*****************************************************************
10/26/04 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 12.256
*****************************************************************
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 Las Vegas SUN: U.N.: 400 Tons of Iraq Explosives Missing
2 SF Chronicle: Distress in Iraq
3 UK Independent: Bombshell for Bush: 350 tons of explosives go missin
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Weighs Incentives to Halt Nuke Plans
5 Las Vegas SUN: Powell Urges N. Korea to Resume Nuke Talks
6 washington post: Powell Maintains Tough Stance on N. Korea
7 US: [NukeNet] Info on I-297 in WA
8 US: Centre Daily Times: PSU puts focus on hydrogen energy
9 US: UPI: U.S. nuke Web site closed for securing -
10 US: Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: President's quagmire
11 [NYTr] Minister Certifies Peaceful Nature of Brazil's Nuke
12 Restrictions Renewed at Six-Month Review
13 Mother Jones: One Roof at a Time
14 Globes: Dimona reactor transferred to Dimona jurisdiction
NUCLEAR REACTORS
15 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee Meeti
16 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
17 US: NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
18 US: Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Nuclear Panel Closes Online Library
19 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Power outage trips alarms at Yankee
20 US: The News Journal: Del. lawmakers question nuclear plant
21 US: Government Computer News (GCN): NRC yanks online docket amid ter
22 BBC: Nuclear body seeks new technology
23 US: NRC: NRC Initiates Additional Security Review of Publicly Availa
24 US: Platts: NRC's on-line document library shut for security review
25 canadaeast.com: Nuclear plant's capacity reduced to extend life
26 US: toledoblade.com: Feds to review failed Besse sirens
27 US: Pantagraph.com: Nuke plant ups security
28 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet Nov. 4
29 US: NRC: Adjustment of Civil Penalties for Inflation
30 US: NRC: Revision of the NRC Enforcement Policy
31 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Meeting of the
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 [du-list] The Plumbat Affair - The story of Israeli uranium -
33 Mainichi Interactive: Teacher apologizes for showing students photos
34 US: Public Citizen: Bush Administration Failures Leave Chemical and
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
35 US: AP Wire: Oconee waste tank discharge underscores storage problem
36 eTaiwan News: Taipower denies daily's report of missing nuclear fuel
37 Las Vegas RJ: JOHN L. SMITH: Being undecided on president unlikely a
38 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca documents available on Internet
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
39 Tri-City Herald: Fluor may miss DOE deadline on K Basins
40 Daily Texan: Professor warns against Los Alamos bid -
OTHER NUCLEAR
41 [du-list] Plans in Japan for the International Day of Action:
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
1 Las Vegas SUN: U.N.: 400 Tons of Iraq Explosives Missing
By WILLIAM J. KOLE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -
1025iaea-iraq The U.N. nuclear agency warned Monday that
insurgents in Iraq may have obtained nearly 400 tons of missing
explosives that can be used in the kind of car bomb attacks that
have targeted U.S.-led coalition forces for months.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei
reported the disappearance to the U.N. Security Council on
Monday, two weeks after he said Iraq told the nuclear agency
that the explosives had vanished from the former Iraqi military
installation as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack
of security."
The disappearance raised questions about why the United States
didn't do more to secure the Al-Qaqaa facility 30 miles south of
Baghdad and failed to allow full international inspections to
resume after the March 2003 invasion.
The White House played down the significance of the missing
weapons, but Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry accused
President Bush of "incredible incompetence" and his campaign
said the administration "must answer for what may be the most
grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in
Iraq."
Al-Qaqaa is near Youssifiyah, an area rife with ambush attacks.
An Associated Press Television News crew that drove past the
compound Monday saw no visible security at the gates of the
site, a jumble of low-slung, yellow-colored storage buildings
that appeared deserted.
"The most immediate concern here is that these explosives could
have fallen into the wrong hands," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa
Fleming said.
The agency first placed a seal over Al-Qaqaa storage bunkers
holding the explosives in 1991 as part of U.N. sanctions that
ordered the dismantlement of Iraq's nuclear program after the
Gulf War.
IAEA inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when
they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers,
Fleming said. Inspectors visited the site again in March 2003,
but didn't view the explosives because the seals were not
broken, she said.
Nuclear agency experts pulled out of Iraq just before the
U.S.-led invasion later that month, and have not yet been able
to return for general inspections despite ElBaradei's repeated
urging that they be allowed to finish their work. Although IAEA
inspectors have made two trips to Iraq since the war at U.S.
requests, Russia and other Security Council members have pressed
for their full-time return - so far unsuccessfully.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said coalition forces were
present in the vicinity of the site both during and after major
combat operations, which ended May 1, 2003 - and searched the
facility but found none of the explosives material in question.
That raised the possibility that the explosives had disappeared
before U.S. soldiers could secure the site in the immediate
invasion aftermath.
The Pentagon would not say whether it had informed the nuclear
agency at that point that the conventional explosives were not
where they were supposed to be.
Saddam Hussein's regime used Al-Qaqaa as a key part of its
effort to build a nuclear bomb. Although the missing materials
are conventional explosives known as HMX and RDX, the
Vienna-based IAEA became involved because HMX is a "dual use"
substance powerful enough to ignite the fissile material in an
atomic bomb and set off a nuclear chain reaction.
Both are key components in plastic explosives such as C-4 and
Semtex, which are so powerful that Libyan terrorists needed just
a pound to blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland,
in 1988, killing 170 people.
Insurgents targeting coalition forces in Iraq have made
widespread use of plastic explosives in a bloody spate of car
bomb attacks. Officials were unable to link the missing
explosives directly to the recent car bombings, but the
revelations that they could have fallen into enemy hands caused
a stir in the last week of the U.S. presidential campaign.
"These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level
buildings, attack our troops and detonate nuclear weapons,"
senior Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart said in a statement. "The Bush
administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action
to secure the site."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the
administration's first concern was whether the disappearance
constituted a nuclear proliferation threat. He said it did not.
"We have destroyed more than 243,000 munitions" in Iraq, he
said. "We've secured another nearly 163,000 that will be
destroyed."
McClellan said the IAEA informed U.S. mission in Vienna on Oct.
15 about the missing explosives at Al-Qaqaa. He said national
security adviser Condoleeza Rice was notified "days after that,"
and she then informed President Bush.
ElBaradei told the council the agency had been trying to give
the U.S.-led multinational force and Iraq's interim government
"an opportunity to attempt to recover the explosives before this
matter was put into the public domain."
But since the disappearance was reported Monday in The New York
Times, ElBaradei said he wanted the Security Council to have the
letter dated Oct. 10 that he received from Mohammed J. Abbas, a
senior official at Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology,
reporting the theft of 377 tons of explosives.
The letter from Abbas informed the IAEA that since April 9,
2003, looting at the Al-Qaqaa installation had resulted in the
loss of 215 tons of HMX, 156 tons of RDX and six tons of PETN
explosives.
Diplomats said there was nothing to suggest that ElBaradei, who
had irritated the Bush administration before the war by
insisting there was no evidence that Saddam had revived his
nuclear program, had intended to keep the report a secret until
after the Nov. 2 election.
--
*****************************************************************
2 SF Chronicle: Distress in Iraq
[http://www.sfgate.com/index/] ]
EDITORIAL
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
WITH THE execution of 49 newly trained and unarmed Iraqi National
Guard recruits by insurgents and the discovery of a huge cache of
explosives missing from a former military outpost, the latest
news out of Iraq is both heartbreaking and outrageous.
The dispatches seem to grow grimmer every day. The recruits were
to begin a 20-day leave when they were stopped at a checkpoint by
insurgents dressed as Iraqi police, according to news reports.
Then they were lined up in rows and shot, most with their hands
tied behind their backs.
The New York Times reported that the country's interim government
has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors
that nearly 380 tons of powerful explosives have vanished from a
compound that was supposed to be secured by American military
forces.
It also appears that Justice Department may have violated Geneva
Convention rules by drafting a memo authorizing the CIA to
transfer detainees out of Iraq for interrogation. Officials say
that as many as a dozen detainees have been secretly transported
in the past six months.
Tough talk on Iraq has been the hallmark of this presidential
campaign, but the weekend's news reveals the harsh reality of
chaos, uncertainty and inhumanity gripping Iraq in the aftermath
of this ill-advised war. Page B - 8
San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ |
[http://www.sfgate.com/staff/]
*****************************************************************
3 UK Independent: Bombshell for Bush: 350 tons of explosives go missing in Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
26 October 2004
In a massive pre-election embarrassment for the Bush
administration, nearly 350 tons of lethal explosives - which
could be used to trigger nuclear weapons - have vanished from a
military facility in Iraq supposed to have been guarded by US
troops.
Hardly had the disappearance come to light than John Kerry, the
Democratic presidential challenger, seized on the episode as
proof that George Bush was incapable of keeping America safe.
The material could already be in terrorist hands, he warned
yesterday.
This was "one of the great blunders of the war," Mr Kerry said
on the campaign trail in the swing state of New Hampshire. A
statement from his campaign said the "unbelievable incompetence
of this President and this administration has put our troops at
risk and this country at greater risk", adding that Mr Bush,
"who talks tough and brags about making America safer, has once
again failed to deliver",
According to The New York Times, which broke the story in a
lengthy front-page story, the missing stockpiles - some 350 tons
in all - are of HMX, RMX and PETN, extremely powerful,
conventional explosives that are used to blow up buildings, fill
missile warheads or detonate nuclear weapons. So devastating are
they that just one pound of a similar explosive was enough to
destroy Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in December 1988. HMX,
RMX, or explosives like them have been used in car and apartment
bombings in Moscow and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in recent years.
At the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the
explosives were being stored by the Saddam regime, under United
Nations control at the al-Qaqaa military facility south of
Baghdad, which was mentioned in the Government's September 2002
dossier as a source of possible chemical-weapons production.
Some time after the fall of Saddam the explosives disappeared,
but their loss was not formally notified to the Bush
administration and the IAEA nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna
until two weeks ago.
In a letter on 10 October 2004, the Ministry of Science and
Technology of the interim Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi
detailed the losses to the IAEA, which it ascribed to "theft and
looting". Five days later, the agency sent the letter to Bush's
administration.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA, is said to be
"extremely concerned" about the "potentially devastating
consequences" of the vanished explosives. Yesterday, the agency
made clear that the US, as leader of the coalition in Iraq, had
been repeatedly warned of the importance of making sure the
stockpiles were safe. "The coalition was responsible" for
looking after the weapons, an IAEA spokeswoman said. "We had
hoped that they would be protected."
After the news was disclosed, Mr ElBaradei formally informed the
UN Security Council in a letter yesterday. Agency officials
denied suggestions that the IAEA director had been under
pressure from the administration to keep the news quiet until
after the presidential election next Tuesday.
The White House immediately moved to contain the possible
political damage, playing down the threat posed by the
explosives. The material did not constitute a risk in terms of
nuclear proliferation, said Scott McClellan, Mr Bush's
spokesman.
As soon as US officials in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, had
been told of the disappearance, the news was passed to
Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Adviser, who then
informed the President. Dismissing complaints that the news
should have been made public earlier, the White House said the
Iraq Survey Group - which reported last month - would try to
find out what had happened.
It remains to be seen whether the episode is lost in the swirl
of the campaign, or whether it becomes the "October surprise" -
the unexpected event dreaded by both parties, capable of tipping
a close election to the other side.
Democrats see the debacle as a perfect means of discrediting Mr
Bush's claim that he is the commander-in-chief best able to
protect America from terrorists. "The unbelievable blindness,
stubbornness, arrogance of this administration to do the basics
have now allowed this President to once again fail the test of
being the commander-in-chief," Mr Kerry said.
UK Independent Ltd.
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Weighs Incentives to Halt Nuke Plans
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday October 26, 2004 5:01 AM
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran indicated it may suspend some
unspecified nuclear activities after European powers offered a
package of incentives in return for Tehran's promise to
permanently give up uranium enrichment.
Meanwhile, a scientist said Iranian researchers have developed
technology to produce zirconium, a key metal used in the heart of
a nuclear reactor to produce nuclear fuel.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Hasan Rowhani, told state
television that Tehran was still studying the offer last week by
Britain, Germany and France that included civilian nuclear
technology and a trade deal.
``We are trying to choose the best course of work,'' he said.
The United States contends Iran has a covert program to produce
nuclear weapons and has been lobbying for the International
Atomic Energy Agency to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council,
which could impose sanctions. The European offer was an attempt
to head off a confrontation.
Iran wants ``to give European countries guarantees and assurances
that it will not deviate in the direction of acquiring nuclear
weapons,'' Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters
in Kuwait.
Iran has said it will never abandon enrichment, a technology that
can produce fuel for nuclear reactors as well as nuclear weapons.
But on Monday Rowhani suggested some flexibility.
``Indefinite doesn't mean permanent,'' Rowhani said. ``They (the
Europeans) called for indefinite suspension as long as talks are
under way. They say, for instance, that if negotiations are to
last six or seven months, then Iran should not violate the
suspension for that period.''
He did not elaborate. The country is suspending the actual
enrichment of uranium but is continuing with related activities,
such as the building of nuclear centrifuges, despite the IAEA's
request to stop it.
Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful and geared
solely toward generating electric power.
Monday brought word of another alleged nuclear-related
breakthrough.
``Iranian scientists have achieved the technology to design and
produce zirconium, the world's most sophisticated nuclear
metal,'' Mansour Habashizadeh told state-run radio.
Habashizadeh, head of the Iranian Center for Research and
Production of Nuclear Fuel in the central city of Isfahan, said
the metal is used in the heart of a nuclear reactor and as a
nuclear fuel protector.
He gave no further details, and it was unclear what prompted the
announcement. He did say that only two important industrialized
countries were able to produce the metal.
Zirconium is a grayish-white material that ignites spontaneously
at high temperature. A naturally occurring substance, it can be
found in the earth's crust, but not typically in large deposits.
Zirconium alloy cladding is also used for nuclear fuel tubes
placed in the reactor core at the heart of the nuclear reactor.
Britain, Germany and France have warned that most European
countries would back Washington's call to refer Iran's nuclear
dossier to the U.N. Security Council if Iran does not abandon all
enrichment activities by Nov. 25, when the IAEA board of
governors is due to meet in Vienna, Austria.
In London on Monday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the
world would insist Iran complies with IAEA.
``I don't think dialogue has been exhausted on this,'' Blair
said. ``But we do need the Iranians to understand that the
international community does not find it acceptable that they
develop nuclear weapons.''
Iran is to resume talks with Europeans on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi described
the European proposal as ``unbalanced,'' but said they had
``chosen the correct path of dialogue.''
Rowhani said Iran was cooperating with the IAEA to prove ``to the
world that the United States lied when it said Iran was covertly
seeking nuclear weapons.''
``No country can force any other country to stop an activity
which is its legitimate right, even for one hour. Therefore
suspension, of any extent and duration, will be a voluntary
Iranian decision,'' said Rowhani, who is also secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council.
Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said the Cabinet had
approved a draft law banning the proliferation, production,
stockpiling and use of chemical weapons, and it will be sent to
parliament.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
*****************************************************************
5 Las Vegas SUN: Powell Urges N. Korea to Resume Nuke Talks
By SANG-HUN CHOE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
1026korea-powell Secretary of State Colin Powell urged North
Korea on Tuesday to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks if it wants
international aid, while South Korea ended a high alert
triggered by holes cut into a border fence.
South Korea, meanwhile, called on Washington and other
participants in six-nation talks to show more flexibility in
resolving the nuclear standoff - comments that appeared to
distance Seoul from U.S. proposals.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon urged "all participating countries
in the six-nation talks to make more creative and realistic
proposals to help bring North Korea to the talks as soon as
possible."
Powell said Washington has no intention of changing its North
Korea policy soon, but would work to resolve the nuclear
dispute.
"We agreed to continue devoting maximum efforts to achieving
this goal through multilateral diplomacy and six-party talks,"
Powell said in a joint news conference with the South Korean
foreign minister.
"Clearly, everybody wants to see the next round of six-party
talks get started," Powell said, referring to the stalled talks
among the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and
Russia. "This is the time to move forward, to bring this matter
to a conclusion."
He said the goal was to help the people of impoverished North
Korea have a better life, in part by providing more food aid.
"We don't intend to attack North Korea, we don't have any
hostile intent notwithstanding their claims," he said. "It is
this nuclear issue that is keeping the international community
from assisting North Korea."
U.S. officials believe North Korea is biding its time on
six-party talks, sensing that Democratic candidate John Kerry
might win the election and be easier to deal with than Bush.
Powell, who was in Seoul following visits this week to Japan and
China, also met Tuesday with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
and South Korea's unification minister.
Powell predicted that North Korea will return to the talks after
next week's U.S. election, South Korean officials said.
Meanwhile, South Korea said that two mysterious holes found on
the wire fence on the tense border with North Korea were most
likely used not by communist infiltrators but by a South Korean
defector to the North. It ordered its troops to stand down from
a high alert.
About 60 miles north of Seoul, South Korean border guards had
earlier found two holes in a wire fence at the buffer zone that
has separated the two Koreas since their 1950-53 war. The
conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, and the two
Koreas remain technically at war.
The highly unusual discovery of the holes - found on the fence
checked daily by troops for signs of infiltration - had
triggered fears of North Korean commandoes slipping through the
border and led South Korea to tighten roadblocks and traffic
checks north of Seoul.
"After investigating the way the fence was cut and the foot
prints in the scene, we have concluded that an unidentified
person crossed into the north," said Brig. Gen. Hwang Joong-sun,
an operational officer of the South Korean military.
Three rounds of six-party talks, held in Beijing, have yielded
little progress. North Korea skipped a fourth round that was to
have taken place in September, and lashed out Tuesday at
Washington.
"It is impossible to open the talks now that the U.S. is
becoming evermore undisguised in its hostile policy toward the
(North)," said North Korea's official news agency, KCNA.
"The Bush administration is employing a sleight of hand to
mislead the public opinion at home and abroad and garner support
from more electors," it said.
North Korea reiterated that it would rejoin the six-nation talks
only if Washington is ready to roll back its hostile policy, and
offer a "reward" for freezing its nuclear development.
The United States is seeking the permanent denuclearization of
North Korea and has said it will provide the communist
government with economic benefits only after it offers a
credible commitment to meet U.S. disarmament demands.
Powell rejected the North's demand that Washington change its
proposals.
"We modified (our proposal) for the third round of six party
talks, showed flexibility and tried to accommodate the interests
of other parties," he said. "The way to move forward is to have
the next round of six party talks, so that we can discuss that
proposal and not have a negotiation with ourselves in a press
conference."
--
*****************************************************************
6 washington post: Powell Maintains Tough Stance on N. Korea
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/] Hello
Allies Complain That Bush Administration Has Been Too Inflexible
By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 26, 2004; 10:55 AM
SEOUL, Oct. 26 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell Tuesday
sought to fend off complaints from key partners in the effort to
end North Korea's nuclear programs that the Bush administration
has not been sufficiently creative or willing to compromise in
the negotiations.
During his three-day swing through Asia, Powell has insisted that
North Korea must return to the bargaining table without any
modification of the tough American position on dismantling
Pyongyang's weapons. But on Monday Powell was told by Chinese
officials that the Bush administration should adopt greater
flexibility in the talks over North Korea's nuclear programs. On
Tuesday, South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon told reporters
that he told Powell the United States and its allies "must come
up with a more creative and realistic proposal" to lure North
Korea back to the talks "as soon as possible."
A planned September session of the six-nation talks was scrapped
after North Korea refused to show up, citing what it described as
the administration's "hostile policy." But while Powell won
support from Japan, China and South Korea during his trip for a
resumption of talks, the conflicting statements suggested the
effort to disarm North Korea was in disarray because of a growing
divide among key U.S. allies over how to structure an opening bid
to North Korea.
South Korea and Japan have proposed to provide fuel oil
immediately if Pyongyang commits to freezing and ultimately
dismantling its programs. But Washington has maintained that it
would provide benefits, such as a security guarantee, only after
North Korea discloses and allows the verification of the full
extent of its programs.
South Korean officials have privately pressed the United States
to make some sort of symbolic contribution to the fuel oil
deliveries, such as paying a few million dollars in
administrative expenses. But the Bush administration has resisted
the idea. North Korea, in official statements before Powell's
arrival in Asia Saturday, tried to take advantage of the division
by insisting it will return to the bargaining table only if the
United States commits to making such an upfront gesture.
On Monday, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told Powell that
"we wish the U.S. side would go further to adopt a flexible and
practical attitude" during the North Korean negotiations, the
official New China News Agency said, in a diplomatic signal that
the Chinese believe the Bush administration is being too rigid in
its approach. The United States first tabled the plan in June,
which North Korea has rejected in press statements.
Powell said the administration already has addressed the concerns
of its allies. "We have a good proposal on the table," Powell
told reporters after his talks here. "We modified it for the
third round of six-party talks," adding that in doing so the
United States "showed flexibility." He added: "The way to move
forward is to have the next round of six-party talks so we can
discuss that proposal and not have a negotiation with ourselves
in press conferences."
Ban also indicated some irritation at a new U.S. law, signed by
President Bush last week, that targets human rights in North
Korea and calls for it to be addressed in the nuclear talks.
While South Korea supports human rights, Ban said, with regard to
North Korea "the particular situation of that particular country
has to be taken into account when we deal with [this] kind of
issue." He expressed the hope that the legislation -- heavily
criticized by the North Korean government -- did not harm the
six-nation talks.
Three rounds of the talks, which also include Russia, have been
held in Beijing since August of 2003, with inconclusive results.
Li said "China will make efforts to push for a new round of
six-party talks at the earliest possible date." In the past,
China, North Korea's main benefactor, has provided tens of
millions of dollars in aid to Pyongyang before each session in
order to convince the reclusive government to send a delegation.
The North Korean border is less than 40 miles from Seoul, making
the threat of nuclear weapons particularly acute for South Korea.
South Korean officials disclosed Tuesday the defense ministry was
investigating whether North Korean spies crossed the border after
barbed wire barriers were cut on the cease-fire line dividing the
Korean peninsula.
During his one-day visit, Powell also sought to ease Seoul's
concern over administration plans to reduce its forces along the
tense border with North Korea. The force reduction is part of a
broader plan to redeploy U.S. troops around the globe to better
counter terrorist groups. The reduction of U.S. troops "will
return valuable urban land to our Korean hosts and allow us to
adapt to the new . . . circumstances and take advantage of new
military technologies" while still deterring North Korea, Powell
said.
U.S. intelligence analysts believe North Korea has produced
enough weapons-grade plutonium in the past two years to possibly
add six nuclear weapons to its arsenal. Officially, the United
States says North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons.
Powell has repeatedly stated the United States seeks a diplomatic
solution in ending North Korea's programs. But a U.S.-led naval
exercise in Japanese waters, focusing on stemming proliferation,
has riled Pyongyang. The official KCNA news agency Monday
condemned the exercise as the "ultimate war action," warning that
"these moves only make the prospect of the negotiations with it
dimmer as the days go by."
North Korea levied a new accusation Tuesday, claiming Bush was
trying to win votes in next week's presidential election by
blaming Pyongyang for a delay in nuclear talks.
Special correspondent Joohee Cho contributed to this report.
The Washington Post Company: Information [http://washpost.com/]
*****************************************************************
7 [NukeNet] Info on I-297 in WA
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 14:50:51 -0700
53dd1.jpgNo
More Nuclear Waste At Hanford
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation in southeastern Washington is the most
contaminated site in the Western Hemisphere. In 2000 alone, Hanford
imported enough radioactive waste to cover a football field 13 feet deep.
Yet, the DOE, which has stored radioactive waste improperly at Hanford for
decades, wants to import more. That's why WashPIRG is working to pass
Initiative 297. More. |
How you can help.
53fa0.jpg
53fe1.jpg
A Briefing Guide to Initiative 297: Protecting Washington from Nuclear
Waste at Hanford
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation insoutheastern Washington is one of the
most contaminated nuclear waste sitesin the world. During four decades of
building nuclear weapons, more than 450 billion gallons of radioactive
waste was dumped into the soil and into the Columbia River,enough to
submerge the city of Seattle in a lake of waste 25 feet deep.
More.
Rob Sargent
Senior Energy Policy Analyst
National Association of State PIRGs & affiliated organizations
44 Winter Street
Boston, MA 02108
P: 617-747-4317
F: 617-292-8057
C: 617-312-7546
rsargent@pirg.org
www.pirg.org
Arizona PIRG * CALPIRG * Environment California * CoPIRG * Environment
Colorado * ConnPIRG * Florida PIRG * Georgia PIRG* Iowa PIRG* Illinois
PIRG* INPIRG * Environment Maine * MaryPIRG * MASSPIRG * PIRGIM * MoPIRG *
MontPIRG * NHPIRG * NJPIRG Citizen Lobby * NMPIRG * NYPIRG * NCPIRG *
OhioPIRG* Oregon State PIRG * PennPIRG * PennEnvironment * RIPIRG * TexPIRG
* U.S. PIRG * VPIRG * WashPIRG * WISPIRG
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
Attachment Converted: 53dd1.jpg: 00000001,3a82a5a8,00000000,00000000
Attachment Converted: 53fa0.jpg: 00000001,3a82a5a9,00000000,00000000
Attachment Converted: 53fe1.jpg: 00000001,3a82a5aa,00000000,00000000
*****************************************************************
8 Centre Daily Times: PSU puts focus on hydrogen energy
| 10/26/2004 |
[http://www.centredaily.com/
By Anne Danahy
adanahy@centredaily.com [adanahy@centredaily.com]
UNIVERSITY PARK - Amid a growing demand for clean energy sources
and greater energy independence, Penn State on Monday held its
second annual Hydrogen Energy Day, showcasing the work university
researchers are doing in the field.
"We're trying to highlight all the work going on in this area,"
said Bruce Logan, director of Penn State's Hydrogen Energy
Center.
He said the university is educating the next generation of
scientists and engineers who will deal with the problems
confronting hydrogen energy.
Hydrogen can be made using energy sources such as natural gas,
coal, wind, and solar and nuclear energy, according to a news
release from the National Academies of Sciences. But producing it
in a cost-effective way and transporting it safely will have to
be addressed before it can become an important energy source.
Tom Mallouk, Dupont professor of chemistry, said reducing
dependence on fossil fuels and reducing the accumulation of
greenhouses gases were behind the demand for hydrogen energy.
"I think it has great potential, but I do not think it's
tomorrow," said U.S. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pleasantville. "There
are a lot of things we need to be doing today to pave the way."
The availability of affordable natural gas is critical to that,
Peterson said. He said that while there is a lot of good work
going on at Penn State, an abundant source of natural gas and
increased funding for hydrogen projects are needed.
Among the Penn State projects under way is development of a
hydrogen refueling station. The Centre Area Transportation
Authority is converting three buses to a hydrogen blend.
"The Penn State/Air Products hydrogen station and the Penn
State/CATA fleet will serve to demonstrate a safe, reliable and
affordable hydrogen transportation infrastructure based on
natural gas reformers placed at local filling stations around the
country," Joel Anstrom, director of the Hybrid and Hydrogen
Research Center at Penn State's Pennsylvania Transportation
Institute, said in a news release.
"This will support early deployment of hydrogen-fueled vehicles
in the interim until a renewable hydrogen infrastructure is
realized in several decades," he said.
Peterson gave the keynote address at the conference. Kathleen
McGinty, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection, also spoke Monday, highlighting the
importance of alternate energy sources and Pennsylvania's role in
developing them.
Anne Danahy can be reached at 231-4648.
*****************************************************************
9 UPI: U.S. nuke Web site closed for securing -
(United Press International)
October 26, 2004
Washington, DC, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has temporarily closed its Internet research area
because of possible security leaks, CNN reported Tuesday.
Three weeks ago, activists and several media outlets reported the
agency's Web site reading room known as ADAMS contained sensitive
information that could be used by terrorists. The data included
floor plans for nuclear laboratories at several universities, and
specified the types and locations of nuclear materials they use.
"We decided we had to take the prudent step of closing things
up," said NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner. "We want to get the
non-sensitive information back out into the public arena as
rapidly as possible and we intend to do that."
There are approximately 700,000 documents available in the
reading room.
Soon after the terrorist attacks Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC
temporarily shut down its Web site and removed more than 1,000
documents deemed to have sensitive information.
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
10 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: President's quagmire
LAS VEGAS SUN
National polls have found that voters believe John Kerry is best
equipped to handle most of the top domestic issues -- health
care, public education and the environment -- findings mirrored
in Nevada in a recent Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness
News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll. At the same time, however,
these surveys show that the public views Bush more favorably at
fighting terrorism and in carrying out the war in Iraq. These
polls also show that the presidential contest -- nationwide and
here in Nevada -- is a statistical dead heat.
That Bush is receiving higher marks than Kerry on foreign policy
owes in large part to the fact that the public tends to support
an incumbent president during a crisis, especially in wartime.
This tends to be the case even when a war isn't going well.
Indeed, by any objective measure, Bush's war in Iraq has been a
failure. No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found
(the main reason for the invasion) and U.S. military forces find
themselves in a quagmire because of poor planning (not enough
troops were sent in and not enough serious thought was given to
the possibility of an insurgency taking hold).
In another telling example of this poorly executed war, we
learned from The New York Times on Monday that almost 380 tons of
some of the most powerful conventional explosives are missing
from a former military facility in Iraq, a facility that U.S.
forces didn't secure after the invasion. The Times noted that the
explosives include HMX and RDX, which can bring down buildings
and jets, can be used as warheads for missiles and can even
detonate nuclear weapons. Kerry noted that these missing
explosives could fall into the hands of terrorists and very well
could be used against our troops.
Although being commander in chief should be a plus, the
cumulative impact of events unfolding on the ground in Iraq for
more than a year -- including the deaths of more than 1,100 U.S.
soldiers -- ultimately could be viewed negatively by enough
voters to cost Bush the White House. In our view, for more than a
year now it has increasingly become clear that we need a
president who will listen to reason -- not advice from ideologues
in the Defense Department -- and chart a course that will allow
us to finish the job in Iraq and bring our troops home. John
Kerry's that man, not George Bush.
*****************************************************************
11 [NYTr] Minister Certifies Peaceful Nature of Brazil's Nuke
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 19:50:49 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com
Minister Ratifies Peaceful Character of Brazil's Nuclear Program
Rio de Janeiro, Oct 26 (Prensa Latina) Brazilian Science and Technology
Minister Eduardo Campos ratified the peaceful character of his country's
nuclear program Tuesday, when he refused a statement of US magazine
Science saying Brazil can produce 6 nuclear heads a year.
In an interview with CBN radio station, Campos reasserted criteria
spoken Monday night at Brazilian TV program Rueda Viva, from TV Cultura,
and said that behind these versions, there is a purpose for Brazil not
to have "conditions to build a national sustainable development."
"There's no country member of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) questioning the nuclear program of Brazil as a peaceful program,"
he stated, and reiterated the need to defend the vanguard technology of
uranium enrichment developed by Brazilian scientists.
"Now, the uranium enrichment market reaches 14 billion dollars,
equivalent to the whole market of soy and coffee, together," he said,
also adding that Brazil wants to reach self-supply in the plants it has
in its national territory up to the year 2010.
Only after 2010, Brazil might export the product, since the
perspective is that nuclear energy grows up to 25 percent and enriched
uranium will be supplied by 5 or 6 countries.
Campos said IAEA had total control of the Brazilian plant of uranium
enrichment in Resende, which is next to begin working. IAEA technicians
visited this plant last week, and showed themselves satisfied with the
access conditions offered, as informed by the National Nuclear Energy
Commission (CNEA)
CNEA added these technicians would present a report to the UN Nuclear
Energy Commission, which should make a decision in 30 days.
The UN Nuclear Energy Commission demanded signing of an additional
inspection protocol for such installations, to which it wanted to have
irrestrict access, but Brazil said no, alleging the need to defend
national technology, which is more modern and economic than in other
countries.
The technicians' visit was decided after a proposal by Campos to
Mohammed El Baradei, UN Nuclear Energy Commission Director, on September
23 in Vienna, Austria.
Negotiations with IAEA, behind which there is evidence of US
pressure, although denied by both US and Brazil, increased since April,
because of the possibility of closing the plant of Resende.
ef/tac/as
*
Search the NYTr Archives at:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org
=================================================================
*****************************************************************
12 Restrictions Renewed at Six-Month Review
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:54:25 -0700
Free Mordechai Vanunu - Info & Action Alert #37 -
From the U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
www.vanunu.com or http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
** PLEASE FORWARD TO SYMPATHETIC LISTS **
1) Six Month Review - Restrictions Renewed
2) Press Release From the British Campaign
3) Write to Mordechai Vanunu
====================================
1) Six Month Review - Restrictions Renewed
Mordechai Vanunu was told on the morning of October 21 that his
restrictions were renewed for another 6 months.
Shortly before being released from prison on April 21 after serving his
complete 18 year sentence, the Israeli government informed the nuclear
whistleblower about a long list of oppressive restrictions placed on him,
severely limiting his freedom of movement and speech. He was told that
most of the restrictions were to be reviewed 6 months after his release,
and the restriction forbidding him to leave Israel was to be reviewed in
one year (April 21, 2005). Now that the bulk of the restrictions have been
renewed, all restrictions will be reviewed in April.
In July, Vanunu's appeal of the restrictions to the Israeli Supreme Court
was rejected.
There are no charges against Mordechai Vanunu and he has served his full
sentence. These restrictions are an outrageous injustice and violation of
international law. Please tell the Israeli government to lift the
restrictions against Mordechai Vanunu and let him go.
For contact addresses:
http://www.embassyworld.com/embassy/israel1.html
http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/youcanhelp.html
For more information, visit:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu/
http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.freewebs.com/vanunu2ireland/
http://www.peaceispossible.info/Vanunu.html
2) PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE PRESS RELEASE
Campaign to Free Vanunu
and for a Nuclear Free Middle East
185 New Kent Road, London SE1 4AG Tel/Fax: +44 20 7378 9324 e-mail:
campaign@vanunu.freeserve.co.uk
www.vanunu.co.uk
22nd October 2004
ISRAEL CONTINUES TO PERSECUTE MORDECHAI VANUNU
Yesterday, 21st October, was 6 months from the day, on 21st April, when
Mordechai Vanunu was so dramatically released after 18 years in Ashkelon
Prison. It is the day when the restrictions on his movements within Israel
and talking to foreigners, both journalists and friends, was to be
reviewed. Already he has had a visit from the police asking him to show
reason why the restrictions should not be continued and yesterday, without
warning, they called again to state the restrictions will remain in place.
Vanunu is now considering how best to respond and contest the continuation
of these restrictions as he considers they are oppressive and infringe his
human rights, as well as the terms of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Israel is a state party. It is most
likely that his challenge will have to go back to the Supreme Court for
determination. He hopes on that occasion he will be given more than a 20
minute hearing in an otherwise totally secret three hour session, as was
the procedure last time. Then he was not allowed to hear or even know what
was said against him. His supposed secrets continue to be secrets to
him! Despite completing his sentence Vanunu is now being told that his
very good memory threatens the military might of Israel! On that basis,
Mordechai says, he could be held until he dies or loses his mind! Clearly
an intolerable situation.
Elsewhere, Mordechai's status and stature grows ever stronger as more and
more groups and organisations recognise his survival of 18 years suffering
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in an Israeli prison, while showing
no bitterness and still retaining his peaceful beliefs, as a truly
remarkable achievement.
He recently won the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace, which his adoptive parents
received on his behalf in New York, on 7th October, as he was refused
permission to leave Israel to take part in the ceremony. (This was his
thirteenth such peace award). He has also been nominated by Mairead
Maguire Nobel Peace Prize Laureate on behalf of Irish Peace People for the
prestigious Tipperary Peace Prize.
Applications to the governments of Britain, France, Norway, Canada and
Ireland by parliamentarians and local groups are or have been made for him
to visit, receive nationality papers or be given sanctuary in these countries.
On 30th October at a special ceremony the British Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament will rename its headquarters in Holloway Road, Vanunu
House. And, on 20th November the British Campaign will be holding its 12th
annual Vanunu benefit at Conway Hall when there will be a telephone link
with Mordechai.
As Mordechai said on leaving prison, "I am a symbol of the will of
freedom. You cannot break the human spirit Š I am proud and happy to do
what I did". It is clear from the continuing scandalous persecution of
Vanunu that the Israeli authorities still wish to punish and break his
spirit. However, he remains steadfast in his beliefs and as he said
outside the prison "They had not succeeded to make me crazy" and he adds,
"they will not now".
He told the Campaign he is determined not to be silenced in his continuing
opposition to Israel's enormously dangerous nuclear stockpile and the
threat they pose to the Middle East.
===================
3) Write to Mordechai
Mordechai would love to hear from his friends and supporters. You can
write to him at:
Mordechai Vanunu
c/o Cathedral Church of St. George
20 Nablus Road
PO Box 19018
Jerusalem 91190
Israel
and email him at
===============
end
Felice Cohen-Joppa
Coordinator
U.S. Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
POB 43384
Tucson, AZ 85733
Phone/Fax 520-323-8697
freevanunu@mindspring.com
www.nonviolence.org/vanunu
*****************************************************************
13 Mother Jones: One Roof at a Time
[MotherJones.com]
With no help from the Bush administration -- but plenty from
Europe, Japan, New York, and California -- solar power is edging
into the mainstream.
By Bill McKibben
November/December 2004 Issue
If you’re like most Americans, you’ve spent your life invisibly
attached to an electric meter. When you wake up and switch on the
light, you nudge it forward a little faster. When you toast
bread, watch TV, open the fridge, flick on the computer, you push
its pace. For all practical purposes, it only goes one way.
But in the last few years, a small but quickly growing band of
Americans have found out that you can make the meter spin
backward. These are not the off-the-grid, back-to-the-land,
composting-privy sorts who pioneered the renewable energy
movement in its early days. No, these are suburbanites (and city
and small-town dwellers) who are installing photovoltaic (PV)
systems on their roofs -- systems that tie directly into the
power grid. They buy power from the local utility, just like
always. But when the sun comes out, they are the local utility,
pulling electrons from the sun and pushing the extra out to the
grid.
Christian Grieco, for instance. IT consultant for a cable TV
company. Lives in a cookie-cutter suburb of Albany, New York --
that’s him in the two-story colonial with the quarter-acre lot.
And the 24 panels on the roof. He explains, “I called my neighbor
over and said: ‘You see it spinning backwards? My electricity is
going into your refrigerator.’”
I know how he feels, because we put 12 of these panels up on our
roof last spring. Now, when friends come to visit, they are
forced to ritually admire the new system, much as we once
permitted them the pleasure of viewing, say, our infant’s new
tooth. A stop by the electric meter to see it performing its
trick is now de rigueur on sunny days.
Ten years ago, such a scene was all but impossible. For one
thing, the local utility wouldn’t allow it -- partly because it
was a hassle for them, and partly because it was a danger to line
repair crews. So the key invention was a simple and reliable
“inverter” -- mine is a little red box in the basement, a “Sunny
Boy” model, built in Germany. It translates the electric
conversation between my rooftop, which is now a 2-kilowatt power
plant, and the rest of the grid; there’s a device performing much
the same function at nuclear reactors and coal-fired power plants
and hydro stations and all my brother providers. If I produce
more power than I use in a given month, I get a credit. Most
months, my electric bill just gets substantially smaller.
Which brings us to the other reason this didn’t happen a decade
ago: The economics didn’t make sense. Though the sun provides
energy for free, the cost of the panels and other gear was so
high that solar couldn’t begin to compete with grid power. In a
sense, it still can’t -- solar energy in this country costs
consumers something like a quarter per kilowatt-hour, compared
with something like a nickel for conventional fossil fuel. But
that’s starting to change. Not because regular electricity is
getting a lot more expensive; with its abundant coal America can
generate cheap power for a very long time. But because --
sporadically, haltingly, and over the objections of the federal
government -- America is beginning to realize that the real cost
of cheap energy is considerably higher. That burning coal means
polluted air, sick kids, global warming. And so, in a few key
places, government is beginning to tilt the balance. If you put
in a solar system in New Jersey, the state will cover as much as
70 percent of the cost. In California and in New York, about
half. A scattering of other states -- including Arizona, Vermont,
and Massachusetts -- offer similar subsidies.
The pressure for such programs is increasing as the news about
climate change becomes more urgent -- in August, a study in
Science reported that solar technology was developed enough to
play a major role in fending off global warming, but only if we
increased its use 700-fold in the next half-century. That sounds
impossible -- but it’s only a 14 percent annual increase, less
than half the current global rate. “It was about three years ago
that solar started to go into an overdrive growth rate
worldwide,” says Christopher Flavin, director of the Worldwatch
Institute, a Washington environmental monitoring group. More
solar power has been harnessed on the world’s rooftops in the
last two years than in all of previous history. And now Americans
are stepping up to the plate in rapidly increasing numbers. One
solar panel manufacturer calculates that the domestic PV market
is growing as fast as 60 percent a year, fast enough that within
a decade, California alone should have more solar panels than any
single nation. “The global installed capacity will hit a gigawatt
this year,” says Randy Udall, head of the solar program in Aspen,
Colorado, one of the nation’s most advanced solar cities. On the
one hand, that’s barely more than two big coal-fired power
plants. Still, it’s enough to encourage an industry: The world
spent $20.3 billion on development of solar and wind power in
2003, one-sixth of the total global investment in
power-generation equipment. Notes Udall, “This is not a
children’s crusade any more.”
The subsidy for renewable energy doesn’t come close to matching
the billions in government support for fossil fuels, which
includes everything from the oil-depletion allowance to the
endless federal largesse for “clean coal” research. Still, the
government help, almost all of it from states instead of the
federal government, is crucial. “Absent that, I couldn’t have
done it,” says Grieco, who took advantage of New York’s law to
cut his costs in half. “I didn’t have $31,000, but I did have
$15,000.” At that rate, he’ll have a 20-year payback on his
investment, and the panels should last another 20 years after
that.
Dori Wolfe’s company, Global Resource Options, installs systems
across the Northeast. They did $1.3 million in sales last year.
This year, thanks to the rebate laws, they were closing in on $3
million by September. Some states, like Vermont, consistently max
out the government funding pool -- “as soon as a customer
commits,” says Wolfe, “I get the paperwork to the state capitol
so they don’t miss out.”
In a perfect world, people would buy clean power even without
subsidies, simply because they wanted to help clean the
atmosphere. But, as Udall points out, much as Thomas Jefferson
mystifyingly managed to overlook the fact that he owned slaves,
we now collectively overlook our production of 45,000 pounds of
greenhouse gases per family per year -- enough to fill two
Goodyear blimps. Surely our descendants will wonder why we didn’t
notice, why we did nothing.
Bill McKibben, a contributing writer to the magazine who often
writes about sustainability, is an enthusiastic participant in
the renewable-energy revolution. He recently installed solar
panels on his Vermont house, and one of his earlier Mother Jones
stories, “It’s Easy Being Green” (July/August 2002), was
inspired by his purchase of a gas-electric hybrid car.
© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress
*****************************************************************
14 Globes: Dimona reactor transferred to Dimona jurisdiction
The Wexler committee recommendations have been adopted. Tamar
Regional Council will give neighboring local authorities NIS 6
million.
Sapir Peretz 26 Oct 04 10:45
The Dimona nuclear reactor is being transferred today from the
jurisdiction of the Tamar Regional Council to that of the Dimona
municipality.
Minister of Internal Affairs Avraham Poraz announced this morning
that his ministry had decided to assign the area of the Negev
Nuclear Research Center to the Dimona municipality, in order to
help Dimona use the extra municipal property tax revenue to
overcome its financial problems. Poraz signed orders and new maps
significantly expanding the Dimona municipality’s jurisdiction.
In addition to the reactor site, the Temed Advanced Technologies
Center and residential areas on the eastern border between the
Tamar Regional Council and Dimona will be put under Dimona’s
jurisdiction. The measure corrects the distorted distribution of
municipal property tax revenue and other revenue sources.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs said that the measures were the
result of lengthy negotiations mediated by Poraz between the
Tamar Regional Council and bordering local authorities: Dimona,
Arad, and the middle Arava.
The Dimona municipality will also receive NIS 2.5 million of the
Tamar Regional Council’s revenue from the Mishor Rotem industrial
zone, starting in 2005. Arad will get NIS 3 million, and the
middle Arava regional council will get NIS 500,000.
Poraz said that he had decided to adopt the recommendations of a
committee headed by Uziel Wexler. The committee recommended a
more equitable division of resources in the region.
Up until now, Dimona has covered 30,000 dunam (7,500 acres). The
Ministry of Internal Affairs’ decision will increase this by
125,000 dunam (31,250 acres).
Published by Globes [online] -l www.globes.co.il - on October 26,
2003
*****************************************************************
15 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Subcommittee Meeting on
FR Doc 04-23902
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Notices] [Page 62466] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26oc04-77]
Safeguards and Security; Notice of Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee
on Safeguards and Security will hold a closed meeting on November
3, 2004, Room T-8E8, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
The entire meeting will be closed to public attendance to protect
information classified as national security information and
safeguards information pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(1) and (3).
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows:
Wednesday, November 3, 2004--8:30 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. The
Subcommittee will hear presentations from the NRC staff, NRC
staff consultants, and representatives of the industry regarding
safeguards and security issues. The purpose of this meeting is to
gather information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and
formulate proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for
deliberation by the full Committee.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Richard K. Major (telephone:
301- 415-7366) or Dr. Richard P. Savio (telephone: 301-415-7362)
between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (e.t.). Dated: October 19, 2004.
John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
[FR Doc. 04-23902 Filed 10-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
16 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
FR Doc 04-23903
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Notices] [Page 62466-62467] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26oc04-78]
In accordance with the purposes of sections 29 and 182b. of the
Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on November 4-6,
2004, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The date of this
meeting was previously published in the Federal Register on
Monday, November 21, 2003 (68 FR 65743).
Thursday, November 4, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening
Remarks by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make
opening remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
8:35 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Proposed Rule for Risk-Informing 10 CFR
50.46. (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the
proposed rule for risk-informing 10 CFR 50.46, ``Acceptance
Criteria for Emergency Core Cooling Systems for Light-Water
Nuclear Power Reactors,'' and related matters.
10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Proactive Materials Degradation Assessment
Program (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the
status of the Proactive Materials Degradation Assessment Program.
1:15 p.m.-2:45 p.m.: Proposed Rule on Post-Fire Operator Manual
Actions (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the
proposed rule on post-fire operator manual actions and related
matters.
3 p.m.-4:30 p.m.: Grid Reliability Issues and Related Significant
Operating Events (Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by
and hold discussions with representatives of the NRC staff
regarding their activities associated with grid reliability,
significant operating events related to grid stability, and other
related matters.
4:45 p.m.-7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open/Closed)--The
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters
considered during this meeting. In addition, the Committee will
discuss proposed reports on: Response to the August 25, 2004, EDO
response to the May 21, 2004, ACRS Letter on Resolution of
Certain Items Identified by the ACRS in NUREG-1740,
``Voltage-Based Alternative Repair Criteria;'' AP1000 Lessons
Learned Report; and Safeguards and Security Matters (Closed).
Friday, November 5, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White Flint
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-8:35 a.m.: Opening Remarks
by the ACRS Chairman (Open)-- The ACRS Chairman will make opening
remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
8:35 a.m.-10 a.m.: Status of Early Site Permit Reviews
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff regarding the
status of the staff's review of the early site permit
applications.
10:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m.: Assessment of the Quality of Selected NRC
Research Projects (Open)--The Committee will discuss the
preliminary results of the cognizant ACRS members' assessment of
the quality of the NRC research projects on Sump Blockage and on
MACCS code.
12:45 p.m.-1 p.m.: Plant License Renewal Subcommittee Report
(Open)--The Committee will hear a report by the Chairman of the
ACRS Subcommittee on Plant License Renewal regarding interim
review of the license renewal application for the Farley Nuclear
Plant.
1 p.m.-2 p.m.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the Planning and
Procedures Subcommittee (Open)--The Committee will discuss the
recommendations of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee
regarding items proposed for consideration by the full Committee
during future meetings. Also, it will hear a report of the
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters related to the
conduct of ACRS business, including anticipated workload and
member assignments.
2 p.m.-2:15 p.m.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and
Recommendations (Open)--The Committee will discuss the responses
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to comments
and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters.
The EDO responses are expected to be made available to the
Committee prior to the meeting.
2:30 p.m.-7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open/Closed)--The
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports.
Saturday, November 6, 2004, Conference Room T-2B3, Two White
Flint North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.:
Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open/Closed)-- The Committee will
continue its discussion of proposed ACRS reports.
12:30 p.m.-1 p.m.: Miscellaneous (Open)--The Committee will
discuss
[[Page 62467]] matters related to the conduct of Committee
activities and matters and specific issues that were not
completed during previous meetings, as time and availability of
information permit.
Procedures for the conduct of and participation in ACRS meetings
were published in the Federal Register on October 5, 2004 (69 FR
59620). In accordance with those procedures, oral or written
views may be presented by members of the public, including
representatives of the nuclear industry. Electronic recordings
will be permitted only during the open portions of the meeting.
Persons desiring to make oral statements should notify the
Cognizant ACRS staff named below five days before the meeting, if
possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made to allow
necessary time during the meeting for such statements. Use of
still, motion picture, and television cameras during the meeting
may be limited to selected portions of the meeting as determined
by the Chairman. Information regarding the time to be set aside
for this purpose may be obtained by contacting the Cognizant ACRS
staff prior to the meeting. In view of the possibility that the
schedule for ACRS meetings may be adjusted by the Chairman as
necessary to facilitate the conduct of the meeting, persons
planning to attend should check with the Cognizant ACRS staff if
such rescheduling would result in major inconvenience.
In accordance with subsection 10(d) Pub. L. 92-463, I have
determined that it is necessary to close portions of this meeting
noted above to discuss and protect information classified as
national security information as well as safeguard information
pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(1) and (3). Further information
regarding topics to be discussed, whether the meeting has been
canceled or rescheduled, as well as the Chairman's ruling on
requests for the opportunity to present oral statements and the
time allotted therefor can be obtained by contacting Mr. Sam
Duraiswamy, Cognizant ACRS staff (301-415-7364), between 7:30
a.m. and 4:15 p.m., e.t. ACRS meeting agenda, meeting
transcripts, and letter reports are available through the NRC
Public Document Room at pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] , or by calling
the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly Available Records
System (PARS) component of NRC's document system (ADAMS) which is
accessible from the NRC Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html]
or http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collecti
ons/] (ACRS & ACNW Mtg schedules/agendas).
Videoteleconferencing service is available for observing open
sessions of ACRS meetings. Those wishing to use this service for
observing ACRS meetings should contact Mr. Theron Brown, ACRS
Audio Visual Technician (301-415-8066), between 7:30 a.m. and
3:45 p.m., e.t., at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure
the availability of this service. Individuals or organizations
requesting this service will be responsible for telephone line
charges and for providing the equipment and facilities that they
use to establish the videoteleconferencing link. The availability
of videoteleconferencing services is not guaranteed.
Dated: October 20, 2004.
Andrew L. Bates, Advisory Committee Management Officer.
[FR Doc. 04-23903 Filed 10-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: Sunshine Federal Register Notice
FR Doc 04-24010
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Notices] [Page 62467] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26oc04-79]
DATES: Weeks of October 25, November 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 2004.
PLACE: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
STATUS: Public and Closed.
MATTERS TO BE CONSIDERED: Week of October 25, 2004 There are no
meetings scheduled for the week of October 25, 2004.
Week of November 1, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the week of November 1, 2004.
Week of November 8, 2004--Tentative Monday, November 8, 2004 9
a.m. Briefing on Plant Aging and Material Degradation
Issues--Part One (Public Meeting) (Contact: Steve Koenick,
301-415-1239) 1:30 p.m. Briefing on Plant Aging and Material
Degradation Issues--Part Two (Public Meeting) (Contact: Steve
Koenick, 301-415-1239) This meeting (both parts) will be webcast
live at the Web address-- http://www
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www] . nrc.gov. Week of November
15, 2004--Tentative Tuesday, November 16, 2004 1:30 p.m. Briefing
on Threat Environment Assessment (Closed--Ex. 1) (New time)
Thursday, November 18, 2004 1:30 p.m. Discussion of Security
Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) (New date and time) Week of November 22,
2004--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of
November 22, 2004.
Week of November 29, 2004--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the week of November 29, 2004.
* The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call
(recording)--(301) 415-1292. Contact person for more information:
Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415-1651.
``Briefing on Reactor Safety and Licensing Activities (Public
Meeting),'' originally scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday,
November 9, 2004, is being rescheduled for a later date.
The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the Internet
at: http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-makin
g/schedule.html] . The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to
individuals with disabilities where appropriate. If you need a
reasonable accommodation to participate in these public meetings,
or need this meeting notice or the transcript or other
information from the public meetings in another format (e.g.
braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program
Coordinator, August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD: 301-415- 2100,
or by e-mail at aks@nrc.gov [aks@nrc.gov] . Determinations on
requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a
case-by-case basis.
This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred
subscribers; if you no longer wish to receive it, or would like
to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the
Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301-415-1969). In addition,
distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is
available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission
meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic
message to dkw@nrc.gov [dkw@nrc.gov] . Dated: October 21, 2004.
Dave Gameroni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 04-24010 Filed 10-22-04; 10:12 am] BILLING CODE
7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
18 Las Vegas SUN: U.S. Nuclear Panel Closes Online Library
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has shut
down its online document library, pending a review to determine
what potentially sensitive documents should be removed because
they might be useful to terrorists, the agency said Tuesday.
While the agency's Web site does not contain classified
material, the NRC "is widening its review to remove additional
information that could potentially be of use to a terrorist,"
the agency said in a statement.
The action came after a report by NBC that among the items found
on the NRC Web site were detailed information on the location of
radioactive substances, generally used in medicine and for
industrial purposes, that could be used to make a so-called
dirty bomb.
In some cases, the data included detailed building diagrams that
pinpointed the location of the material in hospitals and other
facilities, according to the NBC report.
As part of the review, the NRC said it temporarily closed public
access to its online document library, its electronic hearing
docket files, and to NRC staff documents related to NRC
consideration of a high-level nuclear waste repository.
"This action, when completed, is intended to ensure that
documents which might provide assistance to terrorists will be
inaccessible while maintaining public access to information
regarding NRC activities," the agency said.
After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, more than 1,000
documents were removed from the NRC's Web site. Additional
documents disappeared in subsequent reviews.
"Agency guidelines provide that any information that could be
useful, or could reasonably be expected to be useful, to a
terrorist in a potential attack should be withheld," said the
NRC statement.
---
On the Net:
NRC Web site: http://www.nrc.gov [http://www.nrc.gov]
--
*****************************************************************
19 Brattleboro Reformer: Power outage trips alarms at Yankee
[http://www.reformer.com/]
October 26, 2004 Brattleboro, VT
BRATTLEBORO -- Firefighters were called out to the Vermont Yankee
nuclear power plant in Vernon, when fire alarms in the plant
support building were tripped by a power outage on Monday
evening.
The building's power comes from Green Mountain Power, which
supplies the area surrounding the plant.
According to Dorothy Schnure, spokeswoman for Green Mountain
Power, the utility's feed from National Grid was cut off and
approximately 750 customers lost power at 6:23 p.m. It was
restored at 8:50 p.m.
Schnure said that most of those affected live in Vernon.
The cause of the power loss is still under investigation.
Copyright ©1999-2004 New England Newspapers, Inc.,
*****************************************************************
20 The News Journal: Del. lawmakers question nuclear plant
www.delawareonline.com :
By JEFF MONTGOMERY / The News Journal 10/26/2004
An unsecured pipe support, possibly overlooked for years, could
have caused a costly, disruptive steam leak at the Hope Creek
nuclear plant along the Delaware River, Delaware's congressional
delegation said Monday.
In a letter to Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Nils J.
Diaz, Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and Tom Carper and Republican
Rep. Mike Castle said the finding raised questions about the
adequacy of maintenance and oversight at the plant, owned by PSEG
Nuclear.
"Based upon preliminary reports from PSEG, we have learned that a
support for the pipe may have been left disconnected after a
prior maintenance period," the lawmakers wrote. "There is the
possibility that this disconnected support may have gone
unnoticed as far back as 1989. This is a very serious matter and
raises several questions."
PSEG spokesman Skip Sindoni confirmed Monday that company
investigators had tentatively traced the break to a pipe support
"that was not affixed properly," but said officials are trying to
determine when the problem first developed.
Margaret Aitken, a spokeswoman for Biden, said PSEG chief nuclear
officer Chris Bakken outlined early findings in a briefing for
congressional staff members last week.
Nuclear commission spokeswoman Diane Screnci said the federal
agency is awaiting PSEG's report.
Radioactive steam blew from the sheared-open 8-inch pipe into a
turbine building for more than 40 minutes, but radiation levels
never exceeded 2 percent of federal safety limits, the commission
said. No workers were injured or exposed to excessive radiation.
Port Penn resident Margaret E. Cox said Hope Creek and the nearby
Salem Units 1 and 2 reactors, little more than two miles away,
have become a regular concern as reports of maintenance problems
and safety concerns accumulate.
"I see the tower every night from the second floor of my house,"
said Cox, a nine-year resident of Port Penn. "Any kind of leak,
you wonder how small it is and how much a danger. The place is
always in the back of my mind."
PSEG has estimated that the accident will cost the company about
$12 million to cover expenses for buying electricity to replace
Hope Creek's lost production and to cover additional maintenance
charges. Company officials began a refueling operation 10 days
early after PSEG and NRC investigators started looking into the
accident, ensuring the plant will remain closed for at least two
months.
"I heard almost from the first week that the cause was a pipe
hanger not being connected properly," said David Lochbaum, a
nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
nonprofit environmental group. "Hopefully that makes it an
isolated case and not a problem of corrosion that would then
affect many more pipes. That doesn't mean it's a great thing,
because it shouldn't have broken in the first place."
Other concerns about the availability of backup safety systems
and the reasons behind the steps taken by workers to shut down
the reactor remain unanswered, Lochbaum said.
Employees had to cope with problems in a high-pressure coolant
injection system during the shutdown, the commission said.
Workers used manual controls to reduce pressure and temperature
buildups inside the reactor core. The process caused the
reactor's cooling water level to swing well above and below
normal, though never below the absolute federal minimum,
officials said.
Hope Creek and Salem already were under special oversight based
on earlier complaints about maintenance backlogs and workplace
practices that tended to discourage employee safety warnings.
"We expect that those reactors will operate according to the
highest standards, and that is clearly not the case now,"
Delaware's congressmen wrote. "We will not accept anything less."
Lisa Godlewski, spokeswoman for Castle, said the group expects a
prompt response.
"If they need prodding to help this along, we're going to prod
them," Godlewski said.
The delegation asked the commission to provide updates on efforts
to improve workplace safety at the nuclear complex, and asked the
agency to provide more information on inspection requirements for
piping and supports at nuclear plants.
The lawmakers also raised concerns about reports that PSEG
considered an attempt to restart Hope Creek long enough to burn
off the 10 days of fuel left in its regular cycle. The company
later ruled out a restart after further review and after the
commission sent in its own special investigation team.
"We think that was the correct decision, but we are troubled that
the operators might have restarted the reactor so soon," Delaware
officials said.
The company that owns Hope Creek also owns the twin Salem Units 1
and 2. Each of the three plants can produce about 1,100
megawatts. The complex on Artificial Island opposite Augustine
Beach is the nation's second-largest nuclear generating station.
During the mid-1990s, PSEG shut down both Salem units for major
overhauls and a management restructuring after years of safety
warnings from the NRC and mounting public criticisms.
Contact Jeff Montgomery at 678-4277 or
jmontgomery@delawareonline.com. [jmontgomery@delawareonline.com]
© 2004 delawareonline.com/The News Journal
*****************************************************************
21 Government Computer News (GCN): NRC yanks online docket amid terror concerns
[http://www.gcn.com]
10/26/04
By Wilson P. Dizard III
GCN Staff
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission yesterday suspended public
access to its online docket, following reports that terrorists
could use information from the database to steal radioactive
materials and make dirty bombs.
NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre said the agency would keep the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System offline for
about three weeks while employees check its content for
information terrorists could use. After the review, NRC will
begin restoring the ADAMS information, McIntyre said.
The agency also suspended access to documents concerning the
planned Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository in
Nevada.
“No classified or safeguards information is now or ever has been
permitted on the NRC Web site,” McIntyre said, referring to data
that could either be directly useful in building conventional
weapons or in getting access to radioactive material that
terrorists could use to make a dirty bomb.
NRC shut down its site immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001,
terrorist attacks and purged more than 1,000 documents that its
decided contained sensitive information. “Since then, the agency
has revised its policy regarding sensitive information that may
be displayed and additional documents have been removed,”
according to an agency statement.
McIntyre said activists have from time to time alerted NRC to
sensitive information in the public database, and the agency has
sometimes responded by removing data.
The latest action follows reports by CNN and NBC News about
ADAMS information detailing floor plans of hospitals,
universities and businesses that store radioactive materials.
NBC camera crews visited some facilities to demonstrate the ease
of closely approaching radioactive material storage areas.
Paul Gunter, spokesman for the Nuclear Resources and Information
Service, condemned the agency’s decision to suspend all public
access to the site. He noted that since 1999, ADAMS has served
as the public’s main access point to nuclear regulatory
information. In 1999, NRC shuttered its regional public document
rooms. It now maintains one public document room at its
headquarters in Rockville, Md.
Gunter said NRC could have suspended access only to the docket
for materials licensees, which are the medical, academic and
industrial sites about which the media and antinuclear activists
have uncovered sensitive information online.
“The concern is that they have put the public in an information
blackout,” Gunter said. “I don’t blame this on ADAMS. I blame
this on the NRC’s failure to clearly define safeguards
information and this newly defined area of sensitive
information.”
Gunter added that NIRS fully supports the use of electronic
docketing as long as the agency retains access to paper
documents.
The Union of Concern Scientists, another nuclear watchdog group,
condemned suspension of the online database and urged the agency
to suspend all nonessential licensing actions until NRC restores
public access to ADAMS.
McIntyre said NRC has been widening the scope of information it
reviews to determine whether it should be posted online. “The
current standard is that any information that would be useful or
could reasonably expected to be useful to terrorists in a
potential attack should be withheld.”
*****************************************************************
22 BBC: Nuclear body seeks new technology
Last Updated: Tuesday, 26 October, 2004
By Tracey Logan BBC Science unit
[Bushehr reactor in Iran]
The UN agency aims to keep an eye on nuclear plants across the
world
The computer systems used to monitor the world's nuclear power
installations are so outdated that they are hampering the work of
inspectors.
A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
said its current technology could allow key information to be
overlooked as it was more than 20 years old.
Such systems are the only method of tracking nuclear material
worldwide.
The agency has appealed for more funds to update its hardware and
software.
"A major overhaul of the system is needed to allow inspectors
immediate, secure online access to information," said project
manager Livio Costantini.
Inefficient search
IAEA inspectors make around 3,000 visits a year to more than 900
nuclear facilities worldwide.
They are there to verify official reports of activities in the
plants, to carry out environmental checks, and also to look for
any signs that nuclear material is being smuggled in or out of
the facility.
[Czech Temelin nuclear power plant]
Hundreds of nuclear facilities worldwide are inspected
The computer system inspectors currently use for comparing data
from earlier visits, for instance, was built in the 1970s and
largely paper based.
An IAEA spokesman said this was extremely inefficient and makes
searching for anomalies like searching for a needle in a
haystack.
The organisation is aiming to start a system upgrade in November,
aiming to provide inspectors in the field with secure online
access to previous inspection data, design blueprints of nuclear
facilities, even satellite images of the plant.
Where possible, it hopes to link the system with national records
of the import and export of nuclear materials.
Further analysis of these could help spot potential smuggling
activities or illicit technology transfers between countries,
according to a spokesman.
Cash shortfall
Computer specialist at the IAEA, Peter Smith, would like to be
able to incorporate state of the art visualisation techniques,
more familiar to video games players, into the inspector's
toolkit.
"The commercials you now see have people are moving around in a
virtual world," he said.
"If we could have that on our laptops, we could be walking
through the plant seeing, on the laptop, how the plant should
look.
"And if there's a door in the wall that is not on our laptop,
then we have a problem."
The IAEA estimates the total cost of the four-year project to
upgrade its technology will be $40m. So far it has only received
$11m from the US and the UK.
"Failure to replace the hardware and software, and to integrate
fully all the information system components will carry large
risks," said an agency statement.
*****************************************************************
23 NRC: NRC Initiates Additional Security Review of Publicly Available Documents; Temporarily Suspends
Agency's On-line Library
News Release - 2004-13 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-135 October 25,
2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission today initiated an additional
security review, by agency experts, of publicly available
documents to ensure that potentially sensitive information is
removed from the agency Web site. During this review, ADAMS, the
NRC's on-line document library, will be temporarily unavailable
to the public.
For the same reason, access to (1) documents on the NRCs
Electronic Hearing Docket and (2) NRC staff documents relative to
the high level waste repository (available through the Licensing
Support Network) is also being suspended pending further review.
No classified or safeguards material is now or has ever been
permitted on the NRC Web site. In its latest review, the NRC is
widening its review to remove additional information that could
potentially be of use to a terrorist. This action, when complete,
is intended to ensure that documents which might provide
assistance to terrorists will be inaccessible while maintaining
public access to information regarding NRC activities.
Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the NRC took down its Web site
and removed more than 1,000 documents that contained sensitive
information. Since then, the agency has revised its policy
regarding sensitive information that may be displayed and
additional documents have been removed. Agency guidelines provide
that any information that could be useful, or could reasonably be
expected to be useful, to a terrorist in a potential attack
should be withheld.
As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen security, the NRC
also has been holding meetings with the nuclear industry to
advise them on what information should be submitted to the NRC
for public viewing and how to mark information now deemed too
sensitive to post.
The NRC handles a large volume of documents. About 200 official
agency records some generated by the NRC and others from
external sources are posted daily to the NRC Web site through
ADAMS, which holds hundreds of thousands of documents. Given this
volume, it is expected to be at least several weeks before ADAMS
is partially restored, while the review of documents continues.
Last revised Monday, October 25, 2004
*****************************************************************
24 Platts: NRC's on-line document library shut for security review
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
+ NRC shut down Adams to conduct a security review of documents
posted there, the agency said late today. Given the large number
of documents on Adams, NRC's on-line document library, "it is
expected to be at least several weeks before Adams is partially
restored, while the review of documents continues," the agency
said. In its announcement, NRC noted that classified or
safeguards material is not posted to Adams. But the agency said
it is widening its document review "to remove additional
information that could be of use to a terrorist."
NRC spokeswoman Beth Hayden said the decision was prompted by
recent discoveries by activists of potentially sensitive
documents on Adams. She said the agency had hoped to shut down
only part of the system but such a move apparently could
compromise the data in the system, and the commission therefore
decided to shut down Adams entirely, she said. The agency is
trying to come up with a way to release information while the
system is down, such as posting a list of newly-released
documents elsewhere on the agency's site, she said. Users would
then contact NRC's public document room to obtain the documents,
she said.
Washington (Platts)--25Oct2004
Copyright © 2004 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
25 canadaeast.com: Nuclear plant's capacity reduced to extend life
POINT LEPREAU NUCLEAR GENERATING STATION
As published on page A3 on October 26, 2004
Engineers hope holding plant to lower output will help avoid
early shut-down
(David Nickerson/TJ)
Point Lepreau's single turbine and generator occupy this massive
room. Managers say capacity could be increased if the facility
is refurbished.
BY MAC TRUEMAN Telegraph-Journal
NB Power is holding the throttle back at Point Lepreau to make
sure this nuclear generating station lasts to the end of its
already shortened life span.
The plant is now producing as little as 93.7 per cent of the
power it was designed for.
Instead of its rated net output of 640,000 kilowatts, its
operators are holding it to somewhere between 600,000 and 612,000
kilowatts, Joe McCarthy, station manager, said.
But the facility's technical manager says that the problems that
have cut the plant's output and shortened its life won't affect
it in its next life, if the facility is refurbished.
Keith Stratton says that in the 18 years since Point Lepreau
became the first CANDU 6 nuclear reactor to start up, Atomic
Energy of Canada Ltd. has learned from it and from the other nine
reactors of this series that it has built in Quebec, Korea,
Romania and China.
"We understand the aging process a lot better," he said, during a
media tour inside the nuclear station to show news writers what
will be involved in rebuilding it.
Reporters donned hardhats, safety glasses, steel-toed shoes and
ear protectors, and tucked their watches and rings away, before
following Point Lepreau officials on a tour of repair shops,
standby generators, steam turbines, the control room and reactor
building.
As they left each building, they took turns standing spread-eagle
in scanning machines that sniffed for bits of contamination.
"Stand closer, please," a female robotic voice said.
Cutting the power back must be doing Point Lepreau some good.
Although the facility was designed to operate 80 per cent of the
time, power officials said they have managed to keep it going 83
per cent of the time in the last two years through improved
operating techniques.
When the Lepreau station first went into commercial production,
in 1982, AECL estimated that the plant would last 25 to 30 years
before it would break down often enough to make it uneconomical,
officials said Monday.
Instead, the power corporation now estimates that the end of
Point Lepreau's commercially feasible life span will come in
2008, which is four years ahead of time.
But Bill Pilkington, site director, said that over Lepreau's 22
years, both AECL and the community of power utilities that use
CANDU 6 reactors have learned a lot.
The industry now understands how decades of heat, pressure and
radiation have made this facility's pressure tubes swell, have
corroded feeder tubes and have shifted the positions of spacer
springs that hold these tubes in position.
"There are a lot of CANDU 6s, and a lot of lessons we're learning
that are not unique to this (site)," Mr. Stratton said.
And these problems have been solved in some of the newest CANDU 6
reactors, he said.
"In China, they've got new feeder material, for example, and we
can see that they are performing much better."
The refurbishment could even increase Point Lepreau's output
beyond the 640,000 kilowatts for which it is presently designed.
All it would take is an upgrade of the steam turbines that drive
the facility's single generator, Mr. Stratton said.
But the upgrade could require renovations to the building that
houses the turbine. And the power corporation has not established
a business case for going to this added expense, he said.
Premier Bernard Lord has promised that his cabinet will decide by
the end of this year on whether the refurbishment will go ahead.
The Saint John region's mayors, the Saint John Board of Trade,
Enterprise Saint John and the International Brotherhood of
Electrical workers have all launched campaigns to push for the
refurbishment, which is the only alternative to shutting the
station down.
The Atlantic Canada Energy Coalition, made up of several
environmentalist and anti-nuclear groups, is pushing to have
Atlantic Canada's only nuclear plant finally closed.
The jobs of some 700 employees, who inject $50 million to $70
million into the local economy, are riding on the decision.
NB Power has estimated refurbishment would cost $935 million,
including the cost of replacement power during the 18 months that
Lepreau would be shut down. British nuclear expert Robin Jeffrey
put the figure at $1.4 billion.
"It's how you slice and dice the numbers," Mr. Pilkington said.
Reach our reporter [trueman.mac@nbpub.com]
Copyright © 2004 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 toledoblade.com: Feds to review failed Besse sirens
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Article published Tuesday, October 26, 2004
NRC inspectors will study plant performance, utility's response
By STEVE MURPHY [smurphy@theblade.com] BLADE STAFF WRITER
Two inspectors from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission arrived
yesterday at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station to investigate
the failure of 54 warning sirens in an emergency planning zone
around the plant during a test May 7.
The inspectors, who will be at the facility for a minimum of
"several days," also will study FirstEnergy's response to the
failed test, including whether the plant correctly reported its
siren test performance for the quarter, said Viktoria Mitlyng, an
NRC spokesman.
She said this is the first time the regulatory agency has
dispatched inspectors to a plant to investigate an operator's
performance indicator data.
Jack Grobe, chairman of the agency's oversight panel for
Davis-Besse, noted in a letter Thursday to plant Vice President
Mark Bezilla that FirstEnergy began testing the sirens more often
after the failed test.
Richard Wilkins, a FirstEnergy spokesman, said the plant began
conducting daily "silent" tests of the emergency sirens June 1,
in addition to the mandatory monthly "audible" checks.
The 54 sirens are in a 10-mile radius of the plant in Ottawa and
Lucas counties and can be activated by plant staff or the Ottawa
County Sheriff's Office. During the May 7 test, a sheriff's
dispatcher was unable to activate the sirens.
Mr. Grobe's letter said FirstEnergy did not get prior approval
from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the testing
change. He also said the NRC questions whether the plant met a
performance indicator related to the siren tests.
"The staff believes that tests that are not part of the regularly
scheduled tests cannot be considered valid tests for [performance
indicator] purposes," Mr. Grobe wrote.
David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer for the Union of
Concerned Scientists, wrote to the NRC in August to argue that
the utility "padded that data with a bunch of successful tests."
To meet the performance indicator fully and be rated as "green,"
94 percent of a plant's tests each quarter must be successful. A
level between 90 and 94 percent is considered "white," while
anything under 90 percent would be rated "yellow."
Yesterday, Mr. Lochbaum said FirstEnergy used the additional
tests to keep itself in the green.
"What's disappointing is the games the company pursued to
minimize it ... particularly this site, which went through a
period of downplaying problems and not stepping up to the plate
and facing things squarely," he said. "It's kind of slipping back
into some of those old habits."
Davis-Besse resumed operation in March after an outage of more
than two years that began when a near-rupture of the plant's
reactor head was found.
Mr. Wilkins said the sirens failed to activate during the May 7
test because plant employees had not adjusted clocks in the
computers that operate the emergency system to account for the
late-April change to Eastern Daylight Time.
He said the problem has since been fixed, and he said FirstEnergy
added the silent tests in order to catch and fix any malfunctions
quicker.
"In the previous testing program ... if you've got a problem with
one of the sirens or several of the sirens, you wouldn't find
that out until you did the next monthly test," Mr. Wilkins said.
He denied that the company added the tests to keep its
performance indicator from falling. "Regardless of whether it's a
white indicator or a green indicator, we're going to test daily
because it gives us a more reliable system," he said.
Mr. Grobe, in his letter, also stated that FirstEnergy failed to
get prior approval for the testing change from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
A FEMA official said yesterday that the agency had no objection
to the utility's action, but wants to review any similar changes
before they're implemented.
"We approved of what they did, but we also ask that no change be
made in the future without the proposal being sent prior to
that," said William King, chief of the technical services branch
for the radiological emergency preparedness program of FEMA's
Region 5 office.
Contact Steve Murphy at: smurphy@theblade.com or 419-724-6078.
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
27 Pantagraph.com: Nuke plant ups security
10/26/04
Intruders will feel the heat of new measures
By Steve Arney
sarney@pantagraph.com CLINTON -- "Welcome to Clinton Power
Station," said a kindly appearing man, Charles Williamson, as he
began a media tour.
He then led a group of writers and photographers past razor
wire, bullet-resistant guard shelters and an alarm-wire fence
that held octagonal signs which read, "Trespassers risk serious
injury or death."
On Monday, Exelon Generation Co., owner of the nuclear power
plant east of Clinton, gave media tours to show its new perimeter
defense. Changes come ahead of Friday's deadline by the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for the nation's nuclear power plants to
have new anti-terrorism measures in place.
Some of the security at Clinton is old stuff, such as explosives
detectors and metal detectors for incoming pedestrians and gamma
sensors to keep radioactive material from leaving.
But in the post-Sept. 11 world, the nuclear industry was told it
had to do better, said Robert S. Bement, Exelon's site vice
president for the Clinton station.
Exelon spent $100 million at its 10 nuclear plants for capital
costs, and it will increase operation and maintenance for
security by $18 million a year, Bement said. The cost of the
Clinton changes is a little under $10 million, he added.
The plant always had a security fence, of course. It still
stands. It is 8 feet tall and topped with three strings of barbed
wire. It's not imposing compared with the new perimeter.
The new perimeter:
• Starts with a concrete wall running completely around the site
to keep bomb-laden vehicles out.
• Has an alarm fence with razor wire, followed by the old
security fence, followed by yet another new fence with razor
wire. Much of this new fence, 13-feet tall, also contains "razor
mesh" within the main fence frame.
A person trying to climb this fence barehanded would have his
hands ripped to shreds. There's also razor wire on the ground
between the fences.
Plant executives aren't willing to state that the plant is
terror-proof.
"From a protective standpoint, we look at delays," said
Williamson, the plant's manager of nuclear safety.
Delay means securing parts of the plant and keeping enemies out
of the reactor and generator buildings, he said.
Among the new delay sections is an area called "the catcher's
mitt" that stands between the entry building, through which
workers and visitors enter and exit, and the power plant itself.
The "catcher's mitt" is territory that can trap people in or
keep people out, through turnstiles that lock down and a fence
topped with razor wire.
Williamson used two other terms for the catcher's mitt area --
"fatal funnel" and "fields of fire."
The front gate also has new counter-terrorism measures.
It used to be that a gate arm blocked incoming traffic while an
armed officer checked vehicles for explosives. Now, he has
potential covering fire from a guard in a steel, bullet-resistant
shelter, one of seven shelters along the perimeter defense.
The guard in the shelter also controls -- electronically raises
and lowers -- two steel in-ground barricades to prevent vehicles
from running the gate defense.
It's taken three years to get to this point, but Bement noted
that Exelon enacted "interim" measures immediately after the 2001
terrorist attacks.
With the systems, he said, come training. The NRC conducts some,
but Exelon conducts additional tests itself, with guards
switching roles of defender, attacker and observer.
Bement said some of the workers jokingly ask him whether the
company is trying to keep intruders out or lock the workers in.
He kidded that the best of seven metal guard shelters is the one
with the view of the lake.
Plant leaders kept a friendly tone throughout the tours with
journalists -- all of whom had been checked for pre-tour security
clearance.
Behind glass at the worker/visitor's entrance, the sign reads
"Welcome to Clinton Power Station." The glass is bulletproof.
Copyright © 2004, Pantagraph Publishing Co. All rights
*****************************************************************
28 NRC: NRC Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards to Meet Nov. 4-6 in Rockville, Maryland
News Release - 2004-13 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 04-136 October 26,
2004
The Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory Committee on
Reactor Safeguards will hold a public meeting Nov. 4-6, in
Rockville, Md., to discuss, among other items, the status of
early site permit reviews, two proposed rules and the status of
the NRCs program for assessing material degradation at nuclear
power plants. The proposed rules involve risk-informing the
acceptance criteria for emergency core cooling systems for
nuclear power reactors and post-fire reactor operator manual
actions.
The meeting will be held in Room T-2B3 of the agencys Two White
Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville Pike, from 8:30 a.m. to
7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, and from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on
Saturday. Portions of the meeting on Thursday and Friday
afternoon and Saturday may be closed to the public. A complete
agenda is available on the NRCs Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/acrs/agenda/2004.
Individuals with questions or those wanting to make public
statements during the meeting should contact Sam Duraiswamy at
301-415-7364. Videoconferencing is available for open sessions
of this meeting. To use this service, call Theron Brown at
301-415-8066 at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure
availability. Those requesting the service are responsible for
telephone line charges and for providing the equipment and
facilities that they use to establish the videoteleconferencing
link.
Last revised Tuesday, October 26, 2004
*****************************************************************
29 NRC: Adjustment of Civil Penalties for Inflation
FR Doc 04-23899
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Rules and Regulations] [Page 62393-62394] From the Federal
Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr26oc04-1]
Rules and Regulations Federal Register
This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER contains regulatory
documents having general applicability and legal effect, most of
which are keyed to and codified in the Code of Federal
Regulations, which is published under 50 titles pursuant to 44
U.S.C. 1510. The Code of Federal Regulations is sold by the
Superintendent of Documents. Prices of new books are listed in
the first FEDERAL REGISTER issue of each week.
[[Page 62393]]
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Part 2 RIN 3150-AH55
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Final rule.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is amending its
regulations to adjust the maximum Civil Monetary Penalties (CMPs)
it can assess under statutes within the jurisdiction of the NRC.
These changes are mandated by Congress in the Federal Civil
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by the
Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996. The NRC's Rules of
Practice are amended by adjusting the maximum CMP for a violation
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, (AEA) or any
regulation or order issued under the AEA from $120,000 to
$130,000 per violation per day.
EFFECTIVE DATE: November 26, 2004.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Shelly D. Cole, Office of the
General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-2549; e-mail SDC1@nrc.gov
[SDC1@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990,
as amended, requires that the head of each agency adjust by
regulation the CMPs within the jurisdiction of the agency for
inflation at least once every four years. The NRC's last
adjustment to the CMPs within its jurisdiction occurred on
November 3, 2000 (See 65 FR 59270; October 4, 2000). Thus,
another inflation adjustment must be made by November 3, 2004.
The inflation adjustment is to be determined by increasing
the maximum CMPs by the percentage that the Consumer Price Index
(CPI) for the month of June of the calendar year preceding the
adjustment exceeds the CPI for the month of June of the last
calendar year in which the amount of such penalty was last
adjusted. For the purposes of this adjustment, applying this
formula results in a seven percent increase to the maximum CMPs.
In the case of penalties greater than $1,000, but less than or
equal to $10,000, inflation adjustment increases are to be
rounded to the nearest multiple of $1,000. Increases are to be
rounded to the nearest multiple of $10,000 in the case of
penalties greater than $100,000 but less than or equal to
$200,000.
II. Discussion
Section 234 of the AEA limits civil penalties for violations
of the Atomic Energy Act to $100,000 per day per violation. In
1996, under the Debt Collection Improvement Act (DCIA), the NRC
adjusted this figure to $110,000. The DCIA also amended the
Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 to
require that the head of each agency adjust the CMPs within the
jurisdiction of the agency for inflation at least once every four
years. Therefore, in 2000, the NRC adjusted the maximum CMPs to
$120,000 per day per violation. The NRC is required to adjust the
CMPs within its jurisdiction again this year. After this
mandatory adjustment for inflation, the adjusted maximum CMP for
a violation of the AEA or any regulation or order issued under
the AEA will be $130,000 per day per violation (rounding the
amount of the inflation adjustment increase to the nearest
multiple of $10,000). Thus, the NRC is amending Title 10 of the
Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 2.205 to reflect a new
maximum CMP under the AEA in the amount of $130,000 per day per
violation. The amended maximum CMP applies only to violations
that occur after the effective date of this regulation.
Monetary penalties under the Program Fraud Civil Remedies
Act, 31 United States Code (U.S.C.) 3801, 3802, and the NRC's
implementing regulations at 10 CFR 13.3(a)(1) and (b)(1), are
currently limited to $6,000.
A seven percent increase, when rounded to the nearest
multiple of $1000, as required by section 5 of the Federal Civil
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, does not result in an
adjustment to the maximum CMP. Thus, the maximum CMP will remain
at $6,000 for each false statement or claim under the Program
Fraud Civil Remedies Act.
The Commission has no discretion to set alternative levels of
adjusted civil penalties because the amount of inflation
adjustment must be calculated by a formula established by
statute. Conforming changes to the NRC Enforcement Policy
(NUREG-1600) published in the Federal Register on May 1, 2000 (65
FR 25368), will be made and published in a notice accompanying
this rule.
III. Procedural Background
This final rule has been issued without prior public notice
or opportunity for public comment. The Administrative Procedure
Act (5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B)) does not require an agency to use the
public notice and comment process ``when the agency for good
cause finds (and incorporates the finding and a brief statement
of reasons therefor in the rules issued) that notice and public
procedure thereon are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to
the public interest.'' In this instance, the NRC finds, for good
cause, that solicitation of public comment on this final rule is
unnecessary and impractical. Congress has required the NRC to
adjust the CMPs within NRC jurisdiction for inflation at least
once every four years, and provided no discretion regarding the
substance of the amendments. The NRC is required only to perform
ministerial computations to determine the inflation adjustment to
the CMPs.
IV. Voluntary Consensus Standards
The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995,
Pub. L. 104-113, requires that Federal agencies use technical
standards developed by or adopted by voluntary consensus
standards bodies unless the use of such a standard is
inconsistent with applicable law or otherwise impractical. There
are no consensus standards that apply to the inflation adjustment
requirements in this final rule. Thus, the provisions of the Act
do not apply to this rulemaking. [[Page 62394]]
V. Environmental Impact: Categorical Exclusion
The NRC has determined that this final rule is the type of
action described as a categorical exclusion in 10 CFR 51.22(c)(1)
and (2). Therefore, neither an environmental impact statement nor
an environmental assessment has been prepared for this
regulation. This action involves no policy determinations. It
merely adjusts monetary civil penalties for inflation as required
by statute.
VI. Paperwork Reduction Act Statement
This final rule does not contain new or amended information
collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.).
VII. Regulatory Analysis
This final rule adjusts for inflation the maximum civil
penalties under the AEA. The adjustments and the formula for
determining the amount of the adjustment are mandated by Congress
in the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990
(Pub. L. 101-410, 104 Stat. 890), as amended by the Debt
Collection Improvement Act of 1996, as amended (Pub. L. 104-134,
110 Stat. 1321-358, 373, codified at 28 U.S.C. 2461 note).
Congress passed that legislation on the basis of its findings
that the power to impose monetary civil penalties is important to
deterring violations of Federal law and furthering the policy
goals of Federal laws and regulations. Congress has also found
that inflation has diminished the impact of these penalties and
their effect. The principal purposes of this legislation are to
provide for adjustment of civil monetary penalties for inflation,
maintain the deterrent effect of civil monetary penalties, and
promote compliance with the law. Thus, these are anticipated
impacts of implementation of the mandatory provisions of the
legislation. Direct monetary impacts fall only upon licensees or
other persons subjected to NRC enforcement.
VIII. Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act
In accordance with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement
Fairness Act of 1996, the NRC has determined that this action is
not a major rule and has verified this determination with the
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB.
IX. Backfit Analysis
The NRC has determined that these amendments do not involve
any provisions which would impose backfits as defined in 10 CFR
Chapter 1; therefore, a backfit analysis need not be prepared.
List of Subjects in 10 CFR Part 2
Administrative practice and procedure, Antitrust, Byproduct
material, Classified information, Environmental protection,
Nuclear materials, Nuclear power plants and reactors, Penalties,
Sex discrimination, Source material, Special nuclear material,
Waste treatment and disposal. 0 For the reasons set out above and
under the authority of the AEA; the Energy Reorganization Act of
1974, as amended; the Federal Civil Penalties Inflation
Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended; and 5 U.S.C. 552 and 553; the
NRC is adopting the following amendments to 10 CFR part 2.
PART 2--RULES OF PRACTICE FOR DOMESTIC LICENSING PROCEEDINGS AND
ISSUANCES OF ORDERS 0
1. The authority citation for Part 2 continues to read as
follows: Authority: Secs. 161, 181, 68 Stat. 948, 953, as amended
(42 U.S.C. 2201, 2231); sec. 191, as amended, Pub. L. 87-615, 76
Stat. 409 (42 U.S.C. 2241); sec. 201, 88 Stat. 1242, as amended
(42 U.S.C. 5841); 5 U.S.C. 552; sec. 1704, 112 Stat. 2750 (44
U.S.C. 3504 note).
Section 2.101 also issued under secs. 53, 62, 63, 81, 103,
104, 105, 68 Stat. 930, 932, 933. 935, 936, 937, 938, as amended
(42 U.S.C. 2073, 2092, 2093, 2111, 2133, 2134, 2135); sec.
114(f); Pub. L. 97-425, 96 Stat. 2213, as amended (42 U.S.C.
10143(0); sec. 102, Pub. L. 91-190, 83 Stat. 853, as amended (42
U.S.C. 4332); sec. 301, 88 Stat. 1248 (42 U.S.C. 5871). Section
2.102, 2.103, 2.104, 2.105, 2.321 also issued under secs. 102,
163, 104, 105, 183i, 189, 68 Stat. 936, 937, 938, 954, 955, as
amended (42 U.S.C. 2132, 2133, 2134, 2135, 2233, 2239). Section
2.105 also issued under Pub. L. 97- 415, 96 Stat. 2073 (42 U.S.C.
2239). Sections 2.200-2.206 also issued under secs. 161 b. i, o,
182, 186, 234, 68 Stat. 948-951, 955, 83 Stat. 444, as amended
(42 U.S.C. 2201(b), (i), (o), 2236, 2282); sec. 206, 88 Stat.
1246 (42 U.S.C. 5846). Section 2.205(j) also issued under Pub. L.
101-410, 104 Stat. 90, as amended by section 3100(s), Pub. L.
104-134, 110 Stat. 1321-373 (28 U.S.C. 2461 note). Subpart C also
issued under sec. 189, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2239). Sections
2.600-2.606 also issued under sec. 102, Pub. L. 91- 190, 83 Stat.
853, as amended (42 U.S.C. 4332). Section 2.700a also issued
under 5 U.S.C. 554. Sections 2.343, 2.346, 2.754, 2.712, also
issued under 5 U.S.C. 557. Section 2.764 also issued under secs.
135, 141, Pub. L. 97-425, 96 Stat. 2232, 2241 (42 U.S.C. 10155,
10161). Section 2.790 also issued under sec. 103, 68 Stat. 936,
as amended (42 U.S.C. 2133) and 5 U.S.C. 552. Sections 2.800 and
2.808 also issued under 5 U.S.C. 553, Section 2.809 also issued
under 5 U.S.C. 553, and sec. 29, Pub, L. 85-256, 71 Stat. 579, as
amended (42 U.S.C. 2039). Subpart K also issued under sec. 189,
68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2239); sec. 134, Pub. L. 97-425, 96 Stat.
2230 (42 U.S.C. 10154). Subpart L also issued under sec. 189, 68
Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2239). Subpart M also issued under sec. 184
(42. U.S.C. 2234) and sec. 189, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C. 2239).
Subpart N also issued under sec. 189, 68 Stat. 955 (42 U.S.C.
2239). Appendix A also issued under sec. 6, Pub. L. 91-550, 84
Stat. 1473 (42 U.S.C. 2135). 0 2. In Sec. 2.205 paragraph (j) is
revised to read as follows: Sec. 2.205 Civil Penalties. * * * *
*
(j) Amount. A civil monetary penalty imposed under Section
234 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, or any other
statute within the jurisdiction of the Commission that provides
for the imposition of a civil penalty in an amount equal to the
amount set forth in Section 234, may not exceed $130,000 for each
violation. If any violation is a continuing one, each day of such
violation shall constitute a separate violation for the purpose
of computing the applicable civil penalty.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of October, 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Luis A. Reyes,
Executive Director for Operations. [FR Doc. 04-23899 Filed
10-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
30 NRC: Revision of the NRC Enforcement Policy
FR Doc 04-23900
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Notices] [Page 62485-62487] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26oc04-81]
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Policy Statement: revision.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) is
publishing a revision to its General Statement of Policy and
Procedure for NRC Enforcement Actions (NUREG-1600) (Enforcement
Policy or Policy) to address the requirements of the Federal
Civil Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990, as amended by
the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996. The Act requires
Federal agencies to adjust civil monetary penalties to reflect
inflation.
DATES: This action is effective on November 26, 2004. Comments on
this revision should be submitted on or before December 27, 2004,
and will be considered by the NRC before the next
[[Page 62486]] Enforcement Policy revision. The Commission will
apply the modified Policy to violations that occur after the
effective date.
ADDRESSES: Submit written comments to: Michael T. Lesar, Chief,
Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services,
Office of Administration, Mail Stop: T6D59, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Hand deliver
comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, between
7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., Federal workdays. Copies of comments
received may be examined at the NRC Public Document Room, Room
O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD.
You may also e-mail comments to nrcrep@nrc.gov [nrcrep@nrc.gov] .
The NRC maintains the current Enforcement Policy on its Web site
at http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] , select What We Do,
Enforcement, then Enforcement Policy.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ren[eacute]e Pedersen, Senior
Enforcement Specialist, Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, (301) 415-2742,
e-mail
rmp@nrc.gov [ rmp@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Section 234 of the Atomic Energy Act
of 1954, as amended, (AEA) limits the maximum civil penalty
amount that the NRC may issue for violations of the AEA at
$100,000 per violation, per day. The Federal Civil Monetary
Penalties Inflation Adjustment Act of 1990 (as amended by the
Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (the Act)) requires that
the head of each agency adjust by regulation the civil monetary
penalties (CMPs) provided by law within the jurisdiction of the
agency for inflation at least once every four years. On November
3, 2000 (See 65 FR 59270; October 4, 2000), the NRC adjusted the
aforementioned maximum civil penalty amount to $120,000. Thus,
the NRC is required to adjust this civil penalty by November 3,
2004.
The inflation adjustment mandated by the Act results in a seven
percent increase to the maximum CMPs.\1\ Increases are to be
rounded to the nearest multiple of $10,000 in the case of
penalties greater than $100,000, but less than or equal to
$200,000.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- \1\ Adjustment for inflation = Consumer Price Index
(CPI) for June 2003--CPI for June 2000.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
---------- After this mandatory adjustment for inflation and the
rounding mandated by statute, the new maximum civil penalty
amount will be $130,000 per violation, per day. Concurrent with
this change, the NRC is publishing a change to 10 CFR 2.205 in
the Federal Register to reflect the new maximum CMP mandated by
the Act. The new maximum civil penalty applies only to violations
that occur after the date that the increase takes effect.
The changes mandated by the Act apply to the maximum CMP.
This is also the amount that, under the Enforcement Policy
approved by the Commission, is assigned as the base civil penalty
for power reactors and gaseous diffusion plants for a Severity
Level I violation (considered the most significant severity
level). Also as a matter of policy, the Commission has approved
use of lesser amounts for other types of licensees, primarily
materials licensees, and for violations that are assessed at
lower severity levels. This approach is set out in Tables 1A and
1B of the Enforcement Policy. Although the 1996 Act does not
mandate changes to these lesser civil penalty amounts, the NRC is
modifying Table 1A of the Enforcement Policy by increasing each
amount to maintain the same proportional relationships between
the penalties. These changes apply to violations occurring after
the effective date of this Policy Statement.
Paperwork Reduction Act This final policy statement does not
contain a new or amended information collection requirement
subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et
seq.). Existing requirements were approved by the Office of
Management and Budget, approval number 3150- 0136.
Public Protection Notification If a means used to impose an
information collection does not display a currently valid OMB
control number, the NRC may not conduct or sponsor, and a person
is not required to respond to, the information collection.
Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act In accordance
with the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of
1996, the NRC has determined that this action is not a ``major''
rule and has verified this determination with the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and
Budget.
Accordingly, the NRC Enforcement Policy is revised to read as
follows: General Statement of Policy and Procedure for NRC
Enforcement Actions VI. Disposition of Violations C. Civil
Penalty 1. Base Civil Penalty Table 1A.--Base Civil Penalties
-----------------------------------------------------------------
-------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- a. Power reactors and gaseous diffusion plants........
$130,000 b. Fuel fabricators authorized to possess Category I
65,000 or II quantities of SNM.............................. c.
Fuel fabricators, industrial processors,\1\ and 32,500
independent spent fuel and monitored retrievable storage
installations................................ d. Test reactors,
mills and uranium conversion 13,000 facilities, contractors,
waste disposal licensees, industrial radiographers, and other
large material
users................................................ e. Research
reactors, academic, medical, or other 6,500 small material users
\2\............................. f. Loss, abandonment, or
improper transfer or disposal of a sealed source or device,
regardless of the use or type of licensee: \3\ 1. Sources or
devices with a total activity 50,000 greater than 3.7 x 104 MBq
(1 Curie), excluding hydrogen-3
(tritium)............................. 2. Other sources or
devices containing the 16,000 materials and quantities listed in
10 CFR 31.5(c)(13)(i)................................... 3.
Sources and devices not otherwise described 6,500
above............................................
-----------------------------------------------------------------
------- \1\ Large firms engaged in manufacturing or distribution
of byproduct, source, or special nuclear material.
\2\ This applies to nonprofit institutions not otherwise
categorized in this table, mobile nuclear services, nuclear
pharmacies, and physician offices.
\3\ These base civil penalty amounts have been determined to be
approximately three times the average cost of disposal. For
specific cases, NRC may adjust these amounts to correspond to
three times the actual expected cost of authorized disposal.
[[Page 62487]] 2. Civil Penalty Assessment d. Exercise of
Discretion As provided in Section VII, ``Exercise of
Discretion,'' discretion may be exercised by either escalating or
mitigating the amount of the civil penalty determined after
applying the civil penalty adjustment factors to ensure that the
proposed civil penalty reflects all relevant circumstances of the
particular case. However, in no instance will a civil penalty for
any one violation exceed $130,000 per day.
VII. Exercise of Discretion A. Escalation of Enforcement
Sanctions The NRC considers violations categorized at Severity
Level I, II, or III to be of significant regulatory concern. The
NRC also considers violations associated with findings that the
Reactor Oversight Process's Significance Determination Process
evaluates as having low to moderate, or greater safety
significance (i.e., white, yellow, or red) to be of significant
regulatory concern. If the application of the normal guidance in
this policy does not result in an appropriate sanction, with the
approval of the Deputy Executive Director and consultation with
the EDO and Commission, as warranted, the NRC may apply its full
enforcement authority where the action is warranted. NRC action
may include: (1) escalating civil penalties; (2) issuing
appropriate orders; and (3) assessing civil penalties for
continuing violations on a per day basis, up to the statutory
limit of $130,000 per violation, per day.
3. Daily Civil Penalties In order to recognize the added
significance for those cases where a very strong message is
warranted for a significant violation that continues for more
than one day, the NRC may exercise discretion and assess a
separate violation and attendant civil penalty up to the
statutory limit of $130,000 for each day the violation continues.
The NRC may exercise this discretion if a licensee was aware of
or clearly should have been aware of a violation, or if the
licensee had an opportunity to identify and correct the violation
but failed to do so.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 6th day of October 2004.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Luis A. Reyes, Executive Director for Operations.
[FR Doc. 04-23900 Filed 10-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
31 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Meeting of the
FR Doc 04-23901
[Federal Register: October 26, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 206)]
[Notices] [Page 62465-62466] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr26oc04-76]
Subcommittee on Plant License Renewal; Notice of Meeting The ACRS
Subcommittee on Plant License Renewal will hold a meeting on
November 3, 2004, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville,
Maryland.
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows:
Wednesday, November 3, 2004--1:30 p.m.-5 p.m. The purpose of this
meeting is to review the License Renewal Application and
associated Draft Safety Evaluation Report (SER) related to the
License Renewal of the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Station. The
Subcommittee will hear presentations by and hold discussions with
representatives of the NRC staff, Southern Nuclear Operating
Company, and other interested persons regarding this matter. The
Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues and
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official,
Mr. Cayetano Santos (telephone 301/415-7270) five days prior to
the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be
made. Electronic recordings will be permitted.
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by
contacting the Designated Federal Official between
[[Page 62466]] 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. (e.t.). Persons planning
to attend this meeting are urged to contact the above named
individual at least two working days prior to the meeting to be
advised of any potential changes to the agenda.
Dated: October 19, 2004.
John H. Flack, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
[FR Doc. 04-23901 Filed 10-25-04; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
32 [du-list] The Plumbat Affair - The story of Israeli uranium -
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 17:54:22 -0700
The story on how Israel smuggled 200 tons of uranium
The Plumbat Affair (online)
http://saba.fateback.com/plumbat/plumbatindex.htm
Elaine Davenport, Paul Eddy and Peter Gillman
Additional research by Leni Gillman
Andre Deutsch
1978
Contents
List of Plates
Author's Note
Cast of Characters
1 Murder in Norway
2 A Secret Place, A Secret Service
3 A Small Town in Germany
4 A Valuable Commodity
5 The Mysterious Mr Yarisal
6 It's Okay By Euratom
7 Operation Plumbat
8 Gunboat Diplomacy
9 The Good Ship Sofa…
10 A Little Help From Panama
11 Wonderful, Wonderful Copenhagen
12 Home to Haifa
13 Loose Ends
14 The Salesman Was a Spy
15 The Wrath of Zwi Zamir
16 A Fatal Mistake
17 Confession
18 Friends at Court
19 Closing the Stable Door
20 Consequences
Epilogue
Bibliography
AUTHORS' NOTE
The Plumbat Affair is based primarily on inquiries we made in
seventeen countries and some 200 interviews. We conducted most of the
interviews ourselves but we owe a considerable debt to a number of
other journalists who either gave us the product of their own
interviews or questioned witnesses on our behalf: in Paris, Antony
Terry, European Editor of The Sunday Times; in Hamburg, Jay Tuck; in
Mainz, Gunter Kitzinger; in Milan, Dalbert Hallenstein; in Oslo,
Arvid Bryne; and in Copenhagen, Ole Schierbeck. We also owe thanks to
Tony Geraghty of The Sunday Times whose original investigation of the
disappearance of the uranium provided valuable guidance.
We benefited, too, from the work of authors who have written about
related topics. A full bibliography appears on pages 183-84.
Finally, we have some personal debts to pay. Georgetta Moliterno,
Laurie Zimmerman and Tammy Pittman, all in New York, and June Pratt
in London did dozens of jobs for us patiently and well. Shirley
Poluck typed the manuscript with remarkable energy and Gordon
Phillips compiled the index. Robert Ducas, our agent and friend,
provided, as always, magnificent encouragement. And, most of all, we
have to thank Leni Gillman whose research and administration made
this book possible.
Elaine Davenport
Paul Eddy
Peter Gillman
February 1978
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/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/
*****************************************************************
33 Mainichi Interactive: Teacher apologizes for showing students photos of A-bomb victims
KUMAMOTO -- An elementary school teacher here was forced to
apologize for showing his students photographs of atomic-bomb
sufferers to "test their character," local educators said.
The 59-year-old teacher, whose name is being withheld, has
admitted that he was careless and in disregard of the rights of
students and radiation disease patients.
"We seriously regret the affair," an official of the Kumamoto
Municipal Board of Education said. "We will try harder to have
teachers consider human rights."
The teacher, 59, was preparing for an open-air class for fourth
graders to observe the moon and stars on the night of Oct. 18.
But he changed the program and showed a video in a science room
because typhoon No. 23 was approaching Kyushu, the education
officials said.
After the class, the teacher told his students to walk from the
science room to the school's gymnasium and back to test their
courage in the night.
He then showed them 12 photos of radioactive disease patients in
an apparent bid to frighten them.
Two days later, the parents of two students alerted the
elementary school. "The teacher was careless," one of the parents
told school officials.
School officials didn't report the incident to the Kumamoto board
of education, but an anonymous caller informed the board of the
affair on Monday. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Oct. 26, 2004)
© 2004 The Mainichi Newspapers Co. Under the
*****************************************************************
34 Public Citizen: Bush Administration Failures Leave Chemical and
Nuclear Plants, HazMat, Ports and Water Systems Vulnerable to
Terrorists; Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook Tells D.C.
Councilmembers How Washington, D.C., and Homeland Are Unsecured
Oct. 25, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C. The Bush administration has consistently
ignored or opposed commonsense measures to protect Americans from
potentially catastrophic terrorist attacks an inaction that
reflects the Bush administrations aversion to regulating private
industry and its allegiance to key campaign contributors, Public
Citizen President Joan Claybrook told members of the D.C.
Councils Judiciary Committee today.
The administrations failures are particularly dangerous for
residents of the Washington, D.C., area, Claybrook said, because
8,500 rail cars carrying hazardous and potentially toxic
materials travel through D.C. every year. Ninety-ton rail cars
that regularly pass within four blocks of the U.S. Capitol
contain enough chlorine to injure or kill 100,000 people within
30 minutes and could endanger 2.4 million people.
Washington, D.C., is within 60 miles of two nuclear power plants:
North Anna in Virginia and Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, Claybrook
told the committee. Each of these nuclear plants represents a
potential radioactive dirty bomb that could explode with
devastating effects. Further, trucks travel every day on the
Beltway carrying hazardous materials. Transport vehicles are
tempting targets for terrorists because the opportunities for
harm are great and the targets are difficult to protect.
Are Americans safer today as a result of this administrations
efforts to fortify our key infrastructure against attacks?
Claybrook asked. The answer is a resounding no. The White House
says Americans are safer, but the rhetoric does not match the
reality on the ground.
Claybrook detailed the findings of a recent Public Citizen
report, Homeland Unsecured: The Bush Administrations Hostility
to Regulation and Ties to Industry Leave America Vulnerable,
available on the Web at [http://www.homelandunsecured.org/] .
The report describes how the Bush administration has failed to
harden our defenses against terrorism and secure the most
vulnerable, high-impact targets. The report is based on an
analysis of five key areas chemical plants, nuclear plants,
hazardous material transport, ports and water systems. Among the
findings: + Chemical plants
A strike at one or more of the 15,000 chemical plants across the
United States could cause thousands, even millions, of injuries
and deaths. But the Bush administration and the chemical industry
have blocked legislation that would require chemical plants to
shift to safer chemicals and technologies, and blocked
Environmental Protection Agency efforts to compel security
improvements via the Clean Air Act. + Nuclear plants
Twenty-seven state attorneys generals warned Congress in October
2002 that the consequences of a catastrophic attack against one
of the countrys 103 nuclear power plants are simply
incalculable. The plants were not designed to withstand the
impact of aircraft crashes or explosive forces, and the
government does not require nuclear plants to be secure from an
aircraft attack. But the Bush administration and the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) have resisted congressional efforts
for additional security regulation. In fact, the NRC proposed
weakening fire safety regulations, which would make it harder for
a reactor to be safely shut down in the event of a terrorist
attack. + Hazardous materials transport
The trains and trucks that carry tens of millions of tons of
toxic chemicals and other hazardous materials annually on our
railroads and highways make tempting terrorist targets. More than
half of the nations 60,000 rail tank cars carrying hazardous
materials are too old to meet current industry standards and thus
are more likely than newer cars to break open after derailing.
There are insufficient checks on where trucks carrying hazardous
materials may drive; insufficient oversight and tracking of the
types, amounts and locations of trucks moving these lethal loads;
and insufficient controls on the issuance of commercial licenses
for drivers of trucks carrying hazardous materials. Legislation
to assess rail security has been blocked by members of the
presidents party, and other safety proposals have been dropped
because of industry opposition. + Port security
Every year, 8,100 foreign cargo ships make 50,000 visits to the
United States. International sea transport is an attractive
terrorist target because there are millions of shipping
containers, hundreds of ports and dozens of methods to damage
infrastructure, disrupt the world economy, undermine our military
readiness and harm Americans. Just 4 to 6 percent of shipping
containers are inspected today. Inspectors are not adequately
trained. And innovative pilot security programs have not been
implemented. + Drinking water systems
The water distribution networkthe pumping stations, storage
tanks and pipes that might cover thousands of miles within a
metropolitan areaprovides countless opportunities to introduce
biological, chemical or radiological contaminants. But there is
no funding mechanism for the federal government to provide direct
grants to cities to upgrade water security, and the private water
utility industrys campaign to take over public water systems is
getting a push from the Bush administration.
The report suggests that these security failures have occurred in
part because industries representing the five homeland security
areas examined in this study collectively have raised at least
$19.9 million for the Bush campaigns, the Republican National
Committee or the Bush inauguration since the 2000 cycle; provided
10 Rangers and 20 Pioneers individuals who raise at least
$200,000 and $100,000, respectively to the Bush presidential
campaigns; and spent at least $201 million lobbying the White
House, executive branch agencies and Congress from 2002 through
June 2004. ###
[http://www.citizen.org/
*****************************************************************
35 AP Wire: Oconee waste tank discharge underscores storage problem
| 10/26/2004 |
Associated Press
GREENVILLE, S.C. - An accidental discharge of 10,000 gallons of
water covering spent nuclear fuel rods at an upstate reactor
raises concerns about the future storage needs for the material.
The incident occurred when operators at the Oconee Nuclear
Station tried to add water to one pool while simultaneously
draining another. A valve left open allowed water to drain into a
storage tank at the Duke Power facility, said Mel Shannon, the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's senior resident inspector.
A shift manager, who was supposed to make sure the two operations
didn't overlap, "missed it," he said. The plant had a bad
procedure, he said.
Duke Power is analyzing what happened.
"We're going to do whatever we need to do to prevent it from
happening again," Duke Power spokeswoman Rose Cummings said.
Even if 40,000 gallons drained from the tank to the level of the
drain, several feet of water would still cover the rods, Shannon
said.
Still, the incident underscores the national problem of handling
spent nuclear fuel. The Environmental Working Group, for
instance, warns that waste might have to stay at Oconee Nuclear
Station longer than expected because it will have no other place
to go.
The Washington-based organization says Oconee Nuclear Station
could end up stuck with the 1,095 metric tons of waste. The group
says a nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain will
fill up shortly after it opens in 2010 or 2011 as the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission continues to renew reactor licenses across
the country. That will generate more waste that has nowhere for
it to go, the Environmental Working Group says.
Plans call for Yucca Mountain to take 77,000 metric tons of
waste, but it can hold closer to 120,000 metric tons, Nuclear
Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins said. The industry
group says another repository may be necessary, but not for
several decades.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he expects Yucca Mountain
will have enough room to hold nuclear waste for the next 100
years. Earlier this year he won approval for a plan to solidify
and permanently store nuclear material dregs in tanks at the
Savannah River Site in an effort to reduce removal and storage
costs.
The United States could follow France's lead by expanding
reliance on nuclear energy and cutting down on radioactive waste
through reprocessing, Graham said. About 90 percent of spent fuel
rods at Oconee Nuclear Station can be reprocessed, Graham said.
"That's probably not the most economical way to generate new
fuel, but it does help you in the waste stream," Graham said.
Wiggins expects to see more, not fewer nuclear plants.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has awarded new licenses to 26
of the nation's 103 power plants, and the rest are expected to
seek renewals, Wiggins said. At the same time, the industry has
an "aggressive" plan to expand by as many as 50 plants by 2020,
she said.
Eliminating plants could drive up electricity costs, Wiggins
said.
"When you start looking at the cost to consumers, nuclear is the
cheapest form of electricity we have, second only to hydro," she
said.
---
Information from: The Greenville News,
[http://www.greenvillenews.com]
*****************************************************************
36 eTaiwan News: Taipower denies daily's report of missing nuclear fuel rods
[http://www.etaiwannews.com/]
2004-10-26 / Central News Agency /
State-run Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) denied yesterday a
media report of missing nuclear fuel rods at its nuclear power
plants, calling the story a far cry from the truth.
According to a Taipower spokesman, no fuel rods at its three
nuclear power plants are missing as reported by a local daily
newspaper, which cited a source as saying that "the U. S.
Department of Energy had found that various nuclear fuel rods
installed in the reactors at Taiwan's nuclear power plants had
gone missing."
The spokesman categorically denied the report and stressed that
the three nuclear power plants are constantly under strict
scrutiny by the Taiwan and U. S. authorities and the
International Atomic Energy Agency, although Taiwan is not a
member of the United Nations.
Pointing out that all facilities at the three nuclear power
plants are closely inspected by monitors and that key parts are
sealed, he said that what the report said is totally impossible.
Uranium and plutonium are the main substances contained in a
nuclear fuel rod, which is the source of nuclear energy in a
reactor. The two sensitive materials can be extracted from the
highly radioactive spent rods for applications in other fields,
including making nuclear weapons.
© 2001-2004 Taiwan News. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
37 Las Vegas RJ: JOHN L. SMITH: Being undecided on president unlikely as Bush,
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Kerry unalike
Nothing ruins a restaurant meal faster than dining with people
who refuse to read the menu and make up their minds.
I'd rather have something move in the chow mein than be forced
to eat supper with a person who can't decide between tastes as
different as steak and lobster.
While they fiddle, I burn at the thought they can't even decide
between a cow and a crustacean.
Perhaps you know the sort of person I'm talking about. For them,
menus are as intriguing and as dense as Tolstoy in the Russian.
First, they silently scan their selections. Then, they recite
them aloud. Their exotic pronunciations give me French class
flashbacks. By the third run through, they've added editorial
comments and personal anecdotes for each entree.
By the time they've narrowed their selection to a half dozen,
the hired help is turning up the lights, pulling out the vacuums
and passing out doggy bags.
Please excuse my political manners, but this is precisely the
way I feel about the percentage of Americans who still consider
themselves "undecided voters" in the rapidly approaching
presidential election.
It's understandable that voters would be confused about the best
candidates on the long list of jockeys vying for judgeships. All
judges look pretty much the same, and you never want to find
yourself standing in front of one.
Even Assembly, Senate and County Commission candidates tend to
blur after the 263rd sensational mail piece has been delivered to
your door. (From the look of things, commission candidate David
Goldwater is on the FBI's Most Wanted list, and Lynette Boggs
McDonald has horns growing out of her hairdo.)
But there should be no such indecision on the office of the
presidency, where incumbent George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry
represent dramatically divergent views of America. From the war
in Iraq and the economy to same-sex marriage and stem cell
research, they really agree on nothing.
This is why I believe recent presidential polls showing up to 5
percent of Americans still undecided not only don't give an
accurate picture, but likely bode ill for the favorite, Bush.
Beyond some privacy concerns -- some of those surveyed just don't
like surveys -- why else would voters say they're undecided, if
not to conceal the fact they're not going to cast a ballot for
the man who got their vote four years ago? The New York Times on
Monday devoted a front-page story to the plight and personality
of the undecideds, so I presume such people actually exist.
In caves, mostly.
I doubt the nation is undecided, but I can understand why it's
divided. That division is especially evident in toss-up states
such as Nevada, where the anti-Yucca Mountain candidate Kerry is
scheduled to speak today. That's also why "war President" Bush's
team has saturated mailboxes with millions of blistering salvos
during early voting.
They're getting out some voters and encouraging others to stay
home, but I doubt they're fretting over the "undecided."
"Even people who can't tell you much about government know the
president is the No. 1 spot," veteran Nevada Democratic
strategist Gary Gray says. "And they make up their minds about
that one first. ... The presidential race is a lockdown at this
point."
That's not to say he knows who will win, only that, polls to the
contrary, there aren't busloads of undecided voters on a desert
caravan bound for Election Day.
And Republican strategist Jim Denton agrees.
"I think that in the past 20 years of presidential politics,
never has there been a clearer choice than we currently have
between President Bush and Senator Kerry," Denton says.
He adds, laughing, "I have no idea how anyone could call
themselves 'undecided.' "
The candidates have defined their positions and priorities. Now
they're attempting to take advantage of early voting.
Gray says his sources have observed a dramatic increase in
Democrat turnout during early voting, and Denton is confident "we
will have the highest voter turnout we've ever had in the history
of Nevada."
Surf or turf, Kerry or Bush, just make a decision before closing
time.
John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and
Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
38 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca documents available on Internet
By Stephen Curran LAS VEGAS SUN
To access the Licensing Support Network database, visit
www.lsnnet.gov. No passwords are needed.
Advocates on both sides of the Yucca Mountain debate now have a
common database to support their claims, an Internet
administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Monday.
The Licensing Support Network database, which compiles the
millions of documents included in the Energy Department's license
application for the nuclear waste dump, is part of a
multimillion-dollar investment in technology by the department.
It is modeled after popular search engines that allow users to
scan documents based on the precision of terms within the
documents.
"We needed to make it so a bright 13-year-old could use it,"
Daniel Graser, the system's administrator, told a group of
computer engineers at UNLV. "It levels the playing field."
The roughly $4 million database will eventually link more than
40 million pages of information from the 2.5 million individual
documents that make up the application, Graser said.
More documents are expected to be added as the Energy Department
moves forward with its license application for the proposed
nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The system, which costs the NRC about $50,000 a month to
maintain, is the latest form of a database initially set up in
1988.
The NRC is also expanding its "digital courtroom" technology
that will link a yet-unbuilt hearing facility in Henderson to
another in Rockville, Md. The computer technology, which Graser
estimated costs about $500,000 for each hearing room, will
provide real-time recording for the hearing impaired and allow
expert witnesses to testify from thousands of miles away.
Funds are also allocated for improvements to the Maryland
facility, he said.
The Energy Department has until Dec. 30 to submit its license
application for the repository, which the department aims to open
by 2010.
*****************************************************************
39 Tri-City Herald: Fluor may miss DOE deadline on K Basins
This story was published Tuesday, October 26th, 2004
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
Fluor Hanford is off to a problem-filled start to meet the first
of the revised deadlines to clean up radioactive sludge left in
the Hanford K Basins -- the leak-prone pools of water 400 yards
from the Columbia River.
Fluor has notified the Department of Energy it cannot meet DOE's
commitment to the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board to have
the sludge in the K East Basin corralled in underwater containers
by the end of December. The containers are kept in water to
shield workers from radiation.
However, Fluor still believes it can meet a legal deadline of
March 1 for completing the work.
The safety board provides independent oversight of Hanford, but
does not have the authority to issue fines.
Fluor also faces an interim deadline under the Tri-Party
Agreement, which regulates Hanford work, requiring it to start
work on getting the sludge into containers by the end of this
month.
Meeting that deadline appears uncertain.
Fluor Hanford expects to announce today that it is ready to begin
putting sludge in containers. If an independent review team
agrees, work will start to pump the sludge into containers
Saturday or Sunday.
However, Fluor Hanford is prepared to delay the start of the
project by a week if workers need more training, said Pete
Knollmeyer, Fluor Hanford vice president. A delay now could
prevent time-consuming problems in the future, he said.
Fluor had planned to have more training completed by now, but
workers were delayed in starting as the fuel removal project
continued for more than two months longer than planned.
The sludge retrieval project has been a source of problems for
DOE for several years.
The K Basins were built in the 1950s to hold irradiated nuclear
fuel until it could be processed to remove plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons program. But when reprocessing stopped
in the mid-1980s, about 2,300 tons of fuel was left stranded in
the indoor pools of the K Basins.
It decayed over two decades, creating a sludge of radioactive
particles, cement from the pool walls and dust blown in from the
desert in the K Basins. The sludge particles settle to the bottom
of the pools, but dissipate in the water when disturbed, making
them difficult to collect.
Removing the fuel that produced the contaminated sludge has been
one of Hanford's success stories. DOE announced Friday that
project had been completed.
But removing the sludge has been difficult and complicated. Fluor
Hanford was fined $935,000 this summer for multiple and extensive
safety violations as it prepared to start pumping sludge from
Hanford's K Basins in spring 2003. Its predecessor, Fluor Daniel,
had been fined for similar problems in 1999.
Although the Tri-Party Agreement had called for Fluor Hanford to
begin pumping sludge in the K East Basin by the end of 2002, the
work began this summer on a less technically challenging area of
K East.
A new technical approach was adopted for the balance of the
project, which is planned to speed up the treatment and disposal
of the sludge by a decade and get the basins removed as much as
five years sooner than proposed in past schedules.
DOE became concerned about Fluor's ability to meet new deadlines
and commitments to the safety board in September, when Fluor
discovered a system did not work consistently well to gather up
the smallest particles of sludge dispersed in the water.
The focus on schedule created some concern by the safety board.
"A similar focus on schedule in the past has resulted in
insufficient preparation ... and premature declarations of
readiness ... ," said a recent weekly report.
Fluor has brought in industry experts to come up with a
consistent method to chemically collect the small particles of
contamination that disperse in the water. In the meantime, it
will proceed with collecting the rest of the sludge in
containers.
But the project has run into two other problems in recent weeks.
Installation of equipment was delayed when work elsewhere in the
basin turned the water too murky to see the bottom of the pool.
Then work had to be stopped last week because of a high airborne
radiation reading in the K East Basin. The reason for the problem
is being investigated. It could be caused by changes to a system
used to clean water or by radiation becoming airborne when
equipment is moved and breaks the surface of the water in the
basin.
The contractor has sent DOE a list of measures to improve
performance that includes identifying more activities that can be
performed in parallel, more planning so work on one part of the
project does not delay work on another and buying ready-made
equipment when possible rather than designing it in house.
The Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates the K
Basins, has been monitoring work to start the project.
"We're carefully watching their progress and looking forward to
resolution of technical and policy issues related to treatment
and disposition of sludge," said Nick Ceto, EPA's Hanford project
manager.
© 2004 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
40 Daily Texan: Professor warns against Los Alamos bid -
[http://www.dailytexanonline.com/
| 10/26/2004
Unexpectedly small crowd attends UT Watch's 4th forum
By David Kassabian
[Bruce Hunt, a history professor, speaks about the
University´s bid for Los Alamos Laboratory, which does
research, development and design of nuclear weapons, at a forum
Monday night.] Media Credit: Reena KariaBruce Hunt, a history
professor, speaks about the University´s bid for Los Alamos
Laboratory, which does research, development and design of
nuclear weapons, at a forum Monday night.
Anti-nuclear activists heard about the background of Los Alamos
National Laboratory from Bruce Hunt, professor of history at the
University, Monday night during the fourth forum hosted by
student watchdog group UT Watch.
Hunt, who teaches a class titled "History of the Atomic Bomb,"
gave a brief history of the work done at the weapons lab and
said the UT System would not benefit from managing the lab.
"If it were my decision, I would not bid on the lab contract,"
Hunt said. "My sense is the University of California System
doesn't really want it that much, and in a lot of ways, they
would be happy to get rid of it."
Los Alamos is owned by the Department of Energy and has been
managed by the UC System since 1943.
Roughly 30 people attended the forum in the University Teaching
Center, short of the 50-to-100 people UT Watch member Austin Van
Zandt estimated would attend.
Hugh Gusterson, Mass-achusetts Institute of Technology associate
professor of anthropology and science and technology studies,
was originally supposed to attend the event but was unable to
board a plane for Austin due to an ear infection, Van Zandt said.
"This forum is more informational than our previous three," Van
Zandt said. "It's different because of the hands-on experiences
[Hunt brings] to provide possible insight we haven't seen in
some of our other guests."
Los Alamos scientists developed the first atomic bomb. In April
2003, the DOE put management of the lab up for bid for the first
time in its history. The National Nuclear Safety Administration,
a division of the DOE, is expected to release a draft request
for management proposals by the end of October.
The government allowed the UC System to manage the lab in order
to avoid restrictions and red tape associated with federal
management, Hunt said. The UC System originally only handled
administration and had no role in research, he added.
"Why anyone else wants control - that's a mystery to me," Hunt
said.
"I thought the forum was informational," said Edward Strinden, a
Plan II junior. "It made me think about the crucial issues about
the bid."
Strinden said he hadn't made up his mind about a System
management contract before attending, but said later the forum
swayed him to be against a System takeover.
The UT System expressed interest in bidding on the lab in July
but has revealed no further plans since then.
"We are waiting to review the request for proposal before making
any decisions," said Randa Safady, UT System vice chancellor for
external relations, on Monday.
The System has not expressed particular interest in an
acquisition plan released earlier this month detailing
regulations for the successful bidder, Safady said.
*****************************************************************
41 [du-list] Plans in Japan for the International Day of Action:
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 14:51:21 -0700
Oct. 26, 2004
Here are some plans in Japan for the International Day of Action to Ban
Uranium Weapons. There will be some meetings and actions at least in 7
cities in Japan around Nov. 6. Best regards,
Nobuo KAZASHI
Director, NO DU Hiroshima Project
http://www.nodu-hiroshima.org/
--
Japan (Listed according to the geographical location from north to south)
--Sapporo (Nov. 6th)
by NO!!DU Sapporo Project
A gathering: "What is DU?" with a lecture and a video show about DU
Speaker: Akira Suzuki (doctor)
Video: The Fear of DU: What did US in the Gulf War?
(place: Chieria/ time: from 2pm)
--Tokyo (Nov. 7th)
by Citizens' Network for DU Abolition
A gathering: "Help the Iraqi Children suffering from DU," with talks,
photo-exhibition on Iraq and DU, petition campaign, candle parade, etc.
(place: Shibuya Hall for Labor and Welfare)
Speakers: Naomi Toyoda (photographer), Osamu Niikura (Prof. of
International
Law)
Also on the 6th, there will be various activities in the Tokyo
metropolitan area, such as one in Chigasaki, Kanagawa prefecture and
distributing flyers at a gathering at Hibiya Open-Air Music Hall.
And, though by chance, the Peace Studies Association of Japan is to hold
the symposium, "The International Campaigns to Ban DU Weapons and the Civil
Society's Roles," at its annual conference at Keisen Women's College.
Among the panelist are Maki Sato of Japan Volunteer Center and Nobuo
Kazashi, director of NO DU Hiroshima Project.)
--Osaka: (Nov.6)
Appeal actions on the street, collecting signatures for the petition,
distributing flyers, and showing our banner just in front of the biggest
rail way station in Osaka city. Afterwards a meeting will be held, in
collaboration with other associated organizations, groups and individuals,
where Katsumi Furitsu, a board member of ICBUW, is to make a short speech
about the ICBUW's international campaign.
More than ten local groups, including those in Kyoto and Nara, are
supporting this action in response to the ICBUW's call. The Japan Congress
Against A-and H-Bombs (GENSUIKIN) is also cooperating with us together with
other groups involved in the anti-nuclear-power-plant, anti-DU,
environmental protection, or women's right activities.
--Kobe (Nov.6)
by Kobe Love & Peace, NO DU Kobe, and others
Collecting signatures for the petition and distributing flyers at a
peace-concert to be held at a square in the city. A new grass-roots group
"NO DU Kobe" will be started on this occasion.
--Hiroshima (Nov.7)
by NO DU Hiroshima Project and HANWA=Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear
Weapons Abolition
A slide-show talk: " Shoot with Laughter! Japan Leaning Toward War"
with Mad Amano, a well-known political parodist involved in the anti-DU
campaign in Tokyo, with a petition campaign and a mini photo-exhibition on
Iraq war and the DU inside.
(place: a conference room in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum)
--Fukuoka (Nov.6)
A meeting at a church to found "The Uranium Weapons Abolition
Campaign-Fukuoka" (tentative name)
Screening of the video, "Uranium Storm"
Comments by Minister Koichi Kimura
A testimony by a survivor of the A-bomb in Nagasaki
On-street campaign for collecting signatures for the petition after the
meeting
--Ohmuta (Nov.3: national holiday)
An inaugurating gathering to found "The Article 9 Society-Ohmuta"
A memorial lecture: "The Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and the
Iraq War: Some Obvious Facts emerging from the DU Survey in Iraq"
Speaker: Haruko Moritaki, NO DU Hiroshima Project
------------------------ 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/
*****************************************************************
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:
*****************************************************************