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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 IPS-English UAE-IRAN: Armament plan has nothing to do with
2 Persian Journal: Iran building nuclear tunnel -
3 AFP: ElBaradei calls on Washington to join nuclear talks with Iran -
4 BBC NEWS: Russia backs Iran in nuclear row
5 Guardian Unlimited Bush: U.S. Not Planning to Attack Iran
6 AFP: Bush impatient over Iran tactics
7 Guardian Unlimited: Putin: Iran Has No Nuclear Weapons Plans
8 CNS: Russia Deepening Ties With Iran, Syria -- 02/18/2005
9 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to Cooperate on Iran Nuke Program
10 US Subversion of Diplomacy and North Korea's Phantom Nukes
11 Guardian Unlimited: Chinese Official Heads to North Korea
12 Korea Herald: U.S. envoy says nukes 'a dead end'
13 YWS: N. Korea Says Talks with U.S. No Longer Justified - Chinese Rep
14 YWS: Australia Might Send Group to NK for Nuke Issue - Korean Envoy
15 BBC NEWS: US and Japan urge N Korea talks
16 Xinhua: DPRK says no justification for direct talks with US now
17 AFP: North Korea rules out bilateral nuclear talks with US -
18 Guardian Unlimited Report: N. Korea Won't Talk With Nations
19 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Hill says ¡®coordinated actions' needed, but
20 Guardian Unlimited: Chinese Official Meets With N. Korean
21 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., China Agree on North Korea Nukes
22 US: IPS-English DISARMAMENT-U.S.:The Nuclear Domino Effect
23 [NYTr] Brits Claim Missing Plutonium Just "Accounting Error"
24 Bellona: Kyoto protocol to influence Russian environment positively
25 BBC NEWS: Chinese envoy to press N Korea
26 Las Vegas SUN: Congressman questions Test Site security
27 AFP: UN nuclear watchdog chief alleges smear campaign against him
28 Guardian Unlimited: Why coal can be top of the heap
NUCLEAR REACTORS
29 US: Fwd: No truth to the rumor that California is powerless at the
30 US: [NukeNet] NRC Pussyfoots on PSEG illegal firings
31 US: TCS: Enter the Dragon: Nuclear Power's Newest Player
32 US: Free Lance-Star: NRC hearing airs opinions
33 US: SignOnSanDiego.com: Missing valve parts shut down reactor
34 BBC: France's nuclear response to Kyoto
35 US: NRC: NRC Advisory Subcommittee on Early Site Permit Applications
36 Pebble bed decision won't be appealed
37 Mos News: Repair of Leaking Chernobyl Sarcophagus Begins -
38 US: WCAX-TV: Metal part that caused Yankee fire sent for testing
39 US: The State: Duke considers new nuclear plant
NUCLEAR SAFETY
40 US: Occupational Hazards: Erring on the Side of Disaster
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
41 [NYTr] Plutonium Unaccounted for at Brits' Sellafield
42 US: reviewjournal.com: EPA announces safe level for perchlorate in d
43 US: FT.com: Energy & mining - Westinghouse wins $5bn in bid backing
44 reviewjournal.com: Managers say Yucca process on track
45 YDR: YUCCA MTN.: Meetings planned -
46 US: Nuke Waste Watcher: Oh my!, look at the waste!
47 US: Texas Observer: Going Nuclear in West Texas
48 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca project expected to sink
49 US: Buffalo News - West Valley halts work after three safety lapses
50 US: Bradenton Herald: Demand accountability
51 US: Bradenton Herald: Digging scares Tallevast residents
52 Manchester Online: BNFL is heading for new horizons
53 US: DenverPost.com: Cotter Corp. wants to contest terms of waste-lic
54 US: Craig Daily Press: Group trashes proposed dump
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
55 NewsDay: Safety lapses halt cleanup at former nuclear site
OTHER NUCLEAR
56 [du-list] Dennis Kyne - gulf veteran - depleted uranium video.
57 Norway Post: Norway and Russia to replace nuclear batteries
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 IPS-English UAE-IRAN: Armament plan has nothing to do with
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:02:47 -0800
AF IP DV
UAE-IRAN: Armament plan has nothing to do with Iran's nuclear programme
Att.Editors: The following item is from the Emirates News Agency (WAM)
ABU DHABI, Feb. 17 (WAM) - The armament policy of the United Arab Emirates
(UAE) does not take into account Iran's nuclear programme, according to a
UAE military spokesman.
"The Iranian nuclear programme dossier is being dealt with
internationally," Brigadier Obeid Al Kitbi, spokesman of the 7th
International Defence Exhibition (IDEX 2005), told reporters at the close of
the Middle East's largest defence show.
"Our armament and military spending are made in accordance with a
long-term, phased plan that complies with the actual requirements of the
armed forces and turn of events in the region," he said. (WAM)
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2 Persian Journal: Iran building nuclear tunnel -
Iranian.ws, Iranian Progressive Community
Feb 19, 2005, 14:10
(Persian Journal)
The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a
nuclear watchdog think tank, has said that Iran is building a
tunnel with two entrances but it appears to be too long for
storage of uranium.
The ISIS announcement stops short of saying for what purpose the
tunnel is being built. ISIS said on Thursday, "Just north of the
Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Esfahan, Iran is
constructing a tunnel facility. The tunnel is fairly long, and
has two entrances, separated by less than half a kilometre.
Construction on the tunnel began in September or October 2004,
and Iran is working very hard to finish the project. Iran has
declared that the tunnel facility is for storage and other
activities that are part of the UCF. It appears too big to be
only for storage. It might be intended to house production
facilities for some uranium conversion processes. It does not
appear large enough to be a complete duplicate of the UCF."
According to ISIS, Iran already has about 500 tonnes of uranium
concentrate, a few tens of tonnes of uranium tetrafluoride and a
couple of tonnes of uranium hexafluoride.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said that Iran
should have declared the facility to it prior to the start of
construction. The IAEA visited the site in November 2004, at
which time there was no equipment in the tunnel. The
Vienna-based agency will continue to visit the facility.
© Iranian.ws
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3 AFP: ElBaradei calls on Washington to join nuclear talks with Iran -
Saturday February 19, 01:09 PM
BERLIN (AFP) - The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohamed
ElBaradei, called on the United States to join European
countries attempting to ensure Iran does not build atomic
weapons, in an interview to be published Monday in Germany.
The efforts of Britain, France and Germany to persuade Tehran to
stop enriching uranium in exchange for technical, commercial and
political advantages from Europe can only succeed "if the United
States joins in and throws its weight behind it," ElBaradei told
the weekly Der Spiegel.
"Progress is difficult to conceive without Washington," the head
of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said, adding,
"We need a common front."
ElBaradei warned that if Iran was determined to have nuclear
weapons they could be available within two to three years, as
Tehran certainly had the know-how and the industrial capability.
He also voiced alarm at the prospect of a US military attack on
Iran, which President George W. Bush has not ruled out. "After
such an attack, the Iranians would certainly set themselves in
earnest to making a bomb in secret," he said.
Bush told reporters in Washington Friday that talk of a US
military strike on Iran's nuclear programs was "just not the
truth" but expressed growing impatience with Tehran's response to
Europe-led overtures.
Bush expressed strong support for the diplomacy by Britain,
France and Germany to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear
enrichment program, but resisted calls for a bigger US role in
those talks with Tehran. Asked whether Washington would consider
becoming a full, fourth partner in the talks, Bush said: "We're
joined in the process" by virtue of belonging to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"We have made it clear that we agree with the objective to get
rid of the weapons," he said.
"And the United States is very pleased to be a party with you, in
encouraging you to carry that message."
European officials have said that Washington has expressed
growing impatience with diplomacy towards Iran and that they hope
Bush will sign on more concretely to the outreach efforts led by
Berlin, London and Paris.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
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4 BBC NEWS: Russia backs Iran in nuclear row
Last Updated: Friday, 18 February, 2005, 12:43 GMT [ src=] [
[Engineers at the facility being built in Bushehr ]
The Bushehr reactor is being built with Russian assistance
Russian President Vladimir Putin says recent moves by Iran have
convinced him it is not trying to build nuclear arms.
He said Moscow would continue working with Tehran in all fields,
including nuclear power, adding that he had accepted an
invitation to Iran.
His comments came at a meeting in Moscow with chief Iranian
nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani.
Moscow is helping Iran build a nuclear reactor - a project which
has been heavily criticised by the US.
The Americans accuse Iran of seeking nuclear weapons.
Iran denies this, saying its nuclear development programme is
purely for peaceful, energy-generating purposes.
[Russian President Vladimir Putin] [
Iran's latest actions convince us that Iran does not intend to
produce nuclear weapons Vladimir Putin Russian president
Under an agreement announced on Thursday and due to be signed
this month, Moscow will supply Tehran with the nuclear fuel it
needs.
The spent fuel will be returned to Russia. This was the last
issue delaying the start of operations at the Russian-built
reactor at Bushehr, in southern Iran.
The US believes that the Bushehr reactor - when completed -
could enable the Iranians to extract weapons grade plutonium.
The BBC's Steve Rosenberg in Moscow says Russia has close ties
with Iran, dating back to Soviet times, and it is determined to
continue co-operation despite US opposition.
Suspension
After his talks with President Putin on Friday, Mr Rowhani said
Russia's role may prove "rather useful" in moving ahead
discussions on Iran's nuclear programme with Germany, Britain
and France.
The three have offered to replace a heavy-water nuclear reactor
- which can be used to make weapons-grade nuclear material -
with a light-water reactor.
Low grades of uranium are used for nuclear reactor fuel, but
higher grades can be used in atomic bombs.
Tehran suspended uranium enrichment temporarily in November, as
part of the dialogue process.
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5 Guardian Unlimited Bush: U.S. Not Planning to Attack Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday February 19, 2005 12:31 PM
AP Photo NY109
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says speculation that the
United States might attack Iran to end its nuclear program is
``just not the truth,'' although he refuses to rule out the
possibility entirely.
``Listen, first of all, you never want a president to say
'never.' But military action is certainly not - it's never the
president's first choice,'' Bush said Friday. ``Diplomacy is
always the president's first - at least my first choice.''
Bush sat down for a series of broadcast and newspaper interviews
with correspondents from Russia, France, Belgium, Slovakia and
Germany in connection with his five-day trip to Europe next week
to repair relations damaged by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
``We have a tendency in Europe and in America to talk past each
other,'' Bush said. He said he wanted to ``invigorate a
relationship that is a vital relationship for our own security
....''
Asked what it would take to mend relations with French President
Jacques Chirac, one of his toughest critics, Bush said:
``Obviously nice words are nice, but deeds are more important
than words. I personally don't feel bitter.''
He said the United States and France had big differences over
Iraq, ``but now is the time for us to set aside that difference
and to move forward in areas where we can work together.''
Bush said he would talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin
about actions widely viewed as a retreat from democracy. ``I
mean, he's done some things that (have) concerned people,'' he
said.
But he also emphasized that he has ``a good relationship'' with
Putin and would talk with him ``in a friendly way'' about
Western values based on the rule of law, openness, freedom of
expression and checks and balances in government.
Bush also said he would join Putin in Moscow on May 9 when
Russia marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II in
Europe.
Speaking of U.S. relations with Moscow, Bush said: ``There is
still some distrust between the countries but not at the
leadership level. In other words, I think he feels there are
some people in our government that are anti-Soviet, that have an
anti-Soviet bias, and therefore hold it against Russia.''
Bush said he would ask Putin's help in dealing with Iran because
Moscow has influence in Tehran. In Moscow, Putin said Russia
would continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran and that he is
convinced Tehran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons.
Bush also said he disagrees with German Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder over the future role of NATO.
At a security conference in Munich last weekend, Schroeder
suggested a move away from NATO as a place to coordinate policy,
saying the alliance ``is no longer the primary venue where
trans-Atlantic partners discuss and coordinate strategies.''
``I disagree,'' the president said. ``I think NATO is vital. And
I think it's a vital relationship and one that we'll work to
keep strong.''
There were repeated questions about whether the United States
would attack Iran. One correspondent cited an opinion poll
showing that 70 percent of Germans believe the United States is
planning military action against Iran.
``I hear all these rumors about military attacks, and it's just
not the truth,'' Bush said.
He said he supports European nations' efforts to persuade Iran
to scrap its uranium enrichment program in exchange for
technological, financial and political support.
But he did not address U.S. reservations about Europe's
approach. The United States has refused to get involved in the
bargaining with Tehran or to make commitments, insisting that
Iran abandon its program.
``I believe diplomacy can work so long as the Iranians don't
divide Europe and the United States,'' Bush said. ``There's a
lot more diplomacy to be done.''
He said Iran's leaders ``know what they need to do. And so what
they are trying to do is kind of wiggle out.''
He said Iranians think they don't have to do anything because
the Americans are not involved.
``Well, America is involved,'' Bush said. ``We're in close
consultation with our friends.''
---
On the Net:
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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6 AFP: Bush impatient over Iran tactics
Friday February 18, 10:38 PM
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said talk of a US
military strike on Iran's nuclear programs was "just not the
truth" but expressed growing impatience with Tehran's response to
Europe-led overtures. In television interviews ahead of his
fence-mending trip to Europe next week, Bush expressed strong
support for diplomacy led by Britain, France and Germany, but
resisted calls for a bigger US role in those talks with Tehran.
"What they're trying to do is kind of wiggle out," he said of
the Iranians during an exchange with Germany's ARD television.
"They're trying to say, 'well, we won't do anything, because
America is not involved.'"
"But America is involved. We're in close consultation with our
friends. We're on the board of the IAEA (International Atomic
Energy Agency). And we will continue to work with friends and
allies," said Bush.
European officials say they want Bush to show more support for
diplomatic efforts to give Iran political and economic benefits
in return for permanently giving up uranium enrichment, a key
step in atomic weapons production.
The issue will be high on the agenda next week as Bush meets in
Europe with European Union and NATO leaders, including British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, and
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Looking ahead to his meeting
in Bratislava Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin,
Bush told ITAR-TASS: "We can work on Iran to make sure the
Iranians don't have a nuclear weapon."
He did not, however, directly address Putin's assertion
earlier in the day that Russia was convinced Iran had no
intention of making nuclear weapons and that Moscow would
continue to cooperate with Tehran on nuclear energy. Britain,
France and Germany have been spearheading diplomatic efforts to
get Iran to abandon processes which could be used to make
nuclear arms. Washington has charged that the Islamic republic
seeks weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
"It's hard to trust a regime that doesn't trust their own
people," Bush told France's TV-3.
"The Iranians ought to listen to the reformers in their country,
those who believe in democracy, and give them a say in
government." Bush repeatedly refused, as a matter of principle,
to rule out US military action against Iran but worked to defuse
global concerns that the Islamic Republic was next on his list
after Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
"I hear all these rumors about military attacks, and it's just
not the truth. We want diplomacy to work. And I believe diplomacy
can work, so long as the Iranians don't divide Europe and the
United States," he told ARD. "The common goal is for them not to
have a nuclear weapon," said Bush, who in 2002 branded Iran part
of an "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea.
Bush said Tehran also had to "stop exporting terror through
Hezbollah, which could be a devastating blow to the peace process
between Israel and the Palestinian people." Iran and Syria are
the two main supporters of the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group,
which pursues an anti-Israeli guerrilla campaign.
The Iranians also "ought to open up their country to more
democracy and freedom, just like we do in the United States and
Germany -- give their people a chance to express themselves in a
free way," said Bush. Last week, in Brussels, US Secretary of
State Condoleeza Rice issued a veiled rebuke to Berlin, London
and Paris for not using the threat of bringing the case to UN
Security Council enough.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: Putin: Iran Has No Nuclear Weapons Plans
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday February 18, 2005 12:01 PM
AP Photo MOSB105
MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that
he is convinced Iran does not intend to develop nuclear weapons
and said he plans to visit Iran.
Putin, at a meeting with Iranian National Security Council chief
Hasan Rohani, also said Russia would continue its nuclear
cooperation with Iran. Moscow has helped Iran build a nuclear
reactor, a project that has been heavily criticized by the
United States which fears it could be used to help Tehran
develop nuclear weapons.
``The latest steps from Iran confirm that Iran does not intend
to produce nuclear weapons and we will continue to develop
relations in all spheres, including the peaceful use of nuclear
energy,'' Putin said.
``We hope that Iran will strictly adhere to all international
agreements, in relation to Russia and the international
community,'' Putin said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
8 CNS: Russia Deepening Ties With Iran, Syria -- 02/18/2005
By Sergei Blagov
CNSNews.com Correspondent
February 18, 2005
Moscow (CNSNews.com) - Russia and Iran announced they plan to
sign a long-delayed agreement that will clear the way for Russia
to supply fuel to Iran's first nuclear power plant.
At the same time, Moscow is preparing to sell controversial
weaponry to its former Cold War ally, Syria, for the first time
since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The nuclear agreement, to be signed next week, will commit Russia
to supplying fuel to the Bushehr nuclear plant for 10 years,
while Iran pledges to return to Russia the spent nuclear fuel,
which can be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Moscow's developing nuclear cooperation with Tehran comes at a
time of heightened U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Washington believes Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons,
while Iran - and Russia - insist the program is for peaceful,
power-generation purposes. Negotiations between Iran and three
European Union countries are underway in a bid to resolve the
dispute.
The Russian Nuclear Energy Agency said in a statement Thursday
that the fuel agreement would be signed on February 26, during a
visit to Tehran by the agency's head, Alexander Rumyantsev.
The supply of fuel could begin within a month or two of the
signing, it said.
Under the deal, waste containing plutonium produced at the
Bushehr plant would be shipped back to Russia for safe storage.
Before shipping, however, the material must first be cooled,
raising U.S. concerns that Iran could have up to two years to
secretly extract the plutonium.
The reactor at Bushehr, built by the Russians, is expected to be
completed at the end of the year or early 2006.
Rumyantsev announced late last year that Russia could eventually
build up to seven new nuclear power plants in Iran, at a cost of
$10 billion.
The announcement of the nuclear fuel deal comes just weeks after
President Bush said he would not rule out the use of force, if
necessary, against Iran.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia supported
efforts by Britain, France and Germany to settle the nuclear row
over Iran's programs.
Russia's deepening involvement with Iran comes at a time it is
embroiled in a new row with the U.S. and Israel over a decision
to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week he had
received a letter from President Vladimir Putin telling him
Moscow was going ahead with the sale of SA-18 "Igla"
shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to Syria.
More than two years ago, Sharon said, Putin had assured him
Russia would not sell the weapons to Syria because of the
possibility they could be passed on to anti-Israel terror groups.
The U.S. also is opposed to the sale, concerned that the missiles
could make their way into Iraq, where terrorists could use them
against American troops.
Russia's defense ministry denied the allegations, saying talks
were underway about selling short-range missiles to Damascus that
were designed to be vehicle-mounted, not used as a
shoulder-launched weapon.
The planned sale comes at a time Russia and Syria are drawing
closer. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently visited Russia
and urged the country to play a bigger role in the Middle East.
Syria and Iran this week announced they would form a "common
front to face threats."
The move came amid growing tensions with the U.S. - over the
nuclear issue in the case of Iran, and in Syria's case, over
Monday's assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafik Hariri.
(CNSNews International Editor Patrick Goodenough contributed to
this report.)
CNSNews.com is optimized for use with the latest version
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9 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to Cooperate on Iran Nuke Program
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday February 18, 2005 7:31 PM
AP Photo MOSB105
By STEVE GUTTERMAN
Associated Press Writer
MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday he is
convinced Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons and
announced plans to visit the country, showing strong support for
Tehran a week before a summit with President Bush.
Putin's bold expression of faith in Tehran starkly contradicts
U.S. suspicions about the intentions of Iran, which Bush has
labeled part of an ``axis of evil'' seeking weapons of mass
destruction and supporting terrorists.
``The latest steps from Iran confirm that Iran does not intend
to produce nuclear weapons,'' Putin said at a meeting with
Iranian National Security Council chief Hassan Rowhani. He said
Russia ``will continue to develop relations in all spheres,
including the peaceful use of nuclear energy.''
Russia is building a nuclear reactor for a power plant in Iran,
a project the United States fears could be used to help Tehran
develop nuclear weapons.
The $800 million project has harmed Russian-U.S. relations for
over a decade. American concerns have been eased by Moscow's
refusal to send Iran nuclear fuel for the reactor unless all
spent fuel is returned to Russia - an effort to ensure that it
wouldn't be reprocessed to extract plutonium, which could be
used in weapons.
Russia's nuclear chief is expected in Iran next week to sign a
protocol on returning the spent fuel, the only remaining
obstacle to the reactor's expected launch next year.
Putin, who will meet with Bush on Feb. 24 in Slovakia, said he
had accepted an invitation from Iran's leadership to visit. The
Kremlin said no date has been set.
The Russian president's words are bound to alarm U.S. officials
who have praised earlier statements which indicated he shared
American concerns about Iran's nuclear program.
On Monday, a senior U.S. diplomat said Russia had ``seen the
light'' in agreeing that Iran's claims cannot be taken on faith
because of the way it has misled the international community
about its nuclear program in the past.
``There are good reasons to be suspicious of what Iran is
doing,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a news
conference in Washington on Friday.
Rice has warned Iran to come clean or face the prospect of being
brought before the U.N. Security Council.
A Russian analyst questioned whether Putin's statement was based
on actual information or on expediency. Russia has friendly ties
with Iran and sees it as an important trade market for its
industrial goods and services.
``To my mind, it's hard to find arguments to support Putin's
declaration,'' said Anton Khlopkov, director of the PIR Center,
which studies weapons issues. He said that ``Iran is potentially
an important strategic partner for Russia ... (with) a whole
series of coinciding interests.''
At the Kremlin meeting, Putin did say that the ``spread of
nuclear weapons on the planet does not aid security.''
``We hope that Iran will strictly adhere to all international
agreements, in relation to Russia and the international
community,'' he said.
Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, said that ``now, no one
can doubt that Iran's nuclear program has a peaceful
character.''
Russia does not want the issue to come before the Security
Council, where support for a resolution against Tehran could
ruin relations with Iran while a veto would bluntly defy the
United States.
``Russia intends not to allow the isolation of Iran,'' Khlopkov
said.
With Security Council referral and Washington's refusal to rule
out military action in Iran looming in the background, Russia is
supporting European diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to
permanently abandon its uranium enrichment program.
``We think that Russia can play an important role in this
process,'' Rowhani said.
Iran has warned it will resume all nuclear activities it has
suspended if talks don't make progress by mid-March.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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10 US Subversion of Diplomacy and North Korea's Phantom Nukes
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 17:07:32 -0600 (CST)
Centre for Research on Globalisation
February 18, 2005
US Subversion of Diplomacy and North Korea's Phantom Nukes
by Gregory Elich
In the months ahead, the U.S. can be expected to intensify its pressure on
South Korea and China to back more aggressive measures and it is probable
that the U.S. will ask the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against
North Korea.
If the U.S. is successful in its efforts to further isolate and blockade
North Korea, then it will risk plunging the Korean Peninsula into a state of
crisis. That development would only be exacerbated by further hostile
actions undertaken by the Bush Administration which could potentially raise
the specter of war.
Article at:
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/ELI502A.html
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11 Guardian Unlimited: Chinese Official Heads to North Korea
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday February 19, 2005 9:01 AM
AP Photo SEL102
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - A Chinese official on Saturday headed to North
Korea on a diplomatic mission to draw the isolated Stalinist
regime back to stalled disarmament talks, and a North Korean
official said his country was forced to build nuclear weapons
because of plans by Washington for a regime change.
Wang Jiarui, head of the international department of the Chinese
Communist Party, was flying to Pyongyang. He was expected to try
and persuade North Korea to return to the negotiating table.
Restarting the six-country talks has taken on greater urgency
since North Korea last week claimed it is a nuclear power. The
talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Russia
and Japan.
North Korea says it is boycotting the talks until Washington
abandons what the North says is a hostile policy toward the
secretive nation.
Washington hopes Beijing - Pyongyang's last major ally - will
use its economic influence to get it to stop developing nuclear
weapons. China is an indispensable source of fuel and trade for
the impoverished North.
However, Beijing has insisted it has little influence over the
Stalinist regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
China will likely use ``patient diplomacy, plus some persuasion,
plus some economic incentives, plus some political concessions
from the United States and South Korea'' to lure the North back
to the six-country talks, Shi Yinhong, a professor of
international relations at Beijing's Renmin University, said
earlier.
Meanwhile, Han Sung Ryol, the North's ambassador to the United
Nations, said his nation was forced to build nuclear weapons
because of plans by Washington for a regime change and would
never abandon them until the United States promises to end
hostilities.
``We have burned our bridges behind us,'' South Korea's JoongAng
Ilbo quoted Han as saying in an interview published Saturday.
``We have no other option but to have nuclear weapons as long as
the Americans try to topple our system.''
Han said North Korea was willing to end the nuclear dispute
through six-nation disarmament talks and make the Korean
Peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the newspaper reported.
``There are two preconditions for our return to the six-party
talks,'' it quoted Han as saying. ``The United States must
promise us coexistence and noninterference, and it must make us
believe that we can expect concrete results from these talks in
making the Korean Peninsula nuclear weapons-free and ending the
hostile U.S. policy toward us.''
Referring to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reference to
his country as an ``outpost of tyranny,'' Han said the comment
``defines U.S. foreign policy.''
``If the United States withdraws its hostile policy, we will
drop our anti-Americanism and befriend it. Then why would we
need nuclear weapons?'' he was quoted as saying.
In recent days, China has publicly and repeatedly called for
``patience and calm'' from all involved parties, and has said it
did not believe sanctions would work against North Korea.
North Korea ``has made a big mistake in developing these nuclear
programs ... and we are to help them overcome this mistake,''
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said in Seoul after a visit to
Beijing Thursday to meet with Chinese officials.
``But to help them, they are going to have to help themselves,
and the first issue they need to do is coming to the table,''
said Hill, who is also U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
China has hosted three inconclusive rounds of six-nation talks
since 2003. North Korea refused to attend a fourth round,
scheduled for last September.
Elsewhere in the region, South Korea on Friday said it will
enact a new law to tighten controls over nuclear activities
after secret experiments embarrassed the country last year.
South Korea is a signatory to international treaties that forbid
the development of nuclear weapons. But the country's nuclear
activities came under scrutiny when it admitted its scientists
conducted plutonium and uranium experiments in 1982 and 2000.
In November, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy
Agency criticized the country but refrained from taking tougher
measures. Although plutonium and enriched uranium are two main
elements of nuclear weapons, an IAEA report said there was no
evidence the experiments were applied to an arms program.
But North Korea accused the U.N. nuclear watchdog and the United
States of applying ``double standards'' and giving ``tacit
approval'' to South Korea to pursue a weapons program.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
12 Korea Herald: U.S. envoy says nukes 'a dead end'
The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper
More pressure on N.K. for talks
Ambassador Christopher Hill, newly-named U.S. chief negotiator
to the nuclear six-party talks, cautioned North Korea yesterday
that holding nuclear weapons is a "dead end" and called for a
coordinated approach by concerned parties to get Pyongyang back
to the negotiating table.
Amid mounting pressure on North Korea that includes a trip by
senior Chinese official Wang Jiarui to Pyongyang, Hill also
underscored the need for South Korea to coordinate its policy on
inter-Korean economic cooperation with the United States.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said the United States
will work with other countries to the six-party talks to discuss
measures to counter the North's declaration Feb. 10 that it
possesses nuclear weapons and intends to boycott the six-party
talks indefinitely.
Ambassador Christopher Hill, chief U.S. delegate to the
six-party disarmament talks on North Korea, gestures during a
meeting with a group of senior journalists in Seoul yesterday.
[Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald]
"Holding nuclear weapons is a dead end for North Korea. They
cannot make progress if they continue on this road," Hill told
senior journalists at a breakfast meeting hours after returning
to Seoul from a hurried one-day visit to Beijing for talks with
Chinese officials on the North Korean nuclear issue.
"What we need to do is coordinate our approaches and make sure
that the DPRK does not try to exploit any differences among any
partners in the six-party process," he said. DPRK is the acronym
for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which refers to
North Korea.
Hill has been named as the new U.S. assistant secretary of
state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and Washington's
point-man on North Korea's nuclear standoff. He is expected to
end his assignment to Seoul shortly to take up his new post.
Asked about alleged U.S. opposition to aid or business
cooperation with North Korea following Pyongyang's Feb. 10
announcement, he indicated that Seoul and Washington have
differed over the issue.
"We don't have to have identical actions, but we do have to
have coordinated actions," he said.
The isolationist North Korean regime's surprise saber-rattling
over its nuclear arms arsenal and boycott of the disarmament
talks raised questions whether Seoul should meet last month's
requests by Pyongyang for a 500,000-ton fertilizer aid shipment
and should continue developing the Gaeseong industrial project
in the North.
South Korea faces a dilemma in view of Washington's apparent
objection to the aid at such a crucial time in the nuclear
crisis.
Hill said he reconfirmed in Beijing that the two countries are
in "absolute agreement" that North Korea must come back to
negotiations on its nuclear program and that the Korean
Peninsula must free of nuclear weapons.
During the trip, he met China's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei,
his counterpart in the six-party talks.
"We had a very good discussion about the six-party process and
the absolute agreement on the need for North Korea come back to
that process," he said. "And the Chinese authorities were very
clear that they are pressing for the DPRK to come back and that
they absolutely share that goal of ours."
South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon returned
home yesterday after also visiting Beijing to discuss the North
Korean nuclear issue with Chinese officials.
"The two sides shared the view that convening the six-party
talks at an early date and negotiating across the table would be
the best way," a senior ministry official said, speaking on
condition of anonymity. "We also agreed to work closely together
to help move the situation in that direction."
During his two-day stay in Beijing, Song, who also serves as
Seoul's chief nuclear negotiator, met Chinese counterpart Wu and
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.
Hill was asked by journalists whether the United States will
consider revising its proposal, made in the third round of talks
in June to coerce North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions,
in a more "realistic and creative" form.
Hill replied that it is a "pretty comprehensive" proposal, and
added, "North Korea should tell us what they like about it and
tell us what they don't like about it."
"They should read our proposal, come to the table, and tell us
what they think about it," he said. "I think that would be a
more fruitful approach then to have a situation where we are
guessing what it is they want in order to come to the table and
then we end up negotiating with ourselves, essentially."
In what analysts view as calls for incentives from Washington,
North Korea in last week's statement, conditioned its return to
talks on whether there will be "ample conditions and atmosphere
to expect positive results from the six-party framework.
Hill also made clear that Washington is committed to peaceful
resolution of the issue and is trying to help North Korea
overcome its "big mistake" of deciding to pursue nuclear
ambitions.
He said the six-party process should not be questioned on its
formation as to the number of countries but should be used as a
foundation to form other discussion panels in the region.
"I really think this six-party process has a lot of potential
not only for solving this difficult issue in front of us, but
ultimately for bringing us closer together and for helping us
maybe construct structures in the future that will serve the
region very well," he said.
"And for those people who worried so much about the various
formats?¢Ò I think it's pretty clear the six-party process is
quite capable of handling all kinds of formats, format is not
our problem."
(bluelle@heraldm.com)
By Choi Soung-ah
2005.02.19
*****************************************************************
13 YWS: N. Korea Says Talks with U.S. No Longer Justified - Chinese Report
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
www.yonhapnews.co.kr
2005/02/19 21:56 KST
SEOUL, Feb. 19 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said there is no
justification to hold two-way talks with the United States on
the standoff over its nuclear development program, China's
Xinhua News Agency reported Saturday.
Because the United States insists on a hostile policy aimed at
toppling the North's regime, bilateral talks with the U.S. are
unjustified, the Chinese news service quoted an unidentified
spokesman of the North Korean Foreign Ministry as saying.
*****************************************************************
14 YWS: Australia Might Send Group to NK for Nuke Issue - Korean Envoy
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
2005/02/20 06:31 KST
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Yonhap) -- The top South Korean envoy to
Australia said Sunday that the Australian government might send
a delegation to North Korea in order to help resolve the ongoing
nuclear crisis.
"The Canberra government, on its part, has made constructive
roles for the settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue...
and a possibility cannot be ruled out that it will dispatch a
mission to North Korea for that purpose," Ambassador Cho
Sang-hoon said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. The
envoy came to Seoul to attend a recent meeting of top Korean
diplomats.
*****************************************************************
15 BBC NEWS: US and Japan urge N Korea talks
Last Updated: Sunday, 20 February, 2005, 00:28 GMT [ src=] [
[Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington] The US
and Japan hope China will coax North Korea back to talks
The US and Japan have expressed "deep concern" over North Korea's
refusal to negotiate over its nuclear weapons programme.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Japanese Foreign
Minister Nobutaka Machimura jointly urged North Korea to return
to six-party talks.
A North Korean official had earlier said his government no longer
wanted even bilateral discussions with the US.
The US and Japan hope China will manage to coax North Korea back
to the table.
The North Koreans are continuing to bring about their own
isolation by not dealing with this problem [ src=]
Condoleezza Rice US secretary of state
Ms Rice, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and their Japanese
counterparts issued a joint statement in Washington of their
"deep concern" over North Korea's position.
"It really is time for the North Koreans to take seriously that
concern [by] returning to the six-party talks," Ms Rice said.
"The North Koreans are continuing to bring about their own
isolation by not dealing with this problem."
The parties would consider "other measures" against North Korea
if the negotiations collapsed completely, Ms Rice said, without
specifying what they might be.
Nuclear weapons
Mr Machimura said: "Should we let time slip by, then I think it
will only worsen the situation because I am sure that the
international community will then become tougher vis-a-vis North
Korea."
He urged an "early and unconditional resumption" of the talks,
which also involve China, South Korea and Russia.
[North Korea] has no justification to take bilateral talks... on
the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula with the United States
North Korean official
Earlier this month, North Korea confirmed it had nuclear weapons
and withdrew from discussions with its neighbours and the US.
It had been demanding direct negotiations with the US for two
years, until Saturday's announcement by a North Korean foreign
ministry official.
Speaking to China's Xinhua news agency, the official said
Pyongyang no longer wanted even bilateral talks with the US,
citing what he described as Washington's persistent attempts to
topple the communist regime.
Meanwhile, an envoy from China, North Korea's closest ally,
arrived in Pyongyang for three days to urge the country to
return to six-party negotiations.
Taiwan Strait
The US and Japan said they were counting on China, which has
hosted the previous three rounds of talks, to play "a central
role" in bringing North Korea back to the table.
But at the same time, they said they were keeping a wary eye on
China's military build-up, and raised Taiwan as a mutual
security concern.
They stated they had a shared goal to "encourage the peaceful
resolution of issues concerning the Taiwan Strait through
dialogue".
China, which views Taiwan as part of its territory, has
threatened to invade the island if it ever declares formal
independence.
Mr Rumsfeld and Japanese Defence Agency chief Yoshinori Ono
reaffirmed their countries' alliance, which they said provided
peace and stability in the region.
*****************************************************************
16 Xinhua: DPRK says no justification for direct talks with US now
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-19 19:37:46
PYONGYANG, Feb. 19 (Xinhuanet) -- The Democratic People's
Republicof Korea (DPRK) on Saturday said that there is no
justification now to hold one-to-one bilateral talks with the
United States on the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula.
"Because that the United States insisted its hostile policy
toward the DPRK and refused to co-exist with the DPRK and
persisted to switchover the DPRK's regime, the DPRK has no
justification to take bilateral talks by one-to-one on the
nuclearissue of the Korean Peninsula with the United States
now," a spokesman of the DPRK's Foreign Ministry told Xinhua.
The spokesman also reiterated DPRK's stand to suspend its
participation in the six-party talks for an indefinite period
thatwas declared by the Foreign Ministry on Feb. 10 adding that
"the unchanged US hostile policy toward the DPRK is the direct
reason for the DPRK's statement."
"Now, what the things developed ulteriorly tell us that the
DPRK's desire of taking bilateral talks by one-to-one on the
nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula with the United States has
been crashed, it is totally created by the United States," said
the spokesman.
He also reiterated that the DPRK's principled stand to solve
the nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations and its
ultimate goal to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula remain
unchanged.
The spokesman did not comment on the impact of the Feb. 10
announcement on the six-party talks, but praised China's active
efforts in establishing and maintaining the mechanism of the
six-party talks.
The six-party talks, aimed at solving the nuclear issue of
the Korean Peninsula, involves China, the DPRK, the United
States, Russia, South Korea and Japan. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
17 AFP: North Korea rules out bilateral nuclear talks with US -
Saturday February 19, 02:18 PM
BEIJING (AFP) - North Korea reiterated that it had pulled out of
six-nation talks on its nuclear drive indefinitely and ruled out
a bilateral meeting with the United States, Chinese state media
said.
An unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman, in comments
to Xinhua news agency, said that because Washington had "insisted
on a hostile policy" toward Pyongyang and persisted in trying to
change the North Korean regime, there was "no justification" for
undertaking "bilateral one-to-one talks on the nuclear issue with
the United States."
However, the spokesman repeated Pyongyang's commitment to solving
the impasse through negotiation and dialogue. The comments follow
Pyongyang's announcement last week that it was pulling out of the
six-nation talks and that it had developed nuclear weapons.
The statement prompted widespread concern and a flurry of
diplomacy between South Korea, China, the United States. Senior
Chinese envoy Wang Jiarui arrived in Pyongyang late on Saturday
for talks expected to focus on the nuclear row.
The United States and North Korea have been locked in a standoff
over the issue since October 2002 when Washington accused
Pyongyang of operating a secret program based on highly enriched
uranium, violating a 1994 arms control accord. North Korea
attended three rounds of talks with China, South Korea, Russia,
Japan and the United States but pulled out of a fourth round in
September, complaining of the US's "hostile" policy.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
18 Guardian Unlimited Report: N. Korea Won't Talk With Nations
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday February 19, 2005 2:46 PM
AP Photo TOK802
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - North Korea no longer wants to negotiate with the
United States and four other nations in an effort to ease the
ongoing standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program, China's state
news agency said Saturday.
The official Xinhua News Agency, citing an anonymous North Korea
Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the official reiterated the
communist regime's Feb. 10 decision to indefinitely suspend its
participation in six-party nuclear disarmament talks. Those
parties are the United States, the two Koreas, China, Russia and
Japan.
Reviving the stalled talks has taken on greater urgency since
North Korea's explosive but unconfirmed declaration earlier this
month that it has become a nuclear power.
After announcing it had an arsenal, Pyongyang demanded
one-on-one meetings with the United States to discuss the
nuclear dispute - a move Washington rejected. On Saturday, the
North Korean official withdrew that demand.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Pyongyang no
longer was willing to hold direct talks with Washington because
of what it described as the United States' alleged persistent
attempts to try to topple the communist regime, Xinhua said.
``The DPRK has no justification to take bilateral talks ... on
the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula with the United States
now,'' Xinhua quoted the spokesman as saying. DPRK is the
acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
The comments came as the head of the Chinese Communist Party's
international department, Wang Jiarui, met North Korea's No. 2
leader, Kim Yong Nam, in Pyongyang, said the North's official
news agency, KCNA. They had a ``friendly conversation,'' the
report said without elaborating.
During his stay, Wang Jiarui plans to meet the country's
reclusive leader, Kim Jong Il, to give a ``strong
recommendation'' that Pyongyang return to the six-party talks,
South Korea's Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported, quoting diplomatic
sources in Beijing
It was not clear how long Wang Jiarui would stay in the North.
North Korea expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late
2002. It is not known to have tested an atomic bomb, although
international officials have long suspected it has one or two
nuclear weapons and could be making more.
The U.N.'s chief nuclear inspector, Mohammed ElBaradei, called
on North Korea's leader to allow the International Atomic Energy
Agency to return to his nation, offering in an interview
released Saturday to go personally if it would help.
Speaking to Germany's Der Spiegel magazine, ElBaradei said his
agency has no concrete information North Korea actually
possesses nuclear weapons, although he said Pyongyang has the
know-how and enough plutonium to make ``at least six to eight
bombs.''
Washington hopes Beijing - North Korea's last major ally - will
use its economic influence on the North to persuade Pyongyang to
return to negotiations. China is an indispensable source of fuel
and trade for the impoverished North, but Beijing has insisted
it has little influence over Kim's regime.
Meanwhile, a North Korean diplomat said in an interview
published Saturday that his government has ``burned its
bridges'' behind itself in the escalating nuclear standoff.
Han Sung Ryol, the North's ambassador to the United Nations,
said his nation was forced to build nuclear weapons because of
plans by Washington for a regime change in North Korea and would
never abandon them until the United States promises to end
hostility.
``We have no other option but to have nuclear weapons as long as
the Americans try to topple our system,'' South Korea's JoongAng
Ilbo quoted Han as saying.
Han also said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's reference to
his country as an ``outpost of tyranny'' during recent U.S.
Senate hearings ``defines U.S. foreign policy.''
``There are two preconditions for our return to the six-party
talks,'' the newspaper quoted Han as saying. ``The United States
must promise us coexistence and noninterference, and it must
make us believe that we can expect concrete results from these
talks in making the Korean Peninsula nuclear weapons-free and
ending the hostile U.S. policy toward us.
``If the United States withdraws its hostile policy, we will
drop our anti-Americanism and befriend it. Then why would we
need nuclear weapons?'' he was quoted as saying.
China has hosted three inconclusive rounds of six-nation talks
since 2003. North Korea refused to attend a fourth round,
scheduled for last September, accusing the United States of
trying to topple its communist regime.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
19 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Hill says ¡®coordinated actions' needed, but U.S. won't dictate
February 19, 2005 KST 15:24 (GMT+9)
February 19, 2005 ¤Ñ The U.S. ambassador to Seoul said Friday
that while "coordinated actions" were needed among the nations
dealing with Pyeongyang over its nuclear program, Washington
wouldn't try to dictate how South Korea handles issues such as
humanitarian aid to the North.
"We don't have to have identical actions, but we do have to
have coordinated actions," Christopher Hill told reporters
Friday at the Seoul Press Club in downtown Seoul.
Mr. Hill, also the top U.S. envoy to the six-party talks over
North Korea's nuclear program, alluded to Pyeongyang's recent
request to Seoul for 500,000 tons of fertilizer. South Korea has
sent fertilizer and other aid to its impoverished neighbor for
years; recent news reports, denied by Seoul, held that
Washington wanted the latest request denied as a pressure
tactic.
"What we do need to do is coordinate our approaches and make
sure that the DPRK [Democratic Republic of Korea, the North's
formal name] does not try to exploit any differences among any
of the partners in the six-party process," Mr. Hill said, later
adding, "I am certainly not going to give advice to the ROK
[Republic of Korea, the South's formal name] when they receive
requests for fertilizer. Again, I think it's very important that
we coordinate various initiatives."
Mr. Hill was in Beijing Thursday for meetings on the North
Korean nuclear issue. On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Kong Quan told reporters that China does not favor
implementing sanctions against North Korea. But Mr. Hill said
Washington and Beijing were in "absolute agreement" that
Pyeongyang must return to the talks. "The Chinese authorities
were very clear that they are pressing for the DPRK to come back
and that they share that goal of ours," he said.
Regarding the possibility of direct talks with Pyeongyang, Mr.
Hill said channels would be open but the six-party format would
remain the main vehicle for negotiations. "We have had
discussions from time to time with the North Koreans and I am
sure we'll have discussions in the future, but we are not going
to have those discussions in a way that could undermine the
six-party process," Mr. Hill said.
In an interview with a South Korean broadcaster yesterday,
Seoul's new ambassador to the United States, Hong Seok-hyun,
reiterated that Washington is not pressing Seoul on how to deal
with Pyeongyang, but warned, "If North Korea does not return
soon to the six-party talks, there is a possibility that strong
voices will come out of South Korea and the United States."
by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
20 Guardian Unlimited: Chinese Official Meets With N. Korean
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday February 19, 2005 6:46 PM
AP Photo TOK802
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press Writer
BEIJING (AP) - A top Chinese Communist Party official met with
North Korea's no. 2 leader Saturday seeking a change of heart
after Pyongyang reportedly rejected any further negotiations
over its nuclear weapons program.
The head of the Chinese Communist Party's international
department, Wang Jiarui, who flew to Pyongyang on Saturday, had
a ``friendly conversation'' with Kim Yong Nam, the North's
official news agency, KCNA, said. The report did not futher
elaborate on the session.
During his stay, Wang plans to meet the country's reclusive
leader, Kim Jong Il, to give a ``strong recommendation'' that
Pyongyang return to the six-party disarmament talks, South
Korea's Munhwa Ilbo newspaper reported, quoting diplomatic
sources in Beijing.
Xinhua, quoting an unidentified North Korean foreign ministry
official, said earlier Saturday that the North no longer wanted
to negotiate directly with the United States to ease the ongoing
standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program.
The official reiterated the communist regime's decision on Feb.
10 to indefinitely suspend its participation in six-party
nuclear disarmament talks with the United States and four other
countries, Xinhua said.
The United States and other countries are seeking to use what
leverage they have - including the good will between North Korea
and its last major ally, China - to persuade Pyongyang to resume
multilateral negotiations. North Korea had demanded one-on-one
meetings with the United States after saying it would withdraw
from the six-party talks - a move Washington rejected.
Reviving the stalled talks has taken on greater urgency since
North Korea's explosive but unconfirmed declaration earlier this
month that it has become a nuclear power.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said his country was
withdrawing its offer of direct talks with Washington because of
what the official described as the United States' persistent
attempts to topple the communist regime, Xinhua said.
``The DPRK has no justification to take bilateral talks ... on
the nuclear issue of the Korean Peninsula with the United States
now,'' Xinhua quoted the spokesman as saying. DPRK is the
acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
Washington hopes Beijing will use its economic influence on the
North to persuade Pyongyang to return to the negotiating table.
Beijing has insisted that it has little influence over Kim's
regime, though China is an indispensable source of fuel and
trade for the impoverished North.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as well as their Japanese
counterparts urged North Korea to resume the six-party talks.
``We share a concern about events on the Korean Peninsula,''
Rice said at a news conference at the State Department following
talks with Rumsfeld and the Japanese. ``The ministers and I urge
North Korea to return to the six-party talks as the best way to
end nuclear programs and the only way for North Korea to achieve
better relations.''
Meanwhile, the North Korean ambassador to the United Nations
said in an interview published Saturday that his government had
``burned its bridges'' in the escalating nuclear standoff.
Han Sung Ryol said his nation was forced to build nuclear
weapons because of plans by Washington for a regime change in
North Korea, and said the North would never abandon them until
the United States promises to end hostility.
``We have no other option but to have nuclear weapons as long as
the Americans try to topple our system,'' South Korea's JoongAng
Ilbo newspaper quoted Han as saying. ``If the United States
withdraws its hostile policy, we will drop our anti-Americanism
and befriend it. Then why would we need nuclear weapons?''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
21 Guardian Unlimited: U.S., China Agree on North Korea Nukes
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday February 18, 2005 11:31 AM
AP Photo SEL101
By BO-MI LIM
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The United States and China agree that
North Korea must end its nuclear ambitions and resolve the
standoff through six-nation talks, Washington's top envoy on the
issue said Friday, as efforts to restart the negotiations gained
momentum.
Reviving the stalled talks has taken on greater urgency since
North Korea's explosive but unconfirmed declaration last week
that it has become a nuclear power. The talks involve the two
Koreas, the United States, China, Russia and Japan.
North Korea ``has made a big mistake in developing these nuclear
programs ... and we are to help them overcome this mistake,''
U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said in Seoul after a visit to
Beijing Thursday to meet with Chinese officials.
``But to help them, they are going to have to help themselves,
and the first issue they need to do is coming to the table,''
said Hill, who is also U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
Hill, who was appointed envoy for the nuclear talks on Monday,
said he and Chinese officials were in ``absolute agreement on
the need for North Korea to come back to the process.''
China announced Thursday that it would send a top communist
party official to North Korea this week, though it did not give
an exact date for the trip by Wang Jiarui, head of the party's
international department.
Washington hopes China will use its economic influence on North
Korea to persuade it to stop developing nuclear weapons. Beijing
is North Korea's last key ally and an indispensable supplier of
fuel and trade for its impoverished neighbor.
North Korea says it is boycotting the talks until Washington
abandons what it calls a hostile policy toward the North.
President Bush on Thursday said diplomacy was the right
strategy.
``Now is the time for us to work with friends and allies who
have agreed to be part of the process to determine what we're
jointly going to do about it,'' he said at a news conference in
Washington.
China has hosted three inconclusive rounds of six-nation talks
since 2003. North Korea refused to attend a fourth round,
scheduled for last September.
Confronting its own nuclear issues, South Korea on Friday said
it will enact a new law to tighten controls over nuclear
activities after secret experiments by South Korean scientists
embarrassed the country last year.
The Ministry of Science and Technology will complete a draft
this month and present a bill to the National Assembly in May,
the government said in a statement.
The bill ``aims to help prevent nuclear materials from being
diverted for use in nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive
devices,'' the statement said. ``It will also outlaw any
development of nuclear weapons by the government, groups or
individuals and support for such activities.''
South Korea is a signatory to international treaties that forbid
the development of nuclear weapons. But the country's nuclear
activities came under scrutiny last year when it admitted that
its scientists conducted plutonium and uranium experiments in
1982 and 2000.
In November, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy
Agency criticized the country for the experiments but refrained
from taking tougher measures, including referral to the U.N.
Security Council.
Although plutonium and enriched uranium are two main elements of
nuclear weapons, an IAEA report said there was no evidence that
the experiments were applied to an arms program. South Korea has
repeatedly said the experiments were unauthorized and were for
scientific research only.
But North Korea accused the U.N. nuclear watchdog and the United
States of applying ``double standards'' and giving ``tacit
approval'' to South Korea to pursue a nuclear weapons program.
Also, South Korea said it will begin sending electricity across
its heavily armed border with North Korea next month to power a
joint-venture industrial park despite heightened nuclear
tensions.
The industrial complex in Kaesong, a North Korean town just
north of the mine-strewn border, is the best known among the
handful of joint economic ventures between the two Koreas.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
22 IPS-English DISARMAMENT-U.S.:The Nuclear Domino Effect
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:02:47 -0800
ROMAIPS NA WD IP ML
DISARMAMENT-U.S.:The Nuclear Domino Effect
Katherine Stapp
NEW YORK, Feb 18 (IPS) - Even as the United States leans on North Korea and
Iran to renounce any nuclear objectives, peace activists say it has stepped
up spending on its own arsenal, including investments in a new generation
of longer lasting and sturdier ''bunker buster'' weapons.
The ''quiet effort'', first reported by the New York Times last week,
involves a relatively modest budget of nine million dollars for engineers
at the nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore
and Sandia. Its goal is to produce new warhead prototypes in the next decade.
According to the Western States Legal Foundation, an anti-proliferation
group, U.S. nuclear weapons spending has swelled by 84 percent since 1995,
now amounting to 40 billion dollars annually. This budget supports the
maintenance of some 10,000 nuclear warheads -- 2,000 on hair-trigger alert.
Some experts say the ''Reliable Replacement Warhead Programme'', approved
by Congress in November, marks a disturbing evolution of the former policy
introduced under President Bill Clinton of ''stockpile stewardship'', in
which the labs concentrated on maintaining the safety and reliability of
the nation's existing nuclear arsenal.
Although the United States is a member of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT), which outlaws new weapons tests, the pact permits
computer-simulated testing and underground ''sub-critical'' nuclear tests.
In the past 10 years, experts say the United States has carried out 21
sub-critical tests, 1,000 feet below the desert floor.
''The stockpile stewardship programme, now funded at seven billion dollars
per year, led to the development of the 'bunker buster' and smaller, 'more
usable' nuclear bombs,'' said Alice Slater, president of the Global
Resource Action Centre for the Environment in New York.
''It was the loophole in the CTBT that allowed these programmes to go
forward, which were cited by India as its reason for doing nuclear tests
and developing an arsenal, swiftly followed by Pakistan.''
''We have spent over three trillion dollars on our nuclear arsenal,'' she
told IPS. ''The waste of intellectual and economic treasure has been
enormous and we see the bitter fruits these programmes gave birth to:
nuclear proliferation in India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran.''
In 1970, the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France signed the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), promising to give up their nuclear weapons
if other countries promised not to acquire them.
The treaty will be reviewed this May at the United Nations, where the
mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and hundreds of others will repeat calls
for immediate negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons stockpiles. This
year marks the 60th anniversary of the catastrophic bombing of those two
Japanese cities, in which an estimated 210,000 people were killed.
Meanwhile, a new report by the Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC)
says that the United States still deploys about 480 nuclear weapons at its
air force bases in Europe, nearly twice as many as was previously believed.
The targets for these weapons are most likely in Russia, Iran and Syria,
according to NRDC experts, even though Russia withdrew all of its tactical
nuclear weapons from the former socialist states following the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991. The United States also withdrew thousands of
tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, but left at least 480 in place.
France and Britain have 350 and 185 nuclear weapons, respectively, in
Europe, but the United States is the only country that deploys this class
of arms outside its own territory.
The report notes that all of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)
member countries that store U.S. nuclear weapons within their territory
voted in favour of a UN resolution in October 2004 calling for the
''further reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons.''
''No one has been able to come up with a good explanation of how those
weapons in Europe contribute to deterrence in a way that other long-range
nuclear systems can't also accomplish,'' said Hans Kristensen, the author
of the report.
''There's an institutional argument in NATO that this provides the glue for
the close ties between Europe and the United States, but it's really just a
remnant of the Cold War,'' he said in an interview.
The report discloses for the first time how many nuclear bombs the United
States would provide to non-nuclear NATO allies in the event of war. It
found that as many as 180 bombs would be delivered by Belgian, German,
Italian, Dutch and Turkish aircraft.
The group argues that this arrangement skirts international law because the
NPT prohibits a nuclear state from transferring nuclear weapons to a
non-weapon state, and prohibits a non-nuclear state from receiving such
weapons.
Kristensen used documents declassified under the Freedom of Information
Act, military publications, commercial satellite imagery, and other sources
to compile the 100-page report, titled ''U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe''.
A U.S. Defence Department spokesperson told IPS that the weapons are
maintained in accordance with NATO's Strategic Concept, which states that
''nuclear forces based in Europe and committed to NATO provide an essential
political and military link between the European and North American members
of the Alliance.''
He said that the United States does not target specific countries with
either conventional or nuclear munitions.
However, the NRDC report notes that NATO keeps detailed nuclear strike
plans against potential targets, namely Russia and Middle Eastern
countries, most likely Iran and Syria.
''It's counter-productive and undercuts non-proliferation efforts to
maintain a nuclear arsenal overseas, especially against countries that
themselves are proliferating weapons of mass destruction, i.e., Iran and
Syria,'' Kristensen said.
''There's something very contradictory about going to these countries and
saying 'you can't have nuclear weapons, but we need ours to use against
you','' he said.
Kristensen sees a split within NATO's command ranks over the issue, with a
growing constituency arguing that operations should be more streamlined and
relevant to current missions.
''The last thing you want to keep in place is some residual nuclear
capability that is never going to be used and sucks the resources out of
other programmes,'' he said. ''The point is these weapons should only be
deployed where it is absolutely necessary.''
*****
+NRDC report (http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/euro/contents.asp)
+Western States Legal Foundation (http://wslfweb.org)
+Global Resource Action Centre for the Environment (http://abolitionnow.org)
(END/IPS/NA WD/IP/KS/LD/05)
= 02181433 ORP010
NNNN
*****************************************************************
23 [NYTr] Brits Claim Missing Plutonium Just "Accounting Error"
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 03:08:01 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
The Irish Times - Feb 18, 2005
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2005/0218/4014050203HM10DLSELLA.html
Sellafield Plutonium Shortfall Due to "Accounting Error"
by Michael O'Regan
The UK government has assured the Minister for the Environment, Mr Roche,
that the missing 30 kg of plutonium in Sellafield was "material unaccounted
for", the Dail was told.
The Minister for Education, Ms Hanafin, speaking on behalf of Mr Roche, said
the term represented the difference between measured stock and book account.
"It arises as a consequence of the accounting process for these nuclear
materials and mainly from measurement uncertainties," she added.
"The Minister received assurances from the UK government that the figures in
this case related to a 'book' discrepancy arising from measurement
uncertainties and that there is no evidence to suggest that any of the
apparent losses reported are real losses of nuclear material."
Ms Hanafin said that, apparently, it was not unusual for the accounting
process to indicate material unaccounted for and it could have a positive or
negative value.
She said the figures published yesterday related to last year and the
previous year and had all long since been reported to EURATOM and the
International Atomic Energy Agency under the UK's various nuclear safeguards
obligations.
"The Minister for the Environment understands that the figures returned are
not the subject of further inquiry by these bodies and that they are all
within international standards of expected measurement accuracies for
closing a nuclear balance at the type of facility concerned."
The Minister was replying to the Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, who
said they were dealing with material for weapons of mass destruction.
) The Irish Times
***
Politics Ireland - Feb 17, 2005
http://www.politics.ie/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6996
Sellafield a Byword For Negligence and Incompetence: Sinn Fein
Sinn Fiin MLA Mitchel McLaughlin has today said that the Sellafield nuclear
facility is a by-word for negligence, incompetence and has a track record in
poor safety, after an annual audit (2004) of nuclear material at the
Sellafield plant revealed that 30 kilograms of plutonium remain unaccounted
for.
Speaking today Mr McLaughlin said"
"This revelation that 30 kilos of plutonium is unaccounted for at Sellafield
will come as no great surprise to the general public. It again highlights
incompetence and negligence at the nuclear facility and once more calls
safety procedures at Sellafield into question.
"It is not acceptable for the British Department of Trade and Industry to
claim that this 'discrepancy' is not unusual. The British Government need to
provide full disclosure on the whereabouts of the plutonium and wider safety
concerns at the plant.
"In September 2004, the European Commission initiated legal proceedings
against the British Government for its failure to comply with EU inspection
rules on nuclear waste. When EU inspectors went to survey a pond at the
plant they were unable to gain access to it due to high levels of radiation
and poor visibility.
"Sellafield is a discredited plant and it remains the most dangerous and
unstable nuclear facility in Western Europe. Sinn Fiin will continue to
fight for its immediate closure."
*
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*****************************************************************
24 Bellona: Kyoto protocol to influence Russian environment positively
“Kyoto protocol acceptance will contribute to better
environmental situation in Russia,” said Danilov-Danilian,
director of Water Problems Institute of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.
2005-02-18 15:30
He underlined, that "After the Kyoto protocol acceptance Russia
should rather expect environmental and climatic positive effects
than economic profit. Reduction of hydrocarbon burning will cause
reduction of emissions and environmental pollution", Interfax
informed.
The scientist said “The aim of the protocol is to ease changing
over from raw-material economy to high-tech economy. But the
problem is if Russia will use such a possibility”. He underlined
that the protocol could assist in many positive changes, caused
by economical changes due to mineral resources depletion.
Talking about quota trade, he said "Russia can hardly sell a
single quota in 2005 due to insufficient organization of
implementation of Kyoto protocol in Russia”. The scientist
underlined that “under the protocol conditions, all the unused
quotas are automatically transferred to after-Kyoto period.
Russia should make a decision of what is more economically
profitable – to save or sell the quotas".
Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact:
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway
*****************************************************************
25 BBC NEWS: Chinese envoy to press N Korea
Last Updated: Saturday, 19 February, 2005, 04:48 GMT [ src=] [
A senior Chinese official is flying to North Korea to persuade
Pyongyang to resume stalled six-nation talks aimed at ending its
nuclear programme.
Wang Jiarui's visit comes a week after the North said it would
stay away from the talks for an "indefinite period" and "bolster"
its nuclear arsenal.
China is North Korea's closest ally and has coaxed it back into
talks before.
The US renewed its criticism of the North on Friday, calling its
drive to have nuclear weapons a "dead end".
The Chinese envoy, who is head of the ruling communist party's
international department, is expected to be in the North until
Monday.
No details have been released about his schedule, but he is
expected to press the North to resume six-nation talks on the
nuclear stand-off.
The official Chinese news agency Xinhau said only: "The two sides
will have an exchange of views on the inter-party contacts in
2005, as well as the regional and international issues of common
concern."
China has sponsored three previous rounds of talks and is keen to
retain the diplomatic initiative concerning a country it sees as
a key ally.
US response
Washington's chief negotiator to the talks, Christopher Hill,
said North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons was a "huge
mistake" because it had damaged the country's economy and its
relations with the outside world.
"Holding nuclear weapons is a dead end for North Korea. They
cannot make progress if they continue on this road," Mr Hill said
on Friday, after returning from a visit to Beijing.
Mr Hill also said the US and other parties to the talks should
co-ordinate their approach to North Korea.
The BBC's Seoul correspondent, Charles Scanlon, says China has
urged patience and South Korea is sticking with its policy of
reconciliation with the North, while the US appears to favour a
tougher response.
A key test of that co-ordinated approach will come soon, our
correspondent says, after North Korea asked the South for 500,000
tons of fertiliser.
American press reports said US officials want the request to be
rejected. But South Korea has in the past described fertiliser
and food as humanitarian aid, not linked to political
considerations.
South Korea announced on Friday that it would allow its
state-owned power company to supply electricity to Kaesong, a
joint-venture industrial complex just north of the border.
The Kaesong project, which was agreed in 2000 at a key
inter-Korean summit, is seen as a symbol of South Korea's
reconciliation policy.
*****************************************************************
26 Las Vegas SUN: Congressman questions Test Site security
Today: February 18, 2005 at 13:12:43 PST
SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- A Massachusetts lawmaker is demanding answers
from new Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman about security at the
Nevada Test Site.
Democratic Rep. Edward Markey fired a letter to Bodman on
Thursday outlining several security lapses and asking Bodman
whether the private security firm Wackenhut should be allowed to
continue to provide security.
"Wackenhut's performance is consistently well below par, and
its continued presence at DOE nuclear weapons facilities raises
serious questions about the dpartment's ability to secure its
nuclear weapons and weapons-usable materials," Markey wrote.
Markey cited two incidents. In an August 2004 "force-on-force"
exercise at the Test Site, guards failed to stop a mock
terrorist attack on a fortified bunker designed to keep
weapons-grade plutonium safe, known as the Device Assembly
Facility. There was no nuclear material in the facility at the
time.
Markey also referred to a Feb. 11 Energy Department inspector
general report that outlines a 2003 incident in which a
Wackenhut employee took handguns to a training exercise at the
site against regulations.
Officials for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security
Administration, which manages the Test Site, have said the
agency has updated guard training and tactics since August.
Test Site facilities are secure, NNSA spokesman Kevin Rohrer
said.
"I'm 100 percent confident that all facilities are protected at
the appropriate level at the Nevada Test Site," he said.
Wackenhut has been at the Test Site since 1965, Rohrer said. It
is being paid $44 million this year. The company earned only 59
percent of its $800,000 performance incentive fee last year, he
said.
The company earned a "satisfactory" rating last year after
receiving "outstanding" ratings in the previous four years,
Rohrer said. The downgrade in rating was due in part to the
failed August exercise, he said.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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Las Vegas SUN main page
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*****************************************************************
27 AFP: UN nuclear watchdog chief alleges smear campaign against him
Sunday February 20, 08:04 AM
BERLIN (AFP) - The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohamed
ElBaradei, reportedly denounced what he said was a campaign to
discredit him that had called into question his impartially in
the Middle East.
"There's a real campaign against me, trying to drag me through
the mud," ElBaradei said in an interview with the German magazine
Der Speigel to be published Monday.
The Egyptian head of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) said he's been accused of not being impartial toward
Muslim countries in getting them to reveal any secret nuclear
activity.
The administration of US President George W. Bush has criticized
the IAEA over Iran, which the United States believes is
conducting a secret nuclear weapons program.
The Washington Post reported in December that the Bush
administration had listened in on telephone conversations between
ElBaradei and Iranian diplomats, seeking ammunition to oust him.
The White House has refused to comment on the report.
"I have nothing to hide professionally. But it is not very nice
when you apparently can't even talk in private on the telephone
with your wife or your daughter," ElBaradei told Der Spiegel.
Some in the US administration have expressed the desire to block
ElBaradei from serving a third term as IAEA chief on the basis
that he is not firm enough with Iran.
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
28 Guardian Unlimited: Why coal can be top of the heap
Brian Wilson
Sunday February 20, 2005
Poor old coal does not get a good press. It is hardly mentioned
in debates about future energy policy, while the images that the
industry produces are relentlessly negative - as with the recent
closure of Ellington colliery due to flooding and the
recriminations that accompanied it. Pictures of grim-faced miners
walking away from their pit for the last time evoked memories of
the Eighties.
Yet coal must have a future, simply because we depend on it for
so much of our electricity. One third of Britain's power supply
comes from coal and, even more crucially, this figure rises to 45
per cent in periods of peak demand. Half of the coal used in
British power stations is still produced domestically and half of
that - about 13 million tonnes a year - comes from deep mines.
Even if Britain was to turn its back on coal, and leave what is
still one of our most precious natural resources trapped in the
ground, the rest of the world has no such intention. In China
recently, I was told that they are planning to increase
production from 1.6 billion tonnes a year to 2.2bn. Along with 20
new nuclear power stations, this will be the source of power to
drive massive economic expansion.
In China, India, Russia, the United States and many other
countries, the question is not whether coal will continue to be a
major source of energy production. It will and the real issue,
from an environmental perspective, is whether coal-burning will
continue to be a polluter on the grand scale or if 'clean coal'
will become part of the environmental solution, rather than of
the problem.
To some extent, that is also the issue in the UK. The main reason
for our own carbon emissions rising, somewhat embarrassingly,
rather than falling over the past few years is that the power
industry falls back on dirty old coal-fired stations whenever
additional supply is needed. This is certainly the preferred
option of the regulator, Ofgem, because coal-fired sta tions are
close to the major markets and switching them on and off as
required involves no new expenditure on infrastructure.
It is inconceivable, however, that this approach can survive the
rapid rise of global warming and carbon reduction up the league
table of political concerns. If coal-fired generation is going to
have a future in the UK, then it will have to reposition itself
as an option that provides reliable supply and is capable of
contributing to our environmental targets.
That is perfectly possible, but it will involve a more supportive
role on the part of government. Coal can be gasified and then
used in combined cycle power stations to generate electricity
cleanly and efficiently.
The environmental performance of existing power stations can be
massively improved through a supercritical boiler retrofit
programme. Co-firing with biomass (vegetable matter) can both
reduce emissions and contribute towards renewables targets in a
sector that, otherwise, has made very little progress. Carbon
capture and storage offers a near-zero carbon emissions future
for coal.
Whatever technologies we develop in this country will have a
massive export potential as well. It's always worth remembering
that, globally, the carbon reduction gains from cleaning up coal
will exceed anything that might conceivably be done with
renewables - and British companies are in a strong technological
position to develop and manufacture. But they do also need a home
market.
After the General Election, I believe that the government will
need to look again at how our environmental targets are going to
be met. The emphasis placed on renewables is well-intentioned and
entirely appropriate - but it should not be the only club in the
bag. The alternative to supporting coal and nuclear generation as
part of an indigenous energy strategy is not primarily
renewables; rather it is the future reliance on imported gas,
which is at present proposed. The government's own projection is
that, by 2020, 70 per cent of Britain's electricity will come
from gas and 90 per cent of that gas will be imported.
And if coal is going to continue to play a part, where should it
come from? Again the answer surely lies in a sensible mix -
imports and indigenous; deep-mined and opencast. There are huge
resources to be tapped and the possibility of new developments at
Canonbie in the Borders, under the Forth and at Margam in South
Wales, as well as large reserves at mines such as Daw Mill and
Kellingley, which are increasingly spoken of as realistic
propositions. Jobs as well as power and environmental
responsibility have to be part of our future energy mix.
From my experience in the Department of Trade and Industry, I
have no doubt that coal continues to be a poor relation in the
eyes of many policy-makers; a dirty, sunset industry rather than
one that has an exciting, environmentally friendly future.
The industry has a lot more work to do on its own behalf in order
to alter that perception. Equally, however, a government that is
committed to maintaining security of supply and also to radical
action on carbon reduction, both national and global, cannot
afford to turn its back on the role of clean coal.
· Brian Wilson MP was Energy Minister from 2001-03 and is
currently the Prime Minister's Special Representative on Overseas
Trade.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
29 Fwd: No truth to the rumor that California is powerless at the
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 01:00:04 -0600 (CST)
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2005 11:02:25 -0800
From: "Russell D. Hoffman"
Subject: No truth to the rumor that California is powerless at the
hands of the NRC
To: "Jeff Ballinger, The Tribune"
Tuesday, February 15th, 2005
Dear Sir,
Regarding seismic (the Hosgri Fault ) or any other reason (terrorism
and its thousand forms, tsunamis, accidental airplane strikes,
tornados, asteroids, etc.) to close Diablo Canyon:
It is an inaccurate interpretation of the law which causes all the
California state agencies, one after another, to defer the hard
decision to close the plant to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
which causes you to claim (in the third paragraph of your article
(shown below)) that California is helpless to shut Diablo Canyon (and
San Onofre) IMMEDIATELY due to being hamstrung by federal authority.
Read the laws which gave up that authority. There is a simple
loophole to get it back -- namely, admit that the NRC cannot possibly
do the job it has been assigned. They nearly failed at Davis-Besse,
and the NRC was formed only after the events at Three Mile Island
proved that the AEC was unable to do the job.
To call nuclear power a catastrophe waiting to happen is a simple
statement of fact.
Take away the Price-Anderson Act -- a bankrupt (ie, virtually
unfunded) piece of legislature that should never have been passed --
and the nuclear utilities would close the plants themselves. In
other words, holding them responsible for their actions is all it
would take.
A terrorist act is also all it would take, but your article assumes
that such a thing simply cannot happen. You (and many others) also
assume nor can large enough tsunamis, tornados, asteroids, etc.
happen to cause a catastrophe, for where is any of that in your
article or in anyone's calculation whom you quoted?
Do you think that the NRC is right, the AGs of 7 states are wrong,
and the plants are properly protected? What a fantasy -- when does
reality set in? The average citizen can see what happened on 9-11,
they can see the hole in the Cole, and the holes JDAMs can create
(remembering that ANY high school kid can make a crude JDAM from
remote-control airplane parts). As crude as box-cutters? No, not
quite that unsophisticated. But just as effective for the task.
And let me get this straight. If the first study yields results
suggesting the Diablo Canyon plant is dangerously close to the Hosgri
Fault, THEN another study will kick in to see what could be offered
to PG&E to get them to shut it down? How about we offer them jail
time if they don't? For what, you ask? How about for holding
California hostage to energy blackouts due to the unreliability of
getting 4,000 Megawatts from nuclear power, which is prone to sudden
SCRAMs? How about for creating some 6 to 8 million pounds of high
level radioactive waste without a clue as to how to store it safely?
Yucca Mountain is a scientific flop, a political disaster, and an
ecological nightmare (see quotes from Las Vegas Sun article, below).
Las Vegas hates it. Nevadans all despise it and are tired of being
rained on by the radioactive debris of society. And even if Yucca
Mountain ever does open, every time we move waste to a dry cask, we
expose our shores and our citizens to additional dangers during the
move itself. Crane operators drop things. Accidents happen. No
industry is immune, but only one industry is so dangerous as to
require a special regulatory agency to oversee it -- but can the NRC
really understand crane logistics as well as, say, OSHA, with all
their national experience? No. Accidents happen, and have happened.
Do we wait for the big one before we stop the process, or do we trust
the nuclear industry's statistically absurd claims that they will
never, ever, ever make the ultimate mistake?
Do we learn from what happened at Davis-Besse, and all the other
close calls that have occurred since nuclear power's inception, some
of which are so terrifying that to hear about them send chills up
your spine? It's obvious the nuclear power industry cannot perform
the miracle of perfection they have promised. The miracle of
99.999999%+ containment of their waste for 10000 generations. They
can't do that. So why are the plants open at all?
There is a lot of talk about raising the assumed level of danger from
so-called "low-level radiation," which is an oxymoron to begin with.
A single radioactive decay can destroy 20,000 or more chemical bonds
within the human body, so even, say, so-called "low energy" tritium
is a serious health risk. Just a week or two ago, x-rays were added
to the Federal/EPA list of known carcinogens. That x-rays are a
danger came as no surprise to nuclear activists, but the health
physics community is appalled to see it listed, not because it is
WRONG, but because they are afraid people will skip some vital
x-rays. But I assume you believe in an informed public. That is,
after all, the duty of journalists everywhere -- to inform the
public. Alas, in the nuclear arena, I see very little of that going
on. The pro-nuker spokesliars have iron-clad excuses for making up
any answer to any question, and they'll do so at any time. Sworn
testimony at a nuke plant hearing? I can't recall the last hearing I
went to one where everyone (or anyone) was sworn in. So what's a
reporter to do? It's hard work to find the truth in the nuclear
industry, but worth the effort.
Regular releases from dry casks, spent fuel pools, operational
reactors, and accidents are all valid issues that need to be
re-addressed, but instead, have been effectively ignored by the NRC
and the nuclear industry for decades, despite a wealth of new
scientific information. The question is really NOT "should the
assumed dangers be greater," it's whether they should be raised by a
factor of, say, 10, 100, or 1000! According to the latest scientific
research, it's highly likely that the original, decades-old
risk-assessment calculations for whether Diablo Canyon is safe or not
should now include completely revised biological factors for whatever
Diablo Canyon does release, on a good day or a bad one. But the NRC
and the nuclear industry will stick to the old Hiroshima- and
Nagasaki-based data, thank you very much. It's much more convenient
for them to do so, since so much bias was already introduced at the
time the research was done that it fits their needs to a "T." Hence,
the nuclear industry will claim that Chernobyl only killed 28, or
perhaps 31 people, when the real number, worldwide, is already
probably over 100,000 people, and perhaps far higher.
As to it taking time for a long-term transition to alternative energy
sources, in ONE 14-month period after the so-called electricity
scarcity-related blackouts of 2000-2001, California added more
generating capacity than ALL FOUR NUKES in California put out on a
good day! I contend the blackouts were entirely
politically-motivated to prevent people THEN from thinking: "Three of
four nukes are shut and our lights are ON, gee, can't we turn these
things off FOREVER?".
So it's time NOW to close these plants -- all four of them.
Immediately. It can be done and there need not be any forced
blackouts. It can be done with renewables, and
it would be highly cost-effective for the state.
It can be done and it must be done, or we will have our own
Chernobyl. It most certainly CAN happen here. And assurances from
the NRC or the industry to the contrary are based on specious claims
that our reactors are radically different from Russian models, but
all that really means is that the means to the end -- fuel melt,
massive vaporized releases of radioactive fission products, and
widespread death, pain, suffering, and financial loss -- is slightly
different. Following a full-scale meltdown of a reactor or burn-up
of a dry cask or just a portion of a spent fuel pool, millions dead
is not impossible, and more than a million dead is probable.
But such a catastrophe is not in any California civil servant's
calculation "for or against" Diablo Canyon or San Onofre. They
consider themselves exempt from considering such "minor details"
because of this so-called authority the NRC claims to have over them,
and which they meekly concede, without justification, and in absolute
abdication of their responsibilities. Such abdication is unheard of
in any other industry. But the nuclear industry is not very normal
in a lot of ways.
If you actually ask the NRC, as this writer has done, if they have or
would consider closing the plants down because they don't make sense
in the larger scheme of things for society, they will tell you FLAT
OUT that's not their area of concern -- they only monitor the safety
of the plants as they operate.
Now, whether they'll put it in writing is another thing, but this
writer has been told on several occasions (at pubic hearings for San
Onofre, for instance) that those bigger questions are the concern of
the DOE, of which the NRC is only a small division.
The DOE, in turn, will stonewall the question permanently.
And what of California? California and all other nuclear states
passed various bylaws and mandates and so forth stating that until
such time as it can be seen that the Feds are not doing their job of
managing the safety of the nuclear industry in California, all state
agencies ABDICATE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY to the Feds.
These "laws" were passed long before the DOE or the NRC existed.
They are posted at various .ca web sites, for instance, and if you
look at them, you'll see they refer flat-out to the AEC, which was
the forerunner of the DOE and the NRC, and hasn't existed in more
than 25 years. A fresh look is certainly in order!
The fact is, both the NRC and the DOE are ignoring good energy
choices for society -- nuclear isn't one of them. It is a safety
risk we do not need to take. After all, the plants do JUST boil
water! There are other -- better -- ways to boil water, which isn't
the ultimate goal, anyway -- turning the electrical generator is.
You don't need steam, even (wave power could do it). You don't need
a turbine, you don't need a pressurized loop at 2200 PSI and 666 or
so degrees (F). You don't need to generate two tons or so of spent
fuel in California each week, which will have to be guarded for 1000
generations (far longer than recorded civilization). You don't need
government secrecy, you don't need informants planted in activist
organizations, you don't need special laws to protect the liars at
the NRC who will tell citizens that 9-11 type attacks can't happen
because Homeland Security has the airports covered -- when anyone
with a credit card that's not maxed out can rent a private jet and
crash THAT into a spent fuel pool or dry cask, or control room (which
would almost surely lead to a meltdown as well).
So reporters should stop letting California's legislators, attorney
general (who, with the six others, doesn't go nearly far enough in
his/their current claim), health agencies, and environmental agencies
off the hook. They all claim they are powerless in the hands of the
almighty NRC. But that "power" wasn't ever actually yielded! It was
loaned, and ONLY on condition -- not even true at the time but
certainly not true now -- that the federal agencies (their
forerunners, actually) would properly protect the public with their
"expertise."
They didn't do so, so the deal giving the AEC/DOE/NRC ANY authority
was long ago NULL AND VOID.
Sincerely,
Russell Hoffman
Concerned Citizen
Carlsbad, CA
1) Some nuke-related educational projects I've created
2) Yucca Mountain still far more fantasy than fact:
3) SLO Tribune article on Diablo Cyn's future, Feb. 13th, 2005
4) SLO Tribune editorial ignores numerous real problems with nuclear power
5) Letter from "A4NR" (Rochelle Becker)
6) Something's fishy: Altering the data to suit the client
7) Contact information for the author of this letter
==================================================
1) Some nuke-related educational projects I've created:
==================================================
One is a complete animated timeline of U.S. nuclear events, including:
21 subcritical tests
1033 bomb blasts on, above, or under continental U.S. soil
113 additional U.S. bomb blasts
10 U.S. Carriers
190 U.S. Nuclear Submarines
28 U.S. Nuclear rockets
9 U.S. Nuclear Cruisers
1 U.S. "Civilian" nuclear ship
41 BWRs (8 closed)
83 PWRs (13 closed)
1 Yucca Mountain
a few dozen mines, also research facilities, processing plants, etc. etc..
To view this animation, you can probably just go to this URL with any browser:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.html
or try:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/poifu/poifu.swf
--------------------------------------------------------------
If your browser does not have a Flash player built into it already,
you can go to the Macromedia web site to get one. It's free, and 97%
or so computers are already running it. You can also read about this
amazing tool:
http://www.macromedia.com
This URL will go directly to the Flash player download web page (just
one more click to download):
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
---------------------------------------------------------
Besides "Poison Fire USA", I more recently (this year) did an
animation showing "A BAD DAY AT SAN ONOFRE" which tells about the
plant and includes a copy of a letter the plant management sent to
all employees about an essay I wrote:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/2005/sce_memo/sce_memo_2004.html
---------------------------------------------------------
A few years ago I created a Glossary of Nuclear Terminology (not in Flash):
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hotwords/index.htm
---------------------------------------------------------
Here's a list I created of every commercial nuke in the US, with
activists, output levels, CRAC-2 estimates, years of operation,
owners, locations, etc:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/nukelist.htm
---------------------------------------------------------
Here's my SHUT SAN ONOFRE site:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/onofre/index.htm
---------------------------------------------------------
===================================================
2) Yucca Mountain still far more fantasy than fact:
===================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Las Vegas Sun Editorial: It's politics versus facts, Feb 13th, 2005:
"Yucca Mountain is beset with other critical problems, as
illustrated in the Sun's cover story today. Foremost is its
overall design, which a federal court has rejected as falling
far short of a radiation protection standard set by the National
Academy of Sciences."
And here's this comment, from another LVS editorial a few days earlier:
"Yucca Mountain, thankfully, is indeed stalled and its future is
looking bleak. But only because the facts are beginning to get
in the way..."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
===========================================================
3) SLO Tribune article on Diablo Cyn's future, Feb 13th, 2005:
===========================================================
Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2005
Diablo quake study wanted
Blakeslee will ask state to assess threat; possibility of converting
it to gas raised
Jeff Ballinger
The Tribune
Freshman Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee this week will propose state
backing for a study that would examine the threat of an earthquake
fault to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
Depending on the study's findings, one result could be Diablo
Canyon's conversion from nuclear power to natural gas, he said.
Any changes in operations, however, would have to be supported by the
federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Pacific Gas and Electric
Co., which owns the plant.
Blakeslee, R-San Luis Obispo, will introduce a bill Thursday calling
for the study to determine whether the Hosgri Fault just off the
coast carries a big enough earthquake threat to the safety and
viability of the plant.
If so, another element of a bill would kick in to study an
alternative to possible closure -- the viability of converting the
plant to a natural gas-powered facility. The idea would be to offer
incentives to PG&E to build a gas-powered plant.
Blakeslee, recently appointed to the Assembly Utilities and Commerce
Committee, said recent earthquakes spurred the idea for a
state-of-the-art study. He said that any long-term facility
transition process would take time.
(Licenses for Diablo Canyon's reactors expire in 2023 and 2025, and
it is believed the plant owners will apply to re-license the plant
years before then.)
"A project like this will take many years to accomplish," he said.
"We need to start as soon as possible to fully understand the seismic
issues using state-of-the-art technology and data and to provide PG&E
with an alternative to re-power the facilities."
PG&E officials are less than receptive to the idea.
"We think this is a very costly and highly impractical idea that
would create significant air pollution to replace a power plant
that's been declared seismically safe by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission," said PG&E spokesman Jeff Lewis.
Diablo Canyon, which underwent extensive earthquake studying when it
was in the licensing phase, is built to withstand a magnitude-7.5
quake on the Hosgri Fault, which lies about 3 miles offshore of the
plant. The question of whether Diablo Canyon could withstand a major
quake was rekindled a year ago in the weeks following the 2003 San
Simeon Earthquake.
While Blakeslee acknowledges there have been thick "phone books" of
studies performed by the NRC and other consultants on Diablo, he says
the assessments have still fallen short in their scrutiny.
"The NRC says the plant is safe, but they don't live here," he said.
"A study needs to be done to increase the public's confidence."
State Sen. Abel Maldonado criticized Blakeslee's proposal, citing a
need to maintain the current operation of a facility that provides
1,300 jobs, significant tax revenue and an important portion of the
state's energy supply. "The security and maintenance at Diablo Canyon
are second to none," Maldonado said. "They bend over backward to make
sure that plant is safe."
Maldonado also said he will meet with Blakeslee this week to discuss
the proposal and his opposition to it. Both Maldonado and Blakeslee
have districts that include Diablo Canyon.
But 2nd District County Supervisor Shirley Bianchi agreed with
Blakeslee that better assessments need to be done, and she also
encouraged a transition from nuclear operation.
"I'm really pleased," Bianchi said. "I think it's a step in the right
direction. There are many scientists who are apprehensive about
having a nuclear power plant so close to an earthquake fault. There
are all sorts of newer technology that would be able to make a better
determination."
Lewis, however, cited other concerns.
A gas-fired plant would produce an estimated 10,000 tons of sulfur
dioxide emissions and 14,000 tons of nitrogen dioxide emissions
annually, Lewis said. The current plant's waste issues involve
radioactive fuel rods, which are stored on site but have been at the
center of safety concerns. Also, a natural gas-powered electricity
plant producing the same 2,200 megawatts of power would employ fewer
than 100 people, he said. Diablo has 1,300 employees now.
Blakeslee insisted, however, that if a quake shut down the plant,
even temporarily, it would have an economic ripple effect locally and
statewide.
"It occurs to me that we should first use the most advanced
techniques possible to determine the risk to the plant," he said.
Members of Mothers for Peace, a local nonprofit activist group on
nuclear issues that has long opposed Diablo Canyon's operation,
agreed that an extensive study is long overdue. "We've asked for that
since 1974," said Liz Apselberg, director of the group. "We have
always been worried about that."
Blakeslee, a financial planner who also holds a doctorate in
earthquake studies from UC Santa Barbara, will propose that the
agencies with greatest oversight -- the California Public Utilities
Commission, the California Energy Commission and the California
Independent System Operator -- conduct the study. If the review finds
the potential for significant damage, he envisions the creation of a
list of economic incentives for PG&E to convert the plant.
Blakeslee said any alternatives produced by the study would be
voluntary for PG&E. The power to compel the company to take action
could come only from the Nuclear Regulatory Agency.
"That's why I'm seeking to create a voluntary consensus and provide
information on the risks and the opportunities -- so PG&E can make
the decision," he said.
Blakeslee said he has spoken with PG&E governmental affairs officials
in Sacramento and that their feedback has helped shape his proposal.
He declined to characterize their reaction to the plan.
It's too early to tell what such a study could cost, Blakeslee said.
"This is just a prudent contingency analysis of what could happen and
what your options are."
Jeff Ballinger covers education for The Tribune and can be reached at
781-7908 or
jballinger@thetribunenews.com. Tribune reporter Nick Wilson
contributed to this story.
) 2005 San Luis Obispo Tribune and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com
================================================
4) SLO Tribune editorial ignores numerous real problems with nuclear power:
================================================
From: http://www.energy-net.org/N-LET/EN/0RBULL/RB05234.HTM
*****************************************************************
02/13/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.34
*****************************************************************
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
*****************************************************************
14 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Blakeslee's atom bomb: Gas-fired Diablo
02/13/2005 | Editorial /
Opinion of The Tribune
Freshman Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee has a vision for the future
of Diablo Canyon: Drop nuclear energy generation in favor of a
gas-fired plant.
His thinking, driven as much by financial concerns as
environmental, calls for legislation that would fund
state-of-the-art earthquake studies of Diablo in relation to the
Hosgri Fault offshore. If the plant doesn't measure up, he'd
give incentives to PG&E to build a gas-powered plant that would
preserve jobs and a tax base.
"A study would give us a better sense that we've got a facility
that would survive a worst-case scenario," says Blakeslee, who
holds a doctorate in earthquake studies. "Besides making sure
that the plant wouldn't release radiation following a quake from
the offshore Hosgri Fault, I want to be sure that Diablo can
continue to operate because we need the jobs. It could be years
to get the plant back in operation if it were damaged."
It's believed Pacific Gas and Electric, owners of the plant,
will apply to relicense the plant years before its current
licenses expire in 2023 and 2025. Blakeslee believes that's
enough lead time to perform the study and negotiate with PG&E.
"It may take years to get answers, and if we don't ask questions
now, decisions may be made in crisis management mode down the
road."
Blakeslee's idea is intriguing.
We like the idea of assessing earthquake damage potential at
Diablo. We also like the long-range planning perspective that he
brings to the proposal. But we've also got some fundamental
questions:
Wouldn't new gas transmission lines, as large as four feet in
diameter, have to be built over mountains, down canyons and
through a sensitive environment? What would that cost? The
permitting process alone could take years.
Gas-fired power plants don't need the same number of employees
as a nuclear plant. For example, Duke Energy's Morro Bay plant
can produce 676 megawatts with 30 people. (That's with two
units; if all four were operating, it would kick out 1,000
megawatts with a work force of about 70.) By comparison, Diablo
generates 2,200 megawatts and employs 1,300.
In light of the opposition to Duke's proposal to modernize its
aging plant, would the public and permitting agencies accept a
new power plant -- even if it meant closing a nuclear one?
All new power plants that are planned and coming on line in
California are fueled by natural gas. Is it wise to be so
dependent on one form of energy?
Our bottom line: The idea of studying earthquake safety issues
at Diablo is good, but Assemblyman Blakeslee should connect a
few more dots to bring his plan to reality.
*****************************************************************
===============================================
5) Letter from "A4NR" (Rochelle Becker):
===============================================
From: beckers@thegrid.net
To: rochelle@a4nr.org
Subject: We have a request for state study to repower nukes in CA
Dear Friends.
I wanted to keep you posted on the Alliance for Nuclear
Responsibility efforts to prohibit license renewals for CA nukes (and
hopefully all our nation's nukes). Today a very courageous
Republican Assemblyman announced he was asking for state backing for
study on seismic vulnerability of CA nukes and for repowering of CA
nuke facilities. Article and Op Ed below.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispotribune/10891149.htm
If you are a California organization, please send letters supporting
this action to:
Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee
Capitol Office
State Capitol
Room 5126
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-319-2033
Fax: 916-319-2133
There is also a letter to the Governor on the a4nr.org website under
newletters, we invite you to subscribe and we will send action alerts
as they happen.
and please cc: by email to rochelle@a4nr.org or PO 1328, San Luis
Obispo, Ca 93406-1328
In Peace
Rochelle Becker
Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility
858 337 2703
a4nr.org
=====================================================
6) Something's fishy: Altering the data to suit the client:
=====================================================
To: /RENEGADE/
From: STRIDER
Subject: U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
Cc: bay_area_activist@yahoogroups ...snip... earthfirstalert@yahoogroups.com>
.More than half of the biologists and other researchers who
responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial
interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy
companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific
conclusions deemed harmful to their business...
"Science was ignored - and worse, manipulated, to build a bogus
rationale for reversal of these listing decisions."
Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:19:48 -0800 (PST)
From: no_face@kaxy.com
Subject: U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
--------------------
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
--------------------
More than 200 Fish and Wildlife researchers cite cases where
conclusions were reversed to weaken protections and favor business, a
survey finds.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation
--------------------
February 10, 2005
Los Angeles Times - THE NATION
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
By Julie Cart, Times Staff Writer
More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to
lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released
Wednesday says.
The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30%
response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned
Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife
Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should
be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where
such species need to be protected.
More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded
to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests,
including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had
applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed
harmful to their business.
Bush administration officials, including Craig Manson, an assistant
secretary of the Interior who oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service,
have been critical of the 1973 Endangered Species Act, contending
that its implementation has imposed hardships on developers and
others while failing to restore healthy populations of wildlife.
Along with Republican leaders in Congress, the administration is
pushing to revamp the act. The president's proposed budget calls for
a $3-million reduction in funding of Fish and Wildlife's endangered
species programs.
"The pressure to alter scientific reports for political reasons has
become pervasive at Fish and Wildlife offices around the country,"
said Lexi Shultz of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Mitch Snow, a spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service, said the
agency had no comment on the survey, except to say "some of the basic
premises just aren't so."
The two groups that circulated the survey also made available memos
from Fish and Wildlife officials that instructed employees not to
respond to the survey, even if they did so on their own time. Snow
said that agency employees could not use work time to respond to
outside surveys.
Fish and Wildlife scientists in 90 national offices were asked 42
questions and given space to respond in essay form in the mail-in
survey sent in November.
One scientist working in the Pacific region, which includes
California, wrote: "I have been through the reversal of two listing
decisions due to political pressure. Science was ignored - and worse,
manipulated, to build a bogus rationale for reversal of these listing
decisions."
More than 20% of survey responders reported they had been "directed
to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information."
However, 69% said they had never been given such a directive. And,
although more than half of the respondents said they had been ordered
to alter findings to lessen protection of species, nearly 40% said
they had never been required to do so.
Sally Stefferud, a biologist who retired in 2002 after 20 years with
the agency, said Wednesday she was not surprised by the survey
results, saying she had been ordered to change a finding on a
biological opinion.
"Political pressures influence the outcome of almost all the cases,"
she said. "As a scientist, I would probably say you really can't
trust the science coming out of the agency."
A biologist in Alaska wrote in response to the survey: "It is one
thing for the department to dismiss our recommendations, it is quite
another to be forced (under veiled threat of removal) to say
something that is counter to our best professional judgment."
Don Lindburg, head of the office of giant panda conservation at the
Zoological Society of San Diego, said it was unrealistic to expect
federal scientists to be exempt from politics or pressure.
"I've not stood in the shoes of any of those scientists," he said.
"But it is not difficult for me to believe that there are pressures
from those who are not happy with conservation objectives, and here I
am referring to development interest and others.
"But when it comes to altering data, that is a serious matter. I am
really sorry to hear that scientists working for the service feel
they have to do that. Changing facts to fit the politics - that is a
very unhealthy thing. If I were a scientist in that position I would
just refuse to do it."
The Union of Concerned Scientists and the public employee group
provided copies of the survey and excerpts from essay-style responses.
One biologist based in California, who responded to the survey, said
in an interview with The Times that the Fish and Wildlife Service was
not interested in adding any species to the endangered species list.
"For biologists who do endangered species analysis, my experience is
that the majority of them are ordered to reverse their conclusions
[if they favor listing]. There are other biologists who will do it if
you won't," said the biologist, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention Environment -
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[only articles for the last six months will be indexed]
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Search /RENEGADE/ for articles that mention Wildlife -
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/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," use "any word" or "phrase,"
etc. /RENEGADE/ also has "time-frame" in the search, so you can
tailor your results that way, too.
-----
============================================
7) Contact information for the author of this letter:
============================================
*************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
** (800) 551-2726
** (760) 720-7261
** Fax: (760) 720-7394
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
*************************************************
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
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[only articles for the last one year will be indexed]
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and just type in your topic. For differing results you may uncheck
"article" and search on just "subject," etc. /RENEGADE/ also has
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-----
--
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:
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Membership by invitation only - moderated / archives for members only
Contact bay_area_activist-owner@yahoogroups.com
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List-Subscribe:
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*****************************************************************
30 [NukeNet] NRC Pussyfoots on PSEG illegal firings
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:57:58 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Hi all
Below is a text version of the NRC letter. I also have it in PDF for those
who want it in better
formatting.
Basically Dr Harvin's comments sum up my feelings as well.
norm
Greetings: I assume you may have seen this letter to PSEG already. I find
it troubling that the NRC learned of these firings that did not follow the
safety culture oversight review process on January 7 but did not choose to
send this letter until 2/17/05. The delay, itself, is suspect. The
letter, as you will see, gives PSEG 30 days to respond and explain its
actions. Terminations can still happen outside the review process. And
once again, as the company did in my case, PSEG is hiring an outside law
firm to "investigate"--which is another word for "whitewash" the company's
actions and protect the officers who acted contrary to NRC orders. The
nightmare of retaliation against outspoken employees and the NRC sitting
on the sidelines observing--instead of intervening--continues. The NRC
has also refused so far to rule in any of the discriminatory firing
allegations---mine filed in 9/03 and others that followed. The time
delay only serves the utilities and the leaders who broke the law. The
"whistleblowers" are left hung out to dry. Call if you'd like to
discuss--I'm around all weekend. Thank you,Kymn Nancy Kymn Harvin,
Ph.D.cell 267 312 1252
UNITED STATES
NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
REGION I
475 ALLENDALE ROAD
KING OF PRUSSIA, PENNSYLVANIA 19406-1415
February 17, 2005
Mr. William Levis
Senior Vice President and Chief Nuclear Officer
PSEG Nuclear LLC - N09
P. O. Box 236
Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038
SUBJECT: SALEM AND HOPE CREEK GENERATING STATIONS - EXECUTIVE REVIEW
BOARD COMMITMENTS
Dear Mr. Levis:
This letter responds to your letter of January 31, 2005, and requests
additional information
regarding your implementation of the Executive Review Board (ERB) for
personnel actions at
the Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations. The NRC is concerned with
PSEG’s
inconsistent implementation of the ERB process because of the potential to
adversely impact
the work environment at the stations.
In a January 28, 2004 letter to PSEG, NRC published interim results from
its review of work
environment issues at the Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations. During
subsequent
public meetings with the NRC in March and June 2004, PSEG described its
plan to address the
work environment issues at the stations. PSEG further described this plan
and committed to
taking a number of actions to improve the work environment at the stations
in a June 25, 2004
letter to the NRC.
In that letter, PSEG stated that an ERB had been established to review
PSEG and contractor
personnel actions to preclude retaliation and/or chilling effect at the
stations. This action was
taken to improve management effectiveness in detecting and preventing
retaliation and the
creation of a chilling effect. In addition, in this letter PSEG committed
to providing to the NRC,
on a quarterly basis, selected performance metrics related to safety
conscious work
environment. These metrics include a metric on ERB effectiveness. On July
30, 2004, in a
letter to PSEG, NRC published the final results from its review of work
environment issues at
the stations and acknowledged that PSEG’s June 25, 2004 letter appeared to
address the key
findings of both the NRC and PSEG assessments.
In December 2004, PSEG announced that it had entered into a Nuclear
Operating Services
Contract (NOSC) with Exelon to provide management services for plant
operations at the
Salem and Hope Creek Generating Stations. Prior to implementation of the
NOSC on
January 17, 2005, PSEG, in cooperation with Exelon, identified a number of
personnel changes
that would be necessary to implement the Exelon management model at the
stations.
While onsite on January 7, 2005, an NRC Region I manager learned that the
initial set of
personnel actions associated with the NOSC had not been reviewed by the
ERB. NRC
management requested that PSEG explain why the personnel actions had been
taken without
being reviewed by the ERB. The NRC also requested that PSEG describe what
actions they
intended to take in order to accomplish the intended function of the ERB.
During follow-up
discussions with PSEG management, the NRC learned that several other
personnel actions,
not associated with implementation of the NOSC, had also occurred without
being subjected to
the ERB process.
In a letter dated January 31, 2005, PSEG notified the NRC of its intent to
commission an
independent review of those personnel actions related to the
implementation of the NOSC to
ensure that they complied with 10 CFR Part 50.7. While the NRC
acknowledges PSEG’s
intention to perform this review, the NRC continues to have concerns
associated with PSEG’s
lapses in implementing the ERB process for personnel actions at the
stations. The NRC
requests a written response within 30 days to the items in the enclosure
to this letter. If you
have any questions on this matter, please contact Mr. Eugene Cobey of my
staff at 610-337-
5171.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRC’s “Rules of Practice,†a
copy
of this letter, its
enclosure, and your response will be available electronically for public
inspection in the NRC
Public Document Room or from the Publicly Available Records (PARS)
component of NRC’s
document system (ADAMS). ADAMS is accessible from the NRC web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html (The Public Electronic Reading
Room). To the
extent possible, your response should not include any personal privacy,
proprietary, or
safeguards information so that in can be made available to the Public
without redaction. If
personal privacy information is necessary to provide an acceptable
response, then please
provide a bracketed copy of your response that identifies the personal
privacy-related
information and a redacted copy of your response that deletes the personal
privacy-related
information. Identify the particular portions of the response in question
which, if disclosed,
would create an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy, identify the
individual whose privacy
would be invaded in each instance, describe the nature of the privacy
invasion, and indicate
why, considering the public interest in the matter, the invasion of
privacy is unwarranted. If you
request withholding on any other grounds, you must specifically identify
the portions of your
response that you seek to have withheld and provide in detail the basis
for your claim of
withholding (e.g., provide the information required by 10 CFR 2.390(b) to
support a request for
withholding confidential commercial or financial information). If
safeguards information is
necessary to provide an acceptable response, please provide the level of
protection described
in 10 CFR 73.21.
Sincerely,
/RA/
A. Randolph Blough, Director
Division of Reactor Projects
Docket Nos. 50-272; 50-311; 50-354
License Nos. DPR-70; DPR-75; NPF-57
Enclosure: Executive Review Board (ERB) Commitment
cc w/encl:
M. Brothers, Vice President Nuclear Assessment
T. Joyce, Vice President - Salem
G. Barnes, Vice President - Hope Creek
M. Gallagher, Vice President, Engineering and Technical Support
W. F. Sperry, Director Business Support
C. Perino, Director - Nuclear Safety and Licensing
C. J. Fricker, Salem Plant Manager
R. Kankus, Joint Owner Affairs
J. J. Keenan, Esquire
M. Wetterhahn, Esquire
F. Pompper, Chief of Police and Emergency Management Coordinator
J. Lipoti Ph.D., State of New Jersey, Ass’t Director Radiation Protection
& Release Prevention
K. Tosch - Chief, Bureau of Nuclear Engineering, NJ Dept. of Environmental
Protection
H. Otto, Ph.D., DNREC Division of Water Resources, State of Delaware
Consumer Advocate, Office of Consumer Advocate
N. Cohen, Coordinator - Unplug Salem Campaign
W. Costanzo, Technical Advisor - Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch
E. Zobian, Coordinator - Jersey Shore Anti Nuclear Alliance
Enclosure
Executive Review Board (ERB) Commitment
The NRC is aware that PSEG has not consistently implemented the ERB
process for PSEG
and contractor personnel actions at the Salem and Hope Creek Generating
Stations. In order
to assess the impact on the work environment at the stations, the NRC
requests a written
response within 30 days to address the following items.
1. Provide the results of the independent review of personnel actions not
subjected to the
ERB process as described in PSEG’s letter to the NRC dated January 31,
2005.
2. Provide the results of the investigation into the cause(s) for the
lapses in implementing
the ERB process for personnel actions taken at the stations.
3. Describe the corrective actions that PSEG plans to implement, or has
taken, to correct
the issue. Include the schedule for completion for those actions not
already completed.
4. Provide an assessment of impact on the work environment at the stations
and
describe how the assessment was performed.
5. Describe the actions that PSEG plans to implement, or has taken, to
mitigate any
impact on the work environment at the stations.
--
Coalition for Peace and Justice
UNPLUG Salem Campaign; 321 Barr Ave, Linwood
NJ 08221; 609-601-8583; cell 609-742-0982
ncohen12@comcast.net; http://www.unplugsalem.org
http://www.coalitionforpeaceandjustice.org
"A time comes when silence is betrayal.
Even when pressed by the demands of
inner truth, men do not easily assume
the task of opposing their government's
policy, especially in time of war.
Nor does the human spirit move without
great difficulty against all the apathy
of conformist thought, within one's own
bosom and in the surrounding world."
- Martin Luther King Jr.
--
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.7 - Release Date: 2/10/05
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
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31 TCS: Enter the Dragon: Nuclear Power's Newest Player
Tech Central Station -
By Jeremy L. Shane Published 02/18/2005
Get ready for a new nuclear competition, a no-holds barred
battle between two totally different views of nuclear power's
future. Unlike past battles, this is not about whether we should
build more nukes but rather what kind of nukes we will build. On
one side are established nuclear plant builders in the West who
think tomorrow's nuclear plants should work a lot like today's,
just updated for the 21st century. On the other side is a loose
affiliation of scientists spanning three continents who believe
nuclear plants should work in a completely different way. Their
design is called "pebble-bed modular reactor", or PBMR, after
the billiard-ball shaped balls of nuclear fuel that provide its
energy. Until recently, the incumbent powers were cruising to
victory; the rebels could not even get a demonstration reactor
built. Then China entered the fray committed to making PBMRs
work. Now, the race is on.
The difference between incumbent nuke designs and PBMR is like
night and day. Western reactors reflect the "bigger is better"
mentality that prevailed when plants were first built. Industry
mismanagement in the 1970's and 1980's added layers of safety
systems to already complex designs. U.S. nuclear plants are run
much better today than a decade ago, but next generation designs
still feature tons of safety-oriented concrete and mazes of
redundant valves, controls, and piping. PBMRs, by contrast,
epitomize Internet Age principles of miniaturization and
modularity. Each PBMR is about one-fifth the size of a
conventional reactor. They are designed without many backup
cooling systems in existing plants, relying instead on a reactor
core that theoretically cools itself if nuclear fuel gets too
hot. PBMR's smaller footprint and simplified design, it's hoped,
will allow multiple reactors to be built on one site faster and
cheaper.
But the challenge to incumbent nuclear companies does not end
there. Most of today's nuclear industry profits come from making
and replacing fuel in operating plants not building new ones.
Western companies have a large stake in preserving how nuclear
fuel is now made, a tightly controlled system run by
quasi-government entities and nuclear service companies. The
status quo works for everyone, consumers included, so long as
existing reactor designs are the only viable options. PBMR
commercialization would upset this arrangement. PBMR uses a
totally different fuel design to current reactors. PBMRs should
refuel while running whereas Western designs require refueling
shutdowns every two years. So PBMRs do not need either
Western-style fuel or Western companies' refueling services.
Faced with this challenge, nuclear vendors -- with future plant
sales and lucrative fuel and services businesses at stake --
have attacked PBMR as an idea whose time will never come.
Until recently, the incumbents were winning. Then China, facing
a monumental power shortage, put its top scientific brains to
work to commercialize PBMRs. China needs electricity, a lot of
it and fast. Coal and oil-fired power plants can meet some of
this gap but the only long-term option that can provide China
with the amount of power it needs at stable costs and without
worsening air pollution is nuclear. China will buy some
Western-style nuclear plants but it will not go "all-Western"
for important strategic and practical reasons.
Strategically, if China only buys Western-style nukes it will
become dependent on the Western companies for nuclear fuel. This
is an unacceptable political risk since Western politicians will
be tempted to shut the nuclear fuel spigot every time China
offends. By the same token, Western governments cannot afford to
invite China into the nuclear fuel fabrication club given
China's proliferation history.
Western reactor designs also pose practical issues for China.
They require huge up-front capital investments, take years to
build, and must be tailored to fit each plant site. This
prevents large scale replication. Also, Western-style plants,
being large, will introduce big chunks of power onto the power
grid when they startup, stressing weak links and requiring the
Chinese to beef up key power lines.
China needs a technology it can control, one that is less
capital-intensive, can be deployed in step with growing power
demand, and can be copied nationwide. PBMRs could solve each of
these concerns. Being smaller, modular, and quicker to build,
PBMRs could meet China's desire for a cheaper, scalable design
that can be copied a hundred-fold. The technological barrier
that has stopped PBMRs from becoming viable -- its use of a
totally new fuel design -- is for China, a virtue. China wants a
technology that gives it entre to the nuclear fuel business.
Over time this would enable China to build an international
market for PBMRs, financing domestic construction with overseas
sales of PBMRs and lifetime fuel supply contracts.
In a time of simmering nuclear proliferation horrors the
possibility of an unfettered Chinese nuclear export program is
reason alone for concern. Still the U.S. government seems frozen
at least publicly over the PBMR challenge. Perhaps officials are
hoping, along with Western nuclear companies, that the Chinese
fail and PBMR goes away. Great, except what if the Chinese
succeed? The West is in a policy conundrum: it cannot provide
what China needs (electricity and autonomy) and China cannot
afford what the West will demand (dependency). So Western
nuclear powers, led by the U.S., must come up with something
better or else risk a Chinese PBMR program that ignores Western
proliferation and safety concerns.
But is co-development feasible? What could the West hope to
gain?
First, if China builds PBMRs, by definition, it will also build
its own nuclear fuel capability. This is no small task. The
hardest nut to crack with PBMRs is to fabricate thousands of
identical fuel spheres each of which meets atomic-level
tolerances. The Chinese also will need to build systems for PBMR
reactors to eject used fuel spheres safely, and inject them,
while the plant runs. Co-developing these systems with the
Chinese should be a win-win: both will gain know-how and reduce
the risk of an accident caused by poorly-designed or built fuel.
Joint U.S.-China development of PBMRs could address
proliferation concerns. Western-style nuclear fuel is moved in
large, tightly-controlled shipments. PBMR fuel spheres --
smaller and self-contained -- could be stolen or "lost" much
easier. And while no one is advertising ways to extract and
enrich material from PBMR fuel, sadly, where there's a will
there's a way. Every PBMR fuel sphere should be implanted with a
tracking device, an RFID chip or some other "Alias"-style
wizardry, to ensure around-the-clock monitoring of every fuel
sphere made. These safeguards are unlikely to be at the top of
China's to-do list if they are left to go it alone, as its
scientists face overwhelming pressure to get PBMR on-line at any
cost.
A final reason to co-develop PBMR is the law of unintended
consequences. China is developing PBMRs hoping they will meet
future power needs. Western governments, on the other hand,
assume current nuclear plants will be replaced by a new
generation of similar designs. In fact, neither assumption may
come true. PBMRs could take far longer to perfect than the
Chinese hope leaving a yawning gap in their power supply.
Meanwhile, opposition in the West and Japan to building more,
large nukes would increase pressure on oil, coal, and gas
supplies. U.S.-Sino relations and the western energy situation
could deteriorate simultaneously.
This could happen even if China and the U.S. work together on
PBMRs. However, if the U.S. helps China with PBMR, it will be
much better positioned to help meet China's power shortages if
the PBMR program suffers setbacks. If China believes PBMR
ultimately will be viable, just delayed, it could be more
receptive to buying Western-style nuclear plants without fearing
permanent dependence on Western nuclear fuel. This outcome is
preferable to letting China embark on a PBMR program alone only
to face, if it fails, a new Sino-Russian-Iranian energy alliance
or Chinese military moves to secure energy supplies -- or both.
The U.S., too, needs more nuclear options than just current
designs. If the U.S. cannot build a nuclear waste disposal site
after a decade of political warfare -- an issue pitting one
state against forty-seven -- what chance does it have to build
another generation of super-sized nuclear plants before existing
plants retire? Working with China to figure out whether PBMRs
are viable could give the U.S. another option to rejuvenate its
energy portfolio. If land is a premium, electricity rate
stability a must, and simpler safer plant designs a priority,
commercial PBMRs could be just the ticket.
Jeremy L. Shane is CEO of company that develops software to
manage power plants. Formerly, he was an energy trader and a
policy aide in the U.S. Department of Justice.
interview@techcentralstation.com
*****************************************************************
32 Free Lance-Star: NRC hearing airs opinions
Fredericksburg.com:
Saturday, Feb. 19, 2005
Dominion Power nuclear engineer Sophie Gutner (foreground)
gathers last night with fellow employees outside Louisa Middle
School, site of the NRC hearing on the draft environmental
impact statement of Dominion Power's permit application.
Andrea K. Weider (center) of Charlottesville silently protests
between NRC employees Marisa Higgins and Brooke Poole during last
night's hearing in Louisa County on Dominion Power's plan for
two new reactors at its nearby North Anna Power Station.
Nuclear industry, opponents square off over environmental
aspects of proposal to add two nuclear reactors at North Anna
Power Station
By RUSTY DENNEN
Date published: 2/18/2005
Dominion plan fuels fight
MINERAL--From Northern Virginia, Charlottesville, Richmond, even
as far away as North Carolina they came, converging on Louisa
County Middle School, bearing signs, speeches, buttons and pins.
And though their agendas and political views couldn't have been
further apart, they agreed on one thing: a desire to weigh in on
an issue of crucial importance--namely, whether Dominion should
be allowed to build new nuclear reactors at its North Anna Power
Station.
The occasion was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's public
hearing last night on a draft environmental impact statement.
The session began at 7 p.m., but protesters and proponents
started gathering an hour ahead of time to do a little
politicking with local and NRC officials, and to rally the
troops.
The sidewalk out front was one part lobbying those who walked
by, and one part theater.
Jennifer Connor and Shelly Stern of Charlottesville, decked out
in beauty-pageant sashes and regalia, rolled empty 55-gallon
drums up the sidewalk to make a point. Connor, aka "Ms.
Radioactivity," described herself and Stern as "beauty queens
for nuclear waste," referring to highly radioactive spent fuel
stored at North Anna.
Needless to say, they were opponents of the plan. "We didn't
think that Louisa had enough waste, so we brought more," Connor
said.
Lisa Shell, who lives in Henrico County, was among a number of
supporters stationed out front. She was with the pro-nuclear
group North American Young Generation in Nuclear.
"We're here because we don't think the media are telling the
whole story" about nuclear power, said Shell, who works for
Dominion. "We want to tell the success side of the story that
it's an important part of the country's energy mix."
Louisa is ground zero in a battle to determine whether, and
where, a new generation of nuclear reactors will be built in the
United States.
Dominion, parent company of Dominion Virginia Power, and two
other utilities--Exelon Generation Co. in Illinois and System
Energy Resources Inc. in Mississippi--have filed applications
for early site permits to resolve safety, environmental
protection and energy-planning issues before making the decision
to build. The permits would allow the utilities to "bank" a site
for up to 20 years.
Dominion is slightly ahead of the others in the permit process.
"It is at the head of the pack," said NRC spokesman Scott
Burnell, which is why its application is being watched so
closely by the nuclear-energy industry, and by opponents, who
have pulled out all the stops to challenge the application.
Some 300 people packed the meeting room, and it was clear from a
show of hands that the majority of the crowd was critical of
Dominion's plans.
Occasionally, as Dominion and NRC officials spoke, several
attendees held up homemade "Lie Meters" that drew occasional
snickers from one side, and glares from the other. More than 75
people signed up to speak, and each was allotted three minutes.
Environmental groups opposing Dominion's plans contend that the
lake environment is at risk and that health and safety concerns
have been dismissed.
The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League is calling for a
comprehensive health survey before the federal government issues
an early site permit for new nuclear reactors at North Anna. It
recommended death and disease studies for a nine-county area.
The group released a report in January showing significantly
higher death rates in that nine-county area, which includes
Charlottesville. It contends that death rates rose sharply soon
after North Anna began operation in 1978 and that the effects
continue.
That study has been dismissed as "junk science" by the nuclear
industry, which says data have been manipulated and omitted to
reach those conclusions, and that there's no correlation between
those problems and the plant's operations.
Spotsylvania supervisors weighed in last week on Dominion's
application, saying that more reactors could lower the lake's
water level, affecting recreation and property use, and that the
environmental analysis doesn't go far enough in looking at
potential effects downstream. The board also was critical of the
overall permit process.
Dominion has maintained that its plant is safe and that new
reactors would not pose health risks to nearby residents or to
the environment.
The company says it has no plans now to add reactors at North
Anna, but wants to have that option. It does have some things in
its favor: a president and political climate favoring expanding
nuclear power generation--and financial incentives
The U.S. Department of Energy is picking up about half the $11
million cost of the early site permit application, and Dominion
stands to get $366 million in DOE funds to develop and build any
new reactors.
Dominion has said a new reactor at North Anna could cost about
$1.4 billion and take four years to build.
Before that can happen, an early site permit would have to be
approved, and then the company would have to apply for a
combined construction and operating license.
Its draft environmental impact statement concludes that
Dominion's early site permit should be approved, finding "There
are no environmentally preferable or obviously superior sites
and that any adverse environmental impacts from possible site
preparation and preliminary construction activities at North
Anna could be redressed."
The final environmental impact statement is due in August. NRC
officials said last night that public comments would be
considered in its conclusions. The NRC could vote on Dominion's
application by June 2006.
North Anna sits on a 13,000-acre lake created in 1971 to cool
its reactors. Over the years, the lake has become home to
marinas, dozens of subdivisions, a state park and thousands of
recreational users.
The draft report says that water quality and levels in Lake Anna
could decline in times of drought and residents' quality of life
could be affected by construction and increased traffic.
Heat-sensitive striped bass could also suffer from higher water
temperatures.
In addition, the report concluded that no additional
transmission lines or rights of way would be required; some
minor air-quality impacts would be expected during construction;
and about 128 acres of the existing plant site would be
disturbed.
There are currently two reactors in operation at North Anna,
though the plant was originally designed for four. Units 3 and 4
were scrapped in the early 1980s.
To reach RUSTY DENNEN: 540/374-5431 rdennen@freelancestar.com
Date published: 2/18/2005
*****************************************************************
33 SignOnSanDiego.com: Missing valve parts shut down reactor
UNION-TRIBUNE
February 18, 2005
SAN ONOFRE A faulty water valve that shut down a nuclear
reactor here Monday was missing some parts, a federal inspector
said yesterday.
Crews at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's Unit 2 found
that pins connecting an 18-inch butterfly valve to its stem were
missing after they dissected the valve Wednesday night, said
Clyde Osterholtz, senior resident inspector for the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission at the plant.
The valve helps direct water to cool various pumps connected to
Unit 2.
When it wasn't opening properly, crews voluntarily shut down Unit
2 Monday night to investigate.
It is the third time in as many months that the same reactor has
been shut down.
This weekend, crews will scrutinize about 20 other valves that
are similar in design and in "safety-significant" areas of the
plant, Osterholtz said.
© Copyright 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
34 BBC: France's nuclear response to Kyoto
Last Updated: Friday, 18 February, 2005, 11:30 GMT [ src=] [
France's nuclear response to Kyoto
By Caroline Wyatt BBC News correspondent in Paris
As the Kyoto Protocol comes into force, some scientists are
suggesting that nuclear power could make an unexpected comeback
as a "cleaner" alternative to conventional energy sources.
[The Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris at night]
France is struggling to control emissions from transport
They point to France, which derives some 78% of its energy from
its 58 nuclear reactors, which operate with little or no public
opposition.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, is a big fan of nuclear
energy.
He recently told a nuclear safety conference in Moscow that
nuclear energy in France was not only the most economic choice,
but also the most environmentally friendly.
While nuclear power does have its environmental opponents in
France, they are far outweighed by friends of the nuclear energy
lobby, which numbers some surprising allies.
Solution?
They include French environmentalist Bruno Comby, who has written
several books including one titled Environmentalists For Nuclear
Energy.
[ src=] [ src=]
If well managed, nuclear energy is very clean and does not
contribute to the greenhouse effect [ src=] Bruno Comby
Environmentalist
He also founded Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy (EFN), an
international association aimed at promoting nuclear energy.
EFN believes that environmental opposition to nuclear energy is
based on a misunderstanding.
"If well-managed," Bruno Comby says, "nuclear energy is very
clean, does not create polluting gases in the atmosphere,
produces very little waste and does not contribute to the
greenhouse effect."
His beliefs are echoed by the independent scientist James
Lovelock, an environmentalist and so-called green.
As a lifelong supporter of nuclear energy, he recently argued
that civilisation was in imminent danger from global warming and
must use nuclear power - "the one safe, available energy source"
- to avoid catastrophe.
French energy providers point out that alternative sources of
energy remain uneconomical compared with nuclear energy.
A recent British report by the Royal Academy of Engineering
showed that the nuclear option was the second cheapest means of
generating electricity, at $0.043 (2.3p) per kilowatt hour, after
gas at $0.04 (2.2p), while wind power cost more than $0.09 (5p)
per kWh.
Growth in emissions
However, despite its championing of nuclear energy, France is
among the European countries unlikely to hit its Kyoto target for
reducing greenhouse emissions.
Each EU country pledged to reduce its 1990 greenhouse gas
emissions by 8% by 2010.
[French nuclear reactor]
Nuclear power has some surprising allies in France
By the end of 2003, France was off-target by almost 10%, with
only Sweden and the UK expected to meet their commitments.
For France, the target represents 552 million tonnes of
greenhouse gases a year.
Despite using mainly nuclear power, France is still looking for
ways to reduce its other emissions.
While carbon dioxide emissions have been brought down 15.5% from
1990 to 2001, and French industry has reduced emissions by 25%
and energy generation companies by 22%, emissions through
transport and house heating increased over the same period.
Carbon dioxide emissions from transport have also risen more than
26% since 1990, and emissions from house heating more than 12%.
These last two sectors produced 47% of greenhouse gases emitted
in France in 2001.
So while nuclear energy may be part of the solution for France,
on its own it is not enough to live up to its Kyoto promises.
*****************************************************************
35 NRC: NRC Advisory Subcommittee on Early Site Permit Applications to Meet
March 2 in Rockville, Maryland
News Release - 2005-031 -
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs
Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail:
www.nrc.gov
No. 05-031 February 18, 2005
A subcommittee of the Nuclear Regulatory Commissions Advisory
Committee on Reactor Safeguards will hold a public meeting March
2 in Rockville, Md., to review the draft Safety Evaluation Report
for an Early Site Permit (ESP) at the North Anna site in
Virginias Louisa County. The subcommittee will also hear from
representatives of Dominion Nuclear North Anna LLC, who will
elaborate on information contained in the application. The
subcommittee will then formulate proposed positions and actions,
as appropriate, for discussion by the full committee.
Dominion filed the ESP application for North Anna on Sept. 25,
2003. If approved by the NRC, it would give the company up to 20
years to decide whether to build one or more nuclear plants on
the site and file an application with the NRC for approval to
begin construction.
The meeting will be held from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Room T-2B3 of
the agencys Two White Flint North building, at 11545 Rockville
Pike. Members of the public needing more information or
interested in offering oral or written statements should contact
Dr. Medhat M. El-Zeftawy at 301-415-6889. Electronic recordings
of this meeting will be permitted. Dr. El-Zeftawy can also be
contacted for information on any potential changes to the agenda.
Friday, February 18, 2005
*****************************************************************
36 Pebble bed decision won't be appealed
Friday February 18, 2005 07:01 - (SA)
By Donwald Pressly
The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism has announced
that it did not intend to appeal a recent Cape High Court
decision on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) which
effectively stopped the building of Eskom Holding's proposed
pebble bed modular reactor at Koeberg.
In a statement the director general Chippy Olver said: "The
court's decision has quite serious implications for the EIA
process. It opens it up to a seemingly endless round of
consultations and judicial reviews."
He said instead the department intended to address concerns
through new EIA regulations, which are currently published for
public comment.
"The new regulations will ensure a simpler process, which allows
full stakeholder participation, and which is subject to judicial
review only after all internal appeal processes have been used."
The department has informed Eskom, as the EIA applicant, of its
decision and asked for the final EIA to be released for further
public comment.
"Furthermore, the department is in consultation with its lawyers
to define the practical actions it must take in so far as the
director general is required to offer concerned parties an
opportunity to register their concerns with him directly."
The Cape High Court overturned the department's approval of the
construction of a pilot nuclear pebble bed modular reactor.
The decision announced on Thursday, however, does not mean that
the department will not attempt to relaunch the project. Eskom
had planned to start building the reactor in 2007.
I-Net Bridge
All material copyright Sunday Times
*****************************************************************
37 Mos News: Repair of Leaking Chernobyl Sarcophagus Begins -
MOSNEWS.COM
Created: 18.02.2005 17:09 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:09 MSK
MosNews
Work has begun to repair the sarcophagus that was hastily built
in 1986 to contain the radioactive debris of Chernobyl’s No. 4
reactor, after experts warned it was so old it could collapse at
any minute.
Workers will only be able to spend a few minutes at a time at
the site, which is still spewing radiation, so they will have to
plan out each step of the reconstruction in detail, the Vesti
news program reported.
Plans to repair the shelter were underway for several years, but
it was only recently, with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko
elected in December, that the funding was found.
With the inauguration last month of President Yushchenko, a
pro-Western former opposition leader, new authorities have taken
power in Ukraine who enjoy enormous American and European
goodwill. As a result, financial backing for the project came
from abroad.
Repair plans include adding a second shelter around the old one.
“Shelter 2” is a huge 19,800-ton steel arch designed to be
assembled nearby, then slid into place on rails to minimize
workers’ radiation exposure. The sarcophagus is designed to last
at least 100 years, providing improved conditions for further
stabilization work and eventual cleanup of radioactive debris
isolated inside.
The director of the Chernobyl electric station downplayed
concerns of an accident stemming from replacing the sarcophagus.
“Even if there is an accident, the contamination radius should
not exceed 30 kilometers,” he was quoted as saying.
Today, radiation levels in the exclusion zone — a radius of
nearly 20 miles from the plant — vary wildly, depending on where
radioactive debris fell in 1986. Some places register only
natural background radiation, but driving in a car with a
dosimeter, one passes through places where the reading zooms up
to 100 times normal levels.
Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM
*****************************************************************
38 WCAX-TV: Metal part that caused Yankee fire sent for testing
WCAX.com
February 21, 2005
MONTPELIER, Vt. Tests will be conducted on a small metal part
that has been blamed for sparking the fire that shut down the
Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant last summer.
Plant owner Entergy Nuclear says the part failed because of age
and the metallurgical tests are designed to determine whether
that's true.
The outcome of the tests could determine whether Vermont's two
largest electric utilities will be reimbursed for close to
one-and-a-half (M) million dollars in extra power costs they
incurred when they had to buy replacement electricity.Results of
the analysis are expected in April.
Central Vermont Public Service Corporation is seeking
860-thousand dollars and Green Mountain Power wants 524-thousand
dollars.
The Public Service Board is considering their requests.
Copyright 2005
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright 2001 - 2005 WorldNow and WCAX. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
39 The State: Duke considers new nuclear plant
| 02/19/2005 |
CHARLOTTE Duke Power Co. might build a new nuclear power plant
somewhere in the Carolinas, said its top nuclear officer.
The company has long said it needs to add plants to serve the
regions growth, and Dukes Brew Barron said it likely will come
through a combination of coal, gas and possibly nuclear plants.
Duke Power is in the initial stages of planning the
preparation of a license application and looking at costs,
Barron said.
Duke Power has three nuclear plants in the Carolinas. Its stock
closed at $26.63, down 38 cents Friday.
• SRS seeks volunteers before layoffs start
AIKEN Savannah River Site employees who want to voluntarily
leave the company have a week to apply.
Westinghouse Savannah River Co. is offering volunteers a week of
pay for every year on the job, up to 26 weeks. It will make the
same offer later this year as it cuts up to 1,200 jobs.
Westinghouse cannot guarantee that everyone who applies will be
accepted, according to The Augusta Chronicle.
From Staff and Wire Reports
*****************************************************************
40 Occupational Hazards: Erring on the Side of Disaster
THE AUTHORITY ON OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY, HEALTH AND LOSS PREVENTION
02/18/2005
A utility company and two federal agencies failed to appreciate
the value of vigilance – and wind up paying a heavy price.
by Stephen G. Minter, Editor
The creation of a safety culture is a topic discussed at nearly
every major occupational safety conference these days. In its
simplest form, a safety culture represents the value that an
organization places on safety and the actions that its employees
and managers take to operate in a safe fashion. If a company
treats safety as the program of the month, no employee with the
title of "safety manager" is going to find much success.
Our cover story this month examines the self-acknowledged
failure by FirstEnergy Corp. to develop an effective safety
culture at its Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio. In March
2002, that failure led to the discovery of a large hole in the
reactor's pressure vessel head, a carbon steel plate more than 6
inches thick.
As attorney and former NRC inspector Howard Whitcomb told
Managing Editor Sandy Smith, "If the head had ruptured at
Davis-Besse, the collapse of the containment structure and
widespread radioactive contamination could have created a health
hazard for thousands of people ..."
While it is troubling that officials at a nuclear power plant
failed to fully appreciate the need for a vibrant safety
culture, it is equally troubling that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission also failed in its oversight role. In fact, the U.S.
General Accounting Office last year found a number of "systemic"
problems in NRC's monitoring of nuclear safety.
Both FirstEnergy and NRC say they have learned important lessons
from the incident. We'll let you judge for yourself after
reading "Davis-Besse: A Plan for Change or a Worst-Case
Scenario?"
There is reason to believe that another federal safety agency
has failed in its oversight role. Medical tests have revealed
that at least three OSHA employees have developed blood
abnormalities associated with beryllium exposure, according to a
report published in The Chicago Tribune.
The OSHA workers were likely exposed to the widely used metal
while conducting safety inspections. Experts say approximately
50 percent of those who test positive for beryllium
sensitization may develop beryllium disease, a lung ailment that
can be fatal. While there is no cure for beryllium disease,
treatment is available for those who are sensitized.
Last year, after years of delay, the agency offered beryllium
blood tests to all current employees. The offer did not extend
to retired inspectors who had been exposed to beryllium, nor to
workers who work for state plan states.
An OSHA spokesperson said that as of Jan. 14, 301 OSHA employees
had requested the tests for beryllium sensitization and 271 had
been completed. Individuals with a positive test result are told
at once, but even though anyone can request the test at any
time, the agency has decided not to release cumulative test
results to its employees or the public until testing is complete
for the first 301 who asked for it. The spokesperson estimated
this should take place by the middle of this month.
"In the meantime, we are making every effort to ensure the
health and safety of our work force," the spokesperson said.
A number of recommendations about beryllium were addressed to
Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao in a Jan. 17 letter from Jeff
Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility:
+ OSHA should determine how much beryllium the first wave of
sensitized workers was exposed to. Ruch argued that it is
important to do so, as workers with exposure levels greater than
those who are sensitized should be encouraged by OSHA to undergo
testing. Even though the agency has beryllium exposure
information for its employees, it has thus far chosen not to
share it with them.
+ OSHA should inform all retired inspectors and all state plan
inspectors who were exposed to comparable amounts of beryllium,
and offer them the blood test.
+ OSHA should share with the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) information about sites with high levels of beryllium, so
that EPA inspectors who were exposed can also be tested.
+ OSHA must issue within 12 months a proposal to reduce the
permissible exposure limit for beryllium.
Through its Voluntary Protection Program and alliances, OSHA
preaches the value of a strong safety culture. In the light of
the beryllium findings, it may need to determine if its own
culture is sufficiently strong.
This month, we are proud to debut "Protection Update," the
International Safety Equipment Association's quarterly
newsletter, within our pages. ISEA is the trade association for
manufacturers of personal protective equipment, gas detection
and other safety equipment. But it is also an organization
deeply involved with the development of safety standards and the
promotion of workplace safety. We hope you will find it good
reading.
- Stephen G. Minter
Quick Links
| © 2004
*****************************************************************
41 [NYTr] Plutonium Unaccounted for at Brits' Sellafield
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 00:57:14 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Simon McGuinness
RTE (Ireland) - Feb 17, 2005
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0217/sellafield.html
Plutonium 'unaccounted for' at Sellafield
Figures published today are said to show that up to 30kg of plutonium
are unaccounted for in an audit of nuclear material stored at the
Sellafield site in Cumbria [UK].
However Britain's Department of Trade and Industry has stressed that the
material is not missing and that it is not unusual for annual audits to
show nuclear material unaccounted for.
The figures have been published in The London Times newspaper.
Nuclear material stored at Sellafield is measured every year under
International Atomic Energy Authority guidelines.
While the accounting loss does not mean any material has been stolen or
diverted, it is thought such a large discrepancy will be an
embarrassment for British Nuclear Fuels - the company which runs
Sellafield - and the British government.
The government is about to embark on a lengthy process of making safe
decommissioned nuclear sites across Britain.
The matter was raised during the order of business in the Dail [Irish
Parliament] this morning.
Green Party leader Trevor Sargent asked for a special debate on the
issue while Fine Gael deputy Fergus O'Dowd said it was enough plutonium
to make eight bombs.
*
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
=================================================================
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Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
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*****************************************************************
42 reviewjournal.com: EPA announces safe level for perchlorate in drink...
Saturday, February 19, 2005
By SAMANTHA YOUNG STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency declared
Friday that perchlorate, a toxic chemical that has leaked into
Lake Mead and been found in water supplies of 34 other states,
is safe in drinking water at levels much higher than previously
assumed.
The announcement amounts to the first government safety level
for the rocket fuel chemical that has been linked to thyroid
disorders.
The EPA safety limit would allow up to 24.5 parts per billion
of perchlorate in drinking water, a rate based on what a
National Academy of Sciences board recommended six weeks ago.
Perchlorate in Lake Mead once was measured at 24 parts per
billion. Since a cleanup campaign began in 2000, the chemical
now tests at roughly 5 ppb, according to the Southern Nevada
Water Authority.
"I think for people who live and visit Southern Nevada, they
should be encouraged that the amount of perchlorate we have is
one-fifth the amount EPA is considering in terms of a protective
level," Southern Nevada Water Authority spokesman J.C. Davis
said.
The EPA figures will be incorporated into new guidelines to
oversee perchlorate cleanup of federal Superfund sites, agency
spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said.
The EPA also will study the safety levels further as it decides
whether to regulate perchlorate as a drinking water contaminant,
Bergman said.
Federal regulation would require communities to monitor
perchlorate in their water supplies and initiate cleanup if
levels exceeded federal rules.
"It's too soon to tell whether we would set a regulation of
perchlorate in drinking water," Bergman said.
An official with Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. said the EPA
announcement does not affect the company's continuing cleanup of
its plant site in Henderson where the chemical once was
manufactured and leached into water supplies.
"We've made a dramatic improvement, but we haven't solved the
entire problem," said Patrick Corbett, who oversees the
Kerr-McGee remediation program.
The perchlorate in Lake Mead stems from Kerr-McGee and American
Pacific plants that manufactured ammonium perchlorate for the
Defense Department. The chemical is used in rocket fuel,
fireworks, car airbags and some pharmaceuticals.
Erik Olson, an attorney with Natural Resources Defense Council,
criticized the EPA for announcing a safety level before
calculating perchlorate risks to newborns and pregnant women.
"You wouldn't give a baby the exact same dose of a drug as an
adult," Olson said.
Olson said those factors ultimately should lead EPA to develop
a drinking water standard to 1 ppb, or about a half teaspoon of
salt dissolved in an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Two years ago the EPA issued a preliminary standard of 1 ppb
for perchlorate. But the Pentagon and defense contractors that
are overseeing perchlorate cleanups at military bases criticized
it as overly cautious.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005
Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
43 FT.com: Energy & mining - Westinghouse wins $5bn in bid backing
By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: February 18 2005 23:46 | Last updated: February 18
2005 23:46
[nuclear] Westinghouse, the US nuclear engineering group owned
by British Nuclear Fuels, on Friday won a preliminary commitment
for nearly $5bn in taxpayer-backed loans and guarantees in an
effort to help it win a contract to build four nuclear power
plants in China.
The financing offer, the largest in the 70-year history of the
US Export-Import Bank is aimed at helping Westinghouse break
into the Chinese nuclear reactor construction market.
[ height=] © Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2005. "FT"
and "Financial Times" are trademarks of the Financial Times.
*****************************************************************
44 reviewjournal.com: Managers say Yucca process on track
Friday, February 18, 2005
License application to be ready by year's end, regulators told
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Managers of the Energy Department's effort to put the nation's
spent nuclear fuel in Yucca Mountain told a panel of regulators
Thursday that they'll have a license application for the project
ready for review by the end of this year.
The agency missed its self-imposed deadline last year, and the
panel led by Bill Reamer, director of the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission's division of repository safety, warned that problems
in the process will continue if project officials continue to
change documents about designs, operations and closure.
"If information changes, then there is a risk of new issues
that we're not aware of," Reamer said, sitting across from a
table of Energy Department managers that included radioactive
waste chief Margaret Chu.
Chu has announced she will resign before the end of the month.
Under her leadership, the deadline to haul 77,000 tons of
metal-clad spent fuel and highly radioactive defense waste to
the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has slipped from
2010 to at least 2012.
Meanwhile, the specter of a radiation safety standard extending
hundreds of thousands of years beyond the previous 10,000-year
guideline still looms. An appeals court has invalidated the
10,000-year Environmental Protection Agency standard because it
doesn't conform to recommendations by the National Academy of
Sciences.
What that means for the Department of Energy plan to submit a
license application varies widely among the interested parties.
Asked whether the department can submit an adequate license
application without a new standard in place, Joe Ziegler,
director of DOE's Office of Licence Application and Strategy,
said during a break in the meeting, "I don't know."
Project critic Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant for the
Nevada Nuclear Project Agency, said state scientists are
skeptical of any design based on an uncertain standard.
"How can you consider a license application when you don't know
what the standard is?" he asked.
Reamer said that if DOE submits a license application before
the EPA standard is revised, "They need to explain to us."
He said DOE also needs to resolve key technical issues such as
addressing the potential consequences of molten rock from
volcanic activity invading the repository.
"They need to consider the consequences that event would have
on waste packages. How much ash would come out, and would it
contain radioactivity?"
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005
*****************************************************************
45 YDR: YUCCA MTN.: Meetings planned -
York Daily Record
[ydr.com]
Friday, February 18, 2005
Next week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee
on Nuclear Waste will hold a public meeting to discuss the status
of agreements between the commission and the Department of Energy
related to the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste
repository.
The commission will hold the meetings from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30
p.m. Wednesday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to
noon Friday at agency's headquarters at 11555 Rockville Pike in
Rockville, Md.
The NRC regulates Three Mile Island in Dauphin County and Peach
Bottom Atomic Power Station.
Copyright © York Daily Record 2005 122 S. George St., P.O. Box
15122 York, PA 17405, (717) 771-2000
*****************************************************************
46 Nuke Waste Watcher: Oh my!, look at the waste!
url("http://www.blogger.com/dyn-css/authorization.css?blogID=1090
Thursday, February 17, 2005
While the U.S. frets over its inventory of spent-fuel rods, which
will fill one geologic repository, no attention's being paid to
the five repositories' worth of weapons-processing acid waste at
Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State and Savannah
River Site in South Carolina.
Hanford has 53 million gallons of weapons-processing acids.
Savannah River has 34 million gallons. That's a total of 87
million gallons. All of them high-level nuclear waste, according
to the law defining nuclear waste, the Nuclear Waste Policy Act
of 1982, Section 2, paragraph 12, part A. Hanford on Feb. 10,
2005 began a program to glassify the acid wastes. They intend to
treat most of the waste as low-level.
The problem is that the law specifies the waste as high level. I
don't have a problem with Hanford treating most of the waste as
low-level nuclear waste. There's no way this nation can find five
more geologic repositories for defense waste, but I think some
discussion is in order before the high-level waste is treated as
low-level. It's going to be difficult to get any state to accept
as low-level what Congress ruled is high-level. It would prevent
DOE a lot of headaches later on if it got Congress involved in
the issue.
Ron Bourgoin
February 17, 2005
posted by Ron Bourgoin at 11:32 AM0 comments
About Me
+ Name:Ron Bourgoin
*****************************************************************
47 Texas Observer: Going Nuclear in West Texas
[Capitol Offense, 2/18/2005]
BY FORREST WILDER
Like nuclear waste, bad ideas never seem to go away. Long-time
Observer readers will remember the decades-long knock-down
drag-out fights over where to put a radioactive waste dump. The
last major episode was in 1998, when an unusually effective
citizen-led campaign succeeded in persuading the Texas Natural
Resources Conservation Commission (now the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality (TCEQ)) to deny the license for a
low-level radioactive waste dump in Sierra Blanca. Oddly, not
just the people of Texas celebrated this victory. A particularly
aggressive and well-connected private outfit, Waste Control
Specialists (WCS), backed by Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons,
saw opportunity in the Sierra Blanca site’s demise. Now, because
of WCS’s deep pockets, deeper political connections, and dogged
persistence, Texas could soon find itself the national dumping
ground for state and federal, commercial and governmental
nuclear waste.
On February 1, Sen. Robert Duncan (R-Lubbock), whose district
lies near WCS-owned land in Andrews County in West Texas,
organized a hearing for the Senate Committee on Natural
Resources. Chair Sen. Ken Armbrister (D-Victoria), who accepted
$2,500 in campaign contributions in 2004 from WCS interests,
called it a “fact-finding mission.” Sen. Duncan was intent on
getting to the bottom of just what WCS was up to. He and several
other senators seemed blindsided by WCS’s multiple (and
multiplying) schemes to accept state and federal radioactive
waste streams. Under legislation passed in 2003, WCS has a
license to process, store, and dispose of hazardous and toxic
materials at its mammoth site in Andrews County, near the New
Mexico border. Now WCS is back asking for more. As Sen. Duncan
related, the company has several pending applications into the
TCEQ and the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that, if
approved, would vastly expand WCS’s fledgling radioactive empire
in West Texas.
One of the DSHS licenses would allow WCS to begin accepting the
leftovers from a retired bomb plant in Fernald, Ohio, for
permanent storage—some 10 million cubic feet to be brought in on
an estimated 800 railcars. This Ohio nuclear waste is at least
four times (and up to 140 times) more radioactive than the
average gram of uranium waste, according to Richard Ratliff,
chief of the bureau of radiation control of DSHS. The TCEQ
license would also allow WCS to permanently dispose of Texas’
(and other states’) commercial radioactive waste as well as
federal low-level radioactive waste. Additionally, WCS has its
eyes on a proposed uranium enrichment facility right across the
border in New Mexico that could conveniently hand over its
by-product—depleted uranium—to WCS for disposal. WCS, a company
that consistently reports quarterly losses to the Securities and
Exchange Commission, stands to make billions of dollars from
these deals. The state and the people of Texas, however, won’t
receive a cent on most of this revenue.
In a presentation to the committee, Sen. Duncan reviewed what
transpired in the 2003 legislative session. WCS, after years of
failed attempts and millions of dollars spent on political
contributions and high-dollar lobbyists, finally succeeded in
getting a bill passed, House Bill 1567, that catered to its
interests. HB 1567 essentially authorized a private radioactive
waste facility in Texas for this state, Vermont, and possibly
others. Although it technically allowed any private company to
apply to establish the dump, WCS was the only company that was
positioned to qualify. Vermont comes into the picture because of
a “compact” agreement that states can enter into that makes one
state—Texas, in this case—a host for other states’ low-level
radioactive waste. But because of a loophole, any other
entity—including a foreign government—can opt into the compact
with the majority consent of the compact commissioners,
according to Richard Simpson, a long-time activist who has
worked on anti-nuclear waste dump campaigns in New Mexico and
Texas.
Sen. Duncan also reminded the committee that the Legislature had
authorized a private company to process and (temporarily) store
federal low-level radioactive waste in addition to the compact
waste. Sen. Mike Jackson (R-La Porte) seemed to have forgotten
this fact. “We formed the compact to avoid being a dumping
ground for the federal government,” he told George Dials,
President of WCS. Dials, who was testifying in front of the
committee, gently corrected Sen. Jackson. In fact, in the
lead-up to passage of HB 1567, WCS’s proxies had convinced
lawmakers that compact waste alone wouldn’t generate enough
revenue to keep WCS afloat, the loophole notwithstanding.
Obligingly, legislators passed the bill without any meaningful
caps on the amount of federal waste the company can accept. As a
result, WCS potentially has full access to massive amounts of
nuclear waste that the feds have been trying to unload since the
Cold War.
If Dials succeeds in landing a permit from the TCEQ for
(permanent) disposal of “low-level” radioactive waste, Andrews
could be the home for vast amounts of this waste forever.
Luckily, TCEQ’s permit process is relatively stringent and a
decision isn’t expected until December 2007. According to an
official with TCEQ, WCS was recently issued its “third notice of
administrative deficiency.” If not corrected, WCS would have to
start the licensing process all over again. TCEQ oversight of
the compact and federal low-level radioactive waste was a
concession won by Sen. Duncan in 2003. Perhaps that’s why he
seemed a little miffed at the prospect of DSHS—seen by many as a
regulatory pushover—handling the application for the Fernald
waste. One of Sen. Duncan’s concerns is that the agency will
approve WCS’s applications before the Legislature has time to
intervene. The Legislature “has never considered whether the
state of Texas should be a commercial importer of [Fernald
radioactive materials],” Duncan said at the hearing.
The twist is that WCS may not even need to get its disposal
permit granted to become the nation’s repository for aging Cold
War waste. A “perfect storm” may make it one by default. On
February 7, President Bush announced major budget cuts to the
environmental cleanup budget of Fernald and two other similar
facilities. According to the Alliance for Nuclear
Accountability, a grassroots network that monitors nuclear
issues, that kind of pressure forces the Department of Energy to
find a permanent home for their radioactive waste soon.
Currently, the other states that could feasibly accept
Fernald-type and other low-level radioactive waste—Nevada, Utah,
and South Carolina—are signaling their intention to cut back or
get out of the business.
Nevada, which is still fighting to rid itself of the Yucca
Mountain high-level waste site, has said that it will also fight
any attempted low-level importation. In a letter to the DOE,
Nevada attorney general helpfully mentioned WCS’s site as an
alternative. Utah, which is home to WCS’s long-time rival
Envirocare, has been moving away from radioactive dumping due to
public opposition. Finally, South Carolina is eliminating the
importation of the most radioactive of the low-level waste
despite its generating an estimated $300 million in revenue for
the state. That leaves WCS holding a virtual monopoly. Sen.
Duncan argues that “once we get the [Fernald waste] here we’re
going to have to dispose of it most likely,” even if WCS is only
permitted for storage, not disposal.
The final wild card in WCS’s and Texas’ radioactive future is
the proposed uranium enrichment facility that lies, in the words
of Sen. Duncan, “a nine-iron chip away from the [Texas] border”
in New Mexico, next door to WCS’s facility. An initial agreement
has already been inked to create a private uranium plant that
will take dangerous depleted uranium coming from the proposed
National Enrichment Facility (NEF) outside of Eunice, New
Mexico, and try to make it a little more chemically stable.
Sen. Duncan pressed Dials on the matter. “In addition to the
waste that we authorized last session and the compact waste,
potentially now there’s another source of waste that could be
disposed of at your site. We could anticipate that in 2008, you
might come back to ask for an amendment to allow you to take
that waste,” said Duncan. After some hesitation, Dials
responded. “Yes,” he said.
And why can’t the depleted uranium just stay in New Mexico?
Simple: The state and its people don’t want it.
WCS is promoting its various radioactive ventures as a popular
jobs program for West Texas and a chance for Texas to seize the
market in “an emerging industry.” On hand at the hearing to
drive his point home was Robert Zap, the mayor of the city of
Andrews, and Russell Shannon, Vice President of the Andrews
Industrial Foundation. They recounted the hard times their area
fell on after the oil crash in the ’80s, and plugged the jobs
that an expanded dump would create. What they didn’t mention was
their county’s zeal for high-risk holes in the ground no one
else seems to want: the national, high-level radioactive waste
site (now slated for Yucca Mountain), the failed supercolliding
superconductor, and the hazardous and toxic materials dump WSC
currently operates at its facility. Shannon told the committee
of a sign outside Andrews that promotes the area’s values: God,
Country, and Free Enterprise. “We hope the Legislature takes no
action to impede our growth,” Dials said.
WCS has spent a lot of time and money to get to this point.
They’ve been helped along the way by lawmakers either too
shortsighted or too indebted to pay attention to WCS’s expanding
ambitions. HB 1567 allows for a total of 162 million cubic feet
of federal low-level waste—virtually all of it. In addition, the
Fernald waste is estimated to be 1.3 million cubic feet. The
Sierra Club estimates that WCS could generate $100 billion in
profits on the federal waste it’s already allowed to accept, to
say nothing of the waste from Ohio. That’s a nice return on the
millions WCS and its affiliates have sunk into political
contributions to state and federal candidates, parties, and PACs
over the years. (According to Andrew Wheat of Texans for Public
Justice, Harold Simmons, one of the company’s principals, was
the state’s number four political donor in 2004, paying out
$548,250. From January 1, 2003, to late October 2004,
WCS-related contributions totaled $843,200. Several members of
the Senate Committee on Natural Resources have received
significant contributions from WCS and its affiliates.)
It will be hard for a Republican senator, even one with a
thoughtful take on the issue, to undercut a company that has
dispensed favors so generously to Republican candidates. “Duncan
has to realize that he’s up against some major donors,”
according to Colin Leyden, the Legislative Director for Rep. Lon
Burnham (D-Fort Worth). Nonetheless, the senator from Lubbock
finally seemed to get his colleagues to listen when he broached
the topic of fees for the state. Under HB 1567, Andrews County
and the state of Texas will each eventually receive 5 percent of
WCS’s gross receipts from compact and federal waste, much less
than the amount South Carolina generates for similar low-level
waste. However, the Fernald waste stream would generate not a
single dime for Texas under the current fee schedule. According
to Cyrus Reed, a registered lobbyist with the Sierra Club, some
lawmakers are considering imposing a 5 percent fee on the
Fernald waste in order to generate revenue for cash-strapped
state coffers. Considering the tremendous pressure the
Legislature is under to come up with billions in new funding for
public schools, it’s not unlikely that Texas may follow South
Carolina’s example and use the fee money to fund public
education. The appearance of a quick-and-easy fix may spur
lawmakers reluctant to squeeze WCS’s profits into action,
quickly setting up a fee system for the incoming radioactive
waste while putting pressure on TCEQ and DSHS to expedite WCS’s
applications. “Once [the waste] is a state revenue source you’ll
never get rid of it,” says Leyden. Left out of the mix, of
course, will be the short-term and long-term health and
environmental consequences of unloading millions of cubic feet
of radioactive junk on future generations.
Forrest Wilder is a freelance writer living in Austin.
Copyright © 2001 Texas Democracy Foundation. All rights
*****************************************************************
48 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca project expected to sink
February 18, 2005
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARSON CITY - A proposed Nye County nuclear waste repository is
on the "verge of collapse" because of legal and budgetary
setbacks, a report by a state board concluded.
The Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, which oversees the
state's fight against Yucca Mountain called the project a "dead
man walking" and expressed optimism that it could be killed.
The report was delivered to Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Legislature
just before Monday's start of the 2005 session. The panel is
urging legislators to continue funding the state's anti-Yucca
Mountain efforts.
"While the proposed Southern Nevada repository may be in the
category of a 'dead man walking,' much remains to be done in the
next two years to assure the state does, in fact, prevail," the
seven-member panel wrote.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis disputed the report. "We
continue to move forward," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Former Nevada Gov. Bob List, a consultant to the Nuclear Energy
Institute, said the report was designed to boost support for the
anti-Yucca Mountain campaign in the Legislature.
"There's quite a lot of hyperbole in there," List said. "One of
the clear objectives is to promote and justify the expenditure
of state dollars to underwrite the costs of this fight."
The 32-page report recounted DOE delays after a federal court
last year rejected proposed radiation standards for the
underground waste dump. New standards are being developed.
The report predicted DOE would run into broad opposition
whenever it announces details of a nationwide nuclear waste
shipping campaign.
The state is making inroads against Yucca Mountain because of
the aggressiveness of its lawyers and Energy Department
missteps, the report added.
"DOE's problems, many of them the result of the department's own
politicized science and mismanagement, continue to mount,"
commission chairman Brian McKay said in the report.
Construction of the waste facility at Yucca Mountain, 20 miles
north and 30 miles east of Amargosa Valley and Beatty,
respectively, and 50 miles northeast of Pahrump, has been a top
priority of the White House and the nuclear industry.
Plans call for it to be completed and accepting high-level
nuclear waste by 2010. But officials have acknowledged that
schedule will not be met.
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005
*****************************************************************
49 Buffalo News - West Valley halts work after three safety lapses
BUFFALO.COM
No radiation escaped into the environment
By JOHN F. BONFATTI News Staff Reporter
2/18/2005
West Valley Demonstration Project has been suspended following
three safety lapses in 15 days at the former nuclear waste
reprocessing center in Cattaraugus County.
There was no radiation release into the environment in any of the
incidents, officials said. But in one of the lapses, two workers
were exposed to greater doses of radiation than called for under
guidelines established by the site contractor, West Valley
Nuclear Services Co.
"We looked at three incidents that were outside the norm," West
Valley spokesman Terry Dunford said Thursday. "We made a decision
to stop work and examine why those things occurred."
In the most serious incident, which happened Jan. 19, two workers
who were attempting to remove debris from a contaminated building
received doses above West Valley Nuclear Service's self-imposed
limit of 100 millirems a day.
The exposed workers received dosages of 315 and 169 millirems,
according to the incident report.
The average American absorbs 360 millirems of radiation a year,
according to an Army Corps of Engineers fact sheet. Some of that
exposure is from naturally occurring background radiation, some
of it from medical procedures like X-rays. A dental X-ray, for
example, typically produces about 150 millirems.
In the other two instances, cutting operations in the same
building, which were being conducted by remote-operated robotic
arms, briefly ignited some wood chips on the floor in one
incident, and a nylon sling in the other.
Those accidents happened on Jan. 4 and Jan. 10. Major work at the
site was stopped shortly after the Jan. 19 incident. A 56-page
report into that incident, conducted by outside analysts, blamed
managers for failing to limit the scope of work, and for not
implementing controls designed to minimize worker exposure.
The report stressed that the incident was caused by a failure to
follow procedures, and said there were no "programmatic
shortcomings."
But the chief steward for a union representing one of the
overexposed workers said he has warned management that a push by
the contractor and its overseer, the federal Department of
Energy, to speed up work was putting the site's historically
solid safety record at risk.
"We do believe the schedule has affected the safety practices,"
said Peter B. Cooney of Local 2401 of the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.
Cooney, who has worked at West Valley for 22 years, added, "The
vast majority of people here believe that - other than management
people."
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority,
which has been a partner with the Department of Energy in the
cleanup of the old reprocessing site, has repeatedly voiced its
concern about the acceleration of work there.
"There's a need for more deliberate actions on site to continue
the waste cleanup in a very safe way," said NYSERDA President
Peter R. Smith. "There's a lot of things that have to be done on
the site, and we shouldn't be driven by artificial deadlines."
Cooney said he believed all three incidents, which happened
during the dismantling of a building used to solidify radioactive
liquid waste, would likely not have occurred if workers weren't
feeling rushed.
The first fire would not have occurred, he said, had there been
time to clean the floor. As for the second one, "had they been
able to take the time, they would have noticed the sling there
and moved it."
The worker overexposure occurred because the radiation level of
the container being used to remove the debris wasn't measured -
as it should have been - before it was brought into the proximity
of the workers, he said.
"To most of us, it's an indication of losing a little bit of the
great control we've had all these years," he said. "Most of the
principles and policies that have produced the great safety
record we have, they do tend to slow the work down. So you have
to compromise some of these things to meet some of these
schedules."
T.J. Jackson, the Department of Energy's director at the site,
said deadline pressure shouldn't influence safety procedures. But
he said the incidents prompted a thorough internal review.
"We saw some behaviors here that didn't fit," he said. "We
thought it would be a good time to stand down and . . . reinforce
the safety behaviors that we have come to expect from this work
force."
Dunford said West Valley Nuclear Services Co. is also reinforcing
a policy promising workers they won't be retaliated against if
they come forward to report conditions they feel could compromise
site safety. "There are no secrets here," he said.
There was no word on when work will resume.
e-mail: jbonfatti@buffnews.com
Copyright 1999 - 2005 - The Buffalo News
*****************************************************************
50 Bradenton Herald: Demand accountability
| 02/18/2005 |
Opinion
Asbestos indictment sends strong message
In Libby, Mont., one out of every eight residents suffers the
ill effects of exposure to asbestos produced at the W.R. Grace
vermiculite mine, closed since 1990. That is more than 1,000
current victims. More than 200 others have already died from
asbestosis, or mesothelioma, a quick and painful form of lung
cancer.
A federal grand jury last week indicted W.R. Grace and seven of
the company's executives, charging them with criminal conspiracy
to hide the deadly dangers from exposure to the asbestos
produced at the local mine. The company denies culpability. But
if a court convicts on all counts, W.R. Grace faces a $280
million fine and the company officials could spend five to 15
years in prison for each count. Many could die behind bars over
the 49-page list of allegations that they deliberately concealed
the hazards of the cancer-causing asbestos.
The indictment cites thousands upon thousands of pages of
internal company documents that purport to detail concealment of
the asbestos issue. From top company executives to staff level
legal and marketing directors, it appears the asbestos exposure
was an open secret, discussed in various communications
uncovered by federal investigators.
The case echoes all the way to Manatee County, where a massive
pollution incident leaves the health of hundreds of Tallevast
residents and former workers in jeopardy from exposure to
beryllium dust and contaminated ground water from the old
American Beryllium Co. plant.
In the local case, cancer-causing solvents appear to have
entered the environment near the plant and beyond, and may have
contributed to illnesses and deaths. In late 2003, residents
here were told not to worry and the danger was minimized. But,
as is the case in so many examples of corporate pollution in the
United States, the story has changed.
In 2004, state tests indicated the pollution plume was three
times larger and some residents' wells were contaminated. The
most recent report expands that plume even more, and the final
analysis of the extent of the deadly beryllium exposure could be
even greater.
Lockheed Martin is the company responsible for cleaning up the
contamination, though not the original pollution, and could be a
party to future legal action.
This case is still in the early stages of the investigation and
no official allegations or indictments have been made public.
But the local case, like the Montana case, highlights the
callous indifference shown by so many corporations to the health
of their workers and to the public at large.
W.R. Grace has already felt the wrath of those impacted by
asbestos exposure, and the wave of legal claims forced the firm
into bankruptcy court in 2001. The company remains a $1.5
billion annual operation, employing 6,600 people in almost 40
nations. The federal indictment, even if successful, would not
shut down the company.
For Lockheed Martin, a major defense department contractor, the
economic future appears bright, with U.S. military operations
flush with funding in the global war against terrorism.
But, while these major corporations will survive and even
thrive, what will happen to those who breathe in or drink the
deadly toxins that their operations leave behind? What about the
Libby, Mont., and Tallevast residents who live day to day with
the reality of cancer?
Perhaps the recent federal indictment will serve as a starting
point to reversing this type of environmental and human
degradation. Perhaps human life and health will finally be
deemed all important and humanity will win the day against
corporate profits and the bottom line.
If not, then perhaps we have sadly entered an era in which human
life is simply a cost, factored in on the corporation's
accounting records. Is that the kind of world we want to leave
to our children?
About HeraldToday.com
*****************************************************************
51 Bradenton Herald: Digging scares Tallevast residents
| 02/18/2005 |
SCOTT RADWAY
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - County road crews scooped out a drainage ditch along
2,000 feet of Tallevast Road, a project in any other
neighborhood that would be minor work.
But the project was unannounced in the tiny community of
Tallevast, which is battling fears of widespread groundwater and
soil contamination.
And it scared some people.
"Why now? Why are you disturbing anything in here until we know
the extent of this contamination?" said Laura Ward, president of
the Tallevast community group FOCUS. "Stop putting us in harm's
way. We have already been placed there enough."
Shaken Tallevast residents, who say they suffer from an
inordinate amount of health problems, asked the county in
January to relocate them because their community was a "virtual
time-bomb."
Residents also asked for a moratorium on building or earth
moving in their community until at least after the contamination
is mapped.
County officials Thursday maintained there was no health risk
from the work this week, which they said was outside the
contamination area. But officials said they plan to give the
community advance notice for any future work.
"We didn't think they would have a concern about routine
operations," said Larry Mau, county transportation director.
Lockheed Martin on Feb. 1 released a nearly complete assessment
of the contamination that escaped from the old American
Beryllium Co. plant. The state has yet to complete its review of
the assessment and determine if more testing needs to be done.
Lockheed Martin, which is responsible for the cleanup, has three
small areas still to map.
The Feb. 1 report stated soil samples did not find any alarming
levels of contaminants, but the plume of groundwater
contamination from the plant spread over at least 50 acres. The
plume reaches the south side of Tallevast Road at 19th Street
East, the report said. The ditch work started on Tallevast Road
towards U.S. 301 well outside the plume and comes just past 19th
Street on the north side.
Also angering residents is the fact that drainage work was done
while the county is working on establishing a special overlay
district for Tallevast. The overlay would require anyone who
plans to build or move earth in Tallevast to get a special
environmental review. That overlay is expected to include the
plume and 500 feet beyond its edges, an area that would cover
some of the ditch work.
Mau said his staff verified with county environmental experts
that there was no health risk in removing about two to six
inches of soil along the road. Mau added if the work was over
the fringe of the plume, the contamination, mainly
trichloroethylene, or TCE, is heavier than water and is not
found near the surface.
Test results from that area show TCE at about 20 feet
underground or below. County environmental officials said the
proposed overlay district is primarily aimed at projects that
dig deep into the soil.
Mau added that the digging was performed because a Tallevast
resident complaint about overflow. That resident's name was not
available Thursday afternoon.
Charles Henry, a county environmental health administrator, said
he did not believe there would be any health risk in digging up
a few inches of soil. Henry also said the contamination was well
below that level.
But Ward and FOCUS were not convinced.
The community has deeply mistrusted government or Lockheed
officials since residents first learned about the potential of
contamination in late 2003 when Lockheed started drilling in the
community. Lockheed had been investigating the pollution problem
since 2000.
In 2004, TCE was found in resident wells.
"People are truly stressed out over this," Ward said. Officials
"refuse to communicate with us and then when things go awry,
they are upset because we are making a stink over it."
Lockheed officials said Thursday the plume mapping is nearly
complete with just two wells left to drill southeast of the
plant. Spokeswoman Gail Rymer said Lockheed expects to submit
its supplemental report on the plume by mid-March and meet with
residents by the end of that month.
State and environmental officials are expected to take the full
30 days to review the Feb. 1 assessment.
Scott Radway, environmental reporter, can be reached at 708-7919
or at sradway@HeraldToday.com.
READ THE COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF THE TALLEVAST STORY ONLINE.
HERALDTODAY.COM:
Herald watchdog
The Herald, in an ongoing series of stories, is examining the
issues surrounding the pollution discovered in the Tallevast
community.
HeraldToday.com
*****************************************************************
52 Manchester Online: BNFL is heading for new horizons
Thursday, 17th February 2005
Tariq Panja
WHEN Michael Parker decided to make the return journey to Britain
34 years after heading out to the US, he could never have
envisaged the task awaiting him.
Born in Liverpool and educated at the University of Manchester,
he is tasked with leading BNFL into a new era in the most
dramatic transformation of the British nuclear landscape ever.
Despite the challenges facing him, Mr Parker explains how BNFL
will prosper as a result of the changes.
From April 1, a new body called the Nuclear Decommissioning
Authority (NDA), will take on BNFL's assets and liabilities,
freeing it up to grow and be more competitive in the global power
market.
It shouldn't really be a surprise that Mr Parker is not unduly
flustered by the scale of changes taking place.
After all he was the man who had to deal with the fallout when
Dow Chemicals, the company he bossed, was pilloried for its
acquisition of Union Carbide - the company at the centre of a
toxic leak which killed 14,000 people in India in 1984.
When he was appointed, after the resignation of his predecessor,
Norman Askew, there had been strong suggestions that the company
was being prepared for privatisation.
But in the end it was decided by the Trade Secretary, Patricia
Hewitt, to shelve those plans and instead ask the company to
focus on helping to make a success of the NDA.
Clean-up
With nuclear production in its final throes in the UK, BNFL's
core business will be derived from its clean-up and
decommissioning capabilities at home and abroad, at Westinghouse,
its successful US-based nuclear reactor and fuel manufacturer.
Publicly-owned, BNFL's sole shareholder is the DTI and, although
there are some questions over the transfer of BNFL's £40bn
nuclear clean-up liabilities to the NDA, Mr Parker insists there
should be no hold up.
He says: "There's been a request from the EC that the transfer of
liabilities be reviewed. But the government and the board of BNFL
want the NDA to go ahead as scheduled. It's important because we
believe the NDA is a good thing for the British tax payer and for
Britain as a whole."
The NDA will go ahead on time and take on its decommissioning and
clean-up responsibilities but, for the short term at least,
BNFL's liabilities will remain on its balance sheet.
It continues with incumbent contracts , but on completion of
those, BNFL will, for the first-time ever, have to compete for
business with global rivals.
In preparation for this year's overhaul, the British Nuclear
Group (BNG) was set up last year as a stand alone business
focused solely on decommission and clean-up.
Mr Parker said: "What we want to do is earn the right to win
those contracts. We know the sites very well and we believe we've
been good owner-operators of those sites historically and can be
good manager operators of those sites in the future."
Mr Parker insists, BNFL's 23,000 strong workforce are, on the
whole, behind the changes being implemented. "People inside BNFL
can see that the NDA makes sense.
"I can tell you, even though it's not in existence yet, the very
formation of that entity is driving substantial change from the
top of the company but it is also going on lower down in the
company."
Embrace
To be dropped into such an environment at such short notice and
at such a crucial time would be daunting, but Mr Parker says the
challenge is something to embrace.
So will the decommissioning and clean-up herald the end of the
British nuclear experiment? And has the industry been affected by
recent accounting errors at Sellafield? Perhaps not, according to
Mr Parker.
As the price of oil continues rise, and carbon-based fuels come
under fire for their link to global warming, nuclear could yet
see a resurgence.
With a General Election looming, Mr Parker says the government
will not touch such a political hot potato as the future of
nuclear. But with the debate on Britain's future energy needs
raging, the issue will need to be addressed sooner, rather than
later.
Copyright 2005 GMG Regional Digital.
*****************************************************************
53 DenverPost.com: Cotter Corp. wants to contest terms of waste-license renewal
Published: Saturday, February 19, 2005
By The Associated Press
Cotter Corp. has asked for a hearing to contest conditions of
its license renewal, including a decision that would keep it from
accepting radioactive waste from a Superfund site in New Jersey
at its Cañon City site.
No hearing date has been set, but state health department
officials said the hearing before an administrative-law judge
probably would not be held until the summer.
In a four-page letter requesting the hearing, Cotter Corp.
manager of environmental affairs Steven Landau outlined a number
of concerns.
"The license and documents issued to us are extremely, extremely
thick," said Jerry Powers, Cotter manager of administration.
"There's lots of requirements. Some of it's really complicated,
and we just need clarifications rather than changes."
The health department in December renewed Cotter's license to
process uranium and vanadium ore for an additional five years
but denied its request to accept a maximum of 400,000 cubic
yards of radioactively contaminated soil from a New Jersey site,
where the Maywood Chemical Co. processed thorium ore between
1916 and 1955.
A separate request for Cotter to accept 40,000 cubic yards from
the Maywood site is being decided by an administrative- law
judge and is not affected by the license decision.
All contents Copyright 2005 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
54 Craig Daily Press: Group trashes proposed dump
By Rob Gebhart
Saturday, February 19, 2005
A group of Moffat County residents opposing the creation of a
uranium tailings dump near Maybell has chosen a name.
The group calls itself Northwest Colorado Cares.
Members adopted their name during a meeting Friday. They also
laid out a plan to begin battling the uranium tailings
repository that Jim Ross, owner of Intermountain Real Estate,
has proposed creating 30 miles west of Craig.
"I agree that we have to stop it here before we go any farther,"
Northwest Colorado Cares member Terrie Barrie said.
Barrie has successfully fought for the rights of workers who
became ill while making nuclear weapons for the federal
government.
As the first step in opposing the dump, the group plans to
attend the next Moffat County Economic Development Partnership
meeting and request that the EDP give Ross no more grant money.
The EDP has given Ross a grant of $6,500.
Ross planned to use that money to process paperwork for the
dump. He has been out of the area for the past few months. But
Barrie said she thought he had spent most of the grant money.
"He's going to need to apply for another grant, and that's to
our advantage," she said.
After asking the EDP to stop contributing funding to Ross, the
group plans to invite Ross to a meeting so both parties can
discuss his plans.
They also hope to meet with members of the Moffat County Land
Use Board to discuss the issue. The Land Use Board advises the
Moffat County commissioners on issues pertaining to natural
resource and environment issues.
Retired hydrologist Frank Welder attempted to provide the group
with information about the effects the proposed dump could have
on the region's water. But when he asked what geological
formation was located at the proposed site, no one in the group
could tell him.
Such information is basic and required, Welder said. Aside from
knowing the rules and regulations about uranium disposal, the
group would need to learn the geology of the area.
The group plans to meet again at 11:30 a.m. March 18 at The
Golden Cavvy.
Copyright © 2005 The Craig Daily Press. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
55 NewsDay: Safety lapses halt cleanup at former nuclear site
Newsday.com
By CAROLYN THOMPSON Associated Press Writer
February 18, 2005, 4:38 PM EST
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Two workers at a former nuclear
site in western New York were exposed to higher doses of
radiation than allowed under the site's own guidelines in one of
three recent safety lapses that have led to a suspension of
cleanup work there.
The employees required no medical treatment following the Jan. 19
exposure and no radiation was released into the environment,
officials at the West Valley Demonstration Project said.
But site managers made the decision to halt work in order to
re-examine operations.
"When we have the slightest glitch, we stop, we review it and we
say how do we do it better?" West Valley spokesman Terry Dunford
said Friday.
West Valley, about 35 miles south of Buffalo, was the site of the
country's first commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from
1966 to 1972. The New York State Energy Research and Development
Authority and U.S. Department of Energy are partners in the
ongoing decontamination and decommissioning of the site.
An independent report sought by West Valley Nuclear Services Co.,
the site contractor, indicated the overexposed workers received
doses of 315 and 169 millirems of radiation. That compares to the
360 millirems that the average American absorbs in a year from
things like X-rays and the sun.
The exposure was roughly two to three times West Valley's
self-imposed limit of 100 millirems per day but did not exceed
federal DOE standards, Dunford said.
The incident occurred inside a maintenance room while the
workers, who were wearing protective clothing, emptied waste into
metal containers.
The other two safety lapses, Jan. 4 and Jan. 10, involved sparks
from a remote saw igniting first, wood chips on the floor and
secondly, a polyester sling that was inadvertently cut.
The 56-page report faulted managers for failing to adequately
evaluate radiological hazards and implement safety controls.
"The (assessment) team wishes to emphasize that this was
concluded not to be a programmatic shortcoming, but rather an
implementation failure," the report said.
The report also noted a heavy emphasis by management on work
schedules in recent months, and "a greater reliance on the skill
of the workers and their supervisors in ensuring worker
protection."
Dunford said West Valley Nuclear Services had made "management
changes" as a result of the exposure incident. He declined to
elaborate.
Paul Piciulo, NYSERDA's director at the site, said three safety
lapses in a short period of time were concerning. The agency has
in the past voiced concern about a DOE-driven acceleration of
work at West Valley.
"You've got to be careful that people keep their eye on the work
and the safety. Things may take time," Piciulo said. "You don't
want to see things be rushed just for the sake of meeting some
artificial deadline."
Peter Cooney, the chief steward for the International Association
of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents one of the
overexposed workers, told The Buffalo News he has warned
management that the emphasis on speeding the work was putting the
site's solid safety record at risk.
It was unknown Friday when work would resume. Dunford said the
downtime had been used to reinforce and retrain employees on
safety protocols.
Two similar worker exposures occurred in 2002 and 2003, with
neither worker requiring medical attention.
___
On the Net:
West Valley Nuclear Services Co.: www.wvnsco.com
Copyright © 2005, The Associated Press
*****************************************************************
56 [du-list] Dennis Kyne - gulf veteran - depleted uranium video.
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:57:34 -0800
Dear All,
Dennis kyne, Persion gulf war veteran, anti-du activist, muscian and a
hundred other titles, has made with others a very informative and
revealing video on the US occupation of Iraq, and the effects upon soldiers
and civilans from Depleted uranium. This film last around 12 minutes, and
can be seen on-line at his site: http://homepage.mac.com/dkyne What is
interesting with this film is that it is narrated by someone suffering from
GWS, has worked within military, and has seen at first hand the continuous
cover-up that has gone on daily over US casuality figures. For educational
purposes, do please pass this around your networks and community lists, or
make a link on your websites.
many thanks
davey garland
(pandora DU research project)
---------------------------------
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57 Norway Post: Norway and Russia to replace nuclear batteries
18. Februar 2005
Norway and Russia have agreed to replace several hundred nuclear
powered lighthouses in the Barents Sea region.
Thieves who have attempted to steal the nuclear batteries have
created dangerous situations.
Hunting for scrap metals, the thieves have several times tried to
remove the batteries containing the isotope strontium-90, which
may be used to make so-called "dirty bombs".
If the batteries should fall into the hands of terrorists, the
radioactive element therefore could be used to make such devices,
Aftenposten writes.
- This is not just a theoretical threat, said Undersecretary of
State, Kim Traavik, at the opening in Oslo of an international
conference of experts discussing the problem.
In addition, the radiation is also dangerous to the public, even
though they are located in remote areas, and a possible source of
pollution.
For this reason Norway will this year spend NOK 20 million on
replacing 46 nuclear batteries with solar panels along the coast
of the Kola Peninsula and the White Sea.
Work is underway to gather international assistance to help
Russia replace 700 nuclear batteries in the region.
More than 80 experts from 11 nations are gathered in Oslo to
discuss the problem.
(Aftenposten)
Rolleiv Solholm
*****************************************************************
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:
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