclear crisis began in October 2002, after U.S. officials
said the North admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons
program in violation of international agreements.
The United States, Japan and South Korea are scheduled to hold a
strategy session on Sunday and Monday in Washington with their
chief nuclear negotiators to fine-tune their positions ahead of
the third round of six-party talks.
South Korean officials, including Seoul's chief negotiator Deputy
Foreign Minister Lee Soo-hyuck, stress it is essential to offer
an incentive to North Korea in order for the negotiations to make
progress.
"When, and under what conditions, North Korea's leader gives up
nuclear ambitions depend on the contents of reciprocal measures
that the country can win in exchange for abandoning nukes," he
said during a speech in London this week.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said his
government was firm on the stance of the CVID and there was no
speculation it would give up the term.
"There needs to be a complete elimination of programs to develop
nuclear weapons, of all nuclear programs. It needs to be done in
such a way that we don't have to worry about this kind of crisis
again," Boucher told a daily news briefing yesterday in
Washington.
"And so whatever the words are, the fundamental substance of
this is that North Korea needs to give up its nuclear programs in
a way that's not going to threaten its neighborhood ever again;
everybody has recognized that in terms of the discussions that
we've had."
(bluelle@heraldm.com)
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3 UCS: Hobson's Right Choice: Zero Funding for New Nuclear Weapons
[Union of Concerned Scientists]
June 10, 2004
In bold defiance of the White House wish list for new nuclear
weapons, Rep. David Hobson (R-Ohio), chairman of the House energy
and water appropriations subcommittee, today eliminated all
funding for new U.S. nuclear weapons programs. The committee cut
all the money for advanced concepts research, the robust nuclear
earth penetrator, the modern pit facility, and enhanced test
readiness.
"Rep. Hobson simply said no: no to new nuclear weapon designs, no
to resumed nuclear testing, no to producing new nuclear weapons,"
said Stephen Young, Senior Analyst at the Union of Concerned
Scientists. "The Bush administration's push for new nuclear
weapons has come up against a brick wall in the House."
The move to cut the nuclear weapons budget signals growing
bipartisan opposition to the administration's nuclear weapons
programs. It follows a close vote two weeks ago where the entire
House came within a few votes of eliminating funding for the
nuclear earth penetrator.
Last year appropriators cut or restricted funds for the same
nuclear weapons programs, noting that it was premature to go
forward without the administration's overdue report on the
planned size and structure of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.
The administration belatedly delivered the report last week,
claiming it plans to substantially reduce the stockpile.
Hobson also cut one-third of the funding for construction of a
proposed plant to turn excess warhead plutonium into fuel for
nuclear reactors. "The plutonium fuel plan was going nowhere
fast," said Dr. Edwin Lyman, Senior Scientist at UCS. "Rep.
Hobson is wisely taking money away from this pork barrel project
and shifting to programs that will effectively address the
nuclear terrorism threat."
On Tuesday, June 15 the Senate will vote on an amendment offered
by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) to
eliminate funds for programs to develop new nuclear weapons
capabilities, including the proposed nuclear bunker buster.
To set up interviews or for UCS info, contact:
ERIC YOUNG Assistant Press Secretary 202-223-6133 eyoung@ucsusa.org
LINDA GUNTER Press Secretary 202-223-6133 lgunter@ucsusa.org
© Union of Concerned Scientists
Page Last Revised: 06.10.2004
*****************************************************************
4 Salt Lake Tribune: Panel says no to nuke research
June 11, 2004
By Robert Gehrke
WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee has refused to grant the
Bush administration $66.6 million for research into new tactical
nuclear weapons and "bunker buster" bombs.
The programs were stripped from the spending bill approved by
the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee.
While the subcommittee action was an early step in the budget
process and the funds could be restored, Utah Democratic Rep. Jim
Matheson praised the move Thursday. Matheson is concerned that
funding the programs could lead to a new round of nuclear weapons
tests at the Nevada Test Site, posing a risk to southern Utah.
"If testing is going to happen in this country, the Nevada
Test Site is going to be the place it is going to happen," he
said. "This is a significant step, although it still has a ways
to go. . . . It just goes to show that there are other folks on
both sides of the aisle looking at this issue."
The Bush administration has said that there are no plans to
end a 1992 moratorium and resume nuclear bomb detonations in
Nevada, but it wants the money for research of the weapons.
The subcommittee stripped the funding from the spending bill
last year, as well, but it was restored by the Senate.
In the 1950s and '60s there were more than 900 nuclear
weapons tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Radioactive
fallout from those tests drifted across southern Nevada and
southeastern Utah, causing illnesses in thousands of downwinders,
including Matheson's father, the late Gov. Scott Matheson.
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
5 Las Vegas RJ: Reagan axed MX from Nevada
Friday, June 11, 2004
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Protesters let their signs do the talking at an anti-MX missile
rally at UNLV. On Oct. 2, 1981, President Reagan scrapped the
project.
REVIEW-JOURNAL FILES
WASHINGTON -- Years before there was a Yucca Mountain Project,
there was the MX missile racetrack, a government plan to shuttle
200 nuclear weapons around thousands of acres of Nevada desert to
hide them from the Soviets.
The scheme, devised by military planners in the midst of the
Cold War, would have fenced off valleys and dry lake beds through
Lincoln, Nye, Eureka and White Pine counties. Up to 4,600
underground launch sites would have been constructed. The
deployment would have spread into Utah.
Supporters believed it would have created tens of thousands of
jobs. Critics contended it would have drained the state's water
and changed the face of Nevada forever.
In the minds of many in Nevada and Washington, the MX system was
on a fast track despite growing questions about its $30 billion
cost and its feasibility.
"There was a kind of resignation that the federal government was
going to have its way and was going to succeed and this would be
a done deal," said Guy Rocha, Nevada state archivist.
"And then Ronald Reagan was elected," Rocha said in an interview
this week, days after the former president died.
Nine months after he was sworn in as president, Reagan announced
he was scrapping the plan.
"We are not going to deploy 200 MX missiles in 4,600 holes, nor
100 missiles in 1,000 holes," Reagan told a news conference on
Oct. 2, 1981.
Reagan's decision to abandon MX basing in Nevada came after he
commissioned an expert panel to study the proposal. It has been
cited as a key moment in the state's history, and one of Reagan's
legacies in the Silver State.
It was "one of the most significant announcements of his
presidency," according to former Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt.
In terms of controversy and public interest, the MX missile
rivaled the government's current bid to build a nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"It was an issue in its time of equivalent magnitude," Rocha
said. "It had a very high profile. People were very invested at
different levels in terms of outcomes they wanted to see."
Said Richard Bryan, Nevada's attorney general at the time: "It
was not a subtle issue."
Desert deployment of the MX was studied within the Pentagon
through the 1970s and embraced by President Carter in an
announcement on June 7, 1979 -- 25 years ago this week.
Military planners argued the United States needed to deploy new
intercontinental ballistic missiles to match the growing accuracy
of Soviet Union missiles. Further, there was a need to devise a
system to protect U.S. weapons from being taken out by a Soviet
first strike.
The MX would have carried 10 nuclear warheads on each rocket
body.
The Air Force studied and dropped numerous basing schemes,
according to John Isaacs, who monitored the MX for the Council
for a Livable World, an arms control organization. Isaacs is now
the group's president.
The racetrack plan would have placed rockets horizontally on
tracks and shuttled them among 4,600 launch shelters throughout
the Great Basin.
Nevadans were split.
Eager to attract government spending and associated private
investments, the Greater Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce and the
state AFL-CIO were among the groups supporting the MX. The Air
Force and contractors such as Boeing Aerospace and
Martin-Marietta operated MX-related programs at the Nevada Test
Site that were developing missile canisters and transporters and
employing 230 to 250 people to start.
Cattlemen and Citizen Alert, an activist organization in its
infancy, worked against the weapons system.
Nevada's population was so small then with fewer than 1 million
people, it had only one U.S. House member, Jim Santini, a
conservative Democrat. Santini raised alarms about the MX plan
while Carter was in office.
Santini forged alliances with liberals such as Rep. Ron Dellums,
D-Calif., to attack the project although, he recalled, some of
their amendments lost so badly "it was embarrassing."
"I just didn't want the state of Nevada to have its heart and
its soul ripped out by this military installation," said Santini,
now a travel and tourism lobbyist in Washington.
"The face of the state would have been changed forever," Bryan
said. "It would have carved out these pristine valleys with
extensive tracking. Once you saw those things laid out, there
would be no valley untouched."
Many believe Laxalt influenced Reagan, a close personal friend,
once Laxalt concluded the MX was not suitable for the state.
Laxalt declined interview requests this week.
In a 2000 memoir, Laxalt said he spoke with Reagan often about
the MX before the Californian became president, but made it a
point to avoid the topic in personal conversation once Reagan
entered office.
Laxalt wrote that he did not want to be seen as trading on his
friendship to influence an issue of national security.
But other than that, Laxalt wrote, he and Sen. Jake Garn,
R-Utah, sponsored hearings before their Senate military
construction subcommittee on the MX.
"The more hearings we held, the more questions were being raised
about the feasibility," he wrote. "Preliminary estimates were
that it would require some 50,000 construction personnel, fencing
off 250 square miles of land, a deployment area of roughly 30,000
square miles and the use of 121 billion gallons of water."
Reagan was pro-defense and not one to shrink from the Soviet
threat. But mounting costs for the MX rail basing and the growing
volume of questions about its environmental impacts and
workability began to resonate within his administration,
officials recalled.
"Nails were being driven into the coffin. Reagan put the final
nail in," Santini recalled.
Ed Allison, who was an aide to Laxalt at the time, said
decision-makers in the Reagan administration "were well aware of
who the president's best friend was. That's the way Washington
works."
At his news conference, Reagan said he concluded that desert
basing would leave the MX more vulnerable than placing the
missiles in existing silos. The MX eventually was deployed in
vertical shelters in the upper Midwest.
Among others, Rocha said, "there was a tremendous sigh of
relief, and a sense that you could fight city hall, you could
fight the federal government. It was seen as a victory for those
that said Nevada was constantly perceived as a wasteland."
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
6 UCS: BulletinWire: Russia: Flying, but not spying, under Open Skies
BulletinWire | June 10, 2004
This week the United States is hosting its first observation
flight under the Open Skies Treaty, which entered force on
January 1, 2002 and is intended to build trust between countries
that might otherwise be suspicious of each others behavior.
Russia and Belarus will jointly conduct the aerial inspection
mission from a Russian Tu-154 plane that will take off from
Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, according to the State
Department. The aircraft is unarmed but equipped with cameras;
the Russians and Belarussians may use the camera to capture
images along the agreed flight path.
U.S. escorts from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency will be
onboard the Russian aircraft during the flight. Russia and
Belarus are set to conduct another observational mission later
this year; the United States has already made 10 flights across
Russia and Belarus under the treaty.
Treaty members may make overflights of other members territories
and collect images along the way. A duplicate set of the images
is given to the host country, and other state parties to the
treaty may buy their own copies for the price of reproduction.
*****************************************************************
7 Business Gazette: U-TURN ON £3M OF NUCLEAR CASH
Published in Times &Star on Friday, June 11th 2004
WEST Cumbria could lose out on millions of pounds in subsidies
after nuclear decommissioning because of a Government U-turn.
It was hoped that the Energy Bill, debated in Parliament, last
week would include provision of £3 million a year to ensure the
social and economic well-being of the area post-decommissioning.
But the Government removed an amendment in the bill, claiming it
would put at risk the Nuclear Decommissioning Authorities chance
of fulfilling its clean-up responsibilities.
[Click to visit Kingmoor Park]
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8 NRC: NRC Board to Hold Prehearing Conference June 21 - 23 in Rockville, Md., on Early Site Permit
Applications
News Release - 2004-07 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-071 June 10, 2004
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board will hold a prehearing conference June 21 - 23 in
Rockville, Maryland, in connection with proceedings involving
three applications for early site permits for new nuclear power
plants.
The early site permit process provides an opportunity for
possible resolution of site-related issues regarding possible
future construction and operation of a nuclear power plant at a
site selected by an applicant. If the NRC approves an early site
permit request, the company holding the permit could reference
it at any time for up to 20 years in an application with the NRC
for approval to begin construction.
The three early site permit applications are from:
-- Dominion Nuclear North Anna, LLC, for the North Anna power
plant site near Mineral, Va.;
-- Exelon Generation Company, LLC, for the Clinton nuclear
power plant site, near Clinton, Il.; and
-- System Energy Resources, Inc. for the Grand Gulf site in
Port Gibson, Miss.
No applications to build new power plants on these sites have
been received, but there are currently operating reactors at
each site.
The conference will begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT each day at the NRC
Auditorium, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville Pike. Members
of the public may attend and observe the proceedings, but
participation will be limited to the NRC staff, the applicants
and individuals and groups who have petitioned to participate in
hearings on the permit applications. Participants and members of
the public should arrive early at the Two White Flint North
building to allow time for security screening and an escort to
the auditorium.
Those who have petitioned to intervene in one or more of the
applications include the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense
League, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Public
Citizen, Environmental Law and Policy Center, the Claiborne
County (Miss.) branch of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People and the Mississippi Chapter of the
Sierra Club. The conference will focus on arguments for and
against the admissibility to the hearing of several issues or
contentions raised by these groups.
Members of the licensing board are G. Paul Bollwerk, III,
Chairman; Paul B. Abramson and Anthony Baratta.
Any person who is not a party to the proceeding may submit
comments in writing, known as written limited appearance
statements, on issues in the proceeding. The statements can be
submitted at any time and should be sent to the Office of the
Secretary, Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; or to the
Office of the Secretary by fax (301/415-1101) or e-mail
(hearingdocket@nrc.gov). A copy should also be sent to the
Licensing Board Chairman at the following address:
Administrative Judge G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board Panel, Mail Stop T-3F23, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001; or to Judge Bollwerk by
fax (301/415-4499) or e-mail (gpb@nrc.gov).
Last revised Thursday, June 10, 2004
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9 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Diablo will get safety review
| 06/11/2004 |
Regulators want to see how problems are handled
David Sneed The Tribune
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that it will
conduct a two-week inspection, starting next week, into how well
operators at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant identify and
correct safety problems.
The announcement came at an annual meeting with the NRC and
Diablo Canyon operators to discuss the plant's safety performance
in 2003. It followed a contentious town-hall meeting the night
before at which the agency came under criticism for several
issues, including its reaction to the San Simeon Earthquake and
other issues.
However, NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said Thursday the coming
inspection will be a routine one that is done every two years. It
is not a special inspection prompted by problems identified last
year, he said.
At the meeting Thursday, NRC regulators reported that Pacific Gas
and Electric Co. operated the plant in a safe manner in 2003. But
problems surfaced during the year that required two special
inspections, and the agency concluded that the utility needs to
improve its track record in identifying problems and correcting
them, said Terry Jackson, one of two resident inspectors at the
plant.
Problems with troubleshooting contributed to a series of failures
in the plant's battery chargers, which are a crucial safety
component. The NRC conducted a special inspection to look into
the problem, and PG&E is replacing the chargers.
The NRC conducted its second special inspection of 2003 to
examine the plant's steam generators.
Tubes in the generators are starting to crack and occasionally
leak, requiring that they be plugged. A reactor must shut down if
more than 15 percent of its tubes are plugged.
Next week's inspection will last two weeks and the results will
be made public in about two months, said Bill Jones, the NRC
official who headed Thursday's meeting.
A panel of PG&E senior managers Thursday outlined a series of
steps being taken at the plant to improve its safety environment.
These include rewarding employees for discovering safety problems
and requiring workers to do a two-minute safety assessment of
their work areas before beginning a job.
The utility had previously announced that it will spend $1
billion through 2009 to replace major components of the plant,
said Greg Reuger, head of PG&E's nuclear power division. At $700
million, the most expensive upgrade is installation of new steam
generators in 2008 and 2009.
David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail
story ideas and comments to him at dsneed@thetribunenews.com
*****************************************************************
10 UPI: Putin defends role in Iranian nuke plant -
(United Press International)
June 11, 2004
Moscow, Russia, Jun. 11 (UPI) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin
says there is no reason Russia should stop helping Iran build a
nuclear power facility, Radio Free Europe reported Friday.
Speaking at the conclusion of the G8 summit in Sea Island, Ga.,
Putin said Russia would halt cooperation only if Iran refuses to
cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency at the Bushehr
facility.
Yet Putin was among the G8 leaders Wednesday who accused Iran of
inadequate cooperation with the International Atomic Energy
Agency.
Iran rejected the G8 statement, saying there is no proof it has
done anything wrong.
The IAEA board of governors will meet Monday in Vienna to
discuss Iran's nuclear program.
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
11 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point drill praised, criticized
By SHAWN COHEN THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: June 11, 2004)
Emergency responders dealt effectively this week with a mock
terrorist attack at the Indian Point power plants, federal
officials said yesterday, but critics charged that the test
ultimately failed because it didn't address the worst-case
scenario.
The phantom plane didn't strike a nuclear reactor, there was no
simulated leak of radiation, and only a small-scale evacuation
was ordered.
"Let's be honest, it's a joke," said Alex Matthiessen, executive
director of the environmental group Riverkeeper. "You're really
not testing an emergency plan unless you test a radioactive
release."
In the drill, a simulated 767 commercial jet flew into the
Buchanan plants, crashing near a transformer and knocking out the
external electrical supply line. The loss of power caused a pump
failure that threatened a reactor-core meltdown.
Entergy Nuclear Northeast, the plants' owner, as well as
Westchester County and state officials coordinated an elaborate
response that included shutting down the plants and evacuating a
five-mile radius.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Federal Emergency
Management Agency will issue an official report on the drill in
three months, but gave high marks to responders during an early
critique yesterday at the Joint News Center near Westchester
County Airport.
They called the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m drill a "successful operation,"
praising Entergy for moving quickly to shut down the plants and
notify authorities off site. More than 1,000 state and local
officials from Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties
responded, in addition to the FBI and White House, orchestrating
a response that included the pretend dispatch of firefighters,
helicopters and traffic-control officers.
The drill escalated gradually and ended abruptly with no response
to the impending failure of the reactor-cooling system and no
assessment of the traffic after the initial evacuation order was
given. However, this was the first time that the biennial test
has included a terrorist component, prompted largely by the Sept.
11 terror attacks when a hijacked 767 was flown over the plants
on its way to the World Trade Center.
"Understandably, some have been concerned that there was no leak
of radioactivity," said Herbert Miller of the NRC. "The short
answer is that the timing and overall progression of Tuesday's
exercise are a realistic reflection of what, based on our
extensive analyses, we believe would occur if a large plane
should hit Indian Point. Our studies show that a fast release of
radioactivity that affects public safety is highly unlikely."
Critics, who included environmental activists who want the plants
shut down and a few local legislators, railed against the drill
during a public comment period, saying the simulation should have
included a radioactive leak caused by planes slamming into the
reactor buildings or pools of spent fuel.
"I can't fathom a terrorist attack that wouldn't be targeted
directly at the heart of the plant," said Rockland Legislator
David Fried, D-Spring Valley, whose feelings were echoed by
Westchester County Legislator Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, and
several citizen activists.
"The reason so many politicians and concerned citizens asked for
terrorism to be included in an emergency drill was to test the
response to a scenario in which a large amount of radiation is
released in a short period of time, requiring a rapid evacuation
of a significant amount of people," said Mark Jacobs, a spokesman
for the Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. "Since the drill did
not test this at all, the test was completely inadequate. And
your incorporation of terrorism served only one purpose — a
public relations trick."
Afterward, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano praised
emergency officials for their response Tuesday but called the
drill's scope "totally inadequate."
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., in a press release,
stated, "I feel strongly that despite the strides that have been
made, additional steps must be taken to make future drills more
realistic. For example, future exercises should model emergency
response to a fast-breaking incident."
Copyright 2004 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper
serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York.
*****************************************************************
12 NRC: NRC Staff Approves Transfer of Operating License for Kewaunee
News Release - 2004-07
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 04-072 June 10, 2004
Plant from Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, Wisconsin Power
and Light Company, and Nuclear Management Company, to Dominion
Energy Kewaunee.
As provided by NRC regulations, the staff's approval of the
license transfer became effective on June 10, contingent on the
licensee receiving certain regulatory and judicial approvals.
Dominion Energy Kewaunee is a subsidiary of Dominion Resources.
On December 19, 2003, Nuclear Management Company submitted an
application, on behalf of the other license holders, to the NRC
requesting approval for the license transfer. The application
was supplemented by letters submitted February 18, 2004, and
March 17, 2004. Major issues considered by the NRC included
financial qualifications as well as transfer and maintenance of
accumulated decommissioning funds.
A copy of the NRC's approval order and accompanying safety
evaluation report will be placed in the NRC's Public Document
Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F23,
Rockville, MD 20852 (telephone 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737),
and will be added to the Agency-wide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS) on the NRCs Web site at this address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.html. The safety
evaluations ADAMS accession number is ML041280012 . Help in
using ADAMS is available by calling the Public Document Room.
Last revised Thursday, June 10, 2004
*****************************************************************
13 TheDay.com: Millstone Booklet Unchanged After Critical Report
State, Dominion Claim Publication Is Fine As Is
By DIANE SCARPONI
Published on 6/11/2004
Waterford No substantive changes have been made to the
emergency planning booklet that the state sends to residents of
towns near the Millstone nuclear power station, despite a
consultant's report that criticized the publication.
The report, by James Lee Witt Associates, recommended last year
that the state include more realistic descriptions of radiation
poisoning and suggested giving residents more information about
when it might be advisable to stay put, rather than flee, a
nuclear emergency.
The report also recommended the state change the emergency
signals it would send out on loudspeakers in the 10-mile radius
of the plant.
The booklet is published by the state Office of Emergency
Management, in consultation with Dominion Inc., which owns
Millstone Power Station.
Officials from the state and Millstone said they reviewed the
Witt report, but they believe the booklet is fine the way it is.
I think we put enough in there that meets the requirement, and
we walk a fine line between putting too much information in, that
the booklet is so big that people will not look at it, will be
put off by it, said Deborah Ferrari, who oversees nuclear
preparedness for the state Office of Emergency Management.
The 27-page booklet passed reviews by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, she said.
FEMA requires the state to mail booklets every three years to
households within 10 miles of Millstone. The state exceeds that
requirement by sending out the booklets every year, Ferrari said.
The primary point of the booklet is to advise people what to do
if there is an emergency at the plant. The booklet includes maps
of the region and information about where people from local
communities should go if there is a call to evacuate.
Activists who want to shut down Millstone argue the booklet is
useless, because they believe there is no real way to flee from
the area around the plant if there is a radiation emergency.
I think it's a PR effort to calm the fears of the public in
nuclear host communities, said Nancy Burton, a longtime
anti-nuclear activist.
The Witt report argued that the booklet should contain more
frank and realistic explanations about how radiation can sicken
people.
Engaging in a forthright discussion of the hazards of radiation
exposure is an important way to earn credibility with residents,
the report said.
But the state and Millstone leaders argue that people can get
such information from the Internet, the state health department
and other sources. In an actual emergency, the state can get out
more information about radiation through radio, television and
the Internet, they said.
We decided not to include that material, because we're not
using the emergency booklet as a reference guide on radiation.
The purpose of the emergency booklet was to help people evacuate
properly in an event, said Millstone spokesman Pete Hyde.
The Witt report also concluded that the booklet should contain
more information about sheltering, or staying put during a
plant emergency. The report said people might assume that any
emergency calls for a mass evacuation, but sometimes it is safer
for people to stay where they are.
The booklet tells people what to do if they are advised to stay
home, such as closing windows and flues. Ferrari said the
explanation already in the book was sufficient.
Likewise, the state has decided not to change the siren system
around the plant to include a distinctive tone for Millstone
emergencies.
The sirens would sound a steady three-minute tone if there were
an emergency at Millstone. The same tone is used for hurricanes
and other emergencies.
Ferrari said people already have been well-educated that they
should immediately tune to radio or television stations that are
part of the emergency alert system to get information if they
hear the siren sound.
I still am a big believer that the sirens do reach a lot of
people, she said.
The state has investigated adding other security features, such
as a reverse 911 system that would allow emergency officials to
send out a mass telephone call with vital information to local
residents.
Ferrari said reverse 911 and other technologies are not being
implemented now because of practical concerns about how they
might work. But, she said, the state would continue to look at
new technologies as they become available.
The Witt report was done for New York and primarily dealt with
that state's Indian Point plant, but it also examined Millstone
safety systems because some residents of Fishers Island, N.Y.,
live within 10 miles of Millstone.
1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
14 Oak Ridger: Workers exposed to low-level radiation at Browns Ferry reactor
Story last updated at 12:15 p.m. on June 11, 2004
ATHENS, Ala. (AP) - An equipment malfunction at a Tennessee
Valley Authority nuclear reactor at the Browns Ferry plant
exposed some workers to low levels of radiation, officials said.
Six workers inhaled "very small amounts" of radiation and will
be monitored for several days while the shoes and clothes of 86
workers were also contaminated Wednesday when an air filtering
machine failed to operate properly at Unit 1, TVA spokesman John
Moulton said.
"The maximum amount of radiation workers have been exposed to
is very low," Moulton said Thursday.
No workers were injured and any radiation releases were well
within the plant's normal operating limits, he said. Work
resumed at the other two reactors Thursday
He said most of the affected workers were employees of Stone
&Webster Construction Co.
Unit 1 has been shut down since 1985 because of safety
concerns. TVA is working to get the unit back on line by 2007, a
job estimated to cost $1.8 billion.
Each unit has a capacity to produce 1,150 megawatts of
electricity. One megawatt serves 585 homes.
Knoxville-based TVA is the nation's largest public utility,
providing electricity to several large industries and 158
distributors serving about 8.3 million people in seven states,
including Tennessee and parts of north Alabama.
On the Net:
Tennessee Valley Authority: http://www.tva.gov
*****************************************************************
15 Reuters: Europe thinks again on scrapping nuclear power Fri
Jun 11, 2004 06:41 AM ET
By Stuart Penson
LONDON (Reuters) - Europe is finding it harder to rule out a
future for nuclear power as governments face the need to tackle
climate change without risking the future security of energy
supplies.
Nuclear's ability to generate power round the clock without
sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is testing the resolve
to abandon a hugely expensive industry still tainted by the
legacy of past disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
Helping the industry's case are doubts that the current attempt
by governments to spark a green power revolution by building
hundreds of windfarms can deliver big enough cuts in CO2 or
ensure that the lights stay on after existing reactors have shut
down.
"Nuclear power has gone from being very peripheral to being taken
seriously again," said Dieter Helm, a fellow in economics at
Oxford University.
"The exclusive focus on renewables and energy efficiency in
several social democratic governments in Europe is not delivering
enough carbon savings to keep on track with the ambitious climate
change targets."
Rising prices for fossil fuels and Europe's growing reliance on
gas imported from outside the region have also encouraged
policymakers to think again about phasing out nuclear, which has
high initial capital costs but low production costs thereafter.
Industry sources say Britain is likely to conduct a serious
reappraisal of nuclear power but because of the issue's
sensitivity the question will not get a public airing until after
a general election expected next year.
Britain put on hold its nuclear building programme with the
completion in 1995 of the Sizewell B station in eastern England
and is scheduled to close its last reactor in 2035.
A sharp drop in power prices recently forced the government to
rescue privatised nuclear giant British Energy from bankruptcy,
although prices have since recovered.
Despite the BE debacle ministers were careful to leave the door
ajar to a new generation of reactors when they updated their
thinking on energy policy earlier this year.
REACTORS GET CHEAPER
Analysts say the up-front costs of new reactors are dropping
because they are smaller than earlier models.
"I think there is evidence beginning to build that the capital
costs of nuclear plants will be substantially lower than in the
past," said Philip Ruffles, vice president of The Royal Academy
of Engineers in London. "Plants would be smaller, roughly half
the physical size of current plants."
Crucial to the viability of new reactors would be the cost of
capital and the length of time taken to build the plants, other
analysts said.
Nuclear costs must include the management of waste, problems with
which remains central to the argument of the industry's
widespread opponents.
"The biggest problem for nuclear is the disposal of radioactive
waste in a politically and publicly acceptable way," said Frank
Barnaby, a nuclear security specialist at the independent Oxford
Research Group.
Nuclear power is making headway in some countries. Finland is
building a three-billion-euro reactor, its fifth. France, which
already relies heavily on nuclear power, is pressing ahead with
plans to build a prototype pressurised water reactor as it looks
beyond the retirement of its existing plants.
Shifts in opinion are also evident in Sweden. A majority voted in
1980 to phase out atomic plants by 2010 but a recent Gallup poll
showed more than 55 percent in favour of keeping existing plants.
The Swiss last year voted not to scrap nuclear power after the
government argued it would be premature to shut down a cheap
energy source that meets 40 percent of its power needs.
c Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 [du-list] Just DU It: Depleted Uranium and the Real Costs of
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 18:29:25 -0700
Just DU It: Depleted Uranium and the Real Costs of Conquest
By Mickey Z. Wednesday, June 09, 2004 Press Action
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mickeyz06092004/
"Let's cut out the transcendental twaddle when the
whole thing is as plain as a sock on the jaw."
--Ludwig Wittgenstein
Roughly 100,000 misguided souls lined up to catch a glimpse
of Ronnie Raygun's coffin. I wish I could've stood just past
his corpse and shown all those mourners these photos:
http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/
This is the other side of Raygun's American morning, his
optimism...the end result of U.S. foreign policy as
practiced by our two-party (sic) system.
I could also stand outside voting booths in November and
hold up photos from the above link to help make the
connection between pulling the lever for Kush or Berry and
the actions we are sanctioning in our name. How about at the
gas pumps, too? At the movie theaters where blockbuster army
flicks rake in the dough.
The photos at http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/ provide
a stark reminder of who is on the other end of all those
cool weapons Hollywood glorifies. Not just when the bombs
hit (which is bad enough) but for years and years
afterwards...they illustrate the impact of depleted uranium
(DU) armor-piercing shells, of spreading the radioactivity.
"When fired," writes James Ridgeway in the Village Voice,
"the uranium bursts into flame and all but liquifies,
searing through steel armor like a white hot phosphorescent
flare. The heat of the shell causes any diesel fuel vapors
in the enemy tank to explode, and the crew inside is burned
alive."
As grisly as that may sound, the effects of DU did not end
with the scorched bodies of Iraqi conscripts. "The
uranium-238 used to make the weapons can cause cancer and
genetic defects when inhaled," says Ramsey Clark.
"Depleted uranium burns on contact," adds Helen Caldicott,
"creating tiny aerosolized particles less than five microns
in diameter, small enough to be inhaled." These minute
particles can travel "long distances when airborne," she
explains.
See: http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/
"There is no safe dose or dose rate below which dangers
disappear. No threshold-dose,'" John Gofman, a former
associate director of Livermore National Laboratory, one of
the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb, and
co-discoverer of uranium-233, told The Progressive.
"Serious, lethal effects from minimal radiation doses are
not 'hypothetical,' 'just theoretical,' or 'imaginary.' They
are real."
The photos at http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/ will
induce nightmares. You will have to look away. I guess I
should warn those who might venture a look...but who warns
those on the other end of American bombs paid for by
oblivious and/or supportive American citizens?
Who talks about the fact that the United States has waged
many nuclear wars...against Japan in 1945, against Iraq from
1991 to present, in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and on military
bases like Vieques?
Look at the photos. Share them. Print them out. Then imagine
how you'd feel if this happened to your country, your city,
or your family. To paraphrase Ward Churchill: If we really
want to end terrorism, we have to stop killing other
people's babies.
(Thanks to J. Giza for supplying the link.)
Mickey Z. has two new books just released. For more
information, please visit http://www.mickeyz.net.
--
Posted for educational and research purposes only,
~ in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 ~
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17 Tennessean: Six workers at TVA work site inhaled radioactive material,
official says - Friday, 06/11/04
Friday, 06/11/04 | Middle Tennessee News &Information
Six workers inhaled small amounts of radiation this week in the
midst of TVA's Browns Ferry Unit 1 nuclear rebuild project in
Alabama, said a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The clothes and shoes of 86 workers also were contaminated when
an air filter blew some dust into the building. The six
employees, who worked for Stone & Webster Construction Co.,
inhaled 4 millirems of radiation. The NRC limit per worker at a
nuclear plant is 5,000 millirems per year, said Roger Hannah of
the NRC.
— Tennessean News Services and Staff Reports
© Copyright 2004 The Tennessean
A Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper
Use of this site signifies that you agree to our terms of
service (updated: 12/20/2002).
Associated Press content is Copyrighted by The Associated
*****************************************************************
18 chillicothe gazette: Senators push nuke workers bill -
www.chillicothegazette.com
Friday, June 11, 2004
By GREG WRIGHT Gazette Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Fourteen Republican and Democratic senators next
week will push a bill they claim would help thousands of sick
nuclear weapons workers in Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and other
states get workers' compensation checks.
Sens. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and others
will try to put language in a defense spending bill to move the
Energy Department's controversial nuclear workers' compensation
program to the Labor Department.
The Energy Department helps Cold War-era workers who got cancer
or other diseases from radiation or chemical exposure get
workers' compensation checks. The Labor Department runs a
separate program that covers eligible workers' medical bills and
gives them a $150,000 reparation check.
Congress created both programs in 2000.
Some lawmakers complain the Energy Department does a bad job
processing claims, mainly because it cannot find enough doctors
to review them. Energy finished only 10 percent of 24,354 claims
it received by June 4. In contrast, the Labor Department
processed 60 percent of the 55,888 claims to its program.
The delays, the lawmakers, say, are unacceptable because workers
who sacrificed their health for national defense are dying before
getting any compensation. But even workers who have filed with
the Labor Department gripe they have a problem with delays.
Thomas Little, 89, sent in a claim in 2001. Little, who has skin
cancer, is still waiting for answer, said his son, Thomas Little
Jr.
During World War II the elder Little worked at the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory in Tennessee, which helped build the atomic
bombs dropped on Japan. Little suffers skin cancer on his back,
which is so scarred it "looks like a road map," his son said.
"For persons this old it is ridiculous that this should be taking
so much time," Little's son said in an e-mail to Gannett News
Service.
Energy Department spokesman Thomas Welch could not immediately
comment on whether the Bush administration would fight moving the
program to the Labor Department.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, tried unsuccessfully to make the
move last year. Grassley spokeswoman Beth Levine thinks chances
are better this time, but noted that the House could block the
switch even if the Senate approves it.
"The Cold War was won by the men and women who toiled away in our
defense plants making the weapons that enforced peace," Sen.
George Voinovich, one of the bill's cosponsors, stated in a
release Thursday. "While the compensation program has provided
overdue compensation for many of those who contracted terrible
illnesses from the materials they worked with, it has failed
others. Agencies have had a chance to make it work, but there are
clearly some problems that need legislative fixes and this
amendment will make the needed changes so workers can get the
compensation they deserve."
Other senators who support moving the program to labor include
fellow Ohio senator Mike DeWine, Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., Lisa
Murkowski, R-Alaska, Hilary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Maria
Cantwell, D-Wash., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Lamar Alexander,
R-Tenn., Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Jim
Talent, R-Mo.
Originally published Friday, June 11, 2004
Copyright ©2004 Chillicothe Gazette. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
19 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast tests find added solvents
| 06/11/2004 |
POLLUTION SOURCE QUESTIONED
DANA SANCHEZ
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - As experts continue to seek the source of pollution,
more solvents showed up in well water tests taken by Lockheed
Martin than in those independently analyzed by a neighborhood
action group worried about health problems.
In test results released Thursday, trichloroethylene, or TCE, a
toxic solvent released by a plant formerly owned and operated by
American Beryllium Co., was found in 10 Lockheed samples. On
Wednesday, the FOCUS group, which represents homeowners around
the plant, announced finding nine samples at levels exceeding the
three parts per billion of TCE considered safe.
Other solvents, including dichloroethylene and dichloroethane,
were found at levels above the drinking water standard in five of
24 wells tested by Lockheed and four by FOCUS.
The two sets of samples were drawn from the same water at the
same time by separate technicians and then taken to separate labs
for analysis.
Lockheed's and the FOCUS group's results were similar in terms of
what was found and where.
But Lockheed tested for beryllium in addition to solvents and
found no trace of the metal in any samples. Both the Florida
Department of Environmental Protection and Lockheed have stated
that they are unconvinced the former American Beryllium plant is
the only source of pollution in the area.
Lockheed Martin showed a reading of 510 parts per billion of
trichlorethene at 7716 17th St. Court E. in a well used for
irrigation.
Tallevast's FOCUS group showed a reading of 350 at the same home
adjacent to the former plant at the corner of Tallevast Road and
17th Street Court East.
Lockheed's reading was the highest TCE reading to date.
Both Lockheed's and the FOCUS group's lab were baffled by
findings at 7619 17th Street E., which showed no traces of TCE
and DCE but did show unsafe levels of chemicals typically used to
purify water in an irrigation well there.
Tallevast residents were eager to see their own well water test
results, released Tuesday.
Residents said they would trust those results, done at a local
lab, more than results from other sources.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the
Manatee County Health Department conducted their own well water
tests in late May.
Findings of solvents at unexpectedly high levels prompted
Lockheed to order more tests and to pay for FOCUS to have its own
tests done independently.
Laura Ward, president of FOCUS, did not return phone calls
Thursday.
Lockheed downplayed the differences, saying variations are to be
expected. Different handling, preservation and lab techniques
could account for discrepancies, said Meredith Rouse Davis,
senior manager of corporate affairs for Lockheed.
Lockheed intends to retest the wells and soil in an area yard
that showed positive for arsenic, Rouse Davis said.
The data collected from continued testing of the same wells will
give the defense contractor the data needed to define the
appropriate remediation method, she said.
"It's important to find the source," Rouse Davis said. "If it's
coming from someplace else and we're focusing on ABC, then it's
going to continue to happen."
A strategy for evaluating other potential sources of pollution in
the area is still being determined, said Merritt Mitchell,
external affairs manager for the DEP in Tampa.
Many other businesses have potentially used the same chemicals
that are showing up in wells, she said.
"We're looking at businesses in the community as well as
residential properties that have historically been used for
business," she said.
All Tallevast residents were switched to county water in the past
month. Those hookups were temporary with permanent ones to
follow.
"We don't have any evidence linking any of the contamination to
the former ABC facility," Mitchell said.
*****************************************************************
20 FT: BNFL: Operating losses widen at nuclear fuel group
By Andrew Taylor, Utilities Correspondent
Published: June 11 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: June 11 2004 5:00
Operating losses at state-owned British Nuclear Fuels widened
last year due to low electricity wholesale prices at its Magnox
power stations, start-up costs at the controversial Mox fuel
manufacturing plant and rising nuclear clean-up costs.
The scale of the deficit explains why the government has decided
to take over the group's nuclear decommissioning liabilities from
next April. A new, state-owned Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
will also acquire BNFL's Magnox stations as well as its fuel
reprocessing and Mox fuel manufacturing operations at Sellafield
in Cumbria.
Mike Parker, BNFL chief executive, yesterday said pre-tax losses,
before exceptional charges, rose from £261m to £303m in the 12
months to the end of March. The total loss for the previous year
was £1.09bn after exceptional charges of £827m, including £415m
of extra provisions to cover future decommissioning costs. BNFL
estimated that it would have made an underlying pre-tax profit
last year of about £250m on sales of £1.22bn if the new
decommissioning body had already been operating. The calculations
are based on the level of fees BNFL expects to earn from
operating its former plants on behalf of the NDA.
The new authority eventually plans to open these contracts and
subsequent decommissioning work to competitive tender. Potential
rivals for the contracts include Bechtel and Fluor of the US.
BNFL has established a new stand-alone company to bid for British
and international decommissioning contracts, a market estimated
to be worth about £3bn a year. Mr Parker calculated the business,
depending on fee levels, could have made profits of about £191m
last year.
Westinghouse, the group's US nuclear reactor designer and
builder, which last year made profits of £95m on sales of
£1.05bn, will also be run as a stand-alone company. This would
leave it free to be sold, or floated, if the government decided
it did not want to retain a nuclear building capacity.
Ministers have delayed making a decision on whether to support
the construction of replacement British nuclear plants until 2006
at the earliest.
The biggest loss last year, of about £145m, was incurred by the
group's five remaining Magnox power stations, all of which are
due to close by 2010.
Mr Parker said lower electricity wholesale prices meant that
losses had risen by about £15m even though the power stations had
exceeded output targets by about 5 per cent.
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT" and
"Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times. Privacy
*****************************************************************
21 ANS: ANS takes action on Yucca Mountain
[American Nuclear Society]
June 8, 2004
Outreach Department
Chairman David L. Hobson Subcommittee on Energy and Water
Development Room 2362-B Rayburn House Office Building Washington,
D.C. 20515-6020
Dear Chairman Hobson:
On behalf of the 11,000 members of the American Nuclear Society
(ANS), I am writing to convey our support for funding of the
Department of Energy's Nuclear Waste Disposal program at Yucca
Mountain at $880 million in fiscal year 2005. The Department's
budget request for this program assumed enactment of legislation
to reclassify the fees collected from utilities and paid into the
Nuclear Waste Fund as discretionary offsetting collections. As
the legislation has not been enacted, we understand the severe
constraint this places on the ability of your subcommittee to
fund the program at the suggested level within the allocation you
have been provided. Still, we believe the need to support this
funding level is compelling.
Without $880 million in 2005, the Department will be unable to
complete and submit the license application to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission by December. A significant delay in this
schedule will impede the ability of the Department to begin
operations at Yucca Mountain by 2010. While the nation's
commercial and defense high-level waste is currently safely
managed at numerous locations throughout the country, isolating
these wastes in one geologic repository is critical to support
growth in the use of nuclear power and ensure uninterrupted
operation of our fleet of plants.
As your subcommittee deliberates on many important issues
related to Yucca Mountain and nuclear science and technology,
please do not hesitate to call upon the resources of the American
Nuclear Society for assistance.
Sincerely,
Larry Foulke ANS President
*****************************************************************
22 OA Online: Conference set on proposed New Mexico uranium plant
Wednesday, 09 June 2004
American Online
c /o Odessa American 222 E. 4th Street P.O. Box 2952 Odessa, TX
79760
Copyright © 1999-2004 Odessa American. All rights reserved.
By Ruth Friedberg Campbell Odessa American
HOBBS, N.M. — Waste storage and disposal, radiation protection
and water impacts will be the focus of a pre-hearing conference
on Louisiana Energy Services’ proposed gas centrifuge uranium
enrichment plant near Eunice, N.M.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will conduct the conference
at 9 a.m. (Mountain Time) both June 15 and 16 at the Lea County
Event Center, 5101 Lovington Highway, in Hobbs, N.M., according
to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission news release.
The panel will decide what issues to tackle and which to discard
during upcoming hearings. The New Mexico Attorney General’s
office and New Mexico Environment Department have filed separate
petitions for standing in a Nuclear Regulatory Commission
hearing.
Public Citizen and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service,
both in Washington, D.C., filed a combined petition. Attorneys
for LES will also attend, spokesman Marshall Cohen said.
The issues, or contentions as they are called, involve waste
storage and disposal, radiation protection, foreign ownership of
the plant, and ground and surface water impact.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, comprised of Chairman G.
Paul Bollwerk III, Dr. Paul B. Abramson and Dr. Charles N.
Kelber, will also discuss schedules and how the case will be
handled during the pre-hearing conference.
Louisiana Energy Services wants to build a $1.2 billion uranium
enrichment plant near Eunice. The plant, to be called the
National Enrichment Facility, would have 400 to 700 construction
workers on site for five to seven years and permanently employ
210 workers when operating. Operations are expected to start in
mid- to late 2008.
*****************************************************************
23 Salt Lake Tribune: Siting plan for Tooele landfill in the works
June 11, 2004
By Judy Fahys
Cedar Mountain Environmental has edged closer to getting the
first of five approvals necessary to receive a state license for
a new low-level radioactive waste landfill.
The Division of Radiation Control only needs to hear from the
public before signing off on the company's siting application,
breathing new life into plans for a new, specialized landfill.
Tooele County earlier refused its request for a temporary
conditional use permit.
"We feel good about a lot of parts of the application and the
process," said Cedar Mountain President Charles Judd. "We're
still excited about our prospects."
In addition to the siting application and the county's
blessing, Cedar Mountain's plans must pass technical review by
state regulators, and win the support of the Legislature and the
governor. Once built, it would be about 400 acres for the least
radioactive forms of regulated wastes. The site is adjacent to
the privately owned and operated Envirocare of Utah facility, a
mile-square landfill also in Tooele County.
Odds are against Judd's project.
No new low-level radioactive waste facilities have been
approved in the United States since a state regulator signed a
permit in 1988 that allowed creation of Envirocare of Utah for
mill tailings disposal.
Four years later, lawmakers set up the current waste-facility
approval system, one that is more restrictive.
At the Radiation Control Board meeting June 4, board member
and Tooele County Commissioner Gene White inquired why the Cedar
Mountain proposal was going forward when his county had rejected
the project.
Radiation officials will take public comments on the Cedar
Mountain proposal through June before finalizing the siting plan.
Then Judd plans to submit the state license application within a
few months.
Copyright Salt Lake City Tribune
*****************************************************************
24 IAEA: G8 Summit Announces Action Plan on Non-Proliferation
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace]
Plan endorses IAEA's Programmes on Non-Proliferation,
Verification and Security of Radioactive Sources
Staff Report
10 June 2004 [G8 Summit 2004]
+ Story Resources
+ Official 2004 G8 Summit Site
+ IAEA &Nuclear Security
+ Safeguards &Additional Protocols
+ IAEA &NPT
Leaders of the Group of 8 leading industrialized countries (G8)
have announced an action plan on non-proliferation that calls
for measures to further increase the effectiveness of the IAEA
in fields of nuclear non-proliferation and radioactive waste
management. The announcement was released 9 June at the 2004 G8
Summit in Sea Island, Georgia. G8 countries include Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, United
Kingdom, and the United States. The European Union also
participates in the summit, which takes place annually.
The G8 action plan on non-proliferation outlines measures and
activities designed to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons
proliferation and the acquisition of nuclear materials and
technology by terrorists, while allowing the world to enjoy the
benefits of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Towards this
end the G8 leaders endorsed, among others, a one-year freeze on
inaugurating any new initiatives to transfer enrichment and
reprocessing technology to additional states, and set the next
G8 summit in the United Kingdom as a target for when appropriate
measures can be put into place.
In the plan, G8 leaders call for universal adherence to IAEA
comprehensive safeguards and the Additional Protocol and urge
all states to ratify and implement these agreements promptly.
"We are actively engaged in outreach efforts toward this goal,
and ready to offer necessary support. The Additional Protocol
must become an essential new standard in the field of nuclear
supply arrangements. We will work to strengthen NSG guidelines
accordingly. We aim to achieve this by the end of 2005."
The G8 action plan also calls for measure to further increase
the effectiveness of the IAEA:
"To enhance the IAEA's integrity and effectiveness, and
strengthen its ability to ensure that nations comply with their
NPT obligations and safeguards agreements, we will work together
to establish a new Special Committee of the IAEA Board of
Governors. This committee would be responsible for preparing a
comprehensive plan for strengthened safeguards and verification.
We believe this committee should be made up of member states in
compliance with their NPT and IAEA commitments."
On the issue of security of radioactive sources, the G8 leaders
urged all states to implement the revised Code of Conduct on the
Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources which the IAEA
approved in September 2003. States should recognize the Code as
a global standard, they said, adding that they "have agreed to
export and import control guidance for high-risk radioactive
sources, which should only be supplied to authorized end-users
in states that can control them. States should ensure that no
sources are diverted for illicit use."
In the action plan, G8 leaders expressed support for the IAEA´s
programme for assistance to ensure that all countries can meet
the new standards.
The full textof the G8 Action Plan on Non-proliferation is
available from the G8 Sea Island Summit official site.
Copyright 2003, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box
100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimile (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org
*****************************************************************
25 Hanford News: Reagan's 1956 Hanford visit a mystery
This story was published Thursday, June 10th, 2004
By Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau
For those who were there, Ronald Reagan's 1956 visit to Hanford
was big news.
For the rest of the dusty and desolate Tri-Cities, it was
something less.
And for us today, it's somewhat of a mystery.
The historical record of Reagan's three-night stay exists mostly
in pictures, though it's likely the Great Communicator may have
preferred it that way. Written words and faded memories seem to
be fewer.
The Tri-City Herald coverage consisted of two short stories -
both buried deep inside the paper - and a single front-page
photograph. Though Reagan gained some notoriety as a star in a
litany of B-movies and as host of the General Electric Theater
television series, his political star still was a decade away
from lift-off.
Reagan arrived by train the night of Jan. 30, 1956, just a week
shy of his 45th birthday and already over the hill by
yesteryear's standards. It was just one stop among dozens he made
to General Electric work sites where he promoted the TV program,
boosted his stature as a company spokesman and, ultimately, honed
his political skills and polished his developing conservative
political message.
"He came as a good-will type," said Kennewick's Ray Benson, then
a reactor operator at Hanford. "He was saying, 'Hey fellas, use
your security badge.' It was just the old PR work."
Indeed, Benson later would make off with two posters generated
from Reagan's visit. One that encouraged GE workers to save
energy depicted Reagan stepping off a bus. The other showed the
actor putting on a security badge above the words, "No matter who
you are ... always wear your badge at work."
During his stay, Reagan was scheduled to tour Hanford's 700 Area
administrative offices, talk at the 300 Area technical library
and address GE employees in three half-hour meetings at
Carmichael Junior High School in Richland.
"He was real congenial, real down to Earth," Benson said.
He also held a news conference and a somewhat exclusive luncheon
at the Camp Hanford officers club in North Richland. Invitees
included local politicians, business leaders, clergymen, public
school officials and Nancy Wingfield, "Miss Richland" of the 1955
Atomic Frontier Days celebration.
In an interview, Reagan told the Herald that television was not
fueling the extinction of radio, explaining that if it were, they
would stop putting radios in cars.
And on Feb. 3 he departed for Seattle.
It was later hoped Reagan would return to drop the ceremonial
first puck before a historic 1990 hockey game between the United
States and the Soviet Union at the Tri-Cities Coliseum as part of
the Goodwill Games.
But the invitation later was expanded to include the games'
opening ceremonies in Seattle, which Reagan ultimately attended
instead.
"We were just glad we helped out," said former Kennewick Mayor
Brad Fisher, who at the time was co-chairman of the Tri-Cities
Goodwill Games Steering Committee.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 Idaho Statesman: WGI is part of group that seeks to manage INEEL
06-11-2004
+ Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory
Ken Dey
Washington Group International is among several companies and
organizations seeking to manage the Idaho National Engineering
and Environmental Laboratory.
Washington Group is part of a team being led by Battelle, a
private independent research and development organization that
manages its own private laboratories and manages or co-manages
four other national laboratories.
Battelle announced its team's intention to bid Thursday.
Jack Herrmann, vice president of communications for Washington
Group, said the Boise-based company's primary mission in the
team, if it receives the contract, would be to handle the
infrastructure maintenance at the laboratory near Idaho Falls.
Herrmann said Washington Group has a long history of doing work
at the laboratory. The company's involvement goes back to the
1940s, when its predecessor, the Morrison Knudsen Co., helped
build the Naval Proving Ground at the lab site.
MK also helped construct many of the reactors at the site and
from 1979 to 1993 served as the sitewide construction manager.
"We're an Idaho company and any time we can be involved in a
facility in the state that links up to our expertise, we jump at
it," Herrmann said.
He added that Washington Group already has experience managing
Department of Energy facilities, including the management
contract for the Savannah River National Laboratory in South
Carolina.
The contract to manage the lab is one of two contracts the
Department of Energy is offering at the site. In April 2003, the
DOE announced it was splitting the current single contract now
held by Bechtel National Inc. and BWX Technologies Inc.
The current contract expires in September 2004.
The new contracts include the management contract for which DOE
is now accepting proposals and an environmental cleanup contract
for the laboratory.
Herrmann said the DOE hasn't made a request for proposals for the
cleanup contract, but he said Washington Group is very interested
in pursuing that contract as well.
In addition to Battelle and Washington Group, the other parties
in the team for the management contract include BWX Technologies,
which already shares the current contract with Bechtel, and EPRI,
a non-profit organization that does electric power research and
development including nuclear power.
The team also includes a consortium of universities including the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, North Carolina State, Ohio
State and Oregon State.
The consortium would partner with Idaho's three major
universities to advance nuclear and engineering research
programs.
*****************************************************************
27 Oak Ridger: 1 million hours, no lost time - again
Story last updated at 12:13 p.m. on June 11, 2004
from staff reports
For the third time in three years, BNFL Inc. has surpassed 1
million man work hours without a lost-time accident in
conjunction with its three building cleanup project at the Oak
Ridge K-25 site.
Under contract with the Department of Energy, the project is the
single largest nuclear decontamination and decommissioning effort
in U.S. history and involves three gaseous diffusion buildings -
K-33, K-31 and K-29 - totaling 4.9 million square feet and more
than 330 million pounds of metal and material.
"Many projects find it difficult to keep their teams focused as
they near completion," said Jeff Stevens, the project's general
manager.
"That is why achieving this milestone for the third time during
this phase of the project is so extraordinary. Each and every
person on the project should take great pride in this
accomplishment."
The project, which is 94 percent complete, is nearing its late
summer finish.
U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., noted that Oak Ridge has
demonstrated a "can-do attitude" since the creation of the
Manhattan Project - a secret effort for developing an atomic bomb
during World War II.
Alexander pointed out that BNFL is carrying on that "same
tradition with its impressive safety record while completing one
of the largest clean-up projects in our country's history."
At its peak, the project employed more than 1,400 people.
With nearly 70 percent of the project work force engaged daily in
hands-on work in a heavy industrial environment, the project's
injury rate remains significantly below the national average,
according to a BNFL news release.
"Oak Ridge is rich with history of men and women coming together
against impossible odds and responding to the needs of their
country," said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District.
"BNFL has tackled huge challenges and done it safely."
*****************************************************************
28 C&EN: GOVERNMENT & POLICY - DOE DEFENDS 'HOT' REPOSITORY DESIGN
[The Newsmagazine of the Chemical World]
[This Week's Cover] June 7, 2004 Vol. 82, Iss. 23 View Current
DOE DEFENDS 'HOT' REPOSITORY DESIGN
Energy Department offers flood of new studies in wake of Yucca
Mountain cask corrosion fears
JEFF JOHNSON, C&EN WASHINGTON>
Facing major criticism from a key scientific oversight panel, the
Department of Energycame to a public meeting in mid-May armed
with a slew of new studies to justify its design for the $60
billion Yucca Mountainnuclear waste repository in Nevada.
The new research, however, appeared so fundamentally different
from previous work that members of the oversight panel--the
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB)--asked why DOE had
not done these studies before. And they also questioned if the
department could still meet its goal of completing a construction
permit application for the underground repository by the end of
the year in light of the new research.
"Yes" was the resounding answer from top DOE officials, including
Margaret Chu, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive
Waste Management, who attended the entire two-day meeting.
The meeting's focus was corrosion of the waste casks, designed to
hold some 70,000 metric tons of high-level radioactive waste
inside the Nevada mountain, isolating the waste for at least
10,000 years, as required by regulation.
The importance of the casks' integrity to the overall barrier
system has steadily grown as scientists learned more about the
mountain's volcanic history as well as its climate and the
porosity of its geology. Rainwater has been found to pass from
the surface through the underground repository to groundwater
1,000 feet below the tunnels where the waste packages will be
left.
The meeting was called by NWTRB, a congressionally established
oversight board of geologists, engineers, and materials
scientists. The board announced last year that it believed the
casks could be penetrated because of localized corrosion.
The board issued a strongly worded letter and report to DOE in
October 2003 and restated its concerns at the meeting, which was
attended by some 100 people, mostly DOE science staff and
consultants but also scientists from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, electric utilities, and the state of Nevada, as well
as a handful of residents.
Latanision Chu PHOTOS BY JEFF JOHNSON
OPENING THE MEETING, board member Ronald M. Latanision, a
materials science and engineering professor at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, laid out the board's perspective in
sharp terms.
He stressed that the board's views were based on data that DOE
had presented to the board, which has no regulatory power but
assesses the scientific validity of DOE's work.
The board is concerned that the temperature of the waste casks
and the wet environment in the tunnels will lead to localized
corrosion of the huge casks before 10,000 years and long before
the radioactive waste would be safe, which will be hundreds of
thousands of years.
Of particular interest is the first 1,000 years, when the
thermally hot waste packages are left in the closed tunnels--the
"thermal pulse" period when the temperatures of the casks will
reach 160 to 180 °C.
After studying data that DOE provided last year, the board said
that deliquescence-induced localized crevice corrosion of the
casks is a likely result of above-boiling temperature and water
seepage through the tunnels. Board members believe that
sufficient levels of chloride exist in the water passing through
the tunnels to bring about cask corrosion, eventually leading to
perforation.
In its October report, the board cited DOE deliquescence
experiments showing that brines from calcium chloride or
magnesium chloride may be created at around 150 °C and even
lower. The board fears these brines will lead to crevice
corrosion even of an exotic nickel alloy DOE has selected for the
casks.
Latanision added that the board had concluded that "all" the
conditions necessary for localized corrosion are present, and he
punctuated the importance by noting that the board's report was
signed by all its members.
Latanision explained that during the thermal pulse period,
localized corrosion will be particularly insidious and
propagation rates can be extremely rapid and difficult to
predict. Therefore, the board encouraged DOE to avoid these
conditions altogether by modifying its design.
Unlike volcanic activity, water transport, and other natural
conditions, where the only recourse is mitigation, localized cask
corrosion can be eliminated entirely by shifting the design to a
low-temperature environment, board members said.
They urged DOE to consider a "cold" repository design, in which
wastes are maintained at a temperature below boiling during the
thermal pulse period to reduce deliquescence and to limit the
impact that high heat brings to an environment that is so
difficult to characterize.
Members also urged DOE not to fall back on a "total system
performance assessment" to justify its design. Latanision
stressed that it was "absolutely necessary" to gain a fundamental
understanding of the repository system for it to be licensable.
As he ended his presentation, Latanision said, "We want to open
this meeting up and have as full a discussion as possible."
Therefore, the board would allow questions from audience members
as well as board members during presentations. Scientists with
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the state of Nevada, and the
Electric Power Research Institute would speak the first day, he
said, and DOE would have the entire second day.
"DOE asked to have its presentation last, and frankly this is not
the way I would have liked it," he said. Consequently, a full day
of discussion took place without most parties knowing that DOE
would introduce a host of new studies on day two.
DOE began its day at 8 AM and presented about 300 slides and
testimony from more than a dozen scientists over 11 hours.
As DOE plowed through its material, its scientists said calcium
chloride and magnesium chloride were extremely unlikely to be
present in the repository, and if so, they will rapidly transform
to nondeliquescent phases because of their instability at high
temperatures. Also, any acid gases generated as a result of salt
deliquescence will be dispersed and dissolved into water held in
the rock.
Acid had become a concern as a result of a series of bench-scale
tests that Nevada-funded scientists had recently run. Those data
were presented on the first day of the conference by researchers,
including Roger W. Staehle, an adjunct professor in chemical
engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota.
They had found corrosion in cask material using water similar to
that found in the mountain after subjecting the material to the
range of temperatures anticipated for that environment.
Staehle Payer Treichel PHOTOS BY JEFF JOHNSON
BUT DOE COUNTERED that, in fact, the heat from the waste package
will drive corrosive elements in the water-based environment from
the casks themselves. The department also criticized the state
studies.
If conditions for corrosion occur, the special cask
material--termed alloy 22--will hold it in check, said Joe H.
Payer, a Case Western Reserve University materials science and
engineering professor who is under contract to DOE.
Payer acknowledged that some corrosion of alloy 22 was possible
but not nearly enough to penetrate the cask. The casks have two
shells: a 20-mm outer shell of alloy 22 and a 50-mm inner shell
of stainless steel.
Payer said alloy 22 had the thickness of about 12 quarter coins,
and at most, only the width of one quarter could be eaten through
during the thermal pulse. He estimated that penetration would
take 1,600 to 160,000 years.
As the board and audience quizzed DOE, board member Mark D.
Abkowitz, Vanderbilt University professor of civil and
environmental engineering, noted, "I think we have a situation in
which corrosion has been a concern for more than 10 years, and
last fall we put an exclamation point on that message.
"But what I heard today is that the environment under which tests
have been conducted for many years and many millions of dollars
have been spent is not an environment that is plausible. And that
this is something that has just been learned over the past few
months and is being presented to us today. So the board's
concerns, in DOE's eyes, are nonstarters."
The new information and conclusions were a "rather sudden set of
accomplishments," Abkowitz said. "In a project this complex, when
the pace of learning is occurring at such a high rate, it tells
me there is probably a whole lot more learning that needs to go
on in this and other areas."
In response, DOE officials strongly disagreed with the need for
more fundamental study. They said the board's conclusions in
October were not supported by data that DOE had presented to the
board in the past.
As the day came to a close, Latanision told reporters: "We have
heard a lot of information that is absolutely new. Right now, I
still think the solution could be a design change, and I have to
question some of the slam-dunks presented in the transparencies.
But I am only saying now that we need to digest them, and I can't
make a judgment."
In particular, he singled out the corrosion data as entirely new:
"Seems to me that [DOE] has done an awful lot of experiments that
are not of any value [now.] If there is a silver cloud in all
this, we have forced a more realistic assessment of what should
be done."
Following the meeting, Chu stressed that DOE's design is for a
hot repository. "We have not analyzed a cold repository. A cold
repository is not our program," she told C&EN.
She stressed the value of the total system performance assessment
approach, saying the board should consider the total system--not
just the casks--to gauge the site's suitability.
Disagreeing with Chu was Judy Treichel, executive director of the
Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a nonprofit public interest
group.
Treichel traced a history of DOE increasingly basing its design
on a total systems approach. "We worry that growing uncertainties
can be disguised as 'manageable weaknesses,' " and create a
"false illusion of confidence and accuracy."
"In 1997, the acceptable thermal load was unknown, and we are
still arguing about it," Treichel said, adding that, in the
meantime, DOE had taken a "lemon and made lemonade," saying heat
will now create a thermal barrier to drive off liquids.
"I just want to use plain words," added Staehle in comments at
the end of the meeting. "It seems to me that we have a waste
package emplaced in rocks that are full of chemicals, we've got a
heated surface and an oxygen environment, and we've got water,"
Staehle said. "The issues have to do with how this is
distributed. We do know alloy 22 can be perforated--rapidly, in
some environments."
Staehle chided DOE for selecting a limited environmental model.
"We need a set of answers, a set of different credible
environments that we can identify and investigate. This is a
complex system."
Latanision predicted that a report would be issued by the board
in a matter of weeks.
Chemical & Engineering News ISSN 0009-2347 Copyright © 2004
Copyright © 2004 American Chemical Society
*****************************************************************
29 Oak Ridger: BWXT Y-12 fined for explosion, fire
Story last updated at 10:56 a.m. on June 11, 2004
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com
The company that manages Oak Ridge's nuclear weapons plant has
been fined $82,500 for a small explosion and subsequent fire that
happened over a year ago.
Linton Brooks, administrator for the National Nuclear Security
Administration, notified Dennis Ruddy, president and general
manager of BWXT Y-12, of the fine this week. BWXT Y-12 manages
the Y-12 National Security Complex for the NNSA - the
quasi-independent agency within the Department of Energy that
oversees the nuclear weapons complex.
The fine pertains to a February 2003 incident where workers were
conducting the final testing phase of what's being called a
"saltless uranium processing system."
An operational emergency, the lowest of emergency level at the
plant, was called; the building where the incident occurred was
evacuated; and 33 workers were tested for exposure. Two workers
had contamination on their clothing and one had contamination on
both clothing and hair.
Investigators concluded that the fire was caused by heat and
steam generated from unreacted calcium, excess water and depleted
uranium in an unvented container. The resulting
overpressurization of the container caused the explosion. The
shockwave from the explosion broke the seal on a glovebox, which
allowed air to enter and the uranium powder - which ignites
spontaneously in air - began to burn.
In response to the fine, Y-12 spokesman Bill Wilburn said: "BWXT
Y-12 takes all nuclear safety issues very seriously. This
incident happened more than one year ago and was the subject of
comprehensive internal and external investigations. Based on the
analysis and lessons learned from those reviews, BWXT Y-12 has
put in place appropriate controls to prevent future incidences
such as this."
Brooks noted that the NNSA will continue to closely follow
implementation of corrective actions BWXT Y-12 has taken with
"the expectation of seeing continuing improvements" in
safety-related areas.
*****************************************************************
30 Tri-Valley Herald: Sandia computer lab links with scientists across the country
6/11/2004
Operation pulls data from around the nation in collaboration
with academia, private industry
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
LIVERMORE -- FOR the first time, the millions of details and
scientific insight built into the nation's nuclear arsenal in the
Cold War are being tied together in a single California
laboratory designed to speed upgrades to thermonuclear bombs and
warheads. Federal weapons executives said Sandia National
Laboratories' new weapons computing lab, which opened Thursday,
is an experiment in pulling data from across the nation and
analyzing it in a novel collaboration with academia and private
industry.
David Crandall, head of research and development for the National
Nuclear Security Administration, said, "It's a real nice feeling
to come here, kick the tires" on the new Distributed Information
Systems Laboratory at Sandia-California.
"This is part of a leading edge of what we call responsive
infrastructure. What is means is being able to respond, to design
new capabilities into the (nuclear weapons) stockpile ... without
nuclear testing," Crandall told a crowd of about 400 gathered in
the building's grassy courtyard.
The $38 million lab will bring Sandia weapons scientists,
engineers and computer-simulation and networking experts together
in a building that's half classified and half unclassified.
University professors, students and private industry
computing experts will share offices in the unclassified half,
encouraging a freer sharing of scientific and technical ideas
across the traditional walls and fences of the nuclear weapons
world.
"You can do top-secret, classified work but also collaborate with
academic and industry partners," said Patty Wagner, manager of
the NNSA's Sandia Site Office in Albuquerque, N.M., which
oversees the New Mexico and California sites of Sandia.
In years past, weapons scientists and computer scientists at
Sandia worked in separate organizations and usually separate
buildings. Sandia weaponeers use software to design the
non-nuclear components that turn thermonuclear explosives
designed at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore labs into actual
warheads and bombs, including safing, firing and radar systems,
as well as myriad safety features to lessen chances of accidents
or unauthorized use of a stolen weapon.
Sandia-California computing chief Ken Washington and weapons
chief Doug Henson now will share executive offices in the new
lab, with room elsewhere for about 130 of their staff and 30
visitors. Data pipelines will link Sandia's lab with the other
weapons labs' databases and supercomputers; factories such as
Savannah River National Laboratory in South Carolina; and Pantex
assembly-disassembly plant in Amarillo, Texas, and NNSA offices
in Washington, D.C.
"The idea is enabling lots of local and distance collaboration
between people and information," said Tom Hunter, head of Sandia
labs' weapons program.
Mim John, Sandia vice president and head of Sandia's lab in
Livermore said the melding of science, engineering and computer
simulation in one building offers greater efficiency in adding
new features to U.S. weapons.
"What now takes a multi-year process, we hope to shrink down to
months or a year, depending on what's being asked of us," she
said.
Dennis Beyer, a mechanical engineer who oversaw the new lab
project, said the building will be fully equipped next spring
with its supercomputer cluster, known as Catalyst, and a new
visualization center, sporting a 27-screen central display and
six ancillary displays. One mounted in the rear of the room
allows a presenter to conduct a video conference without turning
his back on his audience.
The essence of the lab is sharing ideas, if sometimes to a
limited degree.
"The whole building is designed for suites, so you can
'suite-off' (several rooms) for need to know and all of the
suites are soundproof," Beyer said.
Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
31 Hanford News: CH2M Hill Hanford hires environmental health chief
This story was published Thursday, June 10th, 2004
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
A former naval industrial hygiene officer with more than 20 years
of risk and safety assessment experience has been hired to fill
the new position of director of environmental health at CH2M Hill
Hanford Group.
Thomas J. Anderson began leading efforts this week to ensure CH2M
Hill's industrial hygiene program remains strong and help workers
at the site have full confidence in their health and safety, CH2M
Hill announced Wednesday.
CH2M Hill created the position after some workers became
concerned about exposure to chemical vapors that vent into the
air from huge underground tanks at Hanford and reports concluded
not enough was known about the vapors. The tanks hold radioactive
waste from the past production of plutonium at Hanford for the
nation's nuclear weapons program.
CH2M Hill also hired an employee ombudsman, increased personal
monitoring, expanded respirator use and is bringing in a team of
national experts to recommend possible long-term monitoring
programs.
"Industrial hygiene is a major line of defense in protecting our
workers at Hanford," said Ed Aromi, president of CH2M Hill
Hanford, in a prepared statement.
One of Anderson's jobs will be to develop exposure risk
assessments based on statistics.
He served as commanding officer of the Navy's Occupational Safety
Training Center in Norfolk, Va., and was officer-in-charge of the
Navy's Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit in Sicily,
Italy. Recently he's served as a professor of occupational and
environmental safety at the University of Wisconsin at
Whitewater.
He is a certified industrial hygienist and holds a doctorate in
environmental toxicology from Miami University.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
32 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 13:52:34 -0700 (PDT)
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losses—totalling £303m—saying that the cost of running its operations,
which ...
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IRAN Slams UN Nuclear Text, Demands Changes
Reuters - USA
... Reuters) - Iran demanded changes on Friday to a tough draft resolution
that rebukes Tehran for failing to cooperate fully with the UN nuclear
watchdog, whose ...
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NUCLEAR collaboration is rolled into 1 laboratory
Oakland Tribune - Oakland,CA,USA
LIVERMORE -- For the first time, the millions of details and scientific
insight built into the nation's nuclear arsenal in the Cold War are being
tied together ...
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US Trying to Prevent Resolution of Iran ’ s Nuclear Dossier : ...
Merh News Agency - Tehran,Iran
... caused major problems for the country in the international arena, adding
that the United States is trying to prevent the issue of Iran’s nuclear
dossier from ...
NUCLEAR Regulatory Commission to inspect Diablo Canyon plant
San Luis Obispo Tribune - San Luis Obispo,CA,USA
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Thursday that it will conduct
a two-week inspection, starting next week, into how well operators at
Diablo Canyon ...
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TURKISH businessman denies nuclear goods claim
Financial Times - London,England,UK
A Turkish businessman alleged to have supplied sophisticated electrical
goods to Libya's secret nuclear weapons project has said he had no idea
his products ...
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33 [du-list] 50,000 troops in gulf illness scare
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 18:27:27 -0700
50,000 troops in Gulf illness scare
James Meikle, health correspondent
Friday June 11, 2004
The Guardian
All 50,000 troops who served in the first Gulf war
might have been
exposed to low levels of chemical warfare agents
during the fighting and
its aftermath, a US investigation has suggested.
The implication of a Congressional report that large
numbers of
civilians and troops in Iraq and neighbouring
countries could have been
exposed will galvanise the controversy over illnesses
suffered by more
than 5,000 British veterans since 1991 that have been
linked to their
service in the Gulf.
The report indicates that possible chemical
contamination of troops
could have been much more widespread than suggested by
previous official
government estimates, based on US research for the
Pentagon and CIA.
Lord Morris, the Labour peer who has led the campaign
on Gulf war
illnesses, yesterday demanded answers from the
government, saying it
appeared the entire British deployment of more than
50,000 troops could
have been at risk.
The MoD used the US defence department models to
estimate that 9,000
British troops were within the chemical plume that
might have been
released from the destruction of chemical agents at
Khamisaya, in
southern Iraq, in March 1991. This figure was revealed
in 1999.
Previously, the government said no British units would
have been
affected, although one Briton might have been under a
plume.
More than 5,000 British veterans have reported
illnesses they believe
related to the Gulf war or the inoculations they
received before
deployment and more than 600 have died. The government
has refused to
accept any suggestion that there is a "syndrome" but
points to its £8.5m
research programme to prove its commitment to finding
answers.
The government's current position is that the possible
level of nerve
agent exposure from Khamisaya would have had "no
detectable effect" on
human health, and the Pentagon still insists the
information was the
best available and any researcher would know
limitations of the data.
The CIA also agreed with the report.
But the general accounting office (GAO), the
investigative arm of
Congress, last week said the assumptions used by the
Pentagon were based
on incomplete and uncertain data and that postwar
testing to replicate
the size of the plume "did not realistically simulate
the actual
conditions of bombings or demolitions".
The Pentagon, including the bombing of other sites in
Iraq, estimated
that nearly 102,000 US troops were potentially
exposed. But the GAO
concluded that, given the significant methodological
flaws, neither the
Pentagon nor the MoD could know which troops were and
which troops were
not exposed.
Lord Morris, an honorary member of a US congressional
sub-committee
investigating undiagnosed illnesses, said: "This is a
profoundly
significant report not only for US veterans but for
ours as well."
He has tabled a parliamentary question to ministers on
the issue.
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34 IAEA: Press Arrangements for the IAEA Board of Governors Meeting
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace]
Media Advisory 2004/09
10 June 2004 | A meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors will
commence on Monday, 14 June 2004 at 10.30 a.m. and is expected to
last at least three days. The Board will discuss, among other
issues, the annual Technical Cooperation Report; Measures to
strengthen International Cooperation in Nuclear, Radiation, and
Transport Safety and Waste Management; and a new Programme of
Action for Cancer Therapy.
The Board will also focus on nuclear verification issues/20,
including the Safeguards Implementation Report; the most recent
report by IAEA Director General Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei on the
implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement between the Agency
and the Islamic Republic of Iran as well as his report on the
implementation of the NPT safeguards agreement in the Socialist
People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
The meeting is closed to the press.
The introductory statement by Dr. ElBaradei will be available to
the media and will be placed on the IAEA website: (www.iaea.org)
after delivery at about 11:00 a.m. on Monday.
Photo-Op: There will be a photo opportunity at the beginning of
each morning and afternoon session. Please sign up by sending an
e-mail to Peter Rickwood: P.Rickwood@iaea.org. Camera crews
should arrive at IAEA headquarters by 10:00 a.m. and proceed to
the Boardroom on C04. Positions in the Boardroom must be taken by
10:15 or 14:45 for afternoon photo-ops.
Press working area: There will be a press working area on C02
(for print press, radio and TV) starting from Monday morning at
9:00.
Press Conference: To be announced.
Telephone lines: There are telephone lines installed in the press
area on C03. Please note that journalists requiring the use of
telephones are advised to buy calling cards at the VIC Post
Office or alternatively make use of a toll-free 0800-number for
long distance calls. You can find information on toll-free
numbers at www.telediscount.at
Accreditation: Please contact Ms. Brenda Blann at
+43-1-2600-26383 (email: B.Blann@iaea.org).
You are required to bring a valid press I.D. TV Crews arriving by
car should enter through Gate 3 and inform Mr. Peter Rickwood
(P.Rickwood@iaea.org), tel. +43 1 2600 22047, mobile: +43 664-
203 0899, in advance, of your names, affiliations and license
plate numbers. Advance notice of satellite trucks is also
required. Press Contacts
Mark Gwozdecky Director and Spokesperson Division of Public
Information [43-1] 2600-21270 [43] 664-154-6989 (mobile)
m.gwozdecky@iaea.org
Melissa Fleming Alternate Spokesperson Div. of Public Information
[43-1] 2600-21275 [43] 664-325-7376 (mobile) m.fleming@iaea.org
About the IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the
world's foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and
technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
Established as an autonomous organization under the United
Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA carries out programmes to maximize
the useful contribution of nuclear technology to society while
verifying its peaceful use.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit the Press
Section of the IAEA's website
(http://www.iaea.org/Resources/Journalists/), or call the IAEA's
Division of Public Information at (431) 2600-21270. Copyright
2003-2004, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100,
Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431)
2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: Official.Mail@iaea.org
Disclaimer
*****************************************************************
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
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