-------- Original Message --------
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
VY officials threaten to close plant
By CAROLYN LORIé
Brattleboro Reformer Staff
Saturday, May 21, 2005
http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102%257E8860%257E2881127,00.html
BRATTLEBORO -- Calling the current bill on dry cask storage
"totally unacceptable," and threatening to shut the plant
down early, officials at Vermont Yankee said they will
oppose passage of the bill as it makes it way through the
Vermont Legislature.
Approved by the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy,
the bill includes an annual $4 million payment from plant
owner Entergy to the state in exchange for permission to
store high-level nuclear waste in concrete containers known
as dry casks.
Annual payments will be required as long as the spent fuel
is stored at the Vernon site, even after the plant is shut down.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the charge
was "totally unacceptable and unfair."
"It's unfair on all levels," he added.
According to Williams, the bill could jeopardize the
continued operation of the nuclear reactor.
"This kind of charge wasn't anticipated [when the plant was
purchased in 2002], so it wasn't part of the business plan,"
said Williams. "If it becomes uneconomical to run [the
plant], it will be shut down, absolutely."
The reactor supplies the state with one-third of its
electricity and employs over 500 people. That number swells
to almost 1,000 during refueling outages, which occur every
18 months.
It is currently licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to run until 2012, but plant officials have
stated that they intend to apply for a license extension. If
it is granted, the plant could operate until 2032.
Concerns about premature shutdown of the plant had some
criticizing the bill, including members of the Vermont
Energy Partnership -- a recently formed group that includes
representatives from business, labor and community
organizations.
"This is a money grab, pure and simple," said member Vicky
Tebbetts, in a press release. Tebbetts is vice president of
communications and government relations for the Vermont
Chamber of Commerce.
"Rather than making sure that our lowest cost and most
reliable power stays on line, or finding comprehensive
solutions to our significant energy challenges, legislators
are enacting a totally arbitrary tax," she said.
Local representatives on the Natural Resources and Energy
Committee, however, said that finding solutions for the
state's energy future was exactly what they had in mind when
crafting the legislation.
"What we've done with this bill is address short-term
concerns with long-term goals and that is not easy to do,"
said Rep. Sarah Edwards, P-Brattleboro.
The bill calls for the establishment of a renewable energy
fund that will receive the payments from Entergy. It will be
administered by the Department of Public Service.
Given the federal government's failure to open a national
repository for high-level nuclear waste, Edwards said the
committee had to consider the possibility of the spent fuel
remaining in Vernon indefinitely.
Though the bill calls for a minimum annual payment of $4
million -- that figure will increase roughly with the rate
of inflation -- it allows Vermont Yankee officials to appeal
to the Vermont Public Service Board for redress if it proves
to be a financial hardship.
"That's a huge thing," said Edwards, of the possibility for
changing the yearly charge.
Plant officials will not release financial figures, claiming
financial propriety. However, estimates based on 2002 data
from the sale show the company stands to make an additional
$40 million to $50 million a year, if its bid to increase
power by 20 percent is approved.
The "uprate" application with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission is under consideration.
Local anti-nuclear groups lauded the bill, saying it
reflected the wishes of many Windham County residents.
"The Natural Resources and Energy Committee has done a good
job," said Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont, in an e-mail
to the Reformer. "There is recognition that the burden
created by [Vermont Yankee's] nuclear waste will be borne by
future generations long after electric production has stopped."
The bill is now under consideration by the House Ways and
Means Committee. Before going to the floor for a full vote,
it must also be passed by the Appropriations Committee.
Finally passage will require approval by the Senate and Gov.
James Douglas.
At that point, Vermont Yankee officials can apply to the
Vermont Public Service Board for a certificate of public
good. The quasi-judicial process can take up to one year.
According to plant officials, in order to keep the plant
running without interruption, construction on the dry casks
must begin by spring 2006.
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19 UPI: Outside view: Huge costs of nuclear power -
(United Press International)
May 22, 2005
By Helen Caldicott Outside View Commentator
Washington, DC, May. 21 (UPI) -- There is a huge propaganda push
by the nuclear industry to justify nuclear power as a panacea for
the reduction of global-warming gases.
At present there are 442 nuclear reactors in operation around the
world. If, as the nuclear industry suggests, nuclear power were
to replace fossil fuels on a large scale, it would be necessary
to build 2,000 1,000-megawatt reactors. Considering that no new
nuclear plant has been ordered in the United States since 1978,
this proposal is less than practical. Furthermore, even if we
decided today to replace all fossil-fuel-generated electricity
with nuclear power, there would only be enough economically
viable uranium to fuel the reactors for three to four years.
The true economies of the nuclear industry are never fully
accounted for. The cost of uranium enrichment is subsidized by
the U.S. government. The true cost of the industry's liability in
the case of an accident in the United States is estimated to be
$560 billion, but the industry pays $9.1 billion -- 98 percent of
the insurance liability is covered by the federal government. The
cost of decommissioning all the existing U.S. nuclear reactors is
estimated to be $33 billion. These costs -- plus the enormous
expense involved in the storage of radioactive waste for a
quarter of a million years -- are not included in the economic
assessments of nuclear electricity.
It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is
very different.
In the United States, where much of the world's uranium is
enriched, including
Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Ky., requires
the electrical output of two 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plants,
which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas
responsible for 50 percent of global warming.
Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio,
release from leaky pipes 93 percent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas
emitted yearly in the United States. The production and release
of CFC gas is banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol
because it is the main culprit responsible for stratospheric
ozone depletion. But CFC is also a global warmer, 10,000 to
20,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilizes large quantities of
fossil fuel at all of its stages -- the mining and milling of
uranium, the construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling
towers, robotic decommissioning of the intensely radioactive
reactor at the end of its 20- to 40-year operating lifetime, and
transportation and long-term storage of massive quantities of
radioactive waste.
Contrary to the nuclear industry's propaganda, nuclear power is
therefore not green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear
reactors consistently release millions of curies of radioactive
isotopes into the air and water each year. These releases are
unregulated because the nuclear industry considers these
particular radioactive elements to be biologically
inconsequential. This is not so.
These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton,
xenon and argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons
living near a nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs,
migrating to the fatty tissues of the body, including the
abdominal fat pad and upper thighs, near the reproductive organs.
These radioactive elements, which emit high-energy gamma
radiation, can mutate the genes in the eggs and sperm and cause
genetic disease.
Tritium, another biologically significant gas, which is also
routinely emitted from nuclear reactors is a radioactive isotope
of hydrogen composed of two neutrons and one proton with an
atomic weight of 3. The chemical symbol for tritium is H3. When
one or both of the hydrogen atoms in water is displaced by
tritium the water molecule is then called tritiated water.
Tritium is a soft energy beta emitter, more mutagenic than gamma
radiation, which incorporates directly into the DNA molecule of
the gene. Its half-life is 12.3 years, giving it a biologically
active life of 246 years. It passes readily through the skin,
lungs and digestive system and is distributed throughout the
body.
The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste
accruing at the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also
rarely, if ever, addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical
1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor manufactures 33 metric ton of
thermally hot, intensely radioactive waste per year.
Already more than 80,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste
sits in cooling pools next to the 103 U.S. nuclear power plants,
awaiting transportation to a storage facility yet to be found.
This dangerous material will be an attractive target for
terrorist sabotage as it travels through 39 states on roads and
railway lines for the next 25 years.
But the long-term storage of radioactive waste continues to pose
a problem. Congress in 1987 chose Yucca Mountain in Nevada, 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas, as a repository for the United
States' high-level waste. But Yucca Mountain has subsequently
been found to be unsuitable for the long-term storage of
high-level waste because it is a volcanic mountain made of
permeable pumice stone and it is transected by 32 earthquake
faults.
Last week a congressional committee discovered fabricated data
about water infiltration and cask corrosion in Yucca Mountain
that had been produced by personnel in the U.S. Geological
Survey. These startling revelations, according to most experts,
have almost disqualified Yucca Mountain as a waste repository,
meaning that the United States has nowhere to deposit its
expanding nuclear waste inventory.
To make matters worse, a study released last week by the
National Academy of Sciences shows that the cooling pools at
nuclear reactors, which store 10 to 30 times more radioactive
material than that contained in the reactor core, are subject to
catastrophic attacks by terrorists, which could unleash an
inferno and release massive quantities of deadly radiation --
significantly worse than the radiation released by Chernobyl,
according to some scientists.
This vulnerable high-level nuclear waste contained in the
cooling pools at 103 nuclear power plants in the United States
includes hundreds of radioactive elements that have different
biological impacts in the human body, the most important being
cancer and genetic diseases.
The incubation time for cancer is five to 50 years following
exposure to radiation. It is important to note that children, old
people and immuno-compromised individuals are many times more
sensitive to the malignant effects of radiation than other
people.
I will describe four of the most dangerous elements made in
nuclear power plants.
Iodine 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at
Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island
in the United States, is radioactive for only six weeks and it
bio-concentrates in leafy vegetables and milk. When it enters the
human body via the gut and the lung, it migrates to the thyroid
gland in the neck, where it can later induce thyroid cancer. In
Belarus more than 2,000 children have had their thyroids removed
for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in
pediatric literature.
Strontium 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it
concentrates in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human
breast during lactation and in bone, where it can later induce
breast cancer, bone cancer and leukemia.
Cesium 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the
food chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it
locates in muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer
called a sarcoma.
Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to
humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic.
More than 440 pounds is made annually in each 1,000-megawatt
nuclear power plant.
Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore
stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the
bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On
inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta,
where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital
deformities.
Plutonium has a predisposition for the testicle, where it can
cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases in future
generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to
induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of
plants, animals and humans.
Plutonium is also the fuel for nuclear weapons -- only 11 pounds
is necessary to make a bomb and each reactor makes more than 440
pounds per year. Therefore any country with a nuclear power plant
can theoretically manufacture 40 bombs a year.
Nuclear power therefore leaves a toxic legacy to all future
generations, because it produces global warming gases, because it
is far more expensive than any other form of electricity
generation, and because it can trigger proliferation of nuclear
weapons.
--
(Helen Caldicott is an anti-nuclear campaigner and founder and
president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute, which argues
that nuclear energy is dangerous.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are
written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of
important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect
those of United Press International. In the interests of creating
an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
*****************************************************************
20 toledoblade.com: NRC to disband Besse watchdog panel
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Article published Saturday, May 21, 2005
By BLADE STAFF WRITER
OAK HARBOR — The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said yesterday it
will soon disband the special oversight panel that has been the
public’s main avenue for first-hand information about
Davis-Besse since 2002, although the agency said it would
continue to keep a close eye on the Ottawa County nuclear plant
for an indefinite period.
On March 10, 2004, NRC Chairman Nils Diaz told The Blade during
an interview in Washington that the agency would not scale back
on its oversight of FirstEnergy Corp. for at least three to five
years.
Those comments came just two days after the NRC had given
FirstEnergy Corp. the green light to restart Davis-Besse in the
aftermath of what the agency itself has called the nation’s
closest brush with a nuclear meltdown since the accident at
Three Mile Island in 1979.
But Viktoria Mitlyng, agency spokesman, said yesterday the
decision to disband the oversight panel does not equate with
less oversight of the plant.
She said Davis-Besse’s current performance has been
satisfactory, even though the NRC recently issued a record
$5.45-million fine against the plant and even though a number of
outstanding issues related to the near-rupture of its reactor
head are still unresolved.
Those include possible criminal charges stemming from a grand
jury investigation in Cleveland, the outcome of NRC and federal
court appeals of a former Davis-Besse systems engineer who
claims to have produced evidence of what the utility knew prior
to the plant’s 2002 shutdown, plus a follow-up inspection
stemming from allegations that the utility has continued to
provide inaccurate and incomplete information to the government.
The latter is in regard to the prior status of emergency sirens
in Ottawa and Lucas counties.
There have been other problems, such as the rough mid-winter
shutdown that damaged Davis-Besse’s cooling tower, apparently
because of faulty procedures. But because the cooling tower is
technically unrelated to safety, it doesn’t fall under the NRC’s
domain.
“It does not mean things are perfect. It just means the plant is
on the right track,” Ms. Mitlyng said of the NRC’s decision to
disband its panel. The panel will meet one last time at 6 p.m.
Tuesday at the Camp Perry clubhouse.
Paul Gunter of the Washington-based, anti-nuclear power Nuclear
Information and Resource Service called the decision premature.
He said he sees “little reason to let this company off the short
leash.”
FirstEnergy believes it “reflects the major improvements we’ve
made at Davis-Besse,” said Gary Leidich, FirstEnergy Nuclear
Operating Company president and chief nuclear officer.
“It also is an acknowledgment of our employees’ renewed
commitment to safe operations,” he said.
Utility spokesman Richard Wilkins called it “another milestone,
a pretty significant one for us.”
Contact Tom Henry at:thenry@theblade.com or 419-724-6079.
The Toledo Blade Company, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660
, (419) 724-6000
*****************************************************************
21 JOURNAL NEWS: NRC rejects call for backup power at nuclear plant sirens
By BILL HUGHES
(Original publication: May 21, 2005)
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected a petition requesting
backup generators for siren alert systems at commercial nuclear
power plants yesterday, a move that drew immediate criticism
from several environmental groups and government officials.
Saying that the issue should be taken up with the Federal
Emergency Management Agency or the Department of Homeland
Security, NRC officials declined to take any action on the
request, submitted as a petition signed by more than 15
organizations in February.
Of the 62 commercial nuclear power plants nationwide that use
sirens as warning systems, 27 percent have backup power to all
sirens, 33 percent for some of the sirens and 40 percent have no
backup at all, including Indian Point.
Politicians, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, denounced the
decision, with Spano saying he was "outraged."
"If there is a power failure at the same time there is an
incident at Indian Point, these sirens will not work without
backup generators," Spano said in a written statement.
Clinton, D-N.Y., also released a statement: "I am disappointed
in the NRC's decision. I think everyone agrees that it is
critical that we have an effective emergency preparedness system
in place at Indian Point. I plan to raise this issue with the
NRC next week and will continue to push to ensure that the NRC
takes the necessary steps to ensure New Yorkers' safety."
- - - - - - - -914-694-9300 - - - - -
Copyright 2005 The Journal News, . Inc. newspaper serving
Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York.
*****************************************************************
22 News-Leader.com: Task force takes on nuclear power
| Springfield, Mo. |
Published Saturday, May 21, 2005
Monday meeting will also cover use of coal gasification.
By News-Leader staff
© 2005, Springfield News-Leader
--> Nuclear power still faces a public relations battle because
of incidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
And an "integrated gasification combined cycle" power plant may
leave utility customers wondering what the heck it is.
But two energy experts will tackle both topics Monday during a
Power Supply Community Task Force meeting.
The meeting, open to the public, will be from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at
SRC corporate headquarters, 3055 E. Division St.
The 17-member task force is studying power supply options to
meet Springfield's growing need for electricity.
The group will make a recommendation to Springfield City
Utilities in July.
Akira Thomas Tokuhiro, a University of Missouri-Rolla assistant
professor of nuclear energy, said nuclear power is on the verge
of a comeback.
"Now is a great time to be in the nuclear energy field,"
Tokuhiro said. "I think the next wave of nuclear plant designs
is about to happen. If the current energy bill passes, I'm
hearing there will be three orders for three nuclear plants. The
industry is getting primed and started again."
Missouri gets about 13 percent of its electrical power from a
nuclear power plant at Fulton.
Nationwide, there are 103 nuclear reactors producing electricity
in 31 states.
Tokuhiro said the Fulton site was designed to have a second
reactor, but a second unit was never built.
"The public still remembers Chernobyl and Three Mile Island," he
said. "Unfortunately, when you're dealing with any hazardous
technology you have to deal with the public's perception, not
the actual facts."
Tokuhiro said the next wave of nuclear power plants will have
unprecedented safety and security measures.
Nuclear power plants produce almost no air pollution, a major
benefit in light of tough new clean-air rules aimed at
coal-fired power plants, he said.
Nuclear plants do produce radioactive waste, and it will remain
a political issue what to do with it, he said.
The government currently plans to entomb nuclear power plant
waste deep inside mountains in Nevada.
Tokuhiro said he doesn't foresee any shortage of nuclear power
plant fuels. Uranium is available from countries friendly to the
United States, such as Australia and Canada.
And the U.S. government bought large amounts of weapons-grade
nuclear material from the former Soviet Union to keep it from
slipping into terrorists' hands.
"That weapons material can be used to power nuclear plants," he
said.
Tokuhiro said it made little sense for City Utilities to build
and operate a nuclear plant. He recommended partnering with
other utilities that already have a track record running nuclear
power plants.
IGCC's time has come
The same clean-air initiatives spurring interest in nuclear
power are driving coal gasification technology, according to
William Trapp.
Trapp is operations manager of Eastman Gasification Services
Company in Kingsport, Tenn.
He has 13 years' experience in coal gasification technology, and
said an integrated gasification combined cycle plant could be a
good fit for CU.
IGCC technology uses heat and pressure to turn coal into a
synthetic gas — carbon monoxide and oxygen — that can be burned
in a turbine that spins an electric generator.
Residual heat from various chemical processes is recycled to
power traditional steam turbine generators.
Trapp said the coal gasification process removes air pollutants
very efficiently, especially carbon dioxide, which power plants
likely will eventually have to contain.
Although IGCC plants are about 15 percent costlier than a
comparable pulverized coal plant, Trapp said the air pollution
reductions will help offset those costs.
And coal gasification can also generate many side products, such
as farm fertilizers, low-sulfur diesel fuel, methanol and
industrial chemical feedstocks.
It might make sense for CU to partner with a chemical company so
the plant generates electricity during the day and switches to
chemical production at night, when electrical demand is low.
"Coal gasification gives you a lot of flexibility," he said.
*****************************************************************
23 Xinhua: Vietnam, Russia cooperate in nuclear energy
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-05-22 22:55:15
HANOI, May 22 (Xinhuanet) -- Vietnam and Russia agreed to
boost bilateral cooperation in nuclear energy during the second
session of the Joint Coordinator on Cooperation in the Field of
Nuclear Energy here on May 17-20, Vietnam News Agency reported
Sunday.
The two sides will cooperate in ensuring the safe and
efficient operation of the Da Lat reactor, which is being used
for nuclear research, and upgrading a radiotherapy facility in
Vietnam's capital city Hanoi.
They will also strengthen ties in personnel training, the
application of radiation technology in health care facilities.
During the session, the two sides also reviewed their
cooperation activities in 2003 and 2004 and mapped out a
cooperation plan for the two following years. Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
24 News 10: New nuclear plant?
[News 10 Syracuse - Home]
Updated: 5/21/2005 6:41 AM
By: Nick Cowdrey, News 10 Now Web Staff
Oswego has a two out of six shot of getting a 4th nuclear plant
at Nine Mile.
NuStart Energy, a consortium of nuclear power companies,
announced the six sites it's considering for two new plants.
Nine Mile is on that list.
Mayor John Gosek says this puts Oswego one step closer to a
project he says will boost the economy of the city and the
county.
"There are just thousands of construction jobs created but
beyond that, the permanent full time jobs are very, very good
jobs, high paying jobs," Gosek said.
Construction of the last nuclear plant built in Scriba started
in the mid seventies and finished in 1988.
Mayor Gosek says during that time, the area was booming and he
says the same would happen with a fourth plant.
New nuke plant?
In January, Oswego Mayor John Gosek approached a consortium of
nuclear power companies interested in finding a site for two new
nuclear plants. He got support from the county and school
district, and told the companies why they should choose Oswego.
As News 10 Now's Nick Cowdrey tells us, the field has been
narrowed down to six finalists.
But not everyone wants Oswego County to get another plant.
"I'm not in favor of it. We have three, that's plenty. We don't
need the electricity here," said John Richardson.
Nuclear activists say the possible economic impact doesn't
compare to the possible danger of nuclear energy.
"A fourth one is going to mean more nuclear waste that's going
to be stored in the community. It's going to mean another chance
for a nuclear accident. It's going to mean more contamination
being released in the environment. And we think economically,
and energy wise, it doesn't make any sense," said Tim Judson of
the Citizens Awareness Network.
NuStart says advanced nuclear energy plants are expected to cost
less to build and are simpler to operate.
Over the summer, a NuStart site selection team will evaluate the
six finalists on 75 factors, and pick the top two by October.
The five other sites are in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana,
South Carolina and Maryland.
Copyright ©2005 TWEAN News Channel of Syracuse, LLC, d/b/a News
10 Now. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
25 Brattleboro Reformer: VY officials threaten to close plant
May 22, 2005 Brattleboro, VT
By CAROLYN LORIé Reformer Staff
BRATTLEBORO -- Calling the current bill on dry cask storage
"totally unacceptable," and threatening to shut the plant down
early, officials at Vermont Yankee said they will oppose passage
of the bill as it makes it way through the Vermont Legislature.
Approved by the Committee on Natural Resources and Energy, the
bill includes an annual $4 million payment from plant owner
Entergy to the state in exchange for permission to store
high-level nuclear waste in concrete containers known as dry
casks.
Annual payments will be required as long as the spent fuel is
stored at the Vernon site, even after the plant is shut down.
Rob Williams, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said the charge was
"totally unacceptable and unfair."
"It's unfair on all levels," he added.
According to Williams, the bill could jeopardize the continued
operation of the nuclear reactor.
"This kind of charge wasn't anticipated [when the plant was
purchased in 2002], so it wasn't part of the business plan," said
Williams. "If it becomes uneconomical to run [the plant], it will
be shut down, absolutely."
The reactor supplies the state with one-third of its electricity
and employs over 500 people. That number swells to almost 1,000
during refueling outages, which occur every 18 months.
It is currently licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
run until 2012, but plant officials have stated that they intend
to apply for a license extension. If it is granted, the plant
could operate until 2032.
Concerns about premature shutdown of the plant had some
criticizing the bill, including members of the Vermont Energy
Partnership -- a recently formed group that includes
representatives from business, labor and community organizations.
"This is a money grab, pure and simple," said member Vicky
Tebbetts, in a press release. Tebbetts is vice president of
communications and government relations for the Vermont Chamber
of Commerce.
"Rather than making sure that our lowest cost and most reliable
power stays on line, or finding comprehensive solutions to our
significant energy challenges, legislators are enacting a totally
arbitrary tax," she said.
Local representatives on the Natural Resources and Energy
Committee, however, said that finding solutions for the state's
energy future was exactly what they had in mind when crafting the
legislation.
"What we've done with this bill is address short-term concerns
with long-term goals and that is not easy to do," said Rep. Sarah
Edwards, P-Brattleboro.
The bill calls for the establishment of a renewable energy fund
that will receive the payments from Entergy. It will be
administered by the Department of Public Service.
Given the federal government's failure to open a national
repository for high-level nuclear waste, Edwards said the
committee had to consider the possibility of the spent fuel
remaining in Vernon indefinitely.
Though the bill calls for a minimum annual payment of $4 million
-- that figure will increase roughly with the rate of inflation
-- it allows Vermont Yankee officials to appeal to the Vermont
Public Service Board for redress if it proves to be a financial
hardship.
"That's a huge thing," said Edwards, of the possibility for
changing the yearly charge.
Plant officials will not release financial figures, claiming
financial propriety. However, estimates based on 2002 data from
the sale show the company stands to make an additional $40
million to $50 million a year, if its bid to increase power by 20
percent is approved.
The "uprate" application with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
is under consideration.
Local anti-nuclear groups lauded the bill, saying it reflected
the wishes of many Windham County residents.
"The Natural Resources and Energy Committee has done a good
job," said Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont, in an e-mail to the
Reformer. "There is recognition that the burden created by
[Vermont Yankee's] nuclear waste will be borne by future
generations long after electric production has stopped."
The bill is now under consideration by the House Ways and Means
Committee. Before going to the floor for a full vote, it must
also be passed by the Appropriations Committee.
Finally passage will require approval by the Senate and Gov.
James Douglas.
At that point, Vermont Yankee officials can apply to the Vermont
Public Service Board for a certificate of public good. The
quasi-judicial process can take up to one year.
According to plant officials, in order to keep the plant running
without interruption, construction on the dry casks must begin by
spring 2006.
Copyright ©1999-2005 New England Newspapers, Inc., a
*****************************************************************
26 Sofia Morning News: Environmentalists Oppose Sofia Nuclear Reactor Reconstruction
www.novinite.com
[Sofia News Agency]
Politics: 21 May 2005, Saturday.
A team of environmentalists opposed the Cabinet's decision to
reconstruct the Sofia-based nuclear reactor of the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences (BAS).
At a special press conference the environmentalists pointed out
that nuclear reactor was shut down years ago but its radioactive
fallout is still on the site located between the Maldost and
Druzhba neighbourhoods in the capital city.
Ekoglastnost's deputy chairman Petar Penchev said that in 1983
there has been an accident with the reactor and radioactive
fallout has been spread across Sofia.
A special referendum on the reconstruction of the reactor will
be launched as of Sunday in Sofia.[ width=]
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www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
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Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily
*****************************************************************
27 UK The Times: Wanted: nuclear workers
May 22, 2005
BRITAIN’s nuclear industry is conducting a survey of engineering
firms to find out if they are ready to build a new generation of
nuclear power stations, writes Dan Box.
The move suggests the industry is preparing itself ahead of a
government decision to build the new plants. The survey is being
done by the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the trade body
that represents Britain’s nuclear power operators and
construction firms.
The NIA confirmed the association had approached British
companies to ask if they had the skilled staff needed and the
capability to produce enough steel and concrete to meet the
potential demand.
Seperately, a number of US private-equity firms, including
Cerberus Capital Management and Blackstone, have expressed an
interest in acquiring Westinghouse, the US arm of BNFL, should
the government decide to sell it.
Copyright The Times - timesonline.co.uk
*****************************************************************
28 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Downwinders' court win seen as 'great victory'
[seattlepi.com]
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Man planning a suit is glad health damage is recognized
By ROBERT McCLURE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
Every morning when 4-year-old Jay Mullen showed up at the Navy
day care center, he got a glass of milk -- milk that his lawyers
now say was tainted by radioactive fallout from the Hanford
Nuclear Reservation.
It would be 15 years before Mullen's body was gripped by
paralysis that necessitated removal of his diseased thyroid.
Three more decades elapsed before Mullen found out the
government had purposely released radioactive substances upwind
of his childhood home in North Idaho.
Reflecting yesterday on verdicts in a lawsuit against government
contractors at Hanford, Mullen savored what he called a
long-awaited victory for people downwind from the bomb-making
plant that ended World War II.
"It was a great victory," said Mullen, now 65 and a history
professor in Medford, Ore. "Heretofore the government has not
acknowledged that our health was damaged."
The federal jury in Spokane awarded $500,000 in damages Thursday
to two of six "downwinders" -- a fraction of what plaintiffs'
lawyers spent to bring the cases to trial.
Both winning plaintiffs had thyroid cancer and could show
exposure to high doses of radiation released from Hanford. But
four other downwinders got nothing.
Jurors deadlocked on the case of a cancer patient who suffered
lower exposures, and rejected the claims of three other
plaintiffs who had thyroid disease but not cancer.
Both sides claimed victory, and yesterday the lead attorney
defending government contractors E.I. du Pont de Nemours &Co.
and General Electric Co. said he plans to appeal rulings that
barred the jury from hearing certain defense evidence.
Considering the relatively modest jury awards, there's no way
lawyers for the rest of the approximately 2,300 downwinders can
afford to keep prosecuting the cases, said Chicago lawyer Kevin
Van Wart.
"The cost of the trial far exceeded the recovery. ... The
plaintiffs have to go back to the drawing board," Van Wart said.
"These were the cases where they thought they were going to send
a message, the ones with the highest doses and ... the most
sympathetic.
"They failed to deliver the goods."
Not so, said Richard Eymann, a Spokane lawyer who represents the
downwinders.
"These were not significant damage cases for us. We weren't
interested in hitting the lottery on these cases," Eymann said.
"All we were interested in doing was proving that emissions from
Hanford caused thyroid cancer."
The exposures of people living downwind of Hanford came from
waste products purposely vented into the air during World War II
and the Cold War. At the time, it was legal -- part of a vital
defense effort -- and harmless for most people downwind, the
defendants have claimed.
Van Wart said if the plaintiffs had stuck to their relatively
small number of strong cases, the legal tangle wouldn't have
stretched out over the decade-plus it already has consumed.
"They've built up expectations in people who had low doses," Van
Wart said. "The plaintiffs saw this as a big business
opportunity. They decided to sign up anybody they could find
with a thyroid condition. ... If the plaintiffs had concentrated
on those small number of claims that were better claims, this
case could have been settled years ago."
Taxpayers are footing the bill for the defense, which Eymann
said published reports have pegged as costing nearly $100
million. It's up to the government to defend the companies
because that was a condition of the firms working on Hanford.
Eymann said the defendants have never offered to settle the
cases that went to trial. He said the legal fight on behalf of
the other downwinders will go on, and he may appeal some of the
verdicts issued this week.
"There's not enough courts or enough juries to try 2,300 cases.
Everybody knows that," Eymann said. "Here we have the United
States government spending a hell of a lot of money fighting its
own citizens when it's out there compensating (Hanford) workers
for the very same illnesses."
In speaking with jurors in a courthouse hallway after the
verdict, Eymann said he learned that on one of the non-cancer
cases involving hypothyroidism, jurors voted 10-2 to find
against the government contractors. Only 11 jurors were needed
for a verdict, he said, so he is encouraged about future cases.
For his part, Mullen is most incensed not over the lack of
compensation for victims but rather by the government's refusal
to acknowledge blame. His father, then serving in the Navy in
the Pacific, "believed the atomic bomb saved his life and
protected his family."
"The irony was that while he was out there protecting his family
from international enemies, his family was being radiated behind
his back by his own government," he said.
Mullen said his case would present a better shot at a verdict
against the contactors because he can demonstrate that he got
massive exposures at the Navy base near Coeur d'Alene, where his
day care was located.
Today, Mullen's still drinking a lot of milk, and waiting for
his day in court. P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at
206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com
[Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA
98119 (206) 448-8000
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
©1996-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
29 Hawk Eye: Senators encouraged by talks
Friday, May 20, 2005 Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST
Health and Human Services secretary assures 'swift' action.
By KILEY MILLER
kmiller@thehawkeye.com
Three men, two meetings, one result.
Iowa's two senators offered similar assessments Thursday of
their separate confabs with Health and Human Services Secretary
Mike Leavitt regarding financial help for sick Middletown
nuclear weapons workers.
Sen. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, said he was encouraged after
speaking to Leavitt that "long–awaited compensation for former
(Iowa Army Ammunition Plant) workers is at hand."
A group of workers petitioned the government last summer to be
included in the Special Exposure Cohort of the Energy Employees
Compensation Program Act, a designation that would make
employees in the plant's nuclear weapons program eligible for
$150,000 should they be diagnosed with one of 22 cancers.
The Atomic Energy Commission and Department of Energy built and
tested nuclear weapons components at the plant from 1949 until
1974, potentially subjecting employees to high doses of
carcinogenic radiation.
"Secretary Leavitt assured me that he will act swiftly in
sending forward the petition to include Cold War–era IAAP
workers who have cancer from radiation exposure in the Special
Exposure Cohort," Harkin said in a prepared statement.
Several plant workers have grown sick and died over the past
five years as government agencies played bureaucratic volleyball
with the compensation question.
An advisory board charged with conducting scientific reviews for
the compensation program sent Leavitt a letter earlier this week
recommending IAAP be added to the special exposure cohort.
Leavitt has a month to make his own recommendation to Congress.
Sen. Charles Grassley also sought the secretary's ear Thursday
to urge him to move the petition along.
The Republican seemed only slightly less confident than Harkin
that a quick resolution is at hand. He said travel obligations
had thus far prevented Leavitt from reading the advisory board's
recommendation, and a "multi–step review within the bureaucracy"
remained.
"The Secretary understands the need for quick action on this
matter and the importance to many Iowans," Grassley said. "He
provided me assurances that he will make a recommendation as
quickly as possible."
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 ·
*****************************************************************
30 Hawk Eye: IAAP effort moves ahead
Saturday, May 21, 2005 Site updated daily at 11 a.m. CST
DHHS Director approves former workers benefits.
By KILEY MILLER
kmiller@thehawkeye.com
Miracles do happen. Pigs fly, snowballs survive down south.
And sometimes the U.S. government moves quickly.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt
approved compensation Friday for former Iowa Army Ammunition
Plant nuclear weapons workers with cancer, just two days after
the issue hit his desk in Washington.
Barring interference from Congress, the decision means hundreds
of employees poisoned by radiation at the Middletown plant are
on the fast track for $150,000 in cash and payment of medical
expenses.
Specifically, Leavitt included the plant workers in the special
exposure cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act.
The designation means men and women who built some of the Cold
War's most powerful weapons will not have to endure a lengthy
review process to secure financial assistance from the
government.
Leavitt has 65,000 employees in his department. But Bob Anderson
was ready and willing to help Friday, should the secretary be
unable to find a courier to ferry the approval paperwork to
Capitol Hill.
"Boy, can I carry it for him or anything," said the one–time
security officer at the plant who first blew the whistle on the
nuclear weapons program at the ammunition plant in a letter to
Sen. Tom Harking, D–Iowa.
Anderson since has become a leading spokesman for the workers
and their families. He got the good news as he prepared to board
a plane to fly home to Illinois from a vacation in Connecticut.
He thanked Leavitt for "acting right away" to help workers who
have waited five years for help from the government.
"This cause is just enough to allow the secretary to work
expeditiously," Anderson said, "and he has."
The Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy
operated hidden from view in Middletown for two and a half
decades. The 19,000–acre plant was for several years the only
military installation in the nation where complete warheads were
assembled.
The special exposure cohort class includes anyone who worked at
least 250 days in the nuclear program between March 1949 and
1975 and developed one of 22 radiation–induced cancers.
Survivors of deceased workers are eligible for the compensation,
as well.
Leavitt received a written recommendation Wednesday from a
federal advisory board on radiation illnesses urging him to add
the Iowa ammunition plant to the special exposure cohort.
Sens. Tom Harkin and Charles Grassley met with the secretary the
following day to push the matter along.
Grassley, a Republican, was the first to jump on the good news
Friday, crediting Leavitt for not wasting any time.
"What a relief," he said in a prepared statement. "I had a very
good feeling after my meeting with Secretary Leavitt yesterday
but you can never be sure until it actually happens."
According to Grassley's staffers, Leavitt will send three
documents to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R–Illinois.
The paperwork includes a report explaining his cohort
designation, a definition of the employees covered and the
criteria and findings upon which the designation was based.
Congress gets 30 days to overturn Leavitt's decision before it
becomes final.
Both Harkin and Grassley vowed to fight any shenanigans from
their colleagues.
"This is one member of Congress who isn't going to let anything
happen to change this decision," Grassley said.
Harkin called Leavitt's decision "great news" and, repeating a
common theme Friday, thanked Leavitt for "his quick action."
"These workers have waited years to be compensated for
worker–related illnesses," the senator said. "Their compensation
is long overdue and it is high time they receive the help they
need. These workers helped protect our nation and deserve
nothing less."
Laurence Fuortes, a University of Iowa physician who helped
petition the government on behalf of the ammunition plant
workers, could not be reached Friday afternoon at his office.
Rules of the compensation program gave Leavitt a full month to
act on the advisory board's decision — time he clearly did not
need.
"There are some questions that come into our office that are
really relatively straightforward," said Bill Hall, a DHHS
spokesman, "where the information is clear, everybody is in
agreement, and the secretary can make a quick decision. Other
questions, obviously, take more time."
The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington, Iowa 52601 319-754-8461
· 1-800-397-1708 · FAX 319-754-6824 · webmaster@thehawkeye.com
*****************************************************************
31 NukeNet: House funds interim nuclear storage
Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 09:47:32 -0700
-------- Original Message --------
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Department of Energy sites in Washington, Idaho and South Carolina are
named as potential "interim" sites for "spent" fuel that would have gone to
Yucca Mountain.
Thanks to Ellen at NucNews.net for compiling these...
1- House: Interim Storage Needed at Nuke Dump (5/12)
2- House panel OKs funds for moving nuke waste (5/13)
3- House panel votes to boost funds for interim nuclear
storage (5/18)
4- Panel urges stopgap waste sites (5/19)
--
House: Interim Storage Needed at Nuke Dump
By ERICA WERNER
The Associated Press
Thursday, May 12, 2005; 7:05 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201287_pf.html
WASHINGTON -- A House spending panel is directing the Energy
Department to start sending nuclear waste to an interim
storage site next year, a shift from the Bush
administration's focus on the troubled Yucca Mountain dump
in Nevada.
Rep. David Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations
subcommittee on energy and water, included $10 million for
the effort in a spending bill the subcommittee passed on
Thursday.
The legislation, approved by voice vote, directs the
department to select one or more aboveground sites that will
be ready in 2006 to accept some of the thousands of tons of
commercial reactor fuel and defense waste now accumulating
in 39 states.
Hobson said he remains committed to Yucca Mountain, the
planned underground dump for the nation's nuclear waste, but
that delays to the project have made interim storage
necessary. The bill does not specify a storage site.
Yucca Mountain has endured a string of problems. The most
recent concerned allegations that government workers on the
project falsified data. Also, the department recently
abandoned a 2010 completion date and did not set a new one.
The government is facing billions of dollars in potential
liability from nuclear utilities because it promised to
start accepting their waste in 1998, but failed to make good.
"I'm trying to bridge that gap between the time that Yucca
Mountain opens," Hobson, R-Ohio, told reporters after the
subcommittee vote.
"We're incurring a lot of litigation when we don't get the
spent fuel rods out from these power plants like we said we
were going to do," he said. "This way we could eliminate
that, cut down on the security problems they have, and put
them into some aboveground sites."
Hobson's bill still grants President Bush's 2006 spending
request for Yucca Mountain. Bush proposed $651 million in
his budget plan released in February; Hobson's subcommittee
would fund the project at $661 million, with the additional
money going for the interim storage plan.
An Energy Department spokeswoman said the department remains
focused on Yucca Mountain, which was approved by Congress in
2002 to store 77,000 tons of nuclear waste beneath the
desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"We are reviewing the legislation, but obviously we are
continuing to work toward a permanent geologic repository at
Yucca Mountain," Anne Womack Kolton said.
In the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., favors
legislation to permanently leave nuclear waste at the
reactor sites where it now sits.
On the Net:
Energy Department's Yucca Mountain site:
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/
House Appropriations Committee: http://appropriations.house.gov/
----
House panel OKs funds for moving nuke waste
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
WASHINGTON BUREAU, Las Vegas SUN
May 13, 2005
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2005/may/13/518752628.html
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department may get $10 million to
start moving nuclear waste to an interim storage site as
early as 2006, based on a provision included in a House
spending bill Thursday.
The House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee
approved $661 million for the Yucca Mountain project,
fulfilling the department's budget request while adding an
additional $10 million in a vague request to begin moving
waste to other department sites.
"It's time to rethink our approach to dealing with spent
fuel," Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, said.
"It's irresponsible the policies we have now. It delays us."
The bill does not name a site to take the waste or implement
a specific policy but gives the department the ability to
start moving waste to a site as early as next year, Hobson said.
"This stuff is not in the safest place right now," Hobson
said. "This is a vision to move forward."
The Energy Department plans to store 77,000 tons of nuclear
waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The department was supposed to move the waste in 1998 but
the project has suffered a series of delays and setbacks.
Hobson said the effort should not been seen as losing
confidence in the Yucca Mountain project, saying it is
"critical" the government gets the project "done right and
done soon."
"I have 100 percent of the funding in there," Hobson said.
"I will fight to the death for Yucca Mountain just as my
opponent says he will fight against it."
Hobson's "opponent," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
D-Nev., is the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations
Energy and Water Development Subcommittee. Reid works to cut
the Yucca budget every year and disagrees with Hobson's
effort for it to move forward.
Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen this is an acknowledgement that
the department cannot move forward on Yucca. She noted that
the House usually asks for more than the department's
request but usually gets less after final negotiations with
Reid.
She said the ongoing investigations into possibly falsified
data at the project give Reid "added ammunition" in his
fight to lower the funding.
"It's proof that was he has been saying over the years about
this money going down a dark hole," Hafen said.
The additional $10 million can go toward casks or plans to
move waste to a site. It builds on the request the
department already had to buy casks, committee spokesman
John Scofield said. It gives the department the ability to
pick a site or sites, make plans and decide how to move forward.
The subcommittee will not release the exact language in the
bill until the House Appropriations Committee takes it up
next week. The Senate will not begin finalizing its bill at
least until after the Memorial Day recess.
Hobson said he has a site in mind but would not offer
details. He also said it could be more than one site.
"It is not in Nevada," Hobson said. "If one happens to be in
Ohio, OK."
Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, an interim storage site
can not be in Nevada. Congress killed an effort to amend the
law and have temporary storage at Yucca Mountain five years ago.
Hobson suggested in March that the Nevada Test Site could
serve as a site to store waste for 100 to 500 years as
scientists figured out a better way to store or reprocess fuel.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., spokesman Jack Finn did not want
to comment until had seen a copy of the exact language.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., opposes any funding for Yucca
Mountain, according to spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer. He wants
to see the country invest money on "21st century technology"
to fight the waste problem and keeping waste safe where it is.
David Cherry, spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.,
called the proposal an "absolute non-starter."
"There is nothing in there to be in agreement with," Cherry
said.
He said she would oppose any plan to move waste away from
nuclear power plants. An interim site, with the final
destination still at Yucca, creates a double risk for
terrorist attacks or accidents.
He said there is no plan on how to move it or where it would go.
But Hobson says the Energy Department accepts waste from
foreign reactors already to store at some of its facilities
and nuclear waste is moved around the country all the time.
"Give me a break, we have to get real," Hobson said. "This
is not brain science. This is not inventing a new wheel."
Hobson said the country loses about $500 million every year
Yucca Mountain does not open. He emphasized that other
countries are reprocessing fuel and storing nuclear waste
with no problems. The government has not fulfilled its
contract with nuclear companies to take the waste and legal
decisions force the government to pay damages to some utilities.
The bill also puts an additional $5 million to the Advanced
Fuel Cycle Initiative. The department will have to pick a
process to use to recycle nuclear waste by 2007, according
to the subcommittee.
Hobson included the extra money because it is "time we
rethink our reluctance to reprocessing fuel."
"I don't want to get to 'Yucca Mountain Two' right away,"
Hobson said.
The recycling would be aimed at how to decrease the amount
of existing waste without creating dangerous byproducts or
more waste in the process.
----
House panel votes to boost funds for interim nuclear storage
By Joe Bauman
E-mail: bau@desnews.com
Wednesday, May 18, 2005 Deseret Morning News
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,600134701,00.html?textfield=nuclear
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.
----
Panel urges stopgap waste sites
Delays at Yucca Mountain cause House members to seek interim
plan for spent fuel
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/May-19-Thu-2005/news/26553353.html
WASHINGTON -- A House committee approved a bill Wednesday
that presses the Department of Energy to pursue stopgap
storage sites for nuclear waste as delays mount at Yucca
Mountain.
The panel directed the department to consider placing spent
nuclear fuel on federal reservations in Washington state,
Idaho or South Carolina or other federally owned sites,
closed military bases or fuel storage facilities not
operated by the government.
The proposal, led by Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, represents a
turn in the decades-long effort to dispose of high-level
radioactive spent fuel gathering at nuclear power plants.
Hobson, who leads a House energy subcommittee, said his
purpose was not to replace plans for a Yucca Mountain
repository in Nevada but to provide a cushion for the project.
It has been set back in recent years by legal rulings,
underfunding by Congress and allegations that
quality-assurance documents might have been falsified.
"Yucca Mountain is going to happen, but in the interim, I
have to have some solution," Hobson said.
"It helps bridge the time until (Yucca Mountain) is open,
and it helps underwriters," Hobson said.
Underwriters will decide whether to loan billions of dollars
to utilities to build new power plants amid uncertainty
about how their spent fuel will be managed.
In the late 1990s, the Energy Department supported storing
nuclear waste at a temporary site near Yucca Mountain.
Hobson's proposal marks the debut of an idea to gather
nuclear waste on government land elsewhere, officials said.
The bill approved Wednesday must navigate the House and the
Senate. The measure has gotten a lukewarm reception from the
Energy Department and some in the nuclear industry who fear
it might distract attention from completing the Nevada
repository.
"We're trying to say let's look at this and let's get it
started," Hobson said.
Nevada lawmakers, who oppose Yucca Mountain, were split on
the proposal.
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he saw it as a sign that
lawmakers are recognizing flaws at the Yucca site, which
critics call unsafe and unsuitable for nuclear waste storage.
"The fact that they are looking at alternatives is a
positive," Porter said.
But Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said setting up interim
storage in other states does little to stop a Nevada repository.
"I don't think it takes the pressure off Yucca Mountain,"
she said. "It's just a temporary solution."
Hobson inserted his provision into a report with the Energy
Department's annual spending bill.
As approved Wednesday by the House Appropriations Committee,
the bill allocates $661 million to continue work at Yucca
Mountain, $10 million more than the Energy Department requested.
The committee told the agency to use the $10 million, plus
another $10 million within its budget, to start exploring
interim storage. The committee told DOE to send Congress a
study within four months.
The proposal was coupled with a new push for the Energy
Department to speed research of recycling technologies that
could reduce the volumes and toxicity of spent nuclear fuel.
The committee directed DOE to recommend by October 2008 some
form of waste reprocessing.
New forms of reprocessing being used in Europe can reduce
risks that caused the United States to abandon commercial
reprocessing in the 1970s, the committee said in its report.
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32 HoustonChronicle.com: Radioactive waste begins its journey to Texas
[HoustonChronicle.com logo] HoustonChronicle.com
May 22, 2005, 9:57AM
By BETSY BLANEY Associated Press
AT A GLANCE
Here's a step-by-step look at the process workers will use to
transport radioactive waste 1,341 miles from a shuttered
government plant in Ohio to a storage facility in West Texas:
• Workers remotely control machines to mix the uranium byproduct
waste with fly ash — fine particles of ashes, dust and soot —
and cement to create a loose grout.
• The mixture is mechanically poured through a chute into
half-inch thick cylindrical carbon steel canisters. In all,
there will be 5,000 containers, each weighing an average of
20,000 pounds.
• An overhead crane lifts the closed containers onto specially
designed flatbed trucks.
• The grout — 80 percent fly ash and cement and 20 percent
uranium byproduct waste — begins to solidify inside containers.
• Trucks leave the plant in twos. They are monitored using
global positioning satellites and drivers check in with
supervisors by cell phone. Placards indicating that radioactive
waste is on the trucks are placed on the front, back, and both
sides of the trailers.
• If there is an accident or anything goes wrong with the
containers, a driver will notify his supervisors, who will
contact local authorities. A driver would keep onlookers and
motorists away from the truck as well as the containers'
concrete-like contents. Low-level radiation contamination is
possible if people come in contact with the mixture, Fernald
spokesman Jeff Wagner said. But first responders, dressed in
protective suits, will set up a decontamination area. The public
is not at great risk, Wagner said.
• The material arrives in up to four days — depending on whether
there are one or two drivers — and is delivered to Waste Control
Specialists' site 30 miles west of the town of Andrews near the
Texas-New Mexico border.
Source: Fluor Fernald, the U.S. Department of Energy contractor
cleaning up the Ohio plant just outside Cincinnati.
LUBBOCK — Trucks toting tons of Cold War-era uranium byproduct
waste from a shuttered government plant in Ohio will begin their
1,300-mile journey to Texas this month.
The Ohio plant processed and purified uranium metal for use in
reactors to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons from the 1950s
until 1989. The waste will be transported to a site near the
Texas-New Mexico border in about 5,000 large, sealed containers
filled with a concrete mixture.
The material does not pose a great risk to humans, said Jeff
Wagner, a spokesman for the Fluor Fernald, the U.S. Department
of Energy contractor cleaning up the shuttered plant just
outside Cincinnati.
Should an accident occur, first responders would deal with it
like a hazardous materials spill, he said. "From a radiation
standpoint, it's not going to kill people," Wagner said, adding
that there are "far greater risks" from chemicals, gasoline and
acids being carried on the nation's roadways.
Visionary Solutions, LLC, an Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based company,
will transport the radioactive waste, but Fernald is responsible
for preparing the material before it's loaded onto flatbed
trucks.
In 1998, DOE inspectors reported that Fernald failed to provide
strong, tight containers and proper supervision to the waste
transport program when moving radioactive waste to the DOE's
Nevada Test Site just outside Las Vegas. The report came after
leaks developed in the containers in 1997. No contamination
occurred, but shipments stopped for 18 months.
Since then, shipping containers have been redesigned, quality
control is more rigorous and there is increased focus on
transportation issues, Wagner said.
But in March 2002, 70 mph winds just outside Laramie, Wyo., blew
over a Fernald truck that carried two one-liter padded
containers of a liquid solution of plutonium and neptunium
inside the cab. The material, which is used for calibrating
instruments and analyzing samples that might contain radioactive
materials, was going to the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory near Idaho Falls. No radioactivity was
released and no one was injured.
Environmentalists say incidents like those show the risks
involved in moving dangerous materials.
"The evidence out there is that just like any shipments, there's
potential for accidents," Sierra Club spokesman Cyrus Reed said.
"This material is so long lasting, and the results aren't
necessarily imminent but they're more chronic in nature."
At least two Texas-bound trucks will leave Ohio during the week
of May 30, Wagner said. The trip will take between two and four
days. Each truck is designed to carry two containers, each
weighing an average of 20,000 pounds, and will be tracked by
global positioning satellites. Trucks will make trips to Texas
through the end of the year.
The route was chosen for travel time, distance and population
along the way to minimize the risk, Wagner said. The trucks will
primarily use interstate highways and they will travel around
Indianapolis, St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill., and Oklahoma
City on highway bypasses. The trucks will enter Texas on
Interstate 40 and travel through Amarillo and Lubbock to get to
the site in Andrews, just north of Odessa.
Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists won a $7.5 million
contract from Fernald in late April to store the waste — two
months after state officials granted the company a license
amendment that expanded the site's storage capacity to 1.5
million cubic feet — nearly five times its current size — making
it eligible to accept the Ohio waste.
The Sierra Club has requested a hearing to contest the license
change. A hearing before an administrative judge in Austin is
set for July 11.
Waste Control also seeks a license to dispose of the Ohio waste.
Without the license, the waste can remain at the Texas site for
only two years.
———
On the Net:
Fluor Fernald: www.fernald.gov
Visionary Solutions LLC: vs-llc.com/
Waste Control Specialists: www.wcstexas.com
*****************************************************************
33 L.A. Daily News: Cleanup planned for site by homes
Development expected to get council approval
Santa Clarita
Article Published: Friday, May 20, 2005 - 6:34:51
By Eugene Tong, Staff writer
SAUGUS - A cleanup plan is being drafted for a contaminated
well near the site of Newhall Land's 1,100-home Riverpark
project, just as the development is close to gaining city
approval, officials said.
The Santa Clarita City Council is prepared to sign off Tuesday
on the proposed 695-acre subdivision north of the Santa Clara
River. The vote comes more than a month after the discovery of
the rocket-fuel ingredient perchlorate in a well forced The
Newhall Land and Farming Company to delay what may have been the
project's final public hearing.
The Valencia Water Company well is located west of Bouquet
Canyon Road and south of Newhall Ranch Road, just outside the
project's boundary. Officials found in late March the well had
perchlorate levels between 9.8 and 11 parts per billion -
slightly above the 6 parts per billion allowed under state
environmental guidelines.
The development sits north of the former Whittaker-Bermite
munitions plant. The plant closed in 1987, but the site is
polluted with several chemical compounds, which have migrated
into area groundwater. Perchlorate from the plant has shut down
several municipal wells that had levels of between 25 to 40
parts per billion. In high doses, the chemical can cause thyroid
damage and cancer.
Newhall Land officials have said the well does not affect
Riverpark as the subdivision will be served by a different
utility - the Santa Clarita Water division of the Castaic Lake
Water Agency. Valencia Water is owned by Newhall Land.
"This discovery has no affect on any conclusions for the final
environmental impact report of Riverpark," said Marlee Lauffer,
a Newhall Land spokeswoman.
The city planners agreed, concluding in a staff report the
contamination "does not rise to the level of 'significant new
information"' to alter Riverpark's final environmental impact
report. Also, there are no signs of perchlorate at four other
wells located within or adjacent to the development, they said.
"The EIR has fully analyzed all impacts," said Jeff Hogan, a
city planner.
If the City Council approves the development Tuesday, a second
and final reading will be scheduled June 14.
An April study authorized by Valencia Water concluded that
shutting down the contaminated well does not impact the
utility's water supply, and recommended an ion exchange wellhead
treatment to remove the perchlorate.
The procedure is consistent with cleanup plans already approved
for the Whittaker-Bermite site, according to the report prepared
by consulting engineers Luhdorff &Scalmanini. An application for
the procedure has been submitted to the state Department of
Health Services, Lauffer said.
Newhall Land has offered the city land and other concessions in
return for permission to build Riverpark, including $24 million
worth of right-of-way dedications and fees for the city's
8.5-mile east-west Cross Valley Connector road.
But critics have warned of the project's potential dangers,
including environmental damage to the Santa Clara River.
Eugene Tong, (661) 257-5253 eugene.tong@dailynews.com
IF YOU GO
The Santa Clarita City Council meets Tuesday at City Hall,
23920 Valencia Blvd. Open session begins at 6 p.m.
Copyright © 2005 Los Angeles Daily News
*****************************************************************
34 Japan Times: New nuclear-fuel cycle moratorium opposed by Japan
Saturday, May 21, 2005
NEW YORK (Kyodo) Japan reiterated Thursday at the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in New York its
opposition to the International Atomic Energy Agency chief's
proposal for a voluntary moratorium on new nuclear-fuel cycle
facilities.
Takeshi Nakane, Japan's delegate to the talks, said Japan
believes IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei's proposed
five-year moratorium is not appropriate and would probably
obstruct the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes under
long-term programs.
Speaking at a main committee meeting, Nakane also said
full-ranging discussions should be held on the proposal for
setting up international management of uranium enrichment and
reprocessing facilities, including how it would contribute to
the strengthening of the nonproliferation framework.
ElBaradei proposed the moratorium in his speech May 2 at the
opening ceremony of the 2005 Review Conference of the NPT.
Japan's Atomic Energy Commission decided last October to keep
its current nuclear energy policy of reprocessing spent nuclear
fuel to extract plutonium, instead of burying the spent fuel.
A new reprocessing plant at Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, is
scheduled to begin operations in 2007. Scientists have said the
plant's capacity of extracting about 8 tons of plutonium in a
year from spent fuel is enough to make 1,000 atomic bombs.
The Japan Times: May 21, 2005
(C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
35 Bradenton Herald: Tallevast prepares for signing
| 05/21/2005 |
STEPHEN MAJORS
Herald Staff Writer
MANATEE - Four years of living amid dangerous contaminants
without knowing it and then fighting for some form of redress
will take Tallevast community leaders on a momentous trip to
Tallahassee next week.
The legislation expected to be signed into law Tuesday by Gov.
Jeb Bush will not help Tallevast residents undo the damage done
there, but community leaders say they hope it will prevent other
communities from suffering a similar fate.
The state Department of Environmental Protection will have a
duty to notify property owners that contamination has spread
onto their property within 30 days of receiving the information.
"We feel just overjoyed," said Wanda Washington, vice president
of Family Oriented Community United & Strong, which represents
Tallevast. "We're glad that we could be instrumental in that law
being put in place."
"We are very pleased," said FOCUS President Laura Ward.
The Tallevast community has been plagued by groundwater
contamination from the former Loral American Beryllium Co. for
several years. Lockheed Martin, which later took ownership of
the company's property, discovered that contamination had spread
into the surrounding community. Lockheed notified the DEP, but
Tallevast residents were never told about the contamination.
Residents did not find out until they inquired about drilling
taking place in the neighborhood.
"We hope this will not happen to any other community going
forward," Washington said.
Washington and Ward will be joined in Tallahassee by Rep. Bill
Galvano, R-Bradenton, who introduced the bill and passed it
through the Legislature this session after talking with
Washington and Ward earlier in the year.
The bill passed both chambers unanimously and will become law
with the governor's signature, expected Tuesday.
"It feels great to see the finish line," Galvano said. "I'm
looking forward to getting it done next week but the work at
Tallevast continues."
Ward said she is currently out of town but will try to make
arrangements to be in Tallahassee on Tuesday.
Ward and Washington will see if additional community members are
interested in making the trip.
*****************************************************************
36 Bradenton Herald: State officials to release delayed review of Tallevast report
05/21/2005 |
DONNA WRIGHT
Herald Staff Writer
Tallevast residents will soon know what the state environmental
regulators think of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s latest efforts to
map an underground plume of toxic chemicals in their back yards.
The state's review should be released next week, Department of
Environmental Protection spokeswoman Pamala Vazquez said Friday.
The review will cover data submitted by Lockheed on Feb. 1 and
April 15 that revealed the plume grew from an original estimate
of 5 acres to more than 131 acres.
The plume of industrial solvents stems from the former Loral
American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road. As former
owners of the plant when the contamination was found, Lockheed
has assumed responsibility for cleaning up the mess.
Tallevast residents recently criticized DEP for its delay in
responding to Lockheed's latest data.
But Vazquez said Friday that DEP was waiting until Lockheed
completed additional drilling in step-out areas from the known
perimeter of the plume to determine its outer limits.
That decision to delay comment, Vazquez said, was made at the
request of leaders of a Tallevast advocacy group called Family
Oriented Community United & Strong.
"After the Lockheed Martin Corp. submittal in February, we met
with the FOCUS group and its consultant in early March," Vazquez
said. "At that meeting, we all agreed that additional data
needed to be collected. FOCUS asked us to wait in sending our
comment letter until after the step-out well data could be
collected and reviewed."
FOCUS leaders could not be reached late Friday afternoon for
comment on Vazquez's statement.
Additional data was submitted by Lockheed Martin Corp. on April
15, said Vazquez. But that report did not include all of the
step-out well data.
"Lockheed Martin reported site access issues that have delayed
drilling the final step-out wells," said Vazquez.
"We decided several weeks ago that we did not want to wait any
longer to send the comment letter on the Feb. 1 and April 15
submittals."
William Kutash, program administrator for the waste cleanup
program at Tallevast, was working on that letter when a death in
his family delayed him, Vazquez said.
Kutash is expected to return to work Monday.
"We plan to have that letter go out next week," she said, "and
we will write a second comment letter after the final step-out
data is received from Lockheed Martin."
Vazquez said DEP officials understand Tallevast residents'
anxiety.
"We want to work with the community," she said. "They live
there. We take their concerns very seriously. We do listen, and
we can understand how they feel about what is going on there."
Vazquez said DEP is continually in contact with Lockheed Martin
about test results and pending testing.
Lockheed Martin announced Friday that it will resume work on
step-out wells next week.
Work crews will revisit the Tallevast area beginning Monday to
install additional monitoring wells and conduct sampling on the
airport property and land northwest of Tallevast, said Meredith
Rouse Davis, Lockheed spokeswoman.
The new surveys are part of an ongoing process to determine the
boundaries of the plume.
The work will begin Monday and last about two weeks, Davis
announced Friday. Results from sampling are expected in
mid-June.
"It is important for Tallevast residents to understand that we
are working diligently to keep the process moving and to address
their concerns as we go through that process," Vazquez said.
When all of the step-out data is submitted and reviewed, Vazquez
said, DEP will send out a second comment letter, with a copy
going to FOCUS.
Vazquez also confirmed DEP had tested irrigation wells on a
nearby golf course and found no contaminants. She wanted to
reassure Tallevast residents that the golf course wells were
hundreds of feet deep, far below the plume.
*****************************************************************
37 Taipei Times: The moral case against nuclear proliferation
By Joseph Nye
www.taipeitimes.com
Sun, May 22, 2005 News Editorials
Advertising [Advertising] Nearly all the world's nations are
meeting in New York to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT). The NPT was negotiated in the 1960s after five countries
(the US, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China) developed
nuclear weapons. India, Pakistan, and Israel refused to join the
treaty and, over time, constructed their own atomic bombs. Now
North Korea and Iran stand accused of violating their treaty
commitments by pursuing nuclear weapons.
Aside from the legal issues, is there a moral case for
non-proliferation? In a world of sovereign states, is it
hypocritical for some to have nuclear weapons and deny them to
others?
If no one had the bomb today, it would be best if it were not
invented. But history depends on the paths that were taken in
the past. Suppose it were 1939, and states were debating whether
the US should invent the bomb. They might have argued that all
should get it or none. But if they knew that Hitler's Germany
would get it, they might have approved Franklin Roosevelt's
decision to develop it before the Nazis.
Besides, turning back the clock is impossible. Even if all
countries agree to disarm, some might cheat. The successful
cheaters would most likely be authoritarian states with little
transparency. After all, North Korea says that it has developed
nuclear weapons despite having signed the NPT. Libya was also a
party to the NPT while it pursued a covert nuclear program.
If one regards impartiality and attention to consequences as
essential to morality, one could imagine countries accepting the
morality of unequal possession of nuclear weapons if certain
conditions were met. For example, the purposes should be limited
to self-defense. States possessing weapons should take special
steps to reduce the prospect of their use. The weapons should be
used to help preserve the independence of all states, rather
than for imperial aggrandizement, and steps should be taken to
reduce arsenals as political conditions permit. Today's NPT
comes close to reflecting such conditions.
Of course, the NPT does not rest solely on moral arguments, but
primarily on self-interest and prudence. Most states adhere
because they believe that their security would be diminished if
more states obtained nuclear weapons. The treaty helps them to
reduce fears of cheating by neighbors because it provides for
inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The credibility of US security guarantees for its allies is one
of the reasons that the bomb did not spread to 25 countries
within a decade, as President John F. Kennedy once expected.
Non-proliferation is not hypocritical if it is based on an
impartial and realistic estimation of risks. But if a state like
North Korea or Iran decides to accept such risks, should that be
purely its own choice?
Perhaps, if the risks were borne solely by its own people, but
they are not. Third parties are justified in rejecting the risks
that would be imposed upon them. The history of proliferation
shows that political chain reactions often occur -- witness
China, India and Pakistan -- and there are real fears that North
Korea and Iran might trigger such chains in Northeast Asia and
the Middle East.
Some people argue that nuclear proliferation will actually
reduce risks. Call it the "porcupine theory." In such a prickly
world, no country would dare aggression. But this assumes
perfect rationality. In the real world, accidents occur, so more
proliferation means a greater chance of eventual inadvertent
use, weaker capacity in managing nuclear crises, and greater
difficulty in establishing controls and reducing the role of
nuclear weapons in world politics.
In addition, the more states possess nuclear weapons, the
greater the prospects that terrorists will gain access to them.
Of course, transnational terrorists usually have no "return
address" that allows the threat of mutual deterrence to work,
but North Korea or Iran has no moral right to impose this risk
upon others.
Three EU countries -- the UK, France and Germany -- are trying
to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear enrichment program,
which would give it bomb material to use after a quick
withdrawal from the treaty. Iran claims a right to enrichment
under Article 4 of the NPT, but that article has to be read in
light of the other articles and of Iran's past deception vis-vis
the IAEA.
In East Asia, North Korea withdrew from the NPT after using it
to disguise its weapons program, and China, the US, Japan,
Russia and South Korea are trying to persuade Kim Jong-il's
regime to reverse course.
It seems right for these states to use pressure to dissuade
Iran and North Korea from imposing new risks on the world. But
the existing nuclear weapons states also must be mindful of the
moral conditions that underlie the NPT bargain. The obligation
under Article 6 to reduce arsenals cannot be interpreted to
require prompt disarmament unless that would enhance stability.
Such conditions do not yet exist in a world where undemocratic
states cheat on legal obligations. But the nuclear weapons
states should continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons,
and refrain from new programs that suggest the prospect of their
use.
Given the dangers that increased risks imply for everyone,
there is a strong moral case for a policy of stopping further
proliferation rather than arguing that Iran or North Korea have
a right to do whatever they wish as sovereign states. But it is
also important to remember that obligations of non-proliferation
bind nuclear weapons states as well.
Joseph Nye, a former assistant US secretary of defense and
director of the National Intelligence Council, is a professor at
Harvard University and author of Soft Power: The Means to
Success in World Politics.
This story has been viewed 259 times.
Copyright © 1999-2005 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
38 Tri-City Herald: House approves funds for projects
This story was published Saturday, May 21st, 2005
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The U.S. House approved $2.25 million for development of the
Hanford National Monument Heritage and Visitor Center in
Richland during a Thursday night vote.
It also approved $250,000 to continue a study to save Hanford's
historic B Reactor as a museum.
Both budget items were added to the Fiscal Year 2006 Interior
Appropriations bill by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. In addition,
he added $1 million to preserve B Reactor to another
appropriations bill the House is expected to consider next week
that includes Department of Energy funds.
Money for the projects also must be approved by the Senate.
The money approved for the visitor center would bring the amount
from the Fish and Wildlife Service to $3 million -- the maximum
the agency can spend on a visitor center project. Last year,
Congress provided $750,000 for the Hanford Reach Visitor Center.
The 61,0000-square-foot center is expected to cost about $32
million, and money for the project is being pieced together.
The push by Hastings for the money and the House action Thursday
"made my week," said Ron Hicks, executive director of the
center. "It's wonderful news."
Earlier this year Hastings secured almost $1.6 million for the
center in the House-approved transportation reauthorization
bill. It may be enacted into law this year.
The center has had $1 million pledged by Battelle, which
operates Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Atomic
Heritage Foundation has offered more than $200,000.
The largest amount, $9 million, has come from Public Facilities
District bonds and Richland city donations for infrastructure.
Some construction could begin on the project this year, but it's
not expected to be completed until 2008, Hicks said. It will be
built on 50 acres near the confluence of the Columbia and Yakima
rivers at Columbia Point to serve as a gateway to the Hanford
Reach National Monument.
Visitors will learn about the role of the Columbia River in
exhibits expected to cover Ice Age floods, the ecology of the
basin and Hanford's role in the Atomic Age.
The $250,000 for B Reactor would be used to continue the
National Park Service study on preservation of the B Reactor and
other Manhattan Project facilities.
B Reactor, on the bank of the Columbia River, was the nation's
first full-scale production reactor. As part of the Manhattan
Project that raced to develop the atomic bomb, it produced the
plutonium for the world's first nuclear explosion, the Trinity
Test in New Mexico. It also produced plutonium for the "Fat Man"
bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945. Within days,
the Japanese surrendered, ending World War II.
The study money along with the $1 million proposed for
preservation "puts us another step closer to developing B
Reactor into a museum," Hastings said in a prepared statement.
"Preservation of the B Reactor will enable future generations to
learn and appreciate this amazing undertaking and its profound
contribution to our nation's defense."
© 2005 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
*****************************************************************
39 The Argus: We suggest public-private approach for Los Alamos
Inside Bay Area - Argus - Opinion
Article Last Updated: 05/21/2005 08:39:04 AM
AS THE COMPETITION
to operate Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico
intensifies, the University of California has improved its bid
by putting together a public-private partnership and recruiting
the director of the Lawrence Livermore weapons laboratory. As we
suggested several months ago, we think the public-private
approach is the best way to go.
University of California has teamed up with the international
giant Bechtel Corp., the engineering firm Washington Group
International and BWXT, a nuclear-operations expert. All three
major New Mexico universities are also on board.
To strengthen its team, the university added Michael Anastasio,
physicist and bomb designer
who is the director of Lawrence
Livermore laboratory. If UC holds on to the contract it's had
for the last 62 years, Anastasio will become director of Las
Alamos. It would be an interesting twist that would see the once
rival laboratories working together.
Under the plan, UC will do what it does best, concentrate on the
science and recruiting scientists. Washington Group
International and BWXT will handle the nuclear operations.
Bechtel, which manages the Nevada Test Site for nuclear weapons
and has experience with other Energy Department nuclear
projects, will be in charge of security, safety and business
practices. It was in these last areas that UC suffered
lapses in
the past, leading to the U.S. Energy Department's decision to
take bids on the contract for the first time in the lab's
history.
It was a smart strategic move for UC to team up with an
experienced firm that has a track record with the Energy
Department to handle the areas it had difficulty running.
But then the university will need good strategies and more to
keep the contract, which will increase to $60 million a year,
eight times what the university is paid now. Two other teams
have formed to bid on the operation of the lab, one headed by
Northrop Grumman and the other lead by Lockheed Martin.
The University of Texas, which had previously decided not to bid
on the lab, has joined the Lockheed team. In addition, C. Paul
Robinson, a veteran weapons lab director, has signed on with
Lockheed. Robinson has worked as a weapons manager at Las Alamos,
as an arms-control negotiator and as director of Sandia National
Laboratories for 12 years.
All three teams seem to grasp the concept evident in the request
for bids, released Thursday, which put a premium on a business
approach that included private-sector executives.
Lawmakers believe the increased competition will result in the
best contract.
"I have always supported competition to ensure the best possible
leadership at our nation's nuclear labs, the pursuit of great
science," said U.S. Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, who also
believes a public-private partnership is the best arrangement.
Political connections will be key as the competition heats up.
Tauscher as well as both U.S. senators from New Mexico praised
the UC-Bechtel team. However, with the University of Texas
joining the Lockheed bid, the influence of President Bush and
his family is likely to come into play. With such a prestigious
and lucrative prize at stake, the jockeying is sure to be
frenzied and occurring on several levels.
Both the University of California and the Lockheed teams, headed
by
experienced weapons lab directors, are strong contenders. Of
course, we're rooting for the home team, the University of
California. As a weapons expert from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology said, "We won't really know until we see the
outcome. But it sure will be fun to watch."
*****************************************************************
40 Times-News: Idaho nuclear watchdogs wary of uranium consolidation
www.magicvalley.com The Times-News | AG Weekly |
Twin Falls, Idaho
Originally published Saturday, May 21, 2005
By Christopher Smith Associated Press writer
BOISE -- With the Idaho National Laboratory scheduled to dispose
of the last enriched uranium stored at the sprawling desert
complex by this summer, a nuclear watchdog group is criticizing
prospects the site could become a repository for more bomb-grade
material from other federal labs.
"One moment the Department of Energy is praising efforts to take
special nuclear materials out of the state and that they've made
the site safer," said Jeremy Maxand, director of the Snake River
Alliance in Boise. "Then, in the same breath they say they are
studying shipping these materials back into the state and
sticking them back on the site."
An advisory task force to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is
scheduled to complete a report next month evaluating the
potential cost savings and security enhancements from
consolidating the nation's stockpiles of highly enriched uranium
and plutonium.
Hundreds of tons of nuclear material no longer needed for
weapons manufacturing and destined for disposal to support
international nonproliferation agreements are stored at more
than a dozen federal labs and installations around the country,
where scientists use small amounts for research.
Officials say reducing the number of places where the material
is stored until it is converted or "downblended" into less
dangerous forms may reduce the likelihood of a potential attack
by terrorists seeking to detonate an improvised nuclear bomb at
a site.
Linton Brooks, administrator of the federal agency that oversees
America's nuclear bomb stockpile, recently told Congress the
Bush administration is evaluating any legal barriers and
construction requirements to using two buildings on the
890-square-mile INL complex in eastern Idaho for interim storage
of bomb-grade uranium relocated from other installations.
"These facilities may offer exceptional opportunity to
consolidate materials and components in a location with robust
security features in place," Brooks, head of the National
Nuclear Security Administration, told a House Energy and
Commerce Committee hearing on nuclear site safety in March.
One of the structures is Building 691, a $450 million facility
that has three levels of underground cells that were created to
hold reprocessed spent nuclear fuel. Construction was halted on
the building in 1992 when the U.S. decided to cease
reprocessing. The building was locked and never used.
An analysis by the Energy Department's Office of Security and
Safety Performance found Building 691 could hold 130 metric tons
of plutonium or 260 metric tons of enriched uranium. To convert
the structure into a repository for bomb-grade uranium, the
security office estimated construction improvements of $100
million to $200 million would be needed.
The other Idaho facility being evaluated for potential storage
is Building 651, an older vault surrounded by reinforced
concrete that has been used to house enriched uranium fuel for
nuclear reactors. The remaining material stored in that bunker
is expected to be disposed of by this summer, said Brad Bugger,
a spokesman for the Idaho office of the Energy Department.
Highly enriched uranium was generated at the Idaho site during
programs to reprocess spent nuclear fuel that ceased in 1992.
More than 2.4 million tons of the bomb-grade material from the
Idaho complex has been packaged and shipped to Energy Department
sites in South Carolina and Tennessee for conversion into
commercial nuclear reactor fuel to generate electricity.
Maxand said the Idaho site should not be rewarded with new
shipments of weapons-grade nuclear material after
"de-inventorying" its stockpile ahead of schedule.
"There is no good place to put something like this," he said.
"Idaho has a very strong track record of opposing any project
that relates to nuclear weapons and this is one of those
projects."
A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration
said any decision whether to relocate enriched uranium or
plutonium stockpiles to Idaho or any other Energy Department
site won't be made until Bodman reviews the recommendations of
the advisory board. Spokesman Anson Franklin said much of the
board's report will likely be classified and not released to the
public.
A Washington, D.C.-based activist group has released its own
analysis of consolidating nuclear bomb materials. It also
promotes the two INL buildings as leading candidates to become
repositories for some of the enriched uranium and plutonium
surplus because of their inherent security features.
"Idaho has these great facilities that are perfect for this, but
the irony was that until DOE realized what they had, those
buildings were scheduled to be demolished," said Danielle Brian,
executive director of the Project on Government Oversight.
Copyright © 2005, Lee Publications Inc.
Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of The Times-News,
published daily at 132 W. Fairfield St.,
Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary
of Lee Enterprises.
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