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Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 AFP: Iran says not afraid of UN sanctions because of nuclear program
2 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kyodo: China Wants Nuclear Talks in Augus
3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korea's Nuclear Development Attempt Re
4 US: UPI: U.S. Nuclear guard tests draw fire -
5 US: Spectrum: Nuclear info requires more protection - Opinion -
6 US: UCS: Renewable Energy Can Produce 3,900 Jobs and Billions of
7 Guardian Unlimited: Space invaders
8 Interfax: No attempts to seize nuclear weapons have ever been made i
9 UK Independent: No 10 fails to deny Scarlett's influence on survey g
10 TheStar.com: Russia to scrap social safety net
11 Mos News: Defense Minister Says Russian Nukes in Good Hands
NUCLEAR REACTORS
12 US: NRC: Sunshine Act: Meeting
13 US: Seattle Times: Nuclear plant at Hanford remains shut
14 US: The Herald: Catawba plant may test MOX
15 US: Physics Today: ITER Impasse Illustrates Challenge of Site Select
16 US: TheDay.com: Millstone Licensing Challenge Rebuffed
17 US: NRC: Proposed Generic Communication; Draft Revision to NRC Inspe
18 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
19 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
20 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
NUCLEAR SAFETY
21 Interfax: NATO nuclear arms storage facilities still closed to Russi
22 US: heraldtribune.com: Health questions answered for former American
23 US: heraldtribune.com: Unhealthy limits Beryllium workers need more
24 ENN: Plutonium particles accumulating in Japanese bay
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
25 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yerington site should be on priority l
26 Las Vegas SUN: Ensign concedes Kerry better for state on Yucca
27 US: Tri-City Herald: 100 tons of fuel still in K Basins
28 US: WIBW: Texas Company Wants Kansas Radioactive Waste
29 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast workers see claim solutions
30 US: Morgan Hill Times: Olin a major factor in water emergency
31 US: Charleston.Net: NRC favors MOX fuel tests by Duke Power
32 Belfast Telegraph: Mull of Kintyre ruled out as nuclear waste dump
33 US: National Post: Can Cameco cash in on uranium revival?
34 UK News & Star: Core is against restrictions
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
35 Japan Times: Nuclear sword of Damocles
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
36 DOE: Agency Information Collection Renewal
37 Albuquerque Tribune: Ill turn for DOE
38 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Device failure contributed to Hanford re
39 SFNM: Part 3 of 3: Politics, science hold future of nuclear arms
40 Tri-City Herald: Company mulls power plant restart
41 Oak Ridger: Tax bill looms for CROET
42 Paducah Sun: Bunning blocks hire of DOE financial officer
OTHER NUCLEAR
43 Google News Alert - nuclear
44 Fuel Cell Today: Solid Oxide Fuel cells possible for portable power
45 Physics Today: Edward Teller in the Public Arena
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 AFP: Iran says not afraid of UN sanctions because of nuclear programme
WAR.WIRE [http://www.spacewar.com/]
TEHRAN (AFP) Aug 02, 2004
Iran is not afraid of being referred to the UN Security Council
over its suspect nuclear programme and could easily withstand
economic sanctions, a top national security official said Monday.
"The most America can do to get its way is to impose economic
sanctions, but our experience of these over the past 25 years
have proved that they are ineffective," said a top member of
Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Sayed Hossein
Mussavian.
"Even if the case is taken to the UN Security Council, nothing
more than that (sanctions) can happen. It will fail. It does not
worry us," he was quoted as saying by the official news agency
IRNA.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said last Thursday that it was
"more and more likely" that Iran would be referred to the UN
Security Council as a possible prelude to sanctions.
The United States has accused Iran of wantonly flouting
international calls to curb its nuclear activities, saying Tehran
is engaged in a "direct challenge" to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA).
The next IAEA meeting is in September. Iran, which insists it has
fully cooperated with the IAEA, wants its dossier to be taken off
the agenda of the UN nuclear watchdog.
Mussavian also shrugged off speculation that Israel may try to
launch military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
"These threats are baseless, just part of a psychological war. I
don't think the Americans and the Israelis would dare to attack
Iran's nuclear facilities," he said.
"The Europeans are opposed to that, and America's position in the
region would stop them from taking such a risk," he added.
His comments come amid increasing signs of a potential breakdown
in relations between the IAEA and Iran.
According to diplomats, talks the European Union's "big three"
held with Iran last week on its nuclear programme produced "no
substantial progress" in efforts to restrict the Islamic
republic's activities.
Officials from Britain, France and Germany met with an Iranian
delegation in Paris on Thursday and Friday, and stressed their
wish to see a halt to Iran's work on the sensitive nuclear fuel
cycle.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear weapons, but insists on its
legal right to master the fuel cycle for power generation. Being
dependent on outside sources for nuclear fuel, Iran says, is not
an option.
WAR.WIRE
*****************************************************************
2 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Kyodo: China Wants Nuclear Talks in August
Updated Aug.3,2004 11:33 KST
Japan's Kyodo news agency says China has asked parties to
six-way nuclear talks about the possibility of holding
working-level discussions August 17 to 20.
The news agency quotes sources close to the talks who say they
would be held in Beijing, where three other rounds of high-level
talks have taken place without much progress. Participants are
trying to find a solution to the controversy over North Korea's
nuclear development program.
Neither Japanese nor Chinese officials have confirmed the report,
which comes as China's special envoy on North Korea began
discussions in South Korea on new six-way talks. Ning Fukui met
with his South Korean counterpart Cho Tae-yong to fine-tune an
agenda for the planned discussions.
Japan, China, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States agreed
in June at the last round of talks in Beijing to meet again by
the end of September.
VOA News
*****************************************************************
3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: S. Korea's Nuclear Development Attempt Revealed
Updated Aug.3,2004 14:16 KST
While efforts have been underway for nearly two years to end
North Korea's nuclear tension, classified government documents
have shown that South Korea had, in fact, come close to
developing nuclear weapons in the 1970s.
Though much of this has been under wraps, two documents have
surfaced revealing the extent and details of the covert project
pursued by former South Korean President Park Chung-hee.
The two documents show how far Korea went with its nuclear arms
development project in the 1970s.
One document, a classified blueprint was produced in 1974 by
Saint Gobain Techniques Nouvelles of France, which was
commissioned by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute to
draw up the plans for the project.
The other book contains concepts and designs of an NRX reactor,
which can be used to extract weapons-grade plutonium.
The NRX acronym stands for National Research Experimental
Reactor. Professor Kim Chul of Ajou University, who was in charge
of the nuclear reprocessing made the documents public.
"The documents contain the general process, estimated budget and
estimated manpower needed to build nuclear arms."
Experts noted that Mr. Kim's revelation is proof of former
President Park Chung-hee's intention to develop nuclear weapons.
The project was reportedly suspended in 1979 due to mounting
pressure from Washington. But otherwise, Mr. Kim says the
reprocessing facility could have been completed in the early
1980s if research continued.
Former President Chun Doo-hwan publicly declared that South Korea
would not pursue a nuclear weapons program.
*****************************************************************
4 UPI: U.S. Nuclear guard tests draw fire -
(United Press International)
August 03, 2004
Washington, DC, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A new round of force-on-force
security tests at U.S. nuclear facilities has raised controversy
for alleged conflicts of interest.
The tests, set to begin in November, will involve "hostile
forces" trained and employed by the same company that employs
many of the guards to be tested.
The Wackenhut Corp., which provides guard forces to 30 of the
United States' 64 nuclear power plants, has been chosen by an
industry group to create two hand-picked, specially trained teams
to test nuclear power plant guards' performance across the
nation.
"They're going to be, in essence, testing themselves in a lot of
places," Peter Brand of watchdog group Project on Government
Oversight told United Press International. "The flipside is that
they're going to be testing their competitors."
The industry group that selected Wackenhut for the job, the
Nuclear Energy Institute, contends Wackenhut is the
best-qualified company for the job and has employees uniquely
qualified to play hostile forces.
"This program has (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) oversight from
start to finish," Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the NEI added.
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
5 Spectrum: Nuclear info requires more protection - Opinion -
thespectrum.com
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
IN OUR VIEW
With security blooming as the key issue of our time, it is nearly
impossible to understand how two removable computer disks
containing classified information about the United States'
current nuclear weapons research can go missing.
Scientists at the Los Alamos, N.M., facility discovered that the
disks were missing on July 7. The Department of Energy
subsequently suspended 19 employees and shut down classified work
at a number of DOE plants across the nation for a week to try to
locate the sensitive information.
This is not the first time the DOE has turned up with egg on its
face, which makes the matter even more confounding.
The simple question is this: How can we expect to secure our
country if we can't keep a handle on secret information stored in
a supposedly high-security environment?
It has been pounded into our heads since the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks that terrorists would like nothing better than to get
their hands on nuclear devices or other weapons information. We
are constantly reminded that there are countries out there in the
world who are so desirous of nuclear armaments that they would do
anything, including smuggling them from the underground Russian
black market, where there is supposed to be a ready supply.
The loss of classified documents is not a slap-on-the-wrist
offense. That information is vital to the security of the United
States and those who handle it are required to protect it at all
costs.
There are plenty of procedures and protocols in place that should
ensure the safety of these documents and any other media
associated with our nation's top secret programs. It is the
enforcement, however, of these regulations that has gone lax.
The buck stops at the desks of Los Alamos National Laboratory
Director Peter Nanos and U.S. Secretary of Energy Spencer
Abraham, who must now tidy up this mess. There is no excuse for
their lack of accountability, particularly when we know only so
well that there are people out there who would use this
information to do our country great harm.
Originally published Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Copyright ©2004 The Spectrum. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
6 UCS: Renewable Energy Can Produce 3,900 Jobs and Billions of
Dollars for Rural Economic Development, New Analysis Finds
[Union of Concerned Scientists]
August 2, 2004
Arizona Could Tap Into Massive Economic and Environmental
Potential of Renewable Energy
The Union of Concerned Scientists today released an analysis
showing increased use of wind, solar, and other renewable energy
sources would create thousands of new highly skilled jobs in
Arizona, provide a significant source of new income for rural
economies, and save consumers money on their energy bills. The
creation of 3,900 jobs, $1.6 billion in new capital investment,
and $1.6 billion in savings on consumer energy bills can be
achieved by enacting a national renewable electricity standard
(RES) requiring 20% of the nation's electricity be produced by
renewables by 2020.
"Arizona should be a national leader on renewable energy. The
state is currently producing less than one-half of one percent of
its electricity from non-hydro renewable energy when much more is
possible," said Craig Cox, Executive Director of the Western
Business Coalition for New Energy Technologies. "By supporting a
national renewable electricity standard, the Congressional
delegation can provide the state with safe and reliable domestic
energy sources while ensuring cleaner air and water for
everyone."
The analysis found that a national renewable electricity standard
of 20% by 2020 would produce benefits for Arizona such as: + A
net gain of 3,900 new high-skilled jobs in manufacturing,
construction, operation, maintenance, and other industries. +
Nearly $1.6 billion in capital investment. + $115 million in
property tax revenues for rural communities. + $20 million in
income for ranchers and rural landowners. + 2.6 times more jobs
than new natural gas and coal power plants.
"Arizona can use renewable energy sources such as solar and wind
energy, to produce jobs, save consumers money on their
electricity bills and enhance public health, said Jeff Deyette,
Energy Analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Arizona
can harness its tremendous renewable energy potential to benefit
the entire state." Deyette will present the findings of his
report at the Southwest Renewable Energy Conference in Flagstaff
on August 5th.
An RES would also save Arizona's consumers $1.6 billion their
energy bills through 2020. Nationally, the consumer savings would
be nearly $13.8 billion. The RES achieves these cost savings by
reducing the demand for natural gas. A national RES is a similar
policy goal to the one adopted last month by the Western
Governors' Association of developing 30,000 MW of renewable
energy by 2015.
U.S. power plant carbon dioxide emissionsa major contributor to
global warmingwould be 15% lower in 2025 under a national RES of
20% by 2020. The same policy would reduce other pollutants from
burning fossil fuels such as nitrogen oxides that produce smog
and mercury that harms human health. Increasing renewable energy
use would also reduce the environmental impacts of extracting and
transporting fossil fuels.
To set up interviews or for UCS info, contact:
ERIC YOUNG
Assistant Press Secretary
202-223-6133
size="1">eyoung@ucsusa.org [eyoung@ucsusa.org]
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: Space invaders
Analysis
The US is pushing ahead with its missile defence programme, which
looks set to provoke a new arms race - and Britain is closely
involved
Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday August 3, 2004
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Scarcely noticed, the US last month deployed its first
ground-based missile interceptor at Fort Greely in Alaska. It was
a significant step in the Bush administration's ambitious and
hugely expensive missile defence system - a project the Blair
administration says it supports but one that, in the view of its
many critics, will provoke a new arms race leading to the
weaponisation of space, a true "son of star wars" with profound
implications for the rest of the world.
Deployment of the interceptor "marks the end of an era where we
have not been able to defend our country against long-range
ballistic missile attacks", said Major General John Holly,
programme director for the Ground-Based Midcourse Defence system.
This has nothing to do with terrorists, repeatedly described by
Bush and Blair as the greatest threat to the west. The al-Qaida
network of terrorists may want to get their hands on biological
or chemical weapons, or a dirty bomb, but they are unlikely to be
able to launch a long-range intercontinental ballistic against
the US, or anywhere else.
"This extraordinary emphasis on missile defence represents
misplaced priorities," says the US Union of Concerned Scientists.
"The administration's top priority should instead be combating
the threat of nuclear terrorism."
Up to five more interceptors are due to be deployed at Fort
Greely by the end of this year. By the end of 2005, the US plan
is to deploy 10 ship-based intermediate-range interceptors, a
sea-based tracking radar and an upgraded radar at Fylingdales in
Yorkshire.
Bush wants to spend $10bn on missile defence in 2005, an increase
of nearly $1bn over this year's expenditure on the system. His
request has yet to be agreed by Congress, where there is a
growing belief that the whole project is ideologically driven, a
belief fuelled by widespread scepticism among Pentagon officials
about whether it will work. That scepticism is not shared by
their boss, Donald Rumsfeld, an enthusiastic supporter.
Rumsfeld is also a driving force behind US plans for weapons in
space, the next step in America's still-limited missile defence
programme. He has talked about a threat from a "space Pearl
Harbor". As little-noticed as the missile deployment at Fort
Greely, his Missile Defence Agency has now earmarked nearly $70m
for Nfire - the acronym for the near field infrared experiment.
This project, due to have been launched this year but delayed
because of rumblings in Congress, involves a series of test
satellites in low-Earth orbit carrying infrared sensors.
Initially, the idea is to enable the US military to distinguish
between the rocket plume, or exhaust, of a missile fired by a
potential enemy and the missile itself. But the system is also
designed to carry a "kinetic kill-vehicle" that will intercept a
missile after it has been tracked.
Nfire will in effect be the first space weapon. That is the
warning in Fighting for Space, a paper written by the Yorkshire
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament to be published later this
month. While Nfire is "being marketed as a defensive system
playing a part in the missile defence infrastructure, it could
also be effectively deployed as an anti-satellite weapon able to
destroy the space assets of other countries", it says. It quotes
a recent interview with an anonymous senior US government
official who stated: "We're crossing the Rubicon into space
weaponisation". Or as the US Space Command noted last year: "We
cannot fully exploit space until we control it".
CND comments that, "given the widespread concerns that missile
defence won't work effectively, the statements by the US
administration and military about controlling space and the asat
[anti-satellite] capabilities of the missile defence system, it
is no wonder that many states and individuals believe the system
is being developed primarily for offence rather than defence".
Russia has already developed a basic asat system. The Pentagon
has expressed concern that China will be capable of launching
asat weapons in two to six years. There are international
agreements governing space, notably the 1967 outer space treaty.
But these ban only "weapons of mass destruction" - nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons. They would not prohibit the kind
of satellite wars now in prospect.
Washington, meanwhile, is determined to push ahead with its
missile defence project, with the help of its allies, old and
new.
The British American Security Information Council notes that last
month during a visit to the UN, Australian defence minister
Robert Hill said that Australia planned to help the US develop a
missile defence system, although it "faces no current threat from
ballistic missiles".
The US was last month reported to be negotiating with Poland and
the Czech Republic over its missile defence programme and the
location of the largest missile defence site outside America. The
US also says it wants Japan to jointly develop equipment for
missile defence systems.
In Britain, there is little or no debate, although the expanding
US satellite ground station at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire will
play a key part, along with Fylingdales. Earlier this year, Geoff
Hoon, the defence secretary, told Lindis Percy, the veteran
campaigner against US bases in Britain: "We are keen to see how
the US system evolves ... The agreement to the upgrade at
Fylingdales and the close links between UK and US industry will
give us close access to, and involvement in, the US missile
defence programme."
It is for MPs to pick up the cudgel. Mr Hoon's senior military
advisers are deeply concerned about the US's missile defence
project and what it could lead to. The issues are far too
important for decisions to be allowed to go by default.
· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor
richard.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk
[richard.norton-taylor@guardian.co.uk]
World news guide North American media
Media New York Times [http://nytimes.com] Washington Post
[http://washingtonpost.com] CNN [http://cnn.com]
Government US government portal [http://www.firstgov.gov/] White
House [http://www.whitehouse.gov/] Senate
[http://www.senate.gov/] House of Representatives
[http://www.house.gov]
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
8 Interfax: No attempts to seize nuclear weapons have ever been made in
Russia Ivanov
[http://www2.interfax.ru/eng/main.html] Site map
Aug 3 2004 5:37PM
MURMANSK. Aug 3 (Interfax) - Russian Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov said that neither in the Soviet era, nor in the years of
Russia's independence, have terrorists made attempts to seize
nuclear weapons.
"Nor have terrorist attacks been carried out at nuclear
facilities," Ivanov told journalists at a testing ground in the
Murmansk region.
"Unfortunately, a myth is being circulated in various regions of
the world that Russian nuclear weapons are being guarded in a
poor and unreliable manner. This is just a myth," the defense
minister said.
"We are paying great attention to this issue since Russia is
aware of its degree of responsibility in protecting nuclear
weapons and preventing possible incidents involving them," he
said.
© 1991-2004 Interfax
*****************************************************************
9 UK Independent: No 10 fails to deny Scarlett's influence on survey group
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
03 August 2004
The Government refused yesterday to deny an authoritative report
that John Scarlett, the former head of the Joint Intelligence
Committee (JIC), asked the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) to include 10
"golden nuggets" in its report on weapons of mass destruction,
including a claim that it had smallpox weapons or was trying to
produce them.
Mr Scarlett is also said to have suggested to the ISG they
include a claim that Iraq probably possessed mobile biological
weapons laboratories, and that Saddam Hussein was developing a
"rail gun" which could propel an object at enormous speed along a
track.
But the Prime Minister's official spokesman insisted Mr Scarlett,
the new head of MI6, did not "mislead" Britain over an e-mail
suggesting the "golden nuggets" be put in a report by the
US-backed investigation.
A Number 10 spokeswoman said: "There's no question of the
Government or any of its departments or agencies, and that
includes the JIC and its then chairman John Scarlett, seeking to
mislead the ISG." The allegations were made by Tom Mangold, a
respected journalist and friend of the family of Dr David Kelly,
the weapons expert whose suicide was investigated by the Hutton
inquiry. That report cleared the Government of "sexing up" the
Iraq dossiers against the wishes of the intelligence services.
The revelation that Mr Scarlett tried to influence the ISG
yesterday brought fresh calls for him to step down from his new
post as "C", the head of Britain's intelligence services, which
he took up officially on Sunday. Sir Menzies Campbell, the
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, has for the first
time joined Tory and Labour MPs yesterday in calling for the
resignation of Mr Scarlett.
The MI6 chief was criticised in the Butler inquiry on the flawed
intelligence on Iraq for allowing the dossiers to be published
with the JIC's authority. There was criticism in the Commons of
Tony Blair for promoting Mr Scarlett in spite of the intelligence
failures. MPs claimed it was a reward for the JIC's approval of
the dossiers.
Sir Menzies said on BBC radio: "I find it very difficult to see
how Mr Scarlett can command the necessary public confidence. I'm
not one of those who make ritual calls for resignations but I've
come to the view that, so controversial now is Mr Scarlett, the
necessary element of public confidence will be lacking."
The MP for Fife North East also called for a House of Commons
select committee to scrutinise the workings of British
intelligence. Under the present system, the Prime Minister
appoints the members of the existing Commons Intelligence and
Security Committee. "I think we should be much more open with
these issues," Sir Menzies said.
The head of the ISG, David Kay, appalled the White House and
Downing Street when he resigned in January, saying there were no
WMD in Iraq. The Scarlett e-mail was sent to Mr Kay's
replacement, Charles Duelfer on 8 March, this year. The ISG has
yet to deliver its definitive report, although Mr Blair has now
admitted that WMD may not be found in Iraq.
UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
10 TheStar.com: Russia to scrap social safety net
Tue. Aug. 3, 2004. | Updated at 07:38 AM
ALEXANDER NATRUSKIN/REUTERS
Russian demonstrators clash with police in central Moscow
yesterday at a rally opposing a plan to convert certain social
benefits such as free transportation and medicine for the elderly
into cash payments. The Communist and other parties organized the
protest saying the planned reform violates the constitution by
altering the social character of the state.
SUSAN B. GLASSER SPECIAL TO THE STAR
MOSCOW—Russia is poised to dismantle the remnants of the
Soviet-era social safety net for as many as 100 million of its
poorest citizens, replacing an array of free services with cash
payments in a controversial experiment that has sent President
Vladimir Putin's approval rating down sharply.
Putin's initiative targets benefits such as no-cost public
transportation, free medication and cut-rate vacations for
retirees, war veterans and myriad other categories deemed
"socially vulnerable" by the Soviet Union.
Both supporters and opponents say the bill represents the most
sweeping attack on Soviet-style social entitlements since the
fall of Communism in 1991, and it is expected to win final
approval this week in the lower house of parliament.
But the proposal launched by Putin as the first major
legislative initiative after his landslide re-election in March
has generated unexpected controversy, even inside the pro-Kremlin
parliamentary majority and among generally supportive governors.
His support has fallen to under 50 per cent in one benchmark poll
for the first time since he was elected in 2000.
"Putin is losing his rating but he is intentionally sacrificing
it," said Vyacheslav Nikonov, a political consultant for the
president's party, United Russia.
"He considers himself popular enough" to push through an
unpopular reform. "Giving up the socialist, the Communist economy
is an important part of the agenda.''
In recent weeks, thousands of protesters have gathered in Moscow
to rally against the law providing money in place of benefits,
waving placards calling the measure "social genocide."
Opposition to the measure has united an unlikely political
coalition of Communists, Western-oriented democrats, aging World
War II veterans, victims of Stalinist repression and workers
involved in the cleanup of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster who
were exposed to radiation.
Ten regional governors many of them supporters of United
Russia also protested in a joint letter to the Kremlin. Such
protests are increasingly rare as Putin has reconsolidated power
in the federal centre during his presidency. The governors
complained of the burden on the regions to make the new cash
payments decreed by the Moscow authorities.
A recent poll by the Yuri Levada Analytical Centre, a leading
independent pollster here, found 55 per cent of Russians against
the measure, 35 per cent in favour.
"The public believes the state will deceive us, it's cheating,
they are going to rob us again," said Igor Bunin, who heads the
Centre for Political Technologies research group here.
Washington Post
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
11 Mos News: Defense Minister Says Russian Nukes in Good Hands
MOSNEWS.COM
Created: 03.08.2004 17:26 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:26 MSK
MosNews
At military exercises in northern Russia, aimed at protecting
nuclear weapons from terrorist attacks, Russian Defense Minister
Sergey Ivanov said that the notion that Russian nukes were poorly
guarded was a myth, Reuters reported.
As part of disarmament agreements, Russia is supposed to decrease
its stockpile of nuclear warheads by approximately two-thirds
over the next ten years. The generally low morale and bad
conditions in the army cause experts to wonder whether the
nuclear weapons are safe from militants who might seize or steal
them from storage sites.
Ivanov said that there had never been an attempt at seizure of
weapons neither in recent years nor during Soviet times, despite
the myths to the contrary, and said it was unfortunate that the
idea that the weapons are badly guarded is propagated around the
world.
Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com]
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
Designed by kB "Gazeta.Ru" [http://design.gazeta.ru/]
*****************************************************************
12 NRC: Sunshine Act: Meeting
FR Doc 04-17710
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46581-46582] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-126]
Date: Weeks of August 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, September 6, 2004.
Place: Commissioners' Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland.
Status: Public and closed.
Matters To Be Considered: Week of August 2, 2004 There are no
meetings scheduled for the week of August 2, 2004.
Week of August 9, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled
for the week of August 9, 2004.
Week of August 16, 2004--Tentative Tuesday, August 17, 2004 9:30
a.m. Meeting with Organization of Agreement States (OAS) and
Conference of Radiation Control Program Directors (CRCPD) (Public
Meeting) (Contact: John Zabko, 301-415-2308).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
1 p.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1). Wednesday,
August 18, 2004 9:30 a.m. Discussion of Security Issues
(Closed--Ex. 1).
[[Page 46582]] Week of August 23, 2004--Tentative There are no
meetings scheduled for the week of August 23, 2004.
Week of August 30, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the week of August 30, 2004.
Week of September 6, 2004--Tentative Wednesday, September 8, 2004
9:30 a.m. Discussion of Office of Investigations (OI) Programs
and Investigations (Closed--Ex.7). 2 p.m. Discussion of
Intragovernmental Issues (Closed--Ex. 1 & 9).
*The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call
(recording)--(301) 415- 1292. Contact person for more
information: Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415- 1651.
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html*
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-makin
g/schedule.html*] * * * * The NRC provides reasonable
accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate.
If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these
public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or
other information from the public meetings in another format
(e.g. braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability
Program Coordinator, August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD:
301-4152100, or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov [aks@nrc.gov] .
Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be
made on a case-by-case basis.
* * * * * This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition,
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic
message to dkw@nrc.gov [dkw@nrc.gov] . Dated: July 29, 2004.
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 04-17710 Filed 7-30-04; 9:55 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
13 Seattle Times: Nuclear plant at Hanford remains shut
Tuesday, August 03, 2004 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
By The Associated Press
RICHLAND — Washington state's only commercial nuclear reactor
remained out of service yesterday after a glitch during an
automatic shutdown last week.
The Columbia Generating Station began to shut itself down Friday
after an electronic device failed and closed one of the reactor's
four steam-flow valves, said spokesman Brad Peck of Energy
Northwest, the reactor's operator.
The valves normally channel nuclear-heated steam to the turbines
that drive the generator, Peck said.
Three valves usually are kept wide open and a fourth is
restricted to regulate the steam and maintain constant pressure
in the reactor, he said.
When the device running one of the valves failed, that valve
closed completely, he said. That caused an increase in pressure
in the reactor vessel, which triggered an automatic shutdown.
Another problem also occurred.
During a shutdown, all 185 control rods are inserted into the
reactor core to shut down the reactor, Peck said. Friday, either
two of the rods did not fully insert or there was a false
indication that they had not, he said.
So the control-room crew executed a manual shutdown to ensure all
rods were fully inserted.
"It's conceivable they were already in ... but whether they were
in or not is something we may not be able to decipher," Peck
said. "Obviously we'll make sure everything is functioning 100
percent" before the reactor is started again.
The problems triggered an alert in which state agencies prepared
to respond if needed to help Benton and Franklin counties.
State emergency officials said there was no release of radiation
and no danger to the public.
Technicians yesterday were taking the opportunity to perform
maintenance that can be done only when the reactor is not
operating, said Gary Miller, another Energy Northwest spokesman.
The reactor could be running again in a day or two, Miller said.
Columbia Generating Station is a boiling-water reactor that
produces 1,150 megawatts of electricity, which is sold to the
Bonneville Power Administration for the Northwest electricity
grid.
Ed Mosey, a spokesman for Bonneville, said Columbia Generating
Station has a good operating record. The shutdown will not cause
a shortage of power, he said, but means there will be less
electricity to sell on the open market.
Formerly known as the Washington Public Power Supply System No. 2
reactor, Columbia Generating Station is the only one of five
reactors WPPSS began in the late 1970s that was completed before
construction was halted in 1982-83.
The reactor is on land leased from the U.S. Department of Energy
within the boundaries of the Hanford nuclear reservation in
south-central Washington, but it is a separate entity.
Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
14 The Herald: Catawba plant may test MOX
[http://www.heraldonline.com
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Federal regulators give initial OK to allow trials at nuclear
station
By Staff and Wire Reports The Herald
(Published August 3‚ 2004)
CHARLOTTE -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a
preliminary finding in favor of allowing Duke Power to test a new
fuel at its Catawba Nuclear Station on Lake Wylie in York County.
Duke wants to test mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel as early as next
spring. The fuel is made by mixing uranium oxide and plutonium
oxide from older nuclear weapons and placing the material in fuel
rods.
The tests won't make an accident at the plant much more likely or
worsen the results if an accident happens, the commission
determined.
"It is, in our minds, a significant hurdle to have overcome,"
said Duke spokeswoman Rose Cummings. "NRC is essentially
confirming our analyses."
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League hasn't decided how to
respond to the finding, said Diane Curran, a Washington attorney
representing the group. The league opposes the tests and says MOX
fuel is dangerous. A decision could come this week, she said
Monday.
The commission analyzed two possible accidents that MOX might
influence.
The first looked at defects in the metal cladding that encases
fuel rods. Under high pressure and high temperatures inside the
reactor, failed cladding could release radioactive material into
cooling water. The second examined the likelihood of an accident
in handling MOX assemblies.
In neither case would MOX increase the odds of those accidents
occurring nor would it make the consequences significantly worse,
the commission said.
The NRC must wait until a comment period ends Aug. 12 before
making the finding official. After that, the commission could
issue the license to start tests.
In the meantime, an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is studying
objections raised by the environmental defense league, which
claims that MOX behaves differently from uranium fuel and would
make a nuclear accident at Catawba worse than it would have been
otherwise. The league also challenged Duke's security precautions
during the tests.
A final decision on the MOX tests could come before the
environmental defense league issues are resolved in the fall.
MOX fuel contains 5 percent plutonium oxide, which is used in
nuclear weapons. Duke's project is part of a $4 billion
initiative to reduce up to 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium in
the United States and Russia.
Copyright © 2004 The Herald, South Carolina
*****************************************************************
15 Physics Today: ITER Impasse Illustrates Challenge of Site Selection
August 2004-
[http://www.physicstoday.org
ITER Impasse Illustrates Challenge of Site Selection
The more partners in a project, the more resources available,
but the more complicated decision making becomes.
ITER
We are blessed by having at least one. We are cursed by having
more than one," says Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory's Ned
Sauthoff about the site candidates for ITER, for which he is the
US planning officer. Since before Christmas, the ITER partners
have been in a deadlock over where to site the $5 billion fusion
reactor. Europe, China, and Russia insist on Cadarache, in the
south of France, while Japan, South Korea, and the US vote for
Rokkasho, in northern Japan.
Both locations passed muster by the ITER site evaluation team.
But those who back Cadarache say licensing, cost, climate, local
industry, technical, and other factors favor their site. In
addition, European, and some American, fusion scientists worry
that westerners will not want to serve extended tours of duty at
the remote Japanese location.
That works both ways, as Gyung-Su Lee, director general of the
Korean National Fusion R&D Center in Daejeon, south of Seoul,
points out: "Korean people share more cultural background [with
the Japanese than with Europeans]." In weighing the candidates,
Lee says, his country's researchers favor Japan by a "slim
margin." US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a speech
last January that "the location of Rokkasho is superbly situated
to receive the large materials need[ed] for ITER. [Japan has]
outstanding scientific talent to contribute to the international
team of scientists that would live and work in the area. . . ."
Department of Energy (DOE) officials refused to comment further
on the US preference for the Japanese site.
zz For several months, Europe and Japan have been discussing a
"broader approach" in which the country that does not get ITER
hosts a support facilitythe International Fusion Materials
Irradiation Facility. In June, both Europe and Japan upped the
ante, offering to pay for nearly half of ITER plus half of the
roughly $1.2 million IFMIFif they host ITER. A shift in the
alliance of the US or other nonhost ITER partners could also tip
the balance, but so far no one is budging.
Generic problem
In the past, says Lee, countries had their own scientific
facilities, and "could choose to work alone or together. But with
ITER, or a new global linear collider, the world can only build
one. The only way is to put our resources together." The
deadlock, Lee adds, "is not a problem of ITER negotiations. It's
generic."
Caltech's Barry Barish, who chairs a committee charged with
deciding what technology a future multibillion-dollar linear
collider should use, points to "two extremes in negotiating that
have not worked." With ITER, he observes, "there is an impasse
because everything was already agreed, and there are not very
many things left to negotiate." The Superconducting Super
Collider, famously canceled in 1993, lies at the other extreme,
he says. In that case, the US settled on siting the accelerator
in Waxahachie, Texas, before asking other countries to join the
project. The SSC failed, he adds, "because it was a green-field
site and because of the lack of getting international partners
earlier." With the next collider, says Barish, "the idea is to
find a solution in between those extremes, where the attraction
of being host country can be traded off against other
attractions."
zzz Indeed, site selection is often a thorny matter, even for
scientific projects not as costly or international as ITER or the
next-generation linear collider. Scientists might choose several
sites that meet their scientific and technical criteria for
atmospheric turbulence, shielding from cosmic radiation,
seismicity, manmade vibrations, available space, and so on. Other
factors that may enter the mix include accessibility to
scientists from around the worldcurrent visa restrictions make
the US a trouble spot in this regard; licensing for nuclear
materials; the desire for a green-field site versus the benefits
of using existing roads and other infrastructure or revitalizing
an existing facility; incentives offered by potential hosts;
proximity to a university; the reputation of local K12 schools;
and jobs for spouses.
The interplay of these and other factors is specific to each
project, but if the price tag is high enough, politics inevitably
plays a role. To divvy up giant, one-of-a-kind scientific
facilities among international participants, "the balance will
have to be achieved by projects from several fields," says Burton
Richter, former director of SLAC and past president of the
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. "The physicists
ought to say what sites are acceptable, and the politicians
should say which among those they want to accept."
Unique solutions
One project that rose successfully from a green-field site is
Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia. The DOE's decision to
locate the accelerator lab there "came as a great surprise" to
others vying for it, says Yale University's D. Allan Bromley, who
chaired the lab's site selection committee. "MIT had been
convinced that because they had the Bates accelerator lab, they'd
be asked to expand. And an Illinois group was convinced that
Fermilab and Argonne made them the right place." Newport News won
out, Bromley says, because "the Southeastern Universities
Research Association had committed themselves to provide
something like 27 new senior faculty positions for scientists. It
was that activity, together with the perceived lack of facilities
in that part of the country, that made the decision easy."
Bringing science to underserved parts of the US was also key in
NSF's decision to site one leg of the Laser Interferometer
Gravitational Wave Observatory in Livingston, Louisiana; the
other leg of the experiment is in Hanford, Washington. "A
perfectly wonderful decision was made by Walter Massey at NSF,"
says MIT's Rainer Weiss, who has been involved with LIGO from the
start. "The bottom line was that NSF and the government had not
put enough money into the South, and [Massey] thought this would
be a good thing for the South and for the country." Apparently,
it is: In Louisiana, says Barish, who directs the experiment,
"LIGO gives a pride and visibility. The outreach things we do
have a huge impact. Around Caltech, it just isn't the same."
Sometimes siting is driven by a forceful individual. Take Gran
Sasso National Observatory, says George Kalmus, a senior UK
particle physicist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and
former head of CERN's scientific policy committee. The
underground lab near Rome, he says, "was the brainchild" of
Antonino Zichichi, then president of Italy's National Institute
for Nuclear Physics. "He was a powerful figure in science and
politics. By dint of his personality and contacts, he got it
approved. He had support, but without him, it wouldn't have
happened."
Politics played an unexpected role in siting the Joint European
Torus (JET). In the mid-1970s, the choice had been narrowed to
Culham, UK, and Garching, Germany. According to fusion lore, the
impasse was broken when Germany sought to thank the UK for help
in rescuing passengers on a hijacked Lufthansa airliner. The
hijackers, who commandeered the plane to Mogadishu, had demanded
the release of members of the BaaderMeinhof terrorist group
imprisoned in Germany. Paul Vandenplas, a professor emeritus at
Belgium's Royal Military Academy and vice chair of the European
Consultative Committee for Fusion, recalls the day in fall 1977
when he was in the office of Prime Minister Leo Tindemans, then
the president of the European Council. The phone rang, says
Vandenplas, and "the prime minister came back and said, 'JET is
solved. [German Chancellor Helmut] Schmidt said he's giving up
Garching to thank the British for the help they gave.' "
More than in most disciplines, facilities in astronomy must meet
strong scientific constraints. Because optical and IR telescopes
need to be at high, remote locations, possible sites are limited,
and bidding battlessuch as with ITERseldom occur. Indeed, rather
than put up the lion's share, a telescope host typically levies a
tax in the form of some fraction of the observing time.
Still, siting telescopes is not based on scientific requirements
alone. Tension is ongoing, for example, at Mauna Kea, Hawaii. In
one camp are astronomers and those who want the economic
stimulation that observatories bring to the state; in the other
are those who oppose further development on the island volcano
(see Physics Today, January 2004, page 22
[http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-1/p22.shtml] ).
In the US, opposition from environmental and indigenous groups
has escalated "so that an otherwise desirable location can't be
obtained because of red tape," says Caltech astronomer George
Djorgovski, cochair of the committee in charge of site selection
for the Thirty Meter Telescope. "Very few telescopes are going to
be built in this country in future," adds Tony Beasley, who, as
project manager, shepherded CARMA, the Combined Array for
Research in Millimeter-wave Astronomy, through a turbulent site
approval process in California. "The reality is that the
environmental impact of astronomy projects is tiny," Beasley
says. "A ski resort or mining company generates money, so they
can afford to pay for lawyer after lawyer. Astronomy projects
cannot afford to burn years and millions of dollars on
environmental impact statements."
"My observation," says Kalmus, "is that [siting facilities] is
very far from a logical or scientific process. It's more like a
random walk conducted by politicians."
'A chess game'
Just how ITER's random walk will play out remains uncertain. But
fusion scientists and policymakers are trying to understand the
bind they're inhow they got there and how they might get out.
Japan's vigorous pursuit to host ITER took Europe by surprise; a
year before the standoff, someone involved in ITER negotiations
for Europe told Physics Today that "Japan will not defend their
site up to the last" and "they have given us signs that
financially they would not be ready to make a large effort." More
recently, this source said that "the Japanese attitude changed
substantially since the US started pushing them."
In Europe, US support for the Japanese site is widely interpreted
as revenge for France's opposition to the war in Iraq. Some
observers point to CERN in Europe and to the US's role in the
International Space Station, and say it's only fair that Japan
have ITER. More common, however, is linking the fate of ITER with
that of a future linear collider. Here, the thinking is that if
Japan gets ITER, the US has a better shot at hosting the
collider.
The linear collider and ITER are not directly linked, and can't
be, as they are not at the same stage of readiness, but it's
generally assumed in the science community that the highest level
of policymakers is taking the future collider into account in
discussions about ITER. The two projects "are not uncorrelated,"
says Albrecht Wagner, the director of DESY, the German Electron
Synchrotron in Hamburg, who is involved in planning for the
linear collider. "It might be that the region that takes ITER
will have all its resources tied up. It's like a chess game. I
don't know how the game will develop."
Given the advances in remote control and data handling, says
Steve Cowley, a fusion physicist at UCLA, "I ask myself, In 10 or
12 years from now, who will visit ITER? You can do it over the
internet. I don't think it's terribly important anymore where
things are sited." In any case, it's safe to say that fusion
scientists mostly care more that ITER be built than where it is
built. Toni Feder
How will the ITER siting stalemate be broken? (Schematic courtesy
of ITER.) Return to Article
© 2004 American Institute of Physics
[http://www.aip.org/copyright.html]
*****************************************************************
16 TheDay.com: Millstone Licensing Challenge Rebuffed
Tuesday, Aug 3, 2004
NRC Panel Says Burton's Claims Are Unsupported
By PATRICIA DADDONA
Day Staff Writer, Waterford
Published on 8/3/2004
An arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has rejected
arguments by the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone for a
hearing to challenge the proposed relicensing of Millstone Power
Station, saying the group's bare assertions failed to meet
basic legal standards.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board issued its memorandum last
Wednesday. In it, the panel of three administrative judges said
anti-nuclear activist Nancy Burton failed to support six claims
including a charge that Millstone caused cancer clusters with
facts, case law, expert testimony or other authoritative sources.
Burton represents the coalition, a grass-roots group that opposes
nuclear power plants.
This is only one of several examples in which CCAM has
expressed very serious concerns but provided little or no sources
or specificity..., the decision states.
Such lack of care is unjustifiable, notwithstanding counsel
(Burton) representing CCAM on a pro bono basis. If there is
information to support the allegations, at least some reasonably
specific basis or source is necessary, and should not be
difficult to provide or describe if it exists.
Burton also failed to link alleged serious effects to the aging
of the power plants during the proposed relicensing period, which
would have been the focus of such a hearing, the judges wrote.
When trying to establish that Millstone reactors at Units 2 and 3
are unsafe because of technical defects, Burton claimed that
numerous unplanned emergency shutdowns have led to premature
aging, but did not tie the claim to specific deficiencies in the
structure of the reactors, their components or the systems
involved in those shutdowns, the judges said.
z The hearing on June 30 at the Radisson Hotel in New London was
Burton's chance to persuade the judges to grant a full hearing,
beyond the normal relicensing process, which might have been used
to present evidence that license renewals should not be granted.
In January, Millstone owner Dominion Nuclear Connecticut asked
the NRC to extend licenses another 20 years for Millstone 2 and
3, through 2035 and 2045, respectively. Millstone 1 is no longer
operating and is being decommissioned.
Burton also failed, the memo states, to convince the panel that
Millstone's license should be revoked because the station is an
inadequately protected terrorist target; because the region
around it cannot be safely evacuated; because the plants are
operating without a valid state permit to cool the reactors; or
because the plants are directly and primarily responsible for
destroying the winter flounder population of Niantic Bay.
The panel also rejected requests to put off the hearing, saying
Burton did not show irreparable harm if the judges made their
decision while she contested the NRC's refusal to hold the
hearing under procedures the NRC recently deemed obsolete.
zz They also rejected her attempt to postpone the hearing so
Suffolk County, N.Y., could participate, in part because she was
not authorized to represent the county.
Burton, who has the option to appeal in court or to the NRC,
could not be reached for comment.
The NRC could make a decision on Dominion's application sometime
in 2006.
1998-2004 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: Proposed Generic Communication; Draft Revision to NRC Inspection
FR Doc 04-17608
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46599] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-131]
Manual Chapter 9900, ``Technical Guidance,'' Operability
Determinations and Resolution of Nonconformances of Structures,
Systems, and Components'' (``Regulatory Issue Summary
2004-XX'')--(MC2262) AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of opportunity for public comment and notice of
public meeting.
SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is
proposing to issue a Regulatory Issue Summary (RIS) to provide
the nuclear power industry with updated staff guidance on
operability determinations and resolution of degraded and
nonconforming conditions of Structures, Systems, and Components
(SSCs). This proposed RIS updates the previous guidance in NRC
Inspection Manual Chapter (IMC) 9900, ``Technical Guidance,'' and
endorsed by the NRC in Generic Letter 91-18, ``Information to
Licensees Regarding Two NRC Inspection Manual Sections on
Resolution of Degraded and Nonconforming Conditions and on
Operability.'' The guidance is being updated to reflect relevant
changes in the NRC regulatory process and regulations contained
in 10 CFR 50.59, ``Changes, Tests, and Experiments,'' and 10 CFR
50.65, ``Requirements for Monitoring the Effectiveness of
Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants;'' and to clarify the
guidance for selected issues based on operating experience, and;
to consolidate and streamline the guidance in two previously
separate NRC IMC 9900 sections.
Earlier guidance on these subjects was provided to the industry
in two sections of IMC 9900 as an attachment to GL 91-18, issued
on November 7, 1991. An update of guidance on degraded and
nonconforming conditions was issued as Revision 1 on October 8,
1997. In addition, on September 13, 2001, the NRC issued for
public comment an earlier draft revision of the guidance on
degraded and nonconforming conditions. The NRC also held a public
workshop on August 14, 2003, as part of the development of the
proposed revision. The staff has addressed the comments received
in the present revision.
The NRC is seeking comment from interested parties on the clarity
and utility of the proposed RIS and the draft updated IMC 9900
guidance, as outlined under the Supplementary Information
heading. The NRC will consider the comments received in its final
evaluation of the proposed RIS and updated guidance. Comments
should address the contents of the guidance but not the
associated regulations.
The NRC will hold a public workshop on August 25, 2004, in the
Two White Flint North Auditorium at the NRC offices in Rockville,
Maryland, at 8:30 a.m.--4:30 p.m., for discussion of the proposed
revision to the guidance. Comments provided during this workshop
will be considered by the NRC when it finalizes the proposed RIS
and IMC guidance.
Written comments may also be provided as discussed below.
DATES: The comment period expires 60 days after this notice is
published. Comments submitted after this date will be considered
if it is practical to do so, but assurance of consideration
cannot be given except for comments received on or before this
date. Interested parties are also encouraged to provide comments
by August 18, 2004, to be discussed during the public workshop on
August 25, 2004.
ADDRESSES: Submit written comments to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop
T6-D59, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and cite the publication date
and page number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments
may also be delivered to NRC Headquarters, 11545 Rockville Pike
(Room T-6D59), Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15
p.m. on Federal workdays. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: Kerri
Kavanagh at (301) 415-3743 or by e-mail to kak@nrc.gov
[kak@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Documents may be examined, and/or
copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room at One White
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. The NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management
System (ADAMS) provides text and image files of NRC's public
documents. The proposed RIS and the draft updated IMC 9900
guidance are available under ADAMS accession number ML042080035.
These documents may be accessed through the NRC's Public
Electronic Reading Room (PERR) on the Internet at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html]
.
If you do not have access to ADAMS or if you have problems in
accessing documents in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document
Room (PDR) reference staff by phone at 1-800-397- 4209 or
301-415-4737, by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] , or by fax
to 301-415- 3548.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of July 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Terrence Reis, Acting Chief, Reactor Operations Branch, Division
of Inspection Program Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-17608 Filed 8-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
18 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
FR Doc 04-17610
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46596-46597] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-128]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a
proposed revision of a guide in its Regulatory Guide Series.
Regulatory Guides are developed to describe and make available to
the public such information as methods acceptable to the NRC for
implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques
used by the staff in evaluating specific problems or postulated
accidents, and data needed by the staff in its review of
applications for permits and licenses.
The draft guide is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-
1124, which should be mentioned in all correspondence concerning
this draft guide. Draft regulatory guide DG-1124, ``Design,
Fabrication, and Materials Code Case Acceptability, ASME Section
III,'' is proposed Revision 33 of Regulatory Guide 1.84. The
regulation in 10 CFR 50.55a(c), ``Reactor Coolant Pressure
Boundary,'' requires, in part, that components of the reactor
coolant pressure boundary must be designed, fabricated, erected,
and tested in accordance with the requirements for Class 1
components of Section III, ``Rules for Construction of Nuclear
Power Plant Components,'' of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel (B) Code or
equivalent quality standards. The ASME publishes a new edition of
the B Code, which includes Section III, every three years, and
new addenda every year. The latest
[[Page 46597]] editions and addenda of Section III that have been
approved for use by the NRC are referenced in 10 CFR 50.55a(b).
The ASME also publishes Code cases quarterly. Code cases provide
alternatives developed and approved by ASME to existing Code
requirements. This draft regulatory guide identifies the Code
cases that have been determined by the NRC to be acceptable
alternatives to applicable parts of Section III.
Section III Code cases not yet endorsed by the NRC may be
implemented through 10 CFR 50.55a(a)(3), which permits the use of
alternatives to the Code requirements referenced in 10 CFR 50.55a
provided that the proposed alternatives result in an acceptable
level of quality and safety, and that their use is authorized by
the Director of the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
This is a draft guide and does not represent an official NRC
staff position. Because Code cases approved by the NRC in a final
guide may be used voluntarily by licensees as an alternative to
compliance with ASME Code provisions, the final guide will be
incorporated by reference into 10 CFR 50.55a through rulemaking.
Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting
data. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Rules and
Directives Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; or they may be
hand-delivered to the Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Copies of
comments received may be examined at the NRC's Public Document
Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Comments will be most
helpful if received by September 2, 2004.
You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive
rulemaking web site through the NRC home page (http:
//http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] ). This site provides
the ability to upload comments as files (any format) if your web
browser supports that function. For information about the
interactive rulemaking web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher,
(301) 415-5905; e-mail cag@nrc.gov [cag@nrc.gov] . For technical
information about Draft Regulatory Guide DG-1124, contact Mr.
W.E. Norris at (301) 415-6796 (e- mail wen@nrc.gov [wen@nrc.gov]
). Although a deadline is given for comments on these draft
guides, comments and suggestions in connection with items for
inclusion in guides currently being developed or improvements in
all published guides are encouraged at any time.
Regulatory guides are available for inspection at the NRC's
Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD; the
PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001;
telephone (301) 415- 4737 or (800) 397-4209; fax (301) 415-3548;
e-mail pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Requests for single copies of
draft or final regulatory guides (which may be reproduced) or
placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of
future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in
writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services
Section, or by fax to (301) 415-2289; e-mail distribution@nrc.gov
[distribution@nrc.gov] . Telephone requests cannot be
accommodated. Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and NRC
approval is not required to reproduce them.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 20th day of
April, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael E. Mayfield, Director, Division of Engineering
Technology, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 04-17610 Filed 8-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
FR Doc 04-17611
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46597-46598] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-129]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for public
comment a proposed revision of a guide in its Regulatory Guide
Series. Regulatory Guides are developed to describe and make
available to the public such information as methods acceptable to
the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of the NRC's
regulations, techniques used by the staff in evaluating specific
problems or postulated accidents, and data needed by the staff in
its review of applications for permits and licenses.
The draft guide is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-
1125, which should be mentioned in all correspondence concerning
this draft guide. Draft Regulatory Guide DG-1125, ``Inservice
Inspection Code Case Acceptability, ASME Section XI, Division
1,'' is proposed Revision 14 of Regulatory Guide 1.147. The
regulation at 10 CFR 50.55a(g), ``Inservice Inspection
Requirements,'' requires, in part, that Classes 1, 2, 3, MC, and
CC Components and their supports meet the requirements of Section
XI, ``Rules for Inservice Inspection of Nuclear Power Plant
Components,'' of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(ASME) Boiler and Pressure Vessel (B) Code or equivalent quality
standards. Every 3 years the ASME publishes a new edition of the
B Code, including Section XI, and new addenda are published every
year. The latest editions and addenda of Section XI that have
been approved for use by the NRC are referenced in 10 CFR
50.55a(b). The ASME also publishes Code cases quarterly. Code
cases provide alternatives to existing Code requirements that
were developed and approved by the ASME. This regulatory guide
identifies the Code cases that have been determined by the NRC to
be acceptable alternatives to applicable parts of Section XI.
These Code cases may be used by licensees without a request for
authorization from the NRC provided that they are used with any
identified limitations or modifications. Section XI Code cases
not yet endorsed by the NRC may be implemented through 10 CFR
50.55a(a)(3), which permits the use of alternatives to the Code
requirements referenced in 10 CFR 50.55a provided that the
proposed alternatives result in an acceptable level of quality
and safety and that their use is authorized by the Director of
the Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
This draft guide has not received complete staff approval and
does not represent an official NRC staff position. Because Code
cases approved by the NRC in a final guide may be used
voluntarily by licensees as an alternative to compliance with
ASME Code provisions, the final guide will be incorporated by
reference into 10 CFR 50.55a through rulemaking.
A document entitled ``Evaluation of Code Cases'' is attached to
the proposed rulemaking associated with the draft guide. The
document provides a basis for each condition in the draft guide.
Public comments are encouraged on the Code case conditions. It
should be noted that Code Cases N-416-3 and N-504-2 are listed in
the draft guide as unconditionally acceptable. The NRC is
proposing to condition Code Case N-416-3 in response to a recent
licensee submittal. The NRC does not believe that the application
of the Code case as described in the submittal would provide
adequate assurance of component structural integrity. A condition
is also being proposed for Code Case N-504-2. The American
Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) recently addressed a
revision to Code Case N-504-2. The NRC is proposing to condition
the use of Code Case N-504-2 based on this recent ASME action.
The proposed conditions are discussed in Section 4.7 of the
``Evaluation of Code Cases.'' Because the industry actions
occurred after the draft guide had been published but prior to
release of the guide for public comment,
[[Page 46598]] the NRC is proposing to condition the use of these
two Code cases in the final guide unless public comments are
received that the staff's proposed technical bases for the
conditions are not applicable, incorrect, unnecessary to provide
reasonable assurance of adequate protection to public health and
safety and common defense and security, or otherwise not
justified in light of the increase in protection to public health
and safety or common defense and security that would be provided
by imposition of the conditions.
Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting
data. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Rules and
Directives Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; or they may be
hand-delivered to the Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Copies of
comments received may be examined at the NRC's Public Document
Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Comments will be most
helpful if received by September 2, 2004.
You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive
rulemaking web site through the NRC home page (http:
//http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] ). This site provides
the ability to upload comments as files (any format) if your web
browser supports that function. For information about the
interactive rulemaking web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher,
(301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@NRC.GOV [CAG@NRC.GOV] . For technical
information about Draft Regulatory Guide DG-1125, contact Mr. W.
E. Norris at (301) 415-6796 (e-mail wen@nrc.gov [wen@nrc.gov] ).
Although a deadline is given for comments on these draft guides,
comments and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion
in guides currently being developed or improvements in all
published guides are encouraged at any time.
Regulatory guides are available for inspection at the NRC's
Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD; the
PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001;
telephone (301) 415- 4737 or (800) 397-4209; fax (301) 415-3548;
e-mail pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . Requests for single copies of
draft or final regulatory guides (which may be reproduced) or
placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of
future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in
writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services
Section, or by fax to (301) 415-2289; e-mail distribution@nrc.gov
[distribution@nrc.gov] . Telephone requests cannot be
accommodated. Regulatory guides are not copyrighted, and NRC
approval is not required to reproduce them.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 20th day of
April, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael Mayfield, Director, Division of Engineering Technology,
Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 04-17611 Filed 8-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
20 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
FR Doc 04-17612
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46598-46599] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-130]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued for public comment a
proposed revision of a guide in its Regulatory Guide Series.
Regulatory Guides are developed to describe and make available to
the public such information as methods acceptable to the NRC for
implementing specific parts of the NRC's regulations, techniques
used by the staff in evaluating specific problems or postulated
accidents, and data needed by the staff in its review of
applications for permits and licenses.
The draft guide is temporarily identified by its task number, DG-
1126, which should be mentioned in all correspondence concerning
this draft guide. Draft regulatory guide DG-1126, ``ASME Code
Cases Not Approved for Use,'' is proposed Revision 1 of
Regulatory Guide 1.193. The American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME) publishes a new edition of the Boiler and
Pressure Vessel (B) Code every three years and new addenda every
year. The latest editions and addenda of Section III and Section
XI that have been approved for use by the NRC are referenced in
10 CFR 50.55a(b). The ASME also publishes Code cases for Section
III and Section XI quarterly. Code cases provide alternatives to
the B Code developed and approved by the ASME. Revision 32 of
Regulatory Guide 1.84, ``Design, Fabrication, and Materials Code
Case Acceptability, ASME Section III,'' and Revision 13 of
Regulatory Guide 1.147, ``Inservice Inspection Code Case
Acceptability, ASME Section XI, Division 1,'' are being revised
to identify the Code cases that have been determined by the NRC
to be acceptable alternatives to applicable parts of Section III
and Section XI. This regulatory guide (DG-1126) lists the Code
cases that the NRC has determined not to be acceptable for use on
a generic basis. A brief description of the basis for the
determination is provided with each Code case. Licensees may
submit a request to implement one or more of the Code cases
listed in the guide through 10 CFR 50.55a(a)(3), which permits
the use of alternatives to the Code requirements referenced in 10
CFR 50.55a provided that the proposed alternatives result in an
acceptable level of quality and safety. A licensee must submit a
plant-specific request that addresses the NRC's concern about the
Code case at issue.
This is a draft guide and does not represent an official NRC
staff position. Because Code cases approved by the NRC in a final
guide may be used voluntarily by licensees as an alternative to
compliance with ASME Code provisions, the final guide will be
incorporated by reference into 10 CFR 50.55a through rulemaking.
Comments may be accompanied by relevant information or supporting
data. Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Rules and
Directives Branch, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; or they may be
hand-delivered to the Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, at 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Copies of
comments received may be examined at the NRC's Public Document
Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD. Comments will be most
helpful if received by September 2, 2004.
You may also provide comments via the NRC's interactive
rulemaking Web site through the NRC home page (
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] ). This site provides
the ability to upload comments as files (any format) if your Web
browser supports that function. For information about the
interactive rulemaking Web site, contact Ms. Carol Gallagher,
(301) 415-5905; e-mail [CAG@NRC.GOV] . For technical information
about Draft Regulatory Guide DG-1126, contact Mr. W.E. Norris at
(301) 415-6796 (e- mail [WEN@NRC.GOV] ). Although a deadline is
given for comments on these draft guides, comments and
suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides
currently being developed or improvements in all published guides
are encouraged at any time.
Regulatory guides are available for inspection at the NRC's
Public Document Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD; the
PDR's mailing address is USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001;
telephone (301) 415- 4737 or (800) 397-4209; fax (301) 415-3548;
e-mail [PDR@NRC.GOV] . Requests for single copies of draft or
final regulatory guides (which may be reproduced) or placement on
an automatic distribution
[[Page 46599]] list for single copies of future draft guides in
specific divisions should be made in writing to the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention:
Reproduction and Distribution Services Section, or by fax to
(301) 415-2289; e-mail [ DISTRIBUTION@NRC.GOV] . Telephone
requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory guides are not
copyrighted, and NRC approval is not required to reproduce them.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated in Rockville, Maryland this 20th day of
April 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael E. Mayfield, Director, Division of Engineering
Technology, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 04-17612 Filed 8-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
21 Interfax: NATO nuclear arms storage facilities still closed to Russian
experts - Russian military official
[http://www.interfax.com]
Aug 3 2004 5:53PM
MURMANSK. Aug 3 (Interfax) - Igor Volynkin, head of the Russian
Defense Ministry's 12th central department for nuclear security
in the country's armed forces, said that Russian experts have
not so far been provided with an opportunity to familiarize
themselves with the way NATO member-nations store, protect and
transport nuclear weapons.
"Not a single western country has so far shown us its
capabilities in this area," Volynkin told journalists at a
testing ground in the Murmansk region.
© 1991-2004 Interfax
*****************************************************************
22 heraldtribune.com: Health questions answered for former American Beryllium workers
Southwest Florida's Information Leader
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
SNN REPORT
MANATEE COUNTY -- The health of former plant workers for the
American Beryllium Company could be at risk, officials said.
The U.S. Department of Labor is holding workshops today and
Wednesday to answer questions and help file claims for former
employees of the Department of Energy, including those exposed to
Beryllium.
If you worked at the plant formerly known as the American
Beryllium Company in 1968 and anytime in the 1980s, you might
have some money coming to you.
Under the energy employees occupational illness compensation
program act, those who qualify, including survivors or covered
employees, can file claims to receive as much as $150,000 in
compensation and medical benefits.
Because of where he worked over 10 years ago, Bruce Nnisel is
concerned he could be sick today.
“I’m 66, and as I get older, I have the normal arthritis and
cholesterol problems and that sort of thing, but I want to be
aware of what things might develop,” he said.
While some precautions were taken, former employees are
encouraged to attend bringing with them, proof of employment with
American Beryllium and medical records.
Even if someone has no symptoms, that doesn’t mean they can’t be
sick 20 to 30 years after having been exposed.
For more on this story, read Debi Springer’s report in
Wednesday’s Herald-Tribune.
Last modified: August 03. 2004 4:15PM
*****************************************************************
23 heraldtribune.com: Unhealthy limits Beryllium workers need more information and
Southwest Florida's Information Leader
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Unhealthy limits Beryllium workers need more information and aid
Federal officials need to undertake a far more aggressive effort
to provide medical benefits and compensation to former workers at
the American Beryllium Co. in Tallevast.
This week, representatives from the U.S. Department of Labor will
be in Bradenton to offer information about federal assistance
available to former employees of the plant, its contractors and
subcontractors.
The plant operated from 1961 to 1996 in Tallevast, a community
near U.S. 301 in south Manatee County, near the Sarasota line. It
used beryllium, a toxic, coal-like metal, to produce parts for
nuclear warheads and military aircraft, among other things.
The neighborhood has been in the news lately because of extensive
chemical contamination found on and near the plant site, which
was purchased and closed by the defense contractor Lockheed
Martin in 1996.
But too little attention has been paid, so far, to another crisis
-- the deteriorating health of workers exposed to beryllium dust
at the plant.
Four years ago, Congress approved a law to compensate workers or
their survivors for some beryllium-related health problems. About
$855 million has been paid out nationally since then.
But, as the Herald-Tribune has reported, many ex-employees of the
Tallevast plant are unaware of the aid that might be available to
them (only two of the plant's estimated 1,000 workers through the
years have applied for compensation.)
Clearly, the federal government needs to do more to get in touch
with the plant's former employees. This week's sessions --
scheduled for today and tomorrow, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the
Holiday Inn Riverfront in downtown Bradenton -- are a start, but
they're not enough. (For information on the sessions and the
compensation, call the toll-free resource center at
866-666-4606.)
In addition to expanding efforts to contact ex-employees, federal
officials -- including Southwest Florida's congressional
delegation -- need to re-examine the scope of the compensation
package.
The program covers only berylliosis, a lung disease caused by
exposure to beryllium. But many workers are suffering from cancer
and other illnesses: beryllium is classified as a probable human
carcinogen.
When Congress approved the compensation in 2000, it acknowledged
that beryllium workers and others in nuclear-weapon production
were put at risk "without their knowledge and consent." Without
adequate efforts to inform them about the aid and
expansion of the assistance program, the injustice will only be
compounded.
Herald-Tribune newspaper and SNN Channel 6 © Sarasota
*****************************************************************
24 ENN: Plutonium particles accumulating in Japanese bay
Tuesday, August 03, 2004By Mari Yamaguchi, Associated Press
TOKYO Radioactive plutonium particles from U.S. nuclear weapons
tests in the Pacific some 50 years ago have been detected for the
first time in Japanese waters.
The particles were found in soil samples from Sagami Bay, about
50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Tokyo, researchers at the
National Institute of Radiological Science said Monday.
The plutonium particles matched the fallout from the blasts at
the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, but they pose no
environmental risk, said research team leader Masatoshi Yamada.
Yamada said the particles made of coral pulverized in the
explosions started accumulating in the bay soon after the
weapons tests, which lasted from 1946 until 1958.
"We believe the plutonium was washed up toward Japanese waters by
the ocean current," Yamada said.
The United States conducted 66 such tests as part of "Operation
Crossroads." The atoll is part of the Marshall Islands, almost
midway between Hawaii and Tokyo.
Yamada said his team plans to conduct similar surveys at other
Japanese shorelines, including on the Japan Sea and East China
Sea, to determine how plutonium from the Bikini Atoll traveled to
Japan over the years.
"If we can determine how the plutonium particles traveled around
the world, we can predict what may happen in case of an
emergency, such as a nuclear accident," he added.
The Bikini tests are well-known in Japan because 23 Japanese
fishers were contaminated by radiation when their tuna trawler
was showered by fallout in the area in March 1954.
A radio operator of the boat died from the effects of radiation
poisoning six months after the blast at age 40, followed by 11
others who died from liver ailments linked to the same cause.
Source: Associated Press
ENN is a registered trademark of the Environmental News
Network Inc. Copyright © 2004 Environmental News Network Inc.
*****************************************************************
25 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Yerington site should be on priority list
Today: August 03, 2004 at 9:12:19 PDT
LAS VEGAS SUN
For years an abandoned copper mine just northeast of Yerington
in Lyon County has been a danger for leaching contaminants into
groundwater used by the area's 3,000 residents. The Nevada
Division of Environmental Protection, in cooperation with
Atlantic Richfield Co., a former owner of the 3,600-acre mine
site, has supervised monitoring wells and pumping stations in an
effort to prevent mercury, arsenic beryllium, lead and other
toxins from migrating into drinking water supplies.
Four years ago the Bureau of Land Management and the
Environmental Protection Agency entered the picture. The two
federal agencies cooperated with the state environmental division
and ARCO on a more intensive cleanup plan. In 2001, however, area
residents expressed concern that even this joint oversight was
inadequate and asked the state to seek assistance through the
federal Superfund program. The state rejected that idea,
reasoning that the mine site posed no immediate threat and that a
Superfund designation carries a negative image that could harm
the area's economy.
This reasoning is now outdated, given two recent events. In June
2003 a government contractor working with the BLM and EPA
uncovered documents produced by the Anaconda Copper Co., original
owner of the mine. The previously unknown documents revealed that
tests in the 1970s and 1980s of unlined waste-collection ponds on
the site had revealed enormous concentrations of radioactive
uranium (naturally present at the site and disturbed by the
copper extractions). So much uranium was detected that the
company pondered selling it to the U.S. government for its
nuclear weapons program. The discovery of these documents led to
plans for additional tests at the site, specifically for uranium
-- but none have yet occurred.
The second event took place just two months ago. A BLM worker
took soil samples at the mine, and they tested well above normal
for radiation. The state environmental division and ARCO are now
irritated with the BLM because its tests were not part of
agreed-upon "work plans." With indisputable evidence of uranium
contamination, and with the responsible clean-up agencies now
irked at each other, the state needs to drop its objection to the
mine's designation as a Superfund site. The residents of
Yerington deserve this level of priority.
*****************************************************************
26 Las Vegas SUN: Ensign concedes Kerry better for state on Yucca
By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Monday that when it comes to the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry is better for Nevada than President Bush.
Last week Ensign attacked Kerry's Senate voting record on Yucca
Mountain, citing the Massachusetts senator's favorable vote for
the 1987 Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments, known in the state
as the "Screw Nevada Bill," although it was tucked into budget
legislation.
Under a barrage of questions by Jon Ralston on "Face to Face
With Jon Ralston," aired on Cox Cable channels 1 and 19, Ensign
said Monday that "on this one issue he's been better than George
Bush, but that's on one issue."
Ralston pressed the senator on the issue, noting that Bush said
he based his decision on sound science.
"Obviously, it's something that I personally disagree with,
that science," Ensign said. "The National Academy of Sciences
disagrees with the science."
The National Academy of Sciences told the Energy Department
that there was no scientific basis for a 10,000-year limit on
radioactive ground water contamination and that the threat of
contaminating the ground water would extend for thousands of
years.
Ralston asked Ensign why the senator, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Rep.
Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., didn't go to Bush on the nuclear waste
repository.
"It is a major issue, but there is a global war on terrorism,
there is the economy, there are many other issues," Ensign said.
"John Kerry is a left-wing Massachusetts liberal that does not
reflect the values of Nevadans. On this one issue he's been
better than George Bush, but that's on one issue."
Ensign, who said he has been to many Senate intelligence
briefings in recent months, said the Bush administration is
listening to increasingly alarming information on terrorism,
especially in the past month.
"There is no question they (Bush administration) are afraid
something is going to happen before the election," Ensign said.
Although financial institutions in New York City, Newark, N.J.,
and Washington, D.C., were named as terrorist targets on Sunday,
Ensign said there is still no specific time or threat.
"We're better prepared, but we still have a long way to go,"
Ensign said of coordinating 15 intelligence agencies at the
domestic and international levels.
Las Vegas has been mentioned as among the top cities targeted
by Al-Quaida for future terrorist activities. Sheriff Bill Young
has said that he would instinctively put Las Vegas in the top
six target cities.
"His gut and my gut say the same thing," Ensign said.
When Ralston asked Ensign if the terror alert change could be
politically motivated, Ensign said of the Bush administration,
"They're trying to be honest and make us safer. It's impossible,
in my opinion, to say that what they're doing is political."
When the GOP convenes its national convention in New York City
at the end of the month, Ensign said he'll attend events at the
main convention hall, but will avoid parties outside the
security belt.
*****************************************************************
27 Tri-City Herald: 100 tons of fuel still in K Basins
This story was published Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
About 100 tons of spent nuclear fuel remained in the K Basins at
Hanford after the deadline passed this weekend for all the fuel
to be removed.
But regulators are not complaining.
Fluor Hanford, the contractor on the project, expects to have the
last of what once was 2,300 tons of fuel removed by
mid-September.
"They've had some legitimate technical problems," said Larry
Gadbois, environmental scientist for the federal Environmental
Protection Agency. "Coming in a month or two late is not a
problem for us."
The uranium fuel was irradiated at the N Reactor but never
processed to extract its plutonium. Instead, it sat underwater in
the K Basins for more than two decades.
That's been a major environmental concern because of the
potential of contaminating the Columbia River. The two basins,
large indoor pools of water, were built in the early 1950s about
400 yards from the river. The pools are well past their design
life of 20 years, and at least one of them has leaked.
Earlier this year, Fluor said it would have trouble meeting the
July 31 deadline.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham notified the Defense Nuclear
Facilities Safety Board in late July that the deadline would be
missed. The board was created by Congress to provide independent
oversight of DOE nuclear sites.
"The primary cause is the fuel is more degraded than
anticipated," he wrote. "This has slowed the packaging operations
and caused water system filter plugging."
Degraded fuel also added fuel particulates to the basin water,
which led to airborne radioactivity, further slowing work.
The work will be completed by Oct. 29, Abraham told the defense
board. The goal is to complete work sooner, however, said Colleen
Clark, Richland spokeswoman for DOE.
Work has been under way since December 2000 to remove fuel. Last
month, all the fuel was removed from the more contaminated K East
Basin. The remaining fuel is in the K West Basin.
With fuel out of the K East Basin, work has started to remove
sludge there.
Much of the fuel in that basin was stored in open-topped
canisters exposed to the water. Some of the fuel had corroded,
fallen apart and collected on the bottom to mix with desert dust
and concrete sloughed off the basin walls. They've combined to
form a radioactive sludge.
Work started in June to remove six cubic yards of sludge from a
section of the pool that's less contaminated, the North Load-Out
Pit.
Progress has been slow. The sludge and water is being vacuumed
into the first of three or four containers equipped with filters
to trap the sludge but let water drain.
The filters have tended to clog, however. Work is continuing, but
Fluor has asked DOE for permission to change the process. That
could include installing a new filter system or using the
containers as settling tanks and removing the water from the top
of the tanks once sludge settles.
Fluor also is considering filling the containers at a slower rate
or vacuuming sludge from areas where it is more concentrated.
"Like many projects during start up, you have kinks to work out,"
said Fluor spokesman Geoff Tyree.
Work also has started to prepare to remove the more contaminated
sludge from the rest of the K East Basin, he said. Two cubic
meters of sludge have been moved to make way for underwater
containers to hold the sludge in the main part of the basin.
The basins hold a total of 50 cubic meters of sludge.
"We'll continue to build on our momentum," Tyree said. "The focus
is on reducing the risk the materials pose to our work force, the
public and the environment."
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
28 WIBW: Texas Company Wants Kansas Radioactive Waste
AP
A Texas official says his county would love to have low-level
radioactive waste from Nebraska, Kansas and three other compact
states.
Andrews County Industrial Foundation President Lloyd Eisenrich
says if it was up to him, he would welcome the waste, and so
would the Andrews Chamber of Commerce.
He told the Lincoln Nebraska Journal Star that shipping tons of
low-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants and
hospitals would bring more high-tech jobs and money to his
county, near the Texas-New Mexico border.
Nebraska Governor Mike Johanns has asked Texas Governor Rick
Perry to consider allowing the waste from Nebraska and the four
members of the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste
Compact. The compact also includes Oklahoma, Arkansas and
Louisiana.
*****************************************************************
29 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast workers see claim solutions
| 08/03/2004 |
TALLEVAST EMPLOYEES CAN FILE
Claims may aid exposed workers
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
Charlie Ziegler knows something's not right in his chest.
He has trouble breathing. The former employee of American
Beryllium Co. in Tallevast just can't catch his breath.
He couldn't make it through the day if it weren't for his
inhaler.
Ziegler, who worked at the Tallevast plant for 21 years, thinks
his breathing problems may have stemmed from exposure to
beryllium, a gray, light metal similar to aluminum and used in
aerospace and electronic equipment. Listed by federal regulators
as a cancer-causing compound, beryllium also may affect the
gastrointestinal and respiratory systems.
Ziegler remembers days when the beryllium dust was so heavy it
could be seen flying off the roof of the Tallevast plant.
If medical tests confirm Ziegler has acute beryllium disease or
berylliosis, he could qualify for up to $150,000 from the U.S.
Department of Labor through the Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation Program Act.
Ziegler will have an opportunity to file that claim today. Labor
Department representatives will be at the Bradenton Holiday Inn
Riverfront through Wednesday to help former employees of the
Tallevast plant determine if they might be eligible.
The claims program compensates workers who were exposed to
beryllium while working in the nuclear weapons industry for the
Department of Energy or one of its contractors, one of which was
American Beryllium.
Labor officials want to talk to anyone who worked at American
Beryllium who thinks he or she may have been exposed to the
substance. The list includes machinists, welders and operators
exposed through direct handling of beryllium or beryllium
compounds.
Lab workers involved in analysis of beryllium compounds, who may
have come in contact with contaminated equipment or who worked
close to a beryllium operation may also have been exposed and
could be eligible for reimbursement of medical tests and
treatment.
"It is important for you to try to remember any jobs or processes
that might have brought you into contact with beryllium and
beryllium compounds," states the Labor Department brochure on
compensation rights.
Department of Labor officials could not be reached Monday for
comment.
Former workers filing claims who have not been previously
diagnosed will have to submit to medical tests to determine if
beryllium sensitivity or chronic beryllium disease, also known as
berylliosis, is present.
Breathing beryllium mist, dust and fumes can cause both
short-term (acute) and long-term (chronic) health problems,
according to Dr. Raed A. Dweik, a staff physician at the
Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the
Cleveland Clinic.
Exposure can result in two pulmonary syndromes, Dweik wrote in an
article published for emedicine.com Inc. and quoted with the Web
site's permission.
Dweik describes acute beryllium disease as a multi-system disease
involving the respiratory tract, skin and mucous membranes.
The acute phase begins shortly after a high level of exposure to
beryllium and resembles pneumonia or bronchitis.
Acute beryllium disease is rare today because of protective
measures to reduce workplace exposure.
Chronic beryllium disease is the more serious of the two, Dweik
wrote, and involves the lungs more often than other organ
systems, but it can also affect the bone marrow, skin, spleen and
liver.
Symptoms are not seen for months or even years after exposure,
with some cases taking as many as 20 years to present.
Chronic beryllium disease continues to occur in industries where
beryllium is manufactured and processed and workers are exposed
to beryllium fumes or dust, Dweik stated.
Most beryllium is excreted in the urine of those exposed, Dweik
said, but some chemical forms may be retained in the lungs for
years.
The degree of exposure can influence whether someone develops the
disease.
Dweik states that attack rates as high as 16 percent have been
found among workers in areas of the highest exposure.
He also warns that the disease has been reported in populations
with very low exposure, such as among secretaries and others not
involved in the manufacturing process.
Chronic beryllium disease can be mild or severe, according to
Dweik.
"Some patients may be completely asymptomatic while others may
progress to disabling lung dysfunction and death," he said. "The
factors that determine progression of the disease are not clear."
Males and females are affected equally, and the disease has been
found in all age groups, including children.
Symptoms of chronic beryllium disease include shortness of
breath, especially with activity; cough; chest pain; fatigue;
weight loss; and loss of appetite.
The Labor Department warns that not all individuals with these
symptoms with have chronic beryllium disease and not all people
with the illness will manifest these problems.
Some workers develop beryllium sensitivity, or an immune system
allergic reaction, rather than the acute disease.
Three criteria are necessary for a diagnosis of chronic beryllium
disease: a history of exposure, a positive lymphocyte
proliferation test and presence of granulomas or scarring on a
lung biopsy.
Treatment with a group of drugs called corticosteroids such as
prednisone may be helpful.
Cures are rare.
The Labor Department brochure states that eligible employees must
provide proof of their employment with the Department of Energy
or a company under contract with the federal agency.
Those with beryllium sensitivity are eligible for payments of
medical expenses only.
An eligible employee may receive treatment from any physician,
and all medical expenses related to beryllium sensitivity or
chronic beryllium disease will be covered backretroactive to the
date the claim was filed.
If an employee is deceased, certain survivors are eligible to
receive benefits.
Department of Labor representatives will help former employees of
the American Beryllium Co. fill out claim forms from 9 a.m. to 6
p.m. today and Wednesday at the Riverfront Holiday Inn, 100
Riverfront Drive, Bradenton. Information: (866) 666-4606.
GETTING HELP
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be reached
at 745-7049 or at dwright@bradentonherald.com
[dwright@bradentonherald.com] .
*****************************************************************
30 Morgan Hill Times: Olin a major factor in water emergency
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
www.morganhilltimes.com
The Editor
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
We try to understand Olin’s position on where its responsibility
for perchlorate-tainted water lies, we really do, but it’s
getting harder.
Olin maintains that no perchlorate found north of the Tennant
Avenue site, where it manufactured safety flares for 40 years, is
its problem because - everybody knows, they say - the aquifer
flows south, not north.
Well, phooey.
Perchlorate has tainted three city wells north of the site,
causing them to be turned off, lowering the city’s water supply
by 13 percent and leading to a critical water shortage.
Even if pumping city wells drew the perchlorate-laden water north
of Tennant, the chemical still has Olin’s name on it. Just
because its presence in Morgan Hill’s northern wells was
mechanically engineered by pumping and not subject to natural
flow patterns, it is still Olin’s perchlorate. And Olin’s
responsibility.
The company did pay for one new well to replace the Tennant
Avenue well but leaves the city - and its residents - hanging out
to dry on the rest. And we do mean “dry.”
Olin Corp.’s failure to address Morgan Hill’s water problem is
having a direct effect on residents.
Drying park and business lawns and pleas to residents to cut back
on water use are just beginning as we enter the three month
really hot season.
The dilemma appeared last week when the city water supply in its
main reservoirs fell below the minimum capacity for safety.
This meant that, it a fire were to break out - and we are deep
into the fire season - firefighters could have found their hoses
dribbling water, rendering them unable to save somebody’s house
or barn. No Olin buildings are threatened by this shortage.
When water levels are low the city cuts irrigation by 50 percent
and calls on its “water heroes” to do the same.
The name “water hero” is given to businesses signing up to cut
irrigation voluntarily when the need arises. Morgan Hill School
District (four sites), Alien Technology and Towa/Intercon
Technologies in Morgan Hill Business Park and Cochrane Plaza have
all signed up as water heroes. Give them a big salute.
If your business is surrounded by more than a postage stamp-sized
lawn, consider signing up, too.
To be sure, the city goes way beyond any state or federal
guideline on when to shut down wells - closed at 4 parts per
billion (the detection level) instead of at the required 70 ppb
level, just to be safe. Since March the city didn’t even have to
tell customers that perchlorate was in the water until it reached
6 ppb, but it does anyway.
City officials have said they prefer to err on the side of
safety, especially since science has not determined what level of
perchlorate is safe to ingest.
So, if you use water, use less. Do you really need the water
running while you brush your teeth? Such a long shower? Try a
broom to clean that patio, it’s good exercise. Can your
irrigation be made more efficient?
For water saving tips, check out cable Channel 17 or
www.morganhill.ca.gov/ If you want to be a water hero, call
779-7247.
*****************************************************************
31 Charleston.Net: NRC favors MOX fuel tests by Duke Power
08/03/04
Associated Press
CHARLOTTE--The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a
preliminary finding in favor of allowing Duke Power to test a new
fuel at its Catawba Nuclear Station on South Carolina's Lake
Wylie.
Duke wants to test mixed-oxide, or MOX, fuel as early as next
year. The fuel is made by mixing uranium oxide and plutonium
oxide from older nuclear weapons and placing the material in fuel
rods.
The tests won't make an accident at the plant much more likely
or worsen the results if an accident happens, NRC determined.
"It is, in our minds, a significant hurdle to have to overcome,"
said Duke spokeswoman Rose Cummings. "NRC is essentially
confirming our analyses."
z The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League hasn't decided how
to respond to the finding, said Diane Curran, a Washington
attorney representing the group. The league opposes the tests and
says MOX fuel is dangerous.
The commission analyzed two possible accidents that MOX might
influence.
The first looked at defects in the metal cladding that encases
fuel rods. Under high pressure and high temperatures inside the
reactor, failed cladding could release radioactive material into
cooling water. The second examined the likelihood of an accident
in handling MOX assemblies.
In neither case would MOX increase the odds of those accidents
occurring nor would it make the consequences significantly worse,
the commission said.
The NRC must wait until a comment period ends Aug. 12 before
making the finding official. After that, the commission could
issue the license to start tests.
Copyright © 2004, The Post and Courier, All Rights Reserved.
webmaster@postandcourier.com [webmaster@postandcourier.com]
*****************************************************************
32 Belfast Telegraph: Mull of Kintyre ruled out as nuclear waste dump
[http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk]
By Nevin Farrell 03 August 2004
A County Antrim councillor today welcomed a decision by the
Ministry of Defence not to set up a nuclear waste dump on the
closest part of Scotland to Northern Ireland.
Cushendall-based Sinn Fein representative Oliver McMullan said he
is glad the potential radioactive threat will no longer be posed
by a dump for 27 nuclear submarine reactors at a former RAF base
at Machrihanish on the Mull of Kintyre, just 13 miles across the
North Channel from Torr Head.
Military chiefs had previously been considering storing
radioactive submarine material at Machrihanish which was on a
shortlist after the Ministry of Defence looked at over 100
possible sites.
Mr McMullan said if the Mull of Kintyre plan had gone ahead the
nuclear reactors would be as close to north Antrim as Belfast is
to Bangor.
A naval base beside Loch Lomond close to Glasgow is now the only
coastal site being considered for storing highly radioactive
waste from decommissioned submarines, the Ministry of Defence
announced.
The MoD said the naval base at Coulport was the only one of 118
British coastal sites suitable for storing reactor compartments
from the subs.
In a written parliamentary answer, Adam Ingram, Armed Forces
Minister, told MPs that a MoD review had identified Coulport as
"potentially suitable" for storing compartments from 11
decommissioned vessels. The space would also be required to store
waste from a further 16 nuclear submarines when they come out of
service.
When submarines leave service their radioactive fuel is removed
and taken to Sellafield, in Cumbria, for long-term storage but
the de-fuelled vessels, with the remaining radioactive material
contained in the reactor compartment, are then stored afloat at
Devonport and Rosyth.
Defence bosses want to move this waste to land-based storage
because the MoD is running out of space.
Mr Ingram told MPs the review was now complete and "one site, the
Royal armaments depot (RNAD) at Coulport in Dunbartonshire, has
been found suitable in principle".
He added: "I want to make it clear that this does not mean that
Coulport has been selected as the storage location - there is
still much work to be done before a final decision is made.
"It does, however, mean that those other coastal sites included
in the review have been assessed as unsuitable."
That means Machrihanish has been ruled out which has pleased Mr
McMullan.
He said: "For us it is good news. I'm pleased with this and Sinn
Fein's Environmental Committee have been doing a lot of lobbying
behind the scenes."
He said he believed the Ministry of Defence had looked at the
Machrihanish site and that what they were proposing was
"unacceptable because of the implications of something going
wrong."
Mr McMullan said he had raised the matter through
Ballycastle-based Moyle District Council.
He said there is still a threat hanging over Coulport. Back |
© 2004 Independent News and Media (NI)
*****************************************************************
33 National Post: Can Cameco cash in on uranium revival?
nationalpost.com
Nuclear power renaissance fuelling demand: Spot price hits
US$18.50
CREDIT: Gord Waldner, National Post
Workers at McArthur River in northern Saskatchewan. Cameco has
a 70% interest in the world's largest uranium mine.
After decades in the doldrums, uranium miners are aglow over
prospects for the fuel that generates 16% of the world's
electricity.
Spot prices for uranium oxide recently reached US$18.50 a pound,
150% higher than they were three years ago and the loftiest level
in nearly 30 years. Some believe prices could head even higher.
During the energy crisis, 250 nuclear plants were planned in the
U.S. alone, more than twice the number ever built. Many
contracted with miners for their fuel supply for the first 10-15
years of operation. But almost none were completed, so the excess
uranium was dumped onto the market through the early 1990s.
By 1983, the global uranium supply began to be outstripped by
demand, but the massive surplus kept prices down. The end of the
Cold War brought more supply as Russia dumped uranium and, later,
the fuel from thousands of reprocessed warheads. "It's taken 21
years to consume those excess inventories of the first 33 years,"
says veteran geologist David Miller.
One of the final blows to the market was the granting of 72
million pounds of uranium stockpiles to a newly privatized U.S.
processor, USEC, in 1997 -- an endowment the company promptly
began dumping on the market. But the realization that the excess
product is finally being worked off has sent spot prices soaring.
"The market price will tell you that overhang will run out, or
already has run out," says Greg Barnes, a mining analyst at
Canaccord Capital.
But the intervening years have been tough on the industry,
leaving only the lowest-cost miners in business and pushing fresh
supply way below demand.
"There's about a 70 million to 80 million-pound per-year
shortfall being met from excess inventories and government
stockpiles," while demand is 170 million pounds, says Mr. Carter.
At the same time, a renaissance is underway in the nuclear-power
industry. Of the world's 438 commercial reactors, 31 were
completed in the past few years and 27 more are under
construction. Experts predict the global share of
nuclear-generated electricity could rise from 16% now to 25% by
2030, with developing nations like China and India building
several new plants a year.
With 20% of global production and 65% of known future capacity,
Cameco Corp. (CCO/TSX) will play a key role in filling the
breach. It owns 70% of the largest uranium mine in the world,
McArthur River in northern Saskatchewan, and is making a huge
investment to bring a similar Saskatchewan facility, Cigar Lake,
online by 2007.
But many mines won't be profitable even at the current price of
US$18.50 a pound, the highest in 30 years. This is why Mr. Miller
believes it may take US$30-uranium to get projects started,
creating a bonanza for low-cost producers. © National Post 2004
Search canada.com
Copyright © CanWest Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
34 UK News & Star: Core is against restrictions
03/08/2004
Janine Allis-Smith:
CUMBRIAN anti-nuclear campaigners have called for the Government
not to suppress claims that Sellafield is a bigger cancer threat
than previously thought.
The report making the claims, submitted by scientists Dr Chris
Busby and Richard Bramhall, was to be published in September as
part of a broader report by the Committee Examining Radiation
Risks From Internal Emitters.
Lawyers from the Department for Environment Food and Rural
Affairs (Defra) ruled the report couldn’t be published for
legal reasons.
Dr Busby, who heads the Wales-based Green Audit anti-nuclear
group, and Mr Bramhall, claim the risk of cancers from low-level
radiation caused by plants like Sellafield has been
underestimated because risk assessment methods are out of date.
Janine Allis-Smith, of Barrow-based Cumbrians Opposed to a
Radioactive Environment, (Core) said: “We are against any
restriction of the report. It should be published.â€
BNFL spokesman Alan Hughes said: “The radiation exposure of our
workforce and the general public from authorised discharges in
the nuclear industry are well below maximum levels.â€
news@cumbrian-newspapers.co.uk
[news@cumbrian-newspapers.co.uk]
*****************************************************************
35 Japan Times: Nuclear sword of Damocles
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
By BRAD GLOSSERMAN
NAGASAKI -- The end of the Cold War didn't end the threat of
nuclear annihilation. An increasing number of experts worry that
the dangers posed by those weapons of mass destruction are
increasing as the nuclear nonproliferation regime is increasingly
stretched and frayed. The 2005 Review Conference of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) provides an opportunity to rethink
strategies to counter nuclear proliferation and to rejuvenate
efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide.
That task is both daunting and pressing. Last week I attended
the Second United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Sapporo,
Hokkaido, and the mood there was grim. Tens of thousands of
nuclear warheads and hundreds of tons of weapon-grade material
(both highly enriched uranium and plutonium) are tempting targets
for terrorists, yet officials in the United States and Russia
don't seem to take that threat seriously. The technical know-how
and the technology needed to make a bomb are now widespread.
In Sapporo, one speaker after another detailed the failures of
the NPT. It's a long list:
* Three states -- India, Israel and Pakistan -- remain outside
the NPT system despite possessing nuclear weapons, demonstrating
that noncompliance has benefits.
* North Korea has threatened to withdraw from the NPT with a
nuclear arsenal.
* Iran appears to be developing a clandestine nuclear program
while professing to abide by IAEA protocols.
* Iraq and Libya developed nuclear programs without being
detected by the international community (In Iraq's case, I refer
to efforts uncovered after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, not the
more recent allegations leveled against the regime).
* Nonstate actors remain outside the purview of a treaty
designed to deal with states.
* Nuclear-weapons states have made precious little progress
toward disarmament and eliminating their arsenals, as they
promised in the treaty. Their failure to honor that obligation is
eroding the willingness of nonnuclear-weapons states to hold up
their end of the NPT bargain -- namely, to give up their nuclear
weapons ambitions.
One U.S. expert, William Potter of the Monterey Institute of
International Studies, warned that the world is at a crucial
juncture: Decisions made in the next few months could determine
whether nuclear weapons are used in his -- and our -- lifetime.
These flaws have not gone unnoticed. In response, governments
have embraced a number of initiatives to plug the holes. They
range from the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which
created a "coalition of the willing" to halt the illicit
transfers of nuclear weapons and materials, to United Nations
Security Council Resolution 1540, which calls on all member
states to take action to halt the trafficking in weapons of mass
destruction. Efforts have been made to secure nuclear materials
and to find jobs for scientists who formerly worked in
nuclear-weapons programs and who might be tempted to sell their
services to the highest bidder.
All those programs have shortcomings of their own. Tighter
controls on the trade in nuclear components and materials require
the skills, know-how and technology that allows officials to
identify suspect transactions. In many cases, they are lacking.
Many states are unwilling to join programs that reinforce the
"nuclear apartheid" that currently exists. As Sergio Duarte, the
Brazilian diplomat who is the president designate of the 2005 NPT
Review Conference, explained in Sapporo, "for many the crux of
the question is the acceptability of further mandatory
restrictions, with intrusive verification, in the absence of
corresponding deeper commitments and further steps toward nuclear
disarmament which are irreversible and verifiable."
This division exacerbates another problem: governments don't
agree that nuclear proliferation is a shared concern. For most
developing nations, nuclear proliferation is a problem for the
developed world -- forgetting that they too can be threatened
with such weapons and indeed, historically, terrorists have
targeted the weak and made no distinction among their victims.
Most nonnuclear states see their primary security challenge as
related to problems of development and internal instability. When
they think about nuclear weapons, their chief concern is
disarmament, not proliferation: They argue that getting rid of
all nuclear weapons is the most effective way to eliminate the
threat of nuclear destruction.
That last charge underlines a final obstacle to efforts to
counter nuclear proliferation: We still don't know why
governments proliferate nuclear weapons. Several explanations
have been offered -- to provide security, to establish
international status, or as a result of internal political and
bureaucratic dynamics -- but no single explanation convinces.
Until we know why governments acquire nuclear weapons, it will be
difficult to stop them from doing so.
That doesn't mean abandoning efforts to achieve disarmament.
Divisions among governments make actions by nongovernmental
organizations and other disarmament supporters (including
governments) even more important. Efforts should focus on
delegitimizing nuclear weapons, which would deny them the
political and military utility that makes them part of security
calculations, as well as the status that inspires governments to
procure them. Make nuclear weapons unusable and governments won't
try to acquire them.
To delegitimize nuclear weapons, disarmament advocates must make
their case with unflagging energy, taking every opportunity to
call for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Every meeting with
security on the agenda, from the NPT Review Conference to the
ASEAN-Plus-Three summits, should reiterate the call for a
nuclear-weapons-free world. The failure to reach agreement on the
best way to reach that goal doesn't mean the goal itself should
be set aside. Each time the objective is repeated in an official
context -- a statement, a declaration, a communique -- the norm
is strengthened and advocates are reinforced as they push for a
nuclear-weapons-free world.
The goal is to transform the prohibition against nuclear weapons
from a treaty-based rule to a preemptory norm of international
relations. Most of us instinctively recoil from the idea of using
such weapons of mass destruction, but the emotional appreciation
of those horrors is balanced by an intellectual understanding of
the security context in which those weapons are deployed. (Every
participant in security discussions in Japan, and especially
those in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, feels that tremendous gap.)
There is no such divide when it comes, say, to slavery, even
though pragmatic arguments were made on behalf of that heinous
practice in the past. That is the goal for advocates of a
nuclear-weapons-free world. The emotional and intellectual
contexts should be reconciled. Pragmatic concerns should not
mitigate the horror of nuclear weapons. The 2005 NPT Review
Conference will be a key battleground in that effort and
disarmament advocates should be redoubling their efforts as it
approaches.
Brad Glosserman is director of research at Pacific Forum CSIS. He
can be reached at bradg@hawaii.rr.com
[bradg@hawaii.rr.com] .
The Japan Times: Aug. 3, 2004
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
36 DOE: Agency Information Collection Renewal
FR Doc 04-17626
[Federal Register: August 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 148)]
[Notices] [Page 46524] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03au04-45]
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Notice; comment request.
SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) intends to renew an
information collection package with the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The
Department's Office of Environment, Safety and Health information
collection package, OMB No. 1910-5105, allows the Department and
its contractors to provide management control and oversight over
health and safety programs concerning worker exposure to ionizing
radiation.
DATES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed
collections of information must be mailed by September 2, 2004.
ADDRESSES: Comments and recommendations regarding this collection
should be mailed to the OMB Desk Officer, Office of Information
and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, New
Executive Office Building, Washington, DC 20503. If you
anticipate that you will be submitting comments, but find it
difficult to do so within the period of time allowed by this
notice, please advise the OMB Desk Officer of your intention to
make a submission as soon as possible. The Desk Officer may be
telephoned at (202) 395-6893. In addition, please notify the DOE
contact listed in this notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Persons submitting comments to
OMB are requested to send a copy to Dr. Judith D. Foulke, U.S.
Department of Energy, Office of Worker Protection Policy and
Programs (EH-52), Office of Environment, Safety and Health,
Building 270/CC, 1000 Independence Ave., SW., Washington, DC
20585-1290. Dr. Foulke can be contacted by telephone at (301)
903-5865 or e- mail at Judy.Foulke@eh.doe.gov
[Judy.Foulke@eh.doe.gov] . Requests for copies of the
Department's Paperwork Reduction Act Submission and other
information should be directed to Ms. Susan L. Frey, Director,
U.S. Department of Energy, Records Management Division, Office of
the Chief Information Officer, Germantown Building, IM-11, 1000
Independence Ave., SW., Washington, DC 20585-1290. Ms. Frey can
be contacted by telephone at (301) 903-3666 or e-mail at
Susan.Frey@hq.doe.gov [Susan.Frey@hq.doe.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This package contains (1) Current OMB
No. 1910-5105; (2) Package Title: Occupational Radiation
Protection; (3) Summary: Request for a three-year extension
without change, which covers mandatory responses; (4) Purpose:
The recordkeeping and reporting requirements that comprise this
information collection will permit DOE and its contractors to
provide management control and oversight over health and safety
programs concerning worker exposure to ionizing radiation; (5)
Respondents: 35 DOE management and operating contractors and 15
other contractors; (6) Estimated Number of Burden Hours: 50,000
following each revision of 10 CFR 835 and 5000 for other years.
Statutory Authority: Atomic Energy Act of 1954, 42 U.S.C. 2201,
and the Department of Energy Organization Act, 42 U.S. C. 7191
and 7254.
Issued in Washington, DC, on June 15, 2004.
Susan L. Frey, Director, Records Management Division, Office of
the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 04-17626 Filed 8-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
37 Albuquerque Tribune: Ill turn for DOE
[http://www.abqtrib.com
August 3, 2004
The program to compensate sick workers needs reforms. And Reps.
Wilson and Pearce need to act.
COMMENTARY
By Ben Ortiz and Manny Trujillo
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program
Act is depressing.
It was enacted to end decades of denial of health damage to
workers in facilities of the Department of Energy and its
predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. Passed in October
2000, it promised DOE would no longer fight sick workers with
valid claims in state workers compensation.
Instead, Subtitle D of the law has failed to redress problems
caused by toxins like the metals and solvents that terminated the
careers of many nuclear weapons program workers. Indeed, after
receiving $90 million in administrative costs, DOE has so far
provided compensation to only 10 workers nationwide for a total
of $210,000.
This failure is especially poignant for families in New Mexico,
because we campaigned for the program's passage in 2000. For
example, Ben Ortiz, a co-author of this commentary, lost at least
15 years from his career at Los Alamos, as well as untold tens of
thousands of dollars.
This dismal record has been the subject of three hearings in the
U.S. Senate and numerous reviews. The General Accounting Office
recently found that during the first two years of the program DOE
had processed only 3 percent of cases. The accounting agency
cited "insufficient strategic planning and system limitations"
and noted DOE's failure to keep claimants informed.
Further, GAO found that up to 50 percent of claimants have no
company or insurer obligated to pay their claims should they be
accepted on medical grounds. This includes construction workers
and security guards at Los Alamos. Many of the old AEC
contractors are out of business. Offering hope to sick workers
and then telling them "Sorry, there is no one DOE can direct to
pay the claim," perpetrates a hoax.
The Senate recently enacted reforms in the military bill with
bipartisan support. Sens. Pete Domenici, an Republican
Republican, and Jeff Bingaman, a Silver City Democrat, are
original co-sponsors. The state of New Mexico workers
compensation agency also has endorsed it.
The measures would transfer the Subtitle D program from DOE to
the U.S. Department of Labor, making Labor Department the
"willing payer" for all claims. DOE would be taken out of any
role in decision-making. Claimants would receive the same medical
benefits to that injured employees of federal agencies receive.
Benefit levels would be pegged to state workers compensation
programs. This is less than an ideal resolution. Because of an
inequity, workers in New Mexico could receive less than their
counterparts at, say, Lawrence Livermore in California, even if
they had the same occupational illness.
In a better political climate we'd favor applying federal
workers' compensation benefits to DOE contractor employees or
paying the same $150,000 lump sum payments that beryllium and
cancer victims receive under the compensation program.
Still, just getting Subtitle D would be a leap forward.
Much of the success or failure of this year's push for reforms
in the program will be riding on the shoulders of U.S. Rep.
Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican. She is a senior member
of the House Armed Services Committee and could be named to the
Senate-House conference committee that will decide the final form
of the Defense Authorization Act.
The time for deeds - not just words - has arrived. Wilson and
New Mexico's other Republican congressman, Steve Pearce of Hobbs,
have not yet distinguished themselves on this issue.
Will Wilson and Pearce support the Senate amendments in the
conference committee? Will they fight for the interests of New
Mexico families? Or will they side with the Bush administration,
which opposes these reforms?
Wilson and Pearce have thousands of covered DOE contractor
employees in their districts. It's high time they helped to win
justice for the "Cold War heroes" who have yet to receive the
compensation they were promised four years ago.
© The Albuquerque Tribune. Users of this site are subject to our
*****************************************************************
38 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Device failure contributed to Hanford reactor shutdown
[seattlepi.com]
Tuesday, August 3, 2004
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHLAND -- The state's only commercial nuclear reactor remained
out of service yesterday after a glitch during an automatic
shutdown last week.
The Columbia Generating Station began to shut itself down Friday
after an electronic device failed and closed one of the reactor's
four steam flow valves, said spokesman Brad Peck of Energy
Northwest, which operates the reactor.
The valves channel nuclear-heated steam to the turbines driving
the generator, Peck said. Normally, three valves are kept wide
open and a fourth is restricted to regulate the steam and
maintain constant pressure in the reactor, he said.
When the device running one of the valves failed, that valve
closed completely, he said. That caused an increase in pressure
in the reactor vessel, which triggered an automatic shutdown.
Then there was another problem.
During a shutdown, all 185 control rods are inserted into the
reactor core to shut down the reactor, Peck said. Friday, either
two of the rods did not fully insert or there was a false
indication they had not, he said.
So the control-room crew executed a manual shutdown to ensure all
rods were fully inserted.
"It's conceivable they were already in ... but whether they were
in or not is something we may not be able to decipher," Peck
said. "Obviously, we'll make sure everything is functioning 100
percent" before the reactor is started up again.
The problems triggered an alert in which state agencies prepared
to respond if needed to help Benton and Franklin counties.
State emergency authorities said there was no release of
radiation and no danger to the public.
Technicians yesterday performed maintenance work that can only be
done when the reactor is not operating, said Gary Miller, another
Energy Northwest spokesman.
The reactor could be running again in a day or two, Miller said.
Columbia Generating Station is a boiling-water reactor that
produces 1,150 megawatts of electricity, which is sold to the
Bonneville Power Administration for the Northwest electrical
grid.
Ed Mosey, a spokesman for Bonneville Power, said Columbia
Generating Station has had a good operating record.
The shutdown will not cause a shortage of power, he said, but
means there will be less electricity to sell on the open market.
Formerly known as the Washington Public Power Supply System No. 2
reactor, Columbia Generating Station is the only one of five
reactors begun in the late 1970s to be completed before
construction was halted in 1982-83.
The reactor is located on land leased from the U.S. Department of
Energy within the boundaries of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation,
but is a separate entity.
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000
Send comments to [newmedia@seattlepi.com] ©1996-2004 Seattle
Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
39 SFNM: Part 3 of 3: Politics, science hold future of nuclear arms
Tue Aug 3, 2004 5:49 pm
[http://www.santafenewmexican.com/LANL]
By JEFF TOLLEFSON | The New Mexican
The Energy Department under President Bush has broadened its
desires for the nuclear-weapons complex , eyeing creative work
for entrepreneuring young scientists and a revitalized
infrastructure capable of producing whatever the nation might
need in the future.
These ideas have been around for years but achieved prominent
play among policy-makers in the Bush administration, according to
Robert Norris , historian and author of Racing for the Bomb, a
biography of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, Robert Oppenheimers boss
during the Manhattan Project.
The underlying theme here is that we need a new generation of
bomb designers for the next 10, 20, 40, 50 years, said Norris,
who is also a researcher with the Natural Resources Defense
Council.
Although opposition is rising, Congress initially went along with
the administrations priorities on things such as research into
bunker busters and other low-yield weapons.
The Energy Department saw a green light. Last December the head
of DOEs nuclear-weapons branch wrote a rosy memorandum to lab
directors, urging them to capitalize on the repeal of a ban on
research into low-yield nuclear weapons.
Repeal of the ... restriction on nuclear weapons research and
development represents, in part, an endorsement by Congress of
our efforts to begin to address the nuclear weapons stockpile in
accordance with the recommendations of the administrations
Nuclear Posture Review, wrote Linton Brooks, chief of the
National Nuclear Security Administration. We should not fail to
take advantage of this opportunity .
Submitted to Congress at the end of 2001, the Nuclear Posture
Review is the foundation of the Bush administrations current
nuclear policy. It advocates a new triad that includes
defensive forces, including missile defense; expanded offensive
forces that integrate nuclear and conventional weaponry; and a
modern infrastructure capable of maintaining current nuclear
weapons and building new ones.
John Immele, deputy director for national security at Los Alamos
National Laboratory said the review serves as guidance for the
national laboratories.
Our job is to tell the truth and to give the country options,
he says. And the Bush administration is asking for more options
than the Clinton administration. Theres no doubt about that.
Nuclear opposition
DOE is beginning to encounter some opposition from members of
Congress who are skeptical of the need to ramp up the nuclear
complex .
Some are questioning the departments justifications for
designing new weapons, building a new nuclear-weapons
manufacturing plant and shortening the time it would take to
resume nuclear testing.
At the forefront is Rep. David Hobson, an Ohio Republican and
chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee . Hobson, who has said the nuclear complex and DOEs
new initiatives seem to be sized for the Cold War, wants to halt
new initiatives altogether until DOE completes a thorough
analysis of the complex and modern security threats.
His counterpart in the Senate is New Mexico Republican Pete
Domenici, a supporter of the presidents policies and an ardent
advocate for LANL and the other nuclear labs.
The two battled it out in negotiations between the House and
Senate during the last session and will likely do so again this
year.
Last year Hobson succeeded in cutting money to some of the
programs and requiring DOE to submit a report on the size of the
nuclear stockpile as it relates to the need for a Modern Pit
Facility, a manufacturing plant for nuclear pits, the primary
component in a thermonuclear weapon.
This year he is taking a hard line again. His committee zeroed
out appropriations for research on bunker busters and other new
nuclear weapons as well as the Modern Pit Facility, while
doubling the administrations request for nonproliferation
funding.
The administration had requested almost $30 million for
preliminary design work on the Modern Pit Facility, $27.5 million
for bunker busters and an additional $9 million for weapons
research under the heading advanced concepts.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, said Hobson is
unlikely to prevail. Nonetheless, Bingaman said he is raising
questions that Congress in general, and the Republicans in
particular, have failed to properly address since the Bush
administration proposed significant overhauls to the
nuclear-weapons complex.
Congress has essentially abdicated its responsibility in this
area in the last few years. There is very little effective
oversight on these issues by the House or Senate, Bingaman said.
And I think there has been great reluctance on the part of
Republican leadership ... to disagree with the administration.
As for Democrats, Bingaman said he and others have tried to
defeat bunkerbuster research each year, only to have the votes
fail largely along party lines. While the senator agrees with
Hobson regarding the necessity and wisdom of new nuclear weapons,
Bingaman said he will support the Modern Pit Facility if DOE
demonstrates that a new manufacturing plant is necessary to
maintain old weapons.
Although the DOEs longterm budgets reserve money for
bunker-buster research and development well into the future, DOE
officials have repeatedly stressed that no decision has been made
to move forward with development of any new weapons. Such a
decision would need the authorization of Congress.
Similarly, both administration and LANL officials say they have
no plans or desires to restart testing, although DOE is working
to shorten the time necessary to conduct a test if such a
decision were made. Recasting the nuclear strategy
In testimony to Congress this June, National Nuclear Security
Administration chief Brooks said all of these programs go
hand-in-hand with plans to downsize the active stockpile.
Efforts to restore a modern infrastructure to the nuclear
complex allow the United States to reduce the number of weapons,
secure in the knowledge that the nation has enhanced its
capabilities to respond to possible future challenges to its
security , Brooks said in a prepared statement.
However, many believe the administration has every intention of
moving forward with new weapons concepts. The concept of
establishing an entirely different kind of nuclear arsenal has
been laid out in plain language many times.
An advisory board to the Defense Department issued a report in
February indicating that the nuclear-weapons program as
currently conceived ... will not meet the countrys future
needs. The board said the nation needs nuclear weapons that
produce less collateral damage but more desirable damage and lend
themselves to easy manufacturing .
In his December memo to the lab directors, Brooks also said the
nuclear-weapons labs need to exercise their abilities to maintain
technical superiority.
We must ... close any gaps that may have opened this past decade
in our understanding of the possible military applications of
atomic energy no novel nuclear weapons concept developed by any
other nation should ever come as a technical surprise to us,
Brooks wrote.
Stephen Young, senior analyst at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, said the administration is heading into dangerous
territory by proposing such research into new weapons.
In this current climate and current world situation, the pursuit
of new nuclear weapons is not something that we need to be
doing, he said. Why do we need new kinds of nuclear weapons
when we are trying to tell other countries that they dont need
them at all?
Although the bunker-buster debate has been alive in Congress for
the past few years, Young said the House of Representatives is
increasingly skeptical about other components of Bushs nuclear
agenda as well. A proposal by Democrats to kill the bunker-buster
program earned 160 votes three years ago; this May it was
defeated by a ratio of 204-to-214 , six votes shy of passage.
Young credits that shift to people like Hobson. Young said the
House Energy and Water Subcommittee used to deal mostly with the
water side of the issues, leaving the energy policies to its
Senate counterpart.
Mr. Hobson just took control of the committee two years ago and
decided that he was going to take a role in nuclear weapons,
Young said. He is more or less taking the precise line that we
think the U.S. government should take. Bush, Kerrys policies
Steve Maaranen, a senior adviser for national security at Los
Alamos lab who recently returned from the Pentagon, said the
current Nuclear Posture Review represents a fairly radical
departure from the past.
Whereas previous nuclear policy reserved nuclear weapons as a
deterrent to other nuclear weapons, proponents of the new policy
envision full-spectrum deterrence, Maaranen told the Los Alamos
Committee on Arms Control, a private group that analyzes various
nonproliferation issues.
According to the new theory, the current bombs and missiles might
be too powerful to use in a smaller conflict, and other nations
know it.
A new, more diverse arsenal of smaller weapons would lend more
credibility to the nuclear portion of deterrence, Maaranen said.
On the other hand, a deterrent is only credible if you are
willing to use it, he said, which is why critics of the current
policy say the Bush administration is taking nuclear weapons into
dangerous territory.
Maaranen said this split between old and new policies divides
fairly closely along party lines. The only thing the two parties
agree on is nonproliferation and halting the spread of nuclear
materials , although the Democratic nominee for president, Sen.
John Kerry (D-Mass .), puts much more emphasis on
nonproliferation than does the current administration.
If Kerry wins, its clear that his strong preference is going to
be on nonproliferation , Maaranen said. If theres a budget
crunch, the money is going to go to nonproliferation .
Nonetheless, he said the Bush administrations policy is often
misconstrued. The goal is to give conventional warfare more
prominence in planning strategies that once focused primarily on
nuclear weapons, not the opposite, as claimed by many of the
administrations critics, he said.
No matter how you look at it, nuclear weapons are not perceived
as being nearly as important as nuclear weapons in the Cold War
and are likely to be even less important in the future, Maaranen
said. The numbers are going to decline, no matter who is in
power.
*****************************************************************
40 Tri-City Herald: Company mulls power plant restart
This story was published Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
By Chris Mulick Herald staff writer
Whether the nuclear power plant north of Richland restarts this
week remains unclear as Energy Northwest considers additional
maintenance on the 1,150-megawatt Columbia Generating Station.
The plant was shut down Friday morning when a pressure buildup
was detected inside the reactor vessel after a steam-release
valve wrongly closed.
An alert, the second-lowest of four emergency classifications,
was declared for the first time in the plant's 20-year history
after it appeared the plant may have failed to shut itself down
completely.
That triggered the opening of emergency response centers in the
Tri-Cities, Camp Murray near Tacoma and in Salem, Ore.
A third issue Energy Northwest is reviewing is its emergency
response performance. While a company spokesman said the public
utility met its regulatory requirements for reaching adequate
staffing levels in a timely fashion, it may not have met its own
higher standards.
"There are people we would have liked to call in we could not
reach," said Energy Northwest spokesman Brad Peck, citing at
least two cases in which employees were paged unsuccessfully.
Friday was an off day for most Energy Northwest employees, who
are separated into four teams that rotate being on call in case
of emergency. "Team A" was on call Friday.
Crews have determined the outage was caused by the failure of an
electronic card that closed one of four steam-flow valves that
direct steam out of the reactor.
That led the plant to attempt to shut itself down automatically.
But control room indicators suggested two of 185 control rods
inserted through the bottom of the reactor vessel to stop the
nuclear reaction were not fully inserted.
What actually happened has not yet been pinned down.
"The question is what caused the indication," Peck said. "We are
not at the point where we can positively determine whether it was
a false indication or if the rods were not all the way in."
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to review the
incident.
In the meantime, Energy Northwest is mulling when to restart the
reactor. August provides the hottest market for surplus
electricity, which the financially-strapped Bonneville Power
Administration desperately needs.
Bonneville buys all of the plant's power, which is worth more
than $1 million a day on the wholesale market.
On the other hand, certain maintenance conducted now could reduce
the length of the refueling outage scheduled for May.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
41 Oak Ridger: Tax bill looms for CROET
Story last updated at 12:11 p.m. on August 3, 2004
DAY IN COURT: Upcoming hearing involves a case filed by a former
tenant.
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff paul.parson@oakridger.com
[paul.parson@oakridger.com]
An Oak Ridge-based economic development organization has set
aside $1.2 million in the event a hefty tax bill from the state
of Tennessee is issued.
"It's for the sales tax on the production of water" at the Oak
Ridge K-25 site, according to Lawrence Young, president and chief
executive officer of the Community Reuse Organization of East
Tennessee.
Young said he didn't have an exact figure on what the tax bill
might be since it's "still accruing," but added that it could be
around the amount that's been set aside. CROET is also waiting
for a response from the Department of Revenue regarding an
administrative hearing to determine whether the bill is "just and
fair," according to Young.
Young
Based on the response, Young said CROET will then decide to pay
the bill or further challenge it.
CROET leases unused Department of Energy land and equipment to
private-sector companies at the K-25 site, which is also referred
to as the East Tennessee Technology Park or the Heritage Center.
"We lease all or part of 14 buildings," said Young, who added
that there are around 50 leases that pertain to those facilities.
One problem, though, is that many of the K-25 buildings are
scheduled for demolition as part of a massive cleanup project at
the site. The end result is supposed to be an industrial park of
some kind at K-25 - a World War II-era complex that was used to
enrich uranium through a gaseous diffusion process.
Young said the K-25 cleanup project has not gotten in the way of
CROET's plans at the site.
However, he admitted there are some situations where the
organization will have to make accommodations for existing
tenants with regard to relocating them.
"It looks like we'll be able to do that - for the most part -
with those tenants who have chosen to continue to lease space on
the site," he said. "Some other tenants have chosen to relocate
elsewhere in the region and we're fully supportive of that."
Young said he's hopeful that some of the buildings that CROET
leases will be transferred to one of the organization's
subsidiaries - essentially saving them from demolition.
CROET will be facing one of its former tenants - a company called
Logixx - in Anderson County Chancery Court in mid-September.
Though he couldn't discuss the case in detail, Young said it
involves a four-year-old lawsuit brought against CROET, Bechtel
Jacobs Co. and Lockheed Martin Energy Systems with regard to
space Logixx occupied in the K-1401 building at the K-25 site.
"That's probably all that I can say given that it's pending
litigation," Young said.
Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs, also said he
couldn't discuss the case. Bechtel Jacobs oversees cleanup work
at DOE's Oak Ridge sites, including K-25.
Currently located at 107 Lea Way, CROET had been considering a
move to a building at the K-25 site that also houses the Southern
Appalachian Railroad Museum. While that plan might be on hold for
the time being, Young said CROET hasn't entirely nixed the move,
but added that the organization is looking at a couple of
opportunities.
"Because we did go through a process of analyzing our current
staffing needs as well as the staffing needs for the immediate
future, we certainly would not be constructing a facility that we
may have constructed a year ago," he said. "Simply smaller staff
needs. Smaller needs with regard to space."
Just last week, an employee voluntarily left the economic
development organization for another job. Excluding Young, CROET
now has four full-time employees - down from a peak of around 10
a couple of years ago.
Young said he doesn't expect CROET's staff to grow. Instead, the
organization will most likely use outsourcing for some of its
activities.
*****************************************************************
42 Paducah Sun: Bunning blocks hire of DOE financial officer
The Paducah Sun- Your #1 News Source
Tuesday, August 03, 2004;Paducah, Kentucky
Page [http://www.paducahsun.com/]
The move is the latest in an escalating conflict over the
management of a compensation program for sick nuclear workers.
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning has blocked the congressional-recess
appointment of a senior Department of Energy official in a move
to highlight the agency's failed program to compensate sick
nuclear workers.
DOE opposes Bunning's legislation to move the program to the
better-equipped Department of Labor. The Labor Department also
opposes the move, reflecting policy by the Bush administration.
Seeking political leverage, Bunning has put an indefinite hold
on the nomination of Susan Grant as the Energy Department's chief
financial officer. Such appointees must have unanimous approval
of the Senate.
"The DOE has shown itself to be incompetent in its handling of
the sick worker compensation program," Bunning said. "DOE has
failed miserably in its attempt to make any progress in getting
well-deserved relief to those workers who have suffered illnesses
as a result of their brave work at DOE nuclear plants during the
Cold War."
The Energy Department declined comment Monday through
spokeswoman Chris Kielich.
Although it was Bush's prerogative to appoint Grant during the
recess, it is also DOE's responsibility to implement the
compensation law, Bunning said. Despite spending $95 million
since the measure was passed four years ago, DOE has a backlog of
24,000 claims by people exposed to workplace toxins. Only 10 have
been paid, at an average of $22,147 per claim. No claims have
been paid for Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant workers, for whom
there is a backlog of 3,000 claims.
"That is simply unacceptable," Bunning said. "I think it is time
to make a change and give this very important program to a
department that will implement it the way Congress intended."
In June, the Senate approved Bunning’s amendment to the Defense
Authorization Bill to switch the program to the Labor Department.
That department runs a separate program that has paid $900
million, including $154 million at Paducah, in lump-sum
compensation and medical benefits on behalf of workers with
radiation-induced cancers and diseases related to beryllium and
silicon exposure. Ninety-five percent of the Labor Department’s
56,000 claims have been processed.
Under the DOE program, claims must undergo lengthy
toxic-exposure estimates based on work history and be approved by
physician panels. Even if claims are approved, there is no legal
provision to force workers' compensation insurance firms or
self-insured employers to pay. Bunning's legislation would
require the Labor Department to compensate workers.
Similar legislation failed in the House, and the prospects
aren’t good for a conference resolution starting Sept. 13 once
Congress reconvenes, according to the nuclear workers' union and
Washington-based Government Accountability Project. Those groups
say the Senate must try to compel House conferees and
administration leaders to change their minds.
The Bunning hold on Grant's nomination is not unprecedented. In
1999, during the Clinton administration, Sen. Mitch McConnell
delayed confirmation of T.J. Glauthier for deputy secretary of
energy — second-highest position in the department — in a power
play to force DOE to move faster in planning to build 150-job
uranium recycling plants in Paducah and Piketon, Ohio.
DOE soon submitted a plan to start building the plants as early
as 2002, prompting McConnell to take part in Glauthier's
confirmation and Glauthier to pledge support for the project.
Glauthier has since been replaced.
Last week, Bunning and McConnell participated with Deputy Energy
Secretary Kyle McSlarrow in breaking ground for the Paducah plant
six years after a law was passed mandating construction.
*****************************************************************
43 Google News Alert - nuclear
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 16:47:03 -0700 (PDT)
PAKISTAN won’t roll back its nuclear programme: Aziz
Daily Times - Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister and prime minister-designate Shaukat
Aziz categorically said on Tuesday that Pakistan’s nuclear programme
would not be ...
See all stories on this topic:
US Says Iran Must Cooperate On Nuclear Program
Radio Free Europe - Prague,Czech Republic
... face rising international pressure and isolation if it refuses to cooperate
fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about its nuclear
programs ...
See all stories on this topic:
N. Korea Putting Nuclear-Capable Missiles at Sea, Jane's Says
Bloomberg - USA
... Bloomberg) -- North Korea is deploying land- and sea- based ballistic
missiles possibly derived from Soviet-era weapons that can carry nuclear
warheads, Jane's ...
See all stories on this topic:
RUSSIA says no militant threat to nuclear arsenal
San Diego Union Tribune - San Diego,CA,USA
MOSCOW – Russia's nuclear arsenal is safe and militants could never steal
an atomic bomb from the country, Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov was quoted
as ...
See all stories on this topic:
KYODO: China Wants Nuclear Talks in August
Chosun Ilbo - South Korea
Japan's Kyodo news agency says China has asked parties to six-way nuclear
talks about the possibility of holding working-level discussions August
17 to 20. ...
See all stories on this topic:
NUCLEAR weapons plant relaxes rules on uranium disposal
WKRN - Nashville,TN,USA
OAK RIDGE, Tenn. The nuclear weapons plant at Oak Ridge is trying to get
higher discard limits for tiny bits of enriched uranium. ...
See all stories on this topic:
POLITICS, science hold future of nuclear arms
Santa Fe New Mexican - Santa Fe,NM,USA
The Energy Department under President Bush has broadened its desires for
the nuclear-weapons complex , eyeing creative work for entrepreneuring
young ...
See all stories on this topic:
NO attempts to seize nuclear weapons have ever been made in Russia ...
Interfax - Moscow,Russia
... Minister Sergei Ivanov said that neither in the Soviet era, nor in
the years of Russia's independence, have terrorists made attempts to seize
nuclear weapons. ...
CATAWBA nuclear plant on track to test plutonium fuel
WIS - Columbia,SC,USA
2, 2004 - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is willing to allow Duke Power
to test a new fuel at its Catawba Nuclear Station on South Carolina's
Lake Wylie. ...
See all stories on this topic:
GAMBLING, shellfish and a nuclear reactor
MSNBC - USA
... The tribe also holds a more dubious distinction – its residents apparently
are the closest neighbors of a nuclear plant in the United States, with
some homes ...
This daily-once News Alert is brought to you by Google News (BETA)...
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44 Fuel Cell Today: Solid Oxide Fuel cells possible for portable power
Author: BRAD AMBURN, United Press International
Provider: United Press International
WASHINGTON, Aug 02, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX)
-- U.S. researchers are refining a type of fuel cell to be
smaller, less costly and more efficient than traditional models
and could provide reliable, clean sources of energy for portable
devices such as laptop computers or spacesuits for astronauts.
Solid-oxide fuel cells -- which use hydrogen and oxygen
to produce an electric current that give off only water vapor and
heat as byproducts -- traditionally have been adapted to provide
power for larger facilities, such as homes, buildings and
spacecraft.
Now, researchers at the University of Houston's Texas
Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials are
developing a solid-oxide fuel cell ideally no bigger than a sugar
cube to power portable devices at lower costs and increased
durability, they said.
"In solid-oxide fuel cells, the major benefit is that it
is very efficient, on the order of 60 percent efficiency or
sometimes even higher, whereas other fuel cells are usually on
the order of 25 percent to 30 percent efficiency," Alex Ignatiev,
director of TcSAM, told United Press International. "But for the
solid-oxide fuel cell, the problem is it works at typically 900
degrees or 1,000 degrees Centigrade (1,650 degrees to 1,830
degrees Fahrenheit). So you need very exotic materials to work
with -- very expensive materials -- and so it becomes a challenge
in terms of cost and longevity."
Traditional solid-oxide fuel cells run similar to a
battery by converting the energy from chemical reactions directly
into electrical energy. Unlike batteries, which eventually die
out, fuel cells are continually powered by sources such as
hydrogen and oxygen to produce a constant, clean source of
electricity.
Current, non-hydro powerplants must convert chemical
energy -- from coal, oil, natural gas or uranium -- into
mechanical energy -- driving a turbine -- before turning it into
electricity. This indirect process cuts efficiency levels to only
30 percent to 35 percent and emits greenhouse gases, Ignatiev
explained.
Ignatiev and colleagues think they can beat both methods
by reducing the thickness of the current-carrying region in
solid-oxide fuel cells, called the electrolyte, to the size of 1
micron -- roughly one-hundredth the size of a human hair. Past
efforts have managed only to reduce it to perhaps 10 microns, he
said.
If 1 micron is achieved, it would be about 1,000 times
thinner than the standard fuel cell, Ignatiev continued.
Electrolytes that thin would allow oxygen ions -- atoms with a
gain or loss of electrons that feed the electric current -- to
move faster and easier through a fuel cell vs. a cell that is a
few fractions of a centimeter thick.
With a shorter distance to travel, these thin-film fuel
cells can operate at much lower temperatures, providing 10 watts
to 20 watts of power per cubic centimeter when linked together at
nearly 450 degrees Celsius (840 degrees F), half of what is
normally required, with over 55 percent efficiency, Ignatiev
said.
"It's very exciting because now we have efficiency, we
have much lower temperatures of operation and therefore less
costly materials and a very high power density, so using these in
small form can give you a large power output," he said.
A new, thin layer of nickel foil also improves energy
efficiency by causing oxygen atoms to break down without the need
of a catalyst, which would increase the cell's size.
Ignatiev said they have not had sufficient time to test
the longevity of the new cells, because solid-oxide units
traditionally are short-lived at extreme temperatures.
Nevertheless, Debbie Myers, leader of the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell
Materials group at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, said
preliminary data seem positive.
"There is a fairly stable power output for a test that
lasted 350 minutes," Myers told UPI. "Many solid-oxide fuel cells
only last for a few hours."
The technology could go beyond just powering homes and
laptops.
"We're talking to NASA right now, which has a large need
for electrical energy for spacesuits and for exploration projects
and wants to have small size ... because of the cost of working
in space -- so it would be ideal for them," Ignatiev said.
"We're also addressing the Department of Defense and
talking about the all-electric soldier, so to speak, and that
soldier needs a lot of energy to run all the sensors and devices
and computers, et cetera, that are needed for military purposes,"
he added.
The project has refined the size and design of a single
fuel cell, but the stacking process that links these units
together to produce a higher energy output remains in the design
stages, Ignatiev said.
"Each cell gives about a volt or nine-tenths of a volt of
output," he said, "so say we want 50-volt output we would stack
50 of these layers together, but we have not done that yet. We
have a preliminary design for it and now we're going to be
working with the Department of Energy laboratories to try and
bring the design to final form and put together a stack."
Ignatiev said a final stacking design should be in
operation by next spring with a fully operational fuel system
available as an industrial product in about a year and a half,
but Myers noted the cost of producing these types of cells lags
behind its goal.
A present, solid-oxide cells have a unit cost of $2,000
per kilowatt. The goal is to reduce this to $400 per kilowatt,
Myers said.
Neither Myers nor Ignatiev was able to provide precise
predictions for operational costs.
"The University of Houston work is interesting and novel
and they are achieving high power densities at low operating
temperatures," Myers said. "However, they are not alone in
achieving these power densities."
Myers also cited research at Northwestern University that
has found new materials to build solid-oxide fuel cells
comparable to those at the University of Houston.
"We have to go to new materials to push temperatures down
and also get good power densities," said Northwestern professor
Scott A. Barnett, who has published several reports on thin film
solid oxide fuel cells. "We think we have developed a material
set that can put temperatures down to 400 degrees Centigrade (750
degrees F) and produce really good power densities up to 400
milliwatts per square centimeter."
Myers also spoke of a colleague who previously had
manufactured fuel cells with an output of 330 milliwatts at 550
degrees Centigrade (1,025 degrees F), but she would not elaborate
because he is in private communication with the laboratory.
Myers also said the small size of the University of
Houston's fuel cell system could be exaggerated.
"In between each of these cells there is a gas flow that
constitutes a large fraction of the thickness of the cell. So a
system going from, say, 200 microns down to 120 microns -- which
is just 60 percent of the size -- is bit of an exaggeration."
--
Brad Amburn is an intern for UPI Science News. E-mail
sciencemail@upi.com Copyright 2004 by United Press International.
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45 Physics Today: Edward Teller in the Public Arena
August 2004-
Having lived through upheavals in Hungary and Germany between the
wars, Teller understood that political and military catastrophes
are entirely possible. He was, perhaps, less aware that
catastrophe can result from excess as well as inaction. Harold
Brown and Michael May
Early in his career, Edward Teller (19082003) showed the
potential to be one of the century's leading figures of
fundamental science. A student of Werner Heisenberg in Leipzig,
Germany, in the late 1920s and then a member of Niels Bohr's
Copenhagen institute in the 1930s, Teller made seminal
contributions to applications of the new quantum mechanics,
particularly to molecular physics. In that early part of his
career, Teller worked, usually with collaborators, on a wide
range of theoretical physics problems.
The traumatic aftermath of World War I in his native Hungary and,
even more, the advent of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933
changed Teller's world. Like many of the prominent Hungarian
physicists of his generation, Teller was a Jew. Events following
the report of uranium fission in January 1939, just eight months
before the outbreak of war in Europe, brought Teller and other
physicists into the center of events.
Caught up in World War II and the cold war, Teller became an
active participant in, and even a symbol of, the interaction
among technology (especially nuclear weapons), military
capability, and international relations. Those are the principal
concerns of this article.
The companion piece, by Stephen Libby and Morton Weiss on page
45, deals with Teller's many contributions to pure science. He
never lost his interest in science, or in music, literature,
education, and good conversation. He often repeated, with
approval, a friend's characterization of him as "the only
monomaniac with several manias."
A controversial figure
Both of us knew Edward Teller for more than 50 years, worked with
him, and were involved in some of the controversies that swirled
around him, often on the opposite side from Teller.
With Teller's death last year, a larger-than-life, highly
controversial figure passed from the stage, and a link to the
major disputes of the nuclear age was severed. Many regarded him
as an unthinking advocate of nuclear weapons in particular, and
weapons systems in general, as the answer to all questions of
national security. To others, he was a creative architect of US
military strength, a perceptive analyst of the international
scene, and an accurate anticipator of future threats.
By any standard, he had a significant influence on public
opinion, congressional attitudes, and, occasionally, on
government policy. With regard to policy, however, he was as
often an instrument as an influence. And he was a highly
polarizing influence on the technical community.
Teller with Oppenheimer
Academics largely opposed him. At the 1954 Oppenheimer security
hearing, initiated by Robert Oppenheimer's opponents in the
Eisenhower administration, Teller famously said that "I would
prefer to see the vital interests of this country in hands that I
understand better and therefore trust more." Most university
physicists never forgave Teller for that testimony. Scientists in
industry and government were more evenly divided.
Oppenheimer had been the wartime director of the Los Alamos
laboratory that created the atomic bomb. At the time of the
hearing, he was the country's most highly placed adviser on
nuclear matters. Teller's testimony probably did not affect the
hearing's outcome, which was the revocation of Oppenheimer's
security clearance. But it left wounds unhealed for decades.
Teller was associated with nuclear weapons from the very start.
During World War II, he was a member of the Manhattan Project.
His principal technical contribution to nuclear weaponry was the
final insight, reached in 1951 at Los Alamos, that made
thermonuclear weapons possible. Although Teller alone was not
responsible for that insight, his persistent pursuit of a
solution since 1944 and his successful approach, following many
false starts, justify his identification as "father of the
H-bomb," a title with which he was neither altogether happy nor
unhappy.
Livermore
Teller with Livermore colleagues
Following a successful demonstration in 1951 of a key bomb
principle, in a test explosion on Eniwetok Atoll organized by the
Los Alamos lab, Teller became dissatisfied with the pace of
research and development on thermonuclear and advanced fission
weapons at Los Alamos. So he, together with Ernest Lawrence,
Herbert York, and others, including senior US Air Force figures,
urged the establishment of a second nuclear weapons laboratory.
Their effort led to the creation of the Livermore laboratory in
1952, with York as its first director.
For decades thereafter, Teller was a major driving force at
Livermore. He served two years (195860) as director. In many ways
the lab, now called Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
continues to reflect his personality and attitude. Teller and
York encouraged the development of thermonuclear warheads light
enough to be carried on solid-propellant intercontinental and
submarine-launched missiles, which became the backbone of the US
nuclear arsenal.
Teller went on to seek what he called third-generation nuclear
weaponsthat is, designs that would amplify specific effects such
as neutron flux or electromagnetic effects. In the 1980s, he
promoted the concept of multiple x-ray lasers driven by a single
nuclear explosion as a key to ballistic-missile defense. Most of
those later ideas turned out to be technically unworkable. And
none of them, after the success of lightweight nuclear weapons,
had much effect on the military balance.
Though himself a theoretical physicist with significant
achievements in pure science, Teller understood that American
security and prosperity depended on applied science and
technology. To obtain societal support, he realized, science
needed to demonstrate useful applications. He strongly supported
basic research both for its own sake and for its value in leading
to the development of new technologies. And he sought to expand
the education of scientists at all levels. To serve education and
make the Livermore lab more attractive, Teller established at
Livermore an applied science department associated with the
University of California, Davis. For Teller, that was a labor of
love. Throughout his life, he delighted in the company of young
people. He befriended and fostered the careers of many aspiring
young scientists.
Beyond the laboratory, Teller's impact from the 1960s on was
predominantly political. He judged the Soviet Union to be ahead
of the US, or soon to be ahead, in military technology. He argued
that any agreed limitations would only widen the gapbecause the
Soviets would cheat and the US would not. Thus he saw arms
control of any kind as a trap rather than an element of national
security strategy. He opposed test bans, strategic arms
limitations, and the antiballistic-missile treaty of 1972.
Star Wars
Teller with Ginzburg
Teller was encouraged by the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Indeed, he played a part in its adoption by the Reagan
administration. Quite generally, he was pleased with President
Reagan. In 1976, one of us (May) had asked him whom he would
prefer as president. "Ronald Reagan," Teller answered, "but he
will never make it!" Both the political preference and the
underlying pessimism were characteristic of Teller. Along with
others from prewar Europe, he never lost sight of the fact that
political and military catastrophes were entirely possible. He
was less aware that catastrophe can result from excess as well as
inaction.
His unwavering advocacy of ballistic-missile defense further
widened the divide between Teller and the mainstream of
physicists. Most scientists, including us, regarded missile
defense as not ready for prime time. When asked why he supported
a system with such obvious faults, Teller answered that if the US
didn't work on it, it wouldn't get any better and, without a
deployment goal, no one would work on it seriously.
To Teller, whose central priority was defending the US in a
difficult and unpredictable future, that was the right position.
But to many others, it was intellectual dishonesty. Scientists
were supposed to tell the truth as they understood it, not to
subordinate the truth to other agendas.
Also close to Teller's heart were two causes that might surprise
those who knew him only in caricature. One was his dislike of
secrecy, especially in technical matters. Teller saw secrecy as
harmful to the US in a fundamental way. It lessened the key
American advantage of broad, free discussion and criticism while
it assisted closed societies, which were better at maintaining
secrecy. One of his examples was the nuclear weapons program
itself. He maintained that the Soviet program was ahead of ours
precisely because of US secrecy. At the same time, he argued, the
US was forging ahead of the Soviets on other defense initiatives
that were not so highly classified.
Teller's other somewhat surprising cause was that of nuclear
power and nuclear safety. In his view, the two issues were
synergistic. He was ahead of his time, and perhaps ours, in
seeing that nuclear power, which he thought essential, would go
nowhere if its safety and security were in question. But the
nuclear industry and the government, under pressure of
competition and budgets, did not give safety and security the
continuing priority Teller would have likedat least not until
very recently.
Edward Teller, for better and worse, left his mark on his time.
He unquestionably helped strengthen the country's nuclear
capability and, through it, nuclear deterrence. He was one of the
very last of the legendary generation of physicists born early in
the 20th century. He was personally open, generous, and willing
to raise fundamental issues that went against prevailing wisdom.
But perhaps he was also too willing to make enemies and not quite
willing enough to acknowledge that, in the end, he and his
domestic enemies were ultimately on the same side.
Teller was a cultured and often witty man, a pleasant companion
when optimistic. But when preoccupied with adversaries foreign
and domestic, he was given to black moods. When he was engaged
with such matters, nuance and even major flaws in his positions
were sometimes suppressed in the service of leading his audience
to what he considered the right conclusion.
One anecdote from Edward's old age may help characterize him. In
late 2000, he and one of us (May) were attending a memorial
service for a longtime colleague. Waiting for things to begin, he
asked me what I thought were the three most important
achievements of the 20th century. His candidates were the ability
to rapidly go anywhere in the world, to communicate with nearly
everyone at the speed of light, and to efficiently destroy all of
us. He then told me what would be the most important thing to
accomplish in the new century. That was, he said, to learn to get
along with one anothera task whose difficulty he did not
underestimate.
Harold Brown, US secretary of defense in the Carter
administration, is now a counselor with the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, DC. Michael May is
director emeritus of Stanford University's Center for
International Security and Cooperation. Both are physicists and
former directors of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
[Brown1-OPEN]
Edward Teller (right) congratulates Robert Oppenheimer, who has
just been awarded the US government's 1963 Enrico Fermi Award.
Teller won it the previous year. Looking on (center) is 1959
winner Glenn Seaborg.
[Libby2]
Teller with Livermore colleagues who made up the faculty of the
off-campus applied science department of the University of
California, Davis, newly formed at Livermore in 1963. Left to
right are Michael May, Harold Furth, Montgomery Johnson, Bernard
Alder, John Killeen, Roy Brainer, Teller, Wilson Talley, Richard
Borg, Albert Kirschbaum, and Richard Post.
Return to Article
[Brown1]
Teller with Vitaly Ginzburg (right) in 1992 in Washington, DC.
Ginzburg had played a major role in the development of Soviet
nuclear weapons. (Photo courtesy of Fred Rothwarf.)
Return to Article
A Chronology of Edward Teller
15 January 1908 Born in Budapest, Hungary
4 March 1941 Naturalized as US citizen
9 September 2003 Died in Palo Alto, California
Education
192628 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany
1928 University of Munich
192830 University of Leipzig, PhD under Werner Heisenberg
Positions
192930 Research associate, University of Leipzig
193033 Research associate, University of Göttingen
1934 Rockefeller fellow, Institute for Theoretical Physics,
Copenhagen, Denmark
193435 Lecturer, City College of London, UK
193546 Professor of physics, George Washington
University, Washington, DC
194142 Professor of physics, Columbia University, New York
194243 Physicist, Manhattan Engineering District
194243 Physicist, Metallurgical Laboratory, University of
Chicago
194346 Physicist, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
194652 Professor of physics, University of Chicago
194952 Assistant director, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
195253 Consultant and cofounder, Livermore Radiation
Laboratory, University of California
195360 Professor of physics, University of California,
Berkeley
195458 Associate director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
195860 Director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
196075 Associate director, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
196070 Professor of physics at Large, University of California
196366 Chairman, department of applied science at Livermore,
University of California, Davis
197075 University Professor, University of California
19752003 Director emeritus, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory
19752003 Senior research fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University.
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