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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 Guardian Unlimited: Iran President Vows to Push Nuke Program 
2 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomats: Iran Working on Uranium Plant 
3 Guardian Unlimited: In Iraq, Kurds Train to Battle Iran 
4 Guardian Unlimited: Gates Says U.S. Not Planning Iran War 
5 Guardian Unlimited: As US power fades, it can't find friends to take
6 AFP: US defends military build-up against 'aggressive' Iran - 
7 AFP: Iran denies blocking UN nuclear inspectors 
8 AFP: Iran has begun assembling centrifuges at Natanz site - diplomat
9 AFP: Gates: US Gulf buildup is warning to possible foes 
10 UPI: Analysis: Odds of U.S.-Iran conflict?
11 AFP: NKorea depending more on China trade since nuclear test -
12 Hankyoreh: U.S. envoy says next six-party talks can make progress 
13 US: [NukeNet] Kan. House advances bill to encourage nuclear
14 Guardian Unlimited: Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study
15 US: UCS: Political Interference in Federal Climate Science 
16 US: UPI: Outside View: America's long wars
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
17 US: Santa Maria Times: Diablo Canyon Report: Grand Jury: SLO County 
18 US: Battle Creek Enquirer: Michigan energy plan sparks controversy
19 US: Knox News: TVA tritium first in 18 years
20 FPON: No, No To The Nukes
21 SPIEGEL ONLINE: An End to Green Romanticism: Environmental Guru Love
22 US: NRC: NRC PROPOSES TO AMEND LICENSING, INSPECTION AND ANNUAL FEES
23 Sydney Morning Herald: World wakes to climate calamity - 
24 MDN: TEPCO admits falsifying data at nuclear power plants -
25 Toronto Star: Vows job creation if chosen to build nuclear facilitie
26 Victoria Advocate: A nuclear plant near Victoria?
27 BBC: Humans blamed for climate change
28 US: Platts: DOE to seek $405 million for GNEP in FY-08
29 US: NRC: Notice Of Environmental Assessment Related To The Issuance 
30 The Local: Criminal investigation at Swedish nuclear plant
31 US: Hutchinson News: Nuclear bill is advanced by House 
32 US: Orlando Sentinel : Nuclear power: Why the holdup? - 
33 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Pick your poison
34 US: UPI: Interview: Nuke council takes aim for '07
35 US: Brattleboro Reformer: A county divided
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
36 US: All Headline News: U.N. Says 75 Percent Of Stolen Nuclear Materi
37 US: Pocono Record: NJ firm faces fine over stolen nuclear gauge
38 NewsBlaze: UN Atomic Watchdog Agency Reports Cases of Illegal Traffi
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
39 The Hindu: Reports of uranimum radiation baseless - DAE chief 
40 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Kane joins fight against Divine Strake
41 IHT: Court rules against SKorean atomic bomb survivors seeking compe
42 US: AL: Depleted uranium isn't a common topic in the South Dakota Le
43 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Kane County draws up resolution opposing Divi
44 US: Spectrum: Lawmakers, speak up
45 US: NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) Subcommitte
46 US: OpEd News: Depleted Uranium Poison Targets US Citizens
47 globeandmail.com: Firm in hot water over radioactive material
48 Ottawa Citizen: Critics applaud nuclear decision
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
49 RGJ.com: Questions still remain for Yucca Mountain
50 Pahrump Valley Times: DEMOCRATS MAY CHOP $50 MILLION FROM YUCCA PROJ
51 AU ABC: CLP says nuclear waste sites aren't near homes
52 RGJ.com: Nevada leaders plot strategy to fight Yucca
53 Chillicothe Gazette: Pike plant decision coming soon
54 US: San Bernardino County Sun: Resignation clouds up cleanup of perc
55 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Waste elevated: Governor, Legislature should
56 US: WMCTV: Waste incinerator would burn low-level radioactive trash
 
                           PEACE
 
57 US: [southnews] US Physicists Letter Asks Congress to forbid use of 
58 USINFO: "Substantial Start" Sought Toward Nuclear-Free Korean Penins
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
59 Knox News: Up and running super smoothly
60 Seattle Times: Bad Hanford bills follow bad initiative
61 DOE: Bush Administration Plays Leading Role in Studying and Addressi
62 Tri-City Herald: HAB's longtime chairman steps down - 
63 Tri-City Herald: 2 PNNL technologies receive awards 
64 DenverPost.com: Matsch wants to release Rocky Flats jury info
65 Knox News: Fed budget ax could slow cleanup work, chop jobs
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 Guardian Unlimited: Iran President Vows to Push Nuke Program 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday February 2, 2007 9:16 AM

AP Photo VAH101 

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI 

Associated Press Writer 

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched
anniversary celebrations Thursday for Iran's Islamic Revolution
with a defiant promise to push ahead with the country's
controversial nuclear program. 

Ahmadinejad suggested Tehran would announce next week that it is
beginning to install a new assembly of 3,000 centrifuges in an
underground portion of its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz
that the U.S. has warned could bring further sanctions against
the country. 

The Iranian leader said his government is determined to continue
with its nuclear program, despite U.N. Security Council
sanctions imposed over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a
process that can produce fuel to generate electricity or for the
fissile core of an atomic bomb. 

Kicking off 10 days of celebrations to mark the 28th anniversary
of the 1979 Islamic revolution that brought hard-line clerics to
power, Ahmadinejad said Iran will celebrate next week ``the
stabilization and the establishment of its full right'' to
enrich uranium at the facility. 

The chief of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed
ElBaradei, said last week that he expected Iran to announce
``they are going to build up their 3,000 centrifuge facility''
in February. There had been speculation the announcement could
come during the revolution anniversary. 

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Iran would face
``universal international opposition'' over the step. ``If they
think they can get away with 3,000 centrifuges without another
Security Council resolution and additional international
pressure, then they are very badly mistaken,'' Burns said last
week 

The installation would be a major jump in Iran's uranium
enrichment program, though it could take months to set up the
3,000 centrifuges and get them working. In the process, uranium
gas is spun at supersonic speeds in a connected array of
centrifuges to purify it. Uranium enriched to around 5 percent
is used for fuel for a nuclear reactor; enriched to 95 percent,
it can be used to build a warhead. 

Iran now has two cascades of 164 centrifuges each. Tens of
thousands are needed for a continuous program. The status of the
new centrifuges has been unclear as Iranian officials gave
contradictory statements over the past month. Tehran originally
said last year that the installation would begin by the end of
2006, but January came and there was no word the work had
started. 

On Sunday, an Iranian lawmaker said installation had begun, but
he was quickly contradicted by officials from the country's
Atomic Energy Organization. Mohammad Saeedi, the agency's deputy
head, said, ``If we begin to install centrifuges, we will
publicly announce it.'' 

Ahmadinejad's remarks Thursday signaled that Iran would begin
the installation before Feb. 11 - the final day of nationwide
celebrations in memory of the Islamic revolution. He has also
called people to the streets that day to show support for the
nuclear program. 

``Enemies of the Iranian nation ... must know that their
wrongful beliefs will be revealed once again during Feb. 11
rallies by the great Iranian nation,'' he said, according to the
state-run news agency. 

The United States and many Western countries accuse Iran of
seeking to develop nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. The
Security Council has threatened to impose further sanctions on
Iran if it continues to refuse to roll back its program. 

Iran insists its program is peaceful. It ultimately plans to
expand it to 54,000 centrifuges, a large operation enriching
more uranium within a shorter period of time. 

So far, its two linked chains of 164 machines have been
operating sporadically at the above-ground portion of the Natanz
facility, producing small quantities of non-weapons grade
enriched uranium, International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors
say. 

Two smaller assemblies underground have been ``dry testing'' -
without gas - since November, they say. 

Iranian officials have turned down a request from IAEA
inspectors to install cameras in the underground Natanz
facility, a U.N. official familiar with Iran's nuclear dossier
said in Vienna. 

Ahmadinejad, whose hard-line tactics have faced criticism from
both reformists and conserpursues and announces the nuclear
position.'' 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
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 2 Guardian Unlimited: Diplomats: Iran Working on Uranium Plant 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday February 2, 2007 11:01 AM

AP Photo VAH101 

By GEORGE JAHN 

Associated Press Writer 

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Iran has begun putting down piping and
electric cables for its underground uranium enrichment plant,
diplomats said Friday, enlisting hundreds of workers in an
effort to move ahead quickly with a program that can be misused
to make nuclear arms. 

The move marks an escalation of the confrontation between Tehran
and the world's major powers over the Islamic republic's nuclear
program and will likely spur U.S. efforts to sharpen existing
U.N. sanctions slapped on Iran for its defiance of a Security
Council demand that it freeze enrichment efforts. 

Iran says it wants to develop enrichment to generate power, but
the United States and other countries fear Tehran will use the
material for the fissile core of nuclear warheads. 

A diplomat accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which monitors Iran's nuclear program, said hundreds of
technicians and laborers ``were working feverishly'' at the
Natanz underground facility, laying down pipes and wiring needed
for the centrifuges that spin uranium into enriched levels. 

The diplomat was one of three who spoke to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity because the information is
confidential. 

The diplomats emphasized that the work at the plant was
preliminary. One said centrifuges were being lowered by freight
elevator into the facility, along with other equipment needed to
assemble ``cascades'' - centrifuges in series that spin and
re-spin uranium gas to the required level of enrichment. They
said to their knowledge, no centrifuges had been set up by
Thursday. 

Less critical preparatory work inside the Natanz facility - set
underground to protect it from air attack - had been going on
for weeks, said one of the diplomats, adding that it was unclear
when the assembling of piping and cabling that will link the
centrifuges had begun. 

The work appeared to back statements from both the IAEA and the
Iranian leadership saying the actual setup of centrifuges at the
underground site would begin this month. Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggested Thursday that hookups would start
next week, with the aim of linking 3,000 of the machines. 

Even if Tehran proves successful in installing 3,000
centrifuges, experts estimate that it would take Tehran several
years for all of them to be running smoothly and without
breakdowns. Once that happens, Tehran could produce two bombs a
year. 

Ultimately, Iran plans to have 54,000 centrifuges producing
enriched uranium. 

On Wednesday, the London-based International Institute for
Strategic Studies think tank estimated that Iran is two to three
years away from having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. 

The head of national intelligence for the U.S., John Negroponte,
has spoken of a four-year time frame, and IAEA chief Mohamed
ElBaradei frequently cites Negroponte when asked how long it
would take Tehran to build such a weapon. 

While Iran could conceivably build a bomb in two years, a
three-year time frame was more likely, said Mark Fitzpatrick, a
nonproliferation expert at the institute. He said estimates
floated by U.S. intelligence were conservative - a likely result
of its chastening experience in Iraq. 

Iran now has two experimental cascades of 164 centrifuges each,
as well as several partially assembled cascades, all above
ground at Natanz. They have been the subject or regular
inspections by IAEA teams, although their authority has been
restricted for a year, since Tehran withdrew broader inspecting
rights after its nuclear file was referred to the U.N. Security
Council. 

So far, its two linked chains of 164 machines have been
operating sporadically at the aboveground portion of the Natanz
facility, producing small quantities of non-weapons grade
enriched uranium, IAEA inspectors say. 

Two smaller assemblies underground have been ``dry testing'' -
without gas - since November, they say. 

Ahmadinejad's remarks Thursday signaled that Iran would begin
the installation before Feb. 11 - the final day of nationwide
celebrations in memory of the Islamic revolution. He also has
called people to the streets that day to show support for the
nuclear program. 

``Enemies of the Iranian nation ... must know that their
wrongful beliefs will be revealed once again during Feb. 11
rallies by the great Iranian nation,'' he said, according to the
state-run news agency. 

The Security Council - which last month agreed on limited
sanctions targeting people and programs linked to Iran's nuclear
and missile programs - has threatened to impose further
sanctions on Iran later this month if it continues to refuse to
roll back its program. 

On the Net: 

International Atomic Energy Agency: http://www.iaea.org 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 3 Guardian Unlimited: In Iraq, Kurds Train to Battle Iran 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday February 2, 2007 8:16 PM

AP Photo BAG501 

By KATHY GANNON 

Associated Press Writer 

QANDIL MOUNTAIN RANGE, Iraq (AP) - Deep in the mountains of
eastern Iraq, a cluster of mud huts and the chatter of machine
gun fire reveal another piece of the jigsaw puzzle called
Kurdistan. 

Here, recruits are training to fight Iran, one of the four
countries that rule the fractured Kurdish people. And although
they belong to an organization officially outlawed as terrorist
by Washington, they appear to be operating unhindered from Iraqi
territory controlled by U.S. forces. 

A boulder-studded road spirals up through sun-soaked mountains
to a pale yellow building that flies the flag of the Kurdistan
Workers Party (PKK), condemned as a terrorist organization by
the U.S. and its NATO ally, Turkey. 

A giant face of Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK founder who is serving
a life sentence in Turkey, is painted on the mountainside. Ten
miles farther on lies the Qandil range, which runs like a
snow-dusted spine along Iraq's northern border with both Turkey
and Iran. 

In the camp, lugging heavy machine guns and AK-47 assault
rifles, are men and women of the Party for a Free Life in
Kurdistan, or PEJAK, an offshoot set up by the PKK in 2004 to
fight for Kurdish autonomy in Iran. 

The PKK and its affiliates are spread through a region of some
35 million Kurds that straddles Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
PEJAK, the newest group, claims to number thousands of recruits,
and targets only Iran - a mission which has made PEJAK the
subject of intense speculation that it is being used to
undermine the radical Islamic regime of Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 

In the Nov. 27 issue of The New Yorker, investigative reporter
Seymour Hersh wrote that PEJAK was receiving support from the
U.S. as well as from Israel, which fears Iran's nuclear
ambitions and Ahmadinejad's call to wipe the Jewish state off
the map. 

PEJAK says it regularly launches raids into Iran, and Iran has
fired back with artillery. In October the English-language Iran
Daily, published by Iran's official news agency, said Iran
accused PEJAK of killing dozens of its armed forces in insurgent
attacks. 

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), a presidential candidate who
claims the White House is overplaying the Iranian threat, last
year wrote to President Bush expressing concern that the U.S.
was using PEJAK to weaken Ahmadinejad. 

James Brandon, an analyst for the U.S.-based Jamestown
Foundation, told The Associated Press that PEJAK has refused to
discuss its funding sources. But he said its greatest threat to
Iran is not military. It has veins running deep into the Iranian
Kurdish population and is offering to join forces with other
restless minorities in Iran, he said. 

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said ``Israel is
not involved in any way in what's going on there.'' 

Meir Javedanfar, an Israel-based Iran expert, noted however that
Israel has a long-standing relationship with Iraqi Kurdish
leader Mustafa Barzani and ``It would not surprise me to
discover that Israel is using the Kurdish areas of Iraq to
undermine Iran's influence in Iraq and monitor what's going on
along the Iranian border, as well as to undermine the Iranian
government itself.'' 

The AP recently spent two winter days at a PEJAK training camp
tucked in the shadow of the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq,
listening to its followers describe their goals and operations
in Iran. 

According to a camp commander, Hussein Afsheen, ``PKK gives
ideological and logistical support'' while funding comes from
Iranian Kurds. He said he didn't know of U.S. funding, but would
gladly accept it. 

The camp is designed to toughen up the new recruits, who
numbered 38 during the AP's visit. Beds are single wool blankets
spread over a rough concrete floor, or over a narrow steel bench
that hugs an icy mud wall. The only heat comes from a wood-fired
potbelly stove. 

It's still pitch dark and freezing at 5 a.m., when the fighters
line up and pledge allegiance to the Kurdish cause. 

Soztar Afreen, a 22-year-old Syrian with a quick smile, says she
joined five years ago and the first months were tough. 

``I had trouble keeping up. You have to toughen yourself. The
physical work is difficult but once you get used to it life here
gets easier,'' she said. 

She recalled that her parents, PKK sympathizers, sent her off
with this plea: ``Don't let down the struggle; make us proud.'' 

Gunfire and explosions echo off mountainsides as recruits learn
to fire artillery and rocket launchers and automatic rifles.
They are taught to lay ambushes and to endure long hours
isolated and in hiding. 

Food is spartan - potatoes, tomato broth, onions and a lot of
bread baked flat in a deep stone oven. 

Much time is spent in ideological training and studying Ocalan's
vision of a united Kurdistan, which the guerrillas say has
gradually shifted from demanding full-blown independence to
settling for autonomy as a distinct culture within the various
countries where they live. 

PEJAK ideology is rigorously leftist and includes equality of
the sexes - unusual in this region. The camp has two leaders, a
man and a woman. 

The male one, Afsheen, is a Turkish Kurd who joined the PKK in
1990, at age 19. He said he enlisted after Turkish soldiers
herded him, his family and his neighbors into the town square
and burned down their homes. 

Four shepherds were coming home and ``The soldiers just opened
fire on them. I had inside of me a lot of anger. I promised I
would get my revenge,'' said Afsheen. 

In training, ``Recruits were put in a cave and left there for a
month, allowed out only for half an hour each day. We walked for
hours in frigid water,'' he said. 

Afsheen said he has made several forays into Iran, including one
monthlong trek to the Iranian town of Shahha three months ago,
not to attack Iranians but to organize Kurds. ``We were
discovered. There was a firefight and it went on until dark. We
were pinned down, trapped,'' he said. 

``At nightfall we found an opening and we tried to slip out but
we were discovered. The firing went on again and they called in
their helicopters. One of our friends was wounded and three
Iranian security men were killed.'' 

Afsheen's co-leader is Beridon Dersim, who grew up in Austria
and found her identity with the PKK. 

``What I wanted I couldn't find from Turkey. I couldn't find
from Europe. The PKK offered me answers about myself, about my
ethnicity.'' 

Dersim, 32, said she wanted to pick up a gun the day she joined
the PKK at 17 but it was just before her 20th birthday that she
was allowed into the guerrilla ranks. 

Unlike Afreen of Syria, she did not have her family's blessing,
she says, and her father, a Turkish civil servant, was tortured
and left in a wheelchair. She said she has since fought in
gunbattles. 

The guerrillas vow not to marry or visit their families lest
they put them in danger or be distracted from their struggle.
Afsheen said he hasn't seen his parents since their village was
destroyed 16 years ago. ``I was the youngest of nine children,
but maybe there are more now. I don't know.'' 

Dersim says her presence encourages Kurdish women but also
frightens the men. 

``We go to a village and when we speak they are surprised and
they ask us: 'Where do you get such power to do this? How can
you speak like this and in front of men?''' 
		 	 	   
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 4 Guardian Unlimited: Gates Says U.S. Not Planning Iran War 

From the Associated Press        

[UP] 

Friday February 2, 2007 9:46 PM

AP Photo WCAP101 

By LOLITA BALDOR 

Associated Press Writer 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The extra troops that Iraq promised to send
into Baghdad in a new U.S.-Iraqi military buildup are arriving
on schedule but in inadequate numbers, Defense Secretary Robert
Gates said Friday. 

Gates was asked at a news conference about Senate testimony on
Thursday by the outgoing U.S. commander in Baghdad, Gen. George
Casey, who said the arriving Iraqi units have only 55 to 65
percent of their intended troops. 

``Fifty-five percent probably isn't good enough,'' Gates said,
but he left open the possibility that by the time the Baghdad
crackdown begins in earnest the Iraqi combat units will be at
full strength. 

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who sat
beside Gates in fielding questions at the Pentagon, estimated
that the arriving Iraqi units are at about 60 percent of their
assigned strength. 

``It needs to be stronger than that,'' Pace said. 

Administration officials have said they expect Iraq to meet the
pledges it made, as the troop buildup proceeds, but they have
not said explicitly what would happen if the Iraqis fall
substantially short on troop contributions. 

``Partly it will depend on how quickly they get back up to
strength,'' Gates said. 

The defense secretary has publicly held out the possibility of
slowing or stopping the flow of additional U.S. troops if the
Iraqis fall short, as they have in the past; the Pentagon has
announced plans to send five additional Army brigades, totaling
17,500 troops, to Baghdad by May. In addition, about 4,000
Marines are to be sent to western Anbar province. 

At his news conference, Gates also said that the decision
announced in January to send a second U.S. aircraft carrier to
the Persian Gulf region does not mean the United States is
planning for a war with Iran. He said the purpose was to
underscore to U.S. allies as well as potential adversaries that
the Gulf is a vital interest to the United States. 

``Nobody is planning, we are not planning for a war with Iran,''
Gates said. 

Gates said the United States' main aim with regard to Iranian
influence inside Iraq is to counter what he called networks
providing explosives used to make roadside bombs that are
powerful enough to destroy a U.S. tank. 

``Because we are acting against the Iranians' activities in
Iraq, it has given rise to some of these talks'' of U.S.
intentions to attack Iran, he said, adding that there is no such
plan. 

Pace said that over the past month or so, raids against those
bomb-supplying networks had netted two Iranians. 

Gates said it was too soon to say with confidence whether
Iranians were involved in the ambush last week in Karbala, in
southern Iraq, that left five American soldiers dead. U.S.
officials have said in recent days that they are investigating
possible Iranian links. 

``The information that I've seen is ambiguous,'' he said. 

Gates also said that U.S. military officers in Baghdad were
planning to brief reporters on what is known about Iranian
involvement in Iraq but that he and other senior administration
officials had intervened to delay the briefing in order to
assure that the information to be provided is accurate. 

Gates opened his news conference by announcing that he has
recommended to President Bush that he nominate Navy Adm. Timothy
Keating, currently the commander of U.S. Northern Command, to be
the next commander of U.S. Pacific Command, replacing Adm.
William Fallon, who has been selected as the next commander of
U.S. Central Command. 

Gates said he also recommended that his senior military aide,
Lt. Gen. Victor ``Gene'' Renuart, be nominated to replace
Keating at Northern Command. 
		 	 	   
    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 5 Guardian Unlimited: As US power fades, it can't find friends to take on Iran 

Comment 

Washington has exaggerated Tehran's capabilities and intentions
in Iraq. It is confused and frustrated 

Jonathan Steele

Friday February 2, 2007 The Guardian             

The shadowy outlines of a new US strategy towards Iran are
exercising diplomats and experts around the Middle East and in
the west. The US says Iranian personnel are training and arming
anti-US forces inside Iraq, and it will not hesitate to kill
them. It is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf,
doubling its force projection there. It is calling on Europeans
to tighten sanctions on Iran until Tehran suspends its uranium
enrichment programme.

Is the US rattling the sabre in advance of an attack on Iran? Or 
is it merely rattling its cage, as it pretends still to be a 
power in the region in spite of being locked into an unwinnable 
war in Iraq? The only certainty is that Bush's strategy of 
calling for democratisation in the Middle East is over. 
Washington has had to abandon the neocon dream of turning Iraq 
into a beacon of secular liberal democracy. It is no longer 
pressing for reform in other Arab states.

On her recent trip to Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf, Condoleezza
Rice said little about democracy. Her pitch was old-fashioned
realpolitik as she tried to create a regional counterweight to
Iran's influence. Gary Sick, a former National Security Council
expert, argues that Washington's return to balance-of-power
considerations is designed to create an informal anti-Iranian
alliance of the US, Israel and the Sunni Arab states. The aim is
partly to divert attention from the catastrophe of Iraq. It also
reduces Israel's isolation by suggesting Sunni Arab states have
a common interest in confronting Iran, whatever their
disagreements over Palestine.

Other American experts argue that Iranian influence should not
be confused with Shia influence. The US blunder in invading Iraq
and opening the way for Shia Islamists to control its government
created an unexpected opportunity for Iran. But it does not
follow that Shia movements in other Arab states have grown
stronger or that the arc of Shia radicalism that King Abdullah
of Jordan has talked of is anything more than a figment of his
imagination. The Shia minorities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are
showing no signs of revolt. On the contrary, Saudi Shias are
reported to be fearful of a backlash from the Sunni majority if
sectarian threat-mongering continues. Highlighting sectarian
identities has turned into a galloping cancer in Iraq, and it
would be a disaster if the US seeks to export these tensions
into the wider Middle East.

Even in Iraq there are limits to Iran's role. The eight-year war
between the two countries in the 1980s showed that Iraqi Shias
put their Arab and Iraqi identity above the religious rituals
they share with Iranians. Moqtada al-Sadr, the cleric who
commands one of the main Iraqi militias, frequently boasts of
his Iraqi nationalism and the fact that his father, a
distinguished ayatollah, remained in opposition in Iraq during
the Saddam Hussein years rather than fleeing, as other Iraqi
Shia clerics did, to the protection of Tehran or London.

The US claims Iran has increased its subversion in Iraq in
recent months. The US has a record of self-serving and false
intelligence on Iraq but, even if true, Iran's actions cannot
make much difference to the problems the US is facing. The
sectarian violence is perpetrated largely by Iraqis on Iraqis.
If outsiders provoke it, they are mainly Sunni jihadis loyal to
al-Qaida. As for attacks on US forces, these come primarily in
Sunni areas or the mixed province of Diyala. Some US officials
now hint that Iranians may be involved in these areas too. Links
between Iran and Iraq's Sunni insurgents would be new, but
marginal.

The real purpose of Washington's heightened talk of Iranian
subversion seems to be twofold. The administration is playing
the blame game. When the "who lost Iraq?" debate develops in
earnest as the presidential election contest hots up, Bush's
people will name its fall guys. Number one will be the
Democrats, for failing to fund the war adequately and allowing
the "enemy" to take comfort from the sapping of American will.
Number two will be Iran for its alleged arming of militias and
insurgents. Number three will be Syria for allowing suicide
bombers through Damascus airport and into Iraq.

The second purpose of Washington's anti-Iranian claims, as the
former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski recently
suggested, is to prepare a case for a US military strike on
Iran. It will be described as defensive, just as the first
attacks on North Vietnam two generations ago were falsely said
to be an answer to the other side's aggression.

There could be a third aim: a desire to influence the internal
Iranian debate. A senior US official stated in London this week
that the Iranian government was a monolith and "we try to
discern differences within the Iranian regime at our peril".
That may not be the majority view within the administration.
Ratcheting up accusations against Iran's revolutionary guards
who are close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be a device
to make a case for moderates like the former president Hashemi
Rafsanjani. He appears to favour a deal with Washington rather
than confrontation.

The safest conclusion is that Washington remains confused about
what Iran is doing, and frustrated by its own inability to find
allies to support a response. All options are being prepared,
along with their "justifications". The International Institute
for Strategic Studies' annual survey rightly pointed out this
week that US power is fading. It can shape an agenda but not
implement it globally.

Two stark new events prove that. One was the meeting between the
Saudi and Iranian security chiefs to try to stop Lebanon sliding
back into civil war. This showed Iran can be a force for
regional stability, and that Saudi Arabia is resisting US
efforts to isolate Tehran. The other was President Jacques
Chirac's comment that it would not matter if Iran developed a
nuclear bomb or two as they could not be used productively.
Described as a gaffe since it broke ranks with Washington, it
expressed the views of many Europeans (as well as the
contradiction inherent in the French and British nuclear
arsenals), since the French president added that the bigger
problem was the push for other nations to follow suit.

As Washington's neocons go into eclipse and the realpolitikers
dither, Britain and other European governments need to be far
clearer in public than they have so far been. They should point
out that the dispute with Iran is not as monumental as
Washington claims. Fomenting new divisions in the Middle East or
resorting to force are cures far worse than the disease.

j.steele@guardian.co.uk #comments 

[UP] 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 6 AFP: US defends military build-up against 'aggressive' Iran - 

 Fri Feb 2, 12:02 PM ET 		 	 

LONDON (AFP) - The United States' ambassador to NATO" /> 
NATOdefended a US military build-up in the Gulf in response to 
what she said was an increasingly "aggressive" stance by Iran" /> 
Iran. 

 Victoria Nuland, in an interview with Sky News television,
vowed to defend US interests in the region, where she said many
people were "very scared" of the Islamic republic's intentions. 

US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bushrecently
ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Gulf,
raising the US naval presence in the region to its highest level
since the 2003 invasion of Iraq" /> Iraq. 

"For a long time the Iranians have been increasing their
aggressive actions in the region, and they have been counting on
the US being too tied down in Iraq to do what we have
traditionally done, which is to maintain a strong military
presence in the Gulf," Nuland told Sky. 

The US is committed to "support our friends and partners in that
part of the world, many of whom are very scared, particularly in
the Gulf region, of Iran's aggressive behaviour," she said. 

"So it is appropriate that we show our presence, that we be
there and that we make clear that we are prepared to defend our
interests and we are prepared to support our friends." 

The United States, which suspects Iran of seeking to develop a
nuclear weapon under the guise of its civilian atomic energy
programme, is leading efforts to isolate Iran through UN
sanctions. 

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 7 AFP: Iran denies blocking UN nuclear inspectors 

 by Siavosh Ghazi Fri Feb 2, 4:56 AM ET 		 	 

TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran" /> Iranhas denied it was blocking UN 
inspectors from a key nuclear site or installing new centrifuges 
in defiance of UN demands to halt sensitive uranium enrichment 
work. 

 The allegations Thursday came amid growing international 
pressure on Iran over its controversial nuclear programme, which 
the West fears is masking plans to build the atomic bomb. 

"Within the framework of Iran's commitment to the IAEA (
International Atomic Energy Agency" /> International Atomic
Energy Agency), there is no and there will be no restriction of
inspectors' access," a high-ranking Iranian official told AFP on
condition of anonymity. 

"We have not begun installing new centrifuges," he added. 

Diplomats close to the IAEA in Vienna said that Iran had begun
construction of 3,000 centrifuges at its main nuclear facility
in the central town of Natanz. 

They also claimed Iran was stopping UN inspectors from
installing surveillance cameras in the huge underground hall
where the production lines, or cascades, of centrifuges are
being set up. 

Uranium enrichment uses centrifuges to make fuel for civilian
nuclear reactors but can also produce the explosive material for
atom bombs. 

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming refused to comment on the
diplomats' claims. 

In Washington, the US administration said the report -- if
confirmed -- offered more proof of Tehran's defiant stance
toward the international community. 

"If true, this would demonstrate that the Iranian government
continues to disregard the will of the international community
and the United Nations" /> United Nations," said US National
Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. 

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to file a report by February 21
to the Security Council on Iranian compliance with the UN call
for it to freeze all enrichment work. 

The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing
sanctions on Iran for its refusal to freeze enrichment although
the measures are not seen as far-reaching enough to hurt Iran's
wider economy. 

Iran last weekend gave conflicting signals on its disputed
nuclear work. 

The head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security
commission said Iran had started to install the 3,000
centrifuges but this was later denied by the atomic energy
agency. 

Iran is building cascades in units of 164 centrifuges each and
already has two such cascades running above-ground at a Natanz
pilot plant which would only produce small amounts of enriched
uranium. 

But the underground plant, protected in a bunker from possible
air attack, could -- if running full tilt -- produce enough
highly enriched uranium for one bomb in nine to 11 months, the
London think tank the International Institute for Strategic
Studies (IISS) has said. 

Iran on Thursday kicked off anniversary festivities for the 1979
Islamic revolution, a 10-day celebration during which officials
have promised a major announcement of progress on the nuclear
front. 

"Our nation has always moved in a lawful, peaceful direction and
it seeks to exercise its definitive inalienable rights,"
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday, referring to Iran's
oft-repeated insistence that it will not halt uranium
enrichment. 

Tehran, OPEC" /> OPEC's second largest oil exporter, rejects US
allegations it wants nuclear weapons and insisting its atomic
drive is solely aimed at producing energy. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 8 AFP: Iran has begun assembling centrifuges at Natanz site - diplomats

 by Michael Adler Thu Feb 1, 11:10 PM ET 		 	 

VIENNA (AFP) - Iran" /> has begun installing centrifuges at the 
Natanz site where it plans 3,000 of the machines to enrich 
uranium in defiance of UN demands to halt this sensitive nuclear 
activity, diplomats have said. 

 And at the same time it is stopping UN inspectors from
installing surveillance cameras in the huge underground hall
where the production lines, or cascades, of centrifuges are
being set up, the diplomats said. 

Both moves would mark an escalation in the international
showdown with Iran over a nuclear programme which the United
States and others suspect is hiding secret development of an
atom bomb, and on which the UN Security Council has levied
sanctions to force Tehran to halt enrichment. 

A diplomat in Vienna, where the UN watchdog International Atomic
Energy Agency" /> (IAEA) is based, told AFP "construction has
started (at the underground Natanz facility) but the cascades
have not yet been assembled." 

Another diplomat said bringing in centrifuge parts had started
last week. 

But Iran has not yet assembled a complete cascade, the basic
unit for beginning actual enrichment, said the diplomats, who
asked not to be named due to the confidentiality of the
information. 

Uranium enrichment uses centrifuges to make fuel for civilian
nuclear reactors but can also produce the explosive material for
atom bombs. 

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming refused to comment. 

In Washington, the US administration said the report -- if
confirmed -- offered more proof of Tehran's defiant stance
toward the international community. 

"If true, this would demonstrate that the Iranian government
continues to disregard the will of the international community
and the United Nations" /> ," said US National Security Council
spokesman Gordon Johndroe. 

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to file a report by February 21
to the Security Council on Iranian compliance with the UN's call
for it to freeze all enrichment work. 

Iran had last weekend given conflicting signals on its disputed
nuclear work. 

The Islamic republic's atomic energy agency denied the Iranians
had started to install the 3,000 centrifuges, shortly after the
head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security
commission said they had. 

Iran is building cascades in units of 164 centrifuges each. 

Iran already has two such cascades running above-ground at a
pilot enrichment plant at Natanz which would only produce small
amounts of enriched uranium. 

But the underground plant, protected in a bunker from possible
air attack, could if running full tilt produce enough highly
enriched uranium for one bomb in nine to 11 months, the London
think tank the International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS) has said. 

Diplomats said Iran was stopping UN inspectors, who are
currently at Natanz, from installing surveillance cameras at the
underground site. 

The Iranians are "not allowing the IAEA to install the cameras
inside the (underground) cascade halls (for centrifuges) in
Natanz and are causing further delays in the inspectors'
activity," a diplomat who closely monitors IAEA verification
work told AFP. 

The IAEA monitors the above-ground pilot site with cameras and
visits by inspectors and is entitled under the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty to the same sort of presence at the
underground facility, as the agency is mandated to monitor the
use of nuclear material. 

But the Iranians "have not yet introduced nuclear material
(feedstock uranium gas) into the centrifuges at the underground
site, so there is still time," a second diplomat said. 

Another diplomat said: "The game is not over." 

The first diplomat said: "The Iranians are now willing to accept
the installation of cameras only outside the cascade halls,
which will not enable the IAEA to monitor the entire uranium
enrichment process." 

But another diplomat said that "verification goals can be
achieved from inside or outside cascade halls." 

A fourth diplomat said: "Whenever something new is done,
normally it takes time," referring to problems the IAEA has had
in setting up verification equipment in other countries. 

The IAEA has been investigating Iran since February 2003 after
it was revealed that Tehran had hidden sensitive nuclear
activities for 18 years. 

But the atomic agency has been unable to conclude its inquest
due to what it says is a lack of full cooperation from Iran. 

The UN Security Council passed a resolution in December imposing
sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. 

Iranian leaders have said Iran would make a major announcement
on its nuclear programme during the 10 days of celebrations to
mark the 28th anniversary of the Islamic revolution starting
Thursday. 

Iran could be only two or three years away from being able to
produce a nuclear weapon, IISS director John Chipman said
Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, although US President George W. Bush" /> has said the
United States has no plans to invade Iran, Washington is
isolating the Iranian regime over nuclear suspicions and
allegations of complicity in attacks on US troops in Iraq" /> .
	 		 			
Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 9 AFP: Gates: US Gulf buildup is warning to possible foes 

 by Olivier Knox Fri Feb 2, 4:32 PM ET 		 	 

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said a US 
military buildup in the Gulf was a message to friends and 
"potential adversaries" in the region but firmly rejected talk of 
war plans aimed at Iran" /> Iran. 

 His comments came as the US intelligence community's bleak 
consensus report on Iraq" /> Iraqsaid that Tehran "intensifies" 
the conflict there but is not "a major driver of violence" 
despite Washington's recent emphasis on Iran as a key bad actor 
fueling deadly sectarian strife. 

"We are not planning for a war with Iran," Gates said, amid
fears in the US Congress that the tough new rhetoric targeting
Tehran and the recent deployment of a second aircraft carrier
group in the Gulf foreshadowed a US strike. 

Gates acknowledged that this deployment, coupled with newly
aggressive efforts to crack down on alleged Iranian networks
funneling weapons used against US forces in Iraq, had fueled
speculation of a coming US-Iran war. 

"But really the purpose of that (deployment) is simply to
underscore to our friends, as well as to our potential
adversaries in the region, that the United States has considered
the Persian Gulf and that whole area and stability in that area
to be a vital American national interest," he said. 

"And that has been the case for decades, under many, many
presidents. And we simply want to reinforce to our friends in
particular that they can count on us having a presence and being
strong in their area in protecting our interests and in
protecting theirs," the defense chief told reporters. 

Gates drew a distinction between US efforts "in Iraq" to crack
down on any Iranian backing for groups behind attacks on US as
well as Iraqi troops or civilians, and the pressure on Iran to
freeze sensitive nuclear work. 

"We are doing the latter strictly through the diplomatic
process. It seems to be showing some progress, at least the
diplomatic process is working," the defense secretary said. 

Some experts and US lawmakers have been warning of a possible US
military strike at Iran's nuclear sites if diplomacy hits a
stalemate. Tehran denies seeking atomic weapons. 

Inside Iraq, US forces are "uprooting the networks" behind a
powerful new generation of improvised explosive devices such
roadside bombs, said Gates, who declared: "These darn things
account for about 70 percent of our casualties." 

Under pressure to make public evidence for US allegations of
Iranian networks feeding a steady diet of fighters and weapons
into deadly sectarian violence in Iraq, Gates said Washington
had asked commanders in Iraq to hold off temporarily to make
sure the proof is ironclad. 

US President George W. Bush" /> President George W. Bush's top
national security aides "want to make sure that the briefing
that is provided is absolutely accurate and is dominated by
facts -- serial numbers, technology and so on," said Gates. 

"We just want to make sure that the briefing that is provided is
completely reliable," he said. 

Asked whether there was evidence that the government in Tehran
was behind any Iranian mischief in Iraq, Gates replied: "I don't
know that we know the answer to that question." 

The National Intelligence Estimate, produced by all 16 US spy
agencies, found that "Iranian lethal support for select groups
of Iraqi Shia militants clearly intensifies the conflict in
Iraq." 

However, the involvement of Iran or Syria" /> Syriain Iraq "is
not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for
stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's
internal sectarian dynamics." 

Gates also said that it was not yet clear whether Iran played a
role in a January 20 attack in the Iraqi city of Karbala that
left five US soldiers dead. 

US news media have been citing anonymous US officials as saying
that Washington suspects Iranians masquerading as Americans, or
fighters trained by Iranians, were involved in the deadly
attack. 	 		 			

Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 10 UPI: Analysis: Odds of U.S.-Iran conflict?
     
United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - 

        2/2/2007 10:03:00 AM -0500

 By CLAUDE SALHANI UPI International Editor

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- Is a spring offensive by the United 
States against Iran to shatter the Islamic republic's nuclear 
ambitions in the offing? Or will diplomacy and common sense 
prevail? 

There are two schools of thought when it comes to dealing with 
Iran; those who favor the diplomatic tract, saying the United 
States should open a dialogue with Tehran and those who believe 
dialogue is useless, that it is simply buying time for Iran. 

Estimates as to when Iran would be capable of developing a 
nuclear weapon vary from two to five years. Israel's Mossad spy 
agency believes Iran could have its first atomic bomb within 
three or four years if its nuclear weapons program continues at 
its current pace. 

Would Israel intervene? 

Addressing a group of about 300 Arab students in Qatar, Israeli
Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres ruled out an Israeli attack
on Iran. Speaking at a Doha Debates Special event Jan. 30, Peres
said Israel had no intention of intervening in Iran's internal
affairs. 

"We don't have any problems with Iran. The problem is
Ahmadinejad. It's a problem for the Iranian people because he
does not carry either a promise or a solution." Peres added:
"Israel does not intend to use military action." 

But Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has on a number of occasions said
Israel will "not tolerate" an Iran with nuclear weapons
capability. 

Events of the last few months seem to indicate those favoring
strong-arm action to stop Iran from proceeding with its nuclear
development program -- among them President Bush -- may win the
argument. But if it ever came down to a military confrontation,
an argument is about the only thing any side will win. Opening a
second front in the Middle East at this juncture would be most
unwise, to put it mildly. 

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political
affairs, speaking on National Public Radio Thursday said he does
not believe that a military conflict with Iran is inevitable. 

"I think that if we're patient and we're skillful, we can have a
diplomatic solution to these problems. We are trying for that
diplomatic solution," said Burns. 

But meanwhile, the United States is dispatching a second carrier
task force to the Gulf -- the USS John C. Stennis -- to back up
the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. It will be the first time since
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 that the United States has
two carrier battle groups in the Gulf region. Burns, however,
played down Washington's gunboat diplomacy. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the deployment is aimed
to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made
America vulnerable. 

"It's not reasonable to suggest that because the United States
has put carrier battle groups into the Gulf, we are being
provocative," said Burns. "You know, we've defended Gulf
security for six decades. Our carriers have been there
throughout that time. So it's not us who are being provocative
or raising the stakes here. We're simply trying to protect our
interests in Iraq, the security of the Gulf Arab states and of
the wider Middle East. 

"We're trying to convince the Iranians that it's in their best
interest to sit down and talk with the United States. That is
the basis of American policy," said Burns. 

But talks between Washington and Tehran are unlikely to take
place any time soon as both sides continue to hold firm on their
positions. 

An Iranian lawmaker, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, said Iran was
currently installing the 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear
facility, although other officials later denied this report. 

Two other developments worthy of note: in Washington President
George W. Bush authorized American forces in Iraq to pursue
Iranian operatives involved in aiding Iraqi insurgents involved
in hostile actions against American forces in Iraq. And earlier
this week the Bush administration said it would prevent Iran
from acquiring spare parts for its ageing U.S.-made F-14 fighter
planes, the backbone of the Iranian air force. The F-14, made
famous in the film "Top Gun," was retired from the U.S. Navy
fleet on Sept. 22, 2006, and replaced by the F/A-18E/F Super
Hornet. 

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking on Iranian state
television earlier this week said, "the United States is
incapable of inflicting serious damage on Iran. 

"They (U.S.) are not really in a position to carry out this
action (of attacking Iran). I believe there are many wise people
in the United States who would not let it happen." 

Ahmadinejad is also facing serious pressure at home from both
ends of the country's political spectrum who accuse him of
accenting the crisis with the United States by pursuing his
nuclear desires. 

One should hope that there might well be wise people in Iran --
and Washington -- who would not let the situation reach the
point of no return. 

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 11 AFP: NKorea depending more on China trade since nuclear test -

February 2, 03:12 PM 

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea has become increasingly dependent on
trade with China after other nations restricted dealings
following its nuclear test, according to a South Korean
government official. 

The official confirmed a report by Yonhap news agency that
two-way trade between China and the North had risen 21.6 percent
year-on-year over the past few months. 

In the three months since the October test, "North Korea's
dependence on China in terms of trade increased sharply," the
agency quoted an unidentified official as saying. 

Another source said that from October to November 2006, the
trade volume between North Korea and Japan declined 75 percent
year-on-year to 7.9 million dollars. 

Japan reacted more strongly than any other nation to the North's
missile launches in July and subsequent nuclear test. In
addition to weapons-related sanctions ordered by the United
Nations, it banned North Korean goods and citizens from entering
the country and barred its ships from Japanese ports. 

Trade between North Korea and China rose 7.5 percent
year-on-year for the whole of 2006 to 1.69 billion dollars,
while trade between North Korea and Japan decreased 34 percent
to 119 million dollars in the first 11 months of last year, the
source said. 

China is the main economic lifeline for impoverished North
Korea, accounting for 40 percent of its trade as of early last
year. It supported the UN sanctions against its neighbour but
has not imposed any bilateral restrictions. 

The source also highlighted the impact which separate US
financial curbs are having on the North. 

"North Korea can make financial dealings only via Russia and a
few other countries because it has a lot of trouble in doing
financial transactions and wooing investments since the United
States imposed financial sanctions on the North in September
2005," he said. 

The US blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia that month,
effectively freezing North Korean accounts totalling 24 million
dollars there. It said it suspected the funds were the proceeds
of money-laundering and counterfeiting. 

The freeze has become linked to multinational efforts to
negotiate an end to the North's nuclear programme. Talks on the
banking curbs in Beijing this week failed to resolve the
dispute. 

   Copyright © 2007 AFP. All rights reserved. All information
*****************************************************************
 12 Hankyoreh: U.S. envoy says next six-party talks can make progress 

The top U.S. nuclear envoy said Thursday the next round of talks 
with North Korea hold the potential for progress but added the 
same hopes in the previous session were not met.
 
"We have reason to believe we can make progress next week," 
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill told reporters.
 
"But I am very mindful of the fact that I expected progress in
December, and it didn't happen," he said a day before he heads
out to Asia for the six-party talks.
 
He reaffirmed North Korea's complete denuclearization is the aim
of the talks, but said it will not be achieved in the first
tranche.
 

South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan meet
from Feb. 8 in Beijing for another six-party session. The
negotiators hope to pick up from the September 2005 agreement in
which Pyongyang committed to give up its nuclear weapons and
programs in return for political and economic incentives
provided by others.
 
The agreement appeared to advance the Korean denuclearization
process, but the talks hit a wall when the North left the table
in boycott of the U.S. Treasury's punitive actions against
Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a bank accused of laundering
money for the Pyongyang regime.
 
Hill leaves Friday for Seoul and will also stop in Tokyo before
arriving Wednesday in Beijing. He said he will hold a series of
bilateral meetings with his counterparts, including Kim Kye-gwan
of North Korea, before the start of the six-party forum.
 
His South Korean counterpart, Chun Young-woo, visiting Moscow,
said Thursday there was a "high probability" that the parties
would be able to set a roadmap to implementing the 2005
agreement.
 
"The December session was the turning point that put the talks
back on the negotiation track" he told reporters.
 
"There is somewhat of a possibility that at the next meeting, we
will be able to go into specific steps for implementation."
 
Hill also struck a positive tone, although with a note that
there were no guarantees of success.
 
"We will not achieve full denuclearization in February, but we
hope to make a substantial start on this," he said.
 
"So while we don't have guarantees, I think we do have a reason
to believe we can make some progress in this tranche and then
move from there."
 
The envoy said the unified goal of the talks is for full
denuclearization.
 
"Our aim is complete, not partial, not allowing them (North
Korea) some weapons," he said. "We are not in this for a first
tranche."
 
He said there was "very strong logic" for the North Koreans to
give up their nuclear ambitions and start moving with their
economy and relations with the rest of the world.
 
"Do I think that every DPRK leader understands that? Probably
not," he said.
 
DPRK, of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is North
Korea's official name.
 
The December six-party talks fell short of expectations when
Pyongyang insisted the U.S. lift the measures on the BDA first.
 
The two sides formed a separate working group to deal
specifically with the issue.
 
Hill refused to go into financial issues but said the officials
in that group "have a good sense of... what the issues are."
 
The envoy leaves for Seoul on Friday and meets officials there
for consultations on six-party talks and bilateral issues. He
goes to Tokyo on Monday.
 
Washington, Feb. 1 (Yonhap News)
 
Posted on : Feb.2,2007 16:51 KST                                
 		     	 	
© 2006 The Hankyoreh Media Company. All rights reserved.

    


*****************************************************************
 13 [NukeNet] Kan. House advances bill to encourage nuclear
 
Date: Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:07:22 -0800


<x-flowed>
NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/state/16601897.htm

Thu, Feb. 01, 2007
House advances bill to encourage nuclear expansion
JOHN HANNA
Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. - With legislators worried about meeting Kansans' future
demands for electricity, a majority of House members want to
encourage an expansion of the state's only nuclear power plant.

The House gave first-round approval Thursday to a bill that would
exempt nuclear-powered generators from property taxes for 10 years if
they're built within three miles of the Wolf Creek plant outside
Burlington. A final vote was expected Friday.

The 86-31 vote to advance the bill suggested the measure has enough
support to pass and go to the Senate.

Environmentalists are frustrated because they believe legislators
aren't concentrating enough on conservation measures and promoting
the development of wind-turbine farms and other renewable energy
sources. But many lawmakers argue they're trying to be comprehensive
in addressing Kansans' growing need for power and other issues such
as the nation's heavy reliance on foreign oil.

"It's time to get off the foreign oil," said Rep. Bill Otto, R-LeRoy,
whose district includes Wolf Creek. "It's time to make the United
States an independent, sovereign nation again and not dependent on
foreigners."

Legislators are debating a wide range of energy policies this year,
including proposals to encourage conservation. On Thursday, the House
also gave first-round approval to a bill providing $2.5 million worth
of incentives each year to landlords who make the homes and
apartments they rent more energy efficient.

But if conservation is part of the mix, the bigger emphasis is on
increasing utilities' generating capacity.

Nationally, utilities are proposing more than 150 coal-fired plants.
Meanwhile, 14 utilities are proposing new nuclear plants in 13
states, including Florida, Illinois, Texas and Virginia, according to
the Nuclear Energy Institute.

Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the institute, said if utilities are to
keep up with demand, they'll have to build large generating plants to
run around the clock. While developing wind energy is important, he
said, it's not enough, and the price and supply of natural gas are
too volatile to make it a good fuel for generators.

"There is definitely, I think, an undeniable need," he said. "There
are two choices, coal or nuclear."

Hays-based Sunflower Electric Power Corp. has proposed building three
700-megawatt, coal-fired generating plants in Finney County and is
seeking an air quality permit from the state. A bill to impose a two-
year moratorium on coal-fired plants is before the House Energy and
Utilities Committee.

The Sunflower proposal has faced criticism amid an ongoing
international debate about the dangers of global warming. Critics
contend the generators would increase air pollution and produce
greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

That means expanding nuclear power "needs to be a part of the
discussion," said Rep. Annie Kuether, D-Topeka.

Rep. Don Myers, R-Derby, agreed, blaming environmentalists for
increased air pollution in recent decades. He said their opposition
to nuclear power forced utilities to rely on coal-fired plants.

"If you really want to stop pollution, build nuclear power plants,"
Myers said during Thursday's debate. "They have no pollution."

Tom Thompson, a lobbyist for the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club,
naturally rejected Myers' assessment that environmentalists are to
blame.

"The priorities should be with efficiency and conservation and with
renewables," he said. "There are alternatives, and we've been pushing
alternatives for a long, long time."

Some House members questioned whether nuclear power is pollution-
free, given the radioactive waste it creates.

House Minority Leader Dennis McKinney said the technology for burning
coal more cleanly has advanced much farther than the technology for
safe storage of nuclear waste - an assertion Singer disputed.

"For someone to say nuclear power plants have no pollution,
obviously, their community's not been volunteering for a radioactive
waste site," said McKinney, D-Greensburg. Another concern is the cost
of building new nuclear plants. During a utilities committee hearing,
an industry spokesman said none is being contemplated because of the
potential cost, though the bill might help.

Singer acknowledged that the first new plants built are likely to
cost about $3 billion to provide between 1,100 and 1,400 megawatts of
generating capacity. But after that, he said, they're likely to
become cheaper as utilities use standard designs and go through a
federal licensing process that was streamlined in the 1990s.

He said high interest rates plagued the construction of the last
plants in the 1970s and early 1980s. Also, he said, cost overruns
weren't unusual then because each plant was virtually "custom-made,"
engineered "as they went along."

"These won't be your father's nuclear plants," Singer said. "We're
going to build families of plants with similar designs, off-the-
shelves designs. That will prevent what happened in the past."

---_

Nuclear power measure is HB 2038. Conservation bill is HB 2036.

On the Net:

Kansas Legislature: http://www.kslegislature.org

Nuclear Energy Institute: http:http://www.nei.org

Sierra Club's Kansas chapter: http://www.sierraclub.org/ks/

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*****************************************************************
 14 Guardian Unlimited: Scientists offered cash to dispute climate study 

Ian Sample, science correspondent

Friday February 2, 2007 The Guardian             

[A polar bear] 

The Arctic habitat of polar bears is under threat as climate
change causes ice to melt. Photograph: Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage/AP 

 Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a 
lobby group funded by one of the world's largest oil companies to 
undermine a major climate change report due to be published 
today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an 
ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush 
administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise 
the shortcomings of a report from the UN's Intergovernmental 
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Travel expenses and additional payments were also offered.

The UN report was written by international experts and is widely 
regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change 
science. It will underpin international negotiations on new 
emissions targets to succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase 
of which expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft 
last year and invited to comment.

The AEI has received more than $1.6m from ExxonMobil and more
than 20 of its staff have worked as consultants to the Bush
administration. Lee Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the
vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US and
elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to reasonable
criticism and dissent and prone to summary conclusions that are
poorly supported by the analytical work" and ask for essays that
"thoughtfully explore the limitations of climate model outputs".

Climate scientists described the move yesterday as an attempt to
cast doubt over the "overwhelming scientific evidence" on global
warming. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants
to distort science for their own political aims," said David
Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East
Anglia.

"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough and open review
undertaken in any discipline. This undermines the confidence of
the public in the scientific community and the ability of
governments to take on sound scientific advice," he said.

The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting scholar at
AEI, who confirmed that the organisation had approached
scientists, economists and policy analysts to write articles for
an independent review that would highlight the strengths and
weaknesses of the IPCC report.

"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he said. "One group
says that anyone with any doubts whatsoever are deniers and the
other group is saying that anyone who wants to take action is
alarmist. We don't think that approach has a lot of utility for
intelligent policy."

One American scientist turned down the offer, citing fears that
the report could easily be misused for political gain. "You
wouldn't know if some of the other authors might say nothing's
going to happen, that we should ignore it, or that it's not our
fault," said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A university.

The contents of the IPCC report have been an open secret since
the Bush administration posted its draft copy on the internet in
April. It says there is a 90% chance that human activity is
warming the planet, and that global average temperatures will
rise by another 1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.

Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal Society,
Britain's most prestigious scientific institute, said: "The IPCC
is the world's leading authority on climate change and its
latest report will provide a comprehensive picture of the latest
scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected to stress,
more convincingly than ever before, that our planet is already
warming due to human actions, and that 'business as usual' would
lead to unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for
concerted international action to reduce the worst impacts of
climate change. However, yet again, there will be a vocal
minority with their own agendas who will try to suggest
otherwise."

Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more than just a
thinktank, it functions as the Bush administration's
intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are White House surrogates in the
last throes of their campaign of climate change denial. They
lost on the science; they lost on the moral case for action. All
they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."

On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based in Canada
will launch a review in London which casts doubt on the IPCC
report. Among its authors are Tad Murty, a former scientist who
believes human activity makes no contribution to global warming.
Confirmed VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy,
who believes there is no link between burning fossil fuels and
global warming.
 
[UP] 

    Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007
*****************************************************************
 15 UCS: Political Interference in Federal Climate Science 

Atmosphere of Pressure

Climate scientist survey UCS Investigation of Climate Science 
Interference UCS press releaseExecutive summary (pdf) Atmosphere 
of Pressure: full report (pdf) Report FAQ (pdf) UCS oral 
testimony to the House Government Reform CommitteeUCS written 
testimony to the House Government Reform CommitteeSurvey of 
Federal Climate Scientists Climate Survey Summary Brochure (pdf) 
Federal scientists: survey and results (pdf) NCAR scientists: 
survey and results (pdf) Survey methodology and demographics 
(pdf) Excerpts of essay responses All essay responses (pdf) 
Evidence of Political Interference A to Z Guide to Political 
Interference in ScienceJames Hansen censoredClimate change 
science distoredHurricane science suppressedOther UCS Surveys 
Food and Drug AdministrationNOAA FisheriesU.S. Fish & Wildlife 
Service

Federal climate science research is at the forefront of
assessing fundamental causes of global warming and the future
dangers it could pose to our nation and the world. It is crucial
that the best available science on climate change be
disseminated to the public, through government websites,
reports, and press releases. In recent years, however, this
science has been increasingly tailored to reflect political
goals rather than scientific fact. 

Out of concern that inappropriate political interference and
media favoritism are compromising federal climate science, the
Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Government
Accountability Project (GAP) undertook independent
investigations of federal climate science. UCS mailed a
questionnaire to more than 1,600 climate scientists at seven
federal agencies to gauge the extent to which politics was
playing a role in scientists' research. Surveys were also sent
to scientists at the independent (non-federal) National Center
for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to serve as a comparison with
the experience of federal scientists. About 19 percent of all
scientists responded (279 from federal agencies and 29 from
NCAR). 

At the same time, GAP conducted 40 in-depth interviews with
federal climate scientists and other officials and analyzed
thousands of pages of government documents, obtained through the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and inside sources, regarding
agency media policies and congressional communications. 

These two complementary investigations arrived at similar
conclusions regarding the state of federal climate research:
while scientists hold a high regard for the quality of federal
climate change research, there is broad interference in
communicating scientific results.  

UCS Senior Scientist Francesca Grifo testified about the report
in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Find her written testimony in the "related links" box on this
page. 

Congress and agency leaders must act to end political
interference in science. Federal agencies should adopt
communications policies that promote a free and open exchange of
information and include the following points: 
  + Scientific freedomsFederal scientists have a constitutional
right to speak about any subject so long as the scientists make
it clear that they do so in their private capacity. Scientists
must also have a "right of last review" on agency communications
related to their research. 
  + Scientific opennessScientists should not be subject to
restrictions on media contacts beyond a policy of informing
public affairs officials in advance of an interview and
summarizing the interaction for them afterward. 
  + Communication of scientific findingsFederal agencies should
support the free exchange of scientific information in all
venues. 
  + Whistleblower protectionScientists who speak out when they
see interference or suppression of science should be protected
from retribution. Agencies should affirmatively educate their
employees of their rights under these statutes. 

Furthermore, Congress should extend whistleblower protection to
scientists who report interference and should continue to hold
oversight hearings and investigations into allegations of
manipulation, suppression, and distortion of science. 

Political interference is not unique to climate science. Use the
links on this page to explore the climate survey, surveys of
scientists at other federal agencies, and scores of examples of
the abuse of science on issues ranging from childhood lead
poisoning to toxic mercury emissions to endangered species. 
  
© Union of Concerned Scientists 
Page Last Revised: 02/01/07   
*****************************************************************
 16 UPI: Outside View: America's long wars
     
United Press International - Security &Terrorism - 

        2/1/2007 8:32:00 PM -0500

 By ANDREW R. HOEHN AND DAVID A. SHLAPAK UPI Outside View 
Commentators

WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- It is clear that U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert Gates, along with his leadership team in the
Pentagon, will devote the preponderance of their time contending
with the "long war" against radical Islam. At five years and
counting, the "long war" is living up to its name, having now
lasted longer than the U.S. Civil War, as well as America's
involvement World War I and World War II combined. 

But the "long war" is not so much a traditional conflict with
discrete battles composing continuous, identifiable "campaigns.
It is a long-term strategic challenge that will demand all
elements of U.S. statecraft. From this perspective, Gates'
tenure will be judged by history not just by how the Defense
Department's leadership copes with radical Islam, but by its
performance in five "long wars" that will dominate America's
future security landscape. 

The fight against violent jihadists will continue, although we
must be careful not to see Iraq as the prototype of how it
should or will be waged. The future battlefield extends far
beyond both Iraq and Afghanistan to the Muslim world at large,
including Islamic diaspora communities in Europe that are
growing and becoming increasingly radicalized. Unlike the war in
Iraq, the military role in this campaign will shift to more of a
support role. 

In Asia, the United States faces a China that is growing in both
power and self-confidence. While the status of Taiwan remains a
trigger point between Washington and Beijing, security
competition between the two powers is real and growing. Managing
the frictions that will arise will require strategic acumen and
agility, sustained over a generation or longer. 

The ongoing crises with Iran and North Korea highlight the third
"long war" confronting America's strategists: dealing with
militarily weak regional powers that covet nuclear weapons as
the ultimate deterrent to regime failure or overthrow. The U.S.
military has paid too little attention to this thorny problem.
These are adversaries that, if and when they possess nuclear
weapons, may be prone to use them if they see a confrontation
with the United States as a threat to their survival. The
challenge: how to project power in defense of U.S. and American
allies' interests without sparking a nuclear war. 

The fourth profound challenge is that posed by the wayward
direction of President Vladimir Putin's Russia. Moscow's
weakness over the past decade allowed the West to ignore the
failure of hoped-for liberalization in Russia. Today, we see a
country with an economy buttressed by high oil prices while its
political system becomes increasingly centralized, corrupt and
authoritarian. In addition, Russian society is suffering from
population losses the likes of which the industrial world has
never seen. 

Although it would certainly be premature to predict that a new
"cold war" is imminent, Russia today is once again staking its
claim to a prominent position on the global stage, but with a
script out of sync with America's interests. 

Finally, the United States must confront these challenges at a
time when its network of alliances and partnerships is changing
and, in many instances, fraying. Although the war in Iraq has
had an effect, changes in the world at large -- many underway
well before Sept. 11, 2001 -- are driving even long-time friends
to reassess the shifting mix of risks and rewards in their
dealings with the United States. 

The rise of China, India and Japan as newly assertive great
powers is remaking the geo-strategic landscape in complex and
unpredictable ways and, in turn, is refashioning U.S.
relationships throughout Asia. NATO is playing a high-stakes
game in Afghanistan, one in which the international security
organization's very future may depend on the performance of the
few thousand troops it has deployed there. And, of course,
America's role in the greater Middle East is being reshaped by
the force of events in Iraq and -- to a lesser but crucial
extent -- in Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. 

These five fundamental strategic challenges would represent a
full plate for the Department of Defense even without the
traumatic effects of the war in Iraq. It may be that the first
decades of the 21st century will prove to be among the most
trying in America's history. 

Gates cannot be expected to "win" any of these wars, but he can
and should ensure that the Department of Defense begins to
address each of them. Meeting these challenges will be
difficult, painful and costly. But failing to do so will only
result in worse problems in the future. 

(Andrew R. Hoehn is the vice president and director of Rand
Project Air Force and David A. Shlapak is the acting director
for strategy and doctrine for Rand Project Air Force at the Rand
Corp., a nonprofit research organization.) 


© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 17 Santa Maria Times: Diablo Canyon Report: Grand Jury: SLO County well-prepared

Diablo Canyon Report: Grand Jury: SLO County well-prepared
 					 
By Samantha Yale/Staff Writer
 
San Luis Obispo County is generally well prepared for an 
emergency at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, the countys 
civil Grand Jury said in a report released Wednesday. 

The theme of the grand jurys report was Diablo Canyon: San Luis 
Obispos Katrina? The answer the jury settled on was no.
					 
The jury found that whereas there was an obvious breakdown of
the emergency response system in New Orleans after Hurricane
Katrina, San Luis Obispo County has a history of being ready to
deal with disaster. This was evident, the jury said, in the
countys efficient response to the 2003 San Simeon earthquake
and commendations the county has received for disaster
preparedness.

San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services is widely
recognized as one of the best in the State of California as well
as the western region, the grand jury wrote.

Despite their praise, the jury made four suggestions for
improvement based on their investigations.

They recommended the Office of Emergency Services explore the
addition of Cave Landing Road to Bluff Drive as an alternative
emergency exit from Avila Beach. The current emergency exit from
Avila Beach, aside from the main route, is Blue Heron Road from
the San Luis Bay Inn and exiting out San Luis Bay Drive through
the Avila Bay Estates.

The jury also suggested information about self sufficiency in
the event of an emergency be mailed to county residents; that
emergency services meet with independent special-needs residents
and their caretakers to discuss emergency response and
self-sufficiency; and that information on potassium iodide, used
as a thyroid-blocking agent in radiation emergencies, be
distributed to county obstetricians and pediatricians.

As part of the recommendation related to potassium iodide, the
jury suggested emergency services review all information in the
AT telephone directory headed Nuclear Emergency Information.
especially the section on potassium iodide.

The Office of Emergency Services has 60 days from the day the
jurys report was released on Wednesday to issue a response,
said Joanna Hamburg, the grand jurys forewoman. The county
Board of Supervisors has 90 days to issue its response, she
added.

Ron Alsop, with the county Office of Emergency Services, said
jurors took the time to go in-depth while investigating the
countys emergency response preparedness.

Were pleased. For the most part, its very positive, he said.

Samantha Yale can be reached at 739-2159 or syale@santamaria
times.com.   

Contact The Santa Maria Times
Main Phone: 805-925-2691 Toll Free: 1-800-404-0009 Copyright © 
2007 Lee Central Coast Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.

*****************************************************************
 18 Battle Creek Enquirer: Michigan energy plan sparks controversy

       - www.battlecreekenquirer.com - Battle Creek, Mich.
 
Thursday, February 1, 2007          

 The Associated Press 

LANSING — Michigan needs more power, and more of it should be 
created by wind and other renewable resources.

That message from the state’s top energy regulator Wednesday got 
positive reactions. Getting the electricity, though, sparked 
conflict over who should pay for it and where it should come 
from.

In outlining the 21st Century Energy Plan requested by Gov.
Jennifer Granholm, Michigan Public Service Commission Chairman
J. Peter Lark said the state needs a new power plant — likely
fueled by coal — within eight years.

He also proposed requiring that 10 percent of Michigan’s
electricity come from renewable resources by 2015, nearly triple
the current amount, and charging customers 50 cents a month for
an independent program dedicated to improving energy efficiency.
Energy-efficient light bulbs cost a few extra dollars but save
customers at least $30 in electricity over the bulb’s lifetime.

Lark said doing nothing would cost ratepayers $4 billion by 2020
because more of their electricity would come from providers
outside Michigan. That electricity would be more expensive and
its availability less predictable, he said.

“Inactivity is the most expensive route Michiganians could take
to satisfy the energy that we believe we’re going to need,” Lark
told reporters.

The report drew criticism from environmental groups that said a
new coal-fired plant would worsen pollution and argued the 10
percent renewable standard is too low.

Mike Shriberg, director of Environment Michigan, said no coal or
nuclear plants should be built until renewable sources and
energy efficiency have been maximized. He acknowledged a new
plant may be feasible if old plants are shuttered, but said
there’s no need for one now.

“It’s expensive and it puts the risk on the backs of
ratepayers,” Shriberg said of a new coal plant.

Electricity demand in Michigan is expected to grow 1.2 percent a
year over the next 20 years, Lark said. The average age of the
state’s power plants is 48 years, and a big new plant hasn’t
been built in 18 years.

The energy plan would need approval from the Legislature.
Twenty-four states have enacted bills setting renewable
portfolio standards.

Opposition to the plan also came from alternate power providers
that compete with the state’s two big regulated utilities,
Detroit Edison and Consumers Energy.

They criticized a proposal giving the PSC discretion to let
utilities recover finance costs by assessing ratepayers a
surcharge during, not after, construction of a plant. Customers
of Edison or Consumers also would continue paying for a new
plant if they switched to an alternative provider.

“The government is handing (the utilities) back a big monopoly.
No one else can do business under those circumstances,” said
attorney Eric Schneidewind, a former PSC chairman who represents
alternate providers like Nordic Electric, Quest Energy and
Premier Energy. “This will produce much higher electric rates
than necessary.”

Lark said it’s fair that customers who stop getting power from
the plant’s builder still pay for its construction, arguing that
new electricity in the system will lower market prices for
everybody and improve reliability.

Less than 4 percent of Michigan’s power now comes from renewable
sources. The plan would require that share to reach 10 percent
by 2015, though regulators could delay the standard if costs
become too high. Environmentalists said 13 percent should come
from renewables by 2015, and 20 percent by 2020. Lark said 10
percent is a more realistic goal.

Utilities, which were reviewing the plan, agreed more
electricity will be needed soon. Consumers Energy spokesman Dan
Bishop said letting them recoup financing costs of new plants
earlier would reassure lenders.

Lark also recommended that Michigan consider energy efficiency
standards for products not subject to federal regulation, such
as DVD players and walk-in freezers.

David Eggert can be reached at deggert@ap.org. 

Originally published February 1, 2007 Print this article    

 Copyright ©2007 Battle Creek Enquirer.
*****************************************************************
 19 Knox News: TVA tritium first in 18 years

Watts Bar Nuclear Plant has contract to produce nuclear weapon 
component

By ANDREW EDER, edera@knews.com 

February 1, 2007                                                                

Using material from a TVA nuclear plant, a federal facility in 
South Carolina today will introduce to the nation's nuclear 
weapons supply chain the first tritium gas produced in the United 
States in nearly 20 years. 

Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is an essential 
component of nuclear weapons, giving them their deadly blast 
capability. With a relatively short half-life of 12.3 years, 
tritium in the nation's nuclear stockpile must be replenished 
regularly. 

TVA has a contract with the Department of Energy to produce 
irradiated rods at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City. Those 
rods are trucked to the Savannah River Site, a nuclear materials 
processing center in Aiken, S.C., where tritium gas is extracted 
from the rods at a recently completed facility. 

"At some point, we were going to run out of gas to maintain the 
stockpile," said Jim Giusti, a DOE spokesman at Savannah River. 
"That's why Watts Bar is so important." 

At Savannah River today, tritium gas extracted at the $506 
million Tritium Extraction Facility will be transferred to a 
facility where it will be loaded in reservoirs, packaged and 
shipped to Department of Defense weapons sites. The destinations 
are classified. 

Since 1988, when the last heavy water reactor at Savannah River 
shut down, the nation's weapons stockpile has relied on recycled 
tritium gas from dismantled nuclear weapons. 

"It's the first time in 18 years that we've been able to have a 
new source of tritium," Giusti said. 

TVA is the sole source of tritium for DOE under a plan drafted in 
1999. The federal utility's role in producing tritium has sparked 
controversy for bucking the tradition of keeping the nation's 
military and commercial nuclear programs separate. 

David Lochbaum, director of the nuclear safety project at the 
Union of Concerned Scientists, said that when he graduated from 
the nuclear engineering program at the University of Tennessee, 
he and his classmates chose to work in nuclear power because the 
weapons side was viewed as "kind of the dark side." 

"When this whole tritium thing came up, we felt the ethical 
choice was kind of squashed," Lochbaum said "That's been the 
biggest gripe my colleagues and I have had. What we thought was 
an ethical choice years ago has been done away with." 

Regardless of the ethical implications, Lochbaum said TVA has 
dealt effectively with "some bumps in the road" to produce the 
tritium that DOE needs. 

Watts Bar's reactor normally uses rods containing boron carbide 
to absorb excess neutrons produced in the fission process. 

To produce tritium, the boron carbide rods are replaced with 
Tritium-Producing Burnable Absorber Rods, which contain lithium 
aluminate ceramic. The lithium is converted to tritium during a 
production cycle of about 18 months. 

TVA loaded its first cycle of 240 rods at Watts Bar during an 
October 2003 during a refueling and maintenance outage. Those 
rods were delivered in 2005 to Savannah River, where they had sat 
in storage until operations began at the extraction facility in 
November. 

The second batch of irradiated rods were removed from the reactor 
last fall and remain onsite at Watts Bar, waiting to be 
consolidated into one cask and shipped to Savannah River, said 
TVA spokesman John Moulton. 

The third production cycle began when Watts Bar returned to 
service in November, Moulton said. He said TVA recovers its costs 
for the program from DOE but doesn't profit. 

DOE dictates the volume of tritium produced by TVA. Giusti said 
the opening of the extraction facility shouldn't affect TVA's 
tritium-production levels, although Sequoyah Nuclear Plant's two 
reactors are licensed to produce tritium. 

Giusti said if continuous production at Watts Bar fails to 
produce enough tritium for DOE's purposes, the agency will ask 
TVA to begin production at Sequoyah, in Soddy-Daisy, Tenn. 

During its first production cycle, TVA informed the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission, which oversees TVA's nuclear plants, that 
the process released more tritium than expected into Watts Bar's 
reactor water system, although the levels did not exceed limits 
allowed by the NRC. 

NRC spokesman Ken Clark said the tritium-production program has 
resulted in no tritium leaks to the groundwater around Watts Bar. 

Clark said some tritium produced during normal nuclear operations 
was detected in previous years in onsite groundwater monitoring 
wells, but TVA has been carrying out a corrective program to 
prevent future leaks and mitigate the contamination. 

The leaks pose no health hazard to workers at the plant or the 
general public, Clark said. 

Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318.

 2007 - Knoxville News Sentinel
*****************************************************************
 20 FPON: No, No To The Nukes

Free Press of Namibia

Friday, February 2, 2007 - Web posted at 10:15:40 GMT 

No, No To The Nukes 

NAMIBIA is one of the biggest exporters in the world of 'yellow
cake', the uranium oxide that forms the basis for fuel rods to
be used in nuclear power stations.   

Although the fuel represents only about four per cent of the
cost of nuclear power generation, a discussion about having
nuclear power stations in Namibia came up recently.

It is mainly based on the idea of adding value to the country's
natural resources and using them on national level rather than
exporting them as raw materials.

While this is in general a very intelligent and for many other
materials economically viable concept, in this particular case
it is a non-starter.

There are many reasons why nuclear power stations are not
feasible in Namibia: 1.

Technical reasons: a.

The minimum size nuclear power station that is available in the
market is 1000 MW (leaving out the pebble bed technology, which
has proven dysfunctional and uneconomical in Europe).

Namibia's peak demand is 500 MW.

b.

Like all thermal power stations, a nuclear-fuelled power station
must get rid of its electricity all the time.

That's why nuclear power stations in industrialised countries
have several back-up high voltage power lines connected to them,
so that in case one is failing the other can absorb the power.

If this is not done, nuclear power stations carry the risk of
becoming nuclear bombs, because it is not possible to cool them
down in a controlled way as quickly as needed in case the only
power line fails.

c.

Nuclear power stations need a lot of water for cooling, so it
would only be possible to build them at the coast.

Walvis Bay would be the only logical position in Namibia.

Since there are not sufficient power lines, they would have to
be constructed, which would increase the cost with no added
economical benefit.

2.

Human Resource Reasons a.

Nuclear power requires a solid basis in science and technology.

There must be universities, scientific institutes, high-tech
workshops, technical experts and a lot of money to develop, test
and examine all kinds of devices, procedures, security systems
and services.

Namibia is far from having such technical expertise and it would
take decades to build this technical capacity.

An over-reliance on foreign experts would be exorbitantly
expensive and create new dependencies which contradict the
original objective of energy independence and security.

3.

Political reasons a.

Recent examples on world political level have shown that an
attempt of a country to obtain independent access to nuclear
power creates major political turmoil, even if this country has
signed all international treaties that are relevant to confine
the use of the material and equipment for civil purposes only.

It can be assumed that those countries, which have the
technology already, might even be prepared to wage a military
intervention to prevent other countries from having independent
access to the technology that is needed to run nuclear power
stations on their own, because this technology would also enable
them to build a nuclear bomb.

But without independent access to this technology, the whole
idea of processing Namibian uranium to fuel rods for nukes does
not make sense anymore, because the control of proliferation and
of price would be outside Namibia.

b.

Before any of the present nuclear power countries would
undertake a military intervention, they would certainly withdraw
their development assistance, which is more in value than any
nuclear power station could possibly generate in electricity.

4.

Military reasons There is no exclusively civil usage of nuclear
power! a.

A piece of plutonium at the size of a matchbox is toxic enough
to exterminate the entire population of Namibia and many more
people outside its borders.

To prevent the misuse of such material, Namibia would have to
build and maintain at its own cost a protection system that
guarantees to the international community that no nuclear
material will be made available for unwanted purposes.

Such protection system would be so exorbitantly expensive that
the electricity generated would be unaffordable for anyone in
Southern Africa.

Furthermore, such control systems would have to be maintained
for thousands of years from now, because the toxicity of nuclear
waste lasts for tens of thousands of years.

And we know that the best system cannot guarantee 100 per cent
security, since diamonds are still stolen from the
best-protected places.

To lose a diamond is a material loss; to lose a piece of
plutonium is an incalculable death risk for millions.

A recent example for the deadly impact of radioactive material
on the human metabolism is the death of Alexander Litvinenko in
London.

Litvinenko was "only" exposed to pollonium 210, which is less
toxic than plutonium.

Even the messengers of the material and possibly visitors are
now dying slowly in hospitals.

Building a nuclear reactor implies the risk that millions of
people could die in such a way at any point in time that nobody
can foresee.

b.

While it can be trusted that the Namibian Government at present
does not intend to use nuclear material to produce a bomb, other
countries and/or international terrorists might want to do so.

They could do big efforts to get hold the material by all means
- now, next year or at ANY point in time.

And who knows the position of the Namibian Government in 100
years? To install a nuclear reactor in Namibia would therefore
mean to open the Pandora's Box of nuclear conflict and
contamination for all future generations on this territory.

There are many more reasons why nuclear power generation is not
feasible and unaffordable, but the above-mentioned ones shall
suffice for this contribution.

It is beyond doubt is that nuclear power generation is utterly
expensive and completely unnecessary to cover the energy needs
of Namibia now and in future because Namibia is blessed like no
other country with solar radiation for solar-thermal and
photovoltaic applications and other sources of renewable energy
such as wind, biomass, geo-thermal, ocean stream and others.

 No-No Via e-mail Note: Real name and address provided - Ed     

Material on this site copyright The Free Press Of Namibia (Pty)
Ltd
 PO Box 20783 - Windhoek - 42 John Meinert Street
 Tel: +264 (61) 279600 - Fax: +264 (61) 279602 

*****************************************************************
 21 SPIEGEL ONLINE: An End to Green Romanticism: Environmental Guru Lovelock Urges
 Expansion of Nuclear Energy - 

|  February 02, 2007   

Environmental Guru Lovelock Urges Expansion of Nuclear Energy
 
By Marco Evers 

James Lovelock is attracting attention again with his
provocative ideas. The former hero of the environmental movement
has called for an end to "green romanticism." The only way to
delay climate catastrophe, says the environmental guru, is
through the massive expansion of nuclear energy. 

A few days ago, the theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking gave a
speech in London in which he said that nuclear war no longer
poses the only threat to humanity's very existence. According to
Hawking, the dangers posed by climate change are now almost
equally as great, and we must do everything that is humanly
possible if we are to have any hope of averting them. 	

When James Lovelock heard about Hawkings' lecture, three hundred
and fifty kilometers away at his remote estate near Cornwall, he
exclaimed loudly: "Hawking is underestimating the danger." 

Lovelock is a chemist, inventor, author and visionary
environmental guru. Using a detector he invented himself, he was
the first to provide evidence of ozone-consuming
fluorochlorohydrocarbons (FCHC) in the atmosphere. More
importantly, Lovelock is the inventor of the famous "Gaia
hypothosis," which holds that the planet (which he named after
the Greek goddess of the Earth, Gaia), constantly controls all
of its systems on land, in the water and in the air in such a
way as to preserve life -- almost as if the earth itself were a
living organism. 

Lovelock's fellow scientists were initially appalled by the New
Age nature of his theory. But now his ideas have not only become
a cornerstone of the environmental movement, but have also
acquired a new name: "Earth System Science." 

Lovelock's current prognoses for the earth's inhabitants are as
gloomy as they are provocative. He is convinced that the 21st
century will not be a good one. He claims that climate change
caused by human activity will devastate large swaths of the
earth, and by the year 2100 there will only be about a billion
people left -- and possibly only half as many. 

FROM THE MAGAZINE
 [ align=] Find out how you can reprint this DER SPIEGEL article
in your publication. Lovelock is now 87 years old and happy that
he will be able to avoid this future -- although he has nine
grandchildren. Sometimes he feels like a Roman citizen living
around the year 480, watching as an empire meant for eternity
fades away, or like a doctor delivering a fatal diagnosis. And
at times he probably relishes how he distresses his audiences
(he is in demand worldwide as a speaker) in his role as a
prophet of doom. "Even a nuclear war," says Lovelock, "would not
lead to the level of devastation worldwide that global
overheating will cause." 

No world power, no scientist, no politician, no consumer
forsaking his or her familiar comforts, and neither emissions
trading nor wind energy nor biofuels will be capable of
preventing the earth's demise, he says. According to Lovelock,
it will at best be possible to delay the catastrophe for a while
-- primarily through the massive expansion of nuclear energy. 

Lovelock presents his bold theories in his shocking page-turner
"The Revenge of Gaia," which will be published in German in
February. The gist of Lovelock's message is that humanity must
begin an "orderly retreat" involving smart planning and
technology if it hopes to save its most precious asset:
civilization itself. 

Hardly any reputable climate researcher or politician is willing
to wholeheartedly embrace this combative octogenarian's
predictions. After all, the civilized world is beginning to
seriously address the need to protect itself against climate
change. Climate change was one of the dominant topics at last
week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel urged her counterparts to devise a new
climate treaty. The Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2012, but a
successor treaty is not yet in sight. 

In a letter delivered to US President George W. Bush last week,
the heads of global corporations like General Electric, Dupont
and Alcoa urged him to support radical measures to protect the
world's climate. After having long turned a deaf ear to the
problem, Bush has suddenly taken to calling climate change a
"serious challenge." 

REUTERS 

Waste gases burn and steam belches from a steel mill in Canada.

Lovelock, the apocalyptic prophet, is only moderately impressed 
by such efforts. The elderly gentleman sits in his study on his 
estate eating cookies and drinking hot chocolate. The stream 
outside used to freeze over almost every winter, he says, but 
this hasn't happened since 1991. England's first commercial olive 
grove was recently planted, and vineyards are also becoming 
established there. Scorpions will soon be indigenous to Kent, 
which has always enjoyed the kind of mild climate that has made 
its gardens famous. Botanists say that palm trees and eucalyptus 
will be part of England's future landscape. 

Lovelock believes that the world needs different political
leaders, politicians who are willing to accept the unavoidable
and stop pretending that they can do something to stop global
warming. 

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
*****************************************************************
 22 NRC: NRC PROPOSES TO AMEND LICENSING, INSPECTION AND ANNUAL FEES RULE 
 
  NRC NEWS U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public 
Affairs     Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001     
E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov   
  
  No. 07-019     February 2, 2007   

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is proposing to amend its
regulations for the licensing, inspection and annual fees it
charges applicants and licensees for fiscal year (FY) 2007. 

The agency is required by Congress to recover for the U.S.
Treasury most of its annual appropriated budget through two
types of fees. One is for specific NRC services, such as
licensing and inspection activities, that apply to a specific
license; this fee is calculated using an hourly rate reflecting
time spent by staff performing the service. The other is an
annual fee paid by licensees, which recovers generic regulatory
expenses and other costs not recovered through fees for specific
services. These fees are contained in NRC regulations 10 CFR
Part 170 (fees for licensing and inspection services) and 10 CFR
Part 171 (annual fees). These fees are paid to the U.S. Treasury
and go into the general fund. 

By law, the NRC must recover through fees 90 percent of its
budget for FY 2007 (Oct. 1, 2006 - Sept. 30, 2007), less the
amounts appropriated from the Nuclear Waste Fund for high-level
waste activities and from general funds for
waste-incidental-to-reprocessing and generic homeland security
activities. The total amount to be recovered in FY 2007 is
approximately $664 million, about $40 million more than in FY
2006. 

The FY 2007 proposed fee rule, published today in the Federal
Register, includes fees based upon the Energy and Water
Development Appropriations Act of 2007, which was approved by
the House of Representatives. A final appropriations bill has
not been enacted. If a different version of the NRC budget is
enacted, the fees in the NRCs final rule will differ from the
fees included in the proposed rule. The NRC is proceeding with
the proposed rule even without a final appropriation because the
fees must be collected by Sept. 30, 2007. 

The NRC is proposing to establish one hourly rate of $256 in
Part 170 for activities in both the Nuclear Reactor Safety
Program and the Nuclear Materials and Waste Safety Program. This
represents an increase from FY 2006 hourly rates of $217 for the
reactor program and $214 for the materials program. The increase
reflects a revised estimate of staff hours spent on specific
activities, such as licensing actions, inspections and
regulatory development.
 
The proposed FY 2007 annual fees include the following: 


       Class/category of licenses     FY 2007 Annual fee   
  Operating Power Reactors (including Spent Fuel 
Storage/Reactor Decommissioning annual fee)     $4,088,000   
  Spent Fuel Storage/Reactor Decommissioning     $150,000   
  Test and Research Reactors (Nonpower Reactors)     $92,300   
  High Enriched Uranium Fuel Facility     $4,451,000   
  Low Enriched Uranium Fuel Facility     $1,345,000   
  UF6 Conversion Facility     $881,000   
  Rare Earth Mills     $89,300   
  Typical Materials Users:   
      Radiographers     $14,100   
      Well Loggers     $4,300   
      Gauge Users (Category 3P)     $2,700   

Written comments on the proposed fee changes should be submitted 
by March 5. They should be addressed to the Secretary, U.S. 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, ATTN: 
Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff. Comments may also be 
submitted by e-mail to SECY@nrc.gov, faxed to (301) 415-1011, or 
submitted online via the NRCs rulemaking Web site at 
http://ruleforum.llnl.gov.   
  
NRC news releases are available through a free list server 
subscription at the following Web address: 
http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home 
Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the 
News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to 
subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site.   

Last revised Friday, February 02, 2007            
*****************************************************************
 23 Sydney Morning Herald: World wakes to climate calamity - 

www.smh.com.au

February 3, 2007
 	 	
THE world has been delivered its strongest warning yet that human 
actions are causing global warming and that greenhouse gas 
emissions must be reined in by 2020 if humanity wants a chance to 
avoid catastrophic climate change. 

A turbulent future of violent storms, devastating drought, higher 
temperatures and rising sea levels is inevitable, according to 
the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 
which released its 1200-page report in Paris last night. The work 
of 2500 scientists over six years, it is considered the most 
authoritative evaluation of climate change ever produced. 

It details six scenarios under which temperatures are predicted
to rise from at least 1.1 degrees and possibly as much as 6.4
degrees by 2100. 

The final text of the report says it is "very likely" that human
activities led by burning fossil fuels account for most of the
warming in the past 50 years. It puts this at a 90 per cent
certainty - a significant ramping up of the language of the last
report of the panel in 2001, which said the link was "likely".
Scientists at the final four-day workshop said this was the most
important paragraph of the report. 

"There can be no question that the increase in greenhouse gases
are dominated by human activities," said the senior US
Government scientist, Susan Solomon. She called the warming of
the Earth "unequivocal and said greenhouse gases entering the
atmosphere were not being cancelled by its normal processes. 

The report provides what may be cold comfort in slightly reduced
projections on rising sea levels - from 18 centimetres to 59cm
by 2100, instead of 9cm to 88cm, as forecast in 2001. But there
is a flat pronouncement that global warming is essentially a
runaway train that cannot be stopped for hundreds of years. 

Human-caused warming and rises in sea levels "would continue for
centuries" because the process has already started, "even if
greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilised", said the
21-page executive summary, which will be delivered to the
world's policy makers. 

"The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean,
together with ice-mass loss, support the conclusion that it is
extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50
years can be explained without external forcing, and very likely
that is not due to known natural causes alone," it said. 

The Australian of the Year, the scientist Tim Flannery, said the
highest temperature forecasts could spell disaster for many
species. "[It] lays out a sort of middle-of-the road trajectory,
which is alarming enough, I can tell you, for this century,"
Professor Flannery said. "Three degrees will be a disaster for
all life on Earth. We will lose somewhere between two out of
every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet at
that level of warming. It will set in train a series of climate
consequences that will run for a thousand years." 

The forecasted temperature rise is likely to mean Australia's
average temperature rises by 0.7 within the next 20 years and as
much as four degrees by the end of the century, the former head
of CSIRO's atmospheric research division, Graeme Pearman, said. 

Other than a subsequent drop in rainfall, Professor Pearman said
temperature and sea rises would have serious consequences for
coastal communities. 

"Australia has continued to develop more and more towards a
coastal community," he said. 

Building codes had not been developed that would cope with the
storms expected to lash the coast in coming years. The report
had depressed him, Professor Pearman said. 

"We've been hoping someone would find we were wrong. It simply
confirms the issue. It's the issue of whether human societies in
general have the capacity to respond to a major threat like
this. At the moment I'm not sure we are going to have that. I'm
not sure we're going to respond in time." 

The 2001 report led scientists to castigate the Australian
Government for not taking urgent action six years ago. 

Labor will now head into the federal election determined to
stake out the green vote with a climate policy that argues the
cost of doing nothing will destroy the economy and the
environment. 

The Minister for Environment and Water, Malcolm Turnbull, said
people needed to learn how to adapt to hotter temperatures. 

"We have to deal with our built environment in terms of how we
deal with heat and energy efficiency and, of course, we have to
use water more efficiently," Mr Turnbull said. He said meeting
the Kyoto target - which allows Australia's emissions to
continue to rise - was "virtuous" but would not change anything. 

"Of course we should seek to reduce them [emissions], because we
are committed to becoming a good global citizen," he said. 

The Government is exploring an emissions trading scheme and
nuclear power as part of its climate-change strategy and has
already committed millions of dollars to experimental technology
such as clean coal and geosequestration. But these strategies
are unlikely to deliver significant reductions in emissions for
several decades. 

Polling by green groups shows voters see the environment as a
big point of difference between the Government and the
Opposition. 

A meeting of Labor's shadow cabinet last week agreed to keep the
former leader Kim Beazley's pledge to cut greenhouse gas
emissions by half by 2050. 

The Opposition has already promised to ratify the Kyoto
Protocol, introduce emissions trading and boost the use of
renewable energy, but it has not provided any clear timetable
for how it would achieve the cuts. 

"We cannot deal with the water crisis without dealing with the
climate-change crisis at the same time," said the Opposition
Leader, Kevin Rudd. 

The CSIRO says Australia's emissions must fall 60 per cent by
2050 compared with 1990. But the latest government figures show
that by the end of this decade alone, gas emissions from
electricity production will have risen by half on their 1990
levels. 

The president of the Australian Academy of Science, Professor
Kurt Lambeck, said yesterday: "This intensive review of the past
five years' scientific evidence was undertaken by hundreds of
scientists worldwide and confirms what we already know - we have
now lost five years that could have been used in implementing
remedial actions." 

At the Paris meeting, there was a last-ditch bid to water down
the statement from two nations — Saudi Arabia and another
unnamed country (not the US or Australia) among the 130
countries represented at the plenary. It eventually passed
intact after the meeting accepted a suggestion - initiated by
the small Australian delegation - to deal with the dissenting
country's concerns in a footnote. It states that there are
remaining uncertainties over climate change "based on current
methodologies". 

Other areas of disagreement were over how much sea levels would
rise, and concerns about the ferocity of future cyclones, said
Dr Geoff Love, head of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and
a member of the Australian team. 

But he said it was not so much about the science as about the
semantics in the summary. 

As the report co-author Philip Mote, the Washington state
climatologist, said in translating his fellow scientists'
language: "We did it." 

He added: "Scientists are pretty well done arguing about whether
the warming in the last 50 years is related to burning fossil
fuels." 

Professor Flannery said: "It's our problem. We have to do
something about it. We have the tools. We're so far lacking the
will." 

mlsmh.com.auSydney Morning Herald
2007-02-03

 Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald. <img
*****************************************************************
 24 MDN: TEPCO admits falsifying data at nuclear power plants -
                     
MSN-Mainichi Daily News
 
February 2, 2007
  
Japan's largest utility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., has
admitted that it falsified data at its nuclear power plants for
three decades in an attempt to easily pass compulsory government
inspections.

TEPCO said it discovered falsifications of technical data on
nearly 200 occasions from 1977 to 2002 at three nuclear power
plants, and reported them to the Trade and Industry Ministry as
requested.

The company also found three cases of improper modifications at
two thermal plants, it said. However, the modifications did not
affect plant safety, the company said in a statement Wednesday
on its Web site.

The falsifications have passed the three-year statute of
limitations and the company is likely to escape punishment,
Kyodo News agency reported.

In December, the ministry ordered TEPCO to review past data
following the company's discovery that cooling water data had
been falsified at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the
late 1980s.

The company also faked test operations at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa
nuclear plant in northern Japan in 1992, when an emergency core
cooling system pump failed during a government inspection.

TEPCO came under fire after another safety data cover-up scandal
in 2002, stirring public distrust of Japan's nuclear industry.
(AP)

February 1, 2007 	 

Have your say in the MSN-Mainichi Daily News Readers' Forum 			 
 
Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights
*****************************************************************
 25 Toronto Star: Vows job creation if chosen to build nuclear facilities

 Feb 02, 2007 04:30 AM Tyler Hamilton 

Energy Reporter

Ontario would create job opportunities, not kill them, if it 
chose a foreign company to build new nuclear reactors in the 
province, says the president of Canadian operations for French 
nuclear giant Areva SA.

"We're not threatening a single job," Armand Laferrere, president 
of Areva Canada Inc., said in an interview.

"Whoever builds a nuclear plant in Ontario will build it with 
Ontario subcontractors and Ontario workers. 

"A nuclear plant is not something you build abroad and put on a
barge."

The Ontario government says the province will need at least
1,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity by 2020 to meet expected
electricity demand, and Energy Minister Dwight Duncan has made
clear that all options are on the table  including selection of
a foreign reactor design  if it means finding the best deal for
Ontario taxpayers.

All existing reactors in Ontario are based on the Candu reactor
design from federally owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which
estimates that the technology supports 150 companies and as many
as 30,000 Canadian jobs. 

AECL wants to keep it that way. Last month, the company and the
Organization of Candu Industries, a group of private companies
that promotes nuclear power, launched a website at
CanduCanada.ca aimed at persuading politicians to back a
"made-in-Canada" technology and to counter "critical columns or
articles" about Candu.

"Ontario's nuclear industry is a $4 billion per year industry
supported by more than 25,000 workers," OCI president Martyn
Wash states on AECL's website. "We need our employees' help to
tell politicians and the media why the government of Ontario
must choose Candu technology."

Gary Lunn, federal minister of Natural Resources Canada, told
reporters in December that it was "imperative" Ontario choose
Candu technology, even though past projects in the province have
a poor track record of delays and cost overruns.

But Laferrere said the long-term health of Ontario's nuclear
industry could be threatened if its fails to diversify its
skills in a global marketplace where Candu heavy-water reactors
could end up playing a marginal role. He said building a
next-generation Areva light-water reactor in Ontario would
broaden the province's skills base and open up significant
export opportunities.

"A vast majority of plants that will be ordered in the next 10
years around the world  certainly more than 90 per cent  will
use the light-water technology," he said. "Don't you think that
the Ontario nuclear industry, which is among the best in the
world, should get a part of that huge game?"

He pointed to the United States, where AECL lost an opportunity
last year to sell its next-generation Advanced Candu Reactor, or
ACR. All new U.S. reactors are expected to be light-water
designs, at least one of which will be an Areva model.

"When that licence is granted and we start building in the U.S.,
we will need as many engineers as we can find. If there are
Canadian engineers that have learned the technology in Canada,
they will have tremendous international opportunities," said
Laferrere.

The potential benefits aren't lost on the energy minister, who
told the Toronto Star in a recent interview that the government
is carefully weighing the pros and cons.

"If there's somewhere north of 100 new reactors being built in
the world and AECL is doing somewhere from three to five of
them, and the other companies are doing 30 to 40 and we have the
potential to service other markets from here as part of a deal,
why wouldn't we look at that?" said Duncan.

"Obviously, we're not going to enter into an agreement for a
reactor that's manufactured in Botswana and simply assembled
here," he said, adding that job guarantees and economic wins for
Ontario would have to be built into the terms of any contract.
"It could be a huge economic development opportunity."

Meanwhile, Areva says at least 70 per cent of the construction
of any new nuclear plant in Ontario would support local
employment.

The crown corporation is making the same job commitment to the
U.K. as part of efforts to sell a reactor there.
*****************************************************************
 26 Victoria Advocate: A nuclear plant near Victoria?
 
Area being considered, but officials are being tight-lipped

 February 02, 2007 - Posted at 12:00 a.m. 

BY DAVID TEWES - VICTORIA ADVOCATE 

The Victoria area is apparently being considered as a possible
location for a new nuclear power plant, but officials were
either refusing to discuss the particulars or were unable to
provide much detail. 

"I know some things, but I don't have all the pieces in place,"
Mayor Will Armstrong said. "I do know that we're being looked
at, but I know that other places in the state are also being
looked at." 

He said that a "group" has been in Victoria and has asked people
to sign confidentiality agreements. Armstrong said he would not
identify the group. 

"At this stage of the game, I think it would be
counterproductive to put that name on the table," he said. "A
lot of people are opposed to nuclear power. But we don't even
know if they're coming here." 

Armstrong said while he hasn't been asked to sign a
confidentiality agreement, he also said he hasn't been told any
of the details. 

Dale Fowler with the Victoria Economic Development Corp. was mum
on the topic. "There's really nothing I have to add or could say
about it." 

General Manager Bill West with the Guadalupe-Blanco River
Authority, which might be in a position to provide water for a
nuclear plant, referred questions to the governor's office. A
spokesman for the governor's office said it wasn't aware of any
companies considering the Victoria area as a potential nuclear
plant site. 

"Right now, I'm just simply not at liberty to discuss that,"
West said. Spokesman Thomas Kleckner with TXU Energy said while
he couldn't comment on whether the Victoria area is part of the
plan, his company is looking at one to three locations in the
state for nuclear plants. 

TXU already has two nuclear power plant units at Comanche Peak
in North Texas. The only other nuclear plant in the state is in
Matagorda County and is owned by Austin Energy, CPS Energy and
NRG Texas. 

"Essentially, we're reviewing our inventory of sites that we've
identified over the past 30 years as potential nuclear sites,"
Kleckner said. "The earliest a plant could be operating is 2015.
I'm told 2020 would be more likely than 2015." 

He said among the factors that will be considered in choosing a
site are the geography, water availability and community
support. "We haven't filed any permits yet because we're still
in the exploratory stages." David Tewes is a reporter for the
Advocate. Contact him at 361-580-6515 or dtewes@vicad.com, or
comment on this story at www.VictoriaAdvocate.com.

*****************************************************************
 27 BBC: Humans blamed for climate change
 
Last Updated: Friday, 2 February 2007
 
By Richard Black 

Environment correspondent, BBC News website, Paris   

Analysis: 'So what's new?'                                                                      
IPCC report: At a glance                                

Global climate change is "very likely" to have a human cause, an 
influential group of scientists has concluded. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said
temperatures were probably going to increase by 1.8-4C
(3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century. 

It also projected that sea levels were most likely to rise by
28-43cm, and global warming was likely to influence the
intensity of tropical storms. 

The findings are the first of four IPCC reports to be published
this year. 

"We can be very confident that the net effect of human activity
since 1750 has been one of warming," co-lead author Dr Susan
Soloman told delegates in Paris. 

Strong language 

The report, produced by a team tasked with assessing the science
of climate change, was intended to be the definitive summary of
climatic shifts facing the world in the coming years. 	

	
IPCC PROJECTIONS                  

Probable temperature rise between 1.8C and 4C Possible 
temperature rise between 1.1C and 6.4C Sea level most likely to 
rise by 28-43cm Arctic summer sea ice disappears in second half 
of century Increase in heatwaves very likely Increase in tropical 
storm intensity likely [ border=] IPCC report: World reaction                                                                     
IPCC report: UK reaction

The agency said that it would use stronger language to assess
humanity's influence on climatic change than it had previously
done. 

In 2001, it said that it was "likely" that human activities lay
behind the trends observed at various parts of the planet;
"likely" in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90%
probability. 

Now, the panel concluded that it was at least 90% certain that
human emissions of greenhouse gases rather than natural
variations are warming the planet's surface. 

They projected that temperatures would probably rise by between
1.8C and 4C, though increases as small as 1.1C (2F) or as large
as 6.4C (11.5F) were possible. 

In 2001, using different methodology, the numbers were 1.4
(2.5F) and 5.8C (10.4F). 

[Climate schematic (BBC)]

How computers model climate

On sea level, there has been a more fundamental debate. 

Computer models of climate do not generally include water coming
into the oceans as ice caps melt. So the IPCC had to decide
whether to exclude this from its calculations, or to estimate
the effect of a process which scientists do not understand well
but which could have a big impact. 

They used the former, more conservative approach, projecting an
average rise in sea levels globally of between 28 and 43cm. The
2001 report cited a range of nine to 88cm. 

As for climate change influencing the intensity of tropical
storms in some areas of the world, the IPCC concluded that it
was likely - meaning a greater probability than 66% - that
rising temperatures were a factor. 

'Unequivocal' 

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, said: "It is extremely 
encouraging in that the science has moved on from what was 
possible in the Third Assessment Report. 

"If you see the extent to which human activities are influencing 
the climate system, the options for mitigating greenhouse gas 
emissions appear in a different light, because you can see what 
the costs of inaction are," he told delegates in Paris. 

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations
Environment Programme (Unep), said the findings marked a
historical landmark in the debate about whether humans were
affecting the state of the atmosphere. 

"It is an unequivocal series of evidence [showing that] fossil 
fuel burning and land use change are affecting the climate on our 
planet." 

He added: "If you are an African child born in 2007, by the time 
you are 50 years old you may be faced with disease and new levels 
of drought." 

He said that he hoped the IPCC report would galvanise national 
governments into action. 

At variance 

But a study published on the eve of the IPCC report suggested 
that the international body's previous reports may have actually 
been too conservative. 

Writing in the journal Science, an international group of
scientists concluded that temperatures and sea levels had been
rising at or above the maximum rates proposed in the last
report, which was published in 2001. 

The paper compared the 2001 projections on temperature and sea
level change report with what has actually happened. 

The models had forecasted a temperature rise between about
0.15C-0.35C (0.27-0.63F) over this period. The actual rise of
0.33C (0.59F) was very close to the top of the IPCC's range. 

A more dramatic picture emerged from the sea level comparison.
The actual average level, measured by tide gauges and
satellites, had risen faster than the intergovernmental panel of
scientists predicted it would. 

The IPCC's full climate science report will be released later in
the year, as will other chapters looking at the probable impacts
of climate change, options for adapting to those impacts, and
possible routes to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. 

<i>Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk</i>
*****************************************************************
 28 Platts: DOE to seek $405 million for GNEP in FY-08
 
Washington (Platts)--1Feb2007
 
DOE will ask for $405 million for the Global Nuclear Energy 
Partnership program for fiscal 2008, Deputy Energy Secretary Clay 
Sell said February 1.

(Fiscal 2008 begins October 1.) That funding figure is well above 
the $250 million the department requested for FY-07 for GNEP; 
Congress is currently considering a joint funding resolution that 
is expected to allow DOE to spend about $120 million in FY-07 on 
the program, which involves the development of 
"proliferation-resistant" spent fuel reprocessing and fast 
reactor technologies. 

Speaking at a Platts Energy Podium Event, Sell said an 
appropriation of $120 million probably would give DOE enough 
money to be able to issue a request for proposals on GNEP in 
FY-07, although he declined to make a definitive commitment on 
that point.A podcast of the event is at 
http://platts.com/energypodium/index.xml.
 
Copyright © 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
 [The McGraw-Hill Companies]       
*****************************************************************
 29 NRC: Notice Of Environmental Assessment Related To The Issuance Of A 
 
                         FR Doc E7-1729 
[Federal Register: February 2, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 22)] 
[Notices] [Page 5086-5087] From the Federal Register Online via 
GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02fe07-92] [[Page 
5086]]
 
License Amendment To Byproduct Material License No. 24-26366-01, 
For Unrestricted Release Of A Former Facility For High Energy 
Devices, LlC, Maryland Heights, MO AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission.
 
ACTION: Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Finding of No 
Significant Impact for License Amendment.
 
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Snell, Senior Health 
Physicist, Decommissioning Branch, Division of Nuclear Materials 
Safety, Region III, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 2443 
Warrenville Road, Lisle, Illinois 60532; telephone: (630) 
829-9871; fax number: (630) 515-1259; or by e-mail: at 
wgs@nrc.gov.
 
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
(NRC) is considering the issuance of an amendment to NRC 
Byproduct Materials License No. 24-26366-01, which is held by 
High Energy Devices, LLC (licensee). The amendment would 
authorize the decommissioning and unrestricted release of the 
licensee's former facility located at 45D Progress Parkway, 
Maryland Heights, Missouri (the facility). The NRC has prepared 
an Environmental Assessment in support of this action in 
accordance with the requirements of 10 CFR Part 51. Based on the 
Environmental Assessment, the NRC has determined that a Finding 
of No Significant Impact is appropriate. The amendment to High 
Energy Devices' license will be issued following the publication 
of this Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant 
Impact.
 
I. Environmental Assessment Identification of Proposed Action The 
proposed action would approve High Energy Devices' request to 
amend its license and release the licensee's facility for 
unrestricted use in accordance with 10 CFR Part 20, Subpart E. 
The proposed action is in accordance with the licensee's request 
to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to amend its 
license by letter dated December 22, 2006 (ADAMS Accession No. 
ML063630413). High Energy Devices was first licensed to use 
byproduct materials at its facility on December 23, 1991. The 
licensee is authorized to use byproduct materials for activities 
involving the manufacture of gas discharge tubes. Cesium-137, 
nickel-63 and krypton-85, each with a half-life greater than 120 
days, were the only isotopes that were used at the facility in an 
unsealed form, and each of these were limited to less than 5 
milliCuries at any one time. On December 18, 2006, High Energy 
Devices completed removal of all equipment and licensed 
radioactive material from the facility, transporting the 
equipment and radioactive materials to a new location of 
business.
 
The licensee conducted surveys of the facility as part of its 
decommissioning activities and provided this information to the 
NRC to demonstrate that the radiological condition there is 
consistent with radiological criteria for unrestricted use in 10 
CFR Part 20, Subpart E. No radiological remediation activities 
are required to complete the proposed action.
 
Need for the Proposed Action The licensee is requesting this 
license amendment because it has moved out of the facility, and 
is conducting licensed activities at another location. The NRC is 
fulfilling its responsibilities under the Atomic Energy Act to 
make a decision on the proposed action for decommissioning that 
ensures that residual radioactivity is reduced to a level that is 
protective of the public health and safety and the environment, 
and allows the facility to be released for unrestricted use.
 
Environmental Impacts of the Proposed Action The NRC staff 
reviewed the information provided and surveys performed by the 
licensee to demonstrate that the release of the facility is 
consistent with the radiological criteria for unrestricted use 
specified in 10 CFR 20.1402. Based on its review, the staff 
determined that there were no radiological impacts associated 
with the proposed action because no radiological remediation 
activities were required to complete the proposed action, and 
that the radiological criteria for unrestricted use in Sec.  
20.1402 have been met. Based on its review, the staff determined 
that the radiological environmental impacts from the proposed 
action for the facility are bounded by the ``Generic 
Environmental Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on 
Radiological Criteria for License Termination of NRC- Licensed 
Nuclear Facilities'' (NUREG-1496). Additionally, no non- 
radiological or cumulative impacts were identified. Therefore, 
the NRC has determined that the proposed action will not have a 
significant effect on the quality of the human environment.
 
Alternatives to the Proposed Action The only alternative to the 
proposed action is to take no action. Under the no-action 
alternative, the licensee's facility would remain under an NRC 
license and would not be released for unrestricted use. Denial of 
the license amendment request would result in no change to 
current conditions at the facility. The no-action alternative is 
not acceptable because it is inconsistent with 10 CFR 30.36, 
which requires that decommissioning of by-product material 
facilities be completed and approved by the NRC after licensed 
activities cease. This alternative would impose an unnecessary 
regulatory burden in controlling access to the former facility, 
and limit potential benefits from the future use of the facility.
 
Conclusion The NRC staff concluded that the proposed action is 
consistent with the NRC's unrestricted release criteria specified 
in 10 CFR 20.1402. Because the proposed action will not 
significantly impact the quality of the human environment, the 
NRC staff concludes that the proposed action is the preferred 
alternative.
 
Agencies and Persons Consulted The NRC staff has determined that 
the proposed action will not affect listed species or critical 
habitats. Therefore, no further consultation is required under 
Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act. Likewise, the NRC staff 
has determined that the proposed action is not a type of activity 
that has potential to cause effect on historic properties. 
Therefore, consultation under Section 106 of the National 
Historic Preservation Act is not required.
 
The NRC consulted with the Missouri Department of Health and 
Senior Services (DHSS). The Missouri DHSS, Division of Community 
and Public Health, Office of Emergency Coordination, was provided 
the draft EA for comment on January 12, 2007. Mr. Keith Henke, 
Planner, with the Missouri DHSS, responded to the NRC by e-mail 
on January 17, 2007, indicating that the State had no comments 
regarding the NRC Environmental Assessment for the release of the 
High Energy Devices facility.
 
II. Finding of No Significant Impact On the basis of the EA in 
support of the proposed license amendment to release the facility 
for unrestricted use,
 
[[Page 5087]] the NRC has determined that the proposed action 
will not have a significant effect on the quality of the human 
environment.
 
Thus, the NRC has not prepared an environmental impact statement 
for the proposed action.
 
III. Further Information Documents related to this action, 
including the application for amendment and supporting 
documentation, are available electronically at the NRC's 
Electronic Reading Room at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. From this site, you can 
access the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System 
(ADAMS), which provides text and image files of NRC's public 
documents. If you do not have access to ADAMS, or if there are 
problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the 
NRC Public Document Room (PDR) Reference staff at 1- 
800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. The 
documents and ADAMS accession numbers related to this notice are: 
1. Michael C. Brower, High Energy Devices, LLC, letter to Kevin 
Null, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, December 22, 2006 
(ADAMS Accession No. ML063630413). 2. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission, ``Environmental Review Guidance for Licensing Actions 
Associated with NMSS Programs,'' NUREG- 1748, August 2003.
 
3. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, ``Generic Environmental 
Impact Statement in Support of Rulemaking on Radiological 
Criteria for License Termination of NRC-Licensed Nuclear 
Facilities,'' NUREG-1496, August 1994.
 
4. NRC, NUREG-1757, ``Consolidated NMSS Decommissioning 
Guidance,'' Volumes 1-3, September 2003.
 
Documents may also be viewed electronically on the public 
computers located at the NRC's PDR, O 1 F21, One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852. The PDR 
reproduction contractor will copy documents for a fee.
 
Dated at Lisle, Illinois, this 23rd day of January 2007.
 
For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
 
Jamnes L. Cameron, Chief, Decommissioning Branch, Division of 
Nuclear Materials Safety, Region III.
 
[FR Doc. E7-1729 Filed 2-1-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 30 The Local: Criminal investigation at Swedish nuclear plant
           
[The Local: Sweden's news

Published: 2nd February 2007 18:44 CET

Online: http://www.thelocal.se/6290/ 

Uppsala prosecutor Katarina Mörnstad announced on Friday that
she intends to open an inquiry into the handling of a power
outage at the Forsmark nuclear plant on July 25th last year,
reported Swedish Radio Uppland.

"There is reason to suspect that a crime has been committed,"
Mörnstad told newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

Sweden's nuclear power inspectorate, SKI, reported the plant to 
the prosecutor last Monday. According to SKI, as soon as the 
management at Forsmark recovered control of the power supply they 
should have put the reactor into 'cold shutdown'. 

Instead, the management kept the reactor in 'warm shutdown' for
a day before SKI demanded further cooling.
 
According to SKI the management's decision could have broken
laws on nuclear safety.
 
If the prosecutor comes to the same conclusion, she will seek to
identify whether the company or an individual was responsible
for the breach. 
TT/The Local More National 

[Copyright 2007, Linden Research, Inc. All Rights Reserved.] 
*****************************************************************
 31 Hutchinson News: Nuclear bill is advanced by House 

Hutchinson, Kan., | Regional News
 
hutchnews.com   

By John Hanna The Associated Press

TOPEKA - With legislators worried about meeting Kansans' future
demands for electricity, a majority of House members want to
encourage an expansion of the state's only nuclear power plant. 

The House gave first-round approval Thursday to a bill that
would exempt nuclear-powered generators from property taxes for
10 years if they're built within three miles of the Wolf Creek
plant outside Burlington. A final vote was expected Friday. 
The 86-31 vote to advance the bill suggested the measure has
enough support to pass and go to the Senate. 

Environmentalists are frustrated because they believe
legislators aren't concentrating enough on conservation measures
and promoting the development of wind-turbine farms and other
renewable energy sources. But many lawmakers argue they're
trying to be comprehensive in addressing Kansans' growing need
for power and other issues such as the nation's heavy reliance
on foreign oil. 

"It's time to get off the foreign oil," said Rep. Bill Otto,
R-LeRoy, whose district includes Wolf Creek. "It's time to make
the United States an independent, sovereign nation again and not
dependent on foreigners." 

Legislators are debating a wide range of energy policies this
year, including proposals to encourage conservation. On
Thursday, the House also gave first-round approval to a bill
providing $2.5 million worth of incentives each year to
landlords who make the homes and apartments they rent more
energy efficient. 

But if conservation is part of the mix, the bigger emphasis is
on increasing utilities' generating capacity. 

Nationally, utilities are proposing more than 150 coal-fired
plants. Meanwhile, 14 utilities are proposing new nuclear plants
in 13 states, including Florida, Illinois, Texas and Virginia,
according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. 

Mitch Singer, a spokesman for the institute, said if utilities
are to keep up with demand, they'll have to build large
generating plants to run around the clock. While developing wind
energy is important, he said, it's not enough, and the price and
supply of natural gas are too volatile to make it a good fuel
for generators. 

"There is definitely, I think, an undeniable need," he said.
"There are two choices, coal or nuclear." 

02/02/2007; 02:39:23 AM 

Copyright 2006 The Hutchinson News 
*****************************************************************
 32 Orlando Sentinel : Nuclear power: Why the holdup? - 

Sentinel : Opinion
	
Lynn E. Weaver 

Posted February 2, 2007         
 
With all the concern in Congress over global warming, one might 
think that an increase in the number of nuclear-power plants in 
the United States is inevitable, both to satisfy energy demands 
and to counter greenhouse-gas emissions. But that, of course, 
would be wrong.

 Currently there are about 100 nuclear plants in the United 
States, and they account for about 75 percent of our country's 
emission-free electricity. Utilities are preparing to build 
another 33 plants, including two in Florida.

These would be the first reactors to be built in this country in 
many years, and federal and state energy officials agree that it 
won't be possible to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions without 
them. But it now appears that electric utilities might not be 
able to obtain licenses anytime soon to build new nuclear plants.

 The reason for the licensing delay is simple and 
straightforward: a critical shortage of manpower, which is 
expected to become acute within a year, at the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission. The NRC knows that it needs to expand its work force, 
because it's facing a flood of regulatory reviews for new nuclear 
plants and existing plants that are seeking a renewal of their 
operating licenses. But it doesn't have the money.

 Congress is bogged down in a dispute over federal spending. It 
passed only two of the 11 spending bills for the fiscal year that 
began last October, those covering defense and homeland security. 
The rest of the government is operating under a continuing 
resolution that holds spending to last year's levels. As a 
result, the NRC's budget is lower by $95 million, or 12 percent, 
compared with the level approved by both the House and Senate 
appropriations committees but not the full House.

 This has meant the NRC doesn't have enough funds to handle the 
resurgence in nuclear power. In fact, it recently alerted several 
utilities that reviews of their applications for license renewal 
would be delayed at least a year, because it does not have the 
capability to deal with more than a few applications at a time.

 So far, the NRC has done a commendable job of coping with the 
situation, even though its budget in recent years has been 
slighted. Since 2000, the licenses of 48 nuclear plants -- 
including all of the units at the Turkey Point plant and the St. 
Lucie plant in Florida -- have been extended for another 20 
years, but the owners of many other plants now face some 
uncertainty in getting the license of their plants renewed. And 
the start of construction of new nuclear plants could be set 
back.

 The manpower problem was confirmed in a recent report by the 
Government Accountability Office, the investigatory arm of 
Congress. The GAO warned that "substantial delays in the license 
application process could adversely affect investor confidence, 
decrease the likelihood of nuclear-power generation being cost 
beneficial, and possibly reduce the amount of electricity 
available to the U.S. market."

 It would be devastating if Congress were to prune the NRC's 
budget before all of the operating nuclear plants have their 
licenses renewed and a new generation of plants is launched. 
Nuclear power is an essential part of the energy mix and provides 
a source of emission-free power generation needed for America's 
growing population and economy. It can provide utilities with the 
"base-load" generation they require for our increasingly 
electrified society, reducing the need for coal plants that 
pollute the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

 The best thing Congress could do now is to break the budget
impasse and provide the NRC with the additional funds it needs.
The House and Senate must stop the partisan bickering that's
having a crippling effect on the ability of the NRC and other
government agencies to perform their jobs.

 Lynn E. Weaver is president emeritus of the Florida Institute
of Technology in Melbourne. He wrote this commentary for the
Orlando Sentinel. 	 		 		 		 	 			
 				 

Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel|                                         
© 2007 Orlando Sentinel Communications           
*****************************************************************
 33 Brattleboro Reformer: Pick your poison

Reformer.com

Thursday, February 1 

As a co-founder of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore was once a bitter 
foe of nuclear energy. 

Now, as chairman of Greenspirit Industries and a consultant to
the Vermont Energy Partnership, he supports nuclear energy as
one way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Why the change of heart? Because he believes the dangers from
global warming and climate change outweigh any potential dangers
from nuclear energy. 

At least in Windham County, it's a controversial idea. For the
people who want to see Vermont Yankee shut down in 2012 when its
current license expires, nuclear energy has no redeeming
environmental values. 

One can argue that the Vermont Energy Partnership, a
corporate-backed group that supports the continued operation of
Vermont Yankee, may be paying Moore to serve as a "greenwasher,"
someone hired to make a dirty and dangerous technology seem
clean and environmentally friendly. 

But Moore can't be dismissed that easily. In a visit to the
Reformer on Wednesday, he brought up many good points about why
nuclear energy should still be part of Vermont's energy mix. 

To Moore, Vermont is a success story because it has the lowest 
per capita carbon dioxide emissions of any state in the country, 
mainly because two-thirds of Vermont's electricity comes from 
Vermont Yankee and Hydro-Quebec's hydroelectric facilities. 

While increased use of wind, solar, hydro and biomass for
producing electricity is important, Moore also believes none of
these sources can provide the base load power that Vermont
Yankee generates. 

Some tout natural gas as a clean source of energy, but Moore
said that utilities companies have so many gas-fired plants that
existing stocks of natural gas in North America can't supply
them all. That's why we're seeing proposals for liquified
natural gas (LNG) terminals off the New England coast -- because
we're now having to import natural gas from overseas. 

Coal isn't feasible, he said, because utility companies are
finding out that the technologies to burn coal more cleanly cost
more than the power plants themselves. Given the pollution from
coal-burning power plants and the health and environmental
damage that comes from mining coal, it is simply not an option. 

Moore maintains nuclear energy is safe and clean, compared to
burning fossil fuels and that the biggest objection to nuclear
power, the highly radioactive waste it produces, can be turned
into a power source through the reprocessing of spent fuel. 

Fuel reprocessing, something that other nations have been doing
for years, has been at a standstill since the 1970s, when the
federal government -- out of fears of nuclear weapons
proliferation -- banned it in the United States. Since then, the
waste has been piling up at nuclear plants around the country. 

Certainly, if the waste could be safely recycled, it would go a
long way toward reducing the piles of radioactive material
accumulating at nuclear plants. It might be easier said than
done though, given the massive resistance to anything involving
nuclear energy. 

Moore doesn't discount the importance of energy efficiency and
conservation or the use of alternative fuels. Both are important
in reducing greenhouse emissions. But he believes nuclear power
should not be automatically taken off the table, for it is the
least worst source of electricity generation. 

It is true that compared to coal-burning plants, nuclear energy
looks good. But we are still dealing with energy production from
one of the deadliest materials known to man and the waste
generated in the production of nuclear fuel is considerable. 

There are 265 million tons of uranium tailings, the discarded
material from the mining process, piled up in the southwestern
United States -- mostly on Navajo and Pueblo tribal lands. It's
estimated that one in five tribal members recruited to mine
uranium ore are dead or dying from cancer. 

Then there is uranium-238, also known as depleted uranium, a
discarded nuclear plant byproduct, stored in thousands of
leaking barrels in former government enrichment facilities such
as Oak Ridge, Tenn., Paducah, Ky., Portsmouth, Ohio, and
Hanford, Wash. -- places where the groundwater is too
contaminated to drink. 

Moore admits that most of this waste was generated by the
military during the Cold War, when the United States was going
all out to produce nuclear weapons and didn't care about health
or environmental impacts. The civilian nuclear industry has been
more responsible and safety conscious, but just because a deadly
accident hasn't happened at an American nuclear plant doesn't
mean that it will never happen. 

The debate over the relative risks of burning fossil fuels
versus nuclear fission to generate electricity isn't a clean-cut
debate. "Pick your poison" might sound glib, but that's pretty
much at the core of the debate. Add all the geopolitical and
environmental dilemmas, and it's even tougher to choose. 

The hurdles of safety and security are considerable for nuclear
power; as considerable as the hurdles of cost efficiency for
wind and solar power and the difficulty of burning fossil fuels
cleanly. But the argument still comes down to the fact that
climate change is here, it's happening and it needs to be dealt
with to ensure our continued existence on this planet. That's
why we need to weigh every option. 

We may need nuclear power in the near term, but in the long
term, we need something else that's cleaner, safer and less
harmful. That is where we should be going. 

New England Newspapers, Inc.
» (802) 254-2311
» 62 Black Mountain Road
» Brattleboro, VT 05301-9242
*****************************************************************
 34 UPI: Interview: Nuke council takes aim for '07
     
  United Press International - Energy - 

        2/2/2007 6:22:00 PM -0500

 By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 (UPI) -- The world is planning to build more
nuclear plants and, for the first time in three decades, the
United States could be a part of that trend. 

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission expects applications for
around 30 new reactors over the coming few years, though that
could be slowed by a number of factors: The
Republican-controlled Congress last year passed a continuing
resolution keeping NRC funding stagnant; there is still no
solution to the U.S. nuclear waste issue; and though the high
price of fossil fuels and a growing concern about global warming
makes nuclear energy more attractive, it still could be too
expensive. 

Of the 440 reactors worldwide (and at least 30 more planned,
mostly in Asia), 103 power about 20 percent of U.S. energy
demand. With no new reactors in the United States, nuclear's
share will decrease as energy consumption increases. 

The United States hasn't licensed a new reactor since 1978. But
Congress in 2005 approved various financial incentives and
insurance intended to jump-start the sleeping U.S. industry and
President Bush initiated programs such as the Global Nuclear
Energy Partnership, a global policy to increase nuclear energy
and secure materials from would-be weapons, with an emphasis on
U.S. involvement of the entire nuclear fuel cycle. 

United Press International spoke to John Kotek, executive
director of the American Council on Global Nuclear
Competitiveness, a Washington-based nonprofit advocating
increased nuclear power in the United States. 

The council, whose members include former U.S. diplomats,
bureaucrats and members of Congress, says a million jobs could
be created if the country moves forward on nuclear power. 

UPI: What are some of the issues that you all are throwing your
weight behind as far as things you see are necessary on moving
forward on nuclear energy? 

Kotek: One of the things that the council wants to see is, as
the U.S. gets back into the building of commercial nuclear power
plants, which we think is an inevitability, we want to see that
result in more than just new reactors being built. We want to
see that result in the creation of American jobs, American
factories, bring back some of the high paying construction and
manufacturing jobs that accompanied the first wave of nuclear
power plant construction in the U.S. We also believe that having
U.S. companies more involved in the commercial nuclear industry
globally, that's going to increase American influence in terms
of impacting the behaviors of other countries toward nuclear
safety and nuclear nonproliferation. 

The overall message that we want to convey is we believe it's
essential both in terms of economic competitiveness and in terms
of national security, that there be a reinvigorated U.S. nuclear
industry. When I say a nuclear industry, I don't just mean
utilities but companies that are designing, manufacturing,
servicing and supplying nuclear power plants and other nuclear
facilities. We will work toward communicating the importance of
that. 



Q: What are some of the potential or real obstacles you see that
needs to be overcome for this to happen? 

A: I think there needs to be some ... a feeling of certainty on
the part of the companies that are considering investing in this
market. U.S. policy toward nuclear energy has fluctuated greatly
over the last couple of decades and I think we're now starting
to see sort of a growing bipartisan consensus that nuclear power
is important. And I think that needs to be sustained before
companies are really going to be willing to dive in and make the
investment in heavy manufacturing and training large workforces
and such that really need to be made. 



Q: What about funding issues? 

A: The big issue standing in the way of potential construction
of new commercial plants is plant financing. And the issue there
is, if you look early on in the history of nuclear power, the
earliest nuclear reactors were generally built at a reasonably
low cost and on schedule. Especially after the Three Mile Island
accident happened, you've got a lot of retrofitting, changes and
safety requirements and what have you, then costs started to
escalate. And that's the main concern among companies that would
invest in nuclear power plants and the people who would loan
them the money, is can you really build one of these plants on a
predictable schedule and for predictable costs? So that to me is
going to be the nearest term issue that needs to be dealt with. 



Q. Do you think that more needs to happen from the government,
as far as incentives or to make it more affordable for nuclear
plants? 

A. That's one of the things that the council is looking at right
now, what are the things that the government can do to
facilitate this nuclear renaissance? 



Q. What about money for certain things like GNEP and other
programs, or even funding for the NRC? 

A. Certainly the continuing resolution being used to fund the
government operation right now is something that is really
standing in the way of any new initiatives or any significant
growth. Certainly it's disappointing but it doesn't stop the
overall momentum of this nuclear revival. 

(Comments to energy@upi.com)

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 35 Brattleboro Reformer: A county divided

BRATTLEBORO, VT  
  
NRC holds public hearing on Yankee relicensing

by BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff

 Thursday, February 1 BRATTLEBORO -- How can the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission guarantee to Windham County residents that 
Vermont Yankee is safe when it can't even get its public 
presentation right? 

Those words were on the lips of more than a few people Wednesday
afternoon after at least two slides popped up on the Latchis
Theatre screen, during a review of the NRC's environmental
review process, with Pilgrim on the heading instead of Vermont
Yankee. 

"Is this a generic slide show?" asked one man from the back of
the audience. 

"I write my own notes to these slide shows," responded a
slightly flustered Dave Miller, team leader of a group of
consultants used by the NRC to evaluate the environmental
effects of the relicensing of Yankee. 

"All of the information on these slides and the draft
environmental statement are specific to Vermont Yankee license
renewal," said Chip Cameron, the NRC's moderator for the public
hearing. "I apologize for the confusion that might have caused." 

"My primary concern is the slides referred to Pilgrim and not
Vermont Yankee," said Sally Shaw. "This is not an environmental
impact statement for Vermont Yankee. It's an environmental insult 
statement." 

Despite the snafu, Miller went on to explain to the crowd of 60
people that all the environmental effects listed in the generic
environmental impact statement were small. His team also
determined that the issues raised in the site-specific
environmental impact statement were small. 

"The environmental impact of an additional 20 years of operation
is acceptable," said Richard Emch, the NRC's project manager for
the environmental review of the relicensing application. 

During an afternoon and an evening hearing at the theater, the
NRC presented its draft environmental impact statement on the
relicensing of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. 

Entergy, the owners and operators of the plant, want to extend
the plant's license from 2012 to 2032. 

Emch explained to the more than 60 people seated in the theater
that the impact statement was broken into two parts, a generic
section and a site-specific section. 

In the mid-1990s, the NRC evaluated the environmental effects of
nuclear power plants, listing 92 separate areas to be evaluated,
he said. 

Of those 92, however, 69 were determined to be the same for
plants with similar features, thus the generic section of the
statement. Those are also termed Category One issues. Category
Two issues, or site-specific issues, are evaluated separately. 

"We don't find any new or significant information for Category
One issues," said Miller. The NRC also determined the same for
Category Two issues. Miller told the crowd that in all the areas
his team looked, "the potential impact in these areas would be
small." 

But several people said that the EIS process itself was
inadequate because it doesn't address evacuation plans or the
effects of a terrorist attack on spent fuel storage. 

"None of those plans or measures are taken into account," said
Claire Chang. "Neither is the event of a terrorist attack." 

"The GEIS and the assumptions behind your SEIS are based on
erroneous and incomplete information," added Shaw. 

"The NRC is attempting to conceal the fact that a release of
radiation as a result of a terrorist attack is entirely
possible," said Gary Sachs. And, he added, the issues raised in
the statement were written 10 years ago. 

Chang was also worried about the spent fuel pool on the grounds
of Vermont Yankee. 

"If breached, the water would leak out," she said. "Fuel rods
would ignite. There would be a long-lasting fire that would
release radiation into the air and potentially contaminate
25,000 square miles. That needs to be included in the
environmental statement." 

Shaw and others also wanted to know about the repercussions of
the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear an appeal of a lower
court's order that the NRC review the effects of a terrorist
attack on dry cask storage at a California nuclear power plant. 

The five-member commission that oversees the NRC is currently
reviewing whether it should change the rules regulating the EIS
process to allow the NRC to include such information in its
analysis. 

"The commission has not yet told us how they would like to deal
with that situation," said Steven Hamrick, the NRC's legal
counsel. "They have not given us guidance yet. We are waiting
for them to tell us how we should go about interpreting that
decision in our EIS." 

"Since there is a petition in for rule making, the environmental
review can't be considered complete until those issues are
resolved," insisted Shaw. "I hereby petition you to halt the
license renewal process for Vermont Yankee while the rulemaking
decision is pending." 

When asked what would happen if the NRC authorizes the license
renewal but the state denies its approval, Hamrick said, "it's
not clear at this point whether or not the state has the
authority to keep the renewal from happening." 

The federal government has preemption on certain issues,
including health and safety, he said. 

"There are certain permits that the license applicant has to get
from either the state or federal agencies," said Cameron. "They
need to get those permits to operate." 

Sachs said none of that mattered because when Entergy purchased
Vermont Yankee, it assured the Public Service Board of Vermont
it would abide by the state's final decision, not the federal
decision, in relicensing the plant. 

Patrick Moore, who describes himself as a co-founder of
Greenpeace, spoke to the crowd about the benefits of nuclear
energy, particularly its place in making Vermont the lowest
emitter of greenhouse gases in the nation. 

As Moore was introduced, Shaw called him "the turncoat of
Greenpeace," but it didn't stop Moore from launching into a
series of talking points, most of them the same as those he
presented to the Vermont Legislature the day before. 

Vermont has an enviable environmental record, he said, "and
you've got to keep VY running if you want to keep that record." 

The 103 plants now operating in the United States produce 20
percent of its energy, said Moore. 

"That's the equivalent of 100 million cars taken off the road if
the same power was produced by coal," he said. "There is no
other power source that results in a large mitigation of
greenhouse gas emissions than nuclear energy." 

"That's a lie," shouted someone from the crowd. Moore plowed
ahead with his comments. 

"It's the only large base load source that can reduce fossil
fuel consumption while satisfying demand," he said. 

The reason nuclear power is so far ahead of other energy
sources, said Sachs, is because, of the $150 billion this nation
has invested in energy research and development, $145 billion
was spent on nuclear energy. "That's one of the reasons we are
behind the eight ball." 

"How much are you getting paid?" shouted a woman in the crowd. 

"I'm not going to let anyone be heckled up here," said Cameron. 

"These snide comments don't add anything to these public
hearings," said former Vermont Gov. Tom Salmon. 

Taking his turn at the microphone, Salmon said "the brave little
state of Vermont leads this nation" in the context of its energy
portfolio contributing the very least in carbon dioxide and
other noxious substances into the environment. 

"The reason for that, yes, this nuclear facility in Vernon a few
short miles down the road," he said. 

Amanda Ibey, the executive director of the Vermont Energy
Partnership, which brought Moore to Vermont, said members of her
organization were concerned that the only way to supply reliable
electricity to the state was through the relicensing of Vermont
Yankee. 

"Vermont Yankee has been safely and reliably providing
Vermonters with electricity for over 30 years," said Ibey. 

But one man said his brother, an electrical worker at Vermont
Yankee, died of leukemia after working there for 14 years. He
warned the workers at Yankee that they were being lied to about
their health and safety. 

"Whatever information your bosses are feeding you is incomplete
and one-sided," said Paul Bosquet of West Townshend. 


Bob Audette can be reached at or (802) 254-2311, ext. 273. 
  
New England Newspapers, Inc.
» (802) 254-2311
» 62 Black Mountain Road
» Brattleboro, VT 05301-9242
*****************************************************************
 36 All Headline News: U.N. Says 75 Percent Of Stolen Nuclear Material Still Missing

149 Incidents In 2006 - 

February 1, 2007 9:54 p.m. EST

Matthew Borghese - All Headline News Staff Writer 

New York, NY (AHN) - The United Nations nuclear watchdog, the 
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just released its 
Illicit Trafficking Database (ITDB) for 2006. 

The shocking report details 149 confirmed instances involving 
nuclear and radioactive materials; some of these cases also 
involved the illegal sale and attempted trafficking of the 
sensitive materials across national borders. 

The report details that 85 incidents involved theft, and more 
importantly, in 75 percent of those thefts "the materials lost or 
stolen had not been recovered." 

The IAEA says, 134 incidents "included thefts, losses and 
recoveries of radioactive materials not under control, such as 
orphan sources, and unauthorized disposals of materials." 
However, the other cases involved the actual seizure of the 
materials, which included "natural uranium, depleted uranium, and 
thorium and one involved high-enriched uranium (HEU)." 

In one of the more publicized cases, the Republic of Georgia
seized 79.5 grams of uranium enriched to 89 percent "from a
group of criminals in Tbilisi." 
		 		

  Copyright © All Headline News - All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 37 Pocono Record: NJ firm faces fine over stolen nuclear gauge
 	 
Pocono Record 511 Lenox Street Stroudsburg, PA 18360 (570) 
421-3000 (800) 756-4237
 					
Eric Mark Pocono Record Writer
        
February 02, 2007
                                                                
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission wants a New Jersey company to 
pay a $3,250 fine for security violations that led to a nuclear 
gauge being stolen from a job site in Monroe County last summer.

The gauge, owned by TRC Engineers Inc. of Mount Laurel, N.J., 
contains a small amount of radioactive material but does not pose 
a danger to public health. It is used for industrial purposes 
such as measuring the density of soil.

The gauge was inside a locked utility box that was stolen from a 
construction site at the Marshalls Creek bypass project overnight 
Aug. 29 into Aug. 30, 2006.

In response to the theft, NRC staff performed inspections in 
September 2006 at TRC Engineers' office and at the job site.

Inspectors determined there was only one "tangible barrier" in
place to prevent someone from taking the gauge, the NRC said
Thursday in a news release.

While the gauge was locked in a portable box, the only barrier
preventing it from being stolen was a locked tool shed door, the
NRC said.

Thus, the NRC cited TRC Engineers for failing to use at least
two independent physical controls "to prevent unauthorized
removal of a licensed nuclear gauge when the device is not under
the direct control and constant surveillance of a company
employee."

The stolen gauge has not been recovered, even though a reward
has been offered.

The gauge presents no hazard to the public as long as it is not
tampered with, officials said.

Tampering with the radioactive sources in the device could
subject the person to radiation exposure, the NRC cautioned.

TRC Engineers staff members discussed the violation with NRC
staff at an enforcement conference on Dec. 20, 2006, at the
NRC's regional office in King of Prussia.

On the Web:

Nuclear Regulatory Commission

www.nrc.gov

Pocono Record writer Catherine Rodriguez contributed to this
report.

The Pocono Record is published by Ottaway, The Local Media Group
of Dow Jones
 Copyright © 2007, Pocono Record, Stroudsburg, PA  All rights
*****************************************************************
 38 NewsBlaze: UN Atomic Watchdog Agency Reports Cases of Illegal Trafficking

The United Nations atomic watchdog agency, whose tasks include 
pre-empting nuclear and radiological terrorism and preventing 
proliferation, today reported 149 confirmed incidents of illicit 
trafficking and other unauthorized activities involving nuclear 
and radioactive materials in 2006. 

Of these, 15 involved the seizure of nuclear and radioactive
materials from individuals who possessed them illegally,
according to preliminary figures released by the UN
International Atomic Energy Agency

(http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/itdb_update.html">IAEA)
 Office of Nuclear Security. 

"Some of these individuals were attempting to sell the material
or smuggle it across national borders," IAEA said in a statement
of the incidents, which were reported by the states involved
with the Office's Illicit Trafficking Database (ITDB). "Six of
these incidents involved nuclear materials. Five involved
materials such as natural uranium, depleted uranium, and thorium
and one involved high-enriched uranium (HEU)." 

In the latter case, Georgia
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/georgia_material.html">r
eported that in February 2006, 79.5 grammes of uranium enriched
to 89 per cent was seized from a group of criminals in Tbilisi,
the capital. The other incidents of illegal possession reported
to the ITDB involved radioactive sources. 

Just last week, the IAEA noted another reported case in which
Georgia seized about 100 grammes of uranium enriched to a level
considered to be weapons-grade during a sting operation. Over
the past several years, the agency has been assisting Georgia in
the effective monitoring, control, and recovery of nuclear and
radioactive materials. 

In previous statements the IAEA has warned that "in the hands of
terrorists or other criminals, some radioactive sources could be
used for malicious purposes, for example in a radiological
dispersal device or 'dirty bomb'." 

The other 134 incidents reported to the IAEA for 2006 included
85 involving theft or loss of nuclear or other radioactive
materials, mainly radioactive sources. In about 75 per cent of
the cases, the materials lost or stolen had not been recovered
at the time of reporting. 

The remaining 49 involved other unauthorized activities,
primarily unauthorized disposal of radioactive sources and
radioactively contaminated materials and discovery of
uncontrolled, or orphan, radioactive materials. Another 103
incidents were reported in 2006 that occurred in previous years. 

The ITDB was established by the IAEA in 1995 to facilitate
exchange of authoritative information related to trafficking in
nuclear and other radioactive materials among Member States. To
date, 95 countries and organizations are members of the ITDB. A
more complete report is expected later this year, in advance of
the IAEA General Conference of Member States in September. 

Source: United Nations 

judythpiazza@gmail.com
 Copyright © 2007, NewsBlaze, Daily News
*****************************************************************
 39 The Hindu: Reports of uranimum radiation baseless - DAE chief 

Friday, February 2, 2007 : 1610 Hrs
 
Chennai, Feb. 2 (PTI): Reports that hundreds of tribals in
Jharkhand were suffering from deformities due to radiation from
a uranium mine were baseless, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)
Chairman Dr Anil Kakodkar today said. 

Deformities among people in the area were not because of
radiation and the department has submitted a report on the
matter, he told reporters while replying to a question after
inaugurating the library and student facilities at the Chennai
Mathematical Institute facility at Siruseri near here. 

A recent media report said tribals in Jadugoda, where the
country's first uranium mine is located, were suffering from
mental and physical disorders due to radiation.

Copyright © 2006, The Hindu.




*****************************************************************
 40 Salt Lake Tribune: Kane joins fight against Divine Strake

By Mark Havnes

 The Salt Lake TribuneArticle Last Updated: 02/01/2007 02:26:23
PM MST

Posted: 11:02 AM- KANAB - The Kane County Commission has joined a 
growing chorus of local-government opposition to Divine Strake. 

    Earlier this week, the commission adopted a resolution 
against federal plans to detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate 
and fuel oil at the Nevada Test Site. 

    "Because of the potential threat to life, health and safety 
of Kane County residents and visitors, the [commission] opposes 
the Divine Strake test and other similar tests at the Nevada Test 
Site," reads the resolution. 

    Commission chairman Mark Habbeshaw said the document would be 
forwarded to the governor and Utah's congressional delegation. 

    Elsewhere in southwestern Utah, Washington County, St. George 
and Springdale have passed similar resolutions. Iron County could 
follow suit Monday. 

    Residents across that region fear that the non-nuclear blast 
could kick up contaminated radioactive dust at the test site. 
They worry that winds then could carry that dust to their homes, 
schools, parks and workplaces and cause health problems similar 
to those suffered decades earlier from fallout during 
nuclear-weapons testing in Nevada. 

    The government argues it needs to conduct the explosion to 
develop weapons capable of striking subterranean targets. 
    
Â© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 41 IHT: Court rules against SKorean atomic bomb survivors seeking compensation 
from Japan - International Herald Tribune
                                                               
Associated Press                                        

Published: February 2, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea: A court threw out a lawsuit Friday by a group 
of South Koreans who worked as forced laborers in Hiroshima, 
Japan, when the city was devastated by a U.S. atomic bomb in the 
closing days of World War II. 

The Busan District Court rejected a demand for compensation from 
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for back wages and illness and other 
side-effects as a result of the bomb dropped in 1945 on the 
southern Japanese city, saying it was too late to file the suit. 

"There is no ground to exceptionally exclude the application of 
the statute of limitations" in the case, Judge Lee Seung-ho said, 
noting the right to file a compensation suit expires unless it is 
launched within 10 years. 

In 2000, Lee Byung-mok, 84, and five other plaintiffs sued for 
101 million won each (US$108,000; ¬83,000) in compensation from 
Mitsubishi for skin disease and other side-effects caused by the 
initial blast and radiation caused by the bomb and for the value 
of their labor. In 1945, the six returned to South Korea. One of 
the plaintiffs has since died. 

About 260,000 people survived the Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear
attacks, including 4,000 living abroad. Many were Koreans
brought to Japan as soldiers or slave laborers during Japan's
harsh colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910-1945. 	 

Survivors have developed various illnesses from being exposed to 
nuclear radiation, including cancer. 

Officially recognized survivors living in Japan are eligible for 
monthly allowances of up to about 140,000 yen (US$1,150; ¬890), 
free medical checkups and funeral costs. Overseas-based survivors 
had been excluded until a change in Tokyo's government policy in 
2003. 

Japan is the only country to have suffered a nuclear attack when 
U.S. atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki in August 1945. 

All rights reserved   [IHT]
*****************************************************************
 42 AL: Depleted uranium isn't a common topic in the South Dakota Legislature.

Argus Leader Media - David Kranz

ArgusLeader.com - Argus Leader - Sioux Falls, South Dakota              
		 		 	 
Kranz Published: February 2, 2007 

But that was the point of discussion earlier this week for the
House State Affairs Committee.

The issue is whether the state should be required to inform
veterans returning from Iraq and other war zones that they are
eligible for a medical evaluation to determine whether they were
exposed to depleted uranium.

Uranium is a naturally occurring element that is the key
ingredient in nuclear weapons and power.

The question is whether soldiers in Iraq were exposed to
radiation from depleted uranium, which is the metal left over
after the portion used for power and weapons is removed. Some
veterans advocates say there are potential health effects from
that exposure.

The federal government says there is no evidence of problems
from uranium from this war in Iraq or the previous invasion. But
veterans advocates maintain testing is necessary, and four
states have passed legislation similar to what lawmakers in
South Dakota are considering.

The proposal was introduced here last year but was defeated.

"This is a step to ensure (veterans) about the status of their
health, be certain of their option if they have potentially been
exposed," said Sen. Margaret Gillespie, a Hudson Democrat who
sponsored the bill.

Members of the Armed Forces who are residents of this state,
including members of the South Dakota National Guard, are
eligible when they return home following service in an area
designated as a combat zone.

Paying attention to potential health risks is vital, says Lanny
Stricherz of Sisseton, a Vietnam veteran and supporter of the
measure, HB1202.

"The Department of Defense does not agree there are any effects
of depleted uranium on people, just as they were of any effects
of Agent Orange during Vietnam," says Stricherz.

Louisiana, Connecticut, New York and Washington already have
passed such laws to mandate this testing for their troops.

During committee testimony, Gillespie reminded lawmakers of the
late Roger Andal's efforts on behalf of the legislation.

"He lived through the Vietnam War, and he lived through the
effects of Agent Orange," she said. "Roger believed that this
notice was a small and simple effort to bring awareness to our
returning soldiers of their right to this test."

Gillespie said more than 2,900 South Dakota veterans have
returned since the start of the Iraq War, but only a few have
sought the tests.

A fact sheet from the U.S. Department of State refutes the
health claims based on information from the United States,
United Nations and other investigative sources.

That includes the World Health Organization and other scientific
research studies.

The State Department report says birth defects among Iraqis, for
instance, are more likely the result of the chemical and nerve
agents used by the Iraqi military during the 1980s and 1990s.

Andy Gerlach, South Dakota deputy secretary of Military and
Veterans Affairs, told the State Affairs committee that last
year the agency sent such notices to veterans.

He thinks South Dakota soldiers get information on depleted
uranium both before and after they are deployed.

Reid Christopherson, wing executive officer of the South Dakota
Air National Guard, says exposure of Guard members in this
conflict is "pretty infrequent."

Christopherson says he doesn't have all the particulars of the
legislation, but he doesn't object to advising troops of
opportunities to be tested.

"I think it is one of the many things we need to be aware of. We
are faced with so many environmental issues as a person is
deployed, whether it be combat or to New Orleans with Hurricane
Katrina," he said.

Gillespie is hopeful the second time for the bill will achieve
results.

"We have new members this year, more information about (depleted
uranium), and (we) hope they will give it fair consideration so
returning veterans have some knowledge about their current and
future status of their health," she said.

The committee voted 10-3 to send the measure to the House floor
after adding a one-year trial period. The debate in the full
House is scheduled for today.
Molly Ivins RIP
 

The death of Molly Ivins brought back memories for some Sioux
Falls residents.

Jeff Danz, owner of Zandbroz Variety in downtown Sioux Falls,
recalls a time a few years ago when he wanted to invite her to a
book signing at his store.

"Molly was going to be appearing in Brookings at the college,
and I made an initial contact with her publisher. He told me she
was a busy woman with no time to bother with a little book store
in Sioux Falls," Danz said.

Somehow, he got a contact address for her office and decided to
do an end run.

"I wrote her a note saying I admired her, understood she would
fly out of Sioux Falls and would love to host her for a book
signing. She called me up and said, 'Yes, I would love to do
that,' " Danz said.

The experience was "wonderful," Danz said.

"She made time, came here on a weekday afternoon, had time for
everybody that came in the door. Then at the last minute she
rushed to the airport," he said. "She was funny, salty, just
like you thought she would be."

Kay Coddington, co-owner of The Book Shop on Phillips Avenue,
long admired Ivins, too. She drove to St. Paul where Ivins was
appearing at the Hungry Mind book store.

"She was so funny. She makes me laugh about things that are
serious, about things not so serious," Coddington said.

David Kranz's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Call
him at 331-2302 or write to him at the Argus Leader, Box 5034,
Sioux Falls, SD 57117-5034. 			 		 		 	 	

Copyright ©2006 ArgusLeader.com.
*****************************************************************
 43 Salt Lake Tribune: Kane County draws up resolution opposing Divine Strake 
proposal

The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated: 02/02/2007 01:49:00 AM MST

KANAB - The Kane County Commission has joined a growing chorus
of local-government opposition to Divine Strake. 

    Earlier this week, the commission adopted a resolution
against federal plans to detonate 700 tons of ammonium nitrate
and fuel oil at the Nevada Test Site. 

    "Because of the potential threat to life, health and safety
of Kane County residents and visitors, the [commission] opposes
the Divine Strake test and other similar tests at the Nevada
Test Site," reads the resolution. 

    Commission Chairman Mark Habbeshaw said the document would
be forwarded to the governor and Utah's congressional
delegation. 

    Elsewhere in southwestern Utah, Washington County, St.
George and Springdale have passed similar resolutions. Iron
County could follow suit Monday. 

    Residents across that region fear that the non-nuclear blast
could kick up contaminated radioactive dust at the test site.
They worry that winds then could carry that dust to their homes,
schools, parks and workplaces and cause health problems similar
to those suffered decades earlier from fallout during
nuclear-weapons testing in Nevada. 

    The government argues it needs to conduct the explosion to
develop weapons capable of striking subterranean targets. 

    - Mark Havnes 
    
Â© Copyright 2006, The Salt Lake Tribune. 
*****************************************************************
 44 Spectrum: Lawmakers, speak up

www.thespectrum.com - The Spectrum, St. George, UT             

Friday, February 2, 2007             

Divine Strake - despite the fact that it is not a nuclear weapon 
- has raised fears in many Southern Utah residents. The test, 
proposed for the Nevada Test Site, would use a 700-ton fuel-oil 
bomb, reportedly as part of a program to research the possibility 
of bunker-buster bombs for use in the war on terror.

Opponents make two arguments. One centers on the ground that will 
be disturbed by such a large blast. They worry that radioactive 
soil left over from the above-ground tests of the 1950s and 1960s 
will be cast aloft in the atmosphere and will fall on the area. 
That is of particular concern for people who call themselves 
"Downwinders" because they believe they were harmed by radiation 
from those earlier bomb tests.

The second argument centers on the fear that this bomb - one
heavy enough that it couldn't actually be carried out by any
known weapon - is really a precursor to renewed nuclear testing
in the Nevada desert. Of course, there are some in the science
community who point out that the amount of radiation that
Southern Utah would be exposed to would be minimal - in fact,
less than we receive from other everyday activities. Their
arguments are rational and have some scientific studies to back
up their claims.

But this isn't a rational debate, primarily because the
government has been caught lying on issues related to the test
site in the past. Frankly, the government hasn't done much to
earn back that trust.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has led the state's fight against Divine
Strake. He went to the extreme of ordering the Utah Department
of Environmental Quality to conduct hearings in St. George and
Salt Lake City after federal agencies reversed course and turned
public hearings into open houses.

It's time for the Legislature to get involved. To date, there
has been no resolution against Divine Strake. That could - and
should - change. And the simple reason is economics.

Regardless of whether the bomb is safe, the perception is that
the government is renewing testing in the Nevada desert.
Companies seeking to move to Utah likely will view the state
differently if there is even a hint of testing going on upwind
in Nevada.

That's bad for the state's economy, particularly Southern Utah.

The Legislature can do something about it by raising its
collective voice in opposition to Divine Strake. Lawmakers are
currently in session, and the language shouldn't be too
difficult to resolve on a resolution that says Utah is tired of
being the guinea pig for the federal government.

The Legislature can speak for all of us by passing such a
resolution.

Originally published February 2, 2007 Print this article    

 Copyright ©2007 The Spectrum.
*****************************************************************
 45 NRC: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) Subcommittee 
 
                         FR Doc E7-1723 
[Federal Register: February 2, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 22)] 
[Notices] [Page 5087] From the Federal Register Online via GPO 
Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr02fe07-93]                         
 
Meeting on Materials, Metallurgy, and Reactor Fuels; Notice of 
Meeting The ACRS Subcommittee on Materials, Metallurgy, and 
Reactor Fuels will hold a meeting on February 21, 2007, Room 
T-2B3, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland.
 
The entire meeting will be open to public attendance.
 
The agenda for the subject meeting shall be as follows: 
Wednesday, February 21, 2007--1 p.m. until the conclusion of 
business.
 
The Subcommittee will hear from the NRC staff about the actions 
resulting from the Wolf Creek Pipe Cracking event. The 
Subcommittee will hear presentations by and hold discussions with 
representatives of the NRC staff, their contractors, 
representatives of the nuclear industry, and other interested 
persons regarding this matter.
 
The Subcommittee will gather information, analyze relevant issues 
and facts, and formulate proposed positions and actions, as 
appropriate, for deliberation by the full Committee.
 
Members of the public desiring to provide oral statements and/or 
written comments should notify the Designated Federal Official, 
Mr. Gary Hammer (telephone 301/415-7363) five days prior to the 
meeting, if possible, so that appropriate arrangements can be 
made.
 
Electronic recordings will be permitted.
 
Further information regarding this meeting can be obtained by 
contacting the Designated Federal Official between 7:15 a.m. and 
5 p.m. (ET). Persons planning to attend this meeting are urged to 
contact the above named individual at least two working days 
prior to the meeting to be advised of any potential changes to 
the agenda.
 
Dated: January 26, 2007.
 
Eric A. Thornsbury, Acting Branch Chief, ACRS/ACNW.
 
[FR Doc. E7-1723 Filed 2-1-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P

 
*****************************************************************
 46 OpEd News: Depleted Uranium Poison Targets US Citizens

  February 2, 2007 at 08:10:39
 
by Cathy Garger


I Left My Heart In (a 2500 miles radius of) San Francisco

Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night
suffocate in your own waste. Your destiny is a mystery to us. 

- Chief Seattle leader of the Duwanish tribe in Washington 
Territory in an 1854 letter to U.S. President Franklin Pierce to 
mark transfer of ancestral Indian lands to the United States

There are efforts underway to oppose explosions of radioactive
materials by the US government into the air in which we breathe.
This article will outline various reasons why and how
radioactive explosive "tests" are harming America - and describe
the efforts of citizens in one area of the country who are now
working to try to put a stop to them.

Like most people over 21, you may already know that the United
States used to "test" nuclear bombs in the NV and NM deserts,
right out in the open air. If asked, most people would probably
be able to tell us that yes indeed, both above ground and below
ground "nuclear testing" in the United States ended years ago.
Yet, even though 1992 saw its last nuke bomb "test" inside the
United States, how many know that our government is still firing
radioactive explosives into our atmosphere? This fact appears to
be one of Uncle Sam's "dirtiest" not-so-little, well-kept
secrets. 


Photo Top Left -- The Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) triggered
the atomic bomb called Priscilla on June 24, 1957 at the Nevada
Test Site. According to U.S. Department of Energy documents,
Priscilla was a balloon type test, it was weapons related, and
had a yield of 37 kill tons. 

Photo Top Right -- This photo was taken on November 1, 1951 and
was the "Dog" detonation. It was conducted as part of the
Buster/Jangle test series between October and November of 1951.
It was an airdrop with a yield of 21 kilotons. Another event 

Photo Center Left -- On December 18, 1970, the Baneberry
underground nuclear test was conducted at the Nevada Test Site
(NTS); the event released radioactivity to the atmosphere.
Baneberry had a yield of ten kilotons (a kiloton is the
equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT). The nuclear bomb was buried
about 900 feet beneath the surface of Yucca Flat near the
northern boundary of the NTS. The radiation release or venting
resulted in a cloud of radioactive dust that reached an altitude
of 10,000 feet. Following the Baneberry venting, new containment
procedures were adopted to prevent similar occurrences. 

Photo Center Right -- The Stokes atmospheric nuclear test was
conducted at the Nevada Test Site on August 7, 1957. The tests
was conducted as part the operation "Plumbbob" testing events.
Stokes produced 9 kilotons and was exploded from a balloon. 

Photo Bottom Right -- This above ground atmospheric nuclear test
was conducted at the Nevada Test Site on May 25, 1953. Named
Grable the nuclear bomb was fired from a 280 mm gun. The test
was an airburst, it was weapons related and had an estimated
yield range of 15 Kiloton. 

(Photos: Nevada Division of Environmental Protection)
 
Yes, they fire radiation out into the very same air that our
families breathe. Tons of radioactive munitions, in fact.
Depleted Uranium is the name of one of the materials they use.
And if that material sounds familiar? It because it's the same
stuff that they're using on the "enemy" - that is, on civilians
- in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

No, we do not know what in the world the civilians of Iraq and 
Afghanistan ever did to deserve the "honor" of being blasted to 
kingdom come with Uranium-238 - rendering their nations 
permanently uninhabitable. By the same token, nor do we know what 
American citizens have done to deserve Depleted Uranium being 
exploded into our air so that we are gassed with it, either.

But now the country is starting to buzz with the word of 
radioactive open air "testing" near San Francisco. And with such 
a progressive part of the nation that has historically fought 
hard for peace, equal rights, racial equality, gay rights, and 
ecological sustainability? As one could say, the Greater San 
Francisco Bay area is now again boldly "coming out of the closet" 
with regard to letting the proverbial cat out of the bag about 
this "dirty" business of Uncle Sam's.

But this is not a story entirely about San Francisco's troubles. 
Nor is it even all about California. As you will see, this story 
affects you and me, no matter where we live in the country. 
California's tale is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. The 
story about your community and mine? Now that's the heart of this 
story.

The fiery "hot" issue of Depleted Uranium explosives "testing" 
has emerged into the spotlight in the San Francisco Bay area 
recently all because of some people who live in a city called 
Tracy. That's how anything important usually starts - when just a 
few people who are fed up enough get together and become vocal 
enough and publicly put up a fuss. 

No wonder why they're upset. Only a few miles away from them on a 
federally owned 7,000 acre parcel of land in the Altamont Hills 
at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in San Joaquin and 
Alameda Counties, California, radioactive explosives containing 
Depleted Uranium are being shot out into the open air at a 
location called Site 300. Yes, Depleted Uranium is being exploded 
across the street from a motorbike recreational area. Site 300 is 
only a few miles away from where people live.

What started all the ruckus was that on November 13 a new permit, 
issued by California's San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control 
District, was put into effect that allows the Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory to use more than triple the amount of 
explosive materials in "test" detonations at Site 300 than in the 
past. This means that the equivalent of 350 pounds of explosives 
may now be fired instead of the previously permitted 100 pounds. 

There are two efforts underway to appeal the new permit for Site 
300 that allows for much larger explosions by using greater 
amounts of radioactive materials. Two appeals have been filed, 
one by a housing developer and the other by a resident who lives 
about five miles from the radioactive blast location, Site 300. 

Small business owner, Tracy resident, and long-standing member of 
Tri-Valley Communities Against A Radioactive Environment (CARES), 
Bob Sarvey is leading the way to protect his community of 72,400 
from radioactivity at Livermore's Site 300 by appealing the 
permit of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District. 
A health risk assessment performed recently shows a higher health 
risk just from merely inhaling toxic non-radioactive air 
contaminants than the Livermore Lab shows in its own radiological 
assessment.

Residents realized something was not quite right about this 
report. "Previously", according to Sarvey, "the Lawrence 
Livermore Lab didn't need a permit from the Pollution Control 
District because their chargers were under 100 lbs. equivalent to 
TNT - and under 1,000 pounds per year. Now, they are going to 
increase that to 350 pounds per charge, equivalent to TNT ...and 
they are also going to increase the annual limit to 8,000 pounds. 
That's eight-fold of what it was annually... and on a per change 
basis, three and a half times per charge". 

In addition to allowing up to 8,000 pounds of explosives 
containing radioactive matter annually, as reported in the Tracy 
Press on December 14 the current county air pollution control 
permit allows Livermore Laboratory to emit up to 1,440 pounds of 
particulate matter up to 10 microns in diameter per year into the 
air. The public does not even have to be notified of such 
emissions unless the particulate matter exceeds a 20,000 pound 
limit. 

It only takes one invisible micron of Depleted Uranium to cause 
organ damage and health failure. Can anyone possibly hazard a 
guess as to how much potential hazard that 1,440 pounds of 
particulates could cause - never mind the 20,000 pound 
particulate upper limit? Can you imagine willingly causing up to 
1,440 pounds of radioactive particles to be blasted into the open 
air? If one miniscule particle so tiny as to be invisible can 
cause a terminal illness, whose mind can even fathom the 
devastation 1,440 pounds of this stuff could do to countless 
numbers of people?

But we must remember - Livermore Lab is allowed to explode up to 
20,000 pounds into the air in a year and not even have to notify 
the neighboring communities. And Site 300 is only one of several 
such explosive "test" sites in the nation. 

Lawrence Livermore representatives will not reveal to Tracy 
residents precisely how many bombs might be "tested" in a year. 
Tracy Press reports that the only reason given by Lawrence 
Livermore for the eight-fold annual increase in explosives 
testing is "national security," according to air district 
spokeswoman Kelly Morphy. 

Understandably, this news came as a big surprise to citizens of 
the Greater San Francisco Bay area. Marylia Kelley, Tri-Valley 
Communities Against a Radioactive Environment executive director, 
said "This is a shocking change of plan" . 

On January 8, Recordnet.com quoted Livermore Public Affairs 
Director Susan Hougton stating that the Lab plans to conduct 
"only three'" of the larger, 350-pound detonations in the next 
year and a half. According to Houghton, no blasts larger than 100 
pounds have been conducted since 1997.

"Only three" large radioactive explosions in a year - and an 
unknown number of smaller ones at 100 pounds a "pop" - certainly 
does not sound like too much to be concerned over. So what is the 
big deal with exploding up to 8,000 pounds of explosives 
including radioactive toxics like Depleted Uranium out into the 
open air, anyway?

WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL ABOUT DU?

Depleted Uranium is an inexpensive, radioactive heavy metal more 
dense than lead. It is basically nuclear waste made from the 
uranium enrichment process. The supply is plentiful and the US 
Military uses it in its guns, tanks, bombs, missiles and cannons. 
To get a feel for how much of it there is of the stuff, The U.S. 
government has produced more than 1.1 Billion pounds of DU in its 
uranium enrichment facilities in Ohio and Kentucky. It's also 
used as military tank armor, and aircraft, ship and missile 
counterweight ballasts as well as to provide the massive casing 
for hydrogen bombs that enable them to undergo fission and give 
off about fifty percent greater energy "bang for the buck".

Our military has found that there are many attractive advantages 
to using Depleted Uranium (Uranium-238) over Tungsten steel, as 
Uranium-238 is an easier substance to process. It is also 
pyrophoric, which means it burns instantly upon impact or if 
ignited. DU also has the advantage of being easily able to 
penetrate targets from armored tanks to concrete bunkers. 

Always happy to rid itself of nuclear waste, Depleted Uranium has 
been cheerfully given away by the government to weapons 
manufacturers, who then in turn make a profit by selling the 
weapons to the US Military for use in combat as well as for 
running "tests" out into the air. Sometimes in the past fifty 
years it has been burned in open pits and other times DU is 
exploded in an estimated twenty-three locations all across the 
nation, including Hawaii and Puerto Rico. 

Experts who have studied the properties of Depleted Uranium and 
its deleterious effects upon human health have a great deal to 
tell us. Recently in a letter to Tracy Press, Marion Fulk, local 
resident and nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore 
Nuclear Weapons Lab formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, 
tells us a bit about the uranium that is being exploded at 
Livermore and its effects upon human health: "Uranium-238, 
sometimes called 'depleted uranium', poses a serious health 
threat, especially if inhaled in finely divided particles like 
those created by open-air explosives testing. Because of its 
properties, uranium-238 is a triple threat to human health. Its 
properties as a heavy metal create health damage once inside the 
body. Its properties as a hazardous chemical catalyst cause 
additional health risks. And its properties as a radioactive 
material offer a third route to cellular and DNA damage, illness 
and premature death in humans and animals."

Despite the fact that Uranium-238 is commonly called "Depleted", 
this was a label invented to get the public to think that it is a 
weakly radioactive material. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. This poison dust packs a powerful punch to the human body, 
as Dr. Rosalie Bertell, biometrician and environmental 
epidemiologist, international radiation expert, and Founder of 
The International Institute of Concern for Public Health 
explains, "Depleted uranium concentrate is almost 100 percent 
uranium. More than 99 percent of both natural and depleted 
uranium consists of the isotope U-238." In addition, the U.S. 
Department of Energy and the 1995 U.S. Army Environmental Policy 
Institute admits that a small amount of additional toxic heavy 
metals and radioactive isotopes are also present in Depleted 
Uranium, such as plutonium, neptunium, americium, Uranium-236 as 
well as Uranium-234 and Uranium-235.

The Uranium-238 which is used in our weapons and is "tested" at 
test sites throughout the United States is some mighty powerful 
stuff. We should not, therefore, allow the name of this type of 
radioactive munition, "Depleted Uranium", fool us. As a matter of 
fact, in order to bring greater clarity to the issue, scientists 
from the UK at the Low Level Radiation Campaign are no longer 
calling uranium weapons "Depleted Uranium" or "DU" but have 
switched to the term "WDU", which stands for Weapons-Derived 
Uranium when referring to exposures from use of weapons 
containing any class of Uranium. Hopefully the term WDU will 
eventually catch on, because just like the words that the US 
Military uses to describe DU such as claiming it is "mildly" or 
"weakly" radioactive, the fact of the matter is, no radiation is 
harmless radiation. 

Uranium weapons destroy health and irreparably damage all living 
things. In his book Radiation-Induced Cancer From Low-Dose 
Exposure, John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D. makes his point about 
radiation crystal clear: "By contrast, we think human evidence 
and logic combine to make a case which is already conclusive -- 
by any reasonable standard of proof -- against the existence of 
any safe dose or dose-rate of ionizing radiation, with respect to 
cancer-induction."

For the case of simplicity for now, we will stick to the misnomer 
"Depleted Uranium". A pyrophoric munition, DU explodes 
spontaneously upon being fired. Up to 80% of it is then oxidized, 
and an aerosol is formed of minute radioactive particles between 
the range of below 1 micrometer to 5 micrometers. Immediately 
after the Uranium-238 is fired, these particles are so tiny that 
they are actually an invisible gas which can be either inhaled 
easily into the lungs, ingested in food, or can enter the body 
inside a break in the skin, such as through a small cut on a 
finger. In combat, Depleted Uranium can also enter the body via 
shrapnel that enters the skin.

At the May, 1999 Hague Peace Conference, Dr. Rosalie Bertell 
stated that Depleted Uranium is "converted at high temperature 
into an aerosol, that is, minute insoluble particles of uranium 
oxide, UO2 or UO3 , in a mist or fog...Uranium oxide and its 
aerosol form are insoluble in water. The aerosol resists gravity, 
and is able to travel ... in air. Once on the ground, it can be 
resuspended when the sand is disturbed by motion or wind. Once 
breathed in, the very small particles of uranium oxide, those 
which are 2.5 microns [ one micron = one millionth of a meter ] 
or less in diameter, could reside in the lungs for years". Once 
in the lungs, the uranium slowly passes through the lung tissue 
into the blood. Uranium oxide dust has a biological half life in 
the lungs of about a year. Eventually, the uranium passes through 
the lung tissue and then into the blood stream, which may then be 
broken down in body fluids. 

Eventually the uranium may be stored in bone, lymph, liver, 
kidney or other tissues. When found in urine seven or eight years 
after exposure, it is an indication of its long term internal 
uranium contamination through storage in the body's tissues.

Marion Fulk gives us an energetic picture of how DU creates havoc 
once inside the body. "It is an alpha emitter, which means that 
it is particularly damaging if lodged inside the body. 
Uranium-238 decays with an energy of 4 million electron volts per 
alpha particle. The energy emitted tears up surrounding cells and 
may initiate a whole bunch of negative health outcomes, 
including, but not limited to, cancers."

Dr. Doug Rokke states how fast DU works once inside the body, 
"Alpha particle emission measurements show that the dose or 
exposure rate is in excess of 10000 counts per minute." DU, he 
says, "is a serious internal hazard".

Explaining this nasty cell-busting process, Janette D. Sherman, 
M.D., specialist in internal medicine and toxicology, member of 
The Radiation and Public Health Project, and author of Life's 
Delicate Balance: Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer and 
Chemical Exposure and Disease states that when we are exposed to 
Depleted Uranium, it is a serious hazard as a chemically toxic 
heavy metal, plus it is also radioactive. Because the uranium is 
so concentrated, the alpha activity is increased, and a decay 
process occurs. Both alpha and beta radiation are emitted into 
the cell tissue that surrounds the miniature DU particle, 
affecting other cells and disrupting cell membranes, DNA, and the 
cell development process. 

Quoting from Dr. Sherman's book, "Aside from the radioactivity of 
uranium, it is a heavy metal poison and foreign body irritant 
with the potential to remain in the body for decades." Uranium 
poisoning also involves general health impairment to the kidneys, 
liver, lungs, and cardiovascular, nervous and cell production 
systems, and cause disorders of proteins and carbohydrate 
metabolism . 

Hmmm...Uranium can stay in the body for decades, you say? Well 
then, how do we know that any of us is not walking around right 
now with an invisible particle of Uranium-238 lodged inside one 
of our lungs, hanging out and waiting to give us cancer twelve 
years down the road? The point of the matter is, we don't. 

In an effort to de-mystify what is called by the US Military 
"Gulf War Syndrome" in veterans of wars in the Middle East, Dr. 
Sherman explains what many have come to call Depleted Uranium 
Poisoning. In "Life's Delicate Balance", Dr. Sherman details 
precisely how we get sick from breathing in Uranium-238. "When DU 
burns, it releases fine particles of radioactive material, much 
of it as small as nano particles which when inhaled go deep into 
the lungs and from there are transported to the liver, kidneys, 
bone marrow, brain, skeleton, seminal fluid, and other parts of 
the body. DU that is swallowed from airborne particles is 
transported to the intestinal tract and absorbed and transported 
to other parts of the body, including the liver and kidneys." 

As evidenced by increases in incidences of cancer in veterans 
returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as in 
civilians in these countries, Depleted Uranium clearly plays a 
role in cancer development, in auto-immune system disorders, and 
in the alteration of gene expression patterns. By now we've all 
seen the horrific pictures of children from Iraq and Afghanistan 
with cancers and those born without limbs and unrecognizable 
facial features. 

In effect, scientific evidence suggests that Uranium-238 does 
appear to have an adverse impact on reproduction and the 
destruction and mutation of genetic material, which is passed 
down to future descendents which can lead to birth defects in the 
exposed individual's offspring. 

Studies have also shown that DU has a toxic effect on the kidneys 
as they are the organ that eliminates toxins in the blood and 
thus are particularly vulnerable to both radiological and heavy 
metal toxicity and are the first organs to be damaged by uranium. 
Uranium-238 also causes neurologically related behavioral 
effects. Recently scientists have observed that there appears to 
be a correlation between Depleted Uranium and increases in 
diabetes. 

Alan Cantwell, M.D. covers the latest scientific thinking on this 
connection in his article, "Depleted Uranium, Diabetes, Cancer 
and You". In it Dr. Cantwell writes that "The CDC predicts that 
Type 2 diabetes will increase 165% by 2050. People with Type 2 
diabetes are also twice as likely to get pancreatic cancer." 
Basic common sense tells us that such dramatic increases in the 
diabetes epidemic is quite unlikely to be due merely to genetics 
and "lifestyle choices" alone.

Recent data from The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) 
indicates the enormity of the diabetes epidemic indicating that 
the disease now affects 246 million people worldwide. They 
predict that the total number of people living with diabetes 
worldwide will reach 380 million within twenty years. According 
to IDF President Pierre Lefï¿½bvre, "Just twenty years ago, the 
best information available suggested that 30 million people had 
diabetes. A bleaker picture has now emerged. Diabetes is fast 
becoming the epidemic of the 21st century." 

Never before has a quote been so fitting as that from Leuren 
Moret, geo-scientist and international radiation specialist who 
wrote, "If it's an epidemic, it's not genetic." 

Scientists like Moret and Dr. Ernest Sternglass are now observing 
that increasing atmospheric radiation seems to play a vital role 
in the expanding worldwide increase in cases of diabetes.

ABOUT RADIOACTIVE BLASTS

With such known devastating health effects of this 
life-devastating toxin that stays in the body and basically rips 
it apart, one can't help but wonder just what type of super-top 
secret, "national security" projects would necessitate exploding 
radioactive toxic uranium gas into densely populated areas where 
millions of Americans inhale these toxics right where they live 
and work? 

I contacted the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Public Affairs 
office to try to better understand the rationale for detonating 
even greater amounts of radioactive explosives within a highly 
populated area. Could it be, I wondered, that they do not realize 
that their 11.7 square miles of nuclear waste materials "testing" 
Site 300 is less than 50 miles from San Francisco? Maybe someone 
needed to tell Livermore Lab (i.e., Uncle Sam) that more than 
seven million people live in the densely populated San Francisco 
Bay Area and have been breathing in this "gene busting" chemical 
toxic and radiological poison for about fifty years?

Certainly, I reasoned, no sane individuals would be exploding 
radiation into the air for fifty years - on purpose - if they 
realized how many families - men, women, children, and infants 
are breathing in that air?

The Public Affairs Director, Susan Houghton, seemed pleased to 
share that Livermore had been "very successful for 50 years" 
before Tracy Press started reporting on this issue, but she 
declined to elaborate further. One can't help but wonder how the 
Lab has been "successful" ... I wanted to ask her, "successful" 
at doing... exactly what? Perhaps Livermore Lab is proud they've 
been "successful" at keeping the community in general - and 
California as a whole - quiet and totally in the dark with regard 
to the hazards to their health? 

Apparently the US government has determined that the public does 
not have a right to know what is in the air they breathe. As 
reported by Tracy Press on December 14, Livermore Lab 
spokesperson Linda Seaver stated, "We are not bound to do a 
public notice for every permit we request. We worked directly 
with the local air quality board and our various regulators". 

How do you think the American public would feel if it realized 
that nuclear bomb simulators purposely and routinely fire off 100 
pound toxic and radioactive air blasts that affect the air, 
water, soil, and food supplies in our communities? Site 300, 
after all, is only one of at several DU "testing" grounds in the 
nation. For example, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories 
both fire Depleted Uranium into the open air, as does the Nevada 
Test Site and Yuma Proving Grounds in Arizona. 

When asked in a phone conversation about radioactivity in the 
outdoor explosions, Public Affairs Director Houghton said she 
would not answer questions, but stated that tritium would not be 
used in the 350 lb tests. On this subject, another laboratory 
spokesperson, Linda Seaver, informed SF Gate that the Laboratory 
last used tritium in test explosions in 2001. 

Tritium, radioactive hydrogen, is present in nature in tiny 
amounts. Significant quantities, however, are generated by 
nuclear power plants and the manufacture of nuclear weapons and 
atomic bomb testing. Tritium, like Uranium-238, is another 
destroyer of human cells and DNA. According to the Nuclear 
Information Resource Service website: "Tritium emits radioactive 
beta particles. Once tritium is inhaled or swallowed, its beta 
particles can bombard cells. If a particle zaps a DNA molecule in 
a cell, it can cause a mutation. If it mutates a gene important 
to cell function, a serious disease may result... Research 
indicates that tritium can remain in the human body for more than 
ten years".

At a Tracy City Council meeting on January 2, Tracy Press 
reported Larry Sedlacek, Deputy Associate Director of Operations 
in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's Defense and Nuclear 
Technologies Group, as saying that tritium could be used in tests 
that would be "aerosolized" after test blasts. He also stated 
that he "would not rule out using tritium in the blasts... saying 
details of the blasts are classified." Sedlacek also admitted, 
"We have used tritium at Site 300 in the past...It is contained 
in our environmental impact statement that we could potentially 
use small quantities in the future, but we don't have any 
scheduled."

Whether the tritium and DU blasts are scheduled on the calendar 
or they occur at the whim of the detonator button-pusher on duty 
at Livermore that day, there appears to be some big project going 
on in the hills near San Francisco. Livermore representatives 
won't name a project linked to the planned explosions, but word 
has it that there's something new in the works.

One is left to ponder what would tritium be used for in the 
smaller, radioactive tritium tests? Local war correspondent Bob 
Nichols offered, "It is pretty clear from the tritium that 
Livermore, like Los Alamos Nuclear Weapons Lab, is busily 
modeling the explosion of global thermonuclear weapons".

APPEALING BIG EXPLOSIONS

With such a long history of radioactive explosions at Site 300, 
one is left to sit and ponder the impacts of these explosions 
upon the health of the greater San Francisco Bay Area. A health 
risk assessment for air pollution was done by the San Joaquin 
Pollution Control District, yet their health analysis does not 
require them to report radiological impacts. Their function is 
only to report non-radiological toxic air contaminants. Tracy 
resident Bob Sarvey stated in an interview, "Radiological impacts 
are not regulated by the Air Pollution Control District. In fact, 
their health risk assessment is inadequate" because it will 
contain neither the Depleted Uranium nor tritium used at the 
site.

How curious it is that the county which is required to report 
levels of air pollution toxics is not required to measure nor 
report on toxics caused by radioactive explosions being conducted 
within its county? Livermore Lab's been "testing" there for 50 
years, so it's not like the Air Pollution Control Board hasn't 
heard of what they've been up to all those years. San Joaquin's 
non-reporting of radiation in a county where Depleted Uranium is 
fired out into the open air is certainly curious indeed.

Residents like Bob Sarvey are understandably concerned that 
radioactive material such as Depleted Uranium and tritium will 
continue to be blown into Tracy. Living approximately five miles 
from the explosive "test" site, Sarvey felt compelled to 
personally cover a $750 fee to file an appeal against the larger 
explosives permit. Since the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution 
Control District is not required to regulate radioactive 
material, Sarvey believes this issue should have referred that 
question to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The second petition being filed on February 7 is by a developer, 
Tracy Hills LLC, AKT Development. Out of Sacramento, AKT is 
calling for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District 
to review the accuracy of emissions estimates, and environmental 
and noise impacts of the larger blasts, according to appeal 
documents. Part of the Tracy Hills property adjoins Site 300, 
although the 5,500 housing community would be not much more than 
a mile from Site 300. I phoned them to ask if the developer still 
plans on building those homes so close to a Depleted Uranium 
explosives "test" site even if their appeal is denied, but my 
call was not returned. 

OK IT'S HARMFUL - BUT IS THIS STUFF LEGAL?

Far, far away, the US Military's premiere weapon of choice, 
Depleted Uranium, has been used in combat overseas at least as 
far back as 1991. It was also used in the former Yugoslavia and 
surrounding Balkans region [Europe] in the 1990s, in Kosovo in 
1999-2000, in Afghanistan beginning in 2001, and in Iraq starting 
in 1991. While many people believe that DU use started in 1991 
and then resumed in 2003 with the second Gulf War, Dr. Souad N. 
Al-Azzawi, Associate Professor in Environmental Geological 
Engineering of Mamoun University for Science &Technology, and 
Member of the reminds us, however, that the use of DU in Iraq 
never actually stopped. As the expert on uranium weapons-related 
environmental impact and diseases told us in August, 2006, at the 
3rd ICBUW International Conference Hiroshima, "The USA and UK 
continuously used Depleted Uranium weapons against the population 
and environment in Iraq from 1991 until today."

What makes it hard to comprehend is that these weapons have been 
used for 15 years in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the 
Middle East despite the fact that the United Nations has 
prohibited its use. As stating in its 1996 resolution, 

it "Urges all States to be guided in their national policies by 
the need to curb the production and the spread of weapons of mass 
destruction or with indiscriminate effect, in particular nuclear 
weapons, chemical weapons, fuel-air bombs, napalm, cluster bombs, 
biological weaponry and weaponry containing depleted uranium". 

Doug Rokke, Ph.D., health physicist, former Director, U.S. Army 
Depleted Uranium Project, and one of the authors of the 
Pentagon's program for environmental remediation summarizes the 
international violations associated with use of DU: "According to 
an August 2002 UN report, the use of DU munitions breaches the 
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Charter, the 
Genocide Convention, the Convention Against Torture, the four 
Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Conventional Weapons Convention 
of 1980, and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907."

Before the second war in Iraq even started, Karen Parker, J.D., 
President and Co-founder of the Association of Humanitarian 
Lawyers, further elaborated on the illegality of DU weapons, in 
August 1999 when she testified "...these radioactive weapons have 
already been used in Kuwait, Iraq, Kosovo and Serbia even though 
they are illegal under existing humanitarian law. There are four 
main tests which determine whether or not the use of weapons is 
illegal: (1) whether or not they stay within the territorial 
range of the conflict; (2) whether or not they damage the 
environment; (3) whether or not the effects of the weapons end 
when the conflict ends (or the temporal range of the weapons); 
and (4) whether or not they are inhumane, that is, continue to 
cause physical harm beyond the point used for military purposes. 
As the Sub-Commission is aware, Depleted Uranium Munitions fail 
all four tests." 

So apparently, international law be damned and world leaders dare 
not oppose this behemoth of a military beast. The US military's 
continued violation of international law by its use of DU in 
nations overseas in which it declares an "enemy" is certainly no 
secret to the rest of the world. At the very least, what the 
United Nations, the Middle East, eastern Europe and Okinawa 
(Islands of Japan) and Puerto Rico (both locations where DU was 
exploded) all realize too well about the horrific ramifications 
of the use of US uranium weapons inside our country seems to be a 
well-kept secret here at home.

How many Americans do you think realize that radioactive Depleted 
Uranium explosions are being detonated in several federal "test" 
sites right here in the United States, where American families 
live, work, play - and try to breathe? How many people even 
living in the Livermore Lab's backyard, inside the greater San 
Francisco Bay area realize that the radioactive particulate 
matter of Uranium-238 stays in our atmosphere for 4,510,000,000 
years? 

We're not talking about a poison that will go away in a few 
generations. This radiation will, in fact, be around longer than 
the earth itself has been around. In the scheme of things, we are 
radioactively poisoning earth forever.

We have created a legacy of a toxic radioactive environment for 
our children and future descendents forevermore. We who are Baby 
Boomers have slept through this nuclear and nuclear waste 
radioactive "testing" while we went to school, built our careers, 
and have been immersed in raising our families and trying to make 
a living. So, too, have our parents' and grandparents' 
generations, and now today's younger adults are just starting to 
make their way in this world. 

While we were busy doing other things, far too busy to worry 
about what was taking place on military "testing" ranges, proving 
grounds, and national "laboratories", sixty years of 
radioactivity "testing" has taken place right here, our own soil, 
into our air. There appears to be no end to it in sight. 

Through "testing" of bombs, tanks, and guns containing 
Uranium-238, tritium and other toxic substances at military 
ordnances, national laboratories, and other federal lands 
throughout the United States including Hawaii and off the coast 
of Alaska, we have permitted the creation of radiation-filled 
toxic earth, air, and water for our offspring. Knowingly or not, 
we have allowed irreparable harm to be done to our earth, land, 
water, and human genetics and cellular physiology - for the 
prematurely aborted future of humankind. 

What we are doing with these uranium munitions is, as Leuren 
Moret states, "illegal under international human rights and 
humanitarian law". She informs us that the US "has used this 
inhumane weapon on the battlefield, exposing its own soldiers, 
its allies, civilian populations, and future generations. DU 
testing in the US continues to expose unsuspecting citizens and 
the environment. Pilots at Fallen Naval Air Station in Nevada 
trained on nearby bombing and gunnery ranges for the Gulf War. 
Now, the "don't look, don't find policy" of the military is 
concealing the cause of a recent leukemia cluster among children 
in Fallon."

Jim Howenstein, M.D. agrees and posits that the use of thousands 
of tons of Depleted Uranium used for decades at Fallon, Nevada 
"is no doubt responsible for the fastest growing leukemia cluster 
in the U.S. The military has denied that DU has anything to do 
with this cluster. " Dr. Howenstein goes even further by stating 
http://www.newswithviews.com/Howenstine/james29.htmthat his own 
"medical profession has been involved in the cover-up-just as 
they were hiding the adverse effects that low level radiation 
from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants were 
producing." 

MAKING THE CONNECTION

What would happen, do you think, if the connection was made in 
the minds of 300 million Americans between widespread cancers, 
diabetes, asthma and other respiratory diseases, auto-immune 
system diseases and birth defects as a result of Americans 
breathing in low-level, ionizing radiation? To say the least, 
this mind-blowing revelation would not exactly "sell" on-going 
American wars. One can understand precisely why a government - 
and the mainstream media it controls - would try extremely hard 
to keep the radioactive explosions, irreparably damaging to the 
air and environment, all very hush-hush.

One can't help but ponder the concept of a government - any 
nation's government - willfully, knowingly, releasing vast 
amounts of radioactive substances into the air, water, and food 
supply of its very own people. Upon contemplation, the average 
brain can not begin to comprehend the sober seriousness contained 
within such a concept. Aghast with the horrific implications, one 
is forced to ask if this poison dust - which is being inhaled in 
our air and ingested within our food and water - is not purposely 
intended to have an adverse health impact upon those living 
within our own country, too? 

What seems to be too horrific a concept must at least be 
considered. 

In a working paper submitted by Y.K.J. Yeung Sik Yuen at the 
United Nations Sub-Commission on Human Rights on September 25th, 
2003, Yuen concluded "that these weapons are intended to be used 
on enemy soil, thus making their devastation less of an issue for 
their users and their own nationals than for the 'enemy' 
victims."

Arguably, Yuen's reasoning certainly does appear logical. If a 
weapon of devastating consequences is used which has consequences 
upon "the enemy", yet possesses no adverse effects upon the 
aggressor population using it, the chances of that weapon being 
discontinued due to the insistence of the aggressor's population 
would be slim. 

It will therefore be interesting to observe if Americans will 
react differently (that is, react with appropriate and fitting 
moral outrage) against uranium weapons use upon civilians in the 
Middle East when we realize that our government has been using 
upon us - right here in the United States - the exact same types 
of munitions they have been using on our so-called "enemies" 
overseas. 

As Charles W. Chestnutt said, "Sins, like chickens, come home to 
roost." Or, in other words, "What goes around comes around". Use 
of uranium in weapons upon some unknown foreign "enemy" who are 
we told "hates our freedom" is apparently not too big of a 
concern for most Americans - at least not yet. 

BUT WHY HERE? WHY US?

Radioactive weapons use inside the US is certainly nothing new. 
The US Military has been conducting explosive radioactive "tests" 
inside America for the past sixty years. At this point, after 
umpteen years of "testing" the same materials, one can't help but 
wonder if it's actually the explosive material they are 
continually "testing"... or rather, what happens to citizen 
populations when radioactive materials are continually fired into 
the open air in communities where people live?

Former Livermore Laboratory whistleblower, Leuren Moret, gives us 
a clue as to why a nation might want to "test" Depleted Uranium 
within its own country: "International scientists, Drs. Andre 
Gsponer, J.-P. Hurni, and B. Vitali, watch-dogging nuclear 
weapons developments globally, pointed out that DU weaponry is 
being used to study the radiobiological effects of the new 
nuclear weapons now under development."

Moret also informs us:

"The use of weapons in war are most effective when the weapons do 
not kill, but create long-term health and environmental 
consequences such as lingering illnesses which slowly destroy the 
health of the environment and productivity of a nation and the 
economy.... DU is a permanent terrain contaminant with a 
half-life of 4.5 billion years, forms immense volumes of 
nano-sized particles (smaller than bacteria or viruses) which are 
lofted permanently as components of atmospheric dust traveling 
around the world until they are rained or snowed out of the 
air...Even worse, uranium targets the DNA... and slowly destroys 
the genetic future of exposed populations."

Site 300, where these radioactive explosions occur, is only about 
40 miles from San Francisco. More than seven million people live 
in the highly populated Greater San Francisco Bay area. America 
has been breathing in this toxic, "gene busting" invisible poison 
since 1945 when Uranium-238, as well as other radioactive 
materials, were used inside the hydrogen bomb that the US 
exploded in the New Mexico desert.

Dr. Janette Sherman, after hearing about the DU explosions at 
site 300 at Livermore admitted, "I can not think of a single 
reason why munitions have to be tested in that area. It's not 
like munitions have not been tested before. I believe it must be 
stopped." 

It would certainly appear that those in power are cooking up some 
"hot" treat for the liberal Greater San Francisco Bay area. In 
fact, San Francisco has been a long-established place to 
experiment upon the population. An advanced Google search using 
the exact phrases "human experiment" and "San Francisco" yielded 
14,300 Google "hits". 

As was noted by a recent report, "Lack of transparency is cause 
for concern if only because of the history of secret Central 
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pentagon experiments in germ 
warfare that used the American people as guinea pigs. In his book 
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, Common 
Courage Press reporter William Blum noted that both agencies 
'conducted tests [over two decades] in the open air in the United 
States, exposing millions of Americans to large clouds of 
possibly dangerous bacteria and chemical particles.'

From 1949-69, the US Army tested the spread of dangerous chemical 
and bacterial organisms at over 239 US populated areas including 
San Francisco, New York, and Chicago with no warnings to the 
public or regard for the health consequences, Blum wrote. The 
Pentagon even sprayed navy warships to test the impact of germ 
warfare on US sailors."

AND WHAT ABOUT TRITIUM ?

The United States government fully admits that it has done
radiation experiments on Americans before. And with the long
history of such chemical, biological, and radiological exposures
upon the people of the San Francisco area, one is forced to
realize that its nation's government certainly did not, as the
song goes, leave its heart there. Since such exposures have been
going on since the Cold War started, one can not help but wonder
what type of a "national security" project would involve
dispersing radioactive uranium gas and tritium into such a
densely populated area where millions of American lungs are
breathing in the toxic air and drinking the water (of which
tritium is not removed) all around them? 

Livermore knows exactly what it is doing to the health of 
America's citizens with these DU blasts out into the California 
air. At a Tracy City Council meeting on January 2, Tracy Press 
reported that Larry Sedlacek, Deputy Associate Director of 
Operations in the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's Defense and 
Nuclear Technologies Group, as saying that tritium could be used 
in "tests" that would be "aerosolized" (turned into gas) after 
"test" blasts and that he "would not rule out" using tritium in 
the blasts when interviewed Wednesday, saying details of the 
blasts are classified." Sedlacek was quoted as saying, "We have 
used tritium at Site 300 in the past...It is contained in our 
environmental impact statement that we could potentially use 
small quantities in the future, but we don't have any scheduled."

One can't help but wonder if anyone gets rewarded for keeping 
things so quiet for so long? Take for example, how happy you 
would be if you were the head of a major nuclear weapons lab and 
your staff was able to keep explosions of radioactive materials 
so damaging to human health and the environment a really big 
secret from the nation for fifty years! Undoubtedly, the ability 
to keep such a major deal under wraps from the 7 million people 
living and working in the San Francisco Bay area must make for 
some mighty swollen incentive bonuses for public relations staff 
who know how to keep Uncle Sam's "hottest" and "dirtiest " of 
secrets!

STARTING AT TRACY - AND WAY, WAY BEYOND...

So going back to the people in the Tracy/Livermore area, any way 
you look at it, they've been dealt a really bum deal. According 
to Steve Sarvey, "It's like a triple whammy. There's three things 
going on." First, there's the issue of radioactive outdoor 
explosive "testing". It is not known exactly how much radiation 
has been released out into the atmosphere at Livermore, but 
outdoor explosives "tests" at Site 300 have averaged about 60 per 
year at 100 pounds each since 1997, according to Susan Houghton. 

Want to make your head spin? Just do the math. If Livermore 
explodes 60,000 pounds of explosives in ten years? Since the high 
explosives "tests" began at Site 300 in 1955, that makes 60,000 
pounds every ten years, which amounts to 300,000 pounds or 150 
tons of radioactive blasts. And that's at only one of the federal 
"test" sites - of which there are several. 

Site 300 is a contaminated Toxic site on the Superfund National 
Priorities List due to contamination of groundwater and tonnage 
of materials deposited there, such as Depleted Uranium, 
beryllium, and tritium. Some of these radioactive substances sit 
in unlined pits. There are extensive plumes of various substances 
with fifty-seven separate contaminant release areas that exist 
including soil and water both above and below the ground. 

According to Bob Sarvey, the Tracy City Council voted in April to 
have Livermore Laboratory remove the piles of highly enriched 
uranium as well as plutonium and tritium that are sitting in 
unlined pits, but Livermore Lab has failed to do so. And to add 
insult to injury? Livermore Lab, which is run and staffed by the 
University of California, also applied to increase the amount of 
toxic waste it can store at Site 300 from 3,300 gallons to 5,500 
gallons, according to Department of Toxic Substances Control 
permit project manager Andrew Berna-Hicks. 

Last but certainly not least, Site 300 is one of the sites that 
the Department of Homeland Security is considering to run a 
Bio-Safety Level 4, anti-biological laboratory. Level 4 labs test 
and store incurable fatal diseases such as the Ebola virus and 
mad cow disease. 

Again, the question must be asked, why in the world would anyone 
want to even consider doing work on fatal and incurable diseases 
so close to seven million people?

As far as health affects caused by DU radiation "testing" goes, 
anecdotal reports from Tracy citizens suggest an inordinately 
high number of cancers in their area including cancerous brain 
tumors and mysterious illnesses. Journalist Chris Bollyn 
interviewed Marion Fulk, former Livermore Laboratory scientist 
and skin cancer survivor, who told him that as a result of 
tritium pollution from the National Lab, children born in 
Livermore are 6 times more likely to have skin cancer than other 
children. 

Not surprisingly, looking at the health of the overall San 
Francisco Greater Bay area, one notes that the incidences of 
cancer are higher when compared to the state average. From the 
years 1988 to 2002, the Greater San Francisco Bay area 
experienced an annual rate of 468.9 cancers per 100,000 people, 
which is substantially higher than the state of California's 2003 
cancer incidence rate of 425.1 per 100,000 residents. 

Here in the US, cancer is the leading cause of disease-related 
deaths in children. The fetus and infant are particularly 
sensitive to radioactive toxins. Every year, about 12,400 
children and teens under the age of 20 are diagnosed with cancer 
each year, and approximately 2,300 of those children will die. 
Will our children be next? Only time will tell as many medical 
reports document a 5-10 year lag between radiation exposure and 
the onset of childhood cancer. 

Another disorder linked to Depleted Uranium poisoning in soldiers 
from both Gulf Wars is asthma. A chronic lung disease 
characterized by persistent cough and wheeze, incidences of 
asthma have been steadily increasing. The most common serious 
chronic disease of America's children, more than 5 percent of the 
U.S. population or nearly five million children younger than 18 
years - are affected by this disorder. Asthma is the cause of 
nearly three million doctor's visits and 200,000 hospitalizations 
each year. In children ages 5-14 years, the rate of death from 
asthma almost doubled between 1980 and 1993. 

If you are not living in California and don't love anyone who is, 
by now you may be thinking, Well that really is too bad (and 
thank God I don't live anywhere near there)! Even for those of us 
who don't live on the west coast, however, it's still a good idea 
to think twice before we take our next breath. This past year 
there was news out of the UK that suggest that the radioactivity 
from Site 300 and the poison dust of other radioactive" test" 
sites throughout the US is far closer to home than we may 
realize.

According to research released in February, 2006 out of England, 
nine days after the March, 2003 "Shock and Awe" bombing of 
Baghdad in which bombs containing Depleted Uranium were exploded, 
radioactivity was found in air filters within the United Kingdom, 
up to 2,500 miles away. 

This was proof positive that this radioactive poison travels 
great distances. In other words, the explosive fire of tanks, 
guns, missiles launched and bombs dropped does not stay in a 
contained little cloud over the so-called "enemy" target borders. 
According to Moret, "After forming microscopic and submicroscopic 
insoluble Uranium oxide particles on the battlefield, they remain 
suspended in air and travel around the earth as a radioactive 
component of atmospheric dust, contaminating the environment, 
indiscriminately killing, maiming and causing disease in all 
living things where rain, snow and moisture remove it from the 
atmosphere."

Who would have ever thought that radioactive weaponry that we 
believed was intended for use on the battlefield upon America's 
"enemies" would ever be used in our own country, for so many 
years? How many Americans realize that their very next breath - 
or that of their children's - may very well contain invisible, 
microscopic-sized toxic radioactive particles so minute as to be 
considered a gas? Sadly, people do not know this when they inhale 
or ingest these invisible particles - as the effects of one tiny 
Uranium-238 particle can take years to manifest symptoms inside 
our bodies.

In testimony provided to the UN, International Humanitarian 
Lawyer Karen Parker, J.D., stated, "there is evidence that the 
ceramic form of uranium dioxide, made during weapons explosions 
or fires, could stay in the body as long as 20 years. Depleted 
uranium was detected eight years after the end of the war in the 
urine of US, UK and Canadian Gulf War veterans and in that of 
Iraqi civilians." 

Proof abounds, however, dating back all the way back from 1943 
that shows our military leaders knew about the "advantages" - and 
their capability - of conducting radioactive gas warfare upon 
citizens. 

In a memo declassified in 1974 written to James B. Conant and 
Brigadier General L. R. Groves from: Drs. Conant, Compton, and 
Urey, War Department United States Engineer Office Manhattan 
District, Oak Ridge Tennessee on October 30, 1943, that proves 
that they knew that uranium could be used "As a gas warfare 
instrument the material would be ground into particles of 
microscopic size to form dust and smoke and distributed by a 
ground-fired projectile, land vehicles, or aerial bombs. In this 
form it would be inhaled by personnel. The amount necessary to 
cause death to a person inhaling the material is extremely small. 
It has been estimated that one millionth of a gram accumulating 
in a person's body would be fatal. There are no known methods of 
treatment for such a casualty."

The report states that two factors appear to increase the 
effectiveness of radioactive dust or smoke as a weapon. These 
are: (1) It cannot be detected by the senses; (2) It can be 
distributed in a dust or smoke form so finely powdered that it 
will permeate a standard gas mask filter in quantities large 
enough to be extremely damaging.

The 1943 memo also stated that it could be used as radioactive 
warfare to make evacuated areas uninhabitable, to contaminate 
small critical areas, and as a radioactive poison gas to create 
casualties among troops, and to create casualties among civilian 
populations. It also mentions that "These materials may also be 
so disposed as to be taken into the body by ingestion instead of 
inhalation. Reservoirs or wells would be contaminated or food 
poisoned with an effect similar to that resulting from inhalation 
of dust or smoke, " and in the respiratory tract, "articles 
smaller than 1ï¿½ [micron] are more likely to be deposited in the 
alveoli where they will either remain indefinitely or be absorbed 
into the lymphatics or blood... It would seem that chemical gases 
could accomplish more and do it more quickly so far as the skin 
surfaces and lungs are concerned." 

In other words, the US Military has known since 1943 precisely 
what it was doing with regard to the life-destroying use of 
aerosolized uranium. 

In the words of award-winning Robert C. Koehler in his piece on 
Depleted Uranium, "Silent Genocide": "Before the damage we 
inflict grows greater, before history's judgment gets worse, 
before we contaminate the whole world -- even before we vote in 
the next election -- we must stop what we're doing. We must stop 
now. "

If Americans don't like the idea of breathing in, eating, and 
drinking this weaponized nuclear waste product gas, how do we 
follow Koehler's advice and stop what we're doing now? It is 
imperative that we start somewhere - and halting the large 
radioactive "tests" now permitted in California is certainly a 
great place to begin.

This affects us all. What is going on in the backyard of the 
vastly populated San Francisco Bay area is not just another "not 
in my backyard issue". The explosion of these vast amounts of 
Depleted Uranium radioactive microscopic particles affect 
Americans all over the country. We've all watched the Weather 
Channel and observed how in a matter of just a few hours, wind 
currents carrying invisible particles start at one part of the 
country and sweep across the map, reaching into entirely 
different sections of the country in a matter of hours.

So this issue is in fact not at all a problem merely for the city 
of Tracy's 72,400 thousand residents, nor even just a nightmare 
for the Greater San Francisco Bay Area's 7 million. The 
radioactivity being dispersed at Site 300 and other" test" sites 
still in operation within the US affects people all over the 
United States - as DU radiation from bombs exploded in Iraq was 
detected 2,500 miles away in the United Kingdom. 

From a February, 2006 report by Busby and Morgan, measurements 
were examined on air sampler filters deployed by the Atomic 
Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston, in Berkshire, UK. 
Examination of the air filters showed a statistically significant 
increase in uranium in all the filters beginning at the start of 
the United States bombing of Iraq in March 2003 and ending when 
the US "Shock and Awe" bombing campaign ended. Levels of 
increased uranium in the filters were found in England, up to 
2,500 miles away from Baghdad. 

In the conclusion of the report: "Despite much evidence that 
uranium aerosols are long lived in the environment and are able 
to travel considerable distances, this is the first evidence as 
far as we know, that they are able to travel thousands of miles. 
The distance traveled from Baghdad to Reading [England] following 
the wind patterns implicit in the pressure systems at the time is 
about 2500 miles. Although this transport may be hard to believe 
at first, the regular desert sand events which occur in the UK 
should teach us that the planet is not such a large place, and 
that with regard to certain long lived atmospheric pollutants, no 
man is an island. " 

We never know when you or I or someone we love may be breathing 
in an invisible particle of radiation in the air from Site 300 or 
from another of the US "test" sites. As we saw from the distance 
that radiation traveled away from Baghdad all the way into 
England, it is not necessary to live near any of these "test" 
sites to be an unwitting participant in the purposeful poisoning 
of America. 

Roughly speaking, using approximate distances from Livermore's 
Site 300, Seattle is 800 miles away, Chicago is 1,700 miles away, 
New Orleans is 2,000 miles away, and Washington, DC, Orlando, and 
Philadelphia are all about 2,400 miles away. It is easy to look 
at a map of the US and calculate if you or someone you care about 
lives within 2,500 miles - and are thus within the range of 
inhaling the radiation from Site 300 within a matter of days. 

One can't help but wonder if by virtue of having radioactive 
materials in the form of both hydrogen bombs and Uranium-238 
munitions exploded around us within the US for the past 60 years 
if Americans are now facing the same health issues as those 
experienced by those in Iraq and Afghanistan? Both countries have 
been pounded relentlessly by thousands of tons of uranium 
munitions. 

In an interview with Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki, author of the 
compelling book, "Afghanistan After Democracy" which chronicles 
the health effects suffered by the people in Afghanistan as a 
result of DU weaponry, I asked Dr Miraki to tell me about the 
health effects of DU upon the people in Afghanistan and Iraq 
compared to the citizens of the US with regard to open air 
Uranium-238 "testing". 

Dr. Miraki replied, "I can use Iraq, Afghanistan and the former 
Yugoslovia as a benchmark upon which I can base my judgment. 
There they have used these weapons and they have resulted in a 
variety of health issues ranging from leukemia to cancers of 
various types, seeing the unborn as well as congenital 
deformities as well as pulmonary problems, edema, other issues as 
well as bizarre conditions - some call it Gulf War Syndrome, some 
call it other names that's associated - fatigue and neurological 
problems, other issues are associated with it." 

As this is documented by many scientists as being true with 
regard to the devastating health effects of the victims of 
uranium poisoning in the Middle East, can one assume that these 
same uranium munitions are having a similar effect on our own 
citizens here in the United States? Dr. Miraki explained, "It is 
bound to effect people in the vicinity. After all, the dust of DU 
is susceptible to wind. Wind will carry it, water flow in any 
direction is bound to take that, and vegetation will be affected, 
birds could take particles and move it - so it's the ecological 
aspect as well as the long term effects. So I assume it would be 
evident already wherever the regions close by to where the 
detonations are done ... 

Miraki continued, "For example, I heard in Indiana, Jefferson 
Testing Grounds, there people have certain health problems that 
are unexplained, cancer rates and so forth that are up, so on a 
large scale, what they have done overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan 
and Kosovo and Yugoslavia, and, using that as a benchmark? Logic 
dictates that it will result in similar conditions here as 
well... a high upsurge in diabetes in various areas among young 
people - as well as older - could very well be one effect of DU 
dust. Then you know we are talking about DU dust, we are talking 
about intercellular radiation. So it could affect anything. It 
could create any kind of problem, from the conventional as well 
as bizarre and unexplained, unconventional problems." 

With each passing day, our air, our streams, our lakes, our 
rivers, our oceans, our farms, our forests, our fields, our 
meadows, our schoolyards, our wildlife, our farm animals and our 
produce and grains are being contaminated with this invisible 
radioactive poison dust and gas. These explosions do not - must 
not - be fired within our country where it is inhaled in our air, 
ingested in our food, and can readily enter the body through even 
a small cut on a child's scraped knee. 

Radiation from US Military weapons is not something that happens 
overseas "somewhere". It is a personal affair that affects 
Americans right here at home. As Michael Ignatieff said, "We 
can't achieve the humanitarian goals we set out to because 
achieving humanitarian goals means getting up close and 
personal." 

The clock is ticking. With each new detonation of yet another 
radioactive "test", increased amounts of radiation remain here 
with us inside the United States for all eternity. The issue of 
radioactive explosive "tests" inside the United States affects 
each and every one of us and those we love. It affects all future 
generations of Americans. It is a critical matter for the 
ecosystem. Our environment and wildlife are suffering due to the 
increasingly destructive and cumulative effects of radioactivity 
in our air, water, soil, and vegetation. 

Bob Sarvey, one of the leading voices against the continued 
testing of radioactive substances at Site 300, summed up what 
appears to be the sentiment of many residents in the Livermore 
area by saying, "If you want to just explode regular ordinance, 
I'm okay with you doing it on the hill. But if you are going to 
put U-238, tritium, other radioactive elements in it? Please 
go... somewhere else. Somewhere where you're not wiping out 
people". 

Unfortunately, no matter where that "somewhere else" is? Depleted 
Uranium and other radioactive substances are "tested", it will 
wipe out people. So the solution actually is not to move the 
weapons "testing" to a less populated area, but rather, to stop 
the use of radioactive materials, period. As long as radioactive 
weapons are used, those who manufacture and use them will 
continue to maintain that they must be "tested" - somewhere. And 
with such a tremendously far atmospheric "reach"? These invisible 
aerosol particles will be carried through the wind and 
precipitation thousands of miles away - somewhere - wherever 
people live.

All points within 2,500 miles of Site 300 at Livermore, CA are a 
good place to begin to stop the poison gassing of Americans. The 
appeals against large radioactive explosions on Site 300 at 
Livermore, California begin on February 7 in Modesto. Your help 
is needed with the appeal process. A campaign is being mounted to 
put an end to these radioactive explosions that affect the health 
of our loved ones. 

The question we must now ponder in our heart of hearts is this 
one: What have the use of these radioactive and nuclear weapons 
truly cost us in collective terms of Americans' lost moments of 
healthy, happy, productive living? What do we say to future 
children who are born with genetic mutations and birth defect 
deformities who want to know why they are missing a limb or an 
ear? 

What will the use of these weapons mean to us in terms of green 
spaces and fields, native wildflowers and forests lost? How will 
this permanent radiation in our atmosphere and environment play 
out for our children's grandchildren's future in terms of being 
subject to a nation with permanently contaminated brooks and 
streams, lakes, ponds, rivers and oceans? How can we ever even 
begin to calculate what our great grandchildren will miss in 
terms of healthy fish swimming in our streams and frogs, 
chipmunks, and endangered birds? 

In the words of Dr. Keith Baverstock, formerly of the World 
Health Organization, "Politics has poisoned the well from which 
democracy must drink."

It is incumbent upon American citizens to take personal 
responsibility now, once and for all. We must work together at 
once to put an end to this poisoning forever of our nation - and 
our world.

Like never before, we need to rise to the occasion and step up to 
the plate. Together we m 

www.mytown.ca/garger 

Cathy Garger is a freelance writer, antiwar and anti-radiation
weapons activist, and a certified personal coach. Living in the
shadow of the national District of Crime, Cathy is constantly
nauseated by the stench emanating from the nation's capital
during the Washington, DC, federal work week. Halt DU
Explosives: http://haltdutesting.blogspot.com/ 
Contact Author

(www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23826.shtml and
tinyurl) to find even more links to take action against this
barbarity. Current activities include lawsuits to stop testing,
lobbying of the Tracy City Council which meets on February 6th,
2007 and other actions planned by TriValley CARES posted at
http://haltdutesting.blogspot.com.

We need to outlaw the use of weaponized depleted uranium. Use of
this substance should constitute a felony crime against humanity
and all living things! 			
by 
			 			
Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2007     
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 47 globeandmail.com: Firm in hot water over radioactive material

POSTED ON 02/02/07
 
Nuclear commission won't renew licence to make signs using 
tritium

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
		 	 
Federal nuclear regulators are so worried about the poor
operating record of a Pembroke, Ont., manufacturer of 
glow-in-the-dark signs made using radioactive tritium that they 
are not prepared to give it a licence to continue making its 
products. 

In an unprecedented move, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission 
says that because of concerns over the company's tritium 
releases, SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc. will not be granted a 
licence renewal allowing it to process or use tritium for making 
signs. 

The decision, given to the company late Wednesday afternoon, is 
tantamount to a long-term manufacturing shutdown order. The CNSC, 
which oversees nuclear facilities ranging from big atomic power 
plants to uranium mines, says it is the first time it has taken 
such action against a major user of radioactive material. 

The CNSC said it will issue SRB a licence allowing it to 
undertake only limited activities, such as storing tritium at its 
site, for the next 18 months to give the company time to develop 
a business strategy that would win back the support of 
regulators.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
			 			 	 	 	 						 		 	 	 	 	 	 		 	 	 		 		 		 					 							
In making its decision, the commission said SRB's operations have 
been "consistently below requirements" and the regulator had 
little confidence the company would be able to protect the 
environment if it were allowed to continue manufacturing. 

"The commission is not satisfied that SRBT can, at this time, 
continue its operation of the facility," the CNSC said in a 
document known as a record of proceedings. 

SRB could not be reached for comment yesterday. 

The action is a dramatic about-face for the CNSC, which had 
regularly renewed the company's licence, even as local citizens 
became increasingly vocal about radioactive releases from its 
factory, located in a strip mall near a residential area. 

As early as 1999, nearby residents had discovered that cucumbers 
grown in gardens contained tritium, as did the ice of a local 
hockey rink and human urine. At the time, concentrations of 
tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, were up to 1,500 higher 
than levels in rainwater, and the results were reported to the 
CNSC. 

One of those who detected the radioactive vegetables was relieved 
yesterday that regulators have curbed SRB's manufacturing, but 
she expressed dismay that it took nearly eight years of 
complaining for the government agency to take this step. 

"I think they've completely failed in their mandate," Lynn Jones 
said. "The fact that it's taken this long is just an indication 
that there are serious problems at the CNSC." 

The CNSC defended its actions yesterday, and said in an e-mail 
statement that it has conducted "enhanced regulatory oversight" 
of the facility in recent years and, in 2005, began restricting 
its operations. 

But since 1999, more contamination has been found around the 
site. In 2005 and 2006, regulators discovered that water 
extracted from soil around the factory was polluted, with one 
sample having tritium levels 80 times higher than Canada's 
drinking-water standards, according to regulatory filings. The 
exact cause and extent of the groundwater contamination are 
currently unknown, also according to the CNSC. 

Under the previous licence for the company, the CNSC had been 
trying to limit radioactivity in the immediate vicinity of the 
sign plant by requiring SRB to pump tritium escaping from its 
manufacturing process up its smokestacks with sufficient velocity 
to spread the contaminant over a wider area of Pembroke, thereby 
diluting it. 

The CNSC said in its record of proceedings that residents haven't 
been harmed by radiation. The highest exposures in 2005 were 
equal to the radiation a person would receive from about 13,000 
kilometres of high-altitude flying or about two chest X-rays. 

SRB makes products such as emergency-exit signs for buildings and 
runway lights that are able to glow without electricity. The 
tritium is extracted as a waste product from Ontario's nuclear 
power reactors. 

SRB is a subsidiary of a Dutch company, which in turn is owned by 
a corporation in a Caribbean tax haven, according to a corporate 
record search conducted last year. 

Even though it has been operating for more than a decade, the 
CNSC has never forced the company to fulfill a long-standing 
licence requirement to have funds available though a financial 
guarantee to decommission its site. The new licence, however, 
sets a deadline for the company to have the guarantee in place by 
July 31. 

Testimony at a regulatory hearing in 2005 revealed that the CNSC 
wasn't aware of who owned SRB. The commission said yesterday in 
its e-mail statement that it isn't required under law to know the 
identities of the people who own the companies it regulates, so 
it doesn't routinely seek this information. 

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear 
Responsibility, an anti-nuclear group, said these types of 
omissions lead him to view the CNSC as a weak regulator. "I think 
there is a really serious problem with the organization." 
*****************************************************************
 48 Ottawa Citizen: Critics applaud nuclear decision
 
Part of the canada.com Network
 					 					 						 					 				 				 				 				 				 					 					
Pembroke company denied renewal of licence
 	 	 		 				 				 				 				 				 				 			 			 				 					 						 
Charles Enman, Ottawa Citizen
                        
Published: Thursday, February 01, 2007                           

Environmentalists in Pembroke have applauded the decision of the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to refuse to renew a Pembroke
company's licence to process a radioactive substance used in
the manufacture of glow in the dark emergency signs.

"Years of hard work have paid off," said Kelly O'Grady, 
spokeswoman for the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and an 
intervener in recent commission hearings. "We are very elated 
with this news.

Though she was delighted the company, SRB Technologies, will not
be processing radioactive tritium, a substance that emits light
in the dark, Ms. Oâ€™Gradyâ€™s delight was shaded by concern
about whether the company will be able to clean up the
contamination 14 years of manufacturing has caused.

â€œThe soil around the facility is so contaminated any developer
needs special permission. The site is now basically unusable,â€
she said.

The commission explained its decision by saying SRB Technologies
â€œwill not make adequate provision for the protection of the
environment when carrying out activities that include the
processing of tritium.â€

However, the commission added â€œthe tritium releases resulting
from the operation of the facility have not posed a health and
safety risk to the public.â€

The commission did decide to issue an 18-month possession
licence to the company. The possession licence would allow the
company â€œthe general possession, transfer, management, storage
and disposal of nuclear substances that are part of the
facility.â€

SRB Technologies president StÃ©phane Levesque could not be
reached for comment Thursday. It is not known what effect the
commissionâ€™s decision will have on the company or its roughly
35 employees.

Groundwater on the company site was once found to contain up to
80 times the level of radioactive tritium Health Canada allows
in drinking water â€” and that Canadian standard is itself
nearly 10 times more lenient than that enforced by the United
Stateâ€™s Environmental Protection Agency. Wells within 200
metres of the plant show levels of tritium within the drinking
water guideline, but up to 500 times the natural

â€œbackgroundâ€ level.

The commissionâ€™s staff had recommended the company be granted
a short 18-month operating licence, but the commission board, in
the face of arguments from many interveners in recent hearings,
opted for caution.

In a statement, the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County blamed
both the company and the commission for the contamination of the
area: â€œSRB Technologies was operating for a full eight years
before the CNSC visited the area to collect environmental
samples to validate this companyâ€™s predictions.â€

SRBT still has no financial guarantee in place to cover the
costs of remediation of the site after any eventual shutdown. In
its decision, the commission orders the company to have a
guarantee for safe shutdown in place by July 31, and a guarantee
for full decommissioning in place by May 31, 2008.

Ole Hendrickson, an Environment Canada ecologist and also an
intervener at the hearings, said he doubted the company could
have been made safe enough to operate near residential areas.

â€œIt would be far better to locate such a facility outside of a
town, with much less risk to the public,â€ he said. â€œThatâ€™s
why nuclear facilities, for example, have buffer zones.â€
Wes Stuber, also an intervener, welcomed the decision.

â€œWeâ€™ve been told the companyâ€™s emissions are safe, but I
donâ€™t believe it. I had cancer six years ago, and just last
November, my wife, Sonja, learned she has cancer thatâ€™s spread
all over her body. â€¦

â€œWeâ€™ve been raising and eating vegetables, huge amounts of
them, for years â€” and analysis showed they had 20 times the
tritium of vegetables from Gatineau and places like that. â€¦
The best decision is that the company move away from here.â€ 		
	 	  	          	 		 		 		  		  		 		 		
Â© 2006 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest
*****************************************************************
 49 RGJ.com: Questions still remain for Yucca Mountain

Posted: 2/1/2007 

America's 104 nuclear plants now make three quarters of our total 
non-fossil-fuel, non-greenhouse-gas emitting electricity. Over 
the last year, U.S. utilities have announced constriction-license 
applications for 29 new nuclear power plants that will not emit 
greenhouse gases.

What then for nuclear waste? We now require that our Yucca 
Mountain repository site meet a one million year safety standard 
hazardous permanently. Advanced nuclear fuel cycles -- that could 
be deployed over the next several decades -- could eventually 
destroy much nuclear waste. But, for all possible advanced 
approaches, some residual waste will still require a geologic 
repository.

The Department of Energy plans to submit a license application 
for Yucca Mountain in 2008 -- for disposal of 63,000 metric tons 
of commercial spent fuel and 7,000 tons of defense waste -- that 
would meet this million-year safety standard. Showing legally 
that a repository meets a million-year standard will be an 
impressive achievement, one that we may want to demand of our 
non-radioactive wastes as well! But it could be a mistake to then 
put spent fuel in this repository, because within several decades 
this 2008-era approach could look a lot like a Model T automobile 
-- interesting but completely obsolete.

Our current nuclear waste policy is to complete Yucca Mountain
and then rapidly fill it with canisters of spent fuel
assemblies. At the opposite end of the spectrum we could stop
Yucca Mountain and start searching for a different place to bury
this spent fuel. That sends us back to the 17 other states we
studied in the early 1980s before Congress picked Yucca
Mountain. Because neither of these options is particularly
attractive, we may want to look at a third approach. This would
involve completing the licensing of Yucca Mountain but would
stop any further constriction at the repository beyond that
needed for defense wastes, for at least several decades.

How could delaying completion of Yucca Mountain for several
decades and transferring spent fuel to interim storage and
processing at new consolidated fuel treatment centers bring
benefits? We can imagine that instead of depositing spent fuel
in Yucca Mountain, Congress would pass legislation to cap the
amount of space and to direct the DOE to issue permits for this
limited disposal space. Every time a utility wants to build a
new reactor it would have to acquire space permits from this
limited space allocation, making repository space increasingly
valuable and thus spurring investments to develop new nuclear
energy technologies that produce less waste and recycle existing
wastes.

The U.S. needs a nuclear waste repository. But decades will pass
before we will know for sure whether any spent fuel should go
into Yucca Mountain, or whether smaller amounts of residual
waste will need disposal. It makes sense to complete the current
licensing process to see if this site can meet the million-year
safety standard. But it makes little sense to allow spent fuel
to go there for at least several decades as long as we make a
serious effort to develop and deploy workable technologies to
recycle this spent fuel.

Per F. Peterson is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Reno.
He is a professor and former chair of the department of nuclear
engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. 

 Reno Gazette-Journal network: | | | 
© Copyright , a Newspaper.
*****************************************************************
 50 Pahrump Valley Times: DEMOCRATS MAY CHOP $50 MILLION FROM YUCCA PROJECT        

e-mailed to: dmcmurdo@pvtimes.com.
 
Feb. 02, 2007 

'Emailgate' probe could cost $25 million        

BY STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU       

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies plan to spend more than $25
million to retrace key Yucca Mountain research that became
tainted after the discovery of emails that suggested documents
may have been falsified, according to a report made public
Tuesday. 

The report by the Government Accountability Office puts a price
tag on an email scandal that rocked the Department of Energy
almost two years ago, and that contributed to delays in the
nuclear waste repository effort. 

Costs of $25.6 million, compiled by the GAO from figures
supplied by the Energy Department and other federal agencies,
include replacing an important computer model of how water might
infiltrate the mountain and erode canisters of highly radioative
spent nuclear fuel. That work is going on. 

DOE personnel also randomly sampled and reviewed 14 million
worker emails for evidence of deeper problems in the Yucca
program. 

Nevada leaders who oppose nuclear waste being shipped to the
Yucca site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said the 30-page
GAO report will serve to remind members of Congress about
turmoil surrounding the proposed repository as they contemplate
future spending for the project. 

"This is an admission of total embarrassment for the program and
an unacceptable waste of taxpayer dollars," said Rep. Jon
Porter, R-Nev., who released the GAO study that was undertaken
at his request. 

Energy Department officials were reviewing the report and
planned to comment on Wednesday, spokesman Allen Benson said.
DOE officials previously have cited the $25 million cost of the
correction in remarks to Congress, and have said their response
to the controversy showed their drive to get things right. 

The report was made public in an apparant coincidence on the
same day that House Democrats unveiled a $463.5 billion budget
bill for the remainder of fiscal 2007 that cuts $50 million from
the Yucca project. 

The new budget would allocate roughly $405 million to the
Department of Energy for nuclear waste disposal, its smallest
line item in five years. The fiscal year runs until Sept. 30. 

Democrats did not disclose why the Yucca project was slashed.
Most programs were frozen at 2006 levels, but leaders on the
House Appropriations Committee said they forced cuts and
reclaimed unspent balances in more than 60 programs to generate
$10 billion that was used to boost priorities like health
research and education. 

"There are a few bright spots, and that is one of them," in the
budget, said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., 

Energy Department officials would not comment on how the reduced
budget might impact the Yucca program as they strive to meet a
June 30, 2008 deadline to complete a repository license
application. 

"We are confident that Congress will provide adequate funding to
enable the department to complete a high-quality license
application to be submitted to the NRC," spokesman Allen Benson
said. 

The Yucca email controversy ignited on March 16, 2005, when
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced discovery of a series
of email messges from 1998-2000 in which several government
hydrologists swapped emails expressing frustration with quality
assurance rules and hinting that corners might have been cut in
complying with the strict procedures. 

Joseph Hevesi, one of hydrologists who worked for the U.S.
Geological Survey, testified before Congress in June 2005 that
he did not alter reports or falsify data. 

DOE undertook extensive reviews of all the work he and several
others had performed. Further, inspectors within the Energy and
Interior departments initiated investigations of possible
criminal activity that ended when the U.S. attorney in Nevada
declined to prosecute. 

After reviewing hydrology models that the scientists had helped
build, DOE officials declared scientific data had not been
compromised but quality assurance standards had not been met.
The work was rebuilt by Sandia National Laboratories. 	

For comment or questions, please e-mail
webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com
Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - 
*****************************************************************
 51 AU ABC: CLP says nuclear waste sites aren't near homes
 
ABC Darwin | Local News | Story 

 Saturday, 3 February 2007. 00:20 (AEDT)Saturday, 3 February

 The CLP's Northern Territory Senator has backed the Federal
Science Minister's assertion that all three sites selected for a
nuclear waste repository are some distance from civilisation. 

Senator Nigel Scullion made a flying visit to the Territory
yesterday for the first time since he was named as a new Federal
Minister. 

Senator Scullion says Science Minister Julie Bishop was accurate
when she said the three sites on Commonwealth land were well
away from any form of civilisation. 

"I've actually been to the sites and let me tell you, people
aren't living there," he said. 

An Indigenous traditional owner at Mount Ebenezer in central
Australia, Kathleen Martin, says she has never seen him visit
the region. 

"If he's been out here I'd like to know when and who brought him
out," she said. 

Labor's Warren Snowdon is mystified by the show of support. 

"No-one who understands anything about the Northern Territory
would find any way in which they could agree with Julie Bishop
-- I don't see how he could," Mr Snowdon said. 

Senator Scullion has returned to Canberra to prepare for his
first question time as Community Services Minister next week. 

*****************************************************************
 52 RGJ.com: Nevada leaders plot strategy to fight Yucca

Posted: 1/31/2007 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Funding for Yucca Mountain in 2007 would be
$50 million less than in 2006 under legislation passed Wednesday
by the House of Representatives. 

The development came as the five members of Nevada’s
congressional delegation met in Democratic Majority Leader Harry
Reid’s office to discuss plans for the upcoming legislative
session, including keeping the nuclear waste dump project in
check. 

“We’ll reallocate the money to something else that’s needed,”
said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. “So that’s the good news for
the day.” 

The cut comes in a massive spending bill funding about one-sixth
of the federal budget that Democrats pushed through the House in
one batch of budget bills left undone by the Republican
Congress. The measure still must pass the Senate. 

 Reno Gazette-Journal
*****************************************************************
 53 Chillicothe Gazette: Pike plant decision coming soon

www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH

Friday, February 2, 2007

 Schedule being expedited for centrifuge facility
 
The Gazette Staff 

A decision on licensing for Piketon's American Centrifuge Plant 
may come as soon as April, about a month ahead of schedule.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission Thursday issued an order 
detailing an expedited schedule that anticipates a licensing 
decision for USEC Inc.'s American Centrifuge Plant in April 2007. 
The NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board previously had 
indicated a licensing decision would be issued in May.

The original license request is for 30 years. The American
Centrifuge will be a commercial uranium enrichment facility
using next generation gas centrifuge technology originally
developed by the Department of Energy. Construction for the
commercial plant is expected to begin after the license is
issued.

USEC expects to install and operate a Lead Cascade in its
Piketon demonstration facility by mid-2007 and fully deploy the
commercial plant after the end of the decade. The NRC issued its
final safety evaluation feport and final environmental impact
statement for the American Centrifuge in 2006.

 
Originally published February 2, 2007 Print this article    

 Copyright ©2007 Chillicothe Gazette
*****************************************************************
 54 San Bernardino County Sun: Resignation clouds up cleanup of perchlorate
 
Jason Pesick, Staff Writer

Article Launched: 02/02/2007 12:00:00 AM PST

RIALTO - Will the water contamination around the city ever be 
cleaned up? 

That's a question Rialto residents could be excused for asking 
after the long road to the cleanup of perchlorate hit another 
pothole Wednesday when the man in charge of ordering the cleanup 
of the estimated $300 million worth of contamination in the 
Rialto-Colton basin resigned. 

The acting executive director of the State Water Resources
Control Board raised issues with the regional board's decision
to delegate its authority to issue a cleanup order to Walt
Pettit. In response, Pettit decided to step down, saying in a
letter that the disagreement between the regional board and the
state board was likely to drag on. 

"I do not know what's going to happen next," said William L.
Rukeyser, public affairs director for the state board. 

Perchlorate is a chemical used in the production of explosives,
like fireworks and rocket fuels. Although the health effects of
perchlorate are not completely understood, it can interfere with
the functioning of the thyroid gland. The chemical is moving
from Rialto's north end, where it is said to have been used
since World War II, south and into Colton. 

Currently, no water with perchlorate is being served to the 
community, although local water purveyors are not operating at 
full capacity. 

The current confusion began when Emhart Industries, a division
of Black & Decker and a suspected polluter, said the regional
board was biased. The board responded by delegating its
authority to Pettit to act as an independent hearing officer.
Goodrich complained about that setup with the state board, which
responded on Tuesday in the form of Acting Executive Director
Thomas Howard's letter. The letter raised concerns with the
regional board's resolution appointing Pettit. 

Pettit resigned the next day. 

"His resignation effectively ends the process that the board had
set up in October," said Kurt Berchtold, the regional board's
assistant executive officer. 

He said the board needs to come up with a new process quickly,
but he said today's meeting of the regional board at Loma Linda
City Hall would be too soon to formulate a new plan. 

"The state board's recommended process is not clear to us,"
Berchtold said. 

His boss, Gerard Thibeault, wrote a letter to Howard on Thursday
seeking clarification. 

"The State Board's letter of January 30, 2007 has not only
derailed a legitimate hearing process, but it has created
confusion about the appropriate method for resolving the
disputed (cleanup order)," he wrote. 

Rukeyser, the state board spokesman, said the state board's goal
is to have a process that will not be vulnerable to endless
appeals. 

Rialto City Attorney Bob Owen complained that the state board
could have raised this issue months ago, and recommended the
regional board appoint a panel of three board members to issue a
cleanup order. 

He said he hoped the current confusion would only delay the
process by a couple of months. 

"It's frustrating to tell you the least," he said. 

Paul Van Dyke, chief of staff to Assemblywoman Nell Soto,
D-Montclair, said the state board is not supporting the regional
board and that the Schwarzenegger administration needs to make
the issue a priority. 

"It's just bogus. It's unbelievable that a responsible party can
claim bias and get away with it," he said. 

"Is it their intention to get this plume cleaned up or not?" he
said of the state board. "It doesn't seem like it." 

Contact writer Jason Pesick at (909) 386-3861 or via e-mail at
jason.pesick@sbsun.com

      More HeadlinesUpdated: February 02, 2007 1:17:50 PM PST  
  
Los Angeles Newspaper Group 
*****************************************************************
 55 Salt Lake Tribune: Waste elevated: Governor, Legislature should
have say in expansion

Tribune Editoria

lArticle Last Updated: 01/31/2007 07:52:59 PM MST

EnergySolutions wants a license to pile its nuclear wastes
higher and deeper. But the company has a problem. Utah law says
that when a radioactive waste facility wants to increase
capacity by 50 percent, it must get the approval of the city or
county where the waste will be located, plus the OK of the
governor and the Legislature. 

    To make that problem go away, EnergySolutions - the
successor to Envirocare - has a bill in the Legislature,
sponsored by Sen. Darin G. Peterson, R-Nephi. It would carve out
exceptions to the law for EnergySolutions. 

    We think that's a bad idea. 

    If SB 155 were to pass, EnergySolutions would have to win
approval for a license amendment only from the state's Radiation
Control Board for the upward expansion of its waste dump. While
this is largely a technical issue that should be examined by the
experts at the Radiation Control Board, it also is a political
issue that the Legislature and the governor should decide. 

    The politics of nuclear waste disposal are aglow across the
nation. The permanent repository for high-level commercial
wastes remains stymied in Nevada, and the Private Fuel Storage
site for interim parking of those same wastes on the Goshute
Reservation in Utah's Skull Valley remains alive, despite the
efforts of Utah and federal regulators to drive a stake through
its heart. 

    Under these circumstances, we believe it would be political 
folly for Utah to approve expansion of EnergySolutions' low-level 
nuclear waste dump without a thorough public debate that includes 
both the Legislature and governor. Now is not the time to signal 
that Utah will happily accept greater volumes of radioactive 
waste. 

    EnergySolutions is, after all, the operator of the nation's
largest commercial radioactive waste depository. The company's
proposal would allow it to pile its waste up to 83 feet above
ground level, roughly twice the height allowed now. That would
increase the capacity of the mile-square site in Tooele County
by nearly 50 percent. 

    Georges Clemenceau, a premier of France during World War I,
famously said, "War is too important to be left to the
generals." In this case, we would say, nuclear waste regulation
is too important to be left just to the regulators. 

    The politics of nuclear waste disposal are aglow across the
nation.

*****************************************************************
 56 WMCTV: Waste incinerator would burn low-level radioactive trash

[WMCTV.com Home] 

ERWIN, Tenn. A commercial plant in Erwin wants a state air 
quality permit to incinerate low-level radioactive waste.Studsvic 
(STOODZ'-vik) Incorporated says it would burn such things as 
laboratory smocks and gloves that are slightly contaminated with 
low-level radioactivity.The incinerator could burn paper, 
plastics, wood, animal carcasses and oil used for lubrication.The 
company's application states building the incinerator would 
reduce the amount of contaminated waste the company must now ship 
to long-term disposal.Studsvik says the planned incinerator would 
require hiring 15 people.A month-long comment period closed 
January 12th. Environment and Conservation Department field 
office manager Vera Davis in Johnson City says the state is 
reviewing public comments and will submit a draft permit to her 
office for review in a few weeks.                                                 

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This 
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or 
redistributed.                                     

  
y.gif">    All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and
WMCTV, a Raycom Media station. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 57 [southnews] US Physicists Letter Asks Congress to forbid use of N-Weapons against Non-Nuclear States
 
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 01:49:10 -0600 (CST)


Prominent U.S. Physicists Ask Congress to Forbid Use of Nuclear
Weapons Against Non-Nuclear

Source: University of California, San Diego     Released: Thu
01-Feb-2007, 16:20 ET

Contact Information

http://www.newswise.com/p/articles/view/527021/

Description Twenty-two of the nation's most prominent physicists
asked Congress today to restrict the authority of President Bush
to order nuclear strikes against non-nuclear-weapon states.

Newswise - Twenty two of the nation's most prominent physicists
asked Congress today to restrict the authority of President Bush
to order nuclear strikes against non-nuclear-weapon states.

The physicists include twelve Nobel laureates, the current and three
past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation's
preeminent professional society for physicists, and the chair of
the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The physicists said their letter was prompted by "the rising tensions
with Iran and the potential for military confrontation, as well as
the public statement by President Bush on April 18, 2006, that a
nuclear strike against Iran is an option 'on the table'."

It was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the
University of California, San Diego, who last year put together a
petition signed by more than 2,000 physicists that repudiated new
U.S.

nuclear weapons policies that include preemptive use of nuclear
weapons against non-nuclear adversaries
(http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/).

"The very fact that nuclear weapon use is not being ruled out as
an option-against a state that does not have nuclear weapons and
does not represent a direct or imminent threat to the United
States-illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration has
changed U.S. nuclear weapons policy," said Kurt Gottfried, chair
of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The use of such a weapon
against deeply buried targets would create massive clouds of
radioactive fallout that could spread far from the site of the
attack, including to other nations."

The physicists said in their letter that they "are firmly convinced
that Congress should have a say on which course of action would
best serve the American people on the use of the terrible weapons
our profession helped create."

"Under present law, the President has sole authority to order the
use of nuclear weapons," said Hirsch. "We could wake up tomorrow
to learn that he has ordered preemptive tactical nuclear strikes
against Iran's underground facilities. By not legislating on this
issue, Congress is implicitly condoning and even abetting such a
potential action by the Executive."

The letter, which is available at
http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/physicistslettercongress.html,
points out that "in the case of non-nuclear adversaries there is
no extreme urgency associated with response or preemption of nuclear
attack against our country or our allies."

"Leaving such a fundamental decision to the executive branch of our
government alone, in the absence of imminent danger of nuclear
attack, defies common sense," added Douglas Osheroff, a physics
professor at Stanford University and Nobel laureate who signed the
letter.

The letter echoes the main objection of last fall's physicists'
petition to the changes in U.S. nuclear weapons policies, as well
as last year's statement by the American Physical Society expressing
"deep concern"

about the "possible use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
states and for pre-emptive counterproliferation purposes."

It stresses that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be
irreversibly damaged by the use of nuclear weapons by a nuclear
nation against a non-nuclear one, "with disastrous consequences for
the security of the United States and the world."

"Crossing the nuclear threshold, even with a low-yield weapon, would
erase the 60-year old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons and
make their use by others more likely," the physicists pointed out.
"There are no sharp lines between small 'tactical' nuclear weapons
and large ones, nor between nuclear weapons targeting facilities
and those targeting armies or cities."

"Presumably, Congress would not authorize the use of nuclear weapons
against non-nuclear-weapon countries unless under extraordinarily
exceptional circumstances," said Andrew Sessler, a former director
of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and former president of the American
Physical Society who signed the letter. "The passing of such
legislation would have a very positive effect in encouraging
non-nuclear countries that presently may be considering the development
of nuclear weapons to not do so, as well as encouraging nuclear
weapons countries with small arsenals to disarm."

The letter concludes: "A decision that would have a major impact
on the course of history and could ultimately threaten the survival
of civilization should not be in the sole hands of the President
unless absolutely unavoidable. We urge Congress to pass binding
legislation to forbid the use of nuclear weapons by the United
States against countries which do not possess nuclear weapons,
except with explicit prior Congressional authorization for such
action."

The 22 physicists who coauthored the letter are: Philip Anderson,
professor of physics at Princeton University and Nobel Laureate in
Physics; Michael Fisher, professor of physics at the Institute for
Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland and Wolf
Laureate in Physics; Jerome Friedman, professor of physics at MIT
and Nobel Laureate in Physics; Kurt Gottfried, emeritus professor
of physics at Cornell University and Chair of the Union of Concerned
Scientists;

David Gross, professor of theoretical physics and director of the
Kavli Institute of Physics at the University of California, Santa
Barbara and Nobel Laureate in Physics; John Hall, NIST senior fellow
at University of Colorado, Boulder and Nobel Laureate in Physics;
Jorge Hirsch, professor of physics at the University of California,
San Diego; Leo Kadanoff, professor of physics and mathematics at
the University of Chicago and current president of the American
Physical Society; Wolfgang Ketterle, professor of physics at MIT
and Nobel Laureate in Physics;

Daniel Kleppner, professor of physics at MIT and Wolf Laureate in
Physics; Walter Kohn, emeritus professor of physics at University
of California Santa Barbara and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry; Joel
Lebowitz, professor of mathematics and physics at Rutgers University
and Boltzmann Medalist; Anthony Leggett, professor of physics at
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Nobel Laureate in
Physics; Eugen Merzbacher, emeritus professor of physics at University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former president, of the
American Physical Society; Douglas Osheroff, professor of physics
and applied physics at Stanford University and Nobel Laureate in
Physics; Norman Ramsey, emeritus professor of physics at Harvard
University and Nobel Laureate in Physics; Edwin Salpeter, emeritus
professor of physics at Cornell University and Dirac Medalist;
Andrew Sessler, former director of Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and
former president of the American Physical Society; Jack Steinberger,
member of the European Center for Nuclear Research and Nobel Laureate
in Physics; George Trilling, emeritus professor of physics at
University of California, Berkeley, and former president of the
American Physical Society; Steven Weinberg, professor of physics
at University of Texas at Austin and Nobel Laureate in Physics;
Frank Wilczek, professor of physics at MIT and Nobel Laureate in
Physics.

The physicists are submitting their letter to each of the 535 members
of the 110th Congress.

February 1, 2007

United States Congress Washington, DC

Dear Member of Congress:

As physicists, members of the profession that brought nuclear weapons
into existence, we write to urge you to pass binding legislation
to restrict the authority of the President to order nuclear strikes
against non-nuclear-weapon states.

Last year, the American Physical Society issued a statement of "deep
concern" about the "possible use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
states and for pre-emptive counterproliferation purposes". In
addition, 2000 of our fellow physicists have joined in a petition
opposing recent changes in US nuclear weapons policies that contemplate
the use of nuclear weapons against underground facilities of
non-nuclear-weapon countries and for "rapid and favorable war
termination on US terms".

Some of us wrote to the President last year urging him to refrain
from considering nuclear weapons use against non-nuclear adversaries.

Nuclear weapons are unique among weapons of mass destruction.
Employment of nuclear weapons would kill untold number of innocent
civilians in the target area, and the associated radioactive fallout
could kill many thousands in other countries very far from the
target. There are no sharp lines between small "tactical" nuclear
weapons and large ones, nor between nuclear weapons targeting
facilities and those targeting armies or cities. Crossing the nuclear
threshold, even with a low-yield weapon, would erase the 60-year
old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons and make their use by
others more likely. If the victim is a non-nuclear-weapon state,
such action would destroy, or at the very least severely undermine,
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with disastrous consequences
for United States and world security.

In view of the rising tensions with Iran and the potential for
military confrontation, as well as the public statement by President
Bush on April 18, 2006, that a nuclear strike against Iran is an
option "on the table", we believe it is essential that Congress
address this issue at the earliest possible time. In the case of
non-nuclear adversaries there is no extreme urgency associated with
response or preemption of nuclear attack against our country or our
allies. We are firmly convinced that Congress should have a say on
which course of action would best serve the American people on the
use of the terrible weapons our profession helped create.

A decision that would have a major impact on the course of history
and could ultimately threaten the survival of civilization should
not be in the sole hands of the President unless absolutely
unavoidable. We urge Congress to pass binding legislation to forbid
the use of nuclear weapons by the United States against countries
which do not possess nuclear weapons, except with explicit prior
Congressional authorization for such action.

Sincerely,

Philip Anderson, Nobel Laureate, Physics Michael Fisher, Wolf
Laureate, Physics Jerome Friedman, Nobel Laureate, Physics Kurt
Gottfried, Chair, Union of Concerned Scientists David Gross, Nobel
Laureate, Physics John Hall, Nobel Laureate, Physics Jorge Hirsch,
Professor of Physics Leo Kadanoff, National Medal of Science,
Physical Sciences Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Laureate, Physics Daniel
Kleppner, Wolf Laureate, Physics Walter Kohn, Nobel Laureate,
Chemistry Joel Lebowitz, Boltzmann Medalist Anthony Leggett, Nobel
Laureate, Physics Eugen Merzbacher, President, American Physical
Society, 1990 Douglas Osheroff, Nobel Laureate, Physics Norman
Ramsey, Nobel Laureate, Physics Edwin Salpeter, Dirac Medalist
Andrew Sessler, President, American Physical Society, 1998 Jack
Steinberger, Nobel Laureate, Physics George Trilling, President,
American Physical Society, 2001 Steven Weinberg, Nobel Laureate,
Physics Frank Wilczek, Nobel Laureate, Physics

Titles and addresses of authors Philip W. Anderson: Joseph Henry
Professor of Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
Tel: 609-258-5850, Email:

pwa_at_pupgg.princeton.edu.

Michael E. Fisher: Distinguished University Professor and Regents
Professor, Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University
of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-2431. Tel: 301-405-4819, Fax:
(301) 314-9404, Email: xpectnil_at_ipst.umd.edu.

Jerome Friedman: Institute Professor and Professor of Physics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue,
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Tel: (617) 253-7585, Email: jif_at_mit.edu.

Kurt Gottfried: Emeritus Professor of Physics, Newman Lab, Cornell
University, Ithaca, NY 14853-2501. Tel: 607-255-2387, Email:

kg13_at_cornell.edu.

David J. Gross: Frederick W. Gluck Professor of Theoretical Physics,
Director-Kavli Institute For Theoretical Physics, University of
California Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4030. Tel: 805-893-7337, FAX:
(805) 893-2431, Email: gross_at_kitp.ucsb.edu.

John L. Hall, NIST Senior Fellow, Emeritus, and Lecturer, Department
of Physics, and JILA Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder CO
80309 - 0440. Tel: 303 497-3126, E-mail: jhall_at_jila.colorado.edu.

Jorge E. Hirsch: Professor, Department of Physics, University of
California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093. Tel: 858-534-3931, Fax:

858-534-0173, Email: jhirsch_at_ucsd.edu.

Leo P. Kadanoff: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of
Physics and Mathematics, Emeritus University of Chicago, Chicago,
IL 60637. Tel:

773-702-7189, 773-702-7184 (messages), Email: l-kadanoff_at_uchicago.edu.

Wolfgang Ketterle, John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics, Massachussets
Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
02139.

Tel: 617.253.6815, Email: ketterle_at_mit.edu.

Daniel Kleppner, Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics, Emeritus and
Co Director, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
02139-4307. Tel: (617) 253-6811, Email: kleppner_at_mit.edu.

Walter Kohn,:Professor of Physics, Emeritus and Research Professor
University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106.

Joel L. Lebowitz: George William Hill Professor of Mathematics and
Physics, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 110 Frelinghuysen
Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8019. Tel.: 732-445-3117, Email:

lebowitz_at_math.rutgers.edu.

Anthony J. Leggett: John D. and Catherine T.MacArthur Professor and
Professor of Physics and Professor in the Center for Advanced Study,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1110 West Green Street,
Urbana, IL 61801-3080. Tel: 217-333-2077, Email: aleggett_at_uiuc.edu.

Eugen Merzbacher: Kenan Professor Em. of Physics, Department of
Physics and Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3255. Tel: 919-942-5429, Email:
merzbach_at_physics.unc.edu.

Douglas D. Osheroff: J.G. Jackson and C.J. Wood Professor of Physics
and Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-4060.
Tel:

650-723-4228, Fax: 650-725-6544, Email: osheroff_at_stanford.edu.

Norman Ramsey: Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, Harvard
University, Cambridge, MA 02138. Tel: 617-495-2864, Email:

ramsey_at_physics.harvard.edu.

Edwin Salpeter: James Gilbert White Distinguished Professor of the
Physical Sciences, Emeritus, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
Tel:

607-255-4937, Email: ees12_at_cornell.edu.

Andrew M. Sessler: Distinguished Director, Emeritus, Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, mS71-259, Berkeley,
CA 94720. Tel:

510-486-4992, Email: AMSessler_at_lbl.gov.

Jack Steinberger: European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN),
Geneva, Switzerland. Tel: 41-22-7678125, Email:
Jack.Steinberger_at_cern.ch.

George H. Trilling: Professor Emeritus of Physics, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory, MS 50B-6222, Berkeley, CA 94720. Tel: (510)
486-6801, Email: GHTrilling_at_lbl.gov.

Steven Weinberg: Jack S. Josey-Welch Foundation Chair in Science
and Regental Professor, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
78712-1081. Tel: 512-471-4394, Email: weinberg_at_physics.utexas.edu.

Frank Wilczek: Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, Department of
Physics, Massachussets Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
02139-4307. Tel: 617-253-0284, Email: wilczek_at_mit.edu.

*****************************************************************
 58 USINFO: "Substantial Start" Sought Toward Nuclear-Free Korean Peninsula

 By Stephen Kafman

 USINFO Staff Writer

Washington - The United States believes there is a â€œbasis for
making progressâ€ in the upcoming round of Six-Party Talks
among North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the
United States, but its chief negotiator in the discussions also
cautioned that there had been similar hopes preceding the
previous round in December 2006 â€“ a round that did not
â€œfully meet our expectations.â€ 

â€œI think we have a basis for calling the six-party meeting and
for making some progress,â€ Ambassador Christopher Hill,
assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs,
told reporters at the State Department February 1. 

The talks are scheduled to reconvene in Beijing February 8.Â 
Prior to their resumption, Hill will meet with South Korean and
Japanese officials in Seoul, South Korea, and in Tokyo, and
plans to hold consultations with his Russian counterparts in
Beijing. 

Hill said in the opening round, the United States hopes the
first â€œtrancheâ€ or section of measures outlined in the
partiesâ€™ September 19, 2005, statement can be implemented,
thereby beginning the full implementation of an agreement
designed to remove nuclear programs from the Korean Peninsula.
(See related article.) 

â€œWe will not achieve full denuclearization in February, but we
hope to make a substantial start on this,â€ Hill said. 

The assistant secretary cautioned that he had expected progress
in the December 2006 round that â€œdidn't happen in terms of the
actual implementation on the ground,â€ and he was therefore
unwilling to say the delegates are â€œdefinitely going to
achieve something.â€ (See related article.) 

He expected the February talks to last three days or four days,
and that there will likely be bilateral discussions between U.S.
and North Korean officials on the sidelines. 

Hill said there is â€œa very strong logicâ€ for North Korea to
give up its nuclear programs, arguing that acquiring nuclear
weapons offers the country less protection than having a
stronger economy or improving relations with its neighbors. 

â€œ[T]hey should consider what the best method is to protect
them from conceivable risks,â€ he said, adding his view that
â€œnuclear weapons are totally inappropriate and essentially
would be a very unsuccessful means for them to protect
themselves.â€ 

Asked about the prospects of a formal peace agreement between
North Korea and the United States, Hill said the concept of
creating a â€œpeace mechanismâ€ is â€œembeddedâ€ in the
September 19, 2005, statement.Â  â€œ[O]f course we are
interested in moving to that.Â  We are interested in
implementing that.Â  But first we need to get moving on some of
these other elements.â€ 

Hill added that there had been some discussions between the two
countries on a peace mechanism, but said removal of nuclear
programs from the Korean Peninsula is â€œthe keyâ€ to resolving
that and other issues. 

â€œIâ€™ve made clear to the North Koreans that with
denuclearization, really, everything becomes possible.Â  Without
denuclearization though, frankly, it would then become very,
very difficult.â€ 

â€œThere is a logical sequence of events,â€ he said. 

For additional information, see The U.S. and the Korean
Peninsula. 
*****************************************************************
 59 Knox News: Up and running super smoothly

ORNL's Cray computer hums, hints at bigger things to come

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

February 2, 2007

OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory's newest computer is 
purring like a cat, and maybe that's to be expected. It is, after 
all, a part of the lab's "Jaguar" system, a Cray XT4 
supercomputer that's reported to be the nation's fastest machine 
for open scientific research. 

Sixty-eight new cabinets for Jaguar arrived here from Cray's 
manufacturing center in Wisconsin late last year and were 
installed on the second floor of the National Center for 
Computational Sciences. 

"It's going through the acceptance testing," Thomas Zacharia, the 
associate lab director of scientific computing, said during a 
visit earlier this week. "It's doing very well. Extremely well. 
We're very pleased." 

Within the next few weeks, the new orange-and-white cabinets will 
be combined with the existing Jaguar processors that have been 
operating at ORNL for the past year. 

Ongoing research projects - including key studies of global 
climate change - will be transferred upstairs to the new Jaguar 
units, and that will enable lab workers to shut down the 
computer's downstairs processors and complete the consolidation. 

The unified Jaguar should have an operational capability of 110 
to 120 teraflops (up to 120 trillion mathematical calculations 
per second). 

That's an amazing capability, but it's just a hint of bigger and 
better things to come. 

ORNL and Cray are collaborating on another $200 million project 
that's supposed to produce a "petascale" supercomputer - capable 
of 1,000 trillion calculations per second - by the end of 2008. 
The success of that project may depend on the outcome of 
congressional budget negotiations under way in Washington, which 
will determine whether ORNL gets this year's proposed $80 million 
allotment for that effort. 

Meanwhile, the University of Tennessee, which co-manages ORNL in 
a partnership with Battelle, is heading a proposal to the 
National Science Foundation that could bring a $350 million 
computing project to Oak Ridge. 

The UT-led team is competing against three other high-powered 
teams for the right to develop a supercomputer capable of 
sustained research operations at one petaflop or greater. 

"I can't tell how fast that's going to be because I don't want 
that to be in the press before the proposal is submitted," 
Zacharia told a group of lab visitors earlier this week. 

The deadline for submitting proposals is today, and a team from 
NSF will visit Oak Ridge on March 20. If the UT bid is 
successful, the new computer would be at ORNL. 

Zacharia, a tenured professor at UT in addition to his executive 
position at the lab, is heading the proposal team, which includes 
support from ORNL, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, 
Texas Advanced Computing Center, Rice University, Duke University 
and other academic institutions. 

The competing teams in the finals are headed by the University of 
California, University of Illinois and Carnegie-Mellon 
University. 

Zacharia said the competition is a big deal, even though the 
University of Tennessee may be considered a long shot in the 
elite field. 

"I'm proud of the fact that the University of Tennessee is 
committed to science on this scale," he said. "It is what the 
university should do in managing the laboratory. It raises the 
University of Tennessee profile. It's going to attract new 
faculty to come to the university. It's going to bring graduate 
students. It's going to add to the university's vibrancy. It 
builds the scientific talent here, and it'll lead to more 
economic development and spin-off companies." 

Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

 Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel 
*****************************************************************
 60 Seattle Times: Bad Hanford bills follow bad initiative

Editorials &Opinion: 

Friday, February 2, 2007 - Page updated at 12:00 AM 	
 	 		
State lawmakers should steer clear of trying to fix the flawed
Initiative 297 until federal courts can make a definitive ruling
on it. 

Last summer, a federal judge overturned the 2004 ballot measure,
approved by 69 percent of voters and intended to require the
federal government to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation
before more nuclear waste is shipped from other states. U.S.
District Judge Alan McDonald of Yakima deep-sixed the whole
initiative, ruling it violated three clauses of the U.S.
Constitution: Supremacy, Commerce and Contracts. The state
appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Oral arguments are expected this summer. 

In the meantime, the state Department of Ecology, which
regulates Hanford cleanup, is opposing two bills hailed as
remedies to the constitutional flaws. If I-297 is upheld on
appeal, an ecology spokesman said it would be in conflict with
any remedy enacted. 

The proposed law also could create other problems, including
more burden for companies that handle medical-waste disposal and
"significantly" delaying Ecology's closure of Hanford tanks
cleaned of radioactive waste. 

This page opposed I-297. To clean up Hanford, the federal
government is expected to ship 90 percent of Hanford waste
elsewhere  to designated sites in New Mexico, South Carolina
and Nevada. If other states took the same tack, Hanford would be
stuck with all of it. 

Further, Washington's track record of holding federal feet to
the cleanup fire is a good one. As former Ecology director, Gov.
Christine Gregoire exacted a first-of-its-kind agreement with
the federal government for cleanup; as, attorney general, she
flexed legal muscle to enforce it. She and new Attorney General
Rob McKenna remain attentive. 

I-297 supporters, including Heart of America and Sen. Adam
Kline, D-Seattle, now are pushing haphazard remedies to what was
a flawed initiative. The position is a bleak commentary on the
wisdom of advancing such a complex agenda through the initiative
process rather than the Legislature. 

Too bad. The defense of the initiative already has cost the
people of Washington about $348,000  and there is no way to
hold the sponsors responsible. 

State lawmakers should leave these bills alone and wait to hear
from the 9th Circuit. 	 		 		

Copyright © The Seattle Times Company
*****************************************************************
 61 DOE: Bush Administration Plays Leading Role in Studying and Addressing Global Climate Change

  February 2, 2007
 
[DOC, EPA, and DOE Seals] 

Washington, DC Continuing to take the lead in addressing global 
climate change, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Environmental 
Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson, and 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) 
Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher discussed Working 
Group I's contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report released 
today by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 

The report confirms what President Bush has said about the nature 
of climate change and it reaffirms the need for continued U.S. 
leadership in addressing global climate issues.  The report 
findings highlight the need for robust climate research and the 
development of new technologies to clean our air and deal with 
global climate change, while maintaining economic 
competitiveness. 

"The Administration welcomes the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change report, which was developed through thousands of
hours of research by leading U.S. and international scientists
and informed by significant U.S. investments in advancing
climate science research," U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel
Bodman said.  "Climate change is a global challenge that
requires global solutions.  Through President Bush's leadership,
the U.S. government is taking action to curb the growth of
greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging the development and
deployment of clean energy technologies here in the United
States and across the globe." 

I congratulate my colleagues at the IPCC for their years of
research, and look forward to using their scientific findings as
we continue Americas efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas
emissions, said EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson.  Through
our commitment to sound science and innovation, the Bush
Administration has built a solid foundation to address the
environmental challenges of the 21st Century. 

Without the diligent efforts by our scientists in the United
States, these advances in knowledge of our planets climate
would not have been possible, said retired Navy Vice Adm.
Conrad Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for
oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. The U.S. Climate
Change Science Program continues to set a high standard
world-wide for the pertinent research it conducts. I would like
to thank Dr. Susan Solomon and all of the scientists that
contributed to the IPCC report. 

The U.S. leads the world in advancing climate science and
addressing our impact on Earths climate, with President Bush
devoting nearly $29 billion to climate-related science,
technology, international assistance, and incentive programs -
more than any other country.  Putting research and development
to work, this Administrations policy to deploy cleaner, more
efficient technologies is putting the U.S. well on track to meet
the Presidents goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity 18
percent by 2012. 

And since 2002, the Administration has spent approximately $9
billion on climate change science research through the
multi-agency Climate Change Science Program.  These investments,
along with input from U.S. scientists and federal resources led
to the development of the research results summarized in the
IPCC report. 

The U.S. delegation to the IPCC included climate science experts
from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),
the Department of Commerces National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of State.  The
delegations participation in the meeting followed significant
U.S. involvement in the generation of the report, as numerous
U.S. climate scientists were involved in its drafting and expert
review.  In addition, a NOAA climate expert, Dr. Susan Solomon,
served as co-chair of Working Group I. 

Fact Sheet on Global Climate Change 

Media contact(s):
 DOE: Megan Barnett (202) 586-4940
NOAA: Kent Laborde (202) 482-6090
EPA: Jennifer Wood (202) 564-4355     [ ]   

  U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | 
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403
   
*****************************************************************
 62 Tri-City Herald: HAB's longtime chairman steps down - 


Published Friday, February 2nd, 2007 

By Annette Cary, Herald staff writer 

For six years Todd Martin has presided over a board of 60 people
picked for their often passionate and outspoken pro- and
anti-nuclear views. 

He's not only helped Hanford Advisory Board members agree on
what should be done to clean up the Hanford nuclear reservation,
but he's done it with grace and humor. 

Thursday, his final day as chairman of the Hanford Advisory
Board, the 30 board members, the 30 board alternates, government
officials who run the nuclear reservation and those who regulate
it agreed on one more thing: 

He's done an excellent job. 

When Nick Ceto, the program manager for the Environmental
Protection Agency, began attending board meetings, he struggled
to categorize Martin on a board that ranged from conservative
Hanford-area interests to liberal Western Washington and Oregon
interests. 

Now, "I consider him a pragmatic hippie," Ceto said Thursday. 

Martin, who wears his long curly hair in a ponytail, has
remained levelheaded amidst the occasional turmoil of the
competing interests around the board, said Ken Niles, who
represents the Oregon Department of Energy on the board. 

The board doesn't vote on advice to the Department of Energy and
its regulators on how it should best clean up more than 40 years
of contamination from the past production of plutonium for the
production of nuclear weapons. 

Instead, it works on issues until all board members can agree. 

The process works because Martin "shows incredible respect for
every person and unconditional regard," said Paige Knight, who
represents Hanford Watch, an environmental organization, on the
board. A high school teacher in Oregon, she said watching Martin
had helped her in the classroom. 

"You had an incredible ability not to dampen the enthusiasm of
anyone on any issue," Mike Weis, deputy manager of the DOE
Hanford Richland Operations Office, told Martin after the
outgoing chairman passed the gavel -- a plastic yellow gavel
with squeakers on each end -- to new board leader Susan
Leckband. 

Using humor and creativity is one way Martin has been able to
focus the board and move issues along, said Maynard Plahuta, who
represents Benton County on the board. 

When Martin was concerned that the board was straying from the
procedures set up to accomplish work, he came to a meeting with
a giant Candy Land board. He stressed the importance of
following the Hanford Advisory Board process, from picking an
issue to reaching consensus on advice, as he moved pieces around
the board adapted to Hanford topics. 

When he needed to report the results of surveys from government
officials who said the board too often seemed hostile, he
adapted Dr. Seuss to his own version of Green Eggs and HAB: 

"Would you? Could you? 

Listen to their advice? 

Maybe? Maybe? 

If they would just be nice? 

They would not! Could not! 

Give nice advice!" 

Among his biggest challenges has been maintaining board member's
energy, many for the 12 years since the board was created, on a
topic that's as technical and long-lived as Hanford cleanup,
Martin said. 

But he's kept the board moving forward through disciplined
planning and work processes that reinforce trust and cooperation
among members who, outside the board, are active in causes as
diverse as the American Nuclear Society and Hanford watchdog
Heart of America Northwest. 

The ground rule is "respect one and other," Martin said. 

Turnover among the leaders of the Department of Energy, the
regulators of Hanford and contractors has been frustrating, he
said. Each new leader has to be shown the depth of knowledge on
the board, taught the unusual process of board consensus and
convinced of the board's value. 

But he's politically astute and has brought respect for the
board at the top levels of DOE, said Gary Petersen, who
represents the Tri-City Development Council on the board. 

Martin's persevered because of the progress made on Hanford
cleanup, the outgoing chairman said. 

The board's top priorities have been getting a treatment plant
for millions of gallons of high-level radioactive waste now
stored in underground aging tanks. After repeated false starts
and despite some continuing troubles, the $12.2 billion
vitrification plant is under construction. 

The board also has helped keep the need for money for Hanford
cleanup in the public eye, Martin said. 

His work has been noticed by Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who
sent him a letter of thanks Thursday. He also was surprised with
the Department of Ecology's highest award for recognizing
environmental stewardship, the Environmental Excellence Award. 

Martin has had to remain impartial as board chairman, rather
than advocate for the advice he favored. 

But rarely did the board issue advice that he did not stand
behind, he said. 

But after reaching the term limit to serve as chairman, he's
looking forward to "seeing how empty my e-mail box is on
Monday," he said. 

He became interested in Hanford as a college student at
Whitworth College in Spokane through the watchdog group Hanford
Education Action League. The group eventually disbanded, but
Martin's fascination in Hanford led him to get a master's degree
in environmental science. 

He works as an environmental consultant, based in Northport near
the Canadian border. 

Although he has yet to decide what he plans to do with his free
time, he's interested in shedding the impartiality he needed as
the Hanford Advisory Board chairman and possibly consulting on
Hanford cleanup rather than doing administration work. 

Martin plans to take a temporary break from the board. 

It will give Leckband, the incoming chairwoman, time to put her
stamp on the position and give him time to work on his goal of
100 days on the ski slopes this winter. 

The board is fortunate he's willing to come back eventually,
Leckband said. 

"He's been our history, our humor, our backbone," she said. 

© 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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 63 Tri-City Herald: 2 PNNL technologies receive awards 

Published Friday, February 2nd, 2007 

By John Trumbo, Herald staff writer 

Two technologies developed at the Pacific Northwest National
Laboratories that have gone from the research lab to commercial
use have earned federal awards. 

A monitoring system that analyzes aircraft flight data to
pinpoint potential problems for safety inspectors, and a
microchip controller that tells appliances when to turn on and
off to avoid brownouts brought PNNL two 2007 Excellence in
Technology Transfer Awards. 

The awards come from the Federal Laboratory Consortium, which
has given a total of 64 of them to PNNL since 1984. 

The aircraft monitoring system, called the Morning Report,
analyzes data collected from aircraft instrumentation on speed,
wing angle, engine temperature and equipment status. By
identifying patterns in the data, safety inspectors can zero in
anomalies before problems occur and cause accidents. 

The Richland lab, which is managed by Battelle for the
Department of Energy, worked with NASA-Ames, ProWorks, Flight
Safety Consultants and Safe Flight in perfecting the technology.
The Morning Report subsequently was licensed to SAGEM Avionics
in Texas. 

The energy controller, know as the Grid Friendly Appliance
Controller, was developed at PNNL and installed on hundreds of
clothes dryers and water heaters in the Pacific Northwest in a
test demonstration for the DOE, Whirlpool and the Bonneville
Power Administration. 

Regional utilities Pacificorp and Portland General Electric also
are participants. 

Testing results will be collected through the end of March, with
a report expected in late spring, said Mary Anne Wuennecke of
PNNL. 

The Grid Friendly computer chip can switch power on or off to an
appliance after detecting the demand for power on the electrical
grid, smoothing out the peak demand and allowing the grid to
stabilize, avoiding potential power outages. 

PNNL is a DOE lab that works on problems involving energy,
national security, the environment and life sciences. It has an
annual budget of $750 million. 

© 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press &Other Wire Services
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 64 DenverPost.com: Matsch wants to release Rocky Flats jury info
 
By The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 02/01/2007 03:34:15 PM MST

A federal judge said today he wants to release as much 
information as the law allows from a grand jury investigation of 
alleged environmental crimes at the former Rocky Flats nuclear 
weapons plant. 

But U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch said a federal appeals
court that instructed him to consider what could be released
"cast us adrift in uncharted waters." Matsch asked for guidance
from attorneys for former grand jurors who want to publicize
alleged misconduct by prosecutors and from government attorneys
who argue none of the information can be released. 

Matsch had ruled in March 2004 that grand jury secrecy rules
prevented the release of testimony transcripts and other
documents that 18 of the 23 former grand jurors want the public
to see. He also had ruled that he didn't have the authority to
release material that might not be covered by those rules. 

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year reversed that
ruling and sent the case back to Matsch, instructing him to
determine what could be released. 

In a hearing today, government attorneys told Matsch they
believed the materials cannot be released. Matsch gave them a
month to file supporting arguments, saying the Colorado U.S.
attorney's office should consult with Justice Department
officials in Washington because the outcome of the case could
affect how the agency conducts grand jury investigations in the
future. 

Matsch also said he wanted both sides to determine how best to
notify the prosecutors who worked with the grand jury that some
of the information could be released. 

"These allegations being made against counsel are very serious,
and the allegations being made against the Department of Justice
are very serious," Matsch said. 

Attorney Kenneth Peck, a former grand juror who is pursuing his
case separately from the other 17 former grand jurors, said it
was "ludicrous" that he and other grand jurors were prohibited
from reporting what he said were possibly criminal acts by
prosecutors. 

Details of the allegations by the former grand jurors are
sealed. 

But attorney Jonathan Turley, who represents 17 former grand
jurors, said releasing information about the allegations could
spark congressional and criminal investigations. 

Rocky Flats, about 10 miles northwest of Denver, made plutonium
bomb triggers from the 1950s until it was shut down in 1989. The
Energy Department has said a seven-year cleanup of the site is
complete, and portions are to become a wildlife refuge. 

From 1989 to 1992, the grand jury reviewed evidence and heard
testimony from more than 100 witnesses about alleged
environmental crimes. The grand jury recommended indictments
against two corporations and eight people. 

Prosecutors refused to sign the indictments and instead reached
a plea agreement with former plant operator Rockwell
International, now part of aerospace giant Boeing Co., calling
for the company to pay an $18.5 million fine. 

In 1996, 18 members of the grand jury asked Matsch to release
them from secrecy rules. At the time, Turley said he wanted the
judge to determine if prosecutors had deliberately undermined
the case to protect a government contractor. 

He said the alleged misconduct should be punished, and said the
grand jurors wanted to use the information to counter public
statements that former prosecutors made about them after the
grand jury was disbanded. 

Turley submitted a sealed document in 1997 detailing the
allegations, and interviewed former grand jurors under oath in
closed hearings that year. He said Thursday that he was most
interested in winning the release of that document and
transcripts of the grand jurors' testimony. 

"You have a grand jury accusing prosecutors of serious
misconduct including possibly lying to Congress," Turley told
Matsch. "I believe the people of the state of Colorado and of
the United States have a right to know what it is that has
motivated (my clients) for so long." Peck wants Matsch to allow
him to submit to legal regulators and investigative agencies an
affidavit he submitted under seal detailing his allegations of
prosecutorial misconduct. 

Henry Solano, who was U.S. attorney for Colorado when the grand
jury was working, has denied the allegations by the former grand
jurors.

 All contents Copyright 2007 The Denver Post
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 65 Knox News: Fed budget ax could slow cleanup work, chop jobs
					
By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com 

February 1, 2007

OAK RIDGE -- Some cleanup activities in Oak Ridge have been 
slowed and others put on hold because of federal budget 
uncertainties, and layoffs are a real possibility. 

Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., the Department 
of Energy's cleanup manager in Oak Ridge, said the company has a 
plan in place to deal with the various budget scenarios for 2007. 

"If the funding outlook for FY '07 doesn't improve, a reduction 
in force is expected that would affect both BJC and subcontractor 
employees," Hill said Wednesday. "Layoff notices would have to go 
out to affected employees around March 1." 

There have been unconfirmed reports that as many as 250 cleanup 
jobs could be affected by reduced spending levels. However, 
Bechtel Jacobs and DOE would not discuss layoff numbers. 

The dismantlement and cleanup of K-25 and K-27, two World War 
II-era uranium-enrichment facilities, is one of the major 
projects that could be affected. About 630 people are working 
there. 

That project is still at a fairly early stage, with plans to 
accelerate the work over the next couple of years. "At this time, 
work on the K-25/K-27 project continues but it has not ramped up 
due to these uncertainties," Hill said. 

Bechtel Jacobs postponed a plan to purchase 1,200 containers for 
shipping uranium and other radioactive materials, he said. 

Oak Ridge officials are waiting on news from Washington on how to 
proceed. Congress did not pass a federal budget for 2007, and 
federal agencies are working under a continuing resolution that 
restricts spending. 

The House and the Senate are expected to approve a year-long 
spending plan for 2007 in the next week or so -- at the same time 
President Bush unveils his proposed budget for 2008. 

"We're looking at a range of possibilities," DOE spokesman John 
Shewairy said. 

John Owsley, the state's environmental oversight chief in Oak 
Ridge, said the Tennessee Department of Environment and 
Conservation would enforce cleanup milestones for 2007 previously 
negotiated with DOE. He said there are plans for officials from 
the state, DOE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to 
meet during the third week of February to discuss the potential 
impact of budget restrictions. 

So far, DOE has not asked for any waivers or cleanup extensions, 
Owsley said. "They've been fairly quiet. We're hearing very 
little," he said. 

Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight 
Committee, which represents local governments on environmental 
issues, said there's "mass confusion" at the moment. 

Gawarecki said she's concerned that DOE will try to delay some of 
the Oak Ridge projects. Similar problems have developed in the 
past, and DOE didn't push hard enough for funding, she said. 

"I'm tired of it," she said.

© 2007 - Knoxville News Sentinel
    
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