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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 US: [southnews] CIA corrects prewar Iraq WMD reports
2 Guardian Unlimited: CIA Revising Pre-Invasion Iraq Arms Intel
3 UN Nuclear Watchdog Calls On Us To Join Europe In Talks On Iran's Ac
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Urges EU to Speed Up Nuclear Talks
5 AFP: Iran ready to sign agreement on Russian nuclear plant -
6 AFP: Pentagon official hopes diplomacy will resolve row with Iran -
7 IPS: MIDEAST: Nuclear Heat Rises Over Iran
8 Mehr News: Iran believes EU not serious in nuclear talks
9 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Reaffirms U.S. Wish for Korea Talks
10 Xinhua: Senior US official to visit Seoul on nuclear issue
11 AFP: Bush's State of the Union address will have North Korea all ear
12 US: [NukeNet] Bush Promotes "Nuclear Hawks": London Financial Times
13 Deseret News: America's own energy policy has tied its hands in Mide
14 US: Las Vegas SUN: Democrats say they won't give in to Bush
15 US: Las Vegas SUN: Reid pledges to fight possible new effort on bunk
16 US: FT.com: Bush promotes 'nuclear hawks'
17 US: Rep. Waxman: Secrecy in the Bush Administration
NUCLEAR REACTORS
18 US: NRC: Workshop on Regulatory Structure for New Plant Licensing, P
19 US: NRC: Utility Name; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendm
20 US: NRC: South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, Virgil C. Summer Nuc
21 US: NRC: Meetings; Sunshine Act
22 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Draft NUREG-1800, Revision 1;
23 allAfrica.com: Nigeria [column]: Nigeria and Nuclear Power
24 US: JOURNAL NEWS: With Indian Point, region has its own Vesuvius
25 AU ABC: Revolutionary nuclear plant still on the cards
26 US: NRC: NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Summer Nucle
NUCLEAR SAFETY
27 US: columbia tribune: Atomic workers fight to abridge funding proces
28 Bellona: Two nuclear-powered subs might join Russian Navy in 2005
29 US: Great Falls Tribune: FALLOUT'S FALLOUT
30 US: Guardian Unlimited: Payments Sought for Cold War-Era Workers
31 AU ABC: Sailing into ill health.
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
32 US: Deseret News: Measure introduced to ban Class B, C waste
33 Las Vegas SUN: Berkley bill would divert nuke funds
34 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Breaking: Envirocare's new owners promise no
35 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare: sale finalized
36 ITAR-TASS: Iran ready to sign doc on return of spent nuclear fuel to
37 US: American Online: Waste Control hearing set for today
38 US: AU ABC: ERA hoping to extend Ranger life.
39 US: Casper Star-Tribune: New Envirocare owners ask state to rescind
40 US: Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: We must reject caps on fines for
41 NRC: NRC Issues Confirmatory Order to USEC on Employee Protection
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
42 Secrecy News -- 02/01/05
43 [NukeNet] More on Plutonium Shut Down at Livermore Lab
44 Las Vegas RJ: Senate confirms energy secretary
45 ABQjournal: Sentencing Delayed For Lab Workers
46 Tri-City Herald: Hanford project continues
47 Portsmouth Herald: Nuclear weapons to be speaker’s topic tonight
48 KTVB.COM: New contractor takes over Idaho nuclear laboratory
49 lamonitor.com: Lab's deficiencies cost UC $5.8 million
50 Casper Star-Tribune: Lawmakers approve plan to require Rocky Flats w
OTHER NUCLEAR
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1 [southnews] CIA corrects prewar Iraq WMD reports
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 18:35:20 -0600 (CST)
THE CIA has begun a series of classified retrospective reports
rectifying prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
programs that turned out to be wrong, a US intelligence official
said today.
CIA corrects prewar WMD reports
From correspondents in Washington AFP 02feb05
THE CIA has begun a series of classified retrospective reports
rectifying prewar assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
programs that turned out to be wrong, a US intelligence official
said today.
The second and latest report in the series is entitled Iraq: No
Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s, the official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Future reports will deal with Iraq's biological and nuclear program.
The first in the series dealt with its missile programs.
What this is, correctly, is part of a retrospective series to ensure
that the intelligence community's record on Iraq's weapons program
are correct and reflect the most current evaluation of those programs,
the official said.
It's an effort to reevaluate past assessments and reporting in light
of new information, the official added.
The report was not a senior level document meant to go to the
president or anything like that. It is an analytic product from the
DI (directorate of intelligence), the official said.
The reports reflect the work of the Iraq Survey Group which concluded
in a report September 30 that Iraq had no active chemical, biological
or nuclear weapons programs at the time of the US invasion.
Pre-war intelligence estimates that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical
and biological weapons and was reconstituting its nuclear program
were used by administration officials to justify the US invasion.
But Charles Duelfer, leader of the US weapons search, concluded
Iraq got rid of its biological and chemical weapons in 1991 after
the Gulf War, while its nuclear capabilities were in a state of
decay.
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2 Guardian Unlimited: CIA Revising Pre-Invasion Iraq Arms Intel
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday February 1, 2005 10:46 PM
By KATHERINE PFLEGER SHRADER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The CIA is preparing retrospective reports to
officially revise what proved to be faulty intelligence on
Iraq's weapons capabilities before the 2003 invasion.
Among them is a document no more than a dozen pages entitled
``Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early
1990s,'' said an intelligence official familiar with the
process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The report concludes that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
gave up his chemical weapons program after the 1991 Gulf War.
The Bush administration used the existence of weapons of mass
destruction - chemical, biological and nuclear weapons - as a
leading justification to overthrow the Iraqi government.
In a lengthy and now controversial prewar analysis, the
intelligence community said that Saddam had probably stockpiled
at least 100 metric tons, and potentially as much as 500 metric
tons, of chemical weapons. ``Much of it added in the last
year,'' the document said.
Intelligence officials including former CIA Director George
Tenet have conceded that at least portions of the prewar
assessments on Iraq were wrong.
``Like many of the toughest intelligence challenges, when the
facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right
nor completely wrong,'' Tenet said in a speech defending the
agency almost one year ago. He acknowledged that the purported
chemical and biological weapons had yet to be found.
By last summer, a Senate Intelligence Committee inquiry
concluded that the intelligence community engaged in ``group
think'' by failing to challenge the assumption that Iraq had
WMD.
The new series of classified reports on Iraq - prepared by the
CIA's intelligence analysis division - will be available to all
15 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. The
reports are not designed for President Bush and other senior
policy-makers, the intelligence official said.
The effort is intended ``to make sure the intelligence
community's record on Iraq's WMD programs is correct and
reflects the most current evaluation of those programs,'' the
official added.
The new analysis comes as a presidential commission studying the
intelligence community's ability to assess weapons of mass
destruction is wrapping up a report, due to Bush at the end of
March.
The existence of the chemical weapons document was first
reported Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times.
The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Jane
Harman of California, welcomed efforts to amend the intelligence
on Iraq's weapons. ``More of the record needs to be corrected,
including the agency's assessment of Iraq's prewar nuclear and
biological capabilities,'' Harman said.
``But an even bigger priority for the intelligence community is
a scrub of intelligence products regarding WMD in Iran and North
Korea, where active WMD programs are known to exist and U.S.
policy is being fashioned based on these products,'' she said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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3 UN Nuclear Watchdog Calls On Us To Join Europe In Talks On Iran's Activities
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 11:00:57 -0500
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UN NUCLEAR WATCHDOG CALLS ON US TO JOIN EUROPE IN TALKS ON IRAN’S
ACTIVITIES
New York, Feb 1 2005 11:00AM
The United Nations atomic watchdog agency says it is “vital” for
the United States to join European efforts seeking a diplomatic solution
to problems arising out of Iran’s nuclear programme and is
underscoring the urgency of pre-empting nuclear proliferation and
potential acts of terrorism.
Giving prominence to a series of media interviews by its Director
General last week at the World Economic Forum (<"http://www.weforum.org/">WEF)
in Davos, Switzerland, the International Atomic Energy
Agency (<"http://www.iaea.org/">IAEA) highlighted efforts to
achieve nuclear verification in Iran and the Democratic People’s
Republic of Korea.
On Iran Mohamed ElBaradei said progress was being made by IAEA nuclear
safeguards inspectors. In November the Agency called on Iran
to grant access to provide “credible assurances” that it has not
engaged in any undeclared activities after it had for many years
concealed its nuclear activities in breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (<"http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/WMD/treaty/">NPT).
“Over the last 15 months, we have made good strides in understanding
the nature and scope of its programme,” Mr. ElBaradei said in
one interview quoted on the agency’s web site. He urged States to
back the Agency’s verification work, while also emphasizing the
importance of supporting diplomatic routes and approaches such as
the talks between Iran and the European Union.
It is “vital” for the United States to join the dialogue, he added.
“Nuclear weapons are a recipe for disaster,” he said in an interview
with the Washington Post. “We need a security system that does
not rely on them.”
While in Davos, he took part in a panel on non-proliferation that
included experts and senior officials from the United States, Iran
and Republic of Korea. He emphasized the need to strengthen the
world’s nuclear regime, and steps that he has proposed for doing
so, including a stronger collective security framework that he
will propose to the NPT Review Conference convening in May at UN
headquarters in New York.
2005-02-01 00:00:00.000
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4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Urges EU to Speed Up Nuclear Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday February 1, 2005 7:31 PM
AP Photo GVW102
By PAUL AMES
Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Iran's vice president urged Europeans
on Tuesday to speed up talks with Tehran on its nuclear program,
trade and regional security - comments that reflected possible
frustration at the lack of progress amid reports that
negotiations are deadlocked.
The statement by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, who also serves as head
of Iran's atomic energy organization, came a week after a leaked
summary of the talks showed no progress in getting Iran to scrap
its uranium enrichment activities.
The United States and several other countries fear Iran is
enriching uranium to be used for nuclear weapons instead of
generating power.
Aghazadeh suggested Iran was not happy with the progress of the
talks, telling reporters: ``We have to take the negotiations
seriously and accelerate them.''
European officials acknowledged the complexity of the
negotiations but said talks were going at a good pace and a
diplomatic solution remained on track.
``The European Union is committed to the continuation of this
dialogue,'' said Cristina Gallach, the spokeswoman for Javier
Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief. ``The main
challenge is to find what we call the objective guarantees that
the Iranian program is of a peaceful nature.''
Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at power generation.
But the summary of the last meeting on the issue involving
representatives of France, Britain, Germany and Iran says Tehran
acknowledged what Washington and its allies have argued all
along - that the oil-rich country has no need for nuclear
energy.
Diplomats familiar with the talks said on condition of anonymity
that the atmosphere between both sides had improved during the
second round held in Geneva on Jan. 17.
But they agreed that no progress was being made on the
Europeans' insistence that Iran's temporary suspension of its
enrichment programs be turned into a commitment to permanently
mothball all such activities.
Iran suspended uranium enrichment and all related activities in
November, derailing U.S. attempts to have it reported to the
U.N. Security Council for alleged violations of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran is not prohibited from running enrichment programs under
the Nonproliferation Treaty, but agreed to a freeze to generate
international goodwill. The summary of the Jan. 17 meeting said
Iranian officials used ``biased and selective quotes'' from the
treaty in arguing their country had the right to enrich
Solana was set to join the foreign ministers of France, Britain
and Germany sometime next month for talks with Iran's top
nuclear negotiator, his spokeswoman said.
``The next negotiation will be more precise and more concrete,''
Aghazadeh said through an interpreter after an hour-long meeting
with Solana.
In exchange for nuclear guarantees, the Europeans are offering
Iran technological and financial support and talks on a trade
deal.
Aghazadeh said there had been no discussion of bringing the
United States into the discussion.
Last week, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic
Energy Agency, suggested European diplomatic efforts may fail if
Washington refuses to join the talks.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
5 AFP: Iran ready to sign agreement on Russian nuclear plant -
Tuesday February 1, 12:21 PM
MOSCOW (AFP) - Iran is ready to sign a key agreement on the
return of nuclear fuel to Russia that will enable Moscow to
launch the first controversial nuclear power plant in the
Islamic state, Tehran's ambassador revealed. News agencies
quoted Iran's ambassador Gholamreza Shafei as telling reporters
that an agreement may be reached during a visit to Iran by
Russia's atomic energy chief Alexander Rumyantsev later this
month. "Rumyantsev will visit Iran at the end of February to
discuss this question," Shafei said Tuesday.
"Tehran is ready to sign a commercial agreement on this issue,"
he said in reference to the return of the nuclear fuel.
The issue has remained the key impediment to Russia's launch of a
nuclear power plant that is being built under an 800 million
dollar contract at Bushehr. Russian officials said last month
that Bushehr could be launched at the end of the year and produce
its first nuclear energy for use by the public at the start of
2006.
Shafei for his part said Tuesday the launch will occur in 2006,
although it remained unclear if he was referring to the start of
operations at Bushehr or the production of nuclear energy. He
further said that Russia and Iran were negotiating new arms
deals, although he failed to go into further details. "We are
continuing talks on military-technical and defense cooperation,"
he said.
Russia has dragged its feet over the Bushehr project because Iran
previously refused to return the spent fuel sent by Moscow for
the plant. Russia and the West both fear that Iran could
reprocess the spent fuel, upgrading it through centrifuges to
either make a weak "dirty bomb" or an actual nuclear weapon.
Iran had previously used various arguments to avoid signing the
agreement. It has said the material was too volatile and
dangerous for Iran to transport back to Russia, and also that
Moscow was charging too much for the fuel itself. The United
States and Israel had jointly launched an international campaign
against Russia's Bushehr project, but Moscow has countered that
it would make sure the plant remained harmless to protect its own
security interests.
Russia has further studied the option of completing a second
nuclear power reactor as Bushehr, already in the early stages of
construction, as well as other nuclear projects in the coming
years. Shafei confirmed that such negotiations were still
underway. "Russia stands a great chance of taking part in
completing new nuclear projects on the territory of Iran," he was
quoted as saying.
"Nobody doubts the need of building new nuclear power plants" in
Iran, he said.
The West has argued that Iran had no need for nuclear energy
because of its oil reserves. Tehran meanwhile counters that its
oil is far removed from densely populated region and that
international sanctions have prevented the country developing a
proper infrastructure to delivering oil to the needed spots.
The ambassador said that Iran was ready to admit foreign
inspectors to any of its nuclear sites on demand.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
6 AFP: Pentagon official hopes diplomacy will resolve row with Iran -
Reuters | AFP | Sky News | Photos
Tuesday February 1, 12:25 PM
ANKARA (AFP) - The United States hopes that diplomatic efforts
will succeed in persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear program,
a senior Pentagon official revealed. "There is diplomacy right
now with respect to Iran's nuclear weapons program... made by
countries in the EU and we are supporting that," Douglas Feith,
the US undersecretary of defense for policy, told a news
conference during a visit to the Turkish capital.
"We are hoping that that diplomacy and the general support for it
and the pressure that can be brought on Iran will lead the
Iranians to recognize that Iran's interests are best served by
getting rid of its nuclear weapons program," he said Tuesday.
The official urged Tehran to follow the example of Libya, which
agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction program. "If
the international community can get the Iranians to decide to
follow that model the world will be better off," he said.
The United States accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear
weapons. Tehran has vehemently denied the charges, arguing that
its nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes. Last
month, US President George W. Bush said he could not rule out
using force if Tehran failed to rein in its nuclear plans, and US
Vice President Dick Cheney said Iran was "right at the top of the
list" of global trouble spots.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 IPS: MIDEAST: Nuclear Heat Rises Over Iran
Inter Press Service News Agency
Analysis by Peter Hirschberg
JERUSALEM, Feb 1 (IPS) - When Israel dispatched F-16 bombers
almost 24 years ago to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor
in Osirak, the pilots knew they only had to hit a single target.
Were Israeli or U.S. planes to be sent today to neutralise
Iran's nuclear programme, the mission would be far more
complicated: with Iranian facilities spread out, the pilots
would have to strike targets across the country, and none of
them a large, clearly identifiable reactor.
Speaking last week, though, U..S. Vice-President Dick Cheney was
not ready to rule out military action - by Israel. If Jerusalem
became convinced, he said, that "the Iranians had significant
nuclear capability, given the fact that Iran has a stated policy
that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis
might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world
worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards."
Israeli leaders, extremely concerned by the prospect of a
nuclear Iran, have been less brazen. If Israel acted alone, "we
will remain alone," Vice Premier Shimon Peres said. "Everyone
knows our potential but we also have to know our limits. As long
as there is a possibility that the world will organise to fight
against Iran's nuclear option, let the world organise."
With the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discussing
Iran's nuclear activities, the rhetoric has become increasingly
shrill. Israeli leaders have long warned of what they see as the
danger of Iran's nuclear programme to the entire region, and are
hoping the Americans will ultimately prevent Tehran from getting
the bomb.
IAEA chief Mohammed ElBaradei told the Washington Post Sunday
that he could not see "how a military solution can resolve the
Iran issue. In my view, with Iran having almost self-sufficiency
in the technology, the Iranians will go underground...you might
delay them, but they will rebuild it with the objective of
having a weapon."
Israeli intelligence officials estimate that Iran could be
capable of producing enriched uranium within six months and have
nuclear weapons within two years. Earlier this month, head of
Israeli military intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi said that
while Iran was not currently capable of enriching uranium to
build a nuclear bomb, "it is only half a year away from
achieving such independent capability - if it is not stopped by
the West."
Israeli officials have also accused Tehran of trying to dupe
the international community.. They believe Iran will try and
stave off the threat of sanctions while pushing ahead secretly
with its efforts to attain nuclear weapons capability.
ElBaradei admitted Iran had "cheated" in the past about its
nuclear programme, but said it was now "cooperating". The IAEA
determined in November that Iran was complying with an agreement
to cease uranium enrichment. For its part, Iran insists that its
programme has a purely civilian goal - the production of
electricity.
The European Union is urging Tehran to completely ditch its
nuclear fuel programme to prove it is not seeking to produce
atomic weapons. It is holding out a trade accord as an
incentive. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who along
with Britain and France is trying to engage Iran on the nuclear
issue, said last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos,
Switzerland that "diplomatic and political" means were required
to persuade Tehran, not force.
As with Iraq, the United States has taken a far more hardline
stance. Earlier this month, President George W. Bush hinted at
possible military action against Iran. He said he hoped the
issue could be resolved diplomatically, but that he would "never
take any option off the table."
In Jerusalem, officials interpreted Cheney's warning about a
possible Israeli military strike as a message to the Europeans
to get tough on Iran. A senior Israeli official was quoted as
saying that Cheney's remarks were "intended to tell the
Europeans: 'If you don't take a greater role in a policy of
implementing sanctions and moving vigorously to stop Iran's
nuclear programme, then we are not responsible for what Israel
will do'."
Ze'evi said he has been trying to explain the magnitude of the
Iranian nuclear threat to European countries. "The Iranians can
reach Portugal with nuclear weapons," he said. "This doesn't
worry the Europeans. They tell me that during the Soviet regime
as well they were under a nuclear threat, and I try to explain
to them that Iran is a different story."
Some observers in Israel argue that a nuclear Iran would be
less of a threat to Israel than to other countries in the
region. They point to reports that Israel possesses a
submarine-based second-strike capability.
Arab countries blame Israel for spurring nuclear aspirations in
the Middle East. The Jewish state is believed to be the only
Middle East country with nuclear arms, although it neither
denies nor confirms its possession of such weapons - a policy
that has been dubbed "nuclear ambiguity". Israel has between 100
and 200 nuclear warheads, according to foreign reports.
Israel's atomic secrets were exposed for the first time almost
20 years ago by Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at the nuclear
plant in Dimona in the south of the country. Vanunu, who was
released from jail last year after serving an 18-year term for
treason, handed information in 1986 to the Sunday Times in
London about Israel's nuclear programme. He was later kidnapped
by Israeli agents in Rome and smuggled to Israel to stand trial.
Dr. Shmuel Bar, a senior research fellow at the
Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya near Tel Aviv says the
chances of Israeli military action are low. "If we act
unilaterally, we will be blamed, the Iranians will react, and we
will not get public American backing," he told IPS. Israel, he
added, must not turn the Iranian nuclear issue into an Israeli
problem. "It is first and foremost an American problem."
The United States cannot accept a nuclear Iran which would be
able to "dictate its positions in the Gulf and in Iraq," says
Bar. He foresees disagreement between Europe and the United
States, leading ultimately to unilateral American action. "There
could be an oil embargo on Iran with the American Sixth Fleet
blocking passage (of Iranian vessels) in the Gulf."
A growing number of experts now argue that a military option no
longer exists because Iran has spread its nuclear facilities
across the country and has not concentrated them in one place,
as was the case in Iraq. There have also been reports of Tehran
setting up dummy nuclear facilities.
A single air strike, therefore, would be insufficient to knock
out Iran's programme. What is more, Israel is aware that Tehran
would likely respond, possibly with long-range missiles.
This might explain why some in the United States today talk of
regime change in Iran, rather than of military action. It is
also questionable whether Bush, mired in Iraq, has the appetite
for another major military escapade.
But Shmuel Bar does not rule out the possibility of U.S.
military action. "Bush is an ideological president and he isn't
going to be running for a third term," he says. (END/2005)
[http://www.ips.org] | Subscription | News in RSS
Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Mehr News: Iran believes EU not serious in nuclear talks
MehrNews.com - Iran
BRUSSELS, Feb. 1 (MNA) -- Iran Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO)
Director Gholamreza Aqazadeh said on Monday that the European
Union has not yet proven that it is serious in its nuclear talks
with Iran.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran hopes that the talks with Europe
succeed, but currently we are witnessing that Europe does not
seem seriously interested in clearing up this important issue,”
Aqazadeh told Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Monteiro in
Brussels.
Mohammad Sa’idi, the IAEO deputy director for planning and
international affairs, and Sirus Naseri, the chairman of the
Iran-EU nuclear working group, also attended the meeting.
“It is a wrong view to think that Iran would replace its
peaceful nuclear program with another plan,” Aqazadeh asserted.
Iran is determined to proceed with its peaceful nuclear program
in order to meet its increasing need for electricity and to
produce fuel for nuclear reactors, he added.
The negotiating partners must seriously pursue this issue and try
to promptly find a solution to the dilemma, the IAEO official
observed.
During the past two years, Iran has taken great strides for the
successful settlement of its nuclear dossier and, as a confidence
building measure, it has allowed the experts of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear installations
and has even temporarily suspended some important nuclear
projects, Aqazadeh noted.
“Iran’s behavior proves that we are serious in nuclear talks,
and we must see such seriousness from the European side in
return,” Aqazadeh told the Portuguese foreign minister, whose
country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU.
“It is a wrong assumption if some think that it is possible to
convince Iran to relinquish its nuclear program by presenting it
some little rewards.
“Despite the fact that we suspended our (uranium) enrichment
activities several months ago, with a feeling of bitterness,
currently there is a kind of imbalance between the two sides in
the negotiations,” the IAEO director lamented, insisting that
Tehran is prepared to give necessary guarantees about the
peaceful nature of its nuclear activities.
For his part, the Portuguese foreign minister said that his
country and the EU attach special importance to nuclear talks
with Iran.
“We want Tehran to be a reliable partner for us in the
region” Monteiro added.
He said Europe wants to clear up all the ambiguities about
Iran’s nuclear program and seeks this transparency within the
framework of IAEA regulations.
He went on to say that the EU seeks to build confidence about
Iran’s nuclear program, adding that the importance of the issue
is as important as Iran’s status in the region.
Noting that all EU members, and not just Britain, Germany, and
France, are negotiating partners of Iran, Monteiro said that
efforts are being made to ensure that the negotiations reach a
successful conclusion.
MS/HG End
MNA
© 2003 Mehr News Agency
[http://www.radcom.ws]
*****************************************************************
9 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Reaffirms U.S. Wish for Korea Talks
[UP]
Tuesday February 1, 2005 1:46 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed
on Monday a continuing U.S. desire to restart suspended
six-party talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
In telephone calls, Rice talked with the foreign ministers of
South Korea and China, both partners in the talks, about ``the
general idea of resuming talks and our desire to see talks
resume,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
Boucher said the contacts with Li Zhaoxing of China and South
Korea's Ban Ki-moon came in a round of get-acquainted calls Rice
has been making since she was sworn in last week to replace
Colin Powell as secretary of state.
In confirming that resuming the talks were a part of Rice's
discussions with the South Korean and Chinese ministers, Boucher
said ``there was no news on North Korean willingness to show up
to talks.''
The United States, North and South Korea, China, Japan and
Russia have struggled for months to convene a fourth round of
talks to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. The
series began in August 2003, and previous rounds were held in
Beijing and ended without breakthroughs.
Experts say the isolated, communist North already might have two
or three nuclear bombs, in addition to fuel that could produce
several more.
On Sunday, Chung Dong-young, South Korea's minister for
unification of the Korean peninsula, said at an economic meeting
in Davos, Switzerland, that he hoped to invite the North's
reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, to a meeting in Seoul this year
if substantial progress could be made on North Korea's weapons
program.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
10 Xinhua: Senior US official to visit Seoul on nuclear issue
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-01 16:42:06
SEOUL, Feb. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- A senior US official will visit
South Korea later this week for discussions over resumption of
six-party nuclear talks, the South Korean Yonhap News Agency
quoted an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry as
saying on Tuesday.
Michael Green, senior director for Asia at the US National
Security Council, will fly to Seoul on Wednesday.
"His trip, I believe, is aimed at coordinating matters
relating to an early resumption of the six-party talks following
the beginning of President Bush's second term," the official was
quoted as saying.
During his two-day visit, Green is scheduled to meet Deputy
Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, Lee Jong-seok, deputy secretary
general of the National Security Council, and Cho Tae-yong, head
of the Foreign Ministry's task force on the nuclear issue, the
official said.
The six-party nuclear talks have been stalled since last
September. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
11 AFP: Bush's State of the Union address will have North Korea all ears
Tuesday February 1, 01:04 PM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush will have a rare
listener when he makes his State of the Union address tomorrow --
a nuclear-armed North Korea awaiting words of goodwill from him.
Officials close to dictator Kim Jong-Il had indicated to a US
Congressional delegation which visited Pyongyang this month that
a conciliatory note by Bush in the annual speech could set the
stage for North Korea's return to six-party talks in a bid to end
the nuclear crisis gripping the Korean peninsula.
But will Bush offer his hand of friendship to North Korea or
remain critical of a regime that the United States believes is
nuclear armed and dangerous?
"I think he will be reasonably conciliatory," guessed Ted
Carpenter of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank.
He cited two reasons for this: US preoccupation with the ongoing
crisis in Iraq and Washington's perception that Iran's nuclear
program was more destablising and troubling at the moment than
North Korea's.
Bush would have a "mixed message" -- emphasizing North Korea
must give up its quest for nuclear weapons and expressing the
hope that the issue could be resolved diplomatically, Carpenter
said.
"And that if the North Koreans do give up the weapons, the
president might say there is a solid prospect for normalized
relations," he said. "I think that will be the conciliatory
part."
Bush cannot afford to be terribly provocative with North Korea
because it might offend China, Japan, Russia and South Korea --
the other parties to the six-party talks which want a diplomatic
resolution to the crisis and which have "great deal of influence
on policy."
In the 2002 State of the Union address, Bush slammed North Korea
as part of an axis of evil together with Iran and Iraq -- a term
that inflamed Pyongyang's leadership.
The president had also referred to North Korean leader Kim as a
pigmy and expressed personal animosity towards him.
"Clearly one would hope that President Bush decides to be more
presidential and doesn't use the State of the Union address to
call other leaders names," said Ralph Cossa of the US Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
But Cossa said he would not be surprised if Bush did not mention
North Korea at all in his speech "as foreign policy is not the
hallmark of State of the Union addresses."
Bush's branding of North Korea as an axis of evil member two
years ago was largely to market his missile defense plan to the
local audience in the context of warding off countries
developing long range weapons, Cossa said.
Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon, who led American
legislators on a week's visit to North Korea earlier this month,
said the Stalinist state would soon return to six-party talks if
the new US administration avoided "inflammatory rhetoric."
"They are waiting to see what the president will say in his
State of the Union address," said Solomon Ortiz, a Texas
Democrat and a member of the delegation from the House Armed
Services Committee.
Cossa said "had the legislators been more interested in being
helpful than getting publicity, this is the kind of thing they
could have brought back quiety.
"But by putting it out there, it puts probably undue pressure
and perhaps raises the expectations," he said.
North Korea has attended three rounds of inconclusive
discussions on the nuclear stand-off and had shunned a fourth
round originally scheduled for last September.
The talks broke down when Pyongyang rejected the USs call to
freeze its nuclear weapons programs then verify they were being
dismantled in return for security guarantees and aid. Pyongyang
wants these guarantees before it will consider a freeze.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who termed North Korea an
"outpost of tyranny" just before assuming her post last week,
telephoned the foreign ministers of China and South Korea last
week to discuss the prospect of the resumption of nuclear talks,
department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters Monday.
But there has been "no new news" on North Korea's willingness to
show up at the talks, hosted by Beijing, he said.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
12 [NukeNet] Bush Promotes "Nuclear Hawks": London Financial Times
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 20:04:50 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Dear colleagues: FYI, just got this on another list. --Marylia
London Financial Times
February 1, 2005, Pg. 4
Bush Promotes 'Nuclear Hawks'
By Guy Dinmore
WASHINGTON -- A group of hardline officials known as "nuclear hawks" is
being promoted in a shake-up of the Bush administration's arms control and
non-proliferation teams, according to officials close to the administration.
The latest appointment, announced by President George W. Bush yesterday, saw
Jack Crouch, the ambassador to Romania, become deputy national security
adviser.
Mr Crouch, who served in the Pentagon from 2001 to 2003 as assistant
secretary of defence for international security policy, has a long
background in arms control. In his Senate confirmation hearing in 2001 he
was questioned on his support for US testing of nuclear weapons, his 1995
recommendation for destruction of North Korea's nuclear complexes in the
absence of a satisfactory agreement, and the mistake he said was made by
George H.W. Bush when president in withdrawing US nuclear weapons from South
Korea.
Also entering the National Security Council is John Rood, a senior Pentagon
official who replaces Bob Joseph as special adviser. Mr Joseph is expected
to move to the State Department to replace John Bolton, undersecretary for
arms control.
Mr Bolton had the reputation for being the hawk of hawks in the Bush
administration, but one adviser, who asked not to be named, said European
governments were naive to believe that his resignation signalled a moderate
approach. The promoted officials, he said, had less regard for arms controls
and more commitment to building new generations of nuclear weapons and
missile defence systems.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
_______________________________________________________________________
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*****************************************************************
13 Deseret News: America's own energy policy has tied its hands in Mideast
[deseretnews.com]
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
By Thomas L. Friedman
DAVOS, Switzerland — One of the most striking things I've found
in Europe these past two weeks is the absolute conviction that
the Bush team is just itching to invade Iran to prevent it from
developing nuclear weapons. Psssssssst. Come over here. A little
closer. Now listen: Don't tell the Iranians this, but the Bush
team isn't going to be invading anybody. We don't have enough
troops to finish the job in Iraq. Our military budget is
completely maxed out. We couldn't invade Grenada today. If Iran
is to forgo developing nuclear weapons, it will only be because
the Europeans' diplomatic approach manages to persuade Tehran to
do so.
For two years the Europeans have been telling the Bush
administration that its use of force to prevent states from
developing nuclear weapons has been a failure in Iraq and that
the Europeans have a better way — multilateral diplomacy using
carrots and sticks. Well, Europe, as we say in American baseball,
"You're up."
"I think this is an absolute test case for Europe's
ability to lay out its own idea for a joint agenda with the
United States to deal with a problem like Iran," said the Oxford
historian Timothy Garton Ash, author of "Free World: America,
Europe and the Surprising Future of the West." "OK, we think
bombing Iran is a bad idea. What is a good idea?" For the
Europeans to be successful, though, Ash said, they can't just be
offering carrots. They have to credibly convey to Iran that they
will wield their own stick. They have to credibly convey that
they will refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for real
sanctions, if it is unwilling to strike a deal involving nuclear
inspections in return for normalized economic relations with the
West.
"Very often there is the notion that Europe is the soft
cop and the U.S. is the hard cop," Ash said. "Here it must be the
other way around. Europe has to talk as credibly about using
economic sanctions as some in Washington have talked about using
military force."
The United States has to help. The carrot the Iranians
want for abandoning their nuclear program is not just unfettered
trade with the West but some kind of assurances that if they give
up their nuclear research programs, the United States will agree
to some kind of nonaggression accord. The Bush team has been
reluctant to do this because it wants regime change in Iran.
(This is a mistake; we need to concentrate for now on changing
the behavior of the Iranian regime and strengthening the
reformers, and letting them handle the regime change.)
If multilateral diplomacy is to work to defuse the brewing
Iran nuclear crisis, "the Europeans have to offer a more credible
stick, and the Americans need to offer a more credible carrot,"
Ash said. But the Europeans are not good at credibly threatening
force.
That's why this is a serious moment. If Britain, France
and Germany, which are spearheading Europe's negotiations with
Iran, fail, and if the U.S. use of force in Iraq (even if it
succeeds) proves way too messy, expensive and dangerous to be
repeated anytime soon, where are we? Is there any other way the
West can promote real reform in the Arab-Muslim world?
Yes, there is an alternative to the Euro-wimps and the
neocons, and it is the "geo-greens." I am a geo-green. The
geo-greens believe that, going forward, if we put all our focus
on reducing the price of oil — by conservation, by developing
renewable and alternative energies and by expanding nuclear power
— we will force more reform than by any other strategy. You give
me $18-a-barrel oil, and I will give you political and economic
reform from Algeria to Iran. All these regimes have huge
population bubbles and too few jobs. They make up the gap with
oil revenues. Shrink the oil revenue, and they will have to open
up their economies and their schools and liberate their women so
that their people can compete. It is that simple.
By refusing to rein in U.S. energy consumption, the Bush
team is not only depriving itself of the most effective lever for
promoting internally driven reform in the Middle East, it is also
depriving itself of any military option. As Richard Haass,
president of the Council on Foreign Relations, points out, given
today's tight oil market and current U.S. consumption patterns,
any kind of U.S. strike on Iran, one of the world's major oil
producers, would send the price of oil through the roof, causing
real problems for our economy. "Our own energy policy has tied
our hands," Haass said.
The Bush team's laudable desire to promote sustained
reform in the Middle East will never succeed unless it moves from
neocon to geo-green.
New York Times News Service
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
14 Las Vegas SUN: Democrats say they won't give in to Bush
By Benjamin Grove SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush takes his Social Security
reform proposal on the road to sell it to voters this week,
Democrats will be there to challenge him, Congress' top two
Democrats said today.
Congressional Democrats and a variety of activist groups that
oppose Bush's reforms intend to offer high-profile rebuttals to
Bush when he heads to North Dakota, Florida, Arkansas, Montana
and Nebraska after his Wednesday State of the Union address,
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said.
The two leaders said Bush also would be met by radio, newspaper
and television advertising that opposes the President's plan to
allow younger workers to divert some of their payroll taxes into
private investment accounts. Bush aims to build voter support in
the five states to put pressure on Democratic senators there.
The senators won't bend, Reid said. Democrats are united in
opposition, Reid and Pelosi re-asserted today.
Groups including AARP, AFL-CIO, the NAACP and the National
Organization for Women oppose Bush's plan. A coalition of
organizations aim to raise $30 million for advertising and other
campaigning, the congressional newspaper The Hill reported
today. The liberal group MoveOn.org is seeking donations for a
$500,000 advertising campaign in key congressional districts.
Critics say Bush's plan would endanger future Social Security
benefits and cost trillions of dollars in the coming years.
Bush will find that it is not easy to "manipulate" public
opinion on this issue, Reid told reporters today.
Reid and Pelosi met for the second time in two days with the
media in an effort to undercut Bush's upcoming speech, which is
expected to include details about his plan to change Social
Security.
Republicans have slammed Democrats for criticizing Bush's plan
without offering one of their own.
In other comments, Reid said Bush had manufactured another
crisis in asserting that Democrats were blocking too many
judicial nominees. Democrats say that Bush got a good deal
during his first term when the Senate approved 204
Bush-nominated judges and opposed just 10. Democrats will reject
those same 10 if Bush re-nominates them this year, Reid said. In
regard to that fight over the judges, Reid said he wasn't afraid
to "go behind the pool hall and see who wins this one."
*****************************************************************
15 Las Vegas SUN: Reid pledges to fight possible new effort on bunker buster
Today: February 01, 2005 at 11:17:10 PST
By Benjamin Grove SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- If Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld aims to
revive research into the proposed nuclear "bunker buster" bomb,
he will have to go through Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
"I have opposed that in the past and will continue to oppose
it," Reid said today.
Reid noted that the weapon may have new support given that the
new Congress has more Republicans. The weapon has the support of
some Democrats.
The controversial bomb study lost steam last year when Congress
cut the program's $27.5 million funding.
But Rumsfeld may seek to resume research of the "Robust Nuclear
Earth Penetrator."
Researchers had spent several years studying whether a nuclear
weapon could be encased in a warhead designed to slam hundreds
of feet below the ground's surface before detonating, according
to today's edition of the Washington Post. Rumsfeld may seek
$10.3 million as part of President Bush's budget to resume study
of the weapon, the Post said. Bush's annual budget is set for
release next week.
Nevada officials have kept a close eye on the debate over the
weapon because if the bomb were ever developed, it could be
tested at the Nevada Test Site. Nuclear weapons tests were
suspended in 1992 at the nation's nuclear weapons proving
ground, roughly 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Bunker buster supporters have said the weapon could prove vital
in the war on terror.
Critics have said the bomb would be too expensive and
unnecessary and would undercut U.S. efforts to convince other
nations to reduce nuclear weapons testing.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., opposes resumed nuclear testing
in Nevada. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Nevada Republican Reps.
Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter have said they could support the
weapon and renewed testing -- but only if there was highly
compelling evidence that the weapon was needed to protect
national security.
Last year Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and National
Nuclear Security Administration Director Linton Brooks said the
Bush administration had no plans to resume nuclear testing of
any kind. Brooks said resuming testing is "not an option."
Wolfowitz said that if the administration ever decided to move
ahead with the bunker buster, then the president would request
test money from Congress and lawmakers could decide the
program's future then.
*****************************************************************
16 FT.com: Bush promotes 'nuclear hawks'
By Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: February 1 2005 02:00 | Last updated: February 1 2005
A group of hardline officials known as "nuclear hawks" is being
promoted in a shake-up of the Bush administration's arms control
and non-proliferation teams, according to officials close to the
administration.
The latest appointment, announced by President George W. Bush
yesterday, saw Jack Crouch, the ambassador to Romania, become
deputy national security adviser. Mr Crouch, who served in the
Pentagon from 2001 to 2003 as assistant secretary of defence for
international security policy, has a long background in arms
control. In his Senate confirmation hearing in 2001 he was
questioned on his support for US testing of nuclear weapons, his
1995 recommendation for destruction of North Korea's nuclear
complexes in the absence of a satisfactory agreement, and the
mistake he said was made by George H.W. Bush when president in
withdrawing US nuclear weapons from South Korea.
Also entering the National Security Council is John Rood, a
senior Pentagon official who replaces Bob Joseph as special
adviser. Mr Joseph is expected to move to the State Department
to replace John Bolton, undersecretary for arms control.
Mr Bolton had the reputation for being the hawk of hawks in the
Bush administration, but one adviser, who asked not to be named,
said European governments were naive to believe that his
resignation signalled a moderate approach. The promoted
officials, he said, had less regard for arms controls and more
commitment to building new generations of nuclear weapons and
missile defence systems.
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005. "FT" and "Financial
Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.
*****************************************************************
17 Rep. Waxman: Secrecy in the Bush Administration
September 14, 2004
[Secrecy in the Bush Administration] Full Report Press Release
H.R. 5073 Bill Summary
Rep. Henry A. Waxman has released a comprehensive examination of
secrecy in the Bush Administration. The report analyzes how the
Administration has implemented each of our nations major open
government laws. It finds that there has been a consistent
pattern in the Administrations actions: laws that are designed
to promote public access to information have been undermined,
while laws that authorize the government to withhold information
or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The
cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle
of open government. Extended Overview »
Rep. Waxman and other members of the Government Reform Committee
have also introduced H.R. 5073, legislation to reverse the Bush
Administration's policies and restore open government.
REPORT TABLE OF CONTENTS | Section links jump to bookmarks in
full report
Full Report (81 pp.)
Executive Summary
Introduction
PART I: Laws that Provide Public Access to Federal Record
The Administration has narrowed in scope and application each
of the landmark laws enacted by Congress to promote "government
in the sunshine."
I: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
The Administration has limited the scope of the primary federal
law providing the public with a right to information held by the
executive branch and has resisted information requests through
procedural tactics and delays.
II: Presidential Records Act
The President has issued an executive order undermining the
Watergate-era law that makes presidential records available to
historians and the public.
III: Federal Advisory Committee Act
The Administration has undercut and evaded the federal law that
requires openness and a balance of viewpoints on government
advisory bodies.
Part II: Laws that Restrict Access to Public Records
The Administration has reversed steps taken by the Clinton
Administration to declassify information and has expanded the
capacity of the executive branch to operate in secret.
I: National Security Classification of Government Records
The President has expanded the classification powers of
executive agencies, resulting in a dramatic increase in the
volume of classified government information.
II: Expanded Protection of "Sensitive Security Information"
The Administration has obtained an expansion of sensitive
security information to allow the withholding of information
about the safety of any mode of transportation.
III: Weakened DHS Disclosure Under the National
Environmental Policy Act
The Administration has proposed a directive that would permit
the Department of Homeland Security to conceal information about
the environmental impacts of its activities.
IV: Expanding Secret Government Operations
The Administration has expanded its authority to conduct law
enforcement operations in secret with limited or no judicial
oversight through the enactment of new laws such as the USA
PATRIOT Act and novel interpretations of existing authorities.
Part III:Congressional Access To Information
The Administration has repeatedly refused to provide members of
Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and
congressional commissions with information necessary for
meaningful congressional oversight.
I: GAO Authority to Investigate Accountability
The Administration has challenged the authority of the
congressional General Accountability Office to review federal
records and investigate federal programs.
II: Seven Member Rule
The Administration has challenged the authority of members of
the House Government Reform Committee to obtain information on
matters within the jurisdiction of the Committee.
III:Witholding Information from Congress
The Administration has frequently withheld information sought
by ranking members of congressional committees.
IV:Investigative Commissions
The Administration resisted or delayed providing information to
the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United
States, the commission created by Congress to investigate the
September 11 attacks.
Conclusion
The Bush Administration has systematically sought to limit
disclosure of government records while expanding its authority
to operate in secret. Taken together, the Administrations
actions represent an unparalleled assault on the principle of
open government.
[http://www.waxman.house.gov] | Members | Committee Work |
Investigations | Legislation | Chronology Committee on Government
Reform Minority Office | U.S. House of Representatives
Photo of Rep. Waxman: [c] 2004 Kay Chernush
*****************************************************************
18 NRC: Workshop on Regulatory Structure for New Plant Licensing, Part
FR Doc 05-1770
[Federal Register: February 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 20)]
[Notices] [Page 5228-5232] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01fe05-114]
1: Technology-Neutral Framework The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) has issued a working draft of a NUREG report
``Regulatory Structure for New Plant Licensing, Part 1:
Technology-Neutral Framework'' (draft NUREG-3-2005) for public
review and comment. The purpose of this working draft NUREG is to
provide an approach, scope, and acceptance criteria that could be
used by the NRC staff to develop a technology-neutral set of
requirements for future plant licensing. At the present time, the
material contained in the working draft NUREG is preliminary and
does not represent a final staff position, but rather is an
interim product issued for the purpose of engaging stakeholders
early in the development of the document and to support a
workshop to be held in March 2005. As such, certain sections of
this document are incomplete and are planned to be completed
following receipt of initial stakeholder feedback. It is the
staff's intent to complete this document in late 2005 and issue
it as a final draft for stakeholder review and comment.
The work represented in this document is, however, considered
sufficiently developed to illustrate one possible way to
establish a technology-neutral approach to future plant licensing
and to identify the key technical and policy issues which must be
addressed; accordingly, it can serve as a useful vehicle for
engaging stakeholders and facilitating discussion.
The NRC staff has issued a working draft NUREG on ``Regulatory
Structure for New Plant Licensing, Part 1: Technology-Neutral
Framework.'' The NRC staff requests comments within 90 days from
the issuing date of this Federal Register Notice. Comments may be
accompanied by relevant information or supporting data. Please
mention draft NUREG-3-2005 in the subject line of your comments.
You may submit comments by any one of the following methods.
Mail comments to Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington DC
20555-0001.
E-mail comments to NRCREP@nrc.gov [NRCREP@nrc.gov] . You may also
submit comments via the NRC's rulemaking Web site at
http://ruleforum.llnl.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://ruleforum.llnl.gov] . Address
questions about our rulemaking Web site to Carol Gallagher (301)
415- 5905; e-mail CAG@nrc.gov [CAG@nrc.gov] . Hand deliver
comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301)
415-5144.
Requests for information about the draft NUREG may be directed to
Mr. A. Singh at (301) 415-0250 or e-mail AXS3@nrc.gov
[AXS3@nrc.gov] . Comments will be most helpful if received by
April 22, 2005. Comments received after this date will be
considered if it is practical to do so, but the NRC is able to
ensure consideration only for comments received on or before this
date.
The NRC intends to conduct a workshop on March 14-16, 2005, to
help facilitate the review and comment process. This workshop
will be held in the auditorium at NRC headquarters, 11545
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
Please notify Mr. A. Singh at (301) 415-0250 or e-mail
AXS3@nrc.gov [ AXS3@nrc.gov] , if you plan to attend the workshop
so that you can be pre-registered. Pre-registration will help
facilitate your entry into the NRC facility for the workshop. In
addition, please arrive at NRC headquarters 45 minutes prior to
the start of the workshop so that you
[[Page 5229]] have adequate time to be processed through
security.
Please notify Mr. A. Singh at (301) 415-0250 or e-mail
AXS3@nrc.gov [AXS3@nrc.gov] if you would like to make a formal
presentation at the workshop.
Once all the presenters have been identified, you will be
notified with the time allocated for your presentation.
Background The Commission, in its Policy Statement on Regulation
of Advanced Nuclear Power Plants, stated its intention to
``improve the licensing environments for advanced nuclear power
reactors to minimize complexity and uncertainty in the regulatory
process.'' The staff noted in its Advanced Reactor Research Plan
to the Commission, (SECY-03-0059, ML023310534) that a
risk-informed regulatory structure applied to license and
regulate new reactors, regardless of their technology, could
enhance consistency and efficiency of NRC's regulatory process
across reactors with radically different concepts. As such, this
new process, if implemented, could be available for use later in
the decade.
The NRC's past light-water reactor (LWR) experience, especially
the recent efforts to risk-inform the regulations, has provided
insight into the potential value of following a top-down approach
for the development of a regulatory structure for a new
generation of reactors. Such an approach could also facilitate
the implementation of performance-based regulation and make the
regulations for new reactors more coherent.
The development of a technology-neutral regulatory structure will
help ensure that a systematic approach is used to develop the
regulations that will govern the design, construction, and
operation of new reactors. This structure will ensure uniformity,
consistency, and defensibility in the development of the
regulations, particularly when addressing the unique design and
operational aspects of new reactors.
Discussion A working draft of NUREG-3-2005, ``Regulatory
Structure for New Plant Licensing, Part 1: Technology-Neutral
Framework,'' has been issued for stakeholder review and comment.
The objective of the regulatory structure for new plant licensing
is to provide a technology-neutral approach to enhancing the
effectiveness and efficiency of new plant licensing in the longer
term (beyond the advanced designs currently in the
pre-application stage). This regulatory structure has four major
parts: (1) A technology-neutral framework.
(2) A set of technology-neutral requirements.
(3) A technology-specific framework.
(4) Technology-specific regulatory guides.
Currently, only work related to Part 1 of the regulatory
structure for new plant licensing, the technology-neutral
framework, has proceeded. Work has not been initiated on the
other three parts. The staff has done enough work to demonstrate
the feasibility of developing a technology-neutral framework. The
framework is a hierarchal structure that combines deterministic
and probabilistic criteria for developing technology-neutral
requirements to ensure the protection of the public health and
safety. The framework contains criteria for developing-- A safety
philosophy.
Protective strategies.
Risk, design, construction, and operational objectives.
Treatment of uncertainties.
A process for defining the scope of requirements.
Performance-based concepts.
For each of these items, the staff has developed preliminary
``working'' criteria that demonstrate the feasibility of a
technology- neutral framework in sufficient detail to start
soliciting stakeholder input. However, difficult technical and
policy issues associated with these items are being addressed by
the staff that must be resolved before the framework can be
completed and implemented. These issues will be discussed in
detail at the workshop (see below).
Workshop Agenda A final agenda will be provided at the workshop.
The preliminary agenda is as follows: Monday, March 14, 2005 8:30
a.m. to 10 a.m.--Introduction and NRC presentation (Overview of
Regulatory Structure for New Plant Licensing, and Policy and
Technical Issues) 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.--Open discussion with
stakeholders on policy and technical issues (Safety Philosophy,
Protective Strategies, Risk Objectives, Design, Construction,
Operational Objectives, Treatment of Uncertainties and
Defense-in-Depth, Performance-Based Concepts) Tuesday, March 15,
2005 8:30 a.m. to 11 a.m.--Open discussion with stakeholders on
implementation and other issues (includes example of applying the
framework) 12:15 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.--Breakout Sessions (Small,
parallel group discussions on various policy and technical
issues, to be identified) Wednesday, March 16, 2005* 8:30 a.m. to
12:30 p.m.--Specific comments on the working draft NUREG and
formal stakeholder presentations *The workshop may be extended
into the afternoon if additional time is needed to accommodate
stakeholder presentations.
Policy and Technical Issues The staff is soliciting comments on
the issues associated with development and implementation of the
framework document. These issues include, but are not limited to,
the following topics: 1. Safety Philosophy (Level of Safety) An
issue for Commission consideration with respect to developing a
new regulatory structure is defining the goal in the
technology-neutral requirements for achieving enhanced safety.
The Advanced Reactor Policy states that the Commission ``expects
that advanced reactor designs will comply with the Commission's
Safety Goal Policy'' and that ``advanced reactors will provide
enhanced margins of safety.'' The framework proposes a safety
philosophy that will define a level of safety that will meet the
expectation of enhanced safety. In the framework, the staff
proposes a safety philosophy directly tied to the Commission's
1986 Safety Goal Policy (51 FR 28044); that is, the staff
proposes that the technology-neutral requirements be written to
achieve the level of safety defined by the Safety Goal Policy
Quantitative Health Objectives.
Is it appropriate to use the Commission's Safety Goal Policy
Quantitative Health Objectives (QHO ) as the level of safety the
technology-neutral regulations should be written to achieve? If
not, what should be used? 2. Protective Strategies Protective
strategies are identified that define the safety fundamentals for
safe nuclear power plant design, construction, and operation.
They are the fundamental building blocks for developing
technology-neutral requirements and regulations. Acceptable
performance in these protective strategies provides reasonable
assurance that the overall mission of adequate protection of
public health and safety is met. Moreover, the protective
strategies implicitly require a defense- in-depth approach that
will ensure
[[Page 5230]] uncertainties in performance do not compromise
achieving overall plant safety objectives.
Is the process described for the development of a
technology-neutral regulatory structure reasonable? Is it
complete? Is the relationship between the different pieces of the
framework understandable? If not, where is it not understandable?
What is meant by each protective strategy? For example, for
Barrier Integrity protective strategy, what constitutes or
defines a barrier? Is the use of protective strategies a
reasonable approach for defining high-level safety functions? If
not, what other approach(es) should be considered? Is the use of
a deductive analysis of each protective strategy, to identify
technology-neutral requirements and performance- based measures,
a reasonable approach? Are the protective strategies described in
Chapter 3, ``Safety Fundamentals: Protective Strategies''
reasonable? Are they complete? If not, what strategies are
missing or not reasonable? Are the basic principles of a
performance-based approach presented in Chapter 3 sufficiently
clear and reasonable? If not, where are they not clear or not
reasonable? 3. Quantitative Risk Objectives and Criteria, Design,
Construction, and Operational Objectives and Criteria The risk
objectives and the design, construction, and operational
objectives complement the protective strategies. The risk and
design objectives provide a safety approach for meeting safety
and risk goals for all facilities, that is parallel to protective
strategies.
This approach ensure that worker risk and environment is
maintained within acceptable levels, and sets specific design
expectations that provide defense-in-depth requirements at the
design level.
Is meeting a frequency consequence (F-C) curve an appropriate way
to achieve enhanced safety for new reactors? If so, how should
the F-C curve be interpreted? How could this interpretation be
done on a practical basis? Should another approach be used? If
so, what should it be? The Top Level Regulatory Criteria (TLRC)
is another curve, which represents exposure at the site boundary
under various conditions. What are the advantages and
disadvantages of these two curves? With respect to implementing
the F-C curve, where and how should the consequences be
evaluated? (For example: evaluated at a particular site and its
boundary? Averaged over all weather or for a conservatively
defined weather?) Should the F-C curve shown in Figure 4-1 be
expressed in terms of dose or curies released? Should the F-C
curve be used as the acceptance criteria for all event sequences
analyzed? If so, how should the cumulative effects of all event
sequences be considered? Or, should the F-C curve frequency
represent a cumulative frequency of all event sequences leading
to a defined consequence? Can specific regions under the F-C
curve be related to safety margins so as to facilitate
implementation of safety decision- making? Are the International
Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) guidelines the
appropriate criteria to use for specifying radiological limits
for new reactors? Should other guidelines be used? If so, what
are they? Are the proposed technology-neutral risk guidelines
appropriate? If not, what should be used? Is the proposed use of
10 CFR part 20 and GDC 19 of appendix A to 10 CFR part 50
appendix A appropriate for worker protection? If not, what is
appropriate? Is the proposed approach for protection of the
environment appropriate and adequate? If not, what is
appropriate? Are the objectives and issues identified in the
discussion of construction objectives appropriate? Are they
sufficiently complete? What additional considerations will be
important for new reactor designs? Are the operational objectives
appropriate? What issues are not discussed that likely to be
important for new reactors? Are any of the identified issues
unnecessary for new reactors? Commission approved the use of
probabilistic criteria for identifying events that must be
considered for the design, in the safety classification of
Structures, Systems and Components (SSCs) and to replace the
single failure criterion. The approach proposed in the framework
involves identifying event sequence categories by frequency to
define abnormal operational occurrences (AOOs), design basis
accidents (DBAs), and beyond-design-basis events, classifying
SSCs as either risk-significant or non-risk-significant based on
the SSCs' quantified risk importance and criteria consistent with
the work done in support of the 10 CFR 50.69 rulemaking; and
replace the single- failure criterion with event sequences from
the design-specific probabilistic risk assessment (PRA).
Is the proposed approach for the selection of AOOs and DBAs
reasonable? Should another approach be used? If so, what should
it be? Are the acceptance criteria reasonable? Can a
technology-neutral definition of accident prevention be
developed? If so, what should it be? If not, what technology-
specific definitions should be used? Should a risk-informed
safety classification process build upon the risk criteria and
process contained in 10 CFR 50.69? If not, what risk criteria and
process should be used? What risk criteria and process are
appropriate for non-LWR concepts (e.g., high temperature gas
reactors) to address accident prevention and safety
classification? What acceptance criteria should be used to
reflect uncertainties? Should they be set at a defined level of
confidence; or should evaluation of uncertainty in both the
challenge and the capability be required? The Commission approved
the use of scenario-specific source terms, provided that the
staff understands the fission product behavior, and plant
conditions and performance. In the framework, the staff used a
flexible, performance-based approach to establish
scenario-specific licensing source terms. The key features of
this approach are: (1) Scenarios are to be selected from a
design-specific PRA; (2) source term calculations are based on
verified analytical tools; (3) source terms for compliance should
be 95% confidence level values, based on best-estimate
calculations; and (4) source terms for licensing decisions should
reflect scenario-specific timing, form, and magnitude of the
release.
The approach used for selecting DBAs may result in smaller source
terms than used for LWR safety analyses. Is this approach
reasonable for siting? Or should siting be based on a large
source term? The Commission asked the staff to provide further
details on the options for, and associated impacts of, requiring
that modular reactor designs account for the integrated risk
posed by multiple reactors.
Should the consideration of integrated risk be applied to all
reactors on a site, not just modular reactors? If integrated risk
is to be considered on a per site basis, how should it be
accounted for? --limit the number of reactors on a site? --site
specific criteria? --nationwide criteria? --other criteria? Note:
See ACRS letter of April 22, 2004 for additional considerations.
[[Page 5231]] The Commission approved the staff proposal that no
change to emergency preparedness requirements is needed in the
near term.
The Commission also approved, for the longer term, the staff
developing guidelines for assessing possible modifications to
emergency preparedness requirements as part of the work to
develop a description of defense-in-depth.
What should the role of emergency preparedness in
defense-in-depth be, as it relates to possible simplification of
the emergency planning requirements; e.g., reduction in the size
of the emergency planning zones (EPZs) for reactors that are
designed with greater safety margins than the current light water
reactors? In considering possible changes to the existing
emergency preparedness regulations or guidance, should factors
other than reactor size and location, level of safety (i.e.,
likelihood of release), magnitude and chemical form of release,
and timing of release be addressed? Is consideration of these
factors adequate and reasonable? If not, why? In addition, should
the changes address considerations beyond the following; and if
so, what are they? 1. Consideration of the full range of
accidents. 2. Use of the defense-in-depth philosophy. 3.
Prototype operating experience. 4. Acceptance by Federal, State,
and local agencies. 5. Acceptance by the public. 4. Treatment of
Uncertainties and Defense-in-Depth The Commission approved the
staff recommendation for developing a definition of
defense-in-depth that would be incorporated into a policy
statement. In licensing future reactors, the treatment of
uncertainties will play a key role in ensuring safety limits are
met and the design is robust with respect to unanticipated
factors. In general, uncertainties associated with new plants
will tend to be larger than uncertainties associated with
existing plants due to new technologies being used, the lack of
operating experience or, in the case of some proposed LWRs, new
design features (e.g., increased use of passive systems). Any
licensing approach for new plants must account for the treatment
of these uncertainties. The aim is to develop an approach for
future reactors which can be reconciled with past practices used
for operating reactors, but which improves on past practices by
being more consistent and by making use of quantitative
information where possible. The approach recommended for dealing
with uncertainties when ensuring the safety of new plants is the
concept of multiple successive layers of barriers and lines of
defense against undesirable consequences. This approach is
usually referred to as defense-in-depth. The concept of
defense-in-depth is fundamental to the treatment of
uncertainties.
Are the types of uncertainty adequately described? If not, what
should be changed or added? A major reason for including a
deterministic (structuralist) component in the defense-in-depth
model (i.e., the protective strategies) is to address the unknown
contributors (initiating events, failure mechanisms, physical
performance, etc.) to accidents. The deterministic component of
the model requires that each protective strategy is implemented,
however, the extent or degree to which each strategy is
implemented is tempered by the associated risk (which is the
probabilistic or rationalist component of the model).
--What approaches to determining the degree of defense-in-depth
provided by each protective strategy would be appropriate? --How
relevant is the rationalist approach, given the uncertainty
associated with the unknown contributors? --Are expert judgment
approaches appropriate? What caveats and controls would be
needed? --Are there ways to structure the uncertainty associated
with ``unknown'' aspects of the risk that can be helpful? Could
these be used to provide a qualitative description of the
uncertainty that would provide a basis for assessment? --What
other possibilities are there? Are there additional
defense-in-depth principles that should be adhered to? If so,
what are they? Is the proposed defense-in-depth criteria for
containment appropriate? If not, what should be used? Is the
defense-in-depth model advocated in the report appropriate? Does
it achieve the proper balance between structuralist and
rationalist aspects? If not, how should it be changed? Is the
implementation of the defense-in-depth model described in the
report appropriate? If not, how it should be changed? Are
incompleteness uncertainties reasonably accounted for? If not,
how should they be dealt with? Are the proposed factors for
considering changes to existing emergency preparedness
regulations or guidance appropriate? If not, what should be used?
The Commission asked the staff to develop containment functional
performance requirements and criteria, working closely with
industry experts (e.g., designers, Electric Power Research
Institute, etc.) and other stakeholders regarding options in this
area, and to take into account such features as core, fuel, and
cooling systems design.
The Commission also stated that the staff should pursue the
development of functional performance standards, and then submit
options and recommendations to the Commission on this important
policy decision.
Does the proposed functional performance requirement and
criterion for containment take into account such features as the
fuel, core, and cooling system design? Are the proposed
performance requirement and criterion performance-based? Are the
proposed performance requirement and criterion risk-informed?
Does the proposed performance requirement and criterion
adequately account for uncertainties, including completeness
uncertainties? Would the proposed performance requirement and
criterion result in excessive regulatory burden, including
containment design, construction and operating costs? Does the
proposed performance requirement and criterion provide for public
confidence? How should the options, including the proposed
option, be revised in consideration of the above questions? 5.
Process for Defining Scope of Requirements (and General
Implementation Issues) A deductive process will be developed to
identify and define the scope and content of detailed technical
and administrative requirements that are necessary to ensure the
safety objectives and criteria are met.
Should the technology-neutral requirements be developed as an
independent alternative to licensing under 10 CFR part 50? Is
there a near-term (i.e., 3-5 years) need for the framework? The
derivation of detailed technical requirements is being developed.
Is the process described (and illustrated with the barrier
integrity example) for the identification of the scope and
content of the detailed technical requirements from the
protective strategies reasonable? How could it be improved? The
approach for obtaining the needed administrative requirements is
[[Page 5232]] being developed. Is the process described so far
reasonable? Are the discussions on analysis methods and
qualification, and on research and development appropriate?
Should the technology-neutral requirements build upon and utilize
10 CFR part 50 requirements as much as possible (i.e., whenever
10 CFR 50 requirements are technology neutral they should be
incorporated)? Are the desired characteristics of a
technology-neutral regulatory structure listed in Sections 1.4
and 6.3 of the framework reasonable? Is the list complete? If
not, what characteristic(s) is missing? Are the described checks
for completeness of the framework adequate? What other checks
could be performed? Is it reasonable and practical to maintain a
living PRA, which would be used to periodically reclassify
reactor accidents as operating experience accrues? From a
regulatory perspective, in terms of enforceability, is it
practical to include the technology-specific details in a
regulatory guide, although included as part of the license, or
directly in a regulation? Would performance-based requirements
developed according to appendix A to CFR 10 part 50, sufficiently
address enforceability, given that prescriptive requirements are
easier to enforce? At what stage should the technology-specific
regulatory guides be developed and to what level of detail?
Currently, it is envisioned, prior to pre-application or
pre-certification, to develop the technology-specific regulatory
guides for each technology type, not for each applicant. The
technology-specific regulatory guide would specify how to
interpret such statements in the technology-neutral regulation as
fuel damage, accident prevention.
It is envisioned that these new technology-neutral regulations
would be a voluntary alternative to 10 CFR part 50.
Should these regulations be voluntary or mandatory? What would be
the motivation for an applicant to use this alternative? Should a
licensee be allowed to seek an exemption to 10 CFR part 50 to
propose an alternative approach based on the technology-neutral
regulations? Is a technology-neutral framework desirable for
licensing future reactors? What are the advantages of using a
technology-neutral framework? What are the difficulties of using
such a framework? 6. Appendices The following appendices have
been identified to provide further detailed information in
understanding the criteria and guidelines in the framework
document.
Will the identified set of appendices be helpful? Should any be
dropped or redirected? Would additional appendices be helpful? If
yes, what should be the topic and to what level should it be
written? A. Guidance for the Formulation of Performance-Based
Requirements: Provides an explanation of how the topics that must
be addressed to provide defense-in-depth protection via the
protective strategies can be implemented through
performance-based requirements.
Identifies the steps in this process including the need for
safety margin.
--Are there additional performance-based considerations that
should be included in appendix A? B. Current Quantitative
Guidelines for LWRs: The Framework discusses the possibility of
using surrogates to demonstrate that the risk objectives of the
frequency-consequence curve have been met. Appendix B illustrates
how core damage frequency and large early release frequency are
used for current LWRs as surrogates for the risk objectives
expressed by the latent cancer QHO and early fatality QHO,
respectively.
--Are there additional examples of the use of surrogates to
achieve higher level risk objectives that would be useful here?
C. Safety Characteristics of New Reactors: Brief summary
descriptions of a number of possible new reactor concepts.
Includes a discussion of safety features (and vulnerabilities, if
identified) structured to make clear the linkage to the
Framework.
--Are there additional characteristics/features/attributes of the
various innovative designs that should receive special attention
in appendix C? D. Probabilistic Risk Assessment Quality Needs for
New Reactors: There are now standards for PRA of LWRs. This
appendix will define PRA in a technology-neutral manner (e.g.,
core damage frequency as a definition for Level 1 is
technology-specific), identify extensions and changes that may be
needed for some new reactors, and will describe how PRA is
related to the development of regulatory requirements for new
reactors (e.g., development of a living PRA and what a living PRA
entails).
--What should be the scope and depth of this appendix? At a
higher level and look to professional organization to develop
standard? E. Assessment of 10 CFR Part 50 for New Reactors: A
review of 10 CFR Part 50 requirements against a specific new
reactor design. Identifies where current requirements are
directly applicable, which requirements are not applicable, which
requirements need to be adapted to the new design concept, and
what design features and uncertainties call for new requirements.
F. Completeness Check: A review of other work being performed in
this area to identify any significant holes. Review and compare
against the NEI-02-02 framework and the technical document being
prepared by IAEA relating to technology-neutral regulations.
--Are there other sources that should be reviewed? 7. Glossary A
glossary is being developed with a standard set of definitions of
terms, in order to provide a common understanding, and to help
facilitate discussions and communication regarding the regulatory
structure for new plant licensing.
Have the appropriate terms been identified? If not, what terms
should be deleted or added? Are the definitions reasonable? If
not, why? Should the definitions be standardized? Can the
definitions be used elsewhere? If not, which definitions can not
be standardized, and why? Information about the working draft
NUREG and the workshop may be directed to Mr. A. Singh at (301)
415-0250 or e-mail axs3@NRC.GOV [axs3@NRC.GOV] . Although a time
limit is given for comments on this draft document, comments and
suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides
currently being developed, or improvements in all published
guides, are encouraged at any time.
(5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day of
January 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Charles E. Ader, Director, Division of Risk Analysis and
Applications, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 05-1770 Filed 1-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: Utility Name; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment
FR Doc 05-1771
[Federal Register: February 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 20)]
[Notices] [Page 5226-5228] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01fe05-113]
to Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards
Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is
considering issuance of an amendment to Facility Operating
License No. NPF-90 issued to the Tennessee Valley Authority (the
licensee) for operation of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant (WBN),
Unit 1, located in Rhea County, Tennessee.
The proposed change allows entry into a mode or other specified
condition in the applicability of a Technical Specification (TS),
while in a condition statement and the associated required
actions of the TS, provided the licensee performs a risk
assessment and manages risk consistent with the program in place
for complying with the requirements of title 10 of the Code of
Federal Regulations (10 CFR), part 50, section 50.65(a)(4).
Limiting Condition for Operation (LCO) 3.0.4 exceptions in
individual TSs would be eliminated, several notes or specific
exceptions are revised to reflect the related changes to LCO
3.0.4, and Surveillance Requirement (SR) 3.0.4 is revised to
reflect the LCO 3.0.4 allowance. The No Significant Hazards
Consideration Determination concerning this change was published
in the Federal Register on January 18, 2005 (70 FR 2901).
A separate change, not described in the above Federal Register
notice, was also included in the licensee's application. In
accordance with TS Task Force (TSTF)--285, Charging Pump Swap
Low-Temperature Over-Pressurization Allowance, LCO 3.4.12, Cold
Overpressure Mitigation System (COMS), is being revised to modify
and relocate two notes in the WBN TSs. The changes are all
administrative, except a change which would allow two charging
pumps to be made capable of injecting into the Reactor Coolant
System to support pump swap operations for a period not to exceed
1 hour instead of the currently allowed 15 minutes.
Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission
will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of
1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations.
The Commission has made a proposed determination that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration.
Under the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 50.92, this means
that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed
amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed change to the WBN TS is consistent with improvements
made to the Standard Technical Specifications for Westinghouse
Plants and continues to provide controls for safe operation
within the required limits. The probability of occurrence or the
consequences of an accident are not significantly increased as a
result of the increased time from 15 minutes to one hour to allow
pump swap operations. The one hour time period is reasonable
considering the small likelihood of an event during this brief
period and the other administrative controls available (e.g.,
operator action to stop any pump that inadvertently starts) and
considering the required vent paths in accordance with the LCO.
The proposed change does not affect degradation of accident
mitigation systems. The proposed
[[Page 5227]] revision continues to maintain the required safety
functions.
Accordingly, the probability of an accident or the consequences
of an accident previously evaluated is not significantly
increased.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed change improves the WBN TS consistent with
improvements made to the Standard Technical Specifications (STS)
for Westinghouse Plants and continues to provide controls for
safe operation within the required limits. The subject change
improves currently allowed pump swap provisions by realistically
addressing time to safely and deliberately secure the operating
pump and place the alternate pump in service, and provides
additional assurance that seal injection requirements are not
compromised. No new or different accident potential is created by
the subject change.
The change does not adversely impact plant equipment, test
methods, or operating practices. Therefore, the proposed change
does not create the possibility of a new or different kind of
accident from any accident previously evaluated.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a
margin of safety? Response: No.
The proposed change to the WBN TS is consistent with improvements
made to the Standard Technical Specifications for Westinghouse
Plants and provides improved pump swap provisions which should
enhance safe operation within required limits. The change does
not adversely impact plant equipment, test methods, or operating
practices. The proposed change does not affect degradation of
accident mitigation systems and continues to maintain the
required safety functions of COMS to assure that the reactor
vessel is adequately protected against exceeding pressure and
temperature limits. Therefore, the proposed change does not
involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety.
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to
determine that the amendment request involves no significant
hazards consideration.
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed
determination. Any comments received within 30 days after the
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making
any final determination.
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the
expiration of 60 days after the date of publication of this
notice. The Commission may issue the license amendment before
expiration of the 60- day period provided that its final
determination is that the amendment involves no significant
hazards consideration. In addition, the Commission may issue the
amendment prior to the expiration of the 30- day comment period
should circumstances change during the 30-day comment period such
that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example, in
derating or shutdown of the facility. Should the Commission take
action prior to the expiration of either the comment period or
the notice period, it will publish in the Federal Register a
notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No
Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will
take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need
to take this action will occur very infrequently.
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at
the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North,
Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor),
Rockville, Maryland.
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to
intervene is discussed below.
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File
Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/
[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/cfr/] .
If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is
filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer
designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge
of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the
request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order.
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1)
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property,
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to
those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is
aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish
those facts or expert opinion. The petition must include
sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with
the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions
shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment
under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven,
would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner/requestor
who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least
one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
[[Page 5228]] Those permitted to intervene become parties to the
proceeding, subject to any limitations in the order granting
leave to intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully
in the conduct of the hearing.
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final
determination on the issue of no significant hazards
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration,
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the
final determination is that the amendment request involves a
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take
place before the issuance of any amendment.
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR
2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier,
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV [HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV] ; or (4) facsimile
transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention:
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101,
verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent
to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that
copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission
to (301) 415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov [
OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov] . A copy of the request for hearing and
petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to the
General Counsel, Tennessee Valley Authority, ET 11A, 400 West
Summit Hill Drive, Knoxville, TN 37902, attorney for the
licensee.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendment dated September 15, 2004, which is
available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located
at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly
available records will be accessible from the Agencywide
Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS) Public
Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web site,
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]
. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at
1-800-397-4209, (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to
pdr@nrc.gov [ pdr@nrc.gov] . Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this
25th day of January 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Douglas V. Pickett, Senior Project Manager, Section II, Project
Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 05-1771 Filed 1-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
20 NRC: South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, Virgil C. Summer Nuclear
FR Doc 05-1772
[Federal Register: February 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 20)]
[Notices] [Page 5224-5226] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01fe05-112]
Station; Exemption 1.0 Background The South Carolina Electric &
Gas Company (SCE, the licensee) is the holder of the Renewed
Facility Operating License No. NPF-12 which authorizes operation
of the Virgil C. Summer Nuclear Station (VSNS). The license
provides, among other things, that the facility is subject to all
rules, regulations, and orders of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC or the Commission) now or hereafter in effect.
The facility consists of a pressurized-water reactor located in
Fairfield County in South Carolina.
2.0 Request/Action Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations
(10 CFR), part 50, section 50.44 specifies requirements for the
control of hydrogen gas generated after a postulated
loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) for reactors fueled with
zirconium cladding. Acceptance criteria contained in 10 CFR 50.46
are for emergency core cooling systems (ECCSs) for reactors
fueled with zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\ cladding. In addition, Appendix
K to 10 CFR part 50 requires that the Baker-Just equation be used
to predict the rates of energy release, hydrogen concentration,
and cladding oxidation from the metal-water reaction.
In summary, the exemption request relates solely to the specific
types of cladding material specified in these regulations. As
written, the regulations presume the use of zircaloy or ZIRLO\TM\
fuel rod cladding. Thus, an exemption from the requirements of 10
CFR 50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and Appendix K to 10 CFR part 50 is
needed to irradiate lead test assemblies (LTAs) consisting of
developmental clad alloys at VSNS.
[[Page 5225]] 3.0 Discussion 3.1 Fuel Mechanical Design Optimized
ZIRLO\TM\ Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ has a lower tin content than the
licensed ZIRLO\TM\. Tin is a solid solution strengthener and
[alpha]-phase stabilizer present entirely in the base
[alpha]-phase zirconium crystalline structure. Potential impacts
of a reduced tin content on material properties include (1) a
reduced tensile strength, (2) an increased thermal creep rate,
(3) an increased irradiation growth rate, (4) a reduced
[alpha][rarr][alpha]+[beta] phase transition temperature, and (5)
an improved corrosion resistance. The slight reduction in tin
content will not effect the size, shape, or distribution of any
second phase or inter-metallic precipitates, nor the overall
microstructure of this developmental zirconium alloy. With a
consistent microstructure, low tin ZIRLO\TM\ will exhibit many
similar material characteristics as the licensed ZIRLO\TM\.
Further, the final annealing of Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ has been
designed to improve mechanical performance.
In the exemption request, SCE provides details of the planned
post-irradiation examinations (PIEs) of the LTAs. Examinations
include rod profilometry, rod growth, rod oxidation, and visual
inspection. In response to a request for additional information,
the licensee stated that PIE data, as well as data from other
Westinghouse LTA programs, will be used to ensure existing design
models remain valid.
As a result of the PIEs, any negative aspects of the low tin
alloy's performance, including the potential impacts of a reduced
tin content identified above, will be identified and resolved.
Furthermore, significant deviations from model predictions will
be reconciled.
The fuel rod burnup and fuel duty experienced by the LTAs in VSNS
will remain well within the operating experience base and
applicable licensed limits for ZIRLO\TM\.
Utilizing currently approved fuel performance and fuel mechanical
design models and methods, SCE and Westinghouse will perform
cycle- specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs
satisfy existing design criteria.
Based upon LTA irradiation experience of similar low tin versions
of ZIRLO\TM\, expected performance due to similar material
properties, and an LTA PIE program aimed at qualifying model
predictions, the staff finds the LTA mechanical design acceptable
for VSNS.
3.2 Core Physics and Non-LOCA Safety Analysis The SCE exemption
request relates solely to the specific types of cladding material
specified in the regulations. No new or altered design limits for
purposes of 10 CFR part 50, Appendix A, General Design Criterion
10, ``Reactor Design,'' need to be applied or are required for
this program.
Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ Due to similar material properties, any
impact of low tin ZIRLO\TM\ on the safety analysis models and
methods is expected to be minimal. Utilizing currently approved
core physics, core thermal-hydraulics, and non-LOCA safety
analysis models and methods, SCE and Westinghouse will perform
cycle-specific reload evaluations to ensure that the LTAs satisfy
design criteria.
Nuclear design evaluations will ensure that LTAs be placed in
nonlimiting core locations. As such, additional thermal margin to
design limits will be maintained between LTA fuel rods and the
hot rod evaluated in safety analyses. Thermal-hydraulic and
non-LOCA evaluations will confirm that the LTAs are bounded by
the current analysis of record.
Based upon the use of approved models and methods, expected
material performance, and the placement of LTAs in nonlimiting
core locations, the staff finds that the irradiation of up to
four LTAs in VSNS will not result in unsafe operation nor
violation of Specified Acceptable Fuel Design Limits.
Furthermore, in the event of a Design Basis Accident, these LTAs
will not promote consequences beyond those currently analyzed.
3.3 Regulatory Evaluation Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12, the
Commission may, upon application by any interested person or upon
its own initiative, grant exemptions from the requirements of 10
CFR part 50 if, (1) the exemptions are authorized by law, will
not present an undue risk to public health or safety, and are
consistent with the common defense and security; and (2) special
circumstances are present.
3.3.1 10 CFR 50.44 The underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.44 is to
ensure that means are provided for the control of hydrogen gas
that may be generated following a LOCA. The licensee has provided
means for controlling hydrogen gas and has previously considered
the potential for hydrogen gas generation stemming from a
metal-water reaction. The LTA rods containing a low tin version
of ZIRLO\TM\ cladding are similar in chemical composition to
zircaloy cladding. Metal-water reaction tests performed by
Westinghouse on low tin versions of ZIRLO\TM\ (documented in
Appendix B of Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A) demonstrate
comparable reaction rates. Accordingly, the previous calculations
of hydrogen production resulting from a metal-water reaction will
not be significantly changed. As such, application of 10 CFR
50.44 is not necessary for the licensee to achieve its underlying
purpose in these circumstances.
3.3.2 10 CFR 50.46 The underlying purpose of 10 CFR 50.46 is to
establish acceptance criteria for ECCS performance. The
applicability of these ECCS acceptance criteria has been
demonstrated by Westinghouse. Ring compression tests performed by
Westinghouse on low tin versions of ZIRLO\TM\ (documented in
Appendix B of Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A) demonstrate an
acceptable retention of post-LOCA ductility up to 10 CFR 50.46
limits of 2200 [deg]F and 17 percent Equivalent Cladding Reacted.
Utilizing currently approved LOCA models and methods,
Westinghouse will perform cycle-specific reload evaluations prior
to use to ensure that the LTAs satisfy 10 CFR 50.46 acceptance
criteria. Therefore, the exemption to expand the application of
10 CFR 50.46 to include Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ is acceptable.
3.3.3 10 CFR Part 50, Appendix K Paragraph I.A.5 of Appendix K to
10 CFR part 50 states that the rates of energy, hydrogen
concentration, and cladding oxidation from the metal-water
reaction shall be calculated using the Baker-Just equation. Since
the Baker-Just equation presumes the use of zircaloy clad fuel,
strict application of the rule would not permit use of the
equation for the LTA cladding for determining acceptable fuel
performance. Metal-water reaction tests performed by Westinghouse
on low tin versions of ZIRLO\TM\ (documented in Appendix B of
Addendum 1 to WCAP-12610-P-A) demonstrate conservative reaction
rates relative to the Baker-Just equation. Thus, application of
Appendix K, Paragraph I.A.5 is not necessary for the licensee to
achieve its underlying purpose in these circumstances.
3.3.4 Special Circumstances In summary, the staff reviewed the
licensee's request of proposed exemption to allow up to four LTAs
containing fuel rods, guide thimble tubes, and instrumentation
tubes
[[Page 5226]] fabricated with Optimized ZIRLO\TM\. Based on the
staff's evaluation, as set forth above, the staff considers that
granting the proposed exemption will not defeat the underlying
purpose of 10 CFR 50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, or Appendix K to 10 CFR
part 50. Accordingly, special circumstances, are present pursuant
to 10 CFR 50.12(a)(2)(ii). 3.3.5. Other Standards in 10 CFR 50.12
The staff examined the rest of the licensee's rationale to
support the exemption request, and concluded that the use of
Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ would satisfy 10 CFR 50.12(a) as follows: (1)
The requested exemption is authorized by law: No law precludes
the activities covered by this exemption request. The Commission,
based on technical reasons set forth in rulemaking records,
specified the specific cladding materials identified in 10 CFR
50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K. Cladding
materials are not specified by statute.
(2) The requested exemption does not present an undue risk to the
public health and safety as stated by the licensee: The LTA
safety evaluation will ensure that these acceptance criteria [in
the Commission's regulations] are met following the insertion of
LTAs containing Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ material. Fuel assemblies
using Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ cladding will be evaluated using
NRC-approved analytical methods and plant specific models to
address the changes in the cladding material properties. The
safety analysis for VSNS is supported by the applicable technical
specification. The VSNS reload cores containing Optimized
ZIRLO\TM\ cladding will continue to be operated in accordance
with the operating limits specified in the technical
specifications. LTAs utilizing Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ cladding will
be placed in non- limiting core locations. Thus, the granting of
this exemption request will not pose an undue risk to public
health and safety.
The NRC staff has evaluated these considerations as set forth in
Section 3.1 of this exemption. For the reasons set forth in that
section, the staff concludes that Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ may be used
as a cladding material for no more than four LTAs to be placed in
nonlimiting core locations during VSNS's next refueling outage,
and that an exemption from the requirements of 10 CFR 50.44, 10
CFR 50.46, and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K does not pose an undue
risk to the public health and safety.
4.0 Conclusion Accordingly, the Commission has determined that,
pursuant to 10 CFR 50.12(a), the exemption is authorized by law,
will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety,
and is consistent with the common defense and security. Also,
special circumstances are present. Therefore, the Commission
hereby grants SCE exemptions from the requirements of 10 CFR
50.44, 10 CFR 50.46, and 10 CFR part 50, Appendix K, to allow
four LTAs containing fuel rods with Optimized ZIRLO\TM\ and
several different developmental clad alloys.
Pursuant to 10 CFR 51.32, the Commission has determined that the
granting of this exemption will not have a significant effect on
the quality of the human environment (70 FR 1742).
This exemption is effective upon issuance.
Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 14th day of January 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
James E. Lyons, Deputy Director, Division of Licensing Project
Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 05-1772 Filed 1-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
21 NRC: Meetings; Sunshine Act
FR Doc 05-1885
[Federal Register: February 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 20)]
[Notices] [Page 5233] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01fe05-115] [[Page 5233]]
Date: Weeks of January 31, February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 7, 2005.
Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
Status: Public and closed.
Matters To Be Considered: Week of January 31, 2005 Thursday,
February 3, 2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Human Capital Initiatives
(Closed--Ex. 2).
Week of February 7, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the week of February 7, 2005.
Week of February 14, 2005--Tentative Tuesday, February 15, 2005
9:30 a.m. Briefing on Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards Programs, Performance, and Plans--Waste Safety (Public
Meeting) (Contact: Jessica Shin, 301-415-8117).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
Week of February 21, 2005--Tentative Tuesday, February 22, 2005
9:30 a.m. Briefing on Status of Office of the Chief Information
Officer (OCIO) Programs, Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting)
(Contact: Patricia Wolfe, 301-415-6031).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
1:30 p.m. Briefing on Emergency Preparedness Program Initiatives
(Closed--Ex. 1) (This meeting was originally scheduled for
February 15, 2005).
Wednesday, February 23, 2005 9:30 a.m. Briefing on Status of
Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) Programs,
Performance, and Plans (Public Meeting) (Contact: Edward New,
301-415-5646).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
Thursday, February 24, 2005 1 p.m. Briefing on Nuclear Fuel
Performance (Public Meeting) (Contact: Frank Akstulewicz,
301-415-1136).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
Week of February 28, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings
scheduled for the week of February 28, 2005.
Week of March 7, 2005--Tentative Monday, March 7, 2005 9:30 a.m.
Briefing on Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards
Programs, Performance, and Plans--Materials Safety (Public
Meeting) (Contact: Shamica Walker, 301-415-5142).
This meeting will be webcast live at the Web
address--http://www.nrc.gov
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov] .
* The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on
short notice. To verify the status of meetings call
(recording)--(301) 415-1292. Contact person for more information:
Dave Gamberoni, (301) 415-1651.
* * * * * The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the
Internet at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-making/schedule.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/policy-makin
g/schedule.html] . * * * * * The NRC provides reasonable
accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate.
If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these
public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or
other information from the public meetings in another format
(e.g. braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability
Program Coordinator, August Spector, at 301-415-7080, TDD:
301-415- 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: January 27, 2005.
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-1885 Filed 1-28-05; 9:39 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
22 NRC: Notice of Availability of Draft NUREG-1800, Revision 1;
FR Doc 05-1887
[Federal Register: February 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 20)]
[Notices] [Page 5254-5255] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01fe05-117]
``Standard Review Plan for Review of License Renewal Applications
for Nuclear Power Plants'' and Draft NUREG-1801, Revision 1;
``Generic Aging Lessons Learned (GALL) Report'' AGENCY: Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC).
ACTION: Issuance of draft NUREG-1800 ``Standard Review Plan for
Review of License Renewal Applications for Nuclear Power Plants''
and draft NUREG-1801, ``Generic Aging Lessons Learned (GALL)
Report'' for public comment; and announcement of public workshop.
SUMMARY: The NRC staff is issuing drafts of the revised
NUREG-1800; ``Standard Review Plan for License Renewal
Applications for Nuclear Power Plants'' (SRP-LR); and the revised
NUREG-1801, ``Generic Aging Lessons Learned (GALL) Report'' for
public comment. These revised documents describe methods
acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing the license renewal
rule, Title 10, Code of Federal Regulations part 54 (10 CFR part
54), as well as techniques used by the NRC staff in evaluating
applications for license renewals. The NRC is also announcing a
public workshop to facilitate gathering public comments on the
drafts of these revised documents. These draft documents
supersede the preliminary draft documents that were publicly
announced and placed on the NRC's Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/guidance/
updated-guidance.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/lice
nsing/renewal/guidance/updated-guidance.html] on September 30,
2004. The NRC is especially interested in stakeholder comments
that will improve the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of
the license renewal process.
DATES: Comments may be submitted on revised SRP-LR and the draft
GALL Report, accompanied by supporting data, by March 30, 2005.
Comments received after this date will be considered, if it is
practical to do so, but the NRC staff is able to ensure
consideration only for comments received on or before this date.
A public workshop is planned for March 2, 2005, at NRC's
headquarters and is announced on the NRC's Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/meeting-schedul
e.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-m
eetings/meeting-schedule.html] .
ADDRESSES: Written comments may be submitted to: Chief Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, Mailstop T-6D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC, 20555-0001. Comments should be
delivered to: 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, Room
T-6D59, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
Comments may also be provided via e-mail at NRCREP@NRC.GOV
[NRCREP@NRC.GOV] . The NRC maintains an Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and
image files of NRC's public documents. These documents may be
accessed through the NRC's Public Electronic Reading Room on the
Internet at http: //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]
.
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS, or who encounter
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should
contact the NRC's PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, or
301-414- 4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [pdr@nrc.gov] . FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Mr. Jerry Dozier, License Renewal
Project
[[Page 5255]] Manager, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, Mail
Stop O-11F1, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001, telephone 301 415-1014, or e-mail jxd@nrc.gov
[jxd@nrc.gov] .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Draft Standard Review Plan for License
Renewal The NRC staff proposes to revise the July 2001 version of
NUREG- 1800, ``Standard Review Plan for Review of License Renewal
Applications for Nuclear Power Plants'' (SRP-LR). The SRP-LR
provides guidance to NRC staff reviewers in performing safety
reviews of applications to renew licenses of nuclear power plants
in accordance with the license renewal rule. The draft SRP-LR is
under ADAMS Accession number ML050190137. The SRP-LR is being
revised to incorporate lessons learned from the review of a
number of previous license renewal applications, as well as to
make changes corresponding to the update of the GALL Report. The
draft SRP-LR contains four major chapters: (1) Administrative
Information; (2) Scoping and Screening Methodology for
Identifying Structures and Components Subject to Aging Management
Review, and Implementation Results; (3) Aging Management Review
Results; and (4) Time-Limited Aging Analyses. In addition, three
Branch Technical Positions are in an Appendix to the SRP-LR.
Draft Generic Aging Lessons Learned Report, Revision 1 The
Generic Aging Lessons Learned (GALL) Report, Revision 1, is an
update to the July 2001 version; the report format is largely
unchanged. The GALL Report Volumes 1 and 2 are available under
ADAMS accession number ML050270004 and ML050270052, respectively.
The adequacy of the generic aging management programs in managing
certain aging effects for particular structures and components
will continue to be evaluated based on the review of the
following ten program elements: (1) Scope of program, (2)
preventive actions, (3) parameters monitored or inspected, (4)
detection of aging effects, (5) monitoring and trending, (6)
acceptance criteria, (7) corrective actions, (8) confirmation
process, (9) administrative controls, and (10) operating
experience. The GALL Report is a technical basis document for the
SRP- LR and should be treated in the same manner as an approved
topical report that is applicable generically.
Solicitation of Comments The comments should include supporting
justification in enough detail for the NRC staff to evaluate the
need for changes in the guidance, as well as references to the
operating experience, industry standards, or other relevant
reference materials that provide a sound technical basis for such
changes. The NRC is also interested in comments that will improve
the clarity of the documents so that the improved guidance will
provide a stable and predictable evaluation standard for future
renewal applications. Editorial and style comments are not
necessary because we expect that the guidance documents will need
to be reformatted and edited before they are issued in final
form.
Questions for Public Comments Although the NRC invites public
comments on all information contained in these draft documents,
responses to the following question are particularly solicited.
The GALL Report evaluates many existing programs for their
adequacy to manage aging for license renewal. The license renewal
guidance documents reference plant-specific aging management
programs (AMP) when it is not clear if an appropriate widely-used
(generic) AMP is available. Are there alternative generic AMPs
that can be substituted for the plant-specific evaluations that
are still referenced in Chapters II-VIII of the GALL Report? The
commenter should provide justification to support any
suggestions.
Public Workshop A public workshop is scheduled during the public
comment period. Scheduled for March 2, 2005, this workshop will
be held in the Commissioners' Hearing Room, O-1G16, at OWFN, the
NRC headquarters. The formal meeting notice is available at
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/meeting-schedul
e.html
[http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/leaving.cgi?from=leaving
FR.html&log=linklog&to=http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-m
eetings/meeting-schedule.html] . It is anticipated that the
workshop will provide the participants an opportunity to obtain
further information, to ask questions, to make comments to add to
the discussion, or otherwise to facilitate the public in
formulating and preparing written comments for NRC staff
consideration on these revised license renewal guidance
documents. To ensure that all of the ideas raised are recorded,
the workshop will be transcribed and the NRC staff will prepare a
summary report to categorize the comments.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of January 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Pao-Tsin Kuo, Program Director, License Renewal and Environmental
Impacts Program, Division of Regulatory Improvement Programs,
Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 05-1887 Filed 1-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
23 allAfrica.com: Nigeria [column]: Nigeria and Nuclear Power
[http://www.champion-newspapers.com/] The Publisher's Site
Daily Champion (Lagos)
February 1, 2005
Chiemeka Iwuoha
Lagos
IT is not always that the Lagos Philosophical Society (LPS)
whose members meet Fridays at the website bothered their heads
about such arcane issues as nuclear armament, and other uses of
nuclear power.
But last Friday was not any other day. It was special in a way.
For one thing, there was unease and uncertainty at the site. The
place was dry as a church, not a drop of beer was around. ISOs,
that legal instrument for ordering crates of beer on credit were
not being honoured by Iya Eka, website's vice chancellor (VC).
It was a bad case. From grandmasters to rookies, webmasters
steeled themselves to a night of abstinence hoping that matters
would get better soon.
And so, to pass the night, webmasters began to make jokes about
the weird situation Nigerians have found themselves. From
students to hospital workers, from farmers to artisans and
builders, everyone had one complaint or the other!
The current situation reminded The Prof sadly of the days
preceding the mortal exit of General Sani Abacha who through
rigorous application of his personal wishes and desires on the
Nigerian state and her citizens, succeeded in emasculating every
form of opposition or protest.
From 1996 well into 1998 before he passed on, Gen. Abacha had
driven democrats or those who pretended to be so, out of town.
Those who did not have enough sense or were fearless enough to
stay, the general merely got to be shot. The rest he jailed as
bargaining chips with civil society opposition and the
international community. MKO Abiola, Yar'Adua, Obasanjo and many
others were just such blackmail chips that warned everyone that,
like Ken Saro Wiwa in 1995, anything can happen!
Now, fast-forward to 2005, the same scenario appears to be
unfolding with chilling similarity. And, to borrow the immortal
words of Irish Poet, W. B. Yeats, in his poem The Second Coming:
'The ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all
conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.'
The Prof was not alone in his musings. Kalistos, too, had
observed that it takes as much energy and power to do good, as
evil. In fact, that it takes less effort to be good, so why are
those who pretend to rule us so keen on expending energy, talent
and resources negatively to hurt the ruled when by not even
exerting themselves, a lot of good will ensue?
"What you are seeing right now are the results of the economic
reforms which the neo-liberals in Obasanjo's government have
unleashed on the Nigerian people. They increase market prices
but do nothing about wages, Homer interrupted Kalistos' stream
of thought.
"You don't liberalise a market while holding tight to political
power, illiberally. This elite vanguardism which these fascist
reformers are practising will only lead to one thing - a
one-party state, or the Chinese Model that allows billionaires
and paupers to exist in the same economic environment while the
oligarchs who control the Chinese Communist Party hold strongly
to political power and defend it with ferocious intent and
will," Homer, the British educated webmaster and confidence
trickster (419er), observed.
"What are these PDP chaps trying to prove, that their interests
are equivalent to the nation's?" Homer asked in anger..' Lately
Nuhu Ribadu of the EFCC and his hounds have been sniffing around
Homer's luxurious residence and offices, to his intense dislike.
"Well," Mephistopheles observed, "there don't seem to be
anything wrong with a one-party system and state?" It was a
question and a proposition.
"Personally, given the Nigerian level of sophistication and
complexity, I don't think a benevolent, nationalistic, and
patriotic leadership that shares one ideology like the PDP, is
such a bad idea," the South-African-born arms dealer and
mercenary pointed out. He said that the ruling African National
Party (ANC) has all but swallowed other opposition parties and
is virtually a one-party affair.
"Besides," South Africa is doing quite well in the economic
sphere," Mephisto added.
"Precisely what I was saying," Kalistos gushed. "What are
leaders doing with nuclear technology when, with billions of
dollars spent on it, all subsequent governments have been unable
to provide Nigerians with common electricity?"
"Ah, Kalistos, you are living in the past! The world has moved
on and if you don't move with it you will be left behind. The
world has since gone beyond the nuclear energy debate!" Eskimo
objected scornfully. He is a government secret service (GSS)
agent who pretends to be a webmaster and member of the LPS.
Everyone knew that, but paid him no mind.
"When you say the world, is Nigeria part of that world that has
moved on?," Kalistos inquired of Eskimo in defence.
"Yes, the GSS man answered emphatically. "Well," Kalistos went
on, I don't agree."
A nation, he says, that is busy wreaking the lives of her
citizens and their habitats as in the Niger Delta, South-East
and other areas where preventable disasters are the other of the
day cannot be said to have made any step forward?
Let me explain, Kalistos began: science and technology are
knowledge and application based on precision - in time, in
tools, in brain-power, and stability of operational environment.
He says that there was no doubt in his mind that the Nigerian
state can successfully do the theoretical maths involved in
nuclear engineering. But what about application?
An environment where the convoy of a minor government official
can block the route of a nuclear scientist racing to do his job
or to trouble - shoot, is it the operational environment to
apply nuclear technology.
Nigerians pay no heed to time. And that is because time never
pays heed to them because they say to you 1.00pm and you never
get to see them till 6.00pm!
Okay, come to the issue of handling fissionable materials, how
can you trust that one unpaid scientist or technician will not
make away with the fuel rods of the reactors for some usually
material purposes?
Besides, Kalistos continued, there is a pattern to the
acquisition and use of nuclear technology among low-tech
countries of the world of which Nigeria is at the bottom as a
nation!
First of all, these low-tech nations are encouraged to pay for
the know-how and technology which the traditional nuclear powers
of France, Russia, Britain, Germany, China, United States will
install and maintain.
Then the receiving countries gain some experience in nuclear
technology and begin to tamper with the prescribed capacity of
their reactors like Iran for uranium enrichment for fuel and
also for atomic bombs.
Then the big powers jump in, accuse the low-tech borrowers of
A-bomb-making and then go ahead for trash the installations like
Iraq. All in all, the hapless countries lose huge sums, billions
in wasted investments.
Alright, suppose Nigeria claims that her nuclear programme is
for electricity, medicine and agriculture, who is government
going to cure, supply electricity and food to? And is it after
half the population has perished in darkness in want and
disease-ridden existence?
"Let me tell you one thing", Kalistos said with some
uncharacteristic heat, 'the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) should be doing long-suffering Nigerians a huge favour if
they can steer Nigerian government away from the quixotic quest
for nuclear energy, until there is a will to order in other
spheres of Nigerian life.
From the engineering point of view, a nation that can't handle
simple things like electric power generation, water, sanitation
and waste disposal has no business aspiring to the moon.
And talking of wastes, is it not in Nigeria that whole
ocean-going vessels grow wings or become submarines and
disappear? Who knows to what use someone will put the spent
nuclear rods?
Copyright © 2005 Daily Champion. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
24 JOURNAL NEWS: With Indian Point, region has its own Vesuvius
www.thejournalnews.com
By PHIL REISMAN
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: February 1, 2005)
I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. But haven't the
Indian Point nuclear power plants mysteriously faded from the
public debate about potential targets for terrorists?
Think back to, well, not that long ago.
It seems like only yesterday that the county was handing out
potassium iodide pills as an antidote to cancer-causing
radiation. A voluminous evacuation plan was ridiculed and
rejected as a ludicrous, unworkable document of bureaucratic
folly. Scores of politicians were signing petitions and issuing
sound bites on shutting the joint down as if it were
Frankenstein's castle-on-the-Hudson, and there was talk —
serious talk — about government takeover of the Buchanan
facility and converting the big microwave works into a plant
fueled by natural gas.
While Indian Point may remain vulnerable to some kind of suicide
attack, particularly from the air, that reality has been
superseded, or at least obscured, by the happy fact that no
instances of domestic terrorism have occurred since Sept. 11,
2001.
And after all, there are other things to ponder these days
besides the possibility of hijacked jets slamming into a nuclear
containment dome. Things like the Iraqi elections, Social
Security reform and — speaking of Frankenstein — the Michael
Jackson trial.
Gods and monsters came to mind Sunday night while I was
watching, of all, things, the Discovery Channel's docudrama on
the last days of Pompeii. As every schoolchild knows, the Roman
city on the Bay of Naples was wiped out in 79 A.D. when Mount
Vesuvius erupted with such ferocity that it caused what the
geologists call a "pyroclastic event," which, suffice it to say,
was quick and deadly. About 5,000 people were killed.
Disturbingly, the old volcano is due to blow again — and soon.
Only now, there are some 700,000 people living within a
three-mile "red zone" and there is no realistic hope of safely
evacuating them when the next, inevitable disaster strikes. Many
Italians living in the shadow of beautiful Mount Vesuvius have a
fatalistic attitude. Few have accepted financial incentives from
the government to move.
So we're fortunate here in the New York suburbs. We have no
natural horrors in this neck of the global woods. We live in a
temperate clime on solid ground. There are no volcanoes,
tsunamis and hardly ever any Florida-style hurricanes. A
"drought" means, at worst, a ban on lawn sprinkling.
But we do have the Indian Point nuke plants, a man-made fact of
life whose 10-mile radius reaches a population of more than
367,000 people.
Unlike the forces of nature, however, Indian Point theoretically
can be stopped. And for a moment, it really seemed to be on the
political ropes.
It's still operating.
Indeed, nearly 41 months after Sept. 11, the nuclear energy
industry is effectively declaring victory in the Indian Point
debate. The Edison Electric Institute, a major trade association
for U.S. shareholder electric companies, handed Indian Point
owner Entergy the institute's first Advocacy Excellence Award.
Announced last month, the award was given for Entergy's public
relations campaign to defend the plants "against efforts to
force its closure in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks." In other words, Big Energy's most immediate and most
threatening enemy in the brave, new world of color-coded alerts
was the supposed alliance of anti-nuke activists, soccer moms,
media naysayers and politicians.
With Indian Point, it's always been code green — the color of
money.
Yesterday, I called Laurence P. Gottlieb, the director of
communications for Entergy Nuclear Northeast in White Plains,
and asked him if the EEI award was official confirmation that
his side had "won." An accomplished spinmeister, Gottlieb danced
around the question for a while before finally saying, "To me,
the debate is over. The debate as it was originally framed is
over. It's in a new phase of evolution."
The old debate, according to Gottlieb, centered on the question
of whether to immediately close Indian Point.
"That's gone," he said.
Nevertheless, Gottlieb believes that the nuke plants will likely
remain a political football at election time.
But the new debate which has taken hold in recent months has to
do with what he called "macro" issues — the cost of alternative
forms of energy vs. nuclear power. The pro-nuke mantra is that
without Indian Point's 2,000 megawatts, the cost of energy in
the region would rise by $1 billion a year.
That's the gamble. In the end, it's always about money. It's
about odds, the laws of probability. And having trust in the
wisdom of Gottlieb's bosses.
I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a lot better now. Good
night, Pompeii.
Copyright 2005 The Journal News, a Gannett Co
*****************************************************************
25 AU ABC: Revolutionary nuclear plant still on the cards
Sci Tech News - from ABC News Online 01/02/2005
Revolutionary nuclear plant still on the cards
Tuesday, 1 February 2005 Japan says negotiations with the
European Union (EU) are continuing for the right to build a
revolutionary nuclear reactor project, after reports of a fresh
offer to settle an impasse over its location.
"We keep all communication channels open and running. Our talks
with the EU are continuing," said a science and technology
ministry official without elaborating further.
Japan and France are vying to build the International
Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which has been billed
as a test bed for a safe and inexhaustible energy source.
However, ITER talks among six parties on where to base the
multi-billion dollar project have been deadlocked.
The United States and South Korea support Japan's offer to build
ITER in Rokkasho-mura, a northern Japanese village near the
Pacific Ocean, while the EU, China and Russia back France's bid
for the project to be based in Cadarache, southern France.
On Monday, the business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun said
Japan had rejected a proposal from the EU which required Tokyo
to give up the project in return for the EU extending
preferential orders to Japanese companies working on ITER.
Previously, Japan had proposed to the EU that Japan would lodge
about 57 billion yen worth of orders with European companies.
Tokyo also said it would double the previously proposed quota of
full-time researchers in Japan from the EU to about 40 and foot
half the costs of the ITER research facilities that would be in
the EU, the newspaper said.
Japan's rejection came during an unofficial meeting in
mid-January and the two sides would meet again before the end of
March, the newspaper said.
-AFP
ABC News Online [http://www.abc.net.au/news]
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: NRC Schedules Regulatory Conference to Discuss Summer Nuclear Plant Concern
News Release - Region II - 2005-00
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region II
No. II-05-005 February 1, 2005
CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov
[opa2@nrc.gov]
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled a
regulatory conference with officials of South Carolina Electric
& Gas Company on February 17 in Atlanta to discuss the risk
significance of an inspection finding at the companys Summer
nuclear power plant, located near Jenkinsville, S.C.
NRC and SCE&G officials will discuss the significance of
concerns associated with the companys corrective actions for a
design control issue involving the emergency feedwater system, a
system used to provide additional cooling water during an
emergency. Specifically, the NRC inspection identified a
deficiency in the design of the emergency feedwater system flow
control valves, which could have resulted in a failure of the
system if debris clogged the valves.
This finding only affected the alternate source of water for the
system and did not impact normal operation. Other methods of
cooling the reactor were also not affected, and there is no
immediate safety concern because SCE&G instituted compensatory
measures including operator actions to install temporary hoses
to bypass the valves if they become clogged.
The NRC evaluates regulatory performance at commercial nuclear
power plants with a color- coded system which classifies
findings as either green, white, yellow or red, in increasing
order of safety significance. The NRCs preliminary evaluation
determined that the safety significance of this issue at Summer
is white, meaning that it is considered to be of low to moderate
safety significance.
The meeting is open to public observation and is scheduled for
1:00 p.m. in the NRCs Region II office, located on the 24th
floor of the Atlanta Federal Center at 61 Forsyth Street SW in
Atlanta.
No decisions on the final safety significance, any apparent
violation or any possible enforcement action will be made during
the conference. Those decisions will be made by NRC officials at
a later time.
Last revised Tuesday, February 01, 2005
*****************************************************************
27 columbia tribune: Atomic workers fight to abridge funding process
www.columbiatribune.com
Published Tuesday, February 1, 2005
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Marilyn Schneider worked for Mallinckrodt
Chemical Co. as a secretary for a year and a half in the 1950s,
when the business was producing materials for atomic weapons for
the U.S. government.
She got colon cancer in 1975. She got breast cancer in 2000.
And she got cancer of the soft tissue - called leiomyosarcoma -
in 2001.
Yesterday, she joined other former Mallinckrodt workers,
relatives of deceased workers and Sen. Kit Bond to urge the
federal government to speed up approval of payments to about
3,500 Cold War-era atomic workers.
Bond, R-Mo., is working with activist Denise Brock, whose
father was a former Mallinckrodt worker and died of lung cancer,
to try to eliminate the complex process of radiation dose
reconstruction needed to determine exposure levels before money
can be paid or denied.
"Time is running out. Justice has long been denied to these
former Mallinckrodt workers who helped to win the Cold War,"
Bond said at a news conference in downtown St. Louis.
He pointed to new evidence that not enough data exists to
properly do dose reconstructions for former Mallinckrodt workers.
Under legislation passed in 2000, the government has been
compensating former energy workers exposed to high levels of
radioactive materials at facilities across the country.
But, Brock said, "Thousands of people haven’t gotten anything."
While Brock’s family has already received a payment, she
remains committed to helping other Mallinckrodt families through
the process.
"My mom has been taken care of, but I’m continuing with this.
This is a disgrace," Brock said.
Brock filed a petition in July to ask the National Institute
for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, to grant
Mallinckrodt workers from two sites - one in St. Louis and one
in the suburb of Weldon Spring - a special status to expedite
compensation to assist workers or their families in paying
medical costs linked to factory-related illnesses.
An advisory board for the institute is expected to recommend a
decision relating to the downtown St. Louis site next week,
Brock and Bond said.
A spokesman for NIOSH, Fred Blosser, said the agency recognizes
some who made claims are frustrated and feel the process is too
long. He encouraged people to contact NIOSH if they have
questions about the status of their application.
"We have to go searching for any data we can use to make our
recommendation," he said. He said the Department of Labor has
referred 17,908 cases nationwide to the institute for dose
reconstruction since 2001. He said about 6,600 of those have
been completed and sent to the labor department.
Mallinckrodt is now a subsidiary of Mansfield, Mass.-based Tyco
Healthcare and is cooperating with the government and former
workers to verify their work history, said Tyco spokesman David
Young.
"Our company will continue to do everything possible to
cooperate to the fullest extent," he said.
Schneider believes she was exposed to radiation and other
carcinogens when Mallinckrodt was a government contractor and
worked in Weldon Spring. After eight tumor-related surgeries,
she applied for a $150,000 government payment last year. She
said the process to receive funds is too cumbersome and
time-consuming, especially when many are already sick or dead.
And payment isn’t guaranteed.
Plus, she noted, "Whatever dollar amount I get won’t guarantee
no more tumors, no more cancers and that I won’t die from it."
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
*****************************************************************
28 Bellona: Two nuclear-powered subs might join Russian Navy in 2005
In 2005, the Russian Navy will be supplied with two strategic
nuclear-powered submarines Yury Dolgoruky and Dmitry Donskoy
carrying on board the newest sea-based missiles systems
"Bulava", claims the First Deputy Defence Minister Alexander
Belousov.
2005-02-01 16:52
“Allegations that all our technology is outdated do not hold
water. The performance of our technology is not inferior to that
in any other industrialized country”, he said at a press
conference on January 31.
It is not clear how the submarines can get Bulava missiles as
they are scheduled for testing only in 2006. Yury Dolgoruky was
also expected to enter service in 2006. Dmitry Donskoy is under
repairs since 1989 and was expected to return to the base last
year, but due to the lack of Bulava missiles is still at the
shipyard.
Publisher: [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
[frederic@bellona.no]
Information: [info@bellona.no] , Technical contact:
[webmaster@bellona.no]
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
29 Great Falls Tribune: FALLOUT'S FALLOUT
- www.greatfallstribune.com
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
By RICHARD ECKE Tribune Staff Writer
Nancy Vorhees of Spokane grew up on a farm at Plevna in
southeastern Montana.
Five of six sisters in her family have problems with their
thyroid, a tiny gland in the throat.
Vorhees has nodules on her thyroid that doctors are watching;
two sisters had severe forms of thyroid cancer and were treated
for it.
Vorhees, who has a master's degree in nursing from Gonzaga
University, believes there is "some sort of a possibility" that
nuclear fallout from bombs exploded in Nevada in the 1950s and
early 1960s may have caused her family's problems.
"There's no other history (of thyroid cancer in the family) that
I'm aware of," she said.
About 100 Montanans are diagnosed with thyroid cancer each year.
Two of Vorhees' sisters were diagnosed in 1998 and 1999.
Vorhees is one of a small but increasingly vocal group of
present and former Montanans expressing concern about the Nevada
fallout, and urging more study of the problem.
In 1997, a federal study revealed Montana had some of the
highest concentrations of fallout. The highest levels in Montana
were found in these 15 counties: Meagher, Broadwater,
Beaverhead, Jefferson, Powell, Judith Basin, Madison, Fergus,
Gallatin, Petroleum, Lewis and Clark, Blaine, Silver Bow,
Chouteau and Deer Lodge counties. Fallon County, where Vorhees
grew up, had a slightly lesser level with 38 other Montana
counties.
One man who grew up in Lewistown, where high levels were
estimated, was Neal Johnson, who now spends most of his year
working in Saudi Arabia as a business and investment adviser for
a prominent Saudi family.
For years, the 47-year-old Johnson considered himself to be in
"excellent health."
But Johnson returns to the United States at least once a year,
in part to get an annual health checkup at the Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minn.
That's where he found out he had thyroid cancer.
"It was quite a surprise," Johnson said. "It was just by chance
that it was discovered."
The doctor placed his hand to Johnson's throat to check the
thyroid, a tiny gland that helps regulate the body's metabolism,
and noticed something abnormal.
"A couple days later I was in surgery," he said. That was Aug.
23.
Johnson's thyroid and 28 nearby lymph nodes were removed, and he
later received radioactive iodine to kill any remaining thyroid
tissue in his neck. For the rest of his life, Johnson will take
medicine to regulate his metabolism, since the thyroid is gone.
Johnson was startled by the news he had cancer. Fortunately,
thyroid cancer develops slowly, and is highly treatable if
caught early.
"I was very keen to know, why did this happen to me?" he said.
After doing some research, Johnson found Montana communities had
some of the highest levels of radiactive fallout found anywhere
in the region. The 1997 study estimated the greatest health
impact to be in Meagher County in Montana, although White
Sulphur Springs-area residents questioned whether the area had
high rates of thyroid cancer.
"Of the top 25 polluted counties, 15 are in Montana," Johnson
noted.
A flood of publicity in 1997 about the report in Montana and
elsewhere was followed by mostly silence. Children in the Rocky
Mountain West in the 1950s and early 1960s were especially
susceptible because they drank a lot of milk, and radiation
turns up in greater concentrations in cow's milk.
Johnson said his neighbor in Lewistown "grew up on a dairy farm
drinking milk," yet he had never heard of the thyroid scare.
Johnson expresses little bitterness about the federal government
showering its population with radioactive material during the
Cold War, when the country was trying to keep pace with the
Soviet Union, but said the move does not look wise in today's
light.
"I was amazed that we dropped 90 (bombs) on ourselves," he said.
Johnson would like to see more Montanans get their thyroid
glands checked. He said those who were irradiated by fallout
"should be having regular and frequent tests" to make sure they
don't have thyroid cancer, which can kill if left for too long.
"The cure rates are very high," he said.
Johnson believes people should at least be informed.
"The people in Lewistown, certainly people I know, do not know
about this problem in the 50s and 60s," he said.
Johnson was glad the Mayo doctor found his cancer.
"Eventually, it could have killed me," he said.
Sue Miller, cancer control supervisor for the state health
agency, noted the state is crafting a comprehensive cancer
control plan. She said the state agency cares about all cancers,
including highly curable ones like thyroid.
"That's what's really hard for people," she said. "Cancer is
such an emotional disease and it's very frightening."
Miller advised people to check with their health care provider
on whether to get their thyroid glands checked.
"Call their family physician," Vorhees suggested.
Ecke can be reached by e-mail at recke@greatfal.gannett.com
[recke@greatfal.gannett.com] , or by phone at (406) 791-1467 or
(800) 438-6600.
Originally published February 1, 2005
*****************************************************************
30 Guardian Unlimited: Payments Sought for Cold War-Era Workers
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday February 1, 2005 9:16 AM
AP Photo ST105
By BETSY TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer
ST. LOUIS (AP) - Marilyn Schneider worked as a secretary at
Mallinckrodt Chemical Co. in the 1950s, when the business was
producing materials for atomic weapons for the federal
government.
In 1975, she learned she had colon cancer. By 2001, she had
breast cancer and leiomyosarcoma, cancer of the soft tissue.
Schneider believes she was exposed to radiation and other
carcinogens while working for a year and a half at
Mallinckrodt's site in Weldon Spring. After eight tumor-related
surgeries, she has applied for $150,000 under a federal program
to compensate nuclear weapons workers.
On Monday, Schneider joined former Mallinckrodt workers and
others urging the government to speed up approval of payments to
about 3,500 Cold War-era atomic workers. She said the process to
receive funds is too cumbersome and time-consuming, especially
when many are already sick.
But, Schneider noted, ``Whatever dollar amount I get won't
guarantee no more tumors, no more cancers, and that I won't die
from it.''
Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, a Republican, also stressed the urgency
of the matter.
``Time is running out. Justice has long been denied to these
former Mallinckrodt workers who helped to win the Cold War,''
Bond said at a news conference Monday.
Under legislation passed in 2000, the government has been
compensating Cold War-era workers for job-related disabilities
and lost wages. Bond is working with activist Denise Brock,
whose father was a former Mallinckrodt worker who died of lung
cancer, to try to eliminate the complex process needed to
determine exposure levels before money can be paid or denied.
While Brock's family has already received a payment, she remains
committed to helping other Mallinckrodt families through the
process.
``Thousands of people haven't gotten anything,'' Brock said.
Mallinckrodt is now a subsidiary of Mansfield, Mass.-based Tyco
Healthcare and is cooperating with the government and former
workers to verify their work history.
``Our company will continue to do everything possible to
cooperate to the fullest extent,'' Tyco spokesman David Young
said.
Brock filed a petition in July asking the National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health to grant Mallinckrodt workers
from two sites - one in St. Louis and one in the suburb of
Weldon Spring - a special status to expedite compensation.
An advisory board for the institute is expected to recommend a
decision relating to the St. Louis site next week. Agency
spokesman Fred Blosser encouraged people to contact NIOSH if
they have questions about the status of their application.
``We have to go searching for any data we can use to make our
recommendation,'' he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
31 AU ABC: Sailing into ill health.
01/02/2005. ABC News Online
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
[http://www.abc.net.au/]
[Worried sick: Within six hours of the news breaking 24
veterans had called the Naval Tankermans' Association.]
By Matt Peacock for 7:30 Report Young Naval recruits are offered
a life of excitement and satisfaction serving their country.
But for some young men who joined up years ago, their time in the
Navy may now mean a life of sickness and uncertainty.
A file note on a Naval ex-serviceman's medical record reveals
that thousands of sailors have been exposed to potentially lethal
dust from the metal, beryllium.
"Sometimes I get wheezy and just can't breathe," veteran Kevin
French said.
"But until I've had the tests done, I won't really know."
Americans working on the world's first atomic bomb became the
first industrial victims of beryllium, which is a rare but
especially light, stable and strong metal whose toxic dust can
kill those who breathe it.
"Beryllium is one of the most remarkable metals that we know
about because in extremely small quantities it is capable of
causing an extremely disabling kind of lung disease, one that
might leave you tethered to an oxygen tank for the rest of your
life," the Health Research Group's Dr Peter Lurie said.
"In a large fraction of people, will lead ultimately to death."
The Royal Australian Navy used beryllium in needles on "jason
pistols" that are used to chip back paint.
Beryllium was employed where there was a fire risk and normal
metal needles might cause a spark.
"We didn't know anything about the beryllium," veteran Bob
Currin said.
"All we were told was that there was a special needle. That
needle was to be used in highly inflammable areas."
Mr Currin, who used to be the engineers' storeman on the HMAS
Supply, is now the president of the Naval Tankermens'
Association.
Like his fellow committee members, he is alarmed.
"They [jason pistols] were used very widely below decks, but
they were also used very widely above decks by the seamen who did
the ship's side and the superstructure of the ships," he said.
Medical records
It is only in the past two months that news of the beryllium
needles has emerged, apparently by mistake.
On former serviceman Peter Robertson's medical records is a
notation by his medical officer and the stamp "exposed to
beryllium dust through inadvertent use of beryllium copper jason
pistol needles on HMAS Supply, July to September 1980".
The alarm bells have begun to ring.
"When Peter went to see this doctor and that had on it "exposed
to beryllium", why wasn't he told then?" Mr Currin asked.
"Peter had no knowledge of this, and we're not talking last
year, we're talking 15 years ago, maybe even more than that, and
this has been kept quiet for all that time."If they'd known about
beryllium in 1980, why the heck didn't they do the testing? I
didn't pay off until 1983.
- Veteran Chris Bradshaw
Known danger
Beryllium's dangers have been known for decades. It was
beryllium that prompted the first US air quality standard for
workers back in 1949 - a standard that Dr Lurie has fought to
toughen.
"As long ago as 1977, the United States, which has not been
quick at all to act on this problem, proposed doing something
about beryllium, significantly reducing the amount of beryllium
to which workers could be exposed," Dr Lurie said.
Dr Lurie says it is hard to imagine that the Navy was still
using beryllium without any precautions into the 1980s.
"These dangers have been documented in study after study after
study," he said.
"They've appeared in American Government documents and in the
documents of other governments, and for some government to sit
around and fail to protect workers, particularly those dedicated
to protecting the security of their own country, is really
unacceptable."
Mr Currin says answers are needed.
"They knew that it was a dangerous heavy metal, and then they
turn around and issue these needles that are a beryllium base,"
Mr Currin said.
"You know, surely a light must have went off somewhere. What we
need to know is: who turned the light off? And we need those
people to answer why."
Investigation
No-one from the Navy was prepared to speak about the issue, but
a statement released last week acknowledges that jason pistol
needles containing beryllium have been used in the past.
The Navy says it is currently investigating the extent of their
use but warns that its records may not be comprehensive or
consistent.
It says it is currently unaware of any proven cases of
occupationally-caused beryllium disease.
The Navy says it is treating the beryllium concerns seriously,
but its statement raises more questions than it answers.
Just when, for example, did it discover the hazards of beryllium?
When did it stop using the beryllium needles?
How many people have a stamp on their medical file saying
"inadvertently exposed to beryllium", and why weren't they told?
The Navy's admission has prompted near panic amongst
ex-servicemen, who are only too well aware of the asbestos
tragedy.
Only a small percentage of those exposed will develop beryllium
poisoning but it seems likely that at least 3,000 ex-servicemen
are at risk, and possibly many more.
"In the first six hours of this story being released, we had
emails and telephone calls from over 24 members that have
diagnosed, confirmed lung scarring, unexplained lung scarring,"
Mr Currin said.
"I'm not saying that all of those are from beryllium... [but] it
could be."
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
32 Deseret News: Measure introduced to ban Class B, C waste
[deseretnews.com]
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
A measure that would ban the importation of nuclear waste of a
higher radioactivity than already allowed in Utah was introduced
in the Legislature on Monday.
SB166 is sponsored by Sen. Patrice M. Arent, D-Salt Lake,
and its cosponsors include senators of both parties.
If approved, the bill would prohibit "any entity in the
state from accepting class B or C low-level radioactive waste or
radioactive waste having a higher radionuclide concentration than
allowed under existing licenses."
It also would direct the Utah member of the northwest
compact on low-level radioactive waste "not to bring to the
compact committee for approval and to vote against any
arrangement with persons outside the compact area to access a
Utah facility for storage, treatment, incineration or disposal of
class B and class C low-level radioactive waste."
As of Monday, lawmakers signed up as co-sponsors were Sen.
Gregory Bell, R-Fruit Heights; Sen. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan; Sen.
David Thomas, R-South Weber; Sen. Allen Christensen, R-North
Ogden, Sen. Karen Hale, D-Salt Lake; Paula Julander, D-Salt Lake;
Sen. Gene Davis, D-Salt Lake; Sen. Fred Fife, D-Salt Lake; Sen.
Mike Dmitrich, D-Price; and Sen. Ed Mayne, D-West Valley.
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
33 Las Vegas SUN: Berkley bill would divert nuke funds
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., planned to tell
Congress today that money collected to pay for nuclear waste
storage at Yucca Mountain should be used to research ways to
keep the waste at nuclear power plants instead.
Berkley was to make her third attempt today to get Congress to
approve diverting money from the Nuclear Waste Fund to pay for
storing spent fuel at power plants longer instead of using the
fund for Yucca Mountain.
Nuclear power users pay a per-kilowatt-hour fee into the
Nuclear Waste Fund, an account specifically set aside to pay for
the proposed repository. The fund has accumulated about $16
billion in the past two decades.
Berkley's bill would put the money toward studying how to
decrease waste radiation levels, ways to increase the length of
time waste can be stored at nuclear power plants and how to
reduce transportation of spent fuel.
"The government shall not use any funds for research,
development, or implementation of a central high-level
radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel repository," the bill
text notes.
Berkley has introduced the bill twice before, but it did not go
anywhere. She has higher hopes this time around because of even
more expected delays on the repository.
"There are growing voices in the nuclear power industry that
support looking at alternatives to burying nuclear waste 90
minutes outside Las Vegas given the insurmountable obstacles
facing Yucca Mountain," Berkley said in a statement.
"With each passing day there are fewer and fewer justifications
for moving forward on efforts to bury nuclear waste in Nevada
when on-site storage is safe, affordable and already in use.
"Power plant operators are already investing millions of
dollars to store waste and to harden areas that will be used for
dry-cask storage," Berkley said in her issued statement. But
Mitch Singer of Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's
lead lobbying group, said the "Nuclear Waste Fund should be used
for its intended purpose which is to build Yucca Mountain. It's
pretty simple for us."
But Berkley uses her longstanding argument that the country's
nuclear waste will exceed the mountain's 77,000-ton statutory
limit and all the waste can not be moved to the mountain at once.
"The industry does not want to discuss the fact that as long as
nuclear power is being produced, some amount of nuclear waste
will always remain at the plants where it was generated,"
Berkley said.
*****************************************************************
34 Salt Lake Tribune: Breaking: Envirocare's new owners promise no
hotter waste
Article Last Updated: 02/01/2005 03:35:22 PM
By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune
Envirocare of Utah's new owners will relinquish their
regulatory permit to accept a type of waste thousands of times
more radioactive than what is allowed now, and will support a
law banning the waste, the company announced Tuesday.
During a morning meeting with The Salt Lake Tribune, the
company's chief executive, Salt Lake City businessman Steve
Creamer, said he committed to divesting the business of a permit
to accept so-called Class B and C waste during a meeting with
venture capitalist Fraser Bullock last summer.
"We are going to hand the governor a letter rescinding our
license for B and C (waste)," Creamer said.
The announcement capped months of speculation about
Envirocare's sale and whether the new owners would seek
radioactive waste hotter than the Class A waste they are now
allowed to accept.
Envirocare also has bought out Charles Judd, who served as
Envirocare's president during the time its owner, Khosrow
Semnani, was forbidden to do so as part of a plea deal in a
bribery case involving the former director of the state
Department of Environmental Quality.
Judd in December announced he would pursue B and C waste and
highly radioactive material from a Fernald, Ohio, Superfund site
at his proposed Cedar Mountain waste site on 500 acres
adjacent to Envirocare's west desert facility.
Creamer said his partnership bought out Judd to put the
issue of B and C waste to rest. He also said Envirocare would
not pursue the hotter Fernald waste, some of which like B and C
waste is significantly more radioactive than Class A waste.
Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has said he backs a ban on the hotter
material. Two radioactive waste bills are pending in the
Legislature -- one to ban anything hotter than A waste, the
other to be amended to accommodate Envirocare's decision to
relinquish its permit.
Creamer is backed by the New York investment firm Lindsay
Goldberg &Bessemer, the majority owner, and Salt Lake City-based
Peterson Partners, headed by Joel Peterson.
Creamer pledged he would run the business with more openness
than Semnani, who announced the sale in mid-December for an
undisclosed sum. Industry observers have guessed Envirocare sold
for at least $500 million.
Lance Hirt, a Lindsay Goldberg &Bessemer partner, told the
Tribune that his company's clients are large families with old
wealth who aren't interested in quick returns on their
investments. The firm, which has $2 billion in investments,
looks for stable businesses with long-term growth potential.
Hirt said that Creamer's track record with his partner Chip
Everest, as well as their confidence in Peterson's company,
contributed to their interest in Envirocare. Also crucial to the
alliance was Bullock, who helped Creamer make the connections he
needed to complete the sale.
Peterson, who with former Utah resident David Neeleman
invested in the discount airline Jet Blue, is also partners with
Rick Durham, an executive with the Huntsman Corp. and
brother-in-law to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.
Bullock said he acted as the go-between for the Envirocare
purchasers and the governor, telling Huntsman at the end of
November the sale was imminent.
Bullock will head a new Envirocare charity that he said would
be dedicated to enhancing Utah's environment.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
35 Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare: sale finalized
Article Last Updated: 02/01/2005 01:41:59 AM
Hot question: The deal's details remain undisclosed, but the
issue of more radioactive waste already is in spotlight
By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune
Envirocare of Utah officially changed hands Wednesday, as Salt
Lake City businessman Steve Creamer and a New York investment
firm finalized their December purchase of the radioactive waste
disposal company.
Details of the sale - including what the company plans to do
with its regulatory permit to accept waste thousands of times
more radioactive than the so-called Class A waste it now takes
at its west desert facility - were expected today.
The sale price wasn't disclosed, and may never be. Industry
observers have guessed Creamer and Lindsay Goldberg &Bessemer, a
firm started by former Morgan Stanley investment bankers, paid
more than a half-billion dollars for the facility 80 miles west
of Salt Lake City.
As the sale closed, legislation that would prevent Envirocare
from accepting Class B and C radioactive waste coincidentally
emerged in the state Senate.
Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Murray, and six allies are backing
Senate Bill 166, a bipartisan measure that seeks to ban the
hotter waste and prohibit a company or person from even applying
to accept the material. Its co-sponsors are Republican Sens.
Lyle Hillyard of Logan, Dave Thomas of South Weber, Greg Bell of
Fruit Heights and Allen Christensen of North Ogden. Fellow
Democratic Sens. Paula Julander and Karen Hale, both of Salt
Lake City, also signed on to Arent's bill.
The proposal was assigned to the Senate Revenue and
Taxation Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Curtis Bramble,
R-Provo, is sponsoring Senate Bill 24, a competing proposal
which originated with a task force that met for two years to
examine hazardous and radioactive waste disposal.
Bramble last week put a hold on his bill, saying he would
make "major modifications" to it if Envirocare's new owners
relinquished their B and C waste permit, as sources on and off
Capitol Hill have predicted.
"I anticipate there will be some other announcements'' today,
Bramble said. "The whole issue of a statutory ban [on B and C
waste] is relevant to whether that permit is still pending."
Envirocare now may accept only Class A waste, which mostly
consists of radioactive dirt. In 2001 state regulators approved
the company's technical plan for accepting B and C waste.
However, state law requires the consent of the governor and
the Legislature to allow the hotter waste into Utah. The company
has not requested that approval.
Amendments to SB24 would be bipartisan with a "significant
number of co-sponsors" and would be rolled out as early as
Wednesday, Bramble said.
As chairman of the Revenue and Taxation Committee, Bramble
has ultimate say on whether Arent's bill ever will be heard. He
said any frustration she may feel about that was unwarranted, as
the committee is where every radioactive waste bill has been
heard.
But Arent, also a member of the hazardous and radioactive
waste task force, noted the panel's findings were first heard
before the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
Interim Committee.
"I view this as a health issue and would have liked to have
seen it go to the Health [and Human Services] Committee," she
said.
Envirocare critic and activist Claire Geddes said the new
owners' apparent ability to influence public policy is
worrisome.
While Envirocare's former owner, Khosrow Semnani, was
skillful in working with politicians, Bramble's willingness to
tailor his bill to the new owners ''speaks volumes,'' she said.
''From what I can see so far, it looks to me like this group
might have increased political clout.''
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
36 ITAR-TASS: Iran ready to sign doc on return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia
01.02.2005, 11.40
MOSCOW, February 1 (Itar-Tass) -- Iran is ready to sign a
document on return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia, Iranian
ambassador to Russia Gholamreza Shafei said on Tuesday. According
to him, “head of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency Alexander
Rumyantsev will visit Iran late in February for the talks on this
issue.” The ambassador noted that “Tehran is also ready to sign a
commercial document on this issue.”
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
store in any medium (including in any other website),
distribute, transmit, re-transmit, broadcast, modify or show in
public any part of the ITAR-TASS website without the prior
written permission of ITAR-TAS.
Contacts
*****************************************************************
37 American Online: Waste Control hearing set for today
OA Online News
[http://www.oaoa.com]
Tuesday, 01 February 2005
c /o Odessa American 222 E. 4th Street P.O. Box 2952 Odessa, TX
79760
Company wants to amend license and accept uranium enrichment
waste
Odessa American
The Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a
hearing at 1 p.m. today in Austin on Waste Control Specialists’
application to amend its license to take radioactive waste from
the former U.S. Department of Energy uranium enrichment plant in
Fernald, Ohio.
Mike Sizemore, press secretary for Natural Resources Committee
chairman Sen. Ken Armbrister, said the hearing is being conducted
to see if Waste Control’s request jibes with legislation enabling
the company to take hazardous waste.
The type of waste that would come from Fernald is not part of the
original agreement reached in the Legislature during the last
session, Sizemore said.
Waste Control currently stores low-level radioactive waste but
wants a permit to dispose of it as well.
It also wants to amend its permit to take in the Fernald waste.
Testifying at the hearing will be George Dials, president and
chief operating officer of Waste Control Specialists and attorney
Michael Woodward. Andrews Mayor Robert Zap and Russell Shannon,
vice president of the Andrews Industrial Foundation are also on
the panel.
Also on the agenda as witnesses are: Robert F. Wather, manager of
the U.S. Department of Energy Field Office; Dennis Carr, director
of the Silos Project; Susan Jablonski, from the Texas Commission
on Environmental Quality; Richard Ratliff, Texas Department of
State Health Services; and Hayden Childs of the Legislative
Budget Board.
*****************************************************************
38 AU ABC: ERA hoping to extend Ranger life.
01/02/2005. ABC News Online
"Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online">
[http://www.abc.net.au/]
Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) is hoping to extend the life
of its Ranger uranium mine after making a record profit and
discovering additional reserves over the last year.
ERA doubled its after-tax profit in 2004 to $34 million.
Uranium oxide reserves at the mine also increased by 6,000
tonnes over the year to 44,000 tonnes.
In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange yesterday, ERA
said it did not expect an increase in the life of the mine.
Mining at Ranger, in the Northern Territory's Kakadu National
Park, is scheduled to end in 2008, with production continuing
until 2011.
But ERA chief executive Harry Kenyon-Slaney says further
exploration work is under way to see how much extra material
might be available.
"We are looking to try and identify any additional reserves in
the current Ranger pit over the next year or so with a view to
trying to extend and maximise the benefits to everybody from
this fabulous resource," he said.
© 2005 Australian Broadcasting Corporation
*****************************************************************
39 Casper Star-Tribune: New Envirocare owners ask state to rescind license for hotter waste
Home [http://www.casperstartribune.net/] > News
By JENNIFER DOBNER
Associated Press Writer
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The new owners of Envirocare of Utah on
Tuesday asked the state to rescind its conditional license to
accept and dispose of hotter nuclear waste - capping a sharp
turnaround in the battle over the handling of radioactive
material in Utah.
Envirocare of Utah officially changed hands late Monday night,
as Salt Lake City businessman Steve Creamer and a New York
investment firm finalized their December purchase of the
radioactive waste disposal facility 75 miles west of Salt Lake
City. No financial terms of the deal were announced.
At a news conference, Creamer was joined by other Envirocare
officials and Gov. Jon Huntsman in announcing terms of the sale,
and gave Huntsman a letter asking the state to pull back the
permit.
The company also announced it has purchased Cedar Mountain
another west desert waste facility and will endow an
environmental foundation with $1 million.
Envirocare currently is licensed to accept Class A waste, or
the least dangerous kind at its facility. But the company also
holds the conditional permit to accept B and C waste.
Before Tuesday, the company's former owners had said they had
no plans to use that permit but also had no plans to abandon it.
Creamer was silent on the new owners' plans until Tuesday.
Class B and C waste is considered hundreds to thousands of
times more radioactive than class A waste, which is mostly
tainted soil.
Despite the potential for significant profits from handling B
and C waste, Envirocare's new owners said it was always their
intention to abandon the company's permit.
''It was never a part of our business plan,'' said Creamer,
Envirocare's new chief executive. ''The A waste business is a
good business.''
Creamer also said the decision was, in part, a personal one. He
spent part of his childhood in the southern Utah town of Monroe,
where he remembers seeing a mushroom cloud at night during the
nuclear testing of the 1950s.
''There's not too many people who remember the green clouds of
the 1950s, but I do,'' he said. ''My father actually died at my
same age because of cancer, as we were downwinders.''
Jason Groenewold, director of the Healthy Environment Alliance
of Utah, doubted Creamer's commitment. He said Creamer once
pushed for Utah to develop a high-level nuclear waste dump near
Canyonlands National Park in San Juan County.
''His actions have contradicted that,'' said Groenewold, who
has spent four years working to get a ban of B and C waste into
state law. ''Today's announcement won't mean a thing if
(lawmakers) don't put anything in statute. We're cautiously
optimistic, yet we realize there is still an intense legislative
session that we have to get through.''
Immediately after Creamer's news conference, Sen. Curtis
Bramble, R-Provo, replaced a bill that was awaiting Senate
approval with one that would ban waste companies from seeking a
permit to handle classes B and C wastes.
Creamer said Envirocare supports the bill and will work with
lawmakers and the governor to see that it becomes law. It's up
for a final vote by the Senate on Wednesday.
Huntsman has repeatedly said he would resist any effort to
allow the hotter waste into the state and he vowed to back
legislation that would keep it out.
''This is an important day for Utah,'' Huntsman said. ''This is
good thing for the state of Utah, it's good for our people, it's
good for our image and it's the right thing to do.''
In addition to the ban, Bramble's bill would also prevent the
state's representative on the Northwest Compact Committee to
consider any proposal that would bring waste to Utah for
storage, incineration, or disposal and to vote against any such
proposals.
Beginning in 2006, the bill would also expand the oversight
responsibilities of the state's Solid Hazardous Waste Control
Board, and those of the Radiation Control Board.
It also clarifies that fees associated with waste disposal are
the responsibility of the facility operator and changes the
calculation for determining those fees.
Twenty-one Senate co-sponsors have signed on to the bill,
including four Democrats. Not included in that list is Sen.
Patrice Arent, D-Murray, who served on an interim task force
studying the nuclear waste issue and whose own bill would impose
the same ban Bramble is seeking.
---
On the Net:
Envirocare: http://www.envirocareutah.com/
[http://www.envirocareutah.com/]
AP-WS-02-01-05 1944EST
*****************************************************************
40 Albuquerque Tribune: Editorial: We must reject caps on fines for polluters
February 1, 2005
Absolutely not.
That's what we think of a New Mexico legislator's proposal to
cap the state Environment Department's ability to fine polluters
- including one of the state's biggest and often most negligent
polluters, the U.S. Department of Energy.
Legislators and Gov. Bill Richardson should stop this unwise
bill dead in its tracks.
Sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Stuart Ingle, a Portales
Republican, the bill would limit civil penalties to $250,000 for
violations of the state's environmental statutes. Not only that,
but he wants to limit the department's ability to levy fines to
only violations that occurred in the past two years.
That must be a joke. You can bet everyone from Sandia and Los
Alamos national laboratories to DOE headquarters in Washington,
D.C., is rolling on the floor laughing.
But it's not a laughing matter to New Mexicans who treasure this
magnificent and fragile land.
Yet, New Mexico's senior U.S. senator, Pete Domenici, an
Albuquerque Republican, thinks the cap on fines is a great idea
because some of the state's levies against DOE facilities - like
the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, near Carlsbad - "put further
pressure on funding DOE accounts."
Whatever happened to "character counts" and holding those who
break the law accountable?
In mistakenly describing the state Environment Department's
approach to fines as "cavalier," Domenici also notes that
ultimately "these fines are paid by the American taxpayers."
We suggest Domenici rethink the problem - and who needs to be
held accountable to both New Mexico and American taxpayers.
Domenici, Ingle and DOE should join all of us here in the 21st
century - decades after Americans decided emphatically that
polluters should pay, and in many cases pay big, even if their
environmental damage was decades-old. The reasoning - expressed
no less than in federal anti-pollution legislation - is that it
is necessary to fine polluters as a deterrent to future
transgressions against our land, water and air resources.
Now, deterrent is a word DOE and its nuclear weapons
laboratories should understand. But too frequently state
environmental regulators have found even big fines seem to roll
off the backs of these facilities and those who manage them.
Maybe that's because the federal taxpayers have been saddled
with paying whatever the bill is, whatever the liability is,
while the facilities and those who manage them under contract
continue business as usual. That policy invites environmental
disdain - and disaster.
Has Domenici lost sight of whom his constituents are? Why is he
also applauding the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's recent
announcement to allow destructive gas and oil drilling in New
Mexico's sensitive Otero Mesa? That decision flouts extensive
state environmental and ecological concerns, as well as an
alternative plan offered by Richardson but virtually ignored by
BLM.
Domenici shouldn't blame the state for doing what's necessary to
protect New Mexico's precious, limited and beautiful natural
resources. We suggest his time would be better spent addressing
with federal legislation the Department of Energy's inability to
live within the letter of environmental law. Strong words and
legislation from one of DOE's biggest supporters might do more
good than all the fines in the world.
Everyone knows our natural resources shouldn't be abused. And
yet, clearly, they have been - for decades by these facilities
and their agents. Indeed, if anyone seems to have a "cavalier
attitude," it's DOE.
It must stop. And large fines are one way of getting the
attention of these big federal agencies, not to mention those in
Congress - like Domenici - who are supposed to be responsible
for their oversight.
When state regulators find significant environmental violations,
they need plenty of punitive fine flexibility to make the point
that no one - not DOE, not the federal government, not any
federal agency acting on behalf of the American taxpayer - is
above the law.
If the multimillion-dollar fines have not changed DOE behavior,
what do you think capping those fines at a mere $250,000 will
do? That would make it open season on the New Mexico's
environment.
Absolutely not.
*****************************************************************
41 NRC: NRC Issues Confirmatory Order to USEC on Employee Protection
Training at Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky News Release -
Region II - 2005-00 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region II
No. II-05-004 February 1, 2005
CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416
Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: [opa2@nrc.gov]
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has issued a Confirmatory
Order to the United States Enrichment Corporation to confirm
commitments from the company to ensure that training related to
employee protection at its Paducah, Ky, gaseous diffusion
uranium enrichment plant will be adequately addressed.
In December of 2002, the NRC initiated an investigation to
determine whether a manager at USECs Paducah facility was
discriminated against by being suspended and later terminated
for raising safety concerns. The investigation was expanded in
May of 2003 to determine whether the same manager was
discriminated against, in retaliation for the previously raised
safety concerns, by not being considered for a position with a
contractor performing work for USEC at Paducah. The NRC did not
substantiate that the manager was suspended or terminated
because of raising safety concerns but expressed concern that
discrimination may have occurred due to the managers not being
later considered for a contract position.
In September of 2003, the NRC notified USEC of its concern and
offered the company a choice of either attending a predecisional
NRC enforcement conference or requesting alternative dispute
resolution before a neutral mediator in order to reach agreement
on resolving the concern. The company chose the dispute
resolution alternative. The NRC and USEC agreed that the NRC
would issue a Confirmatory Order under which company actions
will focus on safety conscious work environment training for
managers of USEC contractors at Paducah and USEC managers who
are principal points of contact for contractors at the plant.
The NRC believes that its concerns can be resolved through
effective implementation of USECs commitments.
A copy of a January 27 letter and its enclosures, from the NRC
to USEC, will be available on the NRC Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. The Adams Accession
Number is ML050270260.
Last revised Tuesday, February 01, 2005
*****************************************************************
42 Secrecy News -- 02/01/05
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 12:45:29 -0500
SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2005, Issue No. 11
February 1, 2005
** DOE DENIES RELEASE OF HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM STUDY
** NEW OFFICIAL RESOURCES ON SECURITY POLICY, OVERSIGHT
** STILL MORE FROM CRS
DOE DENIES RELEASE OF HIGHLY ENRICHED URANIUM STUDY
In a radical shift in information disclosure and nuclear
nonproliferation policies, the Department of Energy last week
formally denied release of a history of highly enriched uranium
(HEU) production that it had promised to publish nearly a decade
ago.
DOE said that the study was exempt from disclosure under the
Freedom of Information Act because it is an "internal" document
that is also "pre-decisional."
"The responsive document is internal because it does not purport
to regulate activities among members of the public," wrote DOE
security officer Marshall O. Combs.
This is a bizarre redefinition of the FOIA exemption for
"internal" agency records that would probably exempt the
majority of government records from public disclosure, including
most historical records, since they do not specifically regulate
public activities. The new DOE definition would turn the FOIA
into the Freedom From Information Act.
As evidence that the document is pre-decisional and deliberative
in nature, Mr. Combs notes that the cover page states that it
"Contains Deliberative Process Information."
Legally, this is flimsy stuff. The study was written for
publication and it is unclassified, as confirmed in a DOE
classification review. That means it "could not reasonably be
expected to cause damage to the national security." In
particular, the HEU study does not meet the standard for
classification of "vulnerabilities... of systems, installations,
infrastructures, ... relating to the national security."
(Executive Order 13292, section 1.4g).
Mr. Combs cannot gainsay the fact that the study has been
reviewed and declassified. Inexplicably, however, he still
insists that "disclosure of the information would permit
terrorists to assess the nation's vulnerability and target
locations to damage the nation's critical infrastructure." And
while he cannot claim that disclosure would "damage national
security" (which would make it properly classified), he offers
the legally meaningless claim that it would be "harmful to the
nation's security."
As a whole, the DOE denial letter is a monument to the Ashcroft
FOIA policy, cited by Combs, which encourages agencies to
confabulate legal arguments against disclosure. The denial will
be appealed. See a copy of the January 24 denial letter here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2005/01/doe012405.pdf
In 1997, DOE made a "commitment" to publish the study that it has
just refused to release. It was an era, rapidly receding, in
which DOE officials valued public accountability, and sought to
lead by example in promoting transparency and nuclear
nonproliferation.
"This report will describe the history of Government production,
acquisition, use, disposition, and inventories of highly
enriched uranium," DOE stated back then. "This report will
provide assistance to worldwide nonproliferation efforts by
revealing where United States highly enriched uranium resides in
the United States as well as in other nations. It will also
assist regulators in environmental, health, and safety matters
at domestic sites where this material is stored or buried." See
this 1997 fact sheet:
http://www.osti.gov/html/osti/opennet/document/jan97/prcfacts.html#I11
A companion report on the history of plutonium production was
previously published by DOE, and it gives the lie to Mr. Combs'
contrived arguments for withholding of the HEU study.
That report, entitled "Plutonium: The First 50 Years," was posted
for several years on the DOE web site. It is gone now, but a
copy can still be found here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/doe/pu50y.html
NEW OFFICIAL RESOURCES ON SECURITY POLICY, OVERSIGHT
The rules of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were
republished in the Congressional Record yesterday, as slightly
modified last year. A copy is posted here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_cr/sscirules.html
The Defense Security Service last month published Industrial
Security Letter ISL 05L-1, including updates on some of the
dizzyingly detailed security rules that contractors handling
classified information must comply with. See:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/library/nispom/isl05l-1.pdf
Oversight of highly classified special access programs (SAPs) in
the Department of Defense is the subject of a briefing presented
last week to the Defense Science Board. It is the provocative
contention of William Arkin's new book Code Names that the rules
governing DoD SAP oversight are effectively circumvented by
means of SAP-like "Alternative or Compensatory Control
Measures" (ACCMs). At any rate, this January 27 briefing
describes how the SAP oversight process is supposed to work.
(Thanks to IWP Newsstand, defense.iwpnewsstand.com):
http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/sapoversight.pdf
STILL MORE FROM CRS
The tiresome Congressional Research Service does not permit
direct public access to its products. The following new or
newly updated CRS reports were obtained by Secrecy News.
"Military Aviation: Issues and Options for Combating Terrorism
and Counterinsurgency," January 24, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32737.pdf
"Arms Control and Nonproliferation Activities: A Catalog of
Recent Events," updated January 7, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/crs/RL30033.pdf
"Information Sharing for Homeland Security: A Brief Overview,"
updated January 10, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RL32597.pdf
"Terrorist Attacks and National Emergencies Act Declarations,"
updated January 7, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21017.pdf
"Continuity of Government: Current Federal Arrangements and the
Future," updated January 7, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RS21089.pdf
"Martial Law and National Emergency," updated January 7, 2005:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/RS21024.pdf
_______________________________________________
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
Federation of American Scientists.
To SUBSCRIBE to Secrecy News, send email to
secrecy_news-request@lists.fas.org
with "subscribe" in the body of the message.
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web: www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email: saftergood@fas.org
voice: (202) 454-4691
*****************************************************************
43 [NukeNet] More on Plutonium Shut Down at Livermore Lab
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 20:04:53 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Safety concerns halt plutonium work
Tue, Feb. 01, 2005
By Betsy Mason
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Potential safety problems prompted a stop of work with
plutonium at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory after a
federal nuclear agency found taped-up cracks in the
ventilation system and "hot boxes" without adequate
seismic restraints.
Bruce Goodwin, the lab's head of defense and nuclear
technology, said the stoppage is not due to existing
or imminent safety breaches but to give lab experts a
chance to develop a plan to update the plutonium
facility's physical management plan.
All employees at the lab's plutonium facility are
still reporting for work, but the stop of hands-on
work with plutonium is expected to last several weeks.
"We are not unsafe today, but we need to be in a place
where we can project safety into the indefinite
future," said Goodwin.
In October, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety
Board found problems with the ventilation system and
glove boxes used to handle plutonium without exposure
during a routine visit to the plutonium facility,
known as "Superblock." The independent board reports
to the president and energy secretary on health and
safety issues at nuclear facilities.
In November, the board wrote to Secretary of Energy
Spencer Abraham expressing concern about the lack of
an adequate "configuration management program" to
oversee the 16 safety systems designed to protect the
public and workers from exposure to plutonium. The
letter gave the Energy Department 60 days to report
back.
On Jan. 4, the DOE's National Nuclear Safety
Administration issued a report concluding the
configuration management program for Superblock is
inadequate, ineffective and its application to "the
vital safety systems is also not complete and
vulnerabilities exist."
The DOE previously did a broader audit of the facility
that uncovered similar issues.
"We do not feel that the facility was ever in danger
of being unsafe," said John Belluardo, a spokesman for
the National Nuclear Safety Administration. "However,
we are concerned that processes and procedures are not
current."
Goodwin said hands-on work with plutonium was halted
to give engineers, supervisors and technical experts
who normally oversee the work a chance to design a
plan to revamp Superblock maintenance and security
procedures. The actual work will take several years.
"We've been wanting to do this for a long time but
didn't have the resources," said Goodwin. He hopes the
attention the problem is getting from several federal
agencies will change that.
The problem with the taped ducts has been fixed, said
Goodwin, and the facility already has an extensive
program to replace aging ducts. The problem is in the
way these and other safety issues are recorded and
kept track of.
"It's not enough to be safe. You have to write down
that you are safe so there is a recorded history," he
said.
Marylia Kelley, head of the local nuclear watchdog
group Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive
Environment, said these problems "might be just the
tip of the iceberg because Livermore Lab literally
doesn't have a handle on its safety systems."
This stand-down is not the first for Superblock. In
1995, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board
found safety problems that prompted a voluntary
six-month shutdown. In 1997, lab workers reported
safety violations involving too much plutonium in
individual glove boxes. In 2003, an electrical outage
caused plutonium to leak out of a glove box and expose
a dozen workers.
Safety is a good reason to reduce the amount of
plutonium there, Kelley said.
Goodwin says he would also like to see the amount of
plutonium reduced. "We have way more material than we
need. We'd love to get it off the site, but we have to
find a safe repository for it," he said.
A 10-year environmental plan for the lab, proposed
last year, would allow the amount of plutonium stored
at the lab to be doubled, allowing up to 3,300 pounds
at any one time.
In May, Secretary Abraham cited security concerns and
called for a study of possible relocation of some
nuclear materials at the lab. That report has not been
released.
Kelley said she will follow up on the report with new
Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.
***
Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs
(Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA USA 94551
- is our web site address. Please visit us
there!
(925) 443-7148 - is our phone
(925) 443-0177 - is our fax
_______________________________________________________________________
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44 Las Vegas RJ: Senate confirms energy secretary
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Bodman has vowed to press development of Yucca repository
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Samuel Bodman Won confirmation Monday to head Department of
Energy
WASHINGTON -- Samuel Bodman, a Boston businessman and top-level
federal manager, won confirmation on Monday to head the
Department of Energy.
He was confirmed without debate and by unanimous agreement.
Bodman, 66, takes over a department with a $24 billion budget
and 114,300 federal and contract employees, including roughly
5,000 in Nevada who work on the Yucca Mountain Project and the
Nevada Test Site.
The department also sponsors research into renewable energy
technologies including geothermal, wind and solar sources that
firms are interested in developing in Nevada.
At his Jan. 19 Senate confirmation hearing, Bodman said he
would continue pursuing development of a nuclear waste
repository at Yucca Mountain, an effort opposed by most of the
state's elected leaders.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday he expects Bodman to
follow Bush administration policy in favor of Yucca Mountain,
but said the new secretary promised in a telephone conversation
in December to "take a fresh look at alternatives" to spent
nuclear fuel burial in Nevada.
The secretary has broad responsibility to safeguard the
nation's nuclear weapons, balance energy supply and demand and
encourage energy efficiency.
Among recent initiatives, the Bush administration has sought to
rebuild readiness programs at the test site in the event that
new nuclear testing might be required. U.S. nuclear weapons
testing was placed under a moratorium following the last test in
September 1992.
In written responses last week to questions posed by Sen.
Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bodman said that to deter other
nations, it was important for the United States to maintain the
ability to develop nuclear weapons even though the Bush
administration has no plan to build new bombs.
"We must be assured that the nuclear weapons complex has the
tools to meet present and future challenges to our national
security," Bodman wrote.
Bodman had been confirmed twice before to high-ranking jobs in
the Bush administration, a factor in him winning confirmation
Monday without any expressed objections.
He was deputy secretary at the Treasury Department, the No. 2
leader and the department's day-to-day manager for the past
year. He joined the Bush administration in 2001 as deputy
secretary at the Commerce Department.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
45 ABQjournal: Sentencing Delayed For Lab Workers
the Albuquerque Journal newspaper.
Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Albuquerque Journal--> By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer
Two men who pleaded guilty in October in the 2002
purchasing scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory will have
to wait nearly another month to learn their fate before U.S.
District Court Judge James A. Parker.
Sentencing for Peter Bussolini, 66, and Scott Alexander,
42, had been scheduled for Monday but now has been postponed
until Feb. 24, the second time sentencing for both men has been
put off.
In the meantime, lawyers and prosecutors in the case are
wrangling over a change in federal sentencing guidelines
following a Jan. 12 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gives judges
more leeway in doling out punishment. The decision means judges
can consider sentencing guidelines advisory and can tailor
sentences in light of other factors.
The two former Los Alamos National Laboratory employees
made national headlines in 2002 for using their positions and
purchasing authority to illegally buy more than $300,000 worth
of hunting gear, outdoor equipment, clothes and construction
tools from around January 2001 until October 2002.
The men pleaded guilty to mail fraud and conspiracy to
commit a felony in October 2004. In exchange for the plea,
prosecutors agreed to drop 26 other charges against each. The
two face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000
fine and restitution on the mail fraud charge.
Prosecutors in the case are recommending the two be
sentenced at the lowest end of the sentencing guideline range—
which judges can now stray from— or between 12 to 18 months of
jail time. They also argue that as part of his plea agreement,
Bussolini waived his right to "any further constitutional
challenges he may have to the validity of the sentencing
guidelines" in a deal anticipating the top court's decision.
Nonetheless, Bussolini's lawyer is arguing the longtime
LANL employee deserves a lenient sentence, such as probation,
restitution and community service, rather than a jail sentence,
given Bussolini's years of service to the laboratory, his
history of community service, his wife's diabetic condition and
because he "is truly remorseful for his conduct."
"The Defendant is not a continuing risk to the community,
and incarceration is not necessary to protect the public,"
attorney Douglas E. Couleur wrote in a memo submitted to the
court Jan. 26.
In support of Bussolini's character, Couleur presented
several letters from community members on behalf of Bussolini,
extolling his contributions to the Los Alamos community and the
laboratory.
"Pete was considered a leader in his field and has been
well respected by his peers," wrote LANL employee Marjorie A.
Gavett.
"I believe that the community has been stunned by the
recent events related to Pete's involvement with inappropriate
LANL procurements. The behavior does not line up with the
integrity that Pete displayed over the years."
Couleur proposed that probation could be considered a
reasonable sentence so Bussolini can remain at home and provide
care for his diabetic wife.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Federici suggested in his
response that none of those arguments has any standing and
Bussolini's sentencing shouldn't be influenced by these factors.
"There are no valid grounds for departing from the
Guidelines in Defendant Bussolini's case," Federici wrote,
adding that "few if any of these individuals (supporting
Bussolini) seem to have any knowledge about the real extent of"
Bussolini's crimes.
He noted that those who knew of Bussolini's dubious
activities described him in a "very negative light." Federici
quoted one unnamed source questioned by lawyers during formal
pre-trial proceedings who said Bussolini oversaw "an extremely
hostile work environment and was responsible for 'rampant waste,
fraud and abuse.' ''
Federici wrote that Bussolini and Alexander "were both once
very handsomely paid employees. ... Yet these two men now stand
before this Court to be sentenced for felony crimes because, by
steadily stealing and stockpiling mounds of public property for
their own private gain over the course of more than a year and a
half," they breached their duties as LANL employees.
Copyright Albuquerque Journal
*****************************************************************
46 Tri-City Herald: Hanford project continues
This story was published Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The Hanford Community Health Project has launched what may be
its final campaign to answer questions about health problems
that may be related to living near Hanford.
Doctors throughout the Northwest have received information in
the mail to help them answer patient questions, and a Web site
with health information has been revamped.
Concerns about health problems that may be linked to Hanford
emissions have increased recently, said Greg Thomas the
technical project officer for the Hanford Community Health
Project.
That's in part because of news coverage of emissions from the
nuclear reservation during World War II and the Cold War as a
group of plaintiffs in a suit filed in 1991 are preparing to go
to trial in April.
Plaintiffs believe they developed thyroid disease or thyroid
cancer from radioactive iodine released from Hanford that
drifted with the wind. Hanford produced plutonium for the
nation's nuclear weapons program for 50 years.
The renewed attention to health problems comes as the Agency for
Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, part of the Centers for
Disease Control, is preparing to spend the last of $1.5 million
provided by the Department of Energy in 1999.
The money has been used for the Hanford Community Health
Project, an education and outreach effort that is expected to
conclude in September. It's primarily focused on diseases caused
by radioactive iodine, which concentrates in the thyroid.
Most at risk are people who lived in Adams, Benton or Franklin
counties as young children when most of the releases occurred
from 1945-51. They would be between the ages of 54 and 65 now.
People concerned that their health could have been affected can
learn more at the revamped Web site, www.hanfordhealth. info.
The site includes a brief quiz to determine individual risk, a
sign-up for a mailing list, and information about radiation
health effects. People also may sign up for the mailing list by
calling 1-800-207-3996 and leaving information.
In the next few weeks more information is expected to be posted
on the Web site, including a video with the CDC adviser for the
Hanford Thyroid Disease Study explaining the study. The study,
which cost $22 million, found no association between radioactive
iodine releases from Hanford and thyroid disease. The video will
discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the study, Thomas said.
Results from the study, which were issued in a draft report in
1999 and a final report in 2002, were published in JAMA, the
Journal of the American Medical Association last month.
The health project also has sent brochures to more than 26,000
doctors in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Northern California
this month. As it launches its public awareness campaign, it
wants doctors to be prepared to respond to patients with
concerns.
"Although studies to date have not shown a demonstrable increase
in thyroid disease in persons downwind from Hanford, many
individuals remain concerned and wish to be evaluated for
possible thyroid injury," the brochure says.
It recommends assessing the potential risk for radiation
exposure in patients who are concerned, based on where they
lived, age at exposure and where they got their milk, since cows
grazing on contaminated grass produced tainted milk.
Patients born after 1951 have no exposure risk and people
exposed when they were older than 40 have a greatly reduced
risk, according to the brochure.
Doctors also should feel the thyroid gland and do a blood test
to see if the thyroid is functioning normally in concerned
patients, according to the brochure. It gives extensive
information also for evaluating abnormal results.
The brochure has been endorsed by leading medical groups dealing
with thyroid disease, including the American Thyroid
Association, the American Association of Clinical
Endocrinologists and the American College of Preventive
Medicine.
n Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail
at acary@tri-cityherald.com.
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
47 Portsmouth Herald: Nuclear weapons to be speaker’s topic tonight
Tue. February 1, 2005
PORTSMOUTH - Dr. Joseph Gerson, a world-renowned author and
activist on issues including nuclear weapons and
nonproliferation, will speak about "U.S. Policy and the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty" in Portsmouth at 7 p.m. today at South
Unitarian Universalist Church, 292 State St.
His visit comes at a pivotal time. The topic has been the focus
of current government officials recently.
Dick Cheney recently said that Iran was at the top of the
administration’s list of world trouble spots and suggested that
Israe* might well decide to act first," obviously as an agent of
the Bush administration, to eliminate any nuclear threat from
Tehran.
Gerson stated that "the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture
Review reiterated the first-strike nuclear war-fighting doctrine
and called for the development and deployment of a new
generation of usable first-strike nuclear weapons. Resumption of
nuclear weapons tests is expected in 2007, and the Review named
Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, North Korea, China and Russia as
targeted nations."
Gerson is the director of Programs of the American Friends
Service Committee in New England and an author.
Dr. Gerson’s talk is free and open to the public.
Gerson’s appearance is being sponsored by Seacoast Peace
Response and N.H. Peace Action. For information, contact Anne
Miller at 228-0559 or anne@nhpeaceaction.org. For more
information on this event, upcoming events and Seacoast Peace
Response, go to the group’s Web site at
www.seacoastpeaceresponse.org.
Copyright © 2005 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
48 KTVB.COM: New contractor takes over Idaho nuclear laboratory
06:09 PM MST on Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Associated Press
ARCO -- A new contractor takes over operation at the states
nuclear laboratory today.
file photo
The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab is now the
Idaho National Laboratory. The facility also has a new contractor
starting today.
And the first thing the Battelle Energy Alliance is shortening
the sites name.
Its now the Idaho National Laboratory. The words Engineering
and Environmental will be left off.
Battelle plans to combine the INL and Argonne laboratory
programs into a world-class nuclear energy research and
development effort.
The company will begin developing Generation Four technology.
Its an international effort to develop safer, more economical
and more reliable nuclear energy systems for commercial use by
2030. Video Clip
Watch Mike Vogels report
Work thats been done at Argonnes Idaho laboratory will be the
foundation for further work on that project. More headlines...
Home Page [http://www.ktvb.com]
*****************************************************************
49 lamonitor.com: Lab's deficiencies cost UC $5.8 million
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
[http://www.lac-nm.us]
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com [roger@lamonitor.com] ,
Monitor Assistant Editor
The missing CREM didn't exist.
Federal nuclear chief Linton Brooks announced late Friday
afternoon that several investigations of an incident at Los
Alamos National Laboratory last July have concluded that the
supposedly lost Classified Removable Electronic Material never
existed.
"There was no evidence of criminal activity," said Kevin Roark,
a laboratory spokesperson. "There was an inventory discrepancy
that occurred because two bar code slips were generated but were
never actually attached or signed to any physical CREM item."
Brooks' statement mentioned the resolution of the CREM problem
in passing, while handing out what the announcement called, "the
largest fee reduction imposed on a national laboratory in
history."
"Although multiple investigations have confirmed that the
'missing' disks never existed, the major weaknesses in
controlling classified material revealed by this incident are
absolutely unacceptable, and the University of California must
be held accountable for them," said National Nuclear Security
Administration Administrator Brooks in a prepared statement.
"Of even greater concerns are significant safety weaknesses
which came to light at approximately the same time."
Brooks explained how he calculated the fine, charging $2.1
million for the safety deficiencies and an additional amount for
the gravity of "the weaknesses uncovered."
Brooks continued, "I consider this an appropriate indication of
the severity and systematic nature of the problems uncovered at
Los Alamos, problems which have already resulted in substantial
loss to the government."
In the same announcement, Brooks gave the laboratory a "good"
rating for achieving its mission objectives last year, including
non-proliferation activities and establishing a strong science
base. "Good" represents a "three" out of a possible "four"
rating.
After the non-existent CREM was thought to be missing, a laser
accident caused serious injury to a student intern.
After that, laboratory Director G. Peter Nanos announced a total
suspension of activities at the laboratory. Most activities have
gradually resumed over the last six months, while laboratory
officials have said they identified thousands of safety-related
corrective actions.
As a result of the CREM incident and the laser incident, 23
employees were placed on administrative leave; four were
eventually fired; one resigned and seven were penalized.
Suspicions about the existence of the CREM were raised when Sen.
Pete Domenici, R-NM, said after a lab briefing in August that
there might not be any missing materials.
Domenici responded by criticizing NNSA for giving in to negative
publicity.
"That willingness to succumb to political pressure reveals to me
that the University is doing a better job of standing up to
criticism than is the NNSA," he said, in a statement on Friday.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said in a statement that he
understood the rationale behind the financial penalties.
"I have talked with Director Nanos several times during the past
few months, and I know he has taken many steps toward meeting
these challenges," he said.
The hefty fines come at a time when the contract to manage the
laboratory has been opened to competition due to business and
financial management scandals that came to light two years ago.
A Request for Proposal is scheduled to be issued by the middle
of February.
The Board of Regents of the University of California has not yet
made a formal decision on whether to bid or not.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
50 Casper Star-Tribune: Lawmakers approve plan to require Rocky Flats warnings
[http://www.casperstartribune.net
sppb
DENVER (AP) - Visitors to the former Rocky Flats nuclear
weapons plant would be required to be provided information on
what happened there and the hazards of radiation under a measure
given preliminary approval Monday.
The original plan would have required visitors to sign consent
forms before visiting the site.
David Abelson, executive director of the Rocky Flats Coalition
of Local Governments, representing government officials from
communities near the plant, said requiring the state to issue
warnings to visitors would jeopardize the site's planned
designation as a wildlife refuge.
The warnings were sought by Rep. Wes McKinley, D-Walsh, who led
a grand jury investigation of the former weapons plant.
McKinley said federal officials have lied about the potential
danger of radioactive waste at the former site.
McKinley was the foreman of a 1992 federal grand jury that
tried to indict private and federal officials over contamination
at the site, but prosecutors settled the case with plea bargains.
The House Health &Human Services Committee approved the amended
bill on a 7-6 vote.
Abelson said the conversion for nuclear weapons plant to
wildlife refuge requires the site be cleaned up, and the
warnings would be an admission that the effort had failed.
''We simply reject that notion,'' he said.
Federal officials plan to allow hiking, cycling, horseback
riding and other activities on 16 miles of trails at Rocky Flats
once it is converted to a refuge by 2008.
A $7 billion cleanup of the 6,420-acre site west of Denver is
scheduled to be complete in 2006. Rocky Flats made plutonium
triggers for nuclear warheads until 1992, when it was shut down
because of safety concerns and because of the end of the Cold
War.
AP-WS-01-31-05 2059EST
*****************************************************************
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