*****************************************************************
03/06/06 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 14.55
*****************************************************************
RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE
*****************************************************************
Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject
line and first line of body
NUCLEAR POLICY
1 UN Atomic Chief Sees No Breakthrough At Meeting On Iran's Nuclear Pr
2 [southnews] Pakistan opposes US military strike on Iran
3 IRNA: Iran envoy says nuclear talks still continuing -
4 IRNA: Iran to revise nuclear policies if IAEA used instrumentally -
5 IRNA: IAEA's afternoon session opens in Vienna
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Issues Warning Ahead of IAEA Meeting
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Dismisses Talk of Compromise on Iran
8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Optimistic on Iran Nuke Program Deal
9 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Watchdog: Iran Deal Could Be Imminent
10 BBC: US will not soften policy on Iran
11 BBC: IAEA defiance, hope in Iran press
12 IRNA: Iran envoy says nuclear talks still continuing
13 IRNA: Iran's envoy to IAEA - Talks on nuclear dossier still continue
14 AFP: UN nuclear chief hopes for fresh Iran nuclear talks
15 IRNA: Public prosecutor underlines Iran's right to nuclear energy -
16 IRNA: Iran-Russia talks fail to produce agreement - Elham
17 IRNA: IAEA-ElBaradei-Iran /WRD Elbaradei hopes Iran negotiations lea
18 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-India Nuke Deal May Hurt NKorea Talks
19 Korea Herald: Korean, U.S. chief nuclear envoys meet
20 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Six-party talks officials hold airport meetin
21 US: [NYTr] US to Double Nuke Sub Fleet to Counter Chinese "Threat"
22 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-India Nuke Deal May Hurt NKorea Talks
23 Deseret News: Bush's tightrope
24 Bellona: US Report: US-Russia relations deteriorating
25 BBC: Two standards question for Bush
26 IPS: U.S.: Nuclear Pact with India Seen as Surrender
27 [southnews] World in peril, Chomsky tells overflow crowd
28 Independent: Scientists in revolt against cuts that will undermine B
NUCLEAR REACTORS
29 [NukeNet] Scotland: Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and
30 Despite Progress, Nuclear Reactor Safety Still Falls Short - UN Atom
31 Climate: 'No quick fix' from nuclear power says government
32 US: Vermont Guardian: NRC denies last-ditch bid to stall uprate
33 Moscow Times: Nuclear Industry Overhaul Planned
34 Guardian Unlimited: Don't build nuclear plants, green advisers tell
35 au ABC: NT Land Council to tour Lucas Heights reactor
36 Czech Business Weekly: New energy in politics vs. politics of energy
37 Czech Business Weekly: The atomic age
38 US: newsobserver.com: Energy realities
39 US: NRC: NRC Issues Annual Assessments for Nation’s Nuclear Plants
40 BBC: 'No quick fix' from nuclear power
41 The Herald: Majority of Scots oppose nuclear power
42 Independent: Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown afte
43 Independent: Analysis: Porritt whispers in PM's ear with all the for
44 US: Rutland Herald: Guinea pigs lack nuclear answers
45 ISN Security Watch: France to develop Libya’s nuclear technology
46 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Meeting on Planning an
47 US: NRC: Fire Protection Program
48 US: NRC: PSEG Nuclear LLC; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of
49 US: NRC: Groundwater Contamination (Tritium) at Nuclear Plants
50 US: Wisconsin State Journal: Build on momentum for cleaner energy
51 US: NRC: Regulatory Information Conference
52 ITAR-TASS: United Russia urges government to finish construction of
53 US: KPHO Phoenix: One Reactor Down at Palo Verde Nuclear Plant
54 US: PittsburghLIVE.com: B nuke settlement still on hold -
55 UPI: U.K. warned against nuclear 'quick fix'
56 Sofia Morning News: Prosecutor's Office to Probe Ex Chief of Bulgari
57 US: Vermont Guardian: Feds put Vermont Yankee uprate on hold due to
58 Technology Review: The Impact of Emerging Technologies - New Nukes i
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
59 [toeslist] Enviro/War - UK Radiation
60 [du-list] A Depleted Uranium Victim (iraq) Speaks Out
61 [DU Information List] The Queen's Death Star: Depleted Uranium
62 US: [du-list] US leak sparks debate about the risks from exposure
63 US: Lompoc Record: Jet Fuel truck to Vandenberg AFB spills 7,500 gal
64 US: NRC: Notice of License Amendment Request of BWX Technologies, In
65 Scoop: Depleted Uranium: email to Australian senators
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
66 US: [NukeNet] Navajo Nation's Ongoing Battle vs. Uranium Mining
67 Guardian Unlimited: Russia Seeks Enrichment Limits for Iran
68 US: newsobserver.com: Converting plutonium taking longer than expect
69 Belona: Public hearings on Leningrad NPP dry storage to be held post
70 Las Vegas SUN: Getting to the bottom of Yucca Mountain
71 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: A different take on Yucca Mountain
72 US: NRC: Request for a License to Import Radioactive Waste
73 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Radiation standards a farce
74 Las Vegas SUN: Jon Ralston offers advice to keep Dawn Gibbons
75 Platts: Yucca Mountain faces challenges says former Energy Dept. off
76 US: PoughkeepsieJournal.com: Reactor waste moves official to call me
77 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Tooele turns away radioactive waste
PEACE
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
78 DOE: New CO2 Enhanced Recovery Technology Could Greatly Boost U.S. O
79 Janet L. Westbrook: An ORNL Whistleblower Story
80 lamonitor.com: Water issues face national scrutiny
81 WBIR.COM: Millions being spent for special nuclear materials cartons
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
FULL NEWS STORIES
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
1 UN Atomic Chief Sees No Breakthrough At Meeting On Iran's Nuclear Programme
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 10:00:35 -0500
UN ATOMIC CHIEF SEES NO BREAKTHROUGH AT MEETING ON IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAMME
New York, Mar 6 2006 10:00AM
The head of the United Nations agency entrusted with curbing the
spread of nuclear weapons said today he did not expect any “breakthrough”
or “positive agreement” on Iran’s nuclear programme at the
current meeting of the atomic watchdog’s Board of Governors now
“Unfortunately the picture is still hazy as to the scope and nature
of Iran's nuclear programme,” International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters before
formally presenting his latest report to the Board.
He said IAEA had not seen indications of diversion of nuclear material
to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices during
its inspections.
But he warned that there were still a number of “important uncertainties”
that need to be clarified about the programme, which has
been a matter of international concern ever since the discovery
in 2003 that Iran had concealed its nuclear activities for 18 years
in breach of its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).
“I do not expect the Board to adopt a resolution on the Iranian issue
unless there is a breakthrough and unless there is a positive
agreement,” Mr. ElBaradei said. “As things stand I do not expect
the Board to adopt a resolution.”
He added that as requested by the Board in February he would transmit
his latest report to the Security Council, which has the power
to impose economic sanctions. “There is universal recognition
that this is an issue of serious implication to international peace
and security,” he stressed. “The whole Middle East security is
very much at stake.”
Iran says its activities are solely for peaceful energy purposes
but the United States and other countries insist that it is clandestinely
seeking to produce nuclear weapons. In August Iran rescinded
its voluntary suspension of nuclear fuel conversion, which can
produce the enriched uranium necessary either for nuclear power
generation or for nuclear weapons.
As he has repeatedly over the past three years, Mr. ElBaradei called
on Iran to provide “maximum transparency,” urging it to again
freeze its research and development activities until a solution
is found.
“Regrettably, however, after three years of intensive verification,
there remain uncertainties with regard to both the scope and the
nature of Iran's nuclear programme,” he said in formally presenting
the report to the Board.
“As I mentioned in my report, this is a matter of concern that continues
to give rise to questions about the past and current direction
of Iran's nuclear programme. For confidence to be built in
the peaceful nature of Iran's programme, Iran should do its utmost
to provide maximum transparency and build confidence.”
But he also warned against confrontation. “The only solution I see
is a comprehensive agreement that covers the nuclear issue, the
security issue, the economic issue and political issue,” he told
reporters. “Confrontation could be counterproductive. It would not
provide us with a durable solution.
“The earlier that we bring the parties back to the negotiating table
the better for everybody. Meantime I call on all parties to exercise
maximum restraint in their public statements.”
2006-03-06 00:00:00.000
________________
For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/
*****************************************************************
2 [southnews] Pakistan opposes US military strike on Iran
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 01:25:52 -0600 (CST)
AFP 30 minutes ago
Pakistan would oppose any military action taken by its ally the United
States against Iran over its disputed nuclear program, Pakistani Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz said.
"Pakistan's view is that there should not be any military intervention
and we would certainly not be party to any such action," Aziz told BBC
television late Monday during a visit to London.
The BBC had asked him about Washington's refusal to rule out military
action against Iran's nuclear program which US and European diplomats
fear may be used for nuclear weapons. Iran insists it is peaceful.
He said Pakistan has always supported a diplomatic solution to the
crisis over Iran's uranium enrichment program, especially through the
forum of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.
"We think Iran should not proliferate. We're against production of any
nuclear weapons in the region. We think Iran does have the right to use
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under IAEA safeguards and
guidelines," he said.
"We also feel negotiation is the way to go and we oppose any armed
conflict in the region to settle the matter," he said.
"We remain cautiously optimistic that they (negotiations) will produce
results," he said.
Unlike Iran, Pakistan was entitled to build a nuclear bomb once India
set off such a weapon in 1974, he said.
"Once this happened ... we had to create a minimal credible deterrence
to ensure peace in south Asia. In Iran's case, we believe this is not
necessary," he said.
Aziz was in London for a two-day "Asia 2015: Promoting Growth, Ending
Poverty" meeting, which gathered some 150 delegates from the worlds of
politics, business and civil society.
__________________________________
Iran Might Face Tangible Consequences if Nuclear Threat Persists
Solutions will be more difficult if action is delayed, U.N. envoy Bolton
says
Washington -- If Iran's government continues seeking nuclear weapons, it
will face "tangible and painful consequences," warned John Bolton, U.S.
representative to the United Nations.
"Given the comprehensive nature of the threat, we must be prepared to
rely on comprehensive solutions and use all tools at our disposal to
stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses," Bolton told participants
at a policy conference sponsored by the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee March 5 in Washington.
Bolton said Iran's pattern of diplomatic "doublespeak" with European and
Russian negotiators over its nuclear program reveals the regime's true
intent to develop nuclear weapons (See related article.)
He said it is critical for the matter to come before the U.N. Security
Council to help mobilize international public opinion.
"Alternatively," the ambassador said, "if Iran follows the course of
Libya and makes the strategic decision that the pursuit of weapons of
mass destruction, the sponsorship of terror and the oppression of its
people makes it less, not more secure, then relations with the outside
world can improve dramatically."
Bolton's speech came a day before the International Atomic Energy Agency
meets to forward its latest findings on Iran's nuclear activities to the
U.N. Security Council (See related article.)
In his speech, Bolton also discussed U.S. efforts to counter the Iranian
regime's sponsorship of terrorists in the region and U.S. initiatives to
support freedom and human rights in Iran as a means to counter Iran's
repression of domestic political opposition.
"The longer we wait to confront the [nuclear] threat Iran poses, the
harder and more intractable it will become to solve," he said.
For additional information on U.S. policy, see Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation.
Following is the transcript of the ambassador's remarks:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
SPEECH BY THE HONORABLE JOHN R. BOLTON
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS
DELIVERED TO THE AIPAC POLICY CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON D.C.
MARCH 5, 2006
THE GROWING THREAT OF THE IRANIAN REGIME
INTRODUCTION
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, I would like to thank you
for inviting me here to address this year's Policy Conference. Your
work to help to raise awareness and inform debates on issues vital to
the national security of both the United States and Israel is a major
and important contribution. No doubt some of the issues you will be
tackling here over the next two days are amongst the most seemingly
intractable, but that is all the more reason why they are the most
appropriate, indeed crucial ones to discuss. The work you do to help to
promote the peace and prosperity of Israel and to strengthen the ties
that bind our nations helps to cement our rock-solid alliance -- one
that will never allow the state of Israel, as some have suggested, to be
"wiped off the map".
I wish that I could stand before you here today and say that in the year
2006, we have not observed some very troubling developments. Sadly, it
seems that we have traveled back in time in some ways: back to a time
when a world leader trumpets the call of war and openly calls for the
destruction of the state of Israel; back to a time when this same leader
brazenly and with shocking ignorance questions the horrors that unfolded
with the Holocaust.
While Mr. Ahmadi-nejad, president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has
clearly failed his lessons in history, indulge me a moment if you will
to offer him up at least one lesson on current events: our commitment
to Israel's security and the alliance between the United States and
Israel are unshakeable. The work AIPAC has done to forge and strengthen
those ties should serve as a powerful reminder to any leader now or in
the future that, simply put, there will be no destruction of the state
of Israel.
While there is no doubt that the question of Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons is first and foremost on people's minds, and rightly so, the
problem runs deeper. As Secretary Rice recently noted in her testimony
on Capitol Hill, "we have a comprehensive view of the threat that Iran
poses." It is not just that the regime is seeking to develop nuclear
weapons, but that it is also the world's leading state sponsor of
terrorism and is working to destabilize the region to advance its
ideological ambitions. It is not just the external threat that worries
us, but the fact that Iranian government oppresses its own people,
denying them basic liberties and human rights.
Given the comprehensive nature of the threat, we must be prepared to
rely on comprehensive solutions and use all tools at our disposal to
stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses. It was with this in mind
that Secretary Rice noted that, "The United States will actively
confront the aggressive policies of this Iranian regime. And at the
same time, we are going to work to support the aspirations of the
Iranian people for freedom in their own country."
IRAN'S PURSUIT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
No doubt the primary threat that Israel and the United States face from
the Iran regime is its clear and unrelenting drive to acquire nuclear
weapons and the means to deliver those weapons. For years the
international community has been hearing of the mounting and voluminous
evidence -- confirmed by IAEA inspectors -- of Iran's deception and
denial in violation of its treaty obligations with the IAEA and
international community. Through intense diplomatic work, the IAEA
Board of Governors has finally reported Iran's failure to allay concerns
about the nature of its nuclear program to the United Nations Security
Council, a step it would have been fully justified in taking several
years ago, but that was postponed in the hope that Iran would choose
cooperation over confrontation. Thus far, this hope has been in vain.
I find it deeply ironic that the United States is so often accused of
aggressive unilateralism when we have been the ones pursuing
multilateral efforts through the IAEA, including in conjunction with the
EU3 and the Russians, and now the United Nations. Following the
conclusion of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting that will begin
tomorrow in Vienna, Director General ElBaradei will convey to the
Security Council his latest report on Iran's nuclear activities. The
longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more
intractable it will become to solve.
This is not to say that we do not support the ongoing diplomatic efforts
by the British, French, and Germans -- or EU-3 as we call them -- and
the Russians, but we must not ignore Tehran's refusal to address the
concerns of the international community. For over two years, the EU-3
has engaged in active diplomacy with Tehran and presented one reasonable
proposal after another. The mullahs in Iran accepted these agreements
reached in Paris and then unilaterally broke the agreement by resuming
uranium conversion work last fall. In the case of the ongoing
negotiations with the Russians, we are observing double-speak on the
part of the Iranian regime. With one voice, they are saying that they
welcome the discussions with the Russian Federation and view it as a
possible solution to the impasse. With another voice, though, they are
flatly refusing to consider the core condition that Russia, the EU-3 and
we would require -- namely that Iran give up access to the technology
and materials that would enable them to have indigenous capability -- a
nuclear fuel cycle -- to develop nuclear weapons.
The government of Tehran's trumpeting of its right to a civil peaceful
nuclear program is a canard. The Russian proposal enables the Iranians
to reap the benefits of civil nuclear power while addressing concerns
that they are really pursuing nuclear weapons. The EU3 proposal even
opened the possibility of technical cooperation on nuclear power. As the
President has said, we do not oppose Iran enjoying the benefits of
peaceful, safeguarded nuclear energy. It is clear, however, that Iran's
pursuit of the nuclear fuel cycle is neither peaceful nor for nuclear
energy. Frankly, Iran's track record justifies this fear. As the
resolution passed by the IAEA Board of Governors notes, there have been
"many failures and breaches of its obligations to comply with its NPT
Safeguards Agreement." Put differently, with rights come
responsibilities -- responsibilities that Iran has not come close to
meeting.
It is unclear exactly how events will play out once the Security Council
takes up the agenda item of Iran. As a number of officials, myself
included, have noted earlier, there are a range of options available.
Letting it languish, however, is not one of them. Failure by the
Security Council to act on this matter would be a highly detrimental
abrogation of the duties it is charged with under the UN Charter.
Forgive my moment of facetiousness when dealing with a matter literally
of life and death, but if the pursuit of nuclear weapons by a state with
a leader who calls for another to be "wiped off the map" is not
considered a threat to international peace and security, I daresay one
must ask -- what is? The Security Council should take due note that
failure to act in a timely manner and with a seriousness of purpose will
do lasting damage to the credibility of the Council.
The Security Council will likely take a graduated approach to dealing
with this issue, but it is critical that we use the Council to help
mobilize international public opinion. Rest assured, though, we are not
relying on the Security Council as the only tool in our toolbox to
address this problem. In addition to our diplomatic efforts at the
IAEA, the UN Security Council, and bilaterally, we are beefing up our
defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat. As
Secretary Rice has stated, "In conjunction with our multilateral
diplomacy, the United States will develop sensible measures, security
measures, including looking further at our Proliferation Security
Initiative and those who cooperate with us to try and deny to regimes
like Iran, North Korea and others the materials for covert programs that
threaten the international system."
This combined pressure, we hope, will persuade the Iranian regime to
make the strategic decision to forego their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Unlike North Korea, the Iranian people have many ties to the world,
whether economic, social, or cultural. We must use those ties to help
to raise the pressure on the Iranian regime. The United States already
imposes numerous bilateral sanctions on Iran, and while it is too soon
to begin sanctions by the Security Council, it is noteworthy that many
other governments around the world have begun to include the word
"sanctions" in their discourse when discussing Iran. The Iran regime
must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international
isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences.
Alternatively, if Iran follows the course of Libya and makes the
strategic decision that the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the
sponsorship of terror and the oppression of its people makes it less,
not more secure, then relations with the outside world can improve
dramatically. Thus, the question of how far the Security Council will
go, and whether it eventually will have to consider the imposition of
sanctions, or the extent to which we need to develop defensive measures
against Iran, is really a question for Mr. Ahmadi-nejad and the Iranian
regime to answer.
PROMOTING DEMOCRACY IN IRAN
Sadly, the signals coming from the new President -- note I did not say
freely elected President -- are not encouraging; indeed, they are
outright hostile. There is no doubt that the pursuit of nuclear weapons
by Iran's regime has taken on greater salience given the behavior that
these autocrats have displayed in other regards. Iran has long been a
rogue state as the world's leading state sponsor and funder of
terrorism. The "election" of Ahmadi-nejad has only deepened the Iran
regime's isolation and heightened tensions in the region. I must admit
that it is somewhat surreal to hear coming out the mouth of a world
leader rhetoric that we thought had been relegated to the dustbin of
history. It's not just conferences or sponsoring cartoon competitions
calling into question the Holocaust, it is their overt and increasingly
vocal support of terrorist organizations that is profoundly disturbing.
To see the Iranian President go to Damascus and hold a summit meeting
with leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas as well as the leaders of Syria can
not but raise considerable concern about his intentions.
Let there be no misunderstanding, though: as President Bush and
Secretary Rice made clear, since September 11th, the U.S. has been a
nation at war, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel and others
in the region in this fight against terrorism. It is not just a
question for the United States and Israel to consider, however.
Obviously, the threat that Iran poses to Israel is palpably clear, but
it is not just Israel that is threatened. Iran continues to actively
support forces that would tear Lebanon apart. And we continue to
observe an ongoing pattern on the part of the Iran regime to interfere
with our efforts to support the democratic transition in Iraq. While
Iran used to view the regime of Saddam Hussein as a threat to its
security -- they now have a different, and frankly, far more dangerous
foe -- democracy. Iran is not like North Korea where the populace has
little access to outside information. The Iranian people are all too
aware that the Iraqis were able to vote for candidates who did not have
to pass litmus tests by a council of Mullahs.
For it is the people of Iran that our combined efforts must work
together to bolster. As Secretary Rice noted, "the United States wishes
to reach out to the Iranian people and support their desire to realize
their own freedom and to secure their own democratic and human rights.
The Iranian people should know that the United States fully supports
their aspirations for a freer, better future."
The U.S. has an ongoing and active campaign to support the cause of
freedom and human rights in Iran. I am pleased to note, too, that we
are devoting more resources to this effort. The Administration has
requested $75 million in supplemental funding in 2006 to support
democracy in Iran. This is up from the $10 million we used last year to
develop support networks for Iranian reformers, political dissidents and
human rights activists. Secretary Rice also recently testified before
Congress that she intends to notify it of a request to reprogram
additional funding in this regard.
These funds would be targeted to a variety of projects to increase our
support for the development of civil society in Iran. Examples include
improving our radio broadcasting and satellite television broadcasts.
We also intend to support Internet and other efforts to reach the
Iranian public with $5 million in funding for public diplomacy. We will
also support the development of independent Farsi television and radio.
We are working to build other bridges as well. We are working with the
Treasury Department to overcome U.S. regulatory restrictions to allow
the U.S. Government to make grants to nongovernmental organizations for
democracy promotion activities in Iran. We want to expand our
educational exchanges with the young people of Iran who have never
experienced democracy. At the highpoint at the end of 1970s, in 1979,
51,000 Iranians studied in the United States. That figure shrunk to
only 2,231 in 2004. As Secretary Rice noted, "We must change this and
we will and we are beginning a new effort to dramatically increase the
number of Iranians who can come to study in America, the number of
Iranian professionals who wish to visit. I've said on a number of
occasions that I've read that it is forbidden in some quarters to play
Beethoven and Mozart in Tehran; we hope that Iranians can play it in New
York or in Los Angeles."
CONCLUSION
For several years, President Bush has made clear that the nexus between
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction is the primary threat to
international peace and security facing the world today. Unfortunately,
the developments in Iran, particularly over the course of the past year,
only reinforce this view. While September 11th was a wake-up call for
many here in the United States, we know that Israel has been receiving
those painful calls now for decades. Whether it was wars, suicide
bombings, hijackings or kidnappings, the constant threat that the state
of Israel has been under serves as a painful reminder that we must
remain vigilant. I wish that I could stand before you today and suggest
that the threat is lower today than it was before. I cannot do so in
good conscience.
I know that over the next few days you have assembled an unprecedently
qualified group of individuals to discuss the threat that Iran poses to
Israel, the region, and indeed, international peace and security. I am
deeply humbled and honored to have been invited to address you here
today at your opening session and I look forward to hearing from you and
the results of this conference.
I sometimes find it an odd question because to me the answer is so
strikingly simple, but I have been asked before why I remain so strongly
committed to the protection, preservation and prosperity of Israel. My
answer is straightforward: unlike Mr. Ahmadi-nejad, I know my history.
Whether from school, or more poignantly and heart-breakingly, from the
stories of survivors of the Holocaust, I know what can happen when we
turn a blind eye to tyranny, whether it manifests itself as fascism or,
in this case, as totalitarianism. Many of you here in this room are
responsible for helping me, indeed all Americans, to understand this
undeniable truth. But know that I will do what I can to continue to
fight anti-Semitism in whatever form it takes, and wherever it happens,
including at the United Nations. As it turns out, and as you well know,
my current position lends itself well to such a fight. Your unrelenting
and constant support, though, has been indispensable in our mutual fight
for what we cherish most -- freedom and democracy. For that, I thank you.
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
3 IRNA: Iran envoy says nuclear talks still continuing -
Vienna, March 6, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-Talks
Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, said here Monday that
negotiations are still underway, stressing the door to resolve
the case has not been closed.
Soltaniyeh told IRNA on the sidelines of the winter session of
the IAEA Board of Governors: We have presented our proposal to
the European states and Russia. "They should think about it. We
are waiting for their reaction."
"We can show no flexibility on nuclear research. It is the
right of any country that its scientists will conduct research,"
he said.
The Iranian envoy said, "It is impossible for Iran to suspend
its research and development because the previous resolution of
the IAEA (were) passed following Tehran's research studies.
"We will continue research and development, on the other hand,
ready to discuss issues, we will do our best to prove our
cooperation was positive and our nuclear program is civilian,"
he added.
*****************************************************************
4 IRNA: Iran to revise nuclear policies if IAEA used instrumentally - Ahmadinejad -
, March 6, IRNA
--
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Monday that Iran
would revise its nuclear policies if the IAEA would serve as an
instrument in the hands of a few covetous powers.
Speaking at his cabinet session the president meanwhile
expressed hope that the International Atomic Energy Agency's
Board of Governors would in its ongoing seasonal session adopt
"an appropriate decision." According to the Presidential Office
Media Department, the President said, "We hope our assumption
that some international organizations are being used by a few
gluttonous powers instrumentally would not come true about the
IAEA, because otherwise we would revise our policies."
Ahmadinejad said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran has many times
quite clearly and transparently declared for the international
community its absolute right to have access to nuclear energy
for peaceful purposes."
He added, "In line with its trust building policy, Tehran
voluntarily suspended all it research and development (R)
activities for two and a half, to three years and it is stated
in Agency's report, too, that the Islamic Republic of Iran has
not deviated from peaceful activities in any case."
The President added, "Today the Agency and all those who urged
us to suspend those activities have to remunerate our losses in
scientific, technological, and economic fields."
Ahmadinejad said, "In accordance with the articles of
international treaties and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT), both the IAEA, and all countries that have access to
nuclear technology, are obliged to offer all kinds of needed
cooperation to Iran to gain access to nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes." He added, "Relying on the strong will of our
mighty youth we are providing to meet the needs of our nation
and those that breached the articles of their international
commitments should give answers." Emphasizing that Iran favors
the establishment of justice in international relations, the
president reiterated, "If a group has assumed that the Islamic
Republic of Iran is now under pressure and therefore that can
try to get concessions from us they would soon realize that they
are mistaken."
Ahmadinejad said, "Tehran is neither after being an aggressor
against the rights of others, nor permits the others to be
aggressors against its rights."
The President added, "A limited number of Western countries had
better know that their psychological war and hue and cry will
never scare the Iranian nation."
He said that the United Nations and the IAEA are today subject
to a historic test and must prove that they are committed to
their claims regarding the need to abide by the international
laws and to safeguard the human rights.
The President said, "All thirty five members of the Board of
Governors know well that Iran has not violated any of the laws
of the IAEA even a slightest bit."
He reiterated, "It is a historic irony that those countries
that have used the fatal atomic bomb, those that are threatening
the other nations of taking advantage of it, or those that have
not even signed the initial international treaties in that
regard, are now pioneers of adopting decision about the peaceful
scientific activities of a country, and label it as dangerous."
*****************************************************************
5 IRNA: IAEA's afternoon session opens in Vienna
Vienna, March 6, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-Talks
The second session of the UN nuclear watchdog on the first day
of its seasonal meetings opened here a few minutes ago.
The session will focus on the IAEA internal issues.
At the morning session, the agency's Director General Mohamed
ElBaradei read a short report on the nuclear activities of Iran
and North Korea.
This afternoon's session will deal with the issue of `nuclear
security'.
Meanwhile, Iran's nuclear program is likely to be discussed at
the session.
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Issues Warning Ahead of IAEA Meeting
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 10:31 AM
AP Photo XHS104
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran threatened to start full-scale
uranium enrichment if members of the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency press for U.N. Security Council action over Tehran's
nuclear program at a meeting that opened Monday.
A top U.S. diplomat, meanwhile, said there was an urgent need to
confront Iran's ``clear and unrelenting drive'' for nuclear
weapons.
Iran ``must be made aware that if it continues down the path of
international isolation, there will be tangible and painful
consequences,'' John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations, told the conference of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee on Sunday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board was not
likely to discuss the Iran issue until Tuesday or Wednesday, but
delegates said that whatever step the council might take would
stop far short of sanctions.
India's prime minister said Monday that more time was needed for
diplomacy. India, a member of the IAEA board, has long-standing
ties with Iran, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told lawmakers
in New Delhi that ``confrontation should be avoided at all
costs.''
Singh did not say which way India would go if the IAEA meeting
came down to a vote over whether the Security Council should
take punitive action against Iran. Indian officials have said
they do not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but Singh was
criticized by left-wing political allies after India in February
supported an IAEA resolution referring Tehran to the council,
which is authorized to impose sanctions.
Iran's government warned Sunday that putting the issue before
the Security Council would hurt efforts to resolve the dispute
diplomatically.
``If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security
Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed,''
Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran.
``If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path.''
He said Iran had exhausted ``all peaceful ways,'' and that if
demands were made contrary to the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, the nation ``will resist.''
Larijani said Iran would not abandon nuclear research or back
down from pursuing an atomic program that Tehran insists is only
for the peaceful purpose of generating electricity.
IAEA delegates suggested the U.N. agency's board would not push
for confrontation with Iran, and said any initial decisions by
the Security Council based on this week's meeting would be mild.
The council's most likely action, they said, would be a
statement urging Iran to increase cooperation with IAEA
inspectors and to resume its freeze on uranium enrichment - an
activity that can make both reactor fuel and the core of nuclear
warheads.
Even such a mild step could be weeks down the road, but it would
formally begin council involvement with Iran's nuclear file,
starting a process that could culminate with political and
economic sanctions.
Bolton said a failure by the Security Council to address Iran
would damage the council's credibility. ``The longer we wait to
confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable
it will become to solve.''
Russia and China, which can veto Security Council actions, are
for now opposed to imposing sanctions against Iran, though they
share the concerns of the United States, France and Britain -
the three other permanent council members with veto power - that
Iran could misuse enrichment for an arms program.
But Russia and China have economic and strategic ties with
Tehran. While they voted with the majority of IAEA board members
at a Feb. 4 meeting to alert the council to suspicions about
Iran's nuclear aims, they insisted the council do nothing until
after this week's IAEA meeting in Vienna.
Russia is unlikely to agree to strong action while it negotiates
with Iran on a plan that would move Tehran's enrichment program
to Russian territory.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is due in Washington and
New York this week to discuss the status of those talks with
Bush administration officials and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan.
Both Tehran and Moscow have said new talks are planned, though
no dates have been announced. Iran rejected an EU proposal last
year to end enrichment in return for the West providing reactor
fuel and economic aid.
Past IAEA board meetings have ended with resolutions taking Iran
to task for hindering investigations into a nuclear program that
was kept secret for nearly 18 years and more recently urging it
to reimpose a freeze on enrichment.
The Feb. 4 resolution asked IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to
report those concerns and others to the Security Council and to
formally hand over the complete Iran file to the council. It
also asked him to provide the council with his latest report,
drawn up for this week's IAEA meeting.
That report, made available to The Associated Press last week,
said Iran appeared determined to expand uranium enrichment,
planning to start setting up thousands of uranium-enriching
centrifuges this year.
---
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
7 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Dismisses Talk of Compromise on Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 10:01 PM
AP Photo VIE104
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Unless Iran executes a dramatic about-face and
suspends all its nuclear activities, the U.N. Security Council
will intervene ``quite actively,'' a senior State Department
official said Monday.
The message to Iran is that it has ``crossed the international
red line'' and engaged in unacceptable enrichment activity ``and
there must be a U.N. Security Council process to deal with
that,'' Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said.
Burns did not say what the United States would ask the Security
Council to do. While the Bush administration takes a stern line
toward Tehran it might not be able to persuade other nations to
impose economic or other penalties on Iran.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which voted to refer the
dispute to the Security Council, will reaffirm its stance this
week in Vienna, Austria, ``unless Iran does a dramatic
about-face and suspends all of its nuclear activities,'' Burns
said at the Heritage Foundation, a private research group.
His remarks followed a State Department spokesman's dismissal of
reports an eleventh-hour compromise might be struck over Iran's
nuclear program.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy
Agency, said at his agency's Vienna headquarters on Monday that
the council might not have to consider Iran's actions. Talks
between Moscow and Tehran have focused on shifting Iran's fuel
enrichment activities to Russia.
The United States has long spearheaded a campaign to haul Iran
before the Security Council, which has the power to impose
economic or other sanctions. There was no hint of optimism at
the State Department about the latest efforts to defuse the
issue, which ElBaradei said he hoped could produce a resolution
in a week.
``I am not aware of any specific proposals or any specific ideas
that would require or force any kind of delay in Security
Council action,'' spokesman Tom Casey said.
Casey also downplayed a new twist to the Russian proposal that
diplomats described to The Associated Press. Under it, the U.N.
atomic watchdog agency would set a level of small-scale uranium
enrichment that Iran would be allowed to conduct on its own soil
as part of an attempt to keep Iran from using the fuel for
nuclear weapons, said the diplomats, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
``You can't be just a little pregnant,'' Casey said of the U.S.
attitude toward small-scale uranium work by Iran.
The U.N.'s atomic energy agency voted last month to refer the
Iran dispute to the Security Council. ``There is no obstacle to
that discussion being taken up and we certainly believe that
will happen shortly,'' Casey said.
North Korea took a civilian nuclear program and quickly turned
it into a bomb-making program, Casey said.
The process of bringing Iran before the Security Council has
been delayed several times. The European Union attempted to
negotiate with Iran with the aim of halting the program in
exchange for economic concessions. Then Russia came up with its
enrichment proposal.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was due to have dinner in
Washington on Monday evening with Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, and then meet Tuesday with President Bush and Rice.
On Wednesday, Lavrov is due to meet in New York with U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
On his way to Washington, Lavrov stopped in Ottawa for talks
with Canadian officials. Russian news agencies quoted him as
saying Russia's proposal to shift Iran's uranium enrichment to
Russia remains on the negotiating table but Iran must suspend
enrichment on Iranian territory.
In Vienna, headquarters for the nuclear watchdog group,
ElBaradei said the Council might not have to explore Iran's
actions. ``I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an
agreement could be reached,'' he said.
---
Associated Press Writer Foster Klug contributed to this story.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
8 Guardian Unlimited: IAEA Optimistic on Iran Nuke Program Deal
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 11:46 AM
AP Photo VIE101
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency expressed cautious optimism Monday on the chances of
reaching an international agreement to defuse concerns about
Iran's nuclear activities and make U.N. Security Council action
unnecessary.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board was not
likely to discuss the Iran issue until Tuesday or Wednesday. But
delegates said that whatever step the council might take would
stop far short of sanctions.
But as the board meeting opened, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei
suggested the council might not need to get involved.
``I am still very much hopeful that in the next week an
agreement could be reached,'' ElBaradei told reporters, alluding
to talks between Moscow and Tehran aimed at moving Iran's
enrichment program to Russia and possible further contacts
between Iran and Europe.
He did not elaborate. But diplomats told the AP that recent
talks have touched on the possibility of allowing Tehran to run
a scaled-down uranium enrichment program, despite its potential
for misuse in building atomic weapons.
That point was significant because the Europeans and the United
States have for years opposed allowing Iran any kind of
enrichment capability - a stance that Russia, China and other
influential nations have embraced.
Tehran has insisted on its right to conduct enrichment, saying
it wants only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that generate
electricity. But enrichment also can create fissile material for
warheads, and a growing number of nations share U.S. fears that
is Iran's true goal.
Russia recently has sought to persuade Iran to move its
enrichment program to Russian territory, which would allow
closer international monitoring.
But the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations suggested Security
Council action was necessary, saying there was an urgent need to
confront Iran's ``clear and unrelenting drive'' for nuclear
weapons.
Iran ``must be made aware that if it continues down the path of
international isolation, there will be tangible and painful
consequences,'' John Bolton told a conference of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee on Sunday.
Also Sunday, Iran's government warned that putting the issue
before the Security Council would hurt efforts to resolve the
dispute diplomatically.
``If Iran's nuclear dossier is referred to the U.N. Security
Council, (large-scale) uranium enrichment will be resumed,''
Iran's top negotiator, Ali Larijani, told reporters in Tehran.
``If they want to use force, we will pursue our own path.''
He said Iran had exhausted ``all peaceful ways,'' and that if
demands were made contrary to the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty, the nation ``will resist.''
Larijani said Iran would not abandon nuclear research or back
down from pursuing an atomic program that Tehran insists is only
for peaceful purposes.
IAEA delegates suggested the U.N. agency's board would not push
for confrontation with Iran, and said any initial decisions by
the Security Council based on this week's meeting would be mild.
The council's most likely action, they said, would be a
statement urging Iran to increase cooperation with IAEA
inspectors and to resume its freeze on uranium enrichment.
Even such a mild step could be weeks down the road, but it would
formally begin council involvement with Iran's nuclear file,
starting a process that could culminate with political and
economic sanctions.
Bolton said a failure by the Security Council to address Iran
would damage the council's credibility. ``The longer we wait to
confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable
it will become to solve.''
Russia and China, which can veto Security Council actions, are
for now opposed to imposing sanctions against Iran, though they
share the concerns of the U.S., France and Britain - the other
permanent council members with veto power - that Iran could
misuse enrichment for an arms program.
Though Russia and China, which both have economic and strategic
ties with Tehran, voted with the majority of IAEA board members
at a Feb. 4 meeting to report the issue to the Security Council,
they insisted the council do nothing until after this week's
IAEA meeting in Vienna.
Russia is unlikely to agree to strong action while it negotiates
with Iran on the proposal to move Tehran's enrichment program to
Russian territory. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was
due this week in Washington and New York to discuss the status
of those talks with Bush administration officials and U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Both Tehran and Moscow have said new talks are planned, though
no dates have been announced. Iran rejected an EU proposal last
year to end enrichment in return for the West providing reactor
fuel and economic aid.
Past IAEA board meetings have ended with resolutions taking Iran
to task for hindering investigations into a nuclear program that
was kept secret for nearly 18 years and more recently urging it
to reimpose a freeze on enrichment.
---
Associated Press Writer Palma Benczenleitner contributed to this
report.
---
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
9 Guardian Unlimited: U.N. Watchdog: Iran Deal Could Be Imminent
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 8:01 PM
AP Photo VIE105
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog
agency said Monday a deal on Iran's suspect nuclear program
could be only a few days away, making U.N. Security Council
action unneeded.
International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei did
not elaborate. But his optimism was believed to be linked to a
confidential Russian proposal to allow Iran to enrich some
uranium domestically, diplomats said. They spoke on condition of
anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge details of
the plan.
``I am still very much hopeful that in the next week, an
agreement could be reached,'' ElBaradei told reporters, without
elaborating.
However, the plan - which Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
planned to discuss with officials in Washington - was expected
to meet strong U.S. resistance over fears it could be misused to
make nuclear weapons.
The Russia proposal would allow Tehran to conduct small-scale
enrichment and ask the IAEA to set the parameters of such
activity to minimize the chances of abuse.
In return, the diplomats said Iran would be asked to recommit to
in-depth IAEA probes of its program on short notice - something
Tehran canceled last month after the agency's 35-nation board
voted Feb. 4 to alert the Security Council by passing on Iran's
nuclear dossier resulting from almost three years of agency
investigations.
Russia and China, which both have economic and strategic ties
with Iran, voted with the majority of IAEA board members but
insisted the council do nothing until after this week's IAEA
meeting in Vienna.
Moscow, with the support of the United States and other
countries, has offered to enrich Iran's uranium in Russia, which
would ensure greater oversight. But Tehran, insisting its goals
are peaceful, has said it should be free to carry out some
enrichment domestically.
The Russian proposal was driving a wedge into what had been a
relatively united front on uranium enrichment, with Germany
cautiously supportive and France and Britain opposed and backing
the United States.
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said in
New York that the United States would oppose any enrichment on
Iranian soil.
``It's been a core element of our view and the view of the
European three, and certainly of the Russian Federation that no
enrichment in Iran is permissible,'' Bolton said.
He said ``even small so-called research enrichment programs
could give Iran the possibility of mastering the technical
deficiencies that it's currently encountering in its program''
and translate them into large-scale enrichment later.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns underlined U.S.
determination, saying in Washington that ``unless Iran does a
dramatic about-face,'' he expected the issue to be taken up by
the Security Council.
France, Britain and Germany broke off negotiations on behalf of
the European Union with Iran last year after it resumed
enrichment-related activities, which can make both nuclear fuel
and the fissile core of warheads. Since then, those three
countries, as well as the United States, Canada, Australia and
Japan, have been at the forefront of efforts to have the
Security Council take up the issue.
The diplomats said negotiations continued on the sidelines of a
board meeting of the IAEA, which began Monday and would focus on
Iran later in the week.
A senior European diplomat the deal would likely stand or fall
``on the response Lavrov gets in Washington'' in a meeting later
Monday with Secretary of State Conzoleezza Rice and other senior
administration officials.
But he said all involved - whether or not they supported
allowing Iran some control of enrichment - were firm on the need
for Tehran to first return to a freeze of all such activities
for a prolonged time ``to re-establish confidence.''
He said the Russians had proposed eight years - something
unlikely to be accepted by the Iranians who publicly reject
calls for a return to a freeze. A State Department official, who
also demanded anonymity, refused to specify a length but said in
response to a question that two years would be too short.
The meeting is scheduled to hear a report by ElBaradei focusing
on Iran's nuclear program, including its decision to deny
information requested by U.N. inspectors on diagrams related to
nuclear weapons and other issues and ongoing enrichment plans
that include setting up thousands of uranium-enriching
centrifuges later this year.
``We have not seen indication of diversion of ... material to
nuclear weapons or other explosive devices,'' ElBaradei said.
``However, there are still a number of important uncertainties
that need to be clarified.
``Unfortunately, the picture is not very clear as to the scope
of the program and as to the nature of the program,'' he said,
alluding to documents, past experiments and activities that
could be used to develop nuclear arms.
The last board meeting sent the complete Iran file to the
Security Council. This week's meeting is scheduled to pass the
ElBaradei report to the council, which then can decide whether
to take action. The board was not likely to discuss Iran until
Tuesday or Wednesday.
---
Associated Press Writers Edith Lederer at the United Nations and
Palma Benczenleitner in Vienna contributed to this report.
---
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency, www.iaea.org
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
10 BBC: US will not soften policy on Iran
Last Updated: Monday, 6 March 2006
[IAEA talks resume in Vienna]
Mohamed ElBaradei (standing) says diplomacy must continue
The United States has said it will not accept any deal which
allows Iran to enrich uranium.
A new move by Russia proposes that Iran be allowed to run a
small-scale uranium enrichment research programme.
But the US says only a complete suspension of Iran's nuclear
activities would be acceptable in order to avoid UN Security
Council action.
However, at talks in Vienna, the head of the UN's nuclear
watchdog said he was hopeful a deal was still feasible.
Mohamed ElBaradei was speaking at the start of an International
Atomic Energy Agency meeting that could pave the way to UN
Security Council action against Iran.
Iran's referral to the UNSC n only fails to solve any problems,
but could even create more trouble Iran's Resalat newspaper
Defiance, hope in Iran press
Western powers believe Iran wants to develop nuclear arms, which
it denies.
Tehran insists it has the right to develop its nuclear sector to
produce energy for civilian purposes.
Compromise
Under the Russian deal, Iran would be permitted to undertake
small-scale uranium enrichment without obtaining the technology
to build nuclear weapons.
But the Americans say only a complete suspension of activities
will be acceptable.
"You can't be just a little pregnant," said State Department
spokesman, Tom Casey.
"You can't have the regime pursuing enrichment on any scale,
because pursuing enrichment on any scale allows them to master
the technology, complete the fuel cycle - and then that
technology can easily be applied to a clandestine programme for
making nuclear weapons," he said.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov arrives in Washington on
Monday where he will meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
and President George W Bush.
The crisis over Iran's nuclear programmes is likely to be high on
the agenda.
'Painful consequences'
In Vienna, Mr ElBaradei said the Iran nuclear issue had serious
implications for world peace, and urged both sides to continue
negotiations.
He said there was international consensus over the issue's
importance.
"It has to do with regional security, the whole Middle East
regional security is very much at stake and escalation is not
going to help," Mr ElBaradei said.
[A general view of Iran's first nuclear reactor, being built in
Bushehr]
Iran says its nuclear programme is purely peaceful
Iran said on Sunday that once the UN Security Council was
involved, Tehran would resume full-scale uranium enrichment -
which can lead either to material for civilian nuclear reactors
or nuclear bomb components.
Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani told a news conference in Tehran:
"If [the US and its allies] want to use force, we will pursue our
own path."
Mr Larijani added: "Going to the Security Council will certainly
not make Iran go back on research and development."
Centrifuges working
The IAEA has demanded Iran suspend nuclear enrichment completely.
Iran refuses, emphasising its sovereign right to continue the
process under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The IAEA meeting in Vienna - expected to last several days - may
not discuss Mr ElBaradei's report until Tuesday or Wednesday.
The report, leaked to the media last week, says the Iranians have
begun feeding uranium gas into centrifuges.
[Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani] Ali Larijani said Iran
would go its own way
It also says Tehran has rejected stricter inspections, and has
hindered inspectors' work.
Three years of negotiations between Iran and the EU, and the
latest round of talks between Moscow and Tehran, have brought no
significant result. Iran resumed enrichment in January after a
two-year hiatus.
However BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds says
sanctions are still a long way off and might never come.
Warnings and demands Iran suspend its nuclear programme will come
first in any case, he adds.
Russian and China - permanent members of the Security Council
with the power of veto - have so far opposed imposing sanctions
on Iran.
*****************************************************************
11 BBC: IAEA defiance, hope in Iran press
Last Updated: Monday, 6 March 2006
[Iranian Press graphic]
Conservative papers in Iran argue that Tehran has done all it can
to gain the world's confidence ahead of the International Atomic
Energy Agency meeting on its nuclear programme, pointing out that
"confidence building is a bilateral process."
Some editorials accuse the US of having double standards on the
nuclear issue and of trying to "manipulate" the IAEA, with one
commentator warning that the meeting is "the IAEA's last
opportunity to redeem its reputation" as an independent body.
Reformist dailies, however, are more optimistic about the
possible outcome, with one arguing that "diplomacy is still
breathing", and that even a referral of Iran to the UN Security
Council need not mean the end of talks.
IRAN
America is firing on all cylinders to sabotage th direction of
the negotiations. Confidence building is a bilateral process.
Iran has done whatever it can to reassure the international
community about its peaceful nuclear activities.
RESALAT
Iran's referral to the UNSC not only fails to solv any problems,
but could even create more trouble. These problems could be
Iran's withdrawal from the NPT, the resumption of uranium
enrichment by Iran and the [endangering] of the world's energy
security.
HASSAN HANIZADEH IN TEHRAN TIMES
Measures were taken to gain the confidence of th international
community, but it seems that the US and the EU intend to
manipulate the IAEA and the UN Security Council in order to get
even with the Islamic Republic at this critical juncture...
Therefore, the IAEA Board of Governors should ignore the US
pressure and make an independent decision in order to prove that
the international community can still differentiate between right
and wrong. This is the IAEA's last opportunity to redeem its
reputation.
JAM-E-JAM
The US-Indian nuclear agreement, which expands th two countries'
nuclear relations, was another scandal in the history of
America's hypocritical nuclear policies. America's double
standards on nuclear issues is a serious warning to Europe,
Russia, China and others.
HAMSHAHRI
Iran cannot accept any proposal that humiliates it sovereignty
and snubs its legitimate rights. Since these proposals are
strategic, they have to be decided in a very calm and quiet
manner. This is true about the Russian proposal, and if Russia is
trying to fish in troubled waters it should go ahead without
Iran.
E'TEMAAD-E-MELLI
Diplomacy is still breathing. The doors fo negotiations are open.
Iran's insistence on the continuation of talks with European and
non-European countries proves that Iran seriously believes in the
influence of negotiations on today's Vienna meeting. Even if
Iran's dossier is referred to the UNSC... it won't be the end of
diplomatic strategies.
AFTAB-E-YAZD
Fortunately there are certain great figures in Ira [Mohammad
Khatami] that can see problems from different angles, and they
believe that Iran can make use even of its enemies to solve its
nuclear problem.
BBC Monitoringselects and translates news from radio,
television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150
countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham,
UK, and has several bureaux abroad.
*****************************************************************
12 IRNA: Iran envoy says nuclear talks still continuing
Vienna, March 6, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-Talks
Iran's Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, said here Monday that
negotiations are still underway, stressing the door to resolve
the case has not been closed.
Soltaniyeh told IRNA on the sidelines of the winter session of
the IAEA Board of Governors: We have presented our proposal to
the European states and Russia. "They should think about it. We
are waiting for their reaction."
"We can show no flexibility on nuclear research. It is the
right of any country that its scientists will conduct research,"
he said.
The Iranian envoy said, "It is impossible for Iran to suspend
its research and development because the previous resolution of
the IAEA (were) passed following Tehran's research studies.
"We will continue research and development, on the other hand,
ready to discuss issues, we will do our best to prove our
cooperation was positive and our nuclear program is civilian,"
he added.
*****************************************************************
13 IRNA: Iran's envoy to IAEA - Talks on nuclear dossier still continue -
, March 6, IRNA
--
Iran's Representative to the UN nuclear watchdog Ali-Asghar
Soltanieh said here Monday that talks on Iran's nuclear
activities are still continuing in Vienna.
He told IRNA that Iran submitted its proposal to the EU3 and
Russia and is now awaiting their response.
Speaking on the sidelines of the first seasonal meeting of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he added that Iran
can show no flexibility on its 'nuclear research', given that
any country whose scholars have the capability to conduct
research is entitled to such a right.
"Meanwhile, since the former resolution was approved on account
of Iran's nuclear research it is impossible to suspend research
and development in the field.
"We shall continue both nuclear research and development.
However, concerning the other discussed issues, we shall
cooperate closely to prove that our nuclear activities are
peaceful."
The IAEA seasonal meeting opened in the Austrian capital of
Vienna on Monday.
The 11-page report of the agency Director General Mohamed
ElBaradei was on the agenda of the session.
*****************************************************************
14 AFP: UN nuclear chief hopes for fresh Iran nuclear talks
Mon Mar 6, 6:58 AM ET
VIENNA (AFP) - UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said
he hoped an agreement resolving the question of Iran" /> 's
small-scale enrichment work could be reached in about a week,
clearing the way for new talks.
ElBaradei, speaking as the International Atomic Energy Agency"
/> began a meeting that could lead to punitive UN Security
Council action against Iran, said there was a "flurry of
activities" trying to get Tehran and the European Union" /> back
to the negotiating table.
"The sticking point remains the question of the
centrifuge-related R and D (research and development)," he said.
"That issue is still again being discussed this week and I'm
still very much hopeful that in the next week or so an agreement
could be reached."
Talks between Iran and the European Union on guaranteeing that
the Islamic republic is not seeking nuclear arms broke off last
August when Tehran resumed enrichment activities toward making
what can be nuclear reactor fuel or atom bomb material.
A resumption of Iran-EU negotiations could head off Security
Council action over fears that Iran is secretly working on
making nuclear weapons.
Iran, which claims it has the right to enrich uranium for
nuclear reactor fuel as part of a peaceful energy program, began
actual enrichment in February but on a small-scale which it says
is only for research.
ElBaradei said there were "contacts going on trying to reach
agreement on modalities for Iran and the Europeans to go back to
the negotiating table.
"There has been lots of progress on many elements of that
agreement. I think there is agreement that industrial-scale
enrichment should be suspended.
"I think there is an agreement that Iran should continue to
implement the additional protocol and ratify it as early as
possible," he said, referring to the protocol on wider IAEA
inspections.
The United States and Europe have called on Iran to bow to IAEA
demands to suspend all enrichment-related activities, including
research.
But Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh,
reitered Tehran's defiance. "We will not show any flexibility on
research and development," he told AFP in Vienna.
Iran wants to be able to do this small-scale work while pledging
not to do full-scale enrichment, diplomats said.
Tehran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Sunday that it
would not freeze small-scale nuclear fuel work even if referred
to the world body.
"Going to the Security Council will certainly not make Iran go
back on research and development," Larijani told reporters in
Tehran, adding that the Islamic republic would retaliate to any
such move by pressing ahead with large-scale uranium enrichment.
The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors will hear ElBaradei's
assessment on Iran, which is then to go to the Security Council.
ElBaradei said he was concerned that after three years of IAEA
investigation there were still "uncertainties" about Iran's
nuclear program.
But he said Iran was continuing to cooperate. "We are getting
some transparency but not with the magnitude and the speed
expected. I hope Iran will continue to show transparency to be
able to clarify the past."
The IAEA board reported Iran on February 4 to the Security
Council but left a month open for diplomacy until the world body
gets ElBaradei's report.
"I think the Security Council will have to have a serious
discussion about what the next steps will be," US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice" /> said at the weekend, but added there
was no need to rush to sanctions.
The UN body could adopt a "presidential declaration" calling on
Tehran to heed IAEA calls, diplomats said, while the Washington
Post reported that the United States would ask it to give Iran
30 days to comply with international demands.
Separately, Iran said it was committed to remaining a stable oil
supplier after veiled hints by Tehran that it could use oil as a
weapon if the nuclear crisis escalates.
"The Islamic republic has always stressed it is a stable source
of providing energy to the world," Iran's OPEC" />
representative, Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, was quoted as saying
by the ISNA news agency.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
15 IRNA: Public prosecutor underlines Iran's right to nuclear energy -
Noshahr, Mazandaran prov, March 6, IRNA
Iran-Prosecutor-Nuclear
The Public Prosecutor Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi said Monday
access to nuclear energy and science is the country's great
achievement and the undeniable right of the nation.
"The westerners are not pleased with Iran's nuclear know-how,
but we have repeatedly announced that we have civilian
objectives from producing nuclear energy," he noted during a
ceremony marking today's observance of Tree Planting Day and the
start of Natural Resources Week in this provincial capital,
northern Iran.
He maintained that the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) have dealt with Iran's nuclear case in a biased manner
and the US and Europe have also shown unfair behavior.
"Israel has never been questioned for many power plants and
atomic bombs it has," he said referring to the double-standard
of the west.
"The IAEA is obliged to provide peaceful nuclear technology for
its member states as per Non-Proliferation Treaty."
He cautioned the nation against all the plots hatched by the
enemies.
Iran's public prosecutor also condemned insulting Islamic
sanctities and Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) by some Europe-based
papers and sacrilege of the holy shrine of two Imams (AS) in
Samarra, Iraq.
They have committed political crime with such heinous acts and
the enemies are determined to stir up a sectarian war, he said.
*****************************************************************
16 IRNA: Iran-Russia talks fail to produce agreement - Elham
, March 6, IRNA
--
Iran-Russia talks on Moscow's proposal for joint uranium
enrichment in Russian soil has failed to produce an agreement,
government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham said here Monday.
Elham made the disclosure as he addressed domestic and foreign
reporters at his weekly press conference on Monday in which he
was asked to comment on Sunday's remarks by Iran's chief nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani that Tehran and Moscow had reached
agreement on certain articles of the proposal.
"Larijani's remarks did not imply that an agreement has been
signed with Russia and an undertaking has been secured," he said.
He said Iran would continue its nuclear talks with Russia and
that "Tehran welcomes any proposal that will preserve Iran's
right to pursue peaceful nuclear energy and any strategy that
would allay the concerns of certain Western states.
"This guarantee shows our goodwill and transparent activities."
Elham pointed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's proposal on
participation of international companies in the country's
uranium enrichment activities, and said Iran had adopted the
"best confidence-building measures to prove its transparency."
Iranian policy mandates continued research in the nuclear field
within the safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy
Agency and under its supervision, he reiterated.
*****************************************************************
17 IRNA: IAEA-ElBaradei-Iran /WRD Elbaradei hopes Iran negotiations lead
to result in a week
, March 7, IRNA
International Atomic Energy Agency's Secretary General Muhamed
Elbaradei in his opening session address of the IAEA Board of
Governors here on Monday expressed hope that Iran-EU-Russia
talks would lead to a tangible result in a week.
Seasonal Session of the IAEA began on Monday with IAEA Chief
Muhamed ElBaradei's address, under such conditions that Iran was
like always in the past stressing its readiness and willingness
to continue logical negotiations on its peaceful nuclear
activities.
Elbaradei, too, in his opening address expressed delight over
the beginning of the new round of Iran-EU talks and hoped such
negotiations would be pursued in pursuit of a constructive
solution.
He reiterated that he seriously hopes for reaching a
comprehensive agreement with Iran during the course of the next
week, adding, "Achieving that objective is possible through
pursuing negotiations." Before his official address, too,
Elbaradei told the reporters that based on previous decision
adopted by the Board of Governors, the outcome of inspections on
Iran's nuclear activities have to be "reported" to the UN
Security Council, but the type of that council's survey of that
report depends largely on the process of Iran's negotiations.
Iran's Ambassador to IAEA Ali-Asghar Soltaniyeh, too, told IRNA
here on Monday that Iran has presented its new proposal to the
EU and Russia, who must now think about it, and we are waiting
for their reaction.
Speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of IAEA Board of Governors
Seasonal Session, Soltaniyeh added, "Negotiations are still
underway and the the path for seeking a diplomatic solution is
not yet blocked."
He emphasized that Iran is not ready for giving any kind of
concessions regarding its research and development (R)
activities since it is any country's absolute right to provide
the appropriate conditions for its researchers to pursue their
scientific activities.
Iran's Ambassador to IAEA said, "Meanwhile, since the IAEA'
previous resolution was issued resorting to the pretext of
Iran's pursuing its R activities, it is practically impossible
for us to suspend our research and development activities once
again." He added, "We would pursue our R activities, but in
other cases discussed in the negotiations we would cooperate to
maximum extent so that it would be proved that our activities
are entirely aimed at peaceful purposes.
*****************************************************************
18 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-India Nuke Deal May Hurt NKorea Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 9:16 AM
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A U.S. deal offering India help with
its civilian nuclear program could further stymie arms talks
with North Korea and push China to step up its own atomic
dealmaking in the region, experts say.
President Bush signed an agreement with New Delhi last week to
share nuclear know-how and fuel providing India allow
international inspections of its nuclear reactors.
The agreement marks a shift in policy for the United States,
which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it
conducted nuclear tests.
However the deal requires U.S. Congress approval, which may be
difficult because India hasn't signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
China typically sees India as a strategic rival and is likely to
step up its influence to try and block the deal, said Mohan
Malik, professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies
in Honolulu. Beijing has already offered nuclear technology to
Bangladesh, and Myanmar has expressed interest in atomic energy.
``China could step up proliferation of nuclear technologies in
India's neighborhood to countervail India-U.S. ties,'' Malik
said.
China's Foreign Ministry criticized the plan last week, saying
any international nuclear cooperation ``must meet the
requirements and provisions of the nuclear nonproliferation
regime and the obligations undertaken by all countries
concerned.''
China is a key ally of North Korea and one of five countries
seeking to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear program in
negotiations that have been deadlocked since November.
North Korea withdrew from Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in
2003.
``I think most of the world can live with that India is held to
a double standard with North Korea,'' said Peter Beck, director
of the Northeast Asia Project for the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group think tank.
Still, the deal will likely be another hindrance in the North
Korea talks, experts said.
``In the short run, it will probably make the US-North Korean
relationship more fractious,'' said Donald Gregg, a former U.S.
ambassador to South Korea. ``What is needed is a sustained and
mutually respectful dialogue to be established. Only within such
a framework may it be possible to fully explain to Pyongyang why
we decided to do what we have done in New Delhi, and to work out
a solid foundation for an improved relationship.''
The North has yet to publicly comment on the India deal, but it
is expected to use it for bargaining advantage.
``Regardless of U.S. intentions or actions, North Korea will
choose to take the wrong signal, and try to manipulate this
development for its own gain,'' said Balbina Y. Hwang, a
Northeast Asia policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage
Foundation. The international community ``should ignore this
rhetoric, and instead focus on North Korea's actions, and
continue to insist that the North behave responsibly.''
The U.S.-India deal could encourage other countries to seek
nuclear trade channels outside the treaty, making it easier for
the North to pursue its atomic ambitions, warned Marcus Noland,
a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for
International Economics.
``The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a desirable
goal, and I think that these developments make achieving that
goal more difficult,'' he said.
---
Associated Press reporter Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this
report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
19 Korea Herald: Korean, U.S. chief nuclear envoys meet
2006.03.07
From news reports
South Korea's new chief nuclear envoy met with his American
counterpart on the weekend in Incheon, just west of Seoul, to
discuss ways to revive the moribund six-way talks on North
Korea's nuclear program, officials here said yesterday.
"We exchanged opinions on the situation and discussed general
things," Chun Young-woo, Seoul's top nuclear negotiator said of
his meeting Saturday with Christopher Hill.
Chun said the resumption of the six-way talks depends on North
Korea but warned the talks mean nothing unless progress is made
on ending the North's nuclear ambitions.
"It would be good to resume the talks at an early date but the
resumption itself is not an objective," Chun said. "The talks
would be of no use if no conditions are in place to make any
progress."
Chun had a breakfast meeting with Hill at the Hyatt Hotel near
Incheon when
Hill was on his way back home after a trip to Indonesia,
Foreign Ministry spokesman Bae Young-han said.
The U.S. official invited Chun to visit Washington in the near
future, he added.
It was their first meeting since Chun was appointed Seoul's
chief nuclear negotiator last month, replacing Song Min-soon who
was promoted to the post of chief secretary to the president for
unification, foreign and security policy.
Chun said he plans to visit the United States and other
countries involved in the six-way talks soon.
The meeting came as U.S. and North Korean officials prepare to
hold a meeting in New York on Tuesday where the North will be
briefed on American allegations on Pyongyang's alleged
counterfeiting of U.S. dollars, an issue that has contributed to
the North's latest boycott of the disarmament talks.
The Beijing-based discussions on Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions
have been stalled following the U.S. crackdown on the communist
state's alleged illicit financial activities.
Speaking to reporters in Indonesia, Hill claimed that the U.S.
measures against North Korea are directed at the crime, not the
country itself.
He stressed that the fate of the six-way talks lies in the
hands of North Koreans.
*****************************************************************
20 INSIDE JoongAng Daily: Six-party talks officials hold airport meeting
March 7, 2006 KST 14:44 (GMT+9)
March 07, 2006 ¤Ñ Prior to a planned meeting between North
Korean and U.S. officials in New York, the newly appointed South
Korean chief delegate to the six-party talks, Chun Young-woo,
met briefly in South Korea Saturday with his U.S. counterpart
Christopher Hill. Mr. Hill, while returning from Indonesia,
visited Korea to get acquainted with Mr. Chun. They met at a
hotel near Incheon International Airport.
A South Korean government official said yesterday that both
sides discussed ways to move forward in the stalled nuclear
negotiations and Mr. Hill invited his South Korean counterpart
to visit Washington in the near future. Present at the meeting
were U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow and Seoul's
deputy chief delegate to the talks, Lee Yong-joon, who was
appointed in February along with Mr. Chun. Mr. Chun is regarded
as an expert in the fields of disarmament and non-proliferation,
according to the Foreign Ministry.
Meanwhile, South Korean officials expressed hope yesterday that
the meeting between North Korean and U.S. officials over
financial sanctions imposed by Washington over suspected
counterfeiting would help both sides to resolve the issue.
Pyongyang has said it won't return to the six-party talks until
the sanctions are lifted but more recently hinted it may want a
face saving way out. Until now, Washington has said that mere
promises from the North are not enough to address the issue.
by Brian Lee africanu@joongang.co.kr>
Copyright by Joins.com, Inc. Terms of Use |
*****************************************************************
21 [NYTr] US to Double Nuke Sub Fleet to Counter Chinese "Threat"
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 22:59:22 -0600 (CST)
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by mart
[Getting ready for the big one?? U.S. Navy to double Pacific nuclear sub
fleet in response to perceived Chinese "naval threat"]
News.Com.Au (Australia) - February 28, 2006
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18299114-38196,00.html
More US subs to counter Chinese threat
By staff writers
THE United States Navy plans to secretly transfer submarines from its
Atlantic to Pacific fleet, reflecting an increased awareness of the
potential threat China could pose to future world security.
The plan, to move six submarines to the Pacific by 2010, will leave 60
percent of the US Navy's submarine fleet in the Pacific and 40 percent in
the Atlantic. Currently, the submarines are evenly divided between the two
oceans.
Hawaii's Pearl Harbour base will gain one submarine to boost its total to
18, San Diego would see its submarine force grow to seven from four.
Bremerton, Washington state, will gain two more subs for a total of three,
according to an unidentified US Navy official.
Navy bases in Norfolk, Virginia, and New London, Connecticut, will lose
ships.
The shift follows changes outlined earlier this month in the Quadrennial
Defense Review, a key US Defence Department policy paper.
***
The San Diego Union Tribune - Feb. 28, 2006
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20060228-9999-1m28subs.html
Nuclear sub force to nearly double
By Otto Kreisher COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
and Steve Liewer UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
The nuclear attack-submarine force in San Diego will nearly double within
four years, the Navy said yesterday.
Six submarines will move from the East Coast to the Pacific Fleet, the Navy
said in a statement. Three will come to San Diego.
The shifts reflect a recently released defense analysis calling for an
increased naval presence in the Pacific. The report, called the Quadrennial
Defense Review, recommended that Navy officials place 60 percent of their
submarine force in the Pacific, partly because of wariness over China's
rapidly expanding naval force.
Attack submarines form the backbone of the Navy's underwater fleet. They are
capable of launching torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles, according to
the military Web site globalsecurity.org. They can deploy special operations
forces, lay mines, strike land-based targets and battle enemy subs.
Having additional attack subs in the West Coast will make it easier for them
to deploy with aircraft carrier strike groups, said Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a
spokesman for the Hawaii-based Submarine Forces Pacific.
"Having submarines in San Diego allows us to do that without sending subs
back from Hawaii," he said.
When the relocation is completed by 2010, the Navy will have 52 attack
submarines - 31 based in the Pacific and 21 on the East Coast. Currently, 25
subs are based in the Pacific and 28 in the Atlantic.
San Diego will gain three Los Angeles-class submarines. It now has four
based at Point Loma Naval Station: the Asheville, Helena, Jefferson City and
Topeka.
San Diego submarines
Four attack submarines - the Asheville, Helena, Jefferson City and Topeka -
are based in San Diego.
The Navy intends to move three more to the city. They are the Albuquerque,
the Hampton and a still-unidentified submarine, said Rep. Susan Davis, D-San
Diego.The naval base at Bangor, Wash., near Bremerton, will go from one to
three attack boats. Pearl Harbor will gain one, for a total of 18. And Guam
will stay at three, according to information the Navy gave members of
Congress.
On the East Coast, New London, Conn., will drop from 17 submarines to 14,
and Norfolk, Va., will go from 11 to seven.
Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, said two of the submarines that will move to
San Diego are the Albuquerque, currently based in New London, and the
Hampton, now at Norfolk. The third hasn't been selected, she said.
Each submarine has a crew of 135 officers and enlisted personnel and an
annual payroll of about $9.1 million, Davis said.
"I am pleased to welcome the Albuquerque and the Hampton to San Diego," she
said in a statement. "I know that San Diego will welcome the 270 officers
and crew and their families with open arms."
The total figures don't add up because several submarines will be
decommissioned and new submarines brought into the fleets.
The transfer of the submarines could start as early as July 2007, the Navy
said.
***
Honalulu Advertiser - Local news Feb. 28, 2006
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060228/NEWS08/602280353/1001/NEWS
Pearl will soon gain another attack sub
At present, 17 attack submarines are based at Pearl harbor, The Navy is to
move six more subs into the Pacific by 2010 and reduce its presence in the
Atlantic, the beginning of a long-term shift in U.S. strategic priorities.
By William Cole Advertiser Military Writer
SUBS AT PEARL
Seventeen Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines are based at Pearl
Harbor. The Navy announced it will increase the total to 18, but with
retirements and reassignments of home ports, the sub force makeup will
change, and more than one of the Navy's new Virginia-class submarines is
expected to be home-ported in Hawai'i. Pacific Fleet submarine force makeup
information:
The Navy will be moving additional nuclear attack submarines to Pearl
Harbor, San Diego and Washington state as part of a redistribution of
submarine forces from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it was announced
yesterday.
The shift, which will bring six additional subs to the Pacific and will mean
18 subs at Pearl Harbor compared with 17 now, is the first sign of big
changes ahead for the distribution of Navy assets, predicted Loren Thompson,
a military expert at the Lexington Institute in Virginia.
"I think over time, we will see most of the naval fleet move to the Pacific
Basin," Thompson said.
That includes an aircraft carrier strike group for Pearl Harbor, a move seen
as too costly given current defense-budget constraints, but that is "almost
inevitable," Thompson said.
The submarine-basing plan is expected to bring to Hawai'i more than one of
the Navy's new Virginia-class attack submarines, which have the capability
to operate in shallow waters and drop off Navy commandos.
"I think the bottom line here is the shift of submarines to the Pacific is
just the beginning of a broader move by the Navy fleet," Thompson said.
The submarine reorientation by the Navy, which has 28 attack subs on the
East Coast and 25 in the Pacific, will begin as early as July 2007, Navy
officials at the Pentagon said.
By 2010, the shift will result in 21 subs in the Atlantic and 31 in the
Pacific. The number of ballistic-missile submarines - nine in the Pacific
and five out of King's Bay, Ga. - will remain unchanged.
The reorganization reflects the Pentagon's decision, recently outlined in
the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, to position 60 percent of its submarine
force in the Pacific and 40 percent in the Atlantic.
"The (Navy) is continuing its shift from a one-size-fits-all notion of
deterrence toward more tailorable approaches appropriate for advanced
military competitors, regional (weapons of mass destruction) states, as well
as nonstate terrorist networks," the Navy said in a statement.
Pearl Harbor has 17 Los Angeles-class attack submarines. Although the number
called for under the Navy plan is 18, that doesn't mean the addition of a
single submarine.
"It's not just simple math here. It's not just one for one," said Lt. Cmdr.
Jeff Davis, a spokesman for Pacific Submarine Forces at Pearl Harbor.
Some subs will be retired or are being based elsewhere.
The USS Honolulu, stationed in Pearl Harbor for 21 years, will be feted with
a farewell ceremony on April 15 before its final western Pacific deployment.
After that, it will cruise to Washington state for decommissioning.
The USS Buffalo, meanwhile, is expected to report to Guam next year to
replace the San Francisco, which was damaged on Jan. 8, 2005, when it
slammed into a mountain 525 feet below the surface. A 24-year-old sailor was
killed and 97 sailors were injured.
That means at least several replacement subs will be based at Pearl Harbor
as part of the Navy's plan for 18 of the vessels here.
Navy officials in Washington yesterday said the names of submarines being
reassigned will be released at a future date.
More than one Virginia-class submarine is expected to be home-ported at
Pearl Harbor, starting with the USS Hawai'i, the third in its class and
among the quietest subs in the world. The 377-foot Hawai'i will be
commissioned in 2007.
Guam has three attack submarines, and that number will remain the same, the
Navy said.
"We continue to think that three is about the right number for Guam based
upon the factors that go into it," Davis said. "Strategic location is one
factor, but so are infrastructure and the ability to do maintenance, the
ability to do repair."
San Diego, with four of the 360-foot Los Angeles-class subs, would gain
three more attack subs. Washington state has one of the submarines now and
will receive two more.
Submarine bases at New London, Conn., and Norfolk, Va., will see a drop in
subs from 28 to 21.
The Lexington Institute's Thompson said the submarine movement is a belated
recognition of a changing world.
"I think what you can read into it is it may take a generation, but
eventually, the military figures out that times have changed, and we don't
need to worry about the Soviets anymore," he said. "We spent most of the
Cold War preoccupied with the North Atlantic, and now there is a shift of
focus to the western Pacific and northern Indian Ocean."
The Quadrennial Defense Review, recognizing the shift in trade from the
Atlantic to Pacific and the growth of military power in countries such as
China, called for a "greater presence" in the Pacific.
"Accordingly, the Navy plans to adjust its force posture and basing to
provide at least six operationally available and sustainable carriers and 60
percent of its submarines in the Pacific," the plan said.
In June, three U.S. aircraft carriers will conduct war games in the western
Pacific; in July, a carrier will participate in Rim of the Pacific naval
exercises; and in August, an Atlantic Fleet carrier will conduct training in
the Pacific, Navy officials said.
The $2.2 billion cost to station an aircraft carrier in Hawai'i, and
overcoming the politics of moving a carrier from the Atlantic, were given as
reasons why Pearl Harbor - much closer in sailing time to Asia than the West
Coast is - hasn't so far been named to get a flattop.
"At some point here," Thompson said, "the Navy's going to have to explain
what the value of having aircraft carriers is on the East Coast, when most
of the threats are in the western Pacific and northern Indian oceans."
Thompson said two-thirds of an attack submarine's mission days are devoted
to intelligence-gathering, and the subs can do so undetected off countries
such as China and North Korea.
China also has bought "very quiet" Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines
from Russia, is building a range of other submarines and is certain to
outnumber the U.S. fleet in the future, Thompson said.
Photo:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/misc?url=/misc/zoom.pbs&e=M1&Date 060228&Category=NEWS08&ArtNo=602280353&Ref=AR&Profile=1001
"At present, 17 attack submarines are based at Pearl harbor, including these
three photographed yesterday. The Navy is to move six more subs into the
Pacific by 2010 and reduce its presence in the Atlantic, the beginning of a
long-term shift in U.S. strategic priorities."
*
================================================================
.NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
. Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us .
.339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org
.List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/
.Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr
================================================================
*****************************************************************
22 Guardian Unlimited: U.S.-India Nuke Deal May Hurt NKorea Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
March 6, 2006 9:16 AM
By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A U.S. deal offering India help with
its civilian nuclear program could further stymie arms talks
with North Korea and push China to step up its own atomic
dealmaking in the region, experts say.
President Bush signed an agreement with New Delhi last week to
share nuclear know-how and fuel providing India allow
international inspections of its nuclear reactors.
The agreement marks a shift in policy for the United States,
which imposed temporary sanctions on India in 1998 after it
conducted nuclear tests.
However the deal requires U.S. Congress approval, which may be
difficult because India hasn't signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty.
China typically sees India as a strategic rival and is likely to
step up its influence to try and block the deal, said Mohan
Malik, professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies
in Honolulu. Beijing has already offered nuclear technology to
Bangladesh, and Myanmar has expressed interest in atomic energy.
``China could step up proliferation of nuclear technologies in
India's neighborhood to countervail India-U.S. ties,'' Malik
said.
China's Foreign Ministry criticized the plan last week, saying
any international nuclear cooperation ``must meet the
requirements and provisions of the nuclear nonproliferation
regime and the obligations undertaken by all countries
concerned.''
China is a key ally of North Korea and one of five countries
seeking to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear program in
negotiations that have been deadlocked since November.
North Korea withdrew from Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in
2003.
``I think most of the world can live with that India is held to
a double standard with North Korea,'' said Peter Beck, director
of the Northeast Asia Project for the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group think tank.
Still, the deal will likely be another hindrance in the North
Korea talks, experts said.
``In the short run, it will probably make the US-North Korean
relationship more fractious,'' said Donald Gregg, a former U.S.
ambassador to South Korea. ``What is needed is a sustained and
mutually respectful dialogue to be established. Only within such
a framework may it be possible to fully explain to Pyongyang why
we decided to do what we have done in New Delhi, and to work out
a solid foundation for an improved relationship.''
The North has yet to publicly comment on the India deal, but it
is expected to use it for bargaining advantage.
``Regardless of U.S. intentions or actions, North Korea will
choose to take the wrong signal, and try to manipulate this
development for its own gain,'' said Balbina Y. Hwang, a
Northeast Asia policy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage
Foundation. The international community ``should ignore this
rhetoric, and instead focus on North Korea's actions, and
continue to insist that the North behave responsibly.''
The U.S.-India deal could encourage other countries to seek
nuclear trade channels outside the treaty, making it easier for
the North to pursue its atomic ambitions, warned Marcus Noland,
a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for
International Economics.
``The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a desirable
goal, and I think that these developments make achieving that
goal more difficult,'' he said.
---
Associated Press reporter Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this
report.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
23 Deseret News: Bush's tightrope
Monday, March 6, 2006
Deseret Morning News editorial
As President Bush's visit to India highlighted, India is well on
its way to becoming a world player. It has fully embraced free
enterprise, which means the United States needs closer trade ties
to capitalize on a market of 300 million middle-class consumers.
More importantly, it is the world's largest democracy and it is a
check against China as it emerges into a superpower.
No surprise then that the United States treats India
differently in the foreign policy arena. No surprise then that
President Bush has entered an agreement — still to be approved
by Congress — to share nuclear technology for the expansion of
civilian nuclear power. After all, India has an established
track record with weapons of mass destruction. It has them, but
it has averted the proliferation of nuclear weapons in other
countries.
In other words, Bush is rewarding India for playing fair.
But in doing so, Bush walks a tightrope with Pakistan.
The administration says Pakistan, although a key partner in the
war on terror, has a history of spreading nuclear technology to
Libya, Iran and other rogue states. Bush in the past has praised
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for his help against
terrorism, but more assistance is needed. For instance, Osama
bin Laden is believed to be at large along the border of
Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Afghanis believe Pakistan could do
more to ferret out Islamic extremists.
That's where Musharraf himself walks a tightrope. His
cooperation with the United States makes him a target for
assassination by alienated Islamic extremists. Considering that
Musharraf came into power in 1999 following a bloodless coup
d'etat and has twice survived assassination attempts, Pakistan
remains vulnerable to upheaval.
And Bush cannot ignore that Pakistan is India's neighbor.
It cannot render it vulnerable through this latest round of
agreements. Nor can Bush abandon the pledge made in a recent
speech to the Asia Society, "The United States will continue to
work with Pakistan to strengthen the institutions that help
guarantee civil liberties and help lay the foundations for a
democratic future for the Pakistani people."
It's a tightrope walk, indeed.
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company [
*****************************************************************
24 Bellona: US Report: US-Russia relations deteriorating
Russia's emergence as an increasingly authoritarian state could
impair U.S.-Russian ability to co-operate on key international
security issues, according to an analysis by a major U.S.
foreign policy organisation released yesterday.
2006-03-06 12:42
Continuation of Russia's drift away from democratic norms under
President Vladimir Putin "will make it harder for the two sides
to find common ground and harder to co-operate even when they
do," said the report, which was issued by the New York-based
Council on Foreign Relations. It warned that some critical
problems cannot be dealt with effectively unless Moscow and
Washington co-operate.
"If Russia remains on an authoritarian course, U.S.-Russian
relations will almost certainly continue to fall short of their
potential," the report said. Release of the report was timed to
coincide with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's visit to
Washington, his first as foreign minister. He is due to arrive
today and will meet the next day with President George Bush and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
The report urged that the United States preserve and expand
co-operation on dealing with the threat posed by Iran's nuclear
program and on coping with the risk of Russian nuclear materials
falling into the wrong hands. On the whole, though, the report
said relations were headed in the wrong direction.
"In particular, Russia's relations with other post-Soviet states
have become a source of significantly heightened US-Russian
friction," it said.
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 BBC: Two standards question for Bush
Last Updated: Monday, 6 March 2006
By Jonathan Beale BBC state department correspondent
[George W Bush with Manmohan Singh]
The US sees India as an important democratic ally
In diplomacy, it is often hard to achieve tangible results,
especially on a three-day visit.
Therefore, President Bush's South Asia tour will be viewed as a
success. India and the US reached a landmark deal on civilian
nuclear cooperation.
More than that, the agreement marked a new bond of trust.
After mutual Cold War suspicions, the US now sees India as an
important ally - a partner to spread shared values of prosperity,
democracy and freedom.
Hard road
President Bush has still got to convince a sceptical US Congress
that the nuclear deal is a good one.
Politicians on Capitol Hill question whether it will undermine
international efforts to tackle the spread of nuclear weapons.
Remember, India has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and its military programme will still be hidden away from
international inspections.
The favouritism being shown India is making other countries in
the region wary
Some US politicians say that India is being rewarded for bad
behaviour. Others fear the deal will send out entirely the wrong
signal to Iran.
And President Bush's arguments so far have not been convincing.
He believes that helping India with its civilian nuclear
programme will ease pressure on diminishing oil supplies. Well,
not for a long time yet.
He also has to convince the international community that the US
was right to bend the rules just for India.
'Favouritism'
The favouritism being shown to India is making other countries in
the region wary.
[Anti-Bush rally in Delhi]
Bush's South Asia tour sparked protests in three countries
Pakistan's President Musharraf has already asked for the same
kind of help and been rebuffed. The US essentially says Pakistan
cannot yet be trusted.
China - the major power in the region - will watch with some
suspicion as to how the Indo-US relationship develops. Is India
now a rival? How will Beijing now challenge America's influence?
Even though President Bush can look back on this visit with some
satisfaction, he will also have been fully aware of the
controversy he still creates.
In India, tens of thousands demonstrated ahead of his arrival. In
Pakistan the police were swift to clamp down on protesters. His
first visit to Afghanistan had to be carried out in secrecy.
President Bush may be a friend to those countries' leaders - but
he is still hated by many of their people. American foreign
policy is still defined by its war on terror. One swallow does
not make a summer.
*****************************************************************
26 IPS: U.S.: Nuclear Pact with India Seen as Surrender
Inter Press Service News Agency Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Mar 3 (IPS) - While U.S.
President George W. Bush hailed Thursday's nuclear accord with
India as a major breakthrough in forging a "strategic
partnership" with the South Asian giant, the pact has been
broadly denounced by non-proliferation experts here as a devil's
bargain.
The agreement, which must still be approved by the U.S.
Congress, marks a significant blow to the prevailing
international non-proliferation regime, according to the
critics, who have argued that it effectively rewards India for
behaviour that differs little from what Iran is trying to do
today.
"It's going to be tough to argue that Iran and North Korea
should be denied nuclear technology while India -- which has
failed to even join the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- is
given the same technology on a silver platter," said Worldwatch
President Christopher Flavin.
"The deal is a disaster for the nuclear non-proliferation regime
on the planet," agreed Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, a leading
proliferation specialist in the U.S. Congress, who is expected
to spearhead efforts to defeat the accord as signed.
"It blows a hole through any attempts in the future that we
could make to convince the Pakistanis, or the Iranians, or the
North Koreans, or for that matter any other country in world
that might interested in obtaining nuclear weapons, that there
is a level playing field, that there is a real set of
safeguards," he added in an interview with public television.
While most observers believe that a majority in Congress will
eventually go along with the deal, they also expect a spirited
fight, and not only from Democrats like Markey.
A number of high-ranking Republican lawmakers have also
indicated strong doubts about the deal, precisely because of the
likelihood that it will encourage proliferation and thus
undermine national security. Among the doubters, for example,
are the chairmen of the two houses' foreign affairs committees,
Rep. Henry Hyde and Sen. Richard Lugar.
Even the head of the increasingly powerful Congressional Caucus
on India, Rep. Gary Ackerman, has warned that Bush will have to
become personally involved in the effort to gain legislative
approval.
"The president has, thus far, done a horrendous job of
convincing Congress that the agreement is a good idea," he said
Thursday. "Now that there is an agreement with India, he must
get to work and make the case to Congress, or else the nuclear
deal will blow up in his face."
The agreement, which was concluded only at the eleventh hour of
Bush's first trip to India this week, ends a U.S. moratorium on
sales of nuclear fuel and equipment to India since it first
exploded a nuclear device 32 years ago.
In exchange, India agreed to separate its nuclear programme into
separate military and civilian components and to open the latter
to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
for the first time. India also agreed to abide by international
non-proliferation agreements, such as those of the 45-nation
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
But non-proliferation specialists like Joseph Cirincione of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace charged that
agreement's specifics -- notably the exemption of "military"
reactors from international inspections and safeguards -- deal a
mortal blow to the international non-proliferation regime.
Under the plan, about one third of India's existing 22 nuclear
reactors are designated as military, including a prototype
fast-breeder reactor, which produces plutonium needed for the
production of nuclear weapons. Moreover, the accord gives India
the authority to assign future nuclear reactors, including
fast-breeders, to the military side of its nuclear programme,
thus making them, too, exempt from international safeguards.
"The deal appears to give India complete freedom not just to
continue but to expand its production of fissile material for
nuclear weapons," according to Robert Einhorn, a top
non-proliferation specialist in the Bill Clinton administration
(1993-2001) now with the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) here.
"In the future, any reactor it designates as 'military' can be
used for the weapons programme," he said, questioning what Bush
received in return.
Carnegie's Cirincione was more blunt: "Pres. Bush has now given
away the store. He did everything but actually sell nuclear
weapons to India."
Indeed, India, which, 32 years after its first nuclear test, is
believed to have accumulated about 50 nuclear weapons, could
almost double that arsenal each year with the plutonium produced
by breeder reactors.
The Bush administration and its backers defend the accord as a
major advance on a variety of fronts. They point out that the
agreement will bring a significant part of India's nuclear
programme under international safeguards for the first time and
also enable New Delhi to make improvements that will
contribution to its overall safety and security.
They also stress that the construction of new nuclear power
plants in India will reduce its fast-growing economy's reliance
on fossil fuels. Not only will that mean cheaper oil and gas for
other energy-hungry countries, but, according to the
administration -- with no hint of irony -- it will also reduce
greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
To most critics, these justifications ring remarkably hollow,
and not only because the administration has opposed efforts to
mandate limits to U.S. greenhouse emissions.
"Nuclear power plants, even at the officially projected level of
20,000 megawatts for the year 2020, are not going to
significantly contribute to solving India's energy problems,"
according to Arjun Makhijani of the Institute for Energy and
Environmental Research (IEER) here. The percentage of India's
electricity generated by nuclear power would rise from three
percent to five percent, if projections are realised.
Rather, the main motivations for the deal appear to be both
strategic and economic.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis, many of the
largest U.S. companies regard India as the "next big frontier"
and have come to believe that a nuclear accord "will open the
way for a spate of deals, not just in potential nuclear sales,
but in everything from turbines and jets to road construction".
These companies, which include General Electric and Ford, among
others, stand poised to lobby hard for Congressional approval of
the pact.
The strategic rationale -- namely, the hope that India, along
with Japan, will become a strategic counterweight to China in
Asia -- may be even more decisive, according to analysts here
who note the fervent interest shown by the Pentagon, and U.S.
arms manufacturers, over the last several years in cultivating
New Delhi.
Indeed, this interest was underlined, as noted by the New York
Times Friday, by the Pentagon's release of "an unusually
explicit statement" praising the deal as a way to enhance
bilateral military cooperation, including arms sales.
"Where only a few years ago, no one would have talked about the
prospects for a major U.S.-India defence deal," it said, "today
the prospects are promising, whether in the realm of combat
aircraft, helicopters, maritime patrol aircraft or naval
vessels."
Not only will the deal enable India to accelerate its
development of nuclear weapons, but it may also contribute to an
increase in tensions between India and China, which, according
to Circincione, is already reported to be considering a similar
accord with Pakistan -- another nuclear power that has defied
the NPT. (END/2006)
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
27 [southnews] World in peril, Chomsky tells overflow crowd
Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 01:25:52 -0600 (CST)
current direction of the U.S. foreign policy, said Noam Chomsky in a
speech Saturday at Binghamton University. Among those consequences, he
said, is a nuclear Armageddon.
"Under the current U.S. policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable," the
77-year-old MIT professor said in his presentation, "Imminent Crises:
Paths Toward Solutions." He spoke to an over-capacity crowd in BU's
Osterhout Concert Theater.
Chomsky cited nuclear proliferation and environmental collapse as the
two greatest crises that "literally threaten survival."
Since the 1960s Chomsky, a widely acclaimed professor of linguistics,
has crusaded against political contradiction, nuclear proliferation and
Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Regarded by many as the greatest
intellectual alive today and dismissed by others as a radical, Chomsky
has voiced harsh criticism against the foreign policy of the United
States since World War II.
About 1,500 people crammed into the main theater, while a television
broadcast the speech to a room of about 500 next door. Ushers were
forced to turn hundreds of people away as the building filled beyond its
capacity.
Asked whether he had anticipated the number of people, the building's
operations director, Darryl Wood, responded, "Not this many, no."
Inside the theater, Chomsky delivered an account of the world's ills. He
addressed the history of the Iraq conflict, the unrest it has fostered,
and Iran's intentions for nuclear armament - a path, he said, that is
directly tied to U.S. aggression in the Middle East. Chomsky outlined a
course of action. "All of this is under our control if we're not willing
to observe passively and obediently," he said. "Take democracy seriously."
Peter Klotz drove two hours from Siena College in Loudonville to see the
professor. "He knows what he's talking about," Klotz said. "His ideas
are certainly not new, but he presents things in a very concise manner."
John Hamilton, who drove from Ithaca to see Chomsky, stood up to ask a
question during the question-and-answer period following Chomsky's
speech. "My question is, what do you find hopeful?" Hamilton said.
"I think one should be very optimistic for the reasons I just
mentioned," Chomsky said. "The large majority of the population already
agrees with the things activists are committed to. All we have to do is
organize people who are convinced."
__________________________________
Can An Iranian Nukes Crisis Be Averted?
TIME Monday, Mar. 06, 2006
Despite signs of escalation, all sides may prefer a diplomatic solution.
The challenge is to find one
By TONY KARON
At first glance, the deadlock over Iran's nuclear program looks like a
crisis in the making: The International Atomic Energy Agency board
started a new meeting Monday in Vienna to discuss sending Iran's case to
the UN Security Council; the U.S. plans to share with allies what it
claims is new evidence that Iran's real intent is to build nuclear
weapons, rather than simply a civilian energy program; and Iran
defiantly warns that if the matter is referred to the Security Council,
it will resume industrial-scale uranium enrichment - the activity that
most concerns the West, given that it can be used both for civilian
reactor fuel and to create weapons-grade material.
But don't be deceived by the rising rhetoric. There's unlikely to be any
kind of showdown any time soon for one overarching reason - there is
simply little appetite among the key players in the dispute to escalate
matters. The IAEA had already in principle decided, at its previous
board meeting in January, to refer Iran to the Security Council, yet
Monday's meeting - expected to last up to three days - is still expected
to offer Tehran another 30 days in which to cut a deal. Veto-wielding
Security Council members Russia and China remain resolutely opposed to
sanctions, which conflict with their own national economic interests,
and it's not immediately clear exactly what outcome the U.S. - which
currently holds the rotating Security Council chair - would seek from a
Council discussion on the Iran issue. While U.S. ambassador John Bolton
warned that Iran will face "tangible and painful consequences,"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stressed that sanctions were
unlikely to be an immediate option. So, even if the matter does get to
the Security Council in the coming weeks, Iran will likely be given a
new deadline to comply with a more forceful international demand.
Touting evidence to help convince wavering allies that Iran is engaged
in a covert bomb program also carries its own risks: The evidence is
mostly circumstantial, much of it resting on the contents of a stolen
Iranian laptop computer. And considering how things turned out when the
U.S. made its case in the security council about Iraqi WMDs in the
run-up to the war, Washington's credibility on these issues isn't
exactly strong. Moreover, nothing will weaken diplomatic support for
U.S. positions on Iran faster than associating them with the Bush
administration's well-known appetite for regime change in Iran.
If the U.S. and its allies are confronted by the difficulties in
mustering support for sanctions against Iran, much less any form of
military action, Iran's defiant posture should also be read with a
measure of skepticism. Despite Tehran's insistence on exercising its
right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, the New York Times
reports that Iran is as much as ten years away from being able to
perfect the kind of industrial-scale enrichment that Tehran has
threatened in exchange for Security Council referral. And while its
nuclear stance is remarkably popular across the political spectrum at
home, even building a bomb wouldn't answer the regime's basic problem:
How to create jobs for the millions of young Iranians chafing under
their poverty, who elected President Ahmadinejad on promises to put food
on their tables. Foreign investment and trade remains the key to
transforming Iran's economic prospects, and prospects for attracting
either would be doomed by a confrontation with the West.
So, despite all the bluster from all sides, the search for a compromise
formula on Iranian enrichment activities remains very much alive. A
Russian proposal to enrich the fuel for Iran's reactors on its own soil
- so as to prevent material being diverted for further enrichment for a
bomb program - right now remains the most likely contender. There's no
deal yet, because Tehran is insisting that it retain the right to
continue small-scale enrichment for research purposes on its own soil, a
demand flatly rejected by the West. But the fact that the parties
continue to negotiate even as the gears of diplomacy slowly turn
suggests that, much evidence to the contrary, both sides may well find a
way out of the deadlock.
The archives of South News can be found at
http://southmovement.alphalink.com.au/southnews/
*****************************************************************
28 Independent: Scientists in revolt against cuts that will undermine Britain's
climate research
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 07 March 2006
A torrent of high-level opposition is building up to the
proposals to scrap Britain's three leading wildlife research
centres, which are due to be voted on tomorrow.
More than 1,000 formal objections have been received by the
Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc) to its plans to
close the centres at Monks Wood, Cambridgeshire, Winfrith in
Dorset and Banchory near Aberdeen.
The scheme, which will also see 200 wildlife scientists sacked,
has caused anger among environmentalists, many of whom believe
more, not less, specialised wildlife research is needed to
protect Britain's habitats and species from growing threats,
especially climate change.
The centres have been responsible for many discoveries about the
natural world and the pressures on it. These include the first
proof that global warming is having an impact on the living
environment - Monks Wood researchers have shown that spring now
arrives in Britain three weeks earlier than 50 years ago.
Others include work on limiting the harm of invasive species,
bringing back vanishing bumblebees, reintroducing the large blue
butterfly to Britain, and resolving the conflict between grouse
shooters and birds of prey that want to eat grouse.
Several prominent figures have voiced their objections to the
plans to close the centres, with Sir David Attenborough calling
the idea "a nonsense". But now the true scale of opposition is
becoming clear, and it is in effect a revolt of the British life
sciences establishment against the proposals.
Nerc's consultation exercise on the future of the stations,
which are part of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH),
has received 1,327 submissions from "stakeholders" - bodies
which have a formal interest in their work. Nerc refuses make
details of the submissions public until after tomorrow's meeting
of its 18-strong governing council, which will formally consider
the plans.
However, CEH staff have been told that of the first 500
received, 496 were against the scheme, with only four in favour
and believe the final total will reflect this. The comments have
come from across the spectrum of public life in Britain: from
the science establishment, from research associations, from
environmental charities and pressure groups, from government
quangos and from the Government itself. (Although the Nerc is an
official body, distributing funds from the science budget, it
takes its decisions independently of government).
They have even come from abroad: there is a forceful letter
protesting against the plans from the State Museum of Natural
History in the Ukraine.
Nerc says it will publish all the comments after tomorrow's
meeting as it feels it is appropriate that council members
should "consider the responses and discuss them before they are
made publicly available."
However, a number have already been put into the public domain
by their authors, and some are remarkable for their strength of
language.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds urges Nerc to
reconsider, commenting: "These cuts will have serious
consequences for vital ecological research and could not come at
a worse time."
The National Trust also says that it is "alarmed by the prospect
of any cut-backs in the resourcing of CEH's scientific
research," and similarly comments that "the timing could hardly
be worse".
The Royal Society, Britain's science academy and the most
prestigious scientific body in the land, says: "Of particular
concern are the threats posed to the vitally important long-term
environmental monitoring sites, programmes, and data sets that
play such a key role in underpinning our understanding of the
natural environment and environmental change."
The Government's own wildlife conservation agency, English
Nature, says it has "major concerns over the scale of the
proposed cuts in staff and facilities". It comments: "We are
concerned that even if biodiversity research programmes, and
work on long term research and data, are retained, closure of
centres and relocation of staff may mean that key staff with
skills and knowledge essential to such work may be lost. This
risks compromising these vital programmes."
And the Government itself is expressing concern. The submission
from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) attacks - in the opaque language of Whitehall - Nerc for
presenting its plans as a virtual fait accompli.
It says: "While we welcome the opportunity to comment on Nerc's
plans for the restructuring of CEH, we are concerned that only a
single option is presented, which narrows the opportunity for
constructive debate. We assume that other scenarios have been
considered, and presentation of these would have given greater
transparency [to the way in which Nerc arrived at its decision].
The scientists of the Ukrainian State Museum of Natural History
add a trenchant view of their own. They write: "The closures
[are] a very grave error. "Europe needs more ecologists, not
fewer. European biodiversity requires long-term studies,
long-term monitoring and continuity - not disruption and
redundancy." LEADING ARTICLE, PAGE 30
The centres under threat ... and what they have achieved
MONKS WOOD, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
* Spring coming earlier: Monks Wood researchers have given clear
proof that global warming is impacting on the natural world.
They have shown that spring, as evidenced by the coming into
leaf of oak trees, and other natural events, is arriving about
three weeks earlier than it was 50 years ago.
* The Big Bee Project: Half of Britain's 16 species of
bumble-bees, right, are in decline. Monks Wood scientists Dr
Matt Herder and Claire Carvell have devised a wildflower seed
mix, containing pollen-rich and nectar-rich species such as red
clover, which farmers can plant at field margins to bring
bumblebees back. It works.
* Wildlife atlases: The Biological Records Centre at Monks Wood
keeps detailed records of all British wildlife except birds (20
million records on 10,000 species). Many of these data sets have
been turned into distribution maps and atlases showing the
marked effects of climate warming and habitat loss on wildlife
over the past century.
* The Great Fen Project: The re-creation of 3,000 hectares of
wild fenland between Peterborough and Cambridge, is the largest
habitat restoration project in western Europe. Monks Wood
conducted the feasibility study and advised on which habitats
should be restored, and how much water will be needed.
WINFRITH, DORSET
* Rebirth of the blues: The large blue butterfly became extinct
in Britain in 1979 but has been reintroduced thanks to
Winfrith's Jeremy Thomas. It has a life cycle that involves it
spending most of the year in nests of red ants; Dr Thomas found
which ant species was key.
* Restoring biodiversity on Twyford Down: In the Nineties the M3
motorway extension through chalk downland near Winchester caused
great controversy. Winfrithscientists helped create new chalk
grassland next to the motorway, and after 12 years the site is
an important habitat for animal and plant species, including
orchids and blue butterflies.
* Oystercatcher problems: Oystercatchers are a protected bird,
but they cause problems for the shellfish industry. Winfrith
researchers are developing ways to manage mussel beds that would
reduce losses. In the Menai Strait, north Wales, hundreds of
thousands of pounds have been saved.
BANCHORY, SCOTLAND
* Seabird declines: Seabirds, such as the kittiwake, are thought
to be increasingly threatened by climate change. Work at
Banchory, led by Professor Sarah Wanless, has already
established a link between warming sea water and declining
kittiwake breeding.
* Invasive species: Britain has more than 1,000 alien species,
such as Japanese knotweed, right. Some present a threat to
native wildlife. Banchory's Dr Phil Hulme has carried out
Britain's first alien species audit, looking at Scotland; this
is being extended to England and Wales.
* Shooting conflicts: Grouse shooting is a significant
contributor to Scotland's rural economy; but hen harriers, birds
of prey, are also partial to grouse, and can make shoots
uneconomical. Dr Steve Redpath is seeking to resolve the
conflict between shooters and the harriers, without shooting the
latter.
Michael McCarthy
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
*****************************************************************
29 [NukeNet] Scotland: Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:16:38 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
http://www.sundayherald.com/54448
Sunday Herald - 05 March 2006
Nuclear power: splitting the LibDems and Labour
Row over lobbyist’s funding as MP threatens to quit post
INVESTIGATION By Rob Edwards, Environment Editor
----------
WITH nuclear power, it’s not just atoms that split. It’s the Liberal
Democrat Party, the Labour Party and the government’s green advisers.
An investigation by the Sunday Herald has uncovered new and damaging
divisions in the ranks of the two political parties that govern Scotland,
as well as within the Sustainable Development Commission, which advises
ministers in Holyrood and Westminster on environmental issues.
We can also reveal that public money has been used to support a vigorous
pro-nuclear campaign by trade unionists from power plants.
Long-standing tensions over nuclear power are now flaring up because of the
energy review launched in January by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. The
review is widely expected to end up this summer recommending a new
programme of nuclear power stations.
The most dramatic evidence of internal squabbling comes from within the
Liberal Democrats. The party, which last week elected Sir Menzies Campbell
as leader, has historically been opposed to building any more nuclear
stations.
But leaked correspondence from shadow Scottish secretary John Thurso MP,
who favours nuclear power, suggests pressure is mounting within the party
to reverse this policy. In a letter to trade unions at the Dounreay nuclear
plant in his Caithness constituency, he discloses the LibDems’ private
disagreements.
He describes how he had to abstain on an anti-nuclear motion moved by the
LibDem environment spokesman, Norman Baker, in the House of Commons on
January 17. “It was impossible for me to take part in the debate since the
views I would have put forward would have been in contradiction to the
views set out by the spokesman on the front bench,” Thurso, a hereditary
peer, wrote.
“I have been engaged in promoting a reassessment of the party’s policy both
in shadow cabinet and in the wider party … This activity has been supported
by the industry, which has been helpful with factual briefings.”
Then Thurso dropped his bombshell: “It may be that a time will come when I
feel obliged to resign from the shadow cabinet to pursue my views more fully.
“However, for the present I believe I can best use my influence from within
the shadow cabinet. Further, I believe that steady pressure is beginning to
bear fruit within parliament and wider public opinion.”
Suspicions that Thurso might be winning the argument within the LibDems
were reinforced on Thursday when Baker, a passionate advocate of the
anti-nuclear case, suddenly resigned as environment spokesman .
Thurso denied that he had made any threat. “If the issue does reach
criticality, I should have to consider my position, but that’s a long way
in the future,” he told the Sunday Herald.
The divisions have been seized upon by the Greens, who believe that LibDem
opposition to nuclear power is weakening. “We are seeing signs that the
LibDems are likely to roll over,” said Chris Ballance MSP, the Greens’
nuclear spokesman.
“They value power more than principle. They have consistently refused to
say that nuclear power will be a coalition-breaking issue, so it’s fair to
assume that support for LibDems is support for new nuclear in Scotland.”
Labour, too, have their fissions. A pro-nuclear motion passed at the
party’s Scottish conference in Aviemore a week ago has prompted the party’s
green wing, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association (Sera), to
point out that Labour’s stance still had to be agreed by the Scottish
Policy Forum.
Controversy has also arisen over the activities of a group of trade
unionists campaigning for nuclear power under the banner of Nuklear21. The
group involves five trade unions, including Amicus, which moved the
pro-nuclear motion at the Aviemore conference.
Workers from the defunct Chapelcross nuclear plant in Dumfries and Galloway
have been touring Scottish party political conferences handing out
Nuklear21 leaflets. They claim that nuclear power equals “atoms for peace”
and that “nuclear will help save the planet”. The group, which is planning
a mass lobby of the Westminster parliament later this month, has also sent
newsletters to every MSP in Scotland.
It does not say where its funding comes from. But the Sunday Herald has
discovered that Nuklear21 has been given support by the British Nuclear
Group (BNG), the state-owned company formerly known as BNFL that runs
Chapelcross and Sellafield in Cumbria.
BNG admitted that it had been paying “travel and business expenses” for
Nuklear21 union representatives since April 2005. In line with legal
obligations, it had also provided paid time off and “administrative support
facilities” such as offices and communication systems.
No representatives of Nuklear21 were available for comment last week, but
the revelations about their financial backers upset Sera Scotland. The
group found it “disappointing” that Nuklear21 had not made it clear where
its funding had come from, said spokeswoman Claudia Beamish.
Environmentalists were incensed. “It is clearly outrageous that taxpayers’
money has been secretly funding the nuclear industry to lobby for new
reactors,” said Dr Richard Dixon, the director of WWF Scotland.
But even within green groups there can be disagreements over nuclear power.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the main environmental
adviser to ministers, led by green guru Jonathon Porritt, has spoken out
against new nuclear stations in the past.
But a major schism over the drafting of a new nuclear policy emerged at the
commission’s plenary meeting last December in Belfast. “A number of
commissioners questioned whether the UK needed every energy source
available in order to combat climate change, making nuclear power a
necessity,” the minutes record.
But other commissioners “stated that they were inherently against nuclear”.
They were worried about nuclear waste, and concerned that not enough was
being done to reduce demand for energy and encourage alternative energy
sources.
Porritt warned that the SDC’s position “would therefore need to be more
complex and reflective, which would make it more representative of society
at large”.
The SDC is due to publish new advice on nuclear power tomorrow.
----------
Copyright © 2006 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088
Back to
previous page
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
30 Despite Progress, Nuclear Reactor Safety Still Falls Short - UN Atomic Watchdog
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 15:00:09 -0500
DESPITE PROGRESS, NUCLEAR REACTOR SAFETY STILL FALLS SHORT – UN ATOMIC WATCHDOG
New York, Mar 6 2006 3:00PM
Despite the efforts of the past two decades to upgrade civilian nuclear
reactor safety, facilities still exist where safety assistance
needs to be made a priority even as expectations for atomic
power as an energy source are rising measurably, the United Nations
nuclear watchdog agency warned today.
“Nuclear safety is not an issue that can ever be regarded as ‘fixed,’”
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General
Mohamed ElBaradei <"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Statements/2006/ebsp2006n003.html">told
a Board of Governors meeting at its Vienna
headquarters in his latest report, noting that growing global
needs and rising oil and gas prices have fuelled new interest in
atomic energy.
“But equally important has been the sustained strong performance,
in terms of safety and productivity, of existing nuclear plants,”
he said. “While the strong, steady safety performance of recent
years is reassuring, events of concern continue to take place, even
in countries with extensive operating experience and strong regulatory
oversight.
“These events make clear that the management of nuclear safety, including
the establishment of a strong safety culture for both operators
and regulators, must always be viewed as a ‘work in progress,’”
he said.
“From my own discussions with operators and regulators, I believe
it is particularly vital that we work harder to fix the so-called
‘weak links’ in the nuclear safety chain,” he added, listing less
than optimal design safety features, the lack of strong, independent
regulatory oversight, and poor coordination among the international
organizations providing safety assistance.
For such facilities, the international community should move expeditiously,
with coordination between all relevant organizations,
to clarify the actions needed, the expected costs, and a strategy
and schedule for proceeding, Mr. ElBaradei warned. “I am pleased
to note that these focused efforts have recently been taking place
at some facilities,” he said.
He noted that the IAEA has also been pressing for increased harmonization
in national regulatory approaches, to ensure high quality,
independent oversight for nuclear activities, as evidenced by
the International Conference on Effective Nuclear Regulatory Systems
held in Moscow last week – the first effort to bring together
all senior regulators with oversight in nuclear safety, radiation
safety and nuclear security.
The conference made a number of recommendations, including wider
participation by all countries in international conventions and other
instruments, and renewed emphasis on international cooperation
in developing a comprehensive body of international safety standards.
2006-03-06 00:00:00.000
________________
For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news
To change your profile or unsubscribe go to:
http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/
*****************************************************************
31 Climate: 'No quick fix' from nuclear power says government
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 16:42:21 -0600 (CST)
Even "doubling nuclear [energy] capacity would make only a small
impact on recuding carbon emissions by 2035"
= = = = Full Story:
'No quick fix' from nuclear power
Building new nuclear plants is not the answer to tackling climate
change or securing Britain's energy supply, a government advisory panel
has reported.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling
nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon
emissions by 2035.
The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this
must be set against the potential risks.
The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy
needs.
* * *
"The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our
climate change and energy crises" Jonathon Porritt, SDC chair
* * *
[The government] regards building nuclear capacity as an alternative to
reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.
As North Sea supplies dwindle, nuclear is seen by some as a more secure
source of energy than hydrocarbon supplies from unstable regimes.
Proponents say it could generate large quantities of electricity while
helping to stabilise carbon dioxide CO2 emissions.
But the SDC report, compiled in response to the energy review,
concluded that the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its advantages.
Pushing ahead
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, commented: "There's little point
in denying that nuclear power has benefits, but in our view, these are
outweighed by serious disadvantages.
"The Government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix to our
climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't one."
Energy minister Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the government's review,
said the SDC's findings made an "important and thorough contribution"
to the debate.
"Securing clean, affordable energy supplies for the long term will not
be easy. No one has ever suggested that nuclear power - or any other
individual energy source - could meet all of those challenges," Mr
Wicks said.
"As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white issue.
It does, however, agree that it is right that we are assessing the
potential contribution of new nuclear [plants]."
24-hour power
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the representative body for the
UK's nuclear sector, gave the report a more cautious welcome.
Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the NIA, said the SDC report was not as
negative as they had feared.
"What the report is basically saying is that the government has got to
make a choice between renewables and nuclear.
"The SDC is saying you cannot have both, but of course you can. We
support having both renewables and nuclear," he told the BBC News
website.
"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it keeps
working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would agree that
some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."
[Notice the sly use of the word "some" hoping the readers don't pick
up on what's being hidden: some renewable are NOT intermittent.
Examples
include wave energy and solar towers ((google solar tower australia)
-ED]
Research by the SDC suggests that even if the UK's existing nuclear
capacity was doubled, it would only provide an 8% cut on CO2 emissions
by 2035 (and nothing before 2010).
While the SDC recognised that nuclear is a low carbon technology, with
an impressive safety record in the UK, it identifies five major
disadvantages:
* No long-term solutions for long-term storage of nuclear waste are
yet available, says the SDC, and storage presents clear safety issues
* The economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain,
according to the report
* Nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised energy distribution
system for the next 50 years when more flexible distribution options
are becoming available
[read: we need more de-centralized energy sources]
* The report claims that nuclear would undermine the drive for
greater energy efficiency
* If the UK brings forward a new nuclear programme, it becomes more
difficult to deny other countries the same technology, the SDC [points
out]
Future development
The panel does not rule out further research into new nuclear
technologies and pursuing answers to the waste problem, as future
technological developments may justify a re-examination of the issue.
But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs without
nuclear power.
"With a combination of low carbon innovation strategy and an aggressive
expansion of energy efficiency and renewables, the UK would become a
leader in low-carbon technologies," the SDC claims.
Critics of the Government's energy review say it is a way to get
nuclear power, touted as a possible solution by Tony Blair, back on the
agenda.
Conservative energy spokesman Alan Duncan said ministers should pay
attention to the commission's conclusions.
"This report puts a spanner in the works for the government, who
everybody believes has already made up its mind in favour of nuclear."
The Tories are currently reviewing their energy policy. Zac Goldsmith,
deputy chair of the party's environment policy review which is due to
report in 18 months time, is strongly opposed to nuclear power.
The Liberal Democrats have also attacked the economic uncertainties of
nuclear power.
The Green Party says the government is determined to push ahead with
nuclear power despite evidence that it is uneconomic.
The government is set to publish its findings later this year.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/4778344.stm
Published: 2006/03/06 13:32:12 GMT
(c) BBC MMVI
=============
DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:
http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html
http://www.greenhousenet.org/
http://www.solarcatalyst.com/
http://www.campaignearth.org/buy_green_nativeenergy.asp
Overview and local actions you can take:
http://www.PostCarbon.org
=============
= = = =
STILL FEELING LIKE THE MAINSTREAM U.S. CORPORATE MEDIA
IS GIVING A FULL HONEST PICTURE OF WHAT'S GOING ON?
= = = =
Daily online radio show, news reporting: www.DemocracyNow.org
More news: UseNet's misc.activism.progressive (moderated)
= = = =
Sorry, we cannot read/reply to most usenet posts but welcome email
FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://EconomicDemocracy.org/wtc/ (peace)
http://economicdemocracy.org/eco/climate-summary.html (Climate)
And http://EconomicDemocracy.org/ (general)
** ANTI-SPAM NOTE: For EMAIL "info" and "map" DON'T work. Email to
** m-a-i-l-m-a-i-l (without the dashes)at economicdemocracy.org instead
*****************************************************************
32 Vermont Guardian: NRC denies last-ditch bid to stall uprate
March 6, 2006 Headlines |
BRATTLEBORO The Nuclear Regulator Commission late Friday
rebuffed a request to prevent Entergy from increasing power at
Vermont Yankee before a citizen group's safety contentions are
heard, saying such action could "harm Entergy."
The New England Coalition appealed to the five commissioners of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Feb. 27 to forestall the
uprate until a series of contentions are adjudicated before the
NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, which acts in a
quasi-independent capacity.
In their March 3 order, issued at 6:15 p.m., the commissioners
said the coalition had failed to address four key points in
their appeal request, including whether a stay would harm other
parties and where the public interest lies. "On the face of
things, though, it would appear that delaying the license
amendment, as NEC requests, would harm Entergy without any
obvious benefit to the public interest," they concluded.
NRC regulations "expressly instruct the staff not to let pending
hearings delay licensing decisions" unless they have discovered
"significant hazards" that would preclude a reactor from
operating safely under uprated conditions, the commissioners
noted in their oerder.
The NRC staff issued a final decision of "no significant
hazards" at Vermont Yankee on March 2, thereby clearing the way
for the uprate to begin in incremental levels. NRC told the
Vermont Guardian earlier this week that VY operators intended to
begin the uprate March 4. Vermont Yankee operators issued a
press release stating their intention to bring the reactor to
120 percent of its design capacity "within the next several
weeks."
The NRC has ordered Entergy to closely monitor the reactor by
increasing power in three steps and holding for 24 hours at each
step to record measurements from a series of strain gauges that
have been installed to record vibrations. Experts are concerned
that the vibrations could exacerbate cracking of the plant's
steam dryer, the component that removes water from the steam
before it enters the turbines.
Vermont Yankee's steam dryer cracked when the plant was
operating at its design capacity of 535 megawatts. Similar
reactors have experienced steam dryer problems under uprated
conditions.
In its letter to the commissioners, the New England Coalition
contends its demand for "full transient testing" of Vermont
Yankee would be rendered moot if the uprate is implemented. The
coalition's contentions, to be heard later this year, would
require a thorough analysis of the ability of the reactor's
alternate cooling system to withstand an earthquake and other
natural phenomena, as well as full transient testing which
would effectively test how the reactor responds to a sudden
shutdown at full operating capacity.
"Permitting implementation of the extended power uprate ...
would deny New England Coalition effective redress and due
process; and subject New England Coalition, its constituents and
members living within the emergency planning zone ... to the
irreparable harm of unnecessary increased risk of accident and
accident consequence," the coalition wrote.
The commissioners said the coalition's appeal failed to meet
four standards, the most important of which is "irreparable
harm."
"A party seeking a stay must show it faces imminent, irreparable
harm that is both 'certain and great.' NECs unproved speculation
does not equate to irreparable harm. Merely raising the specter
of a nuclear accident does not demonstrate irreparable harm,"
the commissioners wrote.
Posted March 6, 2006
policyNorthern Vermont: PO Box 335,
Winooski, VT 05404
Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT
05301
Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382
©2005 Vermont Guardian |
Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com
This document can be located online:
www.vermontguardian.com/dailies/032006/030606.shtml
*****************************************************************
33 Moscow Times: Nuclear Industry Overhaul Planned
Tuesday, March 7, 2006. Issue 3366. Page 7.
Staff Writer
The government plans to restructure the nuclear energy industry
into a vertically integrated holding, a move that would simplify
management in the sector and attract the cash necessary for its
further development, a top official said Monday.
Federal authorities are reviewing the creation of a fully
state-controlled umbrella company, under which several major
holdings will be formed, embracing all enterprises operating in
the nuclear sector, said Victor Opekunov, chairman of the State
Duma subcommittee for nuclear energy, part of the Energy,
Transport and Communications Committee.
The restructuring of the industry would involve "privatizing"
all Russia's nuclear enterprises -- in other words,
incorporating them into joint-stock companies -- with the state
becoming their only shareholder, Opekunov said.
In spite of nuclear sector companies being state-owned, their
management would be allowed to run the business much like a
private enterprise, making operational decisions and attracting
corporate financing, Opekunov said.
At present, only 15 percent of Russia's energy needs are served
by nuclear power. President Vladimir Putin has called for that
figure to rise to 25 percent in 15 years, a target that will
require the construction of 40 new nuclear reactors and
investments to the tune of $60 billion, according to
calculations by Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Federal Atomic
Energy Agency.
A working group set up by the atomic agency to draft a strategy
on how to restructure the industry and meet these targets has
proposed that the new vertically integrated holding,
provisionally called Rosatomprom, include three smaller
holdings, Vedomosti reported Monday.
The first holding would operate power stations, the second would
unite all companies operating in mining and enrichment of
uranium, and the third would be in charge of the manufacturing
of machinery for the nuclear sector.
Sources close to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency said Monday
that state nuclear fuel monopoly TVEL was the most likely
candidate to serve as a platform for the new holding.
Opekunov noted, however, that the working group's proposals were
far from being rubber-stamped. "What you see are conceptual
sketches. A bill for this has not been written yet," he said.
Russia's main nuclear enterprises include Rosatomenergo, which
runs all power stations; TVEL; Atomstroiexport, which builds
nuclear power stations abroad; and Tekhnabexport, the export arm
trading in nuclear machinery and fuel. All are currently
supervised by the Federal Atomic Energy Agency.
Most of Russia's nuclear companies are so-called federal state
unitary enterprises, which means they are controlled by the
state but their capital is not divided into shares.
By becoming joint-stock companies, nuclear firms would gain the
possibility to attract strategic investors, borrow cash on the
debt market, float shares on the stock market or apply for bank
loans.
While some industry insiders said the document for reform would
allow the possibility of private investment, including foreign
investment in individual projects, the Federal Atomic Energy
Agency denied this was the case.
"No one is planning to sell anything," an agency spokesman said.
Related Articles
Nuclear Power to Mushroom by 2030 (Mar. 01, 2006) [Archive
access required]
$10Bln Uranium Program Unveiled (Feb. 28, 2006) [Archive access
required]
Kiriyenko Says Russia Needs Another 40 Nuclear Reactors (Feb.
02, 2006) [Archive access required]
Nuclear Builder Back Under State Control (Feb. 22, 2006)
[Archive access required]
Ukraine and Russia Discuss Nuclear Cooperation (Jan. 23, 2006)
[Archive access required]
Putin Revives Nuclear Alliance (Jan. 13, 2006) [Archive access
required]
Where the State and Oligarchs Meet (Dec. 20, 2005) [Archive
© Copyright 2006 The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
34 Guardian Unlimited: Don't build nuclear plants, green advisers tell Blair
David Adam, environment correspondent
Tuesday March 7, 2006
The Guardian
Britain can meet its climate change targets and satisfy growing
energy demand without building a new generation of nuclear power
stations, according to a wide-ranging report from the
government's green advisers.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) said yesterday there
was "no justification" for a new nuclear programme - a position
that could prove an obstacle for Tony Blair, who is believed to
favour new nuclear plants. The SDC's report will feed into a
review of the government's energy policies, which is weighing up
the nuclear option and is expected to report in the summer.
Sir Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, said: "Our advice to
the government is that there is no justification for bringing
forward plans for a new nuclear programme at this time, and that
any such proposal would be incompatible with its own sustainable
development strategy."
Nuclear power stations produce less carbon dioxide pollution
than those burning coal and gas, but concerns over uncertain
costs and the long-term disposal of radioactive waste outweigh
the possible environmental benefits, he said.
Existing nuclear stations generate about 20% of electricity for
the UK, and all but one are scheduled to close by 2023.
High-profile figures including environmentalist James Lovelock
and Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser,
have said that replacing them is the only realistic way for
Britain to meet energy demand while cutting carbon dioxide
emissions. But the SDC report says increased emphasis on energy
efficiency and the wider use of renewable sources are a better
way to tackle global warming.
Doubling the UK's nuclear capacity would lower carbon dioxide
emissions by only 8% below 1990 levels by 2035, it says. The
government has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 60% by
2050. Sir Jonathon said: "We categorically disagree with all
those people advising the government that nuclear is necessary."
The report warns that a new generation of nuclear power would
undermine action to improve energy efficiency in homes and
businesses by "implying that a major technological fix is all
that's required". It also says massive investment in new nuclear
infrastructure would lock the UK into a centralised system to
distribute electricity for the next 50 years, threatening the
growth in microgeneration technologies such as small-scale wind
turbines on people's houses.
It also raised issues related to nuclear proliferation and
terrorism: "If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power
programme, we cannot deny others the same technology [under the
UN framework convention on climate change]."
Led by a board of 16 commissioners from academic, scientific,
business and campaigning backgrounds, the SDC was set up in 2000
to advise the government and reports directly to the prime
minister. Its new report is based on eight new research papers
which consider effects on the environment, economy and society.
Its position is not unanimous: eight of the commissioners gave
nuclear an unqualified rejection, with five saying no nuclear
now and two saying it should remain an option. Sir Jonathan, a
former head of Friends of the Earth, did not vote. The SDC does
not rule out a revival of nuclear power in future and says
research into new reactor technologies and ways to dispose of
the waste should continue.
Malcolm Wicks, the minister leading the energy review, said: "No
one has ever suggested that nuclear power, or any other
individual energy source, could meet all of those challenges. As
the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white
issue. It does, however, agree that it is right that we are
assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear."
Alan Duncan, energy spokesman for the Conservatives, said: "This
report puts a spanner in the works for the government, who
everybody believes has already made up its mind in favour of
nuclear. The Conservatives, on the other hand, have an open
mind."
A poll carried out by Mori and the Tyndall Centre for Climate
Change Research showed that 42% of people oppose building
nuclear reactors and 34% support it. The survey of 1,491 people
found that 60% supported new nuclear as long as renewable energy
sources were used at the same time.
FAQ: New reactors
Why is nuclear back on the agenda?
Because of alarm over climate change and the security of gas
supplies. All but one of the existing nuclear stations will
close by 2023 and ministers are anxious to keep the lights on.
So what's stopping them?
Fears over cost and how to dispose of the waste.
What happens next?
Separate strands of research are due to come together in time
for a decision this summer.
What about safety?
The industry says the new reactor designs are much safer.
How would we pay for them?
Fixed electricity prices, or a so-called nuclear tax, is one
option.
Useful link
Green party of England and Wales
Email your comments for publication to
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
35 au ABC: NT Land Council to tour Lucas Heights reactor
13:06 (ACDT)Monday, 6 March 2006. 10:06 (AWST)
Members of the Northern Land Council will tour Sydney's Lucas
Heights nuclear reactor tomorrow to help them decide whether to
nominate an alternative site for a waste dump in the Northern
Territory.
The Federal Government has proposed three locations for the
facility, two in central Australia and a third near Katherine.
Under the Commonwealth's radioactive waste management
legislation a Territory land council can nominate an alternative
site.
The Northern Land Council is considering its position and will
tour the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation
(ANSTO) reactor tomorrow along with its low level waste area and
environment division.
*****************************************************************
36 Czech Business Weekly: New energy in politics vs. politics of energy
06.Mar 2006
--> Opinion
A fresh political force is about to enter Czech parliamentary
politics — the Green Party (SZ). Its sudden surge in opinion
polls has surprised some, but it’s been long overdue.
The Czech Republic is one of Europe’s most ecologically damaged
countries and, as a result, the country’s various green
movements have always been strong. Had it not been for internal
conflicts, the Greens would have made it into Parliament a long
time ago.
The election of Martin Bursík to the post of party chairman last
fall finally gave the Greens the credibility they were lacking.
Bursík has been clever in emphasizing that the Czech Greens are
neither a one-issue party, nor are they necessarily, like most
other Greens in Europe, a leftist party. Bursík also stresses
that his party has little to do with the current establishment.
The party, therefore, appeals to several constituencies:
traditional environmentalists, left-leaning liberals and people
who until recently claimed they had no one to vote for. The pool
of liberals is potentially large because various small liberal
parties have all but disappeared, and the ruling Social
Democratic Party (ÈSSD) has abandoned centrist voters in its
attempts to attract voters from the Communists (KSÈM). Voters
who had “no one to vote for” are, on the other hand, attracted
to the Green Party because it’s a new political voice, untainted
by various corruption scandals, and it now appears to be poised
to win the minimum 5 percent vote to qualify it for
parliamentary representation.
Although in most European countries the Green Party would be a
natural coalition partner for the Social Democrats, Bursík has
been quite nebulous when it comes to identifying coalition
partners he might work with after the elections. According to
him, the Greens will cooperate with the party (or parties) that
can accommodate the largest portion of the party’s “green
agenda.”
However, there’s one issue where a compromise will be very
difficult: with the exception of the Greens, all parties that
are likely to be represented in the next Parliament advocate
nuclear energy. Given that a majority of Czechs support nuclear
energy, it’s very unlikely that either of the two large parties
that are likely to win the elections — the ÈSSD or the
conservative Civic Democrats (ODS) — will want to make
concessions on this issue.
President Václav Klaus (ODS) said the country should further
develop its nuclear energy sector to make the Czech Republic
less dependent on oil and gas imported from politically unstable
countries. He added that Europe needs to extricate itself from
the dictate of “green lobbies.” The ÈSSD is closely intertwined
with the energy sector. Both the ÈSSD and Czech energy giant ÈEZ
envisage building new nuclear power plants, or expanding
existing ones (see story, page 1).
This position makes it difficult for the ÈSSD to offer the
electorate what some of its politicians propose: a program that
is more “green” than that of the Greens. And the party’s ties to
the energy sector complicate possible post-election talks.
At any rate, difficult as it might be for the Greens to join a
new government, the party’s possible participation in government
politics represents a breath of fresh air. A great deal of
high-level corruption has been caused by the fact that five
political parties have dominated Czech politics for a long time,
creating a fairly closed system. Corruption cuts across the
political spectrum. In this respect, the arrival of a new
political player is good news.
Jiøí Pehe is a political analyst and head of New York University
in Prague.
©2004 Stanford, a. s. with all rights reserved.
webmaster@cbw.cz -->
*****************************************************************
37 Czech Business Weekly: The atomic age
06.Mar 2006
By: Jason Hovet, 06. 03. 2006
Calls to develop nuclear power as an expanded, secure energy
alternative are growing louder, and ÈEZ looks set to build more
reactors, come hell or high water.
The very public Russian-Ukrainian dispute this winter over the
cost of Russian natural gas and the brief halt in supplies to
Kiev raised alarms throughout Europe, prompting many politicians
and energy officials to take a second look at nuclear power as a
viable — and more secure — alternative. The Czech Republic,
which moved to wean itself off Russian gas a decade ago, is
among the European Union countries now retooling their
energy-supply strategies to give nuclear power a greater role,
even though Russian nuclear fuel supplies much of the country’s
power.
“Europe’s energy alternative to Russian natural gas isn’t only
[to secure] it from elsewhere, but mainly from other sources of
energy, particularly nuclear energy,” Czech President Václav
Klaus said in a Feb. 28 interview in the Russian daily
Kommersant on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s
visit in Prague. Klaus said that “Green lobbies control Europe.”
But their grip seems to be slipping, and the growing wave of
support for nuclear power is starting to drown out the voices of
nuclear opposition.
The Czech Republic, which is a net exporter of energy, has a
total of six nuclear reactors at two power plants: Temelín in
South Bohemia and Dukovany in Southern Moravia.
The dominant power utility, ÈEZ, operates both facilities. The
chairman of the board at ÈEZ, Martin Roman, has said that ÈEZ is
considering whether to build additional reactors.
“A decision on where and when [to build a new nuclear power
plant] could be made this year,” Roman told a Feb. 8 news
conference, noting that the Temelín plant was originally
designed to run four reactors, but only two are now operating.
Nuclear reactions
Situated near the border with Austria, Temelín has been the
subject of protests by Austrian politicians and international
environmental groups who claim it is an unsafe hybrid of
Soviet-era and Western technology. But analysts now see ÈEZ’s
nuclear expansion as quite certain; Komerèní banka, in its
latest ÈEZ analysis, dated Feb. 22, writes “the likelihood of
the expansion of the Temelín nuclear power plant [is] close to
100 percent.” It adds: “There is limited opposition to nuclear
power in the Czech Republic, and it is the most efficient power
source.”
However, Vojtìch Kotecký, program director of environmental
group Hnutí Duha/Friends of the Earth, thinks ÈEZ might be
getting ahead of itself. “I wouldn’t say [the new construction]
is settled yet,” he said, pointing out that the government’s
2004 energy strategy — which approved the construction of two
new reactors — didn’t envision operation commencing until 2020.
Kotecký added that ÈEZ seems to feel little obligation to follow
government policy.
Roman’s announcement certainly got Austria’s attention. In a
letter of protest provided to the Czech News Agency (ÈTK) the
day after the announcement, Roland Egger, from the Upper
Austrian Platform against Nuclear Danger, said it was “a clear
provocation to plan for the construction of more units at a
plant like Temelín, [which is plagued by] so many defects.”
For Kotecký, the biggest problem is the storage of nuclear
waste. “No decision should be made until the government deals
with [waste disposal],” he said.
Not easy being Green
Contrary to Klaus’ fears of Green power, environmental groups
may be losing their ability to effect change, for several
reasons.
For one, under international and EU law, responsibility for the
construction and operation of nuclear facilities is placed
firmly in the hands of national governments. On Feb. 15, the
European Commission declined to act on a complaint by the Upper
Austrian government filed this past fall and intervene in
Temelín’s operations.
Secondly, nuclear proponents are also pushing nuclear power as a
way to cut CO2 emissions — as nuclear reactors emit almost no
CO2 — and help Europe meet its greenhouse gas emission-reduction
targets under the Kyoto Protocol.
“In EU institutions, slowly but surely the attitude toward
nuclear [energy] has become more positive,” said Peter Haug, the
Brussels-based director general of Foratom, a European nuclear
industry trade group. “People are more and more aware of the
energy situation [in Europe],” he said, referring to the growing
reliance on imports. According to EU Energy Commissioner Andris
Piebalgs, Europe will need to import 70 percent of its energy
supply if the current direction isn’t reversed.
Finally, green power has to compete with the perceived growing
need to lower European dependence on energy imports — not just
from Russia, but also from the Middle East — which has also
helped bring about a nuclear revival in many European countries
in the past few years. In the mid-1990s, largely for security
reasons, the Czech Republic signed an agreement with Norway’s
Statoil for natural gas deliveries, despite heavy pressure from
Moscow, which enjoyed a monopoly on supply.
Diversifying fuel
In the Czech Republic, however, Russia remains an important
source of nuclear fuel, with Russian nuclear fuel manufacturer
Tvel Corporation supplying Dukovany’s four VVER 440 reactors,
which require fuel that currently can only be processed at
facilities in the Russian Federation or in Spain. The United
States-based engineering firm Westinghouse Electric is supplying
fuel to Temelin’s two VVER 1000 reactors until 2009.
In December 2004, ÈEZ called a tender for supplies beyond 2009,
in which Westinghouse and Russian nuclear fuel producer Tvel are
bidding.
Similar to other energy sources, the EU wants to diversify
nuclear fuel, and contracts in the trade in nuclear materials
must be approved by the Euratom Supply Agency. Before the May
2004 EU enlargement, the ESA limited non-EU imports of nuclear
fuel — both uranium and enrichment services — to 20-25 percent
from a single country or region.
Since EU enlargement, the market share of Russian nuclear fuel
supplies has risen to 35 percent, and new trade limits on
nuclear materials are under discussion.
As to whether a second Tvel contract could raise worries, the
ESA declined to comment, although one source, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said the situation might raise some
questions depending on the scope of the contract, but refused to
speculate on any ESA action if Tvel was to win the Temelín
contract. “We definitely encourage utilities to diversify their
supplies,” the source said.
ÈEZ spokesperson Ladislav Køíž, however, didn’t see any problems
at the moment, saying contracts are for the final fuel, which
isn’t subject to approval by the ESA.
Chain reactions
In Finland, construction is beginning on Europe’s first entirely
new nuclear reactor in 15 years, with the Czech Republic’s Škoda
JS as a subcontractor. New plants are expected in France,
Europe’s most nuclear-power dependent country, and Bulgaria,
where Czech consortium Škoda Alliance is bidding for the
construction of two new reactors. Nuclear power is being
reconsidered in Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Italy and even
Germany. ÈEZ is the 100-percent owner of Škoda Alliance
consortium partner Škoda Praha.
As the Czech Republic remains a strategic interest for Russia,
because of a natural gas pipeline running through the country to
western markets, pro-nuclear arguments here remain primarily
economic. ÈEZ’s Roman pushed for nuclear development last month
when he said constructing gas-powered plants doesn’t make sense
because of the volatile price of gas.
“Coal resources are [also] facing many questions,” said Jiøí
Gavor, a partner at energy consultancy ENA. Current deposits,
according to a 2005 Komerèní banka analysis of ÈEZ, are only
sufficient for 30 years, and renewed mining limits remain a
contentious issue. Coal also becomes more expensive as the price
of emissions is factored in.
Environmental campaigners like Kotecký say that increased energy
efficiency is a better option, arguing that the amount of energy
produced in the Czech Republic per euro of gross domestic
product (GDP) is still low here. “It’s twice as much in older EU
countries,” he said.
However, this argument might be too little too late. While
nuclear proponents have used environmental arguments to their
advantage, it seems opponents still haven’t been able to do the
same with economics.
©2004 Stanford, a. s. with all rights reserved.
webmaster@cbw.cz -->
*****************************************************************
38 newsobserver.com: Energy realities
Letters
March 6, 2006
Raleigh · Durham · Cary · Chapel Hill
Richard Graham-Yooll, in a Feb. 27 Point of View article, argued
for adopting renewable energy sources rather than allowing
Progress Energy to build one or two new nuclear plants in Wake
Country. It would likely be difficult to find knowledgeable
people in this area who don't support use of appropriate solar
energy, energy conservation and efficient energy use. Solar hot
water heaters, passive solar home heating, ground-coupled or
high-efficiency heat pumps, high-efficiency lighting and waste
heat recovery systems can all produce money savings.
However, the individual who strikes out to generate his own
electricity through roof-mounted photovoltaic cells or a wind
generator will likely pay life-cycle costs considerably higher
than purchasing electricity from a power company. Individuals
who desire electricity generated from renewable sources can meet
this need now by buying their electricity from N.C. Green Power
Associates -- as arranged through Progress Energy. They will, of
course, pay a cost premium for this more expensive energy source.
Utilities consider building nuclear power plants when they
foresee a need for future base-load generation. Nuclear and coal
plants can provide electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week
(except for maintenance shutdowns), while most solar options are
dependent upon the sun shining or the wind blowing. Energy
storage can distribute the supply, but this further increases
costs. The choice for base-load generation is basically a choice
between coal-fired plants and nuclear.
Thomas Elleman
Raleigh All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not
be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner.
© Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
newsobserver.com
*****************************************************************
39 NRC: NRC Issues Annual Assessments for Nation’s Nuclear Plants
News Release - 2006-03 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 06-033 March 3, 2006
plants. All the plants continue to operate safely.
These annual assessments give the public an overview of how each
plant has performed over the past year, said Michael Case,
Director of the Division of Inspection and Regional Support in
the NRCs Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. Later this
spring, the NRC will meet with the operators of every plant in
nearby locations to publicly discuss plant performance.
A separate announcement will be issued for each plant meeting.
In addition to the annual assessment letters, plants also
receive an NRC inspection plan for the coming year. Updated
information on plant performance is posted to the NRC web site
every quarter. The plants also receive a mid-cycle assessment
letter during the year; the next mid-cycle letters will be
issued in September.
The assessment letters sent to each licensee are available on
the NRC Web site at:
http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/index.html and through
ADAMS, the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System.
Help in using ADAMS is available from the NRC Public Document
Room by calling (301) 415-4737 or (800) 397-4209.
Last revised Monday, March 06, 2006
*****************************************************************
40 BBC: 'No quick fix' from nuclear power
Last Updated: Monday, 6 March 2006
[Hunterston B nuclear power station]
The UK's ageing nuclear plants are being phased out
Building new nuclear plants is not the answer to tackling climate
change or securing Britain's energy supply, a government advisory
panel has reported.
The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling
nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing
carbon emissions by 2035.
The body, which advises the government on the environment, says
this must be set against the potential risks.
The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's
energy needs.
The Government is going to ha to stop looking for an easy fix to
our climate change and energy crises Jonathon Porritt, SDC chair
It regards building nuclear capacity as an alternative to
reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas.
As North Sea supplies dwindle, nuclear is seen by some as a more
secure source of energy than hydrocarbon supplies from unstable
regimes. Proponents say it could generate large quantities of
electricity while helping to stabilise carbon dioxide CO2
emissions.
But the SDC report, compiled in response to the energy review,
concluded that the risks of nuclear energy outweighed its
advantages.
Pushing ahead
Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the SDC, commented: "There's little
point in denying that nuclear power has benefits, but in our
view, these are outweighed by serious disadvantages.
"The government is going to have to stop looking for an easy fix
to our climate change and energy crises - there simply isn't
one."
But he said that the SDC had concluded that the long-term target
of reducing carbon dioxide emissions could be met without nuclear
power.
[Worker puts together nuclear fuel assembly, BNFL] The report
does not rule out future research on nuclear
Energy minister Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the government's
review, said the SDC's findings made an "important and thorough
contribution" to the debate.
"Securing clean, affordable energy supplies for the long term
will not be easy. No one has ever suggested that nuclear power -
or any other individual energy source - could meet all of those
challenges," Mr Wicks said.
"As the commission itself finds, this is not a black and white
issue. It does, however, agree that it is right that we are
assessing the potential contribution of new nuclear [plants]."
24-hour power
The Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), the representative body
for the UK's nuclear sector, gave the report a more cautious
welcome.
Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the NIA, said the SDC report was not
as negative as they had feared.
"What the report is basically saying is that the government has
got to make a choice between renewables and nuclear.
"The SDC is saying you cannot have both, but of course you can.
We support having both renewables and nuclear," he told the BBC
News website.
"The key factor about nuclear is its base load which means it
keeps working 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Everyone would
agree that some renewable technologies are intermittent at best."
Research by the SDC suggests that even if the UK's existing
nuclear capacity was doubled, it would only provide an 8% cut on
CO2 emissions by 2035 (and nothing before 2010).
While the SDC recognised that nuclear is a low carbon technology,
with an impressive safety record in the UK, it identifies five
major disadvantages:
+ No long-term solutions for long-term storage of nuclear waste
are yet available, says the SDC, and storage presents clear
safety issues + The economics of nuclear new-build are highly
uncertain, according to the report + Nuclear would lock the UK
into a centralised energy distribution system for the next 50
years when more flexible distribution options are becoming
available + The report claims that nuclear would undermine the
drive for greater energy efficiency + If the UK brings forward a
new nuclear programme, it becomes more difficult to deny other
countries the same technology, the SDC claims
Future development
The panel does not rule out further research into new nuclear
technologies and pursuing answers to the waste problem, as future
technological developments may justify a re-examination of the
issue.
But the report concludes that Britain can meet its energy needs
without nuclear power.
"With a combination of low carbon innovation strategy and an
aggressive expansion of energy efficiency and renewables, the UK
would become a leader in low-carbon technologies," the SDC
claims.
Critics of the Government's energy review say it is a way to get
nuclear power, touted as a possible solution by Tony Blair, back
on the agenda.
Conservative energy spokesman Alan Duncan said ministers should
pay attention to the commission's conclusions.
"This report puts a spanner in the works for the government, who
everybody believes has already made up its mind in favour of
nuclear."
The Tories are currently reviewing their energy policy. Zac
Goldsmith, deputy chair of the party's environment policy review
which is due to report in 18 months time, is strongly opposed to
nuclear power.
The Liberal Democrats have also attacked the economic
uncertainties of nuclear power.
The Green Party says the government is determined to push ahead
with nuclear power despite evidence that it is uneconomic.
The government is set to publish its findings later this year.
*****************************************************************
41 The Herald: Majority of Scots oppose nuclear power
Web Issue 2478 March 06 2006
TOM GORDON, Scottish Political Correspondent and DEBORA
March 06 2006
The majority of Scots remain opposed to building nuclear power
stations and disposing of nuclear waste north of the border,
according to a new poll.
Most would prefer Scotland to turn to renewable sources such as
wind, wave and solar power to meet future energy needs, rather
than nuclear or gas or coal-fired electricity plants.
The findings, for BBC Scotland's Energy Week, are a setback for
the nuclear industry, which has tried to promote itself as a
reliable alternative to imported energy and a low emitter of the
gases which lead to global warming.
The poll will also inflame tensions within the Scottish
Executive, with the Liberal Democrats staunchly opposed to
nuclear, but Labour ready to back a new generation of atomic
power.
It found 69% of respondents "strongly" opposed to storing or
disposing of nuclear waste in Scotland, and a further 11% who
would "tend to oppose" it.
In total, opponents outnumbered advocates and don't knows by a
margin of four to one.
Asked if they would support or oppose building nuclear power
stations in Scotland, 51% were against (35% strongly), compared
with 33% in favour (14% strongly).
Renewables were the preferred power source at 52%, compared
with 21% for gas-fired power stations, 16% for nuclear, and 6%
for coal-fired stations.
However, the survey suggests public opinion is fluid. When
people were asked if they would support new stations "if they
helped us avoid being dependent on energy imported from
overseas", much of the previous opposition evaporated. Instead,
there was 54% support for the plants and only 34% of respondents
remained opposed.
Whitehall is consulting on how to replace the electricity
generating capacity from the UK's nuclear plants, which will be
obsolete within 20 years.
The executive's attitude is critical because although energy
policy is reserved, planning is devolved, and Scottish ministers
could refuse permission to build new plants.
Labour and the LibDems have so far avoided a damaging split by
deferring a decision on plants until after an independent
commission reports on how to deal with nuclear waste. But when
that report emerges in the summer it is likely to conclude there
is no neat solution, and the parties are likely to start arguing
in earnest.
Nuclear's ability to split the coalition was underlined by
revelations yesterday it may already have split the LibDems.
Speaking on the eve of today's publication of the Sustainable
Development Commission's report on nuclear and the environment,
Sir Menzies Campbell, the new LibDem leader, said he had "little
difficulty in rejecting nuclear" on cost and environmental
grounds.
However, The Sunday Herald yesterday revealed leaked
correspondence from Lord Thurso, the Caithness MP and LibDem
Scottish secretary, to trade unions at the Dounreay nuclear
plant in which he exposed internal party disagreements.
He said he had to abstain on an anti-nuclear motion moved by
the LibDem environment spokesman, Norman Baker, in the Commons
on January 17.
He added: "It may be that a time will come when I feel obliged
to resign from the shadow cabinet to pursue my views more fully."
Last night, he told The Herald: "My views on nuclear power are
well known. I have spoken to Ming about it and he knows I could
never back LibDem policy opposing nuclear."
Asked if he could continue in his present role, Lord Thurso
said he might not even be in the LibDem shadow cabinet after
this week's reshuffle.
Reacting to the poll findings, Richard Lochhead, SNP energy
spokesman, said the people of Scotland had rejected the nuclear
industry's "propaganda". He said: "Nuclear power is dirty,
dangerous and unwanted in Scotland, as this poll shows. Scotland
has the potential to be Europe's renewables powerhouse, and
ministers should be concentrating on developing this potential,
not pandering to the desires of their Labour masters in London."
A spokesman for the Scottish LibDems restated the party's
opposition, adding: "It's clear most Scots see the logic in not
building any new nuclear power stations when there are no viable
long-term solutions to what to do with the highly radioactive
waste."
Chris Ballance, Green speaker on nuclear issues, said the idea
that support for nuclear went up if it helped end reliance on
imported energy was a red herring, as uranium was also imported.
"If we use energy carefully, Scotland can meet our own needs
using safe, clean, renewable energy sources.
"Now Scottish ministers need to get on with delivering that.
Nuclear is nothing but a dangerous distraction."
Labour declined to comment.
The telephone survey of 1007 people was carried out by ICM
between February 24 and 28.
Copyright © Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights
*****************************************************************
42 Independent: Plan for new nuclear programme approaches meltdown after report
By Michael Harrison, and Michael McCarthy
Published: 07 March 2006
Tony Blair's backing for nuclear power suffered a blow yesterday
when the Government's own advisory body on sustainable
development came down firmly against the building of a new
generation of reactors.
Despite the Prime Minister's well-known support for the nuclear
industry, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) concluded
that a new nuclear programme was not the answer to the twin
challenges of climate change and security of supply. In a
hard-hitting report, the 15-strong Commission identified five
"major disadvantages" to nuclear power:
* The lack of a long-term strategy for dealing with highly toxic
nuclear waste
* Uncertainty over the cost of new nuclear stations and the risk
that taxpayers would be left to pick up the tab;
* The danger that going down the nuclear route would lock the UK
into a centralised system for distributing energy for the next
50 years;
* The risk a new nuclear programme would undermine efforts to
improve energy efficiency;
* The threat of terrorist attacks and radiation exposure if
other countries with lower safety standards also opt for
nuclear.
Nuclear power generates 20 per cent of the UK's electricity but,
by 2020, that will have shrunk to 7 per cent and, by 2035, the
last of the current generation of stations will have closed,
potentially leaving the UK highly dependent on imported gas.
But instead of sanctioning a new nuclear programme, the SDC
urged Mr Blair to back a further expansion of renewable power,
fresh measures to promote energy efficiency and the development
of new technologies such as "carbon capture" to tackle the
environmental threat posed by fossil-fuelled stations.
The commission's report comes just three months before the
Government publishes the results of its latest energy review,
which is widely expected to pave the wave for a new generation
of nuclear stations.
Sir Jonathon Porritt, the chairman of the commission,
said:"Instead of hurtling along to a pre-judged conclusion
(which many fear the Government is intent on doing) we must look
to the evidence. There's little point in denying that nuclear
power has its benefits but, in our view, these are outweighed by
serious disadvantages. The Government is going to have to stop
looking for an easy fix to our climate change and energy crises
- there simply isn't one."
The commission said that even if the UK's existing nuclear
capacity was doubled, it would only lead to an 8 per cent
reduction in carbon emissions from 1990 levels. By contrast,
renewable energy sources such as wind, wave, solar and biomass,
which are zero-carbon sources of energy, could supply 68-87 per
cent of the country's electricity needs if fully exploited.
Sir Jonathon added that opting for the "big-bang fix" of a new
nuclear programme would jeopardise public-sector support for
renewable power. It would also undermine efforts to improve
energy efficiency, which the report estimates could reduce UK
energy demand by as much as 30 to 40 per cent and cut carbon
emissions by 20 million tons a year - equivalent to the output
of 27 power stations.
Sir Jonathon said, that among the commission's 15 members, eight
had come down against nuclear power, five had concluded it was
not yet time for a new programme and two had said there was
"maybe" a case for more reactors. He also took a sideswipe at
other well-known environmentalists such as James Lovelock who
backs nuclear power. "No one person should be accorded that
over-arching credibility in the face of the evidence before us,"
he said.
The environmental pressure groups Friends of the Earth welcomed
the commission's findings. Its director, Tony Juniper, said:
"Tony Blair and his Government must now seize the historic
opportunity presented by the energy review to set the UK on
course to becoming a world leader in developing a low-carbon,
nuclear free economy."
The Energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, who is leading the review,
gave a guarded reaction, saying: "As the commission itself
finds, this is not a black and white issue. It does, however,
agree that it is right we are assessing the potential
contribution of new nuclear."
Philip Dewhurst, chairman of the Nuclear Industry Association,
voiced his "disappointment" at the report's findings but said he
was pleased that the commission had confirmed nuclear as a low
carbon source of energy, recognised its improved safety record
and only voted by 8-7 to rule out new reactors.
Meanwhile, London's Mayor Ken Livingstone unveiled plans to
revolutionise the capital's energy supply system to fight
climate change. London is to spend many millions of pounds
"decentralising" its electricity supplies - switching from giant
power stations to much smaller units, generating power locally -
by joining forces with the energy multi-national EDF to develop
local electricity generating sites and networks across the
capital. The commission's report warns that this is just the
kind of development that would be compromised if the UK went
down the nuclear route.
The five key objections
Waste
No long-term solutions for the disposal of nuclear waste, such
as the spent fuel from atomic power stations, are yet available,
let alone acceptable to the public, the report says. Nuclear
waste is dangerous, hard to manage, and long-lasting in its
effects. For example, the half-life of plutonium is 24,000
years. The pressure group Friends of the Earth once produced a
poster showing a Roman centurion with the caption: "If the
Romans had had nuclear power, we'd still be guarding their
waste."
Cost
The economics of building new nuclear power stations are highly
uncertain, the report says. It adds there is little, if any,
justification for public subsidy, but if costs escalate there's
a clear risk that the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab. The
capital costs of building stations are colossal and can swing
wildly with project overruns and increases in interest rates.
And do you factor in the enormous costs of decommissioning the
stations at the end of their lives, or not?
Inflexibility
A new generation of big nuclear power stations would lock the UK
into a wasteful, centralised electricity distribution system for
the next 50 years. What is needed is the much less wasteful
micro-generation (small local power stations) and local
distribution networks. Micro-generation is an idea whose time
has come: only yesterday, the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone,
said the capital would seek to combat climate change and cut CO2
emissions with a massive switch to generating power locally.
Security
If the UK brings forward a new nuclear power programme, we
cannot deny other countries the same technology. With lower
safety standards, they run higher risks of accidents, radiation
exposure, proliferation and terrorist attacks. The security
risks of any given nuclear power programme are hard to quantify,
but no one would deny that they exist - for example in the
movement of reactor-grade fuel or spent fuel, which might be
seized by terrorists for potential use in a "dirty bomb".
Efficiency
A new nuclear power programme would send out a signal that a
major technological fix is all that is required, says the
report, and hurt efforts to encourage energy efficiency. This
has largely been the approach of the Bush administration to
climate change. Environmentalists would contend that this is a
dangerous delusion, and that technical fixes such as nuclear
power do nothing about the long-term problem. Only changing the
energy system profoundly will make a real difference.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
*****************************************************************
43 Independent: Analysis: Porritt whispers in PM's ear with all the force he can
muster
By Michael McCarthy
Published: 07 March 2006
Listen to yesterday's Sustainable Development Commission report
on nuclear power and you will hear something uncommon,
fascinating and slightly awe-inspiring: the sound of a big beast
in the environmental jungle, getting his retaliation in first.
Jonathon Porritt has come a long way since he was one of the
founders of the Ecology Party (which subsequently became the
Green Party), and then leader of Friends of the Earth. Now, as
chair of the SDC, and Tony Blair's official environmental
adviser, he is part of the government establishment.
But only to a degree. Sir Jonathon may be an Etonian by
schooling and a baronet by title but he has remained radical in
his green convictions, and one of those, which he shares with
most other environmentalists, is that no good whatsoever can
come of nuclear power.
He clearly sees the current Energy Review as a stitch-up, a
cosmetic exercise to prepare the way for a new generation of
nukes, and let's be honest, many would agree with him. The
common perception is Tony Blair has taken the decision already.
But unlike most green activists, Sir Jonathon can actually do
something about it. His position at the head of the SDC gives
him direct access to Mr Blair and potentially enormous
influence, and in certain circumstances, he has to be listened
to. This is one of those circumstances, and he is making the
most of it. He's not waiting for the outcome of the Energy
Review; he's making a determined attempt to sway the result.
Yesterday's SDC report and accompanying papers represent the
most thorough, hard-hitting and detailed case against the
British nuclear option which has yet been produced. This is not
green soundbite, this is serious stuff. It will have to weigh in
the argument. It certainly raises dramatically the political
stakes for Mr Blair - and for Mr Brown when he takes over - in
opting for atomic power once again.
Mr Blair has never been anti-nuclear (he likes shiny modern
technology). But he has been especially persuaded of the
necessity of a full new nuclear-build programme to fight climate
change, by the Government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David
King. Sir David has been whispering in one Blair ear; Sir
Jonathon is now whispering in the other, although perhaps
whispering hardly does justice to the force of yesterday's
report.
The reason Sir Jonathon may ultimately not succeed is that the
detail of the arguments against nuclear, displayed so powerfully
yesterday, is not what is going to count. Few people would
dispute that there is no solution yet to nuclear waste, or that
nuclear economics are uncertain, or that a nuclear programme
would partially lock the UK into a centralised energy system, or
that there is a major security risk associated with nuclear
energy. It's all true.
But the essence of the argument Sir David King has put to Mr
Blair is that climate change is so threatening that nuclear is
essential despite all that.
But you can't say the other side of it hasn't been made properly
now, in the struggle between David and Jonathon for the ear of
the Prime Minister.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited
*****************************************************************
44 Rutland Herald: Guinea pigs lack nuclear answers
Rutland Vermont News & Information
March 6, 2006
I awoke from a sound sleep at 3:30, the morning after the public
meeting with the NRC regarding the process for the relicensing
of Vermont Yankee for an additional 20 years, and the ways that
the public will be able to participate in this process. Most of
us in that room were painfully aware that this means 20
additional years of production of the deadliest waste, increased
in volume due to the simultaneously proposed 20 percent increase
in power. We also knew that not only will there be more waste
produced, it will not leave our backyard for many years, as was
originally anticipated and promised.
I was given the task of holding an audio-mic to record each
speaker for videographer, Robbie Lepzer, who generously donated
his time and expertise to professionally record this event. This
forced me to be close to each and every articulate, informed,
impassioned speaker, seeing tears form, papers tremble, and
despite such built-up exasperation and anguish, hearing words
full of knowledge and sincerity fall together eloquently.
What woke me from a sound sleep was the question I wish I had
asked when one particularly well-informed gentleman spoke longer
than some could withstand. When the facilitator attempted
repeatedly to get him to "wrap up," I wanted desperately to take
the mic and reduce his impressive speech into this one simple
question that, like all others asked that evening, was not
answered. I would have said this:
"We, the guinea pigs of Windham County, above, below and beyond,
want to know one thing. If we are to be subjected to this
mounting pile of radioactive waste in our backyard, with no
promise of its removal, and must wait and see what happens when
this retirement-aged reactor is given the ultimate uprate
without a prior stress-test, then why can't we at least be given
the reassurance afforded by the much more thorough Independent
Safety Assessment that we've all been squeaking about for the
past few years? Is it the cost? Please, just spell out the
answer in terms that make sense."
Unfortunately, that question, though actually gleaned from this
individual's speech, was not answered to any of our
satisfaction, but brushed off with smiles and pats on our furry
little heads.
In the face of the profits to be made by a corporation from
Louisiana, while we little piggies are subjected to this
potentially deadly experiment, why can't they at least grant us
this one last request; shell out a fraction of their money, if
only to reassure our well-informed (not simply emotional) little
selves, and allow such an inspection to occur?
I'm off for a furious spin in the little wheely thing in my cage
after that meeting, maybe chew up some paper towel rolls and
stuff.
ALICA MOYER
West Townshend
© 2006 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
45 ISN Security Watch: France to develop Libya’s nuclear technology
[International Relations and Security Network]
ISN SECURITY WATCH (Monday, 6 March: 11.20 CET) - French
authorities will help Libya develop its civilian nuclear energy
program. An agreement between the two countries is expected to
be signed in the coming weeks, news agencies reported.
Patrick Ollier, president of the French National Assembly’s
economic affairs committee, told Reuters news agency on Sunday
that the two governments already had approved the cooperation
project.
Ollier offered reporters few details about the pending deal, in
which Libya will sign a contract with the world’s largest
maker of nuclear reactors, Areva, for civilian nuclear power
technology.
Last year, France expressed interest in helping the Libyan
government develop its civilian nuclear program after it agreed
to give up internationally banned chemical, nuclear, and
biological weapons.
Libya also signed protocols with the UN’s International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA).
» Earlier news
*****************************************************************
46 NRC: Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste; Meeting on Planning and
FR Doc E6-3127
[Federal Register: March 6, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 43)]
[Notices] [Page 11235] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr06mr06-69]
Procedures; Notice of Meeting The Advisory Committee on Nuclear
Waste (ACNW) will hold a Planning and Procedures meeting on March
24, 2006, Room O-1G16, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance, with the
exception of a portion that may be closed pursuant to 5 U.S.C.
552b(c)(2) and (6) to discuss organizational and personnel
matters that relate solely to internal personnel rules and
practices of ACNW, and information the release of which would
constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: Friday,
March 24, 2006-1:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. The Committee will discuss
proposed ACNW activities and related matters. The purpose of this
meeting is to gather information, analyze relevant issues and
facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official,
Mr. Michael P. Lee (Telephone: 301/415-6887) between 8:15 a.m.
and 5 p.m. (ET) five days prior to the meeting, if possible, so
that appropriate arrangements can be made. Electronic recordings
will be permitted only during those portions of the meeting that
are open to the public.
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 8:15 a.m. and
5 p.m. (e.t.). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged
to contact the above named individual at least two working days
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes in
the agenda.
Dated: February 28, 2006.
Michael R. Snodderly, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
[FR Doc. E6-3127 Filed 3-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
47 NRC: Fire Protection Program
RIN 3150 AH54
FR Doc E6-3128
[Federal Register: March 6, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 43)]
[Proposed Rules] [Page 11169-11172] From the Federal Register
Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr06mr06-12]
Fire Protection Program--Post-Fire Operator Manual Actions
AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Withdrawal of proposed rule.
SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is withdrawing
its proposed amendment to the Commission's fire protection
regulations for nuclear power facilities operating prior to
January 1, 1979. The proposed amendment pertained to the use of
manual actions by plant operators coincident with fire detectors
and an installed automatic fire suppression system in the fire
area as an alternative method to achieve hot shutdown conditions
in the event of fires in certain plant areas. Based on
stakeholder comments, the Commission believes that the proposed
rule would not achieve intended objectives of effectiveness and
efficiency.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: David Diec, (301) 415-2834,
e-mail or Alexander Klein, (301) 415-3477, e-mail of the Office
of Nuclear Reactor Regulation, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION I. Purpose II. Background III. Proposed
Rulemaking IV. Withdrawal of Rulemaking V. Operator Manual
Actions Closure Plan A. Ensuring Compliance B. Regulatory Issue
Summary
[[Page 11170]] C. Staff Regulatory Review Guidelines D.
Enforcement Action I. Purpose For the reasons discussed in this
document, the Commission is withdrawing a proposed rulemaking
that was recommended as the appropriate regulatory tool to
resolve a compliance issue associated with the use of operator
manual actions for post-fire safe shutdown of nuclear power
plants. The Commission is initiating a closure plan to ensure
continuing compliance with the fire protection regulations.
II. Background Section 50.48(b) of the Code of Federal
Regulations (10 CFR 50.48(b)) backfits the requirements of
paragraphs III.G, III.J, and III.O of Appendix R, ``Fire
Protection Program for Nuclear Power Facilities Operating Prior
to January 1, 1979,'' to 10 CFR part 50, ``Domestic Licensing of
Production and Utilization Facilities,'' to plants licensed to
operate before January 1, 1979 (pre-1979).
The NRC incorporated similar guidance and criteria into Branch
Technical Position CMEB 9.5-1, ``Guidelines for Fire Protection
for Nuclear Power Plants,'' and section 9.5.1, ``Fire Protection
Program,'' of NUREG- 0800, ``Standard Review Plan for the Review
of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants'' (also
referred to as the Standard Review Plan (SRP) for plants licensed
after January 1, 1979 (post-1979). Post- 1979 licensees
incorporated their fire protection program implementation
requirements into their operating licenses as license conditions.
Paragraph III.G.2 of Appendix R to 10 CFR part 50 requires that,
where cables or equipment of redundant trains of systems
necessary to achieve and maintain hot shutdown conditions are
located in the same fire area, one of the following means of
ensuring that one of the redundant trains is free of fire damage
shall be provided: a. Separation of cables and equipment by a
fire barrier having a 3- hour rating.
b. Separation of cables and equipment by a horizontal distance of
more than 20 feet with no intervening combustibles or fire
hazards and with fire detectors and an automatic fire suppression
system in the fire area.
c. Enclosure of cables and equipment in a fire barrier having a
1- hour rating and with fire detectors and an automatic fire
suppression system in the fire area.
Paragraph III.G.2 of Appendix R to 10 CFR part 50 cannot be
reasonably interpreted to permit reliance upon operator manual
actions in lieu of the specific methods provided in subparagraphs
(a), (b), and/or (c) to ensure that one of the redundant safe
shutdown trains in the same fire area is free of fire damage.
Therefore, any pre-1979 licensee that is using operator manual
actions instead of the specific methods in subparagraphs (a),
(b), and/or (c) without an NRC-approved exemption is not in
compliance with the regulations.
The staff became aware that some licensees were using operator
manual actions in lieu of the requirements in Paragraph III.G.2
in Appendix R to 10 CFR part 50 and initiated this rulemaking as
a means to bring plants into compliance.
10 CFR 50.12, ``Specific Exemptions,'' provides the basis for the
NRC to consider exemptions from requirements in 10 CFR part 50,
including the requirements in 10 CFR part 50, Appendix R.
In the past, the staff reviewed and approved a number of
exemption requests for the use of operator manual actions when
licensees could not meet the requirements for either separation
distance, a fire barrier, or a fire suppression system as
detailed under paragraphs III.G.2(a), (b), or (c) of Appendix R
to 10 CFR Part 50. The staff's rationale for approving these
exemptions was predicated on the type and amount of combustibles,
the need for automatic fire suppression and detection capability,
the effectiveness of the applicant's manual firefighting
capability, and the time assumed available for plant operators to
take such manual actions.
The regulations also allow licensees to use a risk-informed,
performance-based approach under 10 CFR 50.48(c). This approach
would allow licensees to use the National Fire Protection
Association (NFPA) Standard 805, ``Performance-Based Standard for
Fire Protection for Light Water Reactor Electric Generating
Plants, 2001 Edition,'' in lieu of seeking an exemption or
license amendment or meeting the requirements of Appendix R.
III. Proposed Rulemaking In SECY-03-0100, ``Rulemaking Plan on
Post-Fire Operator Manual Actions,'' dated June 17, 2003, the NRC
staff recommended a revision to the reactor fire protection
regulation contained in Appendix R to 10 CFR part 50 and
associated guidance to resolve a regulatory compliance issue. The
proposed rule on post-fire operator manual actions was published
in the Federal Register on March 7, 2005 (70 FR 10901), with a
75-day comment period that ended on May 23, 2005. The proposed
rule would have revised paragraph III.G.2 of Appendix R to allow
licensees to implement acceptable operator manual actions
combined with fire detectors and automatic fire suppression
capability as an acceptable method for ensuring the capability of
a licensee to bring a reactor to, and maintain it in, a hot
shutdown condition. Fire detectors and automatic fire suppression
requirements were included with the criteria for feasible and
reliable operator manual actions to maintain fire protection
defense-in-depth. The anticipated outcome of this proposed rule
was to reduce unnecessary regulatory burden and maintain NRC
effectiveness and efficiency by reducing the need for licensees
to prepare exemption requests, and the need for NRC to review and
approve these requests.
The NRC received about 80 comments from 14 individuals and
organizations on the proposed rule. Industry stakeholders and the
Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) commented that the proposed rule
requirement for an automatic fire suppression system is not
necessary and installation of such systems would be costly
without a clear safety enhancement. Industry stakeholders and NEI
stated that this requirement would likely not reduce or eliminate
the number of exemption requests, and thus, would not meet one of
the primary purposes of the rulemaking.
Industry stakeholders further objected to the proposed rule
requirement for a time margin and stated that thermal hydraulic
calculations and other analyses have inherent conservatism that
accounts for time margin. Industry stakeholders also objected to
the time margin factor of two, stating that it is arbitrary,
unprecedented, and inconsistent with requirements for other plant
programs, such as emergency operating procedures.
Some industry stakeholders claim that the proposed rule is a
backfit and that NRC guidance has allowed the use of operator
manual actions to protect redundant safe shutdown trains.
Comments received from public interest groups and individuals
generally stressed the need for the NRC to maintain the current
regulations on fire protection of nuclear power plant safe
shutdown capability. The Union of Concerned Scientists and the
Nuclear Information and Resource Service stated that they agree
with the staff's recommendation to withdraw the proposed rule.
The NRC's evaluation of the stakeholder comments is provided in
[[Page 11171]] the document titled ``Response to Public Comments
on the Proposed Operator Manual Actions Rule.'' This document is
available in ADAMS under ADAMS Accession No. ML053350235. ADAMS
may be accessed via the NRC's Public Web site at .
The NRC has engaged stakeholders throughout the rulemaking
process. On April 27, 2005, the NRC held a Category 3 public
meeting at NRC Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, to obtain
stakeholder feedback on the proposed rule. Representatives from
the industry, the Nuclear Energy Institute, industry consultants,
and a public interest group attended the meeting. The feedback
provided by stakeholders during the public meeting was similar in
nature and consistent with those provided in written comments at
the close of the 75-day public comment period.
On September 30, 2005, the NRC held a Category 2 public meeting
at NRC Headquarters to discuss both the planned withdrawal of the
proposed rule on post-fire operator manual actions and NRC's
closure plan following withdrawal of the rule. During this
meeting, the NRC received public comments on the closure plan
from industry, the NEI, the Nuclear Information and Resource
Service, and an industry consultant.
IV. Withdrawal of Rulemaking Industry stakeholders and NEI stated
that the proposed rule, if implemented, would require numerous
exemption requests for conditions that do not satisfy the
automatic fire suppression requirement, specific acceptance
criteria for operator manual actions, or a combination thereof.
This outcome would not be consistent with the primary purpose of
the rulemaking which was to enhance effectiveness and efficiency
by reducing or eliminating exemption requests. Therefore, the NRC
is withdrawing the proposed rulemaking.
V. Operator Manual Actions Closure Plan A. Ensuring Compliance
The NRC will continue to verify compliance with its regulations
through scheduled inspections. The NRC expects noncompliances
identified by NRC inspectors or licensees to be addressed by
licensees through plant corrective actions.
The withdrawal of the operator manual actions rulemaking may
require some licensees to take corrective actions that may be
different from those described in the proposed rule. As such, the
NRC's closure plan to deal with the rule withdrawal includes
issuing a new regulatory issue summary and developing internal
staff regulatory review guidelines for post-fire operator manual
actions.
B. Regulatory Issue Summary The NRC intends to issue a regulatory
issue summary (RIS) to reiterate the 10 CFR part 50, Appendix R
Paragraph III.G.2 compliance expectations with respect to the use
of operator manual actions, discuss the means to achieve
compliance, advise licensees of the date the NRC will terminate
the enforcement discretion guidance in Enforcement Guide
Memorandum (EGM) 98-02, ``Enforcement Guidance
Memorandum--Disposition of Violations Of Appendix R, Sections
III.G and III.L Regarding Circuit Failures,'' Revision 2 issued
in February 2000 (incorporated into Enforcement Manual section
8.1.7.1), and discuss potential exemption requests, compensatory
measures and corrective actions pertaining to operator manual
actions.
C. Staff Regulatory Review Guidelines The NRC developed
acceptance criteria as part of the proposed rule for operator
manual actions and also for DG-1136, ``Demonstrating the
Feasibility and Reliability of Operator Manual Actions in
Response to Fire,'' dated February 2005, that provided an
acceptable method for complying with the proposed rule. The
acceptance criteria and DG-1136 were published in 70 FR 10901.
The NRC plans to update section 9.5.1, ``Fire Protection
Program,'' of NUREG-0800, ``Standard Review Plan for the Review
of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants'' [also
referred to as the Standard Review Plan (SRP)] to address
post-fire operator manual actions acceptance guidance. This
update to the SRP will include the knowledge gained during the
proposed rule development and will enhance the NRC regulatory
review process for future licensing actions, such as exemption
requests.
D. Enforcement Action In March 1998, the NRC staff issued EGM
98-02, which provides enforcement discretion guidance for issues
related to fire-induced circuit failures. The most recent
revision of EGM 98-02 was issued in February 2000 and can be
accessed in ADAMS under ADAMS Accession Number ML003710123. This
EGM, which remains in effect, discusses fire-induced circuit
failure requirements and encompasses the vast majority of manual
actions since manual actions are used as compensatory measures to
satisfy the regulatory requirements related to fire-induced
circuit failures. The EGM provides guidance for disposition of
noncompliances involving fire-induced circuit failures, which
could prevent operation or cause maloperation of equipment needed
to achieve and maintain post- fire safe shutdown. The EGM
includes guidance to provide discretion for cases where licensees
do not dispute that a violation of regulatory requirements has
occurred with respect to a nonconformance, take prompt
compensatory actions, and take corrective actions within a
reasonable time. The expectations of this EGM have been
incorporated into the current NRC Enforcement Manual.
The Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation issued a revised
Inspection Procedure (IP) 71111.05T, ``Fire Protection
(Triennial),'' in March 2003 providing inspection criteria for
operator manual actions. The inspection criteria are used as
guidance by NRC inspectors to determine if operator manual
actions can be used as a compensatory measure while corrective
actions are taken by the licensee.
The NRC plans to terminate the enforcement discretion guidance in
EGM 98-02 6 months after the publication date of this Federal
Register notice. During this 6-month period, the application of
the enforcement guidance in EGM 98-02 in combination with the
criteria in IP 71111.05T will ensure the adequacy and
appropriateness of compensatory measures in the form of operator
manual actions implemented in accordance with the licensee's fire
protection program. Manual actions that fail to meet the criteria
in the inspection procedure are not considered to be feasible or
adequate compensatory measures. The continuation of enforcement
discretion guidance for six months is intended to provide a
reasonable amount of time for licensees that have implemented
feasible and reliable operator manual actions as compensatory
measures to initiate corrective actions. The corrective actions
could involve compliance with III.G.2 or III.G.3; adoption of
NFPA 805 through 10 CFR 50.48(c); or submission of exemption
requests or license amendments.
Licensees that have initiated corrective actions within the
6-month period, for noncompliances involving operator manual
actions used to address fire-induced circuit failures, will
receive enforcement discretion for those noncompliances provided
licensees complete the corrective actions in a timely manner. The
NRC expects timely completion of the corrective actions
[[Page 11172]] consistent with RIS 2005-20, ``Revision to
Guidance Formerly Contained in NRC Generic Letter 91-18,'' dated
September 26, 2005 (ADAMS Accession No. ML052020424) not to
exceed 3 years from the date of this Federal Register notice, or
consistent with the licensee's NFPA 805 transition schedule.
The Commission believes that the proposed rule would not achieve
its objective. Therefore, the Commission has decided to withdraw
the proposed rule.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland this 28th day of February, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Annette Vietti-Cook, Secretary of the Commission.
[FR Doc. E6-3128 Filed 3-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
48 NRC: PSEG Nuclear LLC; Notice of Consideration of Issuance of
FR Doc E6-3130
[Federal Register: March 6, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 43)]
[Notices] [Page 11233-11235] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr06mr06-68]
Amendment to Facility Operating License, Proposed No Significant
Hazards Consideration Determination, and Opportunity for a
Hearing The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC or the
Commission) is considering issuance of an amendment to Facility
Operating License No. NPF-57 issued to PSEG Nuclear LLC (the
licensee) for operation of the Hope Creek Generating Station
located in Salem County, New Jersey.
The proposed amendment would relocate the primary containment
penetration conductor overcurrent protective devices and the
Class 1E isolation breaker overcurrent protective devices from
the Technical Specifications to the Updated Final Safety Analysis
Report.
Before issuance of the proposed license amendment, the Commission
will have made findings required by the Atomic Energy Act of
1954, as amended (the Act), and the Commission's regulations.
The Commission has made a proposed determination that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration.
Under the Commission's regulations in Title 10 of the Code of
Federal Regulations (10 CFR), Section 50.92, this means that
operation of the facility in accordance with the proposed
amendment would not (1) Involve a significant increase in the
probability or consequences of an accident previously evaluated;
(2) create the possibility of a new or different kind of accident
from any accident previously evaluated; or (3) involve a
significant reduction in a margin of safety. As required by 10
CFR 50.91(a), the licensee has provided its analysis of the issue
of no significant hazards consideration, which is presented
below: 1. Does the proposed change involve a significant increase
in the probability or consequences of an accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed changes do not increase the probability of any
previously evaluated accident. No safety function has been
altered. The proposed changes relocate the Primary Containment
Penetration Conductor Overcurrent Protective Devices Limiting
Condition for Operation (LCO) and Class IE Isolation Breaker
Overcurrent Protective Devices LCO requirements from the TS
[technical specifications] to the Hope Creek Generating Station
Updated Final Safety Analysis Report (UFSAR). Relocation of the
Primary Containment Penetration Conductor Overcurrent Protective
Devices LCO and Class IE Isolation Breaker Overcurrent Protective
Devices LCO requirements is consistent with the NRC Final Policy
Statement on TS Improvements and 10 CFR 50.36. In part, the Final
Policy Statement provides screening criteria to evaluate TS
requirements for the purpose of relocation to other
licensee-controlled documents. LCOs which do not meet any of the
Final Policy Statement criteria and any 10 CFR 50.36(c)(2)(ii)
criteria may be proposed for relocation. The Primary Containment
Penetration Conductor Overcurrent Protective Devices LCO and
Class 1E Isolation Breaker Overcurrent Protective Devices LCO
requirements do not satisfy any of the Final Policy Statement
screening criteria. The proposed changes do not affect any
operational characteristic, function, or reliability of any
structure, system, or component (SSC). Thus the consequences of
accidents previously analyzed are unchanged between the existing
TS requirements and the proposed changes.
Based upon the above, the proposed change will not involve a
significant increase in the probability or consequences of an
accident previously analyzed.
2. Does the proposed change create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously
evaluated? Response: No.
The proposed changes do not create the possibility of a new or
different kind of accident from any accident previously evaluated
in the UFSAR. No
[[Page 11234]] new accident scenarios, failure mechanisms, or
limiting single failures are introduced as a result of the
proposed changes.
Specifically, no new hardware is being added to the plant as part
of the proposed change, no existing equipment is being modified,
and no significant changes in operations are being introduced.
Therefore, the proposed changes do not create the possibility of
a new or different kind of accident from any previously
evaluated.
3. Does the proposed change involve a significant reduction in a
margin of safety? Response: No.
The proposed changes will not alter any assumptions, initial
conditions, or results of any accident analyses. The proposed
changes relocate the Primary Containment Penetration Conductor
Overcurrent Protective Devices LCO and Class 1E Isolation Breaker
Overcurrent Protective Devices LCO requirements from the TS to
the UFSAR consistent with the NRC Final Policy Statement on TS
Improvements and 10 CFR 50.36. Therefore, the proposed changes do
not involve a significant reduction in a margin of safety.
The NRC staff has reviewed the licensee's analysis and, based on
this review, it appears that the three standards of 10 CFR
50.92(c) are satisfied. Therefore, the NRC staff proposes to
determine that the amendment request involves no significant
hazards consideration.
The Commission is seeking public comments on this proposed
determination. Any comments received within 30 days after the
date of publication of this notice will be considered in making
any final determination.
Normally, the Commission will not issue the amendment until the
expiration of 60 days after the date of publication of this
notice. The Commission may issue the license amendment before
expiration of the 60- day period provided that its final
determination is that the amendment involves no significant
hazards consideration. In addition, the Commission may issue the
amendment prior to the expiration of the 30- day comment period
should circumstances change during the 30-day comment period such
that failure to act in a timely way would result, for example in
derating or shutdown of the facility. Should the Commission take
action prior to the expiration of either the comment period or
the notice period, it will publish in the Federal Register a
notice of issuance. Should the Commission make a final No
Significant Hazards Consideration Determination, any hearing will
take place after issuance. The Commission expects that the need
to take this action will occur very infrequently.
Written comments may be submitted by mail to the Chief, Rules and
Directives Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of
Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, and should cite the publication date and page
number of this Federal Register notice. Written comments may also
be delivered to Room 6D59, Two White Flint North, 11545 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, Maryland, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. Federal
workdays. 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 O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first
floor), Rockville, Maryland.
The filing of requests for hearing and petitions for leave to
intervene is discussed below.
Within 60 days after the date of publication of this notice, the
licensee may file a request for a hearing with respect to
issuance of the amendment to the subject facility operating
license, and any person whose interest may be affected by this
proceeding and who wishes to participate as a party in the
proceeding must file a written request for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene. Requests for a hearing and a
petition for leave to intervene shall be filed in accordance with
the Commission's ``Rules of Practice for Domestic Licensing
Proceedings'' in 10 CFR Part 2. Interested persons should consult
a current copy of 10 CFR 2.309, which is available at the
Commission's PDR, located at One White Flint North, Public File
Area O1F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville,
Maryland. Publicly available records will be accessible from the
Agencywide Documents Access and Management System's (ADAMS)
Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at the NRC Web
site, .
If a request for a hearing or petition for leave to intervene is
filed by the above date, the Commission or a presiding officer
designated by the Commission or by the Chief Administrative Judge
of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, will rule on the
request and/or petition; and the Secretary or the Chief
Administrative Judge of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
will issue a notice of a hearing or an appropriate order.
As required by 10 CFR 2.309, a petition for leave to intervene
shall set forth with particularity the interest of the petitioner
in the proceeding, and how that interest may be affected by the
results of the proceeding. The petition should specifically
explain the reasons why intervention should be permitted with
particular reference to the following general requirements: (1)
The name, address and telephone number of the requestor or
petitioner; (2) the nature of the requestor's/petitioner's right
under the Act to be made a party to the proceeding; (3) the
nature and extent of the requestor's/petitioner's property,
financial, or other interest in the proceeding; and (4) the
possible effect of any decision or order which may be entered in
the proceeding on the requestor's/petitioner's interest. The
petition must also identify the specific contentions which the
petitioner/requestor seeks to have litigated at the proceeding.
Each contention must consist of a specific statement of the issue
of law or fact to be raised or controverted. In addition, the
petitioner/requestor shall provide a brief explanation of the
bases for the contention and a concise statement of the alleged
facts or expert opinion which supports the contention and on
which the petitioner intends to rely in proving the contention at
the hearing. The petitioner/requestor must also provide
references to those specific sources and documents of which the
petitioner is aware and on which the petitioner intends to rely
to establish those facts or expert opinion. The petition must
include sufficient information to show that a genuine dispute
exists with the applicant on a material issue of law or fact.
Contentions shall be limited to matters within the scope of the
amendment under consideration. The contention must be one which,
if proven, would entitle the petitioner to relief. A
petitioner/requestor who fails to satisfy these requirements with
respect to at least one contention will not be permitted to
participate as a party.
Those permitted to intervene become parties to the proceeding,
subject to any limitations in the order granting leave to
intervene, and have the opportunity to participate fully in the
conduct of the hearing.
If a hearing is requested, the Commission will make a final
determination on the issue of no significant hazards
consideration. The final determination will serve to decide when
the hearing is held. If the final determination is that the
amendment request involves no significant hazards consideration,
the Commission may issue the amendment and make it immediately
effective, notwithstanding
[[Page 11235]] the request for a hearing. Any hearing held would
take place after issuance of the amendment. If the final
determination is that the amendment request involves a
significant hazards consideration, any hearing held would take
place before the issuance of any amendment.
Nontimely requests and/or petitions and contentions will not be
entertained absent a determination by the Commission or the
presiding officer of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board that
the petition, request and/or the contentions should be granted
based on a balancing of the factors specified in 10 CFR
2.309(c)(1)(i)-(viii). A request for a hearing or a petition for
leave to intervene must be filed by: (1) First class mail
addressed to the Office of the Secretary of the Commission, U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001,
Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff; (2) courier,
express mail, and expedited delivery services: Office of the
Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland 20852, Attention: Rulemaking
and Adjudications Staff; (3) E-mail addressed to the Office of
the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ; or (4)
facsimile transmission addressed to the Office of the Secretary,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, Attention:
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff at (301) 415-1101,
verification number is (301) 415-1966. A copy of the request for
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent
to the Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, and it is requested that
copies be transmitted either by means of facsimile transmission
to 301-415-3725 or by e-mail to . A copy of the request for
hearing and petition for leave to intervene should also be sent
to the Jeffrie J.
Keenan, Esquire, Nuclear Business Unit--N21, P.O. Box 236,
Hancocks Bridge, NJ 08038, attorney for the licensee.
For further details with respect to this action, see the
application for amendment dated October 11, 2005, which is
available for public inspection at the Commission's PDR, located
at One White Flint North, File Public Area O1 F21, 11555
Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly
available records will be accessible from the 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,
301-415-4737, or by e- mail to .
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 27th day of February, 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Stewart N. Bailey, Senior Project Manager, Plant Licensing Branch
I-2, Division of Operating Reactor Licensing, Office of Nuclear
Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E6-3130 Filed 3-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
49 NRC: Groundwater Contamination (Tritium) at Nuclear Plants
The recent identification of the inadvertent release of water
containing tritium at several reactors sites has caused the NRC
to increase our oversight activities in this area. The NRC is
reviewing these contamination incidents to determine what, if
any, changes are needed to our regulatory program. Although the
measured levels of tritium at the affected plants are above
background levels, they remain well below NRC's regulations for
release. Because there is a substantial amount of public
interest, the NRC is providing information on the status of the
unintended tritium leaks and the NRC's response.
+ Regulatory Requirements
+ [exit icon]
+ Public Meetings
+ Selected Plant Sites with Groundwater Contamination
Related Information
+ Fact Sheet on Environmental Monitoring
+ Information Notice 2004-05 [PDF Icon]
+ Bulletin 1980-10
+ Radiation Protection
+ Spent Fuel Pools
+ Regulation of Radioactive Materials
Last revised Monday, March 06, 2006
*****************************************************************
50 Wisconsin State Journal: Build on momentum for cleaner energy
[madison.com
Electricity-generating windmills like these in Iowa County could
be a common sight in rural parts of Wisconsin if lawmakers decide
to increase the required minimum level of renewable fuel use.
(Craig Schreiner/State Journal)
MAR 6, 2006 - 9:20 AM
Wisconsin State Journal editorial
The renewable energy bill poised to
pass the Legislature this week is a victory for Wisconsin in the
way that the completion of a blueprint is a victory for a home
builder.
What matters most is what comes next.
Wisconsin policy makers should follow up the renewable energy
bill with more legislation to improve the state's energy
independence and to encourage the development of energy sources
that are better for the environment.
In addition, businesses and consumers should follow through by
focusing on the opportunities to profit and save with new energy
sources and conservation strategies.
The renewable energy bill, already passed by the Senate, is
predicted to sail through the Assembly. It would require the
state's utilities to provide 10 percent of their electricity
from renewable sources by the end of 2015. It would also require
state agencies to get 10 percent of their electricity from
renewable sources by the end of 2011.
The bill contains provisions to improve energy efficiency as
well.
By creating a demand for renewables, the legislation will help
to lead Wisconsin toward cleaner sources of energy, like wind,
that can be produced right here. The more that the demand for
electricity can be met by renewables, rather than coal and
natural gas, the better for the state's environment and economy.
But boosting renewable energy for electricity is no more than a
piece of an energy strategy. The Legislature should do more.
Top priority should be given to a proposal to require that most
gasoline sold in the state be blended to produce E10, motor fuel
that is 10 percent ethanol.
Ethanol is an alcohol fuel with important advantages over
gasoline: Ethanol can be made from corn and other renewable,
home-grown crops; and when substituted for gasoline, ethanol
cuts carbon dioxide emissions, which contribute to greenhouse
gases linked to global warming.
The Assembly has already passed the E10 mandate. The bill also
has the support of Gov. Jim Doyle, who last week ordered all
state agencies to cut the use of gasoline, in favor of ethanol,
by 50 percent over the next 10 years. The hold-up is the Senate.
Senators should recognize the benefits the E10 mandate offers
for the environment and economy and pass the bill.
The Legislature should also end Wisconsin's two- decade-old ban
on building nuclear power plants. As demand for electricity
grows, nuclear energy is an option the state cannot afford to
reject if it hopes to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Rep. Michael Huebsch, R-West Salem, has introduced a bill to
retire the outdated nuclear moratorium. It deserves adoption.
The right policies from state government, combined with educated
choices by the private sector, can build for Wisconsin a more
secure future through the development of alternatives to fossil
fuels. Adoption of the renewable energy bill is an important
step. The state should build on the momentum.
Copyright © 2005 Wisconsin State Journal
For comments about this site, contact Anju Ali, interactive
editor, aali@madison.com
For comments about opinions, contact Scott Milfred, editorial
page editor, smilfred@madison.com
*****************************************************************
51 NRC: Regulatory Information Conference
RIC Notices
Pre-registration is now closed. If you still plan to attend the
RIC but have not registered, please print a copy of the
registration form, complete the form, and bring it with you to
the conference registration booth at the hotel.
Registration for NEI's Luncheon [exit icon] closing on
Friday March 3, 2006
Make your hotel room reservation now!
View the draft conference program!
Regulatory Information Conference (RIC)
[Logo for Regulatory Information Conference] Welcome to
the NRC's Regulatory Information Conference (RIC) web page. This
page will provide planning information and updates about the
next conference, as well as information about past conferences.
The Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation (NRR) will join forces
with the Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research (RES) to provide
challenging technical and regulatory topics, along with research
activities and issues, to make RIC 2006 the best ever!
The 18th Annual RIC will be held Tuesday March 7, Wednesday
March 8, and Thursday March 9, 2006 at the Bethesda
North
Marriott Hotel and Conference Center[exit icon] . Opposite
Metro's White Flint Station on the Red Line and diagonal to
NRC's Headquarters, the hotel [PDF Icon] is located just off
Route 355 (Rockville Pike) at 5701 Marinelli Road, North
Bethesda, Maryland 20852. The conference will be open to the
public and there is no conference fee.
See the following for detailed conference information:
+ Conference Program *UPDATED SCHEDULE*
+ Keynote Speakers
+ Conference Registration
+ On-Line Registrant List
+ Sponsored Events
+ Hotel Reservations and Area Information
+ Travel Information
+ Past RIC Information
+ Frequently Asked Questions
+ Contact Us About RIC
Throughout the RIC pages, you will see icons. The Exit icon is
placed directly after an external link to let you know that the
link is going to take you away from the NRC pages. For more
information, refer to the Site Disclaimer.
Last revised Friday, March 03, 2006
*****************************************************************
52 ITAR-TASS: United Russia urges government to finish construction of Kursk
NPP
06.03.2006, 20.17
MOSCOW, March 6 (Itar-Tass) -- The pro-presidential United
Russia party asked the government to provide 19.5 billion
roubles within three years to compete the construction of a
fifth power unit at the Kursk nuclear power plant.
“This project, which has been dragging on since 1986, can no
longer be tolerated because its maintenance requires large
expenditures every year,” State Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov, who
is also the party leader, said on Monday.
He said the power unit is about 70 percent finished, and “it is
quite possible to complete it within three years and thus avoid
energy shortages in the Central and Black-Earth zone”.
The Kursk region has no deposits of fossil fuel for power
generation, and its industrial development fully depends on the
Kursk and Voronezh nuclear power plants.
“The completion of the power unit will facilitate the
development of the region, which has an energy-intensive iron
ore metallurgy industry,” Gryzlov said.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
53 KPHO Phoenix: One Reactor Down at Palo Verde Nuclear Plant
One Palo Verde Reactor Shut Down
PHOENIX - One of three reactors at the Palo Verde nuclear plant
shut down Sunday morning due to a defective part in the unit's
computer system.
Arizona Public Service reports that unit was back online Monday
afternoon and it is expected to be at full power Tuesday.
The shutdown meant the triple-reactor Palo Verde nuclear plant,
the largest source of electricity for the Valley, was operating
at less than half of full power. Unit 1 has been operating at 25
percent of capacity since mid-January due to a vibrating pipe.
APS estimates that Unit 1's reduced output has cost it $20
million to buy replacement electricity, an amount the utility
will seek to recover from ratepayers.
03.06.06
.gif"> All content © Copyright 2001 - 2006 WorldNow and News
5. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
54 PittsburghLIVE.com: B nuke settlement still on hold -
By Wynne Everett
VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Monday, March 6, 2006
Babcock 's emergence from bankruptcy last month does not
necessarily mean local residents who sued the company for
causing various cancers are any closer to receiving settlement
money.
In 1998, eight plaintiffs from Apollo and Parks successfully
sued B in federal court for allegedly causing their cancers by
releasing radioactive materials from the company's nuclear
processing plants in the Kiski Valley from 1957-1986.
The $36.7 million verdict was never paid because U.S. District
Judge Donetta Ambrose ruled there were errors in the trial. The
company and the plaintiffs began negotiating a settlement that
could avert a second trial.
Those negotiations were stalled when B -- beset with unrelated
claims from people suing over asbestos exposure -- filed for
bankruptcy protection in 2000.
Last week the company took out an ad in the Valley News
Dispatch, announcing that it had emerged from bankruptcy.
"We're back where we were before the bankruptcy began," said
Fred Baron, the Texas attorney who represents Apollo and Parks
residents. "There are ongoing discussions that I'm hopeful will
result in a resolution."
Reached Friday afternoon, B spokeswoman Regina Carter said
company lawyers were not available to confirm whether
negotiations are ongoing between the company and the local
plaintiffs.
Baron said if the negotiations should fail, the next step would
be to return to federal court in Pittsburgh to retry the case.
The 1998 trial involved eight plaintiffs who claimed they
suffered illnesses, injuries and lost property because
radioactive materials released from B plants contaminated the
Kiski Valley's air, water and land.
The list of potential plaintiffs in a new case is much larger.
About 400 residents have claimed that they or their family
members were made sick or died from radioactive contamination
from the plants.
B defense lawyers argued the plaintiffs' illnesses weren't
caused by the nuclear processing plants. They claimed the
company properly filtered radioactive emissions and that any
exposure residents suffered couldn't have been substantial
enough to cause serious illnesses.
Wynne Everett can be reached at weverett@tribweb.comor (724)
226-4676.
Images and text copyright © 2006 by The Tribune-Review
Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
55 UPI: U.K. warned against nuclear 'quick fix'
United Press International - Energy -
3/6/2006 12:10:00 PM -0500
LONDON, March 6 (UPI) -- Increasing Britain's nuclear power
capacity is not the answer to concerns over energy supply or
climate change, a government advisory panel warned Monday.
The Sustainable Development Commission cautioned the government
against viewing nuclear power as "an easy fix," saying even
doubling nuclear capacity would lead to only a small reduction
in carbon emissions.
The report, compiled in response to the government's own energy
review, to be published later this year, concludes the risks of
nuclear energy outweigh the advantages.
British ministers have considered nuclear power as an
alternative to fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. With
North Sea oil stocks rapidly diminishing and many of Britain's
existing nuclear power stations to expire by 2020, some see
building a new generation of plants as preferable to increasing
reliance on imports from unstable regions of the world.
Advocates of nuclear power argue it will not only help fill the
looming energy gap, but help Britain cut its carbon emissions.
But the commission said even if current capacity were doubled,
emissions would be reduced by just 8 percent by 2035.
It also raised concerns about the long-term storage of waste,
safety issues and the economics of building a new generation of
plants. Embarking on a new nuclear program would undermine the
drive for greater energy efficiency, and make it more difficult
to deny other countries the same technology.
The report concluded that Britain could meet its energy needs
without nuclear power.
"With a combination of low carbon innovation strategy and an
aggressive expansion of energy efficiency and renewables, the
U.K. would become a leader in low-carbon technologies," it said.
© Copyright 2006 United Press
International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
56 Sofia Morning News: Prosecutor's Office to Probe Ex Chief of Bulgaria's Nuke
Top news: 6 March 2006, Monday.
The former chief of Bulgaria's only nuclear power plant Kozloduy
and now MP from the Simeon II National Movement (SIINM) Yordan
Kostadinov has violated the Public Procurement Law, it appeared
Monday.
An audit of the State financial control disclosed the violations
executed in the period 2004 - 2005. The data showed that the
Public Procurement Law has been violated and that information
over the executed financial audit has been covered, while
Kostadinov was on the helm of the plant.
The news emerged at a session of the Council for coordination
between the anticorruption commissions in Parliament, the
Council of ministers and the Supreme Judicial Council. Therefore
the Council recommended that the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's
Office is informed over that case.
Talking to the Bulgarian National Radio Kostadinov said that
there was a "political motive in that case." He also said that
he is ready to give up his MP immunity. "If there were mistakes
I am ready to face the consequences as Kozloduy's image is more
important. The nuke is a flawless organization," Kostadinov
added.
novinite.com
All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2006 - Copyright
&Disclaimer - Privacy Policy
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency -
www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news
provider in English that informs its readers about the latest
Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily
*****************************************************************
57 Vermont Guardian: Feds put Vermont Yankee uprate on hold due to excess vibration
By Kathryn Casa | Vermont Guardian
Posted March 7, 2006
BRATTLEBORO Federal regulators have frozen the Vermont Yankee
power increase at 105 percent after a measurement on Saturday
recorded vibrations that exceeded acceptable levels, the Vermont
Guardian has learned.
The data forwarded to us on Saturday for the A main steam line
exceeded one of the criteria levels. So, in accordance with the
monitoring plan, a hold has been placed on further power
increases while the data is evaluated, Nuclear Regulatory
Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan told the Vermont Guardian in
an e-mail late Monday.
The NRC last week issued approval to allow Vermont Yankee to
increase power to 120 percent of its design capacity under close
scrutiny because of concerns about the plants steam dryer, the
component that removes water droplets from the steam before it
feeds into the turbines.
The conditions require VY operators to increase power in
increments of 5 percent and hold each increase for 96 hours
after the vibration and stress measurements are sent to
regulators.
The NRC staff is independently evaluating the 105 percent data
and will review the engineering evaluation [necessary for
further power ascension] after it is completed by Entergy,
Sheehan said. Our resident inspectors will continue to monitor
Entergy's actions onsite.
An inspection of the VY dryer in November revealed more than 40
hairline cracks. VY officials said the fissures were probably
old, and were detected with sophisticated magnification
equipment first used during the most recent refueling outage to
check 20 cracks found in the dryer in 2004.
Although the steam dryer is considered a non-safety component,
experts say breakage could compromise the reactors safety
systems if, for example, a piece of the cracked dryer were to
break off and lodge in a valve.
Cracks discovered late last year in the welded reinforcements of
the Dresden II reactors steam dryer in Illinois, which is
similar to Vermont Yankee, also raised concerns at the NRC about
the stability of the devices.
Dresden II, a boiling water reactor like Vermont Yankee, was
shut down for a refueling outage when inspectors discovered
fissures in six triangular stainless steel gussets that had been
welded onto the plants cracked steam dryer in an effort to
reinforce it.
To NRCs credit theyre saying lets take a look at this, said Ray
Shadis, technical advisor to the anti-nuclear group New England
Coalition. But what we anticipate is that they will once again
sharpen their pencils, do some calculations and figure out that
maybe they can run a little bit longer.
Last week Shadis said he didnt expect VY to exhibit problems at
105 percent because operators last year told the NRC that they
had already run the plant above 100 percent.
If they have excessive vibrations or strain at 105 percent and
the executives from VY have already admitted that they routinely
run flow rates in excess of 100 percent, I have some concern
that they should permit the reactor to run at all, Shadis added.
Vermont Yankee officials did not return phone calls at press
time.
Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern
Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 702, Brattleboro, VT 05301
Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382
(toll-free)
©2005 Vermont Guardian |
Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com
This document can be located online:
www.vermontguardian.com/local/032006/VYUprateStalls.shtml
*****************************************************************
58 Technology Review: The Impact of Emerging Technologies - New Nukes in Europe -
Monday, March 06, 2006
Europeans are rethinking the merits of nuclear energy and
whether to build new plants, says energy executive Lars
Josefsson.
By Peter Fairley
Widespread public concern in Europe over climate change
resulting from fossil fuel emissions, and over the increasing
uncertainty of energy supplies from places like Russia has a
number of European countries taking a second look at nuclear
energy. Most notably, Finland has begun construction of Europe's
first new nuclear power plant in over a decade.
Indeed, a number of European countries that had rejected nuclear
power are rethinking their strategies. In Germany, which relies
heavily on Russian oil and gas, a planned phase-out of the
nuclear reactors that supply one-third of the nation's
electricity is becoming increasingly controversial. Meanwhile,
in Sweden, a debate is raging over the wisdom of that country's
plans to phase out nuclear power plants, after the costly
closure of a second plant last summer. (Compensating the plant's
owners cost Swedish taxpayers over one billion euros.) And
nuclear power is officially back on the planning board in the
United Kingdom, which had foresworn new nuclear reactors.
Paris-based Technology Review contributing writer Peter Fairley
recently discussed the thinking about nuclear power in Europe
with Lars Josefsson, CEO of Stockholm-based Vattenfall AB, a
leading producer of electricity and operator of nine reactors in
Sweden and Germany.
Technology Review: Finland is building a nuclear power plant,
and France looks set to follow suit with one of its own. Do you
expect other countries in Europe to join the trend?
Lars Josefsson: It's quite a process to decide to build new
nuclear -- one that will take several years. But the fact that
there is a trend shift in Europe is, to me, obvious. Take
Britain. They are moving in that direction very clearly. And I
think the replacement market [for aging plants] in Europe will
be sizable. And you will see a lot of demand from Asia and
probably from the U.S. as well. There is a real risk that the
nuclear technology supply industry will become a bottleneck in
the near future.
TR: Your firm is based in Sweden, where last November a poll
found that 65 percent of those questioned were opposed to the
premature closing of the country's nuclear reactors, which
provide 45 percent of their electricity. Why does the Swedish
public now want nuclear power to stay?
LJ: For ten years the polls have consistently shown that the
Swedish population is pro-nuclear. I think our safety track
record is convincing. It is also quite a long time now since the
days of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Then you also have the
climate-change issue, which has become the most serious
environmental concern, as well as the question of energy
security. I think all of these areas work together.
TR: Only two of Sweden's 12 reactors have shut down since the
country adopted a nuclear phase-out policy in 1980. And it is
clear now that the policy's 2010 target for completing the
phase-out will come and go without further closures. Is the
government, in effect, phasing out the phase-out?
LJ: The wording that the government uses is that we will close
the other reactors only as we find replacement power. That is
guarded wording.
*****************************************************************
59 [toeslist] Enviro/War - UK Radiation
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 01:12:34 -0600 (CST)
UK radiation jump blamed on Iraq shells
By Mark Gould and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
02/19/06 "Sunday Times" -- -- RADIATION detectors in Britain recorded a
fourfold increase in uranium levels in the atmosphere after the shock
and awe bombing campaign against Iraq, according to a report.
Environmental scientists who uncovered the figures through freedom of
information laws say it is evidence that depleted uranium from the
shells was carried by wind currents to Britain.
Government officials, however, say the sharp rise in uranium detected by
radiation monitors in Berkshire was a coincidence and probably came from
local sources.
The results from testing stations at the Atomic Weapons Establishment
(AWE) in Aldermaston and four other stations within a 10-mile radius
were obtained by Chris Busby, of Liverpool Universitys department of
human anatomy and cell biology.
Each detector recorded a significant rise in uranium levels during the
Gulf war bombing campaign in March 2003. The reading from a park in
Reading was high enough for the Environment Agency to be alerted.
Busby, who has advised the government on radiation and is a founder of
Green Audit, the environmental consultancy, believes uranium aerosols
from Iraq were widely dispersed in the atmosphere and blown across Europe.
This research shows that rather than remaining near the target as
claimed by the military, depleted uranium weapons contaminate both
locals and whole populations hundreds to thousands of miles away, he said.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) countered that it was unfeasible
depleted uranium could have travelled so far. Radiation experts also
said that other environmental sources were more likely to blame.
The shock and awe campaign was one of the most devastating assaults in
modern warfare. In the first 24-hour period more than 1,500 bombs and
missiles were dropped on Baghdad.
During the conflict A10 tankbuster planes which use munitions
containing depleted uranium fired 300,000 rounds. The substance
dubbed a silver bullet because of its ability to pierce heavy tank
armour is controversial because of its potential effect on human
health. Critics say it is chemically toxic and can cause cancer, and
Iraqi doctors reported a marked rise in cancer cases after it was used
in the first Gulf conflict.
The American and British governments say depleted uranium is relatively
harmless, however. The Royal Society, the UKs academy of science, has
also said the risk from depleted uranium is very low for soldiers and
people in a conflict zone.
Busbys report shows that within nine days of the start of the Iraq war
on March 19, 2003, higher levels of uranium were picked up on five sites
in Berkshire. On two occasions, levels exceeded the threshold at which
the Environment Agency must be informed, though within safety limits.
The report says weather conditions over the war period showed a
consistent flow of air from Iraq northwards.
Brian Spratt, who chaired the Royal Societys report, cast doubt on
depleted uranium as a source but said it could have come from natural
uranium in the massive amounts of soil kicked up by shock and awe.
Other experts said local environmental sources, such as a power station,
were more likely at fault. The Environment Agency said detectors at
other sites did not record a similar increase, which suggested a local
source.
A MoD spokesman said the uranium was of a natural origin and there was
no evidence that depleted uranium had reached Britain from Iraq.
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
*****************************************************************
60 [du-list] A Depleted Uranium Victim (iraq) Speaks Out
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:16:42 -0800
Nov. 20, 2005
BATTLEFIELD RADIATION:
DU Vet: 'My Days Are Numbered'
By ERIC PRIDEAUX
Staff Writer
Gerard Matthew has broad shoulders and beefy hands. He's built like a
bear. Yet as sturdy as this 31-year-old may look, he is a very sick
man.
Matthew suffers, for example, from facial swelling, double and triple
vision, muscle weakness, bouts of extreme anger that sometimes cause
him to lash out at his wife, erectile dysfunction and, most serious of
all, a tumor in the pituitary gland at the base of his brain.
"And these are just the big ones," he told the audience at the Foreign
Correspondents' Club Japan in Tokyo earlier this month.
At home in New York, he said, he's got "a pharmacy" of medication --
and he worries both for himself and his family that his "days are
numbered."
Gerard Matthew hugs his daughter, Victoria.
All the more reason to speak at this media venue now, before things
get worse.
Matthew was a specialist in the U.S. Army National Guard's 719th
Transport Unit, and his job, from April-September 2003, was to drive
trucks collecting war debris from around southern Iraq. He thinks that
Samawah, the city where Japan has some 550 SDF members participating in
the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing," was among the many locations
he passed through.
Matthew believes the dust from spent depleted-uranium (DU) ammunition
in his cargo accumulated in his lungs, irradiating his body and causing
most of the ailments that trouble him today. Urine tests taken as part
of a New York Daily News story investigation in 2004 showed that DU
levels in his sample were up to eight times higher than in control
samples from Daily News journalists. Matthew showed reporters a letter
from the Department of the Army that rejected this claim.
Most pertinent to his audience at the FCCJ: Matthew worries that
radiological contamination may be afflicting Japanese troops posted to
Iraq -- not to mention local Iraqis.
"I came all the way to Japan to convey the message," said Matthew,
who, with his wife Janise was the guest of Tokyo-based activist group
Campaign for Abolition of Depleted Uranium Japan. In other words, he
believes that Japanese troops should be warned: "They may be
susceptible to it."
With Janise, also 31, seated beside him on the dais, the couple
together held up glossy photographs of their 1-year-old daughter
Victoria, who was born without a right hand. It is a birth defect they
both blame on DU.
"Yes, the military has paid for my education," said Matthew. "But I
would give all of that up to have my daughter with five fingers on her
hand."
The Matthew family is caught up in a raging worldwide debate over DU
that extends into areas both scientific and geo-political.
Depleted uranium, an enormously dense and hard biproduct of converting
naturally occurring uranium into fuel for nuclear reactors, is used by
the U.S. military both in supertough armor plating for fighting
vehicles and in "penetrators" -- ammunition fired against armored
vehicles and concrete emplacements that, instead of mushrooming on
impact as regular bullets do, grows sharper as it bores forward and
through.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, 290.3 metric tons of DU
projectiles were fired by U.S. forces during the 1990-91 Gulf War. By
press time, the department had not responded to repeated requests for
comment on Matthew's case and current use of DU by the U.S. military.
Whatever the strategic benefits of DU ammunition, critics -- including
many in the scientific community -- claim that particles of it released
upon impact are easily inhaled by humans, either then or much later,
and remain in the body for years, possibly causing cancers and many
other health problems. With local Iraqis in mind in particular, Matthew
said: "We're hurting innocent civilians, and we don't need to do that."
The United Nations would seem to agree.
A 2002 working paper by the UN Commission on Human Rights itemized a
long list of diseases and birth defects among Gulf War veterans, Iraqis
and the offspring of both -- linking them strongly to the use of DU.
The same UN working paper concluded that use of DU in warfare
contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights;
the Charter of the United Nations itself; and, "in certain situations
of armed conflict," the Genocide Convention. The working paper, if read
closely, also suggests violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions.
The Pentagon, for its part, says on its Web site that radiation is not
a "primary hazard" with DU "under most battlefield exposure scenarios."
Citing its own and several high-profile international studies, it
concludes that DU is "40 percent less radioactive than natural
uranium," and is "not considered a serious external radiation hazard."
That stance is, in large part, supported by the World Health
Organization which, in its 2003 fact sheet No. 257, title "Depleted
Uranium," said that "for the general population, neither civilian nor
military use of DU is likely to produce exposures to DU significantly
above normal background levels of uranium."
Consequently, some tough questions were to be expected at the
Matthews' news conference.
"How can you scientifically establish that the syndrome you claim has
been caused by depleted uranium was caused by depleted uranium?" asked
Naoaki Usui, a freelance reporter who described himself as a proponent
of nuclear energy.
Matthew fixed his eyes squarely on his questioner. "Look at my
daughter, and that should answer your question about the exposure," he
said. "My daughter is the evidence."
Matthew said that his and Janise's other children from earlier
relationships were born without deformity, while genetic screening at a
New York hospital turned up no predisposition to birth defects on
either side of the family.
That being the case, Matthew said that he and eight other soldiers
with similar symptoms -- all of whom, except Matthew, were stationed at
Samawah -- have each sued the Department of Defense for $5 million. His
daughter Victoria, who to date has been denied disability benefits by
the Social Security Administration, is also a coplaintiff with her
father -- claiming an additional $5 million. The cases are pending.
The plaintiffs are not alone in their battle. For years, U.S. and
British veterans of the first Gulf War have demanded that their
governments grapple more aggressively with the mysterious illnesses
collectively known as Gulf War Syndrome -- symptoms of which Matthew
says match his own.
Movement on this front is afoot: BBC News reported earlier this month
that the Pensions Appeal Tribunal in Britain had ruled that Daniel
Martin, an ex-soldier and Gulf War veteran, could use Gulf War Syndrome
as an umbrella term to cover the diverse health problems afflicting
him. As a result, other British veterans hope this will improve their
access to disablement pensions.
At his FCCJ talk, Matthew said he expected news from his lawyer upon
his return home to the Bronx.
While he was still here, though, there was something else Matthew
wanted to tell the Japanese. Describing his visit to the Hiroshima
Peace Memorial some days earlier, he said: "I felt like I made a
connection . . . because I was exposed to radiation just like they
were. My own government did it to them.
"My government probably would not say sorry," he added. "But I say
sorry."
========================================================================
================================================
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/makeprfy.pl5?fl20051120x1.htm
--
Think virtue. Teach virtue. Live virtue
Lightheartedness Assertiveness Faithfulness Kindness Respect Caring
Flexibility Love Responsibility Cleanliness Forgiveness Reverence Compassion
Friendliness Mercy Self-discipline Confidence Generosity Moderation Service
Consideration Gentleness Modesty Steadfastness Courage Helpfulness Obedience
Tact Courtesy Honesty Orderliness Thankfulness Creativity Honor Patience
Tolerance Detachment Humility Peacefulness Trust Determination Idealism
Prayerfulness Trustworthiness Enthusiasm Joyfulness Purposefulness
Truthfulness Excellence Justice Reliability Unity.
"Seek the truth.
Speak the Truth
Support the Truth"
Steve Moyer
Candidate for U.S. Senate
Web site: http://stevemoyer.us
Blog: http://stevemoyer.us/blog
802-496-8917 RR1 Box 60, Warren, VT 05674
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
*****************************************************************
61 [DU Information List] The Queen's Death Star: Depleted Uranium
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:16:54 -0800
The Queen's Death Star
Depleted Uranium Measured in British Atmosphere from
Battlefields in the Middle East
LEUREN MORET / Mindfully.org 26feb2006
The Queen's Death Star: Depleted Uranium Measured in
British Atmosphere from Battlefields in the Middle
East LEUREN MORET / Mindfully.org 26feb2006
Leuren Moret
President, Scientists for Indigenous People
City of Berkeley Environmental Commissioner
Past President, Association for Women Geoscientists
Berkeley, CA
Phone/FAX (510) 845-3139
leurenmoret@yahoo.com
[More by Leuren Moret]
"Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War II result
in contamination of Europe? Evidence from the
measurements of the Atomic Weapons Establishment
(AWE), Aldermaston, Berkshire, UK," reported the
Sunday Times Online (February 19, 2006) in a shocking
scientific study authored by British scientists Dr.
Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan.
The highest levels of depleted uranium ever measured
in the atmosphere in Britain, were transported on air
currents from the Middle East and Central Asia; of
special significance were those from the Tora Bora
bombing in Afghanistan in 2001, and the "Shock & Awe"
bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003.
Out of concern for the public, the official British
government air monitoring facility, known as the
Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), at Aldermaston,
was established years ago to measure radioactive
emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic
weapons facilities.
The British government facility (AWE) was taken over 3
years ago by Halliburton, which refused at first to
release air monitoring data to Dr. Busby, as required
by law.
An international expert on low level radiation, Busby
serves as an official advisor on several British
government committees, and co-authored an independent
report on low level radiation with 45 scientists, the
European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR), for the
European Parliament. He was able to get Aldermaston
air monitoring data from Halliburton /AWE by filing a
Freedom of Information request using a new British law
which became effective January 1, 2005; but the data
for 2003 was missing. He obtained the 2003 data from
the Defence Procurement Agency.
The fact that the air monitoring data was circulated
by Halliburton/ AWE to the Defence Procurement Agency,
implies that it was considered to be relevant, and
that Dr. Busby was stonewalled because Halliburton/
AWE clearly recognized that it was a serious enough
matter to justify a government interpretation of the
results, and official decisions had to be made about
what the data would show and its political
implications for the military.
In a similar circumstance, in 1992, Major Doug Rokke,
the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Cleanup
Project after Gulf War I, was ordered by a U.S. Army
General officer to write a no-bid contract "Depleted
Uranium, Contaminated Equipment, and Facilities
Recovery Plan Outline" for the procedures for cleaning
up Kuwait, including depleted uranium, for Kellogg,
Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton.
The contract/proposal was passed through Madeleine
Albright, the Secretary of State, to the Emirate of
Kuwait, who considered the terms and then hired KBR
for the cleanup.
Aldermaston is one of many nuclear facilities
throughout Europe that regularly monitor atmospheric
radiation levels, transported by atmospheric sand and
dust storms, or air currents, from radiation sources
in North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
After the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Iraq in 2003,
very fine particles of depleted uranium were captured
with larger sand and dust particles in filters in
Britain.
These particles traveled in 7-9 days from Iraqi
battlefields as far as 2400 miles away.
The radiation measured in the atmosphere quadrupled
within a few weeks after the beginning of the 2003
campaign, and at one of the 5 monitoring locations,
the levels twice required an official alert to the
British Environment Agency.
In addition to depleted uranium data gathered in
previous studies on Kosovo and Bosnia by Dr. Busby,
the Aldermaston air monitoring data provided a
continuous record of depleted uranium levels in
Britain from the other recent wars.
Extensive video news footage of the 2003 Iraq war,
including Fallujah in 2004, provided irrefutable
documented evidence that the US has unethically and
illegally used depleted uranium munitions on cities
and other civilian populations.
These military actions are in direct violation of not
only the international conventions, but also violate
US military law because the US is a signatory to The
Hague and Geneva Conventions and the 1925 Geneva Gas
Protocol.
TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 40 > § 2302
§ 2302. Definitions
Release date: 2005-03-17
In this chapter:
(1) The term “weapon of mass destruction” means any
weapon
or device that is intended, or has the capability,
to
cause death or serious bodily injury to a
significant
number of people through the release,
dissemination,
or impact of—
(A) toxic or poisonous chemicals or their
precursors;
(B) a disease organism; or
(C) radiation or radioactivity.
(2) The term “independent states of the former Soviet
Union”
has the meaning given that term in section 5801 of
title 22.
(3) The term “highly enriched uranium” means uranium
enriched to 20 percent or more in the isotope
U235.
source 27feb2006
Depleted uranium weaponry meets the definition of a
Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in two out of three
categories under US Code TITLE 50, CHAPTER 40 Sec.
2302 [at right].
After action mandates have also been violated such as
US Army Regulation AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278 which
requires treatment of radiation poisoning for all
casualties, including enemy soldiers and civilians,
and remediation.
Dr. Busby's request for this data through Halliburton
from AWE, and subsequently provided by the Defence
Procurement Agency, was necessary to establish
verification of Iraq's 2003 depleted uranium levels in
the atmosphere.
These facts demonstrate why Halliburton (AWE) refused
to release the 2003 data to him, and it obviously
establishes that weaponized depleted uranium is an
indiscriminate weapon being distributed all over the
world in a very short period of time, immediately
after its use.
The recent documentary film BEYOND TREASON details the
horrific effects of depleted uranium exposure on
American troops and Iraqi civilians in the Gulf region
in 1991; not to speak of those civilians continuing to
live in permanently contaminated and thus
uninhabitable regions.
Global increases since 1991 of melanoma, infant
mortality, and frog die-offs can only be explained by
an environmental contaminant. Alarming global
increases in diabetes, with high correlation to
depleted uranium wars in Iraq, Bosnia/Kosovo, and
Afghanistan, demonstrate that diabetes is a sensitive
indicator and a rapid response to internal depleted
uranium exposure.
Americans in 2003 reported visiting Iraqi relatives in
Baghdad who were suffering from an epidemic of
diabetes.
After returning to the US following 2-3 weeks in Iraq,
they discovered within a few months that they too had
diabetes.
Japanese human shields and journalists who worked in
Iraq during the 2003 war are sick and now have
symptoms typical of depleted uranium exposure.
Likewise, after the US Navy, several years ago, moved
depleted uranium bombing and gunnery ranges from
Vieques Island in Puerto Rico to Australia, health
effects there are already being reported.
The documentary film BLOWIN' IN THE WIND, has an
interview with a family with two normal teenage
daughters, living near the bombing range where
depleted uranium weaponry is now being used.
The parents showed photos of their baby born recently
with severe birth defects. The baby looked like Iraqi
deformed babies, and like many of the Iraqi babies,
died 5 days after birth.
Other than anonymous British government officials
denying that Iraq was the source of the depleted
uranium measured at Aldermaston by AWE, and some
unnamed 'establishment scientists' blaming it on local
sources or natural uranium in the Iraq environment,
there is no one, as of this writing, willing to lend
their name or office to refuting this damning evidence
reported by Dr. Busby.
All of the anonymous statements used by the media thus
far are contradicted by the factual evidence found in
the filters, which was all transported from the same
region.
The natural abundance of uranium in the crust of the
earth is 2.4 parts per million, which would not become
concentrated to the high levels measured in Britain
during a long journey from the Middle East. These
particles traveling over thousands of miles would
dilute the concentration rather than increase it.
There are no known natural uranium deposits in Iraq
which make it impossible for these anonymous claims to
have scientific credibility.
Unnamed government sources blamed local sources in
Britain such as nuclear power plants; however that
would also leave evidence of fission products in the
filters which were not in evidence.
The lowest levels measured at monitoring stations
around Aldermaston were at the facility, which means
it could not be a possible source. Atomic weapons
facilities would be more likely to produce plutonium
contamination, also not reported as a co-contaminant
at Aldermaston.
In other words, all factual evidence considered, the
question must be asked, what were the media's
anonymous experts and government officials basing
their claims on?
Dr. Keith Baverstock exposed a World Health
Organization (WHO) cover-up on depleted uranium in an
Aljazeera article, "Washington's Secret Nuclear War"
posted on September 14, 2004. It was the most popular
article ever posted on the Aljazeera English language
website.
See:
Radiological toxicity of DU
K. BAVERSTOCK, C. MOTHERSILL & M. THORNE
Repressed WHO Document 5nov01
Baverstock leaked an official WHO report that he
wrote, to the media several years ago after the WHO
refused to publish it. He warned in the report about
the mobility of, and environmental contamination from,
tiny depleted uranium particles formed from US
munitions.
Busby's ECRR report challenged the International
Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP) standards for
radiation risk, and reported that the mutagenic
effects of radiation determined by Chernobyl studies
are actually 1000 times higher than the ICRP risk
model predicts.
The ECRR report also establishes that the ICRP risk
model, based on external exposure of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki victims, and the ECRR risk model, based on
internal exposure, are mutually exclusive models. In
other words, the ICRP risk model based on external
exposure cannot be used to estimate internal exposure
risk.
The report also states that a separate study is needed
for depleted uranium exposure risks, because it may be
far more toxic than nuclear weapons or nuclear power
plant exposures. In July of 2005, the National Academy
of Sciences reported in their new BEIR VII report on
low level radiation, that there is "no safe level of
exposure".
The report also finally admitted that very low levels
are more harmful per unit of radiation than higher
levels of exposure, also known as the "supralinear"
effect.
This is extremely alarming information on low level
radiation risk, since the AWE data from Aldermaston
confirms that rapid global transport of depleted
uranium dust is occurring.
Dr. Katsuma Yagasaki, a Japanese physicist at the
University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa, has estimated
that the atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000
Nagasaki bombs has been released into the global
atmosphere since 1991, from the use of depleted
uranium munitions.
It is completely mixed in the atmosphere in one year.
The "smog of war" from Gulf War I was found in
glaciers and ice sheets globally a year later.
Even more alarming is the non-specific catalytic or
enzyme effect from internal exposures to nanoparticles
of depleted uranium. Soldiers on depleted uranium
battlefields have reported that, after noticing a
metallic taste in their mouths, within 24-48 hours of
exposure they became sick with Gulf War syndrome
symptoms.
Who is profiting from this global uranium nightmare?
Dr. Jay Gould revealed in his book THE ENEMY WITHIN
[see excerpt], that the British Royal family privately
owns investments in uranium holdings worth over $6
billion through Rio Tinto Mines.
The mining company was formed for the British Royal
family in the late 1950's by Roland Walter "Tiny"
Rowland, the Queen's buccaneer.
Born in 1917 through illegitimate German parentage,
and before changing his name, Roland Walter Fuhrhop
was a passionate member of the Nazi youth movement by
1933, and a classmate described him as "...an ardent
supporter of Hitler and an arrogant, nasty piece of
work to boot."
His meteoric rise and protection by intel agencies and
the British Crown are an indication of what an asset
he has been for decades to the Queen, as Africa's most
powerful Western businessman.
Africa and Australia are two of the main sources of
uranium in the world. The Rothschilds control uranium
supplies and prices globally, and one serves as the
Queen's business manager.
Filmmaker David Bradbury made BLOWIN' IN THE WIND to
expose depleted uranium bombing and gunnery range
activities contaminating pristine areas of eastern
Australia, and to expose plans to extract over $36
billion in uranium from mines in the interior over the
next 6 years. Halliburton has finished construction of
a 1000 mile railway from the mining area to a port on
the north coast of Australia to transport the ore.
See documentary:
The Carlyle Group Exposed
· Low Bandwidth Version
· High Bandwidth Version
· MP3 audio of the soundtrack
The Queen's favorite American buccaneers, Cheney,
Halliburton, and the Bush family, are tied to her
through uranium mining and the shared use of illegal
depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, Central
Asia and Kosovo/Bosnia.
The major roles that such diverse individuals and
groups as the Carlyle Group, George Herbert Walker
Bush, former Carlyle CEO Frank Calucci, the University
of California managed nuclear weapons labs at Los
Alamos and Livermore, and US and international pension
fund investments have played in proliferating depleted
uranium weapons is not well known or in most instances
even recognized, inside or outside the country.
God Save The Queen from the guilt of her complicity in
turning Planet Earth into a "Death Star."
[See: Did the use of Uranium weapons in Gulf War 2
result in contamination of Europe? Busby &
Saoirse1jan06]
To send us your comments, questions, and suggestions
click here
The home page of this website is www.mindfully.org
Please see our Fair Use Notice
___________________________________________________________
To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo!
Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com
*****************************************************************
62 [du-list] US leak sparks debate about the risks from exposure
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:16:36 -0800
US nuclear plant leaks fuel local health concerns
http://today.reuters.com/news/ArticleNews.aspx?type=coMktNews&storyid=URI:2006-03-04T170238Z_01_N01404553_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-NUCLEAR.XML
CHICAGO, March 4 (Reuters) - Years of radioactive waste water spills from
Illinois nuclear power plants have fueled suspicions the industry covers up
safety problems and sparked debate about the risks from exposure to
low-level radiation.
The recent, belated disclosures of leaks of the fission byproduct tritium
from Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood, Dresden, and Byron twin-reactor
nuclear plants -- one as long ago as 1996 -- triggered worries among
neighbors about whether it was safe to drink their water, or even stay.
"How'd you like to live next to that plant and every time you turn on the
tap to take a drink you have to think about whether it's safe?" asked Joe
Cosgrove, the head of parks in Godley, Illinois, a town adjacent to Braidwood.
Cosgrove and some scientists and anti-nuclear activists who monitor health
issues related to nuclear power say the delay in reporting the spills is
indicative of industry and regulatory obfuscation bordering on cover-up.
"We don't know what else has been leaked from that site. When they close
ranks, you can't believe them," Cosgrove said, referring to the plant owner
and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees safety at the
nation's 103 commercial reactors, including 11 in Illinois.
Cosgrove recalled a 2002 spill of diesel fuel that was initially
mischaracterized by Braidwood's operators as run-off from a parking lot.
When information about the tritium spills arose as part of the town's
since-dropped lawsuit over the fuel, Exelon asked the court to bar any
questions about it.
A local doctor and his wife, Joseph and Cynthia Sauer, whose daughter
contracted brain cancer when they lived near the Dresden plant, have
collected data about heightened rates of cancer and birth defects near the
Illinois plants in the period after the spills began. They say they were
brushed off by the NRC.
CONCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION Continued...
----------
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.1.2/274 - Release Date: 3/3/06
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
To unsubscribe from this groups send a message to
du-list-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. In the body of the message type
unsubscribe and send.
*****************************************************************
63 Lompoc Record: Jet Fuel truck to Vandenberg AFB spills 7,500 gallons of fuel on Hiway 1
Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2006 08:17:04 -0800 (PST)
Tanker rollover accident closes road
By Mark Abramson/Staff Writer
A segment of Santa Lucia Canyon Road remained closed Saturday, a
day after a tanker truck overturned, spilling an estimated 6,000
gallons of jet fuel and forcing Highway 1's closure while
firefighters carefully cleaned up the volatile liquid.
Although Highway 1 reopened Friday afternoon, Santa Lucia Canyon
Road was expected to be reopened by Monday because of the extent
of the clean up work, a California Department of Fish and Game
official said.
The truck, which was carrying about 7,500 gallons of fuel to
Vandenberg Air Force Base, briefly caught fire when it rolled
onto its back a little after 7 a.m. Friday, said California
Highway Patrol Officer Steve Bennett. At the time, the truck was
northbound on Highway 1 and had slowed to about 7 mph as it made
a left turn onto Santa Lucia Canyon Road, he added.
As the truck made the turn, a front wheel dropped off the road
into soft dirt and the vehicle rolled, Bennett said. He could not
say whether rain played any part in the accident.
Edwin Lopez, the driver of another truck owned by the same
company, Oil Corporation of San Bernardino, saw what happened and
managed to put out the fire on the overturned truck and pull its
uninjured driver to safety, said Jim Moon, president of the Oil
Corporation.
We are calling him (Lopez) our hero of the day,” Moon said.
The driver whose truck rolled was Barry Hammond, 43, of Hesperia,
according to the CHP. They had no damage estimate but said the
tanker was probably a total loss. No citations were issued.
CHP officers and Air Force security forces closed Highway 1 about
8 a.m. at Constellation Road near Lompoc, at Santa Lucia Canyon
Road where the accident occurred, and at Timber Lane.
During the road closure, traffic between S anta Maria, Lompoc and
Vandenberg Air Force Ba se was rerouted to the narrow, twisting
Harris Grade Road.
Highway 1 southbound was reopened at 12:19 p.m. and one
northbound lane was reopened at 12:53 p.m., but the other
northbound lane remained closed until later in the afternoon as
the cleanup continued.
“As long as there is no concern for an ignition or explosion, at
that point the highway patrol will get the roa d opened,” said
Santa Barbara County Fire Department Capt. Keith Cullom. “This is
not a minor incident. I wouldn't characterize it as rare - it's
infrequent.”
Cullom said he remembers another tanker truck accident at
Vandenberg's main gate in the early 1990s that turned into a
fireball and sent black smoke billowing into the skies.
On Friday, jet fuel was spilling out of the truck at about 5
gallons per minute, but firefighters contained it by building a
makeshift dike, said Stephen Link of the county Fire Department.
Firefighters were worried it could spread to the road and into a
nearby creek, he said.
About 40 firefighters from the county, Lompoc and the base,
including members of the county's and Vandenberg Fire's hazardous
materials teams, drilled holes into the overturned tanker and
pumped the remaining fuel into another truck. Firefighters
repeatedly spr ayed the overturned truck and the area around it
with retardant foam to prevent any fuel vapors from igniting,
Link said.
The weather was a mixed blessing because the cold temperatures
helped prevent any vapors from igniting, but the rain made the
spill harder to contain, Cullom said.
California Department of Fish and Game officials arrived on the
scene Friday.
“No fuel went into the waterways and what we th ought was a creek
is dry now,” said Dana Michaels, a spokeswoman for Fish and
Game's Office of Spill Prevention and Response in Sacramento. “If
there is any habitat impact or biological impact, it's going to
be minor.”
Mark Abramson can be reached at 737-1057, or mabramson@lompocrecord.com.
March 5, 2006
www.lompocrecord.com
*****************************************************************
64 NRC: Notice of License Amendment Request of BWX Technologies, Inc.,
FR Doc E6-3129
[Federal Register: March 6, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 43)]
[Notices] [Page 11231-11232] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr06mr06-66]
Lynchburg, VA, and Opportunity To Request a Hearing AGENCY:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of license amendment, and opportunity to request a
hearing.
DATES: A request for a hearing must be filed by May 5, 2006.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Billy Gleaves, Project Manager,
Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of Fuel Cycle Safety and
Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and Safeguards,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop T-8F42, Washington,
DC 20555, telephone: (301) 415-5848: fax number (301) 415-5955;
e-mail: .
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) has received, by letter dated June 30, 2004, a
license amendment application from BWX Technologies, Inc.,
requesting a renewal of its materials license at its Mt. Athos
site located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Materials License SNM-42
authorizes the licensee to possess nuclear materials, manufacture
nuclear fuel components, fabricate research and university
reactor components, fabricate compact reactor fuel elements,
perform research on spent fuel performance, and handle the
resultant waste streams, including recovery of scrap uranium.
Specifically, the amendment requests to continue operations as
authorized in the current license and requests that the renewed
license term be 20 years.
An NRC administrative review, documented in a letter to BWX
Technologies, Inc., dated March 17, 2005, found the application
acceptable to begin a technical review. If the NRC approves the
amendment, the approval will be documented in an amendment to NRC
License No. 70-27. However, before approving the proposed
amendment, the NRC will need to make the findings required by the
Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, and NRC's regulations.
These findings will be documented in a Safety Evaluation Report
and an Environmental Assessment.
II. Opportunity To Request a Hearing The NRC hereby provides
notice that this is a proceeding on an application for a license
amendment regarding the license renewal for BWX Technologies,
Inc. In accordance with the general requirements in Subpart C of
10 CFR Part 2, as amended on January 14, 2004, (69 FR 2182), any
person whose interest may be affected by this proceeding and who
desires to participate as a party must file a written request for
a hearing and a specification of the contentions which the person
seeks to have litigated in the hearing.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.302(a), a request for a hearing must
be filed with the Commission either by: 1. First class mail
addressed to: Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and
Adjudications; 2. Courier, express mail, and expedited delivery
services: Office of the Secretary, Sixteenth Floor, One White
Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852,
Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, between 7:45 a.m.
and 4:15 p.m., Federal workdays; 3. E-mail addressed to the
Office of the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ; or
4. By facsimile transmission addressed to the Office of the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC,
Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, at (301)
415-1101; verification number is (301) 415-1966.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.302(b), all documents offered for
filing must be accompanied by proof of service on all parties to
the proceeding or their attorneys of record as required by law or
by rule or order of the Commission, including:
[[Page 11232]] 1. The applicant, BWX Technologies, Inc., Nuclear
Products Division, P.O. Box 785, Lynchburg, VA 24505-0785,
Attention: Leah Morrell; and 2. The NRC staff, by delivery to the
Office of the General Counsel, One White Flint North, 11555
Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852, or by mail addressed to the
Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Hearing requests should
also be transmitted to the Office of the General Counsel, either
by means of facsimile transmission to (301) 415-3725, or by
e-mail to .
The formal requirements for documents contained in 10 CFR
2.304(b), (c), (d), and (e), must be met. In accordance with 10
CFR 2.304(f), a document filed by electronic mail or facsimile
transmission need not comply with the formal requirements of 10
CFR 2.304(b), (c), and (d), as long as an original and two (2)
copies otherwise complying with all of the requirements of 10 CFR
2.304(b), (c), and (d) are mailed within two (2) days thereafter
to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.309(b), a request for a hearing must
be filed by May 5, 2006.
In addition to meeting other applicable requirements of 10 CFR
2.309, the general requirements involving a request for a hearing
filed by a person other than an applicant must state: 1. The
name, address, and telephone number of the requester; 2. The
nature of the requester's right under the Act to be made a party
to the proceeding; 3. The nature and extent of the requester's
property, financial or other interest in the proceeding; 4. The
possible effect of any decision or order that may be issued in
the proceeding on the requester's interest; and 5. The
circumstances establishing that the request for a hearing is
timely in accordance with 10 CFR 2.309(b). In accordance with 10
CFR 2.309(f)(1), a request for hearing or petitions for leave to
intervene must set forth with particularity the contentions
sought to be raised. For each contention, the request or petition
must: 1. Provide a specific statement of the issue of law or fact
to be raised or controverted; 2. Provide a brief explanation of
the basis for the contention; 3. Demonstrate that the issue
raised in the contention is within the scope of the proceeding;
4. Demonstrate that the issue raised in the contention is
material to the findings that the NRC must make to support the
action that is involved in the proceeding; 5. Provide a concise
statement of the alleged facts or expert opinions which support
the requester's/petitioner's position on the issue and on which
the requester/petitioner intends to rely to support its position
on the issue; and 6. Provide sufficient information to show that
a genuine dispute exists with the applicant on a material issue
of law or fact.
This information must include references to specific portions of
the application (including the applicant's environmental report
and safety report) that the requester/petitioner disputes and the
supporting reasons for each dispute, or, if the
requester/petitioner believes the application fails to contain
information on a relevant matter as required by law, the
identification of each failure and the supporting reasons for the
requester's/petitioner's belief.
In addition, in accordance with 10 CFR 2.309(f)(2), contentions
must be based on documents or other information available at the
time the petition is to be filed, such as the application,
supporting safety analysis report, environmental report or other
supporting document filed by an applicant or licensee, or
otherwise available to the petitioner. On issues arising under
the National Environmental Policy Act, the requester/petitioner
shall file contentions based on the applicant's environmental
report. The requester/petitioner may amend those contentions or
file new contentions if there are data or conclusions in the NRC
draft, or final environmental impact statement, environmental
assessment, or any supplements relating thereto, that differ
significantly from the data or conclusions in the applicant's
documents. Otherwise, contentions may be amended or new
contentions filed after the initial filing only with leave of the
presiding officer.
Each contention shall be given a separate numeric or alpha
designation within one of the following groups: 1.
Technical--primarily concerns issues relating to matters
discussed or referenced in the Safety Evaluation Report for the
proposed action.
2. Environmental--primarily concerns issues relating to matters
discussed or referenced in the Environmental Report for the
proposed action.
3. Emergency Planning--primarily concerns issues relating to
matters discussed or referenced in the Emergency Plan as it
relates to the proposed action.
4. Physical Security--primarily concerns issues relating to
matters discussed or referenced in the Physical Security Plan as
it relates to the proposed action.
5. Miscellaneous--does not fall into one of the categories
outlined above.
If the requester/petitioner believes a contention raises issues
that cannot be classified as primarily falling into one of these
categories, the requester/petitioner must set forth the
contention and supporting bases, in full, separately for each
category into which the requester/petitioner asserts the
contention belongs with a separate designation for that category.
Requesters/petitioners should, when possible, consult with each
other in preparing contentions and combine similar subject matter
concerns into a joint contention, for which one of the
co-sponsoring requesters/petitioners is designated the lead
representative.
Further, in accordance with 10 CFR 2.309(f)(3), any
requester/petitioner that wishes to adopt a contention proposed
by another requester/petitioner must do so in writing within ten
days of the date the contention is filed, and designate a
representative who shall have the authority to act for the
requester/petitioner.
In accordance with 10 CFR 2.309(g), a request for hearing and/or
petition for leave to intervene may also address the selection of
the hearing procedures, taking into account the provisions of 10
CFR 2.310. III. Further Information The application, including
the safety analysis report and other information referenced in
the application, may be made available pursuant to a protective
order and subject to applicable security requirements upon a
showing that the petitioner has an interest that may be affected
by the proceeding.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 1st day of March 2006.
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Gary S. Janosko, Chief, Fuel Cycle Facilities Branch, Division of
Fuel Cycle Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material
Safety and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-3129 Filed 3-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
65 Scoop: Depleted Uranium: email to Australian senators
Monday, 6 March 2006, 3:01 pm
Press Release: Robert Anderson
The following email went out today, 6 March 2006, to all
Australian Senators with a copy to the ICC and Human Rights
Watch, and to Australia's national newspapers.
In the course of the last two weeks, Australian, John Hough sent
copies of The Ultimate War Crime to six Australian Senators with
a covering letter similar to the email below. Mr Hough says he
has received no replies to date.
"Senators
"This email is to draw your attention to the book The Ultimate
War Crime by Robert Anderson (NZ). The book documents the prime
facie case that the 'Coalition of the Willing' used and uses
nuclear weapons (depleted uranium munitions) in the first Gulf
War, in Afghanistan and in the current Gulf conflict. The book
gives background to the use of depleted uranium to enhance
conventional weapons and details the long-term harmful radiation
that results.
"The book also details legal opinion describing how the use of
such weapons violates UN conventions and treaties. It references
the first case in the UK where a British soldier was awarded
compensation for the birth defects of his son resulting from the
exposure to 'friendly radiation' in Iraq. It graphically
describes the unusually large numbers of birth defects being
encountered in Southern Iraq and references expert opinion that
such defects have resulted from the use of depleted uranium
munitions.
"I have sent copies of the book to Senators Lyn Allison, Bob
Brown, Chris Evans, Barnaby Joyce, John Hogg and Robert Hill.
Please check out their copies or get your own copy (ISBN
0-473-10489-X). You can contact the author, Robert Anderson, at
roberta@clear.net.nz.
". I have copied this email to the War Crimes Tribunal and Human
Rights Watch. My aim is that no Australian Senator can claim
that they were not aware of the evidence.
"I believe that every Senator (collectively and individually)
has a responsibility to thoroughly and impartially investigate
this matter - for the protection of Australians serving in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and for the reputation of Australia as a good
global citizen.
John Hough"
N.B. A copy of The Ultimate War Crime was donated to all 120 New
Zealand MPs. Following this, Minister for Disarmament and Arms
Control, the Hon Phil Goff, responding on behalf of the
Government, wrote:
"I agree that there are real concerns about the long-term
implications of depleted uranium (DU) use for civilian
populations as well as users."
"Since 2003, more than 900 DU-related urine tests have been
administered to NZDF personnel either before or after their
deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan. To date, all tests have been
negative (i.e. less than 0.3 mcg/l) for urinary DU. Information
on the potential risks that may be posed by DU, and by vehicles
hit by DUY rounds, now forms part of all pre-deployment
briefings for NZDF personnel going to areas where DU may have
been used. This includes personnel deploying to Afghanistan,
Iraq, Kosovo and Bosnia. The NZDF will continue to provide
medical checks and support to any personnel who think they may
have been exposed to DU."
Robert Anderson Tauranga New Zealand 6 March 2006
ENDS
New Zealand's Independent News Media"
*****************************************************************
66 [NukeNet] Navajo Nation's Ongoing Battle vs. Uranium Mining
Date: Mon, 06 Mar 2006 15:17:15 -0800
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
The Navajo Nation's Ongoing Battle Against Uranium Mining
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=/03/02/148241
We look at the ongoing battle over uranium mining in the Navajo
Nation. Mining has occurred on Navajo territory for over fifty years
and the impact is still being felt. We speak with the directors of
the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining and the Southwest
Research and Information Center. [includes rush transcript] We are
broadcasting from New Mexico - home to the Navajo Nation. For decades
they have been fighting an ongoing battle against uranium mining on
their land. Last April, Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley approved
legislation banning uranium mining on Navajo territory. There is
currently no mining on the Navajo reservation but Hydro Resources
Inc. has been working with the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
for years to try to get approval for mining near the Navajo
communities of Crownpoint and Church Rock, New Mexico. The company
estimates nearly one-hundred million pounds of uranium exists on
those sites making it worth millions of dollars.
Uranium mining occurred on the Navajo Reservation for over fifty
years and the impact is still felt. The land has been dotted with
contaminated tailings and hundreds of abandoned mines that have not
been cleaned up.
There have been few studies on the health effects in reservation
communities, but Navajos have suffered from high cancer rates and
respiratory problems. One study has found that cancer rates among
Navajo teenagers living near mine tailings are 17 times the national average.
The Navajo Reservation is home to more than 180,000 people. Over half
the population lives below the U.S. poverty line.
The group Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, or ENDAUM, and
the Southwest Research and Information Center have been fighting
mining company HRI for over a decade in court. In a few minutes we
will speak with the directors of SRIC and ENDAUM, but first we turn
to the documentary "Homeland" that takes a look at the battle against
uranium mining in Crownpoint and Chruch Rock.
* "Homeland" - excerpt of documentary produced by the Katahdin
Foundation.
* Chris Shuey, director of the Southwest Research and Information Center
* Wynoma Foster, director of Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: In a few minutes we'll speak with the directors of both
groups, but first we turn to an excerpt of the documentary, Homeland,
that takes a look at the battle against uranium mining in Crownpoint
and Church Rock. It's produced by Katahdin Foundation. This excerpt
begins with the co-founder of ENDAUM, Rita Capitan.
RITA CAPITAN: In 1994, in the evening, we were here at home
and Mitchell brought the paper home, as he does every day, and we
both read it about two or three times in disbelief that uranium
mining is to begin in Crownpoint and Church Rock. They're starting up again.
NARRATOR: From here you can see the whole town of Crownpoint.
Mitchell and Rita live just below the water tank there in the
distance, and as you can see, very, very close to where the Hydro
Resources Incorporated plans to put the uranium mine.
RITA CAPITAN: Without any public hearings, the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission granted permission for the deadly carcinogen to
be mined right next to Crownpoint schools and churches.
MITCHELL CAPITAN: I don't understand N.R.C., the United States
government, why they could do this again. Why they would have a mine
like this near our community.
NARRATOR: The N.R.C. had granted permission for the
Texas-based company to conduct the mining with a process called, "in
situ leach mining."
EXPERT: The mining company intends to inject chemicals down
into the aquifer next to the community water supply. Those chemicals
will leach, or strip, the uranium off of the rock into the aquifer,
creating, basically, a toxic soup.
MITCHELL CAPITAN: Rita started to ask me questions, "Isn't
this what you have worked before, you know, this kind of mining, in
situ leach mining?" I said, "Yeah."
RITA CAPITAN: Mitchell worked as a lab technician for Mobil
Oil in the 1980s.
MITCHELL CAPITAN: Mobil was doing a pilot project with the in
situ leach mining west of Crownpoint. I worked in the lab with the
engineers, and no matter how hard we tried, we could never get all
the uranium out of the water. We closed the project. This is what
made me start thinking about the environment, especially our water.
RITA CAPITAN: We talked about having a community meeting.
MITCHELL CAPITAN: And we decided to do something about it.
RITA CAPITAN: We put an article in the newspaper. To our
surprise, at our first meeting close to fifty community members came
to that meeting. There were so many people there, a lot of faces I've
never seen before. But when we went up there to talk about it, right
away we had landowners started to tell us we should stay out of their
business. That's their land, and they can do whatever they want. It
was scary. It was so humiliating. It just felt like the whole
community just split.
NARRATOR: There were people who stood up and accused them of
anything from witchcraft to taking food out of the mouths of their
grandchildren and standing in the way of people making lots of money
off of the uranium leases.
RITA CAPITAN: We lost some friends. That's something that was
really sad for us. We'd never wanted that to happen in our community.
NARRATOR: This proposal split families. It just didn't split
the community, and it didn't split clans. It split blood families.
RITA CAPITAN: There were some scary times when we were told,
just be careful, just take care of yourself. So I had to really
protect my family. That's one of the reasons why Mitchell and I
really had to find faith, and three years ago we became members of
the Catholic Church.
NARRATOR: There's a few families, they own the mineral rights
for their land. In the distance, you can see the area around where
the mining company is. That's owned by a few Navajo families. Those
families have been promised huge sums of money by the mining company.
And they have been told that this mining process is, quote, "safe."
LANDOWNER: I think when H.R.I. approached my family, the first
question was: Is it safe? We arranged with the H.R.I. people to
actually go to a mine where it's in operation. I even touched some of
the uranium that was there, and I read about it. I asked questions a
lot. And I think H.R.I. did a good job, because they took us down there.
RITA CAPITAN: We're not fighting with landowners
[unintelligible]. We're fighting with this company.
LANDOWNER: The mother company of H.R.I., Uranium Resources,
have worked with this technology for 30 years in south Texas. So,
that experience, that's what they going to use here to mine uranium.
H.R.I. REPRESENTATIVE: With in situ mining, we drill wells.
Whatever goes underground, there are no occupational hazards
associated with underground mining and solution mining. In fact, our
miners are electric pumps.
SECOND H.R.I. REPRESENTATIVE: We used natural groundwater to
leach the uranium. It's brought to the surface, and what we add is,
we add oxygen and possibly some carbonate—club soda—to the water
where it's re-injected into the ground.
NARRATOR: The action of pumping dissolved oxygen and sodium
bicarbonate into the rocks causes that uranium concentration to
increase almost 100,000 times. So you go from very high quality
pristine water, and you make it a toxic soup. Nobody can drink it.
SECOND H.R.I. REPRESENTATIVE: It's safe as long as it's
contained, and as you can see here in this jar, it is contained.
NARRATOR: So, the company has to make sure that none of that
stuff escapes, because it's a poison.
SECOND H.R.I. REPRESENTATIVE: The entire well field is circled
by monitor wells.
NARRATOR: Because the underground buried stream beds are
narrower than the distance between the monitor wells, our fear is
that a leakage of the mining fluids will escape, go past those
monitor wells, and never be detected.
EXPERT: We have experts and hydrologists that have shown that
that contamination will reach the drinking wells within less than
seven years. It will, if this mine goes through, destroy the only
source of drinking water for 15,000 people.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the documentary Homeland produced by the
Katahdin Foundation. And we're joined here in Albuquerque by Chris
Shuey, who is in the film, Director of Southwest Research and
Information Center, and Wynoma Foster, Director of ENDAUM, Eastern
Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining. We did contact Hydro Resources,
but they didn't return our calls. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!
WYNOMA FOSTER: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you place this in the country for us? Where are
these places that we are talking about, Wynoma?
WYNOMA FOSTER: Well, from Albuquerque, it's about two hours west of
here in a Navajo community right near Gallup, New Mexico.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what's happening right now.
WYNOMA FOSTER: As of right now, we're still trying to hold off a
company, Hydro Resources, from proposing to mine uranium with the new
in situ leach method that they want to use to extract uranium. And
the big issue that lies there right now is that it's these mining
companies are ignoring the Natural Resource Protection Act that was
passed within the Navajo Nation government. And with that we are very
concerned, not only because they are ignoring that—our sovereign
right to protect our resources and our people—but also because there
are past issues that still exist within those communities in Church
Rock, as far as the need for reclamation of abandoned mines and
communities and people, children with their families that live right
next to these abandoned mines.
Those are the big issues that we still face. And trying to work with
communities. Former miners are dealing with health effects and cancer
issues and down into compensation issues. So, those are all of the
issues that we have to deal with, and trying to hold off the mining company.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Shuey, we have in the country, there is
attention now being paid to miners because of what has happened in
West Virginia. Can you talk about uranium miners and what has
happened over the years, and then how that leads to today and the
struggle you're in right now?
CHRIS SHUEY: Amy, there's been numerous studies of uranium workers
and uranium miners, underground miners throughout the Colorado
Plateau over the years. And it's -- those studies have fairly clearly
shown that miners suffer lung cancer and respiratory diseases at much
higher rates than the normal population. The Navajo miners are a
particularly important subset, because they have suffered those same
kinds of diseases at much higher rates, disproportionately higher
rates than even the rest of the Colorado Plateau miners. And the
compensation scheme that the government came up with in 1990 and then
amended in 2000 that Wynoma talked about has, in our view,
discriminated against the Native American miners. There's -- the
Navajo portion of those eligible from about a third of all the
Colorado Plateau miners; and yet, the total compensation awards for
Navajos have run about 11% through September of last year.
There are numbers of groups in the Shiprock area headed by a
gentlemen named Philip Harrison, who's made it his life to try to
correct these problems, especially with the Justice Department's
implementation of the compensation law. The government doesn't quite
get how Navajo and Native American cultures and communities work. And
so it's been very difficult for many of the old workers to prove up
their claims through things like marriage licenses that never
existed. And so those are amongst the human impacts of past mining
that are still going on today.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, do the miners fall under the same agency as miners
that what we've been focusing on in places like West Virginia? Our
headline today, "In mining news, the New York Times reporting the
Bush administration has decreased the fines for major mining
companies, failed to collect fines on nearly half the mine safety
violations issued under its watch. Mine safety regulation has come
under increased scrutiny with the deaths of 24 miners." How does that relate?
CHRIS SHUEY: The Mine Safety and Health Administration also is the
regulation entity for underground miners. There are no underground
mines operating in the Navajo Nation. There were a few that were
reopened here recently as the price of uranium has gone up, up in
Colorado, but I believe that those have been shut down, too. If you
talk to miners that worked out of Navajo, say in the 1970s, they will
tell you over and over again that they don't believe that they were
adequately protected even after those same MSHA rules came into
effect, and they have a very difficult time understanding and
obtaining their old exposure records. And they're not a part of the
compensation class. They're ineligible. So, there's a whole category
of what we call post-1971 uranium miners and mill workers who may
have health problems that cannot get compensation at this point.
AMY GOODMAN: What are the health problems in the communities, Wynoma?
WYNOMA FOSTER: We have direct we have respiratory illnesses—asthma,
there's a rise in asthma, especially with the younger children into
the teens; and then also cancer issues, different types of cancers
are affecting people, and then we're also realizing that dependants
of former uranium mine workers are also starting to be diagnosed with
cancers, as well. And diabetes is still a big issue, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: And the argument if the mining happens right outside the
reservation property?
WYNOMA FOSTER: It's within Navajo Indian country. They can say that
it's near an Indian community, Navajo community, but it's right
within the jurisdiction of the Navajo Nation and within the communities.
AMY GOODMAN: What are you each calling for right now in, Chris Shuey?
CHRIS SHUEY: We're There's several things that are going on. We
have worked with the Navajo Nation to ensure that there's an
enforcement strategy for the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act.
And it remains to be seen how that will all play out as the companies
continue to move forward with their new plans. We are doing a lot of
work on the legacy issues, working with Church Rock on environmental
assessments in the residential areas near the old mines, working with
the community members to assess some of their concerns about health.
There have been no major health studies in communities. Lots of
information and studies on workers, but not on community members who
live near mining. It's a major gap in what we know. It needs to be rectified.
AMY GOODMAN: And, finally, your final comments, as we talk about what
the future will look like.
WYNOMA FOSTER: Well, we hope to continue to protect our resources,
our natural resources, which is our -- for my own community, an hour
north of Church Rock, where they're also proposing uranium mining.
Our only source of drinking water provides for 15,000-plus Navajo
people and we don't want any uranium mining whatsoever.
AMY GOODMAN: We are going to have to leave it here. I want to thank
you very much for being with us, Wynoma Foster, Director of Endaum,
which is the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining, and Chris
Shuey, Director of the Uranium Impact Assessment Program and
Southwest Research and Information Center.
_______________________________________________________________________
Subscribe/Unsubscribe Here: http://www.energyjustice.net/nukenet/
Change your settings or access the archives at:
http://energyjustice.net/mailman/listinfo/nukenet_energyjustice.net
*****************************************************************
67 Guardian Unlimited: Russia Seeks Enrichment Limits for Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Monday March 6, 2006 4:16 PM
AP Photo VIE103
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Russia plans to ask the U.N. atomic
watchdog agency to establish what level of small-scale uranium
enrichment Iran should be allowed to conduct on its own soil as
part of a plan aiming to minimize the chances of misuse for
nuclear weapons, diplomats said Monday.
The diplomats, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of
anonymity, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to
discuss the proposal with senior U.S. officials in Washington on
Monday. They said, however, that the Americans were strongly
opposed.
The diplomats, who demanded anonymity because the information
was confidential, said the proposal was driving a wedge into
what had been a relatively united front on enrichment, with
Germany cautiously supportive, while France and Britain opposed
and backing the U.S. position.
Germany, France and Britain broke off negotiations with Iran
last year after it restarted activities linked to enrichment,
which can make both nuclear fuel and the fissile core of
warheads. Since then, the three European nations, along with the
United States, Canada, Australia and Japan, have been at the
forefront of efforts to have the U.N. Security Council take up
the Iran issue.
The diplomats said negotiations on trying to bridge differences
were ongoing Monday outside of a 35-nation board meeting of the
International Atomic Energy Agency that would focus on Iran
later in the week.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
68 newsobserver.com: Converting plutonium taking longer than expected
March 6, 2006
Lisa Zagaroli, McClatchy News Service As President Bush seeks to
ensure that other countries wanting to use nuclear energy do so
without creating weapons-grade material, the United States' plan
to reduce its own stock of bomb-quality plutonium is behind
schedule and has more than tripled in cost.
The program, referred to as MOX for the mixed oxide blend that
would be converted into energy, has been slowed for a host of
reasons, including partner Russia's unwillingness to agree to
U.S. terms on liability as well as delays and cost overruns in
the design phase of the plant at the Savannah River Site in
Aiken County, S.C.
There is likely to be a several-year gap between the end of the
ongoing test of MOX at Duke Energy's Catawba nuclear plant at
Lake Wylie, S.C., and the time the utility can count on using
the mixture for 40 percent of its electricity output. The United
States won't be producing the mixture for nearly a decade.
"My optimism has been in a steady state of decline," said
William Hoehn, Washington office director for RANSAC, an
independent organization that promotes a threat reduction agenda
between the United States and the former Soviet Union.
The United States and Russia settled on the nonproliferation
program in 2000, agreeing to reduce the plutonium they have from
dismantled bombs by 34 metric tons each. They would do so by
blending the plutonium with uranium that commercial nuclear
power plants use to generate electricity. MOX blends have been
used for decades in countries such as France, but never before
using weapons-grade plutonium.
Behind schedule
To ensure that the mixture would work safely and effectively,
the United States asked a company in France to create a blend
with U.S. weapons plutonium. The Catawba nuclear facility began
testing it in June, and it is working as predicted, said Rita
Sipe, a spokeswoman for Duke Energy in Charlotte, N.C.
Of the 193 "lead assemblies" in the Catawba reactor, only four
are using MOX. The test is scheduled to run a normal fuel cycle
of three to four years. Afterward, Duke had hoped to add more
MOX until about 40 percent of its assemblies contained the
uranium and plutonium mix scheduled to be fabricated at the
Savannah River Site.
But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told lawmakers last month
that the planned fuel manufacturing facility in Aiken County, a
310-square-mile site near the Georgia border, isn't likely to
begin producing MOX before 2015.
Bodman's letter to Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, said his department would
"continue to explore ways to accelerate its schedule for this
important mission."
Construction on the Savannah plant had been scheduled to begin
this May, but the National Nuclear Security Administration
wouldn't verify the timing last week, saying only that it would
begin "in 2006."
Delays in Russia
U.S. officials blame the delay primarily on Russians' reluctance
to take on any liability associated with their MOX plant that
the Americans plan to help them build and finance.
"We have had two years delay on that while we have argued over
the terms of liability, and we finally have resolved that matter
last summer," Bodman told a Senate committee last month.
Former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he thinks the MOX
program will continue to progress with "diplomacy" with the
Russians.
"The notion of having large quantities of weapons-grade-level
plutonium is obviously not desirable to either side," said
Abraham, who last week signed on as chairman of the board of
Areva Inc., which fabricated the MOX in France that is used at
Catawba.
The Russian delay is only a small part of the problem with the
MOX program, according to a scathing audit by the Department of
Energy's inspector general released in December. The report
indicates the MOX program has been plagued with huge cost
overruns, mismanagement and lack of oversight.
In the meantime, the Savannah River Site, already a steward of
the nation's nuclear stockpile, has been collecting more of the
nation's plutonium reserves. All rights reserved. This
copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or
redistributed in any manner.
© Copyright 2006, The News & Observer Publishing Company
A subsidiary of The McClatchy Company ![]()
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON - In the classic children's book, "Mike Mulligan and
His Steam Shovel," Mike promises that his beloved but outdated
machine Mary Anne can still dig a cellar in a single day.
And she proves it, carving out a perfect hole for the new
Popperville town hall - only to realize she dug herself so deep
there was no escape.
So Mary Anne stayed there and adapted to a new role as the
building's furnace, and as a kind of museum piece.
So it is with the machine that dug the 5-mile exploratory tunnel
in Yucca Mountain, a gigantic $13 million drill bit that sits at
the site unused - and for sale with no takers - nine years after
its job was done.
The Tunnel Boring Machine is becoming a monument to the project
itself. Historians may one day consider The Machine a testament
to Man's ability to dream and build big, or maybe an aging
symbol of a failed idea.
In the mid-1990s, as The Machine rumbled, there was more
excitement about Yucca. The nuclear industry was flush with
optimism that it would soon have a place to bury the spent fuel
that comes out of reactors.
Public officials were confident they were pursuing the best,
most technologically advanced solution to the nation's nuclear
waste problem - burying it in tunnels under the mountain.
Energy Department officials spoke of Yucca in lofty terms as a
project unlike any the world has ever known. It was no less than
a test of man's ambition - and hubris, some said.
But the desert ridge had yet to be excavated so scientists could
examine its innards. The Machine would give researchers entre to
the inside of the mountain to study the rock and test its
reactions to heat and moisture.
So the government bought a massive piece of machinery befitting
the size of the $58 billion repository project - one of the
biggest drill bits in the world at 860 tons, 25 feet wide.
The Machine arrived in pieces on 50 trucks from a plant in Kent,
Wash. It was reassembled at the foot of the mountain, and on a
September day in 1994 it began to gnaw.
Powered by 12 motors and 3,800 horsepower spinning 48 17-inch
"cutter wheels," The Machine did its job well.
For two and a half years it chewed at the rock, three shifts a
day, five days a week. On occasions it reached a top speed of 18
feet per hour. It consumed tons of rock and a $130 million
budget.
In April 1997, the 1.7 million-pound gopher emerged victorious
from its five-mile, U-shaped hole. The moment was dubbed, "The
Daylighting."
Then-project manager Wesley Barnes pumped his fist with pride.
Workers cheered.
Not long after, the department treated The Machine to a bath of
fresh white paint.
But the glory faded. And with its work complete, The Machine was
unceremoniously discarded not far from the tunnel's South
Portal.
It sits there still.
The Energy Department has tried to get rid of it. Most of its
attachment, which had included trailers and gantries that made
the entire apparatus longer than a football field, were sold as
scrap a few years ago.
The Energy Department offered The Machine to other government
agencies. The feds tried to sell it commercially. But it wasn't
like unloading a 1994 Subaru.
One potential buyer offered a few hundred thousand dollars, but
the department refused to be low-balled. "The scrap alone is
probably worth that," department spokesman Allen Benson said.
Today, The Machine is the highlight of the Yucca Mountain tour.
Visitors are awed by its size. Some Energy Department employees
argue that it should be put on permanent display.
Truth is, The Machine is already becoming a kind of monument to
Yucca.
It is either a symbol of the promise of the worlds first
high-level nuclear waste repository and Mans ability to engineer
it, or a relic of a rusting idea the government keeps
repainting, trying to restore its luster. Benjamin Grove can be
reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
71 Las Vegas SUN: Letter: A different take on Yucca Mountain
March 04, 2006
The Las Vegas Sun got it wrong in its Feb. 27 editorial,
"Dangerous Yucca proposal."
Congress and the president confirmed Yucca Mountain as the site
for a deep geologic repository in 2002 based on 20 years and $8
billion in scientific analysis. This analysis evaluated
increasing Yucca's capacity by two-thirds and found the increase
to be safe. The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed
this work. More recently, an additional independent review found
the research related specifically to water infiltration
technically sound.
The industry has a proven record of safely transporting used
fuel - more than 3,000 shipments in this country over the past
40 years. And, the ability to safely transport used fuel was
recently supported by a National Academy of Sciences report.
Active work on Yucca Mountain continues. The Energy Department's
project head, Paul Golan, said he expects new target dates for
filing the licensing application and commencing operations will
be announced this summer. This work ultimately will be judged in
a rigorous Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing process,
where decisions will be made based on facts, not unsupported
claims.
Both common sense and concrete science show that Yucca Mountain
is safe, is the best option for safely storing used nuclear fuel
and is proceeding toward a successful conclusion.
Steven P. Kraft, Washington, D.C.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
72 NRC: Request for a License to Import Radioactive Waste
FR Doc 06-2094
[Federal Register: March 6, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 43)]
[Notices] [Page 11233] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr06mr06-67] [[Page 11233]]
Pursuant to 10 CFR 110.70(C) ``Public notice of receipt of an
application,'' please take notice that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has received the following request for an import
license. Copies of the request are available electronically
through ADAMS and can be accessed through the Public Electronic
Reading Room (PERR) link http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html
at the NRC Home page. A request for a hearing or petition for
leave to intervene may be filed within 30 days after publication
of this notice in the Federal Register. Any request for hearing
or petition for leave to intervene shall be served by the
requestor or petitioner upon the applicant, the Office of the
General Counsel, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington,
DC 20555; the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
Washington, DC 20555; and the Executive Secretary, U.S.
Department of State, Washington, DC 20520.
The information concerning this request follows.
NRC Import License Application
Name of applicant, date of application, date received,
Description of material End use Country of origin
application number, docket number
Eastern
Technologies, Inc., Class A radioactive waste Laundering
and Mexico.
Ashford, AL, February 3, 2006. consisting of corrosion
decontamination of activation and mixed protective clothing and
fission products related products used at (predominantly Co-60,
Co- the Laguna Verde Nuclear 58 and Mn-54) as Power Plant located
in contaminants on used Mexico.
protective clothing and other items.
February 3, 2006 IW016..............................
11005602...........................
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Dated this 24th day of February 2006 at Rockville, Maryland.
Stephen Dembek, Acting Director, Office of International
Programs.
[FR Doc. 06-2094 Filed 3-3-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
73 Las Vegas SUN: Editorial: Radiation standards a farce
Today: March 06, 2006 at 8:12:4 PST
Government scientists say with straight faces that Yucca can be
safe for 300,000 years
The Environmental Protection Agency last week said it can do the
impossible - issue a final radiation standard for Yucca Mountain
by the end of the year. We say impossible because the radiation
standard, by federal court order, must protect the public for
roughly 300,000 years. For that matter, the bumbling U.S. Energy
Department has proven that it would be incapable of safely
transporting and burying 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for any
period of time.
A radiation standard sets the amount of radioactivity allowed to
be emitted in any one year from Yucca Mountain, 90 miles
northwest of Las Vegas. This is the site under study - and under
construction - by the federal government as the nation's sole
burial spot for high-level nuclear waste.
It is currently in limbo for a variety of scientific reasons,
but mainly because of a federal court challenge by Nevada. The
state argued that the EPA had set a radiation standard to
protect people over a 10,000-year period, when a much longer
time period was required.
When Congress approved Yucca Mountain in 1987, it ordered the
EPA to rely on calculations by the National Academy of Sciences
in setting the length of time for the standard. The academy said
the standard should be set for the peak life of the radiation,
which is about 300,000 years. The federal court found that the
EPA hadn't followed Congress' direction, forcing the agency to
come up with a new standard.
Radioactivity is measured in rems. Last August the EPA proposed
a new standard for Yucca that would allow the emission of 15
millirems a year for 10,000 years (a chest X-ray is about 10
millirems), then 350 millirems a year for a million years beyond
that. It is this proposal, or a refinement, that the EPA will
release as its final recommendation by the end of the year.
Obviously, it is absurd to believe that a standard will be
preserved for even 10,000 years. Cro-Magnon man lived in
Southern Nevada 10,000 years ago. What our state will be that
far into the future is anyone's guess. But let's say that humans
are still here, and that Las Vegas has expanded to Yucca
Mountain by then. The level of 350 millirems is three times
higher than what is allowed to be emitted from today's nuclear
plants. Maybe the EPA thinks humans will be radioactive-loving
mutants by then.
Nonetheless, the absurdity of permanently burying nuclear waste
continues to be discussed by federal officials - all with
straight faces.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
74 Las Vegas SUN: Jon Ralston offers advice to keep Dawn Gibbons
from sticking her foot in her mouth
March 05, 2006
Jon Ralston offers advice to keep Dawn Gibbons from sticking her
foot in her mouth
Sometimes in politics, the best defense is not a good offense.
The best defense is to shut up.
Take the case of Dawn Gibbons, the ex-assemblywoman who hopes to
replace her governorship-seeking husband, Rep. Jim Gibbons, in
the House. I recently reported that Ms. Gibbons is having a
fundraiser this month headlined by House Transportation boss Don
Young. He is a potent force in Congress and has helped Nevada on
some issues over the years, and Nevada has reciprocated by
raising money for him over the years.
But that's not what makes this March 29 fundraiser so
noteworthy. What makes the event interesting is that it is being
hosted at the offices of The Capitol Hill Consulting Group,
which has a panoply of clients, among them the Edison Electric
Institute (EEI), whose boss, Tom Kuhn, just loves Yucca
Mountain.
Kuhn is also an intimate of President Bush, and that
relationship was widely seen as one of the reasons the president
gave short shrift to sound science and accelerated the project.
Kuhn came to EEI after a stint as the head of the American
Nuclear Energy Council (ANEC), which morphed into the Nuclear
Energy Institute (NEI), which is the major lobbying outfit on
Yucca.
When I raised the issue of these connections last week, the
Gibbons campaign tried the best offense. The Capitol Hill
Consulting Group is only letting the campaign use its offices,
not contributing money to the event, and its members have never
talked about the dump with EEI, the pitch went. Rep. Young voted
right once on the dump and he chose the location, the spin
continued. And, as her consultant wrote to me in an e-mail,
"Dawn Gibbons opposes the Yucca Mountain project. Period."
Ah, if only I could just put a period there, as that supposedly
inarguable air of finality implied I should. If only I could
just let it go.
Alas, I can't.
I suppose I could just forget that EEI, despite protestations to
the contrary, has been an advocate for burying nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain for many years. In fact, according to the NEI Web
site, NEI was formed by merging ANEC with other entities,
including "the nuclear division of the Edison Electric
Institute." Any attempt by the Gibbons folks to distance EEI
from NEI or its agenda is disingenuous at best and a flat-out
falsehood at worst.
I suppose I could also forget that six years ago, the chairman
of EEI, John Rowe, and who not coincidentally is a board member
of NEI, testified in favor of accelerating the opening of the
dump at Yucca Mountain. And I suppose I could just forget that
if you lobby for a trade group such as EEI, which has an agenda
often coincident with NEI, you have to wear the entire agenda,
not just parts of it.
Let's suppose, for the sake of Ms. Gibbons, that I agree to
overlook all of that. Fine. But the tie that binds often are
ties that bind . The Capitol Hill Consulting Group also has
represented a company called Entergy, which is the second
largest nuclear plant operator in the country and a fervent
advocate of the dump. Entergy has applied to build one of the
first new nuclear power plants, so my guess is the company will
be supporting the new push to bust the cap on the amount of
waste that can be stored at Yucca Mountain.
I suppose I could wonder if The Capitol Hill Consulting Group
might be helping with that effort. I suppose I could wonder if
the outfit hosting the Gibbons event might talk to its client
about nuclear waste issues that it claims it never raised with
EEI. I suppose I could even wonder if any of the company folks
who might pass by the room where the March 29 event is taking
place might put a few "Nuclear Waste is OK" brochures inside the
event.
But I won't. I'm perfectly content to shut up about this issue
now and not even mention any of the poor lobbying company's
other clients that might be of interest to Gibbons' potential
constituents. Really, I am happy to shut up.
I wonder if the Gibbons campaign is, too. Jon Ralston hosts the
news discussion program "Face to Face With Jon Ralston" on Las
Vegas ONE and also publishes the daily e-mail newsletter
"RalstonFlash.com." His column for the Las Vegas Sun appears
Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997
or through e-mail at ralston@vegas.com.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
75 Platts: Yucca Mountain faces challenges says former Energy Dept. official
Washington (Platts)--3Mar2006
The repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, faces
institutional, political, and legal challenges that have been
driven in part by "historical regional equity and fairness
concerns," said a former Energy Department official.
Lake Barrett, a former acting director of the Yucca Mountain
project, told officials at a nuclear waste conference in Tucson,
Arizona, this week that he believed that "if political solutions
can be found to these fundamental Nevada concerns, ... that
other technical, regulatory, management and budget issues can be
adequately addressed."
Waste legislation expected to be introduced in Congress this
year could provide a vehicle to "address these policy issues,"
said Barrett, who heads L. Barrett Consulting. In an apparent
reference to the department's new fuel-cycle initiative, the
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, Barrett said he believed "that
the current global situation and advanced nuclear technologies
can be integrated to play an important role in revising current
policy in an acceptable way for everyone."
He cautioned, however, the country must proceed with a
repository, adding that advanced fuel-cycle technologies "are
decades away from meaningful implementation and are not in
themselves a waste disposal solution."
For more information, take a trial to Nuclear News Flashes
at http://www.nuclearnews.platts.com.
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill
Companies]
*****************************************************************
76 PoughkeepsieJournal.com: Reactor waste moves official to call meeting
Monday, March 6, 2006
Greg Clary The Journal News
WHITE PLAINS — Local and federal elected officials hope a
meeting today about Indian Point will provide answers about the
seriousness of radioactive isotopes that have been found
underground at the nuclear reactor site in Buchanan.
"Andy wants everybody in the same room," said Susan Tolchin,
Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano's chief adviser.
"These are the decision makers. They need to know what's going
on, to get the right information from the people who have it."
Spano asked for representatives to come from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, the state departments of Health and
Environmental Conservation, and Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which
owns Indian Point, to discuss the presence of tritium near the
Hudson River and strontium-90 in one monitoring well onsite.
Entergy and the Commission have repeatedly stated there was no
danger to the public, and reiterated that after strontium-90 was
found in small amounts.
Tolchin said she expected staff members from many of the area's
congressional representatives to attend, as well as Rockland
County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef.
Vanderhoef was succinct in his comments about the gathering.
"I'll be attending the meeting to ask everybody a lot of
questions," he said.
'Environmental assaults'
Meanwhile, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-Bronx, wrote a letter Friday
asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to conduct
"an immediate investigation into the serious environmental
problems" caused by the plants' operation, citing the
strontium-90 and tritium.
"These discoveries are only the latest in a list of
environmental assaults on the region by the Indian Point Power
Plant," Engel wrote to the EPA. "The safety of our constituents
warrants an immediate and comprehensive investigation by the
Environmental Protection Agency."
Engel's spokeswoman said the letter had been circulated to other
congressional representatives for the area, to see if they
wanted to join in the request. Reps. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, and
Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, have joined the request.
EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said the agency had not seen the
letter and couldn't comment until officials there had reviewed
it.
Entergy is sending Donald Mayer, who is overseeing the search
for a leak in a 400,000-gallon spent fuel pool and leading the
cleanup of any radiated water at the site, company spokesman Jim
Steets said.
Pollution of Hudson
A week ago, the company told a working group of public and
emergency officials in a biweekly meeting tritium had shown up
within 150 feet of the Hudson and was likely seeping into the
river.
State health and environmental officials were aware of the
presence of strontium-90 as early as December, according to
documents obtained by the environmental group Riverkeeper, which
requested them under the state's Freedom of Information law.
A spokeswoman for the state Department of Health said the
agency's director of environmental radiation protection would
attend today's meeting. DEC officials will attend as well,
according to an agency spokeswoman.
NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said his agency would send a branch
chief from the division of reactor safety and the agency would
provide "whatever information we can regarding our sample
results and inspection efforts."
Copyright © PoughkeepsieJournal.com
*****************************************************************
77 Salt Lake Tribune: Tooele turns away radioactive waste
Article Last Updated: 03/06/2006 1:15 AM MST
Clean Harbors sought license: County cites new ordinance in
turning down request for change
By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune
Tooele County said Friday it will not give Clean Harbors
Grassy Mountain hazardous-waste site a permit to dispose of
low-level radioactive waste.
The decision, in effect, blocks the Massachusetts-based
company from broadening the uses of its mile-square site, which
is about 60 miles west of Salt Lake City.
In January, Clean Harbors informed state regulators it was
planning to seek permits to use an undeveloped part of its site
for radioactive-waste disposal.
Nicole L. Cline, director of the county's Division of
Planning and Zoning, told the state Radiation Control Board the
county would not approve Clean Harbors' request because of an
ordinance adopted last fall that shrinks the county's
hazardous-industries zone and imposes new limits on existing
sites.
Under state law, new facilities require approval by the
local government, state regulators, the Legislature and the
governor. No new hazardous- or radioactive-waste facilities have
been developed since the state adopted this four-step approval
system in 1990.
Phil Retallick of Clean Harbors said last week his facility
would not be asking to expand its boundaries. He also said it was
constructed to meet U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards
for low-level radioactive waste from nuclear plants and
government cleanups, which is currently disposed of at the
EnergySolutions site in Clive.
Known as Envirocare of Utah until a month ago,
EnergySolutions put in an application to more than double in
size before Tooele County's new ordinance went into effect. It
has county approval for its expansion, but its state-regulator
approval is being appealed.
A radiation board attorney noted that Clean Harbors could go
forward with its license request and seek to change the Tooele
County ordinance.
fahys@sltrib.com
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
78 DOE: New CO2 Enhanced Recovery Technology Could Greatly Boost U.S. Oil
March 3, 2006
WASHINGTON , D.C. The Department of Energy (DOE) released
today reports indicating that state-of-the-art enhanced oil
recovery techniques could significantly increase recoverable oil
resources of the United States in the future. According to the
findings, 89 billion barrels or more could eventually be added
to the current U.S. proven reserves of 21.4 billion barrels.
These promising new technologies could further help us reduce
our reliance on foreign sources of oil, Energy Secretary Samuel
W. Bodman said.
By using the proven technique of carbon sequestration, we get
the double benefit of taking carbon dioxide out of air while
getting more oil out of the earth. The 89 billion barrel jump in
resources was one of a number of possible increases identified in
a series of assessments done for DOE which also found that, in
the longer term, multiple advances in technology and widespread
sequestration of industrial carbon dioxide could eventually add
as much as 430 billion new barrels to the technically recoverable
resource.
If the 89 billion barrels in resources is converted to reserves,
the U.S. would be fifth in the world behind Iraq with 115
billion barrels, and an additional 430 billion barrels would
make it first, ahead of Saudi Arabia with 261 billion barrels.
Next-generation enhanced recovery with carbon dioxide was
judged to be a game-changer in oil production, one capable of
doubling recovery efficiency.
And geologic sequestration of industrial carbon dioxide in
declining oil fields was endorsed last year as a potential method
of reducing greenhouse base emissions by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. The assessments looked at maximizing oil
production and accelerating the productive use of carbon dioxide
in all categories of petroleum resources, including as-yet
undiscovered oil and the new resources in the residual oil zone.
The findings are consolidated in the February 2006 report
Undeveloped Domestic Oil Resources: The Foundation for Increasing
Oil Production and a Viable Domestic Oil Industry. The 430
billion barrel potential was identified in increments of up to
110 billon barrels from applying today's state-of-the-art
enhanced recovery in discovered fields 90 billion in light oil,
20 billion in heavy oil; up to 179 billion barrels from
undiscovered oil 119 billion from conventional technology, 60
billion from enhanced recovery; up to 111 billion barrels from
reserve growth 71 billion from conventional technology, 40
billion from enhanced recovery; up to 20 billion from tapping the
residual oil zone with enhanced recovery; and, another 10 billion
from tar sands.
The separate assessments and reports contributing to the total
resource estimate are: Basin Oriented Assessments, ten
assessments of producing U.S. basins and the potential of
state-of-the-art enhanced oil recovery; Stranded Oil in the
Residual Oil Zone (ROZ), five reports looking at new resources in
the residual oil zone; and, Evaluation of the Potential for
"Game-Changer" Improvements in Oil Recovery Efficiency for CO2
Enhanced Oil Recovery, a report on next-generation technology.
They were prepared by Advanced Resources International and Melzer
Consulting.
Media contact(s):
Craig Stevens, 202/586-4940 [ ]
U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585
1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 |
*****************************************************************
79 Janet L. Westbrook: An ORNL Whistleblower Story
I am Janet L. Westbrook, a health physicist and radiological
engineer who lives in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
This site makes available a book on my whistleblower experiences
as a radiation protection professional at a Department of Energy
site. The primary audience is my fellow rad protection
specialists, but others may have an interest in it because of
the implications for safety in general and for impacts on the
community. For a summary of what the book is about, the reader
can start with the last chapter.
I wrote the book to:
+ Relate the events leading to my reporting of radiation
safety concerns and pursuing a complaint through the DOE
whistleblower system
+ Express my opinions on safety management and safety
philosophy
+ Provide a history of rad protection as I saw it at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory
In the interests of free and prompt dissemination of
information, I have chosen to post this book on the Internet,
where all can see it, and not to publish it in paper form.
Please feel free to print out a copy of this book for yourself
and for any interested friends. You may also quote it.
However, if you print it out or quote it, you must respect the
copyright and give proper credit to me as author.
I welcome any factual corrections or any explanations that might
cause me to revise my thinking or my understanding of the
various events or situations. Please direct any such corrections
or explanations, and also any comments you may have, to me at
janet.westbrook@comcast.net
Copyright Janet L.
Westbrook, 26 February 2006
*****************************************************************
80 lamonitor.com: Water issues face national scrutiny
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
ROGER SNODGRASS, roger@lamonitor.com, Monitor Assistant Editor
A prominent panel of scientists, scholars and hydrological
specialists with a variety of high-level expertise has been
assembled to provide an independent review of the groundwater
program at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
An official delegation of the National Academies of Science will
hold their first meeting March 23-24 at Bishop's Lodge outside
Santa Fe.
The Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board announced that a
committee of 11 members has been provisionally appointed to
analyze environmental remediation and monitoring programs at
LANL.
Final appointments are made after a period of public comment and
full evaluation of relevant information, including confidential
written disclosures related to biases or conflicts of interest.
Larry W. Lake, former chair of the Department of Petroleum
Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, is chair of the
panel.
Rodney C. Ewing, a professor of geological sciences at the
University of Michigan has been named vice chair.
The project study director, John Wiley, contacted in Washington,
D.C., Friday, said the board was commissioned by the Department
of Energy for a 15-month study.
"We have planned a series of something like six meetings, half
of them to be held in or near Los Alamos," he said.
"One or more of the other meetings will be held in Washington,
D.C., to make it convenient for DOE headquarters people."
DOE's local office decided to call on the National Academies in
Oct. 2005, after the department's Inspector General corroborated
criticism of well-drilling practices at the laboratory.
The Northern New Mexico Citizens Advisory Board, an organization
chartered by DOE to provide public input on environmental
issues, began to investigate reports by Robert Gilkeson, a
former consultant on the lab's hydrological work plan.
Gilkeson claimed that there were fundamental flaws in the lab's
well-drilling techniques that called into question whether the
results of the groundwater samples were representative.
NNMCAB asked for additional evaluation by scientists at the US
Environmental Protection Agency National Risk Management
Research Laboratory in Ada, Okla.
This week, Gilkeson held a press conference at the office of
Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, to call
attention to the EPA laboratory's final report on well
construction practices and a separate review of the LANL's
self-evaluation of its well screen collection techniques.
The two final reports, issued on Feb. 16, Gilkeson said
Thursday, are further confirmation of his own critical
assessments.
"The laboratory is not doing adequate quality assurance. They
are not changing their sampling and analytical procedures to get
reliable data. They are putting spurious data on the record and
then using that to publish findings," he said.
Gilkeson has charged that the laboratory's use of drilling
additives and excessively long well screens reduced the wells'
reliability for identifying radioactive materials and small
amounts of contaminants - the ultimate purpose of the hydrology
project.
The laboratory responded that the clays were necessary for
drilling in this kind of terrain and regulators approved their
use. The New Mexico Environment Department agreed that the wells
were intended as characterization instruments, related to the
hydrology of the ground under the nuclear weapons laboratory,
and thus have a different purpose than monitoring wells.
While acknowledging that some well screens are deficient, the
laboratory emphasized those wells they believe are working
properly or may function properly at some time in the future.
The EPA report says, "The time frame for this continuing impact
to the representativeness of groundwater samples may be years to
decades."
The stakes in the water issue went up dramatically at the end of
2005, when the DOE and LANL suddenly announced that alarming
levels of chromium had been found in one of the characterization
wells two year earlier, but had been overlooked until then.
The presence of chromium in quantities (.404 parts per million),
well-above state (.05 ppm) and federal (.1 ppm) standards,
spurred the New Mexico Environment Department to call for a
90-day interim report with a plan to determine "the nature and
extent of the problem."
That report is due in early April.
The significance of the most recent finding goes beyond the
presence of the chromium contamination, because it suggests that
fast pathways may exist in the geological structure of the
mountain. Such fractures or highly permeable chutes could carry
quantities of radiological and other more hazardous pollutants
into the vital regional aquifer that supplies drinking water to
Los Alamos and recharges the Buckman well field, a source of
water for Santa Fe.
Strontium-90 and plutonium are included in the toxic inventory
on the plateau.
A proposed $50 million cut in the environmental management
budget next year at Los Alamos, was noted in DOE's federal
budget request in relation to an unspecified change in the
groundwater strategy at the laboratory.
The first meeting of the NAS committee is intended to help the
volunteers who serve on the panel get their feet on the ground,
to get acquainted with each other and the issues, and to begin
to create an agenda, Wiley said.
Among questions to be answered is the adequacy of the
laboratory's understanding of scientific practices and risks
related to groundwater contamination as well as the potential
for remediation, "especially for radionuclide contamination for
which DOE is self-regulating."
There will be an opportunity for public comment, and technical
and scientific information bearing on the issues will be
welcomed, Wiley added.
Public meetings are planned for the afternoon of March 23 and
the morning of March 24.
The contact for the meeting is Courtney Gibbs, e-mail:
cgibbs@nas.edu, phone (202) 334-3066.
A 20-day public comment period on the panelists selected for the
review expires Tuesday.
A full list of panelists a statement of the project scope and
other information is available on the web:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/projectview.aspx?key=186.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
81 WBIR.COM: Millions being spent for special nuclear materials cartons
The Energy Department is buying specially-designed stainless
steel containers to hold the nation's supply of bomb-grade
uranium.
Government contractors at Oak Ridge have about 1,000 of them and
more are being manufactured. Energy Department spokesman Steven
Wyatt at the Y-12 plant declined to say how many are being made.
The "rackable can storage boxes" will be used in a new
high-security fuel storage complex, scheduled to be completed
next year.
The government plant engineering staff designed the boxes, which
are being manufactured by two Midwest companies. A special
filler material absorbs neutrons to improve storage safety.
Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press Amanda Dill, Producer
Last updated: 3/6/2006 1:47:10 PM
Copyright ©2006 WBIR-TV Knoxville
*****************************************************************
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more
information go to:
*****************************************************************