*****************************************************************
02/08/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.30
*****************************************************************
RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [southnews] U.S.-Israel plan to strike Irans nuclear sites
2 [southnews] Nobel winner warns on Iran attack
3 IPS-English POLITICS: Strike Iran and Risk Huge Backlash, Blix
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Wants to Resolve Problems With U.S.
5 BBC: Don't hinder peace, Iran is told
6 YWS: Seoul, Tokyo to Work Closely with U.S. to Resolve N.K. Nuke Iss
7 US: [southnews] US designing new generation of nuclear arms
8 US: [NukeNet] Nature: Duo bids to create change at nuclear-weapons
9 US: [NYTr] US nuclear upgrade may violate test ban
10 US: [DU-WATCH] "Nucular" is now standard english
11 US: [NUKES] Rumsfeld Seeks to Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb
12 Hassan Younis: Egyptian nuclear program used for peacefull purposes
13 BBC: France to privatise energy firms
NUCLEAR REACTORS
14 FT.com: Fears of global warming boost comeback hopes for reactors
15 US: Las Vegas SUN: Bush plans $191 million for new nuke plants
NUCLEAR SAFETY
16 US: Guardian Unlimited: Bush Would Double Ex-Nuke Worker Screening
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
17 US: The State: MOX AT SRS
18 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Project's deadline falls back
19 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Budget slams Nevada
20 Las Vegas SUN: Supporters want DOE to ask for $1 billion for Yucca
21 Las Vegas SUN: Reid slammed in Republican e-mail
22 Las Vegas SUN: DOE official says Yucca unlikely to open on time
23 RJG: Keep land sales profits in state
24 RGJ: Energy department says Yucca will open late
25 AGI: URANIUM: SCHIFANI, FI WANTS TRUTH, COMMISSIONERS NOMINATED
26 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear sales report rejected
27 Mos News: Russia Allocates $3 Billion for Nuclear Power Station Refu
28 TR: Art and Nuclear Waste, or, the Ozymandias Effect
29 TheStar.com: Psst! Want a piece of nuclear notoriety?
30 AFP: Iran says top Russian official to visit for nuclear fuel deal -
31 AFP: Iran tells US nuclear sites cannot be destroyed
32 AGI: DEPLETED URANIUM: MARTINO AND FI STALL PROBE (AGI) -
33 Middletown Press: 33rd cask moved to storage pad as tear-down progre
34 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada lawmakers told Yucca Mountain project is likel
35 PE.com: Rate increase sought for San Onofre work
36 Detroit Free Press: Fermi leak costs Detroit Edison about $15 millio
37 Z News: Nuclear Folly
38 AFP: China plans revolutionary, 'pebble bed' nuclear reactor
39 Sofia Morning News: Russia Reiterates Interest in Bulgarian Power Se
40 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria Picks Architect for Belene Nuke
41 NRC: NRC FY 2006 Budget Increases Nuclear Reactor Safety Program
42 NRC: NRC Considers Changes to Regulations on Safeguards Information
43 NRC: All Tech Corporation; Establishment of Atomic Safety and
44 NRC: Sunshine Act; Meetings
45 New Mexican: Bush budget would mean more for LANL, less for Sandia
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
46 Seattle Times: Veterans, Hanford project hit hard
47 Las Vegas RJ: Test site readiness part of budget
OTHER NUCLEAR
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
1 [southnews] U.S.-Israel plan to strike Irans nuclear sites
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:29:49 -0600 (CST)
Experts from the U.S. Defense Department, the Pentagon and Israel have
put final touches to a plan to launch a military strike targeting Irans
nuclear facilities, experts at the European Commission based in
Brussels, revealed on Sunday.
But Iran will retaliate if the United States or Israel attacks its
nuclear facilities and will accelerate its drive to master the
technology, reports said today.
"If such an attack takes place then of course we will retaliate and we
will definitely accelerate our activities to complete our [nuclear] fuel
cycle," Hassan Rohani, the secretary-general of Iran's supreme national
security council, told Reuters.
___________________________________
U.S.-Israel plan to strike Irans nuclear sites finalized
al Jazeera 2/6/2005 4:00:00 PM GMT
Experts from the U.S. Defense Department, the Pentagon and Israel have
put final touches to a plan to launch a military strike targeting Irans
nuclear facilities, experts at the European Commission based in
Brussels, revealed on Sunday.
The experts added that the implementation of this plan rested on a
number of factors including the U.S. continuous efforts to hamper the
EU-Iranian negotiations to persuade Iran to suspend all activities
related to uranium enrichment, with the aim of justifying a military
strike against the Islamic republic if it refused to bow to U.S. pressures.
The U.S. administration has stepped up pressure against Tehran over the
past few months, claiming that it was covertly trying to develop a
nuclear weapons program.
The EC experts, moreover, said that Washington was intensifying its
intelligence activities aimed at spying on the Iranian nuclear sites and
was also making use of the old laws allowing the CIA to support coup
d'etats and arousing sectarian and ethnic conflicts in different countries.
Yesterday, American news sources reported that U.S. senators have set up
a review panel of the CIA's intelligence on Iran in order to try and
avoid the pitfalls that marked the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.
"We have to be more pre-emptive on this committee to try to look ahead
and determine our capabilities so that you don't get stuck with a
situation like you did with Iraq," Republican Sen. Pat Roberts chairman
of the Senate Intelligence Committee was quoted as saying.
During his State of the Union speech on Wednesday, President Bush had
called Iran "the world's primary state sponsor of terror" and repeated
accusations that Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran has continuously denied those charges and says its nuclear program
is aimed solely at generating power for civilian use.
However, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice when in London on a week
long visit to European capitals said on Friday that an attack on Iran
was not on the agenda "at this point in time."
According media sources, Senator Roberts stated, "The aim of the Senate
review is to ensure that any weaknesses in American intelligence on Iran
are being disclosed to policymakers, and that U.S. spy agencies have
adequate resources to fill gaps in collecting information on the Islamic
republic."
The top Democrat on the committee John Rockefeller is quoted as saying
"One of the lessons we learned from Iraq was not to take all information
at face value and to ask more questions in the beginning than in the end."
The cautious approach by the Senate Intelligence Committee is due to the
Bush administration's invasion of Iraq being based on the false
allegations of Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.
Senior aides said the review is part of a broader effort by the
committee to anticipate potential intelligence gaps rather than
investigating failures after they occur.
In a harshly critical report made public last July, the Committee said
U.S. intelligence agencies overstated the Iraqi threat, relied on
dubious sources and ignored contrary evidence in the run-up to the war.
Senator Roberts said the review would take place largely behind closed
doors and that it was still in its early stages.
According to committee aides, the review is not a formal investigation
and that there are no plans to make its findings public.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=6945
________________________________
BUSH GONE WILD
Mon Feb 7, 7:01 PM ET
By Ted Rall
Trying to Start War Against Iran
PARIS--We're already at war with Iran. The question isn't whether or not
they'll fight back. The question is when and how.
Bush used his State of the Union address to signal that Iran is his next
target of war, calling it "the world's primary state sponsor of
terror--pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the
freedom they seek and deserve." Though Condoleezza Rice (news - web
sites) pledges that war against Iran "is simply not on the agenda at
this point," she issued similar assurances in 2002 when, in fact, Bush
had already green-lighted war against Iraq (news - web sites). "When
asked [at her confirmation hearing] whether the United States' goal was
to replace the Islamic Republic [of Iran]," reports the International
Herald-Tribune, Rice "did not say no." And for good reason. As the White
House confirms, U.S. Special Forces commandos have been operating on
Iranian soil since last year, scoping out military bases as targets of
future airstrikes. United Press International reports that U.S. spy jets
have been deployed over Iran in order to goad defense radar stations
into locking in on them, revealing their positions for the coming war.
Can you imagine how Bush would react to news that Mexican ground troops
were snapping souvenir photos of Los Alamos, or that the Canadian air
force was jetting over the Midwestern stratosphere? There's no
difference. In such a case Bush could easily get the U.N. to sign off on
war. This is more than a one-time border incursion. This is invasion,
under international law the ultimate justification for a declaration of
war--by Iran.
Since they declared mission accomplished in Iraq a couple of years ago,
the hard-right Bush Administration's most bellicose zealots have been
itching to invade Iran. But Bush probably can't let Cheney, Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz have their way. Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq have
used up all of our available troops and cash. Even cutting and running
from Iraq wouldn't do the trick. If 150,000 soldiers stationed in Iraq
can't defeat a few thousand resistance fighters with RPGs and IEDs, how
will they fare against Iran--a nation three times the size of Iraq,
whose terrain includes a range of big-ass mountains, which has a
half-million-man standing army equipped with modern hardware?
Denied their longed-for ground invasion, the neocons have fallen back to
the next best thing: using Israel to launch proxy airstrikes against
possible WMD and other military installations in Iran's eastern desert.
Placing Iran as the "top of the list" of the world's most troublesome
nations during a high-profile television appearance, Dick Cheney (news -
web sites) referenced Israel's 1981 preemptive bombing of an Iraqi
nuclear reactor as a model for U.S. military action against Iran. "They
understand that they were overly optimistic about Iraq," a person in a
position to know the Administration's intentions tells me. "But they
think they've learned from their mistakes, that young Iranians want
democracy. If we put the mullahs off-balance, they say, the people will
overthrow them."
That's a big gamble. Iran already has, in Ian Bremmer's words, "one of
the most pluralist and (relatively) democratic regimes in the Middle
East." Moreover, distrust of the United States--which overthrew Iran's
democratic government in 1953, backed the Shah's vicious dictatorship
and has worked tirelessly to ruin the Iranian economy through sanctions
and covert sabotage since the 1978 Islamic revolution--can hardly be
overstated. The kids may want freedom, but they don't believe the U.S.
will deliver it. And they live right next door to Iraq, where American
"liberation" leaves something to be desired.
In the middle to long run, "surgical" airstrikes on Iranian military
infrastructure would probably be even more costly to U.S. interests than
an outright ground invasion. Because Iranian officials have lived under
the threat of attack for 25 years, they've taken pains to carefully
conceal their extensive military infrastructure, which may include
nuclear weapons. Pentagon (news - web sites) analysts concede that these
efforts have been effective enough to deny Israel or the U.S. the
ability to cripple Iran's ability to field fighter jets or launch missiles.
Iranian leaders already feel the squeeze between U.S.-occupied Iraq and
Afghanistan. The day after an Israeli or U.S. attack, Iranian leaders
would correctly surmise that failure to respond would undermine their
domestic political credibility. Jumping through U.S.-imposed hoops, as
Saddam did during the winter of 2002-3, would be perceived by the
Bushists as an indication of weakness. Ex-president Hussein can tell you
how well cooperation works.
The nightmare scenario happens to be the most likely. To stand a chance
in its confrontation with the United States, Iran would require the
support of neighboring Arab countries. But now that Iraq has been
neutered by partition, civil war and occupation, Iran is the only large
majority Shia nation in the Middle East. Since many Sunnis consider
Shiaism a heretical strain of Islam, Iranians would otherwise suffer
alone. Were Iran to retaliate against Israel--whether responding to an
attack originating from the U.S. or Israel wouldn't matter since Iran's
missiles could only reach the latter--that would change. Arab states,
forced to choose between Shia Iran and the Jewish state, would yield to
popular pressure to come to Iran's aid. If the Iranians have managed to
build one nuke, they might use it against Tel Aviv. Cheney's half-baked
rehash of 1981 could fulfill every late 20th century's worst-case
scenario by setting ablaze the entire Middle East.
If war follows its own internal logic, so does the clash of words and
gestures that leads up to it. The U.S. has backed Iran into a geographic
and diplomatic corner, breaking the first rule of Machiavelli 101 by
encouraging nuclear proliferation as the sole guarantee against U.S.-led
regime change. (Kim Jung Il, President Khatami on Line 1.) Losing the
wars against Afghanistan and Iraq made the Bushists Gone Wild lose face;
now they need a bigger win than ever. One hopes for cool heads to
prevail, but they are in short supply. The two sides are locked in a
death grip in which self-perpetuation necessitates the other's destruction.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&u=/ucru/20050208/cm_ucru/bushgonewild&printer=1
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Give the gift of life to a sick child.
Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.'
http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southnews/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
southnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
2 [southnews] Nobel winner warns on Iran attack
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 22:44:47 -0600 (CST)
"For the human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign
military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their
cause," says the op-ed piece written by Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi in
The New York Times on Tuesday.
Nobel winner warns on Iran attack
Tuesday, February 8, 2005 Posted: 1433 GMT
(CNN) -- Human rights would be "among the first casualties" if Iran were
attacked or invaded, a Nobel laureate and Iranian human rights activist
has said in an opinion article.
"For the human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign
military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their
cause," says the op-ed piece written by Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi in
The New York Times on Tuesday.
Ebadi, who won the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize, is the founder of the Center
for Defense of Human Rights in Tehran. She is the first Iranian woman to
win the coveted award.
Ghaemi is a researcher for Human Rights Watch.
A foreign attack or invasion would cause Iranian authorities to root out
and disband the country's independent human rights organizations, they say.
While admitting the country's human rights situation is "less than
ideal," the two say "the human rights discourse is alive and well at the
grassroots level; civil society activists consider it to be the most
potent framework for achieving sustainable democratic reforms and
political pluralism."
Last fall, when Iranian authorities detained more than 20 young
journalists and bloggers because of what they had written, independent
organizations campaigned for their release, and the outcry, along with
support from the international community ultimately led to that release,
they say.
During her tour of Europe, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
the United States has no plans to attack Iran, but criticized the
country's human rights behavior.
Meanwhile on Tuesday British Prime Minister Tony Blair echoed the words
of U.S. President George W. Bush who last week accused Iran of being
"the world's primary state sponsor of terror."
Blair urged the Islamic republic to bow to EU demands to renounce its
suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. (Full story)
'Long-term threat'
In Tuesday's opinion piece, Ebadi and Ghaemi said Rice's comments and
other statements by the Bush administration call to mind statements
leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Given the long-standing willingness of the American government to
overlook abuses of human rights, particularly women's rights, by close
allies in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia, it is hard not to see the
Bush administration's focus on human rights violations in Iran as a
cloak for its larger strategic interests," the two say.
The U.S. almost certainly has some plan to attack Iran, although it may
be a last resort, retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. David Grange, a CNN
analyst, told CNN's American Morning on Tuesday.
"There's always plans being produced on any type of threat that we
perceive this nation to have," Grange said. "You can assume there's
plans to attack Iran at different levels of intensity," such as
airstrikes or missile attacks.
However, even if Iran's nuclear program is disabled, the country's
knowledge and capability is ultimately the long-term threat, he said.
Iran has said it will retaliate if attacked. That retaliation could take
the form of ballistic missile attacks on U.S. allies such as Israel or
terrorist activities, Grange said.
The Tuesday opinion piece says "the most effective way to promote human
rights in Iran is to provide moral support and international recognition
to independent human rights defenders, and to insist that Iran adhere to
the international human rights laws and conventions that it has signed
.. foreign military intervention in Iran is the surest way to harm us
and keep that goal out of reach."
Meanwhile, Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that Tehran wanted
to resolve decades of differences with the United States and warned that
a U.S. military strike would not destroy all of Iran's nuclear
facilities. (Full story)
Iran's top leaders have tried in recent days to ease increasing tensions
with Washington amid a war of words.
"We are not seeking tension with the United States," negotiator Hasan
Rowhani told the state-run television. "We are seeking to resolve our
problems with America but it's the Americans who don't want problems be
resolved."
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/02/08/iran.rights/index.html
___________________________________________
Blair moves towards Bush's hard line on Iran
JAMES KIRKUP POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
Sctsman Wed 9 Feb 2005
TONY Blair yesterday moved towards the hawkish United States position on
Iran, jangling nerves among Labour MPs and peace campaigners fearful of
fresh conflict in the Middle East.
Appearing before a committee of senior MPs in London, the Prime Minister
said there was "no doubt" that the Iranian government backed
international terrorism and warned the regime in Tehran not to stand in
the way of a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Anti-war activists and some European diplomats fear that the US,
following the re-election of George Bush as president, is gearing up for
a confrontation with Iran over its embryonic nuclear programme. Reports
earlier this year suggested US special forces had already been in Iran
to identify possible targets for US or Israeli air strikes.
Although Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said last week in
London that an attack on Iran was "not on the agenda", there is no doubt
that Washington is increasingly focusing its attentions on the
theocratic government in Tehran. Mr Bush last month pledged in his
inauguration speech to spread the "fire of freedom" around the world,
seen by many as a warning to the Iranian hard-liners to permit more
political freedoms and end human-rights abuses.
Last week, the US president said Iran was "the world's primary state
sponsor of terror", an assessment Mr Blair enthusiastically supported
yesterday. "It certainly does sponsor terrorism, theres no doubt about
that at all," the Prime Minister said.
The US State Department says elements in the Iranian regime provide
military and financial support to groups such as Hezbollah that carry
out attacks against Israeli interests.
Mr Blair suggested that support must end. He said: "I hope very much
that if we can make progress in the Middle East, Iran realises its got
an obligation to help that, not hinder it."
Raising Irans profile in the context of international terrorism is a
broadening of the case against Tehran. In recent years, European
diplomacy has concentrated on persuading Iran to give up any attempt to
create weapons-grade uranium.
As Mr Blair spoke, Iranian diplomats indicated their patience was
running out with lengthy but so-far fruitless talks with Britain, France
and Germany. Talks between the two sides resumed in Geneva yesterday and
began with a warning from Hossein Mousavian, the senior Iranian negotiator.
"If we see tangible, objective progress, we will continue negotiations,"
he said. "If we think the Europeans are killing time, we will definitely
[change our position]."
Mr Blair insisted that Irans possible military ambitions must be dealt
with: "I dont think its disputed that there is an issue to do with
Iran and nuclear weapons capability."
Meanwhile, Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights worker who won the 2003
Nobel Peace Prize, became the latest campaigner to warn against any
armed strike against the regime in Tehran.
"For the human rights defenders in Iran, the possibility of a foreign
military attack on their country represents an utter disaster for their
cause," Ms Ebadi, the founder of the Centre for Defence of Human Rights
in Tehran, wrote in the New York Times yesterday.
Mr Blair yesterday promised to publish a US-authored document setting
out the coalitions exit strategy from Iraq "when it is finalised".
This article:
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=150812005
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Give the gift of life to a sick child.
Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.'
http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southnews/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
southnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
3 IPS-English POLITICS: Strike Iran and Risk Huge Backlash, Blix
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:37:38 -0800
ROMAIPS AP WD MM IK IP
POLITICS: Strike Iran and Risk Huge Backlash, Blix Warns U.S.
By Sonny Inbaraj
BANGKOK, Feb 8 (IPS) - As Iran and the European Union go into talks in
Geneva Tuesday on
Tehran's nuclear programme, former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix
said the possibility
of the United States attacking the Middle Eastern country, at this
juncture, seemed remote.
But he warned that if a U.S. military strike against Iran's nuclear
facilities were to take place,
Washington could face a huge Iranian nationalist backlash.
'' I think the restraining element in this must be that the United
States must know if they
launch an attack, there (possibly) could be (a nuclear) retaliation,'' said
Blix.
''There is uncertainty. They (the U.S.) may not know that the Iranians
might be hiding some
(nuclear weapons) prototype somewhere. They (the Iranians) have the designs
and they have the
technology,'' he told journalists late Monday at the Foreign Correspondents
Club, here, in a
programme organised by the Vienna-based International Peace Foundation.
''The public of Iran is divided with regard to the theocracy - a great
many people in Iran are
sick and tired of it and would like to see a liberalisation of the
regime,'' said Blix. ''But the
moment the U.S. goes strong on them, there would be a patriotic attitude -
there will be a
nationalist backlash.''
Added Blix: ''There is already a considerable negative attitude towards
the U.S. in the Middle
East. This could make things worse.''
New U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday said that a
military strike against Iran
was ''simply not on the agenda at this point,'' but her boss President
George W. Bush has not
ruled out military strike as an option.
The EU, led in the talks by Britain, France and Germany, is calling on
Iran to totally dismantle
its nuclear fuel programme but Iran insists that it has the right, in
accordance with international
treaties, to work on the nuclear fuel cycle.
Iran is currently suspending all uranium enrichment-related activities
to fulfill its part of a
deal clinched in November with the European trio, the so-called EU3, for
talks aimed at giving
the Islamic Republic trade, security and technology bonuses.
The meeting in Geneva will be the third round of talks since they began
in December in
Brussels.
Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a country is allowed,
under inspection by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to enrich uranium to a level
needed for nuclear
power. Most however do not. They get fuel from others.
The key problem is that the same technology can also be used to enrich
uranium further in
order to make nuclear weapons.
Iran says that it needs to develop nuclear power despite its oil
because it wants diversity. It
also wants to enrich its own fuel because it says it cannot trust others.
''It's conceivable that the United States is sitting on the sidelines
and leaving it to the
Europeans to negotiate,'' said Blix.
''I think the Europeans have been on the right track and as I said I
cannot guarantee that the
Iranians are not just temporizing - there could be something building up.
You have to be
sceptical in this business,'' revealed the former weapons inspector.
According to Blix, there will be pressure from the Arab nations on Iran
not to take the path of
developing nuclear weapons.
''The Arab world does not want Iran to move on (in the nuclear weapons
direction) because
they know if Tehran does, the chances of Israel moving away from nuclear
weapons will be
much less. If the Iranians are moving on, for sure the Israelis will
continue on their path,'' he
stressed.
According to the Arab TV news network 'Al-Jazeera', Blix is ''the man
the United States loves
to hate''.
Even before he was appointed in 2000 to the task of verifying Iraq's
compliance with
disarmament promises made after the 1991 Gulf War, Washington was already
plunging the
knife into his candidacy.
U.S. hawks opposed his appointment saying his failure to turn up
Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMDs) in his previous stint as head of the IAEA between
1981-1997 proved he
had been outwitted by the Iraqis.
From then on the relationship has been frosty.
Blix stayed on as head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification
and Inspection
Commission (UNMOVIC) till the end of June 2003.
''We have to keep our feet on the ground. Are WMDs the greatest threat
to the world?'' asked
Blix.
''We have nuclear threats which are less at this point in time than it
used be to when the world
had the doctrine of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' or MAD - where the
United States and the
former Soviet Union could have erased each other during the Cold War,'' he
pointed out.
''If you ask someone in Africa, they would say the greatest threat to
them is HIV/AIDS,'' he
continued. ''If you ask me I'd say the threat to the global environment is
more dangerous than
the threat posed by WMDs.'' (END/IPS/AP/WD/MM/IK/IP/SI-FS/SI/05)
= 02081339 ORP008
NNNN
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Wants to Resolve Problems With U.S.
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Tuesday February 8, 2005 7:01 AM
AP Photo VAH101
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday
that Tehran wants to resolve decades of differences with the
United States but warned that a U.S. military strike would not
be able to destroy its nuclear facilities.
``We are not seeking tension with the United States,'' Hasan
Rowhani told the state-run television. ``We are seeking to
resolve our problems with America but it's the Americans who
don't want problems be resolved.''
``There is no problem in today's world that can't be resolved,''
he insisted.
Rowhani, who is the secretary of the powerful Supreme National
Security Council, said a U.S. military strike against Iran's
nuclear facilities will fail.
``Iran's nulcear technology is in the hands of its scientists
and workshops throughout the country. All of them have the
ability to produce centrifuges. Therefore, America will not be
able to destroy our nuclear facilities and mines through a
military strike,'' he warned.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
5 BBC: Don't hinder peace, Iran is told
Last Updated: Tuesday, 8 February, 2005
[Bushehr nuclear reactor]
Iran says its nuclear regime is peaceful
Iran is a sponsor of terrorism and should realise it must not
obstruct progress towards Middle East peace, UK Prime Minister
Tony Blair has said.
His words to MPs come after President George Bush branded Iran
"the world's primary state sponsor of terror".
Mr Blair stressed the importance of the European Union's talks
with Tehran over its nuclear activities and said it was important
it fulfilled its obligations.
Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at generating
electricity.
Certainty
The UK premier told the House of Commons liaison committee on
Tuesday he agreed with President Bush's criticisms of Iran.
"It certainly does sponsor terrorism, there is no doubt about
that at all," he said.
"I hope very much that if we can make progress in the Middle East
that Iran realises it has an obligation to help that, not hinder
it."
The US has refused to rule out a military strike on Iran, but has
said it will try to resolve the dispute by diplomatic means.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice last week said military
action was not on the agenda "at this point".
Mr Blair was asked if anybody would believe him were he tell
Parliament that action was needed against Iran because it had
weapons of mass destruction.
He replied: "I'm not saying that and, secondly, it depends what
the evidence base is."
He also defended his record before the Iraq war, saying the Iraq
Survey Group had reported weapons scientists had been ready to
restart work.
Mr Blair said it was a good sign that the US and Europe were
working together on the issue.
And he warned Iran and Syria that they would make a "very severe
miscalculation" if they thought they could reduce the chances of
an attack on themselves by allow insurgents to cross into Iraq to
weaken US troops.
*****************************************************************
6 YWS: Seoul, Tokyo to Work Closely with U.S. to Resolve N.K. Nuke Issue
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
[http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/] ..
2005/02/08 22:30 KST
SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Yonhap) -- The foreign ministers of South Korea
and Japan agreed on Tuesday to work closely with the United
States to jump-start stalled six-party talks aimed at ending the
North Korean nuclear issue, an official said.
In a 20-minute telephone conversation, the two foreign ministers
made the agreement, given that U.S. President George W. Bush's
State of Union address last week showed his resolve to defuse the
nuclear dispute peacefully and diplomatically, said the official
at Seoul's Foreign Ministry.
*****************************************************************
7 [southnews] US designing new generation of nuclear arms
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:30:03 -0600 (CST)
US scientists are quietly starting work on a new generation of nuclear
arms meant to be more rugged and reliable than warheads in the existing
arsenal.
About nine million dollars have been allocated so far for weapons
designers at the three US nuclear weapons laboratories, the New York
Times reported Monday, citing government officials and experts.
U.S. Redesigning Atomic Weapons
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: February 7, 2005
orried that the nation's aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile,
American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear
arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives,
federal officials and private experts say.
The officials say the program could help shrink the arsenal and the high
cost of its maintenance. But critics say it could needlessly resuscitate
the complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and
could possibly ignite a new arms race.
So far, the quiet effort involves only $9 million for warhead designers
at the nation's three nuclear weapon laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore
and Sandia. Federal bomb experts at these heavily guarded facilities are
now scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over a half century for clues
about how to achieve the new reliability goals.
The relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people,
is expected to grow and produce finished designs in the next 5 to 10
years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype
warheads. Most important, officials say, the effort marks a fundamental
shift in design philosophy.
For decades, the bomb makers sought to use the latest technologies and
most innovative methods. The resulting warheads were lightweight, very
powerful and in some cases so small that a dozen could fit atop a
slender missile. The American style was distinctive. Most other nuclear
powers, years behind the atomic curve and often lacking top skills and
materials, settled for less. Their nuclear arms tended to be ponderous
if dependable, more like Chevys than racecars.
Now, American designers are studying how to reverse course and make arms
that are more robust, in some ways emulating their rivals in an effort
to avoid the uncertainties and deteriorations of nuclear old age.
Federal experts worry that critical parts of the arsenal, if ever
needed, may fail.
Originally, the roughly 10,000 warheads in the American arsenal had an
expected lifetime of about 15 years, officials say. The average age is
now about 20 years, and some are much older. Experts say a costly
federal program to assess and maintain their health cannot ultimately
confirm their reliability because a global test ban forbids underground
test detonations.
In late November, Congress approved a small, largely unnoticed budget
item that started the new design effort, known as the Reliable
Replacement Warhead program. Federal officials say the designs could
eventually help recast the nuclear arsenal with warheads that are more
rugged and have much longer lifetimes.
"It's important," said John R. Harvey, director of policy planning at
the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the
arsenal. In an interview, he said the goal of the new program was to
create arms that are not only "inherently reliable" but also easier to
make and certify as potent.
"Our labs have been thinking about this problem off and on for 20
years," Dr. Harvey said. "The goal is to see if we can make smarter,
cheaper and more easily manufactured designs that we can readily certify
as safe and reliable for the indefinite future - and do so without
nuclear testing."
Representative David L. Hobson, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the
House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development,
praised the program in a speech on Thursday and said it could lead to an
opportunity for drastic cuts in the nation's nuclear arsenal.
"A more robust replacement warhead, from a reliability standpoint," Mr.
Hobson said, "will provide a hedge that is currently provided by
retaining thousands of unnecessary warheads."
But arms control advocates said the program was probably unneeded and
dangerous. They said that it could start a new arms race if it revived
underground testing and that its invigoration of the nuclear complex
might aid the design of warheads with new military capabilities,
possibly making them more tempting to use in a war.......
continued see
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/science/07bomb.html
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources
often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southnews/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
southnews-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
8 [NukeNet] Nature: Duo bids to create change at nuclear-weapons
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 14:42:54 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Nature
International Weekly Journal of Science
27 February 2005
/news in brief/
Duo bids to create climate of change at nuclear-weapons lab
Washington
Two anti-nuclear organizations have announced their intention to bid
together for management of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico. If selected, the consortium members say, they would redirect the
nuclear weapons research facility away from weapons activity and towards
the study of climate change, alternate energy sources, and the
environmental clean-up of the surrounding land. The proposal is a long
shot, they admit, but they hope the move will influence the final
selection.
Los Alamos - one of the nation's three nuclear weapons labs - has been
managed by the University of California for more than 60 years. But a
string of recent security lapses has led the US Department of Energy,
which oversees the lab, to open the contract to competition (see Nature
423, 104; 2003).
The new bidders are made up of Tri-Valley Communities Against a
Radioactive Environment, a watchdog group based in Livermore,
California, and Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, a Santa Fe-based body that
advocates nuclear disarmament.
The terms of the competition are expected to be finalized next month,
and bidders will probably have to announce their intentions soon after.
Several partnerships between universities and private companies are
thought likely to compete.
ends
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
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
9 [NYTr] US nuclear upgrade may violate test ban
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 20:00:27 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Simon McGuinness
[The USA is the worlds largest producer and exporter of WMDs. Cuba,
which is thought to have an extensive network of underground bomb
shelters to protect its citizens from carpet bombing, would be the kind
of target that the new breed of nuclear WMDs is being specifically
designed to annihilate. This new weapon has no defensive
characteristics; its use would be a de facto war crime. But who is
going to disarm the genocidal US killing machine, eh, I mean the US
Government?]
The Independent - 08 February 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=608874
US nuclear upgrade may violate test ban
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
As it accuses Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons, America is
preparing to upgrade and renew parts of its own ageing nuclear arsenal.
Critics believe the upgrades could lead the US to breach the treaty
banning the testing of nuclear weapons.
Since the project will probably involve replacing technology that
originated in the Sixties, watchdogs are concerned the US might be
inclined to test the newer systems and, therefore, breach the 1996
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Of more concern to watchdogs is President George Bush's dedication to
developing a new breed of "bunker-buster" nuclear weapon, designed to
penetrate toughened underground defences. Critics say the plan reveals
the administration's hypocrisy and undermines international efforts to
persuade other countries not to develop weapons.
Last week, it was revealed that the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld,
had sent the Department of Energy a memo requesting that it set aside
funds to resume a study to examine the development of a bunker-buster
bomb. The study had been halted last year after Congress removed its
funding.
*
Search the NYTr Archives at:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
To subscribe or unsubscribe or change your settings via the web, visit:
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org
=================================================================
*****************************************************************
10 [DU-WATCH] "Nucular" is now standard english
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:22:09 -0600 (CST)
Further evidence of the remarkable power of
the Bush family in the U.S. publishing industry:
A leading dictionary now states that "nucular"
is an acceptable pronunciation for "nuclear".
Believe it or not. Use this one to harass
English teachers who worship dictionaries:
http://tinyurl.com/6l82g
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Give the gift of life to a sick child.
Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks & Giving.'
http://us.click.yahoo.com/3iazvD/6WnJAA/xGEGAA/Sj.0lB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
[Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-watch/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-watch-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
11 [NUKES] Rumsfeld Seeks to Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 00:11:06 -0600 (CST)
Thanks to truthout.org -
Also see below:
Bush Promotes 'Nuclear Hawks'
Rumsfeld Seeks to Revive Burrowing Nuclear Bomb
By Walter Pincus
The Washington Post
Tuesday 01 February 2005
Bush budget may fund program that Congress cut.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a memo last month to
then-Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham saying next year's budget
should include funds to resume study of building an earth-penetrating
nuclear weapon designed to destroy hardened underground targets.
An Energy Department official said yesterday that $10.3 million to
restart that study is expected to be included in the Bush
administration's budget, which is to be released next week.
The study, which had been undertaken at the Los Alamos, Sandia and
Livermore national laboratories, was halted late last year after
Congress deleted $27.5 million for it from the fiscal 2005 Omnibus
Appropriations Bill.
The research project was started in 2002 as a three-year effort to
see if an existing nuclear warhead could be fitted with a hardened
casing allowing it to dig deep into the earth before exploding. The
program has been restricted each year by Senate and House members who
have argued that even studying the potential for such a new nuclear
weapon undermines Washington's attempts to limit other countries from
developing their own nuclear arsenals.
Last year, at the insistence of Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio),
chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on energy and
water, Congress cut all money for the program. That came as a
reaction to a five-year budget projection by the National Nuclear
Security Administration, which runs the nuclear program within the
Energy Department, that estimated spending almost $500 million to
produce the weapon in the budgets for fiscal 2005 to 2009.
Up to that point, the Bush administration had emphasized that the
"bunker buster" program was only a research study, and Congress would
have to vote on going ahead with production before that step was to
be taken.
Rumsfeld weighed in on the issue in a Jan. 10 memo to Abraham, which
was made available to The Washington Post.
"I think we should request funds in FY06 and FY07 to complete the
study," Rumsfeld wrote. "Our staffs have spoken about funding the
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) study to support its
completion by April 2007." He added, "You can count on my support for
your efforts to revitalize the nuclear weapons infrastructure and to
complete the RNEP study."
A Pentagon spokesman yesterday confirmed the contents of the Rumsfeld
memo and said the Defense Department "supports completion of the
study."
A spokesman for Hobson said, "Until we see the budget request, it is
premature to comment on what might or might not be in it." Hobson is
expected to address the subject when he speaks Thursday before the
Arms Control Association, which has led the nongovernmental
opposition to the RNEP study.
"The administration is missing a key opportunity to make good on the
congressional decision last year if it were to renew funding of the
study," the association's executive director, Daryl Kimball, said
yesterday. "It sends the wrong signal to the international community
on the U.S. approach on nonproliferation, and Congress may again
reject the request."
The Bush administration's 2002 Nuclear Posture Review found that no
weapon in the current stockpile could threaten the growing number of
targets being buried in tunnels and beneath mountains.
Congress that year required the nuclear security agency to study
whether there was a requirement for such a weapon, and in response
the Air Force specified requirements for such a weapon. The Nuclear
Weapons Council, made up of representatives of the Defense and Energy
departments, then proposed a three-year $45 million feasibility
study. Two existing warheads, one used in the B-61 tactical bomb and
one used in the B-63 strategic bomb, were to be part of the study,
which also was to identify a casing that could burrow deep enough
into the ground before exploding.
Opponents of the proposed new weapon have argued that sealing off
underground facilities could be done as well with smart,
precision-guided conventional weapons, a position supported in 2003
by Adm. James O. Ellis Jr., then head of the U.S. Strategic Command.
They also have said that no casing could dig deep enough to prevent
the nuclear warhead's explosion from sending tons of radioactive
debris into the atmosphere.
At the Jan. 19 confirmation hearing for Samuel W. Bodman, the new
energy secretary, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a leader of the
opposition to the study, said, "Dr. Sidney Drell at Stanford
University has said there is no casing known to man that can sustain
driving a missile a thousand feet underground; therefore, you would
have a spewing of radiation."
She asked Bodman if she could discuss the bunker buster privately
with him before he signed off on the program because "there are many
of us that believe very passionately that we should not, should not,
reopen the nuclear door."
At that time Bodman, a former deputy Treasury secretary, said he had
not had time to study the issue.
Bush Promotes 'Nuclear Hawks'
By Guy Dinmore
The Financial Times U.K.
Tuesday 01 February 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 on
Monday, 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.
-------
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever
with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed
or sponsored by the originator.)
Print This Story E-mail This Story
,) : t r u t h o u t 2005 http://www.truthout.org
| t r u t h o u t | voter rights | environment | letters | donate |
contact | multimedia | subscribe |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention nukes -
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?keywords=NUKES&increment=weeks&many=52
[only articles for the last one year will be indexed]
/RENEGADE/ Search - GO TO: http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?
and just type in your topic. For differing results you may uncheck
"article" and search on just "subject," etc. /RENEGADE/ also has
"time-frame" in the search, so you can tailor your results that way, too.
-----
--
Peace!
*STRIDER* Sector Air Raid Warden at /RENEGADE/
Home: http://fornits.com/renegade/
DEDICATED TO SPIRIT, TRUTH, PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM
Articles posted in the last 10 days:
http://fornits.com/renegade/peaars.cgi?search=Search&increment=days&many=10
Blog: http://striders-renegade.blogspot.com/
Bay_Area_Activist list ----
Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
to request
membership.
EF! list ---------------
earthfirstalert - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/earthfirstalert
List-Subscribe:
usenet: news:misc.activism.progressive
e-mail: mailto:strider@fornits.com
strider@fornits.com
No War! No Nukes! Impeach! SOS!
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION -- Ethiopian Proverb
*****************************************************************
12 Hassan Younis: Egyptian nuclear program used for peacefull purposes
ArabicNews.Com
Egypt, Politics, 2/8/2005
Egypt's Minister of Electricity Hassan Younis affirmed yesterday
that Egypt's nuclear program is used for peaceful purposes such
as industry, agriculture and medicine.
He said that Egypt's nuclear organization is a research
authority, adding that Egypt is committed to the guarantees
agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
He said that Egypt's grid is extended in all parts of Sinai and
covers all urban and industrial activities.
He said that the Ministry of electricity has plans to develop
electricity sector, pointing out that such plans are developed
every year in accordance with the changes.
He said establishing any power station in Egypt serves the
development process, adding that electricity sector grows by 7.5
per cent every year.
Younis said there is a plan to add 4,500 megawatts in electrical
power till 2007 with the most up-to-date technology in the world.
He said that electricity sector developed the generation
stations to the highest level in the world, pointing out that
the distribution networks were also upgraded.
On the electricity linkage with-the Arab states, Younis said
Egypt is linked with Jordan and Syria, and Lebanon would soon
join the three countries.
He also said that there is a power linkage with Libya, Morocco
and Algeria and Tunisia would soon join them.
Search [http://www.arabicnews.com/search]
Copyright © 1995-2003 Arabic News.com, All Rights Reserved.
Send comments & suggestions to the webmaster. ArabicNews.com
and ArabicNews are trademarks of ArabicNews.com
*****************************************************************
13 BBC: France to privatise energy firms
Last Updated: Tuesday, 8 February, 2005
[Logo of Gaz de France, EDF and Areva.]
The government plans to open about 30% of its public energy
firms.
The French government has announced plans to partially privatise
three major energy firms and a road operator.
Shares of Gaz de France (GDF), nuclear group Areva and
Electricite de France (EDF) will be floated between the summer
and end of this year.
Finance minister Herve Gaymard has also announced that road
operator SANEF will be partially privatised by April 2005.
The government expects to raise 20bn euros ($25.5bn; £13.7bn),
but the plan also provoked protests among workers.
In fact, workers have been protesting for several months against
economic reforms, pay and job cuts, and plans to relax the rules
on the country's 35-hour working week.
Power workers were staging a 24-hour strike this Tuesday.
Tax cut
[Herve Gaymard, France's Finance Minister.] Mr Gaymard outlined
the economic policy until 2007.
Mr Gaymard made clear in a press conference that his government
will go ahead with its reform plans despite the protests.
Outlining the economic policy until the elections in 2007, he has
also announced tax cuts over the next two years.
The cuts aim to fulfil a promise made by President Jacques Chirac
in 2002 to cut income tax by 30%.
"We are going to continue this effort for the benefit of our
citizens," said Mr Gaymard.
"I want to increase the government's options concerning the
reduction of income tax in 2006 and 2007."
*****************************************************************
14 FT.com: Fears of global warming boost comeback hopes for reactors
By Fiona Harvey
Published: February 8 2005 21:59 | Last updated: February 8 2005
[nuclear radiation warning sign] China's announcement this week
that it will construct what is likely to be the world's first
operational pebble-bed nuclear reactor, ahead of the US and
Europe, marks a resurgence for the nuclear industry.
Maligned by environmentalists and cold-shouldered by many
western governments, the nuclear industry has faced an uncertain
future in recent decades.
A handful of high-profile accidents - chiefly, of course,
Chernobyl - fuelled fears over the safety of nuclear plants.
These were recently reinforced by concerns that terrorists might
steal radioactive material or target the plants for devastating
attacks.
As a result, many countries have been phasing out nuclear
capacity, as power plants reach the end of their useful lives,
and have failed to invest in new capacity.
In the UK, the government has deferred a decision on whether to
continue with nuclear power. In the US, President George W. Bush
has spoken in favour of greater investment, but approval of new
plants has been slow in coming.
The Japanese government has faced growing pressure to phase out
nuclear plants after a series of minor but well-publicised
accidents.
At least two developments have renewed interest in nuclear
power. One is mounting concern about the security of oil
supplies in the Middle East. More importantly, however, nuclear
power is seen as a potential answer to global warming as
scientists have warned that the world needs to cut its
dependence on fossil fuels that emit greenhouse gases.
Unlike coal and gas, nuclear power does not emit greenhouse
gases and therefore offers the potential for continuing
energy-intensive ways of life without the associated cost of
climate change. A few environmentalists - most famously James
Lovelock, originator of the Gaia theory, which states that Earth
behaves as if it were a living organism - have even spoken out
in favour of nuclear power as a lesser risk than fossil fuels.
"Given the risks from climate change and the challenges that
face all of the low-carbon and no-carbon supply options, it
would be imprudent in the extreme not to try to keep the nuclear
option open," said John Holdren, Heinz professor of
environmental policy at Harvard University.
However, the nuclear industry requires "concerted efforts to
address concerns about cost, susceptibility to accidents and
terrorist attack, management of radioactive wastes and
proliferation risks".
New technologies make nuclear power appear much safer and
cheaper than in the past. The pebble-bed design China is
pioneering is one example. The technique uses as fuel thousands
of small graphite balls flecked with tiny amounts of uranium,
instead of the fuel rods in conventional designs.
With the fuel sealed inside layers of graphite and silicon
carbide, the depleted waste is relatively easy to dispose of, at
least in theory. The core can be bathed in inert helium,
dispensing with the need for superheated water. The helium
expands in the turbine, generating power. Pebble beds are
considered much safer than traditional designs because the
dispersal of fuel means meltdown should be impossible.
However, environmentalists say the design has yet to be proved
in practice and that it is unclear how spent fuel would be
processed.
Even if nuclear power in the west can win over public opinion,
another problem remains. Experts argue over nuclear power's
cost. Plants require vast upfront investment and the cost of
safeguarding them pushes up the overall bill. Add to that the
costly business of dealing with waste and decommissioning the
plants at the end of their lives and the sums start to look
alarming.
It is difficult to judge whether the plants represent value for
money. Public sector investment clouds the picture. France's
nuclear industry is often cited as an example of how affordable
it can be, but the fact that it is state-owned makes that
difficult to ascertain. China's nuclear scheme is another case
in point.
Next month, the nuclear industry will try to impress governments
at a conference organised by the International Atomic Energy
Agency and the French government, co-sponsored by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
One technology could erase all debate. Nuclear fusion is the
reaction that goes on within the sun, turning hydrogen into
helium and producing immense energy. If that reaction could be
replicated, nuclear fusion could provide us with limitless and
safe power.
However, collaboration on the costly research needed to make
fusion power a reality has been slow. The International
Thermonuclear Energy Reactor, a joint research project involving
governments round the world, has been beset by squabbles over
its location.
And even if agreement is reached soon, experts estimate it will
be several decades before commercial results emerge.
The third article in this series will be published tomorrow
© Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005. "FT" and "Financial
Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.
*****************************************************************
15 Las Vegas SUN: Bush plans $191 million for new nuke plants
$81.8 million budgeted for Test Site cleanup
By Benjamin Grove SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- President Bush aims to spend $191 million on his
goal of opening new U.S. nuclear power plants -- and proposes
spending $651 million on the Yucca Mountain repository for waste
the nation's aging plants have already produced.
Bush also intends to continue cleaning up the remains of the
Cold War-era nuclear weapons program at the Nevada Test Site
while also making preparations for what could be a new era of
nuclear bomb testing.
Those plans were included in the $23.4 billion Energy
Department budget, part of the $2.57 trillion federal budget
proposal for fiscal year 2006 that Bush sent to Congress on
Monday.
The department budget is $475 million less than last year,
reflecting a broader austerity in Bush's federal budget
proposals, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at a briefing
Monday.
Cuts were made in a number of department programs, he said. "It
required a lot of tough decisions and a lot of trade-offs,"
Bodman said.
The department budget includes a proposal to spend $81.8
million for continued clean-up at the Test Site. That's a $1.2
million increase from last year.
No nuclear weapons tests have been conducted since 1992 at the
Nevada Test Site, the sprawling former nuclear weapons proving
ground with its nearest border roughly 65 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. An intensive clean-up program began there in 1997 and
about $624 million has been spent there since then, said Darwin
Morgan, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security
Administration, an Energy Department affiliate.
The Test Site program, part of a larger Energy Department
program aimed at cleaning nuclear weapons sites nationwide, is
slated for completion in 2027.
Clean-up projects at the site include loading radioactive soils
into barrels for burial at the site. Workers dispose of
low-level radioactive material in several areas, including a
40-foot deep trench and in craters originally created by
underground tests. Workers also load packages of dirt, debris,
and portions of demolished buildings from other U.S. weapons
sites into the dump sites.
Test Site managers also monitor ground water for radioactivity
and direction flows inside the Test Site to make sure no
problems are carried to water supplies outside the site. And
they oversee hazardous materials clean-up projects associated
with the nuclear testing, such as fuel spills from drill rigs
used to dig around the Test Site, Morgan said.
President Bush has made no overt indication that he would call
for renewed nuclear testing at the site, and Defense Department
officials have said he is not preparing to make that decision.
But two of Bush's budget proposals open the possibility of new
tests.
In one, Bush proposes to spend $4 million to renew research
into a nuclear bunker buster bomb designed to burrow hundreds of
feet before detonation. Congress scrapped funding for the study
last year.
In another, Bush has proposed $25 million to continue preparing
the Nevada Test Site so that it would be ready for a new
generation of nuclear tests within 18 months if the president
ever decided such tests were necessary.
"It seems like while the right hand is directing the clean-up,
the left hand is getting ready to make more of a mess," said
Michele Boyd, who tracks nuclear issues for the consumer group
Public Citizen.
Nevada's two Democrats in Congress oppose the bunker buster
bomb, while the state's three Republicans have said they could
support it if it is deemed important to national security.
The five lawmakers have said they support preparing the Test
Site to the point where it could be ready for new tests within
18 months -- but they say Bush would have to make a strong case
for actually resuming tests.
The Bush budget includes $191 million for nuclear research and
development programs, an increase of $21 million. Included are
two programs with boosted budgets this year: $56 million for a
program called Nuclear Power 2010, aimed at speeding the process
of issuing new site permits for three new plants; and $45
million for the Generation IV nuclear energy initiative --
research and development of a next-generation nuclear reactor.
No new nuclear plants have been constructed in this country for
more than 35 years, in part because of public anxiety about
nuclear plants and uncertainty about disposal of nuclear waste.
But nuclear industry officials have said their biggest hurdles
have been the cost and hassle associated with developing, siting
and constructing a new plant.
Industry leaders hailed Bush.
"This reflects the Bush administration's strong commitment to
have advanced nuclear power plants be a key element of the
nation's energy future," said John Kane, senior vice president
for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a top industry lobby group.
But nuclear critics slammed Bush for investing in new plants
and Yucca Mountain.
"Before we start adding to our nuclear reactor arsenal, we
ought to take that money and put it in research and development
of renewable energy resources," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.,
said.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., supports nuclear energy research, but
he and the rest of the Nevada delegation oppose Yucca Mountain.
He and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have vowed to
fight for lower funding for the repository project.
Other budget notes:
+ Overall, the Energy Department's Nevada Test Site budget would
increase roughly $41 million from last year to $384 million,
according to budget documents. In addition to clean-up work, the
Test Site conducts nuclear stockpile research and other weapons
programs.
+ Bush also aims to spend $70 million to conduct spent nuclear
fuel recycling research. Some Yucca critics have said the nation
should reprocess its nuclear waste like France and Japan. But
the United States does not recycle because the process involves
separating plutonium from the waste, which U.S. officials worry
could fall into the hands of terrorists. Bush aims to find a
"proliferation-resistant" method.
*****************************************************************
16 Guardian Unlimited: Bush Would Double Ex-Nuke Worker Screening
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday February 9, 2005 12:16 AM
By MALIA RULON
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration wants to expand a
medical screening program to former nuclear weapons workers at
12 additional sites nationwide, nearly doubling the number of
workers who would be screened.
The plan, unveiled this week as part of President Bush's
proposed budget, would allow an estimated 25,000 more workers to
get the free, one-time tests that could help them seek early
treatment for work-related illnesses such as respiratory
diseases, hearing loss, bladder cancer and damage to the liver
and kidneys.
``We're losing people daily and we need to get these tests
going,'' said Eric Parker, president of the union that
represents workers at the former Mound weapons plant in
Miamisburg, Ohio.
The Energy Department launched the program in 1999 for current
and former workers at 11 of the nation's most contaminated
sites, including the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in
southern Ohio, Los Alamos weapons lab in New Mexico, Hanford
plant in Washington state and Rocky Flats in Colorado.
So far, tests have been done on about 28,000 workers who may
have been exposed to asbestos, beryllium, plutonium, nickel,
solvents, acids and high levels of noise through their work at
the plants or laboratories.
The proposed expansion comes as testing for workers at those
sites is nearing completion.
It's an about-face for the Energy Department, which said last
year that it would close regional testing clinics and replace
them with a national screening program available to workers
through a toll-free number.
``We thought it was more important for people to have the
opportunity to walk into an actual clinic and have one-on-one
face time with a doctor,'' said John Shaw, director of the
department's Office of Environment, Safety and Health.
Under the Bush plan, funding would remain at $12.5 million next
year but would be reallocated to open eight new testing centers
and create four supplemental care programs. The plan also would
allow former department workers from any site to see their own
doctor.
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, applauded the plan, saying it
will help detect cancer and other diseases that otherwise could
have gone untreated.
``The Cold War was won by the men and women who made the weapons
that enforced the peace,'' he said.
^---
On the Net:
Office of Environment, Safety and Health: http://www.eh.doe.gov/
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
17 The State: MOX AT SRS
02/08/2
President Bush has included nearly $340 million for construction
of a mixed oxide fuel factory at the Savannah River Site in his
proposed budget but construction on the plant might not start
this May as scheduled.
The presidents budget says the U.S. Department of Energy will
begin preparing the site at SRS in May. Construction would not
begin until after Oct. 1 because of a lingering dispute with
Russia that centers on liability and funding for a twin plant to
be built in the former Soviet Union.
The United States and Russia have agreed to dispose of 34 metric
tons of excess plutonium each so the material cannot be used for
nuclear weapons.
TheStateOnline
*****************************************************************
18 Las Vegas RJ: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Project's deadline falls back
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Repository's opening to slip at least two years, official says
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's top manager for nuclear
waste disposal said Monday the Yucca Mountain repository will
slip at least two years beyond its planned 2010 opening, while
another DOE official said the delay could be even longer.
The comments marked the first time that DOE officials have said
publicly that mounting technical, legal and budget problems will
delay the government's goal to start accepting highly
radioactive spent fuel for burial in Nevada at the turn of the
decade.
"I believe it is a little bit more than a year-to-year slip, to
be honest with you," Margaret Chu, director of the Office of
Radioactive Waste Management, said. "Because we have budget
uncertainty, we're hoping 2012."
Chu commented after the Energy Department's announcement of its
proposed 2006 spending plan for Yucca Mountain. The department
is asking Congress to allocate $651 million, which is about half
what it projected last year would be needed if the program were
on track.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said the new request "is money we
think we can spend responsibly on Yucca Mountain based on the
current situation we are dealing with."
DOE officials have said the Yucca project was thrown off kilter
by a federal court ruling last summer against the repository's
radiation protection standards and by a Nuclear Regulatory
Commission order to rebuild a 4-million document electronic
database.
DOE in November abandoned a plan to file a 45-volume repository
license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the
end of 2004. A department official said Monday that because of
legal uncertainties, an application might not be handed to the
NRC this year even if DOE finishes it.
Chu said the Environmental Protection Agency expects to rewrite
a radiation standard by the end of this year. But EPA and DOE
officials retracted the statement later, with an EPA official
saying a draft standard might be issued by this summer. The
official said he could not say when it would be finalized.
Nevada officials who have worked to derail Yucca Mountain on
safety grounds said they were cheered by the latest slippage.
"Delay is our friend, and time is our ally," said Richard Bryan,
a former governor and U.S. senator.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said DOE credibility is shattered
by the shifting timelines. "Adding two years to the schedule
does not change anything," Berkley said. "They cannot make a
safe repository."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said "all the time in the world will
not be enough for DOE to open Yucca Mountain," and Sen. John
Ensign, R-Nev., said any delay "brings it one step closer to
final defeat."
Nuclear utilities and officials from states that want to get rid
of their radioactive waste are frustrated, said Martez Norris,
administrator of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition.
"We've been very, very concerned about how this program is
falling behind," said Norris, who said coalition members will
meet shortly to discuss the matter.
Among items that might be brought up, Norris said, is whether to
call for the Yucca Mountain Project to be removed from the
Energy Department and given to a "quasi-government operation" to
manage.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby group, is less
concerned, spokesman Mitch Singer said. He said nuclear power
companies are satisfied DOE is showing slow progress.
"What they are telling us is as long as they are perceiving
progress toward Yucca Mountain, and they are perceiving
progress, they are not concerned and that is not an impediment
to building new nuclear plants," Singer said.
No official announcement has been made, but the Energy
Department began shifting the Yucca Mountain Project from the
2010 goal after Congress declined to fund the repository fully
last year, said Ted Garrish, the project's deputy director.
"When we did the budget last year, we made it clear if we didn't
get $880 million, there was no way that 2010 is going to work,"
Garrish said. At the end of a long fight, lawmakers approved
$577 million.
Garrish said a Yucca Mountain opening could stretch longer than
2012 depending on obstacles ahead. DOE expects more legal
challenges from Nevada and from environmental groups and more
fights in Congress over spending for the $58 billion project.
"I don't think we have a position" on a new target date, Garrish
said. "There are so many things."
The Energy Department budget proposes to grant $3.5 million to
Nevada for Yucca Mountain oversight and $7 million to be divided
among counties.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
19 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Budget slams Nevada
LAS VEGAS SUN
A year ago the Energy Department projected that it would
request $1.2 billion for work at Yucca Mountain in the
fiscal-year 2006 budget, which begins Oct. 1. It was not a big
surprise, however, to learn that President Bush is proposing
only a little more than half that amount, $651 million. Since
its confident projection, the Energy Department has experienced
severe setbacks in developing the nuclear-waste repository 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The department admitted that workers had been exposed to toxic
silica dust, and a federal appeals court ruled that the mountain
wasn't being built to the correct standard for safeguarding
against radiation leaks. The department had been steadfastly
committed to a December 2004 deadline for applying for a federal
license to operate the repository, but late last year postponed
the application until the end of this year.
President Bush has been a champion of Yucca Mountain and his
administration has been zealous in its quest to open it by 2010.
For his 2005 budget, Bush proposed $880 million for Yucca
(Congress approved $578 million). That Bush would propose such a
reduced budget at a time when Republicans, who generally favor
Yucca Mountain, handily control Congress, is evidence that the
project is laden with problems. Science and common sense reveal
that Yucca Mountain cannot hope to achieve its goal of safely
containing high-level nuclear waste for hundreds of thousands of
years. Truly, Yucca Mountain's only budget should be for
shutting it down. Even a reduced budget for continuing work
there is still a slam on Nevada.
And that's not the only slam on this state in Bush's budget. To
compensate for his unconscionable deficit spending, Bush
proposes to steal most of Nevada's proceeds from federal land
sales. The state stands to lose billions over the coming years.
Bush also plans to cut $70 million from the already meager
Bureau of Land Management budget. As the state with the most
federal land, Nevada will be hit the hardest. Throw in the
president's proposals to cut billions in national funding for
health care, education and law enforcement -- areas that are
extremely underfunded locally -- and it becomes obvious that
Bush's budget would have a devastating effect on Nevada.
*****************************************************************
20 Las Vegas SUN: Supporters want DOE to ask for $1 billion for Yucca
Today: February 08, 2005 at 9:55:12 PST
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Yucca Mountain supporters want to see the Energy
Department ask Congress for $1 billion for the proposed nuclear
waste repository, according to a letter sent to the Energy
Department and Congress on Monday.
The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition sent a letter to Energy
Secretary Sam Bodman and key appropriations lawmakers asking for
the higher budget, as well as a request to change congressional
rules to make it easier to put ratepayer money directly toward
the project. The letter bears the signatures of 73 state
regulators and three governors
The department requested $651 million for the proposed used
nuclear fuel site at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas. Earlier budget estimates had called for a $1 billion
request by this time, but program delays limited the request.
"We are concerned that further delays in the program will
escalate costs into billions of dollars that will ultimately
impact our state constituents, nuclear power utilities and the
federal government," according to the letter. "The longer the
Administration and Congress fail to find a permanent solution to
fund the DOE program, the greater the potential liability will
be to our states' taxpayers."
The government was supposed to take commercial nuclear waste in
1998 but Yucca is not set to open now until 2012. The department
had planned to start talking with utilities this year about
their shipping plans, five years before shipments would start
but pushed that off to an unspecified time.
Nuclear power users in 41 states have put $24 billion into the
Nuclear Waste Fund since its creation more than two decades ago
but about $16 billion still sits in the account, while the
program goes underfunded, they argue.
The administration supports removing the project from
congressional budget caps and allocating about $750 million
annually to it directly from the waste fund. Congress probably
would have to change its rules to allow that to happen, although
some supporters think the administration might be able to it to
without Congress's approval.
Yucca critics oppose a $1 billion budget for what they consider
a flawed program or and they oppose the rules change. The
state's congressional delegation and other critics believe
changing the waste fund would remove congressional oversight on
the project.
*****************************************************************
21 Las Vegas SUN: Reid slammed in Republican e-mail
Minority leader urges Bush to reject committee's attacks
By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday struck back at
the Republican National Committee for its regular attacks on the
new Senate minority leader.
Reid was especially irked about a 13-page "research document"
e-mail sent by the RNC on Monday titled, "Who is Harry Reid?"
The e-mail contained a list of newspaper headlines and Reid
quotes culled from other RNC e-mails attacking Reid in recent
weeks. The e-mails prominently call Reid an "obstructionist" to
Bush's agenda.
The electronic dispatches are sent to about a million
journalists and GOP activists, an RNC spokesman said.
The e-mail on Monday slammed Reid for opposing President Bush
on Social Security changes, judicial nominations and for
"over-the-top" rhetoric. The e-mail used the example of Reid
calling Bush a "liar" for approving Yucca Mountain after Bush
said he was committed to sound science.
"While President Bush and Republicans in Congress are working
to win the war on terror, preserve Social Security and lower
health care costs, Harry Reid and his taxpayer-funded war room
are focused on obstruction," RNC communications director Brian
Jones said in Monday's e-mail.
The RNC e-mail also accuses Reid of being "out of touch with
mainstream America" by living in a $750,000 condominium in
Washington.
On the Senate floor Monday Reid called on Bush to repudiate the
RNC document. Reid said Bush had said he wanted to "set a better
tone" in Washington during a telephone conversation the two had
the day after they were re-elected. Reid noted that Bush called
for unity in his State of the Union speech last week.
"A strange way to reach out," Reid said of the RNC e-mail.
The Senate began one of its first substantive debates on Monday
on the issue of restricting class-action lawsuits. Reid has said
the issue is one that may offer an opportunity for compromise
between Democrats and Republicans.
"We haven't dealt with one piece of legislation here on the
Senate floor, and yet they're sending out to a million people
what they think is to have Reid roughed up a little bit," Reid
said.
Reid has said he wants to seek compromises on certain issues.
But he has said he has a duty to represent Democrats in
opposition to Republicans on other issues, including President
Bush's plans for Social Security changes.
Republicans took note last week when Reid and House Democratic
Leader Nancy Pelosi of California delivered a "pre-buttal" to
Bush's speech, and then held a press conference after the speech
to denounce Bush's Social Security proposal.
"Over the last several weeks, the American people have seen
Sen. Reid consistently and constantly get after Republican
issues and President Bush's agenda," RNC spokesman Danny Diaz
said.
Reid's top lieutenant, Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin of
Illinois, went to the Senate floor on Monday to defend Reid.
"The RNC communications director is quoted as saying, 'This is
the initial salvo in the upcoming discussion that we are going
to be having with Sen. Reid.' This is not a discussion they're
planning," Durbin said. "This is an effort to try to intimidate
political opponents into silence -- and it is shameful."
*****************************************************************
22 Las Vegas SUN: DOE official says Yucca unlikely to open on time
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is
not likely to open on time, the Energy Department's top Yucca
official said Monday.
Margaret Chu, the department's assistant secretary who oversees
the repository project, was asked after a budget briefing Monday
if the department was backing away from its target opening in
2010.
"I think we are," she said. "We're hoping for 2012."
It was the first time anyone from the department has publicly
acknowledged that the 2010 target opening date will be missed.
The project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been hampered
by various problems and missed its self-imposed deadline of
December 2004 to get its license application in to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
The department aims to submit its license application by the
end of this year.
"It all comes back eventually to how much funding we can get,
how fast we can get the funding to build the repository," Chu
said during the briefing. "It's going to take a lot of money to
build and operate a repository."
Bruce Carnes, the associate deputy secretary, did not back down
from the 2010 date during the briefing but made clear to
reporters that the department does not have unilateral control
over the timeline.
"We are going to take first things first," Carnes said. "We are
going to get our license application in by the end of calendar
2005. What we don't know is how long it is going to take NRC to
review that application or what other matters might come up, but
right now we are on track for 2005. We can adjust our schedule
accordingly."
Carnes said the department will be working with Congress to
change budget rules to allow ratepayer money collected in the
Nuclear Waste Fund to go directly toward the project.
The department rolled out its fiscal year 2006 budget Monday,
with a $651 million request for the repository, including $427
million for the license application and other work and $85
million for transportation.
Bob Loux, director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects,
said the department is in "fantasy land" and that the latest
statements from the department proved to him the department was
just not ready to file the application last year, regardless of
any court ruling.
The delay came as no shock to Nevada's congressional
delegation, whose members for years have been pointing out what
they see as flaws in the project.
"I think Margaret Chu and the administration can say 2010,
2012, but I suggest they start looking at 20-never," Rep.
Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "They will never be able to make
Yucca Mountain the appropriate site. There is no way to safely
store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain."
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said "any delay in this ill-conceived
program brings it one step closer to final defeat."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said "all the time
in the world would still not be enough" for the department to
open the repository.
"Delay after delay costs the taxpayers billions and billions of
dollars on a project that the courts have ruled doesn't meet
sufficient safety standards," Reid said.
A ruling by a federal appeals court last July threw out the
project's radiation protection standard, leaving a hole in the
environmental rules and the commission's licensing guidelines.
The missing standard coupled with the department's problem
loading required documents into the commission's database forced
the department to miss its deadline and look instead at this
year.
Chu said the Environmental Protection Agency plans to get a
proposed standard out in late spring and finalize it by the end
of the year.
"We are hoping everything will be in sync on the schedule," Chu
said. "When they get the proposed rule out, we will basically
see what are the options so we can get ready and start working
on that."
Loux doubted that the standard could be fixed that quickly.
"EPA is a very cautious agency," Loux said. "I don't think they
(EPA) are capable of doing it in that timeframe. They don't even
have an administrator."
An EPA official would only confirm that the agency aims to get
the standard done by the summer and could not release any other
information. Since the court's ruling last year, the agency has
said it is working on the issue but has not elaborated.
Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the
industry's main lobbying group, said the delayed date is not a
surprise but waste could still be stored on-site at Yucca before
everything is completed. He also said the expected revisions to
the radiation standards should not impede the license
application. Portions of the application can be done without a
standard in place, he said.
Lawyer Joe Egan, who represents the state on Yucca issues, also
doubted the new standard would be done by the end of the year.
"That would be a world record," Egan said.
It took about eight years to get the first standard finished.
Egan also pointed out that the NRC will have to change its
licensing rules too, which could take an additional two years
after the EPA finishes the standard. The commission may not
review the license without the new guideline in place.
The department also has to get millions of documents into the
commission's database by June, or six months prior to them
filing the application.
Give all that, "it sounds like they are boldly ambitious" with
their projections, Egan said.
The department's $651 million request is lower than the $880
million request it submitted for this fiscal year. Chu did not
answer questions regarding why this year's request is lower. She
pointed out that the amount proposed for 2006 is higher than the
$577 million Congress approved for this fiscal year.
"We are resetting the license application date," Chu said.
"This is after very careful thoughtful planning and we came to
the conclusion that our first priority is going to be a high
quality license application. We are hoping to achieve that by
the end of the year."
Reid said he doubts they will.
"Given DOE's abysmal Yucca Mountain track record, I have every
confidence they'll be unable to meet the delayed, or any other,
deadline," Reid said. "I don't believe Yucca Mountain will ever
open, and Nevada and the country will be safer for our
successful efforts to stop the project."
*****************************************************************
23 RJG: Keep land sales profits in state
+ [Reno Gazette-Journal] [Reno Gazette-Journal] February 08,
2005 Reno, Nevada, USA 775-788-6200 [ BORDER=]
Keep land sales profits in state [online@rgj.com] RENO
GAZETTE-JOURNAL
2/7/2005 10:14 pm
President Bush has added insult to injury, first with Yucca
Mountain and now with public lands sales. It’s a good thing the
state has a congressional delegation that knows how to work
together in a nonpartisan way when the welfare of this state is
at issue. This plan is a bad idea for Nevada, cutting its
capacity to develop. Hopes are high officials can stave off at
least part of the proposal.
It is probably safe to say that Nevada officials, citizens and
environmentalists object to the budget request to siphon off
most of the profit — 70 percent — from the Southern Nevada
Public Land Management Act to pay down the federal deficit. It
is necessary to cut the debt, and the entire nation must share
the responsibility. But Nevada has serious problems the land
sale proceeds were to help resolve. Funds are earmarked for
schools, for building and maintaining water infrastructure and
for acquiring and preserving environmentally sensitive lands.
The money should be used to protect scenic areas and animal
habitat from development, for instance, and restoration projects
in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
As it turns out, the profits are greater than projected, but
more money from Nevada land should mean more benefit for Nevada.
This state should not be expected to pay the debt
single-handedly. Citizens are depending on lawmakers’ ability to
keep land sales profits at home.
[http://www.gannettfoundation.org/] © Copyright Reno
Gazette-Journal, a [http://www.gannett.com] Newspaper.
(updated 12/17/2002).
*****************************************************************
24 RGJ: Energy department says Yucca will open late
[Reno Gazette-Journal] [Reno Gazette-Journal]
Reno, Nevada, USA 775-788-6200
[http://www.rgj.com
Doug Abrahms
[online@rgj.com] RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
2/7/2005 11:30 pm
WASHINGTON —The Department of Energy acknowledged Monday that
its proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain won’t
open until 2012, two years behind schedule.
Because the agency fell behind on its application with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build Yucca Mountain, the
Energy Department is pushing back the date when the project will
start receiving high-level nuclear waste, said Margaret Chu, who
heads the Civilian Radioactive Waste Management office. She said
the new opening date would be sometime in 2012.
“So it all comes back to how much funding we get and how fast we
get the funding,” said Chu.
This is the first time the Energy Department has said its
proposed high-level nuclear waste repository will not open on
schedule. The agency wants to send 77,000 tons of nuclear waste
from atomic reactors and defense facilities to Yucca Mountain,
located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Chu’s comments came during the Energy Department’s briefing on
President Bush’s proposed fiscal 2006 budget. The bulk of the
department’s proposed $23.4 billion budget would be spent on
energy research, maintaining the nation’s nuclear weapons
stockpile and cleaning up environmental messes at former weapons
facilities such as the Hanford Site in southeastern Washington.
The Bush administration is asking for $651 million for Yucca
Mountain for fiscal 2006, $79 million more than it received in
fiscal 2005. But Bush’s budget also adds $56 million for a
program to spur the construction of nuclear power plants, since
most U.S. reactors currently operating are more than 30 years
old.
“Nuclear power, which generates 20 percent of our electricity,
is relatively inexpensive, safe and clean,” said Energy
Secretary Samuel Bodman.
The department also plans to seek legislation that would grant
it authority in fiscal 2007, without approval from Congress, to
tap into the ratepayer fund set up to build Yucca Mountain. But
Nevada lawmakers have defeated similar efforts in the past and
vow to do so again. They also have promised to seek cuts to
Yucca Mountain’s funding.
In the current fiscal year, the Bush administration sought $880
million for Yucca Mountain but only received $572 million after
Nevada lawmakers worked to cut funds for the controversial
project.
“The administration is still pushing the project and still
wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on it, but the lower
request also indicates they realize there are significant
hurdles ahead,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The Energy Department also hit a snag last summer after a
federal appeals court ruled that the Environmental Protection
Agency needed to establish a new radiation safety standard for
Yucca Mountain before it could file its application with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The new radiation rule should be
in place by December, the same time the Energy Department plans
to file its license application, Chu said.
“They just continue to spend money on this program that they
won’t be able to license,” said Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno. “Instead, we should be spending money
on 21st century technology to deal with the problem,” she said,
such as reprocessing nuclear material.
Bob Loux, who heads Nevada’s Agency for Nuclear Projects, a
group fighting the building of Yucca Mountain, said the Energy
Department won’t meet its new 2012 start date.
“I just think that it’s awfully optimistic thinking on their
part,” Loux said. “They keep putting up these artificial
deadlines that they know, and everyone in the industry knows,
they can’t meet.”
*****************************************************************
25 AGI: URANIUM: SCHIFANI, FI WANTS TRUTH, COMMISSIONERS NOMINATED
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia - News In English
[http://www.agi.it/]
Wednesday February 9, 2005 h.03.24
- Rome, Italy, Feb. 8 - "No sabotage by the Commission of Enquiry
into Depleted Uranium. Forza Italia, as Minister Martino says,
wants the truth.
I am unhappy to reveal that leaders of the Left evidently have
not been informed.
Today we have nominated our Commissioners.
Certain sorts of political point scoring and speculation are not
acceptable, above all when it is to do with such painful
subjects."
Thus said head of Forza Italia group leader in the Senate, Renato
Schifani. (AGI) -
081919 FEB 05
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2005 AGI S.p.A. [Invia questo articolo]
Invia questo articolo
*****************************************************************
26 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear sales report rejected
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Tuesday February 8, 2005
The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk]
Pakistan has denied allegations that its disgraced nuclear
scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan may have sold secrets to Saudi
Arabia, Egypt and other Arab countries.
A Time magazine report that his secret nuclear arms network was
broader than initially thought was "baseless and
sensationalised", the information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed,
said.
A year ago Dr Khan admitted on television selling nuclear
knowledge to Iran, Libya and Iraq. Since then Pakistan has
insisted that his international network has been dismantled but
had refused to let the International Atomic Energy Agency or
foreign intelligence agencies interview him.
He denied a specific allegation that 16 cylinders of uranium
hexafluoride gas, a critical ingredient in producing
weapons-grade uranium, were missing from the Khan Research
Laboratories, which are at the heart of Pakistan's nuclear
programme.
"The inventory is complete," he said, adding that there was "no
way to deliver A Q Khan to anyone".
The extent of Dr Khan's arms network may be raised by the foreign
secretary, Jack Straw, when he visits Islamabad next week.
Pakistan says it is conducting its own investigation of Dr Khan's
network, but the US and Britain are worried that the nuclear
secrets could end up with al-Qaida or other terrorists.
The US ambassador in Islamabad said Pakistan had undertaken to
share the results of the investigation.
Pakistani nuclear analysts believe the extent of Dr Khan's
network suggests that other officials were involved, hence the
reluctance to let foreigners question him.
Useful links
Pakistan government [http://www.pak.gov.pk/]
Abdul Qadeer Khan - Wikipedia
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Qadeer_Khan]
PakDef Military Consortium [http://www.pakdef.info/]
British Foreign Office
[http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerat
e/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029390554]
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
27 Mos News: Russia Allocates $3 Billion for Nuclear Power Station Refurbishment -
MONEY - MOSNEWS.COM
Created: 08.02.2005 17:04 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:04 MSK
MosNews
Russia will allocate $3 billion to complete power generating
units of three atomic power stations.
The unit at Rostov power station is to be completed till 2008,
at Balakovo and Kalinin till 2010. Rosenergoatom energy concern
will allocate part of funds and is now searching another part to
borrow, Russian Information Agency Novosti reported.
The completing of the power generating units was ordered by the
head of Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Alexander Rumyantsev
within the frameworks of the federal program on energy economics
development.
Write us: info@mosnews.com [info@mosnews.com]
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
28 TR: Art and Nuclear Waste, or, the Ozymandias Effect
MIT's Magazine of Innovation
[http://www.technologyreview.com/index.asp] -->
posted by Anthony Lioi @ 2/7/2005 1:20:56 AM
In last Sunday’s New York Times magazine, an article
appeared about Michael Heizer, one of the pioneers of Earth Art,
and his looming conflict with the US government over his
monumental sculpture, “City,“ in the Nevada desert. “City“ is
over a mile long, and attempts to duplicate, in a contemporary
idiom, the feel of other monumental achievements, such as the
Great Pyramid at Giza or the Easter Island monoliths. Heizer’s
idea is an interesting one: he wants to make something large
enough that viewers will have to experience it piece by piece,
walking through it in time, rather than gazing at it as a whole
from a distance. By his own account, the project is at least ten
years from completion.
The problem appears to be that the federal government plans to
run its railway to Yucca Mountain, the proposed site of a
national nuclear waste burial ground, directly through “City“.
According to the Times magazine, Heizer thinks of this as an act
of spite. Of course, this is only one more complication in the
long controversy surrounding Yucca Mountain. The controversy
includes issues of Native land rights--the mountain is sacred to
the Western Shoshone Nation--and questions about the safety of
the storage technology, as well as questions about the wisdom of
transporting tons of nuclear waste across the country by rail to
a central dump.
In any case, the Times frames the story as a conflict between a
cantankerous visionary and the forces of a faceless, and perhaps
sinister, Washington bureaucracy. What struck me, however, is
the similarity between “City“ and the Yucca Mountain Project.
Both entail a large-scale disruption of desert lands in the name
of projects whose designers intend them to outlast the
civilization which created them. In other words, long after the
United States is gone--we’re talking geological time spans
here--Yucca Mountain Project and “City“ are meant to endure.
Though one is coded as “engineering“ and the other as “art,“ one
an expression of bureaucracy and the other of solitary creative
genius, they seem like one continuous act of hubris to me. Why,
exactly, would we want to leave “City“ or a radioactive mountain
to our distant descendants? Both remind me of the famous poem by
Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias,“ which I quote in full here:
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!“
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
But then again, colossal wrecks have their own kind of charm,
don’t they?
*****************************************************************
29 TheStar.com: Psst! Want a piece of nuclear notoriety?
Tue. Feb. 8, 2005. | Updated at 08:21 PM
KYIV, UkraineOfficials at the site of the world's worst nuclear
accident announced plans yesterday to sell scrap and other
equipment from the Chernobyl nuclear plant, saying the
government was not giving it enough money to continue operating.
Plant spokesman Viktor Kapusta said authorities hoped to raise
the funds by selling things like pumps to maintain ongoing
operations such as monitoring radiation levels. He called the
decision a "forced measure," saying the federal government owes
the plant $3.2 million (U.S.).
About 30 workers are sorting out the equipment and estimating
its value, Kapusta said. He said the equipment being sold was
"clean, safe and environmentally friendly."
He refused to say how much the plant operators were hoping to
bring in.
"We shouldn't be sitting around twiddling our thumbs," he said.
"We should try to make money ourselves."
An estimated 7 million people suffer radiation-related health
problems from the disaster at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4, which
exploded and burned in 1986. The radioactive fallout affected
vast parts of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and much of northern
Europe.
The destroyed reactor was entombed in a hastily built
concrete-and-steel shelter, which Ukrainian experts say is in
need of urgent repairs. The last reactor at the plant was shut
for good in 2000, but many call the plant a ticking atomic time
bomb.
Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly warned a previously
estimated figure of $758 million was far from enough to build a
new protective shelter for reactor No. 4 by the end of 2008.
Officials have asked for an additional $350 million.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
rights reserved. Distribution, transmission or republication of
*****************************************************************
30 AFP: Iran says top Russian official to visit for nuclear fuel deal -
Monday February 7, 08:33 PM
TEHRAN (AFP) - Russia's atomic energy chief Alexander Rumyantsev
is to visit Iran later this month for the signing of a nuclear
fuel supply deal and talks on future contracts with the Islamic
republic, an Iranian official said.
A senior official in Iran's national atomic energy organisation,
Mohammad Saeedi, told the student news agency ISNA that
Rumyantsev was scheduled to arrive here on February 25. The
announcement came after Iran agreed to sign a key deal with
Russia on the return of spent fuel that will finally let Moscow
launch the Islamic republic's first nuclear power plant. The
Russian-built plant at Bushehr -- whose construction had been
launched by Germany in the 1970s -- was initially due to go on
line last year. But under pressure from the United States to
abandon the 800 million dollar project altogether, Moscow had set
the condition that all spent fuel be returned, amid fears Iran
could reprocess it by upgrading it through centrifuges.
Tehran has in the past used various arguments to avoid signing
the agreement. It said the material was too volatile and
dangerous to transport back to Russia, and that Moscow was
charging too much. According to Saeedi, Rumyantsev's three-day
visit will also include the opening of negotiations on the second
phase of Bushehr, a visit to the plant itself, and the fixing of
a date for it to go on stream.
The United States and Israel had launched an international
campaign against Russia's Bushehr project but Moscow has
countered that it will ensure the plant remains harmless to
protect its own security interests. Russian diplomats have also
admitted that the Bushehr deal is playing a key role in keeping
Russia's atomic energy industry afloat.
Announcement of the imminent deal came just weeks after the US
administration said it could not rule out the use of force if
Tehran failed to drop its nuclear ambitions. The United States
accuses Iran of using atomic energy as a cover for weapons
development, a charge Tehran denies.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
31 AFP: Iran tells US nuclear sites cannot be destroyed
Tuesday February 8, 12:31 PM
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran warned the United States that its nuclear
sites cannot be destroyed by air or missile strikes, as Britain
entered the fray by declaring that Tehran is a state sponsor of
terrorism. Top national security official Hassan Rowhani said on
state television that a military strike would only push Iran's
nuclear activities underground, and told Washington that the
stand-off should be settled by dialogue. "Our nuclear centres
cannot be destroyed. Our nuclear technology comes from our
scientists (and) we can transfer our nuclear workshops under
mountains and carry out enrichment where no bomb or missile can
be effective," said the cleric, adding he did not consider an
attack as a "serious threat."
Rowhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security
Council, insisted that Iran was "not looking for increased
tensions with any country, even with the Americans." "We are
seeking to resolve our issues with the US. But they are blocking
any chance of resolving the issues."
But his comments were followed by yet more criticism of the
26-year-old Islamic regime, with British Prime Minister Tony
Blair calling Iran a state sponsor of terrorism and it to
renounce its suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. "It certainly
does sponsor terrorism. There's no doubt about that at all,"
Blair told a parliamentary committee, backing his close ally US
President George W. Bush's view of Iran.
"Iran has now been given a set of obligations that it's got to
fulfill," Blair said of its nuclear programme. "I hope they
fulfill it."
Diplomats from Iran and Britain, France and Germany were to meet
Tuesday in Geneva for a crucial round of talks in the EU-3's
effort to secure guarantees Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons
in exchange for diplomatic, security, trade and technology
incentives.
The Europeans want Iran to totally dismantle its uranium
enrichment programme to ensure that it cannot make weapons-grade
material. But Iran counters that it has the right, under the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to work on the nuclear
fuel cycle -- something critics see as Iran exploiting a
dangerous loophole in the treaty.
Iran says it only wants to make fuel for nuclear reactors,
enabling it to generate atomic energy and free up more of its
huge oil and gas reserves for export. For the time being it has
suspended all uranium enrichment-related activities to fulfill
its part of a deal clinched in November with the Europeans. But
Rowhani repeated warnings that Iran's patience during
negotiations on the issue was not finite.
"Our condition for a continuation of the talks is progress.
Therefore, if the talks are not be progressing (by March 20), we
are not obliged to continue," he said.
And Hossein Mousavian, a top Iranian negotiator, also said
Tuesday's Geneva talks would be decisive. "As of this meeting and
the two next ones, the working groups should begin practical and
serious discussions," he told state television.
"Our working groups will maybe have only one or two more
meetings. Iran's decision is to continue the talks only if there
is definitive, concrete and tangible progress."
On Sunday, US Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States
backs the European diplomatic effort but has not "eliminated any
alternative". And US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
last week that military force against Tehran had not not been
ruled out even though the "question is simply not on the agenda
at this point."
"We are all concerned by the potential of a nuclear weapon in
Iran. It would be a destabilising factor and we cannot let that
happen," Rice said on a visit to Israel this week. "Iran is
clearly a problem for the international system." The UN nuclear
watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has
been investigating Iran for two years, has found plenty of
evidence pointing to suspicious activity but no "smoking gun"
that proves Iran is seeking the bomb.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
32 AGI: DEPLETED URANIUM: MARTINO AND FI STALL PROBE (AGI) -
Agenzia Giornalistica Italia - News In English
[http://www.agi.it/]
Wednesday February 9, 2005 h.03.24
Rome, Italy, Feb. 8 - "It is outright sabotage aimed at hindering
the work of the inquiry into depleted uranium deaths. The major
culprits are Defence Minister Martino and Forza Italia, who have
resorted to spoiling tactics such as delaying the appointment of
committee members and interfering with the appointment of other
party members.
Forza Italia has failed to designate its committee members ever
since the committee was established on November 17, meaning the
committee has been unable to start work" says Gigi Malabarba,
chief senate whip for the PRC party during a press conference,
jointly attended by fellow committee members Lorenzo Forcieri
(DS), Stefano Boco (Greens) and associations representing the
families of deceased military personnel.
"The defence minister is resorting to interference with regards
to the issue of statistics by the military health bureau, quite
frankly it's indecent. We're not giving up: President Pera must
formally instate the committee in the upcoming days otherwise any
conclusions the probe may have led to in the past 12 months may
go to pot; in fact the probe must issue its conclusion prior to
the close of legislature - Malabarba added. [...]
Sick soldiers and the families of the deceased are being left to
their own devices. We are petitioning president Ciampi for a
meeting, given his keen interest on this issue" Malabarba
concluded. (AGI) - 081939 FEB 05
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2005 AGI S.p.A. [Invia questo articolo]
Invia questo articolo
*****************************************************************
33 Middletown Press: 33rd cask moved to storage pad as tear-down progresses
News - 02/08/2005
By JOSH MROZINSKI, Middletown Press Staff
HADDAM -- The decommissioning of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic
Power Plant reached a milestone over the weekend when the 33rd
cask was transferred to the storage pad.
Ten casks still need to be moved. The last one, containing
greater than Class-C Waste, will be brought to the site --
located three-quarters of a mile from the plant -- in early
April.
"Over the course of the project we’ve had two minor
equipment-related delays that have not significantly impacted our
schedule," said Kelley Smith, company spokeswoman. "In fact, we
are slightly ahead of schedule."
She said there was a mechanical issue with the yard crane and
with the heavy-haul transportation device. The weather, she said,
has not caused any major delays.
The completion of the decommissioning process, which began in
1998 and still involves the demolition of a number of buildings,
puts the fate of the Community Decommissioning Advisory
Committee, or CDAC, into question. Connecticut Yankee formed CDAC
in 1997 to keep the community informed of the project’s progress.
"CDAC will probably be done in a year-in-a-half, or so, because
the decommissioning will be over," said Hugh Curley, chairman.
"CDAC will eventually evolve into hopefully another organization
to deal with the intermediate storage of fuel."
The spent-fuel and waste are supposed to be transferred to the
Yucca Mountain facility in Nevada.
Curley said they have held preliminary discussions about what
could take the place of CDAC.
Jeff Nelson, who represents U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2, said CDAC
kept open communications and helped to initiate critical thought
about the process, which is going well.
"At this point there is not a whole lot happening, but you still
need to maintain some form of information connection," Nelson
said.
Smith said CDAC will determine what type of group will form.
Once Connecticut Yankee completes the fuel transfer, it will
demolish the turbine building, she said.
"It is one of the more noticeable structures on the site," Smith
said.
The last of the structures will be torn down in 2006. Some of the
foundations will be left behind and filled in.
Trucks haul the debris to sites in South Carolina, Utah and
Tennessee. Smith said they are also considering facilities in
Texas and Idaho as possible destinations.
So far 100 million pounds of the expected 266 million pounds of
debris have been removed.
To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or
e-mail jmrozinski@middletownpress.com.
©The Middletown Press 2005
*****************************************************************
34 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada lawmakers told Yucca Mountain project is likely dead
Today: February 08, 2005 at 17:36:31 PST
By ELIZABETH WHITE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The head of the state agency fighting
federal efforts to open a high-level radioactive waste dump at
Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada told legislators Tuesday that
the dump faces many obstacles and may die altogether.
"The project is limping along," said Robert Loux, executive
director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. "We believe
the project is dead."
Still, Loux asked the Senate Finance Committee for $2 million in
state general funds for each of the next two years to fund the
state's legal fight against the project.
Loux cited the 50 percent reduction in the federal Department of
Energy's latest funding request for the nuclear-waste project,
90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as evidence that the government
and President Bush may lack confidence in the project.
The DOE last year said it would need $1.3 billion in the coming
year for costs associated with pushing the project forward. But
now it's asking Congress to allocate just $651 million for the
coming year.
"It looks to us and others that the project may never rekindle
and get started again," Loux said.
Allen Benson, DOE spokesman, said the project is moving forward.
"We're working on the license application," he said. "We are
working on the licensing support network. We are proceeding
ahead."
Of the federal funds, Nevada is supposed to get $3.5 million for
the coming fiscal year. But even that is in doubt, since the
state still hasn't received the $2 million in federal funds it
was promised for the current budget year, Loux told legislators.
Besides the scientific obstacles the project faces, Loux said
there are regulatory obstacles. They include a U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission requirement that all documents related to
the project be made part of an electronic database, and a
federal court ruling that calls for the Environmental Protection
Agency to redraft protection standards and for the NRC to change
its licensing rules.
The combination of federal and state funds would give the state
more than $5 million to both continue to fight the proposed
high-level waste facility and participate in its licensing
should that happen.
But the Department of Energy's top manager for nuclear waste
disposal said on Monday that Yucca Mountain will come on line at
least two years later than its planned 2010 opening.
"I don't think anyone really believes 2012, either," Loux said,
adding that he thinks a license application for the project will
not be submitted by November as the DOE originally projected.
"The more they set these deadlines that don't then get met,
there's a real loss of confidence by everyone who oversees the
project," he said.
Benson said the 5,000-plus page license document is on schedule
to be submitted by the end of the year. He also said that the
department maintained all along that the 2010 opening date could
not be met unless Congress allocated all $880 million requested
for the current fiscal year. The department got $577 million.
Benson added that the new 2012 date "is predicated on getting
the budget we need and resolution of the EPA standard."
Senate Majority Leader William Raggio, R-Reno, wanted to know
about the status of the DOE's proposal for a temporary,
above-ground concrete storage pad for 40,000 metric tons of
nuclear waste. Loux said the department has reduced the size of
its request to a pad holding half that much waste.
An "aging" pad is needed because Nevada would be required to
bring in the oldest nuclear waste first. The pad would hold this
older, "cool" nuclear waste while newer, "hot" waste is put
underground. Then the older waste could be filled in around the
edges, Loux said.
But Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, was
concerned the pad would become the only storage facility rather
than just a temporary piece of the whole project.
But Loux said that the aging pad, which would likely be in place
for 50 to 100 years, would not go forward without the
underground repository. Making the pad a stand-alone facility
would require new legislation, he said.
Besides the $2 million a year to fight the project, Loux also
asked legislators for $1.8 million for each of the next two
years for staffing and administration.
--
*****************************************************************
35 PE.com: Rate increase sought for San Onofre work
| Inland Southern California | Business News
07:10 PM PST on Monday, February 7, 2005
By LESLIE BERKMAN / The Press-Enterprise
Southern California Edison is seeking a 2 percent rate hike to
pay for new steam generators to extend the life of the San
Onofre Nuclear Generating Station by about a dozen years.
Edison spokesman Ray Golden said unless $829 million is raised
to replace steam generators that have begun to crack, one of the
two nuclear units operating in San Diego County could be forced
to shut down as early as 2009 and the second by 2017.
But if the San Onofre plant is retrofitted with four new steam
generators, it could remain in operation until its federal
license expires in 2022, Golden said.
Golden said Edison figures an investment in new steam generators
would save its customers more than $1 billion. Otherwise
natural-gas-fired plants would have to be built to replace the
power that would be lost by closing the San Onofre facility 12
years earlier.
On Monday, the state Public Utilities Commission began a second
week of hearings on Edison's request for a rate increase. If
approved, the rate hike would go into effect in four to five
years, after the steam generators had been built and installed,
Golden said.
Edison owns a 73 percent interest in the San Onofre and operates
the plant.
Riverside Public Utilities, which has less than a 2 percent
ownership in the plant, has agreed to pay an estimated $12
million for its share of the cost of the generators, said Donna
Stevener, the agency's assistant director for finance and
resources.
"We aren't proposing a rate increase to cover our share because
it would be just as expensive to buy power from other sources,"
Stevener said.
Two other stakeholders in the nuclear power plant -- San Diego
Gas & Electric Co. and Anaheim Public Utilities -- have opted
not to participate in the investment to extend the life of San
Onofre.
San Diego Gas & Electric spokesman Peter Hidalgo said while that
utility does not oppose the generation-replacement project, it
does not want to help pay for it. Under the terms of the
operating agreement with Edison, he said, SDG&E has the option
to withhold payment for the repairs and accept a reduced share
of power.
Anaheim Public Utilities spokesman Mike Ebbing said Anaheim,
which owns about a 3 percent interest in San Onofre, has decided
not to contribute its estimated $24 million share in the new
generators because it would rather invest in renewable-energy
resources such as wind farms.
Matt Freedman, staff attorney with The Utility Reform Network,
said that San Francisco-based ratepayer advocacy group is
closely scrutinizing Edison's financial projections for San
Onofre. He said the group has serious concerns about the cost of
keeping the plant in operation -- including costs associated
with maintaining an aging facility and seismic and terrorism
issues.
"We have been burned badly on nuclear power plants in
California," Freedman said. "It was the blow-up in nuclear costs
that put pressure on electric rates in the late '80s and early
'90s and led to calls for deregulation that almost ruined the
California economy."
Golden said the PUC hearings on Edison's rate request will end
this week, after which an administrative law judge will make a
preliminary decision. He said a final decision is expected from
the PUC in September. More headlines...
Belo Interactive Inc.
[http://www.belointeractive.com]
*****************************************************************
36 Detroit Free Press: Fermi leak costs Detroit Edison about $15 million
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A non-radioactive leak that closed the Fermi 2 nuclear power
plant will cost Detroit Edison Co., the utility that operates
the plant, about $15.4 million, according to a report filed with
the state.
About $14.6 million is related to replacement power that the
utility bought while the plant was idled, while $800,000 is the
estimated repair expense, utility officials told the Michigan
Public Service Commission.
Authorities pinpointed a damaged gasket on an air-cooling unit
as the cause of the Jan. 24 shutdown.
The company restarted the reactor in Monroe County on Sunday,
The Monroe Evening News reported. Utility spokesman John
Austerberry said Tuesday that the reactor was back to operating
at full power following the shutdown.
The gasket was in one of the 14 air-cooling units in the plant's
containment structure. The cooling units maintain temperatures
in the containment structure, which is a concrete and steel
enclosure surrounding the reactor.
The southeastern Michigan plant is about 20 miles north of the
Ohio border and 30 miles south of Detroit.
Copyright © 2005 Detroit Free Press Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
37 Z News: Nuclear Folly
ZNet |Foreign Policy | Nuclear Folly
by Lawrence S. Wittner
February 07, 2005 History News Network
According to recent news reports and as hinted in the
president's State of the Union Address, the neocons who dominate
the Bush administration are gearing up for another pre-emptive
military attack, this time upon Iran. The ostensible reason for
such an attack is that the Iranian government is developing
nuclear weapons.
Â
In fact, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which
regularly inspects Iran's nuclear operations, has not found any
signs of nuclear weapons. Although the IAEA has reported that
Iran has produced enriched uranium--which can be used for either
civilian or military purposes--such production has been halted
thanks to a November 2004 Iranian agreement with France,
Germany, and Britain. Thus, although it is possible that Iran
might produce nuclear weapons some time in the future, this is
hardly a certainty. Nor is it clear that the Iranian government
has ever planned to produce them.
Â
Ironically, in the midst of this delicate situation, the Bush
administration is busy dismantling the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT). This treaty, signed in 1968 by officials of the
United States and of almost all other countries, obligates
non-nuclear nations to forgo development of nuclear weapons and
nuclear nations to take steps toward nuclear disarmament. The
Bush administration reveres the first obligation and wants to
scrap the second.
Â
In late December 2004, news accounts quoted an administration
official as saying that the final agreement at the NPT review
conference in 2000--which commits the declared nuclear weapons
states to an "unequivocal undertaking" to abolish nuclear
weapons--is a "simply historical document," which does not
reflect the drastic changes in the world since the 9/11
terrorist attacks. Thus, he said, the Bush administration "no
longer supports" all of the thirteen steps toward disarmament
outlined in the 2000 agreement and does not view it as "being a
road map or binding guideline or anything like that."
Â
For those who have followed the Bush administration's nuclear
policy, this position should come as no great surprise. The
administration has not only abandoned efforts toward negotiating
nuclear arms control and disarmament agreements with other
nations, but has withdrawn the United States from the ABM treaty
(signed by President Nixon) and refused to support ratification
of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (signed by President
Clinton).
Â
It has also championed a program of building new U.S. nuclear
weapons, including so-called "bunker busters" and "mini-nukes,"
and of facilitating the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. Only
an unexpected revolt in Congress--led by Representatives David
Hobson and Pete Viclosky, the Republican chair and ranking
Democrat of the House Energy and Water Appropriations
Committee--blocked funding for the Bush administration's
proposed new nuclear weapons in 2004. Political analysts expect
the administration to make another effort to secure the funding
this year.
Â
For the Bush administration and its fans, this evasion of U.S.
obligations under the NPT makes perfect sense. The United
States, they believe, is a supremely virtuous nation, and
nations with whom it has bad relations--such as Iran--are
"evil." In line with this belief, the U.S. government has the
right to build and use nuclear weapons, while nations it places
on its "enemies" list do not.
Â
As might be expected, this assumption does not play nearly as
well among government officials in Iran, who seem unlikely to
fulfill their part of the NPT agreement if U.S. officials
flagrantly renege on theirs. At the very least, the Bush
administration is offering them a convenient justification for a
policy of building Iranian nuclear weapons.
Â
Other nations have drawn this same conclusion. In the fall of
2004, Helen Clark, the prime minister of New Zealand, warned:
"First and foremost we need to keep before us the essential
bargain that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty represents.
While we will willingly contribute to non-proliferation and
counter-proliferation initiatives, those initiatives should be
promoted alongside initiatives to secure binding commitments
from those who have nuclear weapons which move us further
towards the longer-term goal of nuclear disarmament."
Â
Much the same point was made in early January 2005 by Mohamed
ElBaradei, the director of the IAEA. Calling upon all countries
to commit themselves to forgo building facilities for uranium
enrichment and nuclear reprocessing for the next five years,
ElBaradei added: "We should not forget the commitment by the
weapons states to move toward nuclear disarmament."
Â
In fact, ElBaradei's evenhanded approach to nuclear issues has
angered the Bush administration, which is now working to deny
him reappointment as IAEA director.
Â
The responsibility of all nations under the NPT will undoubtedly
receive a good deal of discussion at the NPT review conference
that will convene at the United Nations this May. Certainly it
will be interesting to see how the Bush administration explains
the inconsistencies in its nuclear policy.
Â
Unfortunately, by then we may well have another bloody military
confrontation on our hands. Like the war in Iraq, it will be
sold to us on the basis of the potential threat from a nation
possessing weapons of mass destruction. And, also like the war
in Iraq, it will be unnecessary--brought on by the arrogance and
foolishness of the Bush administration.
Â
Lawrence S. Wittner is Professor of History at the State
University of New York, Albany. His latest book is Toward
Nuclear Abolition (Stanford University Press).
*****************************************************************
38 AFP: China plans revolutionary, 'pebble bed' nuclear reactor
: report
Tuesday February 8, 07:40 PM
BEIJING, (AFP) - China plans to develop a revolutionary,
"pebble-bed" nuclear reactor which would be both meltdown- and
proliferation-proof, and come on stream in five years time, the
Financial Times reported.
A Chinese energy consortium has chosen the city of Weihai in
northeastern Shandong province to build the 195-megawatt
gas-cooled power plant, the newspaper said, citing an unnamed
official representing the consortium.
The plant would be the first radically new reactor design for
decades, putting China at the forefront in nuclear energy
research that offers a "meltdown-proof" alternative to
conventional nuclear power stations, it said.
"Pebble bed" reactors are fueled by thousands of small graphite
balls with minute uranium cores which provide the fuel for the
nuclear reaction.
The consortium includes electricity producer Huaneng Power
International Inc, Beijing's Tsinghua University and China
Nuclear Engineering and Construction, the Financial Times said.
No one from the companies was available for comment.
Supporters say the technology is safer in terms of nuclear
proliferation due to the expense and difficulty of processing
the spent fuel from the graphite balls, the report said.
Advocates of pebble bed reactors also argue they offer cheaper,
safer and easily expandable nuclear power stations.
This appeals to China, which is struggling to meet huge growth
in energy demand while avoiding environmental disaster.
"Pebble bed" technology was pioneered in Germany, which shut
down its last prototype reactor in 1989, while a South African
project remains in doubt, the newspaper said.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
39 Sofia Morning News: Russia Reiterates Interest in Bulgarian Power Sector
www.novinite.com [Sofia News Agency]
Business: 8 February 2005, Tuesday.
Russia is still keen on acquiring share in Bulgarian power
sector, being interested in the construction of the country's
second nuclear plant in Belene and researching opportunities to
apply for power utilities in Varna, Russe and Bobov Dol.
Russian Ambassador Anatoli Potapov, who is visiting the southern
Bulgarian town of Plovdiv, announced also that Russia had
submitted the full set of application documents for the
construction and equipment of Belene nuclear plant.
The US consultants of the project - Parsons - have advised that
the country fixes two Russian-made VVER 1,000-MW. A Czech-made
1,000-MW unit of the Russian VVER-1,000 type was supplied at the
Belene site in the late 1980s and is still stored there waiting
to be fixed.
The same-type reactors are currently operating in Bulgaria's
Kozloduy power plant (units 5 and 6) and the Czech Temelin power
plant.
Ambassador Potapov met Tuesday with Plovdiv's Mayor Ivan
Tchomakov and inaugurated the seventh edition of the exhibition
"New Russian Book" organised by the Russian Academy of
Sciences.[ width=]
Click here to receive realtime news about this topic in the
future.
All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency -
www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
*****************************************************************
40 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria Picks Architect for Belene Nuke
www.novinite.com [Sofia News Agency]
Business: 8 February 2005, Tuesday.
Bulgaria's National Electricity Transmission Company (NETC)
picked Parsons E&C Europe Limited, part of the Worley Parsons
group for an architect of the country's second nuclear power
plant Belene.
The project envisages two execution phases. The first one began
with the signing of the contract on January 31 and will go on to
the inking of the financial agreements on the project.
The second phase includes the construction and commissioning of
the new plant.
The contract has a term of ten years and the first phase is
worth EUR 16.88 M. It will be executed through the subsidiary
Parsons E&C Bulgaria.[ width=]
novinite.com Forum Google Tourism Business MobileBulgaria
All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency -
www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
provider in English that informs its readers about the latest
Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily
*****************************************************************
41 NRC: NRC FY 2006 Budget Increases Nuclear Reactor Safety Program
News Release - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 05-023 February 7, 2005
the NRC released its proposed budget of $701.7 million that
includes improvements in nuclear plant safety and security.
This budget will provide NRC with the necessary resources to
regulate the safe and secure use and management of radioactive
materials, said Jesse L. Funches, Chief Financial Officer.
NRCs FY 2006 budget request is $32 million over its FY 2005
budget. The increase includes approximately $17.7 million to
strengthen reactor inspections and to keep pace with licensing
needs of nuclear power plants. This includes improving the
effectiveness of design/engineering inspections, enhancing
security oversight, reviewing applications for new reactor
designs and early site permits, and reducing the backlog of
research and test reactor license renewals and power reactor
licensing actions.
The budget also includes an increase of approximately $2.5
million to fund NRCs new responsibilities for oversight of
certain Department of Energy radioactive waste incidental to
reprocessing and $11.8 million primarily to fund Federal pay
raises.
Funding levels for each of the agencys major programs and the
Inspector General are provided below. Homeland security
resources of $61 million are included in these programs.
Program Million
Nuclear Reactor Safety $ 469.2
Licensing ($274.9M)
Inspection ($194.3M)
Nuclear Materials & Waste Safety $ 224.2
Fuel Facilities ($36.6 M)
Nuclear Materials ($65.9M)
High-Level Waste Repository ($69.1M)
Decommissioning and Low-Level
Waste ($28.1M)
Spent Fuel Storage and
Transportation ($24.5M)
Inspector General $ 8.3
NRCs budget reflects $567 million in fees that will be assessed
to licensees, resulting in a net appropriation of $135 million.
More detailed information on the budget (NUREG-1100, Volume 21)
is available on NRCs web site at http://www.nrc.gov at the
Plans, Budget, and Performance link in the bottom right-hand
corner of the web page or may be purchased from the Government
Printing Office by calling 202-512-1800. All media inquiries
should be made to the Office of Public Affairs.
Last revised Monday, February 07, 2005
*****************************************************************
42 NRC: NRC Considers Changes to Regulations on Safeguards Information
News Release - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200
Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
No. 05-024 February 8, 2005
actions directed by the Commission since Sept. 11, 2001.
The information involved, known as Safeguards Information, is a
special category of sensitive unclassified information
authorized to be protected under the Atomic Energy Act. In many
ways it is handled like classified information. Individuals
provided access to Safeguards Information must have a valid need
to know such information and, for certain categories of
information, must undergo a criminal history check, including
fingerprinting.
The unauthorized release of this information could result in
harm to public health and safety and the nations common defense
and security. Release could also effect damage to the countrys
critical infrastructure, including nuclear power plants and
other facilities and materials licensed and regulated by the
NRC.
Information designated as Safeguards Information must be
protected from unauthorized disclosure and must be physically
controlled and protected. Physical protection requirements
include secure storage, document marking, limited reproduction,
protected transmission and controls for information processing
on electronic systems.
As provided in the Atomic Energy Act, inadequate protection of
Safeguards Information, including inadvertent release and
unauthorized disclosure, may result in civil and/or criminal
penalties; willful violation is a felony subject to fines or
imprisonment.
Some types of NRC licensees, such as nuclear power reactors, are
already required by NRC regulations to have a Safeguards
Information protection program. NRC issued orders after
September 11 that expanded the types of information to be
protected by such licensees. Other orders were issued to
licensees not previously explicitly subject to Safeguards
Information protection requirements in the regulations, such as
certain licensees authorized to manufacture or initially
transfer items containing radioactive material.
Although new Safeguards Information requirements could continue
to be imposed by issuance of orders, it has been Commission
policy to codify requirements in the regulations and not rely
indefinitely on orders to impose needed generic requirements.
Further details on the proposed changes to the regulations are
described in a Federal Register notice to be published shortly.
Interested persons are invited to submit written comments to the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C.
20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
Comments may also be submitted electronically by e-mail to
SECY@nrc.gov [SECY@nrc.gov] ; or via the NRCs rulemaking website
at http: //ruleforum.llnl.gov [http:%20//ruleforum.llnl.gov] .
The comments should be submitted within 45 days after the
publication of the Federal Register notice.
Last revised Tuesday, February 08, 2005
*****************************************************************
43 NRC: All Tech Corporation; Establishment of Atomic Safety and
FR Doc 05-2367
[Federal Register: February 8, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 25)]
[Notices] [Page 6739-6740] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr08fe05-147]
Licensing Board Pursuant to delegation by the Commission dated
December 29, 1972, published in the Federal Register, 37 FR
28,710 (1972), and the Commission's regulations, see 10 CFR
2.104, 2.300, 2.303, 2.309, 2.311, 2.318, and 2.321, notice is
hereby given that an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is being
established to preside over the following proceeding: All Tech
Corporation, Pocatello, Idaho, (Civil Monetary Penalty).
This proceeding concerns a request for hearing submitted on
January 10, 2005, by All Tech Corporation in response to a
December 10, 2004 NRC staff order (69 FR 76,019 (Dec. 20, 2004)),
imposing a civil penalty associated with a staff investigation of
All Tech Corporation activities that
[[Page 6740]] concluded All Tech Corporation had not conducted
its activities in full compliance with NRC requirements.
The Board is comprised of the following administrative judges:
Lawrence McDade, Chair, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
E. Roy Hawkens, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Dr. Peter S. Lam, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
All correspondence, documents, and other materials shall be filed
with the administrative judges in accordance with 10 CFR
2.346(I). Issued in Rockville, Maryland, this 2nd day of February
2005.
G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board Panel.
[FR Doc. 05-2367 Filed 2-7-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
44 NRC: Sunshine Act; Meetings
FR Doc 05-2481
[Federal Register: February 8, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 25)]
[Notices] [Page 6740] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr08fe05-148]
Date: Weeks of February 7, 14, 21, 28, March 7, 14, 2005.
Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, Maryland.
Status: Public and Closed.
Matters to Be Considered: Week of February 7, 2005 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)
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: 9 a.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1) 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] . Week of March 14,
2005--Tentative Wednesday, March 16, 2005: 9:30 a.m. Meeting with
Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) (Public Meeting)
(Contact: John Larkins, 301-415-7360). 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: February 3, 2005.
Dave Gamberoni, Office of the Secretary.
[FR Doc. 05-2481 Filed 2-4-05; 9:27 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M
*****************************************************************
45 New Mexican: Bush budget would mean more for LANL, less for Sandia
Tue Feb 8, 2005 4:56 pm
Blog [http://www.santafenewmexican.blogspot.com/]
The Bush Administration dished out a few surprises for the Energy
Department with its Monday budget proposal.
"While there are some positive elements to this budget proposal,
overall New Mexico's labs don't fare as well as I would like them
to," U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman,
D-N.M., said in a news release.
If Congress goes along with it, spending for the Energy
Department would fall 2 percent to
$23.4 billion.
New Mexico would see a $6 million decrease over current funding,
which is at $4.5 billion.
"It's possible, even likely, that the nuclear-weapons budget may
decline for the first time since 1995 in projected
constant-dollar terms," according to Greg Mello of the Los Alamos
Study Group in Albuquerque.
But Mello and other anti-nuke activists aren't celebrating.
The proposed budget is streaked with "misplaced priorities,"
according to Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a watchdog
group in Santa Fe.
Back on the table are four controversial nuclear weapons programs
that Congress last year either completely cut, substantially
reduced or redirected, Coghlan said. Of the increased funding, $4
million, would go toward studying "bunker busters," a new weapon
that could destroy hardened, deeply buried targets.
Meanwhile, a program to stop the spread of nuclear materials
throughout the world got a 15 percent increase, to $1.6 billion,
a boost both senators Bingaman and Pete Domenici, R-N.M.,
praised.
New Mexico workers, however, may wonder what the 2006 budget
proposal means for them. Some programs in the state would swell
while others would shrink.
Los Alamos National Laboratory stands to gain more: $1.8 billion,
up $29 million over this year.
Funding at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque would
decrease to $1.381 billion. That's $121 million below what it got
this year, according to Domenici.
"It's too early to speculate on what it would mean," Sandia
spokesman John German said, noting that the proposed budget has a
long road ahead through Congress.
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad also would take a
hit. The budget proposal includes
$226 million for WIPP, down
$11.5 million from this year, according to Domenici.
WIPP, which accepted its first radioactive shipment in March
1999, is designed to permanently store plutonium-contaminated
waste more than 2,100 feet underground in ancient salt beds.
Within the LANL budget is money for programs to stop the spread
of nuclear materials in the world, make plutonium triggers for
nuclear weapons, build the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Facility, upgrade the power infrastructure and accelerate cleanup
of contamination on lab grounds.
There's also $27 million for the controversial and vastly
over-budget Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility, an
X-ray machine intended to produce three-dimensional images of
materials during an explosion.
"Accelerated" waste cleanup at Los Alamos would receive $142
million, up $23 million from this year. The state is prepared to
sign a massive environmental cleanup order with the Energy
Department and Los Alamos lab. But Ron Curry, the New Mexico
environment secretary, said he isn't sure what the budget means
by accelerated cleanup and he plans to talk to lab Director Pete
Nanos about it.
"There's a possibility that the funding the Department of Energy
needs to push forward on this order could be cut," Curry said in
an interview Monday.
Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican
Privacy Policy | ©2005, Santa Fe New
*****************************************************************
46 Seattle Times: Veterans, Hanford project hit hard
Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.
By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau
WASHINGTON The good news for veterans in the new budget
proposed by President Bush is that veterans' programs will
receive an increase in funding of about $880 million. But
there's a cloud with the silver lining nearly half of that
amount, $424 million, will come from vets themselves.
Veterans, community services and the Hanford nuclear reservation
cleanup all take major hits in the proposed budget. Bush
proposes a $250-per-year fee for veterans participating in the
VA health system who have a high income or few health problems.
In addition, veterans face a doubling of their prescription-drug
co-payment, from $7 to $15 for a 30-day supply of medicine.
The Puget Sound-area's VA facilities treated 5,700 veterans last
year who would have to pay the $250 fee, said Sen. Maria
Cantwell, D-Wash. "Our nation's veterans laid everything on the
line for our country," Cantwell added. "They deserve better than
to be nickel-and-dimed."
The Bush budget also proposes substantial cuts to three programs
that provide money for local social services in Washington
state: Community Access Programs, Community Development Block
Grants and Community health centers.
Community Access Programs, whose current $83 million budget may
be eliminated, provides grants to four programs in Washington,
including Kids Get Care, a child-health program in King County.
Kids Get Care has helped more than 53,000 children in its first
three years, said Susan Johnson of the King County health
department. The program helps uninsured children get to dentists
early, have checkups for major medical issues and developmental
disabilities, and receive immunizations for serious childhood
diseases.
The program has been so successful that state legislators are
interested in expanding it to Snohomish and Pierce counties. But
now, Johnson's focus will be on trying to preserve the program.
When she visits the state Legislature today, she said, "I'm
going to tell the legislators, 'Get on the phone, Republican or
Democrat, and call your senators and members of Congress.' "
The federal grant that supports Kids Get Care had been in danger
before. "This is like an annual thing," said Johnson, noting
that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., helped save the program last
year, but may have a harder time this year because Bush is
proposing more sweeping cuts to social services.
Another proposed cut would hit Community Development Block
Grants, which supports projects in Seattle and Snohomish. CDBG
had been receiving around $4 billion nationally. But under what
Bush calls his "Strengthening America's Communities Initiative,"
CDBG and 18 other programs would be rolled into one organization
that would receive $3.7 billion.
Bellevue received $809,000 last year in community-development
block grants for its programs to help the homeless and preserve
low-income housing, and Redmond's YMCA Family Village has been
one of the program's success stories, said Bellevue Mayor Connie
Marshall.
Funding for the Hanford nuclear-waste cleanup was to be cut by
$297 million, which drew criticism from Rep. Doc Hastings,
R-Pasco. Though he applauded the president's "wartime budget,"
Hastings said in a statement: "I do not support a retreat from
accelerated cleanup. ... The federal government has a
responsibility to uphold its legal and moral cleanup
obligations.
"This budget proposal is just that a proposal," he said,
echoing Democrats and Republicans in the delegation.
Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or
Copyright © 2005 The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
47 Las Vegas RJ: Test site readiness part of budget
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
By TONY BATT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The 2006 federal budget proposal unveiled Monday
includes enough money to resume nuclear tests at the Nevada Test
Site within 18 months, but an Energy Department official said no
plans exist to end the testing moratorium, which began in 1992.
Linton Brooks, chief administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration, said the $25 million request by the
Bush administration would complete efforts to lower the
two-to-three-year preparation time for nuclear tests.
The reduction is necessary to address potentially serious
defects in the nation's aging nuclear weapons stockpile,
according to a Bush administration report.
"But I need to stress there is absolutely no indication of any
problems in the stockpile which would cause us to resume
testing," said Brooks, whose agency is a branch of the Energy
Department and is in charge of the test site.
The Bush administration sought $30 million last year to lower
nuclear testing preparation time, but Congress approved $26.8
million.
If Congress approves this year's request of $25 million, Brooks
said, that will be enough to finish the job.
"We see no reason to reduce test readiness below 18 months,"
Brooks said.
The last nuclear test at the test site, 65 miles northwest of
Las Vegas, occurred underground on Sept. 23, 1992.
Since then, the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons
stockpile have been maintained through subcritical experiments,
which do not cause a nuclear chain reaction.
NNSA also is asking for $4 million in next year's budget to
continue a feasibility study of a controversial new nuclear
weapon known as the robust nuclear earth penetrator, or "bunker
buster."
The test site would be a potential location for testing the
weapon if it is ever developed. The bunker buster would be
designed to penetrate underground storage sites of weapons held
by terrorists or rogue nations.
Last year, NNSA asked for $27 million to continue research on
the bunker buster, but Congress denied funding.
"At the request of the secretary of defense, we are going to ask
Congress to reconsider," Brooks said.
If Congress approves the $4 million request for the 2006 budget,
Brooks said, NNSA would seek another $14 million the following
year to complete analysis on the weapon.
Overall, the president's budget request for the test site in
2006 would be $377.3 million, an increase of $41.8 million over
this year's budget, NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said.
"We don't anticipate any layoffs at the Nevada Test Site,"
Wilkes said.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
*****************************************************************