***************************************************************** 12/16/05 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 13.292 ***************************************************************** 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 Guardian Unlimited: EU Threatens Sanctions Over Holocaust Flap 2 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Scoreless draw in Koreas' talks 3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: U.S. envoy rejects anew softening of sanction 4 Guardian Unlimited: Divided Koreas Seek Quick Nuke Agreement 5 Xinhua: Gross human rights violations by US should be addressed: DPR 6 UPI: Reducing North Korea's nuclear threat 7 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea to start nuclear dismantling 'soon' 8 UPI: U.N. deputy secretary-general leaving post 9 Dallas Morning News: Europe increasingly uneasy with U.S. nukes on i 10 Guardian Unlimited: Arms and the man: new defence strategy unveiled NUCLEAR REACTORS 11 US: AP Wire: Regulators approve plan to extend life of SoCal nuclear 12 US: SignOnSanDiego.com: Calif. regulators OK nuclear project for SoC 13 Bellona: Explosion at Sosnovy Bor’s Ekomet-S plant 14 RIA Novosti: Update: Smelter accident near Leningrad NPP leaves one 15 China Daily: Work gets under way on nuclear power plant 16 US: BJM: Point Beach nuclear plant back in operation - 17 US: NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collecti 18 AFP: France hid extent of Chernobyl contamination: report - 19 Prague Daily Monitor: Approval for use of Temelin nuke to be decided 20 Prague Daily Monitor: Temelin to shut down unit for three weeks, rep 21 AFP: Blast near nuclear reactors in northwest Russia 22 US: Kingston Mariner: Sparks fly during power plant hearing 23 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria Asks EU for More Money for Nuke Reactor 24 Guardian Unlimited: The nuclear option isn't political expediency NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 25 [du-list] Hydrick, Critical Mass, German 238U and DU 26 BBC: Radiation alert at Chechen plant 27 US: reviewjournal.com: UNR grant to help ex-test site workers, 'down 28 Independent: 'Catastrophic' radiation levels found in Chechnya 29 Mos News: Prosecutors Investigate High Radiation Levels in Chechnya 30 Guardian Unlimited: Blast at Russian Nuclear Plant Kills One 31 Guardian Unlimited: 'Splash' of Metal at Russian Plant Kills 1 32 US: VG: Let it shine: State still debating radiation variance at Ver 33 AFP: France hid extent of Chernobyl contamination: report - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 34 US: [NukeNet] Calls, Lobbying Needed To Stop Nuke Waste & It's 35 US: Deseret News: On-site nuke storage only logical 36 US: reviewjournal.com: Nuclear waste bills introduced 37 Las Vegas SUN: Reid, Ensign turn tables on Yucca Mountain 38 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Tide turning against Yucca 39 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare building rail spur at expansion si 40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Update: Utah wins victory in efforts to block 41 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Recycle nuclear waste 42 US: NRC: Draft Interim Concentration Averaging Guidance for Waste 43 AFP: Ukraine rules out storing foreign nuclear waste at Chernobyl - 44 Yucca Mountain Newsletter: Another restructuring of the Yucca Mounta 45 US: La Crosse Tribune: Sen. Hatch challenges Utah nuclear waste site 46 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Federal regulators are optimistic about Yuc PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 47 DOE: Office of Science; Notice of Renewal of the Biological and 48 Southern Standard: DOE studies Y-12 plant upgrades, activists propos ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Guardian Unlimited: EU Threatens Sanctions Over Holocaust Flap From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 16, 2005 5:01 PM AP Photo XHS109 By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS Associated Press Writer ATHENS, Greece (AP) - European leaders threatened sanctions against Iran for its president's remarks about Israel and the Holocaust, even as the regime's interior minister said Friday the widely condemned comments were ``misunderstood'' by Western governments. Leaders at a European Union summit in Brussels, Belgium, will adopt a statement Friday condemning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent comments describing the Holocaust as a ``myth'' and calling for Israel to be ``wiped off the map.'' ``These comments are wholly unacceptable and have no place in civilized political debate,'' the draft statement said. EU leaders warned Tehran they will review the diplomatic options for possible sanctions because of Iran's recent ``provocative political moves.'' The statement comes days before EU envoys resume talks with Iran on its nuclear program. Meanwhile, Iran Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi told The Associated Press that Ahmadinejad's comments were ``misunderstood'' by the West. Speaking on the sidelines of an Athens, Greece, immigration conference, Pourmohammadi said: ``Actually the case has been misunderstood. (Ahmadinejad) did not mean to raise this matter.'' Ahmadinejad ``wanted to say that if others harmed the Jewish community and created problems for the Jewish community, they have to pay the price themselves. People like the Palestinian people or other nations should not pay the price (for it). ``A historical incident has occurred. Correct or not correct. We don't want to launch research or carry out historical investigation about it,'' he said without elaborating. Ahmadinejad's comments Wednesday drew quick condemnations from Israel, the United States and Europe, which warned he is hurting Iran's position in talks aimed at resolving suspicions about his regime's nuclear program. Denying the Holocaust - in which 6 million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis - is a crime in several European nations. In remarks carried live by state television and repeated several times, Ahmadinejad said during a tour of southeastern Iran on Wednesday that if Europeans insist the Holocaust occurred, then they are responsible and should pay the price. ``Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets,'' Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Zahedan. ``If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price? ``This is our proposal: If you committed the crime, then give a part of your own land in Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to them so that the Jews can establish their country,'' he said. In October, he provoked an international outcry by calling for Israel to be ``wiped off the map.'' German lawmakers Friday unanimously condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks, urging the Berlin government to keep the pressure on Tehran to change course. Inside Iran, moderates have called on the Islamic cleric-led regime to rein in the president. Ahmadinejad's election in June sealed the long decline of Iran's reform movement, which had largely dropped the harsh anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. rhetoric of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and sought to build international ties. The international community has condemned Ahmadinejad's remarks. The White House said his words ``only underscore why it is so important that the international community continue to work together to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.'' Envoys from Germany, France and Britain are to resume negotiations Dec. 21 with Iran over its nuclear program. The United States and Europe maintain Iran is trying to develop atomic bombs, while Iran maintains its program is for generating electricity. Israel's Foreign Ministry said the comments illustrated ``the mind-set of the ruling clique in Tehran and indicate clearly the extremist policy goals of the regime.'' China, which maintains good relations with both Iran and Israel, said such remarks could undermine world stability. ``We are not in favor of any remarks detrimental to stability and peace,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Thursday. ``Israel is a sovereign state.'' Moscow did not directly criticize Ahmadinejad but condemned any attempts to deny the Holocaust and said it was necessary to restate Russia's ``principled position.'' ``Speculation on these themes runs contrary to the principles of the U.N. Charter and the opinion of the world community,'' the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Arab governments appeared reluctant to condemn Ahmadinejad. In Saudi Arabia, government-controlled newspapers picked up the remarks from international news agencies but did not comment on them. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 2 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Scoreless draw in Koreas' talks December 17, 2005 KST 15:54 (GMT+9) December 17, 2005 ¤Ñ Concluding the latest round of inter-Korean ministerial talks in Jeju, talks that were extended a day to try to resolve disputes over the communique that would summarize their negotiations, the two Koreas could agree on little more than scheduling a separated family reunion in March. The press statement the two delegations finally agreed on yesterday contained nine points but little of any substance. The statement reaffirmed the contents of the September joint statement of the six-nation nuclear talks and promised cooperation in resolving the nuclear issue peacefully. The two Koreas also agreed to recognize each others ideology and governing system, but the statement did not deal directly with Pyongyang's complaints about Seoul's restrictions on travel by its citizens in the North and where they could visit while there. And although the two sides agreed to consider military-to-military talks "at the earliest possible date next year," that language has been seen before and not yet acted upon. North Korea, as it has in the past, insisted on wording that said its government would "propose" meeting dates for such talks to its own military. The statement also reaffirmed the two Koreas' desire for more economic cooperation, more development projects at an inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong, North Korea, and test runs of the newly restored but still unused cross-border rail links. One important issue for Seoul, repatriation of prisoners of war and kidnapped civilians, was conspicuously missing from the joint statement. The two sides scheduled Red Cross talks in February and a video conference reunion of separated families in late February. The digital reunion event will be the fourth of its kind. The next round of face-to-face family reunions will be held at North Korea's Mount Kumgang resort in late March. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young and Kwon Ho-ung, his North Korean counterpart, also agreed to hold the next round of ministerial talks in Pyongyang. The 18th round of the meetings is scheduled from March 28 to 31. by Ser Myo-ja myoja@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: U.S. envoy rejects anew softening of sanctions December 17, 2005 KST 15:54 (GMT+9) December 17, 2005 ¤Ñ Although reaffirming Washington's commitment to the six-party North Korea nuclear talks, Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, said firmly yesterday that the United States would not negotiate with Pyongyang concerning U.S. sanctions on some North Korean companies. Speaking of complaints about North Korean counterfeiting of U.S. currency and the North's human rights situation, he said, "I think that it would be surprising if the U.S. government under this administration or any other administration did not voice its concerns publicly about these kinds of problems." He was addressing the South Korean press corps that covers the Foreign Ministry. The ambassador dismissed criticism from the Korean government that his recent remarks, including a reference to a "criminal regime" in Pyongyang, could scuttle the nuclear talks. "We do have a number of concerns about North Korea's behavior, but these do not in any way reduce our determination to resolve the nuclear issue through the six-party talks," he said. Washington recently slapped sanctions on eight North Korean companies and a Macao bank it accused of illegal activities. Those sanctions, which are at least indirectly sanctions on the government of North Korea, prompted Pyongyang to vow to boycott the nuclear talks until they are lifted. That won't happen, Mr. Vershbow said. "We don't negotiate over the enforcement of our law. But we are prepared to inform the North Koreans as to how our law operates and help them better understand what they need to do to address our concerns." by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr> Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use | ***************************************************************** 4 Guardian Unlimited: Divided Koreas Seek Quick Nuke Agreement From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 16, 2005 11:01 AM AP Photo SEL204 By BO-MI LIM Associated Press Writer JEJU, South Korea (AP) - North Korea on Friday signaled its willingness to quickly implement an agreement to abandon its nuclear programs but refused to directly commit to more six-nation nuclear negotiations during high-level talks with South Korea. At talks in September, the North agreed to abandon its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid, but no progress has been made on carrying out the accord. North Korea has threatened to boycott further negotiations until the United States lifts financial sanctions against it for alleged money laundering and counterfeiting. In the statement Friday, however, the two Koreas said the September agreement ``has be to implemented soon ... for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue in accordance to common security and benefits of the people.'' However, South Korea failed to secure a firm commitment from the North to rejoin the six-nation talks, which also include Japan, Russia and China. In October, Washington sanctioned eight North Korean companies it said acted as fronts for proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The North denies the allegations. U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow labeled the North a ``criminal regime'' in remarks last week, saying it was the first government to take part in counterfeiting since Adolf Hitler's Germany. The North said the remarks were tantamount to a declaration of war and called for Vershbow's expulsion. Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, head of the South Korean delegation to the inter-Korean talks, travels Sunday to Washington where he is expected to relay the North's position and try to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. The two Koreas also agreed Friday to increase economic cooperation and conduct more reunions of Koreans divided by their heavily fortified border. In addition, they pledged to hold military talks next year to prevent conflicts along the border. Washington has strongly urged the South to link its economic cooperation with the North to progress at the nuclear talks. Recently, the United States and South Korea have publicly differed over Seoul's ``sunshine policy'' of engagement with its neighbor. Since the first-ever summit of leaders of the divided Koreas in June 2000, ties between the two longtime rivals have significantly warmed. The talks this week on South Korea's Jeju island were the 17th such high-level meeting. The Korean talks are frequently marked by last-minute haggling. The North's delegation had originally been set to leave Friday morning, but delayed its departure to press its case for allowing South Korean visitors to visit politically sensitive places in North Korea. The South has declined to let its citizens visit certain places due to concerns that they could be seen as glorifying the North's regime and cult of personality around founding ruler Kim Il Sung. The subject was left out of the final statement Friday, and South Korean spokesman Kim Chun-sig said it was a ``complex and sensitive issue.'' The issue of South Korean abductees and prisoners of war still believed to be held in the North wasn't directly mentioned, although the sides said they would hold Red Cross talks before February to ``discuss and resolve humanitarian issues of common interest.'' South Korea estimates 538 soldiers from the war were alive in the North as of December 2004. It also says the North is holding 486 South Korean civilians, mostly fishermen whose boats were seized since the war's end. The North denies holding any war prisoners, saying the civilians defected voluntarily. The next high-level Korean talks were scheduled for late March in Pyongyang. The two Koreas have remained technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 5 Xinhua: Gross human rights violations by US should be addressed: DPRK www.xinhuanet.com www.chinaview.cn 2005-12-16 03:40:11 GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Gross human rights violations committed by the United States and its allies should be addressed before anything else for the sake of genuine promotion and protection of human rights throughout the world, a senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Thursday. "In Iraq alone, the United States has killed 50,000 innocent civilians and continues to use mass destruction weapons such as depleted uranium bombs and white phosphorus bombs," Kye Chun Yong, deputy permanent representative of DPRK to the United Nations in Geneva, told reporters here. The United States has also been practicing torture in the overseas prisons it established in many countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba's Guantanamo on the pretext of war against terrorism, which was criticized by UN human rights chief Louise Arbour on Dec. 7, Kye said, adding that the US has now been operating CIA secret prisons in some parts of Europe. "While deliberately ignoring these gross human rights violations on the part of the US, the EU countries are now provoking DPRK in the area of human rights for simple reason that the DPRK pursues a policy different from their own," Kye said, adding that this is a clear indication of extreme manifestation of politicization, double-standards and selectivity. On Nov. 17, a resolution on the human rights situation in DPRK, sponsored by the United States and EU countries, was adopted in the third committee of the 60th session of the UN General Assembly. "The resolution is full of unsubstantiated information repeatedly fabricated by those hostile to the DPRK and focuses on defaming and overthrowing the state and social system of the DPRK," said Kye. He said the DPRK resolutely rejects the resolution since it is in pursuit of political aim having no relevance with human rights. He also stated that it is ridiculous for the EU countries continue to support the US hostility against DPRK even when they are experiencing disgrace caused by the infringement of sovereignty following the operation of CIA secret prisons in their territories. Enditem Copyright ©2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 UPI: Reducing North Korea's nuclear threat United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 12/16/2005 1:25:00 PM -0500 WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- A nuclear arms reduction program between the United States and Russia could be applied to North Korea's nuclear weapons, according to a new report. The Center for Strategic and International Studies in cooperation with the Carnegie Endowment Friday issued the report on cooperative threat reduction and North Korea. Joel Wit of CSIS said a CTR program "would enhance the chances of a peaceful settlement by adding incentives to North Korea in the context of the six party talks." The Nunn-Lugar program with Russia provided financial and technical assistance in dismantling nuclear programs and redirecting the scientists and resources involved in them. The report recommends a multilateral approach to such a program with North korea so that the Russian experience could be deployed. Leon Sigal of the Social Science Research Council said the dismantlement of North Korean nuclear weapons requires reciprocal steps from the U.S. government. "Unless the United States is playing, North Korea won't play." A CTR program could offer a controlled process for that to take place with assistance tightly linked to cooperative steps from North Korea. The report also addressed how to deal with North Korea's chemical and biological weapons programs. © Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: North Korea to start nuclear dismantling 'soon' Staff and agencies Friday December 16, 2005 North Korea did not return to international talks about its nuclear programmes today, but released a joint statement with South Korea saying the dismantling process would be "implemented soon". The latest round of talks between the two Koreas began on Tuesday in a bid to prevent North Korea boycotting six-nation arms negotiations. Last week, Pyongyang threatened to abandon the negotiations unless the US dropped financial sanctions against it. Although North Korea failed to give a firm commitment that it would return to the talks, in today's statement the Koreas agreed the dismantling process "has to be implemented soon" and that they would "actively cooperate for a peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue". In September, North Korea agreed during talks with the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia to give up nuclear weapons in return for energy, economic aid, more diplomatic recognition and a US promise not to attack. But then, almost immediately after the talks, Pyongyang demanded that it be given a light-water nuclear reactor ahead of dismantling its weapons programme. Light-water reactors can be used to generate electricity but are harder to use than other reactors for the enrichment of material for warheads. Washington and others said the reactor was not a part of the deal. The next round of the nuclear talks between is likely to be held in January, but it is not clear whether Pyongyang will attend. Washington has strongly urged South Korea to link its economic cooperation with the North to progress at the nuclear talks. The unification minister, Chung Dong-young, head of the South Korean delegation to the inter-Korean talks, will travel to Washington on Sunday. He is expected to inform the US of the North's position in a bid to bring both sides back to the negotiating table. The statement issued by North and South Korea today said the two sides also agreed on improving railway links and more reunions for families divided by the border. They said they would hold military talks "soon" next year to prevent conflicts along the border. The issue of South Korean detainees held in the North was not directly referred to in the agreement, but both sides said they would hold Red Cross talks before February to "discuss and resolve humanitarian issues of common interest". 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 ***************************************************************** 8 UPI: U.N. deputy secretary-general leaving post United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 12/16/2005 2:05:00 PM -0500 UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 16 (UPI) -- Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette served notice she intends to leave the world organization early next year. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, Friday said Frechette notified Annan of her intention to leave in April 2006 for a post at the Center for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont. A citizen of Canada, she became the first U.N. deputy secretary-general in March 1998. "The secretary-general warmly congratulates Frechette on her forthcoming appointment," the spokesman said. The announcement said she was staying in the post "in order to complete her role in coordinating the preparation for the secretary-general's proposals for implementing comprehensive U.N. management reform as requested in the Outcome Document agreed by member states at the U.N. World Summit in September." The report is due in the U.N. General Assembly by the end of February 2006. "The Secretary-General is particularly pleased to note that she will be devoting her future time and energy to an issue that he regards as critical unfinished business for the United Nations and the international community," said the spokesman. At the governance center, Frechette will be chairing a two-year research project on nuclear energy, ranging from political, economic and environmental implications of increased nuclear energy use to the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons, the announcement said. In carrying out this initiative, Frechette will be associated with the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University. Prior to joining the United Nations, Frechette was the deputy minister of national defense in Canada from 1995 to 1998. She also served as Canada's ambassador to the United Nations from 1992 to 1995. There were no plans to replace her before Annan's term ends at the end of next year. © Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc. All Rights ***************************************************************** 9 Dallas Morning News: Europe increasingly uneasy with U.S. nukes on its soil Continent still home to about 480 bombs, 15 years after Cold War 12:00 AM CST on Wednesday, December 14, 2005 By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News LONDON  The Cold War may have ended 15 years ago, but some of its most destructive relics  hundreds of American nuclear bombs  are still deployed around Europe despite growing opposition by European lawmakers. Conservative and liberal members of parliaments in Germany, Norway, Britain and Belgium are pressing their governments to explain the presence of nuclear weapons in Europe when, they argue, there is no apparent threat on the horizon to justify a nuclear attack. Their calls for the removal of an estimated 480 American air-launched nuclear gravity bombs adds yet another element of division to the already fractured U.S.-European military alliance. Largely as a result of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Europeans have pressed their governments to adopt tougher positions to keep American military power in check. Apart from the independent nuclear arsenals of France and Britain, the United States maintains nuclear stockpiles around Europe as part of its obligations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has said the weapons will remain in Europe until host governments request otherwise. More and more, European legislators are saying that request is overdue. The continent is at peace with Russia, legislatures have noted in resolutions opposing the continued U.S. nuclear presence. Europe is too far away to be threatened by rogue states on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, such as North Korea or Iran. And even the United States recognizes that nuclear weapons are not a deterrent to terrorists, who pose the most immediate threat. "The Cold War is over. There is no conceivable threat to us from the Soviet Union or the [post-Soviet] Commonwealth of Independent States. The need is gone," said Paul Flynn, a member of Parliament in British Prime Minister Tony Blair's ruling Labor Party. Unpopular in polls In a poll conducted in May by the German magazine Der Spiegel, an average of 77.5 percent of respondents from across the political spectrum favored a withdrawal of all remaining U.S. nuclear bombs based in Germany. According to the poll, 76 percent of respondents from the Christian Democratic Union  the party of Angela Merkel, the new chancellor who was sworn in Nov. 22  supported the weapons' removal. Ms. Merkel has not made any major pronouncements on the subject. The outgoing foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, stated shortly after the Spiegel poll was published: "There is a serious public debate on this issue, which calls for practical steps." Lars Rise, a leading Norwegian member of Parliament from the ruling Christian Democratic Party, stated unequivocally in April, "We want the United States to remove its tactical nuclear weapons from the soil of other NATO countries." In an opinion piece published in the Belgian daily Der Standaard in September, Diek van der Maelen, a senior member of Parliament from the Socialist Party, argued, "We do not want anything to do with" American nuclear weaponry. He suggested the continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons undercuts efforts by France, Britain and Germany to stop Iran from taking steps toward developing nuclear weapons. "Europe must set the example and begin to remove nuclear weapons from the European continent," he wrote. "Only in this way can Europe argue for global nonproliferation with any credibility. Only in this way can Europe convince countries that want nuclear weapons to abandon such ideas." In a statement, NATO noted that the United States has carried out huge reductions in its Europe-based nuclear arsenals since 1991 but sought to justify ongoing deployment at current levels. "The fundamental purpose of the nuclear forces that remain is political: to preserve peace and prevent coercion. They make the risks of aggression against NATO incalculable and unacceptable in a way that conventional forces alone cannot," the NATO statement said, making no mention of who that potential aggressor might be. "Together with an appropriate mix of conventional capabilities, they also create real uncertainty for any potential aggressor who might contemplate seeking political or military advantage through the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction against the alliance." Earlier this year, the Belgian Senate overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution calling for the United States to withdraw all of its nuclear weapons from Europe. Last April, Norway's conservative Christian Democratic Party supported a call for all U.S. nuclear weapons to be withdrawn. The German Parliament considered but deferred a similar resolution earlier this year. France, Greece and Ukraine already have banned foreign nuclear deployments. "It's one of those issues that'll reach a tipping point," said Ivan Oelrich, director of the security project at the Washington-based Federation of American Scientists. "It will seem as though it's not going anywhere ... but then it'll be a very rapid transition" to a full U.S. nuclear withdrawal. He suggested that public pressure might have been greater in Europe if not for a misperception, shared by Americans, that U.S. nuclear forces were withdrawn when the Cold War ended. "One of the big problems is that people simply don't realize that they [nuclear weapons] are there." He cited a University of Maryland poll two years ago that asked Americans how many nuclear weapons they believed the United States needed to guarantee its own security. The average response was 100, Mr. Oelrich said. "Then they asked [respondents] how many they thought the U.S. actually had. They answered 200. This was at a time when we were just shy of 7,000 nuclear weapons" in the U.S. arsenal, he added. The exact quantities of U.S. nuclear weapons in any single location are secret. As of February, the U.S. was believed to keep around 480 nuclear bombs in Europe. Mr. Oelrich said that in theory, the host nations have the right to deny the use of their territory for launching a nuclear strike, but in reality, it is unlikely the United States would seek permission if it faced a threat so imminent as to require a nuclear attack. But it is exactly such a scenario  the unsanctioned use of European land for a U.S. nuclear attack on another country  that is causing legislators to oppose continued deployment. At the same time, an ongoing yet unspoken fear of a Russian nuclear threat has helped to justify keeping the weapons in Europe, Mr. Oelrich explained. "If you invited a military analyst down from Mars and had him look at our ... defense posture, our weapons deployment and our potential targets, there is absolutely nothing that comes close to justifying our force structure except a disarming first strike against Russia," he said. Opponents say there also is a strong economic argument for scrapping the program, said Mr. Flynn, the British legislator. Last month, he and two other Labor Party legislators confronted Mr. Blair over government plans to spend up to $55 billion redeveloping the submarine-launched Trident nuclear missile program jointly with the United States. "It's the likelihood of going in reverse on what had been a very successful effort to get rid of nuclear weapons," Mr. Flynn said. "If we are going to convince other nations to de-nuclearize, then we lose our persuasive argument if we give the example of re-nuclearizing ourselves. It seems to be foolish, dangerous and a waste of money." In Parliament, Mr. Flynn demanded assurances from Mr. Blair that legislators would have a chance to debate and vote on the expenditure before any decision is made. "Sure, there will be a debate," Mr. Blair responded. "And I have no doubt at all that there will be a great deal of discussion on this issue as the months and years unfold." But in a tacit acknowledgment that Parliament's mood is increasingly anti-nuclear, Mr. Blair refused to put the Trident decision to a parliamentary vote. Instead, he said, his Cabinet would probably make the decision unilaterally. E-mail trobberson@dallasnews.com © 2005 The Dallas Morning News Co. ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: Arms and the man: new defence strategy unveiled · Government says industry faces big shift in priorities · Contractors say initiative gives much-needed clarity Richard Norton-Taylor and Mark Milner Friday December 16, 2005 The Guardian The government paved the way yesterday for an unprecedented shake-up of Britain's multibillion-pound defence industry, with the prospect of huge shifts in resources and investment reflecting the future shape and needs of the country's armed forces. Its Defence Industrial Strategy, unveiled by the defence secretary, John Reid, promised to provide arms companies with clear guidance about the priorities of the government and the military. Mr Reid said the aim was to focus on maintaining the skills needed to support and develop Britain's existing and planned defence systems - from new fighters and armoured vehicles to massive aircraft carriers - rather than seeking to maintain industrial capacity once it became superfluous to requirements. However, he warned: "This is a challenging agenda requiring real change to the shape of the industrial base. This will not be without pain." 'Here to stay' The initiative was warmly welcomed by the defence industry. Mike Turner, chief executive of BAE Systems, the UK's biggest defence firm, hailed the strategy as the first of its kind in British history and added that without the move "it would be very difficult to see how BAE Systems ... could have remained in the country". Mr Turner, whose company has been the subject of frequent speculation about a move to the United States, said the impact of the new strategy was very significant. He said: "We can quite simply say we are here to stay." The Society of British Aerospace Companies, which represents Britain's civil aerospace and defence companies, said: "The government's recognition that a healthy defence sector needs to be profitable is particularly welcome." One key question left unanswered yesterday was what technology Britain needs but cannot provide for itself. Ministers yesterday avoided the problem of the US Congress refusing to share new technology with Britain, its closest ally. The US is still refusing to share the technology of the Joint Strike Fighter even though Britain wants to buy it, raising concerns that Britain will not have the ability to maintain and develop the aircraft. National security The government did acknowledge, however, that Britain needed to retain key skills for strategic reasons, even though they may not be needed in practice. Mr Reid said: "We will need to ensure we maintain military freedom of action and safeguard national security." Detailing the thinking behind the new approach, Mr Reid said yesterday: "We are telling industry what we think we will need, what will be strategic to the UK, where we will be spending taxpayers' money and how we will engage with the market. We need the skills to fight the next war, not the last one. "Skills and capabilities needed by this country change over time - we do not need sword or bow and arrow factories to win wars any longer," he said. "The skills we needed in the past were rope-making, sail-making and signal flags. Now we need the high-value, technological and systems engineering skills required to enable us to ensure that our current in-service fleets can be maintained, supported and upgraded and that we have in the UK the ability to build and design the sorts of equipment that we require now, and in the future." Mr Reid said the armed forces were currently undergoing a "substantial transformation", procuring "a series of major new platforms" including aircraft carriers, destroyers, and armoured fighting vehicles as well as the Airbus A400M transport aircraft, and the Typhoon and Joint Combat Aircraft fighter planes. These were expected to be in place for the long term. "The future business for the defence industry in many sectors will therefore be in supporting and upgrading them rapidly and incrementally inserting technology to meet emerging threats, fulfil new requirements and respond to innovative opportunities, not immediately moving to design and manufacture the next generation," Mr Reid said. The defence procurement minister, Lord Drayson, said the shipbuilding industry would be among the areas that needed to change, from one in which 80% of its orders came from the MoD. He said: "In the future, I want to see British shipbuilding winning more export orders for warships because it really is the best in the business." He said 40,000 people worked in the defence industry and when asked how many people would lose their jobs, he said: "Zero." Gaps James Arbuthnot, Tory chairman of the Commons defence committee, welcomed the report. However, he added: "There are significant gaps in the paper. The discussion of research and technology, one of the most important matters of all in underpinning our industrial base, seems to have been left for later decision. We can't leave that up in the air for too long." Liam Fox, the shadow defence secretary, said: "There has been little news from the government on the replacement of the nuclear deterrent - why has this been missing from today's strategy? "Taking the decision about replacing Trident is a step which this government embraces about as much as Dracula embraces a crucifix." Pain-and-gain agenda · Defence industry to be rationalised and reshaped - "not without pain" - to increase overall value for money · Focus on supporting and upgrading existing projects such as joint strike fighter, type-45 destroyers, new aircraft carriers and armoured fighting vehicles - not immediately developing next generation systems · Need to maintain key capabilities in hi-tech areas to ensure national sovereignty · Preference for single corporate entity in submarine building · Some components to be supplied from abroad, including bulk explosives; some work on warship hulls · Long-term partnering between MoD and industry on key projects · Focus on cost through life of equipment, not just initial costs · Intent to maintain open, broadly based defence industry using Useful links British army Royal Navy RAF Ministry of Defence Nato United Nations [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 11 AP Wire: Regulators approve plan to extend life of SoCal nuclear plant Posted on Fri, Dec. 16, 2005 Associated Press SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. - The California Public Utilities Commission approved a massive $680 million renovation that would extend the life of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station by at least 13 years. The commission on Thursday gave Southern California Edison the green light to replace four aging steam generators that power the two nuclear reactors at the seaside plant about 60 miles south of Los Angeles. Under the PUC's decision, Edison's ratepayers would be on the hook for up to $782 million, including possible cost overruns. Customers would pay about 50 cents extra on their monthly bills beginning in 2009. But the commission's decision was met with concern from both Edison and some representatives for electricity customers. Edison officials are concerned that the utility would have to pick up any costs in excess of $782 million. "We need to go through it and analyze it," said Edison President John Fielder. Ratepayers' groups, by contrast, wanted the reimbursement capped at $680 million, which already included a $141 million cushion for contingencies. "This is a dangerous sign of what is to come. Edison's history has been to underforecast and overspend," said Matthew Freedman, an attorney for the Utility Reform Network, a nonprofit consumer organization. Without the upgrades, the plant could have to close as soon as 2009 because the steam generators would no longer meet government standards. The PUC's decision also would allow Edison to apply for a license extension to operate the plant through 2042. Its current license expires in 2022. The plant in northern San Diego County provides 2,150 megawatts of power, enough for 2.2 million Southern California homes. ***************************************************************** 12 SignOnSanDiego.com: Calif. regulators OK nuclear project for SoCalEd North County -- REUTERS 2:54 p.m. December 15, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO  The California Public Utilities Commission Thursday approved a project by utility Southern California Edison to replace steam generators at the San Onofre nuclear power plant in San Diego County. The utility, a subsidiary of Edison International , estimated that the twin-unit, 2,150-megawatt plant would likely have to shut down in 2009 because of degradation of the steam generators, the CPUC said. The commission set a cost cap for the project at $782 million. The San Onofre plant is owned by several companies and cities, led by Southern California Edison at 75 percent, Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric at 20 percent, and the cities of Anaheim at 3 percent and Riverside at 2 percent. The San Diego utility decided not to participate in the project, the CPUC said. The commission will determine the reasonableness of the transfer of all or part of SDG&E's ownership share to Southern California Edison. ***************************************************************** 13 Bellona: Explosion at Sosnovy Bor’s Ekomet-S plant Vera Ponomareva--> UPDATED ST. PETERSBURGThree people were taken to intensive careone of whom died from his injuriesafter 95 percent of their bodies were burned during a smelting kiln explosion the Ekoment-S company on the territory of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in Sosnovy Bor, 70 kilometres west of St. Petersburg. Ecomet-S located at the territory of Leningrad NPP Bellona Rashid Alimov, Charles Digges, Vera Ponomareva, 2005-12-16 08:46 The victims were 22-year-old Maksim Kuzmin, 32-year-old Vitaly Ognyov and 33-year old Vitaly Lambozo. Though reports yesterday from the city of Sosnovy Bor indicated that one of the men had died in hospital, it was not clear from Russian news outlets this morning if anyone had perished in the explosion. It was still not apparent Friday morning which of the workers had died and authorities refused to release his name. Two separate Russian news services, however, indicated that on 32-year old was killed in the explosion. This was the Regnum news Agency. Gazeta.ru reported that a 33-year old died. So the perished worker is a toss up between Ognyov or Lambozo. Yesterday’s explosion represents the second of three accidents the plant has had in three years. In 2002, boiling metal that was being smelted spilled and severely burned two workers. Ecologists have demanded for many years that the Ekomet-S plant, which smelts low level radioactive metals into metal suitable for household products, be shut down. They have also said, and the plant has acknowledged, that it has been working without the necessary state environmental impact studies required by Russian law. The plant was, however operating with the blessing of Russian state nuclear regulatory officials. The regulatory license would have stipulated that Ekomet-S had emergency plans, guidelines as to how high their emissions into the atmosphere and other rules for extreme situations. But documents discovered by Greenpeace and Bellona indicated that no such emergency plans existed. A violation in the technical process guiding the operating of equipment was the apparent cause of the explosion, which occurred at 3:20 on Thursday. According to Sosnovy Bor’s chief ecologist, Nataly Malevannaya, the error occurred while metal was being prepared for smelting: before metal is loaded into the oven, it is cut up so that no air cavities remain, which, during heating, could explode. Because of this error, said Malevannaya, hot metal burst through an observation window on the kiln, burning the workers, whose conditions are still unknown. Yet high officials were in high gear Friday of denying the accident took place at all. During a UN in Geneva conference entitled “Energy for stabile development—Achievements, Tendencies Probelems,” Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs representative Stanislav Pokorvky declared that the accident at Ekomet-S had never occurred. “We don’t need to believe rumours spread by irresponsible non-government organisations.” He said during the plenary session of the forum. According to the Leningrad NPP, the radiation level at Ekomet-S and within the city itself has remained steady at the normal level of 16 microroentgens an hour. However, rumours of radiation danger have already crept into the city. In all likelihood, this is false panic, Malevannaya indicated. Comment from Ekomet-S on the explosion Panic among Sosnovy Bor’s population is also arising as a result of a complete lack of independent information about what happened. “Unfortunately, there are no independent dosimeters on the territory of the plant,” Oleg Bodrov, chairman of the Sosnovy Bor based environmental organisation Green World. It was hoped that by yesterday evening, Green World would be able to take its own measurements. Northwest Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Affairs (MChS), Alexander Chuprin told reporters that the emission of the metal was the result of a error at the industry. But Dmitry Boitsov, a representative of Ekomet-S, contradicted this information Friday, saying: “The MChS just doesn’t understand the situation.” He added that the reasons behind the incident will be revealed by an investigation that is not yet complete. Boitsov suggested, for instance, that the accident occurred due to lack of adequate supervision of personnel. At the moment, all work at Ekomet-S has been halted and the prosecutors’ office is carrying out an investigation on the reasons behind the incident. Other incidents at Ekomet-S “This is not the first incident to occur at the plant,” Malevannaya told Bellona Web. In 2002, boiling metal burst from the oven pavilion, severely burning two workers. In 2003, another incident occurred as a result of defects in measuring equipment. What the Ekomet-S plant does Ekomet-S, which is located on the territory of the Leningrad NPP, has been engaged since 1994 in reworking low level radioactive metal taken from the Leningrad NPP. The metal components consist mostly of metals resulting from reactor repairs and other metals that have had low exposure to radiation. Ekomet-S produces some 5 tonnes of metal per year for sale on the open market. Included in the complex for reprocessing and dismantling metallic radioactive waste (MRW) are the three fundamental sections: the section for receiving MRW, the sections were the metal fragments are deactivated, and the smelting and refining section. In the documents submitted to the Sosnovy Bor administration, it was indicated that Ekomet-S is a complex “for reprocessing of MRW from the Leningrad NPP.” However, the factual designation of the complex turned out to be differentMRW from other parts of the country are already being taken here, and the plant is already earing money on reprocessing this metal and selling it as well. Furthermore, as Ekomet-S representative Pyotr Cheremicin explained at an ecological seminar in Sosnovy Bor on November 18th, no one controls what kind of products will be produced from re-smelted metal in the future. Ekomet-S built without necessary ecological impact documentation The Ekomet-S plant was built in secret from society and without a state ecological impact study, preliminary conclusions of which are required by the Russia law “On ecological impact studies” of 1995. Beyond this, the mere fact that Ekomet-S was built on the territory of the Leningrad NPP should be considered a violation of Russian law. The main contractor for Ekomet-S’s construction was Minatom (the successor organisation to Rosatom) and fuel monopolies that were counting on commercial reprocessing of MRW at other enterprises within Russia’s nuclear fuel cycle in the future. Gazprom-bank, ties to Russia’s oil and natural gas monopoly Gazprom, invested $50m in Ekomet-S’s construction. On February 19th 2002 Deputy Minster of Atomic Energy Valery Lebedev signed the act that brought Ekomet-S into operation, knowing fully that the governmental ecological impact study did not exists. The management of Ekomet-S in a previous telephone interview with Bellona Web acknowledged the necessity of their firm receiving the governmental ecological impact study. “Our documents are all being worked on by our lawyers in order that by the end of 2003 we will obtain all the necessary conclusions,” said then-director of Ekomet-S, Mikail Voronkov, in 2003. However, the documents have still not been received. “Apparently, working under the wing of the regimented and secretive control of the Leningrad NPP, the management of Ekomet-S considers fulfilling the demands of Russia legislation non-obligatory,” said Dmitry Artamonov, Greenpeace’s leader in St. Petersburg. Ecologists long have stood up for the closure of the dangerous and illegal Ekomet-S. In May 2002, representatives of the municipal organisation City of Sosnovy Bor, and two residents of Sosnovy Bor Bodrov and Sergei Kharitonovwhose whistle blowing against safety violations at the Leningrad NPP got him firedrepresenting Green World and Bellona took the case to court with the demand that Ekomet-S be shut down. But on December 20th 2004, the court tossed the case out. A year and a half ago, Greenpeace turn to the prosecutors’ office of Sosnovy Bor with the demand that the illegal activities of Ekomet-S be stopped. However, the deputy of the city prosecutor, while acknowledging that a state ecological impact study had not been carried out, answered that “a foundation for the prosecutors’ reaction is not constituted.” At that time, Ecologists worries about Ekomet-S seemed radical, but with the passage of time, it has become apparent that the closure of the facility is the only adequate measure. Ponomareva reported from St. Petersburg, and Digges and Alimov reported from Oslo. Leningrad NPP: 1. Reactor Blocks 1 and 2; 2. Reactor Blocks 3 and 4; 3. Seawater pump of the LNPP’s Construction Stage 1; 4. Seawater pump of Construction Stage 2; 5. Spill channel of Construction Stage 1; 6. Influent channel of Construction Stage 1; 7. Influent channel of Construction Stage 2; 8. Spill channel of Construction Stage 2; 9. Diesel generators for Reactor Block 2; 10. SNF Depository; 11. Financial services; 12. Educational and Training Centre; 13. Administrative quarters; 14. Condensate purification facility; 15. Diesel generators for Reactor Block 1; 16. Repairs and Construction Shop; 17. Nitrogen and Oxygen Shop; 18. Storage and supply management; 19. Centralised Repairs Shop; 20. Administrative quarters; 21. Diesel generators for Construction Stage 2; 22. Information Centre; 23. Fire Fighting Unit; 24. Printing office; 25. Boiler room; 26. Liquid waste storage (buildg 660); 27. Liquid waste storage (building 460); 28. Ecomet-S. Ekomet-S built without necessary ecological impact documentation The Ekomet-S plant was built in secret from society and without a state ecological impact study, preliminary conclusions of which are required by the Russia law “On ecological impact studies” of 1995. Beyond this, the mere fact that Ekomet-S was built on the territory of the Leningrad NPP should be considered a violation of Russian law. The main contractor for Ekomet-S’s construction was Minatom (the successor organisation to Rosatom) and fuel monopolies that were counting on commercial reprocessing of MRW at other enterprises within Russia’s nuclear fuel cycle in the future. Gazprom-bank, ties to Russia’s oil and natural gas monopoly Gazprom, invested $50m in Ekomet-S’s construction. On February 19th 2002 Deputy Minster of Atomic Energy Valery Lebedev signed the act that brought Ekomet-S into operation, knowing fully that the governmental ecological impact study did not exists. The management of Ekomet-S in a previous telephone interview with Bellona Web acknowledged the necessity of their firm receiving the governmental ecological impact study. “Our documents are all being worked on by our lawyers in order that by the end of 2003 we will obtain all the necessary conclusions,” said then-director of Ekomet-S, Mikail Voronkov, in 2003. However, the documents have still not been received. “Apparently, working under the wing of the regimented and secretive control of the Leningrad NPP, the management of Ekomet-S considers fulfilling the demands of Russia legislation non-obligatory,” said Dmitry Artamonov, Greenpeace’s leader in St. Petersburg. Ecologists long have stood up for the closure of the dangerous and illegal Ekomet-S. In May 2002, representatives of the municipal organisation City of Sosnovy Bor, and two residents of Sosnovy Bor Bodrov and Sergei Kharitonovwhose whistle blowing against safety violations at the Leningrad NPP got him firedrepresenting Green World and Bellona took the case to court with the demand that Ekomet-S be shut down. But on December 20th 2004, the court tossed the case out. A year and a half ago, Greenpeace turn to the prosecutors’ office of Sosnovy Bor with the demand that the illegal activities of Ekomet-S be stopped. However, the deputy of the city prosecutor, while acknowledging that a state ecological impact study had not been carried out, answered that “a foundation for the prosecutors’ reaction is not constituted.” At that time, Ecologists worries about Ekomet-S seemed radical, but with the passage of time, it has become apparent that the closure of the facility is the only adequate measure. Ponomareva reported from St. Petersburg, and Digges and Alimov reported from Oslo. 2002-08-29 Leningrad NPP Rad Metal Smelting Plant: Trial Began 2002-07-22 Leningrad NPP Metal smelting plant was taken at its word 2002-01-28 Leningrad NPP Radioactive metal melting plant planned launch halted 2001-02-27 Leningrad NPP Leningrad NPP builds radioactive metal melting plant without proper environment evaluation 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 ***************************************************************** 14 RIA Novosti: Update: Smelter accident near Leningrad NPP leaves one dead 16/ 12/ 2005 MOSCOW, December 16 (RIA Novosti) - Authorities said Friday that one person had died and two remained in hospital with serious burns after an accident happened Thursday morning at a smelter a kilometer away from the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Rosenergoatom, the body overseeing the operation of nuclear power plants, reported that the incident happened on the premises of Ecomet-S, Russia's first private company working with radiation technologies. Ecomet-S confirmed the accident had happened at a facility at about 3:20 a.m. Moscow time (00:20 a.m. GMT) on December 15. Hot metal spilled out from the smelter and seriously burnt three workers. One later died, and two remain in hospital with burns affecting up to 90% of their bodies. According to an NPP official, the accident did not affect the operation of the power plant and the radiation levels in the area remained normal at about 16 micro-roentgen per hour. The private company has been recycling low-radioactive metals since 1994. According to Bellona.com, the Ecomet-S facility was built without a mandatory environmental impact assessment. Other accidents occurred at the company in 2002 and 2003, the site said. © 2005 "RIA Novosti" ***************************************************************** 15 China Daily: Work gets under way on nuclear power plant By Liang Qiwen Updated: 2005-12-16 06:04 SHENZHEN: Construction got under way yesterday on the country's first 1,000 megawatt-level, domestic-built nuclear power plant in the city in South China's Guangdong Province. The cornerstone-laying ceremony for Ling'ao II was led by Zeng Peiyan, the vice-premier of the State Council, and Zhang Dejiang, secretary of Guangdong Committee of Communist Party of China. According to sources of China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding Co Ltd (CGNPC), the Ling'ao II project will feature two generating units, each with an installed production capacity of 1,000 megawatts. The first unit is scheduled to start operating in December 2010 and the second in August 2011. They will generate a total of 150 billion kilowatt hours every year. Chinese companies have taken a larger role in the power plant's construction than in previous nuclear projects, according to CGNPC. Ling'ao II is based on China-reformed pressurized water reactor technology. CGNPC spent more than 20 years to develop the technology, which is derived from France. Ling'ao II, one of the key projects of the National 10th Five-year Plan (2001-05), is the third commercial nuclear power plant in Guangdong, where China's first - Daya Bay nuclear power plant - began operation in 1991. It will be become the country's seventh in total. Another four are in Qinshan, East China's Zhejiang Province. The new plant will be adjacent to the site of Daya Bay nuclear power plant. Ling'ao I project began commercial operation in 2003, with two 990-megawatt generating units. Guangdong is also speeding up preparations for construction of another nuclear power plant in Yangjiang, a western coastal city. Construction of the nuclear reactor of that plant will officially begin by the end of 2006, according to CGNPC. (China Daily 12/16/2005 page3) www.chinadaily.com.cn ***************************************************************** 16 BJM: Point Beach nuclear plant back in operation - 2005-12-16 The Business Journal of Milwaukee Nuclear Management Co.said Friday that Unit 1 at the Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant near Two Rivers was back in operation after being shut down Tuesday because of a pump failure. Arline Datu, director of communications for Nuclear Management in Hudson, said the unit was operating at 29 percent capacity. The plant was returned to the power grid Thursday morning after a manual shutdown caused by the malfunctioning pump, she said. The pump is used to circulate water from Lake Michigan that is used for cooling, Datu said. Technicians were still investigating the cause of the malfunction, she said. In the meantime, another pump is being used to operate the unit. Datu could not estimate when the plant will be a full capacity. No electrical customers were affected by the shutdown, she said. Nuclear Management is the contract operator of the Point Beach plant for We Energies, Milwaukee. Point Beach is just north of Two Rivers on the Lake Michigan shore. Nuclear Management has contracted to operate the Point Beach plant since 1999. The company also operates nuclear plants in Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa. © 2005 American City Business Journals Inc. Add RSS Headlines The Business Journal email: milwaukee@bizjournals.com ***************************************************************** 17 NRC: Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; FR Doc E5-7451 [Federal Register: December 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 241)] [Notices] [Page 74846] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16de05-100] Comment Request AGENCY: U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). ACTION: Notice of pending NRC action to submit an information collection request to OMB and solicitation of public comment. SUMMARY: The NRC is preparing a submittal to OMB for review of continued approval of information collections under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). Information pertaining to the requirement to be submitted: 1. The title of the information collection: Billing Instructions for NRC Cost Type Contracts. 2. Current OMB approval number: 3150-0109. 3. How often the collection is required: Monthly and on occasion. 4. Who is required or asked to report: NRC Contractors. 5. The number of annual respondents: 55. 6. The number of hours needed annually to complete the requirement or request: The total annual contractor burden for the Billing Instructions and License Fee Recovery Cost Summary for NRC cost type contracts is estimated to be 1,070 hours. Billing burden is 754 hours plus 316 hours for License Fee Recovery Cost burden. 7. Abstract: In administering its contracts, the NRC Division of Contracts provides Billing Instructions for its contractors to follow in preparing invoices. These instructions stipulate the level of detail for supporting data that must be submitted for NRC review. The review of this information ensures that all payments made by the NRC are for valid and reasonable costs in accordance with the contract terms and conditions. Submit, by February 14, 2006, comments that address the following questions: 1. Is the proposed collection of information necessary for the NRC to properly perform its functions? Does the information have practical utility? 2. Is the burden estimate accurate? 1. Is there a way to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected? 2. How can the burden of the information collection be minimized, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology? A copy of the draft supporting statement may be viewed free of charge at the NRC Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F21, Rockville, MD 20852. OMB clearance requests are available at the NRC worldwide Web site (http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/doc-comment/omb/index.html. The document will be available on the NRC homepage site for 60 days after the signature date of this notice. Comments and questions about the information collection requirements may be directed to the NRC Clearance Officer, Brenda Jo. Shelton (T-5 F53), U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, by telephone at 301-415-7233, or by Internet electronic mail to INFOCOLLECTS@NRC.GOV. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 12th day of December 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Brenda Jo. Shelton, NRC Clearance Officer, Office of Information Services. [FR Doc. E5-7451 Filed 12-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 18 AFP: France hid extent of Chernobyl contamination: report - Thu Dec 15,12:31 PM ET PARIS (AFP) - French authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from the May 1986 Chernobyl disaster over France, according to details of an experts' report. Two independent physicists say in the report that the state-run Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays (SCPRI) knew of high levels of contamination in Corsica and southeastern France but kept the details under wraps. The study was commissioned by magistrate Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, who since 2001 has been examining allegations that the atomic cloud from Chernobyl caused a surge in cases of thyroid cancer in parts of France. This week Bertella-Geffroy handed over the report -- originally completed in March -- to civil plaintiffs in the case, who passed details to AFP. "Now we have proof that there was a breakdown in the system. So now the judicial case will succeed -- I can't see how it can do otherwise," said Chantal Hoir, president of the French Association of Victims of Thyroid Cancer. The report states that the SCPRI issued imprecise maps that concealed the high levels of fallout in certain areas, according to sources who saw the document. It also states that with full information health authorities could have taken targeted steps to reduce the exposure of vulnerable people such as children and pregnant mothers. It was the first time an independent study gave substance to long-standing accusations from anti-nuclear groups that the French government deliberately played down the risk posed by the nuclear cloud. "There was a veritable campaign of lies instigated by the state in order to protect the image of the French nuclear industry," said the campaigning organisation Sortir du Nucleaire (Get Out of Nuclear Power), welcoming details of the report. "As in other European countries, people should have been told not to eat fresh vegetables and milk products, which absorb most radioactivity, or to let their children play in sand-pits and so on," it said. Earlier this year anti-nuclear campaigners demanded that SCPRI's director at the time of the disaster, Pierre Pellerin, be placed under judicial investigation in the case. However scientific opinion remains deeply divided, with several renowned physicists sending an open letter to President Jacques Chirac" /> in June commending Pellerin for not giving way to panic in his handling of the crisis. In April, France's high court of appeal confirmed a conviction for libel against leading Green party deputy Noel Mamere, who wrongfully accused Pellerin of claiming that the Chernobyl nuclear cloud stopped at the French border. Doctors also question the supposed link between Chernobyl and the rise in thyroid cancer, a trend which began in the mid-1970s. Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 19 Prague Daily Monitor: Approval for use of Temelin nuke to be decided by Thu midnight - SATURDAY 17 DECEMBER CESKE BUDEJOVICE, South Bohemia, Dec 15 (CTK) - It should be clear by Thursday midnight whether the first reactor of the nuclear power plant at Temelin will be approved for use and get official permission for operation, with the decision to be made by the Jihocesky kraj regional authorities. The reactor has been allowed trial operation and the permission expires at end-year. "The decision will be made by the deadline. We shall announce on Friday whether it is yes or no," head of the press department at the regional office Arnost Mace told CTK today. If approval for use is not granted, the plant would most probably apply for extension of the permission for trial operation, Temelin spokesman Milan Nebesar told CTK today. Nebesar added that CEZ which runs the plant has met all requirements needed for the approval. He declined to speculate about whether or not it will be given. The approval process began in mid-2004 and concerns about a hundred structures on the plant's premises including the reactor building. Environmentalists in the Czech Republic and Austria are opposed to the approval of the plant for use because of its frequent problems. In the latest such case, the power plant will shut down its second unit for three weeks to replace a turbine rotor which has caused vibrations. The repair will begin on Friday night. joz/er ***************************************************************** 20 Prague Daily Monitor: Temelin to shut down unit for three weeks, replace turbine rotor SATURDAY 17 DECEMBER CESKE BUDEJOVICE, South Bohemia, Dec 15 (CTK) - The Temelin nuclear power station will shut down its second unit for three weeks to replace a turbine rotor, spokesman Milan Nebesar told CTK today. The repair will begin on Friday night. Technicians will replace the highure part of the rotor which has caused vibrations. Temelin has had to suspend production several times because of this defect. State-owned power producer CEZ, which runs the power station, has decided to replace the rotor several months after a check in July detected the defect. The unit has been running on lower output since then. Experts said Temelin should reduce output on the second unit by about 15 percent. CEZ has done a similar repair on the other nuclear plant in Dukovany, South Moravia. "The output of the unit will return to the projected level after the replacement, in the second decade of January 2006," said Nebesar. The first unit will continue to supply power to the grid without restrictions. Technicians will also check the equipment of the second unit and do maintenance work. Temelin has been working in full regime since October 11, 2004. It produced 12.7 million megawatt-hours of power in 2004, up by 4.8 percent year-on-year. The power station plans to produce 13.77 million MWh this year. It has supplied 10.6 million MWh to the grid so far. frj/er ***************************************************************** 21 AFP: Blast near nuclear reactors in northwest Russia Fri Dec 16, 6:27 AM ET SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) - One person was killed in an explosion near the Leningrad nuclear power plant in northwest Russia, but the blast posed no danger to the reactors. "An explosion occurred on Friday at a company located far from the reactors and did not affect the power station's operation. No increase in radioactivity was noted," Russian Atomic Energy Agency spokesman Nikolai Shingarev told AFP on Friday. Vladimir Vorobiyev, the regional representative of Russia's emergency situations ministry, said the blast went off in a nearby metal smelting facility, but not actually within the limits of the power station, which is located in the town of Sosnovyi Bor near Saint Petersburg. Vorobiyev said three workers were burned, one of them later dying in hospital. The Leningrad power station dates from 1973 and is equipped with the same type of Soviet-built reactor as that at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine which suffered a meltdown in 1986 in history's worst civilian nuclear disaster. Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 22 Kingston Mariner: Sparks fly during power plant hearing TownOnline.com - By Casey Meserve/ cmeserve@cnc.com Friday, December 16, 2005 As blackouts plunged several South Shore communities into darkness on Tuesday, Dec. 6, the Plymouth Nuclear Matters Committee held a public hearing to allow residents to voice their concerns about the relicensing of Pilgrim nuclear power plant. Nearly half of the speakers and the audience in the Plymouth Public Library's Otto Fehlow meeting room was made up of Entergy employees or representatives of organizations that have received donations from Entergy, calling nuclear power a safe, clean and reliable form of energy, and Entergy a "good corporate neighbor." "This place is stacked with Entergy employees," noted Heidi Mayo of North Plymouth. "I can assure you that the plant is operated in a much safer way than most industries," said Clem Littleton, a risk assessor at Pilgrim. "Safety is a top priority at Pilgrim, I wouldn't work there otherwise," said William Coady, who noted that nuclear energy helps decrease the United States' dependency on foreign oil supplies. But residents voiced concern over inadequate evacuation routes, a possible terrorist threat, and safety of the plant. "The evacuation routes are unsustainable," said Richard Nealey, a Ph.D. chemist. He compared an evacuation of Plymouth and the surrounding areas to the pre- Hurricane Katrina evacuation of New Orleans. "An evacuation attempt here would make Hurricane Katrina look like a picnic," said Mary Lampert, an antinuclear activist from Duxbury. Several residents said the had problems hearing the emergency sirens when they sounded. "I have never once heard a siren," said Karen Sankey, a resident of West Plymouth. "Even when I knew the test siren was coming, I couldn't hear it...If there was an emergency I wouldn't know." Fears were also expressed concerning terrorist attacks on the spent fuel rod pools at Pilgrim. "Security risks have changed since Sept. 11," said Brian Sullivan of Manomet. "Shouldn't the town be compensated for the security changes?" Sullivan has campaigned for upgrades in the security at Pilgrim and all nuclear plants. He said he fears an air attack by terrorists on the concrete pools that house spent nuclear fuel. Entergy is readying its application to extend Pilgrim nuclear power plant's license for another 20 years and plans on submitting the application between Jan. 25 and 31, 2006. The current license to produce electricity through a nuclear reaction expires in 2012, and a new license would extend the plant's life until 2032. Several speakers said they were resigned to the fact that the plant would be relicensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and said that the town should try to get the best deal it can under the circumstances. "It is incumbent on the community to find someone who knows the NRC and can deal with Entergy," said Nealey. "We need to find someone who can get the best deal out of the relicensing." "The license is probably a fait accompli," said planning board member Loring Tripp. "We need to cut the best deal we can... They've beaten the path through donations and lobbying," Tripp said. Tripp blamed the town's explosion of growth over the past 30 years on the low taxes that residents once paid because of the taxes the plant paid. "It's taken (the town) nearly 30 years to catch up with it (the population)," said Tripp. He feared that the 1,500 acres that surrounded the plant would be developed into additional neighborhoods and that the town would have to supply services to those houses. Others voiced concern about possible links between cancer cases and radiation. "How many people here...know someone with thyroid cancer?" asked one woman. About a dozen people raised their hands. Others worried about possible requests by Entergy to increase electricity production as the utility has done at the Vermont Yankee power plant. Jeffery Berger, chairman of the Nuclear Matters Committee said that he considers the concerns of the community to be more important than the more than 650 jobs that Pilgrim provides. "If you look at the issues that need to be addressed, they are individually and collectively more important than the jobs (that Entergy provides)," said Berger. According to Stephen Hoffman, a senior project manager in the Division of License Renewal of the NRC, Entergy hopes to have both Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee's applications reviewed by the same review team. Other utilities have requested a similar option and it has been done in three instances at Dresden and Quad City plants, owned by Exelon Corp.; Surry and North Anna power plants, owned by Dominion; and McGuire and Calatwba power plants, owned by Duke Power. However, Hoffman said in those instances, the plants were of the same design, and had been owned and built by the same utilities that requested the option. Pilgrim and Vermont Yankee were built by General Electric, with Pilgrim under the Boston Edison branch, and each has a different design. The relicensing process will take 30 months with public hearings, or 22 months without. Hoffman said that anyone with a viable issue of contention can file for a hearing. Once the NRC receives Entergy's application, a public information meeting will be held in Plymouth to describe the relicensing process and to allow residents to have input in the process. © Copyright of CNC and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems, ***************************************************************** 23 Sofia Morning News: Bulgaria Asks EU for More Money for Nuke Reactors Closure Bulgaria’s PM Sergey Stanishev (2nd L) meets with officials from EU member countries at the EU summit in Brussels. Photo by www.government.bg Top news: 16 December 2005, Friday. Bulgaria demands that after 2009 it receives additional financial support for the decommissioning of Units 1 - 4 of its only nuclear power plant in Kozloduy. That position was stated by Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev during his meetings in Brussels, including talks with his Spanish colleague Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and with UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The talks are taking place within the EU summit under the EU rotating presidency of the UK. The demand for additional financing is a result of the fact that under a suggestion of the UK presidency such financial aid will be allocated to Lithuania and Slovakia, whose nuclear power plants are also to be decommissioned. Bulgaria is basing its demands on a comparative characteristic of the losses the three countries will suffer and the compensations they would get, Stanishev told the Bulgarian journalists in Brussels. A text with Bulgaria's position on that issue has been circulated to all delegations of the member countries. Bulgaria is also calling that a text for the relations between the EU and Libya, concerning the case with the five Bulgarian nurses sentenced to death in the African country is included in the conclusions of the European council. I wanted to inform Olli Rehn on what we have achieved over the last moths after the EU report was published, Stanishev explained. He has informed Rehn on what Bulgaria has achieved in crime and corruption fight and for its plans for Constitution reforms. I intend from now on to personally inform Olli Rehn on what Bulgaria is doing in its efforts to join the Union, the prime minister underlined. novinite.com Forum Google Tourism Business All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2005 - Copyright &Disclaimer - Privacy Policy ISO 9001:2000 Certified Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily ***************************************************************** 24 Guardian Unlimited: The nuclear option isn't political expediency but scientific necessity Comment To save ourselves from the worst effects of climate change, we are going to need a full range of sources of power David King Friday December 16, 2005 The Guardian I feel both encouraged and dispirited by recent developments in climate change. Encouraged because the Kyoto treaty was finally ratified in February, and over the last few weeks politicians around the world have been meeting in Montreal to discuss their countries' commitments to reduce damaging greenhouse emissions. The conference agreed to implement the Kyoto protocol and, crucially, to initiate processes to set new targets beyond 2012. Dispirited because the latest scientific information tells us that these decisions have not come a moment too soon. Even a year ago climate change was still reported as a controversial issue. Was the world really warming? If so, was it just a natural change, or could it truly be attributed to human activities? There were just enough gaps in the scientific arguments to give climate sceptics room to manoeuvre. But since then every one of the sceptics' arguments has been shot down by new findings. The scientists who warned of impending climate change have been vindicated (though the consequences are likely to be so serious that I imagine all of them would rather have been proved wrong). Ground-based temperatures have risen more than half a degree in the past 30 years, and 19 of the 20 hottest years in the past 150 have occurred since 1980. The latest scientific data confirms what many of us have long suspected: climate change is already happening, and human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, together with deforestation, are the culprit. The British government marked the start of its G8 presidency by putting climate change at the top of the agenda, and invited international experts to a conference hosted by the Met Office in February. The conference reported that the current warming is already having its effects: sea ice is melting, glaciers are receding, the sea level is rising, and the oceans are becoming more acidic. What's more, in the past 30 years the number of strong hurricanes, the equivalent category to Katrina, has doubled. We can certainly expect worse effects in the future, and these will be most severe for the countries that can least afford to deal with them. For instance, Africa is already experiencing increased desertification. The rising sea level will also be a serious threat to countries such as Bangladesh and Mozambique. It is obviously unjust that the poorest countries of the world should have to pay for our industrialisation. Thus it is more urgent than ever to reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide and the other principal greenhouse gases. But if we are to stabilise the carbon dioxide level, what number should we aim for? I would be happiest if we could stabilise the atmosphere at 270 parts per million, the "natural" level before we began burning fossil fuels. However, it's too late for that; we are already at 381ppm and the level is increasing by 2ppm per year. Many scientists have suggested that 400ppm would be a desirable target, giving us a reasonable chance of avoiding the worst that climate change might throw at us, but this target is not achievable. We could perhaps manage it, if every nation were prepared to switch off its coal-fired power stations right now and sit waiting in the dark for new zero-emissions technologies to emerge. But in the real world that is not feasible. Thus I have suggested that we aim for a level of 550 ppm by 2050. This amount of carbon dioxide, roughly double the preindustrial level, will still expose us to many of the dangers of climate change, but it is realistically achievable and provides the best available safeguard for the future. Even this target will take urgent action. It is doable, but we will have to bust a gut to make it happen. Reducing emissions to meet this target will require us to improve energy efficiency and develop a wide portfolio of new emissions-free technologies. There have been some encouraging developments on this front. For example, Ocean Power Delivery, a company based in the Orkneys, was recently commissioned to build the world's first commercial wave farm off the Portuguese coast. BP has also recently announced an investment of $600m in a project involving extracting methane (natural gas) from the Miller oilfield off the Scottish coast. This looks set to be a genuine zero-carbon energy-generation process. Alternative technologies and energy-efficiency gains such as these will certainly help the UK to achieve our target of reducing emissions by 60% by 2050. But we will also need to look at other low-emissions ways of making energy. I believe it is now the time to look again at nuclear energy. While I have high hopes for new zero-emissions technologies in the future, efficient nuclear-fission power stations are already available. (I am also hopeful that fusion power stations, without the problems of nuclear-waste disposal, will emerge over the coming three or four decades.) For the sin of considering a solution not traditionally beloved of greens, I have been accused of abandoning my scientific principles for "political expediency". I find that offensive. Integrity is a scientist's most precious possession, and I have guarded mine carefully through 40 years of research. If any government tried to persuade me to change my scientific views for political purposes I would certainly resign. Happily, my experiences to date suggest that this is never likely to happen. Thus it is my scientific, not political, opinion that nuclear energy should be part of a wide portfolio of approaches. I emphatically do not believe in direct government subsidies for nuclear energy. The decisions about the economics will be made by the private utilities sector, guided by government considerations on the need to meet our emissions targets and to have a secure energy supply. We will also have to learn to adapt to the climate changes that are inevitable. Carbon dioxide will persist in the atmosphere for many decades, and some of its effects are already upon us. Climate change has no consideration for national boundaries, and international cooperation is a vital part of the UK's strategy. The most encouraging recent development involves emissions caps and trading, in which different parties can buy and sell the right to emit carbon dioxide. Three years ago BP installed an internal version of this market among its subsidiaries. It cost $20m to set up and - by encouraging energy efficiency - has saved the company $650m over a three-year period. Emissions trading is also an excellent way to bring other countries on board the climate train. Britain was the first country in the world to employ emissions trading, beginning in 2003, and the EU15 countries followed suit in January this year. The good news is that 1.4bn has already been invested in this market, pushing the price per tonne of carbon dioxide, which began at 8, up to 23. (This will have a positive effect on the relative economies of alternative energies, boosting zero-emissions technologies such as wind power and nuclear energy.) Early next year Canada, Japan and Russia will come into the fold. Climate change is a global problem, and its solution could bring us hidden global benefits. Investment in new energy sources coupled with the implementation of energy-efficiency goals can be a spur to economic growth. Eventually every nation will become involved in emissions trading, and carbon dioxide will be the only item traded on a global basis with a globally determined market price. What could be more perfect for comparing to national currencies? Carbon dioxide will emerge as the new gold standard. · Sir David King is the government's chief scientific adviser dti.enquiries@dti.gsi.gov.uk Useful link Green party of England and Wales Email your comments for publication to politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 25 [du-list] Hydrick, Critical Mass, German 238U and DU Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:35:44 -0800 I wasted 200 pages of paper and lazer ink to get Critical Mass off the internet. Its full of technical errors. I noticed right away that Hydrick implies the MED reactor (Hanford Reservation)was making plutonium by burning 235U and its not until later in the book that he introduces the fact that 238U is the fuel for plutonium breeding. Then I came across the following review, which I am posting to save the rest of you the time and expense of printing, reading and dwelling on Critical Mass or ever contemplating that Germany supplied 238U to the US uranium kinetic energy penetrator development program. By the way, for those special people who stubbornly refuse to admit that NDU metals (NatU based metal) are used in conventional weapons and those who insist thatDU is used only in inert KEP's, reading the history of shaped-charges, which were developed in the MED as the Pu pit implosion charge (see the review below) device, will enlighten you as to the use of U in these warheads as high-energy explosive warheads. Search Free Patents On-line for a whole lot more example of "uranium charges", "DU in shaped charges and EFP's" and "urnaium in penetrators" (as opposed to DU). Critical Mass: Absolute Nonsense!, September 26, 2005 Reviewer: John Coster-mullen (Waukesha, WI) After reading Carter Hydrick's highly inaccurate account of how the plutonium bomb functioned, and after reading the outstanding critique by Robert Norris, I feel compelled to make some comments of my own. Using the oft-quoted premise that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, Mr. Hydrick's extraordinary claims are not backed up by a similar degree of evidence. In fact, I had more than a good laugh or two while I was reading his book. Since the comments made by Norris, as General Grove's biographer, more than effectively refuted Hydrick's claims about the use of the German uranium from U- 234, I will confine my comments to his claims about the bombs. He makes sweeping conclusions about the bomb's mechanisms based on his faulty analysis of numerous historical documents along with citing excepts from the Harlow Russ book Project Alberta. I knew Russ and conducted both telephone and in-person interviews in addition to receiving numerous long and detailed correspondences from him. The linchpin of Hydrick's convoluted theories about the bombs involves his claim that the infra-red detonators that came from the U- 234 German submarine were used in the implosion device. He describes the "detonator chimneys" that Russ mentioned in his book along with the use of "hypodermics" to vent radiation from the plutonium core and that somehow these were used to "allow the free flow of light waves throughout the device." He continues, "...the new system allowed waves-including infrared waves-to race at the speed of light through the "detonator chimneys" and "hypodermics" to the other infrared fuses to "simultaneously" ignite them all" and these all "...were used to compress the plutonium core at the speed of light and thus creating a very powerful explosion." This is absolute nonsense and shows a complete lack of even the most basic knowledge of how these weapons functioned, or for that matter, even a rudimentary knowledge of physics itself! The "detonator chimneys" as Russ described them, were actually nothing other than small lengths of brass tubing that were glued to the outer surface of each explosive lens in the implosion device. Each of the 32 Model 1773 Exploding Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators was then inserted into a chimney since the sole purpose of these were simply to properly align each EBW in the exact center of the outer surface of each lens. The "hypodermics" mentioned by Hydrick had a completely different, and equally benign, purpose. The stainless steel hypodermic tube was carefully inserted through a hole in the outer Dural shell that housed the implosion components and then pushed down far enough in between the lenses and the inner explosive charges so that it touched the so-called "nuclear pit" at the very center of the implosion device. A 0.40 inch diameter manganese wire was then inserted into this hypodermic tube and withdrawn every six hours to check to see if it had acquired any induced radioactivity. If it had acquired any, this meant that the delicate and tiny Polonium-Beryllium initiator ("Urchin") inside the center of the plutonium core had somehow ruptured due to rough handling during the assembly process and was emitting neutrons which would cause the plutonium to pre-detonate resulting in a fizzle, or failure of the implosion process. Hydrick is correct when he details the numerous and continuing problems with the development of the detonator. Following Groves' prudent guidelines about multiple, redundant programs for just about everything connected with the Manhattan Project, the scientists were developing two completely different designs (EBW and spark-gap) at the same time in hopes that one of them would eventually work properly with the desired degree of simultaneity. While Luis Alvarez was the detonator group leader, the actual day-to-day design and development of the EBW and spark-gap detonators fell to Larry Johnston and Robert Alldredge. Johnston, not Alvarez, holds the patent for the EBW. There were also problems and delays in the design and production of the x-units that set off the detonators. Some of these delays were certainly compounded by the fact that Raytheon, like many of the sub-contractors, was not informed of the top secret nature of the unit so as not to draw undue attention and therefore treated it as a normal, non-rush production wartime component. In fact, the x-units designs were being constantly tweaked and changed by Los Alamos both before and after the Trinity test. This even resulted in a final drop test at Tinian of the revised unit on August 8th, the day before the Fat Man implosion device was dropped on Nagasaki. However, as every other historian even remotely familiar with these weapons will tell you, both the x-units and the EBW detonators worked perfectly on both the Trinity and Nagasaki devices and definitely did not involve in any way the use of any infra-red proximity fuses as postulated by Hydrick. Mere light waves, even infra-red ones generating simple and extremely weak electromagnetic radiation moving at the speed of light would not have exerted any pressure whatsoever on the plutonium. It was, in fact, the 5,600 volts of electricity generated by the 64 capacitors in the x-unit that caused the bridgewires in the EBW detonators to vaporize. It was the simultaneous explosion of these 32 EBW detonators that started the massive and powerful imploding detonation wave moving at almost 26,000 feet-per-second through the 5,300 pounds of specially shaped high explosives surrounding the nuclear pit that ultimately compressed the plutonium core and caused the nuclear chain reaction. Hydrick also spends a lot of time discussing the amount of enriched uranium that was used in the Little Boy uranium gun-assembled nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima. The total amount of uranium that was finally used in Little Boy was 64.15 kilograms, which was for all intents and purposes the entire quantity of enriched uranium that had been produced by Oak Ridge in a full year of round-the-clock production starting in July 1944. As Norris pointed out, none of that uranium was used at Hanford in the production of the plutonium used in both Trinity and Nagasaki devices. I could go on with even more elaborate explanations, but it simply isn't worth the effort. In the end, it is my considered opinion this book is a colossal waste of the reader's time and I would not recommend it. I'd give it a rating of zero stars, but Amazon will not allow lower than one star. This unfortunate book falls into the same fiction category as Peter Vogel's preposterous claims that the tragic 1944 Port Chicago explosion was actually a coldhearted, murderous test by Los Alamos scientists of a uranium hydride nuclear weapon and the similarly far-fetched claims by Robert Wilcox and others, that the Japanese constructed and possibly exploded their own domestically- produced nuclear weapon in the closing days of WWII. If the author had actually been able to talk to Harlow Russ before he died, Russ would have immediately set him straight about his far- fetched ideas and this book would never have been written. John Coster-Mullen is the author of Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man, which is also available on Amazon. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/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. ***************************************************************** 26 BBC: Radiation alert at Chechen plant Last Updated: Friday, 16 December 2005 [Russian paratroopers in Grozny in 1999] Russian forces launched heavy assaults on Grozny in 1999 Prosecutors in Chechnya have opened a criminal investigation after finding "catastrophic" levels of radioactivity at a chemical factory in the republic. Investigators say the radiation - in one place reportedly 58,000 times the usual level - poses a danger to people in the region's capital, Grozny. The case has also raised fears militants could take radioactive waste to use in a so-called "dirty bomb". The plant has reportedly not been secured since Russia bombed it in 1999. For years, rebels in Chechnya have been fighting a separatist struggle against Russian forces. They have been blamed for bomb attacks in Moscow and on Russian airliners, and the deadly sieges at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, and in a Moscow theatre. 'No safety steps' Chechen prosecutors say radioactive materials have been improperly stored at the Grozny Chemical Factory, run by the Chechen Oil and Chemical Industry, and that a "catastrophic radioactivity situation" has developed. Fears over nuclear relics "It's a threat to the population because the leadership of the plant is taking no steps whatsoever to remove the radioactive material or isolate access to the plant," prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov said on Friday, according to the Associated Press. The Russian prosecutor general's office said between 27 and 29 radioactive elements had been identified at the plant, with the cobalt-60 isotope considered particularly dangerous. Radioactive materials have a variety of uses in the manufacturing industry. If not disposed of properly, they can pose a serious threat to people nearby. The radioactive cloud released by the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine in 1986 may be responsible for 4,000 deaths, according to a recent study. The radioactivity at one storage centre in the Grozny plant is half that recorded at Chernobyl, Rossiya state television said. Vladimir Slivyak of the Ecodefense environmental group in Moscow urged the Russian government to remove and secure radioactive materials from the plant as a matter of urgency, warning of the dangers of them falling into the hands of "terrorists". The risk of nuclear material to unsuspecting people was illustrated in 2002, when three woodsmen, coming across cylinders giving off heat in the forest of Georgia, dragged them back to their camp. They grew seriously ill and received radiation burns from the containers, which were eventually recovered by a specialist UN team. ***************************************************************** 27 reviewjournal.com: UNR grant to help ex-test site workers, 'down-winders' Dec. 15, 2005 Program to offer screenings, referral services People who worked in nuclear weapons testing and development programs in the 1950s and 1960s will get help for medical screening in the form of a federal grant to the University of Nevada School of Medicine. The three-year, $580,000 grant will also help screen people who lived "down wind" from such testing. The grant, provided by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, will allow the school to screen former Nevada Test Site workers and nearby residents for cancer and other illnesses associated with radiation. Named the Nevada Radiation Exposure Screening and Education Program, it will provide referral services for treatment and assist those eligible in accessing federal compensation for their illness through the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA. Similar programs already exist in six sites in other states. "This is long overdue," said Dr. Thomas Hunt, chairman of the family and community medicine department at the school and principle researcher for the grant. "We're going to be outreaching to people who worked on the Nevada Test Site, but our main emphasis is going to be on Nevada citizens who were just kind of bystanders." Former test site workers have been gaining public attention lately in their fight to access benefits under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. It requires recipients to obtain a 50 percent rating that workplace exposure caused an illness. They're working with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to ease the application process to receive payment of $150,000 for their work-related illnesses. The federal government "owes a lot of people," said former test site carpenter John Funk. The screening program is a good idea, he said, provided it covers Las Vegas and Pahrump residents who never worked at the site but were exposed to radiation. Hunt emphasized that his program is working in tandem with RECA, where compensation runs upward of $75,000. Under RECA, if a patient was working at the test site during specific periods and has one of 20 cancers, he or she is eligible for compensation. To be eligible for screening, people must have direct ties to above-ground testing as a test site employee or as part of a uranium mining operation. They can also qualify if they were residents of Nye, Lincoln, Lander, Eureka and White Pine counties or northeastern parts of Clark County. Those eligible can call (702) 992-6887 or e-mail . "If you lived in these areas between January '51 and October '58, or in the month of July 1962, if you have cancer, we're here to help you get compensation from the government," Hunt said. "It's as simple as that." More than 140,000 Nevadans were exposed to radiation at the test site and in surrounding areas, Hunt said. The grant will cover screening for about 1,250 patients over three years. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 28 Independent: 'Catastrophic' radiation levels found in Chechnya By Andrew Osborn in Moscow Published: 17 December 2005 "Catastrophic" levels of radioactivity have been detected at a chemicals factory in Chechnya, prompting Russian investigators to open a criminal case. Though nobody is reported to have died from exposure so far, scientists are warning that human lives may be in danger. Levels of radiation at the plant, in Grozny, the Chechen capital, are reported to be half of those recorded at the stricken Chernobyl nuclear power plant in 1986 and 58,000 times the legal norm. Prosecutors say the authorities have done nothing to remedy the "catastrophic" situation. "It's a threat to the population because the leadership of the plant is taking no steps whatsoever to remove the radioactive material or isolate access to the plant," said a Chechen lawyer, Valery Kuznetsov. The revelations have stoked fears that radioactive material is being carelessly handled in a republic that has been torn by a brutal armed struggle for independence since 1994. The prospect of Chechen militants getting hold of a "dirty bomb" is a nightmare scenario for Moscow. Russian media reported that the factory, which belongs to the Chechen Oil and Chemical Industry Complex, contains up to 29 uncontrolled radioactive elements, including the isotope cobalt-60. © 2005 Independent News and Media Limited ***************************************************************** 29 Mos News: Prosecutors Investigate High Radiation Levels in Chechnya - NEWS - MOSNEWS.COM Photo from www.narod.ru Created: 16.12.2005 18:36 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:36 MSK MosNews Chechen prosecutors are investigating reports of high radiation levels at a factory in the republic. They said the radiation posed a danger to people living near it in the Chechen capital of Grozny, AP reported. According to Russian television reports, the radioactive levels at the factory were 58,000 times higher than normal levels, half those recorded at the Chernobyl plant catastrophe in 1986. The case has raised fears militants could use radioactive waste to build a crude nuclear bomb. Chechen prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov was quoted by the agency as saying the failure to remove the radioactive material or isolate access to the plant had made it “a threat to the population”. He called this a “catastrophic radioactivity situation.” “It is a threat to the population because the management of the plant is taking no steps whatsoever to remove the radioactive material or isolate access to the plant,” he added. Copyright © 2004 MOSNEWS.COM ***************************************************************** 30 Guardian Unlimited: Blast at Russian Nuclear Plant Kills One From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 16, 2005 12:46 PM AP Photo MOSB101 By IRINA TITOVA Associated Press Writer ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) - An explosion at a Russian nuclear power plant complex killed one worker and badly hurt two others, but Russia's nuclear agency said Friday no reactors were affected. The Rosenergoatom agency said radiation levels remained normal as the reactor in that part of the Leningrad nuclear plant was undergoing repairs and was not in operation. But Thursday's blast threw a spotlight on what environmentalists called uncontrolled operations at Russian nuclear sites. The blast happened in a smelter at the plant in the closed nuclear town of Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles west of the northern city of St. Petersburg. The smelter is operated by Ekomet-S, a company reprocessing scrap metal. ``The enterprise ... functions illegally because there was no mandatory (state) environmental impact assessment on its construction,'' Dmitry Artamonov, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Greenpeace, told The Associated Press. He said Greenpeace had complained against Ekomet-S to the Sosnovy Bor prosecutors' office but it took no action. The nuclear plant has four units, or reactors, in all. Rosenergoatom said that the smelter was on the grounds of the plant's second unit, and plant spokesman Sergei Averyanov said it was about half a mile from the reactor. Oleg Bodrov, a physicist who heads the Green World ecological group in Sosnovy Bor, said that the reactor was only some 700 yards from the smelter, which is about 50 yards from a liquid radioactive waste pond. A 33-year-old worker died of his injuries Friday morning, and two others were injured, Yuri Lameko, chief doctor of the Sosnovy Bor hospital, told the AP. ``There were no violations of safety levels and operating conditions of the energy units of the Leningrad nuclear plant,'' Rosenergoatom said in a statement. The second unit had been shut down for planned major repairs in July, it said. The plant spokesman, Averyanov, said that the blast had caused molten metal to spurt out of the smelter. Usually Ekomet-S reprocesses scrap with low levels of radioactivity, but on Thursday the metal was clear of radiation, Averyanov said. He blamed the blast on violations of technical and production rules. Bodrov said Ekomet-S began operating two years ago and was in violation of the law since it had undergone no state environmental impact assessment. When the firm was founded, the only environmental monitoring laboratory in the town of 65,000 was shut down for lack of funding, he said. ``There is no independent environmental monitoring in the nuclear city of Sosnovy Bor,'' Bodrov said. He said this was the second accident to occur at Ekomet-S. The first happened in summer 2003, injuring some workers. In March 1992, an accident at the Sosnovy Bor plant caused radioactive gases and iodine to be leaked into the air, according to nuclear watchdog groups. One of the reactors at the 30-year-old plant is of the same type as the one at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant that exploded in Soviet Ukraine in 1986 in the world's worst nuclear accident. The station is the main supplier of electricity to St. Petersburg, and there are plans to transport some of its power to Finland. Sosnovy Bor, a center of nuclear technology, was founded 25 years ago and has 60,000 people. In addition to the nuclear plant, the town is home to a regional radioactive waste reservoir, and an experimental laboratory and training center for nuclear submarines. Almost everyone in Sosnovy Bor, which means Pine Forest, is connected with nuclear technology, and most are not native to the region. In an unrelated development, Chechen prosecutors said they have opened a criminal investigation into the improper storage of radioactive waste by a state-owned company, Prosecutors said a ``catastrophic radioactivity situation'' had developed at the Grozny Chemical Factory in the breakaway province in southern Russia. Grozny is Chechnya's capital. Radiation levels at one storage center at the plant are 58,000 times higher than normal, the Russian Prosecutor General's office said Friday. ``It's a threat to the population because the leadership of the plant is taking no steps whatsoever to remove the radioactive material or isolate access to the plant,'' Chechen Prosecutor Valery Kuznetsov said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 31 Guardian Unlimited: 'Splash' of Metal at Russian Plant Kills 1 From the Associated Press [UP] Friday December 16, 2005 7:31 PM AP Photo MOSB114 By IRINA TITOVA Associated Press Writer ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) - Molten metal splashed from a smelter at a Russian nuclear power plant, killing one worker and severely burning two others, but authorities said Friday that no reactors were affected and no radiation escaped. While relatively minor, the accident Thursday occurred on the same day prosecutors announced a ``catastrophic radioactivity situation'' involving improperly stored materials at a chemical factory in the southern Russian region of Chechnya. The incidents were the latest to draw questions about how Russia stores, handles and disposes of nuclear materials and waste in the wake of the 1986 explosion of a reactor at Chernobyl that spewed out radioactivity for days in the world's worst civilian atomic accident. ``The level of nuclear safety, although it has been significantly increased after the Chernobyl disaster, is still not sufficient,'' said Vladimir Slivyak at Ecodefense, a Russian environmental group. ``They used to think that there is no need for extra safety measures and they still think that now.'' The smelter accident happened at the Leningrad electricity generating station in the closed nuclear town of Sosnovy Bor, 50 miles west of St. Petersburg. Russia's nuclear agency, Rosenergoatom, initially reported an explosion. It later changed course and described the incident as a ``splash.'' It said radiation levels remained normal. The Norwegian environmental group Bellona, a longtime critic of Russia's nuclear programs, and officials in nearby Finland also said they had not detected any spread of radiation. A 33-year-old worker died of injuries Friday, and two others were injured, Yuri Lameko, chief doctor of the Sosnovy Bor hospital, told The Associated Press. The Emergency Situations Ministry said two of those involved suffered burns over 90 percent of their bodies. Rosenergoatom said the smelter - run by a scrap metal reprocessing company called Ekomet-S - is on the grounds of the plant's second unit, where a reactor was shut down for repairs in July. The plant has four reactors in all, including one of the same type that blew up in Chernobyl during the Soviet era. Plant spokesman Sergei Averyanov said the smelter is a half-mile from the reactor. Oleg Bodrov, a physicist who heads the Green World ecological group in Sosnovy Bor, said the facility is also about 150 feet from a covered liquid radioactive waste pond. Averyanov blamed the accident on violations of technical and production rules. Bodrov accused Ekomet-S, which also reprocesses metal from nuclear submarines and disassembled oil and gas pipelines, of violating environmental laws. He also complained a lack of funding had caused the shutdown of the only environmental monitoring laboratory in the town of 65,000. ``There is no independent environmental monitoring in the nuclear city of Sosnovy Bor,'' Bodrov said, adding that he visited the Ekomet-S facility Friday afternoon and found radiation levels were normal. He said Ekomet-S workers told him more than two tons of molten metal were in the smelter and several hundred pounds splashed out for unknown reasons. He said a previous accident involving Ekomet-S injured two workers in summer 2003. In March 1992, an accident at the power plant let radioactive gases and iodine leak into the air, according to nuclear watchdog groups. Experts and environmentalists say Russia's nuclear industries and companies that handle radioactive materials have improved procedures in the years since the Soviet collapse. Washington has provided an estimated $7 billion the past 14 years to help Russia and other former Soviet republics destroy and safeguard atomic weapons. Still, Russia's nuclear industries, which often escape detailed federal monitoring, are prone to industrial accidents. Russian prosecutors opened a criminal investigation Thursday into the improper storage of radioactive materials by a state-owned company in the Chechen capital, Grozny. Tests found radiation at the Grozny Chemical Factory, which stands not far from residential buildings and a bus station, exceeded normal levels by tens of thousands of times, prosecutors said. They called it a ``catastrophic radioactivity situation.'' Nikolai Petrov of the Carnegie Moscow Center said that situation smacked of ``the usual disorder and negligence'' by Russian officials in dealing with potentially harmful materials. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005 ***************************************************************** 32 VG: Let it shine: State still debating radiation variance at Vermont Yankee Vermont Guardian By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian posted December 16, 2005 State health officials have yet to resolve a potentially serious discrepancy with Vermont Yankee (VY) over radiation measurements recorded at the Vernon reactor more than a year ago, and it could be months before the issue is settled. Health Department measurements taken during the final quarter of 2004 showed the plant may have exceeded state limits by as much as 24 percent. Plant owners claim the state measurements took into account background radiation, not solely what the reactor emits. Entergy says it released about 12 millirem of direct gamma radiation in 2004, rather than the 24.9 millirem detected on one of the states four monitors on the fence near the reactor. The outcome of the current negotiations between the state and Entergy could affect whether the company is allowed to implement a proposed 20 percent uprate and build a dry cask storage facility on the site to store radioactive waste, both of which are expected to increase radioactive emissions. Vermonts annual dose limit is 20 millirem, which is stricter than the federal limit of 25 millirem. A rem is a unit of ionizing radiation equal to the amount that produces the same damage to humans as one roentgen of high-voltage X-rays. A millirem is one-thousandth of a rem. We are in what we hope to be the final stages of contracting with an independent expert who would be coming to Vermont to assist us in evaluating the main steam line monitoring system that Vermont Yankee uses for calculating fence-line dose, said Larry Crist, the states director of health protection. Once we have that information, we can make some decisions on the regulatory side as to whether thats a more accurate system. Although he expects the work to be done sooner, Crist said the pending contract is for 12 months. That could mean the states radiation measurement system would remain up in the air well past implementation of the proposed uprate, which is awaiting approval from state and federal regulatory bodies and could be implemented between February and May 2006. The uprate will increase radiation emissions because steam, which contains a radioactive isotope, will be moving faster through the steam lines to the turbine. The isotope has a decay period of a only few seconds, but because its moving faster, more of it will be at full radiation emission level when it gets to dosimeters at the fence line, said Ray Shadis, a technical expert with the New England Coalition (NEC), which opposes the uprate. Because it moves faster, it doesnt lose as much radiation. Therefore, the direct gamma radiation the shine from the plant will be greater at the fence line. State regulations assume that one unit of absorbed radiation equals one unit of radiation dose, but Entergy got Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval to use a conversion factor that assumes that one unit of absorbed radiation equals 71 percent of a unit of radiation dose. The NRC approved use of the so-called alternate source term after a radiation release at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania indicated the agencys radiation calculations had been overly conservative. In an April 8 letter to the Public Service Board, Sarah Hofmann, the director of public advocacy in the Department of Public Service, wrote, In its testimony before the board, Entergy indicated that the dose at the fence line, after the uprate implementation, would comply with Health Department standards. It now appears that Entergy arrived at that conclusion by utilizing a Roentgen-to-rem conversion factor of 0.71 for the greater part of the dose, resulting in a fence-line dose of 18.6 millirem above background When the Health Department conversion factor is applied, the resultant estimated fence line dose for power uprate exceeds the state limit of 20 millirem per year. Shadis said the state should make its determination based on the measurements it made in 2004. Any new protocols for measuring are irrelevant, he said. If the finding is that VY was outside the loop at that time, then that is what the state has to act on, not on some new way of looking at it. VY spokesman Rob Williams said the discrepancy was a result of confusion over background radiation. The state dosimeters measure background radiation as well as radiation from the plant, said Williams in an e-mail to the Vermont Guardian. The state uses dosimeters outside the plant and subtracts the total from the fence-line readings, he said. The problem with that method is that a swing in background levels, no matter what the cause atmospheric pressure, snow cover, frozen ground, precipitation at the distant location may not see an equal background change at the fence-line location, Williams continued. Vermont Yankees calculation method is more representative of plant-related levels, he said, because it measures radiation at the main steam line, which is the primary source of plant-related fence-line radiation. The NRC approved this method of calculation as being scientifically appropriate, Williams added. But Shadis said VY is playing a numbers game. When we entered the uprate case before the Public Service Board, VY was saying the fence-line dose is something like 18 millirem a year, and we said because of the [increase in steam line speed] youll be over the states limit. So they immediately went searching for what options they had to deal with this. They decided that instead of one to one, as it always has been, they were entitled to use the new NRC formula, which was .71 to one, so they take a 29 percent discount on their radiation. Crist said Health Department officials read the state monitors monthly and issue quarterly and annual reports. Those statistics are not posted on the Department of Health website, and Crist said he was unable to provide the Guardian with copies of the reports before deadline for this story. He said he was not aware of any excessive radiation readings since 2004. In a meeting last week with the NRC, a nuclear safety expert on the Advisory Committee of Reactor Safeguards, which advises the commissioners on reactor safety, said an extended power uprate at Vermont Yankee will increase the risk of cancer by 20 percent in the event of an accident. NEC experts contend the increased risk is as high as 40 percent when the increased steam pressure is taken into account. Dry cask insecurity Meanwhile, a federal requirement that the area surrounding a radioactive waste storage facility must be monitored for 100 meters, (328 feet) in all directions means Entergy will have to extend a control zone into the Connecticut River, where radiation could exceed federal limits, a waste storage expert has testified before the Public Service Board. A site on the Connecticut River immediately raises concerns about security and NRC regulations, said Martin Resnikoff, a senior associate with the New York City-based Radioactive Waste Management Associates, during testimony in November. Vermont Yankee is applying for a certificate of public good from the board to install six casks initially on a site some 200 feet from the Connecticut River to store some of the radioactive spent fuel now housed in a vulnerable and overcrowded pool. The pad for the site is big enough to hold 36 casks. Based on radiation measurements at the Maine Yankee reactor, which is now shut down, Resnikoff said the dose from an expanded dry cask storage facility at VY could exceed 25 millirem as far out as the Connecticut River. He also noted that some missiles have a range of up to 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) and can penetrate 1.2 meters of metal and 4.5 meters of concrete. The casks that Vermont Yankee intends to use have less than one meter of concrete, he said. He urged the board to require Vermont Yankee to build an earthen berm around the two least-secure sides of the facility, the north and the east, where it would be most vulnerable. This would block any would-be attackers line of sight to the canisters and, at the same time, make a hard defensive perimeter around a large portion of the site, he testified. A berm could also serve double duty as levee protection to deflect floodwaters, Resnikoff added, and it would act as a radiation shield. In testimony filed with the board on Dec. 12, Entergy again rejected calls for a berm, citing a memorandum of understanding approved by the Legislature earlier this year that calls for a fence on the north and east sides of the dry-cask pad. In its agreement with the company, the Legislature also disregarded calls from southern Vermonters to require Entergy to install radiation monitors hard-wired onto the casks. This fence will provide a line-of-sight barrier to persons attempting to observe cask location, testified dry cask project manager John Hoffman. He repeated that Entergy is committed to compliance with Vermont radiation standards of 20 millirem. We have no concern that the location of the casks in relationship to the northern and eastern sides, will contribute radiation, even with the pad fully loaded, that would adversely effect Entergy VYs ability to meet these standards. Hoffman said the company uses a buoy system in the river during the summer months, and the dry cask facility would be more than 100 yards from the line of buoys and therefore in compliance with federal site control regulations. The area is physically monitored year round by Entergy and any transit traffic is warned to depart, according to Hoffman. David Deen, a state representative and river steward with the Connecticut River Watershed Council, acknowledged that VYs security zone already extends into the river. Although it amazes me the number of times Ive been over on the New Hampshire shore and seen small bass boats right at their discharge and fishing there, he said. A line of buoys strung together with cables would probably deter motorized craft, Deen said, but would be unlikely to block a canoe or kayak. And, Deen noted, I would imagine that if they put buoys out there that block people from the fishing areas along that shore, theyre going to hear from fishermen. Its a matter of people having access to their river; its a public trust. Vermont Guardian PO Box 335 Winooski, VT 05404 | | Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) ©2005 Vermont Guardian | Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com This document can be located online: www.vermontguardian.com/local/122005/VYRadiationVariance.shtml ***************************************************************** 33 AFP: France hid extent of Chernobyl contamination: report - Thu Dec 15,12:31 PM ET PARIS (AFP) - French authorities deliberately suppressed information about the spread of radioactive fallout from the May 1986 Chernobyl disaster over France, according to details of an experts' report. Two independent physicists say in the report that the state-run Central Service for Protection against Radioactive Rays (SCPRI) knew of high levels of contamination in Corsica and southeastern France but kept the details under wraps. The study was commissioned by magistrate Marie-Odile Bertella-Geffroy, who since 2001 has been examining allegations that the atomic cloud from Chernobyl caused a surge in cases of thyroid cancer in parts of France. This week Bertella-Geffroy handed over the report -- originally completed in March -- to civil plaintiffs in the case, who passed details to AFP. "Now we have proof that there was a breakdown in the system. So now the judicial case will succeed -- I can't see how it can do otherwise," said Chantal Hoir, president of the French Association of Victims of Thyroid Cancer. The report states that the SCPRI issued imprecise maps that concealed the high levels of fallout in certain areas, according to sources who saw the document. It also states that with full information health authorities could have taken targeted steps to reduce the exposure of vulnerable people such as children and pregnant mothers. It was the first time an independent study gave substance to long-standing accusations from anti-nuclear groups that the French government deliberately played down the risk posed by the nuclear cloud. "There was a veritable campaign of lies instigated by the state in order to protect the image of the French nuclear industry," said the campaigning organisation Sortir du Nucleaire (Get Out of Nuclear Power), welcoming details of the report. "As in other European countries, people should have been told not to eat fresh vegetables and milk products, which absorb most radioactivity, or to let their children play in sand-pits and so on," it said. Earlier this year anti-nuclear campaigners demanded that SCPRI's director at the time of the disaster, Pierre Pellerin, be placed under judicial investigation in the case. However scientific opinion remains deeply divided, with several renowned physicists sending an open letter to President Jacques Chirac" /> in June commending Pellerin for not giving way to panic in his handling of the crisis. In April, France's high court of appeal confirmed a conviction for libel against leading Green party deputy Noel Mamere, who wrongfully accused Pellerin of claiming that the Chernobyl nuclear cloud stopped at the French border. Doctors also question the supposed link between Chernobyl and the rise in thyroid cancer, a trend which began in the mid-1970s. Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 34 [NukeNet] Calls, Lobbying Needed To Stop Nuke Waste & It's Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 15:36:02 -0800 NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net) Dear All, Please read this through, act & forward it to as many other lists & interested parties as possible. Call & write weather you're a constituent of Senator Hatch or not. -Bill Smirnow > To contact Sen. Hatch's Washington DC office, call 202.224.5251, fax a short letter to 202.224.2849, >or fill out Sen. Hatch's internet web form at http://hatch.senate.gov/email_form.htm. Urge Sen. Hatch to >oppose the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Nevada, so that Nevada's >U.S. Senators will help block the Private Fuel Storage high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Utah. Dear friends, Please tell Senator Orrin Hatch that if Utah and Nevada do not hang to gether on Nuclear waste, they will hang seperately! The following letter gives background and instructions on dealing with an unnecessary conflict between Utah and Nevada over high-level nuclear waste. We feel that this conflict is being egged on by Senator Hatch, and could be resolved if the Senator would join the rest of Utah's leading political leaders and those from the State of Nevada to oppose the faulty and unjust nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada- near the center of Western Shoshone territory. We also feel that this action is critical to stopping the related high-level nuclear waste dump proposed for the land of the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians in Utah This is an rgent action. It would also be appreciated, when you contact the Senator's office, if you drop us a line by replying to this alert. Thank you for your dedication to environmental justice on Native lands! Sincerely, Shundahai Network -------------------------------------------------- ------ Urge U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch to protect Utah by protecting Nevada Only by working together can Nevada and Utah stop both the Yucca and PFS dumps that threaten both states To contact Sen. Hatch's Washington DC office, call 202.224.5251, fax a short letter to 202.224.6331, or fill out Sen. Hatch's internet web form at http://hatch.senate.gov/email_form.htm. Urge Sen. Hatch to oppose the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Nevada, so that Nevada's U.S. Senators will help block the Private Fuel Storage high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Utah. Dear Friends and Colleagues in Utah, The proposed Yucca Mountain, NV and Private Fuel Storage (PFS), UT radioactive waste dumps are joined at the hip. They are a package deal. Even if just Yucca opens but PFS doesn't, Utah would still get hurt by Yucca-bound "Mobile Chernobyl" waste shipments. As the old saying goes, Utah and Nevada can either hang together, or hang separately. The time has come to hang together. Utah's U.S. Representative Rob Bishop has come very close to delivering a bad blow to the PFS dump. With the support of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Rep. Bishop has proposed legislation that would create a Cedar Mountains Wilderness Area near Skull Valley, Utah and block the railway needed by PFS to deliver high-level radioactive waste to its proposed parking lot on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation. The proposed wilderness bill is attached to the Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Authorization Bill, which is currently in the final stages of conference committee negotiation. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, however, is opposing Rep. Bishop's wilderness bill. Sen. Ensign hopes to pressure Sen. Hatch to abandon his long-time support of the Yucca dump targeted at Nevada. Both Sen. Ensign and Sen. Hatch should look to the healing actions of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah. Just last week, Sen. Reid sent letters to key decision makers urging support for Rep. Bishop's wilderness proposal to block the PFS railway. And just three months ago, Sen. Bennett abandoned his long-time support for the Yucca Mountain dump, publicly admitting the dangerous mistake it represents. The governors of Nevada and Utah have long worked together to oppose both dumps simultaneously, a healthy, smart, and effective path that Sen. Hatch should follow. The nuclear industry has long tried to divide and conquer Utah and Nevada, pitting the two states against each other, in hopes of opening both Yucca and PFS. Utah and Nevada could most effectively stop both dumps by standing together. Very significantly, Sen. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the strongest supporter of the Yucca dump in the U.S. Senate, recently said that the Yucca dump's science and economics are flawed. The U.S. Department of Energy has admitted it is performing a major overhaul of its Yucca plan, a change guaranteed to cause very significant delays and cost increases. Sen. Hatch should review his position on Yucca based upon these recent developments. Sen. Hatch's opposition to Yucca would very likely end Sen. Ensign's opposition to the creation of the Cedar Mountains wilderness. Sen. Hatch has other good reasons to oppose Yucca. If Yucca opens, 90% of the waste shipments bound for Nevada would pass through Utah. Thus, even if PFS never opens, Utah could still face the dangers of many thousands of "Mobile Chernobyl" truck and train shipments, vulnerable to severe accidents or terrorist attacks releasing catastrophic amounts of radioactivity. Also, even if Yucca opens, its capability to accept commercial irradiated nuclear fuel is limited by law to 63,000 metric tons. By 2010, that much will already exist in the U.S. PFS, which received its construction and operating license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last September, could very well still serve as the overflow storage for Yucca Mountain. In fact, the nuclear power establishment plans on generating enough irradiated fuel to fill both Yucca and PFS, and still have more stuck back at reactor sites. Thus, Yucca must be stopped, or else PFS is all the more likely to happen. Phone calls into Sen. Hatch's office are crucial right now, as key decisions could be made at any time. Urge Sen. Hatch to join with Utah Governor Huntsman and Utah's junior U.S. Sen. Bennett in opposition to the Yucca dump. This olive branch extended to Nevada's Sen. Ensign could help secure the creation of the Cedar Mountains wilderness to block PFS's radioactive railway. To contact Sen. Hatch's Washington DC office, call 202.224.5251, fax a short letter to 202.224.2849, or fill out Sen. Hatch's internet web form at http://hatch.senate.gov/email_form.htm. Urge Sen. Hatch to oppose the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Nevada, so that Nevada's U.S. Senators will help block the Private Fuel Storage high-level radioactive waste dump targeted at Utah. If you have any questions, feel free to call me at 202.328.0002 ext. 14. Thanks! ---Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, Washington, D.C., 202.328.0002 ext. 14, kevin@nirs.org, www.nirs.org -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Shundahai Network www.shundahai.org P.O. Box 1115 Salt Lake City, UT 84110 Phone- 801.533.0128 Fax- 801.533.0129 shundahai@shundahai.org Online Fundraising Store- www.cafepress.com/shundahainet If you are a Myspace user, you can now add us! www.Myspace.com/shundahai Shundahai is a Newe (Western Shoshone) word meaning "Peace and Harmony with all Creation" _______________________________________________________________________ Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/ Change your settings or access the archives at: http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net ***************************************************************** 35 Deseret News: On-site nuke storage only logical [deseretnews.com] Friday, December 16, 2005 Deseret Morning News editorial Kudos go to Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations who have filed legislation calling for the storage of nuclear waste at nuclear power plants. The bills should send a strong message to the nuclear power industry that neither Yucca Mountain nor Tooele County's Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation should be considered solutions to the nation's nuclear waste problem. Moreover, federal legislation would trump differing state laws, some of which prohibit nuclear waste storage in their respective states. Storing the waste where it is generated makes the most sense. As Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, told the Deseret Morning News, nuclear power plants are "going to have waste anyway." What is the point of fouling two other sites, far from where the waste was generated? What's the sense of transporting spent nuclear waste across the country, which would be a national security issue in the post-Sept. 11 world? Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, raises another critical issue: reprocessing of nuclear waste. So long as there is no national plan for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, Cannon predicts the debate over storage will continue and the western United States will continue to be at risk as "temporary" or permanent waste repositories. Cannon is correct. There must be a resolution to the reprocessing issue. Likewise, the Department of Energy needs to take possession of nuclear waste on-site at nuclear reactors, which would relieve a nagging liability issues. To hear Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., tell it, Yucca Mountain will never open. It is, indeed, mired in questions over the science of the project and quality control. The matter remains under investigation. The proposed storage facility on tribal lands in Tooele County, which is backed by Private Fuel Storage LLC, has suffered some setbacks recently. Three utilities in the PFS consortium have announced they are pulling out of above-ground storage facility planned for Utah's western desert. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, says the announcements mean 57 percent of PFS' investments are now on hold. PFS officials say the project was always going to be done in phases, and many companies with storage needs could sign on in the future. Either way, it's fair to say that the support for the project is not as robust as it once was, and Utah's and Nevada's congressional delegations are resolved to keep the waste where it is. The fight is far from over, but recent events suggest an encouraging shift in momentum. © 2005 Deseret News Publishing Company [ /] ***************************************************************** 36 reviewjournal.com: Nuclear waste bills introduced Dec. 15, 2005 By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Nevada and Utah lawmakers sought to spark new debate over nuclear waste storage in their states by introducing bills Wednesday that would force the Energy Department to keep radioactive spent fuel stockpiled at power plants. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a main sponsor, said the measures would stoke discussions about alternatives to the planned repository at Yucca Mountain, which has been set back by legal and technical questions since it won endorsement from President Bush and Congress in 2002. "We have to move past Yucca Mountain," said Reid, a leading critic of the nuclear dump plan. "We believe there is an opportunity to change the direction of this government as it relates to the storage of nuclear waste." The bills submitted in the Senate and House drew immediate opposition from the Department of Energy and from coalitions of nuclear utilities and regulators in states that have nuclear power plants and want to get rid of the waste they generate. More than 40,000 metric tons of highly radioactive waste generated by 103 commercial nuclear plants are kept in pools and dry storage at reactor sites in 35 states. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., a co-sponsor of the measure introduced Wednesday, said he doubted Yucca critics could win a vote outright in the Senate now, where most senators remain supportive of the repository. Rather, he said, the bills' purpose is to sow doubts about Yucca Mountain and promote alternatives like on-site storage or waste reprocessing. "We keep chipping away at this, and then people will think that is the reality," Ensign said. Critics said they expect the bill will get an airing because of Reid's position as Senate minority leader. But, they said, the Nevadans are recycling arguments they advanced and lost three years ago. "Reid's strategy for the last few years has been to leave the fuel on-site, which was an argument he was making during the 2002 debate," said Terry Freese, director of legislative programs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main trade organization. Freese said Reid has added "new spin" by requiring the waste to be placed in dry cask storage, but his bill raises questions about costs and how the waste would be monitored and regulated. "We have consistently held (that) the federal government needs to move used fuel off-site and to take responsibility for its permanent disposal," Freese said. The bill requires nuclear utilities to move spent fuel into above-ground steel and concrete reinforced casks within six years after it is removed from reactors and placed in cooling pools. The Energy Department would take ownership title of the waste and assume responsibility for managing it. Money for the effort would be drawn from a utility-funded nuclear waste account, and that's another provision of the bill that drew criticism from industry executives. DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said the measure was merely "kicking the can down the road. "This bill in no way resolves the issue of permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel," Stevens said. "We continue to use sound science in our mission to get Yucca Mountain licensed and eventually opened." Reid began promoting the so-called "take title" bill more than a year ago, but held off submitting it formally until now. Congress is expected to recess at the end of the week and reconvene in January. "I think I have support for this now," Reid said, without elaborating. As introduced, the bill was co-sponsored by Ensign and Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. Robert Bennett, both R-Utah. Hatch and Bennett are opposing a short-term nuclear waste site the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has agreed to license on the Goshute Indian Reservation, west of Salt Lake City. Senate sources said Reid is trying to persuade Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to sign on in support of his bill. That would provide a boost because Domenici is highly influential on nuclear power matters. Reid and Domenici reportedly were talking during the fall about collaborating on nuclear waste legislation that would combine Reid's on-site storage approach with a waste reprocessing initiative favored by Domenici. Congress passed Domenici-crafted legislation in November directing the Energy Department to step up efforts to identify a favored nuclear waste reprocessing technology and possible locations for a reprocessing factory. Domenici could not be reached for comment; but spokeswoman Marnie Funk said he did not plan to comment on the legislation introduced Wednesday. A similar bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. Rep. Jim Gibbons and Rep. Jon Porter, both R-Nev., and Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, were co-sponsors. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2005 ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas SUN: Reid, Ensign turn tables on Yucca Mountain Today: December 16, 2005 at 8:5:59 PST Columnist Jeff German: Jeff German's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in the Sun. Reach him at german@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4067. After taking a beating from the federal government for nearly a quarter-century, Nevada is on the offensive for the first time in its epic battle against Yucca Mountain. The bill Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign introduced to provide an alternative to Yucca Mountain has energized the Nevada forces. "They've beaten us down all these years, but they didn't knock us out," says former Gov. Bob Miller, who has been at the forefront of much of the fight. "And now we're bouncing back." The bill would allow the government to take ownership of high-level waste at nuclear plants across the country and pay the utilities to store it above ground in dry casks at those sites. That would ease the nuclear power industry's concerns about being held liable for the deadly waste currently being kept at its reactors. But more importantly it would eliminate the need to transport the waste across the nation's highways to the flawed burial grounds at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. And since the dry casks already have been tested to be safe for 100 years, the bill would buy time to find another long-term solution. "I think it's a brilliant move," says longtime Yucca Mountain critic, former Sen. Richard Bryan. "In effect it puts the nuclear ball back in the utilities' court." Bob Loux, the state's top Yucca Mountain watchdog, says the Reid-Ensign bill reflects "reality" in the ongoing nuclear waste storage debate. "This is what's going to be done in the end, anyway," he says. "This stuff is not going to be moved from any of these reactor sites." Still, Reid and Ensign face an uphill battle on Capitol Hill to get this legislation passed. The majority of the Republican-controlled Congress still backs Yucca Mountain. But the good news is that the Nevada senators out of the box have won the support of two key Republicans, Sens. Robert Bennett and Orrin Hatch of Utah, who are co-sponsors of the bill. And you can never underestimate Reid's growing abilities as the Democratic minority leader. Reid already has a grass-roots organization in place to rally support for the measure among elected officials in states along the Yucca Mountain transportation routes. The waste is slated to pass through some pretty big metropolitan areas. Recently, the environmental group Citizen Alert formed a committee, Nevadans United to Finish the Job, to spread the anti-Yucca Mountain word across the country. Peggy Maze-Johnson, Citizen Alert's executive director in Las Vegas, says the committee hopes to raise $500,000 for its campaign. It took in $75,000 at a Las Vegas benefit earlier this month. "We're going to be making people understand that this isn't just a Nevada problem" Maze-Johnson says. "We've known for a long time that putting this stuff on the road is a dangerous, dangerous proposition." What has fired up Nevada forces is the great timing of the Reid-Ensign bill. It comes while Yucca Mountain appears most vulnerable. Even those within the nuclear power industry are starting to question whether storing radioactive waste in Nevada is the right approach. "This has been a very good year for us," Bryan says. "There's just been a steady stream of negative publicity over the Yucca Mountain program. "All of a sudden the aura of inevitability has been shredded." All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Tide turning against Yucca Today: December 16, 2005 at 8:5:59 PST Nevada and Utah congressmen seek to leave nuclear waste on-site where it's generated The Nevada and Utah congressional delegations are sponsoring legislation that would eliminate the need for the Yucca Mountain project by instead requiring that nuclear waste be stored on-site at the power plants where it is generated. By leaving it there, where it can be stored safely for at least another hundred years, the federal government can rationally find an alternative to Yucca Mountain, a site fraught with intractable problems. Now it might seem bold of the two states to introduce this legislation, since it was just three years ago that Congress approved President Bush's proposal to build a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But in the relatively short span of time since the Bush administration rammed its plan through Congress, much has happened to further jeopardize the proposal to permanently entomb 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada. A little more than a year ago the U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standard for Yucca Mountain was nowhere near as strict as it should be in protecting the public from dangerous releases of radiation. Then serious allegations surfaced earlier this year that the U.S. Geological Survey had falsified data involving how fast water can travel through the mountain and potentially corrode the canisters containing nuclear waste. And just a month ago, Sen. Pete Domenici, R.-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy Committee and one of Yucca Mountain's leading proponents, let loose with some of his harshest language ever about the project, saying "it was not a good solution either on straight science, or surely, on economic grounds." It also is telling that officials from Utah, a state in which an Indian tribe is courting nuclear utilities to store nuclear waste there until Yucca Mountain's fate is decided, are joining Nevada's fight. When Congress approved Bush's Yucca Mountain plan in 2002, Utah's two senators supported the plan -- but now they oppose it. The latest legislative salvo reminds us yet again of how important it is to not give an inch and maintain the fight against the federal government's irresponsible and dangerous efforts to bury nuclear waste in Nevada. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 Salt Lake Tribune: Envirocare building rail spur at expansion site Article Last Updated: 12/16/2005 02:36:31 AM By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune Even as an environmental group is appealing Envirocare of Utah's application to double in size, the radioactive waste company is making some of the improvements it listed as part of its expansion. Envirocare is building a new rail spur to make its operations more efficient, said Tim Barney, Envirocare senior vice president. State regulators do not need to monitor spur construction on the proposed 536-acre expansion area because it does not involve handling waste headed for the landfill, he said. Division of Radiation Control Director Dane Finerfrock said his agency has no oversight role in the new rail spur construction because it does not involve questions of radiation safety. "If it is not a regulated facility, then the property owner is free to develop it as they wish," said Finerfrock. Meanwhile, the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah (HEAL) won a partial victory Tuesday in its efforts to block the expansion. The environmental group will be able to question a top official of Envirocare of Utah, but it cannot take depositions from three other Envirocare officials, according to a ruling by state Radiation Control Board member Karen Langley. Langley is the hearing officer in the environmental group's appeal of the license state regulators approved last summer to allow the Tooele County hazardous waste landfill to expand. HEAL contends the Utah Division of Radiation Control gave legal and technical approval for Envirocare's expansion request before getting important details, such proof that the site is suitable for radioactive waste disposal and that the company is prepared to pay for operating and eventually closing the expanded facility safely. Envirocare regards HEAL's efforts as "a fishing expedition" aimed at raising donations. Company Vice President Tim Barney applauded Langley's ruling that HEAL could not question him, President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Creamer and Chief Financial Officer Chip Everest under oath. "You can't allow someone to abuse the process like that," he said. "Government can't allow anyone - interest groups, activist groups or even industry - to abuse the process. It's ridiculous." But Wednesday's decision was a key victory for HEAL. Its attorneys will be able to question, under oath, Compliance and Licensing Vice President Tye Rogers, who in detail, attacked plans for a radioactive waste disposal site on the same acreage when it was owned by someone else. With Envirocare poised to push forward with its expansion during the 2006 Legislature, which begins next month, there are too few specifics available for lawmakers to assess the wisdom of allowing the waste facility to grow, said attorney Brad Parker, who represented HEAL in Wednesday's hearing. "We believe the Legislature is being duped," he said, noting that lawmakers are likely to be asked to give broad-brush approval of the expansion without full disclosure from Envirocare. Meanwhile, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has said he will not approve the expansion, and under current law his vote would be necessary for final licensing. Parker is part of a new group of attorneys that formed this week to keep nuclear and radioactive waste out of Utah. Trial-lawyers Representing Utah's Environment (TRUE) has pledged to help HEAL in the regulatory appeal. "While we believe the governor's position is clear and unalterable, because Envirocare is still pursuing licensing, TRUE will actively pursue strategies to block Envirocare's efforts," said Jim McConkie, a founding member of the group. Before the attorneys volunteered to assist the environmental group, HEAL had no on-staff legal expertise and was unsuccessful in getting what it says are crucial documents and depositions from the company for the appeal. © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Update: Utah wins victory in efforts to block nuclear dump Article Last Updated: 12/16/2005 03:03:54 PM By Robert Gehrke The Salt Lake Tribune WASHINGTON -- Utah's congressional delegation achieved significant, hard-fought victory today in its effort to block a nuclear waste storage site in the state, winning approval of a wilderness area aimed at blocking a rail line that would deliver the waste. The Cedar Mountain wilderness language was approved by leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees after a weeks-long push by Utah members of Congress who were aided by environmental groups and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid. The creation of the 100,000-acre wilderness area would prevent construction of a rail line to the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, where a group of electric utilities known as Private Fuel Storage has won a license to store 44,000 tons of high-level radioactive waste from nuclear power plants until a permanent home is built in Yucca Mountain, Nev. The wilderness measure was inserted into a defense bill that now must still gain approval of both houses of Congress. Backers of the wilderness also say it assures the Air Force will be able to continue use of the Utah Test and Training Range. There was concern that jets would not be able to fly over the waste site to the range, limiting its usefulness. PFS has said the wilderness area would not block construction of the site, but would only force the consortium to rely on the riskier option of trucking the waste on the two-lane Skull Valley highway. The wilderness language adopted as part of a broader Defense Department policy bill, after the leaders of the House and Senate armed services committees wrapped up differences in the final version of the bill. The language included in the defense bill is actually a somewhat watered-down compromise from the version Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, had passed in the House. It would create a wilderness area but, unlike the original version, would not impose other restrictions on the use of the federal land surrounding the reservation. Also, it would leave in place a provision requiring the Air Force to report on how nuclear waste storage might impede the military's use of the Utah Test and Training Range, adjacent to the reservation, before the Bureau of Land Management can approve a rail line to the reservation. Bishop's original language would have lifted the Air Force's obligation. The inclusion of the Cedar Mountain language marks the culmination of a bid five years ago by Rep. Jim Hansen, who has since retired, to slip wilderness language into the bill. The Hansen version was opposed by environmental groups, who said it was watered down and would not protect the land, and was blocked by Democrats. Since then, the Utah members have tried several times to pass Cedar Mountain wilderness legislation as part of the PFS fight. This time, after months of negotiation, Bishop had the backing of environmental groups, who fought for the measure. © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 41 Salt Lake Tribune: Recycle nuclear waste Opinion Article Last Updated: 12/16/2005 02:41:14 AM What!? Utah can't tax nuclear waste? All we need is new legislation. All governments impose specialized taxes (tobacco, phones, gas, trucking, etc.). All Utah needs to do is provide the land, or get it from the federal government, and then tax it. We should not store waste on the Skull Valley land because it is too close to military training ranges. Utah has many remote locations to store it and generate rich tax revenues. With at least 95 percent of the “waste” recyclable, Utah can bring in a multibillion-dollar recycling industry and assure our long-term economic viability. Then we can ship it out to generate clean energy. For the non-recyclable material, we can encapsulate it, dump it in the ocean abyss like the French do, and be rid of all of it. Nuclear activities in Idaho, Nevada and Washington state never hurt their economies. Let's throw away the hysteria and get our talented politicians to embrace the cleanest and safest energy source ever discovered. Utah will not ultimately avoid receiving recyclable nuclear material. Too much of it is being generated. We can turn perceived adversity into great opportunity. Randy Petersen Bountiful © Copyright 2005, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 42 NRC: Draft Interim Concentration Averaging Guidance for Waste FR Doc E5-7450 [Federal Register: December 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 241)] [Notices] [Page 74846-74850] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16de05-101] Determinations AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Issuance of Draft Interim Guidance. SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing draft interim guidance on concentration averaging for public comment. The NRC is currently in the process of preparing a Standard Review Plan (SRP) to provide guidance to NRC staff regarding reviews of waste determinations [[Page 74847]] submitted by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The NRC staff held a public scoping meeting on the draft SRP on November 10, 2005, to obtain stakeholder input on the contents of the SRP. The draft SRP is expected to be released for public comment in 2006 and will include, among other things, guidance on evaluating concentration averaging in those cases that are specific to the types of waste and situations typically evaluated in waste determinations. Because several stakeholders are interested in obtaining NRC guidance on concentration averaging as soon as practicable, the NRC is issuing this draft interim guidance prior to completion and public release of the entire draft SRP. This draft interim guidance is applicable only to waste determinations at DOE sites. This guidance will eventually be incorporated into the draft SRP and any comments received on this guidance will be evaluated at the same time as other public comments that are received following the release of the draft SRP. DATES: The public comment period on the draft interim guidance begins with publication of this notice and continues until January 31, 2006. Written comments should be submitted as described in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. Comments submitted by mail should be postmarked by that date to ensure consideration. Comments received or postmarked after that date will be considered to the extent practical. Note that a subsequent public comment period will also be held after publication of the draft SRP in 2006. ADDRESSES: Members of the public are invited and encouraged to submit comments to the Chief, Rules Review and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Please note Docket Nos. PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, and POOM-32 when submitting comments. Comments will also be accepted by e-mail at or by facsimile to (301) 415-5397, Attention: Anna Bradford. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Anna Bradford, Senior Project Manager, Environmental and Performance Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Rockville, MD 20852. Telephone: (301) 415-5228; fax number: (301) 415- 5397; e-mail: . SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Background The Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (NDAA) provides criteria for determining whether certain waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is not high-level waste (HLW). Criteria 3(A) and 3(B) of Section 3116(a) of the NDAA require that the waste be disposed of in compliance with the performance objectives contained in NRC regulations at 10 CFR 61, Subpart C. The applicability of either 3(A) or 3(B) is dependent upon whether the waste exceeds Class C concentration limits, thus the classification of waste residuals must be determined in order to apply the NDAA criteria. NRC's regulation, ``Licensing Requirements for Land Disposal of Radioactive Waste,'' 10 CFR Part 61, provides waste classification tables (Tables 1 and 2 of 10 CFR 61.55) to ensure suitability of radioactive waste for near-surface disposal. The waste classification (along with other provisions such as waste segregation and intruder barriers) was developed in part to provide protection to individuals from inadvertent intrusion into the waste after disposal. To determine waste classification, 10 CFR part 61 allows for the averaging of the concentration of radionuclides in waste over the volume or weight of the waste, depending on the units used to express the limits for the radionuclides. The guidance provided in NRC's Branch Technical Position (BTP) on Concentration Averaging and Encapsulation (January 17,1995) represents acceptable methods by which specific waste streams or mixtures of these waste streams may be compared to the tabulated concentration values in Tables 1 and 2 of 10 CFR 61.55. The concentration averaging BTP was written to address a subset of acceptable classification or encapsulation practices and was not intended to address all cases. For example, the concentration averaging BTP was not written to address residual contamination of large underground or buried structures or systems. Waste classification was developed to ensure that waste concentrations would not exceed the values provided in Tables 1 and 2 of 10 CFR 61.55, without special authorization, to provide protection of individuals from inadvertent intrusion into the waste. The waste classification tables were developed from performance assessment calculations for a variety of intruder scenarios considering the types of waste and disposal technologies that would likely be utilized for near-surface commercial disposal of low-level waste. The term ``near- surface disposal'' indicates disposal in the uppermost portion, or approximately the top 30 meters, of the earth's surface. Waste that would decay to acceptable levels within 100 years was defined as Class A or B waste, and institutional controls were believed to be effective at limiting inadvertent intruder risk from these classes of waste. Waste that would decay to acceptable levels for an inadvertent intruder within 500 years was defined as Class C waste. Class C waste was envisioned to be segregated from other classes of waste, to be protected with 100 years of institutional control, to be disposed of deeper than Class A and B wastes, and to be disposed of with an intruder barrier that would prevent contact with the waste for 500 years. It was also recognized that waste exceeding Class C limits for which form and disposal methods must be different, and in general more stringent, than those specified for Class C waste would not generally be suitable for near-surface disposal. However, it was recognized that there may be instances where waste with concentrations greater than permitted for Class C would be acceptable for near-surface disposal with special processing or design. These would be evaluated on a case- by-case basis. Guidance on acceptable methods for performing concentration averaging to determine waste classification is presented in this draft interim guidance. Interpretation and examples of implementation of the BTP on concentration averaging and encapsulation as it applies to the types of waste and situations typically evaluated in waste determinations are provided. This guidance is only applicable to waste determinations at DOE sites; other uses may be authorized with permission of the NRC. II. Proposed Concentration Averaging Guidance The guidance contained herein does not replace the guidance contained in the BTP on concentration averaging and encapsulation for the purposes of waste classification for the commercial disposal of low-level waste. The guidance is not intended to address all unique situations at DOE sites. However, the guidance contained herein is generally applicable to the following scenarios: (1) Underground waste storage tanks including heels, cooling coils, and residuals adhering to walls and other surfaces, (2) Infrastructure used to support underground waste storage tanks such [[Page 74848]] as transfer lines, transfer pumps, and diversion boxes, (3) Waste removed from tanks that is processed or treated for disposal in a near surface disposal facility, and (4) Other scenarios relating to waste determinations proposed by the DOE and accepted by the NRC. Although the concentration averaging BTP was not written to address residual contamination of underground or buried structures or systems, the fundamental principles contained within the BTP are applicable to these systems. This guidance clarifies the fundamental principles presented in the BTP and provides specific examples that may be pertinent to DOE waste determinations. The acceptable methods for concentration averaging for the purposes of waste classification for waste determinations are based on the following fundamental principles introduced in the BTP. (1) Measures are not to be undertaken to average extreme quantities of uncontaminated materials with residual waste solely for the purpose of waste classification. (2) Mixtures of residual waste and materials can use a volume or mass-based average concentration if it can be demonstrated that the mixture is reasonably well-mixed. (3) Credit can be taken for stabilizing materials added for the purpose of immobilizing the waste (not for stabilizing the contaminated structure) even if it can not be demonstrated that the waste and stabilizing materials are reasonably well-mixed, when the radionuclide concentrations are likely to approach uniformity in the context of applicable intruder scenarios. (4) Other provisions for the classification of residual waste may be acceptable if, after evaluation of the specific characteristics of the waste, disposal site and method of disposal, conformance of waste disposal with the performance objectives in Subpart C of 10 CFR part 61 can be demonstrated with reasonable assurance. (5) Regardless of the averaging that is performed for waste classification purposes, the performance assessment or other approach used to demonstrate compliance with the performance objectives of 10 CFR part 61, subpart C, must consider the actual distribution of residual contamination in the system when estimating release rates to the environment and exposure rates to inadvertent intruders. Conservative assumptions regarding the distribution of contamination are appropriate. The purpose of these principles is to prevent arbitrary or incorrect classification of materials that may result in near-surface disposal of materials that are not suitable for near-surface disposal. Appropriate concentration averaging may indicate that waste exceeds Class C concentration limits. Waste that exceeds Class C concentration limits may be suitable for near-surface disposal, but the evaluation of the suitability must involve independent analyses such as would be performed by the NRC under 10 CFR 61.58. The methods that follow can be used to determine the waste classification of waste residuals. As indicated by the first principle above, extreme measures should not be taken when performing concentration averaging to determine waste classification. Extreme measures include: (1) Deliberate blending of lower concentration waste streams with high activity waste streams to achieve waste classification objectives, or (2) averaging over stabilizing material volume or masses that are not needed to stabilize the waste per the 10 CFR 61.56 stability requirement or are not homogeneous from the context of the intruder scenarios. This guidance presents three categories of calculations of the concentrations of radionuclides in waste. The first pertains to cases in which the waste can be mixed and is fairly homogeneous. The second pertains to cases in which the waste cannot be removed or well mixed, and is stabilized in place to satisfy the requirements of 10 CFR 61.56. The third pertains to the concentrations used in performance assessment calculations to determine the suitability of near-surface disposal according to 10 CFR 61.58 and does not pertain to the determination of whether a waste is Class A, Class B, Class C, or greater than Class C as defined in 10 CFR 61.55. Category 1. Physical Homogeneity In general, waste will have been processed to the maximum extent practical and will have been stabilized so that there is reasonable assurance that the performance objectives of 10 CFR 61, Subpart C, can be achieved. The concentrations of radionuclides in the waste for waste classification can be based on the average concentration calculated from the total volume or mass of the waste and processing or stabilizing materials if the materials are reasonably well-mixed. For Category 1, the weight or volume of the container should not be included in the calculation of average concentrations. The primary consideration is whether the distribution of radionuclides within the final wasteform is reasonably homogeneous. Technical basis should be provided (e.g., sampling results, engineering experience, operational constraints) to demonstrate that the waste is reasonably well-mixed. The preferred method to demonstrate homogeneity would be to provide a statistical measure of the variability of concentration within the waste, although it is recognized that this may not always be practical. For homogeneous mixtures, the classification of waste residuals may be based on the total volume or mass of the final wasteform. If additional averaging (e.g., as in the examples in Category 2) is not applied, waste with radionuclide concentrations after mixing that are greater than the values provided in Tables 1 and 2 of 10 CFR 61.55 would be considered to be greater than Class C waste. Mixing within waste or of waste with stabilizing materials may be needed for a variety of reasons. Mixing of waste and stabilizing materials may be advantageous to reduce release rates in order to achieve the performance objectives. As defined with respect to the principles of the BTP, mixing with excessive amounts of stabilizing materials solely to reduce the waste concentrations to alter waste classification should not be performed. In most cases, the ratio of the unstabilized to stabilized radionuclide concentrations would not be significantly greater than a factor of 10 for waste classification purposes. For unstabilized waste that can not be selectively treated or removed, mixing (within waste, not between waste streams) to facilitate homogenization of radionuclide concentrations is appropriate. For example, mixing may be used to reduce the variability in concentrations within a layer of tank waste that can not be removed for further treatment. Example 1-1. Liquid waste is removed from a tank and additional fluids are added in order to adjust the chemistry for processing. Cement and fly ash are mixed with the resultant liquid in an industrial mixer to form a grout that is placed in disposal containers. The concentration of radionuclides for determining waste classification is based on the total volume or mass of the final wasteform. Example 1-2. Reducing grout is added to stabilize a tank heel. The waste residuals in the tank are flocculated solids suspended in a liquid phase that can be mobilized with the tank transfer equipment. However, the solids can not be removed with the existing equipment. The reducing grout has a relatively high viscosity, such that the flocculated solid residuals and remaining waste liquids can be mixed with the grout prior to setting with the transfer equipment. The concentration of radionuclides for waste classification is based on the total volume or mass of the waste and the reducing grout in [[Page 74849]] which the waste is mixed. Additional reducing grout into which little or no waste is mixed should not be included in the total mass or volume used for concentration averaging. Category 2. Stabilization To Satisfy 10 CFR 61.56 Stabilization is a factor in limiting exposure to an inadvertent intruder because it provides a recognizable and non-dispersible waste. For solidified liquids and solids, Section 3.2 of the BTP provides for the concentration of the radionuclides to be determined based on the volume or weight of the solidified mass, which is defined here to be the amount of material needed to stabilize the liquids or dispersible solids to satisfy 10 CFR 61.56. Liquid waste must be solidified or packaged in sufficient absorbent material to absorb twice the volume of the liquid (10 CFR 61.56). However, the stabilizing material is not to be interpreted as bulk material added to fill void space. Stabilization is determined with respect to the waste and not the entire disposal system or unit. While stabilization of the entire disposal unit (e.g., a tank) may be necessary to meet the performance objectives, it generally would not be needed to make the residual waste recognizable and non-dispersible. Waste concentrations are calculated based on the volume or mass of material needed to be added to liquids or dispersible solids in order to solidify or encapsulate them. The concentration of the stabilized waste (waste plus stabilizing material) should generally be within a factor of 10 of the concentration on either a mass or volume basis in the unstabilized waste. The factor of 10 is derived from consideration that most stabilization techniques commonly envisioned use cementitious materials, and most cementitious wasteforms can readily achieve a ten mass percent waste loading. Additional stabilizing materials would in general not be needed for waste stabilization but may be needed for stabilization of the system or structures. For thin layers of contamination on surfaces, especially vertical surfaces, the average concentration may be based on the volume or mass of the structure in direct contact with the contamination plus a layer of stabilizing material that would be needed to stabilize the waste, as discussed above. This is not to be interpreted that averaging can be performed over all materials added to fill void space in the structure or over the portions of the structure that are essentially uncontaminated. This approach is justified because the concentrations would be expected to approach homogeneity with respect to the intruder scenarios, and the main justification for the classification system is to provide protection to the inadvertent intruder. The concentration values found in Tables 1 and 2 of 10 CFR 61.55 were derived assuming the total volume of waste exhumed by the intruder is at those concentrations, therefore a thin layer of more concentrated material averaged over the same exhumed volume would achieve a similar level of protection. Specific averaging volumes are not provided in this guidance because of the site-specific nature of the waste and site- specific considerations for intruder scenarios. Example 2-1. A tank contains a heel that is 2.5 cm thick, and is composed of liquids and dispersible solids. A 20 cm thick layer of reducing grout is needed to stabilize the waste, and an additional 300 cm of high-strength grout is added to fill void space and to provide an intruder barrier. The concentration of radionuclides would be calculated by averaging over the 20 cm thick layer of reducing grout. Use of a 20 cm layer of reducing grout in the concentration calculation is based on the amount of grout that would be needed to stabilize the waste if it could be removed from the tank and made into a stable wasteform. The concentration of the stabilized waste (waste plus stabilizing material) would generally be within a factor of 10 of the concentration in the unstabilized waste on either a mass or volume basis. Example 2-2. The walls of a waste storage tank have a thin layer (0.1 cm) of residual contamination that is not easily removed. The tank walls are 1 cm thick and the tank is contained within a 0.5 m thick vault. The contamination is distributed on the lower 5 m of the vertical surface. The contamination is not easily dispersed into the environment and is located underground. Closure of the storage tank will involve filling the tank and all void space with grout. The concentration of the waste for waste classification is calculated based on the thickness of the tank wall over the lower 5 m of the tank, the thickness of the contamination, and a 1 cm thick layer of stabilizing grout. Use of a 1 cm layer of grout in the concentration calculation is based on the assumption that formation of a stable waste form is accomplished by incorporating the 0.1 cm layer of residual waste into a cementitious waste form at a mass loading of approximately 10%. The concentrations of the thin layer would be reduced by a factor of 20 for estimating waste classification if a volume basis were used. Category 3. Other Provisions 10 CFR part 61.58 allows the Commission to authorize other provisions for the classifications and characteristics of waste, if after evaluation of the specific characteristics of the waste, disposal site, and method of disposal, it finds reasonable assurance of compliance with the performance objectives in subpart C. Demonstration that the performance objectives can be satisfied would involve a site- specific analysis (e.g., performance assessment). 10 CFR part 61.58 was intended to allow the NRC to establish alternate waste classification schemes when justified by site-specific conditions, and does not affect the generic waste classifications established in 10 CFR 61.55. Thus, if the results of concentration calculations performed in a manner consistent with the principles and examples described previously in this document indicate that radionuclide concentrations in the waste exceed Class C limits, then the waste is greater than Class C waste for waste classification purposes. If it can be demonstrated that the performance objectives of 10 CFR part 61.58 can be satisfied, then the waste would be suitable for near surface disposal. For the performance assessment calculations, the waste should be represented as it is physically expected to be present, and not averaged over the stabilizing and encapsulating materials unless the estimated doses to the public and inadvertent intruders were conservative as a result of averaging. Otherwise, every attempt should be made to represent the expected distribution of activity within the disposal system. If the 10 CFR 61 subpart C performance objectives can be met with reasonable assurance, then the waste is considered to be acceptable for near surface disposal. When performing the intruder calculations, it is not appropriate to calculate an average dose factoring in the likelihood of the occurrence of the scenario. The likelihood of the intruder scenario occurring is already represented in the higher limit (e.g., 500 mrem/yr) applied for inadvertent intruder regulatory analysis. Example 3-1. A waste heel remains in a HLW tank. Reducing grout is added to the heel, displacing some material to the center of the tank, while a fraction of the waste remains on the tank surfaces encapsulated by the reducing grout. A high strength grout is placed over the reducing grout as an intruder barrier and to limit water contact. The top of the waste residuals are 10 meters below the ground surface. An intruder scenario is evaluated in which a well-driller places a well through the disposal system. In this case, the intruder is exposed to drill cuttings (waste). The average concentration of the waste used in the performance assessment calculations should be calculated by assuming mixing over the volume of well cuttings exhumed because the cuttings are expected to be well-mixed when spread on the land surface. This average [[Page 74850]] concentration is applicable only to the performance assessment and not to the determination of waste classification. Because the rate of erosion at the site is relatively high, a second intruder scenario is evaluated in which most of the cover is eroded over the analysis time period. Some cover is expected to remain. The intruder constructs a home in the area over the tank. Because the direct exposure pathway is the only major contributing pathway for this scenario, the actual waste distribution can be used in the performance assessment. Alternatively, the average concentration of waste over the stabilizing materials can be used in the performance assessment because there would be less shielding for this calculation and the doses would likely be conservative. The doses to a public receptor who is offsite when institutional controls are in place and at the edge of a buffer zone near the closed tanks after institutional controls end is evaluated with an all-pathways performance assessment. The performance assessment represents expected degradation of the system over time. The modeling of the source term represents the waste as two zones, one zone of higher hydraulic conductivity and reducing conditions that persist for 500 years and one zone of lower hydraulic conductivity and reducing conditions that persist for the entire analysis period (10,000 years). The first zone represents waste between the tank surface and the added grout which may be exposed to increased moisture flow/oxidation because of shrinkage effects or degradation of the grout itself over time from various attack mechanisms. The second zone represents waste that was immobilized in the center of the reducing grout by the pour sequence of the tank closure operations. The concentrations of radionuclides in both zones should be represented in the performance assessment by the expected distribution of contamination within the zones, or distributions that can be demonstrated to be conservative with respect to release and exposure modeling. The potential pathways of water to the waste may depend on the discrete features of the system (e.g., cooling coils, shrinkage effects, fractures). III. Further Information Documents related to NRC's reviews of waste determinations are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at . From this site, you can access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public documents. Recent documents related to reviews of NRC waste determinations can be found under Dockets Numbers PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, and POOM-32. If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737 or by e-mail to . Documents may also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee. Dated at Rockville, MD this 5th day of December, 2005. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Scott Flanders, Deputy Director, Environmental and Performance Assessment Directorate, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Nuclear Materials Safety and Safeguards. [FR Doc. E5-7450 Filed 12-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 43 AFP: Ukraine rules out storing foreign nuclear waste at Chernobyl - Thu Dec 15, 1:47 PM ET KIEV (AFP) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that no foreign nuclear waste will be stored at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the site of the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster. Stockpiles of foreign nuclear waste "will exist in no case" in Ukraine, the president's office said in a statement. Yushchenko apparently discarded the idea after he sparked a loud public outcry last week when he said the government was studying the possibility of storing foreign nuclear waste at Chernobyl, in the north of the country less than 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the capital Kiev. He said waste from Ukraine's four working nuclear power plants -- currently primarily exported to Russia -- could also be stored there. A 30-kilometer exclusion zone was established around the site soon after Chernobyl's number-four reactor, in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, exploded on April 26, 1986, sending a radioactive cloud across Europe. The power station was completely shut down on December 15, 2000. Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 44 Yucca Mountain Newsletter: Another restructuring of the Yucca Mountain Project? Volume 2 Issue 11 December 16, 2005 Call it Back to the Future, DOE style By Bob Loux Director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects It is no surprise that Nevada officials reacted with skepticism to the U.S. Department of Energys Oct. 25 announcement of a fundamental change in the design for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository system. For those of us who have been associated with the DOE repository program for the two decades or more, DOE restructurings, reassessments, and reorganizations are nothing new. Ideas come and go, the organizational chart changes, the game of organizational musical chairs starts and stops, but the fundamental problems and flaws with Yucca Mountain are never addressed. And for good reason. To do so would mean admitting that Yucca is a bad site for a geologic repository for high-level radioactive waste. Octobers announcement of the next best DOE idea is no exception. Paul Golan, the DOE Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Managements current acting director, revealed that DOE was moving ahead to hire a contractor to implement a plan to operate the Yucca Mountain repository as a clean, or non-contaminated, facility. Golan proposes to do this by eliminating spent fuel handling facilities at the repository and using only standardized canisters where radioactive waste would be loaded into the containers at the point of origin (i.e., at nuclear power plants), and then stored, transported and disposed of without having to reopen the packaging. Problem is, this new idea has been floated before – back in 1992 as the Multiple Purpose Canister (MPC)" initiative – and it was rejected then as being too costly and too logistically difficult to implement. To be fair, the proposal made some sense 13 years ago, when most utilities were still storing spent fuel in water-filled pools where it could be moved, relatively easily, into sealed canisters and from there into MPCs for dry storage, transport and disposal. Today, however, a significant percentage of nuclear utility companies are already storing spent fuel in dry storage installations using a variety of sealed storage systems, none of which are compatible with Golans standardized canister idea. Whats really going on here is a desperate attempt by DOE to cover up just how scientifically, legally, and morally bankrupt the Yucca Mountain program is. Things are so bad that DOE has had to resort to the fiction of a major restructuring of the repository system design this late in the game – at a time when the DOE is supposed to be in the last phase of preparing its license application to NRC, something that DOE has now been forced to place on indefinite hold. It is instructive to note that all this is taking place in the context of an emerging major – some would say quantum – shift in Congress approach to federal nuclear waste policy. The 2006 Energy and Water Appropriation Act, for the first time, combined deep cuts in the Yucca project with new appropriations for building reprocessing capabilities. Rumors are persistent that a landmark agreement is in the works between two key legislators – Nevada Sen. Harry Reid and New Mexico Sen. Pete Dominici – that would fundamentally revamp national nuclear waste policy, focusing on reprocessing, waste reduction and interim storage while deemphasizing Yucca Mountain. At the very least, the changes Mr. Golan is proposing will add many months and perhaps years to the timetable for submitting DOEs Yucca Mountain license application and will likely require new environmental documentation both for the repository and for the proposed transportation system. The bottom line: Yucca Mountain is still Yucca Mountain. You can try to dress it up with all sorts of diversionary restructurings, but the site remains a porous, fractured and entirely unsuitable repository location that cannot pass muster in the NRC licensing arena. There is, nevertheless, a certain irony in watching the array of Yucca Mountain fixes over the years come full circle. In honor of this new new approach, perhaps it would be appropriate, for now, to rename Yucca, the Golan Heights. Plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain begin to crumble By Doug Abrahms Gannett News Service Reprinted with permission from Gannett News Service, Nov. 27, 2005 WASHINGTON – For more than 20 years, the federal governments sole plan to dispose of nuclear waste building up at atomic reactors around the nation has been to bury it in a rural mountainside in Nevada about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But lately there have been hints that a new plan is in the works, especially as the deadline to open the Yucca Mountain repository as a long-term nuclear-waste dumping ground keeps slipping. Since 1982, when Congress approved burying high-level radioactive waste in a national repository, the nation's energy scene has shifted dramatically – with utility companies poised to build nuclear power plants for the first time in a generation, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., a staunch supporter of nuclear power. I believe we must look anew on our policy on spent nuclear fuel, he said in a speech Tuesday, and I think that re-evaluation is under way. Nuclear power generates about 20 percent of the nations electricity, and proponents say it offers the best hope to cut air pollution and lower natural gas prices. Disposal of the nuclear waste remains a problem. The Energy Departments long-range disposal plan would move 77,000 tons of nuclear waste by trains and trucks across the country to Yucca Mountain, and the project will cost electric consumers at least $58 billion. The department remains committed to the project, spokesman Craig Stevens said. The departments license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Yucca project will proceed despite a federal appeals court decision in 2004 that federal radiation safety standards for Yucca are inadequate, he said. The last deadline to open Yucca Mountain was 2012, but the department no longer offers any timetable. This month, Congress agreed to spend $50 million to study reprocessing nuclear waste, which breaks down enriched uranium rods into components for more efficient use. Proponents say it could reduce nuclear waste volumes and eliminate the need for Yucca Mountain. But many nuclear experts say that current reprocessing technology doesnt work. The practice was stopped in 1979 because expense, ineffectiveness in reducing nuclear waste and also because the process generates a certain kind of plutonium isotope that is a key element in nuclear bombs, said Steve Kraft, an official with the Nuclear Energy Institute.At the end of the day, you still have material to dispose of, Kraft said. It doesn't make (nuclear) waste go away. All it does is separate it into different fractions, agreed Ed Lyman, senior staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group that opposes reprocessing. In theory, a new type of atomic reactor could be built that would consume most of the nuclear material and vastly reduce the amount of waste to be stored, said Joe Egan, a nuclear physicist and attorney working for Nevada to block the Yucca Mountain project. Scientific American magazine published an article this month describing such a reactor that uses liquid sodium rather than water as a coolant, he said. The only problem is that no one has ever built one of these reactors successfully, Egan said. Its like the Mars project – its a nice thought, but its not going to happen anytime soon. Nevada U.S. Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign plan to introduce legislation next month to keep nuclear waste stored at reactor sites with the federal government assuming ownership, said Tessa Hafen, a spokeswoman for Reid. The spent fuel rods would be stored in protective casks and could remain there safely for many decades until a better solution can be developed, she said. What theyre saying about Yucca Mountain Heres a sampling of what some key media outlets are saying about Nevadas ongoing battle against a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. By Benjamin Grove Las Vegas Sun Washington, D.C. Bureau Nov. 23, 2005 In a story headlined Support for Yucca softens a little more, the Las Vegas Sun reported that a key senator who was once a strong advocate of Yucca Mountain has been distancing himself from the project. The Sun story included the following quotes from U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici: As most of you know, it was not a good solution either on straight science, or surely, on economic grounds, Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Tuesday (Nov. 22) in a speech to a group of U.S. and Japanese nuclear power leaders. So clearly, we have to move in another direction. The Sun story went on to point out that Domenici has been considered the Senate leader on nuclear issues and is a longtime supporter of burying the nations high-level nuclear waste in underground tunnels at Yucca Mountain. But Domenici has distanced himself from Yucca in recent public comments, according to the Sun story. For years Yucca Mountain was the answer, and we ran around talking about it as if it were the singular answer, the Sun quoted Domenici as saying. But we all know that it was a creature of nineteen-hundred and eighty-two. While Yucca was created as the final resting place, there can be no doubt that it is not the final answer. Yucca Mtm southwest view Deseret Morning News editorial Nov. 30, 3005 In a Nov. 30 editorial headlined No nuclear waste, period, the Salt Lake City newspaper took a stance that sounds all too familiar to Nevadans who have spent decades fighting plans to store nuclear waste in the Silver State. The Deseret Morning News editorial included the following: The results of a new Dan Jones & Associates poll on Private Fuel Storage LLC placing a nuclear waste repository on Utahs West Desert are a proverbial slam dunk. Utahns overwhelmingly oppose a proposal to temporarily store up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on tribal lands in Tooeles Skull Valley. In a poll of 400 Utahns conducted for KSL-TV and the Deseret Morning News, 84 percent of 400 people polled oppose the nuclear waste repository. Beyond that, more than two thirds of the Utahns polled favor a special tax on the operation. The Deseret Morning News opposes the Private Fuel Storage proposal and urges local, state and national leaders to remain diligent in the fight to keep nuclear waste out of Utah. As the poll, commissioned by the Deseret Morning News, indicates, its clearly not welcome here Even if the state were able to affix a tax on the operation, no financial benefit would outweigh the downside of Utah becoming a nuclear waste dump. This issue has become even more critical given the ongoing problems at Yucca Mountain. A temporary repository in Utah could become permanent under the present climate. Temporary— in the eyes of the federal government — is 40 years. Neither the PFS proposal nor Yucca Mountain should be viewed as a solution to the nations nuclear waste disposal problem. The debate and the solutions are far more complex than storing it in an above-ground facility on Utahs West Desert or placing it underground in a facility that has been the subject of ongoing investigations regarding quality control and other issues. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys recently released draft radiation health protection standard for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository qualifies as much more than a mere outrage of the week. Try outrage of the millennia. If adopted, the proposed regulations would permit future generations living in the vicinity of Yucca Mountain to be exposed to up to 70 times more radiation than is permitted today. Whats more, the new EPA health protection standard would abandon any requirement for limiting radiation in the groundwater after the first 10,000 years. Ten thousand years, you say! Why should we be concerned about something thats so very far out into the future? The answer is simple: What is really at stake here is the methodology, the benchmark, by which the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a long-term, geologic repository for some of the most deadly and long-lived materials ever created by man will be assessed and by which irrevocable decisions will be made today that will affect humans and the environment for what is, for all practical purposes, an eternity. The fundamental issue at the heart of the debate over the Yucca Mountain radiation exposure limits is whether the mountain can, in fact, keep these deadly materials away from people and out of the environment for the time required to render them harmless – in this case hundreds of thousands of years. The answer to that question is, emphatically, No. Yucca Mountain is so fractured and porous, and groundwater moves through it so rapidly, that once radioactive waste gets out of the man-made disposal containers, it will move very quickly into the aquifer below the mountain and, from there, into the accessible environment. No one disputes this fact. DOE claims to have solved this little problem for the short term by assuming that the containers the waste will be put in for burial will remain intact for at least 10,000 years. (Now, whether it is reasonable – or even sane – to expect something man-made to work for 10 millennia is a whole other issue, but that is the assumption DOE will try to sell if and when it applies for a license to construct the facility.) Not coincidentally, EPAs maximum radiation exposure allowance for this period would be set at 15 millirems per year, a reasonable and universally accepted level considered protective of human health and the environment. It also works quite well for DOE. Heck, under DOEs waste container longevity assumption, it could meet a zero exposure standard for the period. However, DOE has a major problem when you take away the man-made waste disposal packages. All of the performance models show that, almost immediately thereafter (i.e., in geologic time a few hundred years or less), radionuclides will begin to find their way into the groundwater and food chain. To fix DOEs problem, EPA has proposed a gerrymandered exposure limit that is between 20 and 70 times less stringent for the period after 10,000 years, depending on how the calculation is done. And because the amount of radiation in the groundwater is especially troublesome for DOE, the new EPA regulation would simply eliminate any limit on rad exposures via groundwater. Why is this regulatory gamesmanship so important to us today? Because these arbitrary exposure thresholds are the only way we have of deciding whether a repository site can, in fact, function sufficiently to isolate radioactive waste. Once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, using EPAs dose limits, makes the determination that Yucca is suitable, the exposure standards will have little practical utility. After waste is emplaced in the mountain, it is never going to be removed, and people living hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of years from now will bear the consequences of that decision. Yet instead of establishing a dose limit that will be truly protective for the life to of the facility – something that could be done simply by requiring DOE to demonstrate that Yucca Mountain can meet the 15-millirem standard regardless of when the maximum exposures are expected to occur, EPA buckled under pressure from DOE and the nuclear industry and concocted a regulation designed not to protect human health and the environment, but rather to assure that Yucca Mountain is not disqualified. If that isnt an outrage worthy of the millennia, what is? We welcome comments and story ideas for this newsletter. For media information, please contact George McCabe, Brown & Partners, at (702) 967-2222 or via e-mail at To subscribe to or ***************************************************************** 45 La Crosse Tribune: Sen. Hatch challenges Utah nuclear waste site By REID MAGNEY | La Crosse Tribune and The Associated Press . A temporary nuclear waste storage site in Utah cleared one legal hurdle last week, but still faces challenges. Private Fuel Storage, a La Crosse-based consortium of nuclear-plant owning utilities, won a victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld lower courts rulings that Utah cant pass laws governing nuclear waste storage because its a federal issue. In the wake of that ruling Dec. 5, lawmakers who oppose PFSs plans for a waste dump on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation are speaking out. My intent here is to get rid of the Skull Valley project, U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told reporters last week. Im going to do that any way I can. Dairyland Power Cooperative and Xcel Energy are part owners of PFS. Skull Valley was designed as a temporary, private alternative to the federal governments troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site in Nevada, which was originally supposed to open in 1998 but has been delayed until at least 2017. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission in September authorized a license for the facility — which would be used to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel — but the process is not complete. The federal Bureau of Land Management recently announced it will take public comments for 90 days on a lease for a railroad right-of-way that will carry spent nuclear fuel to the site about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Hatch recently argued to the Interior Department that the government should ask for new public input because it had not considered the terrorist target posed by such an above-ground storage facility. Hatch also claimed new information showed PFS was crumbling. The new round of comments and information about PFSs financial stability could lead the BLM to block the rights of way, according to Hatchs office. But the consortium of utilities may not be as close to unraveling as Hatch suggests. Last week, two of the eight utilities that make up PFS — Southern Nuclear Operating Co. and Xcel Energy — said they had dropped their support for Skull Valley construction. Hatch said that six companies, including Southern, had suspended their funding in 2002. With more dropping out, just one active member was left, he said. One company could not hope to finance the project alone, he said. The viability of the PFS proposal is now seriously threatened, Hatch wrote to Interior Secretary Gale Norton. He asked her to consider the information when deciding PFSs request for rights of way. PFS Chairman John Parkyn said in an interview Tuesday that recent statements by Xcel Energy another utility that they wont put more funding into the project arent inconsistent with their previous positions. Parkyn said PFS is still viable, and that the original owners of PFS wont necessarily be its customers. Utilities that use the Skull Valley will pay for its construction, operation and clean-up, he said. Parkyn said there are nine closed nuclear plant sites that need a storage option like Skull Valley in order to fully decommission. One of those sites is Dairylands Genoa plant, which going through the decomissioning process. Spent fuel could be stored at Genoa in dry casks, but Dairyland Vice President of Generation Chuck Sans-Crainte said, If PFS is built, Dairyland will be inclined to use it. Much depends on the timing. If there is a delay that may require we store it locally. In interviews with The Associated Press, two of the six companies said they were still funding PFS and had no plans to drop out. All the operators of power plants need a place to store their fuel for the long term, and this facility may be one of the answers, said Todd Schneider, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Co., one of the PFS partners. Diane Park, a spokeswoman for Entergy Nuclear, said that her company is an active PFS partner and has not decided what its future relationship with PFS will be. Southern California Edison dropped its funding for PFS in 1999 but is still a participant, said spokesman Ray Golden. . Advertisement [''] [''] About Us | Contact Us | Disclaimer | F.A.Q. | Privacy Policy | Requests | + RSS| Webmaster Copyright © 1997 - 2005 The La Crosse Tribune. All rights reserved. Material from this site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or distributed. A Lee Enterprisessubsidiary. ***************************************************************** 46 San Luis Obispo Tribune: Federal regulators are optimistic about Yucca Mountain dump Posted on Fri, Dec. 16, 2005 NRC officials still say that the dump will open within 20 years despite delays and opposition from Nevada lawmakers David Sneed The Tribune Federal nuclear regulators remain optimistic that a national nuclear waste dump will open at Yucca Mountain within the next 20 years despite numerous delays and staunch opposition from Nevada lawmakers. Officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told more than 100 people at a town hall-style meeting in San Luis Obispo this week that the federal government is continuing its efforts to open an underground radioactive waste repository in the desert near Las Vegas. The possibility that an aboveground storage facility being built at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant could become permanent was a central topic of concern at the meeting. NRC officials fielded multiple questions about it. They repeated the assertion that the storage facility will be temporary. They also criticized legislation introduced in Congress on Wednesday that would make temporary waste facilities like the one at Diablo Canyon permanent. "That's not a tenable solution," said Blair Spitzberg, who heads the NRC's regional spent fuel office in Arlington, Texas. Diablo Canyon's storage facility is licensed to operate for 20 years. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. can apply for a 20-year extension of the license, if needed. PG&E has started construction of the facility, which will eventually contain 138 concrete-and-steel casks, with each cask holding 32 depleted but still highly radioactive reactor fuel assemblies. "My biggest concern is that the temporary storage facility remains temporary," said Morro Bay businessman and former Mayor Rodger Anderson. "How long is the stainless steel really going to work?" The Yucca Mountain dump was originally to begin accepting nuclear waste in 1998, but the project has been delayed repeatedly because of opposition by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada's senior Democrat, and other politicians, as well as because of questions about whether the facility can safely store the waste for the next 10,000 years. California energy officials now estimate that the facility will not open for an additional 10 to 15 years, if ever. NRC officials said Wednesday they were frustrated by the delays, but the Department of Energy remains committed to opening the Yucca Mountain facility. Regulators and nuclear industry officials say the science behind the Yucca Mountain project is sound. Uncertainty over the safety of Diablo Canyon's spent fuel prompted some of the speakers to urge the NRC to shut the nuclear plant down and replace it with renewable energy sources. Earthquakes and terrorist attacks were cited as the main concerns. Calls to close the plant are a standard part of every NRC meeting in San Luis Obispo. Wednesday's meeting featured anti-nuclear Christmas carolers and protesters wearing headgear fashioned to resemble the plant's emergency warning sirens. Diablo Canyon managers plan to begin loading the first dry casks in November 2007. Eight casks will be loaded initially, with others loaded in phases as needed to create room in the spent-fuel pools, which are nearing capacity. NRC officials described dry cask storage of spent fuel as a "mature technology" that dates to 1986 when the first facility was licensed in Virginia. Since then, 37 facilities have been established. David Sneed covers environmental issues for The Tribune. E-mail story ideas and comments to him at . Participate in a poll about just how concerned you are that Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant could become a permanent nuclear waste dump at SLO ***************************************************************** 47 DOE: Office of Science; Notice of Renewal of the Biological and FR Doc E5-7437 [Federal Register: December 16, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 241)] [Notices] [Page 74794] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr16de05-49] Environmental Research Advisory Committee AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of renewal. SUMMARY: Pursuant to section 14(a)(2)(A) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act and in accordance with Title 41 of the Code of Federal Regulations, section 102-3.65, and following consultation with the Committee Management Secretariat, General Services Administration, notice is hereby given that the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee has been renewed for a two-year period beginning December 11, 2005. The Committee will provide advice to the Director, Office of Science, on the Biological and Environmental Research Program managed by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The Secretary of Energy has determined that renewal of the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee is essential to the conduct of the Department's business and is in the public interest in connection with the performance of duties imposed by law upon the Department of Energy. The Committee will continue to operate in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (Pub. L. 92-463), the General Services Administration Final Rule on Federal Advisory Committee Management, and other directives and instructions issued in implementation of those acts. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ms. Rachel Samuel at (202) 586-3279. Issued in Washington, D.C. on December 11, 2005. Carol Matthews, Acting Advisory Committee Management Officer. [FR Doc. E5-7437 Filed 12-15-05; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 48 Southern Standard: DOE studies Y-12 plant upgrades, activists propose shutdown on OAK RIDGE, Tenn. Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. — Peace activists have another idea for Energy Department officials asking for public comments on the environmental consequences of a possible $1 billion modernization of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant — shut it down. "Cease weapons production, pursue the long-neglected mission of dismantling nuclear weapons at Y-12," Ralph Hutchison, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said in a statement. Hutchison said closing a plant that makes parts for virtually every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal "has the virtue of a positive environmental impact in every conceivable way. And it has the further benefit of being morally defensible." This is not one of the four options on DOE's agenda, though spokesman Steven Wyatt said "You have to consider all proposals." DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration already is constructing a $320 million fortress-like building to hold Y-12's storehouse of bomb-grade uranium, the largest in the country. The building is scheduled to be finished by 2008. Now DOE is studying whether to build a companion building — a new highly enriched uranium processing building, which could cost around $1 billion. The four proposals being considered by DOE range from building the new processing structure to continuing operations as they are today. DOE also is considering upgrading existing facilities or reducing operations as they wear out. Hutchison said the proposed study should at least "calculate the increased risk of catastrophic attack by another country or group" on a modernized Y-12. "We will take comments and go from there," Wyatt said. DOE's draft recommendation should be ready next summer and a round of public meetings will be held. A final decision will be made by the end of 2006, Wyatt said. On the Net: Y-12 nuclear weapons plant: http://www.y12.doe.gov Southern Standard, 105 College Street, McMinnville, TN 37110, PH: 931-473-2191 Powered by Bondware Web Solutions ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************