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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Irna: Kharrazi: NAM should oppose limiting nuclear technology for me
2 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog to Hear Iran Report
3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: What They Won't Tell You About the Summit
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Now is time' to revive talks, Roh tells North
5 US: csmonitor.com: An odd couple and the energy bill |
6 Iaea Board Re-appoints Elbaradei To Third Term As Director-general
7 [du-list] UK nuclear industry in turmoil after closure of
8 [NYTr] Another defeat for US: el Baradei Wins New Term at IAEA
9 UPI: U.K. frustration over U.S. climate deal -
10 AFP: ElBaradei 'humbled' by reappointment as UN nuclear chief -
11 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Reappointed to U.N. Nuclear Post
NUCLEAR REACTORS
12 US: Why America's nuclear power plants are still so vulnerable to
13 US: [NukeNet] "Free" Press On New Generation Of Nuke Reactors
14 Taipei Times: Australia's nuclear U-turn
15 BBC: Nuclear talk powers fresh
16 Xinhua: CNNC boosts nuclear power output
17 US: NRC: Carolina Power & Light Company, Brunswick Steam Electric Pl
18 US: NRC: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., James A. Fitzpatrick Nucl
19 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for th
20 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
21 US: TIME.com: Are These Towers Safe? --
22 US: TIME.com: New Plants on the Horizon? --
23 US: OMB Watch: Nuclear Commission Allows Access to Classified Inform
NUCLEAR SECURITY
24 US: www.GovExec.com: Plan to improve nuclear-detection technology mi
NUCLEAR SAFETY
25 [du-list] DU & Neutron/X-ray Flux
26 US: Star-Gazette.COM: Bill would tackle uranium contamination
27 US: Dispatch: Senator urges review of safe perchlorate level
28 US: Dispatch: Email The Editor SCVWD angling for grants to study per
29 US: NRC: In the Matter of J. L. Shepherd & Associates, San Fernando,
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
30 US: [shundahaialert] News in Skull Valley
31 House Panel to Subpoena Yucca Mtn. Worker
32 US: [NukeNet] US company to take Japanese uranium tailings
33 US: Columbia Daily Tribune: Hazardous waste rolls down I-70
34 Korea Herald: Nuclear waste site selection by November
35 US: LSI: Navajo Nation Bans Mining, Processing Of Uranium On Navajo
36 Platts: Cogema to supply 25 casks to Synatom
37 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Feds don't own it yet
38 US: deseret news: Huntsman to press N-fight
39 Whitehaven News: LESSONS FROM THE SELLAFIELD SHUTDOWN
40 News & Star: Thorp leak: Inspectors may press for criminal charges
41 News & Star: D-day on charges over Sellafield leak
42 Whitehaven News: IS NUCLEAR WASTE A SOLUTION – OR A PROBLEM?
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
43 Santa Fe New Mexican: NNSA officials answer questions about lab mana
44
45 lamonitor.com: Panel to focus on LANL contract
46 Colorado Daily: 'One of the final steps'
47 lamonitor.com: Contract extended
48 Albuquerque Tribune: UC gets 8 more months with lab
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Irna: Kharrazi: NAM should oppose limiting nuclear technology for members -
Tehran June 14, IRNA
Iran-NAM-Nuclear
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi called here Monday for
Non-Aligned Movement's (NAM) opposition to efforts aimed at
setting arbitrary and biased limitation on the right of member
states to acquire peaceful nuclear technology.
The Iranian embassy in Qatar reported that Speaking on the
sidelines of the Special NAM Foreign Ministerial meeting in Doha,
Kharrazi stressed on the need for unified position by the member
nations.
He said the NAM should adopt a common stance regarding the
reform in the UN organizational structure and over the article on
use of force and preemptive strikes.
He also cautioned the NAM members on the dangers of existence of
weapons production by the nuclear powers.
Kharrazi called for the increasing effectiveness of the UN
General Assembly as the main decision making body within the UN.
The NAM meeting also adopted a resolution encompassing
Kharrazi's aforementioned points and directed its office in New
York to continue consultations between all sides to reach a
common stance on much needed reforms in the UN structure.
As the president of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Malaysian
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that NAM's position is
to mphasize the greater need for consultation and multilateralism
in the world of today.
Speaking to IRNA, prior to his Tehran visit in May, Badawi
touched on various issues.
"Though NAM's birth was the product of Cold War, the continuing
large presence and support of member states demonstrates the
validity, relevance and growing importance of the movement.
"With the end of the Cold War and rapid transformation of the
world, the challenges facing NAM is in its ability to adjust to
the current realities," he added.
Badawi said that as chairman of NAM, Malaysia's mission is to
revitalize the underlying philosophy of NAM in striving for a
global order that is secure and oriented towards prosperity,
justice and equity.
Turning to Iran's right to have peaceful nuclear energy, as a
UN member, the Malaysian premier said that his country welcomes
the ongoing EU-Iran consultations aiming to resolve the
remaining outstanding issues on Iran's nuclear program.
*****************************************************************
2 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Nuclear Watchdog to Hear Iran Report
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday June 13, 2005 3:31 PM
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Key members of the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency met Monday to endorse the head of the organization for a
third term and hear a report mildly critical of Iran for not
fully cooperating with a probe of its activities.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic
Energy Agency. faced no opposition to his re-election after the
United States dropped its objections last week.
Bush administration hawks had accused ElBaradei of being too
easy on Tehran and of trying to obstruct America's invasion of
Iraq by questioning U.S intelligence that asserted Saddam
Hussein had a nuclear arms program.
A diplomat accredited to the agency said chief U.S. delegate
Jackie Sanders was expected to join representatives of other
nations in backing ElBaradei at Monday's closed morning session.
In an unexpected delay, however, the issue of ElBaradei's
reappointment was postponed to the afternoon session after the
Japanese chief delegate, Yukio Takasu, opposed making it the
first item of the conference on what he said were procedural
grounds. Delegates to the meeting said they expected the dispute
to be resolved.
It was not immediately clear why Japan made the move. But Egypt
was a key backer of having ElBaradei's reconfirmation as the
first order of the day at the Vienna meeting, and that gave rise
to speculation Japan was retaliating for Egypt's role in
obstructing the adoption of an agenda for more than two weeks at
last month's conference on nuclear proliferation in New York.
On Iran, other diplomats said the Islamic republic will also
come in for some praise, with a senior IAEA official planning to
tell the agency's board that Iran has kept its promise of
freezing a key program that could be used to make nuclear arms.
Speaking on the eve of the 35-nation IAEA board meeting, the
diplomats described the report on Iran - likely to be delivered
Tuesday or Wednesday by IAEA Deputy Director General Pierre
Goldschmidt - as relatively mild compared with previous
summaries since that nation's nuclear program became a matter of
international concern three years ago.
Tehran has been under agency review since revelations in 2003 of
nearly two decades of secret nuclear activities, including work
on enriching uranium - a technology that can make weapons-grade
material for nuclear warheads. Iran insists it wants to enrich
only to generate nuclear power, but froze that program and
linked activities late last year as it focused on talks with
France, Britain and Germany meant to reduce concerns about
Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The report is confidential until delivery, and diplomats close
to the agency who saw copies on the weekend spoke to The
Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to divulge its contents. Other diplomats
accredited to the Vienna-based IAEA also demanded they not be
named, saying they also were not supposed to talk on the record
about what would happen at the closed meeting.
The meeting also will urge North Korea, the other key
international proliferation concern, to return to six-nation
talks meant to entice it to move away from nuclear threats in
exchange for economic and political concessions, the diplomats
said.
Ahead of the start of the meeting, South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun said Monday he was certain international nuclear talks
with North Korea would resume and called for more flexibility in
offering incentives to convince Pyongyang to disarm.
Saudi Arabia is a relatively recent issue for the agency.
The country has negotiated a now-outmoded deal with the IAEA
that effectively excludes it from nuclear inspections in
exchange for its word of honor that it does not have anything
worth inspecting. After formal requests from the European Union,
the United States and Australia to agree to an outside probe by
agency inspectors, the Saudis will be under pressure to show
some compromise at the board meeting, said the diplomats.
In Riyadh on Sunday, the Saudi news agency cited an unidentified
official as saying Saudi Arabia is willing to cooperate with the
U.N. nuclear monitoring agency. But the Saudi official didn't
mention inspection in his remarks.
---
On the Net: www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
3 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: What They Won't Tell You About the Summit
Home> National/Politics Updated Jun.13,2005 20:51 KST
(englishnews@chosun.com )
Experts agree that the most interesting discussions during the
Korea-U.S. summit on Saturday were the ones they wonˇŻt tell you
about.
The subject that has attracted the most feverish speculation is
what the two allies will do if North Korea keeps boycotting
six-party talks on its nuclear program. Presidents Roh Moo-hyun
and George W. Bush said immediately after the meeting they would
resolve the nuclear issue peacefully through diplomatic efforts.
But the definition of a diplomatic solution is quite broad. For
the U.S., referring the dispute to the UN Security Council,
placing additional economic sanctions on Pyongyang and exerting
pressure through China all come within the scope of diplomacy --
anything, in other words, short of all-out war.
During their first summit in May 2003, the two presidents agreed
at U.S. insistence to consider what is delicately called
ˇ°further steps.ˇ± Experts agree that it is unlikely that
ˇ°further stepsˇ± were not also on the agenda this time, when
there are rumors that Pyongyang is on the cusp of conducting a
nuclear test.
The explanations given by Korean diplomatic authorities are,
well, diplomatic. Asked during a briefing immediately prior to
the summit whether "further steps" would be discussed, Foreign
Minister Ban Ki-moon said, "Only when the relevant nations agree
that diplomatic efforts have been completely exhausted can there
be negotiations on this."
But asked the same question immediately after the summit, Ban
seemed to slightly change his tune. ˇ°If I were to say that they
discussed that, it wouldnˇŻt help the atmosphere for restarting
the six-party talks.ˇ± That could be read as meaning they were
discussed but we wonˇŻt say so.
During an interview with MBC radio just one day later, the
Foreign MinistryˇŻs North America man Kim Sook, who attended the
summit, said, "During the summit, there were no discussions of
plans such as referring the nuclear issue to the Security
Council when diplomatic efforts are exhausted." So did they or
didnˇŻt they?
The same mystery shrouds the contentious issue of Roh's
initiative for Korea to become a ˇ°balancerˇ± in Northeast Asia.
According to official government explanations, no discussion of
the matter took place. But some reports said Roh used the summit
to explain the history of Northeast Asia to President Bush,
saying, "China is a country that has invaded Korea hundreds of
times. How can we forget such a painful past?"
Foreign Ministry spokesman Lee Kyu-hyung seemed to suggest the
quote was not entirely pulled out of a hat. "No specific nation
was mentioned, but he mentioned that during the course of
Korea's long history, the country had been invaded,ˇ± he said,
adding the statement was made in the context of a discussion of
the regional situation. And whenever the government has
explained how RohˇŻs balancer initiative came about, it has
started with some kind of discussion of the invasions Korea
suffered as a result of its relatively weak position surrounded
by great powers. Yet Lee said there was no need to make any
connection between President Roh's historical discussion at the
White House and his balancer initiative.
In working-level talks prior to the summit, there was reportedly
serious chewing over bones of contention such as U.S. demands
for greater strategic flexibility for U.S. forces stationed on
the Korean Peninsula and the abortive OPLAN 5029, a joint
operation plan for sudden changes in North Korea. How
discussions of these matters went and what conclusions were
reached, however, they are not saying.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
*****************************************************************
4 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Now is time' to revive talks, Roh tells North
June 14, 2005 KST 13:14 (GMT+9)
June 14, 2005 ¤Ń At an event to celebrate the 5th anniversary
of the 2000 summit meeting between former President Kim Dae-jung
and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, President Roh Moo-hyun said
yesterday that "now is the time for North Korea to make a
decision" to return to the nuclear disarmament negotiations.
Speaking at an international symposium in Seoul attended by
international leaders and ex-President Kim, Mr. Roh said,
"Through a strategic decision to give up its nuclear weapons,
North Korea has to build a cornerstone upon which it can achieve
security assurance and an opportunity to develop its economy."
The remarks came three days after Mr. Roh and U.S. President
George W. Bush met in Washington in a display of solidarity on
the North Korea nuclear crisis. After their meeting, Mr. Roh and
Mr. Bush affirmed their commitment to a peaceful solution to the
crisis.
Addressing the six-party talks, Mr. Roh said, "I think when the
six-party talks are resumed we will have talks that are more
progressive and flexible."
He repeated an earlier pledge made by Seoul that South Korea was
planning to offer an "important proposal" to the North to bring
about "real progress" in the long-running dispute.
A Seoul official yesterday described the "important proposal"
as still in the formulation stage as to the details of the
package and that the proposal would be given to the North in
close consultation with Seoul's allies.
Before the meeting in Washington, Seoul officials had said that
Mr. Roh would not ask for endorsements by Washington on possible
new enticements to the North in order to encourage it to return
to negotiations.
Mr. Kim also urged Pyongyang to return to the negotiation table.
"North Korea has to affirm that it will give up completely its
nuclear weapons and receive verification," said the former
president, adding that Washington in return has to promise to
offer a security assurance to the North and lift of economic
sanctions.
Mr. Kim repeated his view that Washington needed to pursue a
give-and-take approach to the nuclear negotiations. "If the
United States pushes for a punishment without a firm promise of
a give-and-take negotiation, it's questionable whether most
participants in the six-party talks such as China and Russia
will agree to it."
With the stalemate in the North Korea nuclear crisis lasting
for almost a year, Washington has asked Beijing to use its
leverage over Pyongyang to lure it back to talks, but China and
South Korea have refused to take actions that might irritate
North Korea.
by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc.
*****************************************************************
5 csmonitor.com: An odd couple and the energy bill |
from the June 14, 2005 edition
An odd couple and the energy bill
Two senators from New Mexico - and a new sense of urgency -
buoy quest for new policy.
By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian
Science Monitor
WASHINGTON After derailing in the past two congresses, the
latest version of a national energy bill begins debate in the
Senate today with a momentum that previous efforts missed -
including new interest in taking action on climate change.
It's driven by months of sticker shock at US gas pumps, but also
by a partnership forged by New Mexico's two senators - a
Republican and Democrat who hold top positions on the Senate's
Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
ENERGIZED PARTNERS:
Sen. Pete Domenici (R) of New Mexico (left) and Sen. Jeff
Bingaman (D) of New Mexico (right) are working together to pass
an energy bill with emphasis on efficiency.
ANDY NELSON - STAFF/FILE, ANDREW POERTNER/ROSWELL DAILY RECORD/AP
Indeed, a key indicator that Congress may be ready to pass a
bill - and not just rack up talking points for the next election
cycle - is the sharp decline in the partisan rancor. At this
time in the last energy bill cycle, both sides were firing off
attacks. Now, the committee's top Democrats and Republicans are
appearing together to support a bill that passed out of
committee with only one dissenting vote.
"We remain dedicated and committed to something that's not too
usual around here: approaching this bill in a bipartisan
manner," said Sen. Pete Domenici (R), chairman of the committee,
in a joint appearance last week, with the committee's ranking
Democrat, Jeff Bingaman - his fellow senator from New Mexico.
In itself, the comity doesn't ensure that president Bush will
get to sign a bill. Many senators will want to weigh in on the
bill, and any bill passed would face tough negotiations with the
House.
The power of partnership
But the Domenici-Bingaman partnership is firing, at least, seems
to be firing on all cylinders. For Senator Domenici, a longtime
defender of nuclear power, closing deals is a honed art - and
the energy bill is a legacy issue. Senator Bingaman is the
body's leading authority on alternative energy sources. The
pairing marks the first time that senators from the same state
have been the chairman and ranking member of a committee.
After the November election, Senator Domenici told Democrats
that he wanted to take another run at an energy bill, but this
time, on a bipartisan basis. "We keep getting calls from outside
groups asking if the glasnost is for real. It absolutely is,"
says Bill Wicker, the panel's Democratic spokesman.
In contrast to the House energy bill, which passed on April 21,
the Senate bill includes a heavier emphasis on energy efficiency
and use of alternative fuels. Amendments will be presented this
week on global warming, offshore drilling, ethanol-based fuels,
and fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks or SUVs.
"The House bill offers billions in production incentives to an
industry with record profits, yet cut its energy-efficiency
provisions to two-thirds of what they were last year," says
Kateri Callahan, president of Alliance to Save Energy, a
coalition of business, environmental and consumer groups. The
Senate bill takes US energy policy "in the right direction."
Global warming suddenly a priority
Moreover, a new concern on global warming has surprised energy
panel members.
Momentum is gaining for floor votes this week or next on
measures to curb the carbon emissions that scientists see as
linked to global warming. This comes amid mounting international
pressure for US action on climate change - a move the Bush White
House has opposed.
At the heart of the emerging consensus is a conviction by many
lawmakers that curbs on carbon emissions are inevitable and that
Congress would do well to get out front on the issue.
"It's becoming a political problem to the Republican Party,
because they appear insensitive to a global concern that has
implications even for national security policy," says Marshall
Wittmann, a former conservative activist now with the Democratic
Leadership Council.
Last week, 11 national academies of science, including those of
the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, China,
and India, released a statement that added to the buzz in the
Senate on climate change: "The scientific understanding of
climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking
prompt action."
"The ground is shifting on the politics of climate change faster
than I would have thought," said Alex Flint, the energy panel's
GOP staff director, at a press breakfast sponsored by The Energy
Daily and BP America on Friday.
At least three rival plans related to climate change will be
taken up as amendments to the energy bill, including those
proposed by Sens. John McCain (R) of Arizona and Joseph
Lieberman (D) of Connecticut, Chuck Hagel (R) of Nebraska, and
Bingaman.
Pressure is also heating up from business groups eager to see a
bill this session of Congress. On Monday, the National
Association of Manufacturers released a study showing that the
energy bill could save 700,000 jobs in manufacturing sector. "US
manufacturers face the highest natural gas prices in the world,"
said former Gov. John Engler, NAM President, in a statement. "If
we are serious about jobs, growth, and competing in the global
marketplace, the Senate should take its foot off the brake and
hit the accelerator on passing this energy bill."
Even if a Senate bill passes, as expected, it faces a tough
conference with House negotiators. Last year's energy bill
derailed over a dispute on whether to protect companies that
produce methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a gasoline additive,
from defective product lawsuits. The MTBE waiver is in the House
bill, but will not be included in the Senate version. A climate
change provision, should it pass the Senate, also faces tough
going in the House.
www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2005 The Christian Science
Monitor. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
6 Iaea Board Re-appoints Elbaradei To Third Term As Director-general
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 17:00:24 -0400
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IAEA BOARD RE-APPOINTS ELBARADEI TO THIRD TERM AS DIRECTOR-GENERAL
New York, Jun 13 2005 5:00PM
The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) today re-appointed Mohamed ElBaradei as Director-General of
the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency for another four year
term.
At a press briefing in Vienna after his election, Dr. ElBaradei said
he would continue to hold high impartiality and independence
– core principals and values of international civil service. This
will be his third term as <"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/dg_reappointment.html">IAEA
Chief.
"My colleagues and I are committed to do our very best to protect
ourselves against the dissemination of nuclear weapons; and against
poverty. We will continue to work with the members of the international
community to see a world free from nuclear weapons," Dr.
ElBaradei said, according an IAEA statement.
The appointment will be submitted for approval at the IAEA General
Conference, which opens 26 September 2005 in Vienna. Dr. ElBaradei
is the IAEA's fourth Director General since 1957. He was first
appointed to the office effective December 1997, and reappointed
to a second term in 2001. He follows Hans Blix, IAEA Director General
from 1981 to 1997; Sigvard Eklund, IAEA Director General from
1961 to 1981; and Sterling Cole, IAEA Director General from 1957
to 1961.
Separately, the IAEA said the Board of Governors' annual session
also intends to discuss the Safeguards Implementation Report for
2004, and a report by the Director-General on the implementation
of safeguards in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
2005-06-13 00:00:00.000
________________
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7 [du-list] UK nuclear industry in turmoil after closure of
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:30:40 -0700
Sellafield radioactive leak to cost Ł300m
UK nuclear industry in turmoil after closure of vital plant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/nuclear/article/0,2763,1505005,00.html
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Monday June 13, 2005
The Guardian
The massive leak at the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria
will keep it closed for several more months and cost Britain's clean-up
programme at least Ł300m in lost revenue this year alone, it emerged
yesterday.
The crippled Ł1.8bn flagship of the nuclear industry was supposed to make
Ł2.5bn over five years to help fund the clean-up of past wastes but cannot
contribute anything while closed.
In the meantime it is costing millions more, also potentially coming out of
the clean-up budget, to make the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp)
safe.
The subsequent repair, if it proves viable at all, will cost even more,
forcing its new owners, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), set up
by the government to take over Sellafield's assets on April 1, to consider
whether Thorp should ever reopen. The NDA has confirmed that it is already
reviewing the future of the plant.
Estimates of how long the plant would take to repair have lengthened
considerably since the Guardian first revealed in May that 83 cubic metres
of nitric acid containing 22 tonnes of dissolved uranium and plutonium from
irradiated fuel had leaked from a fractured pipe into the internal workings
of the plant.
The highly dangerous liquid is currently being pumped out of the plant in
small batches into storage tanks. The company said this will take another
two weeks to complete and then it will have to devise a way of repairing
the damaged pipework. This can only be done using robots because the area
is so radioactive that any human being entering it would die.
The British Nuclear Group, the company formed from the state-owned British
Nuclear Fuels to manage the plant on behalf of the NDA from April 1, has
admitted that the leak begun as early as last August but operatives failed
to notice it until April 18, when enough liquid to fill half an Olympic
swimming pool had already gone missing.
The company blamed a faulty gauge but also conceded that workers at the
plant missed opportunities to notice that something had gone badly wrong.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the government's safety watchdog,
has not yet completed its own investigation, which could lead to
prosecution. It has to approve any repair plan on safety grounds both to
prevent any danger to workers and to make sure a similar problem does not
arise again.
Barry Snelson, managing director of the British Nuclear Group, said last
week he regarded the Thorp leak as "a stumble not a fall" and reassured
workers fearing job losses that he was sure the plant would reopen.
"I am confident that Thorp will re-open but the decision is not ours, it
rests with the NDA and the government," he said.
"Our role is as operators rather than owners is to show that we have the
capability to restore Thorp to service safely and also to demonstrate what
the economic benefits are."
This is a significant change since the April 1 takeover by the NDA. Even
though Sellafield is still effectively government-owned and what happens
there is ultimately decided by ministers, the British Nuclear Group cannot
spend money without first justifying it to the NDA.
Previously BNFL spent the money and even the most dedicated nuclear
watchers were unable to untangle where it had gone from studying the accounts.
Martin Forwood, of Cumbrians Opposed to Radioactive Environment has written
to Ian Roxbrough, the chief executive of the NDA, asking that Thorp be
closed immediately and saying further delay would only add to costs to the
taxpayer and delay clean-up.
Dr Roxbrough replied that the NDA was actively reviewing Thorp's future.
Mr Forwood said: "All that Thorp does is produce more and more uranium and
plutonium. British Energy, which has the bulk of fuel waiting to be
reprocessed, says it has no possible use for this material, There us no
logic to this and common sense says Thorp should be shut down now."
Special report
The nuclear industry
Graphics
The Mox ships' journey around the world (pdf)
Useful links
British Energy
Department of Trade and Industry
British Nuclear Fuels Ltd
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Greenpeace
HSE nuclear glossary
UK atomic energy authority
National Radiological Protection Board
Friends of the Earth
World Nuclear Association
World Nuclear Transport Institute
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8 [NYTr] Another defeat for US: el Baradei Wins New Term at IAEA
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:29:56 -0500 (CDT)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
[The US gave up its opposition last week, and after one last snag (from
Japan, which obligingly but briefly objected on procedural grounds), el
Baradei was appointed for a third term as IAEA chief "by consensus,"
that is, unopposed. Another diplomatic disaster for the USA.]
AP via CNN - June 13, 2005
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/06/13/albaradei.reappointed.ap
ElBaradei reappointed as U.N. nuclear chief
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Key members of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency
reappointed Mohamed ElBaradei for a third term as head of the
organization on Monday -- a move backed by the United States, a longtime
critic of the U.N official.
The United States last week publicly dropped its opposition to
ElBaradei, whom U.S. administration hawks accuse of being too mild on
Iran and of trying to obstruct the U.S. invasion of Iraq by questioning
American intelligence that asserted Saddam Hussein had a nuclear arms
program.
Still, consensus approval was delayed for several hours because of
arguments over procedure that participants said had nothing to do with
the earlier U.S. opposition.
In a bow to the Americans, ElBaradei said after being reconfirmed that
he was "humbled by the unanimous support" expressed by the International
Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors, adding: "I am
grateful to the United States."
He said his priorities include fighting the threat of nuclear
proliferation and the potential menace posed by nuclear terrorism --
issues he said he has full U.S. support on.
"We looked to the future and ... did not discuss the past," he said of
the meeting last week with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that
led to a public announcement of American support for ElBaradei.
ElBaradei denied agreeing to be harder on Iran -- whose nuclear
activities are under agency review -- or striking any other deal to gain
American backing, saying, "at the end of the day I do what I need to do"
on issues facing the agency.
"It is in Iran's interest to provide full cooperation," ElBaradei said,
adding he would tell the board in a later session that while there has
been progress on some aspects of the agency's investigation, more
information was needed on its nuclear enrichment program.
In a separate report for the board, diplomats said the Islamic republic
will be mildly criticized for not fully cooperating with an IAEA probe
of its activities. But they said Tehran also will come in for some
praise, with the board being told the country has kept its promise of
freezing a key program that could be used to make nuclear arms.
The diplomats described the report on Iran -- likely to be delivered
Tuesday or Wednesday by IAEA Deputy Director General Pierre Goldschmidt
-- as relatively mild compared with previous summaries since that
nation's nuclear program became a matter of international concern three
years ago.
Tehran has been under agency review since revelations in 2003 of nearly
two decades of secret nuclear activities, including work on enriching
uranium -- a technology that can make weapons-grade material for nuclear
warheads.
Iran insists it wants to enrich only to generate nuclear power, but the
country froze that program and linked activities last year as it focused
on talks with France, Britain and Germany meant to reduce concerns about
Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The report is confidential until delivery, and diplomats close to the
agency who saw copies spoke to The Associated Press on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge its contents.
Other diplomats accredited to the Vienna-based IAEA also asked they not
be named, saying they, too, were not supposed to talk on the record
about what was happening inside the closed meeting.
The meeting also will urge North Korea, the other key international
proliferation concern, to return to six-nation talks meant to entice it
to move away from nuclear threats in exchange for economic and political
concessions, the diplomats said.
Ahead of the start of the meeting, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
said Monday he was certain international nuclear talks with North Korea
would resume and called for more flexibility in offering incentives to
convince Pyongyang to disarm.
Saudi Arabia is a relatively recent issue for the agency. The country
has negotiated a now-outmoded deal with the IAEA that effectively
excludes it from nuclear inspections in exchange for its pledge not to
have anything worth inspecting.
After formal requests from the European Union, the United States and
Australia to agree to an outside probe by agency inspectors, the Saudis
will be under pressure to show some compromise at the meeting, said the
diplomats.
In Riyadh on Sunday, the Saudi news agency cited an unnamed official as
saying Saudi Arabia is willing to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear
monitoring agency. But the Saudi official didn't mention inspection in
his remarks.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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9 UPI: U.K. frustration over U.S. climate deal -
(United Press International)
June 13, 2005
By Hannah K. Strange UPI U.K. Correspondent
London, England, Jun. 13 (UPI) -- The British government is
deeply disappointed by Washington's refusal to sign up to a deal
on tackling climate change, Environment Secretary Margaret
Beckett has disclosed.
In an interview with the Independent newspaper published Monday,
Beckett spoke of the government's "disappointment" at President
George W. Bush's failure to commit to reductions in emissions
and to recognize the credibility of science on climate change.
It is the first time a minister has publicly acknowledged
London's frustration with the U.S. position over the issue.
Britain wants the United States to sign up to a three-point
plan as part of its agenda for the Group of Eight summit in
July. Prime Minister Tony Blair has urged Washington to join
China, India and Brazil in signing up to a cap on carbon
emissions and to formally acknowledge scientific evidence that
manmade pollutants are causing global temperatures to rise. Bush
has refused both requests, however, agreeing only to increase
investment in green technologies.
"Certainly there is a degree of disappointment that there isn't
more common ground than there already is," Beckett said.
Her comments come just days after Blair visited the White House
for talks on the issue. At a joint news conference, Blair
acknowledged the pair had "different perspectives," while Bush
defended his position, highlighting U.S. leadership on climate
research and the development of green technologies.
On his return to Britain, Blair conceded he had got little in
the way of movement from Bush, but insisted he would continue to
press the issue.
"Climate change is, in my view, long term, the single biggest
issue that we face," Blair told the British Parliament Wednesday.
"The brutal truth is, without America in a process of dialogue
and action in the international community, we are not going to
make progress on it."
"I will be doing my very best to persuade the United States and
other countries that it is important that we take action on this
issue," he added.
It appears, however, any talk of emissions capping has been
dropped from the agenda. In the wake of the Blair-Bush summit,
the possibility has been raised of a new international forum for
the biggest energy-using countries to discuss climate-change
solutions. Beckett says Britain now wants "a dialogue" that
would include "major energy users" such as the United States,
India and China.
The G8 would not be a forum for "trying to set targets" and
getting Washington to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on climate
change was now "off the agenda," she said. "They probably
couldn't get it through their Senate" and House.
Asked if this reticence was a result of U.S. denial that
mankind was to blame for rising global temperatures, Beckett
said there was a "growing consensus" that the climate was
changing. However, she said, "there may be an area of dispute
about to what degree that is due to human interaction and there
are some people who hold a stronger view about to what level
that is."
Bush's chief climate change negotiator, Harlan Watson, told the
BBC in May Washington would not acknowledge the science of
climate change as it was still uncertain and did not merit
urgent action. There was no hope of Blair persuading Bush to
change his position, he added.
Beckett said the United States was "coming from a different
place in the dialogue; a different place in discussions." But
she noted: "It doesn't matter quite so much to which angle you
come to things from as long as we end up with a greater degree
of acceptance of the way we might move forward."
She was open, however, about the government's frustration with
Washington's refusal to sign up to Kyoto.
"There is no secret that we would like America to be more
engaged," she said. "But it is also no secret that we are
working with them to try to make progress on the shape of a kind
of future dialog.
"And we are working with them on new technologies and we will
continue to do that."
The British government was trying to work "as cooperatively as"
possible with the Bush administration, Beckett said.
"They are a very, very major power and they will make the
decisions that are in the interest of their country and that is
absolutely fair and right and proper," she said.
Ministers "have already seen signs of some movement," she said,
stressing U.S. technological advances. However she expressed her
surprise at Bush's declaration after last week's talks with
Blair of his enthusiasm for soy bean-fueled cars.
"That was a new one on me, I must admit," she said. She was
equally astonished by a plan announced last week to spray
sheep's urine into exhausts to reduce harmful emissions. "The
mind does boggle!" she said.
Another area of contention is Bush's insistence on "clean nuke"
as an alternative to carbon-producing fuels. The U.S. president
said last week he wanted more international cooperation on the
development of nuclear power. However a leaked draft of a G8
communiqué reported by the Independent reveals disagreement over
Washington's wish for a separate section on its role.
The draft, Powering a Cleaner Future, says a "U.K. red line" --
area not for negotiation -- was the United States' singling out
of nuclear power as a clean energy source.
It said: "U.K. red line: Avoid U.S. suggestion for a separate
nuclear heading. This would be quite a serious jump in political
attention from previous ... texts. Any statement should be
couched in language that leaves it up to individual governments
to decide whether nuclear is a suitable part of their energy
mix."
With time running out before the G8 summit in the second week
of July, it seems increasingly unlikely the gulf between the
British and American positions on climate change can be bridged.
Copyright 2005 United Press International
*****************************************************************
10 AFP: ElBaradei 'humbled' by reappointment as UN nuclear chief -
Monday June 13, 06:38 PM
VIENNA (AFP) - UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei said he was
"humbled and awed" at his appointment by consensus to a third
term and said he expected to be able to work well with the United
States.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously
re-appointed ElBaradei as its chief earlier Monday after
Washington dropped its opposition to a man who had questioned US
weapons intelligence on Iraq.
ElBaradei told reporters he was "humbled and awed by the
unanimous support I received today."
The IAEA chief said he had met in Washington last week with US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "We did not discuss the
past. We did not discuss my election. We looked together forward.
We agreed we have a lot of common objectives," he said of the
meeting.
"We looked to the future. We discussed issues that we needed to
address, particularly how to shore up the non-proliferation
regime in the aftermath" of the failure of a UN non-proliferation
conference last month in New York, ElBaradei said.
"We need to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We need to
insure the authority of the agency in terms of verification. We
need to have better control over the sensitive fuel cycle and we
need to have a more efficient compliance mechanism," he said.
"So I look forward to working with the US," ElBaradei added.
He said his talks with Rice were like those "with every member
state."
"I get their input. They hear my views and at the end of the day,
I do what I believe to be the objective, impartial, factual way
to proceed," ElBaradei said, implying that he was retaining his
independence of action.
Copyright © 2005 AFP AFP
*****************************************************************
11 Guardian Unlimited: ElBaradei Reappointed to U.N. Nuclear Post
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday June 13, 2005 8:31 PM
AP Photo VIE131
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Mohammed ElBaradei won a third term
Monday as head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and said he
was ``grateful to the United States'' after the Bush
administration last week publicly dropped its opposition to him.
ElBaradei, a 62-year-old Egyptian diplomat, said his priorities
will include fighting the threat of nuclear proliferation and
the potential menace posed by nuclear terrorism - issues on
which he said he has full U.S. support.
``We looked to the future and ... did not discuss the past,'' he
said of the meeting last week with Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice that led to a public U.S. announcement for his
reappointment.
In a bow to the Americans, ElBaradei said after being
reconfirmed that he was ``humbled by the unanimous support''
expressed by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation
board of governors, adding: ``I am grateful to the United
States.''
Administration hawks accuse ElBaradei of being too mild on Iran
and of trying to obstruct America's invasion of Iraq by
questioning U.S intelligence that asserted Saddam Hussein had a
nuclear arms program.
ElBaradei denied agreeing to be harder on Iran - whose nuclear
activities are under agency review - or striking any other deal
to gain American backing, saying ``at the end of the day I do
what I need to do'' on issues facing the agency.
``It is in Iran's interest to provide full cooperation,''
ElBaradei said, adding he would tell the board in a later
session that while there has been progress on some aspects of
the agency's investigation, more information is needed on its
nuclear enrichment program.
In a separate report for the board, diplomats said the Islamic
republic will be mildly criticized for not fully cooperating
with an IAEA investigation of its activities. But they said
Tehran also will come in for some praise, with the board being
told the country has kept its promise of freezing a key program
that could be used to make nuclear arms.
The diplomats described the report on Iran - likely to be
delivered Tuesday or Wednesday by IAEA Deputy Director General
Pierre Goldschmidt - as relatively mild compared with previous
summaries since that nation's nuclear program became a matter of
international concern three years ago.
Tehran has been under agency review since revelations in 2003 of
nearly two decades of secret nuclear activities, including work
on enriching uranium - a technology that can make weapons-grade
material for nuclear warheads.
Iran insists it wants to enrich only to generate nuclear power,
but froze that program and linked activities late last year as
it focused on talks with France, Britain and Germany intended to
reduce concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
The report is confidential until delivery, and diplomats close
to the agency who saw copies spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
divulge its contents. Other diplomats accredited to the
Vienna-based IAEA also asked they not be identified, saying
they, too, were not supposed to talk on the record about what
was happening inside the closed meeting.
The meeting also will urge North Korea, the other key
international proliferation concern, to return to six-nation
talks meant to entice it away from making nuclear threats in
exchange for economic and political concessions, the diplomats
said.
Ahead of the meeting, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said
Monday he was certain international nuclear talks with North
Korea would resume and called for more flexibility in offering
incentives to persuade Pyongyang to disarm.
Saudi Arabia is a relatively recent issue for the agency. The
country has negotiated a now-outmoded deal with the IAEA that
effectively excludes it from nuclear inspections in exchange for
its pledge not to have anything worth inspecting.
After formal requests from the European Union, the United States
and Australia to agree to an outside inquiry by agency
inspectors, the Saudis will be under pressure to show some
compromise at the meeting, said the diplomats.
In Riyadh on Sunday, the Saudi news agency cited an unidentified
official as saying Saudi Arabia is willing to cooperate with the
IAEA. But the Saudi official didn't mention inspection in his
remarks.
---
On the Net: www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
12 Why America's nuclear power plants are still so vulnerable to
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:30:45 -0700
Sunday, Jun. 12, 2005
Are These Towers Safe?
Why America's nuclear power plants are still so vulnerable to terrorist
attack--and how to make them safer. A special investigation
By MARK THOMPSON
The first hint of trouble would probably be no more than shadows flitting
through the darkness outside one of the nation's nuclear power reactors.
Beyond the fencing, black-clad snipers would take aim at sentries atop guard
towers ringing the site. The guards tend to doubt they would be safe in
their bullet-resistant enclosures. They call such perches iron coffins,
which is what they could become if the terrorists used deadly but easily
obtainable .50-cal. sniper rifles.
The saboteurs would break through fences by using bolt cutters or Bangalore
torpedoes, pipe-shaped explosives developed by the British army in India
nearly a century ago. The terrorists would blast through outer walls using
platter charges, directed explosives developed during World War II, giving
them access to the heart of the plant. They would use gun-mounted lasers and
infrared devices to blind the plant's cameras, and electronic jammers to
paralyze communications among its defenders. They would probably be armed
with precious information--hand-drawn maps, drawings of control panels, weak
spots in the site's defenses--provided by a covert comrade working inside
the plant.
As they forced their way into the control room, many if not most of the
attackers might die battling the remaining guards, but it was always a
suicide mission. Once inside, the terrorists' hard work would be over. Then,
surprisingly, would come the easy part: triggering a nuclear meltdown. They
would spend a minute or two carefully flipping, disabling and breaking
specific controls and switches, shutting down pumps and operating key
valves. It would be a deadly sequence that they had mastered in advance from
an accomplice who had probably worked in the control room of the reactor or
another plant, maybe abroad. "They'd be trying to cause a loss-of-coolant
accident that results in a meltdown," says David Lochbaum, a nuclear
engineer who spent 17 years working in reactors. It may sound farfetched,
but Lochbaum says causing a reactor catastrophe is really that simple. "It's
irreversible once that last switch is flipped."
If everything went according to the terrorists' plan, radiation could begin
spewing into the nighttime sky within 20 minutes, says Lochbaum, now a
nuclear-safety engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, a
nuclear-watchdog group. The lethal plume, drifting hundreds of miles
downwind, could kill tens of thousands within a year and hundreds of
thousands eventually.
That isn't some wild-eyed fantasy but what some experts fear is a realistic
scenario. Many of the terrorists' tactics depicted here are taken from a
Department of Energy (DOE) training video for guards at nuclear facilities.
The control-room plot is based on the concerns of veterans from the nuclear
industry. Physicist Kenneth Bergeron, who spent most of 25 years at Sandia
National Laboratories researching nuclear-reactor safety, says plant
operators focus security efforts on keeping bad guys out. They assume that
no one with malicious intent will wind up at the controls and thus do not
build in fail-safe mechanisms that would prevent a saboteur from engineering
a catastrophe. As a result, says Paul Blanch, a nuclear-safety expert who
oversaw reactors for Northeast Utilities in Connecticut for 25 years, "a
knowledgeable terrorist inside a control room can cause a meltdown in fairly
short order."
It has been nearly four years since 9/11 awakened the country to the
possibility that nuclear power plants might be the next big target for the
U.S.'s terrorist enemies. The country's reactors--deployed, as so many of
them are, in areas with large civilian populations--have the potential to be
weapons of mass destruction. The plants may be especially attractive to
al-Qaeda because of the group's fondness for launching attacks that are
increasingly spectacular. The vulnerability of the U.S. to terrorism was
underscored when members of the 9/11 commission, formally disbanded last
summer, resumed work as a nonprofit group last week and heard witnesses say
the intelligence needed to prevent another major attack remained spotty.
Has the nuclear industry absorbed the lessons of 9/11 and made sufficient
adjustments to the way plants are guarded? The DOE, which controls the 11
sites that house nuclear weapons and the materials used to build them, has
significantly improved its standards. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), which oversees 103 reactors run by private operators at 64 sites
across 31 states, says it has too. "What is in place right now is sufficient
to give us confidence that these plants will be able to defend themselves,"
NRC chairman Nils Diaz tells TIME. But a tightly held NRC document reviewed
by TIME raises serious questions about whether the government has set the
bar too low and allowed plant operators to skimp on security. Many guards
working in nuclear plants and some senior security experts working for the
U.S. government say the defenses facilities rely on are too meager to thwart
an assault by a force the size of the one al-Qaeda put together when it
attacked the U.S. on 9/11--Mohammed Atta's band of 19 hijackers. "The NRC
and the nuclear power industry," says a senior U.S. antiterrorism official,
"are today where the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] and airlines were
on Sept. 10, 2001." Whereas the U.S. has spent $20 billion improving
aviation security since 9/11, it has spent $1 billion enhancing
nuclear-plant security.
That al-Qaeda has eyed U.S. reactors is known. U.S. officials say Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, the captured architect of the 9/11 attacks, has told
interrogators that his original plan was to have some of his pilots fly
commandeered airplanes into nuclear power plants. According to the final
report of the 9/11 commission, Atta, pilot of the first plane to hit the
World Trade Center on 9/11, "had considered targeting a nuclear facility he
had seen during familiarization flights near New York." At the dawn of the
Iraq war in 2003, Arizona National Guard troops were ordered to the nation's
largest nuclear-reactor complex, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
near Phoenix, after U.S. intelligence heard that sleeper cells of Iraqi
terrorists might attack it.
Though the idea of suicidal pilots crashing planes into reactors provoked
sensational headlines after 9/11, studies commissioned by the NRC and the
nuclear industry concluded that the chances of an aerial attack producing a
major release of radioactivity are low. The NRC believes the
concrete-and-steel containment shielding most portions of a nuclear plant
would withstand being hit by an airplane. Other experts, including a recent
National Academy of Sciences (N.A.S.) panel, disagree, saying the particular
design and vulnerabilities of each plant make such blanket assurances
meaningless.
In any case, the NRC does not require plant operators to defend against air
attacks. A California antinuclear group, the Committee to Bridge the Gap,
recently asked the NRC to order that shields of I-beams and steel cables be
built around nuclear plants to stop airplanes from crashing into them.
Antiaircraft batteries and the troops to operate them would also help but
could pose hazards to innocent aircraft drifting off course. NRC officials
say the likelihood of installing missiles or shields is virtually nil. The
agency believes the place to thwart an aerial-attack plot is at the airport,
not at the plant.
Yet terrorists may not need a dramatic skyborne attack to get the job done.
They could take over a plant on foot. The key to understanding how the NRC
has prepared for such an event is a standard called the design-basis threat,
or DBT. The DBT is the regulatory worst-case scenario, the largest threat
the NRC requires plants to train its guards to defeat.
Before 9/11, the agency required plants to be able to thwart an attack by
little more than an armed gang--three outsiders equipped with handheld
automatic weapons and aided by a confederate working inside the plant. After
9/11, when al-Qaeda showed the ability to produce 19 operatives for a
suicide mission on a single day, some security specialists anticipated a
significant hike in the DBT. But the number of attackers in the revised DBT
is less than double the old figure and a fraction of the size of the 9/11
group. (The NRC regards the exact number as an official secret.) "The NRC
has taken only baby steps to improve security at the nation's nuclear
plants," Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, told TIME
last week.
And if al-Qaeda sent 19 or so terrorists to take over a nuclear plant? "I
don't think they could handle a 9/11-size attack," says David Orrik, a
senior NRC official who retired in February after a 20-year career probing
power-plant vulnerabilities. The guards themselves have doubts. "These guys
are coming in to die. They know they're not leaving," says a veteran guard
at a U.S. nuclear power plant. "Our training has increased, but I don't
think it's increased enough to deal with that." A guard at another plant
agrees. "We don't have the weapons or training to stop an attack of that
magnitude," he says. "Everyone feels that way. It's a consensus of opinion."
One limitation is the number of guards. The total protecting the nation's
nuclear plants is 8,000, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI),
the industry's lobbying arm. Numbers at specific locations aren't available,
but that works out to roughly 80 per reactor. Broken down into four shifts,
that's an average of 20 guards available to work at any one time. U.S.
security officials at the Pentagon and the DOE say that is too small a
number to take on a motivated group of suicidal terrorists who probably
would be outfitted with weapons deadlier than the rifles used by guards.
Another issue is the lack of imagination in the scenarios used for training
guards at private plants. TIME is refraining from publishing DBT specifics
on the weapons that nuclear plants must defend against, but the relatively
small arsenal that the NRC gives the "attackers" in its drills doesn't
impress Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican. The DBT
attack force is barred from using many of the weapons detailed in the
opening scenario of this story, but, says the Congressman, "if I were a
terrorist, I'd feel more than free to use them." The agency doesn't require
defenses against weapons that terrorists haven't regularly used, according
to a senior nuclear-plant safety expert who has worked with the NRC and the
nuclear industry for decades. "The NRC's assumption is that if it's not
being used by the terrorists," he says, "it's not reasonable to assume it
would suddenly start being used against nuclear power plants."
According to the NRC and the NEI, a force as big as Atta's band or anything
bigger than the DBT is an "enemy of the state." That means it's the
Pentagon's problem. "We recognize that there can be threats to our plants
that are greater than what is defined by the DBT," Marvin Fertel, chief
nuclear officer of the NEI has told Congress. "Although our security would
provide an initial deterrence, at some point such threats are the
responsibility of the Federal Government." That wouldn't necessarily do the
plant's defenders any good, though. "They could call for the cavalry, but
they'd never get there in time," Orrik says. "These things can be over in
minutes."
On the NRC's website, the agency ducks the issue--after raising it in a
Q&A--of whether today's nuclear plants are "capable of withstanding a
9/11-scale attack." Before 9/11, there was "reasonable assurance" that the
guard force could defeat the then small DBT, the agency says. In the wake of
9/11, it continues, "the defensive capability of the industry has been
significantly enhanced." But the website never answers the question it just
posed. Could a 9/11-size terrorist force take down a U.S. nuclear power
plant?
If Kathy Davidson's experience is any measure, there is a question whether
plant security forces could even beat the DBT. Until May, Davidson was the
chief guard trainer at Pilgrim Nuclear Station, south of Boston. The 16-year
employee says she was fired from her $75,000-a-year job for complaining
about poor security at the plant. Wackenhut Corp., the giant security
company that employed her, says she was terminated for failing to improve
security. "Security at the plant is pathetic," says Davidson. "It's just too
confusing." Because there were too few guards, she says, each had to fulfill
a different mission, depending on how an attack unfolded. "One person could
have as many as seven places to go," she says. When Davidson complained, she
says, she was told "to keep my mouth shut, that nothing was going to
change." Since the plant's post-9/11 security plan took effect last fall,
she tells TIME, there have been 29 in-house classroom exercises--with
members of the guard force split into groups of "attackers" and
"defenders"--designed to show how well the guards could defend the plant
from terrorist attacks. "We won only one out of 29 tabletop drills using the
new defensive plan," she says. "The attackers won 28." A senior Wackenhut
official, who said "there is no win-lose ratio kept on these types of
tabletops," contended that Davidson was fired for poor performance and that
Pilgrim's defenses are improving.
The stakes could scarcely be higher. The toll of the 9/11 attacks would
probably pale alongside a successful attack on a nuclear plant near a major
metropolitan area. A recent study by Edwin Lyman, a physicist with the Union
of Concerned Scientists, estimates that if terrorists triggered a meltdown
at the Indian Point nuclear power plant, 35 miles north of New York City, as
many as 44,000 people could die from radiation poisoning within a year, and
as many as 518,000 could perish eventually from cancers spawned by the
attack. Millions of people in the greater New York area would have to be
permanently relocated, and economic losses could top $2 trillion. Lyman's
study echoes the findings of one done by the Sandia National Laboratories
for the NRC in 1982 that said as many as 50,000 early deaths could be caused
by a reactor accident at Indian Point.
Nonsense, says the NEI's Fertel. The electric industry's research institute
concluded that probably only about 100 people would be killed in such an
attack, he says. In any case, Fertel has told Congress, the chances of
terrorists provoking such a disaster are "so incredibly low it is not
credible." One expert who thinks saboteurs would have a difficult time
provoking a meltdown is Georges Le Guelte, a former board member of the
International Atomic Energy Agency, who advises on nuclear-security issues
at the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations. "It
would require a relatively large number of highly experienced experts in
nuclear technology to be able to intentionally provoke a nuclear accident
from within a reactor," he says. Stephen Floyd, a vice president of
regulatory affairs at the NEI, argues that terrorists wouldn't even try: "It
doesn't seem very credible to us that terrorists would launch an attack
against a nuclear power plant that's very heavily armed, especially when you
look at other facilities that aren't so heavily defended that could cause
great harm to the public as well." He points to chemical plants as an
example.
For his part, Diaz insists that the improvements made in the nation's
nuclear plants since 9/11 are adequate. They have included adding physical
barriers, checking approaching vehicles at greater stand-off distances and
improving coordination with local police and military authorities. Says the
NRC chief: "Any terrorist who looks at one of these facilities is going to
say, 'This is a hardened target, and I'm not going to have any confidence
that I am going to be successful [attacking it].'" Plants have also improved
training for guards and capped their workweeks at 72 hours to eliminate the
not-uncommon tendency of overworked employees to fall asleep on duty.
Previously, guards sometimes worked 80 to 90 hours a week.
The NRC chief says that when it comes to hiring, plant operators are using
"a much finer-toothed comb" than before 9/11 to keep troublemakers out.
Potential employees are screened through numerous databases, checked for,
among other things, mental-health problems, criminal records and
questionable behavior in previous jobs. The NRC's confidence in its "insider
mitigation program" is so high that the DBT specifically rules out the need
to defend against an "active violent insider"--a turncoat employee willing
to shoot and kill fellow workers. The DBT does consider the possibility of a
single, nonviolent insider working with the terrorists.
The Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in southeastern Pennsylvania is a good
place to see some of the enhancements ordered by the NRC after 9/11. The
facility is newly ringed with 990 11-ton concrete blocks and $200-a-foot
fencing topped with razor wire. Ten new guard towers--some six stories
high--give armed guards broad vistas of possible approaches to the plant.
"Since 9/11 we have more security officers here, and we've enhanced their
weaponry," says Jeff Benjamin, a vice president of Exelon Corp., which
operates the plant on the bank of the Susquehanna River. "We have a number
of sensors, cameras and lighting," he told a visiting TIME correspondent,
declining to elaborate for security reasons. The reactor itself is deep
inside walls of concrete and steel. Says Benjamin: "All of the design and
construction we do to keep bad stuff in is also pretty darn good at keeping
bad stuff out."
Still, politicians from both parties question whether the NRC has done
enough. Eight state attorneys general recently petitioned the NRC to require
more security. The standard for protecting nuclear plants "remains
essentially what it was in the 1970s," said one of their filings, sent to
the NRC by New York's Eliot Spitzer. The NRC needs to bolster security at
power plants "to reflect the realities of 2005, beginning with an immediate
recognition of what we all learned on September 11, 2001."
Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader, has pushed proposals to
enhance security, only to be defeated in the face of industry opposition.
One bill would have required plants to defend themselves against a 9/11-size
enemy force, perhaps aided by air-and-water-based attacks. Another would
have created a federal Nuclear Security Force and a 20-member mock terrorist
team to test the plants regularly, The NRC and industry representatives
argued against such a federalized force on the ground that the close
cooperation between plant operators and guards would be lost if federal
employees were protecting the plants. "That would actually create almost a
barrier between security and safety," Diaz tells TIME.
Representative Shays has ordered Congress's investigative arm, the
Government Accountability Office, to find out why the revised DBT is so
small. Shays, who chairs the House Reform Committee's panel on national
security and emerging threats, told TIME he believes the DBT is
"artificially low" because of economic pressures. "Rather than asking what
security do we need, plant operators are asking how much security can we
afford," he said.
The big gap between the security standards at DOE nuclear sites and those at
the commercial plants overseen by the NRC adds fuel to the argument over
what is prudent. In the wake of 9/11, the DOE boosted by 300% the size of
the terrorist force its guards must be able to defend against. The DOE's DBT
is classified, but experts inside and outside the government say it requires
guards to defeat a 9/11-size force. While DOE sites are more sensitive than
private ones, since they house nuclear weapons and their key components, the
impact of a terrorist strike on either could be devastating. "The NRC,
charged with the very same responsibility [as the DOE] of protecting nuclear
facilities against terrorist attack, has fallen down on the job," Markey
told TIME.
Some nuclear-security officials privately call the design-basis threat a
"funding basis threat," suggesting the threat has been scaled back to meet
the bottom line of what the industry was willing to pay for security. "The
NRC is basically saying that what they're doing is as much as you can expect
private industry to pay for," says Danielle Brian of the Project on
Government Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group.
The nation's big nuclear power companies seem to be making enough money to
hire more guards, who earn an average of $35,000 annually. Chicago-based
Exelon Corp., for example, whose 17 reactors make it the largest
nuclear-plant operator in the U.S., saw its power-generation unit triple its
income in the first quarter of 2005 compared with first quarter 2004, from
$102 million to $320 million. Operators may be worried about future profits,
since the increasing move to deregulate electricity has forced most nuclear
plants to compete with other electricity producers, all of whom are seeking
to sell power to utilities as cheaply as possible.
Even if the current security standards are sufficient, there is some
question as to whether they will be properly enforced. Last year the NRC
approved the NEI's request to hire the Wackenhut Corp. to test security at
the nation's plants. Such exercises--suspended after 9/11, pending
improvements--resumed last fall. Each plant is to be tested once every three
years, which means the British-owned Wackenhut is running fake attacks twice
a month.
But Wackenhut also provides security at about half the nation's nuclear
reactors. "The very company that makes a living guarding nuclear power
plants is also testing nuclear power plants' security," says Congressman
Markey. "It's like a take-home exam." No one in the industry has forgotten
that just before a mock attack against a DOE facility in 2003, Wackenhut
"attackers" tipped off Wackenhut guards about the particulars of the drill.
Under the new rules, NRC referees are supposed to pay close attention to
ensure that Wackenhut's fake attackers aren't holding back when they launch
a mock strike against a plant Wackenhut workers are defending. "It's going
to be pretty obvious if the adversary force is taking it easy," says Richard
Michau, president of Wackenhut's nuclear-services division. The NRC's Diaz
says hiring Wackenhut was necessary to get a beefed-up fake-attack force on
the job quickly. "I believe we have reached a very good compromise," he
says, "with the NRC owning the exercise and Wackenhut planning for it."
The National Academy of Sciences raised a new issue when it released a
report in April assessing the dangers posed by the 43,600 tons of spent
nuclear fuel now resting in cooling pools at all 64 power plants across the
country. Choking off the water that cools these pools could trigger a
radioactive fire that some scientists believe could cause as much death and
disease as a reactor meltdown. The panel of the N.A.S., which is private but
has a mandate to advise the Federal Government on scientific matters, said
it couldn't determine whether the plants and their spent-fuel pools could be
defended against attack because the NRC decided the panel "did not have a
need to know this information." But the report cast aspersions on the NRC's
assessments of terrorist threats to nuclear plants, saying the agency does
not consider the most lethal possibilities.
The panel concluded by warning that additional study of security at the
nation's nuclear plants "is needed urgently." It said twice that the review
should be done by someone "independent of the NRC and the nuclear industry."
That's a frightening postscript. Since 9/11, virtually everything having to
do with nuclear-plant security has been in the hands of the NRC and the
nuclear industry. Diaz takes offense at the N.A.S.'s pointed snub of his
agency's expertise. "The recommendation was not well justified," he says. "I
don't believe we need anybody to come in and do it, because nobody can do it
better than we can." --With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris
*****************************************************************
13 [NukeNet] "Free" Press On New Generation Of Nuke Reactors
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:30:23 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Throughout this piece there's not a single
critical statement about, next to nuclear weapons,
probably the single most dangerous technology
humanity has developed. In effect they[NPPs] are
nuclear weapons- stationary radiological nuclear
weapons. Why not[any critical/objective
statements]? AP should be phoned and asked about
this. They should be asked to point out the
immense dangers inherent with any nuclear
technology. The industry has admitted to the
immense danger openly as in the immensely watered
down version that NRC mandated and Sandia Labs
carried out, CRAC-2:
http://www.mothersalert.org/crac.html This
sounds like AP acting as a stenogropher for a
nuclear industry press release not an objective
piece of journalism.
>the EPR has a number of design improvements,
including a double-wall concrete containment dome
for >greater protection against an aircraft crash.
Meaning that there's less protection right now.
With no mention being made of "double- walling"
all other reactors. Or "triple-walling" them. Off
the wall sounds more like it.
As usual no mention is made as to whom is going
to pay for this- the taxpayer, not the people that
stand to make $$ and endanger and lie to all of
us.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/science/AP-Future-Reactors.html?
Few Differences for New Nuclear Plants
a.. E-Mail This
b.. Printer-Friendly
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 11, 2005
Filed at 6:05 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The new-generation nuclear
reactors being talked about after a pause of three
decades are not much different from those of the
past, though the designs should make them safer,
more efficient and easier to build.
Two designs likely to be pursued adopt a passive
safety system requiring less involvement by
operators to shut the system down and ensure that
the reactor core doesn't overheat. A third design
would have more redundant and isolated safety
systems than current reactors plus a double-walled
concrete containment dome better able to withstand
an airplane crash.
Still awaiting Nuclear Regulatory Commission
approval, all three designs are ''evolutionary''
advancements from the ''light-water'' reactors in
use in the United States and Europe today. These
reactors use ordinary water to slow, or moderate,
the fission process as well as for emergency
cooling if needed. A Generation IV gas-cooled
reactor would be the next step in design
advancements, probably after 2030, in the United
States.
The three reactor designs attracting the most
interest are being developed by Westinghouse, a
subsidiary of the British company BNFL; General
Electric; and the French conglomerate AREVA, whose
Framatome subsidiary designed France's reactors.
All three manufacturers say their new designs have
been simplified to increase safety and have fewer
moving parts, valves and pumps.
Here are some characteristics of each of the top
three light-water reactor designs and a
next-generation gas-cooled reactor:
--The Westinghouse AP1000:
This would have one-third fewer pumps, half as
many valves, and more than 80 percent fewer pipes
than current reactors. It can be built using
modular units manufactured in a factory and
transported to the reactor site, cutting
construction time to three years.
It relies on a largely passive safety system. The
cooling water for use in event of a buildup of
excess heat is above the reactor core and uses
gravity and natural circulation for emergency
cooling if needed. In current reactors, cooling
water must be pumped into the core.
--General Electric's ESBWR:
This has a 1,500 megawatt boiling water design,
meaning the cooling water is not under pressure
and is allowed to boil with steam passing over the
top of the reactor into the turbines.
ESBWR stands for ''Economic Simplified Boiling
Water Reactor,'' reflecting that its design
removes many complexities of current reactors. It
has 25 percent fewer pumps, valves, motors, piping
and cabling and is designed to respond more
quickly to a loss of coolant situation. Modular
construction and a smaller plant size allow for
faster construction.
--AREVA's EPR:
A 1,500 megawatt pressurized water reactor that's
an evolutionary design based on the French and
German reactors designed by Framatome and Siemans.
It is a simplified design using existing
technologies, with fewer parts.
While it maintains an active rather than passive
safety system, the EPR has a number of design
improvements, including a double-wall concrete
containment dome for greater protection against an
aircraft crash. The design also extends the dome
over the spent fuel pool and two of the four
safety buildings.
If there is a severe accident and meltdown, the
reactor vessel is designed to capture the core
melt in a cavity below the containment building.
--Generation IV reactors:
These reactor technologies reflect a
''revolutionary'' step from the ''Generation III''
and earlier design light-water reactors.
Development for commercial use won't occur until
2030.
They produce more heat and less waste with
different cooling mechanisms than the light water
reactors, and would be able to produce hydrogen as
a replacement for fossil fuels to power everything
from cars to electric lamps. An international
effort has been under way since 2000 to examine
various technologies, using a gas such as carbon
dioxide, water, liquid metal or even molten salt
for cooling.
A gas-cooled reactor known as the pebble bed is
being developed in South Africa and was touted for
the U.S. market until Exelon, the Chicago-based
utility, pulled out of the project. Instead of
fuel rods, the pebble bed uses coated graphite
pebbles filled with uranium fuel. The decay heat
is transferred to helium, an inert gas, that
eventually moves to a gas turbine to produce
electricity.
The Energy Department is planning a $1.25 billion
program to build a gas-cooled Generation IV
experimental reactor in Idaho. It would produce
both hydrogen and electricity and could become a
prototype for future commercial reactors.
_______________________________________________________________________
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14 Taipei Times: Australia's nuclear U-turn
www.taipeitimes.com
The case against the burning of even more fossil fuel is now
considered so strong that even Australia's environmentalists and
Green politicians are talking for the need for a 'nuclear debate'
By Ben Sandilands
THE OBSERVER , CANBERRA
Monday, Jun 13, 2005,Page 9
Advertising [Advertising] Nuclear power has come in from the
cold in Australia almost overnight.
The very suggestion that Australia continue to mine and export
uranium, or set up nuclear waste repositories, or even
contemplate using it to generate electricity, has been a
political taboo for almost 50 years.
Yet in the space of a few months, key environmentalists and
political figures are talking up the need for a `nuclear debate.'
No political leader in Australia is greener than the New South
Wales Premier Bob Carr.
But Carr, who has quadrupled the national parks of his state,
and banned a range of mining and timber ventures on
environmental grounds, says: "Nuclear power has to be on the
table for new large power plants in New South Wales.
"Our massive coal reserves equal massive greenhouse gas
contamination of the atmosphere if we keep building coal burning
plants," he says.
"And apart from rising demand for power that has to be met
somehow, we need lots of extra electrical energy if we pursue
large scale desalination of sea water to help solve a looming
crisis in the supply of fresh water," he says.
ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
Carr has stopped short of saying he will build a nuclear power
plant, but is pushing hard for the need to investigate the
option, using the latest safeguards and technology for avoiding
accidents like the Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine in 1986, or
the challenges of long-term storage of radioactive by-products.
Government support
On the opposite side of politics from Carr's Labor Party,
conservative Prime Minister John Howard, has performed an even
more complicated about turn.
Until recently, Howard had sided with US President George W
Bush's view that global warming was a myth and the Kyoto
Protocol on curbing greenhouse gas emissions "a nonsense."
Howard hasn't changed his mind about Kyoto, but this week he
said: "I don't think global warming [from fossil fuel burning]
is a myth. I have seen enough scientific evidence ... and while
I think some of the extreme manifestations of global warming are
mythical, I do think there is a very strong case for controlling
greenhouse gas emissions."
His change of heart comes after a period in which his
government's condemnation of the Kyoto Protocol as a deliberate
handicapping of advanced industrial nations like Australia has
been replaced by claims that it doesn't go far enough to address
the issue.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer went further,
saying: "Technology is the answer to global warming, not the
Kyoto protocol, and nuclear energy is part of that answer in the
context of global warming."
He also said: "The public seems more persuadable that nuclear
power is a safe alternative, and there should be a debate -- a
sophisticated debate not a rant -- from the Greens."
In response, the leader of The Greens (CORR) party in
Australia, Senator Bob Brown, said it remained implacably
opposed to the nuclear option because it was impossible to stop
uranium and its deadlier form, plutonium, being diverted into
weapons of mass destruction.
"We need to turn off more lights, and use more solar and wind
energy," he says.
However even the green movement is divided over uranium. Peter
Garrett, the famously anti-American and anti-nuclear industry
lead singer of the rock band Midnight Oil and former leader of
the Australian Conservation Foundation, says: "We have no option
but to look again very carefully at nuclear technology."
Garrett said that soon after he took his seat as a Labor party
member in Australia's Federal Parliament, rattling many of its
supporters, for whom opposition to nuclear power and the
enforced closure or curbing of existing Australian uranium mines
had been an unchallenged policy position for decades.
Uranium source
While this was going on, the Australian government confirmed it
had been in high level negotiations with China for several
months over requests by Beijing for future access to the
country's major uranium mines.
Australia has 41 percent of the world's proven reserves of
uranium, of which 38 percent is inside the Olympic Dam copper
mine in South Australia.
The talks with China are said to be progressing well, with most
of the discussion now being related to the safeguards both
nations would wish to put in place to prevent the diversion of
uranium into the nuclear weapons programs of rogue states or
even terrorist organizations.
However the coal industry isn't taking the Australian move
toward a nuclear option lightly. It is lobbying politicians on
the merits of expanding the export of uranium to boost the
national economy, rather than actually using it in Australia in
place of coal.
The strategy of the coal industry, supported by research
funding from the Australian government, is to extend the
economic life of coal far into the future by developing "clean"
coal burning processes in which the carbon dioxide emissions are
turned into a liquid that can be piped into deep and supposedly
stable underground reservoirs instead of allowed to escape into
the atmosphere.
But those who are leaning to the nuclear option in turn ask
whether unproven clean coal technology will actually prove more
costly, and perhaps even more dangerous to the environment, than
uranium fired power stations.
This story has been viewed 582 times.
Copyright © 1999-2005 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
15 BBC: Nuclear talk powers fresh
Last Updated: Monday, 13 June, 2005
By Neil Leighton BBC News, Bristol
A debate on dealing with nuclear waste raises fears of future
power stations in the west of England.
[Oldbury power station. Picture courtesy of British Nuclear
Group.]
The Oldbury nuclear power station is due to close in 2008
"It feels like we are murderers deciding whether to bury the
body," shouted the middle-aged gentleman.
"My concern is that we don't become serial killers."
Feelings were running high in the packed community room in
Thornbury, South Gloucestershire.
The public had been invited by the Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management to discuss what the nation should do with the
80,000 cubic metre legacy of more than 60 years of nuclear
power.
The subject may have been waste, but for many there was a more
important issue: the possibility of more nuclear power stations
being built.
I would think Hinkley is hi on the list of new nuclear power
stations Professor Ian Fells
Nuclear power is an emotive subject, nowhere more so than in the
West of England where four power stations are either operating or
being decommissioned.
While the industry may be in decline, it still employs around
2,000 people and injects Ł500m into the regional economy.
But with power stations in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, Oldbury,
South Gloucestershire, and Hinkley Point, Somerset, has come the
associated baggage of health scares and safety concerns.
And with reports the government may resurrect the UK's power
station building programme, the issue is once again a hot topic
across the region.
Of the UK's 14 operating power stations, all but one will be shut
by 2023.
The nuclear power industry has argued that if Britain is to meet
its future energy needs and targets for tackling climate change,
more power stations are needed.
Nuclear Power in the West
[Hinkley A power station. Picture courtesy of British Nuclear
Group.] Berkeley: Opened 1962. Closed 1989 Hinkley A: Opened
1965. Closed 2000 Hinkley B: Opened 1976. Due to close 2011
Oldbury: Opened 1968. Due to close 2008
The huge start-up costs of building new stations means current
sites would probably be preferred if the government decided to
build again.
Hinkley Point has been mooted as a favoured location. Hinkley A,
the first power station at the site, closed in 2000, and Hinkley
B is due to shut in 2011.
Planning permission for a third station was granted in 1990, but
the government chose not to proceed.
Although, planning permission has now lapsed, many in the
industry believe Hinkley remains a prime location.
"I would think Hinkley is high on the list of new nuclear power
stations," says Ian Fells, fellow of the Royal Academy of
Engineering.
"Hinkley has already gone through the planning process and that
could be revived," he added.
Professor Fells believes Berkeley or Oldbury could also be
considered, although other industry insiders think the sites are
not suitable for new power stations.
Environmental groups have also highlighted Hinkley as a likely
target and are focusing on blocking any moves to build another
power station.
'Risks too great'
Somerset-based campaign group Stop Hinkley claims there is a
cancer cluster close to the power station.
Spokesman Jim Duffy said people were more aware of the risks of
having a power station on their doorstep than they were when many
existing stations were built.
"People are very sophisticated in a way which they weren't in the
1950s," Mr Duffy said.
"And they also tend to see ways of (opposition) which weren't
there in the 1950s and 1960s."
Referring to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Bristol Green Party
spokesman Geoff Collard said the risks were too great.
"Even if there is a fraction of a per cent chance of a leak, the
consequences are so horrendous that we can't afford to take the
risk," he said.
But South West-based environmentalist James Lovelock believes
nuclear power, which produces very little carbon, may hold the
key to tackling global warming.
He says radiation emitted from nuclear power stations was less
than that which occurs in our natural environment.
He said the opposition to nuclear power was based on "fear and
the perception of danger - not reality".
"Everybody was so scared stiff during the Cold War that there
would be an all-out nuclear war between the superpowers," Dr
Lovelock said
"It was a matter of great concern, it became more extreme and a
climate of fear built up.
"We are still paying the price (for that)."
*****************************************************************
16 Xinhua: CNNC boosts nuclear power output
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-14 07:51:52
BEIJING, June 14 -- China National Nuclear Corporation
(CNNC), the nation's largest reactor builder, intends to use its
own technology to build two 650-megawatt reactors and two
1,000-megawatt reactors at its Qinshan plant, which will more
than double its generation capacity.
Upon completion of both projects, the installed capacity of
the Qinshan nuclear power plant will be set to rise to 6,200
megawatts from the current 2,900 megawatts generated by five
running reactors, a CNNC news centre official said.
Total investment for the planned expansion projects is
expected to reach US$4.33 billion, based on construction costs
provided by CNNC.
For the two 650-megawatt reactors, it will cost US$1,330 for
each kilowatt of added capacity. The 1,000-megawatt reactors are
US$30 less for each kilowatt to build because of the technology
that the two gigawatt reactors will use, said company sources.
The two 650-megawatt reactors have already won final central
government approval, and will be installed at the second phase
project of the Qinshan plant in Zhejiang Province, which has
already been operating two Chinese-designed 600-megawatt
reactors, using technology known as the China Nuclear Power
(CNP) 600, its own technology.
"Infrastructure for the two reactors is scheduled to
commence construction next March, and the expansion project is
expected to last at least five or six years," Li said.
The remaining two planned 1-gigawatt reactors will go to
Fangjiashan, 650 metres away from the Qinshan phase I project,
which already has one 300-megawatt reactor in operation.
The two gigawatt reactors have been designed with a new
nuclear power technology, CNP 1,000, that CNNC is developing.
"Both reactors will be part of the expansion of the Qinshan
phase I project and have yet to win central government
approval," the CNNC official said.
"We aren't sure when the approval will come - it may be in
the next four or five years," said Ma Mingze,
deputy-general-manager of the Qinshan Nuclear Power Co, a unit
of CNNC.
A design of a prototype for the CNP 1,000 reactor may be
ready by the end of the year, CNNC President Kang Rixin said.
Because of the reduced costs of the two gigawatt reactors,
the power sold to electricity distributors from the CNP 1,000
plants will be 5 per cent cheaper, Kang said.
Among the five reactors in operation at the Qinshan nuclear
power base, another two 700-megawatt reactors are being placed
in the phase III project that uses the Candu technology
developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL).
China has vowed to increase the nuclear content of its power
generation mix to 4 per cent by 2020 from the current 2 per
cent, which can be translated into some 30 nuclear plants
totalling 40 gigawatts of installed capacity.
The plant locations have been selected at Qinshan, Sanmen in
Zhejiang, Yangjiang of Guangdong, Hui'an in Fujian and Haiyang
in Shandong.
The aim is to spend 400 billion yuan (US$48.33 billion) on
the projects within the next 15 years, said Kang.
(Source: China Daily)
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: Carolina Power & Light Company, Brunswick Steam Electric Plant,
FR Doc E5-3050
[Federal Register: June 13, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 112)]
[Notices] [Page 34161-34163] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13jn05-88]
Units 1 and 2; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendments
to Facility Operating Licenses, Proposed No Significant Hazards
Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is
considering issuance of amendments to Facility Operating License
No. DPR-71 and Facility Operating License No. DPR-62 issued to
Carolina Power & Light Company (the licensee), for operation of
the Brunswick Steam Electric Plant, Units 1 and 2, located in
Brunswick County, North Carolina.
The proposed changes replace the existing requirement of
Technical Specification (TS) 3.4.5, ``RCS [Reactor Coolant
System] Leakage Detection Instrumentation,'' Required Action D.1,
to enter Limiting Condition for Operation (LCO) 3.0.3 if required
leakage detection systems are inoperable with the requirement to
be in Mode 3 within 12 hours and Mode 4 within 36 hours.
[[Page 34162]] The reason for the exigency is to fulfill the
NRC's requirement for the request for exigent processing of the
proposed amendments as indicated in NRC Inspection Manual Part
9900, ``Operations--Notices of Enforcement Discretion [NOEDs],''
following NRC's granting of a verbal NOED on May 12, 2005
(documented in a letter to the NRC on May 13, 2005).
Before issuance of the proposed license amendments, the
Commission will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy
Act of 1954, as amended (the Act) and the Commission's
regulations.
Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.91(a)(6) for amendments to be granted under
exigent circumstances, the NRC staff must determine that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration.
Under the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 50.92, this means
that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed
amendments would not (1) involve a significant increase in the
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed change replaces the existing requirement of TS
3.4.5, Required Action D.1 to enter LCO 3.0.3 if required leakage
detection systems are inoperable with the requirement to be in
Mode 3 within 12 hours and Mode 4 within 36 hours. This is
accomplished by deleting Condition D and including the ``all
required leakage detection systems inoperable'' statement in
Condition C.
The proposed change does not involve physical changes to any
plant structure, system, or component. As a result, no new
failure modes of the RCS leakage detection systems are being
introduced. Additionally, the RCS leakage detection systems have
no impact on any initiating event frequency. Therefore, the
proposed change cannot increase * * * the probability [of an
accident] previously evaluated.
The consequences of a previously analyzed accident are dependent
on the initial conditions assumed for the analysis, the behavior
of the fuel during the analyzed accident, the availability and
successful functioning of the equipment assumed to operate in
response to the analyzed event, and the setpoints at which these
actions are initiated. The RCS leakage detection systems do not
perform an accident mitigating function. ECCS [emergency core
cooling system], RPS [reactor protection system], and primary and
secondary containment isolation actuations all occur based on
high drywell pressure and/or low vessel water level. The proposed
change has no impact on any setpoints or functions related to
these actuations. Therefore, the proposed change cannot increase
* * * the consequences [of an accident] previously evaluated.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed change eliminates the unnecessarily restrictive
shutdown requirements of entering LCO 3.0.3 when all TS required
leakage detection systems are inoperable. No installed equipment
is being operated in a different manner. There is no alteration
to the parameters within which the plant is normally operated or
in the setpoints that initiate protective or mitigative actions.
As a result no new failure modes are being introduced. Therefore,
the proposed change does not create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a
margin of safety? Response: No.
The proposed change maintains the existing level of safety by
imposing shutdown requirements that are as conservative as those
currently imposed by TS 3.4.4 for actual RCS operational leakage
in excess of TS requirements. The net effect of this change is to
allow a unit to operate for five additional hours in Mode 1 with
no operable TS required leakage detection systems, while exiting
the Mode of Applicability for RCS leakage detection
instrumentation one hour earlier (i.e., 36 hours to be in Mode 4
versus 37 hours per the existing TS 3.4.5, Required Action D.1).
Elimination of the intermediate 7 hours to Mode 2 requirement,
imposed by LCO 3.0.3, allows the unit to reach the Mode 3 from
full power conditions in an orderly manner and without
challenging plant safety systems. Therefore, the proposed change
does not result in a significant reduction in the margin of
safety.
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to
determine that the amendment requests involve no significant
hazards consideration.
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed
determination. Any comments received within 14 days after the
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making
any final determination.
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendments until the
expiration of the 14-day notice period. However, should
circumstances change during the notice period, such that failure
to act in a timely way would result, for example, in derating or
shutdown of the facility, the Commission may issue the license
amendment before the expiration of the 14-day notice period,
provided that its final determination is that the amendment
involves no significant hazards consideration. The final
determination will consider all public and State comments
received. Should the Commission take this action, it will publish
in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. The Commission
expects that the need to take this action will occur very
infrequently.
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at
the NRC's Public Document Room, located at One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland.
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to
intervene is discussed below.
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR part 2. Interested persons should consult
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File
Area 01F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/ reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/. If a
request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed
by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer
designated by the Commission or
[[Page 34163]] by the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the request and/or
petition; and the Secretary or the Chief Administrative Judge of
the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of a
hearing or an appropriate order.
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1)
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property,
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to
those specific sources and documents of which the
petitioner/requestor is aware and on which the
petitioner/requestor intends to rely to establish those facts or
expert opinion. The petitioner/requestor must provide sufficient
information to show that a genuine dispute exists with the
applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions shall
be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment under
consideration.
The contention must be one which, if proven, would entitle the
petitioner/ requestor to relief. A petitioner/requestor who fails
to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least one
contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding,
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the
conduct of the hearing.
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final
determination on the issue of no significant hazards
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration,
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the
final determination is that the amendment request involves a
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take
place before the issuance of any amendment.
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR
2.309(a)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier,
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff; (3) e-mail addressed to the Office of
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to
the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at
(301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of
the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene
should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it
is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of
facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to
OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and
petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to David T.
Conley, Associate General Counsel II--Legal Department, Progress
Energy Service Company, LLC, Post Office Box 1551, Raleigh, North
Carolina 27602, attorney for the licensee.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendment dated May 17, 2005, which is available
for public inspection at the Commission's Public Document Room
(PDR), located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21,
11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly
available records will be accessible electronically from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not
have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the
documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR Reference
staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415- 4737, or by e-mail
to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th day of
June 2005. For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brenda L. Mozafari, Senior Project Manager, Section 2, Project
Directorate II, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E5-3050 Filed 6-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
18 NRC: Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc., James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear
FR Doc E5-3053
[Federal Register: June 13, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 112)]
[Notices] [Page 34163-34165] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13jn05-89]
Power Plant; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment to
Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant Hazards
Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a Hearing The
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) is
considering issuance of an amendment to Facility Operating
License No. DPR-59, issued to Entergy Nuclear Operations, Inc.,
(the licensee) for operation of the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear
Power Plant (JAFNPP) located in Oswego County, New York.
The proposed amendment would revise the Technical Specifications
(TSs) related to the safety-related battery systems. The revision
is based on TS Task Force (TSTF) Change Traveler TSTF-360,
Revision 1, ``Direct Current (DC) Electrical Rewrite,'' and would
revise TSs for inoperable battery chargers, provide alternative
testing criteria for battery charger testing, and revise TSs for
battery cell monitoring.
The licensee has requested that this proposed license amendment
be processed per Title 10 of the Code of
[[Page 34164]] Federal Regulations (10 CFR) Section 50.91(a)(6),
due to exigent circumstances. The exigent circumstances are that
spurious intermittent alarms have been received associated with a
battery charger. If the battery charger should fail,
trouble-shooting activities and maintenance on the battery
charger will likely take longer than the TS completion time to
restore operability in 8 hours. A temporary battery charger is
available to maintain the battery in a fully-charged condition.
Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission
will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of
1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations.
Pursuant to 10 CFR 50.91(a)(6) for amendments to be granted under
exigent circumstances, the NRC staff must determine that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration.
Under the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 50.92, this means
that operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed
amendment would not (1) involve a significant increase in the
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
or (2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of
accident from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously
evaluated? The DC Sources and Battery Cell Parameters are not
initiators of any accident sequence analyzed in JAFNPP's Updated
Final Safety Analysis Report (UFSAR). As such, the proposed
changes do not involve a significant increase in the probability
of an accident previously evaluated.
The initial conditions of the Design Basis Accident (DBA) and
transient analyses in JAFNPP's UFSAR assume Engineered Safety
Feature (ESF) systems are operable. The DC electrical power
distribution system is designed to provide sufficient capacity,
capability, redundancy, and reliability to ensure the
availability of necessary power to ESF systems so that the fuel,
reactor coolant system, and containment design limits are not
exceeded. The operability of the DC electrical power distribution
system in accordance with the proposed TS is consistent with the
initial assumptions of the accident analyses and is based upon
meeting the design basis of the plant. Therefore, the proposed
changes do not involve a significant increase in the consequences
of an accident previously evaluated.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated? The proposed changes do not involve any physical
alteration of the JAFNPP. The temporary charger, when placed in
service, will be powered from an emergency bus and have
appropriate electrical isolation. Installed equipment is not
being operated in a new or different manner. There are no
setpoints at which protective or mitigative actions are initiated
that are affected by the proposed changes. The operability of the
DC electrical power distribution system in accordance with the
proposed TS is consistent with the initial assumptions of the
accident analyses and is based upon meeting the design basis of
the plant. These proposed changes will not alter the manner in
which equipment operation is initiated, nor will the functional
demands on credited equipment be changed. No alteration in the
procedures, which ensure the unit remains within analyzed limits,
is proposed, and no change is being made to procedures relied
upon to respond to an off-normal event. As such, no new failure
modes are being introduced. The proposed changes do not alter
assumptions made in the safety analyses. Therefore, the proposed
changes do not create the possibility of a new or different kind
of accident from any accident previously evaluated.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a
margin of safety? The proposed changes will not adversely affect
operation of plant equipment. These changes will not result in a
change to the setpoints at which protective actions are
initiated. Sufficient DC capacity to support operation of
mitigation equipment is ensured. The changes associated with the
new administrative TS program will ensure that the station
batteries are maintained in a highly reliable manner. The
equipment fed by the DC electrical power distribution system will
continue to provide adequate power to safety-related loads in
accordance with analyses assumptions. Therefore, the proposed
changes do not involve a significant reduction in a margin of
safety.
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to
determine that the amendment request involves no significant
hazards consideration.
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed
determination. Any comments received within 14 days after the
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making
any final determination.
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the
expiration of the 14-day notice period. However, should
circumstances change during the notice period, such that failure
to act in a timely way would result, for example, in derating or
shutdown of the facility, the Commission may issue the license
amendment before the expiration of the 14-day notice period,
provided that its final determination is that the amendment
involves no significant hazards consideration. The final
determination will consider all public and State comments
received. Should the Commission take this action, it will publish
in the Federal Register a notice of issuance. The Commission
expects that the need to take this action will occur very
infrequently.
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal
workdays. Documents may be examined, and/or copied for a fee, at
the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint
North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first
floor), Rockville, Maryland.
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to
intervene is discussed below.
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating
license and any person whose interest may be affected by this
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR Part 2. Interested persons should consult
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File
Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/ reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/. If a
request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is filed
by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer
designated by the Commission or
[[Page 34165]] by the Chief Administrative Judge of the Atomic
Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the request and/or
petition; and the Secretary or the Chief Administrative Judge of
the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board will issue a notice of a
hearing or an appropriate order.
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1)
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property,
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged
facts or expert opinion which support the contention and on which
the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at the
hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide references to
those specific sources and documents of which the petitioner is
aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely to establish
those facts or expert opinion. The petition must include
sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute exists with
the applicant on a material issue of law or fact. Contentions
shall be limited to matters within the scope of the amendment
under consideration. The contention must be one which, if proven,
would entitle the petitioner to relief. A petitioner/requestor
who fails to satisfy these requirements with respect to at least
one contention will not be permitted to participate as a party.
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding,
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the
conduct of the hearing.
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final
determination on the issue of no significant hazards
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration,
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately
effective, notwithstanding the request for a hearing. Any hearing
held would take place after issuance of the amendment. If the
final determination is that the amendment request involves a
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take
place before the issuance of any amendment.
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR
2.309(c)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier,
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, 20852, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff; (3) E-mail addressed to the Office of
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
HEARINGDOCKET@NRC.GOV; or (4) facsimile transmission addressed to
the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at
(301) 415-1101, verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of
the request for hearing and petition for leave to intervene
should also be sent to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it
is requested that copies be transmitted either by means of
facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to
OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. A copy of the request for hearing and
petition for leave to intervene should also be sent to Mr. John
Fulton, Assistant General Counsel, Entergy Nuclear Operations,
Inc., 440 Hamilton Avenue, White Plains, NY 10601, attorney for
the licensee.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendment dated April 27, 2005, as supplemented
June 3, 2005, which is available for public inspection at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, File Public
Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do
not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing
the documents located in ADAMS, should contact the NRC PDR
Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or
by e- mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 7th
day of June 2005.
For The Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
John P. Boska, Sr. Project Manager, Section 1, Project
Directorate 1, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E5-3053 Filed 6-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for the
FR Doc E5-3054
[Federal Register: June 13, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 112)]
[Notices] [Page 34161] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13jn05-87]
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Review; Comment Request
AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice
of the OMB review of information collection and solicitation of
public comment.
SUMMARY: The NRC has recently submitted to OMB for review the
following proposal for the collection of information under the
provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C.
Chapter 35). The NRC hereby informs potential respondents that an
agency may not conduct or sponsor, and that a person is not
required to respond to, a collection of information unless it
displays a currently valid OMB control number.
1. Type of submission, new, revision, or extension: Extension.
2. The title of the information collection: Notice of Enforcement
Discretion (NOEDs) for Operating Power Reactors and Gaseous
Diffusion Plants (GDP).
3. The form number if applicable: Not applicable. 4. How often
the collection is required: On occasion. 5. Who will be required
or asked to report: Nuclear power reactor licensees and gaseous
diffusion plant certificate holders.
6. An estimate of the number of annual responses: 26. 7. The
estimated number of annual respondents: 11. 8. An estimate of the
total number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement
or request: 1,991 hours (1810 reporting [121 hours per response]
and 181 recordkeeping [16.45 hours per recordkeeper]).
9. An indication of whether Section 3507(d), Pub. L. 104-13
applies: Not applicable.
10. Abstract: The NRC's Enforcement Policy addresses
circumstances in which the NRC may exercise enforcement
discretion. A specific type of enforcement discretion is
designated as a Notice of Enforcement Discretion (NOED) and
relates to circumstances which may arise where a nuclear power
plant licensee's compliance with a Technical Specification
Limiting Condition for Operation or with other license conditions
would involve an unnecessary plant transient or shutdown, or
performance of testing, inspection, or system realignment that is
inappropriate for the specific plant conditions, or unnecessary
delays in plant startup without a corresponding health and safety
benefit. Similarly, for a gaseous diffusion plant, circumstances
may arise where compliance with a Technical Safety Requirement or
other condition would unnecessarily call for a total plant
shutdown, or, notwithstanding that a safety, safeguards or
security feature was degraded or inoperable, compliance would
unnecessarily place the plant in a transient or condition where
those features could be required.
A licensee or certificate holder seeking the issuance of an NOED
must provide a written justification, in accordance with guidance
provided in NRC Inspection Manual, Part 9900, which documents the
safety basis for the request and provides whatever other
information the NRC staff deems necessary to decide whether or
not to exercise discretion.
A copy of the final supporting statement may be viewed free of
charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North,
11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB
clearance requests are available at the NRC Worldwide Web site:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The
document will be available on the NRC home page site for 60 days
after the signature date of this notice.
Comments and questions should be directed to the OMB reviewer
listed below by July 13, 2005. Comments received after this date
will be considered if it is practical to do so, but assurance of
consideration cannot be given to comments received after this
date. John A. Asalone, Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs (3150- 0136), NEOB-10202, Office of Management and
Budget, Washington, DC 20503.
Comments can also be e-mailed to John_A._Asalone@omb.eop.gov or
submitted by telephone at (202) 395-4650.
The NRC Clearance Officer is Brenda Jo. Shelton, 301-415-7233.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 6th day of June, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information
Services.
[FR Doc. E5-3054 Filed 6-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
20 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
FR Doc E5-3058
[Federal Register: June 13, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 112)]
[Notices] [Page 34166-34167] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13jn05-91]
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Merck & Co.,
Inc. in Rahway, NJ AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Betsy Ullrich, Commercial & R
Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region I, 475
Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, 19406, telephone
(610) 337-5040, fax (610) 337-5269; or by e-mail: exu@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is issuing a license amendment to
[[Page 34167]] Merck & Co., Inc. (Merck) for Materials License
No. 29-00117-06, to authorize disposal of soil contaminated with
hydrogen-3 (tritium) pursuant to 10 CFR 20.2002. NRC has prepared
an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this action in
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 51. Based on the
EA, the NRC has concluded that a Finding of No Significant Impact
(FONSI) is appropriate.
The amendment will be issued following the publication of this
Notice.
II. EA Summary The purpose of the action is to authorize the
disposal of 61 cubic meters (80 cubic yards) of solid material
(soil) containing 28 megabequerels (756 microcuries) total of
tritium pursuant to 10 CFR 20.2002 to an industrial landfill. The
licensee provided a dose analysis to justify the disposal. The
licensee performed dose assessments of the disposal of this
material and determined that such disposal would result in doses
of much less than 0.1 millirem in a year to a member of the
public.
The NRC staff has prepared an EA in support of the license
amendment. The soil was excavated and surveyed prior to the
licensee requesting the license amendment. The NRC staff has
reviewed the information and performed dose assessments of the
disposal of the soil to an industrial landfill, based on the
information submitted by the licensee. Based on its review, the
staff has determined that such disposal would result in doses of
much less than 1 millirem in a year to members of the public.
Therefore, the staff concluded that such disposal meets the
requirements of 10 CFR Part 20.2002, and a Finding of No
Significant Impact is appropriate.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact The staff has prepared the
EA (summarized above) in support of the license amendment to
dispose of 80 cubic yards of soil contaminated with 756
microcuries of tritium. The NRC staff has evaluated the
licensee's request and has concluded that the completed action
complies with the criteria of 10 CFR Part 20.2002. On the basis
of the EA, the NRC has concluded that the environmental impacts
from the action are expected to be insignificant and has
determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement for
the action.
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action,
including the application for the license amendment and
supporting documentation, are available electronically at the
NRC's Electronic Reading Room at
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public
documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related
to this Notice are the Environmental Assessment [ML051570224] and
the Merck & Co, Inc. amendment request dated February 23, 2004
[ML040711197]. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who
encounter problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS,
should contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at (800)
397-4209 or (301) 415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov.
Documents related to operations conducted under this license not
specifically referenced in this Notice may not be electronically
available and/or may not be publicly available. Persons who have
an interest in reviewing these documents should submit a request
to NRC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Instructions
for submitting a FOIA request can be found on the NRC's Web site
at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/foia/foia-privacy.html .
Dated at King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, this 6th day of June,
2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
James P. Dwyer, Chief, Commercial and R Branch, Division of
Nuclear Materials Safety, Region I.
[FR Doc. E5-3058 Filed 6-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
21 TIME.com: Are These Towers Safe? --
Jun. 20, 2005
JEFF JACOBSON / REDUX FOR TIME TWIN TARGETS?:
The cooling towers of the Limerick nuclear power plant, on the
Schuylkill River near Philadelphia, dominate the night sky From
the Magazine | Time In Depth Are These Towers Safe?
Why America's nuclear power plants are still so vulnerable to
terrorist attack--and how to make them safer.
A special investigation By MARK THOMPSON
+ Nuclear Comeback: New Plants on the Horizon?
+ Perspective: Reactors Abroad
Posted Sunday, Jun. 12, 2005
The first hint of trouble would probably be no more than shadows
flitting through the darkness outside one of the nation's nuclear
power reactors. Beyond the fencing, black-clad snipers would take
aim at sentries atop guard towers ringing the site. The guards
tend to doubt they would be safe in their bullet-resistant
enclosures. They call such perches iron coffins, which is what
they could become if the terrorists used deadly but easily
obtainable .50-cal. sniper rifles.
The saboteurs would break through fences by using bolt cutters
or Bangalore torpedoes, pipe-shaped explosives developed by the
British army in India nearly a century ago....
To get immediate access to this complete story, you must be a
TIME Magazine subscriber.
*****************************************************************
22 TIME.com: New Plants on the Horizon? --
Jun. 20, 2005
5.0 Mon Jun 13 12:08:02 2005
By DANIEL EISENBERG, ERIC ROSTON
Protecting the nation's nuclear power reactors from attack may
be a daunting challenge. But within the next decade, terrorists
could have even more such targets in their sights. If the
suddenly resurgent industry can convince wary investors that
times have changed, the first new generation of nuclear plants
launched in almost three decades could be running within 10
years.
More than a quarter-century after the Three Mile Island accident
seemed to have sealed its fate, nuclear power has "a head of
steam now that it hasn't had before," says Andrew White, head of
General Electric's nuclear-energy business. Concerns about
global warming and demand for electricity are growing, and
prices for fossil fuels like natural gas are steadily rising.
Even environmentalists like Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart
Brand, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and scientist James
Lovelock have endorsed the once taboo energy source as a
credible, clean alternative to coal- and natural-gas-powered
plants. While most Americans still don't want a nuke plant in
their backyard, some economically depressed areas, like Port
Gibson, Miss., and Oswego, N.Y., are actively lobbying to be the
home of a new reactor--and of all the jobs and tax revenue that
come with it. Most important, the powers that be in Washington,
including President George W. Bush and Republican leaders in
Congress, are firmly behind nuclear's expansion.
The industry's recent relatively solid record of safety and
efficiency has helped its image. In the past decade, electricity
deregulation has ushered in a wave of nuclear consolidation,
with major powers like Exelon, Entergy, Duke and Dominion
Resources paying billions of dollars to buy up many of the
nation's plants and squeeze more juice from them. Nuclear power
now supplies about 20% of total electricity in the U.S., up from
just 4.5% in 1973. At the same time, the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has given preliminary approval for three new modular,
supposedly safer reactors, while simplifying the byzantine
new-plant approval process. Three nuclear-generating companies
have already started the process, and half the current reactors
in the U.S. are applying for renewals of their soon-to-expire
40-year licenses.
Still, for all the talk about a coming "nuclear renaissance,"
the industry's growth prospects could easily experience a
meltdown. Various pieces of the energy bill being discussed in
Washington include the possibility of tax credits, loan
guarantees and an extended government-insurance program in case
of major accidents, all of which could help spur new
construction. But most industry experts say it will take many
more federal handouts to convince Wall Street that new nuclear
power plants--which went way over budget in their first
incarnation--can ultimately be economically competitive. The
thorniest issue facing the industry is what to do with the
40,000 tons of radioactive waste being stored primarily at the
same plants that produced it. The Energy Department's
long-delayed plan to open an underground-storage facility in
Nevada remains stalled by lawsuits and local resistance, and no
alternative long-term solution has yet gained much traction.
Critics say that is reason enough for the nuclear industry to be
buried once and for all rather than resurrected. --By Daniel
Eisenberg and Eric Roston
From the Jun. 20, 2005 issue of TIME
*****************************************************************
23 OMB Watch: Nuclear Commission Allows Access to Classified Information, Maybe
Published: 06/13/2005
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published a final rule
June 2, allowing individuals or organizations access to
classified information on agency licensing activities if they can
demonstrate a "need to know." The agency originally published an
identical final rule Dec. 15, 2004, but withdrew it after
negative comments.
The rule amends NRC's regulations (10 CFR 25, 10 CFR 95)
governing access to classified information and the procedures
for getting the security clearance necessary to handle the
information.
The changes to the rule broaden who could potentially access
classified information regarding licensing activities.
Previously, the only people allowed access to such information
included licensees (holders of radioactive materials license),
certificate holders, and others regulated by NRC. The new rule
allows anyone not within the above categories to apply for a
security clearance if they "need to know" classified information
in connection with licensing activities. Need to know, as
defined by 10 CFR Part 25, means "a determination by an
authorized holder of classified information that a prospective
recipient requires access to a specific classified information
to perform or assist in a lawful and authorized governmental
function under the cognizance of the Commission."
The impetus for the change was the upcoming license application
that the Department of Energy will likely submit in order to
operate a radioactive waste repository in Yucca Mountain,
Nevada. Clearly, environmental and public interest groups would
need to participate in these proceedings, and therefore the
regulations needed to be altered to give them access. However,
it is unclear if all interested parties will be able to get the
access they need. It is not clear what the criteria are for
determining the "need to know." NRC will also conduct background
investigations on anyone applying to access them. Agency
officials responsible for the information will then make any
determination about the application.
NRC published the original final rule Dec. 15, 2004 along with a
proposed rule the same day. The agency stated that if any
adverse comments were submitted in reaction, it would withdraw
the final rule. Seven environmental and public interest groups
submitted a letter objecting over the rule's language. They
asserted that the rule did not make it clear enough that public
interest and environmental organizations, or other parties,
could take part in licensing proceedings. They also questioned
how the NRC will apply the "need to know" criterion.
In response to these comments, NRC withdrew the final rule Feb.
24. However, the agency did not take the comments into
consideration for the new final rule. While it responded to the
comments, it made no change, therefore the language still
remains vague.
NRC states that this rulemaking only concerns access to
classified information, and does not address safeguards
information (SGI) or other sensitive but unclassified (SBU)
information. The agency published a proposed rule Feb. 11
expanding the amount of information it can hide from the public
as SGI. OMB Watch submitted detailed commentschallenging many of
the changes.
The June 2 final rule on classified documents is effective on
July 5.
© 2005 OMB Watch 1742 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
20009 202-234-8494 (phone) 202-234-8584 (fax)
*****************************************************************
24 www.GovExec.com: Plan to improve nuclear-detection technology mired
in red tape (6/10/05)
By Siobhan Gorman, National Journal
Back in 1987, as President Reagan's undersecretary of Defense for
policy, Fred Ikle worked on what he felt was a groundbreaking
Defense Science Board report that highlighted the need to improve
nuclear-detection technology. Nothing happened.
In 2004, he worked on another Defense Science Board report that
highlighted the need to improve nuclear-detection technology.
This time, he wasn't about to let the report go unnoticed.
Ikle knew that the Center for the Study of the Presidency, a
small Washington think tank, had been organizing roundtables
aimed at offering practical advice to the Department of Homeland
Security. The center, founded by former NATO Ambassador David
Abshire, used its pull to assemble a heavyweight group of
scientists who had defense backgrounds, including Norman
Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin.
In the spring of 2004, the roundtable convened and concluded
that politics, more than technology, was hindering the
development of nuclear-detection capabilities. The group thought
that if someone could break through the bureaucracy and create a
type of "mini-Manhattan Project," the government could perhaps
produce a real technological breakthrough in five to 10 years.
The goal would be to create nuclear-detection equipment that was
small enough and cheap enough to deploy around the world -- from
Tora Bora to the Port of Los Angeles -- and sensitive enough to
detect highly enriched uranium.
Ikle and Richard Wagner, who authored the 2004 Defense Science
Board study, pressed their Defense Department contacts. James
Loy, the deputy secretary at Homeland Security, pressed within
his department. Eventually, the issue rose to the level of a
White House "Deputies Committee" meeting.
"In Washington, people mostly have meetings," Ikle grumbles,
noting that while the Manhattan Project produced the A-bomb in
28 months, "it takes Washington 28 months to produce an
organizational chart."
It was really more like six months before the deputies settled
on a model, which they called the Domestic Nuclear Detection
Office, and got the go-ahead from the White House. Loy says the
purpose of the office was to balance the premise that
nuclear-detection capabilities were inherently limited by
physics and couldn't get much better, against the more
optimistic notion of Ikle and his allies that scientists weren't
pushing the limits of physics hard enough. So, the office was
charged with both maximizing the current capabilities and
establishing a "mini-Manhattan Project."
Vayl Oxford got a call in November 2004 asking him to lead the
office's start-up. At the time, he was director of
counterproliferation at the National Security Council. He
accepted and immediately began drawing up his plans. The office
would coordinate detection efforts across the federal
government; establish common operational plans for officials at
all levels of government who handle detection; and develop a
global "architecture" of nuclear detection.
But even as Oxford was planning, a skeptical Congress began
yanking the rug out from under him. Arguing that DHS had no
clear plan for how to spend the money, the House Appropriations
Committee slashed the office's funding from $227 million to $127
million. "We're not going to resign ourselves to that number,"
says Oxford, noting that budget figures are rarely final this
early in the year.
Some of the participants in the original think-tank group
behind the idea worry that the research-and-development program
won't have the stature of a Manhattan Project if it is buried in
the bowels of the Homeland Security Department. Ikle is
concerned that the R program, if it gets funded at all, might
parcel out small amounts of money to universities in various
congressional districts, and not amount to much in the end. Many
in the original roundtable group are already trying to persuade
the White House to establish a mega-nuclear-detection research
project outside of the new office. At the White House, though,
Kenneth Rapuano, deputy assistant to the president for homeland
security, says he sees the office as an ambitious research
effort. Ikle's criticism, he says, "is a bit premature."
If the new office eventually produces truly revolutionary
detectors, the only place they're sure to be deployed is at the
ports of entry along the border. Oxford has the power to cajole,
but not to compel, the Energy Department and the FBI to heed his
recommendations.
Insiders report that the Defense Department is transferring
people and programs to the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and
sticking Homeland Security with the bill. Meanwhile, as the
office, which plans to eventually house 110 employees, collects
agents borrowed from other parts of the government, it runs the
risk of filling up with other departments' castoffs.
If all of these problems sound familiar, they should: The
creation of the Homeland Security Department happened pretty
much this way. Maybe the mini-Manhattan Project will do better.
©2005 by National Journal Group Inc. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
25 [du-list] DU & Neutron/X-ray Flux
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:30:17 -0700
Concern About Neutron and X-ray Flux From Palletized & Containerized
Pallets of Depleted Uranium Explosive Munitions, Especially 120mm/CA26 and
25mm/A986.
Exemption DOT-E 9649: Depleted Uranium Explosive Munitions
The U.S. Department of Transportation [DOT] Information Memorandum to the
Chief of Staff dated May 18, 2005 has an attachment: Reevaluation Summary
DOT-E 9649. The attachment reveals the following:
“Pallet contact radiation dose rates are generally twice, and in one case,
over four times the regulatory limit for Limited Quantity
materials. However, pallet and modal conveyance dose rates at one meter
are generally a multiple of three to six time justifiable Limited Quantity
classification, and for one sized round, six to eleven times. In the case
of this latter round, inappropriate radiation exposures could occur to
transport workers by being in the vicinity of the material for just 100
hours per year.”
Did the Office of Hazardous Materials Safety [OHMS] analysis include
measurements of the neutron and x-ray flux emitted from the munitions in
question?
Neutron and X-ray flux is a serious consideration which everyone seems to
ignore, and is of special concern in situations in which large amounts of
concentrated uranium are present.
To consider depleted uranium munitions as anything other than nuclear
weapons is obfuscation and self delusion of the worst sort.
Especially I request neutron and X-ray flux measurement data for 120mm/CA26
and 25mm/A986 such as are transported to, from and stored at Blue Grass
Army Depot [BGAD]. I live quite rurally15-20 miles as the crow flies from
[BGAD]; my daughter, her husband and three of my precious grandchildren
live less than 15 miles as the crow flies. In addition we pass right by
one of the main entry gates to BGAD very often on Highway 25 on the way
to/from Richmond, KY. Richmond has a sizeable population and any munitions
in transit to/from BGAD must pass through town. Naturally the reports in
the docket from BGAD caught my attention.
THE CASE FOR NEUTRON FLUX FROM DEPLETED URANIUM
Rate of Spontaneous Fission Neutrons From Uranium is 59.5+3 neutrons/g/hr
According to one reference [ http://iop.org/EJ/abstract/0370-1298/65/3/307
from Proc. Phys. Soc., D.J. Littler, 1952: “A Determination of the Rate of
Emission of Spontaneous Fission Neutrons in Natural Uranium”] the rate of
emission of spontaneous fission neutrons from natural uranium is computed
to be 59.5+3 3 neutrons/g/hr of uranium.
[re: “59.5+3 3.” I don’t know if that should be “3.3” or what. I’m not a
subscriber to their online journal, am independent researcher, and can’t
afford to purchase the whole article]
Uranium-238 Undergoes Spontaneous Fission at a Rate 35X That of Uranium-235
According to another
reference: [http://www.mcgoodwin.net/pages/otherbooks/rr_darksun.html],
Uranium-238 undergoes spontaneous fission at a rate 35 times that of
Uranium-235. Though U-238 is not fissile, i.e. does not sustain chain
reactions, it is indeed fissionable, SPONTANEOUSLY fissionable.
Neutrons produced by spontaneous fission may experience:
escape
non-fission capture by uranium
non-fission capture by other elements present
In addition, the size and shape of a quantity of uranium makes a difference
in the relative number of neutrons that escape or get captured. The
greater the surface area, the greater number of neutrons escaping.
Neutron radiation is known to be comparable to gamma rays as regards health
hazards.
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Smyth/Smyth2.html
Briefly and roughly stated: Uranium normally and continually emits atomic
particles called neutrons, traveling at high
velocity. http://www.b-reactor.org/transmut.htm
DEPLETED URANIUM MUNITIONS—ATTENUATED NEUTRON BOMBS?
Neutron Bomb [Enhanced Radiation Warhead-ERW] Basics: It kills people but
leaves equipment and buildings in place.
The primary lethal effects of the neutron bomb come from the radiation
damage caused by the neutrons it emits. Neutron radiation effects drop
off very rapidly with distance.
Tactical neutron bombs are primarily intended to kill soldiers who are
protected by armor. Steel armor can reduce neutron radiation only by a
modest amount.
Armor can absorb neutrons and neutron energy, but this is offset to some
extent by the fact that armor can also react harmfully with neutrons. Alloy
steels for example can develop induced radioactivity that remains dangerous
for some time. When fast neutrons are slowed down, the energy lost can
show up as x-rays. Some types of armor, like that of M-1 tank, employ
depleted uranium which can undergo fast fission, generating additional
neurons and becoming [insert here: MORE] radioactive[???? Depleted uranium
IS radioactive!!!]
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Outlaws/faq1
Neutron and gamma radiation can penetrate armor or several feet of earth
and is extremely destructive to living tissue. With neutron bombardment
there is short-range effectiveness and no long-term contamination as it
quickly dissipates after the explosion. No radioactive fallout is left behind
www.manuelsweb.com/sam_cohen.htm
One of the most disturbing realizations about the harmful effects of
neutrons is that there is no “smoking gun,” no evident of what caused the
harm when done in non-lethal doses. The victims could be tested by all
sorts of methods and NONE would EVER reveal that neutons were the cause of
a persons illnesses or birth defects.
WHY NEUTRONS ARE ESPECIALLY HARMFUL TO LIVING TISSUES
1. Neutrons are uncharged particles, thus atomic nuclei do not
repel them. A neutron has mass but no electrical charge. When freed they
make an extremely lethal form of radiation. The probability that a neutron
[fast neutron] with an initial energy of about 1 MeV [million electron
volts]will induce fission is rather low, but can be increased by a factor
of hundreds when the neutron is slowed down through a series of elastic
collisions with light nuclei such as hydrogen, deuterium, or carbon. The
preferred way of slowing down neutrons is to cause them to pass through
material of low atomic weight, such as hydrogenous material!
2. Neutrons are particularly effective in initiating nuclear
reactions if they pass through water. The light atoms in water absorb some
of the neutrons’ energy and do so without absorbing the neutrons themselves
[elastic collisions]. Neutrons are thus slowed down to the point they moved
with only the speed of molecules at room temperature. These thermal
neutrons stay in the vicinity of a particular nucleus a longer fraction of
a second and are more likely to be absorbed than fast neutrons.
3. The human body is hydrogenous material--a well organized body of
water [75% or more], with some heavier molecules thrown in--which is
damaged or destroyed when transformed into a small scale water-moderated
nuclear reactor by neutron flux.
As to X-ray flux it is due to Bremsstrahlung or braking radiation caused by
an accelerated particle such as a beta radiation electron [know to be
present due to progeny of Uranium radiative decay] interacting with the
nucleus of atoms such as steel mentioned above. Just as neutron flux must
not be ignored, X-ray flux must also be considered.
It is essential to insist that OHMS require the data requested if they have
not already done so.
DUinKYAwarenessCampaign
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26 Star-Gazette.COM: Bill would tackle uranium contamination
Letters
Letter to the editor
June 13, 2005
U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., introduced legislation on May
17 calling for studies on U.S. use of depleted uranium munitions
in combat zones, including Iraq. The McDermott bill also calls
for cleanup of sites in the United States contaminated by
depleted uranium, known as DU.
DU weapons release deadly vaporized, radioactive particulate
into the environment. Tens of thousands of deaths, birth defects
and sickness around the world, including our own men and women
in the Armed Forces, are traceable directly to DU radiation,
which remains dangerously in the environment for 4.5 billion
years.
DU weapons are tested in America, causing irreversible damage
here as well. More information can be found at
depleted-uranium-kills.html. Urging your representative to vote
for the McDermott bill is a way to support the troops.
EILEEN MACERI
Former Elmiran
Santa Cruz, Calif.
Copyright © 2005 Star-Gazette. Use of this site signifies
*****************************************************************
27 Dispatch: Senator urges review of safe perchlorate level
Monday, June 13, 2005
Mainstreet Media Group LLC
• Gilroy - Sen. Dianne Feinstein this week pressed the federal
Environmental Protection Agency to review its adoption of the
safe level of perchlorate ingestion recommended earlier this
year in a report by the National Academy of Sciences.
In February, the EPA announced a perchlorate safety standard
based on the NAS report that translates into a drinking water
level of 5 to 24 parts per billion. The previous EPA level was 1
part per billion. California’s public health goal for
perchlorate is 6 parts per billion.
Citing concerns raised in a recent edition of the journal
“Environmental Health Perspectives,” Feinstein asked the EPA to
revisit the NAS study. Feinstein wants the EPA to reveal how it
arrived at the decision and whether it will reevaluate it in
light of the recent criticism.
Santa Teresa road closures
• Gilroy - As the Santa Teresa Boulevard widening project
continues, the stretch of Welburn Avenue from Santa Teresa to
Gaunt Avenue will be shut down to motorists beginning Monday.
City engineer Charlie Krueger said the closure will continue
until June 22. In the meantime, motorists who have had to find
alternate routes to get to and from homes on Longmeadow Drive
will be able to use the length of road from Santa Teresa
Boulevard to Hirasaki Avenue.
Guide to fresh farm produce
• Gilroy - The 30th edition of the Country Crossroads Farms to
You map is now available. It includes more than 100 farms in
Santa Clara, San Benito, and Santa Cruz counties and a guide to
the best times of the year to get fresh strawberries, apricots,
apples, corn, peaches and more. The free map is available at the
chambers of commerce in Gilroy and Morgan Hill, the Gilroy
Visitor’s Bureau, and many local hotels.
Beauty Outlet opens today
• Gilroy - Stop by the grand opening of The Beauty Outlet at the
Gilroy Premium Outlets, between the Garlic Shoppe and Rocky
Mountain Chocolate today, and receive free hand treatments and
hand massages as well as prizes, giveaways and food.
Send news items to City Editor Robert Airoldi. FAX to 842-2206,
mail to Gilroy Dispatch, 6400 Monterey Road, Gilroy, CA 95020,
or e-mail editor@garlic.com.
*****************************************************************
28 Dispatch: Email The Editor SCVWD angling for grants to study perchlorate
plume
Monday, June 13, 2005
Mainstreet Media Group LLC
Subscribe to The Dispatch
By Matt King
San Jose - The Santa Clara Valley Water District is angling for
$750,000 in federal money to perform a series of research
projects and studies on the perchlorate contamination in South
County.
The biggest project is the district’s effort to determine the
source of the so-called northeast flow, which moves north of the
site of the Olin Corp.’s former road-flare factory in Morgan
Hill. The company has taken responsibility for the 9.5 mile
plume flowing south and east of the site, but claims that its
own research rules out the factory as the source of the northern
contamination.
Last year, the Central Coast Regional Water Resources Control
Board ordered Olin to perform additional tests, employing a new
forensic testing method. Olin resisted, and to avoid a legal
battle, the district agreed earlier this year to conduct the
tests.
Forensic testing works by distinguishing different sources of
contamination based on characteristics of chemicals released.
Perchlorate has a variety of sources, including some
fertilizers, rocket fuel and road flares.
The road flares produced by Olin were made primarily of
strontium nitrate that occurred in higher concentrations than
perchlorate. Water contaminated with perchlorate from that site
may also test positive for strontium nitrate and other chemicals
with the same properties as those used in the flares. Water
District Perchlorate Project Manager Tom Mohr, who will oversee
the tests, said that while forensic testing is not a magic
bullet it may add substantially to the weight of evidence
supporting one scenario over another.
The district also wants to evaluate new methods of cleaning the
groundwater by potentially changing the way water flows from the
Llagas creek into the percolation ponds that recharge the Llagas
groundwater basin. A third grant proposal the district will
submit this month is for additional staff for the district, the
regional board, and the Santa Clara County Health Department.
Tracy Hemmeter, a senior project manager with the district, said
the studies are all aimed at gathering information about
perchlorate to facilitate cleanup of the groundwater basin.
“The projects are designed to meet our needs and the community’s
needs,” Hemmeter said. “The challenge now is working with the
[Environmental Protection Agency] to work out the details.”
The grant applications give the district access to money that
has already been set aside in the federal budget. The district
will submit a future round of applications for an additional $1
million that has been earmarked for studying perchlorate in
Santa Clara County. Mohr hopes to begin testing the northeast
flow later this year. Olin must submit a final cleanup plan for
the groundwater basin by June 2006.
Matt King Matt King covers Santa Clara County for The Dispatch.
He can be reached at 847-7240 or mking@gilroydispatch.com.
*****************************************************************
29 NRC: In the Matter of J. L. Shepherd & Associates, San Fernando,
FR Doc E5-3059
[Federal Register: June 13, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 112)]
[Notices] [Page 34165-34166] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13jn05-90]
California; Order Modifying Confirmatory Order Relaxing Order
(Effective Immediately) I J.L. Shepherd & Associates (JLS) was
the holder of Quality Assurance (QA) Program Approval for
Radioactive Material Packages No. 0122 (Approval No. 0122),
issued by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or
Commission) pursuant to 10 CFR Part 71, Subpart H. The approval
was previously issued pursuant to the QA requirements of 10 CFR
71.101. QA activities authorized by Approval No. 0122 included:
Design, procurement, fabrication, assembly, testing,
modification, maintenance, repair, and use of transportation
packages subject to the provisions of 10 CFR Part 71. Approval
No. 0122 was originally issued January 17, 1980. In addition to
having a QA program approved by the NRC to satisfy the provisions
of 10 CFR Part 71, Subpart H, to transport or deliver for
transport licensed material in a package, JLS was required by 10
CFR Part 71, Subpart C, to have and comply with the package's
Certificate of
[[Page 34166]] Compliance (CoC) issued by the NRC. Based on JLS
failure to comply with 10 CFR Part 71, Subpart H, QA Program
Approval No. 0122 was withdrawn, by the immediately effective NRC
Order dated July 3, 2001 (66 FR 36603, July 12, 2001).
II The NRC issued the July 3, 2001, Order (July 2001 Order)
because the NRC lacked confidence that JLS would continue to
implement the QA Program approved by the NRC ( 71-0122, Revision
No. 5) in accordance with 10 CFR Part 71, Subpart H, in a manner
that would assure the required preparation and use of
transportation packages in full conformance with the terms and
conditions of an NRC CoC and with 10 CFR Part 71.
On several occasions subsequent to the July 2001 Order, JLS has
requested, based on its proposed Near-Term Corrective Action Plan
(NTCAP), interim relief from the July 2001 Order to allow
shipments in U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT)
specification packaging designated as 20WC. In response to JLS's
most recent request for interim relief, and based on a showing of
good cause, the NRC issued a Confirmatory Order dated May 30,
2003, (Confirmatory Order Relaxing Order (68 FR 34010, June 6,
2003)), that allowed JLS to make shipments through June 1, 2005,
and expanded JLS's shipment authorization to transportation
packaging as authorized by JLS implementation of Revision 7 of
the conditionally approved QA Program Approval No. 0122. The May
30, 2003, Confirmatory Order Relaxing Order, will expire June 1,
2005, thus withdrawing JLS's interim Quality Assurance Program
Approval. However, by letter dated April 7, 2005, JLS requested
the Commission to rescind the Order of July 3, 2001, that
withdrew JLS's Quality Assurance Program Approval (Docket 71-
0122, EA-01-164). The staff's review of JLS's request will not be
finished by June 1, 2005, thus perhaps unnecessarily withdrawing
JLS's Quality Assurance Program Approval. Extending the May 30,
2003, Confirmatory Order until July 1, 2005, will maintain JLS's
Quality Assurance Program Approval until the staff's review of
JLS's April 7, 2005, request is complete.
III In a consent form signed on May 31, 2005, JLS agreed to all
of the commitments described in Section IV below. The Licensee
further agreed that this Order would be effective upon the
issuance of this Order and that JLS waived its right to a hearing
on this Order.
This Order only revises the expiration date of the May 30, 2003,
Confirmatory Order Relaxing Order, and does not affect the other
terms and conditions of the May 30, 2003, Confirmatory Order.
Based on JLS's assurance that it will remain in compliance with
the May 30, 2003, Confirmatory Order, which the Commission
granted based on a showing of good cause, this Order is
immediately effective upon issuance.
IV Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 62, 81, 161b, 161i, 161o,
182 and 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the
Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR Parts 71 and
110, it is hereby ordered, effective immediately, that the May
30, 2003, Confirmatory Order Relaxing Order, is modified as
provided: 1. That the May 30, 2003, Confirmatory Order Relaxing
Order, is revised to extend the expiration date of that Order
from June 1, 2005, to July 1, 2005.
The Director, Office of Enforcement, or the Director, Office of
Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards, may in writing, relax or
rescind this Order upon a demonstration by the Licensee of good
cause.
V Any person adversely affected by this Confirmatory Order, other
than the Licensee, may request a hearing within 20 days of its
issuance. Where good cause is shown, consideration will be given
to extending the time to request a hearing. A request for
extension of time must be made in writing to the Director, Office
of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555, and include a statement of good cause for the
extension. Any request for a hearing shall be submitted to the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ATTN: Rulemakings
and Adjudications Staff, Washington, DC 20555. Copies also shall
be sent to the Director, Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, to the Assistant
General Counsel for Materials Litigation and Enforcement at the
same address, to the Regional Administrator, NRC Region IV, 611
Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, TX 76011 and to JLS.
Because of continuing disruptions in delivery of mail to United
States Government offices, it is requested that answers and
requests for hearing be transmitted to the Secretary of the
Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to
301-415-1101 or by e-mail to
hearingdocket@nrc.gov and also to the Office of the General
Counsel either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725
or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. If a person other than the
licensee requests a hearing, that person shall set forth with
particularity the manner in which his interest is adversely
affected by this Order and shall address the criteria set forth
in 10 CFR 2.309(d) and (f). If a hearing is requested by a person
whose interest is adversely affected, the Commission will issue
an Order designating the time and place of any hearing. If a
hearing is held, the issue to be considered at such hearing shall
be whether this Confirmatory Order should be sustained.
In the absence of any request for hearing, or written approval of
an extension of time in which to request a hearing, the
provisions specified in Section IV above shall be final 20 days
from the date of this Order without further order or proceedings.
If an extension of time for requesting a hearing has been
approved, the provisions specified in Section IV shall be final
when the extension expires if a hearing request has not been
received. A request for hearing shall not stay the immediate
effectiveness of this Order.
Dated this 1st day of June, 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Michael R. Johnson, Director, Office of Enforcement.
[FR Doc. E5-3059 Filed 6-10-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
30 [shundahaialert] News in Skull Valley
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:29:51 -0700
Bill to keep files on N-test fallouts -
Spending: Utah congressmen favor defense research, and support a new
wilderness area near Skull Valley
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
May 26, 2005
Author: Robert Gehrke; The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon would have to preserve records on fallout from
nuclear weapons tests, and a wilderness area would be created to try to
block nuclear storage in Utah as part of a major defense spending bill the
House passed Wednesday.
Language added to the bill by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, prohibits the
Pentagon from destroying records and requires the department to publish the
information.
"It's just saying, 'Look, don't destroy this,' " Matheson said. He added he
supports "anything we can do to get more data out there about the fallout"
to allow more scientific studies.
The National Academies of Science recommended retaining the records in a
2003 report, but the Pentagon does not have a policy for keeping the files.
Rep. Rob Bishop added a provision that would create the Cedar Mountain
Wilderness Area in western Utah to try to block a rail line that would
deliver nuclear waste to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian reservation, where
a group of electric utilities wants to store waste from nuclear reactors.
The 169th intelligence squadron of the Utah Air National Guard would
receive $7 million in new equipment for monitoring radio signals and $5.2
million for new satellite antenna and software through language Bishop added.
Bishop also pushed an amendment that provides $10 million for research and
development on supersonic cruise missile engines for a new generation of
missiles.
The bill includes $3 million Bishop requested for design and construction
of a beryllium processing plant, the first installment in a multi-year effort.
Beryllium is a metal used in defense programs, and the only domestic
production is in Millard County.
The bill also directs the Defense Secretary to consult with NASA to
determine if the space shuttle can be used in place of other heavy-lift
boosters, which could benefit ATK-Thiokol, a manufacturer of shuttle boosters.
"While we weren't able to fully fund or authorize everything at the levels
I think our fighting men and women deserve, we did make very good
progress," Bishop said in a statement.
The legislation is considered a must-pass bill, setting spending levels for
the Pentagon for the coming year, but it still must pass the Senate and be
signed by the president before becoming law.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
House OKs a study of N-sites
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
May 25, 2005
Author: Andrew Taylor Associated Press and By Jerry Spangler Deseret
Morning News
Estimated printed pages: 2
WASHINGTON -- The House voted Tuesday night to begin temporary storage of
commercial nuclear waste at one or more federal facilities -- none in Utah
-- fearing further delays in the proposed but long-delayed Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
The directive was included in a $29.7 billion measure funding the Energy
Department and came over the objections of lawmakers from Washington and
South Carolina, two states where the waste from commercial power reactors
might be located.
An attempt by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., to strip the bill of $10 million
for the interim storage program failed 312-110. The House passed the
spending measure by a 416-13 vote. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, voted for the
measure; Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon, both R-Utah, voted against it.
The legislation must still be considered by Senate.
The House bill also provides $661 million for continued development of the
Yucca facility, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which must still get a
license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
While the legislation leaves it up to the Energy Department to select one
or more interim storage sites, a report accompanying the bill suggested the
Energy Department's Savannah River weapons facility in South Carolina, the
Hanford complex in Washington state and a facility in Idaho as possible
locations. It also said the department should consider other federal sites,
including closed defense bases for temporary storage.
It calls on the energy secretary to produce a plan for interim storage four
months after the bill becomes law and begin accepting waste before the end
of next year.
Earlier Tuesday, the chairman of a House Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee, in response to concerns expressed by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah,
insisted that language inserted in the Yucca Mountain funding package is
not intended to open the door for interim storage of nuclear waste on
Goshute tribal lands in Utah -- even if the wording makes it appear so.
"I do not see any reason for the secretary (of energy) to consider making a
private site or a site on tribal land into a DOE site for interim storage,"
said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio. "My intent is for the secretary to evaluate
storage options at existing DOE sites."
Hobson's disclaimer as Bishop sought the chairman's assurances on the
record in the event the Department of Energy decides to utilize a private
site similar to the one proposed by Private Fuel Storage in Tooele County's
Skull Valley.
"The fact he said it on the record gives me a whole lot of comfort," Bishop
told the Deseret Morning News. "Having him clarify his intent is powerful
if push ever comes to shove."
As has been often the case in the Utah's nuclear storage debates,
Washington and South Carolina lawmakers said Tuesday that if their states
are targeted, they fear the interim facilities could end up as permanent
waste repositories. They are concerned that establishing interim waste
dumps might reduce pressure to open Yucca Mountain -- which is opposed by
many in Nevada.
"The state of Washington does not want to become . . . a nuclear waste dump
more than we are already," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. "Interim, in
geologic time, could mean several lifetimes."
House OKs a study of N-sites
Deseret News, The (Salt Lake City, UT)
May 25, 2005
Author: Andrew Taylor Associated Press and By Jerry Spangler Deseret
Morning News
WASHINGTON -- The House voted Tuesday night to begin temporary storage of
commercial nuclear waste at one or more federal facilities -- none in Utah
-- fearing further delays in the proposed but long-delayed Yucca Mountain
nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
The directive was included in a $29.7 billion measure funding the Energy
Department and came over the objections of lawmakers from Washington and
South Carolina, two states where the waste from commercial power reactors
might be located.
An attempt by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., to strip the bill of $10 million
for the interim storage program failed 312-110. The House passed the
spending measure by a 416-13 vote. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, voted for the
measure; Reps. Rob Bishop and Chris Cannon, both R-Utah, voted against it.
The legislation must still be considered by Senate.
The House bill also provides $661 million for continued development of the
Yucca facility, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, which must still get a
license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
While the legislation leaves it up to the Energy Department to select one
or more interim storage sites, a report accompanying the bill suggested the
Energy Department's Savannah River weapons facility in South Carolina, the
Hanford complex in Washington state and a facility in Idaho as possible
locations. It also said the department should consider other federal sites,
including closed defense bases for temporary storage.
It calls on the energy secretary to produce a plan for interim storage four
months after the bill becomes law and begin accepting waste before the end
of next year.
Earlier Tuesday, the chairman of a House Energy and Water Appropriations
Subcommittee, in response to concerns expressed by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah,
insisted that language inserted in the Yucca Mountain funding package is
not intended to open the door for interim storage of nuclear waste on
Goshute tribal lands in Utah -- even if the wording makes it appear so.
"I do not see any reason for the secretary (of energy) to consider making a
private site or a site on tribal land into a DOE site for interim storage,"
said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio. "My intent is for the secretary to evaluate
storage options at existing DOE sites."
Hobson's disclaimer as Bishop sought the chairman's assurances on the
record in the event the Department of Energy decides to utilize a private
site similar to the one proposed by Private Fuel Storage in Tooele County's
Skull Valley.
"The fact he said it on the record gives me a whole lot of comfort," Bishop
told the Deseret Morning News. "Having him clarify his intent is powerful
if push ever comes to shove."
As has been often the case in the Utah's nuclear storage debates,
Washington and South Carolina lawmakers said Tuesday that if their states
are targeted, they fear the interim facilities could end up as permanent
waste repositories. They are concerned that establishing interim waste
dumps might reduce pressure to open Yucca Mountain -- which is opposed by
many in Nevada.
"The state of Washington does not want to become . . . a nuclear waste dump
more than we are already," said Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. "Interim, in
geologic time, could mean several lifetimes."
--------------------------------------------------
Agency rejects latest appeal of Skull Valley nuke storage -
Safety board: A consortium could be a step closer to building the facility,
but other avenues are available to the state
Salt Lake Tribune, The (UT)
May 25, 2005
Author: Robert Gehrke; The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON -- The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board on Tuesday rejected
Utah's latest appeal seeking to prevent Private Fuel Storage's plans to
store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian
reservation.
The board's decision means PFS is inching closer to getting its license to
build an interim spent fuel-rod storage site 45 miles southwest of Salt
Lake City. PFS officials have said they could be operating by 2007.
The state still has other avenues of administrative appeal, and the Bureau
of Indian Affairs has yet to sign off on the deal.
The state also is asking the Interior Department to throw out the Skull
Valley Band's contract with PFS, and to deny PFS a right-of-way for a rail
line to the reservation to move the waste. Another angle of attack is U.S.
Rep. Rob Bishop's proposal in a Defense Department bill that would create a
wilderness area to block the rail line.
Should PFS continue to prevail with the federal agencies, Utah can take the
issue to a federal appeals court, said assistant Utah Attorney General
Denise Chancellor.
Reaching that point "could be a month, it could be four months" she said.
Nevertheless, PFS views the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board's decision as
a victory.
"We're very pleased that the process is moving forward," said Sue Martin,
spokeswoman for PFS, the group of electric companies proposing the
facility. "It has been moving forward. It's just been at a glacial pace."
The state had asked the licensing board to reverse a Feb. 24 ruling in
favor of PFS, arguing that the board underestimated the risk and
consequences of an F-16 fighter jet smashing into the waste dump while
training at the nearby Air Force range.
"Given the result we reach today, nothing said herein alters the status
quo, under which the commission has been, and continues to be, vested by
NRC regulations with the authority to issue the requested license," the
three-judge panel wrote.
In one part of the ruling, the judges were unanimous in rejecting the Utah
attorneys' contention that the board should consider what harm might occur
if one of the casks is damaged internally by an airplane crash.
However, the panel did suggest that the commission direct NRC staff to
conduct "diminished shielding" studies to determine whether radiation might
escape from a cask that is damaged but not breached and decide if those
studies warrant further research.
In the second part of the ruling, Judge Peter Lam dissented from the other
two judges, arguing against the board's determination that the risk of an
F-16 crash was so remote -- less than one in 1 million per year -- that it
should not prevent the licensing from proceeding.
Lam argued the determination was based on inadequate F-16 crash data.
Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, expressed frustration, but no surprise. "I still
think these are very legitimate concerns and I think it's very
disappointing that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approached this
the way it has."
Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch expressed optimism. "PFS will never, in my
opinion, overcome all the administrative, legal and economic hurdles," he said.
Meantime, Utah's delegation was alarmed by language in an Energy Department
budget bill that seeks to create an interim nuclear storage site by next
year to house the waste until a permanent repository in Yucca Mountain,
Nev., is built.
A committee report accompanying the bill recommends interim storage in
Nevada, if existing law can be changed, or at Energy Department sites in
South Carolina, Washington, Idaho or Nevada. However, it also leaves open
the option of a "non-federal" storage site.
"I am very nervous about the interim storage issue that is in this bill,"
said Matheson. "I'm nervous about its effect on validating or enhancing the
viability of Private Fuel Storage."
Bishop asked the chairman of the subcommittee that drafted the bill for
assurances the storage wouldn't take place at a site not run by the Energy
Department.
"I do not see any reason the [Energy] secretary would consider a private
site or a site on federal land or an Indian reservation for interim
storage," Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, replied.
*****************************************************************
31 House Panel to Subpoena Yucca Mtn. Worker
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 00:55:20 -0400
http://www.mothersalert.org/moreinfo.html
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Yucca-Mountain.html?
House Panel to Subpoena Yucca Mtn. Worker
a.. E-Mail This
b.. Printer-Friendly
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 13, 2005
Filed at 9:19 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A congressional committee will
subpoena a former worker on the Yucca Mountain
project who is at the center of a controversy over
document falsification at the proposed nuclear
waste dump.
The House Government Reform Committee will issue a
subpoena Tuesday demanding a committee appearance
and documents from Joseph Hevesi, a U.S.
Geological Survey scientist in Sacramento, Calif.,
according to an announcement late Monday from Rep.
Jon Porter, R-Nev.
''Mr. Hevesi has, to date, refused to cooperate
with the subcommittee in its congressional
investigation,'' said a statement from the House
Government Reform subcommittee on the federal work
force, which Porter chairs.
Hevesi, a hydrologist, was a principal author of
e-mails written between 1998 and 2000 by
scientists studying how water moved through the
proposed waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
In the e-mails to colleagues, Hevesi discussed
making up facts, deleting inconvenient data and
keeping two sets of files -- ''the ones that will
keep (quality assurance) happy and the ones that
were actually used.''
The e-mails were made public by the Energy
Department in March, and the inspectors general of
the Energy and Interior departments have been
investigating. No conclusions have been announced.
Hevesi did not immediately respond Monday to phone
messages left at his office and home.
Hevesi is still a USGS hydrologist, but he no
longer workers on Energy Department or Yucca
Mountain projects.
The subpoena will require Hevesi's appearance at a
subcommittee hearing June 29, along with all
documents in his possession related to Yucca
Mountain.
The e-mail controversy has contributed to delays
on the project, which is planned as a national
repository for 77,000 tons of high-level
commercial and defense nuclear waste, to be buried
for 10,000 years and beyond in the Nevada desert.
*****************************************************************
32 [NukeNet] US company to take Japanese uranium tailings
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 14:30:33 -0700
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
Perhaps some of our friends in the US will be interested in doing something
about the issue below.
Philip White
International Liaison Officer
US company to take Japanese uranium tailings
The Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute (JNC) announced on Sunday 12
June that it is considering sending uranium tailings to the US. The
tailings are now in the Katamo district of Yurihama Town near Ningyo Toge
in Tottori Prefecture.
JNC (in a previous incarnation) began mining uranium in this region in
1955, but because the uranium content of the ore was low the mine was
closed and the tailings were left abandoned and exposed. The existence of
these tailings became known in 1988, and in 2000 the district assembly
launched legal proceedings demanding that they be removed. After a long
legal battle, in October 2004 the Supreme Court ordered that the tailings
be removed.
The total quantity of tailings is about 3,000 cubic meters. Of this, the
radioactivity of around 290 cubic meters is relatively high (yearly dose
exceeding the limit under mining regulations of 1 milli-sieverts). It is
this which JNC is considering sending for processing and storage to a
company in the US. JNC has sounded out a private uranium refining company
in the US about taking these uranium tailings off its hands. The company in
question has not been named, but data regarding radioactivity and soil
quality have already been sent to the company. JNC hopes to sign a contract
this summer and send the tailings overseas this year.
It is expected that transport and processing will cost over 600 million
yen. The question of whether or not this uranium is covered by the Japan-US
Nuclear Energy Agreement still has to be investigated. Nothing has yet been
decided regarding the remaining 2,710 cubic meters.
The Tottori District Court ordered JNC to remove the 290 cubic meters with
relatively high radioactivity by March 2005. Failing this, JNC
must pay the local citizens 750,000 yen per day after this date. As at June
13th the penalty has reached 71,250,000 yen. JNC is a government
corporation and 80% of its budget comes from the government, so this
penalty is being funded by tax payers' money.
After the Supreme Court's ruling, in November last year JNC announced that
as a temporary measure it would transfer the tailings to another site about
a kilometer away in a different district, but still in the same town
(Yurihama Town). However, this plan met strong local opposition and Tottori
Prefecture blocked the move under the Prefectural Natural Parks Ordinance.
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com
_______________________________________________________________________
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Change your settings or access the archives at:
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*****************************************************************
33 Columbia Daily Tribune: Hazardous waste rolls down I-70
By KATIE FRETLAND of the Tribune’s staff
Published Monday, June 13, 2005
Trucks carrying low-level radioactive waste have driven down
Interstate 70 for about a month, and they will continue to do so
this summer on a trip from Fernald, Ohio, to a disposal facility
in Clive, Utah.
The state Department of Natural Resources notified local
emergency response services last week about the 275 planned
shipments of hazardous material from a Cold War uranium refinery
in Fernald. From 1952 to 1989, the federal refinery produced
high-purity uranium metal fuel cores for use in weapons
production. The site is closed and in the process of being
cleaned up.
The former refinery is shipping the "conditioned" waste - cold
metal oxide in a crumbly, dry form, marked as Radioactive Class
7 - in soft-sided packages called Supersacks, said John Sattler,
U.S. Department of Energy spokesman for the Fernald refinery
closure project. Each truck contains eight 4,000-pound packages.
About 10 trucks per week will leave the refinery and take the
Ohio-to-Utah route through Missouri. Shipments are scheduled to
end in late September.
Alan Reinkemeyer, environmental emergency response section chief
with DNR, notified officials in Missouri of the shipments in an
e-mail Friday. "I am confident that these shipments will pass
through Missouri safely and without incident," he said. "These
are considered low-level waste shipments."
Reinkemeyer said, however, that accidents are always possible
and encouraged local agencies to be prepared.
Jeff Wagner, a spokesman for Flour Fernald, the private
contractor handling the cleanup, said only two accidents have
occurred in more than 6,700 shipments from the refinery since
the 1980s.
"There is always some risk associated with the shipping of
hazardous materials, whether it is low-level waste or gasoline,"
Sattler said. "Our goal is to minimize the risk in
transportation, processing and shipping."
The Boone County Fire Protection District and the Columbia Fire
Department would respond with hazardous waste teams to any
highway emergency involving the trucks, officials said.
Doug Westhoff, assistant chief with the fire district, said the
notification allows highway motorists to take extra security
measures and use additional caution. "The reality is that
hazardous materials roll up and down this interstate every day
that we’re not notified about," he said.
Flour Fernald ships the radioactive material on tractor-trailers
and trains drivers on how to handle emergencies.
About 2,200 shipments en route to Texas also began traveling
through Missouri from Fernald last week on I-44.
Reach Katie Fretland at (573) 815-1731 or kfretland@tribmail.com.
Copyright © 2005 The Columbia Daily Tribune. All Rights
*****************************************************************
34 Korea Herald: Nuclear waste site selection by November
The Nation's No.1 English Newspaper
The government and the ruling Uri Party yesterday agreed to
finalize the process of selecting a low and intermediate-level
radioactive waste site by the end of November.
The agreement came in a meeting presided over by Commerce,
Industry and Energy Minister Lee Hee-beom. The ministry is
responsible for the management of radioactive waste.
A party official said, "The nation's first nuclear waste storage
will be decided by the end of November, after announcing
procedures and timetable in June and holding local referendums
at candidate locations in November."
The party authorities were in line with the government's policy
that it will clearly announce its criteria for selecting the
site and its offer of subsidies and other benefits through the
scheduled announcement in June. Candidate sites can precisely
predict their chance of winning, with a legitimate procedure
guaranteed.
If less than two municipalities submit applications to host the
dump site, the party authorities said they would seek another
way. They will then implement a public poll and hold regional
referendums in one or two candidate locations, based on poll
results.
(siyoungh@heraldm.com)
2005.06.14
*****************************************************************
35 LSI: Navajo Nation Bans Mining, Processing Of Uranium On Navajo
Land
Lone Star Iconoclast:
Energy Wars: Return of the Navajo
By Nathan Diebenow
Associate Editor
CRAWFORD — Indians still exist, but more importantly, they’re
flexing their muscles.
The U.S. energy industry suffered a blow in late April when
Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley, Jr. signed the Diné Natural
Resources Protection Act which bans the mining and processing of
uranium on Navajo land as well as re-enforces the sovereignty of
the Navajo people.
The DNRPA is designed to protect the water resources of the
Navajo Nation, as well as the health of its citizens, 15,000 of
whom are residents in the Church Rock-Crownpoint region of New
Mexico.
“I don’t want to subject any more of my people to exposure to
uranium and the cancers that it causes,” Shirley said during the
signing ceremony before about 50 people who had gathered in the
Crownpoint Chapter House.
“As long as there are no answers to cancer, we shouldn’t have
uranium mining on the Navajo Nation,” he added. “I believe the
powers that be committed genocide on Navajo land by allowing
uranium.”
President Shirley was referring to over half a century of
unexplained cancers and other health effects due to his people
mining the radioactive ore on their land for the energy
industry, as well as for U.S. government’s nuclear weapons
arsenal.
Despite the few Navajo who stood to gain income from the mining
of their land allotments where ore is located, the reservation
has overwhelmingly supported the Act. The Navajo Tribal Council,
in fact, voted 63-19 on April 19 to approve the prohibition,
sponsored by George Arthur (Burnham/San Juan/Nenahnezad),
chairman of the Resources Committee.
“Members of these communities have already given enough lives
to the uranium industry. New mining, whether it be conventional
or ISL, would likely devastate a new generation of Navajo
citizens,” said New Mexico Environmental Law Center Staff
Attorney Eric Jantz in a written statement.
“Dozens of communities have passed resolutions declaring their
opposition to new uranium mining, and thousands of Navajo have
signed petitions against new mines,” he continued. “We and our
clients applaud the Navajo Tribal Council for exercising its
inherent sovereignty to protect its valuable resources and the
health of its citizens.”
Officials for Hydro Resources Inc. cried unfair for not
receiving as much face-time as the Eastern Navajo Diné Against
Uranium Mining to explain the mining process with the Council.
However, HRI has tried to gain federal permits for the last
decade to begin in-situ leach uranium mining southwest and east
of Crownpoint and uranium processing north of the defunct United
Nuclear Corporation’s uranium mill.
Activists said that saving the quality of their drinking water
and air is more important than the price of uranium, which has
more than doubled over the past two years, from less than $10
per pound to over $23 per pound. HCI is a subsidiary of
Dallas-based Uranium Resources Inc.
The Law Center added that this victory is significant because
earlier this year the Nuclear Regulatory Commission okayed HRI’s
license for the first of its four proposed mine sites around
Church Rock and Crownpoint.
That being said, HCI might still challenge in federal court the
right to mine on allotments on the grounds of the definition and
scope of what constitutes Navajo land.
Human Experimentation
The Navajo ban of uranium mining has both important social and
historical significance as well, because for over 80 years,
Navajo miners and their communities have suffered the effects of
radiation poisoning under close watch of the U.S. government.
Since 1920, the tribe prior to exposure to uranium radiation
was also exposed to radium from mining the ore on their
reservation. Four inactive uranium mill sites and over 1,200
abandoned uranium mines are on the reservation. Most of these
mines are unreclaimed.
The largest quantities of uranium were mined in the Four
Corners area where New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah
converge. The Navajo reservation itself is equal to the size of
West Virginia and home to 275,000 of the 350,000 people
scattered around the world.
According to Diné (the name of the Navajo people use for
themselves) linguists, uranium is known as “leetso” — meaning
yellow brown or yellow dirt. From this dirt, the first atomic
bombs were developed at the secret Manhattan project in Los
Alamos, N.M., and tested at the Trinity Site at Alamogordo, N.M.
The Diné mined more than 13 million tons of uranium ore from
their land to the U.S. between 1945-1988, according to Jaime
Chavez, organizer for the Water Information Network.
“During the 1940s-80s, there were a lot of open pit uranium
mines and a huge flux of cancers happening. The widows were
coming together saying, ‘What’s going on?’ They made the
connection that all the husbands had worked in the uranium mine,
and sure enough, they were,” said Lori Goodman, treasurer of the
nonprofit, activist group Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our
Environment (CARE).
As more and more miners came forward with their stories,
Goodman said, the U.S Congress passed the Radiation Compensation
Act in 1990. Under this Act, the U.S. government was supposed to
compensate individuals with diseases from exposure to radiation
connected with the federal government’s nuclear weapons testing
program. The Act was also designed to compensate the medical
costs attributed to the lung cancers of Navajo uranium miners
exposed to radiation on the job in Arizona, Colorado, New
Mexico, Utah, or Wyoming from 1947 to 1971.
“We all thought it was taken care of, but we were also seeing
that our elders who were never uranium miners were also dying of
the same cancers as the uranium miners. They lived off the land.
We were asking questions of the public health officials. We were
going into communities, and what came out was that the uranium
miners were supposed to get compensated, and they weren’t. At
that point, politics took over,” said Goodman.
The Act, it was found, discriminated against the very people it
was trying to help. For instance, Goodman said, “laws said that
you have to have a marriage certificate in order to be eligible
to receive this compensation, and our people back then had
traditional marriages. They didn’t have marriage licenses. They
were being eliminated right there, and there were questions of
cultural significance to smoking. The government officials would
ask them, ‘Do you smoke?’ And without the proper interpretation,
it was taken as they were smoking cigarettes when in fact the
miners were talking about ceremonial smoke that you don’t
inhale. It’s done once or three times a month. So they were
automatically eliminated, put off the record.”
As a result of community activism, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
introduced an amendment of 1990 RECA, S.1515., in 2000, that
added the mill workers who processed the ore to the
qualification list; expanded the diseases, which were mostly
cancer and respiratory illnesses; and expanded the geographic
coverage for “downwinder claims.” The bill also lowered the
radiation exposure thresholds for eligibility for more
individuals on the reservation.
Unfortunately, the RECA 2000 bill President Clinton signed was
an unfunded mandate. Uranium miners were given IOUs, the RECA
Trust Fund was empty, and RECA regulations were not written on
time. No one so far has been compensated under 2000 RECA, even
after a lawsuit was filed against U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft which charged that the Department of Justice failed its
obligation to implement RECA regulations within 180 days of the
amendment’s enactment.
Shockwaves ran through the Navajo reservation again when in
February 1995, the Department of Energy’s Office of Human
Radiation Experiments published Human Radiation Experiments: The
Department of Energy Roadmap to the Story and Records. The
Roadmap exposed the U.S. government’s role in conducting and
sponsoring Cold War human radiation experiments, some of which
included Navajo uranium miners.
“They would find out how long it would take these miners to get
cancer and then from that point in time find out long they would
die,” said Goodman, referring to the U.S. government. “At the
same time the government was telling us that they didn’t know
that radiation was harmful, so they were blameless was what they
were trying to say.”
2005 Energy Bill
“As soon as President Bush came into power, he wanted to start
uranium mines again, and in fact with his first energy bill, he
had $30 million for energy companies to start uranium mining
again. It’s in this one again,” said Goodman referring to latest
energy bill drafted by House Energy Committee Chairman Joe
Barton (R-Texas).
Goodman referred to the House energy bill as the “dark side”
version, “with every tax credit for industry, every restriction
on environmental protection, every means possible to make it
possible to extract energy resources — no matter what the people
think or what the impacts might be.”
Goodman noted that the Senate energy bill, which hit the floor
this Monday, is “less destructive than the House version;”
however, both the Senate and House bills, she said, contain
similar so-called “Indian energy” sections. “They try to
encourage energy production on Indian lands by getting the
tribal governments to develop their own sets of rules. Then the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) can just rubber stamp approval of
individual projects that are developed under those rules. It
will make it harder for communities, groups or individuals to
challenge decisions under federal environmental and cultural
protection laws.”
As one lawyer used by Diné CARE noted in an email to The Lone
Star Iconoclast, “In addition, Title V of H.R. 6 could remove
the application of federal laws, such as NEPA and the National
Historic Preservation Act, from energy development decisions on
tribal lands.
“The bill affects land both on and off reservation. It provides
that once the Secretary of the Interior approves a tribal energy
resource agreement providing a process for making energy
development decisions, individual energy projects would proceed
without federal approval,” he continues. “Since no federal
action would occur, the existing guarantees of environmental
review and public participation under NEPA would be lost.
Concerned tribal community members and communities adjacent to
the project would lose the mechanism that they have now to make
their voices heard.”
In other words, the Bush Administration is moving lock-step
with the philosophies of globalization and the free market by
removing any and all governmental regulations and safeguards
that protect the community interests, agreed Goodman. When asked
if she thought it would be fair to compare the plight of the
Navajo with its uranium mines to the Venezuelans with their oil
reserves with regard to U.S. foreign policy, Goodman said, “That
is very accurate. We all remember how U.S. removed (President
Hugo) Chavez. But the community united brought Chavez back.”
Goodman added that a few tax credits for building renewable
energy production are included in the House bill, but both
versions fail “to emphasize energy conservation as a way to
increase our ‘security’ or ‘energy independence.’ Everything is
focused on producing more energy.”
Joan Claybrook, Public Citizen President, responding to the
House Energy and Commerce Committee’s draft energy legislation
in a statement, said, “(This bill) offers more of the same
failed proposals that have doomed energy legislation in the past
two Congresses. It showers nuclear and oil companies with
subsidies, gives polluters a break from protecting the
environment and promotes further electricity deregulation while
doing nothing to protect consumers from high energy prices.”
Claybrook noted that oil prices continue to soar despite
Congress passing a billion-dollar subsidy in October 2004 to
encourage more domestic energy production and its March 16
budget vote to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to
oil drilling. “You would think that such a radical change in
federal oil production policy (the successful Senate vote
represented the first time in 24 years that the Senate has
approved the measure) would send a clear signal to oil traders
in New York,” she said. “But the prices of oil and gasoline have
only skyrocketed since the vote, raising doubts about the claim
by the Bush administration and Congress that giving energy
producers what they want will somehow lower prices for
consumers.”
Coal Plants
There will be a potluck and rally on this Saturday, June 18, at
Shiprock Park in Shiprock to help stop the proposed Desert Rock
Power Plant in the Four Corners area.
According to Diné CARE in a letter to the editor of The
Albuquerque Tribune, three Navajo chapters (Burnham, Sanostee
and Two Grey Hills) have passed community resolutions directly
opposing the plant. Other chapters (Newcomb and Sheep Springs)
are making motions to officially oppose it as well, the letter
said, jointly written by Anna Marie Frazier, Diné CARE
Coordinator, and Sarah Jane White, Dooda (No) Desert Rock
Committee President (Burnham/Sanostee Chapters).
“All but one of the local communities oppose the power plant.
Our people living in this area suffer rates of asthma,
reproductive disorders, cancer and other illnesses that are far
in excess of national averages,” said the letter. “Do you really
imagine the communities are going to vote for more pollution and
its associated destruction?”
Proposed by Sithe Global, LCC, of Houston, Desert Rock is a
coal-fired plant that would emit 3,400 tons of mercury and ozone
into the air. The plant is planned to use a hybrid dry cooled
coal-fired electric power-generating technology, south of
Farmington in northwestern New Mexico. The project development
agreement was entered into with Diné Power Authority (DPA), an
enterprise of the Navajo Nation.
The Navajo, however, are expected to not see one watt of energy
from this plant due to the agreement, although 80 percent of the
tribal revenue comes from coal royalties and tax. About one
billion ton of coal reserves are within the tribal lands. Two
coal fired power plants (Four Corners and Page) and three mines
(Peabody, BHP, and PNM). Total permitted for mining is 95,724
acres and total disturbed is 16,767 acres.
Goodman said that probably 30 percent of Navajo don’t even have
electricity. Their primary source is wood and also some use
coal. The Navajo people are not so reliant on these plants for
jobs either, she said.
“I wouldn’t say very much. I mean, I have nine brothers and
sisters. None of them work for any energy company on Navajo
land. There aren’t that many jobs. Peabody Coal Company has 50
employees,” she said. “When you factor in how much is the
community benefitting. Are we getting any return? When you
factor those in, those 50 people that work there, that’s nothing
because all the energy goes off the reservation.
There are two other power plants already in the area from which
the Navajo people have received negative health consequences.
Goodman said that 40 years ago when the Four Corners Power
Plant, which is one of the biggest polluters, Peabody failed to
live up to its promises to make life easier for the people.
“They were saying that if you move, we’ll build you a new house.
‘We’ll make sure you have electricity and water in your homes,’
Goodman said. “Well, 40 years later, they are still living the
same way they did, and so the community is saying, ‘Hey, we’re
not going to be fooled the second time around.’”
Goodman added that the landscape is a bit ironic: the Navajo
homes, many of which use solar power panels, are located right
next to the transmission lines leading from the plant. “It’s
really quite the picture — families with no electricity and no
running water, and they have just one panel of solar that they
use and in the background are these huge shovels and drag lines
coming toward their homes. That’s the picture,” she said.
A draft of the environmental statement has yet to be released,
probably at the end of the summer or the fall, said Goodman.
“They are planning that it will all go through, and they’ll
start to build in 2006, and the plant will be in operation in
2008.”
In The Name Of Sovereignty
When asked of the other challenges facing the Navajo people,
Goodman said, “It’s funny you should ask. It’s like an energy
war happening here now. With Bush and with Chaney’s secret
meeting with the energy cartel, they’ve sliced up Indian lands
here. It’s very interesting in who all is investing in these
projects.”
The U.S. government under the Bush administration, as well as
the U.S. energy industry, has changed its tactics and language
to compel the Navajo and other Native Americans to secure
natural resources from their native lands. “Now they are talking
about giving in the name of sovereignty: ‘We want the Indian
people to decide for themselves. We want them to make their own
environmental laws,’ said Goodman. “It is like they only
recognize our sovereignty when they put toxic waste on our
lands, and then when we go out to fish and hunt for ourselves
then our sovereignty is not recognized. In the name of
sovereignty they put in the Four Corners Power Plant.”
“Once you turn it over to the Indian people, then the federal
government can’t come in,” she added. “It allows the energy
companies to come in and just wreck the place, and we can’t make
them clean up. They won’t clean up. It’s not in the name of
self-determination. It really is termination. They don’t want to
be responsible and at the same time, the time is right for the
companies to come in and rape the land with no legal recourse.
They are not responsible.”
Goodman said that the healthcare costs for treating the
symptoms of air and water pollution are “killing us.” In
Shiprock, N.M., there are two power plants nearby. “Shiprock is
sort of like in a bowl, and the pollution just hangs there. The
asthma and upper respiratory problems are sky high,” she said.
“They’re taking the healthcare monies and giving it to the
corporations to poison us to death,” she said.
This past March, the Republicans defeated $1 billion for Indian
health, housing and education, Goodman said. The Navajo Nation’s
Indian Health Service is currently 55 percent funded and the
vacancy rate of doctors and nurses is 20 percent, she added.
“We live in scary times, just because for an administration that
really harps on Christian values that’s certainly not reserved
for all people, they have no knowledge of history — nuclear
testing again — and that is scary,” she said.
Goodman said she doesn’t know if the tribal government can
stand up to the multinational corporations or the U.S.
government because “they have to be thinking about not pissing
them off.” However, she still has hope.
“It’s going to take citizen activism to fight off the energy
companies, and people have done that before and they are ready
to do it again. It has to be done because what we learned from
doing the RECA, it’s only shame in the eyes of the world is what
makes them back off, so there’s a need to be as public as
possible for what’s taken place,” she said.
“We had some major projects that we’ve accomplished that gives
me hope. What it really is is that they don’t really know what
we’re going to do. They’re so set in what people with money do
to protect themselves that they don’t know what people without
money do.”
Goodman said that Diné CARE is continuing to build coalitions
working on similar issues with Anglo activists like the San Juan
Citizens Alliance. “We understand that race is always used to
divide us,” she said.
“We’ve learned something from working in the uranium mines.
Right now we have asthma. We’re not willing to project all that
garbage on our children. No way. It’s the stand people are
making right now,” she added.
INFO
www.blackmesais.org/index.html
dinecare.indigenousnative.org
www.ienearth.org
ww.nmenvirolaw.org
www.desertrockenergy.com
www.peabodyenergy.com/index-ie.html
Copyright ©2004 The Lone Star Iconoclast
*****************************************************************
36 Platts: Cogema to supply 25 casks to Synatom
+ Cogema Logistics will supply 25 storage/transport casks to
Synatom under a contract signed June 6, Cogema parent Areva
announced today.
The new TN-24 casks will cover the future needs of Electrabel's
Doel nuclear power plant, Areva said.
They will join more than 50 such casks already loaded in Doel's
interim spent fuel storage facility.
Synatom manages the nuclear fuel cycle for Electrabel. Areva said
that more than 300 TN-24 dual-purpose casks have been ordered
from Cogema Logistics.
Paris (Platts)--10Jun2005
Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
37 Salt Lake Tribune: Feds don't own it yet
Opinion
Article Last Updated: 06/12/2005 11:30:08 PM
I am replying to a column by Professor Nicole Haynes McCoy
published in the Tribune June 4. I have no reaction toward
relationships between the state and the Goshutes, although many
of Professor McCoy's suggestions seem as though they are worth
pursuing in all scenarios, whether the PFS project is built or
not.
There was one point in the column that is not accurate.
Professor McCoy said, “The federal government is required by law
to take title and store nuclear waste.” The Nuclear Waste Policy
Act does require the government to take title and “dispose” of
spent nuclear fuel in a geologic repository (Yucca Mountain, if
it is licensed).
Until the government is ready to dispose of the waste, it
will not take title to it and thus it remains the responsibility
of the commercial nuclear power plants to store nuclear waste.
It was the delays in the government program that led some of the
nuclear utilities to conceive and pursue the PFS venture and to
partner with the Skull Valley
band of the Goshutes.
Although the column makes a misstatement on the federal
government aspect of the situation, it does not refer to it
further, other than to suggest a degree of inevitability as one
of the "strikes" against the state. Would that were so. Then the
federal government would be well along on waste acceptance and
disposal in the permanent repository which the NWPA mandated and
for which the government signed contracts with the utilities to
accept the spent fuel beginning in 1998.
Brian O'Connell
Director, Nuclear Waste Program Office
Washington, D.C.
© Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
38 deseret news: Huntsman to press N-fight
[deseretnews.com]
Monday, June 13, 2005
He'll co-sponsor anti-dump measure at governors meet
By Lisa Riley Roche Deseret Morning News
BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. — Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. will co-sponsor at
least two resolutions at the annual meeting here of the Western
Governors' Association, including one he hopes furthers his fight
against a high-level nuclear waste dump in Utah.
The resolution, which won't be made public until it is
voted on at the end of the three-day meeting Tuesday, asks the
federal government to keep the states involved as storage sites
are considered.
Huntsman is opposed to a temporary high-level nuclear
storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele
County and is raising concerns about the safety of transporting
waste as an argument against it.
The resolution stops short of endorsing an effort by
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to force the
facilities that generate nuclear waste to store it on site
rather than transporting it to Utah or to the proposed Yucca
Mountain site in Nevada.
Still, Huntsman was pleased with the progress.
"This really was an attempt to craft something that all
the governors could get their arms around," Huntsman said
shortly after arriving at this ski resort early Sunday evening.
"Even if it's a first step, it's an important one."
He said President Bush, a former governor himself, will
take notice of the resolution because it comes from the WGA.
Huntsman should have a chance during the meeting to lobby U.S.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who is scheduled to address the
governors Tuesday.
Another resolution that Huntsman is co-sponsoring deals
with economic competitiveness. He declined to provide details
Sunday but said his co-sponsor will be a prominent Democrat —
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
Huntsman is attending the meeting without his top
economic development adviser, Chris Roybal; and his chief of
staff, Jason Chaffetz, had already returned to Salt Lake City
after several days of staff meetings.
Huntsman missed Sunday's afternoon session on the Western
economy and economic growth. Futurist Joel Kotkin told the three
governors at the session that the West must build on its
"fundamentally urban" tradition.
"You have this kind of 'Marlboro Man' image, but the West
is very urbanized," Kotkin, a New Yorker who lives in Los
Angeles, said. He said the region's cities must be nurtured, in
part, through encouraging the sacred.
He said that meant "things that tie people spiritually to
a place," including, but not limited to, churches. After the
session, he told a reporter that Salt Lake City, home to The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a good example.
"You look at Utah, the whole Mormon corridor, the fact
that you've got all those kids who are really well-behaved, who
go on missions, all of whom have a high school education if not
better, it's an enormous resource," Kotkin said.
Utah should see itself as "ground zero for on-shoring,"
he said, referring to what he predicts will be the reversal of
the "off-shoring" of jobs to countries like India, where wages
are much lower.
"Companies . . . may find they save a little bit of money
going to India at first, but you pay for it" when your customers
get upset, he said.
"Utah needs to really work on this question of on-shoring
and to begin to identify that as an area of growth for the
economy," Kotkin said in an interview.
Huntsman said he wasn't sure Utah's religious roots "need
to be an overt part of selling the community." And he said the
state is focused on creating jobs in emerging industries, such
as biotechnology, not on attracting jobs back to the United
States from overseas.
"I'm talking about a whole different level," Utah's
governor said.
The session raised questions about the value of
universities to economic development.
"Universities have done a good job of selling governors,"
Kotkin said, citing a number of cities, like Boston, that have
the greatest concentration of institutions of higher learning
but faltering economies.
He said the focus of education should be on the basics to
prepare young people for the work force. Now, though, Kotkin
said, "There's much too much touchy-feely, much too much concern
about self-esteem" in K-12.
Another speaker, Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the
Council on Competitiveness, said job training at the community
college level can be key to attracting new jobs. "We have to be
very careful thinking there's one magic bullet."
Creating centers of excellence on Utah campuses is a big
part of Huntsman's economic development effort. Lawmakers
recently funded a program intended to attract new research to
the University of Utah and Utah State University.
Huntsman said universities provide the research and
development that the private sector can't afford. The state's
role is in matching up that work with entrepreneurs who can turn
research into viable products.
Protecting the environment is also important to economic
development, Luther Propst of the Sonoran Institute told the
session. Proximity "to the beauty and the heritage of the West
is something we have to capitalize on," Propst said.
Eight governors from Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Montana,
New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming, plus the premiers of
three western Canadian provinces, are expected to attend the
three-day meeting, which ends Tuesday.
Among the states not represented is California, itself
one of the world's leading economies. After the session, Kotkin
said without California's participation, it would be difficult
to have a serious discussion about the issues facing the region.
But the head of WGA, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, said
serious discussions are taking place among the governors here
during informal — and private — meetings.
Owens said the success of the meeting would not be
measured in actions taken but in relationships built among the
participants.
He said the region has a history of working well together
on economic and other issues. With $320 billion in exports,
Owens said the 18 states in the region make up the third-largest
economy the world, behind the United States and Japan.
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com
© 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
39 Whitehaven News: LESSONS FROM THE SELLAFIELD SHUTDOWN
THE decision to let thousands of “non-essential” workers have
paid leave because of health and safety fears at Sellafield has
come back to haunt management.
Perhaps because safety is – quite rightly – so ingrained in the
nuclear industry, it was decided that the risk of bits of sheet
metal being blown about in the storms meant workers should
evacuate.
It must have been one of those lose-lose decisions for the
unfortunate manager who had to make the call. Had work carried
on and staff been injured or killed by wind-blown sheet metal,
his career would have been on the line. Equally he now finds
himself under public criticism by the emergency services for
creating a traffic gridlock as the 6,000 workers cheerfully all
rushed to their cars for the ultimate Le Mans start and
resulting total traffic gridlock.
Perhaps the advice given during nuclear alerts at the vast
complex would have adequately covered events: that advice is to
stay indoors. Such a “lock-down” is frequently used in emergency
training exercises at Sellafield, so must be well- rehearsed.
The other less-costly solution would have been to require staff
working out of doors or moving between buildings to wear hard
hats.
Oh... and in these days of public image and “spin”, another
priority for the management must be to find a better description
than “non-essential” for its loyal workforce!
*****************************************************************
40 News & Star: Thorp leak: Inspectors may press for criminal charges
Published on 13/06/2005
'Investigation: A leak at the Thorp plant went undetected for
eight months' width=] Investigation: A leak at the Thorp plant
went undetected for eight months
By Julian Whittle
THE GOVERNMENT’S Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is
expected to decide this week whether to press for a criminal
prosecution, after completing an investigation into a leak at
Sellafield’s Thorp plant.
Production at Thorp halted in April after the discovery of a
leak from a pipe, which went undetected for eight months.
An internal investigation by British Nuclear Group found the
pipe may have begun to fail as early as August 2004.
Opportunities were missed between January and April this year to
detect that material was leaking.
The pipe fractured and discharged 83,000 litres of radioactive
nitric acid onto the floor of a concrete-lined cell.
A secondary containment cell ensured there was no release of
radioactivity to the environment.
Sellafield’s managing director, Barry Snelson, told the BBC at
the weekend that the incident was “a stumble, not a fall”.
Meanwhile the new Trade Secretary, Alan Johnson, told a Sunday
newspaper that the findings of the official investigation into
the leak will have a “very important” bearing on whether the
Government gives the go ahead for up to 20 new nuclear power
plants.
The Government has promised a decision on new build within this
Parliament.
Mr Johnson told the Independent on Sunday: “We have to wait
for the report [on the Thorp leak] but it’s one of the issues
that militates against rushing too far down the road.
“I say the priorities must still be renewables.”
Anthorn, Broughton Moor and the former RAF 14MU base at Carlisle
were considered as sites to bury nuclear waste in the 1980s, it
has been revealed.
A request under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that
the Nirex agency drew up a long list of potential sites, which
was never published, before compiling a short list of 12,
including Sellafield.
Other Cumbrian locations on the long list included the low-level
waste dump at Drigg, Eskmeals, DM Longtown, Spadeadam, and a
former steel works in Workington.
A new list of potential dumping grounds is being drawn up in
2007 or 2008 but Nirex say the old list would not form a
starting point in the search for sites. However, Friends of the
Earth director Tony Juniper warned that “despite what
ministers might say, Nirex has made it quite clear that each of
the sites considered geologically suitable in the past could be
considered suitable in the future.”
*****************************************************************
41 News & Star: D-day on charges over Sellafield leak
Published on 13/06/2005
By Julian Whittle
THE GOVERNMENT’S Nuclear Installations Inspectorate is
expected to decide this week whether to press for a criminal
prosecution, after completing an investigation into a leak at
Sellafield’s Thorp plant.
Production at Thorp halted in April after the discovery of a
leak from a pipe, which went undetected for eight months.
An internal investigation by British Nuclear Group found the
pipe may have begun to fail as early as August 2004.
Opportunities were missed between January and April this year to
detect that material was leaking.
The pipe fractured and discharged 83,000 litres of radioactive
nitric acid onto the floor of a concrete-lined cell.
A secondary containment cell ensured there was no release of
radioactivity to the environment.
Sellafield’s managing director, Barry Snelson, told the BBC at
the weekend that the incident was “a stumble, not a fall”.
Maenwhile the new Trade Secretary, Alan Johnson, told a Sunday
newspaper that the findings of the official investigation into
the leak will have a “very important” bearing on whether the
Government gives the go ahead for up to 20 new nuclear power
plants.
A request under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that
the Nirex agency drew up a long list of potential sites, which
was never published, before compiling a short list of 12,
including Sellafield.
Other Cumbrian locations on the long list included the low-level
waste dump at Drigg, Eskmeals, DM Longtown, Spadeadam, and a
former steel works in Workington.
A new list of potential dumping grounds is being drawn up in
2007 or 2008 but Nirex say the old list would not form a
starting point in the search for sites.
*****************************************************************
42 Whitehaven News: IS NUCLEAR WASTE A SOLUTION – OR A PROBLEM?
OUT of sight, out of mind: that old saying could become very
true of West Cumbria’s huge legacy of nuclear waste. And this
week a respected trade union branch president is urging the
Government to speed up moves to create safe storage for the
nuclear waste in a deep underground repository.
But this may not be the “quick fix” the unions are anticipating.
No doubt, as with THORP, there will be a flurry of contracting
jobs as the repository is dug, but thereafter the supervision
jobs will shrink and shrink as time and awareness of the waste
rapidly fades from the political agenda.
What could, perhaps, provide more medium-term work would be the
alternative option of an above-ground store for nuclear waste.
This would not have the comforting “feel” of burial out of sight
and mind, but it would ensure that the waste could be easily
recovered, monitored and perhaps neutralised forever by (as yet
undiscovered) reprocessing skills. And such an option would have
far greater sustainable employment spin-offs.
The other conundrum is how the public (and the area’s vital
tourism industry) reacts to any reawakening of the sleeping
Nirex giant.
But for now, at least, the opening salvo in the great battle for
Copeland’s future economy has been fired, and John Kane deserves
credit for that. There will be debate ahead, and argument as
well as agreement, but at least there won’t be complacency.
*****************************************************************
43 Santa Fe New Mexican: NNSA officials answer questions about lab management
Mon Jun 13, 2005 9:02 pm
Associated Press
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) - A federal official has offered some
assurances to Los Alamos National Laboratory employees worried
about their pensions and benefits amid the quest for the next
lab manager.
"We want the pension and benefits plan to be fair, protective
and equivalent," said Tyler Przybylek, chairman of the board of
National Nuclear Security Administration officials who will
evaluate bid proposals to run the lab.
A request for proposals includes such language, he said.
But the U.S. Department of Energy and the NNSA is not mandating
the specifics of the next contractor's own benefits package,
Przybylek said.
"We want your employer to be the one to offer those," he said
Sunday during a meeting with more than 150 current and former
lab employees.
The meeting, organized by the Coalition for LANL Excellence,
allowed Przybylek and fellow board member Roberto Archuleta to
answer questions posed by about two dozen people.
Charles Mansfield, who heads a group of retired lab employees,
said the meeting went well.
"It was reassuring to me," he said.
Benefits have been one of the top concerns of current and former
lab employees, Mansfield said.
Archuleta tried to ease employee angst about health insurance
and pensions.
"We know it takes good benefits to attract and retain people,"
he said.
Przybylek said job security is not a certainty, but "it is not
our intent to start a contractor down a path to reduce staffing."
The DOE announced in April 2003 that it would seek bids for
management of the lab after a series of security and safety
lapses.
The lab has been managed by the University of California since
the lab's creation in 1943 as part of the top-secret Manhattan
Project to develop the first atomic bomb.
The deadline for bids is July 19.
The university's contract was set to expire Sept. 30, but the
NNSA last week granted an eight-month extension so UC can
continue operating the lab through May 31.
The NNSA said that would allow more time to pick the next lab
manager and to give lab workers more time to examine their
employment options.
Linton Brooks, head of the NNSA, has told lab employees that a
decision on a new lab manager will be made in November, and the
six-month transition to the new contractor will begin Dec. 1.
Mansfield said the contract extension was critical in terms of
easing the fears of employees.
The NNSA officials, who also held a meeting at the lab on
Friday, seemed to understand the concerns of employees,
Mansfield said.
"They recognize that Los Alamos laboratory is a very unique
facility for the nation and the last thing they want to do is
disrupt it with bad planning on the part of the bidders," he
said.
The NNSA is working to ensure there's only a minor glitch in
employee reaction if a management change is made, he said.
Mansfield said his main concern is for the quality of work at
the lab.
"We're a group of people who have spent our professional careers
here at the laboratory and have left behind a legacy of
excellence and we're very concerned that that legacy could be
dissipated" depending on the bidding process and management
selection, he said.
Copyright 2004 Santa Fe New Mexican
*****************************************************************
44
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Monday, June 13, 2005
NNSA Official Assures LANL Workers
Albuquerque Journal--> By Dave Kavanaugh
Journal Staff Writer
LOS ALAMOS— The future remains uncertain for employees of
Los Alamos National Laboratory as the Department of Energy seeks
bidders interested in managing the lab.
But a federal official offered some assurances Sunday at a
public forum Sunday regarding the fate of LANL employee and
retiree pensions and other benefits that hang in the balance.
"We want the pension and benefits plan to be fair,
protective and equivalent," said Tyler Przybylek, chairman of
the National Nuclear Security Administration Source Evaluation
Board.
A request for proposals— with which prospective bidders
must comply— includes such language, said Przybylek, who will
assist in selecting the successful bidder.
But he said the DOE and NNSA is not mandating the specifics
of the new contractor's own benefits package. "We want your
employer to be the one to offer those," he said.
More than 200 people, many of them LANL employees, gathered
at Duane Smith Auditorium to hear from representatives of the
NNSA.
The Coalition for LANL Excellence, a community group,
organized the forum to get clarification on how lab employees
and their workplace will be affected when a new contractor takes
over.
After a series of high-profile problems plagued the
national lab, the DOE in 2003 opted to open LANL's management to
a competitive bid process.
The University of California, which has overseen LANL since
1943, has announced it intends to team with several companies
and enter a proposal that would keep the lab with UC. But UC is
expected to have at least one major competitor.
Lockheed Martin, the company that runs Sandia National
Laboratories, is poised to offer its own bid and has teamed with
the University of Texas system and two companies. Others could
conceivably join the fray.
Deadline to submit proposals is July 19. A decision on the
contract is expected by Dec. 1, and a transition period will run
through June 1, 2006, at which time the new, seven-year contract
will go into effect.
Coalition for LANL Excellence organizers have expressed
concerns that the potential change in management may be spooking
longtime LANL employees into leaving their jobs and making
vacancies harder to fill.
"It creates uncertainty in many areas," explained Steve
Czuchlewski, a retired LANL staffer and guest scientist. One key
area is employee benefits.
"One of the things we've always counted on is generous
pensions (under the UC Retirement Plan)," he said. "Some
employees may make premature career decisions based on this
uncertainty."
Just how specific benefits will transfer for various
classifications of employees prompted a number of questions
Sunday. Accruals of leave time and service credit toward
retirement will vary.
The NNSA's Roberto Archuleta said employees will have a
60-day period prior to the end of the current UC contract on May
31, 2006, in which to exercise options with regard to employment
and benefits.
Sue Chasen and Robert Gibson, LANL staffers, listed several
concerns they have with what they called a lack of assurances in
the bid process.
Among them are job security, the employer contribution to
health insurance, the new contractor's stand-alone pension plan,
the timeline set aside for transition and the future focus of
LANL.
Przybylek said that, while job security is not an absolute
certainty, "It is not our intent to start a contractor down a
path to reduce staffing."
Archuleta offered assurances with regard to health
insurance and pension: "We know it takes good benefits to
attract and retain good people."
Some, like lab veteran Debbie Clark, didn't get answers
they necessarily rejoiced over. Clark said "Yikes!" when NNSA
representatives told her that, in some cases, accumulated
vacation leave would not be carried over in its old form.
But Przybylek said he's optimistic the process will be
healthy for LANL and its constituents.
"The mantra is: Excellent operation and good business
judgment should support superb science," he said. "We really
believe what's going to come out of the process is a lab of the
21st century."
"And," he said, "aside from what comes out in
(Congressional) hearings, this lab will be here for a long time."
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45 lamonitor.com: Panel to focus on LANL contract
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
ROGER SNODGRASS, , Monitor Assistant Editor
SANTA FE - New Mexico legislators on the Los Alamos National
Laboratory oversight committee used their first interim meeting
of the season Friday to brainstorm about priorities for the rest
of the year.
The select panel, composed of members of both houses, tossed
several ideas around but returned most often to questions about
the uncertainties surrounding the new contract to manage the
laboratory.
"We need as a committee to get in on the ground floor," said the
acting chair Sen. Phil Griego, D-Los Alamos, Mora, San Miguel,
Sandoval, Santa Fe and Taos. He said too often in the past, the
committee has been reactive.
"We're always trying to catch up," he said. "We need to have an
equitable partnership with the contractor."
He suggested that the new laboratory director should be invited
to the next meeting and expressed in policies and procedures
related to safety, security and employment issues, including
retirement and benefits for current and past employees.
Jeannette Wallace, R-Los Alamos, Sandoval and Santa Fe, told
committee members that Acting Director Robert Kuckuck of the
laboratory would be temporary regardless of who won the
contract. So, they needed to talk to the Department of Energy
officials and the local National Nuclear Security Administration
officials as well.
"They are part of the problem also," she said, mentioning
concerns in Los Alamos about the unresolved plans to close West
Jemez Road as part of the department's security upgrades.
Rep. Nick Salazar, D-Mora, Rio Arriba, San Miguel, Santa Fe and
Taos, agreed with Griego.
"We're almost Johnny-come-lately," he said. "It doesn't do to
hear what has already been done."
He noted that the committee had had no input on the Request for
Proposal and that he thought Department of Energy Officials
should be questioned as well.
"We ought to pin them down on what they're asking to do
differently," he said.
The committee's discussion is typically boiled down by staff of
the Legislative Service Council into a proposed agenda for the
interim period.
But there appeared to be a consensus for inviting Kuckuck, Los
Alamos Site Office Director Ed Wilmott and the Source Evaluation
Board Chair Tyler Przybylek to answer questions at the next
meeting scheduled for July 20.
Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Rio Arriba, Sandoval and Taos, a material
science technician at the laboratory, suggested that an Aug. 24
meeting might be a good time to interview the prospective new
managers of the lab, since that would be after a July 19 due
date for proposals in the competition
The committee's top priority last year had to do with developing
educational and employment pipelines for their northern New
Mexico constituents.
Their efforts coincided with the laboratory's expanding
relationships with area universities, which resulted in a number
of new partnerships. The University of New Mexico, New Mexico
State University, New Mexico Tech and New Mexico Highlands
University have been incorporated into the University of
California's plans for bidding on the lab contract.
The legislature also broadened state support for the
laboratory's Math and Science Academy program and other
perennial events like the NM Supercomputer Challenge.
Rep. Roberto "Bobby" Gonzales, D-Taos, a school superintendent,
requested that the educational initiatives be reviewed this year.
The committee seemed less interested in a suggestion by Senate
President Pro Tem Ben Altamirano, D-Catron, Grant and Socorro
that they think about combining with the Radioactive and
Hazardous Materials Committee. It was generally acknowledged
both committees had an ample workload and there were many topics
that didn't cross over between them.
Rep. Richard Martinez, D-Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and Santa Fe,
who also serves on the Radioactive and Hazardous Material
Committee, said he would like to see the committee look at the
environmental clean up program before the end of the year.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
46 Colorado Daily: 'One of the final steps'
By CASEY FREEMAN Colorado Daily Staff Writer
A gray and blue helicopter will be checking for gamma radiation
at Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site until Wednesday,
June 15.
"We are doing this as one of the finals steps in our final
survey program for cleaning up the site," said Bob Darr, the
community relations specialist with L.M. Stoller, the contractor
with Legacy Management that will take over Rocky Flats after
cleanup is finished.
"It's something the Department of Energy decided to do as just
one more step to make sure that we know everything that's out
there and to show the public that we have done a good cleanup
job and fulfilled the requirements," said Darr.
The aerial survey is part of Rocky Flats Cleanup Agreement. The
DOE hopes to prove to the public that cleanup has gone well and
all potential significant areas of contamination have been
identified.
Since 1959, over 500 surveys have been performed on towns and
nuclear facilities. This will be the fourth time Rocky Flats
will be surveyed. The last time Rocky Flats has been flown over
with a device to monitor gamma radiation was 1989.
The helicopter is a Bell 412, similar to the Huey helicopters
flown by the U.S. military in Vietnam. The Bell 412 has two
engines and four rotor blades on top. The helicopter, for survey
purposes, is full of equipment, and has a gamma detection system
that looks like two yellow capsules mounted on the bottom of it
by the skids.
The helicopter will be cruising at speeds of 70 miles per hour
at an altitude of only 50 to 100 feet. Darr said even though the
helicopter seems to be traveling fast at low altitudes, this is
a safe procedure.
"Seventy miles an hour for a helicopter is not that fast," said
Darr. "You still want to be conscious of safety, but it's very
common."
The helicopter will be flying out of Stevens Aviation Inc. at
Jefferson County Airport. The helicopter and equipment are owned
by the DOE, but operated by Bechtel Nevada, a contractor for the
DOE National Security Administration.
Cleaning Rocky Flats has proved to be a problem for Kaiser-Hill,
the management contractor supposed to decommission the Rocky
Flats site.
"We've done extensive characterization surveys and sampling all
over the site," said Darr, who is confident that the cleanup is
going well, but also said, "It would be literally impossible to
sample the entire site."
In February 2004, Kaiser-Hill was issued a Preliminary Note of
Violations by the DOE for not obeying nuclear safety rules and
procedures associated with several events, and for the failure
of Kaiser-Hill to operate within the safety limits and controls
approved by DOE.
Contact Casey Freeman on this story at (303) 443-6272 ext. 147
or freeman@coloradodaily.com.
*****************************************************************
47 lamonitor.com: Contract extended
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has approved an eight-month
extension of the current management contract for Los Alamos
National Laboratory.
With time running out on the existing contract, set to expire
Sept. 30, and the successor contract not expected to be awarded
until Dec. 1, an extension was requested by the Los Alamos Site
Office of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
An announcement by NNSA Friday stated, "The terms and conditions
of the extension have been worked out and the extension was
signed today by the Site Office and University of California."
Employees are now expected to have until May 31, 2006, to
exercise their employment options, before the end of a
transition period to the new contract.
Mounting concern about an approaching institutional limbo,
between the old contract and the new, was one of the motivations
for a community forum scheduled for today.
The meeting is hosted by the Committee for LANL Excellence
(CLE), an ad hoc community group in Los Alamos that has provided
technical analysis of contract documents for current employees
and retirees at the lab.
The meeting, featuring Tyler Pzybylek, the Source Evaluation
Board chair in charge of the contract competition, will be held
at the Duane Smith Auditorium at Los Alamos High School, from
2-4 p.m. The forum is expected to focus on persistent and
complex questions about pension and benefits under the successor
contract.
Both CLE and Rep. Tom Udall, D-NM, wrote letters recently
calling for prompt action by DOE to extend the current contract.
Udall, writing to Bodman on Wednesday, said "(T)he timeline of
the process has generated significant and unnecessary anxiety
about employees' status during the interim period."
The NNSA announcement said the terms of the extension permit an
additional extension period, if necessary, to Sept. 30, 2006.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
48 Albuquerque Tribune: UC gets 8 more months with lab
By Associated Press
June 13, 2005
LOS ALAMOS - The University of California has been given an
eight-month contract extension to run Los Alamos National
Laboratory for the federal government.
The National Nuclear Security Administration said Friday the
contract was extended to May 31, 2006, to allow more time to pick
the next lab manager and to give lab workers more time to examine
their employment options.
The UC contract was to have expired Sept. 30.
ON THE NET
Los Alamos National Laboratory: www.lanl.gov
University of California: www.universityofcalifornia.edu
National Nuclear Security Administration: www.nnsa.doe.gov
The NNSA has an option to extend the contract until Sept. 30,
2006, but NNSA officials don't expect that to be necessary, said
Kevin Roark, a lab spokesman.
Linton Brooks, head of the NNSA, told lab employees that a
decision on a new lab manager will be made in November and that
the six-month transition to the new contractor will begin Dec.
1, Roark said.
The university has run the nuclear weapons lab since the lab was
founded in 1943.
A series of fiscal and security lapses at the lab in recent
years has drawn criticism of the university's performance as lab
manager.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced in April 2003 that it
would seek bids for a new lab manager. The deadline for bids is
July 19.
The impact of the potential switch in lab managers on employee
benefits and pensions has generated concern within the lab and
among state leaders and the state's congressional delegation.
Rep. Tom Udall, a Santa Fe Democrat whose district includes the
lab, had pressed the federal government to extend the UC
contract as soon as possible to help alleviate employee angst.
Lab employees will have until May 31 to decide among three
employment options:
To become an employee under the new contractor and roll their
benefits into the new plan.
To retire and try to seek employment from the new contractor.
To freeze their UC benefits and roll their vacation time and
sick leave into the new plan.
The university has teamed with Bechtel Corp., Washington Group
International and BWX Technologies Inc. to try to keep the
contract.
Also vying for the contract is Lockheed Martin Corp. which is
leading a team including the University of Texas, Fluor Corp.
and CH2M Hill.
The Los Alamos lab, with about 8,000 UC employees and 3,000
contract workers, is one of the nation's three chief
installations responsible for maintaining the nation's nuclear
arsenal.
*****************************************************************
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