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                         NUCLEAR POLICY
 
1 US: SF Chron: Nuclear arms report puts Bush in bind / Scientists' st
2 Hindustan Times: Agni III adds teeth to India's N-deterrence- 
3 The Hindu: Talks with IAEA only after 123 negotiations conclude
 
                         NUCLEAR REACTORS
 
4 US: Platts: NRC proposes assessing aircraft impact on new reactor de
5 Yushchenko: region around Chernobyl nuclear plant must be put to use
6 US: APP.COM: State's largest utility shuts down nuclear plant | 
7 US: Chattanoogan.com: TVA To Hold Regional Briefing On Draft Strateg
8 US: PFP: Editorial: Looking at wrong pot of Vermont Yankee money
9 US: NRC: NRC Proposes Adding Plane Crash Security Assessments to New
10 US: JOURNAL NEWS: NRC to assess nuke plant safety in a session tomor
11 US: Rutland Herald: Taxing Yankee
12 US: MCN: Bethesda company secures critical license for nuclear plant
13 People's Daily: China mulling plan to patent its own nuclear power p
14 Reuters: Lemminkainen says out of reactor concrete deal 
15 US: Reuters: NRC says new nuclear plants should be plane-proof 
16 US: Texas Observer Blog: Let Them Eat Nukes - 
17 US: UPI: New U.S. nuke plants to assess plane hit
18 Prague Daily Monitor: CEZ says Temelin should produce 12.5 TWh of po
19 Prague Daily Monitor: Czech PM says Austria misunderstands his word 
20 US: New London Day: New Rule Would Protect Nuke Plants From Air Atta
21 AU ABC: Rann 'hypocritical' over nuclear power. 
22 US: Connect Savannah: Endless power, endless cost
23 asahi.com: Penalties called 'soft' in nuclear cover-up - 
24 ForUm: President unveils Chernobyl monument
 
                          NUCLEAR SECURITY
 
 
                          NUCLEAR SAFETY
 
25 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Residents in D.C. to get help for sick
26 US: Yokwe Net: Bikini and Enewetak Appear before U.S. Federal Court 
27 US: PRN: Sick Cold War Era Nuclear Weapons Workers File Suit to Rest
 
                         NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
 
28 NRC: NRC to Meet with Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel Plant Officials to 
29 Platts: Scrap treatment at Cadarche MOX plant must end by June 2008
30 US: West Australian: Labor to 'abolish uranium mines policy' : 
31 US: Moscow Times: Kazakhs See Big Growth In Uranium
32 UPI: U.S., Japan sign nuclear energy pact
33 US: The Australian: Uranium fallout splitting the party | 
34 US: CNN.com: Reactor of the future powered by toxic-waste - 
35 US: The Australian: Labor set to abolish uranium policy 
36 US: RIA Novosti: Three cos. to cover 25% of Japan uranium from Kazak
 
                           PEACE
 
 
                        US DEPT. OF ENERGY
 
37 Popular Science: Nuking Nuclear Waste - 
38 Inside Bay Area: Experts: Policy first, then weapons
39 KnoxNews: Retirees implore DOE: Don't penalize success
40 NAS: Project: Evaluation of Quantification of Margins and Uncertaint
41 DOE: United States and Japan Sign Joint Nuclear Energy Action 
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                         FULL NEWS STORIES
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 1 SF Chron: Nuclear arms report puts Bush in bind / Scientists' study suggests
U.S. policy, goals must be clear

James Sterngold, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Both supporters and opponents of the Bush administration's effort to
restart nuclear weapons production agreed that a highly critical
report released Tuesday puts pressure on the White House to launch a
political offensive to rescue the program or risk seeing it collapse.

The report was produced by a high-level panel of weapons experts for
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, including
three former directors of the weapons design laboratories -- two of
those from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory -- and so its
skeptical tone surprised some experts.

The Bush administration has been arguing that the nation's Cold
War-era nuclear warheads are aging and a new generation of warheads
should be produced, known as Reliable Replacement Warheads, or RRW.
The administration has argued that the RRW program would allow it to
slash the size of the stockpile while still ensuring security and
cutting costs.

But the report concluded that the new warhead program may never
achieve the cost savings claimed by the White House, that the
supposed safety and reliability improvements are unlikely to be
realized until later generations of the weapons are developed, and
that any U.S. effort to restart nuclear bomb production -- which was
halted after the Cold War -- could provoke an international arms
race.

One of the report's sharpest criticisms was that the Bush
administration is pushing the new warhead program without having
detailed a new strategy for how the weapons would be used or
providing a rationale for maintaining a large nuclear weapons
stockpile. It also noted that the military has not insisted on the
Reliable Replacement Warheads program.

Since issuing a broad statement on policy in 2001, "there have been
no presidential or Cabinet-level administration statements dealing
with nuclear weapons," the report says. "In particular, there have
been no policy statements that articulate the role of nuclear
weapons in a post-Cold War and post-9/11 world and lay out the
stockpile needs for the future."

Some lawmakers and weapons experts said that without such a clear
policy from the Bush administration it would be hard to gain public
and, more critically, congressional support for the
multibillion-dollar program, which is likely to take decades.

"Without an overall strategy for nuclear weapons, and whether or not
they still have a place in the U.S. arsenal, you are not going to be
able to gain the necessary support," said Phil Coyle, an Advancement
of Science panel member and a former senior official at the Pentagon
and at Livermore, who is now a senior adviser at the Center for
Defense Information.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Walnut Creek, who chairs the House
subcommittee on strategic forces, generally supports the Reliable
Replacement Warheads program, as long as the old weapons are
maintained properly until the new production begins. In a statement
Tuesday, she said the report added emphasis to the need for the
White House to provide clearer and more vocal support for the
program.

"If RRW is going to move forward and we are to realize the program's
real potential, its risks must be identified and clear policy
objectives must be outlined," Tauscher said.

Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., chairman of the House subcommittee that
controls nuclear weapons spending, suggested that funding for the
program should not proceed until the White House has made its case
for the new generation of nuclear weapons.

"I believe it is crucial to have a comprehensive defense strategy
that defines the future mission, emerging threats, and the specific
U.S. nuclear stockpile necessary before proceeding with the RRW,"
said Visclosky, who has expressed misgivings about the rationale for
the program.

The government's key nuclear weapons agency responded by saying that
the report appears to support modernizing the country's nuclear
arsenal, and signaled that it intends to move forward.

Thomas D'Agostino, acting head of the National Nuclear Security
Administration, which oversees the weapons complex, said, "Several
of the AAAS report's recommendations reaffirm our ongoing plans to
study the RRW concept and move forward with our modernization and
transformation efforts, which will lead to smaller, more efficient
and more secure nuclear weapons facilities."

Several panel members have said that the report was supposed to have
been released earlier this year, but it was held up by internal
infighting over how critical it would be of the Reliable Replacement
Warheads program. The dispute was evident in notes that two members
of the panel added to the report.

One "personal comment" was by John Foster, a former director of the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who said the report focused
too much on problems in the RRW program and not enough on the risks
of trying to maintain the current weapons stockpile.

The other note, by Charles Curtis, a former senior Energy Department
official, said he opposes any further work on the RRW program
because it could be perceived as overly aggressive by other
countries and spur an arms race.

E-mail James Sterngold at Jsterngold@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

*****************************************************************
 2 Hindustan Times: Agni III adds teeth to India's N-deterrence- 

April 25, 2007

Soumyajit Pattnaik and Rahul Singh

The nuclear-capable Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) Agni
III, with a range of over 3,000 km, was successfully test-fired on
Thursday from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at the Wheeler Islands
in Orissa. At 10.52 am, the surface-to-surface missile blasted off
from a fixed platform with the help of an auto-launcher and soared
vertically into the sky in keeping with its pre-determined path.

A defence ministry spokesman said the 15-minute flight path had
validated all mission objectives. The flight was tracked from ground
stations at Dhamra, ITR in Balasore, Port Blair and two Indian naval
ships. The 16-metre long missile, which weighs 48 tonnes, is capable
of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads weighing up to
1.5 tonnes.

Overcoming its "self-imposed restraint," India had test-fired Agni
III for the first time on July 9, 2006, but the missile developed a
snag and fell into sea. Its second stage had failed to ignite and
separate due to "design and material fault."

The successful test has put India’s credible minimum deterrence on
a firm footing, as no missile in the Indian arsenal had the range to
strike targets in east Chinese city such as Beijing and Shanghai. It
also marks the next stage in the natural progression towards the
development of an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which
will propel India into the big league of nuclear weapon states.

Agni’s earlier variants, the 700-km Pakistan specific Agni I and
the 2,000-km range Agni II, are operational and have been inducted
into the armed forces. However, Agni II does not offer credible
deterrence against China as it can hit targets only in western
China. Strategic analysts said India should increase the frequency
of testing to establish the reliability of weapon systems.

The ground range instrumentation at the ITR and the radar gave a
perfect evaluation of the missile flight-testing against
pre-determined parameters.


*****************************************************************
 3 The Hindu: Talks with IAEA only after 123 negotiations conclude

Thursday, Apr 26, 2007

Siddharth Varadarajan

 India wants fuel supply assurance issue with U.S. resolved first

Safeguards picture has become complicated Officials reject
suggestion of "Delhi vs. Mumbai" division


New Delhi: The United States may want India to speed up its
discussions with the International Atomic Energy Agency but the
Government has decided to postpone detailed technical talks with the
IAEA on safeguards until after the bilateral nuclear cooperation
agreement has been finalised.

India has held two rounds of exploratory discussions with Agency
officials and will conduct a third round when Department of Atomic
Energy Chairman Anil Kakodkar travels to Vienna next week. "But
unless the 123 agreement with the U.S. is sorted out, we are not
going to be in a position to hold detailed technical negotiations
with the IAEA on the nature of the India-specific safeguards
agreement," a senior official told The Hindu .

Why the wait

The reason for wanting to wait, say officials, is that unless the
ongoing talks with the U.S. resolve the issue of fuel supply
assurances for the operating lifetime of all reactors going under
IAEA monitoring, there will be little sense in trying to work out
the details of the "India-specific" safeguards agreement.

"Our commitment in the March 2006 Separation Plan to place all
civilian reactors under safeguards in perpetuity is strictly tied to
those fuel supply assurances, including the creation of a strategic
fuel reserve with U.S. assistance," one official said.

Nature of agreement


Indian officials familiar with the ongoing negotiations with the
U.S. note that the nature of the safeguards agreement to be drawn up
has to correspond, broadly speaking, to INFCIRC 66, Rev. 2 ? the
standard, facility-specific safeguard template of the IAEA.

"The only difference with the boilerplate 66 agreement will be the
incorporation of fuel supply guarantees as well as India's right to
take corrective measures as far as perpetuity is concerned, in the
event of a supply breakdown," said a senior official.

But with the U.S. evidently rethinking the fuel supply assurance
issue, the safeguards picture has become complicated.

"If we have still not nailed down this India-specific part of the
INFCIRC 66-type safeguards by operationalising the commitments
contained in the March 2006 Separation Plan, how can India think of
completing its safeguards agreement with the IAEA?"

But once the 123 agreement is settled, the safeguards negotiations
are likely to be fairly straightforward, says an official.

Indian officials reject the suggestion made in a section of the
media that there is a "Delhi vs. Mumbai" division within the Indian
negotiating team, with the atomic scientists in Mumbai delaying
negotiations with the IAEA that the Ministry of External Affairs in
Delhi allegedly wished to speed up.

Differences


The Indian team's mandate, they note, stems directly from the Prime
Minister's assurances to Parliament. "We are at a stage where
fundamental differences exist between the Indian and American sides
on a number of issues," said a senior official. "Time is not going
to help resolve these differences so it is not as if we gain by
delaying things."



Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the
*****************************************************************
 4 Platts: NRC proposes assessing aircraft impact on new reactor designs

Washington (Platts)--24Apr2007


NRC has proposed assessing aircraft crash resistance in new reactor
designs. The agency is considering requiring new design applicants to "assess
how the design, to the extent practicable, can have greater built-in
protections to avoid or mitigate the effects of a large commercial aircraft
impact," NRC said April 24. 

     If adopted, the proposed rule would affect new applicants for reactor
design certification and applicants for a combined construction and operating
license that do not reference a certified design, NRC said. The proposed
approach "allows the designers to evaluate potential competing technical
factors, such as the response to earthquakes and passive safety systems, while
at the same time addressing aircraft impacts," and "should look at areas such
as core cooling capability, containment integrity and spent fuel pool
integrity," NRC said. 

     Text of a proposed rule will be available for public comment later this
year. Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in a
statement that NRC is not even committing to evaluate the information and that
he would introduce legislation "to require that new nuclear reactors are
designed to withstand the impact of a large commercial aircraft."


Copyright © 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 5 Yushchenko: region around Chernobyl nuclear plant must be put to use
again - Pravda.Ru

25 April 2007 

On eve of the 21st anniversary of the World’s most nightmarish 
ever nuclear accident, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said 
that uninhabited and contaminated region around the shuttered 
Chernobyl nuclear power plant would be put to use again.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant (www.utro.ru)
 
The April 26, 1986, explosion and fire at Chernobyl's Reactor No. 4
sent a radioactive cloud across Europe, contaminating large areas of
land and prompting the Soviet government to permanently evacuate
more than 300,000 people. A 30-kilometer (18 miles) zone around the
plant remains closed to the public.

"I am convinced that the Chernobyl zone is coming alive ... and step
by step, we will begin to develop the possibilities of this
territory," Yushchenko said during a lecture at a school outside
Kiev.

Projects being considered include a nature preserve that would take
advantage of a wildlife resurgence in the area, which is largely
bereft of humans, and using the area to produce bio-fuels,
Yushchenko said. He also said he would like to see an international
science center opened at the site to study the lingering effects of
the 1986 accident.

"This land must be revitalized," Yushchenko said during the lecture,
which was broadcast live on Ukrainian television. "We should look at
it as having prospects, not with the feeling that this is a
territory of Ukraine that has been erased from the map and which we
must forget."

A project to build a new shelter to cover Reactor No. 4 will begin
"in several months," Yushchenko said. Work on the US$1.1 billion
(EUR885 million) internationally funded project has been delayed
repeatedly, though the hastily built current shelter of concrete and
steel is crumbling and dotted with holes.

Thirty-one people died within the first two months of the Chernobyl
disaster from illnesses caused by radioactivity. There is debate
over the longer-term toll. The U.N. health agency has estimated that
about 9,300 people will die from cancers caused by Chernobyl's
radiation. Some groups, such as Greenpeace, insist the toll could be
10 times higher.

 All news About Pravda.Ru Site map Export news STATISTICS © 
1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru». When reproducing our materials in whole 
or in part, hyperlink to PRAVDA.Ru should be made. The opinions 
and views of the authors do not always coincide with the point of 
view of PRAVDA.Ru's editors.. 
*****************************************************************
 6 APP.COM: State's largest utility shuts down nuclear plant | 

Asbury Park Press Online

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 04/25/07

BLOOMBERG NEWS SERVICE Post Comment

Newark-based Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., owner of New
Jersey's largest utility, shut down its Salem 1 nuclear reactor
Tuesday night after screens on its water intake system became
clogged with marsh grass.

"With the nor'easter we had last week, tides and water levels are
extremely high,'' Chic Cannon, spokesman for Public Service, said in
a telephone interview today. Screens that prevent grass and other
detritus from entering the plant's cooling water system from the
Delaware River became clogged with grasses and forced the shutdown,
he said.

It is "historically the highest detritus or grassing levels we've
had since the plants have been installed,'' said Cannon. He declined
to speculate on when the reactor would return to service.

The 1,159-megawatt unit is one of two reactors located in Hancocks
Bridge, N.J., about 25 miles southeast of Wilmington, Del. Salem 2
was listed at full power by the commission in this morning's report.

Copyright © 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 7 Chattanoogan.com: TVA To Hold Regional Briefing On Draft Strategic Plan -

4/25/2007 - 

TVA will hold a regional briefing on the agency's new draft
strategic plan.

Those taking part will be Jack Bailey, vice president, Nuclear
Generation Development; Janet Herrin, senior vice president, River
Operations; and Anda Ray, vice president, Enterprise Performance and
Analysis.

It will be Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Chattanooga Marriott, 2 Carter
Plaza, by the Convention Center.

The draft strategic plan focuses on leveraging TVA’s strengths and
addressing customer, financial, operational and organizational
actions necessary for TVA to support the future growth and success
of the Tennessee Valley region, officials said.

The briefings will last about an hour and will include time for
questions.

The draft plan can be viewed at www.tva.com/stratplan

news@chattanoogan.com  (423) 266-2325
© 2004 Site designed and copyrighted by HD
*****************************************************************
 8 PFP: Editorial: Looking at wrong pot of Vermont Yankee money

Burlington Free Press.com | 

Opinion

  burlingtonfreepress.com  |  Burlington, Vermont
 
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Sen. Peter Shumlin is looking in the right direction by turning 
to Vermont Yankee to launch a new energy-efficiency utility, but 
not with his proposal to tap the state's sole nuclear power plant 
for millions of dollars more in taxes.

Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear already pays Vermont to 
promote energy efficiency, payments to the Vermont Clean Energy 
Fund that could total as much as $25 million over the life of a 
deal worked out in 2005. Turning to the Vermont Clean Energy Fund 
to seed the efficiency utility has the advantage of tapping 
existing money and doing without new taxes.

At the start of the session, legislative leaders stood with the
governor and agreed Vermonters can't afford more taxes. Yet this
Legislature has produced a procession of proposals including a fee
on heating fuels, a surcharge on low-gas-mileage vehicles and the
latest, a tax on a specific business.

Diverting money from the Clean Energy Fund might mean fewer grants
for municipal and school alternative-energy projects -- what the
money is being used for now -- but these kinds of decisions come
down to staying within the state's means and sorting out priorities.

Shumlin proposes to tax Vermont Yankee $2 million this year, $5
million the next, with the levy increasing by $2 million each
subsequent year until 2012, when Vermont Yankee's operating license
expires. The new tax replaces the surcharge on heating fuels that
was jettisoned by a Senate committee after it faced stiff opposition
from the governor and business interests.

Shumlin's rationale for the additional tax on Vermont Yankee is that
the situation has changed since the Clean Energy Fund deal was
worked out and that argues for increased compensation to the state.
For one, the plant is generating better-than-expected profits,
partially due to increased output authorized in 2006. Also, spent
nuclear fuel stored on-site is likely to remain there longer because
of delays in opening a permanent storage site in Nevada.

Although the huge profits reported by energy companies make a
tempting target for the cash-starved Legislature, that's not reason
enough to unilaterally abort an agreement just two years after it
was approved by an overwhelming legislative majority. Any additional
payments by Entergy need to be negotiated, perhaps as part of talks
about extending the plant's license -- something the company dearly
desires.

As for the efficiency utility, much remains to be worked out, such
as what it will cost tax payers and and how long the state will need
it. Should the bill win approval, the Public Service Board will have
until December to report to the Legislature about what the utility
would look like, who would run it, how it will be regulated and whom
it will serve. The utility would not be operational until 2009.

That timetable gives legislators and regulators time to work out
issues like responsibility for oversight and cost controls, but it
also means the Shumlin plan is asking tens of millions of dollars
from Entergy for something that at this point is little more than
good intentions.

Copyright ©2007 Burlingtonfreepress.com All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 9 NRC: NRC Proposes Adding Plane Crash Security Assessments to New 
Reactor Design Certification Requirements

News Release - 2007-053 - 

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 U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) today unveiled the 
third in a series of major steps to enhance the post-Sept. 11 
security of nuclear power plants. The agency proposal would 
require each applicant for a new reactor design to assess how the 
design, to the extent practicable, can have greater built-in 
protections to avoid or mitigate the effects of a large 
commercial aircraft impact, making them even more resistant to an 
attack.

   The Commission emphasized that seeking security assessments 
and examining how designs can be improved is consistent with the 
traditional approach the NRC has taken to so-called “beyond 
design basis events.” These are events with conditions 
exceeding the stresses imposed by the “design basis 
event” conditions which require plants to be brought to a 
safe shutdown. Design basis event conditions include large pipe 
breaks, fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados and floods. 
Assessing a new reactor design in the early stages can enable 
modifications or additional features to reduce the need for human 
intervention in the event of an airplane crash.

 The NRC will seek comment from the public, the nuclear industry 
and the technical community on the proposal. The proposed rule, 
which will replace an NRC staff proposal, will be available for 
comment later this year.

 In 1985 the NRC said it expected reactor designers to build in 
more safety features to cope with beyond design basis severe 
accidents as reactor designs advanced. However, it did not 
require specific features, leaving that to plant designers. In 
the subsequent decades, reactor designs submitted to and approved 
by the Commission have achieved substantial safety improvements.

    The proposed rule, if adopted, will affect new applicants for 
reactor design certification and applicants for a combined 
license that does not reference a certified design. It would 
require applicants to describe how the design, to the extent 
practicable, can avoid or mitigate the effects of an aircraft 
crash with reduced reliance on actions by reactor operators. That 
approach, the Commission found, “allows the designers to 
evaluate potential competing technical factors, such as the 
response to earthquakes and passive safety systems, while at the 
same time addressing aircraft impacts.” The Commission said 
the assessments should look at areas such as core cooling 
capability, containment integrity and spent fuel pool integrity.

 “This is the most recent step in a broad, proactive effort 
to improve the security of reactors initiated by the NRC after 
Sept. 11, 2001,” said NRC Chairman Dale Klein. “We 
need more technical analysis to understand how to address this. 
At the end of the road there may not be any changes necessary, 
but there also may be additional things that can be done.”

     “This proposal gives us the chance to assess and make 
practicable changes to new reactor designs early in the design 
process,” he said. Klein added that even for plants already 
certified it would be “in the interest of both the 
designers and their clients to adopt these changes at the design 
stage.”

    The agency in January approved a final rule enhancing 
security regulations governing the design basis threat (DBT) 
against which nuclear power plants must be able to defend with 
high assurance using their own capabilities. The Commission 
decided not to include large commercial aircraft in the DBT 
because the weaponry needed to defend against such a threat, 
surface-to-air missiles or fighter aircraft, cannot be possessed 
by the private security forces that protect commercial nuclear 
plants. The responsibility for such a threat belongs with the 
U.S. government, which has taken numerous steps to prevent 
terrorist use of large commercial aircraft since 9-11.

 In another step to address aircraft impact, building on a 
directive put in place in February 2002, the agency told reactor 
operators to develop strategies to mitigate the impact of large 
fires and explosions potentially caused by an aircraft impact. 
Comments on a proposed rule codifying that step for both existing 
and new reactors are being examined by the NRC staff in 
preparation for a final rule for Commission consideration.

     The third major step taken today is the proposal on security 
assessments for new reactor designs.

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.

April 25, 2007
*****************************************************************
 10 JOURNAL NEWS: NRC to assess nuke plant safety in a session tomorrow

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

By GREG CLARY

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will conduct its annual safety
performance assessment of the Indian Point nuclear power complex
tomorrow.

The session, open to the public, will start at 6:30 p.m. at Colonial
Terrace, a restaurant at 119 Oregon Road in Cortlandt. Federal
regulators will discuss Indian Point with plant officials and take
questions from the public afterward.

The agency will also conduct an informational open house at the same
location from 2:30 to 9:30 p.m. tomorrow, to provide an opportunity
for members of the public to discuss topics related to Indian Point
with NRC staff members informally.

Representatives of Indian Point, state regulators and citizen groups
will also likely be available.



Copyright © 2006 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper
serving Westchester, Rockland and
Putnam Counties in New York.
*****************************************************************
 11 Rutland Herald: Taxing Yankee

Rutland Vermont News & Information

April 25, 2007

An excellent idea for curbing the emission of greenhouse gases, 
saving Vermonters money, and stimulating the state's economy has 
foundered so far this year because of difficulties in finding 
money to pay for the program. Now Sen. Peter Shumlin has 
announced a plan to impose new taxes on Entergy Vermont, which 
owns Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, to pay for the program 
to improve energy efficiency for the state's buildings.

Originally, the energy-efficiency program would have received 
funding from a one-cent surcharge on heating fuels, following the 
pattern established by Efficiency Vermont, which improves 
electric power efficiency with money from a surcharge on our 
electric bills. But even a modest fee attached to fuel bills ran 
into opposition from consumers already whacked by the 
skyrocketing price of fuel oil and by Gov. James Douglas, who 
criticized the fee as an unacceptable new tax.

It is unfortunate if Douglas' aversion to new taxes becomes a 
rationale for paralysis at a time when action to respond to 
climate change is urgent. His reflexive aversion to taxes could 
stand in the way of a program that would help Vermonters save far 
more money than they pay in a new tax. Advocates of the program 
say Vermonters could expect to save $400 a year in fuel costs if 
they take advantage of the proposed efficiency program.

Taking action to slow climate change and to save money on fuels 
is going to cost money — that is something we have to face — and 
the money will have to come from somewhere. The question now is 
whether Shumlin's plan to tax Entergy Vermont makes sense.

In answering that question, we have to ask whether Shumlin has 
turned to Entergy as a convenient cash cow, a big, profitable, 
out-of-state corporation that can be milked for additional 
revenues, or whether there is a legitimate justification for 
getting more money from the company.

Shumlin has said his proposal amounts to a "windfall profits" tax 
on Entergy. He says that energy prices are 50 percent higher than 
projected two years ago and that, merely on the extra capacity 
added at Yankee after the planted boosted its output by 20 
percent, Entergy is reaping $10 million to $20 million in extra 
profits yearly. In addition, he said, the company will be 
receiving $4 million to $9 million from ratepayers in forward 
capacity payments, initiated several years ago to ensure energy 
supplies. He said the company would also be receiving $4 million 
in annual payments from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

With all this extra money sloshing around, it is Shumlin's view 
that the state has a right to ask for some of it back to invest 
in energy efficiency for Vermont's homes and businesses.

He would do this by imposing a tax on waste storage. Entergy has 
already agreed to provide money to a clean energy fund, payments 
that were part of its application for dry cask storage of its 
nuclear waste. With Shumlin's new proposed tax on storage, 
Vermont Yankee is crying foul, saying the state would be changing 
the terms of its deal.

Shumlin counters that the failure of the federal government to 
find a long-term solution to the storage problem has forced 
Vermont to accept the role as guardian of the plant's waste and 
taxing the plants waste storage operation is justified.

It is not in Vermont's interest to engage in practices that 
double-cross businesses or subject them to capricious new taxes. 
But neither is it in Vermont's interest to follow a policy of 
paralysis with regard to climate change. Shumlin's proposal for 
funding the fuel efficiency program ought to get a serious and 
responsible look.

   © 2007 Rutland Herald
*****************************************************************
 12 MCN: Bethesda company secures critical license for nuclear plant

Maryland Community Newspapers Online
 
Wednesday, April 25, 2007

USEC expects to start operations at Ohio facility by late 2009

by Kevin J. Shay | Staff Writer

USEC, a Bethesda provider of enriched uranium fuel for nuclear
facilities, has received a construction and 30-year operating
license for its uranium enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio, from the
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The license approval on Friday culminates a process that lasted two
and a half years and included environmental and safety reviews, said
Elizabeth Stuckle, a USEC spokeswoman. Construction on the $2.3
billion American Centrifuge Plant is expected to begin
‘‘immediately,” with the plant operational by late
2009, Stuckle said.

About 400 people will work at the facility, and other manufacturing
jobs will be created in other areas to support the work.

The USEC facility is the second uranium enrichment plant approved by
the NRC in the last three decades, Stuckle said. A license for
Louisiana Energy Services to build an enrichment facility in New
Mexico was approved last year.

The new plant is expected to replace an older uranium enrichment
facility that USEC operates in Kentucky, Stuckle said.

‘‘The new plant will use about 95 percent less
electricity than the old one,” she said.

The gas centrifuge technology in Piketon is much more efficient than
the gas diffusion enrichment technology used at USEC’s
Kentucky facility, Stuckle said.

Plans are under way for more than 30 new commercial nuclear reactors
in the United States, John K. Welch, USEC president and CEO, said in
a statement. ‘‘A stable, domestic source of enriched
uranium is vital” for the development of the facilities, he
said.

No commercial reactor has been built in the United States in three
decades, though the Bush administration is trying to revive the
industry. About 20 percent of the nation’s electricity is
generated by nuclear plants.

The New Mexico enrichment plant is being challenged in court by
watchdog groups Nuclear Information and Resource Service of Takoma
Park and Public Citizen of Washington, D.C. Officials with those
groups said in a news release that the plant did not have proper
disposal capacity for depleted uranium waste that would be produced
and cited other issues. A challenge was filed in early April in a
District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen’s energy
program, said Monday that the group was focusing on the New Mexico
case and did not plan to legally challenge the USEC plant. An
official from Nuclear Information and Resource Service could not be
reached for comment.

Geoffrey Sea, a resident of Sargents, Ohio, and co-founder of a
local neighborhood group there, said the USEC license will be
challenged. He questioned whether USEC had the financing or the
technology to actually build the plant.

USEC reported that net income last year more than quadrupled over
2005 to $106.2 million. Revenues rose by almost 19 percent to $1.85
billion.

This report originally appeared in The Business Gazette.

Copyright 2007 Post-Newsweek Media, Inc./Gazette.Net
The Gazette: newsroom and business office | 1200 Quince Orchard
Blvd. | Gaithersburg, MD 20878 | 301-948-3120
The Gazette: administration, advertising, classifieds | 9030
Comprint Court | Gaithersburg, MD 20877 | main number: 301-670-2565,
classifieds: 301-670-2500
*****************************************************************
 13 People's Daily: China mulling plan to patent its own nuclear power plants

UPDATED: 20:44, April 25, 2007

China is planning to develop its own patented technology for third
generation nuclear power generating plants which could be available
before the end of the next decade, said an official with the
country's atomic energy authority Wednesday.

Zhang Fubao, vice director of the Systems Engineering Bureau under
the State Atomic Energy Authority, said Chinese experts will study
current third-generation nuclear power technology, and develop its
own reactor by 2017.

"Even by that time, we may still need international cooperation,"
said Zhang.

The so-called "third-generation" technology is expected to be safer
and more economical than existing technology and will be used in new
nuclear power plants now being built in China.

The Chinese government wants to raise the proportion of nuclear
power in the country's total electric power output from the current
1.9 percent to four percent by 2020. This would require the
construction of new power plants with capacity of a total of 30
million kilowatts in 15 years.

Under a framework agreement with U.S.-based Westinghouse signed in
December, 2006, China will acquire advance nuclear power technology
in exchange for purchasing four nuclear reactors from the
Westinghouse.

The deal allows for technology transfers including equipment design
nuclear facilities and technical support. The first of the four
reactors is expected to begin generating power by 2013, said Zhang.

Source: Xinhua
*****************************************************************
 14 Reuters: Lemminkainen says out of reactor concrete deal 

11:23PM EDT, Wed 25 Apr 2007

HELSINKI, April 25 (Reuters) - Finnish construction group
Lemminkainen (LEM1S.HE: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Wednesday
it agreed to no longer deliver concrete to the nuclear reactor being
built by Areva (CEFFi.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) and Siemens
(SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) in western Finland.
Lemminkainen said its Forssan Betoni unit would no longer deliver
concrete to the reactor building complex but would still supply it
until the end of the project to Siemens subcontractors working on
the turbine island.

Worries over concrete quality have been one of the reasons for
several delays in the startup of Finland's fifth nuclear reactor.
Commissioned by utility Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), the reactor is now
expected to start in 2011, two years behind the original schedule.
"Studies conducted earlier did not reveal any deficiencies in the
ready-mix concrete delivered by Forssan Betoni to the power plant
project. The parties do not have any claims against one another,"
Lemminkainen said in a statement.

((Helsinki newsroom; tel +358-9-680 50244, fax +358-9-6805 0220,
news@reuters.fi)) Keywords: LEMMINKAINEN NUCLEAR/

(C) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or
redistribution ofReuters content, including by caching, framing or
similar means, is expresslyprohibited without the prior written
consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuterssphere logo are
registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group
ofcompanies around the world.nL25469433

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 15 Reuters: NRC says new nuclear plants should be plane-proof 

Wed Apr 25, 2007 10:03AM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. nuclear reactor builders will likely
have to weigh the potential for a commercial aircraft strike when
they design new plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on
Tuesday.

The NRC's proposed rules are meant to protect new reactors against a
deliberate hit by a jet like those that rammed into the World Trade
Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the commission said.

"This is the most recent step in a broad, proactive effort to
improve the security of reactors initiated by the NRC after
September 11," NRC Chairman Dale Klein said. "We need more technical
analysis to understand how to address this.

The proposal would apply to companies that want to build new
reactors whose designs have not received NRC certification, a
spokesman for the NRC said. It will not apply to the nation's
existing 104 civilian nuclear power plants, which already have
adequate protection, he said.

The proposal will be made public later this year and could take
effect next year, he said.

The proposal is less stringent than one backed by NRC Commissioner
Gregory Jaczko, which would have required new nuclear plants to be
built to withstand a large commercial aircraft impact.

U.S. utilities have not ordered new nuclear plants in about 25 years
due to cost and safety concerns, but the NRC could weigh upward of
20 new applications for the first wave of new U.S. nuclear plants in
coming months.

The NRC said it already requires the owners of nuclear reactors to
take steps to minimize damage from large fires and explosions from
any type of attack.  Continued...

However, companies that ask the NRC to new approve reactor 
designs would have to "assess how the design, to the extent 
practicable, can have greater built-in protections to avoid or 
mitigate the effects of a large commercial aircraft impact."

"This proposal gives us the chance to assess and make practicable 
changes to new reactor designs early in the design process," 
Klein said.

The rules would apply to reactor design proposals submitted by 
General Electric Co., French-based Areva, and Japanese-based 
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries the spokesman said.

And even though the rules would not explicitly apply to four new 
reactor designs already certified by the NRC, it would be "in the 
interest of both the designers and their clients to adopt these 
changes at the design stage," Klein said.

The rules would likely require designers to weigh how an aircraft 
strike would impact the plant operator's ability to keep the 
reactor core cool enough to avoid a meltdown, and to keep 
radioactive gases from escaping into the atmosphere, the NRC 
said.

The Nuclear Energy Institute, which lobbies for U.S. nuclear 
operators, said the proposal is appropriate, because plant 
designers already weigh cataclysmic events like hurricanes and 
earthquakes.
© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 16 Texas Observer Blog: Let Them Eat Nukes - 

April 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm

Your government in action: Yesterday the House passed 118-21 a bill
that would subsidize the nuclear power industry to the tune of
roughly $200 million. HB 2994, the brainchild of none other than the
increasingly notorious Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton), is a vulgar piece
of corporate welfare crafted explicitly for the benefit of NRG
Energy, a major power company with ambitious plans to double the
size of its South Texas (Nuclear) Project in Matagorda County. (The
City of Austin and the City of San Antonio also have an ownership
interest in the nuclear plant).

The bill would allow school districts to sign a tax abatement
agreement with nuclear or “clean coal” developers years in
advance of a power plant’s completion, offering a giveaway for 8
years after the plant opens. The locals like it because it won’t
cost them a cent. That’s because under our new school finance
system passed last year the state would have to reimburse the
Matagorda school districts for the lost revenue – around $29
million - each and every year, according to the conservative fiscal
note estimate. This is money that would otherwise flow to
underfunded schools across the state.

Lawmakers raised hardly a peep of protest yesterday with only
anti-nuclear warrior Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) taking to the
back microphone to call Bonnen’s bonanza “corporate
socialism.” Burnam pointed out that NRG has already made a
decision to add two units to the South Texas Project, so what, he
asked is the point of a handout?

“This is something that is very seriously being considered but it
is not on-line and it is not being built,” replied Bonnen.
Technically, that’s true, but there’s nowhere else for NRG to
go. And, according to their most recent SEC filing, the company is
planning on filing a license application to the federal Nuclear
Regulatory Commission sometime this year.

Dick Lavine, with the Center for Public Policy Priorities, argues
that Bonnen’s approach is an abuse of the system. “The whole
point of this economic development act is to compete with other
states for [companies such as] Samsung and Toyota,” Lavine told
the Observer. “Now in this case it’s to give a break to somebody
that’s already decided to build a plant in the obvious place to
build it.”

And it’s not as if the nuclear industry is wanting for subsidies.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 offers the industry “$10.1 billion
in subsidies and tax breaks, as well as unlimited taxpayer-backed
loan guarantees and other incentives,” according to a 2005 Public
Citizen analysis.

Luckily, Senate members in committee yesterday expressed a great
deal of skepticism towards HB 2994’s companion, SB 1710 by Sen.
Glenn Hegar (R-Katy). “The way our system is set up you’re gonna
end up costing school districts in Tyler money,” said Sen. Troy
Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay). He left the bill pending.

But Bonnen, like many others, will be loathe to let nuclear power go
unpromoted. Texas is being touted as a frontrunner in a “nuclear
renaissance” in the United States, with tentative plans to triple
the nuke plants in the state. Boosters like Bonnen are pushing
nuclear power as a means to curb greenhouse gas emissions and air
pollution. “Nuclear is a zero-emission facility,” he told the
House yesterday. “This is the most environmentally responsible way
we can produce significant amounts of generation and low-cost
generation for our constituents.”

by Forrest Wilder


This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 1:07 pm and
is filed under 80th Texas Lege, Environmental, Energy. You can
follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can
leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

* Copyright © 2000-2007 The Texas Observer.
*****************************************************************
 17 UPI: New U.S. nuke plants to assess plane hit

United Press International - Energy - Briefing

Published: April 25, 2007 at 6:53 PM

ROCKVILLE, Md., April 25 (UPI) -- U.S. nuclear regulators want new
reactor applicants to assess the plant's design in avoiding or
mitigating a large plane crash, the latest in security steps.

The proposed rule approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Tuesday "would require each applicant for a new design to assess how
the design, to the extent practicable, can have greater built-in
protections to avoid or mitigate the effects of a large commercial
aircraft impact," according to an NRC statement.

The NRC has begun requiring enhanced safety mechanisms after the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. There is some dispute, however,
on whether the current fleet of operating reactors can withstand a
large aircraft hit. The industry says computer modeling shows it can.

The new proposed rule, which will be open for public comment later
this year and then finalized, would require assessments on how the
design of the plant enables it to safely shut down if a large plane
were to crash into it, "with reduced reliance on actions by reactor
operators."

"This is the most recent step in a broad, proactive effort to
improve the security of reactors initiated by the NRC after Sept.
11, 2001," said NRC Chairman Dale Klein. "We need more technical
analysis to understand how to address this. At the end of the road
there may not be any changes necessary, but there also may be
additional things that can be done."

The proposed rule won't require designs be changed in any way, just
assess capabilities.

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
*****************************************************************
 18 Prague Daily Monitor: CEZ says Temelin should produce 12.5 TWh of power in 2007 - 

Thursday, 26 April 2007 / Log in

By Prague Daily Monitor/CTK / Published 25 April 2007

Prague, April 24 (CTK) - The Temelin nuclear power station in 
southern Bohemia should produce 12.4-12.5 terawatt-hours of power 
this year, roughly the same amount year-on-year, Jiri Borovec, 
production director at state-run power producer CEZ, told 
reporters today.

In three-to-five years, Temelin should produce 15 TWh a year. 
Defects at Temelin cost CEZ hundreds of millions of crowns, 
Borovec said.

CEZ plans to raise power output from all sources by 3.1 percent 
year-on-year to a record-high 63.9 TWh this year.

The first unit of Temelin, hooked up last weekend after a 
shutdown lasting almost three months, worked at more than 97 
percent this morning. It should raise output to the maximum level 
in two or three days.

Since the beginning of the year, the first unit has produced 639 
gigawatt-hours of power, while the second unit, working at full 
output, has raised this year's output to more than 2.7 TWh.

CEZ also said today Temelin had had 166 defects in the five years 
since it was launched.

This story copyright 2007 CTK Czech News Agency The Prague Daily 
Monitor and Monitor CE are not responsible for its content.


copyright 2007 monitor ce media services s.r.o. | all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
 19 Prague Daily Monitor: Czech PM says Austria misunderstands his word on Melk closure -

Thursday, 26 April 2007 / Log in

By Prague Daily Monitor/CTK / Published 25 April 2007

Prague/Vienna, April 24 (CTK) - Czech PM Mirek Topolanek believes
that his Monday's statement that the Czech cabinet is going to
declare the Melk procedure on the Czech nuclear power plant Temelin
as closed have been misunderstood by Austrians.

"It was neither stated nor meant so," Czech government spokesman
Martin Schmarcz told journalists on Topolanek's behalf.

The replacement of the Czech-Austrian Melk agreement with an
information agreement is no unilateral act by Prague, Schmarcz said.

"On the contrary, it is a positive statement that the Melk agreement
was successful, and an offer to Austria for pushing bilateral
relations concerning mutual provision of information on nuclear
energy onto a higher level," Schmarcz said.

He said that Topolanek would not comment on Austrian domestic
political debates on Temelin.

Temelin is situated 60 km away from the Austrian border and Austria
continues to challenge its safety.

At the late 2000 meeting in Melk, Lower Austria, the then Czech and
Austrian PMs agreed on a procedure to check Temelin's safety and to
upgrade it where necessary. Austria in exchange pledged not to block
the EU accession negotiations the Czech Republic then conducted.

Temelin opponents in Austria and Austrian politicians today reacted
with indignation to Topolanek's statement at a meeting with Austrian
Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer and Vice-Chancellor Wilhelm Molterer in
Vienna on Monday that the Czech government is planning to adopt a
resolution declaring the Melk process as closed.

Anti-Temelin activists have announced further escalation of border
blockades and politicians warned the Czechs against "unilateral
steps."

"Such a unilateral step...would imply a very serious situation in
relations with Prague," Austrian Environment Minister Josef Proell
said.

Gusenbauer, too, told Topolanek on Monday that such a step by the
Czech government would trigger "extremely negative reactions" in
Austria, Gusenbauer's adviser Bernhard Wrabetz said today.

From the Austrian point of view, the Melk agreement has not been
fulfilled yet, he said.

"As long as some points of the Melk agreement remain open, the Czech
Republic cannot simply declare it closed," said Wrabetz, adding that
the process can be closed only if both governments consented to it.

Proell said he has asked the Czech government to promptly explain
its position. He also awaits an answer to the letter he sent to
Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg and in which he pointed
to the still open safety issues, he said.

"In view of the latest developments Austria starting to focus on the
possibility of bringing an international lawsuit," said Proell's
spokesman Daniel Kapp.

Activists from the Atomstopp-Oberoesterreich organisation reacted to
Topolanek's Vienna statements saying that they would make their
blockades of ten Austrian-Czech border crossings on Friday one hour
longer than originally planned.

Another anti-Temelin organisation in Austria, the Anti-Atom
Committee, has called Topolanek's words "an open provocation" and
said that "even the toughest protests are more than justified."

This story copyright 2007 CTK Czech News Agency
The Prague Daily Monitor and Monitor CE are not responsible for its
content.


copyright 2007 monitor ce media services s.r.o. | all rights reserved
*****************************************************************
 20 New London Day: New Rule Would Protect Nuke Plants From Air Attacks

theday.com ]

By Patricia Daddona

Published on 4/25/2007 

The federal agency that regulates nuclear reactors has proposed
requiring that new reactors be designed to withstand the impact of
commercial jets.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission already tries to ward off such
major security and safety breaches as large pipe breaks, fires,
earthquakes and floods by imposing so-called “design-basis threat”
requirements.

“Assessing a new reactor design in the early stages can enable
modifications or additional features to reduce the need for human
intervention in the event of an airplane crash,” the NRC said in a
news release.

The town of Waterford is home to two operating and one closed
reactor at Millstone Power Station on Long Island Sound. Millstone's
owner, Dominion, is seeking to build a new reactor in Virginia.
Dominion has no plans to build a new reactor in Waterford, company
spokesman Pete Hyde said.

Fears of air attacks became heightened after terrorists flew
commercial jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on
Sept. 11, 2001.

At nuclear power plants, spent fuel pools that hold radioactive
waste are particularly vulnerable to air strikes and other forms of
sabotage, according to a study completed in 2005 by experts from the
National Academy of Sciences.

The industry and the NRC have consistently challenged that view.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has lobbied
Congress for better protection of Millstone's airspace and advocated
for no-fly zones over the reactors there, has said that since NRC
officials have “sweeping, pre-emptive authority” over states, it is
up to them to take steps to protect nuclear plants from air attacks.

“The NRC should immediately extend this common sense requirement to
Indian Point (in New York) and other existing reactors,” Blumenthal
said in a statement. “At best, the commission's action will have no
impact for years, while continuing to leave Indian Point and the
nation's other nuclear facilities dangerously vulnerable.”

Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us at 1 (860) 442-2200  |  New London, CT
 |  © 1998-2007 The Day Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
 21 AU ABC: Rann 'hypocritical' over nuclear power. 

25/04/2007. ABC News Online

The South Australia Opposition has accused Premier Mike Rann of
having double standards on nuclear power.

Mr Rann has written to Labor Party delegates ahead of this weekend's
ALP national conference calling for the 'no new mines' policy to be
abandoned.

Mr Rann uses the environmental benefits of nuclear power as part of
his argument for more uranium mining.

Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith says Mr Rann is hypocritical.

"We share the climate, we share the atmosphere, if it's good for the
climate to build nuclear power stations in China then why has he
rammed the shutters down on an informed debate here in Australia?"
he said.

"It's hypocrisy. It smacks of double standards."


*****************************************************************
 22 Connect Savannah: Endless power, endless cost

The brutal economics of a move to more nuclear energy

By Kathleen Graham

Two views of Plant Vogtle's twin cooling towers on the Savannah River


Proponents of nuclear power as an energy resource often argue 
three things in its favor: it's cost-effective during 
operations, reliable and clean.

"One of the reasons we and many other utilities have gone back to 
give nuclear energy a strong look is because when you look at the 
cost of other fuels for generating electricity- when you look at 
the whole production costs and construction costs- nuclear energy 
stacks up very competitively," says Carol Boatright of 
Georgia Power.

"It's cheaper than gas or coal or any others. The things we are 
seeing right now indicate that nuclear energy is the most 
effective, efficient and economic means for meeting the growth 
and demand that we're seeing."


Sara Barczak, Safe Energy Director of Southern Alliance for Clean
Energy (SACE), disagrees and argues nuclear power is a poor
investment.

"The economics of this as an investment have been masked for 
decades," says Barczak. "Now it's masked even more because 
you have old plants that are operating right now and their 
operational costs are cheaper than a coal plant. But they 
aren't thinking about the fact that it cost 12 times what 
they predicted to build it, and we're still paying for 
those investments."

One investment now sits in Burke County, near Waynesboro, 
Georgia. Final construction costs for the Plant Vogtle Electric 
Generating Plant and its two nuclear reactors were capped at 
nearly $8.87 billion, a twelve-fold increase from its initial 
estimated cost of $660 million.

According to Georgia Power's Carol Boatright, many factors 
contributed to the unexpected cost increase, including high 
interest rates at that time and a nuclear accident.

"During the period of construction, the incident of Three Mile 
Island occurred," explains Boatright, referring to the accidental 
meltdown in 1979 at the Three Mile Island Generating Station, a 
commercial nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

"After that incident, there were a lot of changes- 
re-engineering, regulation changes and reviews- that slowed down 
the process."

Boatright describes how parts of the plant already built had to 
be torn down or reconstructed to meet new regulations, and the 
blueprints were being reworked while construction was ongoing.


In addition, Plant Vogtle was originally intended to accommodate 
four reactor units before it was downsized to two units, mostly 
due to a decline in growth and financial constraints within the 
company, according to Boatright.

Since the two current reactors came online in 1987 and 1989, 
ratepayers have paid, and continue to pay back the $8.87 billion 
used to build the units, resulting in the largest rate hike in 
Georgia's history.


"It's still in the rate base, and it's still an asset our 
ratepayers are paying on," says Boatright.

Recently, Southern Company, the operator of Plant Vogtle (Georgia
Power is the majority co-owner) applied for an Early Site Permit
(ESP), which if approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and
the Georgia Public Service Commission, would allow the company 20
years to decide whether or not to build two additional reactors on
the site.

While an ESP is not a commitment to build anything, the cost of the
ESP application ($51 million) and the exhaustive measures taken to
secure approval from the necessary commissions says something of
Southern Company's intentions.

No final cost estimate for the two reactors has been set, but a $3-4
billion price tag would be in the neighborhood.

With respect to unanticipated construction costs and rate hikes,
what's to keep history from repeating itself in Georgia?

"That is why we are in contract negotiations now," says
Boatright. "We want to confirm everything ahead of time as
much as possible. We want to have a firm price from the vendors as
to how much various materials and the total project itself would
cost. The economics are part of the decision on whether we do go
forward."

Sara Barczak of SACE maintains government subsidies and incentives
make nuclear power seem more attractive as an investment.

"If the Energy Policy Act of 2005 didn't have these
subsidies ($13 billion in subsidies allocated to the nuclear
industry), I don't think we'd be seeing this race by
these utilities to build these new nuclear plants," says
Barczak. "The more money that they can get for free, so to
speak, from taxpayers and ratepayers, the less risk they have and
their shareholders like that."

Barczak also argues, rather than sinking large amounts of money into
building nuclear reactors, there are better ways to invest that
capital.

"Let's just say, let's give it to them that 
it's going to cost $4 billion and they'll get it 
online by 2015-2017," she says. "There's so much more that 
you could have done with that same amount of money in terms of 
energy efficiency."

For the most part, Georgia Public ServiceCommissioner Stan Wise
supports nuclear energy.

"To go forward we've got to look and see what do we do
to promote efficient and reliable production of electricity in our
state, not only for our current customers but also for the new
Georgians that will move here in the next 20 years," says
Wise, underlining the importance of utility companies to remain
healthy and earn a profit as well.

"I think we have to do the very best we can and know that fuel
diversity, reliability and safe generation for future Georgians is
vital. I think the nuclear option has to be one that's in the
mix."

The Public Service Commission (PSC), made up of five elected
commissioners, negotiates with utility companies and regulates
utility rates on behalf of ratepayers. With respect to electricity,
while the goal is to keep electric rates as low as possible and
electric generation high, Commissioner Wise argues Georgians
shouldn't expect a free lunch.

"I wish I could tell you that all of this could be done at no 
cost, but that's the head in the sand approach that I don't 
believe this commission can afford to take," says Wise. "If you 
go into the hearing room expecting a free lunch, you're going to 
walk out with no lunch."

Although he's a keen supporter of nuclear energy, Commissioner 
Wise criticizes the federal government's failure to take 
ownership of the steadily accumulating nuclear waste stored 
on-site at commercial plants around the country.

 No one, not even the federal government, gets a free lunch.

"Ratepayers in this state have paid a significant sum of money on 
their power bills every month to the federal government, the 
black hole of all black holes, for a nuclear waste repository, 
always with the expectation that it would be Yucca Mountain," 
argues Wise. "We continue to pay into that fund."

In 1982 the federal government established the Nuclear Waste 
Fund, one of its first steps toward taking ownership of the spent 
fuel and high-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear 
reactors around the country.

Power plants that use nuclear energy to produce electricity also 
produce extremely toxic nuclear waste. In the early 1980's 
utility companies began paying into the Nuclear Waste Fund with 
the expectation that the government would eventually remove the 
waste from their plants and store it elsewhere.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) took charge of designing and 
developing a permanent repository that could safely store 
radioactive waste over a long period of time, 10,000- 100,000 
years.

For several years the DOE studied the suitability of building a 
permanent repository at different sites around the country, but 
in 1987 Congress directed the DOE to focus on Yucca Mountain in 
Nevada, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Since then the Yucca Mountain Repository has faced much 
opposition and repeated setbacks, and what was supposed to open 
in 1998 now has a "best-achievable" opening date of 2017, 
according to the U.S. Department of Energy website.

"Yucca Mountain has been both a political and scientific 
nightmare," says Sara Barczak of SACE.

"It was just a few years ago when the project sort of imploded on 
itself because scientists working on the project came forward and 
admitted there was a lot of falsified information. The science is 
now essentially discredited and billions of dollars have been 
spent on it."

Carol Boatright of Georgia Power arguesthe problems with Yucca 
are mostly political.

"It's bogged down in politics," she says.
"It's been called the most expensively studied piece of
real estate on earth."

Whether the delays are due to science, politics or both, 
Commissioner Stan Wise argues it's not fair on Georgians and 
other ratepayers who continue to pay the federal government for 
services it isn't providing.

Even as more money is poured into the Fund, local utility 
companies and ratepayers pay for the waste to be stored on-site 
at their local plants.

"We're already paying for a national waste repository and now our 
companies have to fund a ‘temporary' site, which we know 
good and well won't be temporary," says Wise, arguing that the 
federal government is content to let utility companies handle 
their own waste in the meantime.

Wise, who has visited the Yucca Mountain Repository, insists it 
must be approved and opened as soon as possible. Continuing to 
pay for two repository sites is simply not fair to ratepayers, 
and it's deceptive on the government's part.

"If you're not going to finish this, we want our money back, and 
we'll refund our ratepayers," says Wise. "When you've opened 
Yucca Mountain, then we'll forward you back your money. This 
continues to be bought and paid for, and we don't get anything 
for our money. It's wrong, and it's theft on a grand scale."

Since 1982 electricity customers nationwide have paid over $28 
billion into the Fund. Out of that total payment, $9.1 billion 
has been put toward the repository.

According to Carol Boatright of Georgia Power, Georgians have 
paid $616.3 million into the Nuclear Waste Fund. Meanwhile, 
nuclear facilities like Plant Hatch in Baxley, Georiga have run 
out of space in their spent fuel pools and have begun storing 
nuclear waste aboveground in dry-cask storage containers. Plant 
Vogtle will run out of space in its spent fuel pools in 2014, 
after which it will move to dry-cask storage.

"There's really no specific length of time we could not store in 
dry-cask storage," says Boatright. "If we had to we can continue 
to store like that."

Both Wise and Boatright are hoping the right amount of political 
pressure will force the government to shift into a faster gear, 
and both are encouraged that the DOE is finally getting around to 
applying for its permit to finish construction of the Yucca 
Mountain Repository. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must 
still approve the permit.

Sara Barczak is worried about another permit closer to home. "Why 
would you advocate to build new reactors when there's no end in 
sight as to what to do with the nuclear waste?" she asks. č


letters@connectsavannah.com

Learn more about the concerns raised by Southern Alliance For 
Clean Energy at www.cleanenergy.org, or to learn more about 
Southern Company's nuclear operations, visit 
www.southerncompany.com. A Public Service Meeting will be May 11 
at 9:45 a.m. at the offices of the Georgia Public Service 
Commission, 244 Washington Street, in Atlanta. Southern Alliance 
for Clean Energy and other groups will present their case against 
the construction of 2 new reactors at Plant Vogtle. The public 
can call the Georgia Public Service Commission at (404) 656-4501 
or (800) 282-5813.
    
©2005 Connect Savannah - All Rights Reserved | Tel 912.231.0250
*****************************************************************
 23 asahi.com: Penalties called 'soft' in nuclear cover-up - 

04/25/2007

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

Hokuriku Electric Power Co. has announced measures to punish
management and quell criticism over the cover-up of a criticality
accident in 1999. Now, its in-house penalties are the target of
criticism.

Hokuriku Electric Managing Director Shosaku Tsujii resigned Monday
from the Toyama-based company.

Tsujii was acting head of the the Shika Nuclear Power Plant in
Ishikawa Prefecture when the criticality incident occurred.

Tsujii voluntarily declined his executive retirement package,
according to company officials.

Keizo Yamada, president at the time and now an adviser, will step
down April 30.

However, current President Isao Nagahara will stay at the post. He
will take a 50-percent cut in pay for three months.

Kanji Tanimoto, professor at Hitotsubashi University and an expert
on corporate society, called the measures too soft.

"What is being criticized is the lax corporate climate that led to
the criticality accident, which could have caused irreversible
(environmental) consequences, and that allowed this incident to be
covered up for eight years," he said.

"The punitive measures do nothing to change that irresponsible
corporate climate," Tanimoto said. "They amount to no punishment at
all."

In the June 1999 incident, the Shika nuclear plant's No. 1 reactor
reached a critical state of nuclear fission in the early morning
hours after three control rods slipped out of position.

The rods failed to return to their proper places, and the
self-sustaining chain reaction continued for about 15 minutes. The
reactor was uncontrollable during that period.

At Monday's news conference at the company's Toyama head office,
reporters had questions about the punitive measures.

Some asked why the president was not resigning and why the company
has not revamped its management lineup.

Others questioned whether the punishments would satisfy worried
people living in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant.

"I believe we have taken strict measures," President Nagahara told
reporters.

"It is truly regrettable to have lost the trust of local residents.
We hope to take (further) concrete preventive measures and build a
new Hokuriku Electric," he said.

The company said 10 remaining board members, seven operating
officers and three department directors would also receive pay cuts.

Of the eight employees directly involved in the cover-up who still
work for the company, three will take pay cuts and five will be
reprimanded.

In total, 30 people will receive some form of punitive measures,
Hokuriku Electric officials said.(IHT/Asahi: April 25,2007)


The Asahi Shimbun Asia Network

*****************************************************************
 24 ForUm: President unveils Chernobyl monument

News / 25 April 2007 | 14:34

Accompanied by Kyiv Governor Vira Ulyanchenko, Victor Yushchenko
visited Bila Tserkva on Wednesday to unveil a monument honoring the
victims of the Chornobyl tragedy, The Chornobyl Bell, and plant
trees around it, according to president's press office..

In a speech during the ceremony, he said it was incumbent on the
government to “adequately react” to the aftereffects of the world’s
worst nuclear catastrophe and added that Ukraine had spent more
money on the issue in the past three years than in the decade before.

“However, this response is not full,for we need much more [ money
],” he said, urging the cabinet of ministers to introduce Chornobyl
programs.

Yushchenko said the Chornobyl issue affected the whole country and
insisted that the polluted zone should be developed, calling it “not
only the area of tragedy but also of prospects.” He said it could be
used to produce biological fuel, generate energy, open wildlife
preserves and process wood.

“This territory must not be forgotten. We want to see this land
alive and revived,” he said, adding that the Shelter project was an
integral part of Chornobyl’s renewal.

The Ukrainian leader expressed gratitude to those who had sponsored
the creation of the monument. Bila Tserkva Mayor thanked him for his
Chornobyl policies.

They observed one minute of silence to pay tribute to the victims of
the disaster.

ForUm


Tom (15:54 | 25 April,2007)
"The coalition and the opposition have commenced political
consultations on snap elections of the Verkhovna Rada in the
Presidential Secretariat."
http://www.ukranews.com/eng/article/39527.html


tsenis (16:08 | 25 April,2007)
Wish he also had spelled a word of grief for the long lasting bad
consequences this accident had in all other countrius including mine.


Richard (16:11 | 25 April,2007)
I must protest at the use of language on this site. Comparing FS
with monkey shit is just not fair on the monkeys.


Adrian (16:20 | 25 April,2007)
Funny how all of a sudden FS is silent. Is this a sign of
embarrassment? Wouldn't it be a grand day if this was the last we
hear of her?!

tsenis (16:23 | 25 April,2007)
If we go through all posts ... It is clear who acts - behaves and
talks like a monkey here.


Richard (17:48 | 25 April,2007)
I must disagree Tsenis. Again, I repeat, comparing Fs with monkeys
is completely unfair to the monkeys. Monkeys are quite intelligent..
having about 93% of human DNA. - far more than your average Russian
troll on this site ;-)))


Richard (18:34 | 25 April,2007)
How a Russian troll compares with monkey "shit"..... ? ....More
difficult, admittedly, but still not fair on the monkeys, I feel...

Robert (19:16 | 25 April,2007)
I agree tsenis. Behavior speaks for itself. Yorga's post isn't even
close to being on topic. Richard is off charging at windmills again.
Adrian doesn't understand what the phrase banning early elections on
May 27th means...it means they won't happen on May 27th, Adrian. No
one has talked about banning elections outright, at the very least
they will occur on their regular schedule...if not earlier. Where is
the for-ua story covering this? in the meantime FS has put the word
out.


Richard (19:41 | 25 April,2007)
Ha!! Robert agrees with Tsenis !!! Even Puree has avoided agreeing
with DicK and Neza child! Space........ we are heading into outer
space...... must be the after effects of Dyen Cosmonaut and too much
vodka....
*****************************************************************
 25 Salt Lake Tribune: Residents in D.C. to get help for sick

Monticello

Residents in D.C. to get help for sick
cases of cancer

Article Last Updated: 04/25/2007 01:40:29 AM MDT

WASHINGTON - A Monticello citizens group is seeking federal help to
diagnose and treat family members, neighbors and friends who they
say are suffering from illnesses caused by a former government-run
vanadium and uranium mill.

    Its first stop Tuesday: a call on Utah's congressional
delegation.

    The Monticello Mill operated from 1941 to 1960, refining
vanadium and uranium for nuclear weapons, including, the Monticello
residents believe, the atomic bombs dropped on Japan to end World
War II.

    But residents of the town of just more than 1,900 say radiation
and contaminants from the mill have caused more than 600 illnesses
among the town's current and former residents, including 474 cases
of cancer.

    "It's gotten to the point that there's so much sickness and
death that we have to get help," said Monticello Mayor Doug Allen.

    The citizens group, Victims of Mill Tailings Exposure, had a
series of meetings Tuesday with staff members for Utah's
congressional delegation and officials at the Energy Department,
asking for money for health screening, education and treatment
programs.

    "The stories coming from Monticello are heartbreaking. I want to
help, and I'll be working with the delegation to explore what
Congress can do," Sen. Orrin Hatch said in a statement.

    Hatch's staff, they said, agreed to request funding, but that 
would be the initial step in a long and uncertain process. The 
group has also asked for help from Sen. Bob Bennett, who is on 
the committee that decides federal spending.

    "We're hoping they'll look at the little people, the little
community that has been so devastated by this government neglect,"
said Carmalee Young. "It's a matter of life and death for us."

    The mill sat on the southeast corner of town. When it closed in
1960, more than 900,000 tons of radioactive tailings were left at
the site.

    "As kids, we just went down there and played on them," Young
said. "There were tailings ponds, and we just swam in the ponds."

    Barbara Pipkin, whose husband has cancer, said residents were
encouraged to take the tailings and use them as fill dirt or to
build roads.

    The Monticello mill was eventually listed as a Superfund site.
The federal government cleaned up the mill site and 425 private
properties, and relocated the tailings, completing the cleanup in
2004 at a cost of $280 million.

    The citizens group has been working for years to get help,
without any success.

    An analysis of the state cancer registry by the Utah Department
of Health failed to show a significantly higher rate of cancer in
the town. The Monticello group members said that study ignored
individuals they had identified or former residents who have since
moved out of the town.

    The state has since agreed to update the data with any
additional documented cases that could be provided and reassess the
information. That review is ongoing.

    "We're familiar with their concerns and fears and are trying to
get them more updated information," said Rep. Jim Matheson's
spokeswoman Alyson Heyrend.
   
© Copyright 2007, The Salt Lake Tribune.
*****************************************************************
 26 Yokwe Net: Bikini and Enewetak Appear before U.S. Federal Court of Claims Lawsuit

Everything Marshall Islands :: http://www.yokwe.net

Apr 26, 2007 - 07:16 AM

Lawyers for Bikini and Enewetak appeared before the U.S. Federal 
Court of Claims on Monday arguing that their lawsuits should 
proceed. It was 20 years to the day that the last hearing in the 
U.S. Court of Federal Claims took place before Judge Harkins 
(1987) when Republic of the Marshall Islands' (RMI) lawsuits were 
dismissed.

After the people of Bikini and Enewetak filed their lawsuits in 
April of 2006 against the US government seeking to enforce the 
awards they received from the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, the U.S. 
government filed a Motion to Dismiss the case on the grounds that 
the first Compact denied the right of RMI citizens to sue the 
U.S. government for any claims arising from the nuclear testing 
conducted by the U.S. from 1946-1958. The U.S. also alleged that 
there were statute of limitations issues with the cases. In 
short, this was a hearing to determine if these cases could move 
forward in the U.S. courts.


There were about 10 other people in what was a very small 
courtroom including other lawyers that have clients in the RMI, 
and some other observers, said Bikini Atoll Liason Jack 
Niedenthal, in an email to Yokwe Online. The following, he said, 
represents a layman's view of the proceedings, with more 
explanation from the Bikini attorney Jon Weisgall, to be released 
later:


      The Presiding Judge was Christine O.C. Miller at the U.S. 
Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2007.

      Appearing for the United States was Kathryn A. Bleecker and 
Bruce K. Trauben. Appearing for the People of Bikini was Jonathan 
Weisgall. Appearing for the People of Enewetak was Jon Van Dyke 
and Davor Pevec.

      In the courtroom for the Marshall Islands were Senator 
Tomaki Juda (Bikini), Mayor Eldon Note (bikini), Senator Jack 
Ading (Enewetak), Mayor Jackson Ading (Enewetak), Senator Abacca 
Anjain-Maddison (Rongelap), Senator Iroijlaplap Michael Kabua 
(Kwajalein), Senator Tony Debrum (Kwajalein), Senator Jebon 
Riklon (Kwajalein), Councilman Quincy Calep (Bikini), Councilman 
Jackie Irujiman (Bikini), Charles Paul and Dixie Lomae (RMI 
Embassy), and Jack Niedenthal (Bikini).

      The hearing began at 10 a.m. with the judge mentioning that 
the U.S. government lawyers had created an "eggbeater" in her 
mind because they had requested that the Bikini and Enewetak 
cases be separated, which she denied even though the cases were 
different in certain respects. She also mentioned that she was 
very impressed by all the briefs turned in by both parties. It 
was very clear that this case had her interest, and that she had 
a thorough grasp of the issues at hand, said Niedenthal

      The U.S. government lawyers presented their side of the 
case first. Some of the key issues that were discussed surrounded 
the jurisdictional issues as to whether the court should even be 
hearing the two cases. The U.S. lawyers discussed the espousal 
and full and final settlement issues from the first Compact of 
Free Association along with the statute of limitations issues. At 
one point the U.S. claimed that the $150 million given to the 
Nuclear Claims Tribunal was mismanaged and that these monies 
should have earned more and should not have been as depleted as 
they are today. The U.S. attorneys also mentioned that there were 
serious statute of limitations issues for the Enewetak case, and 
that Bikini had already accepted $90 million as a settlement in 
the late 1980s, and therefore those people should now be 
considered fully compensated.

      During the U.S. testimony, the judge made it very clear 
that she believed that Judge Harkins had done an extremely 
thorough job in the earlier Claims Court cases, and that he had 
left it open as to whether the funds provided under the Compact 
for the Tribunal would be adequate enough to resolve the claims 
for the people of the Marshall Islands. The judge at this point 
said that the taking claims and the breach of contract claims for 
the Bikinians had merit and in her mind could still be heard by 
the court because of how Judge Harkins had worded his decision, 
while only the breach of contract claims had merit for Enewetak. 
The breach of contract claims are much weaker than the taking 
claims for the purposes of the U.S. Federal Court of Claims. The 
judge said that Enewetak's taking claims could not move forward 
because in the first lawsuits against the U.S., Enewetak had 
filed their taking claims case by saying that the US had violated 
the UN mandate to take care of the Marshall Islands. The judge 
made it clear that even in 1987 the U.S. Federal Court of Claims 
could not enforce treaty violations. When Bikini filed their 
taking claims case in 1987, on the other hand, they sued the U.S. 
by saying their Constitutional 5th Amendment property rights had 
been violated, which gave the U.S. Court of Federal Claims 
jurisdiction and the ability to hear their case.

      Judge Miller also mentioned at this point that it was not 
the court's role to seek to "enforce" the Nuclear Claims Tribunal 
awards. She mentioned that if she decided to allow the cases to 
move forward (and it seemed clear at this point in the hearing 
that this is what she intended to do), everyone would have to 
start over, i.e., they would have to present all the scientific 
and cleanup cost information, etc., and this would probably take 
many years. She encouraged all parties to negotiate and to settle 
the cases. She mentioned this repeatedly throughout the hearing 
saying that the Bikinians and the Enewetakese would probably not 
stand to win anywhere near what the Nuclear Claims Tribunal had 
awarded them, and that the U.S. would suffer the embarrassment of 
having this period of US history discussed and dragged out over a 
long period of time.

      At 11:25 a.m., after a short 15 minute break, Jon Weisgall 
presented the first half of the Bikini/Enewetak side of the case 
basically saying that Judge Harkins, in his 1987 decision, had 
provided the court with a roadmap for resolving these current 
issues and that Congress should not have the ability to take away 
5th Amendment property rights cases from the courts.

      In 1987, Weisgall had complained to Judge Harkins that the 
amount of money given to the RMI for the Nuclear Claims Tribunal 
was woefully inadequate. Judge Harkins had responded to this 
claim in his decision by saying that it was premature to say 
there was not enough money given to the Nuclear Claims Tribunal 
and that the Tribunal had to make its awards first before it 
would be clear as to whether the funds were inadequate. The judge 
asked numerous questions of all the attorneys as to whether the 
Bikinians/Enewetakese had been adequately compensated, and what 
exactly did "adequate compensation" mean.

      From 12:05 to 12:50 p.m. Professor Jon Van Dyke from the 
University of Hawaii Law School presented the second half of the 
Bikini/Enewetak case. The judge mentioned yet again that the fact 
that these issues are still unresolved makes the U.S. look bad, 
and how horribly worded the first Compact of Free Association was 
because it left so many important issues vague, open ended and 
undefined. Furthermore, she cautioned that the Bikinian and 
Enewetakese only had maybe a 25% chance of winning their case if 
it moved forward and that even if the cases succeeded the awards 
would be small. The judge again spoke at length about the 
advantages for both parties if they settled out of court because 
the case would drag on for years costing a lot of time and money 
for all concerned.

      After hearing the judge lecture repeatedly about the 
advantages of negotiating a settlement, lunch was like a victory 
celebration for the RMI side as we had clearly done very well and 
the judge seemed to be buying our arguments that the case 
deserved to move forward.

      We came back after lunch at 2 p.m. At this time the US was 
given the chance to respond to all the points that the RMI side 
had raised during the morning session. The U.S. government 
lawyers did a much better job in the afternoon explaining the 
numerous implications and ramifications of Compact I, i.e., that 
Section 177 represented a full and final settlement of all 
nuclear claims arising out of the nuclear testing--period, past, 
present and future. This caused the judge to pull back a bit, 
hesitate, and reconsider some of her earlier statements, so the 
previous feelings of elation by the RMI side were quickly 
subdued.

      At 2:45 p.m., after the U.S. finished making their 
arguments, Jon Weisgall was then permitted to reply to the U.S. 
opinions. At this juncture in the hearing, Weisgall discussed the 
issue of how the funds were dispersed under the Section 177 
agreement, which was important because the US lawyers and the 
judge seemed to have the false impression that the money, as 
stated earlier, had somehow been mismanaged by the Nuclear Claims 
Tribunal. Weisgall explained that the allocation to the Nuclear 
Claims Tribunal was based on a 12% return and that the trust had 
to payout $18 million per year for various Section 177 functions, 
etc., which made it impossible for the trust fund to grow. He 
also mentioned that the Bikinians nor the Enewetakese had ever 
had any input into the investment decisions of these funds. 
Professor Van Dyke then concluded the RMI arguments from 3:10 to 
3:25 pm.

      In her conclusion, the judge then spent yet another 20 
minutes explaining why it was important to negotiate a settlement 
as opposed to trying to move these cases through the court. She 
then requested that both parties give her briefs discussing the 
first Compact and what it accomplished (or was supposed to 
accomplish, or what it never accomplished) with regard to the 
compensation issues. These briefs, that are only allowed to be 10 
pages long, are due on May 23. Judge Miller then concluded by 
saying that she would decide these cases before June 22.



Special to Yokwe Online from Jack Niedenthal, April 24, 2007


©Aenet Rowa, webmaster - yokwenet@aol.com

Theme creado por dev-postnuke.com
*****************************************************************
 27 PRN: Sick Cold War Era Nuclear Weapons Workers File Suit to Restore 
Needed Medical Services

Holland & Hart, Attorneys at Law :: 

DENVER, April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- A class action suit was filed in US
District Court on behalf of seriously ill former uranium miners and
nuclear weapons workers throughout the country who are having their
doctor's orders ignored and their medical benefits reduced by the US
Department of Labor. The plaintiffs became ill after working on the
country's nuclear weapons arsenal and now most are dying from their
work related exposure to toxic materials.

"It's unconscionable for these injured Cold War veterans, who have
already qualified for this congressionally mandated care, to be
treated in this reckless and arbitrary manner. These workers and
families are not seeking monetary damages, they just want the health
care restored that their doctors have ordered as being necessary for
their conditions" said Greg Piche, the attorney representing the
workers. The suit is asking a judge to stop the Department of Labor,
who oversees the program, from disregarding the medical directives.

"Recently we've seen the Labor Department arbitrarily reduce the
amount of care ordered by our patients' doctors. At the same time
the Department has made patients and their families wait for up to 7
months to have their care approved. For many of these seriously ill
and elderly patients, care delayed is in fact care denied, with life
threatening consequences" said Greg Austin, President of
Professional Case Management, the in-home nursing agency that
provides skilled nursing care to these former nuclear workers.

In 2000, Congress passed the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) with the purpose of establishing
a program to provide for "timely, uniform, and adequate compensation
of covered employees," including medical benefits for nuclear
weapons workers and uranium miners, millers and haulers who
developed serious and often terminal illnesses as a result of their
employment in the US nuclear weapons industry.

To date, the government has acknowledged that over 21,000 uranium
and nuclear weapons workers throughout the country have been injured
as a result of their exposure to radiation or other toxic substances
as they produced the weapon's grade uranium and related materials
required for the US nuclear arsenal.
  FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
  Greg Piche, Partner
  Holland & Hart, Attorneys at Law
  303.295.8014
  email: gpiche@hollandhart.com

    Copyright © 1996-2003 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights 
Reserved. A United Business Media company.
*****************************************************************
 28 NRC: NRC to Meet with Westinghouse Nuclear Fuel Plant Officials to 
Discuss Facility Safety Performance

News Release - Region II - 2007-024 - 

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


 Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will meet with officials 
of the Westinghouse commercial nuclear fuel plant in Columbia, 
S.C., on Thursday, April 26, to discuss the agency’s latest 
review of the facility’s safety performance. The meeting, 
which is open to the public, is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. 
in the Red Room of the South Carolina State Museum, located at 
301 Gervais Street in Columbia. The NRC staff will present the 
results of the review and be available to respond to questions or 
comments from the public before the close of the meeting.

  The NRC staff will discuss with Westinghouse safety performance 
in the major areas of safety operations, radiological controls, 
facility support and special topics. The evaluation covers a 
period from Feb. 18, 2006, through Feb.12, 2007.

   The review found that Westinghouse had conducted its 
activities safely during the period of review. The NRC said 
Westinghouse’s human performance improvement efforts, which 
included retraining and re-qualification of operators, 
implementation of a rigorous audit program, improvements to the 
plant’s corrective action program, and improved 
implementation of the quality assurance program, contributed to 
an overall improvement in performance.

  The NRC has determined that, based on plant performance during 
the period of evaluation, no additional inspection effort will be 
required this year, and the agency has implemented its regular 
inspection program for the Westinghouse category of fuel 
fabrication facility.

  A copy of the NRC letter to Westinghouse which outlines details 
of the review is available by contacting OPA2@nrc.gov or from the 
NRC web site at 
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams/web-based.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.

April 25, 2007
*****************************************************************
 29 Platts: Scrap treatment at Cadarche MOX plant must end by June 2008

London (Platts)--25Apr2007

Treatment of Pu scrap at the closed Cadarche MOX plant must be finished by 
June 2008, France's Nuclear Safety Authority, ASN, said in a March 21 decision
posted this month on its web site, http://www.asn.fr. 

The Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, CEA, the formal licensee of the
Cadarache site, had asked to postpone the end of scrap treatment at the
Atelier de Traitement de Plutonium, or ATPu, to allow treatment of plutonium
scrap materials from other facilities on the site.

ASN and CEA have been negotiating the deadline since December 2006. The new
decision sets it at June 2008 and stipulates that quarterly schedules are to
be sent to ASN on the amount of Pu scrap to be recycled and on inventories of
material remaining in ATPu and an associated laboratory. ATPu, which has been
operated industrially by Areva NC, ceased commercial operation in July 2003.

For more news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at
http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?story or
subscribe now at
http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=22_41&products_id=67



Post this story to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic |
Reddit

Copyright © 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 30 West Australian: Labor to 'abolish uranium mines policy' : 

thewest.com.au

26th April 2007, 4:17 WST

The Labor Party is certain to abolish its policy of no new uranium
mines at this weekend's national conference after its left faction
conceded on Wednesday it did not have the numbers to block the move.

Led by Anthony Albanese, the left estimated on Wednesday it would
only muster votes from 180 of the 397 delegates.

"Rudd will get up and that will be good because Albo will get to run
his line and Rudd gets to come in and show what a strong leader he
is by spearing the left in the ribs," a left faction source told
Fairfax newspapers.

"Everyone goes away happy."

A senior Labor frontbencher who will vote to abolish the policy was
similarly resigned.

"There will be a stage-managed debate on a couple of issues and the
leader will get everything he wants," the source said.

Labor's left faction will have about 177 delegates at the conference.

Some of its members, including Martin Ferguson, Julia Gillard and
Chris Evans, will vote against the faction to abolish the policy.

Some from Labor's right faction, including frontbencher Stephen
Conroy, will vote with the left, Fairfax reported.

The eight independents are expected to split over the issue.

The premiers of Queensland and Western Australia have said they will
not allow uranium mining in their states, even if the policy is
abolished.

Most of Mr Rudd's front bench are supporting abolishing the policy,
as is the South Australian Premier Mike Rann.

Anti-uranium frontbenchers include Kim Carr, Peter Garrett, Tanya
Plibersek and Penny Wong.

Other than Senator Carr, none is a conference delegate and therefore
they cannot vote. AAP

West Australian Newspapers Limited 2007. All Rights Reserved
*****************************************************************
 31 Moscow Times: Kazakhs See Big Growth In Uranium

Thursday, April 26, 2007. Issue 3645. Page 6.

Kazakhs See Big Growth In Uranium
Reuters

ALMATY, Kazakhstan -- Kazakh state nuclear company Kazatomprom plans
to grab 40 percent of the global uranium market in a decade as it
develops ties with key consumers such as Japan, its head said
Wednesday.

Kazatomprom President Mukhtar Dzhakishev said his main goal was to
transform the world's No.3 uranium producer into a global
corporation selling end products such as fuel rods directly to
export markets.

"We currently hold 9-10 percent of the global market, maybe 11. ...
We plan to achieve about 40 percent in terms of production by
2016-17," Dzhakishev said.

He was speaking ahead of Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari's visit
to Kazakhstan next week when the two plan to sign deals that would
help Kazatomprom to secure 40 percent of the Japanese nuclear fuel
market by 2012.

Home to a fifth of global uranium reserves, the Kazakhstan wants to
be the world's No.1 uranium producer by 2010, surpassing Australia
and Canada.

Amari is bringing more than 100 top Japanese business figures such
as the heads of Marubeni, Sumitomo, Toshiba, Tokyo Electric Power
and others.

The visit is part of Japan's efforts to secure steady uranium fuel
supplies as high oil prices and attempts to curb greenhouse gas
emissions have put the spotlight back on nuclear energy, which
provides Japan with 30 percent of the electricity it uses.

Japan's willingness to develop ties with Kazakhstan also underlines
its resolve to play a more active geopolitical role in Central Asia,
where Russia, China and the United States are jostling for influence.

© Copyright 2006. The Moscow Times. All rights reserved.
Designed by Oriental Star
 
*****************************************************************
 32 UPI: U.S., Japan sign nuclear energy pact

United Press International - Energy - Briefing

Published: April 25, 2007 at 6:56 PM

WASHINGTON April 25 (UPI) -- The United States and Japan have signed
a deal to move forward with an international plan to increase
nuclear power without proliferation.

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman and three Japanese ministers
signed the United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan
Wednesday during a meeting in Washington.

"By strengthening our joint cooperation in civil nuclear energy, the
United States and Japan will also strengthen our strategic
interests," Bodman said. "This Action Plan is an historic agreement
and provides the additional foundation for our two nations to align
efforts to support the global expansion of nuclear energy, and
ultimately a nuclear renaissance."

Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari, Education
and Science Minister Bunmei Ibuki and Foreign Minister Taro Aso
signed the deal, the result of a commitment made by the two
countries in January to jointly cooperate on enhancing nuclear
energy.

A joint steering committee will oversee the core elements of the
Action Plan, which includes research and development of the U.S.
Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a plan to increase nuclear energy
worldwide while ensuring the materials are recycled and reused
instead of available for weapons.

"Not only can nuclear energy serve as a cornerstone of sustainable
economic development," Bodman said, "but as a reliable, viable and
emissions-free source of power, it offers enormous potential to help
meet the world's increasing demand for energy in a safe and
proliferation-resistant manner."

© Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
United Press International, UPI, the UPI logo, and other trademarks
*****************************************************************
 33 The Australian: Uranium fallout splitting the party | 

NEWS.com.au |

* April 26, 2007

* Samantha Maiden, Political correspondent

KEVIN Rudd's push to overturn a ban on new uranium mines has 
triggered a split in the Victorian Right, with Labor's deputy 
Senate leader Stephen Conroy still considering his position.

Splits have formed in all three factions of the Labor Party over 
the proposal to overturn the ban but Senator Conroy would become 
the first member of Mr Rudd's leadership team to break ranks on 
the issue.

The Victorian Right last night resolved to give delegates a free
vote on policy matters, allowing those who disagree with Mr Rudd to
vote against the historic change. However Senator Conroy stressed a
clear majority was still expected to vote in favour of overturning
the ban.

A long-time opponent of an expansion of uranium mining, the
Victorian powerbroker has previously voted against moves to drop
prohibitions on new mines.

"I am considering my position," he told The Australian.

"As to what the outcome will be, Kevin Rudd will win. I would expect
an overwhelming majority of the Victorian Right will vote with Kevin
Rudd."

The rise of union leader Bill Shorten, who is expected to join Mr
Rudd's team after the next election as a Victorian MP, will help
shore up the Right's support for change. The support of Deputy Labor
leader Julia Gillard, a member of the Left in Victoria, and
Opposition Senate leader Chris Evans is also expected to deliver a
significant bloc of votes to support Mr Rudd's position.

Labor's Right faction holds a majority of delegates at this year's
conference, which will help deliver wins for Mr Rudd but splits are
expected over a range of issues including a push to introduce a
charter of human rights.

The Right faction is expected to secure a clear majority on the
ALP's powerful national executive, which can decide preselections,
securing 11 positions to the Left's nine and wiping out the old
independents/centre faction as a force.

Despite John Howard's suggestion that claims of a split with the
unions on uranium mines and industrial relations are nothing more
than a "pantomime", significant resistance remains.

In Western Australia, the 40-strong delegation is "split down the
middle" on uranium mining. The state's ALP national executive passed
a motion this week urging delegates to recognise the strong stance
of the Carpenter Government against uranium mining and the failure
to address the long-term storage of nuclear waste. Unions WA passed
a similar motion on Tuesday night expressing their opposition to the
nuclear industry and asking for no change to the ALP's current
policy.

In South Australia, where Premier Mike Rann is campaigning for
change, the delegation is also split, with many delegates from the
Left opposed to an expansion of uranium mining.

In response to a letter Mr Rann sent to delegates, in which he
backed change, frontbencher Anthony Albanese said opponents remained
concern about safety.

"The issue of nuclear waste simply can't be wished away," Mr
Albanese said yesterday. "I haven't heard anyone argue yet there's a
mandate from rank-and-file members asking for change."

The Victorian delegation has historically been reluctant to change
the ALP's position on uranium. "Every conference there's a push and
it usually collapses because the Victorian Right collapses," a
source said.

© The Australian
*****************************************************************
 34 CNN.com: Reactor of the future powered by toxic-waste - 

(PopSci.com) -- Later this year, scientists at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Tennessee hope to take a big step toward solving
America's nuclear-waste woes. Pending clearance from the Department
of Energy, they will demonstrate a new toxic-waste recycling process.

The aim of the demo -- part of a controversial $405-million
government project called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
(GNEP) -- is to transform nuclear leftovers into fuel for a new
breed of reactors. The new reactor/fuel combo, GNEP officials say,
could produce up to 100 times as much energy as conventional
reactors and could generate 40 percent less waste.

The initiative is a key part of the Bush administration's long-term
strategy to meet America's rising demand for electricity --
according to the DOE, it's expected to jump by 45 percent from 4,000
billion kilowatt-hours in 2005 to 5,800 billion kilowatt-hours in
2030 -- without creating more greenhouse gases.

"Nuclear energy is the biggest source we have for meeting our energy
needs without contributing to global warming," says Sherrell Greene,
director of the nuclear-technology program at Oak Ridge, one of the
13 potential recycling sites selected earlier this year by the DOE.

Another central GNEP objective is to deal with the nation's growing
nuclear-waste problem: The country's 103 nuclear reactors produce
2,200 tons of radioactive waste annually, and there's no good place
to put it.

Even if no new reactors are built, at current rates, the U.S. will
have produced more than 94,600 tons of spent nuclear fuel by 2050,
and the repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, America's lone
long-term solution to radioactive-waste storage, will stow just
77,000 tons when it's slated to open in 2020.

Yet not everyone thinks GNEP's strategy for recycling waste is the
solution. Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists, for
example, says that the new type of recycled fuel would contain as
much as 90 percent plutonium, making it a much more attractive
target to a bomb-building terrorist. Spent fuel from traditional
reactors, by comparison, contains only 1 percent plutonium.

GNEP officials reject this criticism. The new recycling process,
they argue, will not isolate pure plutonium, making it more
difficult to convert the leftovers into a bomb. Specifically, the
process calls for dissolving spent fuel in nitric acid to chemically
extract the nastiest 1 percent -- the highly radioactive elements
plutonium, neptunium, americium and curium, also known as actinides
-- as well as depleted uranium. (The remaining waste is stored in
traditional casks.)

The uranium is then re-enriched, recombined with the actinides, and
compressed into fuel pellets for state-of-the-art reactors. In this
scheme, waste is used repeatedly, transforming it into less harmful
elements with each cycle.

The Oak Ridge demonstration is intended to be a miniature model
(minus the reactors) of how this recycling process could work at the
industrial scale. "It's a synthesis of the whole process," says
Greene, who is working on the project. In addition to pursuing
scaled-down tests of the new recycling technology, GNEP officials
will release a draft report this summer on the environmental impact
of the potential sites.

© 2007 Cable News Network.
*****************************************************************
 35 The Australian: Labor set to abolish uranium policy 

NEWS.com.au |

* April 26, 2007

This story is from our news.com.au network Source: AAP

THE Labor Party is certain to abolish its policy of no new 
uranium mines at this weekend's national conference after its 
left faction admitted yesterday it did not have the numbers to 
block the move.

Led by Anthony Albanese, the left estimated yesterday it would only
muster votes from 180 of the 397 delegates.

“Rudd will get up and that will be good because Albo will get
to run his line and Rudd gets to come in and show what a strong
leader he is by spearing the left in the ribs,” a left faction
source told Fairfax newspapers.

“Everyone goes away happy.”

A senior Labor frontbencher who will vote to abolish the policy was
similarly resigned.

“There will be a stage-managed debate on a couple of issues
and the leader will get everything he wants,” the source said.

Labor's left faction will have about 177 delegates at the conference.

Some of its members, including Martin Ferguson, Julia Gillard and
Chris Evans, will vote against the faction to abolish the policy.

Some from Labor's right faction, including frontbencher Stephen
Conroy, will vote with the left, Fairfax reported.

The eight independents are expected to split over the issue.

The premiers of Queensland and Western Australia have said they will
not allow uranium mining in their states, even if the policy is
abolished.

Most of Mr Rudd's front bench are supporting abolishing the policy,
as is the South Australian Premier Mike Rann.

Anti-uranium frontbenchers include Kim Carr, Peter Garrett, Tanya
Plibersek and Penny Wong.

Other than Senator Carr, none is a conference delegate and therefore
they cannot vote.

© The Australian


*****************************************************************
 36 RIA Novosti: Three cos. to cover 25% of Japan uranium from Kazakhstan

09:48 | 25/ 04/ 2007

TOKYO, April 25 (RIA Novosti) - Japan's Marubeni, Tokyo Electric
Power Company (TEPCO) and Chubu Electric Power Co., Inc. (Chubu)
closed a deal with a Kazakh uranium producer expected to meet 25% of
Japan's needs, a Tokyo newspaper said.

The Nikkei business daily said Marubeni bought 60%, TEPCO 30% and
Chubu 10% in Kyzylkum and Baiken-U, subsidiaries of Kazatomprom,
which will allow them to develop two uranium fields in the south of
Kazakhstan and export 2,000 metric tons of Kazakh uranium a year to
Japan, thereby covering 25% of the country's annual needs, Nikkei
said.

Uranium production would tentatively start in 2007, and reach 5,000
metric tons a year by 2014. The project is expected to yield 160,000
metric tons by 2050.

Nuclear power makes up 30% of Japan's energy mix, and the country
intends to raise the figure to 40% by 2030, making nuclear power its
key energy source.



;   RIA Novosti

*****************************************************************
 37 Popular Science: Nuking Nuclear Waste - 

Energy officials argue for a new breed of reactors that run on
recycled radioactive fuel

By Seth Fletcher | April 2007

Nuclear waste at the Hanford Site in Washington

Later this year, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 
Tennessee hope to take a big step toward solving America's 
nuclear-waste woes. Pending clearance from the Department of 
Energy, they will demonstrate a new toxic-waste recycling 
process.

The aim of the demo—part of a controversial $405-million 
government project called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership 
(GNEP)—is to transform nuclear leftovers into fuel for a new 
breed of reactors. The new reactor/fuel combo, GNEP officials 
say, could produce up to 100 times as much energy as conventional 
reactors and could generate 40 percent less waste. The initiative 
is a key part of the Bush administration's long-term strategy to 
meet America's rising demand for electricity—according to the 
DOE, it's expected to jump by 45 percent from 4,000 billion 
kilowatt-hours in 2005 to 5,800 billion kilowatt-hours in 
2030—without creating more greenhouse gases. "Nuclear energy is 
the biggest source we have for meeting our energy needs without 
contributing to global warming," says Sherrell Greene, director 
of the nuclear-technology program at Oak Ridge, one of the 13 
potential recycling sites selected earlier this year by the DOE.

Another central GNEP objective is to deal with the nation's 
growing nuclear-waste problem: The country's 103 nuclear reactors 
produce 2,200 tons of radioactive waste annually, and there's no 
good place to put it. Even if no new reactors are built, at 
current rates, the U.S. will have produced more than 94,600 tons 
of spent nuclear fuel by 2050, and the repository at Yucca 
Mountain in Nevada, America's lone long-term solution to 
radioactive-waste storage, will stow just 77,000 tons when it's 
slated to open in 2020.

Yet not everyone thinks GNEP's strategy for recycling waste is 
the solution. Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American 
Scientists, for example, says that the new type of recycled fuel 
would contain as much as 90 percent plutonium, making it a much 
more attractive target to a bomb-building terrorist. Spent fuel 
from traditional reactors, by comparison, contains only 1 percent 
plutonium.

GNEP officials reject this criticism. The new recycling process, 
they argue, will not isolate pure plutonium, making it more 
difficult to convert the leftovers into a bomb. Specifically, the 
process calls for dissolving spent fuel in nitric acid to 
chemically extract the nastiest 1 percent—the highly 
radioactive elements plutonium, neptunium, americium and curium, 
also known as actinides—as well as depleted uranium. (The 
remaining waste is stored in traditional casks.) The uranium is 
then re-enriched, recombined with the actinides, and compressed 
into fuel pellets for state-of-the-art reactors. In this scheme, 
waste is used repeatedly, transforming it into less harmful 
elements with each cycle.

The Oak Ridge demonstration is intended to be a miniature model 
(minus the reactors) of how this recycling process could work at 
the industrial scale. "It's a synthesis of the whole process," 
says Greene, who is working on the project. In addition to 
pursuing scaled-down tests of the new recycling technology, GNEP 
officials will release a draft report this summer on the 
environmental impact of the potential sites. But the program's 
defining moment will happen next year when the U.S. secretary of 
energy decides whether to step up the initiative and build 
America's first full-scale demonstration plant.


A Bonnier Corporation Company All rights reserved. Reproduction in
Copyright © 2007 Popular Science
*****************************************************************
 38 Inside Bay Area: Experts: Policy first, then weapons

Wisdom of new bombs cannot be speculated on until goals are defined,
science association says

By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER

Article Last Updated: 04/25/2007 02:47:43 AM PDT

The United States needs to decide the purpose and size of its
nuclear arsenal before embarking on a plan for rebuilding its
warheads and the factories that maintain them, a panel of nuclear
weapons experts said Tuesday.

Those experts concluded that U.S. hydrogen bomb designers at
Lawrence Livermore and Los

Alamos labs can in theory devise replacement warheads without
nuclear testing, but the experts said a lack of essential cost,
engineering and scheduling details made it impossible to decide
whether pursuing the new warheads is more desirable than maintaining
existing bombs.

The administrations multibillion-dollar plan for the new bombs and
factories is faltering in Congress, and the panel of weapons
officials assembled by the American Association for the Advancement
of Science suggested in its report Tuesday that the plans prospects
are bleak without higher-level decisions from the White House and
Pentagon.

There really is no policy, said former Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory director Bruce Tarter, chairman of the AAAS panel that
studied plans for the new replacement warheads.That policy framework
really is important if youre going to make this big of a change.

So far, the panel concluded, the president and his cabinet have not
made any statements on the role of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold
War, post-9/11 world that make the case for, and define, future
stockpile needs.

That assessment adds the influential voices of several former 
nuclear weapons lab directors and Energy Department weapons 
officials to fresh calls for a high-level U.S. review of what its 
nuclear weapons are for, how many it needs and whether new kinds 
of bombs are needed, such as bunker busters or enhanced radiation 
weapons.

This reflects the mood of a growing number of defense and foreign
policy leaders who understand that the nuclear posture is still a
Cold War policy, said Daryl Kimball, director of the Washington,
D.C.-based Arms Control Association.

Gen. James Cartwright, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, as well
as former defense secretary William Perry and former U.S. Sen. Sam
Nunn, have called for such a national nuclear policy debate.
Whatever course is selected, the AAAS experts concluded, building
replacement bombs and new factories will be costly and span decades.
The policy will need bipartisan support across several presidential
administrations and congresses, and must balance weapons needs with
arms-control needs, the panel said.

But not everyone agrees that such a revamp of U.S. policy is
necessary before pursuing the new bombs. Former Livermore director
Johnny Foster, one of the nations first designers, dissented from
the AAAS report, saying the new reliable replacement warheads, or
RRWs,

ought not to be held hostage to the resolution of domestic and
international political nuclear weapons issues.

For now, the RRW program is limited to one project, the design of a
replacement for the W76 warhead riding on U.S. submarine-launched
missiles, Foster said.

I dont think starting that very modest program is something you
should call on the president to speak up about, Foster said.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher,

D-Alamos, is chair of a House strategic forces subcommittee and
represents a district that includes Livermore and Sandia National
Laboratories, California, the two labs working on the first RRW
design.

She said the panels report reflected her desire that clear policy
objectives must be outlined so the program can move forward.

Several Republicans in Congress have called on the White House and
Pentagon to get more involved in weapons policy. Last week, Sen.
Pete V. Domenici,

R-N.M., the ranking Senate appropriator on weapons matters, wrote
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice, saying your voice must be heard.



You must answer critics who have argued that the RRW will lead to an
arms race, Domenici wrote.

He also suggested that the new warheads could be linked with
reconsideration of the administrations opposition to the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an idea that Tauscher raised last
winter.

The senators letter is a measure of the difficulty that the new
warheads plan faces in Congress, said Kimball of the Arms Control
Association.

Its a cry for help: The administration needs to do a better job of
selling this program on the Hill,'" he said.

The likelihood of a full-scale nuclear policy review before the end
of President Bushs term is waning. The review requires key cost and
scheduling figures being developed by Livermore scientists, plus
outside reviews of their warhead designs ? something that could last
beyond the presidents last budget request and put future U.S.
nuclear policy before the next administration.

I think it will be a major decision for the next president, assuming
Congress maintains the program, to decide what to do, said Tarter.

Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6458.

© 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy 
*****************************************************************
 39 KnoxNews: Retirees implore DOE: Don't penalize success

By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com

April 25, 2007

The Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees doesn't want the 
benefits package for Oak Ridge contractors to suffer as a result 
of the Department of Energy's desire to cut costs.

CORRE represents thousands of contractor retirees, and the group 
has been campaigning hard for a pay raise, citing a huge surplus 
(estimated at more than $600 million) in the Oak Ridge pension 
fund.

The group recently submitted formal comments on DOE's proposal to
revise benefit plans at DOE contractor sites around the nation.

In a March 27 notice in the Federal Register, DOE said it reimbursed
contractors more than $1 billion last year for pension and
medical-benefit plans - an increase of 226 percent since 2000. The
agency said rising costs are threatening basic missions.

CORRE said DOE is mixing issues and misleading people with its
proposal to shift from defined benefit systems to a defined
contribution plan - similar to 401(k) plan - for DOE contractors.

"It is the position of the Coalition of Oak Ridge Retired Employees
that those plans with an exemplary record of responsible management
NOT be lumped together with those less successful or under-funded,"
the group said in its comments.

The group also is dead set against a provision in DOE's draft order
that seems to prohibit future pension adjustments - pay raises -
without the direct approval of the energy secretary.

This sounds like something out of a Dilbert cartoon, albeit the
nuclear version.

According to a staff report from the Defense Nuclear Facilities
Safety Board, contractor management at the Y-12 nuclear weapons
plant scheduled a March 19 meeting to discuss the investigation of a
uranium chip fire.

"The initial critique, however, was encumbered by the inordinately
large number of attendees, many of whom were not involved in the
fire or events leading to the fire," the staff report said. "This
inhibited discussion between the work crew and the critique
leadership."

After that concern was raised, the meeting was rescheduled for
another time, presumably with fewer observers and a little more
focus on safety.

A couple of years ago, while visiting the Foster Wheeler plant where
some of Oak Ridge's nastiest nuclear wastes were processed, I
questioned the apparent lack of security at the site - especially
given the rising concerns about terrorists turning anything hot into
a dirty bomb.

The security presence appeared to be no more than a couple of
rotating badge-checkers.

My questions made some folks uncomfortable, although I was told that
security was adequate.

Now that DOE has taken ownership of the waste-processing plant,
security is in the hands of Wackenhut - the agency's primary
security contractor with plenty of resources.

The level of security, however, hasn't changed. At least that's the
word from DOE.

"Whether under Murray Guard, the previous security contractor, or
Wackenhut, the Transuranic Waste Processing Facility is a secure
facility," DOE spokesman Walter Perry said in an e-mail response.

I'm not sure I'm convinced of that, and DOE offered few details to
support that view.

"Just as with all our other facilities on the Oak Ridge reservation,
specifics on security posture are not shared publicly in order to
maintain a high state of vigilance," Perry said.

Perhaps predictably, the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability gave
DOE pretty low grades on its 2007 report card. Actually the low
grades and the high grades are equally damning.

The collection of activist groups gave DOE an A for "unnecessary
weapons production" and a B+ for "public relations rhetoric." DOE
got a D for "nuclear power revival," a D for environmental
compliance and an F for "budget priorities." The alliance gave DOE a
C- for waste cleanup, with the comment, "Inadequate funding and poor
project management are the norm at many sites."

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.
*****************************************************************
 40 NAS: Project: Evaluation of Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty
(QMU) Methodology Applied to the Certification of the Nation's
Nuclear Weapons Stockpile

Project Title:

 Evaluation of Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty (QMU)
Methodology Applied to the Certification of the Nation's Nuclear
Weapons Stockpile
PIN: DEPS-L-06-03-A        

Major Unit:

 Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences

Sub Unit: 

RSO: Rowberg, Richard


Subject/Focus Area: 

Project Scope
In accordance with Section 3116 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for FY2007, P.L. 109-364, an ad hoc committee will
provide an independent assessment and evaluation of the
Quantification of Margins and Uncertainty (QMU) Methodology employed
by the national laboratories for assessing and certifying the safety
and reliability of the nuclear stockpile.

Specifically, the study committee will evaluate the following:

(1) The use of the quantification of margins and uncertainty
methodology by the national security laboratories, including
underlying assumptions of weapons performance and the ability of
modeling and simulation tools to predict nuclear explosive package
characteristics.

(2) The manner in which that methodology is used to conduct the
annual assessments of the nuclear weapons stockpile.

(3) How the use of that methodology compares and contrasts between
the national security laboratories.

(4) Whether the application of the quantification of margins and
uncertainty used for annual assessments and certification of the
nuclear weapons stockpile can be applied to the planned Reliable
Replacement Warhead program so as to carry out the objective of that
program to reduce the likelihood of the resumption of underground
testing of nuclear weapons.

In assessing the QMU methodology, the study committee will examine
the interplay between existing and planned experimental and related
activities of the directed stockpile work and the science and
technology campaigns and application of the QMU. The objective of
this analysis is to determine whether the data provided for the use
of the QMU methodology and related quantitative computer simulations
are adequate to make the assessments necessary to certify the
reliability and safety of the stockpile. This additional element
will also recommend how QMU can support the stockpile stewardship
program's goals to capture and preserve the nation's core
intellectual and technical competence in nuclear weapons.

Project sponsored by NNSA of the Department of Energy.
Approximate start date is March 2, 2007.
The study will produce two reports one interim report and one final
report.

Project Duration: 21 months    

Provide FEEDBACK on this project.

Contact the Public Access Records Office to make an inquiry or to
schedule an appointment to view project materials available to the
public.

Committee Membership

Meetings
 Meeting 1 - 05/04/2007

Reports
Reports having no URL can be seen
at the Public Access Records Office

 Email: info@nas.edu
*****************************************************************
 41 DOE: United States and Japan Sign Joint Nuclear Energy Action 
Plan to Promote Nuclear Energy Cooperation

April 25, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC – United States Department of Energy Secretary Samuel
W. Bodman and Japan’s Ministers Akira Amari, Bunmei Ibuki, and Taro
Aso, this week presented to U.S. President George W. Bush and
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the United States-Japan Joint
Nuclear Energy Action Plan.  The Action Plan - a product of
extensive negotiations between the U.S. and Japan - provides a
framework for increased collaboration in nuclear energy.  It builds
upon the significant, longstanding civilian nuclear cooperation
between the two nations and will contribute to increasing energy
security and managing nuclear waste, addressing nuclear
nonproliferation and climate change, and advancing goals put forth
in President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)
initiative.

“By strengthening our joint cooperation in civil nuclear energy, the
United States and Japan will also strengthen our strategic
interests,” Secretary Bodman said.  “This Action Plan is an historic
agreement and provides the additional foundation for our two nations
to align efforts to support the global expansion of nuclear energy,
and ultimately a nuclear renaissance.  Not only can nuclear energy
serve as a cornerstone of sustainable economic development, but as a
reliable, viable and emissions-free source of power, it offers
enormous potential to help meet the world’s increasing demand for
energy in a safe and proliferation-resistant manner.”

Completed and signed by all parties by April 18, 2007, the Action
Plan fulfills the commitment made by Secretary Bodman and Minister
Amari during their meeting in Washington, DC, on January 9, 2007, to
develop an action plan for nuclear energy cooperation.  This Action
Plan establishes the necessary framework to coordinate activities
designed to promote the expansion of safe and secure nuclear power,
in our respective countries, and globally.  It also formalizes an
agreement between our two nations – leading nuclear technology
countries – to collaborate in four main areas, and provides the
additional foundation for the U.S. and Japan to align efforts in
support of global expansion of nuclear energy.

Four main areas outlined in the Action Plan are:
1. Cooperation of nuclear energy research and development under
   GNEP;
2. Collaboration on policies and programs that support the
   construction of new nuclear power plants;
3. Establishment of a nuclear fuel supply assurance mechanism; and
4. Joint collaboration to support the safe and secure expansion
   of nuclear energy in interested countries while promoting
   non-proliferation, consistent with GNEP.


Implementation of the Action Plan will begin immediately.  Its
execution will be overseen by a Steering Committee, co-chaired by
the U.S. and Japan.  Both nations will establish six GNEP research
and development working groups in the following areas, to benefit
from each other’s expertise and implement areas of cooperation
identified in the Action Plan:
* Fast Reactor Technology;
* Fuel Cycle Technology;Simulation and Modeling;
* Small and Medium Reactors;
* Safeguards and Physical Protection and;
* Waste Management.


The U.S. and Japan share the objectives for establishing a global
framework to expand nuclear energy use and minimize proliferation
risks while enabling the benefits from the peaceful uses of nuclear
energy.  Both nations support the development of a global nuclear
energy infrastructure as envisioned in GNEP to develop innovative
nuclear reactor and fuel cycle technologies.  GNEP seeks to bring
about a significant, wide-scale use of nuclear energy worldwide, and
to take actions that will allow that vision to be achieved, while
decreasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation and effectively
addressing the challenge of nuclear waste disposal.

Additonal information on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership
(GNEP).

Fact Sheet

Joint Nuclenr Energy Action Plan

Media contact(s):
Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940 

U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | 
Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403

    
*****************************************************************

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: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
*****************************************************************