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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Reaches Accord on Iran
2 Guardian Unlimited: State Radio: Iran to Reject U.N. Proposal
3 IRNA: China stresses peaceful solution to Iran's N-case
4 BBC: Tehran faces UN nuclear deadline
5 IRNA: US, UK pressures aim to weaken Iran's N-stance - MP
6 SF Chron: Iran president missing badly / Ahmadinejad's crisis deepen
7 IRNA: Europe incentives package, a step forward - FM
8 Xinhua: Iran warns UN over nuclear resolution
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI, Venezuela to expand cooperation
10 IRNA: Asefi says anti-Iran resolution to worsen crisis in region
11 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI, at climax of power and majesty
12 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: US plans to escalate crises in ME
13 AFP: Iran warns UN over nuclear resolution
14 AFP: Iran's Ahmadinejad signals hardening of nuclear stance -
15 AFP: Iran fails in bid to divide world powers - US official -
16 IRNA: Iran, Venezuela to set up joint energy committee
17 SF Chron: CHINA GETS TOUGH WITH NORTH KOREA / By condemning missile
18 AFP: Stubborn North Korea alienating even its few friends: analysts
19 AFP: US ready to isolate North Korea over nuclear weapons - State De
20 Guardian Unlimited: ANALYSIS: U.S. Not Talking to Its Enemies
21 US: The Anniston Star: Shortsighted on energy
22 US: Las Vegas SUN: Nevada congressional candidate step up attacks
NUCLEAR REACTORS
23 Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
24 [NYTr] Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
25 The Observer: Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
26 US: Concord Monitor: Is it time for more nuclear power?
27 US: Concord Monitor: Seabrook through the years
28 US: Courier Post: Activists fret over nuclear fuel transfer
29 US: Columbus Dispatch: PLANT designs greatly streamlined — and theor
30 US: Brattleboro Reformer: More testimony to be offered against VY's
31 AFP: Pakistan says new nuclear reactor 'safe in our hands'
32 US: Agnew's Alert: Pilgrim Nuclear Relicensing
33 US: Galveston County Daily News: Subsidies fuel push for nuclear ene
NUCLEAR SECURITY
NUCLEAR SAFETY
34 CONTRA COSTA TIMES: Atomic bomb survivor will join protesters
35 Daily Yomiuri: Elderly A-bomb victims still suffering
36 US: Daytona Beach News-Journal: 'Definitive answer' on depleted uran
37 AU ABC: Sydney airport given all clear after radiation scare.
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
38 US: The Australian: MPs vow fight over uranium plan
39 US: Sydney Morning Herald: PM blasts 'ludicrous' ALP uranium policy
40 US: Sydney Morning Herald: ERA to concentrate on existing projects -
41 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Beazley's uranium plan 'courageous' -
42 US: Bradenton Herald: Toxin report stokes fears in Tallevast
43 US: Deseret News: Governor's 'general' leaves for Supreme Court
44 Pahrump Valley Times: New Yucca Mountain center opens
45 reviewjournal.com: Bush administration says Yucca study not required
46 US: AFP: In Australia, a U-turn on uranium -
47 US: Cape Cod Times: Bay State water supply rule on perchlorate leads
48 US: LA Daily News: Officials see cleanup of Bermite site
49 US: AU ABC: Beazley wrong on uranium
50 Scotsman.com: Fight to stop nuclear waste storage near homes
PEACE
51 Dr. Helen Caldicott: VIDEO: The Dangers of a Nuclear War
52 Nuclear terror: science and lies
53 Telegraph: 'There were four beautiful mushroom clouds a week.
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
54 Knox News: Gel being tested as bone replacement
55 Knox News: ORNL workers help Libya shed nuclear material
56 Tennessean: Lab helps move uranium from Libya to Russia -
57 AFP: In Australia, a U-turn on uranium
58 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Los Alamos memo
59 Knox News: EnergySolutions lays off 80 in Oak Ridge
60 Knox News: Regulators question power boost at Browns Ferry
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Guardian Unlimited: Security Council Reaches Accord on Iran
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday July 29, 2006 1:31 AM
AP Photo XAW104
By NICK WADHAMS
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council reached a deal Friday on a resolution that
would give Iran until the end of August to suspend uranium
enrichment or face the threat of economic and diplomatic
sanctions.
The draft was formally circulated to the full 15-member council
late in the day and will likely be adopted next week.
Because of Russian and Chinese demands, the text is weaker than
earlier drafts, which would have made the threat of sanctions
immediate. The draft now essentially requires the council to
hold further discussions before it considers sanctions.
``There (are) no sanctions introduced on Iran in the draft
resolution which we are finalizing,'' Russia's U.N. Ambassador
Vitaly Churkin said.
Churkin stressed that work on the resolution was not finished,
raising the possibility the introduction of the draft could be
postponed.
The resolution, drafted by Britain, France and Germany with U.S.
backing, is a followup to a July 12 agreement - by the foreign
ministers of those four countries, plus Russia and China - to
refer Tehran to the Security Council for not responding to
incentives to suspend enrichment.
The ministers asked that council members adopt a resolution
making Iran's suspension of enrichment activities mandatory.
Tehran said last week it would reply Aug. 22 to the Western
incentive package, but the council decided to go ahead with a
resolution and not wait for Iran's response.
Iran on Friday called again for international negotiations on
its nuclear ambitions and said it was considering the
incentives. Western nations have dismissed the idea of such
talks without a halt to Iran's uranium enrichment.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking to
reporters in Malaysia, said Tehran considers the package as a
``positive step'' toward a diplomatic solution.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday Moscow wants
a swift, positive response from Iran on the package, Russian
news agencies said.
``We are counting on the Iranian leadership to finish studying
(the incentives) and give a positive answer as soon as
possible,'' Interfax, ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti quoted Lavrov as
saying on a plane en route to Dubai from Malaysia where he
attended an Asian security forum.
The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to
produce highly enriched uranium and plutonium for nuclear
weapons. Tehran maintains its nuclear program is purely peaceful
and aimed at generating electricity.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
2 Guardian Unlimited: State Radio: Iran to Reject U.N. Proposal
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Sunday July 30, 2006 1:46 AM
AP Photo XHS106
By NASSER KARIMI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's government will reject a proposed
U.N. resolution that would give it until Aug. 31 to suspend
uranium enrichment or face the threat of international
sanctions, state-run radio said on Saturday.
``Iranians will not accept unfair decisions, even in the
framework of resolutions by the international bodies,'' the
radio commentary said.
There has been no official comment to the draft resolution, but
state radio often is thought to provide the Iranian government
line.
The resolution was formally circulated to the full 15-member
U.N. Security Council late Friday and likely will be adopted
next week.
``Ultimatum and deadline cannot be acceptable to us,'' the
commentary said, accusing the United States and its allies of
making what it called an illegal demand by the United States,
France, Germany and Britain.
The commentary also said the draft might not be approved because
of opposition by China.
Tehran said last week it would reply Aug. 22 to a Western
incentive package, but the council decided to go ahead with a
resolution and not wait for Iran's response.
The incentive package includes economic incentives and a
provision for the United States to offer Iran some nuclear
technology, lift some sanctions and join direct negotiations.
The proposal also calls for Iran to impose a long-term
moratorium on uranium enrichment - which can produce peaceful
reactor fuel or fissile bomb material.
The U.S. and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking nuclear
weapons. Tehran maintains its program is purely peaceful and
aimed at generating electricity.
Iran has said it will never give up its right under the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear
fuel but has indicated it may temporarily suspend large-scale
activities to ease tensions.
Iran also warned the Security Council its double failure to stop
the war in Lebanon and solve the nuclear standoff with Tehran
would damage its credibility.
``The council has shown its incapability to solve the Lebanese
crisis in recent days and repetition of the same behavior in
Iran's nuclear case will damage the credibility of the Council
more than before,'' said a commentary on state-run radio.
Iran is a primary backer of Hezbollah, at war with Israel in its
Lebanese strongholds after guerrilla fighters kidnapped two
Israeli soldiers 18 days ago.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
3 IRNA: China stresses peaceful solution to Iran's N-case
Beijing, July 29, IRNA
Iran-China-Nuclear
The Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing here Saturday stressed
a peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear case.
According to China Central Television (CCTV), the Chinese
foreign minister, in his recent meeting with his Iranian
counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki in Malaysia, called for a
peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear case.
Beijing believes negotiations would be the best solution to the
nuclear standoff, he said.
He urged all nuclear sides to strive to reduce differences,
settle the case through peaceful channels and resume talks at
the earliest.
The Chinese minister stressed that his country would continue
talks with relevant sides to resolve Iran's nuclear case
peacefully.
*****************************************************************
4 BBC: Tehran faces UN nuclear deadline
Last Updated: Saturday, 29 July 2006
[Preliminary installation of a turbo generator at
Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. File photo]
Iran says its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council
have agreed on a draft resolution giving Iran until 31 August to
suspend uranium enrichment.
The draft was circulated to all 15 members of the Council and
could be voted on as early as Monday.
The US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, said the Council would
consider sanctions if Iran missed the deadline.
But Russian envoy Vitaly Churkin stressed that the draft
resolution did not contain the threat of sanctions.
Mr Churkin said it would encourage Iran to resume dialogue.
The draft does not mention sanctions but is a clear signal to
Iran that it is facing its last best chance to gain
international approval for its nuclear ambitions, the BBC's
Daniel Lak at the UN says.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful and is
designed to meet its energy needs only, but the US and other
Western nations fear it is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
'Misleading'
The draft resolution was negotiated over the past two weeks by
the five permanent Council members - Britain, China, France,
Russia, the United States - and also Germany.
To describe this resolution a sanctions resolution is clearly
misleading everybody about the purpose and the content of this
resolution Vitaly Churkin Russian envoy to UN
It follows a 12 July agreement to refer Iran to the UN Security
Council for failing to respond to a package of incentives to
suspend enrichment.
The resolution urges Tehran to "suspend all enrichment-related
and reprocessing activities, including research and
development", as demanded by the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA).
It says the Council would consider adopting "appropriate
measures" under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter if Iran does not
comply with the deadline.
Mr Bolton said that the draft imposed a "mandatory requirement"
on Iran.
If Tehran did not comply, Mr Bolton said, "we will move to
sanctions in the Security Council".
He said Iran faced the risk of "increasing international
isolation, economic and political pressure".
"I think this resolution will put the ball back in Iran's
court."
Mr Churkin emphasised however that the text did not threaten
sanctions, and that further measures would be discussed if Iran
failed to comply.
"To describe this resolution as a sanctions resolution is
clearly misleading everybody about the purpose and the content
of this resolution," he said.
"We want to make sure that the package is seen in its entirety."
*****************************************************************
5 IRNA: US, UK pressures aim to weaken Iran's N-stance - MP
Tehran, July 29, IRNA
Iran-MP-Nuclear
Pressures exerted on Iran by the United States and Britain
resorting unjustly to Chapter 7 of the UN Charter aim to make
Iran overlook its demands about nuclear energy, a Majlis deputy
said here Saturday.
"They (The US and Britain) made great efforts to ensure more
serious coordination among the UN Security Council members to
issue a strong resolution against Iran," a member of Majlis
Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Sobhani-Nia told
IRNA.
"The recent statement issued by Secretary of Supreme National
Security Council (SNSC), Ali Larijani, outlined Tehran's latest
stance on its nuclear case."
"The statement stressed on commitment to Iran's inalienable
rights and no violation in Tehran's principled stance," he said.
He added that 115 member states of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM), 57 states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference
(OIC) and the Third World countries confirm that Iran's nuclear
activities were peaceful and said, "They cited the US pressure
as the main actor behind introducing Iran as a threat to
international peace and security."
The MP termed August 22 as an "Appropriate time" for Iran to
discuss a package of incentives offered to the country by the
five permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain,
France, the United States, Chin and Russia plus Germany (Group
5+1).
"Whatever the US is doing with the Security Council will not be
effective. It will have negative impacts on those who are
against Iran's nuclear activities," Sobhani-Nia added.
Pointing to reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Iran's nuclear case, he said,
"The reports have always had ambiguities. They sometimes
confirmed Iran's nuclear activities while in some occasions
expressed concerns.
"But the overall reports confirmed that Iran's nuclear program
has been based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the
nuclear safeguards."
He stated that ElBaradei had no independent stance on Iran's
nuclear case as a result of pressures imposed by the US and
other states.
"It is impossible to build confidence through sanctions and
resolutions. Based on Iran's repeated announcement, negotiations
and providing guarantees through joint participation and
investment will bear outcomes.
"Hasty decisions will not only inflict damage on one party,
but, the Western and European countries will also suffer."
Pointing to upwards trend of oil price, the MP said, "Iran is
among oil exporters and producers. It is at the crossroads of
oil export.
"It has control over the entire region. So it will not be in
interest of the West and the US to opt for confrontation with
Iran." 2327/1416
*****************************************************************
6 SF Chron: Iran president missing badly / Ahmadinejad's crisis deepens as
he endangers the petro-loot
[San Francisco Chronicle]
Abbas Milani
Sunday, July 30, 2006
The crisis in Lebanon has been a rude awakening for Iran's
populist, fiery and forked-tongue president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. His dangerous messianic rhetoric has crashed on the
hard rocks of geopolitics, and on the even-harder reality that
the rest of the Iranian regime is reluctant to support anything
that seriously endangers their control of $70 billion-a-year in
petro-loot. The fissures within the regime in Tehran have become
more pronounced since the beginning of the Lebanon crisis.
Ahmadinejad came to power as the head of a surprisingly
powerfully cabal of Revolutionary Guard commanders, leading
members of the Basij (the militia-cum-street gang who are the
regime's enforcers) and some stridently messianic clergy who
expect the imminent return of the Mahdi.
The Mahdi is Shiism's missing messiah, in hiding for almost a
millennium. On more than one occasion, Ahmadinejad has said that
the main function of his administration is to facilitate the
return of the hidden messiah. This rhetoric has introduced into
Iranian political discourse the notion of Mahdaviyat, or
messianism. The messiah's return, according to Shiism, is
preceded by cataclysms of apocalyptic proportions. But the
suffering and mayhem that accompanies the return will be
followed by an eternity of salvation -- a story eerily similar
to the stories favored by Christian fundamentalists, jubilant
over what they think is the coming of Armageddon. But
fundamentalist delusions and dreams do not generally make good
policy -- they usually wind up in conflict with realpolitik.
Ahmadinejad's Mahdaviyat has been no exception.
In the first few weeks of his presidency, he and his supporters
took the Iranian political scene by storm. Mixed with his
populism was his attempt to revitalize the regime's
revolutionary spirit. He wanted to return to the days when
Ayatollah Khomeini was still alive and advocating the export of
the revolution.
Ahmadinejad's opponents, and even his allies, including
spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were surprised by his
ideological intransigence, his dangerous international
brinkmanship, particularly in the nuclear negotiations, and his
many verbal faux pas -- accompanied by a struggling economy --
that embarrassed the regime (most famously by his absurd
anti-Semitic denial of the Holocaust). Gradually and inexorably,
the rest of the leadership tried to muzzle him and limit the
damage he could do by his dangerous and careless rhetoric. But
his populism, his reputation for financial probity and the
support of Revolutionary Guards and the Basijis have made him
difficult to muzzle.
The start of the hostilities in Lebanon provided a new
opportunity for Ahmadinejad to promote his aggressive new
paradigm of exporting the Islamic revolution and creating a
"Shiite revolutionary arc" in the Muslim world. In this vision,
Iran will be the ideological leader, military supplier and
financial supporter of an international brotherhood.
Ahmadinejad's first response to the crisis was to condemn Israel
and predict its annihilation. He followed by inviting all
Muslims to support their Shiite brethren in Lebanon, but the
call fell on deaf ears. His later proposal for an immediate
emergency meeting of leaders of Muslim countries was also
ignored in other Middle East capitals -- worried as the leaders
are about an emergent assertive Iran and a Shiite brotherhood.
Even in Iran, the rest of the leadership has, at least so far,
supported a wait-and-see posture -- paying lip service to
Hezbollah as brave and valiant soldiers of Islam, yet taking no
practical steps that would entangle Iran in the hostilities.
When a shady semi-official organization registering "volunteers
for martyrdom" announced that it was sending two small teams of
"martyr-seekers" to Lebanon, the government was quick to
distance itself. When a group of Majlis deputies announced their
decision to go to Lebanon to show solidarity with Hezbollah, the
Speaker, Hadad-Adel, who is connected to Khamenei by blood and
politics, immediately ordered the trip canceled. Finally,
anecdotal evidence from inside Iran, including reports by
Western journalists, indicate the Iranian people have no stomach
to enter the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The future fate of Ahmadinejad's style of politics is profoundly
entangled with the fate of Hezbollah. His aggressive paradigm of
politics is founded on the idea that Islamist forces around the
world can, through action and unity, become an invincible force
and defeat both the West and Israel. Exporting the revolution
and standing up to the West, Ahmadinejad believes, can and will
bring victory.
A corollary is the proposition that on the nuclear issue, only
by forcefully continuing enrichment activities and ignoring
Western offers of carrot or threats of stick, can the Islamic
regime maintain its dignity and achieve its goals.
If Hezbollah's power and prestige are debilitated, then the
Ahmadinejad camp will be deprived of its most important tool for
exporting the revolution. Such a defeat will also diminish the
Islamic Republic's arsenal in its negotiations with the West
over its nuclear program.
If on the other hand, Hezbollah emerges victorious -- and for
Hezbollah, simply surviving means victory -- then Ahmadinejad
and his agenda of exporting the revolution and pushing ahead
with the nuclear program, will have won a round. Such a victory
can be expected to contribute to strengthening of radical
Islamists throughout the region. Inside Iran, such an ascendancy
can only mean further dismantling of civil society and retarding
movement toward democracy. In the region, ascendant Islamist
Shiites would threaten the future of authoritarian regimes --
from Sunni Saudi Arabia to Shiite-majority oil rich Bahrain.
The greatest tragedy is that the heavy human price for any of
these eventualities is ultimately paid by the people of Iran,
whose aspirations for democracy are on the line, and by the
innocent civilians of Lebanon and Israel.
Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of
Iranian Studies at Stanford University and co-director of the
Iran Democracy Project at Hoover Institution. Contact us at
insight@sfchronicle.com.
Page E - 3
San Francisco Chronicle]
*****************************************************************
7 IRNA: Europe incentives package, a step forward - FM
Kuala Lumpur, July 29, IRNA
Iran-FM-Nuclear
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said here Friday Iran
considers a package of incentives offered by the world six
powers as a step forward to settle the nuclear standoff.
Mottaki, who was in Malaysia on an official two-day visit, made
the remark in a press conference.
On June 6, the European Union foreign policy chief Javier
Solana offered to Iran a package of incentives on behalf of the
UN Security Council's five permanent members -- Russia, China,
US, UK and France -- plus Germany (Group 5+1) to settle the
dispute over the country's nuclear program.
"Iran will precisely review the package. The Iranian government
issued a statement on the package a few days ago and voiced its
readiness to resume talks in an attempt to respond to questions
and remove ambiguities on its nuclear program.
"We hope they will also make their best decision which we
believe will be diplomacy and talks," Mottaki said.
Asked whether the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
would hold an extraordinary session with respect to the current
developments in the Middle East, he said the OIC Executive
Committee will hold a session.
"Malaysian Prime Minister and current chair of the OIC Abdullah
Ahmad Badawi will invite about 15 states to attend the session."
In response to a question on the possibility of imposing
sanctions against Iran by the UN Security Council, he said,
"Since the beginning of disputes over Iran's nuclear case, we
have stressed the sides have two options.
"The first option is cooperation, that is, all sides strive to
come to a comprehensive solution on the basis of which concerns
of one side will be removed and the opposite side will be
enabled to easily continue its activities. This is a diplomatic
way.
"We believe this will be the best solution and will create
respect and friendship between the two sides.
"Confrontation is the second option which Iran has always
rejected. We prefer to move towards cooperation and hope the
other side will also adopt this policy."
With respect to the current positive atmosphere, Mottaki
expressed hope all sides would be satisfied with Iran's response
to the package of incentives to be presented by August 22.
Pointing to the ongoing developments in Lebanon, the Iranian
minister stressed, "We believe Hizbollah is a part of the
Lebanese government. It is an independent group.
"Iran or any other country can only provide it with
recommendations but the final decision is made in Lebanon." He
said Iran strongly supports the Palestinian and Lebanese people
against Zionist regime's usurpations and attacks
and believes all nations and states have a natural right
to defend themselves.
*****************************************************************
8 Xinhua: Iran warns UN over nuclear resolution
www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-30 15:21:25
Special report: Iran Nuclear Crisis
TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran warned on Sunday that if
the United Nations approved a resolution asking for suspension
of Iran' s sensitive nuclear activities, it would no longer
consider an incentive package.
"The (six-nation) package will no longer on the agenda
anymore if they pass a resolution against Iran," Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.
"They want to menace Iran by putting pressure, but no
country could get anything, this will just make the current
situation even worse," he added.
Meanwhile, Asefi also warned Iran would revise its policy,
referring to a possible halt of Iran's cooperation with the UN
nuclear watchdog.
"The Europeans should understand that we would revise our
current policy and react accordingly," he said.
When asked how Iran would react on the possible resolution,
Asefi said "they know what I am talking about".
On June 6, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented
Iran with a package agreed on by the five permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council plus Germany concerning the
Iranian nuclear issue.
The proposal includes both incentives aimed at persuading
Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and possible sanctions if
Iran does not comply.
On Friday, the Security Council drew up a draft resolution,
demanding Iran stop enriching uranium activities before Aug. 31
or face international sanctions. The draft resolution is likely
to be voted soon.
Iran's top officials have repeatedly said the country would
formally respond to the six-nation package by Aug. 22, but
resisting to suspend enrichment activities.
However, the officials have also warned the United Nations
against taking acrimonious measures to force Iran to comply, or
Iran would quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and stop
cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Editor: Mu Xuequan
*****************************************************************
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI, Venezuela to expand cooperation
2006/07/30
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that cooperation
between Iran and Venezuela has a growing trend.
The Chief Executive made the remark while attending a joint
press conference along with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez after the official welcome ceremony.
"The two countries and nations of Iran and Venezuela are
planning to cooperate and reach understanding.
During the visit ofthe Venezuelan president, various areas of
collaboration will be studied," he said.
Aahmadinejad said that the two countries have started their
petrochemical cooperation, adding that in the field of oil
platforms, joint projects are about to start.
"The two countries share common views and approach on regional
and international issues, which will be discussed during the
current visit," he added.
The President said that joint use of potentials of both states
will be to the benefit of both sides as well as that of the two
freedom-seeking nations.
Addressing Chavez, he said, "You are at your own house and I am
pleased with your visit to Iran."
Saying that today all South American revolutionaries can rely on
Chavez, he said that he is very popular among Iranian people on
account of his revolutionary approach.
SAM
*****************************************************************
10 IRNA: Asefi says anti-Iran resolution to worsen crisis in region
Tehran, July 30, IRNA
Iran-Asefi-Nuclear
Iran on Sunday said UN Security Council adoption of resolution
against Iran would escalate the crisis in the region.
"If the UN Security Council passes a resolution against Iran on
Monday, the (Europe's) package of incentives will not be in the
agenda any more," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza
Asefi.
The proposed package of incentives was drawn up by the five
permanent UN Security Council members -- Britain, France, the
United States, China and Russia -- plus Germany (Group 5+1) and
was handed over to Iran by the European Union foreign policy
chief Javier Solana on June 6.
"We think Europe should pay attention that in case of any
severe measures against Iran, the country will revise in its
policies," Asefi told domestic and foreign reporters at his
weekly press conference.
He assessed as "critical" the current situation in the Middle
East region, saying, "Those who are after adoption of a
resolution against Iran, are following the US theory to escalate
crisis in the region."
*****************************************************************
11 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: IRI, at climax of power and majesty
2006/07/30
The Islamic Republic of Iran is today at the climax of power and
majesty both internally and externally despite enemies' efforts
to keep it backward, said the Intelligence Minister on Saturday.
"Since Iran's growing progress and development is worrisome and
hard-to-believe for the enemies, they are making maximum efforts
to impede its progress," said Intelligence Minister
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie in Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan on
Saturday.
Addressing a group of provincial officials, Ejeie said Islamic
Iran is now in a high position and is shining in the world,
including the world of Islam.
He referred to the geographic position and young population as
two advantages of Iran, saying the Iranian nation is the most
powerful and zealot nation on earth.
Ejeie defended Iran's nuclear rights and said, "Nuclear
technology is an indigenous science for Iranians and no one can
deprive them of the right."
SAM
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
E-Mail: Webmaster@IRIBNEWS.ir
*****************************************************************
12 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: US plans to escalate crises in ME
2006/07/30
A Majlis deputy on Sunday said America intends to escalate
crises in the Middle East region.
"It is easy to start a crisis in the Middle East but difficult
to put an end to it," a member of Majlis National Security and
Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahat-Pisheh said.
"America is vanguard of a move aimed at causing insecurity in
the entire Mideast region. Several crises have been created in
the region so far but it is difficult to find a final solution
to them.
"While Afghanistan and Iraq are faced with terrorist operations,
new crisis has been created in Lebanon with the help of
Washington and Tel Aviv," he added.
America measures regarding Iran's nuclear case is a part of
efforts to create insecurity in the entire Middle East region,
he said.
Pointing to a draft resolution against Iran, the MP said, "The
international community is expected to officially recognize
August 22 as a deadline set by Iran to present its response to
the Europe's package of incentives.
"Iran does not cancel negotiations," Falahat-Pisheh stressed,
adding that leaders of certain countries as well as the European
Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana have reiterated that
Iran can give response to the proposed package with no haste.
Due to current circumstances, the deadline of July 31 set for
Iran in the draft resolution is a political haste to impose
pressure on Tehran, he emphasized.
mk
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
*****************************************************************
13 AFP: Iran warns UN over nuclear resolution
by Hiedeh Farmani Sun Jul 30, 8:34 AM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> has threatened to bin an international
proposal over its nuclear programme if the UN Security Council
passes a resolution demanding that Tehran freeze sensitive
uranium enrichment.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also said Tehran
could "revise" its policies -- implicitly warning that future
access for United Nations " /> inspectors could end -- and said
the proposed UN resolution would "worsen the crisis in the
region".
"By putting pressure and trying to intimidate Iran, no country
will achieve anything. On the contrary, the situation will
worsen," Asefi warned on Sunday.
"If tomorrow they pass a resolution against Iran, the package
will not be on the agenda any more," he said of an international
proposal offering incentives to Iran in return for a suspension
of uranium enrichment.
The proposal was drawn up by the five permanent UN Security
Council members plus Germany.
With Iran seen to be dragging its feet before giving an answer
-- and saying it will take until August 22 to reply -- the
Security Council is now poised to pass a resolution giving
Tehran until August 31 to stop enriching uranium.
Enrichment work is at the focus of fears the Islamic republic
could acquire nuclear weapons, although Iran insists it wants to
enrich uranium only to the levels needed to make reactor fuel.
"The Europeans must be aware that we will revise our policies
and react accordingly," Asefi said. "Issuing this resolution
will worsen the crisis in the region."
When asked to elaborate on what specific measures Iran might
take, Asefi replied: "They know what I am talking about."
Iranian leaders have already warned they could halt cooperation
with inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency
" /> (IAEA) and even quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
They have also played up Iran's regional clout and oil wealth.
A text of the proposed UN resolution was distributed to the 15
council nations on Friday, and US ambassador John Bolton told
reporters that a vote could be held early in the week.
If Iran continues enriching uranium, "the next step will be the
consideration of sanctions in the Security Council, and it would
be our intention to move forcefully to get those sanctions
adopted," Bolton said.
The first stage would be political and economic sanctions,
diplomats stressed, pointing to a vote within a few days.
"My hope is that we will be able to adopt it by Monday," said
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, whose country holds
the rotating council presidency for July.
The United States and its allies believe that Iran is seeking to
build a nuclear bomb, and US President George W. Bush
" /> said Friday Tehran "will not be allowed" to achieve its
wish.
"Our message is: give up your nuclear weapon and your nuclear
weapon ambitions," he said after talks in Washington with British
Prime Minister Tony Blair " /> .
Russia and China have led opposition to any mention of sanctions
in the UN resolution. Moscow's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin,
stressed the new resolution would not threaten sanctions and that
it was "an invitation to dialogue" with Iran. But he also
acknowledged that if Iran did not respond, the Security Council
would then consider "measures of pressure, like sanctions" under
Article 41 of Chapter Seven of the UN Charter. Article 41 would
not allow the use of force. The draft resolution calls on Iran to
follow IAEA directives "without further delay" and highlights the
three years the IAEA has spent trying to get information about
Iran's nuclear programme. If passed, it would call on IAEA
director Mohammed ElBaradei to report by August 31 on whether
Iran has complied.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
14 AFP: Iran's Ahmadinejad signals hardening of nuclear stance -
by Hiedeh Farmani Sun Jul 30, 3:24 PM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran " /> 's president signaled that Israeli
attacks against the Palestinian territories and Lebanon were
causing Iran to harden its stance in the international row over
its nuclear programme.
"We are examining the package, considering our interests and
definitive legitimate rights and will announce our views at the
appointed date," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said of an international
offer of incentives in exchange for a halt to sensitive atomic
work.
"But the incidents in Lebanon and Palestine have influenced our
examination," said the president, whose country is a major
supporter of Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement as well as the
Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Ahmadinejad also asserted that "the government is determined to
fully exploit the rights of the Iranian nation," signalling
Tehran's continued unwillingness to freeze its controversial
uranium enrichment programme.
Iran says it only wants to enrich uranium to the levels needed
for reactor fuel and that this is a right enshrined by the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"Nuclear energy is clean and renewable, and all nations have the
right to use it," said Ahmadinejad, who was speaking at a joint
news conference with visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Enrichment can also be extended to make weapons, and lingering
questions over the nature of Iran's work has prompted a series
of demands for a moratorium.
Iran had also threatened Sunday to bin the international
proposal -- which was drawn up by the five permanent members of
the UN Security Council plus Germany -- if the UN Security
Council passes a draft resolution demanding that Tehran freeze
enrichment by the end of August.
Iran had said it will take until August 22 to reply the offer
that was handed to Tehran on June 6, prompting the Security
Council to reinforce demands for an enrichment freeze.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tehran could
"revise" its policies, implicitly warning that future access for
UN inspectors could end. He also said the proposed UN resolution
would "worsen the crisis in the region".
"By putting pressure and trying to intimidate Iran, no country
will achieve anything. On the contrary, the situation will
worsen," Asefi said.
"If tomorrow they pass a resolution against Iran, the package
will not be on the agenda any more," he said of the proposal,
which offers Iran the prospect of multilateral talks on trade,
diplomatic and technology incentives if it complies.
"Issuing this resolution will worsen the crisis in the region."
When asked to elaborate on what specific measures Iran might
take, Asefi replied: "They know what I am talking about."
Iranian leaders have already warned they could halt cooperation
with inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency
" /> (IAEA) and even quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
They have also played up Iran's regional clout and oil wealth.
A text of the proposed UN resolution was distributed to the 15
council nations on Friday, and US ambassador John Bolton told
reporters that a vote could be held early in the week.
If Iran continues enriching uranium, "the next step will be the
consideration of sanctions in the Security Council, and it would
be our intention to move forcefully to get those sanctions
adopted," Bolton said.
The first stage would be political and economic sanctions,
diplomats stressed, pointing to a vote within a few days.
"My hope is that we will be able to adopt it by Monday," said
French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, whose country holds
the rotating council presidency for July.
The United States and its allies believe that Iran is seeking to
build a nuclear bomb, and US President George W. Bush
" /> said Friday Tehran "will not be allowed" to achieve its
wish.
Russia and China have led opposition to any mention of sanctions
in the UN resolution.
Moscow's ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, stressed the new resolution
would not threaten sanctions and that it was "an invitation to
dialogue" with Iran.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
15 AFP: Iran fails in bid to divide world powers - US official -
Sun Jul 30, 4:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Iran " /> 's bid to divide major powers over
its nuclear program has failed and agreement on a draft UN
resolution demanding an end to uranium enrichment has surprised
Tehran, a top US official said.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, speaking on Fox News
Sunday, also outlined some of the possible sanctions Tehran
could face it it fails to stop uranium enrichment by August 31,
as demanded in the draft resolution.
"I think the Iranians are cornered," Burns told Fox. "The
Iranians thought they were going to be able to continue their
nuclear activities at their plant at Natanz unfettered by the
international community.
"What they specifically thought was that they could divide China
and Russia, on the one hand, from the United States and Europe
on the other, and that's not happened," he said.
"We'll be voting this week a UN Security Council resolution that
will mandate the suspension of Iran's nuclear programs, and it
will say that if Iran doesn't do that by August 31 that the
Security Council, including China and Russia, will agree on a
sanctions regime against Iran," he said.
"I don't think Iran counted on this. I think they've been
surprised by it. And it's good that we're mounting pressure,"
Burns said. "This is going to be a significant blow to them."
Asked what type of sanctions Iran could face, Burns said:
"Obviously, we're going to have to focus on the nuclear industry
and try to cut off dual-use exports, exports of technologies
that can help them further their enrichment and reprocessing
activities.
"We certainly would like to inhibit the ability of Iranians to
travel, Iranian government officials, or for people to profit
from our scientific and technological expertise," he added.
The United States and its allies believe that Iran is seeking to
build a nuclear bomb and US President George W. Bush
" /> said Friday the Islamic republic "will not be allowed" to
do so.
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- the five
permanent members of the Security Council -- and Germany drew up
the draft resolution during weeks of painstaking talks and it
was distributed to the 15 UN Security Council nations on Friday.
US ambassador John Bolton said a vote could be held early this
week.
Russia and China have led opposition to any mention of sanctions
in the resolution.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful but has refused to
comply with International Atomic Energy Agency
" /> (IAEA) orders to suspend uranium enrichment and other
activities.
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signalled Sunday that
Israeli attacks against the Palestinian territories and Lebanon
may cause Iran to harden its stance in the dispute over its
nuclear program.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
16 IRNA: Iran, Venezuela to set up joint energy committee
Tehran, July 30, IRNA
Iran-Venezuela-Oil
Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said here Sunday that Iran and
Venezuela would set up a joint energy committee.
Vaziri Hamaneh made the remark while speaking to reporters
after is two-hour meeting with Venezuela's Minister of Oil and
Energy Rafael Ramirez.
"The committee will facilitate implementation of accords and
agreements already reached between the two countries," he said.
He said during the meeting, the two sides also discussed oil
exploitation and production at Venezuela's oil fields by Iran's
`Petro Pars' company, adding, "The Petro Pars company is
currently working on oil exploitation and production at a
Venezuelan oil field.
"The company will soon start oil exploration at a new oil field
of Venezuela."
Pointing to the two countries' cooperation in various
petrochemical fields and establishment of a joint petrochemical
company, he said, "A proposal was presented to Venezuela to join
construction process of a joint refinery between Iran and
Indonesia in Jakarta."
The Iranian minister added the two sides also reached an
agreement on building a joint refinery by Iran, Venezuela and
Indonesia in Venezuela, saying the refinery would be fed by
crude oil produced at the oil field now being developed in
Venezuela by Petro Pars.
He said training of 500 Venezuelan work force in Iran, Iran's
activities with respect to safety and security issues of the
refineries and repair of Venezuela's refineries were among other
issues of mutual interests discussed by the two ministers.
Vaziri Hamaneh and Ramirez discussed joint activities in
technical and engineering fields, export of technical equipment
to Venezuela and Iran's purchase of gasoline from Venezuela.
"If the two countries sign and finalize a deal on gasoline
purchase, three consignments of gasoline will be imported to
Iran from Venezuela.
"The consignments will be bought in case of no technical
problems."
On the amount of investment made by Petro Pars in Venezuela,
Vaziri Hamaneh said the figure has been estimated at dlrs four
billion in two separate oil fields in Venezuela which is
considered as the biggest overseas investment made by Petro Pars.
International banks will provide Petro Pars with a credit line
to mae such a huge investment, he said.
A major memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Iranian and
Venezuelan oil ministries along with another four MoUs reached
by relevant companies are to be inked on Sunday.
On probable halt to Iran's oil exports due to the current
situation in the Middle East, he said there is no direct link
between export of oil and political issues.
On Iran-Japan agreement on Azadegan oil fields, he said the two
sides have reached so many agreements on the projects which "we
hope would remain unchanged."
On mutual talks between Iran and India on the price of Iran's
gas to be pumped through 'Peace Pipeline' to India, he said the
two sides' disputes over the issue has not been removed yet.
*****************************************************************
17 SF Chron: CHINA GETS TOUGH WITH NORTH KOREA / By condemning missile tests,
Beijing alters ties with neighbor
[San Francisco Chronicle]
Kathleen E. McLaughlin, Chronicle Foreign Service
Sunday, July 30, 2006
[Wang Guangya, China's U.N. ambassador, waves after the Se...]
(07-30) 04:00 PDT Beijing -- China has taken a new gamble in its
high-stakes relationship with North Korea, betting that a tough
stance against the secretive dictatorship over its weapons
programs will win an end to the standoff.
By signing on to the July 19 U.N. Security Council condemnation
of North Korea's long-range missile tests, China ended a past
tenet of never publicly criticizing its sometime ally and
permanently changing the relationship, policy analysts say. In
freezing North Korean bank accounts in Macao last week, amid
allegations that the North engages in massive counterfeiting and
fraud, Beijing further upped the stakes.
Both actions marked a major departure for Chinese policy toward
North Korea.
"It's a very important indicator that China and North Korea's
allied relationship is over," said Yan Xuetong, director of the
Institute of International Studies at Beijing's Tsinghua
University. "It is a fundamental change."
Others aren't ready to sound the death knell on China-North
Korea ties, but most experts agree that Beijing undoubtedly is
taking a tougher line with its contentious ally.
"The U.N. resolution and the freezing of the bank accounts is
surely meant to send the signal that China is serious about the
missile launch issue, but I still think that worries about chaos
and collapse of the regime mean that Beijing cannot completely
walk away from Pyongyang," said Adam Segal, senior fellow for
China studies with the Council on Foreign Relations.
Since the latest weapons imbroglio began in 2003, when North
Korea pulled out of the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
China has played the part of diplomatic go-between, coaxing
Pyongyang back to the table and urging the United States and
others to soften their anti-North Korea rhetoric. Beijing has
attempted repeatedly to calm both sides, and has succeeded in
bringing them together several times.
That, Yan says, is what makes Beijing's recent hard line on the
weapons situation so dramatic.
China is viewed as the only country engaged in the six-party
talks able to bring North Korea to the negotiating table, and
these recent actions may lead only to further isolation.
"China's action will make the six-party dialogue more difficult
to resume, rather than easier," said Yan.
Late last week, all the parties, including North Korea, attended
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia.
But North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun was not present
at a meeting on the sidelines to discuss how to proceed. North
Korean spokesman Chong Song Il said Friday that U.S. financial
sanctions were "making it impossible for us to go to the
six-party talks."
China told the four other parties in the six-nation framework --
South Korea, the United States, Russia and Japan -- that a
meeting without North Korea would do little good and could even
worsen the situation.
Such developments have observers wondering if the United States
has put too great a stake in China's influence and diplomatic
prowess. Yet even if those forces have been exaggerated, no
better option has surfaced.
"I think China is engaged in a very delicate balancing act,"
said Ann Kent, a China scholar at Australian National
University's law school. Beijing is adept at appeasing both
sides, she said, even if it appears to be losing patience with
North Korea.
"It is still playing a very subtle game of diplomacy and not
likely to turn against North Korea and move into the Western
camp," Kent said. "Indeed, it can't afford to, given its
proximity to North Korea."
The true nature of Beijing's relationship with Pyongyang remains
open to speculation. Chinese analysts insist the United States
and others greatly overestimate China's influence on North
Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Some in the West, meanwhile, say
China understates its pull with North Korea to avoid having to
take a tough line. The truth, as ever, probably lies somewhere
between.
"China's influence is not as simple as one plus one equals two,"
said Sheng Lijun, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast
Asian Studies in Singapore. "It depends on how you look at it."
While Kim certainly does not appear to follow instructions from
China, it's also true that China is the only country with which
his government maintains an actual relationship. The secretive
Kim's only known forays out of North Korea of late have been to
China, including a trip in January that was believed to be
designed to show him economic success need not come at the price
of political freedom.
The China-North Korea relationship has been complex from its
inception. The two were closely aligned politically through the
Korean War in the early 1950s. In the 1960s, North Korea became
more dependent on China after rifts between world communist
powers led to a decline in Soviet aid to Pyongyang. But when
China moved forward in the 1980s with open-door economic
reforms, North Korea stayed behind, entrenched in ideology,
growing ever more reclusive and insular and, financially and
politically, dependent on China. That situation still holds
today.
The current uneasy relationship between prosperous China and
impoverished North Korea is proving a "critical test" for
China's new diplomacy, said Evan Medeiros, a Rand researcher who
studies Chinese foreign policy.
That China is engaged at all is a mark of just how much the
country's foreign policy has evolved. In 1993, for example, when
North Korea unexpectedly announced plans to withdraw from the
world anti-nuclear agreement, China simply stayed out of the
debate. Today, it's the chief mediator.
"I think this shows that China's diplomacy is evolving and China
is struggling with what it means to be a regional great power,
if not a global great power," said Medeiros.
As a member of the World Trade Organization, with trade spats
brewing globally and a potentially overheated economy, China
simply cannot afford to be isolationist, analysts say. They
suggest that helping to broker the North Korean missile talks
has been essentially good public relations as Beijing
increasingly comes under fire for holding the largest trade
surplus in modern history.
"There's so much tension on the economic side of the
relationship," said Segal, of Council on Foreign Relations.
"Clearly, one of the ways the Bush administration has tried to
dampen pressure on the economic side is to say China is a
partner on the six-party talks and also on the Iran (nuclear
weapons) front."
Yan pointed to Chinese President Hu Jintao's speech last fall at
the United Nations, where he spoke of a "harmonious world." That
suggested a major departure for China from its foreign policy of
the last two or three decades, focusing solely on economic
development and relative political isolation. Now China wants to
establish true global political ties.
China intends to change its world strategy, "from just making
money, to making both friends and money," said Yan.
Page A - 17
The San Francisco Chronicle]
*****************************************************************
18 AFP: Stubborn North Korea alienating even its few friends: analysts -
by Jun Kwanwoo Sat Jul 29, 11:57 PM ET
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - North Korea" /> North Koreahas managed to
alienate even its few friends after a defiant showing at Asian
security talks where it snubbed a campaign to rejoin stalled
talks on its nuclear program, analysts said.
In a high-stakes test of its diplomatic skills and reputed clout
over the reclusive North, its main ally China led a campaign to
breath new life into the stalled six-nation nuclear talks on the
sidelines of the Malaysian meeting.
But despite the concerted push, for which it joined hands with
South Korea" /> South Koreawhich also favours a softly-softly
approach towards its neighbour, North Korea was unmoved.
"They are completely isolated," top United States envoy on Asia,
Christopher Hill, said at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) after
the North's representatives categorically refused to attend the
proposed meeting.
Japanese officials said that after the tongue-lashing it faced at
the ARF, North Korea was now considering withdrawing from the
grouping, one of the few diplomatic gatherings it attends.
Kim Sung-Han, professor at the state-run Institute of Foreign
Affairs and National Security in Seoul, said Pyongyang had
mis-stepped by driving China and South Korea into the arms of
Washington with its intransigence.
"China and South Korea, two key sympathizers of North Korea, are
joining the US-led front to the communist regime's
disadvantage," he said.
China is credited with having more leverage over North Korea
than any other country, but Pyongyang's decision to proceed with
this month's missile tests despite Beijing's protests
illustrated how impervious the regime is.
In an apparent sign of the cooling mood, China's Foreign
Minister Li Zhaoxing stood next to his North Korean counterpart
Paek Nam-Sun at a photo session Friday but chose instead to chat
to European Union" /> European Unionforeign policy chief Javier
Solana.
Kim said Washington had successfully adopted an approach
acceptable to the other parties in the six-nation talks --
China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea -- whch meant they were
presenting a united front against Pyongyang.
"Since the missile tests, the United States has successfully
formed a united front of the other five countries against North
Korea," he said.
"The US strategy will be to manage and maintain the five-to-one
structure as long as possible. NKorea will not return to talks
as long as it carries on," he added.
"To get North Korea wet, the US will likely prefer drizzling to
torrential rains in order to keeep the five-to-one structure."
Observers said the six-party talks, the key initiative aimed at
addressing the North's nuclear ambitions which it has boycotted
since November in protest over US financial sanctions, now lay
in tatters.
"The six-way talks will be drifting for a long period of time,"
said Nam Sung-Wook, professor and North Korea expert at Korea
University in Seoul.
"There was actually nothing that the North Koreans could get
from attending the multilateral talks on the sidelines of the
ARF. All their interest rested on the lifting of US sanctions,
while Washinton did not change all," he said.
"In the North Korean view, the participation in the talks --
even though nothing had changed -- would be tantamount to
surrendering to the US."
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" />
Condoleezza Ricehad said the US was ready "at any time, at any
place and without any conditions" to meet North Korea under the
six-nation framework which began three years ago.
But the North's refusal forced concerned nations to instead hold
a 10-way dialogue that focused on the crisis on the Korean
peninsula.
"We do need to deal with the security problems that are
currently bedeviling the region, especially concerns about the
nuclear program of the DPRK," Rice said, referring to the
North's official name.
Nam said that the United States and Japan, which have promoted a
tougher line on the North, were now running out of weapons.
"Further US and Japanese sanctions, which have already been
active enough, would have no meaningful impact on North Korea
because there have been no brisk exchanges of trade between the
US, Japan and North Korea," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
19 AFP: US ready to isolate North Korea over nuclear weapons - State Dept envoy -
Sun Jul 30, 3:38 PM ET
BAGUIO, Philippines (AFP) - The United States is ready to isolate
North Korea " /> internationally over its nuclear weapons
program, the top US State Department envoy on the country said.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said the North
Koreans "seem to like to isolate themselves."
"If they want to get isolated, we'll be happy to isolate them,"
he said without elaborating.
The communist state refused to rejoin negotiations on its
nuclear program on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional forum on
security issues in Malaysia last week.
This prompted its previous nuclear negotiating partners South
Korea
" /> , China, Japan, the United States and Russia -- along with
Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand -- to
hold talks without the regime.
Hill was speaking after a visit to the Philippine military
academy in the northern resort city of Baguio.
In Kuala Lumpur on Friday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
" /> urged North Korea to rejoin negotiations on its nuclear
programme, saying the United States was ready "at any time, at
any place and without any conditions" to meet it under the
six-nation talks framework that began three years ago.
But the North, which left the talks in November and caused
outrage this month when it test-fired seven missiles, said it
would not return until US financial sanctions against it were
dropped.
It said it was also considering withdrawing from the ASEAN
Regional Forum, one of the few diplomatic gatherings it attends.
Hill said he was optimistic North Korea could still be persuaded
eventually "to think clearly and come back to the dialogue."
North Korea walked out of the talks in November after Washington
accused a Macau-based bank of helping it launder earnings from
fake US currency, and told US financial institutions to stop
dealing with the bank.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
20 Guardian Unlimited: ANALYSIS: U.S. Not Talking to Its Enemies
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Saturday July 29, 2006 9:31 AM
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - There is an old saying in diplomatic circles:
You don't make peace with your friends, you make peace with your
enemies.
The United States, which doesn't lack for enemies, is not talking
to North Korea, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas - all of which
are contributing to the Bush administration's chief overseas
problems these days.
While each situation is different, the administration's
underlying position is that Iran, North Korea and Syria must
change their policies and that Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist
groups, legally off-limits to diplomatic discourse.
Critics say this absence of communication restricts U.S.
diplomacy and makes U.S. allies anxious because they believe
there is no way of resolving crises without American
participation.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who helped shape a far different U.S.
foreign policy as national security assistant for President
Carter, responded tartly when asked to appraise the Bush
administration stance.
``(President) Bush and (Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice are
pursuing a remarkably successful policy of self-ostracism,'' he
said. ``Unfortunately it is a disaster for the United States.''
Madeleine Albright, who was secretary of state for President
Clinton in his second term, said ``the stakes are too high'' to
avoid contact with Iran and Syria, whom the State Department for
years has designated as sponsors of terrorism.
``Engagement is not appeasement,'' Albright said. ``Diplomacy is
a mechanism for the U.S. to send a tough message.''
A former career U.S. diplomat in the Middle East, Edward S.
Walker, said, ``Neither side wants to have a conversation'' over
the current fighting.
Yet, Walker said in an interview: ``The tragedy of this
administration is it doesn't know how to use diplomacy. It seems
to be actually clueless.''
The Bush administration's policies have been criticized by some
Republicans, too. In a speech Friday at the Brookings Institution
in Washington, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., suggested U.S. support
for Israel was coming at the expense of U.S. relations with
Muslims and Arabs.
Whether or not Syria and Iran were directly involved in Hezbollah
and Hamas aggression in Israel, Hagel said, ``both countries
exert influence in the region.''
``As we work with our friends and allies to deny Syria and Iran
any opportunity to further corrode the situation in Lebanon and
the Palestinian territories, both Damascus and Tehran must hear
from America directly,'' he said.
Bush administration officials say direct negotiations with
regimes such as Iran, North Korea and Syria would be fruitless.
White House spokesman Tony Snow has specifically ruled out
talking to Iran and Syria because they support Hezbollah.
The administration has made its views clear to both governments
and ``frankly, there is nothing to negotiate,'' Snow said.
Syria, which with Iran is a pivotal supporter of the Hezbollah
guerrillas, has been pursued by successive administrations for
more than three decades for Mideast peacemaking. But it has been
completely sidelined by the U.S. as the fighting between Israel
and Hezbollah rages into its third week.
``The track record stinks,'' Snow said of past U.S. efforts to
negotiate with Syria.
Syria is also close to Hamas, the radical group that controls the
Palestinian government and whose fighters kidnapped an Israeli
soldier last month, helping prompt Israeli incursions into Gaza.
The Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, told
The Associated Press last week his country had not heard from the
U.S. He said Syria would like to get started on a comprehensive
Mideast peace effort that extends beyond the current fighting in
Lebanon.
``Syria does not consider itself an enemy of the United States,''
Moustapha said.
Iran's nuclear ambitions have been a subject of international
concern, but Rice has told Iran there will be no talks on its
nuclear program unless it suspends enrichment of uranium.
The United States has not had relations with Iran since the U.S.
Embassy in Tehran was overrun by Muslim fundamentalists in 1979.
American and Iranian diplomats have participated occasionally in
meetings, such as on Afghanistan.
In the case of North Korea, the Bush administration has offered
one-on-one talks about Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missiles
program - provided they are held against the backdrop of a
six-nation format. North Korea seeks the kind of unqualified
direct talks it had with the Clinton administration and has not
responded. Nor has it resumed six-nation negotiations.
The classic example of breaking the ice to talk to a longtime foe
was President Richard Nixon's opening to China. It led to normal
diplomatic relations and an up-and-down relationship through the
years.
---
Barry Schweid has covered diplomacy for The Associated Press
since 1973.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
21 The Anniston Star: Shortsighted on energy
» Opinion » Editorials
In our opinion 07-29-2006
Thursday was a bad day to shill for Big Oil. Still, you can’t
let such details get in the way, and so there was Alabama’s very
own Sen. Jeff Sessions, only a few hours after Exxon Mobil
announced that it had earned $10 billion in the second quarter
of 2006, doing his best to open up more drilling in the Gulf of
Mexico — a nice little gift to large energy interests.
Of course, Sen. Sessions can’t do this by himself; a sizable and
bipartisan majority in Congress appears ready to approve this
proposal to open up 8.3 million acres for oil and natural gas
exploration. The deal, which shifts more royalties to the
states, could likely be a financial boon to Texas, Louisiana,
Mississippi and Alabama. (Florida has taken a pass, preferring
to keep its ocean-front vistas free of oil and gas rigs.)
Let’s grant Sessions and the bill’s other supporters this much:
Whatever energy is produced from the Gulf comes with fewer
strings than the stuff imported from Middle Eastern and Latin
American despots.
But Sessions didn’t confine his arguments to this point. He
suggested from the floor of the Senate that opponents to the
drilling bill “hated fossil fuels.”
He added, presumably speaking of the nation’s utter dependence
on petroleum, that “we’re not gonna stop this.”
His goal was simple: Produce energy, be it coal, oil or nuclear,
“at the lowest possible rate.”
“Rate” is an interesting word. While no American likes paying $3
a gallon for gasoline, there are other rates than the one you
pay at the pump. Some would prefer “tolls” over “rates,” but,
regardless, there are not-so-obvious costs associated with the
United States’ petroleum-based economy.
Damaging human health effects, especially on the young, can be
blamed on the exhaust that comes from so many tailpipes and
smokestacks. The environmental damage to our water and air is
another toll. Also, injury is done to pristine natural views as
rigs go up just off shore. The exception is Florida, where
residents there see this green (as in environmental) issue as a
green (as in a prosperous real estate market) issue.
Then there is the by-product caused by enriching Arab states
with petro-dollars, which in turn are often used to fund
terrorists and prop up thugs.
Taking these things into consideration, dependence on fossil
fuels becomes more costly than is generally perceived.
But you can take this big-picture argument only so far. As the
old economics saw goes, “In the long run, we’re all ... dead.”
True, but visionary leadership would look beyond oil and gas,
both finite resources. Statesmen and stateswomen would look to
clean, renewable sources with more passion, more vigor and more
money for research and development. They would invest in R so
that the United States would be the world’s leader in
next-generation energy. They wouldn’t waste time with strawman
arguments about hating fossil fuels.
They would speak instead about loving the nation so much that
they insist on investing on the next big thing, one that is
cleaner and doesn’t keep the nation beholden to problematic
foreign sources.
The Anniston Star, P.O. Box 189, Anniston, AL 36202.
*****************************************************************
22 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada congressional candidate step up attacks
July 29, 2006
By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY ASSOCIATED PRESS
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) - Democratic congressional candidate Tessa
Hafen stepped up her attacks on her Republican opponent, Rep.
Jon Porter, on Saturday, as she launched a "100 Broken Promises"
tour 100 days before the November election.
Hafen, the former press secretary to Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid, accused the two-term congressman of failed
leadership and acting as a "puppet" for the Bush administration.
"The common theme I've heard from voters is they want real
leadership. They're tired of career politicians saying one thing
and doing another," she told a group of supporters gathered at
her campaign headquarters. "They're tired of broken promises."
Hafen criticized Porter, 51, for several votes in Congress,
saying he voted to extend tax breaks for oil and gas companies,
supported a ban on the importation of prescription drugs from
Canada and voted to cut services for veterans.
A campaign statement said Porter broke his promise to make
Nevada safe "by failing to get the Las Vegas valley back on the
'high alert' list for Homeland Security" funding.
Clark County lost a portion of its federal security funding when
it was dropped from a list of most targeted cities. The funding
has not been restore despite lobbying from every member of
southern Nevada's congressional delegation.
"I would be much more agressive in going after anyone who was
doing possible damage to the state of Nevada," she said.
Porter campaign manager Mike Slanker called Hafen's charges
"just silly," and dismissed the 30-year-old candidate as a
"professional press release writer" with too little experience
to understand the issues.
"Sure, she has great experience in Washington, D.C.," Slanker
said. "She's done this for a living. She speaks this stuff for
people, she reads words on a page. But to her, this is all a
game. She's never employed anybody, she's never made a mortgage
payment."
Hafen is running in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, a
largely suburban district with a roughly equal number of
registered Democrats and Republicans. She was raised in
Henderson, and worked for Reid for eight years on Capitol Hill,
first as an intern and then later as press secretary and senior
adviser. Her father is Henderson City Councilman Andy Hafen.
As Reid's aide, Hafen said she worked closely on the fight
against the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca Mountain and on
securing earmarks for projects in southern Nevada. Hafen said
she oversaw four employees in Reid's office.
She described herself as anti-abortion and said she believes
marriage "should be between a man and a woman." On the violence
in the Middle East, she said, "I think that Israel has every
right to defend itself in any way the country feels necessary.
It's a right that we as Americans demand and expect."
Hafen has received substantial fundraising help from her former
boss. In July, she reported $601,000 in her campaign coffers and
a campaign-to-date total of $758,000.
Porter has raised about three times that amount. Helped by a
fundraiser with President Bush, the congressman reported raising
$514,000 from April to June and $2.3 million so far this cycle.
Porter has a record $1.6 million on hand, according to his
campaign.
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
23 Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:47:43 -0500 (CDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1833620,00.html
Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
Juliette Jowit and Javier Espinoza
Sunday July 30, 2006
The Observer
The European heatwave has forced nuclear power plants to reduce or halt
production. The weather, blamed for deaths and disruption across much of the
continent, has caused dramatic rises in the temperature of rivers used to cool
the reactors, raising fears of mass deaths for fish and other wildlife.
Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River Ebro, one of
the country's eight nuclear plants which generate a fifth of its national
electricity. Reactors in Germany are reported to have cut output, and others
in Germany and France have been given special permits to dump hot water into
rivers to avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more than
three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to prevent shortages.
The problems have come to light just weeks after Britain declared it will
build a new generation of nuclear power stations, prompting opponents to claim
the crisis proved nuclear reactors - although they emit no carbon dioxide
greenhouse gases - are not the solution to the problem of global warming.
'The main problem they have is: How are they going to expand nuclear power
when they are so vulnerable to such things as global temperature?' said Shaun
Burnie, Greenpeace International's nuclear specialist.
But Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, said
future power stations could have bigger cooling towers, or be built near the
sea. 'The big problem the earth is facing today is global warming, it's not a
one-degree local increase in [the temperature of] a river,' he added.
The heatwave in Britain appeared to break last week, with the Met Office
forecasting more normal summer weather this week. Today London and south-east
England face a repeat of last week's heavy rains; for the rest of the week the
country is expected to alternate between sunny spells, with warm temperatures
and showers.
However, hotter weather is set to return. 'We could be looking at some very
warm weather coming back towards next weekend,' said meteorologist Andrew
Sibley.
Last week a series of power cuts in central London prompted fears of regular
blackouts as global temperatures are predicted to keep rising, bringing more
long, hot summers. EDF, the capital's main electricity supplier, said the
problems were caused by a 'very unusual' combination of several faults and
huge demand for air-conditioning.
'Over the weekend, our engineers are working round the clock to maintain power
supplies to the area and avoid any further interruptions,' a company official
said.
Network Rail, the main rail infrastructure operator, said fewer speed
restrictions were expected in cooler temperatures, although track temperatures
can rise to 20C above the air temperature on hot days.
*****************************************************************
24 [NYTr] Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 17:09:23 -0400 (EDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: olm.blythe-systems.com
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Mark Graffis (activ-l)
The Observer (UK) - Jul 30, 2006
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1833620,00.html
Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
Juliette Jowit and Javier Espinoza
The European heatwave has forced nuclear power plants to reduce or halt
production. The weather, blamed for deaths and disruption across much of the
continent, has caused dramatic rises in the temperature of rivers used to cool
the reactors, raising fears of mass deaths for fish and other wildlife.
Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River Ebro, one of
the country's eight nuclear plants which generate a fifth of its national
electricity. Reactors in Germany are reported to have cut output, and others
in Germany and France have been given special permits to dump hot water into
rivers to avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more than
three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to prevent shortages.
The problems have come to light just weeks after Britain declared it will
build a new generation of nuclear power stations, prompting opponents to claim
the crisis proved nuclear reactors - although they emit no carbon dioxide
greenhouse gases - are not the solution to the problem of global warming.
'The main problem they have is: How are they going to expand nuclear power
when they are so vulnerable to such things as global temperature?' said Shaun
Burnie, Greenpeace International's nuclear specialist.
But Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, said
future power stations could have bigger cooling towers, or be built near the
sea. 'The big problem the earth is facing today is global warming, it's not a
one-degree local increase in [the temperature of] a river,' he added.
The heatwave in Britain appeared to break last week, with the Met Office
forecasting more normal summer weather this week. Today London and south-east
England face a repeat of last week's heavy rains; for the rest of the week the
country is expected to alternate between sunny spells, with warm temperatures
and showers.
However, hotter weather is set to return. 'We could be looking at some very
warm weather coming back towards next weekend,' said meteorologist Andrew
Sibley.
Last week a series of power cuts in central London prompted fears of regular
blackouts as global temperatures are predicted to keep rising, bringing more
long, hot summers. EDF, the capital's main electricity supplier, said the
problems were caused by a 'very unusual' combination of several faults and
huge demand for air-conditioning.
'Over the weekend, our engineers are working round the clock to maintain power
supplies to the area and avoid any further interruptions,' a company official
said.
Network Rail, the main rail infrastructure operator, said fewer speed
restrictions were expected in cooler temperatures, although track temperatures
can rise to 20C above the air temperature on hot days.
*
================================================================
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*****************************************************************
25 The Observer: Heatwave shuts down nuclear power plants
[UP]
Juliette Jowit and Javier Espinoza
Sunday July 30, 2006 The Observer
The European heatwave has forced nuclear power plants to reduce
or halt production. The weather, blamed for deaths and disruption
across much of the continent, has caused dramatic rises in the
temperature of rivers used to cool the reactors, raising fears of
mass deaths for fish and other wildlife.
Spain shut down the Santa Maria de Garona reactor on the River
Ebro, one of the country's eight nuclear plants which generate a
fifth of its national electricity. Reactors in Germany are
reported to have cut output, and others in Germany and France
have been given special permits to dump hot water into rivers to
avoid power failures. France, where nuclear power provides more
than three quarters of electricity, has also imported power to
prevent shortages.
The problems have come to light just weeks after Britain
declared it will build a new generation of nuclear power
stations, prompting opponents to claim the crisis proved nuclear
reactors - although they emit no carbon dioxide greenhouse gases
- are not the solution to the problem of global warming.
'The main problem they have is: How are they going to expand
nuclear power when they are so vulnerable to such things as
global temperature?' said Shaun Burnie, Greenpeace
International's nuclear specialist.
But Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear
Energy, said future power stations could have bigger cooling
towers, or be built near the sea. 'The big problem the earth is
facing today is global warming, it's not a one-degree local
increase in [the temperature of] a river,' he added.
The heatwave in Britain appeared to break last week, with the
Met Office forecasting more normal summer weather this week.
Today London and south-east England face a repeat of last week's
heavy rains; for the rest of the week the country is expected to
alternate between sunny spells, with warm temperatures and
showers.
However, hotter weather is set to return. 'We could be looking
at some very warm weather coming back towards next weekend,'
said meteorologist Andrew Sibley.
Last week a series of power cuts in central London prompted
fears of regular blackouts as global temperatures are predicted
to keep rising, bringing more long, hot summers. EDF, the
capital's main electricity supplier, said the problems were
caused by a 'very unusual' combination of several faults and
huge demand for air-conditioning.
'Over the weekend, our engineers are working round the clock to
maintain power supplies to the area and avoid any further
interruptions,' a company official said.
Network Rail, the main rail infrastructure operator, said fewer
speed restrictions were expected in cooler temperatures,
although track temperatures can rise to 20C above the air
temperature on hot days.
Useful links
Today's weather
Met Office
Environment agency - Floodline
World Meteorological Organization
Weather Underground
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Space Environment Center
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
26 Concord Monitor: Is it time for more nuclear power?
Concord, NH 03301
Seabrook
As energy costs soar, an old battle begins anew
By LISA ARSENAULT Monitor staff
July 29. 2006 8:00AM
[Picture] LORI DUFF / Concord Monitor Staff
Sylvia Cote wades in the water near the Seabrook Nuclear Power
Plant in Seabrook, NH. Recently the federal government has been
pushing for more nuclear power.
Ten years after the last nuclear power plant opened in the
United States, nuclear power is making a comeback. Since the
federal government passed comprehensive energy laws in 2005 with
incentives to build new nuclear reactors, a dozen companies have
come forward with plans.
In New Hampshire, a national debate over nuclear energy dredges
up memories of the long, expensive fight over the Seabrook
nuclear power plant. The owners of the Seabrook reactor, Florida
Power and Light, say they have no plans to build a second
reactor. But opponents who spent years trying to stop Seabrook I
say they are prepared for another fight.
Seabrook Station was originally pitched in 1972 as a $1.3
billion plant with two nuclear reactors that would be built by
1979. But ongoing protests and the passage of laws that
prevented PSNH from recouping costs during construction caused
lengthy delays while the price mounted. Construction of the
second reactor was ultimately canceled due to costs that reached
more than $2 billion by 1987. Two years later, PSNH filed for
bankruptcy and its customers are still paying off some the
costs.
Today at Seabrook Station, the shell of the second reactor
remains. The unfinished concrete dome has been covered with a
metal roof that is streaked with rust from years of exposure.
Beside it, the building that would have housed the steam
turbines and the electric generator is standing but mainly
empty, according to Seabrook spokesman Alan Griffith.
Griffith said it is unlikely that Florida Power and Light would
decide to build the second reactor because of "the political
climate in the Northeast." It is more likely that the company
would consider building a different kind of power plant on the
site - like one that runs on natural gas, he said.
The 1,160-megawatt plant employs about 800 people and produces
enough electricity to power 1.2 million homes a year. Crews at
the plant are finishing a project this year to increase capacity
to 1,220 megawatts - enough to power another 100,000 homes.
Of the 25 new reactors that have been proposed across the
country, the majority of them are at existing nuclear plants in
the southeast, according to Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The United States has 103
operating nuclear plants, the newest of which went online in
Tennessee in 1996. Florida Power and Light, which owns three
other nuclear plants, is one of the utilities talking about
building a new plant but its location has not yet been named,
Burnell said.
"The discussions I've seen are focused on Florida, not New
Hampshire," Burnell said.
[Picture] LORI DUFF / Concord Monitor Staff
Education Program Manager David Barr explains the process of
nuclear power generation at the Science and Nature Center in the
Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant.
Nuclear advocates across the country argue that nuclear power is
the answer to meeting growing electricity demand while
countering global warming and reducing reliance on expensive
foreign oil. It has been touted by President Bush and Sen. John
McCain, a Republican from Arizona who may run for president in
2008. The regulatory process has been streamlined since Seabrook
was built; incentives and more security for investments are
being offered for the first new nuclear plants proposed,
according to information provided by the Nuclear Energy
Institute in Washington D.C.
Some New Hampshire legislators say that because the
infrastructure is in place at Seabrook and the image of nuclear
power is better than 10 years ago, building Seabrook's second
reactor is a good idea.
"When you see oil at $75 a barrel, people understand that we
need to find alternative energy sources," said Senate President
Ted Gatsas, a Republican from Manchester. "I think they should
be considering it (the second Seabrook reactor)."
Senate Majority Leader Bob Clegg, a Republican from Hudson,
agrees. He said he thinks the opposition is slowly changing its
mind about nuclear power, even in New Hampshire.
"I think people have a better sense of our energy needs," he
said. "Who doesn't have air conditioning in their homes? When we
did it (Seabrook) in 1976, nobody did."
But longtime Seabrook protestors such as Manchester lawyer Bob
Backus, who represents the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, and
Clamshell Alliance co-founder John Gunter say nuclear power is
still a terrible idea.
The Clamshell Alliance hasn't had an office since the early
1990s, but the group has been holding meetings recently, Backus
said. A Clamshell Alliance reunion was planned for this weekend
but Backus and Gunter were mum on the details.
"The people that were gathered to oppose Seabrook are already
gathering again to prevent a resurgence and again say this is
not a reasonable solution to the problem," Backus said. "Because
of the talk that we need another nuclear plant to defeat global
warming there has been a revitalization of the Clamshell
Alliance and other associated groups."
Because none of the major problems with nuclear power have been
solved, the recent revival of building plants is "delusional,"
said Gunter, who now lives near Washington D.C. and works for an
anti-nuclear group called the Nuclear Information and Resource
Service. Perhaps the biggest problem, Gunter said, is that there
is still no solution for spent nuclear fuel. The plants are
terrorist targets and parts of the nuclear energy process still
contribute to global warming, he said.
"This industry has always had a problem with reality," Gunter
said. "This is just one more in a string of misinformation and
spin for a sales pitch."
Florida Power and Light is one of several nuclear plant owners
that is suing the federal government because it has not provided
long-term storage for spent fuel. At Seabrook, the spent fuel is
all stored in a water-filled pool on site. Construction has
begun on a dry-storage area as well, Griffith said. By 2008,
crews will start taking fuel out of the pool and putting it in
concrete containment vessels several layers thick, Griffith
said.
The federal storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has
been built but not licensed. It is stalled due to political
fighting led by lawmakers from nearby states. Several other
plans have been proposed by politicians fighting Yucca Mountain
- including a plan to start reprocessing the spent fuel to
extract useable uranium, which is being done in other countries
and would reduce the amount of waste needing storage, supporters
say. That plan also calls for setting aside money to build
interim storage facilities in other states or at existing
plants. Governors in those states would not have veto power over
the storage facilities.
The four members of New Hampshire's congressional delegation
said in interviews this week that nuclear power needs to be in
the energy mix in the future, but they don't believe a second
reactor at Seabrook is likely.
Despite the cost overruns and the political rancor caused by
Seabrook, it has turned out to be a good investment for New
Hampshire because of the jobs it provides, its strong safety
record and the electricity produced there, said Congressman Jeb
Bradley. But, he said, regulators need to resolve the question
of long-term waste storage by completing Yucca Mountain.
"I think we ought to be taking a second look at nuclear power,
but we need to do it in a way that is balanced and
environmentally sound,"he said.
Anne Ross, the state's consumer advocate for electricity, said
one major change at the state level since Seabrook was built is
that the cost of any construction there would not fall on
ratepayers anymore. The state has since passed deregulation laws
meant to increase electric competition and reduce rates.
Seabrook is owned by an unregulated, independent company
financed by shareholders instead of ratepayers, as PSNH was.
Amy Ignatius, director of the state office of energy and
planning, said that "the governor would look long and hard at
any proposal" for a power plant in the state, including a second
reactor at Seabrook. But, she added, the lack of a federal
storage facility for the spent fuel is a "real concern" for
building more reactors.
She said her office has been asked by the governor to study how
federal proposals for storing spent nuclear waste could impact
New Hampshire - particularly the plan to build interim storage
facilities at existing plants without the option of a governor's
veto.
By LISA ARSENAULT
Concord Monitor Online, P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 Phone:
603-224-5301 | E-mail:
*****************************************************************
27 Concord Monitor: Seabrook through the years
Concord, NH 03301
By LISA ARSENAULT Monitor staff
July 29. 2006 8:00AM
J anuary 1972: PSNH announces plans to build two 1,160-megawatt
nuclear reactors on 900 acres in Seabrook. The project is
estimated to cost $1.3 billion and be finished by 1979.
Summer 1976: Seabrook Station construction permit is approved by
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and 200 people gather at the
site to protest. Eighteen are arrested at the initial protest. A
week later, 188 protesters return and are also arrested. The
protesters form an organization called the Clamshell Alliance.
April 1977: More than 2,000 protesters occupy the Seabrook
construction site. Roughly 1,400 are arrested and jailed for up
to two weeks after refusing bail. Construction costs are
mounting for PSNH, and the utility asks electricity regulators
to allow the company to pay for a portion of the construction
costs with ratepayer money.
1978: Candidate Hugh Gallen defeats three-term Republican Gov.
Meldrim Thomson Jr. by promising to prevent PSNH from recovering
the costs of constructing Seabrook Station from the ratepayers
until the project is finished. The state law, called the Anti
Construction Work in Progress law or Anti-CWIP, is passed a year
later .
March 1979: The first major accident at a U.S. nuclear plant
happens at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. It is
determined to be a partial core meltdown.
March 1984: Banks freeze PSNH's credit line.
April 1984: Construction is suspended on the second Seabrook
reactor.
April 1986: The world's largest nuclear disastertakes place at
the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union.
October 1986: Construction of the first reactor is completed,
but its operating license is denied by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission because Massachusetts refuses to cooperate in
developing an emergency evacuation plan.
November 1986: Construction of the second reactor is canceled
because of cost overruns.
July 31, 1987: By this date, PSNH has invested roughly $2
billion in Seabrook, or 69 percent of the company's assets.
August 1987: PSNH argues that the Anti-CWIP law is
unconstitutional and files for an emergency rate increase to
deal with impending bankruptcy. The company asks to recoup $464
million of the Seabrook investment to that point.
Jan. 26, 1988: The state Supreme Court rules that the anti-CWIP
law is constitutional. The case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme
Court and dismissed in 1989.
Jan. 28, 1988: PSNH is the first investor-owned utility in the
United States to declare bankruptcy since the Great Depression.
January 1989: Northeast Utilities offers to buy PSNH for $2
billion.
July 1990: Seabrook Station begins commercial operations.
May 6, 1991: New Hampshire Electric Co-op, another part-owner of
Seabrook, declares bankruptcy.
May 16, 1991: PSNH emerges from bankruptcy reorganization as a
subsidiary of Northeast Utilities.
December 2001: The auction and sale of Seabrook Station is
officially launched by JP Morgan.
April 15, 2002: Florida Power and Light buys 88 percent of
Seabrook Station from Northeast Utilities and the other
part-owners for $837 million.
2030: Seabrook Station's current operating license is due to
expire if not renewed.
Concord Monitor Online, P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302 Phone:
603-224-5301 | E-mail: cmwebmaster@concordmonitor.com[
*****************************************************************
28 Courier Post: Activists fret over nuclear fuel transfer
Sunday, July 30, 2006
By LAWRENCE HAJNA Courier-Post Staff
LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK
It's an idea that has anti-nuclear energy activists on edge but
one the state's largest electric utility says is critical to
continue meeting New Jersey's ever-growing energy needs.
Around September, PSEG Nuclear, the arm of Public Service
Enterprise Group that operates the three-reactor Salem Generating
Station at the neck of Delaware Bay, will begin moving highly
radioactive fuel rods from one of its reactors into specially
designed casks to be stored next to the plant.
The company is conducting test runs of the process, practicing
moving its lethally radioactive fuel onto a specially constructed
pad adjacent to the Hope Creek reactor.
A water-filled building at the reactor, built and designed only
to allow the fuel to cool, is expected to run out of space by
next year.
While PSEG could continue operating for three more years by
shuffling fuel around within the reactor core, the utility would
no longer be able to access parts of the reactor in the event of
mechanical problems or emergencies.
Once the reactor core filled up, the company would face the
prospect of shutting down a major part of what is the nation's
second largest nuclear-reactor complex, which is about 35 miles
south of Philadelphia.
"If you can't make room in the pools, there comes a point when
you can't operate anymore," PSEG Nuclear project manager Brian
Gustems said Friday.
The company expects to run out of room in similar pools for its
Salem 1 and 2 reactors in 2011 and 2015, respectively.
Hope Creek joins the growing number of nuclear plants across
the nation that have had to build outdoor cask storage systems
because the federal government has failed to build a permanent
underground repository for the nation's nuclear waste.
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a timetable calling for a
repository at Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert to open in
2017. But state officials, environmentalists and members of
Congress remain adamantly opposed.
More than 30 plants, including New Jersey's other reactor --
Oyster Creek in Ocean County -- are now using temporary storage
systems.
But anti-nuclear activists worry the casks will become
permanent fixtures at the reactors, saying they see no end to
the political battle over Yucca Mountain.
"Yucca Mountain may never open," said Norm Cohen, a Linwood,
Atlantic County, resident who is coordinator of the UNPLUG Salem
Campaign. "More and more it's looking like the fuel will be
staying on-site for a long time."
Even if the Yucca Mountain hurdle is someday cleared, activists
fear the casks could become targets for terrorists or become
involved in accidents during transportation through highly
populated areas.
Although precise transportation routes have not been
designated, the fuel from the Salem plants would likely travel
along rail lines through the tri-county area before veering west
through Philadelphia, according to environmental groups that
have analyzed federal documents.
"Our basic feeling is that we don't want nuclear power," Cohen
said. "But since we don't have the choice to shut Hope Creek
off, we want it to be as safe as possible."
He has argued for construction of underground bunkers to
protect the waste, something the federal Nuclear Regulatory
Commission has not required.
But, in fact, Cohen has mixed feelings about placing the fuel
in what are known in the industry as dry casks.
He believes the casks are at least safer than keeping the fuel
-- which will remain highly radioactive for 10,000 years -- in
the current storage buildings where they are immersed in 40 feet
of water. The water provides an effective barrier to the release
of radiation.
Cohen feels these large buildings, looming next to the Delaware
River, are easier terrorist targets, especially for attacks by
air, than the casks.
Vera Essler, 60, lives on the access road to the nuclear
complex. Her front porch looks across farmland and marshes to
the reactor complex some three miles away.
"We really don't have any control. They're going to do what
they're going to do, what they need to do," she said. "They
should know what they're doing."
Reach Lawrence Hajna at (856) 486-2466 or
lhajna@courierpostonline.com
Copyright 2006 CourierPostOnline.com. All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
29 Columbus Dispatch: PLANT designs greatly streamlined — and theoretically safer
Saturday, July 29, 2006 William McCall ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jose Reyes, a professor at Oregon State University, stands
under a scale model of Westinghouse’s new AP1000 nuclear
reactor.
CORVALLIS, Ore. — It may seem a mere tangle of pipes and
instruments. To nuclear engineer Jose Reyes, it’s a sign of a
coming nuclear-power plant revival in the United States — with
electricity produced more safely and for less money than it ever
was by the atomic behemoths built in the 20 th century.
This jumble of technology is a one-quarterscale model of the
Westinghouse AP1000 power plant. Reyes heads a team at Oregon
State University that built the model to test the AP1000’s
so-called passive-safety systems, under contract with the U.S.
Department of Energy and Westinghouse.
"We’ve conducted 20 tests for the AP1000," Reyes said. "We found
the simple passive system could replace entire batteries of
pumps that are normally used for cooling of the nuclear core."
This kind of safety system, Reyes said, would make nuclear leaks
far less likely, and virtually eliminate the threat of a
meltdown of the nuclear core.
He predicts that nuclearpower plants using the passivesafety
systems will be built in the United States within the next seven
years.
There are 103 nuclear plants operating in the United States,
producing about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity.
The partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in
Pennsylvania in 1979 helped lead to a virtual halt in new plant
construction — along with high costs and energy demand forecasts
that turned out to be wrong.
But global warming and the rising prices of natural gas and coal
may finally change the image of nuclear power as the industry
markets a new generation of reactors, such as the AP1000 and
General Electric’s Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor.
Interest in new plants has increased sharply since last August,
when President Bush signed an energy bill that streamlines
applications and offers loan incentives, tax credits and federal
insurance for new plants. Licensing could be approved within a
few years, depending on when applications are filed with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
But there are plenty of skeptics. They point out that, because
no plants have been built, it’s still uncertain how much they
will cost or how safe they will be.
"It’s been tested in scale models," David Lochbaum, director of
a nuclear-safety project for the Union of Concerned Scientists,
said of the passive-safety system.
"If there’s a gap between" testing and what happens when such
designs are put into operation, "it could be a nasty surprise,"
Lochbaum said.
Over the past decade, Reyes’ team at Oregon State University has
played an important role in charting the future of nuclear power
in this country.
Their work helped lead to Nuclear Regulatory Commission
certification of the AP1000 plant last December.
The cooling systems in older reactors operated much like car
radiators, requiring constant pumping of cool water to prevent
overheating.
In the passive-safety designs, the cooling system is more like
the tank of a bathroom toilet. Flip a single handle and cool
water rushes down to the reactor if it overheats. Designers say
that handle can be tripped automatically and the reactor will
cool itself.
The passive-safety system also helps make this generation of
power plant less expensive to build because there are far fewer
parts, nuclear advocates say. The system eliminates the need for
huge cooling towers, redundant pumps and backup diesel
generators.
The AP1000, according to Westinghouse, has 87 percent less
cable, 83 percent less piping, 50 percent fewer valves and 36
percent fewer pumps than the past generation of reactors.
The new General Electric design is similar to the AP1000. Both
use simplified construction that dramatically shrink the size of
the power plant, as well as passive-safety technology.
Estimates of the cost of a new reactor vary widely, and it is
difficult to compare current costs with past projects that
required years to build and many design modifications, analysts
say.
The best measurement is how much it will cost per kilowatt of
electricity to build a new plant, said Per Peterson, a nuclear
engineer at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Vendors have said consistently they will come in under $1,500
per kilowatt," he said. "At that point you’ll probably see a lot
of new nuclear construction because it will be economically
cheaper to build nuclear rather than coal plants."
New coal plants cost about $1,800 per kilowatt, said Adrian
Heymer, a financial analyst for the Nuclear Energy Institute.
©2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Reproduction prohibited
*****************************************************************
30 Brattleboro Reformer: More testimony to be offered against VY's license extension
By ANDY ROSEN, Reformer Staff
Saturday, July 29 BRATTLEBORO -- Four groups, including the
states of Vermont and Massachusetts, will appear before a
federal panel next week to challenge Vermont Yankee's
application to extend its license by 20 years.
The Department of Public Service, the town of Marlboro, the
Massachusetts Attorney General's office, and the nuclear
watchdog group New England Coalition have all submitted
"contentions," or requests to formally oppose the extension.
Next week's hearings will give the quasi-judicial Atomic Safety
and Licensing Board, an arm of the NRC, a chance to review those
contentions before they decide whether to admit them.
The hearings begin at 9 a.m. on Tuesday at Brattleboro Union
High School. If necessary, they'll continue on Wednesday
morning.
The public is welcome, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan, but
there isn't time for public comments. If the board decides that
any or all of the contentions are admissible, it will open an
additional level of scrutiny in the plant's relicensing process.
The ASLB would then schedule evidentiary hearings to determine
whether any of the contentions are serious enough to stop the
extension or impose additional conditions for its approval.
Vermont Yankee's operating license is set to expire in March,
2012. The plant filed for the extension in January.
Most of the contentions address aspects of the plant's
relicensing application, and generally state that the
application did not address the specific issues they point out.
After the groups argue their points, the NRC technical staff and
representatives for Entergy, the company that owns Vermont
Yankee, will have a chance to respond.
Marlboro is the only party that won't defend its contention at
the hearing. The town asked to be included in the plant's
emergency planning zone under any new license.
The ASLB has ruled that it doesn't need any additional
information to decide whether to admit that contention, said NRC
spokeswoman Diane Screnci. However, that doesn't provide any
indication about whether or not it will be accepted.
The state of Massachusetts will go first. The Attorney General's
contention hinges on the environmental effects of another 20
years of storage in the plant's spent fuel pool.
Next, the Department of Public Service will present three
contentions. One has to do with the aging of concrete that helps
contain radiation at the plant.
Another submits that, in its relicensing application, Vermont
Yankee did not consider the possibility that spent fuel may have
to be stored at the plant indefinitely, and thus has not taken
the environmental effects of extended storage into account.
The department's third contention argues that the scope of
Vermont Yankee's safety review didn't fully identify parts that
aren't related to plant safety, but are directly connected to
safety-related systems.
The New England Coalition will argue for six contentions to be
admitted.
One states that Vermont Yankee hasn't fully explored the
environmental effect of discharging cooling water into the
Connecticut River, which can raise the water temperature.
A second argues that the plant's relicensing application did not
include a plan to manage aging metal that may fatigue during the
extended operation.
The coalition is also alleging that the plant hasn't outlined a
plan to monitor and manage the aging of its steam dryer, a
component that removes liquid from steam before it reaches the
generating turbines. That component has been problematic at
similarly-designed plants.
Other contentions have to do with the management of other
equipment, including piping and the plant's condenser, which the
NEC wrote would mitigate the release of radioactive gas during
an accident.
The coalition's final contention holds that the plant, in its
application, did not address the management of primary
containment boundary, which protects against the release of
radioactivity.
Andy Rosen can be reached at or (802) 254-2311, ext. 275.
» (802) 254-2311
» 62 Black Mountain Road
» Brattleboro, VT 05301-9242
*****************************************************************
31 AFP: Pakistan says new nuclear reactor 'safe in our hands'
by Danny Kemp Sat Jul 29, 5:43 AM ET
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri
said a powerful new nuclear reactor under construction was "safe
in our hands" and would not spark an arms race with rival India.
The United States has urged Islamabad, its close ally in the
"war on terror", not to use the reactor at the Khushab nuclear
complex to bolster its atomic weapons capability.
"It's nothing new, the world knows about it, the world knows
that it's safe in our hands," Kasuri told AFP in an interview
late Friday at a meeting of Asia's top security forum in Kuala
Lumpur.
"It's five years old, it's nearing completion now, I don't know
the timing," added Kasuri, the first senior Pakistani official
to talk about the plant.
International observers reacted with alarm after the Washington
Post on Monday reported the reactor's existence, citing the
US-based International Institute for Science and International
Security.
The group said satellite photos showed the heavy water reactor
could produce more than 200 kilogrammes (440 pounds) of
weapons-grade plutonium a year. This would be enough to make
40-50 nuclear weapons every year.
Pakistan remains at the heart of an investigtion into a nuclear
blackmarket headed by its disgraced chief nuclear scientist,
Abdul Qadeer Khan, who confessed in 2004 to passing atomic
secrets to Iran " /> , Libya and North Korea " /> .
Kasuri, speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) Regional Forum, did not specify whether or not the new
nuclear plant in Pakistan's Punjab province would be used to
produce nuclear weapons.
But he insisted that Pakistan had legislation in place to cover
its use and that it abided by international regulations.
"We passed comprehensive export-control legislation, we are
adopting the best practices, this is in consonance with the NSG
(Nuclear Suppliers' Group) guidelines," he said.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said this week that the United
States was aware of the plans, while another US official said
Washington had been tracking it for "several years".
Pakistan and India, who have fought three wars since independence
from Britain, carried out tit-for-tat nuclear detonations in 1998
that provoked a global storm of protest.
Kasuri dismissed suggestions that new atomic plant could spark a
fresh arms race with India, saying: "It's nothing new, it's five
years old, if it had caused an arms race that was five years
ago, not today."
Asked why the giant reactor was needed if Pakistan and India
were trying to make peace, he said: "The (nuclear) programme
started with India so one might ask them first."
zKasuri said A.Q. Khan's network had been dismantled and he
defended Pakistan's refusal to let other countries question him.
Military ruler President Pervez Musharraf pardoned Khan, who now
effectively lives under house arrest.
"The countries with whom we have cooperated know about the level
of cooperation that we have extended with A.Q. Khan," Kasuri
said.
"When we have had long questionnaires (about Khan) addressed to
us we have responded to them point by point, very meaningfully
and effectively."
Meanwhile Kasuri said he was hopeful that senior Indian and
Pakistani officials who are set to meet in Dhaka on August 1
would "not miss this opportunity" to get peace talks back on
track.
The two countries launched a peace process in 2004 but it has
been on ice since the Mumbai bomb blasts this month that killed
more than 180 people. New Delhi said the bombers had links to
Pakistan.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
32 Agnew's Alert: Pilgrim Nuclear Relicensing
David Agnew is an old fashioned, Cape Cod Liberal.
07/29/06 · 6:37 pm
A recent Cape Cod Times editorial endorsed extending the license
of the Pilgrim nuclear reactor in Plymouth until 2032.
[pilgrimnuke] I assume they wish us to ignore the fact that:
1. The Cape and Islands is downwind of Pilgrim's daily
emissions of radionuclides, and no dose of radiation is safe.
2. Parts of Cape Cod have the world's highest breast cancer rates
(and Pilgrim's contribution has never been studied).
3. Plymouth is a nuclear waste dump, with 3 times the amount of
highly radioactive waste it was designed to store.
4. The waste pool (outside of containment) is an attractive
terrorist target; if the water were drained, the fuel would burn:
much of New England could be uninhabitable for centuries.
5. Pilgrim's containment is "virtually certain to fail" in a
serious accident.
6. We have no evacuation plan, radiological emergency plan or
notification system.
7. The three year old law requiring potassium iodide stockpiling
(which blocks absorption of radioactive iodine) continues to be
ignored. But remember, says the Cape Cod Times: the wind farm is
bad for Cape Cod. -->
*****************************************************************
33 Galveston County Daily News: Subsidies fuel push for nuclear energy
Monday, July 31, 2006 | Texas' Oldest Newspaper: Since 1842
By Marty Schladen The Daily News
Published July 30, 2006 The same company that owns an idle
electricity plant in Bacliff announced last month that it wanted
to build two nuclear reactors in Matagorda County.
The massive project would add significantly more electricity to
the grid.
But, since it won’t go online until 2014 at the earliest, it
won’t do anything in the short run to reduce Texans’
skyrocketing electricity bills.
And even in the long run, it’s far from clear that the project
would do anything but drive up the cost of electricity.
$5 Billion for Reactors
NRG Energy on June 19 told the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission that it wanted to add 2,700 megawatts of atomic power
to the existing South Texas nuclear project at Wadsworth, about
70 miles south of Galveston. The company projected the project’s
cost at $5 billion.
New Jersey-based NRG says the massive, aging, gas-fired P.H.
Robinson plant on state Highway 146 doesn’t get called online
enough for it to make financial sense to keep it open in Texas’
deregulated electricity market.
It makes that statement despite the fact that demand in recent
weeks has come alarmingly close to exhausting the state’s supply
of electricity.
Nukes Most Expensive
So how, then, does it make sense to construct two brand-new
nuclear reactors when experts say that technology is by far the
most expensive to build and operate?
NRG says it has to do with the type of generation and how it’s
used.
“An older and less-efficient plant, P.H. Robinson is very high
on the dispatch curve, which means it is rarely called upon to
run, especially when there are newer, more-efficient plants
available to generate electricity,” Lori Neuman, NRG’s
communications manager, said last week.
Massive Subsidies
But consumer groups say NRG and other companies are scrambling
to build the country’s first nuclear reactors in a generation to
take advantage of massive government subsidies passed last year
by Congress. Those subsidies, they add, contradict the
free-market principals upon which Texas’ deregulated electricity
market was supposedly founded.
NRG says that because of cost overruns and other problems, the
older generation of nuclear generators required subsidies. But
the technology it plans for Matagorda County, an “advanced
boiling-water reactor,” does not.
Power Base
NRG’s nuclear proposal is part of a package that would add 4,000
megawatts to the roughly 70,000 megawatts of power now available
to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid that
serves 85 percent of the state.
The NRG package would include gas-burning generators in and
around Houston that would put out 500 megawatts of electricity
at peak times. The 40-year-old, 2,200 megawatt Robinson plant is
under consideration to be retrofitted with modern technology to
provide at least part of that capacity, Neuman said.
The remaining 3,500 megawatts would be nuclear and coal-fired
“baseload” capacity. Because those plants take much longer than
gas-fired generators to start up and shut down, they would run
virtually all the time to supply the power grid’s base demand.
An Economical Choice?
Baseload plants are harder to start up and shut down, but
they’re supposed to be cheaper to run.
According to a 2003 study by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, that’s definitely true of coal.
But it’s definitely not true of nuclear power, said the study,
“The Future of Nuclear Power.”
The study’s authors created an economic model to compare the
cost of different forms of generation over the life of a power
plant. Assuming high natural gas prices, the cost of electricity
from nuclear plants still is 20 percent more expensive than from
gas-fired facilities, the study said.
And, the study said, electricity from a nuclear plant is a
whopping 60 percent more expensive than power from a coal-fired
plant.
“In deregulated markets, nuclear power is not now cost
competitive with coal and natural gas,” the study said.
NRG, however, pointed out that natural gas prices have risen
since 2002. Federal statistics show those prices have indeed
risen steeply since 2002, but they also project a drop between
2005 and 2007.
Acceptable Risks?
The MIT researchers argued that because of rising world energy
demand — and because coal- and gas-fired plants spew carbon into
the atmosphere and add to global warming — the use of nuclear
power should continue to expand. They added that when “best
practices” are used, reactors run a low risk of accidents.
And they conceded that little was known about the safety of
nuclear fuel outside reactor operation. And there is the fact
that nobody’s figured out what to do with the radioactive waste
produced by those reactors.
Security Risks
Perhaps most alarmingly in this age of terrorism, the MIT study
cited the security threat that the global expansion of nuclear
energy could create. The radioactive waste generated by nuclear
plants could be used to make a so-called “dirty bomb.”
All those risks have caught the attention of the agencies that
decide how creditworthy a company is.
“In general, nuclear-plant ownership tends to be less supportive
of credit quality because it introduces added levels of
operating, regulatory and environmental risk to a business
profile,” Standard & Poor’s Ratings Direct wrote in January.
Cash Incentives
So if nuclear generation is more expensive to build and operate
— and if it poses serious environmental and security risks — why
would anyone want to do it?
Consumer groups say the answer’s simple: billions of dollars in
subsidies from the federal government.
Some are of long standing.
For example, the 49-year-old Price-Anderson Act requires the
nuclear industry pay the first $10 billion in liability from a
nuclear accident. The taxpayers cover the rest.
Then there are federal subsidies for research and development.
The federal government spent about $150 billion developing wind,
solar and nuclear power between 1950 and 2000. Of that, roughly
95 percent went to the development of nuclear energy, according
to the Renewable Energy Policy Project, an effort funded in part
by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental
Protection Agency.
New Federal Money
But what’s new is the Energy Policy Act of 2005. A law heavily
influenced by Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret energy task
force, it places emphasis on construction of new nuclear
generators.
An analysis by the nonprofit, consumer-advocacy group Public
Citizen says the act puts up huge “cradle to grave” subsidies to
get companies to build nuclear reactors.
Among them:
• $2 billion to cover startup delays caused by licensing and
lawsuits.
• $6 billion in potential loan guarantees covering part of the
cost to build six new nuclear reactors.
• $5.7 billion in tax credits for producing nuclear-generated
electricity.
• $1.3 billion in subsidies to close down nuclear reactors.
Subsidies in a Deregulated Market?
When Texas’ deregulated electricity market was sold to
ratepayers, they were told competition would drive down
electricity prices for consumers.
The public also was told supply and demand would drive decision
making when it came to building generators.
Federally subsidized nuclear reactors don’t square with those
promises, said Michele Boyd, legislative director for Public
Citizen’s Energy Program in Washington, D.C.
“It simply doesn’t make sense,” Boyd said last week. “You say
you’re going to deregulate the market, then you skew the market.”
Left to its own devices, that market might justify refitting
NRG’s entire Galveston County plant — the nation’s 50th largest
— instead of just a small portion as is now being contemplated.
According to Business Week, NRG’s new nuclear facilities won’t
become operational until 2014. In the meantime, the company’s
own literature says “Texas’ demand growth is among the strongest
in the nation.”
© 2006 The Galveston County Daily News. All rights reserved. A
Southern NewspapersPublication.
*****************************************************************
34 CONTRA COSTA TIMES: Atomic bomb survivor will join protesters
Posted on Sat, Jul. 29, 2006
LIVERMORE: Rallies on anniversaries of Hiroshima, Nagasaki
bombings to decry use of nuclear weapons
By Betsy Mason
A survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, will speak
at an Aug. 6 rally in Livermore to mark the 61st anniversary of
the event.
During the week after the bombing, Keiji Tsuchiya served as a
rescue worker aiding other victims. Today, the 78-year-old is
vice president of the Okayama A-bomb Sufferers Association. He
is traveling from Japan to participate in the Livermore rally in
protest of nuclear weapons.
Demonstrators plan to gather at 8 a.m. Aug. 6 at Lawrence
Livermore Laboratory, on the corner of Vasco Road and Patterson
Pass, for speeches and ceremonies. They will march to the
laboratory gate at 9 a.m. for a nondenominational ceremony.
Other speakers will include author and media critic Norman
Soloman and Marylia Kelley, director of Tri-Valley Communities
Against a Radioactive Environment.
Another rally is planned for Aug. 9, the anniversary of the U.S.
atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan. Participants will meet at 9
a.m. in front of the Bechtel Corp. headquarters, 50 Beale St. in
San Francisco.
Bechtel recently joined the University of California in a
successful bid for the management of the Los Alamos National
Laboratory and is a partner in the management of the Yucca
Mountain nuclear waste repository.
Aug. 9 is also the United Nations International Day of the
World's Indigenous Peoples, and the featured speaker at the
rally will be Corbin Harney, a spiritual leader of the Western
Shoshone Nation. The Yucca Mountain site is on land to which the
Western Shoshone claim they hold the rights.
The rallies are linked to events at nuclear weapons sites across
the country. Information about the effort is available at the
Web site: .
Reach Betsy Mason at 925-847-2158 or .
*****************************************************************
35 Daily Yomiuri: Elderly A-bomb victims still suffering
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Twenty-two percent of elderly atomic bomb survivors who live
alone say they have chosen to do so because they had given up on
the idea of marrying and having families due to fears of
discrimination and their own anxieties, The Yomiuri Shimbun
learned in a recent survey.
This is why there are proportionally more elderly A-bomb
survivors living alone than there are ordinary elderly people
living alone.
The survey showed the respondents are still suffering from
physical disorders and mental instability due to their exposure
to radioactivity, and the trauma they experienced. In addition,
they suffer from a sense of loneliness and have flashbacks of
the bombings.
Seventy-five percent said they want to pass on their experiences
to future generations.
The Yomiuri Shimbun conducted the survey in cooperation with the
Hiroshima Institute for Radiation Biology and Medicine, and the
Institute for Peace Science, both of which are attached to
Hiroshima University. From late last month to the middle of this
month, 350 A-bomb survivors were contacted through A-bomb
survivors organizations in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Osaka
prefectures and Tokyo. A total of 139 people aged 62 to 93
responded. There were 24 men and 114 women. One declined to
specify gender.
Twenty percent said they had experienced discrimination in their
marriages, while 30 percent said they felt hesitant or anxious.
Nineteen had never married, five of whom said they did not marry
because of their experiences.
Forty-three of the 118 married respondents said that when they
had children, they were worried about the impact their exposure
to radiation might have on their children. Among the 19
respondents who do not have children, seven said they gave up on
the idea because of their experiences.
Twenty-nine percent of the respondents who have children said
they felt guilty about having children because their children or
grandchildren might be discriminated against or be born with
defects. Some of them broke off their relations with their
children or grandchildren.
In Nagasaki, the ratio of A-bomb survivors aged 65 and older who
live on their own is 17 percent, 4 percent higher than ordinary
elderly people.
In Hiroshima, an estimated 21 percent of A-bomb survivors aged
60 and older live alone.
The respondents said they suffer from various health disorders
such as cataracts at 47 percent, hepatic function disorder at 23
percent, cancer at 17 percent and thyroid gland disorder at 12
percent. Eighty-one percent of them complained of physical
disorders. Thirty percent said they feel lonely, while 28
percent said they had flashbacks of the bombings. Twenty percent
said they find it hard to laugh.
Ninety-three percent live on a pension and 77 percent depend on
the 30,000 yen or so they receive in health care allowances
under the Atomic Bomb Victims Relief Law.
Seventy-seven percent said they feel anxious about their future.
Twenty-three percent said they want to go into a nursing home,
while 21 percent hope to find somebody to help them with
housework. Seventeen percent said they need to receive support,
including financial and housing support.
Of those who said they wanted to pass on their experiences to
younger generations, 63 percent said they wanted to do so to
promote nuclear disarmament, while 50 percent said they felt
obliged to do so. Fifty-two percent of them said they have
already passed on their experiences to their children or
grandchildren.
Prof. Megu Otaki of the Research Institute for Radiation Biology
and Medicine, said the survey shows many A-bomb survivors were
hesitant about getting married or having children because they
were worried about the genetic influence of radiation.
He said their worries would be eliminated by creating an
environment in which they can receive medical and nursing care
all times, and by arranging for them to have more contact with
people in their communities. (Jul. 31, 2006)
© The Yomiuri Shimbun.
*****************************************************************
36 Daytona Beach News-Journal: 'Definitive answer' on depleted uranium sought
July 30, 2006
Associated Press
DAYTONA BEACH --
After years of veterans pleading for help with illnesses
occurring after service in the Gulf wars, the U.S. House and
Senate are calling for an immediate study of health effects of
exposure to a radioactive metal used in U.S. weapons and armor.
Lori Brim photo
Dustin Brim with his mother, Lori Brim, in the summer of 2004 at
Fisher House near Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington
D.C.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., co-author of a Senate bill on
depleted uranium that passed June 20, said other studies have
been done on the subject. Those studies concluded there was no
evidence that exposure to the metal caused illnesses.
"It is time for a review by the Pentagon to see if there has been
scientific progress that would provide a more accurate and
definitive answer to possible links to adverse health," Lieberman
said in a written statement to The News-Journal. "This amendment
would require the Pentagon to provide that assessment."
The House passed a similar bill in May, and details are being
hashed out in a joint committee. If the proposal becomes law,
results of the study would be submitted to Congress within one
year from its effective date. But the study comes too late for
one Ormond Beach mother of an American soldier who believes
exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq killed her son.
UNCOVERING A CONTROVERSY
In 2004, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, Lori
Brim's son, Army Spc. Dustin Brim, died at 22 of very aggressive
cancers. The military physicians who tried to save him said
exposure to depleted uranium did not cause his diseases.
But Lori Brim took the whispered advice of a social worker there
and started looking into the issue.
She discovered political and medical controversies -- about
whether the U.S. military should be using depleted uranium
munitions and what effects exposure brings -- that have been
raging since soldiers began returning home from the first Gulf
War with mysterious ailments.
Though that war marked the first time depleted uranium munitions
had been used in combat, military sources have consistently
discounted a link. Risks of exposure are minimal and abated by
training, they say. And, they add, because tank armor and
munitions made with the extremely dense material are so
effective, use of depleted uranium saves U.S. lives.
Brim said she has been frustrated in her efforts to acquire
medical records that might offer evidence the cancers that killed
her son resulted from exposure to depleted uranium.
"I'm trying to share Dustin's voice, create awareness and make a
difference," Brim said. "I believe to this day that, if soldiers
and other personnel had been made aware of the risks of exposure
to DU and how dangerous it is -- Dustin said he went for medical
help 11 times while he was in Iraq -- somebody may have paid
attention to him."
Brim said she has been unable to find a Florida legislator
willing to introduce a bill similar to several passed by other
states, demanding study of the issue and testing for National
Guard members returning from Iraq.
She also has been disappointed by attorneys unwilling to help her
and other mothers she knows pursue a class-action lawsuit against
manufacturers of weapons she believes are polluting the Earth.
She's hired Holly Hill author Lonnie Story to write her son's
story.
BODY MAY BE EXHUMED
Dr. Asaf Durakovic, founder and head scientist at Uranium Medical
Research Centre in Toronto, Canada, said Brim could exhume her
son's body to be tested for radiation exposure.
"If I found DU in his bones, it could prove his sickness could
have been related to DU contamination," said Durakovic in a phone
interview from Washington D.C, where he also has an office.
"Radiation will not decompose."
Brim said that's too emotional a decision for her to make now but
continues to try to obtain the medical records.
Those who, like Brim, are looking for answers about depleted
uranium's health effects, "are facing a multibillion-dollar
industry making radioactive ammunition," Durakovic said.
Attempts to talk with some manufacturers of weapons containing
depleted uranium went either unanswered or spokespeople declined
interviews.
The Department of Defense takes the position that depleted
uranium is the best metal available for tank armor and munitions
to penetrate armor on enemy vehicles. The military says that all
personnel who use such equipment are adequately trained to safely
handle depleted uranium.
Doug Rokke, a veteran of the Gulf War, who has a doctorate in
technology from the University of Illinois and was charged with
cleanup of depleted uranium contaminated equipment after the
first Gulf War, has been outspoken about the issue. He said
soldiers are not properly trained and that "medical care has been
willfully denied to a majority of DU casualties who are supposed
to receive care."
He said he's not sure that, if the bill before the joint
committee makes it to law, it would have any effect on the use of
weapons or treatment of soldiers.
"The directive is to continue to use uranium
munitions and avoid all liability," said Rokke, 57, of Rantoul,
Ill. He said he is seeking medical care for exposure to
radiation from depleted uranium. "The legal requirement to
provide medical care has always existed, but the military
disregards that."
The military said more than 2,100 Operation Iraqi Freedom service
members have been tested for exposure to depleted uranium, and
eight were found to be positive.
"All eight were involved in combat situations where they were
exposed to depleted uranium fragments," said Dr. Michael
Kilpatrick, deputy director of Deployment Health Support in the
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs,
in a written statement. "The depleted uranium testing that is
done for the military personnel is done at the U.S. Army
laboratory at the Center for Health Promotion and Preventive
Medicine, and at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology." He
said all testing is paid for by the Department of Defense.
At Northern Arizona University biochemist Diane Stearns said her
recent studies should make the issue hard to ignore.
Her results -- published in peer-reviewed journals and presented
at a recent Society of Toxicology conference -- established that
when cells are exposed to uranium, the uranium binds to DNA, and
the cells mutate. She said exposure during the Gulf wars may link
to increased cancers and birth defects in soldiers and in
civilian survivors of exposure in the Middle East.
audrey.parente@news-jrnl.com
Depleted Uranium in the News
Concerns over effects of depleted uranium are spreading.
2006 News-Journal Corporation news-journalonline.com (SM
*****************************************************************
37 AU ABC: Sydney airport given all clear after radiation scare.
29/07/2006. ABC News Online
A cargo terminal at Sydney airport has been reopened after a
radiation scare this afternoon.
Hazardous materials experts from the New South Wales fire
brigade were called to airport to investigate the discovery of
some radioactive material.
They found the material to be spent fuel pellets used in the
X-raying of cargo equipment.
A spokesperson for the fire brigade says the area has been made
safe and 25 employees have been allowed to return to work.
There were no injuries or disruptions to flights.
*****************************************************************
38 The Australian: MPs vow fight over uranium plan
This story is from our news.com.aunetwork Source: AAP
By Saffron Howden July 30, 2006
OPPONENTS of Labor leader Kim Beazley's backflip on uranium
mining are delivering him the spirited debate he expected,
vowing to make it the central issue in the upcoming ballot for
party president.
Labor members will vote over the next two months for a new
federal president to replace incumbent Warren Mundine in 2007.
The uranium question has divided the party since Mr Beazley
announced he wanted to dump Labor's 22-year-old policy of
opposing any new uranium mines.
He wants next year's national conference to endorse a new party
platform which would impose stringent safeguards on uranium use
and exports, but allow new mines in addition to three existing
mines.
Labor's environment spokesman Anthony Albanese has come out
strongly against the change, as has former ALP national
president Carmen Lawrence and opposition frontbencher and
erstwhile anti-nuclear campaigner Peter Garrett.
Today, Mr Albanese said the uranium debate would weigh heavily
on the vote for the next party president.
"It's pretty clear that people are going to want to know what
people's position is on the no-new-mines policy and that will be
a factor in them voting," he told the Ten network.
There had already been suggestions that members write their
position on voting papers.
Mr Albanese said the economic arguments in favour of overturning
the policy did not stack up and the move would not be popular.
"Uranium is a very moderate export earner," he said.
"What we have here is uranium exports worth $500 million last
year.
"That's about the same as manganese ore and oxide which we hear
nothing about."
Implicit in Labor's current position on uranium mining was a
commitment to phasing out the practice, Mr Albanese said.
"You can guarantee that uranium mining will lead to nuclear
waste. You can't guarantee that uranium mining won't lead to
nuclear weapons."
The ACT branch of the Labor Party yesterday endorsed Mr
Albanese's view, passing a motion upholding the current policy
in defiance of Mr Beazley.
But Mr Mundine, who argued strongly for a debate on the issue,
said delegates to next April's national conference would not be
swayed by an anti-uranium president.
"People are not stupid," Mr Mundine said.
"I think people will be swayed by what ... is best for the
Australian community."
In 2003, Dr Lawrence was elected party president on the back of
her push to change Labor's refugee policy, calling for an end to
mandatory detention for asylum seekers and the abolition of
temporary protection visas.
But the national conference the following year endorsed a more
hard-line position.
Mr Mundine said Dr Lawrence's campaign was irrelevant in the
end.
"The delegates still waited and made their decision. It was
irrelevant," he said.
He would not state his personal views on uranium policy,
preferring to defer to the party membership, while reiterating
his strong support for an open debate.
Labor's treasury spokesman Wayne Swan today fully endorsed Mr
Beazley's change.
One of Australia's biggest uranium miners praised Mr Beazley's
plan to scrap the ban on new mines as a "courageous decision".
But Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) chief executive officer
Harry Kenyon-Slane said it would have no immediate impact on his
company's operations.
Privacy Terms © The Australian
*****************************************************************
39 Sydney Morning Herald: PM blasts 'ludicrous' ALP uranium policy -
www.smh.com.au
July 29, 2006 - 2:34PM
Prime Minister John Howard says he can't imagine a policy more
internally inconsistent and ludicrous than Labor's platform on
uranium mining.
Mr Howard, in Perth to address the West Australian Liberal Party
state conference, also criticised WA premier Alan Carpenter for
continuing to oppose uranium mining in his state.
Mr Carpenter has said he will not allow uranium mining in WA
despite federal Labor leader Kim Beazley's announcement this
week that he intends to dump the party's no new mines policy.
Mr Howard told the conference Labor's no new mines policy was
anachronistic 23 years ago when it was introduced.
"The no new mines policy of the Labor party is built on the
ludicrous notion that there is good uranium and bad uranium," Mr
Howard said.
Mr Howard said Labor regarded uranium from Australia's existing
three uranium mines as "pure as the driven snow".
"That's special, that really is you beaut, fair dinkum, nice
uranium," Mr Howard told a laughing audience.
"But the really nasty, bad, never-to-be-touched, awful, horrible
un-Australian uranium is everywhere else, including in Western
Australia.
"A policy more internally inconsistent and ludicrous I can't
imagine," he said.
Mr Howard hit out at Mr Carpenter's continued support of the
policy.
"The premier of WA thinks that the uranium in his state is dirty
and horrible, yet the uranium in other states is pure and nice,"
Mr Howard said.
"It's a very, very odd policy."
© 2006 AAP
*****************************************************************
40 Sydney Morning Herald: ERA to concentrate on existing projects -
July 30, 2006 - 4:19PM
Uranium miner Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) says it is
too early to tell whether the life of its flagship Ranger
project can be extended beyond its 2014 use by date.
But despite the uncertainty, the world's third biggest uranium
miner has suggested it won't be acquiring any junior miners.
ERA, which is majority owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, has been
extending its exploration program at Ranger in the face of
dramatic growth in uranium demand.
"It's very early days," ERA chief executive officer Harry
Kenyon-Slaney said of the new drilling on ABC Television.
"We've spent quite a bit of money last year and more this year
and I think time will tell,"
"Our exploration program is stepping up and we will have, by the
end of this dry season, completed most of the drilling work
around the edge of the Ranger pit," he said.
ERA currently has projects in two locations, the Ranger
Operation and the Jabiluka project, but the large ore body at
the Jabiluka project cannot be mined until ERA receives
permission from the traditional owners.
"I believe Jabiluka is a valuable asset to us. We have been very
open in stating that. We would like to develop it but we will
not do so without the support of the traditional owners," Mr
Kenyon-Slaney said.
As for the possibility of acquiring a junior uranium miner, Mr
Kenyon-Slaney said shareholder's money would be better spent on
extending ERA's current projects.
Shares in ERA fell six per cent last Wednesday after it flagged
a fall in annual production, which was hit in the first half by
wet weather caused by cyclone activity.
At the time of the announcement ERA said it would not feel the
full benefit of surging global uranium demand until new
contracts come into effect.
ERA currently has contracts worth around $US16.50 a pound
compared to the spot price of uranium of around $US46.00.
"You will see a steady roll off in those old contracts and in
place we'll be letting new contracts at the long term market
price which is slightly above the current spot price," Mr
Kenyon-Slaney said.
The ERA head also praised the Federal Opposition's move last
week to aim to scrap its ban on new uranium mines, describing it
as a "courageous move".
Mr Kenyon-Slaney said there was a possibility Australia could
miss the boat on uranium mining, and decried the fact that
Australia only produces 20 per cent of the world's uranium while
possessing 40 per cent of the world's low cost uranium
resources.
But he said a policy change allowing new mines would have no
immediate effect on ERA because it was focused on its existing
projects at the Ranger Lease and the Jabiluka project.
"We've been working there for many years now and that's the
focus of operations," he said.
© 2006 AAP
*****************************************************************
41 Sydney Morning Herald: Beazley's uranium plan 'courageous' -
www.smh.com.au
July 30, 2006 - 2:14PM
One of Australia's biggest uranium miners has described federal
Opposition Leader Kim Beazley's plan to scrap Labor's ban on new
mines as a "courageous decision".
Mr Beazley said he would urge Labor to change its longstanding
position on uranium mining, which allows only three mines, at
the party's national conference next year.
"The policy that Labor have had in place for some years clearly
was anachronistic," Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA)
chief executive officer Harry Kenyon-Slaney told ABC TV.
"It led to a situation where only three existing mines were able
to operate and I think the step that has been made by Kim
Beazley is a courageous one and it's one that the industry
supports."
"In the NT (Northern Territory) I've got no doubt that this is
the beginning of a process.
"There's plenty of work to be done and Mr Beazley has indicated
that there'll be a spirited debate and that debate, I think, is
healthy."
But Mr Kenyon-Slaney said a policy change allowing new mines
would have no immediate effect on ERA because it was focused on
its existing projects at the Ranger Lease and the Jabiluka
project.
"We are focused on our operations up in the NT, so immediately
it won't have a significant effect on us. Our leases are very
prospective.
"We've been working there for many years now and that's the
focus of operations," he said.
© 2006 AAP
*****************************************************************
42 Bradenton Herald: Toxin report stokes fears in Tallevast
07/29/2006 |
DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - The toxic waste of highest concern in the Tallevast
plume is far more dangerous than previously thought, according
to a national study released this week.
After a detailed study of the industrial solvent
tricholorethylene, commonly known as TCE, the National Research
Council reported Thursday that evidence is growing stronger that
the chemical causes cancer and other human health problems.
The 379-page report urges federal regulators to raise their risk
assessment of TCE, a step that has been stalled by debate
between scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Defense Department, which is responsible for hundreds of
TCE-contaminated sites across the country.
The National Research Council findings are significant for
Tallevast residents, who worry about past exposure, say
independent sources familiar with studies of the 200-acre plume
of toxic waste traced back to old beryllium plant at 1600
Tallevast Road.
The findings support residents' demands for further study of
possible vapor intrusion, said Wilma Subra, a nationally known
environmental activist based in Louisiana, who has analyzed
Lockheed data on the plume for The Herald.
"The report on TCE confirms and supports the need to adequately
define the extent of the TCE contamination in the groundwater in
the Tallevast area, perform soil vapor testing in the homes over
the contaminated groundwater plume, and move forward with
remedial activities in order to reduce and eliminate the human
exposure due to the TCE," Subra said Friday.
"The report helps Tallevast residents because it says there is
stronger evidence than ever that TCE is a carcinogen," said
Lenny Siegal, director of the Center For Public Environmental
Oversight, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Mountain View,
Calif., who has toured Tallevast with community leaders.
If the risk posed by TCE is significantly higher than previously
thought, it could prompt lower limits for TCE in water, as well
as stricter cleanups of hundreds of military bases and other
polluted facilities.
Some EPA offices have already forced stiffer cleanups based on
evidence that the chemical is a greater-than-expected cancer
risk.
In 2001, the EPA attempted to issue a risk assessment that TCE
is between two to 40 times more carcinogenic than previously
thought, but the Defense Department, the Energy Department and
NASA opposed the move, saying that the EPA had overstated the
risks. The Bush administration then ordered the National
Research Council to further study the issue
Fear of increased liability was behind the the political
maneuvering, say advocates for stricter standards. The Pentagon
alone has 1,400 properties contaminated with TCE.
The report's findings go beyond supporting the EPA's 2001
position.
"The committee found that the evidence on carcinogenic risk and
other health hazards from exposure to trichloroethylene has
strengthened since 2001," the report said.
The report urged federal agencies to complete their assessment
of TCE risks as soon as possible, "with currently available
data," meaning they should not wait for additional basic
research, as suggested by the Defense Department.
"It is the strongest report on TCE that we have had," said U.S.
Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-N.Y., whose district includes
hundreds of homes that have air-filtration systems to eliminate
TCE vapors from the ground. "The fact that we have this
TCE-laden drinking water used by millions of people is
abominable."
Hinchey and others in Congress are demanding stronger cleanup
standards and lower limits for the chemical in drinking water.
Currently, the EPA allows 5 parts per billion; that could be
lowered to as little as 1 part per billion for drinking water if
the risk assessment, which was sidetracked in 2001, is adopted,
according an analysis by the Air Force.
An EPA spokeswoman said the agency would take action.
"Armed with the results from the NAS review, EPA will
aggressively move forward" on a new risk assessment of TCE,
spokeswoman Jennifer Wood said Thursday. "EPA will determine
whether or not to address the drinking water standard once the
risk assessment is complete."
Should the higher standard be adopted, it would drive up cleanup
costs by billions of dollars but potentially save thousands of
lives, scientists say.
The report's authors told Congress on Wednesday they did not
think the EPA should throw out its 2001 draft risk assessment
and start over. Instead, they hope the TCE analysis can be
completed within six months to a year.
Federal regulators should stick with the current scientific
model that the cancer risk posed by TCE is proportional to
exposure all the way to a level of zero, the National Research
Council said.
If they do, then Florida's already lower standard of three parts
per billion should be adjusted downward, said Siegel, and that
change would affect Tallevast.
To date, levels of TCE under three parts per billion in a liter
of water have not been considered above required targeted
clean-up levels or a danger to human health in Tallevast.
"There is certainly a concern if you have anyone drinking water
out of a well that has been found to have between 1 and 5 parts
per billion levels of TCE," said Siegel.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the former owner of the Tallevast
beryllium plant when the contamination was found in 2000, is
studying the NCR report, said Gail Rymer, company spokeswoman.
"This report makes recommendations to EPA regarding their risk
assessment," said Rymer in an e-mail response to The Herald on
Friday. "It does not change the current cleanup standards the
state of Florida has currently established, and that are already
lower than the EPA standards. We will continue to meet all
regulatory requirements as we work to remediate the solvent
plume in the Tallevast area and restore the community's faith in
their land and water."
But Tallevast residents are concerned those studies won't go far
enough, said Wanda Washington and Laura Ward, leaders of the
advocacy group Family Oriented Community United Strong, or
FOCUS.
FOCUS has repeatedly called for widespread vapor testing to
determine if fumes from the underground plume could be leaking
into their homes, Washington said.
Results of vapor tests performed and released by the Florida
Department of Health indicate there is no vapor problem in
Tallevast.
Siegel and others have questioned the methodology of those
tests, which analyzed air samples taken over a single 24-hour
period in just four locations.
To be meaningful, vapor tests must be conducted multiple times
under very controlled settings and at different times of the
year, in both rain and drought, Subra has said in her review of
Tallevast data for The Herald.
Thursday's report supports the need for further vapor testing in
Tallevast, said Siegel.
"Typically vapor intrusion is found in areas that have been
found to have concentrations at the standard level," said
Siegel. "The final toxicity assessment will make a huge
difference if the air exposures are in the marginal level." -
The Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press contributed to
this report.
*****************************************************************
43 Deseret News: Governor's 'general' leaves for Supreme Court
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Lee will spend a year as Justice Alito's law clerk
By Lisa Riley Roche Deseret Morning News
The man Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. nicknamed "The General" and turned
to for advice on everything from keeping high-level nuclear waste
out of Utah to ordering exotic food in Mexico is now working for
a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
August Miller, Deseret Morning NewsMike Lee, a new
Supreme Court law clerk, packs up his Utah office where he
worked as the governor's general counsel. For Mike Lee,
35, the chance to spend a year as a law clerk for the newest
member of the nation's highest court was just too good to pass
up, even if it meant stepping down as Huntsman's general counsel.
"I had to take it," Lee said of the clerkship with
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that began in early July.
"I've had a lifelong fascination with the U.S. Supreme Court.
When I was a kid, I used to go with my dad to watch him argue
here."
Lee's father, the late Rex Lee, served in the U.S.
Justice Department under President Ford and as Solicitor General
under President Reagan, and also as both the founding dean of
Brigham Young University's law school and president of the
university.
"I could sense the power and also the awe and reverence
there is surrounding the Supreme Court of the United States,
even as a kid," Lee said, comparing his chances of someday being
a part of the high court as similar to playing for the Utah Jazz.
Although he was never drafted by the basketball team, Lee
did get a call earlier this year from the high court. Alito —
who had been an assistant to Lee's father when he was solicitor
general — wanted him as a clerk.
Lee had clerked for Alito before, for a year in 1998-99
when Alito was on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Third District. And Lee was one of some 29 Alito
supporters nationwide who campaigned last year for his
confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Alito, Lee said then, is "very nice, very genuine. If you
could create an index that took into account one's
qualifications and one's ego, he would be off the charts for
both — absolutely minimum ego and maximum qualifications."
Lee himself earned similar praise from the governor's
office. "Mike, in addition to being a superb attorney, is also a
delightful individual and a colleague we enjoyed being with,"
said Huntsman's spokesman, Mike Mower.
While Lee spent the bulk of his time as the GOP
governor's general counsel on serious issues including foiling
Private Fuel Storage's plans to build a high-level nuclear waste
site in Tooele County on Goshute Indian land, there apparently
was time for fun in the office, too.
Take Lee's nickname, "The General." Mower described it as
"a cross between respect for (Civil War) Gen. Robert E. Lee —
and he has some of his traits — and the General Lee car in Dukes
of Hazzard," Mower said.
With several Mikes serving in the Huntsman
administration, Lee explained, "it was easier to just call me
'The General.' They did that on the Dukes of Hazzard from time
to time when referring to Bo and Luke Duke's beloved car."
And when the governor traveled to Mexico City last summer
to meet with outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, Lee went
along, putting his fluent Spanish to use in official meetings as
well as in offbeat restaurants featuring such delicacies as
fried grasshoppers.
Menu recommendations aside, Lee's focus during the 1 1/2
-years he spent as general counsel was on giving the governor
advice, both legal and political. "Everything a governor does
has legal implications," Lee said. And political implications as
well.
"It's almost impossible to say where the political ends
and the legal begins," Lee said. "I would actually say it's all
legal, and yet, because I worked for an election politician,
there were constantly political considerations that had to be
taken into account."
For example, when Huntsman wanted to establish a formal
alliance between Utah and Mexico. While that wouldn't
necessarily have been a legal problem, Lee said he still warned
the governor, "out of an abundance of caution," not to do it.
"Very often, and that example is no exception, there are
things the governor could do that probably would not get him
into trouble," Lee said. "But there was enough of a potential
concern," especially if someone wanted to press the issue for
political reasons.
Lee's clerkship lasts just a year and once it's over, he
said he would like to return to Utah with his wife and three
children. After taking a pay cut from the governor's office,
though, he could end up back in private practice.
A recent Washington Post article described hefty signing
bonuses of around $200,000 being paid to former Supreme Court
clerks by various high-powered law firms. Lee's career includes
a stint with a Washington, D.C.-based law firm specializing in
appellate litigation.
Mower said that while "it would be a delight" to have Lee
return to the Huntsman administration when his clerkship ends
next year, "there hasn't been any discussions that far ahead."
Lee admitted it was "absolutely" a difficult decision to
resign as general counsel while the state was still battling to
stop PFS from building a high-level nuclear waste dump in Tooele
County on the Goshute Indian property.
"I have long vowed to assist the governor in his efforts
to fight PFS and to continue fighting until PFS is dead — and to
dance on PFS' grave," he said. "It was hard to leave before that
was done."
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
44 Pahrump Valley Times: New Yucca Mountain center opens
Jul. 28, 2006
By PHILLIP GOMEZ PVT
PHILLIP GOMEZ / PVT
The interior of the new Yucca Mountain Information Center is
designed to look and feel like the inside of a Yucca tunnel, with
exhibits and interactive multi-media stations to explain how it
all would work.
Despite political setbacks in the drive to see Yucca Mountain
become a nuclear storage reality, the U.S. Department of
Energy's principal contractor, Bechtel Science Applications
International Corp., has moved ahead on the public relations
front by opening a new 5,000-square-foot information center in
Pahrump across the street from the post office.
The information center opens to the public on Monday with hours
from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Thursday saw a special open house for invited VIPs --
representatives of the stakeholder counties most affected by
Yucca Mountain and invested in the federal Office of Civilian
Radioactive Waste Management, which would oversee waste-handling
and transport operations.
The new facility replaces the old information center in the
plaza at the Pahrump Station on Postal Drive, just down the
street. That was only 600 square feet and saw about 300 visitors
per year, serving as the staging area for bus tours to Yucca
Mountain in the fall and spring seasons.
The bus tours will continue, says facility manager Claire
Sinclair, and now visitors in Pahrump will be offered a more
enriching experience learning about the government project, its
history and the natural history of the geographic area east of
Beatty.
Moreover, the new building houses 2,500 square feet of office
space for 16 staffers and a 35-person-capacity conference room.
"We're working in a very positive direction," says Sinclair.
"This makes sense that the county most affected by Yucca
Mountain has a good resource for people to find out about the
project. It certainly shows our commitment to Nye County by
putting together a facility like this and preparing for
additional staff to be employed in Pahrump."
Staff positions will be advertised when Bechtel determines the
specific skills needed by the people to be hired, Sinclair says.
Department of Energy officials recently announced plans to
upgrade the staging area at the repository site itself, 54 miles
north of Pahrump. DOE plans to spend $100 million over the next
several years to construct and improve 33 miles of roads,
install more than 20 miles of power lines and replace existing
facilities with six new buildings, according to a new 70-page
environmental assessment.
The buildings are to include a 43,000-square-foot operations
center, a 10,000-square-foot fire station and a
43,000-square-foot maintenance and repair shop.
Back in Pahrump, Sinclair says, "I'm hoping this (new Pahrump
facility) will be the base for our outreach programs." She says
Bechtel has a 25-foot trailer equipped with science and
technology displays explaining Yucca Mountain, its geology,
hydrology and safety features, which she intends to use for
field trips to local schools.
As for the new bricks-and-mortar building, brand-new exhibits
tell the story of the arid land on the edge of the Nellis Air
Force Range from prehistoric times to 1997, when DOE's giant
boring machine cut its way under and through Yucca Mountain in
construction of the main tunnel.
A 12-minute film presents an overview history of the site's
selection and development. Exhibits placed in a tunnel-like
interior design continue the story with DOE's plans for
transportation of the nuclear waste to the site and an
explanation of the repository's operations.
Like more sophisticated museums devoted to an area's human and
natural history, Indian artifacts are on display, along with
specimens of local flora, broadening the Yucca Mountain story
for visitor interest.
Other exhibits present more technical information in more easily
grasped, three-dimensional forms, explaining how the facilities
for nuclear waste storage would be designed and appear upon
completion.
The museum is intended to be self-guided, but staff will be
available to answer visitors' questions, Sinclair says.
One special exhibit, a business person's contact station,
permits on-line access to DOE regarding vendor applications and
government regulations for doing business with Yucca Mountain.
Other Yucca Mountain information centers exist in Las Vegas and
in Beatty, but Pahrump's is the first new center to be built in
over a decade, Sinclair says.
"We're excited for people to come and visit us," she says.
"There's no charge to come. We're looking forward to serving the
community."
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 2006
*****************************************************************
45 reviewjournal.com: Bush administration says Yucca study not required
Jul. 29, 2006
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The latest clash between Nevada and the Bush
administration over Yucca Mountain took a turn on Friday when the
White House said it was not required to produce an environmental
study of its latest bill for the nuclear waste site.
Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said this week
a federal law, the National Environmental Policy Act, mandated
the White House lay out the potential impacts of the bill, which
seeks to streamline portions of the Yucca project.
In a letter Wednesday, Reid and Ensign asked James Connaughton,
director of the White House Council of Environmental Quality, to
see the report on the Yucca Mountain bill that the Bush
administration sent to Capitol Hill on April 5.
Connaughton told the Nevadans on Friday he had a different
interpretation of the law.
Connaughton said in a letter the White House council "is not
responsible for preparation of environmental impact statements
for other agencies' proposed actions." He suggested Reid and
Ensign talk to the Department of Energy, which runs the Yucca
Mountain program.
"I am disappointed in the CEQ's response but not surprised,"
Reid said in a statement. "This administration continues to
disregard the public safety and environmental concerns when it
comes to Yucca Mountain."
Ensign had not seen the letter and would not comment, spokesman
Jack Finn said.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled
a hearing on the Yucca Mountain bill on Thursday.
The bill contains a number of changes the Department of Energy
said would help the Yucca project move forward. Most of them
would take place over the objections of Nevada officials and
environmental groups that oppose the planned nuclear waste
repository.
Among them, the bill would withdraw federal land in Nye County
for repository construction and strengthen Energy Department
claims for water and transportation authority on the project.
The measure also would expand the amount of nuclear waste that
could be placed within the mountain. In addition, it seeks to
streamline reviews of a repository application the Energy
Department says it plans to file in 2008.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
46 AFP: In Australia, a U-turn on uranium -
by Ed Johnson Sun Jul 30, 4:59 PM ET
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's multi-billion dollar uranium industry
is gearing up for expansion amid signs the Labor Party could drop
its 22-year-old ban on new mines.
The dusty red outback contains the world's largest known
reserves of yellowcake.
But since 1984, the left of centre party, which opposes nuclear
power, has restricted the number of mines to just three.
Although Labor is not in federal government, it controls all the
state authorities across Australia which are responsible for
granting mining and exploration licenses.
Mining interests complain the policy has put a stranglehold on
the industry and allowed Canada to outpace Australia in supply,
despite having substantially smaller reserves.
Amid surging global demand for nuclear fuel and a government
review of the nuclear industry, opposition leader Kim Beazley
last week called on his Labor Party to drop the policy.
"I believe the real issue is what we do with the uranium we
mine, not how many places we mine it," said Beazley, adding he
would introduce the strongest export safeguards in the world if
he won office.
The issue will dominate Labor's annual convention in April, and
has already split the party with several key figures vowing to
oppose the ban being lifted.
But Beazley's call for a U-turn last Monday sent ripples through
the share market and caused a wave of optimism in the uranium
industry.
Paladin Resources, which is sitting on 20,000 tonnes of uranium
at Manyingee and Oobagooma in Western Australia, jumped 5.5
percent to 4.21 Australian dollars (US 3.20 dollars) on the day.
Shares in Toro Energy, which holds an exploration license in
South Australia, shot up 14 percent to 86 cents.
Uranium Exploration Australia, which has more than a dozen
exploration licenses across three states, raced up 12.5 per cent
to 31.5 cents.
Fat Prophets senior resources analyst Gavin Wendt said the share
movement was speculative and noted the premiers of Queensland
and Western Australia opposed the ban being lifted.
"There is still a lot of uncertainty," he told AFP.
But industry players saw Beazley's announcement as a major step
forward that would lend further confidence to the sector and see
a fresh injection of capital to fund exploration.
"I believe it is a significant turning point," Stephen Biggins,
managing director of explorer Southern Gold, told AFP.
The industry is ripe for expansion.
Australia has 39 percent of the world's known reserves of
uranium that can be recovered for less then 40 US dollars a
kilogram. Canada has 17 percent, followed by Kazakhstan with 16
percent.
Global demand for uranium is surging as countries turn
increasingly to nuclear power.
China alone has announced plans to build 28 new nuclear reactors
and this year signed a deal to import 20,000 tonnes of uranium
from Australia a year from 2010 -- double Australia's current
exports of the nuclear fuel.
Demand has seen the spot price for uranium ore rise from around
10 US dollars a pound in 2003 to more than 45 US dollars.
But Labor's policy of restricting the number of mines has meant
vast deposits of yellowcake remain untapped and demand is
outstripping supply.
There are only three uranium mining operations in Australia: the
giant Olympic Dam mine controlled by BHP Billiton in South
Australia; the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory run by
Energy Resources of Australia and General Atomics' Beverley mine
in South Australia.
They produced a combined total of 10,592 tonnes of U3O8 in 2004,
approximately 22 percent of global production, according to
GeoScience Australia. In the same year, Canada accounted for 29
percent of production.
A change in Labor's policy would help unlock massive deposits.
According to the Uranium Information Centre, there are some 25
major deposits and prospective mines across the country, many of
which face opposition from either Labor state governments,
traditional Aboriginal land owners, or both.
In Western Australia, for example, where state Premier Alan
Carpenter opposes a policy change, Rio Tinto is sitting on
36,000 tonnes of uranium in Kintyre, while BHP Billiton owns the
52,500 tonne Yeelirrie deposit.
Neill Arthur, executive chairman of Uranium Exploration
Australia, said it was difficult to predict whether the party
would back Beazley.
"I think it is a significant change of intent," he told AFP.
"But he has to take the rest of the caucus with him."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
47 Cape Cod Times: Bay State water supply rule on perchlorate leads nation
(July 29, 2006)
By AMANDA LEHMERT STAFF WRITER
Massachusetts became the first state in the nation yesterday to
adopt a safe drinking water standard for the chemical
perchlorate.
There are several plumes of the toxic chemical flowing in the
aquifer under the Massachusetts Military Reservation. The
aquifer is the Upper Cape's main source of drinking water.
The new safety standard of 2 parts per billion - equal to a
teaspoon in an Olympic-sized swimming pool - regulates the level
to which the military must clean up perchlorate-tainted water
flowing under the base.
''Massachusetts' new standards ensure that the water is safe to
drink, and the monitoring requirement protects water supplies
into the future,'' state Department of Environmental Protection
Commissioner Robert Golledge said yesterday in a news release.
The Defense Department and the Environmental Protection Agency
have set clean up goals of 24 parts per billion, but the EPA has
yet to set a federal drinking water standard. Even if the agency
adopts the weaker standard, pollution clean up in Massachusetts
will have to meet the 2 parts per billion regulation.
The new state standard comes as the Army prepares to flip the
switch on a $5 million treatment plant to remove perchlorate
from the aquifer.
On a recent afternoon, the wind blew hot air across the dirt
and gravel road that cuts a swath through the former artillery
impact area at Camp Edwards. Below the road, deep in the earth,
plumes of perchlorate contamination flow through the aquifer.
Perchlorate, used in military munitions, explosives and
fireworks, can disturb the function of the thyroid gland, which
regulates metabolism and development in children.
State environmental officials, who promoted the strictest
standard in the nation, argued that 2 parts per billion is
necessary to protect children from over exposure.
There are more than a half dozen plumes of perchlorate that are
heading toward the base boundary. Perchlorate, a component of
rocket propellant, was carried into the aquifer by rain and
melting snow as it flowed through tainted soil.
Two new treatment systems at the base were built with the
Massachusetts standard in mind, said Ben Gregson of the Army's
groundwater studies program. ''We want to make sure we get it
done.''
The clean up systems will treat two plumes with the highest
concentration of perchlorate. The plumes contain as much as 770
parts per billion of the chemical.
One is located in former contractor ranges at the eastern
border with Sandwich.
The other plume, the so-called J-2 plume, flows in the
direction of the Upper Cape water supply wells on the
northeastern portion of Camp Edwards in Sandwich. It also
contains high levels of explosive residues.
The new clean up systems include three extraction wells that
plunge deep into the earth to collect contaminated water from
the aquifer.
The wells pump the tainted water to three above-ground,
garage-like stations.
Inside the stations, water surges at a rate of 125-175 gallons
per minute through a series of six cylindrical containers that
hold resin and carbon, which strips all contaminants from the
water so they are no longer detectable.
The treated water then travels back to the ground through a
series of underground infiltration beds.
The treatment systems could clean the contamination in 10 to 15
years in their current configuration, Gregson said. But the
systems could be expanded if more perchlorate contamination is
found as the Department of Environmental Protection and the EPA
continue groundwater monitoring at the base.
The clean up is scheduled to begin by the end of the summer.
Amanda Lehmert can be reached at alehmert@capecodonline.com.
(Published: July 29, 2006)
Copyright © 2006 Cape Cod Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
48 LA Daily News: Officials see cleanup of Bermite site
Article Launched: 07/30/2006 12:00:00 AM PDT
Homes planned for land where munitions were produced for years
BY ALEX DOBUZINSKIS, Staff Writer
SANTA CLARITA - Machines that bag tons of dirt, giant drills and
monitoring wells were some of the highlights in a tour of the
polluted Whittaker-Bermite site Saturday, as water agency
officials and local residents visited the 996-acre property.
Two companies are buying the property in the heart of Santa
Clarita with plans to build houses where explosives were once
manufactured and tested.
But first, work must be done at the site to reduce contamination
from such toxins as perchlorate, a rocket fuel component linked
to thyroid problems. Saturday's tour was meant to give local
officials and residents a view of the process.
To get rid of the contaminant, soil is moistened and bagged.
Bacteria in the dirt eliminate the perchlorate's toxicity by
leaching off oxygen atoms, breaking the perchlorate down into
chloride.
"We want to cut off any atmospheric oxygen (to treat the soil),"
hydrogeologist Hassan Amini said during the tour, standing in
front of rows of bagged dirt dozens of yards long.
"That's how they go after the chemical ... We want them to be in
the trap and really look for oxygen and take the oxygen out of
the chemicals," he said.
The tour participants, who included board members from the
Castaic Lake Water Agency and the Newhall County Water District,
were also shown wells used to monitor the presence of
perchlorate in the groundwater.
Perchlorate must measure below 6 parts per billion in drinking
water, under state law. Perchlorate has been tested at levels of
more than 72,000 ppb in at least one on-site monitoring well.
Tour participant Lynne Plambeck, a Newhall County Water District
board member, noted that cleanup has mostly been limited to
treating soil, and the important work of decontaminating
groundwater remains.
"The technology's interesting to see, those huge long rows of
plastic bags that are full of dirt," she said.
"I still see that there's a lot of hurdles to get through and
there's a lot of technology that we have to see if it really
works."
Two companies, SunCal Cos. and Cherokee Investment Partners, are
buying the Whittaker-Bermite site, which was used to make and
test explosives from 1934 to 1987. The weapons manufacturer
burned chemicals on parts of the property. Cleanup work at the
site is now being directed by Whittaker, with oversight from the
state Department of Toxic Substances Control. Private
pollution-control experts working on the site are tasked with
keeping perchlorate from seeping into underground aquifers and
polluting local water supplies.
Once a sale is finalized, Cherokee will oversee the cleanup,
while SunCal will develop the site. Officials expect cleanup to
take years. The property has been eyed for development for more
than a decade.
because we wanted those bacteria to starve and really beg for
oxygen,
(661) 257-5253
Los Angeles Newspaper Group
*****************************************************************
49 AU ABC: Beazley wrong on uranium
Insiders - 30/07/2006:
http://www.abc.net.au/insiders/content/2006/s1700737.htm
Mark Bowden, who runs a bike shop in Hobart, does not agree with
the plan by Kim Beazley to scrap the ALP uranium mine policy.
MARK BOWDEN: My name is Mark Bowden and I run a bike shop in
Hobart. I don't agree with Kim Beazley's plan to scrap Labor's
uranium mine policy. The policy may be 22 years old, but it
doesn't mean it isn't relevant now.
In the short term, it may make economic sense to harvest
Australia's uranium, but I think that would only be fuelling the
nuclear fire and I think we should have a longer-term approach to
what we do with uranium, and the sensible thing would be to leave
it in the ground.
Mr Beazley made the statement there would be very, very
stringent safeguards on the sale and use of uranium. I'm afraid
I don't really believe that. I think it's just a case of Mr
Beazley wanting his cake and eating it too.
I don't think, at the ballot box, Labor's position on uranium
mining is going to make a great deal of difference. I think it
really should but, like the last election, I think people are
more concerned about their personal back pocket rather than the
global issues.
One person in the Labor Party who will find it difficult to
remain in the Labor Party I think is Peter Garrett. Peter
Garrett has positioned himself on very much an anti-nuclear
position and I think he would be very, very compromised if the
Labor Party goes with this new mine policy.
This policy is going to be a huge test of Kim Beazley's
leadership and, in fact, I think this will be the undoing of Kim
and I think Kim Beazley will find he has backed the wrong horse.
*****************************************************************
50 Scotsman.com: Fight to stop nuclear waste storage near homes
"The Scotsman" />Sat 29 Jul 2006
JOHN ROSS
HOMEOWNERS living close to the Dounreay nuclear site are to
challenge its operators over plans to build huge waste storage
vaults near their properties.
Residents in Buldoo, Caithness are trying to stop the
development of the shallow storage dumps which will be built
just 430 metres from the nearest home and will be left in the
ground forever.
They want a public inquiry into the move, as the stores would be
built outside Dounreay's licensed site.
The plan has also been put forward ahead of a decision on how to
deal with nuclear waste in future. The Committee on Radioactive
Waste Management (CoRWM) will be announcing its final
recommendations on long-term management on Monday.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority has lodged a planning application
to build the shallow vaults for up to 175,000 cubic metres of
solid low-level waste (LLW) from the decommissioning of
Dounreay.
The authority spent five years considering what to do with its
LLW and changed its original choice of site after consultation.
It says the revised choice meets safety and environmental
criteria and will be less visible to passers-by. It also
considered predictions of coastal erosion which could have
affected the vaults if located elsewhere.
According to a report it "minimises the spread of the Dounreay
footprint, lies as close to the existing site and as far from
nearest neighbours as is practical, is visually unobtrusive and
utilises an area dominated by relatively poor agricultural
land".
But residents of Buldoo, where the vaults are now planned, say
they should be inside the Dounreay boundary.
John Webster, 70, a retired probation officer, said the vaults
would contain waste with a radioactive shelf life of 300 years.
"This would bring nuclear facilities much nearer to the houses.
"The Scottish Executive has told UKAEA to keep the waste at
Dounreay and we believed that meant keeping it on the licensed
site. We are not anti-nuclear. We are just saying it [the waste]
should be kept on the site."
Another resident, Deirdre Henderson, who rents land on the
UKAEA-owned area where two of the vaults are planned, said: "A
few of us have young families and we think it's a pretty bleak
outlook for us. I don't think we are being unreasonable not
wanting this at our back doors."
Dr Eleanor Scott, a Green MSP, has now asked UKAEA to find
another site. She said: "I appreciate that Dounreay has to find
somewhere to store the waste at the same time as they are
decommissioning the site and demolishing buildings, but I am
concerned all the options have not been fully examined."
A Dounreay spokesman said: "If we could build the stores on the
existing site and therefore remove the anxieties of local
residents we would do that. But it's physically impossible to do
it on the licensed site."
©2006 Scotsman.com| contact
*****************************************************************
51 Dr. Helen Caldicott: VIDEO: The Dangers of a Nuclear War
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:49:45 -0500 (CDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST
July 28, 2006
The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
www.globalresearch.ca
Perdana Global Peace Forum
VIDEO: The Dangers of a Nuclear War
Authoritative analysis of the devastating impacts of a nuclear attack on
Iran
by
Dr. Helen Caldicott
To view Helen Caldicott's presentation:
VIDEO WEBCAST
The Dangers of a Nuclear War
http://202.157.177.234/helencaldicott.wmv
) Copyright Helen Caldicott, Perdana Global Peace Forum, 2006
The url address of this article is:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CAL20060728&article
Id=2843
============
*****************************************************************
52 Nuclear terror: science and lies
Greg Adamson
On August 6, 1945, an atomic bomb was dropped on the historic
Japanese city of Hiroshima. While this was a military triumph
for the United States, for scientists, including Albert
Einstein, it was a tragedy.
A new weapon of immense power had been unleashed on the world,
aided by scientists under the misconception that Nazi Germany
was about to develop a nuclear weapon itself. The weak state of
the Nazi program was partly due to a secret pact by key German
physicists. Scientists working on the US program, however, were
kept uninformed of the actual state of the Nazi program.
In August 1939, in the approach to World War II, Albert Einstein
signed a letter to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt stating
that through recent work in nuclear physics “it may become
possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of
uranium ... This new phenomenon would also lead to the
construction of ... extremely powerful bombs.” The letter stated
that “Germany has actually stopped the sale of uranium from the
Czechoslovakian mines which she has taken over”, and called for
a “watchfulness and, if necessary, quick action on the part of
the [US] Administration”.
It was not the threat of Germany at war, but the threat of the
German regime having uncontested control of the atomic bomb that
caused concern to a number of nuclear physicists, including
several refugees from Nazism. The “Einstein letter” was
organised by one such physicist, Leo Szilard, and presented to
Roosevelt on October 11, 1939. “I really only acted as a
letter-box. They brought me a letter all ready for signature and
I simply signed it”, Einstein later explained to biographer
Antonina Vallentin.
Szilard was afraid of Nazi Germany getting the atomic bomb, but
hadn’t been able to convince the US government that the new
weapon was practical. In Brighter Than a Thousand Suns,
published in 1959, Robert Jungk examines the events surrounding
the US nuclear program. He details the actual state of nuclear
weapons’ development in Germany at that time and shows that
Hitler’s forces were nowhere near developing the atomic bomb.
“Four factors must have combined to frustrate the construction
of a German atom-bomb. In the first place the absence of eminent
physicists driven into exile by Hitler now proved to be a severe
handicap. Secondly, the poor organisation by the National
Socialists of research in the interests of war and its
inadequate recognition by their Government, and thirdly, the
technical difficulties of so complex a project, were further
obstacles. But above all, in the fourth place, the actual
personal attitudes of the German experts in atomic research who
had remained at home counted against success.
“Fortunately they did nothing to facilitate the construction of
such a bomb in the face of misunderstanding by the authorities
and the insufficient technical resources the latter provided. On
the contrary, such physicists were able successfully to divert
the minds of the National Socialist Service Departments from the
idea of so inhuman a weapon.”
Jungk describes how several groups that could have followed up
the possibility of developing nuclear weapons came not to. He
states, “there were at that time [at least 13] prominent German
physicists who had agreed that they must try to avoid working
with Hitler’s war-machine or to make only a pretence of doing
so. The names of German physicists unwilling to supply Hitler
with supplementary armaments were deposited, after the war had
begun, in Sweden — with Professor Westgren — and in Holland —
with Professor Burgers. It was considered that an open ‘strike’
of research workers would be dangerous, as it would leave the
field open for unscrupulous and ambitious persons.”
Einstein later stated that, “If I had known that the Germans
would not succeed in constructing the atom-bomb, I would never
have moved a finger”.
By 1941 reports were getting through to the US government that
Hitler had no advanced bomb project. These reports, which came
from scientists fleeing Europe, were not conveyed to the
physicists working on the US bomb project, who believed right up
to the final defeat of the Nazi regime that Germany might have
been ahead of the US in developing nuclear weapons.
While the scientists were unaware of the weak state of the
German nuclear program, the US government knew the reality,
including through reports of German scientists’ non-cooperation.
The US program was the largest engineering work undertaken to
that time, and a strong Nazi program would have had a similar
requirement. (While Britain and Canada participated in the US
program, they were abruptly excluded at the end of the war.) At
Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the longest factory halls in the country
were constructed. At Hanford, in Washington State, it took
60,000 workers to build one of the largest chemical works in the
country. At Los Alamos, in New Mexico, seven separate divisions
worked on the final product. In total, the bomb took 150,000
people to build.
The German regime was defeated before the first nuclear weapon
was ready for use. Nevertheless, the US bomb project maintained
its frantic activity. The bomb project organiser at the Los
Alamos centre, General Leslie Groves, continually urged, “We
must not lose a single day”.
The only possible target now was Japan, which could not possibly
have been developing nuclear weapons (although supporters of the
US nuclear bombing of Japan occasionally claim that there was a
Japanese nuclear weapons program). The explanation given for the
bomb’s use therefore became the need to reduce US losses in the
final invasion.
The use of nuclear weapons was now advocated on the grounds of
expediency. For scientists such as Einstein this wasn’t valid,
regardless of issues of the war itself. An army at any time can
argue for new weapons to defeat its enemy, but once a
fundamentally new weapon has been achieved, the threat to the
whole of humanity is permanently increased.
The expediency argument could be used today in relation to new
technologies, including biological weapons, robotics and
nanotechnology. The US could argue that to reduce its own
casualties when fighting “terrorist” opponents it should deploy
biological weapons (which it hasn’t argued), or develop
autonomous killing machines for use in battle conditions (which
it has announced plans for within the next decade). Each such
step makes the world a more dangerous place.
Szilard, who had earlier organised the letter to Roosevelt, now
organised another letter from Einstein to the President, warning
of the threat that the nearly completed bombs would pose.
Szilard also organised a petition of scientists working on the
bomb project opposing its use, which gained 67 signatures before
it was banned. Jungk quotes Szilard, explaining the attitude of
the scientists he was speaking for at this time: “During 1943
and part of 1944 our greatest worry was the possibility that
Germany would perfect an atomic-bomb before the invasion of
Europe ... In 1945, when we ceased worrying about what the
Germans might do to us, we began to worry about what the
Government of the United States might do to other countries.”
The US was in a race against time to drop the bomb before the
war ended. From mid-July 1945, the US forces were able to read
coded Japanese military information, including expressions of
the view that Japan was beaten. At the same time, the US Air
Force could bomb just about any target it wanted. Given these
and other descriptions of the state of Japan’s defences and the
attitude of Japan’s rulers, there was no military reason for the
US government to bring into play a devastating new weapon.
The 1945 nuclear attacks on Japan resulted in the deaths of
250,000 people and ongoing damage generations later. The two
cities presented different technical challenges: a flat coastal
area and a rugged terrain. Two different bomb designs were used;
one based on uranium and the other on plutonium. After a list of
possible Japanese cities for nuclear bombing had been drawn up,
these cities were deliberately spared massive conventional
bombing so that the effect of a single atomic blast could be
more accurately assessed.
Einstein gave his view of the development of the first nuclear
weapon in a December 10, 1945 speech titled: “The war is won,
but peace is not”.
“We helped in creating this new weapon in order to prevent the
enemies of mankind from achieving it ahead of us, which, given
the mentality of the Nazis, would have meant inconceivable
destruction and the enslavement of the rest of the world. We
delivered this weapon into the hands of the American and the
British people as trustees of the whole of mankind, as fighters
for peace and liberty. But so far we fail to see any guarantee
of peace, we do not see any guarantee of the freedoms that were
promised to the nations in the Atlantic Charter. The war is won,
but the peace is not ...
“The world was promised freedom from fear, but in fact fear has
increased tremendously since the termination of the war. The
world was promised freedom from want, but large parts of the
world are faced with starvation while others are living in
abundance.”
[Greg Adamson is the author of We All Live on Three Mile Island,
published by Resistance Books. To order, visit .]
From Green Left Weekly, August 2, 2006.
Authorised by K. Miller, 23 Abercrombie St, Chippendale, NSW
*****************************************************************
53 Telegraph: 'There were four beautiful mushroom clouds a week.
Nobody told us they were dangerous'
[telegraph.co.uk]
By Alex Story
(Filed: 30/07/2006)
As a small girl Maria Tokasheva would sit on the doorstep of her
family's home watching enraptured as mysterious mushroom-shaped
clouds filled the sky.
At the time, in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was embroiled in a
fierce arms race, but the endless nuclear bomb tests in the
Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan seemed nothing more to her
than a pretty light show.
"I liked to be there," said Mrs Tokasheva, 49, a mother of one.
"I remember atomic mushrooms. My friends and I, we couldn't
understand how dangerous it was because we had seen this
mushroom and then something like a rainbow. It was amazing for
us."
Only years later, when she and her friends started to feel
exhausted for no apparent reason, did they become concerned.
Then her hair started falling out. Now six of her nine siblings
have died. And they were not alone.
Sixteen years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, hundreds
of thousands of inhabitants from this area south-east of Astana,
Kazakhstan's new capital, are still reeling from the deadly
legacy of being a nuclear test site.
In the post-Second World War battle for global dominance, the
development of a nuclear arsenal became a priority for Joseph
Stalin's regime - and Semipalatinsk was chosen as the test
centre.
The welfare of the inhabitants became immaterial as, between
1949 and 1991, an estimated 500 nuclear weapons were detonated
in the region - 68 in one year alone. Atmospheric nuclear tests
were conducted at a rate of four per week across an area the
size of Sussex.
Melis Meitov, a so-called "Atomic Soldier" who participated in
the experiments, was told nothing about the dangers he faced
when he joined up to do his military service in Kazakhstan. "In
1962, there were four explosions a week that we observed,
through dark glasses, from a distance of two miles," he said.
"An hour after the explosions, we would visit the 'test fields'
dressed in safety uniforms. I was there for 40 days - you can
imagine how much radiation I got."
Scientists tried to ensure the fallout did not affect Kurchatov,
the regional capital, but Mr Meitov remembers that things did
not always go to plan.
"An unplanned explosion went off on August 7, 1962," he said. "A
black cloud was moving towards where all the military services
were based. The waves of the explosion hit Kurchatov. People
were told that a hurricane was coming.
"All the people and soldiers became guinea pigs. We were told it
wasn't dangerous and we believed it. These were Soviet times."
Now Mr Meitov is one of only 10 survivors from a 250-strong
company, none of whom has been able to claim compensation since
the collapse of the USSR.
His pension does little to cover the cost needed to treat his
exposure-related ailments. He says that when he phoned the
authorities for advice he was told to stop complaining, and be
happy just to be alive.
In 1992, the Kazakhstan government recognised that 1.6 million
people were affected by radiation. In a report by the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the government identified
67,000 people living in the 19 villages closest to the site as
having been seriously affected. Only 27,000 have survived.
Nor is it just the people who were directly exposed who are
suffering - a new generation of Kazakhs is feeling the effect of
genetic mutation and mental illness blamed on the nuclear
testing.
Kaisha Atakhanova, a biologist in the Kazakh town of Karaganda
who is researching the human toll of the tests, has identified
levels of mental retardation and birth defects up to seven times
higher than average in a normal population.
In an orphanage in the city of Semey, 100 miles west of
Kurchatov, children abandoned by traumatised parents have
developed elephantine features including grotesquely enlarged
heads.
Others emerged from the womb paralysed from the waist down, or
without joints in their knees or elbows.
The problem is compounded as farmers bring their livestock to
graze on the lush grassland, which is rich in radioactive
material. The meat later finds its way on to the menus of the
region's restaurants.
With tears in her eyes, Maria Tokasheva shakes her head. "The
only thing that gives me the will to survive is my child," she
said referring to her one-year-old son. "I will myself not to
give up, nor to commit suicide, just fight for life."
" Alex Story's filmed report will be screened on Channel4 at 8pm
on Tuesday.
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006. | Terms &
*****************************************************************
54 Knox News: Gel being tested as bone replacement
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
July 29, 2006
OAK RIDGE - An Oak Ridge research team is studying a naturally
created hydrogel that's mineralized to mimic bone growth in the
human body, and scientists say it has great potential for bone
grafts or to stimulate post-surgery healing around artificial
joints.
"It looks very promising that this little material will be
eventually used for bone replacement," said Barbara Evans, a
biochemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The lab studies involve "calcium-deficient hydroxyapatite"
deposited in a gel-like material that's extruded from bacteria
known as gluconacetobacter hansenii. The bacteria are associated
with rotting fruit and have been used traditionally in northern
Europe for making vinegar and in the Pacific basin for making a
desert called nata-de-coco.
Stacy Hutchens, a graduate student at the University of
Tennessee, has been working on the project at ORNL for the past
couple of years. She's using the research for her doctoral thesis
in biomedical engineering under the guidance of professor Roberto
Benson.
"The properties give all the evidence that it should be good as a
bone graft. The next step is to actually prove it does regenerate
bone," Hutchens said. The stage is set for animal studies to
demonstrate that capability, she said.
Hugh O'Neill, another research staff member in ORNL's Chemical
Sciences Division, said lab scientists initially were testing
composite materials with palladium and platinum for possible use
in fuel cells.
"This was like a sideline," he said of the research involving
bone regeneration.
O'Neill gives much of the credit to Hutchens, whom he called an
exceptional student. "She's really taken this and run with it.
She's invested a lot in the project."
The research effort is at an early stage and hasn't been
licensed commercially, but O'Neill said there already have been
inquiries from companies interested in the potential orthopedic
applications.
The work is being supported by money from a special ORNL fund
for start-up projects and by a grant from the National Science
Foundation.
Initial research results were published in the May issue of
Biomaterials, a scientific journal.
"For the past two years, I've been doing a lot of material
characterization, putting it under different instruments (such
as X-ray diffractometers and scanning electron microscopes) and
just seeing what's going on," Hutchens said.
During some early tests, when the cellulose material was put
into calcium and phosphate solutions, it formed a "very
homogenous, very white" deposit, she said. "And we thought,
'Something is going on.' "
After those experiments, Hutchens said she figured there might
be applications to bone. "It is the same mineral found in bone,"
she said of the calcium-deficient hydroxyapatite.
O'Neill said upcoming animal studies, using rabbits, would be
conducted at UT.
"We need to determine how effective this material is and how
well it will repair an injury," he said.
According to the scientific paper produced by the ORNL team, the
purified bacterial cellulose is "biocompatible" - as evidenced
by a skin substitute that's already on the market using the same
stuff.
The calcium-deficient hydroxyapatite is "ideal material for bone
grafts because it promotes bone colonization when implanted in
osseous defects and degrades over time to be replaced by new
bone," the researchers said in the Biomaterials article. Because
implants using this composite material are expected to "rapidly
incorporate" into the bone, the need for a second surgery might
be eliminated, they said.
Hutchens said the bacteria that produce the gel are kept in a
yellowish "nutritional solution," which they use for food.
"The bacteria are very small and as they swim through the media,
they spin very small fibers of polymer, which is called
cellulose," she said. "Almost like spiders, they spin these
fibers into a crisscross mesh, and as it gets thicker and
thicker, it forms the layer of gel at the top."
When the gel grows to the thickness desired, lab researchers
"harvest" the gel by lifting it from the nutritional solution,
Hutchens said. The gel is then heated to kill the bacteria and
then cleaned to remove the nutritional solution, she said.
"After it is clean, we perform the modification where we deposit
the bone mineral into the cellulose gel," she said.
Stacy Hutchens, a graduate student in biomedical engineering at
the University of Tennessee, "harvests" some of the gel that's
being tested in bone-regeneration experiments at Oak Ridge
National Laboratory. The gel is naturally extruded from bacteria
and then modified with minerals. Hutchens is part of an Oak
Ridge research team developing the material for possible use in
bone grafts.
Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
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55 Knox News: ORNL workers help Libya shed nuclear material
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
July 29, 2006
OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping de-nuke
Libya.
Larry Satkowiak, director of ORNL's Nuclear Nonproliferation
Programs, confirmed Friday that lab employees participated this
week in an operation that removed 6.6 pounds of highly enriched
uranium from a research reactor in Libya and transported it to a
secure location in Russia.
He also said Oak Ridge workers assisted in a previously
unannounced project in 2004 that relocated 37.4 pounds of
weapons-usable uranium from Libya to Russia.
Meanwhile, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, ORNL has
signed a "sister laboratory" agreement with the Tajoura Research
Center in Libya, Satkowiak said.
"This will ensure an ongoing relationship with this facility and
other nuclear research facilities within Libya," he said.
"Continued contact is the best way to normalize relationships."
In 2003, under terms negotiated by the Bush administration, Libya
agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and all activities
pertaining to weapons of mass destruction.
Since then, the United States has taken steps to improve
relations with the African country, and Libya has cooperated in
shedding weapons-making materials and equipment. The deal with
Libya is considered one of the Bush administration's diplomatic
successes.
In early 2004, stocks of uranium and uranium-enrichment equipment
were airlifted out of Libya and transported to the Y-12 National
Security Complex in Oak Ridge. President Bush visited Oak Ridge
later that summer to inspect Libya's nuclear goods and to deliver
a policy speech on counter-terrorism efforts.
"The (Libyan) equipment is still being stored in Oak Ridge and is
awaiting disposition," Steven Wyatt, a federal spokesman at Y-12,
said Friday.
The latest mission, announced earlier this week in Washington,
removed weapons-grade uranium that Libya acquired years ago from
Russia for use as fuel in a research reactor.
Satkowiak said ORNL personnel were involved in assessing the
nuclear material, ensuring that it was actually highly enriched
uranium and that the listed amount was accurate. They also
monitored the packaging of the uranium, working with
representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency to
apply "tamper-indicating devices" as a security measure, he said.
The Oak Ridge employees watched the loading of the uranium into
containers and monitored the packages as they were placed on a
transport plane bound for Russia, Satkowiak said.
The nuclear reactor at Libya's Tajoura Research Center is being
reconfigured to operate on low-enriched uranium, which cannot be
used to make nuclear bombs. The National Nuclear Security
Administration is heading the project as part of its Global
Threat Reduction Initiative.
In a prepared statement, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said
this week's transfer of enriched uranium was "a clear indication
of Libya's continued commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass
destruction and proliferation-sensitive materials."
According to statistics released by the NNSA, about 400 pounds of
high-risk nuclear materials have been recovered in recent years
from vulnerable sites in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya,
Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic.
Senior Writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
Copyright 2006, Knoxville News Sentinel
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56 Tennessean: Lab helps move uranium from Libya to Russia -
Nashville, Tennessee - Sunday, 07/30/06 - Tennessean.com
OAK RIDGE — Workers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory helped
remove 6.6 pounds of highly enriched uranium from a research
reactor in Libya and transport it to a secure location in Russia,
a lab official said.
Larry Satkowiak, director of the lab's Nuclear Nonproliferation
Programs, said Friday that earlier in the week lab employees
monitored the uranium as it was packaged and loaded on a plane
bound for Russia, Satkowiak said.
In 2003, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed to abandon the
nation's nuclear weapons program.
Stocks of uranium and uranium-enrichment equipment were
airlifted out of Libya in 2004 and taken to the Y-12 National
Security Complex in Oak Ridge, where it continues to be stored,
according to Y-12 spokesman Steve Wyatt.
The latest mission, announced last week in Washington, removed
weapons-grade uranium that Libya acquired years ago from Russia
for use as fuel in a research reactor.
In a prepared statement, National Nuclear Security
Administration Administrator Linton Brooks said the transfer of
enriched uranium was "a clear indication of Libya's continued
commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and
proliferation-sensitive materials." "
Copyright © 2006, tennessean.com. All rights reserved.
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57 AFP: In Australia, a U-turn on uranium
Sunday July 30, 05:03 AM
By Ed Johnson
[An open cut escarpment at the Ranger Uranium Mine 250
kilometres east of Darwin]
SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's multi-billion dollar uranium industry
is gearing up for expansion amid signs the Labor Party could
drop its 22-year-old ban on new mines.
The dusty red outback contains the world's largest known
reserves of yellowcake.
But since 1984, the left of centre party, which opposes nuclear
power, has restricted the number of mines to just three.
Although Labor is not in federal government, it controls all the
state authorities across Australia which are responsible for
granting mining and exploration licenses.
Mining interests complain the policy has put a stranglehold on
the industry and allowed Canada to outpace Australia in supply,
despite having substantially smaller reserves.
Amid surging global demand for nuclear fuel and a government
review of the nuclear industry, opposition leader Kim Beazley
last week called on his Labor Party to drop the policy.
"I believe the real issue is what we do with the uranium we
mine, not how many places we mine it," said Beazley, adding he
would introduce the strongest export safeguards in the world if
he won office.
The issue will dominate Labor's annual convention in April, and
has already split the party with several key figures vowing to
oppose the ban being lifted.
But Beazley's call for a U-turn last Monday sent ripples through
the share market and caused a wave of optimism in the uranium
industry.
Paladin Resources, which is sitting on 20,000 tonnes of uranium
at Manyingee and Oobagooma in Western Australia, jumped 5.5
percent to 4.21 Australian dollars (US 3.20 dollars) on the day.
Shares in Toro Energy, which holds an exploration license in
South Australia, shot up 14 percent to 86 cents.
Uranium Exploration Australia, which has more than a dozen
exploration licenses across three states, raced up 12.5 per cent
to 31.5 cents.
Fat Prophets senior resources analyst Gavin Wendt said the share
movement was speculative and noted the premiers of Queensland
and Western Australia opposed the ban being lifted.
"There is still a lot of uncertainty," he told AFP.
But industry players saw Beazley's announcement as a major step
forward that would lend further confidence to the sector and see
a fresh injection of capital to fund exploration.
"I believe it is a significant turning point," Stephen Biggins,
managing director of explorer Southern Gold, told AFP.
The industry is ripe for expansion.
Australia has 39 percent of the world's known reserves of
uranium that can be recovered for less then 40 US dollars a
kilogram. Canada has 17 percent, followed by Kazakhstan with 16
percent.
Global demand for uranium is surging as countries turn
increasingly to nuclear power.
China alone has announced plans to build 28 new nuclear reactors
and this year signed a deal to import 20,000 tonnes of uranium
from Australia a year from 2010 -- double Australia's current
exports of the nuclear fuel.
Demand has seen the spot price for uranium ore rise from around
10 US dollars a pound in 2003 to more than 45 US dollars.
But Labor's policy of restricting the number of mines has meant
vast deposits of yellowcake remain untapped and demand is
outstripping supply.
There are only three uranium mining operations in Australia: the
giant Olympic Dam mine controlled by BHP Billiton in South
Australia; the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory run by
Energy Resources of Australia and General Atomics' Beverley mine
in South Australia.
They produced a combined total of 10,592 tonnes of U3O8 in 2004,
approximately 22 percent of global production, according to
GeoScience Australia. In the same year, Canada accounted for 29
percent of production.
A change in Labor's policy would help unlock massive deposits.
According to the Uranium Information Centre, there are some 25
major deposits and prospective mines across the country, many of
which face opposition from either Labor state governments,
traditional Aboriginal land owners, or both.
In Western Australia, for example, where state Premier Alan
Carpenter opposes a policy change, Rio Tinto is sitting on
36,000 tonnes of uranium in Kintyre, while BHP Billiton owns the
52,500 tonne Yeelirrie deposit.
Neill Arthur, executive chairman of Uranium Exploration
Australia, said it was difficult to predict whether the party
would back Beazley.
"I think it is a significant change of intent," he told AFP.
"But he has to take the rest of the caucus with him."
AFP
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58 Daytona Beach News-Journal: Los Alamos memo
MONDAY, JULY 31, 2006
Retired Army Maj. Doug Rokke bases his statements on the
Department of Defense and depleted uranium in part on a memo, on
letterhead from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos,
N.M., dated March 1, 1991. It is from Lt. Col. M.Y. Ziehmn to
the Studies & Analysis Branch, Attn: Maj. Larson. The subject:
"The Effectiveness of Depleted Uranium Penetrators. He provided
a copy of the memo to The News-Journal. Here are excerpts:·
"There has been and continues to be a concern regarding the
impact of (depleted uranium) on the environment. Therefore, if
no one makes a case for the effectiveness of du on the
battlefield, du rounds may become politically unacceptable and
thus, be deleted from the arsenal."
· "If du penetrators proved their worth during our recent combat
activities, then we should assure their future existence (until
something better is developed)."
· "If propensity is not garnered, it is possible that we stand
to lose a valuable combat capability. . . . keep this sensitive
issue at mind when after action reports are written."
news-journalonline.com (SM)
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59 Knox News: EnergySolutions lays off 80 in Oak Ridge
Most of the job cuts are from facilities on Bear Creek Road
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
July 29, 2006
OAK RIDGE - EnergySolutions is eliminating about 80 jobs in Oak
Ridge, where the broad-based nuclear firm has a number of
business holdings.
EnergySolutions was formed earlier this year, merging the assets
of Envirocare, BNG America (formerly BNFL Inc.) and Duratek. The
company is paring jobs as part of a reorganization that's
designed to eliminate duplicate positions and consolidate job
functions.
"We had to let some good people go," Steve Creamer,
EnergySolution's president and CEO, said Friday in a telephone
interview from Utah, where the company is headquartered. "It's
unfortunate, but when you bring companies together that's one bad
thing that does happen. Hopefully, we'll build it back sooner or
later."
Companywide, EnergySolutions is reducing its work force by 170
out of a total of 2,000, Creamer said.
In Oak Ridge, where the company employs about 500 people, most
of the cuts are coming from the waste-processing facilities on
Bear Creek Road, formerly part of the Duratek operations.
After the companies merged, some of the business activities
competed with others. For instance, the Bear Creek facility in
Oak Ridge incinerated and compacted wastes to reduce the
customers' costs of disposing of waste at a landfill in Clive,
Utah, that also is part of EnergySolutions.
It turned out to be cheaper to simply dispose of some wastes,
rather than process them in Oak Ridge and then ship them to
Utah, Creamer said. "The customers actually came out better," he
said.
The EnergySolutions executive said the company was actively
recruiting additional missions for the Oak Ridge operations,
including some waste-treatment tasks that will require approval
of new permits. Those missions will take time to develop, he
said.
In a statement released to the news media, the company said it
was offering two "generous" severance options to employees. One
of those would be in a lump-sum cash payment, based on length of
service and other factors, while the second option would provide
continuing salary and benefits to employees as they seek new
employment and use outplacement services.
In addition to the waste-processing facilities on Bear Creek
Road, other Oak Ridge operations include a nuclear container and
equipment business on Gallaher Road. Energy Solutions also owns
Manufacturing Sciences Corp., where depleted uranium and other
metals are processed.
Creamer called Manufacturing Sciences "one of the best nuclear
materials science companies in the world," and he said it was on
the verge of landing a contract to produce shipping containers
for radioisotopes used in medicine.
EnergySolutions also operates an Oak Ridge nuclear landfill for
the U.S. Department of Energy under a contract previously
assigned to Duratek Federal Services, and the company is part of
a consortium that holds a DOE contract for processing a
stockpile of uranium-233 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
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60 Knox News: Regulators question power boost at Browns Ferry
TVA plans to increase output at nuclear plant, but leaks are an
issue
By Associated Press
July 29, 2006
CHATTANOOGA - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission questioned
whether steam dryers at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Alabama
can handle a planned increase in the Tennessee Valley Authority
plant's power output.
In a letter to TVA Nuclear Chief Karl Singer, the deputy director
of NRC's reactor licensing office asked the utility to
demonstrate that the steam dryers at Browns Ferry can adequately
handle the proposed 20 percent increase in the plant's power
output.
TVA is spending $1.8 billion to restart and boost the power
output at Browns Ferry Unit 1, TVA's oldest nuclear reactor.
Similar power increases at other GE boiling water reactors have
resulted in steam dryer leaks that appear to have damaged other
equipment in the reactor containment building, according to NRC
and industry officials.
The steam dryers process steam coming out of a reactor core to
remove small water droplets before the steam enters the turbine.
In 2002 when the Quad Cities Nuclear Power Station in Moline,
Ill., boosted its power by 20 percent, vibrations and cracks
developed in the steam dryers and twice resulted in leaks and
equipment damage before the dryers were replaced last year.
"The NRC staff concludes that the submittals (by TVA engineers
about the steam dryers) do not provide an adequate technical
basis to enable the NRC staff to find the applications
acceptable," the NRC's Cornelius F. Holden wrote in the recent
letter.
TVA spokesman John Moulton told the Chattanooga Times Free Press
that the NRC questions were part of the regulatory review of
power plant changes.
"We intend to supply the NRC the information they requested and
we'll certainly make whatever adjustments to the steam dryers
that are required to make sure they operate safely and
effectively," he said.
TVA voluntarily shut down the reactor in 1985. The utility is
scheduled to restart the unit by next May, pending regulatory
approval.
"Other boiling water reactors like Browns Ferry that tried power
uprate ran into serious troubles," said David Lochbaum, director
of the nuclear safety project for the Union of Concerned
Scientists. "Until we know for sure what happened at Quad
Cities, its difficult to determine whether these power uprates
jeopardize the steam dryers or not."
The Union of Concerned Scientists asked the NRC not to approve a
power upgrade at the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Plant until the
steam dryer problems were identified and corrected. But the NRC
approved the upgrade earlier this year.
Lochbaum said the Vermont plant installed extra monitors and
sensors to detect any problems in the steam dryers and he
expects TVA will do the same at Browns Ferry.
Copyright 2006, Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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