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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 [NYTr] Iranian Prez Defends Energy Program
2 [NYTr] A proud nation surrounded by nuclear states
3 [NYTr] The Danger of an Israeli Airstrike on Iran
4 [NYTr] Israel Pushing US, Europe to Fight with Iran
5 Guardian Unlimited: Dealing With Iran a Conundrum for West
6 Independent: Iran: The nuclear nightmare 
7 Reuters: Iran says to end atomic site checks if sent to UN
8 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, Merkel Take United Stance on Iran
9 AFP: Rice downplays threat of UN sanctions on Iran 
10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to End Nuclear Cooperation
11 Guardian Unlimited: Europe: Iran Nuclear Talks Have Stalled
12 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to Block Nuke Inspections
13 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens U.N. Nuclear Inspections
14 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Urges Sanctions Against Iran
15 Xinhua: Six-party talks should be pushed up: U.S. diplomat   
16 US: ContraCostaTimes.com: California signs off on solar incentive
17 Indiatimes: Kerry calls India a nuke power
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
18 US: NIRS Alert: Comment to NRC on inadequate nuclear security rules
19 US: CourierPress: Race is on for new wave of nuclear plants
20 Sydney Morning Herald: Fuel for thought: nuke debate heats up
21 US: Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Nuclear power critics taking long vi
22 US: SanLuisObispo.com: County planners deny project at Diablo Canyon
23 US: WIFR: Byron Nuclear Power Station
24 Bellona: Rosenergoatom established department on floating nuclear pl
25 TheStar.com: Idle units not worth fixing - CEO
26 US: NRC: Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Inc.; Notice of Withdra
27 People's Daily: Nuclear power plants generate 53 bln kwh last year
28 US: RedOrbit: Science - Nuclear Renaissance?
29 US: Boston Globe: More output is OK'd for Vt. nuclear plant 
30 US: Journal Times: Nuclear power a safer antidote to coal reliance
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
31 US: U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM
32 US: Dallas Morning News: State disaster plans' first test: the feds
33 Stuff.co.nz: France's dirty little secrets
34 BBC: Radioactivity tests at Fife beach
35 US: NRC: Notice of Issuance of License Amendment for Release of Four
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
36 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca Mountain project offices reorganizing 
37 US: Deseret News: Bear re-election in dispute
38 reviewjournal.com: Yucca Mountain planners reorganizing
39 Pahrump Valley Times: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT AFFECTED 
40 KVBC: Changes coming to Yucca Mountain Project
41 Pahrump Valley Times: 'Smart' use of nuclear waste
42 News & Star: Nuclear waste dump plans are refused
43 Pahrump Valley Times: When it comes to Yucca Devlin is in the detail
44 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca problems spur rail holdup 
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
45 Aiken Today: WSRC extends contracts 
46 ContraCostaTimes.com: Competition for new Livermore lab contract beg
47 DOE: DOE Technology Supports Upcoming NASA Mission to Pluto
48 New Mexican: Domenici: LANL can't become 'endangered species'       
49 lamonitor.com: County water wells could fall in path of chromium 
50 Chicago Maroon: New DOE guidelines intensify race for Argonne
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 [NYTr] Iranian Prez Defends Energy Program
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:02:52 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

Iranian Prez Defends Energy Program

Tehran, Jun 13 (Prensa Latina) Iran4s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
pledged Friday to press ahead with his country4s nuclear program and
stressed that his government would resist any foreign interference.

Addressing Iranians on state-run television, Ahmadinejad defended his
country4s right to access peaceful nuclear technology under the
framework of law and said that Tehran is not afraid of the threat of
sanctions by Western nations over its decision to remove nuclear seals
at a uranium enrichment plant and resume research.

Ahmadinejad referred to the nuclear weapons and atomic power plants
the world4s big powers have and accused the West of using military
threats as an excuse to keep Iran from assessing technological
development and force it to buy nuclear fuel abroad.

Ahmadinejad4s remarks came after three European Union foreign
ministers of France, Germany and Great Britain met in Berlin on
Thursday to agree on sanctioning Iran at the United Nations Security
Council.

Tehran Tuesday broke UN seals at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant
and continue insisting that its research is for peaceful energy
production only.

mh/ajs

                           ***

Iran Braced but Open on Nuke Talks

Tehran, Jan 13 (Prensa Latina) In reaction to the approach of three EU
members, France, Germany and Britain, Iran4s Foreign Minister
Manouchehr Mottaki called Friday for their forbearance, patience and
sensible attitudes towards Tehran4s peaceful nuclear program.

"We are prepared to continue talks with the EU trio in case they are
willing to negotiate nuclear fuel, just as we are discussing the issue
with China, Russia and members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)", the
Islamic Republic Irna news agency quoted Mottaki as saying.

The minister4s remarks came after three European Union foreign
ministers met in Berlin on Thursday to agree on sanctioning Iran at
the United Nations Security Council.

Mottaki defended Tehran4s right to access nuclear technology since it
is not associated with the will of any particular country but that has
to do with the country4s membership in the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"They can choose to continue talks, hear Iran4s clear explanations and
come up with a solution that would be satisfactory to both sides, thus
restoring Iran4s rights and ending all the current concerns", said the
Mottaki.

The Iraqi foreign minister concluded by saying the end of cooperation
is another option, in which Iran will merely deal with the IAEA to
restore its inalienable rights.

mh/ajs/mf
       
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 2 [NYTr] A proud nation surrounded by nuclear states
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:02:53 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Independent - 13 January 2006 
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article338255.ece

A proud nation surrounded by nuclear states 

By Anne Penketh 

Q. Why should Iran want to produce a nuclear weapon? 

Iran is an ancient and proud nation and reacts badly to being treated as
a pariah state. It can see how Pakistan's prestige was enhanced in the
Islamic world when a Pakistani scientist developed the first Islamic
bomb. Iran could do the same for Shia Islam. From a geopolitical
perspective, Iran looks around the Middle East and Asia and sees regions
bristling with nuclear weapons. To the east lie Pakistan and India, both
nuclear armed. To the west is Iraq, which gassed Iranian citizens and
where Saddam Hussein tried to develop nuclear weapons. Further west lies
Israel - Iran's implacable foe - which is estimated to have 200 nuclear
bombs. None of these nations has come under serious pressure to
dismantle its nuclear arsenals, and indeed they have gained in
international prominence thanks to the bomb.

In the Far East, North Korea is believed to have nuclear weapons, but
rather than being threatened with military action it has received
security assurances from the Americans.

Although Iran has been blamed by the US and Europe for escalating the
current crisis, Iranians could feel that the sabre-rattling and warnings
that "all options are on the table" are forcing them to defend
themselves from possible attack.

However, when asked about Iran's nuclear plans, Iranian officials always
insist their intentions are peaceful and they know that their country
would face devastating military action if that were not the case.
Experts believe the Iranians probably want to keep their options open by
continuing nuclear research that may eventually be switched to weapons
production.

Q. When did the dispute between Iran and the West worsen?

After the election of its hardline President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last
June. His early statements after coming to power - in which he called
for Israel to be "wiped off the map" - were put down to the political
inexperience of the former mayor of Tehran. But his strongly
nationalistic rhetoric has clearly struck a chord with much of the
Iranian population as well as part of the Iranian leadership. It is
unlikely that he could continue to repeat his pro-nuclear and
anti-Israeli statements without the tacit approval of Iran's spiritual
leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It will be more difficult now for the Iranian leadership to back down on
its nuclear programme because of the high profile that the issue has
been given domestically in recent months, fuelled by street
demonstrations.

Q. Can there be a military solution to the dispute?

As the US and Israel both know, it would be extremely tricky because of
the possible Iranian retaliation which could stir up a great deal of
trouble for the US and its allies in the Middle East through Iran's
links to extremist Islamic groups such as Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Already influential inside Iraq, where the US has more than 130,000
troops tied-up, Iran could wreak havoc there. Iran has also taken care
to build much of its nuclear infrastructure underground making
facilities less vulnerable to attack. Iranian officials like to boast
that taking on Iran militarily would not be as simple as crushing Iraq
which was already weakened and isolated in the region when it was
invaded in 2003.

Iran, a major oil producer, could also retaliate effectively on the
economic front. That is the problem for the West as it prepares to
discuss possible sanctions against Iran. As one Western diplomat put it:
"We have to find a way to hurt Iran, without it hurting us.." 
       
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 3 [NYTr] The Danger of an Israeli Airstrike on Iran
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:03:26 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The Guardian - 13 January 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1685363,00.html

Israel could launch air strikes if talks fail

By Chris McGreal in Jerusalem

Israel has drawn up plans for strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities with
bunker busting bombs supplied by the US, but analysts say it has no
intention of carrying them through while diplomatic pressure is growing on
Tehran. Israel regards Tehran as the single greatest threat, a view
sharpened by the Iranian president's call for the destruction of the Jewish
state and his denial of the Holocaust.

Last month Binyamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister and leader of the
Likud party, said that if he wins the general election in March he would
follow the example of former prime minister Menachem Begin who ordered the
Israeli air force bombing of Iraq's nuclear plant in 1981. "The Iranian
threat is an existential one. In this regard I will continue the legacy of
Menachem Begin, who thwarted Iran's neighbour, Iraq, from acquiring nuclear
weapons by adopting bold and daring measures. I believe that is what Israel
needs to do," he told Israel radio.

But the government does recognise important political and military
differences from the situation with Iraq 25 years ago. "I don't think
there's a desire on any side to deal with this militarily," said Emily
Landau, director of the Jaffee Centre's arms control project in Tel Aviv. "I
think that ... everybody's looking to referring the case of Iran to the UN
security council and that is what Israel is hoping for as well."

The Israeli government has been sceptical of European efforts to pressure
Tehran over the past two years, saying a more robust approach led by the US
would be required. "Israel was trying to sharpen the idea that if nothing
happens by March we're really going to be a point of no return," said Ms
Landau. "Its message was more to the international community than Iran that
now the international community really has to get its act together."

There are restraining factors on Israel, including an American desire to
ensure the Iranians are not able to garner support by portraying pressure
over the nuclear issue as a Zionist plot. The US also controls air space
that Israel would probably have to fly over to reach Iran. "It's something
that would have to be carried out at least with the knowledge of the
Americans if not some kind of coordination with the United States," said Ms
Landau.

Some Israeli analysts have questioned Israel's ability to carry out such an
assault.
       
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 4 [NYTr] Israel Pushing US, Europe to Fight with Iran
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 16:03:35 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
The New York Times - 13 January 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/international/middleeast/13israel.html

Israel Wants West to Deal More Urgently With Iran

By STEVEN ERLANGER

TEL AVIV, Jan. 12 - With Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for
Israel to be "wiped off the map," Israeli officials have special reasons for
concern now that Iran has defied the West and said it will resume enriching
uranium.

The Israelis are engaged in a careful effort to press the United States and
the Europeans to deal more urgently with Iran. Israel has no intention for
now of trying to deal with Iran alone or through military means, officials
say.

But Israeli officials are worried that politicians in the United States and
Europe are focusing on estimates of when Iran might actually have a bomb -
rather than concentrating on the "point of no return," perhaps within the
next year, when they argue Iran may gain enough technical knowledge to make
the fissile material needed for a weapon. After that point, in the Israeli
view, it is simply a matter of time until Iran is nuclear-armed.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeev-Farkash, who retired Jan. 5 as Israel's director of
military intelligence, said Israel believed that the moment was no more than
a year away, although estimates differ among governments, based on different
views of how advanced Iranian technology has become. Once Iran starts
enriching uranium, the general said, it will need just six months to a year
to achieve the ability to produce fissile materials.

In a report released Thursday, David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the
Institute for Science and International Security described a number of
technical problems Iran had to solve before it could begin testing its
enrichment technology.

"Absent major problems," they wrote, "Iran will need roughly six months to
one year to demonstrate successful operation" of its pilot operation. "Iran
could have its first nuclear weapon in 2009," they went on to say, though
they noted that that estimate "reflects a worst case assessment, and thus is
highly uncertain."

General Farkash had a similar estimate, saying that within another two and a
half to three years, Iran will have enough fissile material for a nuclear
bomb, if it is able to construct and run 2,000 to 4,000 centrifuges, the
machines that enrich uranium.

"We have a crucial six months to a year to do something," he said, adding
that "unfortunately when I say this to our friends and allies, they like to
focus on the third step," the production of the bomb, "rather than the first
step."

"The first step is the most crucial, when Iran will achieve independent
research and development capacity to enrich uranium - we all agree," the
general said. "Then it's not an intelligence problem, but a political
decision."

Iran's announcement has sent governments scurrying to come up with estimates
about how much time they have left until Iran can produce its first nuclear
weapon. The Israelis say they think that Iran can produce its first bomb
within four to five years. European officials estimate a weapon will take
five years, and American officials have offered estimates of 6 to 10 years.

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in
Washington, is skeptical about the American estimate.

He said that "what's important is the ability to build a successful
centrifuge and get it to work in a cascade," a series of 164 centrifuges,
and then tie a series of cascades together.

"People feel the Iranians can do that now," he said. "But whether they've
done it or not is less clear." He said his own sources thought that the
Iranians could solve the various technical problems.

"How long will it take? No one really knows," Mr. Milhollin said. "But I
think that if the Iranians decide to go all out, they could make a bomb's
worth of material a year with 2,000 centrifuges running."

He viewed Israel's estimates as a sophisticated form of lobbying, but said
he thought that the Israeli estimates were not out of line. "I'd be
surprised if the Iranians don't make it in five years with one, two or three
bombs," he said.

The problem for intelligence agencies, General Farkash said, is that "while
we have hard evidence about a lot of things" supporting Iran's intention to
make nuclear weapons, "we don't have the smoking gun" proving that Iran is
violating its pledge to enrich for civilian use only.

He said: "So I told my people, we have to bring for the States and everyone
the smoking gun. And then they have to face it and decide what to do."

Intelligence assumptions are not enough these days, the general said. "We as
intelligence chiefs need to bring a smoking gun if we want to influence
policy makers, especially after Iraq," he said, alluding to the fact that
assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed an active program to make nuclear
and other prohibited weapons, used to justify the invasion of Iraq, proved
to be wrong.

Meir Dagan, the chief of Israel's espionage service, Mossad, recently
testified before the Israeli Parliament's foreign affairs and defense
committee in similar terms. He said that Iran would attain technological
independence in producing fissile material in "a matter of months" and that
subsequent development of a nuclear bomb would be only a matter of time and
the number of centrifuges Iran could operate.

He emphasized Israel's view that "there exists a strategic Iranian decision
to reach nuclear independence and the capability to produce bombs," no
matter what the Iranians say, and that Iran will produce a number of them.

General Farkash, Mr. Dagan and Israeli policy makers all agree that a
military option against Iran's nuclear facilities cannot be ruled out. Lt.
Gen Dan Halutz, the Israeli chief of staff, said recently that the West had
the ability to destroy the main elements of Iran's nuclear program.

But Israel believes that diplomatic efforts at preventing or at least
delaying Iran's ability to produce nuclear weapons should continue with more
intensity - at the United Nations Security Council, through economic
sanctions, because of Iran's heavy reliance on imported parts, but also
through an oil embargo or other means to affect the Iranian government and
population.

"Economic sanctions take too long, but we can blockade oil and use Western
strategic reserves," said Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center
for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. "Let the Iranians and the
government feel some heat. Right now they don't feel any heat. Oil is just
money, so let the Americans put their money where their mouth is."

The diplomatic process has already delayed Iran's program by some two years,
the Israelis believe.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking on Jan. 3, in his last interview
before his stroke, made the same case as General Farkash and Mr. Dagan. "In
any event, time is not working in favor of anyone who wants to prevent Iran
from becoming nuclear," he said. Israel, Mr. Sharon said, "is not the
spearhead, but we are working together when it comes to intelligence and
evaluation with the United States, together with European countries."

Israel is also being careful not to react too strongly to the violently
anti-Semitic comments of the Iranian president, Mr. Ahmadinejad.

David Menashri, the director of the Center of Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv
University, said: "The less Israelis speak about Iran the better.
Ahmadinejad is trying to turn the Iranian nuclear issue into the problem of
Israel, and by responding to his statements we just play into his hands."
       
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 5 Guardian Unlimited: Dealing With Iran a Conundrum for West
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday January 13, 2006 9:32 PM

AP Photo HFRA118 

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - A growing number of countries are backing
moves to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. But with military
action all but ruled out and the difficulty of imposing
effective sanctions, their tools appear few and flawed. 

The main threat for now is referral to the Security Council. But
Iran was defiant Friday, vowing to further limit international
monitoring of its nuclear activities if hauled before the United
Nations. 

It was left to some of Tehran's main critics to tone down the
confrontation, with officials from France and Germany saying it
was too early to speak of sanctions. 

That stance appeared to be a recognition of the lack of unity
among the Security Council's five veto-carrying members, as well
as doubts about the effectiveness of economic sanctions, given
the world's thirst for oil. 

The United States - the key backer of harsh sanctions against
Iran, which it says wants to make nuclear arms - can count on
Britain's backing in the Security Council. France, too, may go
along out of frustration with two years of trying - and failing
- to persuade Tehran to give up uranium enrichment, a possible
pathway to nuclear arms. 

But Russia and China, who also have veto power, could prove hard
to persuade. 

Iran buys most of its weapons from Moscow and Beijing. Russia
has nearly completed work on Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and
is the key contractor for Tehran's plans to build more. China is
making energy deals with Iran - it owns a 50 percent stake in
its Yadavaran oil fields and has contracted for 250 million tons
of Iranian liquefied natural gas worth some $70 billion. 

Moscow has toughened its tone since Iran resumed uranium
conversion on Tuesday. Still, Alexei Malashenko, a researcher
with the Carnegie Endowment's Moscow office, dismissed the new
stance as a gesture to its Western allies. 

``Russia will never give up its cooperation with Tehran,'' he
told the daily Vremya Novostei. 

China is considered likely to oppose tough sanctions. On Friday,
its U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, questioned the wisdom of
referral, saying that ``might complicate the issue.'' 

But even if all five agree on the need for sanctions, the
question of how to punish Iran is difficult. 

``Full economic sanctions almost work too well,'' said David
Albright, a former U.N. nuclear inspector in Iraq who runs the
Institute for Science and International Security. ``They kill a
lot of civilians, and nobody wants that.'' 

The tough sanctions on Iraq resulted in civilian suffering and
led to the U.N. oil for food program - essentially an
anti-sanction measure approved by the same powers that set the
punishments in the first place. 

Most experts say Iran would be hurt if its energy exports are
targeted, since oil and gas sales amount to 69 percent of the
country's annual budget. 

But in an energy-hungry world, prohibiting OPEC's second-largest
producer from doing international business would be a
double-edged sword - even a one-day disruption in natural gas
deliveries from Russia this month sent the European Union into
emergency mode. 

``Even for nations that don't directly import from Iran, any
disruption in imports affects prices,'' said Valerie Marcel,
energy specialist at the Royal Institute of International
Affairs in London. ``And Asia, with its dependence on Iranian
energy, would be directly hurt.'' 

Friedemann Mueller of the German Institute for International and
Security Affairs in Berlin warned that pulling the daily 2.7
million barrels of Iranian oil off the market ``would set off an
enormous price movement.'' 

And energy expert Ken Stern, managing director of the New York
office of FTI Consulting, questioned how effective such
sanctions would be if the goal is replacing the present
leadership with one more willing to listen to international
concerns. 

``History has show us that political considerations can trump
economic conditions,'' he said, alluding to the lack of effect
the Iraq embargo had in unseating Saddam Hussein. 

British politician Michael Ancram suggested Iran be expelled
from soccer's World Cup over its nuclear program. 

But Andreas Herren, a spokesman for FIFA, soccer's governing
body, said any such move would have to be initiated by
governments or international political organizations. ``FIFA is
a sporting organization and not a political organization,'' he
said from its Zurich, Switzerland. 

Military action remains as a last-resort means of ``regime
change.'' 

Israel and the United States, the two nations Iran considers its
most implacable enemies and the most likely to resort to such
means, have refused to categorically rule out such action. But
they say it's not in the cards anytime soon. And their
reluctance is understandable. 

Iran's nuclear installations are scattered and hidden, and
intelligence on them is weak. That would rule out the success of
a single devastating airstrike of the kind Israel carried out
against Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. 

Only the United States would be capable of carrying out the
other combat scenario - a full scale invasion to topple the
regime. But it has its hands full in Iraq. 

And U.S. military strategists recognize that invading Iran -
large, rugged, and with forces led by battle-hardened veterans
of the 1980-1988 war against Iraq - could backfire. 

``I think the people would unite behind their leadership - even
those critical of the leadership now,'' said Albright. ``They
would be willing to live under all kinds of hardship to battle
an invader.''	 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 6 Independent: Iran: The nuclear nightmare 

Independent.co.uk

Tehran's defiance sparks fears of a regional showdown 

By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor 

Published: 13 January 2006 

The confrontation between Iran and the West deepened yesterday
as both sides hardened their positions over the Islamic
republic's nuclear programme. 

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany announced
that more than two years of negotiations with Iran over its
suspected nuclear weapons programme were at a "dead end" and
they urged the UN nuclear watchdog to call an emergency board
meeting to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible
sanctions, accusing Tehran of a "documented record of
concealment and deception". Diplomats said the talks at the
Vienna headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) would probably be held in the first week of next month. 

The Iranian leadership stood firm in response. "We are not
worried about our nuclear case being sent to the Security
Council," Gholamreza Rahmani-Fazli, the deputy secretary of
Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on Iranian
television. Earlier, the former Iranian president Hashemi
Rafsanjani said on radio that the stand off had "become very
serious and has reached its climax". He said Iran intended to
press on with its nuclear programme and had no intention of
complying with " colonial taboos". 

Western fears that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear weapon
have been fuelled by statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
since his election in June last year. He has called for Israel
to be "wiped off the map" , and Iran has taken steps since
August to reverse commitments to the international community on
freezing its uranium-related activities. The most serious step
came on Tuesday, when the Iranians broke UN seals at its uranium
enrichment facility at Natanz, which can be used to produce
weapons-grade material. 

As a result, Iran is faced with the real possibility of being
referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions for the first
time after more than two years of talking to the Europeans about
curbing its nuclear activities. 

Iran insists that its intentions in pursuing nuclear technology
are peaceful. But the West has continued to harbour suspicions
because of the Iranians' refusal to come clean on the extent of
its nuclear programme, which was concealed from inspectors for
18 years. There also questions as to why oil-rich Iran, with its
vast energy reserves, is so keen to develop nuclear energy. 

Last week, a leaked EU intelligence assessment provided more
details about companies and middlemen used by the Iranians in
their search for nuclear suppliers in Europe and the former
Soviet Union. The report provided no proof, however, that the
materials were destined for a nuclear weapon. 

Hans Blix, the former chief UN weapons inspector who headed the
UN nuclear watchdog, said: "I think some of the Iranians want to
go to nuclear weapons." He pointed to a 40-megawatt heavy-water
plant at Arak, which could produce enough plutonium for a
nuclear bomb, as a sign that Iran may not have purely peaceful
intentions. 

A former Israeli general said he recently met Iranian figures in
Europe who told him Tehran was "very determined" to acquire
nuclear weapons. Uzi Dayan said his informants had an Iranian
academic and civil servant background and represented "the
official Iranian position". Israel has refused to rule out a
possible pre-emptive military strike on Iran. 

The European statement issued after the ministers' talks in
Berlin stressed that the current dispute is "about Iran's
failure to build the necessary confidence in the exclusively
peaceful nature of its nuclear programme. Iran continues to
challenge the authority of the IAEA Board by ignoring its
repeated requests and providing only partial co-operation to the
IAEA." The statement noted that this is not just a dispute
between Iran and Europe "but between Iran and the whole
international community" . It said it was important for the
credibility of the non-proliferation regime, as well as the
stability of the Middle East region, "that the international
community responds firmly to this challenge". 

The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, urged the UN
Security Council to maintain the pressure on the Iranians. 

However, Iran argues that it has a right under the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty to enrich uranium, and has informed the
IAEA that it only intends to conduct small-scale enrichment at
Natanz . The Europeans and US could face difficulties in
referring Iran to the UN Security Council for breaking a
moratorium which was voluntary in the first place, and without
the IAEA declaring Iran to be in breach of its obligations. 

The Europeans and the US stressed that they still hope for a
diplomatic solution to the stand off. But some analysts said it
was a mistake by the Europeans and the Bush administration in
recent days to use threatening language that could force Iran
into even more extreme positions. 

Sounds familiar? 


IRAQ 

WMD 

Signatory of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty accused of holding
weapons of mass destruction including a nuclear arms programme.
UN weapons inspectors were expelled from the country on the eve
of the 2003 war. 

CONCEALMENT 

Confirmed to UN in 1995 that it had a clandestine nuclear
weapons scheme following revelations by Saddam Hussein's
brother-in-law who had defected. Before 2003 invasion, regime
was accused of concealing WMD from UN inspectors. 

MISCALCULATION 

Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, 5 March 2003: "It serves
the interest of no one for Saddam to miscalculate. It doesn't
serve the interest of the United States or the world or Iraq for
Saddam to miscalculate our intention or our willingness to act." 

SECURITY COUNCIL 

November 2002: Iraq threatened with military action unless it
co-operates with UN inspectors. US leads invasion without
Security Council backing. 

IRAN 

WMD 

Signatory of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty accused of working
on nuclear weapons programme. UN weapons inspectors are at work
in the country. 

CONCEALMENT 

Confirmed to UN in 2002 that it had a clandestine nuclear
programme after revelations by Iranian dissidents. Iran was
accused by Britain, France and Germany yesterday of "concealment
and deception". 

MISCALCULATION 

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 11 January, 2006: "The
Iranian regime has made a serious miscalculation.If negotiations
have run their course and Iran is not going to negotiate in good
faith, then there's no other option but to refer the matter to
the Security Council." 

SECURITY COUNCIL 

12 January 2006: Britain, France and Germany call for Iran to be
referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Failure to reach agreement could give US hawks - and Israel - an
excuse for unilateral military action. 
Also in this section 

� 2006 Independent News and Media Limited 
*****************************************************************
 7 Reuters: Iran says to end atomic site checks if sent to UN
                                
Fri 13 Jan 2006 1:22 AM ET                                      

 By Parisa Hafezi

 TEHRAN, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Iran said on Friday it would end
voluntary cooperation with the United Nations over its nuclear
programme, including snap checks of atomic sites, if Tehran was
referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

 The United States and the European Union's three biggest powers
said on Thursday talks with Iran to curb its nuclear programme
were at an impasse and Tehran should be brought before the
Security Council.

 Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Iran would end snap
U.N. checks of its atomic facilities and would resume uranium
enrichment if its case was sent to the Security Council.

 "The government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary
measures if sent to the U.N. council," Mottaki was quoted as
saying by the official IRNA news agency.

 Accusing Iran of turning its back on the international
community, the EU's "Big Three" -- Britain, Germany and France
-- said it had consistently breached its commitments and failed
to show the world its nuclear activities were peaceful.

 A joint statement from the so-called "EU3" countries said: "We
believe the time has now come for the Security Council to become
involved."

 U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined calls for an
emergency meeting of the board of governors of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog, to seek
a referral to the Council, which can impose sanctions.

 Oil prices climbed to a three-month high as mounting tension
over Iran stoked fears of supply disruption from the world's
fourth biggest crude exporter, though they later pulled back.

 The announcement by the EU's "Big Three" signified the end of
2-1/2 years of attempts to convince Iran to abandon its uranium
enrichment programme, which they suspect it intends to use to
produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

 Iran says it aims to develop only a civilian nuclear power
programme in accordance with international law.

 Tehran raised the stakes on Tuesday when it began to remove
IAEA seals on equipment used to enrich uranium. The process can
produce fuel for power stations or, if the uranium is highly
purified, for bombs.

 Iran's parliament passed a bill in November obliging the
government to stop following the Additional Protocol to the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows snap U.N. checks of
atomic sites.

 The bill also called on Iran to resume all nuclear activities
that it had stopped voluntarily, foremost among them being a
moratorium on enriching uranium. 

� Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.                                              [ border=]  
*****************************************************************
 8 Guardian Unlimited: Bush, Merkel Take United Stance on Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday January 13, 2006 9:47 PM

AP Photo HFRA101 

By BARRY SCHWEID 

AP Diplomatic Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel stood together Friday in urging U.N. intervention if Iran
does not retreat from a resumption of its nuclear program. The
world needs to ``send a common message to Iran that their
behavior ... is unacceptable,'' Bush said. 

Merkel used similar words, and she also condemned statements by
Iran's leader challenging Israel's right to exist. ``We will not
be intimidated by a country such as Iran,'' she said. 

At a joint White House news conference, Bush rejected a plea by
Merkel that the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be
shut down. He called the four-year-old camp ``a necessary part
of protecting the American people.'' 

It was one of the few disagreements the two leaders voiced after
their White House meeting. It was the German leader's first
visit to the United States since taking office last November. 

Iran threatened earlier Friday to block inspections of its
nuclear sites if confronted by the U.N. Security Council over
its atomic activities. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear energy. 

Bush assailed what he called Iran's efforts ``to clandestinely
develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian
nuclear weapon program to get the know-how to develop a nuclear
weapon.'' 

Taking the matter to the Security Council, as Germany, France
and Britain recommended on Thursday, is the logical next step,
Bush said. 

``We want an end result to be acceptable, which will yield
peace, which is that the Iranians not have a nuclear weapon in
which to blackmail and-or threaten the world,'' Bush said. 

On Guantanamo, Merkel said she raised the issue with Bush, and
she described it as one of the differences between the United
States and Germany. Germany opposed the war in Iraq. 

``There sometimes have been differences of opinion. I mentioned
Guantanamo in this respect,'' Merkel said. 

Bush said, ``I can understand why she brought it up because
there's some misperceptions about Guantanamo.'' 

He disputed reports that detainees there have been mistreated. 

Bush said the prison camp would remain open ``so long as the war
on terror goes on, and so long as there's a threat.'' 

Ultimately, the U.S. courts will have to decide whether terror
suspects can be detained in Guantanamo or must be processed
through the U.S. judicial system, he said. 

On another subject, Bush said he had ``no idea'' about the
possible truth of reports that German intelligence agents
actively helped U.S. forces in Iraq at the start of the war. 

It was a reference to German television and newspaper reports
that the government of then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, an
outspoken opponent of the war, helped identify a bombing target
in Iraq. 

Germany's Federal Intelligence Agency said the reports were
``wrong and distorted,'' although it did confirm that it had two
agents in Iraq before and during the war. 

``You did say 'secret intelligence,' right?'' Bush said to the
German reporter who asked the question. ``The chancellor brought
this up this morning, I had no idea what she was talking about.
First I heard of it was this morning, truthfully.'' 

On Thursday, Germany, Britain and France, backed by the United
States, said talks with Iran had reached a dead end and urged
that the issue be referred to the Security Council. 

Trying to line up support, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
spoke by telephone Friday to Chinese Foreign Minister Li
Zhaoxing. But at the United Nations, China's U.N. ambassador,
Wang Guangya, said referring Iran to the Security Council might
toughen Tehran's position on its nuclear program. 

What kind of sanctions the council might consider remained in
dispute. 

Both Bush and Merkel said they discussed Iran at length. 

In two years of difficult negotiations between European nations
and Iran, ``Iran refused every offer we made,'' Merkel said. 

``It's very important for non-transparent societies to not have
the capacity to blackmail free societies,'' Bush asserted. 

Merkel took power last November after an extremely close and
protracted race with Schroeder. 

Bush jokingly likened that race, which took almost two months to
resolve, to his own victory in 2000 over Democrat Al Gore, which
was decided only after weeks of suspense by a Supreme Court
decision. 

``We didn't exactly landslide our way into office,'' Bush said. 

Eschewing the motorcade that usually transports world leaders to
the White House, Merkel made the short trip to the White House
from the Blair House guest quarters across the street on foot. 

She and her sizable entourage walked through the White House
gates trailed by empty black limousines and a fleet of silver
German-made BMWs. 

Schroeder's opposition to the U.S.-led war that deposed Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein so damaged the German's relationship
with Bush that the president refused at times to speak to
Schroeder on the telephone. 

Merkel, by contrast, is more in tune with Bush's conservative
politics. 

Merkel also was to meet with members of Congress and planned to
attend a ceremony at the newly renovated headquarters of the
German Marshall Fund of the United States. 

Despite her calls for a partnership with Washington, she has
demonstrated a strong streak of independence, including her
criticism of the Guantanamo Bay camp. 

Germany rebuffed an appeal by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
not to release a terrorist accused of killing a Navy diver in a
1985 airplane hijacking. 

--- 

On the Net: 

CIA fact book on Germany:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/gm.html 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 9 AFP: Rice downplays threat of UN sanctions on Iran 

 Thu Jan 12, 9:05 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" />
has downplayed the threat of possible UN Security Council
sanctions on Iran" /> for starting up its nuclear program in a
television interview. 

 does not have on its own" to pressure Iran to curtail its
nuclear ambitions, Rice said. 

Washington is confident of having enough votes at the UN nuclear
watchdog, the IAEA, to refer the case to the Security Council,
Rice said. 

"And then, we're going to have consultations about what to do
next," she said. "I don't think anyone is talking about
sanctions today. We're talking now about the referral and then
we'll see what's necessary." 

Some of the actions "will depend on Iranian behavior. Iran is
still going to have an opportunity to return to negotiations.
This is a new phase of the diplomacy." 

Speaking after a crisis meeting in Berlin earlier Thursday, the
British, French and German foreign ministers called for an
emergency IAEA meeting to refer Iran to the Security Council,
the sole UN body with authority to impose sanctions. 

"The talks with Iran are at a dead end," Germany's Frank-Walter
Steinmeier said at the event. 

Nevertheless, Rice told CBS, "we are open to continuing to give
the Iranians a chance to suspend their activities, to go back to
negotiations. Everybody wants to see that," she said. 

Western powers suspect that Iran is secretly trying to develop
nuclear weapons, while Tehran insists its program is peaceful. 

In the interview Rice repeated charges that Iran "has clearly
decided that it's going to defy the international community." 

Vice President Dick Cheney" /> struck a harsher tone on Iran in
statements Wednesday. 

"What would be probably the number one item on the agenda would
be the resolution that could be enforced by sanctions, were they
(the Iranians) to fail to comply with it," Cheney told Fox News
radio. 

Copyright � 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
 10 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to End Nuclear Cooperation
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Friday January 13, 2006 11:02 PM

AP Photo HFRA119 

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran threatened Friday to end surprise
inspections and other cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog
if it is referred to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear
program, and the president vowed his country won't be
intimidated by sanctions. 

Iran's tough line came as Europe and the United States were
trying to build support for hauling Iran before the Security
Council. They faced resistance from China, which warned the move
could only escalate the confrontation. 

In Washington, President Bush and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel urged U.N. intervention. The world needs to ``send a
common message to Iran that their behavior ... is
unacceptable,'' Bush said. 

An end to U.N. inspections would be a dramatic breakdown in the
already faltering diplomatic attempts at reining in Iran's
nuclear ambitions. The United States and many in Europe fear
Iran aims to develop nuclear weapons. 

Iran insists its program is peaceful, intended only to produce
electricity. But it has insisted on its right to conduct uranium
enrichment, a process that can produce reactor fuel or material
for a nuclear bomb. 

After Iran resumed research work on enrichment this week,
Britain, France and Germany issued a tough statement Thursday
declaring 2 years of tense negotiations with Tehran at a ``dead
end'' and urging the Security Council to intervene. 

But on Friday, the three countries carefully avoided talk of
sanctions, with diplomats privately conceding there was little
appetite for tough economic sanctions, such as restricting oil
and gas sales - given the impact that would have on the world
economy. 

Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the Security Council
would consider sanctions if Tehran remained defiant. But echoing
French and German officials, who said talk of sanctions was
``premature,'' he called for patient, step by step diplomacy. 

``Our approach is firm, but it has also got to be a sensible,
patient approach which ensures that there is a continuation of
the very substantial international consensus which we have built
up,'' he said. 

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said a
referral to the U.N. would prompt Iran to end its cooperation
with the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency outlined in an
agreement known as the Additional Protocols, reached in October
2003. 

``In case Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council ... the
government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary
cooperation,'' the television quoted Mottaki as saying. 

Under the protocols, Iran agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to
carry out surprise inspections of its nuclear sites with as
little as two hours notice. The deal also lets them inspect
sites Iran has not officially declared as nuclear facilities -
such as the Parchin military base outside of Tehran that
inspectors visited in October, suspecting that nuclear activity
was taking place there. 

Iran's parliament passed a law late last year requiring the
government to block intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities
if the U.N. nuclear agency refers the Iranian program to the
Security Council. 

The law also requires the Iranian government to resume all
nuclear activities it had stopped voluntarily, foremost among
them enriching uranium. Western countries, and chiefly the U.S.,
fear enrichment could be used to also produce material for
nuclear weapons. 

Mottaki did not specifically mention whether Iran would resume
enrichment if it were put before the council. 

Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani called the head of
the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, on Friday and stressed Iran's
desire to resolve the dispute diplomatically, Iranian state TV
reported. 

The newscaster said Larijani reiterated to ElBaradei that Iran
is determined to realize its nuclear goals ``in the framework of
international regulations and under the supervision of the
IAEA.'' 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would not bend before
the threat of sanctions. 

``Iran is not frightened by threats from any country and it will
continue the path of production of the nuclear energy,''
state-run radio quoted him as saying. ``Iranian people do not
allow foreigners to block their progress.'' 

Hamidreza Hajbabai, a member of parliament's national security
and foreign policy committee, predicted the West would back down
from referring Iran to the council. 

``Europe does not seek a chaotic situation that does not serve
anybody,'' he told state-run radio. 

``Iran is not a country that the West could easily force it to
give in nuclear fuel by sanctions and political pressures. These
will only make Iranian people united more than before,'' the
radio said in a commentary. 

China, which has growing economic ties with Iran and holds veto
powers at the Security Council, expressed its opposition to
putting Tehran before the world body for possible sanctions. 

``We want a solution but to refer it might complicate the
issue,'' its U.N. ambassador, Wang Guangya, said. ``This is our
concern.'' 

Asked how a referral to the council could complicate the
situation, Wang said, ``I think that this might make the
positions of some parties more tough on this issue.'' 

Europe has been trying to get Iran to permanently abandon
uranium enrichment but Iran says it won't give up its right
under the NPT to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel. 

On Tuesday, Iran removed some U.N. seals from its main uranium
enrichment facility in Natanz, central Iran, and resumed
research on nuclear fuel - including some small-scale
enrichment. 

In Friday's comments, Mottaki called on Europe to ``not make
propaganda over research which is natural and normal'' and that
it was prepared for talks with Europeans over the enrichment
process. 

Iran also described an earlier proposal to enrich uranium on
Russian territory and ship it back to Iran to fuel nuclear power
as a good starting point for negotiations. 

---- 

AP writers Ed Johnson in London and Edith Lederer at the United
Nations contributed to this report. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 11 Guardian Unlimited: Europe: Iran Nuclear Talks Have Stalled
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Europe: Iran Nuclear Talks Have Stalled         

Friday January 13, 2006 5:02 AM

AP Photo WBER116 

By DAVID McHUGH 

Associated Press Writer 

BERLIN (AP) - European foreign ministers said Thursday that
nuclear talks with Iran had reached a dead end after more than
two years of acrimonious negotiations and the issue should be
referred to the U.N. Security Council. 

The top diplomats from France, Germany and Britain, however,
held back from calling for the 15-nation council to impose
sanctions and said they remained open to more talks. 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also said a ``strong
message'' had to be sent to Tehran but said she was not ready to
talk about what action should be taken to curtail Iran's nuclear
ambitions. 

Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, told U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan that Tehran was interested in
resuming ``serious and constructive negotiations'' with the
Europeans but this time wanted a deadline. 

Also Thursday, in an interview with CNN, Larijani said Iran
wants to reach agreement with Europe and Russia but ``the
question of our research is non-negotiable.'' 

He also said that an offer to enrich uranium on Russian
territory and then ship it back to Iran to fuel nuclear power
stations ``would be a good basis for negotiations.'' 

``Iran has the absolute right to enrich,'' Larijani said.
``Meanwhile, the other side has proposed that for a while the
issue of enrichment could be resolved in a different way. This
is worth discussing. I think we can reach an agreement that
could suit today's circumstances.'' 

Senior Iranian negotiator Java Avid, meanwhile, said the
Europeans should step back from referring his country to the
Security Council, warning it would not change Iran's behavior
but would lead to a tough response. 

The statements came two days after Iran broke U.N. seals at a
uranium enrichment plant and said it was resuming nuclear
research after a two-year freeze. Iran insists its nuclear
program is peaceful, while the U.S. and others say it is aimed
at producing weapons. 

Negotiations aimed at getting Iran to permanently abandon
uranium enrichment had reached ``an impasse,'' the Europeans
said, citing what they called a ``documented record of
concealment and deception.'' Enriched uranium can be used for
fuel or, at high levels of enrichment, weapons. 

In a joint statement, they charged that Iran seemed ``intent on
turning its back on better relations with the international
community.'' 

The ministers called for a special session of the International
Atomic Energy Agency to decide on referral to the Security
Council, which could impose sanctions. 

``From our point of view, the time has come for the U.N.
Security Council to become involved,'' German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after meeting with his French and
British counterparts and the European Union's foreign policy
chief, Javier Solana. 

Steinmeier said the three countries would inform the IAEA board
``that our talks with Iran have reached a dead end.'' He
stressed the Europeans remain ready to solve the problem
``diplomatically, multilaterally and by peaceful means.'' 

Japan said Friday the conflict over Iran's nuclear program
should be referred to the Security Council unless Tehran changes
its stand on restarting its atomic program. 

In the interview with CNN, Larijani rejected that Iran was being
deceptive, saying its nuclear research was being done on a
``small scale'' and under the supervision of IAEA inspectors. 

``There is nothing secret about it,'' he said. 

Europeans stressed it was too early to discuss sanctions.
Diplomats from France and Germany indicated time was needed to
get the international community to agree on what measures should
be considered for dealing with Iran. One possibility was seen as
seeking sharper language from the U.N. nuclear watchdog in
Vienna, Austria. 

Nuclear proliferation expert Francois Gere, who heads the French
Institute of Strategic Analysis, said few options existed for
punishing Iran and the Iranians know it. The French, he said,
were still looking at diplomatic solutions short of sanctions.
``There is absolutely no discussion of punishment for the moment
in the French approach,'' he said. 

Key to efforts to take action against Iran are Russia and China,
traditional allies with Tehran who hold veto power in the
Security Council and could thwart efforts to punish the Islamic
republic. 

Moscow and Beijing have previously opposed taking the issue to
the Security Council but have shown increasing impatience with
Tehran during the latest standoff. 

Russian experts are helping build a nuclear reactor at Bushehr
in Iran, and China is a major customer for Iranian oil and gas.
And sanctions that restrict Iran's ability to sell oil could
raise already high oil prices, hurting Western economies. 

An Iranian official said the issue could still be resolved
through diplomacy. 

Supreme National Security Council spokesman, Hossein Entezami,
said in a statement broadcast on state television that Iran's
program remained within the IAEA framework and urged the
Europeans not to challenge the Iranian people's demand for
nuclear energy or to stall diplomatic channels by what he called
``their unwise decisions.'' 

Avid issued a stronger warning against referral later Thursday. 

``It forces Iran to feel it is in an emergency and it
contributes to hard-line policies,'' Avid said. 

Rice declined to spell out what moves the Security Council could
take even as she called on it to deal with Iran's ``defiance.'' 

``It is very clear that everyone believes a very important
threshold has been cleared,'' Rice said. 

The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, said during an
appearance before the Aspen Institute in Berlin that Iran should
follow the example of Libya, which gave up its nuclear program
under international pressure. 

``Iran holds the key in its own hands as to what is going to
happen,'' Bolton said. ``By taking the matter to the Security
Council, I think we change the political dynamic and increase
the pressure on Iran. 

He declined to comment on the possibility of sanctions. 

The Security Council is most likely to ratchet up the pressure
gradually, starting with a condemnation of the country and
demanding that Iran comply with IAEA decisions. 

Russia, the United States, the European Union and China are to
discuss the issue further in London next week. 

--- 

Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations,
Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Nasser Karimi in Tehran, John Leicester
in Paris and Barry Schweid in Washington contributed to this
report. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 12 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens to Block Nuke Inspections
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday January 13, 2006 1:17 PM

AP Photo DCHG106 

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran threatened on Friday to block
inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the U.N.
Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line
president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear
energy. 

France, Britain and Germany quickly responded that they were not
demanding sanctions against Tehran just yet. 

On Thursday the three countries, backed by the United States,
said that nuclear talks with Iran had reached a dead end after
more than two years of acrimonious negotiations and the issue
should be referred to the Security Council. 

However, they refrained from calling on the 15-nation council to
impose sanctions and said they remained open to more talks. 

For her part, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a
``strong message'' had to be sent to Tehran but said she was not
ready to talk about what action should be taken to curtail
Iran's nuclear ambitions. 

Iran responded Friday by saying that if it were confronted by
the council, it would have to stop cooperating with the U.N.
nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

That would be, among other things, the end of random
inspections, said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. 

``In case Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council ..., the
government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary
cooperation,'' the television quoted Mottaki as saying. 

Iran has been voluntarily allowing short-notice IAEA inspections
since 2003. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed talk of possible
sanctions and said Iran will ``continue the path of production
of the nuclear energy.'' 

``Iranian people do not allow foreigners to block their
progress,'' state-run radio quoted him as saying. 

Last year Iran adopted a law requiring the government to block
intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities if the IAEA refers
the Iranian program to the council. 

The law also requires the Iranian government to resume all
nuclear activities that it had stopped voluntarily, foremost
among them enriching uranium. 

France said Friday that it favors a step-by-step approach with
Iran over its nuclear program and that any sanctions request at
this stage would be premature. 

``We, like our partners, like the British and the Germans,
consider that this co-request for sanctions is premature for the
moment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said. 

Germany also said that talk of sanctions against Iran is
``premature.'' 

``For now, we want to consult with our partners - above all, to
bring on board those who of course will be indispensable
partners in Vienna at the IAEA and later in New York,'' Foreign
Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said. The IAEA is based in
Vienna. 

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had ``strong
suspicion'' that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb but
stressed that there was no categorical evidence to prove that. 

``To quote the White House `Iran is not Iraq','' Straw said in
an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. 

He added that while Iran could face Security Council sanctions
for resuming its nuclear activities, military action is not
being considered. 

The calls to refer Iran to Security Council were made two days
after Iran removed some U.N. seals in the presence of IAEA
inspectors from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz,
central Iran, and resumed research on nuclear fuel. 

Iran said it was resuming ``merely research'' and that
``production of nuclear fuel'' - which would involve enrichment
- ``remains suspended.'' But the IAEA said Tehran also planned
small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce
fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or material
for nuclear weapons. 

``I recommend to European countries that they should separate
the issue of research from production of nuclear fuel and not
make propaganda over research which is natural and normal but
had unjustly been subject to suspension in the past,'' Mottaki
was quoted as saying. 

Mottaki said Iran was prepared for talks with Europeans over
uranium enrichment. 

``If they have any discussion in the stage of nuclear fuel
production, we are prepared to continue our talks with the three
European countries,'' he said. 

Mottaki, however, insisted that Iran won't give up its right
under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to possess the whole
nuclear fuel cycle - from extracting uranium ore to enriching
it. 

``No one can take this right from the Iranian nation. Regaining
this right doesn't require permission from any country,'' the
television quoted him as saying. 

Europe's negotiations with Iran has been aimed at getting Iran
to permanently abandon uranium enrichment but Iran says it won't
give up its right under the treaty to enrich uranium and produce
nuclear fuel. 

Russia renewed its call for Iran to resume its moratorium on
nuclear activities and cooperation with the IAEA. 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia was
``attentively considering'' proposals to call a special session
of the IAEA to determine the next steps, including whether to
refer Iran to the council. 

Moscow has signaled its readiness to drop its resistance to a
longtime U.S. push to refer Iran to the council for possible
sanctions over its alleged nuclear weapons bid. 

Israel applauded the plan to bring Iran before the Security
Council. 

``We believe the combination of fanatical ideology together with
nuclear weaponry is a combination that no thinking person can
feel comfortable with,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev
said. 

Israel considers Tehran to be its greatest threat, and recent
statements by Ahmadinejad calling for Israel's destruction have
added to those fears. Israeli officials have repeatedly said
international diplomatic pressure is the best way to end Iran's
nuclear program, with military action considered only as a last
resort. 

China urged restraint and called on Iran to do more to build
mutual trust and promote the resumption of talks. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 13 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Threatens U.N. Nuclear Inspections
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 
 	 
Friday January 13, 2006 4:47 PM

AP Photo WBER116 

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran threatened on Friday to block
inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the U.N.
Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line
president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear
energy. 

The move came a day after France, Britain and Germany - backed
by the United States - said that nuclear talks with Iran had
reached a dead end after more than two years of acrimonious
negotiations and the issue should be referred to the Security
Council. 

With the support of Russia and China uncertain, however, they
refrained from calling on the 15-nation council to impose
sanctions and said they remained open to more talks. 

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview with the
British Broadcasting Corp., said Friday: ``Obviously if Iran
failed to comply, the Security Council would then consider
sanctions.'' 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a ``strong message''
had to be sent to Tehran but said she was not ready to talk
about what action should be taken to curtail Iran's nuclear
ambitions. 

The White House declined to predict the stance of Russia and
China on referring Iran to the Security Council. Spokesman Scott
McClellan said he wouldn't speak for other countries, but said
it's clear that the international community is speaking with one
voice not to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. 

``This is a regime that continues to defy the demands of the
international community, instead of engaging in cooperation and
working to resolve this matter,'' McClellan said. 

He said a new phase of diplomacy has begun, and that
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns would be going to
Britain, France and Germany next week to coordinate strategy. 

Iran said Friday that if it were confronted by the Security
Council, it would have to stop cooperating with the U.N. nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. 

That would be, among other things, the end of random
inspections, said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. 

``In case Iran is referred to the U.N. Security Council ..., the
government will be obliged to end all of its voluntary
cooperation,'' the television quoted Mottaki as saying. 

Iran has been voluntarily allowing short-notice IAEA inspections
since 2003. 

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed talk of possible
sanctions and said Iran will ``continue the path of production
of the nuclear energy.'' 

``Iranian people do not allow foreigners to block their
progress,'' state-run radio quoted him as saying. 

Last year Iran adopted a law requiring the government to block
intrusive inspections of Iran's facilities if the IAEA refers
the Iranian program to the council. 

The law also requires the Iranian government to resume all
nuclear activities that it had stopped voluntarily, foremost
among them enriching uranium. 

France said Friday that it favors a step-by-step approach with
Iran over its nuclear program and that any sanctions request at
this stage would be premature. 

``We, like our partners, like the British and the Germans,
consider that this co-request for sanctions is premature for the
moment,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said. 

Germany also said that talk of sanctions against Iran is
``premature.'' 

``For now, we want to consult with our partners - above all, to
bring on board those who of course will be indispensable
partners in Vienna at the IAEA and later in New York,'' Foreign
Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said. The IAEA is based in
Vienna. 

Straw said he had ``strong suspicion'' that Iran wanted to build
a nuclear bomb but stressed that there was no categorical
evidence to prove that. 

He added that while Iran could face Security Council sanctions
for resuming its nuclear activities, military action is not
being considered. 

``To quote the White House `Iran is not Iraq','' Straw told the
BBC. 

On Tuesday, Iran removed some U.N. seals in the presence of IAEA
inspectors from its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz,
central Iran, and resumed research on nuclear fuel. 

Iran said it was resuming ``merely research'' and that
``production of nuclear fuel'' - which would involve enrichment
- ``remains suspended.'' But the IAEA said Tehran also planned
small-scale enrichment of uranium, a process that can produce
fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or material
for nuclear weapons. 

``I recommend to European countries that they should separate
the issue of research from production of nuclear fuel and not
make propaganda over research which is natural and normal but
had unjustly been subject to suspension in the past,'' Mottaki
was quoted as saying. 

Mottaki said Iran was prepared for talks with Europeans over
uranium enrichment. 

``If they have any discussion in the stage of nuclear fuel
production, we are prepared to continue our talks with the three
European countries,'' he said. 

Mottaki, however, insisted that Iran won't give up its right
under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to possess the whole
nuclear fuel cycle - from extracting uranium ore to enriching
it. 

``No one can take this right from the Iranian nation. Regaining
this right doesn't require permission from any country,'' the
television quoted him as saying. 

Europe's negotiations with Iran has been aimed at getting Iran
to permanently abandon uranium enrichment but Iran says it won't
give up its right under the treaty to enrich uranium and produce
nuclear fuel. 

Russia renewed its call for Iran to resume its moratorium on
nuclear activities and cooperation with the IAEA. 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said Russia was
``attentively considering'' proposals to call a special session
of the IAEA to determine the next steps, including whether to
refer Iran to the council. 

Moscow has signaled its readiness to drop its resistance to a
longtime U.S. push to refer Iran to the council for possible
sanctions over its alleged nuclear weapons bid. 

Israel applauded the plan to bring Iran before the Security
Council. 

``We believe the combination of fanatical ideology together with
nuclear weaponry is a combination that no thinking person can
feel comfortable with,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev
said. 

Israel considers Tehran to be its greatest threat, and recent
statements by Ahmadinejad calling for Israel's destruction have
added to those fears. Israeli officials have repeatedly said
international diplomatic pressure is the best way to end Iran's
nuclear program, with military action considered only as a last
resort. 

China urged restraint and called on Iran to do more to build
mutual trust and promote the resumption of talks. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 14 Guardian Unlimited: Israel Urges Sanctions Against Iran
 
From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday January 13, 2006 6:32 PM

By AMY TEIBEL 

Associated Press Writer 

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel on Friday urged the international
community to threaten Iran with sanctions if it doesn't abandon
its nuclear ambitions, following new threats from Tehran to
block U.N. inspections of its atomic sites. 

Israeli officials said they remain hopeful that diplomacy can
end the crisis, but they warned a military strike led by others
against Iranian nuclear facilities may be necessary. 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the Iranian regime
should be presented with a clear choice: ``Either they totally
cease their nuclear weapons program or they endanger their
relationships with the entire organized international
community.'' 

``We believe the combination of fanatical ideology together with
nuclear weaponry is a combination that no thinking person can
feel comfortable with,'' Regev added. 

The comments came a day after France, Britain and Germany -
backed by the United States - said that nuclear talks with Iran
had reached a dead end after more than two years of acrimonious
negotiations and the issue should be referred to the Security
Council. 

With the support of Russia and China uncertain, however, they
refrained from calling on the 15-nation council to impose
sanctions and said they remained open to more talks. 

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview with the
British Broadcasting Corp., said Friday: ``Obviously if Iran
failed to comply, the Security Council would then consider
sanctions.'' But he denied military action was being considered
by Britain or the U.S. 

Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed only at
generating electricity, but the U.S., Israel and others say
Tehran is seeking to develop atomic weapons. 

Israeli officials think Tehran is closer to the ``point of no
return'' in developing weapons than Western countries do,
arguing that point is not when Iran might have a bomb, but when
it might have the technology to produce the fissile component of
nuclear warheads. 

Israeli defense officials have said that once Iran resumes its
enrichment of uranium, as it has announced it would do, it would
be able to produce fissile materials in six to 12 months. 

Other experts say Iran may be up to five years or more away from
producing a nuclear weapon. 

Israel considers Tehran to be its greatest threat. Recent
statements by Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
calling for Israel's destruction and Russia's plans to sell Iran
missiles and other defense systems valued at more than $1
billion have only fueled those fears. 

Last month, Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan
Halutz, said he did not believe diplomatic pressure would put a
halt to Iran's nuclear ambitions. 

Still, Israeli officials have continued to say that
international diplomatic pressure is the best way to end Iran's
nuclear program, with military action considered only as a last
resort. Last month, before his stroke, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon said Israel wouldn't lead the fight against the Islamic
state's nuclear ambitions. 

Israeli combat jets knocked out Iraq's unfinished nuclear
reactor more than two decades ago in a lightning strike. But
military experts have said a similar attack on Iran's nuclear
project would be far more complex, because facilities are
dispersed and some are hidden underground. 

On Friday, Ran Cohena member of the Israeli parliament's foreign
affairs and defense committee, said Israel ``definitely is not
considering military action because it would only encourage
radical (Islamic) groups to increase their power.'' 

But another committee member, Ephraim Sneh, said while Israel is
not preparing to carry out a unilateral military strike, ``it
doesn't mean it's not feasible.'' 

Asked about the possibility of an attack on Iran, the British
foreign secretary said, ``I promise you I've never had a single
discussion with anybody in the American administration about
even the possibility of military action.'' 

``This can only be resolved by peaceful means. Nobody is talking
about invading Iran or taking military action,'' Straw added. 
		 	 	   
      Guardian Unlimited � Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
 15 Xinhua: Six-party talks should be pushed up: U.S. diplomat   

  www.xinhuanet.com

  www.chinaview.cn 2006-01-13 21:37:47   

    HANOI, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- The six-party talks should be
resumed and result in practical steps toward a peaceful
resolution of the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, Christopher
Hill, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and
Pacific Affairs, said here Friday. 

    Concerned countries should "do everything they can" to bring
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) back to the
negotiation table, the assistant secretary said at a press
briefing. 

    He said the joint statement passed at the end of the fourth
round of talks in September 2005, the first ever produced by the
six parties, "is a very important agreement, but it needs to be
followed up by an agreement on implementation." 

    Under the statement, the DPRK pledged to abandon all its
nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs in exchange for
energy aid and security guarantees. It also promised to return
to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. 

    The fifth round of talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear
program which also involves Beijing, Washington, Seoul, Moscow
and Tokyo ended without an agreement in November 2005 in
Beijing.    Enditem   

  Copyright �2003 Xinhua News Agency. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 ContraCostaTimes.com: California signs off on solar incentive

01/13/2006 | 

Karl Mondon/Times file 2005 A solar-power array on the
roof of their FedEx facility at the Oakland International
Airport. FedEx hopes that 80 percent of the facility's energy
needs will be met by harnessing the sun. More photos 

 By Rick Jurgens CONTRA COSTA TIMES 

SAN FRANCISCO - California's top energy panel on Thursday wrote
a $2.85 billion check, payable over 11 years, to subsidize
development of up to 3,000 megawatts of politically popular but
costly solar energy units. 

The Public Utilities Commission acted despite uncertainty about
the program's cost-effectiveness and prospects for reaching its
goal of producing nearly half again as much power as comes from
the huge Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. 

"This is the time to be bold," said PUC President Mike Peevey,
who described the newly enacted California Solar Initiative as
"the largest solar program of this kind in any state in this
country." 

The PUC will pump a torrent of new money into existing programs
where, since 1998, $800 million in subsidies have produced only
173 megawatts of solar capacity. Backers of the latest push hope
that expanding the scope of the program will cut costs and
result in more bang for each buck of utility customers' money
spent. 

This year, $300 million will be available to pay $2.80 of the
roughly $10 per watt cost of new residential solar systems. That
would cut $5,000 or so off the tab for a typical small
photovoltaic energy unit that would otherwise cost $20,000. 

Mark Frye, a Berkeley-based solar installer, said the incentives
would provide "a shot in the arm" to his business. Currently,
solar can make economic sense in a household that spends more
than $100 each month on electricity, he said. 

An equal subsidy will be available for installations in schools,
stores and factories. The subsidy per watt will automatically
decline annually. 

The PUC, now comprising a majority of appointees of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, stepped in to revive his "million solar roofs"
initiative after legislation authorizing a less costly, $1.8
billion program died last year in the Legislature. 

That new role for the PUC didn't sit well with member Jeff
Brown, who cast the five-member panel's lone dissenting vote. "I
am uncomfortable that we are a substitute for the Legislature on
energy policy issues and (acting) to impose what is in fact a
tax," he said. 

Customers of PG Corp. will pay $142 million this year and about
$1.1 billion over the next 10 years to fund the program, with
the state's other power customers kicking in the rest. That will
add about $1 a month to a typical residential electricity bill
and about a dime to a monthly natural gas bill, the PUC said. 

PUC member Dian Grueneich defended what she termed the solar
program's "justifiable rate impacts," and said that the
commission had received 50,000 letters supporting the proposal. 

Earlier, Howard Wenger, an executive of PowerLight Corp., a
Berkeley-based maker of solar equipment, urged the PUC to act.
"The technology is here," he said. "It is reliable." 

With PUC member John Bohn blocked from voting by a potential
conflict of interest created by his ownership of stock in energy
companies, Schwarzenegger had to step in to provide the measure
with its critical third vote. Late Wednesday he announced the
appointment of former Federal Communications Commissioner
Rachelle Chong to fill the vacancy on the PUC caused by former
member Susan Kennedy's departure to become the governor's chief
of staff. She ended up casting the deciding vote Thursday. 

The solar initiative is a centerpiece of Schwarzenegger's energy
policy, which also includes ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions and boost the use of various renewable or
less-polluting alternative energies. 

The PUC authorized the new spending but acknowledged that "solar
technologies may not be as cost-effective as other clean
alternatives." It also said the proposed $2.85 billion in
funding would support the development of 3,000 megawatts but
declined to "adopt an absolute goal" for new capacity. 

On Monday state Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, chairman of the
utilities committee, sent a letter to Peevey criticizing the PUC
plan, saying it needed incentives for power production "to
assure that ratepayers actually get what they pay for." 

Peevey defended the PUC plan: "We are committed to paying only
for systems that deliver power as promised." 

Rick Jurgens covers energy and business. Reach him at
925-943-8088 or at rjurgens@cctimes.com. 

CALIFORNIA SOLAR INITIATIVE 

What: Rebates, initially set at $2.80 a watt and gradually
declining, for installation of solar energy systems. That could
translate into more than $5,000 in savings to the owner of a
small system of about 2 kilowatts. 

Who: Those who install solar systems ranging in size from 1
kilowatt -- enough to light 10 100-watt bulbs -- to 5 megawatts. 

When: 2006 through 2017. 

Why: To help the state meet its goals for increases in renewable
energy use and reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. 

Why not: Because other investments in energy saving or
alternative energies might be more cost effective, and because
the planned subsidies for this program do not provide the type
of incentives that have proven themselves in other programs. 

How: Homeowners and small businesses considering installation of
a system smaller than 30 kilowatts should contact the California
Energy Commission at 800-555-7794 or visit its Web site at
www.consumerenergycenter.org/erprebate/apply.html. Those
considering installation of larger systems should contact PG at
(415) 973-6436 or visit its Web site at

*****************************************************************
 17 Indiatimes: Kerry calls India a nuke power

>The Economic Times>

IANS[ FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2006 02:41:22 AM]   


  NEW DELHI: Influential US senator and former Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry today backed the India-US
nuclear deal whose implementation, he stressed, would grant New
Delhi the status of a nuclear power. 

In principle, it will be better to have India as a participant
in the International Atomic Energy Agencys (IAEA) procedures
and standards than not to have it. It would be a big step
forward, Kerry told reporters at the Observer Research
Foundation (ORF), a premier think tank. 

There is a positive gain for India, the US and the global
community, Kerry told reporters, while alluding to the historic
civil nuclear energy deal signed during PM Manmohan Singhs
visit to the US last year. 

 "It will be disingenuous to suggest that if the (Indo-US) 
agreement (on civilian nuclear co-operation) comes through, it 
will not grant nuclear power status to India. Obviously, it 
does," he said in response to a question on whether the agreement 
implicitly accords India nuclear weapon power status.

"What the Congress will do will depend on what four corners of 
the agreement say," he stressed. The endorsement to the nuclear 
deal by Kerry, who is known for his tough views on 
non-proliferation, could hold the key to getting bipartisan 
support to the proposed legislation that the Bush administration 
wants to introduce in the Congress to amend domestic nuclear laws 
to facilitate nuclear business with India.

Kerry, who is also a member of the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, however, clarified that the nuclear deal can't be seen 
in purely bilateral context, but has to be looked at in a larger 
global context. "In order for the US Congress to pass it, the 
Nuclear Suppliers Group has to be brought on board. The Atomic 
Act of 1954 has to be amended and Fissile Material Control Regime 
has to be effected," he said. 




Copyright �2006Times Internet Limited. All rights
*****************************************************************
 18 NIRS Alert: Comment to NRC on inadequate nuclear security rules
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:27:25 -0800

<x-flowed>

image001.jpg*** NIRS ALERT*** NIRS ALERT *** NIRS ALERT



United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Proposed Rule Making on

NUCLEAR POWER STATION SECURITY

Public Comments are due January 23, 2006



Send your comments to NRC

Mail comments to: Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,

Washington, DC 20555-0001, ATTN: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff

Or E-mail comments to: <mailto:SECY@nrc.gov>SECY@nrc.gov.





Background



On November 7, 2005, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published in 
the Federal Register a Proposed Rulemaking (RIN 3150-AH60) to amend its 
rules regarding the Design Basis Threat (DBT) governing the required levels 
of security around U.S. nuclear reactors.



The DBT is basically a document that identifies the potential size, modes 
and strength of attack by adversary forces intent upon radiological 
sabotage using a nuclear power station or other nuclear materials. The DBT 
is established in order to determine the required level of onsite defenses 
to reliably defend against such an attack until local law enforcement, 
National Guard or federal forces can be brought to bear. The DBT includes a 
classified description of adversarial characteristicsdesignating the size 
of the attacking force and the number of potential insiders supporting the 
attack, the types of weapons and explosives they could employ as well as 
their modes of entry by land and water. Defense against air attack is 
neither considered nor required by NRC.



The NRC summary of its Proposed Rulemaking states that it would amend the 
Commission's regulations to codify security requirements previously imposed 
by the Commission's April 29, 2003 DBT orders and redefine the level of 
security. The proposed rule would revise the DBT requirements for 
radiological sabotage applied to nuclear power reactors and nuclear fuel 
cycle facilities, as well as the theft or diversion of NRC-licensed 
Strategic Special Nuclear Material (SSNM). The NRC has also developed draft 
classified Regulatory Guides that provide guidance to its licensees 
concerning the DBT for radiological sabotage and theft and 
diversion.  Additionally, a Petition for Rulemaking (PRM-73-12), filed by 
the Committee to Bridge the Gap and supported by NIRS and endorsed by 
hundreds of public comments and nine State Offices of Attorneys General was 
incorporated and in large part dismissed, trivialized and deferred as part 
of this NRC proposed rulemaking.  [See the July 23, 2004 CBG Petition for 
Rulemaking and the January 24, 2005 NIRS comments in support of the 
rulemaking NIRS as well as the January 24, 2005 combined comments of the 
Offices of Attorneys General in support of the CBG rulemaking at 
<http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/security/securityhome.htm>http://www.nirs.org/reactorwatch/security/securityhome.htm]



An Evaluation of the NRC Current Proposed Rule on Amending the DBT



1.  The NRC proposal to make no upgrades to existing security requirements 
for nuclear facilities is unacceptable in the face of the current terrorist 
threat and the potential catastrophic consequences of a successful attack 
on a nuclear site.



2.  Nineteen attackers, who were willing to kill large numbers of people 
and be killed in the process, were involved in the September 11th attacks 
on the United States.  It is unacceptable to require site protection around 
nuclear power stations to prepare for only a small fraction of the number 
of attackers already demonstrated.



3.  As identified in the report authored by The National Commission on 
Terrorist Attacks on the United States, the original al-Qaeda plan was to 
hijack ten domestic commercial aircraft and direct two of them into U.S. 
nuclear power stations. By September 11, 2001 the attack plan was scaled 
back to four hijacked aircraft which were involved in successful suicidal 
attacks from the air on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an aborted 
unknown third destination, possibly a nuclear reactor.  It is unacceptable 
as currently proposed by the NRC rule change to continue to exempt air 
attacks from the kinds of threats nuclear reactors must be capable of 
defending against.



4.   The NRC proposed rulemaking defers specific actions requested by the 
Committee to Bridge the Gap for an overall upgrade of reactor security to a 
minimum level necessary to repel the equivalent of the September 11th 
attacks and in particular the physical construction of "Beamhenge" shields 
around each nuclear power station so that planes would crash into the 
shields, not the reactor facilities with catastrophic and far reaching 
destruction.



5.  Under the guise of protecting safeguards information, the NRC 
rulemaking itself is a violation of rulemaking laws, in that it provides 
nothing but vague generalities that make meaningful and genuine public 
comments impossible.  Given the longstanding public concerns regarding NRC 
and nuclear industry security cost containment strategies, the proposed 
rule is the dangerous product of behind-closed-door meetings and 
dealmakings that after-the-fact offers the public an opportunity to comment 
without specifics or basis. This type of business as usual damages public 
confidence in NRC priorities and the current state of security levels 
existing at nuclear power stations.



6.  Congress ordered NRC to include in any rulemaking consideration of 
September 11th-level threats, attacks by large groups, and attacks by 
air.  NRC has defied Congress in this rulemaking by failing to consider any 
of these matters.



For more information, see NRC's Federal Register notice for the proposed 
rulemaking at

<http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/cgi-bin/downloader/dbt_prule_lib/1635-0001.pdf>http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/cgi-bin/downloader/dbt_prule_lib/1635-0001.pdf



Bridge the Gap's Petition for Rulemaking at

<http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/cgi-bin/downloader/ctbg_prm_lib/1478-0002.pdf>http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/cgi-bin/downloader/ctbg_prm_lib/1478-0002.pdf



and articles in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at

<http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/jf02/jf02hirsch.html>http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/jf02/jf02hirsch.html



http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=mj03hirsch



Make and submit your comments specific to NRC Proposed Rulemaking (RIN 
3150-AH60).



Contact: Paul Gunter, Nuclear Information and Resource Service, 
202.328.0002, <mailto:pgunter@nirs.org>pgunter@nirs.org



-----------------------------------------------------------

Dont forget to sign the Petition for A Sustainable Energy Future at 
<http://www.nirs.org/>www.nirs.org and send a copy to your friends and 
colleagues for them to sign as well!



----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the NIRS E-Mail Alert list. You are on this list because you signed 
up on our website, at a NIRS table at a concert or other event, on a 
petition, or directly to NIRS. Your name and address are never sold, 
rented, or traded with anyone for any reason.



For address changes or to unsubscribe, just send an e-mail to 
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this list, have them send a note to nirsnet@nirs.org

























   
</x-flowed>


Attachment Converted: image0014.jpg: 00000001,69053025,00000000,00000000
*****************************************************************
 19 CourierPress: Race is on for new wave of nuclear plants

Nuclear power critics reviving more slowly than the industry

By EMERY P. DALESIO AP business writer

January 13, 2006

RALEIGH, N.C. - With guaranteed federal loans and insurance
protection promised to the first power companies to build a new
wave of nuclear plants, the race is on for construction of up to
10 stations between Maryland and Mississippi. 

At least two utilities plan to announce their intended sites
within a few weeks. And some communities appear enthusiastic
about luring the jobs and tax dollars the plants would bring.
One South Carolina county looking to land a proposed Duke Energy
Corp. plant has even offered a 50 percent break on property
taxes. 

 But even with the nuclear power industry in an apparent
resurgence in the fast-growing Southeast, one traditional
participant in the debate over nuclear power has remained
largely silent. Environmentalists, mostly mum so far about the
potential dangers and pitfalls associated with this proposed
round of reactors, say they're just taking a long view. 

"The nuclear industry has tried to revitalize itself a number of
times in the past," said Stephen Smith, executive director of
the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Atlanta. "Just because
the political climate is favorable for the next couple of years,
these things take 10 years to build and the climate may not be
favorable then." 

No nuclear reactor has been ordered for construction since 1973,
and the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant
in Pennsylvania in 1979 killed interest in anything beyond
completing plants then under construction. The United States now
gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors. 

In North Carolina, where Charlotte-based Duke Energy and
Raleigh-based Progress Energy Inc. expect to announce their
preferred sites for nuclear plants within weeks,
environmentalists want to have a broader conversation before
getting into a debate over new plants. 

"We do not want to jump the gun and put out a bunch of
incendiary comments," said Ivan Urlaub, executive director of
the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, a nonprofit
advocacy group. "We haven't done an honest evaluation of the
role energy efficiency can play in our economic development and
our energy future as a state. Until we do that we think it would
be bad policy to approve any new nuclear or coal plants." 

Urlaub's group is working with at least a half-dozen others in
compiling data to support their argument - that environmental
and economic prudence dictates using existing energy supplies
more efficiently rather than spending to increase supplies.
Their report will be used to fight plant licensing efforts in
hearings before state regulators across the Southeast,
environmentalists said. 

"The utilities have to demonstrate that the facilities are
needed. The first step is assessing demand and what are the
opportunities to meet it," said Molly Diggins, executive
director of the Sierra Club's North Carolina chapter. 

The Energy Department forecasts that the consumption of nuclear
energy will increase 5.3 percent between this year and 2015 -
the date when any of the proposed new plants might come on line
- and by almost 11 percent by 2030. 

Renewable energy, excluding hydroelectric, now produces less
than half as much power as U.S. nuclear plants. But that source
is predicted to grow by 29 percent in 2015 and 76 percent in
2030, says the Energy Information Administration, the
government's energy statistical agency.

 2005 The Evansville Courier Co.
*****************************************************************
 20 Sydney Morning Herald: Fuel for thought: nuke debate heats up
                           
smh.com.au
 
Photo: Glenn Campbell 	 By Jamie Freed

January 14, 2006
 	
AT THE Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and
Climate meeting in Sydney this week, the focus was on
initiatives the six member countries could adopt to reduce their
production of greenhouse gases. 

Nuclear power was one topic at the forefront, as the US, Japan,
South Korea, India and China all operate nuclear power plants -
and are planning to build more to help tackle the issue of
climate change. Australia, never having built a nuclear power
plant, is clearly the odd one out. 

The nation's lack of a nuclear power industry might seem curious
to foreigners when Australia possesses more uranium than any
other country - although it has large reserves of other energy
sources such as coal and natural gas, and a small population. 

Despite its large trade deficit, Australia mines a relatively
low proportion of its uranium reserves, meaning it isn't milking
the export market as much as it could. 

It's not due to lack of interest from mining companies, which
view Australia as a dream destination because of its stable
political system, skilled workforce and abundant natural
resources. 

Rather, it's restrictive Australian government policy - at both
the federal and state level - that has so far prevented most of
the country's uranium from being mined. 

Under the Coalition Government, federal policy has changed, but
all state Labor premiers except South Australia's Mike Rann
oppose mining uranium, in part because of Labor's long
opposition to it. 

The policy has forced local miners to look overseas for viable
projects. 

Take Perth's Paladin Resources. Instead of mining or even
closely studying one of its deposits in Western Australia, it
will start production at its Langer Heinrich project in Namibia
this year. And next on its list is a deposit in Malawi, one of
the world's poorest and most corrupt nations. 

Paladin managing director John Borshoff is upfront about why his
company is developing its first projects abroad. Countries in
southern Africa are "less politically hostile" than Australia,
he says. "I know that sounds ironic," he's quick to add. 

Borshoff has a point. WA's premier, Dr Geoff Gallop, is adamant
no uranium mining will be allowed in his state while he remains
in office - and his current term lasts until 2009. 

"In terms of uranium mining, I'm the premier. We took this
policy to the election [last year]," Gallop told the Herald."Our
uranium will stay in the ground in Western Australia." 

Despite Gallop's firm stance - which several industry sources
liken to an ostrich with its head in the sand - companies such
as Redport are pinning their hopes on eventual change in policy,
or in government. 

When Redport - a former gold explorer and internet company -
first picked up the Lake Maitland uranium project in WA last
April, the market reaction seemed almost inexplicable. 

The company's business plan was to mine in WA and ship the
nuclear power plant fuel off to China, despite both actions
being illegal under state and federal policy. Yet shares in the
tiny explorer more than doubled on the day of the announcement. 

Unless investors - including institutions such as Fidelity
Investments, which holds 12.7 per cent of Redport - have
suddenly become keen to sink money into a project going nowhere,
it seems a paradigm shift is afoot. 

Industry veteran Tony Grey, founder of the now-defunct
Pancontinental Mining, says "Australia is still in irons as far
as uranium development is concerned". 

Grey should know. His company discovered the giant Jabiluka
deposit in the Northern Territory in 1971 - and it still hasn't
been developed. 

"[But] having said that," he adds, "the winds of change are
blowing." 

While it's difficult to discern whether public attitudes have
changed, some Labor figures are beginning to warm to uranium.
Labor's federal industry and resources spokesman, Martin
Ferguson, is encouraging a widespread debate within his party
about the merits of uranium mining and supports exporting it to
China as long as it is used for peaceful purposes. 

Redport chairman Richard Homsany certainly believed change was
coming when his company invested in Lake Maitland. "I think at
the moment there is enormous pressure to re-examine that [WA]
policy on uranium mining," he said in April. "One cannot ignore
the fact it is a clean fuel." 

Neither, in the current climate, can it be ignored that
Australia is home to 41 per cent of the world's economic uranium
reserves and the world's biggest uranium mine, BHP Billiton's
Olympic Dam. 

On the other hand, for all of coal's environmental ills,
Australia's cheap and plentiful supply of the fossil fuel will
last the nation hundreds of years. 

Coal is also the reason there is a ban on uranium mining in
Queensland - its premier, Peter Beattie, believes exporting
uranium would undermine its lucrative coal industry. 

"There are countries which have to choose between sources for
their power stations," says Beattie's spokesman, citing Italy as
an example. "He [Beattie] is not going to encourage the nuclear
industry." 

And apart from coal, there are other energy options in
Australia. 

Power stations fuelled by natural gas are a possibility, based
on large reserves of coal-seam gas and conventional on- and
offshore natural gas in Australia and Papua New Guinea, although
much of Australia's gas is sold at high prices for export. 

Still, Queensland is busy building coal-seam gas power stations
to meet environmental targets. 

But although nuclear energy has lower emissions than coal - or
even natural gas - the costs of building a nuclear power plant
are daunting. 

An International Energy Agency report found the cost per
kilowatt of building a modern nuclear reactor would be around
$US2000 ($2650), compared with $US1200 for coal and $US500 for
gas. 

But over the long lifetime of a nuclear power station, the
capital costs would be recouped, making it a viable,
low-emission alternative. 

While some environmental activists press for the use of
renewable energy sources such as wind, water and solar power,
these are not effective generators of base-load power, though
they can help meet some energy needs. 

Anti-nuclear activists add that a nuclear plant malfunction -
such as those at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl - is far more
devastating on a safety and environmental level than a
malfunction in a coal- or gas-fired plant. 

Nuclear weapons proliferation is another major issue. Australia
does not allow the sale of uranium for weapons purposes and
uranium proponents argue that strict international safeguards
are effective, but WA's Gallop disagrees. 

"The last time there was a major expansion of the nuclear
industry there was a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and I
have no reason to think the same thing wouldn't happen again,"
he says. "Added to that, you have the new terrorist threats." 

Radioactive waste disposal is another problem - and a daunting
one for WA voters. In 1998, the plan of the US company Pangea
Resources to build a nuclear waste dump in the state came to
public notice after a UK environmental group aired a corporate
video touting the project. 

After widespread opposition, the WA Parliament passed a bill
that made it illegal to dispose of radioactive waste in the
state without specific approval. But Gallop worries that if he
allows uranium mining, his state will become "part of the
nuclear fuel cycle" and will be obliged to accept waste. 

So despite the use of nuclear power in developed countries such
as the US, Canada, France and Japan, Australia has long been
regarded as hostile to uranium and nuclear power. 

It wasn't always that way. For a time, it looked like Australia
would join the nuclear club, both for energy and weapons
purposes. 

The local history of uranium goes back to the 1940s. 

The Rum Jungle mine in the Northern Territory, owned by the
government and operated by Consolidated Zinc (now Rio Tinto),
was used to provide fuel for the UK's nuclear weapons arsenal,
and South Australia was used as a testing ground for those
missiles. 

On Australia Day in 1958, the UK provided Australia with its
first nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, and by 1969 there were
plans for a nuclear power plant at Jervis Bay, NSW. 

At that time, the Liberal prime minister John Gorton wanted to
leave open the possibility of producing nuclear weapons and
refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

But after widespread protests, Gorton's successor, fellow
Liberal William McMahon, canned the Jervis Bay project in 1971. 

Retired nuclear scientist Keith Adler, formerly the head of the
Australian Atomic Energy Commission, recently told a federal
inquiry that anti-nuclear views were commonly taught in schools
in the early 1980s. 

"At [the] Lucas Heights [nuclear research centre] we had the
experience of sending literature to high schools and it coming
back, sometimes torn in half," he said. 

"I went to a couple of high schools and, on one occasion, I met
the then president of the Teachers Federation. We went into the
library and it was covered in anti-nuclear literature." 

And so in some ways Australia's opposition to domestic nuclear
power plants and its lack of nuclear weapons means that its
uranium mining industry is similarly underdeveloped. 

"Uranium was a proxy for nuclear," Pancontinental founder Tony
Grey says. "For those who don't like nuclear power, they can say
they want to prohibit the mining of uranium." 

When Bob Hawke was elected prime minister in 1983, the Labor
Party soon instituted its Three Mines policy, restricting
uranium mining to the Northern Territory's Ranger, South
Australia's Olympic Dam and Queensland's Nabarlek - a mine that
has since been depleted. 

The Labor Party had little choice to allow mining at Nabarlek
and Ranger, as both were already in operation and Australia's
good name as a reliable exporter would have been smeared if they
were suddenly closed down. 

The case of Olympic Dam was a bit trickier, as it was not in
operation in 1983. But at the gigantic open cut mine, uranium is
actually a by-product of the huge copper deposit. Copper brings
in about 75 per cent of revenue, compared to 20 per cent for
uranium and 5 per cent for gold. 

And the South Australia Labor leader John Bannon wanted the jobs
and royalty revenue the huge mine would create -he needed them
to help win the election and become premier in 1982. Therefore,
federal Labor agreed to include Olympic Dam in the Three Mines
policy, although mining did not begin until 1988. 

But Pancontinental's plan to develop the Jabiluka deposit was
thwarted. 

The Howard Government quickly overturned the Three Mines policy
after taking power in 1996, but only one mine has opened since:
Beverley in South Australia, owned by US company General
Atomics. 

But the ban on mining uranium in WA, Queensland, NSW, Victoria -
and, until recently, the Northern Territory - is only one of
many factors surrounding the uranium issue. 

Energy Resources of Australia, which operates the Ranger mine,
has been stopped from developing the nearby Jabiluka deposit
because of issues with Aboriginal landholders. It bought the
deposit from Pancontinental for $125 million in 1991. 

Although the Coalition declared the Northern Territory "open for
business" for uranium mining last year, it remains a tricky
operating environment. 

"The most prospective area [for uranium], perhaps in the world,
is in the Northern Territory," Grey says. "But that's bedevilled
with Aboriginal issues." 

The Mirarr people, native title holders to the Jabiluka ground,
argue that mining's social and economic impacts would change
their way of life. ERA and the Mirarr people agreed last
February to place the Jabiluka site on long-term care and
maintenance, and ERA will not develop it without consent from
the indigenous group. 

Aside from the political issues, however, perhaps the biggest
hindrance to the development of Australia's uranium industry has
been the price of the commodity. At the end of the Cold War,
Soviet nuclear weapons soon became a cheap source of fuel for
nuclear reactors and depressed the price. 

By November 2000, the spot price of uranium was just $US7.10 a
pound. 

But the ex-Soviet supply has since run out, and by the end of
last month, the uranium price had quintupled to $US36.25 a pound
due to higher demand and a lack of supply. 

Australia's next uranium mine looks set to come from a Canadian
company, SXR Uranium One, which has already received approvals
from the South Australian Government. 

While Canada has much less uranium than Australia, the North
American country is the world's biggest producer of yellowcake -
and its capital markets are much friendlier towards uranium
companies. 

In contrast to Australia, Canada receives more than 12 per cent
of its energy from nuclear power and its CANDU reactor design
has been sold around the world. 

"The truncation of the Australian development of uranium has had
worldwide repercussions," says Grey, who was born in Canada. "We
sort of stood aside in order to allow the Canadian uranium to
develop." 

Since he sold Pancontinental, Grey has stayed involved with the
uranium industry as a director of Canada's Mega Uranium, which
this week launched a $20 million bid for South Australian
explorer Hindmarsh Resources. 

Mark Wheatley, an Australian who serves as a director of
Toronto-listed SXR Uranium One, says his company listed in
Canada in 1997(as Southern Cross Resources) because at the time
"there was simply no support for uranium exploration and
development in Australia". 

SXR, formed last month through the merger of Southern Cross and
South Africa's Aflease Gold and Uranium, is fortunate that its
Honeymoon project is in South Australia rather than 90
kilometres away in Broken Hill, as there is a blanket ban on
uranium exploration in NSW. 

Having gained nearly all of the needed regulatory approvals, the
$US30 million Honeymoon project could be up and running in 18
months, but was delayed by the uranium price in 2004, given the
relatively small size of the project. 

When a study was done last year, uranium was trading at around
$US25 a pound. With the spot price at $US36.25, and many
analysts believing it will rise further, the board has approved
further development expenditure to gather the extra data
required to support a development decision, which could come as
early as the first half of this year. 

Being in South Australia is definitely a plus, with the Rann
administration looking favourably on uranium mining. Prospectors
get government grants to help fund exploration, and the
environment is so cordial that the Australian division of French
nuclear giant Cogema plans to move its headquarters from Perth
to Adelaide. 

"Adelaide, in five years' time, I think, is going to become a
real centre of activity for uranium in Australia," says SXR's
Wheatley. 

Back in WA, however, large projects owned by mining giants BHP
and Rio - both of which might well be economic at today's high
uranium prices - are stalled indefinitely in the face of
Gallop's opposition. 

For a time, Rio Tinto had looked set to proceed with its Kintyre
project in WA. It proved up a substantial reserve base and
installed a pilot plant to investigate how to process the ore. 

But development of the 35,000 tonne deposit was stalled in 1997
because of the low uranium price. The site was decommissioned
and rehabilitated in 2002. 

Now prices have risen, the possibility of development is
"academic", a Rio spokesman says, due to Gallop's ban. But he
says Kintyre is a good project that the company plans to retain
- meaning Rio seems hopeful of a change in policy. 

BHP faces different issues with the Yeelirrie project in WA,
which it picked up with the $9.2 billion acquisition of WMC
Resources earlier this year (along with Olympic Dam). At 52,000
tonnes, Yeelirrie is Australia's second largest unmined source
of uranium behind Jabiluka's 163,000 tonne resource base. 

In the 12 years to 1983, WMC and partner Esso spent $35 million
planning Yeelirrie as an open cut mine, but plans were withdrawn
after Labor instituted its Three Mines policy in 1984. WMC
instead decided to focus on mining the 1.5 million tonne
resource base at Olympic Dam, by far the world's largest uranium
deposit. 

Gallop's Government revoked Yeelirrie's WA mining agreement last
year, and a BHP spokeswoman said her company's focus regarding
uranium mining was "squarely on Olympic Dam and its expansion". 

While still in the early stages, if approved, the proposed $5
billion expansion of the Olympic Dam mine would be BHP's most
expensive project. 

So the mining giant has not decided whether it would be willing
to sell the Yeelirrie project - although if it did, there would
be no shortage of potential buyers. 

With increased prices - along with the Federal Government
setting the stage for allowing exports to China's booming
nuclear power plant industry - projects not looked at since the
1970s have suddenly become attractive for junior exploration
companies. 

"Exploration activity now for uranium is probably at the highest
level it's been for 20 to 25 years," says Fat Prophets senior
resources analyst Gavin Wendt. 

But Australia's history of shying away from uranium means there
is a dearth of uranium expertise. 

"When you have a look at the number of mines that are operating
in Australia at the present time there is very little operation
and exploration experience in Australia," says Wendt. "It's a
real problem. You've got a generation of uranium expertise
that's rapidly ageing." 

Malcolm Mason, who discovered Paladin's Langer Heinrich uranium
project in Namibia, serves as a strategic adviser for Redport.
It's one of the few Australian explorers to have someone with
uranium experience on board. 

Redport marks Mason's second attempt to develop the Lake
Maitland deposit. He floated Acclaim Uranium in 1997 on the back
of that, and other tenements, but now admits the timing was
"dreadful" due to the declining uranium price. 

"The thing that fooled me was the huge amount of nuclear weapons
around," he says. 

Mason returned from retirement to take part in the most recent
uranium boom. "The world is so short of energy," he says. "You
go talk to the Chinese and they are so desperate for energy it's
ridiculous." 

Mason hopes the situation will change soon, but like Paladin's
Borshoff he believes the greatest hope for uranium mining at the
moment lies outside WA and most other Australian states. 

"[Redport is] looking for a variety of deposits in a variety of
countries," he says, adding "the political risk [in WA] is real,
and we would like to obtain assets elsewhere in Australia." 


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 21 Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Nuclear power critics taking long view

  [seattlepi.com]     

[AP BUSINESS WIRE] 

Friday, January 13, 2006 � Last updated 3:53 p.m. PT 

By EMERY P. DALESIO AP BUSINESS WRITER                      

RALEIGH, N.C. -- With guaranteed federal loans and insurance 
protection promised to the first power companies to build a new 
wave of nuclear plants, the race is on for construction of up to 
10 stations between Maryland and Mississippi.           

At least two utilities plan to announce their intended sites 
within a few weeks. And some communities appear enthusiastic 
about luring the jobs and tax dollars the plants would bring. One 
South Carolina county looking to land a proposed Duke Energy 
Corp. plant has even offered a 50 percent break on property 
taxes.          

But even with the nuclear power industry in an apparent 
resurgence in the fast-growing Southeast, one traditional 
participant in the debate over nuclear power has remained largely 
silent. Environmentalists, mostly mum so far about the potential 
dangers and pitfalls associated with this proposed round of 
reactors, say they're just taking a long view.                 

"The nuclear industry has tried to revitalize itself a number of
times in the past," said Stephen Smith, executive director of
the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Atlanta. "Just because
the political climate is favorable for the next couple of years,
these things take 10 years to build and the climate may not be
favorable then." 		

No nuclear reactor has been ordered for construction since 1973,
and the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant
in Pennsylvania in 1979 killed interest in anything beyond
completing plants then under construction. The United States now
gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors. 		

In North Carolina, where Charlotte-based Duke Energy and
Raleigh-based Progress Energy Inc. expect to announce their
preferred sites for nuclear plants within weeks,
environmentalists want to have a broader conversation before
getting into a debate over new plants. 		

 [advertising] "We do not want to jump the gun and put out a
bunch of incendiary comments," said Ivan Urlaub, executive
director of the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association, a
nonprofit advocacy group. "We haven't done an honest evaluation
of the role energy efficiency can play in our economic
development and our energy future as a state. Until we do that
we think it would be bad policy to approve any new nuclear or
coal plants." 		

Urlaub's group is working with at least a half-dozen others in
compiling data to support their argument - that environmental
and economic prudence dictates using existing energy supplies
more efficiently rather than spending to increase supplies.
Their report will be used to fight plant licensing efforts in
hearings before state regulators across the Southeast,
environmentalists said. 		

"The utilities have to demonstrate that the facilities are
needed. The first step is assessing demand and what are the
opportunities to meet it," said Molly Diggins, executive
director of the Sierra Club's North Carolina chapter. 		

The Energy Department forecasts that the consumption of nuclear
energy will increase 5.3 percent between this year and 2015 -
the earliest date when any of the proposed new plants might come
on line - and by almost 11 percent by 2030. 		

Renewable energy, excluding hydroelectric, now produces less
than half as much power as U.S. nuclear plants. But that source
is predicted to grow by 29 percent in 2015 and 76 percent in
2030, says the Energy Information Administration, the
government's energy statistical agency. 		

In an environment where coal, oil and gas prices remain unstable
following recent spikes, nuclear supporters say the world needs
a variety of power sources that don't contribute to global
warming. 		

"In a carbon-constrained world ... nuclear plants have got to be
in that mix," said Andy White, the president and chief executive
officer of Wilmington-based GE Energy, the nuclear engineering
and consulting business of General Electric Corp. 		

White expects lots of business over the next decade until the
first plants open and beyond the middle of the century as old
plants are replaced. After 2015, White said the nuclear industry
will need to build two plants a year to replace the power lost
as aging, first-generation reactors go offline, translating to
60 or more new reactors. The U.S. has about 100 existing plants.
		

Progress Energy, which has almost 1.4 million customers in North
Carolina and South Carolina, expects to announce a preferred
site in one of the two states this month, spokesman Keith Poston
said. A site for a second nuclear plant in Florida, where the
company has an additional 1.5 million customers, should be
announced by April, he said. 		

Before clearing the way for construction, state regulators are
expected to investigate whether the utility can squeeze more
production out its existing plants. 		

"Certainly conservation and energy efficiency has a role to
play, as does the continuing exploration of renewable
resources," Poston said. 		

Progress added 69,000 homes and businesses in its three states
over the past year, Poston said, and expects to add 600,000 new
customers over the next decade as the population boom continues
in its service area. 		

The options for the heavy-duty plants needed to supply all those
customers come down to natural gas, oil, coal and nuclear, he
said. 		

"We think that nuclear may end up as the best option for a
variety of reasons, but we're always going to have a mix of
fuels to protect customers from volatility in supply and price,"
Poston said. 		

Duke Energy's utility division, Duke Power, is preparing to add
up to 60,000 customers a year in its two-state service area of
North Carolina and South Carolina, spokeswoman Rita Sipe said. 		

Duke will select a site in one of the states soon, but even that
milestone isn't expected to draw much response from
environmental watchdogs, said Jim Warren, executive director of
the anti-nuclear North Carolina Waste Awareness & Reduction
Network. 		

"There's a lot of organizing going on. I don't think as much of
it will be geared around when they make an announcement. Most of
the opposition will come in a phased type of way," he said. "It
will especially be geared toward the need for a full-blown
public debate." 		

--- 		
On the Net: 		

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy: http://www.cleanenergy.org/		

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy:
http://www.aceee.org		

Energy Information Administration:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/forecasting.html		

Progress Energy: http://www.progress-energy.com/index.asp		

Duke Energy: http://www.duke-energy.com/		

Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov		

General Electric:
http://www.gepower.com/businesses/ge-nuclear/en/index.htm	      
          
Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 
(206) 448-8000
 
 Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
�1996-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
*****************************************************************
 22 SanLuisObispo.com: County planners deny project at Diablo Canyon

| 01/13/2006 | 

Steam generator replacement project to go before County
Supervisors

 David Sneed The Tribune 

In a bizarre turn of events Thursday, a hopelessly deadlocked
county Planning Commission denied a steam generator replacement
project at Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant solely for the
purpose of passing it on to the Board of Supervisors. 

Plant owners Pacific Gas and Electric Co. are likely to appeal
the ruling and county supervisors will consider the project at a
future, undetermined hearing. They are also considering moving
the project away from the coast and potentially avoid scrutiny
by the state Coastal Commission. 

�The whole process of appeal is something we are considering,�
said Jeff Lewis, Diablo Canyon spokesman. 

The $700 million project calls for the replacement of eight
large components which transfer heat from the plant�s two
nuclear reactors to steam-powered electrical generators. Without
new steam generators, the power plant would be forced to
shutdown in 2014, a decade short of its license expiration. 

Commissioners Sarah Christie and Bruce Gibson were highly
critical of the state�s environmental analysis of the project
and wanted additional concessions from PG. In opposition,
commissioners Bob Roos and Eugene Mehlschau wanted to approve
the project. 

The panel�s potential tie-breaker, commissioner Penny Rappa,
declared a conflict of interest and stepped down before the
hearing started. Her husband is a PG employee. 

*****************************************************************
 23 WIFR: Byron Nuclear Power Station
 
Rebekah Baum &Narina Crain                                                                           

For seven years, the Byron Stations' assessments were frozen at
$472 million. That agreement expired in 2004 and in October,
Ogle County Supervisor of Assessments, Jim Harrison reassessed
the plant at $390 million. 																																			

But Exelon and seven of the taxing districts appealed the
decision and today they were stating their cases. Attorney
Stuart Whitt is representing the taxing bodies that draw real
estate taxes from the plant, the biggest is the Byron School
District, 84% of it's budget dollars come from the plant.
																						 																																				

The seven taxing districts say the plant should be assessed at
$502 million but Exelon's appraiser has assessed the plant at
$280 million with a plant value of around $1.75 billion.
																																			

During testimony today, attorney Whitt found mathematical errors
in Exelon's appraisal. He also challenged the energy prices that
were used in the computations, saying they were lower than
current energy costs. 																																			

Exelon's attorney, Terry Moritz says the taxing districts'
appraiser used limited information to draw his conclusion.
																																			

The Ogle county review board decided Thursday night to assess
the exelon power plant at $366,400,000. This new assessment
means Byron schools will receive almost $2 million dollars less
than district leaders believe they deserve. Attorney Whitt says
they will likely appeal to a state tax board.
																																			 				 		   				     	 			
Gray Television Group, Inc.                                             
Copyright � 2002-2006                                                                           
*****************************************************************
 24 Bellona: Rosenergoatom established department on floating nuclear plants construction
 
The Russian State Company on electricity and heat energy
production at the nuclear power plants (Rosenergoatom)
established the department on floating nuclear plants
construction, the Rosenergoatom press department informed. 

2006-01-13 17:29

The new department will be headed by the Rosenergoatom deputy
general director Sergey Obozov. He was assigned by the order on
December 29, 2005. Obozov was the deputy representative of the
Russian President in the Privolzhsky Federal District.   

  Publisher: , President: 
Information: , Technical contact: 
Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62  * P.O.Box
2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway






*****************************************************************
 25 TheStar.com: Idle units not worth fixing - CEO
 
Fri. Jan. 13, 2006. | Updated at 06:59 AM 

Can't justify spending $2 billion

Power situation delicate: Minister

Jan. 13, 2006. 03:34 AMJOHN SPEARS STAFF REPORTER

Two mothballed nuclear reactors at the Pickering A nuclear 
generating station aren't worth fixing, Ontario Power Generation 
Inc. has decided.

That means the province, which is already short of power, can 
scratch more than 1,000 megawatts of generating capacity off its 
list of potential future power sources. 

On a day of high demand, Ontario needs 25,000 megawatts of power, 
of which 3,000 megawatts are likely to be imported. Several times 
this summer, supplies have been so tight power system operators 
have imposed brownouts to avert the need for rolling blackouts.

The news prompted calls for the Ontario government to reconsider 
its plans to close all coal-burning generating stations in the 
province, but Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said that's not in 
the cards. 

Demand has set new records this summer despite the Liberals'
election promise to cut consumption by 5 per cent, and the
province is scrambling to find new sources of power.

Yesterday, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) said it won't spend an
estimated $2 billion to bring back Units Two and Three at the
Pickering A generating station, both of which were mothballed in
the 1990s.

OPG has already spent $2.6 billion restoring sister Units One
and Four to service at Pickering; Unit Four is operating, and
Unit One is expected back in service by October. OPG's board
originally thought it would cost $1.3 million to return all four
reactors to service.

Duncan insisted that the province had never counted on the two
units returning to service, but acknowledged the province's
power situation is delicate.

"We will continue to be in tight supply for at least the next
two summers," he said. The two idle units are in much worse
shape than the two that have been worked on, chief executive Jim
Hankinson said yesterday.

Steam generators on the two units are badly degenerated, and
might have to be replaced in a few years. In addition, a few
tubes that carry superheated heavy water under pressure from the
reactor core to steam generators in the two operating units
showed unexpected wear. The known and potential problems could
shorten the expected lifetime of the idle reactors, chief
nuclear officer Pierre Charlebois said. Moreover, they would
have to be stopped frequently for inspections and repairs. "When
all risks impacting future production were consolidated, we
could not make a business case that justified spending the
money," said Charlebois.

Hankinson said yesterday that OPG has no plans to build new
nuclear units.

Premier Dalton McGuinty , speaking to reporters in Banff, Alta.,
where he was attending the annual Council of the Federation
meeting, praised OPG for making "a responsible decision."

 
`We will continue to be in tight supply for at least the next
two summers.'

Energy Minister Dwight Duncan

 
"We are not ruling out new nuclear, but we are ruling out
uneconomical old nuclear wherever we find it," said McGuinty.

"It obviously was not economical to proceed with the
refurbishment of those two reactors. In other cases it did make
financial sense," he said. "We have better options. We've
brought 2,200 megawatts on-line since we formed the government.
There are another 9,000 megawatts in the pipeline.

"It just didn't make sense."

OPG's decision sharpens the questions about whether Ontario
should restart two idle reactors with a combined capacity of
more than 1,500 megawatts at the Bruce nuclear station near
Kincardine, operated by privately owned Bruce Power.

Bruce Power has worked out a tentative deal with the province to
restart them, but it hasn't been approved by the government.
Details haven't been released, but Bruce Power chief executive
Duncan Hawthorne has said the cost of the project would be
"significantly north of $2 billion."

Energy Minister Duncan said detailed discussions of the
"complex" deal continue but "we hope to have it wrapped up
fairly soon."

 New Democratic Party leader Howard Hampton said making a deal
with Bruce Power is now almost inevitable because the Liberals'
failure to get other supplies on stream, or mount aggressive
conservation programs, gives them no other options.

He said the Liberals should make any deal public before it's
signed: "People need to know how much it's going to cost, who
will be carrying the risk." 

While the province struggles with its existing nuclear reactors,
it has promised to shut down all the coal-fired generators in
the province. But one business group yesterday called for the
Liberals to reconsider. 

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce said the Liberals should look at
"clean coal" technology or consider building brand new nuclear
reactors. The Liberals say they'll close all coal plants by 2009.

Conservative Leader John Tory also said clean coal should be
examined, adding that, when Ontario runs short of home-grown
power it imports power produced by coal-burning plants in the
U.S. that don't use the cleanest-burning technology. "This
government is very busy announcing things they won't do, or
things they will close or things they will keep closed, and
there's not enough time being spent on what's going to have to
be opened if we're going to be able to function economically,"
Tory said.

Yesterday's decision should have been accompanied by a plan of
how to proceed in the absence of the two Pickering reactors, he
said.

The Ontario Power Authority is due to release an over-all plan
for electricity generation in December.

 OPG reported net income of $63 million on revenue of $1.373
billion for the three months ended June 30, compared with a loss
of $41 million on revenue of $1.141 billion a year ago.

Legal Notice: Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All
*****************************************************************
 26 NRC: Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Inc.; Notice of Withdrawal
 
                         FR Doc E6-350 
[Federal Register: January 13, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 9)] 
[Notices] [Page 2276-2277] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja06-136]                         
 
of Application for Amendment to Facility Operating License The 
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the Commission) has 
granted the request of Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Inc.
 
(the licensee) to withdraw its application dated October 14, 
2003, for a proposed amendment to Renewed Facility Operating 
License Nos.
 
DPR-53 and DPR-69 for Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 
Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, located in Calvert County, Maryland.
 
The proposed amendment would have revised the Technical 
Specifications to change the frequency of surveillance testing 
for some engineered safety features components.
 
The Commission had previously issued a Notice of Consideration of 
Issuance of Amendment published in the Federal Register on 
November 25, 2003 (68 FR 66133). However, by letter dated 
December 19, 2005, the licensee withdrew the proposed change.
 
 
[[Page 2277]] For further details with respect to this action, 
see the application for amendment dated October 14, 2003, and the 
licensee's letter dated December 19, 2005, which withdrew the 
application for the license amendment. Documents may be examined, 
and/or copied for a fee, at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), 
located at One White Flint North, Public File Area O-1F21, 11555 
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. 
Publicly-available records will be accessible electronically from 
the Agencywide Documents Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) 
Public Electronic Reading Room on the internet at the NRC Web 
site, . Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, should 
contact the NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 
1-800-397-4209, or 301-415-4737 or by email to .
 
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 9th day of January 2006.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Patrick D. Milano, Senior Project Manager, Plant Licensing Branch 
I-1, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear 
Reactor Regulation.
 
[FR Doc. E6-350 Filed 1-12-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 27 People's Daily: Nuclear power plants generate 53 bln kwh last year
 
     UPDATED: 17:25, January 13, 2006   

China had nine nuclear generating units operated commercially
last year, achieving sound operation results. Their total
generated power reached 53.08 billion kilowatt hours, with
electricity on grid reaching 50.33 million kilowatt hours, an
increase of 5.18 and 5.29 percent respectively year on year,
according to statistics released by the State Commission of
Science and Technology for National Defense Industry, reports
China News Agency on Friday.

Of the electricity, the first-phase Qinshan Nuclear Power
Station project generated 2.35 billion kilowatt hours, the two
generating units of the plant's second phase project yielded
10.13 billion kilowatt hours, the two generating sets of the
third phase project generated 10.12 billion kilowatt hours. The
two generating units at the Daya Bay Nuclear Plant in
GuangdongProvince generated 15.45 billion kilowatt hours while
the two generating units at the Ling'ao Nuclear Power Plant
generated 15.03 billion kilowatt hours.

By People's Daily Online

  Copyright by People's Daily Online, all rights reserved   
*****************************************************************
 28 RedOrbit: Science - Nuclear Renaissance?
 
By Brooks, Oakley 

Oregon State University's nuclear engineering department sits in
a onefloor, square brick building that dates to the 1960s.
Walking through chrome-plated doorways and down several hallways
of ceramic tiles bathed in fluorescent light you come to a door
marked "No Routine Access."

 Inside, Jose Reyes, JohnGroome and Brian Woods, all nuclear
scientists, huddle around the control panel of a simulator of
the AP 1000 nuclear reactor. 

The simulator is a tangle of pipes and meal cauldrons housed
behind Plexiglass and, for now, heated with an electric element.
Groome has warmed the water in the center of the reactor up to
398 degrees Fahrenheit and submitted it to 25 times the normal
atmospheric pressure. Now, the three scientists are watching how
a small section of the simulator behaves when the liquid water
turns to steam, as it might during an accident. 

If Groome were watching over a real AP 1000 and the superheated
water turned to steam, dangerously drying out the nuclear fuel
rods, the system would virtually tie his hands behind his back.
Without any operator intervention, a gravity-fed system would
send water in to prevent the fuel rods from melting down while
natural air circulation encouraged by the plant's design - would
cool it down. 

The AP 1000 and its novel safety system are part of nuclear
energy's comeback. In working for most of a decade with British-
owned Westinghouse Nuclear to test the reactor's safety and
advance its design, OSU's engineers operated under the strong
conviction that wellconceived plants could usher nuclear back
into a turbulent energy landscape as a cheap, clean and safe
power alternative. 

Zero tolerance for safety glitches is one of the guiding
principles of the comeback. Huge cost overruns, regulatory
tangles and cheap natural gas may have banished nuclear power
into the background of the energy market by the mid-1990s. But
the public remembers being sold on supposedly foolproof designs
and then seeing a meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania
in 1979, followed by the disastrous explosion at Chernobyl in
1986. The seriousness of those accidents has been attributed to
plant operators. Now, OSU scientists say Westinghouse has a
design that's beyond safe - and ready to carry the industry
beyond its tarnished past. 

"It's walk-away safe," Groome says of the reactor. "You can
leave it alone in an accident."

 Oregon may have all but outlawed nuclear energy generation when
its last reactor closed in 1993. But in the world at large, and
in a brick building in Corvallis, the conversation about nuclear
power is changing. The question is not if new reactors will be
built in this country but where and when. The AP 1000 design is
expected to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
this month, and North Carolina-based Duke Power is looking for
sites to place an AP 1000 and make it the first of a new
generation of plants to be built. Another smaller reactor,
designed in part by OSU staff, promises a cheap, simplified
module that can easily be plugged into the grid, which has
piqued the interest of countries without much nuclear
experience. 

Some environmentalists such as Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore,
whose organization earned a name fighting nukes, are embracing
new power plants on principle. They say shifting from
carbon-intensive coal and natural gas to carbon-free nuclear
power may be the best way to slow global warming. In the United
States, the nuclear industry received at least $12 billion of
subsidies in this summer's federal energy bill, while legacy
nuclear reactors continue to provide 20% of the nation's power. 

Oregon's electricity needs are growing at 1.5% per year. And
with natural gas costs rising, coal linked to global warming,
new dams off limits and renewables such as wind still far from
shouldering a large regional burden, some in Oregon's business
and policy community want the state to join the new dialogue
about nuclear power. 

"Nuclear deserves an honest look," says Mike Early, executive
director of the Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities, a
regional advocacy group. Other countries have done it, Early
adds. France, for example, gets 70% of its electricity from
nuclear power. 

But before the state even looks at linking into the island of
nuclear activity in Corvallis, there is Oregonians' decades-old
distaste for atomic energy to face down. 

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO, the state kissed nuclear power generation
goodbye. Facing a $200 million repair of its two steam
generators, Portland General Electric closed Oregon's only nuke
plant, Trojan Nuclear Facility near Rainier. But the handwriting
was already on the wall for nuclear power in Oregon: In 1980,
voters passed a ballot measure requiring a federally licensed
nuclear waste repository to be up and running before any future
nuke plants can be sited within the state. (The U.S. Department
of Energy still hasn't opened a facility Yucca Mountain in
Nevada is the designated spot.) 	 

While the majority of our power now comes from coal plants,
hydroelectric dams and a few natural gas turbines, Oregon still
gets about 3% of its electricity from the nuclear-powered
Columbia Generating Station in Richland, Wash. But lingering
concerns about accidents, nuclear waste and, more recently,
weapons proliferation have translated into continued skepticism
in Oregon about nuclear power. 

"Any new ballot measure could undo the current ban but I doubt
it would pass," says Phil Carver, a senior policy analyst with
the Oregon Department of Energy. Carver, who authored a state
report agreeing that PGE's closure of Trojan made financial
sense, says fears about storing old nuclear fuel can be allayed
by an adequate new federal storage site. The more dangerous
concern, for Carver, is about used fuel rods - plutonium - that
get diverted to clandestine weapons operations. "People lose
track of plutonium because it's uninteresting," he says. "But a
terrorist incident would obviously be far worse than Three Mile
Island for the industry, and that's the concern going forward."

 In light of the anti-nuclear atmosphere here, utilities,
including PGE, see little hope in bringing nuclear power back to
Oregon. "If the generation resource was out there and it was
deemed cost effective we would certainly look at it," PGE
spokesman Scott Sims says. "But just as important as the
availability of the technology is the consumer acceptance of the
fuel type."

 Nuclear power has made some surprising converts in the last 10
years, however. One is Oregon State's Brian Woods. 'I'm an
environmentalist," he says. In the early 1990s, Woods, a
mechanical engineer, considered getting his doctorate studying
solar energy. He eventually chose the nuclear field instead, "I
came to the conclusion that solar wasn't going to be
economically viable in the short term," says Woods, who worked
for Dominion-Virgirria Power before coming to Jose Reyes' team
at OSU. "If we're going to get out of the quandary of producing
more energy for more people without emissions, the only way out
is nuclear energy. 

"People wonder how I sleep at night, given the waste nuclear
energy produces," Woods continues. "You look at this high-level
waste we've produced in the last 40 years from nuclear power -
you could put it on a football field. It's much easier to solve
than waste from a coalfired power plant that you're putting into
the atmosphere."

 Woods is satisfied that spent nuclear fuel can be safely stored
underground in concrete and steel casks. But many anti-nuclear
activists disagree, especially given the country's designated
storage site. "I've been to Yucca Mountain. it's not safe," says
Paige Knight of Hanford Watch, an anti-nukes group based in
Portland. 

"I can't guarantee the safety for 10,000 years but I don't
really care," Woods says. "Instead, I ask myself a couple of
things: Will we know if there's a problem with it? Yes, we can
monitor it. Two, can we fix a problem through resealing it if we
have to? Yes, we can. So I sleep better at night."

 WHILE OREGON ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS CELEBRATED the closure of the
Trojan plant as a signal of nuclear's end, it marked the start
of a decade of innovation for Jose Reyes and his team at Oregon
State. Soon after, he joined forces with Westinghouse. And in
helping the company win design approval for the AP 1000 model
and an earlier predecessor, Reyes proved himself as a worthy
consultant on the safety of systems that move water throughout a
nuclear reactor. Before coming to OSU to bead the nuclear
engineering and radiation physics department,, Reyes spent 10
years in the research division at the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, where he was recognized for advancing safety codes.
"I tend to look at what can go wrong," says Reyes, whose quiet,
assured manner has the effect of defusing one's anxiety about
nuclear reactions. 

At the heart of reactors are uranium fuel rods, which create
heat through nuclear fission: The atomic structure of the
uranium is bombarded with neutrons, which causes electrons and
massive amounts of energy to escape. It's a dynamic, unseen
process and often feared for its connection to more intense bomb
fission. 

But in reality, it's the reactors' water systems - its
hydraulics where many dangerous malfunctions originate. Problems
there can quickly affect the nuclear core. 

In th\e AP 1000 design, the heat energy from nuclear reactions
is transferred to water, which then is pumped through a series
of pipes to a separate chamber, the steam generator. There, the
hot water from the reactor transfers its heat to colder water
returning from electric turbines, and that colder water turns to
steam - ready for another run to the turbines to create
electricity. 

Westinghouse reduced the risk of accident in the AP 1000's water
systems by cutting down the amount of piping in the reactor. 

In the late 1990s, Reyes and his in-house construction
specialist, the stout Navy veteran Groome, built on their
experience with the Westinghouse reactor in another project.
Teaming with scientists from the Idaho National Engineering and
Environmental Laboratory and Nexant, a Bechtel subsidiary then
based in San Francisco, they explored eliminating the machinery
in the first half of the water heating system altogether. The
group also bucked the prevailing wisdom of reactor design that
bigger was always more economical. "We thought, 'Are there some
advantages of going small?"' Reyes says. 

Using a Department of Energy grant, the team developed a 60-foot
modular plant (see diagram, below) that relies on the changing
density of water in the reactor to circulate it, rather than
pumps and pipes. As nuclear fission heats the water in a large
chamber, it rises and passes off-its heat energy to cool water
circulated in from the electricity process. Losing its heat, the
column of water in the chamber grows more dense and naturally
sinks back to the reactor core to be warmed. 

At 35 megawatts, the plant is minuscule compared to traditional
reactors or even the AP 1000, which would produce 1,100 MW (1 MW
provides enough power for about 600 homes). But the scale
tackles some of the huge cost burdens that big nuclear plants
bear during long construction periods: The cheaper, smaller
reactor could be up and running more quickly, generating revenue
through power sales. The designers also envision up to 30
reactors built on one site on a staggered schedule, eventually
integrating to provide power comparable to one large 1,000-MW
plant. 

The design heads off safety concerns as well. It would sit in a
pool of water below ground, making it less of a terrorist
target. And it could be stocked with fuel rods, sealed, shipped
on a single rail car and run for five years without refueling.
'It's a lot simpler than a full-size plant," says Groome. 'You
just plug it in - we call it the battery option."

 Reyes is now trying to attract more private or public capital
to ready the reactor for the market and allow it to compete with
other small plants being developed around the world. 

"We feel like it has commercial value and think it responds to
the needs that are out there," Reyes says. "It's a near-term
deployment option."

 WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR ENERGY DEVELOPERS to site a modular
reactor, or more feasibly an AP 1000, say, in North Portland or
Pendleton? For one thing, it would have to make economic sense.
Theoretically, nuclear could be one of the cheapest options for
generating new electricity within 10 years. Analysis by the
Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC), a federally
appointed regional planning organization, found that a new AP
1000 reactor could be the least expensive source of new power in
the region by 2015, costing an average of $35 per MW/hour over
the life of the reactor (see chart, above). Reyes' group
projects that a cluster of 30 modular reactors could produce
electricity for $34 per MW/hour. 

But neither of the reactors has ever been built. And Jeff King,
an analyst for the NPCC, notes that the nuclear industry has a
long history of cost overruns and regulatory tangles, which
drive the numbers up. The cost of an AP 1000 starts at around
$1.4 billion, but actual costs have exceeded developmental
estimates for nuclear plants in almost every case, says King. 

This summer's federal energy bill provides loan guarantees for
new construction, subsidies in the event of regulatory holdups
and production tax credits that might help avoid future
financial pitfalls. Still, it's been 10 years and many
technology generations since the last plant was built in the
United States and, at the soonest, it will be another 10 years
before the first new plant is completed. 

"From a business perspective nobody wants to be the first to
build," says Dale Atkinson, vice president for nuclear
generation at Energy Northwest, which runs the Columbia
Generating Plant in Richland, Wash. "That first plant is liable
to be expensive."

 Phil Carver, the state energy analyst, says it will take at
least one successful plant elsewhere in the country to get
Northwest power interests' attention. 

Mike Early, with Industrial Customers of Northwest Utilities,
supports more conversation about nuclear power. But he agrees
with Carver that it will take something dramatic to get the
frozen nukes discussion going in Oregon, not to mention getting
small, cash- strapped Northwest utilities to pursue a
capital-intensive nuclear venture. 'Something would have to
change for utilities to step up and take that risk," Early says. 

That means that out-of-state energy interests might be the key
to any nuclear comeback in Oregon. 

Siting a nuke plant, of course, remains the biggest challenge.
Developers could put a plant in a neighboring state and pump the
juice into Oregon. But Washington, scarred by the Hanford waste
dump, is an unlikely candidate. Energy Northwest has shown no
interest in new nukes: it is pursuing a new coal-fired plant.
Idaho has no existing plants and citizens have been chilly to
the idea of a new one. "I'm not holding my breath," Mike Early
says of prospects for a new plant in the region. 

In the meantime, OSU scientists are joining an Idaho National
Labs group researching a high-temperature reactor, which has the
potential to create hydrogen fuel for cars. "We're eager to get
into it," Reyes says. 

And in a back hallway of OSU's nuclear lab, Reyes' colleague
Brian Woods has a nascent local pro-nukes movement going. On the
door of his office he has affixed a simple, green bumper
sticker: "Another Environmentalist for Nuclear Power." Stepping
out into the hall, he points to other office doors, each one
bearing the same sticker. 

Copyright MEDIAmerica, Inc. Dec 01, 2005


Source: Oregon Business Ads by Google 

*****************************************************************
 29 Boston Globe: More output is OK'd for Vt. nuclear plant 

  + Vt.More output is OK'd for Vt. nuclear plant Boston Globe
WASHINGTON -- A government advisory panel has recommended that
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve a 20 percent increase
in the output of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, though
some specialists said more study was needed to determine if the
33-year-old plant could handle the stresses, government
officials said yesterday. 

Some question stress on facility
 
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff  |  January 13, 2006 

WASHINGTON -- A government advisory panel has recommended that
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approve a 20 percent increase
in the output of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, though
some specialists said more study was needed to determine if the
33-year-old plant could handle the stresses, government
officials said yesterday.

The NRC's Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, a group of
technical specialists, concluded last week that the ''uprate"
would not create undue safety risks. All that remains before
Entergy Corp., which owns and operates the plant, can move ahead
with the increase is approval by the NRC.

But some are criticizing the agency for not heeding calls from
the state of Vermont and others to first conduct a more thorough
safety assessment, including testing whether the plant's
machinery can withstand the higher temperatures and pressures
resulting from the increased output.

''Of the nine reactors that were built in New England, four were
shut down and none of them lasted to the end of their planned
life," said Ray Shadis, technical adviser to the New England
Coalition, a nuclear watchdog group established in 1971. ''All
were shut down after some extraordinary inspection. Vermont
Yankee has been in operation longer than any other and what the
public is being asked to believe is that, somehow, it is the
exception to the rule."

The Vermont Yankee plant, located in Vernon, near the borders
with Massachusetts and New Hampshire, went on line in November
1972 and now provides for one-third of Vermont's electricity use
and a smaller share of other New England states' power.

Entergy, which also operates the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth,
purchased Vermont Yankee in 2002 for $180 million and applied a
year later to upgrade the plant to generate 20 percent more
power.

That review process is now nearing completion.

''The Entergy application for the extended power uprate at the
Vermont Yankee Nuclear Station should be approved," the advisory
panel's chairman, Graham B. Wallis, told NRC chairman Nils J.
Diaz in a seven-page assessment dated Jan. 4. ''A number of
members of the public asked for a more extensive inspection,
similar to that performed at the Maine Yankee plant," which was
shut down in 1996, the assessment continued. ''Based on the
results of the inspection that was performed [last year]. . .
such as extensive inspection is not warranted."

Neil Sheehan, a regional spokesman for the NRC in Philadelphia,
said yesterday that the panel ''did not identify any reasons why
the Vermont Yankee uprate could not be safely implemented."

But before final approval of the uprate is granted, the Vermont
Public Service Board and the New England Coalition want the
plant to undergo ''full power transient testing," in which the
plant is run at 120 percent capacity and then is quickly shut
down. They also want an assessment to determine whether the
reactor could be cooled for a prolonged period in an emergency
if its water pumps failed.

''It is quite likely that the NRC commission will tell Vermont
Yankee to go ahead and do the power uprate, and the safety
questions that are on the table can be dealt with after the
fact," said Shadis. ''Before you run the marathon at 55, you
should have a complete physical. . . . The same goes for the
safety of these plants."

''The application has received a lot of scrutiny in an open
process," Rob Williams, a spokesman for Vermont Yankee, said
yesterday. ''We believe our plant is the perfect candidate for
an uprate."

 Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com. [ /] �

Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company. More: 
*****************************************************************
 30 Journal Times: Nuclear power a safer antidote to coal reliance

 By Tom Still 

The tragic deaths of a dozen miners in West Virginia is only a
fraction of the human misery linked to our addiction to burning
coal. It's time to take stock of the true costs of mining,
hauling and burning 400 million tons of coal each year - and to
embrace the far safer (and, ultimately, cheaper) choice of
turning to nuclear energy.

Leaving aside the Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union,
where poor technology and even worse Communist-era bungling
killed hundreds of people nearly 20 years ago, there simply
hasn't been a nuclear power plant accident that can match what
happens routinely in the international coal industry. The Three
Mile Island accident a quarter-century ago didn't cost a single
life in Pennsylvania, despite the feverish attempt of
anti-nuclear advocates to prove otherwise.

But our consumption of coal is a daily killer. In the United
States alone, where mine safety records are actually improving,
some 650 coal miners have died in accidents since 1990. China is
averaging about 6,000 coal mining deaths per year as it hacks
ton after ton of coal out of the Earth's crust to feed its
ravenous energy appetite.

Then, of course, there's the cost of transporting the coal -
rail accidents take hundreds more lives each year - and the
environmental damage to the water, land and wildlife around most
mines. Scientists agree thousands of premature deaths in the
United States alone each year are linked to burning coal, and
that a dangerous build-up of greenhouse gases is a byproduct of
burning coal and other fossil fuels.

Want another lump of coal in your stocking? A typical coal-fired
plant releases 100 times more radioactive material than an
equivalent nuclear reactor - straight into the air, not into a
guarded and enclosed storage site.

There are choices. Yes, conservation can help. Yes, so can some
renewable energy sources, if you don't mind that a
1,000-megawatt solar photovoltaic generation plant would cover
60 square miles of land with panes � or that 300 square miles of
wind turbines would be required to match the output of a typical
electrical generating plant. That's before transmission lines
are built from where the wind blows to where the power is needed.

Quietly, but steadily, the world is turning back to nuclear
power for answers. There is a growing recognition that the risks
and costs associated with nuclear power are far more manageable
and economically defensible than burning coal or (since the late
1990s) a huge run-up in natural gas-fired plants.

If you're worried about global climate change, and you should
be, nuclear power is part of the long-term solution. Nuclear
power plants release no noxious gases or lung-damaging dust into
the air. They are reliable, with an enviable post-Three Mile
Island safety record in this country and elsewhere. They are
already widely used, with more than 100 nuclear generating
plants in the United States alone. In France, Japan and
elsewhere, the percentage of electricity generated by nuclear
power far exceeds America's 20 percent. And they fit neatly into
the existing grid of transmission lines.

"Radiation containment, waste disposal, and nuclear weapons
proliferation are manageable problems in a way that global
warming is not," wrote Peter Schwartz and Spencer Reiss in
"Wired" magazine. "Unlike the usual green alternatives - water,
wind, solar, and biomass - nuclear energy is here, now, in
industrial quantities. Sure, nuke plants are expensive to build�
but they start to look cheap when you factor in the true cost to
people and the planet of burning fossil fuels. And nuclear is
our best hope for cleanly and efficiently generating hydrogen,
which would end our other ugly hydrocarbon addiction: dependence
on gasoline and diesel for transport."

Closer to home, the associate dean for research at UW-Madison's
College of Engineering believes "there is genuine cause for
optimism" regarding the future of nuclear power. Dr. Gerald
Kulcinski notes that a coalition of 10 nations plus the European
Union are studying six concepts for the next generation of
nuclear plants, including technologies that could produce
electricity and enough hydrogen to fuel the vaunted "hydrogen
economy." The notion of reprocessing nuclear fuel (a concept
killed by then-President Carter for all the wrong reasons) is
also back.

Innovation is returning to nuclear energy as more scientists and
environmentalists realize it's a sustainable, safe and
economical alternative to fossil fuels. The deaths of those West
Virginia miners are just the tip of the shaft when it comes to
measuring coal's full costs.

Still is president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. He is
the former associate editor of the Wisconsin State Journal in
Madison.     

The Journal Times Do Not Call policy. Contact This entire web 
site content copyright 1996-2006, The Journal Times, 212 4th St., 
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*****************************************************************
 31 U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:02:25 -0600 (CST)

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Communication & Take Initiatives on Environmental and Justice issues

============

U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND DEPLETED URANIUM
TESTIMONY AT THE JUNE 28, 2003, PUBLIC HEARING FOR

THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR WAR CRIMES IN AFGHANISTAN

CHIBA, CHIBA PREFECTURE, JAPAN

BY

LEUREN MORET leurenmoret@yahoo.com

PRESIDENT, SCIENTISTS FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

CITY OF BERKELEY ENVIRONMENTAL COMMISSIONER

PAST PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION FOR WOMEN GEOSCIENTISTS

We are gathered here today through the efforts of Professor Akira MAEDA and
Haruhisa TAKASE.  I would like to thank both of them, and the many citizens
and supporters in Japan, who have made this important event possible.  We,
the people of the global community, must hold our governments and elected
officials responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, for these
two issues are impossible to separate.  Because health connects all species,
we are all effected by what happens, even in distant countries.

Today I will describe the intimate connection between U.S. nuclear policy
and depleted uranium, and the devastating effects they have had on the
health of all species and the devastation of the environment which supports
all life.  Tragically, Afghanistan is just one of the countries devastated
for all future generations by the use of depleted uranium weaponry in U.S.
military aggressive actions dictated by U.S. foreign policy.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

I am an independent scientist with a background in the geosciences.  My hope
and inspiration comes from my work with scientists and radiation specialists
around the world to educate and inform the citizens of the world about the
health and environmental effects from radiation exposure.  In my
professional career, I have worked at two nuclear weapons labs, the Lawrence
Berkeley Lab where the transuranium elements were discovered to build the
first atomic weapons, and the Lawrence Livermore Lab where nuclear weapons
development continues.

After working on the cleanup and disposal of high level nuclear waste, I
became a whistleblower in 1991 at the the Lawrence Livermore Lab.  After
observing an entrenched pattern of science fraud, theft, graft, corruption,
lack of concerns for safety and security, discrimination against women and
minorities, and severe retaliation practices, I drove out the lab gate one
day, dropped off my badge and my beeper and never went back.

I realized after only two years at the lab, that the culture of nuclear
weapons was a culture of insanity.  What species on earth kills its young
generation after generation?  What species on earth sacrifices its young for
the false notion of security?

At the end of the millenium which gave birth to nuclear weapons, I visited
the Peace Museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the 2000 World Conference
Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs as the guest of Gensuikin.  That visit to
Japan changed my life when I finally understood the horrific effects of
nuclear weapons.  In 1991, in the first Gulf War, the United States broke a
60 year taboo and introduced depleted uranium to the battleground, a
radiological weapon which is truly a weapon of indiscriminate killing and
mass destruction.

Now that we know both, we must ask a question - which is worse, the horrific
effects of flash annihilation from an atomic bomb or slow mutilation forever
from depleted uranium weapons?

Today I have a clear conscience, the satisfaction of acting as a citizen
scientist instead of a prositute for the military or corporations, and have
hope for the future.  I know that the people of the world are the only ones
who can stop the insanity of nuclear proliferation and radioactive
contamination of the environment which supports all life.  With good
information the citizens of the world can make good decisions.  My purpose
now with other independent radiation specialists who have joined together as
the World Committee on Radiation Risk is to provide good information about
the health and environmental effects of radiation to the global community.

DECLASSIFIED MEMO TO GENERAL L.R. GROVES, OCTOBER 30, 1943:

BLUEPRINT FOR DEPLETED URANIUM
A classified memo1 dated October 30, 1943, was sent to General L.R. Groves
from Dr. A.H. Compton, Dr. James B. Conant, and Dr. H.C. Urey, three of the
most competent physicists working under General Groves on the Manhattan
Project.  This memo, written nearly two years before the atomic bombs were
dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was a recommendation that radiological
materials be developed for use as a military weapon on the battlefield.  It
is a blueprint for depleted uranium weaponry.

This memo which is now declassified, was given to me by Major Doug Rokke, a
physicist and former head of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Weapons Project.
He is a Gulf War I veteran and is now suffering from depleted uranium
exposure with severe health effects refered to as Gulf War Syndrome.  My
work is inspired by the hibakusha around the world who, like Doug, have told
me their stories.

It is clear from this memo that the U.S. Government and military have known
before 1943 that radioactive materials, dispersed as very fine particles on
the ground or from the air, would be an effective battlefield weapon.  This
plan was recommended so that the Germans would not develop it first from
radioactive materials created by the waste of nuclear weapons development.
Depleted uranium is nuclear trash from the nuclear weapons project.

In the memo, the scientists recommended dispersing the radioactive materials
in very fine particles, 0.1 microns in diameter, from the ground or the air.
It would disperse like a radioactive gas, invisible and undetectable to the
enemy.  They described how increasing the amounts of radiation dispersed
would accelerate the lethality and decrease the time until death and
increase the numbers of dead.

It was known at that time that it would contaminate the air, water, food,
and the soil. Entry into contaminated environments was impossible without
certain exposure both to the enemy and to friendly forces.  The memo
detailed the fact that no protective methods were possible to develop, and
that very fine particles would pass through all gas masks.

The memo also described that inhaled particles behave like a gas in the
lungs, go directly into the blood and are dispersed thoughout the tissues of
the body.  The gut would also be exposed by ingesting contaminated foods,
and areas of the gut where the food sat for longer periods would have more
radiation exposure and increased damage.

In conclusion, it is clear from this 1943 memo, that everything was known
about the extreme hazards to health and environment of radiological
materials dispersed in fine particles on the battlefield.  The fact that
depleted uranium burns at high temperatures and forms large numbers of
extremely fine particles makes it even more deadly and effective than nearly
any other material as a radiological weapon.  The half-life of depleted
uranium is so great, 4.5 billion years, that environments where it is used
as a weapon will remain radioactive forever.

It is no accident that an international taboo prevented further use of
nuclear and radioactive weapons on the battlefield after 1945.  The use of
depleted uranium in Gulf War I was a decision made by the Strategic Defense
Command in order to blur the distinction between conventional and nuclear
weapons.  Because public opposition globally is so strong, the use of
depleted uranium was used as a strategy to reintroduce the use of nuclear
weapons.

LEGALITY TEST FOR WEAPONS UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW
Weapons must pass four tests in order to determine that they are legal under
international law.  The tests are:

TEMPORAL TEST - Weapons must not continue to act after the battle is over.

ENVIRONMENTAL TEST - Weapons must not be unduly harmful to the environment.

TERRITORIAL TEST - Weapons must not act off of the battlefield.

HUMANENESS TEST - Weapons must not kill or wound inhumanely.

Depleted uranium weaponry fails all four tests.  For that reason it is
illegal under all treaties, all agreements and all war conventions:

The military use of DU violates current international humanitarian law,
including the principle that there is no unlimited right to choose the means
and methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV); Art. 35 of the
Additional Protocol to the Geneva (GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary
suffering and suoperfluous injury (Art. 23 'le HCIV; Art. 35 '2 GP1),
indiscriminate warfare (Art. 51 '4c and 5b GP1) as well as the use of poison
or poisoned weapons.

The deployment and use of DU violate the principles of international
environmental and human rights protection.  They contradict the right to
life established by the Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on Human
Rights.

               Resolution on the banning of the use of depleted uranium-DU
              Antidiscriminationnetwork MSD e.V. Berlin      Berlin
22.04.2000

RESEARCH REPORT SUMMARIES   1974-1999
In order to develop new weapons systems for military applications, the
weapons must first be researched and tested extensively2.  The development
and testing is conducted at the National Laboratories and military testing
grounds which the Army, Air Force, and other military branches have in
various locations.

Research summaries posted on a military website describe the research and
testing of depleted uranium weapons systems between 1974 and 1999.  They
describe in detail the concerns that researchers had about exposure hazards
to personnel handling depleted uranium weapons.  There are details about the
extremely small particle size formed while burning and upon impact at a
target.  Animals living on the testing grounds were tested and radiation
levels were measured in the fur and the gut of the animals.  It is known
that testing grounds remain radioactive from fine dust in the air and soil
long after testing has ended.

One research report summarizes the reason why depleted uranium was selected
by the U.S. Army over other materials less damaging to the environment - the
cost.  Because depleted uranium is the trash from the nuclear weapons and
nuclear power industries, it is a radioactive hazard and a liability to the
Department of Energy (DOE).  The DOE has a million tons of depleted uranium
to dispose of.  DOE made the decision to pass the radioactive trash on to
the military-industrial complex for the manufacture of weapons.  By passing
the cost of disposal on to other countries, it is a savings for the U.S.
Government.  In fact, by selling depleted uranium weapons to more than 20
other countries, the DOE has made disposal a highly profitable business for
the arms industry.

It is impossible for the U.S. Government3 to continue to deny as they have
since Gulf War I, that depleted uranium weapons cause no harm or that there
are no known health or environmental effects.  The Groves memo from 1943 and
Research Report summaries of investigations conducted for the military from
1974-1999 indicate that the omnicidal* impact of depleted uranium weapons
has been known since 1943.

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS POLICY
U.S. Government funding for nuclear weapons declined after Gulf War I to the
lowest level in decades4.  From the lowest point in 1995, funding has
increased to a level even higher than during the Cold War.  The United
States has no enemies and yet budget increases continue.

Stockpile Stewardship of the existing nuclear weapons arsenal is part of the
cost but new and evolving policies are emerging.  Enhancing nuclear warhead
capabilities is also part of the weapons program.  Rebuilding nuclear
weapons to improve accuracy, storage capability, altering the ability of
warheads to withstand changes in environment, and modifications in where,
when and how they detonate is also part of existing policy.

Gold plating the nuclear weapons labs describes the spending sprees which
are a result of large amounts of money pouring into lab budgets.  When
excessive purchases of instruments and toys for the boys exceed what is
really needed to conduct competent science the laboratories become
solutions looking for a problem.

During a meeting in San Francisco where I gave testimony on May 15, the
University of California Board of Regents was informed by National Nuclear
Security Administrator Linton Brooks that the National Labs would be
developing nuclear bunker busters.  One hour later he spoke at the Livermore
Nuclear Weapons Lab and informed personel that they would not only be
developing small nuclear bunker busters, but they would be building large
nuclear weapons as well!

For 60 years the University of California has been the manager of the
nuclear weapons labs at Los Alamos and Livermore.  Dr. Brooks informed the
University of California at the May 15 meeting that the management contract
will now go up for bid.  The University of Texas is perceived to be the
favored choice for the new management contract.

Is it a coincidence that the Bush family is also from Texas?  In November
1991, Richard Berta, the Western Regional Inspector for the Department of
Energy at the national nuclear weapons labs told me the Pentagon exists for
the oil companies

GULF WAR I
Depleted uranium was used in Gulf War I for the first time on the
battlefield in large amounts.  The use of over 340 tons of depleted uranium
weaponry in Iraq in Gulf War I has had devastating results over the past
decade and the devastating effects are increasing.  The battlefields were
far from the cities of southern Iraq but soldiers and downwind populations
could not escape exposure to the invisible war, depleted uranium in the
wind.  Cancer, birth defects and radiation related diseases in both Gulf War
veterans and Iraqi civilians has increased to alarming levels.

Children born to Gulf War veterans after the war and children born to
civilians living in areas downwind from the battlefields in Iraq expose the
impact of this invisible war.  In a Veterans Administration study5 of 251
Gulf War I veterans, they determined severe birth defects and diseases in
67% of the children6 born after the war.  They were born without eyes,
brains, organs, legs, arms, hands, feet, or had blood and other radiation
related diseases.  The Iraqi children also have birth defects and a high
incidence of leukemia.  In the decade after the Gulf War, each month the
number of babies born with birth defects and mutations has increased.

Dr. Hari Sharma, an independent researcher, has measured the depleted
uranium levels in 71 residents of Basra who died after the war was over.  He
found levels of 150 micrograms of depleted uranium per kilogram of tissue
throughout their bodies.  That would amount to a very high exposure rate,
roughly estimated at 10 alpa particles per second throughout the body.
Alpha particles are the most biologically damaging form of radiation.  The
radioactive decay products of depleted uranium are even more radioactive by
millions and billions of times.

Living in a radioactive environment with chronic exposure to low levels of
radiation has a cumulative effect and the entire population in contaminated
areas will slowly be destroyed.  Genetic defects will be passed to future
generations who will also be exposed to new sources of radiation from
contaminated air, water and food.  The depleted uranium dust will cycle
through the environment and travel throughout larger regions, carried on the
atmospheric dusts which travel around the earth.

Following the Gulf War,  Dr. Doug Rokke was in charge of the team cleaning
up the depleted uranium for the U.S. Army.  He provided me with documents
detailing some of the U.S. Army directives and memorandums regarding
depleted uranium.  In a document dated March 1, 1991, Los Alamos
Memorandum7 he said I was directed to lie to cover up the environmental
effects of depleted uranium weaponry so that the Army can continue to use
it.  He told me what right do we have to throw thousands of tons of
nuclear waste all over any country?  [International Humanitarian Lawyer]
Karen Parker considers this to be indiscriminate killing

The October 14, 1993, Somalia Message8 is the U.S. Army Medical Care
Directive for unusual depleted uranium exposures such as inhalation or
ingestion of depleted uranium dust or smoke.  This directive requires a
radiobioassay within 24 hours, nasal swipes, and analysis of gas mask
filters used by exposed personel.  Hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers,
Iraqi soldiers, and citizens were exposed to unusual uranium exposures.
Dr. Rokke said that nothing was done for anyone.

Under international law, after the battle is over any medical treatment for
wounded U.S. soldiers must be provided to wounded enemy soldiers as well.
Even more important, any civilians who suffer from war exposures must also
receive medical care.  If the U.S. provides medical care for its own
soldiers and does not treat enemy soldiers and/or civilians equally, that
constitutes a war crime.

In an August 19, 1993, memorandum9  General Eric Shinseki, for the U.S. Army
Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, requires:

-       adequate training for anyone who might come in contact with depleted
uranium contaminated equipment

-       complete medical testing of personnel exposed to depleted uranium
contamination during the Persian Gulf War

-       develop a plan for depleted uranium contaminated equipment recovery
during future operations

The Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) Executive Summary10 (1995)
report to Congress addresses:

-       the health and environmental consequences of depleted uranium

-       remediation technologies that exist or might be developed to clean
up depleted uranium contamination

-       ways to reduce depleted uranium toxicity

-       how to best protect the environment from the long-term consequences
of depleted uranium use

Dr. Rokke informed me that the U.S. Army directives ordering medical care
and environmental cleanup after Gulf War I were given to only a few military
personel and they were not complied with.  This is a violation of both U.S.
and International Laws and constitutes war crimes.

BOSNIA AND KOSOVO
In a recent United Nations Environmental Protection report, depleted uranium
shells and bullets left in or on the ground have lost 25% of their mass by
dissolving and are now contaminating the groundwater.  Illnesses in
civilians living near contaminated areas are rising.

During bombing in Kosovo and Bosnia, depleted uranium was monitored in
Hungary and Greece, carried by the winds and eventually incorporating with
atmospheric dusts.  It is impossible to escape exposure even for populations
hundreds and thousands of miles from battlegrounds.

A new study11 in Germany of  Gulf War and Balkans War veterans, found
significant amounts of damage to chromosomes in these veterans.  The damage
was characteristic of exposure to ionizing radiation and high linear energy
transfer particles (alpha particles).

AFGHANISTAN
Professor Marc Herold, from the University of New Hampshire, has
conservatively estimated that the U.S. military used more than 1000 tons of
depleted uranium weapons in the recent conflict in Aghanistan.  This is
nearly three times as much as Gulf War I.

Dr. Andre Gsponer has provided deeply troubling information in his research
papers12 which details how and why the U.S. Government has used depleted
uranium and compares its performance  to tungsten.  Although the performance
of the two is close, tungsten is actually a better choice for performance
and environmental impact.  He believes that the pattern of testing different
amounts of depleted uranium in each country (including Gulf War II 1100-2200
tons) may be a  way to test 4th generation nuclear weapons without actually
using them if the radiation levels are similar to depleted uranium.  This
could relate to the decision by the Strategic Defense Command to introduce
the use of depleted uranium in Gulf War I and the pressure over the last
decade for new nuclear weapons development.

The impact on the wildlife in Afghanistan has been devastating.  Not only is
the environment contaminated with depleted uranium, but the Afghanis have
been forced to hunt rare and endangered species in order to eat the meat and
sell the skins for money.  The devastating effects of depleted uranium will
occur in all species in contaminated areas.  The impact on the animals in
the Iraq region was also devastating yet there was very little reporting on
it13.

LEAKED VIDEO FOOTAGE OF AN AC-130 SPECTRE GUNSHIP ON A COMBAT MISSION IN
AFGHANISTAN

The bombing of Afghanistan by U.S. military forces demonstrates the
deliberate use of illegal weapons such as bunker busters, cluster bombs and
other depleted uranium weapons systems to precision target civilian
populations, water supplies, and infrastructure.  Afghanistan is a poverty
stricken underdeveloped country which poses no threat to the United States
or any other country.

This unauthorized leaked 7.5 minute video14  permeated the internet in the
spring of 2002.  It shows the destruction from an AC-130 Spectre gunship on
a combat mission in Afghanistan. When the Pentagon was contacted for
clarification on the details of the mission, the reply was:

Sir,

In response to your query about the AC-130 video permeating the internet, I
unfortunately cannot comment on it, much more than to say it wasnt
released through any official channels and therefore we dont know who
posted it, from what mission or where (though it can be surmised from the
video where it took place).

Regards, LT (name suppressed), USN

Pentagon Room *******

The AC-130 gunship is a C-130 cargo plane which carries a lot of firepower
protruding from the left side:

Two M61 20mm Vulcan Cannons

            One L60 40mm Bofors cannon

            One M102 105mm howitzer

            One L60 40mm Bofors cannon

            One M102 105mm cannon

The plane circles a ground target counter-clockwise and annihilates it.

In the radio traffic from the AC-130 plane the crew sounds like kids playing
a video game.  The crew is engaged in combat but from a safe distance and
without any threat or resistance from the human targets on the ground.  The
video shows people leaving a mosque who start running for their lives as
they are fired upon.  The AC-130 continues circling and firing on individual
Afghanis below.  The crew sounds like rednecks picking off varmints on a
Texas ranch as they talk back and forth and fire on the Afghanis one by one:

Yeah, I was trying to lead that guy..he was hiding behind that bank.hes
down, hes still moving..I saw him fly into pieces.

It is a frightening and horrifying example of the most powerful military in
the world using sophisticated satellite guided and other technology,
precision targeting some of the  poorest people in the world from airplanes
far off the ground.  Its like shooting fish in a barrel.  This is the war
against the third world.

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) described in Congress15 how the U.S.
military air dropped food packages to starving Afghanis.  The food packages
looked very similar in size and color to unexploded cluster bomb ordinance.
How many children stepped on land mines or picked up bombs that exploded in
their hands when they were simply trying to feed themselves in order to
survive?

The excuses used by the United States to bomb Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo,
Afghanistan, and recently in Iraq (for the second time), do not disguise the
fact that the countries where depleted uranium weapons have been used are
countries that contain oil resources the United States wants to control or
are neighbors to pipelines the US wants to build.

GLOBAL IMPACT OF DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS
Dr. Chris Busbys comments in a recent article16 posted on a Toronto website
sums up the global impact that radiation has had from nuclear weapons
testing and nuclear power plants.  Depleted uranium weapons use is adding to
the radiation burden which is the cause of the global cancer epidemic now on
the increase:

If you think Cancer is a problem now, wait until more depleted uranium is
released into the world.

This document reports known links between exposure to low-level nuclear
radiation and cancer. Concerning the impending US war against Iraq.

"If Dai Williams' analysis is correct the SHOCK and AWE missile and bomb
inventory (which I can send anyone interested) is accurate. We are talking
about 1900 tons of DU (or perhaps U) which is equivalent to 60TBq of alpha
and beta particulate activity equivalent to the amount of alpha emitting
radioactive material Sellafield put into the Irish Sea each year at the peak
of its releases and about 50 times the present amount released annually to
the Irish Sea. This DU will become widely dispersed and re: Israel I would
not want to be living within 1000 miles of Baghdad. As a crime against
humanity and a weapon of mass destruction this will be in a class of its
own."

                                                                            
         (C. Busby)

The European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR) concludes:

"The present cancer epidemic is a consequence of exposure to global
atmospheric weapons fallout in the periods 1959-1963 and that more recent
releases of radioisotopes to the environment from the operation of nuclear
fuel cycle will result in significant increases in cancer and other types of
ill health."

(ISBN# 1-897761-24-4)          (C. Busby)     http://www.euradcom.org

The ECRR is based upon studies of chronic, internal exposure to low-level
nuclear isotopes in diverse populations: leukemia in children on the Irish
Sea Cost (Sellafield); Chernobyl children; and civilians and military
exposed to Depleted Uranium (DU) armaments resulting in systemic harm and
genetic damage.

"Using both the ECRR's new model and that of the International Committee for
Radiation Protection (ICRP), the committee calculates the total number of
deaths resulting from the nuclear project since 1945. The ICRP calculation,
based on figures for doses to populations up to 1989 given by the United
Nations, results in 1,174,600 deaths from cancer. The ECRR model predicts
61,600,000 deaths from cancer, 1,600,000 infant deaths and 1,900,000 fetal
deaths. In addition the ECRR predicts a 10% loss of life quality integrated
over all diseases and conditions in those who were exposed over the period
of global weapons fallout."

CONCLUSION

The use of depleted uranium weapons is a crime against humanity, a crime
against all species, and a war against the earth.  It is imperative that we
demand a permanent international moratorium on the sale and the use of
depleted uranium weaponry.

Thank you for informing and educating the citizens of the world not only
about the war crimes of President Bush in Afghanistan, but against all
humanity.  I am honored to have been invited by the citizens of Japan to
give my testimony here today.

=======

*omnicidal - the death of all life.  In this sense, depleted uranium is the
war against the earth - air, water, soil, and all species.

1Letter to Congressman McDermott: Declassified 1943 memo to General L.R.
Groves - a blueprint for depleted uranium

http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-Gen-Groves21feb03.htm

2Research Report Summaries on Depleted Uranium from 1974-1999, conducted at
National Laboratories and military labs.

http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm#TAB%20L_Research%20Report%
20Summaries

3White House statement on depleted uranium scare,

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ogc/apparatus/index.html

4The Department of Energy Fiscal Year 2003 Budget Request for Nuclear
Weapons Activities an analysis by Dr. Robert Civiak

http://www.trivalleycares.org/2003budgetanalysis.asp

5 Depleted Uranium: Metal of Dishonor International Action Center (1999)

http://www.iacenter.org/depleted/mettoc.htm

6 LIFE Photoessay The Tiny Victims of Desert Storm
http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf01.html

7March 1, 1991, Los Alamos Memorandum

8October 14, 1993, Somalia Message is the U.S. Army Medical Care Directive

9August 19, 1993, memorandum from General Eric Shinseki, Office of the
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans

10 Army Environmental Policy Institute (AEPI) Executive Summary (1995)

11Chromosome Aberration Analysis in Peripheral Lymphocytes of Gulf War and
Balkans War Veterans H. Schroder et al., Radiation Protection Dosimetry
V.103:3, pp.211-219 (2003).

Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Depleted Uranium by Akira Tashiro
(2001)

http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html

12Depleted Uranium Weapons: the Whys and Wherefores A. Gsponer

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0301/0301059.pdf

13The Animal Victims of the Gulf War by J. Loretz, PSR Quarterly;
1991:221-225.

http://fn2.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~puppydog/gulfwar.htm

14Combat video of Afghani civilians targeted from an AC-130 Spectre U.S.
military plane

http://www.hk94.com/weblog/index.php?p=62&c=1

15Rep. McKinney vilified for telling the truth by B. Fertik, San Francisco
Bay View, April 17, 2002, p.1.

http://www.sfbayview.com

16If you think cancer is a problem now, wait until more depleted uranium is
released into the world Toronto for Peace

http://www.torontoforpeace.org/uranium-risks.html

___________________

Go to Traprock Peace Center Home Page
www.traprockpeace.org

See The 10th Public Hearing in Chiba, June 28 2003
http://afghan-tribunal.3005.net/english/

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June 25, 2003 by Charlie Jenks

Traprock Peace Center
103A Keets Road, Woolman Hill
Deerfield, MA 01342

Phone: (413) 773-7427; Fax:(413)773-7507;
Email: traprock@crocker.com

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 32 Dallas Morning News: State disaster plans' first test: the feds
 
Those whose proposals don't make grade will see grants go
elsewhere

06:48 AM CST on Friday, January 13, 2006 

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT / The Dallas Morning News 

WASHINGTON  Standing in the heart of a ruined New Orleans four
months ago, President Bush promised Americans careful scrutiny
of local readiness plans. 

Time's almost up for the states and 75 biggest cities to deliver
their catastrophic response plans to the Homeland Security
Department. Those missing Tuesday's deadline  and Texas says it
won't  jeopardize their chance for a slice of the $2.5 billion
in federal homeland security grants that will be doled out this
year. 

It's all part of Washington's carrot-and-stick approach to make
state and local governments achieve a core level of competence
in preparing for disaster and responding to it. And by grading
local plans and needs, the feds hope to tame a previously
unfocused grant process, matching precious dollars to national
preparedness goals. 
+ Tell Us 	 	 	 	 	 	 	

In your opinion, what is the greatest threat to security in
Dallas? 	 	 		 

Terrorism

Natural disaster
 
Other
 		
View Results 		 		 		 		 

Though Washington has pumped out $8.6 billion to emergency
responders since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the distribution
has been criticized as inefficient. That's because Congress
chose to spread much of the money around the entire country
rather than focusing on high-threat areas, and because federal
overseers lacked benchmarks to direct dollars to specific
vulnerabilities. 

"When we started out doing this, basically what we were doing
was throwing money at the problem," said James Carafano, a
Heritage Foundation homeland security expert. "In most cases,
people had absolutely no idea how to spend the money." 

That's all changing. 

The Homeland Security Department now has firmer control over
grant distribution and will direct the flow of money based on
risk, demonstrated need and compliance with federal dictates. 

Starting this year, the feds will match grants explicitly to
what they deem the highest national preparedness priorities for
natural and manmade disasters. They've identified 37 abilities
that states and cities must achieve  such as the capacity to
detect chemical, nuclear and biological agents; critical
infrastructure protection; and food supply safety. 

"You're going to see a significant drive forward in what is a
policy-supported and disciplined process of using public funds
in a way that promoted our national security," said Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Terrorism vs. disasters 

The shift is welcome in emergency management circles, though
some question whether the preparedness goals tip too heavily
toward terrorism instead of natural disasters. 

"There has got to be some unit of measurement to say, 'Yes,
you've got a threat and here's what it's going to take to
measure against the threat and progress against it,' " said
Bruce Baughman, president of the National Emergency Management
Association. 

Without that, he said, "You end up buying personal protective
equipment that goes to some deputy sheriff that he throws in the
back of the car. And what have you really done to enhance your
response to a terror event or a natural disaster?" 

To ensure the most effective use of resources, Mr. Chertoff said
this month that the government would require cities to band
together in a regional approach to disaster. Where Dallas, Fort
Worth and Arlington once applied separately for a share of a
$765 million counterterror grant program, they now will have to
make a joint application. 

"We're going to use this regional approach to be more sensible
in terms of how we allocate money, focusing on where we think
threats naturally occur in terms of geography, as opposed to
where political jurisdictional lines happen to be drawn," Mr.
Chertoff said. 

The regional system won't be a big change for Texas, which
already assesses capabilities and provides resources through 24
regional Councils of Government, said Texas homeland security
director Steve McCraw. 

And Suzanne Mencer, former director of the Homeland Security
Department's Office for Domestic Preparedness, said fostering
closer ties between layers of government will remedy what has
long been a security gap. 

"If 9-11 did anything to help us as a nation, it was emphasizing
that we don't work well together at the federal, state and local
level," she said. 

The move to grade disaster response plans is an outgrowth of the
desire to knit together federal, state and local resources in a
more seamless response. 

State and local authorities will have to report on everything
from their capacity to handle a mass evacuation to how they'd
communicate with the public and how police, fire, public health
and other emergency agencies would work together during a
catastrophe. 

Officials in Texas and elsewhere generally say the new reporting
mandates at most will require them to tweak existing disaster
plans. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused some to hone more
elaborate evacuation strategies. 

Though Texas hadn't submitted its plan as of Thursday, Mr.
McCraw said the state and key cities will make the deadline 
notwithstanding the burden that back-to-back hurricanes and
recent wildfires have placed on emergency management officials. 

"We strongly embrace planning," said Mr. McCraw, whose office
issued an updated Texas homeland security strategy in November. 

But some caution that plans aren't worth more than the paper
they're written on if they aren't tested through training
exercises and don't result in measurable improvements. In Texas,
the focus is squarely on a different horizon: "We believe in
capabilities," Mr. McCraw said. Clamor for resources 

While Mr. McCraw and others say they don't object to
Washington's focus on planning, some grumble that they're being
piled high with demands for more reports and grant proposals 
without new resources to fulfill those paperwork mandates. 

"You can imagine what the difference is pre-September 11th and
now in workloads ... and all these planning requirements that
have come in since then," said Kenny Shaw, director of Dallas'
office of emergency management. 

Yet Mr. Shaw's office retains the same staffing level it had
before the Sept. 11 attacks: five people. 

"I don't think people realize. They look at cities like us and
think we have these huge departments of emergency staff and
budgets and everything," he said. 

Mr. Baughman, the National Emergency Management Association
president, agreed that there should be more federal funding to
offset Washington's increased planning demands. 

"All these requirements have been coming down, but nothing has
been done to help the states" plan, he said. 

Mr. Carafano, the Heritage Foundation expert, has little
patience for the complaints. 

"Then don't ask for the money," he said. "It's just that
simple." 

E-mail TAKING STEPS 

Some of the changes under way in emergency preparedness: 

"�By September, police, fire departments and other emergency
responders must implement the National Incident Management
System, a unified command designed to improve coordination,
information sharing and operations at scenes involving multiple
agencies. Future grant eligibility is tied to being NIMS
compliant. 

"�By fall 2007, responders risk losing federal funds if they
don't speak in plain English, abolishing their 10-code system,
when working emergencies with other agencies. 

"�Federal authorities are reworking the National Response Plan,
which stumbled in its first outing during Hurricane Katrina.
This text is invisible on the page, but this text is affected by
the invisible item's flow. This text is invisible on the page,
but this text is affected by the invisible item's flow. More

� 2006 The Dallas Morning News Co. 	 	   
*****************************************************************
 33 Stuff.co.nz: France's dirty little secrets

 New Zealand's source for World News on 

Saturday, 14 January 2006      
    
BEFORE GOING UNDERGROUND: A classic mushroom cloud forms over
Mururoa atoll after one of the atmospheric nuclear tests carried
out between 1966 and 1974.   

By MICHAEL FIELD
 
When it comes to nuclear bombs and France, the definition of 
"military secret" becomes all encompassing � try getting 
40-year-old weather charts of French Polynesia. 

A decade after nuclear testing ended at Fangataufa and Mururoa
atolls, the French cone of silence remains firmly in place, as
Polynesian politician Tea Hirshon has found. 

"They are traditionally non-cooperative, and they are also
covering up some stuff." 

As head of a commission of inquiry set up to examine the effects
of nuclear testing, Ms Hirshon will formally table its report in
the Territorial Assembly in Papeete on January 26. She says the
report does not make any radical new claims and should be
treated as an exploratory look at work that will continue for
years. 

Paris authorities tried to stop the commission's work in
unsuccessful court bids, Ms Hirshon says. 

Across the board, from the military to the high commission in
Tahiti to the French department of health and even the weather
service Meteo France, there has been no cooperation. "All the
official mail we sent them has received no answer." 

Ms Hirshon believes the authorities were using the threat of
court action to halt the flow of information. "What is really a
pity is that they don't even have the courtesy of writing us a
letter. This makes us say that there is no difference between
their attitude 40 years ago, 30 years ago, 10 years and now." 

The report of the commission of inquiry is inevitably
incomplete. 

"We were hoping to have more documents, like the maps of the
weather department when they were exploding bombs in the
atmosphere. 

"What we realised is that, even within other official French
organisations, like the health department, they don't give the
information." 

At the same time the commission was doing its work, a French
medical scientist was studying thyroid cancer rates in French
Polynesia � the world's highest. That doctor was not getting any
documents either. 

"I think it is the way the military classify documents, and they
don't want to give it." AdvertisementAdvertisement 

France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests over Mururoa and
Fangataufa between 1966 and 1974. It followed up with 134
underground nuclear tests at the same sites between 1975 and
1991. Eight more tests took place in 1995 and 1996. 

Paris refused to allow the commission members on to Mururoa and
Fangataufa. 

"It shows you how France treats us. What we can say is that
Mururoa and Fangataufa are under surveillance. There is
plutonium in those atolls and, there is definitely a potential
danger." 

There is a fear that Mururoa atoll could crack open. "It already
has cracks in the reef . . . in the case of some movement under
the sea, the poison could be released, and then carried on the
currents." 

What was discovered only last year, through a leak of military
secrets in Paris, was that the first test, Aldebaran, on July 2,
1966, sent radioactive fallout over Mangareva, 450 kilometres
from Mururoa. 

The papers showed that the local people were not told, but that
key military officials who were on the island suddenly fled when
it was realised that the cloud was on the way. 

Among those fleeing, according to Ms Hirshon, was pro-France
politician Gaston Flosse, who was French Polynesia's territorial
president from 1984 till 2004. He was defeated by current
President Oscar Temaru to whose Tavini Huiraatira (Union for
Democracy Party) Ms Hirshon belongs. Mr Flosse refused to give
evidence. "He was also aboard the plane that came to Mangareva.
That plane left in a hurry and he was on it, and we want to ask
him questions about that. 

"He never answered, never came. I think this is very important;
that someone who has been the president for 20 years refuses to
be auditioned." 

Only last year did France come clean on the fallout. 

"They admitted that last year. Before that it was total denial.
So slowly they admit their part." 

Ms Hirshon says the commission went to the islands with
scientists who took soil samples, and though test results are
not back yet, no radiation hotspots were found. "It's
impossible; the tests were 40 years ago." 

Given the lack of data, the commission could not even be sure
what long-term effects could be linked to the tests. "It is not
easy. There is a lot of fish poisoning, but between the
ciguatera (a natural form of fish poisoning) and the poisoning
caused by nuclear testing, the symptoms are the same," Ms
Hirshon says. 

"We are not able to say today that there are so many cancers
that are radiation-related or that the fish poisoning is caused
by that." 

More work needs to be done, and the commission will recommend an
extensive study. 

"It is one of the dominant issues. People want to know where
they are today," she says. "The people in the islands want to
know if they are living on clean soil or not." 

They found that, in the 1950s, French scientists explored the
geology of the two atolls to decide whether they were suitable
for nuclear testing, but they took no account of the people's
safety. 

"We have all the information about the quality of the soils. We
have no information about the population, which makes it
difficult for us, 40 years later, to find files of people who
were there at the time and what has become of them since. 

"We don't know the health status of our own people." 

France acquired geopolitical strength through nuclear power, Ms
Hirshon says, the French Polynesians got "peanuts". "Lots of
promises were made, and today what have we got? Nothing." 

The commission's study had social value. 

"For the first time we were able to do it ourselves; we were
able to do an inquiry ourselves. It was not a foreign team of
people who came. 

"It is important that we write our own history. We were able to
(hear) people from a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of
politicians. So we understand more what the climate was at the
time." 

One of their witnesses recalled meeting then French president
Charles de Gaulle just before the tests started. He told the
president that the people did not want the bomb. "De Gaulle
said, `well you had better agree, otherwise it would be a
military government we will impose on you people'." 

Ms Hirshon said nuclear testing was a matter of human rights:
"Because we were a small colony out there, France abused us.
Then it's a case of hiding the facts from the people." 

*****************************************************************
 34 BBC: Radioactivity tests at Fife beach
 
Last Updated: Friday, 13 January 2006
 
[Dalgety Bay]                           

Radioactive material was found on a Dalgety Bay beach                                                             

Material from a Fife beach is to be removed to check for 
radioactivity. 

The contamination at Dalgety Bay is believed to come from the
luminous dials of wartime aircraft thought to have been dumped
there after the war. 

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has agreed to spend
�50,000 to find out the extent of contamination and whether it
presents a health risk. 

Sepa said more radioactive items were being detected at the Fife
headland than at Sandside Beach near Dounreay. 

More than 50 particles have been found on the Sandside Beach,
near the Caithness nuclear plant, during monitoring of the area. 

The point of this next piece monitoring is to take the material 
away and find out just how dangerous it is Louise Batchelor BBC 
Scotland environment correspondent          

Sepa said it was a different kind of radioactivity which had
been found in Fife. 

It is planning to carry out a new assessment of the health risk. 

BBC Scotland environment correspondent Louise Batchelor said
Sepa were worried about radium from the illuminated dials of
wartime aircraft incinerated around the 1950s. 

She said: "When they did some monitoring here last year they
found 90 radioactive items, clearly far more than have been
found at Sandside Beach near Dounreay. 

"Some are more active than others - the point of this next piece
of monitoring is to take the material away and find out just how
dangerous it is and whether or not it is fine enough to be
swallowed or inhaled. 

Health advice 

"It could give you a skin burn if you held a piece of this
clinker for a long time, for many hours, but it could be quite
dangerous if you swallowed it or breathed it in and that's what
they want to find out about." 

Meanwhile, NHS Fife moved to reassure people that the risks were
very low. 

It said there was no need to restrict access, but advised anyone
handling material from the beach to wash their hands afterwards. 

Fife Council's east area manager Roy Stewart said: "We welcome
the proposals following today's meeting which are a positive
step forward for the area and are pleased Sepa are taking the
initiative on this issue. 

"Fife Council has a duty of care both to the local community and
visitors to the area." 

Mr Stewart added that proposals including the installation of
warning signs would be discussed at a community council meeting
on Wednesday. 		 	 		 	 	 
*****************************************************************
 35 NRC: Notice of Issuance of License Amendment for Release of Four
 
                         FR Doc 06-361 
[Federal Register: January 13, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 9)] 
[Notices] [Page 2276] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr13ja06-135]                         
 
0T-10 Radiation Training Sites for Unrestricted Use; Department 
of the Air Force, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, NM 
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
ACTION: Notice of Issuance of License Amendment.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Rachel S. Browder, M.S., Project 
Manager, Nuclear Materials Licensing Branch, Division of Nuclear 
Materials Safety, Region IV, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 
611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, Texas 76011. 
Telephone: (817) 276-6552; fax number: (817) 860-8188; e-mail: 
rsb3@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction Pursuant to 10 CFR 
2.106, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is providing 
notice of the issuance of License Amendment 19 to Material 
License No. 42-23539-01AF to Department of the Air Force, to 
authorize the release of four OT-10 training sites at Kirtland 
Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico for unrestricted use. The 
Department of the Air Force's request for an amendment to 
authorize decommissioning of its four OT-10 training sites was 
previously notice in the Federal Register on June 22, 2001 (66 FR 
33579) with a notice of an opportunity to request a hearing.
 
The Department of the Air Force provided a final radiological 
status survey report to demonstrate the OT-10 site meets the 
license termination criteria in Subpart E of 10 CFR Part 20. In 
addition, NRC staff conducted independent radiological 
measurements of soils and surfaces at the site. The NRC staff has 
evaluated the Department of the Air Force's request, reviewed the 
results of the final radiological survey, and determined that the 
four OT-10 training sites: TS5, TS6, TS7, and TS8, including 
building 28010 but excluding building 28005, meet the 
unrestricted use dose criteria in 10 CFR 20.1402. The Commission 
has concluded that the respective OT-10 training sites as 
specified, are suitable for release for unrestricted use.
 
This license amendment complies with the standards and 
requirements of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and 
NRC's rules and regulations set forth in 10 CFR Chapter 1. 
Accordingly, this license amendment was issued on December 12, 
2005, and is effective immediately.
 
II. Further Information The NRC has prepared a Final Safety 
Evaluation Report (SER), December 2005, which documents the 
information that was reviewed and NRC's conclusion. In accordance 
with 10 CFR 2.390 of the NRC's ``Rules of Practice,'' details 
with respect to this action, including the SER and accompanying 
documentation included in the license amendment package, are 
available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you may 
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System 
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public 
documents. The ADAMS accession numbers for the documents related 
to this notice are as follows.
 
------- NRC Inspection Report, March 26, 2003...  MS030850371 NRC 
Inspection Report, July 24, 2003....  ML032050716 NRC Inspection 
Report, September 9, 2003  ML032521325 NRC Inspection Report, May 
3, 2004......  ML041250063 Safety Evaluation Report, January 
2003..  ML030080421 Decommissioning Plan for Site OT-10,      
ML011560740 Radiation Training Sites, Kirtland Air Force Base, 
New Mexico, July 2000.
 
Decommissioning Plan for Site OT-10,      ML023390060.
 
Radiation Training Sites, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, 
Submitted November 2002.
 
Final Status Survey Report for            ML051570099 
Environmental Restoration Program Site   ML051570105.
 
OT-10, Radiation Training Sites, Kirtland Air Force Base, New 
Mexico, May 2005.
 
Final Safety Evaluation Report, December  ML053460250.
 
2005.
 
------- If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the 
NRC Public Document Room (PDR) reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 
301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. These documents may 
also be viewed electronically on the public computers located at 
the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville 
Pike, MD 20852. The PDR reproduction contractor will copy 
documents for a fee.
 
Dated at Arlington, Texas, this 22nd day of December, 2005.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Jack E. Whitten, Chief, Nuclear Materials Licensing Branch, 
Division of Nuclear Materials Safety, Region IV.
 
[FR Doc. 06-361 Filed 1-12-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-M

 
*****************************************************************
 36 Las Vegas SUN: Yucca Mountain project offices reorganizing 

Today: January 13, 2006 at 15:7:50 PST 

By KEN RITTER ASSOCIATED PRESS 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Federal offices overseeing the Yucca Mountain
project are reorganizing to streamline efforts to open a
repository to entomb the nation's spent nuclear waste, a project
official said. 

"We're in the process of putting a new organization in place,
which is going to take a few weeks," Allen Benson, spokesman for
the Energy Department and Yucca project in Las Vegas, said
Friday. "There will be significant organizational changes." 

No federal layoffs were planned at the Office of Repository
Development sites in Nevada and Washington, D.C., Benson said. 

The reorganization, ordered by Paul Golan, acting director of
the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management, comes amid design changes and investigations of
critics' claims that the project is based on flawed science. 

Nevada's top state administrator working to oppose the project,
Bob Loux, said the shuffling reflected "utter chaos" in the
project. He said the Energy Department was not likely to submit
an application for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission for at least four or five years. 

Yucca project officials last year pushed back the target date
for opening the $58 billion repository from 2010 to 2012 or
later. NRC review of the application is expected to take several
years. 

"I think they may never do it," Loux said Friday. He noted a
crucial Environmental Protection Agency radiation standard being
rewritten for the project was likely to spur a new court
challenge. A federal court threw out an earlier standard as
inadequate because it did not establish exposure limits beyond
10,000 years. 

Benson said project science was sound and was moving ahead. He
did not specify a target date for opening. 

"This is the most overseen project in the history of the
government," Benson said. "We're trying to make the organization
better fit the mission to develop a license application and
submit it to the NRC for a permanent deep geological repository
at Yucca Mountain." 

Reorganizing will yield a "flatter organization," Benson said,
that will also focus on a transportation plan to move 77,000
tons of commercial, industrial and military waste from sites in
39 states to the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

The Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste
Management, which has oversight for the Yucca project, is
headquartered in Washington, D.C. About $305 million of its $450
million budget is spent in Nevada, where about 100 of its 170
federal employees are based. 

About 2,000 other Yucca employees work for project contractor
Bechtel SAIC Co. and several other companies, including four
national laboratories. 

Loux and Benson also responded to a Friday report by the Las
Vegas Review-Journal about a March 29, 2000, memorandum raising
new questions about the integrity of studies by the U.S.
Geological Survey on surface water infiltration into the
mountain. 

Investigations already are focusing on Energy Department
disclosures last year that government scientists exchanged
e-mails discussing falsification of project data. 

Project critics contend water will seep into tunnels and slowly
corrode metal canisters, eventually allowing radioactivity to
escape into the environment around the geological repository. 

The memo refers to seeking more work and explanation about
problems with model calibration, drainage estimates, and water
storage in a technical report by three USGS scientists who
exchanged e-mails suggesting the use of "fudge factors." 

Loux said the memo discussing the work of USGS scientists Alan
and Lorraine Flint and Joseph Hevesi, if made public in 2000,
would have supported the state's challenge of the federal
decision in 2002 to pick the Yucca site. 

Benson on Friday said then-U.S. Geological Survey chief Charles
"Chip" Groat sent project officials an Oct. 4, 2001, letter
supporting the site recommendation. 

"We have a letter from the director of the U.S. Geological
Survey to the Energy Department supporting the site
recommendation," Benson said. "It supports going ahead." 

         All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
 37 Deseret News: Bear re-election in dispute
 
[deseretnews.com] 

Friday, January 13, 2006                                 

I appreciate Geoffrey Fattah's reporting on the recent federal 
court hearing regarding the dispute on the Skull Valley Goshute 
Indian reservation over its leadership and high-level nuclear 
waste storage (Jan. 7).

       However, I feel one important clarification needs to be 
made. Mr. Fattah briefly acknowledged that "Bear was re-elected 
in October 2001." It is not certain that Leon Bear was actually 
"re-elected" in 2001. Strong disagreements over the results of 
that election are part of the dispute. Further, this particular 
event informs the allegation � and the arguments made clearly in 
court by the Goshutes' attorney, Paul Echohawk � that the Bureau 
of Indian Affairs' continued recognition of Bear has led directly 
to harms alleged by the Goshutes who brought the lawsuit.

       I applaud U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball for his serious 
and careful consideration of those members of the Skull Valley 
Goshute band who oppose dumping nuclear waste on their 
reservation.

       Now, if Goshutes can prove that the BIA was remiss in both 
approving the original nuclear lease and in continuing to 
recognize and reward alleged abusive leadership on the 
reservation, then perhaps a more positive leadership arrangement 
can be made by the Goshutes themselves, without interference by 
the nuclear industry or its money.

 Pete Litster Shundahai Network executive director Salt Lake City
 			  		 		   
� 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company                                                                                   
[ /] 
*****************************************************************
 38 reviewjournal.com: Yucca Mountain planners reorganizing
 
  Jan. 13, 2006

Changes planned for nuclear waste offices        

By KEITH ROGERS <br/>REVIEW-JOURNAL

Federal offices in Las Vegas and Washington, D.C., that run the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project are undergoing a major
reorganization aimed at streamlining the government's goal of
entombing deadly spent fuel in the ridge. 

"There will be significant organization changes, and we are in
the process of doing that," Office of Repository Development
spokesman Allen Benson said Thursday. 

The change is afoot as officials continue to grapple with design
changes and claims by critics that the project is rife with
flawed science and questionable reports by federal geologists. 

Among the objectives is to refocus the effort on transporting
77,000 tons of spent reactor fuel and highly radioactive defense
waste to the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

"Clearly that's going to be a major part of the program," Benson
said. "It's going to be a flatter organization. You go to a more
direct relationship with the management. ... We're also going to
eliminate the distinction between East and West." 

It will take about two months to implement the reorganization
plan, Benson said. He said the Department of Energy's Office of
Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, or OCRWM, headquartered
in Washington, D.C., commands the $450 million budget, of which
$305 million is spent on efforts in Nevada. About 170 federal
employees work for OCRWM, 100 of them in Las Vegas. That's in
addition to some 2,000 who work for Bechtel SAIC Co. and several
other contractors, including four national laboratories. 

Meanwhile, another document has surfaced that questions the
integrity of studies by the U.S. Geological Survey on how fast
and far surface water infiltrates the mountain, enhancing the
potential for corrosion of the waste packages and escape of
radioactive materials in the distant future. 

A March 29, 2000, memo obtained by the Review-Journal shows a
study published by the USGS was flawed but allowed to skirt the
review process. 

"Regretfully, the subject report is returned to the authors for
additional work and explanation," begins the memo to the
survey's Yucca Mountain chief at the time, Robert W. Craig, from
a senior adviser in Reston, Va. 

Three USGS scientists who exchanged e-mails suggesting use of
"fudge factors," and who are targeted in a congressional review,
authored the reports mentioned in the memo. 

"Written communications based on rejected reports or
conditionally approved reports that were not finally approved
represent a breach of USGS policy. ... These problems must be
corrected," the memo states. 

Bob Loux, Nevada's Nuclear Waste Projects chief and a longtime
critic of the federal project, is not surprised about the memo
or the project's reorganization plan, given the state of affairs
with the investigation by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., into last
year's revelations about lax quality assurance communicated in
e-mails among USGS scientists. 

"I'm hearing the project is just in utter chaos. ... There's no
thought about a license application in the next four or five
years, so the fact they're reorganizing is not surprising," Loux
said by telephone from Carson City. 

Had state officials known about the March 29, 2000, memo
discussing the work of USGS scientists Alan and Lorraine Flint
and Joseph Hevesi, it would have been ammunition for challenging
the site's recommendation, Loux said. 

He said reports mentioned in the memo "are probably some of the
key documents DOE used to put out their hydrologic model." 

Project officials have decided to redo that work, he said,
because of questions raised by the USGS e-mails. The memo states
that the reviewer cited technical problems with "model
calibration, drainage estimates, (and) water storage" in Yucca
Mountain. 

Benson noted, however, that then-USGS Director Charles "Chip"
Groat sent project officials a letter dated Oct. 4, 2001
supporting site recommendation. "We have to assume he took that
information into account," Benson said. 

Peggy Maze Johnson, director of the environmental group Citizen
Alert, said the project's new direction and its past history are
telling. "If it quacks like a duck and smells like a duck, it
must be the Department of Energy." 	   


Copyright � Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
 Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
 39 Pahrump Valley Times: YUCCA MOUNTAIN PROJECT AFFECTED 

January 13, 2006

Shoshone tribe files suit; treaty violated 

RENO (AP) - An American Indian tribe is suing the Union Pacific
Railroad and seven other landholders, claiming the companies
stole land in vast stretches of the west in violation of an
1860s treaty with the U.S. government. 

The civil lawsuit, filed on behalf of the Western Shoshone
National Council, chief Raymond Yowell and six national council
members, seeks a declaration that the Western Shoshone nation
holds title to land, minerals and water in so-called
``checkerboard'' lands the government granted to the railroad in
the 19th century. It was filed late Tuesday in a U.S. District
Court in Reno by lawyer Robert Hager. 

The action seeks ``past and future damages for waste and
trespass'' and calls for the companies to ``disgorge all monies
and things of value'' obtained as a result of controlling the
lands. 

The defendants, in addition to Union Pacific Railroad, are BNSF
Railroad Co., Newmont Gold Co., Barrick Goldstrike Mines Inc.,
Glamis Gold Inc., Nevada Land Resource Co., Sierra Pacific Power
Co. and Idaho Power Co. 

The lawsuit would void the transfer by the United States from
1862 to 1869 of millions of acres of land to the Union Pacific
Railroad Co., and attempt to recover profits from the sale,
exchange, lease, development and other uses of those lands,
Hager said in a statement. 

The United States was not named as a defendant, although Hager,
on behalf of the Western Shoshones, has sued to stop the
government from developing a planned nuclear waste repository at
Yucca Mountain, near Beatty and the Amargosa Valley in Nye
County.

 Hager said the tribe has asked a U.S. District judge in Las
Vegas to reconsider his dismissal of a lawsuit seeking to block
the Yucca project based on the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863. Judge
Philip Pro ruled last year the federal court in Las Vegas lacked
jurisdiction. 

Hager said the two actions were related because the Western
Shoshone have never relinquished title to the lands. 

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright � Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 
*****************************************************************
 40 KVBC: Changes coming to Yucca Mountain Project

January 14, 2006 
 
Changes are coming to the Yucca Mountain Project and it appears
to be a result of some of the criticism the project. 

Yucca spokesperson Allan Benson calls the change a
reorganization between Energy Department employees and
contractors in Nevada and those in Washington, DC. The agency
will also refocus on the plan to transport 77,000 tons of
radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, which is 100 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. 

Also, there is a new memo that calls into question how fast and
how far water infiltrates into Yucca Mountain. The U.S.
Geological Survey memo appears to show the water study was
flawed, but was allowed to pass the review process. The amount
of water flowing through Yucca is a big issue, since it could,
over many years, carry radioactive waste outside of the
repository. 
  
.gif">    All content � Copyright 2000 - 2006 WorldNow and KVBC.
All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 41 Pahrump Valley Times: 'Smart' use of nuclear waste

January 13, 2006

 COMMUNITY VIEWPOINT 

Open letter to elected representatives: Nye County Commissioners
Carver, Cox, Eastley, Hollis and Trummell; Nevada Governor
Guinn; Nevada U.S. Representatives Berkley, Gibbons and Porter;
Nevada U.S. Senators Ensign and Reid; and President Bush.

 Dear Elected Representatives: 

The following quotes are from an article, "Smarter Use of
Nuclear Waste," by William H. Hannum, Gerald E. Marsh and George
S. Stanford in the December 2005 issue of Scientific American.
The authors are physicists who worked on fast-reactor
development before retiring from the U.S. Department of Energy's
Argonne Laboratory.

 "In any nuclear power plant, heavy metal atoms are consumed as
the fuel 'burns' ... When technicians remove the depleted fuel,
only about one twentieth of the potentially fissionable atoms in
it have been used up, so the so-called spent fuel still contains
about 95 percent of its original energy. In addition, only about
one-tenth of the mined uranium ore is converted into fuel in the
enrichment process so less than a hundredth of the ore's total
energy is used to generate power in today's plants."

 Nuclear waste can be "pyrometallurgically" processed into a
fuel for use in specially designed advanced fast-neutron
reactors. "In particular, a relatively new form of nuclear
technology could overcome the principle drawbacks of current
methods (to produce electricity using nuclear energy) ... namely
worries about reactor accidents, the potential for diversion of
nuclear fuel into highly destructive weapons, the management of
dangerous long-lived radioactive waste and the depletion of
global reserves of economically available uranium."

 "President Jimmy Carter banned civilian reprocessing of nuclear
fuel in the U.S. in 1977. He reasoned that if plutonium were not
recovered from spent fuel it could not be used to make bombs.
Carter also wanted America to set an example for the rest of the
world. France, Japan, Russia and the U.K. have not, however,
followed suit, so plutonium reprocessing for use in power plants
continues in a number of countries." In the United States,
nuclear waste, a valuable potential energy source, is planned to
be buried at Yucca Mountain rather than reprocessed into useable
fissionable fuel and radioactive waste.

 We believe that now is the time for the local, state and
federal governments to agree to start construction at the Nevada
Test Site of all the facilities required to
"pyrometallurgically" process all nuclear waste to recover fuel
for use in advanced fast-neutron reactors and into by-product
fission products, the true waste "ashes" which make up about
five percent of the used fuel. As laws are changed, the
recovered fuel could be sold for use in commercial plants. The
radioactivity of the "ashes" will drop to safe levels in a few
hundred, rather than tens of thousands of years and could be
stored in Yucca Mountain.

 We also believe that now is the time to start construction at
the Nevada Test Site of all the facilities required for a
commercial-size advanced fast-neutron reactor capable of burning
the "pyrometallurgically" recovered fuel from nuclear waste to
produce electricity for commercial use. This demonstration plant
would be a model for commercial nuclear power plants.

 "More and more people are realizing that (nuclear energy) may
be the most environmentally friendly way to generate large
amounts of electricity ... If developed sensibly, nuclear power
could be truly sustainable and essentially inexhaustible and
could operate without contributing to climate change."

 As an elected person, please initiate or support legislation
to: implement processing nuclear waste into usable fuel for
advanced fast-neutron reactors on the Nevada Test Site and build
an advanced fast-neutron reactor on the Nevada Test Site to
produce commercial quantities of electricity. 

Please let us know your opinions on these subjects.

 CALVIN AND NORMA MORRISON
 		 		     
For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright � Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 
*****************************************************************
 42 News & Star: Nuclear waste dump plans are refused
       
Published on 13/01/2006

By Julian Whittle
 
BRITISH Nuclear Fuels has been refused planning permission to 
extend the life of the low-level nuclear waste dump at Drigg.
 
The company wanted to store steel containers containing 
radioactive waste above ground, but only on a temporary basis 
until 2010.
 
Drigg parish council objected, saying the scheme would expose 
nearby residents to a higher radiation dose.
 
County councillors meeting in Kendal voted by 10 to four to 
refuse the application, against the advice of their planning 
officers.
 
BNFL is expected to appeal and is now “considering its 
options”.
 
A formal objection from Drigg and Carleton parish council said: 
“Higher stacking, whether temporary or long term, will increase 
background radiation levels to the local community and the 
environment. 

“There can be no justification for exposing members of the 
public to increased levels of radiation when alternative 
arrangements are available.” 

At present, the 20ft by 8ft by 4ft steel containers are stored in 
an underground vault. 

But the vault will be full by 2008, prompting BNFL to seek 
planning permission to stack up to 950 containers above the walls 
of the vault. 

Other issues raised included the vulnerability of Drigg to 
coastal erosion and rising sea levels, the visual impact of 
above-ground storage and the effect on house prices. 

One letter suggested that the waste units could be an easy target 
for terrorists.
 
						 					 				 				 					
*****************************************************************
 43 Pahrump Valley Times: When it comes to Yucca Devlin is in the details 

January 13, 2006

LONGTIME CRITIC OF HIGH-LEVEL NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY BLASTS
COUNTY OVER CONSULTANTS 

By PHILLIP GOMEZ PVT
 
The Nye County Board of Commissioners last week considered a
half-dozen contracts with consultants for the county's nuclear
waste repository project office, and most of them they passed
over the vociferous objection of one familiar member of the
public, Pahrump's Sally Devlin, a committed and longtime
opponent of Yucca Mountain.

 Devlin is always on hand to testify against funding actions
taken by the commissioners on Yucca Mountain and its related
county projects, calling the appropriations for the endless line
of scientific and engineering consultants "an $18-billion fraud
on the public."

 At this last go-round, Devlin held forth better than usual, and
this week she was partly proved right.

 "I can go right down the line on this on the fraud you've been
perpetrating for years," Devlin said at the microphone set up at
the Bob Ruud Community Center when the contracts came up for
discussion. "You will not see anything because they have
nothing."

 The commission, without batting an eye, passed the motion by
Commissioner Gary Hollis for $50,000 for a three-month contract
with SRS Technologies, headed by veteran consultant Cash
Jaszczak, whose fee is $115 an hour.

 Commissioners Candice Trummell and Patricia Cox voted against
passage.

 Another contract, with Tom Buqo, the county's water monitoring
specialist, the board passed unanimously. Buqo's contract
pertains to the county's long-term water resources stewardship
program, for which the original contract and supplemental
amendments total $155,030. Of that amount, $109,000 has either
already been spent or is obligated to be spent, so the balance
of $46,030 was still available for Buqo to work with.

 "This is a continuation of Tom Buqo's fraud upon the public,"
said Devlin. "He has no numbers; he has nothing. Tom Buqo
continues to get his $50,000, and all he does is nothing. Here
we go again." (Note: the funds used to pay for Yucca Mountain
consultants is derived from the federal government, not from the
county's local tax base.)

 A couple of the contracts the commissioners turned down. One,
with James Williams, was to provide service in support of the
county's program office for 90 days of work for $50,000. It
failed to gain the board's approval when David Swanson, the
interim director of the project office, could not say with any
certainty how much time Williams would be spending on the
"deliverables." Jaszczak would be making monthly reports,
Swanson said, however. 

"I don't think he's worth 50 cents, much less $50,000," said
Devlin. "I don't think he's done anything but prat-sit (sit on
his buttocks) and take our money."

 Amargosa Valley's Jan Cameron spoke in favor of the funding,
saying Williams was "an invaluable Asset for Nye County."

 The other contract rejected by the commissioners was that with
Les Bradshaw, the former director of the county project office
who retired in 2004. 

Bradshaw, said Swanson, was needed as "backup for Mr. Murphy who
is getting older now." 

Murphy was the contractor just approved in the prior item by the
commissioners, in the amount of $35,000 for three months work,
from January through March. Murphy is to "provide expert advice
and assistance to the nuclear waste repository project office
regarding the licensing support network, license application
(with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) and other matters that
pertain to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project."

 Bradshaw, being an attorney, would provide Murphy with legal
advice that would prove "invaluable," Swanson said. "Nye County
needs to be intensely involved in the management of that
program," he said. He added that Bradshaw, his old boss, should
be able "to put together a team of experts to sell the
Department of Energy." The experts would "evaluate the
performance confirmation program, define the appropriate Nye
County role consistent with county policy and identify how to
implement the defined role." 

Swanson, partly reading from the agenda item, said the
performance confirmation program would be "an important way the
DOE proves to the citizens of Nye County and the world that the
repository is functioning as predicted and as designed.
Functional problems, if and when they occur, will be identified
via this program. The program will consist of complicated
scientific and engineering evaluations and administrative
procedures."

 Just days after the Nye County Commission meeting, DOE
suspended work on key segments of Yucca Mountain when
whistleblowers reported more problems with the repository's
design and engineering - just what Swanson had been talking
about.

 Commissioner Joni Eastley said she would not approve any
funding for new contracts for consultants at the project office
until a new director is hired to oversee its activities.
Commissioner Cox agreed, and the item died for lack of a motion.

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright � Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 
*****************************************************************
 44 Pahrump Valley Times: Yucca problems spur rail holdup 

January 13, 2006

 
SWANSON: DOE, BECHTEL REELING FROM WHISTLEBLOWERS 

By PHILLIP GOMEZ PVT
 
David Swanson, the interim director of Nye County's nuclear
waste repository project office, last week presented to the
Board of County Commissioners a preview of the year ahead in
2006 with regard to the Yucca Mountain Repository and the U.S.
Department of Energy's legal relationship with the county.

 This was just before the latest news broke on Yucca Mountain,
heralded on the front page of The Pahrump Valley Times last
Wednesday when we reported that DOE had issued a stop-work order
on the Bechtel-contracted project due to yet another flap over
technical design issues and safety concerns.

 The work suspension over what was described as "a chronic
screwup" is expected to take weeks or longer to resolve. With
this further delay in DOE's application for licensure with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, DOE will likely have to set a new
schedule for when the repository might open. The current guess
by experts is 2015 to 2020, where once it was 2010 or 2012.

 Swanson discussed the role of the county's nuclear waste
repository project office in the coming year, beginning with the
disappointment of the past year when it was expected that DOE
would present its application to the NRC for licensure. That
didn't happen, and Swanson reported that the leadership at the
DOE "seems to be in disarray."

 The New Year "is expected to be an interesting year indeed,"
Swanson said. Prophetically, he said he "expected the turmoil to
continue." He reported his budget "is in excellent shape," but
said there loomed "uncertainty about the future." 

Now, Swanson said, DOE plans to build the National
Transportation Project through the Caliente corridor - otherwise
known as the Caliente Railroad through Lincoln, Nye and
Esmeralda counties - prior to the nuclear waste repository
itself. The $2-billion project to construct the 320-mile
railroad was "on a fast track," he said, in order to have the
railroad ready to haul in the materials to construct Yucca
Mountain's storage facilities.

 Building the rail line is expected to take about four years and
1,000 workers. When and if it is authorized for construction,
the rail line would be the first of its size to be built in the
nation in 70 years. If activated with rolling stock, 3,000
metric tons of radioactive materials would be transported to the
Nevada Test Site and Yucca Mountain each year. 

Swanson said, however, that licensing by the NRC was now (before
the latest news of a further setback) pushed back until
"possibly 2008."

 Before the DOE submits its safety and design control data to
the NRC for approval it wants to make certain of its case for
confirmation. "Basically, they won't commit," said Swanson.
However, he added that it was his feeling that DOE will submit
the application with its associated technical design data to the
NRC by the end of this year.

 Then there's the matter of putting the genie back in the bottle
- that's the Global Nuclear Energy Initiative. "I asked him what
the GNEI program was and he didn't know," Swanson said,
referring to his shadowy contact in Washington, D.C. at the DOE.
"That's how secretive it is." 

Swanson's comment came in his discussion concerning his attempt
to get "Nye County's share of allocations from legislative
initiatives regarding Yucca Mountain." 

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, which is the federal
umbrella under which Nye County receives impact assistance
payments from DOE (PETT funds), is undergoing review and
amendment by the Bush administration, Swanson said. 

"The Bush administration is promulgating the changes for DOE,"
he said, ringing alarm bells for the commissioners.

 Nye County Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell said, "I do
believe it is going to be a significant piece of legislation and
Nye County may be missing the boat in not getting involved."

 Swanson said the county has "a list of wants and desires."

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright � Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006 
*****************************************************************
 45 Aiken Today: WSRC extends contracts 

Philip Lord

Friday, January 13, 2006

The U.S. Department of Energy wants to extend the operating
contract held by Washington Savannah River Company at the
Savannah River Site to allow for the competitive bidding of the
operations contract and the liquid waste contract at the nuclear
site.

In a posting on its Web site, DOE announced it is giving
businesses 45 days in which to comment on the extension, which
will see Washington Group run the site through Dec. 31, 2006 –
instead of Sept. 30, 2006, deadline set in its contract.

After the comment period, DOE will negotiate with Washington
Group about the fee required to operate the site the additional
months, said DOE spokesman Julie Peterson.

Also announced in the posting is the extension of the Washington
Group contract to oversee liquid waste operations at the site.
The proposal, which also faces a 45-day comment period, calls
for the company to handle the operations through Dec. 31, 2007.

On Dec. 16 DOE announced plans to split the SRS contract into
two components that were to be competitively bid on separately.

One contract would handle overall site management – including
the Savannah River National Laboratory – and the other
contract would strictly handle the disposition of liquid waste.

Washington Group has announced plans to pursue the operations
contract again, as has Fluor Corporation and DuPont, which
operated the site from the early 1950s until 1989.

On the waste side, which could be reportedly a lucrative
contract, Washington Group likely faces competition from
Parsons, which has been in Aiken for two years designing the
Salt Waste Processing Facility.

Officials at Washington Government, which is headquartered in
Aiken and oversees the SRS contract, were excited when they
learned of the DOE move.

“We are encouraged by it,” said Jack Herrmann, vice
president for communications. “It reinforces the faith that
DOE has in the job we have been doing.”

Herrmann, however, said the announcement was not completely
unexpected.

“While we are happy, it is definitely not unexpected,” he
said.

In its announcement, DOE said the contract extensions were being
awarded to allow time for a competitive bidding process.

Given the staggered nature of the contract periods, some site
observers are already speculating the two contracts to operate
the site might not be bid, or awarded, at the same time.

DOE went as far as to include an explanation for extending the
waste contract in its announcement.

“In order for the Department to conduct a full and open
competition and award a successor contract for the liquid waste
scope of work, the Department intends to non-competitively
extend the liquid waste (and associated support) portion of the
existing contract with WSRC for 12 months,” DOE officials
wrote.

Site observers said Thursday’s move was not unexpected.

“There has been a lot of rumor and talk about them extending
it for some time,” said Aiken Mayor Fred Cavanaugh, who is on
the board of the SRS Retirees Association.

The association has expressed serious concerns about the impact
on retiree benefits under the split contract path DOE is
pursuing.

Contact Philip Lord at plord@aikenstandard.com � 2005 The
AikenStandard. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 46 ContraCostaTimes.com: Competition for new Livermore lab contract begins

01/13/2006 | 

 By Betsy Mason CONTRA COSTA TIMES 

The competition to find the next manager of Lawrence Livermore
Laboratory is underway. The Department of Energy got the ball
rolling Friday with a request for interested parties to make
themselves known. 

A draft request for proposals, complete with contract terms, is
tentatively scheduled for release this summer. 

The University of California's current contract is set to expire
Sept. 30, 2007. That date includes a two-year extension granted
so competition for the Livermore management contract could be
held separately from the Los Alamos National Laboratory
competition, which was just completed in December. 

UC won the Los Alamos competition along with a trio of
industrial partners led by Bechtel National. The university's
main rival for the Los Alamos contract was Lockheed Martin,
which teamed with the University of Texas for the competition.
In April of last year, UC successfully held on to the contract
for Lawrence Berkeley Lab. 

UC has not yet decided whether or not it will compete for
Lawrence Livermore, but insiders consider the university's
participation very likely. 

"The regents have authorized the university to begin
preparations for the competition, and we are doing so in
earnest," UC president Robert Dynes said in a statement Friday.
"Should we compete, we will do so vigorously and with the firm
belief that excellence in science and technology is critical to
the mission of the laboratory." 

Lockheed may be still smarting over the Los Alamos decision,
which it has decided not to contest, but the company isn't
ruling out another stab at taking control of a nuclear weapons
lab. 

"We will look at every business opportunity as it comes
forward," said company spokeswoman Wendy Owen. "At this time
it's just too early to speculate on what we may or may not
choose to do related to the Livermore contract." 

UC has managed Lawrence Livermore Lab for the DOE and its
predecessors since the lab opened its doors in 1952. The
university had also run Los Alamos and Berkeley laps since their
creation and had never been forced to compete for the contracts. 

Following a string of accounting, security and safety lapses at
the two nuclear labs, Los Alamos and Livermore, the DOE was
prompted in 2003 to put all three of UC's contracts up for bid
along with several other sites whose contracts had been held by
the same manager for 50 years or more. 

The problems at Los Alamos lab under UC's watch reached a climax
in July 2004 when the lab reported two classified computer disks
had gone missing. The incident triggered intense scrutiny from
lawmakers and the press and led to a complete shutdown of the
lab and eventually a DOE-wide stand-down of all operations
involving classified removable electronic media. 

UC brought Bechtel on board to help allay concerns about its
ability to safely and securely manage Los Alamos. The new team
is in a six-month transition period and will formally take the
reins on June 1. 

Betsy Mason covers science and the national laboratories. Reach
her at 925-847-2158 or bmason@cctimes.com. email this print

*****************************************************************
 47 DOE: DOE Technology Supports Upcoming NASA Mission to Pluto

  January 13, 2006
 
WASHINGTON, DC - When the New Horizons spacecraft is launched on
Tuesday, January 17, 2006, on a mission to Pluto and its moon
Charon, it will be powered by deep space battery technology
developed by the Department of Energys Idaho, Oak Ridge and Los
Alamos national laboratories.  

This technology will play a key role in the first NASA mission to 
the last planet in our solar system.   

This technology is a tremendous example of how DOEs national 
laboratories are helping to significantly expand scientific 
research and discovery, said Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. 

Because of our outstanding scientists and engineers at our 
national labs, the sky truly is the limit.   

Each laboratory played an integral role in the development, 
assembly and testing of a radioisotope thermoelectric generator 
or RTG -- a power system or space battery that provides an 
uninterrupted and reliable source of heat and electricity in 
remote and harsh environments such as deep space.  The RTG will 
provide power and heat to the New Horizons spacecraft and 
on-board scientific equipment through the radioactive decay of 
nuclear material.  

The heat generated by this nuclear material is converted into 
electricity by solid-state thermoelectrics. RTGs, which have been 
used by NASA for nearly forty years, enable spacecraft to operate 
at significant distances from the Sun or in other areas where 
remote solar power systems would not be feasible.   

Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed and fabricated the 
material used to encapsulate the plutonium; Los Alamos National 
Laboratory purified, pelletized into a ceramic form and 
encapsulated the plutonium; and Idaho National Laboratory 
assembled and tested the RTG and safely delivered the 
flight-ready RTG to the Kennedy Space Center.    

The launch window for New Horizons opens on January 17, according 
to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  

New Horizons will cross the entire span of the solar system  in 
record time  and conduct flyby studies of Pluto and its moon in 
2015.  For more details on the New Horizons mission, visit the 
NASA web site at http://www.nasa.gov/.   

Additional information on the departments role in developing 
nuclear energy technologies for space exploration may be found at 
the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technologys web site, 
http://www.nuclear.gov/. 

Media contact(s): Michael Waldron, 202/586-4940     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 | 
*****************************************************************
 48 New Mexican: Domenici: LANL can't become 'endangered species'        

 Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:25 pm                                                                                                      

  U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., signals a backhoe to break
ground on the lab�s new Chemistry and Metallurgy Research
Facility, an $850 million project to house a �state of the art
nuclear laboratory.� Domenici rallied lab scientists and said
the country must double its investment in basic scientific
research and education.      

By ANDY LENDERMAN | 

LOS ALAMOS -- The senator rallied scientists, rapped federal 
bureaucrats and broke ground on an $850 million construction 
project Thursday.

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he wants the future of Los 
Alamos National Laboratory to be one that's more scientific and 
less regulated for scientists in a speech to employees.

"I can't tell you how many scientists have asked me to find a
way to let them do their job," Domenici said. "The biggest
complaint I've had from scientists is that somehow or another
they spend too much time doing things that are not their job, as
they see it."

Thursday's visit was Domenici's first since a new contractor,
Los Alamos National Security LLC, was picked to manage the
nuclear weapons lab by the U.S. Department of Energy. He
stressed that the lab must develop young scientists and make the
lab a desirable place for scientists to work.

"This laboratory is critical, just as it was in World War II,
and it continues to be that today," Domenici said. "You can't
allow people like you, institutions like this, to become some
kind of endangered species. The future success of this lab will
depend on whether we are successful in educating a new
generation of scientists."

He mentioned an effort he's pushing in Congress, with U.S. Sen. 
Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., to double the federal investment in basic 
scientific research and education.

"We don't want anybody to be second-guessing which is the
greatest science laboratory in the world," Domenici said.

Domenici also said that the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which oversees the lab for the government, must
be part of the lab's new direction.

Created by Congress in 1999, the NNSA is a semiautonomous agency
within the Department of Energy. It oversees the lab on issues
regarding safety, security and the environment.

"It was intended to improve operations, to minimize
strangulation of regulation, so that you could better execute
the national mission," Domenici said. "It was intended to rid
you of some of DOE's regulations if they were not terribly
relevant. ... I guess it's fair to say that to this point that
it's not turned out quite like intended."

Domenici declined to elaborate on his concerns when interviewed
later.

Later Thursday, Domenici broke ground on the lab's new Chemistry
and Metallurgy Research Facility, an $850 million project to
house a "state of the art nuclear laboratory."

Domenici said it was the largest building project ever
undertaken by the Department of Energy.

"Without what goes on in this building, the existing (nuclear
weapons) stockpile cannot be certified ... and the state of the
stockpile cannot be verified," Domenici said.

He also discussed some of the reaction in Congress to the new
lab manager. U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has criticized the
new team because it includes the University of California.

"I responded with a very simple sentence," Domenici said. "Texas
did not get it."

Contact Andy Lenderman 

at 995-3827 or, via e-mail, 

at alenderman@

http://sfnewmexican.com.		 	   	 	 	 			
 		   			 		   	 		 						
*****************************************************************
 49 lamonitor.com: County water wells could fall in path of chromium 

The Online News Source for Los Alamos
 
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor

SANTA FE - Two county wells that produce drinking water lie
roughly downslope from the test well where elevated levels of
chromium have been found, according to Los Alamos National
Laboratory's hydrological maps. 
But in the geological maze of the Pajarito Plateau, downhill
isn't always what it seems.

"Just because the ground surface slopes in a certain direction,
does not mean that the ground water underneath flows in the same
direction," said Tim Glasco, Los Alamos County deputy utilities
manager. 

There are still reasons to be watchful.

The nearest "down-gradient" well is PM-3. Located in Sandia
Canyon, less than a mile east of test well R-28 in Mortandad
Canyon, PM-3 will be sampled next week on an accelerated basis,
lab officials said Thursday, just to be on the safe side. 
"We've got six water production wells that basically ring this
site (R-28), some are closer than others, but they're all less
than two miles," Glasco said. "We pump those wells at different
amounts of pumping. The more you pump you can actually create a
groundwater gradient toward that well."

Annual tests for chromium in three of the county's water
production wells have been accelerated to quarterly tests, and
PM-3 will be given an even earlier check - next week - said Jean
Dewart, program manager for pathways protection at the
laboratory. 
She gave a presentation Friday to a committee of the Northern
New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board. A team of water monitors
from the laboratory and Department of Energy shared what they
know so far about the chromium findings and possible sources
from locations and historic operations at LANL. They also
outlined what they planned to do in the near term to comply with
an order from NMED to "aggressively characterize the nature and
extent of the contamination" within 90 days.

Effluents from water-cooling towers, sources in Sandia and
Mortandad canyons and an old electroplating shop in the Sigma
building are among possible sources that have not been ruled
out, said Dewart.

The investigators will rely on microscopic clues in the
geochemistry of the water to link chemical signatures with
possible sources and look for leading indicators in surrounding
test wells, including some that lie between R-28 and the
county's water production wells.

New tests, beginning next week, will include an analysis that
can distinguish hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, from a less
soluble and more naturally occurring form known as trivalent
chromium, or chromium-3.

The most recent reading of 420 parts per billion at the R-28
well simply measures all the chromium, divided into soluble and
insoluble amounts. Both state and federal standards (50 ppb and
100 ppb respectively) make no distinction between the types of
chromium in setting limits, but chromium-6 is considered to be
the most harmful to humans.

If the chromium came from laboratory sources, state and
laboratory scientists say, it would be the highest level of a
laboratory contaminant yet found in the regional aquifer, the
deep reservoir of ground water, 900 feet or so under Los Alamos
National Laboratory.

There is also the deeper concern, voiced by the state regulators
and others, about what additional hazardous contaminants or
radioactive materials might be finding their way down there.

"You have got to get a handle on this, if you have movement of
this stuff. You're right on the edge and water is the most
important thing in New Mexico," said Kenn Riordan, a member of
the Environmental Monitoring, Surveillance and Remediation
Committee, during the presentation.

The monitoring program has struggled lately with criticism that
its well-drilling and sampling program is not providing
representative data.

Well R-28, however, where LANL investigators found the chromium,
is a more recent installation. It is considered to be one of the
most reliable of the test wells for generating trustworthy data,
said Patrick Longmire, a laboratory geochemist.

NNMCAB Chairman J.D. Campbell has drafted several
recommendations that are under consideration by the NNMCAB for
DOE on the lab's groundwater monitoring program. Among them is a
call for a facilitated multi-agency task force, which would
include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, LANL, DOE, and
representatives from the U.S. Geological Survey and the state
equivalent.

The recommendation was inspired, he said, by the progress that
has been seen in the last 18 months, when the major players work
jointly together on the very complicated set of issues that need
to be resolved collectively.   

  � 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.   
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 50 Chicago Maroon: New DOE guidelines intensify race for Argonne

The independent student newspaper of the University of Chicago 
 
By Isaac Wolf
 
January 13, 2006 in News

The University�s effort to keep Argonne management rights
intensified last week as the federal government released
stewardship guidelines for the lab. 

The outline, formally called a Request for Proposal, represents
the Department of Energy�s (DOE) changing requirements for
running Argonne, and could reflect weaknesses in the
University�s current efforts or long-term expectation changes
from the Department of Energy. 

One main change is the DOE�s call for a new corporate body to
oversee Argonne, according to University Vice President Thomas
Rosenbaum. �This appears to be the model that DOE is moving
towards throughout the national laboratory system,� Rosenbaum
said. 

The proposal also increases Argonne�s yearly management stipend
from $3.5 million to $5.8 million. That increase would make
Argonne more attractive to firms interested in the
half-billion-dollar-a-year lab, which is located about 25 miles
from the Chicago loop and focuses on high level physics,
chemistry, and energy. 

To�Rosenbaum, the new management guidelines appropriately
balance science and management expectations. Responding to the
new guidelines, Rosenbaum said, �We are concentrating on
producing a proposal that will permit us to exceed [the DOE�s]
expectations.� 

According to a press release from the University news office,
the U of C has partnered with BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) to
bid on the contract for Argonne. BWXT, which provides management
and operations support at nine DOE sites, is a well known leader
in the industry of nuclear facilities operations. BWXT shares
the University�s goals in the future management of Argonne. The
University has managed Argonne since its creation in 1946, but
the current contract expires this September. 

Helping to drive the University�s effort to create a superlative
Argonne management proposal is the competition it faces for the
lab. Firms vying for Argonne include Battelle, the
not-for-profit group that manages five national laboratories. In
February 2005, Battelle took over the University of Chicago�s
management of Argonne West, the lab in Idaho. 

Widespread mismanagement of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
by the University of California system led to a January 2004
decision to put Argonne and four other university-run labs up
for competitive bidding. 

While Battelle is considered the University�s most formidable
competition for Argonne, some of the group�s labs have come
under scrutiny for security and safety problems. At Oak Ridge,
the Battelle lab in Tennessee, nuclear facilities were grossly
unsecured, according to security analysts. 

Ronald Timm and Peter Stockton, both national security analysts
and former federal employees, visited Oak Ridge in September
2005 to learn about the lab�s security on behalf of the Project
on Government Oversight, a Washington, D.C. think-tank. 

After the two had an unsatisfactory glimpse�Timm said they
received a �9th grade science tour��they decided to take matters
into their own hands: They would test the lab�s security by
penetrating the Oak Ridge campus as far as security would allow. 

Driving around Oak Ridge, the two stopped to get directions to
the building with Uranium-233, Timm said. When they arrived at
the building, the two security guards on the premises drove
away. 

Timm and Stockton parked within 10 feet of the building and
spent 20 minutes walking around before security officers and
suited Battelle officials stopped them, Timm said. 

�It was poor security,� Timm said. �From my experience testing
facilities, this was not the cream of the crop. And this was not
standard procedure of how to secure a nuclear site.� 

Oak Ridge spokesman Walter Perry disputed Timm�s claim, saying
that the car had been parked in front a building that did not
have nuclear materials and the two visitors were on sidewalks
accessible to anyone on the lab campus. 

Asked if Oak Ridge has ordered broad security review, Perry said
the lab does not reveal its practices. �We are always reviewing
our security practices to ensure our facilities and the
employees who work in them are well protected,� he said. �One
can rest assured that we are, and will always be, well prepared
to deal with any adversaries.� 

Another Battelle-run lab, Brookhaven, located in Long Island,
New York, is also facing criticism. In the DOE�s 2004 annual
evaluation, Brookhaven was reprimanded with a �marginal� rating
for its �Safety and Health� performance. 

In the report, the DOE charged that Brookhaven�s safety
improvements included too much �low lying fruit,� with
management �choosing not to select the more difficult tasks such
as culture change, incident investigation, corrective actions,
skill of the craft, etc.� 

Responding to the report in a May 2005 letter, Brookhaven
Director Praveen Chaudhari wrote that Brookhaven is striving to
lower the rate of injuries. E-mail this article-->Send a letter
to the editor Permanent URL:

http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/articles/2006/01/13/new_doe_guide
lines_i.php 

Copyright � 1995-2005 Chicago Maroon 
    
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