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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 BBC: EU warns Iran over nuclear talks
2 Reuters: IAEA finishes Iran nuclear report as EU readies UN push
3 Reuters: EU to push for Iran U.N. nuclear referral if needed
4 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Pushing for U.N. Sanctions on Iran
5 Guardian Unlimited: EU Urges Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks
6 RIA Novosti UPDATE: North Korea defends its right to peaceful
7 Reuters: N.Korea entitled to nuclear power under NPT -China
8 Guardian Unlimited: S.Korea: North's Nuke Plans Not an Issue
9 FPIF News | 60 Years W/out Nuclear War | U.S. Military Unravels
10 US: [progchat_action] CDI on U.S. Plans for Space Weaponization
11 New Scientist: Clean energy special: The big clean-up - Features
12 US: GU: Republicans accused of witch-hunt against climate change sci
13 Threat of nuclear war by Tony Benn
14 BBC: US lifts nuclear curbs on India
15 BBC: China warns US over Taiwan arms
16 Xinhua: China conducts least tests among nuke states
17 Xinhua: China's stand on nuclear weapons unchanged - official
18 Asia Times: A nuclear (mis)adventure in Isfahan
NUCLEAR REACTORS
19 US: NRC: NRC Reorganizing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
20 US: Washington Times: GE offers reactor design -
21 RIA Novosti: Emergency shut down of nuclear power unit northwest of
22 US: JOURNAL NEWS: NRC hosts meeting on regulations
23 US: NAS: Opportunities for Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power an
24 US: NRC: NRC Issues Mid-Cycle Assessments for All Nuclear Plants
25 US: NRC: In the Matter of Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Establish
26 US: NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Notice of Reconstitution
27 US: NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Find
28 Telegraph: Amec targets N-power decommissioning deals
29 US: Reuters: Duke's S.C. Oconee 3 nuke shut during test
30 SA: Business Day: Releasing reactor plan will help rivals
31 The Australian: Downer espouses nuclear virtues
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 Bellona: Two years after the K-159 tragedy: the submarine remains at
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
33 [NukeNet] Japanese uranium-contaminated soil
34 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada files suit against NRC over Yucca license proc
35 NZ: Scoop: Political fallout from nuclear waste in Darwin harbour
36 US: Concord Journal: Barrel removal begins
PEACE
37 Guardian Unlimited: Man of peace dies - scientist who turned back
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
38 [epa-impact] Carlsbad Project, New Mexico
39 Daily Times-Call: Radioactive areas found outside Flats cleanup area
40 lamonitor.com: Group debunks bunker buster
41 Reuters: U.S. to decide soon on making plutonium for rockets
42 Y-12 security guards using new remote-controlled weapons system
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 BBC: EU warns Iran over nuclear talks
Last Updated: Thursday, 1 September 2005
[Two technicians carry a box containing yellowcake at the Iranian
nuclear facility at Isfahan]
Iran says its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes
European Union foreign ministers have warned Iran they will refer
it to the UN Security Council unless it returns to talks on its
nuclear programme.
EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said
Iran should not underestimate European resolve.
The UN's nuclear watchdog is due to report on Saturday on Iran's
nuclear activities, following its decision to resume nuclear
enrichment last month.
Iran denies US claims it seeks nuclear arms, saying its purposes
are peaceful.
Referral to the UN Security Council could eventually lead to
sanctions against Iran.
Negotiators from France, Britain and Germany suspended talks with
Tehran after it resumed uranium conversion - but have said the
door remains open for a return to negotiations.
Nobody wants to go to t Security Council but it might become
unavoidable if they don't cooperate Benita Ferrero-Waldner EU
external relations commissioner
Ms Ferrero-Waldner said this should not be seen as a sign of
weakness.
"The Iranians should not make the mistake of underestimating the
strength of us in Europe," she told reporters.
"Nobody wants to go to the Security Council but it might become
unavoidable if they don't co-operate."
However, speaking after the meeting of EU foreign ministers in
Wales, UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said they would take
matters "one step at a time".
They would wait for Saturday's International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) report before deciding whether to go to the Security
Council, he said.
New proposals
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy added: "We are not
closing the door. Iran can come back within the 2004 negotiations
framework."
By resuming its nuclear work, Tehran turned down an offer of
economic incentives by France, Britain and Germany.
Iran's new chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said last week
that Tehran would come up with new proposals for talks with the
EU within a month.
The US last month criticised an independent investigation which
found no evidence that Iran was working on a secret nuclear
weapons programme.
The report said traces of bomb-grade uranium in Iran's nuclear
facilities came from contaminated Pakistani equipment, not
Iranian activities - backing up Tehran's position.
*****************************************************************
2 Reuters: IAEA finishes Iran nuclear report as EU readies UN push
Thu Sep 1, 2005 8:03 AM ET
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - A report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog is
expected to confirm Iran has resumed sensitive nuclear work,
diplomats said, and EU officials meeting on Thursday were ready
to take steps leading to possible sanctions.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to deliver
its latest report on Iran's nuclear programme to 35 nations on
the agency's board of governors on Saturday, diplomats close to
the agency said.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for
almost three years. It has found no hard evidence to back U.S.
allegations that Tehran is developing nuclear weapons but is not
convinced Iran's atomic ambitions are peaceful.
The key element in the report from IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei
will be confirmation that Iran has resumed work at a uranium
processing plant at Isfahan, which Tehran mothballed under a
November 2004 deal with France, Britain and Germany.
Iran insists its nuclear ambitions are entirely peaceful and has
accused the EU of trying to deprive it of atomic energy.
"The report will not have a harsh tone, but it is expected to
confirm that Iran ended part of the suspension," a European
diplomat told Reuters. "It will also outline a number of open
questions about Iran's nuclear programme."
Foreign ministers from the EU's 25 member states gathered in
Newport, Wales, and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said
the bloc would support referring Iran to the United Nations
Security Council over its nuclear activities if necessary.
"If the situation continues ... we will go the Security Council
but we will have to discuss that today," Solana told reporters as
he arrived for the meeting.
He said the Union would look first to the IAEA board meeting.
"We will see what comes out of that but be ready to go to New
York if necessary."
STRAW URGES EU UNITY
In a letter before the meeting, British Foreign Secretary Jack
Straw urged EU countries to build a united front against Iran's
decision to back out of a key part of the November 2004 Paris
Agreement with the three biggest EU powers.
"We should take stock on Iran and discuss how we might best
pursue the nuclear file over the coming weeks," Straw wrote.
"This might also be an opportunity to discuss what Iran's new
government and its breaking of the Paris Agreement means for
EU-Iran relations over the coming months."
The EU trio has tried for two years to persuade Iran to give up
uranium enrichment to assure the world it is not pursuing atomic
weapons. In exchange, the EU offered economic and political
incentives that Tehran rejected as inadequate.
As the European Union ministers gathered, the spokesman for
Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Aghamohammadi,
reiterated that Tehran would never give up its atomic programme.
"Iran's objective is to use nuclear technology in a peaceful way
and it will not give up its right in that regard," he was quoted
as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
The IAEA urged Iran on August 11 to resume the suspension.
Although Iran has not resumed enriching uranium, last month it
began work at a plant in Isfahan that converts raw uranium into
gas that can later be purified into enriched uranium fuel for
power plants or bombs.
This, diplomats say, violated the Paris Agreement and left the
Europeans no choice but to refer the matter to the U.N. Security
Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
The IAEA board meets on September 19 to discuss ElBaradei's Iran
report. The EU, the United States and their allies hope the board
will unanimously adopt a resolution that sends the issue to the
Security Council, diplomats said.
"No one's talking about sanctions right now," a diplomat said.
"If it gets to the Security Council, then those discussions will
begin."
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
3 Reuters: EU to push for Iran U.N. nuclear referral if needed
Thu Sep 1, 2005 3:57 PM ET
NEWPORT, Wales, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The European Union agreed on
Thursday to press for Iran to be referred to the United Nations
Security Council if the U.N. nuclear watchdog confirms Tehran has
resumed suspect nuclear activities.
Referral to the U.N. body could eventually lead to sanctions and
would end years of negotiations by the EU to stop Iran from
pursuing a nuclear programme the West fears is a cover for
developing an atomic bomb.
But EU foreign ministers said they would wait for a report by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Iran's nuclear
programme and consult other IAEA board members before taking
action and they stopped short of setting a deadline.
EU diplomats say the IAEA will confirm on Saturday that Iran has
restarted uranium processing at a plant at Isfahan.
"Unless suspension was reinstated there would have to be a
response, for example a report of the IAEA's wider concerns about
Iran's nuclear programme to the U.N. Security Council," said
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who is chairing a meeting of
his EU counterparts in Newport, Wales.
Tehran suspended nuclear work at Isfahan in November 2004 under
an agreement with Britain, France and Germany but resumed uranium
conversion last month -- a preliminary stage towards making
enriched fuel for nuclear reactors or to make weapons.
The EU, the United States and their allies hope the IAEA board
will unanimously adopt a resolution that sends the issue to the
Security Council, diplomats say.
"All the EU countries that are IAEA board members spoke in
favour of referral," a European diplomat said after talks at
Newport.
But asked if a Sept. 19 IAEA board meeting was the deadline for
Iran, Straw said: "We're not making decisions today about whether
we put forward to that meeting that there should be referral to
the Security Council."
"We want to wait and see what (IAEA director general) Dr.
(Mohamed) ElBaradei says ... and also consult with international
partners, so we take it one step at a time," he added.
DOOR STILL OPEN
Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds said the important
thing was for the Security Council to throw its weight behind the
IAEA's demands.
"We don't think now is the time to discuss sanctions," she told
reporters.
EU officials said the bloc was still willing to negotiate but
Tehran must agree to replace broken seals at Isfahan.
"We are not closing the door. Iran can come back within the 2004
negotiations framework," French Foreign Minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy said, adding the Iranians were isolating themselves
by their decision to resume uranium conversion at Isfahan.
The EU trio has tried for two years to persuade Iran to give up
uranium enrichment to assure the world it is not pursuing atomic
weapons. In exchange, the EU offered economic and political
incentives that Tehran rejected as inadequate.
The IAEA has been investigating Iran's long-concealed nuclear
programme for almost three years. It has found no hard evidence
to back U.S. allegations that Tehran is developing nuclear
weapons, but is not convinced Iran's atomic ambitions are
peaceful.
A European diplomat told Reuters the IAEA report would not have
a harsh tone but was expected to confirm that Iran had ended part
of the suspension.
The spokesman for Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali
Aghamohammadi, reiterated on Thursday that Tehran would never
give up its atomic programme.
(Additional reporting by Marie-Louise Moller, Louis Charbonneau
in Vienna)
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Pushing for U.N. Sanctions on Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 1, 2005 9:31 AM
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration is trying to rally
other nations to agree to impose U.N. sanctions on Iran to force
it to negotiate an end to its nuclear programs.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns accused Iran of
misleading the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency with the guise of
seeking a civilian program.
``We fully expect that the IAEA will refer this issue to the
United Nations Security Council, where it should be,'' Burns
said. ``Iran must (face the) judgment of the international
community, now that it has acted in defiance of the
international community.''
Burns did not rule out entirely that Iran might resume
now-stalled negotiations with the European Union. He told The
Associated Press Wednesday: ``It is our judgment there is life
left in the diplomatic process.''
Britain, France and Germany, negotiating in behalf of the
European Union and with U.S. support, has offered Iran economic
incentives to stop converting uranium into fuel that could be
used for nuclear weapons.
The United States, has offered Iran spare parts for commercial
aircraft and a help in becoming a member of the World Trade
Organization.
But with the talks stalemated, the administration clearly is
losing patience.
Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said on a trip to
India on Wednesday that Iran wanted to cooperate in a serious
way with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Bush administration was not impressed.
``It sounds like a lot more words that are not backed by any
actions,'' Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said.
``We would encourage them to take the deal that is on the table
now. It's a good deal.''
The administration evidently has won over President Jacques
Chirac of France to take a hard line.
In an ultimatum issued on Monday, Chirac warned Iran it would
face censure by the U.N. Security Council if it did not
reinstate a freeze on sensitive nuclear activities under an
accord reached in Paris in November.
``The use of civilian nuclear energy, which is perfectly
legitimate, must not serve as a pretext for pursuing activities
that could actually be aimed at building up a military nuclear
arsenal,'' he said.
Burns said he expected the governors of the IAEA in a meeting in
two weeks to ``exercise their responsibility'' and send the
dispute to the Security Council.
And there, Burns said, ``It is up to the international community
to find a way to pressure Iran to go back to a position of
negotiations and to suspend its nuclear activities.''
While not specifying whether the administration wanted censure
of Iran and economic and political penalties imposed, Burns said
``there has to be a graduated series of steps to bring Iran back
to a position of negotiations and suspension of its nuclear
activities.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
5 Guardian Unlimited: EU Urges Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 1, 2005 7:01 PM
AP Photo LJRM105
By RAF CASERT
Associated Press Writer
NEWPORT, Wales (AP) - The European Union on Thursday urged Iran
to return to the negotiating table to discuss its nuclear
program and threatened to take Tehran to the U.N. Security
Council for possible sanctions if it did not.
At a meeting of EU foreign ministers, Britain, France and
Germany briefed the EU nations on the collapse of negotiations
with Tehran and said U.N. intervention could well become the
only option.
``We are ready to go to New York if necessary,'' said EU foreign
policy chief Javier Solana.
The 25-nation EU would give Iran up to the Sept. 19 meeting of
the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to come back to
the negotiating table on some of its atomic activities that can
also be used to make nuclear weapons. Tehran insists the program
is only for generating electricity.
``We cannot take a time-out when it comes to our security,''
said German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, underscoring the
need for urgency.
Although the U.N. Security Council has the power to impose
sanctions, China opposes bringing the issue before the council
and could use its veto power to block a resolution punishing
Iran.
An emergency IAEA meeting on Iran last month did not report
Tehran to the Security Council, and instead asked the nuclear
agency's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, to report to the agency board
members by Saturday on Iran's activities.
After discussing the issue with the foreign ministers, EU
External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner insisted
Thursday the negotiating door remained open for Tehran.
``We are still ready to seek a negotiated solution to the
nuclear issue. But the Iranians should not make the mistake of
underestimating the strength of ... Europe. Nobody wants to go
to the Security Council, but it might become unavoidable if they
don't cooperate,'' she told reporters.
In London, the National Council of Resistance of Iran claimed
Tehran obtained 44 pounds of beryllium from China last year.
Beryllium can be used in the development of nuclear weapons,
reducing by as much as a third the need for enriched uranium or
plutonium.
There was no immediate comment from Iran's government. Officials
at the IAEA, which is probing Iran's nuclear activities for
possible signs of a weapons program, said they had no comment on
the allegations.
But diplomats close to the agency and familiar with Iran's
nuclear program said the IAEA appeared not to possess any
evidence linking Iran to large-scale imports of beryllium. They
spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, saying
the issue was confidential.
Tehran has rejected economic and other incentives offered by
Britain, France and Germany - who were negotiating on behalf of
the EU - and resumed activity related to uranium enrichment.
``You can imagine that we are very, very disappointed. We have
been offering a lot to the Iranians and there was a lot there
and we showed them how important it is that they engage with the
Europeans,'' said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner.
Paris also added its weight. ``We call on Iran's spirit of
responsibility to re-establish cooperation and confidence,
without which the Security Council would have no other choice
than to pick up the issue,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman
Denis Simonneau.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who is hosting the EU
meeting, is expected to push Iran to continue the talks if it
wants to avoid being called before the Security Council.
The EU faces pressure from the United States, which accuses
Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to
secretly develop nuclear weapons.
In August, Iran restarted uranium conversion, an early stage in
the nuclear fuel cycle that precedes enrichment. Highly enriched
uranium can be used to make weapons. At lower levels, it is used
in power generation.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
6 RIA Novosti UPDATE: North Korea defends its right to peaceful
nuclear development
01/ 09/ 2005
MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti, Ivan Zakharchenko) - North
Korea does not intend to give up its right to develop nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes, North Korean Ambassador to Moscow
Pak Ui Chun said in an interview with RIA Novosti Thursday.
"This is a matter of principal, concerning our sovereign right
to nuclear energy and the sovereignty of the state, which we
cannot give up in any way," the ambassador said.
Pyongyang's nuclear right is not an issue "over which someone
can give or refuse someone else permission," he said.
"The U.S. denial of our sovereign right displays a logic that
contradicts the official declaration of 'acknowledging the
sovereignty of North Korea.'"
North Korea insists that in order to resolve the nuclear issue
of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea must invite inspectors, and
"prove their declaration of the absence of nuclear weapons on
South Korean territory and provide guarantees that they will not
import them or produce them."
The carrying out of inspections can be officially discussed
through the six-nation talks in Beijing involving Russia, North
Korea, the U.S., South Korea, China, and Japan, he said. The
next round of talks is scheduled for mid-September.
Pyongyang is also insisting on a guarantee from the U.S. that it
has not placed any nuclear weapons in South Korea.
Both Washington and Seoul have stated on several occasions that
there are no nuclear weapons in South Korea.
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
*****************************************************************
7 Reuters: N.Korea entitled to nuclear power under NPT -China
Thu Sep 1, 2005 4:03 AM ET
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea would be entitled to a peaceful
nuclear power programme if it fulfils its obligations under the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and accepts supervision, a
senior Chinese official said on Thursday.
Six-party talks aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its
nuclear weapons programmes would restart in Beijing in the week
of September 12, host China said this week.
While the six parties -- China, Russia, Japan, the United States
and the two Koreas -- agree in principle to denuclearisation of
the Korean peninsula, analysts said North Korea and the United
States remained far apart on key issues including Pyongyang's
right to a civilian nuclear programme.
"According to relevant rules of the NPT, a country could enjoy
certain rights if it assumes due obligations," Zhang Yan,
director-general of Chinese Foreign Ministry's arms control
department, told a news conference when asked if North Korea
should be allowed to maintain a light water reactor, used to
produce electricity.
"In this sense, if a country joins the treaty and accepts the
supervision of safety guarantee by the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear power
peacefully."
U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill said in Washington last
week that North Korea's having a civilian nuclear plan was not a
"showstopper" because the issue was over a theoretical programme
that he believed would be difficult for North Korea to develop.
Thai Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon, visiting North
Korea at the weekend, said the issue for the North Koreans was a
matter of trust.
"They say they are ready to dismantle and go back to the NPT,
allowing the International Atomic Energy Agency to step in, as
long as there is trust among parties," he told reporters.
North Korea threw out IAEA inspectors at the end of 2002 and
withdrew from the NPT in January 2003.
North Korea, which has routinely accused the United States of
hostility in the talks and lack of trust, has been playing the
nuclear card to win diplomatic and economic benefits since the
standoff began.
Washington said at the time that Pyongyang had admitted to a
secret programme to enrich uranium in violation of a 1994
agreement, a claim North Korea later denied.
The first three rounds of the six-party talks ended
inconclusively. The fourth round started in late July, after a
break of a year, and went into recess after 13 days.
South Korean negotiator Song Min-soon has said it will try to
persuade the other five countries in the talks to let the North
have a peaceful nuclear programme.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: S.Korea: North's Nuke Plans Not an Issue
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 1, 2005 12:01 PM
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's top diplomat said
Thursday that North Korea's professed desire for a peaceful
nuclear program shouldn't become an issue that overshadows
disarmament talks.
Meanwhile, a leading North Korea expert said an official there
told him the country was researching how to create lightly
enriched uranium - which could be used to fuel a reactor for
non-weapons use, as opposed to the highly enriched uranium
deployed in atomic bombs.
Amid the standoff, the North's foreign minister met Thursday
with two visiting U.S. lawmakers who said they would raise the
nuclear issue. In a one-sentence dispatch, the North's Korean
Central News Agency provided no details of the discussions
between Paek Nam Sun and U.S. Reps. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and
James Leach, R-Iowa.
The North's insistence on being allowed to keep a ``peaceful''
nuclear program has emerged as an issue dividing the five
countries - China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United
States - seeking to convince North Korea to abandon nuclear
weapons at international talks expected to reconvene during the
week of Sept. 12 in Beijing.
The United States insists the communist nation's past record of
weapons development proves it shouldn't be allowed any kind of
nuclear program. But other countries, including South Korea,
back the North's right in principle to have a peaceful nuclear
program - after it disarms and complies fully with international
norms.
South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon visited Washington
last week to bridge the gap with U.S. officials, and said
Thursday that ``we came to a common understanding that the scope
of nuclear dismantlement and peaceful use of nuclear energy
should not overshadow the talks as if they are the only
remaining problems.''
The North must first ``make it quite clear that they will
dismantle all nuclear weapons and nuclear programs,'' Ban told a
meeting of diplomats and journalists.
North Korea could be allowed a peaceful atomic program only
after complete dismantlement of its nuclear programs and an
agreement to return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and
implement nuclear safeguards by the International Atomic Energy
Agency, Ban said.
``We have not come to any agreement on this issue,'' he said.
In Beijing, Zhang Yan, director-general of the Chinese Foreign
Ministry's arms control department, said Thursday the North
should have the right to develop a peaceful nuclear power
program if it rejoins the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The arms talks went into recess last month after 13 days when
envoys became deadlocked on reaching an agreement on basic
principles of the North's disarmament. The talks were the first
in 13 months, during which the North refused to attend, citing
``hostile'' U.S. policies.
Negotiators had agreed to resume discussions this week, but
North Korea postponed its return by two weeks in anger over
U.S.-South Korean military exercises and Washington's
appointment of a special envoy on North Korean human rights.
Selig Harrison, who last visited Pyongyang in April, said the
North's desire for a nuclear program to generate power wasn't a
stalling tactic at the arms talks but a real concern by the
regime to maintain energy independence. He said Ri Gun, a
director-general in the North's Foreign Ministry, told him the
North had a lab studying lightly enriched uranium.
Harrison said the uranium was intended to fuel light-water
nuclear reactors being built in the North under a 1994 deal with
Washington to abandon its weapons program. That plan has
collapsed amid the latest nuclear dispute that erupted in late
2002 when U.S. officials said the North admitted having a secret
uranium enrichment program.
North Korea ``still would like to have light-water reactors as
part of a diversified energy program,'' Harrison told The
Associated Press.
Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based
Center for International Policy, said comments last month by
Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that his country's
former top nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, had passed nuclear
technology and designs used to enrich uranium didn't prove
American assertions of a highly enriched uranium program - which
would require hundreds or thousands of centrifuges to be built
with specialized parts not easily available.
``The assumption that they have tried to make or been able to
make a weapons-grade uranium program in North Korea is very
unfounded at this point,'' he said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
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9 FPIF News | 60 Years W/out Nuclear War | U.S. Military Unravels
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 17:38:38 -0500 (CDT)
version=3.0.4
X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New at FPIF
Working to make the United Statesa more responsible global leader and
partner
http://www.fpif.org/
September 1, 2005
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Introducing the latest policy analysis
from Foreign Policy In Focus
Sixty Years Without Nuclear War
By Zia Mian, R. Rajaraman and Frank von Hippel
It is now sixty years since the destruction of Nagasaki, the last use of
nuclear
weapons in war. It is a time to both celebrate the survival of civilization
and to confront the continuing nuclear danger.
Given that there have been tens of thousands of nuclear weapons in the worlds
arsenals for the past 50 years, the fact that we are still here is testimony
to a remarkable display of self-restraint by our often savage nation states.
This is due in part to our luck in political and military leaders. The most
credit is due to the millions who marched in the streets when the nuclear arms
race seemed to be getting out of control or governments seemed to be
considering
nuclear use.
Since 1970, the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty has committed the first five
nuclear-weapon states to disarm in exchange for other states foregoing nuclear
weapons. In 2000, the five nuclear-weapon states made a number of specific
near-term commitments. These included bringing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty into force and negotiating a verifiable ban on the production of
further plutonium and highly-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. However,
all this is unraveling.
Zia Mian is a Pakistani physicist at PrincetonUniversity. R. Rajaraman is
professor
of physics emeritus at the JawaharlalNehruUniversity in New Delhi. Frank von
Hippel is a professor of public and international affairs at Princeton. They
are all regular contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus
(http://www.fpif.org).
See new FPIF commentary online at:
http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pd/363
With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pdf/gac/0508nukes.pdf
Unraveling of the U.S.Military
By Zia Mian
Newspapers describe the U.S. army as facing one of the greatest recruiting
challenges in its history, despite the enormous incentives now being offered
to join the military. A study commissioned by the army found that resistance
to recruitment was due to popular objection to the war in Iraq, the
casualties,
and media coverage of the torture at Abu Ghraib.
Solutions include a bill that was introduced in the Senate but that has not
yet been voted on: offering legal status and eligibility for citizenship to
the children of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S. The nightmare of war
is offered as the prelude to the "American dream."
Zia Mian is a Pakistani physicist with the Program on Science and Global
Security
of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton
University (http://www.princeton.edu/~globsec) and a regular contributor to
Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org). This is a revised version of
an article that originally appeared in /Economic and Political Weekly/.
See new FPIF Policy Report online at:
http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pd/375
With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pdf/papers/PR0508ravel.pdf
For More Analysis from Foreign Policy In Focus:
A New American Century?
By Zia Mian (May 4, 2005)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2005/0505amcent.html
U.S.-Russian Lessons for South Asia
By Zia Mian, R. Rajaraman, and Frank von Hippel (August 2, 2002)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0208nukelessons_body.html
Nuclear War in South Asia
By Matthew McKinzie, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, and A.H. Nayyar (June 2002)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/nuclearsasia_body.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For media inquiries: Emily Schwartz Greco, emily@ips-dc.org
202-297-5412
Kyle Johnson, kyle@irc-online.org
505-388-0208
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10 [progchat_action] CDI on U.S. Plans for Space Weaponization
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 02:10:25 -0500 (CDT)
X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
----- Original Message ----- Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2005 6:09
AM Subject: CDI Fact Sheet: Questions on U.S. Plans for Space
Weaponization
CDI Fact Sheet:
CDI Fact Sheet: Questions on U.S. Plans for Space Weaponization
Recent press reports and statements by U.S. Air Force officials
have raised a number of questions about U.S. plans to "fight in,
from and through space."
Does current U.S. military space policy and strategy, led by the
Air Force, represent plans for the deployment of space weapons?[1]
Does the United States intend to develop destructive antisatellite
weapons that would create dangerous space debris? Does the U.S.
strategy envision the use of space-based weapons for attacking
targets on Earth? Unfortunately, the answers to those questions
remain unclear - largely because of discrepancies amongst various
sources. Below find a series of the three major questions regarding
U.S. military space plans, followed by statements from official
sources.
Do Pentagon plans for achieving the Air Force's stated goals of
"space superiority" and "space control" include the deployment and
use of space weapons?
"Counterspace Operations: Air Force Doctrine Document 2-2.1," Aug.
2, 2004, United States Air Force;
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/afdd2_2_1.pdf
"U.S. Air Force counterspace operations are the ways and means by
which the Air Force achieves and maintains space superiority. Space
superiority provides freedom to attack as well as freedom from
attack [emphasis in the original]."
"Space superiority is gained and maintained through counterspace
operations .
. Counterspace operations have defensive and offensive elements . . These
operations may . achieve a variety of effects from temporary denial
to complete destruction of the adversary's space capabilities."
"OCS [Offensive Counterspace Operations] may target and adversary's
space capability (space systems, terrestrial systems, links, or
third-party space capability), using a variety of permanent and/or
reversible means. The 'Five D's' - deception, disruption, denial,
degradation and destruction - describe the range of designed effects
when targeting an adversary's space systems."
Joint Doctrine for Space Operations: Joint Publication 3-14, Aug.
9, 2002, Office of the Joint Staff;
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp3_14.pdf
"Space control operations provide freedom of action in space for
friendly forces while, when directed, denying it to an adversary,
and include broad aspect of protection of U.S. and U.S. allied space
systems and negation of enemy adversary space systems. Space control
operations encompass all elements of the space defense mission and
include offensive and defensive operations by friendly forces to
gain and maintain space superiority and situational awareness."
"Negation. Measures to deceive, disrupt, deny, degrade, or destroy
an adversary's space capabilities. Negation can include action
against the ground, link, or space segments of an adversary's space
system."
Strategic Master Plan FY06 and Beyond, Oct. 1, 2003, Air Force Space
Command;
http://www.peterson.af.mil/hqafspc/library/AFSPCPAOffice/Final%2006%20SMP--Si
gned!v1.pdf
"OCS capabilities are intended to negate adversary space services.
*****************************************************************
11 New Scientist: Clean energy special: The big clean-up - Features
[NewScientist.com]
02 September 2005
They said Kyoto would never work. They said capping emissions
was not the answer. And now the US and Australia are putting
their money where their mouth is as part of a six-nation pact
dedicated to using technology to halt climate change. In this
special focus (see links on the right) we assess what the new
partnership means for the world, identify the technologies that
could make the biggest difference, and visit energy-hungry China
for a glimpse of the future.
"IT'S QUITE clear the Kyoto protocol won't get the world to
where it wants to go," Australian environment minister Ian
Campbell told journalists on 27 July. "We have got to find
something that works better."
The next day, following months of secret negotiations, officials
from the US, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India and China laid
out their alternative: an agreement to develop and share
cleaner, more efficient technologies that will, its backers say,
meet climate concerns without strangling economic growth.
According to the six countries involved, the Asia-Pacific
Partnership on Clean Development and Climate is an honest
attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing
"secure" energy supplies for the nations involved. It will not
undermine the Kyoto protocol but complement it, by speeding up
the spread of clean technologies in developing nations.
There's little doubt that this is progress of sorts. Alone among
industrialised nations, the US and Australia have refused to
ratify the Kyoto protocol, arguing that doing so would cripple
their economies. The new pact is a recognition that something
needs to be done. The announcement was even accompanied by an
unequivocal statement from the White House that global warming
is real and caused, at least in part, by human activity.
But while advocates of Kyoto, including the United Nations,
cautiously welcomed the initiative, others were sceptical.
European Community spokeswoman Barbara Helferrich says that
technology alone is unlikely to reduce emissions. Environmental
groups have gone further, denouncing it as a deliberate attempt
to undermine Kyoto - a protectionist pact cooked up by coal
burners keen to look busy while actually doing very little.
Certainly the partnership has revealed few details of its
strategy. The nations involved simply pledge to cooperate on
developing and sharing clean-energy technologies. This includes
anything and everything, from improved energy efficiency to
fusion. There are no targets and no binding agreements.
Politics aside, what can the partnership hope to achieve? What
is the scale of the challenge it faces and what kinds of
solutions are likely to prove most promising? Can technology
really save the planet?
The task faced by the six nations is daunting. Together, its
members eat up 45 per cent of the world's energy and belch out
more than half its carbon dioxide emissions (see "Gas-guzzling
planet"). Carbon emissions from the US account for 24 per cent
of the global total, and are growing by 1.5 per cent annually.
China is on track to become the world's largest emitter by 2025,
and by then India will not be far behind.
That's a very big ship to turn around. A study by the US
Department of Energy estimated that to meet Kyoto targets the US
would need to reduce its annual carbon emissions by about 540
million tonnes between 2008 and 2012, equivalent to shutting 90
coal-fired power stations each year. The study suggested that
meeting the target could cost the economy 4.2 per cent of its
GDP by 2010 - around $400 billion.
At the same time, however, the US is one of the leading
developers of technology to reduce carbon emissions. And despite
fears that greenhouse gas emissions can only be controlled by a
revolutionary leap in technology - fusion reactors, say - most
experts have little doubt that we already have the technology to
stabilise atmospheric emissions.
In a paper published last year in Science (vol 305, p 968),
Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow of Princeton University
outlined a strategy to stabilise emissions using 15 technologies
that have already proved themselves on an industrial scale.
Their list includes better energy efficiency in buildings,
doubling the fuel efficiency of cars, generating more
electricity from wind turbines and adding 700 gigawatts of
nuclear power generation. The authors calculate that by
implementing seven or more of these, atmospheric CO2 levels will
stabilise at today's levels by 2054. "It's an immense job," says
Socolow, "but it's tractable."
One technology will be critical, he suggests: carbon
sequestration, which researchers and governments are already
taking very seriously (see "Going underground"). Technologies
for burning coal more cleanly (see "A greener shade of black")
are another key consideration. “Between them, the six nations
of the new pact guzzle 45 per cent of the world's energy and
belch out around half of its carbon dioxide emissions”
If the new agreement smooths the spread of such technologies to
developing countries, that is likely to be a good thing, says
Dennis Anderson, a climate and energy expert at Imperial College
London. And in fact the US already has technology exchange
agreements with all of the partnership members, including a
formal link with India to develop nuclear power and a research
agreement with China to develop fuel cells and carbon
sequestration.
This, however, raises a question: if the six countries are
already sharing clean energy technology, what can the new
agreement add?
The answer could, paradoxically, lie with Kyoto itself. The
protocol includes a mechanism for transferring clean technology
from one country to another. But each project must be approved
by UN inspectors.
This is fine in theory, says Liz Bossley, a director of the
London Climate Change Services group, but in practice it is a
bureaucratic quagmire. "The Asia-Pacific Partnership says nuts
to that," she says.
Instead, the new agreement appears to allow relatively
straightforward technology transfer between companies. And, says
Bossley, if it turns out that the partnership does help bring
down barriers, it might actually do what its supporters claim
and complement Kyoto.
The pressure is on for the US and its partners to show the world
that the Asia-Pacific Partnership is more than just hot air. And
with its inaugural meeting scheduled for November - just days
before the next round of UN climate negotiations get under way
in Montreal - the world doesn't have long to wait.
*****************************************************************
12 GU: Republicans accused of witch-hunt against climate change scientists
The Guardian
EducationGuardian.co.uk:
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Tuesday August 30, 2005
Some of America's leading scientists have accused Republican
politicians of intimidating climate-change experts by placing
them under unprecedented scrutiny.
A far-reaching inquiry into the careers of three of the US's
most senior climate specialists has been launched by Joe Barton,
the chairman of the House of Representatives committee on energy
and commerce. He has demanded details of all their sources of
funding, methods and everything they have ever published.
Mr Barton, a Texan closely associated with the fossil-fuel
lobby, has spent his 11 years as chairman opposing every piece
of legislation designed to combat climate change.
He is using the wide powers of his committee to force the
scientists to produce great quantities of material after
alleging flaws and lack of transparency in their research. He is
working with Ed Whitfield, the chairman of the sub-committee on
oversight and investigations.
The scientific work they are investigating was important in
establishing that man-made carbon emissions were at least partly
responsible for global warming, and formed part of the 2001
report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which
convinced most world leaders - George Bush was a notable
exception - that urgent action was needed to curb greenhouse
gases.
The demands in letters sent to the scientists have been compared
by some US media commentators to the anti-communist
"witch-hunts" pursued by Joe McCarthy in the 1950s.
The three US climate scientists - Michael Mann, the director of
the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State
University; Raymond Bradley, the director of the Climate System
Research Centre at the University of Massachusetts; and Malcolm
Hughes, the former director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring
Research at the University of Arizona - have been told to send
large volumes of material.
A letter demanding information on the three and their work has
also gone to Arden Bement, the director of the US National
Science Foundation.
Mr Barton's inquiry was launched after an article in the Wall
Street Journal quoted an economist and a statistician, neither
of them from a climate science background, saying there were
methodological flaws and data errors in the three scientists'
calculations. It accused the trio of refusing to make their
original material available to be cross-checked.
Mr Barton then asked for everything the scientists had ever
published and all baseline data. He said the information was
necessary because Congress was going to make policy decisions
drawing on their work, and his committee needed to check its
validity.
There followed a demand for details of everything they had done
since their careers began, funding received and procedures for
data disclosure.
The inquiry has sent shockwaves through the US scientific
establishment, already under pressure from the Bush
administration, which links funding to policy objectives.
Eighteen of the country's most influential scientists from
Princeton and Harvard have written to Mr Barton and Mr Whitfield
expressing "deep concern". Their letter says much of the
information requested is unrelated to climate science.
It says: "Requests to provide all working materials related to
hundreds of publications stretching back decades can be seen as
intimidation - intentional or not - and thereby risks
compromising the independence of scientific opinion that is
vital to the pre-eminence of American science as well as to the
flow of objective science to the government."
Alan Leshner protested on behalf of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science, expressing "deep concern" about the
inquiry, which appeared to be "a search for a basis to discredit
the particular scientists rather than a search for
understanding".
Political reaction has been stronger. Henry Waxman, a senior
Californian Democrat, wrote complaining that this was a
"dubious" inquiry which many viewed as a "transparent effort to
bully and harass climate-change experts who have reached
conclusions with which you disagree".
But the strongest language came from another Republican,
Sherwood Boehlert, the chairman of the house science committee.
He wrote to "express my strenuous objections to what I see as
the misguided and illegitimate investigation".
He said it was pernicious to substitute political review for
scientific peer review and the precedent was "truly chilling".
He said the inquiry "seeks to erase the line between science and
politics" and should be reconsidered.
A spokeswoman for Mr Barton said yesterday that all the required
written evidence had been collected.
"The committee will review everything we have and decided how
best to proceed. No decision has yet been made whether to have
public hearings to investigate the validity of the scientists'
findings, but that could be the next step for this autumn," she
said.
Useful links
IPCC
UN framework convention on climate change
[UP]
EducationGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
13 Threat of nuclear war by Tony Benn
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 15:47:43 -0700
version=3.0.4
X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
From: Karim A G
To: Karim A G
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 12:16 AM
Subject: Bush is the real threat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1559492,00.html
Comment
Bush is the real threat
Tony Benn
Wednesday August 31, 2005
The Guardian
Now that the US president has announced that he has not ruled out an attack
on Iran, if it does not abandon its nuclear programme, the Middle East
faces a crisis that could dwarf even the dangers arising from the war in Iraq.
Even a conventional weapon fired at a nuclear research centre - whether or
not a bomb was being made there - would almost certainly release
radioactivity into the atmosphere, with consequences seen worldwide as a
mini-Hiroshima.
We would be told that it had been done to uphold the principles of the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) - an argument that does not stand up
to a moment's examination.
The moral and legal basis of the NPT convention, which the International
Atomic Energy Agency is there to uphold, was based on the agreement of
non-nuclear nations not to acquire nuclear weapons if nuclear powers
undertook not to extend nuclear arsenals and negotiate to secure their
abolition.
Since then, the Americans have launched a programme that would allow them
to use nuclear weapons in space, nuclear bunker-busting bombs are being
developed, and depleted uranium has been used in Iraq - all of which are
clear breaches of the NPT. Israel, which has a massive nuclear weapons
programme, is accepted as a close ally of the US, which still arms and
funds it.
Even those who are opposed, as I am, to nuclear weapons in every country
including Iran, North Korea, Britain and the US, accept that nuclear power
for electricity generation need not necessarily lead to the acquisition of
the bomb.
Indeed, many years ago, when the shah - who had been put on the throne by
the US - was in power in Iran, enormous pressure was put on me, as
secretary of state for energy, to agree to sell nuclear power stations to
him. That pressure came from the Atomic Energy Authority, in conjunction
with Westinghouse, who were anxious to promote their own design of reactor.
It is easy to understand why president Bush might see the bombing of Iran
as a way to regain some of the political credibility he has lost as a
result of the growing hostility in America to the Iraq war due to the heavy
casualties suffered by US forces there .
It is inconceivable that the White House can be contemplating an invasion
of Iran, and what must be intended is a US airstrike, or airstrikes, on
Iranian nuclear installations, comparable to Israel's bombing of Iraq in
1981. Israel has publicly hinted that it might do the same again to prevent
Iran developing nuclear nuclear weapons.
Such an attack, whether by the US or Israel, would be in breach of the UN
Charter, as was the invasion of Iraq. But neither Bush, Sharon nor Blair
would take any notice of that.
Some influential Americans appear to be convinced that the US will attack
Iran. Whether they are right or not, the build-up to a new war is taking
exactly the same form as it did in 2002. First we are being told that Iran
poses a military threat, because it may be developing nuclear weapons. We
are assured that the President is hoping that diplomacy might succeed
through the European negotiations which have been in progress for some months.
This is just what we were told when Hans Blix was in Baghdad talking to
Saddam on behalf of the UN, but we now know, from a Downing Street
memorandum leaked some months ago, that the decision to invade had been
taken long before that.
That may be the position now, and I fear that if a US attack does take
place, the prime minister will give it his full support. And one of his
reasons for doing so will be the same as in Iraq: namely the fear that, if
he alienates Bush, Britain's so-called independent deterrent might be taken
away. For, as I also learned when I was energy secretary, Britain is
entirely dependent on the US for the supply of our Trident warheads and
associated technology. They cannot even be targeted unless the US switches
on its global satellite system.
Therefore Britain could be assisting America to commit an act of aggression
under the UN Charter, which could risk a major nuclear disaster, and doing
so supposedly to prevent nuclear proliferation, with the real motive of
making it possible for us to continue to break the NPT in alliance with
America.
The irony is that we might be told that Britain must support Bush, yet
again, because of the threat of weapons of mass destruction, thus allowing
him to kill even more innocent civilians.
· Tony Benn will be talking about War; Religion and politics; and
Democracy, at the Shaw Theatre in London on September 7, 8 and 9
Tony@tbenn.fsnet.co.uk
*****************************************************************
14 BBC: US lifts nuclear curbs on India
Last Updated: Thursday, 1 September 2005
[The Bhabha atomic plant outside Mumbai, India]
India is looking at nuclear power to meet its energy needs
The United States has removed some export restrictions on six
Indian civilian nuclear and space facilities.
The facilities will now be allowed to purchase sensitive
technology from the US without being subject to special licenses,
reports say.
Washington had imposed sanctions on India following its nuclear
tests in May 1998.
But earlier this year it agreed to increase co-operation on
civilian nuclear energy programmes.
In a statement, the US embassy in Delhi said it expected the move
to boost high-technology trade between the two countries.
"This is a tangible result that delivers on President Bush's
commitment to strengthen strategic and commercial relations
between the United States and India," Ambassador David Mulford
said.
The US has also dropped restrictions on the export of items to
India that it fears may be used for nuclear weapons but are not
covered by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.
India has not yet signed the NPT.
[George Bush (left) and Manmohan Singh at the White House]
The US and India are developing closer ties
"These changes are important because they will increase
high-technology trade between the two countries," the US embassy
statement said.
Three nuclear energy plants in the states of Maharashtra,
Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu stand to benefit from the US decision to
remove export controls.
All three facilities are subject to International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
Facilities belonging to the Indian Space Research Organisation
and the Space Applications Centre will also benefit.
Growing closer
The decision to enhance civilian nuclear energy cooperation was
reached during a visit by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to
Washington in July.
It signalled a new strategic alliance between the two
democracies.
India and the US have drawn closer in the past few years, after
being on opposite sides of the Cold War fence.
Delhi has also been keen on looking at nuclear power as a way to
address its growing energy needs.
*****************************************************************
15 BBC: China warns US over Taiwan arms
Last Updated: Thursday, 1 September 2005
By Nick Childs BBC World Affairs correspondent
[Taiwanese missiles]
The US sells missiles to Taiwan under a special agreement
A Chinese official has issued a new warning over US arms sales to
Taiwan.
In a broad policy document on arms control, China also says it is
against any government providing Taiwan with missile defences.
The statements comes ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit
to Washington next week, for talks with US President George W
Bush.
The summit will be a very significant meeting, testing the
diplomatic waters between the two nations.
On Thursday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman again called on
the US to stop selling advanced weapons to Taiwan.
Beijing has also come out with a broad policy document that looks
like a direct answer to the recent drumbeat of warnings from
Washington over China's military modernisation plans.
It insists Beijing is pursuing what it calls "moderate" increases
in defence spending, reiterates a policy of no-first-use of
nuclear weapons, and says essentially that the outside world has
nothing to fear - China will never seek hegemony, as it puts it.
Warning
But here, too, there is a warning over Taiwan - that governments,
again by implication the US, should not include it in any missile
defence plans. Washington has justified its offer to upgrade
Taiwan's defences, in part because of what it sees as a
threatening build-up of missile forces on China's side of the
Taiwan Straits.
And the Pentagon's latest report on China's military
modernisation described it not only as a potential threat to
Taiwan, but also as a threat to other major powers in the region,
and the US presence there as well.
The military and strategic tensions between the two are, of
course, just one element in what is a hugely complex, developing,
and potentially antagonistic relationship between an emerging
giant and the world's only current superpower - one which each
side appears still to be grappling to contend with.
b
*****************************************************************
16 Xinhua: China conducts least tests among nuke states
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-01 11:34:52
BEIJING, Sept. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- China has conducted the
smallest number of nuclear tests among the nuclear-weapon
states, according to a white paper issued here Thursday by the
Information Office ofthe State Council.
China has persistently exercised the utmost restraint on the
scale and development of its nuclear weapons and has never taken
part and will never take part in any nuclear arms race, says the
white paper entitled China's Endeavors for Arms Control,
Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.
As a nuclear-weapon state, says the paper, China has never
evaded its due responsibilities and obligations in nuclear
disarmament and has always stood for the complete prohibition
and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.
Right after its first nuclear test in 1964, the Chinese
Government issued a statement, solemnly proposing to the
governments of all countries the convocation of a world summit
to discuss the issue of complete prohibition and thorough
destructionof nuclear weapons.
To date, China has never deployed nuclear weapons outside
its own territories. In the 1990s, China closed down a nuclear
weapon research and development base in Qinghai Province.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
17 Xinhua: China's stand on nuclear weapons unchanged - official
www.xinhuanet.com
www.chinaview.cn 2005-09-01 15:42:59
BEIJING, Sept. 1 (Xinhuanet) -- An official with the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said China's stand on
nuclear weapons has not changed and will never change in future.
Zhang Yan, director of the arms control bureau under the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the Chinese government
has solemnly undertaken not to be the first to use nuclear
weapons at any time and in any circumstance, and not to use
nuclear weapons or threaten to use nuclear weapons against
nuclear weapon free countries and regions since the first day
when it came into possession of nuclear weapons, that is, since
Oct. 16, 1964, when it tested its first nuclear bomb.
China has always kept to its commitment and this policy will
remain unchanged in the future, he said.
Zhang made the remarks at a press conference in response to
a question from the Associated Press whether the Chinese
mainland would not threaten Taiwan with its nuclear weapons.
Enditem
Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
18 Asia Times: A nuclear (mis)adventure in Isfahan
By Pepe Escobar
ISFAHAN - It is one of the most sensitive sites in the world, a
compound 15 kilometers north of beautiful Isfahan, on a back
road skirting a rocky mountain. The blue panel, in white
lettering, says "Isfahan Nuclear Production Research
Center"/"Atomic Energy Organization of Iran"/"Nuclear Production
Branch".
Anti-aircraft guns are strategically positioned along the road,
which is far from the busy Tehran-Isfahan highway. Security at
the main gate consists of only one uniformed, unarmed official
carrying a walkie-talkie.
It's 5pm on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Everything is calm, except
for a white SUV carrying International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) inspectors waved inside through the main gate. That's
exactly the problem. They can get in. We can't.
Looking at the peacock's tail It had been a very tense day of
waiting and waiting since early in the morning.
Our fixer, tireless Mahmoud Daryadel, had spent most of it glued
to his mobile, placing and receiving a frantic series of calls.
Three days earlier Ivan Sahar, an official tied to the Ministry
of Culture and Islamic Guidance, had promised Asia Times Online a
visit to the controversial Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility
(UCF). Chances of success were evaluated at "85%". The UCF, one
of Iran's key nuclear sites, is at the center of the Iran-EU-3
(Britain, France and Germany) nuclear negotiations. It converts
yellowcake - or concentrated uranium oxide - into a gas that can
be enriched to produce reactor fuel.
We were supposed to receive a morning call giving the go-ahead
for the visit. The call never came; something was going on; there
was official talk from the management at the Isfahan site about
"obstacles". We had to wait for clearance. There is hardly a
better place in the world to spend a tense waiting day than the
pearl of Shah Abbas, which in the 17th century reached its full
splendor, impressed in the famous rhyme Isfahan nesf-e jahan
("Isfahan is half the world"). By a strange twist of fate,
Isfahan in the early 21st century is now synonymous with nuclear
confrontation.
At Jolfa, the Armenian quarter, which also dates from the 17th
century, the Vank cathedral is an apotheosis of mixed Christian
and Islamic art. On graceful Khajoo bridge, which is also a dam,
young Iranians hang out under the arches while families have
picnics on the grass. And then there's the wonder of reexploring
stunning Imam Khomeini Square, still locally referred to as the
Meidun, built in 1612 and one of the largest squares in the world
- the Persian answer to Saint Mark's in Venice.
There's the Imam Mosque, covered, inside and out, with the
trademark Isfahan pale blue and yellow tiles; the two madrassas
(seminaries); and the Sheikh Lotfollah mosque, whose dome tiles
progressively change color, from cream to strong pink as the day
goes on (and our crucial call does not come). Inside the mosque,
under the dome, there is a famous painted peacock; as the light
changes, the reflection forming the peacock's tail also moves.
One can spend hours contemplating this living example of the
architecture of light. Especially when a mobile ringing tone
does not disturb the peace.
At the fabulous bazaar that envelops the Meidun, Hossein
Peyghambary of Nomad carpets, speaking fluent Spanish, displays
the best tribal patterns straight from villages in Balochistan.
The Cultural Heritage Organization in Iran is planning to
register Iranian nomad's summer migration - by Balochis,
Bakhtiaris, Qashqaiis and Azeris - on the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's list of
Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. As
far as Balochi nomad carpets are concerned, they are hard to
beat as tangible masterpieces themselves.
By mid-afternoon we have lost almost any hope of getting a
permit for the visit. The back channels try to untangle the
"obstacles" to no avail. It seems a group of IAEA inspectors
showed up impromptu at the UCF; according to an agreement
between the Iranian government and the UN agency, no journalists
may visit the UCF while there are inspectors on the premises.
This is to prevent any information leak. Indeed, foreign media
are allowed inside the UCF only in exceptional circumstances.
Finally we get a call at 4pm: go, someone will meet you on the
way. This doesn't happen, and we have to find the way by
ourselves, with the help of plenty of Isfahani motorists. As we
arrive at the main gate, we get another last-minute call, from
security inside the plant: you cannot get in. You are only
allowed to film outside. A security guard arrives in a van to
lay down the rules. No filming inside. No filming the road. No
filming of faces. But we are not TV: we write stories. Makes no
difference: no talking to anybody. Please leave. Exactly on cue,
the white SUV carrying the IAEA inspectors crosses the main
gate.
Hours later, on the road back to Tehran, we learn that our
(mis)adventure took place exactly as the rules of the game were
being changed in Tehran. So apparently no one is to blame: there
would be no question of allowing foreign media inside the UCF at
such a delicate juncture.
Time to make a move Following the nuclear confrontation from
Tehran is like following a game of chess - a game, by the way,
invented by the Persians. It has become a national sport - and
the recurrent conversation theme on all occasions. These have
been the most recent key moves:
+ Hassan Rowhani, the widely respected former secretary of the
Supreme National Security Council and Iran's former top nuclear
negotiator, dismisses Iran's referral to the UN Security Council:
"If this does happen it will only indicate that the IAEA has
diverted from its legal path and succumbed to US pressure."
+ Nuclear spokesman Hussein Musavian stresses that Iran's
decision to resume uranium conversion at Isfahan is irreversible
("The Isfahan UCF is not at all related to nuclear weapons
production."), adding that enrichment at the Natanz plant was
still suspended and that Iran still remains committed to talking
to the EU-3. Iranian officials for their part keep stressing that
work at Isfahan will never be suspended again.
+ The EU-3 suspends talks with Iran that should have taken place
this past Wednesday in Paris.
+ Iranian officials learn that the US is heavily lobbying the
35-member board of IAEA governors - especially Russia, China,
India and South Africa - against Iran. The IAEA board is to
receive a key report on Iran this Saturday from IAEA head
Mohammad ElBaradei. None of these four key countries is keen to
send the matter to the UN Security Council, as the IAEA has not
found that Iran has breached the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
+ President Mahmud Ahmadinejad announces a new breakthrough, a
constructive proposal to advance the negotiations. After two
days, it's finally settled that the proposal will be unveiled at
the UN summit in New York on September 14-16 (provided the US
issues a visa to the Iranian president).
+ Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi says that
Iran will continue to negotiate with the EU-3, "but on the other
hand we will not restrict our negotiating partners to just these
three countries", adding that Iran has also been talking to
Japan, Malaysia and South Africa. Iran's position changes tack:
now "it is up to the Europeans not to remove themselves from the
negotiations". This new directive seems to have come from a
meeting last week between Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
and Ahmadinejad. Asefi says that Ahmadinejad's new proposal will
"enshrine Iran's right to master the fuel cycle and will also
include objective guarantees" that Iran is not building nuclear
weapons.
+ New top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani meets ElBaradei in
Vienna and says that negotiations should not be "exclusive". He
accuses countries mastering the nuclear fuel of trying to create
a fuel cartel like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries and stresses that Iran is against this "nuclear
apartheid".
+ On the day of Asia Times Online's aborted visit to Isfahan,
Tehran announces that its main interlocutor in the confrontation
is not the EU-3 but the IAEA. The EU-3 demands, qualified as
"conditional negotiations", are rejected.
+ Ahmadinejad reappoints Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh as head of Iran's
Atomic Energy Organization. The former oil minister, from 1985
to 1997, calls the EU-3 package "a joke".
So the next crucial steps are ElBaradei's report this Saturday;
what could be the sensational debut of Ahmadinejad on the world
stage, at the UN in New York next week, delivering a new
proposal to end the stalemate; and the meeting of the 35-member
IAEA board of governors on September 19, which will examine not
only ElBaradei's report but Ahmadinejad's solution.
Meanwhile, anyone contemplating a visit to the UCF in Isfahan
will have to settle on contemplating the peacock's tail at
Sheikh Lotfollah's dome.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
*****************************************************************
19 NRC: NRC Reorganizing Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation
News Release - 2005-12 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: No. 05-120 September 1, 2005
the office to address changes in the commercial nuclear power
industry as utilities move toward building new reactors.
The reorganization prepares NRR for an expected increase in new
reactor licensing activity. It will also streamline the NRR
organization by realigning major work functions among a greater
number of smaller divisions and eliminating a layer of Senior
Executive Service (SES) managers. In addition, it will
strengthen the NRCs approach to risk-informed and
performance-based regulation by consolidating risk assessment
activities into one division.
These moves prepare NRR for an anticipated increase in new
reactor licensing workload while ensuring current reactors
continue to operate safely, said NRR Director Jim Dyer.
The reorganization is more fully described in SECY-05-0146,
Proposed Reorganization of the Office of Nuclear Reactor
Regulation, which will be available on the NRCs Web site at this
address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/recent/2
005/.
Selections for the SES management positions are currently in
progress and will be announced separately before the planned
implementation date of Oct. 30, 2005.
Last revised Thursday, September 01, 2005
*****************************************************************
20 Washington Times: GE offers reactor design -
BLOOMBERG NEWS
General Electric Co., the world's biggest maker of
power-plant equipment, said it sought formal certification from
regulators for its new nuclear reactor design, another step
toward construction of the first U.S. plants in 30 years.
General Electric's 19-chapter, 7,500 page application for
its 1,500-megawatt reactor was submitted to the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission last Wednesday, the company said in a
statement. GE and British Nuclear Fuels Plc's Westinghouse were
hired by NuStart LLC, a group of U.S. utilities formed in 2004,
in May to design reactors.
The reactors would meet rising power demand amid soaring
energy prices and criticism against gas emissions, which are
blamed for global warming. Existing nuclear plants produce power
more cheaply because of lower fuel costs compared with coal and
gas. GE estimates construction of a plant using its new design
could begin in 2010, with commercial operation in 2014.
The U.S. Department of Energy agreed to pay half the design
costs, NuStart said in May.
Nuclear plants generate power using heat from the decay of
radioactive fuel, a process that produces no carbon dioxide,
unlike the burning gas or coal for heat. Carbon dioxide is
blamed for global warming.
GE, based in Fairfield, Conn., calls its design the economic
simplified boiling water reactor. It said the submission to the
regulators culminated 10 years of design work.
[The Washington Times -
*****************************************************************
21 RIA Novosti: Emergency shut down of nuclear power unit northwest of Moscow
01/ 09/ 2005
MOSCOW, September 1 (RIA Novosti) - The operation of a second
power unit of a nuclear power plant outside Tver (about 99 miles
northwest of Moscow) was suspended due to a fault in the safety
system Thursday, the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power said.
Personnel shut down the second power unit of the Kalininskaya
nuclear power plant this morning in accordance with regulations.
The agency's press release said no safety violations had taken
place.
At the moment, the third power unit is in operation at 980 MW.
The first power unit is undergoing scheduled repairs.
Radiation levels at the plant and its surrounding area remain
normal.
© 2005 "RIA Novosti"
*****************************************************************
22 JOURNAL NEWS: NRC hosts meeting on regulations
thejournalnews.com
By GREG CLARY gclary@thejournalnews.com
(Original publication: September 1, 2005)
Emergency management officials from across the nation yesterday
pushed federal regulators not to treat safety at nuclear plants
in a "one size fits all" fashion and to allow local experts to
solve site-specific problems in their own backyards.
At a two-day security meeting hosted by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission near its Beltway headquarters in Bethesda, Md., first
responders like Anthony Sutton, Westchester County's head of
emergency services, told an audience of more than 200 people
that local experts have to be included more in planning how to
handle an emergency at a nuclear plant.
"All of these emergencies start and end locally," Sutton said.
"At the NRC, you really don't know what works best at the local
levels."
Sutton and others on a panel of two dozen regulators, industry
representatives, anti-nuclear activists and government officials
disagreed at times on many issues that the NRC is considering as
it seeks to enhance its emergency preparedness regulations and
guidelines by as early as next year.
"(Emergency preparedness) is equivalent to public health," said
Eric Leeds, a top NRC official. "That's why we're having this
meeting — to get your ideas."
Participants from Iowa, Georgia, California and other states
with nuclear plants hashed out priorities on issues that
included training exercises, who should get notified and when
during an incident, and better ways to give the public
instructions in an emergency.
"We have to remember that one size does not fit all," said
Walter "Ned" Wright, Sutton's counterpart in Linn County, Iowa.
"It's important that we're not boxed in too tightly (by federal
restrictions). Because if I fail, I fail my public."
The notification issue has resonated in the lower Hudson Valley
because of the recent failure of the 156-siren network in the
10-mile evacuation area around the Indian Point nuclear power
plants because of inadequate power or other technical problems.
The NRC deadline for written comments on possible regulation
changes is Oct. 17, and agency officials say all submissions
will be included in a report due 90 days later that will form
the basis for any changes in regulations. No timetable for a
final decision has been set, NRC officials said.
Sutton and others reminded NRC officials that leaving locals out
of the decision-making process could harm public safety.
"If you didn't come and talk to us, and consider us your
partners in off-site emergency planning, you'd be shooting
yourself in the foot," Sutton said.
Copyright 2005 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper
serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York.
*****************************************************************
23 NAS: Opportunities for Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power and
Propulsion: A Vision for Beyond 2015
Project Title: Opportunities for Space Science Enabled by
Nuclear Power and Propulsion: A Vision for Beyond 2015
Date Posted:
-
Project Identification Number: SSBX-L-03-07-A
Major Unit:
Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences
Sub Unit:
Space Studies Board
Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board
Links to Project Information:
Project Scope
Committee Membership
Meeting 1- 04/07/2004
Meeting 2- 08/31/2004
Meeting 3- 11/15/2004
Reports:
Reports having no URL can be seen at the Public Access Records
Office
Priorities in Space Science Enabled by Nuclear Power and
Propulsion
FEEDBACK
.Viewers may use this FEEDBACK button to provide comments on the
project at any time over its duration.
Contact the Public Access Records Office to make an inquiry or
to schedule an appointment to view project materials available
to the public.
Overview of CPS | Browsing for projects | Searching for project
information| Communicating with the National Academies
www.nationalacademies.org
*****************************************************************
24 NRC: NRC Issues Mid-Cycle Assessments for All Nuclear Plants
News Release - 2005-12 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: No. 05-121 September 1, 2005
posted them to its Web site.
The letters show that U.S. commercial nuclear power plants
continue to operate safely. Every six months each plant receives
either a mid-cycle review letter or an annual assessment letter
along with an NRC inspection plan. Updated information on plant
performance is posted to the NRC Web site every quarter. The
next annual assessment letters will be issued in March 2006.
The assessment letters for each plant will be available on the
NRC Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/listofasmrpt.html and
through ADAMS, the Agencywide Documents Access and Management
System. Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public
Document Room by calling (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4209.
Last revised Thursday, September 01, 2005
*****************************************************************
25 NRC: In the Matter of Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Establishment
FR Doc E5-4784
[Federal Register: September 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 169)]
[Notices] [Page 52136] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se05-114] [[Page 52136]]
of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Pursuant to delegation by
the Commission dated December 29, 1972, published in the Federal
Register, 37 FR 28710 (1972), and the Commission's regulations,
see 10 CFR 2.104, 2.300, 2.303, 2.309, 2.311, 2.318, and 2.321,
notice is hereby given that an Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
is being established to preside over the following proceeding:
Nuclear Management Company, LLC (Palisades Nuclear Plant) This
proceeding concerns an August 8, 2005 request for hearing
submitted jointly by the Nuclear Information and Resource
Service, West Michigan Environmental Action Council, Don't Waste
Michigan, the Green Party of Van Buren County, the Michigan Land
Trustees, and a number of individuals in response to a June 2,
2005 notice of opportunity for hearing, 70 Fed. Reg. 33,533 (June
8, 2005), regarding a March 22, 2005, application, as
supplemented on May 5, 2005, from Nuclear Management Company,
LLC, (NMC) for renewal of the operating license for its Palisades
Nuclear Plant. In its application, NMC requests that the
operating license for its Palisades facility be extended for an
additional twenty years beyond the period specified in the
current license, which expires on March 24, 2011.
The Board is comprised of the following administrative judges:
Ann Marshall Young, Chair, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Dr. Anthony J. Baratta, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Dr. Nicholas G. Trikouros, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555-0001.
All correspondence, documents, and other materials shall be filed
with the administrative judges in accordance with 10 CFR 2.302.
Issued at Rockville, Maryland, this 25th day of August, 2005.
G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board Panel.
[FR Doc. E5-4784 Filed 8-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: Nuclear Management Company, LLC; Notice of Reconstitution
FR Doc E5-4785
[Federal Register: September 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 169)]
[Notices] [Page 52135] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se05-113]
Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.321, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
in the above captioned Nuclear Management Company, LLC proceeding
is hereby reconstituted by appointing Administrative Judge
William M. Murphy in place of Administrative Judge Anthony J.
Baratta. In accordance with 10 CFR 2.302, henceforth all
correspondence, documents, and other material relating to any
matter in this proceeding over which this Licensing Board has
jurisdiction should be served on Administrative Judge Murphy as
follows: Administrative Judge William M. Murphy, Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555- 0001.
Issued at Rockville, Maryland this 25th day of August 2005.
G. Paul Bollwerk, III, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board Panel.
[FR Doc. E5-4785 Filed 8-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
27 NRC: Notice of Availability of Environmental Assessment and Finding
FR Doc E5-4786
[Federal Register: September 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 169)]
[Notices] [Page 52136-52137] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr01se05-115]
of No Significant Impact for License Amendment for Pathfinder
Mines Corporation, Shirley Basin Site, Carbon County, WY AGENCY:
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of
availability.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Stephen J. Cohen, 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) 415-7182; fax number: (301) 415-5955; e-mail: .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is issuing an amendment to Materials License No.
SUA-442, issued to Pathfinder Mines Corporation (the licensee),
to authorize alternate concentration limits (ACLs) at its Shirley
Basin site in Carbon County, WY. 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 ACLs for chloride, radium-226 + -228, selenium,
sulfate, thorium-230, total dissolved solids (TDS), and uranium
at the licensee's Shirley Basin site. Specifically, the amendment
will replace current ground-water protection standards with ACLs
because reducing ground-water concentrations to meet current
standards is not feasible using the current ground-water
corrective action program (CAP). The Licensee will also
deactivate the current CAP because approval of the ACLs will
bring all ground-water constituents of concern into compliance
with approved standards. The current CAP has significantly
reduced concentrations of the aforementioned constituents in
ground water to the extent that deactivating the CAP is not
expected to impact human health, safety, and the environment.
On April 3, 2000, Pathfinder Mines Corporation requested that NRC
approve the proposed amendment. The staff has prepared the EA in
support of the proposed license amendment. Staff considered
impacts to land use, geology and soils, water resources, ecology,
meteorology, climatology, air quality, socioeconomics, historical
and cultural resources, public and occupational health, and
transportation.
The staff found that the impacts of the proposed action were not
significant because ground-water remedial actions have
significantly reduced the areal extent and concentration of
hazardous constituents, and considerable modeling and
ground-water sampling have adequately demonstrated that residual
groundwater constituent concentrations are not expected to impact
human health, safety, and the environment.
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 .
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
Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML003701936 4/3/00 license
amendment request and Shirley Basin Application for Alternate
Concentration Limits.
[[Page 52137]] Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML003721101
6/1/00 Shirley Basin Application for Alternate Concentration
Limits, Page Revisions for Section 1.3. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
ML012050189 7/20/01 Commission, Request for Additional
Information--Shirley Basin Application for Alternate
Concentration Limits.
Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML012530116 8/29/01 Shirley
Basin Application for ML012530146 Alternate Concentration
Limits, Response to NRC's Request for Information.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ML022880471 9/26/02 response
to NRC, listing the threatened, endangered, and candidate species
that may exist in Carbon County, Wyoming.
Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML023310580 11/21/02 Shirley
Basin Application for Alternate Concentration Limits, Revisions
to Section 4-- Compliance Monitoring.
Wyoming Department of ML030070703 1/3/03
Environmental Quality, Classification of Groundwater, Shirley
Basin Facility.
Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML033250352 11/14/03 First
Response to September 13, 2003, Request for Additional
Information--ACL Application.
Pathfinder Mines Corporation, ML040350749 1/30/04 Response
to September 13, 2003, Request for Additional Information--ACL
Application.
Wyoming Department of ML040920255 3/22/04
Environmental Quality, Spring Creek Stream Assessment, Draft Work
Plan for Biotic Survey, Shirley Basin Site, Wyoming.
Wyoming Department of ML041410244 3/22/04
Environmental Quality, Request for Additional Information,
Pathfinder Mines, Alternate Concentration Limits Application,
Shirley Basin Site, Wyoming.
U.S. NRC, to Pathfinder Mines ML043130569 11/1/04
Corporation--Request for Additional Information Concerning
Alternate Concentration Limits Application for the Shirley Basin,
Wyoming Site.
Spring Creek Evaluation for ML050280249 1/12/05 Pathfinder
Mines Corporation, Shirley Basin Mine.
2004 Spring Creek Aquatic Study, ML050280249 1/12/05 Shirley
Basin Mine Area, October 2004.
Wyoming Department of ML050970395 3/30/05
Environmental Quality, Response to NRC Request for Additional
Information, November 1, 2004.
Wyoming Department of ML050970382 3/30/05
Environmental Quality, Biotic and Physical Survey of the Spring
Creek Drainage System in the Vicinity of the Shirley Basin Mine
Tailings Site, October 2004.
Environmental Assessment for ML052270503 7/31/05 Amendment
to Source Materials License SUA-442 for Ground Water Alternate
Concentration Limits.
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 . 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 at Rockville, MD, this 25th day of August 2005.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Robert A. Nelson, Chief Uranium Processing Section, Fuel Cycle
Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards,
Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E5-4786 Filed 8-31-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
28 Telegraph: Amec targets N-power decommissioning deals
By Philip Aldrick (Filed: 02/09/2005)
AMEC, the infrastructure services group, is planning an assault
on the nuclear decommissioning market when the first of an
estimated £2billion of annual contracts are put up for tender in
the coming year.
The Government has committed to putting 50pc of the maintenance
and decommissioning work out to bid by 2008.
Currently, the projects are run by state-owned British Nuclear
Fuels and the Department of Trade and Industry's UK Atomic
Energy Authority.
Sir Peter Mason, Amec chief executive, said: "We'd been doing
work on the fringes as there's not been any money in the market.
Now it has the potential to be an important new market for us."
He hopes to grab "10pc-15pc" of the £2billion of annual
contracts, in partnership with the incumbents or as a
stand-alone operation.
To build up its presence in the highly sensitive decommissioning
industry, Amec acquired the UK's "leading private nuclear
services expert" NNC for £39m in July.
Amec posted an increase in pre-tax profits from £14.8m to £33.5m
for the half on revenue 4.3pc higher at £2.26billion, driven by
growth in its oil and gas servicing business. The shares fell
16½ to 343p.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2005. Terms &Conditions
*****************************************************************
29 Reuters: Duke's S.C. Oconee 3 nuke shut during test
Thu Sep 1, 2005 3:47 PM ET
NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) - Duke Energy Corp.'s (DUK.N: Quote,
Profile, Research) 846-megawatt unit 3 at the Oconee nuclear
power station in South Carolina automatically shut during a
routine test on Aug. 31, a company spokeswoman said Thursday.
The spokeswoman said the company was testing the alternate power
source for the control rod drive system when the reactor tripped
from full power.
Following the trip, she noted some safety systems actuated to
help stabilize the plant.
She said the company was still investigating the cause of the
shutdown and did not have a projection of when the unit would
return to service.
The 2,538-MW Oconee station is in Seneca in Oconee County, about
145 miles northwest of Columbia, South Carolina. There are three
846-MW units at Oconee.
Units 1 and 2, meanwhile, continued to operate at full power.
One MW powers about 800 homes, according to North American
averages.
North Carolina-based Duke Energy's regulated Duke Power
subsidiary owns and operates the Oconee station.
Duke's subsidiaries own and operate about 30,000 MW of
generating capacity in North America, market energy commodities,
and transmit and distribute electricity to more than 2 million
customers in North and South Carolina.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
30 SA: Business Day: Releasing reactor plan will help rivals
Posted to the web on: 01 September 2005
Ernest Mabuza
Legal Affairs Correspondent
POWER utility Eskoms pebble bed modular reactor project was
still in the developmental stage and revealing board meeting
information could reduce the advantage that SA held in nuclear
energy, the Johannesburg High Court heard yesterday.
In response to an application by environmental group Earthlife
Africa for the release of board minutes relating to the
development of the reactor, Eskom counsel Michael Kuper said the
project was of utmost confidentiality .
There is international competition in respect of the project
and this is a highly competitive arena. There is sensitivity to
disclosing information in light of competition, Kuper said.
The development entails building a demonstration reactor project
at Koeberg, near Cape Town and a pilot fuel plant at Pelindaba,
near Pretoria.
Earthlife says safety concerns over the pebble bed modular
reactor have not been addressed and its economic benefits had
not been demonstrated. The organisation also wants to find out
what information was used to justify Eskom investing in the
project so that the group could assess whether it was in the
public interest.
Kuper said Eskom had developed intellectual property which
needed to be guarded closely.
Earlier yesterday, counsel for Earthlife Jacqui Cassette said
Eskom had failed to properly justify its nondisclosure of any of
the board minutes requested.
She said Eskom should provide the court with factual information
to justify its nondisclosure.
It is impossible to detect what the nature of the trade secrets
is. Where is the actual justification to show the likelihood of
harm? Cassette asked.
Cassette said the aim of the Promotion of Access to Information
Act was to promote transparency and accountability and Eskom had
not done that.
www.businessday.co.za
© 2005 BDFM Publishers (Pty) Ltd. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
31 The Australian: Downer espouses nuclear virtues
[September 01, 2005]
Source: AAP
By Denis Peters
FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer has laid out the case for
Australia taking the path to nuclear power generation, saying
global warming is forcing a rethink on the issue.
He joins fellow Cabinet minister Dr Brendan Nelson among
government members espousing the benefits of nuclear energy since
Prime Minister John Howard called for a renewed debate on the
issue.
Mr Downer said Australia's substantial uranium exports were
already being used to generate 2 per cent of the world's
electricity production, making Australia deeply entwined in
nuclear energy, particularly in the east Asian region.
Heavily coal-dependent, Australia has no electricity generation
through nuclear power.
Its only reactor, at Lucas Heights, is used for purposes such as
sub-atomic research, the production of radioactive medicines for
cancer therapy, and production of radioisotopes for industrial
uses.
But Australia held the world's largest uranium reserves, enabling
the country to make a major contribution to global energy
production, Mr Downer said
"The plain reality is that the growing demand for energy
worldwide, and in our own region, will be satisfied in part by
nuclear power generation," he said during the 2005 Sir Condor
Laucke Oration at the Barossa Valley.
"In the 21st century, the responsible position is to recognise
that nuclear power has an important place in the overall global
energy mix."
Mr Downer urged those confronting global environmental
challenges to "avoid pseudo-science and doomsday scenarios".
"Nuclear power's clear benefits in greenhouse terms are causing
many countries to reconsider some outdated prejudices," he said.
"The reality is that nuclear energy is the only established
non-fossil fuel energy source capable of generating large
amounts of baseload electricity without significant emissions of
carbon dioxide."
Mr Downer said Australia's uranium exports allowed other
countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.
"Countries using Australian uranium avoid CO2 emissions of the
same magnitude as Australia's own CO2 emissions from all
sources," he said.
Safety concerns about nuclear power were inaccurate perceptions
of risks that were not backed up by facts, Mr Downer said..
"Anti-nuclear groups irresponsibly exploit these concerns to
pursue their own mythology."
Mr Downer said Australia would have a vital role to play with
regard to the future of global nuclear power.
"As global demand for greenhouse-friendly nuclear power grows,
global demand for uranium will also grow," he said.
"And as the holder of the world's largest uranium reserves, we
have a responsibility to supply clean energy to other countries
– even if, so far, we have chosen not to use nuclear energy
ourselves."
© The Australian
*****************************************************************
32 Bellona: Two years after the K-159 tragedy: the submarine remains at the bottom
2005-09-01-->
Despite promises of Russian Navy brass to lift the K-159
submarine, which sank on August 30th 2003 killing nine of its 10
crew members while being towed for dismantlement, the derelict
vessel still remains at the bottom of the Barents sea with 800
kilograms of highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel in its
reactors.
The devices attaching the pontoons to the sub were welded to the
rust-eaten hull (this picture shows the submarine's stern), which
in some places was as weak as foil.
All the pictures of the K-159 the day before it sank
Bellona web, 2005-09-01 13:59
Though the aged multi-purpose submarine which was retired in 1989
and sank once while moored at the Gremikha naval base has shown
as yet no signs of contaminating the fishing-based economy of
Kildin Island where it went down, the 240 meter depth were is
lies means the two reactor cores will start leaking from water
pressure eventually, if it has not already.
“As far as we can see, the Russian authorities are not
interested in the problem of K-159 disaster. That's why Bellona
is planning to initiate hearings in international organizations
in order to make some progress in decision-making concerning
lifting or securing the submarine," said Alexander Nikitin, chair
of Bellona's office in St. Petersburg and a former Russian
submarine officer.
“The K-159 sank at the depth of 240 meters, and it can be
called the most dangerous object at the bottom of the Arctic
seas."
In Bellona's opinion, the decision to lift the K-159―or its
conservation at the sea bottom―can be made only after a
proper investigation of the area where the submarine sank is
conducted.
The K-159's 10 crew members just before the departure. Only one
submariner survived the accident.
The K-159 submarine retired from the Northern Fleet in 1989 sank
in the early morning hours on August 30th in the Barents Sea
while being towed to a dismantlement point with 10 crew members
aboard. Only one of them was rescued and only two bodies of its
crew members were recovered.
The terms of lifting K-159 have been already broken twice: At
first it was in the autumn of 2004, but later, the Russian Navy
announced that the operation would take place in July and August
2005.
These statements were made by Vladimir Kuroedov, commander of
the Russian Navy, and his assistant Igor Dygalo. In December 2004
Kuroedov said: "We do not abandon the plan to lift the submarine.
We are working now together with the Malakhit design bureau and
the Dutch company “Mammoet'".
It was Malakhit that designed the Russian November class
submarines (project 627) of which the K-159 is one. The K-159 is
a first generation submarine and was put into operation in 1963.
"Today there was a mourning service at Nikolsky Cathedral in
St.Petersburg, after which the representatives of Malakhit
presented the plan of lifting to the relatives of the crew
members," said Igor Kurdin, former Navy officer and the chairman
of the St. Petersburg submariners’s club, to Bellona Web on
Tuesday.
Earlier Interfax reported that Raisa Lappa, mother of Sergey
Lappa, the head of the group that accompanied the K-159, is
outraged with the fact that the question of lifting has not been
decided yet.
“None of us has got any distinct answer whether they will lift
the bodies or not, and if they will, when it will happen and what
they are doing for now,” said Lappa.
“As the Kursk [the Russian submarine that sank in August 2000
with 118 onboard and was raised in 2002] perished, all the
country was informed about the lifting operations. Now they do
not say anything. It seems that everybody has forgotten about us
and about the crew,” said Lappa, who came to St.-Petersburg from
the Altai to participate in the mourning ceremonies.
The Malakhit project
“The lifting project designed by Malakhit presumes that the
lifting operation would be carried out by the Dutch Mammoet
company, which lifted the Kursk. But Mammoet insists on the
complete monitoring of the area of the accident before [any
agreements are made],” said Kurdin.
Complete monitoring of the area would cost 70m rubles, or $2.4m,
but the money has not yet been allocated.
"The main thrust of Malakhit’s project is special automatic
claws, designed by the bureau. The Krylov Institute carried out
the tests. In principle, Mammoet has all the other equipment,”
Kurdin said.
The head of the Mammoet press-service, Larissa van Seumeren told
Bellona Web earlier this year that "We have been in negotiations
on lifting the K-159 for quite some time already and the
discussions are still going on.”
The preliminary inspection of the K-159, needed for the lifting,
had been planned for May to June 2004, but hasn’t been carried
out yet. The approximate cost of submarine's lifting is more than
50m Euro.
"We are grieving about what happened two years ago. That is all
we can say today", Vitaly Ostapenko, the chief engineer of the
Malakhit design bureau said.
Andrei Romancheko, representative of the Krylov Institute, where
all the tests for the lifting were planned to be held was
scornful.
“Hell knows, when the lifting operation will be. There was some
buzz, but it has all stagnated now,” he said.
Funding
The main cause of stagnation named by Russian specialists is the
lack of funding for the project.
“The Ministry of Finance considers that the lifting operation
should be funded from the yearly budget of the Russian Navy and
doesn't suppose any additional funding. That causes the problems
in financing,” said Kurdin.
“There is a project of a governmental decree about K-159
lifting, but it's only a project so far.”
According to information from Malakhit reported by the Russian
Interfax news agency, though the general project of the lifting
operation is ready and has been approved by the Russian Navy’s
Headquarters, “two ministers – Herman Gref [Ministry of Economic
development] and Alexei Kudrin [Ministry of Finance] refused
funding the operation, and it makes the very possibility of the
lifting more and more unreal”.
Interfax also reported that, according to Malakhit, the project
is being considered by Rosatom, Russia’s official nuclear agency.
But Rosatom spokesman Nikolai Shingarev refuted this
information.
“It’s possible Rosatom specialists are checking the nuclear
safety of the project, but no separate project of the lifting
operation is considered by Rosatom,” he told Bellona Web.
Kudrin said that there were some propositions to use Rosatom
funds, but that these funds are provided by donor countries
directly for decommissioning, and not for salvage operations.
The Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA), supervising
the situation in the Barents Sea, does not have any information
about possible salvage operation for the K-159.
“We are not being informed about any plans of lifting
the submarine. We have repeatedly asked Russian authorities about
it the last time was in June and they replied there were no plans
of lifting the submarine yet,” Ingar Amundsen, senior adviser for
NRPA, told Bellona Web.
The Environmental situation in the K-159 disaster area
"We did not initiate any special programme of environmental
monitoring near the submarine, located on Russian territory, but
we have a continuous surveying programme, monitoring the marine
environment in the Northwest of Russia and taking samples near
the Russian border. Our investigations show there is no elevated
level of radioactivity in the region,” said Amundsen.
The K-159 nuclear powered submarine has two VMA-type reactors,
each with a thermal capacity of 70 megawatts. The cores of these
reactors contain a combined total of approximately 800 kilograms
of spent nuclear fuel with a radioactivity of 750 curies per
kilogram.
“Based on experience garnered from previous sunken nuclear
submarines, like the Komsomolets in 1987, the contamination will
first happen and is possibly already happening locally,”
Bellona’s Nikitin said.
In a longer-term scenario, the contamination could migrate
further into the Barents Sea. This migration would particularly
concern “hot particles” that are created as a result of any
electrochemical process that may take place in the reactor. Such
“hot particles” are small metal particles and are heavily
contaminated with alpha-emitters. Plutonium is one example.
In 1989, the K-159 was retired by the Russian Northern Fleet.
During the dismantlement process the following technical
operations aimed at maintaining the necessary level of nuclear
and radiation safety were performed with the reactor compartment
of the submarine. But these procedures provide for nuclear and
radiation safety while in the normal operations mode. However, no
procedures have ever been developed or performed to this end for
the situations of emergencies—like the kind that took place with
the K- 159.
The fact that the K-159’s reactors had been shut down since 1989
means that there is very little heat production left in the
reactor cores. The lack of heating means that there is no longer
an elevated pressure inside the reactor tank that would help keep
corrosive seawater out. Compounding radiation hazards is the
water pressure at the depth of 240 metres, at which the K-159
lies, that will further increase the risk for seawater crushing
into the reactor compartments and getting into the reactor.
“This is why we absolutely can not understand the inactivity of
the Russian authorities concerning K-159,” says Nikitin.
In Bellona’s opinion, the psychological factor of having a
nuclear submarine resting at the bottom of the fish-rich Barents
Sea must also be taken into account. For the fish exporting
industry in Norway and Russia, rumours about radioactively
contaminated fish could have a dramatic market impact on the sale
of fish from the Barents Sea. The Bellona Foundation has
initiated a project to measure radioactivity levels in fish
caught in the Barents Sea.
“It is the position of Bellona that the Russian Federation
should very thoroughly investigate different technical solutions
for lifting the K-159 from the sea bottom in order to safely
decommission the submarine”, says Nikitin.
NRPA’s Admundsen added that: "We think [lifting of the
submarine] is very important and it would be very good to prevent
any possible source of radioactivity, but it is necessary to
evaluate the environmental risks of the lifting operation.”
The existing Malakhit project doesn’t have the legally needed
conclusions for its environmental impact and technical safety,
but these documents cannot be prepared without complete
monitoring of the area where the K-159 went down.
The Malakhit representatives cited by Interfax said that, in
case funding starts, “it would be possible to speak about the
beginning of the salvage operation not earlier than in 2007, as
the last month, when marine monitoring was possible, taking into
consideration the harsh Northern climate, is missed.”
Nikitin added that: “The lifting plans are not discussed
seriously and are not funded. We can say, that in the nearest two
or three years there will be no lifting, first of all, because
the lack of political will it seems that the nowadays Kremlin
administration is afraid of any shocks.”
Russian authorities, in anticipation of Western funding, ordered
the hasty and unsafe towing of a rusty submarine to a
dismantlement site. The pictures of the K-159 the day before it
sank illustrate the looming danger of the endeavour.
K-159 doomed by expectations of Western funding
In a detailed television appearance, the Russian Navy’s Chief of
Staff Vladimir Kuroyedov blamed his underlings for incompetence
and sloppiness that he said led to the disaster. Kuroyedov
himself, however, remains untarnished." Northern Fleet Chief
Suspended Over K-159 Sinking
But Bellona's investigation is continuing, and a number of
contradictory statements by the Russian government remain to be
clarified. It is also still unclear precisely why the K-159 sank,
and why Moscow has no answers about the accident.">Bellona
Investigation Reveals Radiation Levels Are Normal After K-159
Sinking So Far
Though Norway is doing much to improve the ecological situation
in Northwest Russia by dismantling two submarines, the country's
money was spent on the same unsafe sub transportation methods
that sank the K-159.">Norway Complicit in Same Unsafe Towing
Practices That Sank the K-159
K-159 UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 1st The Russian Government has already
promised to raise the K-159 submarine that sank last Saturday
loaded with highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel. But is lifting
the rusted vessel the best ecological option? Bellona weighs
t...Should the K-159 Be Lifted From the Sea Floor?
Russia will not be towing any more submarines to dismantlement
points in the near future, says Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei
Ivanov. But new and troubling figures revealed on the depth of
the sunken submarine could mean imminent radioactive
c...»">Russia Orders Halt to Submarine Towing in Wake of
K-159 Disaster
An assessment of the possible environmental consequences of the
sinking of the K-159 November class nuclear submarine. ">K-159
Sank: What are the Radiation Risks to the Barents Sea?
The K-159, a Russian November class attack submarine, with a crew
of 10, sank this morning in 185 metres of water in the Barents
Sea 5 kilometres northwest off the Arctic Island of Kildin while
being towed from the Gremikha naval base on the western
sid...»">Russian Naval Negligence Sinks Retired Nuke Sub in
Barents Sea, Killing Nine
*****************************************************************
33 [NukeNet] Japanese uranium-contaminated soil
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 19:31:38 -0700
SP_HAM_SUPER,SUBJ_GROUP,WHITE_PHRASE autolearn=ham version=3.0.4
X-Spam-filter-host: darwin.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
According to the Japan Times, the uranium-contaminated soil is going to
Seattle. That is presumably just where it will be unloaded from the ship.
Still no information on the US company.
I'm not familiar with using the ADAMS system. If anyone who knows how to
use the ADAMS system notices this one, please let us know.
Philip White
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
34 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada files suit against NRC over Yucca license process
Today: September 01, 2005 at 16:19:35 PDT
By KEN RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada filed a lawsuit Thursday against the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, accusing the agency of prejudging
an upcoming Energy Department application for a license to open
a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
"The only way NRC can meet its requirement that a repository
will be available by 2025 is to presume it will give Yucca a
license," Attorney General Brian Sandoval said in a statement.
"For an ostensibly impartial regulator to make that prejudgment
is simply unlawful."
The 15-page petition asks the U.S. District Court of Appeals in
Washington, D.C., to overturn a commission decision to reject a
March 1 challenge the state filed against the "Waste Confidence
Rule."
The rule, adopted in 1990, lets the NRC continue licensing new
nuclear plants and power plant waste storage facilities around
the country with the expectation that, if the Yucca repository
never opens, the government will find and open another site by
2025.
NRC spokesman David McIntyre denied Sandoval's claim, saying the
commission has yet to decide whether it will award the Energy
Department a license to operate Yucca Mountain.
"We do not accept that the waste confidence decision prejudges
the NRC decision on a potential license for Yucca Mountain," he
said.
The commission notified state lawyers Aug. 10 and published
notice in the Federal Register on Aug. 17 that the March
challenge misconstrued the 1990 waste confidence rule.
It said the NRC was committed to a fair and comprehensive review
of the Energy Department's application, which is expected to be
filed next year. Recent setbacks have pushed back the target
date for receiving waste from 2010 to 2012 or later.
The new lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges
the state has filed against the federal plan to bury the
nation's most radioactive waste beneath a mountain 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas.
The state also has a suit pending in the same federal court
challenging an Energy Department plan to build a dedicated
319-mile railroad line across Nevada to ship nuclear waste to
the Yucca Mountain site.
Oral arguments in that case are scheduled Oct. 18.
On the Net:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects:
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
35 NZ: Scoop: Political fallout from nuclear waste in Darwin harbour
Thursday, 1 September 2005, 10:09 pm
Press Release: Australian Green Party
Senator Siewert, 31st August 2005
Senator Rachel Siewert is in Darwin today to support the
community in rejecting a national radioactive waste dump in the
Northern Territory.
"Who in their right mind wants to see radioactive spent fuel
passing through Darwin Harbour?" Senator Siewert asked. "I
challenge John Howard to leave his office in Canberra, look
people in the eye up here and explain why this decision was
made."
Transport of nuclear waste is one of the riskiest stages in the
nuclear fuel chain which leads from uranium mining to nuclear
waste. The reprocessed waste arriving from France is thousands
of times more radioactive than the material which was rejected
by the people of South Australia in 2004.
The Federal Government proposes to turn Darwin Harbour into a
hub for the movement of nuclear material in and out of the
Territory for at least the next 40 years. In addition to the
lethal spent fuel shipments, the Federal Government has
identified several thousand cubic metres of radioactive waste of
many different categories which would also transit the harbour
on the way to the dump. Communities along the transport route
will be at risk of accident or misadventure.
"Darwin Harbour is an icon," Senator Siewert said, "and we will
not stand by and let this happen. The Harbour is the centrepiece
of life in this City and is rich in biodiversity."
"It is a purely political calculation that the Howard Government
has made to sacrifice the Territory," Senator Siewert said. "I
believe this gamble will fail if all Australians rally around
the Territory and CLP Senator Nigel Scullion votes with his
conscience when this comes before the Senate."
"The Greens are committed to stopping the creation of this waste
and leaving it close to the point of production until a safe
means of storage is developed."
*****************************************************************
36 Concord Journal: Barrel removal begins
TownOnline.com -
By Casey Lyons/ Staff Writer
Thursday, September 1, 2005
Beginning next week, cleanup crews will take interior portions of
Starmet building to task, removing barrels from the contaminated
site and transporting them out of state.
Starmet, located at 2229 Main St., was a company contracted
by the U.S. Department of Defense for its anti-tank ordinance.
Using depleted uranium, a hazardous and radioactive material,
Starmet created a shell that could burn through tank armor and
penetrate its hull.
From about 1958 to 1985, manufacturing residues, including
depleted uranium, were dumped into an unlined holding basin on
the property, or buried in metal drums around the site.
Once state and national officials learned the extent of the
pollution, Starmet, formerly known as Nuclear Metals, Inc., was
placed on the National Priorities List by the Environmental
Agency in 2001.
This round of hazardous material cleanup, however, will
operate outside the national Superfund effort, and stems from a
joint initiative between the Massachusetts Department of
Environmental Protection and the state attorney general's
office..
In 2001, prior to its bankruptcy, Starmet moved materials
from its South Carolina manufacturing facility into Concord.
Under Starmet's licensing, it was permitted to transfer
hazardous materials between facilities to complete different
procedural steps at each location.
The state ordered Starmet to cease radioactive shipments to
Concord in 2001. The attorney general's office was not available
for comment as of press time.
Pam Rockwell, chairman of the 2229 Main St. Committee, a
Concord-based watchdog for the Starmet cleanup, called the move
"questionable."
She said, "They had the right to move it as part of their
licenses, but they didn't move it to use it, they moved it to
get rid of it."
Rockwell looks to the packing of the materials in barrels
and containers suitable for long term storage as an indicator of
Starmet's intentions.
Before the Superfund cleanup can proceed, the DEP needs to
clear out the buildings completely and give cleanup crews full
access to the building, including the foundation. [continue]
The work has been contracted out to Envriocare of Utah, LLC, a
Utah-based company that provides hazardous materials cleanup
nationwide. The revised schedule for drum removal from Starmet
calls for a Sept. 5 establishment of offices and facilities in
Concord.
From there, Envirocare will perform tests, take samples, and
eventually remove and dispose of hazardous materials out of
state. The timeline calls for a March 31, 2006 completion date
for this cleanup effort.
The area will undergo rigorous testing to ensure that
hazardous materials are not tracked out of the site.
As a whole, Rockwell said the process is going "very well,"
but added that the site is still undergoing investigation to gain
a precise picture of the types and concentrations of contaminants
at Starmet's facility.
Concord Journal
*****************************************************************
37 Guardian Unlimited: Man of peace dies - scientist who turned back
on A-bomb project
Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday September 2, 2005
Scientists yesterday paid tribute to Sir Joseph Rotblat, the
nuclear physicist and Nobel peace prize winner who resigned from
the Manhattan Project to become a campaigner for nuclear
disarmament. He died peacefully in his sleep on Wednesday at his
London home, aged 96.
Polish born, Rotblat started work on nuclear weapons at Liverpool
University in 1939. He moved to Los Alamos, the US nuclear
weapons laboratory and joined the Manhattan project, in the
belief that a nuclear bomb was the only realistic deterrent
against the Nazis who were also pursuing the bomb.
"In 1944, when I learned the Germans had given up the project,
the whole rationale for my being there disappeared," Sir Joseph
told the Guardian this year.
He became the only scientist to resign from the project and was
accused by the US of being a spy.
On condition he severed all contact with other scientists on the
Manhattan project, he returned to the UK to pursue medical
physics at St Bartholomew's hospital in London.
Rotblat later co-founded the Pugwash conferences, a movement
that worked behind the scenes, chiefly during the cold war, to
discourage the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. The
group's efforts were acknowledged in 1995 when Sir Joseph and
the Pugwash group won the Nobel peace prize.
"He's been an inspiration to people all over the world. He
devoted his life to preventing the use, spread or existence of
nuclear weapons," said Robert Hinde, chairman of Pugwash
conferences in the UK and emeritus professor at Cambridge
University.
The Pugwash conferences, set up after a meeting of scientists in
Pugwash, Nova Scotia, invited scientists primarily from the US
and the former USSR to discuss the implications of a nuclear war.
The group was the only bilateral link between the US and USSR at
the time.
Rotblat remained an active campaigner until shortly before his
death earlier this year, writing an open letter to President
George Bush calling on him to show "courage" in implementing the
treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
*****************************************************************
38 [epa-impact] Carlsbad Project, New Mexico
Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2005 11:43:14 -0400 (EDT)
version=3.0.4
X-Spam-filter-host: pascal.ctyme.com - http://www.junkemailfilter.com
http://epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/2005/September/Day-01/
=======================================================================
[Federal Register: September 1, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 169)]
[Notices]
[Page 52121-52122]
>From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr01se05-92]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Reclamation
[INT-DES-05-40]
Carlsbad Project, New Mexico
AGENCY: Bureau of Reclamation, Interior.
ACTION: Notice of Availability and Notice of Public Meetings for the
Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Carlsbad Project Water
Operations and Water Supply Conservation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of
1969 (as amended), the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) and the New
Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, as joint lead agencies, have
prepared a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) to assess the
consequences of proposed changes in the operation of Sumner Dam and the
implementation of a water acquisition program in the Pecos River Basin.
The Carlsbad Project Water Operations and Water Supply Conservation
DEIS includes a description of alternative means of implementing the
proposed federal action and presents an evaluation of the
environmental, economic, and social consequences that could result from
implementing these alternatives.
These proposed changes in water operations are designed to conserve
the Pecos bluntnose shiner (Notropis simus pecosensis) (shiner) and its
designated critical habitat. The water acquisition program is proposed
to conserve the Carlsbad Project water supply. In 1987, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service listed the shiner, a small minnow, as a threatened
species and designated two noncontiguous river reaches, totaling
approximately 101 miles of the Pecos River, as critical habitat. The
shiner has undergone significant population declines and range
contraction in the last 65 years and is now restricted to about 194
miles from Fort Sumner State Park to Brantley Reservoir. Lower base
flows, lower peak flows, and extended duration of peak flows along with
river channel degradation, drought, and intermittency have contributed
to loss of habitat and increased mortality (U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service, 2003).
DATES: A 60-day public review period commences with the publication of
this notice. Written comments on the DEIS should be submitted no later
than October 31, 2005, to Ms. Marsha Carra, Bureau of Reclamation,
Albuquerque Area Office, 555 Broadway NE., Suite 100, Albuquerque, New
Mexico 87102.
Reclamation will conduct four public meetings to obtain public
input on the DEIS. All meetings will take place from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The public meetings schedule is as follows:
? September 19, 2005--Bureau of Land Management Conference
Room, 2909 West 2nd Street, Roswell, New Mexico
? September 20, 2005--Pecos River Village Conference Center,
Room 3, 711 Muscatel, Carlsbad, New Mexico
? September 21, 2005--Village Community House, 204 North 4th
Street, Ft. Sumner, New Mexico
? September 22, 2005--City Hall Meeting Room, 141 5th
Street, Santa Rosa, New Mexico
ADDRESSES: Copies of the DEIS are available for public inspection and
review at the following locations:
? Albuquerque Main Library, 501 Copper NW., Albuquerque, New
Mexico 87102
? Bureau of Reclamation, Albuquerque Area Office, 555
Broadway NE., Suite 100, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102
? Carlsbad Irrigation District, 201 South Canal Street,
Carlsbad, New Mexico 88220
[[Page 52122]]
The DEIS is also available on the Internet at the following Web
address: http://www.usbr.gov/uc/albuq/library/eis/carlsbad/carlsbad.html.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Marsha Carra, Bureau of
Reclamation, Albuquerque Area Office, 555 Broadway NE., Suite 100,
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102; telephone (505) 462-3602; facsimile
(505) 462-3780; e-mail: mcarra@uc.usbr.gov or Ms. Coleman Smith, New
Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, P.O. Box 25102, Santa Fe, New
Mexico 87504; telephone (505) 476-0551, e-mail:
coleman.smith@state.nm.us.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The purpose of Reclamation's proposed
federal action is to avoid jeopardy to the Pecos bluntnose shiner and
to conserve the Carlsbad Project water supply. To avoid jeopardy to the
shiner means that Reclamation would ensure that any discretionary
action they authorize, fund, or carry out is not likely to jeopardize
the continued existence of a listed species or result in the
destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat. Reclamation
would continue to participate in interagency actions to protect
federally-listed species and designated critical habitats, within their
legal and discretionary authority. Conserving the Carlsbad Project
water supply means delivering the amount of water to the project that
would otherwise be available but for changes to operations. The need
for Reclamation's action is to operate the Pecos River facilities so as
not to jeopardize the continued existence of the shiner or destroy or
adversely modify designated critical habitat and to maintain the
Carlsbad Project water supply for authorized purposes. Without
reoperation of Sumner Dam, stream flows in the Pecos River may be
insufficient to meet basic habitat needs of the shiner and the future
existence of the shiner may be in jeopardy. Without an accompanying
program to acquire and provide water, reductions to the Carlsbad
Project water supply would occur.
The proposed federal action that requires NEPA compliance is the
reoperation of Sumner Dam to provide flows in the Pecos River to
conserve the shiner, and the implementation of a water acquisition
program to conserve the Carlsbad Project water supply. The alternatives
vary in flow targets or minimum flows at the Taiban or Acme gages.
Depending on the alternative, these targets can be constant or variable
by time of year or whether river conditions are dry, average, or wet.
Action alternatives also include common guidance for block releases, a
habitat conservation pool, an adaptive management plan, and
implementation of an interagency management agreement. Reduction to
Carlsbad Project water resulting from changes in operations to conserve
the shiner would be offset through a variety of options that are
analyzed independently of the alternatives. Other options have been
developed to acquire water to directly augment river flows for the
benefit of the shiner. Implementation of some of these options would
require additional authorization, permitting, and project-specific NEPA
analysis.
After the 60-day waiting period, Reclamation will complete a final
environmental impact statement (FEIS). Responses to comments received
from organizations and individuals on the DEIS will be addressed in the
FEIS.
Public Disclosure
Our practice is to make comments, including names and home
addresses of respondents, available for public review. Individual
respondents may request that we withhold their home address from public
disclosure, which we will honor to the extent allowable by law. There
also may be circumstances in which we would withhold a respondent's
identity from public disclosure, as allowable by law. If you wish us to
withhold your name and/or address, you must state this prominently at
the beginning of your comment. We will make all submissions from
organizations or businesses, and from individuals identifying
themselves as representatives or officials of organizations or
businesses, available for public disclosure in their entirety.
Dated: August 25, 2005.
William E. Rinne,
Deputy Commissioner, Bureau of Reclamation.
[FR Doc. 05-17265 Filed 8-31-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4310-MN-P
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39 Daily Times-Call: Radioactive areas found outside Flats cleanup area
LongmontFYI:
Publish Date: 9/1/2005
By Brad Turner
Contractors charged with cleaning the most contaminated site at
Rocky Flats found five radioactive “hot spots” outside the
established cleanup perimeter in recent months, according to
U.S. Department of Energy officials.
The discovery led Kaiser-Hill, the company managing the site’s
$4 billion cleanup, to conduct additional remediation on soil
around the site known as the 903 Pad, the most contaminated site
on the 6,500-acre property, DOE Rocky Flats spokesman John Rampe.
As a rule, Kaiser-Hill cleaned any spot found to contain more
than 50 picocuries per gram of soil, he said. A gram of soil
with that level of radioactivity is estimated to increase a
person’s risk of cancer by one chance in a million, he said.
That criteria is “way below the necessary cleanup level” of one
chance in 10,000, as designated by the Environmental Protection
Agency at other federally funded cleanup sites, Rampe said.
The plutonium- and americium-tainted hot spots around the 903
Pad contained 60 to 70 picocuries per gram of soil, he said.
Workers quickly removed about 75 cubic yards of soil from the
hot spots, which were discovered in the past three months, he
said.
But on Wednesday, Rampe denied a Daily Times-Call request for
soil sample data collected outside the 903 Pad perimeter, saying
contractors were still collecting and analyzing the information.
DOE officials will discuss the findings at a Rocky Flats
Citizens Advisory Board meeting at 6 p.m. today at College Hill
Library, 3705 W. 112th Ave. in Westminster.
Operators at Rocky Flats, which manufactured plutonium triggers
for nuclear bombs during the Cold War, stored more than 4,000
barrels of plutonium-contaminated oil on bare ground at the 903
Pad site in the 1950s and 1960s. The barrels leaked,
contaminating soil and groundwater.
Officials disposed of the barrels in 1967 and 1968 and laid an
asphalt pad over the contaminated dirt in 1969 to stanch the
spread of tainted topsoil by intense wind gusts in the area,
according to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.
Since Kaiser-Hill began cleaning Rocky Flats in 1995, workers
have hauled away thousands of cubic yards of topsoil tainted by
plutonium and americium from the 30-acre 903 Pad site, Rampe
said. Americium is a radioactive element produced by decaying
plutonium and is more potent than plutonium.
The discovery of the hot spots, which contain radioactive
material that was blown outside of the 903 Pad cleanup perimeter
by wind, should not alarm the public, Rampe said. Kaiser-Hill’s
cleanup project is still set to wrap in October.
“These are very small areas that slipped through the cracks,”
Rampe said.
It’s difficult to compare plutonium and americium traces at
Rocky Flats to everyday sources of radiation, such as microwaves
or potassium in bananas, said Niels Schonbeck, a biochemistry
professor at Metropolitan State College in Denver who has
researched Rocky Flats.
But the DOE and Kaiser-Hill invariably downplay the danger of
contamination at Rocky Flats, he said.
“The people who are cleaning up want to do it for the lowest
amount of money and be credited with cleaning up the site,” he
said. “They're going to understate those effects.”
The 903 Pad is not included in the part of Rocky Flats slated
to become a federal wildlife preserve. But the discovery of the
hot spots is proof that the area should not be opened to the
public after Kaiser-Hill declares the project finished,
Schonbeck said.
“If you look hard enough, you’ll find them in other places,”
Schonbeck said.
A Kaiser-Hill spokesman could not be reached for comment
Wednesday.
Rampe said the DOE will make sure any hot spots discovered in
the future are cleaned up, whether Kaiser-Hill is still involved
in the project or not.
Brad Turner can be reached at 720-494-5420, or by e-mail at
bturner@times-call.com.
All contents Copyright © 2005 Daily Times-Call. All rights
*****************************************************************
40 lamonitor.com: Group debunks bunker buster
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
SANTA FE - Whether the nuclear weapon project known as the Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) lives or dies may depend on how
hard Sen. Pete Domenici fights for it.
That's why opponents of the concept are beating the bushes in
northern New Mexico this week, looking for support from
Domenici's constituents that might be decisive.
"He's the person we hope to convince," said Sue Gunn, senior
Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"If we could just get 50 people to write."
Domenici, chair of the Senate Energy and Energy Appropriations
subcommittee, included a $4 million item in the FY06 budget to
support the study, which was not included in the House version.
The issue, among a number of discrepancies between the House and
Senate on nuclear weapons, will be decided in a conference
committee after Congress resumes next month.
In those negotiations, Domenici's influence and how he plays his
cards will be critical, the UCS officials said.
Gunn and UCS Senior Scientist Robert Nelson met with the Monitor
Tuesday to discuss the legislative status of the bunker buster,
as it is also known.
The RNEP is the subject of a proposed engineering study on
reconfiguring the B83 nuclear warhead in a stronger and heavier
casing, for the purpose of attacking hard, deeply buried targets.
The work would be done at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in California, in collaboration with Sandia National
Laboratories, which has satellite offices there.
The idea has had a roller coaster ride in Congress, after
receiving some initial funding. Last year it was zeroed out by
the House and defended by Domenici in the Senate, but abandoned
in the last minute crunch to pass a comprehensive appropriations
measure.
This year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., proposed an
amendment to strike the RNEP provisions from a Senate
appropriations bill.
In debate on the Senate floor, Domenici said the issue was not
about making a new nuclear weapon.
"I don't know what you could build for $4 million," he said,
adding, "None of that (arguments against nuclear weapons) has
anything to do with this amendment. The United States of
America, through its experts says we should have a study."
The amendment was defeated by a 53-43 vote, along party lines.
Nelson said it was another old Cold War fossil that was
resurfacing using 9/11 and the war on terrorism as an excuse.
"They say, 'It's just a study,' that's the cover they use," he
said, noting that last year NNSA was asked to do a five-year
budget projection which gave a different impression.
The total came to $485 million, "all the way out to the phase
6.3 production stage where they actually cut metal," said
Nelson, a theoretical physicist working on technical arms
control and nonproliferation issues at Princeton University and
a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Nelson published a technical study in Science and Global
Security in 2004 that disputed the effectiveness of bunker
busters against buried targets used for chemical or biological
weapons.
Only a fraction of the chem-bio agents close to the underground
explosions would be destroyed, he concluded.
"Agent munitions located outside of the small sterilization
zone, but within the final crater volume, would be ruptured by
the shock and ejected along with the radioactive fallout,"
Nelson wrote.
A National Academies of Sciences study, requested by Congress
last year and released in April, agreed with the Defense
Department's premise that many underground targets were beyond
the reach of conventional explosives and that they might be
"held at risk of destruction by one or a few nuclear weapons."
But the NAS report also concluded that "the number of casualties
from an earth-penetrator weapon detonated at a few meters depth
is, for all practical purposes, equal to that from a surface
burst of the same weapon yield."
"It would be a big mess," Nelson said, who believes a better
strategy for dealing with bunkers would be to seal access points
until the site could be captured and safely decontaminated.
In defending the House's decision not to fund the RNEP, Rep.
David Hobson, R-Ohio, said that in briefings with DOD he had
never heard of any specific mission for the bunker buster.
"The development of new weapons for ill-defined future
requirements is not what the Nation needs at this time," he said
in a key speech before the Arm Control Association in February.
Hobson has also argued against the contradiction of advocating
nuclear non-proliferation in the world, while developing new
nuclear options at home.
UCS, a nonprofit citizen-scientist partnership based in
Washington, D.C., will be holding informational meetings in New
Mexico through this week. The meetings began in Taos Monday
night and Santa Fe Tuesday. The team will be in Albuquerque at
UNM on Wednesday and finish the week at N.M. Tech in Socorro and
NMSU in Las Cruces.
Gunn and Nelson said they had tried to arrange a Los Alamos
meeting but were unable to find a local sponsor.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
41 Reuters: U.S. to decide soon on making plutonium for rockets
Thu Sep 1, 2005 7:40 PM ET
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The United States is poised to
produce plutonium-238 for the first time since the end of the
Cold War but it will be used for space missions, not weapons,
officials said this week.
The U.S. Department of Energy will decide this fall whether to
move forward with its proposal to produce the radioactive metal
at a federal nuclear facility in southeast Idaho, a department
spokesman said.
Under the $300 million plan, the Idaho National Laboratory would
produce 11 pounds (5 kg) of plutonium-238 a year for 30 years
starting in 2011. The non-weapons-grade plutonium is used to
power everything from satellites to deep space probes, leading
industry insiders to call the finished product "space batteries."
The proposal calls for half the batteries to be earmarked for
NASA projects and the rest for undisclosed national security
purposes.
The United States needs to produce plutonium because its
stockpiles are low and because an agreement with Russia prevents
it from using plutonium-238 produced there for security or
defense applications, according to DOE analyses.
Idaho officials are endorsing the proposal but are in a dispute
with the DOE over disposal of radioactive waste. They want
written assurances that the estimated 5,500 gallons of
contaminated waste generated each year by producing plutonium-238
would be hauled out of state.
"In my opinion, this would lay the foundation for Idaho to
become a leader in our nation's space program," U.S. Senator Mike
Crapo, a Republican, said in an interview. "This could make Idaho
a significant part of NASA."
Most Idaho residents who attended public hearings this summer
disapproved of the proposal, said Kathleen Trever, Idaho Gov.
Dirk Kempthorne's lab oversight coordinator.
"The negatives outweighed the positives but it was unclear to
what extent that reflected the opinion of the general
population," Trever said.
Idaho and the Department of Energy have been locked in a
years-old conflict over cleanup of nuclear waste materials at the
laboratory's sprawling complex near Idaho Falls. The complex
overlies the Eastern Snake River Aquifer, one of the state's
primary sources of drinking and irrigation water.
"We want to make sure we don't repeat problems of the past that
led us to have waste with no clear disposal path," Trevor said.
© Reuters 2005.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
42 Y-12 security guards using new remote-controlled weapons system
Oak Ridge gets $75 million grant to detect radiation
September 1, 2005
OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- Officials at Oak Ridge's Y-12 plant showed
off their new, state-of-the-art technology to protect nuclear
materials housed there.
For the first time, security officers can fire at an encroaching
enemy from as far as a mile away.
The "Remotely Wireless Weapon System" allows officers to sit
inside a building or car while they view their target on three
monitors. A joystick is used to fire weapons stationed all
across the Y-12 property.
"They'll be able to put fire on the individual and not have to
take on fire themselves," explained William Brumley. "In the
end, we'd like all out guys to go home after the fight."
Officials wouldn't reveal how many remote systems it has, but
said each one costs roughly $118,000 to make. It has been
undergoing testing and evaluation for about three years.
The weapon may soon be used at other nuclear bomb installations.
The Y-12 plant makes components for every nuclear warhead in the
U.S. arsenal, retires warheads and is the nation's primary
storehouse for bomb-grade uranium.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Portions
copyright 2005, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2005 WorldNow and WATE. All
Rights Reserved.
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