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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Guardian Unlimited: Allies to Hold New Talks With Iran
2 Irna: Venue of EU-Iran nuclear talks still undecided -
3 Las Vegas SUN: Europe, Iran to Resume Nuclear Dialogue
4 Hankyoreh: Intra-Korean Talks Must be Productive
5 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Plays Off Fears in Nuke Standoff
6 Korea Herald: Inter-Korean negotiators extend talks to third day
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Hill Confident South Korea Will Stick to
8 Japan Times: Push North Korea toward real reform
9 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea Plays Off Fears in Nuke Standoff
10 Guardian Unlimited: Rival Koreas Extend Talks to Thursday
11 US: [progchat_action] Fw: BUSH SPACE POLICY NEARS COMPLETION
12 US: Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs
13 US: [NYTr] Air Force Plan Seeks Billions to Weaponize Space
14 US: The Times: Bush urged to make space the next weapons frontier -
15 Moscow Times: Adamov Claims Immunity From Arrest
16 Scotsman.com: Judge Orders Island Eviction of Anti-Nuclear Group
NUCLEAR REACTORS
17 US: TMI training program: PR v. reality
18 Guardian Unlimited: Energy Chief Foresees Nuclear Power Plant
19 Platts: UK major energy buyers could be interested in nuclear deals
20 US: North County Times: Public says go green instead of fixing San O
21 RIA Novosti: RUSSIA, VIETNAM BOOSTING NUCLEAR COOPERATION
22 US: Times Record News: CAP shifts focus to moving spent fuel
23 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss Performance Assessment for River Bend Nuclea
24 US: toledoblade.com: Groups seek hearing for Davis-Besse ex-engineer
25 Xinhua: China gains rich experience in nuclear power construction
26 Xinhua: Environment campaigners arrested at Dutch nuclear plant
27 US: Lincoln County News: Maine Yankee Foresees Waste Gone in Decade
28 US: NBCSandiego.com: Plan To Fix San Onofre Nuke Plant Would Cost $6
29 New Scientist: Chernobyl's link to thyroid cancer confirmed
30 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
31 IRNA: Iran not to compromise its right for peaceful use of nuclear e
32 People's Daily: World's largest nuclear engineering group optimistic
33 US: csmonitor.com: Suddenly, a light shines on nuclear power |
34 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria's 2nd Nuke Under New Attack
NUCLEAR SECURITY
35 US: UCLAII: UCLA Chancellor Carnesale on the Risks of Nuclear Attack
36 Mail & Guardian: 'Nuclear weapons' case transferred to Pretoria
37 US: UPI: Nuclear-war threat still very real -
38 US: Idaho Mountain Express: WMD Attack Tests Crews Skills
NUCLEAR SAFETY
39 [du-list] Scrutinizing Iraq Scandals: * Policy * Profiteering
40 US: [du-list] Rep. McDermott Calls for Depleted Uranium
41 US: NRC: In the Matter of R Engineering Consultants, Fairbanks, AK;
42 US: Medical Net: Exposure to radioactive iodines in childhood is ass
43 AU ABC: Marshall Islands pushes nuclear compensation case
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
44 US: Bradenton Herald: Tallevast water work on hold
45 US: Deseret News: Reject temporary nuke sites
46 US: Deseret News: House panel votes to boost funds for interim nucle
47 Las Vegas RJ: 'Yucca is not dead,'head of nuclear energy group says
48 Las Vegas SUN: EPA's proposal for new Yucca radiation standard is de
49 US: Rutland Herald: Panel expected to OK Yankee waste site today
50 Korea Times: Korea Advised to Build Trust to Construct Nuke Waste Si
51 New Scientist: UK's nuclear waste may go up in smoke -
52 Al Jazeera: PA minister accuses Israel of nuclear waste disposal -
53 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judge denies Indian tribe's plea to halt nucl
PEACE
54 Korea Herald: Limiting spread of nuclear plague
55 Japan Times: Transparent U.S. nuclear arsenal
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
56 Tri-City Herald: Hanford likely to boost budget
57 Platts: DOE to drop nuclear incentives, focus on operating delays
58 lamonitor.com: Defusing nuclear threats
59 lamonitor.com: County to talk to lab about complex funding
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Guardian Unlimited: Allies to Hold New Talks With Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 18, 2005 1:16 AM
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - With U.S. support, three European nations will
meet early next week with Iran in a fresh effort to curb its
nuclear activities, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said
Tuesday.
He declined to predict the outcome at a joint news conference
with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who blessed the
diplomatic effort as ``well-worth pursuing.''
The talks likely will be held in Paris with Foreign Ministers
Michel Barnier of France and Joschka Fischer of Germany joining
him at the negotiating table, Straw said.
If they fail, the United States and the allies have agreed to
take their concerns to the International Atomic Energy Agency's
board in Vienna and probably then to the U.N. Security Council.
These are steps ``we will reluctantly but necessarily have to
take,'' Straw said.
In the Security Council, the United States is virtually certain
to push for economic and political sanctions against Iran, but
the outcome is uncertain. Even if the allies support the Bush
administration, China, which has veto power, is opposed in
principle to sanctions to resolve disputes among nations.
And U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a recent interview
with USA Today, predicted deadlock.
But Straw clearly was buoyed by U.S. support for pursuing
negotiations even though past rounds have not been productive. A
few years ago, he said, there were differences between the
allies and the United States, but now ``the United States has
given us active support in this endeavor.''
``There were many people around who were trying to say this
would be another occasion of a split between Europe and America
and so on,'' Straw said before winding up the news conference to
have a working dinner with Rice. ``Those people have been
confounded.''
Rice, meanwhile, declined to predict the next move in the
dispute with Iran.
``I think we will see what comes next,'' she said. ``We've
obviously got the Security Council as an option for the
international community,'' she said.
Hasan Rowhani, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, is expected to
represent his government at the talks.
Iran has said it soon would resume conversion of raw uranium
into a gas used for enrichment, a key step toward making nuclear
warheads. But it has denied U.S. allegations that it wants to
enrich uranium as part of a covert nuclear weapons program.
Instead, Iran says its programs are designed to generate power.
The Europeans are insisting on a long-term freeze or even a
pledge from Iran to scrap its nuclear activities in exchange for
technical and economic aid, political support and guaranteed
nuclear fuel supplies.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
2 Irna: Venue of EU-Iran nuclear talks still undecided -
Brussels, May 18, IRNA
EU-Iran-nuclear talks
The venue of the expected meeting between the EU3 and Iran on
the Islamic Republic's nuclear program next week is yet to be
decided, EU sources told IRNA in Brussels Wednesday.
"We still have no confirmation. There is talk of the meeting to
be held either in Paris or in Brussels," said the sources
speaking on condition of anonymity.
"Nobody is packing their bags at the moment which shows that
the venue is still in flux," added the sources.
EU foreign ministers are to hold their regular monthly meeting
in Brussels on Monday, May 23.
The EU-3 (UK, France and Germany) will hold fresh talks with
Iran over its nuclear program, British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw has said.
He was quoted by news agencies as saying in London before his
departure to Washington early Wednesday that the meeting could
take place in Paris early next week.
260/1422
*****************************************************************
3 Las Vegas SUN: Europe, Iran to Resume Nuclear Dialogue
Today: May 18, 2005 at 10:15:14 PDT
By BARRY SCHWEID ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -
The European allies will resume talks with Iran in Paris on
Tuesday and insist all of its nuclear activities be restricted
to civilian purposes, a leading German legislator said.
"The Europeans are very clear about that," Volker Ruehe,
chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the German
parliament, said Wednesday. "What happens depends on the
Iranians."
Ruehe was in Washington primarily to talk to Bush administration
officials about Germany's drive for a reorganization of the U.N.
Security Council that would give Germany a permanent seat.
On a recent visit to Iran, Ruehe said, he found lower-level
Iranian officials saying openly "they want to go nuclear." He
said they view having nuclear weapons as a matter of national
pride, which makes negotiating a ban on weapons development a
political problem.
With strong U.S. support, Germany, Britain and France have taken
the lead in seeking a negotiated settlement.
If talks fail, the United States and the allies have agreed to
take their concerns to the International Atomic Energy Agency's
board in Vienna and probably then to the U.N. Security Council,
where the United States would be expected to push for economic
and political sanctions.
Iran has denied U.S. allegations that it plans to enrich uranium
as part of a covert nuclear weapons program. Instead, Iran says
it is taking steps toward generating nuclear power.
--
*****************************************************************
4 Hankyoreh: Intra-Korean Talks Must be Productive
English Editorials :
Updated : May.19.2005 03:03 KST
The intra-Korean vice ministerial talks taking place for the
first time since July of last year have arrived at a larger
framework to work with but there are problems when it comes to
the details. On the first day the two sides announced their
basic position and on the second day worked into the night to
try to narrow their differences but failed to do so. The
South¡¯s delegation returned to Seoul having agreed with the
North that each side would talk amongst themselves and then meet
again, but the prospects are unclear.
It is hard to sympathize with the way the North agrees to
holding ministerial-level talks next month but then does not
want to set a specific date. Intra-Korean dialogue is needed for
widening the range of Korean national reconciliation and for
exchange and cooperation, but it is also needed for peace on the
Korean peninsula. Even if the nuclear issue is something that
must be resolved with the United States, as the North is
asserting, there is still going to be safety to be found in
having discussion between North and South going on
simultaneously. The North should not be trying to avoid
including a further developed expression of honest intention
about peacefully resolving the nuclear issue in the eventual
document. That should not be difficult, so it is hard to
understand why the North has such a negative attitude about
doing so.
The South, for its part, should approach the issue of
fertilizer, which the North demands so earnestly, from a
humanitarian perspective and with brotherly Korean love, instead
of trying to use it as leverage. It would appear that the North
has no special reason to oppose Southern proposals such as
family reunions, a ceremony marking new road links, and the test
run of a new rail link. The people have special expectation for
these talks. It is significant that talks are back on track
after such a long absence, and because it is critical that it
play the role of stepping stone towards a process of peaceful
resolution for the North Korean nuclear issue. We again call on
both sides to approach the talks with a heavy sense of
responsibility and mission so that the talks produce some rare
success and results.
The Hankyoreh, 19 May 2005.
Copyright 2005 Hankyoreh Plus inc.
*****************************************************************
5 Guardian Unlimited: N. Korea Plays Off Fears in Nuke Standoff
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 18, 2005 7:46 PM
AP Photo SEL107
By JOSEPH COLEMAN
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - Japan threatens to cut North Korea out of
negotiations over the North's nuclear programs, while China
calls loudly for direct Washington-Pyongyang talks. In the
background, Russia is trying to lure North Korea out of
isolation with trade and scientific help.
Differing fears, whether over nuclear arms escalation or a
chaotic meltdown of authority in the volatile Stalinist state,
are allowing the North Koreans to play their neighbors against
one another and prevent a united front as the world watches to
see if they test a nuclear weapon.
``North Korea is a consummate player in terms of brinkmanship,''
said Felix Patrikeeff, a North Korea specialist at the School of
History and Politics at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Worry over North Korea's nuclear activities mounted last week
when the regime in Pyongyang announced it had taken a step that
could lead to the extraction of weapons-grade plutonium. U.S.
officials warned of unspecified action if the North follows
through on what some experts say are preparations for a nuclear
test explosion.
The growing concern comes as North Korea has boycotted
six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons ambitions
since a third round last June. South Korea's government opened
talks with Pyongyang this week, but it was unclear whether they
would lead to a breakthrough.
U.S.-allied Japan - and particularly its hard-line politicians -
has taken the toughest approach toward North Korea, which
claimed earlier this year to possess nuclear weapons.
In the past week, the Japanese government suggested excluding
the North from the six-nation talks, while a ruling party
lawmaker, Shinzo Abe, said Tokyo should push for United Nations
sanctions in the event of a weapons test.
But such threats lack credibility, because other nations in the
talks oppose sanctions or cutting Pyongyang out of the
negotiations, said Shuji Hiraiwa, a North Korea expert at the
University of Shizuoka in Japan.
Japan has no incentives to offer. It's politically difficult
domestically for the Japanese government to offer aid or trade
while Pyongyang refuses to resolve the cases of several missing
Japanese whom North Korea admits kidnapping in the 1970s and
'80s.
``As far as Japan's influence on North Korea goes, unfortunately
right now there is none,'' Hiraiwa said. ``If you say carrot and
stick, Japan can't use the carrot and it has no stick.''
China's position is vastly different.
As North Korea's most sympathetic neighbor, China opposes taking
the dispute to the United Nations and has repeatedly rebuffed
U.S. suggestions that it cut off fuel aid to try to force
Pyongyang back to negotiations. China provides almost all the
fuel used by the North's moribund economy and also is its
biggest single food donor.
North Korea has become dependent on food aid to ease widespread
famine, which is believed to have killed more than a million
people there in the late 1990s.
China calls for flexibility in dealing with the North, and it
urged Washington this week to open direct contacts to persuade
Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks.
The United States has never had official relations with North
Korea, and says any contacts it has with the North Korea must be
within the six-nation negotiations. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said this week that aid to North Korea
``shouldn't be conditioned or negotiated as part of the
six-party talks.''
A major fear in Beijing is that sanctions might cause a rapid
collapse of the North Korean regime, which could trigger a flood
of refugees and chaos in the region.
``China wants talks rather than precipitous action that might
spark a collapse,'' said Patrikeeff. ``That's not something
China wants to entertain.''
Russia, meanwhile, is quietly trying to nudge North Korea out of
isolation by increasing trade and educational and scientific
cooperation, mostly with its Far Eastern region.
Moscow's influence with its former Cold War ally, however, has
evaporated in the post-Soviet era, as trade has plummeted from
$2 billion a year in the early 1990s to just tens of millions
now, said Anton Khlopkov of the PIR Center, a Moscow think tank
that studies arms control.
Khlopkov said Moscow has not threatened any economic sanctions -
which would not be effective anyway because of the low level of
trade.
``Russia really has no serious economic influence on North Korea
now,'' he said.
---
Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Shanghai, China,
and Steve Gutterman in Moscow contributed to this report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
6 Korea Herald: Inter-Korean negotiators extend talks to third day
(smjoo@heraldm.com) By Joo Sang-min and Joint press corps
2005.05.19
Apart on nukes, reunions but agree on aid
GAESEONG, North Korea - Separate aims and positions, including on
the North's nuclear standoff, blocked a full agreement at the
first inter-Korean talks in 10 months and the two sides decided
to slate a third round of negotiations today.
The meeting was due to end on Tuesday after two days of talks
but went on until early yesterday morning when the two
delegations, who made headway in some areas but remained apart
on the nuclear problem and other issues, decided to recess and
return today for an additional round.
They will attempt to iron out lingering differences such as
holding another round of reunions of families separated by the
1950-53 War and a joint event for opening two recently completed
cross-border roadways.
Seoul promised to provide the North with 200,000 tons of
fertilizer aid. In January, the North requested 500,000 tons for
its spring farming season, and Seoul negotiators said the
remaining amount of aid should be discussed in subsequent talks.
"The aid, which is expected to be completed by mid-June, will be
transferred via overland and sea routes, and if needed, North
Korea's ships will be mobilized," Rhee said.
"Though we could think of the inter-Korean meeting itself as a
good sign in relations, it was a meeting with its own
limitations, as the North only wants to receive what it wants
(fertilizer aid), using the meeting itself as a negotiating
card," said Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor of North Korean Studies at
Korea University in a telephone interview.
A major hurdle in the dialogue was the North's refusal to
include any mention of its nuclear weapons program in a joint
statement the two sides had planned. The Seoul delegation failed
to entice the North to tone down its hard-line position on the
nuclear standoff and to set a specific date for inter-Korean
ministerial-level talks in June.
"We could not reach a final agreement though we conducted
serious consultations. We concluded our talks and plan to bridge
differences tomorrow," the South Korean delegation's leader,
Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo, said after a brief
meeting at 7 a.m. yesterday with North Korean counterpart Kim
Man-gil.
The South Korean negotiators left Gaeseong by bus at 8:30 a.m.
yesterday and will back overland across the border early
tomorrow.
Seoul obtained tentative agreement that the two Koreas "in
principle" will hold ministerial-level Cabinet talks in Seoul in
June but Rhee told reporters more discussion was needed to work
out details. The North refused to be specific on a date, saying
it saw no reason for the talks, as both sides earlier agreed a
Seoul government delegation will visit Pyongyang to celebrate
the fifth anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit on
June 15 between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
The ministerial discussions were suspended last summer by North
Korea to underline its anger over the South's decision to accept
a large group of defectors and ban a group of South Koreans from
a ceremony marking the 10th death anniversary of the North's
founder, Kim Il-sung.
The South saw the talks as a channel to entice the North back
to the six-party talks on its nuclear program, but the North
showed little interest beyond the economic aid it has sought.
The meeting took place amid increasing pressure by the United
States and Japan, which have both floated the possibility of
referring the nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council for
sanctions, a step the North says will be tantamount to a
declaration of war.
A difficult meeting was expected when a North Korean negotiating
member was quoted as saying the talks were distant from the
nuclear issue.
Seoul used a stick-and-carrot approach in trying to persuade
Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks, which have been
stalled since June.
The South strongly urged the North to abandon its nuclear
weapons program, and uphold a 1992 inter-Korean pledge to make
the peninsula free of nuclear weapons, warning that Pyongyang
may lose momentum for inter-Korean economic cooperation.
"We repeated our position that the nuclear issue should be
resolved as early as possible for the sake of the stability and
prosperity of the Korean people, and the six-party talks should
reopen as soon as possible," Rhee said.
The North's delegation merely said it would pass the South
Korean concern to authorities in Pyongyang, and opposed
inserting the nuclear issue in a joint statement, he added.
The South also reiterated a pledge to spell out newer
"important proposals" if the North returns to the six-party
talks.
Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said at his weekly briefing in
Seoul shortly after the Gaeseong meeting that the government is
seeking to propose important incentives that could accommodate
other proposals suggested by various countries at the third and
last session of the six-party talks last year.
At the time, South Korea proposed food and energy aid to the
North if it dismantles its nuclear weapons program - an
initiative not opposed by the United States.
*****************************************************************
7 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Hill Confident South Korea Will Stick to U.S.
Updated May.18,2005 19:08 KST
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's plans for Korea to recast itself
as a balancer in Northeast Asia will in the long run take a
backseat to the country¡¯s need for a powerful friend in the
U.S. "If I were a South Korean looking into the future, I would
be saying to myself, 'I want a special relationship with a
distant power,'" Hill told the New York Times.
In an article on differences in thinking between the U.S. and
South Korea on the North Korean nuclear dispute, where Hill is
Washington¡¯s point man, the paper said Hill looked annoyed at
talk of Roh's "balancer role" and insisted Seoul would stick to
its alliance with Washington.
He explained South Korea would cling to its special relationship
with a power outside the region because it has learned from
finding itself in a "high-crime neighborhood."
¡±I would think if I were a South Korean there is logic to
saying that we're in a neighborhood that in the past -- in the
past, maybe not now -- was certainly qualified as a high-crime
neighborhood."
He pointed out that the Korean Peninsula suffered countless
invasions, battles and, at times, "wars of annihilation."
The NYT said Hill attributed little significance to differences
in opinion with other nations in six-party talks on North
Korea¡¯s nuclear program. "We're in pretty good contact with all
these governments,¡± it quoted him as saying. ¡°We're working
pretty well and we don't want to see a situation where this very
tough problem causes difficulties in these relations."
But the paper concluded, "For Seoul, managing its growing ties
with the North and its alliance with an American administration
hawkish on North Korea has become increasingly delicate."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
*****************************************************************
8 Japan Times: Push North Korea toward real reform
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
By MICHAEL O'HANLON and JACK PRITCHARD
Special to The Japan Times
WASHINGTON -- As Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill
returns to Northeast Asia for talks with U.S. allies on North
Korea's nuclear program, the future of negotiations to resolve
this terrifying matter has never been bleaker.
North Korea appears unwilling to return to the six-party
process involving both Koreas, the United States, China, Japan,
and Russia. The Bush administration has no particularly fresh
ideas for wooing Pyongyang back, and in fact understandably
rejects the very notion of trying to woo such a regime.
And now China is criticizing the U.S. approach to the talks as
insufficiently flexible and diplomatic. North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il, knowing that he can continue to trade and receive aid
from both China and South Korea, and knowing that U.S. forces
are tied down elsewhere with no good options for using force
against his country in any event, is unlikely to feel much
pressure to change his path.
This situation represents a major setback for American global
interests. An economically destitute regime with a history of
exporting virtually anything it can to make money now has up to
eight nuclear weapons and is threatening to make more -- and we
have no promising strategy for how to deal with it.
A few guidelines are incontrovertible for improving our
prospects on the peninsula:
* U.S. President George W. Bush is right that North Korea
cannot be rewarded for breaking three treaties and destabilizing
Northeast Asia in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
* Bush is wrong to think his current approach to the peninsula
stands much chance of success. As long as China openly
criticizes U.S. policy -- and South Korea does so as well --
prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough are next to nil.
* North Korea right now sees few incentives, positive or
negative, to negotiate to give up its bombs.
* While a North Korean nuclear arsenal might not be the end of
the world, it is extremely dangerous. The fact that we are
beginning to get used to its existence does not make it
acceptable.
Together, these observations require a new strategy. While the
two of us support direct U.S.-North Korea negotiations to
complement the six-party process, we agree with the Bush
administration that such talks would not themselves amount to a
new strategy. Smooth diplomacy can help in situations like this,
but when dealing with a ruthless regime, one needs to get the
strategic fundamentals right. We need U.S. leadership and a
serious mix of carrots and sticks.
But how to offer carrots when we cannot reward North Korean
provocations with appeasement? And how to muster sticks when we
cannot credibly threaten force --except perhaps as a truly
extreme last resort -- and when key countries are unwilling to
consider economic sanctions? One key is to recognize that when
you have a seemingly unsolvable problem, enlarge it.
The other important insight is to learn from the new U.S.
approach to Iran policy, where teaming with our European allies
is seemingly convincing them to be willing to threaten sanctions
if talks fail provided that we show sincere willingness to offer
Iran benefits if the talks succeed -- something that is
noticeably missing in our approach to North Korea.
We need to try to push North Korea toward broad political,
economic and military reform. That should be the core of our
strategy, rather than endless debate about what type of
diplomatic setting is appropriate for discussions or what type
of language administration officials should and should not use
when talking about the North Korean regime in public. It is
impossible to pursue such a strategy without being fully
engaged, and being seen as fully engaged.
To the extent that North Korea verifiably and meaningfully
reforms, we should promise to help it with its efforts. To the
extent it does not, we should have the agreement of Beijing and
Seoul that tougher measures will ultimately be needed, and
convince those countries to say so publicly. The premise behind
Bush's "Bold Approach" of April 2002 -- demand more, but be
willing to give more -- remains valid and would be supported by
others in the region.
There is precedent, of course, for structural reform even
within a communist autocracy. In fact, there are two successful
precedents -- China and Vietnam. Admittedly, there are also
failed precedents, at least from the perspective of the leaders
trying to carry out those reforms. Kim therefore may not like
the idea of accelerating the very gradual economic reforms in
his country now under way, and combining them with other
changes. Nor will his military immediately welcome the other
changes, besides denuclearization, it must accept for economic
reform to have a chance of success, beginning with deep cuts in
the hugely oversized conventional forces.
That is why, in addition to offering major trade and aid
benefits if Kim accepts this type of process, we also need to
make credible the threat of sanctions if he does not. But any
hope we have of getting China and South Korea to agree to such a
strategy that forces North Korea to a stark choice over its
future requires that we also show flexibility and a willingness
to be helpful and generous if Pyongyang will play ball.
The Bush administration is executing a failing policy on North
Korea at present. But there are ways to take the president's
strong principled views on the subject and use them to help
construct a new strategy with much better prospects of success.
Unfortunately, the time for doing so may be drawing to a close.
Michael O'Hanlon and Jack Pritchard are scholars at the
Brookings Institution. Pritchard negotiated for the United
States in the Clinton and Bush presidencies.
The Japan Times: May 18, 2005
*****************************************************************
9 Las Vegas SUN: N. Korea Plays Off Fears in Nuke Standoff
Today: May 18, 2005 at 15:38:21 PDT
By JOSEPH COLEMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO (AP) -
Japan threatens to cut North Korea out of negotiations over the
North's nuclear programs, while China calls loudly for direct
Washington-Pyongyang talks. In the background, Russia is trying
to lure North Korea out of isolation with trade and scientific
help.
Differing fears, whether over nuclear arms escalation or a
chaotic meltdown of authority in the volatile Stalinist state,
are allowing the North Koreans to play their neighbors against
one another and prevent a united front as the world watches to
see if they test a nuclear weapon.
"North Korea is a consummate player in terms of brinkmanship,"
said Felix Patrikeeff, a North Korea specialist at the School of
History and Politics at the University of Adelaide, Australia.
Worry over North Korea's nuclear activities mounted last week
when the regime in Pyongyang announced it had taken a step that
could lead to the extraction of weapons-grade plutonium. U.S.
officials warned of unspecified action if the North follows
through on what some experts say are preparations for a nuclear
test explosion.
The growing concern comes as North Korea has boycotted
six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons ambitions
since a third round last June. South Korea's government opened
talks with Pyongyang this week, but it was unclear whether they
would lead to a breakthrough.
U.S.-allied Japan - and particularly its hard-line politicians -
has taken the toughest approach toward North Korea, which
claimed earlier this year to possess nuclear weapons.
In the past week, the Japanese government suggested excluding
the North from the six-nation talks, while a ruling party
lawmaker, Shinzo Abe, said Tokyo should push for United Nations
sanctions in the event of a weapons test.
But such threats lack credibility, because other nations in the
talks oppose sanctions or cutting Pyongyang out of the
negotiations, said Shuji Hiraiwa, a North Korea expert at the
University of Shizuoka in Japan.
Japan has no incentives to offer. It's politically difficult
domestically for the Japanese government to offer aid or trade
while Pyongyang refuses to resolve the cases of several missing
Japanese whom North Korea admits kidnapping in the 1970s and
'80s.
"As far as Japan's influence on North Korea goes, unfortunately
right now there is none," Hiraiwa said. "If you say carrot and
stick, Japan can't use the carrot and it has no stick."
China's position is vastly different.
As North Korea's most sympathetic neighbor, China opposes taking
the dispute to the United Nations and has repeatedly rebuffed
U.S. suggestions that it cut off fuel aid to try to force
Pyongyang back to negotiations. China provides almost all the
fuel used by the North's moribund economy and also is its
biggest single food donor.
North Korea has become dependent on food aid to ease widespread
famine, which is believed to have killed more than a million
people there in the late 1990s.
China calls for flexibility in dealing with the North, and it
urged Washington this week to open direct contacts to persuade
Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks.
The United States has never had official relations with North
Korea, and says any contacts it has with the North Korea must be
within the six-nation negotiations. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said this week that aid to North Korea
"shouldn't be conditioned or negotiated as part of the six-party
talks."
A major fear in Beijing is that sanctions might cause a rapid
collapse of the North Korean regime, which could trigger a flood
of refugees and chaos in the region.
"China wants talks rather than precipitous action that might
spark a collapse," said Patrikeeff. "That's not something China
wants to entertain."
Russia, meanwhile, is quietly trying to nudge North Korea out of
isolation by increasing trade and educational and scientific
cooperation, mostly with its Far Eastern region.
Moscow's influence with its former Cold War ally, however, has
evaporated in the post-Soviet era, as trade has plummeted from
$2 billion a year in the early 1990s to just tens of millions
now, said Anton Khlopkov of the PIR Center, a Moscow think tank
that studies arms control.
Khlopkov said Moscow has not threatened any economic sanctions -
which would not be effective anyway because of the low level of
trade.
"Russia really has no serious economic influence on North Korea
now," he said.
---
Associated Press writers Christopher Bodeen in Shanghai, China,
and Steve Gutterman in Moscow contributed to this report.
--
*****************************************************************
10 Guardian Unlimited: Rival Koreas Extend Talks to Thursday
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 18, 2005 11:16 AM
AP Photo SEL807
By PAUL ALEXANDER
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea will get another chance to
press North Korea to return to the nuclear bargaining table
after the two sides agreed Wednesday to extend their first talks
in 10 months for an extra day.
Pressure grew on the reclusive communist North to attend a
fourth round of six-country talks over its worrisome nuclear
weapons program as South Korea appeared to balk at Pyongyang's
request for food aid and fertilizer. A top U.S. official
suggested the North should rejoin the negotiations if it is
concerned about its economic well-being and security.
But the North, long accustomed to brinksmanship, was resisting
any commitment. Vice Unification Minister Rhee Bong-jo, head of
the South's delegation, said Pyongyang's delegation was
listening to his entreaties without comment. South Korea's
Yonhap news agency, quoting an unidentified Seoul official, said
the North did not want any mention of the nuclear issue in a
joint final statement.
Concern over North Korea's nuclear program intensified last week
when Pyongyang said it had taken a step that could lead to
harvesting weapons-grade plutonium. U.S. officials warned of
unspecified action if the North conducts a nuclear test, with
Japan saying it would respond by seeking U.N. sanctions. North
Korea has indicated it would view sanctions as a declaration of
war.
``As the North Korean nuclear issue is at a crucial phase, the
resumption of six-party talks is very important for peace on the
Korean Peninsula,'' South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon
said Wednesday, referring to negotiations involving the United
States, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas.
Negotiations between the two Koreas were to have ended Tuesday.
But the delegations remained at the North Korean border village
of Kaesong overnight, then met briefly Wednesday morning before
announcing they would talk again Thursday.
The reclusive, impoverished North had sought food and 500,000
tons of fertilizer, but South Korea linked that to Pyongyang
rejoining the nuclear talks.
``We have made it clear that we cannot accept North Korea's
nuclear weapons, and if the principal of denuclearization on the
Korean Peninsula is not followed, reconciliation and cooperation
between the South and the North would be impossible,'' Rhee
said.
Pyongyang has shunned direct talks with the South over its
nuclear program. But it has become dependent on food aid to ease
widespread famine - more than a million people are believed to
have died there in the late 1990s - and its delegates didn't
walk out as they often did in the past when the South has tried
to broach the nuclear issue.
``If North Koreans are concerned about their security and
they're concerned about their economy, their well-being, they
should want to come to the talks,'' the head U.S. negotiator,
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, said Wednesday.
North Korea has boycotted the nuclear negotiations since a third
round ended last June. On Monday, South Korea promised a major
new ``proposal'' if the North returns to the six-party talks.
South Korean media speculated that Seoul would offer massive
aid.
North Korea claimed in February that it has nuclear weapons and
said it would indefinitely boycott arms talks until Washington
drops its ``hostile'' policy. It said last week it would
strengthen its nuclear arsenal and that it had removed spent
fuel rods from a reactor - a possible step toward extracting
weapons-grade plutonium.
U.S. officials reported last week that spy satellites spotted
construction of a tunnel and a reviewing stand in North Korea -
possible indications of a coming nuclear test. South Korean
officials have dismissed such reports as lacking firm evidence.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
11 [progchat_action] Fw: BUSH SPACE POLICY NEARS COMPLETION
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 10:50:46 -0500 (CDT)
----- Original Message -----
From: Global Network
To: Global Network Against Weapons
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 8:16 PM
Subject: BUSH SPACE POLICY NEARS COMPLETION
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business/18space.html
May 18, 2005
Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Arms
By TIM WEINER
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from
attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security
directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive
and defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force
officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It
would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential
enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive
would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more
pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military
operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological,
political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans
Washington from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass
destruction.
A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior
administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted
that he not be identified because the directive is still under final
review and the White House has not disclosed its details.
Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive, which is still in
draft form, did not call for militarizing space. "The focus of the process
is not putting weapons in space," said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force
spokeswoman, who said that the White House, not the Air Force, makes
national policy. "The focus is having free access in space."
With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of
dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.
"We haven't reached the point of strafing and bombing from space," Pete
Teets, who stepped down last month as the acting secretary of the Air
Force, told a space warfare symposium last year. "Nonetheless, we are
thinking about those possibilities."
In January 2001, a commission led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the newly
nominated defense secretary, recommended that the military should "ensure
that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."
It said that "explicit national security guidance and defense policy is
needed to direct development of doctrine, concepts of operations and
capabilities for space, including weapons systems that operate in space."
The effort to develop a new policy directive reflects three years of work
prompted by the report. The White House would not say if all the report's
recommendations would be adopted.
In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission,
President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
which banned space-based weapons.
Ever since then, the Air Force has sought a new presidential policy
officially ratifying the concept of seeking American space superiority.
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority,"
Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress
recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force
doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as
freedom from attack" in space.
The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of
doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It
faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies
object to the idea that space is an American frontier.
Yet "there seems little doubt that space-basing of weapons is an accepted
aspect of the Air Force" and its plans for the future, Capt. David C.
Hardesty of the Naval War College faculty says in a new study.
A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane
carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions.
General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an
incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases
"anywhere in the world."
Pentagon documents say the weapon, called the common aero vehicle, could
strike from halfway around the world in 45 minutes. "This is the type of
prompt Global Strike I have identified as a top priority for our space and
missile force," General Lord said.
The Air Force's drive into space has been accelerated by the Pentagon's
failure to build a nuclear missile defense on earth. After spending 22
years and nearly $100 billion, Pentagon officials say they cannot reliably
detect and destroy a threat today.
"Are we out of the woods? No," Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directs the
Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview. "We've got a long way to go,
a lot of testing to do."
While the Missile Defense Agency struggles with new technology for a
space-based laser, the Air Force already has a potential weapon in space.
In April, the Air Force launched the XSS-11, an experimental
microsatellite with the technical ability to disrupt other nations'
military reconnaissance and communications satellites.
Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl
cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to
destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an
hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space
satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down
to targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into
weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in
the words of an Air Force plan.
Captain Hardesty, in the new issue of the Naval War College Review, calls
for "a thorough military analysis" of these plans, followed by "a larger
public debate."
"To proceed with space-based weapons on any other foundation would be the
height of folly," he concludes, warning that other nations not necessarily
allies would follow America's lead into space.
Despite objections from members of Congress who thought "space should be
sanctified and no weapons ever put in space," Mr. Teets, then the Air
Force under secretary, told the space-warfare symposium last June that
"that policy needs to be pushed forward."
Last month, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who leads the United States
Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces
subcommittee that the goal of developing space weaponry was to allow the
nation to deliver an attack "very quickly, with very short time lines on
the planning and delivery, any place on the face of the earth."
Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who is chairman of the
subcommittee, worried that the common aero vehicle might be used in ways
that would "be mistaken as some sort of attack on, for example, Russia."
"They might think it would be a launch against them of maybe a nuclear
warhead," Senator Sessions said. "We want to be sure that there could be
no misunderstanding in that before we authorize going forward with this
vehicle."
General Cartwright said that the military would "provide every opportunity
to ensure that it's not misunderstood" and that Global Strike simply aimed
to "expand the choices that we might be able to offer to the president in
crisis."
Senior military and space officials of the European Union, Canada, China
and Russia have objected publicly to the notion of American space
superiority.
They think that "the United States doesn't own space - nobody owns space,"
said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense
Information, a policy analysis group in Washington that tends to be
critical of the Pentagon. "Space is a global commons under international
treaty and international law."
No nation will "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death
star," Ms. Hitchens told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last
month. "I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if
China were to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could
strike at targets on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes."
International objections aside, Randy Correll, an Air Force veteran and
military consultant, told the council, "the big problem now is it's too
expensive."
The Air Force does not put a price tag on space superiority. Published
studies by leading weapons scientists, physicists and engineers say the
cost of a space-based system that could defend the nation against an
attack by a handful of missiles could be anywhere from $220 billion to $1
trillion.
Richard Garwin, widely regarded as a dean of American weapons science, and
three colleagues wrote in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum, the
professional journal of electric engineering, that "a space-based laser
would cost $100 million per target, compared with $600,000 for a Tomahawk
missile."
"The psychological impact of such a blow might rival that of such
devastating attacks as Hiroshima," they wrote. "But just as the unleashing
of nuclear weapons had unforeseen consequences, so, too, would the
weaponization of space."
Surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are a crucial component of
space superiority. But the biggest new spy satellite program, Future
Imagery Architecture, has tripled in price to about $25 billion while
producing less than promised, military contractors say. A new space
technology for detecting enemy launchings has risen to more than $10
billion from a promised $4 billion, Mr. Teets told Congress last month.
But General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air
Force's plans to move into space.
"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told
an Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day
mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
PO Box 652
Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517
(207) 319-2017 (Cell Phone)
http://www.space4peace.org
globalnet@mindspring.com
http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Our blog)
*****************************************************************
12 Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 06:36:59 -0500 (CDT)
Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Weapons Programs - New York Times
May 18, 2005
By TIM WEINER
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business/18space.html
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from
attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security
directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and
defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It
would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential
enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive
would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more
pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military
operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological,
political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington
from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.
A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior
administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted that
he not be identified because the directive is still under final review and
the White House has not disclosed its details.
Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive, which is still in
draft form, did not call for militarizing space. "The focus of the process
is not putting weapons in space," said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force
spokeswoman, who said that the White House, not the Air Force, makes
national policy. "The focus is having free access in space."
With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of
dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.
"We haven't reached the point of strafing and bombing from space," Pete
Teets, who stepped down last month as the acting secretary of the Air Force,
told a space warfare symposium last year. "Nonetheless, we are thinking
about those possibilities."
In January 2001, a commission led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the newly
nominated defense secretary, recommended that the military should "ensure
that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."
It said that "explicit national security guidance and defense policy is
needed to direct development of doctrine, concepts of operations and
capabilities for space, including weapons systems that operate in space."
The effort to develop a new policy directive reflects three years of work
prompted by the report. The White House would not say if all the report's
recommendations would be adopted.
In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission,
President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
which banned space-based weapons.
Ever since then, the Air Force has sought a new presidential policy
officially ratifying the concept of seeking American space superiority.
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority,"
Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress
recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force
doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom
from attack" in space.
The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of
doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It
faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies
object to the idea that space is an American frontier.
Yet "there seems little doubt that space-basing of weapons is an accepted
aspect of the Air Force" and its plans for the future, Capt. David C.
Hardesty of the Naval War College faculty says in a new study.
A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane
carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions.
General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an
incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases "anywhere
in the world."
Pentagon documents say the weapon, called the common aero vehicle, could
strike from halfway around the world in 45 minutes. "This is the type of
prompt Global Strike I have identified as a top priority for our space and
missile force," General Lord said.
The Air Force's drive into space has been accelerated by the Pentagon's
failure to build a missile defense on earth. After spending 22 years and
nearly $100 billion, Pentagon officials say they cannot reliably detect and
destroy a threat today.
"Are we out of the woods? No," Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directs the
Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview. "We've got a long way to go, a
lot of testing to do."
While the Missile Defense Agency struggles with new technology for a
space-based laser, the Air Force already has a potential weapon in space.
In April, the Air Force launched the XSS-11, an experimental microsatellite
with the technical ability to disrupt other nations' military reconnaissance
and communications satellites.
Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl
cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy
targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with
the force of a small nuclear weapon.
A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space
satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to
targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons
whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words
of an Air Force plan.
Captain Hardesty, in the new issue of the Naval War College Review, calls
for "a thorough military analysis" of these plans, followed by "a larger
public debate."
"To proceed with space-based weapons on any other foundation would be the
height of folly," he concludes, warning that other nations not necessarily
allies would follow America's lead into space.
Despite objections from members of Congress who thought "space should be
sanctified and no weapons ever put in space," Mr. Teets, then the Air Force
under secretary, told the space-warfare symposium last June that "that
policy needs to be pushed forward."
Last month, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who leads the United States Strategic
Command, told the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces subcommittee that the
goal of developing space weaponry was to allow the nation to deliver an
attack "very quickly, with very short time lines on the planning and
delivery, any place on the face of the earth."
Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who is chairman of the
subcommittee, worried that the common aero vehicle might be used in ways
that would "be mistaken as some sort of attack on, for example, Russia."
"They might think it would be a launch against them of maybe a nuclear
warhead," Senator Sessions said. "We want to be sure that there could be no
misunderstanding in that before we authorize going forward with this
vehicle."
General Cartwright said that the military would "provide every opportunity
to ensure that it's not misunderstood" and that Global Strike simply aimed
to "expand the choices that we might be able to offer to the president in
crisis."
Senior military and space officials of the European Union, Canada, China and
Russia have objected publicly to the notion of American space superiority.
They think that "the United States doesn't own space - nobody owns space,"
said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information,
a policy analysis group in Washington that tends to be critical of the
Pentagon. "Space is a global commons under international treaty and
international law."
No nation will "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death
star," Ms. Hitchens told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last month.
"I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if China were
to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets
on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes."
International objections aside, Randy Correll, an Air Force veteran and
military consultant, told the council, "the big problem now is it's too
expensive."
The Air Force does not put a price tag on space superiority. Published
studies by leading weapons scientists, physicists and engineers say the cost
of a space-based system that could defend the nation against an attack by a
handful of missiles could be anywhere from $220 billion to $1 trillion.
Richard Garwin, widely regarded as a dean of American weapons science, and
three colleagues wrote in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum, the professional
journal of electric engineering, that "a space-based laser would cost $100
million per target, compared with $600,000 for a Tomahawk missile."
"The psychological impact of such a blow might rival that of such
devastating attacks as Hiroshima," they wrote. "But just as the unleashing
of nuclear weapons had unforeseen consequences, so, too, would the
weaponization of space."
Surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are a crucial component of space
superiority. But the biggest new spy satellite program, Future Imagery
Architecture, has tripled in price to about $25 billion while producing less
than promised, military contractors say. A new space technology for
detecting enemy launchings has risen to more than $10 billion from a
promised $4 billion, Mr. Teets told Congress last month.
But General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air
Force's plans to move into space.
"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an
Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day
mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
13 [NYTr] Air Force Plan Seeks Billions to Weaponize Space
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 09:01:58 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
The New York Times - May 18, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/18/business/18space.html?ex=1274068800&en=e2a17a59b511f204&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Air Force Seeks Bush's Approval for Space Arms
By TIM WEINER
The Air Force, saying it must secure space to protect the nation from
attack, is seeking President Bush's approval of a national-security
directive that could move the United States closer to fielding offensive and
defensive space weapons, according to White House and Air Force officials.
The proposed change would be a substantial shift in American policy. It
would almost certainly be opposed by many American allies and potential
enemies, who have said it may create an arms race in space.
A senior administration official said that a new presidential directive
would replace a 1996 Clinton administration policy that emphasized a more
pacific use of space, including spy satellites' support for military
operations, arms control and nonproliferation pacts.
Any deployment of space weapons would face financial, technological,
political and diplomatic hurdles, although no treaty or law bans Washington
from putting weapons in space, barring weapons of mass destruction.
A presidential directive is expected within weeks, said the senior
administration official, who is involved with space policy and insisted that
he not be identified because the directive is still under final review and
the White House has not disclosed its details.
Air Force officials said yesterday that the directive, which is still in
draft form, did not call for militarizing space. "The focus of the process
is not putting weapons in space," said Maj. Karen Finn, an Air Force
spokeswoman, who said that the White House, not the Air Force, makes
national policy. "The focus is having free access in space."
With little public debate, the Pentagon has already spent billions of
dollars developing space weapons and preparing plans to deploy them.
"We haven't reached the point of strafing and bombing from space," Pete
Teets, who stepped down last month as the acting secretary of the Air Force,
told a space warfare symposium last year. "Nonetheless, we are thinking
about those possibilities."
In January 2001, a commission led by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the newly
nominated defense secretary, recommended that the military should "ensure
that the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."
It said that "explicit national security guidance and defense policy is
needed to direct development of doctrine, concepts of operations and
capabilities for space, including weapons systems that operate in space."
The effort to develop a new policy directive reflects three years of work
prompted by the report. The White House would not say if all the report's
recommendations would be adopted.
In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission,
President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty,
which banned space-based weapons.
Ever since then, the Air Force has sought a new presidential policy
officially ratifying the concept of seeking American space superiority.
The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority,"
Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress
recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force
doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom
from attack" in space.
The mission will require new weapons, new space satellites, new ways of
doing battle and, by some estimates, hundreds of billions of dollars. It
faces enormous technological obstacles. And many of the nation's allies
object to the idea that space is an American frontier.
Yet "there seems little doubt that space-basing of weapons is an accepted
aspect of the Air Force" and its plans for the future, Capt. David C.
Hardesty of the Naval War College faculty says in a new study.
A new Air Force strategy, Global Strike, calls for a military space plane
carrying precision-guided weapons armed with a half-ton of munitions.
General Lord told Congress last month that Global Strike would be "an
incredible capability" to destroy command centers or missile bases "anywhere
in the world."
Pentagon documents say the weapon, called the common aero vehicle, could
strike from halfway around the world in 45 minutes. "This is the type of
prompt Global Strike I have identified as a top priority for our space and
missile force," General Lord said.
The Air Force's drive into space has been accelerated by the Pentagon's
failure to build a missile defense on earth. After spending 22 years and
nearly $100 billion, Pentagon officials say they cannot reliably detect and
destroy a threat today.
"Are we out of the woods? No," Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who directs the
Missile Defense Agency, said in an interview. "We've got a long way to go, a
lot of testing to do."
While the Missile Defense Agency struggles with new technology for a
space-based laser, the Air Force already has a potential weapon in space.
In April, the Air Force launched the XSS-11, an experimental microsatellite
with the technical ability to disrupt other nations' military reconnaissance
and communications satellites.
Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl
cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy
targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with
the force of a small nuclear weapon.
A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space
satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to
targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons
whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words
of an Air Force plan.
Captain Hardesty, in the new issue of the Naval War College Review, calls
for "a thorough military analysis" of these plans, followed by "a larger
public debate."
"To proceed with space-based weapons on any other foundation would be the
height of folly," he concludes, warning that other nations not necessarily
allies would follow America's lead into space.
Despite objections from members of Congress who thought "space should be
sanctified and no weapons ever put in space," Mr. Teets, then the Air Force
under secretary, told the space-warfare symposium last June that "that
policy needs to be pushed forward."
Last month, Gen. James E. Cartwright, who leads the United States Strategic
Command, told the Senate Armed Services nuclear forces subcommittee that the
goal of developing space weaponry was to allow the nation to deliver an
attack "very quickly, with very short time lines on the planning and
delivery, any place on the face of the earth."
Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama who is chairman of the
subcommittee, worried that the common aero vehicle might be used in ways
that would "be mistaken as some sort of attack on, for example, Russia."
"They might think it would be a launch against them of maybe a nuclear
warhead," Senator Sessions said. "We want to be sure that there could be no
misunderstanding in that before we authorize going forward with this
vehicle."
General Cartwright said that the military would "provide every opportunity
to ensure that it's not misunderstood" and that Global Strike simply aimed
to "expand the choices that we might be able to offer to the president in
crisis."
Senior military and space officials of the European Union, Canada, China and
Russia have objected publicly to the notion of American space superiority.
They think that "the United States doesn't own space - nobody owns space,"
said Teresa Hitchens, vice president of the Center for Defense Information,
a policy analysis group in Washington that tends to be critical of the
Pentagon. "Space is a global commons under international treaty and
international law."
No nation will "accept the U.S. developing something they see as the death
star," Ms. Hitchens told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting last month.
"I don't think the United States would find it very comforting if China were
to develop a death star, a 24/7 on-orbit weapon that could strike at targets
on the ground anywhere in 90 minutes."
International objections aside, Randy Correll, an Air Force veteran and
military consultant, told the council, "the big problem now is it's too
expensive."
The Air Force does not put a price tag on space superiority. Published
studies by leading weapons scientists, physicists and engineers say the cost
of a space-based system that could defend the nation against an attack by a
handful of missiles could be anywhere from
$220 billion to $1 trillion.
Richard Garwin, widely regarded as a dean of American weapons science, and
three colleagues wrote in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum, the professional
journal of electric engineering, that "a space-based laser would cost $100
million per target, compared with
$600,000 for a Tomahawk missile."
"The psychological impact of such a blow might rival that of such
devastating attacks as Hiroshima," they wrote. "But just as the unleashing
of nuclear weapons had unforeseen consequences, so, too, would the
weaponization of space."
Surveillance and reconnaissance satellites are a crucial component of space
superiority. But the biggest new spy satellite program, Future Imagery
Architecture, has tripled in price to about $25 billion while producing less
than promised, military contractors say. A new space technology for
detecting enemy launchings has risen to more than $10 billion from a
promised $4 billion, Mr. Teets told Congress last month.
But General Lord said such problems should not stand in the way of the Air
Force's plans to move into space.
"Space superiority is not our birthright, but it is our destiny," he told an
Air Force conference in September. "Space superiority is our day-to-day
mission. Space supremacy is our vision for the future."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
*
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14 The Times: Bush urged to make space the next weapons frontier -
May 19, 2005
From Roland Watson and Amy Hunter in Washington
PRESIDENT BUSH is preparing a shift in US space policy that could
pave the way for the deployment of offensive and defensive
weapons beyond the Earth’s atmosphere.
It would overturn a 1996 directive signed by President Clinton,
which drew the line at using satellites to support military
operations, arms control and non-proliferation pacts.
Scott McClellan, Mr Bush’s spokesman, said that US space policy
needed to be updated because in the past nine years there had
been “a number of domestic and international developments that
have changed the threats and challenges facing our space
capabilities”.
In an apparent reference to China, but without mentioning it by
name, Mr McClellan said: “There are countries that have taken an
interest in space. And they have looked at technologies that
could threaten our space systems. And so you obviously need to
take that into account when you’re updating the policy.”
The Pentagon has prepared a draft presidential directive that
would allow the US Air Force to begin planning how best to field
weapons in space. Mr McClellan said that the Administration
believed “in the peaceful exploration of space” and would
continue to abide by treaties to which it was a signatory.
Critics said that any move towards militarising space would lead
to a potentially damaging arms race. The plans also carry
implications for the American budget deficit.
Last month the USAF launched an $80 million (£43.5 million)
experimental micro-satellite that could be used to disrupt an
enemy’s communications and reconnaissance satellites. The XSS11,
launched from Vandenberg Air Force base in California on a 12 to
18 month mission can provide 200 pictures a day or give a live
feed during US operations.
Others at the planning stage are more aggressive, according to
The New York Times. The Global Strike programme envisages a
military spacecraft carrying precision-guided weapons capable of
striking halfway round the world in 45 minutes. Pentagon chiefs
have told Congress that it would offer US commanders “an
incredible capability”, allowing them to destroy centres or
missile bases around the world.
Another USAF programme is the “Rods from God”, in which
cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium would be launched
from space to strike ground targets at speeds of 7,200mph.
Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, promoted this new
phase in space weapons in 2001 when a commission that he headed
recommended that the Pentagon “ensure that the President will
have the option to deploy weapons in space”. Three years later
the USAF believes that it has done the planning necessary to
move to the next stage.
One of the most controversial acts of the early Bush presidency
has helped to clear the way. Under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union,
Washington and Moscow agreed not to place weapons in space. Mr
Bush unilaterally withdrew from the treaty to allow the Pentagon
to pursue the missile defence umbrella first championed by
President Reagan.
Copyright 2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
15 Moscow Times: Adamov Claims Immunity From Arrest
Thursday, May 19, 2005. Issue 3169. Page 4.
The Associated Press
GENEVA -- Lawyers for former Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny
Adamov, who is being held in a Swiss prison on a U.S. warrant,
said Wednesday that they were appealing against his detention on
the basis that Switzerland violated his immunity as a former
minister.
Adamov is "confident that he will soon return to Russia," his
lawyer, Stefan Wehrenberg, said.
Adamov was arrested earlier this month in Bern after the U.S.
Justice Department accused him of diverting up to $9 million
from funds intended to improve Russian nuclear security.
The appeal was filed Tuesday in a Swiss criminal court,
Wehrenberg said. It remains unclear when a decision might be
given.
Folco Galli, spokesman for the Swiss Justice Ministry, declined
to confirm that an appeal had been received, but said Tuesday
would have been the last possible day to make such a request.
Such an appeal could only challenge whether Adamov's detention
in Bern is legal, Galli said. It is "not a question of his
extradition to the United States," he said.
© Copyright 2005 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
16 Scotsman.com: Judge Orders Island Eviction of Anti-Nuclear Group
Wed 18 May 2005
By Sam Marsden, PA
Anti-nuclear protesters were served with an eviction notice
today – five days after they occupied an island downriver from
Britain’s largest naval base.
Members of the Trident Ploughshares group “invaded†historic
Drake’s Island in Plymouth Sound, near the huge Devonport
Naval Base, on Friday.
District Judge Andrew Moon today ordered that the campaigners
should vacate the island, which they had declared a nuclear-free
state, by 3.45pm tomorrow.
Group spokeswoman Elizabeth Knight told the judge at Plymouth
County Court that she and her fellow protesters would leave
peacefully.
She said: “We do not claim to have a right to be on this
island, but we did want to have the ability to say we want to
have a nuclear-free Plymouth.â€
Devonport is the base for refits of the Royal Navy’s Vanguard
class nuclear-powered submarines, capable of firing 16 Trident
missiles with nuclear warheads.
Outside court, campaigner Michal Lovejoy, who was named the
island’s “mayorâ€, said the group passed the time by
planting trees and repairing derelict buildings.
She penned a letter, also signed by the mayors of Nagasaki and
Hiroshima, calling on civic heads worldwide to come out against
war and for peace.
Drake’s Island, located just a few hundred yards from the
mainland, has housed a garrison and has been a prison over the
centuries.
The tiny island, which was owned by the Ministry of Defence
until 1956, currently belongs to local businessman and former
Plymouth Argyle Football Club chairman, Dan McCauley.
The campaigners set up camp in one of the 6.5-acre island’s
empty buildings and erected huge banners saying “Ban the
Bomb†and “Scrap Tridentâ€.
Today Mr McCauley’s firm Rotolok issued a statement, saying:
“The protesters have occupied the island, which is private
property, without the owners’ consent.
“The organisation in occupation portrays themselves as a
peaceful demonstration group.
“We trust that following the granting of this order they will
now vacate the property of their own accord, and it will not be
necessary to actively remove them.â€
Trident Ploughshares members also plan to blockade the main
Camel’s Head gate to Devonport Naval Base on Friday in protest
at the UK’s nuclear weapons.
;2005 Scotsman.com
*****************************************************************
17 TMI training program: PR v. reality
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 19:35:00 -0700
This video has been produced by TMI-Alert. For more information please
view tmia.com or contact ericepstein@comcast.net
Mr. Epstein is the Chairman of Three Mile Island Alert , Inc.,
a safe-energy organization based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and
founded in 1977. TMIA monitors Peach Bottom, Susquehanna, and
Three Mile Island nuclear generating stations.
NEI TMI
Note: To protect against computer viruses, e-mail programs may prevent
sending or receiving certain types of file attachments. Check your e-mail
security settings to determine how attachments are handled.
Attachment Converted: "c:\program files\eudora\attach\NEI TMI.mov"
*****************************************************************
18 Guardian Unlimited: Energy Chief Foresees Nuclear Power Plant
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Wednesday May 18, 2005 1:01 AM
By JOHN HEILPRIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday
the first new nuclear power plant in more than two decades could
be completed by 2014 under administration proposals to reduce
construction risks and speed licensing.
Bodman said the Energy Department will ask Congress to establish
a $3 billion insurance pool to help investors cover interest,
operating, maintenance and newly acquired construction costs
stemming from regulatory delays. Premiums would be waived for
utilities that place firm orders before 2009 for new power
plants.
Each new reactor would be insured for up to $500 million.
Bodman said the administration also plans to ask Congress to
make it harder to stop a new reactor from operating once it is
built. He said fewer appeals to the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission would give ``more certainty in the licensing
process.''
``If all goes well, we could see new plants online by 2014,'' he
told the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group.
The insurance would apply to the first two plants built from a
new Westinghouse design, and the first two built from a new
General Electric design. Companies would be asked to pay an
insurance premium of about 10 percent of their total coverage,
possibly over a period of years, Bodman said.
The insurance would cover half the costs of interest, operations
and maintenance, and ``newly acquired construction costs
accumulated during the second, third and fourth years of a
serious regulatory delay,'' Bodman said.
``I believe that this is the appropriate level of assistance
that the government should provide to encourage new plants,''
said Bodman, while dismissing the need for other incentives.
``Looking for upfront incentives now sends the message that
nuclear power cannot stand on its own without special government
assistance. I don't think this is the right message to send to
the American people, and I don't think it's true,'' he said.
President Bush said last month that more than 35 nuclear power
plants in the United States have been stopped ``because of
bureaucratic obstacles.'' The last application for a new reactor
was submitted in 1973. Nuclear power provides about 20 percent
of U.S. electricity production.
Bodman said he has no specific criteria for raising the bar for
an appeal to the NRC, other than requiring ``clear evidence that
there is a failure to comply with that which was undertaken when
the construction began.''
``That's really what the standard, in my judgment, should be,''
he said.
For more than a decade, NRC spokesman Eliot Brenner said, the
NRC has offered a simpler application process for the building
and operating phases. He said it already had set ``a very high
threshold to get to a second public hearing'' after a new plant
is built.
^---
On the Net:
Energy Department: http://www.doe.gov
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
19 Platts: UK major energy buyers could be interested in nuclear deals
+ Major UK energy buyers might be interested in signing
long-term power purchase agreements to support a new generation
of new nuclear power plants, a representative of major UK energy
buyers said Tuesday.
There was "potential interest" from manufacturers in agreeing
such deals, he told Platts.
This model has been used in Finland to support the construction
of a new nuclear power reactor. Big Finnish industrial buyers
such as paper manufacturers are agreeing to buy electricity
long-term from a new plant to guarantee its income. A contract
would not have to guarantee the income of a new plant for its
whole life, just for the first ten or 15 years, the energy users'
representative said.
That would be sufficient to pay back most of the initial capital
costs. "It's not obvious to me that you can't build a reactor in
a liberalized market," he said.
This story was originally published in Platts European Power
Alert http://www.europeanpoweralert.platts.com
London (Platts)--17May2005
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
20 North County Times: Public says go green instead of fixing San Onofre
North San Diego and Southwest Riverside County columnists
Archives Last modified Tuesday, May 17, 2005 11:19 PM PDT
By: PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer
OCEANSIDE ---- A town hall meeting on proposed repairs at the
San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station on Tuesday turned into a
referendum on nuclear power itself.
Most of the 28 people who spoke at the meeting, held by the
California Public Utilities Commission, came down against
spending more than $800 million to replace four steam generators
at San Onofre's two functioning nuclear reactors.
Southern California Edison, San Onofre's majority owner, has
asked the commission for permission to replace the generators
and to pass the cost to its customers. The utility claims that
cracking inside the monolithic steam generators, which produce
steam that in turn spins turbines to produce electricity, could
be unusable by 2010, meaning San Onofre would have to shut down.
Many, but not all, of those who spoke Tuesday said they would
prefer that the commission deny Edison's request and invest in
renewable energy sources such as solar power and wind energy.
Oceanside resident Maegan Prentice said she has already
installed photovoltaic cells on the roof of her home that turn
sunlight into electricity. She said that if 18 percent of the
rooftops in San Diego County were covered with solar panels,
there would be no need for San Onofre.
"If we keep putting money into projects that are already doomed,
we just keep putting off the future," she said.
Pastor J. Steven Beckham drove to Oceanside from Riverside to
call for a shift from atomic power to green energy. He said it
would take about 100 square miles of solar panels to power the
nation.
"Do we have 100 square miles of rooftops in Southern
California?" he asked. "I think we do. We've got the resources
to do clean power now."
As did several other speakers, Beckham noted that nuclear power
plants generate radioactive waste which the nation still has not
decided where to store.
"I just can't see how it's ethical from any point of view,"
Beckham said.
Al Tschaeche of Encinitas was one of several in attendance who
defended San Onofre's repair plans. Tschaeche said he worked as
a health physicist in the nuclear industry for more than 50
years and found no evidence of chronic health risks.
"There's nothing wrong with nuclear power," he said.
Tschaeche noted that, if San Onofre is not repaired, the plant
would likely have to be replaced with several natural gas-fired
power plants. He noted that burning fossil fuels generates
carbon dioxide, which contributes to worldwide temperature
increases known as global warming.
A draft environmental impact report commissioned by the
utilities commission provides contrary statements about the
viability of renewable energy. The report states that it would
not be feasible to replace the more than 2,200 megawatts of
electricity San Onofre generates ---- enough to power more than
2 million homes ---- with renewable sources.
After the meeting, Commissioner Geoffrey Brown said the debate
over atomic versus renewable power is at the crux of the
commission's decision on whether to allow the repairs that
Edison has requested.
"The question is whether we can subtract nuclear energy and
totally replace it with renewables. At this point, I don't think
we can do that," Brown said.
Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or .
© 1997-2005 North County Times -
*****************************************************************
21 RIA Novosti: RUSSIA, VIETNAM BOOSTING NUCLEAR COOPERATION
HANOI, May 18 (RIA Novosti) - Nuclear scientists of Russia and
Vietnam have agreed upon boosting a cooperation program. The
ensuring of safe and efficient service, modernization of the
research reactor in Dalat in 2005-2006 is the key theme of
cooperation.
This is said in the protocol of the second session of the
Russian-Vietnamese coordinating council for atomic energy, which
finished in Hanoi today.
The protocol was signed by Vladimir Generalov, chief of the
nuclear facilities construction board at the Russian Atomic
Energy Agency, and Vuong Huu Tan, chairman of the Atomic Energy
Commission of Vietnam.
Alongside Dalat, the sides are ready to realize and consider
other projects. Among them is updating the irradiating unit in
Hanoi, Russian shipments of radio nuclide sources for this unit
and other Vietnamese medical and industrial centers, geological
survey and the development of uranium fields in Vietnam.
An updated Russian project for the AES-92 nuclear power plant
with VVER-1000 power units, several Russian enterprises and
organizations such as the TVEL corporation, ZAO Atomstroiexport,
Atomenergo institute of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency, Safety
(Bezopasnost) association were presented at the session.
The Russian side voiced interest and confirmed readiness for
realizing the nuclear power project in Vietnam, including
participation in selecting a site for the project, feasibility
study, designing and construction work, service and the training
of personnel.
In the estimate of the Vietnamese National Nuclear Energy
Institute, the start-up of the nuclear power station, ensuring
13 to 18 percent of the national electricity generation, before
2020 would meet the national demand for power. Before 2020 it
will be between 2,000 and 4,000 megawatts.
The question of building the nuclear power plant in Vietnam has
not yet been finalized. Vietnam is also going to announce an
international tender for the project. Russian and foreign
competitors have voiced interest in the tender.
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
*****************************************************************
22 Times Record News: CAP shifts focus to moving spent fuel
Bob_Kalish@TimesRecord.Com
05/18/2005
WISCASSET - With the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Plant on
schedule to be decommissioned by the middle of June, the focus
of attention will be on the continuing pressure the company and
state can put on the federal government to move the spent fuel
rods off the site. Overseeing that process, like they have for
the past eight years of decommissioning, will be the Community
Advisory Panel on Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Removal, which
met for the first time on Tuesday night.
"If and when the (nuclear) waste starts to move, the CAP would
provide a forum for community education efforts," said Don
Hudson, acting as chairman for Marge Kilkelly.
Currently the spent fuel rods dating from the lifetime of the
plant are stored in dry casks on a specially constructed
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation (ISFSI). The ISFSI
contains 64 vertical concrete casks, 60 of which contain spent
nuclear fuel and four that contain Greater Than Class C waste,
composed of metal components from the nuclear reactor itself.
John Niles, the manager of the ISFSI, reported to the panel
that a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection of the ISFSI
conducted in December raised no concerns. He also said that the
final radiological survey conducted after all fuel had been
transferred to the ISFSI showed the zero dose boundary to be
well within the 300-meter boundary set by the NRC. That means
that there is no measurable extra radiation to the public from
the stored nuclear waste.
Other items discussed during the meeting included:
Site restoration is behind schedule due to wet and cold
weather. There are two acres of soil left to be remediated.
Waste soil is being stockpiled and relocated across the ISFSI to
be moved later this summer.
Michael Meisner, chief nuclear officer of Maine Yankee,
reported that there are 175 rail cars loaded with soil remaining
to be shipped to Utah, plus another 48 cars under re-examination
for moisture content. Some of the cars have been kept on local
sidings in Topsham and Woolwich because of lack of room at the
site. The cars have been examined and Meisner said there was "no
detectable radiation."
A decision is expected late this year on the suit brought by
Maine Yankee, Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe nuclear plants
against the federal Department of Energy to recover costs
associated with the delay in removing the spent fuel from the
plants and storing it in a central location. By statute, the DOE
was supposed to start moving spent fuel in 1998. The lawsuit is
to recover the costs of storing the fuel, including the
construction of the ISFSI. Maine Yankee is asking for $160
million for its costs through 2010.
Maine Yankee has won the 2005 Environmental Business Council
of New England award for outstanding environmental innovation.
The award is presented to an organization that has developed a
creative engineering technique, business practice, project
management method or human resource policy resulting in a
benefit to the environment. Maine Yankee President Ted
Feigenbaum will receive the award at the organization's annual
meeting June 9 in Newton, Mass.
(C) 2005 All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
23 NRC: NRC to Discuss Performance Assessment for River Bend Nuclear Plant
News Release - Region IV - 2005-02
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
Office of Public Affairs, Region IV
No. IV-05-022 May 17, 2005
CONTACT: Victor Dricks
Phone: 817-860-8128
E-mail: opa4@nrc.gov
Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with
representatives of Entergy Operations, Inc. on May 19 to discuss
the results of the agencys annual assessment of safety
performance at the River Bend nuclear plant. The facility is
located in St. Francisville, La.
The meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at Grace Episcopal
Church, Jackson Hall, 11621 Ferdinand Street, St. Francisville.
Before the session is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to
answer questions from the public on the plants safety
performance, as well as the agencys role in ensuring safe
operation of the facility.
Each year the NRC staff evaluates the performance of each of the
nations commercial nuclear plants, said Region IV Administrator
Bruce S. Mallet. This meeting gives us a chance to discuss our
assessment with the company, local officials and residents near
the plant. We want to make this information available to the
public and answer any questions people may have about the plant.
Overall, River Bend operated safely during 2004 and will receive
baseline inspections during 2005. Baseline inspections are
performed by the NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant
and by inspection specialists from the Region IV office and the
agencys headquarters in Rockville, Md.
However, because the number of unplanned shutdowns at the plant
exceeded a performance threshold, NRC plans to conduct a
supplemental inspection during 2005 in order to verify that the
company has identified the root cause of the problem and taken
actions to prevent recurrence.
A letter sent from the NRC Region IV office in Arlington, Texas,
to plant officials will serve as the basis for the meeting. It
is available on the NRC web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/rbs_2004q4.pdf
[PDF Icon] .
Current information for River Bend is available on the NRC web
site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/RBS1/rbs1_chart.html.
Last revised Tuesday, May 17, 2005
*****************************************************************
24 toledoblade.com: Groups seek hearing for Davis-Besse ex-engineer
Article published Wednesday, May 18, 2005
By TOM HENRY BLADE STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON - Andrew Siemaszko, a former Davis-Besse system
engineer banned by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last month
after the agency accused him of withholding information about
the plant's old reactor head, has environmental groups in
Cleveland and Washington trying to get the action overturned.
Elizabeth Hayden, spokesman for NRC headquarters in Rockville,
Md., yesterday confirmed the agency had received a request from
Ohio Citizen Action and the Union of Concerned Scientists to
have Mr. Siemaszko's appeal heard.
David Lochbaum, Union of Concerned Scientists nuclear safety
engineer, said in his 21-page filing it is "a miscarriage of
justice for the NRC to single out Mr. Siemaszko," and that the
former employee's reputation has been damaged by the agency.
"Crafted and announced as such, the NRC provides the public with
the totally false perception that Mr. Siemaszko and Mr.
Siemaszko alone caused Davis-Besse. Nothing could be farther
from the truth and this travesty will in all likelihood be
remedied," Mr. Lochbaum wrote.
The groups are appealing an April 21 NRC headquarters
announcement in which it proposed a record $5.45 million fine
against FirstEnergy Corp. for allowing Davis-Besse's old nuclear
reactor head to get so corroded it nearly burst in 2002.
Mr. Siemaszko, who in 2003 had filed a U.S. Department of Labor
whistleblower complaint, has called the NRC's allegation an
"outrage." His attorney has said he is being made out to be a
scapegoat. The NRC had no comment about his request for an
appeal, Ms. Hayden said.
In his 2003 complaint, Mr. Siemaszko alleged that FirstEnergy
Corp. threatened to fire him if he did not sign a document
stating the reactor head was ready to be put back into service
while the plant was nearing the end of its two-year refueling
outage in 2000. FirstEnergy, which has denied the allegation,
won a decision from a labor judge in the summer of 2003.
That case is being appealed.
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
25 Xinhua: China gains rich experience in nuclear power construction
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-18 19:05:55
BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhuanet) -- China has gained abundant
experience constructing nuclear power plants and opened nine
nuclear power generators, said Zhang Huazhu, director of the
China's Atomic Energy Agency.
China has entered a new phase of nuclear power development
and the country's installed nuclear power generating capacity is
expected to increase from the current 8.7 million kw to 40
millionkw by 2020, Zhang said at the opening ceremony of the
13th International Nuclear Engineering Conference Tuesday.
The ratio of nuclear power in the country's total installed
generating capacity will increase from the present 1.6 percent
to 4 percent by 2020, he said.
Through 50 years of development, China has established a
comprehensive nuclear power industrial system and is capable of
designing and developing hydro-pressure nuclear power generating
units with capacity ranging from 300,000 kw to 600,000 kw.
The 13th International Nuclear Engineering Conference was
co-sponsored by the China Nuclear Institute, the US Mechanical
Engineers Institute, the Japanese Mechanical Engineers Institute
and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nearly 1,000 experts
and representatives from both home and abroad attended the
conference.
The first such conference was launched in 1991 with the
previous conferences held in the United States, Japan and
France. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 Xinhua: Environment campaigners arrested at Dutch nuclear plant
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-19 05:42:56
BRUSSELS, May 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Four environment campaigners
were detained for having climbed onto the containment dome of
the Borssele nuclear power station in the Netherlands, Radio
Netherlands reported on Wednesday.
Around 30 Green peace campaigners occupied the grounds of
the Borssele nuclear power station on Wednesday. The activists
wanted to show that the plant can never be one-hundred-percent
secure.
According to the radio, the environmental campaigners, who
were dressed as yellow waste containers for radioactive
material, left the grounds voluntarily after the four were
arrested by local police.
The plant was scheduled for closing in 2013, but Environment
Minister Pieter van Geel recently argued in favor of keeping it
open.
The Dutch cabinet is expected to decide on the future of the
Borssele plant at the end of the year. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
27 Lincoln County News: Maine Yankee Foresees Waste Gone in Decade
May 19, 2005
By Greg Foster
Maine Yankee’s chief nuclear officer foresees that the spent
nuclear fuel and other high level waste now housed in 64 concrete
canisters at the decommissioned plant site in Wiscasset will be
out of town in 10 years.
Mike Meisner made his prediction Tuesday at the first meeting
of the company’s newly constituted Community Advisory Panel
whose major purpose meanwhile is to offer public input on the
operation of the spent fuel storage facility.
“In my opinion there will be a place to ship it in 10 years,”
he said. “But if legal hurdles exist, I don’t see how we could
prudently move the fuel.”
Meisner was referring to the independent repository that plants
such as Maine Yankee are collaborating on in Utah as a prime
possibility before the federal government furnishes a location
in Nevada it has been promising since the 1990’s.
Lately, however, there have been statements by the federal Dept.
of Energy that it would not accept the spent fuel from Utah at
the proposed federal Yucca Mountain site after it opens,
according to Company President Ted Feigenbaum.
Charles Pray, state nuclear safety advisor, informed officials
and the CAP about a recent development in which $10 million has
been budgeted for transportation of nuclear waste.
“There always has been money for planning transportation, but
this is for interim storage,” he said.
Feigenbaum sees the seed money as a positive thing in light of
the lawsuits against the DOE, including Maine Yankee’s own $160
million suit, for default on its promise of provision of a
federal repository by 1998. The prospect of one keeps getting
pushed back and some observers speculate that it might not be
ready before 2020, if then.
“The government’s liability is huge, and they need to get the
process moving,” Feigenbaum said.
Maine Yankee’s suit awaits a decision from the federal judge on
the damages, which could be forthcoming some time in August,
according to Meisner.
Lately there has been an effort in Congress to lobby for
legislation to make states keep the nuclear spent fuel where it
is, but the state has been working against that kind of move,
according to Pray.
In the meantime, the spent fuel in 60 of the concrete storage
“silos” and greater than class C nuclear waste in another four
casks standing tall at the berm-surrounded installation on the
Bailey Point site.
Jim Connell, programs manager for the installation as well as
that for Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Rowe, gave a regulatory
overview, including a map showing the perimeter around it where
there is zero millirems of radiation from there and beyond. The
line is slightly in from the shore of the river, which he
considers a good thing.
There is also an outer perimeter for security, which is a
300-meter outer circle around the facility. Security measures
protecting will continue on as long as the waste is present at
the site, according to John Niles, installation manager.
Niles said that Central Maine Power Co. would be able to take
advantage of the present security at the site, when asked by CAP
member Dan Thompson whether there was any security for CMP’s
nearby electric switchyard. The switchyard is a vital part of
the New England grid system.
Niles told Thompson that he is unaware of any security measures
in place for the CMP property.
There will be some changes to the Maine Yankee site after the
company completes its decommissioning work, which Meisner
estimated should be finished in June and final reports would
then be readied for submission to the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) by the end of July.
In his report on the decommissioning effort, Meisner mentioned
that the company has recorded over two million safe hours worked
since the last lost time injury three years ago. The project
dose of radioactivity has been less than half the NRC limit, he
said.
Because of inclement weather during the past winter and heavy
spring rainfall, the decommissioning project has slowed
somewhat. That has moved the completion of site restoration to
mid-June.
Currently the last two acres at the plant site are being
remediated, and waste soil has been relocated to a site across
from the spent fuel storage facility to allow remediation to
continue. Project managers have compared the process to backing
out of a room that is being painted.
The stockpiled soil will be shipped after decommissioning is
finished as a post-site restoration project that Meisner
anticipates will be complete mid-August. As of this week, there
are 175 rail cars left to ship to the Envirocare low-level
nuclear waste dump in Utah.
The recent large influx of cars in the area is due to the 48
recalled cars that are being inspected for moisture content
after Envirocare issued a stop order because of leakage
discovered from a few cars. Shortly after the company corrected
the problem and resumed shipping soil there.
Meisner commended local authorities for the cooperative effort
to put to rest any fears about potential radiation hazards from
the railcars parked at a siding in Topsham that have since been
removed and those parked at the siding in Woolwich.
“It’s unfortunate it happened but fortunate that we had the
opportunity to educate the people there is virtually no
radiation danger in this operation,” he said.
Meisner expects the NRC to reduce Maine Yankee’s license to the
footprint of the storage facility around the end of July and
final acceptance of the license termination in early July and
termination of non-installation land in August.
Vol. 130 - No. 20
Lincoln County News © 2002
*****************************************************************
28 NBCSandiego.com: Plan To Fix San Onofre Nuke Plant Would Cost $680 Million
Critics Call For Replacing Plant With Conservation, Renewable
Power
UPDATED: 9:53 am PDT May 18, 2005
SAN DIEGO -- A plan to spend $680 million to replace steam
generators at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near
Oceanside is being attacked by environmentalists and others.
[San Onofre]
The California Public Utilities Commission held a public
hearing Tuesday on a request by plant operator Southern
California Edison to replace the four deteriorating generators.
Edison officials said the generators won't last until San
Onofre's federal license expires in 2022.
Most speakers at the Oceanside hearing said they favored
replacing the nuclear plant with conservation and renewable
energy sources, including wind and solar power, according to the
Los Angeles Times.
The five members of the PUC panel is expected to decide if
replacing the generators makes economic sense for the utility
and energy consumers. It will also rule on a similar request by
Pacific Gas and Electric to replace steam generators at Diablo
Canyon, north of San Luis Obispo, for an estimated $706 million.
The utilities say the projects will save customers up to $3
billion in electricity costs.
Copyright 2005 by NBCSandiego.com. All rights reserved. This
*****************************************************************
29 New Scientist: Chernobyl's link to thyroid cancer confirmed
19 May 2005
AT LAST, the debate is over. Radioactive iodine-131 from the
Chernobyl accident in 1986 really is to blame for the hundreds
of thyroid cancers among children in Belarus, Russia and
Ukraine.
Despite evidence of a 90-fold increase in rates of thyroid
cancer in the most contaminated region, some scientists
questioned whether radiation was the cause. They argued that the
doses people received were too low to cause cancer. Now
Elizabeth Cardis of the International Agency for Research on
Cancer in Lyon, France, and 35 colleagues have compared 276
children with thyroid cancer with 1300 controls. They found a
strong correlation between the dose children received and their
risk of developing thyroid cancer (Journal of the National
Cancer Institute, vol 97, p 724).
"This link has now been unequivocally confirmed," says Keith
Baverstock of the University of Kuopio in Finland, one of the
scientists who first highlighted the Chernobyl thyroid cancers.
The finding shows that thyroid glands of children are especially
sensitive to radiation. In light of this, he suggests, children
should not have dental X-rays without good reason.
In the US, a nuclear plant in Hanford, Washington, released
large amounts of iodine-131 in the 1940s. Six people who were
children at the time and developed cancer are currently awaiting
the decision of a District Court that will determine whether
thousands of other plaintiffs can proceed with their cases.
From issue 2500 of New Scientist magazine, 21 May 2005, page 7
*****************************************************************
30 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting Notice
FR Doc E5-2489
[Federal Register: May 18, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 95)] [Notices]
[Page 28586-28587] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr18my05-116]
In accordance with the purposes of Sections 29 and 182b. of the
Atomic Energy Act (42 U.S.C. 2039, 2232b), the Advisory Committee
on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) will hold a meeting on June 1-3,
2005, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The date of this
meeting was previously published in the Federal Register on
Wednesday, November 24, 2004 (69 FR 68412).
Wednesday, June 1, 2005, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White Flint
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.--8:35 a.m.: Opening Remarks
by the ACRS Chairman (Open)--The ACRS Chairman will make opening
remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
8:35 a.m.--9:45 a.m.: Interim Review of the License Renewal
Application for the Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff and the Nuclear
Management Company, LLC regarding the license renewal application
for the Point Beach Nuclear Plant, Units 1 and 2 and the
associated draft Safety Evaluation Report prepared by the NRC
staff, as well as the progress being made by the NRC staff and
the applicant in resolving the issue of potential common-mode
failure of the auxiliary feedwater pumps due to operator actions
specified in the plant procedures, and related issues.
10 a.m.--11:30 a.m.: Draft Commission Paper on Policy Issues
Related to New Plant Licensing (Open)--The Committee will hear
presentations by and hold discussions with representatives of the
NRC staff regarding the draft Commission paper on policy issues
(integrated risk and level of safety) related to new plant
licensing.
12:30 p.m.--2 p.m.: Fire Risk Requantification and Probabilistic
Risk Analysis (PRA) Methodology for Nuclear Power Plants
(Open)--The Committee will hear presentations by and hold
discussions with representatives of the NRC staff and Electric
Power Research Institute (EPRI) regarding draft final
NUREG/CR-6850, ``EPRI/NRC-RES Fire PRA Methodology for Nuclear
Power Facilities,'' and related matters.
2:15 p.m.--4:15 p.m.: Draft Commission Paper on Proposed
Alternatives to the Existing Single Failure Criterion (Open)--The
Committee will hear presentations by and hold discussions with
representatives of the NRC staff regarding the draft Commission
Paper on the proposed risk- informed and performance-based
alternatives to the existing single failure criterion.
4:30 p.m.--7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The
Committee will discuss proposed ACRS reports on matters
considered during this meeting as well as a proposed report
responding to the Commission request in the April 26, 2005 Staff
Requirements Memorandum regarding the ACRS assessment of the
quality of the NRC research projects.
Thursday, June 2, 2005, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White Flint
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.--8:35 a.m.: Opening Remarks
by the ACRS Chairman (Open)--The ACRS Chairman will make opening
remarks regarding the conduct of the meeting.
8:35 a.m.--10 a.m.: Draft Safety Evaluation Report Related to
Grand Gulf Early Site Permit Application (Open)--The Committee
will hear presentations by and hold discussions with
representatives of the NRC staff and System Energy Resources Inc.
regarding the NRC staff's draft Safety Evaluation Report related
to the Grand Gulf Early Site Permit Application.
10:15 a.m.--11:45 a.m.: Draft Final Regulatory Guide,
``Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Fire Protection for Existing
Light-Water Nuclear Power Plants'' (Open)--The Committee will
hear presentations by and hold discussions with representatives
of the NRC staff and the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) regarding
the draft final Regulatory Guide, ``Risk-Informed,
Performance-Based Fire Protection for Existing Light- Water
Nuclear Power Plants,'' which endorses, with certain exceptions,
NEI document, NEI 04-02, ``Guidance for Implementing a
[[Page 28587]] Risk-Informed, Performance-Based Fire Protection
Program Under 10 CFR 50.48 (c),'' and the NRC staff's resolution
of public comments. 12:45 p.m.--1:45 p.m.: Status Report on the
Quality Assessment of Selected Research Projects (Open)--The
Committee will hear a report by the Chairmen of the ACRS Panels
regarding the status of the assessment of the quality of the
thermal-hydraulic test program at the Penn State University and
the containment capacity study being performed by the Sandia
National Laboratories.
1:45 p.m.--2:30 p.m.: Future ACRS Activities/Report of the
Planning and Procedures Subcommittee (Open)--The Committee will
discuss the recommendations of the Planning and Procedures
Subcommittee regarding items proposed for consideration by the
full Committee during future meetings. Also, it will hear a
report of the Planning and Procedures Subcommittee on matters
related to the conduct of ACRS business, including anticipated
workload and member assignments.
2:30 p.m.--2:45 p.m.: Reconciliation of ACRS Comments and
Recommendations (Open)--The Committee will discuss the responses
from the NRC Executive Director for Operations (EDO) to comments
and recommendations included in recent ACRS reports and letters.
The EDO responses are expected to be made available to the
Committee prior to the meeting.
3 p.m.--7 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS Reports (Open)--The Committee
will discuss proposed ACRS reports.
Friday, June 3, 2005, Conference Room T-2b3, Two White Flint
North, Rockville, Maryland 8:30 a.m.--5 p.m.: Preparation of ACRS
Reports (Open)--The Committee will continue its discussion of
proposed ACRS reports.
5 p.m.--5:30 p.m.: Miscellaneous (Open)--The Committee will
discuss matters related to the conduct of Committee activities
and matters and specific issues that were not completed during
previous meetings, as time and availability of information
permit.
Procedures for the conduct of and participation in ACRS meetings
were published in the Federal Register on October 5, 2004 (69 FR
59620). In accordance with those procedures, oral or written
views may be presented by members of the public, including
representatives of the nuclear industry. Electronic recordings
will be permitted only during the open portions of the meeting.
Persons desiring to make oral statements should notify the
Cognizant ACRS staff named below five days before the meeting, if
possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made to allow
necessary time during the meeting for such statements. Use of
still, motion picture, and television cameras during the meeting
may be limited to selected portions of the meeting as determined
by the Chairman. Information regarding the time to be set aside
for this purpose may be obtained by contacting the Cognizant ACRS
staff prior to the meeting. In view of the possibility that the
schedule for ACRS meetings may be adjusted by the Chairman as
necessary to facilitate the conduct of the meeting, persons
planning to attend should check with the Cognizant ACRS staff if
such rescheduling would result in major inconvenience.
Further information regarding topics to be discussed, whether the
meeting has been canceled or rescheduled, as well as the
Chairman's ruling on requests for the opportunity to present oral
statements and the time allotted therefor can be obtained by
contacting Mr. Sam Duraiswamy, Cognizant ACRS staff
(301-415-7364), between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m., e.t. ACRS
meeting agenda, meeting transcripts, and letter reports are
available through the NRC Public Document Room at pdr@nrc.gov, or
by calling the PDR at 1-800-397-4209, or from the Publicly
Available Records System (PARS) component of NRC's document
system (ADAMS) which is accessible from the NRC Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html or
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ (ACRS & ACNW Mtg
schedules/agendas).
Videoteleconferencing service is available for observing open
sessions of ACRS meetings. Those wishing to use this service for
observing ACRS meetings should contact Mr. Theron Brown, ACRS
Audio Visual Technician (301-415-8066), between 7:30 a.m. and
3:45 p.m., e.t., at least 10 days before the meeting to ensure
the availability of this service. Individuals or organizations
requesting this service will be responsible for telephone line
charges and for providing the equipment and facilities that they
use to establish the videoteleconferencing link. The availability
of videoteleconferencing services is not guaranteed.
Dated: May 12, 2005.
Annette Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. E5-2489 Filed 5-17-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
31 IRNA: Iran not to compromise its right for peaceful use of nuclear energy
Mashhad, Razavi Khorrassan Prov., May 18, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-Aqamohammadi
Peaceful use of nuclear energy is the basic right of Iranian
nation, hence it will not be compromised in talks with
Europeans, said an Iranian official here on Wednesday.
Addressing a group of the local officials in charge of Islamic
propaganda here on Wednesday, Secretary of the Communications
and Information Committee at the Supreme National Security
Council Ali Aqamohammadi disclosed that Europeans want to delay
the nuclear talks until when the June Presidential elections
results are known.
"We do not take the case of presidential elections in par with
that of nuclear energy and will not allow Europeans overshadow
domestic issues by the nuclear talks," said Aqamohammadi.
He said, "High public turnout in the elections is absolute and
we hope Europeans will not fail in Iran's nuclear case."
He went on to criticize Europeans for violating the Paris
treaty and for non-cooperativeness with Iranians in the London
meeting. He said that in the upcoming Iran-EU3 talks, Iranian
officials will insist on the Tehran declaration.
Aqamohammadi hoped that Iranian side will witness cooperation
on part of Europeans next weeks. "Otherwise, we will start our
work after informing the International Atomic Energy Agency."
He ruled out the US' claim that it had reached agreement with
Europeans in Iran's nuclear case, saying that showed they have
not yet well recognized Iran. "We hope not to witness failure of
Europe's foreign policy in this connection," said the Iranian
nuclear official.
1420/1420
*****************************************************************
32 People's Daily: World's largest nuclear engineering group optimistic
about China's market
UPDATED: 08:52, May 18, 2005
President Anne Lauvergeon of the France-based Areva Group, the
world's largest nuclear engineering firm, said she is optimistic
about China's nuclear engineering market and will enhance its
research and development in China so as to help solve the
serious power shortages in the country.
Lauvergeon made the remark here Tuesday at the ongoing 2005
Fortune Global Forum. "Electricity generated by nuclear power
only accounts for a small portion of China's total electricity
supply, so the country still needs 20 to 25 nuclear power
plants."
China's power shortage makes it necessary to rapidly develop
nuclear power plants, and France, which has the most advanced
nuclear power technology and equipment, has had fruitful
cooperation with China in this field.
"Over 3,500 Areva employees are now working in China, and the
group has worked out special technology-transfer plans for
China," she said.
China's rapid economic development has led to a severe power
shortage problem. Power brownouts became frequent in many places
last year. The state has already listed the nuclear power
industry as a priority in its plans for high technology research
and development, and China's nuclear power generation capacity
is expected to triple to account for 4 percent of its total
power output by 2020, according to sources with the State
Development and Reform Commission.
After more than 20 years of efforts, China now has the ability
to build 300,000 kilowatt-level and 600,000 kilowatt-level
nuclear power stations. It can also manufacture key equipment
for one million kilowatt-level nuclear power stations.
Official statistics showed that in 2003, electricity generated
by nuclear power only accounted for 2.3 percent of China's total
electricity supply, compared to 77 percent in and 16 percent for
the world average level.
Chinese high-level officials have called for promotion of
nuclear power international cooperation, in particular in
project- related technology bidding and technical instruction.
China still needs over 30 billion US dollars of foreign
investment to increase its nuclear electricity capacity to
40,000 megawatts by 2020 as planned, experts said.
China first used nuke power technology from France in its Daya
Bay Nuclear Power Plant in southern Province, and later
furthered cooperation with France in Ling'ao Nuclear Power
Plant, located in the same province.
Hardly any carbon dioxide will be emitted during the nuclear
power generation process, which is both cost-effective and safe,
so the nuclear power technology is conducive to China's
environmental protection, Lauvergeon said.
The Areva group, with its services mainly focused on power
generation and grid construction, has six joint ventures and
five sole corporations in China, and plans to set up 9 more
joint ventures.
The net profits of Areva reportedly rose 10 percent to 428
million euros (570.8 million dollars) in 2004, much of which was
contributed by its successful overseas services.
Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
33 csmonitor.com: Suddenly, a light shines on nuclear power |
Commentary: "A Global Accounting: An Occasional Column"
from the May 19, 2005 edition
By David R. Francis
The mood in the nuclear power industry has dramatically
brightened. Both in the United States and abroad, industry
officials, dare we say it, radiate optimism.
At atomic power plants, the protesters are gone. In American
universities, most courses in engineering dealing with nuclear
power are overbooked. Students are being told they have a
lifetime career ahead of them in the industry. Workshops for
young professionals who believe in nuclear science and
technology have every seat filled.
"Time of Opportunity" was the theme at this week's Nuclear
Energy Assembly in Washington. Some 400 industry officials from
the US, Europe, and Japan expected to hear US Secretary of
Energy Samuel Bodman assure them of the Bush administration's
support for a new generation of nuclear power plants.
"Everyone is excited," says Penny Phelps, spokeswoman in the US
for AREVA, a French state-owned nuclear-power firm.
Even Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International
Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, is jumping on the bandwagon. In
past years he has talked of nuclear power worldwide being on "a
plateau." But in February, at a meeting of his board of
governors, he spoke of "rising expectations."
Several factors cheer the industry:
" Apprehension of global warming has grown. Rising world
temperatures, blamed partly on greater use of coal and natural
gas for power generation, makes atomic power more attractive. A
nuclear power plant does not generate such greenhouse gases as
carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides.
" Demand for nuclear power plants is picking up in some nations.
Worldwide there are 440 operating nuclear power plants churning
out a massive 363,000 megawatts. About 27 are under
construction, mostly in former communist countries, but also in
Iran and Japan. Asia is the biggest market.
In South Korea, two new plants are under construction, and
contracts for two more are being negotiated. They will be added
to the 20 in operation today. China talks about needing 25 to 30
new plants by 2020 for its booming economy, costing perhaps $2
billion apiece. Negotiations for the first four are under way.
China is expected to make a choice between three bidders late
this year.
India plans to multiply its nuclear power capacity tenfold by
2022, and 100-fold by 2052. Japan, with 54 nuclear power plants
in operation, has three more under construction.
In the US, industry consortiums plan to ask the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for a combined construction and operating
license by 2008 and to get a new plant up and operating by 2014.
It has been 32 years since a nuclear power plant was ordered in
the US. With rising productivity, the existing 103 plants
provide 21 percent of the nation's electricity.
" The next generation of nuclear power plants is designed to be
safer. Furthermore, the US industry still expects to see
approved the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste in
Nevada. The current practice of storing the highly radioactive
fuel rods at power plants is a challenge, because the rods must
be replaced every 18 months or so.
"We are confident it will go through, though, with some bumps
along the way," says Adrian Heymer, head of new-plant
development at the industry's Nuclear Energy Institute in
Washington. Industry officials see the delay in opening Yucca as
a political matter, not a scientific issue.
" The opposition of some environmentalists to nuclear power
plants has weakened. To a considerable extent this is because
any means for generating electricity involves problems and
risks.
It is a question of picking your poison, some former critics of
nuclear power now figure. Coal and natural gas produce air
pollution. Wind towers are often regarded as unsightly, noisy,
and dangerous to birds. And they work only when the wind is
blowing. Hydroelectric power can clobber fish and destroy
landscape - and not much water power is left to be developed in
areas where the demand is growing rapidly. Solar power is
limited by the space it needs - and because it requires
sunshine.
The benefits of nuclear power "far outweigh the risks," Patrick
Moore, the founder of Greenpeace, recently told a congressional
subcommittee on energy.
In European nations, the position of nuclear power varies
enormously. Germany shut down a 37-year-old plant this month.
The current government, depending on a small Green party to stay
in power, has a policy of phasing out the remaining 17 plants.
Sweden voted in 1982 to phase out atomic power. One of its 12
plants was recently closed. An assumption that power based on
"renewables" would replace the lost power is proving shaky.
Swedish public opinion now strongly favors "nukes." France has
decided to replace its aging 59 nuclear plants with new nuclear
plants. In post-election Britain, there's speculation the Labour
government may switch to a pro-nuclear policy. Four tiny
50-megawatt plants, among 27, have just been shuttered.
Despite political and environmental storms over nuclear power,
it provides 16 percent of the world's electricity, almost the
same as it did in 1986. Since 1970, the output of nuclear power
has grown on average 9.2 percent a year.
"The market is going gangbusters," says Vaughn Gilbert, a
Westinghouse Electric Corp. spokesman. Of 103 US plants, 62 are
of Westinghouse design, and many more elsewhere in the world.
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science
Monitor. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
34 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria's 2nd Nuke Under New Attack
www.novinite.com
[Sofia News Agency]
Politics: 18 May 2005, Wednesday.
Bulgaria's Prosecutor's Office has been once again approached
over the building of Belene, Bulgaria's second nuclear power
plant by the national environmental movement "Ekoglasnost".
The environmentalists say that the Council of Ministers has made
an attempt to hide the lack of an evaluation of the radioactive
fall out threat. The "Ekoglasnost" movement says that such a
report has not been prepared on the Belene project.
Bulgaria has revived a controversial plan to build a second
nuclear power plant on the Danube River, announced on June 9, a
decade after it was dropped amid protests from
environmentalists.
In the late 1980s Bulgaria spent USD 1.3 B on infrastructure and
foundations at the Danube-located Belene for a 1,000- MW
reactor, supplied by then Czechoslovakia. It would cost another
USD 2 B to complete the project by 2010, according to energy
ministry's estimates.[ width=]
Click here to receive realtime news about this topic in the
future.
novinite.com Forum Google Tourism Business MobileBulgaria
All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright
*****************************************************************
35 UCLAII: UCLA Chancellor Carnesale on the Risks of Nuclear Attacks on the United States
UCLA International Institute ::
Security expert Albert Carnesale looks at U.S. options to head
off nuclear spread in North Korea and Iran, and the danger of
terrorist groups with atom bombs.
Leslie Evans
The world's nuclear powers have done a pretty good job in
preventing the spread of nuclear weapons over the last thirty
years, Chancellor Albert Carnesale told some 400 students in a
session of the first class series of UCLA's new Global Studies
major May 16. The main dangers, he said, lie in North Korea's
probably already existing nuclear arsenal, in Iran's impending
nuclear capability, and in the risk that terrorists may acquire
a nuclear weapon, most likely from the enormous store of
warheads now under uncertain security control in the former
Soviet Union.
Chancellor Carnesale is also a professor in UCLA's School of
Public Policy and Social Research and is an internationally
known specialist on security issues, particularly nuclear
proliferation. He served on the U.S. negotiating team in the
Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I with the Soviet Union.
The Chancellor began by saying that "the university has no
position on North Korea, Iran, terrorism and the like -- but I
do." The United States, he said, faces no potential threat of
invasion by any other power. The only "direct threat to our
homeland would be by weapons of mass destruction -- primarily
nuclear weapons, perhaps biological weapons but substantially
more difficult, and chemical weapons should hardly be thought of
as in the same category."
Protecting security, he added, also involves concern with
longer-term threats, such as the rise of a hostile power or
disruption of systems on which we depend, such as world trade or
energy markets. The current stocks of nuclear weapons, however,
constitute the greatest pool of risk. "Russia has about 7,000
operational nuclear warheads." China "has about 400 operational
warheads deliverable to the United States." These two powers are
not hostile, "but it is important to say who could, if they
chose to, push a button and the United States almost
disappears."
Successful Restraint of Nuclear Spread
Chancellor Carnesale pointed to the comparative success of
efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation in the last thirty
years. In the early 1970s there were five countries that
publicly announced that they owned nuclear bombs: The United
States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China. India
tested a nuclear device in 1974. "Israel was recognized as
having a substantial number of nuclear weapons. And in 1975
South Africa probably had a few nuclear weapons. So that's a
total of eight countries with nuclear weapons in 1975."
In contrast, in 2005 the list includes the original five plus
India and Israel. South Africa has since been persuaded to
abandon its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan "detonated a nuclear
weapon in 1998. And you may have North Korea." So the total now
is nine countries with nuclear weapons compared to eight thirty
years earlier.
"The fact is, the growth has been slow. The pessimism has been
largely unwarranted."
The Russian Nuclear Arsenal
A major source of risks of nuclear spread or of a rogue agency
getting their hands of a nuclear bomb emerged with the fall of
the Soviet Union in 1991. Initially, Carnesale recalled, this
left nuclear weapons in the hands of four former Soviet
Republics: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. The
international community succeeded in persuading Belarus,
Kazakhstan and Ukraine to return their nuclear arms to Russia.
"But we relied for many years on the Soviet Union having a very
tight military command and control system. We didn't know where
all those weapons were that they had -- because at the peak of
the cold war they probably had a number like 25,000 or 30,000
of them. Today they probably have about 15,000 total including
those that are on the shelf, not operational. We have about
10,000 including those that are on the shelf, not operational.
So they have thousands of nuclear weapons, and we are not as
confident in the command and control system for them. Hundreds
of tons of weapons-usable plutonium and weapons-usable highly
enriched uranium. Several thousand nuclear engineers who know a
lot about nuclear weapons. And we've been working on trying to
contain those materials, and, indeed, those engineers, to keep
them busy doing peaceful stuff."
American tax money, he noted, is used to employ hundreds of
Russian nuclear engineers, working on the environment and many
other projects, "just so they are not working on nuclear weapons
or they don't feel it is necessary, to support their families,
to go to work for some other country on nuclear projects."
The Axis of Evil
Also of concern, he said, are those states with very limited
nuclear capability that might actually use such weapons against
the United States or it allies, or sell them to terrorist
groups. Carnesale said he thought President Bush's famous Axis
of Evil designation of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea flowed from
this consideration.
"Iraq, of course, we learned, did not have weapons of mass
destruction. Not only no nuclear weapons, no biological, no
chemical as well." North Korea, however, has produced
weapons-grade plutonium. "Maybe enough for six to eight weapons.
We do not know if they have actually assembled any weapons, but
they claim that they have."
Iran, he continued, does not have currently usable nuclear
weapons or even plutonium or highly enriched uranium. "But we
know they have put in place facilities at which they could
produce highly enriched uranium. They claim it is to produce
low-enriched uranium as fuel for nuclear reactors. But
unfortunately the same technology might be used to produce
highly enriched uranium."
Terrorist Organizations
Terrorist organizations today, Carnesale noted, "have global
reach, global communications. But they need a state sponsor if
they are going to get nuclear weapons. They either need a state
sponsor that will produce them and give them to them or sell
them to them, or else they have to buy or steal nuclear weapons.
But they are not going to make [such weapons], like these other
countries might."
This is not a negligible threat, he added. Pakistan's Abdul
Qadeer Khan, the chief scientist in that country's nuclear
weapons program, "operated the Wal Mart of nuclear
proliferation. He sold this stuff to anybody, including Libya,
Iran, North Korea, and we don't know who else. Not weapons, but
the technologies through which you could make them, and even
weapons designs."
Here Chancellor Carnesale focused in on three potential threats:
North Korea, Iran, and terrorist organizations.
The North Koreans Sell Anything
The principal nuclear threat from North Korea, Carnesale said,
is that "they sell anything." They are perhaps the poorest
country outside of sub-Saharan Africa. "So we worry that if they
produce these materials they may sell them, and possibly sell
them to terrorists."
A nuclear North Korea also puts heavy pressure on South Korea
and Japan to develop their own nuclear arsenals. It appears, he
said, that North Korea is preparing a nuclear test. What is its
goal? "They may think it is important to deter an attack by the
United States in conjunction with South Korea." Contributing to
this fear, he said, is that they were assigned to the Axis of
Evil by President Bush. "The U,S, government now has a doctrine
of preemption, that if a country is developing nuclear weapons
that might be used against us, we feel authorized to go in an
destroy those facilities. We are certainly interested in regime
change in North Korea. So if you think of the check list that we
had to go into Iraq -- regime change, weapons of mass
destruction (and this country actually has them), source of
instability, they meet most of the things on the check list.
They don't have oil."
Carnesale said that it is also possible that the North Koreans
are using their nuclear capability "purely as a bargaining chip.
It's a very poor country. What they want is money." If this was
the case it might be possible to persuade them to abandon their
nuclear program in exchange for material aid and a nonaggression
pact. The U.S., he said, has few options in dealing with North
Korea, and whatever it does must take into consideration the
concerns of North Korea's major neighbors: China, Russia, South
Korea, and Japan.
"The idea of preempting against [North Korea] and destroying
their nuclear weapons requires at a minimum knowledge of where
those nuclear weapons are. One thing that doesn't sound like a
very good idea is attacking North Korea and having a very angry
North Korea that still has nuclear weapons." Hence, diplomacy,
however weak, "remains our least bad option."
How Big a Threat Is Iran?
Iran, Albert Carnesale said, "is a long way from nuclear
weapons." It does have some centrifuges that can be used to
enrich uranium."But it would take them a decade to have their
first weapon." What is the real risk here? "It is unlikely that
Israel would sit there and allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. At
some point the Israelis would do their best to preempt, and
think what that would do in the Middle East. But from an Israeli
point of view they know their country's survival might be
jeopardized." Carnesale pointed out that six or eight nuclear
hits would destroy Israel and virtually its whole population,
such an inconceivable risk that, in his view, the Israelis would
prefer to take the risk of confronting the whole Iranian army
than face the possibility of complete annihilation.
The potential for an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear
installations would certainly arise long before the ten years
needed for Iran to have operational nuclear weapons, Carnesale
said.
Ironically, the chancellor added, in the 1970s the United States
had planned to sell nuclear power plants to Iran -- under its
previous government of the pro-U.S. shah. The degree to which
nuclear technology is regarded as a security danger by the
United States flows even more from the nature of the regime than
from the technology itself. Carnesale noted that both Britain
and France have the capability of erasing the United States from
the planet, but that this is not generally a worry of American
policy makers.
"Now Iran is purchasing a nuclear power plant from Russia, and
they claim that they want to be able to produce the fuel for
their own power plant rather than have to rely upon Russia or
any other outside country for the fuel." He noted that Iran is
surrounded by hostile states where U.S. troops are based: Iraq,
Afghanistan, Turkey, as well as by Pakistan, a U.S. ally. He
added that not only was Iran listed as part of the Axis of Evil
where regime change was advocated by Washington, but it met
every criteria that North Korea did, and also had oil, matching
the list that sparked the U.S. invasion of Iraq. "So they may
really feel a need themselves . . . to have a deterrent force."
It is also plausible, Carnesale said, that the Iranians are
genuinely interested in securing a reliable supply of fuel for
their nuclear power plant. "If you were building a nuclear power
plant would you want to rely on Russia to provide the fuel for
the next thirty years regardless of what your diplomatic
relations were?"
What are the American options? It would be a little easier to
preempt in Iran than in North Korea, Carnesale estimated. "But
you can be sure that if you preempt and attack Iran now, all you
are going to do is drive that nuclear program underground and
you won't have any international inspections and the like as we
have now."
The chancellor said that it appears that negotiations are the
best alternative in dealing with Iran also, and that such
negotiations would need to include guarantees of an
international supply of fuel for their nuclear reactor. "My
guess is that they are pursuing both, fuel and bombs, and we
might be able to strike some deal that makes them take much
longer to get to bombs."
How Terrorists Might Stage a Nuclear Attack on the United States
What would a terrorist organization have to do to set off a
nuclear explosion in an American city? "First, they have to get
a nuclear weapon," Albert Carnesale said. In his opinion it is
unlikely that any terrorist organization would have the
expertise and the secure base to build its own nuclear bomb, but
they might be able to buy or steal one, "or somebody might give
it to them."
If they purchase or are given such a weapon they would
presumably be trained in how to use it. "If they have to steal
one, then they have to figure out how to bypass all the
safeguards that are built into a weapon."
Then comes the delivery problem. "If you have only one or two
nuclear weapons and are a terrorist," Carnesale said, "the last
way you are going to try to deliver it is with some long-range
missile. First of all you have to get one of those and figure
out how it works."
The options would be to assemble the bomb in the city the
terrorists want to blow up, or to bring in into a harbor in a
boat, drive it over the border -- preferably the less-guarded
Canadian border rather than the Mexican border -- or plant the
bomb in a shipping container, 90% of which are still not
inspected on entering American ports.
What Protective Measures Can Be Taken?
In turning to how to thwart the danger of a rogue nuclear
attack, Chancellor Carnesale said that "nothing is more
important than enhancing our intelligence capability at all
levels. Not just having a better idea of what is going on
physically but some idea of what governments' intentions are. .
. . Knowing about intentions can be just as important as knowing
about capabilities, sometimes even more so."
The second priority, he said, is to "secure those nuclear
weapons and weapons-usable materials in Russia."
The third priority, Carnesale said, is to roll back North
Korea's nuclear program "or at minimum, freeze it." This is a
higher priority than Iran's nuclear program both because the
Korean program is much more advanced and because there is
greater expectation that North Korea would sell nuclear weapons
to nonstate organizations.
Carnesale's fourth priority, and he said these are in order of
importance, is to freeze or internationalize Iran's uranium
enrichment program. "And by internationalizing it this means
that it stays under safeguards, there are inspectors that see it
all the time, television cameras and the like. And if Iran
should decide at some point that they want bombs, they let us
know. They say that they plan to withdraw from the [nuclear
nonproliferation] treaty" so there is some warning period before
Iranian nukes are operational.
Fifth, he said, "is simply to prevent the spread of nuclear
weapons to additional countries."
Sixth is enhancing the protection of U.S. borders. Here, he
noted again that 90% of shipping containers are not inspected.
Moreover, while passenger luggage is inspected to prevent
another airplane takeover, there is no inspection of either
commercial or chartered cargo flights, which could be used to
ship an atomic weapon into the United States and move it around
within the country. "So enhancing the protection of our borders
is on my list, but notice how hard that is. That is really
hard."
The final priority, Carnesale concluded, is to train the first
responders in the event that prevention fails -- firefighters,
police, and medical personnel. "Just to try to limit the size of
the catastrophe."
Of all the security threats the United States faces, the
chancellor said in closing, nuclear weapons remain the worst and
must therefore stay in the forefront of all defensive efforts.
"Given that in the last thirty years we have added only one
country that has nuclear weapons, this is not a hopeless case
and it deserves our highest priority."
UCLA International Institute
Date Posted: 5/18/2005
UCLA International Institute " 11343 Bunche Hall " Box 951487 "
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1487
Campus Mail Code: 148703 " Tel: (310) 825-4921 " Fax: (310)
825-4591 " info@international.ucla.edu
© 2005. The Regents of the University of California. All rights
reserved.
*****************************************************************
36 Mail & Guardian: 'Nuclear weapons' case transferred to Pretoria
Thursday, May 19, 2005 6:20 AM
Jenni Evans
The case of two men arrested last year on weapons of mass
destruction charges was transferred to Pretoria during their
appearance in the Vanderbijlpark Regional Court on Wednesday.
A court official said the two made a brief appearance and the
case was transferred to the Pretoria High Court for August 22.
She said the national director of public prosecutions had sent a
letter instructing officials at the court not to provide any
further details to the media on the matter.
Earlier, the prosecuting authority's spokesperson Makhosini
Nkosi said the men were expected to be served with a final
charge sheet on Wednesday.
Details of this may be made available later.
Randburg engineering firm directors Daniel Geiges and Gerhard
Wisser were arrested after Vanderbijlpark associate Johan Meyer
turned state witness during an investigation into the alleged
trafficking of nuclear weapon components to Libya.
The arrests took place last September and were accompanied by
the seizure of a number of containers that were sent to the
Pelindaba nuclear facility outside Pretoria so that their
contents could be examined. Inspectors from the International
Atomic Energy Agency were assisting.
They faced initial charges under the Nuclear Energy Act and the
Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction Act following
South Africa's agreement to cooperate in an international
investigation into where Libya obtained components for its
now-abandoned nuclear weapons programme.
The initial charge sheet listed a number of items of machinery
that could be used to manufacture machinery for enriching
uranium, including a lathe. The charges included alleged
attempts to import and export machinery without the relevant
permits.
During their bail hearings, the men's legal representatives said
they would plead not guilty to the charges.
At the time of their arrest, the South African Council for the
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons said that investigators
were also examining a possible link with Abdul Khan, a former
head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, who allegedly
became a trafficker for countries unable to access components
for their nuclear weapons programmes. -- Sapa
All material copyright Mail&Guardian.
*****************************************************************
37 UPI: Nuclear-war threat still very real -
(United Press International)
May 19, 2005
By Martin Sieff UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington, DC, May. 18 (UPI) -- Helen Caldicott is an Australian
physician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and is the
president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute based in
Washington. She spoke with UPI National Security Correspondent
Martin Sieff.
Q. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the U.S. Air Force
is seeking approval from President George W. Bush for new weapons
to secure the United States from attack from space. As a
prominent opponent to the militarization of space, what is your
response to that news?
A. Everything that was predicted at our conference this week on
the weaponization of space in Airlie, Virginia, is already coming
true. It seems as if the Bush administration and the Air Force
are going to go ahead with everything that was said at our
conference on the weaponization of space that was most alarming.
This issue was under the radar of public opinion for a long time,
but it is now coming into view.
Russia and China have both said for some years that if the
United States puts weapons into space they will super-saturate
any and all U.S. anti-ballistic missile systems and space-based
weapons by building thousands more nuclear weapons each to
counter any U.S. missile-defense system.
Q. The United States is the dominant space-faring nation with
more military satellites in orbit than every other nation
combined. How difficult would it be to disrupt or destroy U.S.
space-based systems?
A. Any nation. Military satellites are very vulnerable. As we
learned at our conference the easiest way to paralyze the entire
U.S. space satellite system in low Earth orbit is by detonating a
nuclear weapon at that level above the Earth to produce radiation
in the belt where the satellites orbit. The satellites built to
function for 10 years will then all die a slow death over just a
few weeks as they pass through the most irradiated areas.
And if you detonate a single nuclear weapon in the upper
atmosphere you will produce an electric magnetic pulse, or EMP.
One nuclear weapon detonated in near space would therefore melt
down the entire electronic communications network of the United
States.
This would of course ruin the U.S. economy and utterly disrupt
society across the country. But it would have even more grave
consequences. There are 103 nuclear power plants across the
United States. They all rely on external electricity supply that
powers their water-coolant systems. If these were all knocked
out, you would run the risk of more than 100 Chernobyl-scale
nuclear core meltdowns across the United States.
All the power plants have their own back-up generators, of
course, but they would all need time crank up and too often their
testing and maintenance has been neglected because they so
seldom, if ever, have had to be used in the past, and some of
them don't work when they're supposed to. Therefore there would
indeed be a real risk of many Chernobyls all over the place. Thus
a single EMP detonation in space aimed against U.S. military
space-based assets could produce a truly cataclysmic outcome, and
it would be very easy to do.
Q. Does the United States have any plans to put nuclear weapons
or nuclear power systems into space?
A. There are also serious plans being discussed to make nuclear
reactors that will function in space to eventually power U.S.
space ships to other worlds in the Solar System. Already a new
plutonium-producing nuclear facility is being set up in Idaho,
and the plutonium nuclear fuel that is being produced there is
not even the regular plyutonum-239 but the far more toxic
plutonium-238.
There are discussions well under way to eventually make a
nuclear spaceship called Prometheus that could get people out to
planetary destinations like Mars far more quickly.
Q. The Cold War has been over for almost a decade and a half. How
serious is the threat of mutually assured destruction between the
United States and Russia today?
A. Russia still has 2,500 nuclear weapons and the United States
has 5,000. There are only 240 major cities in the entire Northern
Hemisphere. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has concluded
that 40 nuclear weapons are targeted on New York City alone.
There are probably 50 or 60 of them targeted on Washington, D.C.
Every city and town in the United States is targeted with at
least one H-bomb or thermonuclear weapon. And the Russians build
really big H-bombs.
Q. But surely, the Russian radar tracking and space-based
surveillance networks keep them informed that the United States
is not contemplating any surprise attack upon them?
A. None of the Russian early-warning satellites work. Therefore
the Russians are acutely worried that the United States doctrine
of pre-emptive war is a real threat to them and it makes them
very paranoid, because their satellites to provide them with
better warning just do not work.
Most Americans do not realize that the Russian nuclear system is
already on hair-trigger alert, and even worse, the Russian
early-warning system is in a dangerous state of decay. (Veteran
U.S. arms negotiator) Ambassador Thomas Graham has said that we
are already in a white-knuckle situation over this. And Professor
Steven Weinberg, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics, told our
conference on Tuesday that the thing that scared him the most was
that nobody else was scared, and they all ought to be.
Q. Have there been any near misses that ran the risk of
triggering all-out nuclear war since the disintegration of the
Soviet Union?
A. The United States and the world came far closer to total
nuclear catastrophe in 1995 than anyone seems to remember or
realize, even though it was documented and reported in The New
York Times. Norway launched a missile near a U.S. Trident
submarine deployment. The Kremlin had been notified in advance
that the missile would be fired, but just forgot the warning. The
Russian radar picked up the Norwegian launch and concluded that
they were under attack from a U.S. strategic nuclear missile
submarine.
For the first time in history, Russian President Boris Yeltsin
opened the "football," the suitcase containing the Russian
nuclear launch codes, and he had three minutes to decide whether
to authorize an all-out Russian nuclear response. Only 10 seconds
before the three minutes ran out, the Norwegian missile veered
off course and this was reported to Yeltsin. There had even been
a general at his elbow urging a full retaliatory strike. America
was just 10 seconds from annihilation. This story was reported on
the back page of the New York Times when it should have been on
the front page.
Q. Was this a freak scenario that could never happen again?
A. This could certainly happen again. A retired senior Russian
military officer said to me recently, "Helen, we're so worried we
could blow you up by mistake." And there are other dire
possibilities. The Russians have to deal with terrorists and
extremists who could conceivably seize control of a
missile-command center.
Q. What kind of priority should we therefore give reducing
potential nuclear tensions between the United States and other
nations, especially Russia?
A. This is the most urgent issue facing the human race. If
America ever launched its 5,000 nuclear missiles and Russia its
2,500 nuclear missiles it would probably be enough to create a
nuclear winter or "dark fall." So much dust, smoke, debris and
burned carbon material would be thrown into the atmosphere that
plants would be unable to carry out photosynthesis. Most species
of life would slowly freeze to death in the dark.
Q. You paint a horrifying scenario. Why do we not see more
discussion about this?
A. What alarms me most of all is that nobody is talking any more
about all this. The new reports on Wednesday about the latest
plans for space militarization will dangerously escalate tensions
with Russia and China.
President Bush won re-election by running on what he called the
moral issues like banning abortion and gay marriage. But the real
moral issue for all people and all religions is whether creation
itself will continue to survive, and the possibility that total
catastrophe could happen is not low.
Q. Why are U.S., Russian and other leaders not grappling with
this issue more seriously?
A. Each side refuses to share its secrets with the other. The
thinking of everyone still appears to be in the pre-World War I
mode. That was what Einstein warned against. He said the creation
of nuclear weapons changed everything. Thus we drift towards the
precipice. Indeed, I would say now we are galloping toward it.
[UPI Perspectives]
*****************************************************************
38 Idaho Mountain Express: WMD Attack Tests Crews Skills
Wednesday - May 18, 2005
www.mtexpress.com
Local firefighters rescued "victims" Saturday morning during a
weapons-of-mass-destruction exercise sponsored by the Idaho
Bureau of Homeland Security at Friedman Memorial Airport in
Hailey. The scenario involved a Horizon Air flight that
crash-landed at the airport after an "unruly passenger" threw a
white powdery substance around the cabin en route to the
airport. Firefighters evacuated 16 passengers, several with
injuries. Many of the firefighters were also virtually treated
for exposure to a substance representing ricin, a lethal toxin
for which there is no cure.
(See story) Photo by David N. Seelig
The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and
guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community.
Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these
stories and others in this week's issue.
*****************************************************************
39 [du-list] Scrutinizing Iraq Scandals: * Policy * Profiteering
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 19:35:03 -0700
Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Scrutinizing Iraq Scandals: * Policy * Profiteering
Interviews Available
George Galloway, a member of the British Parliament who has been
accused by Sen. Norm Coleman of profiting from the UN oil-for-food program,
yesterday addressed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations,
which is chaired by Coleman.
Said Galloway: "I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of
times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him
to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I
met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and
on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to
let Dr. Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the
country....
"I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims, did not have
weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims,
that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your
claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told
the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a
British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad
would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you
turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1,600 of
them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of
them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies....
"Have a look at the real oil-for-food scandal. Have a look at ... the
first 14 months [during the time of the Coalition Provisional Authority]
when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look
at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's
money, but the money of the American taxpayer."
[Video of Galloway's remarks is available at:
;
a transcript is available at:
.]
The following are available for interviews:
KATHY KELLY, (773) 784-8065, kathy@vitw.org, http://www.vitw.org
Kelly is co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, a group which took
medicine to Iraq in open violation of the economic sanctions on that
country from 1996 until the beginning of the "Shock and Awe" campaign. The
U.S. government has charged Voices in the Wilderness with the alleged crime
of taking medicines to Iraq. The group awaits a final ruling in federal
court, but vows not to pay any fines. Kelly is able to address U.S. policy
on Iraq over the last decade, including questions surrounding the
oil-for-food program. She is author of the just-released book "Other Lands
Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison."
[Reuters reported Tuesday that a report by Democrats on the Senate's
Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations "indicates that American imports
of Iraqi oil helped finance about 52 percent of clandestine deals carried
out illegally under the oil-for-food program at a time when Iraq was under
United Nations sanctions."]
JOY GORDON, (203) 254-4000 ext. 2852, (203) 387-2971,
jgordon@fair1.fairfield.edu, http://www.harpers.org/TheUNIsUs.html
Gordon is author of a series of articles on the oil-for-food program and
the efficacy of economic sanctions, including a recent piece in Harper's
magazine, "The UN is Us: Exposing Saddam Hussein's Silent Partner." On
Monday, Gordon testified before the House Subcommittee on National
Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations. She said today: "It
is crucial that we recognize the role that the United States had in every
aspect of what we are now calling 'the failures of the United Nations.' ...
UN staff -- on over 70 occasions -- informed every member of the Security
Council of price irregularities that indicated likely kickbacks. Not a
single member, including the United States, chose to exercise its right to
block those contracts to ensure honesty and fair pricing -- even though the
U.S. blocked over $5 billion of critical humanitarian goods for other reasons."
PRATAP CHATTERJEE, cell: (510) 759-8970, pchatterjee@igc.org,
http://www.corpwatch.org
Today, Halliburton is holding its annual shareholders meeting in downtown
Houston. Chatterjee is the director of CorpWatch and author of the recently
released book "Iraq, Inc.," and the just-released report "Houston, We Still
Have A Problem," available at the above web page. He is in Houston for the
Halliburton meeting.
JEREMY SCAHILL, (212) 413-9090, cell: (917) 817-6173,
jeremy@democracynow.org, http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm
An investigative journalist, Scahill wrote the article "The Saddam in
Rumsfeld's Closet" in August of 2002 about Rumsfeld's meetings with Saddam
Hussein. Scahill is acquainted with George Galloway.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
For all list information and functions, including changing
your subscription mode and options, visit the Web page:
http://lists.accuracy.org/lists/info/mediagen
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40 [du-list] Rep. McDermott Calls for Depleted Uranium
Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 14:33:09 -0700
Rep. McDermott Calls for Depleted Uranium Investigation
Wednesday, May 18th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/18/1434246
On Capitol Hill, Congressman Jim McDermott has introduced a
bill calling for the government to conduct health and
environmental tests on the military's use of depleted
uranium. McDermott said "We pretended there was no problem
with Agent Orange after Vietnam and later the Pentagon
recanted, after untold suffering by veterans. I want to know
scientifically if DU poses serious dangers to our soldiers
and Iraqi civilians." About 300 metric tons of depleted
uranium munitions were fired during the first Gulf War, and
about half that amount has been used to date in the ongoing
Iraq War. 21 other lawmakers have co-sponsored the bill
known as the Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act.
---
McDermott Leads Congressional Call to Study Effects of
Depleted Uranium
For Immediate Release - May 17, 2005
http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/pr050517.shtml
(Washington, DC) Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), a medical
doctor, today introduced legislation with 21 original
co-sponsors in the House of Representatives that calls for
medical and scientific studies on the health and
environmental impacts from the U.S. Military's use of
depleted uranium (DU) munitions in combat zones, including
Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls for cleanup and
mitigation of sites in the U.S. contaminated by DU.
"The need is urgent and imperative for full, fair and
impartial studies," McDermott said. "We may be endangering
the health and lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
All we've gotten so far from the Pentagon are assurances. We
need facts backed by science. We don't have that today."
Because of its density, the military uses DU as a protective
shield around tanks, and in munitions like armor piercing
bullets and tank shells. DU tends to spontaneously ignite
upon impact, disintegrating into a micro fine residue that
hangs suspended in the air where it can be inhaled and falls
to the ground to leach into the soil.
DU is a by-product of the uranium enrichment process; it is
chemically toxic and DU has low-level radioactivity. About
300 metric tons of DU munitions were fired during the first
Gulf War, and about half that amount has been used to date
in the Iraq War.
"I've been concerned about DU since veterans of the first
Gulf War began to experience unexplained illnesses, commonly
called 'Gulf War Syndrome' that remain mysterious,"
McDermott said.
McDermott added that there are reports from Iraqi doctors
and others today of seemingly unexplained serious illnesses
including higher rates of cancer and leukemia, and even
birth defects.
"We pretended there was no problem with Agent Orange after
Vietnam and later the Pentagon recanted, after untold
suffering by veterans. I want to know scientifically if DU
poses serious dangers to our soldiers and Iraqi civilians."
The Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of 2005 has 21
original co-sponsors, all Democrats, including: Reps.
Charles Rangel, Pete Stark, Sherrod Brown, Peter DeFazio,
Maurice Hinchey, Raul Grijalva, Jan Schakowsky, Robert
Wexler, Sam Farr, Tammy Baldwin, Robert Andrews, Bob Filner,
Jay Inslee, Jose Serrano, Lynn Woolsey, Earl Blumenauer,
Bart Stupak, Mike Honda, Tom Udall, Barney Frank and Ed Markey.
See McDermott's House Floor speech announing the
introduction of the Depleted Uranium Munitions Study Act of
2005, "If Depleted Uranium is Safe, Let Them Prove It."
---
H.R.2410
Bill Summary & Status for the 109th Congress
Title: To require certain studies regarding the health
effects of exposure to depleted uranium munitions, to
require the cleanup and mitigation of depleted uranium
contamination at sites of depleted uranium munition use and
production in the United States, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep McDermott, Jim [WA-7] (introduced 5/17/2005)
Cosponsors (21)
Latest Major Action: 5/17/2005 Referred to House committee.
Status: Referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce,
and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a
period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each
case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d109:8:./temp/~bdptDj::
The text of H.R.2410 has not yet been received from GPO
Bills are generally sent to the Library of Congress from the
Government Printing Office a day or two after they are
introduced on the floor of the House or Senate. Delays can
occur when there are a large number of bills to prepare or
when a very large bill has to be printed.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
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Network for Good is THE place to support health awareness efforts!
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41 NRC: In the Matter of R Engineering Consultants, Fairbanks, AK;
FR Doc E5-2490
[Federal Register: May 18, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 95)] [Notices]
[Page 28585-28586] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr18my05-115]
Confirmatory Order Modifying License (Effective Immediately) R
Engineering Consultants (R or Licensee) is the holder of NRC
License No. 50-23220-02 issued by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC or Commission) pursuant to 10 CFR Part 30. The
license authorizes the Licensee to possess portable nuclear
density gauges containing sealed sources of byproduct material
and maintain them in storage until termination of the license.
The possession and storage-only license was originally issued
March 24, 1995, was last modified on September 21, 1999, with an
expiration date of February 28, 2005.
An inspection conducted by NRC Region IV in June 2004 identified
an apparent failure on the part of R to leak-test two portable
nuclear density gauges in accordance with the conditions of the
license. License Condition 12.D. requires, in part, that no
sealed source or detector cell shall be stored for a period of
more than three (3) years without being tested for leakage and/or
contamination. This requirement was proposed by R in information
submitted to the NRC with the 1995 license amendment request to
modify the license to possess and store byproduct material. In
addition, the inspection identified an apparent failure on the
part of R to provide accurate information to the NRC in
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR 30.9. Specifically,
Mr. James Wellman, R's President, informed the NRC in a September
17, 2002, e-mail that he had performed leak tests of the gauges
and had sent swabs to Radiation Detection Company in Sunnyvale,
California for evaluation. The inspection found no evidence that
R's portable nuclear gauges had been leak-tested since the
possession and storage-only license was issued in 1995. A
follow-up investigation by the NRC's Office of Investigations
(OI) concluded in December 2004 that Mr. Wellman willfully failed
to leak-test the portable gauges in accordance with the
requirements of the license. In addition, based on a review of
the information in the investigation report, it appears that Mr.
Wellman willfully failed to provide NRC accurate information in
his September 2002 e-mail.
On February 8, 2005, representatives of NRC Region IV contacted
Mr. Wellman by telephone to discuss the results of the inspection
and investigation. NRC Region IV informed Mr. Wellman that the
NRC was considering escalated enforcement action, including
possible monetary civil penalties for the apparent violations
described above. Mr. Wellman has previously stated his intent to
transfer the gauges and terminate the license. During the
telephonic discussion, NRC Region IV asked Mr. Wellman if he
would agree to take prompt action to transfer the gauges and
request termination of R's NRC license in lieu of NRC pursuing
escalated enforcement action. Mr. Wellman agreed to these actions
during the telephone call, and subsequently consented to these
actions in response to a letter and a copy of the Confirmatory
Order containing the proposed conditions that the NRC sent to Mr.
Wellman on February 25, 2005.
In a consent form signed on March 16, 2005, R Engineering
Consultants agreed to all of the commitments described in Section
IV below. The Licensee further agreed that this Order would be
effective upon issuance and that R waived its right to a hearing
on this Order. Implementation of these commitments will ensure
that licensed material is appropriately handled and disposed of.
I find that the Licensee's commitments as described in Section IV
below are acceptable and necessary and conclude that with these
commitments the public health and safety are reasonably assured.
In view of the foregoing, I have determined that the public
health and safety require that the Licensee's commitments be
confirmed by this Order. Based on the above and Licensee's
consent, this Order is immediately effective upon issuance.
Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 161b, 161i, 161o, 182 and 186
of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the
Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR Part 30, it
is hereby ordered, effective immediately, that license No.
50-23220-02 is modified as follows: 1. Within 30 days of the date
of the Confirmatory Order, leak test and obtain the results of
leak tests for all sealed sources contained in portable nuclear
gauging devices possessed under the authority of License No.
50-23220-02. 2. Within 35 days of the date of the Confirmatory
Order, provide the Director, Division of Nuclear Materials
Safety, NRC Region IV, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400,
Arlington, Texas 76011, with a copy of the results of the leak
tests.
3. Within 45 days of the date of the Confirmatory Order, complete
the transfer of all portable nuclear gauging devices possessed
under the authority of License No. 50-23220-02 to an authorized
recipient.
4. Within 50 days of the date of the Confirmatory Order, provide
the Director, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, NRC Region
IV, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, Texas 76011, with
copies of documents demonstrating that the transfer has taken
place.
5. Within 60 days of the date of the Confirmatory Order, submit
to the
[[Page 28586]] Director, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety,
NRC Region IV, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, Texas
76011, a request for termination of License No. 50-23220-02,
using NRC Form 314. The Regional Administrator, Region IV, may
relax or rescind, in writing, any of the above conditions upon a
showing by the Licensee of good cause.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.202, any person adversely affected by
this Confirmatory Order, other than the Licensee, may request a
hearing on this Order within 20 days of its issuance. Where good
cause is shown, consideration will be given to extending the time
to request a hearing. A request for extension of time must be
made in writing to the Director, Office of Enforcement, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, and include
a statement of good cause for the extension. Any request for a
hearing shall be submitted to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff,
Washington, DC 20555. Copies also shall be sent to the Director,
Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555, to the Assistant General Counsel for
Materials Litigation and Enforcement at the same address, to the
Regional Administrator, NRC Region IV, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive,
Suite 400, Arlington, TX 76011, and to the Licensee. Because of
continuing disruptions in delivery of mail to United States
Government offices, it is requested that answers and requests for
hearing be transmitted to the Secretary of the Commission either
by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-1101 or by e-mail
to hearingdocket@nrc.gov and also to the Office of the General
Counsel either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725
or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. If a person other than the
licensee requests a hearing, that person shall set forth with
particularity the manner in which his interest is adversely
affected by this Order and shall address the criteria set forth
in 10 CFR 2.309(d)(1) and (f). If a hearing is requested by a
person whose interest is adversely affected, the Commission will
issue an Order designating the time and place of any hearing. If
a hearing is held, the issue to be considered at such hearing
shall be whether this Confirmatory Order should be sustained. In
the absence of any request for hearing, or written approval of an
extension of time in which to request a hearing, the provisions
specified in Section IV above shall be final 20 days from the
date of this Order without further order or proceedings. If an
extension of time for requesting a hearing has been approved, the
provisions specified in Section IV shall be final when the
extension expires if a hearing request has not been received. An
answer or a request for hearing shall not stay the immediate
effectiveness of this order.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Dated this 9th day of May, 2005.
Frank J. Congel, Director, Office of Enforcement.
[FR Doc. E5-2490 Filed 5-17-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
42 Medical Net: Exposure to radioactive iodines in childhood is associated with
an increased risk of thyroid cancer
[News-Medical.Net]
Medical Study News
Published: Tuesday, 17-May-2005
Exposure to radioactive iodines, mainly iodine 131 (I-131), in
childhood is associated with an increased risk of thyroid
cancer. Importantly, both iodine deficiency and supplementation
appear to modify this risk, according to a new study in the May
18 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986
resulted in widespread radioactive contamination, particularly
in parts of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and the Ukraine.
For people living in these areas, the main radiation dose was to
the thyroid and came from exposure to I-131 from drinking
contaminated milk. (The thyroid uses iodine to make thyroid
hormone.)
It has been estimated that the thyroids of several thousand
children in Belarus received I-131 doses of at least 2 Gray, a
unit of absorbed radiation dose. (People are usually exposed to
a background radiation from natural sources of only 1 to 2 mGy
per year.) In addition, a very large increase in the incidence
of thyroid cancer in young people was observed as early as 5
years after the accident in Belarus and slightly later in the
Russian Federation and the Ukraine. However, important questions
remained about the magnitude of the potential modifying effect
of iodine deficiency, which was common in most of the affected
areas at the time of the Chernobyl accident.
To evaluate the risk of thyroid cancer after exposure to
radioactive iodine in childhood and investigate factors that
might modify this risk, Elisabeth Cardis, Ph.D., of the
International Agency for Research on Cancerin Lyon, France, and
colleagues conducted a case-control study of 276 thyroid cancer
patients and 1,300 control subjects in Belarus and the Russian
Federation who had been age 15 years or younger at the time of
the Chernobyl accident.
The researchers observed a strong dose-response relationship
between radiation dose to the thyroid received during childhood
and the risk of thyroid cancer. This risk was three times higher
in iodine-deficient areas than in other areas. Potassium iodide
supplementation was associated with one-third the risk of
radiation-related thyroid cancer compared with no
supplementation. Potassium iodide was used in the former Soviet
Union for goiter prophylaxis and was distributed, mainly in
Belarus, to children evacuated after the Chernobyl accident.
"Both iodine deficiency and iodine supplementation appear to be
important and independent modifiers of the risk of thyroid
cancer after exposure to I-131 in childhood. This result has
important public health implications in the case of exposure to
radioactive iodines in childhood that may occur after radiation
accidents or during medical diagnostic and therapeutic
procedures. Indeed, stable iodine supplementation in
iodine-deficient populations may reduce the subsequent risk of
radiation-related thyroid cancer in these situations," the
authors write.
In an editorial, John D. Boice Jr., of the International
Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md., and the Vanderbilt
University School of Medicinein Nashville, Tenn., raises
questions for future research on the association between thyroid
cancer and exposure to I-131 in childhood. These new findings,
he writes, provide "new and, if confirmed, provocative
information on the risk of radiation-induced thyroid cancer and
on the modifying role of diets deficient in stable iodine and of
administering iodine supplements months after the exposure has
occurred."
http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org/
*****************************************************************
43 AU ABC: Marshall Islands pushes nuclear compensation case
19/05/2005, 05:18:56
The Government of the Marshall Islands will go before a United
States Congress hearing next week, demanding more than three
billion US dollars compensation for the effects of nuclear
testing.
The nuclear test compensation petition was filed almost five
years ago, and seeks extra compensation and health care to deal
with effects of 67 nuclear tests conducted by the US between
1946 and 1958.
The US Government provided 270 million dollars in compensation
under an agreement that expired in 2001, but the Marshall
Islands says the money was inadequate.
Marshall Islands President Kessai Note says his country will
work tirelessly together to ensure the nuclear issue is settled
in a fair and just manner.
© ABC 2005
*****************************************************************
44 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast water work on hold
| 05/18/2005 |
LISA MARIE LENTZ
Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - County Administrator Ernie Padgett called a halt to
work being done to finish replacement of an old water line on
15th Street East pending the results of a meeting with the
neighboring community of Tallevast.
"They're concerned about anything that involves digging,"
Padgett said of the residents.
The anxiety came to the county's attention via a letter Tuesday
from Tallevast's community group, Family Oriented Community
United &Strong.
Last week, FOCUS vice president Wanda Washington saw signs
posted, warning that water in her neighborhood would be cut off
for a project at a local intersection - and she couldn't believe
her eyes.
Tallevast has been stricken with environmental contamination
from a former beryllium plant.
Lockheed-Martin, which purchased the plant site, discovered
cancer-causing solvents in 2000. Residents found out then that
there was possible contamination in 2003. In mid-2004, it was
learned that some community drinking wells were contaminated
with cancer-causing industrial solvents.
"With everything the community is going through out here,"
Washington said, "to do something like that without notifying
the community is just a slap in the face.
"That said to me that they just didn't care how we feel."
Padgett said the county does care, however.
He pointed out that the work is being done outside the plume of
contamination as pictured on the most current maps. All the
lines are in the ground, he said; they just need to be connected
at the intersection of Tallevast Road and 15th Street East.
Project Manager Mike Limoge said the work was cleared by the
county's health and emergency management departments with the
stipulation that if any ground water needed to be pumped, it be
discharged not in the storm drain but in the sanitary sewer,
where it would later be treated.
That was cold comfort to Washington, who said the residents were
entitled to be kept in the loop on any work being done in or
around their community.
"The point is, they didn't talk to the community," she said,
"that's the minimum that we expect."
After talking to Washington on the phone, Padgett decided it
would be best to stop work on the project until county staff
could meet with the neighbors and explain the scope of the work
and answer any questions they might have.
"Once my folks get down there and explain it to them, once they
know what we are doing, hopefully that will be OK and we can
proceed with it," Padgett said. "We'll just have to go from
there."
Washington remained cautious about the project but agreed
wholeheartedly about the need for information.
Padgett said more care will be given in the future to let the
residents in on everything, no matter how insignificant it may
seem.
"We're not going to assume anyone knows anything," Padgett said.
HeraldToday.com
Read our extensive background coverage and see if your house is
in the plume.
If you go
WHAT:
County staff's meeting with Tallevast residents regarding water
line replacement at 15th Street and Tallevast Road
WHEN: 1 p.m. today
WHERE: Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, 1703 Tallevast
Road
INFORMATION: 708-7450
*****************************************************************
45 Deseret News: Reject temporary nuke sites
[deseretnews.com]
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Deseret Morning News editorial
Rep. David Hobson of Ohio is trying to put a little more pressure
on the government to begin sending spent nuclear fuel rods to
temporary, above-ground storage sites. Although he didn't say it
directly, Utah's Skull Valley has to be one of the sites in mind.
Hobson is chairman of the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on energy and water. Last week that committee
approved President Bush's recommended budget for the proposed
permanent storage site in Nevada's Yucca Mountain, then added
$10 million more, instructing the Energy Department to use the
money to pick one or two temporary sites until Yucca is ready.
Given the long, turbulent history of Yucca, however (including
the latest allegations that workers there falsified data), it
isn't clear whether the site ever will be ready for storing
waste.
And that's why Hobson's recommendation ought to end up in
the budgetary waste can.
Without a firm commitment to Yucca, temporary sites such
as the Skull Valley will likely become de facto permanent
repositories, with casks stored above ground. Even with a
commitment to Yucca, the day will come when spent nuclear fuel
rods are in transit every day somewhere across the nation, which
seems far more dangerous than the current on-sight storage at
the roughly 70 nuclear power plants nationwide.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hobson said,
"Frankly, it's time to rethink our approach to dealing with
spent (nuclear) fuel." Of course, he meant the nation should
focus on one or more temporary sites. But we think it's time for
some completely different thinking.
The subcommittee did take a step in that direction by
directing the Energy Department to work toward finding new
recycling methods for the spent fuel rods. Former President
Jimmy Carter put an end to recycling by executive order back in
the '70s, but there is no good reason to keep from doing this
now, especially considering many other nations already do.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada
Democrat, has said he prefers to leave the fuel rods right where
they are, near the nuclear plants that generated them. That's an
option that will lead to many lawsuits, considering the
government long ago promised to move the rods to a storage
facility. But it makes a lot of sense, and it would make
reprocessing that much more likely.
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
46 Deseret News: House panel votes to boost funds for interim nuclear
storage
[deseretnews.com]
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
By Joe Bauman Deseret Morning News
A U.S. House subcommittee has voted to increase funding for
interim storage of high-level nuclear waste by $10 million, with
the group's chairman expressing doubts about the viability of the
planned Yucca Mountain permanent storage site.
Deciding to favor interim storage over permanent could
amount to an acknowledgement that Yucca Mountain is far behind
schedule.
The money would go to a U.S. Department of Energy interim
facility, so the funding is not aimed at the industry-owned
Private Fuel Storage site proposed for Skull Valley, Tooele
County. But it doesn't preclude construction of the Tooele
plant, raising the possibility of more than one temporary
facility.
In addition, the markup by the House Energy and Water
Developments Subcommittee torpedoed funding for developing the
controversial "bunker-buster" nuclear weapon. Some Utahns
worried that if the bunker buster were built it would be tested
at the nearby Nevada Test Site.
The subcommittee, part of the House Committee on
Appropriations, last week approved a $29.7 billion funding bill,
to be debated by the full committee today. It would appropriate
$661 million for Yucca Mountain.
A committee press release notes the amount is $84 million
above the fiscal 2005 funding and "$10 million over the request"
by the Bush administration.
The Yucca Mountain site is in trouble because of fierce
opposition by a top Democrat, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and
officials of the state of Nevada. Also, it has recently been
slammed by scandal, including claims of falsifications involving
scientific studies of the underground site's ability to
withstand water erosion through the eons.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. David Hobson,
R-Ohio, seemed to question whether Yucca Mountain remains
viable. But he supported continuing to spend millions of dollars
on the project.
However, the $10 million extra, according to the
committee, would start moving "spent nuclear fuel away from
reactor sites to an interim DOE (Department of Energy) storage
facility."
That apparently excludes funding for the Private Fuel
Storage site proposed for Skull Valley for the immediate
purposes of the bill. PFS, awaiting licensing by the nuclear
Regulatory Commission, is a private facility, not a DOE site.
In comments about the appropriations bill that wereposted
on the committee's Web site, Hobson commented that the
subcommittee did not fund Yucca Mountain as strongly as he would
have liked.
"I don't like going forward with so little money for
Yucca Mountain, but we are playing the hand that we were dealt,"
he said. Hobson added he remains "hopeful that the
administration will come to its senses, or that the Senate will
find a creative way to keep Yucca alive."
John Scofield, spokesman for the appropriations
committee, told the Deseret Morning News that the $10 million
was added to a like amount already in the bill, for a total of
$20 million, "to expedite the storage of special nuclear
materials at an interim facility." Special refers to high-level
radioactive waste.
He said the bill does not specify which facility to use
for the interim storage.
The subcommittee markup deleted funding for
"bunker-buster" nuclear weapons research. Anti-nuclear activists
had feared the weapons would be tested at the Nevada Test Site.
Vanessa Pierce of the Healthy Environment Alliance of
Utah said the subcommittee trimmed $4 million for bunker-buster
research, "which was the total amount that had been requested
for it on the nuclear side."
Pierce added, "That is a huge victory."
She noted that a recent report by the National Academy of
Sciences predicts that bunker-buster weapons used in warfare
would kill many people other than those inside the underground
fortresses they are designed to penetrate.
"If we use a bunker buster, there will be thousands to
millions of innocent civilian casualties," said Pierce, HEAL's
program director. "And that's not a fate we would wish for
anyone."
Closer to home, Pierce said, if the weapon were developed
"there's a chance it would be tested, and Utahns would be put at
risk for being downwind a second time." By "second time," she
was referring to the nuclear bombs detonated above ground at the
Nevada Test Site during the 1950s and '60s, dumping radioactive
fallout on Utah and other states.
Although the bunker buster would be designed for
underground warfare, Utahns may be nervous because in the past
venting has occurred at the Nevada Test Site.
In 1970, a 10 kiloton nuclear bomb in a test code-named
Baneberry exploded 900 feet underground at the Test Site. It
vented, with material breaking the surface. Baneberry spewed a
cloud of radioactive debris into the atmosphere.
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
47 Las Vegas RJ: 'Yucca is not dead,'head of nuclear energy group says
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Industry conference urged to change imageof proposed Nevada
repository as a 'dump' By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The new head of the Nuclear Energy Institute
called on industry leaders Tuesday to reshape public perception
of a Yucca Mountain repository by promoting it as cutting edge
science rather than a nuclear waste "dump."
Though it has been delayed, "Yucca is not dead," NEI president
Frank "Skip" Bowman, told a conference of about 600 executives
in a speech promoting opportunities to expand nuclear power
generation.
Although Yucca Mountain remains an industry priority, Bowman
said, "it is clear this project requires some adjustments in our
approach."
Bowman, a retired Navy admiral, became the trade association's
president earlier this year. He said at the NEI-organized
conference he did not understand how Yucca Mountain came to be
described as a nuclear waste "dump."
"We've allowed that to happen." he said. "This is one of the
most complex public works projects in the history of man.
"We need to better explain the plan for Yucca Mountain," Bowman
said, pointing to government plans to keep the repository open
and monitored for years "in the case we achieve a breakthrough"
that would allow waste to be removed and reprocessed.
"Scientists and engineers will remain on the scene to refine and
correct the models and predictions," Bowman said. "Thoughtful
discussion of the repository concept will boost public
confidence. It makes people feel a little better when you talk
about the truth."
Repository critics said Bowman was glossing over problems that
have caused delays, including a federal court ruling last summer
that invalidated a repository safety standard and ongoing
investigations of e-mails in which several workers discuss
falsifying quality assurance documents.
"He may frame Yucca Mountain in a more evangelical way, but its
the same old same old," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said, "NEI can spin all the tales they
want, but the truth is out there."
"Despite the NEI's rhetoric, the Yucca Mountain project does
call for Nevada to be targeted as the nation's nuclear waste
dumping ground," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said.
In his speech, Bowman said criticism was misguided, saying, "No
one wants this project designed and built correctly and operated
safely more than the nuclear industry."
Bowman exhorted industry leaders to join him as aggressive
promoters of nuclear power, which enjoys Bush administration
support of initiatives to encourage construction of new power
plants
"It is time to pull the defense off the field and put the
offense on the field," Bowman said. "We've got to move more
aggressively."
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal
*****************************************************************
48 Las Vegas SUN: EPA's proposal for new Yucca radiation standard is delayed
Process will likely affect DOE's license application
By Suzanne Struglinski SUN WASHINGTON
BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- A proposal for the new radiation standard for the
Yucca Mountain project may not be done until September,
according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
In its semi-annual regulatory agenda released Monday, the
agency said it will put out a notice of its proposed radiation
standard by September, which is later than the earlier vague
estimate of the "summer" that government officials have alluded
to previously.
That could push the Energy Department's plans for the planned
nuclear waste dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, back
further.
The Energy Department may not be able to submit its license
application for the proposed nuclear waste storage site until
the rule is finalized, depending on what the agency proposes.
Once the proposed rule is made public, the agency will have to
gather public comments, either written, through public meetings
or both and evaluate them before issuing a final rule.
Attorney Joe Egan, who represents the state on Yucca Mountain
issues, said based on timing, the final rule is unlikely to come
out in 2005.
The EPA originally set a 10,000-year radiation standard for
Yucca in 2001. Under the rule, the department would have to
prove people would not be exposed to more than 15 millirems of
radiation, a little more than a chest X-ray, each year for
10,000 years.
But last July the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia threw out the standard, saying it was not "based upon
and consistent with" recommendations by the National Academy of
Sciences.
The Energy Policy Act of 1992 required EPA to form its
regulation based on the academy's findings. The academy said the
protection standard should go to the peak dose of radiation,
which may not come until hundreds of thousands of years into the
future.
The court ordered the EPA to rework the standard, and that has
posed a problem for the Energy Department, which planned on
trying to prove that Yucca Mountain could hold radiation for
10,000 years.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying
organization and a top Yucca supporter, believes the agency can
keep the 10,000-year standard in place while establishing
another standard beyond that, spokesman Mitch Singer said. This
would allow the Energy Department to turn in a license
application, once it felt it was ready, based on information it
already has and then amend it once the agency finalized a new
standard.
Nevada officials are arguing that the standard should be based
on when the radiation will give off its peak dose.
State officials have argued that the containers the nuclear
waste is placed in will fail before 10,000 years. They say that
Yucca Mountain must contain the waste when it is most deadly.
By setting the standard to peak dose, it will make sure Nevada
residents are not exposed to more than 15 millirems of radiation
once the containers -- or packages -- holding the waste fail,
whenever that takes place, Egan said.
"We want the public to be protected," Egan said. "When the
packages fail, the public is still protected."
But the state believes the project could not meet that such a
peak dose standard based on its own analysis and views on
scientific work done on the mountain by the department.
The agency is considering several options, including not
changing the 10,000-year standard, an option that came out in a
meeting with various interests, including Yucca critics in March.
In that case, the EPA would try to justify the 10,000 years in
a way that would satisfy the court.
Another option is leaving the 15-millirem, 10,000-year standard
in place but then allowing an increased millirem dose level
after 10,000 years or just increasing the dose limit. Levels of
25 millirems or 100 millirems were used as examples in the
meeting.
*****************************************************************
49 Rutland Herald: Panel expected to OK Yankee waste site today
May 18, 2005
By Susan SmallheerHerald staff
A House committee is expected today to endorse a bill allowing
Entergy Nuclear to build a high-level radioactive waste site
next to the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant — for a levy of
$3.7 million a year.
Rep. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury, chairman of the House Natural
Resources and Energy Committee, said the annual “station charge”
would increase to nearly $5 million if Entergy does increase
power production at the Vernon reactor.
“It’s a charge for the right to store nuclear waste in Vermont,”
he said.
Entergy wants to increase power production by 20 percent, or 110
megawatts a year, at the plant. At this time, only a small
portion of the new power would be used in Vermont.
Richard Cowart, the committee’s consultant, estimated that
Entergy was making $30 million a year from Vermont Yankee, and
that the figure would double to $60 million a year and higher if
the company boosts power production by 20 percent.
“There’s a significant profit there,” he said.
Cowart, who is a former chairman of the state Public Service
Board, based his figures on research and knowledge of the field
rather than hard numbers since Entergy has refused to provide
financial information to the committee, Dostis said.
The committee worked all day on the radioactive waste bill, said
Dostis.
“Hopefully, at some point tomorrow, we’ll vote it out,” he said.
The legislation would then go to the full House for approval.
Most of the money would be used to establish a renewable energy
fund to help promote the development of alternative sources of
energy.
Entergy needs approval by the 2005 Legislature to build the
storage facility. The company also has to get approval from the
Vermont public Service Board.
Robert O. Williams, spokesman for Entergy, said that the station
charge is unacceptable.
When asked if Entergy would shut down the 33-year-old reactor —
which has been widely discussed in the Statehouse — rather than
pay the proposed station charge, Williams wouldn’t stray from
his prepared comments.
“Our position is the same: a fee is not appropriate,” he said,
declining to either confirm or refute the financial numbers from
Cowart.
“Any financial information is proprietary,” he said.
In testimony before the Public Service Board a year ago, state
officials estimated the annual profit at $20 million, and
estimated that the cost of improvements to the plant necessary
to increase power was about $60 million.
Williams said that Vermont is receiving plenty of benefit from
Vermont Yankee in terms of its low-cost power contracts with
Central Vermont Public Service Corp., and Green Mountain Power.
The current cost of power generated by Vermont Yankee under the
contract is 3.9 cents per kilowatt hour. The current market rate
is about 6 cents, Williams said.
When Entergy purchased Vermont Yankee for $180 million in 2002,
the power contract was calculated to take into consideration the
new waste facility.
But Dostis said the waste facility was a new issue.
Raymond Shadis, senior technical advisor for the anti-nuclear
group New England Coalition, said the issue was one of
“inter-generational equity.”
Future generations are not going to get any of the benefit of
Yankee’s power, but they do have the responsibility for dealing
with the dangerous waste.
Vermont Yankee, which has been operating since 1972, is running
out of space in its deep-water storage pool for the old,
highly-radioactive nuclear fuel. The company has space until
2008, or 2007, if it increases power production, which will also
increase additional waste.
There is a provision in the bill that if the station charge
proved to be a financial hardship, Entergy could file with the
Public Service Board a request to have the fee reduced, Dostis
said.
Entergy Nuclear is a for-profit company, Dostis said. Half of
the energy produced at Vermont Yankee is sold out of state, and
only 15 percent of the new 110 megawatts is expected to be sold
to a Vermont utility. Yet all of the waste remains in Vermont,
he said.
Dostis said that the committee is pre-empted by federal law on
the issue of safety, and thus the bill couldn’t address any
safety concerns that have been raised in public hearings about
the plan.
“It’s an issue of fairness; the state is taking on additional
liabilities. We’re doing it in a responsible way, this is not
about trying to milk or gouge Entergy,” he said.
Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com.
© 2005 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
50 Korea Times: Korea Advised to Build Trust to Construct Nuke Waste Site
Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Biz/Finance
By Seo Jee-yeon Staff Reporter
International experts on the nuclear energy sector said the
government needs to make efforts to build trust among all
parties involved before proceeding with the construction of a
radioactive waste repository.
``Korea is not the only country to have problems with building
a nuclear power plant or a nuclear waste repository. To be
successful, it is important to hold a dialogue before a decision
is made,¡¯¡¯ Luis Echavarri, director general of the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Nuclear Energy Agency, told The Korea Times in a recent
interview.
He visited Korea to join the 2005 International Congress on
Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, which started Sunday for a
five-day run at the InterContinental Hotel in Seoul.
``One of the solutions we have recommended is to ¡®invest on
trust.¡¯ The government has to hold discussions with
stakeholders in the nuclear energy industry and citizens. The
government needs to reflect the results of the discussions in
the policy,¡¯¡¯ he said.
Korea, the world¡¯s sixth-largest nuclear-power generator in
terms of both equipment and capacity, failed to select a nuclear
dumpsite last year due to strong public resistance from a
candidate site.
The government will hold a bid for the site again this year to
achieve the goal of constructing a low- and intermediate-level
radioactive waste disposal facility by 2008.
``There is no single formula to solve such a problem, which
requires a considerable amount of time to be solved,¡¯¡¯ Sami
Tulonen, who represents the Brussels-based European Atomic Forum
(Foratom), said.
``For example, Finland has discussed the construction of new
nuclear power plants since late 1980s and early 1990s.
Concerning the repository, the question started in the 1980s. It
is a long process involving everybody,¡¯¡¯ he said.
Echavarri also stressed transparency in the course of dialogue
with the stakeholders in the field.
In addition, both experts also advised the government to focus
on reducing misunderstanding of safety of nuclear waste.
``As far as the safety of nuclear power plants is concerned,
there is no 100 percent guarantee in many industries. When
nuclear energy is managed in a democratic society with good
institutions, it is good industry with small accidents. The
industry¡¯s level of safety is much better than other activities
like chemical and transportation sectors,¡¯¡¯ he said.
``Regarding waste repository, it is a different issue because
the public is concerned about the long-term effects, not the
immediate ones. However, today it is feasible to develop the
program to manage the high level of radioactive waste
disposal,¡¯¡¯ he said.
He added that Korea holds globally competitive technology in
the sector, saying the nation is at the forefront with the U.S.,
Russia, and Japan in terms of technology in the world.
Pointing out the misunderstanding of radioactive waste among
the public, Tulonen said, ``In my mind, radioactive waste is one
of the biggest assets for the nuke industry.¡¯¡¯
``First of all, we are the only power industry to take care of
waste in a sustainable way. It doesn¡¯t go to the sky or the
sea. It is contained and taken care of. The quantity of waste is
small. Waste management of the policy can be executive,¡¯¡¯ he
said.
Both experts projected a positive outlook for a social
understanding of nuclear plants and waste following recognition
of the needs for more energy.
``The threat of global climate change, concerns about the
security of energy supply amid high oil and natural gas prices
and the increasing demand for energy to ensure social
development are driving factors in social perception of risks
associated with alternative energy supply options,¡¯¡¯ Echavarri
said.
jyseo@koreatimes.co.kr 05-18-2005 20:46
*****************************************************************
51 New Scientist: UK's nuclear waste may go up in smoke -
[NewScientist.com]
19 May 2005
+ Rob Edwards
+ Magazine issue 2500
The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is considering burning
thousands of tonnes of radioactive graphite - the health impact
could be huge
BURNING tens of thousands of tonnes of waste graphite from the
UK's nuclear power stations sounds like the last thing you
should do, but that is exactly what is being considered by the
UK government's Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). If the
plan is carried out, any radioactive carbon released into the
atmosphere could endanger people's health.
Nearly all of the UK's nuclear reactors have graphite around
their cores to slow down escaping neutrons and help sustain the
nuclear reaction. Until now, it was assumed that the
contaminated graphite would be stored or buried along with other
radioactive waste.
But according to the NDA, some companies are proposing to
incinerate the graphite, and the NDA has told New Scientist that
the idea "may have merits". The only problem, it says, is how to
ensure the "safe management" of the radioactive carbon-14 that
the graphite will contain.
Carbon-14 poses a health risk ... The complete article is 468
words long. To continue reading this article, subscribe to New
Scientist. Get 4 issues of New Scientist magazine and instant
access to all online content for only $4.95
New Scientist
*****************************************************************
52 Al Jazeera: PA minister accuses Israel of nuclear waste disposal -
Aljazeera.com
5/18/2005 11:00:00 AM GMT
Israel has buried 80 tons of nuclear waste 300 meters from the
West Bank
Zohni Wahdi, the Palestinian Health Minister accused Israel on
Tuesday of damaging the environment by burying nuclear waste in
Palestinian towns.
The minister on Tuesday released a statement accusing Israel of
environmental neglect by burying nuclear waste in PA autonomous
areas.
Israel has buried 80 tons of nuclear waste 300 meters from the
West Bank city of Nablus, Wahdi said, adding that Israel
continues burying the waste in populous Hebron.
Wahdi also warned that the radiation given off by the waste will
contaminate the ground and water.
Palestinian environmentalists have repeatedly warned of Israel's
violation of international environmental laws by burying nuclear
waste which has an equally bad effect as building the separation
wall.
Copyright 2005 Al Jazeera Publishing Limited
*****************************************************************
53 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judge denies Indian tribe's plea to halt nuclear dump
By KEN RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal judge has denied an Indian tribe's
plea to stop federal plans for a national nuclear waste dump in
Nevada based on a claim the project violates a 19th century
treaty.
With the Yucca Mountain repository yet to open and a disputed
rail line yet to be built, U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro
decided not to issue an injunction. He said the Western Shoshone
National Council couldn't demonstrate "immediate and
irreparable" harm.
Lawyer Robert Hager of Reno, representing the tribe, said
Wednesday a decision on whether to appeal has not been made.
Hager said Pro's ruling did leave open the possibility that the
tribe could seek an injunction later.
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said the government was
gratified by the ruling. He said the department filed a motion
Monday asking Pro to dismiss the tribe's March 4 lawsuit
outright.
In his ruling Tuesday, Pro did not address that request. He
rejected the tribe's request for a preliminary injunction to
stop the federal government from applying to the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for an operating license and from planning
a railroad line across Nevada to reach the $58 billion
repository .
The tribe claims the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 allowed only
specified uses of Western Shoshone ancestral lands - including
settlements, mining, ranching, agriculture, railroads, roads and
communication routes. Hager said a nuclear waste dump is not
among those uses.
The treaty recognized vast stretches of territory in present-day
Nevada, California, Utah and Idaho as Western Shoshone tribal
land. An Indian Claims Commission decided in 1946 that the tribe
lost the land through "gradual encroachment."
Justice Department lawyer Sara Culley said during oral arguments
April 27 that the tribe's challenge to the Yucca project was "a
direct contradiction of a congressional mandate."
The judge agreed. An injunction halting planning for the
repository "would delay progress towards completing Congress'
chosen solution" to entomb the nation's most radioactive waste,
Pro wrote in his ruling.
Congress in 2002 picked Yucca Mountain as the site to contain
77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel now stored in 39 states. The
site is at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site, within
ancient Shoshone lands.
The Energy Department also has proposed building a 319-mile rail
route across Nevada to ship waste from Caliente, 150 miles
northeast of Las Vegas, to the Yucca site, 90 miles northwest of
Las Vegas.
The project has been beset by troubles and delays since a
federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., tossed out a key
radiation standard last year. The Environmental Protection
Agency said Monday it expects to issue a new standard by
September.
Revelations in March that workers may have falsified data on the
project have also prompted several inquiries, and project
officials have pushed back an original opening date from 2010 to
2012 or later.
In his ruling, Pro discounted Shoshone claims that prayer sites
had been declared off-limits and ancestral remains had been
removed from graves during site preparation.
The failure of tribal members to claim treaty rights at the time
"undermines their claims for equitable relief now," the judge
said.
---
On the Net:
Western Shoshone Defense Project: http://www.wsdp.org/
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
--
*****************************************************************
54 Korea Herald: Limiting spread of nuclear plague
2005.05.19
Editorial
Delegates have gathered in New York for the latest five-year
Review Conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
The NPT regime will be comatose if both Iran and North Korea
create nuclear arsenals.
The goal of nonproliferation is entirely reasonable but
thoroughly unprincipled. The major nuclear powers have declared:
we sinners want to protect others from yielding to temptation.
Still, given the dangers of nuclear weapons, preventing their
spread is good policy. Unfortunately, however, possessing an
atomic arsenal yields enormous geopolitical benefits.
Consider India, which had fought (and lost) against China, now
nuclear-armed, and fought (and won) against Pakistan. In turn,
Pakistan is smaller, less populous, and weaker than its chief
antagonist, India.
North Korea is outgunned by an opposing coalition that features
the globe's sole superpower. South Korea alone, with an economy
about 40 times as large and a population twice as big, could
easily overwhelm the North.
Obviously, this doesn't mean that proliferation is good - to
the contrary. Iran and North Korea are scary actors without
nukes.
But containing nonproliferation requires understanding the logic
behind each case. Which is why the United States has never
worried much about Britain, France or Israel becoming nuclear
states.
Washington must recognize that its policy encourages other
countries to choose the atomic option. Whether or not the United
States is justified in intervening in the affairs of other
nations, they will resist if it does so. Given America's
overwhelming conventional military superiority, nuclear weapons
are the best deterrent to U.S. action.
Other countries have watched two decades of American coercion
and frequent regime change: Grenada, Panama, Iraq I, Haiti,
Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq II. Washington will act irrespective of
international support or international law.
Indeed, it was argued that the United States had to invade Iraq
even if it did not presently possess nuclear weapons because
otherwise Iraq might be able to develop them in the future,
deterring Washington from going to war in the future. That is,
the United States had to bomb Iraq now to ensure that it could
bomb Iraq later.
Other countries clearly worry about America. In 1991 the Indian
army chief of staff was asked what lesson he had learned from
the Gulf War: don't go to war with the United States without
nuclear weapons, he responded. Debates over the size and reach
of India's nuclear arsenal have mentioned America - not as a
target of preemption, but of deterrence.
Similar was the sentiment animating Xiong Guangkai, deputy
chief of staff for the People's Liberation Army, who 10 years
ago told Charles Freeman, a former Pentagon official, that the
United States "will not sacrifice Los Angeles to protect
Taiwan." The desire to deter American coercion probably explains
why both Iran and North Korea appear to be racing to develop
nuclear weapons.
In short, the more vigorously Washington attempts to stop the
atom's spread, the more strongly it encourages some nations to
develop nuclear weapons.
This doesn't mean that nonproliferation efforts should be
abandoned. Changes in the NPT, particularly its coverage of
uranium enrichment, might help discourage new entrants to the
nuclear club.
But further proliferation seems inevitable. Potential weapons
states usually have multiple objectives, some benign, some
malign. Most particularly worry about threats from antagonistic
neighbors - and the globe's meddlesome hegemony.
Thus, the United States and allied states must consider what to
do if negotiation is not enough to stop Iran and North Korea.
Neither sanctions nor the threat of war would guarantee
compliance with allied demands. And military strikes would
likely spark costly wars.
Moreover, the list of other nations which have demonstrated an
interest in acquiring nuclear weapons includes Argentina,
Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Syria. Japan and
Taiwan, among others, could quickly go nuclear if they desired.
Eventually, the common question may become, is it possible to
live with proliferation? There is no good answer, only second
best responses.
Some red lines would have to be drawn - sales to non-state
actors, for instance. Washington could offer extended nuclear
deterrence to more countries, but that would further entangle
America in a world full of ancient and complicated regional
squabbles. Instead, the United States might have to acquiesce to
counter-proliferation by allied, democratic states, such as
South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, as it has to proliferation by
Britain, France, and Israel.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to put the nuclear genie back
into the bottle. The most important review that NPT supporters
could conduct is developing strategies to meet the security
concerns of potential nuclear weapons states and to contain the
damage if further proliferation occurs.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He served
as a special assistant to President Reagan. - Ed.
*****************************************************************
55 Japan Times: Transparent U.S. nuclear arsenal
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
READERS IN COUNCIL
I agree with the May 3 editorial, "Nonproliferation plus
disarmament," that Japan should seize an opportunity at the
Nonproliferation Treaty talks to promote its position that
nuclear-weapons states reduce their arsenals, that the
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty be renewed, and that talks
on the fissile-material cutoff treaty begin as soon as possible.
However, Japan needs to do more than coordinate. If Japan wants
a permanent U.N. Security Council seat, it needs to show some
leadership as well. It would be nice to see someone place a
"nuclear-free Middle East" proposal on the table. This would
mean having Israel give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for
Iran doing so, and having all countries in the area submit to
inspections to show they are not building nuclear weapons.
There is no legal reason why Iran should not have nuclear
weapons if Israel has them. I also agree that Japan needs to
work for a U.S. policy shift. In the January issue of Foreign
Affairs, John Deutch, former U.S. deputy secretary of defense,
recommended that the United States make its own nuclear
stockpile more transparent to set a security standard for the
rest of the world. When this is achieved, it will have the right
to demand the same of others. The U.S. Congress also needs to
expand the Nunn-Lugar program to inventory and secure
weapons-grade plutonium and uranium around the world.
These are just the first steps toward building a more secure
world. What are we waiting for?
JOSEPH VIGNOS Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi
The Japan Times: May 18, 2005
(The opinions expressed in this letter to the editor
are the writer's own and do not necessarily reflect
the policies of The Japan Times.)
*****************************************************************
56 Tri-City Herald: Hanford likely to boost budget
This story was published Wednesday, May 18th, 2005
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The House Appropriations Committee is expected to add more than
$200 million back into the Hanford budget for fiscal year 2006
when it meets today.
The Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development added the money
back into the budget last week but has not discussed the
specific amount it approved or how the increase would be spent.
The committee is not expected to make any major changes to the
subcommittee's markup, said John Scofield, spokesman for the
committee.
He credited the proposed increase in Hanford spending to U.S.
Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.
"He's done a very good job of explaining why it was unwise to
follow the administration's cuts to the program," Scofield said
of Hastings.
The Department of Energy had proposed a Hanford budget cut of
$267 million from the present budget of about $2.1 billion.
Depending on the items included as cleanup work in the budget,
the cut is closer to $290 million, say some Hanford supporters.
Last May, Hastings brought the influential chairman of the
subcommittee, U.S. Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, to tour Hanford
and see the scope of the work being done to clean up the nuclear
reservation.
After the tour, Hobson said the nation needs to support cleanup
of Hanford, which was left extensively contaminated by more than
40 years of production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear
weapons program.
"This generation has an obligation to do that," he said last
year. "We need to be good stewards of the land."
By seeing the work going on at Hanford, he gained confidence
that spending so much money there was appropriate, he said.
This spring, Hastings led an effort to get all 14
representatives from Washington and Oregon to sign onto a
request to the subcommittee to add $239 million back into the
Hanford budget proposal.
"The level of funding requested by DOE for next year is not
sufficient to maintain cleanup progress at the Hanford site,"
the letter said. "We believe the proposed reductions go too far
and will unnecessarily and unjustifiably delay cleanup
progress."
The House Armed Services Subcommittee last week restored $122
million to the budget, but getting appropriation committees to
approve additional money for Hanford is more important.
The Hanford budget still must go to the House floor while a
similar process is followed in the Senate.
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
57 Platts: DOE to drop nuclear incentives, focus on operating delays
+ Instead of up-front cash incentives for new reactors, the Bush
administration now proposes that Congress focus on preventing
and minimizing the impacts of possible post-construction
operating delays, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said today.
Bodman told industry officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute's
(NEI) Nuclear Energy Assembly in Washington, D.C. that raising
the evidentiary bar for a potential post-construction hearing
would introduce more certainty into the licensing process.
Federal risk insurance, he added, would cover half of the
interest, maintenance, and constructions costs arising during
the second through fourth years of a serious regulatory delay
resulting from a post-construction hearing.
Utilities ordering new reactors before Dec. 31, 2008 would not
have to pay an insurance premium, Bodman said.
Those ordering reactors after 2008 would be charged a premium of
10%. The nuclear industry will continue to seek incentives, NEI
President/CEO Frank "Skip" Bowman told Platts after Bodman's
speech.
Washington (Platts)--17May2005
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
58 lamonitor.com: Defusing nuclear threats
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
The director of Los Alamos National Laboratory's Nuclear
Nonproliferation Division gave a wide-ranging description of
nuclear threats in the current global landscape and what the lab
is trying to do about them.
Sara Scott spoke at the Bradbury Museum on Tuesday at a
lunchtime lecture series, featuring Los Alamos Women in Science.
The series is sponsored by the Northern chapter of the New
Mexico Network for Women in Science and Engineering.
The old Cold War threat of "mutual assured destruction" that
deterred the superpowers from reciprocal annihilation for four
decades, has given way to a more subtle and dispersed set of
dangers.
Now, instead of a head-to-head confrontation between the former
Soviet Union and the United States, nuclear concerns are focused
on unstable states like North Korea and unpredictable tactics of
present and future stateless factions.
What is known, Scott said, is that the trend line of terrorist
violence has risen from, say, 30 fatalities in the car bombs at
the end of the last century, to some 300 deaths in the bombing
of the Kobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, to the roughly
3,000 who lost their lives in the jetliner crashes into the
World Trade Center in 2001.
"That's an exponential increase," Scott said, adding that the
worry is, "Where's the next level?"
Officials believe that there are two major possibilities that
must be contained.
A radiological dispersion device, that is, nuclear material
blown up by conventional explosive, may have major ecological
and economic consequences, but is less likely to cause
widespread loss of life or massive damage beyond the local
infrastructure.
An actual nuclear weapon, whether it is stolen from an existing
stockpile, bought on the black market or improvised by a
determined adversary, on the other hand, could cause wide
devastation and massive loss of life.
Instead of one big threat under a very controlled system, the
world now faces a highly distributed threat from a more mobile
and interactive world community.
Where there were once guns and guards in the former Soviet
Union, "and people didn't goof around with the system," Scott
said, the world now sees tons of plutonium materials and
hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium, not all of it
always under reliable safeguards.
Understanding potential nuclear threats is only the first level
of defense. A second level consists of measuring and accounting
for nuclear materials and denying access not only to the
materials but also to related technology and expertise.
A third stage involves developing devices to detect and warn
against movement of nuclear materials that might fall into the
wrong hands. And, just in case, the country must prepare to be
able to recover, if the worst happens and the other systems fail.
LANL is involved on all of these levels, from new processing
technologies to dilute the usefulness of by-products from
nuclear power plants to simulations of emergency response.
The laboratory's activities, tools and programs are now found in
dozens of countries around the world.
All the inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency,
meant to be the world's frontline arbiter and defense against
nuclear weapons proliferation, are trained and supported by the
lab.
Laboratory scientists are working on broad-area surveillance
systems to guard against theft or unauthorized migration of
nuclear materials. They are devising non-invasive ways to
inspect passing trains and busy seaports without clogging the
system or shutting things down.
Scott said there was still a great deal to do and vast areas,
from sensor and imagery technology to sociology, is ripe for new
research.
The next talk in the series takes place June 9.
, featuring Stephani Sandoval, a forest health specialist
associated with New Mexico State University Cooperative
Extension Services.
The talk, "What's Bugging the Forest," will describe the impact
of fire suppression on the forest environment and the impact of
recent insect invasions, including the bark beetle.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
59 lamonitor.com: County to talk to lab about complex funding
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
DARRYL NEWMAN, lareporter@lamonitor.com, Monitor Staff Writer
After deliberating over what role Los Alamos National Laboratory
will play in the construction of the White Rock Public Safety
Complex, the county council voted to approve the preliminary
layout of the facility and proceed with a more detailed design.
Under the same motion, council stipulated that the county staff
discuss and negotiate with LANL for a portion of the funding for
the estimated $8 million project which will sit on tract A-19 in
White Rock, just north of State Road 4.
The Los Alamos Fire Department operates six fire stations, with
135 budgeted positions, including 124 uniformed and 11 civilian
personnel and is one of the largest career fire departments in
the state.
The schematic design was presented by architects Design
Collaborative Southwest of Albuquerque and is just one option
available to the county as far as an exterior aesthetic
appearance.
In addition to explaining the facility's basic design and
features, Mark Schiff, principal of DCSW, and David Brumfield,
architect with DCSW, explained the facility's floor plans which
include housing for 16 firefighters, four officers, five
apparatus bays and a conference center/training room designed to
hold 50 people.
"During the design phase, we went through at least 12 different
designs of what the complex would look like," Schiff said. "What
we tried to do was design a modern fire station that has a
connection to the community."
Brumfield followed by explaining financial savings initiatives
that the team took into consideration when designing the
building, such as light-colored roofing that would reflect light
in the summer months, and the design of the roofing that would
capture precipitation for landscape use.
After the presentation, Fire Chief Douglas MacDonald addressed a
question posed by Councilor Nona Bowman as to meeting the needs
of LANL through the services of the fire department.
"The department is understaffed to serve the laboratory," he
said. "We are understaffed by almost 60 percent in the last NNSA
(National Nuclear Security Administration) assessment and 238
people is the last NNSA staffing requirement to meet the
mandates of the laboratory alone, not including the county."
MacDonald continued that it is the community that drives and
decides how it staffs and funds its fire department and that two
average communities in the country today would consist of a
volunteer fire department.
"We have a lot of services provided differently in Los Alamos
County," MacDonald said as he compared the county with other
departments of its size. "We are staffed to protect the lab and
the citizens enjoy that protection as well. The efficiencies
that the lab and county receive works so well and it's an
excellent relationship."
After a brief comparison to the services that the fire
department in Espanola provides, Bowman asked whether LANL would
contribute to the cost of the safety complex.
"In my opinion, the taxpayers in Los Alamos are building a
facility and providing a lot more fire coverage because the
laboratory said that they need that," Bowman said.
County Administrator Max Baker said that there is "nothing on
the table" for LANL to help pay for the complex under current
fire contract negotiations.
"Under federal cost recovery guidelines, we can recover the cost
of the building that is appropriate for the fire contract at 2
percent per year which would be in 50 years," Baker said.
The fire department services contract, a negotiation currently
in the works between the county and the lab, would stipulate the
scope of responsibilities of each party in regard to fire
services.
"As far as cost recovery, I don't believe that we're out line
for the county to cover the long-term debt of the federal
government, all of us taxpayers are doing that anyway,"
Councilor Mike Wheeler said.
Councilor Jim Hall said that the fire department is a partner
with the lab in which the county receives "tremendous benefits"
and said there may be a possibility that the lab decide to not
utilize the services of the county.
"The lab may blink and we'll be faced with a fire station
designed to hold a crew of 20 and we'll be lucky to get funded
for 10," Hall said.
Councilor Jim West said that the county receives benefits in
offering fire services to the lab, especially emergency medical
services.
"We could never in this world begin to afford the level of
emergency medical services that we enjoy," he said. "By the
community paying for this complex, it's a small price to pay for
the level of services that we as a community receive . . . When
was the last time Los Alamos ever paid for a fire station on its
own?"
Councilors competed in a tug-of-war in making motions regarding
the item.
Hall made a motion that: council approve the schematic design of
the complex; authorize staff to proceed with detailed design of
the complex and develop a funding plan for construction that
uses the fire protection gross receipts tax option in the state
law.
The motion failed by a 3-3 vote as West, Wheeler and Bowman
opposed.
West offered a substitute motion that council approve the
schematic design and proceed with a detailed design, which
failed by a 2-4 vote with Bowman, Ken Milder and Fran Berting in
opposition.
Bowman then moved that the schematic design be approved and that
staff proceed with detailed design of the complex and that the
county discuss with LANL to negotiate funding to help cover the
cost of the facility. The motion passed unanimously.
At its Aug. 10 meeting, council approved the project plan for
the safety complex, but the scope of the project has been scaled
back since then in an effort by the county to be more
financially prudent. Baker directed the project team, consisting
of county staff and representatives of P.A. Smith Concepts
&Designs, to make the cuts necessary to curtail the cost
estimate to $8 million after learning that the project cost was
estimated at $10.5 million. The original plans included a
proposed public/government space and a separate police
substation. Also excluded from the design were a KanDu
information satellite center and two additional apparatus bays.
The need for a safety complex of this caliber was apparent to
the county after LANL conducted a Baseline Needs Assessment in
1995 that concluded that the fire station was inadequate in
meeting the long-term needs of not only the lab, but the
townsite of White Rock as well. Similarly, a 1996 study revealed
that the existing fire station did not meet the applicable
building codes and standards and the condition and location of
Fire Station No. 3 were not amenable to expansion and
improvement.
The council is scheduled to meet again in a regular session at 7
p.m. May 24 in the Municipal Building.
Council Chambers.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
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