***************************************************************** 12/02/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.280 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 Haaretz: PM: Israel part of world efforts to stop nuclear Iran 2 Haaretz: For the EU, the ball is in Iran s court 3 AFP: Iran praises militia for defending nuclear programme - 4 Webindia123.com: A Q Khan vital to solve Iran nuclear puzzle - El Ba 5 Guardian Unlimited: Reports: Russia to Sell Missiles to Iran 6 Korea Herald: Japan restarting talks with N. Korea: report 7 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea May Be Willing to End Nuke Program 8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korea Cancel Meeting With U.S. 9 Guardian Unlimited: Official: No Endless Talks With N. Korea 10 Korea Times: South Korea¡¯s Nuclear Envoy Visits Beijing 11 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea makes new nuclear weapons offer 12 Xinhua: US research restrictions spark controversy 13 Daily Times: US confident about India nuclear deal 14 Bellona: Russian navy to get new submarines and ships 15 BBC: Israel missile test 'successful' 16 Mos News: Russia Not Preparing for Large-Scale Nuclear, Conventional 17 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear-Powered Ship to Be Based in Japan NUCLEAR REACTORS 18 US: NRC: News Release - 2005-162 - NRC Accepts General Electric’s 19 CTV Toronto: More nuclear and less coal energy in Ont. - 20 RIA Novosti: China postpones decision on nuclear station bids 21 BBC: Political argument turns nuclear 22 US: Hampton Union: Nuclear plant named ‘egregious polluter’ 23 US: Concord Monitor: Concerns raised over discharge proposal by nucl 24 US: Rutland Herald: Yankee hot water uptick will face legal battle 25 Shanghai Daily: China to build first inland nuke power station 26 Reuters: Japan's 54th nuclear power generator set to start 27 AFP: EU backs India to join talks on breakthrough nuclear reactor - 28 US: Newsday.com: Newest test well at nuclear site shows much higher 29 Business Gazette: DONT PUT ALL OUR EGGS IN NUCLEAR BASKET 30 Indiatimes: DAE mulls JV for nuclear power NUCLEAR SECURITY 31 Complacency In Nuclear Industry Must Be Avoided, Warns UN Official 32 US: Santa Fe New Mexican: Board blasts nuclear security office NUCLEAR SAFETY 33 US: Chromium documents at Portsmouth and Paducah 34 US: [du-list] PB Pills and Feb 2003 Safty Data Sheet. 13 years too 35 US: NRC: [ License No. 11-27727-01; EA-05-123, 05-204] 36 US: Lahontan Valley News: Government needs to pay sick atomic worker NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 37 US: DOE Pushing Spent Fuel Reprocessing 38 US: Zimbabwe Independent: Mugabe courts foreigners on nuclear projec 39 reviewjournal.com: Yucca workers face possible layoffs in 2006 40 Pahrump Valley Times: Did Bechtel Nevada employees misuse their cred 41 US: CBC News: Cameco buys nuclear fuel producer for $108M 42 Guardian Unlimited: China's EPA Chief Resigns Following Spill 43 US: Salt Lake Tribune: New maps whet mining appetite 44 Pahrump Valley Times: County deluged with new funding requests Tuesd 45 Kyiv Post: Russia negotiating to hike price of enriched uranium 46 Pahrump Valley Times: EMERGENCIES Reid secures $3 million for the co 47 KVBC: Potential for Yucca Mountain Project layoffs 48 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: Kiski Valley authority appeals waste plan - PEACE 49 AFP: Gulf presses NATO for nuclear-free zone - US DEPT. OF ENERGY 50 [NukeNet] 661+ pounds of plutonium missing from lab 51 Olympian: U.S. rewards Hanford project managers despite delays, budg 52 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah 53 KTVB.COM: CH2M Hill, Washington Group cutting INL cleanup workforce ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Haaretz: PM: Israel part of world efforts to stop nuclear Iran December 01, 2005 Cheshvan 29, 5766 | Iran's nuclear program. "One of the features of the Basij is resisting pressure, and this has made the International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency's board of governors retreat from re-issuing a harsh resolution against Iran," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati told worshippers at weekly prayers in Tehran. Last month the IAEA put off sending Iran to the UN Security Council to give more time for diplomatic efforts aimed at winning assurances the Islamic republic is not using an atomic energy drive as a cover for weapons development. Iran has claimed victory, although there is no end in sight to the crisis given continued Western pressure against the regime's determination to hold on to sensitive fuel cycle technology that could be diverted to military purposes. But Ayatollah Jannati, who head the powerful Guardians Council political watchdog, asserted that "because of Basij, nuclear energy has become an element of pride for our people, country and the system." "The enemy has received the message of the Basij to preserve the country's borders," he said, referring to last month's series of human chain demonstrations by the militia. Headed by commanders of the Revolutionary Guards, the nine million strong Basij acts as the populist guardian of the regime against domestic or foreign "threats" and has bases in all mosques, institutions, ministries, universities and large state-run industries. The militia was also seen as having played a key role in the shock June presidential election win of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself a veteran of the Revolutionary Guards and who has been calling for the promotion of a "Basij culture." ***************************************************************** 4 Webindia123.com: A Q Khan vital to solve Iran nuclear puzzle - El Baradei - New Delhi | December 02, 2005 4:42:50 PM IST Though Pakistan is cooperating in resolving the issue of the clandestine proliferation of nuclear technology which was masterminded by the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear programme A Q Khan, a direct dialogue with the scientist would prove to be of immense help in solving the complete ''puzzle'', IAEA Director Mohamed El Baradei has said. ''Obviously we would like to see Mr A Q Khan directly and talk to him...I hope we should be able to get direct contact with him just to make sure we know everything there is to know about this network,'' Mr Baradei said in an interview to NDTV to be telecast tonight. On a question about the Iran nuclear issue, the Nobel laureate, said Iran has to assure the international community that its nuclear programme is not meant for developing weapons. They have to show complete transparency in this regard. He expressed hope that the situation will be resolved peacefully through negotiations. ''The Iranians need to be fully transparent. But I hope that there will be a solution to the issue,'' the IAEA chief said. Describing the situation as extremely sensitive, he said Iran, being in the heart of West Asia, lies in ''not the most friendly neighbourhood'', and there is every chance of escalation of the situation if ''pressure'' was applied. ''Iran is in the heart of West Asia; West Asia is not the most friendly neighbourhood, so any complication or escalation of the situation will have major consequences, not only for Iran for the entire region,'' Mr Baradei pointed out. Commenting on the strategic civilian nuclear cooperation deal between India and the US, the UN nuclear watchdog chief said, it is a ''very good'' deal and its time has come. ''Personally I think it's a very good deal. It's a deal whose time has come,'' he said. Mr Baradei said that he would like to see India under the non-proliferation or the arms control regime. He hoped that India would apply enough safeguards to its civilian facilities. ''I don't like India to be outside the non-proliferation or the arms control regime...India is going to apply safeguards to its civilian facilities which is really important for a man, who is incharge of the safeguards,'' the IAEA chief said. The Indo-US deal has been facing opposition in the US Congress on the grounds that it has been in contravention to the US policy towards non-proliferation, specially when India is not a signatory to the NPT (Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty). Doubts have been expressed that the landmark deal would trigger an arms race in Asia. The US Congress wants to get a clear evidence that there is a marked delineation of India's civil and military nuclear facilities. Talking on the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr Baradei said, the Prize provides a platform to continue talking about the kind of issues that the UN Nuclear Watchdog was pursuing. He said the Nobel was a strong message from a ''silent majority''. ''I will continue to speak these issues...be independent, be objective, speak truth to power and work on the strengths of our conviction,'' he said. Describing the Prize as a very humbling experience, Mr Baradei said, it comes not from a government, but from an independent Nobel Community, which represents humanity. UNI XC YA RN1621 Webindia123.com © 2000-2005 Suni System (P) Ltd. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 5 Guardian Unlimited: Reports: Russia to Sell Missiles to Iran From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 2, 2005 8:16 PM By MIKE ECKEL Associated Press Writer MOSCOW (AP) - Russia has agreed to sell more than $1 billion worth of missiles and other defense systems to Iran, Russian news media reported Friday, a move expected to draw a heated reaction from the United States. The Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies cited unidentified sources in the Russian military-industrial complex as saying that Russian and Iranian officials had signed contracts in November that would send up to 30 Tor-M1 missile systems to Iran over the next two years. Interfax said the Tor-M1 system could identify up to 48 targets and fire at two targets simultaneously at a height of up to 20,000 feet. The news agency quoted its source as saying the two countries had reached a deal on modernizing Iran's air force inventory, as well. The deal was also reported in the Vedomosti newspaper, which cited an unidentified manager at a military-industrial enterprise as saying Russia would provide Iran with 29 Tor missile systems that had originally been manufactured on orders from Greece. The state arms export agency, Rosoboronexport, said it had no information on the reported deal. No Iranian officials were immediately available for comment Friday, a weekly holiday in the country. There were no reports in the Iranian media about the deal. While the conventional weapons deal would not violate international agreements, it was likely to elicit an adverse reaction from the United States. ``I expect that Russia's decision to supply the complexes to Iran will meet a negative reaction from the West, but this criticism will be of a political rather than legal character,'' Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, was quoted by Vedomosti as saying. In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States had not yet validated the news reports. Russia, a key Iranian ally, has resisted U.S.-led efforts to bring Tehran before the U.N. Security Council over its alleged nuclear weapons program, insisting that the disputes be resolved through the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Russia is also building a nuclear reactor in the Iranian city of Bushehr. Israel considers Iran to be its biggest threat, and doesn't believe Tehran's claims that its nuclear program is peaceful. Israeli concerns were heightened recently after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad urged that Israel be ``wiped off the map.'' Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said he was unaware of the reported deal between Russia and Iran, but said it would harm regional security. ``When a country hopes to strengthen the military potential of Iran, they are serving to strengthen the most negative elements in the region,'' Regev told The Associated Press in Jerusalem. On Friday, Israel carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile defense system, intercepting and destroying a missile similar to Iran's long-range Shahab-3. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 6 Korea Herald: Japan restarting talks with N. Korea: report From news reports The Japanese government is in the final stage of negotiations with North Korea to restart talks in December over the North's abductions of Japanese citizens and other outstanding bilateral issues, Kyodo News Agency reported Thursday. The meeting may take place over several days in the week of Dec. 11 in Beijing, the report says, citing unnamed Foreign Ministry sources. Kentaro Kaihara, a spokesman for the ministry's Northeast Asian Affairs bureau, said that discussions over the resumption of bilateral discussions are continuing. Nothing has yet been settled as to when the next round of bilateral talks would take place, he said. Japan and North Korea have been at odds over missing kidnapped Japanese citizens and the colonization of the Korean Peninsula. Officials from the two nations held talks - the firstin more than a year - in Beijing on the abductions and other matters in early November. The discussions ended in discord over the North's demands for compensation for Japan's colonial-era rule and Tokyo's questions about the abduction of its citizens by Pyongyang's spies. Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Shotaro Yachi told reporters on Monday that Tokyo and Pyongyang could hold new talks on establishing diplomatic relations as early as sometime this month. Talks between the two governments are likely to be held before separate six-nation negotiations on North Korea's nuclear arms program, he added, which are widely expected to take place in January. Meanwhile, South Korea has offered to host an informal gathering on its resort island of Jeju of six countries in discussions aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, a key official in the talks said on Thursday. South Korea's deputy chief delegate to the six-party talks, Cho Tae-yong, said the offer was made at the end of a formal round of the discussions in September and still stands. "We proposed that an unofficial gathering, not an official round, be held on Jeju island, if that would help with the progress of the talks," Cho said by telephone. He said the five other countries involved in the talks - North Korea, the United States, Japan, Russia and China - have yet to accept it. The six countries reached an agreement in September under which North Korea would dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in exchange for economic aid, security assurances and increased diplomatic recognition. China, a key ally of the North, has hosted all previous rounds of the talks, which began in August, 2003. Sources have said the next round of talks could take place in late December or January. North Korea declared in February it had nuclear weapons. 2005.12.02 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea May Be Willing to End Nuke Program From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 2, 2005 10:31 AM By KWANG-TAE KIM Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea would consider dismantling its nuclear weapons program if its relations with the United States, Japan and South Korea improved, China's envoy to Seoul said Friday. Ambassador Ning Fukui said ``three keys'' are needed for the North to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, the most important of which is the establishment of mutual trust between the United States and North Korea. The other two priorities are normalizing relations with Japan and improving relations with South Korea, he said. ``I believe that North Korea is willing to scrap its nuclear weapons,'' Ning told Park Geun-hye, leader of South Korea's main opposition Grand National Party, according to a party statement. Six-nation nuclear talks involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States that began in 2003 have failed to persuade Pyongyang to abandon its weapons programs. The North has attempted to justify its nuclear weapons program, saying it serves as a deterrent against a U.S. attack. Washington has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading the communist country, but distrust between the two governments runs deep. Washington has accused eight North Korean companies of acting as fronts for sales of banned missile, nuclear or biological weapons technology. The U.S. also recently slapped sanctions on eight companies it suspected of involvement in counterfeiting and money-laundering on behalf of the Stalinist state. Pyongyang has denied those claims, as well as accusations that North Korea produces high quality counterfeit $100 bills known as ``supernotes.'' In September, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees and energy aid, but cast doubt on the breakthrough a day later by insisting it receive a nuclear power reactor before it disarms. The fifth and latest session of the talks recessed last month with participants agreeing to meet again at an early, though as yet unspecified, date. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 8 Korea: Digital Chosunilbo: N.Korea Cancel Meeting With U.S. Home> National/Politics Updated Dec.2,2005 19:03 KST A high-level North Korean delegation has canceled a trip to New York this month for a series of discussions with U.S. officials after differences about the nature of the talks. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Thursday said the North Koreans would not come to the meeting scheduled for next week. He stressed the invitation still stands, saying it was unrelated to six-nation talks on Pyongyang¡¯s nuclear program and merely aimed to brief the delegation on the U.S.¡¯ anti-counterfeiting measures under article 301 of the Patriot Act. Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea¡¯s chief negotiator in the six-party talks, was scheduled to take part in the meeting to discuss the U.S.¡¯ freezing of the assets of several North Korean firms and blacklisting of a bank in Macau for what Washington says is their role in spreading counterfeit U.S. dollars and other shady activities. Kim earlier described the meeting as ¡°bilateral talks¡± connected to the six-party talks and demanded that his U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill take part, but the U.S. said only working-level Treasury officials would meet them and explain the U.S. position. McCormack said the U.S. would not negotiate over the counterfeiting, adding his government had been clear it would speak out about serious issues, be they human rights or the circulation of counterfeit money. (englishnews@chosun.com ) ***************************************************************** 9 Guardian Unlimited: Official: No Endless Talks With N. Korea From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 2, 2005 10:31 PM AP Photo DCHG101 By BARRY SCHWEID AP Diplomatic Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill said Friday he would not sit still for endless talks with North Korea in an effort to stop its nuclear weapons program. ``We can't just sit there stalemated session after stalemated session,'' he said. ``We need to see progress,'' Hill, an assistant secretary of state, told The Associated Press as the Bush administration and its negotiating partners awaited word on when talks would be resumed in China. Hill said he assumed bargaining would reopen around January, and that preliminary meetings might be held in South Korea, which is one of the six countries engaged in the talks. Besides the United States and North Korea, they are China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. The United States and its partners have offered North Korea economic incentives in exchange for halting its admitted development of nuclear weapons. In an effort to soothe the government in Pyongyang, the Bush administration also has offered assurances it would not be attacked. In September, a tentative deal seemed to be in the making. But since then North Korea has backtracked, issued angry statements against the United States and demanded it be provided with a civilian nuclear reactor. Hill said North Korea had been promised only consideration of its request. And he said Friday it first would have to reverse its nuclear weapons programs. ``If they get rid of their weapons we can start opening the country,'' he said, in a conciliatory vein. ``And being Korean people they are going to be successful.'' For the most part, though, the soft-spoken diplomat took a tough line. ``I don't want to threaten walkouts,'' he said. ``But I do want to see progress.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 10 Korea Times: South Korea¡¯s Nuclear Envoy Visits Beijing Hankooki.com > The Korea Times > Nation South Korea's chief envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program arrived in Beijing yesterday to discuss how to secure progress at the upcoming talks, officials said. His visit came as North Korea and the U.S. appear caught in an standoff over allegations the communist state produced fake U.S. currency. During his two-day trip, Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon plans to meet with Wu Dawei, who heads the Chinese delegation to the talks also attended by the U.S., North Korea, Japan and Russia. "My trip is aimed at reviewing the current situation and studying ways to make substantial progress at the nuclear talks," Song told reporters at Incheon International Airport before flying to Beijing. 12-02-2005 19:00 ***************************************************************** 11 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea makes new nuclear weapons offer Staff and agencies Friday December 2, 2005 North Korea today sent mixed messages to the United States, accusing it of being the "world's worst human rights abuser" but offering to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme in return for better relations with Washington. The statements from the secretive regime came through its official newspaper and the Chinese ambassador to its southern rival. Ning Fukui, China's ambassador to Seoul, told an opposition MP that North Korea had the intention of dismantling its nuclear programme. US intelligence analysts believe it has enough plutonium for six to eight warheads. "Ambassador Ning [...] expressed the opinion that North Korea would want three key things - improving ties with the United States, Japan and South Korea - to be resolved in order to dismantle its nuclear programme," the opposition Grand National party said in a statement. North Korea agreed at six-party talks with the US and China, South Korea, Japan and Russia in September to give up nuclear weapons in return for energy, economic aid and a US promise not to attack. It then almost scuttled the agreement, which George Bush, the US president, hailed as "a way forward", when it demanded a light-water nuclear reactor ahead of dismantling its weapons programme. A light-water reactor can be used in electricity generation but are harder to use than other reactors for the enrichment of material for warheads. Washington and others said that was not a part of the deal. The fifth and latest session of the talks recessed last month with participants agreeing to meet again at an early, though as yet unspecified, date. North Korea claims it was compelled to pursue a nuclear weapons programme to guard against US hostility. The country's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper today accused Washington of attempting to overthrow Kim Jong-il's regime. "The US is the world's worst human rights abuser," said a translation of the article from the Korean Central News Agency. "All wars of aggression the US has waged under the signboards of 'defence of freedom and human rights' have always been accompanied by destruction, plunder, murder and arson." The accusations come a week before South Korean and US activists prepare to sponsor an international conference on North Korean human rights abuses aimed at pressuring the communist government to improve its record. Useful links Korea Herald (South) North Korean Central News Agency World Food Programme History of the Korean war - tcsaz.com CIA factbook: North Korea CIA factbook: South Korea [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 12 Xinhua: US research restrictions spark controversy www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-12-03 08:35:57 BEIJING, Dec. 3 -- The news that the US Government proposes to prevent Chinese and other nations' citizens participating in advanced scientific projects in the United States has prompted an outcry among overseas Chinese students and scholars in the United States, according to a Xinhua News Agency report. The proposal is, for the so-called sake of US national security, aimed at the prevention of the theft of technical secrets by foreign spies, said Xinhua, quoting relevant reports. "Such a restriction will do no good to exchanges between China and the United States in scientific, cultural and educational fields," said Zhu Hongwen, chairman of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars of Greater New York Area. It only serves as a kind of discrimination towards Chinese students and scholars, forcing lots of talented researchers to seek opportunities in European countries instead of the United States, said Zhu. "Most of the Chinese students studying in the United States conduct crucial research," said Tian Li, chairman of the Association of Chinese Students and Scholars in Columbia University. The US authorities have strengthened controls on Chinese students researching "sensitive subjects" since September 11 terror attacks in 2001, by refusing visas to Chinese people who apply to study in these areas, said Tian. "Under such circumstances, the US Government plans to resort to additional restrictions that would only breed further resentment among Chinese students, and limit the introduction of overseas talent," said Tian. Six years ago, the US accused Los Alamos National Lab scientist Wen Ho Lee of stealing nuclear secrets for China, the report said. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of mishandling computer files. Lee's case became a rallying point for many in the Chinese-American community who felt targeted because of their ethnic heritage. US businesses and universities are currently required to get a government export licence if they allow citizens from controlled countries most notably China to engage in research involving technologies with potential military uses, the report said. But a licence is not needed for Chinese nationals who have become citizens or permanent residents in a third country such as Canada or the United Kingdom, it said. Reports said the proposal would suggest requiring licences for anyone born in China or other controlled countries such as Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, even if they had taken out citizenship in another country. (Source: China Daily) Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Daily Times: US confident about India nuclear deal December 03, 2005 * Bush administration believes deal is going to save American interests and strengthen non-proliferation efforts WASHINGTON: The State Department expressed confidence on Thursday a controversial nuclear deal with India would be approved by Congress and said it would work with lawmakers to make it happen. The landmark US-India accord reached on July 18 would grant New Delhi access to nuclear technology it has been denied for more than two decades because it developed and tested nuclear weapons, but prominent critics complain it undermines non-proliferation goals and should be tightened up. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the Bush administration understood the concerns of those who say the deal is flawed. “But at the end of the day we think that the majority will see that this is the right deal for America, as well as for global non-proliferation efforts,” he told a news briefing. Asked by reporters if the administration was open to ideas about changing the agreement, McCormack replied: “I think that we’re certainly open to a full consultation and discussion with the (US Congress) on this matter. They’re going to play an important role in this.” He did not repeat the position of Undersecretary of State for Non-proliferation Affairs Robert Joseph, who last month urged Congress to resist renegotiating the accord because “additional conditions would likely prove to be deal breakers.” India’s ambassador to the United States, Ronen Sen, took a similar position last week, telling Reuters any alterations could undermine the “finely balanced” deal. US officials were optimistic after the deal was concluded, predicting changes in US law and international regulations needed to implement the accord could be approved by the time President George W Bush visits New Delhi next February. They backed off that timetable after questions and criticism from members of Congress and non-proliferation experts. It is unclear when Congress and the 44-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group that seeks to control nuclear transfers might act. India has not progressed very far on a centrepiece of the deal, a plan to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities so US cooperation does not advance weapons production. In the latest evidence of deep unease, 18 former US officials and non-proliferation experts wrote Congress, warning India’s commitments under the agreement “do not justify making far-reaching exceptions to US law and international non-proliferation norms.” The group presented lawmakers with a detailed list of questions and changes to consider before the deal takes effect. In particular, they argue civilian nuclear assistance should not be extended until India ceases production of fissile material, like the five declared nuclear weapons states - the United States, Britain, Russia, France and China. The group includes former State Department non-proliferation officials Robert Einhorn, George Bunn, John Holum, and Thomas Graham. India and its regional rival, Pakistan, both carried out nuclear bomb tests in 1998, and in 2002 the two neighbours pulled back from the brink of what would have been their fourth war since independence from Britain in 1947. reuters Daily Times - All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 14 Bellona: Russian navy to get new submarines and ships In 2006, the Russian navy will continue its renewal program for submarine and surface forces, the chief commander of the Russian Navy Vladimir Masorin said to the daily Krasnaya Zvezda. 2005-12-01 17:58 The navy rearmament program stipulates construction of the new missiles strategic submarine, which should become the basis for the future Russian submarine fleet. Besides, a multipurpose submarine and a diesel submarine are under construction now. These three projects on the submarine forces should be implemented in the nearest years. According to Masorin, the navy is to receive a new ballistic missile Bulava already in 2007. Yury Dolgoruky nuclear submarine should also enter service in 2007 and be armed with the Bulava missiles. The surface forces will receive a new corvette, a frigate and a few destroyers. The ships will be constructed with the new technologies, reported Krasnaya Zvezda. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 15 BBC: Israel missile test 'successful' Last Updated: Friday, 2 December 2005 [An Arrow anti-ballistic missile interceptor at launch in the US] Early versions of the missile were first deployed against Iraqi scuds Israel has carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile defence system, military officials have said. An Arrow missile intercepted and destroyed a target similar to Iran's long-range Shahab-3 missile. The test was launched from an air force base in the centre of Israel and stuck a target over the Mediterranean. Israel considers Iran its greatest threat and has been working to counter the Shahab missiles, which Tehran says can reach Israeli territory. The Israeli military began developing the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system after coming under attack by Iraqi Scud missiles during the first Gulf War. The Shahab-3 is believed to have a range of 2,000 km (1,250m). Correspondents say nearly US $2.5bn has been invested in developing the missile defence system - two thirds of it paid by the United States. 'Existential threat' "The test's success is a major step in the system's operational improvements to deal with future incoming ballistic missile threats," an Israeli defence ministry the defence ministry said. The statement described the test as a "routine development test". Some security officials in Israel have described Iran, with a nuclear programme that some governments believe is aimed at building a nuclear bomb, as Israel's greatest threat to its existence. Israeli Prime Minister warned on Thursday that Israel "cannot accept a situation in which Iran would be in possession of nuclear weapons". "We must do everything possible to prepare for such a situation. But Israel is not spearheading any campaign [against Iran's suspected nuclear weapons ambitions]," Mr Sharon said. Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are peaceful. b ***************************************************************** 16 Mos News: Russia Not Preparing for Large-Scale Nuclear, Conventional War — Head of General Staff - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM Yuri Baluyevsky / Photo from RIA-Novosti Created: 02.12.2005 11:46 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 11:46 MSK MosNews Russia stopped preparing for large-scale nuclear and conventional wars long ago, the chief of the country’s General Staff has said. Russia does not regard any particular state as a potential enemy, he added. Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky said the country would prepare to defend its own territory and not to wage war on foreign land. He said Russia and NATO should avoid conflicts in their relations caused by “the remnants of old-thinking among certain politicians and the military,” RIA Novosti news agency reported. “A war between Russia and NATO is not the path we should be seeking.” Speaking about the domestic situation in a number of former Soviet states, Baluyevsky said CIS member states had the right to determine their destiny without foreign influence and pointed to Russia’s right to defend its interests in the post-Soviet space. Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that if Ukraine joined NATO, Russia might stop military and technical cooperation with the country. Baluyevsky condemned the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe for turning into a surveillance organization by overseeing the progress of democratic principles in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Speaking on Russian-U.S. military cooperation, the chief of General Staff said it had an “impulsive character”. “Military contacts between our countries sometimes work impulsively. When there is a problem, there is an increase in activity. When the problem is gone, the activity gradually subsides.” He also spoke on the cooperation between the two countries in the fight against terrorism. He added, however, that “although Russia and the U.S. share views on key issues, we do not feel that everything in our relations is going smoothly.” “The U.S. has made demands that a number of countries’ nuclear programs should be completely transparent,” he said. “On the other hand, the U.S. turns a blind eye to the fact that Israel has for a long time ... had a significant nuclear arsenal.” Baluyevsky pointed to similar double standards in U.S. cooperation with Russia in other spheres, including control of missile technologies. According to Baluyevsky, the U.S. not only uses its arsenal to defend its interests, but also as a form of leverage to put pressure on rivals on the market for this form of weaponry. The general also said that Russia had the technology for a strategic missile that could get around any existing or future anti-ballistic missile defense systems. “This is a very expensive technology and its (industrial) production depends on the situation,” he said. According to Baluyevsky’s point of view, missile defense systems were not even efficient in their defense against existing types of weapons. Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 17 Guardian Unlimited: Nuclear-Powered Ship to Be Based in Japan From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 2, 2005 11:01 PM By ROBERT BURNS AP Military Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Navy announced Friday that the USS George Washington will become the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to be stationed in Japan, replacing the diesel-powered USS Kitty Hawk in 2008. Although American troops have been based in Japan continuously since the end of World War II, the Japanese public had long opposed a U.S. nuclear presence because of concerns about possible radiation leaks and the memory of the U.S. nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the war to an end 60 years ago. The Navy had announced in October that the U.S. and Japanese governments reached agreement to allow the stationing of a nuclear-power carrier to replace the Kitty Hawk, but it had not identified the carrier until Friday. The Navy said the George Washington will move from its current home port at Norfolk, Va., to Yokosuka, Japan, in 2008. It currently is undergoing maintenance and upgrades in preparation for the move. ``This rotation is part of the Navy's long-range effort to routinely replace older ships assigned to the Navy's forward deployed naval forces with newer, more capable platforms,'' the Navy said in a statement. It said the George Washington would be operating in ``the unpredictable security environment in the western Pacific.'' Nuclear-powered warships have visited Japanese ports more than 1,200 times since 1964. The Navy said the United States has provided firm commitments to Japanese government regarding the safe use of Japanese ports by the nuclear powered warships, and it pledged to observe strictly all safety precautions and procedures. The George Washington was commissioned on July 4, 1992. It returned from its most recent deployment in July 2004. The Kitty Hawk is the oldest of 12 carriers in the Navy. It was commissioned in 1961 and has been stationed in Japan since 1998. It is due to be retired in 2008. The Navy air wing assigned to the Kitty Hawk in Japan will remain there and operate with the George Washington, the Navy said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 18 NRC: News Release - 2005-162 - NRC Accepts General Electric’s Application for ESBWR Advanced Reactor Design Certification Home > Electronic Reading Room > Document Collections > News Releases > 2005 > 05-162 NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov No. 05-162 December 2, 2005 NRC ACCEPTS GENERAL ELECTRICS APPLICATION FOR ESBWR ADVANCED REACTOR DESIGN CERTIFICATION Printable Version[PDF Icon] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has accepted an application from the General Electric Company to certify the Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) advanced nuclear power plant design, after determining the application has sufficient information to be formally docketed and reviewed. The ESBWR is a nuclear power plant capable of producing approximately 1,550 megawatts of electricity. The plant features enhanced safety systems that rely on gravity and natural processes to safely shut down the reactor or mitigate the effects of an accident. It is designed for a 60-year operating life. Our staff has enough information to start an evaluation of the entire design, said David Matthews, Director of the New Reactor Licensing Division in the NRCs Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Well ask GE for more details on the ESBWR, as needed, while the review goes forward. If certification is granted, a company that wishes to build and operate a new nuclear power plant could choose to use the design and reference it in a license application. Safety issues resolved within the scope of the design certification are not subject to litigation with respect to an individual license application. Site-specific design information and environmental impacts associated with building and operating the plant at a particular location could be litigated. The NRC has certified three other standard reactor designs and is considering certification of a fourth later this year. General Electric submitted its application Aug. 25 and provided supplemental information several times in September and October. The application (docket number 52-010) is available both in a Federal Register notice to be published shortly and on the NRC Web site at this address: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/design-cert/esbwr.html. During the staffs review of the ESBWR, they will continue to request additional information, if necessary, to properly analyze the design, and then issue an initial Safety Evaluation Report, which would identify remaining technical and safety questions to be resolved. A supplemental Safety Evaluation Report will be issued when all technical and safety issues with the design have been resolved. Once the design has passed staff review it can then be certified through NRC's rulemaking process, which is open to public participation. The certification process is described in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 52, Subpart B. The design certification process normally lasts between 42 and 60 months. Last revised Friday, December 02, 2005 ***************************************************************** 19 CTV Toronto: More nuclear and less coal energy in Ont. - CTV News, Shows and Sports -- Canadian Television Fri. Dec. 2 2005 2:55 PM ET Canadian Press Ontario will consider expanding its nuclear power base, but its coal plants remain targeted for closure as the province assesses its future energy needs, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Friday. McGuinty said he'll do "whatever it takes'' to boost the province's electricity supply, even if it means adding more controversial nuclear power. The province has already approved expansions at the Bruce Power facility in northwestern Ontario, and is said to be eyeing new nuclear units at its Darlington facility east of Toronto. Coal, however, appears to remain out of the mix ahead of a report on Ontario's future supply needs from the Ontario Power Authority. The report, to be released Dec. 9, will outline the mix of electricity supply the province will need over the next 20 years. It's currently made up of 49 per cent nuclear, 25 per cent hydroelectric, 17 per cent coal, seven per cent natural gas and two per cent alternative sources, such as wind. While speculation varies on what the report will recommend, sources expect the report will back government calls to close the province's remaining coal plants and support nuclear expansion. The push for more nuclear power is drawing criticism from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce, the Power Workers' Union and others, who say coal plants must continue operating into the next decade to ensure stable supply before new power sources come online. Chamber president Len Crispino said coal offers cheap electricity, and technology can be put in place to run the plants cleaner. He said the provincial government has ignored ways to keep coal part of Ontario's supply mix. "It has become a crusade of the government to close all the coal plants, regardless of science or economics,'' Crispino said in a column in Friday's Toronto Star. "What we need now is a respite from the rhetoric.'' The Ontario government has promised to close all of its coal-fired plants in a move to reduce air pollution. The Thunder Bay, Atikokan and Lambton stations are scheduled to close by the end of 2007, while Nanticoke, often dubbed Ontario's worst polluter, won't be fully shut down until early 2009. When McGuinty was asked Friday whether he will reconsider his views on coal, he said: "I'm not going to speculate on the outcome of the report.'' A spokesman in the premier's office later said the remark shouldn't be read as an indication McGuinty is leaving a crack in the door open on coal. There's been no indication the province is considering a change of heart. In October, then-energy minister Dwight Duncan labelled coal proponents "Neanderthals'' who should support efforts to close plants long blamed as polluters. Current Energy Minister Donna Cansfield has also said the government's commitment to close coal plants remains firm. Prolonging the lifespan of the coal plants would be a political headache for the government, which was criticized earlier this year for announcing it will keep Nanticoke open a year longer than first promised. But critics wonder whether new power projects will come online fast enough to make up for coal's nearly one-fifth share of Ontario's electricity supply. McGuinty promised he'll be aggressive on new projects, including nuclear _ which would be controversial given environmental groups' concerns and past cost overruns that created billions of dollars in provincial debt. "We've got to be aggressive,'' McGuinty said. "I know there's some controversy connected with nuclear, for example. But I think more importantly, we've got to have a reliable supply of clean electricity in Ontario, and our government will do whatever it takes to ensure we have that reliability.'' Ontario needs to refurbish, rebuild or replace 25,000 megawatts of supply over the next 15 years. McGuinty said plans to add 9,000 megawatts are in the works. © 2005 Bell Globemedia Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 20 RIA Novosti: China postpones decision on nuclear station bids 02/ 12/ 2005 BEIJING, December 2 (RIA Novosti, Alexei Yefimov) - The general contractor for the Russian Federal Nuclear Power Agency for the construction and modernization of nuclear power plants abroad, Atomstroiexport, will likely have to wait for a decision on its bid for construction of nuclear power plants in China until next year. Atomstroiexport, in which Russia's energy giant Gazprom has a 53.85% majority stake, has placed its bid along with France's Areva and the U.S. company Westinghouse on a CNNC-originated tender for construction of four 1,000-megawatt reactors, two in the city of Sanmen in the Zhejiang province and two in Yangjiang in the Guangdong province. The China Daily cited Friday the China National Nuclear Corporation Director Chen Hua as saying that the decision will be most likely made in mid 2006. "Negotiations are unlikely to be completed by year's end," the paper quoted Chen Hua as saying. Chen Hua said the CNNC was not satisfied with proposals made by various companies in terms of cost, engineering project and safety. He said the winning bid would most likely come from either Areva or Westinghouse. Nineteen reactors are currently operational or under construction in China, with Atomstroiexport building the first and second units of the Tianwan NPP in Lianyungang in the Jiangsu province. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 21 BBC: Political argument turns nuclear Last Updated: Friday, 2 December 2005 By John Knox BBC Scotland political reporter There was more fission than fusion in the Scottish Parliament this week. The prime minister's hint that another generation of nuclear power stations is on the way has put the First Minister Jack McConnell on the hot spot. Up till now the Scottish Executive has avoided taking a pro or anti stand on nuclear power by insisting the issue of nuclear waste must be resolved first. But with the Liberal Democrats firmly against any more nuclear power, Labour ministers know that if they go nuclear, it would split the coalition as surely as Ernest Rutherford split the atom. [Dounreay Nuclear Power Plant] Nuclear policy could cause political tensions within the Scottish cabinet. At question time, the SNP's Nicola Sturgeon called on the first minister to "break the habit of a lifetime and show some leadership". She wanted to know his view on the cost, safety and the necessity of nuclear power. Answers came there none. Instead Mr McConnell accused the SNP of having 18 different energy policies, depending on which wind farm project they were talking about. "Never were so many policies held by so few," he said. The SNP know, however, that they are on to a Labour weak point. Energy policy is a matter reserved to Westminster. But the planning permission for any particular nuclear power station would have to be granted by the Scottish Executive. There is therefore plenty of room for fission between London and Edinburgh, between the coalition parties and among Labour backbenchers too. Renewable targets Scotland's two existing nuclear power stations, at Hunterston on the Clyde coast and Torness in East Lothian, provide 40% of Scotland's electricity. By a strange co-incidence, the Scottish Executive has set itself the target of producing a similar 40% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. So it's not clear that nuclear energy would be needed to keep the lights on. And the cost, in financial and political terms, might just not be worth it. The Conservatives meanwhile uncovered another fissure in executive policy. Annabel Goldie asked, innocently enough, how many drug rehabilitation centres there are in Scotland. [Annabel Goldie] Annabel Goldie questioned the first minster on drug treatments The first minister began a long defence of his anti-drugs programme. Miss Goldie interrupted: "That's McConnell speak for....... I haven't a clue. And that's not surprising, because no one has a clue." It's also unknown how many addicts are on methadone. The best guess is 19,000. How many people have come off methadone and are successfully rehabilitated? We don't know that either. It wasn't much wonder then that the executive announced this week that the anti-drugs agency, Scotland Against Drugs, is to be wound up and its duties transferred to the new Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives. The Greens then had a punch at poor Mr McConnell. "How can your decision to go ahead with the Aberdeen bypass be consistent with sustainable development?" asked Shiona Baird in her best school mistress manner. Mr McConnell stammered a reply that the new road would ease congestion and therefore pollution. [Camphill campaigners] The Camphill community has led a high profile campaign The bypass will cost up to £395m. But the Transport Minister Tavish Scott has not chosen the cheapest route, or indeed one of the much discussed five options. Instead he's chosen "an innovative solution" which avoids the Rudolf Steiner Camphill community and a massive political row. On Thursday afternoon, the Fishing Minister Ross Finnie gave parliament his annual briefing on the European fishing talks about to get under way in Brussels. He hopes to negotiate bigger catches for haddock and prawns and says he won't accept any more cuts in the size of the Scottish fishing fleet until other countries show they have made real reductions in their's. The bad news is that cod stocks are still under threat and fishermen will face further restrictions to prevent a cod by-catch. On Thursday morning we learnt from Education Minister Peter Peacock that Scotland "is in the premier league of international education". "By the time our youngsters reach the age of 15, they perform amongst the best in the world," he said. I want to reassert Scotland claim of right...to determine the form of government best suited to their needs Alex Salmond SNP The SNP used the education debate to call for "a Scottish world view" in the curriculum. Fiona Hyslop said science lessons should include the study of Scottish scientists, maths Scots mathematicians, literature Scottish writers, and, of course, Scottish history should remain a separate subject, not be subsumed into a social studies programme in the first years of secondary school. The SNP made their own history this week by calling an "Independence Convention" in the Dynamic Earth centre across the road from the parliament on St Andrew's night. They were joined by the Greens and the Scottish Socialists. The SNP leader Alex Salmond told the gathering: "I want to reassert Scotland's claim of right...to acknowledge and assert the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of government best suited to their needs." [Organ Donation] MSPs approved a new law on organ donation It was a cheeky echo of the words used by the Constitutional Convention which led to the Scottish Parliament in the first place. Mr Salmond declared that independence would follow devolution "as sure as night follows day." It was heady stuff, and in some contrast to the afternoon's events in the Scottish Parliament itself. There, MSPs unanimously passed the human tissue bill, which rewrites the law on organ donation in Scotland. We're sticking with an opt-in system, much to the disappointment of the BMA who say the lives of 50 Scots could be saved every year if more organs were available for transplant. Finally, the row over the merging of the six Scottish regiments just won't go away. A petition against the merger, containing 155,000 signatures, was handed in at Downing Street on St Andrew's Day. And at question time on Thursday the first minister was asked again if he would protest to Westminster about the loss of the regimental hat feathers, or hackles, which he'd been particularly keen to retain. [Veterans at protest] Scottish veterans took a petition to Downing Street The question came from the Conservative MSP Lord James Douglas-Hamilton who served in the Cameronians and who this week announced he is going to retire from the Scottish Parliament at the next election. "While I am still a young man", he said. At 63, he says he'll continue to watch over Scottish affairs in the House of Lords. "You have been an outstanding member of this parliament, " the first minister told him. And he tried to reassure the old soldier that Scots could continue to wear regimental hackles when in combat uniform if not in formal dress. Like nuclear power, it's an issue on which the first minister has little say. Both are in Westminster territory. But that's the danger of devolution, there's a lot of political fallout and it doesn't respect provincial boundaries. ***************************************************************** 22 Hampton Union: Nuclear plant named ‘egregious polluter’ Fri. December 2, 2005 By Susan Morse smorse@seacoastonline.com SEABROOK - Members of environmental action groups in front of half-a-dozen spectators gathered in a Route 1A parking lot, with a view across Seabrook Harbor on Tuesday to present a framed Dirty Dozen certificate to the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant. No one from the plant attended. The Toxics Action Center in Boston gave the plant one of its Dirty Dozen awards for 2005. For nine years, the center has given out the awards to what center spokesman Paul Schramski called, "egregious polluters." The Peirce Island Sewage Treatment Plant in Portsmouth also received one of the dubious honors this week. Seabrook Station was targeted, said Schramski because it routinely emits low level radiation in steam releases. Schramski and others want the plant to pay for monitors that would measure any spikes in radiation levels. They cost more than $5,000 each. The real-time monitors, as they are called, are in place in an estimated 20 Massachusetts sites surrounding Seabrook, partially funded by the state. Seabrook Station spokesman Al Griffith said Monday the plant already has 100 real-time radiation monitors on site, and anything over and above that is redundant. Susan Mayer, field director for the local Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, said people not connected to the nuclear power plant should be doing the monitoring. "Citizens have to know what’s going on with the plant," said Mayer. "We have to have a rigorous study to find out the extent of the health danger." Sierra Club member Carol Shea-Porter of Rochester attended Tuesday’s event. Afterwards she said: "I’m very concerned about safety and their refusal to monitor. The power plant has a responsibility to monitor and to report." "I think it was very informative," said Tom Byrne of Hampton. "There should be a lot more awareness on this subject." Winnacunnet Cooperative School Board Chairwoman Susan Kepner, who was there, said a number of years ago, power plant officials offered to give Winnacunnet High School a radiation monitor to place on the roof of the building. That never happened. She wants to check on it, she said. Seabrook resident Bradley Upton, who lives in senior housing on Railroad Avenue, defended the nuclear power plant in a phone call to The Hampton Union. "Part of the reason I live here in Seabrook is because of the power plant," Upton said. Seabrook Station, through its property taxes, paid for much of the new buildings in town, including the housing complex where he lives, the new police and fire stations, the town hall and the library. "All of us," he said, "live within a mile radius of the plant. If it’s so terrible, why don’t all of us have cancer?" Seacoast Online is owned and operated by Seacoast Media Group. Copyright © 2005 Seacoast Online. All rights reserved. Please ***************************************************************** 23 Concord Monitor: Concerns raised over discharge proposal by nuclear power plant Concord, NH 03301 December 2, 2005 Copyright 1997-2005 Concord Monitor and New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177 Concord NH 03302 603-224-5301 Privacy policy The Associated Press A proposal by the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Brattleboro to discharge slightly warmer water into the Connecticut River has raised concerns from environmental advocates. The state Agency of Natural Resources held a public hearing Wednesday on the proposal to amend the plant's discharge permit so that the plant could discharge water that is warmer than is currently allowed. The proposal would allow the water to be 1 degree warmer at a temperature monitor downstream from the plant. The increase would be allowed only when the river water is between 55 and 78 degrees. The limit in the permit is set according to the difference between the river temperature at the downstream monitor and one that is upstream from the plant. The plant's owner, Entergy, says the change would allow less use of the plant's cooling towers, which would save money. The Agency of Natural Resources has issued a preliminary approval to the permit. About 30 people turned out for Wednesday's public comment session, many of them from the Connecticut River Watershed Council, a nonprofit group monitoring the river. Patrick Parenteau, a professor from the Vermont Law School, said Entergy is legally bound to limit its impact on the river as much as it is able. "The (federal) Clean Water Act presumes if there's technology available (to protect the river), it ought to be used," Parenteau said. An opportunity to generate more electricity and increase profits might be a reason for Entergy to seek the discharge amendment but, Parenteau said, "that's not relevant to the Clean Water Act." Water discharge comes from the plant's condenser, which cools the reactor core. The discharge can go through the plant's cooling towers, or go directly to the river. The Agency of Natural Resources is collecting public comment until Dec. 7. The Associated Press Concord Monitor Online, P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 Phone: 603-224-5301 ***************************************************************** 24 Rutland Herald: Yankee hot water uptick will face legal battle Rutland Vermont News & Information December 2, 2005 By Susan SmallheerHerald Staff BRATTLEBORO — The attorneys for the Connecticut River Watershed Council promised a legal battle Wednesday if the state grants a permit to Entergy Nuclear to discharge more and slightly hotter water into the Connecticut River. Patrick Parenteau, director of Vermont Law School's Environmental and Natural Resources Law Clinic, which is representing the watershed group, said that a legal challenge was all but guaranteed because he believes the state is not holding Entergy to the standards established by the Clean Water Act that there be no impact on the river's aquatic life by the discharge. Entergy Nuclear has asked for an amendment to its original discharge permit; it wants to discharge hotter water into the river, which flows by the plant, enough to raise the river's temperature by 1 degree Fahrenheit at a measuring station 1.5 miles below the plant. The plant discharges 453 million gallons of the hot water a day, which is 366,000 gallons a minute. Entergy is currently allowed to discharge water that is 100 degrees Fahrenheit, although the plant says it has never discharged any water hotter than 98 degrees. Entergy said it wants to discharge hotter water to save money and power. It currently uses 10 megawatts of power to run its two cooling towers during warm weather from May to October, according to Entergy spokesman Robert Williams. Entergy wants to save the electricity it would use to cool the water and sell it to the New England grid, he said. The request would be helpful as a way of decreasing New England's dependence on fossil fuels, he said. Williams said he didn't know how much electricity would be saved. The water discharge permit is not related to the plant's request to boost power production by 20 percent, he said. Parenteau was joined by a research fellow at Dartmouth College, as well as staff and members of the nonprofit group at Wednesday's public hearing on the draft permit, which would be issued by the Agency of Natural Resources. "The proposed thermal variance does not meet the requirements of federal and state law and must be denied," Parenteau said. Parenteau said that key documents about Vermont Yankee's original discharge permits had been destroyed by the state, further complicating the permit issue. Without the original permits, he said, he said he didn't see how the permit process could proceed. Parenteau himself is a former commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation in the agency during the Kunin administration. Joining Parenteau was Ross Jones, a research fellow and visiting assistant professor at Dartmouth College. Jones said he also had a law degree, as well as a doctorate in aquatic and marine organisms. Jones said he had reviewed Entergy's studies on the possible impacts of the warmer water and concluded that there would be an effect on the fish populations near the Vernon hydroelectric dam, in particular the juvenile American shad. "Entergy has failed to demonstrate that Vermont Yankee's thermal discharges have not adversely affected the biological community in the Vernon pool and the Connecticut River," Jones said. "Higher water temperatures can also adversely affect migration behavior of anadromous species, such as American shad and Atlantic salmon," Jones added. He said that independent scientific research showed that the water temperature discharged into the Vernon pool, which backs up behind the hydroelectric dam and immediately adjacent to the nuclear plant, "is sufficient to increase mortality, particularly of juveniles." About 30 people attended the session, and most people spoke against the permit saying the warmer water would have an adverse effect on the fish in the river, and they questioned what the public benefit was. Rep. David Deen, D-Westminster, who holds a part-time job with the Connecticut River Watershed Council as a river steward, said the water coming out of Vermont Yankee was 114 degrees. "You can parboil a lot of fish," he said, with that temperature. Deen had asked the watershed council to get involved in fighting the draft permit, and Parenteau said the case was a "perfect" assignment. "We're headed to Environmental Court," Deen said. Williams, the Entergy spokesman, said while the water temperature going through the condensers was 114 degrees, but by the time it was discharged into the river it was 98 degrees or less. He said the plant's permit allowed up to 100-degree water on the warmest days of the year. He said the plant had never discharged water above 98 degrees. "We believe we have demonstrated there is no significant change," Williams said. Brian Kooiker, section chief for the discharge permit section of the Agency of Natural Resources, who ran the hearing, declined to comment on the public session. John Bennett, a planner with the Windham Regional Commission, told Kooiker that agency staff couldn't answer his technical questions about the discharge permit. "I'm surprised, and not terribly happy," he said of the lack of information. According to Bennett, "Vermont Yankee already heats the river significantly." Minimizing its costs, he said, "is not an overriding environmental reason." Public comment on the draft permit will be accepted until Dec. 7. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2005 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 25 Shanghai Daily: China to build first inland nuke power station Wenhui-Xinmin United Press Group Winny Wang 2005-12-02 Beijing Time CHINA'S first non-coastal nuclear power station may be in Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province, Yangcheng Evening News reported today. Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co signed a frame agreement with Zhaoqing City about the nuclear power cooperation. The company is selecting the location for the new station, which will be evaluated on technology, economy and environment. Experts said Zhaoqing is a good place because the city has begun preparation for setting up a nuclear power station. It has advantages in environment, water supply, Internet and equipment, the report said. China has four nuclear power stations, which are in coastal provinces where the booming economy has caused serious power shortages. Shanghai Daily Home | Copyright © 2001-2005 Shanghai Daily ***************************************************************** 26 Reuters: Japan's 54th nuclear power generator set to start Reuters.com Thu 1 Dec 2005 11:05 PM ET TOKYO, Dec 2 (Reuters) - A new nuclear power generator will start commercial operations next week in Japan, its owner Tohoku Electric Power Co. <9506.T> said on Friday, marking the 54th such unit for a domestic industry still trying to recover from a string of safety scandals. The country's fifth-largest utility said the 1.1-million-kilowatt generator, at its Higashidori plant in Aomori, northern Japan, was expected to start running commercially on Dec. 8. The unit is Tohoku Electric's fourth and has been undergoing a test run since December 2004. Its full start-up will bring Japan's nuclear power generation capacity to 48.22 million kilowatts. Japan, which has the world's third-largest nuclear power generation capacity after the United States and France, has a policy of supporting nuclear power, prompted by its lack of natural resources such as oil and natural gas as well as an international movement to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. Nuclear power plants now generate about 30 percent of the electricity used in Japan and the government plans to raise that to 40 percent by 2010 by installing new units. However, the domestic nuclear power industry has been under increasing public criticism because of recent safety scandals and a fatal accident at a plant run by one of Tohoku's peers. In August 2004, hot water and steam leaking from a broken pipe at a nuclear plant run by Kansai Electric Power Co. <9503.T> in western Japan killed five workers, marking the country's worst-ever nuclear power accident. The company had not inspected the pipe since the unit in which it was located started operating in December 1976. That accident followed an admission by Tokyo Electric Power Co. <9501.T> that it had falsified nuclear safety documents for more than a decade, a revelation that forced it to shut all 17 of its nuclear power generators for inspections by mid-April 2002. All three nuclear power units at Tohoku's Onagawa plant in northern Japan have been shut since August, when a strong earthquake jolted the region. © Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 AFP: EU backs India to join talks on breakthrough nuclear reactor - Fri Dec 2, 7:57 AM ET BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Commission" /> European Commissionvoiced support for India's participation in talks a multibillion-dollar experimental nuclear reactor, along with six partner countries backing the so-called ITER project. The next session of negotiations on ITER -- planned by the European Union" /> European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea" /> South Koreaand China -- will be held in South Korea next Tuesday, the EU's executive arm noted. "The European Commission has today officially informed the Indian authorities that it supports the participation of India in the ITER negotiations," the commission said in a statement. "India's participation should now be discussed with the other international parties, US, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan as part of the ongoing negotiations of the international agreement that will set up ITER," it said. The six ITER partners agreed in June to build the main ITER facility in Cadarache, southern France, after Japan withdrew its bid to host the 10-billion-euro (12-billion-dollar), 30-year project. Following years of wrangling between Japan and the EU, Japan was given the 20 percent of staff posts including the director general's job in exchange for dropping its proposal to build the reactor in northern Aomori prefecture. Copyright © 2005 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Newsday.com: Newest test well at nuclear site shows much higher contamination [Newsday.com - AP New York] By JIM FITZGERALD Associated Press Writer December 2, 2005, 5:45 PM EST WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- The water in a new well near the spent-fuel pool at the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant is contaminated with radioactive tritium at a level 30 times higher than the federal standard for drinking water, officials said Friday. The well was drilled by Entergy Nuclear Northeast, owner of the plant in Buchanan, as part of an attempt to find the source of a small leak from the 40-foot-deep pool, which holds the highly radioactive fuel assemblies that have been used in the nuclear reactor. The leak was discovered in August when moisture was spotted on the outside wall of the pool, beneath ground level, during an adjacent excavation. Concern grew in October when low levels of tritium, a radioactive isotope, were found in water at the bottom of six sampling wells on the Indian Point property. Tritium is present in the pool water, along with strontium and cesium. The worst reading from those wells was just slightly above the drinking water standard, which is 20,000 picocuries of tritium per liter of water. But according to data on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Web site, the new well yielded samples with tritium at 600,000 picocuries per liter. Large amounts of tritium can damage internal organs. The wells are dug only for sampling the ground water and are not drinking water sources. However, critics have expressed fears that the tritium beneath Indian Point could eventually work its way into drinking water supplies or into the nearby Hudson River. Entergy plans to dig eight more wells to try to map the underground flow of contaminated water as well as to find the leak. Both Neil Sheehan, spokesman for the NRC, and Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said the finding was not unexpected, given that the well was within 5 feet of the pool. But Steets said it does not necessarily mean that the pool is the source of the leak or that the contamination of the groundwater is new. It could have persisted from earlier, repaired leaks, he said. Steets said that when more wells are dug, officials will have a better idea of where to look. "One well by itself is not much of an identifier," he said. He noted that the leak at the pool has diminished to as little as 10 to 25 milliliters per day, down from 1,000 to 1,500 milliliters. Officials thought they might have found the source of the leak last month when they saw three discolored areas on the inside wall of the pool. But a diver, heavily shielded against radiation, tested the spots and no leak was found. Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Business Gazette: DONT PUT ALL OUR EGGS IN NUCLEAR BASKET Published in Times &Star on Friday, December 2nd 2005 Rosie Mathisen CUMBRIA should not rely on a new nuclear power station for its future, a senior regeneration figure said this week. While Sellafield union bosses are calling on Prime Minister Tony Blair to seriously consider building a new nuclear plant in West Cumbria, Rosie Mathisen, nuclear opportunities manager for urban regeneration company West Lakes Renaissance, said it should not be the areas only focus. Mr Blair announced on Tuesday that the Government will undertake an energy review and although nuclear power was a difficult issue, it should be settled by open debate. The review will be headed by energy minister Malcolm Wicks and there will be a report by the middle of next year, he announced. It would measure the UKs progress against a review two years ago. He warned that by around 2020, the UK is likely to have seen the decommissioning of coal and nuclear plants which together generate more than 30 per cent of electricity supply. He added: Some of this will be replaced by renewables, but not all." Peter Kane, GMB convener at Sellafield, believes there is another argument in favour of nuclear. He said: We need to be self-sufficient in energy and nuclear power is the only way to achieve that. Otherwise we will be dependent on French nuclear, Russian gas and Middle Eastern oil for years to come. Workington MP Tony Cunningham, an assistant whip for the Labour Government, said: I am delighted theres going to be a review. Ive always said the energy requirements of this country need to be a basket of renewables, coal, oil and gas. Part of that basket has to be nuclear, which provides more than 20 per cent of our energy needs. Ms Mathisen said she welcomed the review and looked forward to its outcome, but she added: While the west coast of Cumbria holds an international level of nuclear expertise and skill, we must ensure that the nuclear industry does not continue to dominate the west coast economy in the future. The West Cumbria Strategic Forum, led by the Department of Trade and Industry, is the Governments commitment to create a new economic environment for West Cumbria where firms and individuals can diversify, expand and learn new skills appropriate for the 21st century. The forum, chaired by DTI secretary Alan Johnson, aims to help West Cumbrias commercial activities in the next 10 years, as work at Sellafield declines. ***************************************************************** 30 Indiatimes: DAE mulls JV for nuclear power TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, DECEMBER 03, 2005 01:20:28 AM] KOLKATA: The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) is looking at the possibility of floating a joint venture (JV) for nuclear power generation company with participation from players like NTPC, Bhel, L&T, and Reliance Energy. The department is in active discussion with various Indian players in this arena including power generators and equipment suppliers. The discussion to float a JV is being spear-headed by Nuclear Power Corporation India. The corporation has, in fact, floated a forum that is acting as a platform where various issues related to the new company are being discussed and solutions sought, said Baldev Raj, a director at DAE, while talking to ET. The platform, which is called Atomic Industrial Forum is also looking at the possibility of forming a consortium with companies like NTPC, Bhel, L&T, and Reliance Energy along with NPCIL to float the nuclear power company, he added. Mr Raj, however, also clarified all these are in very conceptual stage and there are two major factors that needs to be taken care of before the plan can actually materialise. Copyright © 2005 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 31 Complacency In Nuclear Industry Must Be Avoided, Warns UN Official Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 18:00:23 -0500 Nuclear power plants are performing at higher safety levels today than they were two decades ago, but their operators must avoid complacency at a time when more than half the world's plants are more than 20 years old, the United Nations nuclear power agency said. The International Atomic Energy Agency's (<"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2005/plant_safety.html">IAEA) head of Nuclear Safety and Security, Tomihiro Taniguchi, told delegates at the three-day International Conference on Operational Safety Performance in Nuclear Installations in Vienna, Austria, this week that the safety bar is significantly higher than it was when the Chernobyl accident took place in 1986 in Russia. "We can point to a substantially improved nuclear safety situation throughout the world," Mr. Taniguchi said. "Tsunamis, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes have affected many parts of the world and nuclear installations everywhere responded admirably. The design and operational features ensured that the extreme natural conditions would not jeopardize safety." On the other hand, Mr. Taniguchi said: "There is a very real possibility that we will become complacent with our high level of performance," with many operators wanting to extend the lifetime of plants beyond their original design. A major accident at any one nuclear power plant in the world would weigh heavily on the entire industry, Mr. Taniguchi said, calling for strong safety leadership, effective safety management and a sustained safety culture, especially for those nuclear plants facing extended operations. The Agency sets and promotes international safety standards for the management and regulation of activities involving nuclear and radioactive materials. The focus of the Vienna conference, which has over 150 of the world's nuclear regulators and operators, was to foster the exchange of information on operational safety performance and operating experiences in nuclear installations. 2005-12-02 00:00:00.000 ________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/subscribe.shtml ***************************************************************** 32 Santa Fe New Mexican: Board blasts nuclear security office By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican December 2, 2005 The head of a federal safety board has sharply criticized the National Nuclear Security Administration's plans to handle the pending management change at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Leaders of the NNSA's Los Alamos Site Office, who oversee the lab on behalf of the federal government, have planned a three-month "strategic pause" to hire new staffers, reorganize and focus on how to do a better job. That office oversees the lab on environmental, safety and security matters, for example, with about 120 people. The criticism has prompted U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to call on Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to oversee the transition, if needed. The head of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, A.J. Eggenberger, wrote to NNSA Director Linton Brooks on Tuesday: "The board believes that (the Los Alamos Site Office's) retreat from its federal oversight responsibilities is inappropriate and gives rise to safety vulnerabilities." The board is an independent federal agency that enforces safety rules at the country's nuclear facilities. Eggenberger wrote that about two-thirds of the office's work force is devoted to the "reengineering effort," which leaves the remaining third to oversee the lab. "No corresponding reduction in hazardous activities at LANL is planned," he wrote. A spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration said the agency needs to make adjustments, and that's why there will be a three-month pause. "We realize that we have a lot of work to do, with significant responsibilities," NNSA spokesman Bryan Wilkes said. " ...The goal is to ensure the site office has the right number of people in the right jobs, to meet the legal and regulatory requirements for managing the contract." Spokesman Bernie Pleau of the agency's Los Alamos office said: "I think we just have a difference of opinion with the board right now on how to approach the upcoming contract." Eggenberger also wrote that the board is concerned with three things: that a reduction in oversight is happening at the same time a new lab manager is picked; that less oversight could delay efforts to improve safety; and that shifting more oversight to the new manager counters recommendations. Domenici, who chairs the Senate subcommittee that funds the Department of Energy, issued a statement earlier this week: "I fully expect Energy Secretary Bodman's intervention, if necessary, to ensure that the transition is managed effectively and as seamlessly as possible. Both management teams bidding for the LANL contract are laden with qualified and experienced experts who will do all that they can to ensure that the mission and the employees of the lab are not impacted and that the lab is operated safely and efficiently." The NNSA has delayed an announcement of who will take over the lab. Two teams -- one with the University of California and Bechtel National, the other including Lockheed Martin Corp. and the University of Texas -- are competing. The winner could earn up to $79 million a year to operate the lab, which had a $2.2 billion budget this year New management is scheduled to take over June 1. Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, a nuclear-watchdog group, said the safety board is increasing its pressure. "Their purview is safety," Coghlan said. "And they're rigorous about it." ***************************************************************** 33 Chromium documents at Portsmouth and Paducah Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:40:02 -0800 November 28, 2005 Review of Portsmouth and Paducah documents concerning Chromium. If you have ever watched the Erin Brockovich movie, you will realize that there is more than one type of Chromium, one of which is very dangerous. It is very interesting that, in the PORTS documents that have been reviewed, Lockheed is very slick about addressing Chromium ONLY around the process buildings and not addressing Chromium on or off-site in any other locations. At Portsmouth the chromium was release into the Scioto River which flows to the Ohio River Chromium in and around the cooling towers at both PORTS and PGDP should be investigated because the water had high levels of Chromium, which were spread across the area by the Cooling tower plumes. In addition, all wood from the cooling towers should be investigated and traced to the area of final disposal. The wood from the cooling towers may have been buried in the landfills. This wood does contain Chromium. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/PHA/portsmouthgas/pgd_toc.html ***************************************************************** 34 [du-list] PB Pills and Feb 2003 Safty Data Sheet. 13 years too Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:40:16 -0800 All, Have recently posted a PB pills Safety Data Sheet that's 13 years too late!! They do finally admit to the pills are effective ONLY against Nerve Agent Soman -- Go figure. http://www.dsjf.org/PB%20Tabs/PB_PPI.pdf P.S. Read the possible side effects... Best, Paul D. Lyons www.dsjf.org [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 1.2 million kids a year are victims of human trafficking. Stop slavery. http://us.click.yahoo.com/WpTY2A/izNLAA/yQLSAA/FGYolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type unsubscribe and send. ***************************************************************** 35 NRC: [ License No. 11-27727-01; EA-05-123, 05-204] FR Doc E5-6750 [Federal Register: December 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 231)] [Notices] [Page 72316-72318] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02de05-65] In the Matter of Sabia, Inc., San Diego, CA; Confirmatory Order Modifying License (Effective Immediately) In calendar year 2004, Sabia, Inc., (Sabia or Licensee) had been the holder of a general license pursuant to 10 CFR 150.20, ``Recognition of Agreement State Licenses'' which allowed Sabia to conduct licensed activities in NRC's jurisdiction using its State of California license. Sabia is also the holder of NRC License No. 11- 27727-01 issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or Commission) pursuant to 10 CFR part 30. The NRC license authorizes Sabia to [[Page 72317]] possess and use certain licensed material in fixed gauging devices that have been registered either with the NRC or with an Agreement State and have been distributed in accordance with an NRC or Agreement State specific license. The license was most recently amended on June 21, 2005, and is due to expire on June 30, 2012. On March 16, 2005, the NRC concluded an investigation into Sabia's activities that were conducted over the period from January to July of 2004, at the Farmersburg Mine, Pimento Indiana; the R.A.G. Emerald Mine, Waynesburg, Pennsylvania; and the McElroy Mine, Moundsville, West Virginia. The investigation reviewed activities conducted under the provisions of a general license granted to Sabia pursuant to the provisions of 10 CFR 150.20 as they relate to radiation safety and compliance with the Commission's rules and regulations. Based on the results of the investigation, two apparent violations were identified and have been considered for escalated enforcement action in accordance with the NRC Enforcement Policy. The apparent violations considered for escalated enforcement action involved: (1) Sabia's failure to comply with 10 CFR 150.20 when it did not comply with all terms and conditions of its State of California byproduct material license while using licensed material in NRC jurisdiction, and (2) as a result, Sabia effectively transferred licensed material to persons who were not authorized to receive such material under the terms of a specific or general license. In addition, the NRC was concerned that willfulness, in the form of careless disregard, was associated with the first apparent violation. These findings were documented in NRC Inspection Report 150-00004/05-002 (OI Investigation Reports 4-2004-016 and 4- 2004-019) dated July 14, 2005. In response to the July 14, 2005 inspection report, Sabia requested use of the NRC's Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) process to resolve differences it had with the NRC's inspection findings. The NRC uses ADR, a process in which a neutral mediator with no decision-making authority, assists the NRC and the party subject to enforcement action in reaching an agreement to resolve any differences regarding the enforcement action. In this case, an ADR session was conducted between the NRC and Sabia in RIV, Arlington, Texas on August 31, 2005. The ADR session was mediated by a professional mediator arranged through Cornell University's Institute of Conflict Resolution and a settlement agreement was reached. The elements of the settlement agreement are documented in a letter from Mr. Clinton L. Lingren, President, Sabia to the NRC dated August 31, 2005, and consist of the following: 1. Sabia acknowledges that there were violations as described in NRC Inspection Report 150-00004/05-002. Specifically, there was a violation of 10 CFR 150.20 and 10 CFR 30.41(a) and (b)(5). Sabia does not agree that willfulness was involved. The NRC will not draw any conclusion on whether willfulness was involved with these violations. 2. In order to prevent recurrence of these types of violations, Sabia agrees to take the following actions described in section IV. 3. Consistent with the NRC's ADR policies, Sabia agrees to the issuance of a Confirmatory Order confirming this agreement, and understands that the NRC will issue a press release along with the Confirmatory Order. 4. The NRC agrees not to pursue any further enforcement actions related to these specific issues and violations. Nothing in this agreement prevents the NRC from taking enforcement actions for violations of this Confirmatory Order. On November 15, 2005, Sabia consented to issuing this Confirmatory Order with the commitments as described in section IV below. Sabia further agreed in its November 15, 2005, letter that this Confirmatory Order is to be effective upon issuance and that it has waived its right to a hearing on this Confirmatory Order. The NRC has concluded that its concerns can be resolved through effective implementation of Sabia's commitments. Note that Items 1, 3, and 4, above are not included in section IV below. This is because Item 1 reflects Sabia's acknowledgment of the violations and NRC's decision not to draw a conclusion on willfulness. Item 3 relates to agreement of the issuance of the Confirmatory Order and is not needed. And, Item 4 relates to NRC's agreement not to take enforcement action on the apparent violations in exchange for effective implementation of Sabia's additional action. I find that Sabia's commitments as set forth in section IV are acceptable and necessary, and I conclude that with these commitments the public health and safety are reasonably assured. In view of the foregoing, I have determined that the public health and safety require that Sabia's commitments be confirmed by this Order. Based on the above and the Licensee's consent, this Order is immediately effective upon issuance. Accordingly, pursuant to Sections 81, 161b, 161i, 161o, 182 and 186 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and the Commission's regulations in 10 CFR 2.202 and 10 CFR part 30, It Is Hereby Ordered, Effective Immediately, That License No. 11-27727-01 Is Modified As Follows: In order to prevent recurrence of the types of violations identified in NRC Inspection Report 150-00004/05-002, dated July 14, 2005, Sabia shall take the following actions: 1. Training. In addition to the current training program for all employees who work with nuclear sources (to include technicians, technician supervisors, and all radiation safety officer (RSO) staff) SABIA will put in place training that outlines the responsibilities of the RSO and those who regularly provide checks and balances to ensure that RSO duties are carried out in accordance with NRC requirements, by February 28, 2006. This training will outline policy for internal reviews of communications with regulatory agencies and verification that regulations and license conditions are properly followed. The company president will conduct that portion of the training that relates to policy and overall safety considerations. Specific training with regards to the requirements of 10 CFR 30.9 and potential enforcement actions that can occur will be included. Key principles of all this additional training will be incorporated into annual refresher training. A video record of the initial training will be kept available for review by the NRC. 2. Audits. After implementing efforts to respond to concerns expressed in the ADR meeting and before the end of 2006, SABIA will have a comprehensive audit of its radiation safety program performed by an outside auditor. Sabia will submit for NRC review a copy of the scope of the audit at least 30 days prior to its performance. Within a year after the conclusion of that audit, SABIA will perform an internal audit of that program including verification of actions performed in response to any external audit findings. SABIA will notify the NRC when those audits are complete and make the results available for NRC's review. The Regional Administrator, NRC Region IV, may relax or rescind, in writing, any of the above conditions upon a showing by Sabia of good cause. V Any person adversely affected by this Confirmatory Order, other than the Licensee, may request a hearing within 20 days of its issuance. Where good cause is shown, consideration will be [[Page 72318]] given to extending the time to request a hearing. A request for extension of time must be made in writing to the Director, Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, and include a statement of good cause for the extension. Any request for a hearing shall be submitted to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ATTN: Chief, Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, Washington, DC 20555. Copies also shall be sent to the Director, Office of Enforcement, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555, to the Assistant General Counsel for Materials Litigation and Enforcement at the same address, to the Regional Administrator, NRC Region IV, 611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, Texas 76011, and to the Licensee. Because of continuing disruptions in delivery of mail to United States Government offices, it is requested that answers and requests for hearing be transmitted to the Secretary of the Commission either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-1101 or by e-mail to hearingdocket@nrc.gov and also to the Office of the General Counsel either by means of facsimile transmission to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. If a person other than the licensee requests a hearing, that person shall set forth with particularity the manner in which his interest is adversely affected by this Confirmatory Order and propose at least one admissible contention, addressing the criteria set forth in 10 CFR 2.309(d) and (f). If a hearing is requested by a person whose interest is adversely affected, the Commission will issue an Order designating the time and place of any hearing. If a hearing is held, the issue to be considered at such hearing shall be whether this Confirmatory Order should be sustained. In the absence of any request for hearing, or written approval of an extension of time in which to request a hearing, the provisions specified in section IV above shall be final 20 days from the date of this Confirmatory Order without further order or proceedings. If an extension of time for requesting a hearing has been approved, the provisions specified in Section IV shall be final when the extension expires if a hearing request has not been received. An Answer or a Request for Hearing Shall Not Stay the Immediate Effectiveness of this Order. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Dated this 22nd day of November 2005. Michael R. Johnson, Director, Office of Enforcement. [FR Doc. E5-6750 Filed 12-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P b ***************************************************************** 36 Lahontan Valley News: Government needs to pay sick atomic workers now and Fallon Eagle Standard - Opinion December 2, 2005 The civilian veterans of the Cold War and America's nuclear weapons program have been wading through intolerable amounts of red tape to get compensation for the illnesses they acquired on the job. A program started five years ago to provide $150,000 in payments for sick former Nevada test site employees and contractors affects hundreds of people who have been bogged down in red tape and unable to get the federal compensation they deserve. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has rightly asked the Bush administration to speed up the process. In a letter to the president, Reid said 57 percent of test site cancer claims were pending before the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, which has recommended compensation in about 11 percent of the Nevada cases, according to the Associated Press. At other nuclear installations where workers were exposed to radiation, the Institute has recommended compensation in about 25 percent of the cases, clearly a disparity between how Nevada test site workers are treated versus those elsewhere. The illnesses that qualify for compensation are directly tied to this country's atomic bomb testing and include radiation-associated cancers, beryllium diseases and silicosis. Former test site employees can qualify for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000 if they can prove at least 50 percent of their illness was derived from their employment at the Nevada test site between the years of 1950 through 1992. What good is the federal government's offer to pay these former atomic employees now suffering from devastating job-related illnesses if the compensation is years away? These sorts of cancers can be medically proven to be directly attributable to radiation exposure. No question about it. These Americans, just like combat veterans, did their job admirably in the name of national security. Little did they know decades later they would get sick as a result. The illnesses these former atomic employees suffer today as a result of decades of bomb testing are part of a Cold War legacy that America must pay the bill for now. All contents © Copyright 2005 lahontanvalleynews.com Lahontan Valley News and Fallon Eagle Standard - 562 North Maine Street - Fallon, NV 89406 ***************************************************************** 37 DOE Pushing Spent Fuel Reprocessing Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2005 20:39:07 -0500 X-Fingerprint: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com-127.127 Science 2 December 2005: Vol. 310. no. 5753, p. 1406 NUCLEAR POWER: Congress Tells DOE to Take Fresh Look at Recycling Spent Reactor Fuel Eli Kintisch The United States is laying plans that could lead to recycling commercial nuclear waste into fuel for the first time in almost 30 years. But critics worry that such a boost for nuclear power could undermine global efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.The Department of Energy's (DOE's) new budget, signed by President George W. Bush last month, contains $50 million toward a goal of beginning construction on an engineering-scale reprocessing plant by 2010. Supporters say that recycling fuel could not only save time and money but also ease a mounting nuclear waste problem. Opponents dispute each of those points, adding that the technology needed is not yet at hand and that the United States, by recycling waste, would be sending the wrong signal to the rest of the world.Researchers have explored reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods since the dawn of the nuclear age. U.S. government officials pushed recycling commercial fuel in the 1960s when uranium was thought to be scarce and plutonium was considered a good fuel. Separating out the plutonium and uranium from other fissionable material also would reduce quantities of certain types of highly radioactive nuclear waste, thus in theory increasing the storage potential at the yet-to-be-built Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. "The pursuit of [safe] recycling technologies . must be considered not just a worthwhile but a necessary goal," DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman said earlier this month. Reduce, reuse, recycle? Argonne's Laurel Barnes studies a nuclear fuel reprocessing technique that converts oxide fuel to metal.CREDIT: ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY But plutonium is also used in nuclear weapons, and critics say that producing more of it increases the likelihood that some will get into the wrong hands. The United Kingdom, France, and Japan use an aqueous method to recover uranium and plutonium from spent fuel rods. That technique, called PUREX, involves dissolving the rods with acid and chemically separating the two fuels. Japanese scientists have found that the approach is not economically viable, and the French experience has been mixed. Supporters also say reprocessing could forestall construction of an expensive second storage facility if, as projected, Yucca runs out of space within a decade--assuming the facility overcomes legal barriers to open. With the growing interest in nuclear energy as an alternative to greenhouse gas-emitting technologies, scientists have developed advanced reprocessing techniques aimed at solving the waste issue without adding to the proliferation threat. One experimental approach, touted by scientists at DOE's Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, is to use aqueous methods similar to PUREX with extra chemical steps to keep plutonium mixed with uranium and to retain nasty fission products that make the product too radioactive to steal. Another method, called pyroprocessing, employs electrochemistry to create a metal fuel that could include a fission product called cerium-144, which remains highly radioactive for 2 years. The fuel, which would be hot and therefore tough for thieves to handle, could theoretically be fed immediately into an adjacent reactor to provide power, say advocates. Argonne deputy associate lab director Phillip Finck says that radiation monitors and tight security could make both recycling methods proliferation-resistant. But Princeton University physicist Frank von Hippel and others dispute the advantages. Most U.S. spent fuel is about 20 years old, he points out, making the nonproliferation advantages of cerium in pyroprocessing "irrelevant for the spent fuel we have." Monitoring techniques to keep track of plutonium in a complex facility are woefully inadequate, says Edwin Lyman of the Union of Concerned Scientists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Moreover, said Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) during a House debate in May, the current ban on reprocessing nuclear fuel "gives us the high moral ground as we look at the North Koreans and Iranians to tell them not to do it." In 1977, President Jimmy Carter halted federal support for commercial recycling after India used civilian reprocessing to obtain nuclear weapons. Experts say the technology is likely to remain prohibitively expensive. A 1996 National Research Council study found that recycling existing U.S. spent fuel rods could cost up to $100 billion; building the fast reactors to burn recycled fuel obtained by pyroprocessing or by advanced methods would be a major element of that cost. A 2003 study by researchers at Harvard University and the University of Maryland found that reprocessing uranium using current industrial methods would be economical only if the cost of obtaining uranium were to increase by a factor of 10. Geologists have only recently begun to look for new sources, but former Argonne reprocessing specialist Milt Levenson says the price could soon rise if demand increases--although he says there are too many factors at play to make an economic argument for or against reprocessing. Reprocessing could cut storage costs by keeping very-long-lasting isotopes in the fuel cycle, say supporters, allowing DOE to store the fission products with less long-term heat more compactly within Yucca. The Yucca repository is designed to store spent fuel rods in dry casks for 10,000 years. Opponents of reprocessing would prefer that U.S. utilities continue to follow that course--and that Congress expand Yucca only after exploring aboveground storage for fuel rods. Research on advanced recycling should continue, they add, but not at the risk of undermining diplomatic efforts to stop reprocessing abroad. If recycling methods show promise down the road, they say, spent fuel could be retrieved from Yucca and tapped for power. "We don't need to do it now. We don't have the technical knowledge to do it now," says physics Nobelist Burt Richter, a member of an American Physical Society technical committee that in May called for a cautious approach. But growing energy demands require more nuclear plants, say supporters, and the waste problem needs reprocessing. "The federal government does a lot that isn't economical," says Representative Judy Biggert (R-IL), whose district includes Argonne, "often because doing so is in the best interests of the nation for other reasons." By giving DOE its marching orders, Congress has revived the debate over exactly what those interests are. ***************************************************************** 38 Zimbabwe Independent: Mugabe courts foreigners on nuclear project Friday, 2 December 2005 Eric Bloch Column Muckraker Comment Itai Mushekwe IN a desperate effort to kick-start Zimbabwe's nuclear energy aspirations, President Robert Mugabe has invited foreign investors to partner government in tapping into the country's newly-found uranium deposits. Mugabe made the invitation yesterday at the opening of the 12th annual general meeting of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Harare. Once processed, the uranium will be used to beef up the country's electricity generation capacity, which is currently heavily dependent on imports from neighbouring countries. He said the threat of electricity power shortages in sub-Saharan Africa by 2007 makes a compelling case for greater innovation in regional energy generation and distribution. "In Zimbabwe, for instance, geological surveys have confirmed the presence of uranium, itself a critical alternative source of energy, which, if used as productive material for peaceful economic and social purposes, can be a springboard for economic success," said Mugabe. "We therefore invite able foreign investors to come and join hands with us." Zimbabwe has since the inception of the poorly executed land reform programme failed to attract meaningful investment. Government believes uranium will attract new investment into the country. Zimbabwe's newly-found uranium deposits have raised eyebrows across the world. Uranium is a rare mineral with multi-purposes. It can be used to generate nuclear energy and at its deadliest is an essential ingredient used for producing weapons of mass destruction, thus attracting numerous interested parties who aim at increasing their military prowess. Mugabe recently announced that the country had uranium deposits. Last week a private American intelligence organisation, Stratfor, said Zimbabwe did not have the capacity to generate nuclear energy due to lack of capital and technological infrastructure. It also noted that Zimbabwe needed over 2 100 megawatts of power but currently has a deficit of between 400 and 500 megawatts. In southern Africa, neighbouring South Africa has the only nuclear power station at Koeberg, while Namibia has a uranium mine near the port of Walvis Bay. ***************************************************************** 39 reviewjournal.com: Yucca workers face possible layoffs in 2006 Dec. 02, 2005 Federal budget cuts have impact WASHINGTON -- A portion of the Yucca Mountain workforce was told Thursday to brace for new layoffs early next year as the government nuclear waste project reshapes from a major spending cut and a redesign of key segments. Top managers within the Department of Energy and its prime Yucca contractor Bechtel-SAIC Company LLC said in documents they anticipate personnel cuts based on a budget that was reduced 22 percent from last year. "While we remain committed to minimizing impacts to employees, a reduction in force is unavoidable," Bechtel president and general manager Ted Feigenbaum said in a letter distributed to about 1,300 employees. "I recognize that this is a difficult time of year to receive this type of news," Feigenbaum said, adding jobs would be safe at least for the rest of the year. A copy of the letter was provided by Bechtel. Company spokesman Jason Bohne said Feigenbaum wasn't available for further comment. Bohne said Bechtel will prepare a program plan for what can be accomplished within its budget allocation and present that to the Energy Department in January. Decisions about workforce reductions probably will follow, he said. The company laid off about 150 people in April, and there has been some conjecture a new round of cuts could match or top that. Officials declined to speculate on the size or nature of anticipated layoffs at Bechtel, a major employer in the valley whose white-collar workforce consists predominantly of scientists, engineers and technicians, and support staffers. "I don't want to cause any consternation by guessing at a number," Bohne said. "Our focus is how we can meet the work scope and minimize the impact on the employees." The looming cuts ripple from decisions made this fall in Congress and within the Energy Department that scaled back and redirected the repository effort that just four years ago won endorsements from President Bush and on Capitol Hill. In the intervening years, the project was forced into delays by financial and technical setbacks, and from unrelenting political and legal opposition from the state of Nevada and environmental groups. Lawmakers in November voted to spend $450 million on Yucca Mountain in fiscal 2006, a cut of $127 million from the previous year and $201 million less than what the Bush administration requested. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who helped set the level, said the intent was to put the project on a slower path while the government explores nuclear fuel recycling as a possible component of its waste management policy. Near the same time, DOE officials announced plans to postpone repository licensing in order to pursue new designs for nuclear waste containers that also would necessitate redesigning an industrial complex planned at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "It is the budget cuts that are having the most effect," said Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "That was a fairly severe cut (DOE) took from last year and it will have to come out of somebody's hide." Bechtel was allocated $285.4 million in the coming year, according to BSC and DOE documents. Excluding fixed deductions for leases, multiyear contracts and litigation, Feigenbaum said central tasks of repository designing and engineering, quality assurance and license application preparation were allocated $244.9 million. The company spent $260.7 million on those accounts this year, officials said. Bechtel was expecting a small additional sum for work on transportation segments of the project, although DOE officials said programs that support nuclear waste transportation had been cut as well. Yucca Mountain deputy director John Arthur outlined major project allocations in a letter Wednesday to Bechtel. "It is recognized that this funding will result in a reduction of forces," he said. DOE spokesman Allen Benson said government project leaders set funding allocations annually based on the spending approved by Congress and "program needs and priorities." "We have to look at where we are going and we have to look at the program," Benson said. "When you take a $200 million hit you have to take it someplace." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 40 Pahrump Valley Times: Did Bechtel Nevada employees misuse their credit cards? December 2, 2005 AUDITORS: BOOKKEEPING FLAWS LED TO OVERPAYMENTS By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS LAS VEGAS - Energy Department auditors have faulted government credit card management by a company that helps operate the Nevada Test Site. Bookkeeping flaws led the government to overpay $16,515 over a two-year period on credit cards assigned to employees of Bechtel Nevada, the management contractor in the Nevada site office, according to a report issued Monday by the Energy Department inspector general in Washington, D.C. The money was later recovered. ``We determined that internal controls over Bechtel Nevada's purchase card program could be improved,'' assistant inspector general Alfred K. Walter said in a memo accompanying the 13-page report. Several cardholders did not follow procedures requiring purchases to be approved by an appropriate supervisor, auditors said. They said they identified $41,550 in ``self-approved'' purchases, including $9,500 over four months for gift certificates to be handed out as employee awards. Inspectors also questioned whether Bechtel Nevada needed to pay sales taxes on items bought with government-issued credit cards, since the federal government is exempt from those taxes. Officials estimated that $470,000 was paid in Nevada taxes on card purchases during the 2004 fiscal year. The audit was the latest in a series of reviews of how federal and contract workers are using purchase cards, which give authorized cardholders the ability to buy commonly available items such as office supplies and audiovisual equipment within limits without going through a formal procurement process. Responding to the audit, Michael Kane, associate administrator at the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, said the agency has directed Bechtel Nevada to make corrections in its purchase card program. Kane also cited a 1981 Supreme Court ruling that he said validated the ability of states to tax purchases made by Energy Department management contractors. Auditors noted Bechtel Nevada recovered the $16,515 in overpayments after they were brought to management's attention and back statements from credit card issuer Bank of America were reconciled. Bechtel Nevada distributed 134 credit cards last year to managers, scientists and emergency personnel and spent $11 million in charges, said Kathy Vaselopulos, Bechtel Nevada assistant general manager for commercial management and administration. She said the issue of ``self-approved'' purchases also has been addressed. Two other cards were issued to federal managers, Test Site spokesman Darwin Morgan said. As a small Energy Department installation, government credit card use is relatively limited at the Nevada site office, Morgan said. At Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, more than 1,600 cardholders spent about $55 million, according to a 2002 inspection report. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 41 CBC News: Cameco buys nuclear fuel producer for $108M Last Updated Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:14:23 EST CBC News Uranium producer Cameco Corp. said Friday it is buying Zircatec Precision Industries, whose main business is making nuclear fuel bundles, for roughly $108 million in cash. Based in Port Hope, Ont., Zircatec sells its fuel bundles to companies that generate electricity from Candu nuclear reactors. The deal, which is expected to close in early February, is forecast to moderately boost Cameco's earnings and cash flow in 2006, the company said. "This agreement will provide us the opportunity to participate in one more step in the nuclear fuel cycle consistent with our plans to grow in the nuclear energy business," said Jerry Grandey, Cameco's president and CEO. Cameco's Port Hope conversion facility provides all the uranium products that Zircatec uses to produce fuel bundles. Zircatec also produces zirconium tubing, which is used in the fuel bundles, and makes other parts used in the Candu reactors, including titanium alloy tubing. Based in Saskatoon, Cameco (TSX:CCO) is the world's largest producer of uranium. Cameco shares fell 92 cents, ending the week at $66.23 on the TSX. Copyright © CBC 2005 ***************************************************************** 42 Guardian Unlimited: China's EPA Chief Resigns Following Spill From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 2, 2005 11:31 AM AP Photo XGB104 By JOE McDONALD Associated Press Writer DALIANHE, China (AP) - The head of China's environmental protection administration resigned Friday, following a chemical spill that has polluted a major river and embarrassed President Hu Jintao's government. Xie Zhenhua, director of China's State Environmental Protection Administration, was replaced by Zhou Shengxian, former director of the State Forestry Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. It gave no details or reasons for the resignation. A Nov. 13 chemical plant explosion in the city of Jilin spewed cancer-causing benzene into the Songhua River in China's northeast, causing running water to be shut down in towns along the banks. The spill on Friday was lengthening and slowing down as it flowed toward Russia, a key diplomatic partner and source of oil for China's energy-hungry economy. A group of residents of the city of Khabarovsk pleaded during a meeting with a Chinese diplomat for more information, highlighting the strain the pollution has caused between the two sides. Also Friday, the deputy director of China's environmental regulator accused officials in Jilin province, where the city by the same name is located, of ``losing the best opportunity'' to control the damage by failing to report the spill, a state-run newspaper reported. Beijing wasn't told of the disaster until Nov. 17, said Vice Minister Wang Yuqing of the State Environmental Protection Administration, according to the China Daily newspaper. The deputy Communist Party secretary for Jilin province already has taken the unusual step of publicly apologizing for the disaster. Premier Wen Jiabao has promised a full investigation and the government says officials responsible will be punished. But it isn't clear yet whether communist leaders are ready to hold senior party figures or other officials responsible. The unnamed officials criticized by Wang would be relatively low-level civil servants outside the party. Nevertheless, Wang was quoted as complaining that some regional governments ``have given tacit consent to the discharge of pollutants into rivers in the pursuit of economic growth,'' the report said. Wang promised to step up regulation of companies and government units handling dangerous chemicals or radioactive materials, especially those along rivers, the report said. ``Local governments should work out plans to deal with emergencies,'' Wang was quoted as saying. ``And local environmental protection bureaus need to increase their ability and improve their equipment to supervise and handle pollution.'' Li Yizhong, minister of China's State Administration of Work Safety, said measures taken so far to protect the millions living along the river were only a ``partial victory,'' the local party newspaper Harbin Daily reported Friday. Li, visiting the city of Jiamusi, where the pollution is expected to arrive in the next few days, warned that the slick was getting longer as it flowed downstream through the iced-over Songhua, affecting an ever-growing area. There was no obvious drop in the concentration of pollutants, up to 21 times the allowable standard, the newspaper quoted Li and other officials as saying. ``Cities on the Songhua River need to stay at a high level of alert,'' Li said. On Thursday, China's Foreign Ministry announced it was sending to Russia pollution monitoring devices and 150 tons of activated charcoal to help filter drinking water. Beijing also offered to send experts to help install it. The disaster has prompted a massive relief effort at home by China's communist government, which is trying to repair its image after complaints that officials concealed the spill and lied to the public. Officials have sent millions of bottles of drinking water and fleets of water trucks to communities on the Songhua that have cut off running water as the benzene passed. The biggest was the industrial center of Harbin, where 3.8 million people went without water last week. Downstream, Dalianhe shut down running water to 26,000 residents. The cities of Jiamusi, Tangyuan, Huachuan, Fujin and Tongjiang were preparing to stop drawing river water as the slick approached, according to provincial and local officials. The Songhua flows into the Heilong River, which becomes the Amur in Russia. The spill is expected to reach Russia's border around Dec. 11, according to Natalya Zimina, spokeswoman for the Khabarovsk regional government in the border area. She said authorities will shut down the water supply in Khabarovsk, a city of 580,000 people, for about two days if toxin levels are deemed dangerous. ``We're preparing for the worst if we need to switch off the water,'' Zimina said. In Khabarovsk, about 15 demonstrators carried red signs outside the Chinese consulate Friday and chanted ``The Amur isn't a yellow river!'' - a reference to China. During a meeting with Chinese Consul General Fan Xianrong, a representative of the Rodina political party complained of the secrecy surrounding the accident. ``If you say we are good neighbors, you shouldn't hide anything, everything should be clear,'' said Albert Kalinov. Fan responded that Chinese authorities were in daily contact with their Russian counterparts and said the consulate was working tirelessly to translate all information. --- Associated Press writers Burt Herman in Khabarovsk, Russia, and Christopher Bodeen in Harbin contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 43 Salt Lake Tribune: New maps whet mining appetite Updated: 12/01/2005 11:26:14 PM Utah's uranium, limestone in high demand By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune The Utah Geological Survey has just published maps of hot spots for uranium and limestone. There's keen interest in both commodities. The construction industry, gripped in a building-products shortage, needs more limestone to make cement, and western Utah offers an abundance of good-quality reserves. And, with many talking about a renaissance of the nuclear-power industry, those who stake claims are hoping for a third uranium boom on the Colorado Plateau in southeastern Utah. The maps will be most sought after from people in both industries, according to the state's geology office. "The number of public inquiries about uranium has gone up tremendously," said Ken Krahulec, who helped plot the map of uranium and vanadium mines, districts and deposits. Utah has been going through a boom already - at least in terms of interest. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management counted about 508 mining claims of all types in the 2000-01 budget year. In an an 11-month period in 2004-5, as the price for uranium quadrupled, the number of mining claims jumped to 6,823, according to the agency. BLM geologist Frank Bain said the price for a pound of uranium is now $34.25. He said many claims stakers are old-time southeastern Utah miners with ties to the booms in the 1950s and 1970s. They generally are, he said, "people who are hoping make a few bucks by selling their claims to someone else." Lately, that often means Canadian uranium companies. The renewed interest in uranium claims has been accompanied by an increase in conflicts over claim jumping, he added. Some appear headed to court, Bain said. "In the old days, it was solved with a shotgun." Bryce Tripp, the state geologist behind the limestone report, noted that two cement plants already rely on Utah limestone, one in Morgan County and the other near Delta. Meanwhile, a few times a year his office fields questions from international construction companies. One is currently exploring for a new mine. "The West is certainly an attractive area," Tripp said. "Companies can't get enough [construction raw materials] to finish what they are building now." The state School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration has its eyes on both commodities. Agency spokesman Dave Hebertson said uranium inquiries have come in for trust lands in San Juan, Grand and Emery counties. "We have leased some lands that haven't been leased in a long time," he said. In addition, the agency, which raises money for state schools from the 3.4 million acres in its charge, earns about $750,000 a year from limestone companies. The limestone map and report costs $15.95. A CD containing the uranium-vanadium map costs $24.95, while the plot-on-demand map is available for $14.95. fahys@sltrib.com © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 44 Pahrump Valley Times: County deluged with new funding requests Tuesday December 2, 2005 MEETING PREVIEW PRIMARY INTEREST IN YUCCA OVERSIGHT, PUBLIC PROJECTS PHILLIP GOMEZ PVT More than $1.8 million in a plethora of mostly high-tech consultant fees and other funding requests are scheduled for discussion and possible approval at next Tuesday's meeting of the Board of Nye County Commissioners beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Tonopah. The meeting, as always, will be teleconferenced to Pahrump at the Bob Ruud Community Center. Most of the consultant fees are for drilling wells and monitoring the water near the Nevada Test Site, or related to oversight of the Yucca Mountain Repository project. But two big-ticket items are $99,421 for Kitchell CEM to master plan new county offices for the Calvada Eye and on east Basin Avenue, and $250,000 for remodelling the Calvada Eye apartments to house the county assessor, recorder, and treasurer. The $250,000 also covers having an asbestos survey completed, including the necessary abatement in the apartments. Timed items scheduled for the morning include a public hearing at 10:30 a.m. for the purpose of abolishing the federal impacts advisory board. The board advises the commissioners on issues related to the federal government's presence in the county. At 10:30 a.m. discussion will focus on the $404,672 in interest earned on the educational endowment fund prior to FY2004. Of that amount, $50,000 is slated for disbursement in the "scholarship-for-tuition" program, which pays for educational trips for Nye County students. Other items of interest include: € Pahrump Senior Center Inc. is requesting immediate financial support in amount ranging from $141,000 to $263,000. € Discussion and possible decision to purchase five four-wheel-drive, quad-cab pickups for the sheriff's office at a cost of $140,000. € Review of the recently nominated community development block grant projects and public comments received. € Discussion and possible decision on continuing Ann Barron's $7,000-per-month contract for her efforts to bring economic development to Nye County. € Discussion and possible decision on approving the creation of an additional geoscientist position for the independent scientific investigations program. € Discussion and possible decision on approving the new 2006 contract with the county's lobbyist for obtaining funding related to the Yucca Mountain project. € Discussion and possible decision on a funding request for $6,760 for a compressed video educational program for one year. €Discussion and possible decision for approving entering into a professional services contract with Psomas in order to develop Nye County's new GIS program, database and software system. Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 45 Kyiv Post: Russia negotiating to hike price of enriched uranium fuel for Ukrainian power plants by Bigmir Breaking news Dec 02 2005, 20:01 MOSCOW (AP) - Russia is in negotiations to raise the price of the enriched uranium it supplies to Ukrainian power plants, an industry official close to the talks told The Associated Press on Dec. 2, confirming Russian news reports. The talks come as Russia seeks to more than triple the cost of natural gas it supplies to Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics. Observers have suggested the price hikes are a means of dealing with countries, such as Ukraine, where pro-Western leaders have come to power who have worked to distance their countries from Russia. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the continuing talks, said that Russia currently buys raw uranium at market prices in Ukraine, but sells it back after enrichment at a discount - costing the Russian industry some $150 million (128 million euros) per year. "Russia's TVEL (nuclear fuel company) buys raw material in Ukraine at world prices but supplies fuel at favorable prices," a representative of Russia's Federal Agency for Atomic Energy was quoted by the RIA-Novosti agency as saying. "We are ready to consider several schemes for cooperating with our Ukrainian partners so that, from 2007, prices for Ukrainian raw materials and Russian fuel are either balanced or both processes are united into one business plan." © 2004 SputnikMedia.net. Kyiv Post ***************************************************************** 46 Pahrump Valley Times: EMERGENCIES Reid secures $3 million for the county December 2, 2005 SPECIAL TO THE PVT U. S. Senator Harry Reid helped secure $3 million for Nye County to help protect Nevadans from disasters and environmental threats. Half the funding will go toward state-of-the-art communications systems for police, firefighters, and medical personnel so they can respond to emergencies quickly and efficiently. The other half will be used to test the groundwater in Nye County for potentially dangerous contaminants. "This funding will help protect the health and safety of the families in Nye County," said Reid. "After all our recent natural disasters, we've learned how important it is for rescuers to be able to talk to each other, work efficiently, and help people quickly. We need this new communications system so that our police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians can be there when we need them. We also need to make sure there are no hidden health hazards in our water supply. With the population growing as fast as it is, it's even more important to make sure everyone in Nye County has safe, clean water." The Nevada Communications Systems Upgrade will get $1.5 million to upgrade antiquated communications equipment to meet the increased needs of first responders. The enhanced communication coverage will increase the ability of emergency personnel to provide fast, quality service during emergency situations. The Groundwater Evaluation Program will get $1.5 million to test the quality of groundwater in Nye County. The impact on the groundwater from septic tanks, agricultural land use, commercial facilities and radioactive contaminants from the Nevada Test Site is unknown. In addition to testing the current groundwater, more sources of water need be located. Nye County is the largest county in the state of Nevada, covering 18,294 square miles. The legislation passed the Senate recently as part of the Energy and Water Appropriations bill. The legislation has already passed the House of Representatives and now goes to the White House for the President's signature. For comment or questions, please e-mail webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 47 KVBC: Potential for Yucca Mountain Project layoffs December 3, 2005 Employees of the Yucca Mountain Project may be facing layoffs in the new year. The Department of Energy and its biggest contractor on the project, Bechtel Saic, expect some layoffs because of a reduction in government funding. Congress approved $450 million for Yucca Mountain in 2006. That's 127 million less than it received in 2005, and less than what the bush administration asked for. Bechtel laid off 150 people last April gif"> All content © Copyright 2000 - 2005 WorldNow and KVBC. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 48 PittsburghLIVE.com: Kiski Valley authority appeals waste plan - By Wynne Everett VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH Friday, December 2, 2005 The Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority has appealed its own plan to remove uranium contaminated waste from an Allegheny Township lagoon. Earlier this month the authority abandoned its plan to move 12,000 cubic meters of radioactive lagoon ash to a Westmoreland County landfill after public backlash to the plan. Now the authority is formally appealing to a panel of administrative law judges, asking to be released from the plan approved by the state Department of Environmental Resources in October. The permit issued by the department gives the authority one year to remove the ash from the lagoon. "If we don't complete it within a year, they could fine us almost $800,000," authority Director Bob Kossak said. Instead, the authority now hopes to come up with an alternative plan to dispose of the ash, which was contaminated between 1978-1984 by waste from the former Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., and its successor companies Atlantic Richfield and Babcock &Wilcox. The companies processed nuclear materials in plants in Apollo and Parks until the mid-1980s. The Kiski Valley Water Pollution Control Authority accepted wastewater from these plants, which was treated, leaving behind uranium in the sewage plant treatment lagoon ash. The authority had planned to move the ash to a municipal landfill in East Huntingdon, Westmoreland County. The cleanup would have cost about $900,000. Any new plan, which likely will take the ash to a low-level nuclear waste disposal site, will cost significantly more, Kossak said. He said this week he didn't know exactly how much more. Kossak favors a plan to include the lagoon ash in the larger cleanup of the nearby shallow land disposal area in Parks. Next year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to remove the contaminated contents of 10 ground-covered trenches cut into the hillside above what once was the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp.'s plutonium-processing plant in the Kiskimere section of the township. Kossak plans to organize a meeting, hopefully next month, with federal, state and local elected officials to discuss the plan and talk about possible sources of money to pay for it. Wynne Everett can be reached at weverett@tribweb.comor (724) 226-4676. copyright © 2005 by The Tribune-Review Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 49 AFP: Gulf presses NATO for nuclear-free zone - Fri Dec 2, 1:07 PM ET DOHA (AFP) - The head of the Gulf Cooperation Council called on NATO" /> NATOto press for the elimination of nuclear arms in Gulf region so that it does not become a "sandwich" between Israel" /> Israeland Iran" /> Iran. "I call on NATO to exercise direct pressure to eliminate WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) from our region, without exception," said Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah, GCC secretary general. Attiyah, who was speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Qatar on NATO's role in Gulf regional security, said "we do not want our region to be sandwiched by arms here and arms there." While Israel strongly denies that it already has a nuclear arsenal, it is widely believed to have one. Iran, which is pressing ahead with a campaign of civil nuclear development, is suspected by many countries of using that program as a cover for developing atomic weapons. Tehran strongly denies those claims. Attiyah said Iran's nuclear program "has become worrisome for the region and a fundamental concern for all the countries of the world... but we also ask that Israel's arsenal be controlled." Asked if he was reassured by Tehran's insistence that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, he said: "We hope so, because that is exactly what we want ... a secure and non-nuclear zone." But he said that "Israel was the first to introduce these types of arms into the region, which has led other states to seek to imitate it." He expressed concern about a cycle of action and reaction that could lead to a spread of atomic weapons throughout the region. + Mideast - AFP ***************************************************************** 50 [NukeNet] 661+ pounds of plutonium missing from lab Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:40:14 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) http://tinyurl.com/at99s [SF Chronicle] LOS ALAMOS Plutonium could be missing from lab 600-plus pounds unaccounted for, activist group says Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer Wednesday, November 30, 2005 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/30/BAGGQFVT7J1.DTL Enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs hasn't been accounted for at the UC-run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and may be missing, an activist group says in a new report. There is no evidence that the weapons-grade plutonium has been stolen or diverted for illegal purposes, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said. However, the amount of unaccounted-for plutonium -- more than 600 pounds, and possibly several times that -- is so great that it raises "a vast security issue," the group said in a report to be made public today. The institute, which is based in Takoma Park, Md., says it compared data from five publicly available reports and documents issued by the U.S. Energy Department and Los Alamos from 1996 to 2004 and found inconsistencies in them. It says the records aren't clear on what the lab did with the plutonium, a byproduct of nuclear bomb research at Los Alamos. A spokesman for UC, which manages the national laboratories at Los Alamos and Livermore for the Energy Department, did not address the report's specifics but said the New Mexico lab tracks nuclear material "to a minute quantity." The report says there are several possible explanations for what happened to the plutonium. They include: -- It was discarded in unsafe amounts in landfills at the Los Alamos lab. It is legal to discard weapons-grade plutonium in landfills, one of which is 40 feet deep, as long as the substance is sufficiently diluted. However, if a landfill holds too much plutonium, the material can eventually contaminate the environment -- for example by leeching into groundwater or being absorbed by the roots of plants -- study co-author Arjun Makhijani said in an interview. -- It was shipped to an Energy Department burial site in a New Mexico salt mine, without accurate records of such shipments being kept. -- It was stolen or otherwise shipped off site for unknown reasons. "If it has left the site, then it obviously has the most grievous security implications," Makhijani said. "I cannot say that it has left the site, but the government has the responsibility to ensure that it has not. "And the University (of California) obviously has a responsibility in this. It should be a grave embarrassment for the university to be sitting on numbers like this and discrepancies like this, and not have resolved them." UC spokesman Chris Harrington said Los Alamos "does an annual inventory of special nuclear materials which is overseen by (the Energy Department). These inventories have been occurring for 20-plus years. Special nuclear materials are carefully tracked to a minute quantity." The report concludes that at least 661 pounds of plutonium generated at the lab over the last half-century is not accounted for. The atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 contained about 13 pounds of plutonium. "The security implications . . . are extremely serious, since less than 2 percent of the lowest unaccounted-for plutonium is enough to make one nuclear bomb," the report said. The problem of plutonium accounting began worrying lab critics in the mid-1990s, when Energy Department officials released lab records as part of the Clinton administration's openness initiative. Critics found they had trouble determining exactly what the lab was doing with the plutonium waste that is generated during the manufacture of spherical plutonium "pits," the fissile triggers of nuclear bombs. Makhijani said he and colleagues from two other activist groups hoped the problem would be resolved in August 2004, when they sent a letter of complaint to then-Los Alamos Director G. Peter Nanos. Nanos was trying to reform lab operations after highly publicized scandals over UC management of Los Alamos. Nanos and lab officials did not respond, though, and nine months later Nanos left for a different job. Makhijani said he and associates had decided to make their report public to dramatize federal officials' failure to resolve the puzzle of the missing plutonium. Makhijani received his engineering doctorate at UC Berkeley with specialization in plasma physics and nuclear fusion. The institute is funded by sources including the Ford Foundation and San Francisco's Ploughshares Fund. UC has joined Bechtel National and other industrial partners in a bid to retain its contract to run Los Alamos, in a competition against a consortium consisting of Lockheed-Martin, the University of Texas, several New Mexico universities and various industrial partners. Makhijani says he isn't taking sides in the competition but that he would prefer the weapons labs be run by industrial contractors rather than universities. The reason, he said, is that university connections to the weapons labs tend to lead to restraints on free inquiry and speech within the universities. ----- E-mail the author at kdavidson@sfchronicle.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 ***************************************************************** 51 Olympian: U.S. rewards Hanford project managers despite delays, budget overruns Olympia, Washington Friday December 2, 2005 BY SHANNON DININNY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA — The U.S. Department of Energy has paid nearly $400,000 in bonuses in the past three years to employees overseeing construction of a massive plant to treat nuclear waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation — a project mired in cost overruns and delays. The Energy Department slowed construction on the plant, long considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, earlier this year amid seismic concerns and a rapidly ballooning price tag: $5.8 billion and growing. Critics contend many of the problems could have been avoided and that the federal government has mismanaged the project so badly its future is imperiled. Awarding large bonuses on such a troubled project only reinforces that point, said Tom Carpenter, director of the nuclear oversight campaign for the Government Accountability Project, a Hanford watchdog group. The Associated Press discovered the bonuses in Energy Department documents obtained through a public records request. "I'm sure there's very good and fine people out there doing their darnedest, but overall, it doesn't seem to fit, does it? You don't reward failure with money," Carpenter said. The largest amount of bonus money — $51,000 over three years — went to Roy Schepens, who took over as manager of Hanford's Office of River Protection in 2001. He oversees both the construction of the treatment plant and the separate project to empty underground nuclear waste tanks. His annual salary before bonuses is $162,053. Schepens' deputy, Shirley Olinger, received $19,000 in bonuses since assuming her post in 2002. Her salary is $147,100 annually. For employees assigned solely to the waste treatment plant, the Energy Department awarded roughly $154,000 in bonuses, including $25,790 to project manager John Eschenberg. Eschenberg's annual salary is $136,174. The Energy Department routinely awards bonuses from its annual funding appropriated by Congress. Bonus awards are based on performance reviews and individual accomplishments, said Mike Waldron, Energy Department spokesman. "These employees' individual contributions amount to significant achievements," Waldron said, noting recent advancements in upgrading underground tanks and waste retrieval. "The progress we've made, and the accomplishments we've recognized, are well worth the investment." But under Schepens and his subordinates, the waste treatment plant has fallen further behind schedule and its cost has increased so much that the Energy Department won't even release an estimate, despite multiple Freedom of Information requests. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated the cost could reach as high as $10 billion, far above the roughly $4 billion estimate when the contract was awarded in 2000, according to a report leaked to The Seattle Times. Schepens declined to comment through a department spokesman. The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. The site produced the plutonium for the Fat Man bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, effectively ending World War II, and continued to produce plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal through the Cold War. Cleanup costs are expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion. The most dangerous waste is 53 million gallons of toxic and radioactive brew stewing in the 177 underground tanks, some of which have leaked, threatening the groundwater and the Columbia River less than 10 miles away. The waste treatment plant eventually will turn much of that waste into glasslike logs for permanent disposal. But the Energy Department has pushed back the deadline to have the plant operating three times, from 1999 to 2011. Department officials have warned of a fourth delay. In 2002, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board raised concerns that the department had failed to adequately investigate the impact a severe earthquake might have on the plant. The department had gathered seismic data from the entire 586-square-mile Hanford reservation, but it did not conduct a seismic investigation of the plant site itself. In 2004, a new report found that the force of the ground movements at the plant site during a massive earthquake would be 38 percent greater than previously estimated. That report forced a review of the plant's design and, coupled with skyrocketing costs, prompted the department to slow construction on large portions of the plant earlier this fall. The plant is being designed as it's being built — a method that has proven costly. The Energy Department estimated the cost of the plant at $4.3 billion when the construction contract was awarded in 2000. The price tag currently stands at $5.8 billion, but the department recently notified Congress that the cost would rise at least another 25 percent. Recent budget cuts show Congress may be losing confidence in the project, Carpenter said. Congress cut the 2006 budget by $100 million, and other cuts for the project have been proposed. Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire has threatened to sue the federal government if Congress cuts funding even further. "That is a very dangerous sign for the residents here in Washington state and the Pacific Northwest," Carpenter said. "This project is treated as an expensive curiosity in the desert, when in fact it is the most expensive remediation project in the world. Build it or not, the problem of nuclear waste at Hanford will remain." Join the Reader Network Do you want The Olympian to keep you in mind when we canvass the community for opinions? Click here and sign up with our Reader Network to offer your view. TheOlympian.com ***************************************************************** 52 DOE: Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board, Paducah FR Doc E5-6763 [Federal Register: December 2, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 231)] [Notices] [Page 72298-72299] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02de05-35] AGENCY: Department of Energy (DOE). ACTION: Notice of open meeting. SUMMARY: This notice announces a meeting of the Environmental Management Site-Specific Advisory Board (EMSSAB), Paducah. The Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463, 86 Stat. 770) requires that public notice of this meeting be announced in the Federal Register. DATES: Thursday, January 19, 2006, 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m. ADDRESSES: 111 Memorial Drive, Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky 42001. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William E. Murphie, Deputy Designated Federal Officer, Department of Energy Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office, 1017 Majestic Drive, Suite 200, Lexington, Kentucky 40513, (859) 219-4001. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Purpose of the Board: The purpose of the Board is to make recommendations to DOE in the areas of environmental restoration, waste management and related activities. Tentative Agenda 5:30 p.m. Informal Discussion 6 p.m. Call to Order Introductions Review of Agenda Approval of November Minutes 6:15 p.m. Deputy Designated Federal Officer's Comments 6:35 p.m. Federal Coordinator's Comments 6:40 p.m. Ex-officios' Comments 6:50 p.m. Public Comments and Questions 7 p.m. Task Forces/Presentations End State Vision Water Disposition/Water Quality Task Force Long Range Strategy/Stewardship Task Force Community Outreach Task Force 8 p.m. Public Comments and Questions 8:10 p.m. Break 8:20 p.m. Administrative Issues Revisions to Bylaws and Operating Procedures Budget Review Review of Workplan Review Next Agenda 8:30 p.m. Review of Action Items 8:35 p.m. Subcommittee Reports Executive Committee 8:50 p.m. Final Comments 9 p.m. Adjourn Public Participation: The meeting is open to the public. Written statements may be filed with the Board either before or after the meeting. Individuals who wish to make oral statements pertaining to agenda items should contact David Dollins at the address listed below or by telephone at (270) 441-6819. Requests must be received five days prior to the meeting and reasonable provision will be made to include the presentation in the agenda. The Deputy Designated Federal Officer is empowered to conduct the meeting in a fashion that will facilitate the orderly conduct of business. Individuals wishing to make public comment will be provided a maximum of five minutes to present their comments. Minutes: The minutes of this meeting will be available for public review and copying at the U.S. Department of Energy's Freedom of Information Public [[Page 72299]] Reading Room, 1E-190, Forrestal Building, 1000 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20585 between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday-Friday, except Federal holidays. Minutes will also be available at the Department of Energy's Environmental Information Center and Reading Room at 115 Memorial Drive, Barkley Centre, Paducah, Kentucky between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., on Monday through Friday or by writing to David Dollins, Department of Energy, Paducah Site Office, Post Office Box 1410, MS-103, Paducah, Kentucky 42001 or by calling him at (270) 441- 6819. Issued at Washington, DC, on November 23, 2005. Carol Matthews, Acting Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. E5-6763 Filed 12-1-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 53 KTVB.COM: CH2M Hill, Washington Group cutting INL cleanup workforce Boise Idaho News 10:34 AM MST on Thursday, December 1, 2005 Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- The contractor that's cleaning up radioactive waste at the Idaho National Laboratory near Arco plans to pare back its workforce. CH2M-Hill and Washington Group International, which in March won the $2.9 billion contract to oversee the Idaho Cleanup Project, are offering buyouts to employees. The consortium isn't saying how many jobs it'll eliminate. But it's offering workers $25,000 and a week's pay for every year worked if they'll quit voluntarily. When new contractors take over at INL, they often reduce their employee counts. For instance, when previous contractor Bechtel took over the site in 1999, it slashed hundreds of jobs. The cleanup contract runs through 2012. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************