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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 [NYTr] Iran Reiterates Sovereign Right to Develop Nuclear Energy
2 Guardian Unlimited: Ahmadinejad: We Won't Forgo Nuke Rights
3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran-EU Nuclear Talks Resume in Germany
4 Reuters: ANALYSIS - Iran seen seeking atomic deal amid U.N. division
5 Guardian Unlimited: House Approves Iran Freedom Support Act
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran, EU Fail to Reach a Deal in Berlin
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: West abuses int'l conventions
8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran included in ISF's White List
9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Larijani, Solana meet in Berlin
10 AFP: Ahmadinejad vows Iran 'will not bend' on nuclear
11 AFP: Iran negotiator sees 'positive conclusions' in nuclear talks -
12 AFP: Iran-EU nuclear talks 'positive' but no accord -
13 AFP: Time running out for EU-Iran talks - US
14 AFP: House approve Iran sanctions bill
15 UPI: U.S. eases demand for Iran sanctions
16 UPI: EU-Iran nuclear talks to resume next week
17 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Head Unwavering on Nuclear Position
18 Guardian Unlimited: S. Korea 'Frustrated' Over Nuclear Talks
19 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Receives Nuclear Talk Proposal
20 Korea Herald: Korea resolute over six-party format
21 AFP: US warns against North Korea nuclear test
22 UPI: Analysis: Roh hopeful about N.Korea nuke
23 UPI: N. Korea to replace U.N. envoy
24 Radio Interview: Bush's Nuclear Armageddon
25 UPI: Report: Rice to tour Middle East
26 IPS: NUCLEAR STATES IN VIOLATION OF NUKE TREATY
27 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Activates Missile Radar in Japan
NUCLEAR REACTORS
28 US: gainesvilletimes.com: Power plants not as safe as we are led to
29 US: HindustanTimes.com: Early Senate passage of nuke deal doubtful -
30 Manchester Evening News: Nuclear power a must
31 Interfax: Russian nuclear shield to remain reliable - Kiriyenko
32 RIA Novosti: Nuclear agency, SUAL may agree on NPP, aluminum plant O
33 Platts: Olkiluoto-3 delays depress Areva's first-half income
34 US: Concord Monitor: We're guarding against financial fallout
35 US: South Bend Tribune: Refueling outage for Cook
36 US: Platts: TXU to file with NRC for licenses to build up to 6,000 M
37 US: The Local: Nuclear reactors to restart on Friday
38 IHT: Sweden to restart nuclear reactors after malfunction -
39 US: The Advocate: State orders Millstone to reinstate whistleblower
40 Russia-InfoCentre: Saint Petersburg Hosts International Nuclear Foru
41 Prague Daily Monitor: Temelin staff find leaks in fuel assemblies of
42 Indo-Asian News Service: India nuclear deal caught up in political t
43 ITAR-TASS: N-plant with 4 VVER-1000 reactors to be built in southern
44 ITAR-TASS: Rosatom to build new safer reactors at all n-plants – Kir
45 US: Newsday.com: Exelon study shows no new tritium leaks at nuclear
46 Daily Record: SEAWEED CAUSES NUKE SHUTDOWN
47 US: UPI: Future U.S. nuclear plant studies to begin
48 Whitehaven News: MP’s anger over British Nuclear Group sell-off
NUCLEAR SECURITY
49 Daily Yomiuri: 4 rearrested over illegal exports
NUCLEAR SAFETY
50 US: FLORIDA TODAY: Nuclear fuel for Mars rover raises little concern
51 Xinhua: Radioactive materials found in sea waters near Tokyo
52 Japan Times: Trace radiation seen near nuke sub
53 US: PRN: Final Tritium Assessment Results Confirm Preliminary Findin
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
54 NRC: NRC Receives Operating License Application for Proposed Mixed-O
55 Nevada Appeal: A fair-payment plan for Yucca Mountain
56 US: San Luis Obispo Tribune: New bill would speed Diablo waste away
57 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judges throw out Nevada challenge to Yucca Mo
58 US: Interfax: Russia eyes at least 25% of U.S. uranium market
59 Reuters: Areva to supply MOX fuel to Japanese group Kyushu
60 US: RIA Novosti: Russia's estimated uranium stock amounts to 615,000
61 US: RIA Novosti: Russia for equal terms on world uranium market - nu
62 US: Platts: New Domenici waste bill could start spent-fuel storage i
63 reviewjournal.com: Measure hastens waste to Yucca
64 reviewjournal.com: Judges dismiss Yucca suit, but state is happy
65 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes: U.S. will oversee tribal election
66 US: DOI: PFS right of way applications
67 NRC: USEC, Inc. (American Centrifuge Plant); Notice of Reconstitutio
68 US: ITAR-TASS: Russia has significant uranium reserves - Kiriyenko
69 US: Bradford Publishing: State to sue Feds over West Valley cleanup
70 www.bbj.hu:: Hungary's nuclear plant to disconnect block to remove f
71 US: Bellona: Kirienko: Russia has 615,000 tons of uranium
72 Whitehaven News: Plutonium pile tested
PEACE
73 [NYTr] UK: Woman Pensioner Arrested in CND Demo
74 Japan Times: Japan could go nuke under Abe, expert reckons
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
75 Fw: Remembering Rocky Flats resistance, Oct. 28
76 DOE: DOE Makes Available $8 Million for Pre-Conceptual Design of
77 Hanford News: Bill would speed up Nevada storage of nuclear waste
78 Inside Bay Area: Berkeley lab grabs award to fund radiation treatmen
79 Knox News ORNL earns $25 million in security grant funding
80 lamonitor.com: Reactions to LANS' projected belt-tightening roll in
81 lamonitor.com: Cleanup faces budget straits
82 Knox News: Ceremony marks project milestone
83 Knox News: Munger: ORNL campus looks good, but everybody isn’t smili
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1 [NYTr] Iran Reiterates Sovereign Right to Develop Nuclear Energy
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:26:37 -0500 (CDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
Radio Havana Cuba
http://www.radiohc.cu
Iran Reiterates Sovereign Right to Develop Nuclear Energy
Tehran, September 28 (RHC)-- Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has
reiterated that his country will not back down on the development of a
nuclear energy program, nor will Tehran be pressured to relinquish its
sovereign rights.
Speaking with reporters in Tehran, the Iranian president said that Western
countries are making a mistake when they demand that Iran postpone the
process of uranium enrichment as a prerequisite to renewing talks -- adding
that "no one has the authority to take away Iran's rights."
The Iranian president said that much of the world will not accept a
monopoly of atomic energy -- with a few having nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes while others have huge stockpiles of weapons.
The Iranian news agency IRNA reported that Parliament President Gholamali
Haddad Adel said he hopes that Europe will have more sense than follow in
Washington's footsteps. Speaking with journalists at a news conference in
Tehran, the Iranian parliamentary leader said that the international
community did not welcome threatening language used against his country and
that Iran would resist any pressure brought against it by Washington.
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2 Guardian Unlimited: Ahmadinejad: We Won't Forgo Nuke Rights
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 12:31 AM
AP Photo MFRA109
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's hard-line president said Wednesday
Iran won't give up ``one iota'' of its right to pursue a
peaceful nuclear program.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated his uncompromising stance as
Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani held talks with
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Berlin,
described by an EU official as ``very intense.''
``In negotiations, they tell us to suspend (uranium) enrichment
even for a day on the pretext of a technical problem so that
they continue talks,'' state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad
as saying Wednesday. ``Our response to them is that no one has
the right to give up the rights of the Iranian nation.''
Ahmadinejad said the U.S. and its European allies want to force
Iran to suspend uranium enrichment but won't succeed.
``They want to create propaganda about it and tell the world
that they forced Iran to suspend (enrichment), but they are
mistaken. The Iranian nation won't retreat from its right one
iota,'' he was quoted as saying.
Solana and Larijani are holding talks over a package of
incentives that six countries - the United States, China,
Russia, France, Britain and Germany - are offering Tehran in
return for suspending its uranium enrichment program and
returning to full-scale negotiations.
Their meetings are scheduled to continue Thursday.
Iran violated the United Nations demand to halt uranium
enrichment by Aug. 31. Enrichment can produce either fuel for a
reactor or material for a warhead. The United States and several
of its allies believe Iran is seeking to develop nuclear
weapons. Tehran maintains its program is peaceful and merely
aimed at generating electricity.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: Iran-EU Nuclear Talks Resume in Germany
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 11:16 AM
AP Photo MFRA110
BERLIN (AP) - Negotiators for Iran and the European Union
arrived Thursday at a German Foreign Ministry facility to
continue talks over a solution to Iran's disputed nuclear
program.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and chief Iranian nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani broke off talks at the facility on the
outskirts of Berlin late Wednesday after five hours of
discussions.
The United States has said it fully supports the talks over the
package of incentives offered by six countries in exchange for
Tehran suspending its uranium enrichment program.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
4 Reuters: ANALYSIS - Iran seen seeking atomic deal amid U.N. divisions
Thursday September 28, 11:10 PM
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran may be ready to suspend sensitive
atomic work for a limited period because what it sees as its
strong hand now, including divisions at the United Nations, may
not last if it holds out much longer, analysts say.
Suspending uranium enrichment, which the West says Iran is using
to build bombs, may not be a palatable choice but it could
trigger trade and security incentives, and stave off sanctions.
But analysts say a deal hinges on whether Tehran can ensure any
halt to enrichment is not seen as a precondition for talks,
which Iran opposes but the West demands, and whether it can set
a time limit for any stoppage so the West offers rewards
quickly.
Two days of talks between Iran and the EU ended in Berlin on
Thursday. Both sides said progress was made but gave no details.
Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political science professor at Tehran
University, said Iran would not back an open-ended halt because
"then the West would not be in any hurry to finalise a deal".
For the time being, U.S. calls for a swift move towards
sanctions after Iran missed a U.N. deadline on Aug. 31 to halt
enrichment have met resistance from some European states and
opposition from Russia and China.
"They (Iranians) want to finalise the deal as quickly as
possible. They are suspicious of the U.S. intentions and they
think the Europeans are going to follow suit under pressure from
the Americans," he said.
Like other analysts, he said Tehran would probably accept some
form of limited suspension. The Washington Times said this week
a deal was imminent but Iran, which insists its atomic plans are
civilian, dismissed that report.
Any halt to enrichment may be uncomfortable for President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has sought to boost public support with
speeches vowing no nuclear compromise.
RALLYING CRY
The atomic row has proved a useful rallying cry, since his
election pledge to spread oil wealth more fairly has yet to make
Iranians feel better off and his policies have stoked inflation.
"(His) government will somehow have to divert attention from the
nuclear issue and try to produce more (economic) results
internally," said an Iranian analyst, who asked not to be named.
The president is only one voice in Iran's decision-making and
not the most powerful. The final say in all matters of state
lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose main
representative on the Supreme National Security Council, Ali
Larijani, has led the nuclear talks with the European Union.
If Iran agrees to suspend enriching uranium, Ahmadinejad "will
be a little weaker than now, publicly and inside the system,
because he supported a hardline opinion", said Saeed Laylaz, an
analyst who held a government post in the previous reformist
administration.
Beleaguered reformists, who were trounced by Ahmadinejad in last
year's presidential elections, may seek to capitalise on any
shift by Ahmadinejad. "They are still not in a position to sweep
away the conservatives from power, but it will definitely help
them," said the Iranian analyst.
SECURITY GUARANTEES
Reformists were roundly criticised because they were in power
when a previous deal to suspend enrichment was agreed with the
European Union. That deal broke down last year.
The new package, offered in June, outlines a range of trade,
technology and security incentives if Iran suspends enrichment.
Iran's reply hinted at flexibility over suspension but at
continued suspicion of its arch-foe the United States.
Washington, which cut ties with Iran after the 1979 revolution,
says it would join multilateral talks if Tehran first suspends
enrichment.
Iran would view such talks as implicit U.S. recognition that the
Islamic Republic should be engaged. The talks might also allay
Tehran's fears that Washington wants "regime change".
"This is something of strategic significance for Iran," said
political analyst Mahmoud Alinejad.
The package, which proposes a role for Iran in a regional
security forum, falls short of the security guarantees Iran
wants. "But I think there is a prospect they can get them
through negotiations," Alinejad said.
Analysts say Iran has been emboldened to seek concessions by
several factors including high oil revenues that would cushion
any sanctions, U.S. military troubles in Iraq, and what Iran
calls the victory of Lebanon's Hizbollah in its war with Israel.
But sanctions would still hurt Iran and any threat to use
Hizbollah as a proxy if the nuclear row escalates may have lost
some of its menace.
"They've played that card. They can play it again, but now
everyone knows what's in its hand," said one Western diplomat.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
5 Guardian Unlimited: House Approves Iran Freedom Support Act
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday September 29, 2006 12:31 AM
AP Photo VAH104
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House voted Thursday to impose mandatory
sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran's
weapons programs. The vote came as U.S diplomats continued to
press the U.N. Security Council to penalize Tehran if it fails
to end its uranium enrichment program.
House sponsors of the Iran Freedom Support Act said they had
hoped for Senate action as early as Thursday night, sending it
to President Bush for his signature. But they said there was
resistance from Senate Democrats to passing it without a debate.
The bill, passed by a voice vote, sanctions any entity that
contributes to Iran's ability to acquire chemical, biological or
nuclear weapons. The president has the authority to waive those
sanctions, but only when he can show that it is in the vital
national interest.
``It would be a critical mistake to allow a regime with a track
record as bloody and as dangerous as Iran to obtain nuclear
weapons,'' said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., sponsor of the
measure. ``Enough with the carrots. It's time for the stick.''
But critics questioned the need for unilateral action when the
United States was pushing for a multinational approach to Iran's
alleged nuclear program. ``It is, if you will, a cruise missile
aimed at a difficult diplomatic effort just as they are reaching
their most sensitive point,'' said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.
``The timing for this legislation could not be worse.''
The measure codifies existing economic sanctions against the
Tehran government that have been in effect since the takeover of
the U.S. embassy in 1979 and states that the president must
notify Congress 15 days before terminating any of those
sanctions.
It also approves assistance for human rights, pro-democracy and
independent organizations and states that it is the sense of
Congress that the United States should not enter into agreements
with governments that are assisting Iran's nuclear program or
transferring weapons or missiles to Iran.
``If we fail to use the economic and diplomatic tools available
to us, the world will face a nightmare that knows no end,'' said
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.
But others warned that language in the bill supporting
democratic change in Iran would only antagonize people in Iran
who might see parallels to U.S. regime change objectives in
neighboring Iraq. It's time, said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio,
``to give assurance to Iran that we are not going to attack
them.''
The House passed a similar Iran sanctions bill last April, but
that measure met opposition from the administration, which said
it reduced the flexibility it needed to reach a diplomatic
solution to Iran's uranium enrichment program and the threat
that it was developing nuclear weapons. That proposal was
defeated in the Senate.
The revised version takes out one section that would have cut
off aid to countries, such as Russia, investing in projects in
Iran that could be linked to weapons proliferation. The
legislation also in effect alters the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act
of 10 years ago by taking away restrictions on Libya, which is
now cooperating with the West in eliminating weapons of mass
destruction.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday again rejected
demands that Tehran suspend its uranium enrichment activities,
repeating that Iran would continue pursuing nuclear energy for
peaceful purposes.
^---
The bill is H.R. 6198
On the Net:
Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov/
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
6 Guardian Unlimited: Iran, EU Fail to Reach a Deal in Berlin
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 1:01 PM
AP Photo MFRA105
By STEPHEN GRAHAM
Associated Press Writer
BERLIN (AP) - Iran and the European Union failed to reach a deal
in their latest round of nuclear talks but came to ``some
positive conclusions,'' Tehran's chief negotiator said Thursday.
Neither Ali Larijani nor EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana
gave any details of what had been achieved, but both spoke
positively of the discussions over Tehran's disputed nuclear
program.
Solana and Larijani are holding the latest round of talks over a
package of incentives that six countries - the United States,
China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany - are offering Tehran
in return for suspending its uranium enrichment program and
returning to full-scale negotiations.
Iran missed an Aug. 31 Security Council deadline over the issue.
The six are considering seeking sanctions in the U.N. Security
Council if Tehran does not comply.
``We have had long, constructive negotiations'' Larijani said.
``We have been able to come to some positive conclusions.''
Soland said, ``We have been progressing.''
``But still, we have some issues, that have been put but have
not been closed,'' Solana said, adding that the two sides ``will
keep in touch.''
Solana said he hoped to have further telephone contact with the
Iranian side later this week, but he gave no specifics. Larijani
indicated they had discussed how future negotiations could
proceed and expressed hope they could ``embark on the main
negotiations as soon as possible.''
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telephoned Solana on
Wednesday and renewed U.S. support for his talks with Iran, she
told reporters in Washington, D.C.
Rice said if Larijani agreed to a suspension of processing
uranium ``we would be on a course for negotiations.''
But, Rice told reporters, she had told Solana ``clearly this
won't go on very much longer.''
Solana is to report back to the six countries trying to persuade
Iran to give up its program to enrich uranium.
Germany has joined with the permanent U.N. Security Council
members in pressing Iran to give up what the U.S. says is a
nuclear weapons program. Iran says its program is peaceful.
Enriched uranium can be used for power plants or for weapons,
depending on the level of enrichment.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
7 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: West abuses int'l conventions
2006/09/28
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday referred to the
insistence of America and west on suspension of enrichment by
IRI, even for a short time, as propaganda.
The President made the remark while speaking at the 4th
conference on Forerunners of Jihad and Martyrdom.
Turning to the fact that enemies are against development and
progress of the Iranian nation, he said that such opposition to
IRI's access to nuclear technology is a pretext for disruption
of IRI's advancement.
He referred to IRI-west nuclear talks over the past two years
and said that the enemies called for suspension of IRI's nuclear
activities from the beginning.
"Once they faced our refusal, they launched psychological
warfare and threatened IRI with a military option. The
resistance of the Iranian nation to their bullying and greed was
followed by their proposal for a three-month and even apparent
suspension to facilitate talks on the issue," said the President.
Ahmadinejad said that they intend to make instrumental use of
the issue and tell the world that they forced IRI into
suspension, adding that they are mistaken, given that the
Iranian nation will not give up its right.
The President referred to the threats of America and west
against IRI as abuse of international tools by them and said
that they actually misuse the world monetary and financial
system as well as international bodies, such as the United
Nations, as bullying tools.
"The world's free nations will no more undergo bullying. If the
world powers continue to misuse international institutions,
these countries will think of establishment of new organizations
which can restore their rights," he added.
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad referred to negotiations as the best way
for solving the country's nuclear issue and said, "IRI's path is
quite clear, the nation's right is inalienable and Iranians will
make optimum use of all capacities."
The President said that the enemies intend to sow discord among
Iranian people and claim that they managed to overcome their
resistance, adding that hopefully such a day will never come.
The fourth conference on Forerunners of Jihad and Martyrdom was
held at Tehran's Vali Asr mosque.
The event was attended by the President, Vice President and Head
of Martyrs Foundation Organization, Expediency Council Chairman,
Police Commander and a number of commanders of armed forces,
Islamic Revolution's Guards Corp and Basij Organization.
M/D
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
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8 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Iran included in ISF's White List
2006/09/27
Managing Director of Iran's Ports and Shipping Organization,
Taheri-Motlagh said on Tuesday that IRI has been included in the
maritime certification white list of the International Shipping
Federation.
"The White List of International Shipping Federation contains
41 countries including Islamic Republic of Iran," said
Taheri-Motlagh in the conference on the international maritime
day.
Referring to Iran's situation in the list, he said," This brings
us a double credibility in the world and increase our ability in
Maritime industry".
Taheri pointed to the membership of 166 countries in the
Organization and said," It is necessary for Iran to be a member
in various conventions of the Organization".
M.H.Z
All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News
Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail:
Info@IRIBNEWS.ir
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9 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: Larijani, Solana meet in Berlin
2006/09/28
Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali
Larijani and EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana met and
conferred in Berlin, German capital, on Wednesday afternoon.
Larijani who arrived in Berlin on Wednesday mornign for talks
with Solana on Iran's nuclear program would also hold a meeting
with the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter
Steinmeier.
The German Foreign Ministry Spokesman Thomas Iegger did not rule
out the possibility of a meeting between Larijani and Steinmeir
in response to a reporter on Wednesday, adding, "The meeting
might take place tomorrow (on Thursday).
Solana and Larijani are holding their talks at the guest house
of the German Foreign Ministry located in the northern outskirts
of Berlin amid tight secrecy.
mk
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center.
E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir
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10 AFP: Ahmadinejad vows Iran 'will not bend' on nuclear
Thu Sep 28, 9:42 AM ET
TEHRAN (AFP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has vowed Iran
Iran"would not bend one inch" over its nuclear programme as key
talks with the European Union European Unionwrapped up in Berlin
with no breakthrough.
"The Iranian nation will not bend one inch against any
(international) force and pressure," he told supporters on
Thursday in a speech in the city of Karaj just outside Tehran
broadcast on state television.
Ahmadinejad said that world powers had been seeking to impose
unjust conditions on Iran's enrichment of uranium, a sensitive
process that the West wants the Islamic republic to suspend.
"Why are they insisting that we stop it (enrichment) even for one
day? Why should we pretend to stop it even for one day?" he asked
a cheering crowd of thousands of people packed into a local
stadium.
He claimed that Western powers had initially demanded that Iran
must suspend uranium enrichment indefinitely but "faced with your
resistance they corrected their position."
"A few months ago they told us 'only a three months (suspension),
then we can have negotiations.' But we told them why three
months? Three months represents a great loss."
Talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that ended
Thursday in Berlin failed to produce an accord but were positive
and constructive, both men said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
11 AFP: Iran negotiator sees 'positive conclusions' in nuclear talks -
Thu Sep 28, 7:30 AM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - Top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani has
said that two days of talks with European Union European
Unionforeign policy chief Javier Solana had produced "some
positive conclusions".
"It has been a long, constructive negotiation," Larijani told
reporters.
"We have been able to arrive at some positive conclusions."
Solana said he will "have a contact" with Larijani next week,
after a second day of talks in Berlin.
"We will have a new contact in the middle of next week," Solana
told reporters after emerging from a German government villa
where the discussions were held. "We have been progressing."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
12 AFP: Iran-EU nuclear talks 'positive' but no accord -
by Fabien Novial Thu Sep 28, 2:18 PM ET
BERLIN (AFP) - Talks between Iran " /> Iran's top nuclear
negotiator Ali Larijani and European Union " /> European
Unionforeign policy chief Javier Solana failed to produce an
accord but were positive and constructive, both men said.
"It has been a long, constructive negotiation," Larijani told
reporters at the end of two days of meetings in the German
capital.
"We have been able to arrive at some positive conclusions.
"Today we have discussed modalities with the aim of coming back
to the main negotiations as soon as possible."
In a businesslike press conference, Solana told reporters: "We
have been progressing. We will have a new contact in the middle
of next week."
Sources close to the talks said the contact could take place
over the phone and did not necessarily mean they would be
meeting face to face.
Meanwhile a defiant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that
Iran would not yield on its nuclear programme.
"The Iranian nation will not bend one inch against any
(international) force and pressure," he told supporters in a
speech in the city of Karaj just outside Tehran broadcast on
state television.
Ahmadinejad said that world powers had been seeking to impose
unjust conditions on Iran's enrichment of uranium, a sensitive
process that the West wants the Islamic republic to suspend.
"Why are they insisting that we stop it (enrichment) even for
one day? Why should we pretend to stop it even for one day?" he
asked a cheering crowd of thousands of people packed into a
stadium.
Ahmadinejad claimed that Western powers had initially demanded
that Iran suspend uranium enrichment indefinitely but told the
crowd that "faced with your resistance they corrected their
position."
"A few months ago they told us 'only a three months
(suspension), then we can have negotiations.' But we told them
why three months? Three months represents a great loss."
Larijani also held talks with German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Thursday, although no details emerged.
The meeting had taken place at the request of Solana, German
foreign ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said.
The Berlin talks were the first time in more than two weeks that
Solana and Larijani had met.
During that time European diplomats have tried to ratchet up the
pressure by warning that time is running out for Iran to agree
to UN Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment
activities and thus avert possible United Nations
" /> United Nationssanctions.
Iran defied the Security Council's August 31 deadline for it to
stop uranium enrichment, which makes fuel for civilian nuclear
power reactors but also, in highly refined form, the raw
material for atomic weapons.
Iran insists its enrichment work is solely for peaceful
purposes.
The negotiations were given a fresh chance after Washington,
under pressure from Europe and China, backed down on its demand
for immediate sanctions against Iran for failing to meet the
August deadline.
The deal offered by the five permanent Security Council members
-- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus
Germany calls on Iran to accept a package of incentives in
exchange for it halting enrichment.
The Washington Times reported Tuesday that the Islamic republic
was close to agreeing a secret deal that would see it suspend
enrichment for 90 days to allow it to hold further talks with
European nations.
However there was confusion over whether Iran is considering
such a step.
European diplomats said Larijani made an offer at his last talks
with Solana on September 9-10 in Vienna, but several Iranian
officials have denied any suspension is on the cards.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
" /> Condoleezza Ricesaid ahead of the latest round of
negotiations she had wished Solana luck, but warned that Iran
could not prolong the process of negotiations indefinitely.
"I just said clearly this will not go on very much longer," Rice
said.
"Obviously, if we can come out of this with an Iranian decision
to suspend its enrichment completely and verifiably, then we
would be on a course for negotiations. That is the course we
would all like to pursue."
According to European diplomats, Western powers have set the
start of October as a final deadline for Iran to give its
definitive response to the Security Council offer.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
13 AFP: Time running out for EU-Iran talks - US
Thu Sep 28, 4:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States warned that time was running
out for European negotiators to convince Iran " /> to suspend its
suspect nuclear activities, after another round of talks ended
inconclusively.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Iran had not
agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment program in the
discussions between its top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and
European Union " /> foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Berlin.
And he reaffirmed that a new deadline for Iranian compliance
that was agreed last week among the permanent five UN Security
Council members and Germany -- the so-called P-5-plus-1 nations
-- was looming and would not be changed.
"The timeline that was agreed in New York stays, and we are
getting short now in terms of that time," he said, referring to
the moment when the six nations would seek UN sanctions against
Tehran.
The deadline has not been officially revealed by the six
nations, which also include Britain, China, France, Russia and
the United States, but European diplomats involved in the
negotiations said it was sometime next week.
"The ball is in their court," McCormack said Thursday of the
Iranians.
"Nobody wants to go down the path of sanctions -- that is not
our first choice," he said.
"But we are prepared, along with the P-5-plus-1, to go down that
path if that's the door that the Iranian regime wants to open,"
he said.
Iran already ignored an August 31 deadline set by the UN
Security Council for it to suspend uranium enrichment and
reprocessing activities that Washington and others believe is a
cover for developing nuclear weapons.
Tehran insists the program is only for producing fuel for
nuclear power stations.
The UN resolution allows for sanctions, but these would have to
be elaborated in another set of UN documents which Washington is
currently working on with its Security Council partners in
parallel with the Solana-Larijani talks, McCormack said.
Solana and Larijani characterised their latest two days of
discussions as positive and constructive, but said the two sides
would not be in touch again next week.
Rice spoke with Solana about the talks on Wednesday night and
was expected to get another briefing from the EU official
Thursday, McCormack said.
The EU-Iran talks focus on a list of economic and diplomatic
incentives put forward by the six powers in June as a reward if
Iran suspends its uranium enrichment.
The incentives include support for an Iranian nuclear power
industry and the first direct contacts between the US and Iran
in nearly 30 years.
McCormack insisted that negotiations involving the United States
could begin only after Iran freezes its enrichment program and
the suspension is verified by monitors from the UN nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency
" /> .
The Solana-Larijani talks are believed to be focussing on the
"sequencing" of a possible decision by Iran to temporarily
suspend enrichment and the subsequent start of full negotiations
on the incentives package.
European diplomats said Larijani has offered a temporary
suspension, but it is unclear if the proposal had the support of
the various factions within the Iranian leadership.
A senior US official recently said there were signs of a "great
debate" in Tehran between those willing to offer concessions in
exchange for improved relations with the West and officials
intent on Iran developing its own nuclear capability.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took the hard line
Thursday when he told supporters in a speech that Iran "will not
bend one inch against any force and pressure" over the nuclear
issue.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
14 AFP: House approve Iran sanctions bill
Thu Sep 28, 3:28 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The House of Representatives approved
legislation to ramp up economic pressure on Iran " /> , in an
effort to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.
Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (, , ), author of
the Iran Freedom Support Act, which was approved by voice vote,
said the bill would deny Iran "the technical assistance,
financial resources, and political legitimacy to develop nuclear
weapons and support terrorism."
Representative Tom Lantos (, , ), the top Democrat on the House
International Affairs Committee, was another leading backer of
the bill.
"If we fail to use the economic and diplomatic tools available
to us, the world will face a nightmare that knows no end: a
despotic, fundamentalist regime wedded both to terrorism and to
the most terrifying weapons known to man," he said.
"In the meantime, we cannot shirk our responsibility to employ
every peaceful means possible to defeat Irans reckless nuclear
military ambitions," said Lantos.
Iran already ignored an August 31 deadline set by the UN
Security Council for it to suspend uranium enrichment and
reprocessing activities that Washington and others believe is a
cover for developing nuclear weapons.
Tehran insists the program is only for producing fuel for
nuclear power stations.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
15 UPI: U.S. eases demand for Iran sanctions
United Press International - NewsTrack -
9/28/2006 12:06:00 PM -0400
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Acting on EU advice, the United
States has postponed its call for immediate U.N. sanctions
against Iraq over nuclear policy.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she spoke with the
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and said he assured her
talks with Tehran were going well, The Washington Times
reported.
Solana met with Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in
Berlin Wednesday, and again Thursday. Rice said Solana told her
Larijani "seems to be sincere" in an effort to end the impasse
over Iran's uranium enrichment program.
Thursday's talks ended inconclusively, and Solana and Larijani
scheduled more discussions next week.
Tehran claims the program is only to produce reactor fuel to
make electricity, but various countries are concerned it will
result in nuclear weapons.
Rice said the administration could wait a few more weeks for
Iran to stop enriching and return to international negotiations,
but "clearly this won't go on very much longer."
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
16 UPI: EU-Iran nuclear talks to resume next week
United Press International - NewsTrack -
9/28/2006 12:25:00 PM -0400
BERLIN, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Talks between Javier Solana, head of
European Union foreign affairs, and Iranian nuclear negotiator
Ali Larijani ended in Berlin Thursday on an optimistic note.
Both men said after the second day of talks on Iran's nuclear
policy that progress had been made, and that more meetings were
likely around the middle of next week, the BBC reported.
"It has been a long, constructive negotiation," Larijani told
reporters, while Solana said there were still some issues to
work out.
The talks began Wednesday at the guesthouse of the German
Foreign Ministry located in the northern outskirts of Berlin,
Iran's IRNA news agency said.
Germany, along with Britain, France and the United States, has
agreed to seek U.N. sanctions against Iran if it refuses to stop
enriching uranium and participate in talks on its nuclear
program's future.
Iran ignored an Aug. 31 deadline, and Solana Wednesday sought
and received assurance from the Bush administration it would
allow more time for diplomacy before approaching the Security
Council for sanctions.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
17 Guardian Unlimited: Iran Head Unwavering on Nuclear Position
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 9:31 PM
AP Photo VAH108
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI
Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's hard-line president on Thursday again
rejected demands that Tehran suspend uranium enrichment, even as
top Iranian and European diplomats sounded somewhat optimistic
about making progress toward starting negotiations.
Iranian and European envoys ended two days of talks in Berlin
with no agreement on the enrichment issue but insisted they had
``come to some positive conclusions'' on ways to open broader
talks on Iran's nuclear program.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stood firm on his
insistence that Iran has a right to pursue its atomic program
and showed no sign of compromise over the U.N. Security
Council's demand that his government suspend enrichment.
The statements from the negotiators and the Iranian president
continue a pattern of past months, in which Ahmadinejad publicly
states a hard-line position of no compromise, often in front of
large crowds, even as Iran's negotiators try to reach deals
behind the scenes.
The Iranians appear to be gambling that even the hint of
progress will blunt any push for U.N. sanctions.
Ahmadinejad said the United States and its European allies want
Iran to suspend enrichment as a first step toward forcing a
permanent halt in the nuclear program, because they are opposed
to Tehran's progress.
The U.S. and others fear Iran's goal for developing enrichment
technology is to produce material for atomic bombs, while
oil-rich Iran says it needs enrichment to provide fuel for
nuclear reactors that will generate electricity for this
developing nation.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would not give in.
``They asked for a one-day halt. We said we won't do it,'' he
told thousands gathered in Karaj, west of Tehran.
Iranian state TV quoted Ahmadinejad on Wednesday as saying
Western negotiators were trying to persuade Iran to halt
enrichment for just a day, to create a face-saving way for
opening negotiations. President Bush has refused to enter into
talks until Tehran halts enrichment.
``Those who have filled their arsenal with nuclear weapons and
conduct new tests every day want, on political pretexts, to deny
the Iranian nation its full definite right of using nuclear
energy for peaceful purposes,'' Ahmadinejad said. ``The Iranian
nation won't give into one iota of coercion.''
The U.S. House sought to step up pressure Thursday by adopting
legislation that would impose U.S. sanctions on any entity found
to help Iran develop atomic weapons. The bill has yet to go
before the Senate, and critics questioned the need for such
action when the U.S. is pushing for a multinational approach.
Iran ignored a U.N. Security Council deadline of Aug. 31 to halt
enrichment or face the possibility of economic sanctions.
Despite that threat, Russia and China oppose any immediate move
to impose punitive measures, and as permanent council members
can veto its actions. Both nations, which have trade ties with
Iran, argue that diplomacy hasn't been exhausted.
Six countries - the United States, China, Russia, France,
Britain and Germany - have offered a package of incentives in
return for Iran suspending enrichment and returning to
full-scale negotiations aimed at putting curbs on the nuclear
program that would ease suspicions.
Ahmadinejad said the Europeans asked for a three-month
suspension of enrichment, which he said would mean ``a huge
loss'' for the Iranian program.
``Who will pay for the losses?'' he asked. ``Then they reached a
point that they asked for a one-day halt. We said we won't do
it.''
In Berlin, Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy
chief, refused to give details of the third session of talks but
said he would confer by telephone with the Iranians next week.
``We want to maintain the level of contact that we have had,''
Solana said.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the two
sides discussed ways that full-scale talks could proceed, adding
that Tehran hoped ``to embark on the main negotiations as soon
as possible.''
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
18 Guardian Unlimited: S. Korea 'Frustrated' Over Nuclear Talks
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 4:01 AM
AP Photo NYSF107
By PAUL ALEXANDER
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon
said Wednesday he was very ``frustrated and disappointed'' over
North Korea's refusal to resume talks over the reclusive
communist country's suspect nuclear program.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Ban said South Korea
and the other countries in the six-party negotiations - the
United States, Japan, China and Russia - were working on a
detailed joint strategy to get North Korea back to talks. But he
would not provide details or say when it might be presented,
though he said the parties were trying to expedite it.
North Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon told the U.N.
General Assembly on Tuesday that it would be ``preposterous''
for his country to resume the talks, citing Washington's
accusations about counterfeiting, its imposition of financial
sanctions, and its desire for ``global supremacy.''
``I was very much frustrated and disappointed by the same
inflexible positions by North Korea,'' said Ban, considered the
front-runner to replace retiring U.N. Secretary-General Kofi
Annan.
He said the financial sanctions by Washington ``have nothing to
do with the six-party process.''
``This is a part of law enforcement activities over the issue of
illicit activities by North Korea, including counterfeiting
currencies. We have urged North Korean authorities that they
should return to six-party talks without any preconditions,''
Ban said.
The North Korean statement lowered expectations for quick
progress on the issues of North Korea's production of nuclear
weapons and its missile test launches in July.
``The only answer and only breakthrough we can make at this time
is for the North Koreans to return to the six-party talks,'' Ban
said. ``We hope the North Koreans should be more realistic. They
should think about their own future.''
Ban said the North's intransigence was particularly difficult to
understand, considering developments that suggested it was
finally making the first steps toward opening up to the outside
world.
He cited establishment of an economic zone in the North, where
13 South Korean companies are employing more than 7,000 North
Korean workers, Seoul's efforts to gain preferential access for
North Korean goods in Asia and Europe, and agreements that have
allowed 300,000 South Korean tourists to go to the North and
members of divided families to visit each other for the first
time since the Korean War ended a half-century ago.
``This is much more than economic cooperation,'' Ban said.
``This has much more political symbolism to promote
reconciliation and exchanges and cooperation by which we can
expect North Korea to learn some free-market economy practices.
``Unfortunately, over the recent North Korean missile firings,
all these inter-Korean contacts have been cut,'' he said.
``We are trying now to normalize and improve this inter-Korean
relationship. If the six-party process progresses well, we will
see more exchanges and cooperation between the two Koreas,'' the
South Korean minister said.
Ban dismissed suggestions that South Korea is too eager to
engage the North, given its history of brinksmanship and
propensity to break international agreements.
``They are our brethren,'' he said. ``We need to maintain
harmoniously this peace and security on the Korean peninsula. We
need to have some reconciliation between the two parts of Korea
because with the long division of our land, there is a huge gap
between the trust and mistrust. There is always a level of
tensions continuing.''
``If you look at the broader context, the only viable, desirable
option is to have engagement between the two parts of Korea
through dialogue,'' he said.
Ban said South Korea and the United States both agree on that
approach.
In his 40 years as a diplomat, Ban said one of his toughest
challenges has been trying to negotiate with North Korea.
``The unique nature and long isolation of North Korea and
ideological differences between the South and North have made
this process very difficult,'' he said.
``We have been providing humanitarian assistance to North Korea
in our earnest desire that gradually we will be able to help
them change, enhance the human rights situation in North Korea,
and look toward the greater future.''
His goal, Ban said, is for the North to join ``international
society as a responsible member, refraining from taking
unreasonable and negative actions like test-firing or developing
nuclear weapons.''
---
Associated Press Writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this
report.
(eml)
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
19 Guardian Unlimited: N.Korea Receives Nuclear Talk Proposal
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 12:16 PM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
said Thursday that his country has informed North Korea of a
South Korea-U.S. joint approach aimed at jump-starting the
stalled talks on the North's nuclear weapons program, but that
Pyongyang hasn't yet given a response.
In Washington earlier this month, Roh and President Bush agreed
to formulate a ``joint comprehensive approach'' aimed at
bringing the recalcitrant North back to the so-called six-party
talks that also involve China, Russia and Japan.
Roh told MBC television in a program to be aired later Thursday
that Seoul delivered the proposal to Pyongyang before his trip
to Washington but there has been no response yet from the North.
A transcript of the comments was provided by Roh's office.
Roh declined to give any details of what was contained in the
proposal. Seoul's top nuclear envoy returned Thursday from a
stay in Washington where the proposal was discussed, and was to
meet Friday in Seoul with China's main envoy to the nuclear
talks.
``We continue to proceed with this proposal without giving it
up,'' Roh said. ``We still see a possibility in this and we
continue to proceed because it is not necessarily negative that
no response has been rendered.''
North Korea has refused to come to the nuclear talks since last
year, demanding Washington to lift financial restrictions
against a bank where it held accounts. The U.S. has launched an
investigation into the bank, Macau-based Banco Delta Asia,
accusing it of complicity in alleged counterfeiting and money
laundering by the Pyongyang regime.
Seoul has previously indicated that Washington should lift the
financial restrictions, with chief presidential security adviser
Song Min-soon saying that the assets there could be unfrozen as
part of a process where both sides take steps to resolve the
impasse.
Roh said he discussed the U.S. investigation against the Macau
bank during a meeting with U.S. Treasury Henry Paulson during
his Washington trip. He said Paulson explained that the
investigation into the bank, announced in September 2005, wasn't
being dragged out to antagonize the North but simply takes time.
``Nonetheless, I do hope that the investigation would be
completed at an early date because the six-party talks are
stalled over the issue,'' Roh said.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
20 Korea Herald: Korea resolute over six-party format
South Korea's top nuclear negotiator said yesterday that there
cannot be an alternative to the six-party talks although the
door to negotiations remains shut by North Korea.
"We cannot replace the six-party talks nor have a multilateral
system that can damage (the six-party talks)," said Chun
Yung-woo, South Korea's point man for the six-party talks.
The two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia are
members of the six-party talks that were held for the last time
in November.
Speculations are rampant that North Korea may use Washington's
latest financial sanctions as an excuse to carry out a nuclear
test.
As North Korea's boycott of the talks gets extended, the United
States has nonetheless suggested a meeting with other
negotiation partners.
A third round of expanded talks is slated for this November.
Chun took efforts to explain that the expanded talks were just
a "supplementary" to the six-party negotiations.
Chun arrived back in Seoul early yesterday morning after his
meeting with U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill.
They discussed how to prepare the "common and broad" approach
to resurrecting the nuclear talks, as agreed by the presidents
of the United States and South Korea earlier this month.
But Chun refused to divulge any details on the discussion.
"I discussed in depth with many U.S. officials along with
Assistant Secretary Hill to draw out the common and broad
approach," Chun told reporters at the airport.
He said further details can be released after other members of
the six-party talks are apprised accordingly.
Chun is scheduled to meet his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei
today.
Revealing Washington's increasing frustrations over the nuclear
issue, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to visit
Asia in the coming weeks and see whether relevant parties can
make "one last push" to urge the North to return to the
negotiation table.
(angiely@heraldm.com)
By Lee Joo-hee
2006.09.29
*****************************************************************
21 AFP: US warns against North Korea nuclear test
by Stephen Collinson Wed Sep 27, 9:32 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States warned that any nuclear test
by North Korea " /> North Koreawould be viewed by world powers as
a "very serious" escalation of the crisis over the Stalinist
state's weapons programs.
Christopher Hill, US point-man on the six-party nuclear talks
process, also said Washington was considering whether to impose
new sanctions on Pyongyang, despite warnings by several
congressmen such a move would enflame the showdown.
Hill said the United States had been talking to China, Russia,
South Korea " /> South Koreaand Japan about how to deter any
nuclear test by North Korea.
"All parties have made it clear that this would be a very, very
serious step," Hill told a congressional hearing.
"It is a very small piece of the world ... it is frankly
speaking, rather shocking that anyone would even think of
exploding a nuclear weapon on the Korean peninsula."
Pyongyang declared in February 2005 it had nuclear weapons, but
there have been no reports of a test. Speculation has been
mounting the Stalinist state may be preparing such a step.
Last July, North Korea defied international warnings and test
fired seven ballistic missiles, including its long-range
Taepodong-2, believed to be capable of striking America's western
seaboard.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice " /> Condoleezza Ricesaid
in an interview released Monday that time was running out to
bring North Korea back to the negotiating table.
Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs, was testifying before the Committee on International
Relations of the House of Representatives.
Several congressmen warned in dire terms that a rumored move by
the Bush administration to impose a new set of sanctions on the
Stalinist state, could spell further bad news for the stalled
six-party talks process.
"Let the administration think long and hard before taking this
dramatic step," said veteran Democrat representative Tom Lantos
(news, bio, voting record), arguing that any such measures
wouldn't hurt North Korea due to paltry US investment in the
impoverished nation.
"If the South Koreans, Chinese and Japanese will not follow
suit, a unilateral US trade and investment ban will be
ineffective and counter-productive to the prospects for a
negotiated solution on the Korean Peninsula.
"Pyongyang will undoubtedly cite these new sanctions as evidence
of hostile intent, and strengthen its refusal to return to the
six party talks," Lantos said.
But Hill said that Washington was considering whether to impose
new sanctions on North Korea over the missile tests.
"We are of course looking at the issue particularly in the light
of the fact that the North Koreans had a missile moratorium,
some measures were relaxed ... and they violated the moratorium."
The Clinton administration lifted some economic sanctions on
North Korea in 1995, one year after it agreed to freeze its
nuclear activities.
More bilateral sanctions were lifted in 2000, when Pyongyang
agreed to a moratorium on missile tests.
Hill pledged that any new measures would be imposed only after
close consultation with other members of the six-party talks and
key members of Congress.
Hill's comments came a day after a top North Korean official
told the UN General Assembly his country's nuclear arms were for
"self-defense."
In a rare North Korean explanation on the international stage of
its policy, Deputy Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon reiterated
Pyongyang could not resume the six-party talks as long as it
remains subject to US sanctions.
The UN Security Council, including the North's only major ally,
China, responded by unanimously adopting a resolution condemning
its actions and imposing missile-related sanctions.
In September last year, Pyongyang joined the United States,
South Korea, China, Russia and Japan in signing a joint
statement under which it pledged to abandon its nuclear program
in return for energy and economic aid, eventual diplomatic
benefits and security guarantees.
But two months later, North Korea boycotted the forum to protest
US sanctions on a Macau bank which allegedly helped it pass
counterfeit US dollars and launder funds.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
22 UPI: Analysis: Roh hopeful about N.Korea nuke
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence -
9/28/2006 10:58:00 AM -0400
By JONG-HEON LEE UPI Correspondent
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
said Thursday he was still waiting for a positive response from
North Korea to the "joint comprehensive" proposal to resolve the
years-long nuclear standoff, calling for Washington's patience.
In a special interview with local broadcaster MBC-TV, Roh also
called for the United States to conclude its probe as early as
possible into a Macau-based bank suspected of helping the
North's illicit activities to revive long-stalled six-nation
talks on the nuclear crisis.
North Korea has boycotted the six-party talks since late last
year, citing U.S. sanctions imposed on the Banco Delta Asia
accused of laundering money for North Korea.
Since the United States launched an investigation into the bank
in September 2005, North Korea vowed not to return to the
six-way talks until the United States lifts the sanctions on the
Macau bank, believed to be choking Pyongyang's cash flow.
In a Sept. 14 summit, Roh and President George W. Bush agreed to
spearhead a "comprehensive joint approach" aimed at bringing the
recalcitrant North back to the so-called six-party talks that
also involve China, Russia and Japan.
The proposal was considered the last opportunity for South Korea
to take the lead in resolving the nuclear crisis peacefully and
diplomatically.
North Korea has yet to respond to the proposal, but Roh said he
was still hopeful because Pyongyang did not reject the overture.
"North Korea cannot be said to have rendered a response.
However, the North is aware of it and has not expressed
proactively a negative opinion until now," Roh said in the
midnight television program.
"We continue to proceed with this proposal without giving it
up," he said. "We still see a possibility in this and we
continue to proceed because it is not necessarily negative that
no response has been rendered."
Roh declined to give any details of what was contained in the
proposal, but defined it as a "procedural approach" and a new
starting point linked to the Sept. 19, 2005 agreement on North
Korea's nuclear drive.
Under the Sept. 19 joint statement, the first formal document
since the six-nation talks began in August 2003, the North
agreed to abandon its existing nuclear weapons and all related
programs, as well as return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty "at an early date."
In return, North Korea would benefit from energy aid from South
Korea, begin talks to normalize relations with the United States
and Japan, in addition to negotiations on the provision of
light-water reactors in the North "at an appropriate time" and
the establishment of a peace regime on the Korean peninsula to
replace the armistice that ended the three-year Korean War in
1953.
But no progress has since been made on implementing the joint
statement and the six-way nuclear talks have been deadlocked.
In Thursday's interview, Roh said his country is ready to
shoulder costs for implementing the Sept. 19 statement in order
to play a leading role in defusing the nuclear crisis.
"We will bear any burden that we should because the cost for
peace and reunification in the future will ultimately become our
responsibility and we can reduce these costs if we prepare
ourselves and take the necessary measures now rather than
later," he said.
Roh also made clear that South Korea is opposed to any
preemptive military strike on North Korea to end the nuclear
standoff.
"There has been talk that the United States and even Japan may
launch a preemptive attack on North Korea. But any use of force
against North Korea prior to its use of force is not desirable,
considering the unimaginable impact on the whole Korean
peninsula," he said.
"The South Korean government is in the midst of making various
diplomatic efforts in preparation for any slim chance of the
North carrying out a nuclear test," Roh said.
Roh also called on the United States to finalize its financial
probe into the Macau bank to resume the deadlocked nuclear
talks, saying he expressed the hope of an early conclusion of
the investigation when he met U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry
Paulson in Washington earlier this month.
"I do hope that the investigation would be completed at an early
date because the six-party talks are stalled over the issue,"
Roh said.
Roh's remarks come amid reports that the United States is
running out of patience and is set to give up efforts for
dialogue with North Korea.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this month that time
was running out to bring North Korea back to the negotiating
table.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, Rice
said she expected to visit Asia in the next six weeks "to take
stock and see whether or not one last push to get the six-party
talks back on track can be made."
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
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23 UPI: N. Korea to replace U.N. envoy
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence -
9/28/2006 6:54:00 AM -0400
SEOUL, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- North Korea will replace its United
Nations envoy, who has served as a key point of contact with the
United States, Seoul media reports said Thursday.
Han Song Ryol, deputy head of North Korea's U.N. mission, is
expected to step down next month, Yonhap News Agency said,
citing diplomatic sources.
He is likely to be replaced by Kim Myong Gil, a researcher from
an institute of the North's Foreign Ministry on arms reduction
and peace, the agency said.
Yonhap said the replacement is expected to weaken the so-called
New York channel between Pyongyang and Washington, as Han has
been working as Pyongyang's de facto ambassador to the United
States for past five years.
Having no diplomatic ties, the United States and North Korea use
the U.N. mission as a main dialogue channel between the two
countries.
Kim is known to have graduated from the North's Kim Il Sung
University where he studied English literature. He is also
believed to have studied in Guyana, South America, and worked as
a councilor at the North's mission to the United Nations in
1997, according to Yonhap.
North Korea and the United States are in a years-long standoff
over Pyongyang's programs for nuclear weapons and ballistic
missiles.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
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24 Radio Interview: Bush's Nuclear Armageddon
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 14:39:55 -0700
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Irving Wesley Hall
Author of "Depleted Uranium for Dummies"
will be interviewed on The "X" Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell
http://www.xzone-radio.com/
Thursday September 28 10:00 PM EST
Friday September 29 6:00 AM EST
Christian Zionism and Zionism
Israel is the only nation in the Middle East that possesses nuclear
weapons. Its arsenal contains hundreds of nuclear warheads that can be
launched from air, land, sea, and underwater. What if a Zionist crazy
seizes power in Israel?
The United States has long possessed enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the
world. Imagine a Christian Zionist president who believes he is above the
law with his finger on the trigger? Supposing God tells him he should
attack Iran with nuclear weapons without consulting Congress or the
American people?
Christian Zionists in the United States and Zionists in Israel can easily
produce a self-fulfilling prophecy that will destroy all of humanity and
reduce God's sweet earth to a smoking cinder.
Listen live or later:
http://www.xzone-radio.com/
"We're Not In Kansas Anymore"
www.notinkansas.us
To remove your name from this list, reply with "unsubscribe DU1" in the
subject box.
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25 UPI: Report: Rice to tour Middle East
United Press International - NewsTrack -
9/28/2006 12:05:00 PM -0400
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. State Department is
finalizing plans for a trip by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to the Middle East next week, Ha'aretz reported Thursday.
The Bush administration has numerous concerns in the region,
including Iran's growing influence, the ability of the Lebanese
government to maintain control over Hezbollah militants and the
political dissent among the Palestinian Hamas and Fatah parties.
A source told the newspaper one option being considered for Rice
is a conference with moderate Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia,
where she would seek to reach understandings the Palestinian
issue and efforts to block the Iranian nuclear program.
Rice is expected to ask Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan to
pressure the Palestinian Authority to accept the conditions set
by the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and
Russia regarding Hamas.
Earlier this year, the group offered international recognition
and aid if the Hamas government, elected in January, would
recognize Israel, stop the use of force, and accept all previous
agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
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26 IPS: NUCLEAR STATES IN VIOLATION OF NUKE TREATY
Inter Press Service News Agency
Friday, September 29, 2006 04:20 GMT
Fredrik S. Heffermehl
SEPTEMBER 2006 (IPS) - As the United Nations General Assembly in
New York grapples yet again with the urgent question of nuclear
disarmament, the world would do well to revisit the story of
pioneer nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, writes Fredrik
S. Heffermehl, President of the Norwegian Peace Alliance, Vice
President of the International Peace Bureau and editor at
www.peaceispossible.info.
In this analysis, Heffermehl writes that exactly 20 years have
passed since a major news story using Vanunu as its source
removed any doubt that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme.
His dramatic abduction by Israel, followed by a secret trial in
Jerusalem and 18 years in gaol under cruel conditions, made
Vanunu world famous.
Few cases more vividly dramatise the utter hypocrisy of nuclear
policy.
Ten years ago the ICJ in The Hague ruled the use of nuclear
arms generally illegal under international law, finding that
states have a legally binding obligation to enter into
negotiations in good faith -- and reach a specific result-- on
nuclear disarmament. There was, however, widespread
disappointment with compliance with the ruling, and anti-nuclear
and peace groups decided to request from the court more specific
clarification of whether the nuclear weapon states have complied
with the treaty in the past and what they are obliged to do in
the future.
/NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN NORWAY, AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND,
CZECH REPUBLIC, IRELAND, POLAND, THE UNITED STATES, AND THE
UNITED KINGDOM/ (END/2006)
This is an abstract from the column. Editors interested in
acquiring the full text of this column, please contact
romacol@ips.org specifying the name and address of the
publication as well as a proposed rate. Unfortunately, we cannot
comply with requests from individuals or organisations that do
not represent print media outlets.
NUCLEAR STATES IN VIOLATION OF NUKE TREATY
By Fredrik S. Heffermehl
U.S. CUBA POLICY CONFUSED, AS USUAL
By Joaquin Roy
WHAT HOPE FOR GLOBAL ACTION ON MIGRATION?
By Mary Robinson
INTERVIEW WITH BAN KI-MOON: "THE UN'S MOST SERIOUS ISSUE IS
ITS CREDIBILITY GAP"
By IPS Columnist Service
INFALLIBILITY AND THE POPE
By Leonardo Boff
CHINA: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
By Pascal Lamy
INTERVIEW WITH JAYANTHA DHANAPALA: "DEVELOPMENT WILL HELP
PREVENT CONFLICT"
By IPS Columnist Service
OTHER COUNTRIES MUST ACT TO CORRECT THE DISASTER OF
U.S.-ISRAELI POLICY
By Kare Willoch
THE PROBLEM WITH SOYA
By Vandana Shiva
NEPAL: KING WITHOUT A KINGDOM
By Kunda Dixit
MORE >>
Copyright © 2006 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
27 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Activates Missile Radar in Japan
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Thursday September 28, 2006 1:01 PM
By HANS GREIMEL
Associated Press Writer
TOKYO (AP) - The U.S. military has activated a high-powered
radar outpost in northern Japan that will enable it to track
ballistic missiles in the region amid concerns about North
Korea.
The so-called X-Band radar is so powerful it can identify
baseball-size objects from thousands of miles away and is
designed to differentiate between decoys and real missile
warheads.
Japan and the United States began working on the project after
neighboring North Korea fired a long-range missile over Japan in
1998.
It is part of a sweeping, multibillion dollar defense shield
that also includes the joint production of new missiles capable
of intercepting and destroying incoming missiles and the
deployment of advanced Patriot interceptor missiles around
Japan.
U.S. Army Japan press officer Maj. Martha Brooks said Thursday
that U.S. Brig. Gen. John E. Seward hosted a ceremony Tuesday at
Camp Shariki in northern Aomori state to activate the X-Band
unit.
The U.S. military in Japan issued a statement saying that the
installation is ``a defensive system with no offensive
capability.''
Brooks declined to say that the X-Band radar was redeployed to
keep a better eye on North Korea but said ``we're here in
defense of Japan, and they put it in a location where they could
best track the ballistic missiles.''
The X-Band radar sits across the Sea of Japan from North Korea,
where it was moved earlier this summer from the U.S. military's
Misawa Air Base in Misawa, also in northern Japan.
Japan is well within range of North Korean missiles and has been
deeply disturbed by Pyongyang's test-firing of seven missiles in
July, including a long-range missile believed capable of
striking the United States.
North Korea boasts that it has nuclear bombs, but the claim has
not been independently verified. Many experts believe the North
has enough radioactive material to build at least a half-dozen
or more nuclear weapons.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
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28 gainesvilletimes.com: Power plants not as safe as we are led to believe -
Opinion - Thursday, September 28, 2006
Your views
LETTER
I am glad that Mr. Rezak (Sept. 19) realizes the danger from
coal-fired utility plants through the heat of their flue gases.
But he forgot to mention the soot that comes out, unfiltered,
from their stacks. Did you know that soot from the Georgia Power
plant in Cartersville often reaches Athens? And how about the
mercury from the stacks that is deposited in our lakes and
rivers, which is already giving us polluted fish. Would you
rather have cancer from radioactivity, or asthma, or brain
damage?
Then he compares the hazardous from tons of coal waste to the
"small," (by comparison) amount of waste from nuclear plants.
Small, perhaps, but even more deadly. It doesn't take much to do
harm. Even "low-level" radioactive waste is dangerous. Four of
the six-shallow burial sites in the U.S. have been closed due to
leakage and off-site radioactive contamination. The two sites
remaining open, in Barnwell, S.C., and Richland, Wash., are also
leaking.
There is still no solution to containing high level waste. Not
only reactors and their irradiated storage pools are dangerous,
taking it across the country to be buried would only create new
sacrifice zones. Out of sight becomes out of mind. Transporting
the nuclear fuel rods (unstable and still highly radioactive
after 10 years of cooling) would endanger every community they
pass through and just spreads the risk.
If and when Yucca Mountain ever opens, one can picture
truckloads and trainloads of this nasty stuff passing through
our back yards and our communities. Reprocessing also spreads
the danger. Everything the waste touches absorbs radioactivity,
and the process itself produces more radioactive waste.
Why can't we invest our taxpayer dollars, the same subsidies now
going to promote nuclear plants, to clean sources like solar,
wind, geothermal, tides, biofuels? Their fuel is available, and
best of all, free for the taking, with no polluting side
effects. Once upon a time homes in Florida and California had
their water tanks on their roofs to absorb the sun's heat.
Georgia could do that too.
Adele Kushner
Alto
Originally published Thursday, September 28, 2006
Copyright ©2004 The Times. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
29 HindustanTimes.com: Early Senate passage of nuke deal doubtful - US
Friday, September 29, 2006|05:39 IST
Bush administration expresses doubts on early Senate passage
of N-deal
Press Trust of India
The Bush administration has expressed doubts if the civilian
nuclear deal is going to be passed in the Senate before law
makers break into recess this weekend in spite of "pushing hard"
for the legislation to be done.
"We are pushing hard - the administration is pushing hard to get
all the pre-required agreements up on the (Capitol) Hill so that
they can schedule a vote for it, and to do that as soon as
possible... We would certainly hope that that could get done in
the next couple of days," State Department Spokesman Sean
McCormack said on Thursday.
"I don't know if that's going to happen. There's a lot of
pressing business up there on the Hill. But we certainly are
pressing very hard to get this done in this session and as soon
as possible" the Spokesman added.
McCormack said the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had a
"good meeting" with Indian Defence Minister Pranab Mukheerjee in
New York.
"It was a good meeting. The vast majority of their conversation
was about the civilian nuclear deal and all the various parts
and components to that. So that was really the focus of their
discussion," he said.
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30 Manchester Evening News: Nuclear power a must
Thursday, 28th September 2006
Amanda Brown
A TOP scientist has called for new nuclear power plants to
battle global warming.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, who is president of the Royal Society, said
nuclear power would be necessary in the years ahead as Britain
tries to cut greenhouse gases under the Kyoto Treaty.
And he called for more research into solar power and biofuels.
Lord Rees told a Labour conference fringe meeting in Manchester
yesterday: "I do believe we should replace our nuclear power
plants with a next generation. I believe we should do that to
keep energy diversity and security as well as meeting our Kyoto
targets.
"I don't believe nuclear power is going to be a major recipe for
the world.
"That would require several thousand nuclear power stations
around the world, which is a scary prospect for a number of
reasons."
Lord Rees said there was a great opportunity for Britain to lead
on science and this would send a message to young people who
thought the subject was dirty and anti-social.
The answer to many of the world's problems lay in more and
better-directed science, he added.
Lord Rees also said he hoped public attitudes towards saving
energy would change in the same way as they had towards smoking
and drink-driving which were not frowned upon 30 years ago.
"It's reasonable to expect that public attitudes towards
manifestly wasteful energy consumption may turn around and this
will stimulate more economical cars and pressure to insulate
homes," he said.
More nuclear power stations? Have your say.
© Copyright 2006 Manchester Evening News. If you wish to use
*****************************************************************
31 Interfax: Russian nuclear shield to remain reliable - Kiriyenko
Sep 28 2006 1:52PM
MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax) - There is no doubt that Russia's
nuclear shield will remain reliable for years to come, Federal
Atomic Energy Agency head Sergey Kiriyenko told a Thursday press
conference dedicated to the Atomic Energy Industry Day in
Moscow.
"I am absolutely positive about that," he said.
As for the reform of the atomic industry, Kiriyenko said, "The
industry will remain a whole." Requirements to defense and
civilian atomic projects are different, which explains the
division of management, he said. "The ability of the national
defense will be maintained at any cost, while civilian projects
are totally market- oriented," he said.
© 1991-2006 Interfax
All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
32 RIA Novosti: Nuclear agency, SUAL may agree on NPP, aluminum plant Oct.6-1
28/ 09/ 2006
MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's nuclear chief
said Thursday the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power and aluminum
giant SUAL [RTS: SUAL] may reach an agreement on constructing a
nuclear power plant and an aluminum plant in northwestern Russia
October 6.
"We will hold talks with SUAL during my visit to the Kola
Peninsula October 6, and may make a decision on the construction
of the Kola NPP-2 and an aluminum plant," Sergei Kiriyenko said.
"We cannot offer SUAL a property share in the new NPP but if
SUAL is ready to invest in the NPP construction we will supply
it with electric power at a fixed price during 20 years," he
said.
Kiriyenko also said the capacity of the Kola NPP-1 would be
increased by 400-600 MW.
One of the world's top 10 aluminum companies, SUAL has
enterprises in nine Russian regions and in Ukraine, and annually
mines over 5.4 million metric tons of bauxite, some 2.3 mln
metric tons of alumina, over 1 mln tons of primary aluminum, and
about 60,000 metric tons of silicon.
It also manufactures aluminum products, including foil, wire,
and wheel rims, and exports 80% of its production.
SUAL and fellow Russian metals giant Rusal are expected to
complete a merger deal in the next few weeks that will create a
Russian aluminum monopoly and the world's leading producer of
primary aluminum.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
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33 Platts: Olkiluoto-3 delays depress Areva's first-half income
Paris (Platts)--27Sep2006
Areva's first-half 2006 operating income was hit hard by delays
in the EPR construction project at Olkiluoto-3 in Finland, the
French vendor said in releasing its financial results September
27.
The group's operating income was down almost 65% to 115 million
euros (US$146 million) in first-half 2006 compared to first-half
2005.
Its operating margin (operating income divided by sales revenue)
was 2.3%, down from 6.8% in first-half 2005.
Operating income for Areva's nuclear operations was Eur 73
million, down from Eur 373 million in first-half 2005, and the
sector's operating margin plunged to 2.2%, from 11.4% in
first-half 2005, despite strong performance by Areva's Front End
business.
Most heavily hit was the Reactors and Services Division, with an
operating loss of 266 million euros (US$338 million) in
first-half 2006, versus operating income of Eur 32 million in
first-half 2005.
The loss is due to a "significant" provision the group made to
account for past and expected future costs of the delay at
Olkiluoto, but CEO Anne Lauvergeon said Areva would not reveal
the amount of the provision because it is still discussing the
issue with its customer, Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy.
TVO said in its monthly update on the project last week that the
delay in construction of the 1,600-MW PWR "remain(s) unchanged
and is about one year."
TVO still projects first electricity from Olkiluoto-3 at the end
of 2009 and commercial operation in second-quarter 2010.
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
[The McGraw-Hill Companies]
*****************************************************************
34 Concord Monitor: We're guarding against financial fallout
September 28, 2006
and New Hampshire Patriot P.O. Box 1177 Concord NH 03302
By Bob Odell For the Monitor
New Hampshire's only nuclear power plant is in Seabrook. The
answers to questions raised about the finances of the plant could
affect everyone in the state no matter where you live. Who will
pay for the shutdown of the Seabrook nuclear plant if there is an
emergency? Who will pay if it is simply shut down when its useful
life ends? What would happen if the owners declared bankruptcy?
Shutting down the Seabrook nuclear plant will cost hundreds of
millions of dollars. The plant has a license to operate through
2026. The estimated cost of a shutdown starting that year is
$1.7 billion, and it would take roughly 30 years to complete.
Under statutory limits for commercial nuclear spent fuel at the
Yucca Mountain federal repository, fuel from Seabrook is
excluded. That means there will be costs for storing the used
nuclear fuel at Seabrook as far into the future as 2101, nearly
one hundred years from now.
Fortunately, money is being set aside so that the owners of the
plant will pre-pay the shutdown costs so no financial burden
will fall on the citizens of New Hampshire.
I serve on the Nuclear Decommissioning Finance Committee, which
monitors money paid into the decommissioning trust and sets the
policies for the owners to finance the plant's shutdown at some
point in the future. FPLE, which owns more than 88 percent of
the plant, is the merchant energy arm of the public utility,
Florida Power and Light. The rest is owned by a few towns in
Massachusetts.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Finance Committee is serious
business. Many committees and commissions created by the
legislature are advisory. This one, created in 2001, has
responsibilities for the movey involved and holds public
hearings, as we did last week, with exhibits, sworn testimony,
affidavits and plenty of lawyers.
The chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, Tom Getz,
chairs the committee. I represent the State Senate and serve
with the state treasurer, Michael Ablowich, a representative of
the town of Seabrook, state Rep. Robert Introne of Londonderry
and a couple of state agency representatives.
The decommissioning accounts hold $375 million. The current
investment portfolio is budgeted to return 9.5 percent annually,
which will go to 9.8 percent in a couple of years. The owners
pay additional money into the fund each year. Big money, long
time frames and protection for New Hampshire citizens from a
potential financial disaster is the work of the Nuclear
Decommissioning Finance Committee.
Next month the committee holds a public meeting in Seabrook.
where interest in our work is highest. And next year the
committee will do a mandated four-year review of the
decommissioning funding plan.
Bob Odell is a state senator from Lempster.
Concord Monitor Online, P.O. Box 1177, Concord NH 03302
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35 South Bend Tribune: Refueling outage for Cook
September 28, 2006
More than 1,800 contracted workers to help with nuclear plant
project.
YaVONDA SMALLS Tribune Staff Writer
BRIDGMAN -- Throughout the coming weeks, the Cook Nuclear Power
Plant will be a hotbed of activity.
More than 1,800 contracted workers have come from the region and
around the country to help out with a refueling outage that will
ensure the reliability of Unit 1 -- one of Cook's two reactors.
Some are highly specialized craftspeople who travel around the
country to do work on nuclear power plants, said Cook spokesman
Bill Schalk.
Others include mechanics, electricians and welders who may come
from local labor pools or from other parts of the region, he
said.
So "you've got a wide range of folks," Schalk said.
The workers will be supplementing the regular 1,400-person plant
staff. And about 225,000 work hours are scheduled for the
refueling outage, which will include major improvements with
total project costs of more than $100 million.
This is the 21st refueling outage for Unit 1 since the plant
went online in 1975.
It's a procedure all such plants undergo, Schalk said.
Incoming business
Needless to say, the influx of workers certainly leads to an
increase in business in the region.
"They eat and go to the movies and buy things and stay in
hotels," Schalk said.
So where do all the contracted workers stay?
"They're pretty much all over the place," Schalk said.
Many of them come back year after year and have thus developed
relationships with hotels in the area.
And "we have discussions with some of the local hotel operators,
and they
plan for this," Schalk said.
Holiday Inn Express, 3019 Lakeshore Drive, St. Joseph, has
received some of the increased business, said a worker there.
But some of the lower-priced hotels that offer weekly rates have
especially been drawing in workers.
An employee at Applebee's, 2050 Pipestone Road in Benton Harbor,
said she's also noticed it has been a little busier on the
weekends, due in part to the workers being in town.
Refueling outage
The Cook plant generates enough energy to meet the industrial,
commercial and residential needs for a city of 1.25 million
people, according to the Cook Energy Center Web site.
Units 1 and 2 combined have a generating capacity of more than
2,100 megawatts, the site said.
Schalk said a typical refueling lasts in the neighborhood of 30
days. But with the additional projects this fall, this one will
probably last longer, he said.
What are some of the projects that are planned?
First, the reactor vessel head is being replaced -- something
that has been five years in planning and development.
The new vessel head is made of an alloy that is more resistant
to corrosion, Schalk said. This will reduce the need for costly
inspections during future refueling outages, he said.
The three low-pressure turbine rotors are also being replaced,
which will increase the unit's output by up to 25 megawatts
during summer operation and 40 megawatts during the winter.
This basically means "you can get more electrical energy out of
the same amount of steam," Schalk said.
Between 25 and 40 megawatts is about the amount of power used by
a town the size of Niles, he said.
And why is the output in general higher for the winter than for
the summer?
The colder water of the lake during the winter increases the
output of the plant, Schalk said.
Other major projects will improve the reliability and stability
of the turbine generator, decrease worker radiation exposure in
future outages and support the extended operation of the plant,
the company said.
In the fall of 2007, Cook Unit 2 will undergo a similar
refueling outage.
This will include reactor vessel head replacement and several of
the other major improvements being done on Unit 1 this fall.
Staff writer YaVonda Smalls: yavsmalls@sbtinfo.com (574) 235-6248
Copyright © 1994-2006 South Bend Tribune
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36 Platts: TXU to file with NRC for licenses to build up to 6,000 MW of nuclear capacity
TXU in 2008 plans to file applications with the US Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for combined construction and operating
licenses for between 2,000 MW and 6,000 MW of new nuclear
generating capacity in Texas, the company recently said.
TXU is looking for potential partners, it said, and has held
preliminary discussions with the Lower Colorado River Authority
and CPS Energy, the large municipal utility in San Antonio. The
Dallas-based company "will also invite other electric
cooperatives and municipalities to partner in the plan," it
said.
TXU already is planning to build a total of 11 coal- and
lignite-fired plants in the Electric Reliability Council of
Texas by 2010 — a plan that has faced strong opposition from
many environmentalists and, more recently, regulatory and legal
hurdles.
"Nuclear generation offers the potential to deliver our
customers lower, stable prices and continue to reduce Texas'
over-reliance on natural gas," said TXU Chairman and CEO John
Wilder, referring to the fact that gas-fired generation is
almost always "on the margin" in ERCOT's competitive wholesale
market.
"Based on top decile performance at our Comanche Peak nuclear
power facility and strong knowledge of the Texas market and
customers, TXU is uniquely positioned to commercialize [nuclear]
technology in Texas," Wilder said.
TXU is in discussions with GE, Westinghouse, AREVA and other
nuclear suppliers, and by the end of this year expects to select
a "preferred technology" for its prospective plants. If it
ultimately decides to build them, the plants would be located at
one to three sites, and would begin commercial operation between
2015 and 2020, the company said.
As with its aggressive plan to build new coal and lignite
plants, TXU's plan to build nuclear generation includes using
its existing asset base where possible to bring on the new
capacity, including adding at least 2,000 MW of new capacity at
its Comanche Peak site. It also is looking at Texas sites
considered for nuclear plants in the past, and at new sites.
As with its coal and lignite plan, TXU plans to standardize and
streamline the nuclear plant engineering and construction
process as much as possible, and thereby drive down the capital
costs involved to levels 30% to 40% below industry estimates of
$2,100/kW. It also will "look to partner with suppliers to share
some of the risks and rewards of the program," the company said.
TXU is the second company to plan new nuclear capacity in ERCOT.
NRG Energy said in June that by 2015 it plans to add 2,700 MW of
new nuclear capacity at the South Texas nuclear station, of
which it is a part-owner.
Source: Platts Electric Utility Week
Copyright © by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights
*****************************************************************
37 The Local: Nuclear reactors to restart on Friday
Published: 28th September 2006 19:12 CET
The Forsmark 1 and 2 nuclear reactors will be restarted on
Friday, two months after they were shut down after an incident
at the plant, Sweden's nuclear power inspectorate (SKI) has
announced.
"We are anticipating being able to restart both of the offline
reactors during the night," said Claes-Inge Andersson, head of
information at Forsmark, to TT.
"If everything goes to plan, Forsmark 1 will be in full
production on Sunday and Forsmark 2 on Monday," he added.
SKI approved the measures implemented by the management at
Forsmark to meet the demands for a reserve power supply and
safety imposed on the plant by the inspectorate two weeks ago.
But the conditions for the restart are tied up with a series of
requirements for the management at Forsmark to improve the
safety culture at the plant.
SKI said it wants to know what instructions the owners, through
the board of directors, will give the Forsmark's managing
director about how performance will be balanced against safety
at the nuclear plant.
The inspectorate also wants to see an improvement in the ability
of Forsmark's personnel to judge and handle events when a
reactor behaves unpredictably.
SKI will continue to carry out more inspections that usual at
Forsmark, while the management will be expected to provide a
daily report for each reactor.
The Forsmark 1 reactor was shut down on July 25th after a
short-circuit caused a blackout. Two of four backup diesel
generators failed to start automatically, revealing other faults
in the power station's electrical system.
Another reactor, Oskarshamn 1, which was built to a similar
design as Forsmark, was also shut down. That reactor will remain
shut down until the end of December, when a widescale rebuilding
of its reserve power supply is expected to be completed.
The shutdown of the reactors has already cost the owners over a
billion kronor.
*****************************************************************
38 IHT: Sweden to restart nuclear reactors after malfunction -
International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press
SEPTEMBER 28, 2006
Sweden's nuclear inspection agency on Thursday authorized a
restart of two nuclear reactors that have been shut down since a
malfunction in July, saying new safety measures will safeguard
against similar errors in the future. The reactors at the
Forsmark nuclear plant were shut down after two backup
generators malfunctioned during a power failure on July 25, and
have remained off the grid while officials install safety
improvements. The nuclear inspection agency SKI on Thursday
said both reactors can be restarted, but also outlined
requirements for stricter safety routines to be implemented at
the plant in the future. The reactors will be restarted on
Friday, and are expected to run at full capacity by Monday,
officials said. Two reactors at a second power plant in
Oskarshamn were also shut down after the Forsmark malfunction,
while investigators determined whether the security flaw was
generic. One of the Oskarshamn reactors was restarted earlier
this month, while the second is expected to remain shut down
until the end of the year because more safety measures are
needed. The Forsmark incident was rated as a category two on an
international nuclear event scale, where seven is the most
serious. A category two event happens on average once every two
years in Sweden, the SKI said. Sweden's government has said it
will host an international conference on nuclear safety, to
share its analysis of the Forsmark incident with other nuclear
countries. No date for the conference has been set.
Herald Tribune All rights reserved [IHT]
*****************************************************************
39 The Advocate: State orders Millstone to reinstate whistleblower
Associated Press
Published September 28 2006
NEW BRITAIN, Conn. -- State utility regulators have ruled that
a whistleblower who lost his job after reporting security
concerns at Millstone Power Station must be reinstated for now.
The Department of Public Utility Control on Wednesday ordered
Dominion, Millstone's Richmond, Va.-owner, to place Sham Mehta in
an equivalent post at the Waterford nuclear plant while his case
is resolved.
Mehta investigates safety questions raised by employees. He
reported to Dominion that a security fence alarm system was
routinely disabled because of repeated false alarms. Within a
year, Mehta's job was eliminated nine months ago in a
reorganization of his department and he was not rehired.
He has been on paid leave and has been denied access to the
site despite a recommendation from state regulators earlier this
year that he be reinstated.
The DPUC relied on federal case law to arrive at its ruling,
while acknowledging it is a complex issue.
"Most whistleblower cases either are settled, or we make a
decision and the person is or isn't rehired," DPUC spokeswoman
Beryl Lyons said. "Usually, the job is there (for someone to
return to). This case is so complex, we have to investigate
further."
Mehta's lawyer, Hank Murray, said his client has been
optimistic throughout the process that he would get an impartial
hearing before the DPUC.
"We're really gratified by the ruling," Murray said.
Dominion has until Oct. 13 to provide the state with a list of
jobs at Millstone that provide the same pay and benefits and the
same or similar opportunities for advancement as Mehta's
previous job.
Dominion spokesman Pete Hyde said the company would comply with
the order to find Mehta a post on site.
---
Information from: The Day, http://www.theday.com
© 2006, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
*****************************************************************
40 Russia-InfoCentre: Saint Petersburg Hosts International Nuclear Forum
28.09.2006
International Nuclear Forum has started September 25 in Saint
Petersburg, RosAtom press service reports.
The event is aimed at discussing the strategy of major
development of nuclear power engineering both in Russian and in
the world; considering science and technology, legal, social and
political aspects of safe development of atomic energy; search
for effective solutions of nuclear and radiation safety
problems, arising with transportation and utilization of
radioactive materials, as well as with spent nuclear fuel and
radioactive wastes.
The Forum welcomes participants of the international
conference "Strategy of safety in the use of atomic energy
past, present and future", covering history of atomic energy
industry, complex analysis of nuclear heritage and development
strategies for future use of atomic energy.
The Forum also hosts VI international exhibition "Atomic
Industry". Federal, regional and local authorities, scientists
and experts from Russia, CIS, Asia, Europe and the United States
are taking part in the Forum.
Source: CNews
© Garant-InfoCentre, 2004-2006. All rights
*****************************************************************
41 Prague Daily Monitor: Temelin staff find leaks in fuel assemblies of 2nd unit -
Ceske Budejovice,
Sept 27
(CTK) - Staff at nuclear power plant Temelin have detected leaks
in several rods in fuel assemblies which they checked during a
planned shutdown of the power plant's second unit, Temelin
spokesman Milan Nebesar said Wednesday.
The second unit, shut down due to a regular annual replacement
of a quarter of fuel in the reactor, is not producing any
electricity at the moment. The first unit is running at the
planned output.
The staff were checking fuel assemblies from the reactor core.
They found several leaky fuel rods in five fuel assemblies which
were to be used further in the reactor core.
In the end, they had to exchange two out of more than 50,000
rods in the reactor core. The reactor contains 163 fuel
assemblies, each with 312 rods.
"Two fuel assemblies have been repaired. However, fuel supplier
Westinghouse has not managed to repair the remaining three to
comply with regulations of the power plant's operator CEZ,"
Nebesar added.
These three fuel assemblies will therefore be replaced, he said.
Nebesar said finding such leaks is usual for all nuclear power
plants worldwide.
Calculations and evaluations are now under way to check this
solution. Their results will also be submitted to the Czech
State Nuclear Safety Authority (SUJB), Nebesar said.
On Tuesday, an international expert commission visited Temelin
to check whether the power station had removed safety flaws the
Czech government had pledged to remove before joining the EU in
2004.
Pavel Vlcek, chairman of the OIOZP civic association of
environmentalists, said the visit was the reason why CEZ
informed the public about the leaks so fast.
The leaks were discovered shortly after Austrian
environmentalists held two protest events against Temelin.
Andreas Reimer from the association said the experts should also
find out whether the power station had tried to keep the
malfunction secret and answer further questions concerning fuel
rods.
The replacement of one quarter of the fuel in the second unit
started a month ago, and CEZ must already have known about the
defect on the fuel rods at that time, he added.
fs,frj/er
This story copyright 2006 CTK Czech News Agency.
The and are not responsible for its content.
*****************************************************************
42 Indo-Asian News Service: India nuclear deal caught up in political tiff
By Arun Kumar,
Washington, Sep 28 (IANS) The India-US nuclear deal has been
caught up in a political tiff between majority Republican and
minority Democrat leaders with the two blaming each other for the
delay in bringing it before the Senate.
Both sides alleged that the other had blocked a unanimous
consent proposal - a request to set aside a specified rule of
procedure so as to expedite proceedings - that would have
guaranteed Senate consideration and a final vote on the enabling
bill before Congress adjourns for the November elections.
Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist said 'colleagues on the
other side of the aisle' had objected to his offer of a
unanimous consent agreement to ensure that the Senate could
complete consideration of the US-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation
legislation in a reasonable period of time.
Claiming that the boot was on the other leg, Senate Democratic
Leader Harry Reid said 'unfortunately, the Republican Leader had
objected' to his proposal.
The facts are that Republican differences over the substance of
the bill have delayed its consideration and some of those
disagreements have still not been resolved, as he had learned in
his discussions with Senator Frist, he said.
He was responding to Frist's 'call on my Democratic colleagues
to work with us to develop a unanimous consent agreement to
enable the Senate to consider this important measure on the
floor this week.'
Senate Democrats have been strong supporters of the US-India
Civil Nuclear Cooperation bill since the administration
announced this proposal in March and the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee approved it in June, Reid said.
Unfortunately, since this bill was favourably acted on by the
Foreign Relations Committee, the Republican leader chose to
bring 16 different legislative matters to the Senate floor
rather than this important legislation, which is critical to the
US-India relationship, he said.
'I do believe it is important for the Senate to act on this
matter without further delay. Its passage would mean so much to
the vitally important US-India relationship. I pledge to do what
I can to ensure that we do just that. I hope the Majority Leader
will not pass up yet another opportunity to get this bill done,'
Reid said.
Frist too said the enactment of this legislation is critical to
advancing US-India relations and will help create export
opportunities for American businesses.
'We need time to work out the differences with the companion
legislation passed by the House. Therefore, the Senate cannot
afford to wait until November to pass this critical piece of
legislation,' he pointed out.
Copyright Indo-Asian News Service
Copyright © 2004-2006 DailyIndia.com Contact| Terms| Privacy
*****************************************************************
43 ITAR-TASS: N-plant with 4 VVER-1000 reactors to be built in southern Russia
28.09.2006, 16.21
MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) - A large-scale nuclear power
plant with four VVER-1000 reactors will be built in southern
Russia, the head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency
(Rosatom), Sergei Kiriyenko, told a news conference on Thursday.
“At present, we are building a second nuclear power-generating
unit at the Volgodonsk nuclear plant, and we’ll build a third
and fourth ones,” he said.
“Rosatom plans to make from the Volgodonsk nuclear power plant a
large-scale nuclear power station that will be able to meet fast
growing demand for electric energy in southern Russia, that is
comparable to that in Moscow,” he said.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
44 ITAR-TASS: Rosatom to build new safer reactors at all n-plants – Kiriyenko
28.09.2006, 16.46
MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Federal Atomic
Energy Agency (Rosatom) plans to build new and safer nuclear
power-generating units at Russia’s all nuclear plants, Rosatom
head Sergei Kiriyenko told a news conference on Thursday.
New units that will replace the operating ones will be built,
“if there are no technical restrictions,” he said.
“At present, there are no restrictions,” Kiriyenko said pointing
out that the issue of upgrading the Bilibino nuclear power plant
in Russia’s Far East is still unresolved.
A large-scale nuclear power plant with four VVER-1000 reactors
will be built in southern Russia, he said.
“At present, we are building a second nuclear power-generating
unit at the Volgodonsk nuclear plant, and we’ll build a third
and fourth ones,” he said.
“Rosatom plans to make from the Volgodonsk nuclear power plant a
large-scale nuclear power station that will be able to meet fast
growing demand for electric energy in southern Russia, that is
comparable to that in Moscow,” he said.
© ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy,
*****************************************************************
45 Newsday.com: Exelon study shows no new tritium leaks at nuclear plants -
AP New Jersey
September 28, 2006, 7:48 PM EDT
WARRENVILLE, Ill. (AP) _ A six-month Exelon Corp. investigation
into tritium leaks at its 11 nuclear plants found no new leaks of
the potential carcinogen, officials said Thursday.
The company studied more than 1,800 water samples taken from
wells in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
The study also found that the radioactive form of hydrogen wasn't
detectable beyond plant boundaries, except in areas where tritium
was permitted or at the Braidwood plant in Illinois, where
slightly elevated levels of tritium had already been discovered
in two nearby drinking water wells.
The report is "an important step in demonstrating the
environmental integrity of our plants," Exelon's chief nuclear
officer, Chris Crane, said in a statement. "Any unintended
release of a radioactive substance from our plants is
unacceptable."
Tritium is commonly found in ground water but is more
concentrated in water used in nuclear reactors.
According to the federal government, tritium exposure increases
the risk of developing cancer. But the agency also calls tritium
one of the least dangerous of the so-called radioactive nuclides
because it emits weak radiation and leaves the body quickly.
None of the tritium discovered by the Exelon investigation pose
a health risk to workers or the public, the company said.
Exelon studied seven nuclear plants in Illinois, three plants in
Pennsylvania and Oyster Creek Generating Station in New Jersey.
About 7 percent of the water samples contained slightly elevated
tritium levels. Only one taken from a well on plant property in
the Quad Cities was above the federal limit for safe drinking
water.
No detectable tritium, strontium 90 or beta-emitting
radionuclides were identified in the environment at the Oyster
Creek plant, the company said.
Company officials said they'll continue to test the wells as
part of an ongoing effort to identify leaks.
Tritium leaks found near Braidwood have been repaired and a
state-approved cleanup is under way at the site about 60 miles
southwest of Chicago.
The Braidwood leak was caused by malfunctioning valves on an
underground pipe that carries water with tritium to the Kankakee
River, where it is legally dumped.
Newsday.com
*****************************************************************
46 Daily Record: SEAWEED CAUSES NUKE SHUTDOWN
icnetwork.co.uk
Daily Record NEWS 28 September 2006
A NUCLEAR power plant had to be shut down after the cooling
system became blocked with seaweed.
Engineers ordered an emergency shutdown of both reactors at
Torness in East Lothian when filters became clogged.
Owners British Energy blamed a storm in the North Sea the
previous night.
Problems were spotted on the evening of August 2 and the station
was out of commission for a week.
A spokesman for British Energy said: "Problems with seaweed are
not unknown. This was basically because of a storm the night
before.
"It could have reopened the next day but there is a knock-on
effect and it was decided to carry out some maintenance."
Advertisement
Torness, which began generating in 1988 and is due to be
decommissioned in 2023, has been plagued with problems.
Last month, it was revealed there had been 200 incidents and
that output losses in the last year soared from six to 34 per
cent - making it the worst in the UK.
*****************************************************************
47 UPI: Future U.S. nuclear plant studies to begin
United Press International - NewsTrack -
9/28/2006 1:07:00 PM -0400
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy is
awarding $8 million in grants for engineering studies to develop
a pre-conceptual design for future nuclear plants.
Officials say the awards will be presented to three companies to
help guide research on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant.
A contract was to be issued later this week to the Westinghouse
Electric Co. for pre-conceptual design. Contracts are to be
issued later to AREVA NP and General Atomics to perform
complimentary engineering studies in the areas of technology and
design tradeoffs, initial cost estimates and selected plant
arrangements.
"These three commercial teams, broadly representing nuclear and
other energy sectors, bring an important commercial perspective
to the Next Generation Nuclear Plant research and development
initiative," Assistant U.S. Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis
Spurgeon said. "Their involvement will help us focus our
research and development activities, as well as establish the
functional requirements for the program."
The pre-conceptual design studies are to be completed during
fiscal 2007.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved
*****************************************************************
48 Whitehaven News: MP’s anger over British Nuclear Group sell-off
Published on 28/09/2006
By Alan Irving
COPELAND MP Jamie Reed has voiced his anger over the sale of
British Nuclear Group, his former employers at Sellafield.
He has accused BNG’s chief executive Mike Parker of
mis-leading the public over the way the company is going about
the Government-approved sell-off.
“I have asked him to tell me why there has been no
consultation or explanation to the local community over the
change in which BNG are going about the sale. I have also asked
him why he misled my constituency and his own workers by telling
them in an internal memo of September 11 that they had consulted
with key stakeholders,” the MP said..
“There has been no consultation with me or other elected
representatives in Copeland. Mr Parker hasn’t spoken to me for
months.
“We now seem to be on shifting sands over the way this sale is
progressing, it’s going ahead without any rhyme or reason,
with bits of it being sold off piecemeal. Nobody is telling us
what’s going on.
“As a community we have stood by the nuclear industry at
Sellafield for 40 years, in some cases at a cost to our
reputation, so we deserve better than this.”
A spokesman said yesterday that Mr Parker was unavailable to
comment on the MP’s criticism.
*****************************************************************
49 Daily Yomiuri: 4 rearrested over illegal exports
The Yomiuri Shimbun
The Metropolitan Police Department on Thursday issued fresh
arrest warrants for four former executives of a Kawasaki-based
precision measuring instrument maker, including its former
president, on suspicion of unlawfully exporting measuring
devices that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
The fresh arrest warrants were served on four former Mitutoyo
Corp. employees: former President Kazusaku Tezuka, 67, Vice
Chairman Norio Takatsuji, 71, Managing Director Hideyo Chikugo,
66, and Tetsuro Kimura, 65, a former board member.
The four had been arrested on suspicion of exporting a machine
capable of making precise measurements in three dimensions to
Malaysia without government permission in violation of the
Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Law.
But officers of the MPD's Public Safety Division suspect the
company had also unlawfully exported 3-D measuring machines to
Singapore. (Sep. 29, 2006)
© The Yomiuri Shimbun.
*****************************************************************
50 FLORIDA TODAY: Nuclear fuel for Mars rover raises little concern
September 28, 2006
BY CHRIS KRIDLER
Opportunity comes knocking. In this photo taken this
week by Mars rover Opportunity, the rover reaches the rim of
Victoria Crater in Mars' Meridiani Planum region with an 85-foot
drive during the rover's 951st Martian day. NASA
Care to comment?
The public may submit comments by Oct. 23 on the draft
environmental impact statement by sending mail to: Mark R. Dahl,
Mail Suite 3X63, Planetary Science Division, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA Headquarters, 300 E Street SW., Washington, DC
20546-0001, or e-mail mep.nepa@hq.nasa.gov.
Read the statement here:
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/admin/pubs/msl/index.htm.
COCOA - A power generator that uses plutonium dioxide would give
a 2009 Mars rover more freedom to explore questions about life
and water on the red planet, NASA officials said in a hearing
today.
In two sessions at the Florida Solar Energy Center on Wednesday,
they gave the public a chance to comment on a draft statement on
the potential dangers of a launch accident. The Mars Science
Laboratory would ride a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket from Cape
Canaveral.
Less than a half percent of launches would have the potential to
release radiological material, they said.
"The risks from this mission would be low," said Mark Dahl, NASA
program executive for the mission.
They received only one comment during the afternoon session,
from engineering consultant John Martin of Indialantic.
"This thing seems to be super safe as far as actually releasing
any kind of radiation," he said. "I hardly see any possibility."
Engineers and scientists want to use the generator, instead of
solar power, so the roving laboratory can go to areas where
there might be less sunlight and more slopes to climb.
Otherwise, the mission would be limited to a narrow latitude
band on Mars.
"That certainly would limit us fairly significantly in being
able to pick a very scientifically interesting site," said
project manager Richard Cook of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
California.
"I feel comfortable when we go through these kind of things,"
Brevard County emergency management chief Bob Lay said. "I would
not feel comfortable if we didn't do this. This lets me see what
kinds of problems it might present for the county and then to
look at those kinds of problems and address those problems with
some of the people here that are leaders in this field in the
nation."
The rovers now on Mars are about the size of golf carts. The
Mars Science Laboratory will be closer to Mini Cooper size, Cook
said.
"It's just taking a step forward, not only scientifically, but
technically," Cook said.
It will include instruments that can identify chemicals that
form the basis of life.
"We want to understand if Mars has these chemicals present that
life seems to need and makes use of," said deputy project
scientist Ashwin Vasavada.
The craft would launch in fall 2009 and arrive at Mars in 10 to
12 months. It would be the first to use a Skycrane landing
system, in which a flying descent module lowers the rover to the
surface with wires.
The twin rovers, meanwhile, are still exploring, long after
their early 2004 arrival at Mars. Wednesday, Opportunity made it
to the highly anticipated Victoria Crater after a nearly
two-year quest.
Contact Kridler at 242-3633 or ckridler@flatoday.net.
Copyright © , floridatoday.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
51 Xinhua: Radioactive materials found in sea waters near Tokyo
www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-28 12:15:09
TOKYO, Sept. 28 (Xinhua) -- Infinitesimal amount of
radioactive substances have been detected in sea water around a
U.S. military port near Tokyo where a nuclear-powered U.S.
submarine has passed through, the Yomiuri daily reported on
Thursday.
The amounts of the detected substances, cobalt 58 and cobalt
60, which were detected for the first time in sea water since
the Japanese government began to measure radioactive materials
in areas near where nuclear submarines have been, were
infinitesimal and had no influence to the environment or people,
according to Japan's Education, Culture, Sports, Science and
Technology Ministry.
The science ministry believes the substances, which do not
exist in the nature, were leaked from the nuclear reactor in
Honolulu of the United States, which stayed at Yokosuka port in
Kanagawa Prefecture from Sept. 7 to 14, the newspaper said.
The U.S. forces in Japan released a statement concerning the
issue on Wednesday night, pledging to investigate on the matter.
Enditem
Editor: Yao Runping
*****************************************************************
52 Japan Times: Trace radiation seen near nuke sub
Thursday, Sept. 28, 2006
Trace radiation seen near nuke sub The Associated Press
Small amounts of radiation were detected near a U.S. nuclear
submarine while it made a port call at Yokosuka, Kanagawa
Prefecture, earlier this month, the government said Wednesday.
Tests found radioactive material, including cobalt 60, in the
water off Yokosuka port while the USS Honolulu attack submarine
was visiting, according to Natsuko Miyakawa of the Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. The submarine
left port Sept. 14.
The radiation was in such small quantities that it posed no
danger to people or the environment, Miyakawa said.
A U.S. Navy spokeswoman in Yokosuka, who would not give her
name, citing protocol, said she was not aware of the test
results.
Japanese officials said the USS Honolulu, based in Pearl Harbor,
Hawaii, and other nuclear submarines make frequent stops in
Japan.
It was not immediately clear how long the submarine had been in
Yokosuka.
The U.S. has about 50,000 service members in bases across Japan
under a bilateral security pact. The U.S. plans to deploy the
USS George Washington, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier, to Japan in 2008.
The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
53 PRN: Final Tritium Assessment Results Confirm Preliminary Findings
: Detected Levels Pose No Hazard to Public
PR Newswire
WARRENVILLE, Ill., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Final
results of
an environmental study of tritium at 11 Exelon Nuclear stations
confirm
that there are no active leaks of tritium at any of the
generating plants.
The study also found no detectable tritium beyond the plant
boundaries
other than from permitted discharges, except for known
historical releases
at the Braidwood Generating Station in Illinois.
Final confirmatory tests performed since mid-August validate
preliminary tritium results announced on July 31. None of the
tritium
concentrations inventoried in the Exelon Nuclear assessment pose
a health
or safety hazard to workers or the public.
"This is the first comprehensive report on groundwater at
commercial
nuclear facilities, and it is an important step in demonstrating
the
environmental integrity of our plants," said Exelon's Chief
Nuclear Officer
Chris Crane.
"Any unintended release of a radioactive substance from our
plants is
unacceptable," Crane said. "This report, while confirming that
we do not
have any active leaks, also gives us a roadmap on how to prevent
them from
occurring and, should a leak occur, ensuring it is quickly
detected and
remediated."
The assessment, announced by the company on Feb. 15, is the
largest
environmental tritium study involving nuclear energy stations
ever
undertaken in the U.S. The nuclear industry announced a similar
voluntary
program for all commercial U.S. nuclear sites on May 9.
Exelon has drilled 507 test and monitoring wells in the
ground and
analyzed test results from more than 1,800 water samples. Of the
507 wells,
338 were installed as part of the Braidwood remediation program
and 169
were drilled for the fleet wide assessment. Of the 1,800 samples
analyzed,
over 1,300 were part of the Braidwood remediation program and
nearly 500
were part of the fleet wide assessment.
Exelon will use this sampling network to periodically sample
ground
water at each station, providing early identification of any
migration of
radionuclides. In addition, each station is evaluating long-term
leak
detection and prevention methods developed during the assessment
project,
including sealing equipment that contributed to leaks, installing
containment devices and increasing systematic inspections.
Exelon's 11 nuclear energy plants include six operating
plants and one
closed plant in Illinois, three operating plants in Pennsylvania
and one in
New Jersey. Final assessment results also determined that:
-- In addition to sampling done in connection with the
Braidwood remediation project, on-site water sample analyses
detected a slightly elevated level of tritium above the lowest
level of detection (LLD) of 200 picocuries per liter of water
(pCi/l) in 126 samples.
-- The concentration of tritium in all but one sample was
considerably lower than the safe drinking water maximum standard
established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which is
20,000 pCi/l.
-- The one exception was at Quad Cities, where a confined,
on-site groundwater concentration from a spill 25 years ago
measured 32,600 pCi/l. Other results system-wide ranged from 201
pCi/l to 13,500 pCi/l.
-- Tritium identified in the assessment has not been detected
beyond site boundaries, with the exception of known contamination
at Braidwood.
-- There is no detectable tritium in the Susquehanna River
other than from permitted discharges. However, based on
groundwater flow patterns on Three Mile Island, there is
groundwater containing very low levels of tritium migrating to
the Susquehanna River and immediately diluting to non-detectable
levels, posing no safety hazard.
-- Of the more than 1,800 groundwater samples taken in the
assessment, only one showed any detectable radionuclide other
than tritium. A low level of strontium 90 was detected at a
single, isolated location at Dresden Generating Station that was
the remnant of rainwater drainage from an open pipe during
construction activities in 1975. The water sample contained 2.17
pCi/l, slightly above the lowest level of detection of 2.0 pCi/l,
but far lower than the U.S. EPA maximum drinking water standard
of 8.0 pCi/l. Samples from all other wells in close proximity to
this location had no detectable levels of strontium 90,
indicating that it is isolated to this single location on plant
property. Strontium 90, an isotope of strontium and an abundant
alkaline earth metal, is produced in nuclear reactions.
-- At one plant, Oyster Creek Generating Station in New
Jersey, no detectable tritium, strontium 90 or beta-emitting
radionuclides were identified in the environment.
In Exelon's assessment, more than 400 hydro-geologists,
engineers, chemists, environmental scientists and other
specialists spent six months systematically evaluating the
integrity of mechanical systems that handle tritium and other
radioactive substances at all locations. They have studied
historical records of plant operations to determine if past leaks
or spills may have occurred, studied the hydrology, or
groundwater flow, of the area, and created a network of
monitoring wells to regularly monitor groundwater moving on and
around each plant site.
Each water sample was analyzed by independent laboratories to
ensure accurate and confirmable results.
Tritium is a weak radioactive isotope of hydrogen found
naturally in virtually all water in small concentrations and
produced in higher concentrations in water used in nuclear energy
plants. Tritium is a normal byproduct of commercial nuclear power
production and is discharged into the environment under strict
federal guidelines. Eventually, all tritium decays into helium, a
natural part of the earth's atmosphere.
Exelon Corporation (NYSE: ) is one of the nation's largest
electric utilities with approximately 5.2 million customers and
more than $15 billion in annual revenues. The company has one of
the industry's largest portfolios of electricity generation
capacity, with a nationwide reach and strong positions in the
Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. Exelon distributes electricity to
approximately 5.2 million customers in northern Illinois and
Pennsylvania and natural gas to more than 470,000 customers in
southeastern Pennsylvania. Exelon is headquartered in Chicago and
trades on the NYSE under the ticker EXC.
SOURCE Exelon Nuclear
Copyright © 1996- PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
54 NRC: NRC Receives Operating License Application for Proposed Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility
in South Carolina
News Release - 2006-11 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: No. 06-119 September 27, 2006
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has received an operating
license application from Duke, Cogema, Stone & Webster (DCS) for
a proposed mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility to be
constructed at the Department of Energys Savannah River Site in
South Carolina.
The application, submitted Sept. 27, will soon be available for
public viewing on the NRCs Web site at this address:
http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/licensing.html.
Some of the application's supporting documents will not be
available due to security or proprietary information
considerations. The NRC staff is currently reviewing the
application to determine whether it contains enough information
for the required formal reviews. If the application has
sufficient information, the NRC will formally docket, or file it
and will announce the opportunity for the public to request an
adjudicatory hearing on the license application.
The facility, which will be owned by the Department of Energys
National Nuclear Security Administration, is part of a bilateral
effort between the United States and the Russian Federation to
convert supplies of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into more
proliferation-resistant forms by blending it with uranium.
Converting the plutonium into MOX fuel will enable it to be used
in commercial reactors to generate electricity. In the United
States, only those reactors authorized by the NRC will be
permitted to use MOX fuel.
The NRC issued a construction authorization for the facility
March 30, 2005. During that licensing review, the NRC staff
completed an Environmental Impact Statement on the construction
and operation of the proposed facility. That report is available
on the NRC Web site at the above address. Information on various
public meetings held regarding the MOX facility is also
available there.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
NRC news releases are available through a free list serve
subscription at the following Web address:
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC
homepage at www.nrc.gov also offers a SUBSCRIBE link. E-mail
notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are
posted to NRC's Web site.
Last revised Thursday, September 28, 2006
*****************************************************************
55 Nevada Appeal: A fair-payment plan for Yucca Mountain
September 28, 2006
The "offer" made by the nuclear industry to Nevada to store their
toxic waste here is an insult. Do they really think the citizens
of the Silver State are stupid? Who will be affected most if the
facility, built by the lowest bidder, gets compromised by an
earthquake? It's the people!
Our very lives are at stake, and they want to pay $25 million a
year - chump change. Our plan is a little different; first and
foremost, we don't want other people's garbage in our state,
especially since Nevada has no nuclear power plants. That being
said, it is our fear that our "friends" in the federal government
will proceed regardless of the wishes of the people.
If that is the case, we feel a one-time direct payment of $10,000
to each legal resident of the state is a fair price to pay for
exposing us to this menace. After the initial payment, then it is
our plan that every year, each homeowner receives $2,000; if you
own a condo, $1,000; and if you are renting, $500. After all,
whose property values won't be worth a dime if there is an
incident?
Some might say that $10,000 per person is too much money; we say
that, according to the Heritage Foundation, the federal
government can't account for $25 billion in 2003 alone. There's
been little outrage over this incompetence so who cares if a few
citizens get a couple of bucks for risking their lives?
And to those who think this is a bad idea, here's our solution:
keep your radioactive waste in your own back yards!
Bruce Feher
founder, No. 2 Yucca Mountain, Las Vegas
*****************************************************************
56 San Luis Obispo Tribune: New bill would speed Diablo waste away
09/28/2006 |
Above-ground site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada would take spent
nuclear fuel from across the nation
By David Whitney dwhitney@mcclatchydc.com
WASHINGTON — A bill that was introduced in the Senate on
Wednesday would accelerate by five years or more the removal of
spent nuclear fuel rods accumulating at commercial power
facilities such as Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
If enacted, the bill would slice more than five years off the
Energy Department’s most optimistic schedule for beginning to
receive nuclear waste at its Nevada repository in 2017 by
authorizing temporary above-ground storage while a permanent
underground facility is readied.
The legislation by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would also apply
to accumulated waste at federal nuclear weapons facilities such
as the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington and Savannah
River in South Carolina. Waste from those plants could begin
moving to the Nevada site as early as 2010 under the Domenici
bill. The bill also would permanently declare a 147,000-acre
site for the Nevada waste complex.
Domenici heads the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, which oversees the nation’s nuclear power industry.
"This bill will remove legal barriers that will allow DOE to
meet its obligation to accept and store spent nuclear fuel as
soon as possible," Domenici said.
The legislation is intended to add new options for waste that is
building up at plants such as Diablo Canyon. Plant owner Pacific
Gas and Electric Co. is building an above-ground facility —
consisting of steel casks that will be bolted to thick concrete
pads — to hold Diablo’s waste until a federal repository is
opened.
"We have 20 years of used fuel here," said plant spokesman Jeff
Lewis. "That is why we need to get the dry cask facility going."
But critics have charged that the dry-cask storage facility at
Diablo would become a target for terrorists, and recently the
9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ordered the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to examine that threat.
The Domenici bill adds a new element to the evolving debate over
nuclear waste by requiring the commission to act quickly to
approve above-ground storage at Yucca Mountain, the Nevada site
where the permanent underground repository is planned. Before
now, above-ground temporary storage there has not been raised as
an option.
The bill, described by staff aides Wednesday as a "discussion
draft" pending a larger debate in Congress next year, represents
just one of the possibilities under consideration on Capitol
Hill.
Another would authorize above-ground storage sites for the casks
in states with nuclear plants. These sites could be at an
existing plant with enough property to accommodate waste from
other plants in the same state, or at central collection points
with high security.
In addition, the Energy Department is studying ways of
reprocessing the waste to not only reduce the volume headed for
permanent storage, but to renew fuel supplies for the nation’s
104 commercial reactors.
Opposition expected
Any plan involving waste storage in Nevada faces a daunting
challenge. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Democratic leader in the
Senate, is flatly opposed to having a depository in his state
and has vowed that such a facility there will never open.
But Congress overrode his opposition in 2002 when it revised the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act to build the repository at Yucca
Mountain. Karen Billups, deputy chief counsel to the energy
committee, told reporters Wednesday that it only makes sense to
proceed with temporary storage there as well.
"We think we can go ahead and make decisions," she said. "The
best place for storage is Nevada."
Critics of nuclear power are already lining up to oppose the
Domenici bill. They prefer that nuclear waste continue to be
stored where it is produced to avoid the dangers of shipping it
to Nevada.
"Senator Domenici wants to build new nuclear power plants at any
cost," said Rochelle Becker, executive director of the San Luis
Obispo-based Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility. "It’s not a
responsible bill and it’s not a well- thought-out bill. It makes
a scapegoat of the state of Nevada, which has no nuclear power
plants."
At hearings earlier this month, the head of the Energy
Department’s nuclear waste office, Edward F. Sprout III, said
the agency plans to submit its application to the NRC for a
Yucca Mountain license by June 30, 2008.
The Domenici bill requires that the agency simultaneously file
an application for above-ground storage, and it gives the NRC
only 18 months to approve it. The site could begin accepting
defense waste as soon as the NRC approves the permit. An
environmental impact statement would be required.
Acceptance of civilian reactor waste would be delayed until the
NRC issues permits for the repository, now projected by the
Energy Department for mid-2011. But that is well ahead of the
2017 projected opening of the repository, the earliest under
current law for civilian waste to begin arriving.
Even if all goes according to plan, as it almost never does in
the nuclear waste controversy, it will take decades for all the
waste in storage at reactor sites to make its way either to
reprocessing or Yucca Mountain. The bill gives priority to waste
that the Energy Department determines is unsuitable for
reprocessing or for which technology is not yet available.
There is an estimated 54,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at the
reactor sites, and 2,000 tons are produced annually. Billups
said the Nevada site is expected to be able to handle only about
3,000 tons of arriving waste a year, which means that it could
be mid-century before the backlog is erased.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
David Whitney covers Central Coast issues from the McClatchy
Washington bureau.
*****************************************************************
57 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judges throw out Nevada challenge to Yucca Mountain plan
Today: September 28, 2006 at 8:10:13 PDT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A panel of federal judges in Washington, D.C.,
have thrown out a Nevada lawsuit against the Yucca Mountain
project, citing technical grounds.
The lawsuit sought to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
change a regulation that presumes a nuclear waste repository
will be open and operating by 2025.
Nevada attorneys told a three-judge panel Sept. 14 that the so
called "waste confidence" rule would tilt the NRC in favor of
approving the repository being planned for Yucca Mountain, 90
miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But the judges, sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit, dismissed the case in an
unpublished ruling filed last Friday.
They decided it was too early for the state to claim it would be
harmed from NRC licensing matters that might take place years
from now.
---
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
58 Interfax: Russia eyes at least 25% of U.S. uranium market
Sep 28 2006 3:04PM
MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax) - Russia is seeking to win at least
25% of the U.S. uranium market, Russian Federal Atomic Energy
Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko told journalists.
"We are prepared to conclude contracts claiming more than 25% of
the market," Kiriyenko said, adding that Russia will not
tolerate the anti-dumping restrictions currently existing on the
U.S. market for Russian nuclear materials producers.
© 1991-2006 Interfax
All rights reserved
News and other data on this web site are provided for
information purposes only, and are not intended for
republication or redistribution. Republication or redistribution
of Interfax content, including by framing or similar means, is
expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of
Interfax.
*****************************************************************
59 Reuters: Areva to supply MOX fuel to Japanese group Kyushu
Friday September 29, 12:52 AM
PARIS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Areva , the world's biggest maker of
nuclear reactors, has signed a deal with Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries to supply mixed oxide (MOX) fuel to Japanese electric
power company Kyushu .
Areva said on Thursday it would supply the fuel to the Genkai
nuclear power plant run by Kyushu.
The manufacture of MOX fuel, which is a mixture of plutonium and
uranium often recycled from nuclear material, has aroused
opposition from many environmentalists around the world.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen
are expressly prohibited without the written consent of Reuters
Limited
*****************************************************************
60 RIA Novosti: Russia's estimated uranium stock amounts to 615,000 tons
28/ 09/ 2006
MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's estimated stock of
uranium amounts to 615,000 tons, the country's nuclear chief
said Thursday.
Sergei Kiriyenko earlier said that Russia, which accounts for
8% of the world's uranium output, should replace its
non-renewable gas resources with nuclear energy.
Russia's reserves of coal and natural gas will be depleted in 50
years, and in response Russia is planning to expand its nuclear
energy sector and meet 60-70% of its uranium demand domestically
by 2015.
"Uranium production in Russian deposits has now become
profitable," Kiriyenko said.
He added that uranium production was not profitable earlier in
Russia, when the average price for one kilogram was $40.
"Today world's price per kilo amounts to $100, and, therefore,
production has become profitable," he said.
Kiriyenko said Russia intends to extend its cooperation with
all uranium-producing countries.
"We will be extending our cooperation with all countries
producing uranium," he said. "We are ready to cooperate actively
with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and have already started talks
with Mongolia."
He added that the first batch of uranium from a Russian-Kazakh
joint-venture, in the south of mineral-rich Kazakhstan, will be
produced in January-February 2007.
The joint-venture was set up in 2004 and is exploring a uranium
ore deposit with estimated reserves of 19,000 metric tons of
uranium in Zarechnoye, near the border with Central Asian
neighbors Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Techsnabexport, Russia's state-controlled uranium supplier and
provider of uranium enrichment services, holds a 49.33% stake in
the joint-venture.
Kiriyenko said that in Soviet times, Russia produced a
considerable amount of uranium for military purposes, which
could last the country for many decades.
But he added that the current increase in uranium production was
necessary for the full-scale development of Russia's nuclear
sector.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
61 RIA Novosti: Russia for equal terms on world uranium market - nuclear chief
28/ 09/ 2006
MOSCOW, September 28 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will never tolerate
discrimination against its nuclear companies on the world
market, Russia's top nuclear official said Thursday.
Russia has been looking to increase its presence on the world
nuclear fuel market, but has encountered resistance,
particularly from the United States.
"We will never agree to Russia's unequal position on the
world's nuclear market in comparison with other countries," said
Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear
Power.
Restrictions on imports from Russia of low enriched uranium
have been in force since the Soviet era. Russia is currently
allowed to operate on the U.S. market without a 116% import duty
only through the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a
special intermediary agent, under the HEU-LEU Conversion
program.
The U.S. International Trade Commission voted July 18 to keep
the 116% import duty on Russian uranium products, claiming that
the lifting of anti-dumping restrictions would seriously harm
the American economy.
Kiriyenko said Russia seeks no more than a 25% share of the U.S.
uranium market, but wants to make direct deliveries at market
prices.
"We would like to provide direct deliveries to the U.S. nuclear
market now and after 2013 [when the HEU-LEU contract expires],"
Kiriyenko said.
He said tension has persisted in talks with the U.S. on lifting
the anti-dumping restrictions, despite high confidence on the
market operating on long-term contracts.
"We are astonished that our American partners say they have no
guarantees of Russian uranium deliveries until 2020," he said.
He was more enthusiastic about uranium deliveries to Europe,
citing a number of loopholes, but said that European laws still
impair Russian deliveries.
"[The Federal Agency for Nuclear Power is not demanding]
privileges for Russia, but equal terms."
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
62 Platts: New Domenici waste bill could start spent-fuel storage in 2011
Washington (Platts)--27Sep2006
Utility spent fuel could be moved off reactor sites to a storage
facility in Nevada as early as fourth-quarter 2011 under nuclear
waste legislation Senator Pete Domenici unveiled Wednesday.
The New Mexico Republican's bill would allow the US
Department of Energy to begin moving utility spent fuel to the
planned repository at Yucca Mountain roughly five years before
DOE's 2017 target for the start of repository operations. DOE
would submit two license applications to NRC in 2008. One
application would be a repository, the other would be for a
surface storage facility at the site, a Senate staffer said.
Other key provisions of the bill--which Republican staffers
of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that controls DOE
spending and the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, both of
which Domenici heads, helped craft--include moving the entire $18
billion Nuclear Waste Fund, a federal trust fund, off budget and
tying the repository program to DOE's Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership program, a fuel-cycle initiative aimed at spent-fuel
reprocessing and recycling.
Domenici acknowledged earlier this month that there isn't
enough time to get a nuclear waste bill through Congress this
year but introducing one now could initiate discussions on
changes needed in the Yucca Mountain program.
--Elaine Hiruo, elaine_hiruo@platts.com
Copyright © 2006 - Platts, All Rights Reserved [The McGraw-Hill
Companies]
*****************************************************************
63 reviewjournal.com: Measure hastens waste to Yucca
Sep. 28, 2006
Surface storage part of senator's proposal
By STEVE TETREAULT
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear waste could start arriving at Yucca
Mountain in 2010, seven years sooner than the government planned,
under a bill introduced Wednesday in Congress that seeks to speed
progress at the Nevada radioactive-waste site.
The bill would allow the Department of Energy to pour concrete
pads at the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas and start
transporting high-level nuclear waste from DOE and Defense
Department weapons installations for storage in steel and
concrete casks.
By the end of the following year, spent nuclear fuel could start
arriving from commercial nuclear reactors for similar
above-ground storage.
Several thousand tons of waste would remain in the upright
containers until DOE won safety approvals to start placing them
in an underground repository nearby.
The timelines are contingent on the Department of Energy keeping
to a licensing plan, completing necessary environmental studies
and winning construction licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission after timely safety reviews, said aides to Sen. Pete
Domenici, R-N.M., who sponsored the measure.
Critics of the Yucca Mountain project said that is a big
uncertainty for a program that has been delayed repeatedly,
faced legal and technical setbacks and dealt with nagging
quality problems that DOE managers have said still need to be
fixed.
"This is one more attempt to breathe life into Yucca Mountain, a
dying beast," said Jon Summers, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid,
D-Nev.
Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects,
said early placement of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in
advance of full repository licensing violates federal law and
would be subject to a state lawsuit.
"All those things would constitute interim storage in violation
of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act," said Loux, who coordinates the
state's official opposition to the Yucca program.
Domenici, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, said that despite a rocky history, Yucca
Mountain remains a key part of the nation's spent-fuel
management strategy.
"We must take this program and make it work. I believe this bill
would do that," Domenici said in a Senate speech unveiling the
measure, called the Nuclear Waste Acceleration to Yucca bill.
Among its provisions, the bill would withdraw public land for
the repository and a railroad line to the Yucca site, allow the
repository to be expanded beyond 77,000 tons and allow a
repository fund to be taken "off budget" to let Congress
appropriate larger sums for construction.
Some of the provisions fulfill requests by the Department of
Energy. Others reflect Domenici's vision that the repository is
a component of a nuclear waste policy that should include
spent-fuel reprocessing and interim storage at sites around the
country.
Before nuclear waste moves, the bill wants the energy secretary
to determine what material should be stored at Yucca Mountain
and what should be set aside for the Bush administration's
reprocessing initiative, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership,
Senate aides said.
The Energy Department has set a schedule that envisions the
Yucca repository being completed in 2017. DOE spokesman Craig
Stevens said in a statement that the Domenici bill "would move
the ball forward."
With only two days this week and a shortened post-election
session remaining for Congress this year, Domenici's bill stakes
out a position for when debate on Yucca Mountain resumes in the
next Congress.
The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry trade group, also has
circulated a Yucca Mountain bill for consideration next year.
Loux said state officials were not paying much attention to the
Yucca Mountain bills being floated in the final days of the
congressional session.
"What really matters is what they do next year and what Congress
looks like," Loux said.
With Democrats expected to gain seats in the fall elections, the
lay of the land in the Senate could change, with project
opponents such as Reid gaining more clout, Loux said.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
Stephens Media GroupPrivacy Statement
*****************************************************************
64 reviewjournal.com: Judges dismiss Yucca suit, but state is happy
Sep. 28, 2006
WASHINGTON -- A panel of federal judges has thrown out one of
Nevada's lawsuits on the Yucca Mountain Project, dismissing it on
technical grounds.
The lawsuit sought to force the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to
change a regulation that presumes a nuclear waste repository will
be open and operating by 2025.
Nevada attorneys told a three-judge panel in a Sept. 14 hearing
that the so called "waste confidence" rule would bias the NRC in
favor of approving the repository being planned for Yucca
Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
But the judges, sitting in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit, dismissed the case in an
unpublished ruling filed Sept. 22.
They said it was too early for the state to claim it would be
harmed from NRC licensing matters that might take place years
from now.
Despite the lawsuit being dismissed, the state found something
to like in how the judges framed their two-page ruling, said Bob
Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects.
In the decision, the court said the waste-confidence rule "has
no legal effect in the anticipated Yucca Mountain licensing
proceeding." Loux maintained the statement affirmed the state's
position even though the lawsuit was dismissed.
"We got what we wanted, that the rule has nothing to do with
Yucca Mountain," Loux said.
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
*****************************************************************
65 Salt Lake Tribune: Goshutes: U.S. will oversee tribal election
Article Last Updated: 09/27/2006 01:17:22 AM MDT
Reactions are mixed in Skull Valley, even among some foes of the
current leadership
By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune
The U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs said Tuesday it will take
the rare move of overseeing a general election for the Skull
Valley Band of Goshutes in Tooele County.
The news has been greeted with mixed reviews in the
124-member tribe, which has been in turmoil for years, largely
over how money has been spent from a lease allowing a consortium
to store high-level nuclear waste on the reservation 45 miles
southwest of Salt Lake City.
On the one hand, their government has been in disarray over
alleged corruption. On the other, allowing the federal
government to step in means ceding some sacred, sovereign
rights.
The U.S. Interior Department moved to kill the waste site
earlier this month with two rulings, one that invalidated the
tribe's lease with the utility companies behind the project and
the other that blocked the transportation route to the site. On
Friday, officials of the Utah office of the BIA sent out notices
to adult members that outline plans for balloting by mail.
Kevin Worthen, dean of the J. Ruben Clark Law School at
Brigham Young University, called the BIA's involvement in an
election of officers "unusual."
"Generally speaking," he said, "the courts and the tribes
have ruled this is an internal tribal matter."
Although tribal critics of the waste site have been pushing
for a new election for years, many are unhappy with the mail-in
voting announced by Chester Mills, superintendent of the
Uintah-Ouray Agency BIA office in Duchesne County.
"This is not how we run our government," said Mary Allen, a
former vice chair of the tribal executive committee. "If he
[Mills] wants to do an election, he should do it in Skull
Valley, not in his office."
Margene Bullcreek, a longtime critic of disputed Goshute
Chairman Leon Bear, agreed that candidates must speak directly
to the people of the Skull Valley Band, according to tribal
tradition.
"That's the way it's been done with the Goshutes since Day
One," she said.
Bullcreek has already written to the BIA about its proposed
process, and other Goshutes are expected to follow suit.
Meanwhile, a number of tribal members say the BIA's mail-in
balloting is not fair and will create confusion.
Rex Allen, a onetime tribal secretary, predicted there will
be lawsuits over the election results. The 2001 election
resulted in the three would-be executive committee members and
their attorney pleading guilty to theft after they accessed
tribal funds although the election was disputed.
"The question is, how far is the bureau going to step in?"
he said.
Bear's status as chairman has been in question for more than
five years. Since then, he has been indicted on six charges that
included embezzlement. He pleaded guilty to a single charge of
cheating on his federal taxes. And six attempts to have a new
election have failed.
The vice chair, Bear's cousin, quit last month, complaining
she had been forced to sign blank checks and was excluded from
basic information about the tribe's businesses.
Bear said he supports the elections and says his fate as
chairman "is up to the people." He also pledged to help any new
leaders elected to the executive committee, which may find that
one of its first decisions will be whether to fight the Interior
Department's waste site rulings.
"It's a big job," he said of the chairmanship, "even if it
is a small number of people."
Mills, the BIA superintendent, said he has been involved
previously with BIA "secretarial" elections, which generally
deal with changes in tribal constitutions. He said the October
voting will go in two phases, culminating in a review of the
ballots by workers in his office on Oct. 23.
"Our total objective," he said, "is to get a functioning
tribal government in place."
fahys@sltrib.com
© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
66 DOI: PFS right of way applications
FR Doc E6-15734
[Federal Register: September 28, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 188)]
[Notices] [Page 57005-57006] From the Federal Register Online via
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28se06-90]
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Bureau of Land Management
Notice of Availability of the Record of Decision for the Right-
of-Way Applications Filed by Private Fuel Storage, L.L.C., for an
Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation on the Reservation of
the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and the Related
Transportation Facility in Tooele County, UT
AGENCY: Bureau of Land Management, Interior. ACTION: Notice of
Availability of Record of Decision.
SUMMARY: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has signed a Record
of Decision (ROD) concerning two right-of-way applications filed
by Private Fuel Storage (PFS), L.L.C, for an independent spent
fuel storage installation on reservation lands of the Skull
Valley Band of Goshute Indians (Band or Skull Valley Band). The
installation is described in an Environmental Impact Statement
(EIS) prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC),
entitled ``Final Environmental Impact Statement for the
Construction and Operation of an Independent Spent Fuel Storage
Installation on the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band of
Goshute Indians and the Related Transportation Facility in Tooele
County, Utah (December 2001).''
Spent nuclear fuel (SNF), the focus of the EIS, is the
primary by- product from a nuclear reactor. As proposed, the fuel
would be transported from an existing Union Pacific railroad site
to the Reservation of the Skull Valley Band in Tooele County,
Utah. The applications seek right-of-way grants under Title V of
the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C.
1761, to transport SNF across public lands managed by the BLM.
The BLM was a cooperating agency in the preparation of this EIS,
as were the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Department of
the Interior, and the U.S. Surface Transportation Board. This EIS
is available online at .
Additional comments were received by the BLM following its
publication on February 7, 2006, of a Federal Register notice at
71 FR 6286 requesting comments on the two right-of-way
applications then pending before the agency. The BLM ROD is based
on review of the draft EIS; the FEIS; comments received from the
public, other Federal agencies, and State and local governments;
and discussion of all the alternatives with the cooperating
agencies.
The BLM decision is to choose the No Action alternative from
the EIS. The effect of this decision is to reject applications U
76985 and U 76986 for right-of-way grants filed by PFS, L.L.C.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jim Hughes; Deputy Director,
Bureau of Land Management; 1849 C St., NW., Washington, DC 20240;
Telephone: (202) 208-3801.
ADDRESSES: Copies of the Record of Decision are available from
Jim Hughes; Deputy Director, Bureau of Land Management; 1849 C
St., NW., Washington, DC 20240.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area
On January 6, 2006, after publication of the project's EIS in
December 2001, President Bush signed Public Law 109-163, the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 (119
Stat. 3136). Section 384 of this Act designated certain lands as
wilderness, to be known as the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area,
and added these lands to the National Wilderness Preservation
System. The Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area includes lands
described in PFS's application U 76985 seeking a right-of-way for
a rail line (which had been the preferred Alternative of the
EIS). The effect of this wilderness designation is to preclude
the BLM's issuance of a right-of-way grant authorizing a rail
line through those lands designated as the Cedar Mountain
Wilderness Area. As a practical matter, any rail line would be
forced to halt at the boundary of the lands designated as the
Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area.
The BLM's authority to issue a right-of-way grant for a rail
line across the public lands is set forth in Title V of the
Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. 1761.
Section 501(a) of FLPMA provides in part: ``The Secretary [of the
Interior], with respect to the public lands and, the Secretary of
Agriculture, with respect to lands within the National Forest
System (except in each case land designated as wilderness), are
authorized to grant, issue, or renew rights-of-way over, upon,
under, or through such lands for-- * * * roads, trails, highways,
railroads, * * * or other means of transportation * * * (emphasis
added).'' Thus, alternatives analyzing transportation by rail
were not selected because to grant the right-of- way sought by
PFS in application U 76985 would be inconsistent with the purpose
for which [[Page 57006]] the BLM manages the public lands and
inconsistent with section 501(a) of FLPMA (43 CFR 2804.26(a)(1)
and (a)(4)). Skull Valley Road
Eliminating the proposed rail line right-of-way application U
76985, the second right-of-way application, was discussed in
Alternatives 3 and 4 of the EIS (same basic route using the
existing Skull Valley Road to the two different nearby sites on
the Reservation). Right-of-way application U 76986 would entail
constructing an Intermodal Transfer Facility (ITF) and rail
siding to be built on lands managed by BLM at the existing main
Union Pacific rail line near Timpie, Utah, to transfer SNF
shipping casks from rail cars to the heavy-haul vehicles, which
would then transport the SNF along the existing Skull Valley Road
to the site on the Reservation. No rail line would be built under
these alternatives, as the sole access is from the Skull Valley
Road. Skull Valley Road is an undivided, two- lane public road,
one lane in each direction. The BLM issued a right- of-way (U
04240) for this road to the Utah State Road Commission on May 17,
1951. For the BLM's decisional purposes, these alternatives would
involve the issuance of a right-of-way grant authorizing the use
of public land for the ITF.
The EIS indicates that these alternatives were not selected
because construction and use of the rail line would have
advantages over the use of the ITF. The ITF requires the use of
heavy-haul trailers traveling on Skull Valley Road at speeds not
to exceed 20 miles per hour. Impacts to local traffic would be
difficult to mitigate, impacts which could be entirely avoided by
use of the rail line from Skunk Ridge. Also, the ITF would
involve additional doses of radiation incurred by workers
transferring SNF shipping casks from rail cars to heavy-haul
vehicles at the ITF. This additional dosage would also be avoided
if the rail option were to be used instead of the ITF option.
Thus, alternatives analyzing intermodal transfer facilities were
not selected because to grant the right-of-way sought by PFS in
application U 76986 based on the existing record would be
contrary to the public interest (43 CFR 2804.26(a)(2)).
To obtain a copy of the Record of Decision, send a request to
the address given in the ADDRESSES section of this notice. Chad
Calvert,
Acting Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management. [FR
Doc. E6-15734 Filed 9-27-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4310-84-P
*****************************************************************
67 NRC: USEC, Inc. (American Centrifuge Plant); Notice of Reconstitution
FR Doc E6-15921
[Federal Register: September 28, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 188)]
[Notices] [Page 57009] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr28se06-94]
Pursuant to 10 CFR 2.321, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board
in the above captioned USEC, Inc. proceeding, is hereby
reconstituted by appointing Administrative Judge Peter S. Lam in
place of Administrative Judge Paul B. Abramson. In accordance
with 10 CFR 2.302, henceforth all correspondence, documents, and
other material relating to any matter in this proceeding over
which this Licensing Board has jurisdiction should be served on
Administrative Judge Lam as follows: Administrative Judge Peter
S. Lam, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001.
Issued at Rockville, Maryland this 22nd day of September 2006.
E. Roy Hawkens, Chief Administrative Judge, Atomic Safety and
Licensing Board Panel.
[FR Doc. E6-15921 Filed 9-27-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
68 ITAR-TASS: Russia has significant uranium reserves - Kiriyenko
28.09.2006, 14.43
MOSCOW, September 28 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s known uranium
reserves are 615,000 tons, the Federal Agency of Atomic Energy’s
chief Sergei Kiriyenko said.
“A lot of uranium was extracted in the USSR years, and we have
significant reserves of it at present – we can extract no
uranium at all about ten years and still provide for our needs,”
he told a news conference on Thursday.
Kiriyenko said that “it is necessary to think about the future”.
“For this reason we increase on agreement with the Russian
Ministry of Natural Resources the financing of geological
uranium prospecting ten times,” he said.
*****************************************************************
69 Bradford Publishing: State to sue Feds over West Valley cleanup
Sep. 29, 2006
By RICK MILLER, Olean Times Herald
ASHFORD HOLLOW — New York state expects to file a lawsuit against
the U.S. Department of Energy soon over responsibility issues of
the cleanup at the West Valley Demonstration Project.
Hal Brodie, attorney for the New York State Energy Research and
Development Authority (NYSERDA), told members of the West Valley
Citizens Task Force Wednesday the issues are much the same as
when negotiations over the cleanup of the former nuclear waste
site began in 1999.
The Citizens Task Force, meeting at the Ashford Office Complex
on Route 219, got a taste of the differences between state and
federal officials in charge of the cleanup.
Task Force members heard Bryan Bower, director of the West
Valley Demonstration project for the Department of Energy,
listed the issues of disagreement with NYSERDA.
The issues include disposal fees for the high-level waste at the
site, long-term stewardship obligations, responsibility for the
North plateau expansion of ground contamination and the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission-licensed low-level disposal area, state
credit due under an amended agreement, and “how to cooperatively
resolve technical challenges that currently hinder the
environmental impact statement (EIS) process,” Mr. Bower said.
“There are some issues on which we don’t see eye-to-eye,” he
added.
Dr. Paul Piciulo, NYSERDA project director, said the state
agency believes no further progress can be made on the EIS
without an agreement on the preferred alternative.
He said there had been no progress on a bill introduced in
Congress by U.S. Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. to direct the DOE
to take over responsibility for the cleanup at West Valley.
Currently, the state pays 10 percent of the cleanup costs at the
West Valley Demonstration Project, which since 1980 have totaled
more than $2 billion. Nuclear Fuel Services operated a
reprocessing facility at the 3,300-acre site from 1966 to 1972.
NYSERDA officials last month refused to participate with DOE on
the draft environmental impact statement over differences in the
preferred alternative for the cleanup and long-term stewardship
of the site of the nation’s first commercial nuclear fuel
reprocessing plant.
The DOE is proposing to leave huge underground tanks that held
high-level radioactive wastes in place and fill them with a
grout-like cement, and claims that under the West Valley
Demonstration Project Act, the federal government it is not
responsible to clean up an underground plume of radioactive
contamination on the North plateau at the WVDP site.
One Task Force member, Joseph Patti, asked why the state could
proceed with a cleanup of the contaminated groundwater beneath
the North plateau before it spreads further. He also asked if
the State Disposal Area, with hundreds to tons of low-level
radioactive waste, didn’t pose a higher risk of long-term
erosion.
Another member, John Pfeffer, said it seemed DOE was hesitant to
remove the twin 600,000-gallon underground storage tanks because
of the impact it could have on calls to remove dozens of tanks
holding liquid radioactive wastes at the Hanford Reservation in
Washington and another site at Savannah, Ga.
A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official last month
proposed the removal of the tanks rather than filling them with
cement and leaving them in the ground. The walls of the tank
have “rings” of radioactive contamination similar to a bathtub
ring, which extends to the latticework of interior steel framing.
The danger of erosion at the site stems from its proximity to
Cattaraugus Creek, which drains into Lake Erie and is the source
of drinking water for thousands in Western New York.
Another Task Force member, Dr. Tim Siepel, said he didn’t think
the lawsuit would be resolved in time to prevent further spread
of the radioactive plume
Mr. Brodie, the NYSERDA attorney, said as soon as DOE opens the
door by digging up a tank “everyone will want it.”
He said the DOE erosion model has been discredited and no one
can tell whether critical areas of the site will become eroded
over the next 50,000 years.
“We need to have serious discussions about a different preferred
alternative. The tanks should be exhumed,” he said.
The state is also critical of DOE’s plan to demolish the
original process building and “encapsulate” it on the site.
Mr. Brodie said NYSERDA “feels more should be done for plume
cleanup. We believe DOE is obligated to cleanup the groundwater”
beneath the site.
The DOE, he said, is also obligated under terms of the West
Valley Demonstration Project Act of 1980 to provide long-term
stewardship. The DOE, he said, believes it can close facilities
in place and turn it (site) over to New York State.
NYSERDA does not expect its low-level disposal area will remain
on the site forever, Mr. Brodie said in response to a question
from another Task Force member. He said the state would leave it
in place for at most, a few decades before deciding what how to
handle the material contained there.
If the state starts paying for all the issues in dispute with
the DOE, “it will cost new York State taxpayers many millions of
dollars,” Mr. Brodie said.
©Bradford Publishing 2006
Copyright © 1995 - 2006 All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
70 www.bbj.hu:: Hungary's nuclear plant to disconnect block to remove fuel rods
28 Sep 2006 bbj.hu
Hungary's sole nuclear power plant said it will
disconnect one of four generation blocks from the country's grid
next week to remove damaged fuel rods after more than three
years of preparations. Paksi Atomerőmű Zrt (Paks Nuclear Power
Plant), the operator of the plant, will work with Russia's TVEL
Group to remove the fuel rods from a cleaning tank next to the
plant's No. 2 block, József Kovács, the company's CEO, said
yesterday in a press conference in Paks, in southern Hungary.
„The Hungarian and Russian experts have practiced every single
step of the removal in advance,” he said. „Safety is above
everything.” Fuel rods at the plant, which generates about 40%
of Hungary's electricity, were damaged in an incident in April
2003. The parts overheated in the cleaning tank and took the
block off-line for more than a year until August 2004. Hungary's
nuclear regulator on September 7 authorized the removal. Hungary
will pay TVEL $4.5 million for the repair work, which may take
several months, said István Kocsis, the CEO of state-owned
power wholesaler MVM Zrt (Hungarian Power Companies Ltd).
MVM owns the power plant. About 55 people will work to remove the
fuel rods in five to seven steps, he added. The plant produced
13,883 gigawatt-hours of power last year. The country's lawmakers
voted last October to extend the operation of its four blocks by
20 years to 2037 at the cost of Ft 170 billion ($790 million).
Paksi Atomerőmű is also spending several billion forints to
raise its output capacity by 8% to 2,000 megawatst by 2009.
Repair works will start in the first half of October, Kovács
said.
(Bloomberg)
*****************************************************************
71 Bellona: Kirienko: Russia has 615,000 tons of uranium
Russia nuke market?The supply of uranium in Russia is estimated
to be some 615,000 tons, Rosatom head Sergei Kirienko announced
Thursday, adding that tapping in the country’s mines “has
become profitable,” the Russian RIA Novosti newswire reported.
Bellona, 28/09-2006
According to Kirienko, extracting uranium from Russian mines was
not a profitable endeavor because the average market price for a
kilogram of uranium was approximately $40.
But now world market prices have skyrocketed to $100 per
kilogram, said Kirienko, making Russian mining of the substance
justifiable as a profit-turning business. The sharp upturn in
uranium prices can be chalked up to analysts assertions over the
past few years that world uranium supplies were running short,
and thus countries with nuclear energy programmes began buying
it up as quickly as they could.
Kirienko added that the Russian joint venture with uranium rich
Kazakhstan called Zarechnoe will begin mining in January or
February of 2007.
We will expand cooperation in the field of uranium mining with
all countries where uranium mining occurs, RIA Novosti quoted
Kirienko of saying. We are ready to develop active cooperation
with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and already have an active
dialogue with Mongolia.
According to Kirienko, a significant quantity of uranium was
mined for military purposes during soviet times, thus Russia can
mine nothing for a few dozen years. But he added that, on the
other hand, uranium mining is necessary for wide-scale
development of nuclear power.
Print Notify a friend Copyright © Bellona -- Reprint and
copying is recommended if source is stated  Support Bellona's
work for the environment - Phone +47 23 23 46 00 | E-MAIL:
info@bellona.no
*****************************************************************
72 Whitehaven News: Plutonium pile tested
Published on 28/09/2006
SOME of the most up-to-date computer technology was used to test
the safety of the remaining nuclear core of the Windscale
plutonium pile at the centre of the 1957 fire.
And the UKAEA believes the computer studies show that the
reactor fire could not start up again.
The core still has 10 per cent of its original inventory of
nuclear fuel melted and fused in part of the old reactor.
The AEA team report that: “the latest scientific information
and assessment techniques have been used to demonstrate that the
Pile 1 facility does not pose the risks that had been previously
considered”.
They used computer modelling to explore the most extreme
accident conditions such as earthquakes.
They say that: “This extensive study has demonstrated that the
Pile 1 fire could not start again and the remaining fuel could
not go critical.”
The new results are expected to lead to a faster scheme for
dismantling the reactor remains.
*****************************************************************
73 [NYTr] UK: Woman Pensioner Arrested in CND Demo
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 09:22:13 -0500 (CDT)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
sent by Simon McGuinness
[The 62-year-old woman is lucky to have escaped with a caution,
given the trigger-happy cops she was dealing with. - SMcG.]
The Independent - 28 September 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1768821.ece
Woman pensioner arrested in CND demo
By Ian Herbert
A 62-year-old woman was arrested and cautioned for common assault
yesterday, after a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protest involving 70
people was broken up by mounted police and officers with dogs.
Kate Hudson, the CND chairperson, complained the response was
heavy-handed. Greater Manchester Police said last night that a Section
14 order, compelling the protesters to disperse, was served after they
"refused to co-operate".
Joe Richardson, a graphic designer, who was also arrested, said he was
merely a passerby who stopped to watch. He said he was told by officers
that CND had failed to provide advance notice of the protest.
"I couldn't help but stop to look because the protest had seemed so
insignificant - just a bunch of old peaceniks," he said.
Nathan Jackson, 30, one of the protesters said: "There were fewer than
100 people gathered and no sign of any trouble."
Police said they believed the group "intended to cause disruption to the
city centre and conference area".
*
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. Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us .
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74 Japan Times: Japan could go nuke under Abe, expert reckons
Friday, Sept. 29, 2006
Japan could go nuke under Abe, expert reckons Kyodo News
Takashi Tachibana, a political expert whose work led to the
resignation of the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka in the
1970s, is concerned that Japan could get nuclear weapons under
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
He said during a recent speech at the Foreign Correspondents'
Club of Japan that although Abe may not want to go nuclear,
people like Kyoto University professor Terumasa Nakanishi, whom
Abe relies on heavily for advice on foreign policy, wants U.S.
nuclear weapons in Japan on condition that Tokyo has the right
to order a nuclear strike, Tachibana said.
While this position is not widely accepted, the professor said
chances are high that it could catch on with the recent
deterioration of the public's feelings about nuclear-armed China
and North Korea, which also is believed to have atomic weapons.
Tachibana said he was also concerned that there are few people
in leadership positions who would openly oppose having or using
nuclear weapons, saying the situation is similar to the 1930s,
when the government made a series of decisions that led the
nation to war.
"I wouldn't say Abe's Cabinet will immediately move in that
direction (of going nuclear), but . . . a very tragic
consequence is possible when taking into account" all of these
factors, the professor figured.
Calling Abe a "truly serious nationalist and conservative,"
Tachibana said the first baby boomer prime minister does not
accept the postwar values Japan has nurtured under its laws,
illustrated by his keenness to amend the Constitution and the
basic education law.
If Abe's government reinterprets the Constitution to allow the
country to participate in collective defense, as Abe also wants,
the professor warned that Japan would become deeply entangled in
any future wars the U.S. might wage.
He also argued that because of his admiration for his
grandfather, the late Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, Abe has
many blind spots about history, including criticizing the
opposition to Kishi's highly unpopular revision in 1960 to the
U.S.-Japan security treaty, which resulted in his resignation
the same year. Tachibana said the treaty was forced through the
Diet, causing widespread public fear that democracy might be in
jeopardy
"It is very dangerous if Abe's political fighting position is
modeled after his grandfather," Tachibana said.
The Japan Times (C) All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
75 Fw: Remembering Rocky Flats resistance, Oct. 28
Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2006 19:21:31 -0700
X-Nohoney: yes white-hard - relay H=adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net (borg.energy-net.org) [63.203.231.61]
X-Sender-Host-Address: 63.203.231.61
X-Sender-Host-Name: adsl-63-203-231-61.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net
X-Spam-Class: HAM-VERY-WHITELIST
TEEPEE FROM 1978-79 CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE ON TRACKS AT ROCKY FLATS
TO BE PRESENTED TO ROCKY FLATS COLD WAR MUSEUM
What: Presentation to Rocky Flats Cold War Museum of teepee from 1978-79
blockade of railroad tracks at Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant
When: Saturday, October 28, 2006, 2-4 PM
Where: West Gate of Rocky Flats and Building 60 (along Hwy. 93 between
Golden and Boulder)
Who: Patrick Malone, a Denver native who occupied the tracks at Rocky
Flats in 1978-79, plus others who played leading roles in opposing nuclear
weapons production at Rocky Flats
BACKGROUND:
Full Rocky Flats story: The board of the Rocky Flats Cold War Museum wants
to tell the full colorful and controversial story--from the perspective of
"insiders" who made nuclear weapons components at the plant, "outsiders"
who opposed nuclear weapons, and government agencies that supported or
oversaw the work.
Artifacts saved: Many key Rocky Flats artifacts were saved for the Rocky
Flats Cold War Museum when buildings at the site were demolished as part of
the Superfund Cleanup completed in late 2005. These artifacts tell only
part of the story of Rocky Flats.
Visible symbol: Patrick Malone of Atlanta will present his teepee to the
museum collection. The teepee was the most visible symbol of resistance in
the 1978-79 sustained civil disobedience blockade of the railroad tracks
leading in to the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The teepee sat
on the tracks from April 1978 to January 1979 when officers seized it as
evidence, while protestors from students to nuns were arrested.
Recollections from activists: On the program along with Patrick Malone will be
o Anne Waldman (with poems from the tracks)
o Judy Danielson (one of the earliest of the activists)
o Ellen Klaver (with songs of the movement)
o Harvey Nichols (a scientist who studied airborne migration of plutonium)
o Jan Pilcher (who organized to stop incineration of plutonium-laced waste)
o Pat McCormick (a nun who vigiled at Rocky Flats every Sunday for ten years)
Artifacts: Attendees are invited to bring artifacts to donate to the museum.
Free event: The event is free and open to the public. Financial
contributions to support the museum will be collected. Light refreshments
will be served.
PLEASE SHARE THIS MESSAGE WITH OTHERS
RSVP or for more information, contact Board Chair Kim Grant at 720-898-7125
or KGrant@ci.arvada.co.us or LeRoy Moore at leroymooore@earthlink.net
--
*****************************************************************
76 DOE: DOE Makes Available $8 Million for Pre-Conceptual Design of
Next Generation Nuclear Plants
September 28, 2006
WASHINGTON, D.C. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today
announced that DOEs Idaho National Laboratory (INL) will make
awards valued at about $8 million to three companies to perform
engineering studies and develop a pre-conceptual design to guide
research on the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). The INL
will issue a contract later this week to Westinghouse Electric
Company for the pre-conceptual design of the NGNP, and will
later issue contracts to AREVA NP and General Atomics to perform
complimentary engineering studies in the areas of technology and
design tradeoffs, initial cost estimates and selected plant
arrangements.
This approach will provide the broadest range of technical input
necessary to determine the research and development required
over the next few years and to establish the technical and
functional specifications for any subsequent design work. Each
of the three companies will assemble an industry team to expand
the overall capabilities and experience available for the NGNP.
These three commercial teams, broadly representing nuclear and
other energy sectors, bring an important commercial perspective
to the NGNP research and development initiative, DOE Assistant
Secretary for Nuclear Energy Dennis Spurgeon said. Their
involvement will help us focus our research and development
activities as well as establish the functional requirements for
the program.
The studies will use DOE funds and in-kind contributions by
industry for pre-conceptual design activities, scheduled to be
completed in fiscal year 2007.
NGNP is a very high temperature reactor concept capable of
producing high temperature process heat suitable for the
economical production of hydrogen, electricity and other energy
sources. The NGNP research and development program is part of
DOEs Generation IV nuclear energy systems initiative aimed at
developing next generation reactor technologies and is
authorized by Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
The results of the engineering and design work by Westinghouse
Electric, AREVA NP, and General Atomics described above will
provide an important foundation for completing the research and
development on the very high temperature reactor.
Additional information concerning DOEs nuclear energy programs
may be found on .
Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, (202) 586-4940 [ ]
U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403
*****************************************************************
77 Hanford News: Bill would speed up Nevada storage of nuclear waste
This story was published Thursday, September 28th, 2006
By David Whitney, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - A leading Senate player on nuclear waste introduced
legislation Wednesday that could accelerate by five years or
more the removal of spent fuel rods accumulating at commercial
power plants.
If enacted, the bill would slice more than five years off the
Energy Department's most optimistic schedule for beginning to
receive high-level nuclear waste at its Nevada repository in
2017 by authorizing above-ground temporary storage while a
permanent underground facility is readied.
The legislation by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also would apply
to accumulated waste at federal nuclear weapons facilities such
as the Hanford nuclear reservation in Washington state and the
Savannah River Site in South Carolina. Waste from those plants
could begin moving to the Nevada site as early as 2010 under the
Domenici bill.
"This bill will remove legal barriers that will allow DOE to
meet its obligation to accept and store spent nuclear fuel as
soon as possible," Domenici said in introducing the bill that
also would permanently declare a 147,000-acre site for the
Nevada waste complex.
The legislation is intended to add new options for waste
building up at plants like those at Diablo Canyon near San Luis
Obispo, Calif., where plant owner Pacific Gas and Electric is
building thick concrete pads to bolt down casks to hold the
waste until a federal repository is opened.
"We have 20 years of used fuel here," said plant spokesman Jeff
Lewis. "That is why we need to get the dry cask facility going."
But critics have charged that dry storage there creates a target
for terrorists, and recently the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ordered the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to examine
that threat.
The Domenici bill adds a new element to the evolving nuclear
waste debate by requiring the commission to act quickly to
approve above-ground storage at the Nevada site where the
permanent underground repository is planned. Before,
above-ground temporary storage there has not been on the table.
The bill, described by staff aides Wednesday as a "discussion
draft" pending a larger debate in Congress next year, represents
just one of the options under consideration on Capitol Hill.
Another would authorize above-ground storage sites for the casks
in states with nuclear plants. These sites could be at an
existing plant with enough property to accommodate waste from
other in-state plants, or at central collection points with high
security.
In addition, the Energy Department is studying ways of
reprocessing the waste to not only reduce the volume headed for
permanent storage but to renew fuel supplies for the nation's
104 commercial reactors.
Any plan involving waste storage in Nevada faces a daunting
challenge. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate,
is flatly opposed to having it in his state and has vowed that a
repository there will never open.
But Congress overrode his opposition in 2002 when it revised the
Nuclear Waste Policy Act to build the repository at Yucca
Mountain. Karen Billups, deputy chief counsel to the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee that Domenici heads, told
reporters Wednesday that it only makes sense to proceed with
temporary storage there as well.
"We think we can go ahead and make decisions," she said. "The
best place for storage is Nevada."
At hearings earlier this month, the head of the Energy
Department's nuclear waste office, Edward F. Sprout III, said
the agency plans to submit to the NRC its application for a
Yucca Mountain license by June 30, 2008.
The Domenici bill requires that the agency simultaneously file
an application for above-ground storage, and it gives the NRC
only 18 months to approve it. The site could begin accepting
defense waste as soon as the NRC approves the permit. An
environmental impact statement would be required.
Acceptance of civilian reactor waste would be delayed until the
NRC issues permits for the repository, now projected by the
Energy Department for mid-2011. But that is well ahead of the
2017 projected opening of the repository, the earliest under
current law for civilian waste to begin arriving.
Even if all goes according to plan, as it almost never does in
the nuclear waste controversy, it will take decades for all the
waste in storage at reactor sites to make its way either to
reprocessing or to Yucca Mountain. The bill gives priority to
waste that the Energy Department determines is unsuitable for
reprocessing or for which technology is not yet available.
There is an estimated 54,000 metric tons of nuclear waste at the
reactor sites, and another 2,000 tons are produced annually.
Billups said the Nevada site is expected to be able to handle
only about 3,000 tons of arriving waste a year, which means that
it could be mid-century until the backlog is erased.
Still, Frank Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute,
hailed the legislation, saying in a statement that it would help
achieve the opening of Yucca Mountain and "allow for more timely
movement of defense waste and civilian used fuel."
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
78 Inside Bay Area: Berkeley lab grabs award to fund radiation treatment
Article Last Updated: 09/28/2006 02:57:44 AM PDT
By Betsy Mason, MEDIANEWS
BERKELEY — Scientists are on the front lines of preparation
for a dirty bomb attack or other radiological incident.
The federal government has awarded $1 million to a team from
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory studying potential treatments for
exposure to radioactive substances, such as would come from a
radiation-contaminated dirty bomb.
I think we have the opportunity to develop something that works
better than whats been available for the last 20 to 30 years,
said Berkeley Lab chemist Kenneth Raymond, the research leader.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
granted the money to Raymond in the hope of accelerating his
research on molecules that can flush metals such as plutonium
and uranium out of the body.
The treatments the federal government is currently stockpiling
are not very thorough or efficient and must be injected.
If there is an incident, such as a dirty bomb attack, the
numbers of people potentially requiring emergency treatment is
likely to be large, said biologist Bert Maidment of infectious
diseases institute. And an injectable (treatment) is probably
not mass-casualty friendly.
Maidment hopes to find a treatment that is more effective than
current drugs, can flush out a wider range of metals, can be
easily mass-produced and can be given orally.Hopefully theyll
never be used, he said. You put up a countermeasure, and that
might be a deterrent.
Raymonds group has been working for nearly three decades to
develop synthetic molecules that will bind to the unwanted
radioactive metals before they become incorporated into human
tissues.
The body has a very hard time ridding itself of these
radioactive metals on its own, and nearly 95 percent of what is
ingested or inhaled manages to stick around.
This is because these radioactive metals are very similar to
iron, which the body needs. Because iron is relatively rare,
mammals are designed to horde it. Iron binds to large proteins
that are too big to be filtered out through the kidneys.
Unfortunately some unwanted metals such as plutonium, uranium
and other radioactive elements tend to bind to those same large
proteins. So Raymonds team is looking for things that will bind
to the metals and can be filtered through the kidneys and
excreted.
The trick here is to find a chemical which binds the metal ions
better than the things they encounter in the blood or liver or
bone, said team-member Patricia Durbin, a Berkeley Lab
biophysicist.
After testing dozens of molecules for their ability to bind
different radioactive metals in mice, the team has identified
two with a lot of promise. Both bind a range of metals, and one
is especially effective on uranium and the other works well for
plutonium.
The teams NIAID award is one of four grants for research on
radiological treatments. The funding is for 18 months, and
Raymonds team hopes that by the end of this period they will
have a good idea whether their molecules are better than current
treatments. The team also wants to have the treatments well on
their way to being ready for human clinical trials at that
point.
© 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
79 Knox News ORNL earns $25 million in security grant funding
By Staff reports
September 28, 2006
OAK RIDGE - The Department of Homeland Security has awarded a
$25 million grant to Oak Ridge National Laboratory for a
regional pilot project, U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., announced
Wednesday. The project is known as the Southeast Regional
Research Initiative.
In a prepared statement, Wamp said, "With this funding Oak Ridge
can develop regional systems and solutions to address security
and preparedness issues that can have national implications.
This is a great opportunity for East Tennessee."
ORNL will distribute the funding as needed to other partners in
the regional project and coordinate the work with the Department
of Homeland Security, Wamp said. "Staying on the forefront of
research and development is vital for our security," he said.
The lab's partners on the project are the Y-12 National Security
Complex in Oak Ridge and the Savannah River Site at Aiken, S.C.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
80 lamonitor.com: Reactions to LANS' projected belt-tightening roll in
CAROL A. CLARK Monitor Senior Reporter
Wednesday's revelation that 350 contractor jobs will most likely
be eliminated from Los Alamos National Laboratory garnered
intense responses from New Mexico's congressional delegation.
Rep. Tom Udall, D-NM, decried what he called poor planning by
the Department of Energy and said in a statement Wednesday
afternoon that the cuts and excuses are unacceptable.
"This budget shortfall is about more than bad math - this is
about the livelihoods of my constituents," Udall said. "DOE
should have better budgeted and planned for these costs. The
fact that the first action taken was to fire hundreds of my
constituents to balance the books does not inspire confidence in
the corporate structure that DOE and NNSA mandated for the lab's
new management."
Udall added that he had expressed frustration with the National
Nuclear Security Administration's decision to preclude other
management structures when the final RFP was announced.
He estimates the shortfall will result in LANL contractor work
forces being cut by 400-600 people.
In an interview late Wednesday, Jeff Berger, LANL's director of
communications, explained the reason behind Udall's higher
contractor job cut estimate.
"We first concentrated on the firmer number of 350 contractor
positions to be eliminated, which were tied to indirect
funding," Berger said. "The softer estimate of up to an
additional 250 contractor job cuts is tied to direct funding."
LANL Director Michael Anastasio broke the dreaded news to his
entire work force at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, citing the need to
make up roughly $175 million in deficits.
In response, Sens. Pete Domenici, R-NM, and Jeff Bingaman, D-NM,
issued a joint statement Wednesday that DOE and the NNSA must
take immediate action to mitigate planned job losses associated
with unfunded mandates placed on LANL.
They said they had predicted the current budget woes in March
2005 when DOE and NNSA issued its request for proposals for
finding a new contractor for LANL, and pressed the federal
agencies to address overhead costs when finalizing the contract.
"Director Anastasio has the difficult task of having to close a
budget gap rooted in actions beyond his doing," Domenici said.
"The DOE, NNSA, the lab and even the state of New Mexico must
get back to the root causes of these layoffs; higher taxes,
larger fees and pension costs. The pain must be shared and we
will have to work together to lessen the economic hit on the lab
workers, contractors and northern New Mexico. We are in an
extremely difficult budget situation and it isn't even clear
what our DOE budget allocation will be for next year. No one
should be betting on a congressional bailout now or in the next
several years."
The senators said they predicted the funding shortfall and asked
DOE to address the root causes.
"Unfortunately, DOE dismissed the concerns and today we're
learning what the potential impact on the lab will be," Bingaman
repeated from an earlier statement. "For the DOE and NNSA to
have failed to plan and budget for the very management changes
they were imposing on one of its most important laboratories is
almost incomprehensible. The department's failure to properly
plan for this management change should not have to be borne by
workers in our state."
The statement from the senators states the root causes of the
funding shortfall were in plain sight for as long as the contact
restructuring has been in progress.
These causes are linked to the following:
+ the change in the applicability of the gross receipts tax to
Los Alamos due to its new not-for-profit contractor;
+ the costs of the changes in the pension plan that were
dictated by the NNSA and DOE; and,
+ the increased management fee that was part of the new
contract proposed by NNSA and DOE.
Domenici and Bingaman stated that in a March 2005 letter to DOE
Secretary Samuel Bodman, they warned that provisions in the
contract RFP would significantly increase the overhead costs to
operate the lab.
In the letter the senators said, "We believe that many of the
initiatives proposed by the NNSA to increase competition would
significantly add to the overhead cost of the lab by an
estimated $100 million per year over current spending. In
addition, this does not include the costs associated with the
mandate of a stand-alone pension plan with retiree health
benefits."
The letter went on to ask Bodman to give full consideration "to
the issue of overhead cost and the impact the potential
increases will have on stockpile stewardship and scientific
research within the Department of Energy and at Los Alamos."
Bodman's March 24, 2005 response asserted that the new LANL
contract "will bring about long-term efficiencies in the
operation of LANL that will offset any short-term increase in
overhead expenses," they said.
Domenici and Bingaman called on Bodman Wednesday to find ways to
close the budget gap without laying off laboratory contractors.
Ron Dolin, a New Mexico congressional candidate who works at
LANL, expressed his concern with the situation in a news release
this morning.
"Yesterday was a sad day for Los Alamos, for northern New Mexico
and for America," Dolin said. "The issue of job security is huge
to be sure, but unfortunately it represents just the first of
many shoes to drop."
Dolin said an equally large issue looming on the horizon is
whether or not Los Alamos will remain a research institute or
become a Rocky Flats-like bomb factory.
"This issue has implications not only to residents of Los
Alamos, Rio Arriba, and Santa Fe Counties, but to all of New
Mexico," he said. "The reason our government runs enormous
deficits and unimaginable national debt is the same reason Los
Alamos is now in crisis. Will Los Alamos continue to be the
world's premier research institute or will it become a
bomb-making factory on a slow march toward closure? Will we
retain and recruit top scientist and engineers, or will we
diminish in stature?"
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
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81 lamonitor.com: Cleanup faces budget straits
ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor
SANTA FE - Congress is expected to recess this weekend without
passing the energy and water appropriations bill that funds the
Department of Energy and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The new
fiscal year begins Monday.
Instead, a continuing resolution signed Wednesday will extend
through the national elections until Nov. 17, said George Rael,
the environmental operations manger for the National Nuclear
Security Administration's local office.
Rael raised concerns among members of a regional DOE advisory
board when he explained how a continuing resolution would work
with respect to LANL's environmental management projects.
Normally, he said, the program is allowed to use the lower of
the House or Senate "marks," the line items in the appropriation
bills passed separately by the two chambers.
That threatens a potential shortage at LANL, because the House
version called for a $28 million budget, as requested by the
president, while the Senate version provided $78 million.
So, Rael added, one-twelfth of the $28 million would normally be
available each month until a compromise bill can be passed and
signed by the president. The interim funding would amount to
about $2.33 million a month under the continuing resolution,
instead of $6.5 million under the Senate version.
The amounts are both below the baseline budget, a longer-term
reference budget, which was in the low $100 millions, Chris Timm
pointed out.
Timm chairs the Environmental Monitoring, Surveillance and
Remediation Committee for the Northern New Mexico Community
Advisory Board (NNMCAB).
The budget this year was scheduled to be $82.7 million, before
the cuts began.
Timm's committee, which carefully follows the progress of the
Consent Order on clean up at the laboratory, has already
expressed concerns about cleanup program delays, not counting
the current budget constraints. The consent agreement between
the state and the laboratory's managers governs a multi-year,
comprehensive environmental cleanup process at LANL.
"I'm afraid the environmental program is taking the biggest
hit," said Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., this morning by telephone
from the Capitol, speaking about layoffs of contractor employees
that were announced this week. "That's something I'm going to
explore and my staff is going to explore with senior management
there."
The CAB and the New Mexico Environment Department greeted DOE's
request and the House appropriation of $28 million with alarm
earlier this year.
Ken Hargis, the former head of the environmental program at the
laboratory, said at the time that reductions would reduce storm
water monitoring and groundwater surveillance and maintenance to
a minimum, risk deadlines on 22 or more cleanup projects, and
hazard at least $8 million in fines, under the state consent
order that was signed last year.
The concerns subsided when the Senate bill restored $50 million
to the slashed program.
Andy Phelps, LANL associate director for Environmental Programs,
gave a positive report of recent successes and milestones in the
program, including groundwater sampling in five watersheds that
generated 21,000 data points.
Asked if lower funding would put any plans in jeopardy, he said
there would likely be some impact, but he would have to see the
language.
One affected area might be the work at Technical Area 21. All
personnel have been relocated from the site, but a planned
demolition and decommissioning project would not be able to
begin, since new starts are not allowed under a continuing
resolution.
Asked about how contractor layoffs that have been announced at
the laboratory might affect the environmental remediation
process, Phelps said he didn't have the numbers.
In the light of a potential $50 million shortfall, he said, the
lab is preparing for different options.
"It's hard for contractors, but also for the lab to have
unpredictable funding situations," he said.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
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82 Knox News: Ceremony marks project milestone
Construction crews top out new buildings for Y-12 complex
By BOB FOWLER, fowlerb@knews.com
September 28, 2006
OAK RIDGE - Hundreds of construction workers were treated to
lunch Wednesday in topping-out ceremonies for two huge buildings
now under construction at the Y-12 National Security Complex.
Oak Ridge and Anderson County officials quietly celebrated, also.
When the New Hope Center and the Jack Case Center open next
August, it'll mean they will soon go on the local governments'
property tax rolls.
Officials estimate the $127 million building project should
generate about $600,000 a year in taxes each for the city and
county.
With some 350 workers involved, the buildings are more than half
finished and slightly ahead of schedule, said Tony Marks, project
superintendent for contractor Turner Universal of Brentwood,
Tenn.
"It took two years for the lawyers and bureaucrats to put the
paperwork together for this project,'' said J. Wayne Roquemore,
president of Lawler-Wood LLC.
"You're going to finish it sooner than that,'' Roquemore told
the construction workers.
Lawler-Wood developed the project and will manage the completed
buildings.
Named for the community displaced by Y-12 during the wartime
effort to build the first atomic bomb, the 140,000-square-foot
New Hope Center will be the public face for the nuclear weapons
complex.
About 1,100 employees will work in the Jack Case Center. There
was a contest to name that building, said Randy Spickard,
assistant general manager of BWXT Y-12, the contractor that
manages the weapons plant.
Spickard said workers overwhelmingly choose to honor the late
Case, who worked his way up the ranks to become Y-12 manager, in
naming the building.
Engineers, environmental health workers and support staff will
have offices in its more than 400,000 square feet of space,
Spickard said.
About 300 employees will work in the New Hope Center, which will
include an exhibit area to showcase the plant's past and a
400-seat auditorium.
The new buildings will replace 30 to 40 World War II-vintage
buildings, some of them wooden structures that have far outlived
their useful lives, Spickard said.
He said the new buildings are "huge in terms of where we're
headed for the future."
Bob Fowler, News Sentinel Anderson County editor, may be reached
at 865-481-3625.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
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83 Knox News: Munger: ORNL campus looks good, but everybody isn’t smiling
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com
September 27, 2006
Shiny new buildings have revitalized the appearance of Oak Ridge
National Laboratory, but are they masking a problem with employee
morale?
That’s how some are interpreting the results of an employee
survey conducted earlier this year by The Gallup Organization.
A copy of the results was forwarded to me recently. I’m
no expert on interpreting surveys, but it does appear that a
goodly number of ORNL employees question the priorities of
management, don’t feel their work is appropriately recognized or
appreciated, and aren’t as satisfied as one might expect of those
working at such a prestigious institution.
Some lab employees are anxious to share their thoughts on
mismanagement or policies and directives they think are pointing
the lab in the wrong direction. But they’re not so anxious to go
public with their criticisms.
That’s why employee surveys are conducted anonymously.
Tom Wilbanks, who heads the Corporate Fellows Council, an elite
group of senior scientists and engineers at ORNL, said he thinks
the survey needs to be taken seriously.
"What I would say is the results do suggest that we have some
problems with staff morale and stuff happening in the workplace
that need to be addressed if the lab is going to perform as well
as wanted in the future," Wilbanks said this week in a brief
telephone interview.
"The message is there are some challenges on the people side of
the lab, and the new leadership in HR (human resources) is
helping to uncover these and focus some attention on them."
Wilbanks said the corporate fellows are working on a report to
management that relates somewhat to the survey results. One of
the conclusions is that staff morale is making it more difficult
to recruit top scientists to the Oak Ridge laboratory, he said.
Asked for management’s view of the employee survey, the lab
provided this statement from ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth:
"Our purpose for taking this survey was to get an independent
benchmark for what our employees are thinking. We are not pleased
or disappointed, but rather a little smarter about issues we need
to work on.’’
Billy Stair, the lab’s communications director, said he had
already taken heed of the survey response that showed people
weren’t getting the kind of regular recognition and feedback they
wanted.
While some employee responses at ORNL were less positive than
Gallup’s national database acquired from other workplaces, Stair
said that didn’t necessarily mean there’s a negative effect on
lab productivity.
"You can be very successful in some aspects of a company or
laboratory and still maybe not grade out as high in some aspects
of a survey," he said.
ORNL scientists have been outspoken for years about the lab’s
high overhead costs, which reportedly make it more difficult to
compete with other institutions, particularly universities, for
research projects.
There also are complaints about heavy-handed bureaucracy, with
some irritants originating at Department of Energy headquarters
in Washington and others tied to the lab’s managing contractor,
UT-Battelle.
Scientists by their nature are an independent lot, and some of
them believe the endless chain of approvals — to submit
proposals, to attend conferences, etc. — is overdone and, in some
cases, unnecessary. One researcher suggested it was like a child
having to ask permission to go to the bathroom.
From the feedback I receive, lab employees are pleased and very
proud of the modernization program enacted by UT-Battelle over
the past six years. Indeed, the laboratory has never looked
better.
But employees apparently want that same kind of energy applied to
other concerns.
Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for
the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at
munger@knews.com. This column is also available in the opinion
section of knoxnews.com.
© 2006 - Knoxville News Sentinel
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