***************************************************************** 08/09/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.186 ***************************************************************** 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: H.Clinton Discussed Use of Nukes Last Year 2 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Speaks With Pakistan's Musharraf 3 Telegraph: Russian bombers buzz US base in Guam - 4 UN Scheme Poised To Bolster Middle East Nuclear Cooperation 5 BBC NEWS: Sixty bitter years after Partition 6 BBC NEWS: Musharraf rejects emergency rule NUCLEAR REACTORS 7 US: Brick Township Bulletin: NRC removes Oyster Creek 'white finding 8 US: Lancaster Online.com: Fire extinguisher malfunction leads to ale 9 TheStar.com: Display of ongoing effects of Chernobyl raises question 10 TheStar.com: On nuclear patrol in Durham 11 Star News Group: Parties react to N-sites - By Shaun Inguanzo 12 Platts: Cernavoda-2 generates first electricity 13 US: NRC: NRC Seeks Comments on Draft Strategic Plan 14 US: newsobserver.com: Harris N-plant clears bar to extended license 15 RIA Novosti: EU to fork out $27 million on Russia nuclear safety - N 16 US: JOURNAL NEWS: Two weeks left for Indian Point to meet new siren 17 US: York Dispatch: Peach Bottom alert not a threat 18 WNN: Contractor and cash for Chernobyl 19 US: NRC: Atomic Safety and Licensing Board; In the Matter of Shaw Ar 20 Jurnalul National: Nuclear Plant from the Junkyard - 21 US: Maine Today: Nuclear power generates debate 22 US: Free Press: Radioactive "bailout-in-advance" opens fierce new wa NUCLEAR SECURITY 23 Scientists call for defensive action over radiological attacks NUCLEAR SAFETY 24 CTV Toronto: Health assessment at nuclear plant flawed - report - 25 Daily Yomiuri: Courts behind review of A-bomb disease criteria 26 Daily Yomiuri: A-bomb survivors still suffering 62 yrs on 27 US: Las Vegas SUN: Health screenings of Nevada Test Site workers go 28 US: Huntsville Times: Fire at Anniston Depot bursts radioactive-gas 29 Reuters: Japan mourns Nagasaki victims amid nuclear crisis 30 Yokwe Net: Bikini Attorney Responds to Dismissal of Lawsuit 31 AFP: Nagasaki warns of breakdown of anti-nuclear efforts - 32 Guardian Unlimited: Nagasaki Marks 62nd A-Bomb Anniversary 33 Korea Times: 2.7Kg Uranium Burned by Mistake 34 US: Bradenton.com: A poor showing: Cleanup plan for Tallevast flawed 35 MDN: Hibakusha: Occupation's Aussie atomic veterans still fighting f 36 MDN: Nagasaki mayor wants non-nuclear principles enacted into law - NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 37 US: SF New Mexican: NRC invites public to discuss uranium mining imp 38 US: AHN: South Korea Searching For Missing Uranium Believed Buried A 39 US: Platts: Analysts unsure how far spot price of uranium will drop 40 The Herald: Radioactive waste returns to Scotland 41 Whitehaven News: New Sellafield minister calls in for an update 42 Whitehaven News: Bidders battle it out for the Sellafield prize PEACE 43 [NYTr] World Remembers Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki US DEPT. OF ENERGY 44 [NYTr] Catholic Protestors at Oak Ridge Weapons Plant Sentenced 45 Knoxville News Sentinel: UT in line to be among elite in supercomput 46 Newswise: Cognitive Science and Technology Program becomes Sandia in 47 Oak Ridger: ORNL, UT selected for second supercomputer - 48 Paducah Sun: Uranium answer sought: Task force seeks DOE decision on ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 H.Clinton Discussed Use of Nukes Last Year Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 14:03:32 -0500 (CDT) H. says: "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons." That finishes Hillary in any discussion of what's right and what's wrong. It's not even as if she's reserving the right to use the U$ nuclear arsenal in self-defence !! Michael ########### http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-6838396,00.html The Guardian (London) Thursday August 9, 2007 7:01 PM By BETH FOUHY Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton, who chastised rival Barack Obama for ruling out the use of nuclear weapons in the war on terror, did just that when asked about Iran a year ago. ``I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,'' she said in April 2006. Her views expressed while she was gearing up for a presidential run stand in conflict with her comments this month regarding Obama, who faced heavy criticism from leaders of both parties, including Clinton, after saying it would be ``a profound mistake'' to deploy nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ``There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table,'' he said. Clinton, who has tried to cast her rival as too inexperienced for the job of commander in chief, said of Obama's stance on Pakistan: ``I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons.'' But that's exactly what she did in an interview with Bloomberg Television in April 2006. The New York senator, a member of the Armed Services committee, was asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering military intervention - possibly even a nuclear strike - to prevent Iran from escalating its nuclear program. ``I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table,'' Clinton said. ``This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake.'' Clinton's views on the potential use of nuclear weapons appear to have changed since then. Her campaign spokesman, Phil Singer, said the circumstances for her remarks last year were different than the situation Obama faced. ``She was asked to respond to specific reports that the Bush-Cheney administration was actively considering nuclear strikes on Iran even as it refused to engage diplomatically,'' he said. ``She wasn't talking about a broad hypothetical nor was she speaking as a presidential candidate. Given the saber-rattling that was coming from the Bush White House at the time, it was totally appropriate and necessary to respond to that report and call it the wrong policy.'' ***************************************************************** 2 Guardian Unlimited: Rice Speaks With Pakistan's Musharraf Thursday August 9, 2007 2:31 AM By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke at length late Wednesday with Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf as the key U.S. anti-terrorism ally weighed imposing a state of emergency due to security concerns in the nuclear-armed nation. Rice spoke by phone to Musharraf in a call that took place in the early hours of Thursday in Pakistan where officials said an emergency declaration was being considered and that the president would soon meet with his cabinet to discuss the option, a senior State Department official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, refused to discuss the substance of the 17-minute conversation that began shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday Pakistan time. The call came after Pakistan's minister of state for information said Islamabad might impose a state of emergency due to ``external and internal threats'' and deteriorating law and order in the volatile northwest near the border with Afghanistan. A Musharraf aide said the president would meet his cabinet later Thursday. Pakistani television networks reported that a declaration of an emergency was imminent, although senior officials said no final decision had been made. Musharraf is under growing U.S. pressure to crack down on militants at the Afghan border because of fears that al-Qaida has regrouped there and the matter has spilled over into the campaign for the 2008 U.S. presidential elections. But some believe the possible step may be tied to domestic politics as Musharraf's popularity has dwindled and his standing has been badly shaken by a failed bid to oust the country's chief justice - an independent-minded judge likely to rule on expected legal challenges to the president's bid to seek a new five-year presidential term this fall. Earlier, Musharraf abruptly canceled his planned attendance at the Thursday opening of a peace meeting in Afghanistan that is to bring more than 600 Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders together with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had been touting the gathering as a sign of progress earlier this week. Rice's call to Musharraf followed comments by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack who said the U.S. understood Musharraf's abrupt decision to skip the meeting. ``President Musharraf certainly wouldn't stay back in Islamabad if he didn't believe he had good and compelling reasons to stay back,'' McCormack told a regular briefing. ``Certainly we would understand that.'' Just hours before those remarks, McCormack had told reporters the United States hoped Musharraf would be able to attend at least some of the meeting, if not the opening, and that U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne Patterson had been in touch with Pakistani officials to determine how Islamabad would be represented. The Bush administration, which had brokered the meeting, was initially surprised by Musharraf's cancellation, particularly after Karzai repeatedly expressed satisfaction about the meeting at a joint news conference with Bush on Monday at the Camp David, Md., presidential retreat. The idea for the peace meeting was hatched in September 2006 during a meeting between Bush, Karzai and Musharraf in Washington as a way to stem rising cross-border violence. But the four days of talks are already being boycotted by delegates from Pakistan's restive South and North Waziristan regions amid fear of Taliban reprisals. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who met with Musharraf on Tuesday, defended Pakistan's efforts to battle al-Qaida along the Afghan border in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. ``It would be a mistake to conclude that they are not making the effort. I believe they have,'' Durbin said, citing the deaths of 600 Pakistani soldiers. ``I just believe they can be more effective in the way they're doing it.'' Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, said Musharraf did not talk about Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the presidential candidate who has been criticized by Pakistan's government for suggesting he was prepared to send U.S. military forces into Pakistan to hunt down terrorists if Musharraf doesn't act. --- Associated Press writer Desmond Butler contributed to this report. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 3 Telegraph: Russian bombers buzz US base in Guam - Friday 10 August 2007 By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow Last Updated: 2:15am BST 10/08/2007 Russian bombers are reported to have buzzed an American military base for the first time since the Cold War when they flew over the Pacific island of Guam. Google Map: The island of Guam in the West Pacific Moscow said that US fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the two Tupolev-95 warplanes as they resumed the Cold War era practice of flying over Western offshore military installations in a mission on Wednesday. The incident, seen as the latest attempt by a revitalised Russia to project its military might, is likely to have unnerved the Pentagon and caused further perplexity at the State Department over the Kremlin's mercurial course. The US military was silent about the mid-air confrontation but the Russians were happy to boast about it. "Yesterday we revived this tradition." According to the general, two Tupolev-95 bombers flew from Blagoveshchensk, on Russia's border with China, to the US naval base at Guam in the West Pacific during a 13-hour round trip on Wednesday. Capable of carrying nuclear bombs, the Tu-95 was the Soviet Union's aviation icon. A lumbering beast, it was instantly recognisable to every US fighter pilot who had to escort the aircraft on its regular sorties down the American east coast. A new generation of pilots may now have to get used to doing the same. According to Gen Androsov, American fighters took off from an aircraft carrier and tracked the bombers until they left Guam's airspace. "We exchanged smiles and returned home," he said. Russia's nuclear forces: Click for interactive map The return of the airborne games of cat-and-mouse is likely to elicit queasier grins in Western capitals, where military chiefs will be puzzling over how to respond to Russia's increasingly frequent displays of defiance. Last month RAF Tornado fighters were twice forced to scramble after Tu-95 bombers flew close to British airspace. Keen to get their share of attention and perhaps the approval of President Vladimir Putin Russia's most senior admirals last week called for the establishment of a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean for the first time since the Cold War. East-West relations also came under renewed strain after the United States appeared to blame Russia for a missile strike against Georgia on Monday that took the diplomatic crisis between the two ex-Soviet neighbours to new depths. "The US condemns the Aug 6 rocket attack against Georgia," said Sean McCormack, a state department spokesman. "We praise Georgia's continuing restraint in the face of this air attack and call for the urgent clarification of the facts surrounding this incident." Moscow has strongly denied involvement in the incident and has accused Georgia of "provocation". Russia's military posturing is partly a desperate desire to show that the armed forces have recovered from the decline in the penurious 1990s, when planes were frequently grounded because the air force could not pay its fuel bills. The vocal condemnation of Russia's mission last week to plant a flag under the North Pole, a stunt that would once have been laughed off, was a telling example of the international community's growing distrust of Mr Putin. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | ***************************************************************** 4 UN Scheme Poised To Bolster Middle East Nuclear Cooperation Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 18:01:48 -0400 UN-BACKED SCHEME POISED TO BOLSTER MIDDLE EAST NUCLEAR COOPERATION New York, Aug 9 2007 6:00PM A project backed by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (<"http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/sesame.html">IAEA) has the potential to bolster nuclear cooperation in the Middle East. The scheme, known as SESAME, entails the building of a giant machine generating intense light beams for advanced scientific and technological research, and a research facility is being built near Jordans capital, Amman. SESAME has a promising future, said Ana Maria Cetto, the IAEAs Deputy Director General and Head of Technical Cooperation. The agency is providing technical assistance worth $1 million over the next few years for the facility, which is slated to be completed in 2010. Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Pakistan, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey are members of the project, and earlier this month at a meeting at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, the SESAME Council accepted nominations from Iran and Iraq to join. Weve finally passed the point of no return, said Herwig Schopper, the projects departing president, who sees the initiative as being able to both benefit the region and serve to attract and keep top scientists. SESAME which stands for Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications for the Middle East operates under the auspices of the UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Synchronton facilities house huge particle accelerators which generate x-ray and ultraviolet light beams, and research could lead to advances in medicine, physics and other fields. The IAEA has begun training future SESAME users and operators on safely and securely running the facility, and the agencys representatives help to select recipients of scientific fellowships. SESAME Council members will hold their next meeting in Cyprus later this year. 2007-08-09 00:00:00.000 ___________________ For more details go to UN News Centre at http://www.un.org/news To listen to news and in-depth programmes from UN Radio go to: http://radio.un.org/ _______________________________ To change your profile or unsubscribe go to: http://www.un.org/apps/news/email/ ***************************************************************** 5 BBC NEWS: Sixty bitter years after Partition Last Updated: Wednesday, 8 August 2007, 16:11 GMT 17:11 UK As the 60th anniversary of Indian Partition approaches, the BBC's Andrew Whitehead looks back at how and why independence from Britain meant the creation of two separate countries, India and Pakistan. Poor relations between Nehru (left) and Jinnah boded ill "There can be no question of coercing any large areas in which one community has a majority to live against their will under a government in which another community has a majority. And the only alternative to coercion is partition." With those words, the last Viceroy of British India, Lord Mountbatten, announced that Britain would be granting independence not to one nation, but to two. All Britain's attempts to devise a constitutional formula which preserved India's unity while offering safeguards for the large Muslim minority had failed. Mountbatten's speech was made on 3 June 1947. Just 10 weeks later, he was presiding at twin independence ceremonies. In Karachi on 14 August, he witnessed the birth of a nation with an explicit Muslim identity, Pakistan. The following day, he was in Delhi for India's independence ceremonies - a country more than three times the population of Pakistan and with a large Hindu majority. Society and economy In those hectic weeks between the announcement of partition and the transfer of power, a British judge, Cyril Radcliffe, was brought in to devise the border between India and Pakistan. It meant cutting in half two of India's most powerful and populous provinces, Punjab and Bengal. Radcliffe had never been to India before and never came again. Whatever line he had devised, tens of millions would have felt aggrieved. The hasty partition of these provinces triggered one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th Century. Independence dream Tens of millions of Muslims on one side, and Hindus and Sikhs on the other, found themselves on what they regarded as the wrong side of the boundary line. Amid the tension, the communal clashes and the panicked mass migration, there was huge loss of life. No one knows the exact number. Partition saw as many as half a million people killed Historians believe that upwards of half a million people were killed, tens of thousands of women were raped or abducted and more than 10 million people became refugees in a catastrophe which still haunts South Asian politics and diplomacy. India's demands for self-rule dated back to the previous century, and gained particular force in the 1920s and 1930s under the leadership of the Hindu ascetic and campaigning genius, Mahatma Gandhi. By 1945, and the end of World War II, it was clear that self-rule for India was imminent. The landslide victory of a radical-minded Labour party in Britain's 1945 elections hastened the process. The complicating factor was that many in India's large Muslim minority felt they would be at a disadvantage in a mainly Hindu nation. The Muslim League, led by austere lawyer Mohammed Ali Jinnah, took up this issue. Religious split It was as late as 1940 that the Muslim League started demanding a separate nation for the region's Muslims. But the League's strong showing in post-war provincial elections meant that their demand for a separate Pakistan could not be ignored. A 1946 British cartoon depicts India's mainly Hindu Congress organisation and the Muslim League as two elephants ignoring each other. In pictures The terrible violence between communities which so tarnished independence began in Calcutta (now Kolkata) a year before the British transferred power and slowly spread. But it was only after the independence ceremonies - and then, two days later, the announcement of where the boundary would run - that Punjab became engulfed in the worst of the Partition bloodletting. Punjab was home to a large and influential Sikh population, who dominated much of the region's agriculture but there was hardly anywhere where Sikhs were in a majority and their lands and most important places of worship straddled the new Partition line. Almost all Sikhs felt more comfortable in India than in Pakistan - hundreds of thousands moved in endless caravans, some 70 miles long, in the monsoon months of 1947. So did many Hindus. Roughly equal numbers of Muslims made their way to Pakistan. There was little pattern to the violence. All communities suffered, all harboured perpetrators. It was vicious - almost unbelievably so. Columns of refugees were attacked, harried and sometimes slaughtered. Trainloads of migrants were put to death, their bodies sometimes horribly butchered and disfigured. On both sides, women were particular targets for violence and impregnation. Bad neighbours The debate about whether Partition was right or wrong, whether it was inevitable or avoidable, has receded over the years. THE PARTITION IN VERSE ...In seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided, A continent for better or worse divided from Partition by WH Auden Corpses lie strewn in your [the Punjab's] pastures and the Chenab [river] has turned crimson from An Ode to Waris Shah by Amrita Pritam Somewhere the wave of the slow night will meet the shore and somewhere will anchor the boat of the heart's grief from Freedom's Dawn by Faiz Ahmad Faiz Audio: Mountbatten's address But historians in South Asia by and large agree that if Britain had sought a less hasty and better prepared transfer of power, much of the bloodshed could have been avoided. Pakistan's founder, Jinnah, and India's first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, never got on well. The tension and appalling violence which overshadowed their nations' births made matters much worse. Countries which could have been good neighbours turned out to be enemies right from the start. The Kashmir issue intensified the sense of conflict. Kashmir lay between India and Pakistan. It had a Muslim majority but a Hindu princely ruler had to make the decision about which country to join. Pakistan tried to force the issue, encouraging first a local uprising and then an invasion by Pakistani tribesmen. The maharaja pleaded to India for help, and Indian troops airlifted into the Kashmir Valley succeeded in blocking the tribal army's advance. India should never have been partitioned. The benefits of India's growth would have been shared by all and huge sums of defence money saved and redirected to better causes. Peenal, London Within months of independence, India and Pakistan were at war in Kashmir. The dispute has never been resolved. Kashmir has endured its own informal partition with the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, the heartland of Kashmiri culture, under Indian control but still claimed by Pakistan. Pakistan had the acute problem of geography. It consisted of two wings, Bengali-speaking East Pakistan, and Punjabi-dominated West Pakistan, with 1,000 miles of Indian territory in between. The East had just the larger population - but power and influence lay with the West. In 1971, Indian troops supported Bengali nationalists in prising East Pakistan free of West Pakistan's control, and the new nation of Bangladesh was born. Defined by the differences The wars and rivalry between India and Pakistan have encouraged both countries to build strong armies (in Pakistan, the army has repeatedly overthrown civilian governments) and to develop nuclear arsenals. Pakistan went on to challenge India as a regional power Regional co-operation in South Asia has been perpetually frustrated by this rivalry. India still has a large Muslim minority, about one in seven of the population, but the tension with Pakistan has put strain on the Indian tradition of secularism in public life and religious tolerance. The start of a separatist insurgency in Kashmir from the end of the 1980s further worsened relations between the two countries. Pakistan insisted it was only giving moral support to the separatists - India was convinced that Pakistan was arming, training and at times organising these Muslim militants. Some were advocates of jihad who had been supported by Pakistan in fighting Soviet rule in Afghanistan and then turned their attention to Kashmir - and have also trained and encouraged Islamic radicals who have sought targets further afield. Both India and Pakistan have struggled to escape the shadow of the violence amid which they gained nationhood. Kashmir is only one aspect of the unfinished business of Partition. Both national identities are defined in large part by contrast with the other. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 6 BBC NEWS: Musharraf rejects emergency rule Last Updated: Thursday, 9 August 2007, 14:58 GMT 15:58 UK Gen Musharraf faces increasing unrest and opposition at home Pakistan has stepped back from imposing emergency rule, after mounting speculation that President Pervez Musharraf was considering the move. A spokesman said there was pressure on Gen Musharraf to declare an emergency but that he had decided not to because he was "committed to democracy". Earlier reports said the issue was being discussed because of external and internal threats to the country. On Wednesday Gen Musharraf abruptly called off a key visit to Afghanistan. "No state of emergency is being imposed in Pakistan," Federal Minister for Information Mohammad Ali Durrani told Pakistani television. Elections are the president's priority Mohammad Ali Durrani Federal Minister for Information Profile: President Musharraf "There was pressure on the president to impose emergency due to the situation in the country, but he is committed to furthering democracy and will not take any such step. "He was being ill advised by some people. He has decided against declaring the emergency. Elections are the president's priority," Mr Durrani said. Opposition and media figures said the suggestion of emergency rule was related to Gen Musharraf''s desire to be re-elected for another term as both president and head of the army, said the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad. 'Difficult circumstances' The discussion came as Pakistan faces an increasingly volatile political and security situation. The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it Benazir Bhutto, Opposition leader Tensions soared last month after a siege by government troops of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque ended with the deaths of more than 100 people. Separately, in a move seen as a serious blow to the president, Pakistan's Supreme Court reinstated the country's chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Mr Chaudhry, who was suspended by Gen Musharraf amid claims of corruption, became the focus of opposition to the president with lawyers staging protests demanding his reinstatement. Pakistani opposition leader Javed Hashmi, a fierce critic of Gen Musharraf who had been jailed on charges of sedition, was also freed from prison on Saturday after the Supreme Court ordered his release on bail. Speculation Junior Information Minister Tariq Azeem said emergency rule was being discussed, given external and internal threats to the country. "The possibility of the enforcement of emergency, like other possibilities, is under discussion," he said. He said US threats to launch an operation in the tribal areas and the recent targeting of Chinese nationals by Islamic militants had played a role in the issue being discussed. "In addition, the situation on the borders and the suicide attacks are also a concern," Mr Azeem added. Elections threat Emergency rule would have limited the role of the courts, restricted civil liberties and curbed freedom of expression. The president would have also been able to postpone national elections due to be held later in 2007, which could have enabled him to continue in his role as chief of Pakistan's powerful military. Opposition political parties, like Pakistan's largest party, the PPP, want Gen Musharraf to give up the role. "The emergency is a big step and the government should think twice before enforcing it," said former Prime Minister and PPP leader Benazir Bhutto. Gen Musharraf pulled out of the three-day Afghan council, or jirga, on combating the Taleban, citing commitments in Islamabad. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is attending in his place. Up to 700 tribal elders, Islamic clerics and leaders of both countries are invited to the council, starting on Thursday, which will discuss terrorism. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 7 Brick Township Bulletin: NRC removes Oyster Creek 'white finding' Front Page August 9, 2007 Activist questions agency's reliance on AmerGen's reports BY PATRICIA A. MILLER Staff Writer The Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station no longer has a "white finding" marring its safety record, according to a recent reinspection by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The NRC's determination comes almost two years after an Aug. 6, 2005, incident at the nuclear plant on Route 9 in Lacey Township where plant operators failed to take the appropriate emergency-response actions when a large amount of sea grass clogged the north side intake structure screens, which resulted in a decrease in the intake structure water level. The water level decreased for roughly 60 minutes, which met the NRC's criteria for an unusual event and alert declarations. AmerGen, the plant's owner, failed to convince NRC inspectors they had taken appropriate steps to correct the problems during the first inspection last year, and the white finding remained. The latest NRC inspection was conducted from June 4 to June 7, at the plant on Route 9 south in Lacey Township. "The inspectors determined that AmerGen's review contained sufficient methods for determining the effectiveness of their corrective actions to prevent recurrences," the NRC's Emergency Preparedness Supplemental Inspection Report states. The inspectors based their conclusion on the increased frequency and number of personnel in-field performance observations and assessments; a management review process to monitor operator and crew performance; the development of stations metrics to track and assess station-wide procedure use, adherence events and procedure changes and continued nuclear oversight observations and self-assessment reports, the NRC report states. "We determined they had performed a comprehensive evaluation and that they implemented correction action," said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci. "The bottom line is we believe they have taken the appropriate actions to remove the white finding." The news of the white finding removal did not mean much to Janet Tauro, a founding member of the citizens' group Grandmothers, Mothers and More for Energy Safety (GRAMMES), which opposes the plant's relicensing. "This has been the problem all along with the NRC," Tauro said. "They rely on AmerGen's own assessments to determine safety issues. When they rely on AmerGen's analysis, there is no checks and balances. That's the fundamental problem. You cannot rely on AmerGen's data. You have to conduct your own inspection." GRAMMES is one of six organizations that opposed the plant's relicensing. The others are the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, the Jersey Shore Nuclear Watch Inc., the New Jersey Public Interest Group, the New Jersey Sierra Club and the New Jersey Environmental Federation. The coalition of groups filed a contention earlier this year that cited concerns about corrosion in the plant's drywell liner earlier this year. The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an NRC advisory board, in June denied AmerGen's request to have the contention dismissed. A board will hold a hearing on the matter on Sept. 24 in Toms River. It is the first time in the NRC's history the board agreed to hear a contention. Oyster Creek is the oldest nuclear plant in the country. It went online in 1969. AmerGen is seeking of have the plant's license renewed for another 20 years, when it expires in 2009. Tauro said the NRC should have arranged for an independent analysis of Oyster Creek's response to the white finding. "In any other situation, an independent analysis would be done," she said. "It's unfathomable to us that this agency continues to rely on the industry to evaluate themselves and to police themselves." ***************************************************************** 8 Lancaster Online.com: Fire extinguisher malfunction leads to alert at Peach Bottom By STAFF REPORT Intelligencer Journal Published: Aug 09, 2007 12:56 AM EST LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. - The unintentional discharge of a fire extinguisher in one of Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station's emergency diesel generator rooms forced Exelon Nuclear to declare an alert at the plant Wednesday afternoon. The alert was terminated about an hour later, according to a news release from Exelon. There was no fire and no injuries. The extinguisher "mechanically failed" about 3:36 p.m. Wednesday, and the alert was terminated at 4:53 p.m., according to the release. 2004-2007 Lancaster Newspapers PO Box 1328, Lancaster PA 17608, (717) 291-8811 ***************************************************************** 9 TheStar.com: Display of ongoing effects of Chernobyl raises questions, but will its message be heard? 's Toronto Star | Star P.M. Aug 09, 2007 04:30 AM Peter Goddard VISUAL ARTS CRITIC On April 26, 1986, shortly before 1:30 a.m., an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine spewed a radioactive cloud over great swaths of Europe and western Russia. Within days it contaminated much of Belarus – which absorbed an estimated 60 per cent of the fallout – as well as large areas of Ukraine, Russia and beyond. Even Welsh sheep were contaminated. The point of "Chernobyl: 20 Years – 20 Lives," a travelling exhibition by Danish photographer Mads Eskesen having its Canadian debut at the Gladstone Hotel, is that the Chernobyl disaster can't be confined to memory alongside the New York Mets winning the 1986 World Series. The Chernobyl disaster is ongoing. "Today there are more institutionalized children in Belarus than after World War II," reads the text alongside a suite of photos illustrating the work of Natalia Ivanova, deputy director of Belarus's Vesnova Orphanage. Other lives explored include a reindeer farmer from Lapland and a Moscow nuclear scientist. "20 Years-20 Lives," on the hotel's third and fourth floors, humanizes the worst peacetime nuclear disaster in history, although it can barely be considered a photo exhibition. "The older generation knows about the risks of nuclear power," says Emilie Moorhouse of the Sierra Club of Canada, which also left stacks of nuclear-related pamphlets at the Gladstone, with the title "Charting a Sustainable Energy Future for Ontario." "Bringing this show to downtown Toronto is our way of reaching the younger generation," she goes on. But to me, the Sierra Club is indulging in wishful thinking when it imagines that setting up shop at a hot Queen St. W. spot will bring the biggest bang for its consciousness-raising buck. If what matters is getting the right message to the right people, why not have the exhibition at Hydro One headquarters or the lobby of Queen's Park? "20 years – 20 Lives" isn't likely to rekindle questions about finding aesthetic pleasure in scenes of disaster that arose with the recent publication of Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl, from Montreal-born New York photographer Robert Polidori. But maybe it should. What the Gladstone is showing is an illustrated lecture that's so restrictive when it comes to Eskesen's photography that the best stuff – the image of a classroom in ruins, with books still open – is often just postcard size. ====================================================================== pgoddard@thestar.ca Just the facts WHAT: Chernobyl: 20 Years – 20 Lives WHERE: Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W. WHEN: Noon to 5 p.m. daily until Sept. 3. Admission is free. Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007 | ***************************************************************** 10 TheStar.com: On nuclear patrol in Durham | Today's Toronto Star | Star P.M. Power plants to replace police guards with OPG armed security force Aug 09, 2007 04:30 AM Carola Vyhnak Staff reporter Nuclear power stations in Durham Region are about to undergo a changing of the guard. Armed, trained employees of Ontario Power Generation will replace police who have been guarding the Darlington and Pickering plants since 2001. Starting in 2008, the new security force will be phased in over six years until an agreement with Durham Regional Police Service ends, OPG spokesperson Jacquie McInnes said, adding the plan to hire and train OPG's own armed security officers was a mutual decision with police. Following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission ordered nuclear power stations to up security, with armed guards around the clock. OPG formed a partnership with Durham police to get an armed and expert response force on-site quickly while it focused on other security measures, McInnes said. Over the past six years, OPG has opened security buildings at both sites, adding explosives detectors, X-ray equipment, geometric scanners and sophisticated surveillance and identification systems. The job of the security force "is to ensure there's no threat to the plant, facilities, workers or general public," McInnes said. Durham police were "the best choice to provide that security," said deputy chief Sherry Whiteway, noting police will help train and work alongside new guards until the transition is completed in 2013. "It's been an excellent partnership," she said. As officers are replaced at the power stations, they'll return to regular police duties. Neither OPG nor police would say how many officers work at the plants, citing security reasons. Applicants for security jobs will face the same rigorous testing and screening as police candidates, but will receive similar training, though not as extensive and without the law component, Whiteway said. McInnes called the training "much like (that of) a firefighter – training for different eventualities and for a high level of response." Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007 | ***************************************************************** 11 Star News Group: Parties react to N-sites - By Shaun Inguanzo By Shaun Inguanzo 9th August 2007 11:00:19 AM A POLITICAL fracas over nuclear reactors for the Westernport region has erupted between major party candidates vying for the federal seat of Isaacs. Labor candidate Mark Dreyfus this week challenged Liberal candidate Ross Fox to declare his opposition to nuclear reactors coming to Westernport after an Australia Institute report last year identified the region as suitable for a reactor. John Howard has committed to 25 nuclear reactors and associated nuclear waste facilities being constructed. His Government has also sought legal advice on how it can override State and local government bans on nuclear power, Mr Dreyfus said. I strongly oppose any nuclear reactors or waste facilities being sited in the region and I have started a petition to let the Howard Government know that their nuclear reactors and radioactive waste dumps are not wanted here. But Mr Fox said the Labor candidate was scaremongering the public and not telling the truth on the issue. He refuted claims the Howard Government had committed to nuclear power but would not rule out the possibility. The reality is that in order for Australia to continue to prosper and grow, we need to have a secure, low-emission energy future, Mr Fox said. Therefore in order to do what is right for Australias future the Government will investigate all available alternative energy sources, including nuclear power generation. Whether nuclear power is appropriate for Australia should be the subject of rigorous public debate. The priority should be to ensure this debate is based on facts not fear. Copyright 2006 Star News Group ***************************************************************** 12 Platts: Cernavoda-2 generates first electricity Washington (Platts)--8Aug2007 Cernavoda-2 generated its first electricity August 7, Romanian national utility Nuclearelectrica said. The 700-MW pressurized heavy water reactor, built by a consortium of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and Italy's Ansaldo, has been under active construction since 2003. It went critical in May, and is slated to complete precommercial testing and enter commercial service by October. The Cernavoda site was planned for five PHWRs but construction was interrupted by the fall of the Ceausescu regime in 1989, and until now, only unit 1 was completed, in 1996. The utility says the two units will produce up to 18% of the country's power. On August 6, Nuclearelectrica issued a tender for investors to join in construction of Cernavoda-3 and -4, which is intended to draw offers from major vendors. Copyright 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 13 NRC: NRC Seeks Comments on Draft Strategic Plan News Release - 2007-099 - 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 is seeking public comments on its draft Strategic Plan, covering Fiscal Years 2007 to 2012, that describes what the NRC intends to do over the next five years to carry out its mission to protect people and the environment. The NRC’s vision is: Excellence in licensing and regulating the safe and secure use and management of radioactive materials for the public good. The draft plan describes how the NRC as a strong, independent and stable regulator will continue to ensure the safe use of radioactive materials and nuclear power in a dynamic environment. Some of the more significant challenges facing the agency over the next several years include the expected receipt of applications to construct and operate new nuclear power plants and a high-level nuclear waste facility. The draft Strategic Plan also addresses how the NRC will meet these challenges. Safety and security continue to be the agency’s top strategic goals. Strategies to meet those goals are described in the draft plan and reflect real world changes. For example, greater emphasis is being placed on improving regulatory processes for ensuring the safety of new power reactors while reflecting the agency’s continuing priority to ensure that existing reactors continue to operate safely. Strategies also reflect increased security requirements for radioactive sources and high-enriched uranium fuel. The draft plan has four organizational excellence objectives that describe how the agency intends to carry out its safety and security goals. They are: 1) openness, 2) effectiveness, 3) timeliness, and 4) operational excellence. And as the NRC expands to meet its increasing workload, the document emphasizes the important relationship between human capital, knowledge management, and space challenges that must be addressed in order to ensure that the agency can successfully carry out its mission. When final, this Strategic Plan will replace the existing plan and will guide agency operations. All interested individuals are encouraged to provide their comments on the draft Strategic Plan. Stakeholder feedback is considered a valuable part of helping the Commission develop a final plan. By September 7, all comments should be submitted to the NRC electronically at: STRATPLAN@NRC.GOV; by mail to: Chief, Rules and Directives Branch, Mail Stop T6-D59, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001; or faxed to: Chief, Rules and Directives Branch at (301) 415-5144. 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. Thursday, August 09, 2007 ***************************************************************** 14 newsobserver.com: Harris N-plant clears bar to extended license Thursday, August 9, 2007 John Murawski, Staff Writer Progress Energy has cleared a hurdle in its bid to extend the operating license of the Shearon Harris nuclear plant by 20 years. The Raleigh utility persuaded administrative law judges to reject safety concerns raised by nuclear critics who are challenging the license extension. Durham-based N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network and Maryland-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service expect to appeal the ruling Aug. 3 by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board to keep their challenge alive. The groups want to litigate safety issues that the atomic board said fall outside the scope of a relicensing proceeding. The atomic board said such proceedings are limited by law to reviewing a nuclear plant's safety components and environmental impacts as the plant ages. Progress Energy is seeking to extend the license of the Shearon Harris plant in southwestern Wake County until 2046. The plant was originally licensed in 1986 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC, along with Progress Energy, opposes the license extension challenges. The final decision rests with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, an independent panel. Nuclear critics want the license extension hearings opened to review allegations that for years Shearon Harris has failed to comply with federal fire safety standards, that the plant outside Raleigh is not prepared for an attack by aircraft, and that the regional emergency evacuation plan is flawed. Staff writer John Murawski can be reached at 829-8932 or john.murawski@newsobserver.com. newsobserver.com Copyright 2007, The News & Observer Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 15 RIA Novosti: EU to fork out $27 million on Russia nuclear safety - NPP operator 16:00 | 09/ 08/ 2007 MOSCOW, August 9 (RIA Novosti) - The European Commission plans to allocate 20 million euros (over $27 million) for nuclear safety projects with Russia, the country's nuclear power plant operator said Thursday. Rosenergoatom, which runs all 10 Russian NPPs with a total capacity of over 23 GW, said the funds offered by the European Union's executive branch aimed at optimizing their preventive maintenance. The funds will be allocated under The Instrument of Nuclear Safety Cooperation (INSC) program, intended for seven years. A source in the company said Rosenergoatom is supposed to prepare bidding documents no later than December. The INSC has a budget of 450 million euros ($620 million), about one-third of which will be earmarked for joint nuclear safety projects with Russia. The program is the continuation of nuclear security programs within the framework of TACIS - Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States - that had 15 years of working experience with nuclear scientists in most of the former Soviet republics in equipment supplies and training. TACIS, which helped Russia integrate into the world nuclear community, ended in 2006. Since 1991, the European Commission allocated 7 billion euros ($9 billion) to TACIS programs in different countries, with Russia receiving some 40% of the funds. Rosenergoatom said in March that the European Commission in 2007 would significantly cut financing of projects supplying equipment for Russian nuclear power plants, and instead would provide funding for training NPP security personnel, explaining that the reduction in financing was because cooperation with the EC was entering a new level, based not on an assistance program but on interaction. The European Commission is offering new technology for nuclear cooperation in 2007, as well as support for so-called soft projects more oriented to the human factor, meaning more attention will be paid to personnel, management style and security. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 16 JOURNAL NEWS: Two weeks left for Indian Point to meet new siren deadline Thursday, August 9, 2007 By GREG CLARY BUCHANAN - Two weeks from tomorrow is the deadline for Indian Point to have its new emergency warning system working, and plant officials remain hopeful they can deliver on time despite regulatory questions that remain unanswered. Federal officials expect the notification system to be loud enough to be heard in each of the 150 areas covered by individual sirens and are requiring Entergy Nuclear, Indian Point's owner and operator, to ensure that. The sirens are spread across the parts of Westchester, Putnam, Rockland and Orange counties that fall within a 10-mile radius of the nuclear power plant. The Federal Emergency Management Agency's top regional official on the project said yesterday that the agency must be able to verify that minimum sound levels are reached or it won't approve the project by the Aug. 24 deadline. "They have not proven to us that the siren system can meet our basic regulations and guidance for siren sound coverage throughout the emergency planning zone," Rebecca Thomson, branch chief for FEMA's radiological emergency planning group, said yesterday. "They haven't provided us with any data to prove that," Thomson said. "What they provided is outdated and no good anymore because it was projected based on how the sirens were supposed to sound." FEMA is acting on behalf of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees Indian Point's operation, including emergency planning. Entergy officials said they were working to deliver the data FEMA needs in time to make the deadline and have moved ahead with local emergency staff training and other requirements as quickly as possible. Training started this week, company officials said, and is expected to be finished by Aug. 21. Entergy is up against its third deadline since agreeing to install a $15 million alert system in the fall of 2005. The company asked for and received a 75-day extension from the NRC after regulators agreed that the project needed more time than the Jan. 30, 2007, deadline allowed. The agency wasn't as forgiving after the company missed an April 15 deadline, fining Entergy $130,000 and requiring a plan to finish the project within a reasonable amount of time - Aug. 24 became the new target. "I think we can resolve the issues that need to be resolved by then," Entergy spokesman Jim Steets said. "We're certainly driving toward that." At least one county official involved in the project is skeptical that the latest deadline will be met. "I suspect that they will not resolve it by the 24th," said Anthony Sutton, Westchester County's commissioner of emergency services. "We didn't want to be in this place as we go toward the deadline." One of the main questions is whether the sirens must meet a minimum of 70 decibels in louder areas and 60 decibels in quieter areas - or whether all sirens must be at least 10 decibels louder than background noise in each area. Residents in the emergency planning zone have complained during months of siren testing that they can't hear the new sirens as well as they can hear the existing sirens. Thomson said yesterday that field tests showed that some of the sound coverage falls as much as 44 percent short of what was designed. NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan said the agency was aware of the remaining obstacles and was in daily contact with the nuclear plant about the sirens. He said NRC officials would continue to monitor the project's progress. Thomson was complimentary of the new system, saying it would be one of the best of its kind in the country once it's installed properly. The current system will remain in operation until the new system is approved. "The system is complex," Thomson said. "It's going to have a lot of bugs. We just can't say 'turn it on and make it the primary system' until we're convinced that the sound coverage is adequate." Reach Greg Clary at gclary@lohud.com or 914-696-8566. Copyright 2007 The Journal News, a Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper serving Westchester, Rockland and Putnam Counties in New York. ***************************************************************** 17 York Dispatch: Peach Bottom alert not a threat BROCK PARKER The York Dispatch Article Last Updated: 08/09/2007 10:48:08 AM EDT Exelon's Peach Bottom Atomic Power station called an "alert event" yesterday afternoon after a unintentional discharge of carbon dioxide was detected in a backup generator room. The carbon dioxide discharge did not pose any threat to the public, and the plant continued to operate at 100 percent power, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But as a precaution workers in the emergency generator room were evacuated from the area at 3:36 p.m., when the high levels of carbon dioxide were detected, Sheehan said. The carbon dioxide level prompted an "alert event," the second-lowest level of four emergency events, Sheehan said. Exelon spokeswoman April Schilpp said the high carbon dioxide levels were caused by an unintentional discharge of a fire extinguisher that was broken. Sheehan said alert events do not occur often, but it was the proper protocol for the high carbon dioxide levels. "They took the appropriate precautions," he said. At 4:53 p.m., the alert event was over, according to plant officials. -- Reach Brock Parker at 505-5434 or bparker@yorkdispatch.com. 2005-2007 Copyright The York Dispatch ***************************************************************** 18 WNN: Contractor and cash for Chernobyl 09 August 2007 Ukrainian authorities have agreed with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to enter into contracts for the construction of the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement. The bank has authorised spending around 70% of the project's cost. Some Eur330 million ($451 million) was authorised as an initial allocation, as compared to the overall project cost of Eur470 million ($642 million). The money will be spent with the French-led Novarka consortium, which includes Bouygyes and Vinci as well as German and Ukrainian firms. Contracts are expected to be signed within weeks and Novarka would then manage the construction of a gigantic arch to be placed over the broken remains of Chernobyl 4. The structure, known as the New Safe Confinement (NSC), is meant to isolate radioactive debris in the building from the environment for the next 100 years. It will contain equipment and facilities to dismantle the existing 'sarcophagus' that was hastily built to cover the plant remains but that has badly deteriorated over the 21 years since the accident. Engineers had become concerned that the sarcophagus could fail and cause another release of radioactive debris, but it has now been stabilized, mainly by the addition of a load-bearing scaffold alongside. Nevertheless, rain and snow are still currently able to enter the leaky shelter. The NSC will be built in sections founded on teflon-coated rails and slid into place, to be tightly sealed around the plant building and sarcophagus. Navarka reportedly submitted the lowest bid of two for the project, which was put to tender by the EBRD in 2004. Under the tender rules it was the first to enter discussions, with the runner-up consortium led by C2HM Hill to be brought in only if those with Novarka failed. Novarka were initially selected, but this choice was declared invalid by Chernobyl managers. The selection and discussion process was re-started, but reached the same conclusion. In addition to the NSG allowance, the EBRD has also allocated Eur34 million ($47 million) to the project for dry storage of used nuclear fuel from Chernobyl units 1, 2 and 3. The sum roughly matches costs for the design and prototyping first phase of the project. Further information Chernobyl NPP Holtec International ***************************************************************** 19 NRC: Atomic Safety and Licensing Board; In the Matter of Shaw Areva MOX Services (Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility); Notice of Oral Argument and of Opportunity To Make Limited Appearance Statements FR Doc E7-15557 [Federal Register: August 9, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 153)] [Notices] [Page 44877-44878] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr09au07-103] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. 70-3098-MLA; ASLBP No.: 07-856-02-MLA-BD01] August 3, 2007. Before Administrative Judges: Michael C. Farrar, Chairman, Nicholas G. Trikouros, Lawrence G. McDade. This proceeding involves the September 2006 application of Shaw AREVA MOX Services (MOX Services, or Applicant) for a license to possess and use byproduct, source, and special nuclear materials at the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MFFF) at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site, which lies south of Aiken, South Carolina, and extends to the Georgia border. This Atomic Safety and Licensing Board hereby gives NOTICE that it will, on Wednesday, August 22, 2007, in Augusta, Georgia, be hearing oral argument from the formal participants in the proceeding regarding the petition to intervene that has been submitted by three organizations. Information about that oral argument appears in Section A below. In addition, the Board gives notice that, in accordance with 10 CFR 2.315(a), it will entertain oral ``limited appearance'' statements from members of the public in North Augusta, South Carolina, on the evening of Tuesday, August 21, 2007. Information about these statements appears in Section B below. This matter began on March 15, 2007, when the Commission published a notice of acceptance for docketing of the MOX Services license application and a notice of opportunity to request a hearing on the application. 72 FR 12,204 (Mar. 15, 2007). Thereafter, a ``Petition for Intervention and Request for Hearing'' (hereinafter Petition) was timely filed on May 14, 2007, by a group of three organizations (collectively, Petitioners): The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Nuclear Watch South (NWS),\1\ and the Nuclear Information Service (NIRS). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \1\ Nuclear Watch South was previously known as Georgians Against Nuclear Energy (GANE) and participated in the prior proceeding related to this facility under that name. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- On June 5, 2007, this Atomic Safety and Licensing Board was established to conduct this adjudication.\2\ As part of that process, this Board will now hear oral argument on the standing of the Petitioners to intervene in this proceeding and on the admissibility of the five contentions they submitted as part of the petition to intervene. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- \2\ 72 FR 32,139 (June 11, 2007). The Board was subsequently reconstituted, pursuant to 10 CFR 2.313(c), due to the unavailability of one of the judges. 72 FR 40,344 (July 24, 2007). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Nature, Timing, and Location of Oral Argument The oral argument is currently scheduled to cover two categories of issues: Standing and contention admissibility. The Petitioners have claimed representational standing on behalf of their members who reside within 50 miles of the proposed facility, a claim that is disputed by the Applicant and by the NRC Staff. The Petitioners have also submitted five contentions, which they list in summary as follows: (1) Whether MOX Services' License Application and/or EIS meet the relevant requirements in the National Environmental Policy Act and/or the Clean Air Act because of failures to address critical aspects regarding limits on emissions of hazardous air pollutants necessary for the protection of public health and safety; (2) Whether MOX Services License Application meets the relevant requirements of the Atomic Energy Act because of its failure to prepare and submit an emergency plan to the NRC for potential radioactive releases to the public; (3) Whether the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the construction and operation of a plutonium fuel factory is adequate to satisfy the requirements of NEPA and NRC implementing regulations because it fails to address new and significant information showing that neither MOX Services nor the U.S. Department of Energy (``DOE'') has any concrete plans for the Waste Solidification Building (``WSB'') that was proposed in the EIS and, as a result, high-alpha liquid waste from the proposed facility may have to be stored onsite posing hazards which have not been addressed by the NRC in the EIS; (4) Whether the License Application for the proposed plutonium processing facility is inadequate because it does not address safety and public health risks posed by indefinite storage of liquid high- alpha waste at the site or contain measures for the safe storage of that waste; and (5) Whether the Final Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed plutonium processing facility meets the relevant requirements of NEPA because it does not evaluate the environmental impacts of a terrorist attack on the proposed factory. Petition at 5-6. The Board will hear argument from counsel for the Applicant and for the NRC Staff and from pro se representatives of the Petitioners regarding the Petitioners' standing claim and the admissibility of these contentions under 10 CFR 2.309(f)(1). The specific date, time, and location of the oral argument is as follows: Dates: Wednesday, August 22, 2007. Location: Courtroom 2 (Second Floor), Augusta Federal Courthouse, 600 James Brown Blvd., Augusta, Georgia 30901. Time: 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m (EDT). Members of the public are welcome to attend the oral argument as spectators (this session is a formal adjudicatory proceeding open to public observation but not to public participation those who wish to participate in other aspects are invited to offer limited appearance statements as provided in Section B, below.) Conduct of members of the public at NRC adjudicatory proceedings is governed by 66 FR 31,719 (June 12, 2001), an excerpt from which follows this notice. In addition, normal federal courthouse security procedures will be followed. Attendees are strongly advised to arrive sufficiently early to allow time to pass through a security screening checkpoint. Further, in the interest of permitting prompt access to the hearing room, attendees are requested to refrain from bringing any unnecessary hand-carried items. (Items such as packages, briefcases, and backpacks may need to be examined individually, and items that could readily be used as weapons will not be permitted in the hearing room.) There will be no facilities available for storing any items outside the hearing room, and attendees with items requiring inspection may be delayed in obtaining entry. B. Oral Limited Appearance Statement Session 1. Date, Time, and Location The Board will conduct a session to provide members of the public with an opportunity to make oral limited appearance statements on the following date at the specified location and time: Dates: Tuesday, August 21, 2007. [[Page 44878]] Location: Banquet Room A-2, North Augusta Community Center, 495 Brookside Avenue, North Augusta, South Carolina 29861. Time: 5-8 p.m. (EDT). 2. Participation Guidelines for Oral Limited Appearance Statements Any person not party to the proceeding has the opportunity, as specified below, to make an oral statement setting forth his or her position on matters of concern relating to this proceeding. These statements will be transcribed and will become part of the record of the proceeding for future reference, and they may ( if focused on the contentions under consideration--assist the Board in formulating questions to ask the parties during oral argument or prompt the parties to address particular matters at the argument or in some other fashion. They do not, however, constitute evidence upon which a decision may be based. Oral limited appearance statements will be entertained during the hours specified above, although a lesser time period may be sufficient to accommodate the speakers who are present. If all scheduled and unscheduled speakers present at a session have made a presentation, the Licensing Board reserves the right to terminate the session before the ending time listed above. In order to accommodate as many speakers as feasible, the time allotted for each statement normally will be no more than three minutes, and speakers should prepare accordingly. That time limit may be altered, depending on the number of written requests that are submitted in accordance with subsection 3 below, and/or the number of persons present at the designated time. The same security guidelines applicable to the oral argument will be applicable to the limited appearance session as well, although limited appearance sessions are not deemed to be ``adjudicatory proceedings'' within the meaning of those guidelines. 3. Submitting a Request to Make an Oral Limited Appearance Statement Persons wishing to make an oral statement who have submitted a timely written request to do so will be given priority over those who have not filed such a request. In order to be considered timely for priority purposes, a written request to make an oral statement must be mailed, faxed, or sent by e-mail so as to be received at NRC Headquarters by noon, EDT on Friday, August 17, 2007. In light of possible mail delivery delays, persons able to do so may wish to use fax or e-mail to assure that their requests are timely received. These written requests to make an oral statement are to be submitted in one of the following fashions: Mail: Office of the Secretary, Rulemakings and Adjudications Staff, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Fax: (301) 415-1101 (verification (301) 415-1966). E-mail: hearingdocket@nrc.gov. In addition, using the same method of service, a copy of the request must be sent to the Licensing Board as follows: Mail: MOX Limited Appearance Box, Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel, Mail Stop T-3F23, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. Fax: (301) 415-5599 (verification (301) 415-7550). E-mail: pah@nrc.gov and mxc7@nrc.gov. Phone requests to make limited appearance statements will not be accepted. 4. Submitting Written Limited Appearance Statements A written limited appearance statement (in lieu of or in addition to an oral presentation) may be submitted at any time. Such statements should be sent to the Office of the Secretary using the methods prescribed above, with a copy to the Licensing Board as noted above. * * * * * * * * Documents relating to the MOX facility license application at issue in this proceeding are on file at the Commission's Public Document Room (PDR), located at One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland 20850, and may also be obtained electronically through ADAMS, the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System, accessible through the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/adams.html. Persons who do not have access to ADAMS or who encounter problems in accessing the documents located therein should contact the PDR reference staff by telephone at 800-397- 4209 or 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. Any updated/revised scheduling information regarding the oral argument or the limited appearance session can be found on the NRC Web site at http://www.nrc.gov/public-involve/public-meetings/index.cfm. For the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board. Rockville, Maryland, August 3, 2007. Michael C. Farrar, Chairman, Administrative Judge, Copies of this notice were sent this date by Internet e-mail transmission to (1) Counsel for Applicant Shaw AREVA MOX Services and for the NRC Staff; and (2) each of the individuals who entered an appearance on behalf of Petitioners Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL), Nuclear Watch South (NWS), and the Nuclear Information Service (NIRS). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Excerpt from Federal Register notice published on June 12, 2001 (66 FR 31,719): In order to balance the orderly conduct of government business with the right of free speech, the following procedures regarding attendance at NRC public meetings and hearings have been established: Visitors (other than properly identified Congressional, press, and government personnel) may be subject to personnel screening, such as passing through metal detectors and inspecting visitors' briefcases, packages, etc. Signs, banners, posters and displays will be prohibited from all NRC adjudicatory proceedings (Commission and Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel hearings) because they are disruptive to the conduct of the adjudicatory process. Signs, banners, posters and displays not larger than 18'' x 18'' will be permitted at all other NRC proceedings, but cannot be waved, held over one's head or generally moved about while in the meeting room. Signs, banners, posters and displays larger than 18'' x 18'' will not be permitted in the meeting room because they are disruptive both to the participants and the audience. Additionally, signs, banners, posters, and displays affixed to any sticks, poles or other similar devices will not be permitted in the meeting room. The presiding official will note, on the record, any disruptive behavior and warn the person to cease the behavior. If the person does not cease the behavior, the presiding official may call a brief recess to restore order and/or ask one of the security personnel on hand to remove the person. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [FR Doc. E7-15557 Filed 8-8-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 20 Jurnalul National: Nuclear Plant from the Junkyard - VINERI,10-08-2007|ORA:08:08 2007 08 08| de Andrei Badin Nuclear bomb 100 kilometers away from Bucharest In spite of the protests of the ecologists, a new nuclear plant is being built in Bulgaria. The project obtained the European financing and will be realized with the help of a Soviet technology. “The Belene Nuclear Plant is being built using out of use Soviet components” sounds the warning signal of Friends of Earth Europe. The plant in Belene is 100 kilometers away from Bucharest and caused a lot of complaints in the 90s that led to stopping the construction. The construction started again recently and Bucharest is very quiet about it even though it was considered a great danger a few years ago. Last year, President Traian Basescu praised the project and the “excellent Romanian-Bulgarian cooperation”. SOVIET TECHNOLOGY The current situation in Belene has been signaled by the “Deutsche Welle” radio station. The nuclear plant received European financing. The Paris National Bank won the public offer of 250 million euros that will be used for the building of the first segment of the plant. This will be made by the energy company NEK. Several ecologist organizations have already protested against the decision of the French bank. The first manifestations took place at the BNP headquarters in Bruxelles and were followed by other manifestations in several French cities, as well as in Berlin, Vienna or Amsterdam. The interesting part is the fact that BNP Paribas is the only bank that accepted the financing of the Bulgarian project, after 11 important banks in Europe refused. FIXED AUCTION Daniel Meijers, director of Friends of the Earth Europe stated for Deutsche Welle: “The parts that will be used for the construction of the plant are the same as the ones made for the previous project. It is a Russian model that has only been used in China and India by now. It is not very clear if it will work and if it will be dangerous for the population because it is a combination of Russian technology and western parts. It is not the safest plant built by now.” Meijers also mentioned some irregularities at the auction: “There was a Canadian company that wanted to build at Belene as well, but they had given up because of the fraud that took place during the public auction. The Bulgarians wanted the Russians but not the Canadians.” GAZPROM INVOLVEMENT Several Russian banks are interested in financing the plant at Belene. Four billion euros are needed for the entire project. However, the Bulgarian media wrote that, according to the German radio station, no matter the final decision on the company to take care of the project, Gazprom would control it since it is Putin’s “energetic weapon”. Gazprombank has 51% of the stock exchange of Atomstroiexport, which will use the French company Framatome for the job. The project of the new plant says it would have two Russian VVER reactors with powers reaching 1,000 megawatts. They are identical to the 5 and 6 reactors of the Bulgarian nuclear plant in Kozlodui. THREATS FORGOTTEN IN BUCHAREST The Belene plans have been finished at the beginning of this year but there haven’t been any protests against it in Bucharest. A few years ago, the Ministry of Environment considered this project one of the four major environment threats At the end of 2004, when Bulgaria signed the final papers for the construction of their second nuclear plant, Romania presented a report about the environment issues of the project that said the Belene harbor is 13 kilometers away from Zimnicea and less than 100 kilometers away from Bucharest. BASESCU’S “EXCELLENT COOPERATION” In an interview for the Bulgarian newspaper Standart, President Basescu praised the Belene plant: “This proves once again the excellent cooperation between the Romanian and Bulgarian authorities”, said Basescu. At that time, the Ministry of Environment was led by democrat Sulfina Barbu. Copyright 1996-2007 Compania Jurnalul - Editura Intact ***************************************************************** 21 Maine Today: Nuclear power generates debate Editorials August 9, 2007 I was pleased to see the Aug. 5 column, "Look more closely -- nuclear power is not an oasis, but a mirage," by Paul Josephson, regarding renewed interest in nuclear power here in the United States. Nuclear power plants are run safely and efficiently throughout the world in both commercial and military applications with very, very few incidents. When properly operated, they have an outstanding safety record. With regard to spent fuel, there are excellent technical solutions to the problem of the disposal of spent fuel, but political barriers have barred their implementation. Lastly, maintaining security for a few, small, tightly controlled nuclear power generation sites is much more easily achieved than attempting to protect the widespread existing oil and natural gas infrastructure throughout the United States and elsewhere. Our dependence on fossil fuels, largely oil, has caused the most pressing challenges of our times, leading to wars, terrorism and the slow poisoning of our planet. Even if one is to ignore those important factors, don't forget it is not a renewable resource, and we are running out of oil. Nuclear power will allow us to free ourselves of dependence on foreign oil, free us from energy-based concerns over the Middle East and other hot spots, and allow us to turn around global warming. Again, while I disagree with Mr. Josephson's position against nuclear power, I am very pleased to see this debate opened in your pages, as it is time to look once again at nuclear power as a solution to our energy needs. C. Anthony McDonald South Freeport Takoma Park, Md., is the home of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Twice in recent years, I've been lucky enough to attend workshops there, where we learn about the dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear power. And now the president, Arjun Makhijani, has co-authored a report, "Carbon-Free and Nuclear Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy." This roadmap shows us that the United States could eliminate almost all of its carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2050, and that this goal can be achieved without the use of nuclear energy. The report suggests eliminating subsidies for nuclear power and fossil fuels, and also for biofuels like ethanol when they are made from food crops. To read more about the report, go to www.ieer.org. But meanwhile, we learn in an article in The New York Times about a one-sentence provision buried in the Senate's recently passed energy bill, inserted without debate at the urging of the nuclear power industry, that could make builders of new nuclear plants eligible for tens of billions of dollars in government loan guarantees. It is time to stop even thinking of nuclear power and begin taking the advice of those who know the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear weapons. Sally Breen Windham of MaineToday.com to post a comment. Copyright 2003- 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 22 Free Press: Radioactive "bailout-in-advance" opens fierce new war over nuke reactors Independent News Media - Harvey Wasserman Fri Aug 10 2007 August 9, 2007 After fifty years of what Forbes Magazine long ago called "the largest managerial disaster in business history," the nuke power industry is demanding untold billions in a federal "Bailout-in-Advance." Congress will decide on these proposed loan guarantees for new nukes in its September conferences over the new Energy Bill. Both sides are gearing up for the new war over the irradiation of our energy future. As usual, it's vital to "follow the money." The industry once promised that atomic energy would be "too cheap to meter." But after a half-century of proven failure, Wall Street won't invest in new nukes without federal support. So buried in the Senate version of the new Energy Bill is a single sentence authorizing the Department of Energy to underwrite virtually unlimited loans for still more nukes. The sentence was slipped into the bill by industry backers without open debate. Overall this staggeringly complex bill contains a hodge-podge of benefits for renewable energy and efficiency, along with a pile of contradictions and steps backward. The House version, for example, lacks strict fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. It also drew a veto threat from George W. Bush, who wants the restoration of huge tax breaks for his friends in the fossil fuel business. But the single sentence that could ultimately have the biggest impact on human survival is the one that offers the prospect of an essentially unlimited amount of taxpayer money to guarantee investments in new atomic reactors. The funding would come through the Department of Energy, which Congress has authorized to guarantee "new" technological advances that are considered "green." Congress says that includes new reactors. The Senate version of the bill would allow the DOE to sign off on loan guarantees for up to 80% of the cost of each new nuke it wants, with no yearly review from Congress. The industry has targeted $25 billion for next year alone, followed by another $25 billion in 2009, and admits to wanting at least 28 new reactors as soon as possible. The industry says the plants will cost $4-6 billion each, but history indicates the ultimate price tags will be far higher. This does not include the federal insurance, under the Price-Anderson Act, that since 1957 has shielded nuke owners from liability in case of a major catastrophe. Though it says they are "inherently safe," the industry demands the same insurance for its new reactors. The policy would leave countless citizens uncompensated for the destruction of their health and property after a radioactive disaster. Atomic power is also a major source of global warming. Reactors pump huge quantities of waste heat directly into the air and water. The mining, milling and enrichment of nuclear fuel also result in substantial CO2 emissions, as do the construction and decommissioning of the plants. As for the long-term management of radioactive waste, the solution promised fifty years ago is nowhere in sight. Regulatory officials say the proposed Yucca Mountain waste repository, under construction at a cost so far of some $10 billion, cannot open until 2020, if ever. The projected cost if Yucca does open is now about $60 billion, but it's likely to climb even higher. In 2000-2001, as much as $100 billion in bad "stranded cost" nuke investments were foisted on the public by a technology that can no longer compete with wind, solar, increased efficiency or a wide array of truly green energy sources that offer real answers to the global warming crisis. None of this bothers the reactor pushers and their well-funded supporters on Capitol Hill. Citizen groups such as Greenpeace, the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, Public Citizen, Beyond Nuclear, PIRG, Musicians United for Safe Energy, Nukewatch, Nuclear Energy Information Service, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, and green industry supporters have banded together to wage an uphill battle aimed at striking that critical sentence from the Senate bill. Come September, much of the public attention may be on the pro-green features of the bill, which requires more energy efficiency in buildings, appliances and the power grid, along with a demand that 15% of the nation's electricity come from solar, wind and other renewables by 2020. The House passed its version---which also calls for a carbon neutral federal government---by a vote of 241 to 172 (the fossil fuel tax breaks demanded by Bush were rejected, 221 to 189). But the real long-term impact on our energy future will turn on the tens of billions in taxpayer guarantees that may or may not pour into reactor construction that no private investors would otherwise fund. As Forbes put it in 1985, atomic energy has been "a defeat for the U.S. consumer and for the competitiveness of U.S. industry, for the utilities that undertook the program and for the private enterprise system that made it possible." The losses, said Forbes, exceeded the cost of the space program and the Vietnam War combined and left the US with "a power source that is not only high in cost and unreliable, but perhaps not even safe." To stop this tragedy from being repeated, the safe energy movement will desperately try to stop yet another "bail-out in advance" for the world's most dangerous and expensive failed technology. They need your help---in the short term for the Congressional conference on the Energy Bill, in the long term for turning back this latest nuclear assault on our energy future. Our survival depends on their green-powered success. -- Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030 is at www.solartopia.org (http://www.solartopia.org) . He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, a co-founder of MUSE, and senior editor of www.freepress.org, where this was originally published. The Columbus Free Press All content 1970-2007 ***************************************************************** 23 Scientists call for defensive action over radiological attacks Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 20:06:38 -0500 (CDT) http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/aug/10/uknews.terrorism Scientists call for defensive action over radiological attacks 7 Litvinenko murder could inspire new terror method 7 More restricted access to some substances urged Julian Borger The Guardian Friday August 10 2007 A group of scientists warned yesterday that terrorists could learn from last year's murder of Alexander Litvinenko to carry out radiological attacks on cities far more devastating than a dirty bomb. While a dirty bomb - using explosives to disperse radioactive material - would be unlikely to kill more than a hundred people, the scientists argue, several hundred could be killed if they swallowed or inhaled the material, like Mr Litvinenko, who drank tea laced with a lethal isotope, polonium-210, in London last November. In an article in the journal Survival, the three authors from King's College London call on the government to take precautionary measures, for example restricting access to radioactive materials which are now commonly available and easy to dissolve in water, allowing them to be sprayed over a large number of people. "Terrorists have already shown considerable interest in acquiring 'dirty bombs'. They may now try to replicate the murder of Litvinenko on a larger scale, or contrive other means to place radioactive sources inside, or in direct contact with, their victims," warns the article in Survival, a quarterly published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The authors call such methods I3, for inhalation, ingestion and immersion. One of the writers, Peter Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, said yesterday that a well-planned radiological attack "would be capable of killing several hundred, maybe upwards of a thousand, and paralysing a city without any question at all." The article does not provide details of the most devastating method of attack the authors have conceived, for security reasons, but Professor Zimmerman described one scenario using a water-soluble radioactive isotope widely used in hospitals and industry: "I can then tap into the anti-fire spray in a theatre, and if I can trigger the spray, I can soak everyone in the room." Polonium-210, which was used in Mr Litvinenko's murder, is even more deadly because it emits alpha radiation, which is not picked up by radiation sensors. The King's College scientists also believe that an I3 attack would inspire more terror than a chemical or biological or even a dirty bomb attack, because of public horror that the radioactive material could be widely dispersed before it became clear the attack had taken place. Another of the authors, Brooke Rogers, a social psychologist who is working with the Home Office to help prepare the government response to such an attack, said: "People are less afraid of a biological attack, like the plague, because they believe it can be treated." She said an intensive information campaign was necessary to keep the public informed and prevent panic. Prof Zimmerman argued other steps could be taken, making industrial and medical radiation sources much harder to come by. For example, the production of the water-soluble radioactive isotope in powdered form should be stopped, and replaced in hospitals and factories with a glassy non-soluble variant. ***************************************************************** 24 CTV Toronto: Health assessment at nuclear plant flawed - report - Thu. Aug. 9 2007 4:04 PM ET People bask in the sun next to the Pickering Nuclear Plant in Pickering, Ont., about 50 km east of Toronto. (CP / Kevin Frayer) Dr. Rosalie Bertell speaks during a press conference in Queen's Park on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007. Security at Ontario's nuclear power plants was stepped up following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A special unit with the Durham police has been responsible for security at the plant since safety measures were increased after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 'In practical terms you can't protect these installations from terrorist attacks,' NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns told CTV News on Thursday, Aug. 9, 2007. Health assessment at nuclear plant flawed: report toronto.ctv.ca A new public health report suggests environmental and health assessments for the Pickering B nuclear power plant have been based on faulty and misleading data. The report, released by the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, states that the public in the Durham region is being misled about safety issues associated with living in close proximity to the plant. "I think people should understand that the assurance of health being given by the Durham department of health is like a straw man. It can be easily dismissed, is not serious and not good science," Dr. Rosalie Bertell, a biochemist and founder of the IICPH, said during a press conference at Queen's Park on Thursday. Bertell believes that children born near the nuclear plant have shown elevated leukemia mortality rates along with higher instances of Down syndrome. The biochemist is urging local health departments to collect better data pertaining to cancer and other diseases from those living in the Durham region. The Ontario Power Generator maintains it meets and exceeds current safety levels for nuclear power generation set out by federal regulators. The organization said many of its 7,000 nuclear scientists and engineers choose to live near the nuclear plant with their families. OPG's director or licensing told CTV News on Thursday that she is currently raising her two children in Pickering, Ont. She said the radiation dosage from living near the plant for one year is equivalent to taking one two-hour flight on a commercial aircraft. Security overhaul After another damning security report was recently released, OPG has announced it will hire and train its own para-military officers to handle security at the plant. A special unit with the Durham police has been responsible for security at the plant since safety measures were increased after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The report states that the Pickering plant would not be able to defend itself in an air attack given its current state of security. Critics say the provincial government should think twice about investing in the nuclear plant given the latest concerns over safety and security in the area. "In practical terms you can't protect these installations from terrorist attacks. We should recognize that and that should shape your decision making about whether or not you put money into nuclear power," NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns told CTV News on Thursday. With a report from CTV's Paul Bliss 2007 All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 Daily Yomiuri: Courts behind review of A-bomb disease criteria : Editorial : DAILY Comments by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in which he proposed reviewing criteria for recognition as an atomic bomb disease patient are a significant step forward in improving the conditions of the surviving A-bomb victims. In connection with this year's ceremonies to mark the anniversaries of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Abe met with representatives of survivors' groups to tell them he would instruct the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to review its criteria for being recognized as a sufferer of atomic bomb disease. These sideline comments effectively acted as an announcement of the new policy. The new policy took the ministry by surprise, leaving bureaucrats busy dealing with the matter as not even the most senior officials had been clued in, indicating the decision had been made at the highest level. Under the A-Bomb Survivors' Support Law, people qualified for recognition as an atomic bomb survivor are those who were near Ground Zero in Hiroshima or Nagasaki within two weeks of the bombing. Such certified survivors are provided with an atomic bomb survivor health handbook and are entitled to free medical treatment. In addition, the majority of the survivors receive monthly health care stipends of about 34,000 yen. Those who have developed cancer and other diseases because of the radiation to which they were exposed--known as atomic bomb radiation disease patients--are entitled to a monthly allowance of about 137,000 yen to cover treatment costs. === Time ripe for political solution Currently, there are about 250,000 people registered as atomic bomb survivors. But only about 2,200 people are recognized as atomic bomb radiation disease patients, meaning there are still significant barriers to recognizing causal relationships between diseases and radiation exposure. A key element of the government's criteria is a formula by which radiation exposure is calculated based on the distance from Ground Zero. But there are some observers who doubt the validity of this formula. Atomic bomb survivors whose applications to be certified have been rejected have in turn filed lawsuits at a number of the nation's courts. So far, six district courts, including those in Tokyo, Osaka and Kumamoto, have ruled for the plaintiffs. This is a sign that the courts find the government's current criteria too rigid. Taking this trend into account, it seems the time is ripe for a political solution to the matter. However, it is no easy task to review the recognition criteria. Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa has said his ministry would set up a panel to review the criteria and report on its conclusions within a year. If the panel were to decide to expand the scope of support for the survivors, it would require vast financial resources. === Abe's move consistent Some A-bomb survivors have given Abe high marks for his comments, while others believe the directive was a mere diversion from the problems that have caused his Cabinet's approval ratings to plummet. However, Abe has been successful in settling long-running lawsuits against the government, including those over air pollution in Tokyo; lung disease linked to government-funded tunnel construction; and compensation sought by Japanese displaced in China at the end of World War II. The prime minister also has shown initiative in settling lawsuits filed by people infected with hepatitis through tainted blood products. Coupled with Abe's latest move, the prime minister seems to have made a political decision consistent with his previous ones. The ruling parties have established a project team to review the criteria. The opposition appears to support the move. Atomic bomb survivors are aging. This is no longer a matter to be settled by the courts. (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 10, 2007) ) The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 26 Daily Yomiuri: A-bomb survivors still suffering 62 yrs on Nagasaki's atomic bomb survivors are still suffering from the loss of loved ones and the aftereffects of radiation 62 years after the city was bombed. The survivors of the Nagasaki bombing, whose average age is 74, renewed their commitment to promoting peace at a ceremony commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the bombing on Thursday at the Peace Park. "It [the atomic bomb] was a devil that committed indiscriminant mass murder in an instant," said Katsuki Masabayashi, 68, who was at the ceremony representing Nagasaki's atomic bomb survivors. On Aug. 9, 1945, when he was 6 years old, Masabayashi heard airplane engines roaring above while he was catching cicadas with his 3-year-old sister on a hill near his home, 1.3 kilometers away from the bomb's hypocenter. In fear, he grabbed his sister's hand and ran into a nearby hut, from which he saw white light and heard an explosion. The two siblings were then struck by a blast of hot air, which caused a stem of bamboo to rip into Masabayashi's abdomen. Afterward, he carried his burned and bleeding sister on his back and wandered around the city. He cried out for his father, who already had died in the war. For several years after the bombing, Masabayashi often vomited blood. His sister underwent multiple operations for the aftereffects of the bombing. People who appeared healthy suddenly began dying after vomiting blood and exhibiting other symptoms. Masabayashi's mother, who was repeatedly hospitalized, finally died of cancer about 10 years ago. "An unprecedented tragedy grows as time goes by," he said. "Many survivors of the bombing are still suffering disorders." Masabayashi, who serves as vice chairman of a prefectural atomic bomb sufferers organization, was recommended as a representative to read aloud a plea for peace. As he neared completion of the written plea, a controversy arose over former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma's remarks that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be helped. Several days later, U.S. Special Envoy for Nuclear Nonproliferation Robert Joseph emphasized the legitimacy of the bombings. Various emotions such as anger, emptiness and a sense of crisis, filled Masabayashi's heart. Masabayashi had initially described an account of the bombing in his plea but drastically rewrote it to express his strong feelings. "As the atomic bombings go against humanity, they shouldn't be justified or asserted for one's own convenience or point of view," he said. "I'll do my small part to establish a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons," he added. === Students plead for end of nukes Among those who gathered for the memorial ceremony at the Peace Park on Thursday were six high school students, acting as "ambassadors" for peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Following the 1998 underground nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, a nongovernmental organization in Nagasaki started sending students to the U.N. Office in Geneva to deliver signatures calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. So far, a total of 280,000 signatures have been delivered to the United Nations. This year, two non-Japanese students were chosen for the first time as members of the delegation. The six-member delegation will deliver more than 50,000 newly collected signatures to the Office for Disarmament Affairs at the U.N. Office in Geneva on Aug. 23. Prior to the memorial ceremony at the Peace Park, the group took part in a meeting of young people at a neighboring park that marks Ground Zero of the 1945 atomic bombing of the city. They joined hands with 40 high school students from Japan and overseas to form a circle around the monument at Ground Zero "Let's make a peaceful world, free from nuclear weapons," they shouted. "I want to spread this signature campaign beyond Nagasaki," said Marina Fueta, a second-year student at Tsurumaru High School in Kagoshima Prefecture. "It will require steady efforts, but I will do my best to collect signatures from people worldwide," said Maria Ortega, a third-year student at Kassui High School in Nagasaki Prefecture and a native of Peru. ) The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 27 Las Vegas SUN: Health screenings of Nevada Test Site workers go private Today: August 09, 2007 at 7:6:12 PDT By Ed Koch <koch@lasvegassun.com> and Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com> Las Vegas Sun A federal program that has provided free health screening tests for thousands of Nevada Test Site workers for the past 11 years is being taken out of the hands of medical research universities and assigned to hospitals and doctors scattered across the country. The Energy Department says it hopes to save money if the health screenings go through a private company. The program targets workers who were exposed to silica dust, beryllium or asbestos - materials that can scar lungs and promote pneumonia, tuberculosis and lung cancer. The existing program, which will be phased out by Nov. 30, had been run by three research universities - the University of Nevada School of Medicine, Boston University and the University of San Francisco. The Energy Department in May signed with Comprehensive Health Services Inc. of Venice, Va., to line up hospitals and doctors to screen people who worked on nuclear weapons tests within 50 miles of their homes. Nevada screening sites have not been picked, and no screenings have been conducted since June 30. Since May 39 former Nevada Test Site workers who live outside Nevada have been referred to the new screening program, said Wendy Benade of the Oak Ridge Universities office in Tennessee, which is helping to implement it. The shift in who will conduct the screenings troubles Dr. Thomas Hunt of the Nevada Medical School's Family and Community Medicine Department. "That seems weird, having a corporation replace a university-based program," he said. "I'm surprised that an entity that has been doing screenings in Nevada for more than a decade has lost its funding and that the contract has been given to a private company that does not even have an office in Nevada." Comprehensive Health Services conducts occupational and other medical tests for the federal Homeland Security and the Transportation departments. Since 1996, 3,773 Test Site workers have been screened and 695 had physical abnormalities, the Energy Department said. Nationwide, 48,383 Energy Department employees were deemed eligible for screenings and 3,396 had potential health problems, the agency said. Although the Energy Department is responsible for identifying employees who have been injured or sickened through their work, the Labor Department determines who is compensated and to what degree. The old screening program cost the Energy Department about $18 million a year, said Linda Haskell, program director at Boston University, the lead administrative institution for that program. The Energy Department plans to spend $10 million to $12.5 million annually to operate the new program. Screenings in Nevada cost about $100,000 a year under the old program, according to a three-year funding package that expired this year. The screenings, which Hunt said would have cost $300 to $550 out of pocket, included chest X-rays that could reveal radiation damage or spots on the lungs from beryllium or heavy metal exposure. Some tests were for hearing, thyroid activity and other conditions. Nevadans' participation in the program has been shrinking. About 200 people a year have sought cancer screenings the past two years compared with 800 a year before, officials said. Because of the declining numbers, the Energy Department set plans in motion in February 2005 to eventually contract out the screenings. At the time, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced that the Bush administration was expanding the screening program at no additional cost to taxpayers. Ed Koch can be reached at 259-4090 or at koch@lasvegassun.com. Mary Manning can be reached at 259-4065 or at manning@lasvegassun.com. All contents copyright 2005 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Huntsville Times: Fire at Anniston Depot bursts radioactive-gas vessels - Posted by rowhite August 09, 2007 4:21 PM ANNISTON -- A fire at the Anniston Army Depot burst several containers that held radioactive gas, threatening a warehouse of contaminated material, an incident first made public by the Wisconsin nonprofit group Nukewatch. Anniston Army Depot spokeswoman Joan Gustafson said the fire, discovered around 7 p.m. Monday and extinguished within 30 minutes, was reported to the Calhoun County Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday. She said she had not planned a news release because the fire was so small. Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokesman Neil Sheehan said that "a fair amount" of radioactive waste was involved. 2007 al.com. All Rights Reserved. RSS Feeds | Complete Index ***************************************************************** 29 Reuters: Japan mourns Nagasaki victims amid nuclear crisis Thu Aug 9, 2007 7:21AM EDT By Elaine Lies TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan marked the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki with prayers and ceremony on Thursday as the city's mayor warned that the world faced a crisis of nuclear proliferation. Thousands of children, elderly survivors and dignitaries in Nagasaki's Peace Park bowed their heads in a minute of silence at 11:02 a.m. (10:02 p.m. EDT Wednesday), the time the bomb was dropped, in memory of the more than 140,000 who ultimately died. Nagasaki mayor Tomihisa Taue vowed to carry on the fight to eliminate nuclear arms long spearheaded by his predecessor, Itcho Ito, who was gunned down by a gangster in April. "Instead of progress in nuclear disarmament, we are facing a crisis in terms of the breakdown of the very structure of nuclear non-proliferation," Taue told the crowd. Noting that long-term nuclear powers have been joined by others such as India, Pakistan and North Korea, which last October conducted a nuclear test, and that Iran is suspected of nuclear development, Taue said the danger was greater than ever. "With the appearance of new nuclear weapons states comes increased danger of actual use, as well as the leakage of nuclear-related technology," he said. Nagasaki was bombed by the United States on August 9, 1945, three days after the western city of Hiroshima. On August 15, Japan surrendered. About 27,000 of the city's estimated 200,000 population died instantly, and about 70,000 had died by the end of 1945. The toll is updated every year as more victims die of radiation illness, and 3,069 names were added to the list of the dead this year, bringing the official death toll to 143,124. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the first premier born after World War Two, laid a wreath at the ceremony and repeated that he would abide by Japan's decades-old non-nuclear policy. Controversy erupted last year when a senior ruling party lawmaker said Japan should discuss acquiring nuclear weapons after North Korea's test. Taue alluded to this, saying that Japan's three non-nuclear principles -- banning the possession, production and import of nuclear arms -- should be acted into law. "The use of nuclear weapons can never be permitted or considered acceptable, for any reason whatsoever," he said. This year's anniversary followed outrage by local residents over remarks by Japan's former defense minister, Fumio Kyuma, that had appeared to condone the bombings. Kyuma, who hails from a Nagasaki district, had said the bombings "couldn't be helped" because they brought World War Two to an end. He resigned over the remarks. Abe apologized for Kyuma's remarks, telling reporters: "We will make every effort for denuclearization, so that there will never again be another atomic bombing." ***************************************************************** 30 Yokwe Net: Bikini Attorney Responds to Dismissal of Lawsuit Everything Marshall Islands :: http://www.yokwe.net Jon Weisgall at April Court The people of Bikini Atoll and the people Enewetak, in the Marshall Islands, filed lawsuits in April 2006 against the U.S. Government. Following the the motion to dismiss by the U.S. five months later, there have been numerous motions and filings. The court appointed a new judge who took oral arguments for both cases on April 23 before making a decision. The long-time attorney for the Bikinians, Jonathan Weisgall, has issued the following response to the disappointing ruling: On August 2, Judge Christine Miller of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims issued an opinion an order dismissing the Bikinians' lawsuit against the U.S. Government "without prejudice." This dismissal covered all six counts of the lawsuit, which sought compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the taking of Bikinians' property damage claims resulting from U.S. Government's failure and refusal to adequately fund the March 5, 2001 order of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. The lawsuit also sought damages for the Bikinians for the U.S. Government's breaches of its fiduciary duty to provide just and adequate compensation for the taking of their lands in consideration for their agreement to move off Bikini Atoll and for the breach of the implied duties and covenants integral to that agreement. Judge Miller's 64-page decision dismissed the case on several different and separate grounds, including the bar of the statute of limitations; the effect of what is called collateral estoppel; withdrawal of jurisdiction; and even the political question doctrine. Her opinion covers virtually every aspect of the lawsuit - except the most critical, which is whether limiting to $150 million the compensation to the Fund created in the Section 177 Agreement is constitutional. The Bikinians had argued that the failure of the United States to adequately fund the Nuclear Claims Tribunal prevented it from paying them just compensation on their claims and that this action therefore constituted a "taking" of their property (their Nuclear Claims Tribunal claim) under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Judge Miller never reached the constitutional issues in the case because she dismissed the case on other issues. For example, she held that the statute of limitations started to run in 1986, when the Compact came into law, and that this lawsuit should have been filed by 1992, when the six-year statute of limitations expired. She wrote that the Bikinians "were well aware of the terms of the Changed Circumstances provision and had ample opportunity to argue to the Federal Circuit that the clause did not allow recourse to the courts should the Claims Tribunal render an award that could not be funded." It is difficult to reconcile this statement with the fact that the Bikinians were in court as late as 1988 challenging the adequacy of the Section 177 Agreement, but the courts then ruled that they first had to exhaust their remedies before the Nuclear Claims Tribunal before they could challenge the Section 177 scheme. It was too soon to bring a constitutional claim then, ruled the courts in the 1980s, and it is too late now, ruled Judge Miller. There is an important qualification: Judge Miller also ruled that - even now - it is too soon bring a claim based on the inadequacy of the compensation paid under the Section 177 Agreement, because Congress has not yet acted on the Marshall Islands Government's changed circumstances petition. Consequently, she concluded that the challenges based on the inadequacy of the payment are still "premature." Judge Miller also put a great deal of emphasis on the changed circumstances petition and the U.S. State Department's January 24, 2005 report advising Congress that the facts in the petition "do not support a funding request." She ruled that the Bikinians failed to show that "the United States, by some specific action, took a private property interest for a public use without just compensation," stating that the State Department's report - and Congress' inaction - do not constitute takings of property: "A report to Congress does not constitute a governmental action that could be considered a taking of any interest," wrote Judge Miller. "A report merely supplies Congress with information that may justify or prompt further action. Congress has made no final determination on plaintiffs' petition, and the apparent lack of action after two years cannot establish a taking until plaintiffs can show that Congress no longer is considering their petition. Therefore, the court finds that no government act has taken place within the last six years that relates to the asserted taking of plaintiffs' private property interest." With respect to the political question doctrine, Judge Miller ruled: "Exploring plaintiffs' challenges to the adequacy of the alternative relief would require a trial on the merits of plaintiffs' claims and scrutiny of an international agreement that both recognized the formation of a foreign state and espoused claims of its nationals." She was unwilling to take this action, because it would "call for the court to retry plaintiffs' claims before the [Nuclear Claims Tribunal] in order to determine the adequacy of the award as a constitutional measure," all of which would "run counter to the final resolution of all plaintiffs' claims embodied in the Compact and the Section 177 Agreement." She even ruled that "the approval of the settlement terms by plebiscite in September 1983 would support a ruling that any dissatisfaction with the terms of the Compact and the Section 177 Agreement should be directed to the government of the RMI, not that of the United States," even though the people of Bikini voted against the Compact. As noted above, at the same time as she dismissed the lawsuit, Judge Miller also ruled: "The court finds that litigation on this issue is still premature. The alternative procedure in the Compact Act and in Article IX of the Section 177 Agreement included a Changed Circumstances provision. . . . The court is in no position to find that the alternative procedure, as contemplated by the Compact Act, has run its course. Congress must consider the Changed Circumstances Request and take such action as it deems appropriate. That Congress has not acted in the seven years after the Changed Circumstances Request was first submitted would not warrant a finding of either futility or de facto rejection, given the court's alternate ruling on the political question that this matter presents." I intend to file an appeal of Judge Miller's ruling the appellate court, which is called the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. Needless to say, I am very disappointed with her ruling, which runs completely contrary to most of the comments she made during oral argument on April 23, which had led me to think that she understood the earlier court decisions to mean that the constitutional challenge to the Section 177 Agreement could be brought once the Bikinians exhausted their remedies under the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. I think that her ruling on the changed circumstances petition gives the nuclear affected atolls all the more reason to push Congress for a resolution of this issue. In my testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and the Global Environment on July 25, before Judge Miller had ruled, I argued: "It's time for Congress to act. Congress can appropriate funds under any label - `changed circumstances,' `ex gratia,' or simply `just compensation.' That doesn't matter. What does matter is that the United States honor its constitutional, statutory and moral obligations to the people it damaged and the others who, with no real options, gave up their lands to help the United States win the Cold War. You do not have to wait for the courts to act." This statement remains true after Judge Miller's ruling, so I will continue to press for just compensation for the Bikinians both in appealing her decision to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals and in seeking funding from the U.S. Congress. - Statement by Jonathon Weisgall, Counsel for the People of Bikini Atoll, provided to Yokwe Online by Bikini Liaison Jack Niedenthal YokweOnline | Friday, August 10, 2007 | 66 Read ***************************************************************** 31 AFP: Nagasaki warns of breakdown of anti-nuclear efforts - by Miwa Suzuki Thu Aug 9, 1:06 AM ET TOKYO (AFP) - Nagasaki warned Thursday of a breakdown in world efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation as the Japanese city marked 62 years since it was flattened by a US atomic bomb. Thousands of people bowed their heads and observed a minute's silence at 11:02 am (0202 GMT), the exact moment of the world's second and last nuclear attack on August 9, 1945, which killed more than 70,000 people. "We are facing a crisis in terms of the breakdown of the very structure of nuclear non-proliferation," Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue told the ceremony. Besides the five established nuclear states of the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China, Taue lashed out at India, Pakistan and North Korea for pursuing nuclear arms "under the excuse of self-defence." In the Middle East as well, Taue said the "nuclear non-proliferation structure is being shaken" by Israel, which is believed to have atomic weapons, and by Iran, which is suspected of pursuing them. "The use of nuclear weapons can never be permitted or considered acceptable for any reason whatsoever." Katsuki Masabayashi, 68, who was 1.3 kilometres (0.8 miles) away from the epicentre of the blast, recalled the horror. "I dug out my sister, who had fainted, from the rubble. I wandered around carrying my sister on the back," he told the ceremony. "Bamboo was sticking into the left part of my belly to reveal the flesh while my three-year-old sister, bleeding and shivering with charred clothes on, was calling out 'mama, mama' in a trailing voice. "That single bomb, which massacred people indiscriminately and instantly with radiation that had an unprecedented destructive force, is the evil of the human race," Masabayashi said, his voice shaking with anger. The mayor, who took office in April after his predecessor and staunch anti-nuclear campaigner Iccho Ito was gunned down by a gangster, also demanded Japan show "strong leadership" in the non-proliferation drive. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged his efforts as he stood at the foot of the Peace Statue -- a bronze figure of a man pointing to the sky from which the atomic bomb fell. "Japan has taken a path of international peace wholeheartedly for the 62 years after the war," Abe said. "Japan, as the only atomic-bombed nation, is responsible to pass down this tragic experience in the international community." Some of the conservative leader's top aides last year called for Japan to at least study going nuclear after arch-rival North Korea tested an atomic bomb. The prime minister also faced a backlash in June after his defence minister appeared to justify the nuclear attacks, saying they hastened Japan's surrender and prevented the Soviet Union from seizing large parts of the country. The minister, Fumio Kyuma, resigned three days after the remarks. Kyuma was not invited to the ceremony, even though he represents Nagasaki in parliament. Abe, who initially played down Kyuma's remarks as explaining the US position, offered a fresh apology. "My heart is full of regret as the remark by minister Kyuma hurt the feelings of many victims of the bombings," Abe, who suffered a major election defeat last week, told reporters after the ceremony. The mayor had charged in his speech that even in Japan there was "erroneous interpretation" of the atomic bombings. The US nuclear bomb, codenamed "Fat Man" after Winston Churchill, was even larger than "Little Boy" which was dropped three days earlier on Hiroshima, killing some 140,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15, ending World War II. Copyright 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 32 Guardian Unlimited: Nagasaki Marks 62nd A-Bomb Anniversary From the Associated Press Thursday August 9, 2007 3:01 AM TOKYO (AP) - Nagasaki marked the 62nd anniversary of the world's second atomic bomb attack Thursday with a somber ceremony and calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons worldwide. The city was to observe a moment of silence at 11:02 a.m., when the B-29 bomber Bock's Car dropped its atomic payload, killing about 74,000. The attack on Nagasaki came three days after the U.S. bomber Enola Gay dropped a bomb on Hiroshima in the world's first atomic attack. That bombing killed at least 140,000. The anniversary comes amid signs of change in Japan, the only country to suffer nuclear attacks, as memories of the tragedies fade and survivors become older. Some prominent Japanese politicians have suggested that Japan should at least discuss developing nuclear weapons, and former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma recently said the U.S. nuclear bombings in 1945 may have been inevitable. Kyuma's remarks were particularly upsetting to many Nagasaki residents because he is from the prefecture (state). He resigned under pressure in June and was not attending this year's memorial despite an invitation sent earlier, according to the city. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945, bringing World War II to an end. Guardian Unlimited Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 33 Korea Times: 2.7Kg Uranium Burned by Mistake 08-09-2007 23:39 By Kim Tae-gyu, Kang Shin-who Staff Reporters The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) said Thursday that it burned up to 2.7 kilograms of uranium by mistake in May and has reported the fact to the government and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The uranium was made up of 1.9 kilograms of natural uranium and 0.8 kilograms depleted uranium as well as 0.2 grams of enriched uranium, which was still being investigated by the IAEA. ``Our staff mistook the uranium stored in a small box for waste, and had it burned in a facility in Gyeonggi Province in May. We learned of this on Aug. 6,’’ said a KAERI spokesman, who declined to be named. ``We are investigating how come such an accident happened. But the uranium will not pose any environmental threat. It also has nothing to do with weapons-grade uranium,’’ he said. The 0.2 grams of enriched uranium has an enrichment level of around 10 percent and was created through experiments in 2000 by KAERI researchers. The KAERI contended the material, which was uncovered in 2004, was made in an experiment to obtain substances used for high-end medical equipment. The Daejeon-based state-run institute, about 160 kilometers south of Seoul, also argued that the 10-percent level enriched uranium has nothing to do with the weapons-grade uranium which has an enrichment level of around 90 percent. However, the IAEA sent an investigative team to Korea in 2004 to check into the material and the investigation is technically ongoing. ``We are searching for evidence that the 0.2 grams of enriched uranium was erroneously burned in order to report it to the IAEA. We hope we will be able to do so,’’ the anonymous spokesman said. Uranium found in nature consists largely of two isotopes _ U-235 and U-238. The former is highly fissionable and can be used to create large amounts of energy in the process of its atoms splitting. The problem is that natural uranium contains just 0.7 percent of U-235 and the remaining 99.3 percent is mostly U-238, which doesn’t directly contribute to the fission process. Accordingly, scientists separate the two isotopes and increase _ or enrich _ the proportion of U-235 to 4-5 percent for nuclear reactors and to more than 90 percent for weapons. Uranium artificially processed with 20 percent-plus U-235 is highly-enriched, while uranium enriched above the natural U-235 abundance level but to less than 20 percent is low-enriched. voc200@koreatimes.co.kr kswho@koreatimes.co.kr ***************************************************************** 34 Bradenton.com: A poor showing: Cleanup plan for Tallevast flawed 08/09/2007 | Opinion The year is 2173. By now the U.S. colony on Mars has become largely self-sufficient. Citizens of the Mesopotamian Union are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the peace treaty that united Iran, Iraq, Palestine and Israel into a Middle Eastern trading power rivaling the European Union. On Capitol Hill, Congress remains gridlocked as Republicans filibuster a Democratic bill that would provide universal health care for all Americans. Out on the West Coast, the great-great-grandchildren of the celebrated 21st century philanthropist Paris Hilton are planning a retrospective of her wild early years at the Hollywood Museum. And in Tallevast, Fla., Lockheed Martin finally reaches the groundwater cleanup target level set in its Remedial Action Plan for underground contaminants back in 2007. One-hundred-sixty-six years. That's the time frame set for eliminating one class of poisons leached into the soil around the former American Beryllium Co. plant in Tallevast. A table in Section 5.7.4, Page 5-21, of Lockheed's two-volume, 4-inch-thick remedial plan projects full removal of trichlorethylene will be achieved in 166 years. Encouragingly, the table projects reaching 90 percent removal in only 47 years. How realistic is Lockheed's cleanup plan? Does anyone truly believe that regulators will continue to monitor this project for even 100 years, the time frame set for remediation of certain other contaminants in the soil? Will Lockheed Martin even exist as an identifiable corporation in 2173? No one knows, of course. For certain, everyone concerned with this project today will long have gone to their eternal rewards by then, as will their children and grandchildren. Lockheed says the unrealistic span is how long it would take to pull every tiny trace of chemicals from the soil using current technology. The highest concentration should be cleaned up in 10 to 15 years. Meanwhile, new technology developed in the near future could greatly speed up the process. But 100 percent cleanup, if unrealistic, is just one concern with the Lockheed plan. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has many problems with it. In sending back Lockheed's plan, DEP officials cited more than 100 points of contention with proposed cleanup methods or with the data on which they are based. The 29-page rejection letter faults Lockheed for not including more detailed chemical, geologic and engineering data to back up its plan for cleaning up the 200-acre plume that leaked into the ground before Lockheed acquired the company seven years ago. Lockheed downplays DEP's criticisms as minor - mostly requests for clarification or more data. It's a normal stage of the remediation process, said spokeswoman Gail Rymer. Perhaps. Yet it would seem that with Lockheed's wide experience in chemical cleanups and access to the best scientific resources, such shortcomings should not have occurred. Lockheed says it will go back to the drawing board to satisfy the state's objections, some of which may be easy to remedy by including available data. "We are committed to working with the state to do the right thing for the Tallevast community. . ." said Rymer. We hope the company means it. Given the record of foot-dragging since this problem became public in 2003, however, skepticism is justified. Experts working for Tallevast residents have repeatedly warned that Lockheed lacked the data needed to adequately put together a cleanup plan. Yet the company has continued to resist calls for further testing to define the extent of contamination and the hydraulic forces affecting its movement underground. We're not scientists, but it seems logical to gather all the data before trying to figure out how to solve a problem. And then, try to ensure that it can be accomplished in a reasonable time frame. Do you think the Tallevast pollution will ever be completely cleaned up? Share your views in the Opinion section of Bradenton.com. ***************************************************************** 35 MDN: Hibakusha: Occupation's Aussie atomic veterans still fighting for recognition - MSN-Mainichi Daily News August 10, 2007 Australian members of BCOF stand to attention in front of Tokyo Station in May 1946. (Mainichi file photo) Not long after the end of World War II, John Collins would sit and eat sandwiches at Ground Zero in Hiroshima, then sift through the rubble left from the city subjected to the world's first nuclear attack for items he thought could become historically valuable. Collins was then a 19-year-old sapper with the Australian troops making up the bulk of the British Commonwealth Occupation Forces (BCOF) stationed in Japan from February 1946 to April 1952. But weeks after his Ground Zero foraging, Collins was hospitalized after he started passing blood in his urine. While being treated, his hair started falling out in large clumps. He laughed at the time. He has had little to laugh about in the 60 years since. Australian members of BCOF march in front of the Occupation GHQ in Tokyo in this undated photo. (Mainichi file photo) After enduring chronic itches, rashes, allergies, colds, and the occasional dizzy spell, Collins was in 1986 diagnosed with a kind of bone marrow cancer called polycythemia vera. Now -- aged 79, and 17 years after being told he had no more than two years to live -- the BCOF veteran firmly believes his illness stems from radiation in Hiroshima when he was in the prefecture on a tour of duty in 1947. Scores of Occupation troops from the United States, Britain and New Zealand who served in the nuclear-bombed cities of Hiroshima or Nagasaki and subsequently suffered from radiation-induced diseases have been given medical treatment and disability pensions from their governments. But in Australia, where BCOF veterans call themselves the "Forgotten Force" because of what they believe is neglect by authorities, the government refuses to acknowledge servicemen like Collins who say they were affected by residue radiation in Hiroshima. "They have no honor," Collins says, referring to the Australian Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA) officials who refuse to recognize the effects of Hiroshima's radiation. "I get a war pension for other so-called minor matters -- emphysema, PTSD and cervical spondylosis from my back fracture, but they don't accept the bone cancer." Members of the Australian 34th Infantry Brigade forming part of BCOF march in front of Tokyo Station in May, 1946. (Mainichi file photo) The BCOF was based in Hiroshima Prefecture, initially in Etajima, then in Kure, a port city about 20 kilometers from the city of Hiroshima. An infantry battalion was based at Kataichi, about 7 kilometers from Hiroshima, while some troops were stationed in the city itself, working at the port of Ujina, about 4 kilometers from Ground Zero. At its peak in 1946, the BCOF consisted of about 45,000 members, the majority of them Australian, but also including troops from Britain, India and New Zealand. About 20,000 Australians served in the BCOF and were accompanied by dependants of an unknown number, but believed to exceed 1,000. Australian authorities have never conducted a formal study on the overall health of BCOF veterans, nor made official lists of dependants, and exact numbers remain unknown. Service members and their relatives say their easy access to Hiroshima and widespread consumption of produce from Hiroshima Bay exposed them to radiation contamination and led to extraordinarily high instances of cancer and premature death or illness. Australian troops in BCOF are inspected in Tokyo in 1947. (Mainichi file photo) "It is estimated through internal research that some 70 percent of BCOF male and female service personnel suffered from cancer-related complaints attributed to the effects of radiation. There are some cases of their children suffering cancers and physical defects," says Ron Orwin, 80, a BCOF veteran who blames radiation contamination during his tour in Japan from November 1947 to May 1948 for a variety of ailments he has suffered, including chronic dermatitis and skin cancer. "We are firmly of the opinion that such diseases were as a result of exposure to radiation even six months after use (of the atomic bomb). The government refuses to accept any connection between the irradiation of the Hiroshima area, claiming that (the bombing) was an air burst with no major long term fatal effects to the local Japanese and Occupation forces." Rosemarie Carman, who lived in Japan from age 4 to 9 while her father served in the BCOF, says that stories of force dependants who had died from cancer were common. She had been hampered by the lack of an official list of dependants, but disclosed pages and pages of detailed examples she had compiled of BCOF members or their relatives who had died or fallen ill from cancer and other diseases they blamed on radiation from Hiroshima. "I'm getting too morbid by listing it all," Carman, now 64, says. A DVA spokesman, meanwhile, says "DVA is not aware of any data that supports this claim." Australian soldiers from BCOF (foreground) prepare to change guard with British members of the force in Tokyo in November 1946. (Mainichi file photo) In 2002, the DVA commissioned the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) to report on radiation dose estimates that could have affected BCOF personnel. ARPANSA's report was based on upper limit estimates and worst case scenarios. A similar report looking into atomic radiation exposure from consumption of seafood in Hiroshima Bay was also carried out by Australia's National Research Center for Environmental Toxicology (NRCET). Based on the findings of these reports, the DVA decided that, although individual cases needed to be considered, it was generally unlikely BCOF personnel would have been contaminated by radiation in Hiroshima. "The essential reason for the low exposure is that by the time the first Australian personnel arrived in the area, more than six months after the bomb detonation, decay and dispersion of the radiation meant that there was little residual radiation remaining," a DVA Statements of Principal (SoP) report issued in July 2006 says. Australian soldiers hand out food to children at an orphanage near BCOF headquarters in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on June 18, 1946. (Mainichi file photo) Dr. Richard O'Brien of ARPANSA said the effects of radiation on BCOF personnel at Hiroshima would be negligible. "There is no minimum radiation dose that can be associated with the induction of cancer. For low doses from ionising radiation the probability of an effect is proportional to dose. The estimated doses to BCOF personnel in the Hiroshima area were low enough that it would be difficult to distinguish the effect of a dose received while in the Hiroshima area from the effect of exposure to fallout from weapons testing in the 60 years since Hiroshima," he said. A DVA spokesman explained to the Mainichi that veterans' claims for disability pensions are determined by the SoPs, which are rules that decide the factors behind a disease that is the subject of a claim. "The SoPs are developed by an independent statutory authority called the Repatriation Medical Authority (RMA). The RMA consists of a panel of five practitioners eminent in fields of medical science. The role of the RMA is to determine SoPs for any disease, injury or death that could be related to military service, based on sound medical-scientific evidence. The RMA only determines SoPs after extensive investigations of the medical and scientific literature and research worldwide, relevant to each condition," the spokesman says. Scientists at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima, a research body funded by the Japanese and U.S. governments, support the findings of the Australian organizations. Soliders from the Australian 34th Infantry Brigade making up part of the BCOF march in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in 1946. (Mainichi file photo) "There are two types of residual radiation: induced radioactivity and radioactive fallout. Within six days of the bombing, residual radiation levels in Hiroshima had declined dramatically. "So in February 1946, six months after the atom bomb was dropped, residual radiation from the atomic bombing would have been almost the same as natural levels. "As for radioactive fallout in Hiroshima Bay and other areas in the region, there is no data at RERF. However, the amount of radiation that can be absorbed through fallout or drinking contaminated water is only a slight amount of what would be obtained from direct exposure to the radiation emitted from the atomic bombing and is not a great reason for fear," Toshinori Kurisu of RERF's public relations and publishing department, says. "RERF's research has showed that this data has not influenced risks of such things as cancer. Even with exposure to external radiation, the amount of radioactivity detected 3 kilometers or further from the bomb's hypocenter was extremely low, virtually near zero. "Based on RERF's data, the likelihood of anybody exposed to radiation about 5 to 10 kilometers away from the hypocenter being more susceptible to cancer is virtually nil." Australians in BCOF disembark at the military port in Kure, Hiroshima Prefecture, on Feb. 13, 1946. (Mainichi file photo) But not all experts rule out the possibility of contamination. Sue Rabbitt Roff, a medical sociologist at the Center for Medical Education at Dundee University in Scotland and author of "Hotspots: The Legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki," argues that it was "absolutely, completely feasible" for BCOF veterans to have suffered from the effects of radiation in the atomic bombed city. She says political considerations such as seeking to avoid criticism for unleashing such a destructive weapon made it in the best interests of the United States to make sure any long-term effects of the atomic bombs were minimized. "The American government, which won the war, had a lot at stake to deny (the atomic bombing) was anything worse than a big firebomb. It was Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett who first revealed there were still ongoing troubles after the first dreadful burns," she says. The front page of the Feb. 15, 1946, edition of The Mainichi, announcing the arrival of BCOF troops in Japan. (MDN) "The American government put into place research agencies which would never take seriously the possibility that there was a long contamination of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Rabbitt Roff continues: "(The BCOF) was (in Hiroshima) in early '46, so it was six to eight months after the detonation. (Their claims of irradiation are) absolutely, completely feasible. You try going into (the site of the world's worst nuclear accident at) Chernobyl today -- 20 years later -- you won't get near the place. You try to go to (Australia's) Montebello Islands, where the British tested their atomic weapons 55 years ago -- there's a big sign up saying 'Do not stay longer than 1 hour because of residual contamination.' Try going to Maralinga (another British nuclear weapon test site in Australia)." Meanwhile, ailing BCOF soldier Collins -- six decades after his visits to Hiroshima's Ground Zero -- and the dwindling numbers of other atomic veterans like him are forced to continue to battle bureaucracies. The Mainichi's Feb. 15, 1946, story announcing the arrival of BCOF troops in Japan. (MDN) Their fight is made increasingly harder by advanced age and the declining health that accompanies it. "Their main weapon is procrastination," Collins says. "They keep delaying things as long as possible till the old veteran gets sick of waiting around and despairs of getting a result and walks away. Or dies." Robin Gerster, an associate professor at Monash University in Melbourne and one-time associate professor of Australian Studies at the University of Tokyo, is one of the foremost experts on Australia's role in the postwar occupation of Japan. He says that BCOF veterans such as Collins rightly find it hard to equate the "evidence" of the unsympathetic medico-scientific establishment with their intimate knowledge of the inordinately high rates of sickness that has afflicted them and their families. "From a country which purports to cherish its servicemen and women, they are entitled to feel that their governments have handed them a raw deal." (By Ryann Connell) Hibakusha: Creating good from evil -- survivors after the war Hibakusha: One step forwards, two steps back Hiroshima governments file petition on hibakusha support measures Hibakusha: Doctor helps victims fight discrimination, live active social life Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Photo Gallery Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Photo Gallery Hiroshima Peace Declaration 2007: Aim for a nuclear weapon-free world Hibakusha: Hope for a time when nuclear weapons are no longer used Hiroshima marks 62nd A-bomb anniversary with pledge against nuclear weapons Hibakusha: Preserving a true message August 9, 2007 Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 36 MDN: Nagasaki mayor wants non-nuclear principles enacted into law - MSN-Mainichi Daily News August 10, 2007 Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue NAGASAKI -- Mayor Tomihisa Taue marked the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of the city on Thursday by saying in a peace declaration that Japan should enact its three non-nuclear principles into law. Taue, who was elected mayor of Nagasaki after the fatal shooting of Mayor Itcho Ito earlier this year, said that the world is "facing a crisis in terms of the breakdown of the very structure of nuclear non-proliferation." This is because India, Pakistan and North Korea have taken up nuclear arms in addition to the nuclear weapon states of the Unites States, Russin, Britain, France and China, he said. "The Japanese government, as the government of a nation that has experienced nuclear devastation, must demonstrate strong leadership in the context of international society for the elimination of nuclear weapons," Taue said. Taue also referred to the "erroneous interpretation of the atomic bombings and discussion of potential nuclear weapons possession" in Japan. By this, Taue implicitly criticized former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma for saying the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be prevented. The mayor then added that Japan should bring into law its three principles of not developing, not possessing and not permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons into the country. About 4,800 people, including atomic bomb survivors, attended the ceremony held at Nagasaki Peace Memorial Park. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his address at the ceremony that he would do his utmost for the abolition of nuclear weapons. (Mainichi) Click here for the original Japanese story 2007 Nagasaki Peace Declaration: Promising to fight for elimination of nuclear weapons Nagasaki Atomic Bombing Photo Gallery Hiroshima marks 62nd A-bomb anniversary with pledge against nuclear weapons August 9, 2007 Copyright 2005-2006 THE MAINICHI NEWSPAPERS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 SF New Mexican: NRC invites public to discuss uranium mining impact Thu Aug 9, 2007 10:45 pm By ANDY LENDERMAN | Associated Press The future of uranium mining in New Mexico will be discussed this evening at a public meeting in Albuquerque hosted by officials with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Several uranium exploration permits have been approved by the state of New Mexico, and the spot price of uranium -- $110 a pound this week -- continues to drive renewed interest about the mineral used to fuel nuclear power plants around the world. Supporters of more mining in New Mexico point to the positives of nuclear power and say new regulations can protect the environment and workers from contamination. But opponents say the kind of mining to be discussed this evening -- in situ leach recovery -- say the process will forever contaminate New Mexico's precious water where the mining occurs and could travel to contaminate other areas. In situ leach mining involves drilling wells into an aquifer, adding oxygen and pumping the water through the uranium ore belt. The water is removed from the uranium at the surface. New Mexico has produced more uranium than any other state and has an estimated 600 million pounds of reserves, among the highest in the country. But conventional mining during the Cold War -- digging it out of the ground -- resulted in worker and environmental contamination in places such as Western New Mexico. In fact, the Navajo Nation has moved to ban uranium mining on its territory. But nuclear power plants are going up in China and India, and the market demand is strong, said John Indall, a Santa Fe lawyer who represents the Uranium Producers of America. ``There's still a supply and demand imbalance, and it's going to require a lot of production to meet the needs of all the new plants,'' he said. Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials will discuss and take input for a general environmental impact statement this evening. This impact statement ``is intended to cover general issues that are common to any in situ recovery operation,'' spokesman David McIntyre of the NRC said. Examples include groundwater remediation and monitoring the area to make sure contamination does not spread to other water sources. ``The standards and regulations have changed dramatically, and ... I think under current regulations and current standards, one can operate safely for the workers, the public and the environment,'' Indall said. Eric Jantz of the New Mexico Environmental Law Center disagrees. ``It contaminates groundwater,'' Jantz said. ``Irrevocably. Permanently.'' Jantz also said tonight's meeting may be one of the few opportunities for any sort of rigorous environmental review. And the process of a general environmental impact statement can fast-track specific license applications, he said. ``It will end up saving the mining companies a lot of money at the expense of a rigorous environmental analysis and public input,'' he said. McIntyre of the NRC, however, said a supplemental impact statement could be produced for individual sites. Contact Andy Lenderman at 986-3073 or alenderman@sfnewmexican.com. IF YOU GO * What: Nuclear Regulatory Commission meeting on general environmental impact statement for in situ recovery uranium mining * When: Tonight, 7-9:30 p.m. * Where: Hilton Albuquerque, 1901 University Blvd. N.E., Albuquerque * On the Web: www.nrc.gov/public-involve.html Privacy Policy / Terms of Use | 2007, Santa Fe New Mexican, all ***************************************************************** 38 AHN: South Korea Searching For Missing Uranium Believed Buried At Landfill August 9, 2007 7:54 p.m. EST Windsor Genova - AHN Daejon, South Korea (AHN) - Authorities from South Korea's nuclear research institute are looking for a small amount of uranium ore that has gone missing. According to authorities, the low-radiation material, mistaken for trash by workers, was dumped at a garbage site near Seoul, incinerated and buried there. Officials at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute are searching for 1.9 kilograms of natural uranium, 800 grams of depleted uranium and 0.2 grams of 10 percent enriched uranium at a Gimpo City landfill, where incinerated garbage is dumped. A spokesman from the institute disclosed on Thursday that the uranium materials, which are just the size of a golf ball when combined, have been missing since May from a laboratory in Daejon City, south of Seoul. "Workers who collected garbage from a construction project at the laboratory appear to have taken the uranium, perhaps thinking it was also waste," spokesman Han Bong-oh told the Joong Ang Daily newspaper. The institute suspects that the uranium was dumped at the Sintanjin landfill in Daejon, transferred to an incinerator in Anyang near Seoul and burned. A nuclear engineering professor at Seoul National University said the 0.2-gram enriched uranium, produced in 2002 by the institute as part of an experiment, is not dangerous because it only emits weak levels of radiation. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was privately informed about the missing uranium on Monday. Copyright AHN Media Corp - All rights reserved. Redistribution, republication. syndication, rewriting or broadcast is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AHN. 2007 by AHN Media Corp. ***************************************************************** 39 Platts: Analysts unsure how far spot price of uranium will drop With the spot price of uranium having slid through the month of July, there are differences among analysts about how low the price will drop before it once again rises, as most expect it will. Some maintain it could sink below $100/lb over the next several months. Although the spot price of uranium had been going up steadily since 2001, in July the price began falling before levelling off at the start of August. Ux Consulting called the $10/lb decrease reported July 23 the largest single-week drop in the history of the company's U308 price reporting, U308 being the form in which uranium is sold. Ux and other analysts have continued to see suppliers make unsolicited offers at lower and lower prices, trying to entice potential buyers back into the market. One analyst pointed out that much of the current supply and demand is discretionary. And while some sellers may be lowering their prices a bit, those sellers can pull out of the market any time they believe the price has dropped too far, he said, suggesting that the current price slip might begin to level off soon. On the buy side, there are few, if any, utilities looking for material over the next three months or so. Most utilities "are out of money" to spend on uranium this year, said one analyst, and any that need material in 2008 will probably not conclude any deals until late this year. The lack of utility demand for spot material in 2007 suggests to some analysts that the price is likely to continue to slide over the next several months to below $100/lb U3O8. One result of the drop in the spot price is that potential buyers are now seeing fixed-price bids for deliveries several months in the future, an analyst said. Over the past year or so, fixed-price bids have been rare for deliveries more than a month away. An analyst said the current drop in price reflected "auction exhaustion," as fewer and fewer buyers submitted bids to companies recently auctioning material. USEC, which was looking to sell up to 150,000 kilograms U as UF6 (about 392,000 pounds U3O8 equivalent), was apparently still evaluating last week the few bids it had received. Another analyst cautioned that while the spot price might "bounce around" for several months, the longer-term trends still point to higher prices. The current long-term price, as reported by both TradeTech and Ux Consulting, is $95/lb U3O8. Created: August 6, 2007 Copyright 2007 - Platts, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 40 The Herald: Radioactive waste returns to Scotland Web Issue 2909 August 10 2007 Radioactive waste shipped to Peru almost a decade ago has been returned to Scotland after it went unused. A company in the capital Lima bought the waste to fuel the manufacture of gas mantles in a deal agreed with the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness in 1998. It emerged the thorium nitrate was not suitable for use by the firm as it contained impurities. The 2.9 tonnes of waste could not be treated or disposed of in Peru and was returned to Dounreay on Wednesday. The plant's monthly bulletin states: "Thorium exported to Peru in 1998 for use in the manufacture of gas mantles has now been returned safely to Dounreay. "The material was unused by the customer who did not have suitable facilities to process or dispose of it. "A team from Dounreay travelled to Peru recently to package the material for shipment. "It has now arrived back at Dounreay, where it will be conditioned along with other thorium held at the site to make it safe for long-term storage or disposal as intermediate-level waste." The waste was originally produced at the Caithness nuclear plant as a by-product of reprocessing. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without Copyright 2007 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited. All Rights ***************************************************************** 41 Whitehaven News: New Sellafield minister calls in for an update Published on 09/08/2007 FACT FINDING: Government minister John Hutton enters the Sellafield Visitor Centre to during his visit to the plant. By David Siddall THE BARROW MP who has just taken over the hot seat at the ministry governing Sellafield visited the nuclear plant yesterday. John Hutton, who is the new secretary of state for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform not only toured the Thorp reprocessing plant but he also had lunch with local stakeholders from West Cumbria. Mr Hutton’s department controls the government shareholding in both Sellafield and the NDA. His visit comes as momentum builds towards a programme of building of new nuclear power stations after the government Energy White Paper indicated a willingness to do so. “We had opportunity to go around the site. I haven’t been on site for 10 years and as you all know things have changed a lot. I needed, as swiftly as possible, to get up to date and talked to managers and some of the staff. We know there are very big challenges at Sellafield that will impact on the local economy and on the country as a whole.” He said the nuclear industry and Sellafield were “strategically important for UK PLC.” Asked about his predecessor Alistair Darling’s statement in the Energy White Paper that any new nuclear reactors would not have their spent fuel reprocessed, Mr Hutton said he was not aware of any such firm statement and at this point Copeland MP Jamie Reed stepped in to help by pointing out that “Thorp has contracts for work lasting through to 2010 and that existing contracts would have to be fulfilled. A contract is a contract and would have to be filled.” Mr Reed also added that any decision on whether to reprocess fuel from a series of new reactors “would be up to the private sector to decide.” Later, Mr Reed told The Whitehaven News that overseas clients wanted to place reprocessing contracts at Sellafield. He hinted that even the Chinese were building new reactors that could well generate reprocessing work for Thorp. Asked about the impending decisions on where the Uk's underground nuclear waste store should be dug, Mr Hutton was swift to say he would “never call it a dump, it will be a highly engineered repository.” He said the underground repository consultation was being carried out by Defra. He said the first decisions, expected to start in 2008, would be taken on the basis of geological suitability and not just on whether an area, such as West Cumbria, ‘volunteered’ for the role. Mr Hutton said: “There is work going on at the moment into looking into site suitability.” After Mr Hutton’s briefing Mr Reed told The Whitehaven News, that “new nuclear reactors for Sellafield are very much a live possibility. Those who say there are problems with transmission lines are wrong. There are no insurmountable problems... it is not a case of how soon, but more a case of how many.” Mr Hutton then had lunch with the site stakeholders, led by chairman Coun David Moore. Among those involved were the NDA chairman Dr Ian Roxburgh; Copeland Council’s leader, Coun Elaine Woodburn; Copeland councillor, Tim Knowles; union leader, Peter Kane; the new head of the Nuclear Academy, Andrew King; and Allerdale Borough Council’s chief executive, Gillian Bishop. View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction, just like the printed copy at www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/digitalcopy ***************************************************************** 42 Whitehaven News: Bidders battle it out for the Sellafield prize Published on 09/08/2007 BIDDING UNDERWAY: The Sellafield site Picture: John Story By David Siddall DETAILS have emerged of the buyout of Sellafield bidder and Whitehaven RL sponsor, Washington International, by larger multinational URS. During negotiations over a three month period, Washington Group’s board increased the minimum share price it would accept several times, first to $73.00 per share and then to $76.00 per share, which resulted in URS breaking off negotiations on April 30. According to UK Nuclear Facilities Monitor: “URS was not prepared to offer additional merger consideration at that time,” the document states. Just a few days later, on May 2, URS said it was still interested in the merger, first offering $73 per share and upping that offer to $75.50 per share two weeks later. By that time, though, the Washington Group board had increased its asking price to $80 per share, a price that URS agreed to match on May 26. On the evening of May 27, Washington Group’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to recommend the proposed merger with URS, which was then announced by the two companies the following day. The merged company is now one of the four remaining bidding for the chance to manage the potential £18 billion work at Sellafield for the NDA. Those left chasing this prize are: CH2M HILL International Nuclear Services, Ltd; Fluor Limited in partnership with Toshiba; SBB Nuclear, (consisting of Serco Holdings Limited, Bechtel Management Company Limited and BWXT Nuclear Services (UK) Ltd); Washington Group International/AMEC Nuclear Holdings/ AREVA NC. The prize is running the Parent Body Organisation (or PBO) which will own the shares in Sellafield Ltd, for the duration of the contract. This will be for an initial period of five years with capability for periodic extension up to 17 years in total, subject to performance. View this story and the latest newspaper in full digital reproduction, just like the printed copy at www.whitehaven-news.co.uk/digitalcopy ***************************************************************** 43 [NYTr] World Remembers Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 19:27:17 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Radio Havana Cuba http://www.radiohc.cu World Remembers Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki Nagasaki, August 9 (RHC)-- Sixty-two years ago on this date, Nagasaki, Japan was the target of the world's second atomic bomb attack by the United States. On the morning of August 9, 1945, a U.S. B-29 bomber carried the atomic bomb code-named "Fat Man", dropping it at approximately 11:02 a.m., local time. The mission plan for the second attack was nearly identical to that of the first attack on Hiroshima, three days before, on August 6, 1945. According to some estimates, about 70,000 of Nagasaki's 240,000 residents were killed instantly and up to 60,000 were injured. The radius of total destruction was about 1.6 km (1 mile), followed by fires across the northern portion of the city to 3.2 km (2 miles) south of the bomb. The total number of Nagasaki residents killed may have been as many as 80,000, including many who died from radiation poisoning in the following months. A Japanese report on the bombing characterized Nagasaki as "like a graveyard with not a tombstone standing." Ironically, a number of survivors from the Hiroshima bombing three days before had made their way to Nagasaki and were bombed again. Then-U.S. President Harry S. Truman rejected the advice of his own military experts who strongly suggested that he authorize the bombing of an uninhabited Pacific island to demonstrate the destructive power of the atomic weapon. The United States remains the only country in the world to have used atomic weapons against civilian populations -- not once, but twice. * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . Subscribe: https://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 44 [NYTr] Catholic Protestors at Oak Ridge Weapons Plant Sentenced Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 13:36:05 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by rick kissell (with no URL) AP - Aug 8, 2007 Weapons Plant Protesters Sentenced By Associated Press OAK RIDGE, Tenn. --- A 70-year-old Roman Catholic nun who was arrested during a demonstration at a nuclear weapons site on the 62nd anniversary of Hiroshima has been sentenced to 20 days in jail. Elizabeth Ann Lentsch, of Oak Ridge, also known as Sister Mary Dennis Lentsch, was convicted of obstructing a roadway in front of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant on Saturday, culminating a demonstration by about 200 peace activists. Most of the work to build the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima was performed at the plant. Lentsch was sentenced Tuesday following a minutes-long bench trial before Anderson County General Sessions Judge Ron Murch. Lentsch has served two stints in federal prison in Lexington, Ky., for acts of civil disobedience. She spent two months there for trespassing at the Y-12 plant in 2002 and six months last year for trespassing at Fort Benning, Ga. Four other demonstrators arrested Saturday pleaded guilty to misdemeanor citations. Three were fined $25 as first-time offenders and given suspended 30-day jail sentences. The fourth, Elizabeth V. Brockman, 44, of Durham, N.C., admitted she'd been previously convicted of a similar offense. She was sentenced to five days in jail and given credit for the three days she's been locked up since her arrest. * ================================================================= .NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems . Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us . .339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org . List Archives: https://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ . Subscribe: https://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 45 Knoxville News Sentinel: UT in line to be among elite in supercomputing By Frank Munger (Contact) Thursday, August 9, 2007 The University of Tennessee will receive one of the world’s most powerful computers as part of a five-year, $65 million project to be funded by the National Science Foundation. The NSF still must do additional due-diligence reviews before the award is final — a process that’s expected to take about a month — but if approved it could be the largest research grant in UT history. “We believe that’s the case,” Hank Dye, UT’s vice president for public relations, said Wednesday. “It’s a big day. … If this is finalized, it puts us among the nation’s elite in supercomputing.” UT teamed with Oak Ridge National Laboratory on the NSF proposal, and the supercomputer — capable of nearly 1,000 trillion calculations per second — would be housed in the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, a state-funded facility at ORNL. Thomas Zacharia, an associate lab director at ORNL who holds a professorship at UT, is the project’s leader. Dye confirmed that the university was notified that funding for the work had been authorized. According to information released Wednesday on the NSF Web site, the National Science Board approved a resolution for the UT-ORNL project, as well as an even bigger computing project at the University of Illinois. The Illinois supercomputing project will receive $208 million over 4½ years to build a petascale computer, with sustained operations of more than 1,000 trillion calculations per second. The “Track 2” system awarded to UT would be a smaller system that’s expected to “bridge the gap between current high-performance computers and even more advanced petascale systems under development,” the NSF said. In addition to UT and ORNL, other team members on the NSF project are the Texas Advanced Computer Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. According to the NSF, “the group will acquire and provide to the research community a system with a peak performance of just under one petaflop that is almost four times the capacity of the current NSF-supported Teragrid.” Teragrid is a powerful “cyberinfrastructure” that is available for open scientific research, supporting the work of thousands of researchers in the United States. ORNL also is working on a separate Department of Energy project to develop a petascale computer as part of the lab’s ongoing partnership with the Cray supercomputing company. The NSF announcement drew some criticism from scientists who suggested that the UT proposal was a front to put more money at ORNL, a DOE facility already well funded. “There’s no validity to that,” Dye said. “Those people just don’t have an understanding of the partnerships we have with Oak Ridge.” Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 46 Newswise: Cognitive Science and Technology Program becomes Sandia initiative Released: Thu 09-Aug-2007, DescriptionImagine a world where a machine creates a “virtual you” by modeling how you think and your expertise on a subject. Or one where your car’s computer appreciates your driving skills and compensates for your limitations. That’s the world Sandia National Laboratories has entered full throttle through its Cognitive Science and Technology Program (CS&T). (Photo by Randy Montoya) COGNITION RESEARCHER ROB ABBOTT%0ASandia researcher Rob Abbott uses a joystick and plays the role of a student in a training exercise driving an amphibious assault vehicle simulator used by the Navy and Marines. The second monitor is an instructor/operator application called CDMTS. In the background is a thermal image of a student's face used for investigating biometrics to monitor the student in various ways including the level of engagement and focus of attention. (Photo by Randy Montoya)%0A Newswise Imagine a world where a machine creates a “virtual you” by modeling how you think and your expertise on a subject. Or one where your car’s computer appreciates your driving skills and compensates for your limitations. That’s the world Sandia National Laboratories has entered full throttle through its Cognitive Science and Technology Program (CS&T). A revolution is at hand, says Chris Forsythe, member of the Labs’ cognition research team. It’s not one of just better guns and weapons for national security. Instead, “it’s a revolution of the mind — of how people think and how machines can help people work better.” Focus on individual A large portion of Sandia’s program today focuses on the uniqueness of the individual interacting with others and with machines. It involves using machines to help humans perform more efficiently and embedding cognitive models in machines so they interact with users more like people interact with one another. The result is the ability for researchers to take advantage of the basic strengths of humans and machines while mitigating the weaknesses of each. Cognitive projects and research at Sandia span a whole gamut of areas, ranging from student training to assisting with Yucca Mountain licensing, from designing “smart” cars to using video-like games to train military personnel, and from determining how neurons give rise to memory to global terrorist threat detection. Funding for the research has come from the Office of Naval Research, Sandia’s internal Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, Department of Energy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and other government agencies. The CS&T program also benefits from collaborations with the University of New Mexico, the MIND Imaging Center in Albuquerque, and most recently the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) laboratory. The initial decision for Sandia to develop cognitive technologies is based on the belief that “there are numerous positive impacts cognitive systems technologies can have on our national security,” says Russ Skocypec, senior manager of Sandia’s Human, Systems, and Simulation Technologies Department. Today’s conflicts, he says, are unlike others over the past century. Although all wars are driven by humans, major influences on the outcomes have differed. World War I was a chemists’ war, World War II a physicists’ war, and the Cold War an economic war. Today, he believes, “we are engaged in a human war that is influenced primarily by individual human beings rather than technology or bureaucracy.” That is why he considers it appropriate for Sandia, a laboratory with national security as its mission, to use its resources to better understand the minds of this country’s adversaries, as well as to use machines to enhance the Labs’ abilities to recognize patterns, deal with massive amounts of data, solve perplexing problems, and perform complex activities. While Sandia dipped its toes in cognitive research in the late 1990s, the Labs’ real effort in the area started in 2002 when the program won an internally funded LDRD grand challenge. Based in part on the success and path set by the grand challenge in 2005, the former Mission Council — a group that consisted of senior Sandia vice presidents — selected cognitive science and technology (CS&T) as a research focus area for the Labs. Strategic planning for cognitive science and technology During the spring and summer of 2006, the cognition team conducted two investigations. The first looked at what cognitive capabilities exist at Sandia. The second examined opportunities involving the convergence of Sandia’s initiatives in the areas of cognition, biotechnologies, and nanotechnologies. This led to a Cognitive Science and Technology Plan with three technical objectives — a basic science understanding of the human brain, mind, and behavior; improved human performance; and advanced human-machine systems at all scales. “The plan is at the level of ‘send a man to the moon’ — beyond the scope of what any one institution can possibly do,” Forsythe says. “It’s a synthesis of ideas. Now, our intent is to home in on a few areas in which the labs can make a unique and profound contribution.” Forsythe says there are two elements to Sandia’s strategic planning for cognition. “What makes most sense is for Sandia to select areas where we have unique, collective technical strengths, areas that few others in the world can do as well,” Forsythe says. “These include such capabilities as high performance computing, nanotech, physics-based modeling and simulation, and surety.” That is the first element. (Surety is an engineering discipline that emphasizes methods and technologies enabling assessment and technical solutions for the combined safety, security, and reliability of systems.) The second involves a focus on opportunities where specific national security problems have a human factor. John Wagner, manager of Sandia’s Cognitive and Exploratory Systems and Simulations Department, says the new area of research means “profound opportunities exist for the Labs.” “CS&T’s ambitious direction may not be realized for many decades, but the information required for progress is emerging today,” he says. “It is reasonable to expect future discoveries will become the Nobel-class achievements for the cognitive and neuroscience communities at large in the years to come.” What is a cognitive system? The term “cognitive systems” has been used worldwide to identify a variety of programs, initiatives, and technologies. However, so many varied uses have led to ambiguity of meaning. Sandia has established its own definition of cognitive systems: “Cognitive systems consist of technologies that utilize as an essential component one or more computational models of human cognitive processes or the knowledge of specific experts, users, or other individuals.” Wagner says that cognitive research at Sandia — like most worldwide — is in its infancy. He anticipates that within the next decade research that seems like science fiction today will be a daily part of everyone’s lives. The cognitive revolution will be in full bloom. “Once that happens, the best of both worlds can happen,” Wagner says. “If we understand human cognition better, we can work together as a nation to reduce tension, find problems before they turn into armed conflict, and to work toward actions that establish and maintain peace worldwide.” Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness. © 2007 Newswise. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 47 Oak Ridger: ORNL, UT selected for second supercomputer - Story last updated at 12:23 am on 8/9/2007 By: Duncan Mansfield | Associated Press KNOXVILLE — The Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee took another quantum leap in the computing universe Wednesday with a decision by the National Science Board to underwrite a second world-class supercomputer in Tennessee. The board authorized the National Science Foundation to award $65 million over five years to build a supercomputer capable of nearly 1,000 teraflops — or 1,000 trillion calculations a second — at UT’s Joint Institute for Computational Science. The institute is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a Department of Energy facility managed by UT and Battelle Memorial Institute. The announcement means that the Oak Ridge lab, which currently hosts the second-fastest supercomputer in the world, could have the world’s two fastest machines by 2009. “This is another tremendous win for UT and for the partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory,” said U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-3rd District. “Our state is rapidly becoming the world’s center for high-performance computing.” For scientists studying global climate change, the design of new materials and the reactions occurring in living cells, the new supercomputing goal is 1 petaflop — or 1,000 trillion arithmetic calculations per second. That would be three times faster than the world’s current fastest supercomputer — the 280-teraflop, restricted-access IBM BlueGene/L at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It would be faster still than the world’s No. 2 machine — the open-research, 101.7-teraflop Cray XT3/XT4 supercomputer known as “Jaguar” already operating at the Oak Ridge lab. However, Oak Ridge’s Jaguar is on a track for upgrades that will take it to the 1 petaflop level by 2009, when the second supercomputer announced Wednesday is slated to power up. The National Science Board on Wednesday recommended an even larger award of $208 million over four and a half years to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for an even faster petascale supercomputer. But that computer isn’t set to go online until 2011. UT officials said they couldn’t comment on the award until a final agreement is negotiated with the National Science Foundation. The UT proposal was led by Thomas Zacharia, who heads the supercomputer program in Oak Ridge, and includes two partners, the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. | © 2004 The Oak Ridger | Conditions of Use ***************************************************************** 48 Paducah Sun: Uranium answer sought: Task force seeks DOE decision on recycling proposal Paducah, Kentucky August 8, 2007 Wednesday Joe Walker Aug. 8--Members of a local task force don't understand why the Department of Energy hasn't approved a nuclear-recycling plan that could generate $1 million a day in revenue for the federal government at no cost to taxpayers. "Most people say, 'What's the down side?'" Charles Martin said. "I can't come up with a down side." Re-enriching spent uranium at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant would eliminate a massive amount of hazardous waste and put more nuclear fuel on the market when prices are high, Martin told other members of the task force Tuesday at City Hall. "Bureaucracy has this thing tied up, when it shouldn't," he said. Members of the Paducah Uranium Plant Asset Utilization task force want Kentucky federal lawmakers to back them in persuading DOE to approve the recycling project. They are preparing a "white paper" for use during the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce's semiannual lobbying trip to Washington in September. The white paper also will support locating a 1,000-job spent nuclear fuel recycling factory near the Paducah plant and recycling hundreds of millions of dollars in scrap nickel stored there. Plant operator USEC Inc. wants to recycle the DOE-owned uranium tails to help the company pay soaring costs of power at Paducah. Community and labor leaders support the plan as long as it will extend the life of the 1,100-employee factory beyond the anticipated start of closure in 2012. DOE senior managers have not decided the issue despite USEC lobbying efforts that started early this year. In May, five Capitol Hill leaders asked the Government Accountability Office if DOE can legally transfer the roughly $1.5 billion in spent uranium to help the cash-strapped company and how to protect the government if that happens. Copyright 2007 The Paducah Sun ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************