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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [NYTr] In Bungled Plot, CIA Gave Iran Nuke Design
2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran scuppers deal with west on uranium tests
3 Las Vegas SUN: Rice Says Patience With Iran Waning 
4 AFP: Iranian experts meet with UN nuclear watchdog 
5 AFP: Iran won't bow to nuclear 'bullies' - Ahmadinejad 
6 IRNA: Iran-IAEA nuclear talks underway in Vienna 
7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Stands Up Top U.N. Nuclear Inspector
8 U.S. 'Threatened N.Korea with Military Action'
9 US: reviewjournal.com: Reid says Chertoff should resign
10 [NukeNet] Japanese NGOs send petition to IAEA
11 [NukeNet] FW: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium
12 Platts: Gas crisis fuels nuclear energy debate in German government
13 Japan Times: Rokkasho tests break plutonium pledge, activists tell I
14 Las Vegas SUN: Rice Chastises Russia's Energy Moves 
15 AFP: Pakistan says other countries did not punish Khan nuclear netwo
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
16 US: newsobserver.com: NRC to probe N-plant security - 
17 US: Platts: Virginia seeks NRC Agreement State status
18 Greenpeace: Choose Clean Energy
19 US: Boston Globe: Plymouth asks more of nuclear plant
20 US: Hudson Valley News: NRC gives Indian Point green light to instal
21 US: csmonitor: Europe warms to nuclear power | csmonitor.com
22 UPI: Merkel for phasing out nuclear energy
23 US: NRC: NRC Bars Four Individuals from NRC-Regulated Work Because o
24 US: NRC: News Release - 2006- 003 - NRC Releases Draft Order for
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
25 US: US Army DU specialist turned whistleblower Doug Rokke
26 Uranium Medical Research Center
27 An Interview with DU Expert Dr. Asaf Durakovic and WISE Website
28 [NukeNet] A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium
29 [NukeNet] Former Pentagon Expert On DU Radiological/Biological
30 [du-list] Link To French Chemical Exposures Page
31 Depleted Uranium is WMD  
32 Depleted Uranium Weapons of War
33 US: NASA: NEPA: Radioisotope Power Systems 
34 US: Rensselaer Research Review: Radiation and the Human Body (page 1
35 US: NRC: NRC Considers Changes to Regulations on Products 	Containin
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
36 US: RGJ: ARCO says mine cleanup responsibility lacks fair approach
37 US: Monticello Times: Impact statement for nuclear storage available
38 US: PR Newswire: Drill Permits received for Uranium Exploration in U
39 Whitehaven News: Union hits back in row over nuclear pensions 
40 DOE: Develop a Repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
41 Preservation Online: Part of Manhattan Project Plant Will Be Preserv
42 Department of Energy - Department of Energy Issues Draft Request
43 DOE: Energy Department's Texas Pantex Plant to Save Over $2 
44 DOE: U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman to Co-Host the Pittsburgh 
45 DOE: DOE Launches New Energy.Gov Website
46 DOE: U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy to Offer Keynote Remarks to 
47 SPI: State hires audit firm to review how DOE handles Hanford
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 [NYTr] In Bungled Plot, CIA Gave Iran Nuke Design
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 17:02:09 -0600 (CST)

just as the faux "yellow-cake" from Niger was. -NYTr]

Agence France Presse - 4 January 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060104/pl_afp/usirannuclearcia

CIA gave Iran nuclear design in botched plot : new book

The CIA, using a double-agent Russian scientist, may have handed a blueprint
for a nuclear bomb to Iran, according to a new book which has ruffled the US
national security establishment.

"State of War" by James Risen, the New York Times reporter who exposed the
Bush administration's controversial domestic spying operation, claims the
plans contained fatal flaws designed to derail Tehran's nuclear drive.

But the deliberate errors were so rudimentary they would have been easily
fixed by sophisticated Russian nuclear scientists, the book said.

The operation, which took place during the Clinton administration in early
2000, was code-named Operation Merlin and "may have been one of the most
reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA," according to Risen.

It called for the unnamed scientist, a defector from the Soviet nuclear
program, to offer Iran the blueprint for a "firing set" -- the intricate
mechanism which triggers the chain reaction needed for a nuclear explosion.

According to Risen's book, the agent, posing as a greedy Russian scientist
keen to steel secrets, delivered to plans as instructed by the CIA to Iran's
mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

He had been told by CIA officers that the Iranians already had the
technology detailed in the plans -- and that the ruse was simply an attempt
by the agency to find out the full scope of Tehran's nuclear knowledge.

But, contrary to orders not to open the packet, he added a note which made
it clear he could help fix the flaws -- for money.

The CIA declined to comment in detail on the book's claims on Iran -- but
issued a vigorous condemnation of Risen's work and methods.

"Readers deserve to know that every chapter of State of War contains serious
inaccuracies," said Jennifer Millerwise, CIA Director of Public Affairs.

"The author's reliance on anonymous sources begs the reader to trust that
these are knowledgeable people. As this book demonstrates, anonymous sources
are often unreliable.

"It is most alarming that the author discloses information that he believes
to be ongoing intelligence operations, including actions as critical as
stopping dangerous nations from acquiring nuclear weapons.

"Setting aside whether what he wrote is accurate or inaccurate, it
demonstrates an unfathomable and sad disregard for US national security and
those who take life-threatening risks to ensure it."

In the same chapter, Risen also claimed that a CIA officer once mistakenly
sent a message to an agent, who turned out to be a turncoat, in Iran
exposing the US spy network in the country.
       
                                *
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*****************************************************************
 2 Guardian Unlimited: Iran scuppers deal with west on uranium tests
 
Ian Traynor

Friday January 6, 2006
 		
Iran is expected to resume testing machinery next week that can 
be used to make weapons-grade uranium in a move that appears 
calculated to scupper the prospects of a settlement of its 
long-running nuclear dispute with the west.

Senior Iranian officials yesterday snubbed Mohamed ElBaradei, the 
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, by failing to 
show up at a scheduled meeting in Vienna after the IAEA chief 
demanded an explanation of Iran's plans.

Earlier this week Tehran told the IAEA that it was resuming 
research into nuclear fuel which was suspended more than two 
years ago, but refused to supply details on what kind of 
research.

Iranian officials flew from Tehran to Vienna yesterday to brief
Dr ElBaradei, but then decided against doing so in a move that
baffled diplomats and IAEA officials.

A senior official familiar with the details of the exchanges
between the IAEA and Iran earlier in the week said Iran would
probably resume work next week with uranium centrifuges, work
that has been frozen for 30 months under the terms of
negotiations with Britain, Germany and France.

"They suspended certain activities and now they have decided to
resume certain activities," said the senior official. "All those
activities were enrichment-related. It sounds like they will
start some experiments with centrifuges."

Such a step would be in breach of previous IAEA orders that Iran
suspend "all uranium enrichment-related activities" and of the
terms of the negotiating agreement between Iran and Britain,
Germany, and France. It could deal a death blow to the
long-running but currently deadlocked negotiations and may
reflect the more aggressive and confrontational positions taken
on foreign policy and the nuclear issue by Iran's new president,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, signalled
growing impatience with Iran, indicating that time is running
out for it to avoid being brought before the UN security council.

"When it's clear that negotiations are exhausted, we have the
votes," she told reporters. "There is a resolution sitting there
for referral. We'll vote it. That's not sabre rattling, that's
diplomacy ... and diplomacy includes what you do in the security
council."

Russian officials were due to travel to Tehran this weekend to
try to cobble together a compromise on Iran's uranium enrichment
projects. It is not clear whether the visit will go ahead. The
EU troika was also scheduled to restart exploratory talks with
the Iranians in a fortnight. Those also now look in jeopardy.
"We don't know what they mean by research and development," said
a European diplomat. "We need to establish that. No one has any
clear idea. Everything now depends on what the agency is told."

Not for the first time, the Iranians appeared to have caught the
western powers off guard through their negotiating gambits,
first by abruptly informing the IAEA this week that nuclear fuel
research would be resumed next week and then by refusing to show
up for scheduled meetings to explain what they intended doing.

"They just said they weren't coming. They told us," said one
diplomat involved.

Earlier this week, Mr Ahmadinejad delivered a tirade against the
European powers of the type Iran usually reserves for the US.
The president denounced 16 years of appeasement of Europe by his
two predecessors in office and signalled that he saw no point in
negotiating with the Europeans.

On Wednesday evening he pledged to push ahead with nuclear
research, dismissing international pressure and reiterating the
remarks that recently stirred worldwide outrage - that the
Nazis' mass murder of European Jews was "a big historical lie".

The hardline, uncompromising tone from Tehran, say western
diplomats, and acute "inexperience" among the new team of
Iranian nuclear negotiators diminishes the chances of any quick
breakthrough on the nuclear dispute.

The Guardian disclosed earlier this week that, according to the
latest European intelligence assessments, Iran is marshalling
scores of agencies, companies and middlemen to procure equipment
and knowhow in Europe for its weapons and nuclear programmes.

Next week's resumption of nuclear activities is, however,
expected to fall short of actually feeding uranium gas into the
centrifuge machines which spin it into nuclear fuel. Rather, the
Iranians are more likely to start assembling and testing a
limited number of centrifuges and declare that they are still
not enriching uranium.

The Iranian brinkmanship over the past two years has
consistently tried to proceed incrementally so as to keep the
35-strong board of the IAEA in Vienna split between a faction
led by the US who are demanding punitive action through the
security council and those who believe that the Iranians have
not behaved badly enough to merit punishment.
 	
[UP] 

      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 3 Las Vegas SUN: Rice Says Patience With Iran Waning 

Today: January 05, 2006 at 9:36:34 PST 

By ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signaled
Thursday that time is running out for Iran to avoid being hauled
before the U.N. Security Council over its disputed nuclear
program, and she denied that the threat is mere "saber
rattling." 

Rice avoided declaring an end to negotiations between Tehran and
European nations aimed at averting punishment at the powerful
United Nations body. Her skepticism about progress in the talks
was clear, however, and she chose unusually blunt language to
lay out the probable next step. 

"When it's clear that negotiations are exhausted, we have the
votes" to take Iran before the Security Council for possible
punishment, Rice told reporters. "There is a resolution sitting
there for referral. We'll vote it." 

The United States accuses Iran of using a program to develop
nuclear power plants as a way of disguising ambitions to build
nuclear weapons. Iran denies the accusation and has recently
threatened to resume some nuclear research that was suspended
during talks with the Europeans. 

The United States is not a party to the talks, but is supporting
European efforts to divert Iran from pursuing technology that
could be used for bomb-making. The U.S. has no diplomatic
relations with the nation that stormed the U.S. Embassy in
Tehran in 1979 and held Americans hostage for more than a year. 

Rice said world opinion is now almost universally arrayed
against Iran's nuclear position, and she implied that the United
States and its allies hold the cards. 

"We've carefully built a consensus" about the dangers of a
nuclear Iran and what to do about it, Rice said. "That's not
saber rattling, that's diplomacy ... and diplomacy includes what
you do in the Security Council." 

Iran reneged Thursday on a pledge to provide the head of the
U.N. nuclear watchdog agency with details of its plans to move
toward uranium enrichment, failing to send representatives as
promised for discussions on the program. 

         All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 4 AFP: Iranian experts meet with UN nuclear watchdog 

 Thu Jan 5, 5:50 AM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - Experts from Iran" /> Iranand the UN nuclear
watchdog met in Vienna to discuss Tehran's plans to resume
atomic fuel research. 

The meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency" />
International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA) follows the
announcement by Tehran in a letter that it plans on Monday to
resume research for its "programme for peaceful nuclear energy"
which was suspended two years ago. 

A meeting was initially planned for Wednesday but postponed. 

A senior IAEA official confirmed the meeting had started
Thursday morning. 

"There are meetings planned over the next couple of days,
focussed on clarifying the letter and in particular what does
the resumption of (research and development) mean," said the
official, who asked not to be identified. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 5 AFP: Iran won't bow to nuclear 'bullies' - Ahmadinejad 

 Thu Jan 5, 7:39 AM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated
his tough stance on pursuing the country's controversial nuclear
programme, after plans to resume fuel research were criticised
by the international community. 

"Related information on Iran">Iran would not bow to Western 
"bullies" which already have nuclear arsenals. 

"Those who have nuclear weapons and have used them in the worst 
way against people in the world, have no right to prevent nations 
from achieving peaceful nuclear energy," the ultra-conservative 
president told a cheering audience in the religious epicentre of 
Qom. 

"Some of them lately have even gone so far as to say that the 
Iranian nation has no right to conduct nuclear research. All 
nations should know that if we give these bullies a chance, they 
will next say that you don't have the right to have 
universities." 

Tehran on Tuesday announced plans to restart research for its 
"programme for peaceful nuclear energy" which was suspended two 
years ago, a move that prompted International Atomic Energy 
Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agencydirector Mohamed 
ElBaradei to seek "clarifications". 

A meeting was being held on the issue between IAEA officials and
an Iranian delegation in Vienna on Thursday. 

ElBaradei said on Tuesday that the IAEA's board of governors
wanted Iran to refrain from activities linked to enrichment of
uranium as a key confidence-building measure. 

Ahamdinejad however stressed that Iran would master the
technology "in the near future, to serve in medical,
agricultural, industries and energy sectors, God willing." 

The European Union" /> European Unionand the United States fear
Iran's civil nuclear programme is a cover for developing a bomb.
Tehran denies the accusation, insisting its activities are
designed solely to meet its electricity needs. 

Both Berlin and Paris warned Tehran's announcement could delay
future talks on the issue, which are due to resume in Austria on
January 18. 

The possible resumption of enrichment by Iran would be regarded
by the West as a point of no return, triggering the
implementation of a resolution could see Iran referred to the UN
Security Council for possible sanctins. 

	 		 			
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 6 IRNA: Iran-IAEA nuclear talks underway in Vienna 

Jan 5, IRNA                                                                                                            

-- Negotiations between the International Atomic Energy Agency 
(IAEA) and Iranian officials on the procedure of resumption of 
research on the nuclear fuel technology is now underway in 
Vienna.

 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Iran's 
decision to continue such research has been declared to the UN 
nuclear watchdog chief, Mohamed ElBaradei in a letter.

 Research on nuclear fuel technology was suspended by Iran 
voluntarily some two and a half years ago.

 An agency diplomat told IRNA in Vienna Thursday that the Iranian 
delegation including two negotiators arrived in Vienna two days 
ago.

 The Iranian nuclear negotiators conferred with the agency 
officials on Wednesday on submission of Iran's letter about 
resumption of research on peaceful nuclear energy.

 The diplomat added that the second session of the meeting 
currently underway mostly deals with technical issues.

*****************************************************************
 7 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Stands Up Top U.N. Nuclear Inspector
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Thursday January 5, 2006 8:17 PM

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A defiant Iran rebuffed the head of the
International Atomic Energy Agency on Thursday, failing to show
up for a meeting to discuss Tehran's plans to move closer to
uranium enrichment within days. 

Diplomats close to the agency described the move as unusual and
suggested it was at least partly triggered by criticism of
Tehran by agency head Mohamed ElBaradei during a Wednesday
meeting with Iranian envoys. 

One of the diplomats said the Iranians appeared taken aback by
the firmness of ElBaradei's demands for more cooperation in his
agency's investigation of Tehran's nuclear activities. He, like
others who spoke to The Associated Press, spoke on condition of
anonymity because the meeting was private. 

That, and the usually soft-spoken ElBaradei's clear opposition
to Iran's plans to resume work with some equipment used in
enrichment - a possible pathway to nuclear arms, apparently
contributed to Iran's no-show Thursday, he said. 

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signaled
Thursday that time was running out for Iran. 

``When it's clear that negotiations are exhausted, we have the
votes'' to take Iran before the Security Council for possible
punishment, Rice told reporters in Washington. 

Iranian representatives already failed to meet ElBaradei's
request Wednesday for clarification of what they describe as
plans to restart research on, and development of, uranium
enrichment. But Iran promised to do so Thursday. 

Iran says it is interested in enrichment to make nuclear fuel,
but the United States and an increasing number of other nations
say Tehran wants the technology to make weapons-grade uranium
for nuclear warheads. 

Tehran says it will not actually begin enrichment Monday. But
even the restart of equipment testing would be viewed as another
move toward fully reviving the program despite Tehran's pledge
to fully freeze all its aspects. 

``The meeting never took place,'' said IAEA spokeswoman Melissa
Fleming, adding ElBaradei was ``still seeking clarification'' of
what Tehran would do. 

But a diplomat accredited to the agency said the IAEA appeared
resigned to not getting the details it had asked for before
Monday. He cited ElBaradei as saying he did not expect the
high-ranking Iranian delegation to ask for a new appointment. 

Agency officials said the delegation, led by Mohammad Saeedi,
the deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was
en route to Tehran by Thursday afternoon. 

With senior Russian officials expected in the Iranian capital at
the weekend to discuss nuclear cooperation, Saeedi was unlikely
to return before the scheduled restart of work with enrichment
equipment. 

European powers had hoped that a briefing by IAEA officials
would help them determine whether to go ahead with planned talks
with Iranian officials in Vienna on Jan. 18 or to cancel them
and have Tehran referred to the Security Council. 

That path was cleared late last year, when the 35-nation board
of the IAEA found Iran in noncompliance of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty for keeping its uranium enrichment
program secret for decades and conducting other work that could
be used for a nuclear weapons program. 

The Europeans, with American backing, then decided to give
diplomacy another try in efforts to gain more international
support for their stance. 

ElBaradei has repeatedly said his agency's nearly three-year
probe of Iran's nuclear activities has turned up no conclusive
evidence of nuclear weapons activities. 

At the same time, he has been increasingly critical of delays
and conflicting information provided to his inspectors - who in
November reported finding drawings in paperwork provided by the
Iranians of what appeared to be parts of nuclear warheads. 

Iran's record on enrichment has added to international concern. 

Tehran's decision in August to resume uranium conversion - a
precursor to enrichment - led the Europeans to break off talks
on grounds that the move violated Iran's freeze pledge. 

The two sides nonetheless agreed last month to try to bridge
differences with the Europeans, hoping that the Iranians would
accept a plan that would move their nascent enrichment program
to Russia - in theory depriving them of the ability to misuse it
for weapons. 

But hopes were dimmed by Tehran's steadfast refusal to consider
giving up the right to enrich domestically. 

^--- 

On the Net: 

International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 8 U.S. 'Threatened N.Korea with Military Action'
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 05:53:26 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

Chosun Ilbo (Seoul)
January 5, 2005

U.S. 'THREATENED N.KOREA WITH MILITARY ACTION'

Washington last year threatened North Korea with military action if
Pyongyang did not return to six-party talks on its nuclear program, the
Sankei Shimbun reported quoting diplomatic sources in the U.S.

The Japanese daily said when tensions over North Korea's development of
nuclear weapons peaked in April last year, Washington considered military
action if North Korea kept boycotting the multilateral talks.

Sources in Washington said that on April 22, a special envoy of the U.S.
State Department delivered the warning to North Korea's UN mission in New
York. The envoy explained opinion was split in Washington. While President
Bush favored a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff, Vice President
Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were leaning toward
military action. The envoy said if the talks collapsed, the president had no
choice but to find other alternatives including a military option.

The Sankei said the U.S., to show it was not bluffing, dispatched F117
Stealth fighters that can escape radar detection to their forces in South
Korea. The paper said it was only then that North Korea announced it will
return. The daily said now the talk of a military option could re-emerge
since the North has become reluctant to resume dialogue citing U.S.
financial sanctions like the freezing of North Korean firms overseas
assets.
*****************************************************************
 9 reviewjournal.com: Reid says Chertoff should resign
 
Jan. 05, 2006

Senator echoes sheriff after city falls off list         

By MIKE KALIL <br/>REVIEW-JOURNAL
	
U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called for the resignation 
of Homeland Security Department Secretary Michael Chertoff on 
Wednesday, one day after the government dropped Las Vegas from a 
list of cities considered potential high-risk targets eligible 
for special anti-terrorism grants. 

Reid, D-Nev., joins Clark County Sheriff Bill Young in calling 
for Chertoff to step down as a result of the decision 
jeopardizing millions in additional federal funding that Nevada 
currently receives as a result of being considered a potential 
terrorist target. 

"Anyone who can't see that Las Vegas is a high-risk area doesn't
deserve to serve in a position like that," Reid said. 

"We had more visitors on New Year's Eve than they had in Times
Square and we're not a high-risk area? For heaven's sakes." 

Las Vegas and 10 other cities previously categorized as "high
threat" fell behind 35 areas declared eligible this year for
special grants earmarked by the Department of Homeland Security. 

Las Vegas received $8 million in 2005 through such high-threat
funding to purchase a spectrometer to detect chemical agents,
special clothing, chemical response vehicles, handheld computers
for emergency personnel to communicate, a bomb robot and a bomb
armored vehicle, according to the Clark County Office of
Emergency Management. 

Chertoff defended the scaled-back approach as one that focuses
federal grants on those areas most needing to make preparations,
with the 35 locations decided by 3.2 billion calculations aimed
at determining regions most susceptible to terrorism. 

On Tuesday, Young called Chertoff "impossible" to deal with
regarding the needs of a major tourist destination, one that
last year played host to nearly 40 million visitors. 

As evidence of risk, Young noted documented visits to Las Vegas
before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by five of the airplane
hijackers, revelations in a Detroit terrorism case that
terrorists had plotted to strike Las Vegas, and a 2003 New
Year's Eve threat alert under which hotels and airlines were
asked by the government to turn over customer lists. 

Reid said Chertoff previously proved himself an inappropriate
director with his lumbering response to Hurricane Katrina . 

Said Reid: "He did a lousy job on Katrina." 	   


Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
 10 [NukeNet] Japanese NGOs send petition to IAEA
 
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:08:12 -0800

<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

PRESS RELEASE (5 January 2006 Kyoto, Japan)

Urge International Body to Take Action to Ensure Japan Upholds
International Commitment to not Produce Surplus Plutonium

Japanese NGOs today sent a letter to IAEA Director General Mohamed
ElBaradei and the Board of Governors urging the inter-governmental body
to discuss and take action to ensure Japan upholds its 1997 commitment
made to the international organization not to produce surplus
plutonium.

Testing scheduled to take place next month at the Rokkasho reprocessing
plant will separate out 4 tons of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel.
This will violate the commitment Japan made to the IAEA because the
plutonium cannot be consumed.

The petition sent to the IAEA by Green Action, Citizens' Nuclear
Information Center and Greenpeace Japan states, "Japan originally made
this commitment in the interests of nuclear non-proliferation and
disarmament, a field in which it is a valuable leader. Given the
heightened political tension around disarmament and non-proliferation
in North East Asia, and its role as Chair of the IAEA Board of
Governors, Japan should not renege on this commitment."

Green Action director Aileen Mioko Smith stated, "Japanese utilities
will shortly be going public with a fabricated plutonium utilization
plan. The Japanese government is intending to approve it. Instead Japan
should keep its promise to the IAEA and indefinitely postpone testing
at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant."
Japan already has over 42 tons of surplus plutonium in Europe and Japan.

Contact:
Green Action, Aileen Mioko Smith Cell: 090-3620-9251
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center Tel: 03-5330-9520

INTRODUCTION TO PETITION

Ensure Japan Upholds its International Commitment To Not Produce
Surplus Plutonium

The government of Japan made a written and unequivocal pledge to the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in December 1997 to uphold
the "principle of no surplus plutonium."*1

Despite this commitment, Japan will separate out 4 tons of plutonium at
the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, if active testing using spent nuclear
fuel begins as scheduled in February 2006. The stark fact is that the
Japanese nuclear power program has no use for this plutonium, now or in
the foreseeable future.

The Plutonium Utilization Plan of Japan presented to the IAEA in 1997
stated that mixed plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX) fuel in light water
reactors would be the "principle way of utilizing plutonium in Japan
over the next few decades." The program, however, has never gotten off
the ground due to public opposition, data falsification scandals in
1999 and 2002 and the fatal accident at the Mihama nuclear power plant
in 2004. Today, not a single electric utility has the go ahead to
consume MOX fuel.

Furthermore, a fundamental technical problem exists. Japan lacks the
capability to turn any plutonium produced at Rokkasho into MOX fuel.
There is only a government "expectation" that a MOX fuel fabrication
plant be fully operational by fiscal 2012.*2    Therefore, if active
testing begins at Rokkasho this year, any separated plutonium will
languish at the facility.

Moreover, a massive cache of Japanese plutonium already exists:
thirty-seven tons sit in Europe. Japan's Framework for Nuclear Energy
Policy issued in October 2005 gives priority to the consumption of this
plutonium in Europe over any produced at Rokkasho *3.

Japan allowed the stockpile in Europe to grow even after the MOX
program fell apart, although it was clear the plutonium could not be
consumed. Now, it is set to accumulate more plutonium, this time in
Japan.

Simply put, Japan already has tons of plutonium and no way to burn it.
Further stockpiling is not only irresponsible but also a clear break
with Japan's pledge to produce no surplus plutonium.

Japan originally made this commitment in the interests of nuclear
non-proliferation and disarmament, a field in which it is a valuable
leader. Given the heightened political tension around disarmament and
non-proliferation in North East Asia, and its role as Chair of the IAEA
Board of Governors, Japan should not renege on this commitment.

For these reasons, Japan should indefinitely postpone active testing at
the Rokkasho reprocessing plant.

*1.  International Atomic Energy Agency, "Communication Received from
Certain Member States Concerning their Policies Regarding the
Management of Plutonium", INFCIRC/549/Add. 1, 31 March 1998. Available
at
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/1998/ infcirc549a1.pdf

*2.  Japan Atomic Energy Commission, "Framework for Nuclear Energy
Policy", 14 October 2005, p.34.
Available at http://aec.jst.go.jp/jicst/NC/eng/index.htm

*3.  Ibid, p.11.

PETITION
To ensure that Japan does not breach its international commitment to
the "principle of no surplus plutonium", we urge the IAEA Secretariat
and Board of Governors to immediately discuss this matter and quickly
take appropriate action before active testing begins at Rokkasho and
plutonium is accumulated.
5 January 2006

Hideyuki Ban (Co-Director)
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC)
3F Kotobuki Bldg., 1-58-15 Higashi-nakano
Nakano-ku, Tokyo, 164-0003, Japan
Phone: +81 3 5330 9520
Aileen Mioko Smith (Director)
Green Action
Suite 103, 22-75, Tanaka Sekiden-cho
Sakyo-ku Kyoto, 606-8203, Japan
Phone: +81 75 701 7223

Atsuko Nogawa (Nuclear Campaigner)
Greenpeace Japan
N F bldg. 2F 8-13-11 Nishi-Shinjuku
Shinjuku, Tokyo, 160-0023, Japan
Phone: +81 3 5338 9800

BACKGROUND BRIEFING
(Compiled 5 January 2006 by Green Action)
Statements on Rokkasho, Surplus Plutonium and MOX Fuel

Fukushima governor Eisaku Sato's statement to the Japan Atomic Energy
Commission about the Rokkasho reprocessing plant and surplus plutonium:
"Why rush to operate a new reprocessing facility when there is still no
solution for disposing the 40 tons of plutonium Japan already
possesses?"
(Submission to Public Comment on draft of "Framework for Nuclear Energy
Policy", August 2005)

Of the 430 tons of spent nuclear fuel to be reprocessed during the
active testing scheduled to start at the Rokkasho reprocessing plant in
February, 310 tons belong to the two largest electric utilities in
Japan - 170 tons from Tokyo Electric and 140 tons from Kansai Electric.
Neither utility, however, can consume the plutonium that will be
produced at Rokkasho.
All seventeen Tokyo Electric nuclear power plants are located in two
prefectures, Niigata and Fukushima. As a result of public opposition
and Tokyo Electric's safety data falsification in 2002, both
prefectures withdrew authorization for MOX fuel use. Their opposition
remains adamant.

Niigata Governor Hirohiko Izumida:
"The Pluthermal (MOX fuel utilization) issue is not even at a stage for
discussion.  It would be deplorable and damage the trust of the public
and Niigata regional authorities if the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear
power plant site were to be included in plutonium utilization plans and
announced to the public.(IS(B
(Excerpt from December 2005 letter submitted to Tokyo Electric
president Tsunehisa Katsumata. Source: Kyodo "Niigata Governor Lodges
Warning to Tokyo Electric Regarding Pluthermal (MOX utilization) Plans"
26 December, 2005)

"In the middle of all of this, we have heard that the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant site is being listed in the
company's Plutonium Utilization Plans....It is deplorable* that the
Atomic Energy Commission is calling for public release of plutonium
utilization plans at this time... We petition your committee that you
understand this situation in our prefecture and take it into
consideration in some manner."
(Excerpt from letter submitted to Shunsuke Kondo, Chair, Japan Atomic
Energy Commission 27 December 2005)

Fukushima Governor Eisaku Sato:
"I do not care what Tokyo Electric says. It is inconceivable that MOX
fuel
utilization takes place in this prefecture. I believe that Tokyo
Electric understands the (prefecture's) position."
(Excerpt from governor's regular monthly press conference 26 December
2005. Source: Fukushima Minyu Newspaper (Morning News) "Pluthermal (MOX
fuel utilization) Inconceivable" 27 December 2005)

"The governor, in giving his reasons, referred to the statement he had
made
during the September 2002 prefectural legislative session in which he
stated, 'Prior consent (for MOX fuel utilization) has been withdrawn
because the necessary conditions for granting it have collapsed.' This
statement by the governor was made after revelations in August (2002)
that Tokyo Electric had concealed problems at its nuclear power plants.
  The governor (also) referred to the prefectural legislative assembly's
resolution in opposition and stated, 'We have decided not to have the
program implemented in our prefecture in accordance with the collective
will of our citizens.'"
(Excerpt from the Fukushima Minyu Newspaper article "Pluthermal (MOX
fuel utilization) Inconceivable" 27 December 2005)

Meanwhile, due to the 2004 accident at Kansai Electric's Mihama nuclear
power plant, the utility itself admits implementing the MOX program is
at present impossible.

Kansai Electric on MOX Program Status:
"At present we are concentrating fully on Mihama Unit 3 post-accident
measures and are therefore not in the position to consider MOX fuel
use."
(Kansai Electric Osaka Headquarters 20 October 2005 (Repeated 20
December 2005))

[Thanks to Green Action for putting together the petition, press
release and background briefing materials. Informal English translation
of news articles and statements are by Green Action.]
http://www.greenaction-japan.org

Status of Light Water Reactors using MOX Fuel in Japan

No electric utility in Japan has the go-ahead to consume MOX fuel.
Tables detailing the status for light water reactors using MOX fuel are
available in English at:
Japanese Nuclear Power Companies' Pluthermal* Plans
http://cnic.jp/english/topics/cycle/MOX/pluthermplans.html.
These tables were compiled by Kakujoho
(http://kakujoho.net/e/index.html) from publicly available documents
and translated into English by Citizens' Nuclear Information Center.
* In Japan, the program to use MOX (plutonium-urainum mixed oxide) fuel
in light water reactors is called the 'pluthermal' program.

Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
3F Kotobuki Bdg, 1-58-15, Higashi-Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003
Phone: 81-3-5330-9520
Fax: 81-3-5330-9530
http://cnic.jp/english/
cnic@nifty.com



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 11 [NukeNet] FW: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium
 
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:08:55 -0800

<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
<mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu>fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: Max Obuszewski [mailto:MObuszewski@afsc.org]
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 7:36 PM
Subject: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium

     During September of 2004 I launched an international campaign to 
conclude a global pact against depleted uranium (DU) munitions by having 
every state in the world officially and publicly take the position that the 
Geneva Protocol of 1925 already includes within itself a flat-out 
prohibition on the use of DU in wartime, which they have no yet done.  So 
far the United States is the only government in the world that uses DU 
munitions during wartime.  In addition to prohibiting "the use of 
bacteriological methods of warfare," the 1925 Geneva Protocol also 
prohibits "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of 
all analogous liquids, materials, or devices."  Clearly DU is "analogous" 
to poison gas.[i]  But we need every government in the world to legally and 
openly take that position.  Then the entire world can pressure the United 
States to remove DU munitions from its arsenal.



              Politically, the easiest way to accomplish that objective is 
not the conclusion of a new international treaty prohibiting the use of DU, 
but rather simply having every state in the world submit an interpretative 
Letter to that effect to the Government of France, which is the official 
depositary for the 1925 Geneva Protocol.  This latter approach would also 
avoid the need to have the respective national legislatures of every state 
in the world to approve a new anti-DU treaty and thus complicate and 
prolong the process.  All that needs to be done is for anti-DU citizens, 
activists and NGOs in each country of the world to pressure and convince 
their respective Foreign Ministers to sign, date, and then file this model 
Letter with the French Foreign Minister as indicated below.  That task is 
eminently feasible.

             As the Land Mines Treaty has already demonstrated, it is 
possible for a coalition of determined activists and NGOs, acting in 
concert with at least one sympathetic state, such as Canada, to actually 
bring into being an international treaty to address humanitarian 
concerns.  This template Letter is for the use of concerned citizens, 
activists and NGOs worldwide, to pursue through universal governmental 
participation the complete and final elimination of DU munitions from the 
face of the earth:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
<mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu>fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)



His Excellency Michel Barnier

Foreign Minister

French Republic

37, Quai d'Orsay

75351 Paris

FRANCE

FAX:  33-1-43-17-4275



Dear Excellency:



The Republic of X presents its compliments to the French Republic.  I have 
the honor to draw to your attention the Protocol for the Prohibition of the 
Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of 
Bacteriological Methods of Warfare of 17 June 1925, for which the 
Government of the French Republic serves as the depositary.  The Geneva 
Protocol of 1925 prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or 
other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, as well as 
the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.  The government of X 
believes that the Geneva Protocol of 1925 already prohibits the use in war 
of depleted uranium, uranium ammunition, uranium armor-plate and all other 
uranium weapons.  We respectfully request your Excellency to circulate this 
communication to the other High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Protocol 
of 1925.



Please accept, Excellency, the assurance of our highest consideration.



Foreign Minister

Republic of X

Day, Month, Year




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 12 Platts: Gas crisis fuels nuclear energy debate in German government
 
London (Platts)--5Jan2006
 
The gas supply dispute between Russia and Ukraine has reignited 
the nuclear power debate in Germany, which has pledged to phase 
out all atomic fuel by 2021.

     Germany, which imports about 35% of its 100-bil cu m/yr of 
gas demand from Russia, should not turn its back on nuclear 
power, said its economics minister Michael Glos in parliamentary 
debate Tuesday. Nuclear technology, he added, was "fit for the 
future." "The minister has said that he hopes the last word [on 
nuclear] has not been spoken and there was no harm in trying to 
find out more," a spokesman for the ministry said Wednesday.

     The new "grand coalition" government between the ruling CDU 
and the SPD party agreed late last year to uphold the so-called 
"atom consensus" agreed between the previous SPD-Green party 
coalition with industry in 2001 to withdraw the country's then 19 
nuclear power plants after an average lifespan of 32 years. 
Germany has since closed two reactors.

     Glos, who is a member of CDU partner, the CSU, has an ally 
in research and technology minister Annette Schavan of the CDU, 
who warned against the end of nuclear research. CSU chief and 
Bavarian minister president Edmund Stoiber also supports Glos, 
saying the subject would be discussed next week in a closed 
meeting of the federal cabinet.
     
     GLOS WANTS TO AVOID COALITION CONFLICT

     According to a report by the BBC Monitoring Service 
Wednesday, Glos repeated his demand that, in view of the gas 
dispute, phasing out nuclear energy must be rethought. He added 
though that his party wanted "fair" talks with the SPD and did 
not want to start a coalition conflict.

     But SPD general secretary Hubertus Heil said the coalition 
treaty was "very unequivocal" with regard to the nuclear 
phase-out, while parliamentary state secretary in the environment 
ministry Michael Mueller, also of the SPD, said the atom 
consensus was irreversible.

     "In the interests of the coalition succeeding, I can only 
advise Mr Glos not to touch it," said Mueller. The future "really 
does not lie in nuclear energy," he added, noting that worldwide 
uranium deposits would be exhausted in about 25 years. Thus the 
energy policy of the future must concentrate, he said, on energy 
efficiency and renewable forms of energy.

     The Federal Association of German Industry (BDI) supported 
the economics minister's nuclear energy-friendly position. 
Carsten Kreklau, a member of the BDI chief executive secretariat, 
said: "A balanced energy mix is part of a reliable energy supply. 
Nuclear energy must play a role in this, also in the future." 

     Ulrich Kelber, deputy chairman of the SPD Bundestag group, 
said giving up nuclear energy had nothing to do with gas 
deliveries from Russia. "Mr Glos should know when a battle is 
lost," said Kelber. To find out more about the Russia/Ukraine gas 
dispute go to x.xml
 

Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill 
Companies]       
*****************************************************************
 13 Japan Times: Rokkasho tests break plutonium pledge, activists tell IAEA

  Friday, January 6, 2006   
  
 By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer

OSAKA -- Antinuclear activists in Japan warned in a letter sent
Thursday to the International Atomic Energy Agency that tests at
the Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, reprocessing plant scheduled
for early next month will violate the government's policy of
holding no surplus plutonium.

 "The government of Japan made a written and unequivocal pledge
to the IAEA in December 1997 to uphold the principle of no
surplus plutonium. Despite this commitment, Japan will separate
out four tons of plutonium at the Rokkasho plant if active
testing using spent nuclear fuel begins in February," the letter
says.

 The letter was sent by the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear
Information Center and Greenpeace Japan, along with Kyoto-based
Green Action. It calls on the IAEA Secretariat and Board of
Governors to begin immediate discussions on the matter and to
take "appropriate action" before active testing begins next
month.

 IAEA officials were not immediately available for comment for
this article. However, privately, some have expressed concern
about what the operation of the Rokkasho fuel reprocessing
plant, scheduled to come into commercial operation in 2007,
would mean for the proliferation of nuclear materials.

 IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has proposed that new
reprocessing facilities be placed under international control in
order to ease proliferation concerns.

 But the government's position is that even though Rokkasho has
yet to go into operation, it is an existing facility and
therefore outside the ElBaradei proposals.

 Some local political leaders are also concerned about the
possible proliferation risks of operating Rokkasho.

 In August, Fukushima Gov. Eisaku Sato asked the Atomic Energy
Commission why Rokkasho was necessary when the government has
yet to determine how the roughly 43 tons of plutonium it already
possesses would be disposed of.

 The Japan Times: Jan. 6, 2006
(C) All rights reserved 

*****************************************************************
 14 Las Vegas SUN: Rice Chastises Russia's Energy Moves 

Today: January 05, 2006 at 12:46:26 PST 

By ANNE GEARAN ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accused
Russia of using its energy wealth as a political weapon, and
warned on Thursday that Moscow must play by international rules
if it wants to be part of the global economy. 

Rice said it was "ironic and not good" that Russia used gas
exports to apply pressure to former close ally Ukraine just as
Moscow was assuming the rotating presidency of the Group of
Eight economic powerhouse nations. 

"It was not a good week from the point of view of Russia's
demonstrating that it is now prepared to act ... as an energy
supplier in a responsible way," Rice told reporters. 

"When you say you want to be a part of the international economy
and you want to be a responsible actor in the international
economy, then you play by its rules," Rice said. 

European nations made that point strongly, following moves to
drastically raise gas prices or cut off supplies to Ukraine,
formerly part of the Soviet Union and until 2004 still largely
under Moscow's influence. 

The crisis came in the middle of the cold Ukrainian winter and
just two months before parliamentary elections in Ukraine. The
voting is the first since the tumultuous Orange Revolution mass
protests that catapulted to power a critic of Russia, Viktor
Yushchenko. 

Under international pressure, Russia signed a complicated energy
deal with Ukraine this week that keeps gas flowing but requires
Ukraine to pay sharply higher prices. 

Until Thursday, the United States had expressed concern about
Russia's actions but avoided saying Russia had used energy to
retaliate against Ukraine for moving toward Western-style
democracy. 

Ukraine had bought gas from Russia at a steep discount, a relic
of the old Soviet system. Rice said there is nothing wrong with
ending that arrangement gradually. 

"But when you do it in the way that this was done, with an
obviously political motive, of course it causes problems," Rice
said. 

"I think that kind of behavior is going to continue to draw
comment about the distance between Russian behavior and
something like this and what would be expected of a responsible
member of the G-8." 

Russia sought G-8 membership for more than a decade partly for
the economic clout it carries and partly for the prestige of
membership in what had been known as the Group of Seven highly
industrialized countries. 

The group turned down a U.S. proposal to invite Russia to join
as a full member in 1992 - a proposal made as a political
gesture to encourage democracy in Russia - but accepted Russia's
full-fledged membership a decade later. 

Russia assumed the presidency this year and will host the annual
G-8 summit this summer in St. Petersburg. 

The other members are the world's seven wealthiest nations -
United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and
Italy. 

Russia has the 16th largest economy in the world, but argues
that its role as a top energy producer makes it an essential
partner. 

         All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 15 AFP: Pakistan says other countries did not punish Khan nuclear network members - 

 Thu Jan 5, 7:51 AM ET 		 	 

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan said it had dealt sternly with its
disgraced nuclear hero who ran a clandestine proliferation
network, but other countries had not taken similar action
against other people involved. 

 "Many scientists and people of other nationalities were
involved in the underground network," Foreign Minister Khurshid
Kasuri told a news conference jointly addressed by his Japanese
counterpart Taro Aso. 

"There were maybe 80 or 90 or 100 people involved, (and) we have
not seen similar action against them as we have taken against
doctor A.Q. Khan," Kasuri said on Thursday. 

Pakistan took the "strongest action and has put the network out
of business," Kasuri added. 

Abdul Qadeer Khan, considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear
bomb, confessed in February 2004 to leaking secrets to Iran" />
Iran, North Korea" /> North Koreaand Libya after a government
probe into nuclear proliferation. 

The United States believes the technology has enabled Iran to
enrich uranium to a level required for making nuclear weapons. 

Khan was later pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf but since
then has been living under a virtual house arrest in Islamabad. 

Kasuri said the "harsh" treatment of Khan had sparked criticism
of the government. 

"A.Q. Khan was regarded by a large section of Pakistanis as a
national hero for bringing strategic parity in South Asia, (he)
has been treated harshly and there are some critics of the
government policy in Pakistan on that issue," he said. 

Kasuri said Pakistan strongly believed in non-proliferation. 

He said Pakistan wanted the Iranian nuclear issue to be resolved
peacefully within the framework of the IAEA ( International
Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic Energy Agency). 

Aso said Japan and Pakistan were exchanging information on the
underground nuclear proliferation network and Khan. 

"We very much appreciate the information provided by the
Pakistan government," the Japanese minister said. 

Earlier the two foreign ministers signed an agreement on an
emergency earthquake loan of 100 million dollars. 

Aso announced an additional grant of 55 million dollars for
Pakistan's quake-hit areas, bringing Japan's total assistance to
200 million dollars. 

A giant 7.6 magnitude quake on October 8 killed more than 73,000
people and made 3.5 million homeless in Pakistan-administered
Kashmir" /> Kashmirand North Western Frontier Province. 

Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 16 newsobserver.com: NRC to probe N-plant security - 

Wade Rawlins 

Thursday, January 5, 2006   

 --> NRC to probe N-plant security Wade Rawlins, Staff Writer A
three-member team from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will
conduct interviews next week at Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant to
see whether they can verify allegations of lax security at the
plant.

"This is a special inspection related to concerns that have been
raised about inadequate security measures at the plant," said
Ken Clark, a spokesman for the NRC in Atlanta. "The NRC staff
has not reached any conclusions as to the validity of the
concerns. But we are still looking into it, and we are seeking
information."

A complaint filed in December by N.C. Waste Awareness and
Reduction Network, a nuclear watchdog group, and the
Washington-based Union for Concerned Scientists, alleged lapses
in security at the nuclear plant. Owned by Progress Energy, the
plant is in southwestern Wake County.

Company officials reject the charges and have said that the
plant is safe and secure. 

The complaint alleged that guards, employed by an outside
security firm, have been forced to cheat on guard re-licensing
tests, made to work while injured, retaliated against for
reporting injuries and allowed to sleep on their shifts. N.C.
WARN's source of information was an unidentified guard at the
Shearon Harris plant.

The complaint also contends that the plant has some inoperable
intruder detection equipment and doors with worn-out hardware
that keeps them from locking properly.

"What they really need to do is get in there and talk
confidentially and give people some comfort that they are not
going to give Progress their names," said Jim Warren, executive
director of N.C. WARN, referring to the NRC team.

Rick Kimble, a spokesman for Progress Energy, said the company
has completed a review of the allegations. Kimble said several
of the incidents raised by N.C. WARN were dealt with by the
company at the time they happened. He said they could not
substantiate other allegations.

Kimble said some doors at the plant had inoperable mechanisms,
but other precautions were taken until they were fixed. He also
said a guard had reported a gunshot in August and the incident
was investigated immediately. Kimble said the report was taken
seriously, the plant went to a heightened level of security and
the Wake County Sheriff's Department was called. But he said no
source was found for the gunshot.

Kimble said the company could not find evidence that vehicles
had passed through security checkpoints without inspection or
that guards had been encouraged to cheat on exams, as alleged.

"We can't find anybody who will come forward with any sort of
evidence," he said. "We believe very strongly that it never
happened." Staff writer Wade Rawlins can be reached at 829-4528
or wrawlins@newsobserver.com.
   
 © Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company <img
*****************************************************************
 17 Platts: Virginia seeks NRC Agreement State status

  [The McGraw-Hill Companies]   
    
 
+ Virginia says it wants to become an NRC Agreement State. In a
Dec. 14 letter, released by NRC yesterday, Virginia Gov. Mark
Warner said he feels Virginia "should assume a more prominent
role in the protection of its citizens from unnecessary
radiation." 

To that end, Warner said, the state intends to pursue an 
agreement with NRC to assume oversight of certain radioactive 
material within its borders. 

Warner noted that radioactive materials are used by Virginia's 
industry, universities, and healthcare system. 

"While such usage benefits all of us, radiation safety has always 
been a prime concern," he said. 

There are currently 33 NRC Agreement States. NRC is expected soon 
to approve an agreement that would make Minnesota the 34th 
Agreement State. 


Washington (Platts)--4Jan2006
 
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]       
*****************************************************************
 18 Greenpeace: Choose Clean Energy

Nuclear power - not the answer to questions of energy security                                                
 				     			 						
[Solar panels on German Federal Chancellery]                                                                 

05-01-2006

The UK will shortly become a net importer of gas, as the North
Sea fields which have given us over 20 years of self-sufficiency
finally run dry. The recent attempt by the Russian Government,
Europe's major gas supplier, to hike the price of the gas it
supplies to neighbouring Ukraine (the first step on the pipeline
route to western Europe) has led to intense media speculation
over the security of supplies to the UK - in effect the argument
is that since we cannot rely on a stable supply of gas, we
should press ahead with a new generation of nuclear power plants
which would guarantee energy security. 

We believe that there is no logic in this argument, and that in
fact it amounts to scaremongering by supporters of the
pro-nuclear lobby. Over the next decade the bulk of these gas
imports will be from Norway and the Netherlands, not from
Russia. Only around 30% of gas supplies are curently used for
electricity generation, so nuclear power is a poor solution to
the security of supply problem - if indeed it is a problem. 

If Tony Blair and the Government are really serious about
improving the security of our energy supply, the best way to do
that would be to improve energy efficiency in buildings, homes
and factories. The Government should also be promoting the rapid
uptake of decentralised energy - using energy where it is
produced eliminates much of the waste produced by our outmoded
and antiquated energy system. 

Decentralised energy systems - including "microgeneration" -
generate electricity as well as heat, using less energy than the
today's standard heating boilers. [1] So not only would gas be
saved at the point of use in households, but electricity
equivalent to around half of the UK's nuclear capacity could
also be generated.[2] And all this at the same time as halving
UK CO2 emissions from the electricity sector within a few
decades, and reducing overall emissions from the UK by 15%. 

Read the Greenpeace report 'Decentralising Power: an energy
revolution for the 21st century'. 

Download the summary as a PDF file. 

Download the full report (5Mb, 74 pages). 

For more information about the future of home-based or
small-scale energy generation, visit the web site of the
Micropower Council. 							   			 					

*****************************************************************
 19 Boston Globe: Plymouth asks more of nuclear plant

Evacuation plan is termed inadequate
 
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff  |  January 5, 2006 

A Plymouth report on safety concerns at the Pilgrim nuclear
power plant says the town has grown so much in the 30 years of
the plant's existence that the ''current evacuation plans do not
pass any reasonable reality check."

School buses evacuating children during a radioactive emergency
at Pilgrim would get stuck in traffic, and bus drivers may not
even show up, according to the report released Tuesday by the
town's Nuclear Matters Committee.

The report, which criticizes a host of other issues at the
plant, was issued as its owner prepares to seek renewal of its
federal license. But the looming battle between the town and the
nuclear plant appears more about suburban growth, post-Sept. 11
politics, and compensation than about permitting.

Citing evacuation problems during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to
underscore their point, the citizens advisory panel said
panic-stricken parents may contribute to the anticipated
gridlock by leaving home or work in Boston and heading to the
schools to pick up their children.

Plymouth elected officials say the Entergy Corp., which owns
Pilgrim, needs to pay for a new evacuation plan, compensate the
town because the plant generates nuclear waste that could be the
target of terrorists, and pay higher property taxes.

''The public is aware that the threats to these types of
facilities have dramatically increased, given that our country
is at a state of war," said Plymouth selectman Anthony R.
Schena. ''That dramatically changes the playing field. We have a
right to expect Entergy to address that concern.

''Times have changed. . . . The cost of doing business in the
town of Plymouth has gone up and you need to pay us," Schena
said.

In an emergency, the report said, some residents may not be
aware of the need to evacuate because the warning sirens in
Plymouth, a town of 54,000, are not loud enough for all to hear.

The report recommends that the town select specialists to
prepare a new evacuation plan, which Entergy should pay for. The
company, however, said that evacuation plans are a matter for
state and local government.

The current evacuation plan was designed and approved by state
officals, with input from Plymouth. ''We feel the plan is
solid," said Peter Judge of the Massachusetts Emergency
Management Agency. ''It's something we take very seriously."

A company spokesman said Entergy officials were open to hearing
lawmakers' concerns. Preliminary talks on a host of issues have
already begun.

''We're a nuclear power plant, and we're in a community, and we
certainly realize we need to pay attention to the community's
concerns," said Entergy spokesman David Tarantino, who
characterized the talks as ''very cordial."

The report also criticized the nuclear fallout shelter system in
place, community education on nuclear issues, and potential
spent nuclear fuel storage problems. It concluded that Plymouth
lawmakers should oppose renewal of the plant's federal license
to operate, which expires in 2012. Entergy plans this year to
seek to extend the license to 2032.

Diane Screnci, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, said none of the issues raised in the report will
affect relicensing, which will be narrowly based on plant upkeep
and environmental impact. She added that Plymouth officials
could raise the issues with the NRC anytime.

''They are issues they should bring to us now; they are issues
that we look at all the time," said Screnci, noting that Pilgrim
passed an NRC safety and security inspection in August.

Plymouth lawmakers said they would hold a series of public
hearings in coming months to discuss issues raised by the
report. Selectmen interviewed said they were aware they had no
ability to affect the NRC, which has never turned down a license
renewal request, but said the town should be compensated by
Entergy because more than 1 million pounds of nuclear waste are
stored on the plant's grounds. They also believe that Entergy
does not pay enough local tax on the plant property. The company
estimates it pays about $1.5 million annually.

Those concerns are being raised as Plymouth faces losing $10
million in annual revenue after 2008, when NStar, which once
owned the plant, is scheduled to stop making payments in lieu of
taxes it promised to the town when it sold the plant in 1998.

''We're going to have to replace that income," said Kenneth E.
Tavares, chairman of Plymouth's Board of Selectmen.

Tarantino, the Entergy spokesman, said the company would listen
to all proposals.

 Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com. [ /] ©
Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. 


*****************************************************************
 20 Hudson Valley News: NRC gives Indian Point green light to install new sirens   

Thursday, January 5, 2006 

One of the currently operating sirens 

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission today gave Entergy Nuclear
Northeast the go ahead to build a new emergency warning siren
system in its 10 mile warning radius around the Indian Point
power plants in Buchanan. That system will include a high-tech
backup power capability. 

The confirmatory order process is being used in this instance to
expedite implementation of the mandatory statutory provisions. 

Entergy spokesman James Steets told MidHudsonNews.com today that
it will take about one year to install a new multi-million
dollar system. Vendors must still be selected. 

Since the power plants had problems with their 156 siren system
months ago, Entergy committed to installing a completely new
system. In recent months, the current system has apparently been
working better.
   
  
 HEAR today's news on , the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio
                          news report. 
  
*****************************************************************
 21 csmonitor: Europe warms to nuclear power | csmonitor.com

from the January 06, 2006 edition       
 
POWER: France announced plans Thursday to build a new plant that 
produces less waste than these current plants. 

ANDRE DURAND

 Russia's gas cutoff Sunday gave a new push to a trend gathering
momentum.

 By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 
PARIS  After nearly two decades, Europe's antinuclear tide is
showing signs of turning. 

For the first time in 15 years, a European country has begun
construction of a nuclear reactor, and six more are likely to be
built in the next decade. Other countries are revising plans to
phase out their nuclear programs. And this week's brief but
brutal drop in Europe's supplies of crucial Russian gas has only
served to fuel the trend.	 	 	

"People are saying 'let's take a second look' at nuclear power,"
says William Ramsay, deputy executive director of the
International Energy Agency. "Rising oil prices means nuclear is
becoming more economically attractive, and gas prices are a
second kick in the pants." 

To reduce its dependence on oil and gas imports, Europe needs to
"look at nuclear power and at renewable energy," European Union
Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Wednesday. 

Nuclear power plants remain unpopular with a majority of
Europeans, who are worried about what happens to the radioactive
waste. Industry officials, however, are playing on the public's
competing worries about the effect of greenhouse gases on global
warming. Nuclear plants, they point out, emit practically no
CO2. 

"Nuclear is the only game in town if you are serious about
cutting greenhouse gases" as the European Union has pledged to
do under the Kyoto Protocol, argues Ian Hore-Lacy, spokesman for
the World Nuclear Association, an industry lobbying group. 

With the legacy of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and rising
environmental concerns clouding the nuclear horizon, EU nations
stopped building nuclear plants for 15 years. But last
yearFinland ended that streak by starting construction of a
third-generation pressurized water reactor, designed by the
French company Areva. It's to come on-line in 2009. 

The French state-owned power generating company, Électricité de
France, has won government approval to build a similar plant in
France and chosen the site. In addition, President Jacques
Chirac announced Thursday, France will complete a pilot plant by
2020 that will produce less waste and burn more efficiently. 

In eastern Europe the Bulgarian government is expected to award
a contract this month for the construction of two units, Romania
has restarted building a power station that was mothballed 15
years ago, and the Czech Republic's energy plan foresees the
construction of two more nuclear plants by the end of the
decade. 

The Swiss parliament last year ended Switzerland's moratorium on
building nuclear power plants and extended the operating
lifetime of the country's five existing units, and the British
government has promised an energy review this year that many
analysts expect to favor nuclear. The review "will include,
specifically, the issue of whether we facilitate the development
of a new generation of nuclear power stations," said British
Prime Minister Tony Blair in a recent speech. 

The question of nuclear power has resurfaced even in countries
that have abandoned - or pledged to abandon - it. In Italy,
which closed its four power stations after a 1987 referendum,
Industry Minister Claudio Scajola said this week that "the
development of nuclear technologies remains an important element
for Italy's energy policy." 

Sweden has dropped plans to close all its nuclear plants by
2010, and Belgium's intention to start phasing out nuclear power
in 2015 has run up against a finding by the Federal Planning
Bureau that nuclear power is the best way for the country to
meet its Kyoto commitments to cut back on greenhouse gases. 

In Germany, meanwhile, conservatives are taking the opportunity
offered by this week's gas scare to challenge the 2020 deadline
for an end to nuclear energy that the previous government
imposed at the insistence of the Green Party. 

In negotiations to form her government last year, Chancellor
Angela Merkel was unable to persuade her Social Democrat
coalition partners to drop the deadline. But supporters of
nuclear energy are unlikely to give up, suggests Hermann Ott,
director of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and
Energy. 

"It will be a constant fight for the next 20 years," predicts
Mr. Ott. "Renewable energy has the potential to replace existing
fossil fuel supplies....But if that does not happen fast enough,
it is likely that the life of the nuclear reactors will be
extended." 

Not that many Germans would be happy with that. Only 38 percent
of them are in favor of nuclear power, according to a European
Union opinion poll last June which also found that across the
EU, 55 percent of citizens oppose nuclear energy. 

	  Who's building nukes?   
  

" Finland began construction on a nuclear reactor last year. 

" France has given approval for a similar one and has plans for
another. 

" Bulgaria is expected to award a contract this month for
building two units. 

" Romania has resumed building a power station after a 15-year
lull. 

" The Czech Republic has plans to build two more nuclear plants
by the end of the decade. 

" Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy, and Germany are all
reconsidering previous plans to cap or phase out nuclear
programs.   

If the nuclear industry is to overcome this hostility, says the
IEA's Mr. Ramsay, "it will have to demonstrate that it can
handle nuclear waste." 

Over the past couple of years, nuclear supporters have sought to
deflect attention away from the problem of nuclear waste by
highlighting the problems associated with fossil fuels, most
notably greenhouse-gas emissions. They have enjoyed some
success: 62 per cent of respondents in the 2005 EU poll agreed
that nuclear power was advantageous in terms of cutting
greenhouse gases - up from just 41 percent four years earlier. 

As European policymakers begin to reconsider the nuclear option
"it is Kyoto and the need to reduce emissions that is the
driver," says Patrick Heren, founder of Heren Energy Ltd, which
publishes which reports on the power markets. 

Antinuclear activists insist that nuclear power is as
potentially dangerous as ever, that nobody has yet found a safe
way to dispose of highly radioactive waste, and that uranium
deposits are too small to ensure long-term fuel supplies to
nuclear plants. European governments would be much better
advised to invest more heavily in wind and solar power, they
argue. 

For most of the past two decades, antinuclear ecologists have
had the argument pretty much all their way in Europe. Today,
acknowledges Sven Teske, energy expert for Greenpeace, "there is
more of a debate." 

For Mr. Heren, who also opposes the expansion of nuclear energy,
the signs are obvious. "Quite clearly," he says, "the wind is
blowing in favor of nuclear across Europe." 

" Andreas Tzortzis contributed to this report from Berlin.
Special Offer: Subscribe to the Monitor and get 32 issues FREE

  www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2006 The Christian Science
*****************************************************************
 22 UPI: Merkel for phasing out nuclear energy

  United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 

1/5/2006 10:54:00 AM -0500                              

BERLIN, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Chancellor Angela Merkel has reaffirmed
her government's commitment to phase out nuclear energy, despite
contrary voices from inside her conservative party. 

Several of Merkel's ministers had demanded from the center-left
coalition partner, the Social Democrats, to step back from their
demand to gradually shut down Germany's power plants in light of
the row between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices. 

Merkel's spokesman, Thomas Steg, said the chancellor would stand
by her initial pledge. 

"The coalition agreement is perfectly clear about this point,"
Steg said in Berlin. 

According to the agreement, all 17 nuclear plants still active
in Germany will be shut down by 2021. The previous German
coalition government of Social Democrats and Greens had struck a
deal with the German energy industry in 1999 to gradually
phase-out the production of nuclear energy. 

German conservatives have since been trying to scrap the
agreement or at least extend the life of the country's reactors. 

Economy Minister Michael Glos, of the Bavaria-only Christian
Social Union, earlier this week had said Germany should keep
nuclear energy for the sake of supply security. 

"Atomic energy is an alternative," Glos said. "We have to think
about letting them run to not become completely dependent." 

Germany is Moscow's biggest natural gas customer -- it gets 36
percent of its gas from Russian state-controlled energy giant
Gazprom. 

© Copyright 2006 United Press
International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 23 NRC: NRC Bars Four Individuals from NRC-Regulated Work Because of Inaccurate
Davis-Besse Nuclear Plant Information

News Release - Region III - 2006-00
 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Office of Public Affairs, Region III
  No. III-06-001           January 5, 2005   
  CONTACT:     Jan Strasma (630) 829-9663
 Viktoria Mitlyng (630) 829-9662     E-mail: opa3@nrc.gov  
  

four individuals prohibiting their involvement in NRC-regulated
activities because of their roles in providing incomplete and
inaccurate information to the agency on conditions at the
Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant in 2001. The Davis-Besse plant,
located at Oak Harbor, Ohio, is operated by FirstEnergy Nuclear
Operating Co. 

In 2001 the NRC directed all holders of operating licenses for
pressurized water reactors, including Davis-Besse, to inspect
the tubes which penetrate the reactor vessel head for possible
leakage by Dec. 31, 2001. FirstEnergy requested that it be
permitted to operate an additional three months before shutting
down for the inspection, and the NRC staff, based on information
submitted by FirstEnergy, permitted the plant to operate until
Feb. 16, 2002. 

Subsequent examination of the reactor vessel head by FirstEnergy
showed that leakage through the tubes had caused substantial
corrosion damage to the head. 

The four individuals subject to the Orders, including three
former utility managers, engaged in deliberate misconduct by
providing inaccurate and incomplete information about the extent
of reactor vessel head cleaning and inspection, said James
Caldwell, NRC Regional Administrator. Had the NRC known that the
plant was being operated with leakage through the reactor vessel
head, the agency would have taken immediate action to shut down
the plant. 

In April 2005 the NRC levied a $5.45 million civil penalty
against FirstEnergy for violations associated with the damage
and for providing incomplete and false information to the
agency. (Reference: NRC News Release 05-070, issued April 21.)
The civil penalty was paid by FirstEnergy on September 14, 2005. 

NRC Orders were issued to four individuals no longer employed by
FirstEnergy. Orders prohibiting involvement in NRC-regulated
activities for a period of five years were issued to: David
Geisen, who was Manager of Design Engineering; Dale Miller, who
was Regulatory Affairs Compliance Supervisor; and Steven
Moffitt, who was Technical Services Director. An Order,
prohibiting involvement in NRC-regulated activities for a period
of one year was issued to Prasoon Goyal, who was a Senior Design
Engineer at Davis-Besse. 

The Orders are effective immediately, and the individuals have
20 days in which to request a hearing. 

The NRC previously issued an Order in April 2005 to Andrew
Siemaszko, who was a system engineer at Davis-Besse, which, if
sustained, would prohibit his involvement in NRC-regulated
activities for a five-year period. A hearing on that action is
ongoing. Siemaszko was responsible for ensuring that the reactor
vessel head was cleaned and inspected during a refueling and
maintenance outage in 2000. 

In addition to these enforcement actions, the NRC has previously
referred issues related to the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head
damage to the Department of Justice. 

The Davis-Besse plant remained shut down for two years to
address equipment and staff performance issues. After extensive
inspections by the NRC of improvements to safety systems and
FirstEnergys efforts to raise safety consciousness in the plants
management and staff, the NRC determined that Davis-Besse could
be restarted and operated safely. The NRC also required that the
utility undertake annual independent assessments of important
plant activities for five years. 

Since the plants restart in March 2004, it has been operated
safely and continues to be operated safely, Caldwell said.
FirstEnergys performance at Davis-Besse has been closely
monitored by the NRC inspection staff, including NRC resident
inspectors assigned to that site. 

The Orders to the four individuals will be available from the
Region III Office of Public Affairs and on the NRCs web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/what-we-do/regulatory/enforcement/current.html
#individual.   



  


 	Last revised Thursday, January 05, 2006 	   
*****************************************************************
 24 NRC: News Release - 2006- 003 - NRC Releases Draft Order for
Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant to Install Back-Up Power for its 
Emergency Notification System
 
Releases > 2006 > 06-003
 
  NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public 
Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov   

  No. 06-003     January 5, 2006   
  
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission today provided to Entergy
Corp. a draft confirmatory order that would require Entergy to
install back-up power to the emergency notification system at
its Indian Point nuclear power facility, 25 miles north of New
York City. The NRCs proposed action would implement the
direction by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. 

The act included a provision directing the NRC to require
nuclear power plants located within certain population densities
to have back-up power for their emergency notification systems,
including sirens. The Indian Point nuclear power plant was the
only plant that fell within the requirement. 

The confirmatory order process is being used in this instance to
expedite implementation of the mandatory statutory provisions.
As part of the process of determining the licensees advance
agreement to the specific conditions of a confirmatory order,
the licensee waives the right to request a hearing on the final
confirmatory orders provisions. This draft confirmatory order is
being provided to Entergy as part of the process of assuring a
joint understanding of the implementation requirements for the
Energy Policy Acts emergency notification system directives as
reflected in the orders specific provisions. 

Entergy is asked to respond to the draft order to indicate
whether there are any comments on the orders specific provisions
before it is issued in final form. 

The NRC requires commercial nuclear power plants to have an
Alert and Notification System within the 10-mile emergency
planning zone surrounding each plant. The system alerts the
public that an event has occurred and that they should listen to
the emergency broadcast stations in their area for information
and instructions. 

The confirmatory order, once issued, will require the Indian
Point plant to install back-up power for its entire alert and
notification system, ranging from activation command to the
actual alert devices, including sirens, receivers, transmitters
and sensors. The NRC will require the back-up system to be
operational in standby mode for a minimum of 24 hours and 15
minutes in alert mode following a loss of power. Other specifics
in the order designate testing requirements and other standards. 

The order is expected to be issued by Jan. 31, 2006. The
complete order will be available through the NRCs Agency wide
Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under accession
number ML053530286. ADAMS is accessible from the NRCs Web site,
at www.nrc.gov.   

 	Last revised Thursday, January 05, 2006 	   

*****************************************************************
 25 US Army DU specialist turned whistleblower Doug Rokke
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 19:45:42 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

Yes Magazine
Spring 2003 Issue:
Our Planet, Our Selves
www.yesmagazine.org

-------------

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=594

The War Against Ourselves
by Doug Rokke

An interview with Major Doug Rokke by Sunny Miller

Doug Rokke has a PhD in health physics and was originally trained as a
forensic scientist.  When the Gulf War started, he was assigned to prepare
soldiers to respond to nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, and sent
to the Gulf.  What he experienced has made him a passionate voice for peace,
travelling the country to speak out.  The following interview was conducted
by the director of the Traprock Peace Center, Sunny Miller, supplemented
with questions from YES! editors

QUESTION: Any viewer who saw the war on television had the impression this
was an easy war, fought from a distance and soldiers coming back relatively
unharmed. Is this an accurate picture?

ROKKE: At the completion of the Gulf War, when we came back to the United
States in the fall of 1991, we had a total casualty count of 760: 294 dead,
a little over 400 wounded or ill. But the casualty rate now for Gulf War
veterans is approximately 30 percent. Of those stationed in the theater,
including after the conflict, 221,000 have been awarded disability,
according to a Veterans Affairs (VA) report issued September 10, 2002.

Many of the US casualties died as a direct result of uranium munitions
friendly fire. US forces killed and wounded US forces.

We recommended care for anybody downwind of any uranium dust, anybody
working in and around uranium contamination, and anyone within a vehicle,
structure, or building thats struck with uranium munitions. Thats
thousands upon thousands of individuals, but not only US troops. You should
provide medical care not only for the enemy soldiers but for the Iraqi women
and children affected, and clean up all of the contamination in Iraq.

And its not just children in Iraq. Its children born to soldiers after
they came back home. The military admitted that they were finding uranium
excreted in the semen of the soldiers. If youve got uranium in the semen,
the genetics are messed up. So when the children were conceivedthe alpha
particles cause such tremendous cell damage and genetics damage that
everything goes bad. Studies have found that male soldiers who served in the
Gulf War were almost twice as likely to have a child with a birth defect and
female soldiers almost three times as likely.

Q: You have been a military man for over 35 years. You served in Vietnam as
a bombardier and you are still in the US Army Reserves. Now youre going
around the country speaking about the dangers of depleted uranium (DU). What
made you decide you had to speak publicly about DU?

ROKKE:Everybody on my team was getting sick. My best friend John Sitton was
dying. The military refused him medical care, and he died. John set up the
medical evacuation communication system for the entire theater. Then he got
contaminated doing the work.

John and Rolla Dolph and I were best friends in the civilian world, the
military world, forever. Rolla got sick. I personally got the order that
sent him to war. We were both activated together. I was given the assignment
to teach nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare and make sure soldiers
came back alive and safe. I take it seriously. I was sent to the Gulf with
this instruction: Bring em back alive. Clear as could be. But when I got
all the training together, all the environmental cleanup procedures
together, all the medical directives, nothing happened.

More than 100 American soldiers were exposed to DU in friendly fire
accidents, plus untold numbers of soldiers who climbed on and entered tanks
that had been hit with DU, taking photos and gathering souvenirs to take
home. They didnt know about the hazards.

DU is an extremely effective weapon. Each tank round is 10 pounds of solid
uranium-238 contaminated with plutonium, neptunium, americium. It is
pyrophoric, generating intense heat on impact, penetrating a tank because of
the heavy weight of its metal. When uranium munitions hit, its like a
firestorm inside any vehicle or structure, and so we saw tremendous burns,
tremendous injuries. It was devastating.

The US military decided to blow up Saddams chemical, biological, and
radiological stockpiles in place, which released the contamination back on
the US troops and on everybody in the whole region. The chemical agent
detectors and radiological monitors were going off all over the place. We
had all of the various nerve agents. We think there were biological agents,
and there were destroyed nuclear reactor facilities. It was a toxic
wasteland. And we had DU added to this whole mess.

When we first got assigned to clean up the DU and arrived in northern Saudi
Arabia, we started getting sick within 72 hours. Respiratory problems,
rashes, bleeding, open sores started almost immediately.

When you have a mass dose of radioactive particulates and you start
breathing that in, the deposit sits in the back of the pharynx, where the
cancer started initially on the first guy. It doesnt take a lot of time. I
had a father and son working with me. The father is already dead from lung
cancer, and the sick son is still denied medical care.

Q:Did you suspect what was happening?

ROKKE:We didnt know anything about DU when the Gulf War started. As a
warrior, youre listening to your leaders, and theyre saying there are no
health effects from the DU. But, as we started to study this, to go back to
what we learned in physics and our engineeringI was a professor of
environmental science and engineeringyou learn rapidly that what theyre
telling you doesnt agree with what you know and observe.

In June of 1991, when I got back to the States, I was sick. Respiratory
problems and the rashes and neurological things were starting to show up.

Q: Why didnt you go to the VA with a medical complaint?

ROKKE:Because I was still in the Army, and I was told I couldnt file. You
have to have the information that connects your exposure to your service
before you go to the VA. The VA obviously wasnt going to take care of me,
so I went to my private physician. We had no idea what it was, but so many
good people were coming back sick.

They didnt do tests on me or my team members. According to the Department
of Defenses own guidelines put out in 1992, any excretion level in the
urine above 15 micrograms of uranium per day should result in immediate
medical testing, and when you get up to 250 micrograms of total uranium
excreted per day, youre supposed to be under continuous medical care.

Finally the US Department of Energy performed a radiobioassay on me in
November 1994, while I was director of the Depleted Uranium Project for the
Department of Defense. My excretion rate was approximately 1500 micrograms
per day. My level was 5 to 6 times beyond the level that requires continuous
medical care.

But they didnt tell me for two and a half years.

Q:What are the symptoms of exposure to DU?

ROKKE:Fibromyalgia. Eye cataracts from the radiation. When uranium impacts
any type of vehicle or structure, uranium oxide dust and pieces of uranium
explode all over the place. This can be breathed in or go into a wound. Once
it gets in the body, a portion of this stuff is soluble, which means it goes
into the blood stream and all of your organs. The insoluble fraction
staysin the lungs, for example. The radiation damage and the particulates
destroy the lungs.

Q: What kind of training have the troops had, who are getting called up
right nowthe ones being shipped to the vicinity of what may be the next
Gulf War?

ROKKE:As the director of the Depleted Uranium Project, I developed a 40-hour
block of training. All that curriculum has been shelved. They turned what I
wrote into a 20-minute program thats full of distortions. It doesnt deal
with the reality of uranium munitions.

The equipment is defective. The General Accounting Office verified that the
gas masks leak, the chemical protective suits leak. Unbelievably, Defense
Department officials recently said the defects can be fixed with duct tape.

Q:If my neighbors are being sent off to combat with equipment and training
that is inadequate, and into battle with a toxic weapon, DU, who can speak
up?

ROKKE: Every husband and wife, son and daughter, grandparent, aunt and
uncle, needs to call their congressmen and cite these official government
reports and force the military to ensure that our troops have adequate
equipment and adequate training. If we dont take care of our American
veterans after a war, as happened with the Gulf War, and now were about
ready to send them into a war againwe cant do it. We cant do it. Its a
crime against God. Its a crime against humanity to use uranium munitions in
a war, and its devastating to ignore the consequences of war.

These consequences last for eternity. The half life of uranium 238 is 4.5
billion years. And we left over 320 tons all over the place in Iraq.

We also bombarded Vieques, Puerto Rico, with DU in preparation for the war
in Kosovo. Thats affecting American citizens on American territory. When I
tried to activate our team from the Department of Defense responsible for
radiological safety and DU cleanup in Vieques, I was told no. When I tried
to activate medical care, I was told no.

The US Army made me their expert. I went into the project with the total
intent to ensure they could use uranium munitions in war, because Im a
warrior. What I saw as director of the project, doing the research and
working with my own medical conditions and everybody elses, led me to one
conclusion: uranium munitions must be banned from the planet, for eternity,
and medical care must be provided for everyone, not just the US or the
Canadians or the British or the Germans or the French but for the American
citizens of Vieques, for the residents of Iraq, of Okinawa, of Scotland, of
Indiana, of Maryland, and now Afghanistan and Kosovo.

Q:If your information got out widely, do you think theres a possibility
that the families of those soldiers would beg them to refuse?

ROKKE:If youre going to be sent into a toxic wasteland, and you know youre
going to wear gas masks and chemical protective suits that leak, and youre
not going to get any medical care after youre exposed to all of these
things, would you go? Suppose they gave a war and nobody came. Youve got to
start peace sometime.

Q: It does sound remarkable for someone who has been in the military for 35
years to be talking about when peace should begin.

ROKKE: When I do these talks, especially in churches, Im reminded that
these religions say, And a child will lead us to peace. But if we
contaminate the environment, where will the child come from? The children
wont be there. War has become obsolete, because we cant deal with the
consequences on our warriors or the environment, but more important, on the
noncombatants. When you reach a point in war when the contamination and the
health effects of war cant be cleaned up because of the weapons you use,
and medical care cant be given to the soldiers who participated in the war
on either side or to the civilians affected, then its time for peace.

-----------------------------------------

For more information on DU, see the WISE Uranium Project,
www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/;
the National Gulf War Resource Center, www.ngwrc.org
;or Veterans for Common Sense, www.veteransforcommonsense.org.
Sunny Millers interview was originally broadcast on WMFO (Boston) in
November 2002 and is available for re-broadcast at www.traprockpeace.org.

3 Questions from Doug Rokke, Ph.D. to the Department of Defense
concerning its use of radioactive weapons
http://traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html

LISTEN to US Army DU specialist turned whistleblower Doug Rokke (mp3 audio)
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/rokke-depleted_uranium-k19b.mp3

Dr. Rokke and others speak on DU (Needs Real Player)
18mb Real video, rt click --> save [target or link] as to download
(server doesn't allow resuming- 56k dialup needs 1 hr uninterrupted to
download)
http://images.indymedia.org/imc/nyc/dougrokkeondu28k.rm

---------------------------------------
*****************************************************************
 26 Uranium Medical Research Center
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 20:04:55 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

Uranium Medical Research Center

http://www.umrc.net/

---------

About UMRC

The Uranium Medical Research Centre (UMRC) is an independent non-profit
organization founded in 1997 to provide objective and expert scientific and
medical research into the effects of uranium, transuranium elements, and
radionuclides produced by the process of uranium decay and fission. UMRC is
also a registered charity in the United States and Canada.
Vision

UMRC's vision for the world is a full awareness of the risks of using
nuclear products and by-products AND to contain the still reversible
alterations of the earth's biosphere since the advent of nuclear events and
the resulting contamination.
There needs to be an appreciation of the enormous effects and damage of
uranium on the environment and human health. Governments, scientific
communities, and the general public need to understand the many forms of
contamination and specific effects. Continued abuses of uranium and
radioisotopes will only lead to the steady degradation and eventual end of
meaningful life on earth.

Mission

UMRC's mission is to contribute to the vision by providing independent,
objective, and expert scientific and medical research on the effects of
uranium and transuranic elements.
Research into the effects of uranium products and by-products cannot be
subject to considerations of economic, political, or military expediency.
The true, unfiltered facts about its effects must be available to all
persons and communities in order to further the goal of full awareness and
containment.

Core Activities

UMRC's core activities include: research, medical assessment, clinical
treatment, and dissemination to scientific and medical communities

------------
*****************************************************************
 27 An Interview with DU Expert Dr. Asaf Durakovic and WISE Website
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 20:19:43 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

BANNED TERMS: 
An Interview with DU Expert Dr. Asaf Durakovic
http://sfbay.indymedia.org/news/2004/04/1677937.php

----------------

WISE Uranium Project is part of World Information Service on Energy .
It covers the health and environmental impacts of nuclear fuel production: 

http://www.wise-uranium.org/index.html








==========
*****************************************************************
 28 [NukeNet] A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium
 
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:04:11 -0800

<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:FBOYLE@LAW.UIUC.EDU>Boyle, Francis
To: <mailto:smirnowb@ix.netcom.com>'Bill Smirnow'
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 2:56 PM
Subject: FW: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium




Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
<mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu>fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: Boyle, Francis
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 1:55 PM
To: 'Greg Wingard'; 
<mailto:downwinders@yahoogroups.com>downwinders@yahoogroups.com; Nukenet; 
Nucnews List; Boyle, Francis; ENS/Environment News Service; 
Greenpeace/Argentina; Greenpeace/Australia; Greenpeace/Austria; 
Greenpeace/Belgium; Greenpeace/Brazil; Greenpeace/Canada; Greenpeace/Chile; 
Greenpeace/China; Greenpeace/Cyprus; Greenpeace/Denmark; Greenpeace/Eastern 
Europe/Tobias Muenchmeyer; Greenpeace/European Unit; Greenpeace/France; 
Greenpeace/Germany; Greenpeace/Greece; Greenpeace/Guatemala; 
Greenpeace/Israel; Greenpeace/Italy; Greenpeace/Japan; Greenpeace/Lebanon; 
Greenpeace/Luxembourg; Greenpeace/Malta; Greenpeace/Mexico; Greenpeace/Mike 
Townsley; Greenpeace/Netherlands; Greenpeace/New Zealand; 
Greenpeace/Norway; Greenpeace/Papua New Guinea; Greenpeace/Russia; 
Greenpeace/S.E. Asia- Phillipines; Greenpeace/Slovakia; Greenpeace/Spain; 
Greenpeace/Sweden; Greenpeace/Tunisia; Greenpeace/Turkey Melda; 
Greenpeace/UK; Greenpeace/USA; Grenpeace/Czech Republic; Human Rights 
Watch; International Action Center
Subject: FW: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium




Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
<mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu>fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)

-----Original Message-----
From: Max Obuszewski [mailto:MObuszewski@afsc.org]
Sent: Saturday, April 23, 2005 7:36 PM
Subject: A Global Pact Against Depleted Uranium

     During September of 2004 I launched an international campaign to 
conclude a global pact against depleted uranium (DU) munitions by having 
every state in the world officially and publicly take the position that the 
Geneva Protocol of 1925 already includes within itself a flat-out 
prohibition on the use of DU in wartime, which they have no yet done.  So 
far the United States is the only government in the world that uses DU 
munitions during wartime.  In addition to prohibiting "the use of 
bacteriological methods of warfare," the 1925 Geneva Protocol also 
prohibits "the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and of 
all analogous liquids, materials, or devices."  Clearly DU is "analogous" 
to poison gas.[i]  But we need every government in the world to legally and 
openly take that position.  Then the entire world can pressure the United 
States to remove DU munitions from its arsenal.



              Politically, the easiest way to accomplish that objective is 
not the conclusion of a new international treaty prohibiting the use of DU, 
but rather simply having every state in the world submit an interpretative 
Letter to that effect to the Government of France, which is the official 
depositary for the 1925 Geneva Protocol.  This latter approach would also 
avoid the need to have the respective national legislatures of every state 
in the world to approve a new anti-DU treaty and thus complicate and 
prolong the process.  All that needs to be done is for anti-DU citizens, 
activists and NGOs in each country of the world to pressure and convince 
their respective Foreign Ministers to sign, date, and then file this model 
Letter with the French Foreign Minister as indicated below.  That task is 
eminently feasible.

             As the Land Mines Treaty has already demonstrated, it is 
possible for a coalition of determined activists and NGOs, acting in 
concert with at least one sympathetic state, such as Canada, to actually 
bring into being an international treaty to address humanitarian 
concerns.  This template Letter is for the use of concerned citizens, 
activists and NGOs worldwide, to pursue through universal governmental 
participation the complete and final elimination of DU munitions from the 
face of the earth:

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign, IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (voice)
217-244-1478 (fax)
<mailto:fboyle@law.uiuc.edu>fboyle@law.uiuc.edu
(personal comments only)



His Excellency Michel Barnier

Foreign Minister

French Republic

37, Quai d'Orsay

75351 Paris

FRANCE

FAX:  33-1-43-17-4275



Dear Excellency:



The Republic of X presents its compliments to the French Republic.  I have 
the honor to draw to your attention the Protocol for the Prohibition of the 
Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of 
Bacteriological Methods of Warfare of 17 June 1925, for which the 
Government of the French Republic serves as the depositary.  The Geneva 
Protocol of 1925 prohibits the use in war of asphyxiating, poisonous or 
other gases, and of all analogous liquids, materials or devices, as well as 
the use of bacteriological methods of warfare.  The government of X 
believes that the Geneva Protocol of 1925 already prohibits the use in war 
of depleted uranium, uranium ammunition, uranium armor-plate and all other 
uranium weapons.  We respectfully request your Excellency to circulate this 
communication to the other High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Protocol 
of 1925.



Please accept, Excellency, the assurance of our highest consideration.



Foreign Minister

Republic of X

Day, Month, Year




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 29 [NukeNet] Former Pentagon Expert On DU Radiological/Biological
 
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:08:09 -0800

<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)


   From Dr. Doug Rokke, former head of Pentagon
cleanup of DU [depleted uranium]- illegal use of
depleted uranium:

   AR 700-48, DA PAm 700-48, and radiological
exposures limits specified in TB 9-1300-278.

DHS guidelines:


http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html


or

http://cryptome.org/dhs010306.txt


doug rokke
217-643-6205




Depleted Uranium Situation Requires Action
By President Bush and Prime Minister Blair
Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D.
former Director, U.S. Army Depleted Uranium
project
January 4, 2006

While U.S. and British military personnel continue
using illegal uranium munitions- America's and
England's own "dirty bombs" U.S. Army, U.S.
Department
of Energy, and U.S. Department of Defense
officials continue to deny that there are any
adverse health and environmental effects as a
consequence of the manufacture, testing, and/or
use of uranium munitions  to avoid liability for
the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive
toxic material - depleted uranium. They arrogantly
refuse to comply with their own regulations,
orders, and directives that require United States
Department of Defense officials to provide prompt
and effective medical care "all" exposed
individuals [Medical Management of Unusual
Depleted Uranium Casualties, DOD, Pentagon,
10/14/93, Medical Management of Army personnel
Exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) Headquarters,
U.S. Army Medical Command 29 April 2004), and
section 2-5 of AR 70-48].  They also refuse to
clean up dispersed radioactive Contamination as
required by Army Regulation- AR 700-48:
"Management of Equipment Contaminated With
Depleted Uranium or Radioactive Commodities"
(Headquarters, Department Of The Army, Washington,
D.C., September 2002) and U.S. Army  Technical
Bulletin- TB 9-1300-278:  "Guidelines For Safe
Response To Handling, Storage, And Transportation
Accidents Involving Army Tank Munitions Or Armor
Which Contain Depleted Uranium" (Headquarters,
Department Of The Army, Washington,  D.C., JULY
1996).
Specifically section 2-4 of United States Army
Regulation-AR 700-48 dated September 16, 2002
requires that:
(1) "Military personnel "identify, segregate,
isolate, secure, and  label all RCE"
(radiologically contaminated equipment).
(2) "Procedures to minimize the spread of
radioactivity will be implemented as soon as
possible."
(3) "Radioactive material and waste will not be
locally disposed of  through burial, submersion,
incineration, destruction in place, or
abandonment" and
(4) "All equipment, to include captured or combat
RCE, will be surveyed, packaged, retrograded,
decontaminated and released IAW Technical Bulletin
9-1300-278, DA PAM 700-48" (Note: Maximum exposure
limits are specified in Appendix F).
The previous and current use of uranium weapons,
the release of radioactive components in destroyed
U.S. and foreign military equipment, and releases
of industrial, medical, research facility
radioactive materials have resulted in
unacceptable exposures. Therefore, decontamination
must be completed as required by U.S. Army
Regulation  700-48 and should include releases of
all radioactive materials resulting from military
operations.  The extent of adverse health and
environmental effects of uranium weapons
contamination is not limited to combat zones but
includes facilities and sites where uranium
weapons were manufactured or tested including
Vieques; Puerto Rico; Colonie, New York; Concord,
MA; and Jefferson Proving Grounds, Indiana.
Therefore medical care must be provided by the
United States Department of Defense officials to
all individuals affected by the manufacturing,
testing, and/or use of uranium munitions. Thorough
environmental remediation also must be completed
without further delay.  I am amazed that fourteen
years after was asked to clean up the initial DU
mess from Gulf War 1 and over ten years since I
finished the depleted uranium project that United
States Department of Defense officials and others
still attempt to justify uranium munitions use
while ignoring mandatory requirements.  I am
dismayed that Department of Defense and Department
of Energy officials and representatives continue
personal attacks aimed to silence or discredit
those of us who are demanding that medical care be
provided to all DU casualties and that
environmental remediation is completed in
compliance with U.S. Army Regulation 700-48.  But
beyond the ignored mandatory actions the willful
dispersal of tons of solid radioactive and
chemically toxic waste in the form of uranium
munitions is illegal
(http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_ille
gality.pdf) and just does not even pass the common
sense test and according to the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, DHS, is a dirty bomb. DHS
issued "dirty bomb" response guidelines,
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html
, on January 3, 2006 for incidents within the
United States but ignore DOD use of uranium
weapons and existing DOD regulations.  These
guidelines specifically state that:
"Characteristics of RDD and IND Incidents: A
radiological incident is defined as an event or
series of events, deliberate or accidental,
leading to the release, or potential release, into
the environment of radioactive material in
sufficient quantity to warrant consideration of
protective actions. Use of an RDD or IND is an act
of terror that produces a radiological incident."
Thus the use of uranium munitions is "an act or
terror" as defined by DHS. Finally continued
compliance with the infamous March 1991 Los Alamos
Memorandum that was issued to ensure continued use
of uranium munitions can not be justified.
In conclusion: the President of the United States-
George W. Bush and
The Prime Minister of Great Britain-Tony Blair
must acknowledge and accept
responsibility for willful use of illegal uranium
munitions- their own
"dirty bombs"- resulting in adverse health and
environmental effects.
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair also
should order:
1. medical care for all casualties,
2. thorough environmental remediation,
3. immediate cessation of retaliation against all
of us who demand compliance with medical care and
environmental remediation requirements,
4. and stop the already illegal the use (UN
finding) of depleted uranium munitions.

References- these references are copies the actual
regulations and orders and other pertinent
official documents:
http://www.traprockpeace.org/twomemos.html
http://www.traprockpeace.org/rokke_du_3_ques.html
http://www.traprockpeace.org/du_dtic_wakayama_Aug2002.html
http://www.traprockpeace.org/karen_parker_du_illegality.pdf
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/fr-cont.html
http://cryptome.org/dhs010306.txt




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 30 [du-list] Link To French Chemical Exposures Page
 
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:08:10 -0800

<x-flowed>
All,

   Have recently posted to the DSJF website, official doc's pertaining to 
the French confirming Chemical Agent's Tabun & Sarin in the air during 
Operation Desert Storm; especially after our military forces bombed 
Saddam's Chemical and Biological bunkers...



   Best,
   Paul Lyons,
   President,
   Desert Storm Justice Foundation, Inc.
   http://www.dsjf.org/6th%20French%20Light%20Division/French%206th%20Light%20Division.htm


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to 
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com.  In the body of the message type 
unsubscribe and send.
*****************************************************************
 31 Depleted Uranium is WMD  
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 18:54:24 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

Published on Tuesday, August 9, 2005 by the Battle Creek Enquirer (Michigan)

Depleted Uranium is WMD

by

Leuren Moret

My grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Edwin Joseph McAllister, was born in Battle
Creek in 1895. He does not know that his first grandchild is an
international expert on depleted uranium. I have worked in two U.S. nuclear
weapons laboratories, and in 1991 I became a whistleblower at the Livermore
lab. Depleted uranium is very, very, very nasty stuff:

Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass
destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50
Chapter 40 Section 2302.

DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and
Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S.
military law.

Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at
least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times
the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of
40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global
atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion
years.

The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia,
Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons
when in fact they are nuclear weapons.

DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy
metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate"
effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and
smaller.

The blueprint for DU weaponry is a 1943 Manhattan Project memo to Gen. L.
Groves that recommended development of radioactive materials as poison gas
weapons - dirty bombs, dirty missiles and dirty bullets.

DU weapons are very effective kinetic energy penetrators, but even more
effective bioweapons since uranium has a strong chemical affinity for
phosphate structures concentrated in DNA.

DU is the Trojan Horse of nuclear war - it keeps giving and keeps killing.
There is no way to clean it up, and no way to turn it off because it
continues to decay into other radioactive isotopes in over 20 steps.

Terry Jemison at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated in August
2004 that over 518,000 Gulf-era veterans (14-year period) are now on medical
disability, and that 7,039 were wounded on the battlefield in that same
period. Over 500,000 U.S. veterans are homeless.

In some studies of soldiers who had normal babies before the war, 67 percent
of the post-war babies are born with severe birth defects - missing brains,
eyes, organs, legs and arms, and blood diseases.

In southern Iraq, scientists are reporting five times higher levels of gamma
radiation in the air, which increases the radioactive body burden daily of
inhabitants. In fact, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan are uninhabitable.

Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram
of DU is the size of a period in this sentence and releases 12,000 alpha
particles per second.
Before my grandfather died, he told me that his generation had made a mess
of this planet. I wonder what he would say to me now I would tell him to see
"Beyond Treason" (www.beyondtreason.com), a new documentary about the
history of treason by the U.S. government against our own troops: Atomic
veterans, MK-Ultra, Agent Orange and DU. After Vietnam, Henry Kissinger
said, "Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in
foreign policy. . ." (from Chapter 5 in the "Final Days" by Woodward and
Bernstein).

Leuren Moret is an international radiation specialist, with a B.S. degree in
geology from University of California at Davis, a M.A. degree in Near
Eastern studies from University of California at Berkeley and has done
post-graduate work in the geosciences at UC-Davis. She is environmental
commissioner for the City of Berkeley, Calif.

) 2005 Battle Creek Enquirer

----------

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0809-33.htm

---------
*****************************************************************
 32 Depleted Uranium Weapons of War
 
Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 19:14:39 -0600 (CST)

X-Fingerprint: owner-imap@chumbly.math.missouri.edu-127.127

According to this we already have a Nuclear War in Progress...

And...

The disability rate for soliders who were in the first Gulf War is higher
than any previous war... ever...  due to contamination.

----------

April 01, 2004
Rachel's Democracy & Health News
http://www.rachel.org

Newsletter #788

Depleted Uranium Weapons of War,

Uranium is a naturally-occurring element that is both weakly radioactive and
a toxic heavy metal. Naturally-occurring uranium contains two main
radioactive isotopes: U-238 (99.3%), and U-235 (0.7%). When uranium is
"enriched" to make an A-bomb (which requires lots of U-235), the leftover
"depleted uranium" (DU) is 99.8% U-238 and retains about 60% of the
radioactivity that was present in the original natural uranium.[1, pg. 3]

Depleted uranium is created by "uranium enrichment" plants that process
natural uranium to extract the U-235, but those same plants also may process
spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power reactors. For this reason, some DU is
known to be contaminated with very low levels of some of the most dangerous
radioactive substances known to science: Plutonium-238, Plutonium-239,
Plutonium-240, Americium-241, Neptunium-237 and Technicium-99.[1, pg. 6]

Radioactive decay is a natural process. Radioactive elements spontaneously
emit energetic particles or rays, and in the process they change from one
element into another. When U-238 spontaneously undergoes radioactive decay,
it emits alpha particles (and turns into Thorium-234). You can think of an
alpha particle as something like a tiny cannon ball -- it does not travel
very far (a few centimeters in air), but if it hits a living cell, the
damage can be enormous. Sometimes cells damaged by alpha particles die
immediately, but sometimes they start to multiply uncontrollably, causing
cancer. (The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has
identified "internally deposited radionuclides that emit alpha particles" as
Group I carcinogens, meaning substances known to cause cancer in humans.[1,
pg. 85])

So, DU's alpha particles won't penetrate the outermost (dead) layer of your
skin, but if you get DU inside you -- say, in your lungs -- it can have
deadly consequences. Several studies of workers in uranium enrichment plants
show that they get lung cancer at higher-than-normal rates.[1, pg. 86]

The half-life of U-238 is 4.5 billion years, which tells us that it does not
decay rapidly and therefore that it does not emit many alpha particles per
second. However, "many" is a relative term. In absolute numbers, a microgram
of DU (a millionth of a gram, and there are 28 grams in an ounce) will emit
slightly more than 12 alpha particles per second or 390 million alpha
particles each year.[1, pg. 6] So one microgram of DU lodged in your lungs
will have more than a million opportunities EACH DAY to start a cancer
growing in your cells. Obviously, the hazard is greater for children because
they have a longer lifetime ahead of them during which alpha particles will
have an opportunity to start a cancer, plus they are very likely more
sensitive to harm than adults (because they are growing, so more of their
cells are dividing).

In recent decades, as we have manufactured more atomic bombs and therefore
more depleted uranium, there has been growing pressure to find new uses for
our huge stockpile of depleted uranium.[1, pg. 26] In my opinion, the
psychology behind this is pretty simple: as it becomes crystal clear that
subsidizing nuclear technologies was one of the dumbest mistakes humans have
ever made, there is enormous pressure to show that something good can come
from it. It is the psychology of the optimist, whom Ronald Reagan defined as
the man who enters a room full of horse manure and says, "There must be a
pony in here somewhere."

Because it is almost twice as dense as lead and not very radioactive, DU has
been used as shielding for medical devices and in casks for transporting
spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Because it is so dense (and therefore
heavy), DU has also been used as ballast -- weights or counterwights -- on
ships, satellites and aircraft. For example, each Boeing 747 jumbo-jet
requires about 1500 pounds of ballast (or counterweights), and as many as
15,000 DU weights were manufactured for this purpose. In recent years, DU
has been replaced by tungsten in aircraft ballast, perhaps to avoid
questions about the wisdom of flying radioactive materials around in planes.
A plane that crashed into a row of apartments in Amsterdam in 1992 was
carrying 282 kg (620 pounds) of DU as ballast, and a Boeing-747 that crashed
in England in 2000 was carrying 1500 kg (3,300 pounds) of DU. [1, pg. 26]

In the Amsterdam crash, some 152 kilograms (334 pounds) of DU were never
found, and the Dutch commission of inquiry concluded that the fiery crash
may have released some of the DU in the form of a radioactive fume or dust,
just as you would expect it might. DU is pyrophoric, meaning that it catches
fire under some circumstances and turns into a very fine radioactive fume or
dust, which can blow around.[1, pg. 44]

In the past 20 years, DU has found its way into weapons of war -- both for
heavy tank armor and for armor-piercing projectiles -- again, because it is
plentiful and cheap (thanks to government subsidies) and almost twice as
dense as lead. As noted above, it is also pyrophoric, meaning that under
some circumstances it catches on fire.

When a DU projectile strikes an armored target, such as a tank, it does not
flatten on contact but instead penetrates and "self sharpens" as it passes
through the armor. This occurs because as the DU projectile is penetrating
its target, its outer layer catches fire, creating a very fine radioactive
dust, essentially lubricating the remaining projectile, helping it penetrate
further. The result is a very clean hole in the target -- which looks as if
it had been drilled -- and a great deal of radioactive dust. Somewhere
between 10% and 70% of a DU projectile is transformed into radioactive dust
when it strikes a sufficiently hard target.[1, pg. 46]

This dust creates special problems. As noted above, if DU dust gets into
your lungs, it can cause lung cancer.

DU dust is heavy and so it settles to earth within a few hundred yards of
where it was created -- unless it is picked up again and moved by the wind.

To help get the health threat into perspective, in discussing DU, I prefer
to express the amount of DU in micrograms, on the assumption that a few
hundred micrograms (perhaps less) is a dangerous amount of DU dust. It is
important to remember that not all (or even most) DU munitions strike hard
targets that would cause them to catch fire and emit radioactive fumes
(dust).

Ground-attack airplanes like the A-10 Warthog fire 30 mm projectiles at the
rate of 70 projectiles per second, and each 30-mm projectile contains 0.27
kg (9.5 ounces, or 270 million micrograms) of DU. Heavy tanks fire 120 mm
rounds, each containing 4.85 kg (10.6 pounds, or 4.8 billion micrograms) of
DU.

It was reported in 1995 that U.S. arms manufacturers had produced more than
55 million 30-mm DU penetrators and 1.6 million DU penetrators for tank
ammunition.[1, pg. 27] No doubt more have been manufactured since then.

The U.S. has acknowledged using DU weapons during the Gulf War against Iraq
in 1991, and NATO has acknowledged using DU weapons during the Kosovo
conflict of 1999. DU munitions have extensively contaminated U.S. military
proving grounds and firing ranges such as the ones at Yuma, Arizona,
Aberdeen, Maryland, Jefferson, Indiana, and Viecques, Puerto Rico.[1, pg.
50]

Scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have been
fooling around with DU for 60 years, during which time they have dumped an
estimated 38.5 tons of DU into a mountain canyon out back, behind the
lab.[1, pg. 49]

During wartime, the greatest civilian threat from DU is assumed to involve
children, who have been photographed in Kosovo and Iraq playing on
burned-out military vehicles including tanks disabled by DU projectiles.[1,
pg. 49] Much of this equipment is heavily contaminated, inside and out, with
radioactive dust.

Many children also eat dirt (9 to 96 mg/day) as a normal part of growing up,
and soil contaminated with DU dust presents a special hazard in such cases,
according to the World Health Organization.[1, pg. 38]

However, U.S. military officials deny that children -- or any other
civilians -- are at risk from DU.[2] The Pentagon says only soldiers are at
risk. It is clear that the Pentagon considers DU plenty hazardous to
soldiers -- an Army training manual says that anyone who comes within 25
meters of any DU-contaminated equipment or terrain must wear respiratory and
skin protection (because DU might enter the body through a scratch or other
open wound).[3]

Once you get DU in your lungs, much of it will stay there for a long time,
irradiating lung cells, and the World Health Organization says, "The risk of
lung cancer appears to be proportional to the radiation dose received."[1,
pg. 85] (In other words, the only way to have zero risk is to have zero
exposure.) The British Royal Society studied DU and concluded that its use
was not risk-free for anyone involved.[4] The truth is, DU has been studied
remarkably little, given that we blast tons of it into areas inhabited by
civilian populations for the avowed purpose of helping them. No one has
studied the effects of DU on the immune system, the metabolic system, the
nervous system, the reproductive system, the endocrine system (and other
biological signaling mechanisms), and growth, development, and behavior.
It's amazing what we don't know about DU and that -- in the face of such
ignorance -- anyone could claim to know that it is safe for use near
civilians.

Unfortunately, even many crucial details about the lung cancer hazard remain
missing. Although they have been making and studying DU since 1940, military
scientists still don't know exactly how long inhaled DU is retained in the
lung. They say that somewhere between 57% and 76% of inhaled DU stays in the
lung with a half-life of "longer than 100 days" but how much longer they
seem not to know.[1, pg. 64] The half-life is the amount of time it takes
for half of a substance to go away. It is also not clear where inhaled DU
goes after it leaves the lungs. Is it coughed up and excreted, or does it
dissolve, enter the blood stream and then the urine? Or does it lodge
elsewhere in the body? In male rats intentionally contaminated, uranium
collects in the brain and the testicles.[1, pg. 65]

Military specialists like to point out that DU munitions that miss their
target simply bury themselves in the ground. But the World Health
Organization is not so sure the story ends there:

"However, in some instances the levels of contamination in food and ground
water could rise after some years and should be monitored and appropriate
measures taken where there is reasonable possibility of significant
quantities of depleted uranium entering the food chain... Areas with very
high concentrations of depleted uranium may need to be cordoned off until
they are cleaned up."[1, pg. vi] Cleanup of DU-contaminated areas has not
occurred in Kosovo or Iraq.

Who ever thought that DU in the ground would always stay put? Between 1970
and 1997, the Starmet Corporation, a military contractor making DU weapons,
dumped DU into an unlined pit in the ground in downtown Concord, Mass. Now
soil in Concord is contaminated with DU as far as a mile from the dump, and
local wells are contaminated because DU has moved into groundwater. Who
would have expected any other outcome? Nevertheless, we should acknowledge
that the directors of Starmet are not as dumb as they might appear. Shortly
before their radioactive dump was added to the national Superfund list,
Starmet officials took precautionary action and declared bankruptcy. U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accepted Starmet's bankruptcy without
a peep, so U.S. taxpayers are now paying for the difficult cleanup.[5]

The U.S. Navy stores DU in San Diego, Calif.; Seal Beach, Calif.; Crane,
Indiana; Indian Head, Md.; Colts Neck, N.J.; Hawthorne, Nev.; McAlister,
Ok.; Charlestown, S.C.; Tooele, Utah; Dahlgren, Va.; Norfolk, Va.; Sewells
Point, Va.; and Yorktown, Va., and large quantities are reportedly stored at
ten other locations. When the military ships DU around the country, the
containers are not marked "radioactive" even though the cargo is definitely
radioactive as well as explosive. (See ACTION ALERT, below.)

In addition to being radioactive, DU is toxic; specifically it is known to
be toxic to the genes of humans.[1, pg. 75] Studies of Gulf War vets living
with DU shrapnel in their bodies (from "friendly fire" during the Gulf War)
show evidence of genetic damage.[6] At least one military scientist --
Alexandra Miller a radiobiolgist with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research
Institute in Bethesda, Md. says DU may be more dangerous than previously
believed because its chemical toxicity and its radioactivity may combine in
unexpected ways to cause harm.[7]

Miller also points out that genetic damage (from chemical toxicity or
radioactivity, or both) can be inherited and passed along to successive
generations, so harm may not become apparent until many generations after
the event that caused it.[7] This puts DU munitions squarely into the class
of weapons known as "weapons of mass destruction or indiscriminate effect."

U.S. planes, under NATO command, fired 10 tons (9 trillion micrograms) of DU
projectiles at targets in Kosovo in 1999. During the Gulf War of 1991
against Iraq, the U.S. fired projectiles containing somewhere between 300
and 338 tons of DU (or 272 trillion to 302 trillion micrograms).[1, pg. 45]

The total quantity of DU munitions expended during the Iraq War of 2003 has
been estimated to be 100 to 200 tons (90 trillion to 180 trillion
micrograms).[8] Much of it was expended in or near urban areas where
civilian populations live, work, play, draw water, and sell food.

It seems clear, then, that DU weapons produce special, continuing hazards to
civilians, especially children, and that the harm from these weapons may be
passed to future generations. No doubt this is why a United Nations
subcommission in 1996 named DU munitions as "weapons of mass destruction or
indiscrimate effect" and recommended that their use be outlawed.[9]

Tungsten alloy weapons can kill tanks and other hardened targets as
effectively as DU, so continued use of DU weapons by the U.S. seems
unnecessary and a slap in the face to the principles of public health,
international law, world opinion, and common decency. --Peter Montague

============================================================

NOTES and REFERENCES

[1] Department of Protection of the Human Environment, World Health
Organization, Depleted Uranium; Sources, Exposure and Health Effects
(Geneva, Switzerland, April 2001). Available at
http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/ir_pub/en/ .

[2] Matthew D. Sztajnkrycer and Edward J. Otten, "Chemical and Radiological
Toxicity of Depleted Uranium," Military Medicine Vol. 169, No. 3 (2004),
pgs. 212-216.

[3] Army manual quoted in Larry Johnson, "Activists want depleted-uranium
munitions labeled; military's exemption is challenged," Seattle (Wa.)
Post-Intelligencer Dec. 4, 2003.

[4] Susan Mayor, "Report suggests small link between depleted uranium and
cancer," British Medical Journal Vol. 322 (June 23, 2001), pg. 1508.

[5] Ed Ericson, "Dumping on History: A Radioactive Nightmare in Concord,
Massachusetts," E/The Environmental Magazine Mar. 5, 2004.

[6] Melissa A. McDiarmid and others, "Health Effects of Depleted Uranium on
Exposed Gulf War Veterans: A 10-Year Follow-up," Journal of Toxicology and
Environmental Health, Part A, Vol. 67 (2004), pgs. 277-296.

[7] Duncan Graham-Rowe, "Depleted uranium casts a shadow over peace in
Iraq," New Scientist Vol. 178, No. 2391 (April 19, 2003), pg. 4.

[8] Dan Fahey, "The Use of Depleted Uranium in the 2003 Iraq War: An Initial
Assessment of Information and Policies." Berkeley, Calif., June 24. 2003.
Available at http://www.antenna.nl/wise/uranium/pdf/duiq03.pdf

[9] The United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities passed a resolution condemning the use of depleted
uranium weapons during its 48th session in August, 1996, as described in
U.N. Press Release HR/CN/755, "Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination
and Protection of Minorities Concludes Forty-Eighth Session." Relevant
section available at http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/antiwar/UNres.htm

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*****************************************************************
 33 NASA: NEPA: Radioisotope Power Systems 

FR Doc E5-8280 

[Federal Register: January 5, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 3)] 
[Notices] [Page 625-628] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05ja06-52] 

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION 
[Notice (05-177)] 

National Environmental Policy Act; Advanced Radioisotope Power 
Systems AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
(NASA). 

ACTION: Notice of availability of Draft Programmatic 
Environmental Impact Statement (DPEIS) for the Development of 
Advanced Radioisotope Power Systems. 

SUMMARY: Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 
1969, as amended (NEPA) (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.), the Council on 
Environmental Quality Regulations for Implementing the Procedural 
Provisions of NEPA (40 CFR parts 1500-1508), and NASA policy and 
procedures (14 CFR subpart 1216.3), NASA has prepared and issued 
a DPEIS for the proposed development of two new types of advanced 
Radioisotope Power Systems (RPSs), the Multi-Mission Radioisotope 
Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) and the Stirling Radioisotope 
Generator (SRG). 

The purpose of this proposed action is to develop advanced power 
systems, specifically the MMRTG and the SRG, that would enable a 
broad range of long-term space exploration missions and would be 
able to function in the environments encountered in space and on 
the surfaces of planets, moons, and other solar system bodies 
that have an atmosphere. Included in this proposed action are 
NASA's long-term research and development (R) activities focused 
on alternative radioisotope power systems and power conversion 
technologies. The long- term R activities could include, but not 
necessarily be limited to, improvements to further increase the 
versatility of future RPS designs, expanding their capability and 
the environments in which they can operate. The long-term R 
activities are also expected to include activities to develop RPS 
designs with smaller electric outputs and efforts to reduce the 
mass of power conversion systems to further improve specific 
power (watts of electrical power per unit of mass). Such 
long-term R activities do not involve the use of radioactive 
material. 

The only alternative to the Proposed Action considered in detail 
is the No Action Alternative, where NASA would discontinue 
development efforts for the production of the MMRTG and the SRG 
and would continue to consider the use of currently available 
RPSs, such as the General Purpose Heat Source-Radioisotope 
Thermoelectric Generator (GPHS-RTG), for future exploration 
missions. As with the Proposed Action, NASA's long-term R 
activities on alternative radioisotope power systems and power 
conversion technologies would continue. DATES: Written comments 
on the DPEIS must be received by NASA on or before February 20, 
2006, or 45 days from the date of publication in the Federal 
Register of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency notice of 
availability of the DPEIS for the Development of Advanced 
Radioisotope Power Systems, whichever is later. ADDRESSES: 
Comments submitted via first class, registered, or certified mail 
should be addressed to Dr. Ajay Misra, Science Mission 
Directorate, Mail Code 3C67, Room 3N36, NASA Headquarters, 300 E 
Street SW., Washington, DC [[Page 626]] 20546-0001. Comments 
submitted via express mail, a commercial deliverer, or courier 
service should be addressed to Dr. Ajay Misra, Science Mission 
Directorate, Mail Code 3C67, Room 3N36, Attn: Receiving & 
Inspection (Rear of Building), NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street 
SW., Washington, DC 20024-3210. While hard copy comments are 
preferred, comments by electronic mail may be sent to 
rpseis@nasa.gov. 

The DPEIS may be reviewed at the following locations: 

(a) NASA Headquarters, Library, Room 1J20, 300 E Street, SW., 
Washington, DC 20546. 

(b) NASA, NASA Information Center, Glenn Research Center, 21000 
Brookpark Road, Cleveland, OH 44135 (216-433-2755). 

(c) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Visitors Lobby, Building 249, 4800 
Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 (818-354-5179). 

In addition, hard copies of the DPEIS may be examined at other 
NASA Centers (see SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION below). 

A limited number of hard copies of the DPEIS are available, on a 
first request basis, by contacting Dr. Ajay Misra at the above 
address or telephone number indicated below. The DPEIS also is 
available in Acrobat[reg] portable document format at 
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/ 

rps/. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Dr. Ajay Misra, Science 
Mission Directorate, Mail Code 3C67, Room 3N36, NASA 
Headquarters, 300 E Street SW., Washington, DC 20546-0001, 
telephone 202-358-1588, or electronic mail rpseis@nasa.gov. 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NASA, in cooperation with the U.S. 
Department of Energy (DOE), proposes to: 

(1) Develop in the near-term and qualify for flight two advanced 
RPSs, the MMRTG and the SRG. The MMRTG and the SRG would be able 
to satisfy a broader range of future space exploration missions 
than are currently possible with existing radioisotope power 
technologies, specifically the GPHS-RTG used on the Galileo, 
Ulysses, Cassini, and the planned New Horizons missions. (The 
GPHS generates heat from the radioactive decay of plutonium-238 
dioxide, a non-weapons isotope of plutonium, for conversion to 
electricity.) The advanced RPSs would be capable of providing 
long-term, reliable electrical power to spacecraft and function 
in the environments encountered in space and on the surfaces of 
planets, moons and other solar system bodies that have an 
atmosphere (e.g., Mars, Venus, Pluto, and two moons of Saturn 
(Titan and Enceladus)). The RTGs used on NASA's Galileo, Ulysses, 
Cassini, and the planned New Horizons missions employ the GPHS 
module developed by DOE, fueled by plutonium dioxide (consisting 
mostly of plutonium-238), as a heat source. The advanced RPS 
designs would generate power from the heat given off by an 
enhanced version of the GPHS module; and

(2) Continue NASA's long-term R of alternative radioisotope power 
systems and power converter technologies. These long-term R 
efforts are addressed under both the Proposed Action and the No 
Action Alternative as these efforts will continue irrespective of 
the alternative selected by NASA. Such R activities do not 
involve use of radioactive material. 

The MMRTG would build upon spaceflight-proven passive 
thermoelectric power conversion technology while incorporating 
improvements to allow extended operation on solar system bodies 
that have an atmosphere. Both the MMRTG and the SRG 
configurations, as proposed, would consist of three basic 
elements: the enhanced GPHS heat source, the converter, and an 
outer case with a heat radiator. The converter thermocouple that 
would be employed in the MMRTG has a history of use in diverse 
environments. The converter thermocouple design is based on the 
Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power (SNAP)-19 RTG, which was used 
successfully on the Viking Mars Landers and the Pioneer 
spacecrafts in the 1970's. For the SRG, NASA, in cooperation with 
DOE, would develop a new dynamic power conversion system based on 
the Stirling engine. The Stirling conversion system would convert 
the heat from the decay of plutonium into electrical power much 
more efficiently than the MMRTG and therefore use considerably 
less plutonium dioxide to generate comparable amounts of 
electrical power. Because the SRG uses less plutonium dioxide 
than the MMRTG, the SRG generates less waste (excess) heat. 
Therefore, an SRG also may be beneficial for missions where 
excess heat would adversely impact spacecraft operation, but 
perhaps undesirable for missions where excess heat from the RPS 
is needed for warming spacecraft components. 

An RPS generates electrical power by converting the heat released 
from the nuclear decay of radioisotopes, such as plutonium-238, 
into electricity. First used in space by the U.S. in 1961, these 
devices have consistently demonstrated unique capabilities over 
other types of space power systems for applications up to several 
hundred watts of electric power. Radioisotopes can also serve as 
a versatile energy source for heating and maintaining the 
temperature of sensitive electronics in space. A key advantage of 
using RPSs is their ability to operate continuously, both further 
away from and closer to the Sun than other existing space power 
technologies. RPSs are long-lived, rugged, compact, highly 
reliable, and relatively insensitive to radiation and other 
environmental effects. As such, they enable missions involving 
long-lived, autonomous operations in the extreme conditions of 
space and the surfaces of solar system bodies. The GPHS-RTG, used 
on the ongoing Cassini mission to Saturn and the planned New 
Horizons mission to Pluto, is an RPS that is capable of operating 
in the vacuum of space; however, it has limited capabilities for 
operating on surface missions where an atmosphere is present. 
With the appropriate design, such as on the SNAP-19 RTG for the 
Viking missions, an RPS would have the capability to function in 
a wider range of surface conditions than the GPHS-RTG. 

Current energy production and storage technologies available to 
NASA, such as batteries, solar arrays, and fuel cells are unable 
to deliver the reliable electric power needed for some types of 
missions. The existing GPHS-RTG used on previous orbital missions 
has limited applicability on surfaces that have an atmosphere. 
The performance of the GPHS-RTG, which is designed to operate 
un-sealed in space vacuum, degrades in most atmospheres and does 
not provide the long-term operating capabilities desired for 
surface missions. In addition, the GPHS-RTG provides power in the 
upper 200's watts of electricity (We). NASA envisions the need 
for lower levels of electric power (approximately 100 We), and 
physically smaller power systems, enabling NASA to more 
efficiently fly smaller missions that require less power than 
that provided by the GPHS-RTG. The advanced RPS designs are 
considered modular units. Thus one or more of these devices could 
be fitted to a spacecraft for a mission requiring higher levels 
of electric power. 

The advanced RPSs would enable missions with substantial 
longevity, flexibility, and greater scientific exploration 
capability. Some possibilities are: 

1. Comprehensive and detailed planetary investigations creating 
comparative data sets of the outer planets--Jupiter, Saturn, 
Uranus, [[Page 627]] Neptune and Pluto and their moons. The 
knowledge gained from these data sets would be vital to 
understanding other recently discovered planetary systems and 
general principles of planetary formation. 

2. Comprehensive exploration of the surfaces and interiors of 
comets, possibly including returned samples to better understand 
the building blocks of our solar system and ingredients 
contributing to the origin of life. 

3. Expanded capabilities for surface and on-orbit exploration, 
and potential sample return missions to Mars and other planetary 
bodies to greatly improve our understanding of planetary 
processes, particularly those affecting the potential for life. 

NASA's long-term R efforts involving alternative radioisotope 
power systems and power converter technologies are on-going 
activities. These ongoing R activities focus on longer-term 
improvements to RPSs that are less technologically developed than 
the MMRTG and SRG. Included are technologies that increase 
specific power (electrical power output per unit mass); increase 
efficiencies for power conversion technologies; improve 
modularity; increase reliability, lifetime, and operability; and 
provide improved capability to operate in harsh environments. 
These advancements would provide for greater power system 
flexibility enabling use in more places in space and on solar 
system bodies. The R efforts directed at power conversion 
technologies have applicability to both radioisotope and 
non-radioisotope power systems. The results of this R could be 
applied to improve the MMRTG or SRG design, to facilitate 
evolutionary RPS designs including RPS designs with smaller 
electrical outputs using GPHSs or radioisotope heater units, and 
to improve non-radiological power systems. Future fabrication of 
fueled RPSs, qualification units (used to demonstrate the 
readiness of a design for flight applications) and flight units, 
stemming from this R would be the subject of future NEPA 
documentation. The long-term R activities are addressed under 
both the Proposed Action and the No Action Alternative as these 
efforts would continue independent of the alternative selected by 
NASA. In addition, NASA will continue to evaluate power systems 
developed independently by other organizations for their 
viability in space-based applications. As such, the discussion of 
longer-term R is for completeness and descriptive purposes only. 

It is anticipated that development and test activities involving 
the use of radioisotopes would be performed at existing DOE sites 
that routinely perform similar activities. DOE currently imports 
from Russia plutonium dioxide needed to support NASA activities. 
Radioisotope fuel processing and fabrication would likely occur 
at existing facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) 
in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which are currently used for the 
fabrication of the fuel for the GPHS modules. The advanced RPS 
assembly and testing would likely be performed at Idaho National 
Laboratory (INL), west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Any required 
additional safety testing (using a non-radioactive fuel 
substitute to simulate the mechanical properties of the plutonium 
dioxide fuel) of an advanced RPS could be performed at one or 
more of several existing facilities; including DOE facilities 
such as LANL and Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New 
Mexico, or U.S. Army facilities at Aberdeen Proving Ground in 
Aberdeen, Maryland. Currently, DOE is considering plans to 
consolidate operations for the domestic production of plutonium 
at its INL facility; the NEPA process for this action is on-going 
(70 FR 38132). NASA holds no stake in the decision ultimately 
taken by DOE related to consolidation of its long-term production 
of plutonium-238. NASA's Proposed Action or implementation of the 
No Action Alternative is independent of the decision that will be 
made by DOE after that NEPA process is completed. 

Activities not requiring the use of radioisotopes and associated 
with the development, testing, and verification of the power 
conversion systems could be performed at several existing 
facilities including NASA facilities (such as the Glenn Research 
Center at Lewis Field, Cleveland, Ohio and the Jet Propulsion 
Laboratory, Pasadena, California) and several commercial 
facilities (Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Canoga Park, California; 
Teledyne Energy Systems, Hunt Valley, Maryland; Infinia 
Corporation, Kennewick, Washington; Lockheed Martin Commercial 
Space Systems, Newtown, Pennsylvania; and Lockheed Martin Space 
Systems Company, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania). 

The only alternative to the Proposed Action considered in detail, 
the No Action Alternative, is to discontinue development efforts 
for the production of the MMRTG and SRG. NASA would continue to 
consider the use of available RPSs, such as the GPHS-RTG, for 
future solar system exploration missions. While well suited to 
use in space, the GPHS-RTG would have substantially limited 
application on missions to the surface of solar system bodies 
where an atmosphere is present. In addition, DOE's GPHS-RTG 
production line is no longer operative, including the 
Silicon/Germanium thermocouple manufacturing operations. It may 
be possible to construct a limited number of GPHS-RTGs (one or 
two) from existing parts inventories, but longer term reliance on 
this technology would require the reactivation of these 
production capabilities, including reestablishing vendors for 
GPHS-RTG components, which could involve a substantial financial 
investment. 

The principal near- and mid-term activities associated with the 
Proposed Action and potential environmental impacts include: 
development of 100 We capable MMRTG and SRG units and 
demonstration of performance in flight qualified, fueled systems. 
Development of these systems requires component and integrated 
systems testing of unfueled units, acquisition of plutonium 
dioxide, fabrication of fuel, assembly of a fueled test RPS and 
safety and acceptance testing of that fueled RPS. Impacts from 
similar past activities associated with the GPHS-RTG used for the 
Galileo, Ulysses, Cassini, and the planned New Horizons mission 
to Pluto are well understood and have been documented in past 
NEPA documents. Potential environmental impacts associated with 
development of the flight- qualified MMRTG and the SRG would be 
similar to those associated with the GPHS-RTG and are expected to 
be within the envelope of previously- prepared DOE NEPA 
documentation for the facilities that are involved in this 
effort. 

NASA's ongoing long-term R activities for alternative power 
systems and advanced power conversion technologies are 
small-scale, laboratory activities. No radioisotopes are involved 
and only small quantities of hazardous materials might be 
involved. The potential for impacts on worker health, public 
health, and the environment from these R activities is small. 

Actual use of an MMRTG or SRG on a specific spacecraft proposed 
for launch from any U.S. launch site (e.g., Kennedy Space 
Center/Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Vandenberg Air Force 
Station) would be subject to mission-specific NASA NEPA 
documentation. Potential integrated system development (i.e., 
full system development requiring the integration of the RPS 
converter with a radioisotope fuel source) and production of any 
new generation of space-qualified RPSs [[Page 628]] (beyond the 
MMRTG and SRG) that results from the related long-term R of 
technologies (e.g., more efficient systems or systems producing 
smaller electrical power output), are beyond the scope of this 
DPEIS, and would be subject to separate NEPA documentation. 

The DPEIS may be examined at the following NASA locations by 
contacting the pertinent Freedom of Information Act Office: 

(a) NASA, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035 (650-604- 
1181). 

(b) NASA, Dryden Flight Research Center, P.O. Box 273, Edwards, 
CA 93523 (661-258-3449). 

(c) NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt Road, Greenbelt, 
MD 20771 (301-286-6255). 

(d) NASA, Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058 (281-483-8612). 

(e) NASA, Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899 (321-867-9280). 

(f) NASA, Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681 (757-864- 
2497). 

(g) NASA, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL 35812 
(256- 544-2030). 

(h) NASA, Stennis Space Center, MS 39529 (228-688-2164). 

Any person, organization, or governmental body or agency 
interested in receiving a copy of NASA's Record of Decision after 
it is rendered should so indicate by mail or electronic mail to 
Dr. Misra at the addresses provided above. 

Written public input and comments on alternatives and 
environmental issues and concerns associated with the proposed 
development of the MMRTG or SRG are hereby requested. Jeffrey E. 
Sutton, Assistant Administrator for Infrastructure and 
Administration. 

b[FR Doc. E5-8280 Filed 1-4-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7510-13-P 
*****************************************************************
 34 Rensselaer Research Review: Radiation and the Human Body (page 1)

  [*]     
Radiation and the Human Body 
George Xu has created VIP-Man to study how radiation affects the
human body. 
By Jill U. Adams     [*]   

VIP-Man (VIsible Photographic Man) is a computer code containing
three billion voxels (a voxel is a 3-D pixel) of information. He
— and yes, VIP-Man is male — is research subject extraordinaire
used to study how radiation affects the human body. Applied to
such problems as occupational exposure to radiological
contamination and unintended effects of radiation therapy,
research with VIP-Man will greatly augment our understanding of
how electrons, neutrons, and protons interact with and cause
damages to human tissues. 


VIP-Man (VIsible Photographic Man) is a computer code containing
three billion voxels (a voxel is a 3-D pixel) of information.

Photo by Gary Gold.     [*]   

With several medical doctors in his family, Xu says he has
always wanted to combine his interest in physics with medicine.
He saw engineering as a way to study applied physics, and came
to the United States to earn his doctorate in nuclear
engineering (with a focus on health physics) from Texas A&M
University. Now associate professor of nuclear engineering and
engineering physics (jointly with the biomedical engineering
department) at Rensselaer, Xu and his virtual patient are
collaborating with doctors across the country to improve
therapies that use radiation. 

Xu is leading a team of researchers awarded a three-year, $2.1
million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to
develop 3-D virtual patient models that will more accurately
compute radiation doses for CT imaging, nuclear medicine, and
radiation treatment of cancer patients. The grant is funded by
the National Cancer Institute, part of NIH. Additional
researchers from Rensselaer, Vanderbilt University Medical
Center, the University of Florida, and Massachusetts General
Hospital are bringing expertise in the diverse fields of
computer science, CT imaging, nuclear medicine, and proton
therapy to the multidisciplinary project. 

Dr. Xus research aims to better understand the effects of
radiation interaction on the human body using virtual patients,
thereby enabling radiologists to use safer and more effective
doses of radiation to image and treat actual patients, says
Omkaram Om Nalamasu, vice president for research at Rensselaer.
His work is an example of the advanced imaging and computational
modeling research being conducted at Rensselaer and how it is
collaboratively applied to address pressing medical and
healthcare problems. From Schematics to Real People 

With a nod to its early ancestors, including a tank of water and
Karl, the phantom torso, Xu created VIP-Man using a
comprehensive set of images collected from a cadaver. The image
collection, known as the Visible Human Project, was an ambitious
project undertaken by the National Library of Medicine in the
late 1980s and was made available to the public in the mid-90s.

Here was this huge dataset out there, says Xu, and not too many
people had clear ideas about the potential engineering
applications of this invaluable set of anatomical data. Xu did.
As someone who did his doctoral research on radiation dosimetry
using simple geometric shapes to represent the human body in
early 1990s, he knew exactly how to take advantage of a
realistic and descriptive dataset. Picture the difference
between a preschoolers stick drawing and Leonardo DaVincis
Vitruvian Man. Xu rendered his A-ha moment into a prestigious
Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the
National Science Foundation in 1999 and successfully used the
four-year funding to make his virtual patient, painstakingly
combining precise organ anatomy with computer codes simulating
the movement of radioactive particles through the body. Although
Xu has subsequently received various grants from NIH, the
Department of Energy (DOE), and the nuclear industry, he says it
was the CAREER award that really validated my original ideas and
gave me the freedom and confidence to pursue innovative
research. 

      [*]     [George Xu and his team of researchers] 

George Xu and his team of researchers. Photo by Gary Gold.    

Xu and his two doctoral students had to be innovative because
they were the first to try to simulate radiation in a whole-body
image set with so many voxels in it. In addition to a complex
geometry, the human body has tissues that differ in density and
atomic composition that affect the travel of radioactive
particles. A tank of water was once used to approximate living
tissue — humans are more than 50 percent water. Next came
high-tech plastic, such that Karl is composed of three
tissue-equivalent materials to model the density and
composition of bone, soft tissue, and lung. 

VIP-Man trumps both methods by accounting for dozens of tissues
with regard to density and composition, not to mention precise
scale and anatomical shape. In addition, VIP-Man provides
critical new insight into such tissues as skin, gastrointestinal
track mucosa, eye lenses, and red bone marrow, which are
particularly sensitive to radiation but were too small to be
modeled by physical phantoms or previous computer simulations.
Xu is one of the few in the world who have successfully combined
the Monte Carlo codes (those used to simulate nuclear weapons)
to whole-body human models like the VIP-man. The VIP-Man still
holds the record of having the largest number of voxels ever
used for radiation simulations. 

After publishing a series of papers on radiation protection of
workers using VIP-man from 2000 to 2002, Xu turned to medical
applications. Radiation is employed in a variety of diagnostic
and therapeutic procedures including computed tomography (CT)
scanning, nuclear medicine, and radiation treatment. Calculating
doses to different parts of the patient body in each of these
procedures accurately has long been difficult, risking either
doses that are too high, which cause side effects, or doses that
are too low to effectively treat a tumor. Modeling specific
medical modalities and how the radiation interacts with VIP-Man
will provide never-before-seen scientific data to optimize the
benefit-to-risk ratios of these procedures to patients. The VIP
in George Xus radiological engineering laboratory is not the
principal investigator himself. Nor is it a postdoctoral fellow
or a graduate student. And it is not Karl, the life-size torso
made of high-tech plastic.     [*]   


Virtual Patients

Since his development of VIP-Man, Xu has nurtured collaborations 
with medical researchers at Vanderbilt University, the University 
of Florida, and Massachusetts General Hospital to use virtual 
patients to further medical diagnostics and therapeutics. NIH's 
study section that reviewed his proposal has been so impressed by 
the ideas and the multi-center collaboration that NIH has awarded 
Xu and his collaborators $2.1 million of funding over three years 
to study clinical applications and to expand the virtual subject 
population. Xu has been invited to serve on a study section for 
"The Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative 
(BISTI)" at NIH.

Brian Wang, a doctoral student who graduated in May from 
Rensselaer, lends some insight in to how Xu manages to attract 
such ambitious collaborations. When attending a national 
conference, students in Xu's lab were instructed to meet 20 new 
people. "Otherwise, it's a failure in attending such a national 
conference," says Wang, who has accepted an offer as a clinical 
medical physics faculty member at Cooper University Hospital in 
New Jersey. For a research career, interacting with the right 
people can be more important than learning the results of the 
presentations at a conference, Xu believes. Wang says Xu led by 
example, illustrating for his students the value of networking. 
"It's his style," says Wang, and it's why he has such "tremendous 
connections within the scientific community."

Wesley Bolch, professor of nuclear and biomedical engineering at 
the University of Florida, describes a scientific session at the 
recent international conference called Monte Carlo 2005 that Xu 
organized last April in Chattanooga, Tenn., giving him credit for 
bringing "the world community" together. Xu planned the meeting 
with Dr. Keith Eckerman of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a world 
authority on radiation dosimetry, by sending personal invitations 
to researchers as far away as Japan, Korea, China, Australia, and 
Europe. Although they have read each other's papers on radiation 
human modeling, "this group of researchers - doing this kind of 
work - had never really met in one room before," says Bolch. The 
meeting was a scientific success as well, a tribute to Xu's 
"personal character, his initiative, and his organization 
skills," Bolch says.

Bolch was an assistant professor at Texas A&M University when Xu 
was a doctoral student there in the early 1990s. They have since 
become collaborators after Bolch went to UF and Xu joined 
Rensselaer.  In 2001, Bolch invited Xu to give a "Frontiers in 
Biomedical Engineering" research seminar at UF on tomographic 
modeling, for which Xu is now recognized as one of the pioneers. 
Bolch and Xu now collaborate on developing models of children. 
One of the projects is to study a diagnostic procedure, CT 
imaging, that allows doctors to visualize internal tissues with 
high resolution. Multiple, consecutive X-ray images are taken - 
as if slicing the body crosswise - to capture the target organ. 
X-rays carry a risk of causing mutations in a person's DNA, 
although the exposure from a single scan is well within safe 
limits.

However, Xu says, "Most hospitals don't differentiate [the CT 
procedures] for patient size," thus pediatric patients may be 
receiving unnecessarily high radiation doses. And because 
children have more years of life ahead of them, they may be more 
likely to develop long-term effects - such as cancer - from X-ray 
exposure. Xu and his Florida colleagues have two aims: to develop 
virtual patients based on children and to study X-ray 
interactions with the virtual body from different intensities of 
CT imaging. Bolch organized a workshop during the Society of 
Nuclear Medicine's annual meeting this June in Toronto and he 
invited Xu to give a lecture to an audience that included mostly 
physicians.

At Vanderbilt, Xu's collaborators, Radiology Professors Michael 
Stabin and Randy Brill, work in nuclear medicine. 
Immunoradiotherapy is like a smart bomb for a cancer tumor. 
Medicine is administered that contains antibodies (hence 
"immuno") that recognize molecules unique to cancer cells and 
thereby target the delivery of the treatment agent (the 
radioactivity). This clinical application is becoming 
"increasingly more important" says Xu, as more drugs are 
developed to image and destroy specific types of cancers at the 
molecular level. A major problem, he says, is not knowing how 
much of the injected dose gets to the target site. "Physicians 
tend to be overly cautious" when injecting radioactive 
substances, using lower doses to stay safe from overexposure, 
says Xu. Using data from virtual patients, doctors can better 
calculate dose and more aggressively and effectively treat 
cancers in real patients.

Virtual patients will be used at Massachusetts General Hospital 
by radiation physicist Harald Paganetti and radiation oncologist 
Herman Suit to improve proton therapy. In this procedure, a 
medical accelerator delivers a beam of protons to the target 
organ. "The clinical problems we are trying to solve," says Xu, 
"are how radiation goes into the patients, and how it will cause 
secondary radiobiological effects" that can result from radiation 
scatter. The objective is to optimize dose and beam direction to 
target the tumor while minimizing damage to nearby healthy 
tissues using the advanced procedures.

Xu and his collaborators plan to have more VIPs, varying in 
gender, age, size, and ethnicity, as he and his colleagues create 
a family of virtual patients. Although VIP-Man was the most 
detailed model when first created, he is, says Xu, "just a 
single, very tall, very heavy adult male."

"Currently accepted methods in radiation protection and nuclear 
medicine do not realistically consider patient variations in age 
and body size, resulting in very large miscalculations in the 
true radiation dose to the patient," says Xu. "Our project aims 
to bring about a paradigm change by creating a realistic patient 
model library and related computational tools that will 
facilitate image processing, simulation, and radiation dose 
measurement for various clinical diagnostic and therapeutic 
procedures."

Toward that end, Xu is leading a worldwide consortium and is 
creating a Web site as a master depository for virtual patients 
and applications. Rensselaer Computer Science faculty Daniel 
Freedman and Chuck Stewart are working with Xu to develop 
advanced software to handle the huge datasets, including such 
computational tools as image segmentation, 3-D and 4-D 
visualization, and Monte Carlo dose simulations.

The Web site will ultimately allow offsite collaborators to share 
data and compare results, but it is also a mechanism, says Xu, 
"to disseminate all the information, all the data, freely to the 
research community." Already, the VIP-Man model has been used at 
Rensselaer by Suvranu De, assistant professor of mechanical, 
aerospace, and nuclear engineering, to study virtual surgical 
procedures; by Birsen Yazici, assistant professor of electrical 
engineering, to analyze medical image quality; and by Jonathan 
Newell, professor of biomedical engineering, to fabricate 
prostate phantom for electric impedance imaging.

As someone who has benefited from open access to a detailed 
anatomical dataset, Xu knows well the value of making resources 
available to the public domain. 


     Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
    110 8th Street, Troy, NY USA 12180   

  Copyright ©2004-2005 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
*****************************************************************
 35 NRC: NRC Considers Changes to Regulations on Products 	Containing Radioactive Material 

News Release - 2006-00
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION   
  Office of Public Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200   
  Washington, DC 20555-0001     E-mail: opa@nrc.gov  
  No. 06-004     January 5, 2006   
  

regulations to improve, update and clarify its requirements for
the possession and use of products containing radioactive
material. The changes would better ensure future protection of
public health and safety, make licensing more effective and
efficient and reduce unnecessary regulatory burden. 

The Commission has authority under the Atomic Energy Act to
issue both general and specific licenses for the use of
byproduct material. Exemptions from licensing may be issued for
beneficial uses of licensed material, where the exemption will
not constitute an unreasonable risk. Commission regulations
currently have 15 exemptions from licensing for byproduct
material. Examples include watches and smoke detectors
containing certain amounts and types of radioactive material. 

The proposed improvements and updates to the exemptions include
the following changes: 

(1) Transfers of products and materials to persons exempt from
licensing would have to be reported by the next January 31 date.
Currently such reports are required only once every five years. 

(2) Exempt amounts of radioactive material could not be bundled
together into one product if it would create a radiation level
above what was anticipated in authorizing the exempt use. 

(3) Extraneous provisions of the regulations would be removed by
deleting exemptions for products that are no longer being
distributed. These products include automobile lock
illuminators, balances of precision, automobile shift quadrants,
marine compasses, thermostat dials and pointers, spark gap
irradiators and resins containing scandium-46 for sand
consolidation in oil wells. However, in the unlikely event that
someone still possesses any of these products, the rule would
not change the regulatory status of any such products previously
distributed under the regulations in effect at that time. 

(4) The proposed rule would establish a specific exemption from
licensing requirements for smoke detectors containing only
specified small amounts of americium-241. This would help reduce
the regulatory burden and fees for persons applying for licenses
to distribute smoke detectors. 
In addition to these changes for exempt distribution licenses,
the NRC proposes to make two changes to the requirements
involving general licenses. A general license grants authority
to a person for certain activities involving nuclear material
and is effective without the filing of an application with the
NRC or the issuance of a license to a particular person. 

Under the proposed changes, general licensees with devices
containing certain types and amounts of radioactive material
would no longer have to notify the NRC immediately in case of a
loss or theft. However, they would have to notify the NRC within
30 days, unless the device has been recovered. The devices
covered by this change present limited risk. 

The proposed changes would also clarify the steps general
licensees must take if they wish to transfer a product to a
specifically licensed status. 

The proposed rule was published Jan. 4 in the Federal Register.
Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by
March 20. The comments should be mailed to the Secretary, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, or e-mailed to
SECY@nrc.gov. Comments may also be submitted via the NRCs
rulemaking Web site at: http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/.   



  


 	Last revised Thursday, January 05, 2006 	   
*****************************************************************
 36 RGJ: ARCO says mine cleanup responsibility lacks fair approach

January 05, 2006 Reno, Nevada, USA 
775-788-6200  

Posted: 1/5/2006 10:50 am 

The recent decision of Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) not to
perform the EPA’s requests for immediate dust mitigation and PCB
removal at the old Anaconda Mine site has several in the
community asking “why?”

Recent information from the Yerington Community Action Group
(CAG), charges British Petroleum (BP) subsidiary, and named mine
site responsible party, ARCO with “legal foot dragging” or
“legal manipulation” when it comes to performing cleanup work
requested/ordered vie the EPA. 

In a press release, CAG Contact Peggy Pauly said the CAG is “not
surprised by the failure of BP to react to the public health
hazards they have created.” She later elaborated charging this
is an average response when it comes to ARCO’s cleanup efforts. 

Cindy Wymore, public affairs director for BP, said it is not a
case of avoiding work in as much as it is a desire to fairly
distribute cleanup responsibilities. 

Since the mine’s inception under Section 106 of the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act (CERCLA) in late 2004, several legal avenues have
changed in regards to who is responsible for mine cleanup.
Wymore said the law clearly states all responsible parties,
including all former owners, must be approached to consider the
best path to remediation. 

Wymore elaborated saying the site has seen several owners during
its history including the Anaconda Copper Company (which later
merged into ARCO), local resident Don Tibbals and Arimetco.
Wymore noted ARCO has not owned land at the site for some time,
as their portion was sold over the years to different parties.
Also, nearly half the site is and nearly always has been owned
via BLM. 

So far, she said ARCO has been the only former owner actually
collecting data, taking samples and footing the bill. With this
in mind, she said work is progressing at the site, though it
would move forward “more quickly and appropriately if they had
everybody at the table.” 

“We are out there doing stuff,” Wymore said. 

Currently, she said ARCO is in negotiations with EPA and
continues in contact daily in attempting a fair resolution to
the cleanup effort under CERCLA. Also, ARCO continues in talks
with BLM to address issues such as a need for adequate security
fencing. With this, she said a better fence is not so much a
point of resistance as is lack of land ownership. It would
currently be “like going and putting a fence on your neighbor’s
property” without formal permission, she added. 

Wymore said ARCO shares CAG’s frustration with the lack of speed
at the site; however, the goal is to conduct the cleanup as
fairly as possible. Wymore said it would currently be unfair to
request ARCO to cleanup contamination left on-site via a
property owner who operated at the site after ARCO had
transferred ownership. Overall responsibility should fall to
percentages based on ownership and operations via different
landowners she said. 

With the dust mitigation concern the CAG information notes
ARCO’s recent refusal to immediately cap dust, which can be seen
blowing off-site during large windstorms. Pauly said the Action
Memorandum, which detailed EPA’s requests to ARCO, stated,
“Conditions presently exist at the site that, if not addressed
by implementing the response action document in the Action
Memorandum, my lead to continued off-site migration and the
release of contaminants, primarily metals such as: cadmium,
chromium, copper, iron, magnesium, nickel, selenium, vanadium
and zinc; radionuclides such as: uranium, radium, thorium and
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which may pose an imminent and
substantial endangerment to the public or welfare of the
environment.”

Wymore said ARCO submitted a plan and attempted to carry out
dust capping nearly two years ago; however, those in charge of
mine cleanup at the time (under a memorandum of understanding
between the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, EPA and
BLM) did not want to move ahead before further testing. 

Currently, as mentioned prior, she said dust capping is not off
ARCO’s table in as much as it is included in the desire to make
all parties perform their fair share. 

Similarly, Wymore added the PCB removal is related to an onsite
PCB removal operation, which had no connection to ARCO. 

Currently, the EPA, in interest of the time-critical aspect, has
plans to cap the dust and remove the PCB containers at the site
and seek reimbursement from responsible parties at a later date. 

Pauly also charged many cleanup efforts have seen a by-the-order
progress. In other words, agencies and contractors associated
with the cleanup have performed only what is asked and little
else when an order is given. With this, she noted examples such
as ARCO’s delayed action in placing additional, more
site-specific constituents on checklists during air monitoring
efforts. Pauly asserts the constituents, based on overall site
characteristics and concerns, should have been an obvious
placement on the initial constituent list without ARCO being
asked or ordered.

Wymore indicated placing the additional constituents was not a
delay in as much as the EPA simply added them after the
monitoring had begun. She said many processes have seen similar
retroactive and changing guidelines.

“It’s always in a state of flux,” she said noting such changes
make a by-the-book timetable difficult to predict. 

Also, it has been noted the air monitoring filters would be
retroactively tested for the additional metals. 

Lastly, the CAG press release charges BP, and therefore ARCO,
have substantial monies to invest in the mine site; however,
they simply refuse based on corporate image concerns. 

Wymore replied saying the BP subsidiary ARCO is a separate
company with its own liabilities and assets. 

“It’s (the mine) not a BP site,” she said. 

Regarding the public perception of ARCO simply refusing to
release funding and refusing to meet EPA requests, Wymore said
the overall picture is not so simplistic when it comes to
responsibilities at the mine site. 

Said Wymore; “It’s much, much more complicated than that.” 

© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
 37 Monticello Times: Impact statement for nuclear storage available
                  
www.monticellotimes.com

  1/4/2006 12:30:00 PM

  Impact statement for nuclear storage available
The Minnesota Department of Commerce has prepared a Draft
Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for a proposed dry cask
storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at Xcel’s Monticello
Nuclear Generating Plant.

Xcel Energy is requesting approval for the storage facility
because the plant will run out of storage capacity for spent
nuclear fuel by 2010, the same year the plant’s federal
operating license expires. The storage facility would be
approximately 200 feet by 460 feet and store up to 30 dry
storage canisters in concrete vaults within the plant boundary.
It is designed to have enough storage capacity to allow the
Monticello plant to continue operating until 2030.

The DEIS can be reviewed three ways: At the Monticello Public
Library, online at www.puc.state.mn.us or by calling the
Department of Commerce at 651-297-3652.

Comments on the accuracy and completeness of the DEIS will be
accepted until March 3. Refer to Docket E002/CN 05-123 in all
correspondence. Comments can be sent by U.S. mail to Sharon
Ferguson, Department of Commerce, 85 7th Place, Suite 500, St.
Paul, MN 55101-2198, or by email to Sharon.ferguson@state.mn.us.

There will be informational meetings held by the Minnesota
Public Utilities Commission (PUC) at two locations. The first
meetings will be at the Monticello Community Center’s
Mississippi Room on Thursday, Feb. 2 at 1 p.m. and at 7 p.m. The
second meeting will be at the PUC’s Commission’s Small Hearing
Room, which is located at 121 Seventh Place East, Suite 350, on
Thursday, Feb. 16 at 1 p.m. and at 7 p.m.

The PUC must issue a certificate of need before the storage
facility can be constructed. The Department of Commerce EIS will
be one of the documents used by the PUC to decide whether to
issue the certificate.

The EIS contains an analysis of some of the major issues facing
the storage facility, referred to by industry officials as an
Independent Fuel Storage Facility Installation (ISFSI). The
major issue include the environmental impacts of both the ISFSI
and the continued operation of the power plant until 2030, the
radiological health and safety of the ISFSI, the potential
impacts of longterm storage, the impacts on ground and surface
water and an analysis of alternative courses of action.

The final EIS is expected to be published following the
contested case hearing around February 2006. A determination of
adequacy is expected to be made around April 2006.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce serves as the consumer
advocate before the PUC on issues relating to energy and
telecommunications. The department also regulates insurance,
building contractors, real estate and securities professionals
and assures accurate weights and measures used in commercial
transactions.

Copyright 2005, Monticello Times
*****************************************************************
 38 PR Newswire: Drill Permits received for Uranium Exploration in Utah

VANCOUVER, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Max Resource Corp. 
(TSX.V: MXR; OTCBB - MXROF) has received the necessary permits 
from the State of Utah and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management 
required to drill its Thomas Mountain uranium prospect in Juab 
County, Utah. 

The Thomas Mountain project comprises 195 claims totaling 3,900 
acres and is located 150 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and 20 
miles west of the town of Delta. These uranium claims are 
situated east of the Brushman Wellman Beryllium mine, and have 
excellent road access. The claims are controlled 100% by MAX, 
subject to an option agreement on the 27 core claims (the "PPCO 
claims"). 

MAX is scheduling a six-hole, 1,200 foot deep, drilling program 
for late January, subject to rig availability and weather. 

The PPCO claims were explored during the early 1980's by Phillips 
Uranium, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phillips Petroleum. 
Phillips encountered uranium grades of approximately 0.05% U3O8, 
over a 100 foot thickness at a depth of 900 feet within a small 
caldera. The uranium host rock was identical to the host rock 
found in a nearby structurally controlled uranium system, the 
"Yellow Chief" mine, that produced approximately 500,000 pounds 
of uranium before mining was terminated when the ore zone was 
found to be faulted off to the east. The zone found by Phillips 
on the PPCO claims is thought to be the source of the original 
Yellow Chief mineralization. The mineralization is in the mote 
sediments of a small caldera contained within a major caldera 
system and appears to be structurally controlled along the edge 
of this caldera. The planned exploration will follow up on this 
previous work. Due to the geological formations in the area, the 
property may be amenable to "in-situ leaching" ("ISL"), subject 
to further exploration. 

Exploration drilling conducted by Phillips on the PPCO claims was 
supervised by Clancy J. Wendt, the Vice President of Exploration 
for MAX, who was employed by Phillips at that time. Further 
exploration of the property was terminated by Phillips after the 
Three Mile Island accident, which resulted in Phillips 
terminating all of its uranium exploration activities. 

About MAX Resource Corp. 

------------------------ 

MAX Resource Corp. is a Canadian mineral exploration company that 
identifies, acquires and finances advanced stage exploration 
projects. MAX is currently focused on the discovery of uranium, 
precious metals and base metals, with interests in properties in 
Alaska, Utah, New Mexico and the Northwest Territories of Canada. 
For more information, please visit our web site at 
http://www.maxresource.com. 

On behalf of the Board of Directors of 

MAX Resource Corp. 

"STUART ROGERS" 

Stuart Rogers 

President 

Contact: Leonard MacMillan, Corporate Communication 

Telephone: (800) 248-1872 or (604) 637-2140 

info@maxresource.com http://www.maxresource.com

The TSX Venture Exchange does not accept responsibility for the 
adequacy 

or accuracy of this release. 

This News Release includes certain "forward looking statements". 
Without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization 
and resources, exploration results, and future plans and 
objectives of the Company are forward looking statements that 
involve various degrees of risk. The following are important 
factors that could cause MAX's actual results to differ 
materially from those expressed or implied by such forward 
looking statements: changes in the world wide price of mineral 
commodities, general market conditions, risks inherent in mineral 
exploration, risks associated with development, construction and 
mining operations, the uncertainty of future profitability and 
the uncertainty of access to additional capital. SOURCE Max 
Resource Corp. 

        Copyright © 1996- PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights 
Reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 39 Whitehaven News: Union hits back in row over nuclear pensions 
                 
05/01/2006                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
										['Peter Kane:  Nuclear workers pay contributions'
Peter Kane: Nuclear workers pay contributions                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
						
By Alan Irving
 
A SELLAFIELD union chief has blasted claims that a new nuclear 
workers’ pension scheme will cost taxpayers an extra £800 
million.
 
Some 15,000 staff, half of them on the Sellafield payroll, are 
expected to be transferred from state-owned BNFL and the UK 
Atomic Energy Authority to private sector employers by 2010 under 
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority plans to put work out to 
contract.
 
The Treasury would continue to fund their pensions because no 
private firms would be willing to add the cost to wages.
 
The estimated bill has been branded as “obscene” by Matthew 
Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance. But 
yesterday Peter Kane, leader of the GMB, Sellafield’s biggest 
industrial union, hit back: “To call this obscene is an obscene 
statement in itself. To say that it will cost an extra 
ÂŁ800million would have to come from the public purse is not only 
totally misleading but it’s also untrue.
 
“Our existing pension scheme is contributory and has been for
the last 50 years. It means that nuclear workers have paid into
it from their own wages as have British Nuclear Fuels and the UK
Atomic Energy Authority. If we move to a new pension scheme
nothing will change – we will continue to put in the money
under Treasury control.”
 
For the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Matthew Elliott said: “People
who are struggling to top up their private pensions will find it
obscene if the Government taxes them further to underwrite a
generous final salary scheme for nuclear workers.
 
“The public purse is not bottomless – it’s funded by
ordinary taxpayers who themselves have had to swallow the bitter
pill of losing their generous pension rights.”
 
Subject to ministerial approval, British Nuclear Fuels is likely
to be sold off and the Sellafield site put out to contract in
2009, with contracts awarded the following year.
 
This week it was claimed that the projected cost of cleaning up
all of Britain’s nuclear sites was likely to leap to more than
ÂŁ70 billion. The initial estimate was put at ÂŁ56 billion.
 
The NDA admitted in its strategy document that this could rise
significantly in the future due partly to dealing with
Sellafield facilities dealing with old “higher hazard”
nuclear materials.
 
With the site due to be closed in 2150, experts consider another
ÂŁ31billion could be added to the final clean-up bill. 

*****************************************************************
 40 DOE: Develop a Repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada
 
                          FR Doc 06-84 
[Federal Register: January 5, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 3)] 
[Notices] [Page 628] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr05ja06-53]                         
 
Pursuant to its authority under section 5051 of Public Law 
100-203, Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1987, the U.S. 
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board will meet in Las Vegas, 
Nevada, on Wednesday, February 1, 2006. The Board was charged in 
the Nuclear Waste Amendments Act of 1987 with conducting an 
independent review of the technical and scientific validity of 
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) activities related to disposing 
of, packaging, and transporting spent nuclear fuel and high-level 
radioactive waste. At the meeting, the Board will review DOE 
efforts to develop a fundamental understanding of phenomena that 
would affect radionuclide releases from a proposed repository for 
permanent disposal of the waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. A 
final meeting agenda will be available on the Board's Web site 
(http://www.nwtrb.gov ) approximately one week before the meeting 
date. The agenda also may be obtained by telephone request at 
that time.
 
The meeting will be open to the public, and opportunities for 
public comment will be provided.
 
The meeting will be held at the Desert Research Institute; 755 
East Flamingo Road; Las Vegas, Nevada 89119; telephone 
702-862-5307; fax 702-862-5362. The meeting will begin at 8 a.m. 
and will continue until approximately 6 p.m. The meeting agenda 
will focus on DOE predictions and understanding of fundamental 
scientific and technical phenomena that affect the flux of water 
and radionuclides through the unsaturated zone, repository 
tunnels, and the saturated zone. Geochemical controls on 
potential radionuclide releases from the waste packages, the 
NRC's perspective on dose standards beyond 10,000 years, and 
risk-informed performance assessment also will be discussed.
 
Time will be set aside at the end of the day for public comments. 
Those wanting to speak are encouraged to sign the ``Public 
Comment Register'' at the check-in table. A time limit may have 
to be set on individual remarks, but written comments of any 
length may be submitted for the record.
 
Transcripts of the meetings will be available on the Board's Web 
site, by e-mail, on computer disk, and on a library-loan basis in 
paper format from Davonya Barnes of the Board's staff, beginning 
on February 25, 2006.
 
A block of rooms has been reserved for meeting participants at 
the Palms Casino Resort; 4321 West Flamingo Road; Las Vegas, 
Nevada 89103; telephone 702-942-7777; fax 702-942-7001. When 
making a reservation, please state that you are attending the 
Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board meeting. Reservations should 
be made by January 6, 2006, to ensure receiving the meeting rate.
 
For more information, contact Karyn Severson, NWTRB External 
Affairs; 2300 Clarendon Boulevard, Suite 1300; Arlington, VA 
22201- 3367; 703-235-4473; fax 703-235-4495.
 
Dated: December 30, 2005.
 
William D. Barnard, Executive Director, Nuclear Waste Technical 
Review Board.
 
[FR Doc. 06-84 Filed 1-4-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6820-AM-M

 
*****************************************************************
 41 Preservation Online: Part of Manhattan Project Plant Will Be Preserved 

Story by Margaret Foster / Jan. 4, 2006

  [Oak Ridge, Tenn.]   

  Except for the north end of K-25, the 1.4-million-square-foot
plant will be demolished by 2008. (Atomic Heritage Foundation)   


Although the largest building in the Manhattan Project is in the
process of being demolished, preservationists have convinced the
Department of Energy (DOE) to save part of the 1.4
million-square-foot facility that helped produce uranium for the
first atomic bomb. 

Demolition began last fall on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory,
known as K-25, located in Oak Ridge, Tenn., less than an hour
from Knoxville, but workers are saving some artifacts for a
future museum. The facility's 54 adjoining buildings comprised
the world's largest roofed structure when it was built in 1945.

The plant closed in 1977. 

In the spring of 2003, with the help of the Washington,
D.C.-based Atomic Heritage Foundation, a local group stepped
forward to convince the federal government to save K-25's
u-shaped northern section, which covers 44 acres. 

"We need to make this story accessible. We've done a poor job in
the past, and that's one reason people don't understand what Oak
Ridge did in the war," says Bill Wilcox, K-25's former technical
director and co-chair of the Oak Ridge Heritage Preservation
Association's advisory committee on K-25. 

Although K-25 did not develop the uranium for the first atomic
bomb—its Oak Ridge neighbor, Y-12, did—it is listed as one of
the DOE's eight Manhattan Project Signature Facilities. The DOE
had to proceed with demolition in accordance with the National
Historic Preservation Act. 

Late last year, the DOE signed a memorandum of agreement to
retain the north end of the facility. Now the Atomic Heritage
Foundation and the association must determine who will fund an
exhibit and renovation. 

"The DOE has agreed that they will preserve it, but it's up to
us and the city of Oak Ridge to decide how," says Colin Clay,
the foundation's program manager. 

Some have suggested that the building be used as a a brew pub,
skating rink, or arts center in addition to a museum open to the
public. 

"The public has never been allowed to see it," WIlcox says. "We
don't want to save any of the secret equipment, but we want to
save enough of it so that people can go in there and walk along
as much of the football-field length as they care to and see the
same views that the generals saw in WWII." 

The $294 million demolition of K-25 is scheduled to be completed
in 2008. 

*****************************************************************
 42 Department of Energy - Department of Energy Issues Draft Request
    for Proposals for Argonne National Laboratory Contractor
 
  January 3, 2006
 
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking
comments on a draft Request for Proposals (RFP) for the
competitive selection of a management and operating (M&O)
contractor for Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), a major DOE
Office of Science research facility located near Chicago, Ill. 
This competition for a laboratory contractor is the first in the
history of the lab. 

ANL is a multiprogram laboratory, funded at approximately $492
million annually by the Office of Science (SC), other DOE
programs, as well as other government agencies and private
industry.  Argonne was chartered in 1946 and historically was
key to the development of the Nations atomic energy program and
the development of nuclear technology.  Today, the laboratorys
missions are more diverse, including basic science and
technology development.  Areas of research include the physical
sciences, energy science and technology, nanotechnology,
computing sciences, environmental sciences, biosciences, and
other areas.  Argonne also performs limited research in support
of national security. 

Argonnes unique research facilities, which attract scientists
from all over the world, include the Advanced Photon Source,
Intense Pulse Neutron Source, Argonne Tandem-Linac Accelerator
System, Center for Nanoscale Materials; Electron Microscope
Center; Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research
Facility; and Transportation Technology Research and Development
Center.  

The draft RFP includes provisions to facilitate competition,
encourage superior science, and achieve excellent management
performance.  For example: 
  + The successful offeror will be required to form a
stand-alone corporate entity to manage and operate the
laboratory, as opposed to a single parent institution or firm. 
Following the model of other recent M&O contract selections,
this will serve to clarify lines of responsibility and
accountability under the new agreement. 
  + The contract includes award-term provisions to permit
extension of the resulting contract for incremental periods up
to 15 years beyond the initial five-year term as an incentive
for superior performance. 
  + The new contract will be the first competitively awarded DOE
SC contract to specifically include its newly developed
Laboratory Performance Appraisal Process, which is intended to
enhance performance management, bring increased emphasis on
effective operations and improved results at Office of Science
laboratories, and link performance appraisal to the contracts
award-term provisions.  This new appraisal process is expected
to bring greater comparability, consistency, and transparency to
performance reviews, better tailor incentives to motivate
contractor performance and generate more useful information for
DOE management decisions. 
  + To retain ANLs world-class scientists and other workers,
the selected offeror will be required to pay the transitioning
workforce comparable pay and benefits to those currently being
provided to laboratory employees.  

The draft RFP describes the criteria DOE will use in selecting a
successful future contractor.  Key criteria include the
potential contractors experience and past performance in both
science and business management; key personnel, including the
proposed laboratory director; strategy for fulfilling DOEs
mission for the laboratory; management strategy and approach to
achieving excellence in both world-class scientific research and
development, as well as in operations and business management;
and the value added by the contractor. 

The draft RFP is available to interested parties on the DOE
e-Commerce web site: http://e-center.doe.gov/.  In addition, an
information library regarding the solicitation is available on
the DOE Office of Science web site at http://rfpanl.sc.doe.gov/.
 Comments on the draft RFP, suggested changes to draft contract
provisions, and questions should be submitted to the Submit
Questions feature on IIPS by February 3, 2006.  Responses to
questions and other information about the draft RFP will also be
posted to this site. 

During a 30-day comment period, DOE will conduct a comment
workshop in the vicinity of the laboratory.  The comment
workshop will be held January 26, 2006, at the Ramsey Auditorium
at Wilson Hall, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia,
IL.  Specific information on the workshop will be posted on the
e-Commerce web site listed above.  DOE will consider all
comments received in issuing the final RFP, expected in late
February 2006. 

DOE also plans to hold a pre-proposal conference and to offer a
site tour for prospective offerors shortly after issuance of the
final RFP.  Proposals are expected to be due to DOE in April
2006.  Proposals will be reviewed by a Source Evaluation Board
of DOE technical and business experts. 

The department expects to complete the selection process and
award a new contract before the current contract with the
University of Chicago expires on September 30, 2006. 

Media contact(s):
 Jeff Sherwood, 202/586-5806
Gary Pitchford, 630/252-2013     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
  
*****************************************************************
 43 DOE: Energy Department's Texas Pantex Plant to Save Over $2 
Million Per Year Through Energy Efficiency
 
  January 4, 2006

WASHINGTON, DC  The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today
announced that it has signed a contract to significantly improve
energy efficiency at its Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Tex., that
will result in an estimated savings of over $2 million per year.
 This contract will also help the facility, which is part of the
nations nuclear weapons complex, meet a two percent reduction
in overall energy usage each year as required by the energy
legislation signed by President George W. Bush in August, 2005. 

The Pantex Plant plays an important role in Americas national
security, but by further improving energy efficiency, we will
also increase our energy security, said Linton Brooks,
administrator of DOEs National Nuclear Security Administration.
 The energy improvements at Pantex will serve as a model for
using less energy and significantly reducing energy costs. 

Under the contract, NORESCO, an energy services company
headquartered in Westborough, Mass., will oversee the
improvements through an energy savings performance contract
(ESPC).  These energy conservation measures will cost
approximately $19.5 million over 19 years, saving the Pantex
Plant approximately $38 million in that same time frame -- over
$2 million per year.  The cost of implementing such
energy-saving changes will be used to pay NORESCO for their
services; however, the return on investment in terms of cost and
energy savings is expected to be great.  

Energy-saving measures will include:  installing new
energy-efficient lighting systems and control systems to reduce
waste in heating and air-conditioning systems, repairing leaks
in steam systems, installing energy-efficient cooling systems
and renovating dehumidifiers needed for industrial operations. 
NORESCO will also perform maintenance and repair for some of the
equipment.  

NORESCO has been working at the Pantex Plant since 2001 to make
energy efficiency improvements at the facility. 

For more information about the Pantex Plant, please see:
http://www.pantex.com/.     [ ]   

*****************************************************************
 44 DOE: U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman to Co-Host the Pittsburgh 
Energy Summit 2006 with Reps. Hart and Murphy in Pittsburgh, PA 

  January 4, 2006
 
U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman to Co-Host the Pittsburgh Energy 
Summit 2006 with Reps. Hart and Murphy in Pittsburgh, PA 

WASHINGTON, DC  On Friday, January 6, 2006, U.S. Energy 
Secretary Samuel W. Bodman will be joined by Reps. Melissa Hart 
and Tim Murphy to co-host the Pittsburgh Energy Summit 2006: 
Communities and Companies Fueling the Economy through Cost 
Effective Energy, a forum for business and community leaders to 
discuss how the Energy Policy Act of 2005 will impact jobs and 
the economy of Pennsylvania. 

Who:     

U.S Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman
Rep. Melissa Hart
Rep. Tim Murphy   
  

What:     

Pittsburgh Energy Summit 2006: Communities and Companies Fueling
the Economy through Cost Effective Energy   
  

When:     

Friday, January 6, 2006
10:00am   
  

Where:     

FedEx Ground Headquarters
1000 FedEx Drive
Moon Twp, PA 15108  

Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, 202-586-4940     [ ]   

  Energy Education Forum

DOE Assistant Secretary and Rep. Blackburn in Nashville, Tenn.
to Discuss Easy Ways Consumers Can Save Energy and Energy
Efficiency Tax Credits

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy to Offer Keynote Remarks to the
Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
  
*****************************************************************
 45 DOE: DOE Launches New Energy.Gov Website
 
  January 5, 2006
 
WASHINGTON, DC  Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today
unveiled an updated version of the Department of Energys (DOE)
website, http://www.energy.gov/.  The DOE website features a
new, more modern look and feel, as well as enhanced
user-centered navigational tools and search capabilities.    

Energy.gov is a key resource for millions of Americans each
year, Secretary Bodman said.  Our redesigned Energy.gov site
allows for quicker and easier access to information about the
Department of Energys programs and initiatives, including easy
to use ways families and businesses can save money and energy." 

 Developed and launched with a more user-friendly layout, the
new energy.gov features improved search technology, which is
powered by Google Search Appliance®.  This search tool offers
users the ability to quickly retrieve information regarding the
various aspects of DOEs programs, facilities and operations.   

The refurbished site allows for easier navigation by organizing
content into easy-to-use categories, such as educational
resources for parents, teachers and students.  Additionally,
energy.gov highlights new state-by-state information pages
detailing each states respective energy activities and
resources.  The new site also links users to the latest news on
the activities of the department and its national labs and sites
across the country.    Energy.gov operates under a new content
management system that allows content managers to easily update
the site with up-to-date information.  This program also assists
in streamlining the internal work-flow processes and overall
site management. 

Media contact(s):
 Craig Stevens, 202/586-4940     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
  
*****************************************************************
 46 DOE: U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy to Offer Keynote Remarks to 
the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce
 
  January 4, 2006
 
WASHINGTON, DC  On Friday, January 6, 2006, Deputy Secretary of 
Energy Clay Sell will offer keynote remarks to the Greater Tampa 
Chamber of Commerce.  Deputy Secretary Sell will discuss the need 
for affordable, reliable energy to continue our nations economic 
growth and Americas future energy challenges. 

Deputy Secretary Sell will host a media availability following 
the speech. 

Who:     

U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell   
  

What:     

Keynote Speech to the Tampa Chamber of Commerce   
  

When:     

Friday, January 6, 2006
12:00 PM   
  

Where:     

Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce
615 Channelside Drive, Suite 108
Tampa, FL 33602  

Media contact(s):
 Mike Waldron, 202-586-4940     [ ]   

  Energy Education Forum

DOE Assistant Secretary and Rep. Blackburn in Nashville, Tenn.
to Discuss Easy Ways Consumers Can Save Energy and Energy
Efficiency Tax Credits

U.S. Energy Secretary Bodman to Co-Host the Pittsburgh Energy
Summit 2006 with Reps. Hart and Murphy in Pittsburgh, PA 

  
  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
  
*****************************************************************
 47 SPI: State hires audit firm to review how DOE handles Hanford
workers' comp claims
 	 	 	 	 	 
  [seattlepi.com] [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]   

Wednesday, January 4, 2006 · Last updated 7:32 p.m. PT 

By SHANNON DININNY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER                         

YAKIMA, Wash. -- The state Department of Labor and Industries
has hired a Seattle audit and consulting firm to review how
workers' compensation claims are handled at the Hanford nuclear
reservation. 		

The review follows complaints by workers last year that their
claims were being mishandled by the Texas-based company hired to
oversee the workers' compensation program for the U.S.
Department of Energy, which manages cleanup at the highly
contaminated Hanford site. 		

The auditing firm Miller & Miller will begin a three-month
review of the program beginning this month, with a final report
due March 31. The results of the audit and any recommendations
will be presented at a public meeting in early April, L&I said
in a statement Wednesday. 		

In June, Hanford workers and several advocacy groups urged the
Energy Department to investigate complaints that workers'
compensation claims were being mishandled by Contract Claims
Services Inc., the Irving, Texas-based company hired to manage
the program. 		

Some workers had complained about long delays in getting
payments or having to hire lawyers to ensure their claims were
processed. 		

The Energy Department agreed to investigate the claims with the
state Labor and Industries department assuming the lead role in
the review. The state agency awarded Miller & Miller a $100,000
contract to conduct the audit after a competitive bid process,
L&I spokesman Robert Nelson said. The money came from an Energy
Department grant. 		

 [advertising] The audit will include interviews with Hanford
workers, a review of claim files, as well as an assessment of
whether the Energy Department is complying with state statutes
and regulations governing workers' compensation, the statement
said. 		

A spokeswoman for Contract Claims Services could not be reached
for comment late Wednesday. 		

These latest claims are separate from compensation claims that
workers may have filed as a result of exposure to radioactive or
toxic substances while working at nuclear weapons plants in the
Cold War era. Those claims are managed by the Labor Department
under a separate program that has also come under scrutiny in
recent months. 		

The dispute there centers on the availability of data to prove
exposure. A recent audit at the Hanford site found insufficient
data about workers' radiation exposure between 1944 and 1968.
Critics argue the lack of data could lead federal officials to
underestimate workers' exposure, thereby making them ineligible
for workers' compensation benefits. 		

Late last year, the National Institute of Occupational Safety
and Health said its advisory board would discuss the audit's
findings and evaluate benefits available to former Hanford
workers at its next meeting. 		

The 586-square-mile Hanford site was created in the 1940s as
part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic
bomb. Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site,
with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion.
	                 
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