***************************************************************** 04/04/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.79 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 WP Skirts Origins of Niger Uranium Forgery 2 Comment is free: Nuclear attraction 3 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: UK has changed tone - Haddad 4 Reuters: CHRONOLOGY: Crisis over British sailors in Iran 5 AFP: Iran frees British sailors after 13-day crisis 6 AFP: Iran hails British 'change' as hopes for sailors rise - 7 UPI: Outside View: New Bushehr nuke scandal 8 IRNA: Atom Stroi to take part in IAEO tender on nuclear power plants 9 IRNA: CIA hires terrorist group to operate inside Iran - 10 US: Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Forges on With Missile Defense Plan 11 AFP: US links Indian government in weapons conspiracy - 12 [NYTr] Uranium-rich Jordan to embark on nuclear program NUCLEAR REACTORS 13 The Hindu: Pak plans to set up new nuke facility - report 14 COSMOS magazine: Going deep into fission 15 The Age: Morgan reveals vision for nuclear Australia - 16 Bangkok Post: Is Thailand ready for nuclear power? 17 The Hindu: Nuclear plant to take up assault issue with State Governm 18 CNN-IBN: India should push N-deal - Boucher 19 US: newsobserver.com: NRC turns aside Harris plant claim 20 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting at Sweetwater on April 9 to Disc 21 US: Technology News Daily: Nuclear Power Plants Study 22 US: Palm Beach Post: FPL mulls adding reactors 23 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Reactor shutdown follows siren trouble in testy we 24 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 3 returns to service 25 US: PoughkeepsieJournal.com: New sirens flunk test at Indian Point 26 US: St. Cloud Times: Monticello nuclear plant receives highest safet 27 US: St. Cloud Times: Residents can attend review of Xcel plant 28 US: Rutland Herald: Nukes no boon to environment 29 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2006 Performance at Sequoyah Nuclear Power P 30 US: Inside Bay Area: Nuclear power price mushrooms 31 US: South Florida Business Journal: New power plants on the horizon 32 US: AZo Journal: Nuclear Power May Not be Cost Effective 33 Reuters: Green activists beach at Finnish nuclear site 34 US: NRC: NRC to Discuss 2006 Assessment for Three Mile Island Nuclea 35 US: Grist: An interview with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers 36 Caboodle.hu: Malfunction reported at Hungary's nuclear power plant 37 US: MHNN: IP3 returned to service 38 Telegraph: Greens will seek pledge on nuclear power 39 US: Spartanburg Herald Journal: Nuclear power routes previewed | 40 US: NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting in Aiken, S.C., on License Revie 41 US: Orlando Sentinel: FPL's building plans include a nuclear site - 42 Russia Newswire: Smolensk NPP Granted Safety Certificate 43 US: Oregon Daily Emerald: Reopening of nuclear site sparks fear - 44 NewsRoom Finland: Greenpeace activists land at Finnish nuclear site 45 Hindustan Times: India major player in nuclear world NUCLEAR SECURITY 46 AFP: EU, US, Russia agree on closer cooperation against terrorism - NUCLEAR SAFETY 47 US: SF Chron: U.S. Seeks to Ease Irradiated Food Label 48 US: Vermont Guardian: State cuts Brattleboro emergency planning fund NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 49 [NYTr] Groups Challenge New Mexico Uranium Enrichment Plant's 50 Deutsche Welle: German Court Allows Atomic Waste Site | Germany | 51 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Harold to spearhead NT uranium hunt - 52 US: ABQjournal: Spent Fuel Rods Are Not Waste 53 US: RGJ.com: Trains open to attack, activists contend 54 Public Citizen: Public Interest Groups File Brief To Challenge PEACE 55 US: Pahrump Valley Times: March for peace results in citations US DEPT. OF ENERGY 56 KnoxNews: Official: Leaks of uranium solution at Y-12 avoidable 57 KnoxNews: Who'll be good enough to head top research lab? 58 KnoxNews: Rulings could affect TVA plants 59 KnoxNews: Report: World already being changed by warming 60 Guardian Unlimited: Feds to Assess Damage at Hanford Site 61 Seattle Times Newspaper: DOE to evaluate damage Hanford did to envir 62 DOE: DOE Does Not Accept Initial SPR Bids 63 FR DOE: Office of International Regimes and Agreements; (Korea) 64 lamonitor.com: Classified computers missing 65 FR DOE: Office of International Regimes and Agreements; Proposed ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 WP Skirts Origins of Niger Uranium Forgery Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 00:20:21 -0500 (CDT) The last throwaway paragraph insults the readers' intelligence. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/02/AR2007040201777.html How Bogus Letter Became a Case for War Intelligence Failures Surrounded Inquiry on Iraq-Niger Uranium Claim By Peter Eisner Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, April 3, 2007; A01 It was 3 a.m. in Italy on Jan. 29, 2003, when President Bush in Washington began reading his State of the Union address that included the now famous -- later retracted -- 16 words: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Like most Europeans, Elisabetta Burba, an investigative reporter for the Italian newsweekly Panorama, waited until the next day to read the newspaper accounts of Bush's remarks. But when she came to the 16 words, she recalled, she got a sudden sinking feeling in her stomach. She wondered: How could the American president have mentioned a uranium sale from Africa? Burba felt uneasy because more than three months earlier, she had turned over to the U.S. Embassy in Rome documents about an alleged uranium sale by the central African nation of Niger. And she knew now that the documents were fraudulent and the 16 words wrong. Nonetheless, the uranium claim would become a crucial justification for the invasion of Iraq that began less than two months later. When occupying troops found no nuclear program, the 16 words and how they came to be in the speech became a focus for critics in Washington and foreign capitals to press the case that the White House manipulated facts to take the United States to war. Dozens of interviews with current and former intelligence officials and policymakers in the United States, Britain, France and Italy show that the Bush administration disregarded key information available at the time showing that the Iraq-Niger claim was highly questionable. In February 2002, the CIA received the verbatim text of one of the documents, filled with errors easily identifiable through a simple Internet search, the interviews show. Many low- and mid-level intelligence officials were already skeptical that Iraq was in pursuit of nuclear weapons. The interviews also showed that France, berated by the Bush administration for opposing the Iraq war, honored a U.S. intelligence request to investigate the uranium claim. It determined that its former colony had not sold uranium to Iraq. Burba, who had no special expertise in Africa or nuclear technology, was able to quickly unravel the fraud. Yet the claims clung to life within the Bush administration for months, eventually finding their way into the State of the Union address. As a result of the CIA's failure to firmly discredit the document text it received in February 2002, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was called in to investigate the claim. That decision eventually led to the special counsel's investigation that exposed inner workings of the White House and ended with the criminal conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was forced to resign as chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. "You know I feel bad about it," Burba said later, discussing her frustrations about her role in giving the dossier to the Americans. "You know the fact is that my documents, with the documents I brought to them, they justified the war." The Tip In early October of 2002, a man mysteriously contacted Elisabetta Burba at her Milan office. "Do you remember me?" the deep voice said, without identifying himself outright. It was Rocco Martino, an old source who had proved reliable in the past. He was once again trying to sell her information. Martino said he had some very interesting documents to show her, and asked whether she could fly down to Rome right away. They met at a restaurant in Rome on Oct. 7, where Martino showed Burba a folder filled with documents, most of them in French. One of the documents was purportedly sent by the president of Niger to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, confirming a deal to sell 500 tons of uranium to Iraq annually. This was the smoking gun in the package, claiming to show the formal approval of Niger's president to supply Iraq with a commodity that would in all likelihood only be used for a nuclear weapons program: Iraq had no nuclear power plants. Though the document was in French it would later come to be known as "The Italian Letter." It was written in all capital letters, in the form of an old telex, and bore the letterhead of the Republic of Niger. The letter was dated July 27, 2000, and included an odd shield on the top, a shining sun surrounded by a horned animal head, a star and a bird. The letter was stamped Confidential and Urgent. The letter said that "500 tons of pure uranium per year will be delivered in two phases." A seal at the bottom of the page read "The Office of the President of the Republic of Niger." Superimposed over the seal was a barely legible signature bearing the name of the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja. Burba listened without saying much as she took a first look at the documents. She recognized right away that the material was hot, if authentic. But confirming the origin would be difficult, she recalled thinking at the time. She didn't want to fall into a trap. Burba and Martino made an agreement; she would take the documents, and if they checked out as authentic, then they could talk about money. 'Let's Go to the Americans' Back in her magazine's Milan newsroom, Burba told her editors she thought it would make sense to fly to Niger and check around for confirmation. The editor of the magazine, Carlo Rossella, agreed. He then suggested they simultaneously pursue another tack. "Let's go to the Americans," Rossella said, "because they are focused on looking for weapons of mass destruction more than anyone else. Let's see if they can authenticate the documents." Rossella called the U.S. Embassy in Rome and alerted officials to expect a visit from Burba. On Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, Burba returned to Rome and took a cab to the U.S. Embassy, which is housed at the old Palazzo Margherita. Burba came to a security gate and walked through a magnetometer, where an Italian employee of the embassy press department came down to meet her. After a few formalities, an Italian aide introduced her to Ian Kelly, the embassy press spokesman. Kelly and Burba walked across the embassy's walled grounds and sat down for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. Burba told Kelly that she had some documents about Iraq and uranium shipments and needed help in confirming their authenticity and accuracy. Kelly interrupted her, realizing he needed help. He made a phone call summoning someone else from his staff as well as a political officer. Burba recalled a third person being invited, possibly a U.S. military attache. She didn't get their names. "Let's go to my office," Kelly said. They walked past antiquities, a tranquil fountain, steps and pieces of marble, all set in a tree-lined patio garden. The Italian journalist's chat with Kelly and his colleagues was brief. She handed over the papers; Kelly told her the embassy would look into the matter. But Kelly had not been briefed on what others in the embassy knew. CIA Role One person who refused to meet with Burba was the CIA chief of station. A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Sismi, the Italian intelligence agency, had sent along information about the alleged sale of uranium to Iraq. The station chief asked for more information and would later consider it far-fetched. On Oct. 15, 2001, the CIA reports officer at the embassy wrote a brief summary based on the Sismi intelligence, signed and dated it, and routed it to CIA's Operations Directorate in Langley, with copies going to the clandestine service's European and Near East divisions. The reports officer had limited its distribution because the intelligence was uncorroborated; she was aware of Sismi's questionable track record and did not believe the report merited wider dissemination. The Operations Directorate then passed the raw intelligence to the CIA's Intelligence Directorate and to sister agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency. A more polished document, called a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, was written at Langley three days later in which the CIA mentioned the new intelligence but added important caveats. The classified document, whose distribution was limited to senior policymakers and the congressional intelligence committees, said there was no corroboration and noted that Iraq had "no known facilities for processing or enriching the material." Pushing the Africa Claim Almost four months later, on Feb. 5, 2002, the CIA received more information from Sismi, including the verbatim text of one of the documents. The CIA failed to recognize that it was riddled with errors, including misspellings and the wrong names for key officials. But it was a separate DIA report about the claims that would lead Cheney to demand further investigation. In response, the CIA dispatched Wilson to Niger. Martino's approach to Burba eight months later with the Italian letter coincided with accelerating U.S. preparations for war. On Oct. 7, 2002, the same day Martino gave Burba the dossier, President Bush launched a new hard-line PR campaign on Iraq. In a speech in Cincinnati, he declared that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a "grave threat" to U.S. national security. "It possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons," the president warned. CIA Director George J. Tenet had vetted the text of Bush's speech and was able to persuade the White House to drop one questionable claim: that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. The information was too fishy, Tenet explained to the National Security Council and Bush's speechwriters. Bush dropped the shopping-for-uranium claim, but ratcheted up the bomb threat. He said in Cincinnati that if Hussein obtained bomb-grade uranium the size of a softball, he would have a nuclear bomb within a year. This particular doomsday scenario had first been unveiled several weeks earlier, on Aug. 26, by Cheney. In a speech in Nashville to the 103rd national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he declared with no equivocation that Hussein had "resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons." On Oct. 16, Burba sat on a plane on her way to Niger, while in Washington, copies of the Italian letter and the accompanying dossier were placed on the table at an interagency nuclear proliferation meeting hosted by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. At this point, State Department analysts had determined the documents were phony, and had produced by far the most accurate assessment of Iraq's weapons program of the 16 agencies that make up the intelligence community. But the department's small intelligence unit operated in a bubble. Few administration officials -- not even Secretary of State Colin L. Powell -- paid much attention to its analytical product, much of which clashed with the White House's assumptions. The State Department bureau, nevertheless, shared the bogus documents with those intelligence officials attending the meeting, including representatives of the Energy Department, National Security Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency. Four CIA officials attended, but only one, a clandestine service officer, bothered to take a copy of the Italian letter. He returned to his office, filed the material in a safe and forgot about it. The Niger uranium matter was not uppermost in the minds of the CIA analysts. Some of them had to deal with the issue in any case, largely because Cheney, his aide Libby and some aides at the National Security Council had repeatedly demanded more information and more analysis. A Fraud Unravels Burba arrived in Niamey, Niger's capital, on Oct. 17 and began tracking down leads on the Italian letter. Burba's investigation followed a series of similar inquiries by Wilson, the former ambassador, who investigated on behalf of the CIA eight months earlier. It became clear that Niger was not capable of secretly shipping yellowcake uranium to Iraq or anywhere else. Burba found that a French company controlled the uranium trade, and any shipment of uranium would have been noticed. If a uranium sale had taken place, the logistics would have been daunting. "They would have needed hundreds of trucks," she said -- a large percentage of all the trucks in Niger. It would have been impossible to conceal. Burba returned to Milan and reported her findings to her bosses in detail. She didn't believe the evidence provided by Martino; it was impossible. Her editors agreed. There was no story. Five months later, on March 7, 2003, as preparations for the Iraq invasion were in their final stages, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told the U.N. Security Council that the report that Iraq had been shopping for uranium in Niger was based on forged documents. The agency had received the document from the United States a few weeks earlier. Not long after the invasion, other news media in Italy, elsewhere in Europe and then in the United States reported that the source of the information about a Niger yellowcake uranium deal had been a batch of bogus letters and other documents passed along several months earlier to an unnamed Italian reporter, who in turn handed the information over to the United States. Although Burba knew that the Bush administration had also received information about the forged documents from Italian intelligence, she wished she could have acted earlier to reveal the fraud. It remains unclear who fabricated the documents. Intelligence officials say most likely it was rogue elements in Sismi who wanted to make money selling them. ***************************************************************** 2 Comment is free: Nuclear attraction guardian.co.uk/commentisfree > Sasha Simic Despite environmental concerns in the west, nuclear energy still has an aura of modernity in the Middle East. April 4, 2007 3:00 PM | Printable version There was a very interesting session at the Cairo International Conference last week on organising a worldwide grassroots response should the US and its allies attack Iran. This discussion was made all the more urgent by the incident between Iran and 15 British servicemen. George Bush has made no secret that he has targeted Iran, Syria and North Korea. A delegate from Venezuela was also certain that it was only the distraction of the Iraqi occupation that prevented the US from invading her country outright or at the least, from organising the "removal" of Hugo Chavez. She argued that "only when every country has nuclear weapons will they be safe from invasion". Many agreed with her: "international law" had not protected Iraq from invasion. This raised the issue of the Middle East and nuclear technology - in particular the issue of Iran and nuclear energy. The attitude of the US and Britain is rightly seen as naked hypocrisy. Iran is developing a nuclear programme which is years away from producing atomic weapons - weapons, it says, it has no interest in possessing in any case. Nevertheless the west is wringing its hands over this terrible development and threatening Iran with sanctions and military intervention unless it abandons its nuclear programme It is, of course, fine for the US to have nuclear technology and nuclear weapons. And what a lot of weapons it's got. It possesses 5,400 warheads loaded on intercontinental ballistic missiles at land and sea. It has an additional 1,750 nuclear bombs and cruise missiles ready to be launched from B-2 and B-52 bombers and a further 1,670 nuclear weapons classified as "tactical. And just in case all this wasn't enough, it has an additional 10,000 or so nuclear warheads held in bunkers as an extra precaution. It's fine for Britain to have nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, too. Tony Blair and his government are keen to build more nuclear power stations to "answer" Britain's energy requirements. And on March 14 the British parliament voted to renew its Trident nuclear weapons system. The cost of this abomination is to be anything between £20 billion and £100 billion. And it's fine for France to have nuclear technology - and India, and Pakistan, and South Africa. It's completely acceptable to the White House for Israel to possess nuclear technology and bombs. But not Iran. In these circumstances activists argue that Iran has every right to develop a nuclear programme. But it's one thing to point out the hypocrisy of the west on this issue and another to endorse nuclear technology. I intervened in the meeting to argue that nuclear power is not an answer to the problems of the Middle East, nor indeed, anywhere else. After the meeting three young women - members of the Muslim Brotherhood - came up to me and asked me why I was against nuclear energy. "We want to progress," they said. Nuclear energy still has an aura of modernity here in the Middle East. I argued it wasn't progress, it was poison. Nuclear power was sold to the British people after the war as an unlimited source of cheap energy. It was to produce electricity "too cheap to meter". This was nonsense. In addition, there was a high environmental cost to be paid for nuclear technology in the form of highly toxic waste products which are dangerous for thousands of years. The total volume of nuclear waste in the UK is 470,000 cubic metres when conditioned and packaged - enough to fill the Albert Hall five times over. Much of has been irresponsibly dumped in the North Sea. I asked these young women if this was what they wanted for the Middle East. Real progress will come, not when every state has nuclear technology, but when none has. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG ***************************************************************** 3 IRIB PERSIAN NEWS: UK has changed tone - Haddad 2007/04/04 03:31:34 È.Ù Majlis Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel said on Wednesday that Britain has changed its tone and adopted logical talks toward the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the issue of 15 British marines arrested by IRI for their violation of Iranian territorial waters last week. Haddad-Adel was speaking to reporters before his departure for Islamabad, Pakistan, for an official three-day visit. He briefed reporters on the arrest and detention of the 15 British naval personnel found trespassing Iranian waters of the Persian Gulf on March 23 in two vessels. "Britain and the European Union should understand Iran's message, urging respect for rights of other countries. As they expect their rights to be respected, Tehran also expects its rights to be respected by others," he added. Haddad-Adel assessed Pakistan as a "large Islamic state and an important neighbor for Iran", saying, "Tehran is willing to further expand its relations with Islamabad at various levels." "Iran and Pakistan enjoy deep-rooted ties. The two countries always have broad relations in political, cultural, economic and security fields," he added. "In meetings with Pakistani senior officials, the two sides will discuss regional and international developments," Haddad-Adel stated. Pointing to IRI-Pakistan-India gas project, known as "peace pipeline", he said, "good progress has been made on the project. In talks with Pakistani officials, the issue will also be discussed." M/D Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved By Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting News Network Sponsored By IRIB News Computer Center. E-Mail: Info@IRIBNEWS.ir ***************************************************************** 4 Reuters: CHRONOLOGY: Crisis over British sailors in Iran Wed Apr 4, 2007 9:58AM EDT (Reuters) - Iran will free 15 Britons captured on March 23 in what Tehran says was Iranian waters, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday. Here is a timeline of the crisis. March 23 - Iranian forces seize 15 British servicemen, eight Royal Navy sailors and seven marines, in the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that separates Iran and Iraq, triggering a diplomatic crisis at a time of heightened tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. March 24 - Britain holds an hour-long meeting with Iran's ambassador in London to demand the immediate release of the 15 British naval personnel. -- Iran says sailors have confessed to entering Iranian waters illegally. Britain denies this and repeats calls for their immediate release. March 25 - Iranian and British foreign ministers talk by phone. March 26 - Iran tells Britain sailors are "fit and well" but does not disclose where they are being held. March 27 - Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair warns Iran of a "different phase" if it does not free the military personnel. Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 AFP: Iran frees British sailors after 13-day crisis by Farhad Pouladi Wed Apr 4, 4:30 PM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran released 15 British sailors on Wednesday as a "gift" to the people of Britain in a dramatic end to a two-week ordeal that had triggered a new diplomatic crisis between Tehran and the West. As relatives and friends popped champagne corks in Britain, the naval personnel were seen on state television chatting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after his surprise announcement of their release. "Although Iran has the right to prosecute them by following the model of the prophet the 15 people were pardoned and their freedom given as a gift to the British people," Ahmadinejad said at a Tehran press conference. The announcement was welcomed by Britain and governments across the world as well as joyous relatives of the captives, some of whom had been paraded on state television "confessing" to trespassing in Iranian waters. An Ahmadinejad aide said the 14 men and one woman were currently at the foreign ministry and would be handed over to the British embassy on Thursday and then fly out of Tehran. Another official, speaking on condition of anonymity, was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying they would fly out of Tehran at 8:00 am (0430 GMT). The eight sailors and seven marines, all in their 20s, were seized at gunpoint while patrolling the northern Gulf between Iran and Iraq on March 23. British Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed their release and thanked "our friends and allies in the region who played their part" amid unconfirmed reports that Syria and Qatar had helped bring about a peaceful resolution. He said Britain, which took the issue to the UN Security Council last week, had taken a "firm but calm" approach, "not negotiating but not confronting either". The families of the detainees erupted in joy and relief at the news, which came after 13 days of a sometimes heated propaganda war. "We've been absolutely devastated these last 13 days, it's been the longest of my life. I'm just so happy today," said April Rawsthorne, grandmother of 21-year-old Nathan Summers, clutching a bottle of champagne. Iranian state media said the 15 had "shouted for joy" on news of their release. "We are grateful for your forgiveness," one sailor was heard telling Ahmadinejad, who in turn wished them good luck. The men were wearing suits while the sole woman captive, Faye Turney, was in trousers and a headscarf. The standoff had further damaged ties between Tehran and the West already frayed by Iran's controversial nuclear programme, and had sent jitters through world oil and financial markets. Oil prices had surged to near seven month highs on fears Iran could disrupt supplies and fell on news of the release. However, Iran's hardline president -- who saved his dramatic announcement until nearly the end of the press conference -- still lashed out at Britain over its handling of the crisis and decorated a Revolutionary Guards officer who commanded the operation in which the Britons were seized. "The British government, in a letter, has vowed not to repeat such incidents. But this release is not linked to this letter. It is due to Islamic goodwill," he said. His announcement came after Iran had applauded a "change of tone" from Britain following talks between top security official Ali Larijani and Blair's chief foreign policy advisor Sir Nigel Sheinwald on Tuesday. Syria -- Iran's top ally in the region -- had announced it was mediating in the crisis after a call from Sheinwald. Iran had insisted the key to resolving the crisis was an admission from Britain that the sailors and marines violated its territorial waters. Britain maintains the group was carrying out routine anti-smuggling operations in Iraqi waters in line with a UN mandate, but Iran says the sailors' Global Positioning System (GPS) devices show they intruded on Iranian waters. Wednesday's development followed the release in Baghdad of an Iranian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq in February in an abduction Tehran had blamed on US forces. Iranian state media also said five Iranian officials captured by US forces in northern Iraq in January accused of stoking unrest were expected to receive their first visit by an Iranian diplomat. US President George W. Bush welcomed the release of the Britons but Washington denied any link to the sudden granting of consular access to the five Iranians held in Iraq. The crisis had come at a perilous time for Iran's relations with the West, with the United States refusing to rule out military action over its nuclear drive and the United Nations imposing tough new sanctions. Ahmadinejad repeated that Iran was ready to negotiate with the United States but only if Washington changes its stance. "Today we have no objection to relations but this requires US action," he said. The United States has said it will talk to Iran but only if the Islamic republic suspends uranium enrichment -- a process at the centre of Western fears Tehran may be trying to build an atomic bomb. Despite tougher UN sanctions, Iran has vehemently refused to freeze enrichment and says is nuclear work is for peaceful purposes. In June 2004, Iranian forces seized eight British servicemen in a similar area of the Gulf and released them three days later. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 AFP: Iran hails British 'change' as hopes for sailors rise - by Farhad Pouladi Wed Apr 4, 7:32 AM ET TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran on Wednesday welcomed a "change of tone" from Britain in the 13-day crisis over its seizure of 15 British sailors after Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed hope direct talks could solve the standoff. The new comments marked a distinct moderation in rhetoric between the two sides, raising hopes that there could be an end in sight to the row that has further poisoned relations between Iran and the West. "London's action in changing its propaganda tone regarding the issue of the arrest of the British sailors in our territorial waters is appropriate," Iran's parliament speaker Gholam Ali Hadad Adel said as he left for Pakistan. "The effective measures taken by the British in the past few days make the tone of their rhetoric more logical and instead of controversy they are inclined towards negotiations," he added. "This is a more appropriate action," he said. His comments came after Britain said it favoured direct talks with Iran to resolve the standoff and British officials held what appeared to be their first contacts with Iran's top security official Ali Larijani since the crisis began. "There have been further contacts between the United Kingdom and Iran this evening (Tuesday), including directly with Dr Ali Larijani," Downing Street said in a statement. "On the basis of these (contacts), the prime minister believes that both sides share a desire for an early resolution of this issue through direct talks. "The prime minister remains committed to resolving this by diplomatic means," it said. It also said that Britain has proposed "direct bilateral discussions and awaits an Iranian response on when these can begin." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was due at 1200 GMT to hold a keenly awaited news conference to mark the Persian New Year where he is expected to make comments on the crisis. However despite hopes that the 14 men and one woman could soon be free, Foreign Minister Margaret Beckett urged people to be "cautious in assuming that we are likely to see a swift resolution to this issue." The British foreign office confirmed to AFP that the Iranian ambassador Rasoul Movahedian met with Foreign Office minister Lord David Triesman on Tuesday evening, the eighth meeting between the pair in 10 days. Iran has insisted that they key to resolving the crisis is an admission from Britain that the sailors and marines did intrude into Iranian territorial waters when they were arrested on March 23. "The British should confess that they made a mistake and they should no longer commit such moves," said Hadad Adel. Britain maintains that the group were carrying out routine anti-smuggling operations in Iraqi waters but Iran says that their Global Positioning System (GPS) devices show they intruded on Iranian waters. The US Navy meanwhile said it had stepped up vigilance following the detention of the sailors. The softening of tone also coincided with the release in Baghdad of an Iranian diplomat who had been kidnapped in Iraq since early February. Iran had blamed US forces in the country for the abduction. Blair had said Tuesday that the stand-off faced a "critical" 48 hours, warning that he may be forced to take "tougher decisions" if the naval personnel are not freed. New still images were released on Tuesday of the detained sailors and marines, showing them "relaxing" in tracksuits and playing chess, a change from the previous string of video "confessions." "It looks like these sailors are happy with spending time in good conditions under the Iranians' Islamic kindness instead of operating in the hard conditions of the Persian Gulf," the semi-official Fars news agency said. In Washington, US President George W. Bush insisted there should be no "quid pro quos" with Iran, when asked if five Iranians held since January by US forces in Iraq on suspicion of aiding insurgents should be freed to favour a possible release of the Britons. The crisis has come at a perilous time for Iran's relations with the West, with the United States refusing to rule out military action over the Iranian nuclear programme and the United Nations imposing tough new sanctions. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 UPI: Outside View: New Bushehr nuke scandal United Press International - Security & Terrorism - 4/4/2007 4:31:00 PM -0400 By PYOTR GONCHAROV UPI Outside View Commentator MOSCOW, April 4 (UPI) -- Another scandal is unfolding around the Bushehr nuclear power plant, or NPP, which Russia is building in Iran. Atomstroyexport, Russia's nuclear-technologies exporter, announced its decision to delay the NPP's commissioning because of a lack of funding from Iran, which means a delay in nuclear fuel supplies to the country. Some analysts have already referred to the project as a bargaining chip that may help Moscow win concessions from the United States on NATO's eastward expansion and the Kosovo problem, allow Russia to expand its presence on the European energy market and enter the World Trade Organization, and persuade the United States to abolish the Jackson-Vanik amendment. Moreover, Russia will receive guaranteed compensation for lost profits when it leaves the Iranian market. The United Nations Security Council has unanimously voted to approve Resolution 1747 imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, and gave it 60 days to come to terms with the International Atomic Energy Authority. Atomstroyexport has announced that the construction cycle will be delayed by at least two months if the required equipment is supplied by third countries. This is a lucky coincidence. Now the Bushehr NPP will start receiving enriched uranium -- if Iran pays on time -- only after the Security Council approves a new resolution on Tehran. This coincidence may be viewed as a handshake between Moscow and Washington. But it may also be seen as a no-less-neat deal between Moscow and Tehran. During his visit to Tehran last December, Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, the Russian Nuclear Agency, warned Iran in no uncertain terms that the completion of the Bushehr project directly depended on timely funding and supplies of equipment from third countries. Tehran failed to pay in full in January and February, but resumed funding a day after the Security Council passed the said resolution. This was no accident. The resumed payments are only part of Iran's financial commitments under the project. Why would Iran wish to delay the project's completion? What if Tehran's indignation over the delay and Kiriyenko's angry references to Iran's chronic lack of funding are nothing more than a well-orchestrated show? Fuel will be delivered to Bushehr six months prior to the plant's commissioning. Now that the United States has deployed a powerful carrier-based attack group to the Persian Gulf -- very close to Bushehr -- isn't it better to hold off on the supplies of enriched uranium, the part of the deal that irritates Washington most of all? There is yet another potential scenario. Tehran is indignant at Russia's decision not to supply the uranium in March. At the same time, it has not paid in full for the preparations for the NPP's commissioning. The question is where to load the fuel if the plant is not ready to accept it. Maybe into the 3,000 centrifuges that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised the world to start operating by the Iranian New Year, which was March 21? The Bushehr NPP has long ceased being a strictly business project, and Iran is largely to blame for that. The sides concluded a contract on the project's completion in January 1995, but it was only in November 2003 that Moscow persuaded Iran to sign a bilateral agreement on the return of nuclear waste, in accordance with international practice. Even so, Iran agreed to sign it only after Moscow affirmed that it did not see any obstacles to cooperation with Iran in nuclear energy. The issue of nuclear waste is significant. International observers have reason to doubt Iran's intention to return the waste to Russia. Moscow will have to make a difficult choice on fuel supplies, and not without looking to the Security Council. Considering the temperamental character of the Iranian president, nobody can guarantee that he will not call the intergovernmental protocol on returning nuclear fuel a "torn piece of paper," as he dubbed the U.N. Security Council's two last resolutions on Iran. (Pyotr Goncharov is a political commentator at RIA Novosti news agency in Moscow. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of the agency. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti.) (United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.) © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 IRNA: Atom Stroi to take part in IAEO tender on nuclear power plants - Moscow, April 3, IRNA Russia-Tender-Iran A delegation representing the contractor of Bushehr nuclear power plant project, Atom Stroi Export Company, is expected to depart to Iran in the near future. This was declared by the spokeswoman for Atom Stroi Export Co., Irina Yesipova in an exclusive interview with IRNA on Tuesday. Two round of talks between Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) and Atom Extroi Export Co. about the project have so long been held in Moscow and Tehran, but due to New Year holidays in Iran the second round was stopped. She said that only 10 million dollars was paid by Iran in March to cover the expenses of the power plant, which is not sufficient to continue the project. The Russian spokeswoman referred to the favorable and stable trend of works at Bushehr nuclear power plant, saying that various sections of the project are now being tested and prepared to be commissioned. In response to a question about the prospect of participation of Atom Stroi Export Co. in Iran's upcoming tender for establishment of nuclear power plants in the country, Yesipova said, "We will certainly take part in the tender if the offered conditions are acceptable." The spokeswoman for the Russian Atom Stroi Export Co. declared the company's readiness in this regard. Meanwhile, IAEO deputy head for international affairs, Mohammad Saeedi, told IRNA that Iran will hold a tender on establishment of more nuclear power plants in Iran in the coming 3-4 months to generate 2,000 MWs out of the predicted 20,000 MWs of nuclear power. ***************************************************************** 9 IRNA: CIA hires terrorist group to operate inside Iran - New York, April 4, IRNA Iran-US-Terrorism Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has hired a Pakistani terrorist group that has carried out a series of deadly terrorist attacks inside Iran, ABC News has reported on Wednesday. The group, members of the Baluchi tribe, operates from Pakistan's province of Baluchestan, just across the border from Iran. ABC cited US government sources it did not identify as saying the US has maintained close ties to its leader, Abdel-Malik Regi, since 2005. The group, called Jundullah, has carried out raids, resulting in the deaths or kidnapping of Iranian ordinary people as well as soldiers and officials. The large Iranian community residing in the US protested strongly to Voice of America (VOA)'s live interview with Regi recently in which the terrorist claimed responsibility for the operations. Regi admitted to have personally executed some of the Iranian captives, the ABC News report said. Alexis Debat, a senior fellow on counterterrorism at the Nixon Center and an ABC News consultant, told the program that Regi used to fight with the Taliban, adding "he's part drug smuggler, part Taliban, part Sunni activist". "He is essentially commanding a force of several hundred guerrilla fighters that stage attacks across the border into Iran on Iranian military officers, Iranian intelligence officers, kidnapping them, executing them on camera." The group claimed responsibility for an attack in February that killed at least 11 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard riding on a bus in the Iranian city of Zahedan. Iranian television last month broadcast confessions by those responsible for the bus attack. They admitted to being members of Jundullah and said they had been trained for the mission at a secret location in Pakistan. The only relationship with the group that US intelligence acknowledges is cooperation in tracking al-Qaeda figures in that part of Pakistan. ABC cited Pakistani government sources as saying the secret campaign against Iran was on the agenda when Vice President Dick Cheney met with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in February. Asked about the report, Cheney spokeswoman Megan McGinn responded: "We don't discuss conversations between the vice president and foreign leaders." ***************************************************************** 10 Guardian Unlimited: U.S. Forges on With Missile Defense Plan From the Associated Press Tuesday April 3, 2007 11:16 PM By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. will forge ahead with plans for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe even if efforts to calm Russian opposition fail, a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday. Eric Edelman, undersecretary of defense for policy, said the U.S. and Russia have been discussing ways to cooperate in the plans, which would put a radar system in the Czech Republic and about 10 missile interceptors in Poland. The system would be used to guard against potential attacks against the U.S. and Europe from countries such as Iran. Edelman said if the talks fail, the U.S. would not allow Russia ``to dictate what we do bilaterally with other countries.'' ``We want to cooperate with Russia,'' said Edelman, who recently returned from meetings in Europe on the plan. ``We think the threat is one that they face as well as one that we face. In fact, they come within range of these missiles before we do.'' He suggested that data from the system's sensors and early warning technology could be shared with Russia. But he also agreed that efforts to cooperate with Russia on missile defense in the past have gotten bogged down in disagreements over tax and liability issues. ``I'm still very hopeful we will be able to reach some understandings with Russia that will allay their concerns,'' he said. The $3.5 billion initiative has angered the Russians, who have said it could set off an arms race. The U.S. has argued that it is a defensive system which poses no threat to Russia. Speaking to Pentagon reporters, Edelman said U.S. officials believe that by 2015 Iran will be able to develop a missile that could reach the United States. He acknowledged there were problems with pre-war intelligence on Iraq's nuclear capabilities, and said he would like more and better intelligence on the Iranian threat. But, he said, ``I think there is ... evidence here that this is moving forward and you can see it in their public statements.'' Asked about ongoing public opposition to the project in Poland and the Czech Republic, Edelman said the U.S. needs to better explain that the system has no nuclear or conventional explosive warheads. He added that the U.S. would maintain control over the system, including when to use it in response to a missile launch, largely because a decision to strike would have to be made in two to 12 minutes. --- On the Net: Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 11 AFP: US links Indian government in weapons conspiracy - Tue Apr 3, 10:06 PM WASHINGTON (AFP) - An Indian top executive at a US firm was charged Tuesday with shipping restricted weapons technology to the Indian government in a case that could put a pending bilateral nuclear deal under extra congressional scrutiny. Parthasarathy Sudarshan, 46, CEO of Cirrus Electronics, was arraigned before a US magistrate judge on charges of smuggling technology linked to development of aircraft, missile and aerospace systems, government attorneys said. He and his company's international sales manager, Mythili Gopal, 36, were arrested on March 23 following joint investigations by the FBI and commerce, customs and immigration agencies. Gopal is to be officially charged on April 17. Facing a 15-count indictment, they were charged with acting as "illegal agents of a foreign government" and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Arms Export Control Act. The indictment also charged other Cirrus employees AKN Prasad of Bangalore, India, and Sampath Sundar, 47, of Singapore, for their roles in the alleged offenses. "These arrests put a network of technology smugglers out of business and demonstrate that we have no tolerance for weapons proliferators who illegally supply entities with weapons technology," said Assistant Attorney General Wainstein. According to the indictment, Sudarshan and Gopal had acquired electrical components that could have applications in missile guidance and firing systems for Indian state enterprises Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) and Bharat Dynamics, Ltd. (BDL). VSSC is an Indian Department of Space agency and produces space launch vehicles in activities that encompassed both civilian spacecraft and ballistic missiles, while BDL, an Indian Defense Ministry enterprise, is the prime production agency for missile weaponry systems. The defendants purportedly also acquired US microprocessors for the Tejas, a fighter jet being developed by India's Aeronautical Development Establishment. Washington restricts such exports to the three Indian government agencies. "Networks that procure US technology whose export is restricted to combat proliferation and then seek to evade US export and licensing regulations undermine our national security," said Jeffrey Taylor, US Attorney for the District of Columbia. Cirrus allegedly routed the products through its Singapore office and then sent the packages on to India. "This case clearly demonstrates that the United States will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who illegally procure and export components for space launch vehicle and ballistic missile programs," said Darryl Jackson, Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement at the US Commerce Department. "Even when they attempt to mask their illegal activities by diverting sensitive components through third countries," he added. If convicted of the charges, Sudarshan could face up to 10 years in prison, while Gopal up to six years and Prasad and Sundar up to eight years. Indian government officials were linked to the alleged scam, according to the indictment. Reports quoting the FBI said one of them was an official posted at the Indian embassy in the United States. An official in US President George W. Bush's administration said the case could undermine Congressional support for nuclear and space cooperation with India, the Washington Times reported Tuesday. But State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said although the case was a "serious matter," he did not see "any connection" with a landmark bilateral civilian nuclear agreement that Bush signed into law in December. Under the agreement, which is still being discussed for final US Congress approval, the United States would provide nuclear technology and fuel to India. American officials have often cited India's "clean" non-proliferation record to market the pact among legislators. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 [NYTr] Uranium-rich Jordan to embark on nuclear program Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 16:50:27 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Simon McGuinness April 04, 2007: The Irish Times http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2007/0404/1175630857182.html Nuclear watchdog to hold Jordan talks by Michael Jansen MIDDLE EAST: International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei is to visit Jordan next week for talks on its plan to develop nuclear energy for civilian use. The announcement of his visit coincided with a statement by Jordanian energy minister Khaled Sharida, who said the country intends to build its first nuclear power plant by 2015. Last month Jordanian minister of scientific research Khalid Touqan held discussions in IAEA headquarters in Vienna and Jordan's King Abdullah, speaking at last week's Arab summit in Riyadh, called for the establishment of an Arab centre for the peaceful use of atomic energy "to help build our societies and modernise the realms of science, industry, agriculture and health". His brother Prince Hamzah has, apparently, been made head of an energy committee which will survey the kingdom's future requirements. Jordan is said to have 2 per cent of global uranium reserves but has so far done little to exploit this. The government has come under increasing pressure to do so because of the country's growing demand for power and the rising cost of fossil fuels. Jordan, which has no oil or gas, depended on Iraq to provide cut-rate oil but this practice ended with the US occupation of that country. Chroncially short of water, Jordan is likely to opt for plants which combine power generation with desalination. The Arabs are preparing for a summer summit to consider plans for an Arab nuclear industry. Last year Egypt and the Gulf Co-operation Council - grouping Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain - separately announced their intention of developing nuclear power. The IAEA, Iran, Russia and the US have offered to help the Arabs, signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to gain nuclear expertise and installations. But the Arabs are unlikely to accept Iran's assistance as they are suspicious of Tehran's intentions and mindful that acceptance would enable Iran to assess Arab progress towards the development of nuclear capability. While proclaiming their determination to acquire nuclear energy, the Arabs continue to call upon Israel, the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the region, to sign the non-proliferation agreement, destroy its bombs and warheads, and submit its nuclear facility at Dimona to IAEA monitoring. C 2007 The Irish Times * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 13 The Hindu: Pak plans to set up new nuke facility - report Thursday, April 5, 2007 : 0400 Hrs Islamabad, April 5 (PTI): Pakistan plans to establish a new nuclear facility at a cost of Rs 1.3 billion, which aims at attaining "complete technological capability" of testing and analysing fuel systems for both existing and future atomic power plants. The facility apparently would be established in two phases as part of the government's Energy Security Plan 2030 to generate 8,800 MW of nuclear power, local daily Dawn quoted officials as saying. Currently, no experimental infrastructure related to fuel testing or qualification exists in any nuclear facility of the country, the report said. The safe and reliable operation of nuclear power plants is dependent upon tested/qualified nuclear fuel and the proposed facility will serve this purpose, it said. The move comes despite lack of response to Pakistan's calls to major nuclear power-producing countries for a deal similar to the Indo-US agreement on civilian nuclear energy. Ever since India and the United States worked out the deal last year, Pakistan has asked Washington to extend the same to it. After US administration expressed its reluctance, a similar appeal has been made to China which had helped Pakistan construct two 300 MW nuclear power plants. But China has not shown any willingness so far to work out a comprehensive deal to share nuclear technology with Pakistan. Copyright © 2006, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 14 COSMOS magazine: Going deep into fission 4 April 2007 by Heather Catchpole Cosmos Online Heather on her visit to OPAL. The steel cage that is intended to protect the reactor from aircraft impacts, is visible in the background. Image: Katynna Gill She spent six weeks eating, breathing and sleeping nuclear science for a Cosmos supplement on OPAL, Australia's brand new research reactor. Here Heather steps us through her journey deep into a nuclear reactor. I was trying to get to the heart of neutron science and that meant travelling to the site of Australia's newest and most technologically advanced nuclear research reactor. But like the tricks of a stage magician, I found that sometimes fission can be as hard to see as it is to understand. Nuclear technology is firmly entrenched in intriguing controversy. But on my first visit to the reactor, I found myself drawn towards the mystery of fission for its own sake. I'd spent weeks researching everything nuclear for a 16-page supplement in the latest print edition of Cosmos magazine, and now I was driving 50 km across Sydney in the rain and it was making me feel a little edgy. I was crossing the city from the northern suburbs to Lucas Heights, a comfortable scenic expanse in the far south, and home of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO). The visit – to tour ANSTO's new reactor, OPAL - felt a little like coming face to face with someone I'd met remotely over the Internet. The trip was the culmination of six weeks research into nuclear research reactors – what they did (create radioisotopes for diagnosing and treating cancer and components for semiconductors) and what they had the potential to do (understand the structure and nuances of an astounding range of materials in great detail). Shiny silver pipes Media interest was building about the opening of OPAL, the replacement of 1950s reactor HIFAR (High Flux Australian Reactor), described by some scientists as a Model T to OPAL's Porsche. For the last six weeks I had eaten, slept and breathed nuclear science as I attempted to grasp for Cosmos how this A$360 million nuclear reactor worked, as well as everything associated with building a reactor in Australia. I had many questions. How does the reactor - touted as one of the top three research reactors in the world - affect Australian science? Why are we making radioactive isotopes and carting them across the country? What does the world think of OPAL? And what are those several pieces of technology attached to shiny silver pipes which feed out of the nuclear reactor's core (such as the 'high-resolution powder diffractometer', or the 'thermal 3-axis spectrometer')? More than anything, I was looking forward to seeing radiation. I'd discovered that once the magic of fission begins, the core is suffused in the eerie blue glow of Cherenkov radiation. This is a side-effect of charged particles passing through an insulator - in this case demineralised water - at speeds faster than the speed of light in that medium. It sounds like science fiction, which is why I was looking forward to seeing it. Kick-starting fission Fission in a reactor core is kick-started by dropping a radioactive element into the core - a box full of aluminium-clad uranium 235 fuel rods - causing the uranium atoms to split and release neutrons. Neutrons are the mass-bearing, chargeless associates of protons within the atomic nucleus. Once the neutrons are liberated they can be directed along the mirrored surfaces of long tubes called neutron guides. Here they are subjected to a range of adjustments, such as being cooled to about -250°C, being slowed, or being fed into 'neutron scattering' instruments. These instruments were causing a buzz locally and internationally. I'd heard how they could be used to understand a whole range of questions, from building better hydrogen fuel cells to understanding protein interactions. These in turn, could redefine the way we understand disease pathogens such as the AIDS virus or the bacteria responsible for Legionnaire's disease and meningitis. I'd also heard neutron scattering techniques described as a "fast track" to Nobel Prize-winning science. Lost at first sight I arrived at the reactor site to find myself surrounded by a scene not unlike some of the more remote stretches of Tasmania. Stepping out into the heath-filled landscape I noticed tiny flowers and a cavalcade of insects. Surely there were endangered species thriving in this untouched island, marooned in the vastness of Sydney southern suburbia. ANSTO describe the radiation produced by the reactor's airborne emissions as 0.004 milliseverts per year (recommended international safety standards are less than one millisevert annually). Whatever the dosage, I certainly wasn't getting any closer to the kind of radiation I was seeking here. Entering the facility itself was a lot like visiting a maximum security prison, except that the staff is better dressed. Cameras and phones are kept in lockers at reception. There's also a lot of police around; the Australian Federal Police have a station at the site. Barring security, the site could also be compared to a well endowed university campus, with café, athletic centre (with a pool), and manicured grounds. I met with ANSTO science communicator Katynna Gill and she let me down gently. Sadly, the core wasn't running at full power, so no blue glow. Twinkle-eyed children Despite this disappointment, I was keen to get as close to the core as possible and she was happy to comply. We then embarked on an in-depth tour of the reactor building, guide hall and offices, stopping only to play with the models outside the reactor building and various devices developed for school education. Interacting with the community is a big interest of ANSTO and several times during the tour we threaded our way through groups of twinkle-eyed children and grandparents. Their guides, Gill explained, were often ex-staff members who would continue to be involved with the organisation by taking interested people around the site. School groups came daily, but I was surprised by just how many members of the public thought a trip to the reactor would be just the thing to do on a rainy Wednesday. From the outside, the reactor building looks like a squat, geometrical modern mansion that some architect has decided would look great beneath a steel cage. In fact, INVAP S.E., the Argentinean company that built the reactor, had a good reason for adding this feature. The building was commissioned in 2000 but work did not begin until after the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued a licence to construct the reactor in April 2002, seven months after U.S. airliners were hijacked and flown into buildings on September 11, 2001. The cage is intended to protect against a full-scale impact by aircraft. Glimpse of the core Finally inside, I toured the area in company with OPAL reactor manager Tony Irwin. The microwave-sized core is housed in a 40-metre-deep cylindrical pool of pure water, which acts to absorb neutrons escaping from fission. Like the rain, circumstances were again against me, with work being carried out in the room directly surrounding the core. I could see the suited men in action through the window, but I couldn't get close enough to peer into the pool and see for myself the process that has the potential for everything from revolutionising medicine to generating energy. Taking pity, Irwin introduced me to a camera viewing system that zooms into the deep reactor pool. I may have only seen de-mineralised water, or the paint on the concrete sides of the reactor pool, but finally I had my glimpse under the magician's table at the core of a nuclear reactor, sitting innocuously in a circular steel well that shed a faint blue light. It wasn't even close to peering into the spectacular furnace of nuclear energy of an atomic bomb, nor was it like stepping firmly to one side of the nuclear debate. But coming close to the core of a nuclear reactor is still an experience engraved in my memory – even if, like an elusive comet or the feeling you get after Christmas, it didn't burn quite as brightly as I'd hoped. Read the full story about OPAL in the April/May print issue of Cosmos available in stores now – or alternatively subscribe here. Heather Catchpole is a Sydney-based science writer. ©2007 Luna Media Pty Ltd, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 15 The Age: Morgan reveals vision for nuclear Australia - www.theage.com.au Katharine Murphy April 5, 2007 New opportunities: Hugh Morgan wants to establish a nuclear business in Australia. Photo: Paul Jones FORMER mining executive Hugh Morgan has declared he is in the nuclear business for the long haul, and is considering opportunities such as power plants and waste dumps. In his first interview since news broke that he had formed an energy company with Fairfax chairman Ron Walker and fellow mining executive Robert Champion de Crespigny, Mr Morgan confirmed he was doing "preparatory work" to establish a nuclear business in Australia. Mr Morgan said the industry faced considerable practical and political hurdles, but he believed it was "just" possible to see nuclear power in Australia within 10 years, if there was the will to embrace more expensive energy sources. Reports in February suggested that Mr Morgan's company, Australian Nuclear Energy, planned to build nuclear power plants in Australia. This was played down by company secretary Bruce Fitzgerald. But in an interview with The Age, Mr Morgan confirmed his company remained active. He declined to comment on specific proposals but acknowledged there were future opportunities in mining, power plants and waste repositories. Revelations of the company's existence caused an uproar in Federal Parliament, with Prime Minister John Howard revealing that he had a discussion with Mr Walker about the company days before he announced an inquiry into nuclear power. The inquiry, conducted by former Telstra chief Ziggy Switkowski, predicted that Australia could have 25 nuclear reactors producing a third of the country's electricity by 2050. Labor is running a strong campaign on the issue, which it believes will cost the Federal Government votes at the federal election. Mr Morgan ran Western Mining Corporation before becoming president of the Business Council of Australia. The Howard Government appointed him to the board of the Reserve Bank in 1996, and he maintains contacts in conservative politics. Mr Morgan told The Age it was unlikely that Australia would enrich uranium soon. But he said he was open to possible joint ventures with key players in the global nuclear business, such as Melbourne businessman John White, who pioneered the concept of nuclear fuel leasing. Mr Morgan indicated he was in the business for the long haul. "If you were serious about making money and lowering carbon, you would look at waste repositories," he said. But Mr Morgan conceded nuclear energy faced significant hurdles, the most important of which was a lack of bipartisan political support. He said for Australia to embrace nuclear energy, consumers would have to accept that energy prices would rise as part of any policy change to cut greenhouse gas emissions. He said governments might have to review regulations governing Australia's electricity industry because there was no functional national electricity market and energy companies were reluctant to invest. The Howard Government has opened a political battle with Labor by supporting a nuclear industry, arguing that nuclear power plants provide reliable base-load electricity without emitting damaging greenhouse gas. The Prime Minister will soon respond to the recent Switkowski review of nuclear energy and also to Mr White's review of the regulations governing the uranium industry. Both recommended Australia move deeper into the nuclear cycle. Mr Morgan endorsed the Switkowski review, which he said had started to focus the energy debate. Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 16 Bangkok Post: Is Thailand ready for nuclear power? Thursday April 05, 2007 ROMKAEW BROEHM In its 2007 Power Development Plan (2007 PDP), the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) lays out an option to build nuclear power plants capable of generating approximately 5,000 megawatts to serve the growing demand for electricity in Thailand. This idea is not new. Thailand has been attempting to build nuclear energy facilities for more than 35 years. As with past efforts, the government's latest attempt will likely face public opposition. Indeed, on Feb 7, a public hearing was cancelled due to protests, although another meeting on Tuesday of this week went ahead without incident. According to the EPPO, both peak and overall demand for electricity in Thailand will grow at an annual rate of more than 5% from 2007 through 2021. By 2012, Thailand will need approximately 2,300 MW of new capacity and another 30,000 MW by 2021. The essential question is: where will Thailand get its energy? Which fuel-based technologies are best? With high natural gas prices exceeding $6 per mmbtu (million British Thermal Units), coal becomes the technology of choice for new power plants. In the PDP's Least-Cost Planning Option (LCP Option), 21,700 MW of coal-fired capacity is relatively more competitive than natural gas-fired power plants. However, it is not clear whether the LCP study has taken the (opportunity) cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions into account. According to an MIT study, a 500 MW coal-fired power plant produces approximately three million tons per year of CO2. Although Thailand has endorsed the Kyoto Climate Change Protocol on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, the government has not adopted policies to reduce CO2 emissions. Placing a significant "green tax" on CO2 emission would make investments in clean coal (such as integrated gasification combined-cycle plants) and nuclear power more cost effective. Since January 2005, the market price for CO2 in EU, for example, has ranged from $12 per tonne to as high as $35 per tonne. According to a Brattle Group study, when the CO2 price exceeds $30 per tonne, nuclear power plants become more economically attractive. EPPO proposes to build 5,000 MW of nuclear power plants by 2021 in its Option 3. The popularity of nuclear power technology has undergone a revival across the globe. It comes at the time when global natural gas and oil prices are volatile, global warming issues are a growing concern, and fear of becoming energy-dependent on other countries is increasing. For all these reasons, building a nuclear power plant becomes a viable long-term option. Throughout the world, there are currently 27 new nuclear power plants under construction, for a total generating capacity of 21,810 MW. To mention a few: three in China with a total capacity of 3,000 MW, two in Taiwan (2,600 MW), one in Japan (866 MW), and eight each in India and Russia with a total of 3,600 MW and 3,375 MW, respectively. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is expecting to receive as many as 30 new nuclear reactor licence applications in the near term. Despite many problems in the early part of the nuclear age, US nuclear plants have greatly improved in efficiency and safety since the 1990s. Their average capacity factor exceeds 85% per year. But is Thailand up to the task? The jury is still out whether it could and should join the international nuclear energy bandwagon. Many questions are unanswered: - Does Thailand have the capital needed to construct and operate nuclear power plants? Some studies have shown that the overnight construction cost of nuclear power plants ranges from $1,500 per kW to as high as $2,500, not to mention possible construction cost overruns. Additional funds will also be needed for operating and maintaining plants and nuclear decommissioning. Uranium prices are likely to rise between two to four times in response to growing world demand. - Will there be a role for the private sector in building a nuclear power plant? The private sector provides efficiency and shifts investment burdens from the state. But Thai energy policy must be clear in its direction and offer incentives to attract such large sums of investment. A policy such as a tax credit may be utilised to spur investments, instead of imposing a new energy tax on new power plants being built [Bangkok Post, Feb 26, 2007]. A property tax should be considered as a way to fund community development. - Will there be any standards in place to deal with spent fuel and nuclear waste? Spent fuel can be reprocessed to recover uranium and plutonium for re-use and to reduce the volume of high-level waste for disposal. - How can the Thai government ensure that the fuel obtained from reprocessing will not be used for weapons? Does Thailand have a plan to create a regulatory body that will ensure nuclear safety and radiological protection? What are our waste-disposal policies, considering that nuclear high-level waste disposal is a significant political problem that no country has yet solved? - Will there be any regulatory body that is responsible to oversee the construction and operation? Given the Suvarnabhumi Airport debacle, it is imperative to have a rigorous inspection programme for both during the construction and after the plants are in operation to ensure quality and safety. To successfully address these questions, the Thai government will need a clear energy policy that sends the right signal to investors, in particular, human capital that not only understands the technical side of building and operating nuclear power plants, but also is able to communicate effectively with the public to ensure their safety. Romkaew Broehm, PhD, is a principal at The Brattle Group in Massachusetts, USA. She can be contacted at Romkaew.broehm@brattle.com. All errors and views are the authors alone and do not necessarily represent The Brattle Group and its clients. © Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2007 ***************************************************************** 17 The Hindu: Nuclear plant to take up assault issue with State Government Wednesday, Apr 04, 2007 P. Sudhakar Attack on employees of Koodankulam nuclear power project "Some tough strategies" to be evolved at Mumbai meet SAFE TRAVEL: A State-owned bus carrying the employees of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project from Anu Vijay Township. ? Photo: A. Shaikmohideen TIRUNELVELI: The Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) has decided to take up the recent attack on its vehicles carrying the employees of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) with the Chief Secretary and the Energy Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu, in the next few days. A high-level meeting held at KKNPP on Sunday resolved to take up the matter with the "top bureaucrats" of the Centre "to ensure the safety and security of the employees and the nuclear reactors under construction". "Since the assailants have threatened the staff of an imminent attack on Anu Vijay Township (the residential colony of KKNPP workers) and also on the reactors with explosives, the latest development has necessitated some obstinate measures, which cannot be discussed here. However, I can assure that we'll take really firm steps in the next few days to ensure the safety of workers and our material," the Director (Projects), S.K. Agrawal, told The Hindu on Monday before having a second round of discussion at KKNPP site. Sources said another round of discussion within the core group of NPCIL would be held in Mumbai to finalise "some tough strategies" to be taken against the attackers. "The Mumbai meeting will certainly decide to take up the matter with the Union Home Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary," another top NPCIL official said. Police clueless Since the police are still clueless about the gang, the KKNPP on Monday transported its employees from Anu Vijay Township to the project site in TNSTC buses with police protection. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 18 CNN-IBN: India should push N-deal - Boucher : SAARC, 2007, MEET, india, new delhi, terrorism, agenda, richard boucher : IBNLive.com : Updated Wednesday, April 04, 2007 at 18:42 LOOKING AHEAD: Boucher says he hopes for progress in the 1-2-3 negotiations. New Delhi: US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher says the pace of the nuclear deal is slowing down and the onus to push it through is now on India. Speaking to CNN-IBN's Suhasini Haider, Boucher put the responsibility of breakthrough on the Indians and hoped for progress in the 1-2-3 negotiations. "The United States is really carrying through all its commitments and is ready to conclude an agreement on the basis that the President and Prime minister agreed upon. At this point, the ball is in India's court," says Boucher. "But we are anxious to make progress, we will be talking in the next couple of days with the Indian Government about how we can move forward," he adds. When questioned on the role of the US as an observer at SAARC, Boucher says, "I think to some extent, we are still figuring it out because this is the first time that we have been observers." "I am thrilled to be here as it is a chance to interact with all the leaders of the region and also see how they interact with each other. We are looking for areas that we can support, areas like trade and education," he adds. There have been deep differences between Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and the Pakistan side on the issue of terrorism. In fact, Karzai, without naming Pakistan, even slammed Pakistan for supporting terrorism: "Terrorism should be eradicated in all forms, including political sponsorship and financing." So, how does the US see the issue being playing out during the summit? "We have done a lot of work with Afghanistan and Pakistan and they have talked to each other in a variety of forums. I think they will continue to have meeting while we are here in India and it is a good thing," says Boucher. "It really boils down to the problems with terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We want to work with both sides and see that each side works as hard as it can. And it is only by all of us working together that we can conquer these problems," he adds. Copyright © IBNLive.com. All rights reserved. Reproduction of ***************************************************************** 19 newsobserver.com: NRC turns aside Harris plant claim Raleigh · Durham · Cary · Chapel Hill Modified: Apr 04, 2007 02:42 AM From Staff Reports RALEIGH - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected a claim by nuclear critics that Progress Energy's Shearon Harris nuclear plant in Wake County is vulnerable to fire risk and should be shut down immediately. At issue is the fire-retardant insulation wrapped around electrical cables that operate emergency safety equipment. The wrapping material shrunk in laboratory tests under intense heat, exposing power cables underneath. Progress Energy has until June 2008 to propose a permanent solution for meeting fire safety standards at Shearon Harris. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be published, broadcast or redistributed in any manner. newsobserver.com ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting at Sweetwater on April 9 to Discuss 2006 Performance at Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant News Release - Region II - 2007-008 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is scheduled to meet with Tennessee Valley Authority officials in Sweetwater on April 9 to discuss the NRC’s annual assessment of safety performance at the Watts Bar nuclear power plant, located near Spring City, Tenn., for calendar year 2006. The 2:00 p.m. meeting, at the Best Western Motel at 1421 Murrays Chapel Road in Sweetwater, is open to public observation. Before the meeting ends, NRC staff will be available to answer public questions on the plant’s safety performance, as well as the agency’s role in ensuring safe operation of the facility. “Each year the NRC staff rates the performance of the Watts Bar plant and all of the nation’s other commercial nuclear power plants,” NRC Region II Administrator William Travers said. “This meeting gives us a chance to discuss our assessment with the company, with local officials and with residents near the plant. Our aim is to make this information available to the public and answer any questions people may have about our oversight.” The NRC report says the Watts Bar plant operated safely during 2006. The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess performance. The colors start with “green” and increase to “white,” “yellow” or “red,” commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. The report said TVA performance at Watts Bar during 2006 was classified as Green, meaning that any NRC inspection findings were of very low safety significance. Based on the plant’s performance during 2006, the NRC said Watts Bar will receive the baseline, or normal, level of inspections during 2007. The NRC plans to conduct additional non-routine inspections of the plant’s reactor pressure vessel head and penetration nozzle examinations and to review containment emergency recirculation sump blockage calculations and commitments. The NRC also has scheduled initial reactor operator licensing examinations at Watts Bar during 2007. A letter sent from the NRC Region II Office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/wb_2006q4.pdf. Routine inspections are performed by NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by specialists from the Region II Office in Atlanta, and the agency’s headquarters in Rockville, Md. Current information for the Watts Bar plant is available on the NRC web site at: www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/WB1/wb1_chart.html. 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. Wednesday, April 04, 2007 ***************************************************************** 21 Technology News Daily: Nuclear Power Plants Study Submitted by Technology News... on Wed, 2007-04-04 12:16.Energy Enticed by the gleam of government subsidies, many companies are rushing to invest in nuclear power, expecting that new technology and safer reactors will make them as good an investment as other types of power plants. A new study appearing in the April 1 issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology notes, however, that the country's history of unexpected cost overruns when building nuclear plants should sound a cautionary note for power companies that nuclear power may not be financially attractive. "For energy security and carbon emission concerns, nuclear power is very much back on the national and international agenda," said study co-author Dan Kammen, UC Berkeley professor of energy and resources and of public policy. "To evaluate nuclear power's future, it is critical that we understand what the costs and the risks of this technology have been. To this point, it has been very difficult to obtain an accurate set of costs from the U. S. fleet of nuclear power plants." The study, conducted by a research team from Georgetown University, Stanford University and UC Berkeley, analyzes the costs of electricity from existing U.S. nuclear reactors and discusses the possibility for cost "surprises" in new energy technologies, including next-generation nuclear power. What they found was a range of electricity costs, from 3 cents per kilowatt hour to nearly 14 cents per kilowatt hour, with the higher costs attributed to such problems as poor plant operation or unanticipated security costs. "In the long term, whether these plants are 4 cents or 8 cents per kilowatt hour, they are still a good deal, if you think carbon is an issue," Kammen said, referring to the carbon dioxide emissions from oil, coal and gas-fueled power plants that exacerbate global warming. "If the argument is that cost really needs to be important, then I'm not sure nuclear competes that well." Some politicians also tout the increased security benefits of having domestic sources of energy, but this doesn't translate into decreased risk for investors, the study notes. "In a deregulated electricity environment, investors will increasingly share the financial risks of underperformance of generation assets," said co-author Nathan Hultman, assistant professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a visiting fellow at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford. "We don't have a good way of forecasting these risks yet, but looking at the historical data can be one way to understand the possibilities and scenarios for the future." No new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in 29 years, in part because they've proved to be poor investments, producing far more expensive electricity than originally promised. In 2005, about 19 percent of U.S. electricity generation was produced by 104 nuclear reactors. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Advanced Energy Initiative of 2006 sought to change that, offering financial incentives for new plant construction that employs new reactor and new safe-operating technologies. Current nuclear plant operators have given notice that they intend to apply for approval of 27 new "generation III+" reactors. But Kammen points out that in the past, when U.S. companies have introduced new technologies, they've run into unexpected costs that have kept electricity prices high. France, on the other hand, standardized the design of its nuclear power plants and encountered fewer cost surprises. "Some U.S. plants were really well done, and they happen to be the older ones," he said. "If we can learn the lessons from those plants, which are often simplicity of design and standardization of design, then I think nuclear could make a comeback." New and safer technologies are essential to making nuclear power more acceptable, he said, but "we need to optimize a few designs, we don't need a proliferation of types of plants, because we have proven we are not good at managing them." The answer to the increased riskiness is not more government subsidization, he added, but more savvy investment decisions by the companies interested in nuclear power. Technology News ISSN 1911-1711 ***************************************************************** 22 Palm Beach Post: FPL mulls adding reactors By By Kristi E. Swartz Palm Beach Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 04, 2007 WEST PALM BEACH — Florida Power & Light Co. said Tuesday it's considering adding two more reactors to the Turkey Point nuclear plant near Homestead. FPL said it has identified its Turkey Point site in Miami-Dade County, already home to two nuclear reactors, as "one potential site for a new nuclear power generating unit." The utility, owned by FPL Group Inc. (NYSE: FPL, $62.57) of Juno Beach, also owns two nuclear plants on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie County. "In our very early view, two units make more sense than one," said Michael Leighton, FPL's chief development officer. Almost one year ago, FPL filed a letter with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, saying it wanted to "potentially pursue a nuclear plant in Florida." President Armando Olivera often has said the utility is bullish on nuclear power and wants eventually to get between 50 and 60 percent of its electricity from nuclear. Outside of Florida, FPL Group's non-regulated subsidiary FPL Energy owns nuclear plants in Seabrook, N.H., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The utility is also part of NuStart Energy Development LLC, a consortium that wants to build a nuclear plant in Grand Gulf, Miss., and another in Bellefonte, Ala. Tuesday's announcement does little to advance FPL's plans. It will take the utility about six years to receive all of the state but mostly federal regulatory approvals and then another six to build the reactors. That process will start only after FPL makes a final decision on Turkey Point or another site, selects a specific type of reactor and formally files plans with federal nuclear regulators. "Right now, this creates an option," Leighton said. The utility will move forward "if the regulatory climate and the economics make sense," he said. About 15 utilities, including FPL and St. Petersburg-based Progress Energy Florida, say they intend to build one or two nuclear reactors in the United States, which hasn't had a new plant built in nearly 30 years. Utilities are touting nuclear power as one way to curb greenhouse gas emissions, but the plants cost billions of dollars to build, face tough regulatory scrutiny and still have no central depository for spent fuel rods. "There are so many unknowns, and it's so risky, and the waste is still a problem," said Joy Towles-Ezell, energy chairwoman for the Sierra Club's Florida chapter. "We don't have anywhere to store it, especially here in Florida." In an attempt to encourage utilities to build nuclear plants in Florida, state lawmakers and utility regulators now allow them to recover the costs from consumers up front for building nuclear plants instead of asking to do so after the plants start producing power. "That speaks to the power of FPL and all of the other nuclear companies in this state," said Jim Ricchio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace. "That makes me question what these guys are looking at." FPL now gets 20 percent of its power from nuclear and 50 percent from natural gas. That amount is expected to increase as FPL opens two natural gas-fired units in Turkey Point as well as two units in Loxahatchee. Copyright © 2007, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 JOURNAL NEWS: Reactor shutdown follows siren trouble in testy week for Indian Point Wednesday, April 4, 2007 By GREG CLARY BUCHANAN — Another week, another set of challenges for Indian Point - first, problems with a siren test Monday and then an unplanned reactor shutdown yesterday. The nuclear plants ran into what Indian Point officials hope was a glitch when 123 of the new 150 emergency sirens failed to successfully complete an operational test. The sirens are required to be ready to go by a week from Sunday, and county emergency officials said they hadn't expected to see a step backward so close to the deadline. "This test was clearly disappointing," Anthony Sutton, Westchester County commissioner of emergency services, said of the Monday morning test. "We expected it to go in a positive direction, and it went in a negative direction." Then about 4:15 a.m. yesterday, Indian Point 3 workers shut down that nuclear reactor as it was going back to full power from a 24-day refueling outage. There were low water levels in the plant's steam generators, where steam is used to help produce electricity. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and local emergency officials commended nuclear workers for their quick action, noting that unplanned shutdowns occur more frequently when plants go back online than during routine operation. Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which has owned and operated Indian Point since 2001, said the shutdown went smoothly and the appropriate notifications were made to the NRC and county officials, but that there were no safety concerns. "It's a disappointment when it happens and frustrating for the workers," Steets said. "But it doesn't affect public safety." The latest stoppage puts Indian Point 3 near its limit for unplanned shutdowns per hours of operations. Another shutdown between now and June 30 would push Indian Point plant up to a white rating from green, the safest of four operational categories. One area of public safety likely to create a great deal of discussion in the next 10 days is how the new, $10 million siren system will do as it is readied to take over from a system that caused emergency services and plant officials headaches for more than two years. After repeated failures during routine tests and other wholesale failures, the company decided to replace the decades-old network of 156 sirens. Congress decreed in 2005 that a backup system was required and Entergy executives opted instead to start from scratch, saying they could have the new one up and running by Jan. 30, 2007. They ran into problems that the NRC agreed were beyond their control - local permitting and construction obstacles - and asked for a 75-day extension. They will be testing again tomorrow to see if they were able to iron out Monday's problems. "We don't think this is a matter of the sirens not activating," said Steets. "We think that it was largely about polling." The sirens must communicate with a central point to let county officials know they've sounded. Without that polling from the 150 locations, police and fire officials can't be sure if the sirens alerted residents about an emergency at the nuclear plant. "If it comes up red on the computer screen, that means it didn't sound as far as we're concerned," said Sutton, the commissioner. "That was the biggest trouble we had with the old system. We don't want to be in that same place with the new system." Steets said the system was being tested as part of the installation, and problems were to be expected. Two other tests Monday found a total of 12 sirens that didn't work properly - fewer than the number in earlier tests. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said if the system is not operational by midnight April 15, the NRC could levy fines and other sanctions against Indian Point. Opponents of the nuclear plant said yesterday that the siren issue is just one of many facing Indian Point. "This latest apparent fiasco with the new siren system raises serious doubts as to whether Entergy will have it up and running by the NRC deadline," said Phillip Musegaas, a policy analyst with the environmental group Riverkeeper. "In the meantime, Hudson Valley residents continue to live with a jury-rigged system that may or may not work if the need arises." Steets said the company remains confident that the new system will be operational by April 15. Reach Greg Clary at 914-696-8566 or gclary@lohud.com. ====================================================================== Get your facts straight before hitting "submit." Quotes are from "jarod213." 1."Three Mile Island experienced a total meltdown in one of its reactors..." Wrong. It was a partial meltdown (thank God). Perhaps you were thinking of the Chernobyl reactor in the former Soviet Union which did experience a TOTAL meltdown. Want to compare the difference? 2. Not one person was affected by the meltdown." People were and ARE affected by the Three Mile Island accident to this day. The plant DID release radiation, estimated at 13 million curies in vented gases, including some iodine 131. Again, thankfully, not as bad as it might have been (remember, just a PARTIAL meltdown). And although no one can prove a direct connection to a particular individual, our government estimated the statistical likelihood that "approximately one" fatal cancer would result. No big deal, right? The plant was permanently damaged beyond repair. The cleanup took years and cost $975 million! Not to mention the effect of plummeting residential and commercial property values in the area. Care to do a cost/benefit analysis? 3. "There was no need to even evacuate nearby people during that 'disaster.'" Wrong. Residents were evacuated, but only after first being told there was no danger and then, only pregnant women and children were told to leave. Naturally, a lot of others fled the area as well. 4. "All of the reactors at Indian Point can experience a TOTAL meltdown, and the people of Buchanan, let alone the entire tristate area, would be exposed to little to NO harm." I guess you know something the insurance industry, the utilities, and the federal government don't know. Insurance companies have always refused to insure Indian Point or any other nuclear power plant in the U.S. Utilities wouldn't build commercial reactors until Congress passed the Price-Anderson Act in 1957 to create a public insurance company expressly for the purpose of taking on what the private sector considers far too risky. 5. "I ask, would you rather be breathing coal exhaust?" Fortunately, burning coal isn't the only alternative. 6. Being a civil engineer, and having "recently toured Seabrook Station in New Hampshire" don't give you carte blanche on credibility. 7. Thankfully, no one has a monopoly on public policies that affect all of us. Public policies are, after all, a matter for public and democratic decision making. Sorry that you're "sick and tired," but I suspect what you're really bothered by is a rational, informed argument. It's hard work, but that's what democracy is all about. Embrace it. -- Joe Montuori Posted by: Levelheaded Citizen on Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:32 pm ====================================================================== You obviously are unaware of the actual workings of a nuclear power plant. I am a civil engineer, and I recently toured Seabrook Station in New Hampshire. All of the reactors at Indian Point can experience a TOTAL meltdown, and the people of Buchanan, let alone the entire tristate area, would be exposed to little to NO harm. Do you remember three-mile island? Three Mile Island experienced a total meltdown in one of its reactors; it's containment dome did just what it was supposed to do, contain radiation. Not one person was affected by the meltdown; that reactor has since been shut down, but the other reactors at the plant are still in proper working order. There was no need to even evacuate nearby people during that "disaster." I'm sick and tired of uninformed and uneducated "citizens" making irrational decisions. Nuclear Power Generation is the safest form of electricity generation. I think Indian Point should add another reactor to its campus, rather than shut any more down. I ask, would you rather be breathing coal exhaust? Posted by: jarod213 on Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:55 am ====================================================================== The elephant in the room that requires our attention, of course, is that whether or not the sirens work, we'll never be able to evacuate this area in an orderly or timely fashion. One need only witness everyday rush hour congestion to imagine what the region's roads would look like if EVERYONE tried to leave at the same time. The only workable solution is a shutdown of Indian Point. The array of problems that these two plants share is more than can be overcome by any number of fixes. No one -- least of all Entergy -- can honestly promise these plants are not at risk of a catastrophe through accident or terrorist attack. If they were not a great risk, the federal government wouldn't have to insure every nuclear plant in the country at taxpayer expense (private industry has refused to take on the risk since the first nuclear plants were commissioned). Tinkering with sirens ignores the reality: millions of residents CAN NOT BE EVACUATED from the area before a radioactive release has done its damage. --Joe Montuori Posted by: Levelheaded Citizen on Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:23 am Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 24 JOURNAL NEWS: Indian Point 3 returns to service Wednesday, April 4, 2007 By GREG CLARY BUCHANAN — Indian Point 3 went back online about 1 a.m. today, less than 24 hours after a steam generator problem prompted workers to shut down the nuclear plant. A problem with one of the two main boiler feed pumps that send water to the plant's steam generators malfunctioned and left water levels too low in the generators. The generators create steam that turns electricity-producing turbines. Yesterday's shutdown took place about 4:15 a.m. The plant had just returned to service Saturday, following a 24-day refueling outage when workers replaced 96 of the 193 fuel assemblies used during operation. The plant, which had been operating at about 60 percent power at the time of the shutdown, is expected to return to full service within a few days. Officials from Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which owns and operates Indian Point, said there was no release of radioactivity and no threat to workers or public health. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and local emergency officials were notified. Indian Point 2, which produces half of the 2000 megawatts of electricity at the Buchanan site, an amount that powers the equivalent of about 2 million homes, was not affected by the shutdown of the other reactor. Read more about this story tomorow in The Journal News and on LoHud.com. File photo by Stuart Bayer/The Journal News Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant, at left, shut down yesterday after a problem was found in the water levels in the steam generators that help produce electricity. It returned to service today. Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper ***************************************************************** 25 PoughkeepsieJournal.com: New sirens flunk test at Indian Point Wednesday, April 4, 2007 Water problem spurs shutdown By Greg Clary Gannett News Service BUCHANAN - Another week, another set of challenges for Indian Point: First, problems with a siren test Monday, and then an unplanned reactor shutdown Tuesday. The nuclear plants ran into what Indian Point officials hope was a glitch when 123 of the new 150 emergency sirens failed to successfully complete an operational test. The sirens are required to be ready by April 15 and county emergency officials said they had not expected to see a step backward so close to the deadline. "This test was clearly disappointing," said Anthony Sutton, Westchester County commissioner of Emergency Services, of the Monday morning test. "We expected it to go in a positive direction and it went in a negative direction." About 4:15 a.m. Tuesday, Indian Point 3 workers shut down that nuclear reactor as it was going back to full power from a 24-day refueling outage. There were low water levels in the plant's steam generators, where steam is used to help produce electricity. Workers' response lauded Nuclear Regulatory Commission and local emergency officials commended nuclear workers for their quick action, noting unplanned shutdowns occur more frequently when plants go back online than during routine operation. Jim Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, which has owned and operated Indian Point since 2001, said the shutdown went smoothly and the appropriate notifications were made to the NRC and county officials, but there were no safety concerns. "It's a disappointment when it happens and frustrating for the workers," Steets said. "But it doesn't affect public safety." The latest stoppage puts Indian Point 3 near its limit for unplanned shutdowns per hours of operations. Another shutdown between now and June 30 would push Indian Point up to a white rating from green, the safest of four operational categories. One area of public safety likely to create a great deal of discussion in the next 10 days is how the new $10-million siren system will do as it is readied to take over from a system that caused emergency services and plant officials headaches for more than two years. After repeated failures during routine tests and other wholesale failures, Entergy decided to replace the decades-old network of 156 sirens. Congress decreed in 2005 a backup system was required and Entergy executives opted in-stead to start from scratch, saying they could have the new one up and running by Jan. 30. They ran into problems the NRC agreed were beyond their control - local permitting and construction obstacles - and asked for a 75-day extension. They will be testing again Thursday to see if they were able to iron out Monday's problems. The sirens must communicate with a central point to let county officials know they've sounded. Without that polling from the 150 locations, police and fire officials can't be sure if the sirens alerted residents about an emergency at the nuclear plant. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said if the system is not operational by midnight April 15, the NRC could levy fines and other sanctions against Indian Point. Opponents of the nuclear plant said the siren issue is one of many facing Indian Point. Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 1-914-696-8566. Tests Thursday Entergy Nuclear Northeast will test the Indian Point emergency notification sirens at 10:30, 11 and 11:30 a.m. Thursday. The sirens will sound simultaneously at full volume for four minutes in Westchester, Rockland, Orange and Putnam counties. Copyright © 2006 PoughkeepsieJournal.com ***************************************************************** 26 St. Cloud Times: Monticello nuclear plant receives highest safety rating By Mackenzie Ryan maryan@stcloudtimes.com Published: April 04. 2007 12:30AM - Last updated: April 04. 2007 MONTICELLO —The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given the Monticello nuclear power plant the best safety rating possible after assessing inspections completed in 2006. The NRC gave the plant a green rating, the top rating of four used to denote safety. It comes on the heels of the plant’s license being renewed for 20 years. Inspections last year found the plant “preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives,” according to a March 2 letter from the commission. The assessment and rating did not factor in a Jan. 10 event that killed fish after a weld broke and a control box dropped onto some steam pipes, triggering the plant’s safety controls and automatically shutting down the plant. The plant stopped releasing the warm water it normally discharges into the Mississippi River and more than 3,000 fish died because of cold shock. Based on the green inspection rating, the NRC will proceed with a baseline inspection program in 2007, which provides inspections that include daily and periodic specialty inspections. Higher color ratings subject plants to more oversight. The public should feel safe, said NRC Branch Chief Bruce Burgess, who added that the plant has a good record of safety. “If you go back in history, with a few exceptions, they’ve operated very well,” Burgess said. 2006 St. Cloud Times. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 27 St. Cloud Times: Residents can attend review of Xcel plant Times staff report Published: April 04. 2007 12:30AM MONTICELLO — Members of the public can participate in a meeting today to discuss the safety performance last year of Xcel Energy’s Monticello nuclear power plant. People who cannot attend can participate via conference call. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will present results of the assessment and will be available to answer questions or comments from the public before the meeting ends. Inspections last year found the plant “preserved public health and safety and fully met all cornerstone objectives,” according to a March 2 letter from the commission. Commission staff will meet with representatives of Nuclear Management Co. at 9 a.m. today at the Monticello Training center, MPR Meeting Room, 2100 River St. W, Monticello. To participate in the conference, call Bruce Burgess at 630-829-9629. 2006 St. Cloud Times. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 28 Rutland Herald: Nukes no boon to environment Rutland Vermont News & Information April 4, 2007 Is anybody else getting tired of hearing about old environmentalists who've turned pro-nuke? I sure am. I was brought up to think for myself, and it seems to me that nuclear power has a few little glitches these great minds of the past haven't accounted for. Waste is an asset? We can recycle it? How green it sounds, how gentle — like compost. The reality is a little different: liquifying, weaponizing, and proliferating nuclear waste. Reprocessing yields plutonium, which is mostly used for weapons. Yes, the Europeans do it — and the Brits, in case you didn't notice, are building nuclear bombs again. Vermont Yankee is safe? I guess that's why they have all those safety inspections, why we have evacuation plans posted in the schools, why the sirens go off at noon on Saturday. At the risk of sounding disrespectful, du-uh! Yankee was unsafe the moment they turned it on and is triply so today with its overload of waste, its advanced age, and the advent of Osama bin Laden. Oh, but we need nuclear power to save the planet. Oh, really? If that's true we're in deep guano. Nuclear power is the most expensive method of boiling water known to man and comes with a huge opportunity cost, which we are already paying. The dollar we spend on a kilowatt hour of nuclear electricity could buy 10 kilowatt hours in electricity conservation. Or it could be invested in renewables. The potential is vast. Global wind resources could produce four times the electricity used by all countries in 2000. Texas, Kansas, and North Dakota could supply all the electricity the United States needs — especially if we stopped squandering it in the ugly, stupid way we do today. I don't blame guys like Stewart Brand for their stand on nuclear power. They're scared; so am I. The winters we used to complain about? I want them back. I want polar bears and snow on the Alps, and maple trees. But we can't afford nuclear power. It's a thing of the past. More electricity is being produced today by no-carbon or low-carbon sources than by nuclear power. Renewables are literally everywhere; the sun on your head, the wind on your cheek, the grass at your feet. They're flexible, fast to build, cheap to harvest, and environmentally friendly because they are the environment. So let's stop arguing with old hippies about nukes. A firm and friendly "I disagree," to the former; death with dignity for the latter; and let's keep moving forward into a more beautiful and earth-friendly 21st century. JESSIE HAAS Westminster © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 29 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2006 Performance at Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant News Release - Region II - 2007-009 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff is scheduled to meet with Tennessee Valley Authority officials April 10 to discuss the NRC’s annual assessment of safety performance at the Sequoyah nuclear power plant, located near Soddy-Daisy, Tenn., for the calendar year 2006. The 1:00 p.m. meeting will be held at the Soddy-Daisy Municipal Building, located at 9835 Dayton Pike in Soddy-Daisy, and is open to public observation. Before the meeting ends, NRC staff will be available to answer public questions on the plant’s safety performance, as well as the agency’s role in ensuring safe operation of the facility. “Each year the NRC staff assesses the performance of the Sequoyah plant and all of the nation’s other commercial nuclear power plants,” NRC Region II Administrator William Travers said. “This meeting gives us a chance to discuss our assessment with the company, with local officials and with residents near the plant. Our aim is to make this information available to the public and answer any questions people may have about our oversight.” The report says the Sequoyah plant operated safely during 2006. The NRC uses color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear plant performance. The colors start with “green” and increase to “white,” “yellow” or “red,” commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Both Sequoyah reactors received “green” inspection findings from the NRC during 2006, which means that all were of low safety significance. As a result, Sequoyah will receive the baseline, or normal, level of NRC inspections during 2007. NRC inspectors will also conduct non-routine inspections of the plant’s independent spent fuel (dry cask) storage facility, containment emergency recirculation sump blockage modifications, and reactor pressure vessel head and penetration nozzle examinations. A letter sent from the NRC Region II Office to plant officials addresses the performance of the plant during the period and will serve as the basis for the meeting discussion. It is available on the NRC web site at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/seq_2006q4.pdf. Current performance information for Sequoyah Unit 1 is available on the NRC’s web site at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SEQ1/seq1_chart.html and at www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/SEQ1/seq2_chart.html for Sequoyah Unit 2. 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. Wednesday, April 04, 2007 ***************************************************************** 30 Inside Bay Area: Nuclear power price mushrooms Industry must manage itself much better than in past, Berkeley researcher says By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 04/04/2007 02:59:47 AM PDT After painstakingly analyzing the costs of U.S. nuclear power plants built decades ago, energy experts caution that a resurrection of nuclear power could bring along some financial risk and surprisingly high electricity costs. Researchers reporting in the most recent edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology found that construction costs varied by as much as 500 percent before the last U.S. nuclear power station was built almost 30 years ago. There is no other (energy) technology were looking at where the range in cost is a factor of five, said Dan Kammen, professor of energy and resources, and of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. It means that if the nuclear industry doesnt manage itself much better than in the past, we are likely to still get this large range of costs. The clean, carbon-free energy from splitting atoms has drawn backing among influential lawmakers and environmentalists as a way to ease consumption of fossil fuels and global warming. But the industry and its financial backers could be vulnerable to the same cost volatility, scientists warned, especially if utilities begin trying half a dozen new kinds of reactors cooled by metals or gases rather than water. In recent weeks, federal regulators have given the nod to new reactor sites in Illinois and Mississippi, and firms are readying applications for construction and operation of up to 33 new U.S. reactors, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest. Industry officials say soaring plant costs in the 1980s are all but irrelevant to this renaissance. I dont think its a good prologue, said Peter Saba, a former Energy Department official and financial adviser at the law firm Paul, Hastings, Janovsky & Walker for several utili-ties eyeing new nuclear plants. Past experience is not going to be a good gauge, because people are building them differently and youve got a different licensing process as well. Ordinarily, an industry learns by producing and with learning, technology gets less expensive. But researchers at UC-Berkeley, Georgetown University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the case of nuclear power has been seen largely as an exception that reflects the idiosyncrasies of the regulatory environment as public opposition grew, regulations were tightened and construction times increased. Particularly after the loss of reactor coolant at Three Mile Island in 1979, tougher new safety requirements came into play, and utilities had to upgrade their construction plans, increasing construction costs at a time when interest rates were high. By the end of the decade, costs inflated so rapidly that the industry no longer could afford to build plants. Saba, whose father was a nuclear engineer, said part of the problem was that utilities wanted every nuclear power station to be unique. They were designing them as they were building them, he said. Starting in 1992, Congress and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission also have reworked the rules for licensing new plants, allowing nuclear firms to get the latest three basic Generation III+ reactor designs approved in advance. Saba said the advanced Generation IV reactors that concern the energy scientists at Berkeley and Georgetown are at least a decade away. The rules also permit utilities to seek early site approvals, mostly for sites adjoining existing reactors. Utilities then can apply for a joint construction and operating license, rather than work through two costly and combative licensing proceedings. To these changes, Congress has added billions of dollars in federal liability protections and loan guarantees. I dont have any doubt that companies are going to do some pretty hard number-crunching before they proceed, said Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the industrys trade association, the Nuclear Energy Institute. It never hurts to look at what the history was in that period. Im not sure what that tells you because the rules have changed. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6458. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 31 South Florida Business Journal: New power plants on the horizon - South Florida Business Journal - 5:27 PM EDT Tuesday, April 3, 2007 FPL said it plans to increase its power generating resources by about 28 percent by 2016 by using clean coal technology. Juno Beach-based FPL Energy, an FPL Group (NYSE: FPL) subsidiary, submitted its 10-year resource plan to the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC). Its strategy focuses on fuel diversity, advanced technology, energy conservation and renewable energy sources to improve system reliability and help stabilize future power prices. Under the generation expansion plan, the company plans to: * complete construction this summer of 1,150 megawatts of new natural gas-fired generation at its Turkey Point plant site in south Miami-Dade County, enough to serve about 230,000 homes and businesses * continue construction of 2,400 megawatts of new generation at its West County plant site in western Palm Beach County to begin serving about 466,000 homes and businesses in 2009 * seek approval to add 1,960 megawatts of advanced clean coal technology in Glades County capable of serving about 396,000 homes and businesses. FPL expects the facility to be the cleanest coal plant in the country and would begin serving customers' needs by 2013 or 2014. * advance tentative plans to add an additional 1,200 megawatts of gas-fired generation by 2015 or 2016, although the company notes this option could be replaced by more economical alternatives as appropriate "We are taking a balanced and sensible approach to meet the future needs of our customers," FPL President Armando Olivera said. "This includes the addition of advanced clean coal technology to improve fuel diversity and system reliability in an environmentally responsible manner to meet our customers' electricity needs." Olivera noted FPL is "taking steps that will create the option for new nuclear generation" for 2018 and beyond. FPL has notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its intent to submit a license application as an initial step in creating the option to build a new nuclear power plant in Florida. Filing an application does not obligate the company to build a new nuclear unit, but is a necessary step in the process of evaluating the feasibility of this technology option, the company said. It takes about 12 years to evaluate and select a specific nuclear reactor technology, obtain state and federal licenses and approvals, and then commence construction, FPL said. FPL has been evaluating more than a dozen potential sites including Turkey Point, an 11,000-acre existing power plant site in south Miami-Dade County. Sister company Florida Power & Light Co. operates four nuclear units in Florida - two at Turkey Point and two in St. Lucie County. Plans are in the works for a nuclear power plant acquisition in the Midwest. The company anticipates adding about 6,700 megawatts of new generation resources to its current system capacity of 24,360 megawatts. The PSC and the Florida Legislature have strongly encouraged utilities to further diversify their fuel sources, including more coal and nuclear, FPL said. New power resources planned for FPL's system would serve an additional 1.4 million homes and businesses. FPL currently provides electricity to 4.4 million homes and businesses in Florida. Energy production is a mix 50 percent natural gas, 21 percent nuclear, 15 percent purchased power, 9 percent oil and 5 percent coal. Shares closed up 2 cents to $62.57. The 52-week high was $63.07 on Feb. 26. The 52-week low was $37.81 on May 17. bizjournals | BizSpace.com | Jobs | bizwomen.com © 2007 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors. All ***************************************************************** 32 AZo Journal: Nuclear Power May Not be Cost Effective Enticed by the gleam of government subsidies, many companies are rushing to invest in nuclear power, expecting that new technology and safer reactors will make them as good an investment as other types of power plants. A new study appearing in the April 1 issue of the journal Environmental Science and Technology notes, however, that the country's history of unexpected cost overruns when building nuclear plants should sound a cautionary note for power companies that nuclear power may not be financially attractive. "For energy security and carbon emission concerns, nuclear power is very much back on the national and international agenda," said study co-author Dan Kammen, UC Berkeley professor of energy and resources and of public policy. "To evaluate nuclear power's future, it is critical that we understand what the costs and the risks of this technology have been. To this point, it has been very difficult to obtain an accurate set of costs from the U. S. fleet of nuclear power plants." The study, conducted by a research team from Georgetown University, Stanford University and UC Berkeley, analyzes the costs of electricity from existing U.S. nuclear reactors and discusses the possibility for cost "surprises" in new energy technologies, including next-generation nuclear power. What they found was a range of electricity costs, from 3 cents per kilowatt hour to nearly 14 cents per kilowatt hour, with the higher costs attributed to such problems as poor plant operation or unanticipated security costs. "In the long term, whether these plants are 4 cents or 8 cents per kilowatt hour, they are still a good deal, if you think carbon is an issue," Kammen said, referring to the carbon dioxide emissions from oil, coal and gas-fueled power plants that exacerbate global warming. "If the argument is that cost really needs to be important, then I'm not sure nuclear competes that well." Some politicians also tout the increased security benefits of having domestic sources of energy, but this doesn't translate into decreased risk for investors, the study notes. "In a deregulated electricity environment, investors will increasingly share the financial risks of underperformance of generation assets," said co-author Nathan Hultman, assistant professor of science, technology and international affairs at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and a visiting fellow at the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilization at the University of Oxford. "We don't have a good way of forecasting these risks yet, but looking at the historical data can be one way to understand the possibilities and scenarios for the future." No new nuclear power plants have been built in the United States in 29 years, in part because they've proved to be poor investments, producing far more expensive electricity than originally promised. In 2005, about 19 percent of U.S. electricity generation was produced by 104 nuclear reactors. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Advanced Energy Initiative of 2006 sought to change that, offering financial incentives for new plant construction that employs new reactor and new safe-operating technologies. Current nuclear plant operators have given notice that they intend to apply for approval of 27 new "generation III+" reactors. But Kammen points out that in the past, when U.S. companies have introduced new technologies, they've run into unexpected costs that have kept electricity prices high. France, on the other hand, standardized the design of its nuclear power plants and encountered fewer cost surprises. "Some U.S. plants were really well done, and they happen to be the older ones," he said. "If we can learn the lessons from those plants, which are often simplicity of design and standardization of design, then I think nuclear could make a comeback." New and safer technologies are essential to making nuclear power more acceptable, he said, but "we need to optimize a few designs, we don't need a proliferation of types of plants, because we have proven we are not good at managing them." The answer to the increased riskiness is not more government subsidization, he added, but more savvy investment decisions by the companies interested in nuclear power. http://www.berkeley.edu Posted 4th April 2007 AZoM™ - The A to Z of Materials and AZojomo - The "AZo Journal of Materials Online"...AZoM™.com Pty.Ltd Copyright © 2000-2007 ***************************************************************** 33 Reuters: Green activists beach at Finnish nuclear site Wed Apr 4, 2007 9:01AM EDT HELSINKI (Reuters) - Protesters in inflatable boats landed near the site of Finland's new nuclear power station on Wednesday, chaining themselves to the gates and demanding a halt to construction, Greenpeace and plant officials said. Finland's fifth reactor, commissioned by utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), has been hit by delays and Greenpeace said safety has been compromised to catch up with the work and cut costs. The environmental group said it wanted construction halted until the problems were ironed out. Greenpeace said about 10 people had set out from their ship, Arctic Sunrise, and landed at the site on Finland's west coast before chaining themselves to the gates. Rauno Mokka, deputy head of TVO, said police detained seven activists. "They were protesting against the building of the Olkiluoto 3 plant," he told Reuters. Greenpeace campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta said the group wanted to highlight safety problems. "There have been efforts to bring down the cost and catch up with the delayed schedule at the expense of safety," Myllyvirta told Reuters by telephone. "The nuclear project had an unrealistic timetable and price from the beginning." Continued... © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 34 NRC: NRC to Discuss 2006 Assessment for Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant at Public Meeting Scheduled for April 11 News Release - Region I - 2007-013 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail: opa1@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s annual assessment of safety performance at the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear power plant, in Middletown, Pa., will be the subject of a public meeting on Wednesday, April 11. NRC staff will meet with representatives of plant owner AmerGen Energy Co., LLC, at 7 p.m. to discuss the assessment, which covers the period from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2006, and was documented in a March 2nd letter to the company. The session will take place at Londonderry Town Hall, 738 S. Geyers Church Road in Middletown. Before the meeting is adjourned, NRC staff will be available to answer questions from the public on the performance of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 plant, as well as the role of the NRC in providing oversight of plant safety. “Each year we take a step back to size up plant performance during the previous calendar year, with the overarching goal of ensuring that facilities are achieving the levels of safety that are essential to protecting the public and the environment,” said NRC Region I Administrator Samuel J. Collins, who noted the agency also conducts mid-year assessments of performance. “At the meeting on April 11th, members of the public will receive information about how we go about that review process for Three Mile Island and other nuclear power plants across the nation. The NRC staff will also be prepared to answer questions from attendees.” The annual assessment letter for Three Mile Island Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/LETTERS/tmi_2006q4.pdf. The notice for the meeting, with agenda attached, is available in the NRC’s Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS) under accession number ML070851468. The meeting slides are available under accession number ML070851386. ADAMS is accessible at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Help in using ADAMS is available via the NRC’s Public Document Room at 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail at PDR@NRC.GOV. Overall, Three Mile Island Unit 1 operated safely during 2006. The NRC utilizes color-coded inspection findings and performance indicators to assess nuclear power plant performance. The colors start with “green” and then increase to “white,” “yellow” or “red,” commensurate with the safety significance of the issues involved. Because all of the performance indicators for the Three Mile Island Unit 1 were determined to be “green” and there were no inspection findings greater than “green” at the end of 2006, the plant will receive the baseline, or routine, level of inspections in 2007. Three Mile Island Unit 1 did have a “white” inspection finding open during the first quarter of last year. That finding was related to the untimely conduct of required annual classroom retraining for some members of the plant’s emergency response organization. The issue was identified during a November 2004 emergency preparedness program inspection. From Feb. 27 to March 14, 2006, the NRC conducted a supplemental inspection to determine whether AmerGen had made sufficient progress in addressing the problem. When the agency concluded that was the case, the finding was closed out in the first quarter of 2006. Routine inspections are performed by two NRC Resident Inspectors assigned to the plant and by inspection specialists from the Region I Office in King of Prussia, Pa. Among the areas of plant performance to be inspected this year by NRC specialists are containment sump modifications, emergency preparedness and radiological protection. Current performance information for Three Mile Island Unit 1 is available on the NRC web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/TMI1/tmi1_chart.html. 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. Wednesday, April 04, 2007 ***************************************************************** 35 Grist: An interview with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers By Amanda Griscom Little | Grist | Main Dish | 04 Apr 2007 By Amanda Griscom Little 04 Apr 2007 Meet Jim Rogers, a great American paradox. He's the top gun at Duke Energy, a huge (and hugely polluting) power company; he's also one of the nation's most dogged advocates for federal regulation of greenhouse-gas emissions. Jim Rogers. Duke Energy operates smack in the heart of coal country in the Midwest and Southeast and derives 70 percent of its power from the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Rogers knows full well that his company has a lot at stake when it comes to cleaning up carbon emissions -- which is why, he says, he wants to be on the vanguard of those preparing for limits. A bridge-builder between the worlds of industry and environmentalists, Rogers played a key role in launching the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, an unprecedented alliance between corporate executives and green groups that launched in January and has proposed a federal cap-and-trade program that would cut greenhouse-gas emissions 10 to 30 percent over the next 15 years, then 60 to 80 percent by mid-century. These are goals nearly on par with the most ambitious climate bills in Congress, and in recent months, Rogers has been among the most active coalition members lobbying for them on Capitol Hill. As chair of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry trade group representing companies that provide nearly 60 percent of America's electricity, Rogers has helped move the organization from staunchly rejecting federal global-warming policy to embracing a forward-thinking (if limited) set of climate-change principles. Rogers is also a board member of the Alliance to Save Energy, a D.C.-based nonprofit that lobbies for ambitious energy-efficiency regulations. But Rogers is not in all areas an environmental angel, as everyone was reminded this week when Duke Energy got spanked by the Supreme Court. In a high-profile decision, the justices unanimously overturned a lower-court decision that let Duke off the hook for circumventing a Clean Air Act provision that requires the installation of high-tech pollution controls on aging power plants. Rogers also takes heat from critics for his avid support of nuclear power, and his contention that heavily coal-dependent utilities should be given more pollution permits than any others in a federal cap-and-trade scheme. Rogers spoke to me recently from his office in North Carolina about the professional, political, and personal factors that fuel his concern about climate change. You're running a company that's one of the nation's largest producers of CO2 emissions. You're also doing more than perhaps anyone else in your industry to try to get these emissions regulated. Can you reconcile this contradiction? I'm an optimist. I think there are solutions to problems -- maybe not perfect solutions today, but over time, solutions will improve. I think the probability that we'll get good solutions to climate change -- solutions that benefit both the planet and industry -- is higher if we face the problem now than if we bury our heads in denial. If you're constantly trying to define the problem, or deny it, or dispute it, it gets increasingly difficult and costly to develop a good solution. Last year you were elected as chair of the Edison Electric Institute, the power industry's biggest trade group. Did this reflect a growing acceptance within your industry of climate change and the inevitability of regulations? There's undoubtedly a growing openness in our industry to this issue. I've seen several surveys that say 70 or 80 percent of the executives in our industry think there will be carbon regulation. In a sense, we're all building our business plans around the carbon scenario. The only issue is what the regulations will look like and when they'll be implemented. You've recently tried to define one approach via the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. Tell us how that alliance formed, and the process of give-and-take that got you to the final agreement. Most of the executives knew each other and had had ongoing conversations with environmental groups on a range of issues, so there was a set of existing relationships that brought us all into the room. I think the pivotal moment was in December when we began to agree on how we would structure the cap-and-trade program. The really big issue was: Can coal be part of the energy equation in the future? We agreed that it will be, given the fact that 50 percent of our electricity in this country comes from coal. The other issue was the recognition that nuclear had to play an important part in the equation. This is a tightrope that the environmental community is walking. On the one hand, they want to solve climate. On the other hand, nuclear is the best zero-carbon energy source that can reliably supply our economy, and historically they have not been supportive of it. So your environmental partners came to agree that nuclear needs to be part of the solution? I wouldn't characterize them as 100 percent supportive of nuclear, but I've seen some movement in that direction. I think they are reluctant to embrace nuclear at this point, but in the face of climate change they view it as the lesser of two evils. Most of the companies involved in U.S. CAP had already been making noise about the importance of federal action on climate change. Did you try to get other industry members -- auto companies, for instance -- to come onboard? It was an interesting kind of tension. On the one hand, you want enough people to have a critical mass; on the other hand, if it gets too big, you end up spending too much time sitting around the room and fine-tuning the words. Even with that fairly like-minded group [in U.S. CAP], our staff spent an incredible amount of time trying to get the right words so everybody was comfortable with them. And now you're in a process of recruiting other corporate leaders to join the CAP alliance, as I understand it. Are there major players coming to the table? It looks that way. It's very exciting, but it's too soon to mention names. What are the chances of getting an aggressive climate bill, on par with the CAP agenda, passed in the 110th Congress? That's a very difficult call. What we're learning as we soak in the details of this issue is how incredibly complex it is. You're starting to see Congress members who are dealing with it for the first time saying, "Oh my goodness -- every time I get one answer, it raises five questions." The complexity, by definition, will slow down the progress. Secondly, as you listen to very partisan Democrats and certain environmentalists, there is a sense that they would rather keep this as an issue for the 2008 election and then have a solution afterward because, one, it becomes a good issue for the campaign, and, two, they think they would get a tougher bill. I think every day that goes by, the probability is increasing that it gets done after the election, not before. But you'd rather see it happen before? I personally think that sooner is better. It gives us more time to start to take early action and get credit for it, to know what we'll get credit for. A lot of companies like ours are making big decisions right now: "Do we build coal plants? Do we build nuclear or natural gas or renewables? How much do we depend on energy efficiency?" These are investments that last for half a century or more. Do you think that utilities should get carbon credits based on actions they've already taken, before the regulations are implemented? They should not. The legislation should encourage companies to go out and do things, make investments that would help their carbon footprint in the future. Retroactive credits would not achieve this. Actions taken in the past weren't taken recognizing there'd be future carbon legislation. Some economists think that a carbon tax would be more effective than a cap-and-trade program. Do you agree? I think economists generally believe that. Here's the problem: It's not politically doable. You can't find Democrats and Republicans that want to sign on to any tax. You're a strong proponent of nuclear power. The question of what to do with spent nuclear fuel hasn't been resolved. What would you propose? Our industry has long supported Yucca Mountain [a federal nuclear-waste repository in Nevada], but there seem to be huge impediments to Yucca Mountain at the moment. The way that the political deck is stacked today, I think we need to come up with an alternative approach to consider. I haven't really seen anything that makes sense yet from a political standpoint. But I do think that we can come up with ways to do it, most likely pursuing a more regional approach to storage. The French have come up with ways to deal with the storage issue, and we should look to them. Coal has been taking a beating lately. Jim Hansen, the nation's most respected climate scientist, has called for a moratorium on building coal-burning plants. Texas utility TXU has had to scale back its plans for old-style coal plants. The North Carolina Public Utilities Commission challenged your company's plans to build two new coal-fired plants. What role do you think coal should play in a carbon-constrained future? There's no getting around the fact that coal is America's most abundant and affordable power source. There are 25 states in this nation that today get more than 50 percent of their electricity from burning coal. We're not going to eliminate that capacity any time soon -- in fact, there are 150 new coal plants on the books. As for future coal development, I am optimistic and hopeful that we will solve the challenge of carbon capture and storage. There are some 30 different technologies that are being developed and are in different stages of research and development that have the potential of attacking the issue. But the real challenge will be coming up with a technology that can eliminate carbon emissions from existing plants -- a carbon "scrubber" of sorts. Today we can put a scrubber on the back end of our plants and take out [sulfur dioxide], mercury, nitrogen oxides. We ought to be able to do that with CO2. A lot more emphasis and resources need to be devoted to that innovation. Does Duke have any IGCC plants [integrated gasification combined-cycle plants, cleaner fossil-fuel plants that could be adapted to capture carbon for storage] in the works? We are in the process of getting authorization to build an IGCC facility in Indiana, a coal-producing state that has the right geology -- the limestone-type geology -- which allows you to pump the CO2 into underground chambers. Why not make Duke's two proposed new coal plants in North Carolina IGCC? North Carolina has a different geology that isn't suited for underground storage. Until we find more advanced ways of storing the carbon emissions, you can't site IGCC in regions that don't have the geological capacity. So in North Carolina we proposed building a "supercritical" plant, which is 40-percent efficient -- the most advanced existing technology available. It eliminates 99 percent of the sulfur dioxide emissions, 90 to 95 percent of nitrogen oxides, virtually all particulates, and there are no thermal impacts to the water bodies. By building this plant, and retiring two older coal units, we will actually reduce our carbon footprint. Plus, our older plants that aren't retired will run less, because they're less efficient and more costly to operate. In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court [this week] overturned a lower court decision that essentially exempted Duke Energy from having to install more advanced emissions-control equipment on old coal plants under the "new-source review" provision of the Clean Air Act. What's your reaction to the decision, and how will it affect your company? It's a big disappointment for us, certainly, but the case is now returning to the lower courts where we're going to continue to defend our position. I believe we have solid defenses against the government's claims and will prove in the lower courts that the projects we were undertaking were not subject to the NSR provision. That provision applies to what they call "major modifications" of plant facilities, not the kind of more routine upgrades that we were undertaking. But if Duke is claiming to be a good corporate citizen, shouldn't you support regulations that require the use of top-notch technology to control emissions? Well, the problem is that NSR often keeps us from using advanced technologies to make our plants more efficient, because every time we want to modify a plant and improve it, we have to go back and upgrade it in every way. And that might not make economic sense, so it often acts as a deterrent to make technological improvements. What is Duke doing in terms of its own operations to help solve the climate crisis? I've always viewed energy efficiency as the fifth fuel. We think that the most environmentally benign plant you can build is the one you don't build. Job one is getting our customers to implement a broad array of efficiency measures, and give them more control over their bills, which will dampen the growth in demand. Job two is trying to use our distribution system more efficiently. We lose a lot of energy just in the transmission cables, so we're working to reduce what we call "line loss." Third, we're trying to increase how much we use our nuclear units. Fourth, we've contracted up to 100 megawatts of wind [power] in Indiana, and are exploring investment in other renewable energy areas such as biomass. The Edison Electric Institute has long opposed carbon caps, and under your leadership it has relented. How did you push through that change? I was lucky to be there when the change occurred in people's thinking. The pivotal moment was back on Jan. 10. We had a board meeting in Arizona, and as chairman I asked every person in the room -- there were 50 different CEOs -- to give their view of how as an industry we ought to move forward on climate change. It was like a snowball effect. Everybody stepped up and talked and it became increasingly clear that we needed to change our position from just supporting voluntary efforts to supporting regulation. In the long run, do you think society will have to consume and produce less energy? One of my favorite statistics is that in the U.S., electricity demand as a percentage of GDP has actually decreased 30 percent. To say it another way, if we were at the same concentration of electricity per unit of GDP today, we would have to build as many power plants as there are in Texas and California. So we've become as an economy less energy intensive, and I think that trend will continue. Did you have a "conversion moment" on the climate issue? There wasn't a burning bush on the way to Damascus that did it for me. But about eight years ago I asked this smart guy in our company, a former Peace Corps member, to be my special assistant, because I liked the way he thought. I asked him to tell me about carbon. He did all this research, we spent long stretches of time talking about it. At the same time, I was attending the World Economic Forum at Davos every year. I'd sit and listen to how the Europeans are thinking about it. I started to say, "Wow, they have such a different view than we have." So that forced me to dig in more. The more I learn, the more passionate I get about it. How are you personally reducing your carbon footprint? I'm actually in the process of building a house, and I'm working with my architect to bring in people who are experts on building energy-efficient homes. So I'm trying to build a home that reflects energy efficiency's best practices. This is a passion of mine. I've recently been named to the Alliance to Save Energy board, and my goal is to be chairman of that in several years. What kind of car do you drive? I drive a Lexus. A real small one, though. - - - - - - - - - - Amanda Griscom Little writes Grist's Muckraker column on environmental politics and policy and interviews green luminaries for the magazine. Her articles on energy and the environment have also appeared in publications ranging from Rolling Stone to The New York Times Magazine. Grist: Environmental News and Commentary ©2007. Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Gloom and doom with ***************************************************************** 36 Caboodle.hu: Malfunction reported at Hungary's nuclear power plant By: All Hungary News 2007-04-04 11:24:00 Block 2 of the Paks nuclear plant was shut down last week after boric acid was found to be leaking from a reactor container, writes mno.hu. The reactor remained closed for nearly a week, because the container needed to cool down before it could be repaired. István Mittler, spokesperson for Paksi Atomerõmû Rt, told mno.hu that during a small malfunction was noticed during routine testing, and the reactor was shut down until it could be repaired. He added that the authorities were contacted after the event, and currently the block is fully operational. The plant did not issue a communiqué about the event, but it did report on Monday that four of its alarm sirens did not work when they were recently tested. The four sirens make up less than 2% of all such devices in use at the plant, Hungary's sole nuclear power station. * Original story (mno.hu, in Hungarian) Inside Caboodle.hu © 2005-2006 The All Hungary Media Group ***************************************************************** 37 MHNN: IP3 returned to service April 4, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Mid-Hudson News Network, a division of Statewide Buchanan – The Indian Point 3 nuclear power plant was returned to service at about 1 a.m. Wednesday after workers repaired a controller for one of the two main boiler feed pumps that send water to the plant’s steam generators. Operators Tuesday morning shut down the plant because of low water levels in the generators. The plant had just been returned to service last Saturday following a 24-day refueling outage when workers replaced 96 of the 193 fuel assemblies used during operation. It had been operating at about 60 percent power at the time of the shutdown. There was no release of radioactivity. Indian Point 2, which was unaffected by the shutdown, is operating at full power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and local public officials were notified. The plants produce about 2,000 megawatts of electricity, approximately the amount used by two million homes. HEAR today's news on MidHudsonRadio.com, the Hudson Valley's only Internet radio news report. ***************************************************************** 38 Telegraph: Greens will seek pledge on nuclear power By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent Last Updated: 1:57am BST 05/04/2007 The Scottish Greens said yesterday that they were prepared to enter coalition talks with any party after the elections as long as one single condition was met. As the party contemplated the possibility of real power after only eight years of devolution, it announced that the "red line" it would not cross was the issue of new nuclear power stations. Mark Ruskell, the campaign manager, added that the Greens would "not even get round the table" with any party proposing another nuclear plant. Beyond that issue, everything was up for negotiation, and the party has already had informal talks with both the Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Labour Party. In terms of a potential coalition with the Nats the party identified only transport as a likely sticking point. The Greens want to boost public transport, retain bridge tolls, and cut spending on new motorways and airports. Robin Harper, the party's co-convenor, said: "They go along with ever increasing air transport and they don't pose the kind of curbs that we would like to see on the use of our roads." He added that it was essential that the greater use of cars was reversed in Scotland. Mr Ruskell admitted to an air of "quiet excitement" in the party which was hopeful of winning 10 seats on May 3 - an increase of three form the last election - and a figure that would make it a genuine proposition as a coalition partner. However, he also said that the Greens would prefer a form of stable minority government to coalition, in which they would sign up to an agreed programme but retain the right to vote on an issue by issue basis. The overall message to voters was that only a vote for the Greens would put environmental backbone into the government in Scotland. The party regards climate change as the key issue, and said that the current generation of voters and politicians would be the last to have the chance to head off a global crisis. Its election manifesto sets out plans for a low-carbon economy, which would involve an increase in the use of wind, wave and tidal energy, and a £100 million investment to cut emissions. It also wants to see 100 per cent of electricity generated from renewable energy by 2050 and has promised to appoint a minister for sustainable development and climate change. Other key policies include: Environment: require Executive to produce action plan to reduce greenhouse gas by at least 4.5 per cent a year, reaching 30 per cent reduction on 1990 levels by 2010; local authorities to set carbon reduction targets; introduce environmental levies on non-returnable packaging and road congestion; shut down nuclear plants when possible. Transport: Scrap planned M74 extension and Aberdeen Western Peripheral route; legislate for road traffic reduction targets, stabilising traffic at 2001 levels by 2010; "smart" tolls on Tay and Forth bridges, with preferential terms for multi-occupant cars. Education: Scrap current graduate endowment and bring back student grants; move towards integration of religious schools into non-denominational education; ensure no primary school classes have more than 20 pupils. Tax: 50 per cent rate for incomes over £100,000; simplify income-based taxation, integrating tax and benefit systems and rolling National Insurance into Income Tax; replace council tax and uniform business rates with a land value tax. Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 39 Spartanburg Herald Journal: Nuclear power routes previewed | GoUpstate.com | Spartanburg, S.C. JANET S. SPENCER, Cherokee County Bureau Published April 4, 2007 UNION -- The public received a preview Tuesday of potential routes Duke Energy's proposed Lee Nuclear Station in Cherokee County will use to transmit electricity it generates. About 4,800 property owners are affected in a 283-square mile radius in three counties, said Dwight Hollifield, president and general manager of Facilities Planning and Siting LLC, contracted by Duke Energy to develop the best transmission routes. Options are being studied to link the new supply of electricity to two major parallel service lines already in place. One bisects the width of lower Cherokee and York counties. The second crosses through Union County, extending to the southern tip of Cherokee County and on across York County. The site of the nuclear station will be about 12 miles north of the first transmission line. Property owners were invited to provide input at the first of two community workshops hosted by Duke Energy. Tuesday's meeting was at Bethlehem United Methodist Church on Kelly Road on the Union side or lower left quadrant of the study area. Survey letters were mailed to residents, asking specific questions about environmental issues, locations of historic structures, cemeteries and numerous other interests and concerns from residents. Hollifield said the information will be added to research that is already available and has been amassed by Duke Energy and from state sources. "Duke Energy is dedicated to gathering all the data we need before laying out these routes," he said "A second round of workshops could be held as early as May or June for the public to consider alternate routes that have been developed." Property owners will later be notified about right-of-way acquisitions as the paths for the transmission lines are finalized. Dean O'Dell who owns 119 acres in the nearby Pinckneyville community said the additional source of energy is needed. "But I hope I'm not affected. I'm about two miles from the largest line that's in place now. I plan to come back to the next meeting to see what has developed," he said. Janette and Jackie Redmon live on Kelly Road near where the meeting was held and were concerned about the nuclear station's electrical supply being transmitted through their community. "We would prefer that the plant not be built locally," Janette Redmon said, after viewing the displays and listening the Duke Energy employees explain the process. "Because wherever it's built, it will affect somebody," her husband, Jackie Redmon, said. "It's big business, creeping up on us." Mrs. Redmon said she is concerned about safety. "Yo?hear that it's not so good to be close to these lines. I don't know the technical terms. I know I don't want the lines crossing my property. Nobody I know does," Mrs. Redmon said. Rita Sipe, Duke Energy manager of public affairs and communications, said her company adds 40,000 to 60,000 new customers in the Carolinas annually. "Our annual plan is driving this proposed plant - looking at customer needs," she said. But Sipe said how the transmission lines affect residents is critical to the decisions Duke Energy makes. Other issues include wetlands, woodlands, flood zones, land use, land cover whether by hardwoods, grasslands or croplands, streams, branches, creeks and rivers and aesthetics, including how visible the lines are. The Cherokee construction project is led by Bryan Dolan, vice president of nuclear power development for Duke Energy. Dolan said the plant will be built in three phases. The first is preparing the application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is under way and could be submitted by the end of this year. Approval should come in three years, which ends the second phase. Work on site already includes taking water samples and monitoring a meteorological tower. "The final phase or heavy construction should begin by 2011 with full operation by 2016," Dolan said. A second meeting to allow more public input is planned from 4 to 8 p.m. Thursday at Hillcrest Baptist Church, 2020 Hillcrest Road in York. Mary Kathryn Green with Duke Energy's public affairs office said residents who have concerns are invited to attend. "We scheduled the meetings about equally apart to make it convenient for as many residents as possible," she said. Janet Spencer can be reached at 864-487-7146 or janet.spencer@shj.com. ©2007 Spartanburg Herald-Journal | Staff directory ***************************************************************** 40 NRC: NRC to Hold Public Meeting in Aiken, S.C., on License Review Process for Mox Fuel Fabrication Facility News Release - 2007-043 - 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 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will hold a public meeting April 12 in Aiken, S.C., to discuss its review of an application by Shaw Areva MOX Services to operate a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility at the Savannah River Site. The meeting will be held at the Aiken City Municipal Building, 214 Park Avenue SW, in Aiken, from 7:30 - 9:30 pm. NRC staff members will be available an hour before the meeting for informal discussions with members of the public. During the formal meeting, the staff will discuss its review process for the operating license application, plans for inspecting the facility and enforcing NRC regulations, and the legal process for members of the public to request a hearing on the application before a panel of Atomic Safety and Licensing Board judges. Members of the public will have the opportunity to ask questions of the technical staff. The MOX facility, which will be owned by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, is part of a bilateral effort between the United States and the Russian Federation to convert supplies of surplus weapons-grade plutonium into more proliferation-resistant forms by blending it with uranium. Converting the plutonium into this mixed-oxide fuel will enable it to be used in commercial reactors to generate electricity. In the United States, only those reactors authorized by the NRC will be permitted to use MOX fuel. The NRC issued a construction authorization for the facility March 30, 2005. During that licensing review, the NRC staff completed an Environmental Impact Statement on the construction and operation of the proposed facility. That report is available on the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/mox/licensing.html. Information on various public meetings held regarding the MOX facility is also available there. A notice of opportunity to request a hearing was published March 15 in the Federal Register. The deadline for requesting a hearing is May 14. Petitions may be filed by anyone whose interest may be affected by the facility and who wishes to participate as a party in the proceeding. A request for hearing and a petition for leave to intervene must be filed with the Secretary of the Commission, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555-0001, Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff. Requests may also be submitted by facsimile to (301) 415-1101 or e-mail to HEARINGDOCKET@nrc.gov. A copy should also be submitted to the NRC Office of General Counsel, by facsimile to (301) 415-3725 or e-mail to OGCMailCenter@nrc.gov. Information on the NRC’s hearings process is available at this Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/adjudicatory/hearing.html. 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. Wednesday, April 04, 2007 ***************************************************************** 41 Orlando Sentinel: FPL's building plans include a nuclear site - Christopher Martin | Bloomberg News Posted April 4, 2007 FPL Group Inc., owner of Florida's largest utility, plans to build coal, natural gas and other power plants to boost production 28 percent by 2016. FPL's Florida Power & Light Co. notified the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of its plans to submit a license application as the first step to build a nuclear power plant in Florida, the Juno Beach-based company said Tuesday. The company's proposals are part of a 10-year plan that is updated annually and submitted this week to the Florida Public Service Commission. FPL plans to add 6,700 megawatts of new generating capacity, up from the 6,600 megawatts the company expected to build through 2015. One megawatt is enough to supply about 800 average U.S. homes, according to U.S. Energy Department data. The utility's service area includes part of Central Florida. Shares of FPL fell 5 cents to close at $62.50 on the New York Stock Exchange. Copyright © 2007, Orlando Sentinel ***************************************************************** 42 Russia Newswire: Smolensk NPP Granted Safety Certificate Date: 03/04/2007 MOSCOW (RNWire) – The Labor and Social Development Ministry of the Russian Federation has granted Smolensk NPP a safety certificate. The certificate confirms that the labor protection activities at SNPP meet the state labor protection standards. In 2006 the plant carried out a program of labor condition certification. The plant's director Andrey Petrov says that the whole personnel was involved in the program. Smolensk NPP is the 6th Russian NPP having such a certificate. Rosenergoatom Concern was the first nuclear power company to get a safety certificate. The management of the concern wants all nuclear power companies to get such a certificate. This system helps the state to effectively conduct its social support policies and to ensure legality. Safety certificate is a confirmation that a company is well organized and shows correct attitude to its personnel. The certificate is issued for three years with regular inspections held throughout the period. RSS | Site Map | Privacy Policy | Copyright © 2004-2007 Russia Newswire ***************************************************************** 43 Oregon Daily Emerald: Reopening of nuclear site sparks fear - University of Oregon The possibility of reopening a Washington state nuclear plant to store and ship waste has local activists fired up By: Edward Oser | Freelance/Supplements Editor Issue date: 4/4/07 Section: News The fear that local activists are harboring is that of an overturned tanker truck, sprawled like a corpse across the pavement of Interstate 5. It's the small hours of the morning in Eugene. It's dark. The dull yellow of its dimming headlights plead weakly through the blue night and fog. From the fissures in its metal skin, the truck is hemorrhaging radioactive waste. Their fear is not now reality. But, they said, if the weapons-grade plutonium-producing Hanford Site nuclear plant that has lain dormant for past 20 years in southeastern Washington state is reopened, their fear could come true. But a woman involved with cleanup efforts at Hanford said that's extremely unlikely, and that the activists are simplifying the potential expansion into a black and white issue when it is, in fact, a variety of shades of gray. The U.S. Department of Energy is currently exploring a plan to expand Hanford into a treatment and storage site for high-level nuclear waste, but it's still unclear whether the plan will come to fruition. In any event, the fear of the Emerald City transforming into a Chernobyl-style nuclear wasteland is getting local activists fired-up. Kathy Ging and Matt Laubach of the Lane County Energy Round-up group, which has sponsored two well-attended community discussions on alternative energy this year, are telling a story with good guys, bad guys, and a potentially dire conclusion. The Hanford Site, which was used for decades to produce weapons-grade plutonium and was closed 20 years ago, is the worst contaminated nuclear site in the United States. According to the Hanford Site's Web site, "Physical challenges at the Hanford Site include more than 50 million gallons of high-level liquid waste in 177 underground storage tanks, 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel, 12 tons of plutonium in various forms, about 25 million cubic feet of buried or stored solid waste, and about 270 billion gallons of groundwater contaminated above drinking water standards, spread out over about 80 square miles, more than 1,700 waste sites, and about 500 contaminated facilities." The U.S. Department of Energy is currently considering a plan to re-open the plant for storage and cleaning of high-level nuclear waste. After its treatment there, Laubach said it would be shipped to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository in Nevada, which is slated to begin receiving waste on March 31, 2017. The storage of the waste is dangerous in and of itself, Laubach said, but the danger for Eugeneans is primarily in the shipment. "The question is whether they have to ability to deal with spills," Ging said. Laubach said "high-level radioactive waste" will be shipped along Oregon's railroads highways - including Interstate 5 that bisects Eugene and Springfield - from plants around the country. "It's a target for terrorists," he said. The good guys in this, he said, are the activists - himself included - who traveled on the local Vets for Peace chapter's biodiesel bus to a public meeting on the site last week in Hood River to oppose the development there. The bad guys, he said, were the mayor of Richland, Wash., and city council members from the surrounding communities who support the expansion and the DOE, which is funding the project. Today - Wednesday April 4 - is the last day that citizens can petition the DOE to stop the expansion by sending messages to GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov, Ging said.But Pam Brown Larsen, who is the executive director of the Hanford Communities organization that gathers information on the site's cleanup for the surrounding governments, said the story is not that simple. The DOE still has to jump a great many hurdles before any waste is shipped anywhere, and some of the hurdles are quite tall. As a result of a lawsuit filed by the Yakima Nation native peoples, the DOE agreed Tuesday to begin a multi-million dollar assessment of environmental damages that have resulted from the site. The assessment, the Associated Press reported, is largely viewed as a precursor to a monetary settlement - a victory for the Yakima Nation and a loss for the DOE. This announcement came after it was revealed Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency is leveling a record $1.1 million fine against the DOE for incompetence and failing to clean up the site adequately. Both the DOE and the Hanford Site did not return phone calls Tuesday. Larsen said that the DOE has not made any decision whether to expand the shipment of nuclear waste to or from the Hanford site. The site is attractive for the housing of waste because of its dry climate, she said, but in any event at least two years will pass before any movement could begin. There is currently a "legal block" against the DOE in the form of a scientifically rigorous Environmental Impact Statement, which has yet to be completed. The EIS will include such information as what waste already exists at the site, the capacity of the current structures for holding new waste and whether the site could hold new waste of any kind at all. But even though there are some serious barriers to the expansion of activity there, Larsen said that most of the activists' fears are irrational. She said that waste material "has been going through (the Hanford) community for years," and that there's never been an incident. "They don't ship liquid waste," she said. "I don't think they have anything to fear." At Hanford, a complex chemical process changes liquid waste into glass, which are then put into special containers that make shipment safe. Also, she said that even if more waste started coming into Hanford, little of it would come along Interstate 5. Terrorism is unlikely as well, she said, because the plutonium at the plant is waste plutonium that would be totally ineffective as a weapon. "It's not weapons-grade material," she said, "it's the junk stuff that's left over from making weapons-grade material." Even the plutonium that could pose a potential risk in the wrong hands is guarded in a high security location. She also said that terrorists would be hesitant to attack a truck because it's just too difficult. She also said that there is serious local opposition to expanding operations at the site, especially turning it into a storage site for the nation's nuclear waste. "The city of Richland draws its drinking water from the Columbia River three miles south," she said. The DOE is "gonna have to prove that there's no way" that contamination could spread outward, endangering the local citizens and environment. And the plant isn't even a central part of the local economy anymore, she said, so new jobs aren't a big local concern. What is a concern for Larsen isn't future plans for the site, but rather what's happening there right now. The DOE "has an obligation" to clean up Hanford, she said, and they're falling behind. "We want the Hanford Site cleaned up," she said. "And we want it done." Contact the freelance editor at eoser@dailyemerald.com © 2007 Oregon Daily Emerald ***************************************************************** 44 NewsRoom Finland: Greenpeace activists land at Finnish nuclear site 4.4.2007 at 12:04 About 30 activists launched Zodiac boats from Greenpeace ship MY Arctic Sunrise anchored off Olkiluoto in Finland on Wednesday in a demonstration highlighting safety concerns in the construction of the country's fifth nuclear power station. One of the boats manoeuvred to the Olkiluoto quay, where some of the demonstrators landed. The police arrested seven demonstrators. Rauno Mokka, the vice chief executive of Teollisuuden Voima, the utility that runs the two existing nuclear power stations in Olkiluoto, said the demonstration did not disturb the Olkiluoto 3 construction site or the operation of the other units. Lauri Myllyvirta, a Greenpeace energy campaigner, said former sealing vessel MY Arctic Sunrise would remain in Olkiluoto until at least Thursday. He added no new demonstrations were in the works. /STT/ © Copyright STT 2007 © 1995 – 2005, Virtual Finland Produced by: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland Department for Communication and Culture/Unit for Promotion and Publications ***************************************************************** 45 Hindustan Times: India major player in nuclear world Indian pleads not guilty in missile-technology export case April 04, 2007 US hopes India keeps talking 123 despite missile technology case Indore Last Updated: 03:12 IST(31/1/2007) Despite physicists exploring and attempting to explain the fundamental components of universe, origin of mass and theory of extra dimensions, recent observations have pointed to evidence that we can only account for five per cent of the universe. The remaining 95 per cent is a mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Scientists dealing in particle physics world-over have decided to build a precision machine, the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC), to explore some of the most fundamental questions about the universe. It will be the world’s next largest accelerator after the one being built at CERN in Switzerland. India is an important collaborator for ILC. Dr Shekhar Mishra, the ILC programme deputy director at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (USA), having world’s highest energy proton accelerator, is in Indore to participate in the Asian conference at Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology. He spoke to Padma Shastri on Indo-US collaboration for ILC. Excerpts The race to set up ILC has begun. How long will it take to complete? Three regions – Asia, Europe and the Americas - have been identified to install ILC. Everyone wants this machine, but it will be the international body that decides its exact location. The process is long. We will be going to Beijing next month to deliberate on its reference design. As soon as this is over, it will take another three years to prepare its engineering design. At the same time, we will be working rigorously on research and development. We want it to be economical. By 2009-10, all three regions will develop site design of this machine. Then somebody has to stand up and say that we will have this. It will consist of two linear accelerators that face each other and will throw some 10 billion electrons and their anti-particles, positrons, towards each other at nearly the speed of light. By 2012, we will be in a position to say when will it be commissioned. How will it be different from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN? LHC is a discovery machine while ILC is a precise measure machine. The latter will be an unprecedented technology, but it will complement CERN machine and together they could unlock some of the deepest mysteries in the universe. With LHC discoveries pointing the way, ILC will provide the missing pieces of puzzle. Superconducting accelerator cavities operating at temperatures near absolute zero give the particles more and more energy until they smash in a blazing crossfire at the centre of the machine. Stretching approximately 35 kilometres in length, the beams collide 14,000 times every second at extremely high energies -500 billion-electron-volts. Each spectacular collision creates an array of new particles that could answer some of the most fundamental questions of all time.  How important is India for ILC collaboration? It’s a major player in collaboration on research and development for accelerator physics, high-energy physics, neutron physics, and high intensity proton machines. ILC comes under this collaboration. We have agreement to collaborate at laboratory level. We are holding umbrella discussions with Indian scientists and are open to new ideas. We feel Indian laboratories have the required expertise and one of the largest and most talented manpower in the world. My (Fermi Lab) director Pierrmaria Oddone, ILC director Barry Barish and other US lab directors visited India recently. I come here every third month. If all the big names are coming to India, then why not high energy physics? In return, the collaboration will help Indian scientists to hone their skill and develop its infrastructure. What is your impression about India’s nuclear capability? It’s impressive. It is setting up one nuclear reactor in five years, that too in a very cost-effective way. No other country is doing it that way. But you are building it one after another. The Indian policy in last 20 years has been very aggressive and that has made India world’s major player apart from China. ***************************************************************** 46 AFP: EU, US, Russia agree on closer cooperation against terrorism - Wed Apr 4, 2:41 PM BERLIN (AFP) - The European Union, United States and Russia on Wednesday agreed on ways in which they can cooperate more closely to combat terrorism, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. "We have agreed on a range of concrete measures," Schaeuble said after meeting with his Russian and US counterparts in Berlin. Their plans include combating "the recruitment of younger generations" by terrorist groups, fighting opium production in Afghanistan and making Interpol more efficient in tracking people who use false identities. An advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Victor Ivanov, said a Russian proposal was adopted to set up a working committee to fine-tune cooperation with the EU and the United States. "We have agreed to produce a roadmap," he told reporters. US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his country's concerns had also become those of Russia and the EU in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. "We are bound by the common agenda of protecting our people from terrorism and we plan on strengthening the bonds forged by difficult times." The "worst nightmare" the countries could imagine was a nuclear attack by terrorists, said Chertoff. They had discussed ways of ensuring that radicals did not obtain the material to make so-called dirty bombs. "We need to find a global solution to the illegal trade in nuclear materials. We need to improve our networks because the terrorists are improving theirs," he said. The officials said they agreed that the opium trade in Afghanistan was financing international terrorism and that more needed to be done to root it out. "We need to help farmers to find an alternative way of producing crops and we need to do more to fight drug smuggling," Schaeuble said. Afghanistan is expected to produce a record crop of opium poppies in 2007. EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said opium production was increasing rapidly in the south, where the Taliban is waging its strongest insurgency since it was ousted in 2001. "We therefore have to continue with the stabilisation of the country and with efforts to establish the rule of law on the ground and reform the justice system," he said. The meeting was followed by the start of a two-day meeting of interior and justice ministers from the United States, Germany and Portugal -- the current and future EU presidents -- also attended by Frattini. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 SF Chron: U.S. Seeks to Ease Irradiated Food Label By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer Tuesday, April 3, 2007 (04-03) 15:11 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government proposed Tuesday relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called "pasteurized." The Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Examples includes changes to the taste, texture, smell or shelf life of a food, which would be flagged in the new labeling. The technique kills bacteria but does not cause food to become radioactive. Recent outbreaks of foodborne illness have revived interest in irradiation, even though it is not suitable for all food products. For example, irradiating diced Roma tomatoes makes them mushy, the FDA says. The FDA also proposed letting companies use the term "pasteurized" to describe irradiated foods. To do so, they would have to show the FDA that the radiation kills germs as well as the pasteurization process does. Pasteurization typically involves heating a product to a high temperature and then cooling it rapidly. In addition, the proposal would let companies petition the agency to use additional alternate terms other than "irradiated," something already allowed by the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 but that no firms have pursued, according to the FDA. The FDA posted the proposed revisions to its rules on irradiated foods on its Web site Tuesday, a day before they were to be published in the Federal Register. The FDA is publishing the proposal as required by the 2002 law. FDA will accept public comments on the proposal for 90 days. A consumer group immediately urged the FDA to drop the idea. "This move by FDA would deny consumers clear information about whether they are buying food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation," Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, said in a statement. The FDA acknowledges in the proposed rule that allowing alternative ways of describing irradiation could confuse consumers: "Research indicates that many consumers regard substitute terms for irradiation to be misleading," the proposal reads in part. But the requirement that the new labeling explain why a product was irradiated should clear up some consumer confusion, said Barbara Schneeman, director of the FDA's office of nutrition, labeling and dietary supplements. "You would be told the material fact: what is it about this product that is different from some other product," Schneeman said. If a food were irradiated but left unchanged and indistinguishable from an identical but unradiated product, it wouldn't have to be labeled, she added. A 1984 FDA proposal to allow irradiated foods to go label-free garnered the agency more than 5,000 comments. Two years later, it reversed course and published a final rule that requires the small number of FDA-regulated foods now treated with radiation to bear identifying labels, including the radiation symbol. "We have long argued that the use of the term irradiation or radiation has such a negative impact on the consumer that it basically acts as a warning label," said Jeff Barach, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Association, an industry group. "Fixing this problem will help in food industry efforts to provide consumers with safe and wholesome foods with reduced risk of foodborne pathogens." Foods still require FDA approval before they can be irradiated. Examples currently radiated include a small number of fruits, vegetables, spices and eggs. The proposed rule would apply only to foods regulated by the FDA. However, if and when the rule is finalized, the Department of Agriculture could undergo a similar process to change the irradiation labeling requirements for the foods it regulates, including meat and poultry, said Amanda Eamich, a spokeswoman for USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. On the Net: Food and Drug Administration proposed rule on irradiated foods: preview.tinyurl.com/2h78g2 Associated Press Sections ***************************************************************** 48 Vermont Guardian: State cuts Brattleboro emergency planning funds, locals cry foul By Christian Avard | Vermont Guardian Posted April 4, 2007 BRATTLEBORO — Brattleboro officials were told by state officials that nearly half of the money they requested to fund evacuation plans in the event of an emergency at Vermont Yankee would not be granted. Vermont Emergency Management (VEM) officials broke the unwelcome news at last night’s Selectboard meeting during a budget presentation to the town and faced a barrage of criticism. Brattleboro requested $71,000 for emergency evacuation drills and of that amount VEM will only fund $43,557, said Barbara Farr, VEM’s director. Most of that money would go toward portable evacuation signs, pagers, ground positioning system units, and other related items. “One of the big issues not just here in Vermont but across the nation is inter-operability of communications. So we want to make sure that [all lines of communications are clear] between emergency responders,” Farr told the board. One of the major items Brattleboro requested was a $40,000 emergency vehicle for notification purposes. That was not funded because Farr felt it was not a cost-effective measure. “Since there are 14 escape routes [it wouldn’t make much of a difference] and on top of that, it would be a very large expenditure,” said Farr. But the real bombshell came when the Selectboard learned that $10,000 requested for training and exercises was rolled into a $29,000 fund specifically for an evacuation drill in the entire emergency planning zone (EPZ). The EPZ is the 10-mile radius surrounding Vermont Yankee (VY) nuclear power plant and includes the towns of Brattleboro, Marlboro, Dummerston, Guilford, Halifax, and Vernon. Although New Hampshire and Massachusetts towns are included, the VEM funds, which are collected from VY’s owner Entergy, solely apply to Vermont. Some members of the Brattleboro Selectboard were miffed about this decision. Board member Dick DeGray thought the money was allocated to Brattleboro for a specific purpose. “My impression was that it was for day care and school drills,” said DeGray. John Angill, program manager for Vermont’s Radiological Emergency Response Plan Program assured DeGray the state was working on a plan that will be in place before the next drill. Angill did not say when that drill would occur. Board Chairwoman Audrey Garfield was concerned with the decision-making process as to how and why Brattleboro’s needs were sacrificed. When Garfield questioned Farr as to who made the final decision Farr said, “I did.” As to whether VEM could realistically run a region-wide drill on $29,000, Farr believed it could. Citizens within the EPZ begged to differ. One of the concerns raised was whether or not the needs of people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing are being met. Angill said the Austine School for the Deaf should have radios, vibrating devices, and strobe lights to indicate an emergency. But according to George Reed-Savory who works at the school, these measures remain inadequate. “The radios at the school are not high quality. Some work and some don’t. And on top of that, if your back is against to a strobe light, you miss it. Each room needs to be equipped with strobe light,” said Reed-Savory. Farr assured Reed-Savory that VEM has been working on the TTY system, a telecommunications system for the deaf and is currently training people to use this system. Another citizen argued that other communities are not been served by the current evacuation plan. “I work with impoverished, disabled elderly people in Brattleboro and I don’t think they are well represented in this plan,” said Leo Schiff of Brattleboro. “This is our Katrina and we already know who is going to be left behind in advance.” Farr said the evacuation would work for everyone, but when pressed to say if an evacuation were to take place tomorrow was she confident that it would work, both Farr and Angill said it could. “There is always room for improvement, but I’m confident in the current plan,” said Angill. “It also comes down to personal preparedness and each one of us is responsible for our families and business, and to be able to take care of ourselves.” Garfield assured that discussion will continue with regards to the emergency response plan funding and that the new selectboard will make this one of the major goals for the upcoming year. But for Ed Anthes of Nuclear Free Vermont, he hopes the needs will be adequately addressed because voters within the evacuation zone spoke clearly on Town Meeting Day in 2006. “Brattleboro, Marlboro, Halifax, Guilford, Dummerston, and Putney all adopted a resolution calling for legislative action to address significant gaps in the current plan to be used in a nuclear emergency. We need new ways to notify people, transportation tests, and new standards that will cover everyone in the emergency zone. These votes show that people in the evacuation zone do not believe the present plans are adequate and want improvements now,” said Anthes. Thursday, Apr. 05, 2007 Northern Vermont: PO Box 335, Winooski, VT 05404 Southern Vermont: 139 Main Street, Suite 603, Brattleboro, VT 05301 Contact: 802.861.4880 (ph) | 802.861.6388 (fax) | 877.231.5382 (toll-free) ©2007 Vermont Guardian | Visit us: www.vermontguardian.com This document can be located online: www.vermontguardian.com/local/042007/EvacPlans.shtml ***************************************************************** 49 [NYTr] Groups Challenge New Mexico Uranium Enrichment Plant's Date: Wed, 4 Apr 2007 17:29:28 -0400 (EDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Public Citizen http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2410. April 3, 2007 Public Interest Groups File Brief To Challenge License for Proposed New Mexico Uranium Enrichment Plant Louisiana Energy Services? Plant Would Violate Law and NRC Safety Regulations WASHINGTON, D.C. ? The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Public Citizen today filed a brief in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals challenging the legality of the license for Louisiana Energy Services? (LES) proposed uranium enrichment plant near Eunice, N.M. ?Our brief shows that the license violates the law because the NRC issued an environmental impact statement and then decided it was incomplete and had to supplement it after the public hearing,? said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen?s Energy Program. ?Congress intended for the public to have the environmental impact statement for consideration at the time of the hearing.? LES?s license ? approved on June 23, 2006 ? was the first to be issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a full-scale, uranium enrichment plant. NIRS and Public Citizen filed a lawsuit against the NRC challenging the license in August 2006. ?The license also violates NRC?s regulations because it determined that the waste could be disposed in shallow-land burial, even though the regulations do not allow it and radiation doses to the public would far exceed regulatory limits,? said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS. The brief details many other problems with the environmental impact statement ? for instance, no adequate waste disposal exists for the 133,000 metric tons of depleted uranium waste that would be produced. LES is a consortium of U.S. and European energy companies led by Urenco ? a grouping of British, Dutch and German government and corporate entities ? and includes industry giants such as Exelon Corp., Entergy Corp., Duke Energy and Westinghouse Electric Co. Each of these companies has an interest in greater ownership of the nuclear fuel chain and collectively formed LES for the purpose of developing a new domestic uranium enrichment facility. The NRC will file its brief on May 2, and LES will file its brief on May 17. NIRS and Public Citizen will file a reply brief on May 31. Lindsay Lovejoy serves as the attorney for NIRS and Public Citizen. To read the NIRS and Public Citizen brief, see: http://www.citizen.org/documents/LESBrief.pdf * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 50 Deutsche Welle: German Court Allows Atomic Waste Site | Germany | 04.04.2007 The Konrad mine site will store radioactive waste After years of legal wrangling, a court ruled atomic waste can be stored at a former mine site in Lower Saxony. Nuclear energy remains controversial and Germany lacks a plan for storing its high-level radioactive waste. The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled Tuesday that a plan to store atomic waste in an abandoned iron ore mine could go ahead. Work will begin as soon as possible, although it will likely take a number of years before atomic waste is transferred to the site. Heinrich Sander, Lower Saxony's environment minister and a member of the free-market liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) welcomed Tuesday's ruling, which comes after decades of legal challenges. "There's finally legal certainty and clarity," he said. Germany's federal government signalled it plans to go ahead with the storage project. "There's no other alternative than to implement the decision," said Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Phasing out nuclear power Bildunterschrift: Germany plans to close its nuclear power plants The underground site will hold up to 303,000 cubic meters of atomic waste. Communities and farmers near the site fought for years to stop the project, questioning the long-term safety of the storage facility and fearful of a possible terrorist attack. The court dismissed those claims. At present, Germany plans to phase out its use of nuclear power. The previous coalition of Socialist Democrats (SPD) and the Green party under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder agreed to shut down all power plants by 2020. But current Chancellor Angela Merkel of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has questioned the phase-out plans. She recently challenged opponents of nuclear energy in Germany to come up with realistic solutions to the country's energy needs while paying heed to environmental issues. "I'm saying that those who want both the nuclear phase-out and climate protection are now, naturally, called upon to provide answers," Merkel said in an interview with German radio in January. Current storage problems Yet regardless of the future of nuclear energy, Germany still has to find solutions for storing the high-level radioactive waste which already exists. Bildunterschrift: There are regular protests at the Gorleben nuclear storage facility in Germany In 2005, an atomic waste storage facility near the city of Hanau was closed. Since then, most toxic waste continues to be sent to a "temporary" storage facility in the eastern German town of Gorleben. It will take five to six years after the decision for atomic waste to be transferred to the storage area, according to an article in the daily Braunschweiger Zeitung on Wednesday. The ruling did not change the debate over using Gorleben as a storage place for highly radioactive atomic waste. The Gorleben site has not been proven to be safe in the long term, according to the newspaper. The German Atomic Council welcomed the ruling and asked the government to comply with its responsibility to prepare the storage place. DW staff / dpa (th) * Merkel Asks for Realistic Alternatives to Nuclear Energy German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked the opponents of nuclear energy in Germany to come up with realistic solutions to the country's energy needs while paying heed to environmental issues. (15.01.2007) * Nuclear Power in Germany: A Chronology Half a century has passed since Germany began exploring nuclear energy. DW-WORLD.DE takes a look at the history of atomic power and protests against its use in the country. (10.01.2007) * Green Light for German Atomic Waste Facility A German court gave the go-ahead for the construction of a storage facility for low- and medium-level radioactive nuclear waste, putting an end to a two-decade-long campaign to block the project. (08.03.2006) 1. © 2007 Deutsche Welle ***************************************************************** 51 Sydney Morning Herald: Harold to spearhead NT uranium hunt - www.smh.com.au April 4, 2007 - 6:39PM The boss of nickel miner Sally Malay Mining Ltd, Peter Harold, is spearheading a move to explore for uranium in the Northern Territory. Mr Harold has taken up a position as chairman of junior explorer Territory Uranium, which is looking to raise $4 million through a public issue of shares and list on the Australian stock exchange. Territory Uranium's key yellowcake projects are Alligator River, Rum Jungle and Pine Creek, which are located in known uranium mineral regions. The new entity is looking to list this month. © 2007 AAP Brought to you by Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 52 ABQjournal: Spent Fuel Rods Are Not Waste Wednesday, April 4, 2007 By Donald J. Dudziak Nuclear Engineer If the Bush Administration and Congress want to focus energy policies more sensibly, New Mexico is the place to begin. Thirty years ago, President Jimmy Carter put a halt to the recycling of spent fuel from nuclear power plants, on grounds that plutonium removed during the process might get into the hands of irresponsible governments or terrorists and lead to production of a nuclear weapon. Although President Reagan lifted the ban on recycling and other countries like France and Great Britain never stopped using the process, it was not resurrected in this country because recycling was considered too costly. Now that could change, given the growing importance of nuclear power in the battle against global climate change. In the United States, 17 utilities are preparing to build as many as 33 nuclear power plants. And here in New Mexico, a new uranium enrichment facility is under construction, and one or more nuclear power plants might be built. Worldwide, the number of nuclear plants is expected to double, with at least 1,000 operating by mid-century, but the likelihood exists there might not be enough uranium. If the spent reactor fuel now stored at nuclear power plants in the U.S.? some 50,000 tons? were recycled instead of disposed of as nuclear "waste," it could be converted into new reactor fuel and used again to provide clean electricity. This would help conserve the world's uranium resources. Another benefit from recycling is that it significantly reduces the volume, heat and toxicity of nuclear "waste," in effect more than doubling the capacity of the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. It means that Congress would not have to decide on a second or a third site for additional repositories after the first one is built. Equally important, the new recycling technology would never isolate the plutonium, thus greatly reducing weapon proliferation concerns. The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to spend $250 million to demonstrate and deploy technologies for recycling, along with advanced reactors that can burn the recycled spent fuel. DOE's goal is to stimulate the use of nuclear power around the world, by assuring an ample supply of nuclear fuel, while limiting the risk of weapons proliferation. Known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), the DOE plan is to build and operate three facilities in the United States: one for recycling spent fuel and fabricating a mixed-oxide fuel for use in nuclear power plants to produce more electricity. Another facility would be an advanced "fast" reactor that would destroy long-lived radioactive elements while producing power. And a research facility would be used to develop new recycling processes and other advanced nuclear technologies. So far, 11 sites around the country? including Hobbs and Roswell in New Mexico? have received DOE grants to conduct studies in order to determine whether they'd be suitable as locations for either the nuclear recycling center or the advanced reactor. Over the long term, the facilities are expected to require a capital investment of at least $16 billion, and bring in 8,000 jobs. The cost of developing new recycling technology would be stretched out over many years, so it will require an assurance of long-term, predictable funding for research, development and demonstration, involving universities and national laboratories. No question about it, the idea of recycling is ambitious. It will entail perfecting a new technology for recycling, one that reduces the risk of weapons proliferation and is affordable. Also, a new generation of advanced nuclear reactors will need to be built. As we've learned well over the past 30 years, the absence of recycling and the unnecessary delays in opening the Yucca Mountain repository have placed nuclear power plants in the position of storing more spent fuel than expected, for longer than originally intended. In reality, this spent fuel is not waste, but rather a valuable energy resource for the future. We need to move forward with GNEP now. Otherwise, we could seriously limit the ability of nuclear power to provide the essentially emission-free energy that the world urgently needs. Donald J. Dudziak is a fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory and professor emeritus of nuclear engineering at North Carolina State University. Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 53 RGJ.com: Trains open to attack, activists contend April 4, 2007 RAY HAGAR RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL Supporters of a bill designed to increase railroad security in Nevada painted a disastrous scenario of what terrorists could do to Reno, Sparks and Las Vegas on Tuesday at the Legislature. Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, the son of a former railroader, said he shuddered to think what could happen if a chemical explosion occurred in the rail yards in Sparks, about 100 yards away from John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino Resort. "It is just a target waiting to happen," said Anderson, who grew up near the Sparks rail yards. "If this happened in my community, we would lose a sizable part of the downtown area, three or four of the major economic centers." Assembly Bill 340, sponsored by Anderson, would force railroad operators to inform state agencies of dangerous chemicals and compounds that move through the state and require railroad yards and other installations to develop and submit security plans to state agencies. The bill also would require background checks for railroad employees and subcontractors and demand that remote locomotive devices be secured when not in use. The bill was heard for the first time at the Legislature just days after a report published in the Reno Gazette-Journal told of U.S Department of Energy plans to transport up to 4,500 casks of high-level nuclear waste through downtown Reno and Sparks every week for the next 24 years. The plan is part of the DOE strategy to build a rail line to the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste repository just north of Las Vegas, Nevada officials said. The Union Pacific Railroad, the only major railroad with yards in Nevada, often stores and transports dangerous substances such as chlorine and propane gas in the state, bill supporters told the Assembly Transportation Committee. With the current state of shoddy security, terrorists could easily sneak into a railroad yard in Sparks or Las Vegas and cause tankers, storage units -- or both -- to explode, they said. If enough tankers exploded, the blast could rival that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb that helped end World War II, said Joe Carter of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. An explosion of one tanker of chlorine gas could lead to horrific results, Carter said. "Given the level of security today in the state of Nevada, it would be child's play to explode one of these (chlorine) tank cars, which is approximately 15,000 gallons," Carter said. "And, depending on the population density and weather conditions, thousands could die before evacuation could be accomplished." The state rail system is easy prey for terrorists, Carter said. Carter and Anderson's concerns about railroad safety are overplayed, said Scott Hinckley, general director of safety and security for Union Pacific Railroad. "Union Pacific takes security very seriously," Hinckley said. "I've been sitting here and listening to this -- and consider that I spend almost all of my time in security, and others don't -- and there are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings of what is taking place." The bill singles out Union Pacific for terrorism breakdowns but does not address issues with other methods of transportation, Hinckley said. "Our disagreement with the bill deals with the fact that people are not aware," Hinckley said. "What we think we need to do is draft the ability of handling terrorist issues by gathering all the people to the table and not just the railroads." Union Pacific also sponsors training programs, which many Nevada firefighters have attended, to help them train for chemical explosions, Hinckley said. Some members of the committee were not comforted by Hinckley's assessment. "It is one of those situations that, when you start peeling back the onion, you get more and more uncomfortable as you go," Assemblyman David Bobzien, D-Reno, said. "I'm not convinced that enough is happening on this very important security issue." "You come down to the Legislature thinking that you know of all the big issues, and then somebody drops this in your lap and you say, 'Man, this is big problem'." The committee will review the bill at a future meeting, he said. Nuclear Train safety hype article Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:32 pm You people are worried about trains...have you seen what travels by truck daily through our cities? Trains are the least of our worries! This article reports that there are plans to haul as many as 4,500 casks of nuclear waste through downtown Reno and Sparks every week for the next 24 years (if the Yucca Mountain waste dump is built). That works out to more than 642 casks a day or more than six 100-car unit trains a day of nuke waste. Since casks are normally moved one a time in special train service that's 642 trains a day...Not likely. Not to mention that not all shipments will originate on the west coast and come through Reno/Sparks. No offense to the writer of the article, but it reads to me like someone watched the NBC movie Atomic Train and took it seriously. Reader Comment Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:56 am Oklahoma City was not a foriegn terroist - we have the same type of people who are born and raised in this country. If you look back at the terrorist attacks in America there have been more committed by native born Americans than by immigrants, legal or illegal. That said, none of them besides Oklahoma City and the Atlanta Olympics have been as high profile as those committed by foriegners. And of course none have been nearly as devestating as those committed on 9/11 by Saudi Arabian nationals, the majority of which were in the US legally. Reader Comment Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:58 am There is no way to be 100% safe. Besides the tens of thousands of miles of train tracks that could be attacked, you also have high tension power lines, aquaducts, oil and gas pipelines, and who knows what else? Once they get into the country, they can hit anywhere and you can not defend everything. Best bet is to stop them from getting into the country. Hum, think they come here legally? Perhaps we need better border security. Reader Comment Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:15 am Why don't they just give a map and directions on how to accomplish this----put some more ideas out there for any jackass that hasn't thought of new ways to kill us off. Do you know what is parked at the yard in Sparks Wed Apr 04, 2007 7:45 am Any day of the week you can drive by the rail yard across from the Nugget and see all types of vessles sitting in the yard. Do you know what is in them??????? Are you sure there isn't nuclear waste there already????? After all the Energy Department is already shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mtn. to the temporary strage area. Have you ever noticed any type of security on the rail yard??????? Several times I have driven right into the yard and never been questioned by anyone. So what is the harm is asking the railroad to inform the state what is being transported through the state??????? Currrently truck drivers are required to do so by manefest and by placarding of the materials they are hauling --- so the railroad is full of sh_ _ when they say they are being singled out. But then I have never seen a truck with a nuclear waste hazard sybmbol on it and someone is hauling material to Yucca Mtn. I think they all should have to register and pay a hazard fee to the state regardless if they are hauling by rail, by truck or by air plane. That money would either go a long way to help our road system, or keep the hazardous material out of the state. © Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal, a Gannett Co. Inc. Newspaper. ***************************************************************** 54 Public Citizen: Public Interest Groups File Brief To Challenge License for Proposed New Mexico Uranium Enrichment Plant April 3, 2007 Louisiana Energy Services’ Plant Would Violate Law and NRC Safety Regulations WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Public Citizen today filed a brief in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals challenging the legality of the license for Louisiana Energy Services’ (LES) proposed uranium enrichment plant near Eunice, N.M. “Our brief shows that the license violates the law because the NRC issued an environmental impact statement and then decided it was incomplete and had to supplement it after the public hearing,” said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “Congress intended for the public to have the environmental impact statement for consideration at the time of the hearing.” LES’s license – approved on June 23, 2006 – was the first to be issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) for a full-scale, uranium enrichment plant. NIRS and Public Citizen filed a lawsuit against the NRC challenging the license in August 2006. “The license also violates NRC’s regulations because it determined that the waste could be disposed in shallow-land burial, even though the regulations do not allow it and radiation doses to the public would far exceed regulatory limits,” said Michael Mariotte, executive director of NIRS. The brief details many other problems with the environmental impact statement – for instance, no adequate waste disposal exists for the 133,000 metric tons of depleted uranium waste that would be produced.  LES is a consortium of U.S. and European energy companies led by Urenco – a grouping of British, Dutch and German government and corporate entities – and includes industry giants such as Exelon Corp., Entergy Corp., Duke Energy and Westinghouse Electric Co. Each of these companies has an interest in greater ownership of the nuclear fuel chain and collectively formed LES for the purpose of developing a new domestic uranium enrichment facility. The NRC will file its brief on May 2, and LES will file its brief on May 17. NIRS and Public Citizen will file a reply brief on May 31. Lindsay Lovejoy serves as the attorney for NIRS and Public Citizen. To read the NIRS and Public Citizen brief, click here. ***************************************************************** 55 Pahrump Valley Times: March for peace results in citations Apr. 04, 2007 By MARK WAITE PVT MERCURY -- Johnnie resident Ken Grubb was part of a group of 39 protesters who received $350 citations for trespassing during a protest at the entrance to the Nevada Test Site Sunday. But Grubb, who is part Delaware Indian, said he did have a chance to chat with actor Martin Sheen during a brief internment in an outdoor bullpen. The protest came at the end of a peace march from Las Vegas by about 74 activists. At the conclusion protesters listened to antiwar speeches and were entertained by folk music. Grubb said he was informed later by Johnny Bobb, a Western Shoshone Indian from Austin, that he could have paid $6 for a permit from the tribe to cross the line marking the entrance to the test site, beyond which people were arrested for trespassing. Sheen was the most famous protester. The actor who spent seven seasons playing President Josiah Bartlet on the TV drama series "The West Wing." He has received similar citations in the past, protesting at the test site. Retired Army Col. Ann Wright, who resigned her position as senior diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia in 2003 to protest the Iraq war, was also arrested. Carrie Dann, a prominent Western Shoshone nation leader from Crescent Valley, was among those cited along with the Rev. Louis Vitale, a Roman Catholic priest from the San Francisco Bay area. "We are asking for nuclear disarmament and peace," organizer Ming Lai told the Associated Press. "We are asking for the Nevada Test Site to stop doing the testing they're doing. The only reason they're doing it is to make bombs." Sheriff Tony DeMeo said his deputies have to ensure the security of the Nevada Test Site and be sure the protests are peaceful. They are accustomed to dealing with periodic protests, in which protesters accused of trespassing are temporarily detained in the outdoor bullpen near the NTS entrance instead of being taken to the Beatty jail. Trespassers are checked for any outstanding violations while in custody. "They're very respectful. We treat them nice. They're respectful to us and we have that relationship. We understand the routine and they don't give us any problems," DeMeo said. "This is the way protests should be, because there's no bad feelings when they leave. Protesters get to state their point, the reason they're there, they get to make the trespass to get their point across. We guide them over to the detention area to issue them a citation." DeMeo said he personally hasn't seen anyone show a permit from the Western Shoshone nation to enter the test site. Those people would still be subject to the fine, he said. The test site was the location of over 900 nuclear detonations from 1951 to 1992. Sub-critical experiments are still being conducted of nuclear weapons on the sprawling range 40 miles northeast of Pahrump. webmaster@pahrumpvalleytimes.com Copyright © Pahrump Valley Times, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 56 KnoxNews: Official: Leaks of uranium solution at Y-12 avoidable By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com April 4, 2007 OAK RIDGE - Two spills of enriched uranium solution at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant could have and should have been avoided, a federal spokesman acknowledged Tuesday. "The spills would not have occurred had the system been properly maintained and aligned," said Steven Wyatt of the National Nuclear Security Administration. The uranium solution leaked from storage tanks that feed the secondary-extraction process and other "wet chemistry" operations at _Y-12's main production facility. More than 2 gallons of the material was found on the floor Feb. 6 during an evening walk-down of the area. A second spill a week later involved about 8 ounces of the radioactive solution. Wyatt was responding to questions posed earlier to Kevin Smith, the deputy federal manager at Y-12, who deferred comment at the time. The spills forced the shutdown of the secondary-extraction process, one of several operations used to recycle highly enriched uranium for weapons purposes. The spills also were cited by A.J. Eggenberger, the chairman of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, in a March 13 letter that questioned the safety of Y-12's uranium operations. According to reports by the safety board, the storage tanks were known to leak when liquid levels reached the upper section where flange gaskets are located. The work rules called for tank levels to be kept below those flanges as a precaution, and part of the investigation was to determine what caused the levels to rise unexpectedly. Bill Wilburn, a spokesman for BWXT, the contractor that manages Y-12, said the secondary-extraction process remains "on administrative hold" and will not resume until the problems have been resolved. The liquid levels in the storage tanks were reduced significantly following the second spill in February. Wilburn said the tank levels are being monitored every two hours to evaluate any changes. The contractor also is looking at ways to repair the leaking flanges, he said. "We are closely monitoring these corrective actions and all activities associated with wet chemistry operations," Wyatt said. Meanwhile, Wilburn said most operations have returned to normal at Y-12's Building 9204-2E, where a uranium chip fire occurred March 15. The fire occurred when workers were transferring some uranium chips from one container to another. The uranium shavings ignited when exposed to air. About 150 people were evacuated from the building for the remainder of that workday. "The area where the fire occurred has been cleaned up and is available for operations," the BWXT spokesman said. "However, we are holding off on some chip-handling operations while we look at some new procedures and training." Y-12 is a major part of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. The plant has produced components for every bomb in the nation's nuclear arsenal, specializing in so-called secondaries - the second stage of thermonuclear weapons. The Oak Ridge facility also houses the nation's stockpile of weapons-usable uranium. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 57 KnoxNews: Who'll be good enough to head top research lab? By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com April 4, 2007 The big news last week was the announcement that Jeff Wadsworth is leaving Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The big buzz now is about his successor. A committee from the UT-Battelle board of directors will conduct a national and international search for the new ORNL director. That's expected to take two or three months. The succession plans on file at Battelle headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, will presumably provide a big jumpstart for the decision-makers. Battelle, which manages or co-manages six national laboratories, including ORNL, is reputed to be keenly adept at planning for its key executive positions. Bill Madia, Battelle's executive vice president for laboratory operations and a former director of ORNL, said there's a formal process with much attention to detail. It was Madia's announced retirement at the end of the year that set off the latest chain of events. Wadsworth will succeed Madia at Battelle headquarters, just as he succeeded him four years earlier when Madia left the Oak Ridge helm. Battelle always has a file of choice candidates on hand, some of whom are ready now and others who might be ready a year or two from now, Madia said. Wadsworth was as the leading candidate in the succession plan to replace him as executive vice president, Madia said. In fact, Wadsworth was in Battelle's succession portfolio years earlier when he was still working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, Madia said. There are files on prized individuals, even those who don't currently work for Battelle. That is why the intelligence information is closely guarded. It would be scandalous if word circulated on the people Battelle - or any other corporation, for that matter - coveted as executives in waiting. Naturally, Madia and Wadsworth didn't drop hints about who may be the next leader at ORNL - only that there would be both internal and external candidates. In the past few days, I talked to a number of people who work at ORNL or who closely observe the lab operations. There's a lot of speculation about who may surface as front-runners for the Oak Ridge job. I was surprised by how many people are seen as viable possibilities. Some of them currently manage labs elsewhere or have held prominent positions in the past. Some of them I'd never heard of before. Of course, I didn't know Jeff Wadsworth's name before he was announced as lab director, and I misspelled Bill Madia's name the first time I heard his. Suffice it to say, I'm not much of a talent scout in the scientific world. If ORNL is, as some have boasted, the nation's or even the world's best research lab, then there should be few limits on who might be attainable to direct the laboratory. As for internal candidates, I consistently heard three names from the ORNL management team: Jim Roberto, the deputy lab director for science and technology; Thomas Zacharia, the associate lab director for scientific computing; and Thom Mason, the associate lab director for neutron science. Each of those three has shining credentials. Roberto is a highly regarded physicist whose management stock has grown under UT-Battelle, and he now serves as the lab's research chief. Zacharia is a rock star in the world of scientific computing, and his dynamic leadership has helped make ORNL a winning place. Mason took the reins to the Spallation Neutron Source before he turned 40 and directed the $1.4 billion project almost flawlessly through the end of construction and start of research operations. Some members of the Oak Ridge staff are pushing for one of their own to be the new director. They're concerned that Battelle is creating laboratory clones. Given recent successes, however, it's hard to argue with the model. It should be an interesting couple of months. The rumors start now. Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at munger@knews.com. This column is also available in the opinion section of knoxnews.com. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 58 KnoxNews: Rulings could affect TVA plants Supreme Court decides against Duke Energy, EPA in 2 Clean Air Act cases By ANDREW EDER, edera@knews.com April 4, 2007 A pair of Supreme Court decisions could bring about a change in the legal and regulatory environment TVA faces involving coal-fired power plants that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In one decision Monday, the court ruled 9-0 against Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy Corp. in a case involving the Clean Air Act's New Source Review program, which requires utilities to install up-to-date pollution controls when making significant changes to power plants. Duke had argued that it didn't need permits under the program for power plant upgrades because hourly emission rates at the plant didn't increase. The court disagreed, finding that Duke should have examined total annual emissions to determine whether the permits were required. TVA has New Source Review cases pending regarding Bull Run Fossil Plant near Oak Ridge and Colbert Fossil Plant in Tuscumbia, Ala. "It helps enormously," said Bruce Nilles of the Sierra Club, a plaintiff in each case. "This whole dispute that ended up in front of the Supreme Court was one of the primary defenses the utility industry was trying to use to avoid judgment day." TVA spokesman John Moulton said the decision has no immediate impact on the Colbert case, which was dismissed by a district court in Alabama before being revived on appeal. Moulton said the Duke decision also "does not resolve all the issues" in the Bull Run case, which was recently sent back to district court in Knoxville after an appeals court found the statute of limitations had not run out on the alleged violations. Moulton said the utility's legal team was still reviewing the decision. "We are disappointed in the outcome," he said. "It will take a while to determine the full implications of the decision and what it may mean for other NSR cases as well as utilities' maintenance practices." In the other decision, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act, and the Environmental Protection Agency must reconsider its refusal to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks. Although the case dealt with automobile emissions, the decision could have widespread ramifications. "There are going to be ripple effects across the Clean Air Act and across the regulatory landscape," said Vickie Patton, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Environmental Defense, a plaintiff in the case. A pending lawsuit in the Federal Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., challenged recent EPA standards for new coal-fired power plants, in which EPA declined to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. That case was stayed until the Supreme Court issued its decision in the automobile emissions case. Now that the court has decided greenhouse gases should be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it's likely the court will order EPA to reconsider the rules, Patton said. There's also the possibility that the new Democratic Congress will take action to establish federal limits on emissions of greenhouse gas, which many scientists believe are causing global warming. "It is the beginning development of a regulatory scheme that impacts everyone that burns fossil fuels," Nilles said. "Carbon dioxide can no longer be considered free, and you can't dump large amounts of it into the air without consequence." Moulton said the decision had no immediate impact on TVA but could affect future EPA actions and other litigation. TVA operates 11 coal-fired power plants, including three in East Tennessee. The federal utility is installing scrubbers, which reduce acid rain and haze-causing sulfur dioxide emissions, at each of the three East Tennessee plants. TVA says it has spent $4.6 billion to reduce emissions at its power plants as of September 2006, and it expects to spend an additional $1.2 billion by 2010. TVA is looking to nuclear power, which emits no carbon dioxide, and natural gas, which burns cleaner than coal, for future power needs. Moulton said TVA has "voluntarily reduced, avoided or sequestered" 305 million tons of carbon dioxide. "We're closely watching developments in this area," he said, "and the pressure to reduce emissions is one of the reasons we're looking at nuclear as we plan to expand our capacity." Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 59 KnoxNews: Report: World already being changed by warming By MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT April 3, 2007 Global warming could hit the entire world like a tsunami, wiping out thousands of species unable to adapt to a hotter climate and making billions of people vulnerable to water shortages and the inundation of coastal cities, says a draft summary of a UN sponsored report on climate change scheduled for release on Friday. The summary also says there is a 90 percent likelihood that global warming is already beginning to change the world's rich biological heritage of fauna and flora, typified by such recently observed phenomena as the northward march of many animal and plant species. It says these types of changes are occurring almost everywhere scientists care to look, and are being caused by human activity. "Many natural systems, on all continents and in some oceans, are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increase," the draft concluded. It also forecasts a massive upheaval in the world's ecosystems, with as much as half the Arctic tundra being replaced by forest if warming reaches 4 degrees, a level of extreme heating that also has the potential to wipe out about 45 per cent of the Amazon's tree species. The report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is the second instalment in a series of three widely anticipated studies on global warming to be issued this year by the body. The report is the collective work of more than 1,000 of the world's scientists, including many from Canada, and has a measured and cautious tone, despite its many dramatic conclusions. This new instalment outlines the far-reaching impact that global warming is already having and expected to have over the next few centuries on the world's environment, ranging from freshwater fish to mangroves and boreal forests. It also highlights the urgent need for countries to develop strategies for protecting their citizens against the adverse effects of living on a warmer planet, ranging from the instability a hotter world introduces to agriculture to having to deal with nuclear power plants built on coastlines that may end up underwater. But it also concludes that some of the most dire potential results of climate change, such as an abrupt halt to the current responsible for the Gulf Stream that gives Northern Europe its temperate weather, are unlikely to occur during this century. The draft is being reviewed this week in Brussels by policy makers from more than 100 countries, and a summary of its findings will be issued on Friday morning, followed early next week by details on changes scientists expect to see in major regions of the world. In February, the IPCC issued the first instalment, a review of the science supporting global warming. It concluded that the evidence indicating climate change is occurring, and due to human activity, has become so strong it is "unequivocal." One of the most striking findings in the summary, a compendium of all of the significant scientific research on global warming's possible impacts conducted over the past five years, is the sheer magnitude of the number of people estimated to be negatively affected. Sea level rise, for instance, is likely to turn into a slow-moving human disaster if nothing is done to protect islands and coastal areas from flooding, and could be a major problem lasting for centuries that affects hundreds of millions of people. By 2100, such a significant amount of the carbon dioxide that humans have added to the atmosphere is likely to have been dissolved into the oceans that they'll be the most acidic they've been in the past 20 million years, threatening sea life, such as animals whose shells would dissolve in this harsher environment, the report states. Although many changes due to climate change are unambiguously bad, the summary presented a number of outcomes for agriculture and forestry that are more ambiguous. For instance, there is about a 50 percent chance that in temperate regions moderate warming will benefit cereal crops and pasture yields, but even slight warming decreases yields in tropical and dry areas. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.) Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 60 Guardian Unlimited: Feds to Assess Damage at Hanford Site From the Associated Press Wednesday April 4, 2007 3:01 AM By SHANNON DININNY Associated Press Writer YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - In an abrupt reversal, the federal government has agreed to assess the damage to natural resources caused by plutonium production at the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Such assessments typically cost millions of dollars and often preface monetary damages. The Yakama Nation of American Indians in 2002 sued the U.S. Department of Energy, which manages Hanford cleanup, seeking restoration of soil, water, plant and animal life that may have been injured by radioactive waste and other hazardous substances. The Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes later joined the lawsuit, as did the states of Washington and Oregon. The Energy Department fought back, arguing it was too soon to determine environmental harm or whether reparations should be paid. But the department said Tuesday that it would begin assessing those damages in collaboration with two other federal agencies, the states and the tribes. ``The only change was how much we're willing to do when,'' Keith Klein, manager of the Energy Department's Richland Operations office, told The Associated Press. ``We're willing to do more, sooner, now, because we believe we've found ways to do it that won't impact our cleanup obligations and schedules or add unduly to the taxpayer cost.'' The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, cleanup costs are expected to top $50 billion. Among other things, the Yakama alleged that contamination of the Columbia River contributed to declining Northwest salmon populations in the past 50 years. A federal judge ordered mediation in 2004. At that time, Washington and Oregon tried to join the talks, but the Energy Department refused. The two states and the additional tribes then joined the lawsuit to compel the federal government to do the review. Klein said the department's new stance was not a result of the lawsuit. It was unclear whether the tribe planned to continue with the lawsuit, and officials with Oregon and Washington said it was too soon to tell. The tribe has estimated that a full review of natural resource damage could cost $100 million. ``If DOE and its contractors choose to do a secretive, so-so job, like so often has happened at Hanford, then there will be more trouble,'' said Philip ``Bing'' Olney, chairman of the tribe's radioactive hazardous waste committee, in a statement. ``Only time will tell.'' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 61 Seattle Times Newspaper: DOE to evaluate damage Hanford did to environment Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - By Shannon Dininny The Associated Press YAKIMA — In an abrupt reversal, the federal government has agreed to begin assessing the damage to natural resources caused by plutonium production at the Hanford nuclear reservation, the nation's most contaminated nuclear site. Such assessments typically cost millions of dollars and often serve as precursors to payment of monetary damages. In 2002, the Yakama Nation sued the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which manages Hanford cleanup, seeking restoration of soil, water and plant and animal life that may have been injured by radioactive waste and other hazardous substances. The Nez Perce and Umatilla tribes joined the lawsuit, as did Washington and Oregon. The Energy Department fought back, saying it was too soon to determine if there were injuries to the environment or whether reparations should be paid. But the department said Tuesday it would begin assessing those damages in collaboration with two other federal agencies, the states and the Indian tribes. "The only change was how much we're willing to do when," said Keith Klein, manager of the Energy Department's Richland Operations office. The federal government created Hanford in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today, it is the nation's most contaminated nuclear site, with cleanup costs expected to top $50 billion. Among other things, the Yakamas alleged that contamination of the nearby Columbia River contributed to declining Northwest salmon populations in the past 50 years. A federal judge ordered the two sides into mediation in 2004 to try to resolve the dispute. At that time, Washington and Oregon tried to join the talks, but the Energy Department refused. The two states and the additional tribes then joined the lawsuit to compel the federal government to perform the review. Klein said the department's new stance was not a result of the litigation. "Typically, these are things that are dealt with after the cleanup has been completed," he said. "The fact that we're dealing with it now I think is evidence that people are starting to see an end to the cleanup." The new review will be integrated into the Energy Department's cleanup at Hanford, Klein said. The department also expects to carry out the assessment and cleanup activities under its existing budget. The Yakamas have estimated a full review of natural-resource damages could cost up to $100 million. Tribal officials said they were cautiously optimistic about the announcement. "The test will be what DOE actually does. If DOE fully funds the effort and works with the Yakama Nation, other tribes, states and federal agencies in an open, cooperative way, it will be good," said Philip "Bing" Olney, chairman of the tribe's radioactive hazardous waste committee. The states think an assessment will save money, result in better cleanup decisions, avoid the potential of having to perform cleanup twice and lead to better restoration of natural resources sooner, said Polly Zehm, deputy director for the Washington state Department of Ecology. Copyright © 2007 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 62 DOE: DOE Does Not Accept Initial SPR Bids April 4, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC - The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy today said that it had reviewed, and deemed unacceptable, the bids that it had received in response to a solicitation to purchase up to four million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The Office of Fossil Energy determined that the bids were too high and not a reasonable value for taxpayers. In keeping with Secretary Bodman’s commitment to fill the SPR in a deliberate, predictable, and transparent manner, consistent with the Department’s updated guidelines that were announced in November 2006, the Office of Fossil Energy will issue another solicitation for bids in mid-April. This is the first of a series of solicitations planned to replace 11 million barrels of oil sold in the fall of 2005 after Hurricane Katrina disrupted refinery supplies. This would be the first direct purchase of crude oil for the reserve since 1994. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve will use the proceeds from the emergency sale totaling $584 million to complete the purchases. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve has a capacity of 727 million barrels, and currently holds 689 million barrels in inventory. The solicitations over the next several months will be staggered so as not to substantially affect the market price. Bids will be accepted based on fair market value and combinations of sweet and sour crude will be purchased based on price. Through the terms of contracts to be issued from the planned series of solicitations, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve seeks to achieve a moderate fill rate of approximately 100,000 barrels per day over the course of a few months. Media contact(s): Craig Stevens, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 63 FR DOE: Office of International Regimes and Agreements; (Korea) Proposed Subsequent Arrangement Doc E7-6280 [Federal Register: April 4, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 64)] [Notices] [Page 16336-16337] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04ap07-43] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of Proposed Subsequent Arrangement. SUMMARY: This notice is being issued under the authority of Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2160). The Department is providing notice of a proposed ``subsequent arrangement'' under the [[Page 16337]] Agreement for Cooperation between the Government of the United States of America and the Republic of Korea Concerning Civil Uses of Atomic Energy, signed November 24, 1972, as amended. This subsequent arrangement concerns the renewal of the 2002 Joint Determination by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Korea pursuant to Article VIII(C) of that Agreement. This arrangement reaffirms that the provisions of Article XI of the Joint Determination may be effectively applied for the alteration in form or content of U.S.-origin nuclear material contained in irradiated nuclear fuels from pressurized water reactors, CANDU reactors, a research reactor at the Post Irradiation Examination Facility (PIEF), the Irradiated Material Examination Facility (IMEF), the DUPIC Fuel Fabrications Facility (DFDF), and identified analytical laboratories at the Headquarters of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, in accordance with the plan contained in KAERI/AR-765/2007, dated January 30, 2007, and KAERI/AR-766/2007, dated January 31, 2007. Any activities additional to the plan or changes in the equipment in the PIEF, IMEF, or the DFDF will be reviewed by both parties to ensure the general consistency with the scope and objectives of the Joint Determination. Reference is made to the Joint Determination signed by the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Korea on March 29, 1996, on April 8, 1999, and on January 29, 2002, covering similar activities at the PIEF, the IMEF, and the DFDF. These facilities are found acceptable to both parties pursuant to Article VIII(C) of the Agreement for the sole purpose of alteration in form or content of irradiated fuel elements for post- irradiation examination and for research, development and manufacture of DUPIC fuel powders, pellets and elements for the period ending March 31, 2012. In accordance with Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, we have determined that this subsequent arrangement will not be inimical to the common defense and security. This subsequent arrangement will take effect no sooner than 15 days after the date of publication of this notice. Dated: March 29, 2007. For the Department of Energy. Richard Goorevich, Director, Office of International Regimes and Agreements. [FR Doc. E7-6280 Filed 4-3-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 64 lamonitor.com: Classified computers missing The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor A recent inspection of the Counterintelligence Directorate of the Department of Energy found that 20 desktop computers were missing. At least 14 of them were known to process classified information, according to a new report by the Inspector General, and the other six "may have been used to process such data." "Further," the IG reported, "the inventory records were so imprecise and inaccurate that the directorate had to resort to extraordinary means to locate 125 computers" that should have been easy to find. A previous inspection had already found one computer reported missing in the more recent inspection. At the time it was found, it was labeled unclassified, but counterintelligence officials reported it later as having processed secret information. The problems focused on DOE headquarters in Washington, but noted that loan agreements for 96 computers in field offices had expired. The directorate is supposed to protect the department's sensitive data and operations against espionage or other intelligence activities by foreign parties. In response, the office "instituted multiple measures to help strengthen its control of accountable property," a senior counterintelligence official replied on Mar. 15. Measures include creating a position that would have responsibility for property accountability. The inspection report noted in turn that the response did not include an implementation plan with target dates for completing each recommendation and left that up to higher management to pursue. The primary purpose of the report on internal controls at the counterintelligence directorate was to set in motion a more thorough search to find out what happened to the missing computers, whether they were lost or stolen, or disposed of as counterintelligence officials believe. A summary letter noted that they did not report the computers as lost or stolen until after the inspection took place. "Problems with the control and accountability of desktop and laptop computers have plagued the department for a number of years," the IG stated in his memo to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, attaching a list of 12 prior reports on sensitive property in the last four years. After reviewing a security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory that occurred in October 2006, Inspector General Gregory Friedman testified to a congressional investigative committee that department-wide recommendations had been made to correct deficiencies. His remarks implied that other facilities under the department's control may also have had open computer ports and unsecured classified computer racks. Some of them, like LANL, may not have had segregated critical security functions nor limited computer access and privileges to those who specifically required it. In a statement at the beginning of that hearing, Rep. John Dingle, D-Mich., committee chair, said, "The time has come to focus on the adequacy of the tools DOE possesses to effectively penalize contractors and the lab for security failures and whether DOE ever intends to use them ... We need to determine in today's hearings whether such penalties are sufficient to effectively improve security at Los Alamos." During a visit to Los Alamos this week, Sen. Jeff Bingaman was asked about the recent report and whether Congress had a handle on where the responsibility rests for security breaches at DOE and its contractors. Bingaman chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with responsibility for DOE. He said he was aware of the report and was not sure there was a handle. "Frankly, I do not understand why some things become a big story in the media and others do not," he said. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 65 FR DOE: Office of International Regimes and Agreements; Proposed Subsequent Arrangement Doc 07-1666 [Federal Register: April 4, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 64)] [Notices] [Page 16336] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04ap07-42] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY AGENCY: Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of Proposed Subsequent Arrangement. SUMMARY: This notice is being issued under the authority of Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (42 U.S.C. 2160). The Department is providing notice of a proposed ``subsequent arrangement'' under the Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy between the United States and Argentina and the Agreement for Cooperation in the Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy between the United States and Brazil. This subsequent arrangement concerns the retransfer of two fission counters from the Instrumentation and Control Department, National Atomic Energy Commission, Argentina, to the IPEN/MB/01 Research Reactor, San Pablo, Brazil. The fission counters each contain .01 g U235. IPEN/MB/01 Research Reactor is authorized to receive nuclear material pursuant to the U.S.-Brazil Agreement for Cooperation on Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy. In accordance with Section 131 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended, we have determined that this subsequent arrangement will not be inimical to the common defense and security. This subsequent arrangement will take effect no sooner than 15 days after the date of publication of this notice. Dated: March 29, 2007. For the Department of Energy. Richard S. Goorevich, Director, Office of International Regimes and Agreements. [FR Doc. 07-1666 Filed 4-3-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-M ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************