*****************************************************************
11/03/04 ****     RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL)       **** VOL 12.263
*****************************************************************
   RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body

                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Interfax: Russia, Iran may sign spent nuclear fuel deal in Dec 2004
2 MosNews: Russia to Sign Nuclear Deal With Iran in December — Report 
3 Korea Herald: IAEA starts third round of inspections   
4 Korea Herald: Russia seeks renewed 6-party talks   
5 UPI: IAEA probes S.Korea's nuclear experiments - 
6 Korea Times: Seoul Seeks Fair IAEA Verdict 
7 US: RGJ: Bush wins tight race in Nevada
8 asahi.com: Solar power generators in hot demand 
9 Deutsche Welle: Energy Policy Ties Germany to Russia 
10 Guardian Unlimited: Richard Norton-Taylor: Axis of failure
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
11 The Hindu: Breeder reactor: And the winner is... metallic fuel 
12 Bellona: Russia spends $600-700m for nuclear reactors upgrade and
13 US: NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee to Di
14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea builds 19th Nuclear Power Plant   
15 toledoblade.com: Malfunction cuts power at Fermi II
16 US: NRC: STP Nuclear Operating Company; South Texas Project, Unit No
17 CEN: Reflection over the nuclear power fever in China
18 US: NRC: Draft Appendix C (DG-1138) to Regulatory Guide 1.200, ``An 
19 US: APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant plans maintenance during ref
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
20 [du-list] Fw: Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging
21 Bellona: 37 new radioactive objects found in Karskoye Sea
22 BBC: Nuclear safety staff plan
23 BBC: Sarin 'Gulf war syndrome cause'
24 US: Idaho Statesman: Science panel sends staff to hear Idaho downwin
25 US: Hawk Eye: Ruling gives worker÷sheir hope 
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
26 US: Seattle Times: Washington voters well behind radioactive waste l
27 Las Vegas RJ: Reid coasts to fourth term
28 Las Vegas RJ: Nevada remains battleground to end
29 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Guinn deserves blame for dump if it ever open
30 Las Vegas SUN: Reid in line to be new Senate minority leader
31 Japan Times: Ehime approves MOX-burning nuclear reactor
32 US: TownOnline.com: Still looking for answers on perchlorate source
33 Las Vegas SUN: Bush wins tight race in battleground Nevada
34 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Rules broken in nuclear shipments, E
 
                         NUCLEAR WEAPONS
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
35 komo 4: Future Of Hanford Initiative In Doubt Despite Voters' Approv
36 lamonitor.com: Lockheed Martin takes hit on Idaho cleanup 
 
                          OTHER NUCLEAR
 
37 Young Independent: How the atoms are helping us 
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                         FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
 1 Interfax: Russia, Iran may sign spent nuclear fuel deal in Dec 2004
 
Nov 3 2004 4:22PM
 
MOSCOW. Nov 3 (Interfax) - Russia and Iran may sign an additional 
protocol on returning spent nuclear fuel to Russia from a nuclear 
power plant under construction in Iran, a source in the Russian 
Federal Nuclear Energy Agency (Rosatom) said. 

The deal may be signed off in December, 2004, if the Rosatom 
chief, Alexander Rumyantsev, visits Iran at this time, the source 
said. 

"I do not rule out that this document might be signed if all 
financial issues on this protocol are fully resolved and the 
dates for the trip are agreed upon," he said. 

"We can only suppose today that this trip is likely to take place 
in the second half of December this year," he source said. "There 
are no final agreements with Iran on the dates of Alexander 
Rumyantsev's trip to Iran," he said. 

He labeled as premature media reports saying that Rumyantsev's 
trip to Iran in December is an issue decided upon. 
    
© 1991-2004 Interfax
 All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
 2 MosNews: Russia to Sign Nuclear Deal With Iran in December — Report -
                       
NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM
 
Reactor in Bushehr, Iran / Photo from www.nci.org 
 
Created: 03.11.2004 11:11 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:12 MSK 

MosNews
 
Russia will sign an agreement in December to receive spent 
nuclear fuel from Iran, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.

“Now there are no technical or political reasons not to sign such 
a protocol during the forthcoming visit to Tehran by the head of 
the Russian atomic agency Alexander Rumyantsev,” the agency 
quoted an Iranian official as saying.

Ali Akbar Soltani, deputy director general of political and 
international affairs in Iran’s Foreign Ministry was quoted by 
the agency as saying only a few financing details remained and 
they would be settled a month before the visit.

The agency quoted the Russian Atomic Ministry as saying the visit 
would take place in the second half of December.

Russia insisted on this deal to mitigate U.S. concerns over 
Iran’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is peaceful but the 
United States fears the fuel could be used to make weapons. 
Russia completed work on an $800 million reactor in the Iranian 
city of Bushehr in mid-October.
 
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
 3 Korea Herald: IAEA starts third round of inspections   

The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper
 
A five-member inspection team from the U.N. nuclear watchdog 
launched the third round of inspections in South Korea on 
Wednesday (November 03) related to South Korea's past nuclear 
material experiments.

The five-member team from the International Atomic Energy Agency 
arrived at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute, South 
Korea's main nuclear research center, in Daejeon, at around 9:20 
in the morning.

This is the third round of inspections so far for the 
International Atomic Energy Agency since the country acknowledged 
in early September that its scientists extracted or enriched 
small amounts of plutonium and uranium, the two key ingredients 
of atomic bombs, in 1982 and 2000.

Officials of South Korea said the two laboratory experiments were 
purely scientific and isolated incidents that were unrelated to 
any weapons program. The inspections will carry on until Sunday 
during which the IAEA officials will visit a research center in 
Gongneung-dong in northern Seoul. 

Korea's director-general of the Nuclear Bureau at the Science and 
Technology Ministry, Cho Chung-won, said that it will probably be 
the last step by the IAEA for preparation of a final report to 
its 35-nation board of governors, which is to meet on Nov. 25.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reiterated South 
Korea's innocence on the experiments. The minister also expressed 
confidence that the IAEA would deal fairly with Korea's case so 
it can be settled as soon as possible.

2004.11.04
 
*****************************************************************
 4 Korea Herald: Russia seeks renewed 6-party talks   
        
Russia will push for the resumption of the six-party talks on 
North Korea's nuclear weapons program before the end of this 
year, a Russian parliamentary leader said here Tuesday. 

"Russia's primary interest is to have a nuclear-free Korean 
Peninsula," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma 
International Committee, said in an interview with The Korea 
Herald. 

Leading a parliamentary delegation, Kosachev arrived in Seoul on 
Monday to discuss parliamentary exchanges and other issues of 
mutual concern with the South Korean National Assembly. 

Assembly officials said Kosachev and three other representatives
of the Russian parliament met South Korean lawmakers, including
Assembly Speaker Kim Won-ki, and discussed ways of the reopening
the six-party nuclear talks as soon as possible. The talks
involve the two Koreas, Russia, the United States, China, and
Japan. They were held three times in Beijing, but failed to
achieve any major diplomatic breakthrough because of differences
between North Korea and the United States. 

The talks have been suspended since September when North Korea
refused to attend a fourth meeting, citing Washington's
"hostile" policy toward it and South Korea's past nuclear
activities. 

"My personal point of view is that the multilateral approach may
not be very useful," said Kosachev. "I prefer to use the
bilateral ways of consultation between the nations and have
direct contacts with the North Korea also." 

Kosachev added that the U.S. hard-line policy toward the North
had not helped dissolve the tension on the Korean Peninsula. 

"One of the reasons of North Korea behaving the way they did was
due to the rather inflexible approach of the United States," he
said. "It led to a response not good for anyone, including the
United States, and now we are in the situation where nobody
knows a way out." 

"The existing mechanism of the six-party consultation has been
good enough, and I think some progress had been reached there.
But time is important. Since the reason they could not meet each
other for several months is partly due to the U.S. presidential
election, I am glad that it is almost over," Kosachev said. 

He added, however, that he does not expect much change after the
election. 

"I do not believe that the approaches of the current president
and the candidate differ very much," he said. "Both of them are
interested in the problem in the North Korea because the North
is considered as a direct threat to the U.S. security. Ways of
handling this threat would not differ much." 

Kosachev said that he hoped for North Korea to become a
"democratic, transparent and predictable" nation, which Russia
can maintain intimate cooperation with. 
"Our first task is to be as active as possible in this six-party
consultation process, and the next task is to persuade North
Korea that they can win on having good economic and political
cooperation with Russia as well as with South Korea," he said. 

Kosachev was a key aide to former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny
Primakov, an international negotiator who served under former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. 

The Russian parliamentarian, who came here at the invitation of
Rep. Lim Chae-jung, head of the parliamentary unification,
foreign affairs and trade committee, will stay in Korea until
Friday. text for possible boxed quote: 

'One of the reasons of North Korea behaving the way they did was
due to the rather inflexible approach of the United States. It
led to a response not good for anyone, including the United
States, and now we are in the situation where nobody knows a way
out.' 

By Shin Hae-in 

2004.11.04
*****************************************************************
 5 UPI: IAEA probes S.Korea's nuclear experiments - 

(United Press International)
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 
  November 02, 2004 			   

Daejon, South Korea, Nov. 3 (UPI) -- Five International Atomic 
Energy Agency inspectors resumed their investigation Wednesday 
into South Korea's past nuclear experiments. 

A team from the nuclear watchdog arrived at the Korean Atomic 
Energy Research Institute, the nation's main nuclear research 
center, in Daejeon, 100 miles south of Seoul.

 It is the third time for the nuclear agency to carry out 
inspections in South Korea after the country acknowledged in 
early September that its scientists conducted a plutonium-based 
nuclear experiment in 1982 and a uranium-enrichment experiment in 
2000.

 The five-day investigation will be the last step by the IAEA to 
prepare a final report to its 35-nation board of governors, which 
is to convene a meeting Nov. 25.

 "The new team will finalize a report to be presented to an IAEA 
board meeting," said an official at the South Korea's Foreign 
Ministry.

 Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon reiterated the nuclear activities 
were part of scientific research and not linked to any weapons 
programs. He said the IAEA would deal fairly with South Korea 
case.

[UPI Perspectives]                                                                    
*****************************************************************
 6 Korea Times: Seoul Seeks Fair IAEA Verdict 

Hankooki.com > The Korea Times   

By Ryu Jin Staff Reporter

 South Korea on Wednesday expressed its hope the U.N. nuclear 
agency will deal with its past nuclear experiments in a fair 
manner so the surrounding controversy can be brought to an end as 
early as possible.

 ``We have been fully complying with inspections by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),¡¯¡¯ Foreign 
Affairs-Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon said in his weekly press 
briefing, reiterating the nation¡¯s innocence regarding the 
issue. ``We hope the U.N. nuclear watchdog will fairly and 
promptly address the case.¡¯¡¯

 A five-member delegation from the Vienna-based organization is 
visiting South Korea from Monday to Sunday for its seemingly 
final inspection of the recently disclosed nuclear-related tests, 
conducted by some unauthorized scientists.

 They arrived early in the morning at the Korean Atomic Energy 
Research Institute (KAERI), the nation¡¯s main nuclear research 
center located in Taejon, some 160 km south of Seoul. But, they 
remained tight-lipped on their activities as they did during the 
two previous missions in recent months. The inspectors are also 
expected to visit a now-defunct atomic research center in 
Kongnung-dong, northern Seoul.

 South Korea acknowledged in early September that some of its 
scientists extracted or enriched ``tiny¡¯¡¯ amounts of plutonium 
and uranium _ the two key ingredients for building nuclear bombs 
_ in 1982 and 2000 without reporting to the government.

 Seoul insisted the two laboratory experiments were isolated, 
one-off incidents and were not related to any weapons program and 
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei also described them as 
``simply scientific tests on a small scale.¡¯¡¯

 The IAEA is preparing for a final report to its 35-nation board 
of governors, which is to convene a meeting on Nov. 25. The board 
will make a final decision at the meeting on whether to refer 
South Korea to the U.N. Security Council over the experiments. 

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr 11-03-2004 16:45         
        
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
enter a hotel where they are to stay while in Taejon, Wednesday. 
Yonhap   

*****************************************************************
 7 RGJ: Bush wins tight race in Nevada
 
ASSOCIATED PRESS
11/3/2004 03:50 am 

LAS VEGAS — In his bid to win re-election, George W. Bush 
believed he could carry Nevada a second time, despite Democratic 
challenger John Kerry’s many efforts to win the state.

President Bush carried out his strategy and won a hard-fought 
duel in battleground Nevada, a victory that could seal this 
tightly contested presidential race.

With 1,795 of 1,802 precincts reporting, President Bush received 
388,963 votes, or 51 percent. Kerry grabbed 368,458 votes, or 48 
percent. Independent Ralph Nader had 1 percent of the votes.

Nevada and its crucial five electoral votes — one more than 2000 
since redistricting — were decided by the slimmest of margins 
early Wednesday and, combined with victories in other 
battleground states, could ensure Bush’s re-election.

To secure Nevada, Kerry had hoped to keep it close in Reno and 
Washoe County and win in southern Nevada by as much as 10 
percent. Seventy percent of the voters live in Las Vegas and 
surrounding Clark County.

But that scenario didn’t play out, helping Bush take Nevada and 
possibly remain in office for a second term and another four 
years.

At a Republican rally at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, Gov. 
Kenny Guinn had said Bush would take Nevada. The Republican 
governor was right.

“I feel good about the election,” Guinn said.

Kerry’s strongest support came from heavily Democratic Clark 
County, anchored by Las Vegas, the only county where he was 
winning. He held slight leads early Tuesday in GOP-dominated 
Washoe County and Reno, but Bush moved ahead there, too, as final 
returns were tabulated.

Washoe County has not backed a Democratic candidate since Lyndon 
Baines Johnson in 1964.

Bush enjoyed overwhelming support in rural Nevada, including a 
4-1 margin in Elko County, where many registered Democrats 
crossed over to support his re-election. He led by a 2-1 margin 
or more in Douglas, Lyon and Pershing counties, and a 3-1 margin 
in Churchill County.

Like the rest of the country, Nevada was closely divided between 
the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and President Bush, a 
Texas Republican.

For many people there was an urgency to vote because of the 
important issues facing the nation that included security, the 
economy and perhaps the most critical, the Iraq war.

Christie Vernon, 20, of Henderson, a registered Republican who 
works in her family’s restaurant, said what happened in Iraq cost 
Bush her vote.

“I don’t think he did a good job with Iraq,” she said. “A lot of 
innocent people died and no weapons of mass destruction were 
found.”

Some voters weren’t swayed.

Ryan Runia, 31, of Henderson, who owns a financial services 
business and typically votes Republican, said the economy was the 
most important issue to him. That’s why he voted for Bush.

“It wasn’t a hard choice,” he said. “Bush favors entrepreneurship 
and small businesses.”

The closest presidential race in Nevada’s history was in 1996, 
when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole. Clinton snatched a narrow 
victory, winning the state by 4,730 votes, or a 1 percent margin.

Since then, the political landscape has changed dramatically. 
Four year ago, Nevada was a faint blip on campaign radar and 
presidential candidates spent little time targeting the state’s 
electoral votes.

But Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a mere five electoral 
votes, illustrating the importance of even small swing states 
like Nevada.

Bush won the state in 2000 by 3.5 percentage points, grabbing 
49.5 percent of the vote to Gore’s 46 percent after Clinton had 
won Nevada in 1992 and 1996.

Both candidates campaigned an unprecedented number of times in 
Nevada, with Kerry visiting seven times and Bush four. Most of 
those trips were to Las Vegas, where the majority of the state’s 
fast-growing population lives.

Vice presidential candidates, family members and other political 
supporters, including former President Bill Clinton, have 
blanketed the state in recent months, hoping to sway voters in 
what was a tight race for most of the campaign. Bush and Kerry 
were separated by only a few percentage points, according to 
statewide polls.

Voter registration reached a record high 1.1 million and was 
virtually even between Democrats and Republicans after efforts by 
more than 100 partisan and nonpartisan groups.

During the campaign, Bush and Kerry seized on issues important to 
the state’s voters.

Kerry repeatedly pledged to block the federal proposal to build 
Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas.

Bush and Congress approved the site in 2002, angering Nevadans 
who said the president broke a previous promise to use “sound 
science” to make the decision.

Kerry hasn’t let Nevadan voters forgot about the president’s 
“broken promises” and an anti-Yucca plank was part of the 
national party’s platform.

Bush touted his credentials as commander in chief during wartime 
and the state’s robust economy that has rebounded since the Sept. 
11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In the 10 states where polls showed close races, Nevada was the 
only one in which the unemployment rate had fallen. Nevada’s rate 
dropped from an already low 4 percent in August to 3.9 percent in 
September — its lowest rate since mid-2000. 

This weeks news from GoToRenoTahoe.com Headliners 

*****************************************************************
 8 asahi.com: Solar power generators in hot demand 

The Asahi Shimbun 

Here comes the sun: Makers ratchet up production to satisfy
growing global appetite. 

Japanese manufacturers of solar power generators are cranking up
their production capacities to meet growing demand at home and
abroad, particularly from the United States and Europe. 

Four makers that hold a combined global market share of almost
50 percent-Sharp Corp., Kyocera Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp.
and Sanyo Electric Co.-are also doubling efforts to prevent
leakage of their expertise in the field. 

Kyocera, the world's third-largest maker of solar power
generators, is in the midst of a major expansion drive overseas. 

In October, the company started production of solar photovoltaic
modules at a new assembly plant in Tijuana, Mexico. A year ago,
the manufacturer opened a plant in Tianjin, China, and in April,
it plans to start operations at an assembly plant in Kadan,
Czech Republic. 

With the three plants, Kyocera will have established a global
production network that is well-situated in the three promising
overseas markets of China, Europe and the United States. 

Global market leader Sharp has also been adding to its fleet of
factories. After launching a plant in the United States last
year, the company opened shop in Wrexham, Britain, in April. 

Sanyo, meanwhile, plans to build a new assembly plant in Dorog,
Hungary. The 5,000-square-meter factory will begin operations in
June. 

Production volume in terms of generating capacity will be 50,000
kilowatts a year initially and will be doubled from fiscal 2006. 
On home soil, the electronics manufacturer plans to build a new
plant in Gunma Prefecture in January, and Mitsubishi Electric
says it will boost capacity at its plants in Nagano and Kyoto
prefectures by next spring. 

Japan has been a leading market for solar power generators. 
The recent surge in demand from the U.S. and European markets is
largely due to growing interest in renewable energy sources as
governments seek alternative energy sources that are gentle on
the environment. 

To curb global warming, the European Union in 2001 ordered
member nations to increase the share of electric power generated
using natural energy sources such as solar and wind power. 

In Germany, demand for solar power generators is growing
remarkably, accelerated by a government policy to phase out
nuclear power plants and promote alternative energy sources. 
In the United States, solar power generators are attracting

increased attention following power shortages in 2000 and 2001
that damaged public trust in electric power companies. 

The growth in worldwide demand has raised global production of
solar modules by 30 to 40 percent annually since 1999. 

Modules produced in 2003 have a combined generating capacity of
about 744,000 kilowatts, equivalent to that of a midsize nuclear
power plant. Sharp estimates that total production in terms of
generating capacity will grow to 1 million kw in 2004. 

After completing their expansion projects next summer, the four
domestic manufacturers will boast a combined production capacity
of 843,000 kw, 60 percent larger than at the end of March. By
building assembly plants conveniently located near the U.S. and
European markets, Japanese manufacturers aim to slash
transportation costs and shorten delivery times. 

A Kyocera official said exporting bulky finished products from
Japan to such markets is alarmingly expensive, and the company
hopes to cut transportation costs by as much as 80 percent by
assembling the units overseas. 

Despite global expansion, manufacturers plan to keep production
of photovoltaic cells-highly confidential core components-at
home out of concern over leakage of development know-how. 
Overseas plants are responsible only for the less sensitive
downstream process: assembling the cells, all imported from
Japan, into solar modules. 

Domestic plants are off-limits to outsiders as manufacturers
jealously guard their proprietary production processes of
photovoltaic cells, which largely determine the
energy-conversion rate and other key performances.(IHT/Asahi:
November 3,2004) 


[Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction
*****************************************************************
 9 Deutsche Welle: Energy Policy Ties Germany to Russia 

03.11.2004                                                                           
 		     	 
Germany Bound to Russia Over Energy Policy  
		     	 	 
[Natural gas piped in from Siberia is stored in facilities like 
this]                                                                                                                                   
 									     								 							
Natural gas piped in from Siberia is stored in facilities like 
this                                                                               

Germany is dependent on Russia for some 40 percent of its natural 
gas, and the amount is set to grow, experts warn. At the same 
time, promising energy resources in Central Asia are being 
neglected.

BASF subsidiary Wintershall will soon begin drilling in Siberia, 
together with with the world's largest natural gas producer, 
Russia's Gazprom. It's the first time a foreign company will 
directly take part in boring for natural gas in Russia. The 
drilling will begin in 2005 near Urengoy, in western Siberia. The 
region, some 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) northeast of Moscow, 
contains the world's largest natural gas fields.

For Moscow the decision to allow a foreign company direct access 
to the natural gas source is an exception to the rule. Instead of 
opening up its energy sector, the Russian leadership is focusing 
more on a "creeping re-nationalization," according to Klaus 
Umbach of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP.) The 
latest sign of this "disquieting trend" was made more clear 
during the Yukos affair. Yukos oil company got slapped with a 
lawsuit and a huge bill for back taxes when company founder 
Mikhail Khodorkovsky made signs of standing up to the government. 

Russian infrastructure ailing 

According to Friedemann MÃ¼ller, energy expert at the German 
Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), 
German-Russian cooperation is above all a result of desperation 
in the Russian energy sector. "Foreign investment is desperately 
needed," MÃ¼ller told DW-WORLD. 

According to experts, Russia needs more than $600 billion (â‚¬472 
billion) in investments in order to whip its energy sector into 
shape. Ramshackle pipeline networks need to be revamped and 
brought up to date, outdated delivery systems need to be 
replaced. 

Costs are not being spared -- in the end, the future of European 
energy provision is at stake. In the middle-term, Russian natural 
gas is needed, while coal and oil are becoming less and less 
important. Chancellor Gerhard SchrÃ¶der has personally 
accelerated cooperation with Russia on energy policy. Already, 40 
percent of Germany's natural gas needs are met by Russia. 

While the European Union may for the time being produce around 
two-thirds of its necessary natural gas -- above all in the UK 
and the Netherlands, some 60 percent of the remainder is imported 
from Russia. 

"The increasing dependence on Russia is dangerous," cautioned SWP 
expert MÃ¼ller. And he is not alone in his warnings. Already in 
November 2000, the European Commission warned that the EU needed 
to move "toward a European strategy of energy security" 

According to MÃ¼ller, however, "the argument was simply ignored 
by the individual EU states." 

Considering other sources 

But there are cogent arguments in favor of such a strategy. In a 
political crisis, Russia could exploit its leading role in the 
European energy market and disturb its pipeline workings as a 
means of exerting pressure, Umbach from the DGAP said. 

Moscow already sees its energy policies as an important 
instrument of its foreign and security policy. In addition, in 
order to reach its growth goals, Russia needs to set very high 
oil and gas prices in the coming years. This will above all 
affect consumers. 

And energy expert MÃ¼ller sees another problem: Europe is the 
biggest import market for natural gas, and its needs are 
increasing quickly. "Russia doesn't have the capacity to meet 
Europe's long term needs," he said. 

Given that, some say it is disconcerting that Europe is becoming 
yet more dependent on Russian gas. By 2020 the natural gas 
deposits in the North Sea are expected to be all but depleted. On 
the other hand, Germany's decision to shut down all its nuclear 
power plants by 2020 means there will be a huge need for other 
sources of energy. Currently, nuclear energy provides a third of 
the country's entire electricity. 

Looking to Central Asia 

"Renewable resources cannot compensate for that, not by a long 
shot," MÃ¼ller said. Like Umbach, he calls for the region to 
"diversify" its import structure. Russia is important, no 
question, he said. But diversifying sources for natural gas from 
different regions, such as North Africa and Iran, could undermine 
the Russian monopoly on natural gas provision for Europe. This 
would also create more competition, which could drive down 
prices. 

According to Umbach and MÃ¼ller, the future lies in Central Asia 
and the southern Caucasus. Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan 
and Uzbekistan all have important natural gas reserves The region 
is closer to Europe, and prospecting there would be cheaper, said 
MÃ¼ller. 

Plans for an affordable pipeline to Europe are already in the 
works. "But Europe and the German government haven't made any 
moves" toward making it a reality, MÃ¼ller criticized. He points 
to the strong influence of the big energy providers. 

Ruhrgas, one of the most important energy providers in Germany 
and a former monopoly, is closely tied to energy giant Gazprom. 
But another reason for the lack of European action in developing 
other energy sources is the tight partnership between the German 
government and Russian President Putin, a man no one wants to 
risk rubbing the wrong way. Steffen Leidel (jen) [de:mehr]                                               
-->                                                                     
 			

 		   		      	 


	
 		     	 	
                                   Send                                    
Print                         

	 

	
 		     		     		     	 	
 		     	 


	
		 		     	 

	 	 	 	 	 	 	

	 		
                                                          [Info] 
Renewables Made in Germany At a time when oil prices are at a 
record high, Germany is one of the world's leaders in developing 
renewable energy. After progress in wind and solar power, Germans 
are looking to find a replacement for gasoline. (Oct. 11, 2004) 
SchrÃ¶der Heads to EU-Wary Norway Trade ties, especially oil and 
gas interests, and Oslo's ambivalent relationship with the EU are 
expected to top talks when Chancellor SchrÃ¶der meets Norwegian 
PM Bondevik in Norway Tuesday. (Sept. 28, 2004) Bright Lights, 
Big Cities, No Competition Germans have to dig deeper in their 
pockets to turn on lights, do a load of laundry, or heat their 
homes with electricity, than any other nation in Europe. (Sept. 
16, 2004)
 					   			     		 	
*****************************************************************
 10 Guardian Unlimited: Richard Norton-Taylor: Axis of failure
 
Analysis 
                
The war in Iraq has realised Tony Blair's worst fear: the 
creation of another country where terrorists can easily find 
weapons of mass destruction             
 		
Wednesday November 3, 2004
 		
Early last year, Tony Blair was warned by the joint intelligence 
committee that invading Iraq would increase the risk of a far 
greater threat than anything posed by Saddam Hussein: namely 
international terrorism, and al-Qaida in particular. The JIC also 
warned, according to the parliamentary intelligence and security 
committee, that "any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase 
the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology ... 
finding their way into the hands of terrorists". 

The invasion has produced a toxic mix of insurgents, resistance 
fighters, former soldiers, foreign "jihadists" and bandits, with 
no shortage of weapons, including thousands of mortars and 
rocket-propelled grenades - and, we now know, enough explosives 
to make thousands of bombs, and powerful enough to detonate 
nuclear weapons. 

In May, an International Atomic Energy Agency memorandum warned 
that terrorists could be helping themselves "to the greatest 
explosives bonanza in history". The looting became public after 
the UN agency subsequently told the security council that nearly 
380 tonnes of nuclear-related high explosives had gone missing 
from the al-Qaqaa weapons factory, about 45 kilometres south of 
Baghdad. 

The IAEA had sealed the explosives before the invasion and warned 
the US of the need to keep them secure. The agency has also 
warned that machine tools that could be used to make nuclear 
weapons are missing from other sites in Iraq - sites that before 
the invasion were known to contain them. 

Shortly after the invasion, when US troops were busy protecting 
Iraq's oil ministry and pipelines, Greenpeace reported that not 
one soldier was guarding Tuwaitha, a nuclear research base near 
Baghdad with nuclear equipment that had also been sealed by 
inspectors. Tuwaitha and al-Qaqaa were well known to the CIA and 
MI6. 

In June last year, a Greenpeace radiation team found looting 
still going on at Tuwaitha, with villagers taking contaminated 
materials for house building and barrels that had contained 
uranium yellowcake for storing food and water. Two months 
earlier, American soldiers stood by as looters took potentially 
lethal viruses from an Iraqi laboratory well known to UN 
inspectors. 

Human Rights Watch says that it gave British and US troops 
precise information about weapons stockpiles in Iraq. The 
response was that there were not enough soldiers to guard them. 
Meanwhile, 1,000 inspectors from the CIA's Iraq Survey Group were 
looking for WMD. 

The threat that, before the invasion, Blair said he feared most - 
terrorists getting their hands on WMD - has increased 
immeasurably. Even before the full extent of the looting - now 
exposing British and American troops to greatly increased danger 
- was known, their military commanders were furious with their 
political masters and the misjudgments of their intelligence 
agencies. Britain's commanders had more reason to be angry as 
Washington dismissed their entreaties that the Iraqi army be 
encouraged to remain in place to maintain law and order and 
prevent looting. 

A new study spells out the huge dangers to international security 
of the Bush view of the world. Amitai Etzioni, an American who 
influenced New Labour's "third way" thinking on the domestic 
front, argues that Washington's emphasis on "rogue states" is 
thoroughly misconceived. "Failing states" are the problem, he 
says. Iraq seems in danger of rapidly falling into this category. 

"Much of the attention that is paid to nuclear threats has been 
focused on the three members of the axis of evil: Iran, Iraq and 
North Korea. However, nuclear attacks in this day and age are 
much more likely to be the work of terrorists," says Etzioni in 
Pre-Empting Nuclear Terrorism in a New Global Order, which is 
published by the Foreign Policy Centre. 

The reason, he argues, is that it is "more difficult to deter 
suicide bombers than even rogue states". 

Though Etzioni concentrates on the nuclear threat, the same may 
be said to apply to attacks with biological or chemical weapons. 
Etzioni says that among failing states, Pakistan ranks high as a 
country from which terrorists are most likely to be able to 
obtain ready-made weapons, either by toppling the government or 
by corrupting the guardians of its bombs. 

Yet Pakistan is not on the axis-of-evil list. The US ignored the 
the fact that the leading Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan 
was found to be at the centre of a transnational black market in 
nuclear materials, because, says Etzioni, it was focusing on 
capturing Osama bin Laden and Pakistan promised to help. 

Russia, where some 20,000 nuclear warheads are sitting in 120 
separate nuclear weapons storage sites, is a failing state. So, 
too, says Etzioni, are Nigeria, Ghana, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, 
countries that have scores of sites from which terrorists may get 
their hands on HEU (highly enriched uranium) used for nuclear 
reactors there. Four tonnes of spent HEU of Russian origin are in 
20 reactors in 17 countries. More than 40 tonnes of HEU of 
American origin are in more than 40 locations around the world. 

Over the past decade, according to the IAEA, there have been 18 
incidents involving the seizure of stolen highly enriched uranium 
or plutonium. 

Etzioni says that a new global safety authority should be set up 
with the backing of the UN. Some new authority is needed before 
the excesses and failings of George Bush and Tony Blair in Iraq 
are repeated elsewhere. 

· Richard Norton-Taylor is the Guardian's security affairs editor 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
 11 The Hindu: Breeder reactor: And the winner is... metallic fuel 

Thursday, Nov 04, 2004 

  Unlike oxide fuel, metallic fuel with its higher breeding ratio 
and shorter doubling time will be able to produce more plutonium 
to help commission many more nuclear power reactors.   
                                
  Future fast breeder reactors may well be powered by metallic 
fuel with a higher breeding ratio in lieu of carbide fuel used in 
FBTR and oxide fuel to be used in PFBR. 

IT IS now official — oxide fuel that is to be used in the 500 MW 
Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam may not be the 
fuel of choice for future reactors. It is going to be the 
advanced fuels instead. To be more specific, it will be metallic 
fuels that will power the future reactors of the country. This 
brings the curtain down on nitride fuel that was also 
contemplated as an alternative. 

Even two years ago Anil Kakodkar, Secretary, Department of Atomic 
Energy had expressed the need go the advanced fuel way. But a few 
scientists were totally opposed to the idea considering the many 
inherent problems with metallic fuels. So what made the 
Department finally decide on metallic fuel? 

"We should be able to sell electricity at Rs3.25 per unit if the 
PFBR project completes in time." said Baldev Raj, Director of the 
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR) at Kalpakkam. 
"But our ultimate goal is to sell electricity at Rs3 and even at 
Rs2.50 per unit." There is a four-pronged approach to accomplish 
this. 

Reducing the capital cost, increasing the plant life from 40 to 
60 years, incorporating better safety features and finally 
achieving 2,00,000MWday/tonne `burn-up' make up the four-pronged 
strategy. "We are now talking about 1,00,000MWday/tonne burn-up. 
But with experience we will move to fuels with higher burn-ups," 
Dr. Kakodkar said. 

Fuel `burn-up' in a nuclear reactor refers to the amount of 
energy extracted from the fuel before it is discharged for 
storage or reprocessing. Higher the burn-up, lesser will be the 
fuel cycle cost. Oxide fuel to be used in PFBR has a high 
potential of reaching 2,00,000MWday/tonne `burn-up'. Why then 
settle for metallic fuel for future reactors? 

Looking beyond burn-up 

To arrive at an answer, one has to look beyond the issue of 
burn-up. The country has embarked on a major programme to 
generate additional 20,000 MW of nuclear power by 2020. That is 
just the beginning. Target is to have 30GW and not 20GW by 2020.

This can be achieved if and only if many nuclear power plants are 
commissioned. And for this to happen sufficient nuclear fuel 
should be available. Unfortunately, India has very little of 
natural uranium reserves. All efforts are therefore directed to 
use plutonium produced in the nuclear reactors. And here lies the 
catch. 

Oxide fuel has a low breeding ratio of 1.1, while it is 1.2-1.4 
in the case of carbide fuel now being used in the Fast Breeder 
Test Reactor (FBTR). Compare this with 1.4-1.5 breeding ratio in 
the case of metallic fuel. Breeding ratio is the amount of extra 
plutonium produced in a reactor that can be used as a fuel to 
start another reactor. 

Doubling time crucial 

A fuel with higher breeding ratio has shorter doubling time. 
Doubling time is the time taken to generate surplus plutonium to 
start a new nuclear reactor. So oxide fuel with a meagre 1.1 
breeding ratio produces very little extra plutonium compared to 
metallic fuel. Hence the doubling time is more in the case of 
oxide and least for metallic fuel. For the record, the doubling 
time for metallic fuel is ten years while it is thirty years in 
the case of oxide fuel. "So the second part of the strategy is to 
have a fuel cycle with shorter doubling time," said Dr. Kakodkar. 
"And we can start addressing this issue quite early even with the 
same reactor design." 

The doubling time becomes paramount when the country goes on an 
overdrive to commission new reactors. Oxide fuel thus lost out to 
metallic fuel on this front. "The mandate is to have metallic 
fuel in place for all reactors coming up after 2020," Dr. Raj 
said. "And even the four reactors scheduled to come up by 2020 
may have an option of changing from oxide to metallic fuel."

Why, the possibility of changing some FBTR sub assemblies to 
metallic fuel is very high, not to mention the possibility of an 
entire (fuel) change over to metallic. 

Metallic fuel for PFBR? 

"Even with the existing design of PFBR, there is a possibility of 
changing from oxide to metallic fuel," Dr. Kakodkar indicated. 
Having said this, he pointed out that the initial growth is not 
dependent on breeding time. "Ultimately, any growth will be based 
on self generation of plutonium. Though we are not in a hurry to 
go in for a metallic fuel, sooner the better, " Dr. Kakodkar 
explained. 

According to the Secretary, the priority is to ensure that 
everything goes fine with PFBR. Making the fuel cycle cheaper and 
developing the metallic fuel come only next. "But work towards 
realizing these goals will be undertaken simultaneously," 
indicated Dr. Kakodkar. 

And as usual Dr. Raj and other scientists at IGCAR are confident 
of not disappointing the Department. "Much data are available on 
metallic fuel though not on the same scale as oxide," he said.

Plans are to be through with all developmental studies relating 
to metallic fuel by 2015-2016. 

A stiff target — considering that many variables are to be 
studied and mastered. "All R efforts at IGCAR will be to study 
the metallic fuel. To that end, IGCAR as a R centre will 
continue," Dr. Raj noted. And coming back to the question of 
reducing the cost of power production, Dr. Raj mentioned that if 
they succeed in developing metallic fuel before PFBR goes 
critical then the possibility of supplying electricity at Rs3 
(and not Rs3.25 as targeted) from 2012 is high. Any decision to 
this effect can be taken by 2010 when PFBR is to be commissioned. 
``We can tell with surety by 2014 when we have plenty of data on 
metallic fuel," Dr. Raj explained. 

Well, the Department may master metallic fuel technology and be 
equipped to produce sufficient plutonium to commission a new 
reactor every ten years. But the cost of PFBR construction is 
pegged at nearly Rs3500 crores. Will the government have 
sufficient funds to construct reactors at the same pace at which 
plutonium is produced? 

Funding no problem 

"As long as the plant productivity is good, money may not be a 
problem," said Dr. Kakodkar confidently. Dr. Raj concurred with 
him and was also confident that the Department will not seek 
monetary support from the Government; it will go to the public 
instead. 

"Even for the PFBR the Government support is only 80 per cent 
while the remaining 20 per cent will come via equity. And if we 
are able to demonstrate our mastery over the technology with PFBR 
then things will be a lot easier," noted Dr. Raj. 

They have every reason to be confident. Public support seems to 
be coming from some unexpected ways. Mumbai based Reliance Energy 
is already looking at the possibility of setting up nuclear power 
stations. 

And this is the first time a private company has evinced interest 
in setting up nuclear power plants. Did anyone think India's 
nuclear power programme would be saddled with fund problems? 

R. Prasad in Chennai 

Comments to : thehindu@vsnl.com  Copyright © 2004, The Hindu 
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen
*****************************************************************
 12 Bellona: Russia spends $600-700m for nuclear reactors upgrade and
construction annually 

One half of the sum goes for the construction of the new units,
another half on the upgrade and lifetime extension of the
existing reactors. 

2004-11-02 17:05

The first deputy director of the Rosenergoatom concern Alexander
Polushkin told ITAR-TASS that despite the fact the
Rosenergoatom’s investments would reduce in the coming years,
the part for the construction and modernisation should remain.

”The annual input into construction and modernisation of the
Russian nuclear power plants is $600-700m. One half goes for the
construction of the new units, another half on the upgrade and
lifetime extension of the existing reactors” Polushkin said. 

On October 12, the Federal Agency on atomic energy was supposed
to determine the place for the new reactor unit construction in
Russia. According to Polushkin, it could be unit no.2 at the
Rostov NPP or unit no.5 at the Kursk NPP. 

“In the recent years the new unit was completed at the Rostov
NPP and unit no.3 is about to be put in operation at the Kalinin
NPP. At present, 30 reactor units are in operation at the 10
Russian NPPs” Polushkin said to ITAR-TASS. 
  
  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 13 NRC: NRC Staff to Meet with Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee to Discuss Preliminary Results of
Two Inspections

News Release - Region I - 2004-05 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY 
COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region I No. I-04-051                          
November 3, 2004 CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil 
A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331                     E-mail: 
opa1@nrc.gov  
  


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold two meetings 
with Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee on Tuesday, Nov. 9, to 
discuss the preliminary findings of two recent inspections at the 
Vernon, Vt., plant. 

At the first meeting, the NRC will present the preliminary
results of NRCs Special Inspection regarding two spent fuel rod
pieces that were misplaced in the Vermont Yankee spent fuel
pool. It will be held at 3 p.m. in the Governor Hunt House, 320
Governor Hunt Road, in Vernon. The public is invited to observe
the meeting and NRC staff will be available for comments and
questions from the public before the meeting adjourns. 

At 6 p.m., the NRC staff will meet with Entergy to discuss the
preliminary results of the NRCs Engineering Team Inspection at
Vermont Yankee. This meeting will be held at Vernon Elementary
School, 381 Governor Hunt Road, Vernon. 

The public is invited to observe this meeting between the NRC
and Entergy. Before the meeting is adjourned, the public will
have the opportunity to ask the NRC questions or make statements
regarding the Vermont Yankee Engineering Team Inspection. The
question and answer session will end at 10 p.m. The preliminary
inspection results will be made publically available prior to
this meeting on the NRC website at
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/plant-specific-items/vermont-yankee-i
ssues.html. 

Because the power uprate review is on-going, it would be
premature for the staff to engage in discussion of the power
uprate proposal at this time. The staff will discuss the
engineering team inspection scope and results and how the
findings from the engineering inspection will be considered as
part of the NRCs review of Entergys extended power uprate
request. The staff expects to hold another meeting in the future
to discuss the power uprate when it can engage in more
substantive discussions on the issues. 

Signs, banners, posters and displays not larger than 18" x 18"
are permitted at NRC meetings; however, they cannot be waved,
held over ones head or generally moved about in the meeting
room because they are distracting to the participants and
audience. Signs, banners, posters and displays affixed to
sticks, poles, and the like are not permitted in the meeting
room.   



  


 	Last revised Wednesday, November 03, 2004 	   
*****************************************************************
 14 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Korea builds 19th Nuclear Power Plant   
 
      Updated Nov.3,2004 14:25 KST   
 

  A state-run nuclear power firm held a ceremony marking the
completion of Korea's 19th nuclear power plant. Korea Hydro and
Nuclear Power Company completed building the plant in the city
of Uljin in North Gyeongsang Province, located some 330
kilometers southeast of Seoul. 

Company officials say with its capacity of one-million
kilowatts, the plant is expected to increase the total capacity
of the country's nuclear power stations to 16.7 million
kilowatts. It took almost six years to complete the construction
which began in early 1999, and the plant has been generating
electricity since the end of July. 

Arirang TV 





*****************************************************************
 15 toledoblade.com: Malfunction cuts power at Fermi II
 
Thursday, November 04, 2004 

Article published Wednesday, November 3, 2004
 
 Glitch fixed; full operation resumed
 

Detroit Edison Co. yesterday said its Fermi II nuclear plant in
northern Monroe County experienced an unexpected loss of power
Sunday night.

But the Nuclear Regulatory Commission acknowledged the problem
was a relatively simple fix and that the public was not
endangered. The plant was allowed to resume operation promptly.

It ascended back to full power at 11:47 p.m. Monday, 27 hours
after the malfunction was diagnosed at 8:45 p.m. Sunday.
"They had a troubleshooting problem with some equipment and were
able to fix it right away," said Jan Strasma, NRC spokesman.

The malfunction involved an electronic circuit card on one of
two major pumps used to control the flow of coolant water over
the nuclear reactor. When the circuit card failed Sunday night,
the pump that it's associated with slowly lost power.

"It happened suddenly and unexpectedly," John Austerberry,
utility spokesman, said. "When one pump [slowed] down, it caused
the other to slow down."

Neither pump became idled. They just weren't able to run at full
speed until the repair was made, he said.

Operators held the reactor at 62 percent power until the circuit
card was replaced. Then, the gradual ascension back to full
power began. The plant remained in stable condition at all
times, Mr. Austerberry said.

Detroit Edison is days from shutting down Fermi II for normal
refueling and maintenance, a outage that all 103 operating
nuclear plants have on average once every 18 months to two
years. The upcoming outage at Fermi II will last about a month.

Mr. Austerberry yesterday acknowledged the outage will begin in
early November, but said the utility is not divulging the date
in advance.
 
      © 2004 The Blade. By using this service, you accept the
 The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000 
*****************************************************************
 16 NRC: STP Nuclear Operating Company; South Texas Project, Unit No. 1 
 
                        FR Doc 04-24493 
[Federal Register: November 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 212)] 
[Notices] [Page 64113-64115] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03no04-136]                         
 
and 2; Exemption 1.0 Background The STP Nuclear Operating Company 
(STPNOC or the licensee) is the holder of Facility Operating 
License Nos. NPF-76 and NPF-80, which authorize operation of 
South Texas Project (STP), Units 1 and 2, respectively. The 
licenses provide, among other things, that the facility is 
subject to all rules, regulations, and orders of the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission (NRC, the Commission) now or hereafter in 
effect.
 
The facility consists of two pressurized water reactors located 
in Matagorda County, Texas.
 
2.0 Request/Action Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations 
(10 CFR) part 50, section 50.44, specifies requirements for the 
control of hydrogen gas generated after a postulated 
loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA).
 
Section 50.46 of 10 CFR contains acceptance criteria for the 
emergency core cooling system (ECCS) for reactors with zircaloy 
or ZIRLO\TM\ clad fuel. Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 requires, 
among other things, that the Baker-Just equation be used to 
predict the rates of energy release, hydrogen concentration, and 
cladding oxidation from the metal-water reaction. Of these three 
regulations (10 CFR 50.44, 50.46, and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 
50), 10 CFR 50.44 is the only one that has undergone considerable 
changes relative to its previous version, changes that became 
effective on January 1, 2004.
 
 
[[Page 64114]] Prior to that date, 10 CFR 50.44 specified 
requirements for the control of hydrogen gas generated after a 
postulated LOCA for reactors with zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ clad 
fuel. The new regulation in 10 CFR 50.44 no longer identifies 
zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ as requisite fuel cladding, nor does it 
identify the LOCA or 10 CFR 50.46 as bases. Because the intent of 
this exemption request relates solely to the specific types of 
cladding material specified in these regulations, no exemption is 
needed from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.44. As written, 
zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ cladding continues to be the requisite fuel 
cladding that is explicitly identified in 10 CFR 50.46 and 
Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50. Therefore, an exemption from the 
requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 is 
needed in order to irradiate up to eight lead test assemblies 
(LTAs) comprised of low tin (Optimized) ZIRLO\TM\ at the STP, 
Units 1 and/or 2.
 
In summary, in a letter dated May 27, 2004 (Reference 1)\1\, as 
supplemented by letter dated August 23, 2004 (Reference 2)\2\, 
STPNOC requested an exemption from 10 CFR 50.44, ``Standards for 
Combustible Gas Control System in Light-Water-Cooled Power 
Reactors``; 10 CFR 50.46, ``Acceptance Criteria for Emergency 
Core Cooling Systems for Light-Water Nuclear Power Reactors''; 
and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50, ``ECCS Evaluation Models,'' 
which would allow irradiation of up to eight LTAs containing fuel 
rods, guide tubes, and instrumentation tubes fabricated with 
Optimized ZIRLOTM. Optimized ZIRLOTM is not within the licensing 
basis of the approved ZIRLOTM as described in WCAP-12610-P-A 
(Reference 3)\3\ for STP, Units 1 and 2. Irradiation of up to 
eight Optimized ZIRLOTM LTAs in STP Units 1 and/or 2 will provide 
data on fuel and material performance to support future licensing 
activities.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \1\ Letter from T.J. Jordan (South Texas) to U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ``The South Texas Project, Units 1 
and 2 Request for Exemption Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12 Exemption to 
the Fuel Cladding Material Specified in 10 CFR 50.44, 10 CFR 
50.46, and 10 CFR 50 Appendix K,'' Docket Nos. STN 50-498 and STN 
50-499, May 27, 2004, ADAMS Accession No. ML041590200. \2\ Letter 
from T.J. Jordan (South Texas) to U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, ``The South Texas Project, Units 1 and 2 Response to 
Request for Additional Information Regarding Exemption to Use a 
Low Tin Cladding,'' Docket Nos. STN 50-498 and STN 50-499, August 
23, 2004, ADAMS Accession No. ML042430272. \3\ Westinghouse 
Electric Company Topical Report, WCAP-12610-P- A, ``VANTAGE+ Fuel 
Assembly Reference Core Report,'' April 1995.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- 3.0 Discussion The staff has previously reviewed 
exemption requests for LTA programs comprised of fuel with 
Optimized ZIRLOTM cladding material manufactured by Westinghouse 
Electric Company (Westinghouse). Exemptions from 10 CFR 50.46 and 
Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 for use of Optimized ZIRLOTM have 
been issued by the NRC staff for Millstone, Unit 3 (Reference 
4)\4\, Catawba Station (Reference 5)\5\, and Calvert Cliffs, Unit 
2 (Reference 6)\6\.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \4\ Letter from U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to 
D.A. Christian (Dominion), ``Millstone Power Station, Unit No. 3, 
Exemption from the Requirements of Title 10 of the Code of 
Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Part 50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and 10 CFR 
part 50, Appendix K,'' Docket No. 50-423, February 11, 2004, 
ADAMS Accession No. ML040070238. \5\ Letter from U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission to D.M. Jamil (Duke), ``Catawba Nuclear 
Station, Units 1 and 2 RE: Exemption from the Requirements of 10 
CFR 50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and 10 CFR 50 Appendix K,'' August 4, 
2003, ADAMS Accession No. ML032060473. \6\ Letter from U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to P.E. Katz (Constellation), 
``Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Unit No.
 
2,'' December 3, 2002, ADAMS Accession No. ML022540002. 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- 3.1 Material Evaluation 3.1.1 Fuel Mechanical Design 
Tin is a solid solution strengthener and [alpha]-phase stabilizer 
present entirely in the base [alpha]-phase zirconium crystalline 
structure. Potential impacts of a reduced tin content on material 
properties include (1) a reduced tensile strength, (2) an 
increased thermal creep rate, (3) an increased irradiation growth 
rate, (4) a reduced [alpha][harr][alpha]+[beta] phase transition 
temperature, and (5) an improved corrosion resistance. The slight 
reduction in tin content will not affect the size, shape, or 
distribution of any second phase or inter-metallic precipitates 
nor the overall microstructure of this developmental zirconium 
alloy. With a consistent microstructure, Optimized ZIRLOTM will 
exhibit material characteristics very similar to that of ZIRLOTM.
 
In Reference 2, the licensee provided information concerning 
their post-irradiation examination plan. In Reference 2, the 
licensee stated that their plan would be consistent with those of 
the other Optimized ZIRLOTM irradiation programs currently 
underway. As with the post-irradiation examinations involved in 
the other irradiation programs, the detailed examinations in the 
licensee's Optimized ZIRLOTM irradiation program will be based on 
the fuel duty, cycle performance, need for specific information, 
and time available on site during refueling outages. The measured 
parameters will include rod profilometry, rod wear, assembly and 
rod growth, assembly bow, grid cell dimensions, and oxide 
thickness. As a result of these post- irradiation examinations, 
any negative aspects of the Optimized ZIRLOTM performance, 
including the potential impacts of reduced tin content identified 
above, will be identified and resolved. Furthermore, significant 
deviations from model predictions will be reconciled.
 
The fuel rod burnup and fuel duty experienced by the Optimized 
ZIRLOTM LTAs in STP, Units 1 and 2, will remain well within the 
operating experience base and applicable licensed limits for 
ZIRLOTM.
 
Utilizing currently approved fuel performance and fuel mechanical 
design models and methods, the STP, Units 1 and 2, and 
Westinghouse will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations to 
ensure that the Optimized ZIRLOTM LTAs satisfy design criteria.
 
Based upon the irradiation experience of LTAs with ZIRLOTM of a 
similar low tin content, expected performance due to similar 
material properties, and an extensive LTA post- irradiation 
examination program aimed at qualifying model predictions, the 
NRC staff finds the Optimized ZIRLOTM LTA mechanical design 
acceptable for STP, Units 1 and 2.
 
3.1.2 Core Physics and Non-LOCA Safety Analysis The STP, Units 1 
and 2, exemption request relates solely to the specific types of 
cladding material specified in the regulations. Due to similar 
material properties, any impact of Optimized ZIRLOTM on the 
safety analysis models and methods is expected to be minimal. 
Utilizing currently approved core physics, core 
thermal-hydraulics, and non-LOCA safety analysis models and 
methods, the licensee and Westinghouse will perform 
cycle-specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs satisfy 
design criteria.
 
Fuel management guidelines will require that LTAs be placed in 
non-limiting core locations. In Reference 2, the licensee 
described how the power peaking margin would be used to ensure 
that LTAs will not be limiting.
 
Based upon the use of approved models and methods, expected 
material performance, and the placement of LTAs in non-limiting 
core locations, the NRC staff finds that the irradiation of up to 
eight Optimized ZIRLOTM LTAs in STP, Units 1 and 2, will not 
result in unsafe operation nor violation of specified acceptable 
fuel design limits. Furthermore, in the event of a design-basis 
accident, these LTAs will not
 
[[Page 64115]] promote consequences beyond those currently 
analyzed.
 
3.2 ECCS Performance and Exemptions Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the 
Commission may, upon application by any interested person or own 
initiative, grant exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR part 
50 when (1) the exemptions are authorized by law, will not 
present an undue risk to public health or safety, and are 
consistent with the common defense and security; and (2) special 
circumstances are present. Special circumstances are present if 
application of the regulation in the particular circumstances 
would not serve the underlying purpose of the rule, or is not 
necessary to achieve the underlying purpose of the rule.
 
The underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46 is to establish acceptance 
criteria for ECCS performance. In Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A 
(Reference 7)\7\, Westinghouse demonstrates that the material 
properties of Optimized ZIRLOTM are similar to those of the 
currently approved ZIRLOTM cladding and that the ECCS acceptance 
criteria for ZIRLOTM clad fuel are also applicable to fuel with 
Optimized ZIRLOTM cladding. Ring compression tests performed by 
Westinghouse on Optimized ZIRLOTM demonstrate an acceptable 
retention of ductility up to 10 CFR 50.46 limits of 2200 [deg]F 
peak cladding temperature and 17 percent total oxidation. 
Utilizing currently approved LOCA models and methods, 
Westinghouse will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations to 
ensure that the Optimized ZIRLOTM LTAs satisfy 10 CFR 50.46 
acceptance criteria.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- \7\ Westinghouse Electric Company Topical Report, 
Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A and CENPD-404-P-A, ``Optimized 
ZIRLO'', February 2003.
 
----------------------------------------------------------------- 
---------- Paragraph I.A.5 of Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 states 
that the rates of energy, hydrogen concentration, and cladding 
oxidation from the metal-water reaction shall be calculated using 
the Baker-Just equation. Since the Baker-Just equation presumes 
the use of zircaloy clad fuel, strict application of the rule 
would not permit use of the equation for the Optimized ZIRLOTM 
LTA cladding for determining acceptable fuel performance. 
Metal-water reaction tests performed by Westinghouse on Optimized 
ZIRLOTM (documented in Appendix B of Addendum 1 to 
WCAP-12610-P-A) demonstrate conservative reaction rates relative 
to the Baker-Just equation. Thus, application of Appendix K, 
Paragraph I.A.5, in these circumstances, is not necessary for the 
licensee to achieve the underlying purpose of the regulation.
 
Based upon the results of metal-water reaction tests and ring- 
compression tests, which ensure the applicability of ECCS models 
and acceptance criteria and the use of approved LOCA models to 
ensure that the Optimized ZIRLOTM LTAs satisfy 10 CFR 50.46 
acceptance criteria, the NRC staff finds it acceptable to grant 
an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 and Appendix K 
to 10 CFR part 50 for the use of up to eight LTAs in STP, Units 1 
and 2.
 
3.3 Special Circumstances In summary, the NRC staff has reviewed 
the licensee's request for an exemption to allow up to eight LTAs 
containing fuel rods, guide thimble tubes, and instrumentation 
tubes fabricated with Optimized ZIRLOTM to be used in STP, Units 
1 and 2. Based on the NRC staff's evaluation, as set forth above, 
the NRC staff considers that granting the proposed exemption will 
not defeat the underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46, or Appendix K 
to 10 CFR part 50. Accordingly, special circumstances, are 
present pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2)(ii). 3.4 Other Standards 
in 10 CFR 50.12 The NRC staff reviewed information provided by 
the licensee in References 1 and 2 to support the exemption 
request, and concluded that the use of Optimized ZIRLOTM would 
satisfy 10 CFR 50.12(a) as follows: (1) The requested exemption 
is authorized by law: No law precludes the activities covered by 
this exemption request. The Commission, based on technical 
reasons set forth in rulemaking records, specified the specific 
cladding materials identified in 10 CFR 50.46 and 10 CFR part 50, 
Appendix K. Cladding materials are not specified by statute.
 
(2) The requested exemption does not present an undue risk to the 
public health and safety. As stated by the licensee in Reference 
1: The lead test assembly safety evaluation will ensure that 
these acceptance criteria are met following insertion of the 
assemblies containing Optimized ZIRLOTM material. Fuel assemblies 
using Optimized ZIRLOTM cladding will be evaluated using 
NRC-approved analytical methods and will address the changes in 
the cladding material properties. The safety analysis for the 
South Texas Project is supported by the applicable technical 
specifications. The South Texas Project reload cores containing 
Optimized ZIRLOTM cladding will continue to be operated in 
accordance with the operating limits specified in the technical 
specifications. Lead test assemblies using Optimized ZIRLOTM 
cladding will be placed in non-limiting core locations. 
Therefore, this exemption will not pose an undue risk to public 
health and safety.
 
The NRC staff has evaluated these considerations as set forth in 
Section 3.1 and 3.2 of this Exemption. For the reasons set forth 
in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, the NRC staff concludes that Optimized 
ZIRLOTM may be used as a cladding material for up to eight LTAs 
to be placed in non-limiting core locations in STP, Units 1 and 
2, and that an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.46 
and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K, does not pose an undue risk to 
the public health and safety.
 
(3) The common defense and security are not affected and, 
therefore, not endangered by this exemption.
 
4.0 Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that, 
pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the exemption is authorized by law, 
will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety, 
and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also, 
special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission 
hereby grants STPNOC an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 
part 50, Appendix K and Section 50.46, for the use of up to eight 
LTAs containing Optimized ZIRLOTM in STP, Units 1 and 2, up to a 
lead rod average burnup of 62,000 megawatt days per metric ton of 
uranium.
 
Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the 
granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on 
the quality of the human environment (69 FR 45352).
 
This exemption is effective upon issuance.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Ledyard B. Marsh, Director, Division of Licensing Project 
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. 04-24493 Filed 11-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 17 CEN: Reflection over the nuclear power fever in China
 
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2004-11-01 16:06   
    
Since Zhang Huazhu, director of China Atomic Energy Authority, 
announced that the Chinese Government has formulated policies to 
expedite the development of nuclear power generation in early 
September, numerous heavyweights including Canadian Minister of 
Natural Resources John Efford, French President Jacques Chirac, 
Russian President Putin and US Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
Chairman Nils Diaz have come to China. Although their visits were 
paid in various names, it is obvious that the major nations are 
coveting China's US$40 billion nuclear power market over the next 
sixteen years. 

However, when there are still less than two months before China 
calls for bids for its four new nuclear power units project at 
the end of this year, it is unknown yet how much the slew of 
diplomatic maneuvers of the major nuclear power nations will 
affect the final decision to be made by China's top leaders. 
Industry experts pointed out that before broad consensus is 
reached on certain basic issues of nuclear power China should not 
hastily launch nuclear power projects. 

At present, China has eight nuclear power stations, with 15 
nuclear power units, nine of which are in operation, two are 
under construction, and four have been approved by the State 
Council. Last year, nuclear power output came to an accumulated 
total of 43.8 billion kilowatt-hours in China, accounting for 
2.29 percent of the country's total power output. Yet China's 
installed capacity of nuclear power accounts for merely 1.8 
percent of its total installed generation capacity, and it takes 
up less than the world average, 10 percent. 

It can be seen that China is still in the primary stage as far as 
nuclear power generation is concerned. The nationwide power 
shortage, which set in last year, undoubtedly became the blasting 
fuse for the new round of nuclear power development. It is 
learned in sixteen years China's installed capacity of nuclear 
power will hit 36 million kilowatts, taking up 4 percent in the 
total installed generation capacity. 

Industry insiders warned that nuclear power generation involve 
long construction cycle (usually 5-7 years) and heavy investments 
(usually some $1,500 per kilowatt). For a country with abundant 
coal and waterpower resources, it is not an economically 
well-advised idea to develop nuclear power too much too fast. 

The two decades during which China develops nuclear power 
precisely coincide the period nuclear power security rivets 
worldwide attention. As a result, Chinese nuclear power stations 
are currently among the generally recognized most secure ones in 
the world. Data shows that the at present the quantity of nuclear 
radiation in the areas within ten kilometers around Qinshan and 
Dayawan Nuclear Power Stations is only half of national standard. 
Over the years, the two stations have not caused harmful effect 
on the local natural environments and the residents' health. 

Nevertheless, the concern over nuclear power security that is 
generally shared by people in the industry is whether China will 
forfeit the dominance over nuclear power security as it speeds up 
the development of nuclear power and the composition of investors 
diversifies (foreign investment and possible participation by 
private enterprises). China's nuclear power security system will 
also become relatively vulnerable as the number of completed 
nuclear power stations rises. This will add to potential troubles 
to the nuclear power security, which is of vital importance 
indeed. 
 
Finally, a critical question is whether China can quickly grasp 
the core technology in the world's nuclear power field in the new 
upsurge of nuclear power development? 

In fact, we have had profound lessons in this aspect. Over the 
past two decades, China has spent nearly $10 billion in the field 
of nuclear power. However, it just purchased some colossal 
nuclear power equipment, while the core technology of nuclear 
power is always in the grip of foreign countries. Just like 
introducing other industries, without the core technology, the 
Chinese will never truly maneuver freely in this industry. 

At present, major nuclear power nations are loosening government 
regulation in civilian nuclear power fields. Even the United 
States, which has a dread for nuclear, recently issued export 
licenses in the name of the state to commercial companies that 
produce civilian nuclear facilities in a bid to encourage 
American enterprises to take hold of the world nuclear power 
market. This trend precisely offers an historic opportunity for 
China to grasp core technology of nuclear power. 

What is worth mentioning is that as major nuclear power nations 
like the U.S., Canada, France and Russia scramble for China's 
nuclear power market, we the Chinese should make the best of our 
wisdom to make breakthroughs while gaining the core technology. 
    				 				 
  Source:CE.cn    				 

  © China Economic Net.  All rights reserved. About us | Feedback 
*****************************************************************
 18 NRC: Draft Appendix C (DG-1138) to Regulatory Guide 1.200, ``An 
 
                        FR Doc 04-24494 
[Federal Register: November 3, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 212)] 
[Notices] [Page 64115-64116] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr03no04-137]                         
 
Approach for Determining the Technical Adequacy of Probabilistic 
Risk Assessment Results for Risk-Informed Activities,'' Workshop 
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued draft 
Appendix C, ``NRC Staff Position on ANS External Hazards PRA 
Standard'' in August 2004. This Appendix will be
 
[[Page 64116]] part of Regulatory Guide 1.200, ``An Approach for 
Determining the Technical Adequacy of Probabilistic Risk 
Assessment Results for Risk- Informed Activities'' which was 
issued for trial use. The Appendix C was issued for public 
comment on August 31, 2004, and is available under ADAMS 
Accession Number ML042430314. Revision 1 to RG 1.200, which will 
include a final draft Appendix C, will be issued next year for 
public comment. Regulatory Guides (RGs) are developed to describe 
and make available to the public such information as methods 
acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of 
the NRC's regulations, techniques used by the staff in evaluating 
specific problems or postulated accidents, and data needed by the 
staff in its review of applications for permits and licenses.
 
This draft Appendix C is being developed to provide the staff's 
preliminary position on the American Nuclear Society, (ANS) 
Standard, External-Events Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) 
Methodology.
 
This draft Appendix C has not received complete staff approval 
and does not represent an official NRC staff position. It is the 
NRC's intent to update Appendix C when a revised ANS standard on 
external events is published. Therefore, if a revision of the 
current ANS standard impacts the staff position, this Appendix C 
will be revised.
 
The NRC will conduct a workshop on November 9, 2004, to be held 
in room O4B6 at NRC headquarters, 11545 Rockville Pike, 
Rockville, Maryland. The purpose of the workshop is to facilitate 
the comment process. In the workshop, the staff will discuss the 
staff's response to the public comments received and the basis 
for the staff's position, and answer questions. A preliminary 
agenda is attached. The staff is also requesting comments on the 
following general issues and two specific issues. The general 
issues are: The intent was that the ANS standard be seamless with 
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) PRA standard 
for internal events. However, this has not been achieved for the 
following reasons: In the ASME Standard, the word ``shall'' is 
only used in high level requirements, and permissive words such 
as ``should'' or ``may'' are not used in any requirements. The 
ANS Standard on external-events uses permissive words in both 
high level and supporting requirements. Permissive words are not 
to be used because they cannot be used to define a minimum 
requirement.
 
The ANS Standard interprets the use of supporting requirements 
that cut across capability categories in a different manner from 
the ASME Standard (see discussion in Section 1.4 of the ANS 
Standard). In the ASME Standard, a requirement that is the same 
for more than one capability category, is to be interpreted as a 
pass/no-pass requirement with no requirement to allocate a 
capability category.
 
[diams] The organization of the ANS Standard is different from 
that of the ASME Standard. In the ASME Standard the applications 
chapter is Chapter 3, whereas in the ANS Standard it is Chapter 
6.
 
[diams] Some definitions are not consistent with those in the 
ASME Standard.
 
The staff considers the use of explanatory notes is helpful in 
principle. However, several of the notes contain what the staff 
interprets as requirements (see example, SR WIND-A1).
 
The staff has identified several missing supporting requirements. 
These include, for each of the hazards, requirements to identify 
the Structures Systems and Components (SSCs) that are critical to 
plant safety, SSCs that are vulnerable to the hazard being 
evaluated, identification of specific failure modes, and 
identification of the modification of PRA logic to model these 
failures.
 
In addition to these general issues, there are two specific 
issues on which the staff requests comment.
 
Section 3.4 of the ANS Standard addresses screening of external 
hazards. In Section 3.4.2, three fundamental (sic) quantitative 
screening criteria are introduced, that focus on core damage 
frequency (CDF). The last paragraph recognizes that large early 
release frequency (LERF) should also be considered in the 
screening but does not suggest additional requirements. One 
approach is to lower the numerical criteria (e.g., in REQ.EXT-C1) 
to result in screening at a CDF of 1E-07 rather than 1E-06. Is 
this an acceptable approach, or are there alternative approaches 
based on a more qualitative approach dealing with the releases? 
Appendix D in the ANS Standard is a nonmandatory appendix that 
provides guidance on uses of a seismic margins assessment with 
enhancements. The seismic margin approach, while can be used for 
certain applications, is not a PRA. Since this standard is 
providing requirements for an external events PRA, the staff 
takes objection to this appendix. The staff believes the 
appropriate place to provide its position on this appendix would 
be in the NUREG being prepared by the Office of Nuclear 
Regulatory Research addressing the use of non-PRA methods in 
risk-informed decision-making. Is this an appropriate strategy? 
For information about the draft Appendix C and the workshop, 
contact Mr. A. Singh at (301) 415-0250; e-mail . Although a time 
limit is given for comments on this draft Appendix C, comments 
and suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides, 
currently being developed, or improvements in all published 
guides, are encouraged at any time.
 
Authority: (5 U.S.C. 552(a)). Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 
26th day of October 2004.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Charles E. Ader, Director, Division of Risk Analysis and 
Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
 
Public Workshop on Draft Appendix C ``NRC Staff Regulatory 
Position on ANS External Hazards PRA Standard'' to Regulatory 
Guide 1.200 for Trial Use ``An Approach for Determining the 
Technical Adequacy of Probabalistic Risk Assessment Results for 
Risk Informed Activities'' November 9, 2004--10 a.m.-3 p.m. Room 
O-4B6 Preliminary Agenda 10 a.m.-10:15 a.m. Introduction--NRC 
10:15 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Overview of Appendix C--NRC 10:30 a.m.-11 
a.m. Overall, general staff's response to public comments 11 
a.m.-12 Noon Detailed discussion on specific Comments 12 Noon-1 
p.m. LUNCH 1 p.m.-2 p.m. Detailed discussion (cont'd) 2 p.m.-2:45 
p.m. Open Discussion 2:45 p.m.-3 p.m. Wrap-up 3 p.m. ADJOURN [FR 
Doc. 04-24494 Filed 11-2-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 19 APP.COM: Oyster Creek nuclear plant plans maintenance during refueling 
		 	 	 	 	
  ASBURY PARK PRESS

Published in the Asbury Park Press 11/03/04By NICHOLAS CLUNN

MANAHAWKIN BUREAU

 LACEY -- Workers at the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant will 
load the reactor with new uranium and perform $25 million in 
upgrades and tests during a planned refueling outage that began 
yesterday.

 Plant owner AmerGen also has announced it will stock Barnegat 
Bay with 50,000 striped bass and other native fish in 
anticipation of a possible fish kill of non-native species that 
could result from the voluntary shutdown. 

The decision to restock was made after plant environmentalists 
found that non-native tropical fish kept alive during colder 
months by warm water discharged from the plant could die during 
the shutdown. Natural water temperatures in the discharge canal 
now could be too cold for the fish to survive.

 AmerGen's main purpose in shutting down the plant is for 
refueling, a biannual task here. These kinds of shutdowns, 
however, are used by reactor owners nationwide to test equipment 
and replace equipment. During the shutdown at Oyster Creek, about 
1,100 contractors will work around-the-clock on various projects.

 Workers will replace 25 percent of the uranium used in the 
nuclear fission process. The new fuel is expected to generate 
steam six years before it needs to be replaced.

 Plant workers will also replace 28 drives that move control 
rods, pieces of neutron-absorbing metal that can prevent fission. 
New electrical cables, meanwhile, will be installed as part of an 
ongoing replacement program.

Nicholas Clunn: (609) 978-4597 or 
*****************************************************************
 20 [du-list] Fw: Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging
 
Date: Wed, 03 Nov 2004 19:36:11 -0800

 
<x-flowed>

To: Karim A G
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 7:49 AM
Subject: Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging


  http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=25921









       HEALTH & SCIENCE

       Uranium pollution in Iraq damaging


             Depleted uranium in Iraqi soil, air may cause health issues

             By Hina Alam

Published Tuesday, November 2, 2004

If you thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, then consider this: 
the ongoing conflict in Iraq will leave behind a legacy of depleted 
uranium, which will affect not just the U.S. troops, but also the Iraqi 
people, maybe over generations, said Diane Henshel, associate professor of 
public and environmental affairs.

"Isn't that paradoxical? We went there to 'free' those people and we ended 
up imprisoning them in a lifetime of ill health. And for generations to 
come," said sophomore Lauren Lindsay, as she examined the evidence of 
pollution that Henshel put together.

Iraq's pollution levels are beginning to be examined, and Henshel, who 
studies environmental pollutants, added her expertise to the study in an 
article published in September's issue of Nature. Examining the overall 
pollution damage will be the first step on a long road to cleaning up the 
contaminated country, the article said.

The damage to the environment, and therefore human beings, began in the 
1970s, according to the article. This was when the country underwent rapid 
industrialization with little attention paid to toxic wastes and fumes.

The conflict in Iraq has only compounded the problem and one of the most 
pressing issues is that of depleted uranium. It is a dense material used to 
blow holes in heavily armored vehicles.

And depleted uranium was used in Iraq most extensively by the United States.

"If you go on the Internet and look at depleted uranium and who generates 
it, we are by far the largest generators of depleted uranium in the world," 
Henshel said. "Nobody is even close to us. We are close to 90 percent of 
the depleted uranium that's generated in the world ... United States 
activity or U.S. companies, I guess. Maybe it is not 90 percent, but we are 
at, like, 800 tons and the next country down is below a 100. We are 
ten-fold of the next country down."

Depleted uranium is mainly in two places, she said.

"There are some Abrams tanks which use depleted uranium, and depleted 
uranium is in the penetrators (the warheads of missiles), which are some of 
the weapons used out there -- a number of them actually," Henshel explained.

As penetrators, depleted uranium is the lead point. The whole purpose of 
these weapons, she said, was to be harder and denser than other metals so 
they penetrate through other metals.

"As they penetrate through the other metals, the description is that they 
get sharpened," she said.

Think of what happens when sharpening a pencil," she said. "You lose all 
the fragments that are being pulled away to sharpen it. It's not just that 
it is being pushed into a sharper point."

The pencil-like shape of the penetrator causes the depleted uranium to 
scatter, Henshel said.

"When penetrator hits the hard top, a hard surface especially like another 
metal ... you get some fragmentation and some disintegration at the tip of 
the penetrator and again some release of depleted uranium into fragments 
that then essentially becomes the dust in the air," she said.

Heavy metals in general have the potential to interact with and disrupt 
calcium processes, and calcium helps control signaling in the brain and 
signaling between the cells and release of hormones and nerve transmitters, 
she said.

"If you disrupt calcium control signaling, which can happen in a high dose 
or even moderate dose situations ... tests have shown changes in learning, 
changes in the ability to remember and changes in reflexes, so there are a 
host of different things that can happen," Henshel said.

A small cohort from Desert Storm have depleted uranium shrapnel in their 
bodies, and they've been tracked over time with publications coming out 
about them every two years or so. The amount of uranium in their bodies has 
made a difference.

"Behavior in terms of response, based on computer tests, was the first 
thing to show up," she said.

Within a number of years the amount of depleted uranium was leaking out 
from shrapnel in their bodies and moving around in their systems. There is 
depleted uranium showing up, for example, in their urine, Henshel said.

Henshel said she believes that over time, people in Iraq are going to be 
exposed to increasing concentration in their bodies.

"They will have increased problems with changes in behavior, (and) 
increasing problems with their kidneys. And at high enough levels you will 
start to see effects on their sperm count," she said.

Another problem is women who are pregnant or are going to be pregnant in a 
situation where they are exposed to depleted uranium in the dust on a daily 
basis. Daily exposure to depleted uranium in the dust means that what is 
circulating in their blood streams at any given time includes some 
radioactive uranium, she said, and uranium is a heavy metal that can affect 
a fetus.

"There are studies that indicate that birth defects are increasing in the 
areas of high depleted uranium concentration of the Gulf War," Henshel said.

Uranium is part of the environment, but what happens with depleted uranium 
is that it is being used in such high intensity in one area that there is 
an increased concentration.

"And that gives rise to a situation where it ends up in dust and can get 
into people through air and water," she said.

The real concern is that depleted uranium is not intensely radioactive as 
uranium is used in reactors, Henshel said.

"There is an assumption that A: there is no radioactivity going on which is 
not true, and B: there is an assumption that this is not the only concern."

The other problem, she said, is that it is not going to be just uranium 
that is a problem in the war torn area, because it is not just uranium that 
disintegrates.

"There are other heavy metals that disintegrate -- some of the other heavy 
metals we have very little toxic information about," she explained.

While a lot is known about titanium and cadmium, there is whole host of 
heavy metals that are used in weapons in small concentrations, of which not 
much is know, but they are going to end up in the soil, in the air, in 
water of the people in any war torn area in Iraq, Henshel said.

As far as the troops are concerned, some of them might have depleted 
uranium showing up in their bodies -- some show less and some show more. If 
some of them have high intakes of milk or other sources of calcium, they 
will be able to eliminate it quickly from their bodies. High calcium levels 
limit how much uranium replaces calcium in certain parts of the bodies. 
Other people that, for whatever reasons -- economic or otherwise -- do not 
consume enough calcium or milk may harbor depleted uranium.

As the knowledge of depleted uranium and its effects on Iraqi people gets 
out in the world, Lindsay said, it could make the United States look worse.

Political science Professor Michael McGinnis said, "it looks bad in terms 
of environmental effects, but again, this is nothing new."

World opinion of the U.S. is already at an all-time low, said Dina 
Spechler, associate professor of political science.

"In the end, people who live in Iraq will manifest the greatest problems. 
The chemicals accumulate and they stay in people's bodies all the time and 
increase in concentration over time- and we don't know what we are dealing 
with," Henshel said.

-- Contact staff writer Hina Alam at halam@indiana.edu.







[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]



------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
  

</x-flowed>
*****************************************************************
 21 Bellona: 37 new radioactive objects found in Karskoye Sea
 
The specialists of the Russian Emergency Ministry completed
expedition in the Karskoye Sea where they had examined sunken
objects and presumed radioactive waste dumpsites. 

2004-11-03 15:09

The Russian Emergency minister Mikhail Faleyev told RIA Novosti
about the expedition onboard scientific ship “Professor
Shtokman”. The expedition took place in the Tsivolky, Abrosimov
and Stepovoy bays from 2 to 28 September. It examined two solid
radioactive waste sites and seven separate underwater objects
including the nuclear submarine. All these objects are included
in the Russian Register of the potentially dangerous objects.

Besides, the minister mentioned that the side-scan sonar helped
to locate 37 new objects, 16 of them – in the Tsivolky bay. The
tests showed that some of them contained radioactive waste of
various activities. Faleyev also said that 554 sediment tests
and 12 water tests were taken for the examination. The final
report about the expedition should be ready by Desember 20.   

  Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge
Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact:
webmaster@bellona.no
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
 22 BBC: Nuclear safety staff plan
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 3 November, 2004
 
		 		 		 
[Devonport Dockyard]                            

Some staff would continue working during the strike to ensure 
safety                                                              

More than 100 safety staff who work in the nuclear part of a 
Plymouth dockyard are planning to strike next week. 

The planned walkout by workers at Devonport Dockyard follows a 
dispute about their grading. 

DML, which runs the yard, said it was "an ongoing matter" and 
that "discussions were continuing". 

The industrial action is due to take place on Tuesday, 9 
November, but the GMB union said a skeleton staff would stay on 
duty to ensure safety. 

Responsibility recognition 

The GMB said the industrial action would involve 108 members who 
are Health Physics Monitors, who are responsible for all aspects 
of safety for people working in the nuclear site. 

The staff have been negotiating for three years over their 
grading. They want more money and more recognition of the 
responsibility involved in their job. 

The GMB said almost all of the yard's Health Physics Monitors 
were union members and that, in a ballot, 100% voted for some 
form of action and 90% favoured a strike. 

Devonport is currently the UK's only refitting and defuelling 
site for nuclear submarines. 

DML said it was committed to ensuring that the risks to the 
public, its workforce, contractors and nearby navy personnel 
arising from its nuclear-related activities were "reduced to as 
low as is reasonably practicable". 
*****************************************************************
 23 BBC: Sarin 'Gulf war syndrome cause'
 
  Last Updated: Wednesday, 3 November, 2004
 
[A British tank and crew in the desert]                                 
Some 6,000 Gulf veterans have suffered from various complaints                       

Gulf war syndrome may have been caused by exposure to the nerve 
gas sarin, according to reports. 

The New Scientist journal has reported a leak of a US inquiry 
into the ill-health of veterans of the 1991 war. 

The US Department of Veterans Affairs' Research Advisory 
Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses is due to publish its 
findings next week. 

But the magazine said researchers have found neural damage 
consistent with the nerve agent used by Saddam Hussein. 

The link is said to have been "crucial" to a change of heart by 
the US authorities over Gulf war syndrome. 

The New York Times newspaper reported last month that US 
scientists believed the syndrome did exist and was caused by 
"toxic exposure" but it was not clear whether this was from drugs 
or nerve agents. 

The UK government has always insisted a unique Gulf war syndrome 
does not exist. 

Symptoms 

But campaigners say 6,000 British war veterans are suffering from 
the syndrome, with symptoms ranging from mood swings, memory 
loss, lack of concentration, night sweats, general fatigue and 
sexual problems since the war. 

According to the New Scientist report "a substantial proportion 
of Gulf war veterans are ill with multi-system conditions not 
explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness". 

Instead, the magazine reported the ill-health could have been 
caused by low level exposure to sarin. 

Three research groups had independently found specific kinds of 
neural damage that could explain some of the veterans' symptoms. 

UK troops were exposed sarin and this, along with the multiple 
vaccinations troops were given and exposure to depleted uranium, 
has caused the illnesses
		
Shaun Rusling, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families 
Association Q: Gulf war syndrome            

These veterans also had lower levels of an enzyme which breaks 
down sarin-like compounds. 

British and US authorities have always denied that any troops 
were affected by nerve gas, as no soldiers showed the classic 
symptoms of acute exposure. 

But the New Scientist said: "It now appears that very small, 
repeated exposure can also harm." 

Experiments on animals have shown that exposure to doses of sarin 
too low to cause observable or immediate effects causes delayed, 
long-term nerve and brain damage similar to that seen in 
veterans, the magazine reported. 

Alarms 

Troops could have had low level exposure to chemical weapons 
throughout the war. 

A Senate investigation heard in 1994 that each of the 14,000 
chemical weapons alarms around the troops went off on average 
twice or three times a day during allied aerial bombardment of 
Iraq - a total of between one and two million alarms. 

All were said to have been false alarms. However, evidence was 
mounting that soldiers may in fact have been exposed to sarin, 
the New Scientist said. 

Another source of exposure could have been for the thousands of 
troops stationed near Khamisiyah in southern Iraq in March 1991. 

After the fighting was over, a large chemical weapons dump was 
blown up, creating a plume of gas, which would have contained 
sarin and which could have affected at least 100,000 allied 
soldiers, possibly far more, the New Scientist said. 

Shaun Rusling, vice chairman of the National Gulf Veterans and 
Families Association, said: "I agree with the findings, it is 
what we expected. 

"It is absolutely ridiculous for the MoD to deny Gulf war 
syndrome does not exist. UK troops were exposed to sarin and 
this, along with the multiple vaccinations troops were given and 
exposure to depleted uranium, has caused the illnesses." 

The Ministry of Defence said it would not comment on leaks. 

The department is holding a briefing on Thursday on the medical 
lessons learned from the first Gulf war. 



*****************************************************************
 24 Idaho Statesman: Science panel sends staff to hear Idaho downwinders

11-03-2004                

Written testimony       

To submit written testimony to the National Academy of Sciences, 
write the NAS Board on Radiation Effects Research at 500 5th St., 
N.W., Washington, DC 20001. 

You can also submit comments to ialnabul@nas.edu. About the 
hearing Testimony from Idaho downwinders will be taken by 
National Academy of Sciences staff at Taco Bell Arena at BSU from 
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. If you've not already signed up, 
however, you can't testify. Pre-registration was required and 
only 72 people were scheduled. You may submit written testimony 
to NAS at the meeting. Food service will be available at the 
arena.
 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 	 

The Idaho Statesman
Dan Popkey
 
The Idaho Statesman | Edition Date: 11-03-2004
 
None of the 10 members of a National Academy of Sciences panel 
will be in Boise to hear from downwinders, even though most of 
them attended three other meetings in Utah and Arizona. Instead, 
three NAS staffers will listen to testimony.

However, Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and all four members of the 
congressional delegation will attend the meeting Saturday at 
Boise State's University's Taco Bell Arena.

NAS is preparing a report for Congress on whether to expand a 
federal compensation plan for downwinders to other areas, 
including Idaho.

But if you're not already signed up to speak, it's too late. NAS 
set a limit of 72 people to testify between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. 
That ceiling was reached Oct. 20, and 28 people are on a waiting 
list. Sen. Larry Craig, however, who asked NAS to hold the 
meeting, was still appearing Tuesday in TV ads urging Idahoans to 
sign up to testify.

Downwinder advocates are disappointed the committee will not 
attend. They are asking Idaho officials to stay and listen after 
the NAS staff leaves at 5 p.m. Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Mike 
Simpson said they would stay. Kempthorne, Craig, and Rep. C.L. 
"Butch" Otter would not commit to staying late, according to 
their spokesmen.

Lindsay Nothern, a spokesman for Crapo, urged Idahoans to attend, 
show support and give the process a chance. Crapo has vowed to 
try to add at least four counties to the federal compensation 
plan  Custer, Gem, Blaine and Lemhi. The four counties were 
among the top five counties in the United States for fallout from 
radioactive iodine-131 from nuclear bomb tests in Nevada in the 
1950s and '60s.

"We understand people's concerns, but this is a real attempt to 
make Idahoans heard and include them in this study," Nothern 
said. "People need to see what happens with the results. If 
Idahoans end up being ignored, then people would have a 
complaint. But we're trying to let the process work."

Bill Kearney, an NAS spokesman, said staff will record testimony 
and make the audio record available to the committee. He said 
Idahoans' input will count and that the "last-minute" scheduling 
of the meeting, scheduling conflicts and a shortage of funds made 
it impossible for any committee members to attend. The $1 million 
NAS report is funded by Congress.

Kearney encouraged people who didn't make the list to attend and 
submit written testimony, or submit testimony by mail or e-mail.

"We'll be as flexible as we can to hear from folks, but people 
should rest assured that whether it's oral or written, their 
concerns and comments will get to the committee," Kearney said.

Preston J. Truman of Malad, founder of Downwinders, was among 
four people who wrote the Idaho elected officials asking them to 
stay late and listen Saturday.

"There's a big difference between being able to speak in public 
and submitting written testimony that may or may not get read," 
he said. "This is their one opportunity, and it's very important 
because NAS never would have been here if there hadn't been an 
outcry and a bunch of people carrying pitchforks."

Tona Henderson of Emmett helped build public pressure that 
prompted the Idaho congressional delegation to press for the 
meeting. She said she fears a repeat of 1997, when Craig and 
then-Sen. Kempthorne promised to look out for downwinders after a 
report found Idahoans were among the hardest hit in the nation by 
iodine-131. "I don't want to be swept under the rug again for 
seven years," Henderson said.

Still, she hopes for a big turnout. "I want as many people there 
as possible. I want to show we aren't going to be left behind 
again."

NAS committee members attended previous public meetings in St. 
George, Utah, in December, Window Rock, Ariz., in May, and Salt 
Lake City in July. In St. George, eight members of the committee 
attended a meeting from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. In Window Rock, 
nine committee members were present from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. 
In Salt Lake City, seven members were present from 9:30 a.m. to 
3:30 p.m. Originally, the committee planned to hold one meeting 
in St. George. But public pressure prompted the subsequent 
meetings.

In 1990, Congress passed a compensation plan for cancer victims 
"presumed" injured by testing from nuclear bombs. It was expanded 
in 2000. Idahoans are not included. The NAS committee is to make 
a recommendation to Congress by June on whether to add 
geographical areas and/or diseases to the Radiation Compensation 
Exposure Act, which provides $50,000 "compassionate payments."

Victims of 19 cancers who lived in 21 counties in Utah, Nevada 
and Arizona are covered. Many Idaho counties had higher exposure 
to i-131 than RECA-covered counties.
 	 		 	     
*****************************************************************
 25 Hawk Eye: Ruling gives worker÷sheir hope 

Tuesday, November 2, 2004 Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST   
      
HHS review to include pre–1973 munitions workers in special
claims payment category. 

By MATTHEW LeBLANC 

mleblanc@thehawkeye.com 

Shirley Wiley is hopeful a government decision last week to
review her father's petition for immediate compensation for
cancer linked to his work at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant will
produce results. 

But Wiley's been hopeful before. 

The Department of Health and Human Services announced Saturday
that it will evaluate whether to include some workers —
including Herbert Specketer, who died after a brief fight with
cancer in 1973 — in a "special exposure cohort" that would
guarantee $150,000 compensation payments to workers who worked
in certain areas of the Middletown ordnance plant. 

The announcement is another step toward compensating sick, dying
and dead former workers at government–run ammunition plants
across the country. Congress promised to pay them in 2000,
passing the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation
Program Act. 

However, thousands of the former workers have languished in a
paperwork purgatory that has left many of the cases idle for the
past four years. 

Specketer, Wiley's father, is one of those. Though she is
cautious about saying she's looking forward to the compensation
payments that might cover her own medical bills (she also has
filed a claim under the program, citing three cancerous tumors
on her left lung she believes were caused by her work at IAAP in
1968), Wiley remains optimistic. 

"This is the best news we've had in a long time," she said. 

HHS officials will evaluate whether former technicians,
production personnel, engineers, inspectors, safety personnel
and maintenance workers at IAAP from 1947–74 belong in the
cohort. If it's approved by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson,
employees who worked at those jobs during that time frame will
immediately be eligible for compensation under the program. 

None of the more than 500 former IAAP workers who built,
test–fired and disassembled components of nuclear and
conventional weapons and filed claims under EEOICP, or their
heirs, have been paid. Components of nuclear weapons were
produced at the plant during the Cold War. 

Under another section of the program, which does not involve
cancers, about 40 former IAAP workers have been paid. 

A decision could happen within months, according to Larry
Elliott, director of the Office of Compensation Analysis and
Support. His office will submit a report to the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health within 180 days.

From there, Thompson will decide whether to approve the petition
within 30 days. 

Congress will ultimately approve or reject the measure. 

"The information that was provided ... qualify under our
regulations to be declared eligible," Elliott said Monday from
his office in Washington. 

Petitioners can protest if the request for inclusion in the
cohort is denied. HHS also can send it back to NIOSH for further
review. 

Jennifer Carrier, a spokeswoman for Sen. Tom Harkin, said Monday
efforts remained underway to cut the time OCAS has to submit a
report by 90 days. 

When EEOICP was passed, workers at plants in Kentucky, Ohio,
Tennesee and Alaska were included in cohorts, though Iowa
bomb–makers were left out because there was not enough evidence
linking work there to fatal illnesses such as bone, lung and
pancreatic cancer. 

A final rule on special exposure cohorts was published by NIOSH
in May, prompting Harkin, D–Iowa, and other legislators to push
for cohort status for IAAP workers. 

Though she'll have to wait a few months more to learn whether
she'll receive compensation, Shirley Wiley says there's hope. 
"It's been four years, so what's another four months?" she said. 

— On the Net: www.cdc.gov/niosh/ocas/   
  
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 · webmaster@thehawkeye.com
*****************************************************************
 26 Seattle Times: Washington voters well behind radioactive waste limits
 	 	 	
Wednesday, November 03, 2004 - Page updated at 12:01 A.M.
 			 			 			 			
By Shannon Dininny The Associated Press                                            

An initiative that would bar the federal government from sending 
nuclear waste to the Hanford nuclear site was receiving 
widespread support from voters in early election returns today. 

Initiative 297 would block the U.S. Department of Energy from 
sending more waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all the 
existing waste there is cleaned up. 

The initiative received support from 164,332 voters, or 69 
percent, to 74,802 voters, or 31 percent, who opposed it in early 
election returns from around the state. 

The 586-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, 
which was created in World War II as part of the top-secret 
Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, remains the most 
contaminated site in the nation. 

Supporters called the initiative a no-brainer: Don't add more 
waste until the existing waste is cleaned up. The roughly $1 
million cost of the initiative was largely funded by its sponsor, 
Seattle-based Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog 
group. 

Opponents feared that barring waste shipments to Hanford could 
backfire if other states take similar steps to ban imports of 
Hanford waste. 

The Energy Department took no official position on the measure, 
but opponents argued that the initiative was illegal on several 
fronts: It pre-empts the federal government's nuclear waste and 
interstate commerce policies, imposes a tax on the federal 
government and addresses more than one issue, which would violate 
the state constitution. 

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 27 Las Vegas RJ: Reid coasts to fourth term
 
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
 
 
Member of Democratic leadership in Senate sweeps past GOP's Ziser

 By DAVE BERNS and OMAR SOFRADZIJA REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Sen. Harry Reid acknowledges the cheers of supporters Tuesday 
night during a re-election celebration at the Rio. Photo by John 
Gurzinski.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was overwhelmingly re-elected Tuesday to 
a fourth term in the U.S. Senate, crushing his little-known 
Republican opponent Richard Ziser. 

Throughout the evening, the victorious Reid closely watched the 
results of the tight South Dakota Senate race pitting Senate 
Minority Leader Tom Daschle against ex-Rep. John Thune, a 
Republican. Results early today showed that Thune defeated 
Daschle. 

Reid could be elected by his Democratic Senate colleagues to fill 
Daschle's leadership post. 

Reid was leading easily with 60 percent of the vote to Ziser's 35 
percent, according to early results. 

The 64-year-old Searchlight native entered a celebratory ballroom 
at the Rio, where the crowd chanted, "Harry, Harry, Harry" for 
the man who is admittedly uncomfortable walking at the front of 
parades or sitting at the head table for large gatherings. 

"Some have said I've waited six years for this. There are so many 
people in this room and outside this room that I'll be grateful 
for the rest of my life," Reid said. "I wanted to make sure 
everyone understands -- Democrats, independents and Republicans 
-- that I'm grateful for their support. I want to hit the ground 
running; there's so much we need to do." 

Reid declined to offer many thoughts about the neck-and-neck race 
between Daschle and Thune, though he acknowledged he had talked 
to Daschle "a couple of times" throughout the evening. "I'm 
nervous about it. He's a good friend of mine. He's like a brother 
to me." 

Former U.S. Sen. Richard Bryan said Tuesday night that while 
Daschle's loss would be "bad news for the country," it also would 
be "great news for Nevada." 

"No Nevadan has ever been the leader of his party, and that would 
be a major coup for Nevada," Bryan said. "Clearly he becomes the 
go-to person for everything, the major appropriation battles and 
national policies." 

Ziser, an evangelical Christian who led the late-1990s fight to 
amend the Nevada Constitution to ban gay marriage, lacked 
statewide name recognition and major political and financial 
support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and 
other potential donors. 

"Naturally you're disappointed when you don't win when you know 
you had a good chance of winning," Ziser said. "Harry Reid was 
very, very vulnerable. I'm still convinced of that. 

"As we knew, it was a matter of getting the message out to enough 
people. We got our message out to as many people as we possibly 
could." 

Reid ran a relatively limited race in which he aired commercials 
that primarily touted his small-town roots and his legislative 
efforts to defeat the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca 
Mountain. 

Reid won his last race in 1998 against then-Rep. John Ensign by a 
margin of 428 votes. He rose to the post of assistant Senate 
minority leader as an effective vote counter who has mastered the 
body's parliamentary process. 

In his race against Ziser, Reid claimed the support of some of 
the state's most visible Republicans, including Gov. Kenny Guinn, 
political consultant Sig Rogich and casino industry executives 
Terry Lanni and Mike Ensign, the father of John, who is now a 
U.S. senator. But Ziser said throughout the race that there were 
well-known Republicans who supported him privately but would not 
admit to it publicly out of fear of invoking the political wrath 
of Reid, a claim Reid minimized.

Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 28 Las Vegas RJ: Nevada remains battleground to end
 
Wednesday, November 03, 2004

By ERIN NEFF REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Supporters of President Bush cheer as election results are 
announced during a Nevadan Republican Party gathering Tuesday at 
the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Photo by K.M. Cannon.


Rep. John Porter, left, Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General 
Brian Sandoval cheer at Mandalay Bay as Guinn announces at 
midnight Tuesday that The Associated Press projected that 
President Bush won Nevada's electoral votes. Photo by K.M. 
Cannon. 


From left, Ryan Sarros, Quincy Perkins, Nicole Mitchell and 
Ksenia Koban react to John Kerry's numbers falling behind 
President Bush near midnight Tuesday at what was supposed to be a 
Democratic victory party at the Rio. Photo by John Locher. 
 
  







Nevada stayed true to its battleground form, but its close 
presidential result will not likely determine the victor. 

With nearly all the votes tallied statewide early today, 
President Bush maintained a margin of more than 20,000 votes -- a 
lead of 50 percent to 47 percent. At midnight, Gov. Kenny Guinn 
announced to Republican supporters at Mandalay Bay that Bush 
would carry the Silver State, leading to a huge cheer from the 
crowd. 

But an unknown number of ballots remained to be counted by hand. 
They were among the more than 50,000 ballots that county election 
machines were unable to process or which were received via mail 
Tuesday. 

As early results came in, the race flipped back and forth between 
Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry. But late in the 
evening, Bush overtook Kerry and began expanding his lead in 
Nevada. 

State election officials said final results probably won't be 
available until 6 a.m. today. 

All day Tuesday, an urgency unseen in recent elections filled 
campaign offices with all available volunteers sent out for a day 
of door-knocking and driving voters to the polls. Sign-waving 
supporters stood on street corners, and thousands of phone calls 
rang through the state. 

Kerry conducted an Election Day interview with a Las Vegas 
television station, retired Gen. Wesley Clark came to the state 
to get Democratic voters to the polls and former President Bill 
Clinton phoned in an urgent plea to a black radio station in Las 
Vegas to get out the vote. 

Republicans said they believed they would win Nevada because of a 
strong grass-roots push by volunteers from other states. 

"I still feel it's going to be really tight," Clark County GOP 
Chairman Brian Scroggins said about 9 p.m. He said Democrats 
thought the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain 
was going to be the issue in Nevada, "and it clearly wasn't." 

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., fresh off a re-election 
victory, implored Democrats gathered at the Rio to "hang in and 
don't go anywhere." 

Berkley took the stage shortly before 11 p.m. and referred to a 
statement from the Kerry campaign that about 250,000 outstanding 
votes in Ohio that ultimately may lead to a Democratic victory 
there. 

"We're in for a long night," Berkley said. 

Democrats cheered wildly when CBS News projected Kerry the winner 
in delegate-rich Pennsylvania at 7:50 p.m. 

"That's big, that's big, that's big," former Sen. Richard Bryan 
said, viewing the large television monitors in the ballroom as 
the crowd cheered. 

At the Republican Party celebration at Mandalay Bay, young GOP 
supporters sat on the floor huddled around a television monitor. 
When one of the networks projected Bush the winner in Ohio, the 
room erupted in applause and chants of "Four more years." 

Bush voters offered a variety of reasons for casting their 
support to the president. 

"It came down to voting my party," said Paula Hilt, an accountant 
who voted at the Summerlin Community Baptist Church. "I was 
really torn, so much that I went out on my lunch hour today and 
tried to research a couple more issues. There's a lot of good 
about both men, and bad about both. I couldn't decide 'til I was 
forced to, and that's why you see me here at the last minute." 

Republican Jeff Reed said he supported Bush because he views him 
as a "man of principle." 

"He made decisions, said, 'This is why I did it,' and he stood by 
those decisions," Reed said. 

Those supporting Kerry included disenchanted Republicans and 
first-time voters. 

Retiree Barbara Christensen had voted Republican in every 
presidential election since 1948, but voted for Kerry on Tuesday. 

"I supported Bush, but I became disillusioned after the 2000 
election because I don't think he won fair and square," said 
Christensen, 76. "And anyone who takes that much vacation will 
lose my support." 

Gloria Jackson, 60, also voted for Kerry. 

"I think things have gotten worse since Bush has been in," said 
Jackson, a 40-year Las Vegas resident. "Clinton turned things 
around after the first Bush, so maybe the senator can straighten 
things out after this Bush." 

The Democratic campaign strategy in Nevada was to win populous 
Clark County by a large enough margin to withstand the expected 
onslaught of the 14 rural counties, which overwhelmingly support 
Bush. At midnight, Kerry held a 6 percentage point lead over Bush 
in Clark County. 

With turnout expected to be greater than 70 percent, the election 
was expected to surpass recent voter activity in presidential 
races, but not hit the historic 1960 mark of 85 percent. 

State Democratic Party Chairwoman Adriana Martinez said late 
Tuesday she still hoped to see a surprise in Nevada. 

"It's going to be the new voters, the young voters, who put it 
over the top," Martinez said. 

Although both parties stressed grass-roots canvassing, Nevada 
found itself as one of the most targeted states in the nation for 
campaign ads. 

The Bush campaign spent an estimated $15 million in Nevada, and 
Kerry countered with more than $9 million of his own ads. 

"It's amazing that we got paid so much attention," Scroggins 
said. "It will help us in the future. When you get a chance to 
make a connection with politicians on the national level, it's a 
positive thing." 

Bush won Nevada in 2000 by 3.5 percent, or 21,597 votes. 

The closely watched presidential race this year included 
independent candidate Ralph Nader, who was pulling 1 percent of 
the vote, and Libertarian Michael Badnarik, who advertised on 
television in Nevada in recent days hoping to pull votes away 
from Bush. 



Review-Journal writers Omar Sofradzija, J.M. Kalil, A.D. Hopkins 
and Henry Brean contributed to this report.
 
 

Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
 29 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: Guinn deserves blame for dump if it ever opens
 
It is perfectly understandable that President Bush decided to
send the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada; he figured he could
do the nuclear power industry's bidding and pay very little
politically for doing so.

 What I can't understand is how Gov. Kenny Guinn could have
supported President Bush's re-election campaign when he knew
what the president intended to do to Nevada. Administrations
will come and go but the threat of the Yucca Mountain dump will
be here forever.

 Within hours of the 9/11 attacks on the East Coast, thousands
of Las Vegas workers were laid off. Can you imagine the effect
if Las Vegas and the words "nuclear disaster" ever appear
together in headlines around the world? Our governor ignored
this threat.

 If Yucca Mountain indeed opens as Bush intends, I propose that
it be renamed "The George W. Bush/Kenny Guinn National Nuclear
Waste Repository." 

EDWARD MUNGARAY
 
         All contents copyright 2004 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 30 Las Vegas SUN: Reid in line to be new Senate minority leader

Today: November 03, 2004 at 9:58:57 PST 
 
By Benjamin Grove 
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
 LAS VEGAS SUN

 WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to swiftly
lay the groundwork to try to become the next Senate Democratic
leader, following the loss Tuesday of current leader Tom Daschle
to former Rep. Tom Thune, R-S.D.

 Reid was unavailable for comment today, but was expected to
discuss his bid for his party's leadership position at a press
conference later today in the Las Vegas Valley. Senate Democrats
could choose a new leader as early as December.

 Reid and the rest of the party today are still reeling from the
loss of Daschle, a long-time Reid ally. Tuesday night, Reid was
optimistic until the end that Daschle could win.

 "I've talked to him a couple of times tonight, we're confident
he'll pull it out at the last minute," Reid said during the
Democrats' Las Vegas party at the Rio. "It's going to be very
close."

 Asked about what would happen if Daschle should lose, Reid
said, "not now."

 But Reid is now the favorite to be elected by his Democratic
peers as minority leader, although it's not clear who might
challenge him for the spot.

 Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., along with Reid, considered
running for the post when Daschle considered a presidential bid
in 2002. Dodd also planned to address the media today,
spokeswoman Holly Barnes said.

 Reid gave the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee $1
million in September, a move seen as enhancing his position
among Democratic peers.

 Daschle's defeat and Reid's re-election do not guarantee
Nevada's senator the leadership position. It will be up to his
fellow Democrats.

 "Right now we are full of theories, but it's goes to the
psychology of the caucus coming off last night," said Jennifer
Duffy, managing editor and a political analyst for The Cook
Political Report.

 Duffy said Reid has earned the position and has shown he has
the votes, but someone could come into the caucus with the idea
there needs to be a radical change. The new leader could be
selected during new member orientation in December, although a
specific date could not be nailed down today.

 It was not clear moving up would require Reid to give up his
choice seat as the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Water
Appropriations Subcommittee, which controls the Yucca Mountain
project budget or his other committee assignments.

 Duffy said for Nevada, Reid as minority leader could be a "net
plus but a balance."

 "In some respects, Reid might run into some of the same
problems Daschle did, leading a caucus that is more liberal than
the state," Duffy said.

 Nevada has never had a Senate party leader since the parties
began designating leaders in 1920. Reid, as the No. 2 Senate
Democrat, or minority whip, is the highest-ranking Nevadan ever
in the chamber.

 Reid has spent much of the last few years as Daschle's top
lieutenant running the Senate floor for the Democrats. Reid is
generally seen by his peers as a skilled back-room deal-maker,
observers have said.

 Observers Tuesday night already were speculating on what kind
of party leader Reid might be.

 David Gergen, who served as a White House adviser to Presidents
Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton, said during a television
interview that Republicans see Reid as less of an obstructionist
than Daschle. Other pundits have suggested that Reid might not
be the best public face for the party because his strengths lie
in behind-the-scenes negotiating and not in being a telegenic
spokesman.

 Majority and minority party leaders are mouthpieces for their
parties on issues. From the front two desks on the center aisle
of the Senate chamber, they control which issues come to the
Senate floor for action and keep tabs on Senate committee
leaders.

 Reid has been the No. 2 Senate Democrat since 1999. Daschle was
elected leader Dec. 2, 1994.

 Reid joined Daschle in the House when Reid was elected in 1982.
Reid and Daschle were both elected to the Senate in 1986.
 
         All contents copyright 2004 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 31 Japan Times: Ehime approves MOX-burning nuclear reactor

  Tuesday, November 2, 2004   

 The Ehime Prefectural Government on Monday approved a pluthermal 
project by Shikoku Electric Power Co. to burn plutonium-uranium 
mixed-oxide fuel at one of its nuclear reactors in Ikata.

 The town of Ikata has already given the go-ahead.

 Shikoku Electric will soon file an application with the central 
government to gain its approval of the plan.

 The utility has briefed residents about the project at the Ikata 
nuclear plant's No. 3 reactor on safety factors.

 The prefectural government has said a committee has confirmed 
the basic safety of the pluthermal project.

 Pluthermal, or plutonium-thermal power generation, is designed 
to use plutonium-uranium MOX fuel, which makes use of spent fuel 
at nuclear reactors for power generation, and unload a growing 
volume of spent nuclear fuel.

 After receiving a formal go-ahead from the national government, 
Shikoku Electric will buy MOX fuel for use for the pluthermal 
project. The power industry envisages pluthermal-based power 
generation at 16 to 18 reactors by 2010.

 Pluthermal projects have stalled at two early starters -- Kansai 
Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Electric Power Co.

 The project at Kepco was shelved after it was revealed in 1999 
that the utility had falsified MOX-related data. A fatal accident 
at Kepco's Mihama nuclear plant in August also caused a setback.

 Tepco suffered a similar setback in its pluthermal project after 
it was revealed that it had covered up safety defects in its 
reactors.

 The Japan Times: Nov. 2, 2004 (C) All rights reserved 
*****************************************************************
 32 TownOnline.com: Still looking for answers on perchlorate source

Tewksbury Advocate - Local News
 
By Bethan L. Jones/ Staff Writer

Wednesday, November 3, 2004Residents of Tewksbury, keep buying 
that bottled water.

     With the latest round of testing by the Massachusetts 
Department of Environmental Protection revealing perchlorate 
levels in effluent water from the Billerica waste water treatment 
plant at 670 parts per billion and aging town bleach testing 
detectable levels of perchlorate, the problem is not going away 
any time soon.

     The state DEP, in an effort to better understand the most 
recent results which vindicated the Lowell waste water treatment 
plant and turned the focus of the investigation to Billerica, 
have begun another round of testing inside the Lowell and 
Billerica plants.

     Ed Coletta of the state DEP said the next round of testing 
is intended to confirm Lowell is not emitting detectable levels 
of perchlorate and to better understand what happens to the water 
within the Billerica plant.

     "We still have questions to what's happening to the waste 
water ... in the facility," said Coletta.

     Tests in Lowell, conducted this week, will be a 24-hour 
composite of influent and effluent water from the plant. Water 
prior to chlorination will also be tested.

     The Billerica waster water treatment plant will face a seven 
day testing series to begin next week. The series will include 
two samples per day of the influent, effluent, and 
prechlorination water. The state DEP is looking to this series to 
provide insight on the results from Billerica in the last round 
of testing.

     On Sept. 28, water entering the Billerica plant tested at 
480 ppb. Leaving, the water showed 280 ppb. Oct. 8 tests showed 
water entering at 140 ppb but exiting at 670 ppb. Water prior to 
the chlorination and bleaching process showed perchlorate levels 
of 650 ppb. It is these dramatic variances in perchlorate levels 
which the state DEP is looking to explain.

     Coletta said the state DEP is also working with the town of 
Billerica to create a testing plan for the sewer system to 
determine whether local businesses are discharging perchlorate 
into the water system. Coletta added DEP will be looking for a 
correlation between discharges and the varying levels of 
perchlorate found in the Billerica plant.

     The testing of the Billerica sewer system is not expected to 
begin for a few weeks as creating the testing plan is "fairly 
complex" said Coletta.

     "We're not leaving anything to chance," he said.

     The most recent town tests show Tewksbury drinking water to 
be at 1.2 ppb, a decrease from the Oct. 5 test of 1.3, but still 
not low enough to lift the water ban on those under the age of 
12, pregnant or nursing mothers, or those with hypothyroidism.
                                
© Copyright of CNC and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems,
*****************************************************************
 33 Las Vegas SUN: Bush wins tight race in battleground Nevada

Today: November 03, 2004 at 7:58:51 PST 

 By ADAM GOLDMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - In his bid to win re-election, George W. Bush
believed he could carry Nevada a second time, despite Democratic
challenger John Kerry's many efforts to win the state. 

President Bush carried out his strategy and won a hard-fought
duel in battleground Nevada, a victory that could seal this
tightly contested presidential race. 

In final, unofficial returns from the Nevada secretary of
state's office, President Bush received 414,939 votes, or 50
percent. Kerry grabbed 393,372 votes, or 48 percent. Independent
Ralph Nader had 1 percent of the votes. 

Nevada and its crucial five electoral votes - one more than 2000
since redistricting - were decided by the slimmest of margins
early Wednesday and, combined with victories in other
battleground states, could ensure Bush's re-election. 

To secure Nevada, Kerry had hoped to keep it close in Reno and
Washoe County and win in southern Nevada by as much as 10
percent. Seventy percent of the voters live in Las Vegas and
surrounding Clark County. 

But that scenario didn't play out, helping Bush take Nevada and
possibly remain in office for a second term and another four
years. 

At a Republican rally at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, Gov.
Kenny Guinn had said Bush would take Nevada. The Republican
governor was right. 

"I feel good about the election," Guinn said. 

Kerry's strongest support came from heavily Democratic Clark
County, anchored by Las Vegas, the only county where he was
winning. He held slight leads early Tuesday in GOP-dominated
Washoe County and Reno, but Bush moved ahead there, too, as
final returns were tabulated. 

Washoe County has not backed a Democratic candidate since Lyndon
Baines Johnson in 1964. 

Bush enjoyed overwhelming support in rural Nevada, including a
4-1 margin in Elko County, where many registered Democrats
crossed over to support his re-election. He led by a 2-1 margin
or more in Douglas, Lyon and Pershing counties, and a 3-1 margin
in Churchill County. 

Like the rest of the country, Nevada was closely divided between
the Democratic senator from Massachusetts and President Bush, a
Texas Republican. 

For many people there was an urgency to vote because of the
important issues facing the nation that included security, the
economy and perhaps the most critical, the Iraq war. 

Christie Vernon, 20, of Henderson, a registered Republican who
works in her family's restaurant, said what happened in Iraq
cost Bush her vote. 

"I don't think he did a good job with Iraq," she said. "A lot of
innocent people died and no weapons of mass destruction were
found." 

Some voters weren't swayed. 

Ryan Runia, 31, of Henderson, who owns a financial services
business and typically votes Republican, said the economy was
the most important issue to him. That's why he voted for Bush. 

"It wasn't a hard choice," he said. "Bush favors
entrepreneurship and small businesses." 

The closest presidential race in Nevada's history was in 1996,
when Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole. Clinton snatched a narrow
victory, winning the state by 4,730 votes, or a 1 percent
margin. 

Since then, the political landscape has changed dramatically.
Four year ago, Nevada was a faint blip on campaign radar and
presidential candidates spent little time targeting the state's
electoral votes. 

But Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore by a mere five electoral
votes, illustrating the importance of even small swing states
like Nevada. 

Bush won the state in 2000 by 3.5 percentage points, grabbing
49.5 percent of the vote to Gore's 46 percent after Clinton had
won Nevada in 1992 and 1996. 

Both candidates campaigned an unprecedented number of times in
Nevada, with Kerry visiting seven times and Bush four. Most of
those trips were to Las Vegas, where the majority of the state's
fast-growing population lives. 

Vice presidential candidates, family members and other political
supporters, including former President Bill Clinton, have
blanketed the state in recent months, hoping to sway voters in
what was a tight race for most of the campaign. Bush and Kerry
were separated by only a few percentage points, according to
statewide polls. 

Voter registration reached a record high 1.1 million and was
virtually even between Democrats and Republicans after efforts
by more than 100 partisan and nonpartisan groups. 

During the campaign, Bush and Kerry seized on issues important
to the state's voters. 

Kerry repeatedly pledged to block the federal proposal to build
Yucca Mountain, a nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. 

Bush and Congress approved the site in 2002, angering Nevadans
who said the president broke a previous promise to use "sound
science" to make the decision. 

Kerry hasn't let Nevadan voters forgot about the president's
"broken promises" and an anti-Yucca plank was part of the
national party's platform. 

Bush touted his credentials as commander in chief during wartime
and the state's robust economy that has rebounded since the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. 

In the 10 states where polls showed close races, Nevada was the
only one in which the unemployment rate had fallen. Nevada's
rate dropped from an already low 4 percent in August to 3.9
percent in September - its lowest rate since mid-2000. 

-- 


 
*****************************************************************
 34 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Rules broken in nuclear shipments, EPA study says
 	 	 	 	 	 
[seattlepi.com]     

Wednesday, November 3, 2004 

 Hanford waste sent without proper testing 
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SANTA FE, N.M. -- At least 602 drums of plutonium-contaminated 
waste sent to the federal government's nuclear waste dump near 
Carlsbad, N.M., violated a directive against shipping waste when 
there are questions about whether the shipments were properly 
tested.

An internal Environmental Protection Agency document obtained by 
the Albuquerque Journal says one option under consideration is 
shutting down shipments from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to 
the Waste Isolation Pilot Project.

The shipments from Hanford were made in violation of the EPA's 
August 2003 directive about testing. It's the second incident 
this year and the fourth since the waste dump opened in March 
1999. The internal review said such problems threaten public 
confidence.

The EPA and the Energy Department "need to demonstrate that the 
violation is being taken seriously, and that changes will be made 
to ensure that it does not happen again," the review said.

State Environment Secretary Ron Curry called the problem 
"mismanagement at the highest level."

New Mexico environmental officials were concerned about how long 
the Energy Department might have known about the problem and why 
energy officials haven't been talking about it.

In the most recent case, Hanford had set up a testing program 
that the EPA had not yet approved as sufficient, waste-dump 
manager Paul Detwiler wrote the EPA on Oct. 18. He said the EPA 
had forbidden shipments of questionable waste while the review 
was under way.

EPA spokesman Dave Ryan, in a statement, said the agency is 
conducting a technical review of the waste and gathering 
information about any further action required. He would not 
answer questions.

The Energy Department had no comment.

The state Environment Department is negotiating with the Energy 
Department over a fine that could run up to $2.4 million as a 
result of a similar incident in which more than 100 drums of 
plutonium-contaminated waste were shipped to the waste dump from 
the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory 
without proper testing.

The Energy Department suspended shipments from the Idaho lab in 
mid-July after workers at the New Mexico dump discovered drums of 
waste that should have not been in the shipment. The drums were 
added after a batch set for shipment had been tested for 
explosives, chemicals and other materials prohibited at the dump.

In each case, the Energy Department and the EPA determined after 
the shipments that no prohibited waste was buried in the dump, 
where plutonium-contaminated material from nuclear weapons work 
is placed in underground rooms excavated in salt beds.

"Although we do not believe this waste will adversely affect 
WIPP's performance or affect protection of public health and the 
environment, a serious and thorough response to these problems is 
necessary to maintain public confidence in the WIPP's performance 
and EPA's oversight," the internal review said.     
           
  [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 
98119 (206) 448-8000
 
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820

 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com ©1996-2004 Seattle 
Post-Intelligencer Terms of Service/Privacy Policy 
*****************************************************************
 35 komo 4: Future Of Hanford Initiative In Doubt Despite Voters' Approval
 
November 3, 2004                                        
 					 
By KOMO Staff & News Services                                                                           
 					 					
SEATTLE - Voters overwhelmingly approved an initiative to limit 
the amount of nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear site, but 
opponents argued the measure's future remains in doubt. 

"Legal challenges are inevitable," said Grant Nelson, government 
affairs director for the Association of Washington Business. The 
measure is scheduled to take effect in 30 days. 

Initiative 297 blocks the U.S. Department of Energy from sending 
more waste to the Hanford nuclear site until all the existing 
waste there is cleaned up. 

By a more than 2-to-1 margin, voters overwhelmingly approved the 
initiative. With 97 percent of precincts reporting statewide 
early Wednesday, 69 percent of voters approved, with just 31 
percent voting against it. 

"It's clear that the rule of the people of the state of 
Washington is that Hanford needs to be cleaned up before more 
waste can be dumped there," said Gerald Pollet, executive 
director of Heart of America Northwest, a Seattle-based Hanford 
watchdog group and the initiative's sponsor. 

The 586-square-mile reservation in south-central Washington, 
which was created in World War II as part of the top-secret 
Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb, remains the most 
contaminated site in the nation. 

Supporters called the initiative a no-brainer: Don't add more 
waste until the existing waste is cleaned up. Opponents feared 
that barring waste shipments to Hanford could backfire if other 
states take similar steps to ban Hanford waste. 

The Energy Department took no official position on the 
initiative. Agency spokeswoman Colleen French said the Energy 
Department would be studying the initiative and evaluating its 
options over the next 30 days. 

Opponents have said the initiative is likely to end up in court 
because they believe it is illegal on several fronts: It 
pre-empts the federal government's nuclear waste and interstate 
commerce policies, imposes a tax on the federal government and 
addresses more than one issue, which would violate the state 
constitution. 

The bigger concerns are the potential for delaying cleanup and 
jeopardizing annual federal funding for cleanup, which now stands 
at about $2 billion, Nelson said. 

"I think it's safe to say the federal government will not want to 
put its limited available resources toward a project that is now 
clouded," he said. 

But Pollet said the initiative will stand up in court, and 
supporters will mount a vigorous defense. 

"The voters will be outraged by anyone who takes this initiative 
to court to make this a radioactive waste dump," he said. 

At issue are the federal government's plans for disposing of 
waste from World War II and Cold War nuclear weapons production 
nationwide. 

The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly 
radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste, which is laced with 
chemicals. 

The site also would serve as a packaging center for some 
transuranic waste - plutonium-contaminated rags, tools and other 
discarded items - before it is shipped elsewhere for long-term 
disposal. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take 
thousands of years or more to decay to safe levels. 

A citizens' petition sent the initiative to the Legislature early 
this year. Lawmakers declined to act on it, sending the measure 
to the ballot. The roughly $1 million cost of the initiative was 
largely funded by Heart of America Northwest. 

Energy Department officials have said the site's most dangerous 
waste will be shipped out-of-state anyway. Of the 405 million 
curies of radioactivity at Hanford, about 374 million curies will 
be sent to other states for long-term disposal. 

Hanford already is home to 53 million gallons of highly 
radioactive liquid, sludge and saltcake stored in 177 underground 
tanks. The Energy Department aims to bury much of that waste in a 
nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Another 75,000 55-gallon 
drums of transuranic, radioactive and hazardous waste also are 
buried at Hanford. 

In 2003, Washington state filed suit to block waste shipments 
from entering the state, fearing Hanford would become a 
radioactive waste dump. The Energy Department voluntarily 
suspended the shipments after the lawsuit was filed, but the case 
remains in U.S. District Court.                                                                            
                                
 Inc.(KOMO TV) which may not be copied,
*****************************************************************
 36 lamonitor.com: Lockheed Martin takes hit on Idaho cleanup 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMC) announced Monday it would take an 
after-tax charge of $110 million in its fourth quarter earnings. 
The company's announcement followed a decision Friday in U.S. 
District Court in Idaho, upholding the termination of a 
subsidiary of the company in 1998 for default in a clean-up 
contract with Idaho National Environmental and Engineering 
Laboratory.

In 1994 LCM subsidiary Lockheed Martin Idaho Technology won the 
management contract to run INEEL, a portion of which has a 
144-acre radioactive waste storage area. 

A few years before that, in order to pursue a potentially 
lucrative market, the court decision stated, LMC purchased a soil 
remediation company, which was later renamed Lockheed Martin 
Advanced Environmental System (LMAES) and was based in 
Albuquerque.

The subsidiary won a contract, for $179 million to clean up a 
one-acre site known as Pit 9, one of about 20 such pits at INEEL. 
It was supposed to be an entr/e to the much larger task of 
remediating the entire waste storage area, and perhaps other DOE 
sites, according to the finding of the judge.

The contract was described by the company in 1996 as "the first 
of its kind, large-scale nuclear waste remediation project," and 
"the first time such work is being done under a privatized 
contract with the Department of Energy that is fixed price and 
performance-based." Pit 9 was used to store about 110,000 cubic 
feet of transuranic waste from the Rocky Flats Plant discarded 
during a two-year period in the late 60's.

Along with isotopes of cesium, cobalt, and americium, the pit 
contained enough plutonium-239 that it posed a risk of starting a 
chain reaction.

In court documents, LMAES argued that there were extenuating 
circumstances that made their execution of the contract 
commercially infeasible.

"We were misled in terms of the inventory of Pit 9," said Gail 
Rymer, a spokesperson for LMC. Although progress was made in 
certain areas, she said, they were unable to complete the project 
because they weren't working on what they expected.

In June 1996, the Department of Energy announced the termination 
of the subcontractor by Lockheed Martin Idaho Technology, because 
of a lack of progress and letters, described as "anticipatory 
repudiation."

In the trial, which ended last November, LMC tried to recover 
damages of $270 million.

Instead, U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled last 
week that the company would have to repay $54.4 million that its 
subsidiary, LMAES, had received for work on the unfinished job, 
plus 12 percent interest, and another charge of $11.8 million for 
decontaminating and decommissioning the facilities at Pit 9.

Tim Jackson, spokesman for the DOE Idaho Operations Office said, 
"We are pleased with the ruling. Our attorneys are still 
reviewing it and we're not commenting further at this time."

LCM posted quarterly earnings for the third quarter last week of 
$307 million, which represents 69 cents a share.

Sales for the advanced technology systems company rose in the 
quarter four percent to $8.4 billion.

Announcing its intention to pay the damages and write-off for 
unrecoverable costs on Pit 9 the company estimated a reduction in 
fourth quarter earnings of about .24 cents a share.

LCM is the contract manager for Sandia National Laboratories in 
Albuquerque and Livermore, Calif., and was until last July 
considered a likely contender to manage or co-manage Los Alamos 
National Laboratory, along with an academic partner.

The company announced then that it had decided not to compete for 
the Los Alamos contract.   

  © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
*****************************************************************
 37 Young Independent: How the atoms are helping us 
     
Nuclear science KAMAL AHMED 

The universal aim of all sciences is to unfold the mystery of
nature to promote human knowledge and explore the resources of
the nature for human welfare. Nuclear science is a particular
discipline of science dealing with the properties of nuclei and
their interactions. Over the last hundred years nuclear science
has expanded in different areas of our modern life. 

Here our focus will be on various uses of nuclear science. The
main needs of mankind are food and agriculture, environmental
protection, energy production, health, medicine etc. Role of
nuclear science and technology for meeting some of our
requirements is presented here briefly. 

Food and agriculture 

Food is the basic requirement for all human beings for surviving
in the earth. Unfortunately about a billion of world population
is suffering from hunger and malnutrition. To solve this problem
we have to increase food production and preservation of it is
essential also. Nuclear technology has contributed to improve
food production over the last few decades. 

Crop improvement and increasing productivity 

Two approaches are being followed to achieve these objectives
with the help of nuclear science. Mutation breeding technique is
useful for creating new characteristics in a plant, like drought
resistance, higher yield etc. Irradiation of seeds by gamma rays
can change genetic characteristics of the plants. 

Food preservation 

Many perishable food products like fish, onions, fruits,
vegetables etc. can be preserved for much longer time by gamma
irradiation of cobalt-60 gamma source. It is proven that no
radioactive elements remain in the irradiated food. World Health
Organisation (WHO) and International Atomic Energy Agency have
approved this method for food preservation. 

This technique has been extensively used for sterilisation of
medical materials like tube, needle, gauze, bandage etc. Gamma
ray can easily pass through ordinary materials. So these medical
goods can easily be irradiated in packets, bundles etc. 

Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) 

This technique appears to be very useful and promising. It
involves rearing and sterilising male flies. Sterilised male
flies are released in selected areas where such flies are
abundant. When these male flies meet with female flies they
cannot produce fertile eggs anymore. In this way wild fly
population is reduced remarkably. The technique is very
favourite in the tropical regions where flies are problem for
food preservation. 

Environmental protection 

With the increase of urbanisation and industrialisation the
environment is coming under continuous risk of pollution. There
is a global concern and demand for monitoring the toxic and
other harmful materials in the environment. Applying neutron
activation analysis (NAA) can identify many pollutants in air,
water and soil. It should be mentioned that no carbon dioxide
gas emission in the fission process of nuclear power plants. 

Energy production 

Energy, especially the electrical energy, is the main force for
development and sustaining the present tech-based civilisation.
Per capita energy consumption is a major indicator of economic
development of a country. Most of the world's total production
is consumed in the developed western world. 

Asia and Africa have two thirds of world population, but they
consume very little energy per capita. In these countries still
a huge of population depends on natural energy services like
agricultural waste, cow-dung, fire wood etc. 

Fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas are the main sources
of generating electrical energy. But after the Second World War
people could understand the enormous sources of energy in the
fission process of uranium nuclei. Nuclear energy development
started from the mid of the last century. 

As of August 2004 there are 439 operating nuclear power reactors
in the world, which are generating 365 GW(e) and 26 plants are
under construction. The contribution of nuclear power in global
energy production is less than 20 per cent. Availability of
fossil fuel will be reduced within next few decades for
fulfilling on-going global energy demand. Therefore nuclear
power will have to play a decisive role in the world energy
proliferation. 

Health and medicine 

There has been an endeavour to use radioactivity in medicine.
Today nuclear methods and isotope applications are increasing in
therapy and diagnostics process. Radiation therapy using
external radiation sources such as electron accelerators, gamma
emitters such as Co-60 are commonly applied in as important
complementary technique to surgery. Chemotherapy is being
applied in treating malignant tumour. 

Conclusion 

We have briefly surveyed the achievements of nuclear sciences
for the welfare of mankind. It has significant contribution in
food, medicine and agriculture. The main impact is in the energy
production. A few nuclear hazards and accidents in the recent
past have temporarily impeded the progress of nuclear energy
production. 

Every technology has some limitations and some environmental
consequences. Nuclear science and technology are not free from
these limitations and consequences. With increasing research and
careful application this science can be more useful and
pervasive for human welfare. 

The writer is a former Director General Atomic Energy Research
Establishment, Savar. 

Source: www.iaea.org 
    
*****************************************************************

NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************