***************************************************************** 06/27/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.150 ***************************************************************** 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 US: Guardian Unlimited: Environment and US policy top global fears 2 US: US News and World Report: N&W: Hill's Energy Battle Has Barely B 3 Reuters: U.S. image plunges in global survey 4 Daily Yomiuri: Hiroshima sends materials for A-bomb exhibition to Bu 5 UPI: Top world powers fail on non-proliferation 6 Guardian Unlimited: Low Expectations for Bush-Putin Meeting NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Hopeful US-India Pact Not Far Off 8 Times-News: Company says it has funding to build power plant near Br 9 US: Houston Chronicle: Meeting to bring nuclear reactor a step close 10 US: Tri-Town News: Oyster Creek's time isup, residents tell board 11 US: Platts: Nuke plant operator protests RG&E transmission work poli 12 RIA Novosti: Danger of climate change equal to nuclear war 13 US: NRC: NRC Improves Method for Measuring Reactor Performance Durin 14 US: IS: Developer says investors will loan $3.5 billion for proposed 15 US: Rutland Herald: Democrats offer compromise on energy bill 16 US: Times Argus: Yankee tax scuttled by state legislators: 17 US: AFP: Toshiba eyes big US nuclear deal 18 The Enquirer: Energy solutions must be multi-pronged 19 US: St. Cloud Times: Your turn: Nuclear power is what U.S. needs 20 US: Rutland Herald: Entergy: Nuke plant's water not killing fish 21 US: Rutland Herald: A good plan comes together 22 US: Bennington Banner: Vt. Dems willing to drop nuclear tax 23 US: Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee discharge hearing is held 24 Reuters: World cannot afford nuclear climate solution - report 25 Reuters: Rice sees U.S.-Indian nuclear deal done by year end 26 Reuters: Toshiba wins $4.9 bln NRG reactor deal-Nikkei 27 UPI: Analysis: Turkey's energy future 28 US: Hemscott: NRC inspecting nuke plant after shutdown 29 US: Idaho Press-Tribune: Energy: Company says $3.5 billion will fund 30 US: Facing South: Report details rise in radiation pollution, cancer 31 JOGJCC: Scientist hails firth potential 32 NewsRoom Finland: Kemijärvi joins Finnish nuclear queue 33 US: Star-News: Energy workers to decide on union NUCLEAR SECURITY 34 BBC NEWS: Warning over nuclear black market 35 BBC NEWS: Security alert at nuclear agency 36 IAEA: IAEA to Assist China and Qatar on Nuclear Security NUCLEAR SAFETY 37 The Hindu: `Radiation monitoring protocol' for Nimitiz visit 38 US: The Guardian: Hawaiian activists fight US military bases 39 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Downtown Salt Lake City well found tainted wi 40 US: Niagara Gazette: ENVIRONMENT: Feds, residents battle for info 41 JOGJCC: More samples taken in plutonium probe NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 42 Financial News: USEC Selects BWXT to Perform American Centrifuge Man 43 US: Huntsville Forester: Land of lakes, trees and ... radioactive wa 44 US: Huntsville Forester: Feds considering the burial of nuclear wast 45 BBC NEWS: Police video tactics cause dismay 46 US: Platts: Spot uranium price unchanged; delivery disagreements blo 47 ReviewJournal.com: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Waste site request cut 48 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Court won't act on challenge to Goshutes' nuc 49 US: Los Angeles Business: Ceradyne makes $69M buy - 50 DOE: Yucca FOIA reading room closure 51 US: WDTN: Love Canal activist to join fight against nuclear waste pr 52 barrow in furness: Sellafield nuke dump claim denied PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 53 DOE: DOE Provides up to $51.8 Million to Modernize the U.S. Electric 54 Aiken Today: Judge orders DOE case dismissed 55 Santa Fe New Mexican: Senate spending bill restores LANL money 56 Hanford News: Nuclear funding: Company says it has funding to build 57 Hanford News: PNNL invention 'listens' to beer 58 Hanford News: DOE taps PNNL for bioenergy project 59 Hanford News: Station returns after 44-day outage 60 Hanford News: PNNL gets money to move 61 Hanford News: 2008 budget boosts funding 62 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Subcommittee unveils DOE funding plan 63 KnoxNews: Boeing closing Oak Ridge operations 64 Inside Bay Area: Area lawmakers urge equal retirement for labs 65 Las Cruces Sun-News: Former Los Alamos worker leading oversight effo 66 KnoxNews: ORNL, UT getting greener 67 KnoxNews: Munger: Y-12 pulls the welcome mat in advance of August pr 68 lamonitor.com: LANL funding prospects rise in Senate 69 Oak Ridger: ORNL one of three DOE bioenergy sites - ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Guardian Unlimited: Environment and US policy top global fears Simon Tisdall in Washington Wednesday June 27, 2007 A man cycles through dense industrial smog in Beijing, China. Photograph: Diego Azubel/EPA Growing numbers of people worldwide view environmental problems, pollution, infectious diseases, nuclear proliferation and the widening gap between rich and poor as the most menacing threats facing the planet, according to a 47-nation survey published today by the US-based Pew Global Attitudes Project. The survey, which conducted more than 45,000 interviews, finds that global opinion is increasingly wary of the world's dominant countries but also unimpressed by aspiring leaders in Iran and Venezuela who challenge the international status quo. In contrast, the UN receives strong support. The US comes in for sharp criticism. "Global distrust of American leadership is reflected in increasing disapproval of the cornerstones of US foreign policy," the survey says. "Not only is there worldwide support for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq but there is also considerable opposition to US and Nato operations in Afghanistan ... The US image remains abysmal in most Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia and continues to decline among the publics of America's oldest allies." Nine per cent of Turks, 13% of Palestinians and 15% of Pakistanis take a favourable view of the US. In Germany, the figure is 30%, in France 39% and in Britain 51% - all down on previous surveys. Only in Israel, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya do majorities believe US forces should stay in Iraq. In an implicit rejection of the Bush administration's "freedom agenda", the survey also finds "a broad and deepening dislike of American values and a global backlash against the spread of American ideas and customs. Majorities or pluralities in most countries surveyed say they dislike American ideas about democracy." And among key allies in western Europe, the view that the US unilaterally ignores the interests of other countries is deep-rooted. Overall attitudes to the US are broadly positive in most African countries, Japan, South Korea and Poland. Rising powers such as China and Russia get mixed reviews. Russia's Vladimir Putin scores worse than George Bush in terms of confidence that he will "do the right thing" in world affairs - 30% believe he will, against 45% for Mr Bush. China's expanding military and economic power is also viewed with suspicion, except in Africa, where it has launched trade and aid initiatives. Huge majorities in most countries, notably in the Arab Middle East, say they do not trust Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez inspires similar suspicion, even in Latin America. Rising alarm about environmental problems registers across the board. Thirty-seven per cent of Americans name the issue as the top global threat, up 14% in five years. In China, another big polluter, 70% agree. In Britain, the figure is 46%. Aids and other infectious diseases are viewed as the dominant threat in Africa and, increasingly, in Latin America. Useful links IPCC UN framework convention on climate change Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 2 US News and World Report: N&W: Hill's Energy Battle Has Barely Begun - Thursday, June 28, 2007 By Bret Schulte Posted 6/27/07 The Senate's passage of an energy bill last week gave environmentalists and consumer groups something to crow about, notably the first new fuel efficiency standards for automobiles since 1975. The real energy battle, however, has yet to be fought. That comes when Democratic leaders in both the House and the Senate put forth plans to transform a largely voluntary effort against global warming into a mandatory emissions reductions scheme across all sectors of the economy. By all accounts, that legislation, which may appear on the floor of the House or the Senate as early as September, will trigger perhaps the biggest battle royal over environment and energy issues Congress has seen since the Clean Air Act of 1970. With slim majorities in both chambers, Democrats will need every vote. And passage will require the same kind of bipartisan compromise that made fuel efficiency standards possible. In the fight over Corporate Average Fuel Economy, Senate Republican Ted Stevens and Democrat Dianne Feinstein came together to repair the crumbling energy initiative at a time when many thought it was over. Their plan salvaged the fuel economy increase to 35 miles per gallon by 2020 but erased the 4 percent annual increases after that date. It passed by a vote voice to the surprise of nearly everyone. "What happened on [fuel efficiency standards] is what's going to have to happen with global warming legislation," says Karen Wayland of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "That compromise was a bipartisan compromise that was pretty strong." Lexi Schultz, a lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, agrees. "What passage of the bill shows is that senators are coming to understand that we need change," Schultz says. She and others are heartened by votes from traditional automotive supporters like Democrats Byron Dorgan and Barbara Mikulski, not to mention a number of Republicans, including John Sununu from the Democrat-trending New Hampshire. "I think we really have moved beyond where we were a few years ago," Schultz says. "On the flip side, I think we can't take anything for granted. This is going to have to be fought member to member, senator to senator." Just as informative, say some Capitol Hill observers, were the energy proposals that didn't pass the Senate. The energy bill's toughest provision would have required utilities to garner 15 percent of their output from renewable sources by 2020. But that was filibustered by a cadre of Republicans led by Sen. Pete Domenici, who proposed an alternative that would have included "clean" sources like nuclear, which has no greenhouse gas emissions. "If there was any vote that prefigured the climate vote it was the [renewable electricity standard]," said one veteran of Washington energy policy. "I'm not saying everyone who supported it would support mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, but there clearly is crossover there." And those senators who supported fuel economy standards, renewable electricity standards, or both may find themselves subject to more attention from environmentalists. "Republican senators who showed a willingness to reach across the aisle to compromise on CAFE may have drawn attention to themselves," says the Democratic aide. "Those who are militantly opposed to climate policy also have noticed that and probably will push back vigorously in the opposite direction." But no one believes that the CAFE vote translates into global warming votes. Far from it. The vote for fuel efficiency standards most likely had as much to do with weaning the country off Middle East oil as it did with conservation and environmental concerns. Even supporting a standard for renewable energy isn't terribly noteworthy. The Senate has done it twice before, though it's never been enacted. That makes it difficult for proponents of a global warming bill to draft a battle plan or court votes. On the Republican side, Trent Lott, Larry Craig, and Elizabeth Dole all voted for new fuel efficiency standards?none are considered likely converts to a bill that would force reductions in greenhouse gases. "Each of those, I think, came to support CAFE for their own reasons," says Dan Becker, who leads the Sierra Club's lobbying efforts on global warming. For that reason, Becker believes that the buildup for a global warming fight may be premature because the votes needed aren't there yet, and his group is focusing on winning more seats for pro-green candidates in next year's congressional elections. Indeed, the biggest lessons many global warming activists took home from last week's long struggle to pass an energy bill may be the need for more friendly faces. "Looking at how closely divided the Senate is," Becker says. "I think it will be tough to get a global warming bill that will live up to its name." Copyright © 2007 U.S.News & World Report, L.P. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Reuters: U.S. image plunges in global survey Wed Jun 27, 2007 6:23PM EDT By Andy Sullivan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States' image is plummeting in many corners of the globe, but China and other large powers are falling from favor as well, according to a global survey released on Wednesday. The 47-country survey also found global warming and other environmental problems are seen as the top threat in many places, ahead of nuclear proliferation, AIDS and other dangers. The Pew Global Attitudes Project has documented wide anti-American sentiment since it was launched in 2002 but found those attitudes deepening this year. The United States' favorable ratings declined in 26 of the 33 countries for which a comparison was available, with negative views particularly strong in the Middle East. Only 9 percent of those surveyed in Turkey had a favorable view of the United States, while 13 percent did in the Palestinian territories. The United States fared better in Lebanon, where 47 percent responded positively. Public sentiment also fell among long-standing U.S. allies, where many said the United States did not take the interests of other countries into account. Just 30 percent of Germans had a favorable image of the United States, down from 42 percent two years ago. Public opinion remained positive, although narrowly so, in the United Kingdom and Canada. Overall, majorities in 25 of the 47 countries reported favorable images of the United States. CHINA SLIPS China's image slipped as well, as many respondents said they were unnerved by its growing military and economic clout. Most countries still reported favorable views of China, with public opinion particularly strong in South Asia and Africa. Russian President Vladimir Putin saw a sharp decline in favorability ratings, especially in Europe. In Germany, for example, 75 percent viewed him favorably in 2003, but only 32 percent in 2007. Leaders like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who challenge the existing order found few admirers. Osama bin Laden was viewed favorably only in one place, the Palestinian territories, where 57 percent said they had confidence in him. "The international system as we know it has broken down, according to these numbers," said former Secretary of State Madeline Albright at a press conference unveiling the report. "It's kind of a sense of nihilism." Majorities in 33 of the 47 countries surveyed reported a favorable view of the United Nations, with support strongest in Africa and weakest in the Middle East. The survey polled 45,000 people in telephone and in-person interviews. Sample sizes ranged from 500 to 2,000 people in each country. The margin of error was 2 to 4 percent. ***************************************************************** 4 Daily Yomiuri: Hiroshima sends materials for A-bomb exhibition to Bulgaria A civic group in Hiroshima has recently sent a collection of posters introducing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and a DVD of survivor testimonies to Veliko Turnovo, the hometown of sumo wrestler Kotooshu in Bulgaria. The Hiroshima-Bulgaria Association hopes to introduce Bulgaria to the tragedy of the atomic bombing of the city. The country has shown an increased interest in Japan thanks to the success of Kotooshu, who is an ozeki, sumo's second-highest rank. The posters and the DVD will be permanently exhibited from the end of June at the office of a Japan friendship association in the city. Ko Imamura, chairman of the Hiroshima association, said, "We want to share with them our determination to eliminate nuclear weapons." The Hiroshima-Bulgaria Association, which was established in July 2005, has exhibited posters with images related to the devastation of the atomic bomb attack in Hiroshima in Kazanlak, Bulgaria. Kazanlak is one of more than 1,600 member cities of Mayors for Peace, an organization working to build solidarity for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba serves as its president. Imamura got the ball rolling by later asking Kotooshu, who is an honorary member of the Japan friendship association, if there would be an interest in a Hiroshima-related exhibition. The 26 English posters, titled "Sadako and the Paper Cranes," are made by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. They introduce the life of Sadako Sasaki, who was in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing and later died of leukemia at age 12, along with photographs of children who died in the bombing. Kotooshu said: "I believe only a few people know about the devastation caused by the atomic bomb . It would be wonderful if the Bulgarian people could gain a greater understanding of it [through the permanent exhibition]." © The Yomiuri Shimbun. ***************************************************************** 5 UPI: Top world powers fail on non-proliferation United Press International - Security & Terrorism - Briefing Published: June 27, 2007 at 11:23 AM WASHINGTON, June 27 (UPI) -- A report card on the nuclear non-proliferation policies of key world powers gives them a failing grade, mainly due to the poor performance of the United States. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace gave the world's top powers an overall D-plus, rating their collective performance on six key counter-proliferation objectives at between C-plus and F. "Since 2005, governments have devoted too little attention, leadership, and resources to taking the steps necessary to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons," George Perkovich, the organization's vice president for global security and development studies, said in a statement. "The solutions to most proliferation problems are not hard to identify -- what's lacking is the determination by key leaders to learn and apply them." The study evaluated the non-proliferation progress of the United States, Russia, France, Britain, China, India, Pakistan and Israel, as well as key non-nuclear states, from 2005 through mid-2007. The authors note that the actions of the United States strongly affected the poor results as it is the most powerful actor in the international system. "By rejecting the give-and-take of diplomacy and the legitimacy of other people's need for security -- including the demand for greater equity in the international system -- the United States lost power to achieve what it wants other than through brute force, whose limits became clear in Iraq," concludes the report. "Yet the United States alone cannot implement the policies needed to achieve a better result -- it needs the active cooperation of the international community. Responsibility for the dismal performance assessed in the report is therefore widely shared." © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Low Expectations for Bush-Putin Meeting From the Associated Press Wednesday June 27, 2007 9:01 PM WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is lowering expectations for President Bush's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin that begins Sunday at the Bush family's oceanfront estate in Kennebunkport, Maine. ``I would caution against expecting grand new announcements,'' White House press secretary Tony Snow said Wednesday of the meeting at the home of Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush. ``This is, in fact, an opportunity for two leaders to talk honestly and candidly with one another.'' The younger Bush and Putin are expected to talk about the Middle East, Iran's nuclear ambitions and missile defense. But Snow said: ``If you're expecting some sort of grand initiative, a bold announcement - no.'' Putin, who has vehemently opposed U.S. plans for missile defense in Central Europe, surprised Bush at a recent meeting in Germany of top industrialized countries, by proposing the shared use of a Russia-rented early warning radar in Azerbaijan. Snow was careful not to dismiss Putin's suggestion, although Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the United States will not embrace the facility in Azerbaijan as a substitute for radar and interceptors in Poland and the Czech Republic. ``The president was encouraged that President Putin thought it was important to talk about missile defense, recognizing that if a hostile power, a rogue nation gets the capability of putting nuclear weapons on a missile, everybody in Europe and Asia is going to be in jeopardy,'' Snow said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Hopeful US-India Pact Not Far Off From the Associated Press Wednesday June 27, 2007 11:01 PM By FOSTER KLUG Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday acknowledged difficulties in negotiations on a U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal but said the accord could be settled by the end of the year. Rice also said the two countries need to settle differences over stalled world trade talks. The proposed nuclear deal, seen as the cornerstone of an emerging partnership between the two countries, has also been stalled in recent months. One of the biggest sticking points has been American reluctance to allow India to reprocess spent atomic fuel - a key step in making weapons-grade nuclear material. ``Had this been easy, it would have been done a long time ago,'' Rice said in a speech to the U.S.-India Business Council. ``Both sides have determined that it is worth it.'' Rice also said it would be a ``tragedy and a true shame'' if India and the U.S. did not do more to push ahead World Trade Organization talks, which face a six-year logjam between rich and poor countries over eliminating barriers to trade in farm produce and manufactured goods. Brazil and India criticize the United States for its failure to offer deep enough cuts in the billions of dollars of subsidies it pays annually to American farmers. The European Union and the United States say the two emerging economic powers refuse to offer new market opportunities for manufacturing exports. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 8 Times-News: Company says it has funding to build power plant near Bruneau Magicvalley.com, Twin Falls, ID Last modified on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 12:15 AM MDT Nuclear funding By Matt Christensen Times-News writer BRUNEAU - A company with plans to build a nuclear power plant in Owyhee County says it has cleared its first major hurdle. Alternate Energy Holdings, which intends to build Idaho's first commercial nuclear power plant, has announced a New York company representing investors intends to fund the project in full. "This is revolutionary news," said AEH President Don Gillispie. "Essentially they've said they've agreed to fund us. Now we just have to work out a contract." AEH said it received a letter of intent from Cobblestone Financial Group to fund the nearly $3.5 billion nuke project, called the Idaho Energy Complex. Calls to the cell phone of Cobblestone's president, M. Lyndon Matteson III, were not returned for this story. The project will likely be funded in stages, Gillispie said, the first beginning as early as this fall when AEH could apply for a $100 million permit with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. AEH announced in December that it planned to build a nuclear power plant in Owyhee County. Since then Gillispie has searched for investors. Up until now, he had only one: Nampa native Jim Hilliard, the farmer who sold him the land for the complex. Funding, Gillispie has said, is the project's most daunting obstacle. But Tuesday's announcement could mean the Gem State is much closer to seeing its first commercial nuclear plant. And that concerns some, including the Snake River Alliance, a Boise-based nuclear watchdog group - though Beatrice Brailsford, the group's program director, says the plant is still a long way from becoming a reality. "It's still extremely premature," Brailsford said. "There are so many hurdles for this plant to get over." Maybe. But the first one, Gillispie says, is out of the way. Times-News staff writer Matt Christensen covers the environment. He welcomes comments at 735-3243 and at matt.christensen@lee.net. Copyright © 2006, Lee Publications Inc. Magicvalley.com is an on-line division of The Times-News, published daily at 132 W. Fairfield St., Twin Falls, Idaho 83301 by Lee Publications, Inc., a subsidiary of Lee Enterprises. ***************************************************************** 9 Houston Chronicle: Meeting to bring nuclear reactor a step closer | Chron.com - June 27, 2007, 12:57AM New application procedures likely to speed process By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle CHANCE FOR INPUT • What: Public meeting on the proposed expansion of the South Texas Project nuclear power plant • Where: Bay City Civic Center, 201 Seventh St. • When: Open house: 5-7 p.m. Public meeting: 7-11 p.m. • For more on the new reactor construction and licensing process: www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/col-appl-guide.html • Timeline for different applications, including the South Texas Expansion: www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/new-licensing-files/new-rx-licensin g-app-legend.pdf Texas will be one step closer to being the site of the first nuclear reactor built in the U.S. in more than a decade when regulators hold a public meeting in Bay City on Wednesday night to explain the process. About a dozen Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will be at the Bay City Civic Center to explain what operators of the South Texas Project nuclear plant will need to do to win approval to build and operate two new reactors at a proposed site in Matagorda County. The question-and-answer session will be the first public meeting in the country to address specific plans for a new nuclear power plant, said Scott Burnell, a spokesman for the regulatory agency. Several companies around the country have applied for and received early site permits that essentially approve locations for possible future nuclear plant development. The process for building and starting up the proposed reactors will be different from the one used in the 1970s and 1980s, Burnell said. The two-step process companies used back then could be costly and time-consuming. Companies first applied for construction licenses, a process that was open to challenges at many points. Once the plant was built they then applied for an operation license, which could also be challenged on many levels. Under the new process companies apply for a joint construction and operation license, and the NRC staff reviews the safety and environmental aspects of a project concurrently. Once an application is filed — which in the case of South Texas will likely be this fall — it will be made public online and copies will be available in public places near the plant site, Burnell said. The NRC has 30 days to determine if the application is complete, at which point it will announce a schedule for the review. At that time individuals or groups can file challenges. "The challenge can't just be based on a dislike of nuclear power but a challenge to specific parts of the application itself," Burnell said. The steps will also likely include a hearing on a draft environmental impact statement. If all goes as planned, which Burnell admits could be a big "if," the process could take 42 months. tom.fowler@chron.com ***************************************************************** 10 Tri-Town News: Oyster Creek's time isup, residents tell board June 28, 2007 Many worried about accidents, terror attacks on aging nuclear plant BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer TOMS RIVER - Should the nearly 40-year-old Oyster Creek nuclear plant in Lacey Township be allowed to operate for another 20 years? No. That was the overwhelming response of many of the several hundred Ocean County residents who attended either the afternoon or night session of the May 31 Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) hearing in the county administration building. Almost to a person, they had the same message. The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station must close when its license expires in April 2009. "You gentlemen have in your hands the ability to shape our future," Barnegat resident Jane DeMarzo told the board. "There will be no one to say you are sorry to after a disaster. Just remember, reasonable doubt." "We will be the ones to suffer the consequences of a license renewal," said Joyce Kushwara, who lives within the 10-mile radius of the plant on Route 9 south in Lacey Township. "It's an accident waiting to happen. We will be the victims. We will shut this plant down, sooner or later." Almost all said they were worried about the spent fuel rods stored in the reactor building and in dry casks near Route 9, the plant's vulnerability to terrorist attacks, the integrity of the plant's dry well, the impossibility of evacuation in the event of an accident or attack and operator error. The hearing was limited in that no one from a coalition of groups that have contested the plant's relicensing in court were allowed to speak. Several audience members wore black gags to protest their inability to speak. They held up placards that read "Oyster Creek is a sitting duck" and "There is no way out." Board Administrative Judge E. Roy Hawkens asked the audience to treat each speaker with respect and to refrain from making any noise or comments. "I assure you, we will be listening with great attention to what you have to say," Hawkens told the more than 100 people in the afternoon hearing. Ocean County Planner David J. McKeon read a prepared statement on behalf of the county Board of Freeholders. The freeholders have no official position on whether the plant should be relicensed, he said. "We rely on the NRC [federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission] as the safety regulatory agency," McKeon said. The two major concerns expressed to the board are the integrity of the drywell liner and leaks association with the dry-well liner, the letter said. The NRC has not addressed the concerns to date, according to the letter. "AmerGen's proposed periodic testing program cannot be considered appropriate if uncertainty remains regarding the current thickness and safety of the dry-well liner," McKeon read. The NRC must determine that the plant is not only safe to operate now but also 20 years into the future." The freeholder board "appreciates" Oyster Creek's contributions to the community, the letter states. "However, questions remain as to the ability of this facility to continue safe operations beyond the current licensing facility," McKeon said. Daniel Lundy, a Long Beach Island resident, told the board he was speaking not only for himself, but for many of his neighbors. Long Beach Island residents would be "trapped" in the event of an accident or terrorist attack, he told the board. "This is the wrong plant in the wrong place at the wrong time," Lundy said. "Gentlemen, you are avoiding the elephant in the kitchen." Maryanne Clemente, Barnegat, who lives 3.5 miles from Oyster Creek, said Ocean County's population has tripled since the plant went on line in 1969. "In the case of an accident, evacuation is nearly impossible," she said. "Oyster Creek's time is up. The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station is quickly approaching the end of its lifetime. The risks of accidents increase with the aging of a plant. Oyster Creek is currently in its wear-out phase. Oyster Creek was built in 1969, when Ocean County was considerably more rural, Clemente said. "No one can claim that Oyster Creek is out of the way anymore," she said. "Evacuation is nearly impossible. A radiation plume won't stop at the 10-mile boundary. I can't tell you how important it is to us that this plant not be relicensed." Blanche Krubner, of Jackson, the president of the Ocean County League of Women Voters, told the board the evacuation plan in the event of an accident or terrorist attack is "unworkable." "There is no way 200,000 or more individuals could be taken to safety," Krubner said, adding that Oyster Creek provides only 1.7 percent of the state's energy grid. "The extremely small amount would not be missed if the plant were closed." Costanzo said she was worried about the spent fuel stored in dry casks "400 feet" off Route 9. Relicensing the plant will result in many more spent fuel rods stored in Ocean County. "Oyster Creek will need more and more," she said. "We will have a cemetery of deadly coffins along Route 9." Paula Gotsch, of Brick Township, said NRC officials were unable to provide figures on the integrity of the thickness of the plant's dry well at a May 23 NRC meeting in Toms River for the plant's annual safety assessment. "No one can give the figures," she said. "They don't have the figures. I thought people knew what they were talking about. We have been accused of being emotional and hysterical. We just want the facts." There are too many experts who don't agree, Gotsch told the board. "That doesn't mean problem solved," she said. "We have no reason to believe that Oyster Creek is the good ship Lollipop. It's scary. That's all I'm saying." Charles Hassler, business administrator for International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 94, was one of five speakers out of both sessions who supported the plant's relicensing. "It is an informed, rational support," he said. "Oyster Creek has operated at 95 to 98 percent capacity and has done so admirably. If the plant falls below acceptable measures, I and my union will be the first to speak out." Lacey Township Committeeman David Most, an Oyster Creek employee, said the Township Committee supports the plant's relicensing. "Lacey Township has full confidence in the NRC's ability and will support the licensing approval process," Most said. "Oyster Creek has been a good neighbor to Lacey Township in the past and we look forward to a continued partnership. We look forward to its continued operation." Administrative Judge Dr. Paul B. Abramson said it was important that residents understood the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is not part of the NRC's staff. "Our job is very narrow," he said, "to address the question of corrosion in the dry-well shell." The purpose of the limited hearings was to allow citizens to make comments on the topic, he said. "We do not make policy for the commission," Abramson said. "The commission will have access to a transcript of your comments." The coalition organizations are the Nuclear Information and Resource Service; the Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch Inc.; Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety; the New Jersey Public Interest Group; the New Jersey Sierra Club, and the New Jersey Environmental Foundation. The ASLB is still considering a contention raised by the coalition about monitoring the corrosion level in the plant's dry-well liner and former sandbed region. If the ASLB rules favorably on the coalition's contention, that could lead to a full public hearing in September. ***************************************************************** 11 Platts: Nuke plant operator protests RG&E transmission work policies 2007-06-27 Washington (Platts)--27Jun2007 Rochester Gas and Electric is wrongly making the Ginna nuclear plant reduce its output when the utility has to work on one of the five 115-kV lines connected to the unit, Ginna owner Constellation Group complained to US energy regulators this week. The plant has been required to power down twice since March for line outages and will have to do so "on an ongoing basis to accommodate RGE's planned maintenance activities," Constellation told the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It wants FERC to order RGE to stop requiring the output reduction, modify its transmission system so it can meet its obligations to Ginna, and, among other things, have RGE pay Ginna for lost revenue. "RGE effectively is degrading Ginna's 590 MW of [network service] and its actions, if left to stand, would destroy the nature of [network service] and undermine the economics of the facility," Constellation said. The outages threaten the plant's ability to deliver reliable power to the grid, it said, and they undermine Ginna's "ability to participate fully in the capacity and energy markets of its choosing." According to the complaint, RGE said in March that because of its need to maintain reliability as load growth caused system changes, it would have to change operating procedures with respect to the Ontario, New York, plant. Constellation said the procedures are inconsistent with its interconnection agreement. The operator told FERC it would comply with RGE's directives "to the extent needed to maintain system reliability." But Constellation said "RGE cannot maintain system reliability at the expense of its contractual obligations" under the interconnection agreement. The generator said it had expected that RGE would upgrade its system to meet its needs, but in response to a May 4 letter to the utility, "RGE responded...that it had the unilateral right to deviate from the terms of the [agreement] whenever system conditions changed." The first outage occurred May 14, when RGE brought Ginna down to 65% capacity for some "offsite power work," Constellation spokesman Dave Joslin said at the time. "We don't have a place to put the electricity," he said. Then almost a month later in June, the plant came down to 64% capacity at RGE's request. At that time Joslin would not comment on the type of work the utility company was doing. For more news, request a free trial to Platts Electric Power Daily at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/index.xml?src=story or subscribe now at http://www.platts.com/infostore/product_info.php?cPath=2_31&products_id=47 Copyright © 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 12 RIA Novosti: Danger of climate change equal to nuclear war Opinion & analysis - 15:03 | 27/ 06/ 2007 MOSCOW. (Viktor Danilov-Danilyan for RIA Novosti) - Global climate change defies forecasting. Unprecedented heat, floods, droughts and typhoons brought about by climate change cause tremendous damage. The number of such calamities has doubled over the last 10 years, according to the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. Some experts think there is nothing to worry about-periodic alterations in the climate are normal. Some believe the general alarm is the result of a mere lack of knowledge. But then, the danger posed by climate change is no smaller than the danger posed by nuclear war, and we have to face and evaluate it, however vague it might appear. There is no way to hide from global warming. In fact, the repercussions of climate change might be even worse because the entire climatic system will be thrown out of balance. The average surface temperature is going up, and so are annual deviations from it. Natural calamities go hand in hand with warming. Disastrous floods are getting more frequent in Russia and many other countries. They account for more than half of weather-related dangers. Floods alternate with droughts in European Russia's south. Heavy rains in spring and early summer cause floods, after which there is not a single raindrop for three months, destroying those crops that survive the floods. The Kuban and Stavropol regions, Russia's breadbasket, permanently face this danger. Economic disasters caused by natural calamities are becoming ever more frequent. The World Bank estimates Russia's weather damages, largely caused by climate change, at an annual 30-60 billion rubles, roughly $1-$2 billion. Floods, usually caused by typhoons, are also frequent in the Russian Far East-the Primorye and Khabarovsk territories, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. Winter floods are typical of the Arctic Ocean basin. The spring inundation of the Lena, the largest Eurasian river, washed away the town and port of Lensk in 2001. The town was rebuilt on a new site. The evacuation and ensuing housing and infrastructural reconstruction cost an exorbitant sum. Average warming in Russia due to anthropogenic factors is about one degree. In Siberia, it is four to six degrees-enough to shrink the permafrost area. Pernicious effects are visible even now, with the borders of the taiga, forest tundra and tundra itself receding northward-suffice it to compare space photographs from 30 years ago with the latest ones. The change endangers oil pipelines and the entire infrastructure of Siberia's west and northwest. Permafrost thawing has not yet achieved a scale that poses a threat of infrastructural accidents-but we can never be too careful. Warming also poses a great danger to regional flora and fauna, which have to undergo a very painful adaptation process. Considerable warming will result in changes to ecosystems, for example, broadleaved woods ousting the coniferous taiga. Warming makes the climate unstable, with bitter frosts and sultry summers, which is bad for both forest types-conifers suffer in the heat, while broadleaf trees do not survive frosty winters. So the biota will face many shocks before the climate stabilizes. Warming is also a major problem for marshes and the permafrost, which will release accumulated methane and carbon dioxide gas. Gas hydrates from the northern sea shelf will vaporize. All that will drastically increase atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, spurring the warming on in a vicious circle. The environmental balance has already been upset. Many plants and animals will suffer. In particular, the polar bear's habitat is doomed to shrink, and millions of wild geese, eiders, brants and other birds will lose half of their nesting grounds in a matter of 20-40 years. A three to four degree warming may interrupt the food chain of the tundra ecosystem, lead to the extinction of many species. Invasions of ecosystems by alien species are one of the worst manifestations of global warming. Thus, locusts are moving north, and have become frequent guests in the Samara Region on the Volga and certain other areas. The mite habitat is rapidly expanding, too. Pests migrate north far quicker than the border between, for example, the taiga and the forest tundra shifts. Once they find themselves in a foreign ecosystem, pests become gangster species, crowding out the native biota with dynamic multiplication. Climate change thus brings epidemics in its wake. Subtropical malarial mosquitoes now feel at home in the area around Moscow. Scientists who welcome warming as a boon for Russian agriculture are entirely wrong. True, the vegetation period is becoming longer-but this benefit is outweighed by the hazard of spring frosts destroying young crops. Another argument in favor of warming is the energy that would be saved by a reduced need for heating. But then, the United States uses more energy for air conditioning than Russia does for heating even now. How can humankind fight climate change? It's no use opposing Nature-but we can reduce pollution and other adverse environmental effects brought about by humankind. The problem appeared on the political agenda in the 20th century. The World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, which brought together several thousand scientists, including Russians. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into force in 1994. One hundred and ninety countries have joined it since then. The document determines the scope of the international partnership to deal with the issue, whose first achievement was the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. Intensive economic activities are surely bad for the climate. That is why the protocol demands a reduction in air pollution caused by methane, carbon dioxide and other gases. Russia ratified the protocol along with another 166 countries, and has been true to its pledge. It is introducing new, clean technologies for industry and everyday life. Cleaner air will help reverse the trend of climate change. Viktor Danilov-Danilyan is director of the Institute of Water Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 13 NRC: NRC Improves Method for Measuring Reactor Performance During Unplanned Shutdowns News Release - 2007-081 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov NRC IMPROVES METHOD FOR MEASURING The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has updated its Reactor Oversight Process (ROP) by introducing the Unplanned Scrams with Complications (USWC) performance indicator, which tracks events that can increase the risk associated with a reactor’s unplanned manual or automatic shutdowns, which are called “scrams.” The agency created the ROP seven years ago to improve its inspection and enforcement programs for commercial nuclear power plants. NRC staff use performance indicators as part of the ROP to evaluate several areas of plant activity. In 2000, the process included a performance indicator that measured the ability of a reactor’s cooling systems to remove heat from its core after a scram. As the NRC and industry evaluated that performance indicator, enough questions were raised to point out the need for revisions. The agency and industry formed a task force in late 2004 to work on the issue, and the group’s work led to the USWC indicator. “This revision will keep better track of the small percentage of scrams that require extra work from reactor operators, since those conditions could represent more risk than uncomplicated scrams,” said Jim Dyer, Director of the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation. “If we see a plant having too many complicated scrams in a short period of time, we’ll know it’s time to increase our oversight.” The USWC indicator will monitor conditions that could complicate a plant’s scram recovery, including: – maintaining control over conditions needed for a chain reaction: * providing electricity to emergency systems * activating emergency sources of cooling water * maintaining availability of normal cooling water sources * using emergency operating procedures to address complicated scrams Triggering any one of the criteria during an unplanned scram counts as an event, and two or more events in a 12-month period will result in increased NRC oversight. The development of the new indicator has included multiple public meetings and public comments. More information on the USWC indicator is available on the NRC Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/NRR/OVERSIGHT/ASSESS/unplanned-scrams-with-complica tions.html. Notification to nuclear power plant licensees issued in a Regulatory Issue Summary (RIS 2007-12) willbe available at: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/gen-comm/reg-issues/2007 / NRC news releases are available through a free list server subscription at the following Web address: http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/listserver.html. The NRC Home Page at www.nrc.gov also offers a Subscribe to News link in the News & Information menu. E-mail notifications are sent to subscribers when news releases are posted to NRC's Web Site. Wednesday, June 27, 2007 ***************************************************************** 14 IS: Developer says investors will loan $3.5 billion for proposed nuke plant in Southwest Idaho | Idaho Statesman By Ken Dey - kdey@idahostatesman.com Edition Date: 06/27/07 The Virginia company that wants to build a nuclear power plant in Southwest Idaho said Tuesday that it has lined up a $3.5 billion loan commitment. Alternate Energy Holdings Inc. said it received a letter of intent from Fairport, N.Y.-based Cobblestone Financial Group to finance the project. Don Gillispie, president and CEO of Alternate Energy Holdings, said Cobblestone represents a group of international investors. He declined to identify them. A spokesman at Cobblestone deferred all questions about the funding to Cobblestone President and CEO Lyndon Matteson, who the spokesman said was not available Tuesday. A letter of intent means the funding will be provided in stages as the company meets different milestones, Gillispie said. “This is what happens with large loans,” Gillispie said. “The funding is all phased in when we need it.” Continued funding, however, depends on the company achieving its milestones. A funding commitment doesn’t guarantee a project will be completed. For example, Rick Peterson, the former developer of the failed Boise Tower project at Eighth and Main streets in Downtown Boise, said he, too, had secured a financing commitment, but the money — and the tower — never materialized. Alternate Energy Holding won’t qualify for the first round of loans — $100 million — until it receives local approval for the project, a spokesman said. The company needs a conditional-use permit from Owyhee County to change the zoning of the proposed site from agricultural to industrial. Gillispie said the company plans to submit the application this summer. The first $100 million would be used to start the process of filing an application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a combined operating and construction license. If the company gains local approval, Gillispie said it could start the licensing process this fall. If everything goes as planned, he said the plant could be operating by the third quarter of 2015. Gillispie said he believes he can build the 1,600 megawatt plant for about $3 billion, $500 million less than Cobblestone committed. Beatrice Brailsford, the program director for the Snake River Alliance, which has been critical of the company’s financial position and its proposal, said just having a letter of intent doesn’t guarantee the project will be completed. “There are still so many serious questions to be answered and so many obstacles to overcome,” Brailsford said. “There are questions about the technology they will use, whether or not people in the region will allow it to come in. And where is the power going to go?” Alternate Energy trades on an over-the-counter market called the Pink Sheets under the symbol AEHI.PK. That market is for companies that do not meet the financial requirements to trade on a larger exchange. On Tuesday the stock closed at 50 cents a share, down 1 cent. Gillispie said Tuesday that the financing commitment arrived faster than he expected. He credited a growing demand for nuclear power and a recognition that the leadership of his company has the experience to make the plant a reality. The plant would be built on private land near C.J. Strike Reservoir and would include an ethanol plant. If completed, the Idaho plant would be the nation’s largest nuclear plant and provide enough electricity to meet about two thirds of Idaho’s residential electricity needs. Gillispie has consulted and helped build plants, and he worked for companies like Duke Energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority. He is a former senior vice president of nuclear assessment programs with the Nuclear Management Co. in Hudson, Wis., which operates seven nuclear power plants. Ken Dey: 672-6757 IdahoStatesman.com ***************************************************************** 15 Rutland Herald: Democrats offer compromise on energy bill June 27, 2007 By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau MONTPELIER — While Gov. James Douglas was in Prince Edward Island on Tuesday for a meeting of governors and Canadian premiers to discuss global warming and other issues, legislative leaders announced they would strip a tax on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant out of their energy bill if that would get the measure into law. The governor offered little hope that would remove his objection to the bill, however. Democratic leaders in the Statehouse had said removing the roughly $25 million tax increase on Yankee's parent company, Entergy Nuclear, between now and 2012 would greatly weaken the bill because the money will be needed beginning in the next few years to support a heating fuels efficiency program that is at the heart of the legislation. But on Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said in the interest of compromise he and Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, would be willing to delay consideration of the tax until next January's lawmaking session. The bill has been vetoed by Douglas and lawmakers are expected back in the Statehouse to vote on whether to make it into law without Douglas' signature on July 11. That would require two-thirds of those present in the House and Senate to vote to do so. "We are going to pass the funding in January," Shumlin said. "We feel the Entergy tax is both fair and justified." But Douglas said he objects to the creation and structure of the heating fuels efficiency program, not just its funding source. Both would have to be eliminated to gain his support, said the governor, who has offered a competing plan. "I have two problems with the bill," Douglas said. In addition to the tax it establishes an "untested bureaucracy that is not well thought-out and is expensive." "I am not going to support a bill with a new bureaucracy and an unnecessary tax," he said. The fact that Douglas was in Canada urging the federal government to take action on reducing global warming emissions and has just returned from promoting Vermont's efficiency and renewable energy programs and companies in China was ironic given the governor's stance on the energy bill, H.520, Shumlin said. "He is going around touting Vermont's efficiency program, and at the same time telling people back home our system is no good. It just doesn't add up," Shumlin said. "This bill, as Al Gore pointed out, will help Vermonters save money and help us get off our addiction to oil and help lead the country to other sources of energy." But Douglas said he is proud of his efforts on climate change, including an initiative to reduce fuel use by state government and impose stricter car emission standards. "I feel very good about my leadership on climate change and addressing greenhouse gases in Vermont and beyond," Douglas said. His recent trip to China convinces him that is where efforts should be focused, he said. "That is where the problem lies. That is where we need to engage the world community," he said. The bill would still begin the work of setting up an efficiency program to reduce the use of heating fuels like oil and propane, although the money to support such programs would not be included — at least not yet — under the offered compromise. Such a program would be loosely based on the state's electricity efficiency utility, run by Efficiency Vermont. The tax on Yankee had become the focus of opposition to the bill by business leaders, who said it would send the wrong message to companies. But Douglas and executives have also opposed the creation of a new "bureaucracy" and the possibility that the efficiency program would require more tax money later, especially after 2012 when the increased tax levied on Yankee would expire. Business groups on Tuesday were quick to say they objected to passage of the bill even without the tax on the nuclear plant. "This proposal would appear to be a fairly transparent effort to lock in programs that would subsequently be used to leverage new tax burdens in the future," said William Driscoll of Associated Industries of Vermont. "It would simply be a blank check for future taxes." Matt Cota, head of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, said that Douglas' rival proposal, based on the state buying down interest rates on private loans for homeowners to insulate and take other steps to improve heating efficiency, was better than the legislative approach. Shumlin's offer "sounds like an act of desperation," Cota said in a statement. "There are now even more unanswered questions about how the utility will be structured, paid for and implemented." Brian Cosgrove, an Entergy spokesman, said his company has been opposed to the idea of a tax right along. "Our position on the tax has been pretty consistent throughout," he said. "Any proposal that comes from the legislative leadership to the governor is really a conversation that needs to take place between the appropriate parties." Douglas was at the annual meeting of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, at which the Canadian officials are considering joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. That is the agreement among Northeastern states to set up a system for reducing global warming pollution, especially from electricity production plants. There are some questions to work out before Canadian provinces could join RGGI — for example, whether Congress would have to approve such a treaty or not — but there was a lot of discussion of the idea, Douglas said. The states and provinces, not the federal government, are leading the way on reducing the release of carbon pollution that causes human contribution to global warming, said George Crombie, secretary of Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources. "It's becoming clearer and clearer the states and the Canadian provinces are setting the framework for national and international policy on climate change issues," Crombie said. The foundation of national efforts "will come from the work being done in the eastern part of the country and the eastern provinces." But Shumlin said that if Douglas was serious about such efforts he would not only sign into law the energy bill, H.520, but seek to go even further. What remains to be seen is whether lawmakers, when they return to Montpelier next month for a vote on Douglas' veto, will agree to pass the bill without the Yankee tax included in it. Given the importance of the other parts of the bill, it should not be held up while the funding source is worked out, Shumlin said. "We don't want to lose the time between now and next January that is so critical to this bill," he said. The fight over the amount of generation tax Vermont Yankee pays in lieu of property taxes is likely far from over. "I have already drafted legislation to fix Yankee's property tax situation next year regardless of what happens," said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier and a member of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. He agrees that it is important the rest of the bill, which includes provisions to encourage wind and solar power and home-based renewable energy generation, should become law sooner, even if it means passing it without the funding source in place for now, Klein said. Commissioner of Public Service David O'Brien said the tax on Vermont Yankee is the wrong way to fund heating efficiency programs. In addition to other problems with the idea, it would leave the program without funding if the plant's operating license is not extended past 2012 or the tax expires. "There is an ongoing requirement to get a funding source," he said. "What are you going to do when Vermont Yankee goes away?" © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 16 Times Argus: Yankee tax scuttled by state legislators: June 27, 2007 By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau MONTPELIER – Legislative leaders have announced they will strip out a tax opposed by Gov. James Douglas on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant from their energy bill in an effort to get the measure into law. However, the governor, in Prince Edward Island for a meeting of governors and Canadian premiers about global warming and other issues, offered little hope that would remove his objection to the bill, which he vetoed in the spring. Democratic leaders in the Statehouse had insisted on keeping the roughly $25 million tax increase between now and 2012 on Yankee's parent company, Entergy Nuclear, saying its removal would greatly weaken the bill. That is because the money will be needed beginning in the next few years to support a heating fuels efficiency program that is at the heart of the legislation. But Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, said in the interest of compromise he and Speaker of the House Gaye Symington, D-Jericho, would be willing to delay consideration of the tax until next January's lawmaking session. Lawmakers are expected back in the Statehouse to vote on whether to make it into law without Douglas' signature on July 11. That would require two-thirds of those present in the House and Senate to vote to do so. "We are going to pass the funding in January," Shumlin said. "We feel the Entergy tax is both fair and justified." But Douglas said he objects to the creation and structure of the heating fuels efficiency program – not just its funding source. Both would have to be eliminated to gain his support, said the governor, who has offered a competing plan. "I have two problems with the bill," Douglas said. In addition to the tax it establishes an "untested bureaucracy that is not well thought out and is expensive." "I am not going to support a bill with a new bureaucracy and an unnecessary tax," he said. The fact that Douglas was in Canada urging the federal government to take action on reducing global warming emissions – and has just returned from promoting Vermont's efficiency and renewable energy programs and companies in China – was ironic given the governor's stance on the energy bill, H.520, Shumlin said. "He is going around touting Vermont's efficiency program, and at the same time telling people back home our system is no good. It just doesn't add up," Shumlin said. "This bill, as Al Gore pointed out, will help Vermonters save money and help us get off our addiction to oil and help lead the country to other sources of energy." But Douglas said he is proud of his efforts on climate change, including an initiative to reduce fuel use by state government and impose stricter car emission standards. "I feel very good about my leadership on climate change and addressing greenhouse gases in Vermont and beyond," Douglas said. His recent trip to China convinces him that is where efforts should be focused, he said. "That is where the problem lies. That is where we need to engage the world community," he said. The bill would still begin the work of setting up an efficiency program to reduce the use of heating fuels like oil and propane, although the money to support such programs would not be included – at least not yet – under the offered compromise. Such a program would be loosely based on the state's electricity efficiency utility, run by Efficiency Vermont. The tax on Yankee had become the focus of opposition to the bill by business leaders, who said it would send the wrong message to companies. But Douglas and executives have also opposed the creation of a new "bureaucracy" and the possibility that the efficiency program would require more tax money later – especially after 2012 when the increased tax levied on Yankee would expire. Tuesday business groups were quick to say they objected to passage of the bill even without the tax on the nuclear plant. "This proposal would appear to be a fairly transparent effort to lock in programs that would subsequently be used to leverage new tax burdens in the future," said William Driscoll of Associated Industries of Vermont "It would simply be a blank check for future taxes." Matt Cota, head of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, said that Douglas' rival proposal – based on the state buying down interest rates on private loans for homeowners to insulate and do other heating efficiency measures – was better than the legislative approach. Shumlin's offer "sounds like an act of desperation," Cota said in a statement. "There are now even more unanswered questions about how the utility will be structured, paid for and implemented." Brian Cosgrove, an energy spokesman, said his company has been opposed to the idea of a tax right along. "Our position on the tax has been pretty consistent throughout," he said. "Any proposal that comes from the legislative leadership to the governor is really a conversation that needs to take place between the appropriate parties." Douglas was attending an annual meeting of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, at which the Canadian officials are considering joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. That is the agreement among Northeastern states to set up a system for reducing global warming pollution, especially from electricity production plants. There are some questions to work out before Canadian provinces could join RGGI – for instance whether Congress would have to approve such a treaty or not – but there was a lot of discussion of the idea, Douglas said. It has really become the states and provinces – not the federal government – leading the way on reducing the release of carbon pollution which causes human contribution to global warming, said George Crombie, secretary of Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources. "It's becoming clearer and clearer the states and the Canadian provinces are setting the framework for national and international policy on climate change issues," Crombie said. The foundation of national efforts "will come from the work being done in the eastern part of the country and the eastern provinces." But Shumlin said that if Douglas was serious about such efforts he would not only sign into law the energy bill, H.520, but seek to go even farther. What remains to be seen is whether lawmakers, when they return to Montpelier July 11 for a vote on Douglas' veto, will agree to pass the bill without the Yankee tax included in it. Given the importance of the other parts of the bill it should not be held up while the funding source is worked out, Shumlin said. "We don't want to lose the time between now and next January that is so critical to this bill," he said. However the fight over the amount of generation tax Vermont Yankee pays in lieu of property taxes is likely far from over. "I have already drafted legislation to fix Yankee's property tax situation next year regardless of what happens," said Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier and a member of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee. He agrees that it is important the rest of the bill – which includes provisions to encourage wind and solar power and home-based renewable energy generation – should become law sooner, even if it means passing it without the funding source in place for now, Klein said. Commissioner of Public Service David O'Brien said the tax on Vermont Yankee is the wrong way to fund heating efficiency programs. In addition to other problems with the idea, it would leave the program without funding if the plant's operating license is not extended passed 2012 or the tax expires. "There is an ongoing requirement to get a funding source," he said. "What are you going to do when Vermont Yankee goes away?" © 2007 Times Argus ***************************************************************** 17 AFP: Toshiba eyes big US nuclear deal Wednesday June 27, 12:08 PM TOKYO (AFP) - Japan's Toshiba Corp. said Wednesday it hoped to win a large deal to supply nuclear reactors in the United States, boosting its share price. Toshiba is working to secure an order for advanced boiling water reactors from US group NRG Energy which aims to build nuclear power plants, said company spokeswoman Hiroko Mochida. "We have not reached a final contract. But we will continue to work towards getting the order," she said. The Nikkei economic daily and Jiji Press news agency said Wednesday Toshiba was in final talks with NRG to supply two 1.35-million-kilowatt ABWRs for a nuclear power plant in Texas, beating a Hitachi-General Electric alliance. The entire nuclear plant project is worth an estimated 5.2 billion dollars, Jiji Press said. Toshiba shares rose on the news, gaining 12 yen or 1.17 percent to 1,036 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange by the close of morning trade. The Japanese high-tech giant bought Westinghouse from British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) last year for 5.4 billion dollars in one of the largest Japanese acquisitions overseas in years. Copyright © 2005 AFP. All rights reserved. All information displayed ***************************************************************** 18 The Enquirer: Energy solutions must be multi-pronged Cincinnati.Com Last Updated: 6:21 pm | Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Global warming, carbon emissions, rising seas, oh my! What are we to do? The United States was led by uninformed alarmists and environmentalists away from nuclear energy almost 30 years ago, and now the same people are rushing on the ethanol bandwagon. If we let Al Gore and the rest of the narrow-minded people convince the most industrialized nation in the world that burning crops is the answer to global warming and our dependence on oil, hold on for a bumpy ride. Beef prices are already high and taking off like a rocket. Dairy prices have about doubled in the past year, and has anyone told you that E85 fuel gets a lot less mileage than gasoline? Listen carefully to what you are being told. In the 1970s the alarmists were worried that pollution was shielding the earth from the sun's rays and we would have perpetual winter. Now 30 years later the bandwagon is global warming. I don't care if you think the world is 6,000 years old or 30 billion, 30 years of data is a blip. Inconclusive. Sierra Club members are starting to get behind a resurgence of support for nuclear power to stop global warming. We need to really look 100 or 200 years ahead. Eisenhower created the U.S. interstate highway system with the stroke of a pen. We need that kind of vision to create an integrated energy program to get us off fossil fuels and into a low-pollution, electric-based energy system: an Apollo-like fusion energy program; the next generation of graphite-core pebble bed reactors; electric cars; mass transit; and cross-country high-speed rail. If we had 200 mph-plus trains, that would solve many of the problems with the airline industry. I could go on, but who's listening? After all, Al Gore won the Oscar and we all know that's far more important than real science. Ray Miller is superintendent of utilities for the University of Cincinnati and adjunct assistant professor in UC's College of Applied Science. Copyright © 2007 The Enquirer. All rights reserved. Users of this ***************************************************************** 19 St. Cloud Times: Your turn: Nuclear power is what U.S. needs Opinion By Rolf Westgard, Deerwood Published: June 27. 2007 12:30AM As the last in the line of hopper cars approached, my car count reached 103, not quite as many as usual. Each of those cars holds 100 tons of Wyoming coal. That's 10,000 tons in that train, headed for a big coal-fired electric plant somewhere east. A typical 1,000-megawatt plant needs to burn that whole train load every day. I think of the 1,000 tons of ash and the carbon dioxide that plant emits every day, plus all the pollution produced from mining and transporting the coal. As the crossing gate opens, I start across the tracks. Farm machines dot the nearby southern Minnesota landscape, indicating the start of corn planting. In the distance, there's one of those big distilleries producing ethyl alcohol (ethanol) from our Minnesota corn. We could use cleaner and renewable ethanol to fire boilers and run a 1,000-megawatt electric utility. But you would need about 2.5 million gallons/day of ethanol. That's a million bushel pile of corn per day. I glance down at a book on the seat beside me. A 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant consumes only about 7-8 pounds of uranium 235 per day. That much U-235 would make a block of material the size of that book. I look at that huge departing train, and then I imagine that giant corn pile. My little book of U-235 seems even smaller. Why aren't we in the U.S. building more nuclear plants? Nuclear energy is environmentally superior. Nuclear energy doesn't emit CO2 or particulates, no ground level ozone, and no acid rain. There are 435 nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries. Thirty more are under construction with many others in the planning stage. We have 103 nuclear power plants in the United States that provide cost-competitive electricity to millions. But we have none under construction. Three fears, all exaggerated, dominate our thinking: fear of accidents such as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl; radiation from spent fuel storage; and the theft of weapons grade nuclear material to make a weapon. As to accidents, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that nuclear plants average 0.34 accidents per 200,000 worker hours versus 2.3 accidents for all U.S. industry. Three Mile Island is our one serious accident. It had no deaths or serious injuries, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The defective instrument design that contributed to its operator error has been corrected in our other facilities. Radiation release to the public at Three Mile Island was trivial. Russia's Chernobyl was far more serious, caused by a fundamental reactor design defect called positive void coefficient not present in Western reactors. Europe and Asia simplify spent fuel storage by separating the 3 percent that is radioactive and blending that into glass cylinders. They reprocess the remaining 97 percent to increase fuel life, and use geologic storage for the radioactive glass cylinders. This process works because the most radioactive isotopes such as Iodine-131 decay to 1 percent of original radioactivity in days or months. Long lived isotopes such as Iodine-129 and Technetium-99 are millions of times less radioactive than Iodine-131. Our policy of storing all spent fuel without reprocessing started in the days of cheap uranium oxide and the expectation of a facility such as Yucca Mountain for storage. The continuing delay at Yucca Mountain is not from geology, but from politics. As to the loss of fissionable material, which might be used in a nuclear weapon, it hasn't happened from the hundreds of plants in operation for decades. Power generation in the very common light water reactors does produce hundreds of kilograms of weapon-useful plutonium. But during operations, that plutonium quickly acquires too many neutrons to be weapons useful. To have bomb-ready plutonium, the fuel rods have to be removed after just a few months of operation, a very complex process easily detected by inspectors. The latest nuclear power technology will be essential as we deal with the issues of increasing pollution from hydrocarbons and our growing dependence on imported oil, imported liquid natural gas and not so clean coal. This is the opinion of Rolf Westgard, a portfolio manager who focuses on investments in the oil and gas industry. He is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and a regular speaker to civic groups on peak oil and alternate energy. ***************************************************************** 20 Rutland Herald: Entergy: Nuke plant's water not killing fish June 27, 2007 By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff NEWFANE — Entergy Nuclear's bid to pump more warm water — 450 million gallons a day — into the Connecticut River would have a negligible effect on the native American shad and Atlantic salmon, attorneys for the company claimed Tuesday during opening arguments in Environmental Court. The Connecticut River Watershed Council, Trout Unlimited and two anti-nuclear groups, the New England Coalition and Citizens Awareness Network, said the 100-degree water is just another attempt by Entergy to cut environmental corners while saving money. The groups have appealed Entergy Nuclear's discharge permit, granted last year by the Agency of Natural Resources. Entergy is also appealing the permit, saying the state put unnecessary limits on the discharge, by restricting it during the smolt migration in May to mid-June. "This case is about fish and temperature," said Elise Zoli, one of the five attorneys handling the case for Entergy. She said the discharge would only raise the river's temperature another degree. "Lost in the background noise" is the solar heating of the river, she said. Patrick Parenteau, a professor from the Vermont Law School who is representing most of the environmental groups, said it was the cumulative effect of continued thermal pollution into the Connecticut River that worried his clients. He said Entergy had not fully researched the effects of the thermal pollution. But he said something is keeping American shad and Atlantic salmon from making it up the Connecticut River, starting just south of the Vernon reactor. About 10 years ago, in order to save money by not running its cooling towers, the utility got permission to discharge enough heated water into the river to raise the river's temperature 5 degrees. Its most recent request of one degree would only add to the pollution, he said. But Entergy's attorney, Elise Zoli of the Boston law firm of Goodwin Procter, said that scientific experts would testify that the temperature increase was not having an effect on the fish — that something else was at fault for the steep decline in the number of fish. Parenteau, in his opening statements to Environmental Court Judge Merideth Wright, said there had been "a very dramatic decline," particularly in the number of migrating American shad. Only a few years ago, Parenteau said, 37,000 shad were counted at the Vernon fish ladder. "As of yesterday, only 57 were counted," Parenteau said. "No one has explained fully why that decline is so dramatic in the upper reaches of the Connecticut River between Bellows Falls and Holyoke (Mass.) dams," Parenteau said, saying he wasn't laying all the blame on the nuclear plant's discharge. "Nothing can be more destructive than the constant ratcheting up of temperature increases," Parenteau said. Large and small-mouth bass are doing well in the river, he said, but they are predators of the shad and salmon. "It's not just one degree — it's the entire history of Vermont Yankee discharge and its impact on all the species," he said, noting the discharge is just compounding the effects of global warming on the river. Parenteau and Evan Mulholland, the attorney for New England Coalition, had earlier this month won an extension of an earlier order from Environment Court to stop Entergy from discharging the additional warm water until the case is resolved. Entergy unsuccessfully challenged that decision from Wright last week. Entergy called as a witness Craig Swanson, a senior principal engineer with Applied Science Associates of Narragansett, R.I., who devised a computer model to track the plume of the hot water as it enters the Connecticut River and dissipates in the pool backed up behind the nearby Vernon hydroelectric dam owned by TransCanada. Swanson said a consultant for Entergy set up a network of what he called thermistores, or thermometers on the surface and at different depths in the river to track the plume. He used the data to project how the water travels in the river currents and its heat diluted. Most of the warm water stays close to the Vermont shore, and can reach temperatures of 85 degrees, particularly on the river's surface, Swanson's animated graph showed. But Parenteau said the hottest portion of the river according to Swanson's computer model ended up near the Vernon fish ladder and the fishway, a submerged pipe in the center of the Vernon hydro dam. Entergy has a state permit to discharge up to 450 million gallons of heated water a day, depending on the temperature of the river and the level of the river. The Environmental Court case, which is being held in Windham County, is expected to last a total of three weeks. The case resumes Thursday in Windham County courthouse. Contact Susan Smallheer at susan.smallheer@rutlandherald.com. © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 21 Rutland Herald: A good plan comes together June 27, 2007 By JUDY BEVANS Those of you who remember the TV show "The A-Team" might also remember a one-liner from the program, "I love it when a good plan comes together, " spoken by actor George Peppard in his role as Hannibal Smith. The Legislature is our A-Team. The Vermont Energy Efficiency and Affordability Act (H.520) is a good plan that will make it less expensive and easier for all of us, homeowners and businesses alike, to invest in renewable energy, help us lower our use of fossil fuels, and tighten existing building codes so that we may move toward greater fuel efficiency. It's a good plan with a fair funding source. The funding for these new initiatives is straightforward: the Legislature will level the taxation playing field. It's not a new tax. It's not a windfall profits tax. It has nothing to do with the memorandums of understanding the state signed when Vermont Yankee wanted to move forward with its uprate and storing radioactive waste in dry casks on the banks of the Connecticut River. H.520 doesn't touch those agreements. All it does is readjust the rate of taxation Vermont Yankee pays, which was frozen in place by the Republican-controlled Legislature and the governor in 2003, making that rate the same as what new wind developments will pay. And then Jim Douglas vetoed the bill. Why? Because he worries about the "message" this sends to the business community. Actually, the message that the governor is sending to his friends in big business is, "Whisper in my ear, and we'll make a deal." It was only after his inaction started hurting him politically that Jim Douglas cobbled together a "plan" to address energy efficiency. What does the governor's plan do? It requires average Vermonters and Vermont businesses to take out loans to pay for efficiency measures. The message Gov. Douglas has sent Vermont citizens and small business owners with this so-called plan is, "Want to save energy? Why don't you go further into debt." The problem is many Vermonters, already struggling with high costs and debt from a variety of sources, including home mortgages, student loans and credit cards, can't afford it. Especially since, with interest rates rising, the state may be able to help provide rates lower than the market, but not necessarily low enough to ensure that energy savings will be able to cover the cost of repaying the loan. Rather than close a loophole that allows a business to pay less than its fair share to both the General Fund and the Education Fund, Jim Douglas is putting the burden on the backs of ordinary Vermonters. Like Hannibal Smith, I love it when a good plan comes together. So please, get on the phone and urge your representative to go to the Statehouse on July 11, override the governor's veto, and let a good plan for you, your children, and their children, come together. Judy Bevans of Albany is vice chairwoman of the Vermont Democratic Party. © 2007 Rutland Herald ***************************************************************** 22 Bennington Banner: Vt. Dems willing to drop nuclear tax DAVID GRAM, Associated Press Writer Article Launched: 06/27/2007 03:00:46 AM EDT MONTPELIER ? With doubts growing about their ability to override a veto of key energy legislation, the Legislature's Democratic leaders on Tuesday offered to drop from it one of Gov. Jim Douglas' least favorite provisions: the tax increase on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. Douglas wasn't buying it. Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, and Rep. Robert Dostis, D-Waterbury and chairman of the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said that after a veto-override vote set for July 11, they would seek to pass a bill without the tax on Vermont Yankee owner Entergy Nuclear. Instead, they said they would leave the question of how to pay the $5 million to $7 million annual cost of new energy conservation measures to be debated when lawmakers reconvene in regular session next January. The legislation envisions creating an "all-fuels efficiency utility," to do the same thing for heating fuels that Efficiency Vermont has done for electricity usage in Vermont. With audits on energy usage, advice on trimming it and financial incentives to do so, the program has saved Vermonters and businesses about $207 million on their electric bills since 2000. Douglas vetoed the bill, saying he didn't like the tax on Vermont Yankee, which would have raised the nuclear plant's taxes to the same level as wind-power projects in Vermont; and that he didn't like the plan for the "all-fuels efficiency utility" modeled on Efficiency Vermont. In a letter to Shumlin and Dostis on Tuesday, Douglas said the new efficiency utility would be "an unnecessary government bureaucracy." Efficiency Vermont is run by a Burlington-based nonprofit, the Vermont Energy Investment Corp., under a contract with the state Public Service Board. Douglas spokesman Jason Gibbs said it was not clear from the bill, H.520, that the new all-fuels program would be run by a private-sector entity under contract with the government. He and Douglas called its structure "ill-defined." Douglas has proposed expanding another government program to promote heating efficiency. A weatherization program, run by the Agency of Human Services, helps low-income Vermonters to tighten their homes with new windows, insulation and the like. The day after he vetoed H.520, the governor unveiled a proposal to create a low- or no-interest loan program to offer weatherization-type services to a broader range of homeowners and small businesses. Shumlin said in an interview Tuesday that it had become apparent to him and other legislative leaders that they had a good chance to muster the two-thirds majority to override Douglas' veto in the Senate, but not in the House. He said the plan for July 11 would be to vote after the veto override attempt was decided to pass the bill with the Vermont Yankee tax removed. "Since the legislation vetoed by the governor stipulates that funding for the all-fuels efficiency utility will be needed starting in 2009, this proposal would allow the Legislature to consider how to fund the utility when it reconvenes in January." Shumlin and Dostis are to meet with Douglas on Wednesday to discuss the energy proposals. Copyright © 2006 Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Brattleboro Reformer: Yankee discharge hearing is held By BOB AUDETTE, Reformer Staff Wednesday, June 27 NEWFANE -- An expert on thermal discharge testified Tuesday that a 1 degree increase in the temperature of water expelled from the cooling system of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant into the Connecticut River will not affect fish, shellfish and wildlife. In March 2006, the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources approved a permit allowing "a slight increase in the station's thermal effluent limitations (1 degree) during the summer months." Several environmental and anti-nuclear groups opposed the permit and the temperature increase was put on hold until the Vermont Environmental Court had a chance to hear all the evidence brought before it by both sides. On Tuesday, the first of several days of hearings in Newfane began with Craig Swanson, an independent consultant hired by Entergy, who reviewed the plume of heated water leaving the plant and how it affects the Vernon pool, the standing water above the Vernon Dam. Elise Zoli, of Goodwin Procter in Boston, speaking on behalf of Entergy, told Judge Meredith Wright that the modeling provided by Swanson proved the temperature increase would not adversely affect the nine species of fish, shellfish and wildlife that the Agency of Natural Resources is concerned about. Another expert will testify that "there is no statistically determinably trend in fish population numbers reasonably attributable to the plant's discharge," said Zoli. "The question you have to answer for yourself is whether the evidence proves to your satisfaction that the 1 degree increase that is being sought" doesn't affect the nine species, said Pat Parenteau, speaking on behalf of the Connecticut River Watershed Council. "Temperature ... affects every single phase of the lifecycle of the fish in question," he said. The watershed council is mainly concerned with two species -- American shad and Atlantic salmon -- which have undergone restoration efforts since the 1980s. "In 1991, the number of shad that passed Vernon Dam was 37,000," said Parenteau. As of Monday, he said, that number was 57. "No one has explained why that decline is so dramatic in the upper reaches of the river," he said. "We cannot rule out Vermont Yankee discharge as a contributing factor in these keystone species." Parenteau also wanted to know about the cumulative effects of temperature increases since the power plant began discharging cooling water into the river starting in the 1970s. Since 1991, Yankee has been allowed a "fivefold increase in the cumulative increases," he said. "Now they are asking for another degree." "Nothing can be more destructive of a biological community than this constant ratcheting of temperature increases," he said, adding that Environmental Protection Agency regulations require an analysis of the cumulative effect and how it will change the river into the future. Swanson told the court he was asked to evaluate the change between existing conditions and if the 1 degree increase is allowed, and not how the river has changed since the plant began operating. Using 34,000 data points in the pool, Swanson evaluated the thermal plume and its progression toward the Vernon Dam. Temperatures in the pool were taken from May to November 2002, said Swanson. Cooling water flows from the plant at between 100 to 800 cubic feet per second. There are approximately 7.5 gallons of water in a cubic foot. The cooling water is right around 100 degrees when it leaves the plant, said Swanson. Evan Mullholland, speaking for the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, said the only reason for the temperature increase is to supply surplus electricity that is not needed in Vermont. "Alternatives do exist that will enable Vermont Yankee to generate electricity without the extra thermal insult to the environment," said Mullholland. Those alternatives include using the plant's cooling towers, replacing the plant's steam condenser and using cooling pools to decrease the temperature of discharge waters before they enter the river. Representatives from Vermont Yankee said using the cooling towers "requires energy that reduces the total electric output of the station and the Vernon Dam." "Consequently, increased use of cooling towers may negatively impact the price of power." No hearings are scheduled for Wednesday. They are due to resume Thursday at 9 a.m. in Windham Superior Court in Newfane. Bob Audette can be reached at raudette@reformer.com or 802-254-2311, ext. 273. ***************************************************************** 24 Reuters: World cannot afford nuclear climate solution - report Wed Jun 27, 2007 12:08PM EDT By Jeremy Lovell LONDON (Reuters) - The world must start building nuclear power plants at the unprecedented rate of four a month from now on if nuclear energy is to play a serious part in fighting global warming, a leading think-tank said on Wednesday. Not only is this impossible for logistical reasons, but it has major implications for world security because of nuclear weapons proliferation, the Oxford Research Group said in its report "Too Hot To Handle - The future of civil nuclear power." The report fired a series of broadsides against the growing momentum for more nuclear-generated electricity to help cut climate-warming carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. "A world-wide nuclear renaissance is beyond the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver and would stretch to breaking point the capacity of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to monitor and safeguard civil nuclear power," it said. The report comes less than a week after the World Energy Council -- the global organization of electricity generators -- said nuclear power had to be a significant part of the new energy mix both to beat global warming and guarantee security. Nuclear power now provides about 16 percent of a world electricity demand that is set to at least keep pace with the growth in population -- predicted to rise by more than half to 10 billion people by 2075. The report said that if it was to play a significant part in curbing carbon emissions, nuclear power would have to provide one-third of electricity by 2075. That, it said, meant building four new nuclear plants a month, every month, globally for the next 70 years. Not only had top civil nuclear power France, which gets 78 percent of its electricity from 59 nuclear reactors, never got remotely near that rate of construction, but the implications for wholesale weapons proliferation were overwhelming, it said. Continued... ***************************************************************** 25 Reuters: Rice sees U.S.-Indian nuclear deal done by year end Wed Jun 27, 2007 4:10PM EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Indian business leaders on Wednesday a landmark U.S.-Indian nuclear energy deal needed "more hard work" but was expected to be completed by the end of the year. The deal, signed in 2005, would allow sales of U.S. nuclear equipment and fuel to India. The pact would end a three-decade ban on such trade with New Delhi, which has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has tested nuclear weapons. "We're not quite there yet, but with will and determination and more hard work to do, I assume that we will reach final agreement and be in a position to complete this deal by the end of the year," Rice said in a speech to the U.S.-India Business Council in Washington. The pact was approved by the U.S. Congress last December but has become snagged over what India says are new conditions imposed by the American lawmakers. The contested terms include a U.S. threat to end nuclear cooperation if New Delhi conducts another nuclear test and prohibitions on India's reprocessing of spent fuel. U.S. officials say some of those conditions are required by American laws. India sees that as a shifting of goal posts and is wary of any compromise in the face of fierce opposition at home from political parties and nuclear experts. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after meeting President George W. Bush on the sidelines of the G8 in Germany earlier this month that he expected tough negotiations before the deal was finalized. Several rounds of talks this year, most recently this month in New Delhi, failed to break the logjam. Rice described the civilian nuclear pact as a pillar of a bilateral relationship that has overcome Cold War estrangement but "just scratched the surface" in areas where the world's two biggest democracies could cooperate. "I cannot tell you how much the world is watching to see if we can complete this, because if we can, we are on our way to a tremendous future, not just in this area but in many other areas as well," she said. Rice said the pact enjoyed bipartisan support in the United States and concluding it required that both Washington and New Delhi "stay faithful to the agreements that our leaders signed" and "stay faithful to the legislation we have passed." © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 Reuters: Toshiba wins $4.9 bln NRG reactor deal-Nikkei Wed Jun 27, 2007 2:01AM EDT TOKYO, June 27 (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp. (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) snatched up an order from NRG Energy Inc. (NRG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to build two U.S. nuclear power reactors, a project that had been expected to go to General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Hitachi Ltd. (6501.T: Quote, Profile, Research), the Nikkei business daily reported on Wednesday. The project is estimated to be worth 600 billion yen ($4.86 billion), and losing the order is a blow to Hitachi as Japanese firms race to expand their nuclear businesses overseas. Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Ohmori said no final agreement had been signed. He declined to comment on whether the company had signed a letter of intent with NRG on the deal. Hitachi said it is still in the running on the bid, and that it is still in negotiations with NRG. The order is for two 1.35 million kilowatt advanced boiling water reactors in Houston, Texas, to go online as early as 2014, as nuclear power wins favour in the U.S. amid fears of global warming and rising prices of natural gas and oil. NRG had filed papers with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission last June, naming GE and Hitachi as the firms to build the reactors, but the agreement had not been finalised. That plan hit a snag after some Hitachi-made turbines broke down last summer at Chubu Electric Power Co. (9502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Hokuriku Electric Power Co.(9505.T: Quote, Profile, Research), leading to shutdowns at their plants. If Toshiba becomes lead contractor on the project, this would be positive for Toshiba's share price over the medium-to-long term, as well as for other nuclear-related stocks in Japan, said Naoki Koga, senior fund manager at Toyota Asset Management. Continued... ***************************************************************** 27 UPI: Analysis: Turkey's energy future United Press International - Energy - Analysis Published: June 27, 2007 at 9:37 AM By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent ISTANBUL, Turkey, June 27 (UPI) -- Turkey is a crucial transit country for the world's oil and natural gas market, and a top Foreign Ministry official says its role will increase as the industry brings more sources to market and demand continues to rise. "Our main purpose is to contribute to the global energy security of supply," Vural Altay, deputy director general for energy, water and environment in Turkey's Foreign Ministry, told United Press International Tuesday on the sidelines of an energy conference. "In order to achieve that we are working on different projects ... both in oil and gas." Turkey, the world's 14th-largest net oil importer, is looking to meet its own energy needs with a nuclear power plant project as well as renewables, Altay said. And, despite being well-positioned between the world's largest oil and gas producers and consumers, it's also in a hot spot of geopolitical turmoil. Ankara is keeping a close watch on political goings-on in Iraq as the Parliament in Baghdad awaits a new law governing its oil and gas reserves -- which, once developed more, will head to market via Turkey -- and Iraqi Kurds stake claim to more land and autonomy. More than 3 million barrels of oil head south each day through the Bosporus, according to the U.S. Energy Department's data arm, the Energy Information Administration, an increasing number that causes a bottleneck for the market and potential environmental catastrophe. "Despite all the safety measures ... the risk of a tanker accident in the Turkish Straits persists," Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said Tuesday at "East Meets West: New Frontiers of Energy Security," a conference organized in Istanbul by Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Turkish Straits is another name for the Bosporus, 17 miles of water off Istanbul's coast connecting the Black and Mediterranean seas, where 5,500 tankers each year take Asian oil to European markets. As oil-rich countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and others increase their production, Altay said Turkey is leading a charge to build alternative routes for the oil, including more pipelines sending it -- and, increasingly, natural gas -- to a port in Ceyhan, Turkey. Already, twin pipelines with more than 1 million barrels per day capacity send most of Iraq's northern oil exports to Ceyhan, though regular attacks from Sunni insurgents have rendered the link mostly useless. A new pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan, through Tbilisi, Georgia, to Ceyhan -- notably, for political reasons, bypassing Russia -- "will reach its full capacity in a couple months' time," Altay said. The BTC line began delivering Azeri oil in June 2006, with 193 tankers loaded since. The 1 million bpd capacity is expected to jump by 600,000 bpd when Kazakhstan is connected. A planned pipeline from Samsun, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, to Ceyhan would not only reduce traffic on the straits but also boost Ceyhan's visibility on Turkey's and the world's energy radar. "This will turn Ceyhan into an energy terminal," Altay said. A proposed pipeline taking Iraqi natural gas along the same route to Ceyhan, among other projects including refineries, petrochemical facilities and a liquefied natural gas terminal, means Ceyhan "will be an important energy center" through which 5.3 percent of the world's oil supply will flow. Turkey produced only a fraction of the 618,000 bpd of oil it consumed last year and 967 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2005, the most recent EIA data available; demand is rising. "Since our energy demand is growing almost 7 percent a year, we also decided going to the nuclear energy fields and build a couple nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 megawatts," Altay said. Parliament, which faces an election later this year, has to give final approval first. Energy Minister Hilmi Guler said Tuesday Turkey has a potential $10 billion wind power market and $20 billion hydro market. Such optimism is blunted by Turkey's neighbor to the southeast, Iraq, with the world's third-largest oil reserves and gas stocks nearly to match, coupled with a decaying security situation and stalled legislation governing the petroleum reserves. Turkey supports a centralized governance system and one where Iraqi Kurds, semi-autonomous since 1992, are far from independent of it, fearing Turkey's own Kurdish population would demand the same. This pits Ankara against Kurdish claims that Kirkuk, Iraq, a historically Kurdish city with many citizens of varied nationalities and religions -- including Turkomen -- and a sizable chunk of Iraq's oil reserves should be part of the Kurdistan Regional government. A referendum scheduled to take place by the end of the year will decide the city's future. -- (e-mail: energy@upi.com) © Copyright 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Hemscott: NRC inspecting nuke plant after shutdown WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators are conducting a special inspection at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in California, which is majority owned by a unit of Edison International, after a reactor needed to be shut down last week. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday said its regional office in Arlington, Texas, is conducting the inspection following the June 20 manual reactor shutdown of one of two units at the plant due to a failed pipe connection in a compressed air system. The air system provides the power to operate many valves at the plant, which is 75 percent owned by Southern California Edison. San Diego Gas & Electric owns 20 percent, and the cities of Riverside and Anaheim own the remaining 5 percent. 'The shutdown was for operational purposes,' said Southern California Edison spokesman Gil Anderson. 'It posed no risk to employees or the public.' The air system powered some instruments at the plant unrelated to safety operations, Anderson said. Customers have not been affected, but the reactor remains shut pending repairs and inspections of all similar systems, he added. 'All air-operated safety valves are designed to fail in their safe position if they lose air,' according to the NRC. 'During the shutdown, all safety systems responded as expected.' The NRC's special inspection team of two inspectors are evaluating the plant owners' response to the event, the cause of the problem and corrective actions. The team's report will be issued between 30 and 45 days after completion of the inspection, according to the NRC. Shares of Edison dipped 71 cents to $54.95 in aftermarket activity after gaining $1.25, or 2.3 percent, to close Wednesday's regular trading session at $55.66. Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Hemscott PLC - Serious Investment Research ***************************************************************** 29 Idaho Press-Tribune: Energy: Company says $3.5 billion will fund proposed energy complex Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 By Lee Vander Boegh lvanderboegh@idahopress.com BRUNEAU — Alternate Energy Holdings and Cobblestone Financial Group have reached an agreement that could bring the proposed 1,600-megawatt nuclear-powered Idaho Energy Complex closer to reality and closer to home — Bruneau, to be exact. According to a Alternate Energy Holdings press release, Cobblestone Financial Group has committed to fund 100 percent of the complex — which is expected to cost about $3.5 billion. The financial agreement brings Alternate Energy Holdings one step closer to building the nation’s first nuclear power plant in nearly three decades. Alternate Energy Holdings president and CEO Don Gillispie said the financing demonstrates two things. One, a full investment proves the company’s legitimacy. And two, it makes the Idaho Energy Complex the only nuclear power plant on the drawing board that enjoys full financing. Earlier this year, the company announced a partnership with Idaho landowner and businessman James Hilliard for Hilliard’s 4,000 acres near Bruneau. Rather than sell the land, Hilliard opted to invest in the company by way of yielding his property. Gillispie is still working on local and federal approval, but remains optimistic the plant will move forward. He expects Owyhee County to make a decision in July. He said he has been making presentations and answering questions from locals, and his plans have been well-received. “I think if we ran a poll we’d be at about 78 percent (in favor),” Gillispie said. Assuming the company gets county approval, the next step is approval from the federal government — a process that could cost up to $100 million and take several years. But if it goes well, the Idaho Energy Complex could be producing 1,600 megawatts of energy and provide an estimated 500 full-time jobs by 2013. Dr. Peter Rickards DPM wrote on Jun 27, 2007 7:12 PM: " Hi Sebastian, Are you from Idaho, like me? I couldn't find you in the directory, but I need to correct your claims downplaying terrorism, and geothermal energy. I have a 19 year offer to debate the INL scientists anytime. Here's news on terrorism. "A classified report by nuclear experts assembled by the National Academy of Sciences has challenged the decision by federal regulators to allow commercial nuclear facilities to store large quantities of radioactive spent fuel in pools of water. The report concluded that the government does not fully understand the risks that a terrorist attack could pose to the pools and ought to expedite the removal of the fuel to dry storage casks that are more resilient to attack." At http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5408-2005Mar27.html Another official report is at http://www.vnf.com/security/rs21131.pdf Also, "Government regulators have acknowledged for the first time that neither Three Mile Island nor any of the nation's other 102 operating nuclear reactors could withstand the impact of an airliner the size of those that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/xml/stor y.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/10173114372541218.xml On Geothermal: "The University of Utah estimates just the thermal aquifers contain five times the total US electrical production in 1990" At http://www.geoenergy.org/aboutGE/potentialUse.asp#potential " Dr. Sebastion Reyman wrote on Jun 27, 2007 4:47 PM: " It's nice to see people finally coming around to cheaper base load energy. Until technological improvements occur, geothermal, solar, ect. energy will always be more expensive per kWhr, require more land use, and less reliable than nuclear energy. Current nuclear designs and operation of plants are vastly safer than Russian "Chernobyl" plants. In fact, any smart terrorist would know US nuclear plants are the last place they should attack because even if you could walk right into the reactor and detonate an explosive, the passive safety features used in today’s nuclear plants would contain most radiation and any plant workers who would be injured would not be injured from the radiation but more than likely from the initial explosion from the terrorist. Why do people complain about nuclear when it is the only current cheap and safe way to ease the US off greenhouse gas emitting fuel such as coal and oil? " Dr. Peter Rickards DPM wrote on Jun 27, 2007 3:52 PM: " Wake up, Idahoans! Are you ready to risk a Chernobyl-type nuclear disaster to heat Hollywood hot tubs? Why give our enemies a devastating nuclear target when Idaho has enough clean geothermal and wind power to double our present electric consumption? The Energy and Geosciences Institute of the University of Utah says geothermal can provide "five times the total U.S. electrical production in 1990" (Found at http://www.geoenergy.org/aboutGE/potentialUse.asp#potential). I attended the Bruneau "open house," where Gillespie promised, often, to sell cheap power to Idaho. But Don emphasizes the free market profit to stockholders and brags he can supply the west coast market. Their stockholders will sell to the highest bidder, like California, who won't allow this nuclear disaster to be built in their state. I was told only Owyhee County people could talk at Gillespie's show. I appreciated the crowd insisting I get to speak. Nuclear disasters make families hundreds of miles away "local." Wake up, Boise! Butch has already met with Gillespie, swearing his love of merchant nuclear power plants. Butch endorses "local control," so Boise neighbors will have no say and no state siting veto. " Copyright © 2007 Idaho Press-Tribune. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 30 Facing South: Report details rise in radiation pollution, cancer deaths near Ga. nuclear plant PO Box 531 • Durham,NC 27702 • Telephone: (919) 419-8311 • Fax: (919) 419-8315 Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Report details rise in radiation pollution, cancer deaths near Ga. nuclear plant Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear have proposed adding two new reactors to the existing two at the Alvin Vogtle nuclear power plant on the Savannah River near Waynesboro, Ga. But environmental health advocates warn that the plan could worsen existing radiation pollution from the facility -- as well as possibly related public health problems. A new report written by Joseph Mangano of the nonprofit Radiation and Public Health Project and released by the North Carolina-based Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League has documented a significant rise in radioactivity levels in drinking water, river water and sediment at or downstream from the Vogtle plant. From 1987-1990, when the plant began operating, to 1991-2003, during full operation, beta radiation rose by 37.1 percent in raw drinking water and 17.8 percent in treated drinking water. In sediment, radioactive beryllium-7 increased by 39.5 percent and cesium-137 by 37.4 percent. And in river water, levels of tritium -- a radioactive isotope of hydrogen -- increased by 44.6 percent. During that same period, the national cancer death rate for children and adolescents declined by 14.1 percent. But in Georgia's Burke County, where the plant is located, the death rate for all cancers rose sharply -- especially for young people. For Burke residents ages 0 to 24 years, the cancer death rate rose by 55.5 percent, while for residents ages 25 to 54 it rose by 55.1 percent. The report states:The findings suggest that some factor(s) introduced since the late 1980s has raised cancer risk in the area, particularly in Burke County. Because radioactive chemicals are known to cause cancer, the startup of Vogtle 1 and 2 should be considered as one contributing factor.Lou Zeller, BREDL's clean air campaign coordinator, received a rebuttal from Georgia Power that accuses Mangano of resorting to a "scare tactic" even while acknowledging company officials "have not had an opportunity to review the ... study in detail." It continues:Both Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear Operating Company are confident that Plant Vogtle is operated safely and does not pose a health risk to the people living in the vicinity of the plant. The NRC's licensing requirements ensure that two additional units would also not pose a risk to public health and safety. So how then do they account for the rise in radiation pollution and cancer deaths in the area since the plant began operating? The company's rebuttal offers no alternative explanation. Labels: energy policy, environment, Georgia, public health posted by Sue Sturgis at 12:36 PM | Email this post | Post a Comment    ***************************************************************** 31 JOGJCC: Scientist hails firth potential John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier: By Elizabeth-Anne Mackay Published: 27 June, 2007 TIDAL energy in the Pentland Firth could be converted to supply Scotland's power needs twice over, according to a leading scientist. Professor Stephen Salter, of Edinburgh University, claims tidal energy potential in the Far North may have been significantly underestimated and has urged the new Scottish government and industry leaders to invest more resources in research. The eminent scientist believes the firth's most powerful currents, found in depths previously considered out of reach, could be converted to between 10 and 20 gigawatts of electricity – rendering endless supplies for the country's homes and businesses. Prof Salter, who produced an energy review for the SNP, further claims that excess electricity could be stored or used to convert rubbish into synthetic liquid fuels. However, he warned that investment would be needed to explore and understand the firth's varying currents and waves. "If Scotland truly wants reliable marine current energy with generators which are strong enough... we must build a model test tank with complete control of both waves and currents," he says. "The size of the resource in the Pentland Firth may be larger than that predicted from studies which assumed only shallow-water turbines and ignored bottom friction losses. With turbines designed for deployment in 70 metres' depth, the resource could exceed present UK nuclear capacity." Prof Salter has spent 10 years exploring the potential of tidal energy and has developed a cylindrical turbine which he believes could reach down to depths of 50m. His turbines could operate in conjunction with seabed-based turbines which could reach 20m upwards from the bottom. Prof Salter explained that the positioning of the underwater turbines in the firth would be flexible but would be built progressively from the east. "It would be best if the lines of turbines could be placed towards the easterly end of the channel so as to avoid the largest Atlantic waves. A line from Duncansby Head to Muckle Skerry looks a good place to start," he states. If sufficient investment materialises the turbines could be installed in eight to 10 years' time. A seabed cable running underwater along the east coast to Peterhead could also be constructed, perhaps carrying direct current. Ships passing through the Pentland Firth would have to take a longer route to avoid the turbines but Prof Salter points out that there are already plans to stop large oil tankers taking short-cuts past sensitive coastlines. All shipping could also be directed north of Muckle Skerry and cross-firth traffic would not be affected. More controversially, Prof Salter suggests that the uninhabited islands of Stroma and Swona could be "levelled" to increase power generation. However, this would not be an essential part of the project. He explained that the land could be drilled on to below 70m, producing holes in the shape of a honeycomb. The quarried rock could be sold as concrete aggregate and the islands would be left with a series of deep thin walls which could then be collapsed. Prof Salter added he was worried but "not completely devastated" by the impacts the underwater machines could have on sea life. There would be considerable gaps between the turbines which could rotate at eight metres per second. "To get it right, it needs local input. What we also need is for people to really understand what the issues are. It lasts forever, there will be a lot of jobs going on this, and it [Caithness] will be a cheap place for energy which could attract other industry," he said. Recently, Highlands and Islands SNP MSP Rob Gibson highlighted the announcement of a new partnership between ScottishPower and Statoil to produce a commercially viable tidal energy device. It is hoped the Pentland Firth will be the base for a full-scale trial to be run within two years. Speaking to the Caithness Courier yesterday, Mr Gibson said there were a number of competing schemes being put forward which would have to be considered. "All these schemes have to be tried out," he said. "We have to embed these machines in the firth to see which ones are going to work. The SNP government is committed to creating a Scottish energy strategy. If we had one then we wouldn't have this mad scramble." Mr Gibson described the potential of tidal energy schemes as a "bonanza" for the Far North and stressed that, wherever possible, work to develop machinery should be done in Caithness and Orkney. He emphasised that working in collaboration would be needed to "find the route to commercialisation". "The government is committed to 80 per cent reductions in carbon emissions by 2050 – a tremendous target," he said. Mr Gibson claimed that Prof Salter's idea of "levelling" Stroma and Swona was "a scientist talking theory". e.mackay@nosn.co.uk All content copyright 2007 Scottish Provincial Press Ltd. ***************************************************************** 32 NewsRoom Finland: Kemijärvi joins Finnish nuclear queue 27.6.2007 at 9:06 Kemijärvi decided unanimously on Monday it would provide technical assistance to Fennovoima should the consortium opt to survey the inland town in Finnish Lapland as a possible site for its planned nuclear power station. The matter was treated as urgent in the meeting of the municipal government. Fennovoima has briefed Kemijärvi about its goals and the process of choosing the location of the possible station. Heikki Nivala, the chairman of the municipal government, said he was pleased that Fennovoima had contacted the council. "I think it is a positive thing that the company contacted us, considering Kemijärvi is in the interior," Mr Nivala said. Should Fennovoima win government approval for the project and pick Kemijärvi, the power station would be built on the banks of Kemijoki, Finland's longest river at about 550km. Fennovoima is a consortium set up with the sole purpose of building a nuclear power station in Finland. Its founders are German utility E.ON, Finnish steel maker Outokumpu, Swedish smelter Boliden and Finnish local utilities Rauma Energia and Katternö. In addition to Kemijärvi, the municipalities of Kemi, Simo and Tornio in the southwestern corner of Lapland and Loviisa in southern Finland have welcomed Fennovoima. © Copyright STT 2007 © 1995 – 2005, Virtual Finland Produced by: Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland Department for Communication and Culture/Unit for Promotion and Publications ***************************************************************** 33 Star-News: Energy workers to decide on union | StarNewsOnline.com | Wilmington, NC Published June 27. 2007 3:30AM 700 employees at nuclear plant to vote Thursday By Sam Scott Staff Writer sam.scott@starnewsonline.com For a long time, Ralph Whitman said he was anti-union, associating the organizations with the overbearing ways of his father-in-law, an auto worker who would jump down his throat for driving a Toyota. But now Whitman is among the rank-and-file at Progress Energy's Southport nuclear plant who are pushing for collective representation. On Thursday, he and 700 other workers at Progress' nuclear plants in Southport and near Raleigh and Hartsville, S.C., will vote on whether to join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The union has members at 60 percent of the nation's nuclear reactors. For management, a "yes" when results are announced Friday would be a step backward, threatening to drive a wedge between workers and management, and handicapping the company's agility to do business as it needs to. "Basically what the union does is add a layer to business that you don't really need," said Rick Kimble, spokesman for the Raleigh-based utility. "It's better to work directly with our employees and resolve our problems than it is to go through a third party." Whitman said the situation would never have advanced this far if teamwork and communication had received the attention they have been receiving from management as the vote nears. A new management team brought in several years ago came in with the message that the Brunswick plant was broken, blaming workers for doing what the previous regime wanted, he said. At the same time, a survey of worker concerns resulted in few changes, Whitman said. That brought up old anger about a change in retirement benefits, he said. In 1999, Progress switched from a fixed pension plan, which pays out until death, to a cash-balance plan where the company makes regular contributions to an interest-bearing account that the worker might outlive. Workers at Progress Energy's unionized plants in Florida were allowed to stay in the old system with the change affecting only new hires. In North Carolina, the change was across the board, Kimble said. But Kimble said the newer system was also best overall for many employees. Progress has to offer attractive benefits to keep and recruit workers in the competitive field, he said. In fact, workers in the Carolinas enjoy benefits like stock incentives that are not available to union members, he said. Still, C.J. King, a union organizer with IBEW, said the nearly decade-old change to the retirement plan and the erosion of other benefits were the driving force to join a union. King said he didn't know whether union backers had the votes but said he was "cautiously optimistic." The results are based on the number of votes at the three plants combined. Kimble said there are lots of workers who are against it. If union supporters prevail, they will go against the grain in the Carolinas, the states with the lowest percentage of workers in unions in the country, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In the 1930s and 1940s, when unions were establishing elsewhere, the two states lacked the large industry to support them, said Steven Allen, a professor of business management and economics at N.C. State University. Small textile plants didn't have the profit margins to make unions possible. "For a union to be successful and protect jobs and raise wages, (the companies) have to have a somewhat sheltered economic environment," Allen said. More recently, union memberships have been in decline in the private sector nationwide for the past 50 years, he said. Historically, unions have made the workplace safer and better-paying, but Allen said they typically come at a cost. "It has got to come out of the customers' pockets in terms of higher prices or out of shareholder pockets in terms of lower profits," he said. A victory would have "moderate to high significance" as it could inspire unions to organize elsewhere in the state, he said. North Carolina is a right-to-work state where workers at unionized companies are not required to pay dues or join, Allen said. "It makes the unions' job a lot harder," he said. Sam Scott: 343-2370 sam.scott@starnewsonline.com ***************************************************************** 34 BBC NEWS: Warning over nuclear black market Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007, 11:50 GMT 12:50 UK Mr Hibbs obtained centrifuge blueprints on the black market Illegal networks selling nuclear technology to the highest bidder on the black market are posing a greater threat than ever, an expert has warned. A speaker at non-proliferation talks in Washington said technology essential for enriching uranium was now freely available on the black market. Others said that efforts to tackle the problem were tepid and in disarray. Crucial information Mark Hibbs, an editor with the journal Nucleonics Week and one of the world's most prominent experts in the field, told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace conference that barriers to nuclear technology had broken down significantly. He said he had been able to obtain blueprints for a type of centrifuge dating from the 1960s that had taken European scientists decades to develop. The design had been stolen by Pakistan in 1974 and was subsequently marketed by AQ Khan, the disgraced nuclear scientist who supplied his expertise to Libya, North Korea and Iran. Our correspondent says that despite the unmasking of the AQ Khan network, the whole issue has faded from the non-proliferation agenda. Mr Hibbs said the information was now out there and could be bought by anyone with sufficient funds. He added that the black market was constantly shifting to keep ahead of international investigators. He also warned that the problem of nuclear smuggling might become worse as the demand around the world for civil nuclear power outstrips the ability of legitimate suppliers to meet the demand. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 35 BBC NEWS: Security alert at nuclear agency Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007, 15:30 GMT 16:30 UK A security alert was sparked at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) headquarters in Cumbria with the discovery of a suspect package. Three mailroom workers at the West Lakes Business Park site in Whitehaven were isolated when unidentified grains were found in a package on Wednesday. A cordon was set up by the emergency services while police officers took the substance away for laboratory tests. The NDA said it was reviewing security procedures as a result of the alert. The site's 124 workforce have been told they can now work normally. We are happy our security measures worked well, but we will review these in case any lessons can be learned NDA spokesman At least 20 firefighters, along with police and two ambulance crews were on standby for more than five hours as the situation was assessed. Cumbria Police declared the situation "low risk" at about 1500 BST. An NDA spokesman said: "Three staff were isolated as a precaution and were reassured by ambulance staff. They are fit and well, but have been told to seek advice should their health change in the near future. "The alert sparked when a suspicious substance was discovered in an envelope early on Wednesday. "We are waiting for a helicopter to bring in a specialist team to take the substance away for testing. "We are happy our security measures worked well, but we will review these in case any lessons can be learned." A Cumbria Police spokeswoman said an investigation into the incident was ongoing and the substance would be examined in due course. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 36 IAEA: IAEA to Assist China and Qatar on Nuclear Security Arrangements Part of Wider Plan to Help Member States in Nuclear Security Arena Staff Report 26 June 2007 Yang Dazhu, Director General of the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) and Tomihiro Taniguchi, IAEA´s Deputy Director General and Head of Department of Nuclear Safety and Security signing the "practical cooperation arrangement" between the two parties. (Photo: D. Calma/IAEA) The IAEA has recently signed two "practical cooperation arrangements" with China and Qatar aimed at assisting the two countries to develop their nuclear security regimes. According to the terms of the arrangements, the IAEA will cooperate with and support China and Qatar to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of nuclear security in a number of areas. This will include: * Advising the two Member States on physical protection measures for nuclear facilities; * Helping to provide equipment for the prevention and detection of criminal acts involving nuclear and other radioactive material; and * Providing information related to illicit trafficking and other unauthorised activities. The arrangements also include the possibility for the IAEA to provide nuclear security consultation, advisory missions, training and assistance in response to nuclear or radiological security incidents if requested. In addition, the Agency will help develop cooperation among various national authorities. As part of the arrangement signed with China, the IAEA and the China Atomic Energy Authority (CAEA) intend to work together to enhance nuclear security arrangements for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. The arrangements signed with China and Qatar cover activities which are part of the IAEA´s plan, known as "IAEA Nuclear Security Plan for 2006-2009", to assist Member States in building and implementing better nuclear security regimes. The plan´s objective is to achieve improved worldwide security of nuclear and other radioactive material in use, storage and transport, and of associated facilities, by supporting Member States in their efforts to establish, maintain and sustain effective national nuclear security regimes. The arrangement with the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves of Qatar was signed on 8 June while that with CAEA was signed on 13 June. Both arrangements were signed at the IAEA´s headquarters in Vienna. The arrangement signed with the CAEA also calls for the two parties to cooperate in the development and upgrading of a CAEA-IAEA Joint Training Centre, allowing it to serve as a regional training centre for physical protection and nuclear material accountancy and control. IAEA assistance and technical support to Member States in the field of nuclear security has taken on various forms in the past years. For example, in 2004 the Agency assisted Greece with the implementation of a nuclear security plan for the Athens Olympic Games. In 2006, it signed a practical cooperation arrangement with Pakistan and, more recently, the IAEA signed an arrangement with Brazil relating to the security of the 15th Pan-American Games taking place in Rio de Janeiro on 13-29 July 2007. The IAEA also has an on-going agreement with France covering the field of nuclear security dating back to 2005. See Story Resources for more information. Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: ***************************************************************** 37 The Hindu: `Radiation monitoring protocol' for Nimitiz visit Wednesday, June 27, 2007 : 1830 Hrs New Delhi, June 27 (PTI): With fears being raked up of radiation hazards from one of the world's largest nuclear powered aircraft carriers, USS Nimitz, the government today said a "stringent radiation monitoring protocol" is in place for the warship's visit to Chennai later this week. "A standing environmental safety committee has carried out a detailed survey of the Chennai port and cleared the anchorage of USS Nimitz from the radition hazard point of view," a defence ministry spokesman said here. Noting that a radition safety contingency plan is already in place, spokesman Sithansu Kar said experts from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have set up radiation monitoring laboratories on ships for frequent monitoring of water and air samples during the course of the four-day visit of the warship. "The notion that USS Nimitz will dock at Chennai without any supervision or monitoring by the government (which is) being built up in certain segments is totally misplaced," the spokesman said. He said a "thorough environmental check" is carried out each time any nuclear-powered warship or submarine is berthed near Indian waters. Citing instances, the spokesman said when the Indian Navy conducted the international fleet review six years ago, a standard environmental check was carried out after the French nuclear submarine Perle berthed in Mumbai from February 15 to 20, 2001. "It is part of our built-in standard operating procedure and for this an environmental safety committee under the stewardship of the crisis management group and crisis management cell, comprising scientists, is in place," he said. Elaborating on security and safety measures undertaken during such visits, the spokesman said the environment safety committee is intimated by the defence ministry and specialist teams proceed to the port of call before the arrival of the warship to carry out safety surveys. Other safety measures undertaken on such occasions include allowing the movement of nuclear-powered ships only during daylight and in good visibility with escort tugs in attendance, not allowing any ship to berth within a 200-metre radius of nuclear-powered vessels and asking ships berthed within 600 metres to be on standby to move away at short notice. Only authorised personnel are allowed to enter the zone and the local population is not permitted within the anchorage zone of the nuclear-powered warships, he said. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 38 The Guardian: Hawaiian activists fight US military bases The Guardian 27 June, 2007 Two Hawaiian land rights activists visited Sydney in June and spoke to The Guardian about their struggles against US militarisation of Hawaii and their support for protests against the Talisman Sabre war games in Shoalwater Bay, Queensland. Terri Keko’olani and Leimaile Quitevis are Indigenous leaders from the island of O’ahu, Hawai’i. They are both long-time activists who have campaigned tirelessly US militarisation, environmental destruction and the decimation of their traditional Hawai’ian culture. The Guardian: Can you tell us about your organisation? The group that we are representing is DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina — a network of communities and organisations in Hawai’i, which oppose the occupation of Hawai’i and are opposing the expansion of military forces in Hawai’i. It is a network of organisations and individuals working to counter the US military’s negative social, cultural and environmental impacts in Hawai’i. In 1898 our country was an independent nation. It was called the Kingdom of Hawai’i. In 1898 the United States participated in the overthrow of our government. Since that time we have been under occupation by the US military in our own homeland. As soon as the takeover took place the military took root and started to grow. One of the first places that was strategic was Pearl Harbour, which we call Ke Awalau o Pu’uloa It was the hugest fishery, in the island of O’ahu. The US used possession not only as a commercial port but as a military port. They used our islands as a calling station for war. Once the Spanish were kicked out the Americans then had a war with the Filipinos and they sustained that war from our islands. World War II came along and their ships are there in Pearl Harbour. The Japanese attacked and then several ships went down, big fires, and today Pearl Harbour is one of the most contaminated naval sites in the world — there are about 800 contaminated sites in the Harbour. The US military owns about a quarter of the island of O’ahu and it has control over it — the army, the Marine Corps, the navy and the marines. Since 9/11 there has been the biggest build-up of military expansion. Right now the army has proposed bringing in 300 Striker 20-ton tanks and there is a very big campaign among people to stop the Strikers from being stationed in our islands. We are really experiencing a lot of pressure and also a lot of money is coming in to expand not only the bases but life on the bases. The army intends to seize an additional 25,000 acres of land on O’ahu. The US military in Hawai’i is the largest polluter of our land. In total there are about 1,000 identified contaminated sites. These are some of the messages we are trying to convey to the people of Australia — if you allow the US military to come into your country, which is a sovereign country, you are allowing this type of experience. It’s no good. It’s going to bring a lot of toxicity, a lot of contamination. You will not be able to access these lands. We had an experience with the army as well. They don’t tell you the truth. I personally asked the army whether they used depleted uranium. They said no. But just a year ago we found in army communications and memos, a memo which stated that they had used depleted uranium in an army training area. Our movement in Hawai’i as such, has been non-violent. We have an issue of taking non-violent resistance but we have not gone to the streets. We are very firm and we are moving forward to reclaim and to reinstate our government that represents our interests as native people. Hawai’i now is under US occupation. We are a state of the United States. But there is an undercurrent of native people in the midst of nation-building right now. There are people who have already had plans to reinstate the Kingdom of Hawai’i. There are people who are thinking along the lines of creating a new constitution. The main idea I want to get across is that our people are moving forward in building a nation. When it comes to the militarisation of our lands we are totally opposed to it. There are people in our community who were for it because they believed that it would provide us with income and they became addicted to that kind of money. The military economy is not sustainable to an environment at all. These are some of the contradictions we are talking to our people about. We have to get out of a dependency on a military economy. The Guardian: How has emigration impacted upon Hawai’i? White people have a lot of land. We had in our history missionaries who came from the east coast of America — they were American missionaries, Calvinists who settled and actually taught our chiefs their economic system and language. They translated our language into a written form and gave us Bibles. We have missionary families who actually became capitalists. Their missions were cut off from getting funds and they had to learn how to survive in our country without the mission funding. So they emigrated, some of them married but they began to actually help put the laws together for land ownership and eventually became the land owners. So they had a huge part to play in the imbalance that took place in our system — introducing private property, registering private property and holding a lot of that private property such as running sugar and pineapple plantations." The Guardian: What is the meaning of Land to the Indigenous population? We are the land. There is really no separation. When you look at the lot of the places where the bases are — that’s where some of our most secret sacred sites are too. There is no separation. Our elders, our ancestors are buried in that land which gives us guidance to do the things that we need to do. A lot of it has been damaged and destroyed. At the same time we have a very strong movement to rebuild things that have been damaged by reclaiming our ancient fish ponds. The two biggest challenges are the developers and the military. We have a strong will and a lot of people are committed to the land and do the work that is needed in our communities. The Guardian: Has this been a long struggle? Before the 1900s, the land Commissioners mostly came from missionary families. Land commissioners held a very important position and were in charge of all the land titles. So there was much arguing with the titles and the deeds and the land commission awards for each lot of the land. Missionaries actually introduced the concept of private ownership to our society. Prior to that there was no such concept. A lot of our culture today is based on a communal idea, not only of the land but of our society. It’s something similar to the [Indigenous] people here — you cannot own land. It’s part of who you are. There is always a conflict between native land and environment and ideas that were introduced from a Western capitalist point of view. Even though we have that part of our history where there was conflict, our chiefs in the 1800s knowing that we were getting pushed into a very modern world … began to think about how they were going to use their lands in order to help our people. There were chiefs who put aside their estates for the benefit of our people. For example, there was a Bernise Pourheepship, she put aside her lands for the benefit of education of native Hawai’in children. Luna Leelo his lands for the elderly; Hono Colondily for orphans; … Today there is a movement in Hawai’i by right-wing Americans to break the estate saying that we are ALL Americans now and that these estates are based on ethnicity of a people should not be legal. Hawai’ian homelands are lands that are set aside for the use of our people. In order to qualify you have to have 50 per cent blood, there is a blood content. You have to prove through birth certificates etc that you have 50 per cent — not 49 per cent. For many of us, we definitely want to keep these estates alive but at the same time we realise that our goals are higher and that is to reclaim our actual government as a nation. The Guardian: Can you please tell more about your experiences? When we are going to community meetings and I tell them about the possible contamination of depleted uranium and other toxins, people are appalled. Nobody knew. In the beginning they don’t really want to hear anything because they have had a long history of association with the military. Now people are just starting to open their eyes. In November 2006, some of the military contaminants found in O’ahu, Hawai’i’s largest island included: depleted uranium, phosgene, TNT, lead and trichloroethylene. Ongoing military expansion in Hawai’i also currently threatens a number of traditional cultural and sacred sites including the birthplace of elders and ancient temples. Fires, toxic chemicals, unexploded ordnances and destruction of endangered species on the islands are a major crisis. More than 25,000 acres of land is also earmarked to be seized at Phakuloa and Honouliuli. Plans to base hundreds of new troops, cargo planes, marines’ bases, missile launchers and sale of public land to private developers concerns the group. The DMZ group notes that The US assumes it has control and domination, but the First Peoples do not agree. The unique identities and sovereignties of the world’s peoples are just open spaces for the projection of US military force, to make way for WalMart, McDonalds and MTV. The experiences of Indigenous peoples vis-ŕ-vis the militarised empire are multiple and unique. We are not singular, but plural; we obtain our life and very existence from specificities of our particular ancestors, our particular gods, our named and worshipped sacred sites. When Talisman Sabre 07 takes place here in Shoalwater Bay … all of it is really being directed from Hawai’i — from the US Pacific Command (PacCom). PacCom is the oldest and largest of the US unified commands. It was established in Hawai’i in 1947 and its HQ are on an island called Camp Smith. The PacCom area of responsibility stretches over more than 50 per cent of the earth’s surface … from the west coast of North America to the east coast of Africa, from Alaska to Antarctica including Hawai’i. The two Indigenous leaders concluded their remarks by stating: WE have a right as native people to clean water, clean land, clean ocean and clean air in order to survive. ***************************************************************** 39 Salt Lake Tribune: Downtown Salt Lake City well found tainted with rocket fuel additive Levels of the contaminant are very low; its health impacts are hotly debated The Salt Lake Tribune Article Last Updated: 06/27/2007 06:19:29 AM MDT Angela Roberts of West Jordan fills up containers at the Artesian Wells Park in Salt Lake City on 500 East and 800 South. Roberts and her three daughters, ages 2 to 7, drink the water regularly. A popular downtown artesian well is mildly contaminated with perchlorate, an additive to rocket and jet fuel whose health impacts are hotly debated. The well, at the corner of 500 East and 800 South in Salt Lake City, has been cherished as a pure water source for more than a century. How its water might have become contaminated is a mystery, said Florence Reynolds, water quality and treatment manager for the Salt Lake City public utilities office. "We don't want to cause a panic," she said, noting that the contamination is roughly equal to four drops of perchlorate in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The Salt Lake Valley Health Department has ruled out posting any health warnings at the site. "The Health Department does not feel there is a public health risk," said Pam Davenport, a department spokeswoman. Regulation of perchlorate has been controversial for years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a guideline of 24.5 parts per billion for drinking water, which is considered a virtually safe dose over a lifetime. The chemical is an endocrine disrupter, which means it alters hormone levels. Perchlorate tampers with the thyroid, which regulates metabolism in adults and may interfere with proper mental development in fetuses and small children, according to the state Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste. It also may cause thyroid tumors. Two water tests at the Artesian Wells Park showed levels about 4.6 parts per billion, Reynolds said. At levels that low, there is no evidence and no suggestion from the EPA or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that there is any harm, Davenport added. Jim Gieber has been drinking water from Artesian Wells Park for more than 10 years. On Tuesday, he was filling several 5-gallon bottles, because, he said, it tastes better than the water in Bountiful where he lives. "I'll take my chances," Gieber said. "I trust it. I've never gotten sick or anything." West Jordan resident Angela Roberts said she worries more about the fluoride cities use to spike their water supplies than about perchlorate. She visits the well about twice a month to fill two dozen 1-gallon water bottles. She and her three daughters, ages 2 to 7, use it for drinking and eating. Christian Heap, who also was filling blue water bottles Tuesday, said, "I think I'm going to trust Mother Earth over [the city's] pipes." Some states have set the allowed levels for perchlorate at 200 ppb, said Reynolds. On the opposite, conservative end of the spectrum, the state of Massachusetts has a standard of 1 ppb. The Department of Agriculture recently notified the city of the contamination. The state agency had embarked on an extensive study of perchlorate in Utah's water last year, after finding traces of the chemical in milk that reached 6.22 ppb. The city has not typically tested for perchlorate at the Artesian Wells Park, Reynolds said. It didn't seem necessary since there are no military operations nearby, no gunpowder, fireworks, highway flares, air bags, leatherworks, rubber, paint manufacturing, enamel production or other common sources of perchlorate. "It's really weird it would show up in a downtown area," she said. The city is considering what kind of notices to post at the well to alert people about the contamination. ***************************************************************** 40 Niagara Gazette: ENVIRONMENT: Feds, residents battle for info Niagara Falls, NY Published: June 26, 2007 11:04 pm Advisory board sends letter to district commander of U.S. Army Corps. By Aaron Besecker/beseckera@gnnewspaper.com Niagara Gazette Appointed community volunteers continue to push a federal agency for access to information being used in an investigation of radiological and chemical contamination left by the Defense and Energy departments. Representatives on the Restoration Advisory Board for the former Lake Ontario Ordnance Works, in a recent letter to federal officials, said they believe they have been denied the chance to provide input in the process. “The (advisory board) and the community at large, through legal definitions, are prohibited from being any part of the review and development of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans and decisions...,” board officials wrote in a May 29 letter to the commander of the Corps’ Buffalo District, Lt. Col. John S. Hurley. Officials from the Army Corps have indicated they want to use the law to prevent public interference in the planned cleanup, according to the letter signed by Walter D. Garrow, chair of the board’s Steering Committee, and Joseph A. Gardella Jr., co-vice chair. Advisory board officials also sent copies of the letter to elected representatives on the federal, state and local levels. The former ordnance works site was used in weapons production in the World War II era, and is now used to store radioactive wastes from the development of atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project. The land, located in Porter and Lewiston, is the subject of two ongoing investigations by the U.S. Army Corps. Agency officials said they are concerned by the letter and respectfully disagree with the board’s characterization of the Corps’ efforts. “The issues raised in the letter indicate that our efforts and accomplishments have done little to reduce the (board’s) pre-existing distrust of the Corps team and the government agencies working at the former LOOW site,” reads a portion of a prepared statement from the U.S. Army Corps. Corps officials said their public statement was an interim response to the advisory board’s letter. They are in the process of writing a formal response and seek more details, federal officials said. Advisory board officials believe their requests for data and input are crucial now because of the upcoming release of two key reports in the investigation. This isn’t the first time the advisory board has challenged the Army Corps about accepting input. Nor is it the first time the advisory board has written to the district commander with concerns about access to information. The issue last peaked in fall 2006 when Garrow sent an e-mail to Hurley requesting more access. Hurley then sent a three-page letter with 11 pages of attachments in response. During a Steering Committee meeting Tuesday, Gardella said he believes the Corps preventing input into the cleanup puts into question the very existence of the advisory board. Without access to information from the investigation, board members can’t offer recommendations to the U.S. Army Corps that would be in the public’s interest, he said. “What’s the point of the RAB if we can’t get information to the public?” Gardella said. Contact reporter Aaron Besecker at 282-2311, ext. 2263. © 2007, Niagara Gazette 310 Niagara Street; Niagara Falls, NY 14302 Phone: (716) 282-2311 Fax: (716) 286-3895 Email news tips and comments ***************************************************************** 41 JOGJCC: More samples taken in plutonium probe John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier: Published: 27 June, 2007 SCIENTISTS at Dounreay are working overtime following the discovery of plutonium in the manhole of a groundwater drain at the site. The UK Atomic Energy Authority has been wrong-footed by the chance find during a routine scan of the lowest-lying part of the former fast-reactor complex. It is the first discovery of plutonium outwith the controlled area of the plant, where special measures are taken to protect workers. Three of the survey team and seven other workers are undergoing biological checks to establish if they accidentally absorbed any of the potentially lethal substance. Scientists have still to establish how much plutonium was present down the manhole, which has been cordoned off. The area is close to a series of current and defunct waste facilities. Of particular concern is that the manhole discharges onto the nearby foreshore. The UKAEA is trying to establish whether a pathway existed for the plutonium to leach into a discharge pipe which leads from the drain. A site spokeswoman said the survey team had been checking for rogue spots of radioactive caesium-137. Previous checks have found that up to five per cent of the site is contaminated from this source. But the team, who were not wearing any protective clothing, also had alpha radiation detectors which went off when they checked the manhole. David Cairns (second from left), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, visiting the Dounreay shaft with John Whitfield (left), the UKAEA's shaft isolation project manager; John Thurso, MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross; and John Lawes (right), of the NDA. The spokeswoman said: "We are still in investigation mode and it will take a further two days before we get a full picture. We were very surprised to discover the presence of plutonium. We have been busy taking further samples and we have put in containment the area around the manhole." Plutonium is particularly harmful if it becomes airborne and is ingested into the human body. * David Cairns, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, has visited Dounreay to learn more about the decommissioning programme. Mr Cairns, who toured the site and was given an update on progress by staff, said later: "It has been very encouraging to come here and see the way in which the legacy of the Dounreay project is being transformed through an ambitious programme of environmental restoration. We should be proud that Scotland is leading the way in the remediation of former nuclear facilities." He added: "Dounreay is a key driver of the local economy, employing over 2000 staff directly or indirectly. I am pleased to see the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is involved in a number of programmes and initiatives that seek to address the future of the local economy and community long after this decommissioning project has ended." Randall Bargelt of the NDA said: "The minister has seen first-hand the challenges we face in tackling the biggest decommissioning project in Scotland. We have a committed workforce managed on site by our contractor UKAEA, and the NDA is equally committed to working with local organisations to support the area's regeneration." All content copyright 2007 Scottish Provincial Press Ltd. ***************************************************************** 42 Financial News: USEC Selects BWXT to Perform American Centrifuge Manufacturing Work Press Release Source: USEC Inc. USEC Selects BWXT to Perform American Centrifuge Manufacturing Work Wednesday June 27, 8:00 am ET - Transition from Boeing to BWXT Will Not Affect American Centrifuge Plant Schedule - BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--USEC Inc. (NYSE:USU - News) announced today that it has selected BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT) to perform manufacturing work in Oak Ridge, Tenn., for USEC's American Centrifuge uranium enrichment program. BWXT will manufacture components for centrifuge machines to be used in USEC's American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Previously this work was expected to be done by The Boeing Company. Boeing is currently working with the city of Oak Ridge to make its existing facilities available for USEC's centrifuge manufacturing. USEC selected BWXT because of its extensive experience with the design and cost-effective manufacturing of nuclear components and classified machinery. The transition, scheduled to occur in late 2007, is not expected to affect demonstration of the Lead Cascade or the deployment schedule for the American Centrifuge Plant. "USEC is excited to have a company of BWXT's caliber join our team to take over the manufacturing work that Boeing has been performing for the American Centrifuge program. We are working side-by-side with both companies to make sure we have a seamless transition from Boeing to BWXT," said John K. Welch, USEC president and chief executive officer. "BWXT is pleased to join USEC in its American Centrifuge uranium enrichment program," said John Fees, chief executive officer of The Babcock & Wilcox Companies (BWXT is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Babcock & Wilcox Companies). "We are looking forward to providing them with the same high-level of service and products that we have provided to the nuclear industry for more than 50 years." USEC has been working with Boeing on possible transition plans since Boeing decided to move its commercial airplane parts fabrication and assembly work from Oak Ridge to other Boeing sites. Boeing Oak Ridge has been procuring, manufacturing and assembling machine components for USEC's American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility in Piketon since late 2004. The American Centrifuge Plant will use U.S. gas centrifuge technology based on a design originally developed by the U.S. Department of Energy but with design, material and manufacturing improvements. USEC has been testing and manufacturing individual machine components at its Centrifuge Technology Center and K-1600 facilities in Oak Ridge since 2005. USEC expects to operate a Lead Cascade of centrifuge machines in the American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility in Piketon this summer. The Company is working toward beginning commercial plant operations in late 2009 and having approximately 11,500 machines deployed in 2012, which would provide about 3.8 million separative work units (SWU) of production based on current estimates of machine output and plant availability. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a construction and operating license for the American Centrifuge Plant in April and construction began in May. The American Centrifuge technology is modular by design and plant output can be expanded as the demand for nuclear fuel increases. The NRC's May 2006 Environmental Impact Statement evaluated the modular expansion of the plant to about double its production capability. The American Centrifuge Plant will employ over 400 people at the plant site in Piketon and create hundreds of additional highly skilled manufacturing jobs in the United States. As America's only commercial uranium enrichment facility using U.S. centrifuge technology, the American Centrifuge Plant will play an important role in America's energy security. Enrichment is the process by which the concentration of the fissionable uranium isotope, U-235, is increased in order to make fuel for nuclear power plants. USEC Inc., a global energy company, is a leading supplier of enriched uranium fuel for commercial nuclear power plants. BWXT, headquartered in Lynchburg, Va. and a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR - News), has a long history in nuclear manufacturing and operations, both in the U.S. Department of Energy and at its unique, highly secure, privately owned and operated nuclear manufacturing and laboratory facilities. Supplying the U.S. government and commercial clients with nuclear products and services for over 50 years, BWXT has unparalleled experience in nuclear safeguards and security. BWXT is responsible for the operations of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration's Pantex Plant in Texas and Y-12 National Security Complex in Tenn., along with nuclear operations at the Idaho National Laboratory. BWXT also has a significant management and oversight role at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a member of the managing team, the Los Alamos National Security, LLC. This news release contains forward-looking statements (within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that involve risks and uncertainty. For USEC, particular risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: the success of the demonstration and deployment of our American Centrifuge technology, including our ability to meet our target cost estimate and schedule for the American Centrifuge plant and our ability to secure required external financial support; changes to, or termination of, our contracts with the U.S. government and changes in U.S. government priorities and the availability of government funding; the competitive environment for our products and services; and other risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements except as required by law. Contact: USEC Inc. Media: Linda M. Johnson, 301-564-3418 Investors: Steven Wingfield, 301-564-3354 or BWXT Media: Regina Carter, 434-522-5158 Amy Carter, 434-522-5753 Source: USEC Inc. Copyright © 2007 Business Wire. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 Huntsville Forester: Land of lakes, trees and ... radioactive waste? Jun 27, 2007 Last week the Canadian Shield along northeastern Ontario and Muskoka became the prime candidate for the location of a toxic dump for the waste generated by the nuclear industry — an industry that seems to hold the purse strings of decision-makers in Ottawa who care more about planning for their own comfortable retirement than the fate of future generations. How else can we reconcile the fact that the organization tasked with the creation of a nuclear fuel waste management plan is comprised solely of nuclear industry representatives such as Ontario Power Generation, Hydro QuĂ©bec and New Brunswick Hydro? Their recommendation, to permanently build an underground repository for the radioactive nuclear waste, was quietly passed last week.   On the ministry website, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn is quoted as saying, “Today we are taking steps toward a safe, long-term plan for nuclear power in Canada for future generations.” What about phasing out our use of nuclear energy, which only makes up about 15 per cent of electricity output? What about investing in safe and renewable energy sources? The nuclear industry would have us believe it’s the cleanest and cheapest form of energy, but when you consider the fact that we have to bury its byproduct in a $24-billion mausoleum deep in the bowels of the earth and cross our fingers that we don’t become the next Chernobyl, the words “cheap” and “clean” take on new meaning. At the end of 2004 the waste created by nuclear reactor sites across this country amounted to 36,000 tonnes of uranium, waste that is said to remain dangerously active for thousands of years. Now we have our federal natural resources minister ushering in what amounts to a nuclear renaissance with the promise of more nuclear waste to come. Given Lunn’s promotion of the mining and natural resources industry, the nuclear portfolio ought to be removed from his grasp and squarely placed on the lap of Canada’s environment and health ministers to rationalize how taking the waste from existing nuclear storage facilities at the reactor sites and shipping it through our 400 series highways to the north is going to benefit Ontarians. We will not become the urinal for the nuclear industry or a government that doesn’t have the foresight or imagination to put the power of the tax dollar behind safe, renewable energy sources and a culture of conservation. Speaking of the health minister, where is Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement in all of this? Why haven’t we heard him fighting for his constituents? Will he toe the party line or will he fight for this riding and the future of all Canadians? T.d.V. Copyright © 2007, The Huntsville Forester. 11 Main Street West, Huntsville, Ontario P1H 2C5 Phone: 705-789-5541 • Fax: 705-789-9381 ***************************************************************** 44 Huntsville Forester: Feds considering the burial of nuclear waste in our backyard by Keely Grasser Jun 27, 2007 Transporting millions of bundles of nuclear waste then burying them deep underground, possibly in northeastern Ontario or Muskoka, is not paying our future generations justice, says Nipissing-Temiskaming MP Anthony Rota. “We’re looking thousands of years into the future,” he said, adding that “we’re talking about something with a half-life in the thousands of years.” Rota was responding to the federal government’s recent announcement that used fuel bundles from Canada’s nuclear power reactors will eventually be buried deep underground, possibly in the Canadian Shield, in a plan that will take decades to bring to fruition. The government’s announcement of the long-term waste disposal plan came 18 months after it received a final report from the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO). In 2002, the federal government passed the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, which required waste owners to set aside funding for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel and to establish the NWMO. The NWMO’s board of directors includes representatives from Ontario Power Generation and the Ontario Power Authority. The act also required the NWMO to prepare a study of options for the long-term management of used nuclear fuel, to recommend an option based on their study and then to implement the program selected by the government. The NWMO, after many public consultations, ended up recommending what they called an Adaptive Phased Management (APM) approach. It states in its report that APM is a responsible path that intends to meet rigorous standards of safety and security for people and the environment and is grounded in concepts of continuous learning and adaptive management. In a release, Conservative natural resources minister Gary Lunn said APM will ensure the waste is monitored and retrievable. The APM plan has three phases. The first will see the maintenance of the used fuel at the reactor sites, while preparing for the facility in the willing and informed host community. The second is determining if an interim optional step of shallow underground storage at the central site is warranted after transportation. The third is placement of the fuel underground, with ongoing monitoring and the possibility of retrieval after it’s buried. Under the Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, the federal government will provide oversight to ensure public interest is protected as the NWMO implements the plan. The plan sets out that the bundles be stored deep within a section of the Canadian Shield or in Ordovician sedimentary rock basins. However, the NWMO’s report said that some questions were raised during consultations about the sedimentary rock option, since it hasn’t been studied as thoroughly as the Canadian Shields’ appropriateness for nuclear storage. “And we’re right in the middle of the Canadian Shield,” worried Rota. In a sample timeline, the NWMO gives a 30-year timeframe for each of the three stages, with extended monitoring beyond that. Stage one sets out, as an example, three decades for site design, licensing and construction. The NWMO’s report said that the site selection process should focus on the provinces that are directly involved in the nuclear field cycle. There are 18 functional nuclear reactors currently in Canada. There is one each in New Brunswick and Quebec and 16 in Ontario. The reactors are near Pickering, Darlington and the Bruce Peninsula. Presently, Canada’s used nuclear fuel — estimated to consist of 1.6 million bundles as of 2001 — is safely housed at the reactor sites. According to the NWMO’s website, these bundles could fill a soccer field 1.3 metres high. According to the plan, the bundles will be transported to the long-term disposal site when ready. The NWMO’s report doesn’t specify what transportation method will be chosen. The NWMO report states that “the vulnerability of the used nuclear fuel is assumed to increase in proportion to the number of trip-kilometres. Therefore, there is a greater security risk during transportation for sites located longer distances from the majority of used nuclear fuel (i.e. longer distances from southern Ontario).” Included in the NWMO’s report is a table of geologically-suitable locations for a facility within Canada. There are two locations in Saskatchewan listed, but the majority are within Ontario and Quebec. Both Muskoka and northeastern Ontario are named as suitable under both Canadian Shield and sedimentary rock headings. Rota said he has worries about a facility being local, but his concerns reach out farther than his own riding. “People say â€not in my backyard,’” he said. “But it’s in someone’s backyard.” Rota also said that transporting the waste, though he said it’s normally safe, is something affected areas will want to look at. Attempts to contact Parry Sound-Muskoka MP Tony Clement for a comment on parts of his riding being named were unsuccessful. Rota said he believes the nuclear waste should continue to be stored at reactors until a better solution than burying it is found. “It’s about future generations and long-terms effects,” he added. “It’s not just about Canadians. It’s the human race and civilization.” Rota said he’ll see what comes up with the extensive consultation and implementation process that will unfold and will deal with the issues as they come. Copyright © 2007, The Huntsville Forester. 11 Main Street West, Huntsville, Ontario P1H 2C5 Phone: 705-789-5541 • Fax: 705-789-9381 Contact Us! ***************************************************************** 45 BBC NEWS: Police video tactics cause dismay Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 June 2007, 09:46 GMT 10:46 UK The Sellafield plant employs thousands in west Cumbria Police have been accused of intimidating a group of protesters who staged a religious service outside Sellafield nuclear plant. Local councillor Peter Watson claims Cumbria Police took an excessive number of pictures of the demonstrators, who included children. The members of peace group Interfaith gathered at the plant to call for an end to nuclear power. Mr Watson, of Copeland Borough Council, said he attended the demonstration as an observer and did not agree with the protesters' calls to end nuclear power production. 'Negative impression' He said: "I was really dismayed when I saw this group of people being photographed by a large number of police officers with "crime scene" written on their backs. "What made me feel most unhappy was that the officers were creating such a negative and defensive impression of the nuclear industry which so many people in this area depend upon for their livelihood." The group, which is marching to London, staged the protest on Friday. A spokesman for Cumbria Police said the use of photographic equipment was standard procedure and that the inclusion of any children in photographs would be purely incidental. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 46 Platts: Spot uranium price unchanged; delivery disagreements block deals 2007-06-26 Washington (Platts)--26Jun2007 The spot price of uranium remained stable over the past week, with both TradeTech and Ux Consulting keeping their prices the same as the previous week. TradeTech kept its price at $138/pound U3O8, and Ux Consulting kept its price at $136/lb U3O8. TradeTech said that two companies that had been auctioning off uranium in June decided not to sell. It said both sellers wanted to make delivery in June, while prospective buyers wanted to take delivery several months out. Ux Consulting said in its weekly report the spot market reflects a fairly even balance between supply and demand. Some market analysts see the possibility that during a quiet summer, the price could fall slightly if a seller needs to complete a quick transaction. The Platts NuclearFuel range this week is $130-$145/lb U3O8. --Mike Knapik, newsdesk@platts.com Copyright © 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 47 ReviewJournal.com: YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Waste site request cut Jun. 27, 2007 Senate panel slashes nuclear repository's 2008 budget by $50 million By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- A Senate subcommittee voted Tuesday to cut $50 million from Yucca Mountain spending in 2008, but its chairman said the Department of Energy still should be able to meet the project's goals for the coming year. The $444.5 million Yucca Mountain budget proposed by the energy and water appropriations subcommittee amounts to a 10 percent slash in the Bush administration request for the fiscal year that begins Oct 1. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the panel "tried to get as close as we could" to the request while setting aside some savings for other needs in a $32 billion bill that also funds a variety of DOE, Bureau of Reclamation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers programs. On the Yucca Mountain Project, "we took a look at the president's request and talked to the folks about what was necessary," said Dorgan, who became chairman earlier this year. The bill "provides sufficient funding for (the Department of Energy) to continue down the road to licensing," Dorgan said. "We cut about 50 million, that leaves them with a fairly substantial amount of money." The action on Tuesday further shaped the 2008 budget bill for Yucca Mountain, the site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas that is planned to be the nation's repository for highly radioactive nuclear waste. The budget bill faces further Senate votes, and also must be reconciled later this year with a House energy spending bill. The House bill fully funds Yucca Mountain, suggesting the final budget may be relatively close to the DOE request unless opponents like Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., force deeper cuts before final passage. A leading critic of the "nuclear dump," Reid served as a chairman and also a ranking Democrat on the energy and water subcommittee until this year when he became Senate Majority leader and left the Appropriations Committee. He maintains influence over Yucca matters although it was not clear what input he had on the new spending bill. Reid said the bill will serve the purpose of further crippling the project. Yucca Mountain spending has been cut by a cumulative $715 million in the past six years, including a $50 million cut last year. The declining budgets have been forcing the Energy Department to postpone work on key segments, close public outreach offices and restrict access to the site. Project director Ward Sproat testified to Congress earlier this year that the Energy Department would need full funding to keep the program on a "best case" schedule to begin accepting waste before 2020. The department has set a June 30, 2008 deadline to file a repository license application. "The Energy Department has said that any cut would be fatal to the dump so I am glad that we were able to cut funding by another $50 million," Reid said. "It is clear that our cuts are working and that the proposed dump will never be built." Energy Department officials said they would not discuss budget implications. "We look forward to working with Congress to ensure full funding," spokesman Allen Benson said. Other Yucca critics said they were hoping for a deeper cut. "It certainly is disappointing from our standpoint. We would have liked to have seen the numbers quite a bit lower if not eliminated entirely," said Bob Loux, director of Nevada's nuclear waste office. "I am disappointed. Any money that is spent on Yucca Mountain is a waste," said Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, an advocacy group. Pro-repository lobbyists and officials said they were pleasantly surprised. Rumors in the spring hinted at slim funding for Yucca, prompting the Nuclear Energy Institute and others to launch a lobbying push. "This is going to be a haircut, which is better than a scalping or a crew cut, let's put it that way," said David Blee, a consultant to several pro-Yucca groups. Leave Your Comment 0 Reader Comments Terms & Conditions The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor. Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 ***************************************************************** 48 Salt Lake Tribune: Court won't act on challenge to Goshutes' nuclear-waste permit The Associated Press Article Last Updated: 06/26/2007 12:57:48 PM MDT Posted: 12:39 PM- WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court declined to act on a challenge to a license that was granted for nuclear-waste storage in Utah's west desert. Writing for a three-judge panel, Judge Merrick Garland said it would be inappropriate to act because it's uncertain whether the facility could ever be built. The Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians and a consortium of utilities last year won a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to store 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel on the tribe's reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The state and Utah's congressional delegation oppose the project. The Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have effectively blocked it by denying access to the site. The utility consortium, Private Fuel Storage LLC, has said it would take those federal agencies to court but hasn't so far, Garland said. As a result, it is "too speculative" whether the appeals court would ever need to determine whether the NRC license is valid, he said. The case was filed by some Goshute tribe members at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. ***************************************************************** 49 Los Angeles Business: Ceradyne makes $69M buy - AM PDT Wednesday, June 27, 2007 Ceradyne Inc. on Wednesday announced a deal to buy Oklahoma company EaglePicher Boron LLC for $69 million in cash. The purchase is aimed at helping Ceradyne strengthen its entry into the nuclear waste containment and other nuclear power plant related ceramic materials markets. EP Boron produces the boron isotope B10, a strong neutron absorber and used for both nuclear waste containment and nuclear power plant neutron radiation control. The company also produces complementary chemical isotopes used in the normal operation and control of nuclear power plants. The deal is expected to close within 60 days, Ceradyne said in a statment. Ceradyne (NYSE: CDN) is based in Costa Mesa and develops and markets technical ceramic products for defense, industrial, automotive and commercial applications. Contact the Editor Need Assistance? More Latest News © 2007 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors. All ***************************************************************** 50 DOE: Yucca FOIA reading room closure FR Doc E7-12414 [Federal Register: June 27, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 123)] [Notices] [Page 35226] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr27jn07-52] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Closure of Yucca Mountain Freedom of Information Act Reading Room at Las Vegas Information Center and Opening of Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Reading Room at the Pahrump Information Center AGENCY: U.S. Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of action. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) managed the Las Vegas Information Center located at 4101 B Meadows Lane, Las Vegas, Nevada. This facility housed the Yucca Mountain Project's FOIA Reading Room. On March 29, 2007, the Las Vegas Information Center, including the FOIA reading room was closed. The OCRWM reading room was relocated to the Pahrump Information Center located at 2341 E. Postal Drive, Pahrump, Nevada, in Nye County on June 18, 2007. DATES: The Pahrump Information Center OCRWM reading room opened on June 18, 2007. The reading room hours of operation are Mondays and Wednesdays, 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., Pacific Standard Time. ADDRESSES: The Pahrump Information Center is located at 2341 E. Postal Drive, Pahrump, Nevada 89048. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For general information regarding the reading room hours of operation, call 775-751-5817, or leave a message at 1-800-225-6972. Issued in Washington, DC, on June 21, 2007. Allen B. Benson, Director, Office of External Affairs, Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. [FR Doc. E7-12414 Filed 6-26-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 6450-01-P ***************************************************************** 51 WDTN: Love Canal activist to join fight against nuclear waste project Associated Press - June 27, 2007 1:35 PM ET PIKETON, Ohio (AP) - The woman who led the fight over New York's notorious Love Canal will help activists battling a proposed nuclear waste project in southern Ohio. Lois Gibbs will host a town meeting in Piketon this Saturday for residents opposing a plan to bring a nuclear waste recycling project to the area. She'll sign a petition against the proposal, which has drawn support from Governor Strickland and several members of Congress. They say it would be good for the local economy. Opponents fear the Piketon site could become a nuclear waste dump. Gibbs is the second nationally known environmental activist to join their cause, after Erin Brockovich. Information from: Mike Smith/WBEX-AM, http://www.wbex.com All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and wdtn. All Rights ***************************************************************** 52 barrow in furness: Sellafield nuke dump claim denied Published on 27/06/2007 THE government has denied that Sellafield or any site has been chosen for the long-term disposal of higher activity radioactive waste. It has also announced that it will consult on future plans on where to best house the waste. Environment Minister Ian Pearson said a public consultation would be carried out by the government into the design and running details of any proposed nuclear dumps. Mr Pearson insisted that the site selection process had not yet begun. He said: “We need to decide how a site for the geological disposal facility is chosen.” He added: “As we do that, we want to make sure that people have a chance to have their say at every stage in the process. “There is no site selection process under way at this point.” View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction, just like the printed copy at www.nwemail.co.uk/digitalcopy ***************************************************************** 53 DOE: DOE Provides up to $51.8 Million to Modernize the U.S. Electric Grid System June 27, 2007 Superconductor Research Crucial to Improving Power Delivery Equipment WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel W. Bodman today announced that DOE will provide up to $51.8 million for five cost-shared projects that will help accelerate much-needed modernization of our Nation’s electricity grid. This research will advance the development and application of high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to alleviate congestion on an electricity grid that is experiencing increased demand from consumers. Making investments to modernize our electricity grid; securing a diverse and stable supply of reliable, affordable and environmentally responsible energy; as well as increasing efficiency, are central to the Bush Administration’s effort to increase energy and economic security. “Modernizing our congested and constrained electric grid - through the development of advanced, new technologies – is vital to delivering reliable and affordable power to the American people,” Secretary Bodman said. “As demand for electricity continues to grow, we must take steps now to identify potential problems, identify solutions, and deploy new technologies to provide a secure and steady energy supply. We look forward to the success of this research and recognize it will help us realize President Bush’s goal of a more modern and efficient electricity system.” The selected projects will help advance the future generation of power delivery equipment and aid the development of a highly efficient electricity grid system for the Nation. Two of the research projects will help increase reliability and efficiency of power delivery cables, and the remaining three projects will place an emphasis on fault current limiters. DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory will manage these projects, which are expected to last two to five years. Projects will be equally cost-shared between DOE and selected teams, totaling $103.6 million in DOE/team project cost. DOE funding is expected to be allocated in Fiscal Years (FY) 2007-2012, subject to appropriations from Congress, with $10 million from FY2007, and $7 million requested in FY2008. Selection of these projects allows DOE to build on its past successes in superconductivity, which include operating two distribution-level voltage superconducting cables and utility grids. Superconductors - solid ceramic compounds that conduct electricity more efficiently than traditional copper wires - can be a key to improving the capacity, efficiency, and reliability of electric power equipment. A major challenge prior to commercialization is to develop superconductors that can operate at relatively “high” temperatures, from approximately -320 to -370 degrees Fahrenheit (50 to 77 Kelvin), and in magnetic fields from 1 to 4 Tesla. DOE’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) will oversee the research projects announced today. OE leads national efforts to modernize the electric grid; enhance the security and reliability of the energy infrastructure; and facilitate recovery from disruptions to the energy supply. Selected projects are as follows: POWER DELIVERY EQUIPMENT Southwire Company - (DOE cost share: $13.3 million) Southwire Company (Carrollton, GA) will use a 13.8-kilovolt superconducting cable to connect two existing substation sites and solve a real-world electrical load problem near downtown New Orleans. The cable will connect the LaBarre and Metaire substations, owned by Entergy Corporation of New Orleans, LA, a member of Southwire’s project team. The team also includes: DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and nkt cables of Germany. American Superconductor - (DOE cost share: $9 million) American Superconductor Corporation (Westborough, MA) will develop the key components required to commercially deploy second-generation, high-temperature superconductor cables and demonstrate a single-phase prototype cable in the Long Island Power Authority power grid. In addition to the power authority, American Superconductor’s team includes: Nexans (France) and Air Liquide Advanced Technologies U.S. LLC (Houston, TX). FAULT CURRENT LIMITERS American Superconductor - (DOE cost share: $12.7 million) American Superconductor will also address the development and in-grid testing of a three-phase high-voltage, 115-kilovolt fault current limiter, called a SuperLimiterTM, by using second-generation wire. The SuperLimiterTM features a proprietary Siemens-developed, low-inductance coil technology that makes the fault current limiter invisible to the grid until it switches to a resistive state. The demonstration will occur at a location operated by team member Southern California Edison. The team also includes: Nexans (France), the University of Houston (Houston, TX), Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM), and Siemens AG (Germany). SC Power Systems - (DOE cost share: $11 million) On the Southern California Edison grid, SC Power Systems (San Mateo, CA) will design, test, and demonstrate a 138-kilovolt saturable reactor-type fault current limiter. In this type of fault current limiter, a high-temperature superconductor is used with a direct current power supply to saturate an iron core that interfaces with the line in which the current is to be limited. SC Power’s team includes: DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM); Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (Allentown, PA); Cryo-Industries of America Inc. (Manchester, NH); Consolidated Edison Company (New York, NY); California Edison Inc. (Rosemead, CA); Delta Star Inc. (San Carlos, CA); and Trithor GmbH (Germany). SuperPower Inc. - (DOE cost share: $5.8 million) SuperPower Inc. (Schenectady, NY) will design, test, and demonstrate on the American Electric Power grid a 138-kilovolt fault current limiter that features a matrix design consisting of parallel “second-generation” high-temperature superconductor elements and conventional coils. SuperPower’s team includes: Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. (Osaka, Japan); Nissan Electric Co. Ltd. (Kyoto, Japan); The BOC Group Inc. (Murray Hill, NJ); American Electric Power (Gahanna, OH); and DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (Oak Ridge, TN). Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 54 Aiken Today: Judge orders DOE case dismissed AikenStandard.com Tue, Jun 26, 2007 By PHYLLIS BRITT North Augusta Bureau U.S. District Judge R. Bryan Harwell has handed down a decision on the lawsuit filed by Aiken County Council in 2005 regarding the U.S. Department of Energy's delays in starting the construction of the mixed-oxide fuel plant at the Savannah River Site. In an order dated June 22, Judge Harwell dismissed the case without prejudice because "there has been no 'final agency action' for this court to review and this matter is not ripe adjudication ..." In the suit filed in 2005 and championed by Chuck Smith, Aiken County Councilman from the North Augusta area, Council contended the MOX project at SRS was more than 12 months behind schedule and that DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman had not issued corrective action to bring the program back on schedule as required by a 2003 law. The suit asked the courts to require Bodman to send Congress a corrective action plan to ensure the MOX plant would be operational by Jan. 1, 2009, to order Bodman to suspend further shipments of plutonium to SRS until he could certify that construction was back on track, and to order Bodman to send to Congress a list of options for removing an amount of plutonium from SRS equal to an amount shipped to the site after April 15, 2002. The argument against Aiken County's suit maintained there was no "final agency action" for the court to review under the Administrative Procedures Act and that the matter was not "ripe for review" ? a concept needed for that "final agency action." The court maintained that for the County to prevail three things would have to be in place ? the "injury" is actually covered by the statute, it must be traceable to DOE and it must be redressable by the court ruling in favor of the plaintiff. DOE maintained there is no final agency action because there are no shipments of plutonium scheduled to be made to South Carolina at this time. The court decision suggests if there are no shipments to be suspended then there is no "actual or immediately threatened effect" on the County. "Ripeness" has to do with whether a judicial review of a matter is in order. In this case the issue is whether a delayed review would cause a hardship for Aiken County and whether there would be a judicial benefit in further development of the facts in the issue. Since there are no shipments to stop currently, the court determined the case is not yet "ripe" for litigation. County Attorney Robert Bell called the decision "a disappointment;" however, he maintained that if DOE expressed an intention to resume shipments to South Carolina, the door would be open for Aiken County to refile. Regarding the court's decision, Aiken County Councilman Chuck Smith called it the "first round" and promised "we're going to vigilantly remind DOE of its commitment to this state." © 2005 The AikenStandard. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 55 Santa Fe New Mexican: Senate spending bill restores LANL money Senate proposal would increase funding for LANL By ANDY LENDERMAN | The New Mexican June 26, 2007 Proposed funding would safeguard nuclear weapons programs on the chopping block A Senate spending bill with big implications for New Mexico came out “as well as we could have hoped for,” U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said Tuesday. The Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development on Tuesday passed a $32 billion spending measure for the Department of Energy, which oversees Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, along with the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers. The proposed funding would significantly restore many nuclear weapons programs that were on the chopping block. Now the stage is set for negotiations between the House and the Senate. Bingaman has visited with U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who chairs the Senate subcommittee that pays for energy and water projects. The Senate version would come close to President Bush’s budget request, which is much more generous than cuts proposed by the House Appropriations Committee. For example, the Senate version spends $6.49 billion on nuclear weapons activities nationwide, including several programs at Los Alamos. The president’s budget request was $6.5 billion and the House proposed $5.9 billion — a move that sent layoff worries into overdrive in Northern New Mexico. Still, Bingaman noted, Bush’s budget request represents a $90 million funding cut at Los Alamos and an $80 million cut at Sandia. Bingaman has known Dorgan since the North Dakota resident was elected to the Senate in 1992. They serve together on a separate committee, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Bingaman chairs. “I think he was certainly receptive,” Bingaman said. “I think that the bill that the subcommittee reported today pretty closely tracks the administration’s request for funds in the areas that will impact both Los Alamos … and Sandia. I think that will still involve a cut from current year funding.” When asked how he defended the lab, Bingaman said, “Obviously the important issue is, are they doing work that’s important for the country? And that’s the case you make, is that they are doing important work and it needs to be supported.” The current budget at Los Alamos is about $2.1 billion. In 2006, about $1.85 billion came from the Department of Energy and the rest from agencies doing business with the lab. In comparison, the president asked for $1.83 billion in the 2008 fiscal year from the Department of Energy for the lab. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., is the ranking minority member of Dorgan’s committee. Domenici said he felt wonderful after Tuesday’s bill was released. “The nuclear deterrent is fully covered,” Domenici said. “Science-based stockpile stewardship is recognized and funded. Los Alamos and Sandia, and for that matter, Lawrence Livermore, all got their basic budgets funded, more or less. … And a number of new programs were started that will be included in the work of the various laboratories in this year.” Security upgrades at Los Alamos totaling $67 million were included in the Senate bill. Bingaman noted Tuesday’s Senate numbers “are the beginning point for the negotiations with the House of Representatives.” For weapons programs nationwide, the Senate numbers represent an increase of $213 million above the 2007 fiscal year, according to Domenici’s office. The House numbers would be a $396 million cut to weapons programs compared to the 2007 fiscal year. The overall House bill cut weapons programs and moved more money into energy research. The Senate version spends more money than the House version. Both sides must agree later this year before sending the bill to the president. The Senate subcommittee fully funded a $95.5 million request for a new nuclear chemistry building, called the Chemistry and Metallurgy Facility, at Los Alamos. The House eliminated that request. The Senate also suggested spending $66 million on the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, which the House zeroed out. And the Senate zeroed out money for a so-called Consolidated Plutonium Center while suggesting $222 million for environmental cleanup, an increase compared to the $139 million in the president’s request. “Domenici does some good things, such as helping to add funding for cleanup at LANL,” Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico said. “But he is increasing the odds that Los Alamos will become the nation’s permanent plutonium pit production center by fully funding pit manufacturing and a giant new plutonium lab. He should be pressuring LANL to grow up and change instead of always feeding his baby the same old tired formula of nuclear weapons dollars.” A limited number of pits are made at Los Alamos now, and it’s the only place in the country where that work supporting the nuclear weapons stockpile occurs, the lab director has said. “I think the decision about the future plutonium production or pit production is still to be made,” Bingaman said. “And I’ve been clear that I don’t think we should build any new pit production facility at Los Alamos. I think that if the determination is made that we need any kind of new facility, it should be elsewhere.” That’s because Los Alamos’ strength is as a science lab, not a production center, he said. Contact Andy Lenderman at 995-3827 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com. Copyright 2007 The New Mexican, Inc. ***************************************************************** 56 Hanford News: Nuclear funding: Company says it has funding to build power plant near Bruneau This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 By Matt Christensen, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho BRUNEAU - A company with plans to build a nuclear power plant in Owyhee County says it has cleared its first major hurdle. Alternate Energy Holdings, which intends to build Idaho's first commercial nuclear power plant, has announced a New York company representing investors intends to fund the project in full. "This is revolutionary news," said AEH President Don Gillispie. "Essentially they've said they've agreed to fund us. Now we just have to work out a contract." AEH said it received a letter of intent from Cobblestone Financial Group to fund the nearly $3.5 billion nuke project, called the Idaho Energy Complex. Calls to the cell phone of Cobblestone's president, M. Lyndon Matteson III, were not returned for this story. The project will likely be funded in stages, Gillispie said, the first beginning as early as this fall when AEH could apply for a $100 million permit with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. AEH announced in December that it planned to build a nuclear power plant in Owyhee County. Since then Gillispie has searched for investors. Up until now, he had only one: Nampa native Jim Hilliard, the farmer who sold him the land for the complex. Funding, Gillispie has said, is the project's most daunting obstacle. But Tuesday's announcement could mean the Gem State is much closer to seeing its first commercial nuclear plant. And that concerns some, including the Snake River Alliance, a Boise-based nuclear watchdog group -- though Beatrice Brailsford, the group's program director, says the plant is still a long way from becoming a reality. "It's still extremely premature," Brailsford said. "There are so many hurdles for this plant to get over." Maybe. But the first one, Gillispie says, is out of the way. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 57 Hanford News: PNNL invention 'listens' to beer This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 John Trumbo, Herald staff writer Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scientists think they've got a neat idea to help beer makers perfect their brews. Instead of tapping a barrel to sniff or sample the product and determine if fermentation is going well, why not use sound waves to "listen" to what's happening inside? The acoustic listening technology, initially developed by the lab as a tool for national security and later used to identify various liquids, now is being considered for peering into beer. Dick Pappas, a senior research scientist in the Richland lab's national security division, said acoustic technology has potential for beer and wine makers and the pharmaceutical industry. "The beauty of acoustics is that it can tell you what's going on within a mixture without having to disrupt the process by physically drawing a sample and analyzing it," he said. Acoustical listening devices can track microbial growth, Pappas explained. The idea has been under development for several years, financed primarily by the lab with hopes of attracting someone who will put the technology to use in food and beverage processing. Using ultrasound acoustics to track microbial growth in fermentation also has potential for the pharmaceutical industries, which is constantly developing new recipes in its search for better medicines. Pappas said the technology can "listen in" while the fermentation is happening, so there is potential to "sniff out" potential problems and allow for corrections to be made during product development. "We can tell when a mixture is brewed to perfection," he said. The technology also will be used at Hanford in the Waste Treatment Plant by measuring distribution of solids and gases, Pappas said in a statement issued Monday. It also could be used in analyzing waste slurries. The lab is looking for potential users of the ultrasound acoustic technology, Pappas said. "We are anxious to find someone who has an idea for application." © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 58 Hanford News: DOE taps PNNL for bioenergy project This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 John Trumbo, Herald staff writer The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will participate in a five-year bioenergy project for the Department of Energy to help develop ethanol as a cost-efficient alternative fuel to gasoline. DOE announced Thursday that it will invest $375 million over five years beginning in 2008 to build three bioenergy centers that will work on clean energy biofuels. PNNL will participate as a partner in the center planned for the Great Lakes region at Madison, Wis. Two researchers with PNNL will be involved in the work through the University of Wisconsin. "We'll have some proteomic capability to bring to the table, and will do work on biofuel sustainability," said Geoff Harvey, spokesman at PNNL in Richland. Researcher Mary Lipton of the Environmental Molecular Science Lab in Richland will work in the biological sciences area on what kinds of feedstock crops can be used. Cesar Izaurralde of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a collaboration between the University of Maryland and PNNL, will focus on the problem of sustainability for crops and economics on bioenergy crop production. Izaurralde said he will try to understand where to grow certain kinds of crops to ensure there will be sufficient amounts of the right kinds of biomass to satisfy bioenergy needs without damaging the environment. Crop yields, nutrient requirements and soils characteristics will be considered in evaluating bioenergy crop production in the eight states surrounding the Great Lakes, Izaurralde said. One promising source is switchgrass, a native perennial that appears to have biofuel potential, he said. Researchers already have confirmed that an acre of switchgrass can make more than 1,000 gallons of ethanol per acre each year. DOE Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday in a statement that the bioenergy centers, which include the one in Wisconsin, and others near Berkeley, Calif., and at Oak Ridge, Tenn., will work on developing methods for converting plant cellulose into ethanol or other biofuels. "This research is critical because future biofuels production will require the use of feedstocks more diverse than corn, including cellulosic material like agricultural residues, grasses, poplar trees, inedible plants and nonedible portions of crops," Bodman said. The secretary said he wants the bioenergy centers to help America have a more secure source of energy for the future. The goal is to reduce the nation's gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years. The centers are expected to begin work in 2008 and be fully operational in 2009. Funding runs through 2013. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 59 Hanford News: Station returns after 44-day outage This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 Chris Mulick, Herald staff writer The Columbia Generating Station north of Richland was returning to full power Tuesday after being awakened over the weekend from its biennial nuclear refueling outage. The 44-day outage was six days longer than scheduled. So how did it go? "The short answer is good but not great," said Energy Northwest spokesman Brad Peck. He said the quality of the work was strong, but some level of disappointment lingers over not making the targeted restart date. "The schedule is what it is," he said. "There's no value in taking shortcuts." The true gauge of the outage's success may be in what comes next. Prior refueling outages have been marred by unplanned outages that have occurred shortly after the plant was brought back online. Energy Northwest hopes the plant is primed for another long run like the 486-day record streak that ended last October. About 1,900 temporary and contract workers were brought on site to help with the outage. Crews shuffled nuclear fuel assemblies, replacing about one-third of them, and performed maintenance that can't be done while the plant is running. Major projects included replacing the hydraulic control system that regulates flow through the turbines. Two 90-ton heat exchangers that regulate the temperature of the water being injected into the reactor core were replaced. And improvements were made to an emergency high-pressure spray system that would spray the reactor with water should a leak develop elsewhere. In a news release, Bonneville Power Administration's Andy Rapacz said the federal power marketer that buys all of the plant's power is "thrilled to have the plant back on line. We look forward to a long and reliable operating cycle." © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 60 Hanford News: PNNL gets money to move This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 John Trumbo, Herald staff writer Another $62 million to help Pacific Northwest National Laboratory move its facilities out of the 300 Area targeted for cleanup north of Richland is included the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., requested the funding, which is $27 million more than President Bush's budget proposal. Murray said in an announcement Tuesday that the money is in addition to funds she obtained two weeks ago in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations bill. Murray is a senior member on the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee. This brings the 300 Area relocation funding requested for fiscal 2008 to $77 million. "PNNL is providing cutting-edge research that enhances our national security," Murray said. "From nuclear non-proliferation and detection projects to innovative new energy efficiency and sustainability programs, PNNL is a national asset, and this funding will help the lab continue to be at the forefront of scientific advancement." PNNL has to move out of facilities being decommissioned and demolished as part of the Hanford 300 Area cleanup. Relocation costs will be shared by three federal agencies: two agencies in the Department of Energy and the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Energy's Office of Science funding accounts for $45 million. DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration has $17 million designated for the PNNL 300 Area relocation effort. The Department of Homeland Security has $15 million assigned for the project in the 2008 budget. In addition to seeking more money to adequately fund the replacement facilities for PNNL, Murray inserted language in the funding bill to preserve the lab's use permit under the contract to operate the national lab for the DOE. PNNL has a unique contract with DOE that allows it to provide excess lab space to private researchers. It is the only national lab to have this kind of dual use contract with DOE. The Energy and Water Appropriations bill will next move to the Senate Appropriations Committee for debate later this week. It will then move to the full Senate floor for deliberation. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 61 Hanford News: 2008 budget boosts funding This story was published Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 Annette Cary, Herald staff writer Hanford cleanup would receive a $126 million boost and full funding would be restored for building the vitrification plant under the Senate version of the Hanford budget for fiscal year 2008. A Senate subcommittee that includes Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., as a senior member advanced a bill Tuesday that includes $1.96 billion for Hanford cleanup in 2008. The House Appropriations Committee reduced the proposed budget for the $12.2 billion vitrification plant to $590 million for 2008amidst criticism of the project's management and a dramatic price increase. But the Senate Energy and Water Appropriation Subcommittee restored proposed funding for the plant to $690 million, the amount DOE-commissioned studies have shown is needed to get the plant built for $12.2 billion and operating by 2019. The plant, which would treat millions of gallons of some of Hanford's worst radioactive waste, is the cornerstone of Hanford cleanup, said Murray's staff. The two versions of the budget will need to be reconciled by a conference committee to come up with a final Hanford budget. The House budget proposal would increase Hanford spending $73 million above the administration's budget request for work excluding the vitrification plant, but Murray pushed to increase that to $126 million. "By fully funding the vit plant and providing additional resources for tank farm activities and river corridor cleanup, we are demonstrating our commitment to make sure cleanup is accomplished safely and expediently," Murray said in a statement. The proposed increase would include $53 million for Hanford's tank farms that hold 53 million gallons of radioactive waste from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons program. That would bring money for the tank farms to almost $326 million, restoring funding to the 2006 level after a drop to about $274 million this year. The money would make sure that retrieval continues of waste from leak-prone single-shell tanks, some of them built in World War II, said a statement from Murray's office. The money also would be used to continue work on supplemental treatment technologies needed because the vitrification plant is not designed to treat all of the low-activity radioactive waste in the tank farms, Murray's staff said. That's in contrast to language attached to the House budget bill critical of the proposed supplemental treatment technology, bulk vitrification. It said the vitrification plant might be able to operate for up to 55 years, reducing the need for supplemental treatment. A project to demonstrate the technology is years behind schedule and the cost has increased from a preliminary estimate of $45 million to $224 million. The budget for work at the Richland Operations Office, which manages cleanup projects other than the vitrification plant and tank farms, would increase $73 million above the budget requested by the Bush administration in February. That matches the proposed budget in the House version of the bill. The Department of Energy has made notable progress at the K East Basin, removing all its radioactive sludge last month, Murray's office said. Continued progress at the K Basins will be an important step toward protecting the Columbia River and the additional budget money will help DOE build on its momentum both along the river and also in central Hanford, her office said. The additional money includes $23 million to retrieve temporarily buried transuranic waste - typically debris contaminated with plutonium - and low level radioactive waste to meet legal deadlines. Another $23 million would be used for cleanup along the river, including demolishing buildings in the 300 Area just north of Richland. About $19 million would be used for soil clean up in central Hanford, as well as a feasibility study for cleanup of the PUREX site. The proposed budget also includes $7.5 million for the Volpentest HAMMER training center. The budget is expected to be considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday before being sent to the full Senate. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 62 Carlsbad Current-Argus: Subcommittee unveils DOE funding plan By Kyle Marksteiner Article Launched: 06/26/2007 09:21:04 PM MDT CARLSBAD ? A U.S. Senate subcommittee unveiled a plan for Department of Energy nuclear weapons laboratories Tuesday that could bring more funding to the WIPP site in Eddy County, according to the office of Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. Domenici is the ranking member of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee that approved the FY2008 Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill. The $32.27 billion bill will be considered by the full Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday. The bill contrasts with the final House FY2008 appropriations bill, which generally called for more significant cutting of funds to New Mexico laboratories. The Senate bill will ultimately have to be reconciled with the House bill. The Senate subcommittee measure would provide $25.8 billion for the Department of Energy. "I believe we fashioned a straight-forward bill that sustains the DOE mission to deliver and secure a reliable deterrent for the United States and its allies," Domenici said in a prepared statement. "The NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) mission, supported by the national labs, is protected, including the life extension program and the experimental science based campaigns. This is important to meet future challenges." Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., in a prepared statement, said the bill was "a very good starting point." "I congratulate Senators (Byron) Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Domenici for working together to come up with a bill that puts the Senate in a good position to negotiate with the House of Representatives," he said. The proposed defense environmental cleanup portion of the bill is $5.68 billion, up $326 million over the administration budget request. This includes $250 million for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, up $31 million from the request and $21 million above current year levels, according to Domenici's office. This funding will enable the project to receive and dispose of 21 contact-handled and five remote-handled waste shipments per week. "That's exciting," Domenici said. "People are evaluating WIPP, and it seems like they are doing a terrific job. They are taken care of adequately, and that's good news." The committee also directs DOE to support the WIPP records center, economic development activities and economic impact assistance, according to a press release. The bill also provides $1.5 million in Office of Science funding to continue neutrino research. Funding for Los Alamos would be $222 million, up $83 million to restore cleanup levels. Proposed funds also include $1.7 billion to support renewable energy research including biomass, wind, solar and increases for vehicle and building efficiency. The proposed package also provides $242 million for the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Business and government entities in Carlsbad have expressed interest in the area's participation in developing GNEP activities. Although this is $75 million more than current funding, it is $153 million below the budget request, according to Domenici's office. The bill directs the DOE to focus less on commercial deployment of advanced reactors and spent fuel recycling facilities, and to put more effort in demonstrating the technical feasibility as well as a proven safety record. Within the funds, $23 million would be directed to upgrade the hot cells at Los Alamos. The bill also directs the DOE to stop work on a new advanced fuel recycling facility and invest the funding into existing laboratory capabilities. Domenici seemed to have mixed feelings about the proposal as related to GNEP. "Although I share the president's desire to address our spent fuel inventories by recycling and reducing this material, I recognize that the new congressional leadership is seeking a more modest program that can more fully demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of closing the nuclear fuel cycle as other countries have done," he said in a prepared statement. "It looks like the DOE is going to have to make some decisions as to what they are going to do," the senator added in a phone conference. A spokesman for Domenici's office said the DOE will be directed to work with potential sites and vendors, but the final impact on developing site selection activities remains to be seen. Domenici said members of his staff worked well with Dorgan's staff members. "We came up with a very straightforward bill that funds the laboratories. There's no effort to get back' at any laboratory, and the nuclear deterrent is fairly covered," he said. The Senate proposal, in comparison to the House bill, adds greater funding to ongoing operations at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories. LANL, in particular, has been the target of frequent criticism over the past few months regarding security issues, with opponents in Washington D.C. calling for broad funding cuts. "We sure feel good that we have a prominent part of this legislation that thinks the laboratories are all right," Domenici said. "I feel wonderful." Copyright © 2005 Carlsbad Current Argus, a MediaNews Group ***************************************************************** 63 KnoxNews: Boeing closing Oak Ridge operations By MICHAEL SILENCE, silence@knews.com June 27, 2007 Boeing Inc. will end more than 25 years in Oak Ridge and begin laying off more than 260 employees next month after deciding to move its production of airplane parts to other plants. Beginning in July, the company will "begin the first in a series of 60-day layoff notices to employees in association with this announcement," it said in a press release being issued this afternoon. In its announcement, Boeing said the decision to end part production operations was made because the facility no longer has sufficient commercial airplanes or other parts production work to remain in operation. "Exiting Oak Ridge is also part of the continued consolidation and alignment of parts manufacturing capability and capacity across Boeing Fabrication facilities. In July, Boeing will begin the first in a series of 60-day layoff notices to employees in association with this announcement," Boeing also said in the press release. Boeing is moving its Oak Ridge production to its facility in Salt Lake City and to suppliers. At its Oak Ridge plant, Boeing has also been involved in production of centrifuges used to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel. In a statement released today, USEC Inc. said BWX Technologies Inc. would pick up the enriching uranium work, and that Boeing "is currently working with the city of Oak Ridge to make its existing facilities available for USEC?s centrifuge manufacturing." Officials with the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Local 2709, have said its Boeing members were facing layoffs. Last August, about 300 union members at the 500-employee Boeing plant went on strike. The 102-day strike was settled Nov. 15 when workers accepted a negotiated contract that included wage hikes each of the next three years, but allowed some layoffs. In the press release, USEC said it currently has about 190 employees and approximately 100 employees working for contractors in Oak Ridge. At the peak of manufacturing, USEC said it expects those numbers to rise to about 200 employees and 435 employees working for contractors. USEC said BWXT will manufacture components for centrifuge machines to be used in USEC?s American Centrifuge Plant in Piketon, Ohio. Boeing has had declining employment levels in Oak Ridge for 10 years. The company was at peak production in 1997 with 970 employees. But in 2003 the staffing had dropped to about 520 people, falling farther to 410 people in June 2004. The plant has made parts for commercial airliners, including flight deck consoles for Boeing 737s, 747s, 767s, 777s and 787s, as well as defense products and centrifuge components for the uranium-enrichment industry. More details as they develop online and in Thursday?s News Sentinel. Michael Silence may be reached at 865-342-6310. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 64 Inside Bay Area: Area lawmakers urge equal retirement for labs By Ian Hoffman, STAFF WRITER Article Last Updated: 06/27/2007 02:36:41 AM PDT Five U.S. Senate and House members urged Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Tuesday to make retirement benefits at Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons lab equal to those paid at its sister lab, Los Alamos. In a letter from three Democrats and two Republicans who represent California, New Mexico and Texas ? three states with facilities responsible for all nuclear-weapons components ? lawmakers also asked Bodman for a "more relevant" benefits study for all Energy Department labs "that accurately accounts for the challenges of recruiting and retaining top quality scientific talent." Livermore scientists were stunned last week to learn that with a new management team at the helm of the lab, they also must choose between two new retirement plans, including one for all new hires that pays about 20 percent less than lab workers' current pensions. Because the plan also was based on a 2007 study of benefits paid by high-tech corporations, it reflects recent benefits cuts by those firms and so would pay about 7 percent less than a similar retirement plan at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the only other U.S. institution that designs nuclear explosives. The congressional letter was organized by Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo, and also signed by Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and Rep. Mack Thornberry, R-Texas. There was no word yet on Bodman's response. But the National Nuclear Security Administration, the nuclear weapons arm of the Energy Department, extended the time for Livermore employees to comment on the proposed retirement plans until July 2. Tauscher took the extra comment period as a partial victory. In a statement, she said she would do "everything in my power" as chair of the House strategic forces subcommittee "to ensure the Energy Department gets this right." "Anything but a congruent benefit package among the labs is not in the interest of national security, scientific advancement or the spirit of fairness," she said. Contact Ian Hoffman at ihoffman@angnewspapers.com or (510) 208-6458. © 2000-2006 ANG Newspapers | Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 65 Las Cruces Sun-News: Former Los Alamos worker leading oversight efforts at lab (12:15 p.m.) By The Associated Press Article Launched: 06/27/2007 12:15:40 PM MDT LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) — A former Los Alamos National Laboratory employee will lead federal oversight efforts at the northern New Mexico nuclear weapons lab. Donald L. Winchell Jr., who was an operations group leader at the lab, was chosen Tuesday to head the National Nuclear Security Administration's Los Alamos Site Office. He will oversee about 100 federal safety inspectors and environmental and health specialists who are monitoring the lab's performance for the government. Winchell retired from the Navy in 1999 after 30 years, including a stint as a submarine squadron commander. He then worked for Johnson Controls Northern New Mexico and at the Los Alamos lab job. Information from: The Santa Fe New Mexican, www.sfnewmexican.com Copyright © 2006 Las Cruces Sun-News, a MediaNews Group Newspaper. ***************************************************************** 66 KnoxNews: ORNL, UT getting greener Oak Ridge will be site of one of three bioenergy centers By ANDREW EDER, edera@knews.com June 27, 2007 OAK RIDGE - Tennessee's effort to position itself as a leader in renewable fuels kicked into high gear Tuesday with the announcement that Oak Ridge will be the site of one of three coveted national research centers. Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory will lead a team that includes the University of Tennessee in exploring ways to produce fuel from plants at the $125 million Bioenergy Science Center. Martin Keller, director of ORNL's biosciences division, will be the project director and principal investigator at the center, which the Department of Energy will fund for five years. The new research center will be located at the unfinished Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, a state-funded, UT-owned facility on ORNL grounds. The ORNL bid was one of three successful proposals from a pool of more than 20 applicants in a process described as intensely competitive. The federal research effort will complement $72 million in recently approved state money for biofuels research, including more than $40 million for a demonstration-scale ethanol refinery. "Certainly, seeking ways to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels is the right issue at the right time at all levels of government," Gov. Phil Bredesen said at a press conference at the lab. The new research center will focus on the challenges of cellulosic ethanol, a gasoline substitute made from plant materials known as biomass. Researchers will focus specifically on switchgrass and poplar trees. Most domestic ethanol is made from corn. "Starch is put together in a way that's somewhat easy to break apart, so you can make things out of it," said Brian Davison, a chief scientist in ORNL's biosciences division, who led the proposal process. "Cellulose, which is the structure in wood and paper and grass, is put together in a way that's virtually impossible to break apart." Davison said researchers would use a "suite of approaches" to analyze and modify the makeup of plants and improve their understanding of the microbes and enzymes that break down plant materials, allowing them to be converted to ethanol. At the same time, the state will offer incentives for farmers to grow switchgrass, and the 5 million-gallon-a-year pilot ethanol plant will let researchers and companies test new technologies. UT, the lead institution for the state-funded ethanol refinery, is close to finding a partner to build the plant and will locate a site after that decision is made, said Tom Klindt, interim dean of the UT Agricultural Experiment Station. "That connectivity from the fundamental science to the crop science and the refinery processes, that whole package is probably one of the aspects that led to this being a winning proposal," said Thom Mason, the incoming ORNL director. In addition to ORNL and UT, other members of the research team include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, Dartmouth College, the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, individual researchers from several institutions, and three private companies - ArborGen, Verenium Corp. and Mascoma Corp., all of which were chosen for their expertise in specific technical skills, Davison said. The other national research centers will be located in Madison, Wis., and near Berkeley, Calif. A federal renewable fuels standard calls for 7.5 billion gallons of the nation's fuel supply to come from renewable sources by 2012, and a bill that recently passed the U.S. Senate calls for 36 billion gallons by 2022. Many scientists, economists and others worry about the effects of relying on food crops to produce renewable fuels. Cellulosic ethanol offers the opportunity to produce dedicated energy crops on surplus farmland, and boosters think the plant-based fuel could spur development in rural Tennessee and beyond - if researchers can make the process economical for wide-scale commercial production. "We know what the trends are, and the trends are that we have to drive the cost of the renewables down," Mason said. "And the trends probably also are that the cost of the fossils are going to be up, so you don't have to be a genius to figure that those two lines are going to cross." Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 67 KnoxNews: Munger: Y-12 pulls the welcome mat in advance of August protest By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com June 27, 2007 The Y-12 nuclear weapons plant has a spectacular new visitors center on Scarboro Road, but not all visitors are welcome. The new facility, known officially as the New Hope Center, apparently will be off-limits to protesters who arrive at Y-12 this August for the annual Hiroshima Day demonstration. Surprising? Sort of. Even though the new visitor center likely will be closed on Saturday, Aug. 4, when the protest is scheduled, there is plenty of open space surrounding the building. That includes an outdoor plaza - frequently dubbed Protest Plaza during the construction phase because it was generally anticipated that's where anti-nuke demonstrators would gather. However, a plant spokesman said protesters would be restricted to the same area as last year when the New Hope Center was still under construction and had a big fence around it. At that time, access was limited to a small space around the Y-12 entrance sign at the intersection of Scarboro and Bear Creek Roads. "There will be no access to the New Hope building site," said Bill Wilburn of BWXT Y-12, the contractor that operates the warhead factory. This poses an interesting situation. Since there's no longer a fence around the visitor center, it's not clear how officials plan to restrict access to the site. Will armed guards or Oak Ridge police line the boundaries? Will they erect temporary barriers to keep folks off the property? Will they arrest anybody who sets foot on the plaza? The decision also sets an interesting precedent because diverse groups undoubtedly will seek access to this site in years to come. Local kids have already tested the plaza with their skateboards. One BWXT official recently suggested that use of the New Hope Center, which includes a 400-seat auditorium and museum-like area with historic artifacts, and its adjoining grounds might be restricted because the facility was privately developed and owned by Lawler-Wood, the Knoxville-based development company. In other words, it wouldn't face the same openness requirements generally attributed to federal facilities. But Wayne Roquemore, the president of Lawler-Wood, who headed the development of New Hope and the Jack Case Center, a huge office complex inside Y-12, said the developer wasn't setting the access rules. Roquemore said BWXT, the lessee and sole tenant of New Hope, would decide who could and who couldn't use the facility. Besides, he said, Lawler-Wood only owns the building and a few feet of land surrounding the building's exterior. The rest of the property belongs to DOE, he said. Ralph Hutchison, coordinator of the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, who has organized protests at Y-12 for nearly 20 years, said his preference would be that peace activists be treated with the same respect as anyone else. "If people are free to go there on any day of the week, it shouldn't be any different," Hutchison said. "That's part of honoring people's constitutional rights." For the Hiroshima Day protest, demonstrators typically gather in Oak Ridge's Bissell Park for nonviolence training and other activities before marching to Y-12, which enriched the uranium for the first atomic bomb. There often are acts of civil disobedience for things such as trespassing on federal property and some arrests. Hutchison said federal and city officials were pretty uncooperative last year during pre-protest negotiations, although police did - at OREPA's request - close one lane of traffic for the safety of marchers. Oak Ridge Police Capt. Alan Massengill last week said police have not yet developed any plans for this year's protest. As for use of the New Hope plaza and other property at the front of Y-12, Hutchison said he wasn't sure what to expect. "I don't expect them to make us any offers," he said. "I don't expect us to ask them for any permission." Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy for the News Sentinel. He may be reached at 865-342-6329 or at munger@knews.com. This column is also available in the opinion section of knoxnews.com. Copyright 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 68 lamonitor.com: LANL funding prospects rise in Senate The Online News Source for Los Alamos ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor After a week of federal budget anxiety for people in Los Alamos, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., emerged from a Senate subcommittee Tuesday afternoon with a funding bill that he described as positive for Los Alamos National Laboratory. To the Los Alamos and Sandia communities, he said, "They may be able to take another calm breath." Sen. Jeff Bingaman said this morning, "The subcommittee mark is about as good a mark as we could get." The "mark" is a proposed draft of legislation in committee. Bingaman warned that there was still more negotiating ahead between the House and the Senate. "Realistically, we can expect the numbers in the Senate to be reduced," he said. The Senate appropriation moves back toward the administration's proposal in a number of categories. Notably, the Senate panel restored full funding ($95.6 million) for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Facility Replacement, the largest construction project underway at the laboratory. The House had halted work on the project. Other sizable funds were restored by holding to the administration's request for science campaigns. The House has cut $25 million from the budget request for the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrotest facility (DARHT) at LANL along with $50 million for the Roadrunner supercomputer, both of which were included in the Senate proposal. The Senate bill included new funding ($45 million) for classified vault consolidation and a total of $85 million for LANL's share of nuclear detection research and development. While the House measure added $60 million for environmental management and cleanup, Domenici's summary of DOE spending in the Senate proposal added $83 million to the administration request, for a $222 million total. Smaller additions spotlighted by Domenici included full funding of $15.9 million plus an additional $5 million for the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE), and $29.6 million for the Technical Area 18 Criticality Experiments Facility. In contrast to the House bill, which declined to support the administration's request for the first phase of a Reliable Replacement Warhead program, the Senate subcommittee approved a slightly smaller package of $66 million to continue with a feasibility study for a "modernized" nuclear weapons arsenal. Domenici said this point might provoke debate. "There could be an argument raised and a vote," he said. "I would relish that. I wish we could raise it on the floor." One area of agreement in both bills is a rejection of the National Nuclear Security's consolidation plans, as proposed in the Complex 2030 concept. Neither House funded a plan for a Consolidated Plutonium Center, a key provision in the administration's restructuring blueprint. "This bill also sends a clear signal to the NNSA about what this committee expects in the future," Domenici said in the text of his statement to the Senate panel. Domenici is the ranking member of the energy and water development appropriations subcommittee. Bingaman, who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he expected the House and Senate negotiators would be able to find a compromise between the two bills. "They'll definitely get together and resolve them by agreeing to something in between," he said. In the House, Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., also referred to the eventual resolution of the differences in the two bills. "I support LANL's core mission of nuclear stockpile stewardship and believe that for the future security of our Labs, they must be able to compete for new energy research and development funding," he said in a statement. "As has been expressed by both the House and Senate subcommittees, however, the funding of our nuclear weapons will depend on a clear, forward-looking national policy from the administration." As in the House, the Senate subcommittee passed the bill unanimously. It moves to the full Senate Appropriations Committee for approval on Thursday. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 69 Oak Ridger: ORNL one of three DOE bioenergy sites - Story last updated at 12:18 am on 6/27/2007 By: Duncan Mansfield | Associated Press Submitted Gov. Phil Bredesen and ORNL's Brian Davison speak to a standing-room-only crowd during a Tuesday afternoon press conference held in the lab’s Visitor’s Center. About 45 people attended Tuesday’s announcement at the lab. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory was selected Tuesday to host one of three U.S. Department of Energy bioenergy research centers charged with finding new ways to convert plants into biofuels to replace petroleum. “These centers will provide the transformational science needed for bioenergy breakthroughs to advance President Bush’s goal of making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012,” Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a statement from Washington, D.C. Each center will receive $125 million over five years. The others will be in Wisconsin and California. The Oak Ridge center, which has several university and industry partners, will benefit from Oak Ridge’s supercomputing center and a proposed 5-million-a-gallon-per-year ethanol demonstration project promoted by Gov. Phil Bredesen. The $40 million ethanol facility will concentrate on ethanol production from switchgrass and poplar trees. It is funded by the state beginning next month and is expected to be operating in two years. The state also is providing $32 million in related assistance, including agricultural incentives to farmers to grow switchgrass. Tennessee has about 2 million acres of unused or underused farmland that may be suitable for the weed-like crop. “This is a wonderful position for our state,” Bredesen said at a ceremony at the Oak Ridge lab, calling it “an opportunity to be a front-line player” in alternative fuels. “Our mission of helping find ways to address America’s energy challenges will likely dominate our research agenda for the next decade and beyond,” said Thom Mason, new director of the Oak Ridge National Lab, which is managed by the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute. The Oak Ridge bioenergy center will be housed at the lab’s Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, a state-financed $7.6 million building due to open in October. Brian Davison, chief scientist in the lab’s biosciences division, said the Oak Ridge center will focus on several aspects of making ethanol from woody materials, which is much more difficult than current methods using corn as a feedstock. “There will be a whole suite of approaches,” he said. “But it includes looking at modifying the plants, and understanding the microbes and enzymes (to break them down into sugar).” DOE separately is funding six pilot projects around the country to test possible methods of making cellulosic ethanol under certain conditions. The Oak Ridge research will focus on methods that can be used anywhere, Davison said. “This is fundamental research. But once you have a deeper understanding, we all believe and hope that this will actually lead to things that we can use,” Davison said. “I think during the (five-year) lifespan of this center we will know if we can make this work and if we can make the process economical. Then we will have the secondary challenges to look at — can we make enough of it and do it sustainably?” The Oak Ridge Lab is teaming the University of Tennessee, the University of Georgia, Georgia Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado and the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Oklahoma. Industry partners include tree genetics company ArborGen of Summerville, S.C.; specialty enzyme developers Diversa Corp. (now Verenium Corp.) of San Diego, Calif.; and bioprocessing company Mascoma Corp. of Cambridge, Mass. “The competition for these centers was fierce. The winners were selected not by political consideration but by peer review,” praised U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn. “This is outstanding news for Tennessee in terms of the role our scientific, agricultural and business communities are playing in our country’s energy security,” said U.S. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. “If biofuels are part of the answer to our goal of energy independence, our region will be out front with solutions,” said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn. The Wisconsin project will be led by the University of Wisconsin in Madison in collaboration with Michigan State University and DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash.; Lucigen Corp. in Middleton, Wis., University of Florida, ORNL, Illinois State University and Iowa State University. The California center is led by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with collaboration from Sandia National Laboratories, DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis and Stanford University. | © 2004 The Oak Ridger | Conditions of Use ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************