***************************************************************** 07/31/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.178 ***************************************************************** 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: Pelosi Gains Support for Energy Bill 2 RussiaToday: International team inspects Russian naval base 3 RIA Novosti: Russia's strategic aviation to conduct 6 exercises in A NUCLEAR REACTORS 4 US: [progchat_action] Incredible Chutzpah: Nuclear Industry Pushes f 5 IPS-English DISARMAMENT: US-India Nuke Deal May Spark Asian 6 Guardian Unlimited: We don't need the nuclear option 7 The Hindu: Australia assures cooperation in civil nuclear energy sec 8 US: Power Surge: The Alternative Voice of the Seven Cities 9 BBC NEWS: Measuring sea level rise from space 10 BBC NEWS: Quake leak hits Japan power firm 11 Bangkok Post: N-energy as an option 12 US: APP.COM - NRC: Reactor staffers pass test | 13 US: baltimoresun.com: Constellation Energy files partial plan for re 14 US: NRC: NRC Schedules Public Meeting in Wilmington on August 2 to D 15 AFP: France-Libya accord plans further nuclear cooperation - 16 Reuters: Entergy, GE-Hitachi in nuclear components deal 17 US: CNN: The power generation gap from FORTUNE 18 US: Knoxville News Sentinel: Watts Bar Unit 2 likely to get OK 19 US: CNN: Going nuclear - 20 US: NRC: NRC Staff Approves Transfer of Point Beach Operating Licens 21 US: UPI: New U.S. nuclear plant permit applied for 22 US: CNN: Rethinking Three Mile Island - Jul. 31, 2007 23 US: CNN: America's nuclear revival - Jul. 31, 2007 24 US: CNN: The high cost of going nuclear - Jul. 31, 2007 25 US: CNN: In search of safe nukes - Jul. 31, 2007 26 US: SF Bay Guardian: Our unnecessary nuclear future (Politics) 27 US: AZ Republic: Promise of nuclear power NUCLEAR SECURITY NUCLEAR SAFETY 28 US: starbulletin.com: Army promises safeguards for controlled Schofi NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 29 US: DOE: DOE to Award $16 Million for GNEP Studies 30 RIA Novosti: Police seize three more suspects in attack on nuclear p 31 ReviewJournal.com: NEVADA COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR PROJECTS - Brager ap 32 US: Salt Lake Tribune Environment: Old uranium litters test, trainin 33 US: CNN: The trouble with nuclear waste - Jul. 31, 2007 34 KRNV.com: Governor Gibbons Appoints Clark County Commissioner to Nuc 35 US: DOE: PEIS: Greater than Class C low-level wastes 36 Las Vegas SUN: New appointee named to Nevada anti-nuke dump panel 37 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada opposes use of state water for Yucca Mountain PEACE US DEPT. OF ENERGY 38 Seattle P-I: Clogged pump led to Hanford leak 39 Hanford News: Containing the nuclear threat 40 Hanford News: First man Mike Gregoire impressed with B Reactor tour 41 Hanford News: Hanford's tank waste leak being investigated 42 lamonitor.com: Officials urge precautions against mosquitoes 43 Oak Ridger: Car crashes into barrier at Y-12 - 44 NAS Project: Prospective Benefits of DOE's Energy Efficiency and Fos ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Guardian Unlimited: Pelosi Gains Support for Energy Bill Tuesday July 31, 2007 2:01 AM By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi solidified Democratic support behind her energy initiatives Monday and quieted rebellious party members who feared U.S. energy production would be hurt. Democratic leaders reached agreement on legislation that would impose nearly $16 billion in additional taxes on oil companies over 10 years and use the money to promote renewable energy programs and energy conservation and efficiency. To garner broader Democratic support, Pelosi scrapped proposed changes in the way royalties are collected from offshore federal oil and gas leases. Also dropped was a provision that would have made it harder for the federal government to designate nationally significant corridors for pipelines and electric power lines. Pelosi, bowing to Democratic lawmakers in oil-producing regions, agreed to some changes in the way permits are issued for energy leases on federal land. Congress two years ago gave new authority for the federal government to designate energy corridors to ease power grid congestion. The House Resources Committee, in its portion of the bill, had put severe restrictions on that authority, provisions the Democrats agreed Monday to scrap. ``The speaker has sought to bring about Democratic unity'' on the energy package, said a Pelosi spokesman, Drew Hammill. The Democratic bill avoids, however, several of the toughest energy fights, by not including measures to increase automobile fuel economy, a mandate to use more ethanol as a substitute for gasoline, or to require electric utilities to use renewable fuels. These issues could still be brought up as amendments when the legislation comes up for a floor vote, probably Friday. It is likely to be the last action by the House before lawmakers depart for the monthlong summer recess. A sizable number of Democrats had opposed provisions they viewed as detrimental to domestic oil and gas production, including a requirement that energy companies pay cash for oil and gas taken under federal offshore drilling leases. A coalition of 47 moderate to conservative Democrats, known as the ``Blue Dogs,'' had threatened to withhold support unless the royalty-in-kind option was preserved and changes were made in the lease permitting and energy corridor provisions. With strong GOP opposition to the bill, Pelosi needs the Blue Dogs' support if she is to fulfill a promise to get energy legislation passed before the August congressional recess. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, co-chairman of the Blue Dogs' energy task force, said that while he still had some concerns he felt Pelosi had ``moved along way in improving this bill.'' Republicans have ridiculed the Democrats' energy package, saying it ignores the need to produce more domestic oil, coal and natural gas or to help expand nuclear power. Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the ranking Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, dubbed it the ``non-energy, energy bill.'' But Pelosi and many other Democrats have maintained it steers a new direction in energy priorities, seeking to promote conservation and renewable energy sources such as ethanol and biodiesel and power from wind turbines. It includes tax breaks, loan guarantees and other incentives to develop renewable energy sources, hybrid gas-electric cars that would get their juice from the electricity grid, and new efficiency standards for an array of appliances and equipment. The energy legislation has been the focus of intense lobbying by both industry and environmentalists in recent days. Environmentalists and advocates for renewable energy sources, especially the wind industry, have urged lawmakers to add to the legislation a national requirement for utilities to produced at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources. Pelosi has been open to taking up the electricity issue on the House floor, though its prospects there are uncertain. Lawmakers from much of the Southeast oppose a national renewable electricity requirement, arguing that utilities would not be able to comply without raising electricity prices. It remains unclear whether automobile fuel economy will be raised at all when the energy bill comes to the floor. The issue has caused tension between Pelosi and Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the most senior lawmaker in the House, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and a staunch protecter of the auto industry, which is based in his home state. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 2 RussiaToday: International team inspects Russian naval base July 31, 2007, 15:44 A group of international nuclear experts from Britain, Norway and Russia have started examining nuclear facilities that could pose a radiation threat in the Northern Russian Murmansk region. The group is offering help in tackling the nuclear waste. They are visiting the world's largest nuclear decommissioning site at Andreyeva Bay near Murmansk and the Atomflot reprocessing plant. It is a dumping ground for old nuclear reactors and obsolete submarines, and has become one of the parts of the world at greatest risk of nuclear accident. The head of the British delegation - the UK's Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks - says relations between Russia and Britain may be strained over the recent diplomatic row concerning the Aleksandr Litvinenko case but it doesn't affect co-operation in other areas. "There is no dispute that there is a serious difference of opinion between our two nations on an important matter - an incident in London. No dispute there. But that will not affect our co-operation on this very important programme in the future. The relationship between British and Russian people ever since the dark and cold days of WW2, when together we fought the perils of Nazism, are strong and everlasting. So, there is a serious difference, but it will not affect that friendship between our two peoples and that's the important message today," Mr Wicks underlined. Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti" 2007, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 3 RIA Novosti: Russia's strategic aviation to conduct 6 exercises in August 15:59 | 31/ 07/ 2007 MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian strategic aviation will fly over the North Pole and conduct test launches of cruise missiles during a series of exercises in August, the Defense Ministry said on its website Tuesday. Units of the 37th Air Army of the Strategic Command will conduct a total of six tactical exercises in August as part of an annual training program, the ministry said in a statement. "During the exercises, strategic bombers will test launch cruise missiles, conduct simulated bombing raids, and fly over the North Pole, the Pacific and Atlantic oceans," the statement said. The exercises will involve Tu-160 Blackjack and Tu-95MS Bear-H strategic bombers, and Tu-22M3 Backfire-C theater bombers - the mainstay of the air component of Russia's strategic nuclear triad. According to various sources, the Russian Air Force currently deploys 141 Tu-22M3 bombers, 40 Tu-95MS bombers, and 14 Tu-160 planes. Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov, the newly appointed chief of the Air Force Main Staff, said in March that Russia's strategic aviation had sufficient potential to suppress elements of a U.S. missile defense shield should it be deployed in Central Europe. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 4 [progchat_action] Incredible Chutzpah: Nuclear Industry Pushes for $50+ Billion to Build New Nukes Resent-Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:12:00 -0500 (CDT) Hello friends, This story, which ran in today's NY Times, is amazing. The nuclear industry has absolutely no shame. They expect the American taxpayers to roll over and underwrite a whole new generation of economic lemons. They want $50 billion in loan guarantees just for the next two years for an established industry. If, after 50 years the nuclear power industry can't operate profitably or attract investment capital without massive subsidies, why should the taxpayers absorb even a dime's worth of risk? (Not to mention the fact that after all these decades they still haven't figured out what to do with their waste, or that they still demand Price-Anderson to shield them from liability in the event of accidents.) A couple of points from the Times article that shouldn't be missed: ** "Michael J. Wallace, the co-chief executive of UniStar Nuclear, a partnership seeking to build nuclear reactors, and executive vice president of Constellation Energy, said: 'Without loan guarantees we will not build nuclear power plants.'" One of the leading advocates for a so-called "nuclear renaissance" admits that the tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies already provided will not coax Wall St. into financing new nukes. It will take the taxpayers underwriting the entire venture. ** "But the Bush administration opposes the measure, fearing that it could prove extremely costly. "The provision would 'remove appropriate controls over the size of the program and increase taxpayer liability,' the Office of Management and Budget wrote in an official position statement on the energy bill." Did you catch that? Even the zealously pro-nuclear Bush administration is opposing this. They have proposed $4 billion in loan guarantees for all technologies, the nuclear gang wants tens of billions so they can start building plants that the NYT reports are likely to cost "about $4 to $5 billion apiece." Clearly, with 28 of these dinosaurs on the drawing board, even the $50 billion figure is just a down payment. If you want to understand why new nukes are such a wasteful place to squander our limited capital, please read "Why a Future for the Nuclear Industry is Risky," By Peter Bradford and David Schlissel at: http://www.cleanenergy.org/resources/reports/WhyNewNukesAreRiskyFACTSHEET.pd f If this concerns you, now is the time to make your voice heard. The nuclear boys are doing just that. Thanks for your concern and your action, Mark Haim Energy Bill Aids Expansion of Atomic Power By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and MATTHEW L. WALD http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/31/washington/31nuclear.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl= 1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1185887657-+mtKa1bQKMRnqfufYdL0ZA WASHINGTON, July 30 A one-sentence provision buried in the Senates recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees. Lobbyists have told lawmakers and administration officials in recent weeks that the nuclear industry needs as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees over the next two years to finance a major expansion. The biggest champion of the loan guarantees is Senator Pete V. Domenici of New Mexico, the ranking Republican on the Senate Energy Committee and one of the nuclear industrys strongest supporters in Congress. Senator Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico and the energy bills author, has long argued that nuclear power plants do not need federal loan guarantees. Mr. Bingaman said that the industry was over-interpreting the provision and that it would provide loan guarantees for only the most innovative power plants. But the provision has the potential to considerably expand the nuclear industry, which plans to build 28 new reactors at an estimated cost of about $4 billion to $5 billion apiece. And while the nuclear industry would be the biggest beneficiary, the provision could also set the stage for billions of dollars in loan guarantees for power plants that use clean coal technology and renewable fuels. The nuclear industry is enjoying growing political support after decades of opposition from environmental groups and others concerned about the risks. An increasing number of lawmakers in both parties, worried about global warming and dependence on foreign oil, support some expansion of nuclear power. But the provision could go much further than many lawmakers had in mind by giving the Department of Energy the power to approve an unlimited amount of loan guarantees for clean power generation. Under legislation enacted in 2005, nuclear power qualifies as a clean technology because it does not emit carbon gases that contribute to global warming. Power companies have tentative plans to put the 28 new reactors at 19 sites around the country. Industry executives insist that banks and Wall Street will not provide the money needed to build new reactors unless the loans are guaranteed in their entirety by the federal government. The federal government guarantees many billions of loans each year to help farmers, exporters, small businesses and students. The government does not actually lend the money but agrees to pay it back in case the borrower defaults. While the nuclear industry says it will need $25 billion in loan guarantees in 2008 and $50 billion over the next two years, President Bush had proposed a far smaller amount $4 billion in new loan guarantees next year for clean electric power technologies, which include plants that run on so-called clean coal technologies and renewable fuels. Many experts fear that the proposed subsidies could leave taxpayers responsible for billions of dollars in soured loans. Such projects, by their nature, pose significant technical and market risks, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office warned last month in an analysis of the provision. Studies of the accuracy of cost estimates for pioneering technologies have found that estimates are consistently low. Michael J. Wallace, the co-chief executive of UniStar Nuclear, a partnership seeking to build nuclear reactors, and executive vice president of Constellation Energy, said: Without loan guarantees we will not build nuclear power plants. The little-noticed provision in the Senate bill subtly refines and expands the loan guarantee program that Congress passed in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. As before, the Department of Energy would be allowed to guarantee 100 percent of the loans and up to 80 percent of the total cost to build a reactor. But the bill essentially allows the department to approve as many loan guarantees as it wants for both new reactors and plants that use other clean technologies. That is a big change. Under current law, the government is only allowed to guarantee a volume of loans authorized each year by Congress. Last year, Congress limited the government to awarding just $4 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy projects during the 2007 fiscal year. Mr. Domenici, who has been pushing the Energy Department to move much more aggressively in approving loan guarantees, has argued that there is no need for limits on the loan volume because power companies will be required to pay an upfront fee to cover the estimated cost of the guarantee. In essence, the credit subsidy payments would be used as a kind of insurance premium that could be used to cover the cost of any defaulted loan. It is very clear that this is a self-financing program, Mr. Domenici told James Nussle, Mr. Bushs nominee to become the White House budget director, at Mr. Nussles confirmation hearing last week. There should already be $25 billion to $30 billion in the loan guarantee fund. But the Bush administration opposes the measure, fearing that it could prove extremely costly. The provision would remove appropriate controls over the size of the program and increase taxpayer liability, the Office of Management and Budget wrote in an official position statement on the energy bill. Michele Boyd, legislative director of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said the measure would subsidize plants with conventional technology. None of these so-called advanced nuclear reactors deal with the fundamental flaws of nuclear power, such as dangerous radioactive waste, vulnerabilities to air attack and excessive cost, said Ms. Boyd, whose staff began investigating the provision shortly after the Senate passed the bill last month. Mr. Bingaman, the bills primary architect, said that he was aware of the provision but believed that it would apply only to reactors with fundamentally new technology. I would be amazed if this generic loan program applied to most of the plants that are being proposed, either for the nuclear industry or coal industry, Mr. Bingaman said Monday night. The idea of this is not just to help an industry build plants. Its to demonstrate new technology that meets the nations energy needs. But industry officials say the measure would directly affect the reactors on the drawing board. I think we can say that with all the projects moving forward on the schedule they are now on, that there could be a need for $20 to $25 billion in loan guarantees, said Richard Myers, vice president for policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association. The House is hoping to pass its own energy bill this week. But leading House Democrats have made it clear they oppose any kind of loan guarantees for nuclear reactors. The House recently passed an appropriations bill for energy and water programs that included $7 billion in loan guarantees for projects involving renewable energy and specifically excluded nuclear plants. Representative Peter J. Visclosky, Democrat of Indiana and chairman of the House Appropriations Committees panel on energy and water, said last month that the nuclear industry had estimated a need of $25 billion in guaranteed loans for next year and more than that in 2009. The industrys request, Mr. Visclosky warned, overwhelms what the committee had been willing to offer the entire energy industry. Still, nuclear industry executives say they hope the Senates loan guarantee provision will be adopted by House lawmakers. Mid-Missouri Peaceworks 804-C E. Broadway Columbia, MO 65201 573-875-0539 E-mail: mail@midmopeaceworks.org Web site: www.midmopeaceworks.org Check out our News Blog http://www.midmopeaceworks.org/articles.php "Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels - men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." -- Dwight David Eisenhower ***************************************************************** 5 IPS-English DISARMAMENT: US-India Nuke Deal May Spark Asian Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:28:53 -0700 ROMAIPS NA AP IF IP NU DISARMAMENT: US-India Nuke Deal May Spark Asian Arms Race Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 (IPS) - The U.S. decision last week to proceed with a controversial civilian nuclear deal with India has triggered strong negative responses from peace activists, disarmament experts and anti-nuclear groups. ”The development of a nuclear/strategic alliance between the United States and India may promote arms racing between India and Pakistan, and (between) India and China,” says John Burroughs, executive director of the New York-based Lawyers' Committee on Nuclear Policy. The deal, he told IPS, also undermines prospects for global agreements on nuclear restraint and disarmament. An equally negative reaction came from former U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala: ”It has the dangerous potential of triggering a nuclear arms race among India, Pakistan and China, with disastrous consequences for Asian peace and stability and Asia's emerging economic boom.” But the Indian government argues that the nuclear agreement would neither destabilise the region nor prompt an arms race. Nor will it trigger a ”copycat deal” between Pakistan and China, India's national security adviser N.K. Narayanan told reporters last week. ”This agreement was not an excuse to enhance our strategic capabilities,” he told a press briefing in New Delhi. Zia Mian of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University says the United States sees strategic and economic benefits in the nuclear deal with India. ”But the people of India and Pakistan will pay the price, since the nuclear deal will fuel the India-Pakistan nuclear arms race,” he added. The deal will allow India to increase its capacity to make nuclear weapons materiel, and Pakistan has already said it will do whatever it can to keep up with India. ”This means nuclear establishments in both countries will become more powerful, drain even greater resources away from social development, and increase the nuclear danger in South Asia,” Mian told IPS. Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary of state who led the negotiations, denied the deal was a clear example of political double standards by an administration which has been trying to punish Iran for its nuclear ambitions but gives its blessings to India. ”This agreement sends a message to outlaw regimes such as Iran that if you behave responsibly, you will not be penalised,” he told reporters last week. India -- along with Pakistan and Israel -- has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but Iran has. Called the ”123 agreement”, last week's nuclear deal will help create a civil nuclear enrichment facility in India, mostly with U.S.-made reactors and expertise. Still, in a major speech in February 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush said that ”enrichment and reprocessing are not necessary for nations seeking to harness nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” ”The details of the so-called '123 agreement' are still shrouded in secrecy but, on the basis of what has been disclosed, it is clear that the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation deal is an example of crude realpolitik trumping nuclear nonproliferation principles in total disregard of the NPT,” Dhanapala told IPS. He warned that it sends ”a bad signal to the overwhelming majority of NPT parties who have faithfully abided by their treaty obligations.” Last week Burns told reporters that the deal would not act as an incentive for other countries to develop nuclear weapons outside the NPT. Burroughs said that India made it clear when the NPT was negotiated that it could not accept a world divided into nuclear haves and nuclear have-nots, and stayed out of the treaty. ”The problem with the deal is not that it acknowledges that India has nuclear weapons,” Burroughs told IPS. ”The problem is that both India and the United States are showing no signs of working towards the elimination of their arsenals together with other states possessing nuclear weapons.” Under the deal, neither country agrees to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). ”And while India agrees to work with the United States towards a treaty banning production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons, India is not required to stop producing materials for weapons now or to refrain from building additional weapons from existing material,” he added. Nor does India assume the obligation the United States has under the NPT, to negotiate in good faith cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and the elimination of nuclear arsenals. In short, the deal seems to certify India as a member of a permanent nuclear weapons club, Burroughs declared. Mian of Princeton University pointed out that the deal is also a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1172, adopted on 6 June 1998, which was passed unanimously, and called upon India and Pakistan ”immediately to stop their nuclear weapon development programmes, to refrain from weaponisation or from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.” That resolution also encouraged all States to ”prevent the export of equipment, materials or technology that could in any way assist programs in India or Pakistan for nuclear weapons,” said Mian who along with M. V. Ramana co-authored ”Wrong Ends, Means, and Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal With India”, in the January/February 2006 issue of Arms Control Today. ***** + US-INDIA: '123' Nuclear Agreement Completed (http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38700) + Nuclear Ambitions (http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/nuclear/index.asp) (END/IPS/NA/AP/IP/IF/NU/TD/KS/07) = 07312352 ORP026 NNNN ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: We don't need the nuclear option New solar and wind power developments could lead to a rapid growth in renewable energy, says Keith Barnham Wednesday August 1, 2007 Jim Al-Khalili is deeply concerned that people believe "we can slash our reliance on coal and gas solely through renewable resources, such as wind and solar, along with energy conservation" (Nuclear waste is hardly a worry when the climate change threat is so urgent, July 26). I own up to being a believer and, as a fellow physicist, ask: where is Jim's data? Here is some of mine. More solar energy strikes the Earth in one hour than is consumed by all human activity in a year. In the UK more than 60% of our electricity is used in buildings. The solar energy falling on those buildings exceeds by more than seven times the energy consumed inside. Hence more than half the UK electricity demand could be met by covering all south-facing roofs with the current 14%-efficient solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. That is ignoring small wind turbines and new technology. The PV cells my company is commercialising have twice this efficiency and can be much less obtrusive. The most significant feature of the newer wind turbine and PV systems is that they come in small units and can be installed very quickly. Not only do these micro-generation technologies have much shorter lead-in times than the 10-year wait for nuclear stations (or the 20-35 years for Al-Khalili's technology to transmute nuclear waste), but installations can grow exponentially, as happens for consumer electrical products. The most optimistic assumption for new nuclear build is a linear rise of one new reactor a year, starting in 10 years' time. For example, PV use in Germany has been growing exponentially over the past decade. One hundred times as much PV electrical capacity as in the UK has already been installed. If similar policies were introduced here, the combination of wind and PV electricity generation would dwarf the proposed nuclear build well before a single new nuclear unit of electricity is generated. According to Al-Khalili, people like me are "utterly irrational" in being concerned about nuclear waste. But plutonium will be a problem for hundreds of thousands of years, not tens of thousands as he claims. He argues that science will eventually find a way "to deal with this buried waste thousands of years in the future". I consider it immoral that we should leave more than 10,000 generations to deal with the waste of the three generations who will have consumed the world's exploitable uranium reserves. For a start, how will they know where the plutonium is buried, when the store must survive intact for more than 100 times the age of Stonehenge? Rather than developing transmutation or fast-breeder schemes which may not work, and which involve the transportation of large amounts of plutonium, the highest priority of the nuclear industry should be to solve the long-term waste storage problem. The urgency of finding a solution was re-emphasised by the recent revelation that the failed London tube bombers had the plans of the Sizewell B nuclear station. · Keith Barnham is emeritus professor of physics at Imperial College London, and a co-founder of the solar cell manufacturing company QuantaSol k.barnham@imperial.ac.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006. Registered in England and Wales. No. 908396 Registered office: Number 1 Scott Place, Manchester M3 3GG. ***************************************************************** 7 The Hindu: Australia assures cooperation in civil nuclear energy sector Wednesday, Aug 01, 2007 — Photo: PTI Pleasantries: External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee with his Australian counterpart, Alexander Downer, on the sidelines of the ASEAN 40 Ministerial Meeting and 14th Regional Forum in Manila on Tuesday. MANILA: Australia on Tuesday “assured” India of “cooperation” in the civil nuclear energy sector. This was indicated by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee after his talks with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on the sidelines of a series of meetings being organised here by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). Mr. Downer, making an independent statement, hailed the successful completion of negotiations between India and the United States as a “very positive and historic development … which is very much in Australia’s interest.” He emphasised that “the relationship between Australia and India has never been stronger.” As economic partners, and “on security and strategic issues, Australia and India are collaborating at a level not seen before.” Mr. Mukherjee, briefing Indian journalists, said Mr. Downer disclosed that “the Australian Cabinet will soon be considering the issue of sale of uranium to India.” Australia had expressed its willingness to “cooperate” with India in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) so that its guidelines could be amended for the supply of know-how and equipment to India in the civil atomic energy sector. However, “nothing can be done without the International Atomic Energy Agency’s India-specific arrangement,” which was one of two issues “required to be done,” Mr. Mukherjee said. Noting that “Australia is becoming an important source for resources for the rapidly growing Indian economy,” he said Canberra’s uranium supplies could follow the finalisation of the IAEA’s India-specific arrangement.” Asked whether Canberra had indicated that its proposed uranium supplies would be bench-marked against Australia’s recent accord with China for the supply of the same resources, Mr. Mukherjee said, “Don’t try to compare [India] with China . Because, China is a nuclear-weapon state, which India is not [under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty].” Mr. Downer said the U.S.-India civil nuclear initiative “will have important non-proliferation and environmental benefits.” Australia, he said, “shares with the IAEA the goal of engaging with India as a constructive and responsible partner in preventing proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” “It is in the international community’s interest” that India, with “advanced nuclear technology,” had now agreed to sustain its own nuclear weapon-testing moratorium. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of ***************************************************************** 8 Power Surge: The Alternative Voice of the Seven Cities Locally and across the nation there’s growing support for nuclear energy. Even some environmentalists are on board. But is it really our best option? By Jim Morrison Tuesday, Jul. 31, 2007 Inside the reactor control room at Dominion Power’s Surry Nuclear Plant this morning, Donald Masiago is watching a computer screen that shows the operating capacity of Unit 2. While the deviations on the solid graph appear to be mountainous, this a little deceiving. The scale is set to operate between 99.9 percent and 100.1 percent, so he’s looking at capacity changes in the hundredths of percentage points. There was a time when nuclear reactors ran at 50 or 60 percent of capacity. Several were shut down in the 1990s because they were no longer economically feasible for their operators. But the message here is that things have changed; the industry has grown up and deserves a second look. "We’ve just gotten better running these units," says Matt Adams, Surry’s station director and safety chief who is serving as my tour guide. That’s the mood I’ve encountered all morning during a tour of the Surry station. It seems to reflect not only the industry’s optimism, but the public’s perception of nuclear power. Once, those distinctive cooling towers were symbolic of an industry that represented a looming threat to civilization: Sooner or later, people feared, an accident would cause reactors to melt through the Earth’s core—despite the best efforts of Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda—and we’d all be left glowing in the aftermath. Now, the great green campaign against global warming may need nuclear power in its arsenal. Atoms for peace could become atoms for Mother Earth. With the push for "clean" energy to reduce greenhouse gases, nuclear energy is undergoing a renaissance both on Wall Street (and in utility executive offices) and public opinion. About 70 percent of U.S. energy sources—oil, natural gas and coal plants—burn carbon. Citing that, even the environmental movement, which used opposition to nuclear power as a rallying cry in the 1970s and 1980s, seems open to splitting atoms—or, at least, more open to splitting atoms than burning coal. "Even the founder of Greenpeace came out in support of nuclear energy as a way going forward towards solving our energy demands," said Don Jernigan, who runs the Surry station and is the site vice president. Jernigan, a 30-year veteran of the industry, sits in his corner office and ticks off what he sees as nuclear power’s selling points: it is clean, without emissions, and, relatively speaking, cheaper than other sources of energy (though he’s quick to say that’s adding in the cost of pollution control technologies for coal plants). It’s that clean, available power that has environmentalists suddenly open to the possibility of building nuclear power stations. Gaia theorist James Lovelock of Great Britain was the first to endorse them in 2003. He was soon followed by Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace who split from that organization a decade ago. Stewart Brand, the Merry Prankster, former editor of The Whole Earth Catalogue and founder of the Long Now Foundation, says global warming poses such a threat that nuclear power has to be an option. ‘’There were legitimate reasons to worry about nuclear power, but now that we know about the threat of climate change, we have to put the risks in perspective,’’ he told The New York Times. ‘’Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but the great thing about it is you know where it is and you can guard it. The bad thing about coal waste is that you don’t know where it is and you don’t know what it’s doing. The carbon dioxide is in everybody’s atmosphere.’’ Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs in the Clinton Administration, told me that nuclear will be in the mix to combat global warming. "It has to be part of the solution," she said. "You cannot make up for 20 percent now provided by nuclear because there is not anything else. Not that nuclear doesn’t have problems. It does. But you know everything does. There is no perfect solution. We’re going to increase the amount of electricity supplied by nuclear. I don’t know how much, how fast, but I think it will increase." Other environmentalists, however, remain steadfastly against new plants. They point to the storage problem, the proliferation problem and the cost of building enough plants to make a dent in the coal burned for electricity—one study estimated that 1,000 new reactors would have to be built by mid-century to have an effect. Imagine, they say, if the billions to build a single nuclear plant were applied to insulating buildings, promoting electric cars or other energy efficiencies. The Sierra Club’s policy statement on nuclear power labels it "neither safe nor affordable." It cites toxic remains, "risky" plant technology, vulnerability to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the unsolved storage problems as reasons for its continuing opposition. Dominion officials disagree. "The nuclear industry has a safety record second to none," said Dominion spokesman Richard Zuercher. "I think that safe, reliable operation of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors has gone a long way in causing a new public dialogue on the future of electricity generation." Public distrust, regulatory minders and an industry bent on improving its image over the years have prodded nuclear operators to become safer and more efficient. Adams is effusive about his participation in the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), an industry group that conducts on-site visits and shares lessons to better operate nuclear power plants. Surry got raves in its latest evaluation. "The successful operation of the current fleet is vitally important in making sure the next generation is going to happen," Adams says. "Pristine, excellent operation is paramount for us going forward and starting the next wave of construction." Indeed, Surry is an example of how far the industry has come. The two units there averaged about 93 percent capacity from 2004-2006, compared with 72 percent capacity over their more than three-decades of operation, according to the Department of Energy. That next wave may be just over the horizon. There are 104 nuclear reactors currently operating in the United States, but a new one hasn’t been licensed in three decades, a legacy of the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and a Wall Street that viewed nukes as too expensive and too controversial. That’s changing, nationally and regionally. Dominion plans to apply in November for a license to operate a new reactor it may build at its North Anna site, 100 miles from Washington, D.C. and 150 miles from Norfolk. "The whole process for licensing units has changed to make it simpler for companies and more attractive for investors while maintaining openness with the public," Zuercher said. "We are optimistic about the economics of nuclear. That’s why we’re going through the process to have an option to build a new station at North Anna." Still, Zuercher said Dominion hasn’t made a final decision on whether to spend several billion dollars to construct the unit. "We are still looking at the economics," he added. "There have to be a number of factors in place for us to go forward including getting public acceptance." Virginia gets about 35 percent of its energy from the Surry and North Anna plants, 45 percent (and rising) from coal and only 3.7 percent from renewable and "other" sources. According to a 2003 Department of Energy report, Virginia nuclear capacity ranked 14th among states. Seven of the 31 states with reactors, including Vermont, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, New Hampshire and South Carolina, get the largest percentage of their energy from nuclear. (Across its network, Dominion generates 34 percent of its capacity through coal, 24 percent with gas, 22 percent with nuclear, 12 percent with oil and eight percent with hydro and other sources). Some of the cost of the new North Anna reactor, located next to ones that began operating in 1978 and 1980, would be covered by tax breaks and other incentives (the nuclear industry has been heavily subsidized by tax dollars from its inception). It would produce 1,500 megawatts of power, almost twice what each of the units at Surry produces. Zuercher says plans are for the reactor to go online in 2015, though in the past such projects have not met their scheduled completion dates. In response to complaints and concerns about discharge water from the reactor raising the temperature of Lake Anna, which Dominion created and is used for recreation, the company will build a $200 million wet-dry cooling tower, a technology new to the United States, but used in Europe and Japan. "It’s the right thing to do," Zuercher said. Dominion is representative of a U.S. nuclear industry that is poised to move into a major building phase. The North Anna application is one of 24 proposed U.S. reactors in the works according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Globally, nuclear power is proliferating. Finland has ordered a big reactor specifically to meet the terms of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. China’s new nuclear plants—26 by 2025—are part of a desperate effort at smog control. France gets 78 percent of its energy from nuclear power and stateside proponents point to the clean operating record of those plants as evidence the industry has turned the corner on safety and efficiency. More than 400 nuclear power plants provide about 17 percent of the world’s current energy needs, according to a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The new push has been aided by federal money. The Bush Administration’s 2006 budget increased nuclear power funding by 5 percent, even as it cut overall energy funding. In the 2005 Energy Bill, Public Citizen charged there were $12 billion in nuclear subsidies, more than for either the coal or oil industries. In the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2007, Public Citizen and the National Resources Defense Counsel claim there were billions in subsides for the nuclear power industry (Public Citizen put the number at an additional $3.7 billion). In 1989, the Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island closed without producing a killowatt of power at a cost of $6 billion (the plant was fully decommissioned in 1994). In the wake of that and other nuclear plant problems, utilities and their Wall Street financiers stayed away from investing in new plants for two decades. Ratepayers ultimately were made responsible for the debacle. More than a decade later, Long Island electric rates remain among the nation’s highest. And Shoreham was just the poster reactor for construction mismanagement. In 1968, Pacific Gas & Electric projected the total cost of building Unit 1 of its Diablo Canyon plant at $445 million. By 1984, the final bill was $3.75 billion, an 843 percent increase. Shoreham did give rise to the 1992 Energy Policy Act, which allowed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to pre-certify reactor models and utilities to work with pre-approved sites. It would be a decade before any would use the new legislation. But the message is enduring: nuclear plants, even with the Bush Administration clearing some of the regulatory paperwork, are time-consuming and expensive to build. Calculating the true cost of a kilowatt from a nuclear power plant is complex and controversial, not only because of the construction costs, but the storage costs and the risk assessments (a nuclear accident, for instance, would cost in the hundreds of billions of dollars). But with the cost of coal and other energy sources rising due to pollution controls and some sort of cap and trade program aimed at greenhouse gases in the near future, proponents say even with construction costs nuclear is an option. A Department of Energy paper in 2006 forecast the following prices for energy in 2015, without considering the environmental impact: • Coal: $0.0531 per kwh • Wind: $0.0558 per kwh • Natural Gas: $0.0525 per kwh • Nuclear: $0.0593 per kwh • Solar: $0.30 per kwh • Biomass: $0.075 per kwh A report issued last month called The Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding put the cost slightly higher, at between 8 and 11 cents per killowatt hour. The task force was a group of 27 individuals from a broad spectrum including the nuclear industry (GE Energy, Duke Energy, the Nuclear Energy Institute), environmental groups (The Natural Resources Defense Counsel, The National Wildlife Federation), and others (The Pennsylvania Office of Consumer Advocate, the Kansas Corporation Commission, the Union of Concerned Scientists). Dominion’s Zuecher and others in the industry say the Bush Administration’s new policy streamlining the plant approval process through pre-certified designs and public hearings loaded on the front end will decrease construction times and lower costs. The fact-finding report noted that "factors other than cost can have an acute impact on the outlook of investors, CEOs, and regulators about the potential risks and benefits of a nuclear investment, including the market structure, certainty of regulatory oversight, public perception, and the disposition of nuclear waste." One cheaper possibility lies in technology developed outside the United States. Fourth generation pebble-bed reactors being developed in China and South Africa are championed for being meltdown-proof, but they are also cheap and fast to build, perhaps as cheap as $300 million a reactor. Instead of water, a pebble bed reactor uses an inert or semi-inert gas like helium as the coolant. However, even proponents concede the technology will not be market competitive until 2020, well after China and other countries are on their way to building large numbers of new reactors. Unit 2 at the North Anna Nuclear Plant automatically shut down June 29 about 5 p.m. after a safety system started to inject water into the reactor vessel. The NRC described the event as of "low safety significance." There were no injuries and no release of radioactivity. The reactor was back on line in a week. A report should be issued by the NRC later this month. When environmentalists and nuclear opponents campaign against nuclear power, it’s usually on safety and security issues. Proponents say they’re ignoring history. In more than 10,000 cumulative reactor years of operations worldwide, according to the Joint Fact-Finding report, there have been two major accidents involving nuclear power reactors—at Three Mile Island and at Chernobyl. Both sides concede plants are much safer since the Three Mile Island incident, though the security concerns have grown dramatically since Sept. 11, 2001. At Surry during my visit, there was always an armed guard, sometimes one with an automatic weapon, within a few feet of me. There have been incidents to cause concern. In March 2002, boric acid had nearly eaten completely through a six-inch reactor pressure vessel before being discovered at the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ohio on the shore of Lake Erie. The NRC labeled the incident as dangerous and eventually fined the reactor’s owners $5.4 million. Corrective maintenance took two years and cost $600 million. In 2006, the reactors owners entered into an agreement with federal prosecutors to defer prosecution and agreed to pay fines of $23.7 million. Two former employees and one former contractor were indicted for making false statements to inspectors attempting to hide evidence of the corrosion. The Joint Fact-Finding report notes that safety concerns should focus on existing reactors, which are likely to receive license extensions, as both Surry and North Anna have. But the fact-finding participants could not agree that there was a "strong enough" safety culture at all U.S. power nuclear plants. The task force also expressed concerns about nuclear plant expansion in other countries, especially those with weaknesses in the rule of law, construction practices, regulatory oversight and security. Germany, which decided in 2000 to phase out all its nuclear plants by 2021 but recently appeared to back away from that plan, has seen a storm of controversy about its 19 aging plants in the wake of a fire at a plant near Hamburg last month and an incident last year at another reactor that required operators to manually shut it down. Zuercher said the industry knows that to be able to build a new generation of more efficient nuclear plants, it must safely and effectively operate the existing fleet. And the industry through INPO and the World Association of Nuclear Operators needs to instill the highest standards worldwide. "Let me tell you that an event anywhere in the world has repercussions through the industry," he added. "Someone once said we are hostages of each other." What about nuclear proliferation if the commercial nuclear industry grows? Proponents say the bad guys like Iran and North Korea already have the capacity to enrich uranium for bombs. The NJFF says the challenges will increase as the industry grows. "There are critical shortcomings in the current IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards," the report concludes, adding that "the international community has demonstrated that the enforcement mechanisms are effective." The problem of waste storage is something the nuclear industry has been promising to solve for 40 years. In his office at the Surry plant, Don Jernigan says it has. He’s been to Yucca Mountain and he says the technology works. But he concedes the political reality is different. "The issue is whether or not the state of Nevada wants to become the repository for the country’s spent fuel," he adds. And, so far, Nevada has said no thanks. Until and unless the political winds shift, Yucca Mountain may remain one big, deep hole in the ground. The most optimistic timetable for opening the facility is 2017—if ever —at a projected cost of $58 billion. In addition, the mountain has a statutory capacity of 70,000 metric tons, well below the amount of waste that will be created by current reactors. Jernigan and others say if the other hurdles are surpassed, Congress may up that capacity. Claussen and the members of the Joint Fact-Finding group see Yucca as a dead issue. "What the nuclear industry has to do is figure out the waste problem," Claussen said. "We’ve spent years and years arguing about Yucca Mountain and that is not the solution because we’re still arguing. I don’t see the politics changing there." The Joint Fact-Finding group concludes that a deep underground geologic repository is the best long-term disposal for spent fuel, but in the interim, on-site fuel pools and dry cask systems can store spent fuel safely and securely. At Surry, spent fuel is cooled in a pool, then moved to dry, concrete casks sitting forlornly on pads in the near distance. Jernigan and Zuercher both mention reprocessing as a means to reduce waste. Reprocessing of spent fuel is done in other countries, but was outlawed by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 because it is one way to make the key ingredient of a nuclear bomb. The Bush Administration has been pushing its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which includes reprocessing, as a means to expand nuclear power abroad and in the United States by reducing the waste. However, reprocessing is expensive and creates low and intermediate-level nuclear wastes itself, wastes that need long-term management. Zuercher thinks reprocessing may become more economical and may offer a short-term solution to the storage problem. "There’s a lot of energy in that used fuel and it can be reprocessed so that you can use that energy and reduce the amount in the waste stream," he said. But he says Dominion does believe a repository like Yucca Mountain is necessary. "Fuel should not reside at the site forever," he added. "That’s not acceptable in our view. It’s not responsible." There is no doubt that nuclear power will proliferate worldwide. But can it mitigate global warming? The United States is currently responsible for about 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions and the generation of electricity is responsible for about one third of that. In short, generating electricity is the single largest source of greenhouse gases. So targeting electricity makes sense. And proponents like Brand and others say the move to nuclear power is the obvious answer. Most of the nuclear growth is expected to take place in Asia and India. In the U.S., the Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding report concluded the rate of new plants being built would not replace the capacity of old plants being retired. But the report raises doubt whether enough reactors could be built fast enough to make a difference. One or two plants at North Anna won’t dent the need. According to the report, 435 nuclear plants around the world are likely to be retired in the next 50 years. Indeed, there are doubters who think even replacing their capacity is unlikely. Two decades ago, the United States had about 400 suppliers and 900 nuclear certificate holders licensed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Today, the report said, those numbers are 80 and 200. The report also noted a limited forging supply for key components. Only two qualified companies in the world can supply the heavy forgings needed by the nuclear industry, and their prices have increased by double figures in just the last six months. To replace aging nuclear plants and add enough capacity to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions would require constructing, on average, 14 1,000-megawatt-plants annually for the next 50 years. That’s trillions of dollars of investment. The report also concluded a ramp-up in nuclear capacity of that size would require: • 10 nuclear waste repositories the capacity of Yucca Mountain. • 11-22 large enrichment plants, compared to 17 existing plants. • 18 fuel fabrication plants, each producing 1,000 tons of fuel year, compared to 24 existing plants. "The NJFF participants agree that to build enough nuclear capacity to achieve carbon reductions of a carbon reduction wedge would require the industry to return immediately to the most rapid period of growth experienced in the past (1981-90) and sustain this rate of growth for 50 years," the report concluded. In the U.S., the task force concluded the rate of new plants being built would not replace the capacity of old plants being retired. Some participants in the task force thought with higher capacity new generation nuclear plants, that goal could be reached. Others did not. Zuercher said the need for that growth may be mitigated by relicensing of existing facilities. "We anticipate that most of the existing nuclear power stations will have their licenses renewed for another 20 years," he said. Theoretically, those plants could then be relicensed a second time for another 20 years. "It is possible to renew again and again, depending upon the condition of your station and whether it makes economic sense," he said. "We personally believe nuclear needs to be part of the future," he added. "The decision point it all boils down to is will it be economical to build and operate?" That’s a trillion-dollar question given the energy needs of the next century. And, when you ask it, the next question is inescapable: what if we spent those trillions innovating and building renewable sources of clean energy without nuclear power’s waste problem? • The Sierra Club’s policy statement on nuclear power labels it "neither safe nor affordable." It cites toxic remains, "risky" plant technology, vulnerability to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the unsolved storage problems as reasons for its continuing opposition. But other environmentalists embrace it as a way to address the problem of global warming. ***************************************************************** 9 BBC NEWS: Measuring sea level rise from space Last Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 14:47 GMT 15:47 UK By Mark Kinver Science and nature reporter, BBC News Meteorologists and climate modellers are eagerly awaiting the launch of a satellite that will be able to measure sea level rise to an unprecedented degree of precision. Jason-2, scientists hope, will help shed light on the oceans' dynamics by measuring the topography - the "hills" and "valleys" - of the world's seas every 10 days. The satellite's radar altimeter, Poseidon-3, is designed to measure the sea level height to within a few centimetres. It will do this from its orbit more than 1,300km above the Earth. Data collected by Jason-2's instruments will help researchers develop more precise forecasts, improve hurricane path projections and reveal how climate change is affecting ocean currents. 1. Advance Microwave Radiometer (AMR) - measures signal delay caused by water vapour 2. GPS antennas - ensures precise orbit path 3. Poseidon-3 altimeter- measures sea level 4. Doris antenna - tracking and positioning control 5. Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA) - tracks and calibrates measurements Mass: 525kg (1,155lb) Power generation: 511 watts Height: 3m (9ft 8in) Orbit: 1,338km (831 miles) (Source: Eumetsat, Cnes, Nasa) "There is more to the dynamics of sea level rise than just a single, global rise," explained Mikael Rattenborg, director of operations for the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (Eumetsat). "Although we have seen, overall, global sea level rise, there are areas that have decreased for long periods, followed by an increase. "We can only analyse the significance of regional variability of sea level rise if we have altimetry data available to us," he added. "Jason-2 will help us model and explain this evolution." The satellite will be able to map 95% of the world's ice-free oceans every 10 days, something that would be impossible using survey vessels on the surface of the planet. As well as observing variations in sea levels, Mr Rattenborg said the mission would also help researchers map seasonal and inter-annual ocean patterns, such as the Pacific's El Nino effect. "This has a profound impact on the weather, not only in that region but globally. We can study this phenomenon in much greater detail with the altimetry data. "All of these processes are coupled to climate analysis, which is the key reason why Eumetsat is interested in altimetry." Storm tracking Eumetsat operates and collects data from satellites on behalf of Europe's national meteorological agencies, such as the UK's Met Office, to compile forecasts and climate models. Mr Rattenborg said the sea surface topography recorded by Poseidon-3 would also reveal tell-tale signs that would help predict the path and intensity of hurricanes. Map showing sea level variations He used Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the US Gulf coast in 2005, as an illustration. "It passed over the Florida peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico as a strong hurricane (category three), but not an intense one. "But suddenly, about 24 hours before it hit New Orleans, it developed into a category five hurricane. "If you look at the sea surface temperature in the Gulf at the time Katrina passed over, it is fairly homogenous, so it does not explain why the system developed so rapidly." Mr Rattenborg said the answer could be found in something called the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP). "It is a measurement of the heat energy available in the deep layer of the ocean," he explained. "Altimetry provides us with a measurement of this potential, because the (sea) surface topography reacts to the changes to the heat content beneath the ocean. "In the area of the Gulf, south of New Orleans where Katrina passed, there was a sea-surface height anomaly, which corresponds to a very deep layer of very warm water. "This clearly shows that by looking into the ocean, we can monitor the availability of heat energy." But it is not only the thermal energy stored deep within the oceans that causes the variation in sea level, gravity also has an influence. The subterranean geology is not uniform, some regions are more dense than others. This causes a subtle but significant shift in the Earth's gravitational force. To measure the influence of gravity and its impact on ocean topography and currents, the European Space Agency (Esa) plans to launch an arrow-like satellite called the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (Goce). 'Arrow' to map Earth's tug "If we want to improve our climate models then we need to improve our knowledge of how the oceans move, and Goce will help us do that," mission scientist Dr Mark Drinkwater, from Esa, told BBC News. By combining the data gathered by Goce and Jason-2, meteorologists and climate scientists will advance their understanding of the physical factors influencing the oceans and atmosphere. Jason-2 is the latest addition to a series of satellites fitted with altimeters to map the sea surface. The first, Topex/Poseidon, was launched in 1992 as an experiment to assess the effectiveness of high-accuracy altimeters to measure ocean dynamics from space. Its success paved the way for the Jason-1/Poseidon-2 mission, launched in 2001. Lessons learned from the previous missions have allowed the team building the Poseidon altimeter instrument for Jason-2 to improve its accuracy and reduce the margin of uncertainty to within 2.5cm. All systems go Because the satellite's orbit of 1,338km above the Earth's surface takes it through a harsh, radioactive environment, the craft's operational life is listed as five years. Scientists involved in the project say Jason-1 is already using a number of back-up systems and it is only a matter of time before these fail, too; hence the need for Jason-2 to replace it. As with the original Jason, this satellite and altimeter is being built by Thales Alenia Space in Cannes, France. Jason-2 is on schedule for a June 2008 launch, say scientists It forms the space segment of a mission called Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM) - a joint initiative between the French space agency (Cnes), Nasa, and meteorological bodies Eumetsat and Noaa. "This mission is dedicated to several objectives, including the precise, continuous and global measurement of the sea surface," said Pascale Ultre-Guerard, head of Cnes' Earth observation programme. Thierry Huiban, Jason-2 project manager, said preparations were on schedule and the team was confident the satellite would be ready for its launch in June. "We have completed the integration of the payload module with the [satellite's] platform. "We are now carrying out tests to ensure the satellite qualifies for the space environment." These tests include exposing the craft to the kinds of forces it will experience during its journey into space and while it is in orbit. If all goes according to plan, Jason-2 is scheduled to be moved from southern France to its launch site at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, in February 2008, ahead of a June blast-off onboard a Delta II rocket. 1. Jason-2 satellite: From its 1,338km-high circular orbit, the craft maps 95% of the world's ice-free oceans' topography every 10 days 2, GPS satellites: The system is used to track Jason-2's position, ensuring very precise sea level height measurements 3. Sea height measurement via Poseidon-3 altimeter: The dual frequency radar signals are able to measure sea level height, wave height and surface wind speed 4. Sea surface topography: Variations in the height of the sea surface, when combined with measurements from other satellites and in-situ instruments, will allow scientists to improve weather and climate system models 5. Doppler Orbitography and Radiopositioning Integrated by Satellite (Doris) and laser ranging beacon: Ground stations ensure the precise positioning of Jason-2, which enables researchers to gather meaningful data from the satellite * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 10 BBC NEWS: Quake leak hits Japan power firm Last Updated: Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 10:51 GMT 11:51 UK The Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant has been closed Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) expects a significant slump in full-year profits after the closure of a key nuclear plant following an earthquake. Radiation leaks from the plant after the quake on 16 July led to it being closed in order to meet safety rules. As a result, Tepco, the largest power producer in Asia, has cut its net profit forecast by 79% to 65bn yen (£268.9m), for the 12 months to March. The firm plans to buy other sources of nuclear power and to use a hydro power plant in order to meet peak summer demand. Japan is a heavy user of nuclear energy and the firm's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant was meant to answer more than 3% of the nation's energy needs. But the government - under pressure from the International Energy Agency to examine the plant - has demanded it should be closed until it is proved that safety requirements can be met. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 11 Bangkok Post: N-energy as an option Wednesday August 01, 2007 COMMENTARY BOONSONG KOSITCHOTETHANA Nuclear power is a controversial subject around the world, with both critics and proponents very keen to have their views heard. The debate whether the world should build more nuclear power plants to meet the estimated 50% surge in global electricity demand in the next 25 years, is now upon us here in Thailand. Nuclear power has become a hot issue here after the government in April approved a master plan for power supply development which called for the installation of 31,790 MW in additional generating capacity over the next 15 years. For the first time, nuclear energy was specifically included in the plan, with a 4,000 MW capacity plant to be put in place by 2020-2021 at an estimated cost of US$8 billion. Fuelling the debate is the recent advocacy of the Thai plan made in Bangkok by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei. The statement was endorsed by Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont, but was promptly rejected by Greenpeace. The 6.8 tremor which struck central Japan on July 16, causing some damage to the 8,212 MW Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, has also renewed concern about radiation, because some water from the spent-fuel pool leaked into the Sea of Japan (though most of it was far less active than common natural radiation sources). That occurrence has brought up the question whether we should allow the case to compound earlier worries of risks to citizens' health and safety due to possible accidents and radiation from nuclear power stations. Should we allow the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl disaster to continue to haunt us and stop us from exploring for new power sources as they did in many countries in the latter part of the 20th century? What nuclear offers is a choice. Not an easy one, but one that needs to be considered on the basis of its merits and weaknesses, as all energy options should be. There is no panacea. We should not reject the nuclear option outright based on perceptions that resolutely bill nuclear as a pariah, ignoring the benefits it offers. Many experts agree that nuclear energy is the only non-greenhouse gas emitting power source that can effectively replace fossil fuels and that can produce the large amounts of "baseload" power supplies needed to satisfy day-to-day electricity demands. With worries about terrorism now paramount in the minds of the world's public and political leaders, concerns about safety that haunted nuclear utilities for decades appear to be receding. Many societies are becoming more aware of the scientific fact that the rate of fission in a reactor is not capable of reaching sufficient levels to trigger a nuclear explosion because commercial reactor grade nuclear fuel is not enriched to a high enough level. In fact, nuclear plants have by and large proven to be safe, thanks to new technology, stringent regulatory frameworks and strict operation controls. The World Nuclear Association offered a comparison of death due to accident among different forms of energy production - death per TWy of electricity produced is 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas and eight for nuclear. With electricity shortage, the increase in prices of fossil fuels, global warming from fossil fuel use, safer nuclear technology and national energy security, the world is left with little choice but to embrace nuclear power in a broader way. As of 2004, nuclear power provided 6.5% of the world's energy and 15.7% of the world's electricity, with the US, France and Japan together accounting for 57% of all nuclear-generated electricity. At present, the IAEA reports, there are 435 nuclear power reactors in operation in 31 different countries, providing about 17% of the world's electricity. As far as Thailand is concerned, a diversification of power source is necessary as the Kingdom is heavily relying on natural gas, which generates about 70% of total power supply. If everything goes according to plan, nuclear would represent only 7% of the country's total generation in 2011. Excluding hydropower, nuclear power promises to offer the least generating cost at 2.05 baht/kWh, compared to 2.07 baht from coal-fired thermal plant, 2.24 baht from coal-fired combined cycle plant, 4.02 baht from oil-fired thermal plant and 7.77 baht from gas-turbines. According to a recent government study, the estimated generation cost from renewals are 20.20 baht for solar, 5.98 baht for wind turbine, 4.63 baht from waste and 2.63 baht from biomass. The current average power charge paid by the public is around 3 baht/kWh. © Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2007 Privacy Policy Comments to: Webmaster Advertising enquiries to: Internet Marketing Printed display ad enquiries to: Display Ads Full contact details: Contact us ***************************************************************** 12 APP.COM - NRC: Reactor staffers pass test | Asbury Park Press Online Tuesday, July 31, 2007 Plant stresses "safety culture" Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/31/07 BY NICK CLUNN STAFF WRITER Post Comment LACEY — The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant has resolved a safety concern that has dogged its management for nearly three years by passing a special inspection that scrutinized how well operators follow procedures. The inspection's outcome, made public in a report released last week, means the violation that prompted the inspection can no longer be held against Oyster Creek if its work force commits another error in the area of emergency preparedness. Two or more outstanding violations in one area can lead to additional attention from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The passing grade comes on the heels of a major effort by plant operator AmerGen Energy Co. to improve "safety culture" around Oyster Creek, whose officials want the NRC to allow it to stay open for an additional 20 years under a renewed license. Without the renewal, Oyster Creek would likely close when its license expires in April 2009. AmerGen officials initiated special training programs and encouraged managers to pay more at-tention to worker performance after Oyster Creek failed part of a June 2006 inspection meant to clear the violation. Regulators on that visit were not convinced that AmerGen had adequately addressed the cause of the errors behind it. Some plant operators had told NRC officials that they could execute step-by-step procedures by skipping around instead. About a year passed before AmerGen invited the NRC back for a second inspection because the company wanted to show change, not simply the plans meant to initiate it, said Leslie Cifelli, a spokeswoman for the plant. "We not only put the plan in place, but we wanted to execute the plan and show consistency," she said. The violation stemmed from a mistake in August 2005, when plant workers failed to alert emergency responders to a clog in an outdoor intake pipe. Millions of gallons of river water need to pass through the plant each day to keep it at a safe temperature. Emergency responders at the plant and in the towns around it should have been told about the clog in case the situation became worse, regulators say. As a result, "state and local agencies, which rely on information provided by the facility licensee, could have been prevented from taking initial offsite response measures," according to the inspection report, which was issued July 16. Operators didn't issue an alert because they failed to implement a certain plan that should have gone into effect, the report stated. That mistake raised questions among regulators about whether plant workers were following procedures. During a subsequent investigation by AmerGen, company officials found that management had failed to clearly explain their expectations. There was also a lack of consistent enforcement when standards weren't met, the report stated. The kind of violation at issue is called a "white finding" by the NRC, which uses a four-color system to grade risk. The scale ranges from green to white, yellow and red, the most serious. "White" constitutes an issue of low-to-moderate significance. CARE TO COMMENT? Visit our Web site, www.app.com, and click on this story to join in the online conversation about this topic in Story Chat. Nick Clunn: (732) 643-4072 or nclunn@app.com Copyright © 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 baltimoresun.com: Constellation Energy files partial plan for reactor -- Bloomberg News July 31, 2007 Constellation Energy Group Inc. has filed the first partial application to build a new nuclear reactor in the United States in almost 30 years. Constellation filed an environmental report with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that seeks permission to build a third reactor at its Calvert Cliffs site in Lusby, according to documents on the commission's Web site. "They're the first in the door with some part of a request to actually build a new reactor," Scott Burnell, spokesman for the commission, said yesterday. The commission expects applications to build 27 new reactors this year and next. No new reactors have been ordered in the U.S. since 1978, a year before the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island Unit 2 in Pennsylvania. Constellation's application goes a step beyond other requests for environmental approval by the regulators, including filings for early-site permits by Exelon Corp., Southern Co. and Dominion Resources Inc. "This is part of an application to actually build and operate" a new reactor, said Burnell. The other applications were "just to get our stamp of approval on a piece of land." Constellation submitted the estimated 5,900-page report to the commission July 13. The company might submit the rest of the application by the end of the year, George Vanderheyden, president of UniStar Nuclear, said yesterday. The new reactor is proposed by UniStar Nuclear, a unit of Constellation. Constellation said this month that Electricite de France SA, the world's largest reactor operator, agreed to invest up to $625 million in UniStar to form a joint venture to build nuclear power plants in the United States and Canada. That deal has not closed. Electricite de France initially plans to spend $350 million in cash and might buy up to 9.9 percent of Constellation shares to gain a toehold in the U.S. nuclear industry, the companies have said. The full new reactor application requires detailed information that covers design, maintenance and service for a new nuclear plant. It includes reactor leakage detection systems, concrete radiation shields, accident monitors and safe shutdown procedures in the event of a tornado or earthquake. ***************************************************************** 14 NRC: NRC Schedules Public Meeting in Wilmington on August 2 to Discuss Regulatory Performance at Global Nuclear Fuels News Release - Region II - 2007-038 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region II 61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303 www.nrc.gov CONTACT: Ken Clark (404) 562-4416 Roger D. Hannah (404) 562-4417 E-mail: opa2@nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a public meeting in Wilmington, N. C., on Thursday, August 2, with officials of Global Nuclear Fuel - Americas, L.L.C., for a review of regulatory safety performance at the company’s low-enriched uranium fuel fabrication facility. The meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. (EDT) in the Masonboro Island Room of the Student Center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, located at 601 South College Road. The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the results of the NRC’s latest Licensee Performance Review at the plant for a period from May 8, 2005 through August 2, 2007. The NRC staff said in letters to the company earlier this month that Global Nuclear Fuels continued to conduct its activities related to Safety Operations, Radiological Controls, Nuclear Materials Safeguards, Facility Support and Licensing in a safe and secure manner but that one area needing improvement was identified. The letter said that, while performance in the area of Facility Support was adequate, the company needed to improve on its implementation of procedures for maintenance and surveillance of safety controls to ensure they can perform their intended function. The meeting is between officials of the NRC and Global Fuels and is open to observation by the public and news media representatives. NRC officials will be available at its conclusion to answer questions from reporters and interested members of the public. 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. Tuesday, July 31, 2007 ***************************************************************** 15 AFP: France-Libya accord plans further nuclear cooperation - Tue Jul 31, 2:33 PM ET PARIS (AFP) - A French accord on providing Libya with a nuclear reactor for water desalination paves the way for broader cooperation on atomic energy, according to details of the deal released on Tuesday. The text of the Franco-Libyan agreement was released to the press as Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner went before a parliamentary committee to answer questions on the deal, which has drawn official protests from Germany. Entitled "Memorandum of understanding on cooperation in the field of peaceful applications of nuclear energy," the document signed during President Nicolas Sarkozy's visit to Libya last week outlines three goals: "To deepen and develop cooperation between both countries on the peaceful uses of atomic energy in the mutual interest of both parties." "To encourage the institutions and industrial companies of both countries to undertake joint projects." "To authorise the institutions and industrial companies of both countries to work together with a view to carrying out nuclear energy production and water desalination, as well as other development projects linked to the peaceful use of atomic energy." France and Libya express their "will to increase and encourage their cooperation in the field of nuclear plants for the production of energy and water desalination," the text says. Kouchner earlier told the committee the French proposal was still at the planning stage, saying the deal struck in Tripoli was a simple "memorandum of understanding, a possible framework" for a "possible nuclear reactor". "There have been complaints, in particular because we raised the hypothesis, which is far from being confirmed," of supplying a nuclear reactor to Libya, he said. "Remember that this is for desalinating sea water, not for making war, and that it would be completely controlled" by the UN's atomic watchdog, "if it goes ahead, and it is not certain that it will." "There has been no contact between the company that could do this and Libya, so it is just a prospect," Kouchner said. The Franco-Libyan accord was signed a day after Tripoli freed six foreign medics. France played a key role, along with EU officials, in securing their release. German officials have blasted the deal as "reckless" and a potential blow to nuclear non-proliferation efforts as well as the European Union's aim to pursue better coordinated foreign policy. It has also been attacked by the left-wing and green opposition in France as a potential proliferation risk. But an official with France's Atomic Energy Commission insisted that international safeguards imposed after Libya scrapped its military nuclear programme in 2003 would prevent any proliferation. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 16 Reuters: Entergy, GE-Hitachi in nuclear components deal Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:42AM EDT BOSTON, July 31 (Reuters) - Power company Entergy Nuclear said on Tuesday it signed an agreement under which GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy would supply components for a potential new U.S. nuclear power plant. Entergy Nuclear, a unit of Entergy Corp. (ETR.N: Quote, Profile, Research), plans to submit an application to U.S. regulators to build a new nuclear facility in Grand Gulf, Mississippi, by the year's end and for another in River Bend, Louisiana, next year. Entergy said it has not yet made a firm decision to build a new nuclear unit but wants to line up components now to allow it to do so by 2017. The company, which says it is the second-largest U.S. nuclear operator, has operated nuclear plants at both those sites since the mid-1980s. Terms of project development agreement with GE-Hitachi, a joint venture of U.S. conglomerate General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Japan's Hitachi Ltd. (6501.T: Quote, Profile, Research), were not disclosed. (Reporting by Scott Malone) © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 CNN: The power generation gap from FORTUNE Can nuclear power help solve global warming? Soaring energy costs? Only if we’re convinced it’s safe. Editor-at-large David Whitford travels cross-country in search of our nuclear future. Road Trip: Touring America’s nuclear past and present Click on the interactive map to track David’s journey from the site of the first No Nukes protests to Three Mile Island and the industry’s next generation reactors. (more) The nuclear revival, in pictures America's experience with nuclear energy is sprawling and complex. These locations and characters are just a few of the players that David encountered during his cross-country trip. (more) Leg 1 Rethinking Three Mile Island It was billed as the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident, but how bad was it really? (more) Leg 2 America’s nuclear revival The industry is coming alive in the Midwest's Ohio Valley. Fortune tours the hot spots. (more) Leg 3 The high cost of going nuclear Power companies are lining up to build new plants after a decade of stagnation. What's standing in the way? (more) Leg 4 The trouble with nuclear waste It's not easy building a home for spent radioactive material. The proposed site at Yucca Mountain has been underway for over 30 years. (more) Leg 5 In search of safe nukes The Idaho National Laboratory is at work on next generation reactors that promise to deliver more reliable energy. (more) Full Story Going Nuclear Nuclear power plants provide about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, but it’s been more than a decade since the last plant went online. Read David Whitford’s full story on what it will take to revive the struggling industry. (more) © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS ***************************************************************** 18 Knoxville News Sentinel: Watts Bar Unit 2 likely to get OK By Andrew Eder (Contact) Tuesday, July 31, 2007 TVA board meeting * When: 9 a.m. Wednesday * Where: TVA West Tower Auditorium, 400 W. Summit Hill Drive, Knoxville * Who: The meeting is open to the public. Members of the public who want to comment must register at the meeting before 9 a.m. With TVA recommending the completion of a second reactor at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant, all that remains is the stamp of approval from the federal utility’s board of directors. That stamp is likely to come at a board meeting Wednesday in Knoxville, where directors will hear the results of a $20 million study on finishing Unit 2 at the Spring City, Tenn., nuclear plant. Wednesday’s meeting could be a contentious one, with several activists promising to voice their discontent with nuclear power and other issues during the public comment period. “It’ll be a different opposition this time than it has been in the past,†said Ann Harris, a former Watts Bar worker and whistleblower. The decision on Watts Bar 2 follows the successful restart of the Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in north Alabama. That effort took five years and at least $1.8 billion. TVA has not yet released the final cost of the renovation. Unlike Browns Ferry, the completion of Watts Bar 2 would involve finishing a reactor that has never run. The Tennessee nuclear plant was one of TVA’s most controversial and costly projects. The one operating reactor at Watts Bar was finished in 1996 after 23 years and $6.9 billion in construction costs. In 2001, TVA wrote off $1.7 billion in Watts Bar 2 construction costs, and many of the reactor’s parts have been cannibalized for use in other TVA plants. The utility has been working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to develop a framework for licensing the second Watts Bar reactor. TVA has a construction permit for the reactor but would need to apply for an operating permit. Also on the agenda for Wednesday’s meeting are the fiscal 2008 budget presentation and a proposal to buy a natural gas-fired power plant. Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 19 CNN: Going nuclear - August 6, 2007 The industry is gearing up to build its first new plants in decades. But are we comfortable with that? Join Fortune's David Whitford on a road trip into America's nuclear future. By David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:40 PM EDT (Fortune Magazine) -- "We were at heightened security - we were at red," recalls Al Griffith, spokesman for the utility that owns the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire. The entrance to the Yucca Mountain spent-fuel repository, which so far is merely a five mile tunnel. Atomic Culture: In New Mexico, the minor-league team is called the isotopes. Harvey Wasserman, No-nukes pioneer: "I intend to make it as difficult for them is possible. Those of us who can still walk will be back in droves. The power generation gap The industry is gearing up to build its first new plants in decades. How bad was the accident really? The industry is coming alive in the Midwest's Ohio Valley. Will power companies foot the bill? It's not easy building a home for spent radioactive material. An Idaho lab is at work on next generation reactors that promise to deliver more reliable energy. Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. Four years later the identity of the marsh intruder remains a mystery, although authorities have narrowed the list of suspects. It was a "heron or turkey or some damn thing," says Griffith. And the occupants of the suspicious vehicle? Two skittish underage kids on a beer run who somehow missed the turnoff to DeMoulas Market Basket, then panicked and fled. Listening to Griffith's story, I'm not sure whether I should feel reassured or alarmed. What I do know is that 54 years after President Eisenhower envisioned a future in which the awesome power of the atom would "serve the needs rather than the fears of mankind," a lot of us are still spooked. Griffith's own mother is so unnerved by what her son does for a living that she refuses to set foot inside the plant, which, by the way, has a visitor center, a nature trail, and a museum frequented by schoolchildren. "We have found in demographic studies that particularly older Americans - they associate nuclear, the 'N word,' with explosion, with bombs, with war," says Griffith. "It's a difficult branding issue." The July 16 earthquake in Japan, which caused a fire at the largest nuclear-power complex in the world, tipped over barrels of contaminated material, and spilled hundreds of gallons of low-level radioactive water into the sea, reminded us that it's not just branding - the product has flaws. Factor in all that, plus the daunting economics of nuclear power and the still-unsolved puzzle of how to safely dispose of nuclear waste, and you begin to understand why it's been more than three decades since the last successful attempt to license and build a nuclear power plant in the U.S. got underway. It may surprise you to know that nuclear power has stayed with us all these years, stubbornly clinging to about a 20% share of U.S. electricity generation - about the same as natural gas but lagging far behind coal at 50%. (Globally, nukes have a 16% market share.) And while no new plants have come online since 1996 (construction began on that one in 1973), suddenly we're hearing lots of talk about a nuclear revival - or "renaissance," as the boosters call it. In June, Dale Klein, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), told a fired-up gathering of industry leaders in Atlanta that he's expecting applications for 27 new reactors over the next two years. "There is no serious opposition," says Tony Earley, CEO of Detroit's DTE Energy (Charts, Fortune 500), which hopes to file at least one of those applications. "This train is moving." A lot of the push is coming from the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which is stuffed with generous subsidies for nuclear power and other alternatives to fossil fuels. Among them: billions of dollars in tax credits, loan guarantees, and insurance to cover licensing delays. Big corporations know which way the political wind is blowing. Texas power utility TXU (Charts, Fortune 500) won support from environmentalists for a $32 billion buyout deal in February in part by scrapping plans to build a fleet of coal-fired generating plants and pledging instead to build as many as five jumbo nuclear plants. GE (Charts, Fortune 500) and Hitachi, meanwhile, have created a multibillion-dollar partnership to build reactors, betting not only on power-hungry Asia but also on new thinking in the U.S. "It's hard to believe simultaneously in energy security and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions without believing in nuclear power," GE CEO Jeff Immelt told reporters in July. "It's just intellectually dishonest." Probably the earliest a new reactor could come online in the U.S. is 2015, and even that seems optimistic. There is plenty of opposition, despite what Earley says. And anything could happen over the next decade or so to knock the train off its track. A terrorist attack on a nuclear facility anywhere in the world would halt all progress overnight. So would another Chernobyl. But right now the momentum is swinging nuclear's way. Among the many green-light factors: rising natural-gas prices; soaring electricity demand; the looming prospect of a carbon tax; a new, streamlined regulatory process; and growing acceptance by environmentalists that nuclear energy, which emits no greenhouse gases, could have a vital role in saving the planet. This developing story has continental sweep, a huge cast of characters, multiple moving parts. So much of what we think we know we haven't reexamined in years. If we're going to try to reconcile nuclear power's cloudy past with the industry's bright vision of the future, we need to see for ourselves. Road trip, anyone? Pausing now at a stoplight on Highway 1 as I'm leaving the Seabrook plant, I consult the GPS, turn the wheel of my little SUV toward the setting sun, and go. Already I have lots of questions. Who has the skill and know-how to build all those new plants? Where will we put them? How are we going to pay for them? Is the technology really safe? What about the waste? I'm just getting started. Two weeks, I figure this'll take. Seven thousand zigzaggy miles through America's nuclear past, present, and future. The most important lesson I will learn: Things are not always as we remember them. How bad was Three Mile Island? I'm on the river road south of Middletown, Pa., when I come upon a handsome blue historical marker commemorating "the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident." (You haven't lived until you've beheld a roadside monument to an event that occurred during your lifetime.) Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station is right there across the road, the iconic towers rising from a fern-shaped island in the Susquehanna River. Reminds me of the first time I saw the Eiffel Tower. Similar hyperboloid sweep, but that's not what's so striking. It's the weirdness - the sudden, disorienting displacement of a familiar mental image, derived from 1,000 pictures, by the thing itself. Those towers carry a lot of symbolic weight, almost none of it appropriate. There's nothing specifically nuclear about them, for one thing. They're just cooling towers. A lot of coal-fired electricity plants use the same technology. That engine roar coming from the towers that sounds like a giant waterfall? That's all it is, water falling: 200,000 gallons per minute at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit, but not radioactive. And that's just water vapor coming out of the tops, of course, not poisonous smoke. What's more, the towers played no part in the accident, even if they did wind up on the cover of Time. That whole drama began and ended several hundred feet away inside the Unit 2 containment building - starting before dawn on March 28, 1979, and unfolding over several days - and yes, it was undeniably scary and bad. There was an explosion inside the building, a partial meltdown of the reactor core, purposeful venting of radioactive gases, and a voluntary evacuation covering five square miles. The PR was inept, inflaming public fears. (Strange but true: The China Syndrome was playing in first-run theaters that week. As the tension builds, a nuclear engineer tells Jane Fonda that a meltdown could render an area "the size of Pennsylvania" uninhabitable.) The cleanup took 14 years and cost $1 billion. Unit 1, while undamaged, did not reopen until 1986. Unit 2 is a sarcophagus, still highly radioactive, sealed tight until somebody figures out what to do about the remnants of hot fuel scattered around the basement of the containment building. But guess what? No one died at Three Mile Island. No one even got hurt. Hard evidence simply does not exist that any living thing, animal or vegetable, was significantly harmed by the small amount of radiation released during the accident. Even in the most extreme cases, the exposure was less than anyone living in the area receives from natural sources. Eric Epstein, head of the citizen's group Three Mile Island Alert, whom I met for lunch at Kuppy's Diner in nearby Middletown, is certainly no fan of nuclear power, which he describes as a "very expensive economic adventure" and an "economic boondoggle." "They're still married to hubris," Epstein rails. "They can't get past their own arrogance." So where does Epstein live? Twelve miles from the plant. "I like the area," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "I encourage people to move here." The other thing you can't pin on Three Mile Island is the blame (or credit, depending on your point of view) for halting the expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. In 1974, President Nixon predicted we'd have 1,000 commercial nuclear reactors operating by the end of the century. Not even close. No more than 250 were ever ordered, only 170 filed for permits, just 130 opened, and 104 remain. What happened? Construction delays, cost overruns, high interest rates, systemic safety issues, a whole lot of no-nukes protesters, and a surprising dropoff in electricity demand, all of which predate 1979. Three Mile Island didn't kill the nuclear dream. It was just another nail in the coffin. Can the industry be trusted? On to Washington. David Lochbaum is a respected critic. He was smitten at an early age by the magic of the atom. He has thrilling childhood memories of visiting the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, in the shipyard at Newport News, Va., and hearing about all the cool peacetime projects that his dad was working on at Westinghouse, like plutonium-powered artificial hearts and floating nuclear power plants. None of those projects came to fruition, but no matter. "It seemed nuclear had a lot of promise," says Lochbaum. "I wanted to follow that up." Trained as a nuclear engineer, Lochbaum spent 17 years working in nuclear power plants across the South. What finally ruined it for him, he says, was the industry's lackadaisical attitude toward safety. When his bosses didn't respond to his concerns, he went to the NRC. When the NRC failed to act, he took the issue to Congress as a whistleblower, and in 1996 he crossed over to the other side, becoming director of the Nuclear Safety Project with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) in Washington, D.C. I met him in his cramped office on H Street, working well past dark one Thursday evening. Behind his desk is an old wall map labeled "Nuclear Power Reactor Sites in the United States - March 1979." Still largely accurate, I can't help but notice. Lochbaum says he'd never have taken this job if UCS were an abolitionist outfit, but unlike Greenpeace, for instance, UCS is not opposed to the idea of nuclear power. Its concerns are more practical: that we'll ask too much of nuclear and it will fail to deliver for any number of reasons - political protests, disappointing technology, terrorism. UCS's bottom line: We should focus society's resources on renewables, conservation, and efficiency, not nuclear. Especially, Lochbaum would argue, given the nuclear industry's propensity to screw up. Lochbaum said something to a reporter in June 2001 that he thinks "in hindsight was probably bad judgment." But it was clearly revealing. The question had to do with plant security - how a terrorist might cause trouble. "Buy a comfortable chair," Lochbaum riffed. "Buy a big-screen TV. Buy plenty of snacks and beverages. Sit back and watch sports while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the nuclear industry undermine safety until they cause an accident." In other words, Lochbaum says, "it's not the antinukes, it's not an overzealous regulator that's been the industry's worst nightmare - it's themselves." While he believes most plants are run "very well" (Lochbaum's favorite nuclear operator is Dominion (Charts, Fortune 500), with two plants in Virginia and one each in Connecticut and Wisconsin), he sees a "widening gap between the haves and have-nots." His suggestion: more regulation and more enforcement. Can we build them fast enough? Next day, right around the corner at the Nuclear Energy Institute, I ask the industry's chief lobbyist, Alex Flint, what he thinks of Lochbaum's prescription. Good for the industry? Flint, who wears an impressive power suit and a bright-yellow tie, peers at me through thin-rimmed glasses for several long seconds. "My guys have over $100 billion worth of capital tied up in nuclear plants," he says finally. "They're concerned about the vagaries of overzealous regulators." He goes on: "We're going to submit combined operating and licensing applications at the end of this year for a number of plants. We estimate it'll take 42 months to get through the licensing process. We estimate it'll take us 40 months after we get the license to bring a plant online and actually start getting revenue." The only way that works, he says, is with a "broad base of support for nuclear power where we don't care who is in office one year or any other year. The industry has a time line that's longer than most politicians' time lines." In fact, that consensus may already exist, thanks to the complex politics of global warming. Flint doesn't line up with environmentalists on every issue, but on climate change he's a true believer. ("I won't let my wife buy a beach house because I don't believe the water level will stay where it is until I get the mortgage paid off. That's my personal view.") So if Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton want to talk about nuclear power as a solution to global warming, Flint is happy to have that conversation. Bottom line: Flint, who was majority staff director for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee when the Republicans were in control, says the last time he tried to count the hard-core antinukers in Congress, "I couldn't get to 20." Even Al Gore is wavering. Gore pointedly ignored nuclear power when he addressed ways to reduce carbon emissions in his film, An Inconvenient Truth, but in March he told a House committee hearing, "I'm not an absolutist in being opposed to nuclear. I think it's likely to play some role." Flint knows that nuclear power all by itself can't solve the climate crisis. The industry will be hard-pressed to simply preserve its global market share as electricity production booms over the next half-century, much less steal share from fossil fuels. In the U.S. alone, according to a new study by the Council on Foreign Relations, given the age of the existing nuclear fleet, "the replacement rate would be on the order of one new reactor every four to five months over the next 40 years." This in an industry that's been dormant for 30 years, at a time when commodity prices for steel and concrete are soaring, and when qualified welders are almost as hard to find as nuclear engineers. "I get very frustrated with people who say it takes too many nuclear plants to solve our climate problems," says Flint. "It takes a lot fewer nuclear plants than it does other technologies." Any way you look at it, he says, the investment required to meet the projected growth in demand for electricity in the U.S. is on the order of $750 billion to $1 trillion. "So the greatest issue for me is, How is that investment going to be made? Is it going to be made in coal, gas, nuclear, wind, solar? Yes, it takes a lot of nuclear power plants, but it takes a lot of anything." What's the worst that could happen? Turns out we had a near miss not long ago in the Midwest. I leave D.C., heading west and north, up through West Virginia and into western Pennsylvania, over the spine of the Appalachians. PENNSYLVANIA PRESENTS THE FUTURE OF COAL, the billboard says, CLEAN, GREEN ENERGY. And here and there, up on the ridgelines, stand small clusters of wind turbines, like scouts in an advancing army. Next day I arrive in Oak Harbor, Ohio, then head for the shoreline of Lake Erie. At the turnoff to Turtle Creek Marina I pull over by the side of the road and just sit for a while, staring at the cooling tower that looms above the Happy Hooker bait shop. Unless you live around here, or in Toledo, 30 miles west, or possibly in Cleveland or Detroit, both less than 90 miles away, the name Davis-Besse may not mean anything to you. That's just lucky. During a refueling outage at Davis-Besse in 2002, employees discovered a "large cavity" about the size of a football in the head of the pressurized vessel that houses the reactor core. The cause of the cavity was later traced to leaks in nozzles that penetrate the interior of the vessel head. The water in the nozzles was slightly acidic. When it evaporated, it left behind boric acid, which over time ate through the 6 1/2-inch-thick carbon-steel head all the way down to 1/4-inch-thick stainless-steel cladding. As the hole widened, the internal pressure on the cladding intensified. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Lab have since determined that if the plant had continued operating, the cladding ultimately would have burst. (Plant owner FirstEnergy (Charts, Fortune 500) says it would have found the leak in time to take "appropriate steps.") Had the cladding burst, the core would probably have suffered a meltdown, releasing about the same amount of radioactivity as at Three Mile Island - only this time it would not have been contained. "They came very close to an accident that would have been much worse than Three Mile Island and not as bad as Chernobyl," says Lochbaum. "You don't ever want to be in a place where those are your bookends." Both the leakage and its corrosive effects were known issues. The industry committed in 1989 to investigate such leaks. Yet somehow Davis-Besse escaped detection until it was almost too late. What's more, in April 2000 an NRC inspector was handed a truly ugly photograph of the Davis-Besse reactor vessel head covered in acidic crud. No one saw it again until after the accident. The episode cost the utility company around $600 million. Can the no-nukes movement regroup? Sunday afternoon in Bexley, Ohio, east of Columbus. I'm standing on a quiet, tree-canopied street at the top of Harvey Wasserman's driveway, waiting for him to come outside, meanwhile reading the bumper stickers on his cars: BUSH LIED, PEOPLE DIED; CELEBRATE DIVERSITY; THE DEATH PENALTY IS DEAD WRONG. Makes sense. Three decades ago Wasserman was a leader in the Clamshell Alliance, the grassroots movement that delayed the opening of the Unit 1 Seabrook nuclear reactor for many years while making sure Unit 2 was never completed. Today, it happens, is the 30th anniversary of a landmark Clamshell victory - the release of 550 demonstrators who had spent two weeks locked up in New Hampshire armories. It was a huge win for the burgeoning movement. Wasserman was at Seabrook that day, handling communications with the press. Now he's a college professor, an author, a father of five daughters, and a Volvo driver living in the suburbs, but the fire still burns. "I was present at the creation of the antinuclear movement," Wasserman tells me by way of introduction, once we're settled at a picnic table. "I actually coined the phrase 'No nukes.' It came through my typewriter." His opposition to nukes has not wavered since he was living on a Massachusetts commune in 1973 ("All those stories you've heard about hippie farms are true"), helping lead his first successful protest. "Not safe," he says now, "not economical, not green, not a solution to global warming." He gleefully searches for another phrase. "We have been trying for 30 years to drive a stake through the heart of this industry, but it doesn't seem to have one!" In his book Solartopia!, Wasserman envisions a clean-energy future in which all our energy needs are satisfied by solar, wind, hydro, and biofuels. "If we put our minds to it, we could have all of that before they bring the next nuke online," he says. "The finances are going in the opposite direction of the nuclear power industry. Where do you find on Wall Street people lining up to invest in nuclear plants? No one can simultaneously argue for a free-market economy and for nuclear power. You can't! You cannot do nuclear power without massive federal subsidies. It's just not going to happen." Before I leave, Wasserman has one more point to make: "I do intend to make it as difficult for them as possible. I will tell you that the antinuclear network is very much intact. It's a geezer battalion - I'm 61." He is silent for a moment, remembering. "In '77, I was 31. It was just so much fun. Some people are actually looking forward to doing it again. Those of us who can still walk will be back in droves, with our kids. This is not going to be a walk in the park for these guys." Who will build them if they come? Follow the Ohio River in the direction the current flows, all the way to the toe of Indiana, through Evansville and into tiny Mount Vernon, past the Civil War statue on the village square (a Union soldier; across the river he'd be a Reb) and out the other side of town, and you come to BWXT's Mount Vernon facility, the only factory in America that can still build large-scale nuclear components. GE and Westinghouse used to do a lot of that kind of work too, building complex reactor vessels from massive forgings born in the steel mills of eastern Pennsylvania and shipping them worldwide. Both have since shed their nuclear manufacturing divisions and today focus on design. That leaves BWXT, and in time it will have to go to Japan Steel Works for its forgings. When the bottom fell out of the market in 1978, the Mount Vernon plant went from employing 1,400 people to a ghost factory, ultimately allowing its coveted "N" security stamp - required for nuclear work - to expire. It got the stamp back a year ago, and already things are picking up. Right now Mount Vernon is working on two 60-ton replacement reactor heads for PG&E's Diablo Canyon facility in California. Plant manager Michael Keene and his boss Rod Woolsey, VP of the nuclear division, take me on a tightlipped tour of the factory floor, refusing to say much about the gleaming steel reactor vessels - some as big as circus elephants, others more like whales - I observe along the way. "Government" is all I can get out of them. Workers circulate on bicycles. No hardhats, which seems odd. Until I grasp that if anything in this pantheon topples, it will flatten my whole body, not just my head. Back in D.C., BWXT lobbyists are working hard to juice the order flow, angling for legislation that would open up foreign markets to U.S. manufacturers and pushing for someone to stand up on the national stage and articulate a thrilling goal say, 30 new nuclear plants by 2030. Pointing out that much of the domestic nuclear industry is down to at most a single supplier for every major type of component, they're also asking for tax credits to train new workers and tax incentives on capital improvements. "If we can't do this type of blue-collar work," BWXT's chief lobbyist, Craig Hansen, told me, "we might as well throw our hands up and say we are no longer a manufacturing country." His pointed warning: "We may exchange one form of energy dependence for another form of energy dependence." What will happen in an emergency? I'm following another river road, this one tracking the Mississippi near Hahnville, La., 20 miles west of New Orleans in what used to be rice and sugarcane country. Now it's an industrial zone. There's a big Union Carbide chemical plant in Hahnville, and right next door, a nuclear plant, Entergy's Waterford 3 reactor, and outside Waterford 3, a hair-raising public-information billboard, headlined WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN AN EMERGENCY AT WATERFORD 3? "If there is a problem, state and parish officials will decide how severe it is. Most problems will not affect you. If the experts decide there is a serious emergency, however, you may have to protect yourself. Stay as calm as you can. You will have some time to take the needed steps. Remember that nuclear plants do not explode. "Do not use your telephone. Do not call or go to your children's school. Cover your nose and mouth with a handkerchief or other cloth. Close the windows and doors if you are in a building or car. "What if you are told to SHELTER IN PLACE? Go inside your house or some other building. Stay inside until your radio or TV says you can leave safely. Keep your pets inside. "What if you are told to evacuate? Get your family together and prepare to leave. Pack only what you will need most." Reading that, my heart goes out to Ann Jupiter, who has lived in the shadow of Waterford 3 since it was built in 1985. "It's always scary," she told me when I stopped to visit. "When it ain't doing nothing, it's scary." What's it really like inside a nuclear power plant? More than halfway through my journey now, crossing Texas today from Bay City on the gulf to the New Mexico border, I'm thinking about all the nuclear plants I've seen so far - a total of 14 reactors in nine states - and what I've learned. I've learned that nuclear power is concentrated along the Eastern Seaboard but that Illinois has more nuclear plants (11) and generates more nuclear power (nearly 95 million megawatt-hours) than any other state. I've learned that nuclear plants are almost always off someplace by themselves, which makes sense. People don't want to live next to one if they can help it. Animals don't care, though. In fact, animals find a lot to like wherever there's a nuclear plant, starting with the absence of human beings. Plus nuclear plants don't make a lot of noise. They don't poison the air with dirty smokestacks, the way coal plants do. They don't kill birds, the way wind turbines sometimes do. No wonder so many nuclear plants are surrounded by nature preserves. I've learned that the inside of a nuclear plant is all cramped corridors and shiny floors and exposed pipes. That you have to wear earplugs in the turbine room and a hardhat almost everywhere, but that the earplugs go in your pocket and the hardhat comes off when you and your escort knock on the control room door and ask permission to enter. Nothing dangling - that's the rule in the control room - and nothing that might fall off our head and trip a switch that's better left untripped. I've learned about the etymology of SCRAM, an acronym reportedly coined by Enrico Fermi, who presided over the world's first nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago on Dec. 2, 1942. Fermi stationed a colleague, Norman Hillberry, next to the rope used to raise and lower the control rods, with an ax. Hillberry's job, if called upon, was to chop the rope with a single swing, immediately halting the reaction. Hillberry's title, the story goes, was Safety Control Rod Ax Man. I didn't see any axmen in the control rooms I visited, but I saw plenty of red SCRAM switches - same thing. Sometimes they're labeled "RX Trip." Give one a 45-degree clockwise yank, and the control rods plunge into the core and the reactor shuts down in seconds. I've learned that since Three Mile Island, every nuclear plant in America has at least two inspectors from the NRC onsite at all times. They have the best passes available, offering free run of the plant, anytime, anywhere. And since Three Mile Island, I've also learned, every control room operator spends a week in training and testing at regular intervals in a customized simulator room, identical in every detail to the control room where the operator works. I've learned that a nuclear plant is like a refrigerator it hums along pretty well all by itself, with minimal human intervention, except when you have to shut it down. Then you have a lot of work to do. I've learned that spent fuel rods are stored in 40 feet of water; that while a fuel-rod pool room is technically an RCA (radiation-controlled area), you can walk right up to the edge of the pool and look down in there and gaze upon the fuel rods in their honeycomb tombs, hot and glowing from the radiation still in them, and not worry about getting sick. But if you were to tumble into the pool and dive down to the bottom and touch one, you'd never make it back to the surface. Will we have to rely on a foreign source of fuel? I arrive around lunchtime in tiny Eunice, N.M.? Pretty bleak, this place, at least to my Eastern eyes: all pump jacks and natural-gas lines, otherwise not so much as a bump on the landscape. "It's good when it's good" is how Brenda Brooks from nearby Hobbs assesses the local economy, "and it's really bad when it's really bad." Which helps explain Brooks' new job. She's director of communications and community affairs for Urenco, a European consortium that's building the first advanced fuel-enrichment plant in the U.S., just 4 1/2 miles east of Eunice. The hope in the U.S. is that the new factory will help lessen our reliance on foreign sources of enriched uranium, much of which now comes from Russia. The hope in Eunice is that it will bring a measure of economic stability to the region, once it's up and running in 2009 and employing 300 people. Already, says Brooks, there are hundreds of construction workers on site, most of them living in overstuffed trailer parks in Eunice and Hobbs. Community resistance was minimal, but Urenco was taking no chances. The company flew community leaders to the Netherlands to see an identical plant that has been operating safely for years. "There's a day care across the street, and there's nobody running around with four legs and horns growing out of their forehead," says Brooks. "It's all cool." Where will we store the waste? The Yucca Mountain tour starts here in Las Vegas, at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. "There is a billion or two dollars' worth of science studies, but there's no nuclear waste out there," says Allen Benson, publicity director. Benson has been here 11 years, so he has given this rap a few times before. Says there's room at Yucca Mountain for "70,000 metric tons" of nuclear waste. (Which tells you something right away. It tells you that the origins of this hoary federal program date all the way back to that hopeful period when it seemed possible that Americans might be persuaded to convert to metric weights and measures. He means 77,000 regular tons.) "Whatever happens with nuclear power, nuclear renaissance, what have you," says Benson, "we currently have about 55,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel already, which something has to be done with." Absolute best-case scenario: Waste starts arriving in 2017. "That means everything occurs as we need, we get the appropriations we need - but it does not account for litigation. There will be litigation. We have no illusions about that." Nye County, the vast chunk of desert mountainscape that encompasses not only Yucca Mountain but also a former nuclear bomb test site, is not the issue. Nye County has been cashing Energy Department tax-equivalency checks for years - in 2007 it got $11.25 million, or about one-third of its operating budget. But nine other counties are contiguous to Nye including Las Vegas County - and the law says they all get their say. Already the NRC has built a dedicated facility in Las Vegas, out near the airport, just to host the hearings. Those get underway late next year. The costs so far are staggering: About $9 billion since the inception of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in 1983. But that's just the beginning. What Benson calls the "total system life-cycle cost" - covering final regulatory approval, complete construction, the transport of radioactive waste to the site, and the storing of said waste in such a way that all interested parties are satisfied that it won't be disturbed for at least 10,000 years - that total stands at $58.5 billion. "We're working on a revised total-cost analysis," says Benson. "It will be higher." Yucca was supposed to begin receiving waste in 1998. When that didn't happen, the utilities were forced to make other plans. Existing spent fuel pools, like the ones I've seen, are at about 80% of capacity and projected to reach 100% by 2015. The next option is what's known as dry cask storage - basically, burying the spent fuel rods onsite. And Plan B, if Yucca Mountain never gets approval to begin receiving waste? There is no Plan B. The drive to Yucca Mountain from Las Vegas in the Energy Department van takes about two hours. We park at the north entrance to the tunnel, don hardhats, and poke our heads inside. It's U-shaped, I'm told, and five miles long, but we venture just far enough to escape the heat. According to the plans, one day this tunnel will be the path down which sealed canisters of radioactive waste travel to their final resting place 1,000 feet below the ridgeline of the mountain. Construction of the tombs, however, has yet to begin, pending licensing approval. Other than testing, all progress at Yucca has been stalled since 1997. What can a convert teach us? Stewart Brand is a greenie from way back. Creator of the Whole Earth Catalog in his hippie days. Taught a generation about organic farming and composting toilets and how to live off the land. His house is a tugboat in San Francisco Bay, but his office is in a flowery, forested nook in Sausalito, Calif. Brand greets me all dressed in black, right down to his sandals - that's his style. White hair, what's left of it. Blue-gray eyes. A reading chair in the corner of his office and a grandfather clock. Many shelves of books, meticulously organized. Knows right where to find the ones he wants, pulls them out while we talk, drops them on the table, thunk. "What did you think of Yucca Mountain?" he wants to know. Weird, I say. Dickensian. Probably doomed. "Depending on how you count it, somewhere between $6 billion and $13 billion has been thrown down that rat hole," he says, and for that he blames ... himself. "Me and my fellow environmentalists," he means, "who said you've gotta prove that this is absolutely, perfectly safe for 10,000 years. You can't do scenarios for 10,000 years - everything flies apart. One hundred fifty or 200 years from now, humanity will either be pretty much unrecognizable, hovering around in terms of communication and starting to speciate new kinds of Homo sapiens, or if not that, we'll be back in the Stone Age, in which case a bit of radiation in Nevada is the least of our problems. So the whole thing, I think - not entirely intentionally - was set up as a self-defeating proposition." There are alternatives. Brand got involved a couple of years ago with Canada's national debate on what to do about its nuclear waste. The solution Canada came up with? Rather than stash it for 10,000 years, put it away for 175 years, specifically seven generations. "Basically put it there while we think about it," says Brand. "See what other options come along. Each new generation of nuclear reactor is safer and cheaper and smaller and smarter than the previous one, and that will probably continue. Likewise whatever we might want to do with the spent fuel." Brand, if you haven't figured it out, is a convert. Or in his words, a "mild nuclear proponent." For Brand, the only real issue is global warming. And nuclear power, he believes, may be our best option. "From coal you get carbon dioxide. Billions of tons of carbon dioxide. The difference in consequence is enormous. In the context of carbon dioxide, suddenly spent fuel looks pretty good." Brave nuke world? The end of my journey brings me all the way back to the beginning, to the Idaho National Laboratory in southern Idaho. It was here, on Dec. 20, 1951, that Walter Zinn, a veteran of the Manhattan Project, fired up Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 and illuminated a string of four 75-watt light bulbs; the next day he lit the whole building. That was the first time atomic power had ever been used to generate electricity. Today EBR-1 is a tourist attraction. Not a very popular one - only about 5,000 visitors a year - but here it is, the original reactor vessel (you can stand on the head; it was decommissioned in 1964), the control room (retro, of course, but so are the new ones), and a string of replacement bulbs the tour guide assures me look just like the originals. High on the wall behind the reactor, preserved behind glass, are the chalk signatures of the 17 scientists and one janitor who were present that day. Afterward one of the scientists, Reid Cameron, climbed back up the ladder and sketched a crude illustration to go with the list of names, something he thought emblematic of their achievement. I can't make it out at first. Some kind of wild-eyed creature whose breath is the wind. Turns out it's the devil. Over the years Idaho Lab scientists have designed and built 52 test reactors. Three are operational today, including the largest test reactor in the world. The mood at the lab these days is more hopeful than it's been in decades. Phil Hildebrandt, who's working on so-called Generation IV reactors - far-off technology that's safer, more reliable, and more versatile (with potential applications in the coming hydrogen economy) than anything that's out there today - says, "This is not unlike what we did 55 years ago with the Shippingport reactor in Pennsylvania. It's where government and the commercial world partner to develop things that are difficult for the commercial world to develop by itself." Kathryn McCarthy, 45, a staff scientist at the lab since 1991, would be happy just to see one new plant built before she retires. "I'm sort of from that generation where we haven't done anything real," she says. "I've done lot of things on paper, a lot of testing. But to actually see that move to the next step and have a plant come online would be a huge deal, it really would." Flying home that night, I'm thinking about what I've learned. I'm remembering what Stewart Brand said when I left him in Sausalito. Two important things. To his old friends in the antinuke movement, "Don't let up for a minute. Keep bearing down. But take in hand the other things that need to happen besides solar and wind and biofuels to actually get ahead of a problem that is already far ahead of us." And to his old enemies? "I'm sorry. I was wrong, you were right. I'm sorry." RESEARCH ASSOCIATE Patricia Neering © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS ***************************************************************** 20 NRC: NRC Staff Approves Transfer of Point Beach Operating License News Release - 2007-095 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs Telephone: 301/415-8200 Washington, DC 20555-0001 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov www.nrc.gov The Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff has approved the transfer of the operating license for the Point Beach Nuclear Plant from owner Wisconsin Electric Power Company and operator Nuclear Management Company, to new owner FPL Energy Point Beach, LLC. As provided by NRC regulations, the staff's approval of the transfer is effective July 31, contingent on the licensee receiving certain regulatory and judicial approvals. Wisconsin Electric Power Company and Nuclear Management Company submitted an application on Jan. 26, requesting approval of the license transfer. Major issues considered by the NRC included financial and technical qualifications, as well as transfer and maintenance of accumulated decommissioning funds. The license transfer also authorizes FPL Energy Point Beach to store spent fuel at Point Beach’s Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation. A copy of the NRC's approval order and accompanying non-proprietary safety evaluation report will be placed in the NRC's Public Document Room, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Room O-1 F23, Rockville, MD 20852 (telephone 1-800-397-4209 or 301-415-4737). The non-proprietary safety evaluation will also be available on the NRC’s Agency-wide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), by entering ML071560124 at this address: http://adamswebsearch.nrc.gov/dologin.htm 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. Tuesday, July 31, 2007 ***************************************************************** 21 UPI: New U.S. nuclear plant permit applied for United Press International - NewsTrack - Business - Published: July 31, 2007 at 1:27 PM WASHINGTON, July 31 (UPI) -- U.S. regulators have received the first application to build a U.S. nuclear power plant in three decades, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said. Constellation Energy Group Inc.'s application to build a $4 billion, 1,600-megawatt reactor in Lusby, Md. -- 50 miles southeast of Washington -- is the first U.S. nuclear-plant application since before a 1979 partial meltdown at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the commission said. The filing -- to add to an existing pair of reactors at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant -- reflects a rebound for U.S. nuclear power, The Washington Post said Tuesday. The resurgence is being bolstered by generous federal tax incentives and growing concerns about greenhouse gases emitted by coal-fired plants, which supply half the country's electricity, the newspaper said. Companies seeking to build nuclear plants can qualify for energy-production tax credits and loan guarantees -- if they get the NRC to accept construction permits before the end of 2008, the Post said. The commission expects as many as 18 other nuclear plant applications by then, a spokesman said. The commission's technical review of Consellation's application could last 2 1/2 years, followed by another year for hearings, the NRC said. © Copyright 2007 United Press International. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated ***************************************************************** 22 CNN: Rethinking Three Mile Island - Jul. 31, 2007 It was billed as the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident, but how bad was it really? By David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:02 PM EDT (Fortune) -- Ralph DeSantis was home in bed before dawn on March 28, 1979 when his phone rang. It was his shift supervisor at Three Mile Island (TMI), calling from the plant. "'We have an emergency at Unit II and it's serious,'" is the first thing DeSantis remembers hearing. Then he heard the alarms going off. The accident at Unit 2 gave the industry a bad name, but Unit 1 still runs smoothly. Interactive map: Power Trip See the stops along the author's route, as he toured America's nuclear plants. Go to map The power generation gap The industry is gearing up to build its first new plants in decades. How bad was the accident really? The industry is coming alive in the Midwest's Ohio Valley. Will power companies foot the bill? It's not easy building a home for spent radioactive material. An Idaho lab is at work on next generation reactors that promise to deliver more reliable energy. Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. Somebody had to manage the crush of reporters, DeSantis stepped in, and that's what he's been doing ever since. So there's one small consequence of TMI: a new career for DeSantis, not to mention greatly expanded job opportunities for flacks throughout the industry. TMI also confirmed a lot of people's worst fears about nuclear power, including, I'll admit, my own. I never really examined those fears again until recently, and I don't think I'm alone in that regard. After TMI, nuclear power sort of fell off the radar in the United States. Whatever your feelings 30 years ago, chances are you still feel the same way. Impact on health I think the question we need to ask ourselves now is pretty simple: Is it time to take a fresh look at nuclear power? One of the experts I talked to before I began my trip was Andy Kadak, a professor in the top-ranked nuclear engineering department at MIT. I asked Kadak, What were the health consequences of TMI? "Nothing," he insisted, "Practically speaking, nothing." Then he addressed Chernobyl. "That was a worst-case scenario. Ten kilometers were significantly affected, but were cleaned up. Thirty kilometers were made into a restricted zone, but now people are coming back, rightly or wrongly. There was radiation distributed around the world - but it was probably less than what was emitted by nuclear weapons testing back in the '50s or '60s. It was clearly unacceptable. "But I don't think it gets any worse than that. You had a burning fire throwing up this radioactive debris and distributing it all over the planet. It doesn't get worse than that." Kadak's conclusion: "Even in the worst-case scenarios it's very hard to see a global nuclear nightmare occurring because of a nuclear accident." Putting things in perspective Kadak and others led me to James Lovelock's fascinating book, "The Revenge of Gaia." Lovelock is a British environmental scientist who has come to the hard conclusion that the unprecedented challenge of global warming leaves us no choice but to make a massive global investment in nuclear power, which emits no greenhouse gasses. Are there safety risks associated with that? Well, sure, but here's how Lovelock puts those risks in perspective. How many people died at TMI, Lovelock asks? Zero. How many at Chernobyl? According to an authoritative study conducted by the United Nation's World Health Organization 19 years after the accident, no more than 75 people died at Chernobyl. And remember, that was a worst-case scenario. What about the long-term risks of cancer for those exposed to radiation from Chernobyl? The United Nations Scientific Committee on the the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) reported last year that "among the residents of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, there had been up to the year 2002 about 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported in children and adolescents who were exposed at the time of the accident, and more cases can be expected during the next decades." There were consequences, in other words. The risks are real. But Lovelock then asks us to consider China's Yangtze Dam, a huge source of squeaky clean hydroelectric power. "If the dam burst," Lovelock points out, whether because of an earthquake or an act of terrorism, "perhaps as many as a million people would be killed in the wave of water roaring down the course of the Yangtze River." A million people. Why is that an acceptable risk, and nuclear power is not? Email: dwhitford@fortunemail.com © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS ***************************************************************** 23 CNN: America's nuclear revival - Jul. 31, 2007 The industry is coming alive in the Midwest's Ohio Valley. Fortune tours the hot spots. By David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:11 PM EDT (Fortune) -- One thing I've learned on my 7,000 mile journey through America's nuclear past and present is that when you're driving around scouting for a power plant -- any kind of power plant -- first locate the high-voltage transmission lines. (If you stand directly under those lines, sometimes you can hear the electricity cackle and spatter like rain drops on the roof.) Beaver Valley Nuclear Generating Station The industry is gearing up to build its first new plants in decades. How bad was the accident really? The industry is coming alive in the Midwest's Ohio Valley. Will power companies foot the bill? It's not easy building a home for spent radioactive material. An Idaho lab is at work on next generation reactors that promise to deliver more reliable energy. Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. Came back the next day to have a look around. A surveyor's stake, set just across the river in Ohio on August 20, 1785, marked the "point of beginning" for plotting the public lands of the United States. That's noteworthy, since Shippingport also marks a different kind beginning point. It's the site of this country's first large-scale commercial nuclear reactor. Designed by Westinghouse, built in partnership with the Navy, and operated by Duquesne Light Company, the Shippingport reactor began generating electricity in December 1957 and was decommissioned in 1982. (The towers I saw belong to two new nuclear reactors in Shippingport, Beaver Valley 1 and 2, and a coal plant, all operated by FirstEnergy.) "Atoms for peace" All that remains of the original plant's history, a security guard tells me when I stop to ask, is the shell of the old control room and a photograph of President Eisenhower -- architect of the "Atoms for Peace" policy -- on the wall at the new training center. Fifty years after Shippingport, signs of the US nuclear revival are popping up all over this part of the country. In Piketon, Ohio, for example, east of Cincinnati, the former government entity USEC, which is now private, is demonstrating the latest in US owned-and-operated technology for enriching uranium. USEC hopes to begin supplying enriched Uranium to nuclear fuel fabricators as early as 2009. "What we're trying to do as quickly as we can is position ourselves for the growth of nuclear power," says a company spokesperson. A market surge BWXT, formerly Babcock & Wilcox, also hopes to supply the burgeoning industry. The company's cavernous facility in Mount Vernon, Indiana, across the Ohio river from Kentucky, is the only factory in America that can still make large-scale components for nuclear power plants. Last year BWXT signed an agreement to team up with with French nuclear giant Areva to build reactor vessels for US utilities. Ed Woolsey, the recently retired VP of BWXT's nuclear division who showed me around, told me he expects to be operating at capacity by 2015. "There is we believe a real strong market that's emerging, and we're preparing ourselves to be in play for that market," he says. "Our biggest challenge is to screen, hire the people, train the people and have them ready to go once the work gets here." Email: dwhitford@fortunemail.com © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ***************************************************************** 24 CNN: The high cost of going nuclear - Jul. 31, 2007 Power companies are lining up to build new plants after a decade of stagnation. What's standing in the way? By David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:36 PM EDT (Fortune) -- If the companies that supply nuclear power plants are ready for a revival, the utilities that will operate the plants are champing at the bit. Southern Company's Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, near Waynesboro, Ga. Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. I asked MIT professor Andy Kadak how to account for the recent flurry of new activity. "One is that nuclear plant performance has dramatically improved," he said. "In the early 1980s the capacity factor" - how much electricity the average nuclear plant generates, expressed as a percentage of capacity - "was in the low 60s. Today it's the low 90s. We used to have refueling outages that lasted 90 days. Now they do it in 27. Good ones are 21. "Utilities are making a lot of money from nukes today. That's given the utility CEOs confidence to say, 'Look, these plants are running well, we're making money and if we buy into nuclear, there's no reason not to expect similar performance in the future if we run them as we know how to run them now.' "That's a big plus. The other thing is deregulation. It forced utilities to be competitive in terms of how much their power costs. That was a factor driving efficiency and lowering operating costs. Then came the new designs. Vendors innovated and made reactors simpler and safer." Barney Beasley, Chief Executive of Southern Nuclear, added one more key factor: Soaring demand, especially in the fast-growing South, where more than half the new plants are planned. "Obviously in Georgia we're experiencing a lot of economic growth, a lot of population growth," Beasley said, while showing me around Southern's Vogtle generating station in the piney woods outside Waynesboro, Ga. Already Vogtle has two huge Westinghouse reactors generating more than 1000 megawatts each; Southern wants to build two more, doubling capacity. "Our projection over the next 20 years in terms of population is we're going to add another entire Atlanta in the state of Georgia," Beasley continues. "We are going to have to provide large base-load units to provide the power." The largest remaining obstacle to such plans? Cost. Consider a typical scenario in which a utility with a $9 billion market cap wants to build a nuke plant with a $5 billion price tag. "You put that on your balance sheet," as one former utility executive explained to me, "and you know what Wall Street would do with your bond ratings." The cost factor is the background to the generous set of nuclear subsidies contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Among them: a tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour for early movers, capped at $6 billion; regulatory risk insurance to cover licensing delays, potentially worth $2 billion; and federal loan guarantees that could pay up to 80 percent in the event of default. (Only the risk insurance applies specifically to nukes; the others cover wind, solar and biofuels as well.) But at least one utility executive - CEO David Crane of NRG Energy, which plans to add two new reactors to its existing South Texas Project, near Bay City, Texas - thinks the industry may be asking for too much help from taxpayers. "People in nuclear industry complain that everyone remembers Three Mile Island and Chernobyl," he said. "On the other hand, the nuclear plants remember that, too. They're cautious. They want everybody else to take all the risks. "Guys, get over it," he said. "Sure, nuclear plants are expensive. And power companies are not as big as oil companies. But one of the things about being in business is you get a reward for taking a risk. I just get the sense that while the industry likes to say, 'The government is not doing enough, the government is not doing enough,' it's time for the industry to step up." Email: dwhitford@fortunemail.com © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS ***************************************************************** 25 CNN: In search of safe nukes - Jul. 31, 2007 The Idaho National Laboratory is at work on next generation reactors that promise to deliver more reliable energy. David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:43 PM EDT (Fortune) -- There is a remote valley in southeastern Idaho -- 890 square miles; desolate, dry and stunningly beautiful -- that is the place to go for atomic lore. It's the home of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), where on December 20, 1951, scientists succeeded for the first time in converting nuclear power into electricity. They lit four 75-watt light bulbs. The next day they lit the whole lab. The Idaho Lab is currently operating three test reactors. Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. So INL scientists designed and built two air-cooled nuclear reactors/jet engines, and they worked, sort of. "Only problem was the weight-to-thrust ratio still didn't quite pan out because the reactors" -- at 226 tons each -- "were enormous." In other words, they'd never fly. President Kennedy scrapped the program in March 1963. By then the United States had plenty of missiles it could throw at the Russians, of course, and had learned how to refuel bombers in flight, and by the way had developed fresh intelligence on the Russian nuclear air fleet. Like WMDs in Iraq, it seems, they never existed. Today INL researchers are working on several initiatives that will help define nuclear power's future. One is the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, which the Bush administration has been pushing for the past couple of years. GNEP has several goals. One is to reduce nuclear proliferation by providing fuel suitable for nuclear power plants (but not nuclear weapons) to nations willing to submit to international oversight. Another is to reduce the volume of nuclear waste by reprocessing spent fuel so that part of it can be reused. GNEP wouldn't eliminate the need for a nuclear waste disposal site like Yucca Mountain, whose development has been stalled since 1997. But it could give us another couple of decades before we have to open another Yucca Mountain. It could also mean that whatever waste we're left with will have a much shorter radioactive life, and therefore won't need to be stored as long. Next generation Other INL researchers are helping to develop the next generation of nuclear reactors, known as Generation IV -- potentially safer, more reliable and more versatile (with applications in the coming hydrogen economy) than anything available today. Project director Phil Hildebrandt is hoping to deploy a Gen-IV demonstration reactor by 2018 and have a design that's ready for commercialization by 2025. Admittedly, that's an optimistic timetable. On the other hand, we're talking about an industry that went from powering four light bulbs to generating 16% of the world's electricity in 50 years. Even David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a staunch critic of the nuclear power industry, rates that an extraordinary accomplishment. Then he draws his own conclusions, relating to wind, solar and other sources of renewable energy not yet discovered. "If we look forward 50 years," says Lochbaum, "I don't see why we can't make the same kind of [progress], or even better, with renewables." Email: dwhitford@fortunemail.com © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL RIGHTS ***************************************************************** 26 SF Bay Guardian: Our unnecessary nuclear future (Politics) by Amanda Witherell photo of Diablo Canyon nuke plants courtesy of PG&E's Jim Zimmerlin Sigh. Just when you're starting to think something productive might occur in the legislature, enter the monkey wrench. A recently released study outlines exactly how we could be planning for an energy future free of nuclear and coal. If only our leaders would quit pandering to industry and adopt such a plan, but instead it looks like the nuclear industry has quietly tucked a provision into the new energy bill that would provide billions of dollars of loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants. The nuclear power industry has long argued that new plants aren't feasible unless these subsidies are granted. They scored them in the 2005 energy bill and despite the overwhelming evidence that more renewable energy sources are needed, looks like the 2007 bill will allocate even more coin toward new nuclear power plants. A lot of bitching has always accompanied the tax credits and subsidies granted to renewable power sources like solar and wind, with a lot of scorn that these industries are too expensive to stand on their own and therefore can’t serve our energy needs. But nuclear obviously can't either and has a proven track record of cost overruns. And a dangerous new nuclear era is dawning, with advocates claiming nuclear power plants are "emissions-free" and will save us from global warming. To paraphrase one of my trusted sources, "That's like saying you don't fart and ignoring the giant crap you're leaving behind." Posted by sfbg on July 31, 2007 04:13 PM | Permalink ***************************************************************** 27 AZ Republic: Promise of nuclear power July 31, 2007 Arizona Republic Watching the YouTube Democratic debate was a compelling experience. What the YouTubers delivered that traditional debate couldn't achieve was a medium in which a common humanity of video-viewers and candidates intertwined in a spontaneous exchange of personal experience within a political balancing act. Among the questions asked, one particular controversial subject piqued my curiosity: the potential use of nuclear power for clean energy. Alas, the candidates seemed uncomfortable with the idea. John Edwards opposed it, but Hillary Clinton left the door open to a solution for nuclear-waste disposal. While we must invest in hydro, solar and wind power, we should also consider nuclear energy. It is a faster, cleaner and safer source. France has it, producing 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear-power plants. Their solution? The spent fuel rods are cooled in water in Normandy for five years, then recycled and reused. The technology started 30 years ago and is working. France has the lowest cost of electricity in Europe and the cleanest air among industrialized countries. So why not? Fifteen U.S. companies propose building nuclear-power reactors. People are understand- ably concerned since Three Mile Island. However, if better understood, nuclear energy would be more acceptable. The candidates' role is to be informative, not evasive. Why not move forward? - Colette Jenkins,Anthem Copyright © 2007, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 starbulletin.com: Army promises safeguards for controlled Schofield fires Vol. 12, Issue 212 - Tuesday, July 31, 2007 By Gregg K. Kakesako / gkakesako@starbulletin.com The Army says it will have adequate safeguards in place this week when it clears a 1,100-acre Schofield Barracks training area by burning off weeds and shrubbery. The "prescribed burn" could take place as early as today, depending on weather conditions, said Stefanie Gardin, Army spokeswoman. Gardin said these controlled fires have been used regularly over the past few years at Schofield Barracks near the training range known as McCarthy Flats, north of Kolekole and Trimble roads. COURTESY The Army plans to use air monitors this week during "prescribed burns." In a written statement, the Army said the "prescribed burn is part of the U.S. Army Hawaii's ongoing plan to manage and protect range areas, decrease the danger of wildfires and survey for depleted uranium." Depleted uranium, a byproduct of radioactive enriched uranium, has been used by the U.S. military in armor-piercing munitions. Two years ago a contractor discovered 15 tail assemblies from spotting rounds made with depleted uranium while clearing an area that will be used by Stryker combat vehicles. However, the Army has said the recovered items had low-level radioactivity and did not pose a health threat. Last month, Cabrera Services conducted two small test burns, including a 1-acre area where depleted uranium had been found, and air monitors found no depleted uranium in the air during last month's tests. Army fire and safety specialists, working with the Federal Fire Department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will conduct the controlled burn. The fires will be set between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. © Honolulu Star-Bulletin -- http://starbulletin.com 500 Ala Moana Blvd. #7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813 808-529-4747 ***************************************************************** 29 DOE: DOE to Award $16 Million for GNEP Studies July 30, 2007 Department of Energy to Award $16 Million for GNEP Studies Teams to Provide Analysis on Technology Development WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that four consortia have been selected to receive up to $16 million for technical and supporting studies to support President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). AREVA Federal Services, LLC; EnergySolutions, LLC; GE-Hitachi Nuclear Americas, LLC; and General Atomics will each lead teams in developing the cost, scope and schedule for conceptual design studies for an initial fuel recycling center and advanced recycling reactor for GNEP. DOE will negotiate the final terms, under cooperative agreements, with the selected applicants and awards are expected to be finalized by the end of September 2007. “These studies will contribute to the analysis and inform the research that DOE is conducting to further President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”, Assistant Secretary of Nuclear Energy Dennis R. Spurgeon said. “GNEP seeks to increase the use of safe and clean nuclear energy worldwide in ways that reduces both the proliferation risks as well as nuclear waste.” DOE will use the information and recommendations provided by the teams, as well as other data and analyses, to evaluate the development and deployment of GNEP activities and to inform decision making on the path forward for GNEP. Today’s announcement is part of $60 million in funding opportunities announced by Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Sell in May to engage industry experts in conceptual design of proposed GNEP facilities. The $60 million in funding opportunities will be made available through September 2009, subject to Congressional appropriations. The FOA sought applications from commercial entities interested in providing technology development roadmaps, business plans, and a communications strategy supporting the GNEP conceptual design studies for the nuclear fuel recycling center and advanced recycling reactor. The technology development roadmaps will describe the state of the current technology, perform a technology “gap” analysis, and define the methods and plans to acquire technology needed to achieve the GNEP goals. The business plans will address how the market may facilitate DOE plans to develop and commercialize the advanced fuel cycle technologies and facilities. The communications plans will focus on the dissemination of scientific, technical, and practical information relating to nuclear energy and closing the nuclear fuel cycle. GNEP is part of President Bush's Advanced Energy Initiative and seeks to enable the expanded use of economical, carbon-free nuclear energy worldwide to meet growing electricity demand. GNEP seeks to close the nuclear fuel cycle in ways that reduce proliferation risks, reduce waste and further increase global energy security. Read more information on GNEP or view the FOA at Grants.gov. Media contact(s): Angela Hill, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 30 RIA Novosti: Police seize three more suspects in attack on nuclear protesters 12:31 | 31/ 07/ 2007 IRKUTSK, July 31 (RIA Novosti) - Police in Siberia have detained another three suspects in an attack on an anti-nuclear protest camp that left one person dead and 21 injured July 21, the first assistant prosecutor in Irkutsk said Tuesday. Alexander Semyonov said the detention brings the total number of detainees to 16 after masked assailants carrying baseball bats and metal rods attacked the camp in Angarsk, near Lake Baikal, which was protesting against nuclear waste imports into Russia. Police opened an inquiry but suggested young neo-Nazis stood behind the attack in revenge for an incident in which several of their associates had allegedly been beaten up. Western nuclear power companies have been sending byproducts from the uranium enrichment process to Russia, including 'unusable' uranium hexafluoride and uranium tailings, since the 1990s. Russia and Kazakhstan have also opened a uranium enrichment center in Angarsk near Irkutsk. However, in late June Russia's nuclear chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Russia would not reprocess any foreign uranium tailings or waste from the enrichment process until safer methods were found. He added all existing contracts involving the Angarsk complex, the regional economic mainstay, would expire by 2010. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 31 ReviewJournal.com: NEVADA COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR PROJECTS - Brager appointed to board Jul. 31, 2007 Clark County commissioner to replace Myrna Williams By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Susan Brager Democrat says Yucca Mountain plan doesn't seem safe Gov. Jim Gibbons had quietly made another appointment to the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects, but unlike his last one, the choice that surfaced Monday isn't likely to cause an uproar among opponents of the nuclear waste repository planned for Yucca Mountain. Susan Brager, a Democrat who is also a Clark County commissioner, was chosen by Gibbons to replace former Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams, whose term on the state panel expired June 30. "I will be looking into the issues of the situation and make sure I will be able to make wise decisions," Brager said Monday. The federal government's plan for Yucca Mountain "does not seem safe to me," she said. She returned Monday from vacationing in Southern California to find a letter from Gibbons' Boards and Commissions staff congratulating her on her appointment. As was the case when Gibbons appointed Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastley two weeks ago to fill Michon Mackedon's seat on the Nuclear Projects Commission, the latest appointment was news to the commission's chairman Richard Bryan, the former U.S. senator and former Nevada governor. Bryan said he was pleasantly surprised by the appointment of Brager. "I think Susan Brager will be a fine addition to the commission and she replaces Myrna Williams who was stalwart in opposition to the dump," he said. The commission has traditionally and outspokenly opposed the Department of Energy's effort to bury highly radioactive spent fuel and defense waste in the mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Gibbons' short-lived appointment of Eastley, whose pro-Yucca views have been documented in several news articles, raised concerns among Nevada's congressional delegation which had been kept in the dark about the governor's choice. Before attending a single meeting, Eastley abruptly resigned as Gibbons was about to carry out his pledge to rescind her appointment if he found out she was a Yucca Mountain supporter. Gibbons communications director, Brent Boynton, said that Eastley's seat had not been filled as of Monday. He confirmed, though, that Joan Lambert had been reappointed to serve another two-year term through June 30, 2009. Steve Molasky's term also expired June 30. "Even though he was not formally reappointed, he continues to serve at the pleasure of the governor," Boynton said of Molasky. The terms of Bryan, Larry Brown and Paul Workman, expire on June 30, 2008. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 32 Salt Lake Tribune Environment: Old uranium litters test, training range Article Last Updated: 07/31/2007 12:16:12 AM MDT More than 400 pounds of depleted uranium, used as ballast in cruise missiles, litters the Utah Test and Training Range, according to Air Force records. The material is radioactive, but given the relatively small amount and its distance from inhabited areas it likely poses little risk. "It is probably not something for the public to worry about," said Steve Erickson, of the Citizen Education Project, who obtained the depleted uranium records from the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act. "It is something of a regulatory puzzle, however. You're not supposed to leave it there. It should be disposed of properly." Depleted uranium has given up some of its radioactive properties to enrich other uranium, making it "hotter" and usable in reactors. Depleted uranium is about 40 percent less radioactive than regular uranium. The Defense Department has used depleted uranium in armor-piercing weapons and armor, and as ballast for things like cruise missiles. It's those cruise missiles, tested at the Utah Test and Training Range, that have left bits of depleted uranium scattered around the vast bombing range, records show. Normally, the Air Force tries to recover all of the depleted uranium. But between 1995 and 2005, there have been eight instances where amounts totaling about 430 pounds of depleted uranium couldn't be recovered. For example, in one test in July 2004, a depleted uranium ballast separated from its cruise missile on impact and burrowed deep into a muddy bog. Crews dug 5 feet into the mud with a backhoe but could not locate the 90 pounds of depleted uranium. Going back to 1985, some 1,170 pounds have been scattered by weapons tests at the range. The Air Force considers the depleted uranium to be in "permanent storage," since it cannot be recovered. It would not be dangerous unless it gets into a person's body, most likely through inhalation if the depleted uranium were to burn, said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. "It's not zero risk. All of this radioactivity causes some risk," said Makhijani. "But 400 pounds dispersed over a large area would not be considered a large amount." Calls to Hill Air Force Base, which manages the training range, were not returned Monday. ***************************************************************** 33 CNN: The trouble with nuclear waste - Jul. 31, 2007 It's not easy building a home for spent radioactive material. The proposed site at Yucca Mountain has been underway for over 30 years. David Whitford, Fortune editor-at-large July 31 2007: 2:51 PM EDT (Fortune) -- The drive to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository from the Energy Department's office in Las Vegas takes about two hours. It's a freaky ride, past fast-growing Pahrump, Nevada, now a bedroom community for Las Vegas; past Nellis Air Force base, where unmanned spy drones -- Predators and Raptors -- fly test flights; past the gunnery range and the old atom bomb test site. Inside Yucca Mountain Is nuclear energy a good idea? Post your thoughts. And Little Skull Mountain, away on the northern horizon, is the site of what Voegele describes as "my personal favorite test done in the whole United States." It was there that the Air Force once stood a tunnel boring machine on its end and buried it under 50 feet of broken rock, simulating conditions that would result if the Russians bombed us before we could bomb them. "The ballistic missile office wanted to know, even if we were all dead, if the machines could wake up and fire back a retaliatory strike," says Voegele. "They demonstrated that you could excavate a vertical hole inside of a mountain and get [a missile] out through the broken rock. The boring machine is still sitting up there, with an Air Force flag painted on it." We peek inside the five-mile tunnel they finished drilling 10 years ago. But it's just a tunnel; not much to see. Yucca Mountain has been under development for more than three decades. If it ever opens -- and that won't be until 2017, at the earliest -- 77,000 tons of nuclear waste will one day travel through this tunnel to their final resting places 1,000 feet below the ridgeline of the Mountain. But that's a big if. Construction has been stalled since 1997, pending regulatory approval. The outlook is bleak. The highlight of the trip is the visit to the top of Yucca Mountain. Up a steep and winding gravel road, really just a shaving on the crust of the mountain. The driver struggling to stay on course. Some slippage in the steepest parts. No guard rails, of course. Help me remember: Did the safety officer cover situations in which the tour bus goes tumbling into the abyss? Death Valley views Finally, we arrive. Very windy at the top. Desolate and strange. Big views west across the desert floor to California and Death Valley. We all stand around for a few minutes, contemplating eternity, or at least the next 10,000 years. This place was chosen as our nation's nuclear waste repository in large part because no one lives anywhere near here, and likely no one ever will; this place will never change. Freaky thought. Then it's time to go. The conversation among the engineers on the long ride back to town turns to water, of all things. There's not nearly enough of it in Las Vegas. But there are all kinds of crazy of schemes floating around. Schemes that to their ears have even less chance of ever being realized than Yucca Mountain does. "There's a group of people saying you could build a pipeline from rural Nevada north of Las Vegas to the California coast, about 230 miles," says Richard Tosetti. "Pump in the saltwater, build a nuclear plant, desalinate the water while you cool it at the plant and then pump that fresh water to Vegas. There's a group out there putting together a plan!" Tosetti's laughing hard now, and so is Voegele. These two, jaded from long experience, know what its like to confront horrendous engineering and regulatory obstacles for decades; they have a pretty good idea what the proponents of this crazy water project are up against. "I'll tell you," says Tosetti, once he finally stops laughing. "I'll take my chances on this job." Email: dwhitford@fortunemail.com © 2007 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. A Time Warner Company ALL ***************************************************************** 34 KRNV.com: Governor Gibbons Appoints Clark County Commissioner to Nuclear Panel Reno-Tahoe Region: Clark County Commissioner Susan Brager (D) Gov. Jim Gibbons had quietly made another appointment to a Nevada panel fighting a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But unlike his last choice, the new appointee isn't likely to cause an uproar among dump foes. Susan Brager, a Democrat who also is a Clark County commissioner, was named to the state Commission on Nuclear Projects was announced Monday. She replaces former Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams. Brager says the federal government's proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain --quote-- "does not seem safe to me." Brager's appointment follows the governor's short-lived appointment of a pro-dump Nye County commissioner, Joni Eastley, to the panel. Before attending a single meeting, Eastley abruptly resigned as Gibbons was about to carry out his pledge to rescind her appointment. Eastley says the governor's office had asked her repeatedly to apply. Gibbons said he had been assured she wasn't a dump supporter, but Eastley said she was never asked about her stance on Yucca Mountain. (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) All content © Copyright 2001 - 2007 WorldNow and KRNV. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 35 DOE: PEIS: Greater than Class C low-level wastes FR Doc Z7-14139 [Federal Register: July 31, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 146)] [Corrections] [Page 41819] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr31jy07-145] DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement for the Disposal of Greater-Than-Class-C Low-Level Radioactive Waste Correction In notice document E7-14139 beginning on page 40135 in the issue of Monday, July 23, 2007, make the following correction: On page 40137, the table is corrected to read as follows: Table 1.--Inventory Summary of Estimated Quantities of GTCC LLW and DOE GTCC-like Waste a ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In storage Projected Total stored and ---------------------------------------------------- projected Volume in ------------------------- Waste type cubic Activity Activity meters \b\ MCi Volume m\3\ \b\ MCi Volume m Activity (m\3\) \3\ \b\ MCi ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GTCC LLW: Activated metal............... 58 3.5 810 110 870 110 Sealed sources................ (\c\) (\c\) 1,700 2.4 1,700 2.4 Other \d\..................... 76 0.0076 1.0 0.00023 77 0.0078 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total GTCC LLW............ 130 3.5 2,500 110 2,600 110 DOE GTCC-like waste: Activated metal............... 5.0 0.11 29 0.82 34 0.93 Sealed sources................ 8.7 0.013 25 0.030 34 0.043 Other \d\..................... 860 11 2,000 19 2,900 30 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total DOE GTCC-like waste. 870 11 2,100 20 3,000 31 ============================================================================= Total GTCC and GTCC- 1,000 15 4,600 130 5,600 140 like waste........... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- \a\ Values have been rounded to two significant figures. \b\ Radioactivity values are in millions of curies (MCi). \c\ There are sealed sources currently possessed by NRC licensees that may become GTCC LLW when no longer needed by the licensee. The estimated volume and activity of those sources are included in the projected inventory, notwithstanding the lack of information on the current status of the sources (e.g., in use, waste, etc.). \d\ Other GTCC LLW and DOE GTCC-like waste includes contaminated equipment, debris, trash, scrap metal and decontamination and decommissioning waste. [FR Doc. Z7-14139 Filed 7-30-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 1505-01-D ***************************************************************** 36 Las Vegas SUN: New appointee named to Nevada anti-nuke dump panel Today: July 31, 2007 at 11:20:4 PDT CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Gov. Jim Gibbons had quietly made another appointment to a Nevada panel fighting a proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. But unlike his last choice, the new appointee isn't likely to cause an uproar among dump foes. The appointment of Susan Brager, a Democrat who also is a Clark County commissioner, to the state Commission on Nuclear Projects was announced Monday. She replaces former Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams, whose term on the state panel expired June 30. "I will be looking into the issues of the situation and make sure I will be able to make wise decisions," Brager said, adding that the federal government's proposed high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain "does not seem safe to me." Brager returned Monday from vacationing in Southern California to find a letter from Gibbons' Boards and Commissions staff congratulating her on her appointment. Brager's appointment follows the governor's short-lived appointment of a pro-dump Nye County commissioner, Joni Eastley, to the panel to replace longtime member Michon Mackedon. The appointment of Eastley, whose pro-Yucca views have been documented in several news articles, raised concerns among Nevada's congressional delegation which had been kept in the dark about the governor's choice. Before attending a single meeting, Eastley abruptly resigned as Gibbons was about to carry out his pledge to rescind her appointment if he found out she was a Yucca Mountain supporter. Eastley said later that the governor's office had asked her repeatedly to apply for a seat on the panel. Gibbons said he had been assured she wasn't a dump supporter, but Eastley said she was never asked by the governor's office about her stance on Yucca Mountain. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 37 Las Vegas SUN: Nevada opposes use of state water for Yucca Mountain dump Today: July 31, 2007 at 18:0:12 PDT By BRENDAN RILEY Associated Press Writer CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - A state lawyer urged a federal judge Tuesday to reject the federal government's bid for an injunction to clear the way for continued use of state groundwater for drilling near the planned Yucca Mountain national nuclear waste dump. Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams, in a memo submitted to U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas, said the federal Department of Energy has "unclean hands" in trying to override traditional state authority. The DOE "unilaterally appropriated the water in deliberate and reckless disregard for state law and an agreement among the parties" for a bore-hole drilling program, Adams said. The public interest in holding the DOE accountable "outweighs the speculative harm to DOE associated with a possible delay in meeting a self-imposed and completely artificial schedule for filing a license application" for the dump, Adams added. Justice Department attorneys say the drilling is essential for the DOE to show the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission that a valley near the site picked for the radioactive waste repository is safe from floods and earthquakes. Keith Saxe, Justice Department assistant natural resources chief, wouldn't comment on the continued use of water after state Engineer Tracy Taylor reinstated a July 20 cease-and-desist order. "We speak in the courtroom with our papers," Saxe said after the Justice Department filed its emergency request with Hunt. The judge has scheduled an Aug. 15 hearing on the matter. The Energy Department plans to temporarily store thousands of tons of spent nuclear fuel in football-field-size buildings in Midway Valley before entombing it nearby in tunnels beneath Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The state has been trying to get inspectors to the area to ensure compliance with Taylor's order. But Justice Department lawyers say inspectors won't be allowed to the site - within the secure federal Nevada Test Site - unless Taylor agrees not to use the inspection to bolster his cease-and-desist order. The Energy Department plans to include data about subsurface features with a license application Yucca Mountain planners expect to submit by June 2008. Officials argue that delays in collecting the data would push the timeline off a self-imposed schedule. The plan for the dump, which would contain 77,000 tons of the nation's most highly radioactive waste, has been delayed by legal challenges, money shortages, scientific controversies and political opposition. The Energy Department was obligated to start accepting waste from nuclear utilities around the country beginning in 1998, but the dump site wasn't picked until 2002 and the site won't open until 2017 under the best-case scenario. --- On the Net: Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 38 Seattle P-I: Clogged pump led to Hanford leak Last updated July 31, 2007 3:14 p.m. PT By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS SPOKANE, Wash. -- Trying to remove radioactive sludge that is thick as peanut butter clogged a pump and led to a spill at the Hanford nuclear reservation, officials said Tuesday. Now workers are trying to determine how to clean the worst spill that Hanford's tank farm area has had in years. "The release to the environment of this waste material is not acceptable," Delmar Noyes, of the U.S. Department of Energy at Hanford, told reporters during a conference call. No workers were contaminated by the radioactivity and the spill was contained within a tiny area near the waste tanks, so it posed no threat to the public, Noyes said. But the spill, which Noyes said was the largest in the tank farm in years, illustrates the difficulties of trying to safely dispose of nuclear waste that dates back to World War II and the Manhattan Project to build nuclear weapons. Hanford covers about 560 square miles in southcentral Washington near the Tri-Cities, and contains the nation's largest collection of nuclear waste from the production of weapons. The spill was believed to have occurred early Friday, but was not detected until about 10 a.m., some seven hours later, Hanford officials said. A Hanford watchdog group criticized the Energy Department for what it called a slow response to the leak. "This latest leak of deadly waste illustrates the risks we face for decades to come," said Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest. "The failure to detect the leak for hours overnight, while deadly high-level nuclear wastes apparently spilled onto the ground, raises serious questions requiring state and federal investigations," Pollet said. The waste from the bottom of the tank is so lethal "that a cup full of waste would kill everyone in a room in a short period of time," Pollet added. Hanford officials contend they notified regulators in an appropriate fashion after the release was discovered. The spill occurred as an underground tank called S-102 was being slowly drained of its nuclear waste, which since 2004 has been pumped into newer, double-walled tanks that are less likely to leak. The waste is thick, with the consistency of chunky peanut butter, and is injected with water and stirred to make it pumpable, Hanford officials said. Early Friday, the pump became clogged. Workers reversed the pump in an effort to clear it. That reversal sent some waste from the bottom of the tank up into the hose that was feeding water into the tank, and that's the waste that leaked onto the ground, Noyes said. The leak was estimated at between 50 and 100 gallons, although officials are not yet sure how big it was, he said. The spill area has been capped with a material to prevent the waste from becoming airborne. A plan to safely dispose of the spill is being developed, he said. There were no workers in the tank farm when the spill occurred, Hanford officials said. After the spill was detected, workers in protective gear went into the tank farm to determine the extent of the radiation release, they said. Meanwhile, workers in surrounding areas were evacuated and the pumping operation was shut down, Noyes said. Also shut down was the pumping of another nuclear waste storage tank. Both will remain closed until it is determined that work can safely proceed, he said. Two pumps have already been ruined on tank S-102 since the removal work started in 2004, and the clogged pump has only been operated since July 25, Hanford officials said. The spill area has been fenced and is being monitored for radioactive release, Noyes said. The waste removal is being conducted by private contractor CH2M Hill, which has emptied seven of the old tanks so far. The waste in S-102 dates to the World War II effort to make plutonium, said Richard Raymond, of CH2M Hill. "It's some of the most difficult we've had to deal with," he said. 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com ©1996-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Terms of Use/Privacy Policy ***************************************************************** 39 Hanford News: Containing the nuclear threat This story was published Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 By Philip Dine, St. Louis Post-Dispatch WASHINGTON - If the prospect of an Iran in possession of a nuclear weapon is a fearful one, here's an even scarier scenario - one that experts regard as highly plausible in the years ahead: Dozens of countries, some of them unstable or controlled by rogue regimes, working feverishly on nuclear programs they claim are aimed at meeting civilian energy needs - only to switch the programs at the last minute to develop weapons before the countries can be stopped. In this scenario, worried neighbors of these states will then announce that they too see a need to develop peaceful nuclear production for civilian purposes, and they will proceed full speed ahead, even though everyone suspects their real intent is weapons. At present, the world has at least some ability to focus attention and pressure on the nuclear-armed Stalinist regime in North Korea or on the bellicose, terrorism-sponsoring leaders of Iran. But if scores of nations large and small, across several continents, are moving forward at various stages of nuclear development, it will be difficult to keep track of their advances and their real intent - let alone do anything about it. A nuclear exchange between countries or the acquiring of fissile material by terrorist groups are two possible outcomes. "If there are going to be many new countries operating nuclear power plants as a way of meeting their energy needs, then the question is: Are they going to take that as an occasion to build their own uranium enrichment?" says Harvard University's Graham Allison, one of the country's leading experts on nuclear issues. "If they do, then they will have built the infrastructure for their nuclear bomb, because the same facility that enriches uranium to 4 percent for fuel for a reactor can, if it just continues spinning, enrich uranium to 90 percent, which is just what the bomb maker wants." Hoping to avert such a situation, two senators from the Midwest - one Republican, one Democrat - are joining across party lines to offer legislation meant to change the nuclear dynamics. Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Evan Bayh, both of Indiana, have introduced the Lugar-Bayh Nuclear Safeguards and Supply Act of 2007. The aim - prevent countries that seek nuclear energy for legitimate uses from militarizing their newfound nuclear capacity. The means - setting up a single source, whether a consortium of supplier countries or an international agency, that would produce nuclear fuel and sell it to countries seeking nuclear power to produce electricity. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved the bill; a hearing is set for Tuesday. Bayh says that economic and environmental factors will create "a growing incentive for more nations to seek civilian nuclear power" in the years ahead, particularly given rising prices and limited supplies of oil, gas and coal. But enough material will be produced by the peaceful use of nuclear power each year to build 20,000 nuclear bombs, Bayh warns. He calls the risk of a terrorist organization getting fissile material "one of the worst-case scenarios that we can imagine." The proposal seems to enjoy broad support. According to his spokesman, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., "believes that the bill could enhance our efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons by setting the stage for the creation of an international nuclear fuel bank, which could help dissuade countries from acquiring fuel-producing technology that could also be used to develop a nuclear weapons program." Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said the proposal is intriguing, and Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she would be "interested in considering any opportunity to make international nuclear energy safer." Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., said he would review the bill. He said the world needed more clean energy, such as nuclear power, to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases. "But we also need safeguards to prevent its misuse," he said. The legislation doesn't spell out how the plan would work. One possibility is that a consortium of supplier nations would be created to sell nuclear energy to consuming countries; another is that an international agency would be set up to do the same. The ambiguity is intentional, so other nations can have a say. Other nations are likely to back the idea, says Allison. "I think it's quite good in that the Russians have said they're very interested in it," Allison said. "Europeans have an interest in the matter too. France, in particular, produces 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. Japan also has expressed interest. We have an interest because of the terrorism risk, but anybody who's interested in a future of civilian peaceful nuclear power has an interest in making sure people can get the fuel without doing something mischievous." Meanwhile, consuming countries would get guaranteed reserves of nuclear fuel, Allison said. If the plan exposed Iranian intentions as other than peaceful, Bayh said, that would only be helpful. "We need to do this," he said, "so that we can go to the Western Europeans and others and say, 'Look, we've exhausted all the other alternatives. If they were truly only interested in a civilian path, we gave it to them. They wouldn't accept it.' "And that strengthens our hand then if you have to resort to other measures," he adds. Not everyone is enthusiastic. John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, says that while he supports the legislation's goal of a safer nuclear supply, "you don't need another international authority to do it." Bolton points to a speech President George W. Bush gave in 2004 calling for a market mechanism that could deal with the issue. More can be done with a "market-oriented mechanism" to make the supply predictable enough so countries such as Iran and North Korea cannot pretend they are concerned about a guaranteed supply, Bolton said. --- (c) 2007, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Visit the Post-Dispatch on the World Wide Web at http://www.stltoday.com/ Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. ***************************************************************** 40 Hanford News: First man Mike Gregoire impressed with B Reactor tour This story was published Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 Chris Mulick, Herald Olympia bureau Washington's first gentleman Mike Gregoire toured Hanford's historic B Reactor Monday afternoon and said he can see why there is a movement to turn it into a museum. "Amazing. Very impressive tour," he said afterward. "The possibility is certainly something you can understand." Last year, Gregoire toured the Hanford Reach with his wife, Gov. Chris Gregoire, who became sold on the idea. But seeing the world's first full-scale production reactor up close was a unique experience, Mike Gregoire said. "You just realized the enormity of the project and what was accomplished in a short period of time," he said. "That's just very overwhelming. "As an individual, I think it should be a historic museum of some nature." The federal government has been working to cocoon all nine plutonium production reactors built along the Columbia River. But local officials want B Reactor preserved and hope it can attain National Historic Landmark status to protect it. Last week the board of directors for the Reach, which is raising money to build the proposed Hanford Reach Interpretive Center, approved a resolution offering to organize tours of the facility so long as the federal government will maintain it, said Ron Hicks, project manager for the Reach. "It certainly would be an unbelievable draw" internationally and at home, Gregoire said. "It is hard to explain, the enormity of it," he said. "You can't believe how truly impressive this sort of undertaking was and what was accomplished." He said the facility, which produced the plutonium for the world's first nuclear explosion in the New Mexico desert and the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, helping end World War II, should be remembered for the good and bad that has come from it. "That's a part of history as well," he said, referring to the Fat Man bomb and the thousands who perished. "That's what we lived with. That's a part of our heritage." © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 41 Hanford News: Hanford's tank waste leak being investigated This story was published Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 Chris Mulick, Herald staff writer Workers spent Monday studying what caused Friday's tank waste leak in central Hanford, but preliminary answers won't be provided until today. A noon media briefing has been scheduled and it may only be the first of several as crews carefully try and diagnose what caused the leak and determine what to do next, said Department of Energy spokesman Erik Olds. Workers in the 200 West Area were ordered indoors Friday when a leak was discovered above one of 142 underground, single-shell tanks whose high level radioactive and hazardous chemical wastes are being pumped into double shell tanks. The federal agency indicated the waste did not become airborne and that there was no threat to workers or the public. The state Department of Health reaffirmed that assessment Monday. Earl Fordham, regional director for its Office of Radiation Protection, said air samples indicated any hazardous emissions did not exceed thresholds that would have made the event reportable to the agency, though it was notified anyway. "The public was definitely not impacted and the worker impact was probably not significant," Fordham said. The leak, which occurred about seven miles from the Columbia River, has not altered pumping operations at other tanks, Olds said. The volume of the leak still isn't known, though the spill was measured at 15 to 18 feet in diameter. The tank - S-102 - once held 464,000 gallons of waste, but only 10 percent of that remained in March when a pump used to retrieve the waste broke. A new pump recently was installed. Fordham said the Department of Health and Hanford's other government regulators have begun their own investigation. © 2007 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or ***************************************************************** 42 lamonitor.com: Officials urge precautions against mosquitoes The Online News Source for Los Alamos CAROL A. CLARK Monitor County Editor Concern by health officials heightens following the discovery of mosquitoes in San Juan and Bernalillo counties that tested positive for West Nile Virus. The Albuquerque Environmental Health Department Bio-Disease Management Division collected the mosquitoes in Bernalillo County. San Juan County mosquito control personnel found mosquitoes positive for West Nile Virus around Aztec, Kirtland and La Plata. The mosquitoes will be sent to the Health Department's Scientific Laboratory for confirmatory testing. "We see the most cases of West Nile, including fatalities, in July and August," said state epidemiologist C. Mack Sewell in a news release on Thursday. LAMC spokeswoman Wendy Hoffman said the hospital has not seen any cases of West Nile Virus so far this year or at all during last year. Los Alamos County Emergency Management Coordinator Philmont Taylor said that the county parks department trapped and tested mosquitoes during the last three years as a result of Colorado having such an influx of cases. Not one case was found, he said. "We haven't trapped this year because now we know they are here," Taylor said. "The West Nile Virus has traveled from east to west and is now in California. I noticed the first case on the East Coast when I was there in 2000 and New Mexico had its first cases in 2003 and 2004." There have been a couple of equine cases in Los Alamos, he said, adding that there also were a couple of human cases but it wasn't clear where the people contracted the virus. "The message is clear: take precautions," Taylor said. "The most susceptible times of day are just before sunrise and just after sunset." The New Mexico Department of Health (NMDH) also recommends taking precautions. "Fortunately, it is easy to protect yourself by taking precautions, such as using a repellent when you are outdoors, especially during the evening and early morning when mosquitoes are most active," Sewell said. NMDH has set up a West Nile Virus surveillance system across the state. They are providing traps, shipping and testing for local mosquito control programs involved in mosquito collection. "The recent rains across the state have created numerous breeding sites for mosquitoes," said Dr. Paul Ettestad, the state public health veterinarian. "Protecting yourself from mosquitoes is especially important as summer progresses and the number of mosquitoes increase." Common West Nile symptoms include fever, nausea, headache and muscle aches. In rare cases, West Nile Virus can cause meningitis or encephalitis. Anyone with these symptoms should see their health care provider. People older than 50 are at most risk for serious disease from West Nile Virus. Both meningitis and encephalitis can be fatal, especially in the elderly. However, most people who become infected have either no symptoms or have only mild symptoms, and less than 1 percent of all people infected, including those who have no symptoms and have not been tested, develop meningitis or encephalitis. Meningitis is an infection of the lining around the brain, while encephalitis is an infection of the brain itself. Earlier this year, a horse from Eddy County tested positive for West Nile and had to be euthanized. In July 2006, New Mexico's first case of West Nile for the year occurred, and there were a total of eight cases with one fatality that year. In 2005, the state had 33 laboratory-confirmed cases with two fatalities. In 2004, 88 cases occurred with four fatalities, and in 2003, 209 cases occurred with four fatalities. For information about West Nile Virus access www.health.state.nm.us/epi/wnv.html. © 2003 Los Alamos Monitor All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 43 Oak Ridger: Car crashes into barrier at Y-12 - Story last updated at 12:13 am on 7/31/2007 By: Beverly Majors | beverly.majors@oakridger.com Wyatt An unidentified driver ran a security checkpoint at the Y-12 National Security Complex early Monday morning and crashed a car into a barrier. The man fled from federal authorities but his car was searched and later towed from the site. Steve Wyatt, spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration in Oak Ridge, said Monday that the driver of a Mercury Sable pulled up to a Y-12 plant checkpoint shortly after 5 a.m. on the west end of Bear Creek Road near state Highway 95 and stopped for security guards. The man appeared to be impaired and refused to give the guards any identification. When guards asked the driver to get out of the car, the man sped away, Wyatt said. “The officers deployed the arresting gate, which is procedure,” Wyatt said. He said the gate is about 300 yards from the checkpoint. He said the “gate” is a large metal bar similar to a railroad crossing arm, but stronger. At that point, the car crashed into the gate and the driver got out and ran. Wyatt said the car was still running and guards said that it had been hot-wired. He said the car was checked by security and with bomb-sniffing dogs but nothing was found. The plant site was never breached and protocol was followed immediately, Wyatt said. “As soon as it happened, someone called the Inspector General’s office and then the U.S. attorney general’s office,” he said. “Everything went just the way it was supposed to in these situations.” Wyatt said Wackenhut Security police who were on patrol went to the barrier where the car crashed. He said the guards at the checkpoint did not leave their post. Oak Ridge Police Chief David H. Beams said the Police Department responded to a request for assistance from Y-12 security soon after the incident. In a press release he said that security personnel reported that a white man fled a vehicle after hitting a barrier at a security checkpoint. Later in the morning, at about 8 a.m., the Police Department received a call that a white man matching the description of the fleeing driver was seen walking on the west end of Oak Ridge. Officers responded to the area but failed to locate the subject. Beverly Majors can be contacted at (865) 220-5514. | © 2004 The Oak Ridger | Conditions of Use ***************************************************************** 44 NAS Project: Prospective Benefits of DOE's Energy Efficiency and Fossil Energy R&D Programs--Phase 2 Project Title: PIN: BEES-J-04-01-A Major Unit: Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences Sub Unit: Board on Energy and Environmental Systems RSO: Offutt, Martin Subject/Focus Area: Project Scope The Phase 2 activity follows the completion of Phase 1, which resulted in the issuance of two reports on methodology for estimating prospective benefits and evaluating energy R&D programs at DOE. These reports are posted in the project record with project identification number BEES-J-03-01-A in the Current Projects System At least three issues will require attention as part of the Phase 2 Task. These issues include: (a) further improving the estimation of the value of environmental benefits (e.g., reduced emissions), (b) further improving the estimation of the value of security benefits (e.g., reducing oil imports or more reliable electricity supplies), and (c) determining how to estimate the overall benefits of the options under a variety of scenarios. The first two issues involve the public good rather than direct economic benefits. The committee will build on the foundation of work from Phase 1 and the body of literature that exists to determine appropriate values for these factors. The committee might commission "white papers" defining the state of knowledge and suggesting how the methodology could incorporate these estimates. For (c) options evaluation, the committee will consider the extent to which an analytical foundation is appropriate, building on the Phase 1 work, and incorporating the full range of benefits for representative scenarios. In addition, the committee will consider mechanisms for quantifying knowledge benefits and include them as appropriate in the overall evaluation. The Committee will also provide a peer review function of how DOE is evaluating prospective benefits of various Energy Efficiency (EE) and Fossil Energy (FE) programs/projects. As in Phase 1, several panels will be separately appointed to assist the committee in Phase 2. A workshop will be held early in Phase 2 to discuss the Phase 1 reports and methodology, following which the committee will write a letter report that will set the stage for the work to be accomplished in Phase 2. A final report will be issued at the conclusion of Phase 2, about the end of April 2006. The panels will write panel reports documenting the results of the analyses of the prospective benefits of the various programs/projects in EE and FE chosen by the committee to evaluate. These panel reports may be issued separately or incorporated into the Phase 2 final report. The project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy The approximate starting date for this project is 3/15/2005 Project Duration: 14 months Provide FEEDBACK on this project. Contact the Public Access Records Office to make an inquiry or to schedule an appointment to view project materials available to the public. Committee Membership Meetings Meeting 1 - 07/13/2005 Meeting 2 - 09/15/2005 Meeting 3 - 10/26/2005 Meeting 4 - 02/10/2006 Reports Reports having no URL can be seen at the Public Access Records Office Letter Report on Revised Methodology for Prospective Benefits Evaluation Final Report: Prospective Evaluation of Applied Energy Research and Development at DOE (Phase Two) Email: info@nas.edu ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************