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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [NYTr] US to Escalate Propaganda War against Iran
2 Aljazeera: Iran: Pakistan signed nukes deal with Saudi Arabia -
3 Payvand: EU, China say Iran's nuclear issue should be solved by IAEA
4 FT.com: UN concern over Iran's N-technology
5 DAWN: Iran-EU talks from Dec 13
6 Korea Times: US Seeks NK Regime Transformation
7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea May Seek Disarmament Incentives
8 YWS: U.S. to Give N.K. Aid in Exchange for Denuclearization - Offici
9 YWS: U.S. Security Adviser Urges N.K. to Make 'Strategic Choice'
10 Xinhua: US-DPRK mistrust hinders talks - Chinese FM
11 US: CIA officer asked by "Managers" to falsify WMD data
12 US: Energy Commission Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth--NIRS statement
13 US: SBNewspress: Two interceptors Friday install
14 US: Energy Commission Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth--NIRSst
15 US: APP.COM: Windmills at sea stir heated environmental debate
16 US: Las Vegas Mercury: Democracy in Peril
17 US: National Commission on Energy Policy: strategy
18 US: LA Times: If Bush Really Wants a Legacy
19 US: Public Citizen: Commission That Produced “Bipartisan” Energy Rep
20 Security UN Committee Urges Greater Effort On Weapons Of Mass Destru
21 [NYTr] India Warns US on Pakistan Weapons Sales
22 Pakistan News: Shaukat says Pakistan's nuclear programme guarantee o
23 Sify: Pak aiding Saudis in nuclear technology: Report
24 Janes: Pakistan nuclear probe in peril
25 DAWN: N-capable Hatf-IV test-fired -
26 Japan Times: America must lead by example
NUCLEAR REACTORS
27 US: [epa-impact] Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power
28 US: NRC: NRC Assigns New Resident Inspector to Palo Verde Nuclear Ge
29 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Coalition seeking additional fines for VY
30 US: APP.COM: Nuclear plant sirens defended
31 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meetings Regarding Draft Environmental R
32 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: Coast to be opened in Diablo deal
33 US: NIRS: Citizen Groups Blast AEP Request for 20 More Years at Cook
34 US: NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with TVA to Discuss Browns Ferry Nuclear
35 Haaretz: Is Dimona's reactor suffering from old age?
36 US: NRC: NRC Approves Evaluation Method for Analyzing Reactor Contai
37 ePolitix.com: Peers slam nuclear decommissioning strategy
38 US: toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse plans test of siren system
39 US: NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power Station
40 US: Daily Press: Fuel storage permit renewal likely
41 Indian Express: 'Tarapur has enough uranium fuel for 2 years'
42 US: LA Times: Stanford Lecturer Is Elected to Head State Coastal Com
43 US: Lompoc Record: Diablo waste storage project appeal denied
44 US: Vickbury Post: Claiborne supervisors back 2nd reactor at Grand G
NUCLEAR SAFETY
45 BBC: Nuclear chocolate scare
46 RIA Novosti: KURSK REGION TO HOST SVIRIDOV MUSIC FESTIVAL
47 MaltaMedia.com: Film-documentary probes nuclear submarine leak in
48 Scotsman.com: New Nuclear Sub Will Be Four Years Late
49 Israel Hasbara Committee: Thermonuclear Accident
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
50 [NYTr] Ire to Get Access to Sellafield Security Info
51 Deseretnews: Goodbye, Yucca; hello, Utah?
52 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast gets new health options
53 US: Bradenton Herald: Plume may be growing in size
54 US: The State: Jobs riding on plans to make MOX
55 Las Vegas RJ: Report urgesbackup storage
56 BBC: Radioactive waste progress urged
57 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Alternative to Yucca
58 Salt Lake Tribune: Nuclear industry doesn't back temporary Utah
59 US: Waste News: Group of energy experts releases plan to address cli
60 US: SFBV: Liquefaction danger at Hunters Point Shipyard must be addr
61 Belfast Telegraph: New deal gives Irish officials access to plant at
62 News & Star: Nuclear flask lorry in crash
63 Whitehaven News: 17,000 JOBS LOST: THE FEARED COST OF SELLAFIELD RUN
64 Whitehaven News: COMMENT: LET’S FIGHT THE BIGGEST BOMBSHELL OF THEM
65 CBC North: South's nuke waste will likely stay there: official
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
66 NBC Newschannel 6: DOE HOLDS MEETINGS ON PROPOSAL TO MAKE PLUTONIUM
67 Rocky Mountain News: Walls start coming down
68 DenverPost.com: "Glovebox" removal heralds new Flats era
69 SPI: Divers may help Hanford cleanup
70 CST: Residents worry about possiblity of moving plutonium production
71 Tri-City Herald: New nuclear waste treatment proposed
72 Tri-City Herald: Nuclear debt plan debated
73 Times-News: INEEL's plutonium plans draw skeptics ...
74 lamonitor.com: Spending bill funds projects
75 SFBV: Who should control the US nuclear weapons program?
76 DOE: Hearings on INEEL programs
OTHER NUCLEAR
77 [DU-WATCH] Uranium Primer
78 (GCN) Cyber Eye: How public should our public data be?
79 EurekAlert: Nuclear-powered mission to Neptune could answer
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 [NYTr] US to Escalate Propaganda War against Iran
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:54:11 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com
US Plans to Escalate Propaganda War against Iran
Washington, Dec 9 (Prensa Latina) The White House and the Pentagon are
planning to increase pressure on Iran aimed at making a political change
in the Persian country, using the alleged danger of a nuclear program
developed Teheran as an excuse.
Kinght Ridder daily reported Thursday that both authorities are
developing plans to increase public criticism campaigns on the alleged
violations of human rights by Iran, as well as to intensify espionage on
the Iranian government and armed forces.
According to the daily, the new, more aggressive tack has the backing of
secretary of state-designate Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush's national
security adviser.
Republican administration officials, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, asserted that Rice supported some of the ideas during a White
House meeting last week with leaders of major Jewish-American groups.
"We have to do more to help the human rights community and the
dissidents inside Iran," Rice told the group, sources revealed.
The anti Iran crusade includes an increase in US broadcasting into Iran
and financial backing for pro-Western groups, aiming to undermine public
order in the Persian country.
At the same time, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which overseas US
international broadcasting, has proposed to the White House a major
increase in broadcasting into Iran by Voice of America television,
The proposal would increase daily broadcasts from 30 minutes a day to
about three hours.
The United States already operates a Persian-language radio service,
Radio Farda, which broadcasts to Iran 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The back-up to Iranian dissident groups could result paradoxical since
the major Iranian opposition group, the Iraq-based Mujahedeen e-Khalq
(MEK), remains on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist
groups.
sus/ajs/et
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2 Aljazeera: Iran: Pakistan signed nukes deal with Saudi Arabia -
[http://www.aljazeera.com]
12/8/2004 12:15:00 PM GMT
Some Iranian officials claimed that Pakistan signed a nuclear
deal with Saudi Arabia in 2003.
Some Iranian officials said that Pakistan signed a nuclear deal
with Saudi Arabia in 2003 under which Islamabad promised to
assist the Saudi kingdom with the development of nuclear weapons
and missile delivery systems.
The reports come after Iran reached a deal with Britain, France
and Germany to halt all activities related to uranium enrichment
in an attempt to end a dispute that had threatened Iran with
being referred to the UN Security Council.
The officials said that the Saudis, for the first time, have
access to nuclear technology and stressed that the nuclear
cooperation between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is at an advanced
stage.
The international news agency United Press International (UPI)
cited the Iranian Prof. Abu Mohammed Asgarkhani as saying that
Iran’s attempts to master nuclear technology came after Tehran
learned about the Pakistani-Saudi agreement and the possibility
that the Saudis might possess atomic arms.
The sources said that Pakistan owes Saudi Arabia a great deal
because the Saudis financed the Pakistani bomb. Also, a Saudi
official was perhaps that first foreigner to visit Pakistan’s
nuclear reactors.
Moreover, Pakistan was the broker between the Saudis and the
Chinese for the purchase of long-range Chinese missiles. These
missiles, now in Saudi Arabia, have become obsolete and the
Saudis want to develop them.
The United States said that if the Chinese helped the Saudis in
developing these missiles, they would be violating an earlier
agreement under which they promised not to sell missiles.
China argues that this wouldn’t be a new sale, but an upgrade of
old missiles sold long time ago. However, Washington still
rejects the deal.
The Iranian reports about nuclear cooperation between Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia might be seen as an attempt that aims at
directing the attention of the international community to other
countries that might have nuclear programs.
The United States accuses the Islamic republic of covertly
developing a nuclear weapons program and has demanded the IAEA
to report Tehran’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council for
possible sanctions.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is strictly aimed at the
peaceful generation of technology.
Copyright 2004 AlJazeera Publishing Limited
*****************************************************************
3 Payvand: EU, China say Iran's nuclear issue should be solved by IAEA
http://www.payvand.com
12/9/04
EU, China say Iran's nuclear issue should be solved by IAEA
Brussels, Dec 9, IRNA -- The European Union and China have
welcomed the recent agreement between E3 and the Islamic Republic
on Tehran's suspension of enrichment activities.
A joint statement issued after the EU-China summit in the Hague
Wednesday afternoon said, "China and the EU appreciate their
respective efforts in facilitating a political resolution of the
Iran nuclear issue.
"China and the EU welcome the agreement reached between France,
Germany and the UK, supported by the High Representative, and
Iran on Iran's suspension of enrichment related and reprocessing
activities.
"Both China and the EU hope that progress will be made in the
negotiations of the EU with Iran on a mutually acceptable
agreement on long-term arrangements, that should include
objective guarantees that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively
for peaceful purposes, and that the Iran nuclear issue will be
resolved within the framework of IAEA at the earliest
opportunity," said the statement.
It noted that China appreciates the efforts of EU members in
encouraging Libya's denunciation of its WMD programs through
diplomatic negotiations.
For its part, the EU appreciates and supports China's positive
and constructive role in facilitating a peaceful resolution of
the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula.
"China and the EU reaffirm in this context their support for a
Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons."
International issues like North Korea Burma/Myanmar, Iran and
Afghanistan, the fight against illegal migration, economic issues
textiles were discussed during the seventh annual EU-China
Summit.
However, the EU arms embargo on China was the main topic
discussed in the one-day meeting.
The EU told China that it would not lift its arms embargo imposed
after the Tiananmen Square events in Beijing in 1989.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, the current president of the
EU Council, said the EU gave a positive signal during the talks
but the embargo will not be scrapped for the moment.
For his part, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabo expressed his
appreciation to the EU side for giving a positive signal.
"The arms embargo is a product of the Cold War and is no longer
consistent with the trends of our time and with our partnership
with the EU.
"Lifting the arms embargo against China does not mean that China
will start importing large amounts of arms from Europe but it
will mean the abolition of political discrimination against
China," he said.
The EU is linking the lifting of the arms embargo with issue of
human rights.
The two sides signed a joint declaration on non-proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction and arms control and agreements were
also concluded on customs co-operation, and science and
technology.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said China is
emerging as a global player.
"Developing the relationship will be one of the major priority of
the Commission. I believe this is in the interest of both sides
to strengthen this long term strategic relationship," he said.
© Copyright 2004 NetNative (All Rights Reserved)
*****************************************************************
4 FT.com: UN concern over Iran's N-technology
By Roula Khalaf in London
Published: December 9 2004 22:01 | Last updated: December 9 2004
[Iran nuclear] The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog
has suggested that Iran's nuclear technology represents an
effective deterrent that should be dealt with through a security
dialogue as well as inspections.
Nuclear inspectors have found no evidence so far of an Iranian
weapons programme. But Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, warned in an interview with
the Financial Times that acquiring nuclear expertise, even for
peaceful purposes, gave countries the core element of a
deterrent.
“The fundamental issue is that countries look at know-how as
a deterrent. Once you get into areas of deterrence, you get into
security and insecurity,” he said. “If you have nuclear
material, the weapon part is not far away.”
Mr ElBaradei's comments come before next week's first round of
talks between Tehran and three European governments Britain,
France and Germany on nuclear, economic and security
co-operation. The so-called EU3 persuaded Iran last month to
suspend its uranium enrichment in return for the dialogue.
But the talks are threatened by a key difference between the
two sides: Iran considers the suspension of enrichment, which it
says is for peaceful use, as a temporary measure. The EU3 are
looking for a permanent freeze.
In nearly two years of inspections, the IAEA has uncovered a
sophisticated Iranian programme to master the fuel cycle. So
far, it has not found evidence to support US suspicions that
Iran has a weapons programme.
Mr ElBaradei, however, argued that the Iran controversy was
part of a broader problem in nuclear non-proliferation:
countries that master the technology needed for a peaceful
enrichment programme and comply with the Nuclear
non-Proliferation Treaty can develop a nuclear deterrent.
“I hope that in discussions [between Tehran and the EU3]
everyone puts their cards on the table. This is not just a
technical issue, it's a security issue.”
Experts say persuading Iran permanently to give up its pursuit
of a fuel cycle would require a normalisation of relations with
the US which the Europeans cannot deliver.
But Mr ElBaradei insisted the diplomatic track and inspections
remained the best option. The US has been advocating a tougher
approach and wants Tehran referred to the UN for possible
sanctions. “As long as the process is working I don't want to
see it scuppered. I don't see any alternative to it,” he said.
The IAEA investigation has now moved on to inspectors looking
into intelligence claims of nuclear experiments at military
facilities which could indicate an undeclared weapons programme.
Inspectors are following the trail of enrichment-related
equipment and material procured by Iran and have asked to visit
the Parchin military complex south of Tehran a request that has
not yet been granted.
Mr ElBaradei sought, however, to reassure Tehran that he would
not act as “an instrument of harassment” in his
investigations. But he expected co-operation from Tehran.
“Iran tried to cheat the system. Now they would have second
thoughts . . . because we've called their bluff,” he said.
[ height=] © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2004. "FT"
and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.
*****************************************************************
5 DAWN: Iran-EU talks from Dec 13
; 09 December, 2004
TEHRAN, Dec 8: Iran's nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani is to
travel to Brussels on Dec 13 for talks with three European
foreign ministers on Tehran's agreement to freeze sensitive
nuclear work, an aide said on Wednesday.
The talks are to take place at the invitation of Britain's Jack
Straw, Michel Barnier of France and German Foreign Minister
Joschka Fisher, Ali Agha Mohammadi of Iran's National Security
Council told AFP.
"The aim of this trip is to start negotiations on implementing
the Paris accord", he said. -AFP
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004
*****************************************************************
6 Korea Times: US Seeks NK Regime Transformation
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times
Washington Seeks `Transformation' of North Korean Regime: Hadley
By Shim Jae-yun Staff Reporter
In an apparent policy turnaround, the United States will seek
transformation of the North Korean regime without attempting to
change or overthrow it, a top U.S. security policymaker said
Tuesday.
``If the U.S. policy is put into words, it would be `regime
transformation,ˇŻˇŻˇŻ National Security Advisor-designate Stephen
Hadley was quoted as telling South Korean parliamentary delegates
visiting the U.S.
Hadley also reiterated the U.S. is firmly committed to the
six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear standoff and has
no intention of attacking North Korea, according to the
lawmakers.
Rep. Park Jin, a key member of the delegation, said HadleyˇŻs
statement can be understood as a U.S. policy that would induce
North Korea toward transformation through gradual economic reform
without trying to collapse the current regime.
HadleyˇŻs remark came after President Roh Moo-hyun ruled out the
possibility of a collapse of the North Korean regime and raised
opposition to using military force, creating concern that Seoul
and Washington remain poles apart in dealing with North Korea.
The delegation also met with Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage, who also confirmed the U.S. stance it would not attack
North Korea.
But Armitage was quoted as saying the U.S. will seek to end the
nuclear dispute with North Korea through the U.N. Security
Council should diplomacy fail.
``President Bush has the most patience with North Korea. The
U.S. government has no intention of attacking North Korea from
the soil of South Korea or any other country. It would be a most
irresponsible act,ˇŻˇŻ Armitage was quoted as saying.
He underlined, however, that the U.S. would never reward North
KoreaˇŻs possible bad behavior and consult allies and friends
about bringing the nuclear issue to the security council unless
the six-party talks make substantial progress.
The North Korean issue was brought to the council in February
last year following its withdrawal from the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
But the council postponed the punitive measures to provide more
time for diplomatic solution.
Michael Green, senior Asian affairs director at the National
Security Council, also supported their remarks, saying the
economic campaign would be one way that would lead to regime
transformation.
Hadley voiced the need for what he called ``managed pressureˇŻˇŻ
and one member from the five dialogue partners to urge North
Korea to return to the negotiation table, according to the
lawmaker.
The six-party talks have been stalled as North Korea boycotted
calling on the U.S. to rescind it hostile attitude toward the
reclusive nation and provide economic incentives.
jayshim@koreatimes.co.kr 12-08-2004 15:16
Stephen Hadley
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea May Seek Disarmament Incentives
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday December 9, 2004 5:46 AM
AP Photo SEL103
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea has told U.S. officials it
is committed to six-nation talks pressing the communist nation
to give up its nuclear program, but Washington will not offer
any new incentives to lure Pyongyang into restarting the stalled
negotiations, a U.S. official said Thursday.
North Korea ``indicated their commitment to the six-party
process. They said they had determined to work through the
six-party process to peacefully resolve the issue,'' the
official, who is knowledgeable about the talks, told journalists
in the Korean capital, Seoul. ``But they were not prepared to
give us a date to resume the talks.''
``We're making clear to (North Korea) that we'd like to resume
the talks soonest,'' the official said on condition of
anonymity.
The North refused to attend the latest round of negotiations -
which also include China, Japan, Russia and South Korea - that
was planned for September.
The latest North Korean nuclear crisis began in late 2002 when
U.S. officials say they were told in Pyongyang that the country
had embarked anew on a campaign to make nuclear weapons. North
Korea pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty last
year.
North Korea's weapons capabilities remain a mystery. Some
analysts and observers have said the reclusive communist nation
has six to eight atomic bombs.
A key U.S. envoy, Joseph DeTrani, is in Seoul this week meeting
with South Korean officials on a trip that includes stops in
China and Japan to press North Korea to continue the talks.
The U.S. official said Washington was surprised North Korea had
walked away from the dialogue. He said there was ``momentum'' in
the talks at the last summit in June, when the United States
proposed economic and diplomatic benefits for the North after it
completely and verifiably disarmed.
U.S. officials told North Korean diplomats in New York during
two meetings last week that Washington wanted to reopen the
talks and resolve the issue peacefully.
North Korea, however, has insisted the United States abandon its
``hostile'' policy toward the hard-line regime, which President
Bush once said was part of an ``axis of evil'' with Iran and
prewar Iraq.
Washington has asked the North what that demand meant, but the
official said Pyongyang had not offered a clear explanation.
The country has long sought a public pledge that the United
States will not try to topple Kim Jong Il's dictatorial regime,
and North Korean officials have said that such a promise could
resolve the nuclear standoff.
``We believe we do not have a hostile policy'' toward North
Korea, the official said, but Pyongyang is apparently looking at
U.S. ``actions and attitudes'' before agreeing to more talks.
He said the North also denied it held off on talks in apparent
hopes that Bush would lose last month's presidential elections,
and a new U.S. administration would soften current policy.
The United States insists its current offer should be enough
encouragement for Pyongyang to return to the talks.
``The U.S. is not going to be embellishing its list of
incentives to get them back to the table,'' the official said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
8 YWS: U.S. to Give N.K. Aid in Exchange for Denuclearization - Official
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
2004/12/09 21:17 KST
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- A ranking U.S. official said Thursday
the United States is ready to provide economic aid to North Korea
if the communist country agrees to "comprehensive
denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula.
The official, who asked not to be identified, also said the
United States may consider removing North Korea from its list of
terror-sponsoring states if the North decides to abandon its
nuclear development program and promises not to support terrorism
and terrorist groups.
*****************************************************************
9 YWS: U.S. Security Adviser Urges N.K. to Make 'Strategic Choice'
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE:
2004/12/09 17:50 KST
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- Stephen Hadley, who was named the new
U.S. national security advisor, urged North Korea to abandon its
nuclear weapons program to improve its destitute economy and
relations with the United States, lawmakers said Thursday.
"Hadley said North Korea will have to make a strategic choice
between the two options -- abandoning its nuclear weapons
ambitions and improving relations with the United States or
international isolation and an impoverished economy," Rep. Kim
Hyuk-kyu of the governing Uri Party told reporters.
*****************************************************************
10 Xinhua: US-DPRK mistrust hinders talks - Chinese FM
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-09 21:28:12
BEIJING, Dec. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Mistrust between the United
States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is
the sticking point of the suspended six-party talks on the Korean
Peninsular nuclear issue, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Zhang Qiyue said here Thursday.
At a regular press conference, Zhang said there is no
timetable for the next round of talks or any working group
meeting because participants have not reached agreement on it.
"It is a complicated issue and cannot be settled
immediately," she said. "But since all parties recognize the
six-party talks arethe only practical and effective solution,
China hopes they can present utmost sincerity and flexibility."
The six-party talks involve the DPRK, the United States,
China,the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan and Russia. Three
rounds of talks have been held in Beijing since August 2003. The
fourth round failed to be held in September as scheduled.
Joseph DeTrani, US State Department special envoy for the
Korean Peninsula affairs, paid a working visit to China this
week. He met with Zhou Wenzhong, Chinese vice foreign minister,
Cui Tiankai, director-general of the Asian Affairs Department of
the Foreign Ministry and Ning Fukui, Chinese ambassador on
Korean Peninsula affairs.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
11 CIA officer asked by "Managers" to falsify WMD data
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:42:57 -0800
CIA officer asked by Managers to falsify WMD data
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=1112
Officer Alleges CIA Retaliation
Lawsuit Says Agency Urged False Reporting on Iraqi Arms
WP -Thursday, December 9, 2004; Page A02
By Dana Priest
A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that
CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass
destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.
The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public
yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned
to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA
dogma..."
--
NEU +++ DSL Komplett von GMX +++ http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl
GMX DSL-Netzanschluss + Tarif zum supergünstigen Komplett-Preis!
*****************************************************************
12 Energy Commission Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth--NIRS statement
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 14:43:09 -0800
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036
202.328.0002; f: 202.462.2183; nirsnet@nirs.org;
www.nirs.org
Commission on Energy Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth
A Statement by Michael Mariotte, Executive DirectorDecember 9, 2004
In a disappointing relapse into 20th century thinking and conventional
compromise, the self-described National Commission on Energy has delivered
recommendations that impede its stated goal to slow and ultimately reverse
climate change. Given the Commissions industry-loaded leadership, including
John Rowe, chief executive of Exelon Corporation, the worlds largest
private nuclear power utility, its conclusions on nuclear issues should
surprise no one.
The Commissions report, Ending the Energy Stalemate, squanders a golden
opportunity to tackle the urgent crisis of climate change, recognized by
the Commission as an over-riding driver behind the two-year study. Rather
than break a stalemate, the something-for-everyone package approach in the
Commissions report would continue lackluster and ineffective energy
policies indefinitely. And by accepting the tired myth that nuclear power
is carbon-free,the Commission trades the chance to mitigate global climate
change, instead making climate change inevitable. This is because the
enormous capital costs of building any significant number of new reactors
would divert limited resources from those technologies that make a
meaningful impact on climate change.
The suggested expenditure of $2 billion of taxpayer money for the
demonstration of one or twonew reactorsfalls far short of the true cost of
just one reactor and even two reactors would not make a dent in greenhouse
gas emissions, even if nuclear energy was truly carbon free. Buried in the
report text lies the revealing yet preposterous admission that reactors in
the United States must double or triple over the next 30 to 50 years, and
grow ten-fold worldwide in order to have a large impact on greenhouse gas
emissions.
This absurd pie-in-the-sky thinking is easily debunked by simple math. To
meet these goals a new U.S. reactor would have to come on-line every four
months for the next 50 years, beginning today. The price tag would soar to
at least $800 billion. Add to that the weighty and costly infrastructure,
including numerous Yucca Mountain-sized radioactive waste dumps, heightened
and necessary new security and safety measures, a couple dozen or more new
uranium enrichment plants and the untenable resulting nuclear proliferation
risks, and the Commissions nuclear vision departs from fantasy to downright
dangerous.
In short, the Commissions findings, once the environmental veneer and
rhetoric are stripped out, read like a discredited nuclear industry wish
list. The Commission has clung stubbornly to the energy delusions of
nuclear power and clean coaland produced what amounts to a Nuclear Energy
Institute letter to Santa Claus. For that, it deserves nothing more than a
lump of coal in its Christmas stocking.
###
Nuclear Information and Resource Service/World Information Service on
Energy-Amsterdam
Main offices: Washington, DC and Amsterdam, Netherlands
Affiliate offices: Asheville, NC; Rosario, Argentina; Linz, Austria; Brno,
Czech Republic; Hiroshima, Japan;
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------_extPart_001_01C4DE0F.F9BDDF64--
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13 SBNewspress: Two interceptors Friday install
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 09:04:01 -0800 (PST)
Local News
Defense shield's first phase: VAFB readies missile
interceptors
12/9/04
By SCOTT HADLY
www.newspress.com
Military expects to refine system through more tests
NEWS-PRESS SENIOR WRITER
On a remote, windswept plain at the north end of
Vandenberg Air Force Base on Friday, teams of workers
will carefully lower two five-story-tall, $30 million
missile interceptors into specially retrofitted silos.
The 60-ton rockets packed with solid oxygen and
powdered metal fuel are tipped with two
refrigerator-sized "kill vehicles" that will --
theoretically -- be ready to smash into an incoming
ballistic missile at 15,000 mph within 30 minutes of a
launch.
The two interceptors at Vandenberg will join six
others placed in silos at Fort Greely in Alaska over
the summer to make up the nation's first rudimentary
missile defense shield.
The military says it's a first step to more robust
protection from missiles launched against the United
States. In the coming years, planners hope to add more
components to the system and improve its reliability.
Although critics point out that tests of the system
have had mixed results at best -- in three of the
eight tests, the interceptors missed the target, while
the other five were highly orchestrated -- supporters
say the system at least provides some protection that
could counter a limited missile attack.
It's only a beginning, but it makes the country safer,
said Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Simi Valley.
"There's no question we live in a dangerous world
today," he said. With North Korea getting closer to
being able to launch a long-range missile that could
reach the Western United States, it's important to
deploy the system now.
"It's not the time to fine-tune and sit back until
it's 100 percent fail-safe," said Mr. Gallegly, who
added that he had great confidence the military will
keep improving the system.
Critics of the system, a cornerstone of the Bush
administration's defense strategy, have called it an
astronomically expensive "shield of dreams."
"I am deeply concerned with this administration's rush
to deploy an unproven national missile defense
system," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara. "We
have to spend our defense and anti-terror dollars
wisely. It is irresponsible to send our troops to Iraq
without sufficient equipment, including body armor,
and to leave our ports largely unprotected while
paying for an unproven missile defense system."
The system has cost more than $10.2 billion this year,
but proponents point out that it's only a fraction of
the $460 billion defense budget. But the expense is
hundreds of times more than what the U.S. is spending
on port security, for instance.
The interceptors will not address more unconventional
threats such as those posed by the terrorists who
attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, using
hijacked commercial aircraft. Other potential
scenarios include smuggling small nuclear devices into
U.S. ports or along the borders.
The deployment of the interceptors in Alaska and
Vandenberg allows for ongoing testing.
For people living around the base, the placement of
the interceptors in old Peacemaker and Minuteman silos
will result in very little outward change. The Air
Force and the Missile Defense Agency will continue to
fire off missiles to test the interceptor system. As
recently as June, a missile fired from Vandenberg was
used to test the targeting and tracking systems that
are part of the missile defense shield.
This first phase is actually more focused on testing,
military planners said. The Alaska interceptors are
part of a "test bed" that could be used to thwart an
attack but is primarily meant for honing the
technology.
At Vandenberg, two other retrofitted silos will
ultimately be used for testing and to house
interceptors.
Critics say this shows the current system's
unreliability. The missile shield, which has cost $20
billion in the past four years, isn't ready for
deployment and gives people a false sense of security,
they say.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a group frequently
critical of the Bush administration, called the idea
that the current defense system could knock out enemy
missile attacks "irresponsible exaggerations."
In May, the group submitted a detailed technical
report to Congress saying deployment of interceptors
"will have no demonstrated defensive capability and
will be ineffective against a real attack by
long-range ballistic missiles."
"This program is not ready for prime time. It offers
us little to no real protection or defense," said Jon
Rainwater, executive director of California Peace
Action, another group critical of the program. "But
the real problem is that it wastes billions of dollars
on the wrong threat. The Bush administration has
stubbornly clung to a pre-9/11 worldview. They are
focusing precious resources on the unlikely threat of
long-range ballistic missiles while programs to
protect against the much greater threat of a terrorist
attack remain under funded."
Ultimately, some military planners hope to see the
eight interceptors augmented by hundreds of others as
well as air- and space-based lasers and an array of
space-, sea- and land-based radar to detect hostile
launches and track incoming missiles. The intent is to
establish an overlapping "layered defense" that could
knock down hostile ICBMs.
=====
www.justdissent.org
Just Dissent Bill, called "Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Protection Act" was passed by the California State Senate, but vetoed by then governor Gray Davis. The bill recognized dissent's role in creating a better society, and therefore sought to greatly shorten sentences of those who commit civil dissent of our government; in doing so, follow a higher law.
*****************************************************************
14 Energy Commission Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth--NIRSst
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:34:47 -0500
For Climate Change Bookmark This From Pulitzer
Prize Winner Ross Gelbspan, author of "Boiling
Point" and "The Heat Is On.":
http://www.heatisonline.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Mariotte
To: nukenet@energyjustice.net
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2004 12:00 PM
Subject: [NukeNet] Energy Commission Clings to
Tired Nuclear Myth--NIRSstatement
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036
202.328.0002; f: 202.462.2183; nirsnet@nirs.org;
www.nirs.org
Commission on Energy Clings to Tired Nuclear Myth
A Statement by Michael Mariotte, Executive
Director-December 9, 2004
"In a disappointing relapse into 20th century
thinking and conventional compromise, the
self-described National Commission on Energy has
delivered recommendations that impede its stated
goal to slow and ultimately reverse climate
change. Given the Commission's industry-loaded
leadership, including John Rowe, chief executive
of Exelon Corporation, the world's largest private
nuclear power utility, its conclusions on nuclear
issues should surprise no one.
"The Commission's report, Ending the Energy
Stalemate, squanders a golden opportunity to
tackle the urgent crisis of climate change,
recognized by the Commission as an over-riding
driver behind the two-year study. Rather than
break a stalemate, the something-for-everyone
package approach in the Commission's report would
continue lackluster and ineffective energy
policies indefinitely. And by accepting the tired
myth that nuclear power is 'carbon-free,' the
Commission trades the chance to mitigate global
climate change, instead making climate change
inevitable. This is because the enormous capital
costs of building any significant number of new
reactors would divert limited resources from those
technologies that make a meaningful impact on
climate change.
"The suggested expenditure of $2 billion of
taxpayer money -"for the demonstration of one or
two" new reactors-falls far short of the true cost
of just one reactor and even two reactors would
not make a dent in greenhouse gas emissions, even
if nuclear energy was truly carbon free. Buried in
the report text lies the revealing yet
preposterous admission that reactors in the United
States must double or triple over the next 30 to
50 years, and grow ten-fold worldwide in order to
have 'a large impact on greenhouse gas emissions.'
"This absurd pie-in-the-sky thinking is easily
debunked by simple math. To meet these goals a new
U.S. reactor would have to come on-line every four
months for the next 50 years, beginning today. The
price tag would soar to at least $800 billion. Add
to that the weighty and costly infrastructure,
including numerous Yucca Mountain-sized
radioactive waste dumps, heightened and necessary
new security and safety measures, a couple dozen
or more new uranium enrichment plants and the
untenable resulting nuclear proliferation risks,
and the Commission's nuclear vision departs from
fantasy to downright dangerous.
"In short, the Commission's findings, once the
environmental veneer and rhetoric are stripped
out, read like a discredited nuclear industry wish
list. The Commission has clung stubbornly to the
energy delusions of nuclear power and "clean coal"
and produced what amounts to a Nuclear Energy
Institute letter to Santa Claus. For that, it
deserves nothing more than a lump of coal in its
Christmas stocking."
###
Nuclear Information and Resource Service/World
Information Service on Energy-Amsterdam
Main offices: Washington, DC and Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Affiliate offices: Asheville, NC; Rosario,
Argentina; Linz, Austria; Brno, Czech Republic;
Hiroshima, Japan;
Kaliningrad, Russia; Bratislava, Slovakia;
Capetown, South Africa;
Stockholm, Sweden; Rivne, Ukraine; WISE-Uranium:
Arnsdorf, Germany
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15 APP.COM: Windmills at sea stir heated environmental debate
ASBURY PARK PRESS
Published in the Asbury Park Press 12/09/04
By TODD B. BATES ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER
Some environmental activists oppose the moratorium on offshore
windmills that acting Gov. Codey will impose, saying it sends the
wrong message about wind energy and that policy regarding the
devices can be developed without it.
But other activists support the moratorium.
Codey said Tuesday that he will issue an executive order next
week establishing a moratorium on windmills off the New Jersey
coast while the state comes up with a policy regulating them.
A moratorium "makes it sound as though it's something we need to
be fearful of when, in reality, wind power is one of the best
solutions to a lot of environmental problems we have here in New
Jersey -- global warming, mercury, air pollution, nuclear
waste," said Emily Rusch, energy advocate for the New Jersey
Public Interest Research Group. "I think in New Jersey, we need
to come up with a plan that moves clean energy like wind power
forward, not putting a stopper on it."
But a spokeswoman for Codey, Kelley Heck, said he views the
issue as very serious and significant, requiring time to
consider and the involvement of interested parties and the
public.
A group of activists held a news conference in Trenton Wednesday
to raise concerns about the impending moratorium. An open,
public process is needed to figure out where and how
environmentally responsible wind power can be developed, they
contended.
Some activists and others say standards for regulating offshore
wind farms are inadequate or nonexistent.
2 firms draw up plans
Atlantic Renewable Energy Corp., a Richmond, Va. business, and
Winergy LLC of Shirley, N.Y., are interested in wind farms.
Atlantic has said one plan is for a pilot project. Winergy has
proposed placing 98 windmills 3.5 miles miles off the Monmouth
County coast between Long Branch and Manasquan, and 921 more at
four sites off Cape May County.
The windmills would be about 40 stories high.
On Tuesday, Codey acknowledged concerns that offshore windmills
could hurt redevelopment in Asbury Park, detract from ocean
aesthetics and pose "some environmental concerns because of the
impact on marine life."
Codey, D-Essex, who is also the state Senate president,
questioned the economic effect of offshore windmills on fishing
and tourism.
Rusch, though, said in a telephone interview "global warming is
a far bigger threat to the New Jersey coastline than offshore
wind turbines."
"We already know that we are losing coastline fairly rapidly
and much of the Jersey Shore is in danger, even if the sea level
was to rise another foot or two," Rusch said. "Wind power is one
of the solutions that we need to be looking at."
Ted Korth, policy director for the New Jersey Audubon Society,
said in a telephone interview that a Danish approach on
assessing wind farm projects is "an excellent scheme to use."
The Danish approach employs a meticulous, scientific
assessment, according to Audubon Society officials.
"We have no idea how we want to address the problem," Korth
said. "It's a moratorium until when? It's frustrating because
every day of that moratorium we deal with the pollution, we deal
with strip-mining . . . "
Weighing pros, cons
In a telephone interview, Ed Dlugosz, president of the Monmouth
County Friends of Clearwater environmental group, said a
moratorium is a great idea.
He thinks windmills can be viable in the offshore environment
if "they're properly regulated and those regulations are put
forward in a fair manner."
He said he's lived in the Netherlands and Germany, which have
wind farms off their coasts, and "they're working."
Tim Dillingham, executive director of the American Littoral
Society, a Sandy Hook-based coastal conservation group, on
Tuesday called Codey's moratorium decision "a very responsible
and needed action on the part of the governor."
"There are simply too many unanswered questions," Dillingham
said. "The regulations that are in place now do not fit the
situation along New Jersey's coast. The Danish model may prove
to be fine for Holland, but it's not United States law. It's not
based upon the areas that are off our coast . . . and it clearly
doesn't have the input of the towns and the public who live
along the shore about the acceptability of these kinds of
structures in the water."
Cynthia A. Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action, a
Sandy Hook-based coalition, said Tuesday that Codey's impending
moratorium is "good governing policy . . . for the ocean and it
serves as a national standard for evaluating these types of . .
. proposals."
State standards for offshore windmills will be developed in a
public process, and the state Department of Environmental
Protection hopes to have standards in place next year, DEP
Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell has said. The Audubon Society's
Korth said relying on the DEP is like "waiting for Godot."
Campbell said the DEP is working to establish a process that
observes Codey's view of all the environmental and
non-environmental concerns that have been raised. "That effort
will inform the standards" the DEP sets and also determine
whether and to what extent offshore windmill projects are
appropriate, he said.
Walter Barber, a 73-year-old retiree in Old Bridge who has
lived most of his life in Highlands and Middletown, said
off-shore windmills will "add to the degradation of the coast .
. . People don't want to see the sun come up out of the ocean
from a maze of windmills."
Barber said he's concerned about power cables from windmills on
the ocean floor and related infrastructure, among many other
issues.
Jeff Tittel, executive director of the Sierra Club's New Jersey
chapter, said, "I think we need to be careful about wind, but we
also need to make sure we move forward (with) wind projects in
appropriate places."
The benefits of cleaner air would "far outweigh any . . .
potential environmental detriment so far," he added.
Material from Press archives was used in this story.
Todd B. Bates: (732) 643-4237 or tbates@app.com
*****************************************************************
16 Las Vegas Mercury: Democracy in Peril
Thursday, Dec 9, 2004, 09:49:23 PM
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury
By Steve Sebelius
LONG GOODBYES: The director of the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security actually knocked on wood the other day, a superstitious
gesture designed to ward off terrorist attacks.
Oh, well, it couldn't be any lamer than forcing us all to
remove shoes, belts and now suitjackets in order to go through
metal detectors at the airport.
But in announcing his departure, Secretary Tom Ridge said many
people had worked long and hard on the color-coded threat level
indicator. While it probably hasn't prevented a single terrorist
attack--knock on wood!--it has given us in the pundit business
plenty to joke about.
Ridge's farewell couldn't compare, however, to Tommy Thompson,
exiting Health and Human Services secretary. He seemed actually
incredulous that the United States hasn't been attacked, and he
knocked on no wood.
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists
have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do,"
he said. As if the terrorists didn't have things easy enough
without our own officials giving them a road map.
"And another thing," you could envision Thomson saying.
"Chemical plants! Why, I toured the ACME Chemical plant in
Dayton, Ohio, last year, and there's virtually no security from
midnight to 6 a.m. And since the graveyard shift workers prop
the back door open so they can take smoke breaks, anybody could
just walk right in. That's the ACME Chemical Plant in Dayton,
Ohio."
To be fair, Thompson did say he was disappointed that Congress
forbade him from negotiating with big drug companies for lower
prices for prescription drugs under the Medicare program. Of
course, he should have said that when Republicans were actually
passing the bill.
With the second-term shuffling almost done, it looks like
Donald Rumsfeld is the big winner, having held on to his fiefdom
at Defense. Vice President Dick Cheney is staying, too, of
course, and Condoleezza Rice, albeit at the State Department, a
little farther away from her old White House perch as national
security adviser. They're shedding lightning rods like Attorney
General John Ashcroft, which is good, although his views on
torture of prisoners may not differ greatly from his
replacement's, ex-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.
A new secretary of energy has yet to be chosen, a post of
particular interest to Nevada given the struggle over Yucca
Mountain. Ken Lay being legally indisposed, one possible choice
actually discussed in public was Thomas Kuhn, a key presidential
fund-raiser and president of the Edison Electric Institute, an
industry lobbying arm. It's a safe bet that whomever the
president appoints will have at least as much an interest in
seeing Yucca become a reality as does the president himself.
The old bosses aren't looking too different from the new ones,
but that's what we get when we fail to make a change in the one
office over which voters have a say.
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury, 2001 - 2004
Stephens Media Group
*****************************************************************
17 National Commission on Energy Policy: strategy
UPDATE: Due to an extraordinary number of visitors interested in
downloading "Ending the Energy Stalemate," we are experiencing
some minor difficulties and are working to remedy the situation.
We hope to have the website back in full working order by this
afternoon (Dec 9th). While service is being performed on the
website, you can email to obtain a copy of the report. We
apologize for any inconvenience.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
December 8, 2004
Bipartisan Commission Issues Strategy to Address Long-Term U.S.
Energy Challenges
Detailed Recommendations on Oil Security, Climate Change,
Natural Gas, Nuclear Energy, and Other Key Topics the Result of
2 Years of Research and Consultation
Consensus Plan; Group to Spend 2005 Advocating Package
(Washington, D.C.) -- A bipartisan group of top energy experts
from industry, government, labor, academia, and environmental
and consumer groups today released a consensus strategy, more
than two years in the making, to address major long-term U.S.
energy challenges. The report, contains detailed policy
recommendations for addressing oil security, climate change,
natural gas supply, the future of nuclear energy, and other
long-term challenges, and is backed by more than 30 original
research studies.
“Political and regional polarization has produced an energy
stalemate, preventing America from adopting sensible approaches
to some of our biggest energy problems,” said John W. Rowe,
Commission co-chair and Chairman and CEO of Exelon Corp. “Our
Commission reached consensus on effective policies because of a
willingness to take on cherished myths from both right and left.
We believe that this package of recommendations can be of value
to Congress and the Administration in energy legislation next
year and beyond.”
“Taken together, the Commission’s recommendations aim to achieve
a gradual but decisive shift in the nation’s energy policy,
toward one that directly addresses our long-term oil, climate,
electricity supply, and technology challenges,” said William K.
Reilly, former EPA Administrator and Commission co-chair. “Oil
reliance is a fact we will face for some time. So we recommend
incentives to spur global oil production, to increase domestic
vehicle fuel economy, and to increase investment in alternative
fuels. Our climate change plan would both limit greenhouse gas
emissions and cap the costs of doing so. At the same time, it
provides incentives for low- and non-carbon sources like natural
gas, renewable energy, nuclear energy, and advanced coal
technologies with carbon capture and sequestration, as well as
for increased efficiency of energy end use. We are proposing
programs that can work in the real world.”
“It's essential to take some prudent steps now to avoid
intolerable costs and impacts later,” said John Holdren, Heinz
Professor of Environmental Policy at Harvard University and
Commission co-chair. “The task of energy policy is to ensure
the reliable and affordable energy services that a prosperous
economy requires while simultaneously limiting the risks and
impacts from overdependence on oil, from global climate change,
and from other environmental and political liabilities of the
available energy-supply options. Meeting this challenge
requires measures to encourage increased use of the best
available technologies for energy supply and energy end-use
efficiency in the years immediately ahead, as well as increased
investments in energy research and development to improve the
options available to us in the future."
DOWNLOAD Commission Report and supporting documentation:
(all documents in PDF format)
(2.29MB)
(627KB)
(1MB)
The National Commission on Energy Policy
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18 LA Times: If Bush Really Wants a Legacy
[Los Angeles Times - latimes.com]
December 9, 2004
By Stewart L. Udall, Stewart L. Udall represented Arizona in the
House from 1954 to 1961 and was secretary of the Interior from
1961 to 1969.
Scientists tell us that global warming is an omnipresent reality,
that in this century it will change the lives of all of us and
alter our relationship to the physical world. Only a
comprehensive, global strategy will enable humanity to gradually
cope with its implications.
Robust, immediate action is needed. Forget wrangling about
ratification of the modest Kyoto treaty. Instead, the 20
industrialized countries (let's call them the Power Bloc) that
produce most of the world's destructive carbon dioxide emissions
must join together to take action.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, stripped of its military
trappings, might be a model, and the United States, responsible
for 25% of those emissions, must lead the way. President Bush has
the power and the prestige to convene such an entity and
galvanize such an effort. It could be his most important legacy.
For the last two centuries the burning of fossil fuel coal,
natural gas and crude oil has been propelling human
civilization. But fossil resources are finite they really will
run out and their use has altered Earth's atmosphere. On both
fronts, Americans are in denial.
Why are we so blind? We have been conditioned to believe that
catastrophe will not occur, that humankind is perpetually on the
threshold of discoveries that will magically solve our dilemmas.
As a freshman congressman in 1955, I sat spellbound as physicist
John Von Newman claimed that by 1980 nuclear power plants would
produce electricity so cheap it wouldn't have to be metered. Such
promises have fostered a belief that the U.S. will achieve
"energy independence" and that science will produce easy panaceas
(remember fusion and breeder reactors?). They have even spawned
skepticism that the phenomenon called global warming is real.
Organizing an international effort and a NATO-style group to
combat real energy and environmental problems would be a big step
toward ending our belief in magic. What would such an
organization look like?
Each country would bear the expense of sending its best
scientists, entrepreneurs, energy specialists, architects and
planners to serve on policymaking panels. Each nation could help
pay for necessary research and development; logic would suggest
that each should ante up based on the carbon dioxide its energy
installations produced the previous year.
Fast action must be the goal: establishing priorities, agreeing
on what is possible, spreading and inventing strategies that curb
fossil fuel use and increase renewable resource use.
There are four sectors in which dramatic gains could be made.
First: electric power use and production. Generating electricity
also generates 40% of greenhouse gases. A study by the Electric
Power Research Institute has concluded that this industry can be
fundamentally transformed through serious investment in clean,
efficient new means of production and transmission and such
simple expedients as sensors that would turn off the lights when
people left a room.
The second sector in which change is achievable involves the
built environment. Already architects such as Arizona's Edward
Mazria are proving that buildings can be operated with "green"
efficiency at little extra cost. Using existing renewable energy
technologies (solar, thermal, wind and biomass), buildings can be
made "carbon-neutral," requiring no fossil-fuel energy to
operate. This alone would eliminate nearly half of current global
carbon dioxide emissions.
Next come cars and our extravagant automotive transportation
system. The Power Bloc must coordinate and agree on ways to
encourage even mandate the spread of fuel-efficient cars
(including hybrids and lighter vehicles) and new fuels.
In the U.S., we have finally begun to consider encouraging fuel
saving in the way highway systems are designed (allowing hybrids
into the carpool lane, for example) or through the carrot and the
stick of taxation. We must do more and we must do it in concert
with the rest of the world.
Finally, the fourth sector: exploiting renewable energy sources.
Money and research are required to perfect new ways of generating
and delivering solar, wind and geothermal power. The small
actions of individual governments like Colorado's vote to
require its electric companies to generate 10% of their power via
renewables in the next 10 years must be multiplied nationally
and internationally.
Could Bush bring together representatives from China, Russia,
India and the other members in the Power Bloc to address such
issues? Could he jump-start a fresh global effort to contain and
roll back what his administration calls "climate change"? Of
course he could.
But will he? As was the case when President Nixon went to China
and President Reagan made overtures to the Soviet Union, when
modern U.S. presidents have acted boldly and often against
expectations they have changed the world. We can only hope that
Bush has the same lofty ambition.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
*****************************************************************
19 Public Citizen: Commission That Produced “Bipartisan” Energy Report Dominated by
Industry Interests, Produced Wish List for Energy Companies
Dec. 8, 2004
Statement by Wenonah Hauter, Director, Public Citizens Critical
Mass Energy and Environment Program
Congress and the public should read the National Commission on
Energy Policys report (released today) with a critical eye and
should not be fooled by a false bipartisan and independent
label. The reality is that this panel was dominated by energy
industry interests. It is no surprise that the policies
embraced in todays report represent a wish list for energy
companies and coal in the stockings for Americas consumers and
the environment.
The commission bows to the electricity industrys interests by
supporting an increase in coalfueled electric power while
opposing a federal renewable energy standard despite the fact
that such a clean power standard has already been adopted by 18
states.
The report readily admits that cost, safety, security, waste and
proliferation risks are all substantial barriers to expanding
nuclear power. Yet, with the energy giant Exelons chief
executive as the cochair of the panel, the commission dismisses
these issues as easily resolved and recommends throwing another
$2 billion at the industry.
And the report is silent on the failure of energy deregulation
to provide lower prices and a cleaner environment, as it fails
to endorse strong new regulations of the energy industry that
are necessary to protect consumers from continued market
manipulation.
The energy industrys influence on the commission also is
apparent in the reports recommendation that the law be changed
to ensure that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and
not states has exclusive jurisdiction over onshore liquefied
natural gas (LNG) facilities. This controversial recommendation
is the subject of a lawsuit brought by the state of California
against FERC asserting that states and local communities should
have adequate say over the siting and permitting of these
controversial projects. (Congress slipped language into the
recent appropriations bill saying that FERC can pre-empt states
on LNG facility siting, but lawmakers didnt go so far as to
change the law.)
And the reports message on the critical need for improvements
in fuel economy and reductions in harmful vehicle-related
greenhouse gas emissions is mixed at best. While the report
says that meaningful increases in fuel economy standards of
10-20 miles per gallon are feasible, it fails to include a
target number or time frame.
And while it concedes that the safety concerns related to fuel
economy are properly viewed as a thing of the past because of
new advances in technology and the advent of hybrids, it
advocates a credit trading program (allowing automakers that
exceed fuel economy standards to trade credits to those that
do not) that is political pie-in-the-sky. The enormous advantage
foreign manufacturers have over the domestics means that Detroit
would likely resist any such program.
Overall, the results are not surprising. The commission was
dominated by individuals with significant financial interests in
major energy corporations, presenting clear conflicts of
interest. Among the commission members: John Rowe, president
and CEO of Exelon, the largest nuclear power plant operator in
the U.S.; Linda Gillespie Stuntz, a corporate lobbyist for the
energy industry; and Archie Dunham, chairman of ConocoPhillips,
a company that has spent $5.7 million since 2001 lobbying the
government on energy policy.
Despite touting themselves as a diverse group of interests, the
16-member commission includes only one person classified as a
consumer advocate, who is also the former chair of a state
utility commission, , while 10 of the members have direct,
financial ties to energy corporations. This is certainly welcome
and desperately needed, but a solo voice for consumer interests
is insufficient.
For background information about each of the commissions
members,
*****************************************************************
20 Security UN Committee Urges Greater Effort On Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 19:00:51 -0500
X-Sender-Hostname: mx3.un.org
SECURITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE URGES GREATER EFFORT ON WEAPONS OF MASS
DESTRUCTION
New York, Dec 9 2004 7:00PM
Seven months after the Security Council set up a committee to help
implement a resolution that aims to prevent "the ultimate nightmare"
- weapons of mass destruction (WMD) falling into the hands
of terrorists and dealers on the black market - only 86 countries
have submitted their first reports explaining what they have done
or plan to do to meet the requirements set out in the measure.
Committee Chairman Ambassador Mihnea Ioan Motoc of Romania <"http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/sc8265.doc.htm">told
the Council
today that he has sent two notes to the relevant Member States
reminding of their requirements since the Council adopted the resolution
on 28 April.
That resolution aims to prevent WMD being acquired, manufactured
or used by "non-State actors," such as terrorists and dealers on
the black market. Nations are obliged to make sure they have effective
laws prohibiting the practices and the means to enforce such
laws.
Mr. Motoc said the committee had recently started examining the reports
from Member States after spending its first months becoming
fully operational.
During an open debate in the Council, speakers from 12 nations stressed
the urgency and importance of the committee's work. Emyr Jones
Parry, Ambassador of the United Kingdom, said the prospect that
WMD might reach the hands of terrorists was "the ultimate nightmare."
2004-12-09 00:00:00.000
________________
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21 [NYTr] India Warns US on Pakistan Weapons Sales
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 20:38:35 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Bob Richards
[Is it any wonder that India has refused the US request to send troops to
Iraq? Four More Years of Bush means 4 more years of the US pissing off
everyone -- in this case, an "ally" with nuclear weapons.]
Associated Press - Dec 9, 2004
India Warns U.S. on Pakistan Weapons Sales
By RAJESH MAHAPATRA, Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI - Indian officials cautioned Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld on Thursday that a proposed U.S. sale of military hardware
worth $1.2 billion to Pakistan could damage a fragile peace process
between the nuclear-armed neighbors and harm India-U.S. relations.
Rumsfeld met with Indian Defense Minister Shri Pranab Mukherjee
and later described the relationship between Washington and New
Delhi as an enduring one.
"The defense relationship is a strong one and something we intend to
see is further knitted together as we go forward in the months and
years ahead," he said.
Rumsfeld's two-day visit is expected to focus on India-U.S.
cooperation in defense and countering terrorism. It began after
India cautioned the United States against going ahead with the sale
of surveillance aircraft and anti-tank missiles to Pakistan.
"Concern was expressed from our side about the repercussions from
the arms supplies on the ongoing India-Pakistan peace process,
currently poised at a sensitive juncture," Indian Foreign Ministry
spokesman Navtej Sarna said.
India and Pakistan are in the early stages of a peace process to
resolve bitter differences, including a five-decade dispute over the
divided Himalayan region of Kashmir (news - web sites). Both sides
are sensitive to large-scale arms purchases by the other that might
tilt the region's strategic balance.
On Wednesday, Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh warned
in Parliament that the "government will not hesitate ... to ensure
that our defense preparedness is not compromised in any way." He did
not elaborate.
Washington is looking to sell to Pakistan eight P3C surveillance
planes, 2,000 TOW anti-tank missiles and six Phalanx gun systems,
which are mounted on ships to shoot down incoming missiles.
"India-U.S. relations have seen a significant transformation during
(President Bush (news - web sites)'s) first term. These arms sales
would impact on the positive sentiment and goodwill for the United
States in India," Sarna said.
Pakistan also wants F-16 aircraft from the United States, but no
decision has been made on a sale. Singh said New Delhi has also
cautioned Washington against it.
Rumsfeld also met the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the
foreign minister.
U.S.-India ties have become closer in recent years. Three years ago,
Washington lifted economic sanctions imposed on India after it
tested nuclear weapons in May 1998.
***
excerpted from ATRC Newswire: December 8, 2004
India Today, December 6, 2004
Bolt from the Blue
By Sandeep Unnithan
The US decision to go ahead with the sale of the P-3C Orion strike aircraft
to Pakistan on the pretext of helping the war on terror shocks India and
undermines the country's naval superiority
In military jargon it is known as a force multiplier, an asset that enhances
the combat value of a platform by making it more effective. The P-3C Orion
aircraft with a 12-hour endurance, 7,000-km range and armed with missiles
and torpedoes, fits the bill nicely. And in the next few years, India could
be eyeballing a fleet of eight such aircraft with Pakistan, quantitatively
and qualitatively far superior than anything in its own inventory.
Last week, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which handles
all government-to-government military sales, informed the US Congress of a
possible weapon package for Pakistan. It included not only TOW anti-tank
missiles and Phalanx shipborne guns, but the sale of eight P-3C Orion
long-range
Last week, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), which handles
all government-to-government military sales, informed the US Congress of a
possible weapon package for Pakistan. It included not only TOW anti-tank
missiles and Phalanx shipborne guns, but the sale of eight P-3C Orion
long-range maritime-patrol strike (LRMPS) aircraft at a total cost of $971
million (Rs 4,370 crore). These aircraft, the DSCA noted, would improve
Pakistan's ability to restrict the littoral movement of terrorists along its
southern border and help it maintain the integrity of its territories.
The news came as something of a shock for India's foreign policy
establishment which had been warming up to the improved Indo-US ties in the
Bush Administration's second term and for the defence establishment which
has enjoyed an unprecedented level of military ties with the US armed
forces. Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran conveyed India's apprehension over the
proposed sale to incoming US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice while navy
chief Admiral Arun Prakash grimly termed it a "disturbing development". But
despite their protestations, nothing short of a miracle can prevent the US
Congress from passing the bill of sale.
Ironically, the Indian Navy has long wanted, but repeatedly been denied,
these very aircraft. Three years ago it opened negotiations with the US for
the purchase of 12 P-3C Orions to bolster its reconnaissance capabilities.
"We want as many as we can afford," former navy chief Admiral Madhvendra
Singh said last year. It was, instead, offered hand-me-downs of the older
P-3B models from the US which it turned down. Clearly, the same rules do not
apply for its Major Non-nato Ally, Pakistan.
That this political arms sale was clubbed with previous sales linked to
Pakistan's role in the war on terror, which primarily involves policing the
lawless Afghan border and coastal patrols to cover seaborne infiltration and
exfiltration routes, was adding insult to injury. "Transport aircraft,
helicopter gunships, night-vision devices and sniper rifles are meant for
securing borders," says a senior naval officer, speaking about previous
military sales linked to the war on terror. "But the Orion with its missiles
and torpedoes is an open ocean weapons platform, meant to hunt warships and
submarines over long ranges. It has only limited overland applications."
So the prospect of the hulking four-engined Orion being used to chase
rag-tag Al-Qaida and Taliban footsoldiers in the tribal areas seems remote.
The actual application of the aircraft is far south in the Arabian Sea where
the Indian Navy is adding a qualitative edge to its surface fleet and moving
it to a new bluewater base in Karwar. Apart from submarines, the biggest
threat to a surface fleet is a missile-armed, LRMPS aircraft. The Karwar
fleet, indeed, the entire western seaboard, is easily within target range of
the Orions. In these aircraft, defence officials see a definite US game plan
to counter the Indian Navy's growing prowess, particularly the aircraft
carrier Admiral Gorshkov.
What then are India's options? Experts caution against the purchase of
sanction-prone hardware of US origin in the light of previous
experiences-the Indian Navy's entire twin-engined Sea King helicopter fleet
was grounded because it had US components. "The warning against buying
Orions from the US could be extended as well to the F-16 and any other major
armament the Indian armed forces may be interested in," says Bharat Karnad
of the Centre for Policy Research in Delhi. "Principally because US arms
supply policies are extremely fickle and hostage to the whims and fancies of
not just the White House but also to any number of committees and
sub-committees in the US Congress, any of which could insert a rider to an
Appropriations Bill negating at will a deal cut by the Executive."
The acquisition of three Orions by Pakistan nearly a decade ago led to the
acquisition of a slew of shipborne defensive systems like the Israeli Barak
missiles and early-warning helicopters like the Ka-31 Helix-B. The prospect
of eight more Orions, coupled with the spares to reactivate the two older
aircraft, means the worrisome prospect of 10 fully operational Orions in the
next few years.
The Indian Navy, in sharp contrast, operates a fleet of 11 ageing unarmed
LRMP aircraft, useless for strike missions. It is already pressing for more
Barak missiles and urgently plugging the gap created by the loss of two of
its fleet of five IL-38 aircraft in Goa two years ago. A naval spokesperson
said the Orion was only one of the many options being looked at but the fact
remains that the options are extremely limited. Used by over 20 countries,
the Orion enjoys a virtual monopoly of nearly 85 per cent of the world's
LRMPS aircraft fleet.
The production of Orion and all its nearest competitors, like the British
Nimrod and the Russian Tu-142 and IL-38, has already stopped while the only
comparable aircraft still rolling off the lines, the French Atlantique-3,
was evaluated by the Indians but found to be prohibitively expensive. A
section of the naval brass argues in favour of jet-powered maritime patrol
aircraft and points out that the US itself is shedding its P-3C Orion fleet
by the end of this decade and going in for the stratospherically priced
Multimission Maritime Aircraft ($ 200 million each). The only interim
solution may be to purchase and refurbish old Russian Tu-142s and IL-38s and
upgrade the maritime patrol aircraft in their mid-life.
Even this is not without its share of hurdles. While the IL-38s are being
upgraded by Russia, their offer to improve the eight Tu-142s was rejected
this year on cost and technical grounds. The Israeli bid to upgrade these
aircraft has been stymied after Russia's insistence on a share of the
contract.
In this scenario, the prospect of Pakistan getting the Orions from the US
infuses urgency in the defence scenario. The Arabian Sea might soon become
choppier for the Indian Navy.
P-3C ORION'S FEATURES:
RANGE: 7,000 km
ENDURANCE: 12 hours
MAXIMUM MISSION RADIUS: 7,472 km
ARMAMENTS: Mines, depth bombs, torpedoes and Harpoon anti-ship missiles
with a range of 120 km.
The P-3C Orion is a long-range maritime-patrol aircraft based on a
commercial aircraft and propeller driven for fuel economy. It is packed with
a variety of sophisticated radars and submarine detection systems and armed
with torpedoes and anti-ship missiles. It not only detects and identifies
ships and submarines but also neutralises them. The Indian Navy is upgrading
its surface fleet and moving it to a new bluewater base in Karwar in the
Arabian Sea which is within the range of the P-3C Orion.
*
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22 Pakistan News: Shaukat says Pakistan's nuclear programme guarantee of peace
PakTribune.Com
Thursday December 09, 2004 (1429 PST)
Prime Minister, Shaukat Aziz says Pakistan's nuclear programme
guarantee of peace.
ISLAMABAD, December 10 (Online): Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has
said that cooperation between Pakistan and United States in
enhancing Pakistan conventional arms capability was vital for
ensuring peace in the region.
He said that Pakistan wanted peace and it was essential to have
credible defence for peace. Pakistan's nuclear programme is a
guarantee of peace in the region. Pakistan, he said, would
maintain minimum deterrence to play its role as anchor of peace
in the region.
While talking to a US Congressional delegation, which included
members of US International Relations Committee, the Prime
Minister said that Pakistan was an anchor of peace and stability
in the region. Pakistan, he said, wants peace with all its
neighbours.
"We have initiated the process of composite dialogue with India
to resolve all outstanding issues. The core issue of Jammu and
Kashmir needs to be resolved in line with wishes and aspirations
of the people of Kashmir. We are optimistic about the outcome of
talks", he said.
PM said that in Pakistan the structural reforms in economic
sector have made Pakistan economically strong. We have achieved
the economic sovereignty. A strong and prosperous Pakistan can
play the role of anchor of peace in the region.
The government, said the Prime Minister, has been focusing on
social sector reforms as well. Infrastructure facilities have
been developed to create enabling environment for investment in
the country. Pakistan is increasing expenditure on education and
health care so as to improve the quality and standard of living
of its people.
The members of the US congressional delegation appreciated
Pakistan role in the region and the world in improving peace and
security. They assured help from the United States in improving
education, health and infrastructure in Pakistan so that the
country can progress at faster rate. They appreciated the
structural reforms introduced in Pakistan and the resultant
improvement in Pakistan's economy.
The Prime Minister said that the world should focus on
eliminating the root causes of extremism. Deprivation in any
form will have to be addressed to make the world a safe place to
live in.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that Islam was the religion of
tolerance and moderation. Our religion teaches interfaith
harmony. Pakistan being an enlightened moderate Islamic State
provides freedom of faith and expression. We are peace -loving
country and are striving for peace in the region.
End.
Pakistan News Service © PakTribune.com Pvt Ltd 2003-2004
*****************************************************************
23 Sify: Pak aiding Saudis in nuclear technology: Report
PTI
Friday, 10 December , 2004, 01:28
Washington: Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement in
2003 in which the former promised to help the latter develop
nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, a media report
said, citing official Iranian sources.
The "reports" are coming out as Iran reached an agreement with
the three European powers -- the UK, Germany and France -- about
a cessation of uranium enrichment and the International Atomic
Energy Agency’s board of directors issues its report on Iran’s
nuclear activity, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports.
"The Iranian reports emphasise that the nuclear cooperation
between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is at an advanced stage and
that for the first time the Saudis have access to nuclear
technology," the paper says.
© Copyright Sify Ltd, 1998-2004. All rights reserved.
Sify.comhosted at SifyHosting India's
*****************************************************************
24 Janes: Pakistan nuclear probe in peril
09 December 2004
An international investigation into the nuclear black market run
by the renegade 'father' of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, Dr Abdul
Qadeer Khan, is in danger of grinding to a halt because the
governments of various countries implicated in the clandestine
trade are reluctant to co-operate.
The United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the Vienna-based
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been struggling to
piece together the network that was behind the world's most
dangerous case of nuclear proliferation following the exposure of
Khan's operation in December 2003 when Libya - one of the
professor's key customers - came clean on its nuclear arms
programme. However, despite IAEA efforts, only a handful of
people have so far been arrested: in Germany, the Netherlands,
Switzerland and South Africa.
UN investigators believe that many others remain at large in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a vital hub for Khan's illicit
operation - as well as in Britain, France, Spain and Malaysia.
The Pakistani authorities are still refusing to permit
investigators to interrogate Khan, who despite his televised
'confession', is still considered to be a hero by many Pakistanis
and has been pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf. Since the US
administration needs to keep Musharraf on board for the global
war against terrorism, Washington has been oddly quiescent about
being barred access to the disgraced scientist.
Meanwhile, Malaysia has detained one of Khan's alleged
associates, Sri Lankan businessman Buhary Syed abu Tahir, since
28 May 2004 under the country's Internal Security Act. However,
officials say that means access to him is being restricted. In
June, US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents were
blocked from seeing Tahir, who was once based in Dubai. He is
being held on suspicion of involvement in the sale of
centrifuges, used to enrich uranium to weapons grade.
© Jane's Information Group. All rights reserved | Terms of
*****************************************************************
25 DAWN: N-capable Hatf-IV test-fired -
Top Stories; 09 December, 2004
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, Dec 8: Pakistan successfully test-fired Hatf-IV
(Shaheen-I), a nuclear-capable medium-range surface-to-surface
ballistic missile, it was officially announced here on
Wednesday.
The missile had already been tested and was capable of hitting
targets within a radius of 700 kilometres, the announcement
said. It could also carry other types of warheads.
President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz in their separate messages hailed scientists and engineers
on their achievement. A statement issued by Inter Services
Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said
that Hatf-IV (Shaheen-I) and other missile systems like Hatf-III
(Ghaznavi) and Hatf-V (Ghauri) had been handed over to the
Army's Strategic Force Command.
He said the missile was fired again to test additional technical
parameters. The ISPR spokesman said neighbouring countries had
been given prior notification in accordance with the standard
practice.
The recently-conducted successful missile tests were indicative
of the government's resolve to consolidate Pakistan's nuclear
deterrence capability, he said. Meanwhile, Foreign Office
spokesman Masood Khan said that the missile's test would not
affect Pakistan-India relations.
The test-firing of Hatf-IV missile comes at a time when both
countries are engaged in a peace dialogue and are taking
confidence-building measures (CBMs) to resolve conflicts on
various issues.
Mr Khan said Pakistan and India were also holding talks on
nuclear and conventional CBMs and expressed the hope they would
succeed. He said Pakistan was not indulging in an arms race as a
race for developing nuclear and conventional weapons in South
Asia would not help promote peace and progress in the region.
The Foreign Office spokesman said that Pakistan was committed to
strengthen the country's nuclear capability and similar tests
would also be conducted in future. He said Pakistan would
maintain a minimum nuclear deterrence capability in the region.
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004
*****************************************************************
26 Japan Times: America must lead by example
Wednesday, December 8, 2004
READERS IN COUNCIL
According to The Washington Post and The New York Times reports,
U.S. President George W. Bush met with other heads of states on
the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum
(Nov. 21) in Santiago, Chile, and urged them to cooperate with
the United States in pressuring Iran and North Korea to abandon
their nuclear weapons development programs.
Although the U.S. and Russia have mutually agreed to reduce the
number of their strategic nuclear warheads to levels of 1,700 to
2,200, the fact remains that there are still enough to bring
about global devastation. Bush needs to seriously tackle the
issue of whether his own nation can abolish weapons of mass
destruction before forbidding other nations to develop theirs.
Yet the U.S. has continued to carry out subcritical nuclear
tests in Nevada and has even announced a plan to develop and
produce lower-yield and earth-penetrating nuclear weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed recently that Russia
has a similar program of its own.
Under these circumstances, it is highly doubtful that the
off-and-on six-party talks, aimed at defusing North Korea's
nuclear weapons program, will ever bear fruit. Both Iran and
North Korea, which Bush has called part of the "axis of evil,"
may consider it absolutely necessary to arm themselves with
nuclear weapons for fear of a possible preemptive attack by the
U.S.
YOSHIO SHIMOJI
Naha, Okinawa
The Japan Times: Dec. 8, 2004
The Japan Times Ltd. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
27 [epa-impact] Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 11:09:11 -0500 (EST)
http://epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/2004/December/Day-09/
=======================================================================
[Federal Register: December 9, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 236)]
[Notices]
[Page 71437-71438]
>From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr09de04-86]
=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
[Docket Nos. 50-336 and 50-423]
Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power Station,
Units 2 and 3; Notice of Availability of the Draft Supplement 22 to the
Generic Environmental Impact Statement and Public Meeting for the
License Renewal of Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3
Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC, the Commission) has published a draft plant-specific supplement
to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), NUREG-1437,
regarding the renewal of operating licenses DPR-65 and NPF-49 for the
Millstone Power Station (MPS) Units 2 and 3, for an additional 20 years
of operation. MPS is located in Waterford, Connecticut, on Millstone
Point between the Niantic and Thames Rivers, approximately 40 miles to
the southeast of Hartford, Connecticut. Possible alternatives to the
proposed action (license renewal) include no action and reasonable
alternative energy sources.
The draft Supplement to the GEIS is available for public inspection
in the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) located at One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, or from the Publicly
Available Records (PARS) component of NRC's Agencywide Documents Access
and Management System (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web
site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. (Note: Public
access to ADAMS has been temporarily suspended so that security reviews of
publically available documents may be performed and potentially
sensitive
[[Page 71438]]
information removed. Please check the NRC Web site for updates on the
resumption of ADAMS access.) Persons who do not have access to ADAMS,
or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS,
should contact the PDR reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, (301) 415-
4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. In addition, the Waterford Public
Library, 49 Rope Ferry Road, Waterford, Connecticut, and the Thames
River Campus Library, 574 New London Turnpike, Norwich, Connecticut,
have agreed to make the draft supplement to the GEIS available for
public inspection.
Any interested party may submit comments on the draft supplement to
the GEIS for consideration by the NRC staff. To be certain of
consideration, comments on the draft supplement to the GEIS and the
proposed action must be received by March 2, 2005. Comments received
after the due date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but
the NRC staff is able to assure consideration only for comments
received on or before this date. Written comments on the draft
supplement to the GEIS should be sent to: Chief, Rules and Directives
Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration,
Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001.
Comments may be hand-delivered to the NRC at 11545 Rockville Pike,
Room T-6D59, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on
Federal workdays. Electronic comments may be submitted to the NRC by e-
mail at MillstoneEIS@nrc.gov. All comments received by the Commission,
including those made by Federal, state, local agencies, Native American
Tribes, or other interested persons, will be made available
electronically at the Commission's PDR in Rockville, Maryland, and from
the PARS component of ADAMS.
The NRC staff will hold a public meeting to present an overview of
the draft plant-specific supplement to the GEIS and to accept public
comments on the document. The public meeting will be held on January
11, 2005, at the Waterford Town Hall Auditorium, 15 Rope Ferry Road,
Waterford, Connecticut. There will be two sessions to accommodate
interested parties. The first session will commence at 1:30 p.m. and
will continue until 4:30 p.m. The second session will commence at 7
p.m. and will continue until 10 p.m. Both meetings will be transcribed
and will include: (1) A presentation of the contents of the draft
plant-specific supplement to the GEIS, and (2) the opportunity for
interested government agencies, organizations, and individuals to
provide comments on the draft report. Additionally, the NRC staff will
host informal discussions one hour prior to the start of each session
at the same location. No comments on the draft supplement to the GEIS
will be accepted during the informal discussions. To be considered,
comments must be provided either at the transcribed public meeting or
in writing, as discussed below. Persons may pre-register to attend or
present oral comments at the meeting by contacting Mr. Richard L. Emch,
Jr., by telephone at 1-800-368-5642, extension 1590, or by e-mail at
MillstoneEIS@nrc.gov no later than January 6, 2005. Members of the
public may also register to provide oral comments within 15 minutes of
the start of each session. Individual, oral comments may be limited by
the time available, depending on the number of persons who register. If
special equipment or accommodations are needed to attend or present
information at the public meeting, the need should be brought to Mr.
Emch's attention no later than January 6, 2005, to provide the NRC
staff adequate notice to determine whether the request can be accommodated.
For Further Information Contact: Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr., License
Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory
Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Mr. Emch may
be contacted at the aforementioned telephone number or e-mail address.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of December, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pao-Tsin Kuo,
Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program,
Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-27007 Filed 12-8-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
------------------------------------------
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28 NRC: NRC Assigns New Resident Inspector to Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
News Release - Region IV - 2004-04
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region IV
No. IV-04-046 December 9, 2004
CONTACT: Victor Dricks
Phone: 817-860-8128
E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has assigned Pablo
Benvenuto as resident inspector at Palo Verde, a nuclear power
plant near Phoenix, Az.
Pablo Benvenutos training and commitment to safety will aid
the NRC in oversight of the licensee as part of our assurance
that Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station operates in a manner
so as to protect public health and safety, said NRC Region IV
Administrator Bruce S. Mallet.
Benvenuto joins Nancy Salgado, Greg Warnick and Jim Melfi, the
current resident inspectors at the plant. He will fill an
anticipated vacancy that will occur next spring, when Salgado
transfers to the NRCs Region IV office in Arlington, Tx., and
Warnick replaces her as senior resident.
Benvenuto graduated from Brigham Young University with a
Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering in 1999. He
then joined the U.S. Navy and taught at the Naval Nuclear Power
School in Charleston, S.C. Benvenuto also received a Master of
Business Administration from the University of South Carolina
and is currently finishing a Master of Nuclear Engineering from
the University of Tennessee.
In October 2003, Benvenuto joined the NRC at the Region IV
office as a reactor engineer. In July, he was assigned to
Projects Branch B as a project engineer. Benvenuto and his wife
have three children and will reside in Goodyear, Az.
Each of the countrys commercial nuclear plants has resident
inspectors who serve as the agencys eyes and ears at the
facility, conducting regular inspections, monitoring significant
work projects and interacting with plant workers and the public.
The resident inspectors at Palo Verde can be reached at (623)
386-3638.
Last revised Thursday, December 09, 2004
*****************************************************************
29 Brattleboro Reformer: Coalition seeking additional fines for VY permit violation
December 09, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
By CAROLYN LORIÉ
Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- The Public Service Board fined Entergy Nuclear
Vermont Yankee $85,000 for starting work on a temporary building
in 2003 without the necessary permits.
The company has chosen not to contest the fine, but the New
England Coalition has.
The nuclear watchdog group filed a motion with the board
requesting that the scope and the amount of the sanction be
expanded.
The building in the case was meant to house the turbine while it
was worked on during the spring refueling outage.
According to Raymond Shadis, technical advisor to the coalition,
Entergy made the request to construct the building while
discovery for the company's uprate request was well under way.
The company requested an expedited decision, as work on the
project had to start before the ground froze. A letter with the
request was submitted in early November.
The board decided to treat the request as an amendment to the
original uprate application, so the coalition switched gears and
focused instead on opposing the amendment.
After several weeks of working on the issue, Entergy officials
notified the board that it could wait until February for
approval.
When the board announced that it would be doing a site visit to
the plant in December, Entergy attorneys informed the board by
letter that work on the project had inadvertently started.
Because of this, the company was fined $85,000, but Shadis said
the Entergy attorneys should also be sanctioned, as they misled
the board.
In its motion, the coalition also sought reimbursement from
Entergy.
"We would like reimbursement for the cost of involving ourselves
in this spurious filing," said Shadis.
Funds collected from Entergy will go into the state's general
fund.
Last year, the board fined Entergy $50,000 for withholding
information during discovery, which was awarded to the coalition.
Entergy officials say they have received the motion, but have
not yet decided how to respond.
Ultimately, the building was never constructed. Entergy used an
empty warehouse in Brattleboro instead.
In other Vermont Yankee related news, the Vermont Sustainable
Energy Coalition asked the Department of Public Service to
reschedule a meeting to review the state's proposed energy plan.
That meeting is scheduled for Dec. 16, which is also the night
that the Vermont State Nuclear Advisory Panel will have the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission present its report on the
engineering inspection at Vermont Yankee, as well as the report
on the missing fuel.
The VSNAP meeting was originally scheduled for November but was
cancelled due to concerns that more people than could safely fit
in the Vernon Elementary School would attend. The NRC intended to
hold closed meetings, but relented after a strong public outcry
and admonition from Vermont's Congressional delegation.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc., a
*****************************************************************
30 APP.COM: Nuclear plant sirens defended
ASBURY PARK PRESS
Published in the Asbury Park Press
12/09/04
By NICHOLAS CLUNN MANAHAWKIN BUREAU
An assemblyman's suggestion to remove the emergency sirens
around the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant and replace them with
a telephone alert system to warn residents of an emergency at the
reactor would be a mistake, according to a county emergency
management official.
Wayne Rupert, a deputy emergency management coordinator for
Ocean County, said it would make sense for authorities to use a
reverse 911 system during minor emergencies, such as if drinking
water became contaminated or a violent storm was approaching, but
that system would not sufficiently protect the public from a
radioactive release at the Lacey reactor.
But Assemblyman Robert M. Gordon, D-Bergen, a former emergency
management consultant to New Jersey towns, maintained yesterday
his belief that plant owner AmerGen should seriously consider
using the so-called reverse 911, an automated telephone system
used by law enforcement to disseminate urgent public safety
information.
Recent improvements to reverse 911 have increased the number of
calls that authorities can make using the system, Gordon said.
In addition, only some residents near the reactor would need to
be alerted to a radiological release since plumes travel with
the wind, reducing the necessary number of immediate calls, he
said.
But Rupert said speed is his main concern with using reverse
911 during a plant emergency. The reverse 911 system in Stafford
would take nine hours to reach the town's entire population of
24,000, according to township figures.
During a special public hearing about Oyster Creek last week,
Gordon said he was aghast that AmerGen relied on sirens, which
he later described as "Cold War-era technology."
The remarks by Gordon about how authorities would disseminate
instructions to residents living within 10 miles of the
country's oldest commercial reactor was a concern that has
garnered little attention during recent discussions about the
facility's future.
An AmerGen plan to extend Oyster Creek's operations by seeking
a 20-year license renewal from the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has ignited a passionate debate about whether the
plant is safe enough to run after its current license expires in
2009.
In case of an accident at Oyster Creek requiring public
notification, New Jersey State Police would activate 42 sirens
within a 10-mile radius of the reactor, an area emergency
planners call the "emergency preparedness zone."
The sirens are meant to alert people to find broadcast outlets
that carry instructions, which could direct them to evacuate or
find shelter.
There are about 125,000 year-round residents in the radius.
During the summer, there are about 188,000, according to the
State Police Office of Emergency Management.
Reverse 911, Gordon said, could more effectively tell the
public how to react to an emergency. With a few computer key
stokes, authorities could send different prerecorded messages to
different sections within the emergency zone, he said. Post-call
reports detailing which numbers did not receive messages would
enable police to pinpoint homes that need instructions delivered
in person.
"You can't convey any type of information through a siren,"
Gordon said.
Most of the nation's 103 commercial reactors have siren systems
in place to alert residents, said Thelma Wiggins, a spokeswoman
at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry advocacy group
based in Washington, D.C. Industry officials believe sirens
could accomplish their purpose and there are no plans to abolish
the system for another, she said.
Authorities in the United States have not had to activate a
public alert system due to a reactor accident.
Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or nclunn@app.com
*****************************************************************
31 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meetings Regarding Draft Environmental Report for Millstone
Nuclear Plant License Renewal Application
News Release - Region I - 2004-05
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region I
No. I-04-055 December 9, 2004
CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330
Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov
Members of the public will have an opportunity on Tuesday, Jan.
11, 2005, to comment on a draft report that assesses the
environmental impact of extending the operating license for the
Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3 in Waterford, Conn. In
January 2004, Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., submitted an
application to renew the licenses for an additional 20 years.
The NRC will hold two meetings on Jan. 11 to accept comments,
with one session scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. and another at
7 p.m. Both meetings, which are scheduled to last up to three
hours each, will take place at the Waterford Town Hall, at 15
Rope Ferry Road in Waterford. NRC staff will be available for an
hour prior to the start of each meeting for informal discussions
of the report.
Interested parties may pre-register to attend or present oral
comments at the meetings by contacting Richard L. Emch, Jr., of
the NRC at 800/368-5642, ext. 1590, or by sending an e-mail to
MillstoneEIS@nrc.govno later than Jan. 6, 2005. Members of the
public may also register 15 minutes before each session to
provide oral comments. The duration of individual comments may
be limited by the time available, depending on the number of
persons who register. Written comments on the draft report will
also be considered by the NRC staff. Comments can be submitted
by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of
Administrative Services, Mail Stop T-6 D59, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001. They can
also be submitted electronically to MillstoneEIS@nrc.gov. The
public comment period ends on March 2.
Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a
nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be
renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are
met. The current operating license for Millstone 2 is due to
expire on July 31, 2015, while the current operating license for
Millstone 3 is scheduled to terminate on Nov. 25, 2025. (The
Millstone Unit 1 reactor has been permanently shut down since
July 1998.)
Dominion Nuclear submitted its license renewal application for
the plant in January. As part of its application, the company
submitted an environmental report. The NRC staff reviewed the
report and performed an on-site audit. The staff also considered
comments made during the environmental scoping process,
including comments offered at public meetings held May 18, 2004
in Waterford.
Based on its review, the NRC staff has preliminarily recommended
that the Commission determine the adverse environmental impacts
of license renewal for the Millstone plant are not so great that
preserving the option of license renewal for energy planning
decision-makers would be unreasonable.
When issued in its final form, the statement will be a
Millstone-specific supplement to the Generic Environmental
Impact Statement (GEIS) for License Renewal of Nuclear Plants,
(NUREG-1437).
The draft report can be viewed electronically via the NRCs web
site at:
www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/nuregs/staff/sr1437/supple
ment22/index.html. Copies of the report can also be reviewed at
the Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Md., 1-800-397-4209, and at the
following locations: Waterford Public Library, 49 Rope Ferry
Road, Waterford; or Three Rivers Community College, Thames River
Campus Library, 574 New London Turnpike, Norwich, Conn.
###
Last revised Thursday, December 09, 2004
*****************************************************************
32 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Coast to be opened in Diablo deal
| 12/09/2004 |
Coastal Commission grants public access in exchange for allowing
PG&E to build a radioactive waste storage complex
Nathan Welton
The Tribune
The public will gain access to three miles of coastline north of
the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant within the next two years,
the state Coastal Commission decided Wednesday.
The access was granted in a unanimous vote in exchange for
allowing Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to build a new,
above-ground radioactive waste storage complex on the plant's
grounds. It was the last regulatory hurdle the company needed to
clear; its plans have already been approved by the federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"From our perspective, the important thing was that we got a
unanimous approval to go ahead and start this project," said
PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis, noting that he expected construction
to begin in April.
His company wanted to build the complex but didn't want to give
the public coastal access because of security and safety
concerns. But neither PG&E, nor San Luis Obispo Mothers for
Peace -- a nonprofit group opposed to the facility -- intend to
fight the commission's decision with a lawsuit.
The complex will consist of up to 138 steel and concrete storage
casks, all mounted on a number of concrete pads. Each cask will
hold spent reactor fuel rods, which are highly radioactive.
Because officials believe the storage facility -- and the waste
it houses -- will likely cause nearby lands to be off-limits to
the public for years to come, the power company is legally
required to compensate the public in new coastal access.
As a result, people will be able to visit the bluffs from
Montańa de Oro State Park to Crowbar Creek, as well as at least
one beach, probably at Point Buchon, along that stretch.
They'll also have increased hiking access on the Pecho Coast
Trail, which is currently on the power plant's property. What's
more, commissioners approved improvements to the Port San Luis
Lighthouse and added an outreach program that would teach
schoolchildren about the environmental conditions in the
vicinity.
The utility company has six months to detail the public access
plan and two years to implement it.
Third District county supervisor-elect Jerry Lenthall was also
at the hearing in San Francisco, testifying, he said, as a
concerned citizen and fulfilling what he called a promise to his
district to be a public safety watchdog.
"At a time we're spending millions of dollars to harden our
facilities and ensure our safety from terrorism and general
intrusion," he told commissioners, "(the public access
requirement) just doesn't make any sense to me."
Environmental groups, including Mothers for Peace and the Sierra
Club's Santa Lucia chapter, were opposed to the storage facility
for safety reasons, worrying it could become a permanent waste
repository if Nevada's Yucca Mountain never opens.
That project is slated to become the nation's main nuclear waste
storehouse.
Mothers for Peace spokeswoman Rochelle Becker said she was
disappointed that the commission staff did not try to limit the
number of spent fuel rods that could be stored at the site --
something other states, such as Connecticut and Minnesota, have
fought for.
She noted that her organization's expert geologists disagreed
with the state's over the type, severity and location of
earthquakes that could happen on the site.
"They made an irresponsible decision," she said, "and they based
it on inadequate information."
Coastal Commission executive director Peter Douglas, however,
said the federal government has jurisdiction over the state
regarding safety concerns on the plant.
Nathan Welton covers county and health-care issues for The
Tribune. Reach him at 781-7858.
*****************************************************************
33 NIRS: Citizen Groups Blast AEP Request for 20 More Years at Cook Nuclear Plant
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 8, 2004
CONTACT Gary Karch, Don't Waste Michigan 269-684-3859 Michael
Keegan, Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes 734-735-6373
Kevin Kamps, NIRS 202-328-0002 Grant Smith, CACI 317-205-3535
Bridgman, MI, coalition of grassroots environmental and public
interest organizations in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio,
as well as a national watchdog on the nuclear power industry,
have challenged American Electric Power's (AEP) bid to the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for 20 year license
extensions at its twin reactor Cook Nuclear Plant on the
southeastern shore of Lake Michigan. The coalition identified
weaknesses in Cook's radiation containment building, risky
reactor cooling procedures, the large amount of additional
high-level radioactive waste that would be generated, and Cook's
vulnerability to terrorist attack as overriding reasons NRC
should reject AEP's application as part of a "Generic
Environmental Impact Statement" public comment period ending
today.
In late 2000, after Cook's three-year forced shutdown due to
major safety concerns, veteran NRC structural engineer Dr. Ross
Landsman expressed concern that his agency was allowing the two
reactors to restart without adequate containment. Landsman filed
an official "Differing Professional Opinion" and "Differing
Professional View" concerning a severely degraded section of the
Cook containment structure missing adequate concrete and steel
reinforcement beam that could dangerously decrease its ability
to contain a worst-case accident.
"We fear that no substantial repairs to this 'soft spot' have
ever been done," said Don't Waste Michigan spokesman Gary Karch
of Niles, Michigan. "AEP simply grouted the deep hole in
containment instead of using concrete and rebar, risking a
breach of containment and release of radioactivity in a serious
accident."
NRC has lowered Cook Unit 2's safety rating a notch due to AEP's
departure from standard industry operating procedure in order to
prevent its reactor core temperature from DROPping too quickly
during shutdowns. NRC limits the temperature DROP to 100 degrees
Fahrenheit per hour to avoid thermal shock to the reactor core
metal. But Cook can only meet this standard by turning off its
main condenser, the primary cooling mechanism. AEP instead
relies on auxiliary feedwater pumps, a backup safety system, to
cool the Unit 2 reactor more slowly. The cause for the rapid
temperature DROP is not known.
"Cook is the only nuclear reactor in the entire country that
takes this convoluted short cut on safety," said Michael Keegan
of Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes in Monroe, Michigan.
"It's like using your car's emergency brake at stop signs and
red lights because your brakes don't work. The more you use it,
the greater the risk that it won't work one day."
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, Cook had 1,068
tons of highly radioactive waste stored on-site at the end of
2002. The U.S. Department of Energy has reported that by 2011,
enough commercial irradiated nuclear fuel will exist at reactors
in the U.S. to completely fill the proposed national repository
at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.
"Even if the geologically unsuitable Yucca dump were to open and
fill to capacity, a twenty year license extension would mean
that Cook would be stuck with over 1,000 tons of irradiated
nuclear fuel excess to Yucca's capacity with noWHERE to go,"
said Grant Smith, Executive Director of Citizens Action
Coalition of Indiana (CACI). "Given AEP's poor safety record at
Cook, it would be better to close the plant and have NRC, with
close public scrutiny, oversee the securing of waste storage to
protect against accident and terrorist attack." CACI, as part of
a coalition of environmental groups, won a July 2004 ruling from
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to protect
public health downstream of the proposed Yucca Mountain dump
against radioactive contamination in the groundwater out to the
period of peak dose. "Not only do we all live downwind from
these radiation factories," said Terry Lodge, chair of the
Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy, "but we also live downstream
of any nuclear disaster in the upper Great Lakes."
The full comments sent to NRC are available on request. Contact
Kevin Kamps at NIRS to receive a copy: 202.328.0002 ext. 14,
cell 240.462.3216. -30-
Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana * Citizens for Alternatives
to Chemical Contamination * Citizens Resistance at Fermi Two *
Clean Water Action of Michigan * Coalition for a Nuclear-Free
Great Lakes * Don't Waste Michigan * Nuclear Energy Information
Service * Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) * Ohio
Citizen Action * Toledo Safe Energy Coalition * West Michigan
Environmental Action Council
*****************************************************************
34 NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with TVA to Discuss Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant License Renewal
Inspection
News Release - Region II - 2004-05
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region II
No. II-04-057 December 9, 2004
CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov
Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials have scheduled a meeting
with Tennessee Valley Authority management at 10:00 a.m. (CST)
on Friday, Dec. 17, at the plant site in Athens, Ala., to
discuss the results of the agencys inspection of the Browns
Ferry nuclear plants license renewal program.
The meeting will be held in Room 201 of the Browns Ferry Nuclear
Site Training Center Auditorium, located at Shaw Road and
Nuclear Plant Road in Athens. It will be open to public
observation, and NRC officials will be available prior to the
close of the meeting to answer questions from interested
observers. A report on the inspection will be issued
approximately 45 days after the meeting and will be available to
the public.
The inspection, which began Nov. 29th and runs until Dec. 17th,
is conducted to verify that programs are in place to manage the
material condition of the plants systems, structures and
components during the 20 additional years of operation should
the NRC approve the license renewal application.
TVA submitted an application to renew the licenses for the three
units at the Browns Ferry plant license in January of this year,
and that application, if approved by the NRC, would extend the
expiration date of the operating license for Unit 1 from 2013 to
2033, for Unit 2 from 2014 to 2034 and for Unit 3 from 2016 to
2036.
Last revised Thursday, December 09, 2004
*****************************************************************
35 Haaretz: Is Dimona's reactor suffering from old age?
December 10, 2004 Kislev 27, 5765 Israel Time: 01:48 (GMT+2)
Among the complaints against Israel concerning the nuclear issue
is the claim that the nuclear reactor in Dimona poses a serious
safety threat to its surroundings due to its very advanced age.
Our neighbors Egypt and Jordan have also voiced such contentions.
Others argue that because Israel is not a signatory to the
international Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it cannot receive
assistance from other countries in renovating the reactor in
Dimona.
All of these contentions are erroneous. First, the reactor in
Dimona has already undergone various fundamental renovations,
and more than just once or twice. Second, it is not true that
Israel was rejected when approaching other countries for
assistance in revamping the reactor. Third, it is not true that
safety-related assistance for reactors is not extended to
countries that are not signatories to the NPT.
The director general of the Atomic Energy Commission in Israel,
Gideon Frank, explained in response to these questions: "Israel
does not need assistance from abroad. It can renovate the
reactor in Dimona by itself. We have all the necessary know-how,
including the engineering, technological and other information.
There is no need to approach others." The fact that Israel, for
many years, has been a member of the committee of experts on
reactor security of the International Atomic Energy Agency
testifies to Israel's level of knowledge in this area.
According to Frank: "There is practical significance to the age
of a nuclear reactor that has undergone the required
improvements and whose systems have been replaced by more modern
ones." Israel's commission is so self-confident on this issue
that it declared on its Web site during a recent discussion of
reactor safety: "We are even stricter than others!"
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission used to grant licenses to
operate reactors for 40 years. In recent years, this has changed
and the operating licenses have been extended, after examining
the reactor, to 60 years. Of 104 American reactors, 86 will
receive such extensions, as well as approval for increasing
their output. One of the reactors, which is located in a
populated area in Gettysburg, Maryland, is now more than 40
years old. In the U.S., these reactors are usually used to
generate power. The potential danger in power-generating
reactors, due to pressure and high temperatures, is much higher
than in research reactors, like the one in Dimona, which operate
at temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees Celsius.
In comparison to Israel, which independently oversees the safety
of its Dimona reactor, there are two other examples of how
relations have been handled with two countries, India and
Pakistan, which are not signatories to the NPT and which have
also conducted nuclear tests. Canada, which sold reactors to
India and Pakistan, felt it had been deceived when both
countries violated their agreements with Canada. In 1974, Canada
cut off its nuclear relations with India and in 1979 did the
same with Pakistan. Following the accident at the Chernobyl
reactor, Canada was ready to resume nuclear relations in the
area of safety with these two countries. Pakistan accepted the
offer and India, surprisingly, rejected it.
On the other hand, India reached agreement with Washington on
the issue of nuclear safety. Nuclear relations between the two
countries had also been cut off after a nuclear test conducted
by India in 1998. But in 2002, President Bush announced the
resumption of nuclear ties with India in the realm of safety.
Washington had been ready to add two new areas to the
discussions with India. Thus, the subject of nuclear safety is
not always linked to diplomatic issues.
© Copyright Haaretz. All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
36 NRC: NRC Approves Evaluation Method for Analyzing Reactor Containment Sump Performance
News Release - 2004-15
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 04-157 December 9, 2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved an
evaluation method for all operators of pressurized-water
reactors (PWR) to use in analyzing containment sumps, part of a
safety-related water recirculation system in nuclear power
plants.
Operating experience at boiling water reactors (the other type
of commercial U.S. nuclear power plant), as well as recent
research, has indicated debris from certain pipe-break accidents
inside a containment building could potentially block PWR sumps
beyond what the original design could accommodate. NRC staff
have concluded this issue is not an immediate safety concern,
but the potential for greater sump blockage warrants
plant-specific analyses to determine what actions, if any, are
needed.
Individual plants can now use this analysis method to
definitively determine how their sumps would perform under
accident conditions, said Suzanne Black, Director of the
Division of Systems Safety and Analysis in the NRCs Office of
Nuclear Reactor Regulation. The plants will use the results to
identify any modifications needed to ensure their core-cooling
systems operate properly.
The NRC asked for the evaluations Sept. 14 through a Generic
Letter, one of several methods the NRC has for communicating
with the nuclear industry. PWR operators now have until March 7,
2005, to: -- Describe the method to be used in evaluating the
long-term core-cooling systems, as well as the anticipated
completion date for the evaluation, and;
-- Describe how the interior of each PWR containment building
will be examined during the evaluation, as well as the
anticipated completion date for the examination, or justify why
no such examination is needed;
By Sept. 1, 2005, PWR operators must: -- Confirm that the
Emergency Core Cooling System and Containment Spray System
comply with NRC regulations, or will do so, including a
description of the plants configuration once all modifications
are finished, and;
-- Provide a schedule for all corrective actions to be taken,
starting no later than April 1, 2006, and finishing by Dec. 31,
2007.
The evaluation methodology is available on the NRC web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/ops-experience/pwr-sump-per
formance.html. The Web page also outlines NRC staff activities
on the PWR containment sump issue. Help in obtaining NRC
documents is available from the NRCs Public Document Room at
800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737.
Last revised Thursday, December 09, 2004
*****************************************************************
37 ePolitix.com: Peers slam nuclear decommissioning strategy
[Westminster]
Peers are calling on ministers to stop wasting valuable time
Peers have slammed the government over its decision to start
afresh in considering how best to dispose of radioactive waste.
The House of Lords science and technology select committee hit
out at the government's "slow progress in developing a coherent
radioactive waste management policy".
The committee said it is "astonished" that, without consulting
its own scientific experts, the government instructed a new
advisory body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
(CoRWM), to start from "a blank sheet of paper".
The peers insist there is overwhelming international scientific
consensus that underground disposal or storage is a safe
long-term solution.
Committee chairman Lord Oxburgh said: "In 1976 the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution emphasised the urgent need
to find a long-term solution to storing radioactive waste.
"In March 1999 and again in November 2001 this committee argued
the case for rapid action, but still no firm progress has been
made, even though the events of 9/11 raise questions of the
vulnerability of existing storage facilities."
"We are dismayed by the government's lack of urgency. The UK has
generated radioactive waste for more than half a century and
still hasn't decided how to deal with it," he added.
"Ministers seem to be using perpetual consultation exercises to
put off making the crucial decisions."
The committee said the government "should stop wasting time
considering options" that have been discarded by the rest of the
international community.
"Instead it should focus on the variants of underground storage
or disposal," the report adds.
The committee goes on to conclude that the CoRWM lacks "the
relevant scientific and technical expertise" to assess the
various options for radioactive waste management.
Responding to the report, environment minister Elliot Morley
said the committee was failing to examine the whole picture.
"There is a danger the select committee is ignoring the mistakes
of the past, when there were narrowly based scientific
committees and inadequate consultation," he said.
"This led to the failure of the Nirex public inquiry on deep
disposal at a cost of millions and years of delay.
"Much has been achieved since the select committee's report of
1999.
"I felt it was important to take people's views on how best to
arrive at decisions on the long term management of radioactive
waste, in a manner that could command wide support."
Published: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 00:01:00 GMT+00
Author: Craig Hoy "We are dismayed by the government's lack of
urgency. The UK has generated radioactive waste for more than
half a century and still hasn't decided how to deal with it"
Peers on the science committee
©2004 ePolitix.com
*****************************************************************
38 toledoblade.com: Davis-Besse plans test of siren system
Article published Thursday, December 9, 2004
PORT CLINTON - The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station plans to
sound 54 warning sirens next week as part of a biennial test of
the emergency notification system around the plant.
Each unit will be activated for about 30 seconds, and a
Davis-Besse technician will measure the siren's peak volume.
James Greer, director of the Ottawa County Emergency Management
Agency, said the sirens will be tested individually between 9
a.m. and 4 p.m., beginning Monday if weather permits. He said the
tests likely would last through Dec. 17.
The sirens are positioned within a 10-mile radius of Davis-Besse,
stretching from Jerusalem Township to Port Clinton.
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
39 NRC: Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., Millstone Power Station,
FR Doc 04-27007
[Federal Register: December 9, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 236)]
[Notices] [Page 71437-71438] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09de04-86]
Units 2 and 3; Notice of Availability of the Draft Supplement 22
to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement and Public Meeting
for the License Renewal of Millstone Power Station, Units 2 and 3
Notice is hereby given that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC, the Commission) has published a draft
plant-specific supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact
Statement (GEIS), NUREG-1437, regarding the renewal of operating
licenses DPR-65 and NPF-49 for the Millstone Power Station (MPS)
Units 2 and 3, for an additional 20 years of operation. MPS is
located in Waterford, Connecticut, on Millstone Point between the
Niantic and Thames Rivers, approximately 40 miles to the
southeast of Hartford, Connecticut. Possible alternatives to the
proposed action (license renewal) include no action and
reasonable alternative energy sources.
The draft Supplement to the GEIS is available for public
inspection in the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) located at One
White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland
20852, or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS) component of
NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS).
ADAMS is accessible from the NRC Web site at . (Note: Public
access to ADAMS has been temporarily suspended so that security
reviews of publically available documents may be performed and
potentially sensitive
[[Page 71438]] information removed. Please check the NRC Web site
for updates on the resumption of ADAMS access.) Persons who do
not have access to ADAMS, or who encounter problems in accessing
the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the PDR reference
staff at 1-800-397-4209, (301) 415- 4737, or by e-mail to . In
addition, the Waterford Public Library, 49 Rope Ferry Road,
Waterford, Connecticut, and the Thames River Campus Library, 574
New London Turnpike, Norwich, Connecticut, have agreed to make
the draft supplement to the GEIS available for public inspection.
Any interested party may submit comments on the draft supplement
to the GEIS for consideration by the NRC staff. To be certain of
consideration, comments on the draft supplement to the GEIS and
the proposed action must be received by March 2, 2005. Comments
received after the due date will be considered if it is practical
to do so, but the NRC staff is able to assure consideration only
for comments received on or before this date. Written comments on
the draft supplement to the GEIS should be sent to: Chief, Rules
and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services,
Office of Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Comments may be hand-delivered to the NRC at 11545 Rockville
Pike, Room T-6D59, Rockville, Maryland, between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays. Electronic comments may be
submitted to the NRC by e- mail at . All comments received by the
Commission, including those made by Federal, state, local
agencies, Native American Tribes, or other interested persons,
will be made available electronically at the Commission's PDR in
Rockville, Maryland, and from the PARS component of ADAMS.
The NRC staff will hold a public meeting to present an overview
of the draft plant-specific supplement to the GEIS and to accept
public comments on the document. The public meeting will be held
on January 11, 2005, at the Waterford Town Hall Auditorium, 15
Rope Ferry Road, Waterford, Connecticut. There will be two
sessions to accommodate interested parties. The first session
will commence at 1:30 p.m. and will continue until 4:30 p.m. The
second session will commence at 7 p.m. and will continue until 10
p.m. Both meetings will be transcribed and will include: (1) A
presentation of the contents of the draft plant-specific
supplement to the GEIS, and (2) the opportunity for interested
government agencies, organizations, and individuals to provide
comments on the draft report. Additionally, the NRC staff will
host informal discussions one hour prior to the start of each
session at the same location. No comments on the draft supplement
to the GEIS will be accepted during the informal discussions. To
be considered, comments must be provided either at the
transcribed public meeting or in writing, as discussed below.
Persons may pre-register to attend or present oral comments at
the meeting by contacting Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr., by telephone
at 1-800-368-5642, extension 1590, or by e-mail at no later than
January 6, 2005. Members of the public may also register to
provide oral comments within 15 minutes of the start of each
session. Individual, oral comments may be limited by the time
available, depending on the number of persons who register. If
special equipment or accommodations are needed to attend or
present information at the public meeting, the need should be
brought to Mr. Emch's attention no later than January 6, 2005, to
provide the NRC staff adequate notice to determine whether the
request can be accommodated.
For Further Information Contact: Mr. Richard L. Emch, Jr.,
License Renewal and Environmental Impacts Program, Division of
Regulatory Improvement Programs, Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001. Mr. Emch may be contacted at the aforementioned
telephone number or e-mail address.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 3rd day of December, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental
Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs,
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 04-27007 Filed 12-8-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
40 Daily Press: Fuel storage permit renewal likely
HAMPTON ROADS, VA.
The commission apparently has confidence in the Surry Power
Station to store spent rods safely.
BY CHRIS FLORES 247-4738
Published December 9, 2004
Surry Power Station likely will become the first nuclear
plant in the country to get its license extended for storing
spent nuclear fuel on-site in large steel cylinders.
Surry was the first U.S. plant to get approved by the federal
Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a 20-year license to use dry
cask storage in July 1986. Surry and other plants also use pools
to store and cool their waste, which is long, radioactive fuel
rods.
The NRC gave preliminary approval last week to renew the license
to store nuclear waste for another 40 years rather than the
current maximum of 20 years. The regulator is considering
permanently changing its rules to 40 years - reflecting the
problems with delays in opening the permanent Yucca Mountain
repository and the NRC's faith in the storage units.
"It was really the confidence in the casks," said Dave McIntyre,
spokesman for the NRC. "The 20-year period established by the
NRC was arbitrary."
The NRC noted that when it first started giving 20-year
licenses, the government expected Yucca to open in 1998. Yucca
now is projected to open around 2010 and will take deliveries of
waste through 2048. The allocated space in Yucca is only enough
to dispose of the amount of waste that will exist at the
nation's 103 reactors when the repository opens in 2011. But
much more waste will continue to be generated at the Virginia
reactors and others nationwide beyond 2011.
Both of Virginia's Dominion Resources-owned nuclear sites, Surry
and North Anna in Mineral, already have licenses to run an extra
20 years. The Surry reactors will run until 2033, which is 13
years before the storage license will expire.
It made sense to extend the storage license beyond the life of
the reactors to give time for the last rods to cool for five
years and then get shipped to Yucca, said Dominion spokesman
Rick Zuercher.
"The issues don't change from 20 years to 40 years in terms of
safety," he said.
NRC officials now will negotiate inspection and maintenance
requirements of the storage area. Surry's extension, which will
allow Dominion to use its dry casks until 2046, will be
permanent once the NRC issues the final license with the
inspection conditions.
The pending approval comes only a month and a half after an
environmental group calculated that, based on current license
renewals at nuclear plants, Virginia will have the second most
leftover waste in the nation at its two sites after Yucca is
full.
Some environmental and anti-nuclear groups challenge the safety
of the outdoor storage. The activists have criticized the
government and industry for failing to find adequate space for a
permanent home for all the waste that is being created daily.
Copyright ©2004 The Daily Press
*****************************************************************
41 Indian Express: 'Tarapur has enough uranium fuel for 2 years'
Friday, December 10, 2004
On Russia’s statement that it can’t provide uranium , Jain said
they have enough fuel for the two reactors
Posted online: Friday, December 10, 2004 at 0231
The 30-year-old units of light water Tarapur Atomic Power Plant —
units 1 and 2 — have enough fuel (low enriched uranium) for the
next two years, said S.K. jain, the chairman and MD of Nuclear
Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).
Reacting to a statement by Russia’s inability to provide low
enriched uranium (LEU), Jain said: ‘‘We do not foresee any
trouble as far as the fuel supply for the two reactors are
concerned.’’
Russia also indicated yesterday that it was ready to give any
civilian nuclear technology and fuel to reactors in India
provided it holds direct talks with the other key members of the
supplier’s group.
TAPS units 1 and 2 are running under 100 per cent capacity at
present, Jain said, adding that India had foreseen such
difficulties earlier and was prepared with mixed oxide (MOx)
fuel for the plant and a number of fuel bundles were already
loaded and tested. ‘‘Since we will be using MOx fuel for the
country’s future fast breeder reactors ina big way, we do not
foresee any problem with the fuel requirement for the light
water reactors of Tarapur,’’ he said.
‘‘We are in the process of modernisation of taps 1 and 2 and the
designs have been approved by AERB and would be able to service
for at least another 15 years,’’ he added.
© 2004: Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
*****************************************************************
42 LA Times: Stanford Lecturer Is Elected to Head State Coastal Commission
[Los Angeles Times - latimes.com]
December 9, 2004
+ Meg Caldwell, one of four appointed to the panel by the
governor, wins unanimous support from colleagues to serve as
chairwoman.
By Kenneth R. Weiss, Times Staff Writer
Stanford Law School lecturer Meg Caldwell was unanimously elected
chairwoman of the California Coastal Commission on Wednesday by
her fellow commissioners, strengthening Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger's potential influence over the highly independent
political body.
Soon after Caldwell took the gavel, the commission approved a
new storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the Diablo Canyon
power plant, near San Luis Obispo, in exchange for Pacific Gas
and Electric Co.'s agreement to open to the public more than
three miles of coastal trails just north of the nuclear plant's
security zone.
Caldwell was one of four people appointed earlier this year by
Schwarzenegger to the 12-member commission. The other eight are
appointed by the Assembly speaker and Senate Rules Committee a
three-way split intended to shield the commission from political
pressure as it decides on development projects along the state's
1,100-mile coastline.
"The governor has an incredible strong ocean- and
coastal-protection vision," Caldwell said in an interview
Wednesday after her election. "It's completely compatible with
the Coastal Act. I view the obligation of a coastal commissioner
and his vision as synergistic."
Caldwell, 44, director of Stanford's Environmental and Natural
Resources Law & Policy Program for the past decade, is a
university lecturer and an expert in land-use policies to manage
growth.
As chairwoman of the commission, Caldwell will hold a seat on
the state Coastal Conservancy, a sister agency to the commission
that doles out millions of dollars a year to preserve the coast
and public access.
The vote came shortly after two commissioners were sworn into
office: Dr. Dan Secord, a Santa Barbara city councilman, and Mary
K. Shallenberger, a longtime environmental staff member of former
Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco).
Under rules adopted by the Legislature last year to shield the
commission from politicking, Shallenberger will serve a four-year
term. That means her tenure will long outlast that of Burton, who
must leave office this month due to term limits.
Secord, a physician, was appointed by Schwarzenegger and can be
removed by the governor at any time.
The commission, initially established by voters in 1972 and then
by the Legislature's passage of the Coastal Act in 1974, has
bedeviled previous California governors, who have tried to
control the powerful body as it ruled on proposed developments of
well-connected individuals and federal projects, and even weighed
in on foreign policies.
On Wednesday, the commission touched briefly on federal nuclear
policy by granting approval to PG&E's proposed facility to store
highly radioactive "spent fuel" from its reactors on the site.
This nuclear waste, like that from other plants, has no place to
go, as plans to create a permanent burial site in Nevada's Yucca
Mountain are mired in controversy.
The commission concluded that the storage facility may outlast
the life of the power plant, and thus block public access to this
stretch of the coast in perpetuity. In exchange for loss of
access, the commission will require PG&E within two years to open
land it owns between the power plant and Montańa de Oro State
Park near Morro Bay. A task force will study how to open a
coastal trail in a safe and ecologically sensitive way.
"This is a signature success story for the commission," said
Mark Massara, the Sierra Club's coastal program manager. He also
was delighted by the election of Caldwell as chairwoman. "Having
her take a higher profile role [on the] commission is only going
to help the governor's pro-coast legacy."
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
*****************************************************************
43 Lompoc Record: Diablo waste storage project appeal denied
By April Charlton - Staff Writer
12/9/04 A controversial plan to store highly toxic spent
radioactive nuclear fuel rods behind Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power
Plant cleared its last regulatory hurdle Wednesday.
The California Coastal Commission, meeting in San Francisco,
unanimously paved the way for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to
construct and operate an above-ground nuclear waste storage
facility at Diablo, located on the coast north of Avila Beach.
"It was an interesting decision," said Rochelle Becker,
spokeswoman for Mothers for Peace, which along with the Santa
Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club, filed an appeal of the San Luis
Obispo County Planning Commission's approval of the project.
The appeal was denied by the county Board of Supervisors and
subsequently filed with the Coastal Commission.
The appeal dealt mainly with safety issues associated with the
project - a potential for terrorist attacks, unknown seismic
risks at the plant and the lack of a permanent storage facility
for spent radioactive fuel anywhere in the United States.
Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada has yet to come online and
the opening of the facility is still uncertain.
Becker said the commission agreed it had conflicting information
from seismic experts but chose to side with PG's experts and
wouldn't hold off making the decision until its next meeting.
"It was just amazing," Becker added.
Highly radioactive spent plutonium fuel rods from the plant will
be stored in 16-foot-tall stainless steel and concrete casks
measuring 8 feet across, which will be on the hillside behind the
plant's twin reactors.
Staff writer April Charlton can be reached at 489-4206, Ext.
5016, or acharlton@pulitzer.net.
The dry-cask, spent-fuel storage project consists of constructing
seven flat 7.5-foot-thick concrete pads that can store up to 140
casks and help extend the life of the plant for at least another
20 years.
PG proposed the dry-cask storage plan because Diablo will be out
of spent fuel storage space by 2006 unless it reracks the plant's
two existing storage pools.
The plant is licensed to operate until 2025, according to PG
spokesman Jeff Lewis.
Officials from PG couldn't be reached for comment on the
decision. But earlier this week, Lewis said the dry-cask storage
facility at Diablo will be temporary until the spent-fuel rods
can be transferred to a permanent storage site.
In addition to approving a coastal development permit for the
project, the commission also followed its staff's recommendation
that PG has to provide more public access to the coastline north
of the plant.
Staff recommended that PG open a three mile-stretch of the coast
north of Diablo because the project will likely result in a
permanent loss of access to the coastline at the plant site
because no permanent nuclear waste disposal site exists.
Tom Luster, Coastal Commission project manager for the Diablo
project, said the commission gave direction to PG to convene a
locally based task force that will take an inventory of the
environmental resources on the three-mile stretch. The task force
will consist of various agencies, nonprofit organizations and
county residents.
But that's no comfort to Becker and her colleagues.
"Our feeling is that, what if people in Nevada decided to tell
the Department of Energy it's OK to build a nuclear waste dump in
our backyard if we're given public access to climb Yucca
Mountain?" she said. "We see it as the same analogy. We've been
given access to a nuclear waste site; lucky us."
PG plans to start construction next year and have the project
ready for implementation by 2007, according to Lewis. The spent
fuel rods would be moved from inside the plant to the storage
casks over a two- to three-year period.
Staff writer April Charlton can be reached at 489-4206, Ext.
5016, or acharlton@pulitzer.net.
The Lompoc Record - Serving the Lompoc and Santa Ynez Valleys
© Copyright 2001 Pulitzer Central Coast Newspapers. All Rights
*****************************************************************
44 Vickbury Post: Claiborne supervisors back 2nd reactor at Grand Gulf
[12/7/04]
PORT GIBSON — Claiborne County supervisors on Monday unanimously
endorsed Entergy Nuclear’s pursuit of approval for a possible
second reactor unit at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.
“From the board of supervisors’ perspective, look at the
economy,” said District 5 Supervisor Charles Shorts, board
president. “Where would Claiborne County be right now if not for
Grand Gulf?”
Supervisors voted unanimously for a six-point resolution that
included comments on nuclear power in general and the plant’s
effect on county tax revenues. Among other things, the document
“acknowledges the $8 million in property taxes paid by Grand Gulf
Nuclear Station to Claiborne County makes it possible for all
Claiborne County residents to enjoy among the lowest auto license
tags and homeowner property taxes in the state of Mississippi and
far below those of citizens of neighboring counties.”
An Entergy Nuclear senior manager of business development, Ken
Hughey, thanked the board for its support.
“This sends a very, very strong message,” he said.
Interviewed after the meeting, supervisors said the decision for
the resolution was made by the board as a group and that the time
was simply right to go on record as a group. Shorts and District
1 Supervisor Allen Burks both work at GGNS.
Supervisor Michael Wells, whose District 2 encompasses Grand
Gulf, said it was important for the board “to show cohesiveness.”
“I think we need to get it done as early as possible,” he said of
the construction of a second reactor.
Entergy has applied for one of two major licenses it would need
to build a second reactor unit at the GGNS site, which has had
one reactor in operation since 1985. The application is with the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is scheduled to decide
on it in October 2006.
If Entergy receives a license, it would have a 20-year option to
apply for the second major license. That process would focus on
construction and operating issues.
Opponents have spoken against Entergy’s application in public
meetings here beginning in spring 2003. Paul Gunter of the
Washington, D.C.-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service
has helped lead the opposition.
NRC staff held a public hearing in January on what environmental
issues the commission should consider in deciding on Entergy’s
application. Attorneys for the main opponents have appealed to
the NRC a decision by a lower panel dismissing arguments that
they should be allowed to appear before the NRC itself before it
decides on the application.
The next NRC meeting in Port Gibson is set for April 22 to
discuss the draft document being developed from the first
meeting.
Opponents have claimed the county, 84.1 percent of whose 11,831
residents counted by the 2000 Census were black, is being
discriminated against financially. Since Grand Gulf began
generating tax revenue the Legislature has cut Claiborne’s share
of it by about half. The remainder was distributed among
governments in 40-plus other counties served by Entergy in
Mississippi.
“It’s a discriminatory tax code,” Gunter said by telephone from
Washington, D.C. “And there is no reason to believe the
discrimination will discontinue with the expansion of the site.”
During Monday’s meeting, Claiborne County Administrator James
Miller suggested the county develop a formal plan to demonstrate
how it would be a good steward of any additional any tax revenue
it might receive from any expansion at Grand Gulf.
Asked about the timing of the supervisors’ adoption of the
resolution, Gunter said it “speaks to the political nature of
nuclear power.”
*****************************************************************
45 BBC: Nuclear chocolate scare
Last Updated: Thursday, 9 December, 2004
[Image of chocolate]
It was feared the chocolate had been contaminated
Tonnes of chocolate were destroyed almost 50 years ago amid fears
it could have been contaminated in a nuclear accident in Cumbria,
it has emerged.
Rowntree thought a consignment of its chocolate crumb had been
affected by a fire at a reactor at the Windscale plant, now
Sellafield, in 1957.
Milk from 200 miles around was banned for four days after it was
contaminated with iodine 131, a short-lived isotope.
The incident was revealed in response to a parliamentary
question.
A record in the files of the UK atomic energy authority has shown
Rowntree was also concerned about the safety of produce from its
factory in nearby Egremont.
Energy Minister Mike O'Brien said Rowntree wanted compensation
from the government for 90 tonnes of chocolate made in the days
following the fire.
It was refused after authorities insisted that the crumb was
"completely safe for consumption" because of the short half-life
of the contaminating isotope.
After months of negotiations, Rowntree accepted the verdict but
insisted it wanted the chocolate destroyed "in the interest of
customer relations and commercial prudence".
*****************************************************************
46 RIA Novosti: KURSK REGION TO HOST SVIRIDOV MUSIC FESTIVAL
Russian Information Agency Novosti
10.12.04 08:46
KURSK, DECEMBER 10, (RIA Novosti's Karina Smirnova) - The
Georgy Sviridov music festival is to open in the Kursk region
December 10, RIA Novosti learned at the Kursk regional
administration.
This festival is organized by the Sviridov foundation with the
support of the Kursk regional administration, the Kursk
municipal administration, the Fatezh district administration and
the Kursk state university.
The festival will open in the city of Fatezh which is Georgy
Sviridov's birthplace with a gala concert of the Olympus state
concert-and-sports center's stage-and-symphony orchestra being
conducted by Grigory Lvovich, merited artist of the Russian
Federation. That concert is to involve solo performers Irina
Starodubtseva, merited artist of the Russian Federation, and
Irina Zhelezhyakova.
The festival will continue in Kursk December 13, with Kursk
musicians and invited celebrities performing at local concert
halls.
© 2004 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
47 MaltaMedia.com: Film-documentary probes nuclear submarine leak in
Sicilian-Maltese channel
By Ruth Davies
Dec 8, 2004, 18:00 CET
A Scottish film-documentary "The Loch long monster" is attempting
to bring to light to the mystery of the HMS Tireless submarine
incident which leaked radioactive liquid in the Sicilian-Maltese
channel four years ago. Although the Royal navy stated that the
incident was not a serious one, the documentary is claiming that
the nuclear reactor of the submarine left behind large quantities
of radioactive liquid. The British submarine’s nuclear reactor
cooling system leaked when the British underwater vessel was
making its way to the Gibraltar.
[180/hms-tireless.jpg] Speaking of "The Loch long monster"
Repubblica.it revealed that it alleges that the disaster was way
much larger than the Royal Navy let on. Director Ben Kempas
claims that had the incident occurred in a lake, rather than at
sea, the incident would have proved “catastrophic”. The film was
released in Turin’s "Cinemanbiente" very recently. Four years
ago, the same questions the film brings up were asked by the
Italian Green’s defense. Such questions include in which precise
location the incident took place and how close or far from the
close the emissions occurred. A fundamental query also happens to
be “How much radioactivity leaked from the cooling system and
into the Sicilian-Maltese channel?”
The HMS Tireless leakage, stretching back to the early days of
May 2000, was only revealed by the British government five months
later when it unexpectedly announced that 12 nuclear submarines
had been called back urgently to base for controls on their
cooling systems. Pacifists speaking out during the
film-documentary state that “On that day of May a severe defect
in the welding which hold two containers in the cooling system
emerged”.
On the same day the incident occurred it was announced that HMS
Tireless was making its way to the Gibraltar port due to slight
problems. Later on, military sources let on that the ‘slight
problems’ could have occurred near Northern Africa, or possibly
near Malta.
When Spanish ecologists protested, Blair’s British government
finally released a declaration where it was said that none of the
105 persons of the crew were injured. The declaration further
stated that the defect to the reactor had caused small emissions
of liquid. Finally it was also claimed that immediately after the
leakage the reactor was said to have been deactivated. However
five months later the British Navy admitted that the reactor had
been switched back on and continued to operate for a further 36
hours whilst leaking.
John Large, a nuclear engineer who alerted the Gibraltar
government of the risks repairing the HMS Tireless could bring
along said “It was a huge mistake to reactivate the reactor after
it broke down”.
© Copyright 2004 - MaltaMedia Online Network
*****************************************************************
48 Scotsman.com: New Nuclear Sub Will Be Four Years Late
Thu 9 Dec 2004
By PA Political Staff
The first of a new class of nuclear-powered attack submarines,
HMS Astute, is due to be delivered to the Ministry of Defence
four years late, it was disclosed today.
HMS Astute had been expected to enter service in June 2005 but
is now scheduled for delivery in 2009.
The second of the class, HMS Ambush, will follow in mid-2010 and
the third, HMS Artful, in 2012, Defence Minister Adam Ingram
said in a Commons written reply.
He told Liberal Democrat Michael Hancock (Portsmouth S) the
expected total cost of the project was ÂŁ3.4 billion against a
“re-costed approval” of £2.5 billion.
The Astute class submarines are being built at Barrow to replace
the existing Swiftsure and Trafalgar classes.
*****************************************************************
49 Israel Hasbara Committee: Thermonuclear Accident
[Israel Hasbara Committee - www.infoisrael.net]
Updated 9 December 2004
By Emanuel A. Winston
IHC Abstract
The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Russia could be repeated by
the likely recklessness of Iranian efforts to produce a nuclear
bomb. Winston here expresses concern as much about the dangers
involved in the process of development itself, as he does over
the much-fretted results of such activities in the event of
their success. The Arab worlds notorious lack of uniformity and
deficient communication could render the process of nuclear
development, currently diffuse and profuse in Iran, a
catastrophe of cataclysmic dimensions. Chernobyls ongoing legacy
of radioactive calamities could be duplicated by Iran to the
detriment of the entire Middle East.
Even the Europeans, renowned for their artful avoidance of
facing approaching calamities, are frightened by Irans dash at
break-neck speed in developing nuclear capability. The U.S.,
Israel and, surprisingly, the slackers at the U.N. appear to be
half opening their eyes to the risks of Irans nuclear activities.
The possibility of Irans obtaining operational nuclear warheads
with the capability of mounting them on modified North Korean,
Chinese or Russian missiles has been well explored.
There is another comparable danger. Iran is speeding the process
of developing a nuclear fission device. We have seen what
happens with poor technological development, even when it comes
out of a technologically advanced nation, such as the Soviet
Union/Russia. We all remember with dread the Chernobyl accident
meltdown, which spread its contamination across parts of Russia,
Finland and Sweden. It even crossed the Mediterranean, as proven
through Israeli scientists discovery of contamination on the
hills of the Carmel Mountain.
Iran is rushing forward with numerous technologies obtained from
different nations. This makes the prospect of a nuclear accident
highly probable. In order to hide their nuclear development,
they have spread their nuclear-making facilities across 330
sites. As any manufacturer of highly complex technology will
tell you, things must be unified and controlled through
excellent communications. This is not common in the Arab world.
So as the Iranians dash forward in the most risky technology on
the planet, they could too easily create a Chernobyl, even
dozens of Chernobyls, spreading nuclear contamination well
beyond their borders. Such an event would shock the nations.
Should there be such an accident, the U.N. having artfully
avoided an embargo of fissile material, technology and
scientists would be fully to blame. Naturally, suppliers such
as Pakistan, Russia, China, North Korea, France and many others
would try to deny their role as nuclear proliferation enablers.
In predictable embarrassment, they would cease shipping while
denying complicity and pull out their scientists, but by then it
would be too late.
Let us hope the first accident in Irans rush to an Islamic
nuclear bomb will cause them to cease their nefarious craving.
Perhaps the too-little-too-late United Nations will finally
sober up before such a release of nuclear contamination into the
atmosphere happens.
For those who thought Chernobyl has come and gone, you are
wrong! The grass is still coming up in Sweden, Finland and
Russia and is still spreading Strontium 90, among other
radioactive material. Their cows eat the grass; their milk,
cheese and their meat carries the radiation. In Russia, loads of
vegetables are checked for unacceptable levels of radiation and,
if too high, the load is mixed with non-irradiated produce, so
the average radiation is somewhat lower but is deemed acceptable
to their bureaucracy.
Chernobyl will be with us for years to come. Chernobyl children
are still being sent abroad to be treated for diseases and
congenital defects caused by the radiation. Many of those
children are being hosted and medically treated in Israel,
funded by humanitarian organizations. Cancers in the countries
mentioned will rise exponentially as the years pass, depending
on how dense the fallout in their area.
I will not depress you with the full span of various
radiological materials from an accidental release. It gets even
worse when it comes in the form of a nuclear bomb. Let us hope
Irans first accident is small, or better yet, not at all.
Source: Original text submitted by the author, a Middle East
analyst &commentator, 28 November 2004.
Edited and abstracted by IHC Staff, www.infoisrael.net.
*****************************************************************
50 [NYTr] Ire to Get Access to Sellafield Security Info
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:29:06 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by rdooling (ireland news)
Ulster Telegraph - Dec 8, 2004
http://www.utvinternet.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=53915&pt=n
Irish Officials Are to Get Access to Sellafield Security Info
Irish officials are to be given access to the security arrangements
at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant.
The Irish Independent claims a bilateral deal signed by the Irish
and British Governments also provides for an early warning system
for Ireland, in the event of an accident or terror attack at the
facility.
The Government here took a European Court challenge in a bid to get
access to information at Sellafield.
South Fein`s spokesperson on the Environment, South Down Assembly
Member Willie Clarke has welcomed today`s news that Irish
Government officials will be been allowed access to the security
arrangements at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant.
Cllr Clarke was speaking after claims that the Irish and British
Governments have signed a bilateral deal that provides an early
warning system for Ireland in the event of an accident or an attack
on the Cumbria plant.
Cllr Clarke said: "Recently myself and my party colleague Arthur
Morgan TD met with the Irish Minister for the Environment Dick
Roche in the Dail to discuss a number of issues relating to the
Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plants. The abysmal safety record
of the plant, its vulnerability to attack and the implications this
would have for the island of Ireland topped our agenda.
"I welcome therefore, today`s news that the Irish and British
Governments have agreed a deal that will allow greater access to
information relevant to the plant but I would question the
effectiveness of such an agreement considering the past track
record of BNFL.
The antiquated Sellafield reprocessing plant poses a significant
threat to our natural environment and the health and safety of
people living along the Irish eastern seaboard and Sinn Fein will
continue to campaign for its immediate closure."
*
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51 Deseretnews: Goodbye, Yucca; hello, Utah?
[deseretnews.com]
Thursday, December 9, 2004
If plan for Nevada N-storage fails, Tooele may be a target
By Jerry Spangler
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — Delays in opening a nuclear waste repository at
Yucca Mountain are forcing atomic energy producers to consider
interim storage sites — like the one proposed on Goshute tribal
lands in Utah's Skull Valley — for the spent fuel rods piling up
around the country.
"I don't think we would take anything off the table," said
John Kane, head of governmental affairs for the Nuclear Energy
Institute, the powerful lobbying arm of the industry.
That "anything" would include the plan by Private Fuel
Storage, a consortium of NEI utilities, to build an above-ground
storage site in Tooele County where the waste could stay up to 40
years before moving on to Yucca Mountain.
At a news media luncheon Wednesday, NEI officials insisted
time and again their priority is getting Yucca Mountain funded
and operational. Despite growing concerns that it will not open
until 2010 or later, officials said they have no real contingency
plan.
Waste will likely continue to accumulate at nuclear power
plants in deep-water ponds or in dry casks — both temporary
solutions. Or it could be shipped to a temporary holding facility
at Yucca or to some other site.
But if the Yucca plan falls apart — and there is growing
sentiment on Capitol Hill that it might — the nuclear industry
would be between a rock and a hard place. With space for
temporary on-site storage running out, the industry and its
government overseers would have to start over the process of
finding a suitable facility, a task that would take up to a
decade or more.
"If Yucca is found not to be acceptable, we have to find
another site," said Marvin Fertel, NEI senior vice president.
Officially, NEI does not support the Goshute interim
storage plan, and officials insist the safest way to address the
waste problem is to ship it once from the power plant to a
permanent storage site and bury it far underground.
"We're focused on Yucca Mountain, not interim storage,"
Kane said.
If the industry can solve that pesky waste problem — "and
it's the government's responsibility to develop a permanent waste
site" — then the future is bright for nuclear power. With support
from key legislative leaders and the White House, the industry is
poised to start constructing an entire new "fleet" of nuclear
power plants to help meet the nation's growing power needs.
The nation's power consumption is expected to increase by
a third by 2020.
The industry, which sees growing public support for clean
energy such as nuclear power, plans to proceed with the new
construction despite the lack of a permanent waste storage
solution.
Of course, more nuclear power plants mean more waste. Kane
and Fertel both said they hope that Nevada's fierce opposition to
Yucca Mountain will soften and that officials there will engage
in constructive dialogue.
That isn't likely. Sen. Harry Reid, the new Democratic
leader of the Senate, is unequivocal in his opposition and has
pledged to do everything he can to block it.
And the more Reid and others can delay Yucca Mountain, the
more attractive interim storage sites such as Tooele County will
become.
Still, "We're open to any solution," Kane said.
E-mail: spang@desnews.com
© 2004 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
52 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast gets new health options
| 12/09/2004 |
[Tallevast resident Robyn Darville looks on as health officals
from Manatee County and the State of Florida hold a question and
answer session during Wednesday evening's Tallevast
Community Health Meeting at the Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist
Church. ]
BRIAN BLANCO-The Herald
Tallevast resident Robyn Darville looks on as health officals
from Manatee County and the State of Florida hold a question and
answer session during Wednesday evening's Tallevast Community
Health Meeting at the Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church.
Tallevast gets new health options
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
Local health officials announced three major initiatives
Wednesday to determine how hazardous wastes from the former
Loral American Beryllium Co. plant might have affected the
health of Tallevast residents.
Those initiatives are:
• Free beryllium blood tests will begin as early as next week
for former ABC workers, their families and Tallevast residents
who lived within Ľ mile of the former plant. Participants must
be current Manatee residents.
• A door-to-door personal survey of all 85 Tallevast households
is slated as soon as possible to create a database on illnesses,
medical conditions, cancers and causes of death among residents
over the past 40 years.
• The survey data will then be used to create a community health
profile. The profile will be superimposed over maps of known
contamination areas to determine what illnesses and causes of
death might be linked to toxins that leaked from the plant over
the past four decades.
Tallevast residents were pleased with what they heard.
That might not have been the case had the state assessment team
ignored the warnings of community leaders earlier in the day.
The team then trashed its planned presentation at the eleventh
hour after meeting with members of FOCUS, a community action
group.
The FOCUS leaders bluntly told the state team they didn't want
their health concerns dismissed in premature conclusions drawn
from early test results.
Randy Merchant, the leader of the state health team
investigating Tallevast, had planned to tell residents that too
little is known about the health effects of volatile chemicals
found in drinking water wells to predict the risk of illness.
He also was going to share results from tests on indoor air
quality, soil samples and fruits and vegetables that indicated
levels of TCE and several of its derivatives were too low to
likely cause illness.
FOCUS President Laura Ward was so upset she waved the pink
printout of Merchant's presentation in the air.
"This is a pink slip," said Ward, "This is a dismissal of our
concerns."
"Are you telling people there are no health risks?" said FOCUS
member Wanda Washington. "I don't like the sound of that. I
don't like it at all."
Tim Varney, an environmental consultant hired by FOCUS to
monitor the investigation of the hazardous waste site, warned
the state team that it would lose credibility with Tallevast
residents if it announced preliminary findings.
Eight drilling rigs are working double shifts to measure the
boundaries of the sprawling plume of contamination under
Tallevast, Varney said.
"The configuration of that plume is changing daily," Varney
warned. "Your conclusions are too premature."
Merchant acknowledged there are more tests and studies to be
done.
He said the test results he had planned to present are what is
known so far.
The assessment process, Merchant said, has two goals - to look
at the scientific data on what toxins might present a health
risk and to listen to community concerns.
FOCUS leaders and Varney urged Merchant and his team to pay more
attention to listening to residents by including them in the
planning for community meetings.
"This community does not trust anybody from the outside," warned
Varney,
State officials learned about the Tallevast contamination in
2000, when then-owner Lockheed Martin conducted environmental
tests during the sale of the facility to Wire-Pro Inc., the
current owners. The contamination traces back to the period when
the plant was owned and operated by Loral American Beryllium Co.
Residents were not told about the poisons in their community
until November 2003.
Merchant and his team heeded Varney's warnings, switching the
emphasis of the meeting to the three initiatives planned to
assess personal health risk.
Manatee Health Department Director Dr. Gladys Branic hopes to
expand those initiatives with state and federal funds to offer
free blood tests to any Florida resident who may have worked at
American Beryllium.
Manatee County Commission allocated $50,000 to underwrite the
blood test program for 200 Manatee residents.
The health department is contributing $4,500 in staff services
to take blood samples from former workers and residents and ship
those specimens to National Jewish Medical and Research Center
in Denver for testing.
Merchant said he has requested $50,000 in federal matching funds
from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to
provide 200 additional tests for former workers who live outside
of Manatee County.
A representative from the office of Sen. Bill Nelson said
Florida's senior senator is committed to helping Tallevast by
pursuing any source of federal funds available and channeling
them into programs for residents and workers.
"This is exactly what Tallevast residents needed to hear," said
Varney after the meeting. "All of the points Dr. Branic made
were right on target."
*****************************************************************
53 Bradenton Herald: Plume may be growing in size
| 12/09/2004 |
SCOTT RADWAY
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - The plume of industrial groundwater contamination
that has plagued this community again appears larger than
anticipated.
That was the report Wednesday from community leaders and their
consultant after meeting with Lockheed Martin Corp. scientists.
Community leaders met for a special update on efforts to track
cancer-causing solvents that escaped from the former American
Beryllium Co. plant.
Lockheed is now bringing in more drills to help in its task of
mapping the contamination, said Tim Varney, the community's
science and health consultant. Varney also spent several hours
Tuesday with Lockheed scientists to inspect the project.
Lockheed is gearing up for "eight drilling rigs running double
shifts, 24/7," Varney said. "The configuration of the
contamination plume is changing as we speak."
Lockheed is "stepping out (of the original testing plan) because
they are finding more spots," said Wanda Washington, vice
president of the Tallevast community group Family Oriented
Community United Strong, or FOCUS.
Lockheed officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The drilling and water sampling is part of a state Department of
Environmental Protection consent order, which has bound Lockheed
to identify the exact extent of the contamination and remove it.
Lockheed officials have said they would add testing sites if the
contamination appeared to have moved into unsuspected areas.
Lockheed did not own the site at the time the pollution is
believed to have occurred, but its present ownership leaves it
responsible for the cleanup.
The ultimate goal is to pinpoint the extent of the contamination
so an effective cleanup can be made. The testing also involves
some soil sampling and test results are due to the state in
January.
State health and environmental officials said after the
remaining residents using water wells were hooked to county
water lines this summer, there was no longer ongoing exposure to
the contaminant in the 85 homes in Tallevast.
Additional air tests and fruit and vegetable samples from
Tallevast also showed no current exposure through those avenues,
said Charles Henry of the Manatee County Health Department.
Henry told residents at a community meeting Wednesday night on
health issues that the department is awaiting the Lockheed study
and in turn, could refine the estimation of the possible
historic levels of exposure.
"We want those results before we can give definitive answers,"
Henry said.
Residents first learned of potential exposure to carcinogens
from the American Beryllium plant in late 2003 when Lockheed
crews entered Tallevast to sink monitoring wells.
Lockheed started investigating the plant site in 2000. Then in
June, residents were devastated when new tests found the
groundwater contamination was three times greater than first
estimated.
The facility operated from 1961 to 1996 and no one knows when
the leak occurred.
But Washington said she was not surprised to find out the
contamination might have spread even farther than residents were
told in June.
"We have been saying that from the beginning," Washington said.
Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919
*****************************************************************
54 The State: Jobs riding on plans to make MOX
12/09/2
From Staff Reports
Landing 800 jobs at the new Flanders Corp. plant depends upon
the federal governments plan to convert weapons-grade nuclear
materials into fuel rods for power plants.
Flanders plans to employ 400 to 500 workers in Aiken County even
if the government does not build a mixed oxide fuel facility at
the Savannah River Site, said Steve Clark, Flanders chief
executive.
Were taking a risk to be here because of that, he said, but
he said he is confident the governments MOX facility will begin
construction by next spring.
From various government sources, we believe MOX is a reality
and moving forward, he said.
The federal government planned to start work on a $4 billion
mixed oxide fuel complex at SRS this summer, but it cited
political realities and a dispute with Russia for the delay.
Department of Energy spokeswoman Kim Krueger said she had no new
information on when the plant would start.
But Greenpeace nuclear nonproliferation analyst Tom Clements
said he expects further delays.
I dont believe theres any way construction could start in
2005, and putting a date on construction startup is guesswork,
Clements said.
While the mixed oxide fuel complex recently received $368
million in the federal budget, the United States and Russia have
been at impasse over liability for a similar plant in that
country, Clements said. Funding for the Russian plant also is
unsettled.
The mixed oxide fuel plants would make fuel from 68 metric tons
of surplus plutonium, rendering the material useless for nuclear
weapons. The fuel would be burned at Duke Energy Corp. power
plants near Charlotte.
Additionally, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has not issued a
final environmental impact statement or a construction license
for the plant, Clements said. NRC spokesman Roger Hannah was
unavailable for comment Wednesday.
TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
55 Las Vegas RJ: Report urgesbackup storage
Thursday, December 09, 2004
Interim stockpilesfor nuclear wasteneeded, experts say
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The government should build storage farms where
nuclear waste can be stockpiled, at least temporarily, in
above-ground canisters as a backup to Yucca Mountain, energy
experts said in a report Wednesday.
A 16-member commission studying the nation's energy future
concluded a new generation of nuclear reactors is needed but
will not be built until utilities and the public are convinced
the government can take control of radioactive spent fuel.
"No effort should be spared" to complete a Yucca Mountain waste
repository, but the government should develop an interim plan,
the privately funded National Commission on Energy Policy said
in a 128-page report.
It proposed at least two government-operated "dry cask" storage
sites, one east of the Mississippi River and one west, "to
reduce spent fuel transport burdens."
"This is a proven, safe, inexpensive waste-sequestering
technology that would be good for 100 years or more," the
commission said.
The storage sites would provide "an interim backup solution
against the possibility that Yucca Mountain is further delayed
or derailed -- or cannot be adequately expanded," the commission
said.
The suggestion got a lukewarm reception from nuclear industry
leaders.
"We'd like to move the fuel once, to where it is going to
finally stay," said John Kane, senior vice president of
government affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
More than two dozen nuclear power plants have built "dry cask"
storage facilities on their sites to supplement reactor pools
that hold spent fuel assemblies.
The Nuclear Energy Institute said it projects 83 of 103 active
reactors will have dry storage by 2050.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said nuclear utilities should use
dry cask storage as an alternative to Yucca Mountain.
"This group is acknowledging that dry cask storage is possible,
and if it's possible and safe for 100 years, then why go forward
with a multibillion project to put waste at Yucca Mountain," she
said.
Industry executives said Wednesday that they expected new
efforts when Congress meets in January to pass bills to propel
the Yucca Mountain Project forward.
Kane said he expects congressional hearings on the federal
court ruling in July that invalidated Environmental Protection
Administration radiation health standards for the Nevada
repository.
The hearings could spur legislation to reinstate the EPA
standard, clearing an obstacle that has hampered the Energy
Department.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
56 BBC: Radioactive waste progress urged
Last Updated: Friday, 10 December, 2004
[Sellafield]
Radioactive waste disposal remains a contentious issue
Britain has failed to make firm progress on managing radioactive
waste despite fears over security in the wake of 11 September
terror attacks.
A House of Lords committee expressed dismay at the failure to
come up with long-term solutions to the issue.
They criticised instructions to a new advisory body to start with
a "blank sheet of paper" despite international consensus on waste
disposal.
"We are dismayed by the government's lack of urgency," peers
said.
Rapid action?
House of Lords science and technology committee chairman Lord
Oxburgh said: "In 1976 the Royal Commission on environmental
pollution emphasised the urgent need to find a long-term solution
to storing radioactive waste.
"In March 1999 and again in November 2001 this Committee argued
the case for rapid action, but still no firm progress has been
made, even though the events on 9/11 raise questions of the
vulnerability of existing storage facilities.
"We are dismayed by the government's lack of urgency."
He said the UK had generated radioactive waste for more than half
a century and still had failed to decide how to deal with it.
Recommendations
"Ministers seem to be using perpetual consultation exercises to
put off making the crucial decisions," he added.
Peers came up with a series of recommendations for the new
advisory body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management
(CoRWM).
+ They should stop considering options already jettisoned
elsewhere in the world such as blasting waste into space and
focus on various methods of underground storage.
+ Peers say CoRWM also appeared to lack relevant scientific and
technical expertise to assess the various options for radioactive
waste management and extra members should be appointed
+ Ministers failed to take adequate advice when the CoRWM was
established, failing to consult Defra's Chief Scientific Adviser
+ Ministers should prevent further delays in developing a
long-term radioactive waste management strategy to be used as an
excuse for deferring decisions on the future of nuclear power
But Environment Minister Elliot Morley said there was a danger
the Lords select committee was "ignoring the mistakes of the past
when there were narrowly based scientific committees and
inadequate consultation".
Billions of pounds
He added: "Involvement of the public and being able to account
for decisions are an increasing requirement of government.
"The lack of such involvement has been a key contribution to the
failure of previous programmes. The old 'decide-announce-defend'
approach is unacceptable."
Mr Morley added that solutions to disposing of nuclear waste
"cost billions of pound and take decades to implement".
"Taking a little time now to get the decision right represents
time and money well spent," he argued.
"We cannot simply rely on what other countries see as the right
solution: we must consider, and be able to demonstrate, what is
right for the UK."
*****************************************************************
57 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Alternative to Yucca
Today: December 09, 2004 at 9:40:58 PST
LAS VEGAS SUN
Energy experts, including environmentalists, former government
officials and business executives, have recommended that the
federal government develop more renewable energy sources,
require better fuel efficiency of vehicles and push ahead with
nuclear power. Further, the National Commission on Energy Policy
recommended that the federal government not relent in trying to
get a nuclear waste dump built at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
Nevadans should take heart with one of the recommendations
involving nuclear waste, however. The privately funded coalition
urged the federal government to build multiple above-ground "dry
cask" storage sites in the East and West to house nuclear waste
in case Yucca Mountain is delayed or isn't given final approval
by federal regulators to accept the nation's nuclear waste. It's
the first time a national commission has supported dr y cask
storage.
"It's proven technology," John Holden, co-chairman of the
commission and an environmental policy professor at Harvard
University, said of dry cask storage, which can safely contain
nuclear waste for at least 100 years. "It's not expensive. It's
safe -- it's even terrorist resistant." With a testimonial like
that, you'd think Congress would explore dry cask storage as a
permanent solution instead of the multibillion-dollar Yucca
Mountain project, whose burial site is geologically unsafe and
which would require thousands of dangerous cross-country
shipments of man's deadliest waste to a location just 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. It's well past time for the Bush
administration and Congress to adopt dry cask storage as the
country's nuclear waste storage policy.
*****************************************************************
58 Salt Lake Tribune: Nuclear industry doesn't back temporary Utah
storage
Article Last Updated: 12/09/2004 12:23:13 AM
Safety issue: A
top lobbyist says it would be best to move fuel to Yucca
By Christopher Smith The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - A top nuclear utility lobbyist said most of the
industry does not support temporarily storing spent radioactive
fuel rods at a proposed Utah site and is solely focused on
getting Nevada's Yucca Mountain waste repository opened.
"We'd like to move the fuel once to where it's going to
stay," Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) Vice President John Kane
said Wednesday when asked whether nuclear power plant owners and
operators support Private Fuel Storage's proposal to build an
interim storage site on the Skull Valley Reservation of the
Goshute Indian Tribe.
"We're not taking any of these options off the table, [but]
our goal, clearly, is to get Yucca in operation," Kane told
reporters during a briefing on nuclear issues in the next
Congress.
A consortium of eight utilities, several of which are members
of the NEI, has applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
license the Utah facility to hold casks of waste from Eastern
reactors for up to 40 years. Once Yucca begins accepting waste,
the plan calls for casks held at the Utah dump to be transported
to Nevada.
The NEI's reluctance to back the PFS temporary storage
proposal reflects the industry's political strategy to fight one
battle at a time. And the priority for nuclear power plant
operators is to get the delayed Yucca Mountain project into the
federal licensing process next year.
"You want to keep moving on Yucca Mountain," said Marvin
Fertel, NEI's chief nuclear officer. "If Yucca's found not to be
acceptable, then you've got to do another site, but so far it
has passed all the site suitability reviews and it ought to
enter the licensing process."
On power plant operators' interest in locating old fuel rods
now stored on-site to a temporary holding pen, Fertel said:
"There's a belief in more often than you need to."
PFS spokesperson Sue Martin said the company shares that
belief and strongly supports completion of Yucca Mountain, but
must face political reality.
"The fact of the matter is Yucca Mountain is later and it's
likely to be later, and our member utilities can't continue to
wait," she said. "We're just as driven as everybody else in the
industry to make sure Yucca Mountain gets done, because that's
what all of the PFS member utility ratepayers have been paying
for."
Because the PFS proposal to federal regulators would only
allow a maximum of 40,000 tons to be stored above-ground for up
to four decades, NEI officials said it would not be a viable
alternative to the permanent underground repository at Yucca
Mountain should the Nevada project fail to open. Its original
completion target was 1998, but that has now been pushed back to
at least 2010.
The discussion came the same day a national bipartisan
commission on energy policy recommended that Congress and the
Bush administration "move expeditiously to establish a project
for centralized, interim, engineered storage of spent fuel at no
fewer than two U.S. locations, as a complement and interim
back-up" to Yucca Mountain.
© Copyright 2004, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
59 Waste News: Group of energy experts releases plan to address climate change
issues
[Wastenews.com
Dec. 9 -- A bipartisan group of energy experts has completed
two years of work and released a plan Dec. 8 for addressing
major long-term U.S. energy challenges -- including climate
change.
"Our climate change plan would both limit greenhouse gas
emissions and cap the costs of doing so," said William K.
Reilly, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
administrator and commission co-chair. "At the same time, it
provides incentives for low- and noncarbon sources like natural
gas, renewable energy, nuclear energy, and advanced coal
technologies with carbon capture and sequestration, as well as
for increased efficiency of energy end use."
The group -- including representatives of industry, government,
labor, academia and environmental and consumer groups -- is
calling for implementation in 2010 of a mandatory, economywide
tradable permits system. The system is designed to curb future
growth in the nation´s emissions of greenhouse gases while
capping initial costs to the U.S. economy at $7 per metric ton
of carbon dioxide-equivalent.
In 2015 and every five years thereafter, Congress would review
the program and evaluate emissions control progress.
Conservative modeling analyses suggest the proposal would
reduce total emissions in 2020 by about 540 million metric tons
and the reductions could be as high as 1 billion metric tons,
according to the commission.
The report is available online at www.energycommission.org.
webmaster@wastenews.com
*****************************************************************
60 SFBV: Liquefaction danger at Hunters Point Shipyard must be addressed
San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year
12/8/04
Spiritual Enlightenment
This drawing by Barbara George depicts some of the
environmental and economic challenges the Bay View Hunters Point
community is contending with. The Hunters Point Shipyard is at
the far right.
by Maurice Campbell
The USGS map, showing Earthquake Hazard Zones as a solid color,
confirms that the 46-acre Parcel E landfill in the Hunters Point
Shipyard is subject to liquefaction and could be the scene of a
major disaster in case of an earthquake.
Will a poor low income community of color be victimized once
again, when clear and imminent danger is avoidable?
The U.S. Geological Survey’s Earthquake Hazard Zones map of the
Bay Area, released Nov. 17, 2000, shows where liquefaction is
likely to occur so as to avoid the kind of disaster that
destroyed lives and property in San Francisco’s Marina District
during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In the Hunters Point
Shipyard, a federal Superfund site, the toxic, radioactive
46-acre Parcel E landfill, one of the most contaminated sites in
the country, is in one of those Earthquake Hazard Zones.
Liquefaction occurs when an earthquake shakes saturated soil,
causing the land to liquefy and anything on it or in it to move,
emerge or collapse. For years, as Shipyard cleanup progressed,
Bay View Hunters Point activists, fearing an earthquake
disaster, called on the Navy to investigate, excavate and remove
the landfill.
Ordinarily in Superfund cleanup, the federal Environmental
Protection Agency’s advice is to “clean the worst first.” The
worst – the most dangerous – part of the Shipyard is the Parcel
E landfill. When activists pressed Daniel Meer of the EPA,
however, he said that the Shipyard landfill is “too dangerous to
remove.”
On Aug. 16, 2000, San Francisco learned just how dangerous the
landfill is when a major fire broke out, first above ground,
emitting multicolored clouds, and then continuing to burn
underground for months. In the surrounding residential
neighborhood, with some homes less than two blocks from the
landfill, residents developed serious health problems – but
government officials turned their backs.
The flammable and potentially explosive methane gas that moves
throughout the landfill and adjacent soil, carrying other toxins
with it, could be released in an earthquake, endangering health
and lives. Recall what the ‘89 quake did to the Marina District,
another USGS identified liquefaction zone, where underground
toxic and radiological hazards were not a factor.
The Parcel E toxic fire of 2000 and the warning contained in the
USGS liquefaction hazard map is a recipe for disaster. Why isn’t
this being addressed by the regulators - the EPA, DTSC, Water
Resource Board and, most importantly, the City, which now owns
Parcel A, where it wants to give the go-ahead for the
development of 1,600 homes right next to the landfill that the
EPA says is “too dangerous to remove.”
At a minimum there should be a warning and evacuation plan in
place to protect residents. It cost USGS a tidy sum to produce
this map, which is designed to prevent loss of life from major
earthquakes. Is it being ignored because Hunters Point is a low
income community of color?
The cap that partially covers the Parcel E landfill will not
stand up to liquefaction. The Navy has predicted a five-foot
lateral movement in the event of a large quake. That is why the
Navy is undertaking a major study to decide whether to remove
the landfill. The community hopes and prays that the landfill is
removed before lives are lost and before any homes are built or
other development takes place.
You be the judge. Should this situation be remedied before
people are hurt? If the situation is not remedied and community
members are injured from liquefaction, should those responsible
be charged with criminal liability?
Maurice Campbell is the convener of the Community First
Coalition, community co-chair of the Hunters Point Shipyard
Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) and member of the Mayor’s
Hunters Point Shipyard Community Advisory Committee. Contact him
at (415) 468-8964, mecsoft@pacbell.net or www.mecresources.com.
sfbayview.com
San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street
San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415)
671-0316 Email:
*****************************************************************
61 Belfast Telegraph: New deal gives Irish officials access to plant at Sellafield
[http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/
By Treacy Hogan, Irish Independent 08 December 2004
The Irish Government is to be given access to the controversial
Sellafield nuclear plant and its security arrangements for the
first time, the Irish Independent learned last night.
And Irish inspection teams are also being given the right to
enter Sellafield under an historic deal between the Irish and
British governments.
The bilateral deal, being signed by both governments at a
ceremony in Dublin on Friday, will clear the way for senior
officials from the State's nuclear watchdog, the Radiological
Protection Institute of Ireland, to gain access to the
controversial facility.
The hugely significant deal also includes an early warning
notification system in the event of an accident or terrorist
attack at the plant.
Security surrounding the plants and its operations will be
shared by the British government with their Irish counterparts,
it was also learned last night.
The Irish Government took a legal challenge in the Hague in a
bid to get access to vital information over the Cumbrian plant
because of its threat to this country in the event of an
accident or terrorist attack.
The deal will be signed by Environment Minister Dick Roche on
behalf of the Irish Government, and British Ambassador Stuart
Eldon at a formal ceremony in the Custom House on Friday.
There have been growing concerns in the Government over the
potential catastrophic impact an accident or terrorist attack on
the nuclear plant would have on Ireland.
Environment Minister Dick Roche said last night the deal was
putting "good neighbourliness" on a formal footing.
However, the minister insisted last night that the total closure
of Sellafield was still the objective of the Irish government.
He said the consequences of a catastrophic failure or a
terrorist event in Sellafield could be horrific for this
country.
There was no such thing as absolute security and the minister
warned that a catastrophic failure at the plant would cause
untold environmental hazards for Ireland.
Sellafield was the biggest environmental hazard and danger
facing this country, the minister added.
Meanwhile, concern is also mounting following a top-level report
on the radiation risks from Sellafield and other nuclear plants.
The so-called 'CERRIE' report accepted the finding of many
studies showing cases of excesses of childhood leukaemia around
Sellafield and the nuclear facility in Dounreay, Scotland.
The danger from such emitters may be 10 times higher than
previously believed for children living near nuclear plants, it
found.
Due to the risk posed to Ireland by the potential trans-boundary
effects of an accident or incident, including a terrorist attack
by aircraft or otherwise at Sellafield, the security
arrangements and procedures in place at Sellafield had been a
particular concern of the Government, added Mr Roche. Back |
Return to top | Printable Story
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/
© 2004 Independent News and Media (NI)
*****************************************************************
62 News & Star: Nuclear flask lorry in crash
Published on 09/12/2004
By Andrea Thompson
A SELLAFIELD lorry carrying clean, unused nuclear flasks, went
off the road outside the nuclear plant yesterday, causing two
other vehicles to collide with each other.
BNFL said it is not yet clear how the incident, near the
Yottenfews roundabout, happened yesterday afternoon. The road was
blocked for about two hours.
The Sellafield lorry was on its way back from Lillyhall carrying
the new flasks, which look like giant milk floats. It came off
the road, and although it did not hit any other cars, its
swerving did cause a Ford Focus and a Citroen panel van to
collide with each other.
The lorry driver, a man from Egremont, and the driver and
passenger of the Ford Focus, were all taken to hospital with
minor injuries. The van driver, a man from Carlisle, escaped
unhurt.
A BNFL spokesman said investigations are now underway to find out
how what happened. Officers from both Cumbria Constabulary and
UKAEA police attended the scene. Initial checks have found that
the Sellafield lorry had no defects.
*****************************************************************
63 Whitehaven News: 17,000 JOBS LOST: THE FEARED COST OF SELLAFIELD RUNDOWN
Warning: Elaine Woodburn
That stark warning was revealed this week by Copeland Council
leader Elaine Woodburn, who told The Whitehaven News: “It is
worse than devastating.”
She went on: “It’s not scaremongering, just a realistic and
calculated projection of what will happen to our community and
local economy if something isn’t done to stop it happening. The
fact is that every three out of five jobs in Copeland rely on
Sellafield in one way or another.
“The threat of losing 8,000 jobs on the Sellafield site by 2010
is bad enough, but 17,000 is frightening.”
This revised figure takes into account not only Sellafield jobs
directly or indirectly but employment in general because of all
the businesses that would be hit and have to shed jobs – from the
people who work in the corner shop to the main nuclear suppliers
locally.
“I don’t want to give the message that Copeland has no future. We
need to create a new future for our area. That’s why we are
working with the government through Patricia Hewitt at the
Department of Trade and Industry, and other ministers, to do
everything possible to offset the effects and bring alternative
work, skills and jobs to Copeland and West Cumbria.
“At Sellafield we want to protect the reprocessing jobs but my
fear is that the more money that comes in from reprocessing will
enable the NDA to accelerate its clean-up and this would result
in jobs going even sooner. It is a Catch-22 situation.
“The aim is to keep as many people in jobs for as long as
possible. Even the 8,000 jobs forecast does not include the 1,500
or so who work in Thorp which could close around the same time,”
the council leader warned.
Rosie Mathieson, the area’s Nuclear Opportunities manager, said:
“If we sit back and do nothing this is the worst-case scenario.
We have an enormous amount of work to do to rejuventate and
rebuild our local economy to avoid the worst coming to the
worst.”
Sellafield accounts for 60 per cent of all jobs in Copeland.
Apart from construction workers, the site has around 10,000 on
its payroll, with every five jobs also supporting one in the
community.
Sellafield GMB union convener Peter Kane said union
representatives wanted action taken to minimise the employment
rundown.
“The NDA has to tell us exactly how they intend to carry out the
work at Sellafield. The decommissioning and clean-up has to be
properly programmed to keep the jobs going,” he said.
“From April 1, Thorp will pass from BNFL into the hands of the
NDA and so the question is whether they want to win any new
orders.
“There is plenty of spare capacity in the plant but do the
Japanese or any other customers want to fill it and do our
government want to sanction any more business?”
Thorp has an order book worth Ł12 billion and without any more
contracts is due to run until 2010.
A BNFL spokesman said: “Thorp is a multi-billion pound business
and the capacity is there to take on work. However, from April 1,
this will be a question for the NDA and any potential customers.
“The situation also is that any new reprocessing contracts would
be the subject of public consultation, although not a public
inquiry.”
*****************************************************************
64 Whitehaven News: COMMENT: LET’S FIGHT THE BIGGEST BOMBSHELL OF THEM ALL
SOME 17,000 jobs could be lost over the next 14 years unless
somebody, somewhere, can do something about it. If you say it
quickly, if might not register right away, but let it slowly sink
in. Accept this is not a case of scaremongering or crying wolf,
and the prospect is frightening.
Elaine Woodburn, the leader of Copeland Borough Council, has the
perfect description: “Worse than devastating.”
For the last few months we have been digesting the unpalatable
news that, over the next six years, Sellafield alone will have to
shed 8,000 jobs as magnox reprocessing, the main breadwinner for
years, comes to an end. There may be another 1,500 to be added on
if Thorp closes (as it might because of the lack of any new
orders from Japan).
Whether those highly-paid jobs can be absorbed into other
employment sectors, largely spinning off from the skills to be
learned in nuclear decommissioning, remains to be seen. We can
only pray.
But this week we learn for the first time of an even worse fate
that could befall us: a prediction that by the year 2018 an
already staggering figure could rise to 17,000. This takes in not
only rising BNFL/agency job losses at Sellafield but all those
other firms, big or small, who serve the site and its employees,
from the lady running a handy corner shop to the bigger
suppliers, faced with shedding jobs in massive knock-on effects.
Rosie Mathieson, the area’s Nuclear Opportunities Manager, is
part of the new West Cumbria Strategic Forum committed to working
hand-in-hand with government departments to attract new industry
which may require different skills and re-training of workers to
absorb the losses. But as a prerequisite we will need better
roads and massive investment in infrastructure to make it happen.
To her credit, Ms Mathieson admits that 17,000 jobs is not the
potential knock-on effect, it is the likely effect unless all
these valuable reprocessing jobs are replaced.
Elaine Woodburn says it’s not all doom and gloom. She points to
the Nuclear Skills Academy, the employment which can be created
from global nuclear clean-up and environmental restoration,
spin-offs from the skills learned in decommissioning the
Sellafield site through the NDA. And, as Fergus McMorrow, the
Copeland Council regeneration guru, points out: “There is 14
years to get things done: we don’t normally get that amount of
notice.”
Quite. But one can’t help remembering the little story about the
Egremont by-pass in Coun Woodburn’s own ward. It was supposed to
be built to make life easier for everybody before the
construction of Thorp. In fact, the plant was up and running
before work even started on the Ł5 million by-pass.
Let’s hope government ministers such as Patricia Hewitt really
are as committed to the regeneration of Copeland and West Cumbria
as we are told they are, because over the years we have had
promises and promises and no delivery.
It’s often been said that once Sellafield goes you might as well
build a wall round West Cumbria – and much of Cumbria for that
matter – because the economically beneficial tentacles of BNFL
stretch a very long way.
For too long, successive governments have sat back and let little
old West Cumbria rely on a prosperous nuclear business which
nobody else wanted. Now is the time to deliver. Otherwise we
might just as well say those prayers...
*****************************************************************
65 CBC North: South's nuke waste will likely stay there: official
WebPosted Dec 9 2004 08:47 AM CST
IQALUIT -
It's highly unlikely nuclear waste generated in the south will be
stored in the Arctic, according to the people in charge of
dealing with the problem.
['I don't know how far people would be prepared to move the
material'– Michael Krizanc]
'I don't know how far people would be prepared to move the
material' Michael Krizanc
The Nuclear Waste Management Organization is consulting
Canadians about what should be done with Canada's nuclear waste.
The tour is now in Iqaluit.
+ LINK: Nuclear Waste Management
Organization
Canada's nuclear waste now amounts to almost two million used
nuclear fuel bundles, enough to fill five NHL hockey arenas from
the ice surface to the top of the boards. A spokesman for the
NWMO, Michael Krizanc, says the waste comes from nuclear reactors
that provide power in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec.
Krizanc says that's one of the reasons it's unlikely to end up in
the north. "Whenever you discuss moving used nuclear fuel,
transportation is a very big issue and I don't know how far
people would be prepared to move the material," he says. "I think
you also have to look at the fairness issue." Among other
options, the organization is also considering burying the waste
deep in the Canadian Shield, leaving it at the reactor sites.
Krizanc says recommendations will be presented to the federal
government next November. He says it is costing $25 million to
consult Canadians on the issue.
Copyright © CBC 2004
*****************************************************************
66 NBC Newschannel 6: DOE HOLDS MEETINGS ON PROPOSAL TO MAKE PLUTONIUM FUEL IN IDAHO
[http://www.nbcnews6.com/
Dec 8, 2004
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) -- The Department of Energy's plan to
produce plutonium-238 at its national laboratory in Arco has some
people leery.
They spoke up on the proposal at a meeting in Idaho Falls
yesterday.
The plutonium fuel would go to power weapons and space vehicles.
The D-O-E wants to consolidate production at the lab.
But plutonium-238 is radioactive and could contaminate proposed
new buildings at the site.
Paul Bacca, an Idaho Falls resident, asked officials from the
national lab if they weren't giving Idaho the -- quote -- dirty
part of the process.
Still, proponents say limiting production to a single location
would eliminate risky transport, cut costs and boost the region's
economy.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
AP-NY-12-08-04 0812EST
Explorer ©Copyright 2004 Oregon Trail Broadcasting KPVI
*****************************************************************
67 Rocky Mountain News: Walls start coming down
By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
December 9, 2004
Crews at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant have
started demolishing Building 707, once a key facility for
producing plutonium triggers.
Three heavy excavators knocked down about a quarter of the
building Wednesday, even though the entire demolition is expected
to take a month, said Karen Lutz, Department of Energy
spokeswoman.
"Nearly every plutonium trigger in the current United States
nuclear arsenal was manufactured and assembled in Building 707,"
said Frazer Lockhart, the DOE manager overseeing demolition of
the sprawling former weapons plant.
Plutonium once moved through the building in assembly-line
fashion. The assembly line was enclosed inside a series of 377
glove boxes, which protected workers from the highly radioactive
metal as they shaped it into bomb cores. All of the building's
equipment - much of it highly contaminated - was removed before
demolition began.
The building itself has been decontaminated except for two
columns, which will be cut out and shipped to a low-level
nuclear waste disposal site, Lutz said.
Building 707 was once rated the eighth most dangerous building
in the nation because of the plutonium inside.
Its demolition is part of a $7 billion cleanup that started in
1995 and is scheduled to be completed in 2006.
SITE MAP PHOTO REPRINTS CORRECTIONS 2004 © The E.W. Scripps
*****************************************************************
68 DenverPost.com: "Glovebox" removal heralds new Flats era
Article Published: Thursday, December 09, 2004
By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer
Post / RJ Sangosti
Maynard Harper watches Wednesday as crews begin demolition of
Building 707 at Rocky Flats. Harper worked in the building for 22
years.
Many nights, Shirley Garcia's fingertips ached for hours after
she finished her shift as a chemical operator at Rocky Flats.
The cause of her pain was the heavy lead-lined gloves she used
each day on a production line at the nuclear weapons complex.
They were a critical component of the "glovebox," a
stainless-steel enclosure with glass windows meant to protect
Garcia and thousands of other workers from the deadly
radioactive materials they handled.
"At first, they were incredibly difficult to use," said Garcia,
who began her career at Rocky Flats in 1982 and is now
Broomfield's environmental coordinator. "But after a while, it
really became second nature."
Recently, cleanup contractors removed the last of the 1,457
gloveboxes used in production at Rocky Flats. In just a few
weeks, it will be shipped off to a low-level radioactive waste
dump in Utah for disposal.
In doing so, one of Colorado's most prominent symbols of the
Cold War will disappear, helping transform Rocky Flats from a
vestige of the nuclear-arms race to a haven for hikers, cyclists
and horse riders.
"Gloveboxes represented the guts of Rocky Flats," said Nancy
Tuor, president and chief executive of Kaiser-Hill, the Rocky
Flats cleanup contractor. "All plutonium work was conducted
inside the stainless-steel boxes, and removing the last one ends
an era at Rocky Flats."
Tuor described dismantling the site's gloveboxes as a cumbersome
and complex undertaking. While some of the gloveboxes measured
just a few cubic feet, a few others - like the 15,000-pound
contraption recently pulled out of Building 371 - were up to 64
feet in length.
Each was designed to surround heavy, bulky and complex equipment
such as lathes, furnaces or presses used in weapons
manufacturing.
"When we were trained, it was explained to us that the leaded
gloves and the shielding would keep us safe from any background
radiation," said Roman Kohler, who worked at Rocky Flats between
1968 and 1995. "And we trusted that they would."
But the gloveboxes were not foolproof.
Sometimes workers were exposed to radiation when sharp metal
objects inside the gloveboxes punctured the gloves.
Also, plutonium shavings sometimes spontaneously ignited inside
the gloveboxes, sparking major fires like the 1969 Mother's Day
blaze at Rocky Flats, considered one of the worst industrial
accidents in U.S. history.
Still, many workers sought out glovebox jobs.
"When you were young and had a young family, it was good money,"
said Phil Saba, who worked as a machinist at Rocky Flats
starting in 1957 for about $2.50 an hour.
In another cleanup milestone, workers Wednesday began
demolishing Building 707. So far, contractors have demolished
more than half of the 800 structures at the site northwest of
Denver, where plutonium triggers were produced for more than
70,000 nuclear warheads beginning in 1952.
"Nearly every plutonium trigger in the current United States
nuclear arsenal was manufactured and assembled in Building 707,"
said Frazer Lockhart, a Department of Energy manager. "The
significance of demolishing another plutonium production
facility is yet another visible sign that Rocky Flats is meeting
its commitments and the site will soon become a national
wildlife refuge."
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-820-1240 or at
kmcguire@denverpost.com.
All contents Copyright 2004 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
69 SPI: Divers may help Hanford cleanup
[seattlepi.com] Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
Thursday, December 9, 2004
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHLAND -- A contractor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is
considering using divers to help clean up two heavily
contaminated basins that once held spent nuclear fuel.
Commercial nuclear reactors and, more recently, nuclear sites
operated by the Department of Energy have used divers who
specialize in radioactive environments to perform underwater jobs
such as cleaning and welding.
Hanford contractor Fluor Hanford finished removing 2,300 tons of
spent nuclear fuel from the so-called K East and K West basins in
October. The two water-filled basins, which measure 150 by 80
feet, were built in the 1950s to hold irradiated fuel from the
site's nuclear reactors.
But the fuel corroded, creating 65 cubic yards of radioactive
sludge on the bottom of the basins.
Using divers could get the cleanup done faster and more cheaply,
Fluor says.
Hanford workers currently stand on top of a steel grating 3 feet
above the water. They use long-handled tools to reach beneath the
grating and perform tasks in the 17 feet of water that shield
them from radiation in the pools.
The work is slow and difficult. The water can be cloudy, and the
workers are bundled in bulky protective clothing.
Divers might be able to more easily cut up and remove some of the
equipment that remains in the basins, such as racks that once
held spent fuel. They also might be able to vacuum up some of the
sludge.
Pete Knollmeyer, vice president for Fluor Hanford, said
authorities are researching to determine if the diving project is
feasible and safe.
"This is certainly not a done deal," Knollmeyer told the Tri-City
Herald. But he said the potential benefits make it worth
investigating.
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
©1996-2004 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
70 CST: Residents worry about possiblity of moving plutonium production
to Idaho
casperstartribune.net/news/regional -->
Casper, Wyoming - Thursday, December 09, 2004
By The Associated Press
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (AP) -- Residents are wary of a Department of
Energy plan to start producing plutonium-238 at the Idaho
National Laboratory.
"Aren't you giving Idaho the dirty part of it?" Paul Bacca asked
energy department representatives this week at the first of seven
public meetings to be held on the matter in Idaho, Wyoming, New
Mexico, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
The batteries that use plutonium-238 to power space travel are
already assembled in Idaho, at Argonne-West. But production and
isolation of the nuclear fuel is currently done at laboratories
in South Carolina, Tennessee and New Mexico.
The Department of Energy wants to consolidate the operations in
Idaho to save on costs and eliminate security issues involved in
transporting nuclear power across roughly 8,000 miles.
But Bacca, a former Argonne National Laboratory-West worker who
researched plutonium, questioned the benefit on contaminating
another building when the facility that the energy department now
uses will be functional for 20 or 30 years.
Tim Frazier, who oversees the energy department's radioisotope
power systems project, agreed that the production and isolation
of plutonium-238 creates the mo st nuclear waste.
"The least dirty parts are already ou t there," at Argonne
National Laboratory-West, he said. "The other parts of the
process are dirty by nature."
If the project is consolidated in Idaho, the energy department
has said it will build a new $230 million processing
facility. That would be a unique opportunity for the program,
which so far has moved into existing buildings, Frazier said.
Other residents said they worry that if the local laboratory gets
the p lutonium operation, it could be excluded from getting other
ener gy department programs in the future. Some also fear the
operation would take up too much space in the Advanced Test
Reactor to allow for the current production of medical isotopes.
But two people at the meeting voiced support for moving plutonium
production to Idaho because of its importance to space
exploration.
"When I heard the DOE wanted to move the plutonium-238 program to
Idaho, I said 'Whoopee,' because I knew exa ctly what those
(space batteries) did," said Nick Nichols, an ama teur astronomer
and a former INEEL communications manager.
Copyright 2004 by the Casper Star-Tribune published by Lee
Publications, Inc., a subsidiary
*****************************************************************
71 Tri-City Herald: New nuclear waste treatment proposed
This story was published Thursday, December 9th, 2004
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
A technology similar to one used to purify table salt is being
investigated as a way to reduce the cost of treating some of
Hanford's worst radioactive waste.
Hanford contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group has awarded a $1.4
million subcontract to Cogema Engineering Corp. to see if a
proposal by a CH2M Hill chemist could be adapted for large-scale
use.
The Department of Energy is building a $5.8 billion
vitrification plant to turn highly radioactive and chemical
waste held now in huge underground tanks into a stable glass
form for permanent disposal.
But the vitrification plant never was planned to be big enough
to meet legal deadlines to treat all 53 million gallons of waste
left from processing irradiated fuel for the production of
plutonium at Hanford during World War II and the Cold War. The
plutonium was made for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
CH2M Hill believes a process called fractional crystallization
could reduce costs and remove some of the burden from the first
step at the vitrification plant, pretreatment.
The largest complex in the 65-acre vitrification plant will be a
pretreatment building the size of four football fields and about
15 stories high to separate waste into low-activity and
high-level radioactive streams.
All the waste will be turned into glass, but the low-level waste
will remain at Hanford and the high-level waste will be sent to
a federal repository, likely Yucca Mountain, Nev., at a far
greater cost.
CH2M Hill wants to determine whether 10 percent or more of the
waste can skip the pretreatment separation process through its
proposed technology.
Chemist Dan Herting of CH2M Hill has spent several years testing
ways to use temperature changes and evaporation to selectively
precipitate low-activity radiation salts out of the waste.
His tests, most recently using small amounts of radioactive tank
waste, have been promising enough to interest DOE.
The technology is not new.
A similar process is used to separate salt and other valuable
chemicals from sea water.
But Hanford waste presents some unusual challenges.
Some chemical salts precipitate when heated, others when cooled
and all precipitate when the water is evaporated.
"It's up to the Cogema team to come up with the right sequence
of heat and evaporation," Herting said.
The process would not work on all tank waste as the pretreatment
plant processes must. But the waste in more than half of
Hanford's 177 tanks might be candidates for the alternate
process, said Richard Raymond, director of supplemental
treatment for CH2M Hill.
The fractional crystallization would remove moisture to produce
crystals of radioactive sodium nitrates and nitrites. The salts
could then be turned into a low-activity glass. Much of it might
be turned into glass with another alternate technology, bulk
vitrification, which could allow it to bypass the vitrification
plant entirely.
That would leave about half the waste remaining as a liquid
laced with highly radioactive cesium and technetium. That
liquid, which would hold more than 99 percent of the radioactive
energy, would still need to be sent to the pretreatment plant.
It uses primarily ion exchange and filtration to separate waste
into low-activity and high-level waste streams.
Cogema must show not only that the process works on Hanford
waste at the engineering scale, but also come up with a way to
perform the process at a far lower cost.
"One thing that makes the task challenging is we're asking them
to come up with a proposal without a major new capital
facility," said Ken Gasper, project manager for supplemental
pretreatment for CH2M Hill.
Commercial equipment would be adapted to the project and the
process would be done in the field, possibly in temporary
facilities.
Cogema has teamed for the project with Framatome ANP, which has
expertise in radioactive materials; Georgia Technical Research
Corp., which is associated with Georgia Tech University, which
has a nationally recognized crystallization expert; and Swenson
Technology Inc., which specializes in equipment for the process
in nonradioactive environments.
They will produce a design concept for the technology and
determine the cost of developing a full scale pre-treatment
facility.
In the first phase of the project, engineering work will be done
at Hanford, but testing will be done elsewhere. Testing will
move back to Hanford when Cogema is ready to try the process
with radioactive tank wastes.
"We're hoping the results will be promising enough to warrant a
proposal to DOE to go forward," Gasper said.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
72 Tri-City Herald: Nuclear debt plan debated
This story was published Thursday, December 9th, 2004
By Chris Mulick Herald Olympia bureau
PORTLAND -- Questions raised by Snohomish PUD have reopened the
debate over a massive debt refinancing program that has Energy
Northwest delaying repaying nearly $3 billion in nuclear
construction bonds.
With the Bonneville Power Administration's wholesale power rates
pushing retail rates to never-before-seen heights for consumers,
Snohomish PUD is asking why the savings aren't being used to
help lower rates instead.
But other public utility representatives huddling Wednesday with
Energy Northwest and Bonneville at a Portland airport hotel
supported the refinancing program, even though most agree it was
developed below their radar.
"They did hatch this program a bit in secrecy during the energy
crisis," said Kevin Clark, who monitors Bonneville power
contracts for Seattle City Light.
At the request of Bonneville, Energy Northwest in 2001 began an
annual program of refinancing bonds used to build the Columbia
Generating Station and two other nuclear power plants that never
got finished.
The old bonds, which were to have been paid off by 2012 or
sooner, are being replaced with new ones that will be repaid
between 2013 and 2018.
Until that period, Bonneville is using money that would have
gone to pay off the now-deferred nuclear debt to pay down its
higher-cost debt with the U.S. Treasury.
That debt, another $10 billion, was issued to build and operate
the federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
In doing so, Bonneville frees up room to issue more federal debt
to build new transmission lines.
But Snohomish PUD is asking whether it's even legal to use money
from Bonneville's power customers to build lines that serve
transmission customers.
Though utilities buy power and transmission services from
Bonneville, some rely more or less on one service than the
other.
Washington's largest public utility district also wants to know,
among other questions, which transmission projects will get
built with the next round of bond refinancing.
"We have to look at every dollar Bonneville spends," said Steve
Marshall, Snohomish PUD's assistant general manager for Power
and Transmission Services. "One of the reasons Energy Northwest
has this debt to begin with is questions weren't asked."
Other public utility representatives generally stood behind the
program Wednesday, though they also expressed concerns about it
being developed so quietly.
"It wasn't officially rolled out to customers in a public
process," said John Saven, chief executive officer of Northwest
Requirements Utilities, which represents small public utilities
that collectively buy a quarter of the power Bonneville sells.
Jim Curtis, BPA's chief financial officer, acknowledged the
program was put together "thoroughly in a small, closed
environment" and that "we didn't do it in an open enough
environment."
But he strenuously defended the program's goals and pointed to
annual interest savings of more than $100 million a year by
paying down higher-cost debt first.
"We have turned what is a huge liability into an asset," he
said, noting the program provides Bonneville with needed
financial flexibility. "This is smart business."
Even so, there could be far more interest in the subject when
Energy Northwest considers refinancing yet another series of
bonds this spring.
Rick Lovely, manager of Grays Harbor PUD, questioned whether
public utility ratepayers are only building transmission lines
that could be used to primarily benefit investor-owned utilities
should an independent operator be formed to run the Northwest
power grid.
"This is not explained to the customers very well at all," he
said.
And Jack Janda, chairman of the board of utilities that
participated in the first three of the former Washington Public
Power Supply System's five-plant nuclear campaign, asked the
renamed Energy Northwest not to extend the repayment period
beyond 2018.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
73 Times-News: INEEL's plutonium plans draw skeptics ...
www.magicvalley.com The Times-News | AG Weekly |
Thursday, December 9, 2004 • Twin Falls, Idaho
Some residents worry about plutonium production being
consolidated in IdahoThe
Associated Press
IDAHO FALLS -- Residents are wary of a Department of Energy plan
to start producing plutonium-238 at the Idaho National
Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.
"Aren't you giving Idaho the dirty part of it?" Paul Bacca asked
energy department representatives this week at the first of seven
public meetings to be held on the matter in Idaho, Wyoming, New
Mexico, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
The batteries that use plutonium-238 to power space travel are
already assembled in Idaho, at Argonne-West. But production and
isolation of the nuclear fuel is currently done at laboratories
in South Carolina, Tennessee and New Mexico.
The Department of Energy wants to consolidate the operations in
Idaho to save on costs and eliminate security issues involved in
transporting nuclear power across roughly 8,000 miles.
But Bacca, a former Argonne National Laboratory-West worker who
researched plutonium, questioned the benefit on contaminating
another building when the facility that the energy department now
uses will be functional for 20 or 30 years.
Tim Frazier, who oversees the energy department's radioisotope
power systems project, agreed that the production and isolation
of plutonium-238 creates the most nuclear waste.
"The least dirty parts are already out there," at Argonne
National Laboratory-West, he said. "The other parts of the
process are dirty by nature."
If the project is consolidated in Idaho, the energy department
has said it will build a new $230 million processing facility.
That would be a unique opportunity for the program, which so far
has moved into existing buildings, Frazier said.
Other residents said they worry that if the local laboratory gets
the plutonium operation, it could be excluded from getting other
energy department programs in the future. Some also fear the
operation would take up too much space in the Advanced Test
Reactor to allow for the current production of medical isotopes.
But two people at the meeting voiced support for moving plutonium
production to Idaho because of its importance to space
exploration.
"When I heard the DOE wanted to move the plutonium-238 program to
Idaho, I said 'Whoopee,' because I knew exactly what those (space
batteries) did," said Nick Nichols, an amateur astronomer and a
former INEEL communications manager.
Meeting tonight A public meeting on proposed plutonium production
at INEEL will be held from 7 to 9:30 p.m. today in the Twin Falls
B Meeting Room of the Shilo Inn, located at 1586 Blue Lakes Blvd.
Here's some other helpful information on how to offer your
comments: * The public comment period ends Jan. 31, 2005. *
Contact: Timothy A. Frazier, program director of radioisotope
power systems for the DOE. * By phone: (301) 903-9420. * By fax:
(800) 919-3765. * By e-mail: . * By mail: NE-50/Germantown
Building, Office of Space and Defense Power Systems, Office of
Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology, U.S. Department of
Energy, 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, D.C. 20585-1290
* For more information: Visit the DOE's Web site at
Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of The Times-News,
published daily at 132 W. Fairfield St.,
Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary
of Lee Enterprises.
*****************************************************************
74 lamonitor.com: Spending bill funds projects
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
Monitor Staff Report
President Bush on Wednesday signed into law a measure that
provides funding for all the government agencies, except the
Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security,
for the current fiscal year. New Mexico's two U.S. senator's said
the bill includes funds for the Department of Energy and the
state's national laboratories.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, noted that the $388 billion omnibus
package included the FY2005 energy and Water Development
Appropriations Bill totaling $29.02 billion. Domenici is chairman
of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations
Subcommittee. The bill includes a number of water projects
throughout the state.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, said the spending bill demonstrates
strong support for the laboratories' missions.
"Our labs have much to offer the country," he said. "They are
essential to the stockpile stewardship program, and they do
groundbreaking scientific research."
Domenici said the process had been arduous, but had resulted in
"some healthy funding levels for Sandia and Los Alamos."
In the package for LANL, Domenici said he had provided an
additional $16 million in a total of $40 million to continue
work on replacing the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Facility. The additional funding is intended to keep this
project on schedule for a projected 2010 completion date
Other highlights reported by Domenici for Los Alamos National
Laboratory include:
+ $37.3 million to continue construction of the new National
Security Sciences Building (new lab headquarters). Domenici
gained $12 million in FY2003 and $50 million in FY2004 for this
project.
+ $40 million to continue work on replacing the Chemistry and
Metallurgy Research Facility, $16 million over the budget
request in order to try to complete the project by 2010.
+ $8 million for the Los Alamos County Schools, the same amount
as in FY2003 and FY2004. Future years are to be funded out of
the laboratory contract.
+ $10 million for a Pajarito Plateau homesteaders claims
settlement fund. _ $50 million for LANL facility upgrades,
including $20 million for perimeter security, $10 million for
power grid infrastructure upgrades and $20 million for RED
computer safeguards and reduce need for CREM.
+ $7.2 million for the additional Environmental Clean-up of lab
property and encourage economic development.
+ $7 million as part of the Advanced Nuclear Fuel Cycles
initiative for the material test station at the LANCE facility
at LANL.
Overall the Department Energy's budget rises to $23.3 billion
for FY2005, $150 million above the budget request and $1.34
million more than FY2004. The bill contains $9.11 billion, a
$62.2 million increase over the budget request, for DOE National
Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), including weapons and
stockpile stewardship activities.
Within this amount, $1.42 billion, a $71.7 million increase, is
allowed for NNSA nonproliferation activities.
Bingaman emphasized that $30 million in this account would be
used for the Global threat Reduction Initiative to secure loose
nuclear fuels from around the world and $7 million would help
recover radioactive sources that could be used for "dirty bombs,"
Bingaman also pointed out that $20 million would go to expand
secure communication lines in the LANL test ranges to eliminate
classified removable electronic media, $10 million a power grid
replacement at LANL and $7 million for a Nuclear Energy
Materials Test Station at the lab's neutron science center;
Domenici, who has authored a book on nuclear energy, pointed to
a $100 million increase this fiscal year for nuclear energy
initiatives, totaling $513.2 million. This includes $50 million
for Nuclear Power 2010; $40 million for the Generation IV
Nuclear Energy Initiative and $68 million for the advanced fuel
cell initiative.
A total of $6.526 billion has been set for the country's three
nuclear weapons facilities.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
75 SFBV: Who should control the US nuclear weapons program?
San Francisco Bay View - National Black Newspaper of the Year
12/8/04
UC Regents lose nuclear weapons program, Part 9
by Leuren Moret
was recently caught selling cadavers to the Army for $10,000
each for research on land mines such as the one that maimed this
little boy.
In November of 1991, Richard Berta, the Western Regional
inspector for the Department of Energy at the nuclear weapons
labs and the Nevada Test Site, told me: “The nuclear weapons
labs exist for the Pentagon … and the Pentagon exists for the
oil companies.”
This statement reveals the hidden purpose for transferring the
nuclear weapons lab management contract to Texas, where the
University of Texas-Texas A&M partnership will formally hold the
contract. And it is that contract that enables the Bush-Carlyle
Group-oil companies cabal to take control.
It is not the mission of any university to develop Weapons of
Mass Destruction, nor to control nuclear weapons research and
management. Many members of the University of California faculty
have long opposed UC management of the labs, and they are
supported by a majority of the students and many citizens. Many
Texans also oppose transfer of the nuclear weapons program to
the University of Texas and Texas A&M.
WMD at the University of California?
The weapons industry is highly profitable. UC is now in the
position of managing, developing, producing, promoting,
proliferating, investing in and profiting from Weapons of Mass
Destruction - thermonuclear weapons and depleted uranium
weaponry. In fact, it is a major academic participant and
benefactor of research funds from the military (see Fiat Pax for
military funding at U.S. universities).
The institutional dedication and focus of UC to projects of mass
and indiscriminate destruction - which may lead to extinction of
the human species - rather than to education and new energy
sources is hardly exemplary. But their profits and funds are not
derived from military research grants alone.
In 1999, UC ranked first in the nation, raking in $61 million
from academic patent royalties. In 2001, it received $1.8
billion in gifts, the largest single donation of nearly $200
million coming from the estate of UC alumnus Larry Hillblom,
founder of DHL Corp., who died in 1995 in a plane crash.
But that wasn’t enough. Recently UCLA was caught in a scandal,
selling body parts from 800 bodies that had been donated for
scientific research. The buyers had also sold cadavers to the
U.S. Army which were blown up in land-mine experiments (see “The
UCLA Body Parts Scandal” and “Donated Bodies Blown Up by Army”).
The U.S. Army paid $10,000 for each body to be used for
land-mine research, which may have included the ADAM depleted
uranium landmine. The official Army response was that they were
just “testing boots.”
The fact that UC is developing, investing in and profiting from
depleted uranium (DU) weaponry, which meets the definition of
Weapons of Mass Destruction under U.S. federal law, makes UC
complicit in war crimes. (For a graphic look at war crimes in
Afghanistan, see “AC-130 Spectre Gunship video,” a leaked U.S.
military combat mission in Afghanistan.)
UC has invested $33,046,370 in Lockheed Martin Marietta, one of
the largest military industrial corporations, and $21,471,120 in
General Dynamics, one of the two biggest U.S. manufacturers of
DU weaponry. Students and faculty should be informed of this.
The University of California investment in war profiteering is
small compared to CalPERS, the State of California employee
pension fund now worth $177.8 billion (see “CalPERS Pension Fund
President Ousted”). CalPERS owns 5.5 percent of the Carlyle
Group, with a return on investment of 20-30 percent per year and
an option to buy an additional 5 percent within a few years.
As a land grant university, the University of California has a
mandate and mission to educate the citizens of California, and
it should have special consideration for people of color and
people with disabilities. As the state with probably the
greatest diversity in the nation, California universities had
the chance to provide a vital and creative model for the nation.
Instead, administrators have pigged out feeding at the public
trough, giving themselves 25 percent raises while throwing
breadcrumbs to the staff – a paltry 2 percent for the workers.
This was the pattern I observed at the Livermore nuclear weapons
lab, where a secret document revealed that the five top
administrators in the Geosciences Department, where I worked,
gave themselves 25 percent raises on their $120,000+ salaries.
We were given bad annual job evaluations each year to justify
the paltry 1.5 percent raises we received annually. Instead of a
model for the nation, the University of California is one of the
most corrupt institutions I have ever encountered. As a lawyer
representing some of the 500 women who filed lawsuits against UC
told me “UC is rotten and corrupt from the bottom to the top and
back to the bottom” … and I later found out so was she.
The Carlyle Group - shadow government?
Former Manhattan Project scientist and retired Livermore Lab
nuclear physical chemist Marion Fulk warns, “The military should
NEVER be in control of the nuclear weapons program; it should be
in civilian hands.”
The Carlyle Group, worth about $14 billion in 2001, with vested
interests and ties to the Bush crime family and oil companies,
cannot be investigated or subjected to any oversight whatsoever
because it is a private corporation. For that reason, it should
not have any control or influence over U.S. nuclear weapons
policy and development.
Admiral Bobby Ray Inman and his associates in the intelligence
business have demonstrated their systematic and treasonous abuse
of the internet, voting machines and American civil liberties.
Should we give them the trigger, the nukes, the budget they
want, and the cover of secrecy?
Eliminating resistance to change?
The “old guard” at the nuclear weapons labs is being
systematically targeted, scapegoated and run out of the labs to
“clear out the old and bring in the new” by those “UC admirals”
and Homeland Security folks. Recently, the lab badge of a
retired Livermore scientist Marion Fulk was cancelled by
Homeland Security without explanation.
Fulk remarked, “This is ridiculous. Hell, I have higher security
than anyone in Homeland Security. What does Tom Ridge know about
nuclear weapons?”
You can bet Fulk will get his badge back when they call him to
one of those “problem meetings.” At the last problem meeting, he
discovered that the plutonium canisters in the high security
vault at Livermore were puffing up like muffins in a hot oven,
which could have led to a major criticality disaster wiping out
the Western United States and beyond.
Younger scientists had arbitrarily changed the canister design,
which allowed moisture to enter the canisters, dangerously
generating hydrogen gas. Eliminating the older and more
knowledgeable nuclear weapons experts from the labs is a
dangerous practice. It is time to demand some answers from the
“UC admirals” in charge now about their motives behind such
changes.
National Science Foundation?
Management and oversight of the nuclear weapons labs belongs at
a place like the National Science Foundation, a U.S. government
agency with the resources to make rational decisions and reign
in the planned unlimited proliferation of nuclear weapons on
earth and in space.
Nuclear weapons are now obsolete. If the money spent on the
nuclear weapons program had been spent on alternative energy
development, the U.S. would now be a healthy and wealthy
country. Instead, the U.S. economy is bankrupt, with an
unhealthy population suffering from the long-term effects of
nuclear weapons testing, a radiation contaminated environment
and little choice left but to steal oil resources from other
countries.
A young student at a San Francisco antiwar demonstration two
years ago held up a sign, “Nuke their ass and take their gas.”
That sums up the present U.S. foreign policy.
Professor Butler Shaffer of Southwestern University School of
Law put it this way: “There is a toxic quality to war that
affects the inner life of individuals and, as a collective
consequence, the society itself. In the degradation and
dehumanization of the individual lies the destruction of all
mankind.”
References
“Fiat Pax (Let there be peace): A Resource on Science,
Technology, Militarism, and Universities,”
http://www.fiatpax.net.
“How Research Turns Into Royalties,” Stanford University Alumni
Magazine, March-April 1999.
“Gifts to UC Total $1.8 Billion Last Year,” by Helen Hwang,
Daily Cal, Feb. 7, 2002,
http://www.dailycal.org/article.php?id=7600.
“Asian Children Finally Get Part of $550-Million Estate,” by
Mary Curtius, Los Angeles Times, May 20, 1999,
http://www.wright.edu/~tran.dung/vn_boy.htm.
“The UCLA Body Parts Scandal,” by C. Ornstein and A. Zorembo,
March 10, 2004, Los Angeles Times,
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bodies10mar10,1,6780091.s
tory?coll=la-headlines-california.
“Donated bodies blown up by Army” by Stewart Yerton, The Times
Picayune, March 10, 2004,
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a856.htm.
“CalPERS Pension Fund President Ousted,” by Ben White, The
Washington Post, Dec. 1, 2004,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25537-2004Dec1.htm
l.
To read Parts 1 through 8 of this series, go to
http://www.sfbayview.com/091504/ucregents091504.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/092204/nuclearweapons092204.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/092904/nuclearweapons2092904.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/100604/nuclearweapons100604.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/101304/nuclearweapons101304.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/110304/ucregents110304.shtml,
http://www.sfbayview.com/112404/ucregents112404.shtml and
http://www.sfbayview.com/120104/nuclearcorridor120104.shtml.
Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who worked at the Livermore nuclear
weapons lab where she became a whistleblower in 1991, has
survived 13 years of retaliation from the Livermore Lab and the
University of California and has lived firsthand the experiences
of Karen Silkwood. A radiation specialist, she works around the
world educating citizens, the media and lawmakers about the
impact of radiation globally on the health of the public and the
environment. She assisted with Al-Jazeera’s recent report on
depleted uranium weapons which quickly became one of the most
read articles produced by the website. “DU: Washington’s Secret
Nuclear War” can be read at
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Secret-Nuclear-War14sep04.h
tm. She is an independent scientist and an environmental
commissioner for the City of Berkeley and can be reached at
leurenmoret@yahoo.com.
San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper 4917 Third Street
San Francisco California 94124 Phone: (415) 671-0789 Fax: (415)
671-0316 Email:
*****************************************************************
76 DOE: Hearings on INEEL programs
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has scheduled public
meetings regarding a proposal to consolidate the operations
required to support the production of radioisotope power systems
at the new Idaho National Laboratory at Idaho Falls, Idaho.
The expanded use of radioisotope power systems for future Moon,
Mars and beyond space ventures is being advanced by NASA as well
as the DOE.
NASA has used radioisotope thermal generators (RTGs) to energize
a variety of probes, including the Galileo mission to Jupiter,
as well as the Cassini spacecraft now circling Saturn. This type
of power technology is utilized on certain spacecraft because
they provide electricity and heat over long periods of time
without any maintenance.
Nuclear power is also essential to the now being built New
Horizons mission to Pluto, slated for a 2006 sendoff.
The DOE announced the environmental review of the proposed
consolidation of nuclear operations related to the production of
radioisotope power systems (RPS) -- technology that enables
space exploration projects as well as certain national
security-related missions.
The RPS is a unique technology for missions that require a long-
term, unattended source of heat and/or electrical power for use
in harsh and remote environments -- such as deep-space. The
Pu-238 in these units serves as the source for generating heat
and electricity. The heat source can be used directly to warm
critical spacecraft components.
Consolidate operations
Currently, DOE plans to produce RPS in support of Government
national security and space exploration missions at three
geographically separate and distant DOE sites: the Oak Ridge
National Laboratory (ORNL), Tennessee; Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), New Mexico; and the Idaho Site, Idaho. The
department is proposing to consolidate all these operations at
one highly secure site to increase the security of the nuclear
material while reducing costs and risks from transportation.
According to the DOE: “The proposed consolidation of these
operations, which includes production, purification, and
encapsulation of plutonium-238 (Pu-238), would be consistent
with DOE's approach on consolidating nuclear materials,
increasing the security of nuclear materials, and reducing risks
associated with transportation of nuclear materials. The EIS
will analyze all reasonable alternatives for the consolidation
of the RPS operations as well as the No Action alternative."
Under the No Action Alternative, DOE would continue the RPS
production operations as currently planned.
Space and Security Power Systems Facility Last October, Deputy
Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow announced the commissioning
of the new Space and Security Power Systems Facility, the new
radioisotope facility, at Idaho’s Argonne National
Laboratory-West site.
The new facility will assemble and test radioisotope power
systems that the DOE builds for NASA and various national
security agencies. When the new facility begins operations
later this year, its first major mission will be to assemble,
test and deliver a power system to NASA for the 2006 New
Horizons mission to Pluto.
“More than 40 of DOE’s radioisotope power systems have flown on
spacecraft, beginning in the 1960s with the manned missions to
the moon and continuing today with the three systems providing
electricity to the Cassini spacecraft now orbiting Saturn,”
Deputy Secretary McSlarrow said. “The completion of this
facility is an important new mission for Idaho and we look
forward to continuing our work with NASA.”
Public meetings
These radioisotope power systems are effective for use in space
exploration because they can safely and reliably produce
electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week for several
decades. They are particularly advantageous when distances from
the sun are so great that solar panels would not be feasible.
Comprised of two principle parts -- a heat source and an energy
conversion system -- they work by converting the heat from
radioactive decay of plutonium-238 into electricity using a
thermocouple. The largest of the radioisotope power systems are
the three that are currently onboard the Cassini spacecraft,
each system producing about 285 watts of electricity, roughly
equivalent to three 100-watt light bulbs. DOE’s power systems
have proven to be very reliable and durable: the Voyager 1
spacecraft, launched in 1977, was still sending signals back to
Earth when it left the solar system late last year.
Several of the meetings have already taken place. Future
public-invited meetings are slated for Dec. 13: Los Alamos
County Golf Course, Los Alamos, New Mexico; Dec. 15: Oak Ridge
Comfort Inn, Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and Dec. 17: Hyatt Regency on
Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.
http://ConsolidationEIS.doe.gov.
Sponsored Links
© 1999-2004 Imaginova Corp. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. -->
*****************************************************************
77 [DU-WATCH] Uranium Primer
Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 01:49:50 -0600 (CST)
Uranium cannot be made pure for any measurable time period. "Pure"
refers to a source material containing only the three natural
isotopes - 234, 235 and 238 U - and only in their natural ratio of
isotopes.
Uranium in its natural isotope ratios can be called VU, NU or NDU
(non-depleted uranium). VU tends, by convention, to refer to U3O8
(yellow cake) because that is how it comes from the mill. NU refers
to VU and to UF6 and UO2 because that is what VU is converted to in
order to make the feed stock for (1)gaseous diffusion (separation)
and (2) for pelletization (NU pellets for CANDU fuel rods).
Once converted to UO2, uranium is referred to as "ceramic uranium".
The "ceramic U" in the nuclear fuel cycle is formed at 700 - 800 F
degrees. Ceramic U in the battlefield is formed at considerably
higher temperatures - making it even less soluble. The
term "ceramic" is used because the surface of the U particles are
glassy, hard and relatively insoluble.
UF6 and DUF6 are reduced to make NDU, U and DU metals.
VU, NU or NDU cannot be absent of daughter products for very long
(if at all). Uranium is in a continuous state of decay. Decay cannot
be haulted. Uranium decays whether it is in a metal, oxide, nitride,
carbide, gas or liquid form.
VU converted to UF6 can be passed through separation directly or
mixed with depleted U (DUF6) and then separated. Separation (called
an enrichment or depletion process) cannot, for all practical
purposes, purify uranium (ie remove the non-uranium isotopes). The
objective of this very expensive process is to increase the
concentration of the 235 in the fuel product, not to purify the
uranium left over in the tails (the DU waste product). The enriched
product and the depletion product both contain the daughter products
of 235 and 238 decay chains.
If NU or virgin feedstock is mixed or blended with depleted U
stockpiles prior to enrichment, it also contains transuranics,
neutron capture and reactor activation products.
The issue about "40%" less is a straw man. Radioactivity of uranium
in a state of "equilibrium" is what's important. In equilibrium, DU
is approximately 80% of the radioactivity of NU. This is based on
radioactivity with an ingrowth of daughter products with all alpha,
beta and gamma emissions considered.
If the DU contains reactor spent fuel, the DU's relative
radioactivity increases and potentially any given gram of DU can
exceed the emission levels of a gram of LEU.
If we ignore the contribution of spent fuel and diffusion process
contaminants and consider only DU in equilibrium, and if you make
the DU the baseline, then NU is actually about 125% more radioactive
than DU. If you change your baseline to NU as the reference point,
DU is about 20% (not 40%)less radioactive than NU.
Medically and for dose contruction analysis, it is the quantity of
radioactivity repeatedly bombarding cells that determines the risk.
Ceramic uranium has the longest bio half life. Long term internal
exposure to a lower level emitter (eg DU) is more dangerous than
exposure to a higher level emitter (eg NU) for a short time. This is
Max's point - the physical and chemical form determines where in the
body the U goes and how long it stays there. This in turn determines
the total radioactivity released into adjacent cells and therefore
explains how the ICRP averaged dose of few mSv/g of tissue can
equate to hundreds of thousands of mSv of exposure to cells
irradiated directly by the contaminant.
The frequent statement that DU is "40% less" radioactive than NU (or
VU or NDU) is not correct because (1) U cannot remain absent of its
daughter products over any given measurable time period, (2) the
separation and milling processes are not able to make U pure, and
(3) all US DU contains recycled reactor fuel (and the separation
plants are themselves contaminated).
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78 (GCN) Cyber Eye: How public should our public data be?
Government Computer News
11/22/04; Vol. 23 No. 33
By William Jackson
GCN Staff
In an old “Rocky and Bullwinkle” episode, the dithering Capt.
Peter Peachfuzz confounded the heroes by classifying a telephone
directory Top Secret.
“It has my telephone number in it,” the captain explained.
Agencies have not yet gone that far, but a new security
classification seems to be emerging somewhere below Top Secret,
Secret and Confidential. It’s the new Inconvenient
classification, and it applies to public data that must not
appear on a public Web site.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month shut down its
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System Web site while
it was purged of Inconvenient documents. It also blocked online
access to its Electronic Hearing Docket and staff documents
relating to the high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain,
Nevada.
“The NRC is widening its review to remove additional information
that could potentially be of use to a terrorist,” the agency
said in announcing the shutdown.
Nervous agencies
The NRC is not alone in its hypersensitivity. Fearing a
terrorist behind every browser, nervous agencies shut down their
Web sites in the months following Sept. 11 and removed data that
had been freely available until then.
Inconvenient information includes floor plans, maps, blueprints
and lists of hazardous materials, which could allow lazy
terrorists to do their research remotely rather than go to the
trouble of casing a potential target in person.
The notion that some public information is Inconvenient is
troubling. The rationale is that this kind of data is of limited
value to the public and could be of greater value to terrorists.
This assumes that anyone wanting to see Inconvenient information
is a terrorist until he or she can prove otherwise.
That is not the way a free society works. One of our
government’s responsibilities is to make information available
to the public, with the exception of personal data that would
violate someone’s privacy, or information that presents a
real—not supposed—security risk. It is possible that public
information could be misused by terrorists, but that misuse is
covered by criminal laws. The solution is to prevent or punish
the criminal act, not to hide public information. Law
enforcement is hard work, but restriction of freedom is no
substitute. Freedom isn’t always convenient.
Ben Franklin wrote, “They that can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety.”
NRC noted that no classified material or information on nuclear
safeguards had ever been permitted on its Web site. But its
guidelines now state that “any information that could be useful,
or could reasonably be expected to be useful, to a terrorist in
a potential attack should be withheld.”
Sounds to me like that could include the phone book.
*****************************************************************
79 EurekAlert: Nuclear-powered mission to Neptune could answer
questions about planetary formation
release date: 9-Dec-2004
Contact: Jane Sanders
404-894-2214
JIMO-NeptuneTriton A mission to investigate Neptune is expected
to launch between 2016 and 2018 and arrive around 2035. This
artist's conception depicts a nuclear-electric-powered orbiter
equipped with electrical and optical sensors. The mission would
deploy three probes for sensing Neptune's atmosphere and two
landers for exploring Triton, Neptune's largest moon
(foreground). Image Courtesy of Boeing Satellite Systems
Click for a high resolution photograph.
In 30 years, a nuclear-powered space exploration mission to
Neptune and its moons may begin to reveal some of our solar
system's most elusive secrets about the formation of its planets
-- and recently discovered ones that developed around other
stars. This vision of the future is the focus of a 12-month
planning study conducted by a diverse team of experts led by
Boeing Satellite Systems and funded by NASA. It is one of 15
"Vision Mission" studies intended to develop concepts in the
United States' long-term space exploration plans. Neptune team
member and radio scientist Professor Paul Steffes of the Georgia
Institute of Technology's School of Electrical and Computer
Engineering calls the mission "the ultimate in deep space
exploration."
NASA has flown extensive missions to Jupiter and Saturn,
referred to as the "gas giants" because they are predominantly
made up of hydrogen and helium. By 2012, these investigations
will have yielded significant information on the chemical and
physical properties of these planets. Less is known about
Neptune and Uranus -- the "ice giants."
"Because they are farther out, Neptune and Uranus represent
something that contains more of the original – to use a 'Carl
Saganism' – 'solar stuff' or the nebula that condensed to form
planets," Steffes said. "Neptune is a rawer planet. It is less
influenced by near-sun materials, and it's had fewer collisions
with comets and asteroids. It's more representative of the
primordial solar system than Jupiter or
Saturn."
Also, because Neptune is so cold, its structure is different
from Jupiter and Saturn. A mission to investigate the origin and
structure of Neptune -- expected to launch between 2016 and 2018
and arrive around 2035 -- will increase scientists'
understanding of diverse planetary formation in our solar system
and in others, Steffes noted.
The mission team is also interested in exploring Neptune's
moons, especially Triton, which planetary scientists believe to
be a Kuiper belt object. Such balls of ice are micro planets
that can be up to 1,000 kilometers in diameter and are generally
found in the outermost regions of our solar system. Based on
studies to date, scientists believe Triton was not formed from
Neptune materials, like most moons orbiting planets in our solar
system. Instead, Triton is likely a Kuiper belt object that was
accidentally pulled into Neptune's orbit. "Triton was formed way
out in space," Steffes said. "It is not even a close relative of
Neptune. It's an adopted child…. We believe Kuiper belt objects
like Triton were key to the development of our solar system, so
there's a lot of interest in visiting Triton."
Though they face a number of technical challenges -- including
entry probe design, and telecommunications and scientific
instrument development -- the Neptune Vision Mission team has
developed an initial plan. Team members, including Steffes, have
been presenting it this fall at a variety of scientific meetings
to encourage feedback from other experts. On Dec. 17, they will
present it again at the annual meeting of the American
Geophysical Union. Their final recommendations are due to NASA
in July 2005.
GPN-2000-001983 This computer generated montage shows Neptune as
it would appear from a spacecraft approaching Triton, Neptune's
largest moon at 2,706 kilometers (1,683 miles) in diameter.
Image Courtesy of NASA
The plan is based on the availability of nuclear-electric
propulsion technology under development in NASA's Project
Prometheus. A traditional chemical rocket would launch the
spacecraft out of Earth orbit. Then an electric propulsion
system powered by a small nuclear fission reactor – a modified
submarine-type technology -- would propel the spacecraft to its
deep-space target. The propulsion system would generate thrust
by expelling electrically charged particles called ions from its
engines.
Because of the large scientific payload a nuclear-electric
propelled spacecraft can carry and power, the Neptune mission
holds great promise for scientific discovery, Steffes said.
The mission will employ electrical and optical sensors aboard
the orbiter and three probes for sensing the nature of Neptune's
atmosphere, said Steffes, an expert in remote radio sensing of
planetary atmospheres. Specifically, the mission will gather
data on Neptune's atmospheric elemental ratios relative to
hydrogen and key isotopic ratios, as well as the planet's
gravity and magnetic fields. It will investigate global
atmospheric circulation dynamics, meteorology and chemistry. On
Triton, two landers will gather atmospheric and geochemical
information near geysers on the surface.
The mission's three entry probes will be dropped into Neptune's
atmosphere at three different latitudes – the equatorial zone, a
mid-latitude and a polar region. Mission designers face the
challenge of transmitting data from the probes through Neptune's
radiowave-absorbing atmosphere. Steffes' lab at Georgia Tech has
conducted extensive research and gained a thorough understanding
of how to address this problem, he
noted.
The mission team is still discussing how deep the probes should
be deployed into Neptune's atmosphere to get meaningful
scientific data. "If we pick a low enough frequency of radio
signals, we can go down to 500 to 1,000 Earth atmospheres, which
is 7,500 pounds of pressure per square inch (PSI)," Steffes
explained. "That pressure is similar to what a submarine
experiences in the deep ocean."
However, that depth will probably not be required, according to
the mission team's atmospheric modelers, Steffes said. The
probes will be able to obtain most information at only 100 Earth
atmospheres, or 1,500 PSI.
###
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