*****************************************************************
02/25/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.44
*****************************************************************
RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 AFP: Russia's energy chief flies to Iran to seal nuclear deal -
2 ITAR-TASS: Russian atomic chief to sign nuclear fuel agreement with
3 Guardian Unlimited: Official: Iran May Hide Nukes in Tunnels
4 Guardian Unlimited: South Korea Urges Flexibility Over Nukes
5 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Top officials to discuss nuclear crisis
6 YWS: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Will Not Table Seoul's Past Nuclear Issue
7 YWS: S. Korea, U.S., Japan Start Discussion on N.K. Nuclear Issue
8 Xinhua: Russia optimistic about resumption of six-party nuclear talk
9 AFP: North Korea ready to return to nuclear talks - Chinese FM
10 IPS-English POLITICS: Canada Rejects U.S. Missile Shield
11 [NukeNet] Rokkasho and Proliferation
12 Economist.com: Nuclear arms control
NUCLEAR REACTORS
13 US: Fwd: Diablo Nuke Plant steam generator approved-MFP disapprove
14 US: [NukeNet] NRC about long overdue in deciding whistleblower case
15 US: [NukeNet] NY Times Joins Call to Protect Nuclear, Chemical
16 US: Exelon Forces "Raw Deal" on TMI Community
17 IPS-English UAE: Enhancing Nuclear Energy to Ease Water
18 US: Fredericksburg.com: Want the whole story on nuclear power? You p
19 US: NRC: NRC Seeks Public Input on Environmental Impact Statement fo
20 BBC: Germany split over green energy
21 US: NRC: NRC Licensing Board Finds in Favor of Company in PFS Case;
22 US: Petroleum News: Nuclear making comeback -
23 US: SF Chronicle: Diablo Canyon funding gets OK
24 CP National News: N.B. hoping for at least $400 million from Ottawa
25 KPUA Hawaii News: Chernobyl doctor stops in Hawaii en route to Marsh
26 US: NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
27 UAE: Enhancing Nuclear Energy to Ease Water Shortage, Save Lives
28 IAEA: Nuclear Power for the 21st Century
29 US: Beaver County Times Allegheny Times: Screenings offered to ex-wo
30 US: The Star: Nuclear power reactor shut down after suspected nitrog
31 US: NRC: FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC); Notice of
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 [du-list] study of DU Effects called for
33 [du-list] the doctor the depleted uranium and the dying
34 [du-list] USUK massacres in Fallujah - reporting at The
35 US: Rocky Mountain News: Breast milk study being misread, head of sc
36 US: NIRS: New Research Indicates Health Risks from Uranium May Be Mo
37 US: adn.com: Program to compensate Amchitka workers is progressing
38 US: Portsmouth Herald: Sub to get $160M in upgrades
39 US: DOE: DOE to start testing for former contractors for beryllium d
40 US: www.workers.org: 'Poison DUst' features vets exposed to DU
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
41 US: [du-list] [Fwd: [PPst] Solidarity SignOn Request: Oppose 1st
42 US: Arizona Republic: Uranium tailings by Colorado called a danger
43 US: AP Wire: Dairyland Power plans for Utah storage of waste
44 US: Bradenton Herald: Plan to cap wells stalls
45 US: Platts: NRC panel sides with PFS in fuel storage case
46 US: deseretnews.com: What's next for Skull Valley
47 US: deseretnews.com: Member's dissent in ruling gives Utah some
48 ENS: New Mexico Uranium Plant Could Mean Public Liability
49 US: Las Vegas RJ: Panel backs nuclear waste dump at Utah reservation
50 Las Vegas RJ: Rules to affect Yucca comments
51 Las Vegas RJ: Panel lets DOE keep job of studying rail line
52 Bellona: On-shore spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Murmansk to
53 Las Vegas SUN: Volcano, air crash risk issues still not resolved
54 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Utah loses key battle over N-waste
55 US: AU ABC: ERA signs Jabiluka uranium mine agreement
56 ABC 4: Nuclear Waste To Utah?
57 US: deseretnews.com: Goshute plant clears blocks
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
58 [du-list] It is the same here as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
59 AP Wire: Report: Lab didn't follow procedures for departing employee
60 Tri-Valley Herald: Feds aiming to break up lab pensions
61 KTVB: Companies bidding for INL cleanup contract place premium on se
62 DOE: Agency Information Collection Extension
OTHER NUCLEAR
63 ONEST: Framework Agreement Signing, Washington, D.C.
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
1 AFP: Russia's energy chief flies to Iran to seal nuclear deal -
Friday February 25, 03:38 PM
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia's atomic agency chief Alexander Rumyantsev
flew to Iran to sign a vital agreement on the return of nuclear
fuel that will finally allow Russia to launch the Islamic
state's first nuclear power plant. Russia refused to launch the
plant near the southern town of Bushehr until Iran agreed to
return all of the nuclear fuel provided for the plant by Russia.
Like Washington -- which had fought furiously to convince Russia
against the project -- Moscow feared that Tehran could reprocess
the material to make a nuclear weapon.
Iran initially refused to sign the fuel deal sighting the dangers
of transporting radioactive material back to Russia but Moscow
refused to budge. The two sides finally made headway last month
and Russia is now on track to launch the 800-million-dollar
(606-million-euro) project at the start of next year. "The
agreement on the return of nuclear fuel will be signed on
Saturday," Rumyantsev's spokesman Nikolai Shingaryov told AFP.
Rumyantsev will visit Bushehr itself on Sunday and meet with his
Iranian counterpart to "discuss wider cooperation in the nuclear
sphere," the spokesman said.
Russia has examined the option of building a second reactor at
Bushehr along with new nuclear plants at other locations. The
West argues Iran has no need for nuclear energy because of its
massive oil supplies. However Tehran counters that its oil wells
are actually far removed from the population while the pipeline
network remains underdeveloped. In Bratislava on Thursday,
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart George W.
Bush agreed during summit talks that Iran must not have a nuclear
weapon.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
2 ITAR-TASS: Russian atomic chief to sign nuclear fuel agreement with Iran
25.02.2005, 03.03
MOSCOW, February 25 (Itar-Tass) -- Head of the Russian Federal
Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) Alexander Rumyantsev is leaving
for Iran on Friday to sign an agreement on the return to Russia
of spent nuclear fuel from Bushehr power plant.
Negotiations and the signing of the document are scheduled for
Saturday. In Tehran Rumyantsev will meet Vice-President and
Chairman of the Atomic Energy Organization Gholam Reza Agazadeh
and other national leaders. A Rosatom spokesman told Tass the
talks will focus “on issues of expanding Russian-Iranian
cooperation in the sphere of peaceful use of atomic energy”.
On Sunday Rumyantsev will visit the construction site of the
Bushehr plant, which is erected by Russia.
The Bushehr project is one of the most difficult and
controversial ones in the history of atomic power-engineering.
Its implementation has dragged on both because of technical
problems and political tensions. The United States and the West
criticized Russia for assisting in the construction of the
Bushehr plant claiming it thus allows Iran to create a nuclear
weapon. Russia has been resolutely rejecting the claim as the
peaceful project is under complete IAEA control, and continued
construction.
A week ago President Vladimir Putin reiterated Russia will
continue the project despite US objections. “The latest Iranian
actions convince us that Iran really does not plan to produce
nuclear weapons. That means we shall continue cooperation”, he
told visiting head of the Iranian Security Council Hassan
Rowhani. Putin warned at the same time “proliferation of nuclear
weapons on the planet does not improve the security situation
either for concrete nations or for the international community
in general”.
Moscow and Tehran launched negotiations on the construction of
the Bushehr plant in early ‘90s. Ten years ago, on January 8,
1995, the parties signed a contract on the construction of the
nuclear power plant at the site where the German Siemens Company
launched the construction in 1975 and then abandoned it. The
cost of the contract was 780 million dollars.
Initially Iranian experts were planned to participate in the
construction. However Iranian authorities then decided to engage
only Russian experts and a new contract was signed in 1998 on a
turn-key construction of the Bushehr plant. The cost exceeded
one billion dollars. World prices for the construction of one
nuclear reactor range from 1.5 to 2.5 billion dollars.
Iran has always insisted that the plant be erected at the
Siemens-constructed site in order to use the already existing
constructions. Russian experts had to agree, although they
argued it would be easier to build the plant from zero.
The construction schedule had to be changed several times, as a
result. In 1995 it was planned to complete the construction in
55 months, now experts forecast the start-up in the late 2005 –
early 2006.
The agreement on the return of the spent nuclear fuel from
Bushehr to Russia was key to the deal all these years.
Negotiations were difficult and were completed only recently.
Rumyantsev, who is to sign the agreement in Tehran, is the third
Russian atomic energy boss dealing with the Bushehr project
after Viktor Mikhailov and Yevgeny Adamov.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: Official: Iran May Hide Nukes in Tunnels
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday February 25, 2005 4:01 PM
AP Photo PAR103
PARIS (AP) - Iran may be hiding its nuclear technology inside
special tunnels because of threats of attack by the United
States, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator said in an interview
published Friday.
Hassan Rowhani, who has been negotiating with Germany, Britain
and France over Iran's uranium enrichment program, was asked by
an interview for the Le Monde newspaper: ``Is it accurate that
Iran has built tunnels meant to serve Iran's nuclear
activities?''
Rowhani responded that reports Iran was building tunnels to hide
its nuclear technology ``could be true,'' he said.
``From the moment the Americans threaten to attack our nuclear
sites, what are we to do? We have to put them somewhere,''
Rowhani said.
President Bush - who once called Iran part of an ``axis of
evil'' with North Korea and prewar Iraq - has insisted that
Tehran must not develop nuclear weapons, but he said Tuesday in
Brussels, Belgium, it is ``simply ridiculous'' to assume that
the United States has plans to attack Iran over its alleged
nuclear weapons program.
``Having said that, all options are on the table,'' Bush said
after discussing the issue with European allies.
In the Le Monde interview, Rowhani did not appear assuaged by
Bush's statement about an attack being ``simply ridiculous.''
Bush ``immediately added that all options were open. So the
second phrase neutralizes the first,'' Rowhani said.
Last week, Bush tried in a series of pre-trip interviews with
European journalists to dispel talk of a military attack, an
issue that has been raised repeatedly since the United States
went to war with Iraq primarily over its alleged weapons of mass
destruction.
On Thursday, he reiterated that Iran as well as North Korea must
not have nuclear weapons, saying at a joint news conference with
Vladimir Putin agreed with him.
``I appreciate Vladimir's understanding on that,'' Bush said.
Bush also said European negotiators with Tehran represent the
United States as well as the European Union and NATO and he
supports their efforts.
Tehran has temporarily suspended its uranium enrichment program,
however, in an agreement reached with the European Union. Highly
enriched uranium and plutonium are the building blocks of
nuclear weapons.
Iran has said it will decide by mid-March whether to continue
its suspension, which is monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors,
depending on the progress in negotiations with Britain, France
and Germany.
The United States accuses Iran of having a secret program to
make nuclear weapons, but Iran insists its nuclear activities
are for peaceful energy purposes.
Rowhani said in Berlin on Friday after a round of talks with the
Europeans that Iran hoped to soon work out an agreement with
European negotiators on the county's uranium enrichment program.
Rowhani said it was in everybody's interests to find a quick
solution.
``We are confident that we will, through positive measures from
all sides, see positive results in March,'' he said through a
translator. ``The result of the talks affects not only the
Iranian nuclear program, but is also about the development of
relations between Iran and Europe.''
Tehran has temporarily suspended its uranium enrichment program,
however, in an agreement reached with the European Union.
It has said it will decide by mid-March whether to continue its
suspension, which is monitored by U.N. nuclear inspectors,
depending on the progress in European negotiations. Rowhani is
on the middle of a swing through all three countries.
Rowhani told Le Monde that taking the issue to the U.N. Security
Council for eventual sanctions, as Bush has threatened, would
turn the issue into a ``North-South question,'' pitting the
developing world against rich nations.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer seemed less optimistic
than Rowhani on reaching an agreement on enrichment, saying that
``the positions of the two sides are complex and difficult to
bridge.''
In Tblisi, Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili said
the former Soviet republic can help solve the international
controversy over Iran's nuclear program.
``Georgia has had relations with Iran for many centuries, and it
can play a special role,'' Zurabishvili, told the independent
Mze television.
But Zurabishvili warned that Georgia would not support U.S.
military action against Iran, saying it could jeopardize the
lives of several hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians
living there.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: South Korea Urges Flexibility Over Nukes
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday February 25, 2005 3:31 PM
AP Photo SEL102
By SANG-HUN CHOE
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - President Roh Moo-hyun urged South
Koreans on Friday to be calm following North Korea's recent
claim that it has nuclear weapons, and he said it will take both
flexibility and a principled stand to persuade the communist
nation to abandon its atomic weapons program.
In a major policy speech before the National Assembly, Roh also
assured that South Korea's alliance with the United States was
more stable than ever, saying his government's policy of
``saying what we want to say and argue what we want to argue''
has made its relations with Washington healthier.
``Although an unexpected development occurred, it doesn't
greatly change the fundamental structure'' of the nuclear
standoff, Roh said in a speech marking the second anniversary of
his inauguration.
He was referring to North Korea's Feb. 10 announcement that it
has nuclear bombs and will boycott six-nation nuclear
disarmament talks. The claim about having nuclear weapons could
not be verified independently.
``We will be flexible but won't lose our principled stance,''
Roh said.
He did not elaborate, but he urged rival political parties to
stand behind his government, warning that North Korea might
capitalize on ``division and conflict.''
Roh's emphasis on flexibility and principle appeared to embrace
two divided camps - Roh's liberal ruling party that stresses
reconciliation with the North to help it open up and
democratize, and his conservative critics, who accuse Roh of
being too soft on the North.
Meanwhile, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that China has
asked Tokyo to persuade the United States to be more flexible in
the talks.
Beijing made the request after a visit to Pyongyang earlier this
month by Wang Jiarui, the head of the Chinese Communist Party's
International Department, Kyodo reported, citing multiple
anonymous sources. The report did not say what point China
wanted the United States to be more flexible on.
Japan's Foreign Ministry said it was unaware of such a request,
a ministry spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.
North Korea's Feb. 10 statement flouted the United States, South
Korea and their allies seek to end the North's nuclear weapons
programs through the talks.
Since 2003, Beijing has hosted three rounds of negotiations
involving China, the two Koreas, the United States, Russia and
Japan, with little progress reported. A fourth round scheduled
for September was canceled because North Korea refused to
attend, citing what it calls a ``hostile'' U.S. policy.
Negotiators from the United States, Japan and South Korea are to
meet in Seoul on Saturday to try to revive the talks.
U.S. officials urged the allies to take ``coordinated'' actions,
warning that North Korea could try to exploit divisions if the
nations participating in the multilateral discussions do not
adopt a unified approach.
On Monday, the communist country's leader, Kim Jong Il, hinted
at a possible compromise, telling a Chinese envoy his government
would return to the negotiating table if certain unspecified
conditions are met.
In previous talks, North Korea has demanded more aid and a peace
treaty with Washington in exchange for giving up its nuclear
program.
The United States is demanding that the North immediately
dismantle all nuclear facilities.
One of the thorniest issues of the six-party talks is whether
North Korea will allow inspections to verify if - as Washington
claims - it is running a clandestine uranium enrichment program
in addition to its plutonium-based weapons facilities.
South Korea's intelligence agency said it believed that North
Korea has not begun producing weapons-grade uranium because
increased international surveillance has prevented it from
importing enough components.
``We judge that North Korea has not yet built or possessed HEU
(highly enriched uranium) as it has not yet reached the stage of
building a HEU factory,'' the National Intelligence Service told
a National Assembly meeting Thursday.
The comment was confirmed by an agency spokesman Friday.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
5 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Top officials to discuss nuclear crisis
February 26, 2005 ¤Ñ Chief negotiators for South Korea, Japan
and the United States will meet today in Seoul to discuss how to
deal with North Korea's nuclear program.
They will discuss what steps to take following North Korean
leader Kim Jong-il's recent indication to China that the
communist country may return to the negotiations.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry said on Feb. 10 the country has
manufactured nuclear weapons. It also rejected returning to the
six-nation disarmament talks indefinitely.
China sent envoy Wang Jiarui to North Korea on Feb. 19. In his
meeting with Mr. Wang, the North Korean leader said Monday that
his government is willing to return to the six-nation talks if
it sees a substantial shift in U.S. policy toward Pyeongyang.
Seoul, Washington and Tokyo will closely study Mr. Wang's trip
to Pyeongyang in order to assess North Korea's real intentions.
North Korean leaders reportedly detailed their demands to Mr.
Wang during the Chinese envoy's stay.
Attending today's meeting will be South Korea's Deputy Foreign
Minister Song Min-soon, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and
Kenichiro Sasae, chief of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's
Asia-Oceania Bureau.
A top government official said Seoul would try to persuade
Washington to show more flexibility toward Pyeongyang. The three
nations will pressure the North to return to the talks as soon
as possible, but Seoul will try to help the North and the United
States find common ground.
Washington has said Pyeongyang should return to the negotiation
table unconditionally, and negotiations are possible only after
that.
A Foreign Ministry official said it is important to coordinate
stances to resume the stalled six-nation talks as soon as
possible.
"There are slight differences in stances among Seoul, Washington
and Tokyo, but they will have to harmonize their policies," he
said.
by Park Shin-hong myoja@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
6 YWS: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog Will Not Table Seoul's Past Nuclear Issue
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr
2005/02/25 22:57 KST
BERLIN, Feb. 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's past nuclear
experiments will not be on the agenda when the U.N. nuclear
watchdog agency opens its regular meeting next week in Austria,
according to a report Friday.
In the report, a copy of which was obtained by Yonhap News
Agency, the 35-nation governing board of the International
Atomic Energy Agency will refrain from discussing Seoul's
nuclear experiments during next week's regular session in Vienna.
*****************************************************************
7 YWS: S. Korea, U.S., Japan Start Discussion on N.K. Nuclear Issue
YONHAPNEWS WORLD SERVICE::ENGLISH NEWS
2005/02/26 10:15 KST
SEOUL, Feb. 26 (Yonhap) -- Chief negotiators of South Korea,
the United States and Japan opened a meeting Saturday for
discussion to find a breakthrough in the stalled six-party talks
on North Korea's nuclear program.
The meeting comes after North Korea showed signs of backing
down after declaring two weeks ago that it possesses nuclear
weapons and would boycott further negotiations.
*****************************************************************
8 Xinhua: Russia optimistic about resumption of six-party nuclear talks
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-02-26 02:51:19
MOSCOW, Feb. 25 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that it is "realistic" to expect
the resumption of the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear
problem.
"We are all waiting for the date of the next round of talks
to become known. Five negotiation participants are actively
working to that end," Lavrov was cited by Interfax news agency
as saying.
"It is now particularly important to continue political
efforts," said Lavrov. "It is important to note that none of the
participants in the six-nation process are threatening
sanctions, which would be counter-productive."
He stressed that besides the effort to de-nuclearize the
Korean Peninsula, it is also important to take into account the
lawful interests of Pyongyang.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced
earlier this month that it was suspending participation in the
nuclear talks for an indefinite period and will build up its
nuclear capacity. However, it later expressed the willingness to
return to the six-party talks when there are right conditions.
Russia, South Korea, the United States, China and Japan, the
other five participants of the nuclear talks, have been trying
to persuade Pyongyang to return to the negotiation table.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko noted
that the foreign ministers of Russia and China on Friday jointly
called for taking into account the interests of all parties
during negotiations on DPRK's nuclear issue.
Yakovenko said during their meeting in Astana on Friday,
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Chinese
counterpart Li Zhaoxing asked all participants to show
self-restraint and actively search for compromise decisions.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 AFP: North Korea ready to return to nuclear talks - Chinese FM
Saturday February 26, 12:25 PM
ASTANA (AFP) - North Korea is committed to a nuclear-free Korean
peninsula and is prepared to resume six-party talks, China's
foreign minister said as South Korea's president called for calm
amid heightened nuclear tensions.
"I believe the conditions are there for continuing the
negotiations," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said
following talks in the capital of Kazakhstan with his
counterparts of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The regional forum also comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.
Chinese President Hu Jintao had recently transmitted a message to
the North Korean leadership stressing the need for nuclear-free
status, security and peace on the Korean peninsula and calling on
Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks as soon as possible,
Li said.
"In its response," North Korea "said it fully accepts that the
Korean peninsula must be free of nuclear weapons and is ready to
take part in the six-party talks," he added.
North Korea participated in three inconclusive rounds of nuclear
crisis talks already with South Korea, Russia, the United
States, China and Japan, but boycotted a fourth round in
September, citing US "hostilities".
Pyongyang announced earlier this month that it possessed nuclear
weapons and was withdrawing from the negotiations indefinitely,
a move many experts played down as a routine negotiating tactic.
Prospects for a fourth round brightened after North Korean
leader Kim Jong-Il indicated on Tuesday this week that he could
return to talks if the conditions were right.
Kim's statement followed a four-day visit by senior Chinese
Communist Party official Wang Jiaru to Pyongyang which concluded
Tuesday, with Beijing also announcing afterwards that North
Korea was in fact ready to talk.
The United States however voiced skepticism, with a State
Department spokesman saying that "all of these statements" about
North Korea's willingness to return to the negotiating table
"don't amount to them showing up".
In his first public response to the North Korean announcement it
was pulling out of the talks, South Korean President Roh
Moo-Hyun called Friday for calm.
He admitted that he was facing an "unexpected situation" but
said South Korea would stick to its principle of resolving the
28-month-old standoff over North Korea's nuclear program
peacefully through dialogue.
Roh spoke after US President George W. Bush said he and Russian
President Vladimir Putin had agreed at a summit in Bratislava
Thursday that North Korea had to abandon its nuclear weapons
drive.
Addressing parliament on the second anniversary of his
inauguration, Roh said he understood that the nuclear standoff
was a cause for "great concern".
"Some unexpected situation took place, but the fundamental issue
has not changed greatly," he said.
"We will not be swayed by one incident after another but calmly
stick to our coherent principle (of resolving the standoff),
although we will maintain flexibility," he said.
Top nuclear negotiators from South Korea, the United States and
Japan are expected here Saturday to attempt to revive the talks.
But Japan's ambassador to Beijing, among those briefed by China
on Wang's Pyongyang trip, said that prospects were not good for
new negotiations.
"I did not have the impression that they have entered the stage
of having prospects" for a resumption date, ambassador Koreshige
Anami told Nippon Television on Thursday.
The nuclear standoff erupted in October 2002 when the United
States accused North Korea of operating a programme based on
highly enriched uranium.
Pyongyang denied that charge but restarted a plutonium programme
frozen under a 1994 arms control agreement.
Washington believes the Stalinist State may already possess one
or two crude nuclear devices.
burs/sdm/ec
Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
10 IPS-English POLITICS: Canada Rejects U.S. Missile Shield
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:11:20 -0800
ROMAIPS NA IP
POLITICS: Canada Rejects U.S. Missile Shield
By Mark Bourrie
OTTAWA, Feb 25 (IPS) - Bowing to pressure from the public and his own
parliamentary colleagues, Canada's prime minister has risked the ire of the
George W. Bush administration by rejecting Canadian participation in
Washington's ballistic missile defence (BMD) system.
Prime Minister Paul Martin made the announcement Thursday, although
Canadian officials said Bush was informed earlier this week at a North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation heads of government meeting in Brussels.
The decision is bound to worsen the relations between Canada and the United
States. Both are each other's largest trade partners, and the U.S. imports
more oil from Canada than from any other country.
Canadian-U.S. relations were already strained by Canada's refusal to join
the U.S. in its attack on Iraq. The neighbours have also been locked in
trade fights over lumber and beef imports to the U.S.
Polls here show about 70 percent of the Canadian public opposes the
proposed BMD system. Martin, who governs with a shaky, informal
parliamentary coalition, likely would not have been able to garner enough
support, even from members of his own party, for participation in the
controversial system.
The prime minister supported BMD during the 2004 election campaign here but
says he opposes the weaponisation of space.
Jack Layton, leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party, said the
government has sent a mixed message on what Layton calls "Star Wars".
Earlier in the week, Canada's new ambassador to Washington, Frank McKenna,
said Canada was already part of BMD because it is a partner in NORAD, the
North American missile warning system.
Canada and the United States have also coordinated their defences and been
allied militarily, for defensive purposes, since 1940. Canadian
participation would have given the much-criticised system a public
relations boost, and allowed the U.S. to deploy missiles in Canada to shoot
down missiles coming over the arctic.
"The worry is that Washington in a way is being told one thing by virtue of
our participation in certain elements of the programme while Canadians are
being told another," Layton said in an interview.
"Canadians don't want to be a part of it. We have been telling Mr. Martin
that for two years. He has finally come around to our way of thinking on
it, at least symbolically and what we have to ensure is that in fact, that
wish of Canadians is the case. Right now, we do have serious doubts, given
Mr. McKenna's comments," Layton said.
Martin tried to downplay the rift between Ottawa and Washington.
"Let me be clear: we respect the right of the United States to defend
itself and its people," Martin said.
Canada will work with the U.S. for the common defence of North America, but
the country's efforts won't be concentrated on missile defence, the prime
minister said.
"Canada remains steadfast in its support of Norad," said Martin.
The day before the announcement, the government added 10 billion dollars to
the military's budget over the next five years. Canada has been under
pressure from Washington to increase its military spending and its capacity
in NATO.
The Canadian decision to reject BMD was condemned by Paul Cellucci, the
U.S. ambassador to Canada.
"We will deploy. We will defend North America," he said.
"We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its
sovereignty - its seat at the table -- to decide what to do about a missile
that might be coming towards Canada," said Cellucci.
Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's foreign minister, said, "Of course, the U.S. is
disappointed. They recognise and respect our decision. We will carefully
examine all options and pursue our priorities vigorously."
"We will enhance the protection of North America," he said. "We will work
closely to build the success of [border agreements] and engage Mexico to
trilateralise, to better align our roles, priorities and interests."
Few people inside the government share Pettigrew's optimism. Last December,
during his first visit to Canada, Pres. Bush publicly urged Martin to join
the programme. Martin's officials said before the visit that BMD was not on
the agenda.
When he first took office, Martin suggested he supported joining the plan,
saying he believed Canada should be at the table when it comes to any
discussion of the defence of North America.
Several tests of the system have failed, including one last month that the
Pentagon blamed on a minor glitch in computer software. The Pentagon,
however, says they may never publicly declare when the shield is fully ready.
*****
+U.S. Missile Defence Agency
(http://www.acq.osd.mil/mda/mdalink/html/mdalink.html)
+Project Ploughshares
(http://www.ploughshares.ca/CONTENT/ABOLISH%20NUCS/BMD%20Page/BMD.update.htm)
(END/IPS/NA/IP/MB/KS/05)
= 02252046 ORP014
NNNN
*****************************************************************
11 [NukeNet] Rokkasho and Proliferation
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:13:54 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
CNIC has added new information to its web site regarding Rokkasho and
nuclear proliferation. A new article about the connections between the
two is pasted below. People familiar with the issues probably won't
find anything that they don't already know, but we thought it was worth
re-examining the issues in the lead up to the NPT conference.
Philip White
International Liaison Officer
The following links take you to pages about
(1) Rokkasho:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/cycle/rokkasho/index.html
And
(2) about Japan and nuclear proliferation:
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/plutonium/proliferation/index.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------ ---
Article: Rokkasho and Proliferation Revisited
A version of this article will be published in Nuke Info Tokyo 105
(March/April 2005)
In each of the past two years, around this time Nuke Info Tokyo has
included an article raising the question of whether Japan might some
day acquire nuclear weapons (NIT 93, and NIT 99). These articles
focused in particular on suspicions regarding Japanese intentions, as
evidenced by statements of senior government politicians and others.
This article will not rehearse these suspicions in detail. After
reviewing some relevant international political developments, it will
consider whether Japan is capable of producing nuclear weapons and the
international implications of such a capability.
The article in NIT 99 (March/April 2004) took as its starting point the
following statement by George Bush: "The 40 nations of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing
equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess
full-scale functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants." (11
February 2004) Since Bush's statement, other prominent people have made
similar proposals. Mahomed El Baradei proposed a five-year moratorium
on constructing uranium enrichment and reprocessing facilities (5
January 2005) and Kofi Annan's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges
and Change made the same call without specifying a time frame for the
moratorium (2 December 2004). These calls come in the lead up to the
NPT Review Conference, to be held in May. El Baradei has engaged a
group of international nuclear experts, who will present their
proposals at the conference. It is likely that they will reiterate El
Baradei's call for a moratorium.
While a moratorium is obviously a good idea, the proponents envisage
internationalizing the supply of enriched uranium and reprocessing
services and guaranteeing supply to countries which abide by IAEA
rules. Every page of the 105 issues of NIT that CNIC has produced so
far testify to our opposition to nuclear energy per se, so we will not
discuss this internationalization proposal further here. But the
recognition by these prominent people that uranium enrichment and
reprocessing create major proliferation risks and that the current
system is inadequate to deal with these risks should be applauded. On
the face of it, the moratorium would appear to apply to Japan's
Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, currently undergoing uranium tests, but
the people proposing the moratorium have all studiously avoided making
this link. They haven't made their views on the matter public, so we
won't speculate about what they are thinking, except to note that Kofi
Annan's High-level Panel refers to "a guarantee of the supply of
fissile materials by the current suppliers at market rates." Since
Japan is not a current supplier, there is no obvious reason why it
should be exempted from the moratorium.
The issue of whether a moratorium should be placed on reprocessing at
Rokkasho essentially revolves around two questions. Firstly, could
operation of Rokkasho lead to Japan acquiring nuclear weapons and
secondly, might it encourage others to acquire nuclear weapons? This
article attempts to answer these two questions, but first a comment on
the relative importance of considering capabilities as opposed to
intentions.
As a peace activist in Australia, I discovered that it was necessary to
consistently critique the Defence Department's claim that it looks at
capabilities rather than intentions when assessing military threats. An
assessment that only looks at one side of the equation is unbalanced.
The focus on capability in this article should therefore be seen as a
balance to the articles that have appeared in past issues of NIT,
rather than as a denial of the significance of the intentions of some
Japanese politicians. Indeed, North Korea's recent declaration that it
has nuclear weapons, regardless of whether or not it should be taken at
face value, is likely to strengthen the position of those within the
Japanese political establishment who would like to open up the debate
about Japan becoming a nuclear weapon state, a debate which has until
now been kept at the level of vague allusions.
So is Japan capable of building nuclear weapons? El Baradei clearly
thinks so. He has said that up to forty countries possess that
capability. This figure is apparently based on the existence of nuclear
facilities in those countries (commercial or research) and a pool of
technological skills. Japan certainly has the facilities and the
technological skills. It also has the fissile material and the
capability to produce more fissile material at will. This comes from
its possession of highly enriched uranium for research reactors, a
uranium enrichment plant and the reprocessing facility at Tokai
Village, which, despite being a developmental level facility, has over
a period of 25 years separated around seven tons of plutonium from
spent fuel. If El Baradei is right then, other than political will, the
only thing stopping Japan from producing nuclear weapons is IAEA
safeguards. Before discussing these, however, first let us consider the
claim often made by the Japanese government that its plutonium
stockpile is reactor grade plutonium, not weapons grade plutonium.
The question of the potential to use plutonium extracted from spent
fuel to make nuclear weapons is discussed in detail in the Report of
the International MOX Assessment (IMA Project, CNIC 1997). This report
quotes Robert Seldon of the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory as follows:
"All plutonium can be used directly in nuclear explosives. The concept
of ... plutonium which is not suitable for explosives is fallacious. A
high content of the plutonium 240 isotope (reactor-grade plutonium) is
a complication, but not a preventative." (1976) Hans Blix, former IAEA
Director General, had this to say: "The Agency considers high burn-up
reactor-grade plutonium and in general plutonium of any isotopic
composition ... to be capable of use in a nuclear explosive device.
There is no debate on the matter in the Agency's Department of
Safeguards." (1990) (see IMA Report page 92) Evidently then, Japan's
plutonium could be used to make a nuclear weapon, even if the yield is
lower and less predictable than for a weapon made of weapons grade
plutonium.
Returning to the question of 'IAEA safeguards', most people, even the
most skeptical and cynical, are probably lulled into a false sense of
security when they hear this phrase. Such is the power of language. The
language is almost never critiqued in the mainstream media, so few
people ever find out what lies behind such a phrase. A News Watch
article in NIT 101 discussed the effectiveness of IAEA safeguards at
Rokkasho in some detail. To recap briefly, the conclusion was that,
using the most advanced safeguards technology, each year enough
plutonium to make at least 6 bombs could slip through the system
without being detected. This is based on 8kg of plutonium to make one
bomb and 50kg of plutonium unaccounted for. That this is a realistic
figure is demonstrated by the fact that 30kg of plutonium could not be
accounted for at Sellafield in 2004. The methods of measuring the
quantities of plutonium going into the reprocessing plant and the
quantities coming out are simply not accurate enough to ensure that
these quantities will balance. This means that if small amounts of
plutonium were deliberately diverted, the IAEA wouldn't notice.
Furthermore, the checks are not carried out in real time, so even if it
were possible to detect the diversion, enough plutonium could be
removed before anyone noticed. Again, readers will find more on this in
the IMA Report.
The inescapable conclusion is that if Japan wanted to make a nuclear
weapon it could. Furthermore, there is a reasonable chance that it
could keep this secret, even though all its known nuclear facilities
are covered by IAEA safeguards. The fact that Japan has signed the
Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and implemented
'integrated safeguards' doesn't alter this situation, since the
limitations on safeguards are not only a matter of access, they are
also technical and probably insurmountable for a large scale
reprocessing plant such as Rokkasho.
The answer to the first question posed above, whether the operation of
the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant could lead to Japan acquiring nuclear
weapons, is clearly "yes", at least in terms of capability. In fact,
Japan is already capable of making nuclear weapons, but Rokkasho will
increase that capability and make international monitoring much more
difficult. The second question was, might Rokkasho encourage others to
acquire nuclear weapons? Although there is no way of knowing for sure
whether the Rokkasho reprocessing plant has made or will make any
difference to the decisions of others to produce nuclear weapons, it
certainly provides them with excuses and justifications. We can argue
that all their excuses and justifications are specious, but that is
beside the point. Countries like North Korea and Iran repeatedly point
to Japan, saying, "If Japan can have reprocessing and uranium
enrichment, why can't we?" In Iran's case it can point to the double
standards being applied and in North Korea's case it might also claim
that it feels directly threatened. Their complaints don't have to be
sincere. They strike a strong cord with countries outside the elite
circles of the 'First World'. Most of these countries are very
defensive about their 'right' to enjoy the benefits of the 'peaceful
use' of nuclear technology. Rokkasho therefore provides an unhelpful
example, which undermines the international consensus against
proliferation.
An article about proliferation would be incomplete without a reference
to the possibility of nuclear material being diverted to terrorists.
The Japanese government has admitted that this is a risk by introducing
legislation designed to strengthen protective measures against just
such a threat. CNIC has warned that these measures bring us closer to
the nuclear police state that we have long feared, besides which it is
inconceivable that they will be fool proof anyway. Clearly the safest
approach is not to separate the plutonium in the first place.
The fact that Rokkasho is a nuclear proliferation issue is not
discussed much in Japan. Overseas NGOs often seem more concerned about
Rokkasho's proliferation potential than Japanese. CNIC hopes that
Rokkasho will not escape attention at the NPT in May. We are aware that
a seminar is being planned and that people from both Japanese and
non-Japanese NGOs will attend. We are also aware that the Japanese
government is very sensitive about this issue, so we sincerely hope
that this seminar will be a great embarrassment to them.
Philip White (NIT Editor)
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
12 Economist.com: Nuclear arms control
Saturday February 26th 2005 denotes
The Economist Intelligence Unit
Feb 25th 2005 From Economist.com
The world's avowed nuclear powers are America, Russia, China,
France, Britain and since 1998, India and Pakistan. Israel too
has the bomb, but does not talk of it. Late in the cold war and
several times since, Russia and America have cut their huge
arsenals in treaties, though both retain enough warheads to wipe
out humanity.
Now in the spotlight are the potential spread of weapons-grade
nuclear materials and know-how to rogue states like North Korea
and Iran; Russias leaky nuclear security; and non-state nuclear
terrorism (perhaps in the form of a low-tech dirty bomb ). The
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is the cornerstone of
anti-proliferation efforts. But it is inadequate: Israel, India
and Pakistan never signed the treaty, Iran seems to be working
on nukes despite having signed it, North Korea withdrew from it
completely and terrorists could not care less.
The anti-proliferation effort got a boost in December 2003 when
Libya renounced its efforts to make a bomb. It was soon
discovered that a Pakistani scientist had been selling secrets
to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Since then an American-inspired
programme for interdicting banned materials has been gaining
momentum and the UN set a deadline in October 2004 for
governments everywhere to implement anti-trafficking controls.
Meanwhile, defence scientists have been put to task working on
technologies to detect smuggled weapons-grade materials.
Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2005. All rights
*****************************************************************
13 Fwd: Diablo Nuke Plant steam generator approved-MFP disapprove
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 16:20:23 -0000
--- In SantaBarbaraSocialJustice@yahoogroups.com, Sheila Baker
wrote:
Diablo Canyon's steam generator replacement approved
By April Charlton/Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - The California Public Utilities Commission made the
preliminary finding Thursday that a proposed steam generator
replacement project at Diablo Nuclear Canyon Power Plant is cost
effective.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. filed an application with the PUC to
replace the steam generators for units 1 and 2 at the power plant.
Replacing the generators would allow Diablo to remain in service
until its licenses expire in 2021 and 2025.
aAds = new Array();aAds[0] = new Array();aAds[0][0]
= 'news+local+middle';aAds[0][1] = '10087';aAds[0][2] = 'gif';aAds[0]
[3] = '';aAds[0][4] = '1';displayAd
('http://adsys.townnews.com', 'santamariatimes.com', aAds);
In addition, PG&E has proposed the energy company's ratepayers foot
the majority of the bill for the $706-million project, which is why
it was in front of the PUC.
"We're encouraged that the PUC thinks this project will be cost-
effective for our ratepayers," Jeff Lewis, PG&E spokesman, said about
the interim decision that will go back to the five-member PUC board
this fall for definitive approval.
The PUC action effectively gives the green light to PG&E to begin the
process of preparing an environmental impact report for the project,
which is expected to be complete by summer.
But the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace believes the decision was
illegal, as the project's environmental impact report has yet to be
completed.
The group claims the California Environmental Quality Act prohibits
the practice of approving a rate increase without a completed
environmental impact report and has filed a formal protest.
Diablo Canyon units 1 and 2 went into operation in 1985 and 1986,
respectively. There are eight steam generators, four per unit, which
are large heat exchangers that convert heat from the reactor into
steam. The steam drives turbines, which in turn produce electricity.
The company proposes replacing all eight generators.
* Staff writer April Charlton can be reached at 489-4206, Ext. 5016,
or by
e-mail at acharlton@p...
Feb. 25, 2005
www.santamariatimes.com
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
--- End forwarded message ---
*****************************************************************
14 [NukeNet] NRC about long overdue in deciding whistleblower case
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:08 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Please see the attached letter from Dave Lochbaum, a former whistleblower
himself, concerning the NRC's delay in deciding the case of Dr. Kymn
Harvin. Dr. Harvin is a former senior manager turned whistleblower at
PSEG's Salem reactors. PSEG's Salem and Hope Creek plants are have been
under Exelon management since mid-January.
Suzanne Leta
Energy Associate
NJPIRG
11 N. Willow St
Trenton, NJ 08608
609 394 8155 x310
sleta@njpirg.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Lochbaum
To: Dave Lochbaum
Cc: ARB@nrc.gov ; DLS@nrc.gov ;
DPS@nrc.gov ;
LLJ.owf4_po.OWFN_DO@nrc.gov ;
NAS@nrc.gov ; SRB3@nrc.gov
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 9:14 AM
Subject: UCS letter to NRC about long overdue
Good Day:
Attached is an electronic version of a letter placed in the mail this
morning to the NRC Chairman and Commissioners. A former nuclear worker went
to the NRC nearly 18 months ago with allegations, including one that her
termination was in retaliation for having conveyed safety concerns to
senior management. Despite internal procedures that specify allegations to
be addressed within 180 days and investigations to be completed within 18
months, the NRC has yet to announce a decision on this matter.
"Justice delayed is justice denied." Chalk up another case of NRC denying
justice to a nuclear plant worker. That brings the score to about three
zillion and forty eight to zero.
Thanks,
Dave Lochbaum
Nuclear Safety Engineer
Union of Concerned Scientists
1707 H Street NW Suite 600
Washington, DC 20006-3962
(202) 223-6133 (office)
(202) 331-5430 (direct line)
(202) 223-6162 (fax)
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\20050225-ucs-nrc-harvin-overdue-conclusion.pdf"
*****************************************************************
15 [NukeNet] NY Times Joins Call to Protect Nuclear, Chemical
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:02 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Subject: NY Times Joins Call to Protect Nuclear, Chemical Plants
The New York Times
Sunday, February 20, 2005
EDITORIAL
Our Unnecessary Insecurity
Sept. 11 changed everything," the saying goes. It is striking, however, how
much has not changed in the three and a half years since nearly 3,000 people
were killed on American soil. The nation's chemical plants are still a
horrific accident waiting to happen. Nuclear material that could be made
into a "dirty bomb," or even a nuclear device, and set off in an American
city remains too accessible to terrorists. Critical tasks, from inspecting
shipping containers to upgrading defenses against biological weapons, are
being done poorly or not at all.
Costly as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were in lives, the death toll from a
chemical, biological or nuclear attack could be far, far greater. A nation
as open and complex as ours can never be totally safe from such dangers. But
there is a great deal that can be done, without compromising our basic
liberties, to eliminate obvious openings for terrorist attacks.
The biggest obstacles to making the nation safer have been lack of political
will and failure to carry out the most effective policies. The Bush
administration and Congress have been reluctant to provide the necessary
money - even while they are furiously reducing revenue with tax cuts. The
funds that are available are often misdirected. And Washington has caved to
pressure from interest groups, like the chemical industry, that have fought
increased security measures.
Most of all, the government has failed to lay out a broad strategy for
making the nation more secure. Among the most troubling vulnerabilities that
have yet to be seriously addressed:
Chemical Plants After Sept. 11, the Environmental Protection Agency
identified 123 chemical plants that could, in a worst-case attack, endanger
one million or more people. There is an urgent need for greater action to
protect them. But the chemical industry, a major Bush-Cheney campaign
contributor, has bitterly fought needed safeguards. In her recent book "It's
My Party Too," the former administrator of the E.P.A., Christie Whitman,
said that chemical industry lobbyists thwarted the reasonable safety rules
that she and the Department of Homeland Security tried to impose.
Nuclear Materials A nuclear attack in an American city is the ultimate
nightmare. The desire, on the part of the terrorists, is there: Osama bin
Laden has declared acquisition of nuclear weapons to be a religious duty.
Fortunately, there are considerable logistical and technological hurdles to
terrorists' setting off a nuclear device. But it is far from impossible, and
a so-called dirty bomb, which disperses radioactive material without a
nuclear explosion, could be less of a challenge to make. The key to
prevention is identifying and securing nuclear weapons and materials,
especially in the former Soviet Union.
Nuclear Power Plants There are more than 100 nuclear reactors producing
energy in the United States. Many of them are in heavily populated areas.
Some may be vulnerable to a suicide attack from the air, particularly if a
plane managed to crack the wall around the pool of spent fuel, causing a
fire that would send clouds of toxic gas into the atmosphere. Setting off a
truck bomb could also have a devastating effect. While the plants are
protected by armed guards, not all of those teams are of the highest
quality. If the government can federalize airport luggage checkers, it
should be able to provide the same consistency to security around nuclear
power plants.
Port Security One of the greatest threats to national security is the
possibility that a weapon of mass destruction could be smuggled in on one of
the millions of shipping containers that arrive from overseas every year.
The government is doing more than it once did to inspect these containers,
but there is still far too little money and manpower devoted to this crucial
task.
Hazardous Waste Transport Millions of tons of highly toxic chemicals and
nuclear waste are shipped by railroad and truck, much of it through or near
densely populated areas. The District of Columbia Council recently adopted a
temporary ban on such shipments after a Naval Research Laboratory scientist
warned that if a 90-ton tanker car carrying chlorine crashed during a Fourth
of July celebration at the National Mall, it could kill 100,000 people in 30
minutes. But it makes no sense that one municipality is protecting itself
against a worst-case situation while in other parts of the country,
regulation of the transport of hazardous materials remains woefully
inadequate.
Bioterrorism The anthrax attacks of the fall of 2001 only began to suggest
the devastating power of biological weapons. While officials are all too
aware of the mortality rate that would follow an attack with weapons-grade
anthrax, smallpox or plague, controls are still spotty. Lethal pathogens are
too often stored in insecure laboratories.
Given these serious gaps, it is disturbing to see limited resources used as
inefficiently as they have been. Fighting the last war, the Bush
administration is devoting far too great a proportion of domestic security
spending to preventing the hijacking of commercial aircraft. For a long
time, it engaged in a draconian crackdown on academic visas, while the
nation's borders - the likeliest entry points for future terrorists -
remained as porous as ever. And with the stakes literally life or death, the
pork-barrel politics that have controlled domestic security funds - giving
Wyoming more per capita than New Jersey - are simply unconscionable.
While the administration does too little on one hand, it overreacts on the
other, and seems oblivious to how its excesses are actually making America
less safe. The abuse of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the refusal to abide
by either international law or basic constitutional principles do little to
protect the nation, but make it harder for us to enlist much-needed allies,
and provide powerful talking points for terrorist recruiting drives.
Many Americans have a false sense of security because there has not been a
terrorist assault in the United States since the
World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were attacked. But that may have
less to do with terrorists' intents than their timeline. Eight years went by
between the 1993 attack that failed to bring down the World Trade Center and
the one that finally did.
Looking back, we feel a natural frustration at all the warning signs that
were ignored before Sept. 11. There is now a wide array of government
reports, private studies and even best-selling books alerting us to
remaining vulnerabilities. If the United States is hit by another attack at
one of those points, we will have only ourselves to blame.
Suzanne Leta
Energy Associate
NJPIRG
11 N. Willow St
Trenton, NJ 08608
609 394 8155 x310
sleta@njpirg.org
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
16 Exelon Forces "Raw Deal" on TMI Community
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:05 -0800
TMI Tax Settlement Called 'Raw Deal'
by Jim T. Ryan February 23, 2005
Eric Epstein, a nuclear energy watchdog with TMI Alert and EFMR
Monitoring, said Tuesday that a proposed tax settlement on TMI's Units 1 & 2
reactors is a "raw deal" for the public. He urged the Dauphin County
Commissioners not to approve the agreement in an analysis of the proposed
deal.
"The settlement is bad for the taxpayers of Londonderry Twp., Lower Dauphin
School District and Dauphin County," Epstein said yesterday.
In the months since Lower Dauphin School District and Londonderry
Township approved the settlement terms, the county commissioners asked
Epstein to analyze the agreement before they voted on whether to accept its
provisions.
Under the proposed settlement Dauphin County would receive $123,000 in
2005, and $112,000 for 2006-08; Lower Dauphin School District would receive
$332,000 in 2005 and $303,000 for 2006-08; and Londonderry Township would
receive $34,000 in 2005 and $31,000 in 2006-08.
The commissioners could vote today whether or not to accept the settlement.
Epstein said the TMI properties are "grossly undervalued using specious
logic and inadequate information."
The analysis also compares TMI with Limerick nuclear power station in
Montgomery County, another Exelon Energy holding, that was recently
reassessed for tax purposes. "At a minimum, Unit 1 should have a comparable
value to Limerick and taxes should be based on that," Epstein said.
In that tax deal, Montgomery County will receive $392,400 from Exelon
through 2009, according to Epstein's analysis. Spring-Ford Area School
District would get $2.08 million in taxes for both the 2005-06 and 2006-07
school years and $1.87 million for 2007-09 school years. Limerick's home
township would receive $109,230 from 2005 -09. "Both units had a value that
wasn't captured in the settlement," Epstein said about TMI's deal.
Capital improvements and mechanical replacements in the facility are
among those things, he said. With the new components and upgrades in
security, Epstein said there are improvements to TMI that were not contained
in the original assessments by the county and AmerGen Energy, the subsidiary
of Exelon that owns TMI's Unit 1 reactor.
Under the proposed settlement, the assessment of TMI Unit 1 would drop
from $64.9 million to $20 million in 2005, then $18.3 million through 2008.
A countywide reassessment, which took effect in 1998, placed a value of
$939.4 million on the Limerick nuclear plant property. PECO appealed the
assessment in 1999 and won a $26.8 million assessment reduction to $912.6
million.
Epstein said TMI's Unit 2 reactor, where the 1979 accident occurred, also
has value that was not taken into consideration for the assessment and
settlement, which has the taxing bodies refunding money to FirstEnergy.
Epstein said the refund on taxes for Unit 2 made no sense because the
facility has value as a waste storage facility and could be used for other
power generating operations in the future if the site is cleaned and sold.
"The worst case scenario, even if they shut down, is that they have value as
waste storage," Epstein said.
In the report to the commissioners, Epstein proposed several actions to
remedy the situation. First, the agreement should be decoupled and evaluated
on a Unit-1 (Exelon) by Unit-2 (FirstEnergy) basis. Second, the county,
Lower Dauphin School District and Londonderry Township should pool their
collective resources and retain counsel to pursue, clarify, and resolve
issues raised in the analysis. And third, the proposed settlement should be
rejected and replaced by an agreement similar to the one at the Limerick
Nuclear Generating Station.
"The collective taxing bodies involved in this settlement process should
renegotiate an agreement that more closely resembles the Limerick-Exelon
Settlement," Epstein's analysis concludes.
County OKs deal on TMI taxes
Thursday, February 24, 2005
BY JACK SHERZER
Of The Patriot-News
Dauphin County's commissioners yesterday said they were holding their
noses in approving a deal that lowers taxes for the Three Mile Island
nuclear plant, calling it the best of bad choices.
The deal has already been approved by the Lower Dauphin School District
and Londonderry Twp. Over the next five years, the three entities would
refund a combined $1.07 million in real estate taxes collected from 2002 to
2004 on the nonworking part of the plant.
Advertisement
Though AmerGen, the owner of the operating part of the plant, is not
seeking a tax refund, the deal calls for lowering the facility's property
assessment from $64.9 million to $20 million over the next three years,
reducing the company's annual real estate tax bill by thousands of dollars.
"This reminds me of when my grandmother said I had to take cod liver oil
because it was good for me," said commission Chairman Jeff Haste, who with
Commissioner Nick DiFrancesco voted to approve the deal. "It stunk going
down, and it didn't taste good."
Attorneys for the school district, county and township have said court
decisions have narrowed what could be considered in calculating property
value. Such items as the cooling towers or the reactors can be viewed as
moveable equipment and not subject to real estate taxation, the lawyers
said.
Commissioner George Hartwick III, who voted against the settlement,
agreed that going to court would be risky, but said he felt someone had to
make a stand. "I'm philosophically opposed anytime a for-profit company is
trying to reduce its fair share of tax liability and puts it on the backs of
the community," Hartwick said.
But if the county lost the tax case in court, it could cost more than
$500,000, instead of the county's $258,593 refund, county solicitor William
Tully said.
The settlement ends appeals by the nuclear plant's owners after the 2001
countywide reassessment, which set the value of the defunct part of the
plant at $16.2 million and the operational part of the facility at $64.9
million.
Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp. owns the unused section of the plant.
AmerGen Nuclear owns the working part of the plant.
Representatives from both owners have said they believe the tax deal is
fair.
Ralph DiSantis, spokesman for AmerGen, which owns the still-operating
TMI Unit 1, said the company would not seek a refund. "We wanted to be
a good neighbor," DiSantis said but added, "I don't think that anyone that
pays taxes would want to pay more taxes than the law says you should pay."
Richard Wilkins, spokesman for FirstEnergy, which would receive the
$1.07 million refund, has said the company should not have been taxed on
something that isn't working and that can't be used. FirstEnergy would also
give Londonderry Twp. $10,000 annually toward police and fire services, he
said.
Eric Epstein of Three Mile Island Alert urged the commissioners to
reject the deal, saying he believed the plant's real estate worth could be
calculated substantially higher.
Epstein said he'll focus on trying to force AmerGen to give more money to
the communities as part of a proposed merger.
Exelon Corp., Amergen's parent company, is seeking to acquire Public
Service Enterprise Group Inc. as part of a $12 billion stock deal that would
create the nation's largest electricity-generation company. Because
Pennsylvania law requires any utility merger to be "in the public interest,"
advocates, such as Epstein, can become involved in negotiations.
JACK SHERZER: 255-8263 or jsherzer@patriot-news.com
*****************************************************************
17 IPS-English UAE: Enhancing Nuclear Energy to Ease Water
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:11:13 -0800
ROMAIPS AP EN SC
UAE: Enhancing Nuclear Energy to Ease Water Shortage, Save Lives
By Meena S Janardhan
DUBAI, Feb 25 (IPS) - In a Middle Eastern atmosphere that has just buried
the controversy
related to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and ripe with the United
States and Europe
pressuring Iran to come clean on its nuclear programme, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) is
showcasing how nuclear technology can be used for peaceful and productive
purposes.
The UAE signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as early as
1996, and is now
pursuing the use of nuclear technology in the fields of water desalination
and medicine.
The Emirates are the world's third largest per capita consumer of water
after the U.S. and
Canada. According to recent statistics, water consumption is expected to
increase by 44 per
cent to 3.2 billion cubic meters by 2025.
An extensive desalination programme meets the spiralling demand for
water in the country,
and it has made the country now the second largest producer of desalinated
water after Saudi
Arabia.
In a press statement, Saeed Mohammad Al Raqabani, minister of
agriculture and fisheries,
said: ''Our meagre water resources are under tremendous pressure and this
will continue as
long as there are expansion programmes, since the demand is increasing.''
"If a country has less than 200 millimeters of rain per year then it is
classified as one of the
arid countries. The UAE has a lot less rain than that," he added.
According to an official report, the average amount of renewable fresh
water available in the
UAE is already less than 250 cubic meters per person per year, which is
well below the average
international per capita water consumption.
Plans are now afoot to use nuclear energy to desalinate water. This is
a cost-effective process
that will help reduce the stress on the country's depleting water
resources, and has received the
blessing of the Federal National Council (FNC).
Warning that rapid population growth was putting more pressure on fresh
water supplies, the
FNC approved recommendations that called for the use of nuclear energy
technology for
desalination to help meet the challenges facing underground water resources.
''The council also called for intensive strategic research on the
subject and the construction of
more dams to help secure the country's water resources. It has also called
for spreading
awareness about the need for rationalising water consumption,'' said a
Dubai Municipality
official.
Middle Eastern and North African countries suffer from a shortage of
fresh water resources.
Statistical analysis shows that fresh water resources in these countries
constitute less than 13
percent of the average world resources per capita. In the Arab world, the
rapid increase in
population and an increase in living standards have led to a greater demand
for fresh water and
electricity.
''Arabian Gulf countries are located in an arid area with limited water
resources. Hydrological
investigations point to large resources of underground water, but they are
saline and need to
be desalted,'' said Mohammed Khan, the technical manager of a water factory
in Sharjah, one of
the seven emirates.
''The best choice for providing fresh water in the Gulf countries is
through seawater
desalination with groundwater as a back-up,'' he added. ''About 65 percent
of desalination
plants that are in operation worldwide are located in the Arabian Gulf
countries.''
The UAE is the third among 10 major countries using desalination for
the treatment of water.
''The government feels that the use of nuclear technology would be
cost-effective and would
spare the country the millions of dirhams it spends on water desalination
projects every year,''
said the Dubai Municipality official.
As early as the 1960s, the International Atomic Energy Agency started
surveying the feasibility
of using nuclear reactors for seawater desalination. Nuclear desalination
has been implemented
in certain locations in Kazakhstan and in Japan.
''Desalination processes are highly power intensive. Different types of
energies are used to
bridge the gap between these processes and the general increased demand in
production.
Nuclear reactors can be coupled with desalination plants,'' said water
factory manager
Mohammed. ''This integrated plant will be capable of producing power and
water at reasonable
cost. Maintenance and operating costs will drop significantly.''
Egypt is another country that is looking at this option. Prime Minister
Ahmed Nazif, as quoted
in the 'Al-Ahram' newspaper, said: ''Egypt has a peaceful nuclear programme
for nuclear energy
directed fundamentally towards generating electricity and desalinating water.''
The UAE is also looking at nuclear technology to save lives. Set up in
1983, the nuclear
medicine department at Al Mafraq Hospital in Abu Dhabi, the capital, is one
of the first nuclear
medicine centres that helps in the early diagnosis and cure of cancer
patients.
The department's key role is to process scans of organs and treat
various types of cancer.
Diagnostic techniques in nuclear medicine use radioactive tracers that emit
gamma rays from
within the body. They can be given by injection, inhalation or orally.
For most diagnosis, the diseased organ of the patient is injected with
a tiny dose of
radioactive pharmaceuticals, which has agents that will not harm the
patient. Different
radioactive pharmaceuticals are used for different organs. These
radioactive pharmaceuticals
emit gamma rays that are then captured for scans. A distinct advantage of
nuclear imaging over
X-ray techniques is that both bone and soft tissue can be imaged very
successfully.
Special radioactive substances are also given to patients who have
cancer spreading in the
bones and the pain becomes unbearable. (END/IPS/AP/EN/SC/MJ/SI/05)
= 02250514 ORP002
NNNN
*****************************************************************
18 Fredericksburg.com: Want the whole story on nuclear power? You pay, big time
The Free Lance-Star
Date published: 2/25/2005
In an article about the North Anna Power Station, The Free
Lance-Star reported that Dominion employee Lisa Shell said,
"We're here because we don't think the media are telling the
whole story" ["Citizenry speaks out against North Anna
reactors," Feb. 18].
I agree. If the media were attempting to tell the whole story
about nuclear power, news- papers would report that the industry
exists only because of anti-market subsidies it receives.
Nuclear power is uninsurable. It has always been, due to the
cost of catastrophic accidents, and it is even more so today
because of the increased threat of terrorist attacks.
Through the Price-Anderson Act, the federal government
dramatically limits the liability of nuclear operators in the
event of an accident.
The public also pays most of the nuclear-waste costs. Yucca
Mountain, the proposed long-term waste-storage facility, is
estimated to ultimately cost $58 billion--enough money to build
60,000 production windmills.
Yucca Mountain cannot handle all of the nation's radioactive
waste; it has recently been blocked by the courts and may never
open.
Dominion's quest for a license to build new reactors near
Richmond is also being substantially supported by taxpayers.
Recently, Dominion asked the DOE for $250 million to help cover
the costs of the design and construction license.
If the media were giving the full story on nuclear power, the
taxpayers would revolt over these subsidies and the government
would stop wasting its resources.
Paxus Calta
Louisa
Date published: 2/25/2005
Fredericksburg.com, 605 William Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401
Comments? Send us Feedback, Phone: 540-368-5055 To contact all
other newspaper departments, please call 540-374-5000. Copyright
2005, The Free Lance-Star Publishing Co. of Fredericksburg, Va.
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: NRC Seeks Public Input on Environmental Impact Statement for Proposed Point Beach
Nuclear Plant License Renewal
News Release - Region III - 2005-00
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region III
No. III-05-006 February 24, 2005
CONTACT: Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662 E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov
public meetings on Thursday, Mar. 3, in Mishicot, Wis., to
receive public input on the environmental review related to an
application to extend the operating licenses for the Point Beach
1 and 2 nuclear power plants. The plants, which are operated by
Nuclear Management Co., are located near Two Rivers, Wis.
Members of the public are invited to attend and comment on the
NRCs draft document on the environmental impact of the proposed
license renewal. The meetings will be held in the Fox Hills
Convention Center, 250 W. Church St., Mishicot.
In its draft Environmental Impact Statement, the NRC staff
reaches the preliminary conclusion that there are no
environmental impacts that would preclude the renewal of the
operating licenses for the two units.
The first session will begin at 1:30 p.m. and continue until
4:30 p.m. The second session, which will offer the same
presentations as the first session, will be at 7 p.m. and
continue until 10 p.m. The NRC staff will also host an open
house beginning one hour before the start of each meeting to
provide members of the public with an opportunity to talk
informally with agency staff. However, formal comments must be
expressed during the transcribed meetings.
Both sessions will begin with an overview and a summary by the
NRC staff of the preliminary results of the environmental
review. After the NRC presentation, members of the public will
be given the opportunity to present their comments on the draft
supplement to the Generic Environmental Impact Statement on
license renewal. The draft supplement includes information
specific to the Point Beach facility.
Under NRC regulations, the original operating license for a
nuclear power plant has a term of 40 years. The license may be
renewed for up to an additional 20 years if NRC requirements are
met. The current operating license for Point Beach 1 is due to
expire on Oct. 5, 2010, while the current operating license for
Point Beach 2 is scheduled to terminate on Mar. 8, 2013.
Nuclear Management Co. submitted its license renewal application
on February 26, 2004. As part of its application, the company
submitted an environmental report. A copy of the application is
available via the NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati
ons/point-beach.html. A copy of the draft supplement to the
Generic Environmental Impact Statement is available at the same
location.
In addition, the Point Beach license renewal documents are
available for review at the Lester Public Library, 1001 Adams
St., Two Rivers.
For planning purposes, individuals wishing to speak at the
meetings are encouraged to pre-register by contacting Ms. Stacey
Imboden at 1-800- 368-5642, extension 2462, or by e-mail at
PointBeachEIS@nrc.govno later than Mar. 1. Interested parties
may also register to speak before the start of the meeting. Time
for comments may be limited to accommodate all speakers.
Written comments on the draft supplement to the GEIS will also
be considered by the NRC staff. Comments should be submitted
either by mail to the Chief, Rules and Directives Branch,
Division of Administrative Services, Mail Stop T-6 D 59, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, or by
e-mail to PointBeachEIS@nrc.gov.
At the conclusion of the public comment period on April 13,
2005, the NRC staff will consider and address the comments
submitted and issue a final supplement to the GEIS. That
supplement will contain a recommendation regarding the
environmental acceptability of the proposed license renewal.
Last revised Friday, February 25, 2005
*****************************************************************
20 BBC: Germany split over green energy
Last Updated: Friday, 25 February, 2005
[Wind farm]
The German government is backing wind power
Germany's ambitious plan to phase out nuclear power by 2020 while
also reducing its reliance on fossil fuels has made it a leader
in efforts to fulfil the Kyoto protocol.
But critics are now predicting an energy crisis.
Germany's government is hoping that abandoning its reliance on
coal - which currently accounts for around half of the country's
power needs - will cut carbon dioxide emissions by 40% compared
with 1990 levels, well below what is required in Kyoto.
But the country is also, crucially, abandoning its nuclear
programme - planning to phase reactors out completely by 2020.
Some in the industry - including advocates of renewable energy -
have called this a "contradiction".
"It is a fact that nuclear plants work without CO2 emissions,"
Petra Ullman, of energy company Eon - which runs a number of
nuclear power stations - told BBC World Service's One Planet
programme.
"In a year, in Germany we save 170 million tonnes of CO2 by using
nuclear power plants. If we shut down the nuclear power plants,
the only alternative is coal."
Radical proposals
The architect of Germany's radical energy strategy is the
government's Environment Minister, Green Party leader Juergen
Trittin.
He has already outlined the proposals to the EU.
"We are on a strategy to phase out nuclear, to raise the share of
renewables, and to increase the efficiency of fossil power
plants," he said.
[German power station]
Germany currently uses a large mix of energy sources
"We understand that this makes it possible that in the year 2020,
when we have phased out nuclear, we will have been able to reduce
greenhouse emissions by 40% compared with 1990."
Under the current legislation, each of Germany's 19 reactors will
be phased out on its 32nd birthday - at which point it is closed.
The first one - the Stade nuclear reactor near Hamburg - has
already shut and is awaiting decommissioning.
To replace the energy demands, the government is proposing to
boost its already considerable investment in wind power.
Germany already produces 40% of all the world's wind power, and
the hope is that by 2010, wind will meet 12.5% of German energy
needs.
The country has 16,000 wind turbines, mostly concentrated in the
north of the country, near the border with Denmark - including
the biggest in the world, owned by the Repower company.
It is called the 5M - short for 5 megawatts - has a 126m
diameter, and the one turbine has the ability to power 4,500
households.
Repower hopes it is a prototype for offshore farms.
Postponement call
However, Dr Fritz Vahrenholt, Repower's chairman, has called for
a postponement of the nuclear closure programme.
"It is not very prudent to close the actual nuclear power plants
we have," he told One Planet.
[Jurgen Trittin]
Ten yea ago people told us that there would never be enough
capacity to have relevant share produced by wind - now the same
people tell me we have too much wind Juergen Trittin
"Thirty-three percent of the electricity produced is
nuclear.
"My proposal is to postpone the phasing out of nuclear power
plants for five or eight years - which gives us the opportunity
to develop really competitive renewable energy."
He also said there was "majority" support for this proposal
amongst ordinary Germans, arguing that "I think there is an
awareness that we cannot afford such a stark decrease in nuclear
power."
And he believes every government will have to face the problem of
rising electricity costs.
"If you stick to this plan of shutting a nuclear plant every
year, the only result is more imports," he said.
Cost concerns
Professor Wolfgang Pfaffenberger of the Bremen Energy Institute
is sceptical about the potential for wind power.
"The specific problem is that you cannot always have the wind
when you need the energy," he argued.
"That's why at the moment more than 15% of our capacity is wind
power - but it produces only 3% of our energy.
"So we have to build up an enormous over-capacity - which adds to
our cost."
[Stade nuclear power plant]
The Stade nuclear plant was shut in November 2003
Dr Pfaffenberger points out that an average kilowatt from wind
costs 10 cents, whereas the average cost of electricity on the
market is only about one-third of this.
He conceded there is potential to expand use of natural gas - but
this is risky as Russia would be the main supplier, and could
dictate the price.
However Mr Trittin dismissed these concerns.
"Ten years ago people told us that there would never be enough
capacity to have a relevant share produced by wind - now the same
people tell me we have too much wind, and have to export
electricity because we have such a huge share of wind energy," he
stated.
"So I can't take these arguments seriously."
He stressed he was "convinced" Germany would reach its target.
And he dismissed Dr Pfaffenberger's concerns about cost out of
hand.
"He is wrong - simple," he said.
"To hear such arguments from people who haven't learned anything
in the last half century - I am very calm on that."
*****************************************************************
21 NRC: NRC Licensing Board Finds in Favor of Company in PFS Case; Decision Now Goes to Commission
News Release - 2005-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 05-034 February 24,
2005
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent judicial
arm of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, issued a decision
today on the last issue before it on the spent nuclear fuel
storage facility proposed for Skull Valley, Utah, by the Private
Fuel Storage (PFS) consortium. By a 2-1 vote, the Board ruled in
favor of PFS, rejecting the State of Utahs assertions that there
is too high a probability that a radiation release could be
caused by the accidental crash of one of the 7,000 flights made
down Skull Valley every year by F-16 single-engine jets from
Hill Air Force Base.
With the Licensing Boards role now completed, the determination
whether to issue the requested license now goes to the five
Commissioners who head the NRC, who will also hear any appeals.
The PFS facility would be located on the Reservation of the
Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians, about 50 miles southwest
of Salt Lake City. The proposed above-ground facility, whose
principal opponent is the State of Utah, is intended for
temporary storage of the waste fuel from U.S. nuclear power
plants.
During a formal 16-day trial which ended in mid-September 2004,
the Licensing Board had heard expert witnesses and received
documentary evidence from the Applicant PFS, the NRC Staff, and
the State of Utah on (1) the strength of the steel and concrete
outer casks and the stainless steel inner canisters holding the
spent fuel and (2) the speeds and angles at which F-16s have
previously crashed around the world. The Board majority
concluded that the probability of a crash at a speed and angle
sufficient to breach one of the stainless steel canisters
holding spent nuclear fuel was less than one-in-a-million per
year. Under the NRCs standards, a facility like PFS does not
have to be designed against such an unlikely accident.
Nearly two years ago, the Licensing Board had upheld the States
initial argument, blocking issuance of the PFS license, by
finding that the probability of an accidental F-16 crash onto
the proposed site was too high unless it could be shown that
such a crash would have no adverse radiological consequences.
The Applicants appeal of that decision to the Commission was
held in abeyance pending the second phase of the F-16 crash
inquiry.
Earlier today, the Licensing Board also issued in the PFS matter
an unrelated decision declining to consider a new contention the
State had recently filed, after the aircraft hearing had been
closed, based on remarks assertedly made by an official of the
U.S. Department of Energy concerning the ultimate fate of spent
fuel stored at the proposed PFS facility. The Board determined
that at this late stage, and in light of DOE documents that
contradicted the remarks, it would not reopen the hearing record
to adjudicate the matter, which it indicated was instead worthy
of attention by the Commission.
The full reasoning justifying the Licensing Boards F-16 accident
decision cannot be released because it contains
non-publicly-available (Safeguards Information) facts and
analyses concerning the impact of plane crashes on concrete and
steel objects. For that same reason, the evidentiary hearing had
been closed to the public.
The Board did prepare a version of its opinion that sets forth
only a general summary of those aspects of its reasoning, and
that version is being made publicly available. A copy of that
68-page version may be obtained from the NRCs web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/adjudicatory/pfs-aircraf
t05.pdf [PDF Icon] .
Last revised Friday, February 25, 2005
*****************************************************************
22 Petroleum News: Nuclear making comeback -
Vol. 10, No. 9 Week of February 27, 2005
Some ‘Greens’ jump on bandwagon for controversial power source;
uranium stockpiled
Rose Ragsdale
Petroleum News Contributing Writer
Nuclear energy is making a comeback and bringing its source
mineral, uranium, with it. This turnaround is evident and
gaining steam in scientific and political circles. But nowhere
is the proliferation of pro-nuclear power forces raising more
eyebrows than in the environmental community.
“The revival of nuclear energy in the United States and all
over the world is already happening right now,” said William
Magwood, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of
Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology.
Magwood said nuclear power, as recently as 1998, was a dead
issue among national policy makers. But a fast forward to 2005
shows a renewed push to build new reactors in the United States,
college students rushing to enroll in nuclear engineering
programs and a burgeoning of international cooperation to
develop new designs for next-generation nuclear power plants, he
said.
On Capitol Hill, bringing more nuclear power into the nation’s
energy mix is being touted as a terrific plan by Republicans
seeking to pass a bipartisan energy bill.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Sen. Pete Domenici,
R-N.M., a powerful nuclear ally, recently told members of the
American Nuclear Society that he has been waiting for some time
now to see if the United States would come to its senses and
move ahead again with an energy source that is clearly clean,
and taken in total, much safer than any other form of energy for
producing electricity.
The United States, he said, finds itself becoming more and more
dependent on imports of natural gas as well as oil. The country
faces a clear dilemma, as there is no relationship more certain
that the availability of electricity and material wealth — “they
go together like day and night.”
Domenici said he gives a fuller explanation of his views in his
new book: “A Brighter Tomorrow: Fulfilling the Promise of
Nuclear Energy.”
Professional societies lining up behind pro-nuclear
scientistsMeanwhile, professional societies are lining up behind
growing numbers of scientists who say nuclear power is the only
viable alternative energy to slow the world’s production of
greenhouse gases and global warming.
The 120,000-member American Society of Mechanical Engineers, for
example, recently endorsed nuclear power as a safe and efficient
source for supplying America’s growing energy needs.
Proponents of nuclear power say a surge in the world’s
population in the next 50 years from 6 billion to 9 billion
people will put unprecedented strain on global energy resources.
Today, two-thirds of the world’s people consume electricity
produced by 440 nuclear reactors, which accounts for a 16
percent global share.
Expanding nuclear power generation is a strong, clean energy
opportunity, they say.
Why? Because in contrast to the 25 billion tons of carbon
dioxide emitted into the atmosphere yearly by fossil fuels,
spent fuel from a comparable amount of nuclear energy would fit
inside a two-story structure built on a basketball court,
according to statistics compiled by the World Nuclear
Association.
Some environmentalists favor nuclearBut a small group of
environmentalists are attracting growing attention with their
favorable stance on nuclear power.
Led by James Lovelock, Great Britain’s premier environmental
scientist, Environmentalists for Nuclear is winning over more
and more “Greens” and others to the merits of nuclear energy.
“We cannot continue drawing from fossil fuels and there is no
chance that the ‘renewables’ — wind, tide and water power — can
provide enough energy and in time,” said Lovelock, who authored
the Gaia Theory — the idea that the Earth is one giant living
organism that regulates itself in order to sustain life.
“If we had 50 years or more, we might make these our main
sources. But we do not have 50 years. ... Even if we stop all
fossil fuel burning immediately, the consequences of what we
have already done will last for 1,000 years.”
Lovelock, along with many other environmentalists, believes that
global warming not only exists but also the danger is imminent.
He told members of the American Nuclear Society at its 2004
winter meeting that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change set up a test in 1990 — based on a rise in temperature
beyond half a degree Celsius — to see if global warming is real.
Panel members were surprised that temperatures climbed to that
level in 1999 and that it only took nine years, Lovelock said.
“Should anyone doubt how bad things are, just look at the
unprecedented heat wave in Europe in the summer of 2003,” he
said. He noted that temperature soared five standard deviations
beyond anything that had happened before.
“I regard that as the first real warning of much worse to
come,” he said. Lovelock also said he fears that if nothing is
done, the effects of global warming will become irreversible at
some point during the 21st century.
Lovelock is not alone. Berol Robinson, a scientist from Johns
Hopkins University and a member of Environmentalists for
Nuclear’s board of directors, supports nuclear power as an
alternative energy source because it’s “scientific and rational.”
While nuclear energy could easily generate a bigger share of
the world’s electricity, Robinson said it won’t replace all
forms of fossil energy “because it will not be easy to escape
our dependence on oil for road transport.”
Major environmental groups oppose nuclearIronically,
Environmentalists for Nuclear’s biggest critics, so far, have
been other environmentalists.
Greenpeace and other groups such as The Wilderness Society and
Friends of the Earth remain staunchly opposed to the spread of
nuclear power generation.
Jim Riccio, a spokesman for Greenpeace in Washington, D.C.,
said Lovelock and Environmentalists for Nuclear are so concerned
about global warming that they are grasping at any straw.
“We don’t believe nuclear reactors are viable despite the huge
government largesse that supports them,” he said. “Not one
nuclear reactor in this country has turned a profit.”
Riccio also said the public has done a good job of pointing out
the foibles of the nuclear industry, and the current push in
Congress will not result in more nuclear power plants being
built.
When asked why uranium prices have climbed dramatically in
recent months to the $21 range, Riccio said current demand for
uranium, which fuels nuclear reactors, is not real. “It’s
hypothetical demand,” he said.
Demand for uranium may be slow because the market is saturated
with tons and tons of enriched uranium and plutonium in atomic
weapons that world leaders pledged to scrap at the end of the
Cold War, but Robinson said it is very real.
“A new commodity market is unlikely to develop until this
stockpile is used up — only then will exploration and
exploitation again becoming interesting,” he added.
Robinson: Environmental groups merchants of fearLovelock said
most “Greens” have sucked themselves into a rather false and bad
position of using fear of cancer to get support,” he said. “We
all breathed in the dust of weapons testing in the 1960s. If the
Greens had been even a fraction right, we should all be dying of
much more cancer than we are. We are not. If anything, the
(cancer) rate has dropped.”
Robinson said the leading environmental groups are “merchants
of fear — fear of radioactivity itself, fear that plutonium
production will lead to a proliferation of atomic weapons, fear
that spent fuel elements (no matter how carefully disposed of)
will eventually leak into the groundwater and “poison us all,”
fear of a 9/11-like attack on a nuclear power station, and fear
of another Chernobyl or even Three Mile Island-2.”
Any practical view of conservation requires a serious look at
nuclear energy, he said.
Former congressman and longtime environmentalist Peter Kostmeyer
agreed. “One can’t favor environmental protection and not
acknowledge that nuclear energy is a big part of the picture,”
said Kostmeyer, who is policy counselor for Zero Population
Growth. “If governments are going to comply with clean air
initiatives and the Kyoto Protocol, they will not be able to do
it without nuclear energy.”
Domenici described Lovelock and others as “enlightened
environmentalists.” He also cited the views of Hugh Montefiori,
the former Bishop of Birmingham. The bishop wrote recently that
as a theologian he believes it is mankind’s duty to do as much
as it can to safeguard the future of the earth. “It is because
of that commitment that I have come to the conclusion that the
solution is to make more use of nuclear energy,” Montefiori
noted.
For his pains, Montefiori was kicked off the board of directors
of Friends of the Earth, Domenici added.
Petroleum News - Phone: 1-907 522-9469 - Fax: 1-907 522-9583
circulation@PetroleumNews.com --- http://www.petroleumnews.com
*****************************************************************
23 SF Chronicle: Diablo Canyon funding gets OK
PG to charge customers for nuclear plant improvements that still
need approval
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, February 25, 2005
State regulators gave Pacific Gas and Electric Co. preliminary
approval Thursday to charge its customers $706 million to
refurbish the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, a decision that all
but guarantees the disputed project will move forward.
San Francisco's PG wants to replace eight steam generators at
the plant, tucked into a sea cove near San Luis Obispo. The plan
has drawn fire from environmentalists, who never wanted the
plant, and consumer advocates, who question spending hundreds of
millions on a $5.8 billion facility just 20 years old.
State energy regulators have not yet formally approved the
renovation plan. But on Thursday, the California Public
Utilities Commission said PG's customers will probably pick up
the tab for the work.
That bill could range anywhere from $706 million to $815
million, the most the commission said it would be willing to
charge customers. PG could, however, win approval for higher
costs if it later convinced the commission that those charges
were necessary.
Commissioners noted Thursday that they weren't voting on the
renovations themselves and probably won't until summer, when a
full environmental review of the project is due to be finished.
But PUC President Michael Peevey described the nuclear plant as
a boon to California, generating power without pumping
climate-changing gases into the atmosphere.
"We have a bird in the hand here, so to speak," he said.
To Diablo Canyon's critics, Thursday's unanimous vote was a
clear sign that the commission will approve the renovations and
extend the nuclear plant's life span.
"Sounds like a go-ahead to me," said Jane Swanson, a spokeswoman
for the Mothers for Peace, a local residents group. Her
organization argued that the commission shouldn't grant
preliminary approval before completion of the environmental
review.
"Having this, PG is going to order the generators and say, 'We
got the green light,' " she said.
The utility has, in fact, already signed a $209 million contract
with Westinghouse to replace the generators.
Without replacements, PG would have to close the plant in 2013
or 2014, company spokesman Jeff Lewis said. That would force the
utility to find 2,260 megawatts of substitute energy elsewhere,
or roughly 20 percent of the power PG delivers across its vast
service area.
Although Thursday's decision isn't final, PG asked for it
anyway. The company, Lewis said, wanted some assurance that the
commission would eventually approve the expensive project. And
in order to meet the company's goal of replacing the first of
the generators in 2008, PG needs to start working on it
immediately, he said.
"It takes about 40 months to get these (generators) fabricated,"
Lewis said. "They aren't exactly off-the-shelf items. So the
timing worked out that we needed to get the ball rolling on this
before the final approval."
The Diablo Canyon plant has provoked protests throughout its
life. It lies slightly more than 7 miles from the nearest town,
Avila Beach, and 2 1/2 miles from an earthquake fault. Its
cooling water, pouring into Diablo Cove, has been blamed for
harming local sea life. More recently, some residents have
started to view it as a tempting target for terrorists.
Then there are the costs. Construction expenses, originally
estimated at $350 million, ballooned to $5.8 billion over time.
The Utility Reform Network, a watchdog group frequently critical
of PG, questions whether it makes financial sense to refurbish
the plant.
Beyond the cost of replacing the steam generators, PG could one
day be forced by the federal government to add new security
measures to the plant, TURN attorney Matt Freedman said. Another
quake in the area could prompt seismic upgrades.
Commissioners are pushing ahead with the project, Freedman
believes, because the threat of future blackouts has made them
leery of letting any existing power plant close.
State officials have been warning for months that Southern
California could face electricity shortages again as soon as
this summer.
"That's the political environment we're in right now," Freedman
said. "Everybody's been scared by the threat of blackouts."
E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.
Page C - 1
San Francisco Chronicle]
*****************************************************************
24 CP National News: N.B. hoping for at least $400 million from Ottawa to fix nuclear plant
canadaeast.com -
CHRIS MORRIS
FREDERICTON (CP) - The New Brunswick government is looking for a
major cash infusion from Ottawa for refurbishment of the aging
nuclear power plant at Point Lepreau, N.B.
Bruce Fitch, New Brunswick's energy minister, said Friday that
based on emission credits under the Kyoto accord, overhauling the
22-year-old reactor at Lepreau should be worth at least $400
million to Ottawa.
"The figure that is being tossed around of $400 million, that's
not out of the question," Fitch said, adding it could be
considerably more.
"That's based on greenhouse credits."
New Brunswick is negotiating with Ontario-based Bruce Power to
become a private partner in the Lepreau refurbishment, which
would extend the reactor's life by 25 years.
Premier Bernard Lord said this week that if Ottawa doesn't come
through with the cash, the province may be forced to scrap
Lepreau and look at another source of power, such as coal-fired
generation.
"It's critical for us to know how much the federal government is
willing to pay and support the nuclear industry in Canada," Lord
said.
Shawn Graham, the Opposition Liberal leader in New Brunswick,
said Friday it sounds to him like the Lord government is trying
to blackmail Ottawa.
Graham said the provincial government has missed every deadline
for deciding the future of Point Lepreau.
"Bernard Lord can't keep his word, he can't keep his commitments
and he can't negotiate energy files," Graham said.
"It's time for a new negotiator in the province of New
Brunswick."
Calls to Ottawa for comment went unanswered Friday.
Tom Adams of Energy Probe, a Toronto-based energy watchdog, said
Ottawa doesn't want to commit huge dollars to New Brunswick with
other nuclear refurbishments looming in Quebec and Ontario.
"I'm sure it has dawned on the federal government that if they
start shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to help
support the renovation in New Brunswick, they could be on the
hook for multiples of that sum of money by the time they get
through with Quebec and Ontario," Adams said.
Adams said the province should simply mothball Lepreau and move
on with other energy solutions.
The federal budget brought down earlier in the week included $4
billion to $5 billion for reducing greenhouse gases.
But Lord said he has heard that the Kyoto-inspired federal fund
does not include money to fix up existing nuclear plants.
"We were disappointed that we didn't see the words 'nuclear' or
'refurbishment' in the budget," Fitch said.
Point Lepreau is Atlantic Canada's only nuclear power plant.
Copyright © 2005 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
25 KPUA Hawaii News: Chernobyl doctor stops in Hawaii en route to Marshalls
KPUA 1145 Kilauea Ave Hilo, Hawaii 96720 PH: 808 935-5461 FAX:
808 935-7761
Friday, February 25, 2005
By Associated Press
HONOLULU (AP) _ A Ukrainian doctor who works with survivors of
the Chernobyl nuclear disaster stopped in Honolulu today while en
route to the Marshall Islands.
Dr. Lyudmyla Porokhnyak is the medical director of the Women's
Society in Ukraine.
Porokhnyak will be meeting with people affected by the United
States' test of a hydrogen bomb at Bikini atoll in the northern
Marshalls. The explosion on March First 1954 was the biggest U-S
nuclear blast in history.
Between 1946 and 1958 the United States detonated 67 nuclear
tests in the Marshall Islands.
Porokhnyak says much more still needs to be learned about the
consequences of nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl.
(Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: Draft Regulatory Guide; Issuance, Availability
FR Doc 05-3626
[Federal Register: February 25, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 37)]
[Notices] [Page 9393-9394] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25fe05-115]
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has issued for
public comment a draft of a new guide in the agency's Regulatory
Guide Series. This series has been developed to describe and make
available to the public such information as methods that are
acceptable to the NRC staff for implementing specific parts of
the NRC's regulations, techniques that the staff uses in
evaluating specific problems or postulated accidents, and data
that the staff needs in its review of applications for permits
and licenses.
The draft Regulatory Guide, entitled ``Guidelines for Lightning
Protection for Nuclear Power Plants,'' is temporarily identified
by its task number, DG-1137, which should be mentioned in all
related correspondence. This proposed regulatory guide offers
guidance for NRC licensees and applicants to use in developing
and implementing practices that the staff finds acceptable for
complying with the agency's regulatory requirements in Criterion
2, ``Design Bases for Protection Against Natural Phenomena,'' as
it appears in Appendix A, ``General Design Criteria for Nuclear
Power Plants,'' to Title 10, Part 50, of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR Part 50).
Specifically, Criterion 2 requires, in part, that nuclear power
plant (NPP) structures, systems, and components (SSCs) that are
important to safety must be designed to withstand the effects of
natural phenomena without losing their capability to perform
their respective safety functions.
While the regulations address lightning protection for safety-
related electrical equipment, they do not explicitly provide
guidance concerning the design and installation of lightning
protection systems (LPSs) to ensure that electrical transients
resulting from lightning phenomena do not cause spurious
operation safety-related systems or render them inoperable. As
proposed, DG-1137 would augment the regulations by establishing
explicit guidance that is consistent with LPS
[[Page 9394]] design and installation practices that are
currently applied throughout the commercial power industry.
Toward that end, the NRC staff has selected for endorsement a
total of four standards issued by the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which taken together, provide
comprehensive lightning protection guidance for nuclear power
plants. Specifically, the four standards are IEEE Std. 665-1995
(2001 revision), IEEE Guide for Generating Station Grounding,
IEEE Std. 666-1991, IEEE Design Guide for Electrical Power
Service Systems for Generating Stations, IEEE Std. 1050-1996,
IEEE Guide for Instrumentation and Control Equipment Grounding in
Generating Stations, and IEEE Std. C62.23-1995 (2001 revision),
IEEE Application Guide for Surge Protection of Electric
Generating Plants.
The NRC staff is soliciting comments on Draft Regulatory Guide
DG- 1137, and comments may be accompanied by relevant information
or supporting data. Please mention DG-1137 in the subject line of
your comments. Comments on this draft regulatory guide submitted
in writing or in electronic form will be made available to the
public in their entirety through the NRC's Agencywide Documents
Access and Management System (ADAMS). Personal information will
not be removed from your comments. You may submit comments by any
of the following methods.
Mail comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001.
E-mail comments to: NRCREP@nrc.gov. You may also submit comments
via the NRC's rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.
Address questions about our rulemaking Web site to Carol A.
Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail CAG@nrc.gov. Hand-deliver
comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and
4:15 p.m. on Federal workdays.
Fax comments to: Rules and Directives Branch, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301)
415-5144.
Requests for technical information about Draft Regulatory Guide
DG- 1137 may be directed to Christina E. Antonescu at (301)
415-6792 or via e-mail to CEA1@nrc.gov. Comments would be most
helpful if received by April 20, 2005. Comments received after
that date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the
NRC is able to ensure consideration only for comments received on
or before this date. Although a time limit is given, comments and
suggestions in connection with items for inclusion in guides
currently being developed or improvements in all published guides
are encouraged at any time.
Electronic copies of the draft regulatory guide are available
through the NRC's public Web site under Draft Regulatory Guides
in the Regulatory Guides document collection of the NRC's
Electronic Reading Room at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/. Electronic copies
are also available in the NRC's Agencywide Documents Access and
Management System (ADAMS) at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html, under Accession
ML050480101. Note, however, that the NRC has temporarily
suspended public access to ADAMS so that the agency can complete
security reviews of publicly available documents and remove
potentially sensitive information. Please check the NRC's Web
site for updates concerning the resumption of public access to
ADAMS.
In addition, regulatory guides are available for inspection at
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), which is located at 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland; the PDR's mailing address is
USNRC PDR, Washington, DC 20555-0001. The PDR can also be reached
by telephone at (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4205, by fax at (301)
415-3548, and by e- mail to PDR@nrc.gov. Requests for single
copies of draft or final guides (which may be reproduced) or for
placement on an automatic distribution list for single copies of
future draft guides in specific divisions should be made in
writing to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
20555-0001, Attention: Reproduction and Distribution Services
Section; by email to DISTRIBUTION@nrc.gov; or by fax to (301)
415-2289. Telephone requests cannot be accommodated. Regulatory
guides are not copyrighted, and Commission approval is not
required to reproduce them. (5 U.S.C. 552(a)) Dated at Rockville,
Maryland, this 17th day of February, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael E. Mayfield, Director, Division of Engineering
Technology, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research.
[FR Doc. 05-3626 Filed 2-24-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
27 UAE: Enhancing Nuclear Energy to Ease Water Shortage, Save Lives
DUBAI, Feb 25 (IPS) - In a Middle Eastern atmosphere that has
just buried the controversy related to Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction and ripe with the United States and Europe pressuring
Iran to come clean on its nuclear programme, the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) is showcasing how nuclear technology can be used
for peaceful and productive purposes.
The UAE signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as
early as 1996, and is now pursuing the use of nuclear technology
in the fields of water desalination and medicine.
The Emirates are the world's third largest per capita consumer of
water after the U.S. and Canada. According to recent statistics,
water consumption is expected to increase by 44 per cent to 3.2
billion cubic meters by 2025.
An extensive desalination programme meets the spiralling demand
for water in the country, and it has made the country now the
second largest producer of desalinated water after Saudi Arabia.
In a press statement, Saeed Mohammad Al Raqabani, minister of
agriculture and fisheries, said: ''Our meagre water resources are
under tremendous pressure and this will continue as long as there
are expansion programmes, since the demand is increasing.''
”If a country has less than 200 millimeters of rain per year then
it is classified as one of the arid countries. The UAE has a lot
less rain than that,” he added.
According to an official report, the average amount of renewable
fresh water available in the UAE is already less than 250 cubic
meters per person per year, which is well below the average
international per capita water consumption.
Plans are now afoot to use nuclear energy to desalinate water.
This is a cost-effective process that will help reduce the stress
on the country's depleting water resources, and has received the
blessing of the Federal National Council (FNC).
Warning that rapid population growth was putting more pressure on
fresh water supplies, the FNC approved recommendations that
called for the use of nuclear energy technology for desalination
to help meet the challenges facing underground water resources.
''The council also called for intensive strategic research on
the subject and the construction of more dams to help secure the
country's water resources. It has also called for spreading
awareness about the need for rationalising water consumption,''
said a Dubai Municipality official.
Middle Eastern and North African countries suffer from a
shortage of fresh water resources. Statistical analysis shows
that fresh water resources in these countries constitute less
than 13 percent of the average world resources per capita. In the
Arab world, the rapid increase in population and an increase in
living standards have led to a greater demand for fresh water and
electricity.
''Arabian Gulf countries are located in an arid area with
limited water resources. Hydrological investigations point to
large resources of underground water, but they are saline and
need to be desalted,'' said Mohammed Khan, the technical manager
of a water factory in Sharjah, one of the seven emirates.
''The best choice for providing fresh water in the Gulf
countries is through seawater desalination with groundwater as a
back-up,'' he added. ''About 65 percent of desalination plants
that are in operation worldwide are located in the Arabian Gulf
countries.''
The UAE is the third among 10 major countries using desalination
for the treatment of water.
''The government feels that the use of nuclear technology would
be cost-effective and would spare the country the millions of
dirhams it spends on water desalination projects every year,''
said the Dubai Municipality official.
As early as the 1960s, the International Atomic Energy Agency
started surveying the feasibility of using nuclear reactors for
seawater desalination. Nuclear desalination has been implemented
in certain locations in Kazakhstan and in Japan.
''Desalination processes are highly power intensive. Different
types of energies are used to bridge the gap between these
processes and the general increased demand in production. Nuclear
reactors can be coupled with desalination plants,'' said water
factory manager Mohammed. ''This integrated plant will be capable
of producing power and water at reasonable cost. Maintenance and
operating costs will drop significantly.''
Egypt is another country that is looking at this option. Prime
Minister Ahmed Nazif, as quoted in the 'Al-Ahram' newspaper,
said: ''Egypt has a peaceful nuclear programme for nuclear energy
directed fundamentally towards generating electricity and
desalinating water.''
The UAE is also looking at nuclear technology to save lives. Set
up in 1983, the nuclear medicine department at Al Mafraq Hospital
in Abu Dhabi, the capital, is one of the first nuclear medicine
centres that helps in the early diagnosis and cure of cancer
patients.
The department's key role is to process scans of organs and treat
various types of cancer. Diagnostic techniques in nuclear
medicine use radioactive tracers that emit gamma rays from within
the body. They can be given by injection, inhalation or orally.
For most diagnosis, the diseased organ of the patient is injected
with a tiny dose of radioactive pharmaceuticals, which has agents
that will not harm the patient. Different radioactive
pharmaceuticals are used for different organs. These radioactive
pharmaceuticals emit gamma rays that are then captured for scans.
A distinct advantage of nuclear imaging over X-ray techniques is
that both bone and soft tissue can be imaged very successfully.
Special radioactive substances are also given to patients who
have cancer spreading in the bones and the pain becomes
unbearable. (END/2005)
Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
28 IAEA: Nuclear Power for the 21st Century
+ [IAEA.ORG :: Atoms for Peace]
Media Advisory 2005/02
17 February 2005 | Ministers from 29 countries have confirmed
they will attend a two day conference in Paris, March 21-22,
"Nuclear Power for the 21st Century", organised by the
International Atomic Energy Agency and hosted by the Government
of France in cooperation with the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the OECD Nuclear Energy
Agency (NEA).
The Ministers, with government officials from an additional 30
countries, will examine the future role of nuclear energy in
meeting the energy needs of the world and present their views on
the current and future role of nuclear power in the context of
national energy strategies.
Discussions at the conference will cover issues such as world
energy needs and resources, environmental challenges, energy
choices and governance, including compliance with
non-proliferation undertakings.
Up until now, countries that have confirmed their participation
are: [(*) indicates ministerial level participation and more are
expected]:
Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh(*),
Belgium(*) Brazil, Bulgaria(*), Canada(*), Chile, China(*),Costa
Rica(*), Croatia, Egypt(*), Finland, France(*), Ghana(*),
Germany, Holy See, Hungary(*), India(*), Indonesia(*), Islamic
Republic of Iran(*), Italy, Japan(*), Jordan, Republic of
Korea(*), Latvia(*), Lithuania(*), Malaysia, Mali(*), Republic
of Moldova, Morocco (*), Netherlands, Panama, Pakistan(*),
Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation(*),
Saudi Arabia(*), Serbia and Montenegro, Slovakia(*),
Slovenia(*), South Africa, Sudan(*), Syrian Arab Republic,
Sweden, Tajikistan, Thailand(*), Tunisia, Turkey(*), Ukraine(*),
United Kingdom, the United States, Vietnam(*), and Yemen.
Further details on the conference, as well as accreditation for
journalists, are available online at www.parisnuclear2005.org
Read French version
Press Contacts
Peter Rickwood
Public Information Officer
Division of Public Information
International Atomic Energy Agency
Tel: +43 1 2600 22047
Tel: +43 664 203 0899 (mobile)
E-mail: p.rickwood@iaea.org
Sophie Rompteau
Service de la Communication
Ministère de l'économie des finances et de l'industrie
Tel : +33 1 53 18 88 26
Fax : +33 1 5318 96 20
E-Mail: sircom@dircom.finances.gouv.fr
Helen Fisher
Media Relations Manager
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Tel. +33 1 45 24 80 97
E-mail: helen.fisher@oecd.org
Karen Daifuku
Head of External Relations and Public Affairs
OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
Tel: +33 1 45 24 10 10
Fax: +33 1 45 24 11 10
E-mail: karen.daifuku@oecd.org
About the IAEA
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the
world's foremost intergovernmental forum for scientific and
technical co-operation in the peaceful use of nuclear
technology. Established as an autonomous organization under the
United Nations (UN) in 1957, the IAEA carries out programmes to
maximize the useful contribution of nuclear technology to
society while verifying its peaceful use.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit the Press
Section of the IAEA's website
(http://www.iaea.org/Resources/Journalists/), or call the IAEA's
Division of Public Information at (431) 2600-21270.
Copyright 2003-2004, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O.
Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail:
Official.Mail@iaea.org
*****************************************************************
29 Beaver County Times Allegheny Times: Screenings offered to ex-workers
News - 02/25/2005 -
Bob Bauder, Times Staff
The U.S. Department of Energy is offering free screening for
beryllium-related disease to former employees of defunct defense
contractors across the country, including McDanel Refractory Co.
of Beaver Falls.
Even though McDanel Refractory, which processed beryllium stopper
rods used to control an atomic reaction during the 1940s and
possibly through 1950, is still in business and operates under
the name Vesuvius McDanel Co. Energy Department spokeswoman
Rebecca Neal said employees who might have been exposed to
beryllium while on the job qualify for free screening.
A metallic element, beryllium is not harmful in solid form. It
can be toxic in dust form and can damage the lungs if inhaled.
Former workers interested in receiving the screening may call the
Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education at (866) 219-3442.
Workers who test positive for beryllium-related disease are
eligible for medical monitoring and up to $150,000 in
compensation through the federal Energy Employees Occupational
Illness Compensation program.
Compensation, however, has been slow in coming to people who have
already filed claims. The program was passed by Congress in 2000,
yet thousands of former atomic energy workers unknowingly exposed
to dangerous contaminants while on the job are still waiting for
their claims to be processed by the government.
Besides McDanel, local companies that fall under the compensation
program include the former Vulcan Steel plant in Aliquippa and
the defunct Shippingport Atomic Power Station.
Bob Bauder can be reached online at bbauder@timesonline.com.
Beaver County Times Allegheny Times 2005
*****************************************************************
30 The Star: Nuclear power reactor shut down after suspected nitrogen leak
thestar.com.my
Friday, February 25, 2005
Nuclear power reactor shut down after suspected nitrogen leak
TOKYO (AP) - A nuclear power reactor in northern Japan was shut
down Friday due to a suspected nitrogen leak from a container
connected to the reactor's containment tank, but there was no
radiation leak outside the facility, its operator said.
The No. 1 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant in Oshika
town, 300 kilometers (190 miles) northeast of Tokyo, was shut
down after workers found an abnormal increase in the amount of
nitrogen flowing into the containment tank, suggesting a leak
from pipes, said Satoshi Arakawa, spokesman of Tohoku Electric
Power Co.
The operator shut down the reactor after failing to determine
the cause of the possible leakage, he said. The reactor resumed
operation only a month ago after a four-month regular
inspection.
The tank is designed to contain radioactive material in case of
accidents, and nitrogen is supplied to the tank to prevent a
possible explosion when oxygen in the air reacts with hydrogen.
The reactor had been shut down eight times in the past 20 years
in operation for separate troubles.
In the nation's deadliest nuclear accident last year, a pipe at
a plant in Mihama, western Japan, burst, splashing workers with
superheated steam and boiling water. No radiation was released
but five workers were killed.-AP
Copyright © 1995-2005 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No
10894-D)
Managed by I.Star.
*****************************************************************
31 NRC: FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC); Notice of
FR Doc 05-3769
[Federal Register: February 25, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 37)]
[Notices] [Page 9391-9393] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25fe05-114]
Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to Facility Operating
License, Proposed No Significant Hazards Consideration
Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (the NRC or Commission) is considering
issuance of an amendment to Facility Operating License Nos.
DPR-66 and NPF-73, issued to FENOC (the licensee), for operation
of the Beaver Valley Power Station, Unit Nos. 1 and 2 (BVPS-1,
BVPS-2), located in Beaver County, Pennsylvania.
The proposed amendments would revise the Technical Specifications
(TSs) to lower the BVPS-2 overpressure protection system (OPPS)
enable temperature, allow one residual heat removal (RHR) loop to
be inoperable for surveillance testing, remove the TS List of
Figures and List of Tables from the BVPS-1 TSs, and make various
minor changes to achieve consistency between units and with the
Standard TSs for Westinghouse plants and with some TS Task Force
changes.
On February 17, 2005, the licensee determined that the
requirements of Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10
CFR), Section 50.91(a)(2) have not been satisfied, in that Notice
for Public Comment on the above referenced license amendment
requests had not been published in the Federal Register. The
licensee further determined that there would be insufficient time
to provide for the normal 30-day notice prior to the approval and
implementation of the amendment without requiring plant shutdown.
The licensee stated that it complied with all applicable
requirements for completeness and timeliness in submitting the
above license amendment application. Approval had been requested
by February 15, 2005, to support revision of the existing BVPS-2
Pressure/Temperature limit curves prior to their expiration in
mid-March 2005. In light of the above situation, the licensee has
requested that the NRC consider these circumstances exigent and
requests that further processing of the license amendment
requests be completed under the provisions of 10 CFR 50.91(a)(6).
Before issuance of the proposed license amendments, the
Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954, as amended (the Act) and the Commission's
regulations.
Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.91(a)(6) for amendments to be granted under
exigent circumstances, the NRC staff must determine that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration.
Under the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 50.92, this means
that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed
amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously
evaluated? Response: No. The modification to the Applicability of
TS 3.4.3, Safety Valves, provides alignment with the
Applicability of TS 3.4.9.3, Overpressure Protection Systems,
such that the TS assures that overpressure protection is
specified over all operational modes.
The modification and deletion of Notes associated with RCS
[reactor coolant system] injection capability of the charging
pumps during Mode transitioning results in a single Note that
controls the charging pump restrictions and is consistent with
the STS [standard technical specifications]. As a result the
charging pump RCS injection capabilities during Mode
transitioning restrictions are either not changed or made more
restrictive by the proposed changes.
[[Page 9392]] The Unit 2 OPPS analysis documents that the TS
imposed primary to secondary temperature restriction on starting
each of the RCPs [reactor coolant pumps] is necessary for only
the first RCP because thermal equilibrium of the reactor coolant
system (RCS) is achieved shortly after the first pump is started.
As a result a RCS heat injection event continues to be precluded.
The change from 15 minutes to 1 hour for charging pump swapping
operations will not result in a significant increase in the
probability of a low temperature overpressure event because the
overall time allowed for pump swapping is short. Although the
increase in time permits two charging pumps being capable of RCS
injection during the Applicability of the OPPS TS, the hour is
very short and permitted only for pump swapping operations. These
operations are deliberate actions that are well controlled and
accomplished in the shortest time possible.
The addition of a Note associated with the testing of a RHR pump
will not result in a significant increase in the probability of
an accident during Mode 5 because the RHR pumps are not an
accident initiator and will not result in a significant increase
in the consequences of a Mode 5 accident because the required
cooling capability will be provided by the RHR train that is
required to be in operation during the surveillance test of the
inoperable RHR pump.
The additional restrictions imposed on removing the reactor
coolant pumps and residual heat removal pumps from operation
during Modes 4 and 5 further restrict removing these pumps from
operation, thereby providing greater assurance the pumps will be
operable when required.
The other changes, i.e., elimination of duplicated TS
requirements, renumbering and reordering of various Notes and the
deletion of the Unit 2 List of Figures and Tables, are made to
improve the consistency between the BVPS TS and with the STS and
have no affect on plant operations.
None of the proposed changes are initiators of any accident
previously evaluated. Therefore, the probability of an accident
previously evaluated is not significantly increased. The
consequences of an accident are also not affected by the proposed
changes because none of the proposed changes will result in a
change in the effluent that may be released offsite, the release
duration or the release path.
Therefore, the proposed changes do not involve a significant
increase in the probability or consequences of an accident
previously evaluated.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated? Response: No. None of the proposed changes involve a
physical alteration of the plant (no new or different type of
equipment will be installed) or a change in the operation of
plant equipment. Entering into the applicability of a TS, or
utilization of the applicable Notes, will not introduce new
failure modes or effects and will not, in the absence of other
unrelated failures, lead to an accident whose consequences exceed
the consequences of accidents previously evaluated.
Therefore, the proposed changes do not create the possibility of
a new or different kind of accident from any previously
evaluated.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a
margin of safety? Response: No. None of the proposed changes
impact the existing margin of safety. The proposed changes assure
that the affected components and systems are operable or
incapable of RCS injection when required, thereby maintaining the
existing margin of safety.
Therefore, the proposed changes do not involve a significant
reduction in a margin of safety.
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to
determine that the amendment request involves no significant
hazards consideration.
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed
determination. Any comments received within 14 days after the
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making
any final determination.
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the
expiration of the 14-day notice period. However, should
circumstances change during the notice period, such that failure
to act in a timely way would result, for example, in derating or
shutdown of the facility, the Commission may issue the license
amendment before the expiration of the 14-day notice period,
provided that its final determination is that the amendments
involve no significant hazards consideration. The final
determination will consider all public and State comments
received. Should the Commission take this action, it will publish
in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. The Commission
expects that the need to take this action will occur very
infrequently.
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint
North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland.
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to
intervene is discussed below.
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to
issuance of the amendments to the subject facility operating
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File
Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm /doc-collections/cfr/. If a
request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed
by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer
designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge
of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the
request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order.
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1)
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property,
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the
petitioner/
[[Page 9393]] requestor seeks to have litigated at the
proceeding.
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to
those specific sources and documents of which the
petitioner/requestor is aware and on which the
petitioner/requestor intends to rely to establish those facts or
expert opinion. The petitioner/requestor must provide sufficient
information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the
applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions shall
be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment under
consideration.
The contention must be one which, if proven, would entitle the
petitioner/ requestor to relief. A petitioner/requestor who fails
to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least one
contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding,
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the
conduct of the hearing.
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final
determination on the issue of no significant hazards
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration,
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the
final determination is that the amendment request involves a
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take
place before the issuance of any amendment.
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR
2.309(c)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier,
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
hearingdocket@nrc.gov; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to
the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at
(301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of
the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene
should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it
is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of
facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to
OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and
petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to Mary
O'Reilly, FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company, FirstEnergy
Corporation, 76 South Main Street, Akron, OH 44308, attorney for
the licensee.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendments dated June 1, 2004, as supplemented
July 23, 2004, and February 18, 2005, which are available for
public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR),
located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly
available records will be accessible electronically from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm.html. Persons who do not have
access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, (301) 415-4737, or by
e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated in Rockville, Maryland, this 22nd
day of February 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Timothy G. Colburn, Senior Project Manager, Section 1, Project
Directorate I, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. 05-3769 Filed 2-24-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
32 [du-list] study of DU Effects called for
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:13:59 -0800
Study of Depleted Uranium Effects Called For
By Joel Wendland
2-16-05, 1:08 pm
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/678/1/77/
Munitions used by US troops on a massive scale in the Iraq
war may be injuring US soldiers. According to Veterans for
Peace, a national organization of veterans who oppose the
Iraq war, depleted uranium (DU), a substance used in bullets
and artillery shells to increase penetrating ability, may be
harmful to anyone exposed to spent DU munitions or areas in
which DU materials have been heavily used.
DU is a by-product of uranium enrichment and is used in the
manufacture of weapons. Weapon such as tanks, machine guns,
artillery, armored vehicles, and aircraft use DU munitions.
DU munitions have some radioactivity, but their main
strength, from the view of weapons manufacturers, is their
density. DU is nearly 2 and 1/2 times denser than steel.
Some DU-tipped projectiles are powerful enough to penetrate
tank armor. Others are used to penetrate body armor, trucks,
and other defensive materials.
While DU munitions are slightly radioactive, the main cause
of concern is the metal fragments that enter the environment
after explosion. Soldiers and civilians who breath in the
dust created by a burning DU weapon may intake radioactive
deposits in their lungs. Lung cancer can result.
The potential dangers of DU munitions were revealed to the
world during the first Gulf War. The Pentagon sent Major
Doug Rokke to the Persian Gulf region to lead its depleted
uranium assessment team. Rokke’s team spent several months
there on DU-related projects: cleanup, research, and
follow-up medical care for US personnel exposed to DU. Rokke
has since become seriously ill, and many on his team have
already died.
Rokke concluded that anyone who comes in contact with DU
must get medical attention. The Pentagon ignored Rokke’s
advice and refused to distribute the information to military
personnel. DU weapons have been used in every major armed
conflict since the first Gulf War: Somalia, Yugoslavia, and
Iraq again.
"An increasing number of studies, says Veterans for Peace,
"have linked DU with Gulf War syndrome, and DU is strongly
implicated in birth defects among veterans’ children."
Disabled American Veterans, an 85-year old national
organization that advocates for service members disabled
during war or armed conflict, concurs. "There is an ongoing
debate as to whether a well-defined Gulf War Syndrome
actually exists, but most experts agree that the health of
as many as 80,000 of the 700,000 U.S. military personnel who
began deploying to Saudi Arabia in late 1990 have been
harmed. A variety of illnesses … may have been caused by
exposure to chemical and biological weapons, depleted
uranium, experimental drugs and vaccines, environmental
toxins, and infectious diseases."
A study done in Germany in 2002 indicated that DU molecules
can travel to different parts of the body, including to
sperm and eggs damaging genes and increasing the risk of
cancer. In the study, birth defects were also been blamed on
the exposure of US soldiers to DU munitions during the first
Gulf War.
Critics of this particular study argue that exposure to
other chemical dangers in Kuwait and Iraq in that war may be
the cause of health problems in returning soldiers, though
no serious or sustained study of this question has been
undertaken.
Soldiers aren’t the only people who are exposed to the
risks, however. DU dust also can enter the environment,
especially the ground, possibly contaminating anyone who may
ingest through eating or breathing the material even decades
later. Again, the possible health risks have not been fully
studied.
Inconclusiveness about the full dangers and long-term impact
of DU weapons has not stopped much of the world from trying
to ban the substance. In 1999, the US blocked a United
Nations subcommittee initiative calling for a ban on the use
of DU worldwide. In 2003 the European Parliament called for
a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium. The Bush
Pentagon continues to deny that DU is dangerous.
Some members of Congress have introduced bills calling for
study of DU’s long-term impact and medical treatment for
those who have been exposed. The Depleted Uranium Munitions
Study Act (H.R. 1483), proposed by Jim McDermott (D-WA) in
2003, which has yet to be reintroduced in the current
Congress, would require a study of the effects of DU and
report its findings. H.R. 202, a bill introduced recently by
Jose Serrano (D-NY) on this matter, calls for identifying
current and former service members exposed to DU and
provision of medical testing and treatment.
Republican congressional leaders have safely tucked such
proposals away in subcommittees to limit public discussion
and debate. Supporters of more detailed studies of the
dangers of DU munitions say broader public support is needed
to pressure Congress to take up this matter seriously.
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and
can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
---------------------------------
Does your mail provider give you a FREE online calendar? Yahoo! does.
Get Yahoo! Mail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease?
Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/RzSHvD/UOnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
33 [du-list] the doctor the depleted uranium and the dying
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:01 -0800
The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the Dying Children
By Judy Adamson
February 15, 2005 Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Review/The-Doctor-the-Depleted-Uranium-and-the-Dying-Children/2005/02/14/1108229917886.html?onfiltered=true
The Cutting Edge: The Doctor, the Depleted Uranium and the
Dying Children, SBS, 8.30pm
This documentary follows the efforts of a German professor
and Canadian medical researcher to prove that depleted
uranium shells and bullets, used in two Gulf wars, have
contributed to a range of appalling health problems in Iraqi
locals as well as veterans.
The pregnancy stories of veterans is heartbreaking, but
worse still are the pictures of countless deformed and
cancer-stricken Iraqi children. These experiences have also
been mirrored in Kosovo.
Remarkably, while the US and British governments persist in
saying there is no proof that depleted uranium is to blame
for what is known as "Gulf War Syndrome", doctors in Iraq
say that malignant cancers have increased eightfold since
the first Gulf War in 1991.
Geiger counters used by the researchers still go into the
red when brought close to abandoned tanks - tanks that
children now play in. Men who fought in areas that were
heavily bombarded have 400 times more depleted uranium in
their urine than control subjects. And the 79-year-old
German professor was arrested and fined for bringing just
one "safe" bullet home for radioactivity testing.
It's not pretty viewing, but it's very informative.
---------------------------------
How much mail storage do you get for free? Yahoo! Mail gives you 250MB!
Get Yahoo! Mail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Has someone you know been affected by illness or disease?
Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/RzSHvD/UOnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
34 [du-list] USUK massacres in Fallujah - reporting at The
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:15 -0800
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,1193510,00.html
This item covers the early attack and gives possible casualty figures for
the first USUK Fallujah massacre.
It misleads in that it does not show the second USUK massacre effects.
The link title
"The battle for Fallujah"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,1193510,00.html
is really a type of 'warspeak', implying some equity in the opposing
forces, for many possibly a "Boys' Own" type language tending to glorify
murder.
There is no mention of the estimated 2,000 plus Iraqi casualties, nor
the USUK forces preventing males between 15 and 60 from leaving before
the heaviest aerial bombings and bombardments by USUK started, nor mention
of other war crimes committed by USUK in this particularly obscene
episode, destruction of hospitals, shooting of any remaining residents,
including those already wounded etc., USUK use of illegal WMD, DU, cluster
bombs etc. although there is early reference to the fact it was a "revenge"
attack for the earlier killing of four US mercenaries. This is stated to be
possibly a result of an "attack" on an anti-US demonstration. But this
last , earliest initiating USUK "attack", no mention is made that USUK
armed forces actually shot dead an estimated 16 demonstrators.
There is no mention of the plight of the displaced estimated 298,000
civilian population, nor the refusal by USUK forces to allow entry
of humanitarian aid convoys during the massacre.
While The Guardian is at last ( possibly leading the mainstream media
in) re-examining the primary core issue of the illegality of the USUK
attack, it is also important to be accurate in the consequential
and ongoing war crimes at the scene.
The recent writing about the complicity of the mainstream media in
the USUK war crimes by failures in reporting and informing need to be
kept foremost in mind. ( For example see http://www.medialens.org/ )
The outcome of CCR war crimes charges against Rumsfeld (and later
Gonzales) in Germany shows that prosecutions will initially have to be
brought in the USUK home courts in the first instance.
Kind Regards, David Broatch BSc. (Edin) School of the Built Environment
http://www.eco-expo.org/EFR_Consultant_Profiles.htm#David_Broatch
----------
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.0 - Release Date: 2/25/05
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater?
Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/TzSHvD/SOnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
35 Rocky Mountain News: Breast milk study being misread, head of science panel says
Experts: Keep nursing
By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News
February 25, 2005
A study that found perchlorate contamination in human breast milk
is significant, but the results are being misinterpreted, said
the head of the National Academy of Science panel that
investigated the toxic chemical.
Researchers at Texas Tech University tested 36 women from across
the country for perchlorate in breast milk. They found levels 20
times higher than the safe amount recommended by the NAS
perchlorate panel.
But the doctor who led the NAS panel says nursing mothers need
not panic over the new study.
Richard B. Johnston, associate dean for research at the
University of Colorado School of Medicine, said the NAS
researchers tried to determine the level of perchlorate that
would have no ill effect on the average person. They then
recommended a safe level at 90 percent below that as a way of
protecting more vulnerable populations.
"Based on the science in the (NAS) report and the committee's
interpretation of science, (the levels found in breast milk)
wouldn't be considered unsafe," Johnston said.
He said the NAS is working on a statement attempting to clarify
some of the misconceptions about the Texas Tech study on breast
milk and the NAS study, which focused on drinking water.
"We started with (a dose level) we expected would produce no
effects, then reduced it by 90 percent to protect the most
sensitive population," Johnston said. "We bent over backwards to
be health-safe."
Still, the breast milk perchlorate levels should have the same
safety margin as the levels for water, said Renee Sharp, senior
analyst with the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit
advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
"Those margins of safety are there for a reason," Sharp said.
"They're to protect the most vulnerable."
Both Sharp and Johnston agreed that the breast milk findings
deserve more study and that nursing mothers should continue
nursing.
"Breast milk is the best thing for babies," Sharp said. "There
have been some studies that have shown even with some
environmental contamination, babies are far better off with
breast milk than formula. We don't want mothers to stop
breast-feeding."
Perchlorate, an oxygen-rich salt used to boost rocket fuel
performance, was produced mainly for the U.S. defense and space
programs. In humans, it affects the thyroid, which produces
hormones needed for proper brain development and growth.
The Texas Tech study, the first of its kind, found that the
breast milk samples with the highest perchlorate levels also had
the lowest levels of iodide, a trace nutrient the thyroid needs.
Perchlorate can interfere with the thyroid's absorption of
iodide.
"If you take that (part of the study) as true, it presents an
even more troubling picture," Sharpe said. "If an infant is
getting more perchlorate and less iodide from its mother, that's
a double whammy."
Johnston, who is a pediatrician, said pregnant and nursing
mothers could take an iodide supplement, often found in prenatal
vitamins. "It would be an extra insurance policy that reduces
any risk," he said.
Perchlorate contamination is found at three Colorado sites: the
Pueblo Army Depot, the former DuPont Louviers explosives plant
in Douglas County, and at a nearby mineral processing plant. But
officials have found no evidence the contaminant has reached
drinking water.
"There have been some known releases to groundwater, but nobody
is consuming that water," said Philip Brandhuber, project
engineer with HDR Engineering.
Brandhuber's firm recently studied public water systems serving
more than 10,000 people and found no perchlorate in any of them.
About 5 percent of the nation's 2,499 large water systems did
detect perchlorate in at least one of their water sources.
The Colorado River is considered one of the major sources of
perchlorate contamination. River water collected in the Lake
Mead reservoir is used to irrigate fruits and vegetables in
California, Arizona and Nevada, downstream from the former
Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. in Henderson, Nev.
Perchlorate was recently found to be widespread in food and
cow's milk samples the Food and Drug Administration tested
across the country.
frankl@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5091
© The E.W. Scripps
[ border=]
Select one Subscribe Vacation hold
Feedback Make payment
*****************************************************************
36 NIRS: New Research Indicates Health Risks from Uranium May Be More Varied
Than Reflected in Current Federal Policy -
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 23, 2005
CONTACT Arjun Makhijani, IEER 301-270-5500 Linda Gunter, NIRS
202-328-0002 Michael Mariotte, NIRS 202-328-0002
Depleted Uranium from Proposed New Mexico Enrichment Plant May
Become Multi-Billion Dollar Taxpayer Liability without a Hefty
Financial Guarantee
Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Corporate Options for DU
Disposal Risk Long-Term Violation of Health and Environmental
Standards, New Analysis Indicates
TAKOMA PARK, MD, FEB. 23, 2005 — A new report about a uranium
enrichment plant[PDF] proposed to be built in New Mexico
concludes that it would cost between $3 billion and $4 billion
to properly manage and dispose of the depleted uranium (DU)
waste that the plant would generate. Such high costs could not
be recovered from the customers for enrichment services.
The report also discusses recent research on the health effects
of DU, much of it performed at the Armed Forces Radiobiology
Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland after the 1991 Gulf
War, that has implications far wider than the New Mexico plant.
The research indicates that depleted uranium may be mutagenic,
tumorigenic, teratogenic, cytotoxic, and neurotoxic, including
in a manner analogous to exposure to lead.1 It may also cross
the placenta and harm the embryo/fetus. There is also research
that indicates that the chemical and radiological toxicities of
uranium may, in some cases, be acting in a synergistic manner.
Federal regulations limit uranium inhalation based on cancer
risk and drinking water intake based mainly on kidney toxicity.
There are currently some 740,000 tons of depleted uranium in
unstable hexafluoride form stockpiled at Department of Energy
sites at Paducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge,
Tennessee. LES, a corporate consortium led by the European
company Urenco, wants to build the plant in New Mexico. Another
company, USEC, seeks to build a similar plant in Ohio.
The report—released today by the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research (IEER) and the Nuclear Information and
Resource Service (NIRS)—concludes that unless LES provides at
least $2.5 billion dollars in financial guarantees, it is likely
that the people of New Mexico, U.S. taxpayers, and future
generations would be stuck with a multi-billion dollar
radioactive waste liability. The report was filed with the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in late November 2004 by
NIRS and the public interest group Public Citizen as part of
their legal intervention in the licensing proceeding of LES. A
redacted version excluding proprietary LES corporate financial
data is being released to the public today.
"The labeling of depleted uranium as 'low-level' waste by the
NRC is not going to diminish its dangers," said Dr. Arjun
Makhijani, principal author of the report and president of IEER.
"To paraphrase Shakespeare, dangerous radioactive waste by any
other name would still pose significant public health risks."
The report is entitled Costs and Risks of Management and
Disposal of Depleted Uranium from the National Enrichment
Facility Proposed to be Built in Lea County New Mexico by LES.
It provides data showing that depleted uranium is radiologically
comparable to transuranic waste, which is waste that is
significantly contaminated with plutonium and other long-lived
radionuclides like it. Federal regulations define transuranic
waste as that which has more than 100 nanocuries per gram of
long-lived transuranic radionuclides that emit alpha radiation.
DU has a specific activity of about 400 nanocuries per gram.
Transuranic waste from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
facilities is now being disposed of in a deep geologic
repository in New Mexico called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant,
which is a multi-billion dollar federal government project.
"The people of New Mexico and the taxpayers of the United States
may find themselves saddled with enormous liabilities," said
Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS, which sponsored
the IEER report. "Corporations can easily wiggle out of their
obligations. It happened, for example, when Getty Oil dumped the
wastes from its plutonium reprocessing plant into the laps of
the federal government and the State of New York over three
decades ago. That multi-billion dollar mess still hasn't been
fully cleaned up, and the waste has nowhere to go."
"The health risks of depleted uranium may be far more varied
than is recognized in federal regulations today," said Dr. Brice
Smith, Senior Scientist at IEER and co-author of the report.
"Children in the future may be saddled with a legacy similar to
that of the sorry history of lead poisoning over the past three
generations, but this time we are dealing with a heavy metal
that is also radioactive."
The license application constitutes LES's fourth attempt to
build a uranium enrichment plant in the United States. The first
attempt, which was for a plant in Louisiana, cost LES more than
$30 million. LES withdrew the application after a citizens'
group successfully challenged the NRC's environmental impact
statement for the project on environmental justice grounds. Two
other locations, both in Tennessee, were also explored but
abandoned in the face of local opposition. DU disposal has
remained a central public concern throughout.
"The NRC has so far failed to back up its claims that radiation
doses from depleted uranium disposal in an abandoned mine would
be within regulatory limits," said Dr. Makhijani. "Data-free
analysis ought to be unacceptable in any forum, but it is
especially so in an environmental impact statement prepared by a
government agency charged with protecting public health and
safety."
LES may consider shallow land disposal as option; sites in Utah
or in Texas just across the border from LES site in New Mexico
may be considered. LES may elect to pay the federal government
to take on its waste. DOE is building a plant to convert DU
hexafluoride to a more stable oxide form but it has not yet
identified a viable long-term disposal strategy even for its own
DU.
"Transfer to the DOE cannot be considered a solution to LES's
waste problem," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public
Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "The DOE
has yet to take charge of a single spent fuel bundle from
nuclear power plant operators—despite a legal commitment to
begin in 1998 and billions of dollars in payments to the federal
government by nuclear electricity consumers."
The report can be viewed by clicking here[PDF] . -30-
1 That is, it may cause or contribute to genetic mutations,
tumors, birth defects, neurological damage, and cellular level
toxicity.
*****************************************************************
37 adn.com: Program to compensate Amchitka workers is progressing
Anchorage Daily News: Alaska's Newspaper
New team has processed 95 percent of claims, will pay them in
May
By DON HUNTER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: February 25th, 2005
Andy Akulaw spent seven months helping to dig a mile-deep pit on
Amchitka Island about 35 years ago.
Today, he's getting by on one kidney, and it doesn't work as
well as it should. He thinks that's because he was exposed to
radiation while working in the shaft where the Atomic Energy
Commission blew up a five-megaton Spartan antiballistic missile
warhead in 1971.
If Akulaw can hang on until the end of May, the U.S. Department
of Labor says it will have regulations in place to process his
application and compensate him for the kidney cancer diagnosed
in 1998.
Akulaw is one of more than 3,200 people who worked on the remote
Aleutian island from 1964 to the early 1970s, when the AEC was
conducting three underground nuclear tests there. A medical
surveillance program set up a few years ago to check on the
health of those workers has tested about 1,100 of them; more
than 260 cancers have been reported by or found in participants,
according to research by Dr. Mary Ellen Gordian of the
University of Alaska Anchorage.
Similar monitoring is being done on workers from other U.S.
nuclear sites. The results from Amchitka workers show a
prevalence of leukemia about three times higher than the average
among workers in screening programs at several other nuclear
sites, said Dr. Knut Ringen, who directs the Amchitka
surveillance program.
Akulaw sat in on a news conference Thursday with Sen. Lisa
Murkowski, who championed a drive in Congress last year to move
the energy workers compensation program from the federal
Department of Energy, where it had largely languished, to the
federal Department of Labor, which has been far more efficient
in processing atomic workers' claims through another
compensation program.
Murkowski said people who worked at Amchitka and other U.S.
atomic sites during the Cold War undertook risky work --
sometimes unknowingly -- in the nation's interests. America owes
those who later contracted diseases because of their exposure to
radiation or other toxic substances, she said.
"No different than sending our young men and women off to fight
in a war," she said. "They were defending, working for our
country, and they suffered as a consequence."
Akulaw and two Amchitka widows whose husbands have died in the
years since they worked on the island, Sylvia Carlsson and
Kathryn Peters, credited Murkowski's efforts in helping to
secure passage of legislation that both transferred the
compensation program to the Labor Department and cured many of
its biggest problems.
"It probably would not have gone too far without her," Carlsson
said.
Under the old system, claimants had to convince a physicians'
panel that their illness was related to radiation exposure on
Amchitka, and find a "willing payer" -- a construction company
or its insurers -- to cover the claim.
Under the new system, the federal government covers the claim
under a mandatory funding provision, and more than 20 kinds of
cancers and respiratory diseases are presumed to be
Amchitka-related. The Energy Department, which had processed
only about 3 percent of the claims filed with it after four
years, has been replaced by the Labor Department, which
Murkowski said had processed more than 95 percent of the
workers' compensation claims filed with it.
Murkowski's press conference came amid a flurry of activity for
Amchitka workers or their survivors this week.
The Washington, D.C.-based head of the Labor Department's Energy
Employees Compensation Program, Peter Turcic, was here to
explain how the new compensation process will work.
The Amchitka Medical Surveillance Program, which was expected to
run out of money early this year, has been extended through at
least November 2006. The program provides free medical
screenings to Amchitka workers who still live in Alaska as well
as those who have moved from the state. Of the 3,254 Amchitka
workers identified so far, surveillance program staffers are
still searching national databases for 927 they have been unable
to locate.
Ringen encouraged any Amchitka worker or survivor of a deceased
atomic worker who hasn't yet contacted the program to do so.
"Anyone with any kind of cancer, any kind of serious lung
disease, or anyone who thinks they have any kind of health
problem related to their work out there should be filing a
claim," he said. "Because unless you file a claim you won't know
if you're eligible."
The new program will award compensation under a formula that
considers the degree to which a worker's disease impairs him as
well as lost or diminished wages over time. It can be as little
as $2,500, or as much as $250,000, Turcic said.
The compensation program that has been administered by the labor
department for the past three years grants one-time $150,000
compensation awards to former employees who have contracted any
of more than 20 cancers or diseases caused by exposure to
beryllium or silica. The Labor Department has processed 416
cases under that program, Ringen said. Fifty-nine percent have
been recommended for approval, a rate he said approaches twice
the national average for energy employees.
Akulaw is among them, and he also hopes to qualify for the new
program when the agency completes writing regulations to
implement it. There's one other thing Andy Akulaw would like.
"We have not yet received a letter of apology from anybody for
exposing us to radiation ... without telling us," Akulaw said,
standing in a hallway of Murkowski's downtown Anchorage office.
AEC records indicate two canisters of radioactive material went
missing near the shaft, he said.
"That is the thing that really peeves me off. We should have
been given a chance, or a choice, to decide for ourselves if we
wanted to go down there and be exposed. But there was no
indication we were being exposed to it."
Daily News reporter Don Hunter can be reached at
dhunter@adn.com.
INFORMATION: To contact the Amchitka Medical Surveillance
Program or to inquire about compensation, call 258-4070 in
Anchorage or 1-888-827-6772 toll-free.
More on the Amchitka Workers Medical Surveillance Program or
compensation programs is at Amchitka Workers.org and this U.S.
+ more
Photo by BOB HALLINEN / Anchorage Daily News
Andy Akulaw was a worker on Amchitka Island during the nuclear
testing program on the Aleutian island. Akulaw now has cancer.
*****************************************************************
38 Portsmouth Herald: Sub to get $160M in upgrades
Fri. February 25, 2005
[PHOTO] Crew members of the USS Pittsburgh stand on the sail of
the Los Angeles Class attack submarine as it arrives for systems
upgrades at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard onThursday. Photo by
Rich Beauchesne Photographer's Name NO EMAIL HERE-->
By Elizabeth Kenny ekenny@seacoastonline.com
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD - The USS Pittsburgh arrived at the
shipyard Thursday, bringing with it 13 officers, 121 enlisted
personnel and $160 million worth of work to the Seacoast.
The nuclear submarine will be home-ported at Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard for the next 18 months for an engineered overhaul, in
which it will undergo maintenance work and receive system
upgrades, according to the shipyard’s public affairs officer,
Debbie White.
For the 360-foot-long submarine, which cruised into port around
1 p.m., the overhaul will be the first maintenance work the boat
has seen since it was assigned to duty in Operation Iraqi
Freedom and completed a deployment to the South Pacific.
"Our goal is to return Pittsburgh to the fleet as a premier
asset to continue her mission in the war on terrorism," shipyard
commander Capt. Jonathan Iverson said Thursday. "The shipyard
team of professionals, together with the Pittsburgh’s top-notch
crew, is ready to get to work - our Navy and this nation are
counting on us."
White said the shipyard has been planning and preparing for the
USS Pittsburgh for quite some time.
Concerns were raised recently by members of the New Hampshire
and Maine congressional delegations over the shipyard’s future
workload.
Sens. John Sununu, R-N.H.; Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; Olympia Snowe,
R-Maine; and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have continually argued
that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard has a consistent record of
returning submarines to sea ahead of schedule and under budget.
Nevertheless, the Navy canceled two engineered refueling
overhaul projects that had been scheduled to be completed at
Portsmouth, lightening the yard’s workload from what was
originally assigned to it in a so-called "program of record" put
together two years ago.
The delegation members have raised concerns that the lightening
of the shipyard’s workload could be a foreshadowing of possible
changes in the Navy’s infrastructure that could come as a result
of this year’s round of base closures, during which all 425
military installations across the country will be reviewed.
Three other submarines are now undergoing overhaul work at the
shipyard as well - the USS Jacksonville, the USS Montpellier and
the USS Providence.
The USS Pittsburgh, a Los Angeles Class attack submarine built
by Electric Boat in Groton, Conn., at a cost of around $900
million, was commissioned in November 1985. It has one nuclear
reactor.
In March 2003, the submarine first launched strike missiles in
support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In December 2004, it
completed a successful four-month deployment in the Southern
Pacific, during which it made two journeys through the Panama
Canal, according to White.
The crew will be "adopted" by the Kittery community.
"The Seacoast community support has an important role in this
success formula," Iverson said. "It is not only the shipyard and
ship’s force that builds a strong partnership but our Seacoast
neighbors who reach out to our sailors and families and welcome
them into their communities. This builds such a strong network
for our military families and enriches their quality of life."
Print this Story Email this Article
Back to the Portsmouth Herald
Seacoast Online is owned and operated by Seacoast Newspapers.
Copyright © 2005 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please
*****************************************************************
39 DOE: DOE to start testing for former contractors for beryllium disease
Thursday, February 24, 2005
Wastes & Hazardous Substances
RADIATION
The Energy Department said yesterday it will pay to test more
than 28,000 former nuclear weapons manufacturing workers and
contractors for beryllium disease, broadening a program that the
agency has offered to its own contract employees since 1991.
The $3.5 million program expansion will allow the employees of
24 companies that had contracts with the government during the
Cold War to get tested for the potentially fatal disease, which
affects the lungs and is caused by inhaling beryllium dust, a
light, heat-resistant metal used in nuclear reactors and
electrical equipment.
DOE spokesman Mike Wharton said the agency does not know how
many of the 30,000 people are still alive nor how many might be
suffering from the disease. Beryllium sensitivity symptoms can
take up to 30 years to develop.
"You can get this test paid for as a first step toward accessing
the government's workers' compensation program," said Wharton.
"The President and [Energy] Secretary Samuel W. Bodman are
committed to the department's former workers. We are helping to
fulfill a commitment made to them long ago".
Prior to yesterday's announcement, former workers had to pay for
the $200 to $600 tests themselves. Rep. Katherine Harris
(R-Fla.) said workers who test positive for beryllium disease
would receive treatment and monitoring through a companion
program run by the Labor Department (Donna Wright, , Feb. 23).
The Labor Department program pays up to $150,000 in medical
expenses for workers suffering from berylliosis. To date the
agency has paid more than $800 million to workers afflicted with
the disease. Because the symptoms take so long to develop,
officials have said there may be another 800,000 people who have
the disease but do not know it (Scott Carroll, , Feb. 23).
"I encourage all workers to go and get this test done," said
John Shaw, DOE assistant secretary for Environment, Health and
Safety. "DOE is committed to finding these workers, who are
heroes of the Cold War. We feel we're doing what is right and
we're so glad to be able to do it" (Don Hopey, , Feb. 24).
Meanwhile, other former nuclear weapons manufacturing employees
who suffer from diseases related to hazardous substance exposure
have said the government is taking too long to settle claims
through the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation
Program.
Since April 2004, the Government Accountability Office has
released four reports that criticize the labor and energy
departments, as well as the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health, for the slow pace of claims processing
(Thomas Williams, , Feb. 24). -- DRL
*****************************************************************
40 www.workers.org: 'Poison DUst' features vets exposed to DU
By David Hoskins
New York
Published Feb 23, 2005 10:53 AM
The premiere showing on Feb. 15 of "Poison DUst"--a documentary
highlighting the effects of Depleted Uranium [DU] on veterans
returning from the Iraq war--attracted a large and engaged crowd
at the New School theater. Filmmaker Sue Harris was on hand to
introduce the film and take questions afterward. Former U.S.
Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Sara Flounders, national
co-director of the International Action Center, also spoke at
the event.
DU refers to that portion of uranium left over after the
enrichment process that makes natural metallic uranium suitable
for nuclear uses. DU has limited civilian applications in the
development of medical radiation therapy machines.
However, the military has found
a more sinister use for DU in its operations. Because of its
high density, DU is used in armor-penetrating munitions. DU
munitions were used extensively by United States forces in both
the first and current Iraq wars, putting soldiers and civilians
at risk of exposure.
DU is both radioactive and toxic to the human body. Exposure to
DU can cause a host of ailments associated with the kidneys,
lungs and immune system. An increased risk of lung tissue damage
and lung cancer has been documented among uranium miners.
The film features soldiers whose health has been affected by DU
exposure, along with the wives of military personnel discussing
genetic disabilities faced by their children as a result of a
parent's exposure to DU. An increased risk of miscarriages,
maternal mortality and congenital disabilities is associated
with DU contamination.
It's a weapon of mass destruction.
The top U.S. military brass are complicit in the cover-up of
DU's harmful effects on civilians and soldiers. The current
attitude of the U.S. military leadership is similar to the
approach taken during the Vietnam War, when military leaders
ignored the health risks connected to the use of Agent Orange as
a defoliant.
Several military servicemembers and their families, including
veterans featured in the film, were in attendance at the
premiere of "Poison Dust." The anger these individuals harbor
toward the government that disregarded their health and safety
was apparent during the open discussion that followed the film.
It is up to the anti-war movement to channel this anger into an
active resistance of the U.S. war of occupation in Iraq.
As the Troops Out Now Coalition organizes for a mass
demonstration in New York City's Central Park on March 19,
"Poison DUst" helps demonstrate why soldiers have both a right
and a duty to resist serving in a military that disregards the
lives of GIs and Iraqis.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
*****************************************************************
41 [du-list] [Fwd: [PPst] Solidarity SignOn Request: Oppose 1st
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:14:07 -0800
I understand this is not DU per se but what's left over from enriching
uranium for use in nuclear power plant and weapons is DU. Therefore,
the more plants calling for enriched uranium the more DU...
If you wish to sign on, send a message to Anne Rabe at annerabe@msn.com
Thanks,
Tara
-------- Original
Dear Friends: (apologies for cross-posting)
If America had ever done a "precautionary alternative assessment" on
nuclear power, it would never have seen the light of day! Please join
in solidarity with over 150 groups in opposing the FIRST proposed U.S.
nuclear reactors in over 30 years. The letter below will be submitted
to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to protest Dominion's plan to
build two new nuclear reactors at its North Anna site in Virginia.
** Please hit REPLY and let us know if your group can sign on in
solidarity with the local groups fighting these reactors and send a
national message to the NRC. _To sign on, send your Name, Group, City
and State by Monday, February 28th. _*
Constructing new reactors would be bad for the environment and public
health, bad for the safety and security of our country, and bad for
ratepayers as well as taxpayers. The letter urges the NRC to deny the
application for an Early Site Permit and for Dominion to instead focus
on finding alternative methods of addressing expected increases in
energy demands over the coming years. Thanks. Anne Rabe, BE SAFE, CHEJ
Coalition Letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
We, the undersigned organizations and businesses, *OPPOSE* any plans by
Dominion to build any new nuclear reactors at its North Anna nuclear
power station in Virginia. The site is unsuitable, and many important
factors are not being considered in the decision of whether to approve
Dominion’s application for an Early Site Permit (ESP) at the site.
Constructing new reactors would be bad for the environment, bad for the
safety and security of our country, bad for principles of open and
accountable government, and bad for ratepayers as well as taxpayers.
For example:
P The Early Site Permit is part of a new “streamlined†licensing
process meant to reassure investors that past regulatory delays will not
occur again. However, this will prevent citizens from raising crucial
safety problems that have been at the root of past delays. The process
has gone forward rapidly with little effort on behalf of the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) or Dominion to involve members of
the public, either locally or nationally, despite its profound implications.
P Safer, cheaper alternatives to new nuclear generating capacity
are not being explored as part of the ESP process. The ESP application
also doesn’t consider what the effect might be on the cost of power in
Virginia or nationally, or whether there is a need for new generating
capacity. Virginia currently has a surplus of electrical generating
capacity, so excess power will likely be sold outside the state rather
than being used in-state to lower prices. Local residents will be
forced to live with the risks of the nuclear plant without getting the
benefits.
P Nearly 3½ years after September 11^th , 2001, legislation to
improve security at nuclear plants has not been enacted, and security
improvements by the nuclear industry have been shown to have significant
gaps and flaws. Security guards are often ill-trained and
ill-equipped. Mock assaults designed to test guards and keep them on
their toes are often done in an unrealistic manner, with weeks of
advanced warning and limited attack scenarios. Further, the company
testing security also guards nearly half the plants in the country,
creating a conflict of interest that prevents meaningful security
analysis. Eight state attorneys general submitted comments to the NRC
in January 2005 calling for vastly improved security standards. As the
U.S. continues to threaten Iran’s nuclear facilities, our own nuclear
plants become targets in return.
P A major nuclear accident could leave an area the size of
Pennsylvania uninhabitable for decades. The area around the Chernobyl
nuclear plant, site of a major accident in 1986, is still closed to
public access and radiation levels are still high. Cleanup costs for a
major nuclear accident are estimated to be around $500 billion, not
including broader economic shockwaves. The nuclear industry’s liability
for such an accident is capped at around $10 billion, leaving taxpayers
with a $490 billion bill, ratepayers with a bankrupt utility, and
surviving residents without a home.
P Emergency plans for dealing with an accident or terrorist attack
are inadequate, and rely on uninformed teachers, bus drivers, doctors,
and other civilians to facilitate an evacuation, without taking into
account the possibility of role abandonment. Studies of the Three Mile
Island accident, which took place in 1979 in Pennsylvania, found that
doctors and other key workers abandoned their posts up to 25 miles from
the site to tend to their families or save themselves. In the case of a
more severe accident, heroic actions would be required to successfully
carry out an evacuation.
P There is at this time NO solution to the problem of nuclear
waste, and constructing new reactors will only worsen that problem. The
proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada continues to face strong
opposition and many scientific questions about the suitability of the
site. There are half a dozen lawsuits currently pending any of wwhich
could send the U.S. Department of Energy back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, all the highly radioactive irradiated fuel from the plants
will continue to be stored on-site. In addition, there is no place to
send the so-called “low-level†radioactive waste from routine operation,
dismantlement and decommissioning of this proposed reactor in Virginia.
P The history of nuclear power demonstrates that constructing
nuclear reactors is expensive, with final costs often running billions
of dollars over budget costs that are often passed on to ratepayeers.
The first 75 reactors constructed in the U.S. had a combined cost
overrun of over $100 billion. The average reactor ran 400% over budget
and was over 4 years late in start up. The last reactor in the U.S. to
be completed, the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, was finally opened in
1996, 23 years after it was first proposed. It cost $8 billion.
Nuclear power continues to be uneconomical. The cost for the ESP
process, as well as the later permitting stages, is being split between
the industry and the U.S. Department of Energy. Draft language in the
federal energy bill indicates that perhaps up to half the cost of
construction will be shifted to taxpayers. After a half-century and $74
billion in subsidies, nuclear power should be forced survive or fail on
its own.
P Nuclear power, due to the large generating capacity of one
reactor, is an inherently centralized form of electricity production.
As a consequence, we have to generate more power overall because there
has to be so much extra capacity to continue meeting demand when just
one reactor goes down. Also, taking that much power off the grid at
once, as can happen in the case of an emergency or during events like
the August 2003 blackout, is very destabilizing and can make the
situation worse. Third, it takes a huge amount of money to build a
nuclear plant, meaning that it's difficult if not impossible for smaller
energy companies to enter that market, meaning there’s less
competition. Plus, the large utilities that can afford to build or own
nuclear plants are growing ever larger, as evidenced by Dominion’s quest
to purchase the Kewaunee reactor and Exelon’s proposed merger with
PSEG. Centralized control means loss of local control. We should be
moving toward decentralized, rather than centralized, energy systems.
P Renewable energy sources such as wind power create more jobs per
investment dollar than does nuclear power. Those jobs also require less
specialized education, increasing the chances that local workers will be
able to secure the jobs rather than requiring outside experts.
In light of these concerns, we urge the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to *DENY* Dominion’s application for an Early Site Permit,
and for Dominion to instead focus on finding alternative methods of
addressing expected increases in energy demands over the coming years.
Sincerely,
Your Name, Group, City, State
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers.
At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
42 Arizona Republic: Uranium tailings by Colorado called a danger
February 25, 2005
The state's top environmental official has asked the federal
government to remove piles of uranium tailings from the banks of
the Colorado River.
Treating the piles on site, as the government has suggested,
won't work, Steve Owens, director of the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality, said in a letter to the U.S. Department of
Energy.
"The groundwater contamination has been ongoing for decades and
has been leaching into the river for decades as well," he wrote.
His comments came in response to a government proposal to clean
up the contaminated site by either treating the tailings on site
or removing them.
The piles are left over from the Atlas Uranium Mine in Moab,
Utah. The tailings are piled up along the riverside and have
posed an environmental risk for years.
"Arizona counts on the Colorado River for fishing, recreation
and providing drinking water to millions of its citizens," Owens
said in his letter, emphasizing that removing the waste is the
only acceptable option.
The Energy Department is considering the comments it received
on its two options and at some point will issue a decision on
how to handle the mining tailings.
Copyright © 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
43 AP Wire: Dairyland Power plans for Utah storage of waste
| 02/25/2005 |
Associated Press
LA CROSSE, Wis. - Spent fuel from a Wisconsin nuclear power
plant that was decommissioned 18 years ago could be headed to
Utah.
Dairyland Power Cooperative of La Crosse, which shut down its
Genoa nuclear plant in 1987, is among eight utilities that
formed Private Fuel Storage LLC to work on the storage issue.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board recommended Thursday that
an operating license be granted for PFS to build and operate a
temporary fuel storage site in central Utah, on the Skull Valley
reservation of the Goshute Indians.
Dairyland estimates it costs $3 million a year to maintain spent
nuclear fuel from the Genoa plant, according to the
cooperative's Web site.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is to review the board's
recommendation. If the commissioners agree, the NRC staff will
be directed to issue a license.
According to John Parkyn, PFS chairman and CEO, the proposed
temporary storage facility would complement a proposed permanent
storage site at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
ON THE NET
Goshute Indians: http://www.skullvalleygoshutes.org/
*****************************************************************
44 Bradenton Herald: Plan to cap wells stalls
| 02/25/2005 |
Lockheed agrees to expand Tallevast tests, delay well caps
SCOTT RADWAY
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - In a surprise move to ease community concerns,
Lockheed Martin agreed Thursday to fund independent testing of
neighborhood wells and postpone a plan to seal the last
potential routes to underground contamination.
"We will at least have final readings of them," said Laura Ward,
president of Tallevast community group FOCUS.
FOCUS plans to immediately work with its environmental
consultant - also being paid for by Lockheed as part of a state
order - to contract someone for the work.
"We are going to have a hydrology company come in and do the
testing," Ward said. "Then it is a lab of our choice where the
samples will be sent to."
Community leaders Wednesday had compared sealing the residential
drinking water and irrigation wells to burying a body before the
autopsy was finished. Ward said additional testing can give a
better picture of what residents were exposed to by the old
American Beryllium Co. plant. The tests also would show how
accurate the first round of tests were.
Lockheed has yet to complete its assessment of the extent of the
contamination. Lockheed, which acquired the plant and its
pollution problems in 1996, issued a preliminary report Feb. 1
that showed cancer-causing solvents from the plant had spread
over at least 50 acres.
The final assessment is expected mid-March. Then perhaps decades
of cleanup work should begin.
All residents now are on county water, and the wells are
believed to be unused.
FOCUS leaders and Lockheed officials met two hours to discuss
closing the wells Thursday in Tallevast, but the meeting was
expected to yield little except diatribes.
Ward and others had questioned why the meeting was needed, but
she said it was better to look "them in the faces when they give
us that bull." FOCUS leaders told residents not to meet with
Lockheed officials after the company sent letters asking to
schedule a visit.
"We heard their concerns and what they are looking for and we
arrived at a mutually beneficial conclusion," said Meredith
Rouse Davis, a Lockheed spokeswoman who attended the meeting.
Rouse Davis said the process to sample existing wells is simple,
but it should provide residents with additional peace of mind
that the contamination is being properly assessed.
"We agree that it would be nice to have those samples and it is
something that can be easily done," Rouse Davis said.
Lockheed had moved to close 34 wells after Manatee County began
working toward an ordinance to ban wells in Tallevast and
requested the company take the action. Lockheed has no legal
ground to close private wells.
Rouse Davis said sealing the wells would prevent anyone from
drinking from one. And if water is drawn, it could cause the
contamination to shift below to fill the void.
The wells also can act as a path for contaminants to sink from
the upper level of the aquifer - where most of it is contained -
into the intermediate aquifer.
State health officials also want to see the wells sealed.
"We understand the importance of closing them. They are a
pathway, and that is a safety precaution," Ward said. "But not
until we have a final test done and we have those results in our
hands."
Scott Radway, environmental
HeraldToday.com
reporter, can be reached at 708-7919 or at sradway@
HeraldToday.com.
*****************************************************************
45 Platts: NRC panel sides with PFS in fuel storage case
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
+ Private Fuel Storage LLC (PFS) won a long-fought legal victory
in a 2-1 decision handed down today by an NRC Atomic Safety &
Licensing Board (ASLB) panel.
The ASLB rejected Utah's argument that there was too high a risk
of a radiation release from an accidental F-16 military jet crash
into the casks at the proposed spent fuel storage facility.
The eight-utility consortium PFS applied in June 1997 for a
license to construct a 4,000-cask aboveground storage facility on
the Utah reservation of the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes, which
is about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
The majority on the ASLB found the probability of a crash causing
the breach of a spent fuel canister was less than one in a
million per year, thereby meeting NRC's regulatory standards.
The case now moves to the five NRC commissioners, who will decide
whether to issue a license. The parties have 15 days after
receiving the decision by mail to file an appeal with the
commission.
Washington (Platts)--24Feb2005
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
46 deseretnews.com: What's next for Skull Valley
Friday, February 25, 2005
Thursday's decision in favor of nuclear
waste storage in Utah's Skull Valley was made by the nuclear
Regulatory Commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.
Ultimately, appeals still could be made to:
The Bureau of Land Management, which has not yet granted
right of way over land it administers.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has some authority
over Indian lands.
The nuclear Regulatory Commission itself, which still
must complete the licensing procedure.
The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver or the
Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
47 deseretnews.com: Member's dissent in ruling gives Utah some
ammunition
Friday, February 25, 2005
By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News
The 2-1 split decision by the nuclear
Regulatory Commission's licensing board gives Utah some
ammunition to continue fighting against the construction of a
nuclear fuel storage facility in Skull Valley, Tooele County.
The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is an independent
agency of the NRC, ruling on important matters. But ultimate
authority is vested in the commission itself.
On Thursday the board shot down arguments by the state of
Utah about safety at the site. The board said flights by F-16s
over Skull Valley did not make the location too dangerous for
the plant Private Fuel Storage wants to build on Goshute Indian
land.
That was the ruling of two board members, Michael C.
Farrar, who is the chairman, and Paul B. Abramson. But member
Peter S. Lam disagreed. All three are administrative law judges.
"I dissent from the majority opinion for the basic reason
that the proposed PFS facility has not been demonstrated to meet
an established safety standard for accidental aircraft crash
hazards," Lam wrote.
A probability and a structural analysis on which the
decision was based "both suffer from major uncertainties," he
wrote. "These uncertainties fundamentally undermine the validity
of the analyses."
Only 57 F-16 accident reports were deemed suitable for
analysis and only 15 documented the impact speed, he wrote.
"Even if Utah's challenges to the suitability of some of these
reports were entirely disregarded, these reports collectively
represent a small sample."
Also, he disagreed with the other board members on the
ability of the storage casks to remain intact in case of a crash.
"When, as a result of an F-16 crash, the strain in the
carbon steel shells of the concrete overpack reaches the failure
strain set by the DOE (U.S. Department of Energy) ductility
ratio standard, the overpack should be considered to have failed
in performing its intended function," Lam wrote.
"All parties' analyses in the evidentiary record show
that the strain in the overpack's carbon steel shell
significantly exceeds the DOE ductility ratio failure strain.
Therefore the overpack is expected to fail in an F-16 crash
scenario."
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
48 ENS: New Mexico Uranium Plant Could Mean Public Liability
TAKOMA PARK,
Environment News Service
www.ens-newswire.com
Maryland, February 23, 2005 (ENS) - A new report about a uranium
enrichment plant proposed for Lea County, New Mexico concludes
that it would cost between $3 billion and $4 billion to properly
manage and dispose of the depleted uranium (DU) waste that the
plant would generate.
Such high costs could not be recovered from the customers for
enrichment services and might become a taxpayer liability,
according to the report released today by the Institute for
Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), a science education
organization, and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service
(NIRS), and anti-nuclear advocacy group.
The report also discusses recent research on the health effects
of DU, much of it performed at the Armed Forces Radiobiology
Institute in Bethesda, Maryland after the 1991 Gulf War, that
the report says has implications far wider than the New Mexico
plant.
The research indicates that depleted uranium may cause or
contribute to genetic mutations, tumors, birth defects,
neurological damage, and cellular level toxicity.
DU may emit radiation that can cross the placenta and harm the
fetus, the report warns. There is also research that indicates
that the chemical and radiological toxicities of uranium may, in
some cases, be acting in a synergistic manner. Federal
regulations limit uranium inhalation based on cancer risk and
drinking water intake based mainly on kidney toxicity.
There are currently some 740,000 tons of depleted uranium in
unstable hexafluoride form stockpiled at Department of Energy
sites at Paducah, Kentucky, Portsmouth, Ohio, and Oak Ridge,
Tennessee.
LES, a corporate consortium led by the European company Urenco,
wants to build the plant in New Mexico. Another company, USEC,
seeks to build a similar plant in Ohio.
The report concludes that unless LES provides at least $2.5
billion in financial guarantees, it is possible that the people
of New Mexico, U.S. taxpayers, and future generations would be
stuck with a multi-billion dollar radioactive waste liability.
The report was filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) in late November 2004 by NIRS and the public interest
group Public Citizen as part of their legal intervention in the
licensing proceeding of LES. A redacted version excluding
proprietary LES corporate financial data is being released to
the public today.
"The labeling of depleted uranium as ‘low-level’ waste by the
NRC is not going to diminish its dangers," said Dr. Arjun
Makhijani, principal author of the report and president of IEER.
"To paraphrase Shakespeare, dangerous radioactive waste by any
other name would still pose significant public health risks."
"The people of New Mexico and the taxpayers of the United States
may find themselves saddled with enormous liabilities," said
Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS, which sponsored
the IEER report.
"Corporations can easily wiggle out of their obligations. It
happened, for example, when Getty Oil dumped the wastes from its
plutonium reprocessing plant into the laps of the federal
government and the state of New York over three decades ago.
That multi-billion dollar mess still hasn’t been fully cleaned
up, and the waste has nowhere to go," Mariotte said.
"The health risks of depleted uranium may be far more varied
than is recognized in federal regulations today," said Dr. Brice
Smith, senior scientist at IEER and co-author of the report.
"Children in the future may be saddled with a legacy similar to
that of the sorry history of lead poisoning over the past three
generations, but this time we are dealing with a heavy metal
that is also radioactive."
The report can be found at:
www.ieer.org/reports/du/LESrptfeb05.pdf
* * *
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2005. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
49 Las Vegas RJ: Panel backs nuclear waste dump at Utah reservation
Friday, February 25, 2005
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALT LAKE CITY -- A federal licensing board approved a proposed
nuclear waste dump Thursday, reversing an earlier ruling that
there was too much risk of a plane crash from a nearby air base.
The 2-1 vote by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board sent the
proposal to the full Nuclear Regulatory Commission for final
approval.
The approval was a blow to state officials, who long have
fought the plans to temporarily store spent nuclear fuel rods at
the facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. The
location is about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and near
the sprawling Utah Test and Training Range.
Board members said Thursday that further analysis showed that
even if an F-16 did crash into the site, it would be unlikely to
cause a "radiological release" unless the plane were traveling
at a particular speed and angle.
The federal government plans to someday bury the waste at a
proposed Yucca Mountain facility in Southern Nevada, although
Nevada has battled the proposal in Congress and the courts.
Utah officials contended that rods could end up permanently in
Utah because the Energy Department isn't obligated to transport
them to Nevada, but the licensing board rejected the argument,
saying the state didn't have facts to support its stance.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
50 Las Vegas RJ: Rules to affect Yucca comments
Friday, February 25, 2005
New NEI leader faces lobbying restrictions By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The new leader of the Nuclear Energy Institute
faces restrictions on lobbying the government on the Yucca
Mountain Project, one of the trade group's top interests, a
spokesman confirmed Thursday.
Retired Admiral Frank "Skip" Bowman, who took over as NEI
president and chief executive in January after a long Navy
career, was involved in producing Yucca Mountain environmental
documents in 1998. The Navy's nuclear waste would be stored at
the proposed Nevada repository.
Bowman's participation triggered government ethics rules when
he joined the trade association, according to Scott Peterson,
NEI vice president for communications.
Peterson maintained the restrictions will not be a problem for
NEI, which works to advance the Yucca project.
"We believe we can successfully address any issues on the Yucca
Mountain licensing process with other executives at NEI or
within this industry," he said.
Bowman's lobbying limits were reported this week by The Energy
Daily newsletter.
Peterson on Thursday confirmed Bowman is permanently prohibited
from communicating with the White House, executive branch
agencies and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the Yucca
Mountain construction license application being written at the
Energy Department.
Bowman also must adhere to a one-year "cooling-off" period in
which he cannot communicate with anyone at the Navy or the
Energy Department "with the intent to influence" them on any
repository issue, Peterson said.
Bowman is free to testify before Congress and to meet with
lawmakers on Yucca Mountain, Peterson said. He also can speak at
conferences sponsored by NEI and other private groups.
Michele Boyd, energy legislative director for the Public
Citizen watchdog group, said the Bowman lobbying limits will not
hamper the nuclear industry.
"I don't think this is going to have any impact on NEI's
lobbying effort whatsoever because Bowman can still lobby
Congress," Boyd said, adding the Bush administration "already is
in full agreement with NEI" on Yucca Mountain.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
51 Las Vegas RJ: Panel lets DOE keep job of studying rail line
Friday, February 25, 2005
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has declined to intervene
in a dispute over Energy Department plans for a railroad to
carry nuclear waste through rural Nevada to a Yucca Mountain
repository.
Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval asked the White House
Council on Environmental Quality in April to assign the Surface
Transportation Board, which regulates railroads, the job of
producing environmental studies for a Yucca rail line.
Sandoval argued the Surface Transportation Board has more
expertise on rail projects and would conduct a fairer study than
the Energy Department, which sees the rail line as a critical
segment of the repository project.
DOE officials have defended their efforts as they continue to
examine a 319-mile corridor for a rail path from Caliente to the
repository site in Nye County, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The White House council settles disputes among federal agencies
on environmental matters, but its chairman, James Connaughton,
said in a Feb. 8 letter to Sandoval that no agency has dissented
with DOE taking the lead on the railroad.
The letter was made public this week.
Marta Adams, a deputy attorney general, said Thursday the state
was disappointed.
"It was an angle we were exploring, and we continue to explore
it," Adams said. The state's attorneys might raise the issue
again as part of a lawsuit challenging DOE's rail preparations,
Adams said.
Testifying before a congressional subcommittee in March,
Surface Transportation Board Chairman Roger Nober said the
agency would get involved in a repository railroad if DOE allows
it to be used as a "common carrier" to serve other shippers.
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
52 Bellona: On-shore spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Murmansk to
start operation in April 2006
The Murmansk Shipping Company is positive about the development
of the Russian-British project on construction of the on-shore
container storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the nuclear
icebreaker’s base Atomflot in Murmansk.
2005-02-25 15:40
The British party was presented by the Crown Agents Company, the
Murmansk Shipping Company and the Federal State Unitary
Enterprise, Atomflot presented Russia. According to Interfax
news agency, the complete contract for the construction part of
the facility was signed in the end of January with the price-tag
£4.6m. Earlier a £2.6m contract for non-standard equipment
delivery had been signed. According to the project the facility
should be ready in April 2006. At the moment all the
environmental evaluations concerning the construction are
completed.
This is the first project sponsored by the western donors in the
North of Russia, which passed the public environmental
evaluation conducted by Bellona-Murmansk. Unfortunately, most of
the companies continue to work in the old way and do not trust
NGOs, treating them as an obstacle. However, all the donor
countries stipulate participation of the non-governmental
organisations in the decision-making process when the interests
of the society could be disturbed during implementation of some
state or business projects. No double standards should be used
in Russia. All the western experience regarding interaction of
the business and the NGOs should be applied in Russia, of
course, taking into consideration local legislation and
mentality. Bellona has been always in favour of the dialog
between the donor country representatives and the Russian
authorities on all levels, especially concerning the projects on
nuclear and radiation safety. “I am glad that the British
representatives known in Russia as conservative people were the
first to make such a step. I think, I will express the common
opinion of the participation in the first stage of the project:
we are satisfied with the joint work” said in an interview to
Bellona-WEB director of Bellona-Murmansk Sergey Zhavoronkin.
The Great Britain might also fund the construction of 50
universal containers TUK-120 for spent nuclear fuel storage and
shipment. “The positive decision of this issue has a principal
meaning for us as no state commission would accept our facility
without storage containers for the spent nuclear fuel” an
Atomflot representative said to Interfax.
Spent fuel at the moment to be kept on board the nuclear fuel
service ship Lotta, which can contain 16 active zones, but the
place for two zones is just available at the moment. Once land
storage is complete it can be offloaded, freeing the vessel to
collect waste from even more submarines. The ship's efficiency
will be improved as well as removing the hazard of a ship full
of SNF from the Arctic waters. Crown Agents is working with the
UK Department for Trade and Industry, the Murmansk Shipping
Company and The Federal State Unitary Enterprise, Atomflot to
oversee the construction project. The United Kingdom under the
G8 Global Partnership, which amongst other issues counters the
proliferation of nuclear material and promotes nuclear safety in
the former Soviet Union states, made funding available.
Completion is expected in 2006 at a cost of £16.2 million.
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
*****************************************************************
53 Las Vegas SUN: Volcano, air crash risk issues still not resolved
February 24, 2005
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON
BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department still needs to provide the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission with more information and answers
about the risks posed to Yucca Mountain by possible aircraft
crashes and the volcanic nature of the region, but that
documentation does not have to be delivered before submission of
the license application for the nuclear dump, the commission
said.
The Energy Department turned in answers to all 293 unresolved
technical and scientific questions to the commission last year.
The commission has deemed 209 complete but still needs more
information on several topics.
All but nine of the 41 "high risk" questions, known as key
technical issues, are complete, Daniel Rom of the commission's
High-Level Waste Division, told the Advisory Committee on
Nuclear Waste this morning.
Rom said the remaining nine involve the "difficult issues" of
volcanism and aircraft hazards. Models used in the department's
answers also need clarification and some of the included
information needs to be available to the public.
The commission labeled questions "high-risk" where answers may
change the overall risk estimate of the project. The department
aims to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste inside Yucca
Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The commission is still reviewing 31 of the 92 "medium-risk"
questions and 38 of the 160 "low-risk" questions. Rom expects to
have all the reviews done by April 15. The commission will
either mark them as complete or ask the department for more
information. When a issues is deemed complete, it does not mean
the commission agrees or disagrees with the department's
research but that all the appropriate information is there to
give the answer a full review.
Rom said the commission does not expect the department to give
written responses to the commission's requests for more
information on the open agreement before the department would
submit the project's license application.
The department expects to submit the application to the
commission by the end of the year. Last August, Joseph Ziegler,
director of the Office of License and Application Strategy told
the commission the department would not wait for all the
questions to be deemed closed before submitting the application.
The department intended to submit the application last December,
but a variety of obstacles delayed it.
Solving the key technical issues has been a major point of
contention for Nevada. Bob Loux, executive director of the
state's Agency for Nuclear Projects has repeated told the
commission that the issues need to be complete before the
commission could accept a license application based on policy
set in 2001.
Rom said there is no protocol regarding whether the department
has to address them in writing. Bret Leslie, also of the
commission's High Level Waste Division, said reviewing the
documents for the questions is not the same as reviewing a
license application. Questions can still be asked later,
although the hope is that there are consistencies between the
key technical issues answers and the questions, according to the
staff.
In other action, the waste committee, during its Wednesday
meeting, prepared a presentation it intends to give the full
commission next month, including a briefing about the
possibility of volcanic activity at Yucca. Commission Chairman
Nils Diaz requested the update. The possibility of magma in the
repository is highly unlikely, Energy Department officials and
the electricity industry-funded Electric Power Research
Institute, have determined. But the committee's presentation
indicates that "important uncertainties remain" about the
probability and consequences of volcanic activity, and about
validating models that have been used to study the issue.
*****************************************************************
54 Salt Lake Tribune: Utah loses key battle over N-waste
Federal panel rejects last state objections to Skull Valley
storage
By Patty Henetz The Salt Lake Tribune
A utility consortium planning to store 44,000 tons of
high-level radioactive waste on the Skull Valley reservation
reached a major milestone Thursday when a panel of Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) judges swept aside the last of
Utah's administrative objections.
The two Atomic Safety Licensing Board rulings - on separate
appeals from the state and Private Fuel Storage (PFS) - cleared
the way for the NRC to approve a license for the consortium to
build and operate the facility 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake
City. The ruling is a significant setback in the state's efforts
to stop construction of the facility.
In an unusual split decision, the licensing board voted 2-1
to set aside its own earlier decision that the possibility of an
F-16 fighter jet crashing into the spent nuclear fuel facility
posed unacceptable risk of releasing radiation.
The PFS appeal of that decision argued that even if a jet did
crash into the open-air array of 4,000 172-ton waste storage
casks, the casks' durability meant the chance of radioactive
release would not exceed federal risk standards. Two of the
three panel judges agreed. The dissenting judge argued that the
number of F-16 crashes analyzed was insufficient to reach that
conclusion.
The licensing board also dismissed a state argument that the
waste stored temporarily in Utah in welded casks at the PFS
facility would not be accepted for transfer to a federal nuclear
repository. The state made that argument after an Energy
Department official in October told state officials and The Salt
Lake Tribune the casks wouldn't pass muster because they
wouldn't be packaged according to federal contract requirements.
That ruling, too, was unusual. Despite ruling against the
state, the licensing board said the issue "was too important to
be ignored," and advised the nuclear regulatory commissioners to
address it in "some other manner."
The rulings were the last of 125 "contentions" the licensing
board heard in the nearly eight years since Private Fuel Storage
signed a lease with Goshute representatives to build 500
concrete pads on 100 acres of desert in Skull Valley.
John Parkyn, who heads the consortium of eight electric
utilities backing PFS, hailed the decisions as "a great
advancement for the nuclear industry in America."
The $3.1 billion project complements the proposed permanent
repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., "and will provide an
important alternative to the need to continue addressing storage
for spent fuel at 72 separate locations across the United
States," Parkyn said.
Parkyn has said PFS could begin accepting shipments of spent
fuel rods by 2007.
The Yucca project, however, is in trouble. The Energy
Department has pushed back its expected date to file a license
application to the end of this year. Meanwhile, scientific and
political problems for the repository continue to multiply.
Originally scheduled to open in 1998, Yucca now probably won't
open until 2015, if ever.
Utah Sen. Bob Bennett said he has a letter from each of the
utilities in the PFS consortium promising not to move forward
with the Skull Valley facility as long as Yucca Mountain remains
on track.
The licensing board decisions are "not happy news," Bennett
said, "but it's also not an immediate and final statement that
says, 'This stuff is going to start shipping the day after
tomorrow.' "
Nuclear power utilities increasingly are building dry cask
spent nuclear fuel storage facilities of their own, on or near
reactors, because of the growing doubt about Yucca Mountain's
viability. That could make PFS less attractive financially.
Private Fuel Storage also faces significant legal and
logistical hurdles. The governance of the Skull Valley Band of
Goshutes is in dispute, as is the legality of the lease PFS
signed with the tribe in 1997. Leon Bear, who continues to act
as chairman despite challenges from tribal members, will go to
trial in April on charges he stole tribal money and cheated on
his federal income tax. And dissident Goshutes have said they
would mount a federal court challenge if the NRC issues a
license to Private Fuel Storage.
But Bear on Thursday was optimistic.
"We got some good news. Good news for us; I don't know if
it's good news for the state. We're very pleased about the
rulings on those contentions," he said.
Bear said he expected the construction of the facility to
take two years, and acknowledged tribal unrest over the PFS
plan.
"There's opposition, of course. I think they are going to
continue to be opposed to the project," he said. "But they are a
minority in the group. As long as the majority continues to be
part of the project, I think that's the whole ball of wax."
But Margene Bullcreek, who has led the dissident charge,
said the NRC was wrong to assume Bear is a legitimate leader.
"Mr. Bear is saying he's in when he's not really in. How can
the NRC pass this on?" she said. "We've never seen the
contracts, and we're not going to see them. It's unnerving; it's
not the way we do things with our tribal leadership."
If the NRC issues the license, which is likely, the PFS plan
must still get final approval from the Bureau of Indian Affairs
and the Bureau of Land Management.
The BLM approval is complicated by a moratorium on
wilderness studies on the Utah Test and Training Range, the
nation's largest overland military training range, which sits
next to the proposed waste site. The moratorium prevents
the BLM from approving necessary rights of
way for a proposed transfer station adjacent to the Union
Pacific rail line or the 32-mile track that would connect the
transfer station to the Private Fuel Storage site.
U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, whose district includes the training
range and the Goshute reservation, has sponsored legislation
that would establish a wilderness area near the reservation. The
proposal would have allowed fighter jet overflights but blocked
rail shipments of waste to the Goshute facility. The bill failed
in December, but Bishop says he will push it again during this
session of Congress.
Sen. Orrin Hatch said that while he "strongly disagreed"
with the board's rulings, he expected them. "There seems to be a
bias within the NRC in favor of the nuclear industry on this
issue," he said.
Second District Rep. Jim Matheson called the rulings "a
bitter disappointment," and promised to explore every avenue
possible to halt the storage of spent nuclear fuel in Utah.
Anti-nuclear environmental activists expressed outrage at
Thursday's rulings.
"The idea that shipping tens of thousands of tons of
high-level nuclear waste to Utah for a pit stop before
transporting it further to a hypothetical permanent repository
will improve the safety and security of the waste is ludicrous,"
said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's energy program.
Jason Groenewold, director of Healthy Environment Alliance
Utah, called the licensing board's actions "absurd."
"The feds are trying to say with a straight face that we
should not worry about what happens if a jet crashes into the
nuclear waste storage site, which is like saying don't worry
about what happens if Charles Manson moves into your
neighborhood," Groenewold said. "We have to redouble our
opposition or we'll get bowled over."
Utah Assistant Attorney General Denise Chancellor said the
state wouldn't receive until today the full text of the
jet-crash ruling, which will include information kept out of the
publicly released version because of national security concerns.
But she vowed the state would not give up its fight to block the
facility. "We will certainly exercise all our available legal
remedies," she said.
"We've got some very, very good lawyers on this," added Mike
Lee, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s general counsel.
The state can appeal the licensing board's rulings to the the
board itself or to the NRC's five-man commission, or can take an
appeal either to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or the
Washington, D.C., Circuit Court.
The state has an appeal currently before the U.S. Supreme
Court that seeks to overturn a lower court decision that Utah
had no right to pass laws aimed at stopping Private Fuel Storage.
---
Reporter Robert Gehrke contributed to this report.
Atomic Safety Licensing Board conclusions:
* Issue: The state argued that the casks used to ship spent
fuel rods from nuclear reactors to Utah were inadequate for
later transfer to a permanent disposal site.
Ruling: The licensing board said the state lacked sufficient
evidence.
* Issue: Private Fuel Storage appealed an earlier decision,
arguing that the chance a fighter jet might crash into the waste
casks and release radioactivity wasn't a large enough risk to
halt construction.
Ruling: The board agreed.
What's next?
* The state can appeal the decisions to the licensing board
and to the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
* If those appeals fail, the state can go to a federal
appellate court and eventually to the U.S. Supreme Court.
PFS also faces more roadblocks:
* The Bureau of Indian Affairs must give final approval to
the lease agreement with the Goshutes, a step complicated by
tribal governance challenges and questions about the legality of
the 1997 lease. Leon Bear, who claims to be tribal chairman,
refused to hold an election in November, the conclusion of a
4-year term that also has been contested. Bear is scheduled to
go to trial in April on federal charges he stole tribal money
and cheated on his income taxes.
* The Bureau of Land Management must approve rights-of-way
for a transfer facility next to the Union Pacific rail line and
for a proposed 32-mile rail spur that PFS would build to the
Skull Valley facility. But the BLM can't sign off because
Congress placed a moratorium on changes to its land-use
management plan that shows no signs of being lifted.
* And, PFS can't proceed until it has adequate service
contracts with utilities wishing to use its proposed facility, a
process made difficult by the federal agency obstacles.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
55 AU ABC: ERA signs Jabiluka uranium mine agreement
Saturday, 26 February 2005
25/02/2005 11:49:57
A historic agreement on the future of the abandoned Jabiluka
uranium mine site has been signed by traditional owners and
mining company Energy Resources of Australia (ERA).
In 2003, ERA filled in the Jabiluka site at Kakadu National Park
and promised it would not mine there without Aboriginal consent.
The Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation representing the Mirarr
people has described the signing as a "sweet victory".
Traditional owners now have the deciding vote on future
operations at the site.
Labor Senator for the Northern Territory, Trish Crossin, says
she is confident traditional owners will not weaken their
resolve and allow mining to recommence at the Jabiluka uranium
mine.
Senator Crossin says traditional owners will come under
significant pressure to seek an alternative income when the
Ranger uranium mine, also located within Kakadu, closes in 2010.
"We have to encourage those people to look at alternative
revenue other than just to turn to another uranium mine," she
said.
"[We have] absolute confidence that those people will stand firm
in their stead and they will be creative, they're very
passionate people and they will look and turn to alternative
income and I have no doubt in that."
*****************************************************************
56 ABC 4: Nuclear Waste To Utah?
LAST UPDATE: 2/25/2005 1:56:44 AM
(ABC 4 News)-- The process of bringing nuclear waste to Utah was
advanced on Thursday.
The Atomic Safety Board ruled against the State of Utah,
favoring the shipments of spent nuclear fuel rods to the Goshute
Indian Reservation and the Private Fuel Storage.
The proposal frightens many of Utah's state and federal
lawmakers, because the reservation is in the flight path of
military aircraft.
"Storing it above ground in a facility that's in the flight path
of armed F-16s is not a good idea," says Utah Senator Robert
Bennett.
Bennett prefers the nuclear waste be sent to the Yucca Mountain
underground installation, claiming it is better prepared to
handle such dangerous shipments.
However, the Private Fuel Storage facility says the shipments
will be good for the country.
"This is really good news for the United States because of our
energy situation. Nuclear represents 20% of our electricity,"
says Sue Martin of Private Fuel Storage.
Several other agencies still have to approve the proposal,
before any nuclear waste can be shipped to Utah.
*****************************************************************
57 deseretnews.com: Goshute plant clears blocks
[deseretnews.com]
Friday, February 25, 2005
NRC board all but opens way for nuclear fuel rods
By Joe Bauman and Elaine Jarvik Deseret Morning News
In a major setback for state officials who fought for years to
block it, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission board has ruled in
favor of allowing Private Fuel Storage to build a facility in
Tooele County to temporarily store the nation's spent nuclear
fuel rods.
Assuming the full NRC itself agrees, that cleared the
last roadblock the state had thrown up against the project.
The facility is planned for land owned by the Skull
Valley Band of the Goshute Indian Tribe, about 50 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City. The site could store 4,000
steel-encased concrete casks, each 20 feet high and 11 feet in
diameter, holding highly radioactive spent fuel rods. One
federal court report says that as of 2003, nuclear reactors in
the United States had generated about 49,000 metric tons of
spent nuclear fuel.
The PFS plant is supposed to offer temporary storage, for
up to 40 years. But recent political opposition to a permanent
facility planned for Yucca Mountain, Nev., has raised doubts
about the Nevada plan.
If the Yucca Mountain plan is not implemented, the Skull
Valley "temporary storage" facility could become permanent.
"That's obviously our fear," Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, said
after the ruling.
Utah government and private groups expressed
disappointment with the decision by the NRC's Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, charged the NRC seems
to have a bias in favor of the nuclear industry. But a
spokeswoman for PFS said she was hopeful because this was a
culmination of years of effort, and now the board has ruled in
favor of the company on all issues.
The crux of Thursday's ruling is that the possible crash
of an Air Force F-16 into the facility is not likely enough to
release deadly radiation to preclude the project. It was a split
decision, with one board member issuing a dissenting report.
(See story on this page.)
Decision revisited
The board overturned an earlier decision in which it
agreed with the state that the possibility of a crash would make
the plant too dangerous. The reversal was based on further
considerations, such as whether, in the event of a crash, a cask
holding deadly fuel material would actually spew radiation.
Sharpening the debate is the fact that 7,000 flights of
F-16s from Hill Air Force Base go over Skull Valley every year,
as the route is near the Utah Test and Training Range.
When the flight danger was argued about two years ago,
the board ruled the chance of an F-16 crash was higher than the
cutoff point for acceptable odds, which is a one-in-a-million
risk. The hazard was "four times too high to permit facility
licensing," under that criterion.
But when new criteria were analyzed — centered around the
chance of a crash actually releasing radiation — the danger
dropped, according to the board.
The nature of F-16 flights through Skull Valley, "and the
data that can be gleaned from the reports of prior F-16 crashes
worldwide in circumstances akin to Skull Valley operations,"
show an 80 percent likelihood that the speed and angle of a
crash are such that it would not breach the casks.
That dropped the chance of releasing radiation to
"somewhat less" than the criteria, the report adds. Instead of a
chance of four in a million possibility, and instead of the
cutoff of one in a million, the likelihood dropped to 0.86 in a
million.
That scenario was not likely enough to ban the project,
according to the board.
Board members only studied the possibility of an Air
Force plane accidentally slamming into the site while flying to
or from the nearby Utah Test and Training Range. They explicitly
refused to consider the possibility of a terrorist attack.
Appeals likely
About 30 pages of the findings are being kept secret
because of security concerns. The full report was deemed the
"official" version while the one available to the public was
termed the "publicly available version." State officials were
awaiting a copy of the official report.
The decision itself indicates that a court appeal seems
likely, whichever way the commission ultimately rules. The
appeal would be either to the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
in Denver or the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.
Bennett said he "kind of expected this." He is heartened
that the dissenter on the board is its expert on radiation
issues. That will help in any appeal, he said.
Other avenues the state has to fight the plant are
through an appeal to the NRC itself, or to courts, he added. The
Bureau of Land Management "has not granted right of way over BLM
land," he said.
Also, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which has a say on
what happens on reservation land, "has not blessed this. There
are a number of avenues still open."
The state is disappointed but "undaunted," said Mike Lee,
general counsel to Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. The state, he says,
will "use all means at our disposal to keep spent nuclear rods
from ever entering our state's boundaries."
Utah may ask the board to reconsider or appeal to the
NRC, he said. If the NRC ends up issuing PFS a license despite
Utah's objections, "then we will seek redress in the courts."
Lee added, "We intend to use every tool therein to fight
this battle."
Hatch said he was disappointed with the decision.
"I strongly disagree with the board's decision," Hatch
said in a press release faxed to the Deseret Morning News, "but
to be honest I expected it to go this way.
"There seems to be a bias within the NRC in favor of the
nuclear industry on this issue, and we have already set our
sights on other ways to stop this plan."
Marketing efforts
The director of the Utah Office of Indian Affairs,
Forrest Cutch, said the decision "irks every Utahn to some
extent, myself included.
"I can see why they're looking at that (plant). It's
lucrative."
Cutch said the Skull Valley Goshutes were forced onto
land that doesn't have much economic development value. "Now
they're fighting back. It's their only lucrative opportunity.
"Everyone wants to get down on the Goshutes," Cutch said.
He said big industries in the area are huge polluters, but the
Goshutes are treated as "the bad guys."
Sue Martin, spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said
the decision is a major step. "It's not quite the end of the
process, but it's the culmination of 7 1/2 years of the
licensing board addressing concerns brought by the state and
other interveners in the process," she said.
The state has been a participant the whole way, she said.
"The fact that we have gotten through it, and all of the issues
basically have been ruled in our favor, is great."
Assuming the NRC grants a license, the next step is for
the company to launch marketing efforts to land storage
contracts. Once that happens, she said, "we could start
construction."
That could take a couple of years after the NRC decision,
Martin added.
Jason Groenewold, director of the Healthy Environment
Alliance of Utah, had the strongest reaction. "The federal
government has long shown contempt for the healthy and safety of
Utahns, and this is just the latest example," he said.
"Utah does not produce this dangerous waste, yet the
federal government wants to make us the nation's nuclear waste
dumping ground."
Contributing: Deborah Bulkeley
E-mail: bau@desnews.com; jarvik@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
58 [du-list] It is the same here as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:13:57 -0800
'It is the Same Here as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki'
Serbians Suffer Long-term Effects of NATO Depleted Uranium
Bombs
by Suemori Akira, ZNet Friday, Feb 18, 2005
http://www.disabilities.afreepress.com/articles/index.cfm?artOID=280930&cp=309460
[Translator's Introduction: The manufacture of depleted
uranium (DU) ammunition is a prototypical Cold War arms race
story. The Pentagon reported in the 1970s that the Soviet
military had developed armor plating for Warsaw Pact tanks
that NATO ammunition couldn't penetrate, and began searching
for material to make harder bullets, bombs, and shells.
After testing various metals, ordnance researchers settled
on depleted uranium, a low-level radioactive waste left over
from making nuclear fuel and bombs. DU ammunition, which
scorches through metal targets, is now supplied to arsenals
in the U.S. and abroad which also continue to store
"conventional" ammunition. DU shells, when fired, leave a
radioactive trail of toxic dust that still lies in parts of
Kuwait and Iraq where they were first fired in combat during
the 1991 Gulf War. Prohibited from use in training anywhere
overseas, it is restricted certain installations in the
United States. Citing serious health risks, the Pentagon
requires moon-suit type protective gear when approaching
anything hit with DU ordnance.
Nevertheless, the American press revealed in 1996 that
Marine Corps aircraft had been firing depleted uranium
shells on their bombing range at Torishima Island, just off
Okinawa in an important fishing ground. When Okinawans,
particularly local fishermen, angrily protested over yet
another act of negligence by the U.S. military that
threatened their safety, welfare, and livelihood, a Marine
Corps spokesman claimed that the radiation "amounts to only
about what a color television set emits." By that time,
however, Congressional hearings had reported that both
veterans of the Gulf War and Iraqi civilians were suffering
serious, long-term disabilities with depleted uranium as the
suspected cause. They continue to suffer debilitating
effects from radiation to this day. But that is hardly the
end of the story.]
Used not only in Iraq, NATO dropped approximately 30,000
depleted uranium bombs in air raids on Kosovo and elsewhere
in Yugoslavia. Soldiers and civilians now suffer from cancer
and other diseases.
Five years have now passed since NATO air attacks on Serbia
and Montenegro in Yugoslavia. A confrontation in Kosovo
between ethnic Albanians, who make up a majority, and a
Serbian minority escalated into armed conflict between the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serbian Security Forces. A
"humanitarian intervention" relying on air power lasted 78
days. It was supposed to lead to stabilization, but riots
erupted last March in Kosovo, now administered by the United
Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). The chances for
resolution of this conflict remain remote.
The anguish of battlefield photographers
Nedejko Deretic (54) was a press photographer for the former
state-operated Tanjug News Agency and recipient of a
photography prize awarded by the United Nations. He had
always enjoyed good health until he suddenly suffered a
cerebral infarction five years ago. He has undergone
continued rehabilitation since then, but suffered another in
2000. He can no longer run or move quickly, has trouble
remembering things, and is increasingly irritable. Unable to
continue the job he loved, he retired at age fifty from the
company where he'd worked for eighteen years. A disability
pension is his only income.His senior colleague, press
photographer Milorad Dobricic, died last winter from cancer
of the lymph glands. He was fifty-five. Another press
photographer for Tanjug is undergoing chemotherapy for
cancer of the lymph glands.
"All three were in the best of health and among our best
news photographers, so they photographed the war the
longest. Working for the state agency, they often
accompanied the military for official coverage, and,
whenever a bombing was reported, would hurry to the site
within an hour," explained Dragan Milenkovic (57), former
chief of Tanjug's photography section. During the 78 days of
bombing, Deretic was in Kosovo a total of one month
photographing the damage. "Weapons didn't kill me during the
war," he says. "But I believe depleted uranium is what made
me sick."
Decontamination has been slow and difficult.
NATO forces dropped about 30,000 depleted uranium bombs in
1999, leaving approximately ten tons of DU in Serbia and
Montenegro. DU ammunition was first used in the 1991 Gulf
War by U.S. and British forces. Ingestion by soldiers and
local residents has been cited as the suspected cause of
serious health problems. Yet it was more than one year
before NATO officials revealed the locations where they said
DU had been used. And, according to Colonel Predrag
Minjlovic, there are obvious errors. "NATO indicated where
pilots interviewed said they had dropped bombs, but these
places were quite far from where the bombs landed." Large
numbers of depleted uranium bombs remain in the soil where
many penetrated some 1.5 meters underground in the mud.
According to Colonel Minjlovic, this happened because,
although DU bombs were used for their power to penetrate
tank armor, they only hit a total of four or five tanks. All
the others buried in the ground could easily have drifted in
the rainwater. Efforts continue to remove them and the soil
they've contaminated, but the job has been completed at only
two of the 90 locations identified in a survey by Serbian
and Montenegro authorities as the sites of 99 bombings. Now
funds are running out, but Western countries have not
responded positively to appeals for assistance. All that can
be done is to cordon off the other 88 sites.
Depleted uranium ammunition was used mostly where the
conflict was centered in Kosovo and in southern Serbia. I
visited Bujanovas in southern Serbia where approximately
58,000 people live in the town and nearby villages. With
antenna for telephone and television communications located
there, the surrounding hills were targeted for bombing.
Radiation phobia
Dr. Milan Jocic has worked for more than fifteen years at a
hospital in the center of town. "Since the bombings, cancers
of the lungs, bones, and tongue have all increased with many
children falling ill. The number of cases has risen at least
30 percent. Many more people are dying young. It is the same
here as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Zorisa Markovic (58), a
reporter, formerly with the Tanjug News Agency now with
Balkan newspaper, has long covered health care issues. He
estimates that "it will take more than ten years to
determine accurately the effects of depleted uranium
ammunition. When symptoms began appearing among Italian
soldiers, there was an uproar in the Western European media,
but in Serbia under economic sanctions there was no money to
survey the health of residents. What is known is how much
depleted uranium was dropped, and that cancer has increased
since the bombings which are also thought to have caused
weakened resistance to stress. Another problem is that many
young physicians, who see no future here, have left for
other countries."
The bombings targeted not only military installations, but
also the economic infrastructure. They hit the oil refinery
at Pancevo, 20 kilometers north of Belgrade, causing the
release of dioxin poison. Deretic, the Tanjug
photojournalist, rushed there after the bombing to film the
damage. Zora Zunic (57), a researcher at the National
Institute for the Study of Atomic Energy, emphasized the
need to monitor the bombings' contamination of underground
water. "At this point," he added, "their psychological
effects in the form of radiation phobia are even more
widespread than the physiological illnesses."
"Accident" sparks rioting.
"No one can cross the bridge to bring people over here, or
take them across to the other side," an officer of the
United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) stated
emphatically. The river running through the town of
Mitrovica in northern Kosovo forms the border dividing the
Albanian and Serbian ethnic districts. In March, 2004, the
death of three Albanian boys in the village of Chabra, about
eight kilometers west of Mitrovica, ignited protests among
local residents. The worst two days of rioting since 1999
spread to other areas of Kosovo, taking the lives of
nineteen people and causing some 4,000 to flee their homes.
According to Georgi Kakuk, UNMIK press officer at Mitrovica
district headquarters, "We have found no attacker, either a
dog or a human suspect. This was most likely an accident."
The boys' bereaved families don't buy his explanation. In
Chabra I visited Cerkin Vesely (37), whose younger son had
been nine when he died. "The investigation of their deaths
as politically motivated has ended," he said with chagrin,
dismissing the possibility that they were accidental. "The
river's waters were high and cold at the time. No one was
going there." His eldest son, who had managed to swim to
safety, said that the boys had been chased by a Serbian with
a dog. "Someone has to take the responsibility for finding
them." The family is still in shock. They have not placed
their son's photograph in the house, keeping it in a drawer
at Mr. Vesely's workplace.
Guiding me around the village, he explained that "all the
houses are the same style because they were rebuilt after
the Serbians demolished them five years ago. Twenty-two
villagers were killed, and five are still missing." He
stared at the Serbian village a few hundred meters from the
river where his son had died. Asked about the future of
Kosovo, he replied, "Things in Kosovo will get better, if it
becomes independent." As for the Serbians, they grow ever
more apprehensive living under the present circumstances in
Kosovo cut off from Serbia.
Families commute by train to the ruins of homes they were
forced to flee.
I visited the village of Zvecan, about three kilometers from
Mitrovica, where Serbian civilians must now live as refugees
from the March, 2004 rioting. After entering a building with
brick siding, I met a family staying in a drab concrete
room. The building had been under construction when it was
hastily prepared to house refugees. There was no toilet or
running water. Bozidar Antic (67) and his wife Gordana (67)
came from the village of Svinjare, about three kilometers
from Mitrovica. Approximately 180 Serbian and twenty
Albanian families had lived there. But with the three
children's deaths last March, Albanian protests spread
throughout Kosovo and the NATO-led international Kosovo
Force (KFOR) lost control of public safety.
"Albanians carrying weapons ran into the village from all
sides. They started breaking the windows of our homes and
throwing gasoline-soaked rags inside. The KFOR troops were
there, but did nothing. Some wanted to mount an armed
defense, but the U.N. had taken away all their weapons after
the bombings. So we Serbians gathered in the center of the
village after their attack, and escaped in a U.N. truck." As
Mr. Antic told what had happened, his wife's eyes filled
with tears. The family had been forced to flee, literally,
with only the clothes on their backs. Three coffee cups and
one saucer were among the only things left in the burnt
ruins of their home. Still, they wanted to keep some
remembrance of it, and had retrieved a pot with scorch holes
from the ashes.
Though only a few kilometers away, going back to their
village is far from easy. The only way is to take a train
through Albanian territory, leaving and returning the same
day. Mitrovica station is in an Albanian district, and
Albanians board the train one stop before it at Zvecan. The
glass in the train windows was replaced after the riots, but
we can see new cracks made by stones thrown at the train as
it passes through Albanian territory. Fearing the Albanians,
Serbians try to travel to and from the village in groups. On
board I met Lelja Radivojevic (86) who, nevertheless, rode
the train alone. He had already gone back and forth about
ten times. After arriving at the station where KFOR troops
were standing, we climbed a narrow road between the
unscathed houses of ethnic Albanians to reach the burnt
remains of his home.
"I've lived almost ninety years, but what took so much work
to build was reduced to ashes in a day. Some people coming
to see the burnt ruins of their home might get upset, but I
was born in this house so it calms me to come here." That's
why he returns over and over again to the home that will
never be like it was before, no matter how many times he
comes to see it. He hadn't wanted to leave the day it burned
down, but his eldest son came and took him away. "I want to
stay to die here," he told me. His second son who had lived
here with him died six years ago. "He was shot by an
Albanian. The attack on our village had nothing to do with
the death of those children. It was planned and organized by
Albanian extremists." All the Serbians in the village whose
houses were burned agree with him, and they deeply resent
the blatant ineffectuality of the United Nations. With Serb
and Albanian opinion clashing over the issue of
independence, nothing bright can be seen in Kosovo's future.
All that can be seen is the devastation inflicted on its
residents from "humanitarian" bombings by countries who
won't put their soldiers at risk on the ground.
This article appeared in Shukan Kinyobi, October 1, 2004,
pp. 35-37. Suemori Akira is a photojournalist.
If you have a news story that you would like to publish, or
you wish to comment on this story, please contact the
Editor, John Perry, at perryjohn1962@yahoo.co.uk or visit
http://www.jkpenterprises.co.uk
--
---------------------------------
Too much spam in your inbox? Yahoo! Mail gives you the best spam protection
for FREE! Get Yahoo! Mail
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers.
At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/EA3HyD/3MnJAA/79vVAA/FGYolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*****************************************************************
59 AP Wire: Report: Lab didn't follow procedures for departing employees
| 02/25/2005 |
PETER BARNES
Associated Press
ALBUQUERQUE - Employees who quit their jobs at Los Alamos
National Laboratory regularly failed to turn in security badges
and complete other measures to ensure they no longer had access
to classified information or nuclear material, according to a
report released Friday.
The inspector general of the U.S. Department of Energy, which
oversees the weapons lab run by the University of California,
began investigating last year after concerns that disks and
other lab property containing secret information might have been
going home with departing employees.
The investigation found that the lab did not follow correct
termination procedures for more than 40 percent of 305 former
employees sampled.
The report stated that lab policies at the time didn't ensure
that former employees "had their security clearances and access
authorizations to classified matter and/or special nuclear
material terminated in a timely matter."
Neglected steps in dismissals and retirements included security
briefings and accounting for lab property.
While the investigation was going on, the lab was already
reviewing its personnel policies, lab spokesman James Rickman
said Friday.
"Essentially, the laboratory was aware of weaknesses in its
outprocessing procedures in early 2003," he said.
Last December, the lab changed the way people leave their jobs,
which Rickman said has resulted in nearly complete compliance
with security policies.
The new policies, such as making termination procedures the
responsibility of a manager rather than the employee, have not
been around long enough to evaluate, the report said.
Before the changes, employees leaving the lab were responsible
for duties like turning in badges and making sure they no longer
had security clearance.
Ten percent of the 1,668 employees who left between Jan. 1,
2002, and Feb. 25, 2004, didn't turn in their badges, according
to the report. Forty-four of those had badges that allowed
access to secret information and nuclear material, and some of
the badges allowed access to other DOE sites, the report said.
Both Rickman and the report noted that no nuclear material, lab
equipment or sensitive information has gone unaccounted for
because of retired employees.
Los Alamos has suffered a series of management failures and
security lapses. Most recently, fears surrounding two missing
computer disks containing sensitive information resulted in a
virtual shutdown of the lab last July. An investigation revealed
the disks never existed.
ON THE NET
Los Alamos National Laboratory: www.lanl.gov
*****************************************************************
60 Tri-Valley Herald: Feds aiming to break up lab pensions
Last Updated: 02/25/2005 04:35:51 AM
UC's pension plan is too much for the competition
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
The gold-plated University of California pension plan that
kept the nation's two nuclear-explosives labs full of scientists
after the Cold War is headed for a breakup.
Federal officials are proposing a separate pension plan for Los
Alamos National Laboratory as part of the competition for its
management contract, and they plan the same for Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory.
The two weapons design labs are run by the university and
account for a fifth of the University of California Retirement
Plan, one of the nation's largest and healthiest public plans.
It has $41.3 billion in assets — about a third as much as its
cousin, the California Public Employees Retirement System — but
18 percent more than it needs to pay all benefit claims.
The university and its employees haven't had to make
contributions to the plan for almost 15 years, and it pays rich
benefits.
If new pension plans werecreated for two weapons labs, federal
officials propose that retirement benefits for all current and
former employees would remain the same. So why break up a
healthy plan that employees consider perhaps the best perk of
working for the university?
In short, the plan is too good, and potential challengers to the
university's operating contract at Los Alamos say it makes the
competition lopsided.
"A number of firms have identified this as a barrier to
competition," said Tyler Przybylek, acting chief operating
officer for the National Nuclear Security Administration and
chairman of a panel running the Los Alamos competition. "If you
allow UC to keep the UCRP and everyone else has to create a
separate pension plan, that seems to be an advantage to the
incumbent."
The government also wants more say in the pension plans for
the weapons labs, such as being notified of contributions and
changes in benefits. In the past, university officials decided
unilaterally on the level of contributions and got full
reimbursement from the NNSA's parent organization, the U.S.
Department of Energy.
"We think there's a discussion role when you're using taxpayer
money as opposed to simply being notified what the bill is,"
Przybylek said.
Under a proposal last Friday, the university would have to break
out the assets for a separate Los Alamos pension plan to be
managed by whoever ends up as operating contractor for the lab.
Los Alamos accounts for $4.28 billion of the university plan,
but the new pension plan would be much smaller.
The UCRP would continue to hold assets for, and pay benefits to
lab retirees and their survivors as well as any employees
already vested. Typically, full-time lab employees are vested
after five years of service.
The proposal says benefits in that plan must be "substantially
equivalent" to existing benefits in the UCRP. If the benefits
are more than 105 percent higher than pension benefits at other
weapons sites, the lab operating contractor must propose a
timeline for bringing the benefits closer to those of the
complex without reducing any benefits for any current employee.
"They're going to have to come up with a very creative way to
bring pension and benefits in line in a way that doesn't impact
current employees," Przybylek said.
Los Alamos employees and retirees are worried that they will
lose retirement benefits in the competition. But NNSA officials
say they're wary of doing anything that might be construed as
a benefit cut and cause a flood of retirements or a brain drain
at the lab.
"We don't intend to do that. That's not what's in the works for
current employees," Przybylek said. "We want someone to come in
who has an eye on recruiting and retaining engineers and
scientists of the caliber that we've had for years but still do
it with some business sense."
He said the move to a separate lab pension has nothing to do
with a long-running dispute between the Energy Department and
the university over alleged overpayments that the university
made into its plan from Energy Department funds. The university
contends the overfunding of its pension plan is overwhelmingly
the result of prudent investment and good returns in the 1980s
and early 1990s.
But Energy Department audits going back to the 1980s suggest
that taxpayers may have been charged $1 billion or more beyond
what was needed to pay pensions at all three of the federal labs
managed by the university.
What happens to those alleged overpayments is likely to figure
prominently in negotiations between the Energy Department and
the university over creation of the new pension plans for the
two weapons labs.
Tri-Valley Herald All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
61 KTVB: Companies bidding for INL cleanup contract place premium on secrecy
KTVB.COM
11:54 AM MST on Friday, February 25, 2005
Associated Press
IDAHO FALLS -- Companies vying for the Idaho National Laboratory
clean up contract are being very secretive.
To date, just three have announced they're bidding on the $2.9
billion contract.
And only one of those -- Jacobs Shaw L-L-C -- has talked about
its proposals.
Companies say the hush-hush nature of the bidding is for good
reason.
They don't want rivals stealing their ideas.
The contract is to clean up radioactive and other hazardous
material on the 900-square-mile complex under a 1995 state and
federal pact.
One company official says all the bids are stamped "proprietary."
That means not even the Department of Energy can release
information about them.
The contract is due to be awarded March 15th.
*****************************************************************
62 DOE: Agency Information Collection Extension
FR Doc 05-3648
[Federal Register: February 25, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 37)]
[Notices] [Page 9297] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr25fe05-64]
AGENCY: Department of Energy.
ACTION: Submission for Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
review; comment request.
SUMMARY: The Department of Energy (DOE) has submitted an
information collection package to the OMB for extension under the
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. The package
requests a three-year extension of its ``Procurement Reporting
and Record Keeping Burdens,'' OMB Control Number 1910-4100. This
information collection package collects data that is used by the
Department to exercise management oversight and control over
contractors including management and operating (M) contractors
operating DOE's facilities and other contractors furnishing goods
and services with regard to implementation of applicable
statutory, regulatory and contractual requirements and
obligations. The information collection requires that contractors
submit information pertaining to their Procurement activities
such as acquisition of real property, facilities management, and
subcontracting goals and reporting requirements. The collection
is critical to ensure that the Government has sufficient
information to judge the degree to which contractors are meeting
requirements, that public funds are spent in an efficient and
effective manner and that fraud, waste and abuse are avoided. The
Department published a Notice and Request for Comment for this
collection in the Federal Register on December 10, 2004 at 69 FR
71807. No comments were received in response to the Notice.
DATES: Comments regarding this collection must be received on or
before March 28, 2005. If you anticipate that you will be
submitting comments, but find it difficult to do so within the
period of time allowed by this notice, please advise the OMB Desk
Officer of your intention to make a submission as soon as
possible. The Desk Officer may be telephoned at 202-395-4650.
ADDRESSES: Written comments should be sent to: DOE Desk Officer,
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of
Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10102,
735 17th Street, NW., Washington, DC 20503.
Comments should also be addressed to: Sharon A. Evelin, Director,
IM-11/Germantown Bldg., U.S. Department of Energy, 1000
Independence Ave SW., Washington, DC 20585-1290, and to: Richard
L. Langston, Procurement Policy Analyst, ME-63 L'Enfant Plaza
Building, 1000 Independence Ave. SW., Washington, DC 20585-1615.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Sharon A. Evelin and Richard L.
Langston, at the addresses listed above in ADDRESSES.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This package contains: (1) OMB No.:
1910-4100. (2) Package Title: Procurement Reporting and Record
Keeping Burdens.
(3) Purpose: This information is required by the Department to
ensure that DOE contracts including management and operation
contractors operating DOE facilities are managed efficiently and
effectively and to exercise management oversight of DOE
contractors.
(4) Estimated Number of Respondents: 1,616.
(5) Estimated Total Burden Hours: 893,359.
(6) Number of Collections: The package contains 41 information
and/ or recordkeeping requirements.
Statutory Authority: Department of Energy Organization Act,
Public Law 92-01.
Issued in Washington, DC, on February 18, 2005.
Sharon A. Evelin, Director, Records Management Division, Office
of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 05-3648 Filed 2-24-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P
*****************************************************************
63 ONEST: Framework Agreement Signing, Washington, D.C.
Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology
Nuclear.Gov
February 28, 2005
The Generation IV International Forum, or GIF, was chartered in
May 2001 to lead the collaborative efforts of the world's
leading nuclear technology nations in developing next generation
nuclear energy systems to meet the world's future energy needs.
This unique international effort reached a major milestone on
February 28, 2005, as five of the forum's member countries
signed the world's first agreement aimed at the international
development of advanced nuclear energy systems.
This accord, the Framework Agreement for International
Collaboration on Research and Development of Generation IV
Nuclear Energy Systems, is the culmination of an effort that
began at a January 2000 meeting of lead nuclear technology
officials from all over the world. This meeting, which was held
in Washington, DC, was assembled to discuss the interest of
major countries in the future of nuclear energy and prospects
for future collaboration.
Since that first meeting, more than a hundred of the world's
best and brightest scientists, economists and engineers agreed
on the technology goals for a new generation of nuclear energy
systems-Generation IV systems-that offer significant
enhancements in economics, safety, proliferation resistance and
sustainability. After two more years of work, these experts
developed A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Nuclear Energy
Systems, that documented the evaluation of over 100 technology
concepts.
This December 2002 document, published jointly by the GIF and
U.S. DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee (NERAC),
identified the six concepts that represented the world's best
judgment as to which concepts held the greatest promise for the
future and the research and develop that would be necessary to
advance them to commercial deployment. These six concepts are:
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor System, Lead-Cooled Fast Reactor System,
Molten Salt Reactor System, Supercritical-Water-Cooled Reactor
System and Very High Temperature Reactor System.
The GIF reflects the work of experts in 11 GIF member
governments-Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Euratom, France, Japan,
Republic of Korea, Republic of South Africa, Switzerland, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. As the Framework
Agreement enters into force following its signature on February
28, 2005, other GIF Members are expected to accede to the
agreement over the coming months. Pending their accession to the
agreement, all GIF members will continue to participate in GIF
activities over the next year.
As detailed in its Charter and subsequent GIF Policy Statements,
the GIF is led by the Policy Group. The Policy Group is
responsible for the overall framework and policy formation and
for interactions with third parties. An Experts Group advises
the Policy Group on R strategy, priorities and methodology, and
on evaluating research plans for each Generation IV System. The
GIF Policy Group meets two to three times a year to review past
activities, provide guidance to the Experts Group and Systems
Steering Committees, and determine future program direction. The
GIF Policy Group has elected a chair and two vice-chairs to lead
its activities. The United States currently chairs the Policy
Group, supported by Vice-Chairs from France and Japan. At its
meeting in January 2005, the Policy Group confirmed arrangements
under which the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency will provide
Technical Secretariat support for the GIF. The Governance
Structure is illustrated below.
The GIF has established Systems Steering Committees to implement
the research and development for each Generation IV reactor
concept, with participation by GIF Members interested in
contributing to collaborative R. Each Systems Steering Committee
will plan and integrate R projects contributing to the design of
a System. Participants in Systems Committees, and in Projects,
will sign agreements governing intellectual property rights and
other matters in order to work cooperatively on the concepts.
The Charter of the GIF and the Framework Agreement allow for the
participation of organizations from non-GIF countries on all
research projects, but not on Systems Steering Committees.
The GIF represents the desire of all its members to find new and
better solutions to the world's future energy and environment
challenges while allowing continued economic development and
growth throughout the world. Nuclear technology can play a key
role in this future by providing a means of supplying people all
over the world with a safe, proliferation-resistant, and
economic means of producing electricityand eventually
hydrogenwithout harming the environment in which we all live
and breathe.
+ Charter of the Generation IV International Forum
+ A Technology Roadmap for Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems
+ An Essential Role for Nuclear Energy
+ The Generation IV Technology Roadmap in Brief
+ Findings of the Roadmap
+ Recommended R for the Most Promising Systems
+ Recommended Crosscutting R
+ Integration of R Programs and Path Forward
+ Members of the Generation IV Roadmap Project
+ Acronyms
Page Last Updated: 2/23/05
*****************************************************************
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:
*****************************************************************