***************************************************************** 07/07/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.155 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 BBC: Puzzle over Iran nuclear official 2 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Mystery Around SeoulˇŻs Offer to N. Korea 3 The Standard: Solve the NKorean crisis now 4 US: VOA News: Manhattan Project Began Nuclear Age 60 Years Ago; Deba 5 US: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Would you have dropped the bo 6 US: RGJ: Senator urges moderate pick for high court 7 RIA Novosti: Rosatom and European bank agree on funding for nuclear 8 Xinhua: Russia to complete experiment on Bulava missile in 2006 9 Economist.com: Nuclear weapons 10 RedNova News: Russian Shipyard Unloads Nuclear Fuel From Two Submari NUCLEAR REACTORS 11 US: NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting 12 canadaeast.com: DG N.B. Companies 13 US: Clarion-Ledger: Nuclear power benefits Mississippi 14 US: Economist.com: Nuclear power | The shape of things to come? | 15 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the 16 US: NRC: Exelon Generation Company, LLC, PSEG Nuclear LLC; Peach Bot 17 US: Arizona Republic: Palo Verde reactor shut down again NUCLEAR SECURITY 18 US: KITV 4 News: Empty Plutonium Canister Ends Up At Trash Facility NUCLEAR SAFETY 19 [du-list] URGENT: uranium reproductive toxicity data needed 20 US: IEER Press Release: NAS BEIR VII report 21 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find 22 US: FOXNews.com: Junk Science - Trillion-Dollar Radiation Mistake? NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 23 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca backers rallying 24 bELLONA: Thorp officials open with Bellona as they work to restore U 25 US: Platts: NRC to take limited role in DOE's prep of EIS for GTCC w 26 Las Vegas SUN: Shoshone Nation files motion in Yucca case 27 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Meeting on Planning an 28 US: KPHO Phoenix - Update: Rocket Fuel Found in Water Supply 29 Whitehaven News: I didn’t fall asleep says sacked BNFL electrician 30 US: Bradenton Herald: Lockheed will assess Tallevast PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 31 Platts: DOE to transfer depleted uranium to BPA 32 Oakland Tribune: Lab: Nuclear arsenal rides on big laser 33 PISJ: Critics question DOE honesty on plutonium project at INL 34 BNL: Brookhaven Scientists Develop Method to Remove Uranium from 35 Rocky Mountain News: Senate OKs buyout at Rocky Flats 36 AP Wire: Companies hoping for SRS contracts meet with DOE ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 BBC: Puzzle over Iran nuclear official Last Updated: Wednesday, 6 July, 2005 [Hassan Rohani] Rohani is the public face of Iran's atomic programme The position of Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani is uncertain after officials denied an official news agency report that he had resigned. Citing an "informed source", Irna said Mr Rohani had sent a resignation letter to President Mohammad Khatami. But officials from the Supreme National Security Council which Mr Rohani leads are quoted saying the report is false. Mr Rohani has led the Islamic state's often combative discussions with the European Union since October 2003. "It's a sheer lie. He has not resigned. Resigning at this time would be meaningless," SNSC spokesman Ali Agha Mohammadi is quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. The confusion comes nearly two weeks after the election in Iran of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Correspondents say there has been intense speculation in recent days about the future of Mr Rohani, who is believed to share the reformist agenda of the outgoing president. Unconfirmed reports in Iran say the new cabinet, which is expected to be announced soon, excludes all former ministers in the previous administration. Mr Ahmadinejad has said his government will continue Iran's nuclear programme - which the country says is purely peaceful and is needed to meet its energy needs. The US has accused Iran of using its atomic energy programme as a front to develop nuclear weapons. ***************************************************************** 2 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: Mystery Around SeoulˇŻs Offer to N. Korea Deepens Home> National/Politics Updated July.7,2005 19:53 KST Suggestions that a mystery South Korean proposal to the North could be merged with a U.S. offer made at six-party talks in June last year are "premature," a high-ranking U.S. State Department official said Wednesday. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Chosun Ilbo the South Korean government had briefed the U.S. only in general terms about the proposal Unification Minister Chung Dong-young recently made to North Korean leader Kim Yong-il. There had been no request to merge the two offers, he said. He said it was too soon to say whether SeoulˇŻs proposal was suitable for the framework of the six-nation negotiations since it came out of inter-Korean talks. He also denied reports that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said there was "no problem" with the South Korean proposal. All Hill did was express interest, he said. Meanwhile, President Roh Moo-hyun told the press on Thursday he was working within a comprehensively mandated range, and the proposal, once revealed and negotiated, would earn bipartisan support. Roh said the offer was being kept under wraps because it involved ˇ°strongly strategic elements.ˇ± The unification minister put the proposal behind closed doors to Kim Jong-il during their June 17 meeting in Pyongyang. Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Hong Seok-hyun said the plan contained either multilateral security guarantees and economic aid, or systematic economic support, or plans to persuade the international community to aid the North. He said it could be seen as an outline of what support the North can expect if it gives up its nuclear arms program. Government officials tout the proposal as a Korean "Marshall Plan" that includes regime security guarantees, support from each nation in the six-party talks including security guarantees, and energy and food aid. Other officials deny security guarantees are involved. Roh said the proposal would only carry strategic significance if coordinated with the U.S. (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 3 The Standard: Solve the NKorean crisis now While the Bush administration dithered, Pyongyang broke out as a nuclear power William Perry, former US defense secretary, said the threat of UN sanctions froze Pyongyang's nuclear program for nine years.AP It has been a year since the United States and its negotiating partners sat down with North Korea to discuss the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. In the meantime, Porter Goss, the director of central intelligence, reported March 17 to the US Senate Armed Services Committee that the number of nuclear weapons North Korea possesses has increased and that there is now ''a range'' of estimates above the one or two weapons that may have been produced in the early 1990s. His testimony implies that the intelligence community believes North Korea reprocessed the 8,000 fuel rods that had been kept under strict surveillance from 1994 to 2003 in accordance with the Agreed Framework between North Korea and the United States. If so, this could mean that North Korea has many times the number of nuclear weapons it did before the Bush administration took office. Thus, while the US administration wrangled internally about whether to negotiate seriously with North Korea, Pyongyang was using the time to break out as a nuclear power. In February the North Koreans declared that they have a ''nuclear weapons arsenal.'' This is something that needs to be reversed in a hurry. Why is it that a war to address a nuclear weapons program that we now know had been dismantled can be pursued with great urgency by the Bush administration while diplomacy to eliminate a growing arsenal in North Korea is carried on in an almost lackadaisical fashion, captive to pride and preconditions? Why isn't the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying something like, ``Today it is necessary to do everything possible in order not to allow North Korea to conduct tests,'' a declaration that was in fact uttered by the chief of the general staff of Russia's armed forces. Yes, even the Russians, the ones who first helped Pyongyang acquire nuclear technology, are worried that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test. After that there will be no doubt it has become a nuclear power, and the regional nuclear arms race will be on. North Korea has apparently used the past five years to become a nuclear weapons state. Meanwhile, its people remain impoverished, and there is no reason to believe that the regime would not sell nuclear material, technology and even weapons to any government, group or individual with hard cash, just as it does in selling ballistic missiles, drugs and other contraband. This is about more than the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the fate of South Korea and US troops stationed there, important as those things are. What is at stake is the stability of Northeast Asia and, arguably, the global economic and political order. The Bush administration must get serious. It doesn't matter who is at the table as long as the United States and the North Koreans are there, and as long as both sides negotiate with seriousness and urgency. The Bush administration must inject both into the process. Seriousness is demonstrated by spelling out a package to the North Koreans that addresses their fundamental need for economic assistance. It is demonstrated by rhetorical restraint. Name-calling aimed at North Korea has only hampered diplomacy. Seriousness means sending a senior US official to meet with Kim Jong Il. And the way to know whether America has been trying hard enough is to determine whether its Asian negotiating partners also think diplomacy has been exhausted. Urgency is well demonstrated by putting forth a timetable. The Bush administration should take a page from its aborted diplomacy toward Iraq. Just as it did with Iraq, it should negotiate with Europe, Asian countries and others to set international - read United Nations - deadlines for solving the crisis. The North Koreans have said they regard a UN sanctions resolution as tantamount to war, and Security Council members such as China are not likely to support sanctions unless there is a failure of diplomacy that the international community views as entirely North Korea's fault. Just as the US worked with its allies to set deadlines for UN inspections in Iraq, it should seek a deadline for the next meeting with North Korea and another one for a final diplomatic agreement. There is a precedent for this. According to former defense secretary William Perry (in a 1999 book), it was the threat of UN sanctions that led to negotiations concluding in the Agreed Framework, which froze the North Korean plutonium-based nuclear program for nine years. Time is running out. Either the North Koreans will conduct a test (and transfer nuclear material, technology or weapons to its allies) or the administration will finally act, using carrot and stick, to stop the clock and bring this crisis to a peaceful end before it's too late. THE WASHINGTON POST Former First Lady Hillary Clinton is the elected US Democrat Senator from New York. Carl Levin is the elected US Democrat Senator from Michigan Copyright 2005, The Standard, Sing Tao Newspaper Group and Global China Group. All rights reserved. No content may be redistributed or republished, either electronically or in print, without express written consent of The Standard. ***************************************************************** 4 VOA News: Manhattan Project Began Nuclear Age 60 Years Ago; Debate Continues By Deborah Block Los Alamos, New Mexico 07 July 2005 During World War II, the U.S. Government built an isolated town named Los Alamos, in the hills of the southwestern state of New Mexico. This mysterious town was the site of a top-secret nuclear research laboratory, where scientists built the world’s first atomic bomb. On the eve of that 60th anniversary, VOA's Deborah Block has the story of what was called “the Manhattan Project.” [1st nuclear test] World's first nuclear bomb blast July 16, 1945, the world's first nuclear test bomb was detonated by the U.S. government at a remote bombing range in New Mexico. But the story behind the making of the bomb began three years earlier at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. A team of scientists, many of them refugees from Europe, worked at Los Alamos, and two other research facilities in the United States, to create an atomic bomb. It was known as the Manhattan Project. The United States was trying to develop an atomic weapon before the Nazis in Germany. [Jay Weschler] Jay Weschler Jay Weschler tested explosives for the Manhattan project in Los Alamos. At first, even he wasn't sure what he was working on. He recollects, "Then it became a little more apparent what some of the equipment was that we were collecting and building." The 8,000 people who lived in the Los Alamos laboratory complex in 1945 virtually disappeared from the world, forming their own social community. They needed a pass to enter or leave Los Alamos, and weren't even allowed to tell outsiders where they lived or the name of the town. [Robert Oppenheim] Robert Oppenheimer, right The researchers worked furiously, often around the clock, led by prominent physicist Robert Oppenheimer. The work at the laboratory led to the creation of three atomic bombs -- one used in the first nuclear test in New Mexico, and two others dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which ended World War II. Mr. Weschler was not against using nuclear bombs to fight the Japanese government. "Japan would have gone on in a horrible fashion for a long time with great loss of life on both sides. So to have ended war with the bombs seemed very sensible, especially at that time," he said. [Peter Kuznick] Peter Kuznick, history professor, American University Peter Kuznick, a history professor who focuses on nuclear studies at American University in Washington, says he thinks the American people were wrong. He believes the U.S. government exaggerated the situation; especially how many Americans troops would be killed if they invaded Japan, and says the Japanese were close to being defeated. Providing a little history, he says, "The American people thought this was the only way to end the war quickly, and to avoid an invasion that would have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. From that standpoint they thought this was a very justifiable act. There was no military justification. The Japanese were trying to surrender." Other people, including some military leaders, believed using atomic weapons was morally wrong. After the war, the Los Alamos National Laboratory continued its work on nuclear bombs, creating an even stronger hydrogen bomb. Mr. Weschler stayed at the lab after World War II, during a period known as the Cold War -- the conflict between the Communist nations led by the Soviet Union, and the democratic countries headed by the United States. "I worked very hard on nuclear weapons during the Cold War. I wouldn't have, except I did believe in the principles that if we were strong then nobody was going to use them," he said. The argument for nuclear weapons then was that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union would dare start a nuclear war. Peter Kuznick thinks that was a mistake. "I don't think you can have real security based upon that kind of deterrence. The problem with deterrence is that as soon as it fails the world is over. You don't play on such stakes with a deterrent that might work or might not work." Mr. Weschler thinks all nuclear weapons should have been destroyed after the Cold War. He says, "Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, my whole feeling is these things shouldn't even exist in today's world. I can think of no way that they can be used to do anything that can help any political situation. Unfortunately, we don't set a good example when we keep talking about building new ones and about maintaining our stockpile." [Kathleen McGinnis] Kathleen McGinnis, CSIS Kathleen McGinnis works on nuclear issues for the private research group, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. She thinks the U.S. nuclear arsenal is necessary. "We need to have nuclear weapons because other states (countries) have them. Not only that, but other states and our allies rely upon our extended deterrent. We protect them from conflicts." Today, the Los Alamos National Laboratory does not build new atomic bombs, but maintains the nation's past stockpile of nuclear weapons without detonating test devices. It also does research on a wide variety of other scientific technology. And although the laboratory shares much research with the public, some of it remains top secret, and that includes a building, which stores plutonium, the material used to create nuclear weapons. Broadcasting Board of Governors ***************************************************************** 5 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Would you have dropped the bomb? July/August 2005 | thebulletin.org July/August 2005, Volume 61, No. 4 With each passing decade, the anniversary of the atomic bombings provokes a debate over whether the United States made the right choice. A far more difficult task is to assume personal responsibility. The Bulletin sought out noteworthy thinkers with backgrounds in history, theology, physics, and politics and posed a single, provocative question: "If the decision had been yours alone to make, would you have dropped the bomb?" The world according to Bolton Long after the fight over John Bolton’s confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has ended, the more critical battle over his worldview will continue. By David Bosco The clutter above Space debris poses a growing threat to space shuttles and satellites. Countries are finally getting serious about cleaning up the orbital mess--but U.S. plans for the militarization of space could be the spoiler. By Leonard David Willful ignorance The Pentagon has spent billions of dollars on the war in Iraq. But somewhere along the way it forgot to equip U.S. troops with a counterinsurgency doctrine. By Jason Vest » Sidebar: What's old is new (or not) Copyright 2005 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists [ ***************************************************************** 6 RGJ: Senator urges moderate pick for high court Ray Hagar RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL 7/6/2005 11:43 pm U.S. senators should be considered by President Bush to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday. Reid, D-Nev., also said he and Bush have talked privately to ensure that the appointment of the successor for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor does not reach the level of partisan squabbling that has epitomized the debate over recent judicial nominations. “I know that I won’t get someone who I will jump up and down and cheer for,” Reid told a group of employees at the Reno Gazette-Journal. “But there are many fine and conservative jurists out there. “I had lunch at the Supreme Court 10 days ago and at my table were (associate justices) Sandra Day O’Connor, (Antonin) Scalia and (Stephen) Breyer,” Reid said. “They said what they would like to see is the president pick someone who has not been a judge. And what I have said to anyone who will listen is what I think he should do is pick one of the senators.” Reid’s suggestions drew tepid responses from some leading Nevada lawyers and judges. “I believe that an appellate judge needs to be a trial judge first,” Reno appellate lawyer Robert Eisenberg said. “The only thing an appellate judge does is review the work of the trial judge to determine if the trial judge has made an error. For an appellate judge to do that, he has to have some experience as a trial judge.” Other issues Reid also said in an hourlong interview that: * Bush probably will bypass the Senate and make a recess appointment to John Bolton as the ambassador to the United Nations; * U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is the front-runner to win the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination but may not be the best choice, and; * He is against a timetable for pulling out of the war in Iraq but urged Bush to set some benchmark dates for turning over the defense of Iraq to the Iraqis. “It would be very damaging to us to cut and run now,” Reid said. “But the president has to announce publicly some benchmarks that we could look to. The speech he gave (last week) was to stay the course. American people deserve more than that. We need some benchmarks. What is he looking for with the Iraqi people?” Reid cited Justice Hugo Black of Alabama as a former senator who was appointed to the Supreme Court. Black, a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his youth, was appointed to the court by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1937. “I think it is a great idea,” Reid said about the possibility of appointing a senator to the Supreme Court. “Some outstanding people have come from the Senate. The last was an ex-Ku Klux Klansman who turned out to be one of the greatest civil-rights jurists of all time.” Experience in a lower court is important for justices on the Nevada Supreme Court and that probably holds true on the U.S. Supreme Court, Nevada Supreme Court Justice Jim Hardesty said. “In the short time that I have been on the Nevada Supreme Court, I am very glad that I have had the opportunity to serve as a district court judge,” Hardesty said. “There are any number of issues that we deal with in front of the Nevada Supreme Court where having experience as a trial court judge is of enormous benefit.” Reid said it would be a mistake for Bush to temporarily appoint Bolton as U.N. ambassador. “I don’t know how well you know this guy but he is a little unusual to say the least,” Reid said of Bolton. “The situation is that Bolton is just a flawed candidate. But he is the vice president’s man and the vice president has been doing everything he can to get him in that job. That being the case, you will probably see a recess appointment because the vice president is so locked into this man. “If he does that, I’m not sure it is the right thing for the country to send someone to the United Nations who can’t get confirmed by the Senate.” Reid is wary of Clinton’s bid for president, saying there are other Democratic senators and governors who might be better candidates. “It is a wide-open field,” Reid said. “The person who is leading at this stage is Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton, of course, has lots of money. She comes from a state with lots of people in it, but she still has a few ties to Arkansas. I think she is the person to beat, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she is the best candidate.” Yucca Mountain Regarding a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Reid said: “Yucca Mountain is not dead, but it is breathing real hard. There have been some significant blows to the program, the court decision being one and then these memos that the science has been doctored also hurts the program a lot. “I think there will be efforts to do other things with nuclear waste. The solution is the leave it where it is, in dry-cast storage containment and that is being done at facilities around America. It would save billions of dollars and we would no longer have to worry about transporting these poisonous substances.” Copyright © 2005 The Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 7 RIA Novosti: Rosatom and European bank agree on funding for nuclear environment projects in Russia 8/07/2005 MOSCOW, July 7 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) signed an agreement Thursday on financing nuclear environment projects in Russia under the Multilateral Nuclear Environment Program (MNEPR). "The agreement stipulates that the EBRD will finance on a gratis basis technical support to buy, install and put into operation equipment and infrastructure necessary for the preparation and implementation of nuclear environment projects in Russia under the MNEPR," Rosatom said. Deputy Head of Rosatom Sergei Antipov and Director of the EBRD's Nuclear Safety Department Vince Novak signed the agreement. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 8 Xinhua: Russia to complete experiment on Bulava missile in 2006 www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-07-07 13:31:35 MOSCOW, July 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia plans to complete its experiment on the new Bulava sea-launched intercontinental ballistic missile system by the end of 2006, the Russian navy's Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Kuroyedov said Wednesday. The research and manufacture of the new missile have been going on as scheduled, and only after the process is 70 percent completed can related departments decide when to hand the missile over to the navy and other troops, the Itar-Tass news agency quoted Kuroyedov as saying. The solid-fuel Bulava missile, which is under a three-year testing program, is capable of carrying up to 10 individually guided nuclear warheads, with a range of up to 8,000 km. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Economist.com: Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons | Under new management | Jul 7th 2005 KOBAL America's atomic-bomb laboratories are about to be overhauled. It promises to be a tricky business Get article background JUST over 60 years ago, Robert Oppenheimer demonstrated the power of a partnership between the American government and academia. His team of university scientists developed and built the first nuclear bombs in a jumble of buildings at Los Alamos in the New Mexican desert. The team achieved its astonishing success in just over two years. The University of California has run Los Alamos National Laboratory since that inception in 1943. But an embarrassing series of security and safety lapses at the laboratory, which recently resulted in the temporary suspension of all classified work for several months, has led the government to insist that the university find an industrial partner when it rebids for the contract to manage the place on July 19th. The contract is open to competition, and a rival bid is expected from another university with a commercial partner. [Country Briefing] United States [Websites] The University of California has run the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories for over 50 years. Lockheed Martin currently manages Sandia National Laboratory for the Department of Energy. The University of Texas has information about its bid with Lockheed Martin. See also Bechtel, the National Ignition Facility, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, GlobalSecurity.org and the Defence Department. Los Alamos is one of three national laboratories working on nuclear weapons. For more than half a century, the University of California has run two of themLos Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, which specialise in nuclear scienceon behalf of the American government. The thirdSandia National Laboratories, which is responsible for the non-nuclear components and systems engineering for America's nuclear weaponsis managed by Lockheed Martin, an engineering firm. The contracts for managing all three will now be put out to tender. Work at the labs has shifted considerably since the testing of nuclear weapons was suspended in 1992. Instead of weapons development, America's nuclear-weapons scientists have been engaged in stockpile stewardship, a programme designed to ensure that the country's warheads will continue to function predictably as they age. This work involves computer simulations of how a weapon would explode, and subcritical tests that do not involve full nuclear detonations. The labs have two large physics experiments under way. The first, at Los Alamos, is an oversized X-ray machine that uses non-fissile material to examine what happens when a pitthe fissile core of a nuclear weaponimplodes. In a weapon, this implosion triggers the nuclear explosion; in the lab, the explosion is thankfully absent. The second experiment is the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is intended to generate temperatures and pressures approaching those created by the pits, in order to detonate small pellets of nuclear explosive. Politics is currently threatening the NIF, which is being built at Lawrence Livermore, in California. It was supposed to be completed, at a cost of $1.4 billion, in 2003. To date, $2.8 billion has been spent on ita figure somewhat complicated by the mingling of construction and running costsand the facility is still an estimated four years from completion. On July 1st, the Senate voted to stop construction completely, action that was part of a $31 billion energy and water appropriations bill. Pete Domenici, a Republican Senator from New Mexico who heads the relevant subcommittee, made the proposal. His state includes both Los Alamos and Sandia (though Sandia also has a site in California). Although the decision appears to threaten the facility, it could be just a piece of political manoeuvring. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington-based defence consultancy, wonders whether Mr Domenici might be positioning himself for a meeting later this summer, when he must get together with members of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives, whose chairman is from California and therefore unlikely to agree to the cuts. Nevertheless, Mr Pike says, there are still questions to be asked about the role of the ignition facility. Most researchers agree that the NIF is scientifically important for the study of nuclear fusion; more controversial is whether it is necessary for stockpile stewardship. Sidney Drell, a physicist and arms-control specialist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, in California, says the project is integral to stockpile stewardship. Mr Pike, however, describes it as a self licking ice-cream conea thing that exists for its own sake and serves no purpose. Some physicists agree, though not on the record. Three recent internal reviews of the facility by the Department of Defence and the Department of Energy go so far as to suggest that without it America would move closer to resuming nuclear testing. The longer the country relies solely on computer simulations to check for faults, rather than on the micro-explosions the NIF would make possible, the less certain the Department of Defence is that the warheads will perform as expected. But stockpile stewardship has other functions. It retains a coherent body of nuclear expertise in America and (which is slightly different) it prevents nuclear scientists from being lured overseas. Unfortunately, the uncertainty about the future has lowered staff morale, potentially damaging this secondary function of keeping weapons scientists in America. At Los Alamos, the appointment of an irascible former admiral as the lab's director did not help, although he has since been replaced. An unofficial blog that allows disgruntled staff to publish anonymously lists gripe after gripe. Older staffsome 39% are aged 50 and abovehave been retiring at unprecedented rates, afraid that their generous pension packages will be cut if the University of California fails to win the contract. At Lawrence Livermore, some 300 researchers were made redundant last year after Congress slashed the NIF's construction budget. Yet there is hope for a brighter future. A fundamental rethink of the way in which America maintains its nuclear weapons is on the cards. Congress recently authorised a two-year study to determine whether a new approach to maintaining warheads would be possible. The so-called reliable replacement warhead programme aims to work out whether it is possible to make cheaper weapons without nuclear testing, by modifying existing components. The programme could present opportunities for demoralised nuclear scientists. Historically, the University of California has managed the labs on a not-for-profit basis. To encourage competition for the management contract, officials at the Department of Energy plan to increase the management fee, to allow an element of profit. Indeed, a University of California internal memo reads, Extrapolating from a recently negotiated DOE contract with Lockheed Martin to manage Sandia, we imagine we could double the $15m fee. Higher fees should secure better management and improved working conditions for staff. After much soul searching as to whether the university should be conducting nuclear work at all, its senior management has decided to go ahead with a bid in partnership with Bechtel, an engineering and construction firm based in San Francisco. The University of Texas has announced it will also bid for the contract, in partnership with Lockheed Martin. Whichever succeedsthe result will be announced by December 1stit is probably a smart idea to keep the nuclear-science labs managed at least in part by academics. Historically, university management has proved better for long-term research projects than corporate governance. The research culture at universities is open and flexible. This attracts talented scientists and stops them wandering to places where their talents might be put to uses of which the American government might disapprove. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2005. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 RedNova News: Russian Shipyard Unloads Nuclear Fuel From Two Submarines Text of report by Russian news agency Interfax-AVN website Murmansk, 7 July: The crew of the Imandra service floating base has successfully completed an operation to unload spent nuclear fuel from the reactors of two nuclear submarines. Work to unload the fuel was carried out in the harbour of the Nerpa shipyard (Snezhnogorsk, Murmansk Region) where two nuclear submarines of Victor-3 class had been delivered, Mustafa Kashka, deputy director of the Atomflot enterprise, told Interfax. He recalled that the recycling of two nuclear submarines under the project 671RTM (code-name Shchuka, Victor-3 under NATO classification) was being financed by Great Britain and Norway. "The reloading container with the reactor's fuel channels was successfully delivered to the storage facility of the Imandra floating base and after that the crew's specialists transferred the fuel channels to special cases and put them in a special storage facility that has a high degree of biological protection," Kashka said. "All technological demands connected with the removal of nuclear fuel were strictly observed and there were no deviations from the procedure," he said. More than 1,500 spent heat-generating fuel assemblies are currently stored at Imandra, including 84 cases with spent heat- generating fuel assemblies recovered from the Kursk nuclear submarine. At the time Kursk became the eighth nuclear submarine of the Northern Fleet from which spent nuclear fuel was removed using the Imandra floating base. The Imandra was built by the Baltiyskiy shipyard in 1981 and is used for complex servicing of vessels that have nuclear power plants and for work with spent nuclear fuel. The base is equipped with a special storage facility for cases containing spent heat-generating assemblies. It consists of six autonomous tanks filled with distillates that are cooled by their own built-in refrigerators. The Imandra can also receive and store solid and liquid radioactive waste. It has special equipment for deactivation. Source: BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union © 2002-2005 RedNova.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 NRC: Sunshine Act Meeting FR Doc 05-13419 [Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129)] [Notices] [Page 39348-39349] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07jy05-97] Date: Weeks of July 4, 11, 18, 25, August 1, 8, 2005. Place: Commissioners' Conference Room, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Status: Public and closed. Matters to be Considered: Week of July 4, 2005 There are no meetings scheduled for the week of July 4, 2005. Week of July 11, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of July 11, 2005. Week of July 18, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of July 18, 2005. Week of July 25, 2005--Tentative Thursday, July 28, 2005. 1:30 p.m. Discussion of Security Issues (Closed--Ex. 1). Week of August 1, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of August 1, 2005. Week of August 8, 2005--Tentative There are no meetings scheduled for the week of August 8, 2005. * The schedule for Commission meetings is subject to change on short notice. To verify the status of meetings call (recording)--(301) 415-1292. Contact person for more information: Michelle Schroll, (301) 415-1662. Additional Information: Affirmation of item b. (1) Exelon Generation Company, LLC (Early Site Permit for Clinton ESP Site), Docket No. 52- 007-ESP; (2) Dominion Nuclear North Anna, LLC (Early Site Permit for North Anna ESP Site), Docket No. 52-008-ESP; (3) System Energy Resources, Inc. (Early Site Permit for Grand Gulf ESP Site), [[Page 39349]] Docket No. 52-009-ESP; (4) Louisiana Energy Services, LP. (National Enrichment Facility), Docket No. 70-3103-ML; (5) USEC Inc. (American Centrifuge Plant), Docket No. 70-7004, Guidance on Mandatory Hearings, tentatively scheduled on Wednesday, June 29, 2005, at 9:25 a.m. was not held. By a vote of 5-0 on June 29, the Commission determined pursuant to U.S.C. 552b(e) and Sec. 9.107(a) of the Commission's rules that ``Discussion of Intergovernmental Issues (Closed--Ex. 9)'' be held June 29, and on less than one week's notice to the public. The NRC Commission Meeting Schedule can be found on the Internet at: . The NRC provides reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities where appropriate. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in these public meetings, or need this meeting notice or the transcript or other information from the public meetings in another format (e.g., braille, large print), please notify the NRC's Disability Program Coordinator, August Spector, at (301) 415-7080, TDD: (301) 415- 2100, or by e-mail at . Determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made on a case-by-case basis. This notice is distributed by mail to several hundred subscribers. If you no longer with to receive it, or would like to be added to the distribution, please contact the Office of the Secretary, Washington, DC 20555 (301) 415-1969. In addition, distribution of this meeting notice over the Internet system is available. If you are interested in receiving this Commission meeting schedule electronically, please send an electronic message to . Dated: June 30, 2005. R. Michelle Schroll, Office of the Secretary. [FR Doc. 05-13419 Filed 7-5-05; 10:15 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M ***************************************************************** 12 canadaeast.com: DG N.B. Companies As published on page D2 on July 7, 2005 Lepreau answers still up in the air SCOTT JORGE BARRERA The Daily Gleaner OTTAWA - The federal government could announce its plan for aiding in the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant as early as today, according to a senior Liberal source. The Liberal source said he had received word from someone close to the prime minister that Ottawa's position on the refurbishment had been determined and an announcement could be made today. "There could be some announcement on Lepreau maybe as early as tomorrow. It's coming down the tubes, a decision has been made," the source said Wednesday. But senior New Brunswick politicians disagree. Officials in regional minister Andy Scott's office flatly deny an announcement is due. "It won't be tomorrow or this week," said Campbell Morrison, Scott's Ottawa spokesman. Morrison said to his knowledge there is no federal government decision on Lepreau. Andrew Holland, constituency spokesman for the Fredericton MP, said Scott did not have any meetings on the phone or in person with anyone about Point Lepreau. Scott, who is Indian Affairs minister, has the lead on the file. Saint John Liberal MP Paul Zed dismissed the possibility on an announcement, saying he had not heard anything. Zed is a main players on the Point Lepreau file because of its impact on Saint John. Amy Butcher, a spokeswoman in Prime Minister Paul Martin's office, would not confirm the rumour. She said the government is working on the file. Provincial officials were dismissed word of a decision as premature speculation. Premier Bernard Lord is away on vacation this week. The province is looking to Ottawa to help with the $1.4 billion refurbishment of Point Lepreau. The nuclear power plant generates roughly one-third of the province's electricity and its continued existence would help keep power rates stable, according to industry leaders. The province has said it would expand the Belledune coal-fired power plant if Ottawa did not come through with financial help for the refurbishment project. There have already been several false alarms in the drawn out saga that began this spring when Lord went to Ottawa seeking financial help for the project. New Brunswick labour groups and the University of New Brunswick, which depends on nuclear research-related activity, are all urging the provincial and federal governments to repair the plant. UNB has said it will lose its nuclear research expertise unless Lepreau gets a new lease on life. Some environmentalists are less eager to see the nuclear power plant's life extended. With files from Canadaeast News. Copyright © 2005 Brunswick News Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Clarion-Ledger: Nuclear power benefits Mississippi [The Clarion-Ledger: Mississippi's News Source] July 7, 2005 Mississippi needs more nuclear power. Today's increasing fossil fuel prices make it ever more critical that nuclear power play a role in Mississippi's electricity needs ("Miss. might get plant," May 22). Cost-effective electricity is vital to the economic development of Mississippi. Nuclear power can meet this need in an environmentally friendly, cost-effective manner. If an additional nuclear reactor is constructed at Grand Gulf, not only will Mississippians benefit from new high-paying jobs, but they will also benefit from a competitively priced electricity supply and, more importantly, cleaner air. Emission-free sources like nuclear power plants supply safe, reliable and affordable power without polluting the air. Generating electricity with nuclear energy prevents the emission of harmful pollutants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide and greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which are commonly produced by burning fossil fuels. In the year 2004, for example, Grand Gulf's generation of electricity completely avoided the emission of the same amount of the harmful air pollutant nitrogen oxide released by 853,000 passenger cars. Competitive electricity supply is important to longstanding industries such as sawmills and catfish farms, as well as to newer companies, such as high-tech automotive manufacturers and software companies. Mississippians should welcome the expansion of nuclear power in the state and benefit from its ability to provide emission-free energy and safe, reliable, economical electricity for our industries, businesses and homes. L. Alan Smith Brandon Copyright ©2005 Clarionledger.com All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 14 Economist.com: Nuclear power | The shape of things to come? | [Economist.com] Jul 7th 2005 Alamy Climate change is helping a revival of the nuclear industry, though its economics still look dodgy Get article background THINGS have not gone well for the nuclear industry over the past quarter century or so. First came the Three Mile Island accident in America in 1979, then the disaster at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine in 1986. In Japan, Tokyo Electric Power, the world's largest private electricity company, shut its 17 nuclear reactors after it was caught falsifying safety records to hide cracks at some of its plants in 2002. And the attacks on September 11th 2001 were a sharp reminder that the risks of nuclear power generation were not only those inherent in the technology. Nor was safety the only worry: there were financial problems too. British Energy, Britain's nuclear-energy operator, required successive government bail-outs. Britain also recently finalised a Ł50 billion ($90 billion) scheme to deal with the nuclear-waste liabilities of British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), an inept re-processor of nuclear waste that is itself bust. Nuclear Energy [Websites] Tokyo Electric Power, British Energy, British Nuclear Fuels, World Nuclear Association, Nuclear Industry Association, James Lovelock, Areva, Environmental Defence, World Resources Institute, International Energy Agency, US energy bill But lately, things have brightened for the nuclear industry. In Asia, which never turned against it in the way the West did, the prospects are excellent. China already has nine nuclear reactors, and is planning to commission a further 30. New capacity is being built or considered in India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Russia has several plants under construction. Now western governments are increasingly looking anew at nuclear energy. A few weeks ago TVO, a Finnish consortium, started work on the first new nuclear plant to be built on either side of the Atlantic in a decade. Pertti Simola, TVO's chief executive, proclaims that, Finland has opened the door to a new nuclear era! Many western countries will come behind us. France's parliament has recently given its approval for a new nuclear plant. Guillaume Dureau of Areva, the world's largest nuclear supplier, captures the dizzy mood that has overtaken vendors: We are pretty convinced of a nuclear revival and [we] need to prepare for it. We need to hire 1,000 engineers. Despite its earlier doldrums, the nuclear industry is still a sizeable business. In 2004 Areva had sales of ¬6.6 billion ($8.2 billion). That figure includes mining uranium, designing power plants and reprocessing waste fuel. General Electric's nuclear division, which designs and builds plants but does not handle fuel or waste, turned over about $1.1 billion last year (its turnover was double that figure if sales of non-nuclear bits of nuclear plants, such as generators and turbines, are included). Westinghouse, an American brand currently owned by BNFL, which recently put it up for sale, had sales of around Ł1.1 billion ($2 billion). The main reason for the shift is climate change. As it has risen up the political agenda, so the impetus for a nuclear revival has grown. More, and more respected, voices have been making the case that nuclear energy is essential if the rate of change is to be slowed. As a result, there is an unlikely alliance between the nuclear industry and many environmentalists, as a growing number of greens have come to believe that nuclear energy is the best way to reduce carbon emissions. Industry lobbyists are finding support from unexpected areas. Keith Parker of the Nuclear Industry Association, a British trade group, points to a recent quote from James Lovelock, a founder of Greenpeace: Only nuclear power can halt global warming. Scientists are also lending their support. Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientist, recently argued that one further generation of nuclear power stations is needed (in Britain at least) to buy time, in order to keep down emissions of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, while new carbon-free non-nuclear technologies are developed. He thinks that renewable sources of energy are not currently up to the task: We need another generation of nuclear-fission stations. Others agree. The World Nuclear Association, an industry body, dismisses its green rivals in a recent report: the potential scope for renewables contributing to the electricity supply is very much less because the sources, particularly solar and wind, are diffuse, intermittent and unreliable. Such opinions have caused consternation among nuclear energy's long-standing opponents, notably Europe's green movement. Anti-nuclear sentiment was so strong in Germany at the end of the 1990s that the ruling socialist-green alliance banned new plants. Sweden was the first country to turn against nuclear plants, in a referendum back in 1980; at the end of May it shut down its second nuclear plant. Yet in both countries opinion polls suggest waning public opposition to the nuclear option. Indeed, Germany's Christian Democrats now say they may overturn the ban if they win the forthcoming national election. In Finland, says TVO's Mr Simola, concern about climate change was the chief reason why his country pushed ahead with the new power plant. In America, although the Bush administration remains hostile to any mandatory action on slowing global warming, it is keen to boost nuclear power. That has led some greens to take the view that a nuclear revival is better than doing nothing much about climate change. Leaders of respected environmental outfits such as Environmental Defence and the World Resources Institute have recently made positive noises about nuclear power as part of a response to global warming. Of course, nuclear power is not the only carbon emission-free option. Making existing energy production more efficient, and reducing waste in the use of energy by consumers, would have a big economic and environmental impact. Renewable energy sources such as wind and waves have plenty of backers. There are also direct rivals to new nuclear plants, such as fossil-fuel plants with carbon sequestration that can provide baseload power. A flurry of investment and experimentation, from Algeria to China to America, is already under way in this area. Vattenfall, a Swedish nuclear utility, is investing in technology to remove carbon from its newish coal plants in eastern Germany and Poland. Cinergy, an American utility just bought by Duke, is looking into coal gasification and carbon sequestration in Indiana. A Scottish consortium led by BP recently announced the first commercial-scale project to produce carbon-free power from natural gas, re-injecting the waste carbon dioxide into fields in the North Seathus not only storing the gas underground, but also enhancing hydrocarbon recovery from the field. And combined heat and power, which allows companies and householders to use the heat created by power generation as well as the electricity it produces, is booming. But the nuclear industry has the momentum right now. That's partly because its economics have improved markedly. Better management allows companies to make existing plants much more efficient. In America, for instance, the country's 103 nuclear plants are no longer owned by individual municipalities. Nuclear consolidators are the key, argues Michael Wallace of Constellation Energy, a utility that owns several plants and hence can retain good managers, share best practices, gain economies in maintaining parts and inventories and so on. The top ten nuclear firms now own 61% of the sector. Exelon, the largest firm, has a 15% share. American nuclear power plants' capacity utilisation has risen from 56% in 1984 to more than 90% today. This is a lesson that France had already learned, says Bernard Dupraz of Electricité de France. EDF is responsible for all the country's nuclear plants. Unlike America, where no two nuclear plants are exactly alike, France stuck with a few standard designs. We standardised nuclear plants like Ford did the Model T. The results: 20% lower operating costs and 30-40% lower capital costs than those of one-off designs used elsewhere, notably in Britain. CERA, a consultancy, calculates that 31 countries have commercial nuclear-power reactors today. Taken together, these 439 reactors produce about 16% of the world's electricity, worth annually $100 billion-125 billion. And the pot is growing. Expansion in China alone is likely to involve some $50 billion or more of capital spending. That's quite a prizethough it is important to put China's nuclear interest into perspective. Even if it really builds all 30 mooted plants, nuclear power will still make up only about 5% of its electricity mix in 2030. Meanwhile, natural gas is expected to grow from a 1% share today to over 6%, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). In many power markets today, nuclear electricity is the cheapest you can buy. Entergy's deregulated nuclear plants produced 13% of its revenues but a quarter of its profits last year. It costs German utilities perhaps 1.5 (American) cents per kW-hour to make nuclear electricity, estimates Vincent Gilles of UBS, an investment bank, but they can sell it for three times that amount once credits from Europe's carbon-trading scheme are included. In contrast, it costs 3.1-3.8 cents to produce power from natural gas in Germany and 3.8-4.4 cents to produce it from coal. In America, where there is no mandatory carbon regulation (and hence no penalty on fossil fuels), nuclear power has less of an edge: coal power costs about 2 cents per kW-hour on average today, gas-fired power costs about 5.7 cents, while nuclear cranks out electricity at 1.7 cents or so. But the economic case is not as clear-cut as it seems. The costs of nuclear power produced by existing plants are likely to be far lower than the costs of newly built plants, because the capital costs of nuclear plantstypically reflecting half to two-thirds the value of the project in present-value termsare long forgotten. Most of today's plants were built in an era when central planners or state utility boards had no idea of the true cost of capital. Today's low interest rates are good for big capital projects like nuclear, but those rates may change sharply in the future. At the same time, gas and oil priceswhose current astronomical levels enhance nuclear's charmsmay well fall. Subsidy, what subsidy? Critics also argue that the best designs the nuclear industry can come up with are not competitive with rival energy technologies in the open market. The nuclear industry points to some studies that seem to suggest that nuclear plants might be economic if only their life cycle benefits (such as lack of greenhouse gases) and their rivals' disadvantages (such as fuel costs for natural gas plants) are factored in. For example, the Nuclear Energy Agency, an arm of the OECD, has just released a study done jointly with the International Energy Agency (IEA). After reviewing the economics, it seems to conclude that there is indeed a bright future for nuclear: on a global scale, there is room and need for all baseload technologies. Assuming a discount rate of 5%, it argues that the cost of generating power from new nuclear plants would cost between $21/MW-hour and $31/MW-hour; costs for gas-fired power, it reckons, would range from $37/MW-hour to $60/MW-hour. (The report also assumes high gas prices, which favour nuclear, a view contradicted by the IEA's official forecast of a medium-term reduction in gas prices.) But there's plenty of scope for argument about the economics of nuclear power generation, because they are so sensitive to assumptions about the cost of power from other sources. As Ed Cummins of Westinghouse insists, The biggest motivator for nuclear today is $6 [the price per MBtu] natural gas. If gas goes back to $3.50, then nuclear plants aren't competitive. The other source of uncertainty is the disposal of radioactive waste. That's what messed up the economics of Britain's nuclear programme: Britain decided to reprocess its waste, which proved hugely expensive. America, by contrast, just stuck it in swimming poolsliterallyat the power plants. The current consensus is that the best solution is geological storagethat is, to bury the waste very deep. The bad news is that nobody is making much progress getting there, or knows how much it will all cost in the end. Taking into account the uncertainties, most studies done on nuclear economics (including the most authoritative ones, done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and by Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs) conclude that new plants built by the private sector, with investors bearing the full brunt of risks, are not economic without subsidy. Though nuclear vendors are promising that their new designs will cost only $1,500 per kW of installed capacity, that assumes ideal conditions and no delays. A more realistic assessment (indeed, the consensus view among experts not aligned with the nuclear industry) is that new plants will probably cost close to $2,000 per kW. That may be less in real terms than the capital cost of previous generations of nuclear plants, but it is still about double the capital cost of a conventional coal plant today. The upshot of all this is that even today's cheaper, safer nuclear designs are still more expensive than coal or gas. The money men are not very enthusiastic. Standard & Poor's, a rating agency, recently declared, The industry's legacy of cost growth, technological problems, cumbersome political and regulatory oversight, and the newer risks brought about by competition and terrorism may keep credit risk too high for even (federal legislation that provides loan guarantees) to overcome. Part of the problem is that nuclear plants are seen as too lumpy and uncertain as investments. A 1,000MW nuclear plant would cost $2 billion and take at least five years to build. A coal plant of that size would cost perhaps $1.2 billion and take three to four years, while a combined-cycle gas plant that size costs about $500m and takes less than two years to get up and running. The bigger the project, the more susceptible it is to delaysand UBS's Mr Gilles estimates that a two-year delay in nuclear projects wipes out 20-25% of the project's value to investors. Political risk is a problem, too. The links between nuclear power and weapons hurt the businessas was sharply illustrated last week. Westinghouse was in the bidding against French and Russian companies for a Chinese contract. But the House of Representatives, fearful of giving China access to American nuclear know-how, voted down a $5 billion loan from America's Export-Import Bank. So, if the economics are so unpromising, why is so much nuclear capacity being built? Some of itin China, for instancemay be the result of mixed motives. China could be after the technology that America wants to deny it. Security might also be a factor: energy importers may want a proportion of their needs met by sources over which they have control. Nuclear fans point to Finland where a private consortium seems to have managed to finance a new power plant without government subsidy. But was it done without subsidies or unfair state aid? Absolutely, insists TVO's Mr Simola. You must be joking, retorts UBS's Mr Gilles. In fact, the answer is unclear. TVO is a consortium involving six shareholdersbut one of them is a state-owned utility, Fortum. TVO's owners are also its only customers. Some of those customers are big paper and pulp companies, who use a lot of power; others are municipalities, which may not be sensitive to market economics. Indeed, the ¬3 billion deal is not a conventional commercial transaction. Mr Simola explains that there is a lifetime power-purchase contract agreed at zero profit: We pay dividends in the form of competitive power, he jokes. The plant is to be built by France's Areva on a fixed-price bid. If there are delays or massive cost overruns, Areva must cover them. Areva's Mr Dureau vigorously denies that French government ownership means that that country's taxpayers will be subsidising Finnish power: his firm will yield all its assets and go bust before the French taxpayer will pay a penny, he insists. But if it does go bust, the French taxpayer must write that cheque to TVO. Even if the Finnish experiment is not explicitly subsidised, the model may nevertheless be tricky to replicate elsewhere. If it can beand there is some interest in France and America among heavy energy usersthen the nuclear industry may yet be justified in claiming that new nuclear plants can be built without state aid. Yet most studies reckon that even a moderate carbon tax would not make nuclear power generation competitive in a free energy market. Europe's emissions-trading system (ETS) is, in effect, that sort of a tax. And according to Oxera, a British consultancy, even with that implicit tax on carbon-based power generation, new nuclear plants would not be economic without government help. But if the implicit tax rose, that might change. The point of a carbon tax is to reflect the cost to society of damage that using carbon does. Setting a price on those social costs is difficult. Europe's ETS implies that the social costs of carbon dioxide are ¬20 per tonne; but a British government study in 2002 estimated them at Ł70 (¬112). Such estimates are necessarily vague; but if that higher figure is fed into Oxera's model, new nuclear plants begin to look economically viable. However, politics make it unlikely that carbon is going to pay its full social costsfor some time to come. That's why some governmentsincluding America'sare thinking of subsidising nuclear instead. President Bush is trying to shoehorn a provision into his energy bill that would give the nuclear industry about $500m in insurance against the risk of regulatory delays, and a further $6 billion or so in subsidies now being considered for new nuclear plants. American utilities want several billion dollars for the engineering and construction costs associated with building the first three or four such plants. They are also hoping for over $500m in subsidies to go through the licensing process, and an extension of the government's blanket insurance policy against catastrophic accidents. They may get them. There's a powerful business lobby in America that's hostile to the idea of importing emissions trading from Europe. Subsidising nuclear is one of the only ways of squaring that lobby's interests with the electorate's rising awareness of the need to do something about climate change. With President Bush and the tree-huggers both on its side, the nuclear industry is back in the game. Copyright © The Economist Newspaper Limited 2005. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards; Meeting of the FR Doc E5-3557 [Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129)] [Notices] [Page 39348] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07jy05-96] Subcommittee on Reactor Fuels; Revised The agenda for the ACRS Subcommittee on Reactor Fuels scheduled to be held on July 27-28, 2005 has been revised to extend the date to July 29, 2005, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. On July 29, 2005, the Subcommittee will continue its discussion on the proposed criteria for reactor fuel during LOCAs and reactivity insertion events, from 8:30 a.m., until 5:30 p.m. The agenda for July 27-28, 2005 remains the same as published in the Federal Register on Wednesday, June 29, 2005 (70 FR 37448). Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by contacting Mr. Ralph Caruso, Designated Federal Official (telephone 301-415-8065) between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. (ET). Dated: June 30, 2005. Sharon A. Steele, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW. [FR Doc. E5-3557 Filed 7-6-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 16 NRC: Exelon Generation Company, LLC, PSEG Nuclear LLC; Peach Bottom FR Doc E5-3559 [Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129)] [Notices] [Page 39346-39347] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07jy05-93] Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3; Notice of Withdrawal of Application for Amendment to Renewed Facility Operating Licenses The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (the Commission) has [[Page 39347]] granted the request of Exelon Generation Company, LLC (the licensee), to withdraw its application of July 14, 2003, as supplemented on March 15, April 23, May 20, December 8, and December 17, 2004, and January 21, 2005, for proposed amendment to Renewed Facility Operating License Nos. DPR-44 and DPR-56 for the Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, Units 2 and 3, located in York County, Pennsylvania. The proposed amendment would have revised the Technical Specifications to allow the use of an alternate source term. The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on October 14, 2003 (68 FR 59216). By letter dated May 10, 2005, the licensee withdrew the proposed change. For further details with respect to this action, see the application for amendment dated July 14, 2003, as supplemented on March 15, April 23, May 20, December 8, December 17, 2004, and January 21, 2005, and the licensee's letter dated May 10, 2005, which withdrew the application for license amendment. 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 01 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible electronically from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (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 in Rockville, Maryland, this 29th day of June 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. George F. Wunder, Project Manager, Section 2, Project Directorate I, Division of Licensing Project Management, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. [FR Doc. E5-3559 Filed 7-6-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 17 Arizona Republic: Palo Verde reactor shut down again [Arizona Republic Online Print Edition] July 7, 2005 Ken Alltucker The Arizona Republic Jul. 7, 2005 12:00 AM One week after returning from a five-week shutdown, one of three reactors at Palo Verde nuclear power plant again closed due to a leaking oil seal. Plant operator APS said it's the same problem that prompted the May 22 closing of Unit 3 at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located about 50 miles west of Phoenix. The utility discovered that one of two new reactor coolant pump oil seals was not working properly, so plant managers shut down the reactor shortly after midnight Wednesday to fix the problem and attempt to figure out why it recurred, said APS spokesman Jim McDonald. The utility expects it will take one week to repair the leaking coolant pump, which is used to pump water from the reactor to the steam generator to help produce electricity. Despite closing the nearly 1,300-megawatt reactor during relentless summer heat, APS and Salt River Project officials said there should be plenty of power available for Valley homes and businesses over the next week. One big reason for the power cushion is that the Westwing substation's damaged transformers have been replaced. The substation, which caught fire last summer and plunged the Valley into power crisis,was revving up as of Wednesday afternoon. That allows area utilities to import a sufficient amount of power to the Valley to keep lights on and air conditioners running. "We're in good shape," said Gary Harper, SRP's manager of systems operations. APS and Salt River Project own about half of Palo Verde and get about half of its power. McDonald said all of APS' local power sources can generate 6,630 megawatts if three reactors at Palo Verde running at full throttle. With one reactor out, the company generates 6,460 megawatts. The utility forecasted peak power demand at 6,470 megawatts on Wednesday. APS has secured energy contracts to purchase another 1,200 megawatts if needed. Area utilities prefer to use Palo Verde power because it's less expensive than electricity generated by other types of sources such as coal-fired plants. While prospects for the region's power delivery systems have improved, Palo Verde is grappling with one of its most difficult periods. The nation's largest nuclear power plant operated with little trouble for most of the past decade, but all three reactors have closed this year for refueling or maintenance. While initially replacing the oil seals in Unit 3, APS detected troubles with the reactor's heaters that help regulate cooling system pressure. A majority of those 36 heaters were reinstalled or replaced. Palo Verde was the only nuclear power plant in the nation to be hit with a "yellow" finding, the second most serious level by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the past year. Regulators levied APS with a $50,000 fine after inspectors discovered air inside emergency cooling pipes. The problem has been corrected. McDonald said the utility's main goal with the current shutdown is to identify the root cause of the recurring leak. In addition to inspections by plant workers, the utility will consult with the oil seal manufacturers. Copyright © 2005, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 KITV 4 News: Empty Plutonium Canister Ends Up At Trash Facility TheHawaiiChannel - Worker Spotted Container, Alerted Officials UPDATED: 9:42 am HST July 7, 2005 CAMPBELL INDUSTRIAL PARK, Oahu, Hawaii -- Workers at the city's H-Power Plant Tuesday discovered a canister labeled plutonium in the garbage. [Plutonium Cannister] Garbage trucks deliver tons of trash to the H-Power Plant each day, 24 tons on Tuesday alone. Video: Watch News Report Nothing triggered radioactive sensors at the weighing station, but when the canister was found in the garbage processing room, an employee knew enough to call the bosses. Plant officials then called the state Department of Health, the police bomb squad and the U.S. Navy since it was labeled: Navy. Officials are trying to determine how the container ended up there. "We always ask the question. We want to stop it. We don't want these things coming here," said Rodney Smith of H-Power. [H-Power Plant] There is no telling where the canister came from. H-Power officials said they can't afford to take any chances. Fortunately the weathered metal drum dated 1963 didn't have anything radioactive in it. The H-Power Plant did not need to be evacuated. "We were told the canister was empty and there was no danger to our people. We also brought our instruments over to the canister and it wasn't leaking radiation, if there was anything in it," state Radiation Branch Manager Russell Takata said. The labeling on the two-foot high container in indicated plutonium beryllium was inside. Experts said it was at one time used to measure soil density during the process of digging water wells. The Navy picked up the empty canister at about 6 p.m. Tuesday. Navy officials are checking their records. Because the container wasn't radioactive, it could have been reused, a military spokesman said. Copyright 2005 by TheHawaiiChannel.comAll rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. © 2005, Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 [du-list] URGENT: uranium reproductive toxicity data needed Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 15:33:03 -0700 Kenneth Jones, M.D. Department of Pediatrics Division of Dysmorphology and Teratology University of California, San Diego Dorothy Burk, Ph.D., M.A. Department of Anatomy School of Dentistry University of the Pacific Carl L. Keen, Ph.D. Professor Departments of Nutrition and Internal Medicine University of California, Davis Linda Roberts, Ph.D. Chevron Research and Technology Company Steven J. Samuels, Ph.D. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Public Health State University of New York at Albany Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant (DART) Identification Committee Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment State of California Dear DART Identification Committee Members: I am writing to ask that you join me in a Freedom of Information Act Request to obtain data necessary to evaluate the reproductive harm of uranium, and to comment on my petition pending before the Nuclear Regulatory commission below. I have nominated uranium as a reproductive and developmental toxin known to the State of California. Currently, according to the OEHHA Toxicity Criteria Database of Chemicals with Public Health Goals, Uranium is only listed as a cancer risk, and not a reproductive hazard: http://www.oehha.ca.gov/risk/ChemicalDB/withPHG.asp?name=Uranium&number=7440611 In fact, uranium has been known as a reproductive toxin by authorities on uranium toxicology since as far back as 1953: "Degenerative changes in the testes resulting in aspermia in the testes and epididymis [were] apparently a result of uranyl nitrate" -- Maynard, E.A., Downs, W.L. and Hodge, H.C., "Oral toxicity of uranium compounds," in Voegtlin, C. and Hodge, H.C., editors, _Pharmacology and Toxicology of Uranium_, Volume 3 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), pp. 1221-1369. Recent studies confirm this fact: "In rats, there is strong evidence of depleted uranium accumulation in tissues including testes, bone, kidneys, and brain." -- Pellmar, et al., "Distribution of uranium in rats implanted with depleted uranium pellets," _Toxicol Sci_, vol. 49 (1999) pp. 29-39. "existing data indicate that implanted DU translocates to the rodent testes and ovary, the placenta, and fetus.... DU has been shown to be genotoxic...." Benson, K.A., Evaluation of the health risks of embedded depleted uranium (DU) shrapnel on pregnancy and offspring development, Annual Report No. 19981118065, October 1998. That obscure publication cites A.C. Miller of the U.S. Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, who indicates that the chemical toxicity of uranium is about six orders of decimal magnitude worse than its radiological hazard, in "Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle decay," Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, vol. 91 (2002), pp 246­252: http://www.bovik.org/du/Miller-DNA-damage.pdf Uranium has also been a known developmental toxin since as far back as 1989, "The Developmental Toxicity of Uranium in Mice," Toxicology, vol. 55 (1989), pp. 143-152: http://www.bovik.org/du/devtox-mice.pdf In February, 1991, and more recently, a large number of people serving in the U.S. Armed Forces were exposed to uranium combustion products by inhalation, along with other substances such as fossil fuel combustion products, insect repellents, antidotes, and vaccinations, all of which have been shown, according to Pentagon officials, to free from reproductive hazards either alone or in any combination. However, the exposed veterans suffered significant reproductive harm: "Overall, the risk of any malformation among pregnancies reported by men was 50% higher in Gulf War Veterans (GWV) compared with Non-GWVs" -- Doyle et al., _Int. J. Epidemiol._, vol. 33 (2004), pp. 74-86: http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/33/1/74 "Infants conceived postwar to male GWVs had significantly higher prevalence of tricuspid valve insufficicieny (relative risk [RR], 2.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-6.6; p = 0.039) and aortic valve stenosis (RR, 6.0; 95% CI, 1.2-31.0; p = 0.026) compared to infants conceived postwar to nondeployed veteran males. Among infants of male GWVs, aortic valve stenosis (RR, 163; 95% CI, 0.09-294; p = 0.011) and renal agenesis or hypoplasia (RR, 16.3; 95% CI, 0.09-294; p = 0.011) were significantly higher among infants conceived postwar than prewar." -- Araneta, et al., "Prevalence of birth defects among infants of Gulf War veterans in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Georgia, Hawaii, and Iowa, 1989-1993," _Birth Defects Res A Clin Mol Teratol._, vol. 67, no. 4 (April, 2003) pp. 246-60: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12854660&dopt=Abstract It is estimated that exposure to only 0.34 mg of uranium can result in symptoms: "Estimate of the Time Zero Lung Burden of Depleted Uranium in Persian Gulf War Veterans by the 24-Hour Urinary Excretion and Exponential Decay Analysis," _Military Medicine_, vol. 168, no. 8 (2003) pp 600-605: http://www.bovik.org/du/inhalation-est.pdf Please see also: http://www.bovik.org/du/chromosome-abberations.pdf http://www.bovik.org/du/5_Durakovic.pdf http://www.bovik.org/du/4_Durakovic.pdf I have obtained the data in this graph, originally published by the Iraqi government in early 2001, and since confirmed in 2004 by physicians working in Basrah, Iraq. It represents the birth defect rate in Basrah, Iraq over years: http://www.bovik.org/du/basrah.gif Because of the disturbing acceleration in that trend, I ask that you join me in asking the Director of San Diego's DoD Center for Deployment Health Research for her data on the current trends pertaining to the reproductive damage in exposed veterans. It would be nice to know how long, if ever, accumulated uranium takes to eliminate from the testes. It seems very likely that this source of catalytic radical-induced (e.g., hydroxyl-induced) DNA damage, a million times as more hazardous than its radioactivity, will continue to cause increasing amounts of chromosome damage over an expected human lifespan. The exposed public must know how much reproductive harm to expect from the current exposure levels, and regulators must also have this data to determine the appropriate exposure goals. Please let me know if I am in any way incorrect about this need and its urgency. I also ask that you report your findings in a comment on my petition pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, below. Thank you for consideration of these urgent requests. Sincerely, James Salsman telephone: 650.793.0162 ------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: Birth defects among infants of Gulf war veterans Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 From: James Salsman To: Ryan, Margaret CDR Margaret A. K. Ryan, MD, MPH, CDR, MC, USN Director DoD Center for Deployment Health Research Naval Health Research Center PO Box 85122 San Diego, CA 92186 BY EMAIL FOIA REQUEST Fee waiver requested Expedited review requested Dear Dr. Ryan: Pursuant to the federal Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552, I request access to and copies of all records of the Department of Defense Birth and Infant Health Registry project which indicate the congenital malformation rate of children born to combat-deployed 1991 Gulf War veteran parents for each of the years 1991 through 2004, and all records pertaining to treaties, laws, regulations, and codes of ethics which govern participation in activities complicit with the release of known reproductive toxins with indeterminate toxicological profiles by licensed physicians in the United States Armed Forces. I would like to receive the information in electronic format, by email. Please waive any applicable fees. Release of the information is in the public interest because it will contribute significantly to public understanding of government operations and activities. Please see my petitions before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission pertaining to licensing concerns surrounding pyrophoric uranium munitions safety studies at 70 Fed. Reg. 32661 (June 3, 2005) and uranium exposure rule making at 70 Fed. Reg. 34699 (June 15, 2005.). If my request is denied in whole or part, I ask that you justify all deletions by reference to specific exemptions of the act. I will also expect you to release all segregable portions of otherwise exempt material. I, of course, reserve the right to appeal your decision to withhold any information or to deny a waiver of fees. As I am making this request as an author and this information is of timely value, I would appreciate your communicating with me by email or telephone (650.793.0162), rather than by postal mail, if you have questions regarding this request. Please provide expedited review because delayed disclosure could threaten life because of the previously unconsidered developmental and reproductive toxicity of uranium inhalation exposure. I certify that these statements regarding expedited review are true and correct to the best of my knowledge and belief. I look forward to your reply within 20 business days, as the statute requires. Thank you for your assistance. Sincerely, James Salsman 1910 Mt. Vernon Ct., Apt. 3 Mountain View, CA 94040 ---- End of FOIA Request; Request for Petition Comments Follows ---- Here is the full text of the petition for which I seek comments: [Federal Register: June 15, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 114)] [Page 34699-34700] Proposed Rules NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Part 20 [Docket No. PRM-20-26] James Salsman, Receipt of Petition for Rulemaking AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Petition for rulemaking; notice of receipt. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is publishing for public comment a notice of receipt of a petition for rulemaking, dated May 6, 2005, which was filed with the Commission by James Salsman. The petition was docketed by the NRC on May 13, 2005, and has been assigned Docket No. PRM-20-26. The petitioner requests that the NRC amend its regulations to modify exposure and environmental limits of heavy metal radionuclides. DATES: Submit comments by August 29, 2005. Comments received after this date will be considered if it is practical to do so, but the Commission is able to assure consideration only for comments received on or before this date. ADDRESSES: You may submit comments by any one of the following methods. Please include the following number PRM-20-26 in the subject line of your comments. Comments on petitions submitted in writing or in electronic form will be made available for public inspection. Because your comments will not be edited to remove any identifying or contact information, the NRC cautions you against including any information in your submission that you do not want to be publicly disclosed. Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. E-mail comments to: SECY@nrc.gov. If you do not receive a reply e- mail confirming that we have received your comments, contact us directly at (301) 415-1966. You may also submit comments via the NRC's rulemaking Web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Address questions about our rulemaking Web site to Carol Gallagher (301) 415-5905; e-mail cag@nrc.gov. Comments can also be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal http://www.regulations.gov. Hand deliver comments to: 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:15 p.m. Federal workdays. (Telephone (301) 415-1966). Fax comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission at (301) 415-1101. Publicly available documents related to this petition may be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), O1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Selected documents, including comments, may be viewed and downloaded electronically via the NRC rulemaking web site at http://ruleforum.llnl.gov. Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800- 397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael T. Lesar, Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Telephone: 301-415-7163 or Toll Free: 800-368-5642. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background The NRC has established standards for protection against ionizing radiation resulting from activities conducted by licensees and has issued these standards in the regulations codified in 10 CFR part 20. These regulations are intended to control the receipt, possession, use, transfer, and disposal of licensed material by its licensees. Licensed material is any source, byproduct, or special nuclear material received, possessed, used, transferred, or disposed of under a general or specific license issued by the NRC. Appendix B to part 20 lists the Annual Limits on Intake (ALIs) and Derived Air Concentrations of radionuclides for occupational exposure, effluent concentrations, and concentrations for release to sewerage. The Petitioner's Discussion The petitioner believes that the current regulations allow more soluble compounds than insoluble compounds. The petitioner states that the regulations were designed to address only the radiological hazard of uranium, and not the heavy metal toxicity, which is known to be about six orders of magnitude worse. The petitioner asserts, in practice, that the soluble compounds are far more toxic than the insoluble compounds. The petitioner states that this should indicate that the long half-life uranium isotope regulation standards need to be completely revised. The petitioner states that in the current regulations, an annual inhalation of more than two grams of uranium is allowed. The petitioner states that because the LD50/30 of uranyl nitrate (which has considerably less uranyl ion per unit of mass than uranium trioxide) is 2.1 mg/kg in rabbits, 12.6 mg/kg in dogs, 48 mg/kg in rats, and 51 mg/ kg in guinea pigs and albino mice, two grams of UO3 seems very likely to comprise a fatal dose for a 200 pound human (Gmelin Handbook of Inorganic Chemistry, 8th edition, English translation (1982), vol. U- A7, pp. 312-322). The petitioner believes that these values seem much too high. He believes that they were derived to avoid immediate kidney failure only, without regard to reproductive toxicity. The petitioner does not believe they were derived with sufficient care to avoid allowing lethal exposures. The petitioner states that the explicit limit to 10 mg/day of soluble uranium compounds (or about half a gram per year) in 10 CFR 20.1201(e) seems likely [[Page 34700]] to allow substantial kidney damage and certain reproductive toxicity. The petitioner states that a urine study performed (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12943033 ) calculates an average initial lung burden of 0.34 milligrams elemental uranium for those with isotopic signatures consistent with exposure to depleted uranium in what he believes were symptomatic exposure victims. The petitioner believes that this study is flawed, as it assumes a uranium compound biological half-time of 3.85 years in the lungs. The petitioner states that the primary mode of uranium toxicity involves much greater solubility. The petitioner believes that monomeric uranium trioxide will turn out to be absorbed more rapidly in the mammalian lung than uranyl nitrate, because of its monomolecular gas nature, and not merely about as rapidly as the studies of granular uranium trioxide by P.E. Morrow, et al., indicate (``Inhalation Studies of Uranium Trioxide,'' Health Physics, vol. 23 (1972), pp. 273-280). The petitioner states that even Class D may not be appropriate for monomolecular uranium trioxide gas. The petitioner believes the correct way to determine these values, to account for the reproductive toxicity, is probably to measure resulting mutations of mammalian peripheral lymphocytes, such as was done in this study of Gulf War veterans ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12678382 ). The Petitioner's Request The petitioner requests that the NRC revise its regulations in 10 CFR part 20 that specify limits for ingestion and inhalation occupational values, effluent concentrations, and releases to sewers, for all heavy metal radionuclides with nonradiological chemical toxicity hazards exceeding that of their radiological hazards so that those limits properly reflect the hazards associated with reproductive toxicity, danger to organs, and all other known nonradiological aspects of heavy metal toxicity. The petitioner states that many of these limits consider the radiological hazard of certain chemically toxic radionuclides with slight radiological dangers (e.g., Uranium-238), without regard to their greater nonradiological hazard. The petitioner notes that this petition does not request increasing the permissible quantities given by any of those limits specified. The petitioner also states that, for example, the soluble forms of Uranium-238 compounds, which are more toxic if inhaled than the insoluble compounds, are allowed in greater quantities than their insoluble compounds. Other examples may include, but are not necessarily limited to, Uranium-232, Plutonium-239, and other long half-life isotopes of the heavy metal elements. The petitioner also requests that the classification for uranium trioxide within Class W, given in the Class column of the table for Uranium-230 in Appendix B to 10 CFR part 20, be amended to Class D in light of P.E. Morrow, et al., ``Inhalation Studies of Uranium Trioxide'' (Health Physics, vol. 23 (1972), pp. 273-280), which states: ``inhalation studies with uranium trioxide (UO3) indicated that the material was more similar to soluble uranyl salts than to the so-called insoluble oxides * * * UO3 is rapidly removed from the lungs, with most following a 4.7 day biological half time.'' The petitioner also requests that monomeric (monomolecular) uranium trioxide gas, as produced by the oxidation of U3O8 at temperatures above 1000 Celsius, be assigned its own unique solubility class if necessary, at such time in the future that its solubility characteristics become known (R.J. Ackermann, R.J. Thorn, C. Alexander, and M. Tetenbaum, in ``Free Energies of Formation of Gaseous Uranium, Molybdenum, and Tungsten Trioxides,'' Journal of Physical Chemistry, vol. 64 (1960) pp. 350-355: ``gaseous monomeric uranium trioxide is the principal species produced by the reaction of U3O8 with oxygen'' at 1200 Kelvin and above). Conclusion The petitioner requests that 10 CFR part 20 be revised in accordance with the proposed revisions as set forth above. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 9th day of June 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Annette Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission. [FR Doc. 05-11799 Filed 6-14-05; 8:45 am] >> The Federal Register published my rulemaking petition for recognition >> of the developmental and reproductive toxicity of heavy metals: >> >> http://www.bovik.org/du/NRC-PRM-20-26.pdf >> >> Please send a comment before August 29th to SECY@nrc.gov with a >> subject line such as: comments on PRM-20-26 toxicity petition >> >> I recommend that you include the following points: >> >> 1. Current regulations ignore the developmental and reproductive >> toxicity of heavy metal radionuclides, and are at present designed >> only to prevent kidney failure. >> >> 2. The reproductive toxicology profile for uranium combustion >> product inhalation in humans is currently unknown with any accuracy >> beyond 14 years (i.e., since the February 1991 exposures) and has >> shown an increasing and accelerating tendency, consistent with the >> fact that uranium accumulates in testes damaging sperm production >> cells and increasing chromosome damage over time. >> >> 3. It is completely unethical and immoral to allow any release of >> a known reproductive toxin without a fully established toxicology >> profile. Doing so is reckless and negligent; to willfully allow >> such releases is potentially a crime. >> >> 4. Regulators should attempt to extrapolate the existing known >> toxicology profile of heavy metal radionuclides and assume the >> worst case within the projections' 95% confidence intervals, and >> in an abundance of caution allow at least a two order-of-magnitude >> margin of error for limiting the increase in congenital >> malformations in children of the exposed to 5% after 30 years. Sincerely, James Salsman To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/du-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ***************************************************************** 20 IEER Press Release: NAS BEIR VII report For further information contact: Arjun Makhijani or Lisa Ledwidge, IEER: 301-270-5500 Cancer Risks for Women and Children Due to Radiation Exposure Far Higher Than for Men New National Academy of Sciences Report Raises Major Issues for Radiation Protection, Independent Institute Claims Takoma Park, Maryland, July 7, 2005: The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) latest report on radiation risk, called the BEIR VII report, issued June 29, has major implications on how radiation protection regulations are made and enforced, according to the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER). "BEIR" stands for the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. The NAS report issued this week updates the BEIR V report issued in 1990. The BEIR series of reports are the most authoritative basis for radiation risk estimation and radiation protection regulations in the United States. "In 1990, the NAS estimated that the risks of dying from cancer due to exposure to radiation were about five percent higher for women than for men," said Dr. Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "In BEIR VII, the cancer mortality risks for females are 37.5 percent higher. The risks for all solid tumors, like lung, breast, and prostate, added together are almost 50 percent greater for women than men, though there are a few specific cancers, including leukemia, for which the risk estimates for men are higher." (Summary estimates are in Table ES-1 on page 28 of the BEIR VII report prepublication copy, on the Web at http://books.nap.edu/books/030909156X/html/28.html.) Unlike the 1990 NAS report, BEIR VII estimates risks for cancer incidence rates as well as mortality and also provides detailed risk figures according to age of exposure for males and females, by cancer type. This is a great advance over the previous report. The BEIR VII report has thoroughly reviewed available human and animal cancer data and scientific understanding arrived at using cellular level studies. Cancer risk incidence figures for solid tumors for women are also about double those for men. The BEIR VII report estimates that the differential risk for children is even greater. For instance, the same radiation in the first year of life for boys produces three to four times the cancer risk as exposure between the ages of 20 and 50. Female infants have almost double the risk as male infants. (Table 12 D-1 and D-2, on pages 550-551 of the prepublication copy of the report, on the Web starting at http://books.nap.edu/books/030909156X/html/550.html). While the report states there is no direct evidence of harm to human offspring from exposure of parents to radiation, the committee noted that such harm has been found in animal experiments and that there is "no reason to believe that humans would be immune to this sort of harm." (Page 20, prepublication copy, on the Web at http://books.nap.edu/openbook/030909156X/html/20.html) "I think it is high time that society protected those most at risk," said Dr. Makhijani. "The BEIR VIII report has done the public a great service by putting the imprimatur of the NAS on solid research that has long indicated much greater risks for women and children. Now it is up the Environmental Protection Agency to change the framework of regulation from averages of men and women to those who are most at risk." Contrary to the beliefs of many in the nuclear industry, the BEIR VII report reaffirmed the conclusion of the prior report that every exposure to radiation produces a corresponding increase in cancer risk. The proportionality of risk means that at low exposures the risks are small, as the NAS report points out. The average risks to the population are estimated to be 10 to 15 percent higher than the reference value now used for radiation protection of the general population (565 cancer fatalities per million rem exposure in BEIR VII compared to 500 typically cited in the literature on radiation protection). While this average risk is in the general range of uncertainties and values reported previously, it indicates an increase of risk overall. Both incidence and mortality risk estimates are now greater. Finally, the committee also noted that relatively high levels of radiation exposure increase risk of heart disease and stroke, though it did not give specific risk estimates. "I want to thank the BEIR VII committee for keeping a promise it made to IEER and 133 other organizations and individuals to consider crucial issues outlined in a letter we delivered to the committee in September 1999," said Lisa Ledwidge, Outreach Director of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. The Institute sent several letters to the BEIR VII committee, which can be viewed at http://www.ieer.org/comments/beir/index.html. The Committee's response to IEER is in Annex C of the BEIR VII report, on the Web at http://books.nap.edu/books/030909156X/html/577.html. - - 3 0 - - Institute for Energy and Environmental ResearchComments to ieer at ieer.org Takoma Park, Maryland, USA July 7, 2005 ***************************************************************** 21 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding FR Doc E5-3560 [Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129)] [Notices] [Page 39347-39348] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07jy05-94] of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Cabot Corporation, Boyertown, PA AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael Raddatz, Sr., Project Manager, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Telephone: (301) 415-6334; fax number: (301) 415-5955; e-mail: mgr@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing an amendment to Materials License No. SMB-920 issued to Cabot Corporation (the licensee), to authorize the recycling of waste water filtercake to be used as feed material at a cement kiln. NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in support of this amendment 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 proposed amendment is to authorize the recycling of waste water filtercake so it may be used as feed material at a cement kiln. Specifically, the amendment will allow the licensee to transfer filtercake, containing very low levels of radioactive contamination, to a cement kiln so it may be utilized rather than disposed of in a landfill. Cabot Supermetals (CSM) submitted, by letter dated November 24, 2004, a license amendment request for Source Materials License No. SMB- 920, to allow recycling of waste water filtercake produced at the Boyertown, Pennsylvania (PA) facility. The staff has prepared the EA in support of the proposed license amendment. Within the EA staff considered information related to the site (cultural resources, demographics and socio-economics, hydrology, geology, meteorology, ecology, air and water quality, and noise) most of which was detailed in the Environmental Assessment issued April 12, 2004, for the license renewal. The proposed action was found to result in doses for all scenarios of less than 0.01 milliSievert per year (mSv/yr) [1 millirem/ yr]. These doses are consistent with NRC's policy on recycling of material under 10 CFR 20.2002. The staff also reviewed the impacts from the transportation and handling of the filtercake and found that impacts were similar to, or below those already being measured when the filtercake is sent to a landfill. III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA, NRC has concluded that there are no significant environmental impacts from the proposed amendment and has determined not to prepare an environmental impact statement. IV. Further Information Documents related to this action, including the application for 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 as follows: ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Document ADAMS accession no. Date ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- Environmental Assessment for ML041030379............ 04/12/2004 the Cabot Corporation License Renewal, SMB-920 (L52514). Application to amend license ML043350420............ 11/18/2004 SMB-920 to allow the recycling of filtercake to be used as cement kiln feed. Request to amend license SMB- ML043350417............ 11/24/2004 920 to allow the recycling of filtercake to be used as cement kiln feed. Supplemental information to the ML043350423............ 11/24/2004 request to amend license SMB- 920 to allow the recycling of filtercake to be used as cement kiln feed. Letter discussing the Agency's ML043640417............ 12/22/2004 position on conservation of natural resources. [[Page 39348]] 12/22/04 Ltr. To Mr. O'Neill ML043570238............ 12/22/2004 (Cabot Corp.) From E. Brumett. Response to NRC Comments Dated ML050330142............ 1/28/2005 12/22/2004. Draft Environmental Assessment ML050910456............ 3/31/2005 for Recycling Amendment. E-Mail from R. Schoenfelder. ML051510248............ 5/19/2005 Re: Amendment to allow Recycling of Filtercake. Final Environmental Assessment. ML051640062............ 6/10/2005 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ------- If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. These documents may also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Dated in Rockville, MD this 20th day of June, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Michael G. Raddatz, Sr., Project Manager, Uranium Processing Section, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. E5-3560 Filed 7-6-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 22 FOXNews.com: Junk Science - Trillion-Dollar Radiation Mistake? Friday, July 08, 2005 By Steven Milloy A federal research panel last week concluded that there is no safe exposure to radiation. Its a conclusion based on assumptions about cancer that may be all wrong  and in very costly ways. The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial, claimed Richard Monson, chairman of the National Academy of Sciences committee that just issued a report estimating the health risks of exposure to radiation from natural and manmade sources. The committee estimated that 82 percent of the average persons exposure to ionizing radiation is natural and unavoidable, coming at low levels from the universe and the ground. The other 18 percent of our radiation exposure, says the committee, comes from low-level man-made sources such as medical x-rays, nuclear medicine and consumer products such as tobacco, tap water and building materials. No one disputes that exposures to very high levels of radiation can cause health problems  data indicate, for example, that the Japanese atomic bomb survivors experienced slightly higher rates of cancer over the 50-plus years that theyve been studied so far  but its not clear at all that more typical, low-level radiation exposures pose any risk at all. Other than the atomic bomb survivor data, in fact, no data support the idea that typical exposures to radiation are dangerous. So how did the NAS panel reach the conclusion that any exposure to radiation is risky? For the sake of being able to somehow characterize low-level radiation exposures as a risk, the panel simply assumed that because high-level exposures to radiation increase risk of health effects  like the slightly elevated cancer risk observed in the atomic bomb survivors  then any level of radiation exposure is a cancer risk. The panel employs this assumption even if the radiation is naturally occurring  that is from the ground or universe. This assumption is called the no-threshold model of cancer development, meaning the only radiation exposure with zero risk is absolutely no exposure  a state that is obviously impossible to achieve. Such assumptions  known by the oxymoronic term science policy  are used by government regulators who want to regulate human activities and exposures but often lack supporting scientific data. In the face of scientific uncertainty, regulators typically make worst-case assumptions under the premise of erring on the side of over-protection. Such assumptions often result in stringent regulation that is very costly, but that may not provide any, much less commensurate, health benefits. The regulations limiting human exposure to low-level radiation are not known to have prevented a single health effect in anyone despite decades of use. But they have cost more than $1 trillion in the U.S. alone, according to Radiation, Science and Health, an international non-profit group run by radiation experts who advocate for the objective review of low-level radiation science policies. Guesswork about the alleged risk posed by low-level radiation is only part of the problem with the National Academy of Sciences report. Over the last 30 years or so, the scientific establishment has become heavily invested in the notion that cancers are caused by genetic, or DNA mutations. The idea is that something  say a single molecule of a cancer-causing chemical, the smallest radiation exposure or even chance alone  can cause a change or mutation in a cells DNA, thereby turning a normal cell into a cancer cell. In addition to regulation of radiation exposures, this supposition is the basic rationale that government regulators have relied on for decades to regulate exposures to chemicals allegedly linked with cancer risk  even though there is virtually no real-world evidence to support it. But a new idea spotlighted by Tom Bethell in the July/August issue of the American Spectator should cause regulators to begin to re-think their decades-old-but-still-unproven assumption of gene mutation. It was first noticed about a century ago that cancer cells exhibit aneuploidy  they dont have the correct number of chromosomes. Aneuploidy occurs when cells divide improperly and a daughter cell winds up with an extra chromosome. An aneuploid cell may die, but it may also survive and repeat the error, perhaps eventually leading to cancer. The problem with this idea is not so much scientific as political. Bethell points out that the man who rediscovered the old work on aneuploidy is controversial University of California-Berkeley researcher and National Academy of Sciences member Peter Duesberg, who famously had his grants from the National Institutes of Health cut-off for being critical of the direction of AIDS research in the late-1980s. Duesberg still isnt getting any NIH money even though his aneuploidy idea has survived early challenges, according to Bethells article, and the older notions of cancer development are going nowhere fast. It seems that before regulators spend another $1 trillion of the publics money on radiation protection that may be based on faulty assumptions, someone ought to throw some research money Duesbergs way. Steven Milloy publishes junkScience.com ***************************************************************** 23 Las Vegas RJ: Yucca backers rallying Thursday, July 07, 2005 Visit to Nye County planned for July 29 By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Leaders of a national lobbying group that formed this spring to promote Yucca Mountain plan to visit Nye County this month to begin building ties in Nevada, an organizer said. A meeting tentatively set for July 29 in Pahrump illustrates a growing relationship between rural Nevadans and interests that support the proposed nuclear waste repository. The Yucca Mountain Task Force was formed in April to revive political support in Congress and in various states for the Energy Department effort, which has been hit by delays. The task force consists of state utility regulators and nuclear industry executives, including the Nuclear Energy Institute trade association. Five task force members plan to meet with Nye County officials, according to organizer David Blee. He is executive director of the U.S. Transport Council, an organization of nuclear waste shipping firms and equipment manufacturers that plan to seek Yucca contracts. The visitors are scheduled to tour Yucca Mountain the next day, possibly to be joined by local government representatives, according to Blee and a Nye County spokesman. Blee said the purpose "is to open up a dialogue between the task force and county leaders who have expressed support for the project, in terms of a coalition." Officials from neighboring Lincoln and Esmerelda counties also might be invited, he said. Nye County leaders welcomed the effort, according to Dave Swanson, interim director of Nye County's nuclear waste repository office. Two county commissioners, Candice Trummell and Gary Hollis, probably will take part in the session, Swanson said. "The folks (Blee) would be bringing out here, it sounds like we could learn something from them," Swanson said. "The more we can learn about issues associated with the repository, pro or con, the better we will be in our decision-making process." State and Clark County leaders have adopted a hard-line stance on Yucca Mountain, maintaining that a nuclear waste repository would be flawed and unsafe. They argue that there is a good chance the project can be killed in the courts or by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. While there is some Yucca Mountain opposition in rural Nevada, there also are some county leaders who say that a nuclear waste site might become a reality whether they like it or not, and that they need to prepare for the possibility by recruiting jobs and other economic benefits associated with the project. "The attitude among folks is that the repository is probably inevitable, and it seems that way," Sanders said from Nye County, where Yucca Mountain is located. "The Department of Energy is anxious to work with the county and making it a success, and I truly believe that." Bob Loux, coordinator of the state's official opposition to Yucca Mountain, said local county officials "can talk to who they want," but the visitors are selling a bad idea. "They are trying to get the local governments pumped up on this thing," said Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "They are trying to show the project is not dead, that it really is moving." Despite Yucca Mountain support from some rural leaders, "there still is a good deal of opposition" in those counties, Loux said. NEI already has a consultant in Nevada, former governor Robert List. Additionally, Blee and other nuclear waste transportation executives took part in a June 9 workshop in Pahrump before the Central Nevada Community Protection Working Group, a forum for rural leaders to work on repository issues. Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal ***************************************************************** 24 bELLONA: Thorp officials open with Bellona as they work to restore UK nuke reprocessing facility WEST CUMBRIA, England—In the first visit to the Thorp reprocessing facility at Sellafield in West Cumbria by an environmental NGO since an April spill of radioactive liquid, the Bellona foundation found Thorp to be in stabile condition as officials and engineers there work to bring it back online. BNFL Charles Digges, Erik Martiniussen, 2005-07-07 15:51 Thorp Leak at Sellafield continued unchecked for 9 months say British nuclear officials and media The leak of 20 tonnes of plutonium and uranium liquid mixed with nitric acid discovered last month at Sellafield’s controversial Thorp reprocessing facility had apparently been going on undetected for nine months, constituting one of Britain’s worst nuclear mishap in years, Britain’s The Independent and UK nuclear officials said Monday. British media and Bellona Web conversations with highly placed NDA officials previously indicated that the new decommissioning body had been considered shutting it down after it publicised a highly radioactive leak of 83 cubic meters of plutonium, uranium and nitric acid onto the floor of the plant’s clarification cell—an incident the construction of the cell is designed to handle. Plant officials say it is designed to hold more than 250 cubic meters of leaked liquor. A final decision on whether or not the Thorp plant will, in fact, go back on line, is dependent on the decision of the British Government based on BNG calculations as to how much money it will cost to put the plant back into operation. The NDA will weigh these considerations as well, and make its own independent recommendation. What is the clarification cell? Thorp’s fuel clarification cell comprises a stainless steel-lined space 60 metres long, 20 metres wide and 20 metres high and its concrete walls are 2 to 3 metres thick to absorb radiation. BNG Sellafield said the cell was designed to withstand the possibility of a leak and, because stainless steel does not dissolve in nitric acid, the leak has been contained. There has been no radiation dose to Sellafield workers as a result of the leak and no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere, confirmed a spokesman for UK’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII). Thorp’s raw materials are the used fuel rods from nuclear power stations. After receipt at Thorp, they are stored for several months to allow the radioactivity of short-lived fission products to decay to safer levels. The tubular rods are then cut up into small chunks and lowered in baskets into strong nitric acid. The uranium, plutonium and fission products dissolve and the remnants of the steel rods are removed. But the fluid remaining from the process, called liquor, still contains small shards of steel, or tailings, from burrs created as the rods were chopped up. So the liquor must be centrifuged to get rid of the steel contaminants, a process called clarification. It is at this clarification stage that the leak occurred. Radioactive leak closes Thorp reprocessing plant at Sellafield A highly radioactive mixture of plutonium and uranium fuel that was dissolved in concentrated nitric acid leaked through a fractured pipe into an enormous steel chamber late last month, forcing the closure of Sellafield’s Thorp reprocessing plant by UK nuclear authorities, British nuclear officials confirmed Monday. Chronology of the incident The chronology of the incident is as follows: On April 18th, a camera inspection of the clarification cell was initiated to determine why one of the two so-called accountancy tanks was experiencing a drop in the level of plutonium and uranium. Measurements of how much liquor each of the tanks hold are taken by weight. During the camera inspection process it was noted that liquor had been leaking onto the floor of the clarification cell for as long as nine months through a single pipe leading into accountancy tank B. It was first suspected that a manufacturer’s welding error had been the cause of the leak. But further investigations shows that, though the leak in the 40 millimeter wide pipe—one of several dozen running into the accountancy chamber—had occurred near a welding point, it was a matter of metal fatigue that had caused the rupture. The radioactive liquor has long been drained from the floor of the facility, and the task now, according to Thorp engineers, is no longer determining the cause of the accident and cleaning it up, but looking forward to making the complicated system of pipes and tanks workable again—and how to avoid similar incident in the future. Next steps Specifically, said one Thorp engineer, technicians will be examining the gravimetric approach to measuring the amount of liquor in the accountancy tanks. When Thorp was commissioned in 1994, one of its unique features distinguishing it from other plants was that the amount of liquor held in the accountancy tanks was measured by weight. This means that the maze of pipe-work leading into the tanks has to move horizontally and vertically to accommodate rising levels of liquor in the accountancy tanks It is in this design scheme that Thorp engineers interviewed by Bellona Web think the fault for the accident may lie, because more motion that is applied to the pipes, the more likely they are to succumb to metal fatigue. As NDA and BNG officials described it, the pipe rupture was roughly akin to taking a standard aluminum soda can and bending it several times in the middle. “Eventually, after doing this for some time, you will crack the can,” said one Thorp engineer. They were quick to emphasise, however, that, of the numerous pipes running into the accountancy tank, only one had ever faced such a crisis. Nonetheless, inspections of pipe integrity are on going. One option for ensuring the further safe usage of Thorp is to fix the entire assembly of pipe works and tanks in place rather than relying on gravimetric accountancy procedures. Accountancy would then take place under more standard methods such as regular measurements of the accountancy tanks’ contents of uranium and plutonium. The seven stage scale of ranking nuclear indcidents and accidents. IAEA Public notification could have been improved, says BNG NDA and BNG officials interview by Bellona Web openly admitted that they had dropped the ball somewhat on notifying stakeholders, or interested parties, about the incident. Even though BNG officials had held local public consultations locally in the weeks following the incident, it was not made pubic nationally until the London Guardian ran something of a scare piece on the incident on May 2nd. After Bellona’s visit this week, the organisation can confirm that much of the information contained in the Guardian piece was exaggerated. BNG officials were regretful that they were not quicker to notify the public and international governments—among them the Norwegian government, which was taken off guard by the Guardian piece—and offered Bellona Web its apologies for not communicating events sooner. “We were not being secretive,” said one BNG official. “It was simply that our early assessments, given that the entire incident was contained and no plant or public personnel were affect, did not warrant an international alarm.” BNG officials, however, especially under the guidance of the NDA have pledged to be more forthcoming with stakeholders in the future. Nonetheless, the event was classified as a “serious incident,” which corresponds to level three on seven level International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) that was developed in the wake of Chernobyl. As a level three event, the Sellefield spillage classified at one step below an “accident.” A rating of “4” corresponds to “an accident without serious off-site risk.” NDA and BNG officials interviewed during Bellona Web’s incident expressed surprise that the Thorp incident—which was entirely contained and resulted in no external or employee exposure to radiation—had been ranked so high. But technicalities within the language of the rating scale itself officially pushed it up to a “3” incident. Publisher: , President: Information: , Technical contact: Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 25 Platts: NRC to take limited role in DOE's prep of EIS for GTCC waste + NRC commissioners decided the agency will participate in a commenting role only during DOE's preparation of an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a disposal facility for greater-than-Class-C (GTCC) low-level radwaste (LLW). In voting comments released June 30, NRC commissioners rejected a staff recommendation to become a cooperating agency, saying they wanted to avoid any perception that NRC was not acting as an independent regulatory role. DOE has responsibility for disposal of GTCC waste, the most radioactive of NRC's four LLW categories. NRC would license a GTCC disposal facility. As a commenting agency on the EIS project, NRC participation and information will be limited to public comment periods and observations during public scoping meetings, the staff said in a paper to the commissioners. In a cooperating agency role, NRC could have participated directly in the development and information flow during all phases of the DOE EIS, it said. For more information about the NRC, take a trial to Platts Nuclear Fuel at http://nuclearfuel.platts.com. Washington (Platts)--6Jul2005 Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 26 Las Vegas SUN: Shoshone Nation files motion in Yucca case Today: July 07, 2005 at 11:51:26 PDT LAS VEGAS SUN The Western Shoshone Nation on Wednesday filed an opposition to a government motion to dismiss their case that seeks to stop work at the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Last May a federal judge denied the Western Shoshone Nation's preliminary injunction request seeking to stop work at the site. In the ruling, the judge requested that the government file a motion to dismiss on jurisdictional grounds, according to Wednesday's motion. The government filed a motion to dismiss. In its opposition to that motion, the Western Shoshone argued that the U.S. has never lawfully divested the tribe of its land or its rights under previously held treaties. It also argued that it has standing to assert the collective rights of the Western Shoshone Nation and its people, "including the right to prohibit the use of Western Shoshone Territory for the storage of high level nuclear waste," according to the motion. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Meeting on Planning and FR Doc E5-3558 [Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129)] [Notices] [Page 39348] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07jy05-95] Procedures; Notice of Meeting The Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste (ACNW) will hold a Planning and Procedures meeting on July 19, 2005, Room T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. The entire meeting will be open to public attendance, with the exception of a portion that may be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552b(c)(2) and (6) to discuss organizational and personnel matters that relate solely to internal personnel rules and practices of ACNW, and information the release of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Tuesday, July 19, 2005--8:30 a.m.-10 a.m. The Committee will discuss proposed ACNW activities and related matters. The purpose of this meeting is to gather information, analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee. Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, Ms. Sharon A. Steele (Telephone: 301/415-6805) between 8 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. (ET) five days prior to the meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings will be permitted only during those portions of the meeting that are open to the public. Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by contacting the Designated Federal Official between 8:30 a.m. and 5:15 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged to contact the above named individual at least two working days prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes in the agenda. Dated: June 30, 2005. Sharon A. Steele, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW. [FR Doc. E5-3558 Filed 7-6-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 28 KPHO Phoenix - Update: Rocket Fuel Found in Water Supply July 8, 2005 (CBS 5 NEWS) - An Arizona man claims Rocket Fuel contamination of the Colorado River is to blame for his cancer, and now he and his wife are waging an uphill battle against a long list of agencies and companies that have come in contact with their tap water. "I'm still kinda in shock that we're here," says Linda Curtis. Linda and Alan Curtis have come to Phoenix for the first time in 12 years, ready for the fight of their lives. "We're going against Kerr-McGee, Ampac, the federal government, State of Arizona, State of Nevada," says Alan Curtis. The Bullhead City residents are representing themselves in Federal Court. "There's not going to be one attorney in there, they're bringing twenty of them," Long-odds for a blue collar couple lacking law degrees, yet armed with research and conviction. "It's not about money, it's about getting the water clean," explains Linda. Linda is talking about Colorado River water. It is contaminated with Perchlorate, Rocket Fuel and other chemicals Alan Curtis claims have seeped in to the Bullhead City water supply. The water the Curtis' and their neighbors have drunk for years comes from a well less than 1000 feet away from their home. Curtis believes it caused his cancer, and that of 11 of his neighbors. "It affects the thyroid, and stops bone marrow production... I didn't have any bone marrow. And then the nitrate levels that are in it affect the spleen and I lost the spleen," says Alan. The 59-year -old former construction worker suffers from stage four Hodgkin’s disease. "The only common denominator is the water.. nothing else makes any sense," says Alan. So the couple set up shop in a small room. "This is Curtis and Curtis..." And have turned to federal court to get some answers. They are suing nine defendants: The city, state and federal governments, the water company and the two Nevada Corporations that produced the chemicals. "The city has an allocation for Colorado river water..." says Steve Johnson of Bullhead City. Johnson says it's a private company that distributes it to residents, and the state that sets the health standards. "It's not passing the buck, what we're doing is relying on the experts to advise us on what needs to be done for our water quality," says Johnson. In fact each of the nine defendants insist they have a good reason why the finger of responsibility should be pointed somewhere else. "We've been getting the runaround for four years," says Alan. Reporter Mark Lodato: “But not one of the parties named in the lawsuit is disputing the fact that perchlorate is evident in the water supply - in fact our investigation found it has traveled hundreds of miles from Nevada, south to the Yuma Valley. In May the Five I-team showed you while perchlorate levels are highest in drinking water, the chemical also seeps into our food supply.” "We're really looking at protecting pregnant women, newborns, young children, " says Kevin Mayer of EPA. But state and federal regulators can't agree on how much rocket fuel in your diet is too much. Reporter Lodato: "At what point does it become a health risk?" "Well, that's the 64-million dollar question," says Mayer. A National Academy of Sciences study funded by the federal government found we can consume 24-parts-per-billion of perchlorate day without risk to sensitive populations, but some states prefer a much lower standard. Arizona calls 14 parts-per-billion acceptable, California: six, Massachusetts just one. Lodato: "So the only recourse is to haul them down to court?" Curtis replies, "Yeah, technically you poke them in the nose." Alan says he using the suit to find out exactly how much rocket fuel is in the water supply in hopes the court will appoint a federal administrator to supervise a full clean-up. Lodato asks, "This has become your life?" Curtis says, "Yeah, that's it. That's the only reason it didn't kill me. And like I told 'em before, I'm not going away... So they're going to have to deal with me 'til I die." Note: Linda and Alan Curtis survived their first hearing in federal court. Meanwhile the judge has taken the defendants' motions to dismiss the lawsuit under advisement. The couple is due back in court next week. We'll keep you up to date. 07.06.05 Perchlorate in Arizona (pdf) National Academy of Sciences Study Copyright 2001 - 2005 WorldNow and News 5. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 Whitehaven News: I didn’t fall asleep says sacked BNFL electrician Published on 07/07/2005 By Alan Irving A YOUNG Sellafield craftsman has been sacked for allegedly sleeping on the job. But electrician Craig Parker denies he took “40 winks” on the floor of the Pond Five fuel handling plant. He is now trying to win his BNFL job back. The 25-year-old Egremont bachelor signed on while waiting for the outcome of an appeal. It was heard at Sellafield at the end of last week. At his Cringlethwaite home on Tuesday, he told The Whitehaven News: “I am dumbfounded by it all. I thought it was just a laugh and a joke at first. When my line manager came and told me I had been reported for sleeping on the job I started laughing. “Then I thought: this could be serious. It was, and I got sacked.” Until his dismissal in mid-June, Craig had worked at Sellafield for nearly nine years, going straight from St Benedict’s School at Whitehaven. His job at the time — the morning of May 22 — was to refurbish a crane in Pond 5, where the radioactive fuel is stored under water before being treated for reprocessing. He said: “There was some sort of investigation or inspection going on and someone said he had caught me sleeping. I was gob-smacked – it was coming up to bait time and there was no reason why I should have been sleeping. He said he was going to report me to my line manager but I think it was someone higher up. The crane refurbishment was a 14-week job, I had been working on it for seven weeks and I carried on until the day they finished me. I wasn’t suspended. “I wasn’t asleep on the job — it’s just not true, I can say that 100 per cent, but they wouldn’t believe me or my witnesses. It is my word against someone else’s but under industrial law I am guilty unless I can prove my innocence, basically.” An instrument electrical mechanic, Craig went to BNFL as a 17-year-old to serve his apprenticeship and has been at Sellafield ever since, working mostly in the Magnox reprocessing and separation plants. He said: “As a kid I had my ups and downs but I have always given it my best shot at Sellafield and I have a clean record. I am just waiting on the outcome of the appeal to see whether I will get my job back. The fact is that at the moment I am sacked. I think I could get other work in the trade so I am having a look around.” Craig’s last day at Sellafield was June 15. “It happened on May 22 and I worked right through until I got finished. “I have taken a bit of ribbing from people. They have come out with a few wisecracks but it’s mostly good humoured and I can take it. It seems to be world news, everybody is talking about it. I went down to the Maritime Festival and kept getting asked about it all by people I didn’t even know. “Some said they couldn’t believe what had happened to me and it was absolutely disgraceful that I should get the sack.” BNFL said yesterday that because of employee confidentiality it could not comment on the case and that the appeal was on-going. ***************************************************************** 30 Bradenton Herald: Lockheed will assess Tallevast | 07/07/2005 | DONNA WRIGHT and DUANE MARSTELLER Herald Staff Writers TALLEVAST - Lockheed Martin Corp. has agreed to complete a Health Risk Assessment of the Tallevast community, but whether it answers residents' questions about their health remains to be seen, community leaders said Wednesday. One thing is for certain: No answers will be available for several months. The plan outlined in Lockheed's June 29 letter to Laura Ward, president of the Tallevast advocacy group, Family Oriented Community United and Strong, gives the independent consultant four months to complete the task. Moreover, the proposed assessment process will consider only current and future pathways of exposure, not the historical health review Tallevast leaders have sought. Ward said Tallevast residents are withholding comment until they review the proposal with Tim Varney, the independent consultant chosen by the community to monitor Lockheed's progress in cleaning up a contamination plume. The contamination is linked to the former Loral American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road. Lockheed acquired the facility as part of a corporate buyout of Loral in 1996. Because Lockheed owned the plant when the contamination was found in 2000, the defense giant has assumed the responsibility for cleaning up the mess. Assessment in stages The June 29 letter from Thomas D. Blackman, Lockheed's director of environmental remediation, to Ward and William Kutash of the Department of Environmental Protection outlines the four stages of the proposed health assessment process. • The Exposure Assessment will identify chemicals of potential concern and actual and plausible future exposure pathways and routes. This phase will also identify who may be at risk for exposure through each pathway. The exposure assessment will determine expected concentrations of contaminants that people may have been exposed to. Site characteristics, including current and future projected land uses, will also be studied. • The Toxicity Assessment will determine the human health criteria for the contaminants of concern. That criteria will be used to evaluate risk to humans from soil exposure through ingestion, skin contact and inhalation. This phase will take into consideration both acute and chronic health effects associated with short-term and long-term exposure. • The Risk Characterization phase will use the results of the exposure and toxicity studies and any other relevant public health assessments to define cumulative excess risks to the affected populations. • The Uncertainty Analysis, the final phase, will address whether the assessment has overestimated or underestimated the contamination risk. The methodology is based upon probabilistic risk principles the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency uses to assess Superfund sites, Blackman wrote. The Superfund is a federal program that typically targets abandoned sites that pose high environmental and health risks. Random sampling Lockheed has agreed to ask Robert P. DeMott, whom Varney recommended, to conduct the health assessment if he is available. DeMott, an Environ Holdings Inc. principal based at the company's Tampa office, was on vacation and did not immediately return a voice mail message Wednesday. DeMott is a board-certified toxicologist with more than 10 years experience in evaluating exposure to chemicals in the workplace and environment, according to the company's Web site. Among the contaminants he has studied are arsenic, trichloroethylene (TCE), and lead, all of which have been found at elevated levels beneath the former beryllium plant or surrounding residential properties and wells. Lockheed wants DeMott to use the "Monte Carlo" method, a random sampling method named after that city's famous casinos, for the health assessment. Under the method, random samples or data are inputted into a computer algorithm. In Tallevast, the computer would calculate the approximate health risks posed by the various contaminants found in the community. The Monte Carlo method has been used elsewhere to determine approximate human health risks posed by various contaminants, according to EPA risk-assessment guidelines. Florida laws will also help guide the assessment process Lockheed has proposed. State law allows the assessment to look at "non-potable water exposure from dermal contact, inhalation of vapors and mists, ingestion of food crops irrigated with such water, lawn watering, and other related exposures" if it's deemed appropriate. State law requires the assessment to consider other possible forms of exposure, including eating fish caught in polluted waters and food grown in contaminated soils. No vapor testing But the Health Risk Assessment process Lockheed has proposed is not designed to measure past health risks. Nor does the proposal include plans for additional vapor testing Tallevast residents feel is mandatory to determine how their health is continuing to be impacted by TCE in the ground, Lockheed spokeswoman Meredith Rouse Davis said. Davis said the TCE contamination is too deep to cause vapor problems. "If the contamination is at or above the surface of the water table, then the vapors can rise from the surface of the water table to the ground surface," Davis explained. "However if the contamination is well below the water table and the groundwater near the surface of the water table is clean, the vapors cannot rise through the water. The vapors need a porous media to migrate through." That answer does not convince Tallevast residents. Ward said not enough tests have been done to know for certain the plume's outline or the depth and concentrations of TCE, one of the most dangerous contaminants found in the Tallevast plume. ***************************************************************** 31 Platts: DOE to transfer depleted uranium to BPA + DOE has agreed to transfer up to 8.5-million kilograms of depleted uranium to the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) for re-enrichment by USEC Inc. and use in Energy Northwest's (EN) Columbia BWR over the period 2009 to 2017. DOE has some 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium but only a small percentage are at assays above 0.4% U-235 and therefore clearly economical in today's market to re-enrich, according to a source familiar with what he described as this "pilot" program. He said that if all 8.5-million kg were re-enriched, it might generate about 1.9-million kg of natural UF6, and could save EN millions of dollars in fuel costs if today's UF6 prices remain at current market levels (about $87.25/kgU as UF6). But the actual feasibility of recycling DOE's depleted UF6 for use in a commercial reactor has not been tested, he said, given questions over how much of the depleted uranium is contaminated with unwanted radioactive isotopes. This pilot project will provide DOE with the information to support a decision regarding any subsequent action to reuse any of the remaining DUF6 inventory, he said. Costs of the project will be paid by EN and include DOE's handling fees and a fee paid to the U.S. Treasury based on the amount of uranium successfully processed. BPA, which is part of DOE, provides funding for the operation, maintenance and debt service for Columbia and in return receives the entire electrical output of the station. Washington (Platts)--6Jul2005 Copyright © 2005 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill Companies] ***************************************************************** 32 Oakland Tribune: Lab: Nuclear arsenal rides on big laser Last Updated: 07/07/2005 07:00:26 AM Critics argue NIF is not essential to maintaining effective stockpile By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER With the world's largest laser in the political cross hairs, federal weapons officials and executives at Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab are playing their most powerful card, suggesting that without all 192 beams of the National Ignition Facility, U.S. nuclear bombs and warheads might well stop working. Faith in U.S. weapons would decline, former weapons designer George Miller, associate director at large for Livermore lab, told the Los Angeles Times. Absent the laser, the United States might have to return to explosive nuclear testing, freeing the rest of the world to advance the state of weapons know-how. "There are very serious implications to canceling this project," said Miller. But bomb designers disagree mightily on what relationship, if any, the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, has to keeping the U.S. nuclear arsenal in working order. Livermore's most prolific weapons designer, retired physicist Seymour Sack, calls NIF "worse than useless" because it draws money and attention from the less-glamorous examination of weapons for signs of degradation and replacement of the parts that break down. "There's a lot of nonsense" in claims that without NIF, the nation won't have confidence in its weapons, Sack said. "It's not a purely useless boondoggle but in terms of any critical element of understanding of the stockpile, my answer is no." Retired Sandia weapons manager Bob Peurifoy said the big laser makes "an interesting scientific playpen." Its beams will create 100 million-degree temperatures,crushing pressures and an incredible density of energy, taking scientists on a tour inside a miniature sun. "I understand that some scientists just wet their pants to use this thing. NIF is fun science," Peurifoy said. But "NIF has little if anything to do with the present and future health of the enduring stockpile." So far the nation has kept a stockpile of nuclear bombs and warheads without having a $4 billion laser. In addition to inventing new ones, scientists cut open weapons every year, watching for problems and replacing bad parts. "We did it for 40 years," Peurifoy said. Sen. Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations subcommittee, killed construction funds for the big laser for 2006, saying the "single-minded" pursuit of NIF was choking off other valuable research programs, not least in his home state of New Mexico. The full Senate passed a bill Friday with no construction money for the laser. Weaponeers broke into pro- and anti-NIF camps in the mid-1990s, when Congress approved building the laser for $1.2 billion. The divide deepened as the price tag soared to more than $4 billion, and the government cut other projects to keep NIF alive. For years, Livermore executives barely could get more than a tepid endorsement of their laser from top scientists at the other two weapons labs. To an extent, the debate turns on different philosophies about maintaining 20- to 40-year-old bombs and warheads. Some scientists favor careful watching over the weapons as they age and remanufacturing the parts that degrade. But since the mid-1990s, two presidents have opted instead for a more expansive and costly program called "stockpile stewardship." Scientists are rebuilding the weapons ----------------------------------------------------------------- Advertisement ----------------------------------------------------------------- with new parts, and they are relying on supercomputers and giant experimental machines such as NIF to verify those changes. Do the changes affect the detonation? Do they impair energy flow from one part of the bomb to another? So far, scientists say stockpile stewardship answers those questions reasonably well. But officials of the weapons labs recently warned that the weapons are changing enough away from the original, proven designs to lessen confidence in their reliability. "As these warheads continue to age and are refurbished, an accumulation of small changes could lead to increased risk or increased uncertainty in warhead certification," four weaponeers wrote in a paper endorsed by the labs' weapons chiefs. They argued for designing new bombs and warheads, replacing everything in the arsenal with simpler weapons that would be easier to make. With a moratorium on nuclear testing in place since 1992, weapons scientists would verify the new designs work with software that simulates a nuclear weapon in detonation. The software is full of physicists' best estimates and formulas for things that are difficult to measure, such as the roiling hot gases and radiation inside a star or a detonating nuclear weapon. Fusion shots on NIF would explore those processes in greater detail than possible before, albeit at a very small scale. Physicists would try to translate these small fusion observations into more accurate physics for the computer simulations. Livermore weapons chief Bruce Goodwin argues that scientists have to understand precisely what happens in the several millionths of a second when the primary and the secondary are subject to millions of pounds of pressure, unimaginable amounts of energy and millions of degrees of temperature. Once all 192 beams start firing in 2010, the National Ignition Facility is expected to be the only way of creating those conditions, short of an underground nuclear test, for a decade or more. "There ain't no place else we're going to do fusion burn on the Earth in my lifetime," Goodwin said. But many weaponeers see NIF as adding little to weapons questions already answered by nuclear testing and concerning bomb components no more delicate than a bowling ball. Where scientists across the debate agree is that National Ignition Facility will be a training ground for bomb design. The laser's targets closely mimic H-bombs, with a sphere of fuel inside a can full of radiation. The physics of implosion, hot and turbulent radiation and thermonuclear burn are roughly the same. The question for NIF's critics is whether at $4 billion and counting, the big laser offers better bomb tutelage than anything else. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com. © 2005 ANG Newspapers ***************************************************************** 33 PISJ: Critics question DOE honesty on plutonium project at INL Pocatello Idaho State Journal: Critics question DOE honesty on plutonium project at INL By Dan Boyd- Journal Writer ARCO - The decision to resume production of radioisotope power systems and to center such activities at the Idaho National Laboratory could mean new jobs and could also put Idaho at the forefront of the country's space program. But some say it could also increase security risks at the sprawling site west of Idaho Falls and critics maintain they're not getting complete answers from officials from the Department of Energy. At a public hearing last week in Idaho Falls, several concerned citizens repeatedly countered claims that the production of plutonium-238 wouldn't be a general health hazard. "I've caught them lying on the draft impact statements," said Twin Falls podiatrist Peter Rickards, who said a 1964 satellite crash over the West Indian Ocean contaminated large swaths of the world with plutonium-238. DOE Program Director Tim Frazier has maintained that the revived program would support national security as well as the space mission, saying, "We value the public safety, the worker safety and protection of the environment very highly." In a recently released Environmental Impact Statement, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and the nation's security were identified as reasons to produce plutonium, although the document also said the material wouldn't be used in weapons. DOE spokesman Tim Jackson said that while national security aspects of the project are classified, plutonium production for those uses would be intended to create heat and electricity, the same uses as intended for the space program. Plutonium has been described by some as the most toxic substance known and according to some reports plutonium-238 is 280 times more radioactive than the isotope plutonium-239, which is used to make atomic bombs. But in a recent guest view to the Journal, Snake River Alliance's Pocatello Program Director Beatrice Brailsford said a cloud of secrecy is shrouding that, and other, facts. "We are being asked to bear a risk without ever being able to weigh whether it is economically, environmentally or ethically 'worth it'," she wrote. At the INL, a new facility was dedicated last October that will provide radioisotope power systems to NASA in the form of Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, or RTGs, that help heat and propel spacecrafts. That facility, known as the Space and Security Power Systems Facility, will provide radioisotope power systems to NASA in preparation for a space mission to Pluto. With this infrastructure already in place, the production of plutonium-238 on site could streamline the entire process and remove the environmental danger of shipping materials between three different DOE sites. "It would be perfectly safe to perform this work as we currently perform it ... but it's much more economical to consolidate it at one site," Jackson said. But Rickards said it could also put the INL on the map as a terrorist target - a possibility he said was largely ignored at last week's meeting. "Why did you not talk at this meeting about safety?" asked Rickards, who said he was eventually told by other audience members to sit down and be quiet. Rickards said he suspects some present at the meeting were current or former site workers who were there to try and quash any criticism of the plan. But Jackson said the DOE is performing a vital mission mandated by the Legislature and said much of the process will be open to scrutiny from state and federal regulators. When asked if he had full confidence in the project's safety, Jackson responded by saying simply, "absolutely." Public meetings Public hearings on the proposed consolidation of nuclear operations tied to the production of plutonium-238 will take place in Idaho Falls on July 25 and in Fort Hall on July 26. Dan Boyd covers politics, higher education and natural resource issues for the Journal. He can be reached at 239-3168 or by e-mail at dboyd@journalnet.com. Dan Boyd - Journal Writer'> But some say it could also increase security risks at the sprawling site west of Idaho Falls and critics maintain they're not getting complete answers from officials from the Department of Energy."> This document was originally published online on Thursday, July 07, 2005 Copyright © 2005 Pocatello Idaho State Journal P O Box 431 Pocatello, ID 83204-0431 ***************************************************************** 34 BNL: Brookhaven Scientists Develop Method to Remove Uranium from Contaminated Steel Surfaces Contact: , (631) 344-2719 or , (631) 344-5056 June 30, 2005 Upton, NY – Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Center for Environmental and Molecular Sciences, and Stony Brook University (SBU) have developed a simple, safe method of removing uranium from contaminated metallic surfaces using citric acid formulations so that the materials can be recycled or disposed of as low-level radioactive or nonradioactive waste. The research is published in the July 1, 2005 issue of Environmental Science and Technology. Decontamination of radionuclides from metallic and other surfaces contaminated by radiological incidents is a major environmental challenge. Brookhaven scientist A.J. Francis, assisted at the Lab by Cleveland Dodge and by Gary Halada at SBU, led the effort in developing an innovative and improved process for decontaminating metal surfaces and other materials. The research team developed an environmentally friendly green-chemistry process that uses all naturally occurring materials – citric acid, common soil bacteria, and sunlight. Present methods of removing uranium from contaminated metal surfaces include sand blasting, chemical extraction, and electro-chemical dissolution. These methods generate secondary waste streams, creating additional disposal problems. Left to right, scientists A.J. Francis, BNL, Gary Halada, SBU, and Cleveland Dodge, BNL, discuss their uranium decontamination research conducted at BNLs National Synchrotron Light Source. (Click image to download hi-res version.) “In the event of a radiological incident, such as a ‘dirty bomb,’ this technology can be used to clean up contaminated materials,” Francis said. “It will also treat the secondary waste generated from the treatment process, resulting in waste minimization. It is a comprehensive process.” Using the , a source of intense x-rays, ultraviolet and infrared light at Brookhaven Lab, the researchers systematically examined the contaminated materials at the molecular scale and the association of uranium before and after treatment with citric acid formulations. The efficiency of uranium removal ranged from 68 percent to 94 percent, depending on the age and extent of corrosion. Wastewater generated from the decontamination process was subjected to biodegradation followed by photodegradation, which minimized the generation of secondary waste and allowed the uranium to be recovered. This process, which has been patented, can also be used to remove toxic metals and radionuclides from contaminated soils, wastes, and incinerator ash. The research was funded by the Environmental Management Science Program of the Environmental Remediation Sciences Division, Office of Biological and Environmental Research of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. DOE’s Environmental Management Science Program supports basic research to clean up DOE legacy sites and the technologies that have emerged from the program can also be used in response to radiological incidents. Number: 05-69 | One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization. ***************************************************************** 35 Rocky Mountain News: Senate OKs buyout at Rocky Flats By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News July 7, 2005 The U.S. Senate has approved federal funding to buy out gravel-mining operations on the site of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant. The site, which contains buried, plutonium-contaminated basements at its core and gravel pits on the periphery, is to become a wildlife refuge next year. Officials have said they could not protect endangered grasslands with active surface mining under way. The $10 million should be enough to pay for all mineral rights beneath the 6,000-acre site, including active gravel pits and potential future ones, said Angela de Rocha, press secretary to Sen. Wayne Allard. Allard co-sponsored the allocation with Colorado's Democratic senator, Ken Salazar. Because Allard is on the conference committee that will work out differences between the Senate and House versions of the Department of Energy funding bill, he said, he expects to be able to push the allocation through. "We're declaring victory now," de Rocha said. The Senate also approved an Allard-Salazar measure that prevents any loss of pension benefits for members of the Rocky Flats clean-up staff who worked themselves out of a job by finishing early. The site, expected to be a meadow by fall, is more than a year ahead of schedule and $500 million under budget. 2005 © The E.W. Scripps ***************************************************************** 36 AP Wire: Companies hoping for SRS contracts meet with DOE | 07/07/2005 | Associated Press AIKEN, S.C. - More than 70 companies vying for government contracts at the Savannah River Site near here met with the Department of Energy to discuss ongoing and future projects at the former nuclear weapons complex. The federal agency's contract with Westinghouse Savannah River Co. expires at the end of next year. Some companies are forming alliances that could put them in a better position to win contracts while others, including Westinghouse parent company Washington Group International, have said they are interested in running all of the site. But one vendor is "not always a real good thing when you're looking for competition," said Charlie Anderson, DOE assistant secretary for environmental management. The DOE plans to meet with interested companies in two weeks, but won't make a final decision until later, said Patty Bubar, who is leading the department's acquisition team. Wednesday's meeting at the Aiken Technical College was to let companies know about the projects and so they could provide feedback and innovative ideas, Bubar said. "We need some time to digest that information," she said. "This is a big deal. This is a lot of work, a lot of money." Contracts to run the site are more than $1 billion. Agency officials told companies they were looking for at least three things - positive safety records, environmental compliance and respect for the taxpayer. "Yes, we all still have to think about the dollars we spend," Anderson said. Environmental cleanup is expected to last another 20 years and cost $20 billion. Security administration will be required for at least 40 more years as the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile is reduced. DuPont operated the site for nearly 40 years. Westinghouse Savannah River Company took over in 1989. In 1996, Westinghouse had no competition when it won the first bid-contract for site management and operation. That five-year agreement received a five-year extension and will expire on Sept. 30, 2006. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************