***************************************************************** 05/16/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.115 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 [NYTr] Cuba Supports Iran's Inalienable Right to Nuclear Technology 2 [NYTr] Iran Nukes Call Bush's Bluff 3 [NYTr] Iran's Progress on Nuclear Fuel Brings New Urgency, Divisions 4 Xinhua: U.S.: No indication DPRK expanding nuclear arsenal 5 US: UCS: Missile Defense Splits Democrats, Cuts Could Go Deeper, UCS 6 Economic Times: Israel will remain preferred ally-Politics NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 The Hindu: `Nuclear deal not in jeopardy' 8 Economic Times: Energy sector needs $120-150 bn-Energy-News By Indus 9 Economic Times: Mukherjee assures House nuke deal not in jeopardy- 10 Times of India: N-deal bound by PM's assurance - Pranab 11 Houston Chronicle: GE, Hitachi to Align Nuclear Businesses | 12 BBC NEWS: Hitachi harmed by nuclear costs 13 US: USA Today: A dangerous, costly path - 14 Reuters: U.S. tempers optimism on India nuclear deal 15 Reuters: U.S. questions Myanmar nuclear deal with Russia 16 AFP: India says US nuclear accord on track ahead of talks - 17 US: NEI Nuclear Notes: MIT Forum on Nuclear Energy 18 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to build atomic plant for Burmese junta 19 US: USATODAY: Our view on atomic energy: As globe heats up, nation w 20 US: NEI Nuclear Notes: Senator Coleman on Nuclear Energy 21 US: Decatur Daily: Unit 1 gets NRC green light; should restart this NUCLEAR SECURITY 22 US: SanLuisObispo.com: SLO group joins effort for stiffer nuclear pl NUCLEAR SAFETY 23 US: Nelson Mail: Shameful treatment of test veterans - 24 US: Buffalo News: Stop the N-worker delays 25 US: Salt Lake City Weekly: Ka-boom! 26 US: washington post: Cancer Claims Denied or Delayed for Nuclear Arm 27 US: Daily Mail: 50 years later, the price still being paid for the a 28 AU ABC: Maralinga veterans say nuclear test study flawed. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 29 US: [NYTr] Enviro: Waste from nuke weapons facilities released to 30 US: Herald News: Activists: Wait for new technology (GNEP) 31 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Change mining laws to reclaim our future 32 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Matheson pushes amendment to speed up removal 33 US: Sydney Morning Herald: Yellowcake exports may hit $10b a year - 34 US: sacbee.com: McClellan cleanup's a step closer - PEACE 35 Bridgwater Mercury: Powerful Opinions At Nuclear Talk US DEPT. OF ENERGY 36 KnoxNews: Liedle to Livermore lab 37 KnoxNews: Reactor's successful early restart thrills officials 38 SF New Mexican: LANL: Ex-archivist pleads guilty in security breach 39 Herald-Leader: Plan would extend life of gaseous diffusion plant 40 Tri-City Herald: Hastings pushes for increased aid 41 Daily Nexus: Labs Protester Responds to Defense of Nuke Research - 42 KnoxNews: Sparks prompted Y-12 evacuation 43 Guardian Unlimited: Ex-Los Alamos Worker Pleads Guilty 44 lamonitor.com: Talk: Sorting out the big mix-up 45 KVII Online: POGO Thinks Pantex is Vulnerable 46 OpEdNews: Our Nuclear Complex 47 WATE: Workers to return to Y-12 Plant after evacuation ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 [NYTr] Cuba Supports Iran's Inalienable Right to Nuclear Technology Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 17:54:04 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit IRNA - May 15, 2007 http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-236/0705158120154022.htm Cuba says Iran's nuclear right inalienable Tehran, May 15, IRNA Cuba's Deputy Foreign Minister Marcos Rodriguez said here Tuesday that peaceful use of nuclear energy is Iran's inalienable right. Rodriguez, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), was speaking to IRNA after a two-hour meeting with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Jalili. He said as the NAM states have stressed during their last meeting, Iran has the right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. He stressed the importance of implementing agreements already signed between Iran and Cuba. The Cuban official pointed to economic, trade and medical cooperation between the two countries and said that Havana has recently established a center at Karaj, Tehran Province, to produce advanced medicines. He said Iran-Cuba Joint Economic Commission would hold a session in Havana next month. Jalali told IRNA that expansion of cooperation with Latin American states and Cuba, in particular, is in line with Iran's principled stance. He pointed to important position of Cuba and Iran in Latin America and the Middle East and assessed as "good" the level of bilateral ties. Referring to a recent visit by Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to Latin America and Cuba, Jalili said new ground has been prepared for expansion of ties in various political, economic and cultural fields. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 2 [NYTr] Iran Nukes Call Bush's Bluff Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 15:29:08 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit TruthDig/The Nation - May 16, 2007 http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20070528&s=truthdig Iran Nukes Call Bush's Bluff by Robert Scheer On Sunday came news from the UN inspectors on the ground that Iran has made a breakthrough in the enrichment of uranium. It was previously thought that the Iranians were having trouble developing the tight engineering and high speeds needed to get their centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel. But inspectors, on a short-notice visit, came upon 1,300 centrifuges merrily spinning away and churning out the raw ingredient for massive carnage. "We believe they pretty much have the knowledge about how to enrich," said Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the UN agency who won the Nobel Prize after getting it right about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent WMD program. That makes his current alarm all the more credible when he warns about Iran's enrichment program breakthrough: "From now on, it is simply a question of perfecting that knowledge. People will not like to hear it, but that's a fact." Great. Tehran's religious fanatics have moved closer to the potential for nuclear conflagration, and what can bully-boy Bush do about it? Nothing. He shot his wad gambling on the invasion of Iraq, a nation that didn't pose a WMD threat, and now needs Iran--which the United Nations fears may pose a real threat--to bail us out in Baghdad. Now it is bluffing time, with the Bush Administration making all the appropriate warning noises about Iran's nuclear program while cozying up to Tehran to help our puppet government in Baghdad pretend to be in power. That Bush is dependent on Iran's ruling ayatollahs to salvage a modicum of face-saving stability in Iraq also was made clear on Sunday when, despite new concerns about Iran's nuclear potential, the White House confirmed an upcoming Iran-US meeting in Baghdad in the next few weeks to discuss Tehran taking a "productive role" in Iraq's security. "You could expect a meeting in the next few weeks with Ambassador [Chester] Crocker and Iranians," said White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe. His lame excuse for formal talks after a twenty-five-year break in diplomatic relations with Iran: "The purpose is to try to make sure that the Iranians play a productive role in Iraq." A blunter assessment of the dark codependency motivating these talks was provided by Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari: "The US is a major player and so is Iran, and there will be a room for some substantial discussions for the stability of Iraq." Sure there will, but it will be on Iran's terms, and soft-pedaling US opposition to that country's nuclear program is a given. So is the acceptance of a version of Iran's theocratic model, exported to formerly secular Iraq. Talk about desperation. To bring peace to Iraq, Bush now turns to the very "rogue regime" he accuses of threatening the survival of the planet with its nuclear weapons program, not to mention support of worldwide terrorism. But what choice does he have? Many of the key players Bush installed in power in Iraq were trained during decades of exile in Iran, and key Shiite militias, according to US military commanders, are increasingly supplied with deadly explosives from Tehran. The serious subtext here, rarely noticed by pundits, is that the United States created a vacuum for the vast expansion of Iranian influence throughout the Mideast. In the creation of a new hegemony, the fervid goal of the neoconservatives led by now-disgraced World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, our nation appears en route to becoming Tehran's junior partner. Although a military strike against Iran is certainly a continually examined possibility, such action would ignite an anti-American tidal wave in the region, beginning with Iraq. Of course one should never underestimate the ineptitude of the Bush Administration. The big losers in all this are the ordinary citizens in Iraq and throughout the Mideast who were promised an infusion of democratic ideals in the wake of the invasion. Instead, they have been left with a widespread resurgence of religious fanaticism. Never have those fundamentalist forces, which produced 9/11, been more popular in the Mideast--particularly in Iraq, where Al Qaeda was ruthlessly suppressed by Saddam Hussein. It was particularly odd, writing this on a day when a special World Bank committee issued its devastating report on Wolfowitz's corruption of bank standards, to read Vice President Dick Cheney's defense of his main henchman in engineering the Iraq invasion. Cheney described Wolfowitz, the leader in hyping regime change in Iraq as the avenue to democratization, as "one of the most able public servants I've ever known." Takes one to know one in that strange alchemy of Bush ideologues, where stunning success is the inevitable product of abysmal failure. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 3 [NYTr] Iran's Progress on Nuclear Fuel Brings New Urgency, Divisions Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 21:05:56 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit [The Sky Is Falling, says the Wall St. Journal...] The Wall Street Journal - May 16, 2007 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117927525323604199.html?mod=googlenews_wsj Iran's Progress on Nuclear Fuel Brings New Urgency, Divisions By DAVID CRAWFORD, MARC CHAMPION and NEIL KING JR. Iran's rapid progress toward making nuclear fuel has brought renewed urgency to international efforts to halt the program, but divisions over how to persuade Tehran appear about to deepen. International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei said inspections of Iran's uranium-enrichment facilities conducted last week made it clear the country has mastered the technology to enrich uranium sooner than expected. Preventing Iran from acquiring the know-how to enrich uranium -- a process that can make fuel for civilian or military purposes -- has been a central goal of the international community's efforts to persuade Tehran to suspend its enrichment program. Iran says its program is strictly civilian. "Keeping them from getting the knowledge has been overtaken by events," Mr. ElBaradei said in an emailed response to a query about the significance of the Iranian advance. "This is a major change; it shows that time is very much on Iran's side," said a European Union diplomat familiar with efforts to relaunch talks with Iran, which broke down in 2005. The diplomat said no action is expected before Mr. ElBaradei delivers a formal report to the United Nations Security Council, expected next week. Thereafter, the council will consider whether to extend or deepen sanctions imposed since December. "We haven't been able to start negotiations because we can't agree [with Iran] on a suspension" of the enrichment program, the diplomat added. "But...the closer the Iranians get, the harder it will be to get a suspension." Mr. ElBaradei, in a New York Times interview yesterday, said Iran's progress means the Security Council's focus -- currently on getting Iran to suspend its program -- should now be to prevent "industrial-scale production" and to get Tehran to allow broad inspections. But any efforts by Security Council members to soften the demand for suspension would likely be blocked by the U.S. and the United Kingdom. "Of course, ElBaradei offers his own personal perspective from time to time on what the major powers should be offering, but I don't think those arguments will prevail," a spokesman for the British foreign office said. The spokesman said the sanctions strategy has been successful in reducing foreign investment in Iran and promoting some "soul-searching" among the nation's leadership. U.S. officials said Washington wouldn't back off its insistence that Iran suspend its enrichment work or face much stiffer international sanctions. "We do not agree with the assertion that the world must accept whatever advances Iran has made on its nuclear work," said a U.S. official involved in Iran policy. "Just because you get it doesn't mean you get to keep it," the official added, although U.S. efforts so far have focused on suspension, not dismantling equipment. Evidence Iran is making progress on its enrichment program is sure to increase domestic pressure on Washington to get tougher on Tehran. The issue is already a focus of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, with candidates from both parties repeating that all options must remain on the table, including the possibility of a military strike to try to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. After a visit to Iran last week, U.N. nuclear inspectors believe the country will have 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium running within a month, another diplomat familiar with the matter said yesterday. That would be enough to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon within two years. That is also more than double the number of centrifuges Iran currently has working at its Natanz underground facility. The increase suggests Iran is making unexpectedly fast progress toward solving the technological puzzles essential to uranium enrichment. Iran has been under international pressure to suspend the program ever since it was exposed in 2003. The IAEA hasn't been able to certify that the program is intended for purely civilian use, as Tehran claims. Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign-policy representative, is due to meet Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, in about two weeks. Mr. Solana has been trying unsuccessfully to find a formula to bring Iran back to the table while also persuading it to suspend its enrichment program. Estimates of how long it would take for Iran to produce a nuclear bomb vary widely, but obtaining fuel is the biggest challenge. David Albright, a former nuclear inspector, said in an interview yesterday that he believes Iran is about two years from producing a nuclear weapon, should it choose to do so. Mr. Albright is in close consultation with IAEA inspectors. The 3,000-centrifuge hall at Natanz will likely be operational in June, according to Mr. Albright. Iran's goal would then be to achieve industrial production by the end of this year, he said. * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 4 Xinhua: U.S.: No indication DPRK expanding nuclear arsenal www.chinaview.cn 2007-05-17 06:40:11 WASHINGTON, May 16 (Xinhua) -- The United States said Wednesday that there is no indication that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has expanded its nuclear arsenal since the country missed a nuclear disarmament deadline more than a month ago. "As far as I know, we don't have any indication that they have made advances in their nuclear program during this period," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. "We still have a commitment from the North Koreans to follow through on the shutdown of Yongbyon, which is what was called for in that February 13th agreement," Casey said. "At this point, I think it's inappropriate to try and judge the outcome of a process when we're still in the second quarter of the game," he said. Under the agreement adopted by six parties during their latest talks on Feb. 13, the DPRK was supposed to shut down and seal the Yongbyon facilities within 60 days in exchange for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil or equivalent aid. The six parties include the United States, the DPRK, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The United States has been urging the DPRK to fulfill its promise to shut down its major nuclear facility after the latter failed to shut down its main nuclear reactor by an April 14 deadline, as agreed in the six-party talks in February. The DPRK insisted that its 25 million dollars frozen at Macao-based Banco Delta Asia (BDA) must be returned before closing the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and starting new negotiations. On the closure of the DPRK's nuclear reactor, Casey said "this is a first step in that process. And it's a step that, as we've seen, has been more difficult than I think we anticipated. "It has been because the BDA issue became a much more difficult nut to crack than anyone thought it was going to be." Editor: Mu Xuequan ***************************************************************** 5 UCS: Missile Defense Splits Democrats, Cuts Could Go Deeper, UCS Says May 16, 2007 WASHINGTON Missile defense likely will split Democrats when the House considers the 2008 defense authorization bill (HR 1585) later today or tomorrow, according to an analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The bill as drafted by the House Armed Services Committee makes a relatively modest cut of $764 million to the approximately $10 billion missile defense program, and does not eliminate funding for any major program system. During today’s consideration of the bill, Reps. John Tierney (D-Mass.) and Rush Holt (D-N.J.) will offer an amendment to cut overall missile defense funding by more than $1 billion and eliminate funding for several anti-missile systems. These include the Airborne Laser, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor and the Miniature Kill Vehicle programs. “The missile defense budget has deserved tougher scrutiny for years and the Armed Services Committee gave the programs a serious scrub this time,” said Stephen Young, senior analyst at UCS’s Global Security program. “The Tierney-Holt amendment takes the next logical step, eliminating funding for several flawed programs.” A majority of House Democrats are expected to support the Tierney-Holt amendment. However, by obtaining the support of most Republicans, the Democratic leadership of the House Armed Services Committee likely will defeat it, said Young. Meanwhile, the Republicans will offer an amendment to restore the committee’s $764 million funding cut, Young said, but he expects House Democrats to hold together to defeat this attempt. “The one thing that will be missing from the wider debate on the defense bill that will take place over the next two days is a significant discussion of U.S. nuclear policy,” Young added. “The committee took some steps to start that process, but a real floor debate on nuclear policy, including the unnecessary program to replace nuclear warheads, is sorely needed.” Reporters: Join our notification list to receive breaking news from UCS. General media inquiries can be directed to our media office line at 202-331-5420. If you are calling about a specific issue, contact the appropriate press contact below. Press Contacts: Energy, Food, Scientific Integrity MEGHAN CROSBY Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-6943 mcrosby@ucsusa.org Climate, Global Security, Vehicles, Invasives AARON HUERTAS Assistant Press Secretary 202-331-5458 ahuertas@ucsusa.org Scientific Integrity, Vehicles LISA NURNBERGER Press Secretary 202-331-6959 lnurnberger@ucsusa.org Climate, Food EMILY ROBINSON Press Secretary 202-331-5427 erobinson@ucsusa.org ELLIOTT NEGIN Media Director 202-331-5439 enegin@ucsusa.org © Union of Concerned Scientists Page Last Revised: 05/16/07 ***************************************************************** 6 Economic Times: Israel will remain preferred ally-Politics TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2007 03:25:36 AM] NEW DELHI: The Left may be seeking the downgrading of New Delhi’s ties with Tel Aviv, but Israel continues to be India’s preferred destination for accessing arms and weapons systems. Defence minister A K Antony told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday that that over $5-billion worth of defence purchases were made from Israel between 2002 and 2007. Mr Antony informed the MPs that all arms procurements from Israel were done strictly in line with laid-down procedures. Defending reciprocal visits by military commanders, he said these official visits were undertaken to discuss issues of mutual interest, including defence procurements. The minister told the House that Messers ELTA, a leading Israeli company, was the lowest bidder for the Indian Air Force deal to purchase some radars. “However, no contract has been signed yet with the firm,” he said. The decision to strengthen ties with Israel is a clear rejection of the Left’s demand for ending military cooperation with Tel Aviv. As Israel plays a key role in the conclusion of over 200 agreements for agricultural development in crucial areas like drip irrigation, greenhouse technology and horticulture in India, the UPA government considers it as a valuable ally. With China collaborating with Pakistan in nuclear and missile fields, the government is against closing the option of accessing missile defence systems from Israel. At the height of the Kargil conflict, Israel had provided specialised guided munitions. Israeli teams had also helped the army interpret images taken by UAVs. The alliance is critical to the forces as, among other things, Israeli avionics and weapon systems arm the Sukhoi-30MKIs, MiG-27s and MiG-21 Bisons. The association will also help the country to corner a share of the international arms market. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For ***************************************************************** 7 The Hindu: `Nuclear deal not in jeopardy' Thursday, May 17, 2007 Special Correspondent 123 accord has to adhere to PM's commitments, says Pranab ====================================================================== Statement comes ahead of Nicholas Burns' visit to India No deviation from the two accords: Pranab India-U.S. continuing discussions to finalise accord ====================================================================== NEW DELHI: The Government on Wednesday made it clear that the bilateral agreement to operationalise the nuclear deal with the U.S would be finalised only within the framework and parameters of the agreement reached between the countries on July 18, 2005 and the Separation Plan of March 2, 2006. The 123 Agreement will also have to adhere to commitments made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the floor of the House, Union External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha during Question Hour. He denied reports in a section of the media that the deal was in "jeopardy." The statement comes just before U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is expected to arrive here next week for talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to iron out the remaining issues to work out the agreement. Refuting allegations of deviation from the two accords, Mr. Mukherjee said the two sides were continuing discussions with a view to finalising the bilateral cooperation agreement in nuclear energy. Several rounds of discussions have taken place and statements and joint statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and U.S. President George Bush have been laid on the table of the House, he said. Mentioning an article in the U.S. Financial Times last month, Mr. Mukherjee quoted Mr. Burns as saying "we are disappointed with the pace and seriousness of the civil nuclear negotiations with India. It is time to accelerate our efforts to achieve a final deal." The Washington Post of April 20, 2007 has also quoted Mr. Burns as saying "there is a strong sense of frustration in Washington, in the Administration as well as in Congress, about the fact that the Indian side has progressed so slowly in this effort." Subsequently on May 1, 2007, after the fourth round of negotiations, the State Department stated "the discussions were positive and the U.S. is encouraged by the extensive progress made on the issue," the Minister said. In response to another question, Mr. Mukherjee said the joint statement of July 18, 2005 commits the U.S. to work with its friends and allies to adjust international regimes to enable full civil nuclear energy cooperation and trade with India. He said the Government has also taken steps to seek the support of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). "The issue of an India-specific exemption to the NSG guidelines has also been taken up at political levels during visits abroad as well as incoming visits. As a result of these efforts, several important NSG countries like the U.K., France and Russia have expressed understanding for our position," he said in a written reply. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 8 Economic Times: Energy sector needs $120-150 bn-Energy-News By Industry Energy sector needs $120-150 bn INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2007 01:00:54 PM] NEW DELHI: India’s power and upstream energy sectors such as coal, oil and gas need investments to the tune of $120-150 billion over the next five years, according to a KPMG report. By world standards, India’s current level of energy consumption is very low. For the year 2004- 05, the total annual energy consumption for India is estimated at 572 Mtoe (million tons oil equivalent) and the per capita consumption at 531 kgoe (kilograms oil equivalent). However with a targeted GDP growth rate of over 8 per cent and an estimated energy elasticity of 0.80, the energy requirements of the country are expected to grow at over 6.4 per cent p.a. over the medium to long term. This implies a four-fold increase in India’s energy requirement over the next 25 years, which is a significant challenge for the country. The report titled “India Energy Outlook 2007”, underlines the recent efforts by the government of India in recognizing the need for private participation and ensuring that policies to promote investments are being implemented. Private participation in coal mining for captive use, in oil & gas exploration and in the power sector is already seeing significant progress. It is also expected that private participation in nuclear energy would be allowed as and when the Indo-US Nuclear deal goes through. Commenting on the study, Arvind Mahajan, Executive Director, Advisory and Head Energy, Infrastructure and Government, KPMG said, “The general theme of private participation and competition has advanced in the past one year with some concrete examples on the ground to substantiate it. Looking ahead, the Atomic Energy Act is expected to be modified shortly allowing private participation and anticipating this many large Indian and international players have started talks for possible tie-ups. Along with private participation, there is a move to bring in market mechanisms in the energy sector under an independent regulatory oversight. A gradual approach is important till the supply side position improves and more players enter the sector so that markets can work effectively. The Government is seen as making efforts to broaden the supply base both internally and externally. It is intended to diversify the fuel basket by increasing shares of Natural Gas, Hydro and even Nuclear Energy. At the same time, both Government and private sector companies are looking to acquire equity in energy assets abroad as seen in recent examples in the oil & gas and coal sectors. The report also states that energy transport infrastructure such as ports, railways, pipelines and power transmission networks need significant investments. Tariff reform in the energy sector and distribution reform in the power sector are two important steps that need to be successfully carried out. Tariff reform to phase out subsidies or to target them effectively and distribution reforms to bring efficiency in the power sector are vital. Steps have been taken in this direction with mixed results. Going forward, this is an important area to manage. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Economic Times: Mukherjee assures House nuke deal not in jeopardy- TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2007 03:22:54 AM] NEW DELHI: The government on Wednesday assured Lok Sabha that the 123 agreement in the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal was not in jeopardy and would be within the framework of the agreement reached between the two countries on July 18, 2005, and the separation plan of March 2, 2006. In a bid to scotch speculation that the bilateral agreement might not conform completely to the parameters that were set by the two countries in the July agreement and the separation plan, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during question hour that the 123 agreement would conform to the commitments made by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Parliament. Mr Mukherjee also refuted reports that the deal is in trouble and said that this is ``not true.’’ The external affairs minister’s response comes before a critical round of talks that the US hopes will be the last round of negotiations. ``The two sides are continuing discussions with a view to finalising the bilateral co-operation agreement in civil nuclear energy.’’ Mr Mukherjee told the Lok Sabha that several round of discussions have taken place and that all the statements and joint statements of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush have been laid on the table of the House. Mr Mukherjee also mentioned an article in the Financial Times last month quoting Nicholas Burns saying that the US is ``disappointed with the pace and seriousness of the civil nuclear negotiations with India.’’ But, the minister added, after the May round of negotiations on the 123 agreement in Washington, the US State Department had said that the “the discussions were positive.’’ The US state department had also said after the fourth round of negotiations that a final settlement on the 123 agreement is likely to be ready by the end of this month after the fifth round of negotiations. In this round of negotiations, Mr Burns will negotiate with Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and Prime Minister’s special envoy on the nuclear deal Shyam Saran to finalise the legal text that will govern nuclear cooperation between the two countries. India has reiterated in talks that it cannot accept anything that constricts India’s strategic programme and its indigenous three-stage nuclear programme, while the US has also indicated that it has obligations to the US Congress and that it cannot change its domestic laws to accommodate Indian requirements. Both sides are now aware of each others’ limitations and the effort is to work around the contentious issues. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For ***************************************************************** 10 Times of India: N-deal bound by PM's assurance - Pranab Updated: 17 May, 2007 0510hrs IST | Powered by Indiatimes NEW DELHI: While the government appears confident that a strategically-timed PIL in the Supreme Court on the Indo-US nuclear deal will not constrain India's negotiations with the US, it's clear the government's manoeuvring room on the deal is bound by very definite red lines. What the government is concerned about the PIL is that it might put a political snag in the works, giving room for naysayers within the government and outside. The government is already seeing the petition as a serious infringement on its right to conduct foreign policy and undertake treaties with foreign countries. But, even as it hopes that the SC would not go along with the move, that it has little wiggle space was underlined once again on Wednesday when foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee assured Lok Sabha that the 123 agreement would be bound by the prime minister's assurances to Parliament last year and would conform to the two agreements of July 18, 2005, and March 2, 2006. "The two sides are continuing discussions with a view to finalising a bilateral cooperation agreement in civil nuclear energy," Mukherjee said. Top US negotiator Nicholas Burns is scheduled to come here next week, the dates for which are due to be firmed up after a conversation between Burns and foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon late on Wednesday. According to sources, the two sides will meet only if a resolution of the vexed issues is in sight. There is a sense of urgency in both capitals, because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George Bush are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G-8 summit in Germany, between June 6-8. Both sides want a ready deal for the leaders to be able to sign on. Sources here are hoping that the US would relent on the conditionalities regarding reprocessing and testing, since India cannot accept anything that stops it from being able to reprocess spent fuel, or any legal binding that constrains its ability to test nuclear weapons in future. But, India believes that if this goes through, it would be unprecedented in the world history, because the biggest advantage of the nuclear deal will be that it will give India, a non-NPT signatory, access to nuclear commerce in the world, while retaining its weapons programme. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For ***************************************************************** 11 Houston Chronicle: GE, Hitachi to Align Nuclear Businesses | Chron.com - May 16, 2007, 7:48AM © 2007 The Associated Press WILMINGTON, N.C. — General Electric Co. and Japan's Hitachi Ltd. said Wednesday they plan to form cross-shareholding companies in the U.S., Canada and Japan to align their nuclear businesses. The alliance, first announced in November, will combine GE Energy and Hitachi's nuclear power plant and services operations. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. Nuclear energy has returned to vogue as an alternative to coal-fired power plants amid concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on climate change. New nuclear reactors are being built or planned in the U.S. and abroad _ growth on which GE and Hitachi hope to capitalize. Both companies build nuclear plants, and GE Energy designs nuclear reactors. Shares of General Electric added 4 cents in premarket activity. The stock closed at $36.64 Tuesday. ***************************************************************** 12 BBC NEWS: Hitachi harmed by nuclear costs Last Updated: Wednesday, 16 May 2007, 11:04 GMT 12:04 UK Falling costs of electronic items have harmed Hitachi Japan's Hitachi has reported a loss following problems at its nuclear power units and lower electronic goods sales. The company posted a loss of 32.8bn yen ($272m; Ł137m) in the year to 31 March, in sharp contrast to the 37.32bn yen profit seen a year earlier. Costs from failing nuclear units and lower hard drive and flat-screen TV prices contributed to the drop. The firm, Japan's largest industrial electronics company, has reiterated that it will embark on cost-cutting moves to counter its poor results. The failure of Hitachi-branded turbines in a nuclear unit had prompted the firm to pay for fixing and updating two subsidiaries, Chubu Electric Power and Hokuriku Electric Power. Prolonged repairs to build a coal-fired power station for a US firm, MidAmerican, had also helped to push the firm into a loss. Hitachi is forecasting a net income of 40bn yen this fiscal year, based on higher power plant sales and industrial machinery. There has been speculation that the firm, which has more than 130 subsidiary firms, might consider offloading some of its worse performing units to reverse its fortunes. News that the firm would reverse its poor results sent shares in the firm up by 2% on the Nikkei. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 13 USA Today: A dangerous, costly path - Opinion By Frances Beinecke Wed May 16, 6:43 AM ET In its heyday, nuclear power was billed as a panacea. Then came billions in cost overruns, battles over radioactive waste, and accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Now, some say it is time for another look. Global warming, after all, is the single biggest economic and environmental threat we face, which means it is essential to explore every option. The industry says that safety has improved and expenses can be controlled, that we can keep dangerous leftovers safely contained and out of the wrong hands. Were all this true, new nuclear plants might indeed have a role. But so far, the facts say otherwise. Nuclear power will doubtless continue playing a significant role in the electricity sectors of a few advanced industrial nations. But to displace enough emissions worldwide to avoid just four-tenths of a degree of warming, we would need a new nuclear plant every three weeks for the next 40 years - a gold-plated energy path that is dangerous and impractical, especially since we have still not licensed a single safe place to permanently isolate radioactive waste, or developed workable international safeguards to prevent nuclear proliferation. Moreover, it would require massive new subsidies for an industry that has never even come close to standing on its own two financial feet. Congress recently set aside $10 billion to build just a handful of reactors. Now the industry is lobbying hard for $40 billion in additional loan guarantees. And it won't end there. There are faster, safer, cheaper ways to beat global warming. Start with a market that rewards innovation on a level playing field. It's time to put a limit on global warming emissions and let nuclear compete openly with genuinely clean, renewable investments such as wind, solar and the vast resource most often overlooked, energy efficiency. Congress and the administration have the power to do just that. Some states are already trying. There has never been a challenge like global warming. It is the defining issue of our generation. We need smart policies and strong leadership to get the solutions right, and soon. Frances Beinecke is president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Copyright © 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. ***************************************************************** 14 Reuters: U.S. tempers optimism on India nuclear deal Wed May 16, 2007 6:19PM EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Wednesday tempered its exuberant optimism about a nuclear cooperation deal with India and said it was uncertain whether a senior official would visit New Delhi this month to complete the agreement. On May 1, the two countries claimed extensive progress during two days of talks aimed at salvaging their landmark nuclear cooperation agreement and Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, the chief U.S. negotiator, said he would "visit India in the second half of May to find closure." But on Wednesday, a State Department spokesman told Reuters that while Burns could still visit India this month, "he's got nothing scheduled for now." Burns will go to New Delhi "when we are ready to seal the deal. We're not at that point yet," said the spokesman who spoke on condition of anonymity. He added: "Nobody I've talked to offered a prediction as to when that would be." The much-heralded deal would give India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and reactors for the first time in 30 years, even though New Delhi tested nuclear weapons and never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. It is viewed as the touchstone of new U.S.-India relationship that the Americans see as a pillar of 21st century international security, but it's history since it was first announced in 2005 has been rocky. A congressional source who in recent weeks had been persuaded that the two sides had indeed narrowed their differences said the State Department comments on Wednesday were "a definite change in enthusiasm and one wonders if they have gotten some bad news (from New Delhi) in the last week." U.S. officials provided no further details. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 15 Reuters: U.S. questions Myanmar nuclear deal with Russia Wed May 16, 2007 2:28PM EDT Is Myanmar really after nuclear power? WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expressed concern on Wednesday about a deal between Myanmar and Russia for a nuclear research reactor in the Asian nation, which it said lacked a regulatory framework for such a program. Under the deal, Russia would build a 10-megawatt, low-enriched uranium reactor as part of a center for nuclear research in the poor country formerly known as Burma. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he had "no idea" what Russia's motivation was for the agreement, made public on Tuesday. "Burma has neither the regulatory nor the legal framework or safeguard provisions or other kinds of things that you would expect or want to see for a country to be able to handle successfully a nuclear program of this type," Casey said. "It's not a good idea," he added. Casey said Myanmar did not, for example, have a nuclear regulatory commission or safeguards in place to prevent accidents, environmental damage or proliferation. One risk was that nuclear fuel could be diverted, stolen or otherwise removed because of a lack of accounting or other procedures in place to prevent this, Casey said. "There certainly would have to be a heck of a lot more work done by the Burmese before I think we would feel comfortable that they could safely deal with having a nuclear facility of this type on their soil," said Casey. The United States has been strongly critical of the ruling junta in Myanmar for its human rights record and particularly for its continued arrest of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Russia, along with China, has become a major supporter and supplier of arms to Myanmar's junta. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 16 AFP: India says US nuclear accord on track ahead of talks - Wed May 16, 7:42 AM ET NEW DELHI (AFP) - India said a landmark nuclear energy agreement it signed two years ago with the United States was on track ahead of a visit by the US envoy for further negotiations on the deal next week. The pact, which is the centrepiece of energy-starved India's new ties with Washington after decades of frosty Cold War relations, will give the nation access to long-denied Western civilian nuclear energy technology. "The two sides are continuing discussions with a view to finalising the bilateral cooperation agreement in civil nuclear energy," Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee told parliament, according to a Press Trust of India report. US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns is expected in New Delhi next week for talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon to finalise an agreement to enable the deal to be put into operation. India agreed as part of the deal to separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and to allow the civilian sites to be inspected. Mukherjee denied reports that the agreement was in danger because of differences on various aspects of the pact. "It's not true," he said. But differences do remain to be addressed, including over a clause that says the US would cease fuel supplies if India breaches its unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. Under the agreement, India also wants the explicit right to reprocess nuclear fuel, in contradiction of US law. Indian critics of the deal have attempted to stall it for fear that it will hamper India's nuclear weapons programme, nine years after it staged atomic bomb tests that sparked a tit-for-tat response from Pakistan. Last week, a public-interest petition filed in the Supreme Court demanded that the government refrain "from hurriedly executing any agreement" with the United States until it had been examined by a court-appointed committee. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 17 NEI Nuclear Notes: MIT Forum on Nuclear Energy Tuesday, May 15, 2007 The MIT Technology and Culture Forum sponsored a recent forum on the future of nuclear energy on campus back in March: ABOUT THE PANEL DISCUSSION: Nuclear energy will emerge either as a solution to the twin crises of global warming and a secure energy supply, or global catastrophe. Within this panel at least, there doesn’t seem to be a comfortable middle ground. MIT’s Andrew Kadak, one of the two speakers arguing the necessity of nuclear energy, advances the policy recommendations formulated by a group of fellow researchers. Given the fact of global warming, we must admit a “second inconvenient truth,” says Kadak -- that all non-CO2 emitting energy sources must be used, and to make a real difference in the near term, we must turn first and foremost to nuclear energy and conservation. Right now, 20% of U.S. electricity flows from nuclear power stations, but there have been no new orders for plants since 1975. The current administration hopes to spur interest, through its Energy Policy Act of 2005, which sets up tax credits for building new power plants. With the help of sophisticated new plant designs and an activated Yucca Mountain repository for spent fuel -- all potentially coming together in the next few years -- Kadak believes utilities and investors will accept the high costs of construction. This will be more likely if government puts in place a carbon tax, which will make fossil fuel costs higher, eventually evening the playing field for nuclear power.Professor Kadak's presentation is called "A Second Inconvenient Truth". Also on the video are Victor Reis and Allison Mcfarlane. Thanks to Kedrosky for the pointer. Posted by Eric McErlain at 12:14 PM ***************************************************************** 18 Guardian Unlimited: Russia to build atomic plant for Burmese junta Luke Harding in Moscow Thursday May 17, 2007 Russia has agreed to supply Burma with its first nuclear reactor, in a move that is likely to dismay the United States and raise fresh fears about the spread of nuclear technology around the world. Russia's atomic energy agency said it had reached a deal with Burma's military junta to build a nuclear research centre. The plant will have a light water reactor with a capacity of 10MW. It will use 20% enriched nuclear fuel, the agency said. Burma's science minister, U Thaung, signed a memorandum of understanding in Moscow on Tuesday with the agency's chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, officials said. A contract setting out where the plant would be built - and exactly how much it cost - would be agreed later, they added. The deal will irritate the Bush administration at a time when US-Russian relations are already in deep trouble over a range of issues ranging from missile defence to the future of Kosovo. It comes ahead of a difficult EU-Russia summit today and tomorrow in the Volga town of Samara. Burma has been under US and international sanctions since 1990, when the military junta refused to accept the election victory of the opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Since then Russia, along with China, has become a major backer and supplier of arms to the Burmese regime. The US is also unhappy about Russia helping Iran to build a $2bn (Ł1bn) nuclear facility at Bushehr. Washington suspects Iran of developing nuclear weapons. Yesterday Russia's federal atomic energy agency insisted that Burma had a right to peaceful nuclear technology - and said that there was "no way" it could use the reactor to develop nuclear missiles. The agency's spokesman, Sergei Novikov, told the Guardian: "It's impossible to use it for anything other than civilian purposes. It can't be used for military nuclear programmes." Asked why Burma's government wanted a nuclear reactor, he replied: "I don't know." Mr Novikov then suggested: "They want to make a first start in the peaceful use of nuclear technology." The Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also rejected criticism. "No one is arguing about the right of every state to have peaceful nuclear energy," he said. "We can only welcome achievements in this sector of industry, which is very developed and very safe from the point of view of non-proliferation." Russian officials say the research centre - which will include laboratories and a facility for processing and burying nuclear waste - will produce only a small amount of electricity. Its main purpose will be to produce medical isotopes for use in cancer treatments. They conceded, however, that Burma would probably build a much larger nuclear reactor at some point. The atomic agency pointed out that the project in Burma, which is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, would come under International Atomic Energy Agency control. Yesterday, however, an IAEA official said Burma had not "informed" it about the plan. Any reactor would be subject to safety inspections by the UN agency, the official said. Construction of the reactor will be handled by the state-owned Atomstroiexport, which is controlled by Russia's atomic agency. "We are currently at the state of declaration of intentions," its spokeswoman, Irina Yesipova, told the Guardian yesterday. The deal is a long time in coming. The project was first floated in 2000 but apparently collapsed in 2003 because of Burma's inability to find the hard currency needed to pay for construction costs. Under the deal, about 350 Burma scientists would be invited to Russia to learn about nuclear technology, Mr Novikov said. Analysts believe the country's military leadership has sought Russia's help in an attempt to balance its traditional and lop-sided dependence on China. Intriguingly, the move comes a month after Burma restored diplomatic relations with North Korea after a gap of 15 years. Burma's capital, Rangoon, suffers from frequent power cuts as the country's economy struggles under the weight of decades of economic mismanagement. Some 240 miles north of Rangoon, the junta's newly built capital, Nay Pyi Taw, is basking in light, visitors report. The military has run Burma since 1962. It ignored Ms Suu Kyi's landslide 1990 election victory. She has been under house arrest ever since. Going nuclear As well as Burma, Russia is already building seven nuclear power plants in Iran, China, India and Bulgaria. It also agreed on Tuesday to refurbish four old nuclear reactors in Hungary, built in the early 1980s. The Kremlin insists all countries have a right to develop peaceful nuclear technology. Moscow's most controversial project is the construction of Iran's first nuclear power station in the Gulf seaport of Bushehr. To Washington's delight, work on the project stopped earlier this year in a row over unpaid bills. The US accuses Iran of developing an illicit nuclear bomb programme - a charge Tehran denies. Russia's state-owned company Atomstroiexport, will build Burma's new nuclear reactor. Yesterday's Kommersant newspaper put the cost to Burma's military regime at $50m-$70m (Ł25m-Ł35m). Useful links Itar-Tass news agency Moscow Times Russia Today St Petersburg Times Caucasian Knot Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 19 USATODAY: Our view on atomic energy: As globe heats up, nation warms to nuclear power - Opinion - Burst of new plant applications reflects changed environment. Regulators gave the green light Tuesday to restart an old Alabama nuclear power plant, signaling the rebirth of an industry put into the deep freeze by a 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant that spewed radiation for miles. Cause for concern? Hardly. Even some environmental groups have come to realize that a new generation of safer nuclear plants is the best option for addressing the nation's mounting energy needs. But construction has been stymied by huge costs and regulatory opposition. The last plant went into service 11 years ago, though more than 100 older plants are still in operation. The Tennessee Valley Authority's decision to restarting the Browns Ferry 1 unit in Athens, Ala., at a cost of almost $2 billion, breaks the pattern. But it is just one of several markers measuring how much has changed. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which approved the Browns Ferry restart, expects applications for as many as 11 new units this year, and for as many as 28 by the end of 2009. This comes as electricity demand is projected to jump more than 40% by 2030 — not including potential demand from a shift to plug-in hybrids and other forms of electric cars. What's changed? A lot. Burned by the ruinous expense of custom-building nuclear plants, the industry has settled on a handful of standard designs. That's much safer. Regulators also have streamlined the permitting process: Instead of requiring separate permits to build and operate a plant, which invited two rounds of litigation, a utility now gets one permit for both. Perhaps the biggest single factor is growing anxiety about global warming, which makes nuclear power attractive even to many former critics. Nuclear units emit no greenhouse gases from plant operations, which makes nuclear a compellingly green alternative to coal, oil and natural gas. There's still no getting around nuclear's downsides. A meltdown at a nuclear plant could be catastrophic. But there has been no repeat of Three Mile Island, and many new safety measures are in place. There's also still no satisfactory answer to the question of what to do with the radioactive spent fuel rods stored at scores of plants. It seems reasonable and safe to transport the waste across the country in secure containers and store it at Nevada's heavily studied Yucca Mountain site. But states and localities are worried about the shipping, and there's enormous political resistance in Nevada to storage there. Alternatively, the fuel could stay at individual plants, where it can be encased in steel and concrete once it cools. The case against nuclear power reminds us of what Winston Churchill said about democracy being the worst form of government — except for all the others. Coal production kills miners and denudes the landscape; burning it to produce electricity pollutes the atmosphere. Natural gas is an increasingly scarce, clean-burning fuel that ought to be reserved primarily for its best use — home heating. Importing oil enriches some of the world's worst regimes. Solar, wind and other renewable energy sources are more desirable than nuclear — but they're not ready to produce the huge amounts of electricity the USA consumes. Nuclear power isn't a perfect answer, but safely managed and regulated, it needs to be a bigger part of the nation's energy future. Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, May 16, 2007 in Energy - Editorial, Environment - Editorial, Lifestyle issues - Editorial, Military issues - Editorial, Nuclear weapons - Editorial, Politics, Government - Editorial, USA TODAY editorial | Permalink ***************************************************************** 20 NEI Nuclear Notes: Senator Coleman on Nuclear Energy Tuesday, May 15, 2007 In a speech in Minnesota yesterday about national energy policy, Senator Norm Coleman had an interesting way of selling Americans on the benefits of nuclear energy. Smart Politics reports: Coleman says nuclear energy will need to be a part of the U.S. becoming less dependent on foreign oil. His best line of the morning: "The French aren't braver than us, and they're not afraid of nuclear energy." Coleman says he was a firm believer in Yucca Mountain as a means to dispose of nuclear waste - a problem, the Senator recognizes, as the Majority Leader (Harry Reid) of the Senate hails from Nevada. Posted by Eric McErlain at 10:44 AM Labels: electricity, energy, environment, minnesota, Nuclear Energy, nuclear power, Senator Norm Coleman ***************************************************************** 21 Decatur Daily: Unit 1 gets NRC green light; should restart this month WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 2007 By Holly Hollman hhollman@decaturdaily.com · 340-2445 ATHENS — Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant soon will be among the largest in the country. On Tuesday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Region II office in Atlanta notified Tennessee Valley Authority officials that the agency is authorizing the restart of Unit 1. The $1.8 billion project will give the plant three units that can produce enough power for nearly 2 million homes. "There are only two or three plants in the nation that have three units," said TVA spokesman Terry Johnson. "It will make Browns Ferry the only three-unit plant TVA has." Unit 1 first went online in 1974, and was TVA's first completed reactor. It caught fire in 1975 when a worker used a candle to check for leaks. TVA shut it down, along with Browns Ferry's other two units, in 1985 to address safety and management issues. Unit 2 restarted in 1991, and Unit 3 restarted in 1995. Unit 1 should restart this month, and it won't be like a 33-year-old unit or a unit that's been idle for 22 years. During the decontamination phase of the unit in 2004, Dave Nelson, manager of project costs and project management, said materials and technology for nuclear plants have evolved. The unit's pipes are chrome, not steel, for example. TVA also installed a digital-feed water system and other technology to automate many tasks . When Unit 1 restarts, it will mark the first increase in nuclear power production since TVA's Watts Bar went online 11 years ago. And it will mark a new trend toward nuclear power. During a November 2006 visit to Browns Ferry, NRC Chairman Dale Klein said the nuclear industry will need 90,000 workers between now and 2011. Klein said 14 entities had expressed interest in starting 29 new reactors. Many of those proposed sites are in the Southeast, including one at Southern Co.'s Plant Vogtle near Waynesboro, Ga., and Entergy Nuclear's Grand Gulf station near Vicksburg, Miss. He said TVA also is evaluating whether to start Watts Bar's Unit 2. TVA is the country's largest public utility, serving 8.7 million consumers in Alabama and six other states. The NRC already has granted license renewal for Browns Ferry's units, which means the plant can operate Unit 1 until 2033, Unit 2 until 2034 and Unit 3 until 2036. More reactors and longer life spans mean more spent fuel, but the proposed waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., has not broken ground. Klein said the Department of Energy plans to submit a license application to the NRC for Yucca Mountain in June 2008. Despite repository concerns, officials herald Unit 1's restart and the possibility of new reactors. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, said the nation should make the transition to producing more energy from nuclear generation. "Nuclear power represents our best source of domestically produced, emissions-free energy," Sessions said. "It is a cost-efficient way to produce electricity." Johnson said restarting Unit 1 is a good business decision for TVA because it is cleaner than coal and diversifies TVA's power supply. Nuclear power accounts for 30 percent of TVA's supply, he said THE DECATUR DAILY 201 First Ave. S.E. P.O. Box 2213 Decatur, AL 35609 (256) 353-4612 www.decaturdaily.com ***************************************************************** 22 SanLuisObispo.com: SLO group joins effort for stiffer nuclear plant security | 05/16/2007 | Local Mothers for Peace is challenging NRC rules it says don’t offer enough protection from attacks By David Sneed - dsneed@thetribunenews.com San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace has joined consumer advocacy group Public Citizen in challenging recent rules by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission establishing security standards at the nation’s commercial nuclear power plants. The petition filed May 11 in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals aims to force the agency to do more to protect the nation’s 103 nuclear reactors from terrorist attacks similar to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. owns and operates Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County. “This new challenge has the potential to force even more sweeping changes in NRC regulations, as all nuclear plants, not just Diablo Canyon, would have greater security requirements,” said Mothers for Peace spokeswoman Jane Swanson. Earlier this year, the NRC announced an update of rules describing the types of terrorist threats against which nuclear plants must be able to defend. The 2005 Energy Policy Act required that the agency take into account Sept.-11-style air attacks when developing its so-called “design basis threat” regulations. However, the agency rejected requests by various groups to require that plants construct passive barriers that would prevent an attacking aircraft from crashing directly into the containment domes around the reactor. One suggested barrier design, called beamhenge, would consist of erecting a huge cage made of I-beams and cable around the containment domes. The cage would cause an airliner to break up before it hit the domes. “The NRC has ignored Congress and failed to give a reasonable or even logical explanation as to why it can’t protect our nuclear plants,” said Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen’s energy program. Nuclear industry officials, including those with PG&E, say a reactor’s containment dome — a thick reinforced concrete shell — is sufficient to protect it from the impact of an airliner. Since 2001 the NRC has required nuclear plant operators to significantly beef up security, including increasing their ability to deal with large fires and explosions. The agency also says it is not requiring protection against a deliberate hit by a large aircraft because it is the responsibility of the military, the Transportation Safety Administration and other federal agencies to prevent planes from being hijacked. “A 9/11-style attack would be much less likely today due to improvements in airline security,” said NRC spokesman Dave McIntyre. Mothers for Peace is optimistic that the court will be sympathetic to its petition. Last year, the same court handed a victory to Mothers for Peace when it ordered the NRC to evaluate the environmental effects of a terrorist attack on Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant’s aboveground dry cask nuclear waste storage facility. With the filing, the court is required to review the NRC’s new security rules, said Scott Nelson, a Public Citizen lawyer. The parties on the various sides of the case will submit briefings, and the court will probably hear oral arguments. “In the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, … the whole process usually ends up taking a couple of years,” Nelson said. Do you think Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant is efficiently protected against a terrorist attack? ***************************************************************** 23 Nelson Mail: Shameful treatment of test veterans - Opinion - The The Nelson Mail | Wednesday, 16 May 2007 Half a century ago, 550 New Zealand servicemen were sent to the Pacific during a British nuclear weapon testing programme. They were treated as lab rats: lined up on the decks of two frigates with inadequate protective clothing while massive hydrogen bombs were tested above the ground, the Nelson Mail said in an editorial on Wednesday. Their emotions must have ranged from fear, through gung-ho bravado, to awe at the sheer power of the weaponry. Some later spoke of feeling the heat "go right through them", and of "knowing" the experience would compromise their health. It was, after all, some years after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki exposed the dangers of radiation to an incredulous world. However, they were told no harm would come to them and their role was simply as observers. They trusted their superiors and did their duty. Britain denies the men were there as guinea pigs. Only 10 years ago it testified at the European Court of Human Rights that it had never used people as experimental subjects during nuclear weapons trials. But in May 2001, papers from the Australian National Archives revealed the lie. They showed that New Zealand, Australian and British officers were sent into the Maralinga fallout zone, in central Australia, soon after a nuclear bomb was detonated there. The reason? To gauge which clothing offered the best protection. The obvious conclusion is the Christmas (Kirimati) and Malden Island test series - known as Operation Grapple - also played a role in this experiment. The effects on the sailors' health has been dramatic. Of 551 New Zealanders involved, more than 400 are now dead - most not making it through their fifties. A Massey University study has found the test veterans have suffered genetic damage three times the normal rate - surely no surprise. The New Zealand Government contributed $200,000 towards this research. Now, the New Zealand Nuclear Test Veterans Association is calling for more funding to research whether the genetic fallout is continued in the sailors' children. The Government must agree to this without delay. Our veterans have joined others from Britain and Fiji, who played similar roles in the Pacific islands programme, in a $36.5 billion class action against the British Government. Good luck to them. Armed with the Massey research, the Australian archival revelations and the early demise of so many men, the group's lawyers can make a compelling case. Britain cannot hide behind the excuse that "times have changed". It must acknowledge the full details of this dirty programme carried out so far from its own backyard, apologise to survivors and their families for its gross negligence and cynical experimentation, and pay full compensation. There must also be full disclosure by the New Zealand Government over any complicity from this country's authorities, military or political. There is an obvious parallel with the way in which successive governments here downplayed and denied the effect that exposure to Agent Orange had on the health of Vietnam veterans and that of their families, before an official apology finally came late in 2004. Meanwhile, the refusal of Britain to come clean begs the question of what other government-sanctioned time bombs - medical or military - are currently ticking away. Depleted uranium exposure is one area of suspicion. The test veterans did their duty half a century ago and those who remain, and their families, continue to pay the price. It is long past time for Britain to do its duty by them. © Fairfax New Zealand Limited 2007. All the material on this page ***************************************************************** 24 Buffalo News: Stop the N-worker delays Opinion Compensation should be fair, but it must also be timely Updated: 05/16/07 7:05 AM It wouldn’t be too far-fetched for someone to believe that the government is waiting for the former nuclear weapons workers at the Bethlehem Steel uranium rolling plant in Lackawanna to die off, rather than properly reimburse them. A federal advisory board once again has delayed a decision on whether to speed up compensation to these workers, or to the survivors of the ones who are no longer with us. If the delays continue, the people who directly suffer most won’t see any financial relief. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health’s delay resulted after discussion of whether government health and radiation experts legally could use data on radiation levels taken from the former Simonds Saw Steel plant in Lockport to determine possible radiation exposure levels at the Lackawanna plant. The group will wait until the board’s June 11 meeting in Denver to revisit the issue. Meanwhile, many of the workers — who had no idea that they were handling highly sensitive material at the Lackawanna plant while rolling uranium into bars for processing at other nuclear weapons sites in the late 1940s and early 1950s — are suffering severe illnesses. Those who are still alive. The $150,000 in compensation — a medical payment package to workers whose health was damaged by exposure to radiation, or to their survivors — seems at least appropriate. Sometime in this decade would be preferable. But National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and its laborious reconstruction process, in which the agency tries to figure out whether individual workers qualify for the compensation based on estimates of the amount of radiation they were exposed to and the types of cancer they contracted, is adding up to a legality-driven chess game. With this troubling addition — just continue moving all the pieces around the board, and eventually there are no more players. As Frank Panasuk, a spokesman for the Bethlehem Steel Radiation Victims and Survivors, said, the government is doing everything it can do to keep from paying the claims, despite a letter to the board from five members of New York’s congressional delegation — Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, and Reps. Brian Higgins, Thomas M. Reynolds and Louise M. Slaughter — requesting approval of the workers’ application. It’s a further tragedy, not to mention an injustice, that these workers and their survivors have not been compensated for the irreversible harm that was done to them without so much as a warning. Copyright 1999 - 2007 - The Buffalo News copyright-protected material. ***************************************************************** 25 Salt Lake City Weekly: Ka-boom! City Week - May 17, 2007 Divine Strake critics launch a new fight against plans to set off blasts in Nevada. by Ted McDonough In February, Utah downwinders celebrated. After months of protest, the U.S. Defense Department had called off Divine Strake, a plan to ignite 700 tons of explosives at the Nevada Test Site. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. declared victory. But those who sued in federal court to stop the blast warn the celebrations may have been premature. Announcing the cancellation of Divine Strake, the Defense Department’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency said it would find an alternate way to determine if bombs could destroy underground bunkers. Instead of the giant Divine Strake blast, the tests would include “confirmatory experiments at a much smaller scale,” the announcement said. Critics worry that means blasts, albeit smaller, at the Nevada Test Site. Downwinders, who suffered health problems from past test site experiments, and American Indian tribes whose ancestral land is used for the tests, sued to stop Divine Strake. They argued the blast would stir up radioactive dust from earlier decades’ nuclear testing. Divine Strake would have sent a mushroom cloud as high as 10,000 feet into the air, potentially spreading radioactive particles into populated areas, they claimed. Critics say there is no reason to believe smaller explosions won’t do the same thing. And, next month, they will ask a federal judge in Nevada to retain oversight of all blasts at the Nevada Test Site. Now that Divine Strake is canceled, the Justice Department has asked to dismiss the lawsuit. “The issue of a smaller blast is one of semantics,” said Rich Miller, an environmental consultant who has mapped fallout from U.S. nuclear testing and is acting as an expert witness for those suing the government. Miller testified in U.S. District Court in Nevada that particles blasted into the air by Divine Strake could carry radioactive particles small enough to be inhaled 1,200 miles from the test site. Now, he is saying a blast one-fourth the size could still carry radioactive material into populated areas, given the right wind and weather conditions. Plaintiffs’ attorney Robert Hager wants the court at a minimum to order advanced notice anytime a blast is proposed. He wants notice published in every newspaper that circulates in a county where test fallout victims were compensated for past exposure. “People who have suffered the tragedies of prior weapons testing on the test site should have actual notice of the fact that kind of activity is planned,” he said. Based on the testimony of Miller and other experts, Hager will ask the court, essentially, to draw a line in the sand, determining a size of blast that would require public notice. In addition to continued court monitoring, Hager will ask the federal government to pay the fees of his legal team and scientific experts—a total of $407,000. Winners are entitled to have their attorneys fees paid, and Hager says he won. Acting Assistant Attorney General Caroline Blanco, the attorney heading up the government’s defense of the Divine Strake case, referred calls to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s public affairs office. That office released a two-sentence statement taken verbatim from a document filed in the court case by Douglas Bruder, the man in charge of Divine Strake for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. “There are currently no DTRA tests planned using open air explosive detonations at the NTS,” Bruder wrote, and any future explosive experiments would undergo “the appropriate level” of environmental review. The Justice Department argues there are no Nevada Test Site blasts for the court to oversee. On the subject of legal fees, Justice Department lawyers argued in court papers the government shouldn’t have to pay because the judge never ruled in the case. Hager said that’s because the government never gave him a chance to rule. The initial June date of the Divine Strake blast was canceled 13 days after the downwinders filed their lawsuit, he noted. And four days later, a second test date was announced only to be cancelled days after downwinders filed a second, amended, lawsuit. “Their position, in order to avoid paying our fees and costs, is they just changed their mind each time,” Hager said. “They changed their mind because they realized they were going to lose.” 1996-2007 Copperfield Publishing, Inc.. All rights reserved. offices: 248 S. Main Street Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 801-575-7003 Salt Lake City Weekly ***************************************************************** 26 washington post: Cancer Claims Denied or Delayed for Nuclear Arms Workers - washingtonpost.com Michael Alison Chandler Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, May 15, 2007; 11:00 AM Most of the 104,000 workers, retirees and family members who have sought help from a federal program intended to atone for decades of hazardous working conditions in nuclear weapons plants can't prove they were exposed to something that might have made them sick. In "Thousands of Nuclear Arms Workers See Cancer Claims Denied or Delay," (Post, May 11, 2007), reporters Michael A. Chandler and Joby Warrick follow up on some of the people affected by hazardous working conditions in federally-owned nuclear weapons plants, first revealed in the Post's 1999-2000 investigative series. Chandler was online at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, May 15 to respond to your questions and comments. ____________________ Michael Alison Chandler: Hello everyone. Thanks for joining me and sending in your questions and comments about compensation for nuclear weapons employees. Let's get started. _______________________ Formerly of Oak Ridge, Tenn.: Another story is that of the communities around the nuclear weapons facilities. The workers see frustrations having claims denied when they know it's occupationally related. Those of us who grew up or live around the facilities and are diagnosed with cancer will always wonder. I grew up in Oak Ridge and was diagnosed with Lymphoma in my 20s, and I know several others from my high school who also have/had lymphoma. We can't prove anything, statistically it's possibly not related to the plants. But we will always wonder and, in the back of our mind, blame DOE. Michael Alison Chandler: Thanks for your comment. I know that neighbors of nuclear weapons plants have organized lawsuits over the years. _______________________ Cambridge, Mass.: What reasons can you give for the significant difference in the success rate for claimants in the earlier government compensation program targeting, in the first instance, civilians living downwind of the Nevada Test Site (RECA) and claimants in the compensation set up for nuclear workers (75% v 20%)? I know that compensation for the nuclear worker is higher ($150,000 plus health insurance v. $50,000 without health insurance). But what else is at play here, do you think? And what is the total number of nuclear workers that are, at least theoretically, eligible to apply? Thanks. Michael Alison Chandler: This is a good question. I don't know what would account for the difference in compensation rates here. I do know that there are thousands of current and former workers eligible from more than 300 covered facilities that produced nuclear weapons or contracted somehow with the industry. _______________________ Arlington, Va.: Is it possible that influence from the Nuclear Energy lobby could affect the hearing of these claims? If so, how might the influence pass from lobbyist to Justice? Michael Alison Chandler: I have not heard any evidence of the nuclear lobby weighing in on this compensation program. _______________________ Atlanta, Ga.: I wish you had given some more details of when Mr. McKenzie worked at the Savannah River Plant. I worked there in the mid '60s, doing my share of cleanup duties, and I can assure you no one was exposed recklessly during my time there. It was a very racist place then, of course, but du Pont ran the show and they counted blacks as people for plant safety purposes. If anybody had their radiation badge overexposed, or set off one of the radiation alarms, the place shut down immediately, and everyone stood around getting paid until the engineers figured out what went wrong and how to guarantee it didn't happen again. Worker carelessness was always considered the fault of management. We joked that if one of the deer around the plant ever ran into a tree, du Pont would wrap bright yellow padding around every tree in the forest to keep it from happening again. I once delayed evacuating an area near one of the reactors a few minutes during an alarm to save a $100,000 piece of lab equipment. I knew the area would be sealed, and the equipment ruined by the time anyone got back into the sealed off area. I was told never to do that again, that no piece of equipment was worth ever the smallest chance of exposure. They never considered health of future generations if and when the buildings and tanks had to be dismantled, but the workers on the plant in the sixties were given all protection possible. When I quit, I got the mandatory full body scan in a lead brick room filled with equipment to measure the slightest amount of radiation. When I looked at the test results with the plant doctor, I noticed several spikes on the printout. I asked what they meant. He said "You didn't get those isotopes from here. Those come from the Chinese test last week." Government plants aren't the only source of radiation. Michael Alison Chandler: Thanks very much for sending in some of your experiences at Savannah River. It's true that government plants are not the only source of radiation. In Mr. McKenzie's case, we have a number of documents describing his exposure. We also know that the approval rate for claims at that plant is lower than the national average. _______________________ Arlington, Va.: What else can these workers do to prove that there was poor safety at these plants and that they were asked to do tasks that compromised their health? Michael Alison Chandler: Many workers have found a receptive audience in their legislators. That's a good place to start. There are also a number of opportunities to address the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health, which reviews the quality and adequacy of records and makes recommendations about special cohorts. That board has public meetings around the country several times a year. There is also an ombudsman who works for the program that does not advocate for particular claims but can make a record of complaints and possibly suggest other avenues for finding records. Unfortunately, many workers have resorted to hiring private attornies to help them navigate the process. _______________________ Washington, D.C.: What made you guys decide to go back and check on these people? I'm glad you did. Oftentimes reporters jump into stories and reveal all these issues then leave and never go back and let us know what happened. Thanks to you and Mr. Warrick. Michael Alison Chandler: A lot of regional papers have done a good job of following this compensation program throughout the past five years. In the early years, there were a lot of glitches and delays, particularly in the part of the program that compensates people exposed to toxic chemicals. Without a nuclear weapons facility in our backyard, the Post has not watched it closely. But we both wanted to do a follow-up. _______________________ Cambridge, Mass.: Thanks for your earlier reply. Here's a follow up. Do workers who are now retired and wish to submit a claim get the support/assistance of their unions in working their way through the complicated submission process? Also, just to clarify something you wrote earlier, you mention that there were 300 "covered" facilities engaged in one way or another in nuclear production. What is the significance of that "covered?" Thanks again. Michael Alison Chandler: Thanks again for your question. I know that some facilities have very strong union support - The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion plant in Piketon, OH, for example, has a union staff that is very engaged in helping workers there win compensation. But other sites do not have this support. Employees at Savannah River were not unionized. And at Rocky Flats, the union dissolved after the plant was demolished. The advocates there are working without financial resources or good communication networks. As for the "covered" facilities, I mean that they have been designated as covered under this federal compensation program. _______________________ Washington, D.C.: Any idea how many people have died waiting for their claims to be heard? Michael Alison Chandler: I don't know what the answer to this question is. But I do know that this is a big concern for worker advocates. Many people who were employed in nuclear weapons manufacturing are elderly, and they are obviously sick. A five year wait for compensation can be a very long time for them. _______________________ Washington area: What measures are being taken to ensure that workers aren't exposed to hazardarous conditions such as those Mr. McKenzie was exposed to? Are there safety regulations/standards? Michael Alison Chandler: There are extensive safety regulations and standards at existing nuclear facilities in the US. One issue is that these standards have changed over time as our understanding of radiation and its effects on the body has changed. Another big issue historically is that the pressure to build up our nuclear arsenal competed with the pressures to keep workers safe. _______________________ Vienna, Va. : Do you think political pressure plays a part in the decisions to grant SECs (special exposure cohorts) in some areas? Michael Alison Chandler: This is definitely a very political process. It has been from the beginning. Sites with vocal legislators probably have a better shot at news coverage and attention from the government. But political support may not be all-important: The nine-member delegation from Colorado was united in support of the Rocky Flats workers' petition for special cohort status early this month, and only a small part of their petition was approved. _______________________ Arlington, Va.: Did these workers sign some waiver acknowledging that they would be at risk for exposure to dangerous materials? Michael Alison Chandler: I have never heard about a waiver. Most workers I talked to said they always knew it was a potentially dangerous job, but they tried to take necessary precautions. In the early days, the work was not always touted as dangerous. At the Piketon site I mentioned earlier, workers said they were told the uranium they worked with was so safe they could eat it. _______________________ Arlington, Va.: How extensive are the govt. investigations that determine whether or not a federal worker's claim is accepted or denied? Michael Alison Chandler: The investigations are fairly extensive, I think. Each claim has an option for appeal, so some people go through the process a few times. _______________________ Michael Alison Chandler: I need to sign off, but thank you for sharing your questions and for your interest in the story. Feel free to send other questions to my email: chandlerm@washpost.com _______________________ Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties. © 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive © Copyright 1996- The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 27 Daily Mail: 50 years later, the price still being paid for the atom bomb Last updated at 23:12pm on 15th May 2007 Gleaming white from its fresh coat of anti-flash paint, the Valiant bomber of the Royal Air Force took a lazy circuit through the clear Pacific skies. An hour earlier, Wing Commander Ken Hubbard had powered up the plane's four Rolls-Royce engines for the take-off from the coral atoll of Christmas Island. Britain detonated its first nuclear bomb exactly 50 years ago He and his crew were being particularly careful - they had an historic piece of kit on board. The year was 1957, the date May 15 - exactly 50 years ago yesterday - and down in the bomb bay was a four-ton metal cylinder containing ultrahigh explosives, obscure metals and isotopes, a spaghetti of electrical circuitry, top secret triggers and a team of boffins from the secret Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire. If everything went to plan, there would be an almighty bang. But, given the rush in which the job had been done and the uncertainty of the complex science involved, that was very much in doubt. The last components for the bomb (code-named Short Granite) had arrived only five days before and the scientists still seemed to be doing their sums, changing their minds and arguing, right up until the last minute. There was much at stake. This was an explosion on which the hopes of a nation rested, because it would pitch Britain into the premier league, laying claim to be alongside the United States and the Soviet Union as a nuclear super-power. Thousand of miles away in London, the recently appointed prime minister, Harold Macmillan, waited for the news that would determine his bargaining strength as a leader in the post-war world. From Christmas Island, Hubbard had aimed the Valiant south, over the equator, and was now circling at 45,000ft above Malden Island, a low outcrop notable only for its coating of bird dung. He had made two practice runs over the drop zone and was on his third, waiting for instructions from scientists on board HMS Narvik, the control ship cruising 30 miles away. This time it was "GO". The bomb dropped from its shackles, free-falling through the air as Hubbard turned the Valiant away in a high-speed escape. The bomb fell for nearly a minute before the time fuse launched the ignition process and, 8,000ft above the sea, at 10.38am local time, it exploded. Down below, on the ships in the nuclear test flotilla, all personnel - the boffins, the observers, the sailors - were in protective clothing and equipped with badges made of special film to monitor radiation; those on deck were wearing anti-flash gear, goggles and respirators. Or so the official archive confidently tells us. Able Seaman John Lowe, a 21-year-old national serviceman on Narvik, remembers it differently. He pulled on a flimsy white suit with double cuffs, a balaclava, rubber gloves and an old World War II gas mask. And the only reason he had all that paraphernalia was because he was part of a special decontamination team. If radioactive fall-out settled on the ship, everyone else would hide below while they scrubbed the decks with brooms and caustic soda. For now, the 160 crew sat on deck with their backs to the drop zone, their hands over their eyes, waiting. What followed was both majestic and horrific. The intensity of the flash penetrated hands and eyelids so that some men claimed they could see their bones through their skin, as in an X-ray. A flush of heat burst against their bodies. Ten seconds later, the spectators turned round to see, in the words of an observer on the aircraft carrier HMS Warrior, "an enormous ball of fire that changed swiftly into a bubbling cauldron of coppery red streaked with grey. "This fantastic mushroom bridged sea and sky like some giant waterspout." Britain had what she desperately wanted. As the headline in the makeshift newspaper cobbled together that day on Christmas Island proclaimed - and the rest of the world's press soon repeated - "Bomb gone: H-bomb puts Britain on level terms." It wasn't strictly true. To the experts, the bang that day 50 years ago was more of a whimper. At 300 kilotons, it may have had 20 times the power of the atom bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, but the Americans and Soviets were already experimenting with explosions calculated in megatons. (A kiloton is the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT, whereas a megaton is a million tons.) More importantly, they were doing so with a new sort of science. Atom bombs worked on the principle of fission, where atoms split apart and release huge amounts of energy. The new H-bomb was based on forcing hydrogen atoms to fuse together. And the power produced by that fusion was so great that the calculations ran off the end of the physicists' blackboards. It was, in theory, limitless. A-bombs could destroy whole cities, but Hbombs could devastate entire regions. And it was this power the British government wanted. The Malden Island blast was not it. The device dropped from Wing Commander Hubbard's Valiant was - like a genuine fusion weapon - a double bomb, using the heat from an atom bomb as a trigger for a second detonation. But no fusion took place. The only real "H" that day was for Hype, along with "B" for Bluff. Nonetheless, May 15, 1957, went down in history as the day Britain became a nuclear super-power, and a long-held hope of British prime ministers of both parties was realised. It was also the start of a long-running controversy over the effects of radiation. A new study has found significant genetic damage in servicemen who took part in the event, and some of them are still fighting for redress. Ironically, given the pacifist and anti-nuclear division within the Labour party (then and now), it was Clement Attlee, often voted the hero of British socialism, who was first on the quest for nuclear weapons. Attlee, unexpected winner of the 1945 general election, decided that a British atom bomb was "essential to our defence". A month after taking office, he set up a secret Cabinet committee, GEN 75, and it was at one of the meetings of this Atom Bomb Committee that a serious split appeared in the Labour camp. The Chancellor, Hugh Dalton, and President of the Board of Trade, Stafford Cripps, questioned whether the country could afford it. As they made their case, there was a commotion, the door opened, and the pugnacious Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin stumbled in, apologising that he had fallen asleep after a heavy lunch. He listened momentarily to the Cripps/Dalton argument, then went ballistic. "No, that won't do at all," he thundered. He had recently had discussions with the Americans, "and I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country to be talked at, or to, as I was. "We've got to have this thing over here, whatever it costs. We've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it." An even more secret cabinet sub-committee, from which Dalton and Cripps were excluded, took charge, and Britain's nuclear weapons project was under way. The case made by Bevin for Britain never to stand cap-in-hand before the Americans was trotted out by subsequent British leaders. Churchill, when he returned to Downing Street in 1951, said the bomb was "the price we pay to sit at the top table". As the race for bigger and more lethal weapons hotted up, he gave the order in 1954 to upgrade to hydrogen bombs. WAS it jingoistic pride, the last blast of empire or sensible politics? A bit of all three, one suspects. But, at a time of declining British power around the world, there was an edge of desperation in the orders and in the way our weapons scientists were egged on. Atom bombs they could manage, and did, in sizeable numbers at Aldermaston. But thermo-nuclear devices - H-bombs - were uncharted territory, where the others, with their massive head start and unlimited funds, were racing ahead. The Soviet test of a thermo-nuclear device towards the end of 1955 increased the pressure for Aldermaston to come up with a multi-megaton bomb. But pressure was also coming from another source. Round the world, there were growing protests over nuclear testing and demands for a total ban. The Americans and the Russians were of a mind to accept. Their testing was pretty well complete. They had mastered the technology that was proving so elusive in Berkshire. For Britain, the prospect of such a ban at this time was appalling. It was as if they had invited themselves to a party just as it was coming to an end. Something had to be done - and fast. That something was Operation Grapple, so- called because it would involve all prongs of the military, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, hooked up together with civilian scientists in the biggest combined operation since the end of the war. The aim was to detonate a bomb at least one megaton in power. Spring 1958 had been the original target date. Now the deadline was brought forward a whole year. While the scientists chewed anxiously over theories, drawing sketches, considering the relative merits of lithium-6 and uranium-238 in the cycle of detonation, the Kermadec Islands in the south Pacific were picked as a test site. But the Prime Minister of New Zealand, whose territory they were, refused permission. The spotlight shifted to Malden Island (which came under joint UK and U.S. administration), with Christmas Island, 365 miles away, as the base from which the tests would be conducted. The Christmas Island atoll was midway between Australia and the west coast of America. It had been a staging post for U.S. bombers during the war and so had a rudimentary runway. It would be a major engineering job to resurface it for the jet bombers and transport planes about to use it, and also to build a "town" of tents and huts for the thousands of men about to descend on it. This was no tropical paradise. It was hot and exposed, with no source of food except coconuts and fish, and infested with flies and vicious land crabs. Everything had to be shipped or flown in, from food and water to heavy machinery. Corporal John Sadler was one of the first Royal Engineers to arrive. He was 22 and recently married, and this barren land would be his home for the next year: "We worked seven days a week because there was nothing else to do." Soon the island was buzzing with activity. Sadler recalled the tension and expectation rising among the 4,000 new inhabitants of Christmas Island as HMS Narvik arrived, followed by the aircraft carrier Warrior. Overhead, the bombers and the Canberra "sniffer planes" - which would fly directly into the mushroom cloud to take samples - flew constantly, practising their runs and testing their equipment. When D-Day came, Sadler watched the Valiant roll down the runway and take off. But after that, he saw and heard nothing. Though he strained his eyes to see the mushroom cloud it was too far away. "But I felt very proud. We knew we were making history. That bomb would make our country a greater power in the world." The scientists on board HMS Narvik who had witnessed the explosion were landing back on Malden Island by helicopter to check their instruments. Debris floated in the sea, the island scrub was on fire but radioactive contamination was light. Even seaman John Lowe was allowed ashore to see the fires for himself, assured that it was quite safe. He and his mates played cricket on the roasted ground and threw themselves into the rolling waves that crashed onto the beach. Back on board, they fished for tuna and cooked what they caught. Contamination? He gave it no thought . . . for now. The scientists on Christmas Island and back at Aldermaston were now in almost permanent session. This first shot in Operation Grapple had been a "disappointment", even though in London it was being trumpeted as a triumph. What had gone wrong? More tests were needed. The next one, on May 31, gave off 800 kilotons of power, close to the magic megaton - which was fortunate since a party of journalists had been invited. Grapple-X on November 8, 1957 produced 1.8 megatons. Six months later, on April 28, 1958, Grapple-Y managed a thunderous three megatons. The prime minister at last had his thunderball to rival the super-powers. It was "a symbol, not a weapon", as one historian put it. For the rest of the 20th century, British leaders could look American presidents in the eye. But, in the process, trouble was brewing. For reasons of economy and logistics, the later bomb drops had been carried out off Christmas Island itself rather than over the distant Malden Island. During the early tests, only those on the ships had been close to the explosion. Now many more servicemen were in the front line. One of those was Scottish sapper Ken McGinley, who remembered the growing fear as the bomb test neared. "It's the biggest bomb the world has ever attempted to set off," he wrote to his girlfriend. They had no idea what to expect. "There's boys writing out their last will and things like that." They mustered on the beach for the Grapple-Y countdown. He was given a white cotton suit to put on over his shorts and shirt but he clearly remembers others standing there in their normal clothes, with no protection. "I've seen photographs of men wearing futuristic-looking goggles with hoods and special boots who were reputedly stationed on Christmas Island, yet I never once clapped eyes on any such equipment," he said. The flash was "like a second sun", followed by a slow, searing heat. He screamed in pain. He saw trees snapped in half by the shock-wave. More sinister were the thick, black cloud that was drifting towards the camp, the torrential rain and the dead cormorants he was sent to clear from the beach, their eyes burnt out. McGinley went down with a series of ailments before being discharged from the army as medically unfit. He never really got better; he suffered nightmares; he discovered he was sterile. But at least he was alive, unlike other Christmas Island veterans he kept hearing about. In 1983, he was instrumental in setting up the British Nuclear Test Veterans' Association to demand recognition, compensation and pensions for their widows. It has been a thorn in the side of the Ministry of Defence ever since. The official line remains resolutely unchanged - that safety precautions were taken, there was no evidence of radioactive contamination afterwards, and that the death rate among Christmas Island veterans is statistically normal. But talk to John Lowe, once that young sailor on Narvik, now the association's chairman, and it is hard not to be moved by the men's stories, and to feel that not everything about the tests was as harmless as the MoD would like us to think. The pressure was intense, time was running out. At the very least, corners were cut, lives endangered? Was the attitude to safety "as casual as if the men had been at a Guy Fawkes bonfire party", as one MP put it in the House of Commons? The new study, from New Zealand, seems to bear that out. Scientists found "high numbers of rogue cells" in sailors present at Operation Grapple. Fifty years ago, Britain got its big bomb "with a bloody union jack on it". But that independence came at an unknown human price. From those super-bomb blasts half-a-century ago, sadly the dust has yet to settle. Tony Rennell's latest book, Home Run, is published by Viking. ***************************************************************** 28 AU ABC: Maralinga veterans say nuclear test study flawed. 17/05/2007. ABC News Online Veterans of nuclear tests at Maralinga in outback South Australia in the 1950s and 60s have reacted angrily to a suggestion that their high rates of cancer could be smoking-related. They say it is an insult to those who have suffered. A researcher into the impact of the British atomic testing, the physicist Dr Philip Crouch, says smoking rather than radiation could be responsible for high rates of cancer among veterans. But a veterans' campaigner Avon Hudson says that's insulting to many he personally knew who weren't smokers or drinkers but died from cancer. He says a study by Dr Crouch has been based on a flawed premise. "It was trying to reconstruct what dose rates may have been received 50 years ago. Now that is absolutely impossible," he said. "I know a lot about nuclear physics too and to try and reconstruct what our chaps were involved in at Maralinga 50 years ago is a nonsense." ***************************************************************** 29 [NYTr] Enviro: Waste from nuke weapons facilities released to Date: Wed, 16 May 2007 17:31:39 -0400 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit NIRS - May 14, 2007 http://www.nirs.org/press/05-14-2007/1 Nuclear Information and Resource Service FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 14, 2007 CONTACT Diane D'Arrigo, NIRS 301-270-6477 16 Mary Olson, NIRS 828-675-1792 New Report Finds Nuclear Weapons Materials Released to Landfills Pathways Open for Reuse and Recycling Takoma Park, MD Radioactive materials are being released from nuclear weapons facilities to regular landfills and could get into commercial recycling streams, finds a new report released today by Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). The report: Out of Control On Purpose: DOE's Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products was commissioned to track if and how the Department of Energy (DOE) releases some of the radioactive wastes from nuclear bomb production. The report authors, led by Diane D'Arrigo, NIRS' Radioactive Waste Project Director, researched seven sites and the DOE national headquarters. The seven sites were: Oak Ridge TN, Rocky Flats CO, Los Alamos NM, Mound and Fernald OH, West Valley NY, and Paducah KY. "People around regular trash landfills will be shocked to learn that radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons production is ending up there, either directly released by DOE or via brokers and processors," D'Arrigo said. "Just as ominous, the DOE allows and encourages sale and donation of some radioactively contaminated materials." The report tracked the laws, guidance and technical justifications that DOE uses to rationalize allowing radioactive scrap, concrete, equipment, asphalt, plastic, wood, chemicals, soil, and more out to landfills, commercial businesses and recreation areas, recycling and reuse in places unprepared to handle radioactivity. Applauding DOE's ban on recycling of radioactive metal from nuclear weapons, the report cautions there are loopholes and it is again threatened. "DOE is ignoring public opposition to unnecessary exposures and releasing radioactivity even though the U.S. Congress revoked such release policies," said Mary Olson, director of the NIRS Southeast office and a co-author of the report. "DOE is using its own internal guidance to allow radioactive weapons wastes out of control, claiming the doses to people will be 'acceptable' even though they are not enforced or tracked." Under the current system, the DOE and other nuclear waste generators release materials directly, sell them at auction or through exchanges or send their waste to processors who can then release it from radioactive controls to landfills, to recyclers or for reuse. The report found that the State of Tennessee is a leader in licensing processors that can release radioactive materials for the nuclear waste generators. "Tennessee is serving as a funnel to bring in nuclear weapons and power waste from around the country to disperse into the landfills and recycling without public knowledge," D'Arrigo said. The waste is processed by state-licensed companies and in some cases "redefined" as "special" then released to regular landfills. This free release also opens up the potential for the materials to enter the recycling stream to make everyday household and personal items or to be used to build roads, schools, and playgrounds. "As long as DOE and other nuclear waste generators can slip their contamination out letting it get Out of Control On Purpose there is really no limit to the amount of additional radiation exposure members of the public could receive," D'Arrigo concluded. "Only an informed, outraged public can force DOE and agreeable states to shift the goal from dispersal to isolation of radioactive waste." A copy of the full report can be found on the NIRS web site at: http://www.nirs.org/radwaste/outofcontrol/outofcontrol.htm The report authors and contributors include: Diane D'Arrigo, NIRS' Radioactive Waste Project Director Mary Olson, Director, NIRS Southeast Office Cindy Folkers, NIRS, Health and Environment Project Dr. Marvin Resnikoff, Radioactive Waste Management Associates, NYC * ================================================================ .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org .List Archives: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ .Subscribe: https://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================ ***************************************************************** 30 Herald News: Activists: Wait for new technology (GNEP) HeraldNewsOnline.com Member of the Sun-Times News Group NUCLEAR RECYCLING May 16, 2007 By CHRISTINA CHAPMAN Staff Writer MORRIS -- Since spent nuclear rods can safely be stored in dry canisters for 100 years, some activists who oppose nuclear fuel reprocessing said they'd rather wait for new technology than have the Department of Energy attempt to recycle nuclear fuel now. A press-only meeting was held Tuesday by David Kraft, nuclear energy information services director of the Nuclear Energy Information Service. Two guests spoke about the DOE and President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks to build three facilities: an advanced fuel cycle research facility, a nuclear fuel recycling center and an advanced recycling reactor. The reactor would destroy long-lived radioactive elements in the new fuel while generating electricity. The DOE is considering General Electric Co.'s Morris-area site for the recycling center and reactor. GE is partnering with Argonne National Laboratory for the technology and research. The speakers were Shaun Burnie, an independent consultant specializing in nuclear spent rod recycling, and Aileen Mioko Smith, the founder and director of Green Action, which is a Japanese citizen organization that opposes plutonium fuel use in commercial nuclear reactors in Japan. Bad experiences The United Kingdom and France have already been reprocessing plutonium, but began doing so to create weapons, Burnie said. The reactors require plutonium to run, which creates a plutonium byproduct that the facility then must reprocess. In 1994, a commercial thermal oxide reprocessing plant was constructed. For the 13 years it operated, it discharged radioactive materials into the Irish Sea and the atmosphere, he said. About 3 million gallons of low-level nuclear waste dissolved in the water, he said. "It made a nuclear disaster zone," Burnie said. Since then the government has taken a stance against reprocessing, but not reactors. And there are still thousands of tons of nuclear waste, he said. Smith said Japan has been conducting a program for the quick development of reactors for 50 years, but it has yet to be commercialized. Japan's first reprocessing plant is planned for November in Rokkasho. The problem, she said, is the process creates more waste than what is in the spent rods. "Lets not make it worse. It's best to keep it in the rods, and monitor them," she said. Kraft said through hardened on-site storage (HOSS) rods can be safely stored for as long as 100 years while new technology is mastered. Not the same technology Tom Rumsey, manager of communications for GE, said he understands the concern, but that the technology causing problems across the world is not what will be used in Morris. "We cannot separate out plutonium. It is burned and destroyed in the reactor on site," Rumsey said. "This isn't a way to create more plutonium." Rumsey did say only 95 percent of a spent fuel rod can be recycled, but the remaining 5 percent waste is a solid and will not be released into a body of water, but stored on site or at Yucca Mountain or somewhere similar in the future. The difference is that it is only stored for hundreds of years, rather than tens of thousands. In addition, Rumsey said the spent rods that are broken through the reprocessing are not releasing any more radiation than the whole rods do. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material © Copyright 2007 Sun-Times News Group | Terms of Use and Privacy ***************************************************************** 31 Salt Lake Tribune: Change mining laws to reclaim our future By Jane Danowitz Article Last Updated: 05/15/2007 07:02:33 PM MDT It was not a particularly auspicious year. Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting, the inventor of the telegraph died, and the Great Boston Fire destroyed much of that city. And President Ulysses S. Grant signed the 1872 Mining Act into law. Boston rebuilt swiftly, women gained the right to vote for president almost 90 years ago and wireless Internet now covers entire cities. But some things haven't changed. Companies that mine for metals can still claim federal land for five dollars or less per acre as they did in the 1870s, avoid paying any royalties, pollute the nation's waterways with mining waste, and walk away with little or no obligation to clean up. Thanks to the 135-year-old mining law, such practices can be perfectly legal - and are increasing. The time for reform has never been riper. The late Rep. Morris Udall once called the arcane rules that govern gold, uranium and other metal mining a "fire sale without a fire." But a recent surge in new mining claims in the West, coupled with a change in the policy environment, may finally make it possible to end these antiquated and destructive practices. Unlike oil, gas and other extractive industries operating on public land, the "hard rock" metal mining companies - even if foreign owned - can take mineral resources from U.S. lands virtually for free, costing American taxpayers an estimated $100 million each year in potential royalties. That's just the beginning of the bonanza. The law remains a speculator's dream. It allows individuals or corporations to ultimately buy the land they're claiming at prices set in 1872, which generally run from $2.50 to $5 per acre. Claims don't carry expiration dates and, if not mined, can be - and have been - used for development of everything from condominiums to casinos. Even today, the law gives hard rock mining on public lands priority status, regardless of the impact on watersheds, wildlife or local communities. Then there's the mess that is left behind. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has consistently found metal mining to be the nation's leading source of toxic pollution - and found the industry responsible for degrading 40 percent of Western watersheds. To add further insult to injury, mining is subject to deferential treatment under federal hazardous waste law and even the Clean Water Act. Moreover, the industry too often skips out on the tab for cleanup. A 2004 report from the EPA's inspector general estimates that it could cost U.S. taxpayers up to $50 billion to clean up abandoned mine sites still scattered around the country. The damage includes cyanide contamination of thousands of miles of rivers, endless acid drainage and millions of cubic yards of toxic waste rock. Claims for uranium, gold and other metals on public lands have increased almost 50 percent over the last four years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Many of these new claims - staked largely by foreign-owned companies - lie near such national treasures as the Grand Canyon, or next to highly populated urban areas and Indian lands. It is perplexing that for so many years, a nation that treasures the majesty of its landscape, values the voice of its citizens and takes pride in protecting its taxpayers would allow such an unfair and destructive law to remain on the books. The good news, however, comes from emerging signs that Congress may no longer be willing to tolerate this giveaway of public resources and such rampant environmental abuses. The new chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., has indicated that reform of the 1872 law is one of his highest priorities. In fairness to taxpayers - and to the nation's future - lawmakers from both sides of the aisle should make sure that another year doesn't pass with a 21st-century mining industry being regulated by 19th-century laws. --- Jane Danowitz directs the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining. © Copyright 2007, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 32 Salt Lake Tribune: Matheson pushes amendment to speed up removal of uranium waste in southern Utah The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 05/16/2007 09:28:13 PM MDT Posted: 6:17 PM- WASHINGTON - Rep. Jim Matheson is proposing an amendment to a defense bill that would force the Energy Department to move an enormous pile of uranium tailings away from the banks of the Colorado River by 2019. The House is expected to vote on the amendment Thursday morning, although it is not anticipated that there will be serious opposition to the measure. The department had originally forecast that it could move the 16 million tons of tailings in seven to 10 years, but the department now says the project is not likely to be completed until 2028. "DOE has a miserable record here to be honest and I've fired many shots across the bow before but this was the time for the direct hit," said Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, who sponsored the amendment expected to be approved by the House late tonight. "This business to say 2028 is just unacceptable." The Energy Department opposed the amendment. In a memo sent to House members, the department said the 2028 projection is merely a number used for planning purposes and writing a deadline into law doesn't give the department the needed flexibility. "I've been generous in this amendment. I've given them 10 years," Matheson said. "But that's it. And it's a good deal for them and I suggest they take it." The pile is the remnants of Cold War-era uranium refining done at the Atlas Corp. mill. The mill closed in 1984 and the company filed for bankruptcy in 1998, leaving behind a temporary cap on the pile and an inadequate cleanup fund. The tailings pile now sits just outside Arches National Park on the banks of the Colorado River and studies have found that toxic chemicals such as ammonia are seeping into the groundwater, threatening four species of endangered fish. The contamination has also alarmed officials downstream, since the river provides drinking water for an estimated 25 million people. After years of studying the issue, the Energy Department decided in 2005 to build a rail line and move the material 30 miles north to Crescent Junction. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, also sent a letter to Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman last month, saying the 2028 target date for completing the project is unacceptable. Matheson also criticized the funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which seeks to design the next-generation nuclear weapon. He said it could lead to renewed nuclear testing, and the department has not explained how the program would fit into a larger defense strategy. © Copyright 2007, The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 33 Sydney Morning Herald: Yellowcake exports may hit $10b a year - www.smh.com.au May 16, 2007 - 6:24PM Australia has the potential to export $10 billion worth of uranium a year within the next decade, a federal Labor MP has told a conference in Darwin. Opposition Transport, Roads and Tourism spokesman Martin Ferguson on Wednesday urged 300 delegates attending the Australia's Uranium Conference to "turn that huge challenge into a reality". "With uranium prices at US$113 a pound and global uranium demand growing rapidly to meet power generation needs in a carbon constrained world we have the potential to export $10 billion a year within the next decade," Mr Ferguson said. A long-term supporter of nuclear power, Mr Ferguson said stakeholders needed to espouse the virtues of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to turn the tide of public support. "People in Australia should not forget that we depend on ANSTO, there is hardly a family or a street in Australia that has not benefited from nuclear medicine," he said. "The more we remind the Australian community about the importance of ANSTO in this debate, then the greater opportunity we have to educate the Australian public about why this industry is so fundamental to the world's future." But if Australia did not take advantage of its unique market stronghold, Mr Ferguson said, it would miss out on a golden opportunity to guide and shape the uranium debate on a global scale. "Australia needs to play a role in setting international safeguards ... to take the world forward," he said. "The truth is, without Australian involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle ... we cannot expect to influence the course of events when it comes to nuclear non-proliferation." Safeguarding the use of Australia's uranium deposits overseas was a debate the nation needed "front and centre", with the country only selling it where it would be "treated with safe hands". In addition, Mr Ferguson said Australian should never be in a position where it was forced to take back the world's waste or to develop nuclear power at home. "Each country will chose the energy source that suits its needs ... (for Australia) it just does not stack up financially." He also urged stakeholders to enter into proper negotiations with indigenous communities "to ensure that in solving our social problems in Australia we create long term employment opportunities for Aboriginal people". "We need to front up to our social requirements in rural, remote and regional Australia, to give a social dividend to indigenous communities as a result of this change in policy," he said. Mr Ferguson also said it was a very difficult decision for many Labor Party members to vote against a 25 year ban on uranium mining at this year's federal conference. "I support uranium mining, but not at any cost," he said. © 2007 AAP Brought to you by When news happens: send photos, videos & tip-offs to 0424 SMS SMH (+61 424 767 764), or us. Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald. ***************************************************************** 34 sacbee.com: McClellan cleanup's a step closer - By Chris Bowman - Bee Staff Writer Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Larry Kelley, president of McClellan Park LLC, strolls along the eastern edge of a 62-acre parcel set for cleanup at the former Air Force base. Sacramento Bee/Anne Chadwick Williams The Pentagon is relinquishing to private enterprise its ownership and cleanup authority of contaminated lands at the former McClellan Air Force Base, a national Superfund site. Defense Department officials have agreed to pay for the private cleanup of a 62-acre contaminated parcel, the first in a series of privatization deals under negotiation with Sacramento County to hasten redevelopment of the 3,000-acre complex. The $11.2 million agreement puts McClellan in line with Fort Ord on the Monterey coast to be the first of the nation's military Superfund sites to be put into private ownership in advance of environmental cleanup, federal and county officials said. "The McClellan early transfer was designed to be and has become a template for future land transfers in the U.S.," said county Supervisor Roger Dickinson, whose district includes McClellan, in North Highlands. The deal, signed in late March, is subject to public comment and approval by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which would continue to enforce the McClellan cleanup. State and federal EPA officials have agreed in concept with the privatization plans, according to Kathleen Johnson, EPA's manager of military Superfund sites in California. "We have every reason to believe that at some sites it's going to be the way to go," Johnson said Tuesday. "In our view, it will have all the safeguards that you will have in a normal cleanup, perhaps even more." Under the McClellan agreement, the Air Force would transfer its deed on the 62-acre industrialized parcel to the county, which has authority over the reuse of the base. The county, in turn, would sign the papers over to McClellan Park, a private development company that leases uncontaminated portions of the complex to various industries. The top 15 feet of soil on the rectangular parcel is contaminated mainly with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, according to Linda Geissinger, spokeswoman for the Air Force Real Property Agency, which is in charge of cleanup throughout McClellan. The toxic substance leaked from surplus military electrical transformers stored at the base. The Air Force also incinerated waste at the site in the 1960s and stored fuel in underground tanks, Geissinger said. McClellan Park LLC, the developer of the former base since its military closure in July 2001, plans to excavate the polluted topsoil and either haul it to a special landfill for hazardous materials or attempt to decontaminate it on site, said Larry Kelley, the company president. The company's main cleanup contractor will be Tetra Tech Inc., Kelley said. Tetra Tech, which works for McClellan on other projects, is a major national environmental consulting firm that manages enforcement activities for the U.S. and California environmental protection agencies. The Air Force and its contractors will continue groundwater cleanup deep below the parcel and elsewhere at McClellan. The military has spent about $500 million in the past 25 years to contain and remove tainted groundwater at McClellan, one of the most polluted military installations in the nation. The base is dotted with groundwater pollution monitoring wells and has an extensive network of cleansing systems to remove gases from the volatile solvents. The water pollution is the legacy of an aircraft maintenance base that for 30 years dumped its engine metal degreasing wastes, paint sludge, fuel and even radioactive wastes in unlined pits, allowing the chemicals to seep into the water table. The military installation off Watt Avenue in North Highlands had a one-time population of 24,000 workers and residents, serving as an important link in the nation's defense from World War II through the Persian Gulf War. McClellan Park has since attracted 170 business tenants with more than 13,000 employees. The Coast Guard and state firefighting crews occupy some of the giant hangars and use the runways, now owned by the county. County officials view the proposed 62-acre deal as critical to restore the jobs and revenue lost in the base closure. Until now, the redevelopment has been confined to paved areas and buildings deemed safe from contamination and suitable for occupancy. The privatization arrangements would allow McClellan developers to build new office buildings and warehouses while simultaneously removing or paving over tainted grounds. "If you have to dig a hole to clean up the dirt and you have to dig a hole to make a basement, there's probably economies of scale to be gained by doing both at the same time," the EPA's Johnson said. The special arrangement is allowed under an amendment to the federal Superfund Act that Congress approved in early 1990s as a concession to Sacramento and the many other communities facing military closures. "This will put us in the market to compete on commercial office and warehouse construction," Kelley said. Getting the cleanup money upfront from the Air Force frees the developer from the vagaries of Air Force budgeting, said Kelley, who expects to begin building on the parcel next year. "If we hadn't gotten to this solution, it could be 2009, 2010 or who knows?" Kelley said. * The Bee's Chris Bowman can be reached at (916) 321-1069 or cbowman@sacbee.com. Sacbee.com | SacTicket.com | Sacramento.com | CapitolAlert.com Copyright © The Sacramento Bee, (916) 321-1000 ***************************************************************** 35 Bridgwater Mercury: Powerful Opinions At Nuclear Talk By Dan Sales A trident missile. A NUCLEAR weapon-themed meeting held in Bridgwater heard some powerful opinions being aired this week. It took place at the Quaker Meeting House on Monday (May 14) and the subject was Trident Renewal: why campaigning for nuclear disarmament still matters. The event was organised by Sedgemoor and Bridgwater Peace Groups as part of an ongoing Somerset-wide campaign against the renewal of Trident missile systems and was attended by about 20 people. John Pridham, long time peace campaigner, and Dr Richard Lawson, prominent campaigner on nuclear disarmament and national Green Party representative, were the speakers. 12:21pm Wednesday 16th May 2007Print  Email this Comment Privacy Policy © Copyright 2001-2007 Newsquest Media Group ***************************************************************** 36 KnoxNews: Liedle to Livermore lab By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com May 16, 2007 Steve Liedle, a management fixture in Oak Ridge in recent years, is moving west to become deputy director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. He's a part of the mana-gement team assembled by Lawrence Livermore National Security LLC, the winning contractor chosen last week by the U.S. Department of Energy to manage the weapons design laboratory. LLNS is a kitchen-sink corporation made up of Bechtel National, the University of California, BWX Technologies and Washington Group International. Also included in the partnership are Battelle Memorial Institute, Texas A&M University and four small-business subcontractors. Liedle is a big-time Bechtelian, with deep career roots in the corporation. In 2002, Leidle was named president of Bechtel Jacobs, the partnership of Bechtel National and Jacobs Engineering that manages the DOE cleanup program in Oak Ridge. More recently he served as deputy general manager for programs at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant, which is managed by BWXT Y-12, a partnership of BWX Technologies and Bechtel National. Bill Wilburn, a spokesman at BWXT Y-12, said no immediate replacement was named for Liedle at Y-12. "We will be making some organizational decisions in the near future," he said. There may be some changes that go beyond filling Liedle's position, Wilburn said. No one else from Y-12 is moving to Livermore, he said, but noted that Pam Horning from the BWX Technologies corporate office in Oak Ridge would be joining the new contractor team. A second round of security forces from Oak Ridge has been dispatched to the Pantex warhead assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas, where the guards there have been on strike for the past month. Wackenhut Services, the government's security contractor in Oak Ridge, last month sent about 15 supervisors to Texas to help protect the high-security assembly plant during the guard strike. Courtney Henry, a Wackenhut spokeswoman, said a similar number of security police went to Texas last week for special training and will replace their Oak Ridge teammates at the Pantex plant on Friday, when the first group will return to Oak Ridge. All of the Oak Ridge personnel going to Texas are supervisors, not guards represented by the International Guards Union of America. I got a call recently from a local boater who'd seen two rusty drums at the shoreline of Melton Hill Lake alongside the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge reservation. He had taken photos of the drums, and he thought they looked pretty sinister. He sent me a digital copy. I agreed with his assessment. The caller, of course, was concerned about what might be in those drums, taking into account the gazillion number of drums that have been filled with radioactive and hazardous wastes at the Oak Ridge plants. I told him I'd check it out, although in this day and age, I'd be surprised -- actually shocked -- if federal contractors were trying to dump their dirty deeds into local waterways. That wouldn't make sense because the government has invested billions of dollars (yes, billions) trying to clean up the Oak Ridge grounds over the past 25 years. Not only would it be illegal, it'd be downright stupid. But you never rule out anything. I reported the findings to John Owsley, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation's Oak Ridge oversight chief, whose staff responded quickly to the inquiry. I also asked Bechtel Jacobs about the suspicious drums. It turned out that one of the "drums" was the inside cylinder from a water heater. The other was a 55-gallon drum, not of DOE origin, filled with sediments. The state characterized the pair as routine river debris. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 37 KnoxNews: Reactor's successful early restart thrills officials By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com May 16, 2007 OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory officials are thrilled with early restart activities at the long-idled High Flux Isotope Reactor, which could reach full power - 85 megawatts - late today or Thursday. "We've actually seen our first cold neutrons, and that's really, really exciting," Kelly Beierschmitt, ORNL's director of nuclear operations, said Tuesday during a visit to the reactor. The world's most powerful research reactor was restarted Sunday for the first time in 16 months. During the lengthy outage, workers refurbished the 40-year-old nuclear facility and installed new instruments, including a cold source that greatly enhances the reactor's experimental capabilities. The cold source uses liquid helium and hydrogen to cool the research chambers and slow the movement of neutrons emanating from the reactor's core along special beam lines. At minus-425 degrees Fahrenheit, neutrons have longer wavelengths, making them especially useful for studies of polymers and biological substances. Scientists conduct neutron-scattering experiments to explore the structure and properties of materials. Forty-nine research experiments have been approved for the Oak Ridge reactor's first fuel cycle, and scientists are completing preparations while waiting for the completion of reactor tests. ORNL officials received the Department of Energy's authorization to restart the High Flux Isotope Reactor last Friday. After the reactor's core went critical Sunday, some of the early tests involved taking the power up and bringing it back down again. This was to make sure systems were working properly and to allow reactor operators to recertify their training. Activities were interrupted Monday when the reactor experienced a "power ripple," the result of a problem involving a power line from TVA's Bull Run steam plant to a Knoxville substation. But it did not cause any reactor problems, Beierschmitt said. "We had a system shutdown, and everything worked out perfect," he said. "The cold source is behaving properly, doing very well, and we're proud of that." Before taking the reactor to full power, officials plan to hold the power level at about 10 percent - roughly 8 megawatts - to evaluate the shielding of the new beam lines and associated systems, he said. Because there's so much new research equipment and because the reactor has been shut down so long, the restart team is proceeding cautiously, Beierschmitt said. "It's going really well," he said. "Of course, there's a bunch of moving parts, and we're watching all of them. I don't want to overbuild expectations. I want folks to understand this will be a construction startup. We expect infant mortality on equipment and pumps and motors. I haven't figured out what will break yet, but we have to expect it with the startup of a new system like this." There are about 1,000 different control points to monitor operations in the cryogenic systems that cool the research chambers, he said. While anticipating equipment problems, Beierschmitt said he's confident of the reactor's safety. Even if something goes wrong with one of the new beam lines, it should not affect the reactor operations at all, he said. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 38 SF New Mexican: LANL: Ex-archivist pleads guilty in security breach Wed May 16, 2007 7:52 pm By Andy Lenderman The New Mexican ALBUQUERQUE Plea agreement allows woman to avoid felony charges A former contractor at Los Alamos National Laboratory accepted a plea bargain Tuesday and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge that she took classified lab data to her home. Jessica L. Quintana, 23, declined to comment after her hearing in U.S. District Court, which was her first appearance since the story broke last October. But her lawyer said she's pleased with the plea agreement because she avoided felony charges. ``We're relieved that we're moving forward,'' said defense attorney Steve Aarons of Santa Fe. Quintana pleaded guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified information. She faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine, though federal prosecutors have not objected to Quintana's request for a sentence without jail time. ``As part of the plea agreement, Quintana has agreed to cooperate with the government,'' the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to discuss the status of the investigation. According to the plea agreement: Quintana is a former employee of Information Assets Management Inc., a company hired to archive classified information at the lab. She had a Q, or high-level security clearance, and downloaded and printed classified information from a vault-type room at the lab in July 2006. Some of that information was discovered by the Los Alamos Police Department on Oct. 17, and the rest was seized by the FBI on Oct. 20. Aarons said she was overworked and took the work home to meet a deadline. ``It never left her home,'' he said. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to discuss whether investigators think the data stayed in Quintana's home. The agreement only noted the information went to her residence. The lab last November reported that ``the majority of the material was classified at the lowest levels and was twenty to thirty years old. None of the documents in question were classified top secret. None of the materials included any of the most sensitive nuclear weapons information.'' Quintana's sentencing is pending completion of a report by the U.S. Probation Office. She could also face a year of supervised release, restitution and up to five years of probation. The plea agreement also calls for Quintana to cooperate with federal investigators, submit a personal financial statement and take lie-detector tests, if requested. The lab statement Tuesday said: ``A guilty plea validates that this case was clearly a criminal act, and violated lab policies and regulations already in place. However, this incident pointed to much needed change at the laboratory. Since last autumn, we have made very significant progress changing the way we access and use classified materials, particularly electronic media.'' The security incident sparked renewed criticism from some in Congress who have generally demanded better management at the lab, which was recently taken over by a private company. Aarons also said blame must be shared in this incident. ``The subcontractor took on way too much work, and nobody was supervising anybody,'' he said. Officials from Information Assets Management could not immediately be reached for comment. Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com Copyright 2007 The New Mexican, Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 Herald-Leader: Plan would extend life of gaseous diffusion plant Kentucky.com | 05/16/2007 | The Associated Press PADUCAH, Ky. -- There's an effort to extend the life of the eleven-hundred employee Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Congressional leaders are being asked to require the U.S. Department of Energy to transfer control of spent uranium to the global energy company U.S.EC. Paducah Mayor Bill Paxton says spent uranium in tens of thousands of cylinders at the plant and at a closed sister plant in Piketon, Ohio, is worth about three (b) billion dollars. He says that's based on the soaring price of the low-level radioactive metal. Paxton adds that transferring some of the material to U.S.EC to be re-enriched for use in nuclear power plants could extend the life of the Paducah factory by two to ten years. Paxton says the cylinders belong to Paducah. He says they've been sitting in the community for the past 50 years and nobody wanted them. Paxton says now that uranium prices have shot up, they're a hot item and D-O-E officials) want to do something else with them. ***************************************************************** 40 Tri-City Herald: Hastings pushes for increased aid Published Wednesday, May 16th, 2007 ANNETTE CARY HERALD STAFF WRITER A federal ombudsman would have more authority to help ill workers at Hanford under a bill being co-sponsored by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. Now the ombudsman for the nationwide program to compensate ill nuclear workers or their survivors is limited to making inquiries on behalf of workers. The proposed changes would allow the ombudsman to act as an advocate for workers and recommend legislative changes to Congress to make compensation programs work better. The ombudsman's authority also would be extended from just Part E of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program to also include Part B. Under Part B, workers may receive $150,000 and reimbursement for medical care if exposure to radiation at Hanford or other nuclear sites is determined to have caused cancer. Workers with certain lung diseases, including chronic beryllium disease, also are eligible. Part E pays up to $250,000 for lost wages and impairment to workers made ill by toxic substances, including radiation or hazardous chemicals. Congress created the program in 2000, but some people have had to wait years for their claims to be decided. "This is a complex program, but there is simply no excuse for the slow rate at which workers claims are processed," Hastings said in a statement. Many people also have struggled with a complicated bureaucracy, a highly technical burden of proof and intimidating health physics discussions, legislative sponsor Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., said in a speech. Hastings joins four other representatives from states with nuclear sites as cosponsors. In completed cases, Hanford and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory workers or their survivors have been paid $146 million -- up from $98 million 10 months ago -- and had more than $2 million in medical bills covered. The legislation creating the ombudsman's office is due to expire in October if new legislation is not passed. In 2006, the office heard about a wide variety of problems. Among the most common was that former workers or their survivors had trouble retrieving employment, exposure or medical records needed to make their case. Some of the records needed date back to World War II. Others said processing of claims was taking so long that elderly workers would die without receiving compensation. Some workers already approved for compensation said they had pharmacy bills rejected without explanation for medications that previously had been covered. For information about the compensation program, call 946-3333 or 1-888-654-0014. To contact the ombudsman, call 1-877-662-8363. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 41 Daily Nexus: Labs Protester Responds to Defense of Nuke Research - Published Wednesday, May 16, 2007 Issue 125 / Volume 87 J. Ramos / Daily Nexus Editor, Daily Nexus, Matt Macauley (“Protesters Lack Key Facts on Nukes, UC,” Daily Nexus, May 10) disagrees with the hunger strike against UC nuclear lab management for three reasons: 1) We need experts to clean up the mess and take care of the nuclear weapons stockpile, 2) UC is a better manager than a private corporation and 3) The labs are a haven for top scientists conducting research. Like most students opposed to the hunger strike, he offers few actual facts, however. Here are some facts addressing his three claims. 1) UC doesn’t manage these facilities to maintain the stockpile or clean up the nuclear mess. The Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory just designed a new hydrogen bomb and the Los Alamos National Laboratory is preparing to manufacture plutonium bomb pits for this new nuclear weapon. On the historical end, UC helped conduct over 1,000 weapons tests, each of which has released radiation into our environment. UC still operates a massive waste dump at the Los Alamos lab and produces waste at LLNL and LANL that will last tens of thousands of years. 2) The labs are now actually managed by private corporations. The UC Regents are a business partner in these secretive companies that include Bechtel Corp. and other military industrial firms. Each contract is worth hundreds of millions in “performance fees.” Furthermore, current Chair of the Regents Richard Blum was once Vice President of a corporation that profited off contracts at Los Alamos. 3) Yes, the labs conduct research on more than just nuclear weapons. However, the central mission and vast majority of funds at the labs go to nuclear warhead research and design. I ask that interested readers download the National Nuclear Security Administration’s lab budget and take a look for themselves at http://www.nnsa.doe.gov/readingroom.htm. Any HIV, cancer, climate or energy research at these labs could easily be transferred out to other campuses. Darwin BondGraham Copyright 2000-2006 Daily Nexus at the University of California, Santa Barbara. All ***************************************************************** 42 KnoxNews: Sparks prompted Y-12 evacuation By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com May 16, 2007 OAK RIDGE ? About 140 workers were evacuated from a production facility at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant after sparks were observed during a maintenance operation. Bill Wilburn of BWXT Y-12, the government?s contractor at the site, said the evacuation was done as a precaution, and he said there were no injuries or environmental releases. Wilburn said workers were evacuated shortly after lunchtime from the Special Materials Production Facility. He said there were no radioactive materials involved. According to Steven Wyatt of Y-12?s federal staff, sparks were observed during a maintenance operation involving a machine dust collector. The dust was from a lithium compound, he said. Y-12 is known to use lithium hydride and lithium deuteride in the production of secondaries ? the second stage of nuclear warheads. Wyatt said firemen were present during the maintenance operation because sparking is a possibility. He said there was no fire or smoke, just sparks. During the Cold War, the Oak Ridge plant produced parts for every nuclear weapon in the U.S. arsenal. The plant also manufactures replacement parts for those warheads as needed. Y-12 also is responsible for dismantling those same parts after weapons systems are retired from the arsenal. More details as they develop online and in Thursday?s News Sentinel. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 43 Guardian Unlimited: Ex-Los Alamos Worker Pleads Guilty From the Associated Press Wednesday May 16, 2007 8:46 AM By FELICIA FONSECA Associated Press Writer ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - A former worker at Los Alamos National Laboratory who took secret data home pleaded guilty Tuesday to negligent handling of classified documents, a misdemeanor. Jessica Quintana, 23, entered her plea before U.S. Magistrate Lorenzo Garcia and was released on her own recognizance. Police found the data - on a portable computer storage drive and in about 200 pages of paper documents - in October during a drug bust aimed at her roommate in her Los Alamos home. Quintana's attorney, Stephen Aarons, said the archivist, who worked for a contractor, was converting documents to an electronic format and took them home to continue working. He said that the contractor had taken on too much work and that Quintana felt pressure to get it done. ``On the bright side, we've learned some lessons about this without actually compromising national security. ... No one has been permanently harmed here,'' Aarons said in an interview. But Aarons also questioned security at the lab. ``To think you could just walk out with 200 pages and not get checked,'' he said. Lab officials have said that none of the material was top secret, that it did not contain the most sensitive nuclear weapons information and that much of it was decades old. Under an agreement with federal prosecutors, Quintana faces up to a year behind bars, a maximum fine of $100,000 and a year of supervised release. Or she could be sentenced to five years of probation, a route her attorney said he hopes a judge will take, given Quintana's lack of a criminal history. Prosecutors said that they would not oppose that option, but that they would not agree to make a sentencing recommendation, Aarons said. A sentencing date has not been set. Quintana also has agreed to cooperate with the government. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, Norm Cairns, said he could not comment. The drug bust involved a self-described meth addict who was renting a room in Quintana's home. He has been sentenced to probation for receiving stolen property and ordered to a rehabilitation program. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 44 lamonitor.com: Talk: Sorting out the big mix-up The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor The Frontiers in Science public lecture series returns Monday with a talk by Robert Ecke on "The Turbulent World: How Nature Mixes Things Up." The program is sponsored by the Fellows of Los Alamos National Laboratory. There are many forms of turbulence in the world with implications for such practical problems as airplane safety, efficient car fuel economy and reducing air pollution. In his talk, the director of LANL's Center for Non-Linear studies will explain what turbulence is, why it matters and how scientific studies of turbulent motion are making progress on important problems of the 21st century. Ecke is familiar with the historical search for solutions to the complex problem of turbulence, from Leonardo da Vinci to modern supercomputing modeling, numerical simulation and experiments. Da Vinci tried to draw the swirling flow of water poured from a sluice, comparing what he saw to hair, "which has two motions, of which one is caused by the weight of the hair, the other by the direction of the curls, thus the water has eddying motions, one part of which is due to the principal current and the other to random and reverse motion." Da Vinci's sharp observations, especially his division of the problem into two basic motions, anticipated a scientific approach that was taken 400 years later and is still applicable in many situations to engineering today. But still larger questions, like modeling ocean dynamics or making global climate predictions, remain as challenges. "I actually do laboratory experiments," said Ecke. "The thing that is nice about doing complementary experiments and numerical simulations is that your results are different." The advantage of experiments is that nature provides the right physics, he said, although there can be a mistake in the analysis, just as their can be a bug in the computer code. "A strong result is where we all agree," Ecke said, referring to a robust accord he strives for with collaborators. The free talk will be given first in Los Alamos at 7 p.m. Monday in Duane Smith Auditorium at Los Alamos High School. The talk will be repeated during the week at the following times and places: at 7 p.m. Tuesday, James A. Little Theater, New Mexico School for the Deaf, 1060 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe; 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nick Salazar Center for the Arts, NNMC 921 Paseo De Onate, Espanola; and at 7 p.m. Thursday, Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, 2401 12th Street, NW, Albuquerque. For further information, contact Linda Anderman at the Community Programs Office at 665-9196 or anderman@lanl.gov. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 45 KVII Online: POGO Thinks Pantex is Vulnerable By Chris Olsen Posted: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 at 5:55 AM AMARILLO -- The Pantex Guards Union strike is now getting even more attention from a national organization that's been watching the security set-up at Pantex.. The Project On Government Oversight, or POGO, says it strives to make sure the government works in the American public's best interest. For years, POGO has been investigating BWXT Pantex’s operations, and it says with the strike lasting over a month, the site is extremely vulnerable and it should be temporarily or partially shut down. “We're shocked at Pantex,” said Peter Stockton, POGO’s Senior Investigator, who was also a Special Assistant to former Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. “They had 537 well trained Security Officers who were well tested. Now, they have in the neighborhood of 211 that were brought in from around the complex [DOE Complex].” “They use different weapons, different tactics, a different response plan, and all that. Plus, they only have a week at the most to get ready to protect the plant. We just think that’s irresponsible as hell.” Stockton also said POGO’s sources for their information could not be revealed, but that he has sources from the top to bottom inside Pantex. Jud Simmons with BWXT Pantex told Pronews7 that he wouldn’t comment on the number of guards on duty, but did tell us they are maintaining a high level of security and that the plant will continue its normal operation. ***************************************************************** 46 OpEdNews: Our Nuclear Complex May 16, 2007 at 18:15:59 by Bob Kinsey http://www.opednews.com It's true! Our fleet of nuclear horrors cannot work any longer. It cannot deter a nuclear attack. But that is not because the "weapons" themselves will not work into the foreseeable future. The "aging stockpile" NNSA speaks of requires only routine maintenance to keep it in tiptop, certifiable shape. It does not need the viagra of more taxes pouring into our nuclear complex to address the "post Cold War post 9/11 national security environment" which requires "an agile, responsive new generation" with "increased performance margins." The reason that deterrence won't work is that the new threat does not come from political states which can be identified and threatened with destruction should the attempt to mount a nuclear attack. No! The new threat is from loose nukes hidden in the shadows and "deployed" so to speak by individuals and small groups with a suicide mentality that mutual assured destruction will not deter. Another potential threat is the proliferation of nuclear power plants in an attempt to find an easy solution to the Global Climate Change problem of CO2 emissions. Despite not emitting CO2 at these plants, there are growing piles of waste from "spent" fuel rods that actually contain bomb grade plutonium as well as seas of acidic chemical nuclear soup that DOE hasn't a rational plan for managing. Stories emerge daily of new spills, leaks into atmosphere and water breathed in and drunk up by those who are supposedly protected and defended. This is done by the guys who want to make sure "we have the science and technological base essential for long term national security." Then, there is the problem of failing states which have a nuclear arsenal which could fall into the hands of extremists who are undeterrable. The most frightening possibility right now is Pakistan. Anyone who puts any hope in some nuclear weapons solution to "take out" these threats, as the adolescent war gamers say, has a fairy land view of the "collateral damage" that would result, or, a total disregard for any life on earth except their own silly little as-- and probably that of their family, friends, church group, or maybe nation-state. In reality, they are willing to commit the most barbaric of acts in defense of civilization. War is Peace etc. Such behavior would only paint a bigger bullseye upon us as a hated entity, and perhaps more rightfully so for having contributed mightily to the pollution of all life-giving systems on earth. New Nukes with intent to use, undermine any fantasy anybody else might have that we intend to participate in good faith in non-proliferation, and any move toward a nuclear weapons free world. Thus endith international treaty efforts to control and eliminate the danger. So, you don't believe the "intent to use" part? I have been quoting from the Department of Energy paper on modernizing the Complex. (See Below) "The 2001 nuclear policy was updated to recognize that the premise of our strategy had changed from one of deterring only a peer adversary to one of responding (my italics) to emerging threats." (page 3) Such as Iran, and so-they-told-us, Iraq. It is in this "environment that they want to "upgrade" our nuclear arsenal. The actual new "national security environment" is, in fact, a world that must solve problems together. The neo-con con game, that we create a "force-structure" to force our preferred solution upon everyone else lies in the dust of, or demolition of Iraq and our inability - through force-- to recreate it in our image. Especially so when our own self interest seems to require finding a way to control their oil in the bargain. And, especially when the architects of the policy fully intend to use the whole process to graft all the profits on firms like Halliburton and friends. The real and effective "nation building" that these folks do is building their own corporate nations into tax supported cash cows. So you see, the problem is that there is no obvious money to be made in the private sector in building an international system for the control and elimination of nuclear weapons grade material. There never has been much of a fortune to be made in public law enforcement. Nothing like the millions to be made in the war business. And yet that is the only rational means of creating any possibility of keeping us safer in this interdependent ecology they like to call the "new national security environment." And yes, read "be very scared" about the environment. Have we got a Complex or what? But Drs. Strangelove, Kissinger, Teller, along with Thomas Hobbes, and their orderlies, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, etc. and their academies such as the Heritage Foundation, the Air Force Academy, do not have any therapy to save us. And Congress this month, "slouches toward Bethlehem" with the money. Where are the paladins of hope for a world of international law where war is outlawed as an instrument of national policy and Human Rights are defined and protected. At the shopping mall? Or zoning out chanting mantras? Or praying for the Rapture? (All Quotes are from the "Report on the Plan for Transformation of the National Nuclear Security Administration Nuclear Weapons Complex"). *RRW: Reliable Replacement Warhead" thecoloradocoalition.org I am a board member of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability and The Colorado Coalition for Prevention of Nuclear War, a retired United Church of Christ clergy and a retired history teacher. I recently began teaching Philosophy at Colorado Mountain College. Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2007 ***************************************************************** 47 WATE: Workers to return to Y-12 Plant after evacuation May 16, 2007 OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- Workers will be allowed to return Thursday to a production building that was evacuated at the Y-12 Nuclear Weapons plant. Sparks in a machine forced the evacuation of more than 100 workers Wednesday. The building was evacuated after firemen performing a maintenance operation saw sparks in a machine shop dust collector. The dust was from a lithium compound but there was no fire or smoke. Officials say in a news release there were no injuries and no radiological material was involved. Workers in one of the plant's production building were originally evacuated after lunch. A total of 140 employees were eventually sent home because it was near the end of their shift. The Department of Energy says the building they were in "handles special material." While workers will be allowed back in the building, they will have to stay clear of the immediate area where the incident happened. All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and WATE. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 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. 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