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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 AFP: Bush rejects Iraq report's key proposals, unveils Mideast initi
2 New York Times: Dueling Views Pit Baker Against Rice -
3 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Hints Iran Sanctions Deal Is Near
4 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Wary of Seeking Iran, Syria's Help
5 AFP: Major UN powers to resume bargaining on Iran sanctions Monday -
6 AFP: French presidential hopeful Royal reaffirms tough stance on Ira
7 AFP: IAEA chief repeats call for return to talks on NKorea, Iran -
8 NYT: Israeli Official Discusses Iran and His Controversial Agenda -
9 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on N. Korea
10 AFP: Possible resumption of North Korea nuclear talks mid-month - US
11 UPI: Roh denies possession of U.S. nuke weapon
12 US: UCS: EPA Air Pollution Plan Puts Politics Before Science
13 US: ALERT: Help us stop Bombplex 2030!
14 NewsBlaze : U.S. Co-Sponsored IAEA Workshop on GNEP Concludes
15 BBC: Minister is against Trident plan
NUCLEAR REACTORS
16 Guardian Unlimited: Lawmakers Agree on U.S.-India Nuke Bill
17 US: NRC: NRC Announces Availability of License Renewal Application f
18 US: Arizona Republic: More trouble for Palo Verde
19 US: SF New Mexican: Palo Verde nuke plant could face stringent monit
20 RIA Novosti: Russia to settle energy issues with EU via new cooperat
21 US: APP.COM: Plant foes get famous and divisive ally |
22 GAZETA.KZ: Kazakhstan, Russia sign agreements on nuclear energy co-o
23 IHT: Japanese power company to shut down nuclear plant after coolant
24 US: CITIZEN-TIMES.com: How about a little truth in (nuclear) adverti
25 AFP: Baltics forge ahead with nuke plant project, Poland on board -
26 US: NRC: Summary of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No
27 US: NRC: Carolina Power & Light Company; Receipt of Request for Acti
28 Prague Daily Monitor: Austria against blockades over Temelin, fears
29 AFP: US official hails India nuclear bill, says both nations will be
30 times and star: N-plant bidders warned over policy
NUCLEAR SECURITY
31 US: UPI: Cargo scans to take place at three ports
NUCLEAR SAFETY
32 [NYTr] Hotel bar now focus of ex-spy death probe
33 Guardian Unlimited: Hotel Bar Is Focus of Ex-Spy Death Probe
34 Guardian Unlimited: Probe Into Ex-KGB Spy's Death Continues
35 Guardian Unlimited: Bar customers face radioactive test
36 Guardian Unlimited: Third Litvinenko contact reportedly poisoned
37 Guardian Unlimited: Confusion envelops Litvinenko even as he goes to
38 Guardian Unlimited: Puzzled? A brief guide to the polonium saga
39 US: Dallas Morning News: Hutchison's battle for Gulf War vets contin
40 AFP: Radiation contamination theories emerge in Russian spy case -
41 AFP: Contact of dead ex-agent seriously ill as investigation continu
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
42 reviewjournal.com: Aide says Reid won't yield in opposing Yucca proj
43 reviewjournal.com: Yucca quality assurance targeted
44 US: BENM: Disposal of nuclear waste at heart of public opposition
45 US: Bradenton Herald: Lockheed begins new testing on Tallevast plume
46 US: DenverPost.com: Study digs into pollution at mines
47 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Bill would continue N-dump care fund
48 US: NMBW: More federal funding for WIPP-related safety at Nambe Pueb
49 US: Los Angeles Times: Drilling bill is expected to clear House -
50 US: Bradford Publishing: West Valley cleanup bill to get new push in
51 US: MW: Uranium to Top $125 a Pound by 2010 - Analyst
PEACE
52 APN: Israeli Nuclear Weapons Whistleblower Speaks Out
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
53 Houston Chronicle: USEC Signs Patent, Lease Deals |
54 DOE: DOE Issues Final Appliance Test Procedure Rule
55 DOE: DOE Signs Advanced Enrichment Technology License and Facility L
56 DOE: U.S. Co-Sponsored IAEA Workshop on GNEP Concludes
57 SF New Mexican: The first high-explosive experiment at the DARHT fac
58 Hanford News: Radiation experts say travelers not at risk from polon
59 Hanford News: S. Carolina to get a big Christmas gift
60 Hanford News: Public access key to Hanford Reach plan
61 Hanford News: Vit plant funding remains in limbo
62 Inside Bay Area: Report says state, local agencies must fill port se
63 Inside Bay Area: Livermore shipping out nukes
64 ISN Security Watch: The future of US nuclear complex transformation
65 lamonitor.com: Pit production: Public weighs in on Complex 2030
66 KNDO/KNDU: Hanford Funding on the Senate Floor
67 KTRV FOX 12: Nuclear plant planned for Idaho
68 UPI: U.S. builds new nuke safety complexes
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 AFP: Bush rejects Iraq report's key proposals, unveils Mideast initiative -
by Olivier Knox Fri Dec 8, 8:21 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush" /> President
George W. Bushrebuffed key recommendations from the Iraq" />
IraqStudy Group but announced a new Middle East peace push after
talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair" /> Tony Blair.
A day after receiving the heavyweight US commission's report on
Iraq, Bush said that Blair would soon travel to the region for
talks with Israel" /> Israeland the Palestinians, and promised
"concerted efforts to advance the cause of peace."
The prime minister's visit was to set the stage for US Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice" /> Condoleezza Rice, in early 2007,
to make her eighth trip in two years to Israel and the
Palestinian territories, her spokesman said.
"By moving this forward we send a very strong signal not just to
the region, but to the whole of the world, that we are
even-handed and just in the application of our values," said
Blair.
Bush, giving a cool reception to two key proposals by the Iraq
Study Group, kept tight conditions on any talks with Iran" />
Iranand Syria" /> Syriaand refused to endorse the panel's call
for withdrawing most US combat troops by early 2008.
"I've always said we'd like our troops out as fast as possible,"
he said, while insisting on the need to be "flexible and
realistic" and tying any change in troop level to advice from US
military commanders, as he has in the past.
Bush initially described soaring violence in Iraq, which the
report warned may spiral into a regional war even with a US
strategic overhaul, as merely "unsettling" -- but revised his
diagnosis when a reporter challenged him.
"It's bad in Iraq. That help?" he countered. "You want
frankness? I thought we would succeed quicker than we did. And I
am disappointed by the pace of success."
Bush lavished praise on the Iraq Study Group, calling its report
"worthy of serious study," declaring that "the American people
expect us to come up with a new strategy to achieve the
objective," and stressing: "We need a new approach."
But he cautioned that the panel's review, led by former
secretary of state James Baker and former representative Lee
Hamilton, was one of many, citing pending reviews by the defense
and state departments and the National Security Council.
Bush said he would make a speech outlining his strategy "after I
get the reports," a move the White House says will come in
weeks.
"I don't think Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton expect us to accept
every recommendation," he said. "I know they expect us to
consider every recommendation; that we ought to pay close
attention to what they advise."
One day after unveiling their report, Baker and Hamilton, said
little progress will be made in implementing its recommendations
without Bush's support.
"The fact of the matter is that you have President Bush" />
President Bushin office for two more years. The fact of the
matter is that the report that we put before you must largely be
implemented by the executive branch. You cannot dodge that
fact," said Hamilton, a former Democratic representative.
"It is a fact of political life, and the Congress will play an
important role, should play an important role. But the Congress
cannot implement the decisions in this report," he said.
The report, which warns that the situation in Iraq is "grave and
deteriorating," called for most US combat troops to be withdrawn
by early 2008, more talks with Iran and Syria, and a new Middle
East peace effort.
Bush said Damascus and Tehran might be welcome if they renounce
support for extremists and pledge support for Baghdad's
fledgling government, otherwise "they shouldn't bother to show
up."
Bush also reiterated his longstanding condition that Iran freeze
sensitive nuclear work before any direct talks.
"Should they agree to verifiably suspend their (uranium)
enrichment, the United States will be at the table with our
partners," he said, telling Tehran: "There's no need to continue
this obstinance."
The president of Iraq's Kurdish Autonomous Region issued Friday
a strongly worded rebuke of the Iraq Study Group's report
describing it as "unrealistic and inappropriate".
"We are in no way abiding by this report," said Kurdish regional
President Massud Barzani, a key US ally in Iraq.
"Despite our thanks and gratitude for President George W. Bush
and the American administration for overthrowing the previous
regime and their efforts for building a new Iraq, we think that
the Iraq Study group has made some unrealistic and inappropriate
recommendations," added the statement.
However Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa on Thursday
called the report "very interesting, full of very sound
recommendations" after holding talks with Rice in Washington.
"I got the definite impression from the long discussion with
secretary Rice this afternoon that the Middle East deserves an
action-oriented policy when it comes to the peace process," he
said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
"And for Iraq, the report of the Baker-Hamilton group will get
serious consideration by the administration," he said, adding:
"We talked about almost each and every recommendation of the
report."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
2 New York Times: Dueling Views Pit Baker Against Rice -
By DAVID E. SANGERPublished: December 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 — Many of the blistering critiques of the
Bush administration contained in the IraqStudy Group’s report
boil down to this: the differing worldviews of Baker versus
Rice.
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain held a
news conference at the White House, during which Mr. Bush
discussed the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study
Group.
The Reach of War
Go to Complete Coverage »
Former Secretary of State James A. Baker IIIwas the architect of
the “new diplomatic offensive” in the Middle East that the
commission recommended Wednesday as one of its main
prescriptions for extracting the country from the mess in Iraq.
Ever since, he has been talking on television, to Congress and
to Iraqis and foreign diplomats about how he would conduct
American foreign policy differently. Very differently.
At a midday meeting with reporters on Thursday, Mr. Baker
insisted that the study group had “rejected looking backward.”
But he then proceeded to make a passionate argument for a course
of action he believed Condoleezza Rice, the current secretary of
state, should be pursuing — while carefully never mentioning Ms.
Rice by name.
The United States should engage Iran, Mr. Baker contended, if
only to reveal its “rejectionist attitude”; it should try to
“flip the Syrians”; and it should begin a renewed quest for
peace between Israel and the Palestinians that, he maintained,
would help convince Arab moderates that America was not all
about invasions and regime change.
Meanwhile, Ms. Rice remained publicly silent, sitting across
town in the office that Mr. Baker gave up 14 years ago. She has
yet to say anything about the public tutorial being conducted by
the man who first knew her when she was a mid-level Soviet
expert on the National Security Council. She has not responded
to Mr. Baker’s argument, delivered in a tone that drips with
isn’t-this-obvious, that America has to be willing to talk to
its adversaries (a premise Ms. Rice has questioned if the
conditions are not right), or his dismissal of the
administration’s early argument that the way to peace in the
Middle East was through quick, decisive victory in Baghdad.
Aides to the 52-year-old Ms. Rice say she is acutely aware that
there is little percentage in getting into a public argument
with Mr. Baker, the 76-year-old architect of the first Bush
administration’s Middle East policy. But Thursday, as President
Bush gently pushed back against some of Mr. Baker’s
recommendations, Ms. Rice’s aides and allies were offering a
private defense, saying that she already has a coherent,
effective strategy for the region.
She has advocated “deepening the isolation of Syria,” because
she believes much of the rest of the Arab world condemns its
efforts to topple Lebanon’s government, they said; and in
seeking to isolate Iran, they said, she hopes to capitalize on
the fears of nations like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan that
Iran seeks to dominate the region, with the option of wielding a
nuclear weapon.
Ms. Rice makes no apology for the premium she has placed on
promoting democracy in the Middle East, even though that is an
idea that Mr. Baker and his commission conspicuously ignored in
spelling out their recommendations. “I don’t think that the road
to democracy in Iraq is at all utopian,” she said in April.
It is plenty utopian to Mr. Baker, who has made clear his view
that the quest is entirely ill-suited to the realities of
striking a political deal that may keep Sunnis and Shiites from
killing each other, and that may extract American forces from
Iraq.
Mr. Baker said nothing on Thursday about looking for
Jeffersonian democrats in Iraq; he would be happy with few good
“Iraqi nationalists” who can keep the country from splintering
apart.
“They start from completely different places,” said Dennis
Ross, the Middle East negotiator who worked for Mr. Baker years
ago and left the State Department early in the Bush
administration. “Baker approaches everything with a negotiator’s
mindset. That doesn’t mean every negotiation leads to a deal,
but you engage your adversaries and use your leverage to change
their behavior. This administration has never had a negotiator’s
mind-set. It divides the world into friends and foes, and the
foes are incorrigible and not redeemable. There has been more of
an instinct toward regime change than to changing regime
behavior.”
To some degree, the Bush administration has softened that
approach in its second term, and Ms. Rice’s aides contend that
much of what is recommended in the Baker report, including a
regional group to support the country, is already under way.
Mr. Bush himself seems uncertain how to handle his
always-uncomfortable relationship with his father’s friend. It
was Mr. Baker who in 2000 ran the strategy for winning the
Florida recount, but he has also made little secret in private
that he regards the administration as a bunch of diplomatic
go-cart racers, more interested in speed than strategy and prone
to ruinous crashes.
The administration has sent out word that it regards Mr. Baker’s
recommendations as more than a little anachronistic, better
suited to the Middle East of 1991 than to the one they are
confronting — and to some degree have created — in 2006 three
years after the Iraq invasion. It is a criticism that angers Mr.
Baker, members of the study group say.
Iran and Syria illustrate the differing approaches of Mr. Baker
and Ms. Rice. “If you can flip the Syrians you will cure
Israel’s Hezbollahproblem,” Mr. Baker said Thursday, noting that
Syria is the transit point for arms shipments to Hezbollah. He
said Syrian officials told him “that they do have the ability to
convince Hamasto acknowledge Israel’s right to exist,” and
added, “If we accomplish that, that would give the Ehud Olmerta
negotiating partner.”
Ms. Rice’s allies argue that if it were all that simple, the
Syrian problem would have been solved long ago. Stephen J.
Hadley, national security adviser and Ms. Rice’s former deputy,
said recently that the problem “isn’t one of communication, it’s
one of cooperation.” Now that Mr. Baker has taken his
differences public, the mystery is this: is he speaking for Mr.
Bush’s father? “We never figured that out,” said one fellow
member of the panel. “There was always this implication that
there was a tremendous amount of frustration from the old man
about what was happening. But Jim was always very careful.”
The elder Mr. Bush was careful, too. Asked if he wanted to offer
his insights to the panel, he declined. More Articles in
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
3 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Hints Iran Sanctions Deal Is Near
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 9:16 PM
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States suggested Friday that a deal
on imposing United Nations sanctions on Iran is near despite a
disappointing round of talks among world powers earlier this
week.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also indicated the
United States does not have unlimited patience for what have
already been drawn-out negotiations among the U.N. Security
Council's permanent members and Germany over Tehran's nuclear
program.
``The sense is that any differences ... over the text of the
resolution are starting to narrow,'' McCormack said. ``We remain
hopeful that, in the near future we will be able to get a
resolution that everybody can vote for - that we will be able to
maintain unity on the Security Council.''
The U.S. and Europeans are pushing for a resolution by the end
of the year. The West accuses Iran of hiding plans to build a
bomb while developing what it claims is a peaceful program to
produce nuclear power.
Iran was on the agenda for a meeting between Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Russian national security adviser Igor
Ivanov, whose nation has resisted strong sanctions for months.
Rice was discussing strategy on Iran later Friday with German
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Germany, France and Britain led failed talks with Iran last year
that European powers had hoped would avert U.N. sanctions.
Europe joined the United States in seeking sanctions early this
year, but the process has bogged down repeatedly over objections
from Russia and China. Both nations are permanent, veto-holding
members of the U.N. Security Council that have trade and other
ties to Iran.
McCormack described a sanctions resolution with broad support as
``the optimal solution.''
``We would certainly want that in the best case, but it is also
time to start working toward a vote,'' McCormack said.
On Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy
predicted that Iran will face U.N. sanctions for refusing to
halt its nuclear program but said major world powers remain
divided over their extent.
``The question is about the scope of sanctions but there will be
sanctions,'' he said on RTL radio.
His ministry said Tuesday that closed-door talks in Paris had
made ``substantive progress'' but failed to reach an accord on a
resolution to punish Iran for defying demands that it cease
enriching uranium.
Iran's hard-line president threatened to downgrade relations
with the 25-nation European Union if tough sanctions emerged
from the talks among diplomats from the permanent Security
Council members - the United States, Britain, China, France and
Russia - as well as Germany and the EU.
After months of diplomatic wrangling, the United States and
France had hoped Tuesday's talks would produce a resolution
imposing sanctions on Iran for defying an Aug. 31 U.N. deadline
to halt enrichment. Western powers accuse Iran of seeking
nuclear bombs, while Tehran insists it only wants civilian
nuclear energy.
European diplomats said Russia made some concessions at
Tuesday's talks, agreeing to a measure prohibiting financial
transfers to some Iranians linked to nuclear or ballistic
missile programs.
Russia still opposes the broader asset freeze that Britain,
France and Germany proposed in a draft U.N. resolution presented
in October.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
4 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Wary of Seeking Iran, Syria's Help
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 11:01 PM
AP Photo DCPM116
By ANNE GEARAN
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice voiced
skepticism on Friday over a bipartisan panel's recommendation
that the United States seek Iran and Syria's help to stabilize
Iraq, saying they should want to take such steps on their own.
If those two nations truly want to help, ``they will act on that
because it's in their interest,'' Rice said.
``Let's remember that the issue here is behavior. Can you change
the behavior of these states?'' she asked at a news conference
at the State Department with the German foreign minister.
Rice also said the United States is making progress toward a
deal on imposing United Nations sanctions on Iran over its
nuclear program although ``we're not there yet'' after a
disappointing round of talks among world powers this week.
Rice was asked about recommendations issued on Wednesday by a
panel headed by Republican James A. Baker III and Democrat Lee
Hamilton calling for withdrawal of most U.S. combat troops from
Iraq by early 2008. The panel also called for overtures to Iran
and Syria, a course the Bush administration has thus far
rejected.
The report cited a grave and deteriorating situation in Iraq.
``None of us see the situation in Iraq as favorable. We all see
it as extremely difficult,'' Rice said.
She said the situation in Iraq and the broader Middle East was
high on the agenda of her talks with German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
As to the effort to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to
abandon the enrichment of uranium, Rice said, ``I think we're
making some progress on the resolution in the Security Council.
We're not there yet, but I do think we're making some
progress.''
Of the Baker-Hamilton report, Rice said it was ``a very good
report by people that I admire. I think they have done a great
service in pointing out, through analysis and recommendations,
how they see the situation in Iraq.''
She said the U.S. needs to give Iraq ``better tools,
particularly on the security side,'' as the report suggests.
``I've been doing some deep thinking on Iraq, which if you don't
mind I'll share first with the president as he begins to think
about what new course we need,'' Rice said.
President Bush is expected to deliver a speech outlining his
latest strategy proposal for Iraq before Christmas. He has said
he will draw not only from the Baker-Hamilton report, but from
ongoing studies by the Pentagon, the National Security Agency
and the State Department.
Rice said that if Iran and Syria, which the United States
accuses of fomenting terrorism in the Middle East, really wanted
to help bring peace to Iraq, they would do so.
She noted that the Iraqi government has contacts with both
countries and is capable of engaging in its own diplomacy.
She added that if Iran and Syria are ``looking for compensation
to stop helping destabilize Iraq, that's another matter
altogether.''
The Bush administration is leery of contacts with Iran that
would allow the Shiite clerical leaders to try to avoid or
lessen U.N. punishment in return for help in Iraq. Iran has
influence among Iraqi Shiites, and the two countries share both
a complicated history and a porous border.
The U.S. and Europeans are pushing for a U.N. sanctions
resolution by the end of the year. The West accuses Iran of
hiding plans to build a bomb while developing what it claims is
a peaceful program to produce nuclear power.
Iran was on the agenda for a meeting Rice held earlier Friday
with Russian national security adviser Igor Ivanov, whose nation
has resisted strong sanctions for months.
Germany, France and Britain led failed talks with Iran last year
that European powers had hoped would avert U.N. sanctions.
Europe joined the United States in seeking sanctions early this
year, but the process has bogged down repeatedly over objections
from Russia and China. Both nations are permanent, veto-holding
members of the U.N. Security Council that have trade and other
ties to Iran.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
5 AFP: Major UN powers to resume bargaining on Iran sanctions Monday -
December 9, 11:34 AM
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Six major powers are to resume talks in
New York Monday on proposed targeted UN sanctions against Tehran
over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, said a Western
diplomat, who asked not to be named.
Envoys from the Security Council's five permanent members --
Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus
Germany were to meet informally Monday to consider a revised
sanctions draft, which was circulated Friday to members of the
UN Security Council, he added.
The latest European text, a copy of which was obtained by AFP,
features minor changes compared with earlier drafts also drawn
up by France, Britain and Germany.
It would bar trade with Iran in goods related to its nuclear and
ballistic missile programs and impose financial and travel
restrictions on persons and entities involved.
Specifically targeted are "all items, materials, goods and
equipment which could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related,
reprocessing or heavy water related activities, or to the
development of nuclear weapon delivery systems."
Russia and China -- which have strong economic interests in Iran
-- have been trying to water down the European draft, while the
United States has sought to harden it.
Despite Russian objections, the new text includes a list of a
dozen Iranian officials directly involved in their country's
nuclear and ballistic programs who would be targeted for UN
sanctions.
At Moscow's insistance, it however drops all references to
Iran's first nuclear power station, a one-billion-dollar
facility which Russia is helping to build in Bushehr.
Bushehr had been mentioned by name in previous drafts but had
been exempted from sanctions although there was some ambiguity
about delivery of nuclear fuel to the plant.
The draft does not include a US demand for an explicit
characterization of the Iranian nuclear program as "a threat to
international peace and security".
It states that Iran "shall without further delay suspend
proliferation sensitive nuclear activities, in particular all
enrichment-related reprocessing activities, including research
and development, and work on all heavy water related projects,
including the construction of a research reactor moderated by
heavy water."
The draft asks the head of the Vienna-based International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) to submit a report within 60 days on
whether Iran has fully complied with the demands.
It says implementation of the sanctions would be suspended if
Iran halts uranium enrichment but warns that failure to heed the
UN demands would lead to "further appropriate measures", a
reference to economic sanctions.
Friday's announcement followed Tuesday's meeting of senior
officials of the six nations in Paris where they failed to agree
on the scope of Security Council sanctions that would be slapped
on Iran.
But in Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
said Friday that the six had now narrowed their differences over
the terms of the draft.
"The sense is the differences are narrowing," he told reporters
after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice discussed the issue
here Friday with Russian Security Council Secretary Igor Ivanov.
McCormack cautioned that talks were continuing, including in
Washington Friday between the State Department's top
non-proliferation expert, Robert Joseph, and his Russian
counterpart Sergei Sergei Kislyak.
Meanwhile in Tehran, top Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami served
notice earlier Friday that the Islamic republic would not give
up its nuclear program even if it faces UN sanctions for not
doing so.
Tehran has spurned an August 31 deadline to halt enriching
uranium activities.
Uranium enrichment is used to make nuclear fuel as well as the
core of an atom bomb. Iran insists it only wants to enrich
uranium for peaceful energy ends.
Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
6 AFP: French presidential hopeful Royal reaffirms tough stance on Iran
Fri Dec 8, 6:52 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - The French Socialist party's presidential
candidate, Segolene Royal, has stirred up the campaign with views
on hotbed foreign policy issues, saying Iran" /> should be denied
a civil nuclear program for failing to comply with international
regulations.
In an interview on France 2 television Friday, Royal said that
her hostility toward Iran comes from Tehran's refusal to accept
controls on its civil nuclear program, and that if the Iranians
changed course the issue could be "reexamined".
The 53-year-old, aiming to be France's first woman head of
state, has been speaking out in a bid to boost her credentials
in foreign affairs, an area where her competence has been called
into doubt.
She recently visited the Middle East where she met with the
region's top leaders. It was while meeting with the Israeli
leadership that she first made the comments about Iran.
The French center-right government has expressed outrage about
her visit to the region mired in conflicts and struggling
diplomatic efforts to resolve them.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin on Thursday said her
comments on Iran "lacked credibility". And Foreign Minister
Philippe Douste-Blazy at a recent news conference accused her of
"calling into question the (nuclear) non-proliferation treaty".
Former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, while disagreeing
with Royal about Iran, said however she had the right to express
her view, "and if she is elected, she would have the chance to
develop it."
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 AFP: IAEA chief repeats call for return to talks on NKorea, Iran -
Fri Dec 8, 3:55 AM ET
JAKARTA (AFP) - UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei has
called for a resumption of negotiations to resolve the crises
over the North Korean and Iranian nuclear issues.
After giving a speech on nuclear power at Indonesia's Ministry
of Research and Technology, ElBaradei reiterated that sanctions
alone would not solve the problem of Pyongyang's nuclear
weapons.
"I hope with the six-party talks, or any other channels, that we
would be able to come up with a solution to the North Korean
nuclear issue," he told a press conference.
"There is a lot of implications on East Asia so the earlier we
complete and find a solution it is better for everybody," he
said.
"As I said, now there are sanctions imposed on North Korea" />
but we need to put our focus on dialogue and negotiations and be
able to find a solution acceptable to both parties."
ELBaradei said a comprehensive solution to the crisis would have
to address North Korea's security and economic needs.
Pyongyang agreed on October 31 to return to the six-nation talks
aimed at persuading it abandon its nuclear ambitions in return
for economic and security guarantees but no date has been set
for the next round.
ElBaradei's visit to Indonesia comes as North Korea continues to
face heavy international pressure, including United Nations" />
sanctions, following its first atomic bomb test on October 9.
Western nations are also pressing for sanctions against Iran" />
over its uranium enrichment programme, which they fear is part
of a drive to build a nuclear bomb.
ElBaradei said he was "looking forward to the resumption on
negotiations as I said before sanctions alone is not a solution"
to Tehran's nuclear drive.
He was due to meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
and the speaker of the parliament later Friday.
Indonesia is a signatory of the non-proliferation treaty and a
member of the United Nations Security Council.
ElBaradei's visit is part of his Asia tour to Japan and China.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 NYT: Israeli Official Discusses Iran and His Controversial Agenda -
New York Times
By GREG MYREPublished: December 7, 2006
JERUSALEM, Dec. 6 — The newest member of Israel’s center-left
government seems out of place. Avigdor Lieberman is a West Bank
settler who has advocated killing the leaders of the Palestinian
group Hamasand reducing the number of Arabs who are Israeli
citizens.
Yet his portfolio is among the country’s most sensitive —
developing Israel’s strategy on Iran.
Mr. Lieberman, who became Israel’s minister for strategic
affairs a month ago, is making his first visit to the United
States in that capacity on Thursday and will meet with American
officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In an interview on the eve of his trip, he said, “Our first task
is to convince Western countries to adopt a tough approach to
the Iranian problem,” which he called “the biggest threat facing
the Jewish people since the Second World War.”
He added, “We must also be prepared to deal alone with this
problem.”
For now, Israel’s policy is to remain relatively low-key and to
work with the United States and Europe in search of a way to
halt or contain Iran’s nuclear program. Mr. Lieberman says he
supports this position, while making clear he has no faith in
the diplomatic efforts.
“The dialogue with Iran will be a 100-percent failure, just like
it was with North Korea,” said Mr. Lieberman, who came here from
the Soviet Union in 1978, was first elected to Parliament in
1999 and served in the cabinet of the former prime minister,
Ariel Sharon.
At the beginning of this year, Mr. Lieberman’s Israel Beiteinu
Party had only three parliamentary seats, and its appeal seemed
limited to immigrants from the former Soviet Union. But the
party won 11 seats in March, boosting Mr. Lieberman’s stature
considerably.
When Prime Minister Ehud Olmertwanted to broaden his coalition
government, he invited Mr. Lieberman to join, making him a
deputy prime minister and creating the new Ministry of Strategic
Affairs. The move rankled the more liberal members of the
coalition and drew sharp criticism from Arab lawmakers in
Israel’s Parliament.
“I’ve always been controversial because I offer new ideas,” the
bearded Mr. Lieberman, 48, said in his parliamentary office on
Wednesday. “For me to be controversial, I think this is
positive.”
Mr. Lieberman’s most provocative plan calls for dividing Jews
and Arabs into two homogeneous states, a proposal his Arab
critics often describe as racist.
Mr. Lieberman calls for a land and population exchange that
would seek to reduce significantly the number of Arabs who are
Israeli citizens. They currently account for more than a million
of Israel’s 7 million people.
Under the plan, several Arab towns in northern Israel would
become part of the Palestinian areas in the West Bank. The major
Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank would become part of
Israel.
In addition, Mr. Lieberman wants to revamp Israel’s citizenship
laws. All Israelis, Jews and Arabs would have to pledge loyalty
to the state and recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Those who
refuse could be permanent residents, but would no longer be
citizens, he said.
“The best solution is separation between the nations and the
creation of homogeneous states,” he said.
The plan has no support within the current government, aside
from Mr. Lieberman. When Mr. Lieberman mentioned it recently,
Mr. Olmert immediately distanced himself, saying Israeli Arabs
were an integral part of Israeli society.
“I think he expresses racist thinking,” Mohammad Barakeh, an
Arab member of Israel’s Parliament, said of Mr. Lieberman. “He’s
dangerous for us, and dangerous for democracy in Israel. We were
here before he arrived in this land, and we will be here after
he has disappeared politically.”
As a group, Israeli Arabs staunchly oppose moves to take away
their Israeli citizenship, though most strongly support
Palestinian aspirations of statehood. The Palestinians,
meanwhile, say Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal
and should be dismantled.
None of this keeps Mr. Lieberman from advocating his plan.
“I think the biggest problem of the 21st century is how to deal
with minorities,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Every country where you
have two languages, two religions and two races, you have
conflict.”
He argues that his plan has been misunderstood, and while its
tenets have not changed since its introduction two years ago, he
now tends to use language that sounds less harsh.
“We won’t be moving people, we will be moving the borders,” Mr.
Lieberman said. “It’s not a transfer.”
He is much better known for urging tough measures against
Palestinian militants. Last month, before a cease-fire took
effect in the Gaza Strip, he called for Israel to focus on the
top members of Hamas, the radical Islamic group that leads the
Palestinian government.
“We need to concentrate on those who have something to lose, the
entire upper echelon of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” he said. “The
leadership of Hamas needs to go to heaven.” More Articles in
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
9 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on N. Korea
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 11:31 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two months after North Korea detonated a
nuclear weapon, the United States announced a series of
sanctions believed to have no practical effect on the communist
regime because of existing punishments.
The measures announced Friday were triggered by the official
finding that North Korea, a non-nuclear state, had triggered a
nuclear device on Oct. 9. Although the United States quickly
decided Pyongyang had conducted a test, President Bush signed an
official presidential determination to that effect Thursday.
With that determination, the United States was required to bar
nuclear cooperation under the Atomic Energy Act and financial
assistance under the Export-Import Bank. The United States
provides neither to North Korea. It also requires a wide range
of economic sanctions that already are in place.
The White House said the finding did not affect humanitarian or
food aid.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
10 AFP: Possible resumption of North Korea nuclear talks mid-month - US official -
Fri Dec 8, 2:44 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Six-party negotiations aimed at unravelling
North Korea" /> North Korea's nuclear weapons program could begin
in mid-December, ending a 13-month boycott by the Stalinist
state, a senior US official said.
"In the next 10 days or so I think there's a possibility of
their reconvening, but we don't have any done deals yet," the
State Department official said of the negotiations involving
China, Japan, Russia, North Korea, South Korea" /> South
Koreaand the United States.
Asked about reports suggesting the talks would begin December
16, the official would only say: "Stay tuned."
A formal announcement concerning the resumption of the talks
would come from China, which has hosted past meetings.
North Korea agreed in principle in October to return to
negotiations after being hit with UN sanctions for having
carried out its first test of a nuclear bomb earlier in the
month.
The sanctions, including trade bans on funds and material linked
to nuclear and other weapons systems, remain in effect pending
the negotiations, which the United States and its partners say
must result in the full dismantling of North Korea's nuclear
program.
The six-party talks began in late 2003 but Pyongyang walked away
from the process in November 2005 after Washington imposed
financial sanctions on a Macau bank accused of laundering money
and passing counterfeit US 100-dollar bills for the North
Koreans.
Prior to the boycott, the North Koreans signed on to a vaguely
worded statement in September 2005 agreeing to the
denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in exchange for
economic and political rewards.
Senior US, North Korean and Chinese diplomats held two days of
preparatory talks last week in Beijing which US officials said
were aimed at ensuring the next round of talks produce results
and not just permit Pyongyang to buy time while pursuing its
nuclear weapons program.
The US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied
reports the Beijing talks involved detailed discussions of
incentives that the United States and its partners could offer
North Korea in exchange for Pyongyang giving up its weapons
program.
"It's not the sort of thing where there are promises made, but
there's an appreciation of what the parameters of moving forward
in this round might mean," he said.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The
*****************************************************************
11 UPI: Roh denies possession of U.S. nuke weapon
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence -
12/8/2006 7:07:00 AM -0500
SEOUL, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun says
his country has no U.S. nuclear weapons, dismissing North
Korea's repeated claims.
"There is no U.S. nuclear weapon in South Korea. Deployment of
nuclear weapons is not the presupposition for the provision of
the U.S. nuclear umbrella," Roh said in a news conference during
a visit to New Zealand, according to Seoul's Yonhap News Agency.
His remark comes after the North repeatedly claimed the United
States has deployed atomic weapons in South Korea, saying it
will not give up its nuclear programs due to the nuclear
threats.
Roh also said North Korea armed with nuclear weapons is still no
match for South Korea, adding that Pyongyang would not attack
the South because it knows it cannot win.
"North Korea may possess some nuclear weapons, but South Korea
can maintain a sufficient equilibrium in terms of military
power. The balance can even be said to be superior (in favor of
South Korea)," Roh was quoted as saying by Yonhap.
"The United States has promised to guarantee deterrence against
North Korea's nuclear weapons and we're maintaining our
relations with the United States in that direction," he said.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
12 UCS: EPA Air Pollution Plan Puts Politics Before Science
December 8, 2006
Statement by Francesca Grifo, Senior Scientist and Director of
the Union of Concerned Scientists’ (UCS) Scientific Integrity
Program
"The EPA needs independent science to protect the public's
health and safety. Unfortunately, the EPA has just announced
measures that will allow it to circumvent independent scientific
input from its own scientists and advisory committees by
increasing the role political appointees play and diminishing
the role of scientists. The announcement comes just weeks after
the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee and EPA scientists
spoke out against the agency's failure to adequately protect the
public from dangerous air pollution.
"This announcement is more of the same from an administration
that cares about political science more than independent
science. Furthermore, the decision sidelines science at a time
when the EPA is actively considering revising standards meant to
protect the public's health from lead and ozone pollution. The
EPA's announcement means the best available science will now be
watered down by politics, and the public's health will suffer as
a result."
Contact
Reporters: Join our notification listto receive breaking news
from UCS.
For general media inquiries, please call our press office at
202-331-5420.
Press Contacts:
EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 erobinson@ucsusa.org
RICH HAYES Media Director 202-331-5437 rhayes@ucsusa.org
© Union of Concerned Scientists
Page Last Revised: 12/08/06
*****************************************************************
13 ALERT: Help us stop Bombplex 2030!
Date: Thu, 7 Dec 2006 15:04:31 -0600 (CST)
X-Sender-Host-Name: chumbly.math.missouri.edu
First, my thanks to the thousands of you who responded to last weeks call to
send comments to the Department of Energy (DOE) opposing Complex 2030, or as
we call it Nuclear Bombplex 2030, Bushs insane nuclear weapons forever
scheme.
On December 14, the last of a series of public hearings on this reckless and
dangerous plan will take place at DOEs headquarters right here in Washington
DC and Peace Action will be there to represent you.
You may not be able to attend this or other hearings the DOE has planned, but
you can make your presence felt by helping Peace Action organize effective
opposition to Bushs plans for building new nuclear weapons - before this
insane plan gets off the ground.
Click here to help support our campaign against Nuclear Bombplex 2030.
https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Peaceact/shop/custom.j
sp?donate_page_KEY=2050
At a time when the international community is uniting around efforts to keep
Iran and North Korea from building their own nuclear arsenals, its impossible
to imagine any way that Bushs plans for building new nuclear weapons (up to
125 warheads a year!) will help such non-proliferation efforts. Rather, it is
more likely to push these and other nations toward acquiring what the U.S. has
and refuses to give up. And it will only add to the massive public health
problems and environmental destruction that is a tragic legacy of nuclear
weapons production here in the United States.
Peace Action members in New Mexico and California, where 6 of the 12 hearings
are taking place, have been especially active in turning out citizens to make
it clear to the DOE that public opposition is already in place. A strong
showing at the DOE headquarters in the nations capital preceded by a press
conference that Peace Action is helping to organize will signal this
opposition is just beginning.
Your support now will build this campaign, and help make that opposition grow.
https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Peaceact/shop/custom.j
sp?donate_page_KEY=2050
As 2006 winds to a close, the work in front of us comes more sharply into
focus. While I look forward to working with a new Congress one that is not
merely a rubber stamp for Bushs imperial presidency I am acutely aware that
the quagmire in Iraq, the threat of military action against Iran (or even
North Korea) and Bushs plans for building new nukes will not be resolved
simply because the Democrats are taking control in Congress. Only an informed,
active and organized citizenry can grapple with these issues, and compel our
government to do what needs to be done.
Our challenge is to shape the debate on these issues and make sure the new
Congress is true to its constitutional responsibility: to stand as a check
against an administration so willing to abuse its power, and to represent the
will of the American people, and the mandate for peace that we delivered at
the ballot box last month.
Your year end contribution to Peace Action can help us meet that challenge.
Thank you for supporting our work, and for helping to make a difference, with
all that you do for peace and justice.
https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/Peaceact/shop/custom.j
sp?donate_page_KEY=2050
Sincerely,
Kevin M. Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action
P.S. Political insiders are acknowledging the growing effectiveness of online
advocacy, calling it the net-roots. In the past year, our network has doubled
in size and it continues to grow increasing the number of people prepared to
take a stand. Your generous year end contribution to Peace Action will help
build effective opposition to the Bush agenda in the year ahead.
/*Your email ID. --*/
*****************************************************************
14 NewsBlaze : U.S. Co-Sponsored IAEA Workshop on GNEP Concludes
Twenty-eight nations interested in exploring the possibility of
introducing nuclear power into their future energy mix
participated in "Issues for the Introduction of Nuclear Power,"
a workshop sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The workshop
outlined the needed infrastructure to support nuclear energy. As
part of the tutorial, Dr. Paul Lisowski, Deputy Program Manager
of the DOE Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) spoke of the
benefits that GNEP could bring to the global community.
"This workshop has helped state representatives to understand
the framework necessary to introduce nuclear power to their
grids," Dr. Lisowski said. "A major goal is to enable countries
to gain the benefits of the safe, secure and peaceful use of
nuclear power, facilitate the development of the necessary
infrastructure, and minimize the costs."
Dr. Lisowski also spoke about the expectations of countries
interested in incorporating nuclear energy into their energy
mix. "The United States will expect any country interested in
adding nuclear power to its energy mix to ensure adequate
preparations are undertaken in advance of implementing such new
programs," Dr. Lisowski said.
As a co-sponsor, DOE provided funding to the IAEA, along with
other countries, to support this workshop. The workshop was held
December 4-6, 2006, in Vienna, Austria.
Along with representatives from countries without nuclear power,
participants of the conference included representatives from
supplier countries, and representatives of countries interested
in the future applications of nuclear power.
Source: U.S. Department of Energy
judythpiazza@gmail.com Copyright © 2006, NewsBlaze, Daily News
U.S. Co-Sponsored IAEA Workshop on GNEP Concludes'> _ _
*****************************************************************
15 BBC: Minister is against Trident plan
Last Updated: Friday, 8 December 2006
[Malcolm Chisholm]
Malcolm Chisholm is communities minister in the Scottish Cabinet
A member of the Scottish cabinet has broken ranks with Tony Blair
and Jack McConnell over nuclear weapons.
Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm has told BBC Scotland that
he is against renewing Trident.
Mr Blair has already outlined plans to spend up to Ł20bn on a new
generation of submarines that will carry Trident missile systems.
However, Mr Chisholm said: "I just think in the new world, we
don't actually need this kind of weapon."
He added that Mr Blair's announcement was not setting the right
example to other countries.
The minister said: "There may have been an argument for it five
years ago, but I don't think it does apply in the modern world.
"I think we ought to try and get rid of the weapons we have
through multi-lateral disarmament rather than encouraging
proliferation through new investment in armaments."
'United church'
Mr McConnell said he respected Mr Chisholm's opinion.
He said: "I think he and others will have heard exactly what I
said in the chamber in answer to questions about people having a
right to have their own opinion."
But at the same time the first minister stated his belief in "the
importance in this uncertain world of having strong defences".
SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said Mr Chisholm's comments
showed Labour was "split from top to bottom" on the issue.
She added: "Mr Chisholm correctly highlights the hypocrisy of the
Labour leadership which preaches disarmament to others but spends
billions replacing Trident."
Green MSP Chris Ballance backed Mr Chisholm and congratulated him
on "voicing his opinion".
[HMS Vanguard]
Trident will reach the end of its scheduled life in 2024
Mr Blair had previously said it would be "unwise and dangerous"
to give up nuclear weapons.
Between Ł15bn and Ł20bn is to be spent on new submarines to carry
the Trident missiles.
The submarines are expected to take 17 years to develop and
build, and could last until about 2050.
However, criticism of the plans has been widespread.
In July, a group of bishops warned Mr Blair that the possession
of Trident weapons was "evil" and "profoundly anti-God".
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith
O'Brien, said the system prevented peace rather than protecting
it.
The leader of the Anglican Church in Wales, Archbishop Barry
Morgan, insisted in September that the money spent on it could
instead save 16,000 children from dying from preventable diseases
every day.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has also questioned the morality of
updating the Trident nuclear deterrent.
*****************************************************************
16 Guardian Unlimited: Lawmakers Agree on U.S.-India Nuke Bill
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 9:01 AM
By FOSTER KLUG
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers have settled differences on landmark
legislation to allow U.S. shipments of civilian nuclear fuel to
India, clearing the way for passage of a measure that will
overturn three decades of American anti-proliferation policy.
The bill was likely to be approved in final House and Senate
votes Friday and sent to President Bush to sign into law.
On Thursday, after several days of tense discussions and hours
before the scheduled end of the legislative session,
congressional negotiators signed off on the compromise bill. It
reconciles separate versions previously endorsed overwhelmingly
by the House and the Senate.
Senior lawmakers from both political parties championed the
proposal as a major shift in U.S. policy toward a strategically
important Asian power that has long maintained what the Bush
administration considers a responsible nuclear program. Critics
countered that the plan could spark an Asian nuclear arms race
and ruin global efforts to curb the spread of weapons
technology.
The initiative is a top priority for the White House, and its
passage would hand a rare victory to Bush, who has seen his
popularity tumble and who will have to deal in January with a
Democratic-controlled Congress after the Republicans' election
losses last month. Bowing to pressure from the administration
and the Indian government, congressional negotiators watered
down provisions in the bill that would have tied U.S. nuclear
cooperation to India's relations with Iran.
Although Bush's signature would change U.S. law, several hurdles
loom before India and the United States could begin civil
nuclear trade. One is another congressional vote once technical
negotiations on an overall cooperation agreement are settled
between the two governments.
The legislation carves out an exemption in American law to allow
U.S. civilian nuclear trade with India in exchange for Indian
safeguards and inspections at 14 civilian nuclear plants; eight
military plants would be off-limits. Congressional action was
needed because U.S. law bars nuclear trade with countries, such
as India, that have not submitted to full international
inspections.
In the bill's final version, lawmakers weakened language that
would have required that Bush certify that India has been
cooperating fully on confronting Iran's nuclear program before
allowing civil nuclear cooperation. As written now, the bill
would require that the president provide Congress with an annual
report detailing India's efforts on Iran.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a letter sent last
week to Congress that the strong language on Iran would ``be
viewed by India as adding additional conditions'' to the
original agreement ``and could reopen the terms of the
initiative to renegotiating.''
Lawmakers, however, ignored administration complaints on another
issue and included a condition banning the transfer of nuclear
enrichment and reprocessing equipment to India.
Democratic Rep. Joseph Crowley, in an interview, praised
Congress for settling a ``historic agreement that is going to
ensure a positive relation between India and the United States
well into the century.''
Critics, however, painted a bleak picture, saying the extra
nuclear fuel that the deal would provide could free India's
domestic uranium for use in its weapons program.
``India and the Bush administration have got what they wanted: a
gaping hole in the nonproliferation standards,'' said Daryl
Kimball, director of the private Arms Control Association.
Congressional supporters, he said, ``have no reason to rejoice
if they really care about stopping proliferation.''
There is still work to be done. The two countries must now
obtain an exception for India from the rules of the Nuclear
Suppliers Group, an assembly of nations that export nuclear
material. Indian officials also must negotiate a safeguard
agreement with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International
Atomic Energy Agency.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
17 NRC: NRC Announces Availability of License Renewal Application for Shearon Harris Nuclear Power
Plant
News Release - 2006-14 U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office
of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC
20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov No. 06-149 December 8,
2006
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced today that an
application for a 20-year renewal of the operating license for
the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant, Unit 1, is available for
public review.
The Shearon Harris plant is a pressurized water reactor located
approximately 20 miles southwest of Raleigh, N.C. The current
operating license expires Oct. 24, 2026. The applicant, Carolina
Power and Light (a subsidiary of Progress Energy), submitted the
renewal application Nov. 16. The application is available on the
NRC Web site at this address:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal/applicati
ons.html.
The NRC staff is currently conducting its initial reviews of 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 an opportunity for the public to request an
adjudicatory hearing on the renewal request.
Additional information about the NRCs review of reactor license
renewal applications is available on the NRC Web site at
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/operating/licensing/renewal.html.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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 Friday, December 08, 2006
*****************************************************************
18 Arizona Republic: More trouble for Palo Verde
Already in hot water with nuclear agency, plant officials must
explain generator ills
Mark Shaffer
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 8, 2006 12:00 AM
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station could be in a deeper hole
with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after preliminary
inspection findings that the plant had an inoperable emergency
diesel generator for much of September.
The commission and Palo Verde officials will meet Jan. 16 in
Arlington, Texas, to discuss the agency's report on the
then-faulty Unit 3 generator, which was released Thursday.
The stakes are expected to be high for the nation's largest
nuclear power plant, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix.
If the NRC finds that the violation is anything more serious
than that of low-safety, or "green," significance, Palo Verde
will sink to the level of the most heavily monitored nuclear
power plant in the country, along with Perry in Ohio.
That likely would cost Arizona Public Service Co. and ratepayers
millions of dollars because of repairs the increased scrutiny
would mandate.
The nuclear plant also could end up at a higher level of
regulation if the NRC finds anything more than a low-safety
violation because of a bad chemical mix that plant workers
placed in emergency spray cooling ponds from 1994 to earlier
this year.
Excessive amounts of zinc and phosphate had been mixed into the
water to try to control erosion of safety components in pipes.
But the chemical mix led to deposits on the tubes, increased
insulation and incorrect heat transfer.
A final report on the chemicals in the cooling ponds is
expected before the end of the year, said Victor Dricks, an NRC
spokesman.
"Each of the findings of these inspections will be assessed
independently," Dricks said. "But one more finding of anything
but green will change the landscape for Palo Verde."
Jim McDonald, a spokesman for APS, the largest stakeholder in
Palo Verde, acknowledged that performance at the plant "hasn't
been up to our high standards of the past, and we're committed
to changing that."
'Degraded cornerstone'
Palo Verde already is one of the most-monitored plants in the
country by federal regulators.
It is classified as a "degraded cornerstone" because of a "dry
pipe" that was found during a 2004 inspection that had the
potential to disrupt the flow of water to the core's emergency
cooling system.
According to the NRC's report, a federal investigations team
was sent to the plant in early October to look into failures in
the emergency diesel generator on July 25 and Sept. 22 that
interrupted electrical transfers.
Each of the three units at Palo Verde has two of the
5,500-kilowatt generators to provide standby power if the normal
power supply is lost.
The NRC report noted that the generator was inoperable from
Sept. 4 to Sept. 22 and that incorrect maintenance had been
conducted on an electrical relay in the unit.
"The licensee (Palo Verde) determined the root cause . . .
could be attributed to either plastic debris or oxide film
buildup," the report said.
Reach the reporter at mark. shaffer@arizonarepublic.com.
Copyright © 2006, azcentral.com. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
19 SF New Mexican: Palo Verde nuke plant could face stringent monitoring by feds
Fri Dec 8, 2006 6:07 pm
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHOENIX (AP) - Federal regulators could be poised to move the
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station outside Phoenix into their
most stringent oversight category after they found yet another
problem with an emergency backup system.
An inspection at the plant in late September found that an
emergency diesel generator had been inoperative for most of the
month, according to a report released Thursday. The finding is
the latest in a series of problems that have plagued the plant in
the past two years.
The most serious was the discovery by inspectors from the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission in 2004 that a large pipe that is supposed
to flood the reactors with water in an emergency had been left
dry for years.
Regulators also have recently discovered that an improper
chemical mix in pipes in the emergency cooling system led to
corrosion that went undetected for years.
Responding to concerns about reactor operations from regulators,
plant operator Arizona Public Service Co. also fired or
transferred a dozen supervisors and line workers earlier this
year.
Palo Verde is currently listed by the NRC in the second-to-worst
safety monitoring category by the NRC, and if it finds the latest
problems are anything but minor, the plant would face the
strictest monitoring possible from the agency.
"One more finding of anything but green will change the landscape
for Palo Verde," said Victor Dricks, an NRC spokesman.
That likely would cost APS and its customers millions of dollars
because of increased repair and monitoring requirements. APS
spokesman Jim McDonald acknowledged that performance at the plant
"hasn't been up to our high standards of the past, and we're
committed to changing that."
The commission and Palo Verde officials will meet Jan. 16 in
Arlington, Texas, to discuss the agency's report on the faulty
generator and the improper chemical mix.
In addition to APS, partners in the plant include Arizona's Salt
River Project, El Paso Electric Co., Southern California Edison,
Public Service Company of New Mexico, Southern California Public
Power Authority and the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.
Privacy Policy / Terms of Use | ©2006, Santa Fe New Mexican,
*****************************************************************
20 RIA Novosti: Russia to settle energy issues with EU via new cooperation deal
08/ 12/ 2006
MOSCOW, December 8 (RIA Novosti) - A senior Russian diplomat
said Friday Moscow will not ratify the Energy Charter, but will
resolve contentious issues with the European Union through the
Russia-EU cooperation agreement currently being prepared.
At a Russia-EU summit in Helsinki last month, Russia and the
25-nation bloc were expected to launch negotiations on a new
partnership agreement, but the talks were vetoed by Poland over
Moscow's refusal to sign the Energy Charter, liberalizing its
oil and gas sector, as well as its ban on the EU newcomer's meat
imports.
"We have turned this page in our relations with the EU," Deputy
Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko said during a video
conference between Russia and Berlin, organized by RIA Novosti.
He said the main principles of Russia-EU energy cooperation
could be included in a strategic partnership agreement.
The new EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will aim
to encourage closer cooperation in trade, justice, external
security and research. The current accord expires in 2007.
The Energy Charter, drawn up as a mechanism of cooperation
between Western and Eastern Europe on energy issues, was signed
in The Hague in 1991, and came into force in 1998.
Russia has objected to the document over its unwillingness to
give foreign investors free access to the country's oil and gas
deposits and export pipelines, which the Energy Charter would
force it to do.
Moscow says Europe's demands, via the charter, for access to
Russian pipelines for Central Asian states and other countries,
will make their natural gas 50% cheaper than Russia's when it
arrives in Europe, and insists that the charter be revised.
The deputy foreign minister also told diplomats taking part in
the video linkup that the unification of the Russian and EU
energy systems will create a mutually beneficial and stable
system of power supplies.
"By the end of the year, a feasibility study for the unification
of the power grids of Russia and the EU should be completed. If
we manage to synchronize them at the first stage, then at the
second stage, after the systems are connected, we will create a
mutually beneficial, stable energy supply system covering a vast
area," he said.
Alexander Grushko said that following this, Russia and the EU
will be able to act as both suppliers and consumers of
electricity.
Russian electricity monopoly Unified Energy System said in
November that a project to synchronize the energy systems of
Russia with the European Union and the ex-Soviet republics of
the Commonwealth of Independent States has been ongoing for a
several years.
The project is aimed at making the power grids work on a single
electricity frequency, enabling power flows between national
networks.
The deputy foreign minister also said Russia and the EU are
drafting an agreement on trade in nuclear materials.
"It is very important for us to agree on a non-discriminatory
regime for trade in nuclear materials," the diplomat said.
He said the current cooperation deal with the EU envisioned that
a nuclear materials trade agreement should have been reached by
1997. "But today, the European Union's domestic markets are
closed to Russian products," he said.
The diplomat said Moscow would like this important sphere of
Russia-EU energy cooperation to be regulated on an equal basis,
and under conditions of mutual respect.
© 2005 RIA Novosti
*****************************************************************
21 APP.COM: Plant foes get famous and divisive ally |
Asbury Park Press Online
Friday, December 8, 2006
Alec Baldwin to moderate forum on Oyster Creek
BY NICHOLAS CLUNN STAFF WRITER
NEWARK — They've sought engineers to dispute calculations and
lawyers to argue for greater oversight. Now, the activists
trying to close the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey
simply want more people like themselves — and money.
To help with the recruiting and fundraising, the activists have
turned to what might appear to be an unlikely ally in a fight
largely focused on radiation safety.
But star power has been known to attract crowds, and actor Alec
Baldwin is thought to have plenty of that, which is why plant
opponents picked him to moderate a symposium and rally on Oyster
Creek at Rutgers University tonight.
The activists, who are trying to block a 20-year renewal of the
plant's operating license, welcomed Baldwin into their camp
despite the chance that his appearance might turn some people
off, said Julia Huff, a lawyer from the Rutgers Environmental
Law Clinic who is repre senting renewal opponents and helping
organize the event.
Baldwin is appealing because he will attract new people to the
cause — some people will attend the event just to see Baldwin,
she predicted.
But his involvement is bound to repulse others who detest the
actor's political positions, she said.
"He can be somewhat of a polarizing figure, but the issue can be
polarizing, as well," Huff said.
Baldwin has spoken out on campaign finance reform, animal rights
and gun control. In 1993, he went on "Late Night with Conan
O'Brien" and said to a cheering audience that the head of the
President Clinton impeachment trial, Henry Hyde, and his family,
should be stoned to death. Baldwin later apologized and said it
was just a joke.
Also expected to speak tonight is Bob Alvarez, senior policy
adviser to the U.S. Secretary of Energy during the Clinton
administration.
Alvarez is expected to speak about what he has identified as
dangers associated with storing radioactive waste at Oyster
Creek and other reactors.
When it comes to public relations, Oyster Creek alone has
mounted impressive efforts. Speakers from the plant have visited
community halls to tout the benefits of the plant and the "safe,
clean and reliable" credo. Plant workers at times have
outnumbered activists at meetings where the public is allowed to
speak.
But with Baldwin and a new emphasis on public outreach, the
activists hope they can overshadow plant efforts and convince
elected officials to fight with them.
In Baldwin, they're getting an actor who's starring in a
prime-time television comedy, 30 Rock on NBC.
Baldwin said he wanted to take a public stand against Oyster
Creek because Gov. Corzine, if pushed, has the potential to
weigh in heavily against the renewal.
Copyright © 2006 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
22 GAZETA.KZ: Kazakhstan, Russia sign agreements on nuclear energy co-operation
08.12.2006
SHYMKENT. Kazakhstan and Russia have signed a number of documents
on nuclear energy co-operation during the presentation of a
uranium production mine "Zarechnoye" in Otrar district, South
Kazakhstan region, yesterday, December 7, Kazakhstan Today
correspondent reports.
Bahtikoja Izmuhambetov, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources
of RK, and Sergey Kirienko, Director General of the Federal
Agency of Atomic Energy of Russia, signed a protocol "On Complex
Programme of Co-operation between Kazakhstan and Russia in the
Peaceful Nuclear Energy" addressed to the Presidents of
Kazakhstan and Russia.
Mr. Kirienko stressed that implementation of this programme will
allow to bring co-operation between Kazakhstan and Russia to a
new level. "The nuclear energy co-operation between Kazakhstan
and Russia is developing rapidly. This year we have created three
joint ventures, whose mutual turnover reaches billions of
dollars. Our countries complement each other well in each area.
The establishment of close ties between Kazakhstan and Russia in
nuclear energy will promote their dynamic development," - he
observed.
Also yesterday, December 7, Mukhtar Djakishev, CEO of JSC "NC
"Kazatomprom,"and Vladimir Smirnov, Director General of the OJSC
"Techsnabexport," signed a memorandum "On Agreement to Create a
Joint Venture for Construction and Maintenance of a Temporary
Storage Facility in the Area of Sea Port "Usluga". Besides, Mr.
Djakishev, V. Smirnov, and Igor Vinogenov, Deputy Chairman of
Eurasian Bank, concluded an agreement on co-operation.
Copyright © Internet Department of PH "Alma-Media", 2000-2006
*****************************************************************
23 IHT: Japanese power company to shut down nuclear plant after coolant leak -
Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press Published: December 8, 2006 [
TOKYO: A Japanese electric power company said Friday it will
shut down a nuclear power plant in northern Japan after it
leaked a small amount of coolant water containing radioactive
material.
Satoshi Arakawa, spokesman of Tohoku Electric Power Co., said
the No. 2 reactor at the Onagawa nuclear power plant will be
shut down because of the leakage of coolant water from a pipe
valve.
No radiation was released outside the compound and no one was
injured, Arakawa said. The cause of the leak was being
investigated.
The reactor, with a generating capacity of 825,000 kilowatts,
will be gradually shut down from Friday night through Saturday
in a safety measure, after which plant officials will look into
the cause, Arakawa said.
The Onagawa nuclear plant in Oshika in Miyagi prefecture (state)
is about 300 kilometers (190 miles) northeast of Tokyo.
Japan, which now relies on nuclear plants for a third of its
energy needs, aims to raise that to nearly 40 percent by 2010.
All rights reserved [IHT]
*****************************************************************
24 CITIZEN-TIMES.com: How about a little truth in (nuclear) advertising?
by Michael Hopping
published December 8, 2006 12:15 am
If you thought the political ads ended on Election Day, I bear
sad tidings. We may be spared the ersatz statesmen approving the
mud they sling, but a new round of issue-oriented advertising
has already begun.
In the past we’ve seen slick and misleading TV ad campaigns
designed to use us to pressure Congress on behalf of the drug
industry, telecom corporations, media giants and Social Security
reform. Though the appeals may be to freedom, progress, and
brighter tomorrows, the bill or deregulation they support is
usually aimed at strengthening corporate control of an economic
sector.
We can expect more of these campaigns. The election caught too
many corporate interest groups under-invested in Democrats.
(Influencing the public may be more expensive and unwieldy than
the K Street method of buying congressional favor. But hey,
they’re playing catch up.) Here’s hoping the news media will do
for issue ads what it fitfully tried to do with the claims of
political candidates. When I see an issue ad, I’ve got
questions. Who are these guys? What’s their agenda, and what
does it mean to me?
I’ll get the ball rolling with an overview of a current ad
campaign by EnergySolutions. For weeks now, a nice-looking man
named Steve Creamer has been telling us about the EnergySolutions
commitment to the wonders of nuclear energy and cleaning up the
Savannah River Site in South Carolina. (The Savannah River Site
is a federal and commercial nuclear industrial complex across the
river from Augusta National Golf Club.) Mr. Creamer isn’t asking
us to do anything, but he’s spending a bundle to get his name out
there. Why?
EnergySolutions, Creamer’s privately held company, has an
ambitious agenda. It intends to reprocess America’s 60,000 tons
of spent nuclear fuel into new fuel. Princeton Professor Frank
von Hippel estimates the cost of such a project at about $100
billion. Quite a project.
Creamer’s pursuit of the jackpot went into high gear late in
2005 when he purchased a nuclear dump company unpopular in his
home state of Utah and the nuclear power plant decontamination
and decommissioning arm of Scientech. Since then he’s added a
nuclear waste hauling and incineration outfit, a radioactive
metal machining firm based in Oak Ridge, and the American
division of the British Nuclear Group, BNG. BNG reprocesses
nuclear fuel in Great Britain.
It was President Bush who proposed that highly radioactive spent
fuel be reprocessed—industry prefers the term recycled—into new
fuel rather than burying it at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) plan Bush announced
last January goes a step farther. He also wants to reprocess
spent fuel from other countries. This would prevent those
countries from trying it themselves and maybe turning the
plutonium they extract into nuclear weapons as several
governments have done, including North Korea. The trouble is
that the United States hasn’t attempted commercial reprocessing
of spent fuel since the Carter administration. Reprocessing is
not only horrendously expensive; it poses environmental risks as
well.
The reprocessing technology EnergySolutions bought with its
BNG-America acquisition is tried and tested. BNG’s Sellafield
site on the northwest coast of Britain has been reprocessing
spent fuel since 1952. UK press reports indicate that, by 2003,
Sellafield had dumped half a ton of plutonium into the Irish
Sea. (Plutonium is toxic to people in the same manner as the
polonium used to poison the former Russian spy.) Some of
Sellafield’s waste plutonium has apparently found its way into
marine fish, the West Cumbrian countryside and the teeth of
local children. These allegations and briefings on other leaks,
spills, and production failures at Sellafield are available at:
http://www.corecumbria.co.uk/newsapp/briefings/briefsmenu.asp.
Creamer has promised the citizens of Utah that EnergySolutions
will not build a reprocessing facility in Utah. Where then?
A Nov. 20 Associated Press story tells us that some South
Carolina business leaders and the Southern Carolina Regional
Development Alliance have teamed up with EnergySolutions to
advocate for siting the GNEP reprocessing plant in South
Carolina, probably near the Savannah River Site.
Because of the way the nation’s highways and rail lines run to
Creamer’s South Carolina dream, a large percentage of the deadly
spent fuel stored at Midwestern and Eastern nuclear power
stations would have to be transported through Asheville,
Charlotte or Atlanta. And he looked like such a nice guy. What’s
in it for South Carolina? First, says the AP, is the possibility
of landing a site study worth $5 million. Those winners are to
be announced soon. The eventual grand prize is expected to bring
in 10,000 construction jobs and 5,000 permanent jobs. Oh, and
maybe some glow-in-the-dark teeth to show off that winning smile.
Michael Hopping is a freelance writer who lives in the Riceville
area. He can be reached at mike.hopping@worldnet.att.net.
*****************************************************************
25 AFP: Baltics forge ahead with nuke plant project, Poland on board -
Fri Dec 8, 1:40 PM ET
VILNIUS (AFP) - Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas
announced that Poland will join a project launched by the three
Baltic states to build a new nuclear power station to replace the
ageing Ignalina facility.
"Poland will join the nuclear plant project," Kirkilas told a
joint press conference held here with Polish Prime Minister
Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
"Poland wants to speed up the construction of the new reactor so
it's ready before 2015. This idea has been accepted by Latvia
and Estonia," Kirkilas said, after the two prime ministers
attended a ceremony inaugurating a project to formally connect
the electricity grids of Poland and Lithuania.
Kirkilas had earlier met with counterparts from Latvia and
Estonia for a Baltic Council meeting that focussed on energy and
the three countries' need to reduce their dependence on outside
sources, in particular Russia.
Officials in Latvia and Estonia have spoken out against bringing
in a fourth partner to the nuclear plant project, to which the
three Baltic prime ministers gave their backing in February.
Ansip said Thursday that Estonia was "happy with the cooperation
of the project partners so far" and stressed that new partners
could only be brought on board "if a consensus is reached by all
parties."
Latvian Foreign Minister Artis Pabriks said the three Baltic
countries were capable of carrying out the project themselves.
"Our national energy companies have done the calculations to
assess the costs of the project. We are capable of doing this
ourselves," he said.
But after Friday's Baltic Council meeting, they opened the door
a chink to more partners.
"If, in the process of developing the nuclear plant, other
partners come forward, including Poland, we are ready to start
consultations," said Kalvitis.
"It would be good if a Polish company were to take part in the
nuclear plant project, but we need to know the name of the
company, to know if they have the resources to take part," he
said.
Kaczynski said a "big Polish energy company will be involved for
Poland" but did not name it, specifying only that the head of
the company had already taken part in talks on the power
station.
He suggested that "each country could have a 25-percent share in
the power station" and stressed that the Baltic nuclear project
"will not rule out our building a nuclear facility in Poland."
The Ignalina power station in eastern Lithuania, that the new
facility will replace, has the same type of reactors as the one
that exploded at Chernobyl in 1986, provoking the world's worst
nuclear disaster.
Lithuania promised the European Union" /> European Union, which
the three Baltic states and Poland joined in 2004, to shut it
down by 2009.
A feasibility study conducted by the Baltic energy companies
predicted the replacement facility would not come onstream
before 2015, leaving a six-year gap between the closure of
Ignalina and the inauguration of the new plant.
During that time, the Baltic states, and especially Lithuania,
which derives 80 percent of its electricity needs from Ignalina,
will have to seek energy sources elsewhere.
Estonia chose to invest in the nuclear plant rather than try to
boost domestic production of oil shale, which currently fills
nearly all of its energy needs, Ansip said earlier.
Between 25 and 30 percent of Estonia's energy needs will be
covered by the plant when it eventually comes onstream, he said,
indicating the key role the Lithuanian nuclear plant could play
in reducing the Baltics' energy dependence and possibly allowing
them to become net exporters of energy.
The new nuclear facility, the link-up of Poland's and
Lithuania's power grids, and a similar tie-up earlier this week
between the grids of Estonia and Finland are all moves to reduce
the reliance of the Baltic states on Russia for their energy
resources.
The three countries, which were Soviet republics from the close
of World War II until 1991, still rely heavily on Russia for
supplies of natural gas and oil, and their power grids remain
linked to that of their former ruler.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
26 NRC: Summary of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No
FR Doc E6-20857
[Federal Register: December 8, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 236)]
[Notices] [Page 71198] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr08de06-137] [[Page 71198]]
Significant Impact for Exemption to Licensed Physician
Requirements for BWX Technologies, Inc., Lynchburg, VA AGENCY:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
ACTION: Notice of proposed action.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Billy Gleaves, Project Manager,
Fuel Facility Licensing Directorate, Division of Fuel Cycle
Safety and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety and
Safeguards, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Mail Stop
T-8F42, Washington, DC 20852. Telephone: (301) 415-5848; fax
number: (310) 415-5955; e-mail: bcg@nrc.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: I. Introduction The U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission (NRC) is considering issuing an exemption
to BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), the holder of NRC special
nuclear materials License SNM-42. The proposed action would
exempt BWXT from certain requirements set forth in 10 CFR
73.46(b) and Part 73 Appendix B. The exemptions would authorize
the licensee to allow medical examinations to be given by
licensed nurse practitioners authorized to practice medicine by
the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The exemptions would allow such nurses, in addition to licensed
physicians, to give medical examinations that are required prior
to allowing personnel to participate in physical fitness tests.
The exemptions would be to requirements stated in 10 CFR
73.46(b)(10)(iii) and (iv); 73.46(b)(11)(iii) and (v);
73.46(b)(12)(ii); and Part 73 Appendix B paragraphs I.B.1.b,
I.B.2.b, and I.C. In accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR
Part 51 the NRC has prepared an Environmental Assessment (EA) in
support of this action. Based on the EA, the NRC has concluded
that a Finding of No Significant Impact is appropriate. If
approved, the exemption would be issued following the publication
of this Notice.
II. EA Summary As stated above, the staff has prepared an EA in
support of the proposed action. The EA contains sensitive
information and is not publicly available. The NRC staff has
concluded that issuing the proposed exemptions will not result in
a significant impact to the environment. The NRC staff concluded
that the proposed action will not adversely affect federally
listed species or federally designated critical habitat because
no federally listed species are known to occur in the project
area. The NRC staff found that no historic properties will be
affected by the proposed action.
The proposed action does not have a potential to affect the
probability or consequences of accidents; the types or amounts of
effluents; nor occupational or public radiation exposure.
Therefore, there are no significant radiological environmental
impacts associated with the proposed action.
III. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA, the
NRC has concluded that there are no significant environmental
impacts from the proposed action, and has determined that the
preparation of an environmental impact statement is not required.
IV. Further Information Documents related to this action can be
accessed on the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management
System (ADAMS) that provides electronic copies of NRC's public
documents. The ADAMS accession number for the Federal Register
notice related to this action is: Notice of License Amendment
Request of BWX Technologies, Inc., Lynchburg, VA (ML063050294).
If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in
accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC's
Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 800-397-4209,
301-415- 4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville,
Maryland, this 27th day of November 2006.
For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Brian Smith, Acting
Chief, Fuel Facility Licensing Directorate, Division of Fuel
Cycle Safety, and Safeguards, Office of Nuclear Material Safety,
and Safeguards.
[FR Doc. E6-20857 Filed 12-7-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
27 NRC: Carolina Power & Light Company; Receipt of Request for Action
FR Doc E6-20858
[Federal Register: December 8, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 236)]
[Notices] [Page 71197] From the Federal Register Online via GPO
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr08de06-136]
Under 10 Cfr 2.206 Notice is hereby given that by petition dated
September 20, 2006, and its supplements dated October 23, and
October 30, 2006, Mr.
John D. Runkle (attorney for the petitioners) has requested that
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) take action with
regard to Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant (SHNPP). The
petitioners request that NRC take enforcement action in the form
of an Order that would revoke SHNPP's Operating License or impose
maximum fines for each violation for each day the plant has been
in violation of fire protection regulations.
As the basis for this request, the petitioners discuss several
fire safety violations at SHNPP which could affect the safe
operation of the plant and safe shutdown of the plant in
emergency situations.
The petitioners' concerns focus on faulty fire barriers, reliance
on indefinite compensatory measures, the risk associated with the
noncompliances, and the NRC's enforcement discretion policy. The
petitioners have also requested open and public proceedings with
the NRC; the licensee, Carolina Power & Light, now doing business
as Progress Energy; and external stakeholders in the vicinity of
the SHNPP.
The request is being treated pursuant to Title 10 of the Code of
Federal Regulations Section 2.206 (10 CFR 2.206) of the
Commission's regulations. As provided by 10 CFR 2.206, the agency
will take appropriate action on this petition within a reasonable
time. A copy of the petition is available for inspection at the
Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White
Flint North, Public File Area O1 F21, 11555 Rockville Pike (first
floor), Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available records will be
accessible from the Agencywide Documents Access and Management
System (ADAMS) Public Electronic Reading Room on the Internet at
the NRC Web site, http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html.
Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems
in accessing the documents located in ADAMS should contact the
NRC PDR Reference staff by telephone at 1-800-397-4209 or
301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. For Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 4th day of December 2006.
J.E. Dyer, Director, Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation.
[FR Doc. E6-20858 Filed 12-7-06; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P
*****************************************************************
28 Prague Daily Monitor: Austria against blockades over Temelin, fears debate may stop -
www.praguemonitor.com
Vienna, Dec 7 (CTK) - Vienna is right fully afraid that the
Czech Republic may discontinue the bilateral dialogue on the
Czech nuclear power plant Temelin´s safety if the plant´s
opponents continue staging total blockades of Czech-Austrian
border, Czech Ambassador to Austria Jan Koukal told CTK today.
Unblocked borders are a priority to the Czech Republic, Koukal
said after a meeting with Austrian Environment Minister Josef
Proell, who is reportedly opposed to complete blockades.
On the other hand, Proell reportedly said that Austria would
prefer the scrapping of Temelin, which is situated some 60 km
away from the borders of the nuclear-free Austria.
During the meeting, Proell only once mentioned the Melk
agreement, that the Czech Republic and Austria signed in 2001
and whose observance by the Czech Republic has been challenged
by Austrian anti-atom activists, Koukal said.
The Austrians are well aware that the Melk agreement is "no
international agreement but only a protocol, a sort of minutes
from negotiations, and that its violation cannot be challenged
in a court dispute," Koukal said.
He said the Austrian government and parliament still assess the
agreement´s legal aspects.
According to Koukal, it is the total blockades of borders,
similar to those staged last weekend, that can be viewed as a
violation of international agreements.
Austrian opponents of Temelin completely blocked the border
crossings at Wullowitz-Dolni Dvoriste and Gmuend-Ceske Velenice
for several hours last Sunday.
In case of further blockades, Prague could discontinue its
safety dialogue it has been conducting with Austria under the
Melk agreement, Koukal said.
"Besides, border blockades are problematic even irrespective of
the Melk agreement," he pointed out.
Koukal said the Czech Republic recognises anti-atom activists´
right to protest, but they must enable at least a limited
traffic at the crossings.
The Temelin opponents, mainly from Upper and Lower Austria,
argue that the Czech Republic violated the 2001 Melk agreement
on Temelin safety as it did not provide the promised safety
adjustments in the power plant before its approval for use was
issued at the beginning of November.
The Melk agreement was negotiated by the then Czech and Austrian
prime ministers, Milos Zeman and Wolfgang Schuessel, in 2000 and
signed in Brussels under the EC´s supervision a year later.
Austria pledged in the Melk agreement that it would not block
the Czech Republic's EU accession talks and would prevent the
blockades of Austrian-Czech border crossings.
According to CTK´s information, Upper Austrian governor Josef
Puehringer has had a legal assessment of the Melk agreement
observance worked out. In the assessment, Linz university expert
Manfred Rotter reportedly said that the Melk agreement ranks in
the international agreements category, but lacks certain aspects
that would allow its non-observance to be challenged, at the
International Court in The Hague, for instance.
The Melk agreement has not become part of the EU legislation,
therefore claims related to it cannot be made at the European
Court of Justice in Luxembourg either, Rotter wrote.
rtj/mr/ms
This story copyright 2006 CTK Czech News Agency.
*****************************************************************
29 AFP: US official hails India nuclear bill, says both nations will benefit -
by Pratap Chakravarty Fri Dec 8, 11:20 AM ET
NEW DELHI (AFP) - A key nuclear accord between India and the
United States that is on the verge of approval by Congress will
be a stepping stone to enhanced military ties, a top US official
said.
The legislation allowing India access to long-denied civilian
nuclear technology was due to be approved later Friday by US
Congress and would go afterwards to President George W. Bush" />
for his signature into law.
Visiting US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called the
measure "historic" and said the agreement was at the "symbolic
centre in this new strategic partnership" between the world's two
largest democracies.
The pact would also help further Washington's "separate ambition"
of creating closer military links between the two countries, he
told a news conference.
"We want to build a much closer military relationship with India
and we are very hopeful that the US can participate in the
transformation of the Indian armed forces," he said.
India's technology-starved military, which is one of the world's
largest weapons buyers, is currently shopping for 126 warjets
worth seven billion dollars and other hardware worth another 3.5
billion dollars.
"We believe we produce some of the best helicopters and fighter
planes in the world and we have been reliable and good partners
of many countries around the world supplying that type of
technology," Burns said.
"Technology transfer will allow the two militaries to have a
long-term partnership, and we consider India is our partner," he
added.
"We (also) want to see India and the US become closer partners
in the fight against terrorism," he said, adding both nations
"are victimized by terrorism ... and in this area the two
countries can do a lot more together."
At the same time, Burns said the deal imposed no pre-conditions,
such as an Indian commitment to choose the United States as its
main weapons supplier.
"India is a sovereign country and we will never try to exert
ourselves in decision-making by the Indian government. We have
too much respect for the Indian people and the Indian government
to even contemplate that," he said.
Burns also said the United States will not dictate terms on
Indian programs to deal with spent nuclear fuel.
"That'll be India's decision," he added.
India was denied help for its civilian energy programme after it
first tested a nuclear weapon in 1974 and refused to sign the
nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Under the agreement, India will be given access to civilian
nuclear technology in return for placing its atomic reactors
under global safeguards.
"It will allow India for the first time in decades to be a full
participant in major international agreements concerning civil
nuclear power," Burns said.
He said India must accelerate its negotiations with the
International Atomic Energy Agency" /> and the 44-member Nuclear
Suppliers Group which must also sanction the deal before India
can have access to the nuclear technology.
"But I think we are over the hardest and highest hurdles. There
are some steps we need to take to complete this whole process,"
Burns said after meeting with Indian Foreign Minister Pranab
Mukherjee.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
30 times and star: N-plant bidders warned over policy
workington lake district
Published on 08/12/2006
NEW owners of Sellafield will not be allowed to “slash and
burn” the site by maximising profits at the expense of safety,
the head of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has warned.
Sir Anthony Cleaver, the authority’s chairman, told potential
owners that safety must be their top priority.
The winning bidder will take control of four sites, including
Sellafield, which has a turnover of more than ÂŁ1 billion a year,
Calder Hall, Windscale and Capenhurst.
Sir Anthony said the authority had the responsibility to make
sure a new owner did not make a fast buck at the expense of
safety.
“There are very specific things that anybody looking to win
contracts are going to have to demonstrate to our absolute
satisfaction. We are taking all the steps to ensure that whoever
comes in here understands what is expected of them to do a
first-class job with safety right at the top of the list.
“There’s isn’t going to be an opportunity for anybody to
come in and slash and burn, to use the vernacular.”
He also assured Sellafield employees they will all have jobs
under the new regime.
“Everybody in the existing site licence company will transfer
over to the new employer, the Energy Act is very clear on that,
their terms and conditions will be protected.
“One of the things we had to do was to create a totally-new
pensions scheme for the workforce and, again, we have done that
in consultation with the trade unions who, I think, are
comfortable with that.
“There’s no question of throwing away all that experience.
This is basically a case of the same people doing the same jobs,
it’s at the very top management of the organisation where new
people will come in, having convinced us they have the best ideas
and innovation.”
View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital
reproduction, just like the printed copy at
www.timesandstar.co.uk/digitalcopy Other
*****************************************************************
31 UPI: Cargo scans to take place at three ports
United Press International - NewsTrack -
12/8/2006 8:03:00 AM -050
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- An anti-terrorism program adopted by
the U.S. government in Washington will require all cargo sent
from three major ports to be scanned for nuclear components.
Some members of the U.S. Congress have called for the Secure
Freight Initiative, which mandates the scanning of all cargo
from Pakistan, Honduras and Southampton, England, to be expanded
to include cargo from all ports worldwide, The New York Times
reported Friday.
As part of the program, the cargo must be scanned before
departing for the United States. The scans are to be by
radiation detection machines and X-ray devices that help the
search for bomb-making materials.
"There's no weapon of mass destruction that is more formidable
than a nuclear or a dirty bomb," U.S. Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff said while announcing the plan
Thursday.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said congressional Democrats
would allow the Department of Homeland Security to test the
program at the three ports before mandating its use globally.
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
32 [NYTr] Hotel bar now focus of ex-spy death probe
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2006 13:11:54 -0600 (CST)
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
AP via Yahoo - Dec 8, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061208/ap_on_re_eu/poisoned_spy
Hotel bar is focus of ex-spy death probe
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON - Detectives investigating the poisoning death of an ex-KGB agent
focused Friday on a meeting at a London hotel bar where at least 10 people
may have been exposed to radioactive polonium-210.
Colleagues in Moscow hoped to question one of those people, Andrei Lugovoi
-- another former KGB agent and security consultant named by British law
enforcement officials as a key witness in the poisoning of Alexander
Litvinenko.
Lugovoi met Litvinenko at the bar of London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1 --
the day Litvinenko fell ill.
A businessman at that meeting, Dmitry Kovtun, also showed signs of
contamination with polonium-210, the rare radioactive element found in
Litvinenko's body, and seven hotel employees who were working at the bar
that day also tested positive for exposure to radiation, British health
officials said.
Dr. Michael Clarke of Britain's Health Protection Agency said the poisoning
likely was carried out at the hotel bar -- but a British police official
said no conclusions had been drawn. The official said the venue was an
integral part of the case, speaking on condition of anonymity because she
was not authorized to speak about the case.
"People go to bars to drink, eat and smoke -- all of which are
possibilities for the poisoning," Clarke told The Associated Press.
Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb said the former spy sipped tea during the
meeting, while Lugovoi said he recalls ordering a bottle of gin. Clarke
said polonium could have been discreetly added to food or drink.
"If it was some sort of liquid, it could have been -- as in James Bond -- a
little magic capsule," Clarke said Thursday, the day Litvinenko was buried
in a specially sealed coffin.
Litvinenko died at a London hospital on Nov. 23. Doctors said he was
poisoned with a massive dose of the radioactive substance.
A meeting between detectives and Lugovoi "could happen today," his lawyer,
Andrei Romashov, told the AP on Friday. Lugovoi is undergoing medical
checks in a Moscow clinic for radiation.
Traces of polonium-210 have been found at several sites he visited in
recent weeks, including the stadium of London's Arsenal soccer club and the
British Embassy in Moscow.
Health officials said traces of polonium also had been uncovered at the
Parkes Hotel in London's Mayfair neighborhood -- where Lugovoi stayed Oct.
16.
British officers, backed by agents from the domestic spy agency MI5, have
spent several days trying to interview Lugovoi without success, law
enforcement officials said. Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika said
Wednesday that British police would not be allowed to question him
directly, but could attend while Russian officers conducted the
interrogation.
A Russian news agency reported Thursday that Kovtun -- being treated at a
Moscow hospital -- had slipped into a coma after meeting Russian
investigators and Scotland Yard detectives. Romashov denied that report,
saying Kovtun's condition was "the same" as before and during the
interrogation. Interfax later cited a source as saying Kovtun had regained
consciousness but was in serious condition with radiation damage to his
intestines and kidneys.
Russian prosecutors announced Thursday they had opened a criminal case into
the murder of Litvinenko and attempted murder of Kovtun.
A criminal probe in Russia would allow suspects to be prosecuted there.
Officials previously have said Russia would not extradite any suspects in
Litvinenko's killing.
Copyright ) 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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33 Guardian Unlimited: Hotel Bar Is Focus of Ex-Spy Death Probe
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 3:16 PM
AP Photo LON124
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Detectives investigating the poisoning death of an
ex-KGB agent focused Friday on a meeting at a London hotel bar
where at least 10 people may have been exposed to radioactive
polonium-210.
Colleagues in Moscow hoped to question one of those people,
Andrei Lugovoi - another former KGB agent and security
consultant named by British law enforcement officials as a key
witness in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
Lugovoi met Litvinenko at the bar of London's Millennium Hotel
on Nov. 1 - the day Litvinenko fell ill.
A businessman at that meeting, Dmitry Kovtun, also showed signs
of contamination with polonium-210, the rare radioactive element
found in Litvinenko's body, and seven hotel employees who were
working at the bar that day also tested positive for exposure to
radiation, British health officials said.
Dr. Michael Clarke of Britain's Health Protection Agency said
the poisoning likely was carried out at the hotel bar - but a
British police official said no conclusions had been drawn. The
official said the venue was an integral part of the case,
speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not
authorized to speak about the case.
``People go to bars to drink, eat and smoke - all of which are
possibilities for the poisoning,'' Clarke told The Associated
Press.
Litvinenko's friend Alex Goldfarb said the former spy sipped tea
during the meeting, while Lugovoi said he recalls ordering a
bottle of gin. Clarke said polonium could have been discreetly
added to food or drink.
``If it was some sort of liquid, it could have been - as in
James Bond - a little magic capsule,'' Clarke said Thursday, the
day Litvinenko was buried in a specially sealed coffin.
Litvinenko died at a London hospital on Nov. 23. Doctors said he
was poisoned with a massive dose of the radioactive substance.
A meeting between detectives and Lugovoi ``could happen today,''
his lawyer, Andrei Romashov, told the AP on Friday. Lugovoi is
undergoing medical checks in a Moscow clinic for radiation.
Traces of polonium-210 have been found at several sites he
visited in recent weeks, including the stadium of London's
Arsenal soccer club and the British Embassy in Moscow.
Health officials said traces of polonium also had been uncovered
at the Parkes Hotel in London's Mayfair neighborhood - where
Lugovoi stayed Oct. 16.
British officers, backed by agents from the domestic spy agency
MI5, have spent several days trying to interview Lugovoi without
success, law enforcement officials said. Russian Prosecutor
General Yuri Chaika said Wednesday that British police would not
be allowed to question him directly, but could attend while
Russian officers conducted the interrogation.
A Russian news agency reported Thursday that Kovtun - being
treated at a Moscow hospital - had slipped into a coma after
meeting Russian investigators and Scotland Yard detectives.
Romashov denied that report, saying Kovtun's condition was ``the
same'' as before and during the interrogation. Interfax later
cited a source as saying Kovtun had regained consciousness but
was in serious condition with radiation damage to his intestines
and kidneys.
Russian prosecutors announced Thursday they had opened a
criminal case into the murder of Litvinenko and attempted murder
of Kovtun.
A criminal probe in Russia would allow suspects to be prosecuted
there. Officials previously have said Russia would not extradite
any suspects in Litvinenko's killing.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
34 Guardian Unlimited: Probe Into Ex-KGB Spy's Death Continues
From the Associated Press
[UP]
Friday December 8, 2006 11:01 AM
AP Photo LMD109
By DAVID STRINGER
Associated Press Writer
LONDON (AP) - Detectives investigating the death of an ex-KGB
spy Alexander Litvinenko turned their attention Friday to a
meeting at a London hotel bar where at least 10 people may have
been exposed to radioactive polonium-210.
Colleagues in Moscow hoped to question one of those people,
former KGB agent Andrei Lugovoi, a security consultant named by
British law enforcement officials as a key witness.
Lugovoi, also a former Soviet agent, met Litvinenko at the bar
of London's Millennium hotel on Nov. 1, the day the ex-spy fell
ill.
Another man at that meeting, businessman Dmitry Kovtun, is
hospitalized in Moscow with signs of contamination from
polonium-210, a rare radioactive element.
Britain's Health Protection Agency confirmed on Thursday that
seven hotel employees had also tested positive for exposure to
radiation.
Litvinenko, who was buried Thursday, died in a London hospital
on Nov. 23. Doctors said he was poisoned with a massive dose of
the radioactive substance.
A meeting between detectives and Lugovoi ``could happen today,''
his lawyer Andrei Romashov told The Associated Press on Friday.
Lugovoi is undergoing medical checks in a Moscow clinic.
British officers, who are being supported by agents from the
domestic spy agency MI5, have spent several days attempting to
interview Lugovoi without success, law enforcement officials
said.
Russia's Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika said on Wednesday that
British police would not be permitted to question Lugovoi
directly, but could attend while Russian officers conducted the
interrogation.
A Russian news agency reported Thursday that Kovtun had slipped
into a coma after meeting Russian investigators and Scotland
Yard detectives.
But Romashov denied that report Friday, saying Kovtun's
condition was ``the same'' as before and during the
interrogation.
Lugovoi, 41, is being tested for signs of polonium. Traces of
the element have been found at several sites he visited in
recent weeks, including the stadium of London's Arsenal soccer
club and the British Embassy in Moscow.
Health protection agency officials said the seven exposed bar
employees were working at the Millennium Hotel on the day of the
meeting.
A British police official said the inquiry had not yet concluded
that the hotel's dimly lit Pine Bar, close to London's U.S.
Embassy in Grosvenor Square, was the poisoning venue, but said
it was now an integral part of the case. The official spoke on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak
about the case.
Dr. Michael Clarke, of the health agency, said it was likely the
poisoning could have been carried out at the bar.
``People go to bars to drink, eat and smoke - all of which are
possibilities for the poisoning,'' Clarke told the AP on Friday.
Litvineko's friend Alex Goldfarb said the former spy sipped tea
during the meeting, while Lugovoi said he recalls ordering a
bottle of gin. Clarke said polonium could have been discreetly
added to food or drink.
``If it was some sort of liquid, it could have been - as in
James Bond - a little magic capsule,'' Clarke told reporters on
Thursday.
Health officials also said traces of polonium had been uncovered
at the Parkes Hotel, in Mayfair - where Lugovoi stayed on Oct.
16.
Russian prosecutors announced Thursday they had opened a
criminal case for the murder of Litvinenko and attempted murder
of Kovtun.
In a statement, the Prosecutor General's Office said Kovtun had
``developed an illness also connected with the radioactive
nuclide (substance).''
A criminal probe in Russia would allow suspects to be prosecuted
there. Officials previously have said that Russia would not
extradite any suspects in Litvinenko's killing.
British detectives declined to comment on how the move would
effect their case, insisting Moscow officials were providing
cooperation.
Litvinenko was buried in a specially sealed coffin at a
rain-lashed ceremony at London's Highgate Cemetery attended by
around 50 of his family and friends.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
35 Guardian Unlimited: Bar customers face radioactive test
[UP]
Press Association
Friday December 8, 2006 3:23 AM
Hundreds of customers at a bar visited by murdered former
Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko are to be tested for the
radioactive substance that killed him.
All seven staff working at the Pine Bar of London's Millennium
Hotel on the day he went there have been contaminated with low
levels of polonium-210.
They have been told by health officials that they face no
short-term health damage but a "very small" increased risk of
cancer in the long term.
Following the results, more than 200 others known to have been
at the bar on November 1 will be contacted and offered tests.
The Health Protection Agency has also now asked those who were
at the bar the day before and the day after to contact NHS
Direct to see if they need to be tested.
Dr Michael Clark, spokesman for the HPA's radiation protection
division, said the contamination suffered by bar staff was
thousands of times lower than that of Mr Litvinenko but was
"approaching" that found in an adult member of his family.
Professor Pat Troop, chief executive of the HPA, said: "I
appreciate that it is quite hard for them to take in."
Asked about how they were contaminated, she said: "We don't want
to speculate on what particular pathway was involved in these
people getting the contamination."
Meanwhile Scotland Yard detectives in Russia to investigate Mr
Litvinenko's murder were expected to meet Andrei Lugovoi, the
former KGB officer who met him on November 1 in the bar.
The latest twist came on the day of Mr Litvinenko's funeral at
Highgate Cemetery in north London. His wife Marina and their
12-year-old son Anatoly, as well as his parents and first wife
Natalia, were among 50 mourners at the service.
© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2006, All Rights Reserved.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
36 Guardian Unlimited: Third Litvinenko contact reportedly poisoned
Staff and agencies
Friday December 8, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and witness in the
Alexander Litvinenko case, speaks to the media in Moscow.
Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
A third contact of the murdered Russian former spy, Alexander
Litvinenko, has become sick with radiation poisoning, a local
report said today.
Andrei Lugovoi, one of two Russian businessmen who met Mr
Litvinenko in the London hotel bar where police now believe the
former KGB agent received a massive dose of polonium-210, has
suffered damage to his vital organs, Reuters cited the Interfax
news agency as saying.
Dmitry Kovtun, who was also at the meeting in the pine bar of
the Millennium hotel on November 1, is also in hospital with
similar symptoms. Previous reports said he was in critical
condition and had slipped into a coma, but his lawyer said today
this was incorrect.
Mario Scaramella, an Italian contact of Mr Litvinenko, has
undergone treatment in London for the effects of contamination.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) announced yesterday that
seven staff members at the pine bar had been found with small
amounts of polonium-210 in their bodies. Health officials want
to test around 250 people who went into the bar around the time
of the meeting, to see if they were also exposed to the toxic
radioactive isotope.
Mr Litvinenko, who died on November 23, was buried in London's
Highgate cemetery yesterday afternoon.
Reuters quoted Interfax as saying some of Mr Lugovoi's organs
had been "affected by radiation nuclides".
"Lugovoi's condition is considerably better than that of Kovtun,
but he also has symptoms of contamination," the agency added,
saying the information came from Mr Lugovoi's medical notes.
With one person who was in the pine bar on the afternoon in
question dead, two reported to be ill and seven more shown to be
poisoned, detectives are convinced that this was the scene of
the attack which was to claim Mr Litvinenko's life.
Mr Kovtun said last week that he and Mr Lugovoi drank tea and
gin in the pine bar, but that he could not recall whether Mr
Litvinenko had a drink or not.
Scientists assisting police said yesterday that the polonium
could have been dissolved in a liquid before it was slipped to
Mr Litvinenko. HPA officials said bar staff could have inhaled
it when it evaporated while Mr Litvinenko was being poisoned.
This could mean that anyone in the vicinity also inhaled the
substance.
Dr Michael Clark, science spokesman for the HPA, said: "If it
was some sort of liquid, it could have been - as in James Bond -
a little magic capsule."
More test results disclosed by the HPA suggest that the
polonium-210 may have been smuggled into the country as much as
two weeks before Mr Litvinenko was poisoned. Traces of the
material have also been found at the Parkes hotel. Mr Lugovoi
was a guest there in mid-October and it was also where he met Mr
Litvinenko.
The tests on the hotel, in Knightsbridge, were carried out last
Monday but the HPA did not disclose the positive result until
last night.
Shortly before he died, Mr Litvinenko blamed the Kremlin for the
poisoning, something Russian authorities vehemently denied.
Among the many theories circulating about Mr Litvinenko's death
is that it could have been the work of rogue elements in
Russia's intelligence services.
Scotland Yard detectives are in Moscow to investigate a case
prosecutors are now treating as suspected murder.
Despite Mr Lugovoi's reported illness, his lawyer said it was
possible British detectives could interview him today.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
37 Guardian Unlimited: Confusion envelops Litvinenko even as he goes to the grave
Duncan Campbell, and Tom Parfitt in Moscow
Friday December 8, 2006
The hearse carrying Alexander Litvinenko arrives at Highgate
cemetery, London. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA
Alexander Litvinenko's funeral, like his death, was a mixture
of mystery and confusion. As his body was laid to rest in the
same north London cemetery where Karl Marx lies buried, there
was an argument between mourners as to whether the ceremony
should be non-denominational or Muslim and a disagreement about
whether he had really converted to Islam.
In Moscow there was a fresh twist to the story as Russian
prosecutors opened their parallel murder investigation, raising
the possibility of Russia sending its own detectives to London
to pursue a separate inquiry.
In London the stormy day started with a ceremony at Regent's Park
mosque attended by the dead man's father, Valter, as well as the
Chechen exile leader, Akhmed Zakayev, Russian dissident Vladimir
Bukovsky, and a few others. Camera crews and photographers were
each charged Ł250 to attend the brief midday prayer session,
which was also attended by around 300 regular worshippers, some
of whom were left bemused by the media attention.
While some of Mr Litvinenko's associates claim he converted to
Islam shortly before his death, others expressed scepticism.
Valter Litvinenko, who has said that he understood his son had
converted, said after the ceremony: "I would like to thank all
of my son's brothers in faith for gathering for him today." Mr
Bukovsky said that the dead man had not been religious but
wanted to be buried on Chechnyan soil because he was ashamed of
Russia. He then accused the British government of "appeasement"
in their dealings with Russia over the death and described
Vladimir Putin as a "vampire".
Mr Litvinenko's family had asked for the former KGB agent's
coffin to be brought into the prayer hall, but concerns about
the potential for radiation being emitted from his body meant
they were refused, and instead held a small prayer ceremony
without the coffin.
The mourners travelled to Highgate cemetery where they were
joined by around 50 others for a service that was
non-denominational at the request of his widow, Marina, who
attended with the couple's son, Anatoly, 12. Both Mr
Litvinenko's parents and his first wife, Natalia, attended.
Other mourners included his friend Alex Goldfarb; the exiled
Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky; the film-maker Andrei
Nekrasov; and Lord Rea, patron and director of the Save Chechnya
campaign. After the airtight coffin had been lowered into the
grave by six pallbearers, and Valter Litvinenko had read a
eulogy, proceedings were interrupted by an imam performing
Muslim rites.
After the service Mr Goldfarb said: "It was supposed to be a
non-religious, non-denominational ceremony, according to the
wishes of the widow. Unfortunately, some people appeared and
against the explicit wishes of the widow performed Muslim rites
over the funeral. We had a choice to turn it into an unseemly
situation but Marina asked us to respect the memory of Alexander
and let these people do what they did. Let God be their judge
... I do not know what Alexander wanted. Akhmed (Zakayev)
believes that he converted to Islam on his deathbed, but I have
strong reservations."
Mr Goldfarb described the interruption as a "distraction". He
added: "Marina is a very strong woman. She has lost her husband,
she was removed from her house because it was sealed by the
Medical Protection Agency. She has had to cope with the media
chasing her around, now this."
At a memorial in nearby Lauderdale House, a plain choir sang
There Is a Green Hill and compositions by Stravinsky and
Rachmaninov as further eulogies were read. Earlier disagreements
were reportedly resolved as mourners left for a memorial dinner
in central London.
In Moscow there are now both murder and attempted murder
investigations, the latter concerning one of the three
businessmen who met Mr Litvinenko on the day he fell ill. The
prosecutor general's office said that Dmitry Kovtun was now also
suffering from polonium poisoning.
"The examination revealed that Litvinenko died after being
poisoned with a radioactive nuclide, and Kovtun, who met
Litvinenko in October 2006, was also found to have been poisoned
with a radioactive nuclide," the statement said.
Mr Kovtun was questioned on Wednesday by members of the
nine-strong Scotland Yard team now in Russia. The businessman
and his associate, Andrei Lugovoi, met Mr Litvinenko on November
1 at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, apparently to discuss a
business deal.
Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun are being treated for radioactive
contamination in Moscow and have denied any link with Mr
Litvinenko's death. British officers had been scheduled to meet
Mr Lugovoi - a former KGB officer said to be their main witness
- yesterday, but it appeared last night the meeting was to be
postponed until today for "technical reasons".
In an interview with Russian media this week, Mr Kovtun hinted
tests were expected to show his intestinal tract was
contaminated by polonium. That would swing the emphasis on to
him being seen as a victim who had inadvertently eaten the
radioactive isotope, polonium-210, rather than being the person
who may have brought the substance into Britain.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
38 Guardian Unlimited: Puzzled? A brief guide to the polonium saga
Yard's poison murder investigators face huge extradition
obstacle as they arrive in Moscow
Jeevan Vasagar
Saturday December 9, 2006
The Guardian
What happened to the mystery Italian?
Initial reports linked the poisoning to a "mysterious Italian
contact" who Alexander Litvinenko met for lunch on November 1.
This was Mario Scaramella, an espionage expert. Scotland Yard
has interviewed him and he is not regarded as a suspect.
Last week it was claimed "high quantities" of polonium 210 had
been found in his system. But he was discharged from hospital on
Wednesday after displaying no symptoms of illness. He may have
less of the toxin in his body than was suspected. Mr Scaramella
could not be contacted for comment yesterday.
What about the sushi bar?
The Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly was the venue for Mr
Litvinenko's late lunch with Mr Scaramella on November 1. There
were suspicions it was the place he was poisoned. But although
traces of polonium 210 were found there, police believe the Pine
Bar of the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair is the scene of the
crime. Seven hotel bar staff have tested positive for polonium
210, but all the Itsu staff have been cleared. The sushi bar
will reopen in January.
Why is there a trail of polonium 210 stretching from central
London to Moscow?
Polonium 210 has been detected at more than 12 locations in
London, as well as the British embassy in Moscow and on two BA
planes. The traces of the radioactive isotope appear to mark the
criss-crossing trails of Mr Litvinenko and the Russian
businessmen Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitry Kovtun.
Mr Lugovoi, who says he may have picked up contamination from Mr
Litvinenko, stayed at three hotels where traces have been found;
the Parkes Hotel, the Sheraton Park Lane and the Millennium.
Traces were found on two BA-767s which flew him to London on
October 25 and 31.
Why is the finger pointing at the Russians?
The Russian businessmen who met Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium
Hotel are key witnesses because the hotel now appears to be the
scene of the poisoning. The traces of polonium 210 found on the
planes and at the British embassy, most probably in a room where
Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun met the deputy British ambassador, have
also raised questions. Mr Lugovoi says someone is trying to
frame him.
The Kremlin and President Putin have scoffed at suggestions of
government involvement. But Mr Litvinenko's friends insist the
Russian government wanted to silence him.
Is everyone in contact with polonium 210 at risk of radiation
sickness?
No. Mr Litvinenko received a massive dose, but the others who
were contaminated - his wife and the bar staff - received much
lower levels. These doses give them a slight increased risk of
developing cancer in later life. But none of the others show
symptoms of radiation sickness.
Is there going to be a resolution to this?
It may turn into diplomatic stalemate. Scotland Yard has been
told that Russian suspects will not be extradited and witnesses
will be questioned by Russian police rather than British
officers.
[UP]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006
*****************************************************************
39 Dallas Morning News: Hutchison's battle for Gulf War vets continues
| News for Dallas, Texas | Washington Columnist Todd J. Gillman
TEXAS WATCH
05:10 PM CST on Friday, December 8, 2006
WASHINGTON Among Kay Bailey Hutchison's proudest and most
controversial achievements has been the funding of Gulf War
syndrome research.
The Texas Republican, chief appropriator for veterans spending
in the GOP-controlled Senate, inserted a budget provision a year
ago providing $75 million over five years to the University of
Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Chief
epidemiologist Robert Haley has spent a decade there trying to
figure out what, if anything, triggered neurological complaints
from three in 10 Gulf War veterans.
"These people are ill," she said. "And it's not psychological.
They are debilitated. There are people in wheelchairs that used
to run marathons, and it was after serving in the Gulf War. I
think we have to take care of these people, and I think we have
to keep doing research."
More than $300 million has already been spent looking for an
explanation, let alone treatments or inoculations for troops who
might face similar risks in other battle zones. Last Sunday, The
Washington Post ran a front-page article that questioned the
legitimacy of the research and Ms. Hutchison's efforts. It noted
that veterans groups and some experts support the research but
emphasized the skepticism from some scientists.
Semantics play a big part in the controversy. In September, the
National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine concluded
that there is no single "syndrome." By definition, the term
refers to a discrete set of symptoms, and complaints from Gulf
War veterans involve a mix-and-match range of maladies, from
chronic pain to fatigue, memory loss and rashes.
The cause remains a mystery a lack of a particular enzyme,
perhaps, or reactions to nerve gas vaccines, or nerve gas, or
various chemical weapons, pesticides or depleted uranium
munitions. Maybe a combination of factors.
"The symptoms are different in different people, therefore there
has always been this controversy," Ms. Hutchison said.
Veterans groups have long called it insulting that critics so
often dismiss the complaints as psychosomatic. Last week, the
American Legion came to Ms. Hutchison's defense.
"We owe ill Gulf War veterans our exhaustive efforts in finding
treatments for their ailments," said the Legion's national
commander, Paul Morin. "Science can only move forward if it's
progressive and continuous." Dems stretch to five days
For lawmakers, one of the biggest impacts of the new Democratic
regime will be a five-day workweek a drastic change from the
Tuesday night-to-Thursday afternoon drill, which let them spend
four nights a week at home.
Republicans have grumbled that the more rigorous schedule will
put a strain on their families. It will certainly make it harder
to spend as much time working voters, and Rep. Kenny Marchant,
R-Coppell, suggested that Democrats might come to regret it.
"They've got to run for reelection, too," he shrugged. Sessions
keeps committee seat
For most rank-and-file lawmakers, the shift in party control
won't affect committee assignments. But the House Rules
committee, which controls how legislation is amended and debated
on the floor has long been stacked 9-4 for whichever party
holds the majority. So a power shift means big changes. Rep.
Pete Sessions of Dallas ranks fourth in GOP seniority, just
enough to keep his seat as other colleagues are forced to find
other places to land. Emmitt on 'Barney Cam'
Emmitt Smith the Dallas Cowboys running back and Dancing With
the Stars star gets a cameo in this year's "BarneyCam," the
annual White House video featuring the first couple's Scottish
Terriers. Last year's plot involved Barney being upstaged by
Miss Beazley. This year, Barney is clearly the top dog as he
prepares a holiday extravaganza. Emmitt's role: consoling
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings after Barney rejects her
because her dancing isn't up to par.
Watch at www.whitehouse.gov.
Todd J. Gillman covers Congress and the Texas delegation.
E-mail tgillman@dallasnews.com
© 2006 The Dallas Morning News Co.
*****************************************************************
40 AFP: Radiation contamination theories emerge in Russian spy case -
Fri Dec 8, 12:36 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - A rash of fresh cases of radiation contamination
linked to the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko
have triggered speculation as to how he and others were exposed
to the deadly substance, polonium-210.
Theories ranging from polonium-infused ice cubes being dropped
into drinks to the possibility of spreading contamination
through cigarette smoke have gained media currency Friday after
it was revealed that seven staff in London hotel had tested
positive for radiation.
The staff, all bar workers, were on duty in the Pine Bar of the
Millennium Hotel in the upmarket Mayfair area on November 1, the
day Litvinenko met three Russian contacts there before falling
fatally ill.
The question of how the staff were affected has puzzled experts
because human contamination from polonium 210, while a highly
radioactive isotope, can only come via ingestion, inhalation or
transfer through a wound.
The Times newspaper said Friday it could have been inhaled from
vapour evaporating from a contaminated drink or ice cube or by
breathing in poisoned cigarette smoke.
The chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, Professor
Pat Troop, refused to speculate on the possible causes at a news
conference Thursday.
But she said: "You can breathe it in if there are large volumes
of it around. But the amount you would take in that way would be
very small."
The agency has repeatedly stressed that the danger of
contamination to the wide public is negligible.
Philip Day, a fellow of Britain's Royal Society of chemistry and
reader in environmental chemistry at the University of
Manchester in northwest England, said the amounts of polonium in
tobacco smoke are normally "trivial".
"The sort of things we're hearing about the various amounts of
polonium in various workers is much greater than you could have
got from smoking normally," he said.
But he rejected the theory of inhaling vapour from a
contaminated drink.
"You might get very faint traces, but they would be comparable
with (traces from) smoking. It just doesn't evaporate in
significant quantities," he said.
"I don't think that anything that was in a drink would get into
the air and be breathed in by bar staff. It would be more
volatile from a hot drink, such as tea, there would be more
possibility but even then, it's a little bit far-fetched."
Instead, he suggested there was a "common route", perhaps from a
liquid aerosol in the bar or dust, but that would not be
guaranteed to hit a specific target.
"It could have been put in a drink, perhaps an ice cube, which
would have contaminated the bar staff, they'd be picking up the
glass, tipping the drink down the sink, and they could easily
get their hands contaminated," he said.
Bar staff could then have contaminated themselves by rubbing
their eyes, touching their nose or mouth or eating food with
their bare fingers.
One of the three men Litvinenko met in the bar -- private
security agent Dmitry Kovtun -- was reported Friday to have a
"serious form of radiation sickness" that was affecting his
critical organs: the liver, kidneys and bowels.
Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a medical source as saying
Kovtun had fallen into a coma on Thursday, although he had since
regained consciousness.
The Russiam health ministry on Friday offered radiation
contamination tests in two Moscow hospitals for anyone fearing
to have come into contact with polonium 210.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
41 AFP: Contact of dead ex-agent seriously ill as investigation continues -
by Nick Coleman Fri Dec 8, 4:08 PM ET
MOSCOW (AFP) - A contact of the poisoned ex-intelligence agent
Alexander Litvinenko is seriously ill with radiation sickness and
has briefly been in a coma, a medical source said as an
investigation into the mystery broadened.
The Interfax news agency, quoting an unnamed medical source
here, said that Dmitry Kovtun, an agent with the private
security firm Ninth Wave, had "a serious form of radiation
sickness" causing an ongoing "reaction of critical organs: the
liver, kidneys and bowels."
The source said that Kovtun had briefly fallen into a coma
Thursday but had since recovered consciousness.
Kovtun is one of three Russians who encountered Litvinenko in
London on November 1, the day the former officer with Russia's
FSB security service became ill, leading to his November 23
death by the radioactive substance polonium-210.
German police said Friday they were searching a flat in Hamburg
used by Kovtun.
Russia's prosecutor general earlier announced that it was
treating Kovtun's poisoning as an assassination attempt using a
"radioactive nuclide."
Russian news agencies said that another of the Russians who
media have named as a key witness, Andrei Lugovoi, was in
satisfactory condition following medical checks for radiation
sickness, although the results would only be known next week.
Lugovoi's lawyer Andrei Romashov told ITAR-TASS that his client
had not been questioned by investigators, although the
prosecutor general's office said earlier that Lugovoi would be
questioned in the presence of visiting British counter-terrorism
officers.
"There has been no meeting today with representatives of the
prosecutor general's office and Scotland Yard -- although my
client's state of health would not prevent it -- we don't know
why," Romashov said.
Lugovoi has said that he is innocent but has leads for the
British officers to pursue.
The third Russian met by Litvinenko in the Millennium Hotel in
London's Mayfair district, Vyacheslav Sokolenko, has said that
he did not actually talk with Litvinenko, merely exchanging
greetings in the lobby and only afterwards realising who he was.
Seven staff at the Millennium Hotel who tested positive for
radiation have not been suffering any short-term symptoms of
polonium 210 poisoning but face a small, long-term increase in
their chances of developing cancer, British health officials
said Thursday.
Amid worries about the growing number of people discovered to
have been affected by the mystery poisoning, Russia's health
ministry Friday offered radiation contamination tests in two
Moscow hospitals for anyone fearing they had come into contact
with polonium 210,
"These clinics can test radioactivity.... We do not believe this
is necessary but it is important in order to reduce
psychological tension," Health Services Director Gennady
Onishchenko said.
The death of Litvinenko, which British authorities are treating
as murder, has prompted a media outcry, heightened by the claims
of the dead agent's friends that he was killed on the orders of
President Vladimir Putin" /> Vladimir Putin.
It comes against a background of political tensions between
Britain and Russia.
A British embassy spokesman confirmed Friday that Britain had
lodged a complaint with Russia that Ambassador Anthony Brenton
was being harassed by the Kremlin-backed patriotic youth group
Nashi (Ours).
The Financial Times reported that Nashi had been stalking
Brenton around the clock for the past four months.
"It is a deliberate psychological harassment which is done
professionally and borders on violence," Brenton said in a quote
confirmed to AFP by the embassy.
Copyright © 2006 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
42 reviewjournal.com: Aide says Reid won't yield in opposing Yucca project
Dec. 08, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Nuclear industry executives were told Thursday that
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will not bend in his opposition to
nuclear waste burial at Yucca Mountain.
"Senator Reid's opinion is not going to change," aide Drew
Willison told participants at a nuclear conference.
Willison's comments came a day after Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho,
told the group that he was planning to reintroduce a bill
clearing a path for the Department of Energy to move forward on
the planned nuclear fuel repository.
Reid, who will be Senate majority leader beginning in January,
will have to deal with the issue, Craig said.
But Willison, Reid's clerk for energy and water programs on the
Senate Appropriations Committee, said "it will be very
difficult" for Reid to allow changes in nuclear waste law
benefiting the Yucca bid.
"I don't think there is a case to be made in Nevada," where
public opinion remains strong against Yucca, Willison said.
Though Craig said repository supporters might be able to attach
a Yucca bill to other legislation moving in the Senate, Willison
said, "It won't be moving for long if the majority leader is
running the agenda."
Willison noted that DOE Deputy Secretary Clay Sell has said the
Bush administration "wants to find new accommodations" on
nuclear waste.
Other than that, the Reid aide said, "I don't want to say that
Yucca Mountain will be moving along quickly."
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006
*****************************************************************
43 reviewjournal.com: Yucca quality assurance targeted
Dec. 08, 2006
DOE officials say steps being taken
By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy on Thursday announced a
new push to fix how Yucca Mountain design mistakes are identified
and corrected, a long-standing problem on the nuclear waste
project.
"The corrective action program has been a chronic problem for the
Yucca Mountain Project," said Paul Golan, principal deputy
director for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
"The senior management team for the project is personally
involved in fixing the program and making it an effective
management tool going forward," Golan said.
DOE has been criticized by auditors after recurring mistakes have
been discovered in design documents and other work for the
science and engineering project.
Flaws in how data can be retraced and double-checked could raise
problems with regulators about Yucca Mountain safety. Nevada
officials who oppose the project say quality assurance problems
should have disqualified the site, 100 miles northwest of Las
Vegas.
At a meeting in Pahrump of DOE officials and staffers from the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Golan outlined a new campaign for
Yucca managers to screen and prioritize reported errors, identify
their causes and develop "effective corrective actions."
DOE plans to hire consultants next year to evaluate whether the
reforms are working, Golan said.
Susan Lynch, nuclear waste technical administrator for the state
of Nevada, said DOE tries to fix its corrective action program
"every couple of years, and they still have a problem with it."
"They assume if they fix one specific problem then everything
will be OK, but they don't look at it globally to make sure the
fix will prevent reoccurrence and that is where they have had
major problems," Lynch said.
"We have heard this over and over again for 20 years," Lynch said
of quality assurance reform. DOE "can talk a good line but it has
been talked before."
Rod McCullum, Yucca Mountain manager for the Nuclear Energy
Institute, said the Energy Department has made strides in quality
assurance.
The effort announced Thursday "is not a start-over but a
continuation of what they have been doing for a time now, and
integrating it into how they manage the program," he said.
"Corrective action programs are not rocket science, but
integrating it into how you manage is tough," McCullum said. "It
gets a little bit better each step."
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2006 Stephens Media
*****************************************************************
44 BENM: Disposal of nuclear waste at heart of public opposition
Business Edge News Magazine - businessedge.ca - Ontario Edition
12 / 08 / 2006 - Vol. 2, No. 25 - Ontario Edition [ border=]
By Reader Feedback -
Re: , by Mark Lowey, for Business Edge, Nov. 10, 2006
I was interested in Mark Lowey's article in the Nov. 10 issue on
the potential use of nuclear power in oilsands projects.
However, while Lowey went to great lengths to show fairly how
the energy sector is itself trying to comply with global
expectations to reduce greenhouse emissions, like many
journalists, he failed to capture the issue at the heart of
public opposition to the expansion of commercial nuclear
facilities - that is, what to do with the waste created from
power generation, fuel processing and reprocessing, wastes which
are radioactive for hundreds if not thousands of years and for
which the disposal methods are - at best - works in progress.
Yes, nuclear plants emit little or no carbon dioxide while they
operate (construction may be another matter), and yes, the
atomic energy industry has made great strides in improving the
safety and viability of nuclear plants, and in reprocessing of
nuclear fuel. But, a nuclear plant generates tons of radioactive
waste over the course of its working life, mainly in the form of
high level radioactive waste which must be vitrified (turned
into glass), encased in stainless steel and buried underground
for hundreds of years because the fissile materials remain
radioactive and toxic and extremely dangerous for a very long
time.
While it is reasonable to expect that over the course of a few
generations the buried waste would be monitored and cared for,
it is also reasonable to expect that ... after a couple of
hundred years the expense involved in building and maintaining
storage facilities would become a tremendous burden on our
society, perhaps to the point that it eventually becomes
forgotten or neglected, until something bad happens. One need
only look into the U.S. government's Hanford Atomic Reservation
in Washington to see what happens when radioactive waste is not
dealt with properly and forgotten about. Perhaps this is the
reason why - apart from the other risks associated with nuclear
power - no new commercial reactors have been built in Canada or
the United States since the 1970s.
- Thom Pardoe, Calgary
copyright 2004 Business Edge - Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
45 Bradenton Herald: Lockheed begins new testing on Tallevast plume
12/08/2006 |
Back to Home > News > Friday, Dec 08, 2006 Local [XML]
DONNA WRIGHT Herald Staff Writer
TALLEVAST - Lockheed Martin Corp. began another round of tests
in Tallevast this week to determine the extent of the 200-acre
toxic plume beneath the historic community.
Those tests could result in "changes to the plume delineations,
which would then need to be addressed in the (cleanup plan) to
be submitted by Lockheed Martin," Department of Environmental
Protection attorney Larry Morgan wrote in an e-mail to Jeanne
Zokovitch, an environmental attorney advising Tallevast
residents.
That possibility concerns Manatee County Administrator Ernie
Padgett.
"This would appear that Lockheed is no further along in knowing
how far the contamination has spread," Padgett told a group of
Tallevast leaders during a meeting Wednesday.
But Lockheed spokeswoman Gail Rymer said the new tests were
triggered by a state law that requires fresh data before any
pollution cleanup plan can be drawn up.
The data used in the design of the cleanup plan must be less
than nine months old.
More than 300 wells - monitoring wells and private water supply
wells - will be tested, Rymer said.
Rymer declined to speculate about whether the current tests will
change the map of the plume.
"We have to wait on the data," she said. "Every time you sample,
you get a picture in time. Concentrations can change because the
water is always moving underground."
The Tallevast plume has been traced back to the former Loral
American Beryllium Co. plant at 1600 Tallevast Road.
Lockheed acquired the site in 1996 in a corporate buyout of
Loral. While preparing the property for sale in 2000, Lockheed
discovered a broken sump had leaked cancer-causing chemicals
into the soil and groundwater.
As owner of the land when the contamination was found, Lockheed
has responsibility for cleaning the mess up under the
supervision of the DEP.
FOCUS, a residents' advocacy group, warned important data will
be missing from the current tests because all of the residents'
private wells have been capped by Lockheed.
"By capping the private wells, Lockheed has kept us from getting
that data," said Laura Ward, FOCUS president.
"Those are the areas where they need to monitor because some of
those private wells had the highest concentrations of
contaminants," said Wanda Washington, FOCUS vice president.
Washington said FOCUS is considering installing its own
monitoring wells next to the capped private wells, but has not
yet explored the cost or how to pay for drilling.
"Lockheed Martin should be responsible for the cost," said
Washington. "I think they would want to know the progress of the
contamination in the community."
Rymer would not comment on whether the company would take on the
expense.
Karen Collins, the county's environmental management director,
said she agrees with putting monitoring wells next to the capped
private wells.
"The more data that's generated and verified can only be a good
thing," said Collins. "But they would have to follow the right
protocols and it would have to be good data."
Donna Wright, health and social services reporter, can be
reached at 745-7049 or at .
Bradenton.com
*****************************************************************
46 DenverPost.com: Study digs into pollution at mines
Results allege that 19 of 25 permitted sites exceeded
water-quality standards. An industry official says that several
of the mines were abandoned and the data do not reflect "the real
world.
"By Kim McGuire Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:12/07/2006 11:30:47 PM MST
Hardrock mines across the nation are polluting streams even
though federal land managers have been assured they won't,
according to a study released Thursday.
The study, conducted by environmental consultants in Montana and
Colorado, looked at water-quality predictions submitted to
federal government agencies as part of the mine permit approval
process.
In looking at 25 permitted mines, the scientists found that 19
of them ended up exceeding water-quality standards, polluting
nearby streams with pollutants such as lead, mercury and
arsenic.
"Regulators and mining companies have a responsibility to ensure
that sound science and widely available, state-of-the-art
methods are used to prevent pollution at mine sites," said Ann
Maest, a Boulder consultant and one of the report's authors.
Mining industry officials said they were still digesting the
report, which they said doesn't mention that several of the
studied mines were abandoned.
"I don't want to trash the report, but from a layman's
perspective there is some information that's not reflective of
the real world," said Carol Raulston, a spokeswoman for the
National Mining Association.
Raulston added that many of the water-quality predictions
submitted in the permit approval process are updated throughout
the life of the mine.
Still, environmental groups say the report provides evidence
that supports a go-slow approach as permitting agencies consider
new mining requests.
New mining claims filed in 2006 for mines on federal public
lands are on track to more than quadruple from 2002, said Brian
Farnsworth, director of the Information Network for Responsible
Mining, a Colorado-based environmental group.
"This report highlights the care Colorado must exercise in
considering new mine development, whether it be gold, copper,
molybdenum, or uranium mining," Farnsworth said.
Based on the researchers' findings, Farnsworth's group and
Earthworks, a Washington, D.C., group that monitors mines, are
urging regulators to:
Better screen high-risk mines, particularly those near water
resources.
Take a precautionary approach to mine permitting and plan for
worst-case scenarios.
Undertake a thorough review of water-quality predictions at all
times.
Staff writer Kim McGuire can be reached at 303-954-1240 or
kmcguire@denverpost.com.
All contents Copyright 2006 The Denver Post or other copyright
*****************************************************************
47 Salt Lake Tribune: Bill would continue N-dump care fund
Money would be set aside to battle future environmental mishaps
at the landfill site
By Judy Fahys The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:12/08/2006 01:40:42 AM MST
It looked for a time that the perpetual care fund, a pool of
money to deal with environmental mishaps at the EnergySolutions
landfill more than a century from now, might be on its way out.
A legislative panel rejected an advisory board's
recommendation last month that the fund be beefed up to cover an
unexpected disaster after the company and its mile-square
hazardous and radioactive waste disposal site is defunct.
But a bill is being drafted for the 2007 Legislature that
would keep the fund and probably a number of other suggestions
the radiation board made after its own, lawmaker-mandated study.
Sen. Greg Bell, R-Fruit Heights, has requested a bill to go
forward with the radiation board's suggestions. He said it is
important to balance the public's interest in not getting stuck
with the bill for a problem at the site with the concerns of
profit-making ventures like the landfill.
"I think we've got to do something," said Bell.
EnergySolutions already has paid $400,000 a year for five
years into a perpetual care fund to address contingencies 100
years after the site closes. The company also maintains bonds of
$58 million to close the site, and to tend it for the century
after closure - a period during which the disposed materials are
considered hazardous.
The Radiation Control Board, with the help of an engineering
consultant, determined that roughly $93 million would be needed
for perpetual care after the first century. It also called for a
kind of pay-as-you-go approach to the fund for closing the site,
tying the sum required for closure to the amount of disposal
space already used.
Rep. Jim Gowans, D-Tooele, noted that the interim committee
already rejected the perpetual care fund. He has a bill to do
away with the fund and, perhaps, tuck the accumulated $2 million
into a separate fund to close the site.
He said the perpetual care fund is not required in the two
other states with radioactive sites and that it is not fair to
require EnergySolutions to maintain such a fund when the
International Uranium White Mesa mill in Blanding does not have
the same requirement.
"The feeling of the Legislature is we don't need it," he
said.
fahys@sltrib.com
*****************************************************************
48 NMBW: More federal funding for WIPP-related safety at Nambe Pueblo -
New Mexico Business Weekly:
The U.S. Department of Energy has extended its contract with
Nambe Pueblo to support safety and emergency preparedness
associated with shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot
Plant(WIPP) facility in Eddy County.
DOE awarded an initial $25,000 as a first installment on the
five-year extension. The contract originally began in 1998 and
will now run through 2011. By the end of the contract, the pueblo
will have received a total of $549,286.
The pueblo uses funds for accident prevention, emergency
response and preparedness, and public information activities
associated with WIPP shipments.
WIPP began operations in March 1999 and is the first underground
disposal respository for transuranic waste. Earlier this year,
WIPP received operation recertification from the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency.
© 2006 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors.
*****************************************************************
49 Los Angeles Times: Drilling bill is expected to clear House -
8:25 PM PST, December 8, 2006
The GOP-led Congress takes on a pro-business measure before
ending its lame-duck session.
By Richard Simon and Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON As the curtain prepared to fall on the
Republican-controlled Congress, GOP leaders on Thursday pushed
for approval of what is likely to be the last major pro-drilling
bill during the Bush presidency a measure that would open a
large swath of the Gulf of Mexico to energy exploration.
The drilling provision was part of a $45-billion tax and trade
bill that was expected to pass the House today and be sent on to
the Senate as the lame-duck Congress wrapped up business.
The bill includes a trade agreement with Vietnam another White
House priority and renewal of popular tax breaks. Among these
are a tax credit for research and development costs that
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called "an essential
component" of the state's efforts to nurture innovative
companies.
Most of the tax breaks and the oil drilling measure were sought
by business groups, giving the GOP a last opportunity to please
an important constituency before Democrats take control of
Congress in January.
The energy exploration provision was more modest in scope than a
measure the House approved this year that would have relaxed the
decades-long ban on new drilling off much of the U.S. coasts,
including the Pacific.
The scaled-back provision would allow new production in about
8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico an area thought to
contain more than 1.2 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion
cubic feet of natural gas.
The more sweeping drilling measure was driven by political
anxiety over high energy prices, but it stood little chance of
clearing the Senate. House Republicans came under pressure from
business groups to rein in their ambitions and accept the
drilling provision that dealt solely with the Gulf Coast before
adjourning for the year.
Environmentalists opposed the legislation, arguing that it would
do little to lower energy prices or wean the U.S. from
dependence on foreign oil. The Sierra Club called the drilling
provision "one last gasp for Big Oil."
The measure was strongly supported by Gulf Coast Republican and
Democratic lawmakers, whose states would receive a large chunk
of government royalty payments from businesses in return for
permitting the drilling off their shores.
The measure was tucked into the bill that would extend the tax
breaks and establish the trade pact with Vietnam as part of an
effort to win majority backing for all the items in one fell
swoop. The legislation also contains healthcare-related
proposals.
The bill is "a bipartisan compromise that is 'must-do' work in
Congress this year," said Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield), who
as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee helped draft the
catch-all approach. "It will prevent tax increases on millions
of Americans and improve the Medicare program. "
Renewal of the research and development tax credit, which
expired last year, has been a priority for the technology
industry.
The credit saves business about $7 billion a year and is
considered vitally important to Silicon Valley. High-tech
companies have lobbied hard to extend and expand the credit,
arguing that without it, U.S. firms' ability to compete globally
is hampered.
The legislation would extend the existing credit retroactively
for research and development costs incurred this year, and then
expand the credit to make it available to more companies.
The bill also would extend tax deductions of as much as $4,000 a
year for parents paying college tuition and a credit covering up
to $250 for classroom supplies that teachers pay for out of
their own pockets.
The bill would keep at current levels the government payments to
about 700,000 doctors who treat seniors through the Medicare
program. Without that provision, payments to the doctors would
drop 5.1% in 2007.
The American Medical Assn. has been lobbying hard to block the
cut from taking effect.
In other pending business, Congress today is expected to take
up a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with India, another Bush
priority.
But no action was expected on a raft of individual spending
bills needed to fund most government agencies during the fiscal
year that began Oct. 1. Those offices are operating under a
stopgap spending measure, and the Republicans who control the
House and Senate have decided to let next year's Congress and
its Democratic leaders hammer out final agreements on the new
funding packages.
Democrats did not pass up the opportunity to scold the GOP over
this move.
"They are going to leave a mess as they go out," said incoming
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).
She added: "And as they go out the door, they are going to
validate the decision of the American people that change was
necessary."
richard.simon@latimes.com
jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com
Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy
*****************************************************************
50 Bradford Publishing: West Valley cleanup bill to get new push in 07
Friday, Dec. 08, 2006
Congressman John R. “Randy” Kuhl Jr. and U.S. Sen. Charles
Schumer said this week they will renew their push next year for
the West Valley Remediation Act to help ensure cleanup of a
former nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in northern Cattaraugus
County.
Rep. Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, introduced the bill in the House of
Representatives in June 2005, and Sens. Schumer and Hillary
Clinton sponsored a companion bill in the Senate.
The West Valley Remediation Act directs the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) to take possession of the Western New York Nuclear
Service Center at West Valley and pay for remediation of the
entire site in the town of Ashford.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission would have authority over the
Department of Energy, and New York state would have the
authority to concur with the decommissioning of the site of the
nation’s only commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant.
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority
officials have threatened to sue the U.S. Department of Energy
over the level of cleanup the federal government is proposing.
The state is insisting that the tanks be removed along with the
buildings the DOE is proposing to demolish and entomb on-site.
The state also wants a more aggressive approach to contain a
plume of underground contamination at the 200-acre West Valley
Demonstration Project.
The West Valley Demonstration Project Act of 1980 charged the
U.S. Department of Energy and the New York State Energy Research
and Development Authority with solidifying 500,000 gallons of
highly radioactive liquid waste and cleaning up the site.
The Kuhl bill would require the U.S. Department of Energy to
remove the huge underground steel tanks that held the
radioactive liquid before it was removed and solidified into
glass logs. The inside of the tank still contains high levels of
radioactivity that the U.S. Department of Energy wants to fill
the tanks with concrete and leave them in place.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Rep. Kuhl said Thursday in a
telephone press conference with reporters from the 29th
Congressional District. Much of the spent nuclear fuel that was
shipped to the West Valley plant, when it operated from 1966 to
1972, came from the federal government.
“There’s no question but it is an environmentally sensitive
issue and an economically sensitive issue,” the Southern Tier
congressman said. It would be a big boon to Cattaraugus County
if the property is cleaned up and made available for new
economic development projects.
Although Rep. Kuhl said “there doesn’t seem to be any real
opposition” to the bill, others have contended the major issue
is cost. To date, more than $2 billion has been spent on the
cleanup at West Valley, and 10 percent of the cost is paid by
New York taxpayers.
He said that with the Democrats’ new majority in the Senate,
Sens. Schumer and Clinton “can start the bill in the Senate.”
Sen. Schumer said Tuesday the West Valley remediation bill “will
be a high priority” next year. “We will reintroduce it early
next year,” he said.
The senator plans to talk with new Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid about moving the bill along in the Senate.
Sen. Schumer said he didn’t think the West Valley remediation
bill would suffer from opposition by Sen. Reid, D-Nevada, to the
proposed federal repository at Yucca Mountain where high-level
radioactive waste from West Valley was to be shipped.
©Bradford Publishing 2006
*****************************************************************
51 MW: Uranium to Top $125 a Pound by 2010 - Analyst
BALTIMORE, MD -- (MARKET WIRE) -- December 08, 2006 -- Uranium
prices have now ballooned over 70% for the year. Over the past
three and a half months alone the nuclear fuel has shot up over
30%, outperforming the eight most popularly traded precious and
base metals including gold, silver, platinum, palladium,
aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc. But according to one analyst,
uranium could still increase nearly 100% further.
Uranium is now trading at a 26+-year high of $63.00/lb. and
hasn't had a down month in five years. But this hasn't stopped
Luke Burgess, managing editor of GoldWorld.com and contributor to
EnergyAndCapital.com, from claiming, "The radioactive metal still
has a lot of steam behind it."
When we last talked to him about a month ago, Burgess told us
that he expected uranium prices to top $110/lb. in just four
years. But in light of recent price developments, he now says,
"If prices keep increasing like they have over the past 12
months, I expect uranium to top $125 a pound by 2010."
A near 100% increase in such a short time may sound a bit
exaggerated. But Burgess argues that the logic behind this
estimate is simple. He says, "Right now there are 28 [nuclear]
reactors under construction around the world and another 62
being planned. Japan alone intends to add 11 more by the year
2010 and China hopes to add 24 to 30 by 2020. Uranium demand is
destined to increase dramatically."
"And the big moves in uranium prices," Burgess says, "will not
come until people actually realize the seriousness of the
world's supply/demand conundrum."
"Production from the world's uranium mines now supplies only
about 60% of the requirements of the world's nuclear power
facilities, leaving a wide gap between supply and demand," he
says. "The world's 440 reactors have a combined capacity of some
360,000 megawatts that require about 77,000 tons of uranium per
year. Yet in 2005, mines supplied only about 41,000 tons of
uranium."
Burgess boldly calls investing in uranium a "no-brainer." Now,
unlike most other commodities, you can't buy uranium futures.
However, you can invest in the companies that explore for and
produce the stuff.
In his latest report, Burgess gives people interested in uranium
investing some general advice and explains in more detail why he
believes uranium will top $125/lb. by 2010.
For more information about Market Wire's services, please .
*****************************************************************
52 APN: Israeli Nuclear Weapons Whistleblower Speaks Out
Atlanta Progressive News
FEATURED INTERVIEW:
By Joe Parko, Special to The Atlanta Progressive News (December
07, 2006)
(APN) JERUSALEM -- Ever since Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli
Nuclear Technician, confirmed the existence of Israel’s nuclear
weapons program with his photographs of the secret underground
bomb facility published in the London Sunday Times in 1986, the
world has known Israel has been making nuclear bombs but has
pretended they do not exist.
Vanunu was released from prison in April 2004 but was prohibited
from leaving Israel. The Israeli government continues to keep
him in Israel against his will. Criminal action is pending
against him for speaking to journalists and foreigners.
I talked with Mordechai Vanunu last year in Jerusalem.
"I worked from 1976 to 1985 at the Israeli secret underground
nuclear weapons production facility at the Dimona nuclear plant
in the Negev desert," Vanunu said in the interview.
"During my time there, I was involved in processing plutonium
for 10 nuclear bombs per year," Vanunu said.
"I realized my country had already processed enough plutonium
for 200 nuclear weapons. I became really afraid when we started
processing Lithium 6 which is only used for the hydrogen bomb,"
Vanunu recalled.
"I felt I had to prevent a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East
so I took 60 pictures of the underground nuclear weapons
processing plant some 75 meters under the Dimona plant," Vanunu
told me.
"I resigned my post and left Israel in 1986. I first went to
Australia and then made a connection with The Times in London.
After a group of nuclear scientists verified my photos as
proving Israeli nuclear weapons production, my story was
published in England," Vanunu said.
"A few months later, I was kidnapped by the Israelis in Rome and
sent secretly by ship to Israel where I was subjected to a
closed military trial without counsel. I was sentenced to 18
years in prison. I spent 12 years in solitary confinement,"
Vanunu said.
"I think my whistleblowing on Israel's secret nuclear weapons
program helped to bring down South Africa's apartheid
government. When the world's governments learned Israel was
helping South Africa to develop nuclear weapons, this was the
end of apartheid. Mandela's first act was to shut down South
Africa's nuclear weapons program and to send the nuclear
materials to the U.S.," Vanunu said.
"Now I am trapped inside Israel and I’m being threatened with
more prison time for speaking to people like you. I want to
leave Israel and come to America where I can live as a free
human being,” Vanunu said.
At his recent meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister, US
President Bush called for worldwide isolation of Iran until it
gives up its nuclear ambitions.
When it comes to the issue of nuclear weapons in the Middle
East, there is an elephant in the room nobody wants to
acknowledge, and that elephant is Israel's large nuclear bomb
arsenal.
First the US allegedly went after non-existent nuclear weapons
in Iraq and now Bush is consumed with the possibility Iran might
develop nuclear weapons in the future. But the fact is, Israel
has had a secret nuclear weapons program for over 30 years that
has produced well over 200 nuclear bombs.
If we truly want to stop the nuclear arms race in the Middle
East, Israel must be required to open its nuclear weapons
program to inspection.
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
and refuses to officially confirm or deny having a nuclear
arsenal, or to having developed nuclear weapons, or even to
having a nuclear weapons program.
If we want Iran to renounce nuclear weapons, we must also get
Israel to stop building bombs in secret and begin dismantling
its large nuclear arsenal. Our goal must be a nuclear-free
Middle East and this must include Israel.
About the author:
Joe Parko is a special contributor to Atlanta Progressive News.
This article was produced as part of the Middle East Peace
Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee. He
may be reached at parkoj@bellsouth.net
Syndication policy:
This article may be reprinted in full at no cost where Atlanta
Progressive News is credited.
Ad Space
Atlanta Progressive News, Copyright © 2006
*****************************************************************
53 Houston Chronicle: USEC Signs Patent, Lease Deals |
Chron.com -
Dec. 8, 2006, 2:58PM
© 2006 The Associated Press TOOLS
WASHINGTON The Energy Department on Friday said it signed a
non-exclusive patent license and a lease agreement with USEC
Inc., which supplies enriched uranium fuel for commercial
nuclear power plants, for its use of the agency's gas centrifuge
enrichment plant facilities in Piketon, Ohio.
The patent license is for use of DOE's centrifuge technology for
uranium enrichment at the plant and requires the company,
formerly United States Enrichment Corp. Inc., to pay royalties
to the U.S. government on annual sales of enriched uranium from
plant production beginning in 2009 and capped at $100 million
over the life of the technology.
Under the agreement, USEC is granted non-exclusive rights in the
U.S. to more than 100 government-owned inventions related to gas
centrifuge enrichment technology, developed by DOE during the
1970s and 1980s. The company has been funding further
improvements since 2002, and announced in 2004 that it would
plan its American Centrifuge Plant at the Piketon site.
The initial term of the gas centrifuge enrichment plant lease is
through June 2009, and may be extended in five-year increments
for up to 36 years after the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
issues a construction and operating license, which the company
said it expects to occur in May.
Bethesda, Md.-based USEC will pay monthly fees to the department
to cover the costs of administering the lease. The lease was
transferred to USEC in 1998 when its government affiliation
ended and it became a private corporation.
Shares of USEC added 12 cents to $12.96 in afternoon trading on
the New York Stock Exchange.
*****************************************************************
54 DOE: DOE Issues Final Appliance Test Procedure Rule
December 8, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today
announced a final rule establishing new test procedures and
related definitions to determine the energy efficiency of
certain residential appliances and commercial equipment. The
rulemaking clarifies and codifies the test procedures mandated
by the Energy Policy Act (EPAct) of 2005.
These new test procedures are the foundation for standards that
will help bring more energy efficient options to the marketplace
and result in energy savings for all Americans, said DOE
Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Andy Karsner.
The final rulemaking, which appears in todays Federal Register,
will become effective in 30 days. The rule promulgates test
procedures and definitions for the following items as required
by EPAct 2005: fluorescent lamp ballasts; ceiling fans and
ceiling fan light kits; illuminated exit signs; torchieres;
low-voltage dry-type distribution transformers; traffic signal
modules and pedestrian modules; unit heaters; medium base
compact fluorescent lamps; dehumidifiers; commercial prerinse
spray valves; mercury vapor lamp ballasts; commercial package
air conditioning and heating equipment; commercial
refrigerators, freezers, and refrigerator-freezers; automatic
commercial ice makers; and commercial clothes washers.
DOE is continuing its work to increase the transparency and
speed of the appliance standards process. The Appliance
Standards Program, a part of DOEs Office of Energy Efficiency
and Renewable Energy, manages test procedures and energy
conservation standards for consumer products and commercial
equipment.
For more on DOEs Appliances and Commercial Equipment Standards
Program, visit:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/.
Consumers can visit: http://www.energysavers.gov/for easy ways
to save energy, including the use of ENERGY STAR® appliances.
Media contact(s): Chris Kielich, (202) 586-5806 [ ]
U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403
*****************************************************************
55 DOE: DOE Signs Advanced Enrichment Technology License and Facility Lease
December 8, 2006
Announces Agreements with USEC Enabling Deployment of Advanced
Domestic Technology for Uranium Enrichment
WASHINGTON, DC U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today
announced the signing of a lease agreement with the United
States Enrichment Corporation, Inc. (USEC) for their use of the
Departments gas centrifuge enrichment plant (GCEP) facilities
in Piketon, OH for their American Centrifuge Plant. The
Department of Energy (DOE) also granted a non-exclusive patent
license to USEC for use of DOEs centrifuge technology for
uranium enrichment at the plant, which will initiate the first
successful deployment of advanced domestic enrichment technology
in the United States in decades.
The initial term of the GCEP lease is through June 2009, and may
be extended in five-year increments for up to 36 years following
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issuance of a construction and
operation license for the facility. USEC will pay monthly fees
to DOE to cover the costs of administering the lease. The
facilities included in the commercial lease are approximately
1,750,000 square feet of state-of-the art production and
manufacturing buildings, along with the associated
infrastructure on the 300-acre site. USEC plans to deploy a 3.5
million separative work unit (SWU) enrichment plant, which could
be expanded to 7 million SWU capacity at the site.
The GCEP lease amends a previous lease at the Portsmouth Gaseous
Diffusion Plant (GDP) that was signed in 1993 when the
Departments uranium enterprise was transitioned to USEC, the
government corporation, under the Energy Policy Act of 1992.
The GDP lease was transferred to USEC in 1998 when USEC became a
private corporation as authorized by the USEC Privatization Act.
Under the patent license, USEC is granted non-exclusive rights
in the United States to over 100 government-owned inventions
related to gas centrifuge enrichment technology, developed by
the Department during the 1970s and 1980s. USEC has been
funding further improvements to the technology since 2002, and
announced in January 2004 that it would plan to site its
American Centrifuge Plant at the Piketon site. The patent
license requires USEC to pay royalties to the U.S. government on
annual sales of enriched uranium from centrifuge plant
production beginning in 2009 and capped at $100 million over the
life of the technology.
For more information on the lease agreement and patent license,
access .
Media contact(s): Megan Barnett, (202) 586-4940 [ ]
U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW |
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403
*****************************************************************
56 DOE: U.S. Co-Sponsored IAEA Workshop on GNEP Concludes
December 8, 2006
VEINNA, AUSTRIA Twenty-eight nations interested in exploring
the possibility of introducing nuclear power into their future
energy mix participated in Issues for the Introduction of
Nuclear Power, a workshop sponsored by the U.S. Department of
Energy (DOE) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The workshop outlined the needed infrastructure to support
nuclear energy. As part of the tutorial, Dr. Paul Lisowski,
Deputy Program Manager of the DOE Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership (GNEP) spoke of the benefits that GNEP could bring
to the global community.
This workshop has helped state representatives to understand
the framework necessary to introduce nuclear power to their
grids, Dr. Lisowski said. A major goal is to enable countries
to gain the benefits of the safe, secure and peaceful use of
nuclear power, facilitate the development of the necessary
infrastructure, and minimize the costs.
Dr. Lisowski also spoke about the expectations of countries
interested in incorporating nuclear energy into their energy
mix. The United States will expect any country interested in
adding nuclear power to its energy mix to ensure adequate
preparations are undertaken in advance of implementing such new
programs, Dr. Lisowski said.
As a co-sponsor, DOE provided funding to the IAEA, along with
other countries, to support this workshop. The workshop was
held December 4-6, 2006, in Vienna, Austria.
Along with representatives from countries without nuclear power,
participants of the conference included representatives from
supplier countries, and representatives of countries interested
in the future applications of nuclear power.
Additional information on this conference may be found on the
IAEA web site and the GNEP website at: , , and at .
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
*****************************************************************
57 SF New Mexican: The first high-explosive experiment at the DARHT facility
Right on target
Fri Dec 8, 2006 6:07 pm
Aerial view of DARHT.Photo courtesy/Los Alamos National
Laboratory
By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican
Los Alamos National Laboratorys DARHT facility passes test after
lengthy delay
LOS ALAMOS -- Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have
successfully tested a major project designed to study how
nuclear-weapon parts work without actually setting off a bomb in
the desert.
In October, the second phase of the Dual-Axis Radiographic
Hydrodynamic Test facility began working as expected by firing a
special electron beam. That portion of the project is still not
complete, but lab leaders are clearly pleased with these early
results.
The second phase, or axis, of DARHT is part of a $350 million
project that has essentially created a massive X-ray machine to
take pictures of what happens inside a mock nuclear-weapon
primary, or pit, as it implodes. That allows scientists at the
nuclear-weapons lab to study implosions, shock physics,
materials science and high-explosives science.
October's development is significant because a team led by lab
scientists Ray Scarpetti and Subrat Nath has been working to
redesign and rebuild the second part, or axis, since 2003.
``We've come a long way,'' Nath said during a Tuesday tour.
DARHT is located on a remote and secured mesa that overlooks the
Jemez Mountains.
At the facility are a pair of two-story buildings -- one for
each axis, and placed at right angles. Each building looks
longer than a football field. In the center, there's a control
room jammed with some of the world's best nuclear scientists
running dozens of computers and video screens.
Outside, there's a firing point where the mock nuclear
explosions take place. The goal is to have the second axis fully
completed by 2008. When that occurs, scientists will be able to
analyze an explosion from right angles and three dimensionally.
No explosions occurred during Tuesday's tour. Instead, the
second axis was fired up by a team of technicians and scientists
who tested the electron beam.
The warning alarm sounded, and a scientist hit the fire button.
A red electron beam powered at 8 million electron volts appeared
suddenly on the video screen, hit a special target and created
X-rays.
The project began in the early 1980s, and certainly not without
controversy. Construction began in 1988 but was stopped in 1995
when the Los Alamos Study Group and Concerned Citizens for
Nuclear Safety sued the lab in an effort to force the government
to produce an environmental impact statement.
The cost of the project was $124 million in 1995. Since then,
the U.S. Department of Energy and others have criticized the
project as too expensive and behind schedule.
Lab spokesman Kevin Roark said the change in the scope of the
project and the redesign cost more.
The first part of DARHT was up and running by July 1999. But the
second part has suffered from a voltage breakdown problem in the
electron accelerator, which takes electrons and focuses them
into a high-powered beam. When that beam strikes a target made
of the heavy metal tantalum, images are created. Those images
are captured digitally after passing through the target.
The second axis shoots a four-pulse electron beam, which
produces four images. In contrast, the first half, or axis, of
the facility produces just one image.
The second axis provides valuable information during a test
explosion ``because you are not seeing it at one point in
time,'' Nath said. ``You are seeing it at different times.''
Eventually, when the second axis is fully completed, scientists
hope to analyze 12 explosions, called hydrotests, per year.
No nuclear materials are used in these explosions, which have
been conducted by the lab in one form or another since 1963. But
a model of a nuclear-weapon core is blown up, and the purpose of
the DARHT facility is to take pictures of what's happening
inside that implosion to know that the country's nuclear weapons
arsenal is safe and working.
Full-scale nuclear testing -- blowing up a nuclear weapon at the
Nevada Test Site, for example -- was stopped by Congress and
former President George H.W. Bush. The last test occurred in
1992.
To date, 63 of 74 electron accelerators have been rebuilt to fix
the voltage problem, which was discovered in 2001. Each cell
weighs 17,000 pounds and produces 250,000 volts.
Scarpetti was clearly pleased to show off what he called the
best radiographic, or X-ray, machine in the world.
He's also proud of his team, which includes scientists from
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory.
``I enjoy the teamwork and the competence that we have,''
Scarpetti said.
Lab director Michael Anastasio reviewed the data from the test
firings recently and thanked the team for its ``hard work, long
hours, steadfast resolve and technical achievement.''
Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827.
Privacy Policy / Terms of Use | ©2006, Santa Fe New Mexican,
*****************************************************************
58 Hanford News: Radiation experts say travelers not at risk from polonium 210
This story was published Friday, December 8th, 2006
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The case of the former Russian spy poisoned by polonium has
reached across the ocean to touch the Tri-Cities.
Experts in radiation protection for the Washington State
Department of Health are based in the Tri-Cities to keep tabs on
the Hanford nuclear reservation and other businesses here.
But recently, they've heard from doctors of at least two
Washington residents who flew British Airways jets.
After traces of radioactive polonium 210 were found on two of
the airline's Boeing 767s and a third jetliner was suspected of
contamination in late November, British Airways began notifying
passengers on 200 flights from Oct. 25 to Nov. 29.
Contacted by the doctors of Washington passengers in the Seattle
and Spokane areas, Earl Fordham, the regional director for the
state's Office of Radiation Protection, has assured them their
patients are unlikely to be at risk.
There's little cause for concern, Fordham said.
Polonium 210 emits alpha radiation, which does not travel far.
It can be stopped by a sheet of paper or the outer layer of dead
skin on the human body.
The Health Protection Agency of the United Kingdom is telling
people that polonium is not a radiological hazard as long as it
remains outside the body. Traces can be removed by thorough hand
washing or washing clothes. It only presents a radiation hazard
if it is swallowed, inhaled, or rubbed into a wound.
Traces of radiation have been found not only in British Airways
jetliner, but also in a dozen sites across London after former
KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko died Nov. 23 of polonium
poisoning.
He met with Italian security expert Mario Scaramella in a London
sushi bar Nov. 1, and Scaramella also was exposed to polonium,
but did not become ill. Litvinenko's wife also was determined to
have been exposed.
On his deathbed, Litvinenko blamed Russian President Vladimir
Putin for the poisoning, an accusation denied by Putin. British
police have been in Russian investigating the case.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
59 Hanford News: S. Carolina to get a big Christmas gift
This story was published Friday, December 8th, 2006
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
The first of the large cranes at Hanford's vitrification plant
is coming down.
It will be trucked off the site and down to South Carolina on 21
trailers by Christmas.
The $12.2 billion Waste Treatment, or vitrification, Plant may
be a dozen years from full-scale operations, but this is one
more sign that progress on construction is being made.
Construction workers have no more use for the 230-foot-tall
crane that once towered over the Low Activity Waste Facility to
"fly" steel and other construction materials into place.
In October, work was finished on the exterior of the building,
including the emission stack that boosts the structure's height
from 70 feet to 200 feet - about as high as a 17-story building.
Now, work is being done inside the building on electrical,
heating and other systems, and the focus on structural work has
switched to the Analytical Laboratory. Monday, the first of
1,700 tons of structural steel went up at the laboratory.
The lab is the last of the four major buildings at the
vitrification plant to rise out of the ground after workers
finished pouring the steel-laced foundation in September.
It's the smallest of the plant's major buildings, but still has
a footprint the size of a football field. It will stand about
four stories high - not high enough to require a tower crane.
The project is using two other tower cranes. One is stationed at
the High-Level Waste Facility and the second - the tallest at
270 feet - is at the Pretreatment Facility. They're temporarily
standing idle after a decision to focus construction on the lab,
the Low-Activity Waste Facility and about 18 support structures
until more design work is completed on buildings that will
handle the most dangerous waste and another earthquake study is
completed.
The bright yellow crane that's coming down was purchased by
contractor Bechtel National with $1.92 million in federal funds
four years ago.
Its operator would take an elevator up. Then, he would climb the
rest of the way to 200 feet high to reach a glass-bottomed cab
each morning. He operated the machinery from the cab, looking
down between his feet.
A lifting boom extended out about 100 feet from the central
mast, which rotated 360 degrees. The crane's maximum lifting
capacity was 55 tons.
The crane began coming down in pieces this week, with workers
climbing up or being lifted in buckets with another crane to
disassemble sections to be lowered to the ground.
Thursday, seven trucks were standing by to carry the first
pieces to the Savannah River nuclear site, where they'll be used
for an unspecified construction project. Fourteen more shipments
should be sent to complete the project by Dec. 21, said John
Eschenberg, DOE manager of the vitrification plant.
DOE had the option of returning the crane to the original seller
for about a quarter of its purchase price. But instead Savannah
River asked for the equipment, saving the cost of buying another
$2 million crane. It will pay the shipping costs.
"Its a great deal for the government and a great deal for the
taxpayer," Eschenberg said.
To see photos of construction at the plant and the cranes being
used, go to www.waste2glass.com and click on the construction
photobook.
The plant is being built to turn some of Hanford's worst waste
into a stable glass form for permanent disposal. The waste is
left from the past production of plutonium for the nation's
nuclear weapons program.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
60 Hanford News: Public access key to Hanford Reach plan
This story was published Friday, December 8th, 2006
By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer
Opening more of the Hanford Reach National Monument to the
public, adding trails and improving boat docks are proposed in a
long-awaited draft management plan for the monument released
Thursday.
The management study considered several alternatives for how the
monument should be used, but favored a plan that it described as
providing "a high degree of public access and facilities
development."
That would include developing campgrounds and boat launches on
the Columbia River at each end of the Reach, allowing some
access to the sand dunes at the downstream end of the Reach and
creating a hiking trail to near the top of Rattlesnake Mountain.
Although the present White Bluffs Boat Launch is proposed to be
closed to motorboats, that would not happen until the primitive
launch at Vernita is improved for motorboat use.
It's the same plan favored by a federal advisory committee in
June 2004 after it spent two years developing a proposal.
The monument was created in 2000 out of the horseshoe-shaped
buffer zone around the Hanford nuclear reservation, where
plutonium was produced for the nation's nuclear weapons program.
The buffer remained largely untouched, or at least undeveloped,
for more than six decades. It includes a remnant of the shrub
steppe land that once covered the region and the last
free-flowing stretch of the Columbia River outside its tidal
area.
With the designation of the land as a national monument, a
management plan was needed to be used as a blueprint for how it
should be protected and also used over the next 15 years.
Under the preferred plan, areas now closed to the public could
be opened as Hanford cleanup progresses. That includes doubling
the acreage the public could use along the Columbia River.
The west end of the proposed new Wahluke management unit also
could be opened to the public, adding 28,321 accessible acres.
However, no hunting would be allowed in the newly opened area.
The Rattlesnake Mountain area would remain closed to the public
except for two proposed hiking trails. One would allow the
public to walk to near the top of Rattlesnake Mountain and the
other would be north of Highway 24.
Now, the sand dunes on the west side of the Columbia River near
the southern end of the Ringold area are closed to the public
except along the water line where boats can reach. But the draft
management plan favors adding a foot trail that would allow
public access to the eastern half of the dunes area. The western
half would remain closed.
However, those plans would require issues to be worked out with
Energy Northwest, which has facilities nearby.
The White Bluffs Boat Launch could continue to be used by
non-motorized boats, and primitive launches at Vernita and
Ringold would be developed.
Campgrounds would include three to six river sites with access
by boats without motors. A campground would be developed at
Vernita and the primitive Ringold campground would be improved.
Two of the eight parking lots in the Ringold area would be
closed.
New trails in the monument would total up to 100 miles. Also
planned are as many as four interpretive trails, two photography
sites and eight new wildlife viewing sites.
The favored plan includes a road to historic B Reactor on the
Hanford nuclear reservation from the Vernita area, and a road
across Hanford land to allow access to the west side of the
Columbia River in the Ringold area.
Before the federal government adopts a final management plan for
the monument, it will take public comment and could make
changes.
Four open houses are planned to discuss the draft management
plan:
n 5 to 8 p.m. Jan. 30 at the Mattawa Elementary School gym, 400
N. Boundary Road.
n 5 to 8 p.m. Jan. 31 at the Sunnyside Community Center, 1521 S.
First St.
n 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 5 at the Hampton Inn, 486 Bradley
Blvd., Richland.
n 5 to 8 p.m. Feb. 8 at the Red Lion Hotel, 2525 N. 20th Ave.,
Pasco.
The draft management plan is posted at www.fws.gov/hanford
reach/ and copies will be available at area libraries.
Comments may be sent to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Draft
CCP Comments, 3250 Port of Benton Blvd., Richland, WA 99354.
They must be postmarked by Feb. 23.
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
61 Hanford News: Vit plant funding remains in limbo
This story was published Friday, December 8th, 2006
By Les Blumenthal, Herald Washington, D.C., bureau
With Congress close to adjourning for the year, Washington
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray warned Thursday that last-minute
Republican budget maneuvering could slow funding for Hanford's
Waste Treatment Plant.
Republican leaders have indicated they will not pass any of the
remaining annual appropriations bill before leaving town today,
including the one that contains funding for Hanford and the
vitrification plant. Instead, they plan on passing a resolution,
known as a continuing resolution, that will keep the government
operating until mid-February at current funding levels.
For the vitrification plant, that represents an annual funding
level of $526 million.
The House has already passed an Energy and Water appropriations
bill that would provide $600 million in the current fiscal year,
while the Senate version includes $690 million. House and Senate
negotiators have yet to meet to iron out the differences in the
two bills.
"But now Republicans are refusing to move the Energy and Water
bill forward," Murray said Thursday in a speech on the Senate
floor. "As a result, funding for Hanford will be delayed and
that means the cleanup will take longer and cost more money."
Democrats take control of both the House and Senate in January
and are expected to then try to pass the appropriations bills.
Those bills would provide funding for the fiscal year that began
Oct. 1. Congress would also have to approve spending bills for
the next fiscal year.
Murray laid the funding uncertainty directly at the feet of
Republicans.
"The Republican leadership is going to have to explain to the
people I represent in the Tri-Cities and throughout Washington
state why Hanford funding is being delayed," she said.
"Republicans will have to answer for their failure to act on
these and other priorities."
Murray said the delay in passing an Energy and Water
appropriations bill could ultimately put the $690 million
funding level for the Waste Treatment Plant at risk, as
Democrats may have to cut a total of $5 billion in spending when
they become the majority after the first of the year.
"Never in my 14 years in the Senate have we started a new fiscal
year with so little progress in the Senate in passing the
appropriations bills and funding these critical functions of
government," she said.
The Waste Treatment Plant represents a critical piece of the
Hanford cleanup and would be used to convert highly radioactive
waste stored in sometimes leaking underground tanks into
glass-like logs suitable for long-term disposal.
An aide to Murray indicated major construction projects demand a
stable level of funding and over the past several years funding
for the Waste Treatment Plant has gone up and down.
Alex Glass, Murray's spokeswoman, said, "Major construction
projects require a major commitment. Interrupting funding in
midstream is a shaky way to build."
© 2006 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
62 Inside Bay Area: Report says state, local agencies must fill port security gap
By Steve Geissinger and Paul Rosynsky, STAFF WRITERS
Last Updated:12/07/2006 06:51:35 PM PST
SACRAMENTO -- State and local agencies must bolster efforts to
fill security gaps federal officials have left at California
ports, says a new state report, which also endorses Oakland's
bid to use voter-approved bonds as leverage for more U.S. funds.
The Port of Oakland -- which inexplicably received no federal
security funding this year -- is pitching use of prospective
transportation bond money approved by voters last month to boost
their matching funds for acquiring federal money, according to
the state Senate Office of Research report.
The $20 billion transportation bond provides $100 million for
port security, which is intended mostly for equipment purchases
but is not limited to that use.
Eve Grossman, the port's government affairs manager, contacted
U.S. homeland security officials about using state bond funds to
help meet the local financial match requirement for federal
funds -- or to even offer more than the required 25 percent
minimum as an incentive.
Grossman said the Department of Homeland Security "did not
promise anything but found the idea interesting."
Mike O'Brien, facilities security officer at the Port of
Oakland, said the port was "still exploring" the concept of
promising higher matching funds to the federal government and
said talks with department officials were positive.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers preparing to enter a new
legislative session are eyeing ways to raise additional funds
for port security.
The state still faces a multibillion-dollar deficit and
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a cargo-fee assessment that
would have provided funds for additional security.
But Schwarzenegger and the Legislature were successful this
year in putting the bond package on the November ballot -- some
of which will be used directly on port security equipment.
"This bond measure provides much-needed funding to augment the
port security grant program administered by the Department of
Homeland Security," said Jerry Bridges, executive director of
the Port of Oakland.
Federal and state funding so far has led to some improvements,
including distribution of radiation-detecting devices.
The Department of Homeland Security says it spent $1.6 billion
on port security in 2005, compared to just $259 million in 2001.
But the need for greater security at the major ports in Los
Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland is pressing, according to the
Senate report's author, Max Vanzi.
The ports sprawl over tens of thousands of acres where ships
bring in enough cargo every year to fill enough containers to
circle the Earth, he said. Nearly half of all container cargo
entering the nation is funneled through the ports.
In Oakland's case, the port's assets are stretched thinner than
other ports because Oakland International Airport is within its
boundaries.
A terrorist attack at the Port of Oakland, the fourth busiest
container port in the nation, could affect the entire, populous
Bay Area.
Terrorists' options include nuclear weapons, radiological
dirty bombs, and chemical or biological bombs.
Aside from loss of lives, the economic blow would be
staggering.
"While calculations on the cost of preventing an attack on
U.S. ports are in the billions, assessments on the cost of
absorbing the losses from an attack that might have been
prevented have measured in the trillions," Vanzi said.
Dangerous cargo, if it slips out of the port aboard trains or
trucks, could pose inland hazards.
Although the Port of Oakland had received more than $14 million
during the 5-year-old federal security port grant program, this
year's snub rankled many within the organization.
It was the first time the port failed to win federal dollars
and some local officials complained it could set them back for
years in their efforts to secure the port.
The port had requested just over $6 million in 2006 from the
U.S. government.
Oakland planned to spend the money to complete four projects.
Those included construction of biometric identification portals
at each of its maritime terminals, outfitting trucks with radio
frequency identification tags and improving wireless
communications throughout the complex.
At the time of the awards, Department of Homeland Security
officials said the funding was allocated based on what programs
each port asked to be funded.
If the department did not believe a program was essential at
the time, they did not fund the grant.
Contact Steve Geissinger at sgeissinger@angnewspapers.comor
(916) 447-9302.
© 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy
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63 Inside Bay Area: Livermore shipping out nukes
Removal is part of move to limit weapons labs for security reasons
By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER
Article Last Updated:12/08/2006 02:58:33 AM PST
Lawrence Livermore lab has begun shedding its dozens of nuclear
bombs worth of plutonium and enriched uranium recently with a
secret first shipment to its sister lab in New Mexico, Los
Alamos.
Details of this and future shipments, including their timing, as
well as the mass and form of the material, remain classified,
according to federal officials.
After insisting that doubling Livermores maximum plutonium
storage was necessary for national security, the nuclear weapons
arm of the U.S. Department of Energy has done an about-face and
ordered the removal of all but tiny amounts of weapons fuels
from Livermore by 2014.
The reversal was driven partly by soaring security costs.
Keeping paramilitary forces armed and on full-time watch against
potential terrorist attacks has been the fastest-growing expense
in the nuclearweapons budget since 2001, amounting to $100
million per year at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
alone.
Congress has pressured three energy secretaries to limit the
number of weapons sites with plutonium and highly enriched
uranium, and watchdog groups have argued that keeping bomb
ingredients in multiple locations is too risky, especially at
Livermore, the nations largest store of raw weapons materials
close to major U.S. cities.
Officials of the National Nuclear Security Administration said
Thursday that the removal of the first lot of plutonium from
Livermore is an initial step toward a smaller national complex
of weapons labs and factories than were left behind by the Cold
War.
Consolidating material is one of our main goals to transform the
Cold War-era nuclear weapons complex to be even more secure,
more efficient and more modern, said Linton Brooks, chief of the
National Nuclear Security Administration, in a statement
Thursday. We are taking concrete steps to reduce the number of
locations where we process and store significant quantities of
nuclear weapons materials.
The centerpiece of this new complex is a factory for plutonium
fission cores or pits. The factory, in turn, is geared toward
replacing the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal by 2030 with hardier
new bombs called reliable replacement warheads.
But Complex 2030, as Bush administration officials call their
vision for slimmed-down weapons factories and labs, has been too
timid and slow for some in Congress. Last month the chairman of
the House energy and water appropriations subcommittee, which
governs spending for nuclear weapons work, told Energy Secretary
Samuel Bodman in a letter that he was extremely disappointed in
the proposal and threatened to withdraw his backing for the new
warheads.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, pointed in particular to the
administrations dismissal of proposals for a single,
consolidated weapons materials facility. Federal weapons
officials are contemplating at least two facilities and forging
ahead with plans for producing the new warheads in roughly the
same Cold War-era weapons complex that exists today.
If the Energy Department is unwilling to consider shrinking all
major work with plutonium and highly enriched uranium to a
single, well-guarded place, Hobson wrote, then I will not
support funding for the Complex 2030 efforts, including the
Reliable Replacement (RRW) program.
RRW is a deal with Congress, Hobson wrote, but the deal requires
serious effort by the department to modernize, consolidate and
downsize the weapons complex. Absent that effort, there is no
deal.
A National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman declined to
discuss the warning or any relationship to the plutonium
shipment out of Livermore.
Some shipments, presumably of plutonium oxide, will be sent to
the Savannah River Site in South Carolina once a new nuclear
fuels plant is constructed there, as raw powder to be blended
down and fashioned into reactor fuel.
Disarmament activists who have sought the removal of weapons
materials from Livermore treated news of the first shipment
warily. It is unclear whether the federal government was
removing nearly pure plutonium-239 metal suitable for use in
bombs or impure plutonium residues that have been considered
surplus.
Marylia Kelley, head of Livermore-based Tri-Valley CAREs, said
her watchdog group suspects the plutonium shipment to Los Alamos
is surplus residue to be used in making plutonium pits for new
warheads.
Theyre taking it to Los Alamos for pit production experiments
and then will move it again for a new pit factory, Kelley said.
Our position is that plutonium at Livermore is not secure. It is
vulnerable to disgruntled employee scenarios, to theft, to
terrorist attack and to catastrophic release in the event of a
major earthquake. We want to see it moved for safety and
security reasons, but we only want it moved once and not used
for weapons.
Federal officials said they plan on removing all but small,
undisclosed quantities of weapons fuels used for bench-scale
experiments from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque,
N.M., by 2008 and from Los Alamos National Laboratory by 2022,
the start-up date for the new plutonium pit factory.
Contact Ian Hoffman at or at (510) 208-6458.Print Friendly View
© 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers
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64 ISN Security Watch: The future of US nuclear complex transformation
US plutonium stockpiles will be around for a long time, so what
does the US National Nuclear Security Administration plan to do
with them?
By Haninah Levine for CDI (08/12/06)
On 29 November, the National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), the semi-autonomous division of the Department of Energy
(DoE) responsible for the nation’s nuclear stockpile,
announced that a series of studies conducted at the nation’s
nuclear laboratories over the last five years concluded that the
plutonium components, or pits, in the nation’s nuclear
warheads are showing no signs of damage as they age. According
to NNSA, the plutonium pits will remain fully reliable for at
least 85-100 years - nearly doubling the previous estimate of
45-60 years.
The NNSA announcement was prompted by the publication of the
JASON defense advisory group’s review of the laboratories’
research. Though some senior members of the nuclear weapons
community still have lingering concerns about plutonium aging,
the JASON report confirmed without reservations the new, longer
lifetime estimates and offered some additional hints that the
nation’s nuclear stockpile may be far more robust than had
been assumed.
The new lifetime estimate, and the JASON report, come at a
sensitive time for President George W Bush’s two major nuclear
stockpile initiatives - the Reliable Replacement Warhead program
(RRW) and the ambitious plan to modernize the nuclear weapons
complex known as “Complex 2030.” The new Democratic-controlled
Congress will soon have to decide whether RRW will proceed from a
design exercise to an actual building program, while the
Government Accountability Office recently listed the need for a
careful examination of the Complex 2030 proposal as one of its
“Suggested Areas for Oversight for the 110th Congress,”
stating that “given the importance of the nation’s nuclear
deterrent, the large amount of funding required, and DoE’s
history of poor project management, it is vital that the Congress
closely oversee NNSA’s implementation of its proposal.”
The implications of the revised lifetime estimates for the
reliability of the US nuclear deterrent are dramatic. No
stockpile-certified plutonium pits have been built in the United
States since the end of the Cold War, so that by the end of the
decade, all the pits in the active US stockpile will be between
two and three decades old. Under the assumption of a 45-60 year
lifetime, the pits would have been approaching the midpoints of
their confirmed reliable lifetimes by the end of the decade;
now, it is clear that they will only be a quarter to a third of
the way through their minimum lifetimes.
Yet in spite of this fact, it is still unclear what the exact
implications of the revised lifetimes will be for RRW and
“Complex 2030.”
When Representative David Hobson of Ohio, first introduced RRW
in Congress, he envisioned it as a program to enable the
nation’s already-robust nuclear deterrent to be maintained
more efficiently. The key to achieving this end was replacing
the most problematic components in the nation’s current
warhead designs with components that offered greater
reliability, safety and security features and ease of
manufacturing. Over time, the program evolved into something
more ambitious: a program for designing an entirely new
generation of nuclear warheads, designed from the ground up to
incorporate the qualities Hobson sought, and intended to be
designed, built and certified without nuclear testing.
Although concerns about the aging of pits were never explicitly
mentioned by Congress in its mandate for RRW, it was widely
assumed that the limited lifetimes of these plutonium components
were among the factors motivating the pursuit of a new approach
to stockpile maintenance. As recently as September 2006, the
defense community was citing as a motivator for RRW the claim
that certain warheads would age to the point of unreliability
within as little as a decade. While it is possible that these
comments referred to the aging of components other than the
plutonium pits, the pit is the only major component for which no
facility currently exists in the US nuclear complex capable of
producing replacements on an industrial scale. In light of the
new information regarding pit lifetimes, however, pit aging
should no longer be considered one of the most urgent focuses
for stockpile planning.
Even if Bush administration officials continue to allude to pit
aging in their justifications of RRW, it is unlikely that
Congress will continue to find this argument convincing. Already
on 2 December, the US daily The Washington Post reported that
Hobson said that the administration “should take a breath”
in its pursuit of RRW in light of the recent developments, and
that “Congress is not going to be as robust about [RRW].”
The same article reported that, unsurprisingly, some incoming
Democratic committee chairs are even more skeptical about the
Bush administration’s nuclear plans.
It is equally unlikely, however, that the new pit lifetime
estimates will spell the death of RRW. In part, this is because
the Bush administration has “future-proofed” its arguments
for RRW. Perhaps in anticipation of this study, NNSA has shifted
emphasis away from the pit-aging justification in recent months.
Some of the other justifications for the program are considered
more valid even by the program’s skeptics.
At the same time, however, there is one sentence hidden in the
JASON report which may have more profound long-term consequences
for RRW than the entire discussion of pit aging. Near the end of
the executive summary, the group writes that “the detailed
experiments and computer simulations performed by the
laboratories […] also reduce uncertainties in the performance
of zero-age pits.”
One of the justifications for RRW which is more widely accepted,
even among the program’s skeptics in the nuclear weapons
community, concerns uncertainties in the performance of
“zero-age” - brand-new - nuclear warheads. The reasoning is
that during the Cold War, US nuclear warheads were built with
slim performance margins in order to maximize their
yield-to-weight ratios. Today, when yield-to-weight ratios are
no longer as important, these slim performance margins are seen
as a liability, and many in the community would happily trade in
the high yields for even greater certainty that the warheads
will produce exactly the intended yield under any imaginable
circumstance.
While there is no debate over the fact that the built-in
performance margins are relatively slim, there is some
discussion over what the uncertainties are in those margins –
the uncertainties in the uncertainties, essentially. Proponents
of RRW have pointed to uncertainties in the performance margins
as one reason that a new generation of warheads needs to be
designed from the ground up. The JASON report’s findings that
recent studies are “reduc[ing] uncertainties in the
performance of zero-age pits” will bolster the claims of those
who argue that time and improved scientific techniques are
leading to improved confidence in the stockpile we already have.
The argument of those who claim that time is working in favor of
the present stockpile rather than against it is further
bolstered by the finding, mentioned in the JASON report, that
one particular physical process, known as “void swelling,”
which has long been of concern as a potential route to serious
aging damage, now appears not to take place at all in plutonium,
even in the long term.
The revision of the pit lifetime estimates may have more
concrete consequences for another element of the Bush
administration’s Complex 2030 plan, of which RRW is merely the
first step. In particular, the findings will raise further
questions about the need for a new industrial-scale
pit-manufacturing facility.
In 1989, the FBI raided and shut down DoE’s Rocky Flats site
in Colorado, leaving the nation without the capability to
produce new pits. In 1996, work began on a small-scale pit
manufacturing facility at TA-55 at Los Alamos National
Laboratory. This facility uses a different manufacturing
technique from Rocky Flats - a technique better suited to
small-scale manufacturing - a fact which in itself led to
considerable debate over whether or not its pits could be
certified for the stockpile. At present, the facility at TA-55
is on the verge of producing its first stockpile-certified pit,
and is expected to be capable of producing several dozen pits a
year within a decade.
A major part of the Complex 2030 plan, however, is a new
industrial-scale pit-manufacturing facility intended to fully
replace Rocky Flats. (The new facility began its planning life
as the Modern Pit Facility, but was later incorporated into the
emerging Complex 2030 vision as a part of the planned
Consolidated Plutonium Center.)
Critics of Complex 2030 have long argued that the facility at
TA-55 will be sufficient for any foreseeable stockpile needs
once it comes online. While these critics have claimed that the
TA-55 facility would have enough capacity even if pit lifetimes
did not exceed 45-60 years, the dramatic extension of the
minimum credible lifetimes should reinforce their claim that the
smaller facility has more than enough capacity to support the
current stockpile, and any foreseeable one of roughly similar
size and composition. If the only purpose of a larger pit
manufacturing facility is to prepare for the possibility of some
day engaging in a new nuclear arms race, then Congress, which
already appropriates for the maintenance of the world’s most
capable and modern nuclear forces, should think long and hard
about whether this expense is justified.
While the new pit manufacturing facility may be in trouble, the
administration’s fundamental argument for Complex 2030 has not
been refuted. This is because the argument is at its heart
rooted in the fear of the proverbial unknown unknowns, and
therefore no empirical discovery can refute it. The fundamental
argument for Complex 2030 is that a massively upgraded
infrastructure is needed to hedge against the possibility of
“unanticipated events or emerging threats,” in the words of
NNSA Deputy Administrator Thomas D’Agostino. Since no
scientific program can ever prove that future scientific
developments will not refute its findings, the decision of
whether or not to proceed with Complex 2030 will ultimately be
made out of a weighing of values and priorities rather than
scientific facts.
This article originally appeared on the Center for Defense
Information (CDI) website.The CDI is a division of the World
Security Institute (WSI), a 501(c)(3) public charity.
» Comment on this story »
*****************************************************************
65 lamonitor.com: Pit production: Public weighs in on Complex 2030
The Online News Source for Los Alamos
CAROL A. CLARK Monitor Senior Reporter
Complex 2030 is the National Nuclear Security Administration's
concept for a smaller, modern nuclear weapons complex.
Participants at the public hearing on its supplemental
environmental impact statement, held at the Best Western Hilltop
House Hotel on Wednesday, were opposed to the plan.
"I'm just asking the scientists here why don't we have any
scientists coming forth to say to the National Nuclear Security
Agency that we can't put a nuclear pit facility at the top of a
mountain," said Shannyn Sollitt of the Los Alamos Peace Project.
"This is the responsibility of the scientists to say this is a
really bad idea."
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, has also said he doesn't think Los
Alamos National Laboratory is the best location for a facility
to make the softball-size plutonium devices used to trigger a
nuclear explosion.
The debate over plutonium pits was renewed with the recent
release of a study by LANL and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory researchers who said plutonium in nuclear warheads
will be reliable for up to 100 years, twice longer than
previously thought.
The five-year government study involving all of the warheads in
the nuclear stockpile concluded that plutonium pits degrade at a
much slower rate than previously believed.
The research, reviewed by an outside panel of nuclear physicists
and weapons experts, raised questions by critics over the need
to replace aging weapons.
This confirms that our existing stockpile does not require new
pit manufacturing, Bingaman has said.
Bingaman said he hopes the Senate Armed Services Committee holds
a hearing on the findings of this report early next year.
"Regardless of the outcome, I believe LANL is not the best
choice for a permanent pit production facility."
Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico said recently that the
study undermines the rationale for the facility.
"Now that the potential effects of plutonium aging have been
knocked out as an excuse for the future that NNSA wants, let's
move on to a sharper debate over current U.S. policies that
provide bad examples for global nonproliferation," Coghlan said.
"We need to guard against pork interests making the nuclear
weapons complex an end itself. We simply don't need new design
nuclear weapons and expanded bomb production."
The NNSA said aging plutonium is only one factor that can affect
a weapon's reliability.
The agency said it also can be affected by aging of high
explosives and other organic components used, corrosion of
uranium or plutonium components, and defects uncovered in
surveillance programs.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, said he's reviewing the report. "It
will be important to evaluate the results of the report as we
prepare the pit production component of Complex 2030," he said.
"It is possible that we will not need the same level of capacity
as originally proposed."
Ted Wyka, NNSA Complex 2030 SEIS document manager, said 41
people attended Wednesday's public meeting and 130 attended a
later meeting in Santa Fe. A total of 55 people provided oral
comments, he said.
"Both meetings were excellent examples of democracy in action,"
Wyka said. "The public provided thoughtful and compassionate
comments. Much of it was general opposition to the NNSA nuclear
weapons program and U.S. national security policies."
These scoping meetings are one mechanism for the public to
comment on the alternatives in the Complex 2030 Notice of Intent
that provides NNSA's proposed action and alternatives to
continue the transformation of the nuclear weapons complex.
Wyka said they are conducting 17 meetings in 12 locations across
the country. This is a 90-day public comment period that closes
Jan. 17.
Wyka added that comments also can be provided by regular mail,
e-mail or fax. Comments will be considered by NNSA in developing
a draft to the programmatic EIS.
For information access www.complex2030peis .com.
LANL is among five potential sites for a proposed Consolidated
Plutonium Center, which could produce up to 125 plutonium pits a
year. Los Alamos is currently involved in limited pit production.
Editor's note: The Associated press contributed to this report.
© 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
66 KNDO/KNDU: Hanford Funding on the Senate Floor
Tri-Cities, Yakima, WA |
Patty Murray Fights for Hanford Cleanup Funding
KENNEWICK, Wash.- Washington Senator Patty Murray was in front
of the U.S. Senate Thursday fighting for continued federal
cleanup dollars for the Hanford site.
If the funding isn't passed tomorrow, it'll be delayed until the
senate reconvenes a month from now.
Senator Murray says the funding is critical for cleanup progress
on the site.
Republicans and democrats debated on the senate floor.
At the forefront, Hanford cleanup. About $700 million for the
Waste Treatment Plant sits up in the air.
Senator Murray thinks a move must be made.
"Our government has an obligation to cleanup the Hanford Nuclear
Reservation in Richland, Washington. Now as I speak that
community is working hard to cleanup nuclear waste to protect
the community and the environment," the Senator said.
The republican Senate may adjourn Friday with money still on the
table.
Hanford's specific allotment is unknown, and if the funding
bills aren't passed, Murray says funding will take a hit.
"That funding for Hanford cleanup is gonna be delayed, and that
means, M. President, it's gonna take longer and it will cost
more money," she said.
With cleanup already behind, officials at the site today say
getting full scale construction on the WTP back up is paramount.
"By late calendar year 2007, we should be fully back to work in
both of those facilities," said John Eschenberg, the Project
Manager.
Failing to pass the bills not only slows down funding, it leaves
less on the table.
"People are gonna have a lot of project's that aren't funded,
they're gonna be looking for large sums of money that they can
take from, and Hanford is always a target," Murray said.
If they don't pass the bill Friday, they'll have to cut $5
billion from the budget.
The funding is part of the Senate Energy and Water Bill.
Also at issue were money for methamphetimine awareness and a
gang task force in Yakima.
Murray calls these two of the biggest issues the state faces
today.
If the bill isn't passed Friday, it will sit on the table until
January.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2006 WorldNow and
KNDO/KNDU. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
67 KTRV FOX 12: Nuclear plant planned for Idaho
Boise, Idaho News,
Boise, Idaho -- A proposal to build a nuclear power plant in
Idaho seems to be gaining momentum.
A company called Alternate Energy Holdings just announced it's
intention to build the plant.
Now the fight is on from those who want the nuclear option taken
off the table.
"We want to make sure that people know early that this could be
coming, and to be prepared," said Jeremy Maxand, Executive
Director of Snake River Alliance.
It's a huge concern to Maxand, and the rest of the nuclear
watchdogs at the Snake River Alliance -- a proposed 1,500
megawatt nuclear power plant, now planned for an area near
Bruneau.
"Something will have to be built somewhere in Idaho in the next
five to 10 years to address power issues," said Don Gillispie,
President of Alternate Energy Holdings based in Virginia.
He says irrigators already need the power, and there will
definitely be a future need, based on a report issued by the
Idaho National Laboratory.
"It said we're going to need about 1,300 megawatts, I think, by
2013. So something will have to be built to meet that demand or
you'll be in the California situation where you're buying power
across state lines," said Gillispie.
Maxand says there is no need, at least not for nuclear power,
not now or even in the future.
"We have more than enough clean and renewable energy in this
state -- wind, solar, biomass, geothermal -- to meet our
growing energy needs, and possibly export some of that energy
out of the state," he said.
Maxand hopes the state will look toward some of these other
options, particularly wind, as a viable replacement for the
nuclear option.
Wind is already being explored quite heavily in Hagerman -- a
series of seven 388-foot tall wind turbines were installed in
that area of the state just last year. But whatever the choice
is, Maxand is hopeful every option is thoroughly explored before
nuclear gets any serious consideration.
"And Idaho would be the last place in this country I think to
need a facility like this," he said, "and I think people should
be aware and oppose it if it comes to that."
Before construction can even occur, the nuclear regulatory
commission would still have to approve the site near Bruneau.
Of course the idea would also have to pass a series of
legislative committee hearings.
But should it get final approval, construction could begin in
2008 and finish by 2012.
.gif"> All content © Copyright 2000 - 2006 WorldNow and KTRV.
All Rights Reserved.
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68 UPI: U.S. builds new nuke safety complexes
United Press International - Security &Terrorism -
12/8/2006 12:06:00 PM -0500
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. government is building new
complexes to safely house nuclear material, the National Nuclear
Safety Administration said Thursday.
"Facilities are being constructed to enhance security and
consolidate highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 National
Security Complex in Tennessee," the NNSA said a statement.
"Special nuclear materials will be removed from Sandia National
Laboratories in New Mexico by 2008 and from Los Alamos National
Laboratory by 2022. Like Livermore, Sandia and Los Alamos will
retain small amounts of special nuclear materials."
The NNSA said the initiatives were part of its strategy "to
reduce the number of sites and facilities with Category I and II
amounts of special nuclear materials, which require the highest
level of security."
"Consolidating nuclear materials and eliminating duplicative
capabilities at facilities will allow NNSA to further reduce the
total square footage set aside for weapons work at the eight
sites around the country in the nuclear weapons complex, thus
reducing resource-intensive physical security requirements," the
agency said.
The NNSA was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000. It describes
itself as "a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department
of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through
the military application of nuclear science."
The agency says it also "maintains and enhances the safety,
security, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear
weapons stockpile without nuclear testing; works to reduce
global danger from weapons of mass destruction; provides the
U.S. Navy with safe and effective nuclear propulsion; and
responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies in the U.S. and
abroad."
© Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
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