***************************************************************** 09/04/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.206 ***************************************************************** 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 CTV.ca: PM may face questions on nuclear energy initiative 2 US: Salt Lake Tribune: Go nuclear 3 Guardian Unlimited: Inflation-busting pay rise averts atomic plant s 4 Times of India: 'Bush winked at Pak nuke proliferation' 5 People's Daily: Pakistan wants equal opportunities for civil NUCLEAR REACTORS 6 Guardian Unlimited: Muslims Protest Indonesian Nuclear Plant 7 US: Guardian Unlimited: NRC Reverses Nuclear Fuel Secrets Policy 8 AFP: Six groups shortlisted for Bulgarian nuclear plant partnership 9 The Hindu: Left parties demand scrapping of Indo-US nuclear deal 10 The Hindu: Left announces Statewide protest against nuclear deal 11 AU ABC: Lucas Heights shutdown costing thousands - 12 TheStar.com: Canada - Used nuclear energy could be on its way here 13 BBC NEWS: French utility firms agree merger 14 US: MaineToday.com: Maine, New Brunswick meet on energy issues 15 EBR: Atomenergoproject and Energoproject sign nuclear design deal - 16 US: montgomeryadvertiser.com: Heat wave shutdown stirs nuclear debat 17 US: Times Argus Online: Yankee plant is worn out 18 US: Times Argus Online: Vermont Yankee powers up 19 US: baltimoresun.com: Economics of nuclear power are rethought -- 20 Bangkok Post: IAEA team to visit Thailand 21 Sofia Echo: BULGARIA’S KOZLODUY NPP UNIT CLOSED AS AN EMERGENCY CASE 22 PakTribune: Every country has right to peaceful use of N-energy, say 23 Reuters: Small radiation leak at Japan nuclear power plant 24 Reuters: Merkel rejects call for early nuclear shutdown 25 UPI: Hindujas seeks re-entry into power sector 26 UPI: GMR plans foray into nuke power 27 Prague Daily Monitor: TemelĂ­n completes refuelling of first unit - 28 UPI: 6 utilities vie for $9.5B nuke plant stake 29 US: NRC: NRC to Release Documents Regarding Nuclear Fuel Services an 30 IAEA: INSAG Issues Latest Assessment on Nuclear Safety 31 Hemscott: Finnish nuclear reactor shut down after malfunction 32 Japan Times: Residents want Niigata reactor construction permit null 33 Japan Times: Nuclear plants rural Japan's economic fix 34 US: Amarillo.com: Area residents too 'sensible and shrewd' to get nu 35 US: Amarillo.com: Water scarcity puts kibosh on nuclear reactor idea 36 MCOT: IAEA team to visit Thailand 37 TheDay.com: Time To Consider Nuclear 38 GMANews.TV - Report: RP invites nuclear experts to inspect Bataan pl 39 SO: The World from Berlin: Nuclear Reaction to Reactor Proposal - 40 AU ABC: Australia's nuclear reactor remains closed 41 Reuters: S.Africa's Eskom looks to nuclear plants 42 The Australian: Our nuclear energy stance is hypocritical - ALP mini 43 INQUIRER.net: DoE advised: Beware of the nuclear option - 44 SMN: Bulgaria: Russia's Major Missile Developer Paves Its Way to NUCLEAR SECURITY 45 US: Cat Crap Detector - Now Just $1.2 Billion!! 46 BBC NEWS: Guilty plea for SA nuclear case 47 US: SF Chron: UC Berkeley team to study nuclear detection for homela 48 US: Knoxville News Sentinel: NRC reverses course on documents policy 49 DAWN: Speculations about safety of N-assets rejected - NUCLEAR SAFETY 50 US: ReviewJournal.com: COMPENSATION CLAIM: Area 51 burning revealed 51 US: TCPalm: Power plant sirens to be tested Thursday in Port St. Luc 52 US: Colorado Daily News: Shadows of the bomb NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 53 US: The Australian: Downer backs Russian nuclear safety | 54 US: AU The Age: Russia safe for N-fuel - Downer - 55 US: Deseret Morning News: Colorado uranium mine to reopen as prices 56 US: AU ABC: Australia close to Russia uranium deal - Downer - 57 The Canadian Press: Canada silent as nuclear energy partnership with 58 JCN: MOX Fuel Production for Kyushu Electric to Start in October 59 Chillicothe Gazette: USEC gives contract for centrifuge steel casing 60 US: Emagazine: The Nuke Waste around Us 61 US: Murfreesboro Post: Written commitment sought on landfill 62 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judge says drilling must stop at nuke dump si 63 Japan Times: Kyushu Electric applies for MOX fuel inspection | 64 AU ABC: Australia 'will never' accept nuclear waste 65 Las Vegas Now: Federal Judge Says Shuts Off Water for DOE Drilling a PEACE 66 [NYTr] Russia Monitors World Nuke Explosions 67 2000: CIA Gave Iran Nuclear Weapon Blueprints 68 The Hindu: "Britain working on new nuclear warhead" 69 RIA Novosti: Missile defense: to be or not to be? 70 RIA Novosti: No plans to deploy nukes in Belarus - Russian FM-1 71 Kommersant Moscow: Russia Not to Deploy Nuclear Weapons in Belarus - 72 UPI: Russia denies plans to move nukes 73 Baltic Times: Parts outlines nuclear deadline 74 ITAR-TASS: RF ready to negotiate reduction of nuke tactical arms 75 AFP: Russia draws 'red line' on Kosovo, US missile defence - 76 ANI: Time right for US to demand access to Dr. A.Q. Khan, says press US DEPT. OF ENERGY 77 The State: SRS bid suitor takes to airwaves 78 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the Death of Nuclear 79 DOE: Secretary of Energy Administers Oath to Three Senior Officials 80 NRC: DOE nuclear waste determinations at INEL 81 Knoxville News Sentinel: Debate on Y-12 could change 82 Oak Ridger: DOE to test public warning siren system Wednesday - 83 WebWire: Argonne scientists take giant step forward in 84 WebWire: PARSONS reaches safety milestone on SWPF PROJECT ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 CTV.ca: PM may face questions on nuclear energy initiative Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks in Ottawa on Friday, Aug. 31, 2007. (CP / Tom Hanson) An Australian police officer looks on as U.S. President Bush arrives at his downtown hotel in Sydney on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007. Security measures have been stepped up for the APEC summit. (AP / David Longstreath) PM may face questions on nuclear energy initiative Updated Tue. Sep. 4 2007 11:12 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff Prime Minister Stephen Harper could face tough questions about a U.S.-led nuclear initiative at the APEC meeting this week. A spokesperson for Foreign Affairs has confirmed Canada was invited to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) and attend the group's next meeting in Austria later this month. The American initiative, designed to promote and safeguard the nuclear industry, would require all nuclear fuel be repatriated to the country that exported it for disposal. As one of the world's largest uranium producers, Canada could face serious issues dealing with the waste produced by nuclear energy. The federal government is reviewing the proposed GNEP Statement of Principles and a decision will be made shortly, the Prime Minister's Office has said. The issue is also of interest to Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who heads the world's other leading uranium-exporting country. Debate over the issue there has been ongoing for over a year, and Australia's foreign affairs minister has suggested the country will participate in the upcoming meeting. Both Harper and Howard could see the GNEP become a major election issue, but to date, the Canadian government's position on the agreement has been a closely guarded secret. At a briefing last week, one of the prime minister's most senior officials skirted a question on the GNEP. "It doesn't feature on the APEC agenda, per se,'' said the official. "Whether the initiative has disappeared off the global agenda or the U.S. agenda, I really can't say.'' But Sandra Buckler, director of communications for the Prime Minister's Office, rejected the premise that the government has been silent on the topic, referring to a news conference when Howard visited Canada last year. "At the time, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said: 'Australia and Canada, as the two major uranium producers in the world, have considerable interest in whatever the United States and the international community have in mind in terms of future uranium development, production and marketing,'" Buckler wrote in an email to CTV News. "(Harper) added that he and Howard had "agreed we're going to collaborate very closely together to make sure Australian and Canadian interests are closely protected while the Americans and others discuss the future of that industry."' With climate change and energy policy key items on the agenda, and most of the GNEP's supporters in attendance, including the U.S., China, Japan and Russia, the issue will likely be up for discussion. "This is the kind of subterfuge and hidden agenda that the government has on such an important issue,'' said Liberal MP David McGuinty, the Opposition's environment critic. "It's time for them to come clean on this.'' Bernard Bigras, environment critic for the Bloc Quebecois, noted Ontario and New Brunswick already have issues with dealing with nuclear waste from domestic reactors. "We have a big problem here in Canada and in the world: how can we manage the waste produced by nuclear (energy)?'' Canadian ministers head to summit Minister of International Trade David Emerson and Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier will attend the APEC Ministerial Meeting in Sydney ahead of Harper's visit. They will meet with their counterparts to discuss opportunities for cooperation and issues such as WTO negotiations, climate change, energy, regional economic ties and relations, APEC reform and security. The APEC meeting is seen as a key event for Canada to build relationships with Asian and Latin American economies. In 2006, nearly 85 per cent ($707 billion) of Canada's international trade was with APEC member countries. Key themes at this year's conference include "strengthening our community and building a sustainable future." Climate change debate This year's focus on climate change has been a controversial topic, as the conference normally deals with economic issues. But Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has said climate change is on the agenda "because we recognize the fact that climate change is a key economic issue, not just an environmental issue." Some critics, however, accuse the Australian prime minister of putting climate change on the agenda to improve his own low approval ratings ahead of upcoming elections. A series of demonstrations are also expected as the conference begins, though early protests against the meeting's pro-business agenda and the Iraq war have been small. With files from The Canadian Press © 2007 All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Salt Lake Tribune: Go nuclear Public Forum Letter Article Last Updated: 09/02/2007 10:37:53 PM MDT I read with great interest your Aug. 28 article about the report by the Governor's Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change. The council apparently assigned nuclear power to a second-tier position. If greenhouse gas is the real culprit causing global warming, then a higher priority should be assigned to nuclear since it does not emit greenhouse gases. Some object to nuclear power because of the waste problem. They claim we will be leaving this problem for future generations to deal with. However, we will not be doing these future generations any favors if we burn everything now that we can lay our hands on! Richard Stauffer Murray ***************************************************************** 3 Guardian Unlimited: Inflation-busting pay rise averts atomic plant strike David Hencke, Westminster correspondent Tuesday September 4, 2007 Nuclear scientists and technicians in charge of major decommissioning programmes won a 3.99% pay rise yesterday - nearly twice the 2% maximum set by the Treasury for public-sector pay this year. The deal is being hailed by union leaders as "the best public-sector pay settlement this year", and followed the threat by three unions to hold the first strike by nuclear scientists and staff for 25 years. The government offer came after Gordon Brown insisted he would not drop its clampdown on public-sector pay, which led to the unofficial strike by prison officers last week and two days of strike action by 113,000 civil servants this year. Only last Friday the prime minister said: "We have succeeded in tackling inflation and having a stable economy because of discipline in pay over these last 10 years. That discipline will have to continue." His stance is likely to be challenged at next week's TUC conference in Brighton, where delegates will be asked to condemn the 2% ceiling on public-sector pay rises. But the industry may escape a confrontation after the UK Atomic Energy Authority wrote to the three unions behind the industrial action - Prospect, the normally moderate Whitehall union, GMB, and Unite - offering a deal worth 3.99%. Steve Beackon, head of human resources at the UKAEA, said: "In the terminology of the Treasury pay guidelines, our final offer comprises an overall 'increase for staff in post' of 3.99%. This ... has three elements: a 'basic increase'; the normal performance-related pay progression arrangements; and an additional performance-related pay progression element for this pay settlement only." Basic pay will rise by 2% but three-quarters of the staff will get 4% or more through other changes. Nobody will get less than 3%. The three unions are expected to accept the deal and call off strike action. David Luxton, of Prospect, said: "This is the best public pay settlement this year. We welcome UKAEA's pragmatic interpretation of Treasury guidelines." Gary Smith, of GMB, said: "Our members refused to accept an offer less than inflation so we shall now put this offer to our members." Unions balloted staff at Dounreay in Scotland; Harwell, Oxfordshire; Winfrith in Dorset; Windscale at Sellafield; the Warrington office of UKAEA; and the Culham research centre in Oxfordshire. There was strong support for industrial action. A spokesman for the Department for Business and Enterprise said: "The business case put forward by the UKAEA warranted an increase. This increase is within HM Treasury's parameters." Useful link Government's report on the energy review Have your say Email your comments for publication to: politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 4 Times of India: 'Bush winked at Pak nuke proliferation' 5 Sep 2007, 0341 hrs IST,Chidanand Rajghatta,TNN WASHINGTON: Successive US administrations winked at Pakistan's clandestine nuclearisation and its rampant proliferation activities, and Washington continues the charade of normalcy although proliferation activities continue to this day, an explosive new book on the subject has revealed. The disclosures in the book Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, which is to be released next week, are nothing short of stunning. It charges US President Bush of perpetuating deceit in an elaborate American charade that forgave Pakistan for its nuclear transgressions as a price for keeping it from becoming an even more dangerous proposition - in other words, succumbing to Pakistani blackmail. Describing the episode in which US officials confronted Pakistan's military ruler Pervez Musharraf with evidence of its nuclear proliferation, the authors say "American officials knew that Musharraf had known about the nuclear trade all along. And Washington had itself not only turned a blind eye to Pakistan's nuclear bomb project for decades but had covered it up for imperative geopolitical reasons, even when Islamabad began trading its secret technology." The authors credit then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage of conceiving the drama in which Musharraf would promise to shut down Pakistan's nuclear black market in return for winning continued US support for his unelected regime. It was agreed that A Q Khan and his aides would be arrested and blamed for "privately" engaging in proliferation. "The country's military elite - who had sponsored Khan's work and encouraged sales of technology to reduce their reliance on American aid - were left in the clear," the authors say, adding that "Bush subscribed to the deceit." However, in a worrying new claim for Washington's non-proliferation pundits, who have spent the last two decades chasing WMD phantoms in all the wrong places, Pakistan's proliferation has not stopped even now. They say new intelligence reports show that Pakistan is procuring a range of materials and components that "clearly exceeds" what Islamabad needed for its domestic nuclear program. KRL labs, A.Q.Khan's old facility, had continued to coordinate the Pakistani sales programme and now runs a network of front companies in Europe, the Gulf and southeast Asia which deployed all the old tricks: disguising end-user certificates by shielding the ultimate destinations from sellers, and lying on customs manifests. Most alarming, say the authors, was the finding that hundreds of thousands of components amassed by Khan, including canisters with radioactive material, had vanished since he had been put out of operation. In other words, they write, Pakistan has continued to sell nuclear weapons technology (to clients known and unknown) even as Musharraf denies it - "which means either that the sales are being carried out with his secret blessing or that he is no more in control of Pakistan's nuclear program than he is of the bands of jihadis in his country." The book then quotes Robert Gallucci, a former US diplomat who tracked Islamabad's nuclear program from inception in 1972, as describing Pakistan as "the number one threat to the world at this moment." "If it all goes off, a nuclear bomb in a US or European city, I'm sure we will find ourselves looking in Pakistan's direction," says Gallucci. Such observations, and other disclosures in the book, hasn't made the slightest impression on Washington, which continues a decades-long wink-wink policy that has made Pakistan's into what experts are increasingly describing as the world's most dangerous country. The Bush administration continues to back Musharraf and is trying to engineer a coalition between the military ruler and former PM Benazir Bhutto. The latest experiment does not address the nuclear proliferation issue, where Washington is yet to even question A.Q.Khan even as Pakistan spirals out of control. "The tragedy is that America's gamble on Musharraf has not paid off...Musharraf presides over a country that is not only still a nuclear proliferator but the real source of the Islamist terrorism menacing the West," say Levy and Clark-Scott. Copyright © 2007 Times Internet Limited. ***************************************************************** 5 People's Daily: Pakistan wants equal opportunities for civil nuclear energy: PM 20:13, September 03, 2007 Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz Monday called for equal opportunities for Pakistan to meet energy needs through civil nuclear technology transfer. Inaugurating an energy conference here, Aziz expressed Pakistan 's determination to meet its energy requirements from all available resources including nuclear energy. The prime minister said every country has the right to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the appropriate safeguards, adding that the International Atomic Energy Agency is doing a fine job by monitoring nuclear energy technology in the world. He said there is a need to be a level playing field for all countries to have access to nuclear technology without any discrimination. Referring to the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) trans- border gas pipeline project, Aziz said the project is at an advanced stage of negotiations. "We are confident that this project will be launched in the near future," he said. "Similarly, we are exploring the possibilities of a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan, which could be extended onward to India," Aziz added. He said in Pakistan the energy requirement is increasing from 8 percent to 12 percent annually and Pakistan is fulfilling its 75 percent energy requirements from the domestic resources. Aziz said Pakistan needs to expand and diversify in the next 25 years its energy needs, adding that Pakistan has hydel, gas, coal resources and is pursuing nuclear energy to maximize utilization of indigenous resources. Source: Xinhua Copyright by People's Daily Online, All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 6 Guardian Unlimited: Muslims Protest Indonesian Nuclear Plant Monday September 3, 2007 11:01 AM JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Dozens of Muslim clerics have issued an edict against the construction of Indonesia's first nuclear power plant on seismically charged Java island, saying the potential dangers far outweighed the benefits. The scholars from the country's largest Islamic organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, acknowledged the plant, which is scheduled to be built in 2010 and up and running by 2016, would help meet the rising demand for electricity. But they declared the project ``haram'' - or forbidden by Islam - over concerns about frequent earthquakes on the densely populated island and questions about the handling of radioactive waste, said Kholilurrohman, who led Sunday's meeting. ``We have to avert danger,'' he said, adding that the edict applies only to the plant on Java's northern tip, 280 miles east of the capital, Jakarta. Violating such an order is considered a sin. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation with an estimated 200 million believers, hopes nuclear power will contribute a total of 4,000 megawatts to the country's electricity grid by 2025. The archipelagic nation is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on the so-called Pacific ``Ring of Fire,'' an arc of volcanos and fault lines encircling the Pacific Basin. Though nuclear plants can be built to withstand temblors, the public remains wary. Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets in Java island in recent months. In Japan, a magnitude-6.8 quake in July caused malfunctions and leaks at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, raising concerns about safety at the country's nuclear power stations. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 7 Guardian Unlimited: NRC Reverses Nuclear Fuel Secrets Policy Tuesday September 4, 2007 6:31 PM By DUNCAN MANSFIELD Associated Press Writer KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission reversed a three-year secrecy policy and said Tuesday it would release hundreds of documents involving the troubled operations of a Tennessee nuclear fuel processing plant. The commission said it had directed its staff to review and make public some 1,900 documents that had been kept secret under the veil of national security involving Nuclear Fuel Services Inc. in Erwin and BWX Technologies in Lynchburg, Va. Both plants supply fuel to the U.S. Navy's nuclear fleet. The NRC, worried about releasing sensitive information, has withheld all documents about the two facilities since 2004, including a report on a potentially lethal spill of highly enriched uranium in 2006 at Erwin. ``While we must continue to be mindful of the national security aspects of these facilities, we must also remember that our regulatory oversight process should be performed in an open and transparent manner that instills public trust,'' NRC Chairman Dale Klein wrote in his ballot supporting the policy change. The decision followed congressional pressure and an outcry from environmentalists and residents near the Tennessee facility after the NRC revealed the uranium leak in April as part of the NRC's annual report to Congress. The spill was one of three major incidents involving NRC licensees in 2006. No one was injured when 9 gallons of highly enriched uranium spilled onto a floor at the privately held Nuclear Fuel Services plant on March 6, 2006. However, the NRC said the solution could have accumulated in such a way as to cause an uncontrolled nuclear reaction. ``It was likely that at least one worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute health effects or death,'' the report said. The incident was civilian operation side, where surplus highly enriched uranium is converted into commercial reactor fuel for the Tennessee Valley Authority. But the public didn't learn about it until more than a year later because of an ``Official Use Only'' policy on all documents at NFS and BWX Technologies. The NRC adopted the policy after the Department of Energy's Office of Naval Reactors raised concerns about disclosing sensitive information. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., said he is convinced the NFS Erwin plant is safe but he supports more openness. The NRC staff will review about 1,900 documents about NFS and BWX Technologies generated since Jan. 1, 2004, including licensing actions and orders, inspection reports, performance reviews, enforcement actions and event reports, the NRC said. Reviewing the documents, redacting still-sensitive information and releasing them to the NRC's public Internet-based archives is expected to take until May and cost about $523,000. The NRC staff has already identified 60 licensing actions and six orders that could be made public in the coming weeks, according to an agency statement. It was unclear how the agency would handle about 10,000 earlier documents that had been removed from the NRC's public archives. --- Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov/ Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 8 AFP: Six groups shortlisted for Bulgarian nuclear plant partnership - report Tuesday September 4, 2007, 7:23 pm MILAN (AFP) - Six companies have been shortlisted to take part in a joint venture to build a 7.0-billion-euro (9.5-billion-dollar) nuclear power plant in Bulgaria, Italian press reports said on Tuesday. Italian energy group Enel has been chosen as well as Electricite de France, the Belgian group Electrabel, Germany power groups EON and RWE, and CEZ of the Czech Republic, Il Corriere della Sera reported, citing company sources. The companies have until September 24 to present offers to buy a 49-percent stake in the Belene Power Company that will run the power plant. The remaining 51 percent will be owned by Bulgarian electric utility Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania (NEK). The nuclear plant is expected to cost 4.0 billion euros to build, while related infrastructure work will add another 3.0 billion euros, the newspapers said. The construction work will be done by the Russian specialist Atomstroyexport and the plant will be operational in 2013, the daily MF added. Copyright © 2006 AFP. All rights reserved. All information ***************************************************************** 9 The Hindu: Left parties demand scrapping of Indo-US nuclear deal Tuesday, September 4, 2007 : 1735 Hrs Jalandhar, Sept. 4 (PTI): The joint convention of Punjab units of the CPI, CPI(M), Forward Block and Revolutionary Socialist Party today demanded the UPA government scrap the Indo-US nuclear deal. The Left parties also demanded that the joint exercise by the maritime forces of the US, Japan, Australia, India and Singapore be cancelled. In an unanimously adopted resolution the convention asked the people of the state to "oppose" the nuclear deal, alleging it was harmful to India's sovereignty, independent foreign policy and economic interests. It alleged the deal was a violation of the commitment made in respect to foreign policy in common minimum programme. This nuclear deal was a continuation of "pro-America" foreign policy of NDA government, they said. "It is most unfortunate that the Prime Minister wants to implement the 123 agreement despite opposition of the majority in Parliament," they said. The Hyde Act provides that India is bound to act according to US foreign policy, which is aimed at global hegemonic designs, speakers alleged. A protest march was organised from the Desh Bhagat Memorial building to Company Bagh. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 10 The Hindu: Left announces Statewide protest against nuclear deal Tuesday, Sep 04, 2007 Nuclear deal will impact agriculture, says Nagaraj BANGALORE: The Left parties of Karnataka today reiterated their opposition to the Indo-US nuclear agreement and the joint naval exercises, and announced a State-wide campaign to protest the deal. Campaign The five-day campaign will begin on Tuesday and include protest meetings and conventions across the State, said G.N. Nagaraj, State Secretary, CPI (M). “We must see the nuclear deal in perspective. It is not merely about nuclear energy. The agreement will impact every aspect of life in India, including agriculture, industry, education, the judiciary and the military,” he said. The United States was seeking strategic military cooperation with India in terms of logistical support, maritime trade security and interoperability, which will “bind India into joint operations with the U.S. in their aggressive war strategies”, he added. Serious impact Warning of a “serious impact on agriculture”, Mr. Nagaraj said that the agreement would foster the domination of multinational companies over Indian agriculture, through patents and controls over trade. Joint exercises On the joint naval exercises with Singapore, Japan, Australia and the United States, he said that this would form “a quadrilateral reminiscent of the cold war”. Joint exercises with the United States now appear to have extended to joint exercises with United States allies, he added. Stating that the deal is a “clear departure from the Common Minimum Programme, which was the basis of the Left parties’ support to the UPA government”, Mr. Nagaraj said that the Congress must not function as a “single party dictatorship”. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 11 AU ABC: Lucas Heights shutdown costing thousands - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Updated September 3, 2007 19:34:00 Loose fuel plates were discovered at the nuclear reactor three months after Prime Minister John Howard officially opened it. (File photo) (AAP Image: Dean Lewins) The operators of Australia's only nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in south-west Sydney have revealed that the unscheduled two-month shutdown has cost more than $750,000. It is still not known when a problem with uranium fuel plates will be solved. Loose fuel plates were discovered three months after Prime Minister John Howard officially opened the $400 million reactor. Chief of operations Ron Cameron says safely removing the fuel assemblies from the reactor's core has taken longer than expected. "This is clearly a warranty issue for the reactor designer and there's a number of tests that have to be completed which are are going on in Argentina at the moment," he said. Dr Cameron says lost revenue from silicon sales and the importation of radioactive isotopes is costing the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) $100,000 a week and it cannot predict when the southern Sydney reactor will be fired up again. ***************************************************************** 12 TheStar.com: Canada - Used nuclear energy could be on its way here | Today's Toronto Star | Star P.M. Sep 04, 2007 04:30 AM Bruce Cheadle Canadian Press OTTAWA–When Prime Minister Stephen Harper departs for Australia today for a summit of pan-Pacific leaders, he'll be carrying with him a secret agenda that is quite literally radioactive. Harper will face questions from both Australian Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush over Canada's participation in a sweeping American-led initiative still in its infancy. The initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, proposes that nuclear energy-using countries and uranium-exporting countries band together in a new nuclear club to promote and safeguard the industry. Central to the plan is a proposal that all used nuclear fuel be repatriated to the original uranium exporting country for disposal. That should be big news in Canada, the world's largest uranium producer. But to date, the Canadian government's response is a closely guarded secret. In fact, there's been virtually no public debate at all. In Australia, where Harper has an ideological soulmate in Howard, the debate over the plan has raged for more than a year. Australia and Canada are the world's biggest uranium exporters and the policy threatens to become an election issue this fall as opposition parties charge the country is in danger of becoming a "radioactive dump." Yet Harper's minority Conservative government clearly does not want to engage the Canadian public in discussion about the initiative. At a briefing last week before the Pacific meeting, one of the Prime Minister's most senior officials, flanked by his director of communications, Sandra Buckler, carefully skirted a question on the uranium policy. "It doesn't feature on the APEC agenda, per se," said the official. "Whether the initiative has disappeared off the global agenda or the U.S. agenda, I really can't say." The next day, in response to a separate and unrelated media inquiry, a spokesperson from Foreign Affairs confirmed Canada has been invited to a Sept. 16 meeting in Vienna to discuss the initiative. The carefully neutral comments stand in contrast to earlier draft "talking points" obtained by The Canadian Press under an Access to Information request. Those heavily censored documents show much greater enthusiasm. "Canada is very interested in examining potential areas for partnership in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership given that we are the world's largest uranium producer," said one undated talking point from 2006. The same memo continues: "Canadian officials ... have begun discussions with their counterparts in the U.S. to consider possible parameters of Canadian involvement." Liberal MP David McGuinty, the Opposition environment critic, excoriated the Conservative government for its secrecy. "This is the kind of subterfuge and hidden agenda that the government has on such an important issue," said McGuinty. "We've never had notice of it. There's been no White Paper. There's been no discussion. "It's time for them to come clean on this." © Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2007 | ***************************************************************** 13 BBC NEWS: French utility firms agree merger Last Updated: Monday, 3 September 2007, 18:06 GMT 19:06 UK The merger will create the third largest gas and electricity company French utility groups Suez and Gaz de France (GDF) have agreed to merge to create one of the world's largest energy firms, worth 70bn euros (Ł47bn). Both firms have been trying to merge since 2006, but a final deal was agreed over the weekend following meetings between the boards of both firms. Under the terms of the deal, the French government will hold more than 35% of the new firm - to be called GDF Suez The French government currently owns 80% of GDF, and was keen to prevent Suez from merging with the Italian energy company Enel. Shares in Suez and Gaz de France fell 3% and 2% respectively in Paris in response although they had risen 8% last week on rumours that a deal was imminent. Terms The "merger of equals" deal means that 21 Gaz de France shares will be exchanged for 22 Suez shares, the firms said in a joint statement. As Suez has expanded far faster than Gaz de France since the original plan was announced in 2006, new terms were needed to do justice to Suez investors, analysts said. Suez will sell off its water and non-energy assets by listing them separately on the stock exchange at the same time as the merger goes through. The merged group will keep 35% of the shares in the separate water and waste management business, while the rest of the shares will go to Suez shareholders. There had been fears that the talks, between Suez and the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, could collapse, following disagreement over the terms of the tie-up. Unions fear that it could lead to job losses and there are also concerns that reduced competition may push up energy prices for consumers. Privatisation The deal has also led to criticism of Mr Sarkozy, who said when he was Finance Minister in 2005 that he would not lower the government's stake in Gaz de France to below 70%. Investors are hardly ever keen on a company with a stake controlled by the state Raimund Saxinger, Frankfurt Trust The merger will mean the effective privatisation of GDF because the government will not own a majority stake in the merged group. The Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, defended the deal. "The public sector will have about 40% of the new group. Forty percent of GDF and Suez, I think that is better than 70 or 80% of GDF alone," he said. But some analysts questioned the wisdom of a situation where the state would have an effective veto on key decisions. "Investors are hardly ever keen on a company with a stake controlled by the state," said Raimund Saxinger, an investment manager at Frankfurt Trust. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 14 MaineToday.com: Maine, New Brunswick meet on energy issues By The Associated Press wire report September 04, 2007 02:12 PM FREDERICTON, New Brunswick - The top politicians in Maine and New Brunswick say they are making progress on efforts to meet each other's energy needs. New Brunswick wants to become an energy hub, including the possibility of building a second nuclear reactor, while Maine is working to improve its transmission lines that would help get surplus Canadian power further into the United States. Premier Shawn Graham and Gov. John Baldacci signed a memorandum of understanding on energy issues earlier this year, and met today in Fredericton to discuss progress. Baldacci said Maine has an electricity surplus, but could play a role in getting New Brunswick power to other states in New England. A report examining technical issues related to power exports is expected soon. New England is expected to require an extra 5,000 megawatts of electricity by 2015. Copyright © 2007, Blethen Maine Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 15 EBR: Atomenergoproject and Energoproject sign nuclear design deal - Energy Business Review 4th September 2007 By Staff Writer Russia-based Atomenergoproject and Ukraine-based power plant designer Energoproject have agreed to mutually develop and design nuclear power plants. Under the long-term co-operation agreement, both the parties will carry on joint activities in designing nuclear power plants, exchange their experience in managing projects and co-operate in developing technologies, particularly, 3D automated design systems. They have also agreed to co-operate on the construction of unit 4 of Kalinin NPP (Udomlia, Tver region). ©2007 Business Review ***************************************************************** 16 montgomeryadvertiser.com: Heat wave shutdown stirs nuclear debate September 5, 2007 By Eric Fleischauer The Decatur Daily ATHENS -- The recent shutdown of a nuclear reactor at Browns Ferry because of high temperatures in the Tennessee River was international news. In the mainstream media from Britain to Germany to Malaysia, on National Public Radio and in anti-nuclear blogs worldwide, people who could not find Alabama on a map became experts on Browns Ferry. The interest stems from a raging environmental debate that deemed last week's shutdown of Unit 2, and the power reductions in Units 1 and 3, as relevant to the viability of nuclear power. Nuclear power has created a schism among environmentalists. On the one hand, the world has yet to find a satisfactory solution for disposing of nuclear waste, and the risk of a catastrophic failure is alarming. On the other hand, an operating nuclear plant creates essentially none of the greenhouse gases that most experts believe are contributing to climate change. The shutdown dropped Browns Ferry into the middle of the debate. What use is nuclear power if plants become inoperable as global temperatures rise? "I think both sides of the issue tend to overstate their case," said Dave Lochbaum, director of nuclear safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He was a reactor engineer at Browns Ferry Unit 1 from 1980 to 1983. Global warming aside, the issue is significant for the Tennessee Valley. The ongoing heat wave has escalated demand for electricity. It also heats the Tennessee River. Thus Browns Ferry is prone to shut down when demand is highest. Rising Tennessee River temperatures cause two problems for Browns Ferry. Problem No. 1 involves environmental regulations. Problem No. 2 involves engineering issues. Browns Ferry generates electricity with high-pressure steam that passes through turbines, which look like big fan blades. After the steam passes through the turbines, cool water from the Tennessee River -- circulating in condenser pipes -- converts the steam into water. In the process, the circulating river water gets hot. With rare exceptions, the river water passes through the pipes and returns to the river. When it returns to the river, according to TVA's senior manager of environmental policy, Jack Brellenthin, it is about 23 degrees warmer than when it entered the plant. That's why fish -- and fishermen -- can be found at Browns Ferry during cold months. A hike in temperature is bad for some aquatic species, however, and it's particularly harmful when the water temperature is already high. State environmental regulations, specific to Browns Ferry, impose limits on how much the plant can raise the river temperature. "When the water gets this warm," explained Brellenthin, "there's the potential for stress on aquatic resources." TVA has sensors upstream and 2,400 feet downstream. The plant cooling water is permited to raise the river temperature up to 90 degrees. If the upstream temperature is already 90 degrees or more -- which it often has been this month -- TVA cannot increase the temperature. "Last week was a challenge, and it hasn't let up much," Brellenthin said Wednesday. "It's still a challenge for us." Browns Ferry has a collection of wood cooling towers it rarely uses. It is using them now. Typically, Brellenthin said, plant operations raise the river's temperature by about five degrees. It's a big river, and it is hard to imagine how any discharge from Browns Ferry could significantly change its temperature. At the plant, the river's main channel is about 30 feet deep and 2,000 feet wide. Disguised by the placid waters around the plant, however, is the massive amount of water it digests. When all units are online, more than 3 billion gallons of river water run through the plant each day, mainly through the condenser pipes. That's enough to fill three Olympic-size swimming pools ... per minute. The Unit 2 shutdown, and the power reduction of Units 1 and 3, was made necessary by environmental regulations. By reducing power output from the reactors, TVA reduced the steam moving through the turbines. That meant that river water -- even at a heat-wave-induced 90.4 degrees -- could condense the steam and, after traveling through the cooling towers, enter the Tennessee River without violating downstream temperature limitations. The 90-degree cap imposed by environmental regulations makes the engineering issues -- confronted when intake water exceeds 95 degrees -- irrelevant to Browns Ferry. The issues are relevant, however, to the reason Browns Ferry's shutdown received global attention. Plant Manager R. G. Jones explained that Browns Ferry can operate at 100 percent power until the temperature of the Tennessee River exceeds 95 degrees. That temperature is unlikely, unless global warming is factored in. Lochbaum explains the engineering problem presented by high river temperatures. As high-pressure steam enters the turbine chamber, it begins losing energy. It gets a major assist from a vacuum pulling it through the turbines. The condensation process creates the vacuum. As cool river-water condenses nuclear-heated steam, air pressure drops. That means high pressure is pushing the steam into the turbines, and low pressure is drawing it out. As river temperatures rise, however, the river water's ability to condense the turbine-turning steam plummets. The vacuum diminishes, and the steam struggles to make it through the turbines. If the intake water exceeded 95 degrees, TVA would have to reduce reactor power. The problem is not unique to nuclear power plants, Lochbaum said. High water temperatures hamper any power plants -- even some biomass plants -- that rely on steam turbines. Anti-nuclear activists from Malaysia to Britain have it part wrong, part right. Last week's Browns Ferry shutdown had nothing to do with the limitations of nuclear power. "Even the hottest day we've had this year," Jones said, "we've not been limited by any vacuum issues." Accept the global-warming premise, though, and the headlines have merit. If climate change pushes river temperatures up 5 degrees for any length of time, engineering issues -- not environmental ones -- would hamper Browns Ferry's ability to produce electricity. montgomeryadvertiser.com and its related sites are pleased to be able to offer its users the opportunity to make comments and hold conversations online. However, the interactive nature of the Internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting. Since the montgomeryadvertiser.com does not control user submitted statements, we cannot promise that readers will not occasionally find offensive or inaccurate comments posted on our Web site. In addition, we remind anyone interested in making an online comment that responsibility for statements posted lies with the person submitting the comment, not montgomeryadvertiser.com or its related sites. All comments posted should comply with the montgomeryadvertiser.com's terms of service. Copyright © 1997- 2007 The Advertiser Co. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 Times Argus Online: Yankee plant is worn out September 3, 2007 My husband, as a retired pediatrician, and I are deeply concerned with the continued use of nuclear power. The Entergy nuclear plant is an old, worn-out facility. It is subject to increasing problems at a time when it is requesting an increase in its output. Meanwhile the accumulation of stored wastes continues without any visible solution. Clearly, Vermont Yankee cannot be closed overnight as it supplies a large portion of Vermont’s energy needs. Supplying those needs should increasingly be by enhancing the use of alternative and vastly safer sources, such as wind, solar and water power. Darragh and David Ellerson Montpelier © 2007 Times Argus ***************************************************************** 18 Times Argus Online: Vermont Yankee powers up September 04, 2007 Staff report BRATTLEBORO — The Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is back up and running at 50 percent power. Entergy Nuclear spokesman Larry Smith said Monday that the plant went back on line Saturday evening around 10 p.m. He said the start-up was uneventful. The plant shut down unexpectedly Thursday afternoon after Entergy workers were troubleshooting a sticky steam valve. The failure of the sticky valve was blamed on lack of grease on a bearing during the plant's recent refueling and maintenance outage. Smith also noted that repairs to the west cooling tower, which partially collapsed two weeks ago forcing the plant to reduce power production to 50 percent, were still under way. "They worked through the weekend, 2-4/7," he said of the effort to get the cooling tower repaired. During the summer months, Entergy uses the cooling towers to reduce the temperature of Connecticut River water that is used to cool plant components. © 2007 Times Argus ***************************************************************** 19 baltimoresun.com: Economics of nuclear power are rethought -- September 5, 2007 Loan guarantees could transform energy industry A step-up transformer at the nuclear power plant at Calvert Cliffs. A wave of studies and analyses suggests that as the energy industry looks to meet a projected need for 250 to 500 new power plants by 2030, nuclear generation might well be cost-competitive with traditional types of plants even though new reactors could cost as much as $4 billion apiece. (Sun photo by Lloyd Fox / August 17, 2007) By Paul Adams | Sun reporter September 4, 2007 A year ago, the leaders of Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Group and PPL Corp., its utility neighbor in Pennsylvania, represented the energy industry's sharp division over whether the revival of nuclear power was at hand. Mayo A. Shattuck III, Constellation's chief executive, said the economics were right for a nuclear comeback after 30 years of dormancy. PPL Chairman William F. Hecht countered that nuclear power was too expensive and risky, and that shareholders' money would be better spent adding pollution controls to his company's coal-fired power plants. Today, Hecht is retired, the cost of cleaning up coal is soaring and PPL is among the utilities talking with Constellation's UniStar Nuclear subsidiary about the potential purchase of a new reactor identical to one that Shattuck wants to build in Maryland. PPL's transformation from nuclear skeptic to potential customer shows how rising fuel costs, global warming and government incentives are transforming the economics of nuclear power. A wave of studies and analyses suggests that as the energy industry looks to meet a projected need for 250 to 500 new power plants by 2030, nuclear generation might well be cost-competitive with traditional types of plants even though new reactors could cost as much as $4 billion apiece. Constellation boasts that it can cut plant construction costs and prevent the overruns that crippled the industry in the 1970s by spreading regulatory and design expenses over a fleet of identical reactors built with assembly line efficiency. Government-backed loans and other financial incentives will help drive down borrowing costs. And expected climate-change legislation will soon make the power look as cheap as or cheaper than greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, some energy analysts contend. "If we get the kinds of carbon changes some are talking about, it will make coal less attractive and nuclear will look a lot better," said Paul L. Joskow, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist who did one of those studies. Many of the pieces needed are still not in place and could be years off, industry officials concede. But Constellation officials say the improving economics are helping it win converts as they push to make Calvert Cliffs the site of the nation's first new nuclear reactor since before Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island experienced a near-meltdown in 1979. The plant would be developed by UniStar, a partnership between Constellation and France's Electricite de France SA, the world's largest operator of nuclear plants. EDF, which has committed to invest up to $625 million in UniStar, said Friday that it will work with Constellation to develop four reactors in the United States. The company recently submitted the first 6,000 pages of its application for an operating license to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. It plans to submit the rest this fall. Though few expect it to act this year, Congress is inching closer to legislation that would place a price tag on carbon emissions, which would make generating power with fossil fuels - particularly coal - more expensive. Nuclear plants produce no such emissions. The 2005 energy bill provided loan guarantees, tax breaks, insurance against regulatory delays and other incentives to help lower borrowing costs for nuclear developers. However, the Bush administration is still working on rules for the loan program. Constellation spent $100,000 in the first half of this year to lobby the federal government on the issue, disclosure forms show. Loan guarantees alone would reduce nuclear construction costs by a quarter, the Energy Information Administration said in its annual energy outlook. With the guarantee in place, it estimates that a new nuclear plant could generate electricity at 4.78 cents per kilowatt hour. Only a coal gasification plant - which turns coal into a gas before burning - came in cheaper, at 4.66 cents. Environmentalists counter that much of the energy shortfall could be met through a combination of conservation and increased investments in such alternatives as solar and wind power. But some agree that clean coal technology and nuclear will inevitably be part of the equation and that economics will drive the choices. "For us, good environmental policy comes from capping carbon dioxide and allowing the market to set the price for avoiding emissions," said Mark Brownstein, managing director of business partnerships for Environmental Defense. "Let the technologies compete on price." To be competitive, the nuclear industry will have to overcome its history of making overly optimistic projections that didn't come true. Wall Street lost faith in nuclear construction after huge cost overruns in the 1970s and '80s forced the industry to write off more than $17 billion in losses. "The first 75 reactors built in this country had $100 billion in cost overruns, and the public got taken for a ride," said Jim Riccio, a policy analyst for the environmental group Greenpeace. He said Paris-based Areva SA, a UniStar partner, is more than $950 million over budget and 18 months behind schedule on a plant it is building in Finland. The plant is the European version of the reactor design that UniStar and Areva plan to build at Calvert Cliffs and elsewhere. But economists say several factors are conspiring to change the equation. For one, the same problems with soaring construction costs and environmental opposition that buffeted nuclear power 30 years ago are now afflicting coal plants because of concerns over global warming. TXU Corp, the Texas energy giant, faced withering attacks from environmentalists after it proposed building 11 new coal plants. The resulting legal skirmishes and investor concerns about the high cost of the plants sent its share price plummeting. A weakened TXU agreed in February to reduce the number of coal plants it plans to build from 11 to three as part of a deal to sell itself to two large private equity firms for $45 billion. Duke Energy ran into cost problems after it proposed in 2004 to build two 800-megawatt coal-fired power plants in North Carolina. The company's original estimate of $2 billion for the pair grew to $3 billion by late 2006. State utility regulators later approved just one of the plants, which is now expected to cost more than $1.8 billion. The price of such plants will increase in the future if expected climate legislation spurs utilities to add technology designed to capture carbon dioxide emissions and inject them into the ground. "Carbon capture" technology is still being developed, and no one is certain how much it will add to plant costs. Related links * A transformer at Calvert Cliffs Photo * Control room at Calvert Cliffs Photo * Turbine in the nuclear plant Photo * Electricity costs 2015 cost projection for plants built with and without government loan guarantees Source: Energy Information Administration By comparison, the 1,600-megawatt nuclear reactor Constellation hopes to build is expected to cost more than $4 billion but produce twice as much power. One megawatt is roughly enough to power 1,000 homes. "Coal is a tough sell," said Roger W. Gale, an energy consultant in Washington. "And clean coal is getting comparable to a nuclear plant [in cost]." Constellation says it can keep nuclear costs low in the future by marketing a fleet of reactors standardized down to the wallpaper and carpet. Reactor projects of decades past tended to be unique, making the design and regulatory process longer and more expensive. Between traditional coal and nuclear, energy economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have for years said that coal is the better economic value on a per-kilowatt basis. The United States has abundant coal reserves and relies on coal for about half its power. Joskow, the MIT economist, says it might take a combination of lower construction costs and carbon emissions charges to ensure nuclear's place at the table. Lawmakers would likely have to establish a carbon trading system similar to that used in Europe. If approved, companies would be allowed to emit a certain amount of greenhouse gases. Those that emit less earn credits that they can turn around and sell to companies that are having trouble meeting their targets. If Congress sets a price of more than $25 per ton of carbon dioxide released, the expense of emitting greenhouse gases makes a strong case for nuclear, Joskow said in a recent interview. He noted in a December research paper that it would likely take a carbon price of $25 to $50 per ton to stabilize the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Joskow calculated that energy from a pulverized coal plant would cost 6.6 cents per kilowatt hour if carbon emissions are priced at $27 per ton. That compares with 6.7 cents for a new nuclear plant. He based his estimate on a complex calculation of plant costs, which are generally less optimistic than the industry's. However, the nuclear price drops to as low as 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour when construction costs are trimmed 25 percent - as some in the industry say is possible - and borrowing risks are lowered to match those of a coal plant. Absent carbon charges, the pulverized coal plant can produce electricity for 4.2 cents per kilowatt hour, which matches the nuclear industry's best figure and beats it handily when Joskow's higher cost estimates are used. George Vanderheyden is president of UniStar Nuclear, which is housed on the 14th floor of Constellation's Pratt Street headquarters in Baltimore. He said the company's calculations show that its reactors will beat coal on price even without some form of carbon tax or trading system. "Everyone is justifying these projects without that," he said. "Once a nuclear power plant is built, it's economically the cheapest kilowatt hour of power on the grid." Revis James, director of technology assessment for the Electric Power Research Institute, said his estimates show that coal still beats nuclear absent some form of carbon tax. But the uncertainty about what Congress will do on climate control has energy companies conflicted. "Nuclear is certainly much more well developed and established and mature than a carbon-capture coal plant," he said. "That makes it a little more predictable to look at what the potential costs of nuclear power will be." paul.adams@baltsun.com The employer of energy expert Revis James, the Electric Power Research Institute, was misidentified when this article was published in the print edition. The Sun regrets the error. ***************************************************************** 20 Bangkok Post: IAEA team to visit Thailand A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit Thailand later this month for consultations regarding the first nuclear power plant. The plant is expected to be built in the country to relieve the kingdom's reliance on oil and gas energy, according to the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) Deputy Director General Chavalit Pichalai. Mr. Chavalit said IAEA experts were scheduled to be in Bangkok September 24-28 to advise the preparatory committee on the feasibility of nuclear power chaired by Dr. Korb Krittayakeeron, a former National Science and Technology Development Agency official. The committee was drafting the preparatory plan which was expected to be completed in October and would submit to the National Energy Policy Office or NEPO for further consideration. Under the Power Development Plan (PDP), four 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants would be built and start generating electricity around 2020-2021. During the next seven years, the government will develop safety standards, establish a regulatory framework and train the necessary personnel. Another six years would be needed after that to complete the plant's construction. Nuclear safety was considered the priority as well as the suitable location which should be near a river or the sea. The government has not decided on the location of the plant but Ranong, Chumphon and Surat Thani, all close to the sea in order to supply coolant water to the plant, have emerged as possible sites. Mr. Chavalit said the decision to include atomic energy in its long-term development plan was made because nuclear energy is recognised as efficient and cost-effective, and emits no carbon dioxide. Six sub-panels were set up to work on the feasibility study of the nuclear plant in six categories, including legal, monitoring, basic enterprise development and commercial related industry, technology and personnel development, safety and environmental protection and public relations and campaigns to win public approval. (TNA) © Copyright The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2007 ***************************************************************** 21 Sofia Echo: BULGARIA’S KOZLODUY NPP UNIT CLOSED AS AN EMERGENCY CASE - 13:00 Mon 03 Sep 2007 A 1000-megawatt unit of Bulgaria’s Kozloduy nuclear power plant underwent an emergency shutdown on September 1 2007, facility operators said. The system automatically switched off the reactor. The incident caused no radioactive leak, a statement from the Kozloduy power plant said. Experts investigated what caused the shutting down. It is unclear what repairs are needed and when the unit will be in operation again. Two other smaller units of the same type in the NNP were switched off on December 31 2006 due to safety concerns in the EU. The closure of the blocks was a preliminary condition for Bulgaria’s entry into the EU. Web www.sofiaecho.com © 2001-2007, Sofia Echo Media Ltd. Web development and design by Webfactory Bulgaria ***************************************************************** 22 PakTribune: Every country has right to peaceful use of N-energy, says PM Aziz Pakistan News Service - Sha'aban 22, 1428 Hijri September 05, 2007 Monday September 03, 2007 (2113 PST) ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that every country has the right to develop and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under the appropriate international safeguards and guidelines. "We believe there needs to be a level playing field for all countries to have access to civilian nuclear technology without prejudice or discrimination", the Prime Minister said while addressing the conference titled "Energy: Sources of Regional Cooperation" here at the Institute of Strategic Studies on Monday. The Prime Minister added that Pakistan with its high growth trajectory is determined to meet its energy requirements from all available resources including nuclear energy. In order to meet with the future energy challenges faced by the international community, he categorically stated that there is no option but to cooperate with each other. Competition between us will not only be counter productive but would be immensely destructive, he said adding that the fragile international political system, which is already faced with serious challenges, may well collapse as a result of conflicts over energy resources. "We must act now to save the world and especially our region from such a disastrous fate", the Prime Minister maintained, Over Iran`s nuclear programme, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said, it is also desirable to reduce tensions between Iran and the Western countries, as these threats will not only undermine regional peace and security but would also derail efforts to ensure energy security for the entire world. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz urged early solution to disputes like Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon. Ensuring security and stability in Afghanistan will be an essential requirement for the promotion of energy cooperation in our region, Aziz noted. The Prime Minister said that peace and stability in the war-ravaged Afghanistan was not only in the strategic interest of Pakistan but also for the entire region. On terrorism, Aziz said that there was a dire need to resolve the root causes of terrorism in order to find a lasting solution of this problem. We need to cooperate to promote greater security and stability in the region by effectively tackling the menace of terrorism on a holistic and durable basis, the Prime Minister pointed out. Commenting on Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, Shaukat Aziz said, the project is now at an advanced stage of negotiations and we are confident that this project will be launched in the near future. Similarly, we are exploring the possibilities of a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan, which could be extended onward to India, Aziz maintained. "Import of LNG from the Gulf countries is also a growing option for Pakistan as well as for countries in our region". "Pakistan is also engaged in negotiations for import of electricity through high voltage transmission links from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan through Afghanistan", he asserted. Aziz added, "The construction of electricity grids for this purpose has already commenced in Afghanistan". "We are already purchasing electricity from Iran for use in our border areas of Balochistan". "This can be extended to other parts of the country". In order to fulfill the energy requirement, he said, Pakistan has made our national energy Policy and we implementing on it. According to it, resources of energy are being promoted in the country. We are also exploring collaboration with our friends in the Gulf region to set up mega oil refineries along our coastline, which can be linked through pipelines to meet our energy requirements as well as those of China and South Asia, he told the Participants. At present, Shaukat Aziz said, Pakistan meets 75 Percent of its energy requirements from domestic resources including our indigenous gas, oil and hydro electricity production. However, in order to sustain our growth rate of over 7 percent over the next 25 years, we would need to greatly expand our energy resource base, the Prime Minister concluded. Web paktribune.com ***************************************************************** 23 Reuters: Small radiation leak at Japan nuclear power plant Tue Sep 4, 2007 7:56AM BST TOKYO (Reuters) - Water containing a small amount of radioactivity has leaked from a nuclear power generation unit in Japan, owner Kansai Electric Power said on Tuesday, in the latest in a long line of problems in the tarnished industry. Kansai Electric Power Co Inc, Japan's second-biggest utility, said 3.4 tonnes of water had leaked from the 1,175-megawatt No.1 generating unit at its Ohi power station, but none had made it to the environment and it would stop generating electricity from the affected unit by around 11 p.m. (3 p.m. BST) The problem at the Ohi plant, in Fukui prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast around 320 km (200 miles) west of Tokyo, follows years of scandals in Japan's nuclear industry involving cover-ups and fudged safety records that have tarnished public faith in the sector. Only this year, Kansai Electric restarted commercial operations at another nuclear power unit following Japan's worst-ever nuclear plant accident more than two years ago, in which five workers were killed after being sprayed with steam and hot water from a broken pipe. Kansai said it had discovered the problem at its Ohi plant on Monday evening and the leak was stopped that evening. It said it would begin inspection of the affected unit after manually shutting down the plant around 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday (4:30 p.m. BST on Tuesday). In July, there was a minor radiation leak at the world's biggest nuclear power station, Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, after a major earthquake. TEPCO, which services the Tokyo area, was forced to indefinitely shut down the plant, causing it to struggle to provide enough power to Tokyo during the sweltering, humid summer months when electricity consumption soars. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. | Learn more about Reuters ***************************************************************** 24 Reuters: Merkel rejects call for early nuclear shutdown Tue Sep 4, 2007 1:12PM EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected on Tuesday a call from one of her ministers that the country's utility firms shut down their seven oldest nuclear reactors by the end of 2009. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a Social Democrat (SPD), said in a newspaper interview over the weekend that such a move would reduce the overall risk from nuclear energy. "Just because a nuclear plant is older does not mean it is not safe," Merkel, a conservative Christian Democrat (CDU), told the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper in an interview. "All plants have the same security requirements based on the law regulating nuclear power." Merkel is a supporter of nuclear power, but she is bound by a seven-year-old deal to phase out nuclear energy in Germany by the early 2020s. Gabriel has seized on recent problems at Vattenfall's Brunsbuettel and Kruemmel sites, saying they highlight safety risks associated with nuclear power. The nuclear phase-out is one of the most divisive issues in Merkel's "grand coalition" of conservatives and SPD. © Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 25 UPI: Hindujas seeks re-entry into power sector United Press International - International Security - Published: Sept. 4, 2007 at 4:04 PM NEW DELHI, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- The Hinduja Group has sought re-entry into India's power sector through a letter addressed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the letter, group Chairman Gopichand Hinduja sought Singh's intervention on issues relating to the flow of foreign direct investment. He said speculators were acquiring coal mines and power projects through auctions and selling them at a premium to genuine investors. He said these problems were taking a toll on investors' confidence in the power sector. The Hinduja Group, which does not have a significant presence in India's power sector, bagged a contract to build India's first 1,040 megawatt fast-track power project in Vishakhapatnam in 1994. The project could not be implemented as issues relating to the acquisition of land could not be resolved, the Financial Express newspaper said Monday. The group has decided to revive its subsidiary Hinduja National Power Co. and appointed Subir Raha, former chairman of Oil and Natural Gas Corp., as new head of the company. He has also been appointed as executive vice chairman of the Hinduja Group (India). © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 26 UPI: GMR plans foray into nuke power United Press International - International Security - Energy - Published: Sept. 4, 2007 at 4:39 PM NEW DELHI, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- India's private major GMR Group plans to invest $2.5 billion to enter the nuclear power generation sector. "The nuclear power is one sector which we are keenly studying at the moment. We have already kept a team ready," said G.M. Rao, chairman of the group. India's government-controlled and private power generation companies are awaiting the operationalization of the Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal, which they say will open up new avenues for the private sector. "We would like to be the first to enter into the nuclear power generation sector as we have done in other sectors in the past," Rao said. India's Tata Group has also shown interest in entering the nuclear power generation sector. The government says it is committed to the deal with the United States despite opposition from its leftist allies. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Prague Daily Monitor: TemelĂ­n completes refuelling of first unit - By CTK / Published 3 September 2007 Temelin, Aug 31 (CTK) - The replacement of a quarter of fuel in the shut-down first unit of nuclear power plant Temelin was completed this morning, Marek Svitak, the spokesman of the Temelin plant, said Friday. The first unit will start to supply electricity to the grid again in October. The second unit is running without any limitations. The fuel replacement is being made due to problems with the original fuel assemblies which got deformed more than expected. The staff therefore placed 49 new fuel assemblies with enriched uranium in the reactor. Out of the total of 163 assemblies in the unit, 91 have now been replaced. The new fuel assemblies were supplied by US firm Westinghouse. CEZ has a contract with Westinghouse for fuel supplies until the year 2010, after which Russian company TVEL will be supplying the fuel. Early in 2007, technicians placed a quarter of upgraded cartridges in the first unit's reactor. In June, they replaced the same amount of fuel also in the second unit. Through the replacements, CEZ wants to stabilise the output of the reactors. One unit in Temelin has 163 fuel cartridges containing 92 tonnes of fuel in total. The plant uses uranium dioxide with an average 4.25 percent of enriched uranium. Technicians are also replacing part of the first unit's turbine rotor because of problems with turbine vibration. The power plant removed the problem last year but CEZ has decided to innovate part of the equipment. The technicians already made the same replacement in the plant's second unit this year. Temelin's capacity should grow by at least 26 megawatt to 1,020 megawatt after the rotor replacements which will cost around Kc700m. This story is from the Czech News Agency (CTK). The Prague Daily Monitor and Monitor CE are not responsible for its content. Copyright 2007 by the Czech News Agency (CTK). All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 UPI: 6 utilities vie for $9.5B nuke plant stake United Press International - NewsTrack - Business - Published: Sept. 4, 2007 at 10:31 AM BELENE, Bulgaria, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Six European utilities are vying to invest in a $9.5 billion nuclear power plant near the Danube River, a published report said Tuesday. Belgium's Electrabel SA, the Czech Republic's CEZ AS, France's Electricite de France, Germany's E.ON AG and RWE AG and Italy's Enel SpA have until Sept. 24 to present offers to buy a 49 percent interest in Bulgaria's Belene Power Co., which will run the Belene Nuclear Power Plant in northern Bulgaria, Italy's Corriere della Sera reported. The remaining 51 percent of the company will be owned by Bulgarian utility Natsionalna Elektricheska Kompania, the newspaper said. The plant -- near the Danube, Europe's second-longest river, which passes through several Central and Eastern European capitals before emptying into the Black Sea -- will be equipped with two water-pressurized reactors, each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. The plant is expected to cost $5.4 billion to build, with related infrastructure work adding $4.1 billion more, the newspaper said. Construction will be handled by Russian specialist Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of giant Russian nuclear holding company Atomenergoprom, Milano Finanza reported. The plant is expected to begin operating in 2013. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 29 NRC: NRC to Release Documents Regarding Nuclear Fuel Services and Bwx Technologies News Release - 2007-114 - 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 has directed the agency staff to make publicly available many documents relating to the agency’s oversight of Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) in Erwin, Tenn., and BWX Technologies (BWXT) in Lynchburg, Va., that were previously withheld for security reasons. The Commission, in a Staff Requirements Memorandum dated Aug. 31, overturned an August 2004 policy that considered most information regarding the two facilities as “official use only.” That policy was initiated in response to post-9/11 concerns that certain publicly available documents contained security-sensitive information. Under the Commission’s new directive, the staff will review and release key documents relating to NFS and BWXT dated Jan. 1, 2004, or later. Information determined to meet agency guidelines for “Sensitive Unclassified Non-Safeguards Information,” or SUNSI, will be redacted. Future documents relating to NFS and BWXT that contain SUNSI are to be redacted and released to the public. Approximately 1,900 documents relating to NFS and BWXT generated since Jan. 1, 2004, are not currently publicly available. The Commission directed the staff to review and release a subset of these documents that will give the public a record of the NRC’s oversight of these facilities. In addition to licensing actions and orders, the subset is to include inspection reports, licensee performance reviews, enforcement actions, event reports and other documents the staff determines to be relevant. Reviewing and redacting the existing documents covered by the Commission directive is expected to last until May 2008. Documents will be made available during that time as they are reviewed and approved. NRC staff has already identified 60 licensing actions and six orders relating to NFS, BWXT and other fuel cycle facilities that were withheld in accordance with the 2004 policy and 2005 guidance on SUNSI but can now be made public. Redacted versions of those documents will be made available in the coming weeks through the NRC’s ADAMS online documents system, and members of the public may have an opportunity to request hearings on some past licensing actions. On July 19, the NRC announced the release of a number of documents, including a confirmatory order issued earlier this year, regarding a March 2006 spill of high-enriched uranium at NFS. Notice of an opportunity to request a hearing on the order was published July 30 in the Federal Register. The agency received six requests for a hearing, which are now before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board for consideration. 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. September 04, 2007 ***************************************************************** 30 IAEA: INSAG Issues Latest Assessment on Nuclear Safety Global Experts to Explore Safety Issues on 17 September at IAEA General Conference Staff Report 3 September 2007 The site of the Olkiluoto nuclear power plant in the west coast of Finland, showing an artist mock-up of the new Unit 3 reactor (far left), which is now under construction and expected to go on line in 2010. (Photo Credit: TVO, Finland) The head of the International Nuclear Safety Group (INSAG) issued his latest annual global assessment last week. INSAG Chairman Richard Meserve submitted the report on the Group's behalf to IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei. Dr. Meserve, who is president of the Carnegie Institution and former head of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, will chair the INSAG Forum on key safety issues 17 September at the IAEA General Conference in Vienna. His 2007 annual assessment on the state of nuclear safety worldwide outlines seven issues meriting more attention in the context of global nuclear developments, safety requirements, and the IAEA's role. INSAG provides recommendations to the IAEA, international community, and the public on safety issues and developments. Mr. Meserve is interviewed in the upcoming edition of the IAEA Bulletin. The INSAG Forum in September will explore two topics -- feedback from operational experience at nuclear power plants, and the issue of the synergy between nuclear safety and security. The agenda includes presentations from safety officials in Sweden, France, and Pakistan. Experts from the IAEA Department of Nuclear Safety and Security will present overviews of selected safety services and address key connections between safety and security. INSAG includes high-level level officials from 15 countries and organizations. The group is composed of experts with high professional competence in the field of safety working in regulatory organizations, research and academic institutions and the nuclear industry. It is convened under the auspices of the IAEA with the objective to provide authoritative advice and guidance on nuclear safety approaches, policies and principles for nuclear installations. In particular, INSAG provides recommendations and opinions on current and emerging nuclear safety issues to the IAEA, the nuclear community and the public. See Story Resources for the Forum agenda. The Forum takes places at the Austria Center, Hall C, beginning at 15:00 hrs on Monday, 17 September. More information on INSAG is available on their web site. Copyright ©, International Atomic Energy Agency, P.O. Box 100, Wagramer Strasse 5, A-1400 Vienna, Austria Telephone (+431) 2600-0; Facsimilie (+431) 2600-7; E-mail: ***************************************************************** 31 Hemscott: Finnish nuclear reactor shut down after malfunction HELSINKI (Thomson Financial) - Finnish utility Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO) said it shut down the Olkiluoto 2 nuclear reactor at 5.00 am local time today due to a malfunction in the generator cooling system. TVO said the reactor would be reconnected to the national grid once the cause of the problem has been identified and corrective measures have been taken, but did not give a timetable. james.etheridge@thomson.com je/jlc COPYRIGHT Hemscott PLC - Serious Investment Research Copyright 2007 Hemscott Group Limited. ***************************************************************** 32 Japan Times: Residents want Niigata reactor construction permit nullified japantimes.co.jp Web Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007 NIIGATA (Kyodo) Niigata residents seeking nullification of the 1977 government decision that allowed Tokyo Electric Power Co. to build a nuclear reactor in the prefecture are set to argue that the construction permit was illegal, their lawyers said Monday. The Tokyo High Court in November 2005 upheld a district court decision rejecting the residents' lawsuit and ruled there was nothing wrong with the procedures leading up to the government's approval of the plan to construct the No. 1 reactor at Tepco's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, nor with the preceding safety review. The plaintiffs, who live near the plant straddling the city of Kashiwazaki and the village of Kariwa, plan to tell the Supreme Court that the shaking caused by the July 16 quake was stronger than anticipated and thus discredited the safety review, their lawyers said. They will argue that the active fault thought to be located beneath the plant had been underestimated and will seek a "rare" Supreme Court session to review — based on scientific knowledge gained from the recent quake — the standards for safety reviews and construction approval. The current regulations are about 30 years old. In 2005, the high court rejected an assertion by the plaintiffs that there is an active seismic fault near the facility, saying the safety review confirmed the crustal fractures in the area would not cause earthquakes that could lead to a major accident at the power plant. "The earthquake proved that (issuing) the construction permit for the nuclear reactor was a mistake," said Mitsuhiro Wada, one of the lawyers for the plaintiffs. "The public's interest concerning safety matters is high. The Supreme Court's decision is being called into question." The Japan Times ***************************************************************** 33 Japan Times: Nuclear plants rural Japan's economic fix japantimes.co.jp Web Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007 By ERIC JOHNSTON Staff writer Part I: Nuclear doubts spread in wake of Niigata Part III: All cost bets off if Big One hits nuke plant TSURUGA, Fukui Pref. — To understand why earthquake-prone Japan is unlikely to give up nuclear power anytime soon despite a series of accidents that have led to deep public distrust, a trip to Aquatom in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, provides some answers. A girl presses a button to light up the model of the Monju fast-breeder reactor at the Aquatom science museum in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. ERIC JOHNSTON PHOTO Aquatom, operated by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency, is a combination science museum, library, theme park and community center in a stylish, modern building in downtown Tsuruga. Fukui Prefecture hosts 15 nuclear power plants — the largest concentration in Japan — including the Monju plutonium fast-breeder reactor in Tsuruga. Inside Aquatom, visitors are greeted by blue-suited attendants and a glass-encased, cut-away model of the Monju plant, which has been shut since 1995 due to a sodium leak and fire, and a subsequent coverup attempt. Kids can press buttons marked with different parts of the plant's model and watch as that part of the plant lights up. Although nobody was injured in the accident, the Monju operator was lambasted as it tried to hide the extent of the damage by heavily editing the videotape of the leak site and falsifying reports on the attempted coverup. There is little information on the 1995 accident among the Aquatom displays. Hanging on the wall beside the Monju model are display panels that explain why Japan needs a plutonium reactor. As of 2006, the panels warn, the world had only enough oil for another 40 years, enough natural gas for another 65 years, enough coal for another 155 years, and only enough uranium for conventional nuclear plants to last another 85 years. "Japan is a poor country in natural resources, importing 99.8 percent of its oil, 96.6 percent of its natural gas, 98.4 percent of its coal and 100 percent of its uranium. Therefore, Monju, a plutonium burning reactor, is necessary because plutonium can be used for thousands of years," the panels say. Aquatom is quite popular, packed with parents reading the panels and their young children enjoying the carnival-like atmosphere and interactive exhibits that teach not only about nuclear power but also the natural environment, especially the ocean. The message Aquatom imparts is clear. Nuclear power is not only critical for Japan's energy needs, but is also an environmentally friendly energy source whose adoption will help stop global warming and save the planet. Aquatom is perhaps the most visible example of how the central government and the utilities secure local-level support for the continued operation of nuclear plants. But support for atomic towns takes many different forms, most of which are far less visible. Antinuclear activists have long noted that rural prefectures with nuclear plants, especially Fukui, that provide electricity to the Kanto and Kansai regions are little more than economic colonies of the central government. There is much truth to this charge because these local governments often rely heavily on annual subsidies to keep them from going bankrupt. While traditionally these subsidies have been used for "hard" public works projects, including roads, bridges, sewerage facilities and the like, the laws were revised in 2003 to include money for "soft" projects, such as tourism promotion and social welfare services for the elderly. The subsidies are allocated by the trade ministry and the education ministry. Subsidies budgeted for fiscal 2007 amounted to Ą124.4 billion for localities hosting nuclear and nonnuclear power plants. Of this, a little more than Ą50 billion was earmarked specifically for those localities hosting nuclear plants. The money goes to a variety of projects. For example, in fiscal 2005, the Ą1.8 billion allocated by the education ministry to Fukui Prefecture funded 89 public works projects. Some of this money paid a portion of the salaries of people who work at libraries, parks and hospitals in Tsuruga and elsewhere in the prefecture. Other beneficiaries included a tourism promotion project in the town of Mihama funded 100 percent by the subsidy. The Mihama area, known for its beach resorts, has three power plants. Such subsidies, be they in the form of cash for projects that towns have requested or central-government planned and run projects like Aquatom, are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of total financial support. The power utilities themselves pour untold sums into nuclear power towns in the form of donations, grants and sponsorship. How these funds are used is less clear, but they often go for projects that central government funding may not cover but local politicians and business leaders want, including a new movie theater or a local festival. In the past, when the utilities needed to secure local cooperation and good will to build a nuclear power plant, they sometimes offered free study trips for select residents to learn about nuclear power in England and France, with lots of time to go shopping in London and Paris. For those in the local service industry, the inspection period, when a power plant must be shut down for a few months for routine maintenance checks, is the most important and profitable time of year. During this time, hundreds of nuclear power officials from Tokyo and from the utilities and their subcontractors pour into towns like Tsuruga for weeks on end, filling local hotels and inns, spending money at restaurants, bars and on taxis, and perhaps even doing a bit of sightseeing. Some local residents who are farmers or fishermen during the rest of the year land jobs at the plants during the inspection period, earning good money for engaging in routine, nonspecialized tasks. Tsuruga residents have mixed feelings about hosting nuclear plants. The magnitude-6.8 earthquake in July in Niigata Prefecture has focused their attention on plans to build two new reactors by 2017. "A lot of people are opposed to the construction of these two new reactors. The Niigata quake has shaken up many people in the area, who now doubt the wisdom of building yet more nuclear power plants in their own backyard," said Miwako Ogiso, a Fukui Prefecture resident and leading antinuclear activist. "They also look at the postquake coverups and scandals related to (Niigata's) Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant and increasingly worry (about the threat of another strong) earthquake," Ogiso said. But at the same time, many in town feel there is little they can do about the existing nuclear plants, and in fact they have long relied on those plants. "Nuclear power is the economic lifeblood of Tsuruga, and hosting the plants has provided us with a far better lifestyle than we otherwise would have enjoyed," said Chisato Hagi, a mother of two elementary school children. "Yes, I worry about a severe earthquake damaging the plants and I don't believe that nuclear power is as safe as we're often told by the government," she said. "But I'm more worried about what would happen to our community if the plants were all shut down and dismantled." The Japan Times ***************************************************************** 34 Amarillo.com: Area residents too 'sensible and shrewd' to get nuclear plant Opinion: Letters: 09/03/07 I was surprised at Harper's misleading information. If wind energy is unreliable, why are for-profit companies building so many wind farms? Solar power wouldn't be economically viable without subsidies? All energy suppliers get subsidies. Comparing them would be helpful to our understanding. Nuclear power might benefit our area during the construction phase, but afterward it would take the water we need for a viable future. Waste and safety are still issues. Humans make mistakes, and there is a real possibility of terrorism. There is still no good long-term repository. A recent survey showed the French majority doesn't want nuclear power. I wonder what effect it will have on their future. As far as nuclear power being cheap, that depends on the amount of subsidies, of course. I agree that "Panhandle residents are sensible and shrewd enough to recognize a good opportunity and know if someone is trying to take advantage of them." So far, it looks like someone is trying to take advantage of us. Why would someone want to build nuclear plants here instead of where there's water and people need the energy? To receive huge government subsidies at our expense? The land and homes for miles around a nuclear power plant will lose much of their worth. Who wants to wait for that lottery to affect their lives? Jerry Stein Amarillo Copyright 2007 Amarillo Globe-News & Amarillo.com ***************************************************************** 35 Amarillo.com: Water scarcity puts kibosh on nuclear reactor idea Opinion: Letters: 09/03/07 (Re: Aug. 27 letter to the editor, "No reason for Panhandle to say no to nuclear reactor," by Andrew Harper.) In case Harper hasn't noticed, the Texas Panhandle isn't exactly drowning in water. There is little sign that Lake Meredith will ever return to the level it once was. The parks service is perpetually extending the boat ramps to catch up with the receding water. Our groundwater is also not an infinite resource. The Canadian River Municipal Water Authority cut off Lubbock's supply from Meredith last year and has even been considering cutting off Amarillo. Water is one thing nuclear plants need in great abundance to provide cooling to the nuclear reactor. There also needs to be a plentiful standby supply in the highly unlikely event of an emergency. I'm not questioning the safety of a nuclear plant or the benefits modern facilities provide. However, they use a lot of water we really don't have to spare. If Lake Meredith were overflowing the Sanford Dam, the story might be different. But until that happens, I'm saying an emphatic no to a nuclear reactor here. Jared Janhsen Amarillo Copyright 2007 Amarillo Globe-News & Amarillo.com ***************************************************************** 36 MCOT: IAEA team to visit Thailand Wednesday 5 September 2007 01:26:11 PM (GMT+7:00) BANGKOK, Sept 4 (TNA) – A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will visit Thailand later this month for consultations regarding the first nuclear power plant which is expected to be built in the country to relieve the kingdom's reliance on oil and gas energy, according to the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO) Deputy Director General Chavalit Pichalai. Mr. Chavalit said IAEA experts were scheduled to be in Bangkok September 24-28 to advise the preparatory committee on the feasibility of nuclear power chaired by Dr. Korb Krittayakeeron, a former National Science and Technology Development Agency official. The committee was drafting the preparatory plan which was expected to be completed in October and would submit to the National Energy Policy Office or NEPO for further consideration. Under the Power Development Plan (PDP), four 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plants would be built and start generating electricity around 2020-2021. During the next seven years, the government will develop safety standards, establish a regulatory framework and train the necessary personnel. Another six years would be needed after that to complete the plant's construction. Nuclear safety was considered the priority as well as the suitable location which should be near a river or the sea. The government has not decided on the location of the plant but Ranong, Chumphon and Surat Thani, all close to the sea in order to supply coolant water to the plant, have emerged as possible sites. Mr. Chavalit said the decision to include atomic energy in its long-term development plan was made because nuclear energy is recognised as efficient and cost-effective, and emits no carbon dioxide. Six sub-panels were set up to work on the feasibility study of the nuclear plant in six categories, including legal, monitoring, basic enterprise development and commercial related industry, technology and personnel development, safety and environmental protection and public relations and campaigns to win public approval. (TNA)-E003 Last Update : 2007-09-04 / 19:28:10 (GMT+7:00) MCOT Public Company Limited. All Rights Reserved.2004 Tel : 662-201-6000 webmaster@mcot.net Tel : 662-201-6145 Powered by Computer Department of MCOT ***************************************************************** 37 TheDay.com: Time To Consider Nuclear Home »Editorial »Editorial It makes no sense to rule out nuclear power in addressing state's energy needs. By The Day Published on 9/4/2007 The most important piece of energy legislation passed in the state in a decade — An Act Concerning Electricity and Energy Efficiency — goes on for 85 pages. Signed into law in June, it mentions nuclear power three times: once concerning the assessment of special fees; a second time to state nuclear is not to be considered a renewable energy source; and finally to exempt it from a policy that will make it easier to build power plants at existing energy facilities. In other words, the legislature and the governor saw no role for new nuclear power in addressing Connecticut's energy needs. The subject remains a political pariah. Politicians fear the mere mention of it will bring out the protesters. That mindset needs to change. How ironic that a state that led the development of nuclear technology now rejects it as a new power source. Electric Boat in Groton built the first nuclear-powered ship, the submarine USS Nautilus. Launched in 1954, it operated from the Naval Submarine Base. The Connecticut Yankee plant in Haddam Neck was a pioneer, too, beginning operation in 1968. But applications for new nuclear plants ground to a halt for decades following the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979. As the United States abandoned new nuclear construction, the rest of the world picked up the pace. In Connecticut the reputation of nuclear power was further damaged in the mid-1990s when mismanagement by Northeast Utilities and the harassment of workers who raised concerns led to an erosion of safety at the three nuclear plants at Millstone Power Station in Waterford. The plants were closed for more than a year until those safety concerns were addressed. Millstone 1 has been permanently shut down. The industry has learned from its mistakes. Now operated by Dominion, Millstone has become an industry leader. Nuclear plant operators have learned they cannot cut corners. During the first two weeks of August, when much of the country was sweltering from record temperatures, nuclear power plants operated at 98 percent of capacity, an impressive figure for any form of power generation. Because of their ability to run for long periods without interruptions, the nation's 104 nuclear reactors produce nearly 20 percent of the country's annual supply of electricity, even though they account for only 11 percent of America's total electricity generation capacity, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Connecticut and all of New England are now overly dependent on generation plants powered by natural gas, which is subject to periodic shortages and sharp price spikes. The other mainstays of electric generation are oil and coal. Both produce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, as does natural gas, though to a lesser extent. And the more electric power generated by oil, the greater the nation's dependency on foreign oil, with all its accompanying political and military imbroglios. Nuclear power plants do not release greenhouse gases and, once built, are not dependent on oil. Renewable power sources such as wind turbines, fuel cells, hydropower and solar panels must all play a role in meeting future energy needs — as does conservation — but none can come close to matching the power generating capacity of nuclear plants. Which is not to say nuclear power is a cure-all for our energy needs. These plants are expensive to build. How to deal with nuclear waste, which remains lethal for hundreds of generations, remains an unresolved issue. And the industry is always one serious accident away from a major setback. But it is foolish not to consider the nuclear power option. The new generation of plants is more dependent on gravity for supplying cooling. Gravity, unlike pumps, never fails. And safety systems have been refined. Other parts of the country are taking a serious look at new nuclear plants. Seventeen companies are now pursuing licenses for as many as 30 new plants in the South and West. Rob Simmons, the former congressman who is now the state's business advocate, said in a recent interview with The Day editorial board that among his greatest fears is Connecticut getting left behind. Mr. Simmons argues that if a new generation of plants opens in other parts of the country over the next decade, Connecticut will be at an even greater disadvantage in terms of electric costs than it is today. That could lead to the flight of major industries to other states, he said. It is a somber and serious warning. | © 1998-2007 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 38 GMANews.TV - Report: RP invites nuclear experts to inspect Bataan plant - Nation - Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs - 09/03/2007 | 11:57 AM The Philippines has invited nuclear experts from the United States to take a look at the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) and see if the 23-year-old facility can still be used. Radio station dzBB reported Monday that the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI) invited experts to come over and see if the BNPP can still be harnessed to produce electricity. Science and Technology Undersecretary Graciano Yumul Jr also said he has written the US-based International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) to see if nuclear plants can be set up elsewhere in the Philippines. The Philippines uses geothermal, coal, and hydroelectric power plants as its main sources of energy. The country completed construction of the BNPP in Morong, Bataan in 1984 during the reign of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was but never operated it due to safety concerns after a study found it contained thousands of defects. The 620-megawatt nuclear power plant, built at a cost of more than $2 billion at that time, was mired in controversy over huge cost overruns and alleged kickbacks to government officials. The country was only able to fully pay last April debt payments plus interest incurred for constructing the power plant. Also on June, government scientists said they were "seriously looking" into pushing policy makers to adopt nuclear power as an alternative source of energy. "We're seriously looking into it (having nuclear power plants) because the day will come when we’ll need other sources of energy," said PNRI director Alumanda Dela Rosa. Several sectors opposed the move, saying it may have negative effects on the environment, and will cause devastation in case of an accident. Lingayen-Dagupan archbishop Oscar Cruz last August rejected government plans to tap nuclear power, saying government does not even know how to deal with the garbage problem. "What will the government do in the event of terrorist attacks directed at the plant? Where will the government throw the nuclear waste?" Cruz asked. For her part, Dela Rosa cited a recommendation by the multi-agency nuclear power steering committee (NPSC) that "nuclear energy will remain as an option that the Philippine government may take in meeting the increasing energy demand in the future, unless other alternative energy systems would come within the framework of availability/sustainability, affordability, and environment compatibility of the energy supply." She added that in considering nuclear power, the focus would be on the development of required skilled personnel. The PNRI official added that nuclear power plants, along with hydroelectric facilities, emit no greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. "Globally, the use of nuclear power and hydroelectric as an alternative to fossil fuels over the past several decades has helped restrain carbon dioxide emissions," Dela Rosa said. - GMANews.TV All Rights Reserved. 2007 © GMA Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 39 SO: The World from Berlin: Nuclear Reaction to Reactor Proposal - SPIEGEL ONLINE - September 03, 2007 What to do about nuclear power? It is a question that has been dogging Germany for years. On Saturday, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel proposed shutting down the country's older reactors, setting off a heated debate in the editorial pages. Problems at the Krümmel reactor in July has kicked off a debate in Germany about what to do with the country's older nuclear power plants. It seems hardly a week goes by these days without Germany fretting about nuclear power -- especially its decision to shut down all nuclear power plants in the country by 2021. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel decided to get a head start on this week's version of the debate. In an interview with Süddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday, Gabriel proposed immediately shutting down the country's seven oldest reactors and allowing 10 newer ones to operate for longer than currently planned. By Gabriel's reasoning, safety would increase -- particularly given the (more...) at the Brünsbuttel and Krümmel reactors -- while the effect on the electricity supply would be minimal. "The risk of nuclear energy could thus be cut dramatically," Gabriel told the paper. "From an energy point of view, the amount of power we are talking about is meaningless." Still, even if Gabriel is right about his safety-versus-energy equation, such a proposal is bound to raise hackles in Germany. The decision to shut down the country's nuclear reactors was made under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, a Social Democrat like Gabriel. The conservatives were not amused, but current Chancellor Angela Merkel's government stuck with the decision. Her government's survival, after all, depends on the SPD. Recently, though, the conservatives have been trying to revisit the agreement and are insisting that, because nuclear reactors emit no CO2, it is the perfect green energy. Christian Democrat General Secretary Ronald Pofalla blasted Gabriel's proposal on Monday saying it "ignored current law." German commentators likewise joined the fray on Monday. The Financial Times Deutschland writes: "Sigmar Gabriel does not have it easy. Although the environment minister has been trying hard to make ecological policy his trademark, he is perpetually stuck in the role of assistant. His boss has reserved the coalition laurel wreaths for herself. Chancellor Angela Merkel has been presenting herself for weeks as a kind of eco-Thatcher and has felt no need to argue with her environment minister. After all, it's clear to everyone that his role is to lay the groundwork for her initiatives. If Gabriel is now starting a debate about nuclear power, then it is likely because it is the only which allows him to separate himself from the green chancellor. The fact that he will not actually achieve anything is probably clear to him. ... Gabriel's plan (to shut down old reactors sooner) would only have one chance -- namely if he convinced Merkel. But then it would also soon be called the 'Merkel plan.'" Left-leaning daily Die Tageszeitung on Monday looks at the two different types of reactors operating in Germany -- and points out that one technology is safer than the other. "The safety of an atomic power plant doesn't depend solely on its age.... The proposal by Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel to cut the risk of atomic energy by shutting down some reactors earlier than planned -- and shifting run times from older to newer reactors -- is a good one. If the environment minister doesn't just consider the ages of reactors but also adds technological considerations as a criterion, then his proposal will be superb." The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "Sigmar Gabriel has touched the nuclear lobby's sore spot -- the safety of its older plants. The nuclear power plant operators have invested hundreds of millions of euros in increasing safety standards ... But all they have achieved is a lower possibility of a serious accident. The high-risk nuclear technology can never be completely safe." "In reality only the newest German reactors should be described as world class. The older models make the companies seem like used car salesmen, who try to present a car as in mint condition because all its parts have been rebuilt apart from the body and engine -- even though its speedometer reads 250,000 kilometers. From the point of view of the companies, this is rational behavior. The oldest nuclear plants are the ones making the most profit, they are written off but still produce cheap electricity that can be sold dear." Conservative paper Die Welt elects to avoid the issue altogether and slam Gabriel for his own personal contributions to global warming -- a phenomenon the paper is fond of questioning. "Gabriel's position on the issue of atomic energy begs the question: How seriously is Gabriel driven by concern for the climate relative to a personal desire to enhance his own profile? Especially when his behavior raises a number of doubts." "The environment minister, of all people, lets himself be chauffeured around alone in his official jet more frequently than any other cabinet minister -- he even gets picked up occasionally from his house in Hanover -- and consistently avoids ... the available alternative of rail transport." "By doing so, Sigmar Gabriel takes another step closer to his great role model, Al Gore. The former US vice president and modern-day climate guru also numbers among the greatest "climate killers" of the US -- both at home and abroad -- as a result of his own personal, catastrophic energy balance." -- Charles Hawley, 1:30 p.m. CET © SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007 ***************************************************************** 40 AU ABC: Australia's nuclear reactor remains closed Radio Australia - News - Australia's nuclear reactor remains closed Last Updated 03/09/2007, 20:19:06 The new Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, south-west of Sydney, is to stay closed while work continues on solving a problem with uranium fuel assemblies. The OPAL research reactor was to supply neutrons for research, industry, and for nuclear medicine. It was shut-down two months ago when some of the plates of uranium fuel came loose from the structures designed to hold them in the reactor core. The $AUD400 million reactor was officially opened by the prime minister in July. HomeContact UsLegalsNews Sources© ABC 2007 ***************************************************************** 41 Reuters: S.Africa's Eskom looks to nuclear plants Tue 4 Sep 2007, 14:59 GMT By James Macharia JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's largely coal-driven power utility Eskom has hit the limits of its capacity and aims to double output by 2025, with nuclear plants supplying more than a quarter of future energy compared with 6 percent now. Eskom's Chief Executive Jacob Maroga told a coal conference on Tuesday the state-owned firm would cut back on polluting coal-fired plants that have made South Africa the world's lowest cost electricity producer. "The issues we're faced with are costs and lead time, but the debate around global warming is key, because coal is a big contributor to carbon dioxide emissions," Maroga told the Coaltrans conference. "We can now finally say we have run out of surplus capacity." Maroga said plans to boost output to 80,000 megawatts (MW) by 2025 would include adding 20,000 MW of nuclear-supplied energy as well as extra renewable capacity. The proportion of output from coal would fall below 70 percent by 2025 from 86 percent currently. "All over the world nuclear is coming back," he said. "Going forward the electricity prices we have will not be sustainable." The two reactors at South Africa's Koeberg, Africa's only nuclear-fired facility, generate some 6 percent of the country's electricity, mainly used around Cape Town. Maroga said South Africa, one of the biggest producers of uranium, was building a multi-billion dollar new technology pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR), and has mooted building more conventional plants to add to Koeberg. Eskom was currently planning to expand yearly by 4 percent, to keep up with a projected 6 percent growth in the gross domestic product of Africa's biggest economy. The company has already outlined a 150 billion rand spending programme from 2007 to 2011, with more to follow. © Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. | Learn more about Reuters ***************************************************************** 42 The Australian: Our nuclear energy stance is hypocritical - ALP minister NEWS.com.au Network Rick Wallace and Sean Parnell | September 05, 2007 LABOR'S stance on nuclear energy - to export uranium but not allow nuclear power stations in Australia - is hypocritical, according to one of the party's state ministers. Victorian Environment Minister Gavin Jennings conceded at a climate change round table in Brisbane last week that there was "a degree of hypocrisy" about the ALP's position. He made the comments during a discussion with a panel including federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane in which he said "we don't think any price would make it (nuclear power) worthwhile". "Having had that gratuitous cheap shot, Ian, may I actually say to you ... there is a degree of hypocrisy about the party that I belong to which is quite happy to export uranium but actually not have it to be used in the nuclear power industry domestically." But Mr Jennings warned that the Liberal Party faced a widespread community backlash if it continued pursuing nuclear power in Australia. "There is definitely a NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) phenomenon in relation to nuclear power, which is going to bedevil your party, bedevil the political landscape," he said. Mr Jennings was among several Labor figures, including federal frontbenchers Anthony Albanese, Peter Garrett and Stephen Conroy, who opposed Labor's move to expand uranium mining and exports at the national conference in April. Despite their opposition, Kevin Rudd and South Australian Premier Mike Rann's push to dump the previous "three mines" policy was endorsed by a slender majority at the conference. A spokeswoman for Mr Jennings said yesterday the Victorian Government and the state were clearly opposed to nuclear power. "The federal Labor Party's position on nuclear power is equally clear. That is, that it's not Australia's solution to climate change," she said. "Each country, however, needs to determine what is the most appropriate energy source for their nation, but nuclear power is not right for Australia." Mr Macfarlane said Labor's stance was unworkable. "Labor continues to peddle it's ridiculous 'yes but no' policies. 'Yes' to expanding uranium mining but 'no' if the states don't agree. 'Yes' to exporting uranium to help other countries lower their emissions but 'no' to using that same uranium to lower emissions here in Australia," he said. "The irony is that it's Labor's own policies that will make nuclear energy economical. "They've committed to a massive 60 per cent emissions reduction but have no idea how to achieve it or what impact it will have on jobs and the economy." Copyright 2007 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT +10). ***************************************************************** 43 INQUIRER.net: DoE advised: Beware of the nuclear option - Philippine News for Filipinos Last updated 00:38am (Mla time) 09/03/2007 MANILA, Philippines - A few days ago, Gen. Angelo Reyes, newly appointed energy secretary, made an announcement: He was open to the nuclear option. With the looming shortage in energy supply, his office would study the possibility of using nuclear power. This innovative approach was immediately confirmed by President Macapagal- Arroyo. Thus the Arroyo administration right away reversed a long-standing state policy adopted by the government of President Corazon Aquino, sustained and respected by the Ramos and Estrada administrations. It will be recalled that, following Edsa I and preponderant public opinion, Aquino mothballed the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. As Philippine Permanent Representative to the United Nations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, from 1986 to 1992, I received congratulations from foreign ambassadors and delegations on that decision of the Aquino administration. Nuclear power is not cheap; it is not clean either. It is the most dangerous form of energy ever harnessed by man. Nuclear wastes are radioactive or toxic for generations. The primordial concern of the international community, therefore, is: Where do nuclear nations safely store their nuclear wastes—deep in the bowels of the earth, inside rocky mountains, beneath the ocean floor, or in containers perpetually orbiting in the atmosphere? Unless and until the Arroyo administration has developed a formula for foolproof storage of nuclear wastes, we sincerely urge it not to embark on a monumental folly. After all, the Philippines has other sources of energy—renewable and clean, like solar, hydro, wind, waves. And we understand that there is, at present, sufficient energy for the country. The independent power suppliers during the term of President Fidel Ramos initiated the program. Of course, it is the systems of power lines which are grossly inefficient, inadequate or antiquated. It is time that the Arroyo administration addressed this anomaly. —NELSON D. LAVIŃA, ambassador (ret.), via e-mail Copyright 2007 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not ***************************************************************** 44 SMN: Bulgaria: Russia's Major Missile Developer Paves Its Way to Bulgaria's Second Nuke 3 September 2007, Monday This is how Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant in Belene should look once it has been built. Photo by Parsons E&C Bulgaria Almaz-Antei, Russia's main producer of air-defence rockets, may join the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant at Belene after signing an accord with Atomstroyexport. Russia's Atomstroyexport was picked by Bulgaria to build two 1000 MW nuclear reactors at Belene on the Danube coast, with the total cost of the project estimated at close to EUR 2 B. The agreement between the two Russian companies, inked on August 29, provides for cooperation on the energy market in constructing generating facilities, including nuclear power plants, according to a statement of Atomstroyexport. Under the agreement the two Russian companies "will join their strong sides in implementing investment projects in the energy field in order to secure the development of generating facilities for successful companies in the military-industrial complex", the statement says. Atomstroyexport said it is interested in using Almaz-Antei, one of the world's biggest military concerns, in its nuclear power plants projects in Russia and abroad. Meanwhile the Bulgarian News Agency announced that a total of 300 workers and experts are preparing what will turn into Belene nuke site. The site has been visited by representatives of the companies shortlisted in the tender to pick a strategic investor for 49% in Belene nuclear power plant. A month ago Bulgaria's power grid operator NEK shortlisted Czech CEZ, German E.ON and RWE, Belgian Electrabel, Electricite de France and Italy's Enel. Atomstroyexport has promised to put into operations the first unit in six years after the start of construction works. The second unit launch is scheduled for a year later. The Belene plant will use two third-generation water-cooled VVER-1000 reactors. novinite.com Forum Google Tourism Business MobileBulgaria All Rights Reserved © Novinite Ltd., 2001-2007 - Copyright & Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria ***************************************************************** 45 Cat Crap Detector - Now Just $1.2 Billion!! Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2007 17:23:31 -0500 (CDT) http://www.slate.com/id/2120491/fr/rss/ explainer: Answers to your questions about the news. Is Cat Litter Really Radioactive? And how do we detect nuclear materials at the border? By Daniel Engber Wednesday, June 8, 2005 Last Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the nation's busiest seaports will have enough radiation detectors to screen every cargo container that comes through. But congressional critics say expensive "Radiation Portal Monitors" can't tell the difference between highly enriched uranium and cat litter. Is cat litter really radioactive? Yes, the clay in cat litter does give off radiation in very small quantities. There is naturally occurring radiation all around us; the radiation in cat litter comes from trace amounts of uranium, thorium, and potassium-40. Many other consumer products are also radioactive. Among these are some ceramic tiles (which can contain uranium), glossy magazines (which are sometimes coated with material that's high in uranium and thorium), and Brazil nuts (which have a fair amount of radium). The quantity of radiation in cat litterand all of the other consumer products listed aboveis small enough that it poses no risk for either humans or their pets. So, why can't screening devices distinguish between common sources of radiation and the material used to make a nuclear bomb? For one, the most common ingredients in bombs, uranium-235 and plutonium-239, don't give off very much radiation at all. To suss out these materials, a detector must be set to a very high sensitivity. If the sensitivity of the screening device is high enough, then naturally occurring radioactive materials can set off a false alarm. (A small percentage of the uranium found in nature, for example, happens to be in the form of the U-235 isotope.) A radioactive material gives off alpha, beta, and gamma emissions. Gamma rays are both the easiest to detect and the most dangerous, since they can travel through most materials. (Alpha emissions can't get through the surface of our skin or even a piece of paper.) The Radiation Portal Monitors the government uses work by converting invisible gamma rays into visible light using a heavy crystal cylinder. If the detector records enough photons, a cargo container will be flagged as radioactive. Compared with a Geiger counter, this technique is very efficient: Radiation can be detected at long distances and at relatively high speeds. Though these drive-through detectors are good for quick scans at busy seaports and border crossings, they don't convey much specific information. Other types of detectors, like those that use a semiconducting material, are slower but provide more data about the gamma rays they pick up. A high-resolution spectrograph of an emission can tell you something about where it came fromlike whether you're looking at a bomb or a Brazil nut. Screeners can use X-rays to evaluate radioactive containers more carefully. (Of course, this extra step costs time and money.) Fissile materials tend to be very dense, heavy elementsthe kind that would show up in an X-ray scan. Lead radiation shields around concealed radioactive material would pop out on an A new generation of radiation monitors that's now being tested uses gamma-ray detection along with something called "muon imaging," which uses naturally occurring, highly charged particles to examine cargo containers. If the technology works, muons would be faster and easier to use than X-rays. Next question? Explainer thanks C-K Chris Wang of the Georgia Institute of Technology, and several Slate readers for asking the question. +++++ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/15/AR2007081502222.html Review of Radiation Detectors Questioned By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 16, 2007; Page D03 Tension continues to grow between Congress and the Department of Homeland Security over a $1.2 billion contract for new radiation monitors to screen trucks, cars and cargo containers for signs of nuclear weapons. The Government Accountability Office has questioned the department's testing of the detection equipment, spurring Congress to delay funding last year pending further review and certification of the department's test results this fall. In a sharply worded letter to the undersecretary for management, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce took issue with a plan announced by the department two weeks ago to have an outside review of the project and test results by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) and another lawmaker said in the Aug. 10 letter that it appeared as though the Homeland Security Department were trying to do "an 'end run' with hastily planned and initiated 'independent review,' " instead of allowing the GAO to finish a study that is expected to be critical of the department's initiative. The GAO's report is to be delivered to Congress this month. "On its face, it would appear such efforts are nothing other than an attempt to lessen the impact of potentially bad news from the GAO report," said the letter signed by Dingell and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Yesterday, other lawmakers in the Senate and House also sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that raised questions about the department's plans for the outside review. That letter urged the department to cooperate with the GAO study, saying that "an independent evaluation by GAO will best serve the oversight responsibilities of Congress and ensure public confidence in your ultimate decision." In a statement, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the project "involves some highly technical issues. Getting a second opinion from a panel of experts can only be helpful. "We also need GAO to do what it does best: ask the tough questions and provide Congress with the facts," he said. "That is the best way to ensure that this critical program succeeds." The letters are the latest salvos in an ongoing dispute over the department's handling of the radiation detection project, an effort that has been described as one of the nation's top security priorities. Three contractors were named as vendors in the $1.2 billion award announced by Chertoff and Vayl Oxford, director of the department's Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, last summer. Since then, GAO auditors have repeatedly questioned the department's procedures for testing the detection machines that would replace the monitors in use at ports, border crossings and elsewhere. The current monitors can be effective at detecting radioactive materials, experts said, but they have difficulty distinguishing between potential threats and benign sources of radiation such as cat litter. In one report, GAO auditors found that the department relied on optimistic assumptions instead of its own test results in a cost-benefit report to Congress about the effectiveness of the new radiation monitors. In return, Homeland Security officials have questioned the ability of the GAO to understand the scientific intricacies involved in evaluating the new assessment technology, known as Advanced Spectroscopic Portal radiation monitors. "There is ample reason to be concerned that the GAO lacks the critical experience and expertise necessary for a project of this magnitude," William R. Knocke, spokesman for DHS, said in an e-mail. "We want to involve the very best experts in the field . . . That is why the department has asked the Defense Threat Reduction Agency for an independent review of the Advanced Spectroscopic Portal system." +++++ http://blog.washingtonpost.com/government-inc/2007/08/nukes_monitors_and_questions_c_1.html Govt Inc By Robt O. Harrow, Jr Nukes, Monitors and Questions Continued The dispute over the Department of Homeland Security's effort to buy a new kind of radiation detection machine continues to unfold. Though it may seem arcane, a lot more is at stake than the $1.2 billion in contracts, which have been stalled by questions from the Government Accountability Office about the effectiveness of the machines and the department's efforts to test and deploy them. Homeland security officials have repeatedly said that stopping a nuclear attack is a top priority, and that the machines known as radiation portal monitors are crucial to that effort. Last week, the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce criticized plans by the Department of Homeland Security to have an outside review of department efforts to test and deploy the new, more expensive radiation detectors. Chairman John D. Dingell and another lawmaker said in the Aug. 10 letter that it appeared as though the homeland security department was trying to do "an 'end run' with hastily planned and initiated 'independent review'" -- instead of allowing the GAO to follow through on its own review of the department's testing process. The department has issued a tart response defending its efforts. In a letter to Dingell, Under Secretary for Management Paul A. Schneider said the independent review announced several weeks ago is not intended to conflict with the GAO efforts. Schneider said "there appears to be several areas of misunderstanding related to this effort," including apparently the impression by some lawmakers that the department's effort is a biased ruse intended to generate a positive report. "I do not pre-judge the viability of the program until I know the facts," Schneider wrote in the Aug. 20 letter. The letter included an attachment with answers to specific questions about the program posed by Dingell last week. Dingell's response: "I'm glad DHS recognizes that the GAO is well qualified to assess whether the newer radiation portal monitors DNDO is developing and testing will be effective in screening for radioactive materials and dirty bombs. This change in attitude by DHS is a constructive first step towards getting an objective assessment of the advanced spectroscopic portals before DHS commits up to $1.2 billion on new machines. The Committee will be holding hearings once the GAO's review is complete." It has been more than a year since homeland security officials announced the contracts, more than five years since the country began pushing for a radiation detection network at border crossings, ports and suchlike. The government has spent many millions of dollars on a first generation of machines that don't work as well as officials want (in part because they have a tough time distinguishing between threatening radiation and more benign sources, such as cat litter). One question now is: When will the country have a set of machines in place to screen for weapons many of us fear most? By Robert O'Harrow | August 23, 2007; 5:28 AM ET | Category: homeland security Previous: Critic: SBA Report Cards Need To Improve | Next: What Is The Meaning Of Competition? Comments Please email us to report offensive comments. Disband Home land Security NOW ! Posted by: mgilfoy | August 23, 2007 02:40 PM If these radiation portal monitors are expected to detect nuclear weapon materials inside shipping containers, it's no wonder efforts to develop them are prolonged. It's a technically difficult, if not impossible, problem. Radiation emissions of contraband materials must be detected above a continuous natural radiation background. Weapons materials emit only weak gamma rays and minimal amounts of other kinds of radiation, and in a large container there is ample room and weight capacity for effective shielding that can reduce the radiation emissions by large factors. Active interrogation methods (beaming neutrons or possibly other particles into the container) can be more effective but are subject to the same shielding effects, and also by the response of certain common non-weapons materials. Non-gamma-ray emitting dirty bomb materials pose just as difficult a problem. Given hours to inspect a container, detection would be less of a problem. However, with the staggering number of containers to be processed daily, only minutes are available. Posted by: Bill Mosby | August 25, 2007 07:30 AM What a great day to find out about the oupouring of endless monies! Today I am moving out of my home I have owned for 12 years with my daughter. She is 12. Being a homeowner and a loan officer was a blessing in disquise. It allowed me to be here for her, care for her, yet still work out of my home. I am not eligible for any benefits from the state of Minnesota because I don't "have a job" I am cashless and friends have helped with food in the past year. The days are over, where I have been an independant buisiness woman. My daughter loosing her school, friends and uprooting her sence of normalcy. Nice to see the government is throwing all that money into a MAYBE when people are loosing their homes and having to move in with friends, still jobless. The figures ARE NOT REAL! I am out there, employment is very SLIM. Hats off to the radiation detectors. Nice. Posted by: Lost in the economy, MN | August 29, 2007 09:57 AM I see no reason to worry. Big Brother may get a black eye for trying to dictate to Freedom loving people. Oh heck.. I dare any one to tell a vet to disarm! Posted by: Robyn Cavalera | August 29, 2007 02:02 PM To Lost in the economy. For the last two hundred years the original and only enduring job of the federal government has been to provide for the national defence, the security of the nation and the rule of law. I don't remember where it says in the constitution that the federal government is obligated to prop up the underperforming or whining segments of the economy even though it has done it many times Posted by: victim of life | August 29, 2007 02:38 PM Post a Comment We encourage users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features. +++++ http://www.nypost.com/seven/08292007/news/regionalnews/dirty_work.htm 'DIRTY' WORK COPS' NEW GIZMO SEES NUKE THREATS By PHILIP MESSING and CHUCK BENNETT August 29, 2007 -- Here's a close-up look at one of the city's top defenses against radioactive "dirty" bombs. This super-high-tech sensor can quickly detect and analyze nearly any source of radiation, from medical waste to weapons-grade uranium. The system is called "IREM" for Interdiction of Radiation Emitting Material. The device is one of "various types of equipment used to detect radiological signatures," said NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne. "Obviously, that is what we are most concerned about: radiological material used as a weapon." The truck-mounted IREM, seen here at Canal and Wooster streets in Manhattan, is a key tool in Operation Rolling Vigilance, part of the NYPD's counterterrorism effort. The device, which resembles two giant magnets, can be placed in a stationary position or mounted on vehicles and moved to various locations around the city. It is designed to help anti-terror teams stop and inspect trucks for possible radioactive materials. Once a scan is made, a monitor in the cab of the truck or another location gives a reading that identifies one of four kinds of radioactive sources: medical, industrial, natural or "special," which could indicate weapons-grade material. Some natural radiological sources, including bananas and cat litter, have been known to fool radiation detectors. The unit also includes strategically placed surveillance cameras to capture images of every vehicle scanned. There have been four IREM devices operating in the city since the Republican National Convention in 2004, police said. The IREMs can also be deployed near or on bridges to scan marine traffic. Each device costs $250,000, police said, and can be operated by a small crew. They are manufactured with technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, the nation's premier nuclear-research lab and birthplace of the atomic bomb. Thousands of patrolmen also carry smaller, less sensitive radiation-detection devices that can be clipped to their belts. They cost about $12,000 each. Most recently, the IREMs came out in force on Aug. 10 after news reports of a possible dirty-bomb attack in Manhattan. Thousands of officers searched vehicles coming through bridges and tunnels while manning checkpoints throughout downtown. That alarm turned out to be false and security returned to normal the following day. But intelligence experts warn that terrorists are keen on getting their hands on a radiological or nuclear device for an attack on New York City. philip.messing@nypost.com RADIO-ACTIVE: Police use the IREM system to look for "dirty" weapons yesterday. +++++ http://kstp.com/article/stories/S175201.shtml?cat=89 08/23/2007 08:03:38 PM By JIM ABRAMS US Tasked to Scan Millions of Containers (AP) WASHINGTON - The specter of a nuclear bomb, hidden in a cargo container, detonating in an American port has prompted Congress to require 100 percent screening of U.S.-bound ships at their more than 600 foreign starting points. The White House and shippers maintain that the technology for scanning 11 million containers each year doesnt exist, and say the requirement could disrupt trade. Current procedures including manifest inspections at foreign ports and radiation monitoring in U.S. ports are working well, they contend. Nonetheless, President Bush earlier this month signed the measure into law, praising its shift of funds to states and cities at higher risk of terrorism attack and saying he will work with lawmakers to ensure the cargo screening provisions dont impede commerce. Scanning containers at their point of origin in other countries is a highlight of that law, intended to fulfill recommendations of the 9/11 Commission for safeguarding the United States from terrorist attack. It sets a five-year deadline for having the system in place but _ recognizing the technology might not be ready _ gives the Homeland Security secretary the authority to extend that deadline by two-year increments. "If a terrorist manages to conceal a weapon of mass destruction in a shipping container, it must be discovered long before that container reaches our shore," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in support of the measure. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., a chief proponent, said the costs and complexity involved in the new system pale beside the devastating effect of a nuclear attack launched from a big city port. "The truth is, we cannot afford not to do it." The White House issued a statement strongly opposing the scanning requirement, saying it was "neither executable nor feasible." Opponents warned that it could cause huge backlogs at the nations seaports, which handle some 95 percent of goods coming into the country. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says "it would be wonderful" if all containers were inspected before they left foreign ports. "But its got to be done in a way that reflects reality and also reflects the fact that were not the only players in this pool." Industry groups that lobbied against the 100 percent screening asked whether Congress intends to cut off trade with small-volume ports that cant install the needed technology. They also warn of foreign governments retaliating by requiring U.S. ports to set up the same inspection regimen. "You have to have the permission of all these foreign points," said James Carafano, a defense expert at the Heritage Foundation. "There are a lot of people around the world who are going to be really teed off about this." The Bush administration argues that its current risk-based, layered approach to port security is a success. That approach has several main components: _Under the Container Security Initiative, teams from Customs and Border Protection now review manifests at some 50 ports covering more than 80 percent of the container cargo shipped to the United States. Containers identified as high risk are subjected to is nothing more than a paperwork check that relies on descriptions of content supplied by shippers. Less than 5 percent of containers get scanned, and only a fraction of those are opened up and inspected. _Homeland Security, together with Customs and Border Protection, has set a goal of screening, by the end of 2007, close to 100 percent of all containers entering the country by sea for radiological and nuclear material, using what are called Radiation Portal Monitors. _Under a pilot program called the Secure Freight Initiative, created in a port security bill passed last year, Homeland Security is testing high-volume scanning at six ports in Pakistan, Honduras, Britain, Oman, Singapore and South Korea. The program should give some indication of the practicality of the 9/11 Act provision, which requires containers to undergo both a radiation check and a scan with nonintrusive imaging such as X-rays that might locate highly enriched uranium or other materials that dont emit a lot of radiation. Homeland Securitys Domestic Nuclear Detection Office also plans to award up to $1.2 billion over the next five years to develop and acquire a next generation radiation monitor for land and sea cargo known as Advanced Spectroscopic Portals. Lawmakers have questioned whether the new technology offers much improvement over current monitors that are prone to false alarms set off by naturally occurring radioactive material in medical isotopes, ceramics or kitty litter. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairmen of the Senate and House Homeland Security committees, said preliminary tests indicate the effectiveness of the new advanced monitors "may fall well short of levels anticipated." Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., a critic of the new provision, noted that those unhappy with current technology are among the same people calling for 100 percent scanning. "You cant have it both ways," he said, adding that "the technology is not there at this point." Democrats, in successfully arguing for the scanning provision, said that if the United States could put a man on the moon within the same decade that John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to that goal, it can certainly come up with effective nuclear warning technology in five years. Markey also disputed the contention that the new system would be too expensive, citing estimates that the cost of 100 percent scanning, including the application of tamper-proof seals, would be about $100 per container. He said thats insignificant compared with the average $66,000 value of goods shipped in each container and estimates that the cost of a disruption of U.S. port operations from a successful terrorist attack could reach $58 billion. The Congressional Budget Office quoted a figure of $1.5 billion over three years to acquire and set up the scanning and detection equipment. The United States could provide financial aid to smaller countries, but the CBO said it expected most of the costs to be borne by foreign ports in order to maintain trade with the United States. Among opponents of the new law is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Jason Conley, its senior manager for homeland security, said there is no really good cost estimate, but predicted that the amount of money needed to implement and operate the system, deal with false alarms and handle delays and disruptions will be very high. He said foreign governments and ports would probably pass along the costs to shippers and consumers. But cost is not the main reason that 100 percent scanning provision is opposed by major cargo shippers and Americas key trading partners, according to the World Shipping Council. It said the new law doesnt adequately address who will buy and maintain the equipment, who will do the scanning, how the data will be analyzed, how radiation-linked health issues will be handled and what might happen when foreign governments demand that U.S. ports install similar equipment. Markey said the technology exists, the warnings of trade disruptions are overblown and the bottom line remains the same: If a nuclear bomb reaches a U.S. port or city, its already too late. (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press //////\\\\\\ "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -- John Kenneth Galbraith ____________________________________________________________________________________ Park yourself in front of a world of choices in alternative vehicles. Visit the Yahoo! Auto Green Center. http://autos.yahoo.com/green_center/ ***************************************************************** 46 BBC NEWS: Guilty plea for SA nuclear case Last Updated: Tuesday, 4 September 2007, 14:51 GMT 15:51 UK Wisser made a plea deal with prosecutors A South African court has given a suspended sentence to a German who pleaded guilty to involvement in a global nuclear smuggling ring. Gerhard Wisser - a long-term resident of South Africa - was accused of making parts which could have helped Libya make a nuclear weapon. He was convicted of seven charges in a deal with prosecutors. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 47 SF Chron: UC Berkeley team to study nuclear detection for homeland security Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, September 4, 2007 What do a terrorist nuke and kitty litter have in common? They can look the same to a radiation-detector. So can a bunch of bananas. All of them give off gamma rays and thereby highlight a critical problem in efforts to protect the nation from smuggled nuclear materials: How can screeners find the bad stuff without slowing the inspection of imported goods to an economy-crippling crawl? A five-member team of UC Berkeley researchers has just begun to tackle the dilemma. It's a key part of a new Academic Research Initiative sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Homeland Security to tap the brainpower of the nation's best university scientists. The Berkeley team's $1.4 million grant - awarded after a tough national competition and potentially renewable for a total of $7.1 million over five years - is designed to develop nuclear-detection technology, improve risk assessment and help train a new generation of experts for a world that must cope with the rapidly expanding dangers of nuclear-materials proliferation. "We have a history in Berkeley of working in nuclear technology that goes back to the Manhattan Project," said team leader Edward Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering. "My way of looking at it is, it is really like the next Manhattan Project." Although radiation detectors have begun to operate at the nation's ports, their thoroughness, accuracy and speed remain in question. And many common sources of radiation can trigger false positives that require considerable expertise to sort out, Morse said. "They're not going to set things up so that they have a bunch of professors sitting around with monitors looking at every container for 12 hours," Morse said of the nation's evolving import-inspection system. "Talk about disrupting the economy - it would stop the economy." Funding for the new Academic Research Initiative comes from the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, a 2-year-old addition to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The National Science Foundation handled the screening and selection of researchers in the crowded field of 133 applications from universities across the nation. Only two large awards, of $1.4 million each, were given for the first year. One went to Cal and the other to Texas A&M University, which will look at broad detector concepts and radiation-signal analysis, in addition to training future researchers in the field. About $5 million in additional funding is being divided into smaller awards for 20 other projects around the country. The Berkeley project, which began Saturday, was selected for its potential scientific advancement in nuclear detection and for "the integration of both graduate and undergraduate students into the research plan," said Bruce Hamilton, a program director at the National Science Foundation. Developing more nuclear scientists is a key goal in a nation that has seen a sharp decline in nuclear engineering departments at American universities in the past generation, said Nick Prins, a deputy assistant director at Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. "You need to train the next generation," he said. "There is a shortage." The only nuclear engineering department left in California is UC Berkeley's, after programs closed at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, said the chairwoman of Berkeley's department, professor Jasmina Vujic. An important strength of the Berkeley project is its multidisciplinary approach, Morse said. The five-member team includes not only Morse and two other nuclear scientists, Eric Norman and Brian Wirth, but also physics professor James Siegrist, who heads the physics division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Dorit Hochbaum, a professor of industrial engineering and operations research, who will work on assessment systems for the large and sometimes contradictory inspection data. The team will collaborate with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national labs, which conduct related research. The work supported by the Academic Research Initiative is designed to be longer term than the work now being done at national labs and elsewhere, which focuses on the next generation of detection technology, said Andrea Hoshmand, a program analyst at the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office. The academic program will focus on the generations beyond the next one, said Hoshmand. "We're looking at a pretty long pipeline. But you never want that pipeline to run dry." The Berkeley grant is the largest in a welcome boost in grants this year for the nuclear engineering department, Vujic said. The increased funding reflects a change of fortune and employment prospects for those working on nuclear matters, in both detection and nuclear energy, she said, noting that freshman applicants to the department have increased between 30 and 40 percent a year in recent years. U.S. graduate applicants are up too, she said. Professor Joonhong Ahn, who has staffed the department's table at UC Berkeley's annual "Cal Day" open house for the past decade, said he has noticed a marked turn-around in student and parent views. "Back in the 1990s, parents' attitudes were so negative that if their kids tried to approach our table, they almost dragged them back," he said. "Now it's just the opposite." E-mail Charles Burress at cburress@sfchronicle.com. This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle ***************************************************************** 48 Knoxville News Sentinel: NRC reverses course on documents policy By Andrew Eder (Contact) Originally published 10:13 a.m., September 4, 2007 The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has changed course on a policy that kept thousands of documents about an East Tennessee nuclear fuel producer from the public. The policy, enacted in 2004 because of security concerns, led documents from Nuclear Fuel Services of Erwin, Tenn., and another facility to be stamped “official use only.” In all, nearly 12,000 documents on the facilities, which handle weapons-grade nuclear materials, were removed from the public view. The NRC had faced pressure from Congress and the public since the disclosure in May of a spill of about 9 gallons of highly enriched uranium at the Erwin plant in March 2006. In August, the NRC’s staff recommended that its commissioners approve a change to the policy in which staffers would review all documents related to the two facilities and release censored versions to the agency’s public records system. In an Aug. 31 memo, released publicly today, the NRC’s four commissioners approved a modified version of the staff’s recommendation. Edward McGaffigan Jr., the agency’s longest-serving commissioner, died Sunday at age 58, but his vote was cast on Aug. 20 and included in the decision. The agency’s commissioners decided to make future documents on the facilities available to the public after removing sensitive information. For documents produced between 2004 and now, NRC staff will review a “subset” of documents that includes “inspection reports, licensee performance reviews, enforcement actions (non-Order), event reports, and other documents which the staff determines to be relevant.” “While we must continue to be mindful of the national security aspects of these facilities, we must also remember that our regulatory oversight process should be performed in an open and transparent manner that instills public trust,” NRC Chairman Dale Klein wrote in comments attached to his vote. More details as they develop online and in Wednesday’s News Sentinel. Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 49 DAWN: Speculations about safety of N-assets rejected - September 04, 2007 Tuesday Sha'aban 21, 1428 By Qudssia Akhlaque ISLAMABAD, Sept 3: Pakistan on Monday dismissed all international concerns about the security of its nuclear weapons and reiterated that the highest-level of institutionalised protection was accorded to the country’s strategic assets. Addressing a weekly news briefing, Foreign Office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam emphatically rejected what she termed “irresponsible speculations” about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. “Pakistan’s strategic assets are completely safe and secure and the highest level of institutionalised protection is accorded to them,” she remarked. Reiterating that Pakistan’s strategic assets were under strong multi-layered decision-making, organisational, administrative and command and control structures, she declared: “Our command and control system and export controls conform to the most stringent international standards.” The spokesperson also rejected as “baseless and malicious” the allegations made in a book titled “Big threat to world peace” about Pakistan’s nuclear programme and the Dr A. Q. Khan case, calling it “a rehash of oft-repeated assertions” prompted by dubious motives. Commenting on the book, Ms Aslam said: “It shows that certain people still find it difficult to accept that Pakistan has acquired nuclear deterrence in the interest of its security and for peace and stability in the region. These people refuse to recognise that Pakistan was not the first to introduce nuclear weapons in South Asia and that the strategic balance was disturbed by the Indian nuclear test in 1974.” She added: “The outlandish theories woven around the A. Q. Khan case only bring into sharper relief the visceral prejudice of the authors and their selected sources against Pakistan. In their hostility, the authors have gone beyond the issue of proliferation to malign Pakistan and its leadership.” Continuing on the subject, Ms Aslam noted: “Such people need to know that Pakistan is a progressive, moderate and vibrant society with expanding economy and is an anchor of stability in the region.” The spokesperson said as to their reference to the threat of terrorism, the authors ought to know that in addressing this contemporary challenge, Pakistan was playing an active role. “In this regard, we have the same concerns and objectives as the rest of the world,” she asserted. Ms Aslam disagreed with the notion that there was a global impression that Pakistan was a nascent nuclear weapon state and its nuclear weapon arsenal was vulnerable to attack which led to various allegations against Pakistan. Her comment on the former CIA chief’s claim that Dr A. Q. Khan was “at least as dangerous as Osama Bin Laden” was: “If an individual is being condemned for contributing to Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence, then there are many people in many countries who are guilty of this crime. There are people who see nuclear weapons as a threat to human society and civilisation. “If we agree with this hypothesis, if we accept this point of view, then Pakistan has not committed the original sin.” Asked, if given the serious nature of allegations levelled against President Gen Pervez Musharraf in the book “Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons Pakistan nuclear programme” (that claims President Musharraf arrested Dr A. Q. Khan after having struck a deal with the US Deputy Secretary of State in 2004) the government was considering taking legal action against the authors of the book, the spokesperson said: “We want to expose the absurdity, the prejudice and the distortions in this book.” © DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2007 ***************************************************************** 50 ReviewJournal.com: COMPENSATION CLAIM: Area 51 burning revealed Sep. 03, 2007 Ex-officer says he oversaw destruction of stealth coatings By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL Fred Dunham, shown last week before giving a deposition, is seeking compensation for health problems he says were caused by his work supervising burnings of toxic materials for classified government projects. Photos by Ronda Churchill Fred Dunham enters CHR Inc. on Tuesday to give a deposition that he suffered medical problems from exposure to dioxins and other chemicals while supervising open pit burning of stealth coatings. For 17 years, Fred Dunham never spoke publicly about where he used to work or what he once did at the place he calls "the location." Dunham says he feared he would be arrested and sent to jail for breaching a national security oath he took in 1981 when he was hired by EG&G Special Projects. But last week he went on the record about the nine years he spent as a security officer at the classified Air Force installation, 90 miles north of Las Vegas, telling a Department of Labor hearing representative how he supervised burning of poisonous stealth coatings in large open pits. That, he said, is the root of his ongoing health problems, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. And Dunham said he doesn't want his chance at compensation to be lost because he can't talk about his work. Like hundreds of former Nevada Test Site workers, Dunham is seeking compensation under an act that gives $150,000 to Energy Department workers and contractor workers who can prove their sometimes fatal illnesses are linked to exposure to toxic materials where they worked during the Cold War era. "Under no circumstances was this material to be destroyed in an open pit environment. It was supposed to be destroyed in an EPA certified incinerator," Dunham, 56, told Labor Department hearing agent Sandra Vicens-Pecenka about the disposal process. At the time, EG&G Special Projects was a subcontractor for the Department of Energy and Department of Defense. Dunham wore an Energy Department badge that allowed him access to "the location." "I left there because I was medically de-accessed by the military site physician because of my breathing problems," he said before the hearing. "I had coughed so hard that I separated the ribs on this side of my chest." Dunham said the Air Force "has absolutely denied that anything occurred at the location. I am the individual who signed for the 100 gallons of diesel fuel, and I observed the pit being ignited. That was my job." He didn't have to spell out for Vicens-Pecenka the place where this occurred, the 38,400-acre installation along the dry Groom Lake bed where for decades such high-tech U.S. aircraft as the U-2 Dragon Lady and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter jet have been tested. Among the documents Dunham submitted was a March 2 letter to him from Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that names the location. "Thank you for contacting me about federal compensation for Area 51 workers," the letter begins. In addition, Dunham presented Vicens-Pecenka with a letter from his doctor stating that he has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and that he was in excellent health "prior to working at that particular site." Another document, listed as Exhibit No. 2 in Dunham's case, is an unclassified May 19, 2005 "Safety Supplement" for emergency responders that warns about the danger of inhaling "hazardous byproducts of burning wreckage" of F-117A stealth fighter jets. In one instance in New Mexico, a firefighter died after responding to burning wreckage of a stealth fighter. After the Aug. 28 hearing, Dunham described how he was exposed to dioxins and furans from the open-pit burning of 55-gallon drums of resins, solvents and hardening compounds, stuff he said Lockheed Corp. used to coat its radar-evading stealth aircraft. Kenworth tractor-trailer rigs from Lockheed's Southern California facilities in Burbank and Palmdale "would come in late Tuesday," he said. "Then Wednesday morning, I would meet them at the burn pit and the semi was opened and the material was put in the pit," Dunham said. "I was there to supervise the unloading of the material and make sure no other subcontractors came close to the pit." After the drums of stealth coatings were dumped in a trench, other classified material such as technical manuals were put on top along with wood. "Then I would make a call to POL, short for petroleum, oil and lubricants. Then the truck would arrive, and I would sign for 100 gallons of diesel fuel, which was sprayed upon the pit," he said. "Then, at approximately 3:30 p.m., I would make a call to the fire department and they would put a flare in the pit. "As the fire burned through the night, these drums would explode and a big white cloud of smoke would whiff out through the area. You could wake up the next day, and the whole valley would look like L.A. smog," Dunham said. "If you were standing there doing your job, you basically inhaled smoke for six hours. My wife would ask, 'Why does your uniform smell so noxious?' I would button my lip and say, 'Just wash the uniforms.' I wasn't at liberty to discuss it," he said. Inhaling the smoke from 100 yards away affected Dunham's metabolism, causing him to gain weight. "I gained 80 pounds in a year," he said. Before he worked at Area 51, Dunham weighed 196 pounds. "I used to play handball and racquetball. ... I was buff. I was a nonsmoker. I've never smoked in my life. Now I can't even blow out a candle on a birthday cake." Years later, his body swelled to as much as 435 pounds, but he has since lost weight and was down to 380 pounds last week. The burning of stealth coatings in open pits at Area 51 was the subject of a pair of decade-long lawsuits in which former workers and widows of former workers contended the practice amounted to criminal violations of Environmental Protection Agency laws. In April 2003, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found the Justice Department did not abuse national security when information was struck from court documents in the 1994 cases. The same panel ruled in 1998 that the plaintiffs, who were clients of George Washington University environmental law professor Jonathan Turley, were not entitled to learn what hazardous materials were used at Groom Lake or how they were disposed. That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the ruling sought by Turley. Central to the cases are presidential memorandums to the chiefs of the EPA and the Air Force, saying it was of "paramount interest" to exempt the Groom Lake installation from adhering to federal, state, interstate or local laws regarding solid waste or hazardous waste if classified information would be disclosed. Officials for the Air Force and EG&G Special Projects wouldn't comment on operations at Area 51 or acknowledge that open pit burning of stealth coatings occurred there. Lockheed employees who became ill from inhaling fumes from stealth coatings at the Southern California facilities have since been compensated by the company. And, ingredients of the secret material is no longer a secret to some foreign nations after an F-117A crashed in Yugoslavia in 1999 and parts of the wreckage were recovered by enemy forces. When Dunham first applied for compensation under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness program, the Labor Department denied his claim because he didn't submit complete medical records. But after last week's hearing, Vicens-Pecenka told him that because of the medical evidence and the revelations about his employment at Area 51, "you have a pretty good chance." Dunham said that is encouraging, but he wants to see secret military installations comply with state and federal environmental laws so other workers and wildlife in those remote areas are protected. Recently, 71 wild horses died from high levels of nitrate they drank from a watering hole at the Tonopah Test Range. Investigators from state and federal agencies are still trying to pinpoint the source of the contamination. But a former worker, Kevin Dye, said the deaths could have been prevented if nitrogen compounds used for de-icing planes were properly disposed in a catch basin instead of being allowed to run off into the desert untreated. Dante Pistone, a spokesman for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, said Friday that representatives from the division's Bureau of Water Pollution Control made a trip to the site at the Tonopah Test Range. Their preliminary findings "seem to eliminate the airstrip or de-icing materials as possible sources of the nitrates." The de-icing agents currently used by the Air Force don't contain nitrogen compounds, and the pond near where the horses died is uphill from the airfield, some five miles away, Pistone said in an e-mail Friday. But Dunham said the source of contamination from past years is no mystery to him. He said urea, a crystalline substance high in nitrogen, was used at the Groom Lake installation when he worked there, and, like at the Tonopah Test Range, the contamination accumulated over years in the dry lake bed. "When it got cold up there, they had a tank of it to de-ice airplanes, and they gave us a sack of it to throw on the ramp where passengers exit," Dunham said. "What it did is eat the surface off the concrete. There was no control over it. They're supposed to have gutters and things where the stuff rolls into a sanitation facility." Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2007 Stephens Media, LLC Privacy Statement y ***************************************************************** 51 TCPalm: Power plant sirens to be tested Thursday in Port St. Lucie : St. Lucie County : TCPalm : Florida's Treasure Coast and Palm Beaches staff report Monday, September 3, 2007 The St. Lucie County Department of Public Safety and the Martin County Department of Emergency Services will conduct a quarterly test of the outdoor warning sirens for FP&L's St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant at noon Thursday. The test will involve a one-minute sounding of all 90 sirens within the 10-mile St. Lucie Emergency Planning Zone. Before and after the sirens sound, a message will be broadcast on the sirens public address system stating, "This is only a test." There will be a 15-second wail of the sirens at the end of the final test announcement. The testing of the siren system will remind the public that it's there and ensure that it works. If a real emergency happened at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant, the sirens would sound for a five-minute period, followed by official instructions and another five-minute sounding of the siren system. Detailed instructions would be then broadcast over radio and television. For information, call the St. Lucie County Public Safety Department at (772) 461-5201 or visit: www.stlucieco.gov/eoc. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 52 Colorado Daily News: Shadows of the bomb BY LEROY MOORE, PhD Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:07 PM MDT When Ms. B was 18 her college studies were interrupted by emergency surgery to remove a tumor the size of a lemon from her brain. Her primary physician suspects that the cause was exposure to plutonium, an exceedingly toxic radioactive material used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. He knows that Ms. B could have inhaled or ingested lethal dust-like particles of plutonium where she grew up near Standley Lake, just downwind of the now closed Rocky Flats nuclear bomb factory nine miles south of Boulder. After college, Ms. B, who is now 32, taught school for a while, then married and in time delivered two babies, both with birth defects. Early in 2006 she learned that her brain tumor had grown back and is malignant. Various specialists gave her a 1 percent chance of being alive a year later. They'd say she's now on borrowed time. When Rocky Flats was operating, it was one of several large factories run by the Department of Energy to produce parts for nuclear bombs. Another is the Fernald facility in Ohio where uranium was processed. Had Ms. B grown up near Fernald rather than Rocky Flats, she would have received free medical monitoring that very likely would have detected her brain cancer at an early stage. Prompt treatment might have changed her life story for the better. Why could this have happened near Fernald but not at Rocky Flats? The answer lies in the Fernald Medical Monitoring Program, which was established as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought on behalf of people who lived in contaminated areas near the Fernald site. The program is now coming to an end after 18 years of medical surveillance and detailed record keeping on about 9500 people. All data from the program is available for further study. No such program has ever existed for people who, like Ms. B, have lived in areas known to be contaminated with plutonium released from Rocky Flats. Atomic Energy Commission scientist P. W. Krey mapped these areas back in 1976. The multi-year Historical Public Exposure Studies completed for Rocky Flats in 1999 concluded that though the amount of plutonium released from Rocky Flats may have been large, any direct health study like the monitoring of individuals was not warranted. Others have disagreed. In 1996 Richard W. Clapp of Boston University, former head of the Massachusetts Cancer Registry, found excess incidence of some cancers in areas of known plutonium contamination near Rocky Flats. He said his data “support the need for surveillance of the incidence of cancer and other diseases on a continuing basis in the exposed communities.” In 1990 a class action lawsuit against Dow Chemical and Rockwell International, former operators of Rocky Flats, was filed in Denver federal court on behalf of 12,000 people who resided in areas contaminated with plutonium released from the facility. When the case finally went to trial in October 2005 much new information about contamination on and off the site as well as about vast quantities of unaccounted for plutonium was presented in court. In February 2006 the jury found Dow and Rockwell liable to the tune of $554 million, an amount reduced to $350 million by the court. One hope of those who brought the lawsuit is that a major portion of this money could be used to establish a medical monitoring program for people who like Ms. B live in the more contaminated areas near Rocky Flats. Whether this can ever happen is cast into doubt by the fact that Dow and Rockwell have appealed the verdict. This could mean more years of delay, years in which people possibly harmed by plutonium released from Rocky Flats will lack the kind of medical monitoring to which they are entitled by virtue of where they live. Such monitoring could either relieve them of worry or provide early warning of health problems that need attention. The Fernald Medical Monitoring Program provides a good example for what should happen for people like Ms. B whose health may have been harmed by plutonium released from Rocky Flats. They shouldn't have to wait for the settlement of a class action lawsuit initially filed 17 years ago. Congress should pass legislation requiring medical monitoring for people who live in contaminated areas around DOE nuclear weapons facilities, including Rocky Flats. It's the least that can be done for people whose health has been put in jeopardy in the name of national security. LeRoy Moore, PhD, is a consultant with the Nuclear Nexus Project: Working to End Local Hazards and the Global Threat, a project of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center of Boulder. If interested in an internship with Nuclear Nexus or any of our other programs, please call 303-444-6981 or email betty@rmpjc.org. Scripps Newspaper Group — Online © 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 53 The Australian: Downer backs Russian nuclear safety | NEWS.com.au Network September 04, 2007 05:47pm AEST FOREIGN Minister Alexander Downer is confident about Russian nuclear safety ahead of a nuclear deal with the former Soviet power. Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives in Sydney on Friday, the first Russian or Soviet leader to visit Australia. He will meet Prime Minister John Howard on the morning of his arrival and they are expected to sign a nuclear safeguards deal allowing the export of Australian uranium to Russia for use in its nuclear reactors. Australia already exports uranium to Russia but under the current agreement it is for processing by a third party. Mr Downer says people do not need to be fearful of Russia breaching any safety deal or about the prospect of another Chernobyl nuclear disaster. “My view is you can put in place a good safeguards arrangement with Russia (and) Russia would have absolutely no interest in breaching a safeguards arrangement in creating a massive diplomatic confrontation, not just with Australia, but with most of the western world over something like that,” he told Sky News. And Mr Downer is confident safety has improved vastly since Chernobyl more than 20 years ago. “It was a Soviet reactor. There has been an enormous amount of work done, not only that model of reactor, the ones that are still in existence have been very substantially upgraded. But I think the level of safety with nuclear reactors these days is very high,” Mr Downer said. AAP Copyright 2007 News Limited. All times AEST (GMT +10). ***************************************************************** 54 AU The Age: Russia safe for N-fuel - Downer - www.theage.com.au Katharine Murphy September 5, 2007 RUSSIA is a safe destination for Australian nuclear fuel, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has declared, before the signing at APEC of a landmark safeguards agreement with Moscow. Mr Downer confirmed yesterday that a nuclear agreement allowing Australian uranium to be used as fuel in Russian nuclear reactors would be signed during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin. But it remains unclear whether Australia will conclude a deal with the US, in which Australia would join an alliance of countries known as the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bush are expected to discuss nuclear issues during their meetings. But Australia has difficulties with full membership of GNEP because it could involve Canberra having to make politically sensitive commitments, such as agreeing to store radioactive waste from the rest of the world. Full membership could also see limits placed on the Howard Government's ambitions to develop a domestic nuclear power industry, including new facilities to enrich yellowcake for use in future nuclear plants. Officials have been exploring alternatives that would resolve Australia's sensitivities but allow Australia to become a more influential nuclear player. The issue of nuclear power has become very sensitive in the lead-up to the federal election, with Labor campaigning strongly on it in coastal electorates. Green groups and some analysts have expressed concern about the Government's decision to pursue a more broad-ranging nuclear agreement with Russia. KATHARINE MURPHY Copyright © 2007. The Age Company Ltd. ***************************************************************** 55 Deseret Morning News: Colorado uranium mine to reopen as prices soar Reader comments Associated Press Published: Sept. 3, 2007 12:30 a.m. MDT GATEWAY, Colo. ? With demand for uranium soaring as Asian economies expand, the old Packrat uranium mine is expected to reopen once Mesa County authorities approve. Energy Resources Corp., based in Canada, filed a request for a conditional use permit to open the mine on the cliffs above Gateway three weeks ago, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported. Gateway is on the Colorado-Utah border about 220 miles west of Denver and 35 miles southwest of Grand Junction. Energy Resources said the mine likely would employ 20 people and be open for 10 years. In the past five years, metal-mining claims have risen on Western lands by 80 percent, according to the Bureau of Land Management. Colorado and Utah are the leaders in uranium claims. Uranium once was a major Colorado export ? including some of the material used to make the first atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Safety problems shut down many nuclear reactors, and demand died. Energy Resources also has applied with the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board for a permit for the mine, which would be called the Whirlwind Mine. It could mean a return of prosperity to the area 50 miles south of Grand Junction. "A lot of our younger people moved away a number of years ago when the mines closed down, so hopefully it will bring some of them back," said Elda Graham, 68, whose husband, Robert, 77, worked in the mines and drove trucks to the mills. Some new Gateway residents support the opening of the mine. The owners of the 141 Diner, Josie and Randy Blaser, have highlighted radioactivity on their menu with offerings such as the Uranium Burger for $6.99 and the Atomic Chicken sandwich for $7.25. "I think it will affect us positively," Josie Blaser said of the Whirlwind Mine. "The local economy could use a boost." deseretnews.com: Home ***************************************************************** 56 AU ABC: Australia close to Russia uranium deal - Downer - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Updated September 4, 2007 12:53:00 Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says a deal to sell Australian uranium to Russia is likely to be signed at this week's APEC summit. The agreement would allow Russia to use Australian uranium in its civilian nuclear reactors, and is expected to be signed by the Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Sydney. Mr Downer has told Sky News that Russia would not risk jeopardising the deal by breaking the conditons. "My view is you can put in place a good safeguards arrangement with Russia," he said. "Russia would have absolutely no interest in breaching a safeguards agreement and creating a massive diplomatic confrontation, not just with Australia but with most of the western world over something like that," he said. Australia has already agreed to sell uranium to India. But while Australia is selling uranium abroad, Mr Downer says Australia would never accept nuclear waste from other countries. "Nobody in the Government has ever suggested it. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think any Government has ever suggested it to us, but if they ever do, we'll certainly rule it out and certainly reject it," he said. "We've never said that we would consider taking nuclear waste back to Australia, what we've said it that we will export uranium." But the Greens say the Federal Government would not be able to adequately keep track of any Australian uranium which would be sold to Russia under the proposed new agreement. Prime Minister John Howard backed Mr Downer and was not willing to comment on further uranium rumours. "I'm not going to speculate on all the stuff in the papers on deals with different countries," Howard told Sky News. "If there are any arrangements announced, then I'm going to explain them in detail when those arrangements are announced." Greens Senator Christine Milne has told a conference on Russia that the Government would have no way of knowing whether the uranium is being used for military purposes or sold onto other countries. "If you have no freedom of the press, and no NGOs and no foreign NGOs allowed to operate in society, then you will not know what is going on at any of those facilities, nor will you know about the environmental consequences," she said. ***************************************************************** 57 The Canadian Press: Canada silent as nuclear energy partnership with US, Australia, others takes shape Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks during a press conference after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in this Nov. 19, 2006, file photo. (CPimages/AP/Vincent Thian) OTTAWA (CP) — When Prime Minister Stephen Harper departs for Australia on Tuesday for a summit of pan-Pacific leaders, he'll be carrying with him a secret agenda that is quite literally radioactive. Harper will face questions from both Australian Prime Minister John Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush over Canada's participation in a sweeping American-led initiative still in its infancy. The initiative, called the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, proposes that nuclear energy-using countries and uranium-exporting countries band together in a new nuclear club to promote and safeguard the industry. Central to the plan is a proposal that all used nuclear fuel be repatriated to the original uranium exporting country for disposal. That should be big news in Canada, the world's largest uranium producer. But to date, the Canadian government's response is a closely guarded secret. In fact, there's been virtually no public debate at all. This weekend in Sydney when Harper sits down with the 21 leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, the nuclear question will hover like a plume. That's because climate change and energy policy are a key item on the agenda, and most of the GNEP's major proponents, including the United States, China, Japan and Russia, are at the table. Bush and Howard will sign a bilateral nuclear technology pact before the main summit. In Australia, where Harper shares an ideological soul-mate in Howard, the debate over the GNEP has raged for more than a year. Ausralia and Canada are the world's biggest uranium exporters and the GNEP threatens to become an election issue this fall as opposition parties charge the country is in danger of becoming a "radioactive dump." Yet Harper's minority Conservative government clearly does not want to engage the Canadian public in any discussion about the initiative. At a pre-APEC briefing last week, one of the prime minister's most senior officials, flanked by his director of communications Sandra Buckler, carefully skirted a question on the GNEP. "It doesn't feature on the APEC agenda, per se," said the official. "Whether the initiative has disappeared off the global agenda or the U.S. agenda, I really can't say." The next day, in response to a separate and unrelated media inquiry, a spokesperson from Foreign Affairs confirmed Canada has been invited to a Sept. 16 meeting in Vienna to discuss the initiative. "Canada has been invited to join the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership and to participate in the next meeting scheduled to take place on September 16 in Vienna," said the official. "Canada is reviewing the proposed GNEP Statement of Principles and a decision on Canadian participation will be made shortly." That carefully neutral response - which left Canadian attendance in doubt barely a fortnight before the Vienna meeting - stands in contrast to earlier draft "talking points" obtained by The Canadian Press under an Access to Information request. Those heavily censored documents show much greater enthusiasm. "Canada is very interested in examining potential areas for partnership in the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) given that we are the world's largest uranium producer," said one undated talking point from 2006. The same memo continues: "Canadian officials . . . have begun discussions with their counterparts in the U.S. to consider possible parameters of Canadian involvement." As recently as April 7 this year, Peter Harder, the then-assistant deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, was corresponding with Robert Van Adel, the president of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., about the partnership plan. As Van Adel wrote, the initiative "if implemented, would have significant technical and commercial implications for Canada, which need to be assessed." Internal government correspondence also indicates the nuclear initiative was on the agenda at the 2006 meeting between Harper, President Bush and then-Mexican president Vicente Fox in Mexico, and again at the 2006 G8 meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia. Neither Harper nor his officials made any public mention of the GNEP before or after these high-profile summits. Contrast that to Australia. Last week, Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, publicly stated "it makes a lot of sense for Australia to be involved," and suggested the country would participate in the Sept. 16 meeting. Liberal MP David McGuinty, the Opposition environment critic, excoriated the Conservative government for its secrecy. "This is the kind of subterfuge and hidden agenda that the government has on such an important issue," said McGuinty. "It's not intending to bring it to the floor of the House of Commons. We've never had notice of it. There's been no White Paper. There's been no discussion. "It's time for them to come clean on this." Bernard Bigras, environment critic for the Bloc Quebecois, noted Ontario and New Brunswick already have issues with dealing with nuclear waste from domestic reactors. "We have a big problem here in Canada and in the world: how can we manage the waste produced by nuclear (energy)?" Copyright © 2007 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 58 JCN: MOX Fuel Production for Kyushu Electric to Start in October Japan Corporate News Network Fukuoka, Sept 3, 2007 (Jiji Press) - Kyushu Electric Power Co. said Monday that French nuclear fuel maker Melox SA will start producing uranium-plutonium mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel for its "plu-thermal" power generation in early October. Melox will complete output of some 0.5 ton of MOX fuel by next spring using part of the 1.1 tons of plutonium that Kyushu Electric owns in France, the Japanese power supplier said. Following the production, MOX fuel will be transported from France to Japan. The remaining plutonium will be used for further MOX fuel production, but the timing of this has yet to be fixed, company officials said. In line with the move, Kyushu Electric has applied to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry for inspection of the MOX fuel to be shipped from France. The ministry will confirm the quality assurances of Melox with regard to MOX fuel production and whether Kyushu Electric's testing methods are adequate. By Jiji Press, (c) Jiji Press Copyright © 2007 JCN. All rights reserved. A division of Japan ***************************************************************** 59 Chillicothe Gazette: USEC gives contract for centrifuge steel casings www.chillicothegazette.com - Chillicothe, OH Tuesday, September 4, 2007 USEC Inc. has announced it has awarded a $175 million contract to Major Tool & Machine Inc. of Indianapolis to manufacture steel casings for centrifuge machines that will be used in the American Centrifuge plant in Piketon. The contract will run through 2012 and was awarded in a competitive bid process. The decision marks the second time USEC has used Major Tool & Machine. In 2004, the company made centrifuge casings for the lead cascade in the American Centrifuge demonstration facility. "Major Tool & Machine has over 60 years of experience in the custom contract manufacturing industry, and having worked with them since 2004, we're confident that they will meet our quality, cost and schedule objectives in manufacturing centrifuge casings for the American Centrifuge Plant," said Philip G. Sewell, USEC senior vice president and American Centrifuge and Russian HEU. "We are excited about the opportunity to be a part of such a significant program," said J. Stephen Weyreter, president of Major Tool. "Our employees look forward to using their years of experience serving the aerospace, defense and power generation industries and the national laboratories in performing as a strategic supplier for USEC in building the American Centrifuge program." USEC is hoping to begin commercial plant operations in late 2009 and have a total of 11,500 machines deployed in 2012 to provide about 3.8 million separative work units of production. The American Centrifuge plant will be the country's only commercial uranium enrichment facility using centrifuge technology. Enrichment is a process that increases the concentration of the fissionable uranium isotope U-235 to make fuel for nuclear power plants. Copyright ©2007 Chillicothe Gazette ***************************************************************** 60 Emagazine: The Nuke Waste around Us (By Jessica Goldberg) Sign up for OurPlanet, our FREE weekly newsletter Nuclear waste is seeping through loopholes in U.S. disposal policies and could be recycled into material for roads, schools and playgrounds, according to a report released by the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS.) The report, “Out of Control—On Purpose: DOE’s Dispersal of Radioactive Waste into Landfills and Consumer Products,” says the U.S. Department of Energy along with other federal, state and international agencies has allowed the release of radioactive materials from controlled facilities into public territory (see “A Nuclear Renaissance?,” feature, July/August 2007). These activities are largely untracked and unreported, NIRS says. “People around regular trash landfills will be shocked to learn that radioactive contamination from nuclear weapons production is ending up there, either directly released by DOE or via brokers and processors,” says Diane D’Arrigo, a co-author of the report. Tennessee licenses the largest number of nuclear waste processors to relocate, incinerate and recycle radioactive waste. In 2000, the U.S. Secretary of Energy banned commercially recycling metal that could be radioactive, but NIRS says the ban left several loopholes. “As long as DOE and other nuclear waste generators can slip their contamination out, there is really no limit to the amount of additional radiation exposure members of the public could receive,” D’Arrigo says. “Only an informed, outraged public can force DOE and the states to shift the goal from dispersal to isolation of radioactive waste.” E/The Environmental Magazine! CONTACTS Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th Street NW Washington, DC 20036 Phone: (202)270-NIRS E MAGAZINE.COM A service of E/The Environmental Magazine. Copyright 1995 - 2004. All Rights Reserved. Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 61 Murfreesboro Post: Written commitment sought on landfill By MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer – Sept. 4 - 2:15 p.m. A county commissioner wants a written commitment from Allied Waste that it will not accept any more low-level radioactive waste. “I want to send a resolution to the Steering Committee or Allied Waste to put it in writing that they won’t take the radioactive waste anymore,” County Commissioner Jack Black said. Allied Waste, Middle Point Landfill’s parent company, vowed to no longer accept waste from the state’s Bulk Survey for Release program after a General Assembly mandated study found the waste and Tennessee’s procedures controlling it to be safe. The company bowed to public and legislative pressure by voluntarily ending disposal of the waste at Middle Point Landfill. Citizens to End Nuclear Dumping in Tennessee (ENDIT) co-founder Kathleen Ferris worried after the Aug. 21 announcement the voluntary decision could be recounted at anytime and the landfill could resume accepting the waste. Black hopes to end speculation by requesting the company to put it in writing. z “A statement’s a statement, but if could get it on camera or paper it would go over better in the public’s eyes,” Black said. According to 1995 contract between Rutherford County and Middle Point Landfill, the county can’t enact any legislation that would restrict the landfill’s business. Black said County Mayor Ernest Burgess may develop a contract with the landfill to ensure the waste is no longer accepted. “But according to our contract, we can’t tell them what to do. According to the state, it’s all in their hands,” Black said. The Public Works and Planning Committee meets Tuesday at 6 p.m. to consider issues with the landfill, building codes, Planning Commission and Highway Department. Michelle Willard can be contacted at 869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com. 615-869-0800 | online@murfreesboropost.com | 630 Broadmore Blvd. Suite 120, P.O. 10008, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 ***************************************************************** 62 Las Vegas SUN: Federal judge says drilling must stop at nuke dump site in Nevada Today: September 04, 2007 at 14:40:7 PDT By KEN RITTER Associated Press Writer LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal judge has ruled that Nevada can shut off water needed for bore hole drilling at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. In a strongly worded order focusing on federal "credibility and good faith," U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas said the Department of Energy could not ignore state limitations and continue using water for drilling test holes near the repository site. "This entire 'crisis' is self-imposed and self-created," Hunt said in his 24-page order, dated Friday but distributed among the parties on Tuesday. "The only argument the DOE makes is that because the site has been approved ... it has the authority to do whatever it wishes," the judge said. "It has failed to demonstrate the necessity of its voracious water damands." Nevada has long complained that the federal government kept increasing the scope of the drilling and its water needs - from about 15 bore holes to 80 and from 300,000 gallons of water to 3.5 million gallons. Hunt did not decide the merits of the case, which was originally filed in August 2002. He instead denied the federal request for a preliminary injunction that would have limited the state water engineer's ability to restrict water allocations to the arid site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson in Las Vegas declined immediate comment on the ruling, saying Tuesday that Yucca Mountain project officials were reviewing Hunt's order. Benson said he didn't know if drilling had stopped. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who has led state opposition to the Yucca project, hailed the ruling as a victory for state rights. "The federal government will do anything it can to try to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear dumping ground, even if that means ignoring the law and the will of the people who would be most affected by the dump," Reid said in a statement. "I am pleased that Judge Hunt upheld Nevada's right to enforce its water laws." Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said Hunt's order "vindicates Nevada's long-standing position that DOE's sleight of hand in using Nevada's water for an unauthorized bore hole drilling program is neither mandated by federal law nor consistent with the public's interest." Marta Adams, a deputy state attorney general who argued the case, said she saw no wiggle room for the federal government and no grounds for appeal. She said bore hole drilling had to stop, or the state would seek a contempt of court order. In a pointed criticism of the bore hole project, the judge rejected federal claims that scientists needed to test areas around the Yucca site to "meet congressional mandates" and demonstrate the suitability of the site for entombing 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now being stored at nuclear reactors in 39 states. Site characterization tests were supposed to have been completed before the site was recommended to Congress in 2002, Hunt said. "Either that is so," the judge wrote, "or it would appear the DOE misled Congress and the president in its application for approval of the site. DOE attempts to deny that this is further site characterization. However, its own documents contradict that argument." Hunt also rejected arguments by Justice Department lawyer Stephen Bartell that state officials were using water as a weapon to delay the project, and that the Energy Department would suffer irreparable harm if data collection was delayed. Bartell had argued that the government lost $350,000 by paying for idle drill crews after the state issued a cease-and-desist order on June 1. That order was lifted temporarily June 12, but was reinstated eight days later, after the two sides failed to agree on conditions for using the water. The Energy Department once hoped to open the repository by 2010. But the projected opening date has been pushed back at least to 2017 by legal challenges, budget issues, political opposition and scientific controversies. Energy Department officials now hope by next June 30 to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission an application for an operating license. Hunt noted, however, that NRC approval was "not a foregone conclusion." --- On the Net: Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov All contents © 1996 - 2007 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 63 Japan Times: Kyushu Electric applies for MOX fuel inspection | japantimes.co.jp Web Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2007 FUKUOKA (Kyodo) Kyushu Electric Power Co. is set to start manufacturing plutonium-uranium mixed fuel, or MOX, in France in October, and applied Monday for government inspection of its quality control system for the production process, company officials said. The utility filed the application with the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Kyushu Electric aims to begin "pluthermal" power generation by fiscal 2010 using MOX fuel at the No. 3 reactor at its nuclear power plant in Genkai, Saga Prefecture. With the schedule for MOX fuel production now finalized, the plant is likely to become the first in Japan to generate power through the pluthermal method. Starting in early October, Kyushu Electric will manufacture 16 MOX fuel units using half of about 1.1 tons of plutonium it holds in France. Handling the production will be Melox, a French fuel manufacturing firm that has received the order from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., with which Kyushu Electric signed a fuel procurement contract. The nuclear agency will carry out the inspection of the quality control system through the end of 2009. The Japan Times ***************************************************************** 64 AU ABC: Australia 'will never' accept nuclear waste Radio Australia - News - Australia 'will never' accept nuclear waste Last Updated 04/09/2007, 16:19:21 Australia's foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer says Australia will never accept nuclear waste from other countries. Mr Downer says a deal is likely to be signed at this week's APEC summit, to enable Australia to sell uranium to Russia, for use in its civilian nuclear reactors. But he's strongly rejected suggestions that Australia would be willing to house nuclear waste from abroad. "Nobody in the Government has ever suggested it. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think any Government has ever suggested it to us, but if they ever do, we'll certainly rule it out and certainly reject it," Mr Downer said. ***************************************************************** 65 Las Vegas Now: Federal Judge Says Shuts Off Water for DOE Drilling at Yucca AG Cortez Masto's Statement on U.S. District Court's Decision in Yucca Water Rights Case The Department of Energy will no longer be allowed to use Nevada's water for bore hole drilling at the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt's says the Department of Energy can't ignore state limitations and just keep using water for drilling test holes near the site. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat who has led state opposition to the Yucca project, hailed the ruling as a victory for state rights. Five years ago on Sept. 4, President George Bush gave the green light to the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the storage place for all of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The state of Nevada has been fighting the Department of Energy over the project for decades. The state engineer recently re-instated a cease and desist order on the use of the state's water to drill into the mountain for the repository. On Tuesday, the DOE filed an appeal to be able to keep drilling so the repository can open in 2017. In a strongly worded 24-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Hunt denied the Department of Energy's motion for a preliminary injunction. In a statement Tuesday, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto stated, "Judge Hunt's order vindicates Nevada's long-standing position that DOE's sleight of hand in using Nevada's water for an unauthorized bore hole drilling program is neither mandated by federal law nor consistent with the public's interest." (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) All content © Copyright 2000 - 2007 WorldNow and KLAS. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 66 [NYTr] Russia Monitors World Nuke Explosions Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 19:03:26 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Russia Monitors World Nuke Explosions Moscow, Sep 3 (Prensa Latina) The Russian Federation has and uses the technology necessary to detect a nuclear explosion in any part of the planet, and monitor atomic tests 24 hours a day, assured Col. Gen. Vladimir Verjovtsev on Monday. The head of Direction 12 of the Russian Defense Ministry said his institution exerts a rigid control on propagation of nuclear weapons use. Our mission has not changed, Verjovtsev said, it consists of guarding Russian nuclear security and fulfilment of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, to face terrorism and prevent accidents with these weapons. As part of the plan, Moscow recently installed the modular Voronezh radar outside St. Petersburg, which is able to detect firing from inter-continental and tactical combat missiles. With this design the Russian station can see a small sheet of paper at distances up to 2,800 miles in any part of the world, from Africa to Greenland. The construction of the new device cost 53 million dollars, much less than its predecessors Dnieper (200 million dollars) and Daryal (800 million dollars). The new radar also needs fewer personnel (15) and uses less energy (0.7 megawatts). ef ccs tac jpm * ================================================================= .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 ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 67 2000: CIA Gave Iran Nuclear Weapon Blueprints Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2007 11:55:28 -0500 (CDT) http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0%2c12271%2c1678219%2c00.html?gusrc=rss George Bush insists that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. So why, six years ago, did the CIA give the Iranians blueprints to build a bomb? In an extract from his explosive new book, New York Times reporter James Risen reveals the bungles and miscalculations that led to a spectacular intelligence fiasco Thursday January 5, 2006 The Guardian State of War by James Risen State of War, by James Risen She had probably done this a dozen times before. Modern digital technology had made clandestine communications with overseas agents seem routine. Back in the cold war, contacting a secret agent in Moscow or Beijing was a dangerous, labour-intensive process that could take days or even weeks. But by 2004, it was possible to send high-speed, encrypted messages directly and instantaneously from CIA headquarters to agents in the field who were equipped with small, covert personal communications devices. So the officer at CIA headquarters assigned to handle communications with the agency's spies in Iran probably didn't think twice when she began her latest download. With a few simple commands, she sent a secret data flow to one of the Iranian agents in the CIA's spy network. Just as she had done so many times before. But this time, the ease and speed of the technology betrayed her. The CIA officer had made a disastrous mistake. She had sent information to one Iranian agent that exposed an entire spy network; the data could be used to identify virtually every spy the CIA had inside Iran. Mistake piled on mistake. As the CIA later learned, the Iranian who received the download was a double agent. The agent quickly turned the data over to Iranian security officials, and it enabled them to "roll up" the CIA's network throughout Iran. CIA sources say that several of the Iranian agents were arrested and jailed, while the fates of some of the others is still unknown. This espionage disaster, of course, was not reported. It left the CIA virtually blind in Iran, unable to provide any significant intelligence on one of the most critical issues facing the US - whether Tehran was about to go nuclear. In fact, just as President Bush and his aides were making the case in 2004 and 2005 that Iran was moving rapidly to develop nuclear weapons, the American intelligence community found itself unable to provide the evidence to back up the administration's public arguments. On the heels of the CIA's failure to provide accurate pre-war intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, the agency was once again clueless in the Middle East. In the spring of 2005, in the wake of the CIA's Iranian disaster, Porter Goss, its new director, told President Bush in a White House briefing that the CIA really didn't know how close Iran was to becoming a nuclear power. But it's worse than that. Deep in the bowels of the CIA, someone must be nervously, but very privately, wondering: "Whatever happened to those nuclear blueprints we gave to the Iranians?" The story dates back to the Clinton administration and February 2000, when one frightened Russian scientist walked Vienna's winter streets. The Russian had good reason to be afraid. He was walking around Vienna with blueprints for a nuclear bomb. To be precise, he was carrying technical designs for a TBA 480 high-voltage block, otherwise known as a "firing set", for a Russian-designed nuclear weapon. He held in his hands the knowledge needed to create a perfect implosion that could trigger a nuclear chain reaction inside a small spherical core. It was one of the greatest engineering secrets in the world, providing the solution to one of a handful of problems that separated nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia from rogue countries such as Iran that were desperate to join the nuclear club but had so far fallen short. The Russian, who had defected to the US years earlier, still couldn't believe the orders he had received from CIA headquarters. The CIA had given him the nuclear blueprints and then sent him to Vienna to sell them - or simply give them - to the Iranian representatives to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). With the Russian doing its bidding, the CIA appeared to be about to help Iran leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon. The dangerous irony was not lost on the Russian - the IAEA was an international organisation created to restrict the spread of nuclear technology. The Russian was a nuclear engineer in the pay of the CIA, which had arranged for him to become an American citizen and funded him to the tune of $5,000 a month. It seemed like easy money, with few strings attached. Until now. The CIA was placing him on the front line of a plan that seemed to be completely at odds with the interests of the US, and it had taken a lot of persuading by his CIA case officer to convince him to go through with what appeared to be a rogue operation. The case officer worked hard to convince him - even though he had doubts about the plan as well. As he was sweet-talking the Russian into flying to Vienna, the case officer wondered whether he was involved in an illegal covert action. Should he expect to be hauled before a congressional committee and grilled because he was the officer who helped give nuclear blueprints to Iran? The code name for this operation was Merlin; to the officer, that seemed like a wry tip-off that nothing about this programme was what it appeared to be. He did his best to hide his concerns from his Russian agent. The Russian's assignment from the CIA was to pose as an unemployed and greedy scientist who was willing to sell his soul - and the secrets of the atomic bomb - to the highest bidder. By hook or by crook, the CIA told him, he was to get the nuclear blueprints to the Iranians. They would quickly recognise their value and rush them back to their superiors in Tehran. The plan had been laid out for the defector during a CIA-financed trip to San Francisco, where he had meetings with CIA officers and nuclear experts mixed in with leisurely wine-tasting trips to Sonoma County. In a luxurious San Francisco hotel room, a senior CIA official involved in the operation talked the Russian through the details of the plan. He brought in experts from one of the national laboratories to go over the blueprints that he was supposed to give the Iranians. The senior CIA officer could see that the Russian was nervous, and so he tried to downplay the significance of what they were asking him to do. He said the CIA was mounting the operation simply to find out where the Iranians were with their nuclear programme. This was just an intelligence-gathering effort, the CIA officer said, not an illegal attempt to give Iran the bomb. He suggested that the Iranians already had the technology he was going to hand over to them. It was all a game. Nothing too serious. On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs. But Tehran would get a big surprise when its scientists tried to explode their new bomb. Instead of a mushroom cloud, the Iranian scientists would witness a disappointing fizzle. The Iranian nuclear programme would suffer a humiliating setback, and Tehran's goal of becoming a nuclear power would have been delayed by several years. In the meantime, the CIA, by watching Iran's reaction to the blueprints, would have gained a wealth of information about the status of Iran's weapons programme, which has been shrouded in secrecy. The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either. In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw." "Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter." The CIA case officer couldn't believe the senior CIA officer's answer, but he managed to keep his fears from the Russian, and continued to train him for his mission. After their trip to San Francisco, the case officer handed the Russian a sealed envelope with the nuclear blueprints inside. He was told not to open the envelope under any circumstances. He was to follow the CIA's instructions to find the Iranians and give them the envelope with the documents inside. Keep it simple, and get out of Vienna safe and alive, the Russian was told. But the defector had his own ideas about how he might play that game. The CIA had discovered that a high-ranking Iranian official would be travelling to Vienna and visiting the Iranian mission to the IAEA, and so the agency decided to send the Russian to Vienna at the same time. It was hoped that he could make contact with either the Iranian representative to the IAEA or the visitor from Tehran. In Vienna, however, the Russian unsealed the envelope with the nuclear blueprints and included a personal letter of his own to the Iranians. No matter what the CIA told him, he was going to hedge his bets. There was obviously something wrong with the blueprints - so he decided to mention that fact to the Iranians in his letter. They would certainly find flaws for themselves, and if he didn't tell them first, they would never want to deal with him again. The Russian was thus warning the Iranians as carefully as he could that there was a flaw somewhere in the nuclear blueprints, and he could help them find it. At the same time, he was still going through with the CIA's operation in the only way he thought would work. The Russian soon found 19 Heinstrasse, a five-storey office and apartment building with a flat, pale green and beige facade in a quiet, slightly down-at-heel neighbourhood in Vienna's north end. Amid the list of Austrian tenants, there was one simple line: "PM/Iran." The Iranians clearly didn't want publicity. An Austrian postman helped him. As the Russian stood by, the postman opened the building door and dropped off the mail. The Russian followed suit; he realised that he could leave his package without actually having to talk to anyone. He slipped through the front door, and hurriedly shoved his envelope through the inner-door slot at the Iranian office. The Russian fled the mission without being seen. He was deeply relieved that he had made the hand-off without having to come face to face with a real live Iranian. He flew back to the US without being detected by either Austrian security or, more importantly, Iranian intelligence. Just days after the Russian dropped off his package at the Iranian mission, the National Security Agency reported that an Iranian official in Vienna abruptly changed his schedule, making airline reservations to fly home to Iran. The odds were that the nuclear blueprints were now in Tehran. The Russian scientist's fears about the operation seemed well founded. He was the front man for what may have been one of the most reckless operations in the modern history of the CIA, one that may have helped put nuclear weapons in the hands of a charter member of what President George W Bush has called the "axis of evil". Operation Merlin has been one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Clinton and Bush administrations. It's not clear who originally came up with the idea, but the plan was first approved by Clinton. After the Russian scientist's fateful trip to Vienna, however, the Merlin operation was endorsed by the Bush administration, possibly with an eye toward repeating it against North Korea or other dangerous states. Several former CIA officials say that the theory behind Merlin - handing over tainted weapon designs to confound one of America's adversaries - is a trick that has been used many times in past operations, stretching back to the cold war. But in previous cases, such Trojan horse operations involved conventional weapons; none of the former officials had ever heard of the CIA attempting to conduct this kind of high-risk operation with designs for a nuclear bomb. The former officials also said these kind of programmes must be closely monitored by senior CIA managers in order to control the flow of information to the adversary. If mishandled, they could easily help an enemy accelerate its weapons development. That may be what happened with Merlin. Iran has spent nearly 20 years trying to develop nuclear weapons, and in the process has created a strong base of sophisticated scientists knowledgeable enough to spot flaws in nuclear blueprints. Tehran also obtained nuclear blueprints from the network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and so already had workable blueprints against which to compare the designs obtained from the CIA. Nuclear experts say that they would thus be able to extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws. "If [the flaw] is bad enough," warned a nuclear weapons expert with the IAEA, "they will find it quite quickly. That would be my fear" James Risen 2006 This is an edited extract from State of War, by James Risen, published by The Free Press ***************************************************************** 68 The Hindu: "Britain working on new nuclear warhead" Tuesday, September 4, 2007 : 1200 Hrs London, Sept. 4 (PTI): British scientists are secretly working on the design of a revamped nuclear warhead at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, a short drive from here, a leading daily reported today. "The new device, designated the High Surety Warhead, is the British version of the Reliable Replacement Warhead programme which started more than two years ago at the US military's California and New Mexico nuclear laboratories," The Herald quoted sources as saying. In fact, the top-secret project is being run in conjunction with the American efforts to build a range of modernised 'failsafe' nuclear firepower for its own submarine-launched Trident missiles, the unnamed sources said. "The aim (of the project) is to produce warheads which contain fewer degradable components, giving them a longer shelf-life, and to make them so dependable that none would have to be detonated in an underground explosion that would contravene the worldwide test ban," the sources said. However, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Defence told the daily "no decisions on any replacement for Trident have yet been taken and there is no programme to build a successor warhead." Meanwhile, it is learnt that the British government is in the process of investing almost 2.2 billion pounds in the Aldermaston site to equip it with a state-of-the-art Cray supercomputer codenamed Larch and a laser codenamed Orion to help model nuclear explosions in place of live testing. The supercomputer, bought with 20 million pounds of taxpayers' money, is so fast that the six billion inhabitants of the planet would have to make 7,000 calculations each per second to keep pace with it, the sources said. A programme to hire scientists, physicists and engineers is also underway at the 750-acre site. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the ***************************************************************** 69 RIA Novosti: Missile defense: to be or not to be? Opinion & analysis - 16:40 | 03/ 09/ 2007 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - A mere mention of missile defense can today provoke truly Shakespearian passions. However, the famous question of the Prince of Denmark no longer applies to missile defense. Following the logic of scientific and technological progress, the defense programs will go ahead despite the seemingly unbeatable arguments of their opponents. The American plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic are unlikely to be derailed. No doubt the Russian military and political leadership has always realized the inevitability of the third missile defense positioning area on the European continent. That being so, it presupposed working out a consistent missile defense policy in military-technical and political terms. Even a year ago it all seemed crystal clear. The Russian military and politicians did not show much concern about the American plans. Many Russian experts claimed, and justly so, that 10 interceptor missiles could not seriously hamper Russia's ground-based strategic nuclear forces. Yet the stepped-up activities to implement the program as a whole were frowned upon. In this connection, Moscow's official stand, providing for a more active build-up of offensive strategic weapons as an adequate reply to the American challenge, seemed quite logical. At any rate, everybody could understand the reasoning of the powers that be: our ways are parting, but we do not fear you, and we respond the best we can, taking advantage of our strong points, they said. But in mid-February this year, Russia's Chief of Staff Yury Baluyevsky said that Russia might unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 treaty on shorter- and medium-range missiles. Such a step was directly linked to plans for and implementation of the American missile defense program in European countries. In his view, the positioning areas of American anti-missiles could now be the prospective targets. The idea of pounding on the recent East European allies is becoming a real obsession with the Russian General Staff. Upgrading the existing inventory of nuclear missiles when global anti-missile systems make their appearance is an understandable asymmetrical response. But to add to them medium-range, ballistic and cruise missiles in the future, moreover those targeted at Europe, is not a happy choice. At the G8 summit in Germany in May, Russian president Vladimir Putin made a strong move by proposing that the Americans could use the Gabala radar in Azerbaijan as part of their defense system. If realized, the scheme could benefit Russia in many ways - while finding a technologically feasible answer to the third positioning missile-defense area, Moscow also gained a political lever to influence the future missile defense programs. In other words, Russia was within an ace of applying in practice a very wise principle - "if you can't fight it, embrace it." But cooperation with the Americans, which opens new horizons and is not fully formalized yet, somehow got linked with the demand that they give up their European missile-defense plans. Naturally enough, the first round of Russian-American expert talks in Washington on July 30-31 yielded modest results. Although, according to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak, the discussion was serious, Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, stressed on August 21 that the American position remained the same regarding the deployment of elements of an American missile defense shield in Eastern Europe. In all probability, the Americans will also remain firm during the October meeting of foreign and defense ministers of the two countries. If anything, Russia's General Staff has gone out of its way to make it such. On August 21, in a conversation with Czech Deputy Defense Minister Martin Bartak, Baluyevsky described the Czech Republic's likely decision to deploy missile defense units on its territory as a huge blunder. To leave no doubt about the seriousness of Russia's intentions, the general warned that some "military" measures might be used against it if it went ahead with it. The Foreign Ministry readily echoed the military in strengthening Russian-American cooperation on missile defenses. Speaking about the October meeting, its deputy spokesman Boris Malakhov added to the string of warnings to prospective partners one of his own: "We would like to remind you that the fundamental condition for the implementation of our proposals is the refusal by the United States to deploy a missile defense base in Europe and to station strike anti-missile elements in space." This statement leaves no room for Hamlet-like doubts even for missile defense program sceptics. As regards Russian-American-European dialogue on the subject concerned, doubts are steadily replacing certainties here. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 70 RIA Novosti: No plans to deploy nukes in Belarus - Russian FM-1 20:18 | 03/ 09/ 2007 MOSCOW, September 3 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's foreign minister denied Monday any plans by Russia to deploy nuclear weapons in Belarus, following last months allegations that nuclear facilities could be deployed on Belarusian territory. "We do not have any plans of the kind, and the Foreign Ministry has [repeatedly] said this," Sergei Lavrov said. "Belarus's status is fixed by its Constitution, and that settles the matter, I hope," the minister said. Some media cited Alexander Surikov, Russia's ambassador to Belarus, as saying in late August that he did not rule out any plans for deployment, but the diplomat said he had been misinterpreted. The nuclear issue has been hot on the international agenda this year following an announcement by the United States in January that it was planning to locate components of its global antimissile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland to prevent possible strikes from "rogue states," such as Iran and North Korea. But Russia, already unnerved by NATO expansion to former Warsaw Pact member states, has condemned the plans as a threat to national security and a destabilizing factor for Europe. Moscow warned that its response would be adequate and highly effective. At the G8 summit in June, President Vladimir Putin offered the U.S. the use of a Russian-leased radar in Azerbaijan as a compromise solution in the ongoing dispute. Three-way consultations between Russia, Azerbaijan, and the United States on the joint use of the Gabala radar are scheduled for September 15. And the foreign minister said Russia hoped a single approach to missile defense would be achieved at talks on the use of the Gabala radar in Baku next week. "The Russian president put forward a well-reasoned proposal that would help lift all suspicion of a threat of missile proliferation, against which the U.S. wants to create a shield in Central Europe," Lavrov said. He added that a visit to the Gabala radar station would be arranged so that U.S. experts could assess the facility and the effectiveness of Russia's proposal. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 71 Kommersant Moscow: Russia Not to Deploy Nuclear Weapons in Belarus - Sep. 04, 2007 Russia does not plan to deploy nuclear weapons on the Belarusian territory, said Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Belarus has its [non-nuclear] status fixed by its Constitution. That settles the matter,” Lavrov told the reporters. Alexander Surikov, Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, said last week that Moscow would discuss with Minsk the issue of nuclear weapons deployment on Belarus’ territory if the Union State is created, as a response to the U.S. deployment of missile defense system elements in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, Minsk took calmly the statement of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “The issue has not been discussed yet, but you know we have high level of integration with Russia, including that in the military sphere. Moreover, there already are Russian bases on our territory,” said the Foreign Ministry of Belarus. In fact, the Belarusian authorities support the idea of deploying Russia’s nuclear weapons in the republic. Minsk is quite uneasy about the growing U.S. military presence in Eastern Europe, and hopes for Russia’s support and protection. www.kommersant.com © 1991-2007 ZAO "Kommersant. Publishing House". All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 72 UPI: Russia denies plans to move nukes United Press International - NewsTrack - Top News - Published: Sept. 3, 2007 at 5:58 PM MOCOW, Russia, Sept. 3 (UPI) -- Russia's foreign minister has denied any plans to move nuclear weapons to Belarus, adding that the matter is settled. "We do not have any plans of the kind, and the Foreign Ministry has (repeatedly) said this," reported Sergei Lavrov. "Belarus's status is fixed by its Constitution, and that settles the matter, I hope." Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, Alexander Surikov, was cited as saying in late August that plans for deployment were not ruled out, but he has since said he was misinterpreted. After an announcement by the United States in January that it was putting an anti-missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland to prevent possible strikes from "rogue states," such as Iran and North Korea, the nuclear issue has become hot on the international agenda. But Russia has condemned the plans by the United States as a threat to national security and a destabilizing factor for Europe. Officials warned that Russia’s response would be adequate and highly effective. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 73 Baltic Times: Parts outlines nuclear deadline News from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania Sep 03, 2007 From wire reports TALLINN - Estonian Economic Affairs Minister Juhan Parts has told the Postimees newspaper that the country’s role in a new Finnish nuclear power plant needs to be sorted out within the year, as the Finnish parliament is due to debate the issue during 2009. "We are very much interested in achieving Finland's political support for Estonian companies' involvement, as well as the support of companies that have invested in Finnish nuclear power plants already," Parts said. He suggested the Eesti Energia (Estonian Energy) power utility could take part in the construction of the new nuclear facility. "The decisive word in the issue belongs to Finland… According to the present plans endorsement of the next reactor should come up in the Finnish parliament in mid-2009. We must have [reached] agreement by that time, and we must also have an economic feasibility analysis," the minister said. Parts said that Pohjalan Voima, the key partner in Finland, is very much interested in Estonia's participation. "Pohjalan Voima is a partner in the Estlink cable and together we are making preparations for Estlink 2," he added. The Finnish government is currently scouting likely sites for the project across the country. Estonia is also involved with the proposed construction of a new nuclear facility in Lithuania. ***************************************************************** 74 ITAR-TASS: RF ready to negotiate reduction of nuke tactical arms 03.09.2007, 14.14 MOSCOW, September 3 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Federation is ready to begin talks with the United States on the reduction of tactical nuclear weapons given the accession to them of Great Britain and France, Chief of the 12th Main Directorate of the Russian Defence Ministry Colonel-General Vladimir Verkhovtsev told a press conference here on Monday. “We are ready to agree to such negotiations with the United States, but let’s include other countries in this process, primarily Great Britain and France,” he stated. © ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. You undertake not to copy, store ***************************************************************** 75 AFP: Russia draws 'red line' on Kosovo, US missile defence - by Sebastian Smith Mon Sep 3, 5:45 AM ET MOSCOW (AFP) - Moscow will never give way on "red line" issues, including Kosovo and US missile defence, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared Monday in a speech underlining Russia's increasingly muscular foreign policy. "There are so-called 'red line' issues for Russia," Lavrov said in a speech to students at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations. "There we cannot fail to react and we must stick to our position to the end." Lavrov specified Kosovo -- where Russia opposes Western proposals to grant the province independence from Serbia -- and opposition to US missile defence plans for Central Europe as areas where Moscow would not "horse-trade." His comments were the latest sign of hawkish Russian opposition to key areas of US foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin, who is using massive oil and gas revenues to rebuild Russia's military and to restore diplomatic clout. Lavrov said some were worried by "the rapid rebirth of our country as one of the leading countries of the world.... However, this does not mean that it's necessary to think up yet another myth about the Russian threat." He also used his speech -- an annual occasion marking the start of the academic year at Russia's most prestigious international affairs institute -- to attack a probe by key US ally Britain into the murder of fugitive Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko. Lavrov dismissed London's attempt to extradite a KGB veteran over the radiation poisoning in London last year as "a noisy propaganda show." "Great Britain has become a voluntary, or involuntary actor in a provocation against Russia," Lavrov charged. The Kremlin has already shown itself ready to play hardball on Kosovo and missile defence. Moscow, a close ally of Serbia, earlier this month refused to vote for a Western-backed UN Security Council resolution on independence for Kosovo, an ethnic-Albanian dominated province in southern Serbia. Russian officials have also threatened that Moscow could recognise the independence of separatist areas in Georgia, a Western ally south of Russia, should Kosovo be allowed to break off without Serbian agreement. Washington has also taken a tough line on Kosovo, suggesting it could unilaterally recognise independence for the province if the United Nations fails to do so. Lavrov's inclusion of missile defence as a "red line" issue added to a deepening diplomatic row over Washington's wish to deploy a missile-tracking radar in the Czech Republic and anti-missile rockets in Poland. Russia describes the system as aimed at its own massive nuclear force. However Washington says the shield would be aimed only at smaller military powers posing a potential threat to Europe, such as Iran or North Korea, and would be far too small to threaten Russia. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 76 ANI: Time right for US to demand access to Dr. A.Q. Khan, says pressure group From our ANI Correspondent Washington, Sept.3: The United States should demand direct access to Dr A. Q. Khan, Pakistan's disgraced nuclear proliferator, given the political uncertainity facing that country, saysthe Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington-based pressure group. In a report released by the US news agency, UPI, Travis Sharp, the group's military policy analyst, and Max Postman, a researcher, argue that now is the time to seek direct access to the man who the United States believes headed a network of international proliferators. "With Musharraf vulnerable and looking for support, now is the time for US officials to ask for access to Khan ... agreement on dealing with Khan would be a good first step toward negotiating the thornier issue of eliminating terrorist encampments in Pakistan's tribal areas," the Dawn quotes the authors, as saying. The report also quotes former CIA Director George Tenet as saying that Dr Khan is "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden,'' adding that the United States should have never accepted Pakistan's argument that it cannot allow direct access to the scientist. The report also quotes from a recent congressional bill which urges the US administration to "work with the government of Pakistan to dismantle existing proliferation networks and prevent the proliferation of nuclear technology." Copyright Dailyindia.com/ANI Copyright © 2004-2007 DailyIndia.com ***************************************************************** 77 The State: SRS bid suitor takes to airwaves | 09/04/2007 | Company vying for $4 billion contract launches campaign touting loyalty to community By NOELLE PHILLIPS - nophillips@thestate.com A company vying for a $4 billion contract to manage the Savannah River Site is launching a series of television and newspaper ads today pledging loyalty to the nearby community. “For Fluor Daniel, it’s about more than a government contract,” the TV ad’s voice-over says. “It’s about building a future for this area we call home.” SRS is a former Cold War nuclear development facility in Aiken County. Today, the focus is on cleaning radioactive waste. Fluor is one of four companies bidding on the management contract through a partnership called Savannah River Nuclear Solutions. The other partners are Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Honeywell, said Chuck Munns, chief executive officer of the new company. Washington Savannah River Co., a subsidiary of Idaho-based Washington Group International, has held the contract since 1989. WGI and Nuclear Solutions are the only competitors for the five-year U.S. Department of Energy contract. Fluor executives are touting their S.C. connections to win public opinion. And it’s a sign that competition for the lucrative contract is heating up. Fluor employs about 2,500 people in three Greenville offices, said Ken Smith, a senior vice president. Smith and other executives would not say how much they are spending on the ad campaign. Ads will run in the Midlands and the Upstate. “We want to become part of the community,” Munns said. Although the company is working — and spending — to convince South Carolinians, it is up to the Energy Department to choose the winner. But the company believes the public can help its cause. Jeff Ranta, an instructor in the USC Department of Journalism and Mass Communications, said Fluor is borrowing a strategy from the pharmaceutical industry. Just as drug advertisements persuade consumers to ask their doctors for specific medicines, Fluor wants the public to ask the federal government for a new manager at SRS. “It’s going to be an encouragement to call your congressmen, call Department of Energy to tell them how much you want Fluor Daniel to manage it,” Ranta said. “That’s worked for the pharmaceutical companies forever.” Thus far, the Washington company does not have plans for an ad campaign, said Jack Herrmann, vice president of communications. The company has been at the site for 18 years, and people already are familiar with its community involvement, he said. The Department of Energy could choose the contract winner this fall. As competition over the lucrative contract heats up, Ranta said he wouldn’t be surprised if Washington Group changes its mind on advertising. “If you stand to lose $4 billion, it wouldn’t hurt to spend some money,” he said. “If nothing else but to tell how well you’ve run it up to this point.” Reach Phillips at (803) 771-8307. ***************************************************************** 78 DOE: Statement from Secretary Bodman on the Death of Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. September 4, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC – “I was saddened to learn of the death of Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Edward McGaffigan Jr. this weekend. In his over three decades of public service, Commissioner McGaffigan pioneered projects to promote nuclear energy to power our nation and increase safeguards for commercial nuclear facilities. I wish his family and officials at the NRC my deepest sympathy as they mourn the loss of a friend and colleague.” Media contact(s): Megan Barnett, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 79 DOE: Secretary of Energy Administers Oath to Three Senior Officials September 4, 2007 WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman today administered the oath of office to three newly confirmed and appointed senior officials: C.H. “Bud” Albright Jr., as Under Secretary, Lisa Epifani as the Assistant Secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, and Kevin Kolevar as the Assistant Secretary for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. “I applaud the Senate for unanimously confirming Bud Albright as Under Secretary for Energy, and Lisa Epifani and Kevin Kolevar as Assistant Secretaries,” Secretary Bodman said. “I am pleased to have Bud, Lisa and Kevin on my leadership team and I am confident their respective backgrounds and unique expertise will be invaluable as the Department works aggressively to advance President Bush’s bold energy agenda.” UNDER SECRETARY BUD ALBRIGHT As Under Secretary, Albright will oversee the Department’s Energy and Environment programs, including: the Offices of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Environmental Management, Fossil Energy, Legacy Management, Nuclear Energy, and Radioactive Waste Management. “Bud’s breadth of experience, record of leadership in government and the private sector, and proven understanding of energy issues will ensure the Department continues to carry out its energy and environment missions, particularly as we work to diversify our Nation’s energy supply and increase the use of clean, renewable energy,” Secretary Bodman said of Albright. Albright comes to DOE from the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served as Republican Staff Director for the Committee on Energy and Commerce while working to address challenges facing the country’s energy, environmental, telecommunications, and health industries. Albright was previously Vice President of Federal Affairs at Reliant Energy, and has served as Deputy Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as Deputy General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Albright holds degrees from Presbyterian College in his home state of South Carolina and the George Mason University School of Law. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR CONGRESSIONAL & INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, LISA EPIFANI Assistant Secretary Epifani will lead the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs, which works to promote DOE policies, programs and initiatives through liaison, communications, coordination and interaction with Congress and with state, tribal, city, and county governments. “Lisa’s knowledge of energy issues, legislative experience and commitment to public service make her superbly qualified to help further the Department’s mission and the President’s dynamic agenda for energy policies,” Secretary Bodman said of Epifani. Epifani returns to the Department where she once served as Senior Legislative Advisor. After her DOE service, she was Counsel for the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Most recently, Epifani served as Special Assistant to the President at the White House National Economic Council, where she advised on domestic energy issues. Epifani is a University of Texas and Yale Law School graduate. ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ELECTRICITY DELIVERY & ENERGY RELIABILITY, KEVIN KOLEVAR As Assistant Secretary, Kevin Kolevar will continue to lead the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), which manages DOE efforts to modernize the nation’s electric grid; enhance the security and reliability of the energy infrastructure; and facilitate recovery from disruptions to the energy supply. “Kevin’s wealth of energy policy expertise, attention to detail, and longstanding commitment to this Department make him a highly regarded member of my senior staff, and I look forward to his continued counsel and advice in his new capacity as Assistant Secretary,” Secretary Bodman said of Kolevar. Kolevar has served as Director of OE since 2005. He has also served as chief of staff to then-Deputy Secretary of Energy Kyle McSlarrow where he supported and advised the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on policy, regulatory, and legislative matters as well as Departmental program management. Kolevar also worked as a senior policy advisor to then-Secretary Spencer Abraham on security and technology issues. Before joining DOE, Kolevar spent over ten years serving as U.S. Senate staff in the offices of Senators Spencer Abraham (R-MI) and Connie Mack (R-FL). He is a graduate of the University of Michigan. The three officials sworn in today will immediately assume or continue their work at the Department of Energy. View biographies of Under Secretary Albright, Assistant Secretary Epifani and Assistant Secretary Kolevar. Media contact(s): Julie Ruggiero, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 80 NRC: DOE nuclear waste determinations at INEL FR Doc E7-17399 [Federal Register: September 4, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 170)] [Notices] [Page 50704-50705] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr04se07-76] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION [Docket No. PROJ0734, PROJ0735, PROJ0736, POOM-32] Notice of Availability of NUREG-1854, NRC Staff Guidance for Activities Related to U.S. Department of Energy Waste Determinations, Draft Final Report for Interim Use AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of Availability of Draft Final Report for Interim Use. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is issuing draft final NRC staff guidance for activities related to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) waste determinations (NUREG-1854), for interim use. NUREG- 1854 provides guidance to the NRC staff in evaluating non-high-level waste determinations developed by DOE for the Savannah River Site, Idaho National Laboratory, Hanford, and West Valley for certain wastes that are a result of the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. NUREG-1854 provides elements the NRC staff should review to fulfill its responsibilities under the Ronald Reagan Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (NDAA), which is to consult with DOE on its waste determinations and to monitor DOE disposal actions to assess compliance with the performance objectives in 10 CFR part 61, subpart C. NUREG- 1854 does not set forth regulatory requirements for NRC or for DOE, and compliance with NUREG-1854 is not required. ADDRESSES: NUREG-1854 is available for inspection and copying for a fee at the Commission's Public Document Room, U.S. NRC's Headquarters Building, 11555 Rockville Pike (first floor), Rockville, Maryland, and electronically from the ADAMS Public Library component on the NRC Web Site, http://www.nrc.gov (the Electronic Reading Room) [ML072360184]. For those without access to the Internet, paper copies of any electronic documents may be obtained for a fee by contacting the NRC's Public Document Room at 301-415-4737 or toll free at 1-800-397-4209. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Michael Fuller, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Mail Stop T8-F5, Washington, DC 20555, Phone Number: (301) 415-0520, e-mail: mlf2@nrc.gov. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In October 2004, the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 (NDAA) was enacted. Section 3116 of the NDAA gave the NRC new responsibilities with respect to DOE waste management activities for certain ``incidental'' waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel within the States of South Carolina and Idaho. These responsibilities include consultation with DOE on DOE's determination whether the waste is not high-level waste (HLW), as well as monitoring DOE's disposal actions for these wastes. The concept behind incidental waste is that some material, resulting from the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, does not need to be disposed of as HLW in a geologic repository because the residual radioactive contamination, if properly controlled, is sufficiently low that it does not represent a hazard to public health and safety. Consequently, incidental waste is not considered to be HLW, but instead is low-level waste. DOE uses technical analyses that are documented in a waste determination to evaluate whether waste is incidental or HLW. A waste determination provides DOE's analysis as to whether the waste [[Page 50705]] will meet the applicable incidental waste criteria. Prior to passage of the NDAA, DOE would periodically request NRC to provide technical advice for specific waste determinations. The staff reviewed DOE's waste determinations to assess whether they had sound technical assumptions, analysis, and conclusions with regard to meeting the applicable incidental waste criteria. Because the enactment of the NDAA is expected to increase the number of waste determinations submitted to the NRC for review, the NRC has decided to develop NUREG- 1854, NRC Staff Guidance for Activities Related to U.S. Department of Energy Waste Determinations, Draft Final Report for Interim Use. The NUREG provides guidance to NRC staff on how to conduct a technical review of a waste determination, as well as how to conduct monitoring activities under the NDAA, and will help ensure consistency across different reviews and different reviewers. Because the technical aspects of the NRC's waste determination reviews are expected to be similar for all four sites, regardless of whether the site is covered by the NDAA, the NRC has decided that this NUREG will address reviews for the Savannah River Site, Idaho National Laboratory, Hanford, and West Valley. Dated at Rockville, MD this 28th day of August, 2007. For the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Larry W. Camper, Director, Division of Waste Management and Environmental Protection, Office of Federal and State Materials and Environmental Management Programs. [FR Doc. E7-17399 Filed 8-31-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 81 Knoxville News Sentinel: Debate on Y-12 could change By Frank Munger (Contact) Monday, September 3, 2007 OAK RIDGE — Critics have challenged the modernization program at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant for years, mostly questioning the need for new facilities in the post-Cold War period. As the cost of projects goes up, however, the debate could shift to the program’s affordability. The National Nuclear Security Administration recently acknowledged that the biggest project on the horizon, the Uranium Processing Facility, could cost as much as $3.5 billion. U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., took a wait-and-see attitude when asked if UPF could make it through the appropriations process with a price tag that high. During an Oak Ridge visit last week, Wamp said the NNSA would have to make a strong case about the need for UPF to maintain the nation’s nuclear deterrent. “This is a real important part of our national security capability, but it’s also competing (for funds) with bombs and bullets and fighting wars today. So it’s a constant challenge,” Wamp said. The Oak Ridge plant manufactures nuclear warhead parts from highly enriched uranium and other materials. The UPF would replace Y-12’s main production center, with construction tentatively scheduled to begin around 2015. According to Steven Wyatt, a federal spokesman at Y-12, the current cost range for UPF is $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion. The top end is far greater than previous estimates released publicly. Wyatt emphasized that estimates are not “official” at this point, with preliminary designs for the uranium facility just getting under way. But he said it’s “reasonable to anticipate” that the baseline cost for UPF will fall somewhere in that range. Is $3.5 billion too much to spend on a new weapons-production facility? Wamp said congressional support for UPF is possible — even at a high cost — if nuclear defense officials can put the investment in context and inspire confidence in their leadership. However, Wamp said a lot may depend on the outcome of the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility — a Y-12 storage center that will house the nation’s supply of bomb-grade uranium. The cost of the fortified storage center has more than doubled since the start of construction in 2004. The current price is $549 million, and work is about 60 percent done. If the storage facility is not completed efficiently, there could be a big problem getting approval for UPF at a cost of $3.5 billion, Wamp said. “You’d hate that the number would ever grow to that point,” but much of the cost escalation is attributable to security changes required to counter the threat of terrorism, the congressman said. “That changes virtually every month,” he said. Wamp said there are other uncertainties when dealing with long-range projects, including the cost of construction materials. That’s why there’s a heavy amount of “contingency” funding built into the cost estimates, he said. “The price of steel has gone through the roof, and you know that’s across the board,” he said. “You can’t tell what products, services, goods are going to cost in three or four years, and we’re projecting what something is going to cost that’s going to be completed in 2020?” U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who joined Wamp at an Oak Ridge function last week, said he generally agreed with Wamp’s assessment but didn’t wanted to offer a firm opinion on UPF. “The first question is how well is it being managed? The second is how well can we anticipate the cost? I don’t want to give a premature response without knowing more about both,” Alexander said. U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon, D-Tenn., chairman of the House Science Committee, also was in town for an event at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Gordon said he wasn’t familiar with the latest estimates on the cost of the Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12, but he said any project of that size is going to face great scrutiny because Congress is committed to “pay-as-you-go” budgets. “I think it’s going to be up to all of us to demonstrate it’s going to be worth the money to the American taxpayer,” he said. “Hopefully, as we start seeing a potential downturn on the expenditures on the war in Iraq in the coming years, there’ll be additional funds for these sorts of programs.” Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 82 Oak Ridger: DOE to test public warning siren system Wednesday - Story last updated at 12:16 am on 9/4/2007 The U. S. Department of Energy’s Public Warning Siren System will be tested on Wednesday in the areas surrounding the Department’s Oak Ridge Reservation. The sirens will be tested between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. People in these areas during the test will hear a siren for three to five minutes. The sirens are located near the Department of Energy’s East Tennessee Technology Park, Y-12 National Security Complex, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The sirens are intended to provide immediate notification of an emergency to people who are within an approximate two-mile radius of DOE’s Oak Ridge Reservation. The 33,725-acre ORR is located in Anderson and Roane counties. In the event of an actual emergency, the sirens will be sounded. When citizens hear the sirens they should go inside, close all windows and ventilation systems, and listen to radio or television for public health and safety-related information. The DOE Public Warning Siren System is tested on the first Wednesday of each month. This effort is consistent with testing of warning systems around the Tennessee Valley Authority’s nuclear power plants. DOE has established a Web site that provides information to the public on what to do in case of an emergency at the DOE’s ORR. The Web site is located at: http://www.oakridge.doe.gov/emergency. More information is available by calling the DOE Public Affairs Office at (865) 576-0885. Oak Ridge Office is responsible for major national DOE programs in science, environmental management, nuclear fuel supply, and national security. | © 2004 The Oak Ridger ***************************************************************** 83 WebWire: Argonne scientists take giant step forward in understanding exotic nuclei (WebWire) 9/3/2007 2:38:36 PM Developing good predictive powers of how all nuclei work is critical to advance our understanding of the universe. The vast nuclear landscape, which is thought to consist of about 6,000 isotopes is not well charted and half the nuclei remain unknown. Only about 300 isotopes are stable and exist in the world around us. A lot has been learned about these stable nuclei, but researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are developing techniques to uncover the secrets of some of the most unstable and exotic counterparts. While the exotic isotopes are not normally present on earth, some of them play critical roles in the working of the stars, especially in the element-producing process of nucleosynthesis. Darek Seweryniak and his colleagues from Argonne’s Physics Division in collaboration with scientists from the University of Maryland, University of Notre Dame and University of Edinburgh, have focused their attention on a new isotope of tin, tin-100 (100Sn), one of the very rare "doubly-magic" nuclei. The doubly-magic assignment refers to the special cases where both protons and neutrons fill their quantum shells so that super-stability is achieved. The properties of stable doubly-magic nuclei, such as oxygen-16 (16O), calcium-40 (40Ca) and lead-208 (208Pb) are well known, but the challenge is to determine the extent to which current models can be extrapolated to describe nuclei situated far from the line of stability, in this case, near the "proton dripline," where nuclear existence ends. Establishing the properties of this nucleus and its immediate neighbors builds a solid platform from which the properties of all proton-rich intermediate mass nuclei can be developed. To date, only a handful of 100 Sn nuclei have ever been synthesized, in France and Germany, but almost nothing is known about its shell structure. Using the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) facility in a 10-day experiment, the researchers started by synthesizing tin-101 (101Sn) and measuring its lowest excited state. 101Sn consists of a 100Sn core with the extra valence neutron orbiting in discreet quantum states in the field of the core. Gamma rays emitted during the transition between these states were detected and analyzed in Gammasphere, the world’s most powerful gamma-ray detector, and 101Sn nuclei were identified with the Fragment Mass Analyzer. The properties of the gamma rays reveal the sequence of states and their spacing, and can be used to directly challenge the reliability of contemporary nuclear models. In the short term, the researchers expect to find further quantum states in 101Sn and learn more about the core this way. However, the experiment provides a key technical step toward the study of 100Sn itself in the future. The detailed results of these findings were published in the journal Physical Review Letters in July. [Phys.Rev.Lett. 99, 022504 (2007)] Funding for this work was provided by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Physics, part of the Office of Science. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne National Laboratory brings the world’s brightest scientists and engineers together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America ’s scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Source: www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2007/news070829.html ***************************************************************** 84 WebWire: PARSONS reaches safety milestone on SWPF PROJECT (WebWire) 9/4/2007 10:09:47 AM AIKEN, SC- Parsons is pleased to announce that the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) team in Aiken, South Carolina, completed one million manhours without a lost-time accident. “Safety continues to be the number one priority of the SWPF project,” said Dave Amerine, Parsons SWPF Project Manager. “Our successful safety program requires total involvement from everyone on the project, and we commend our team for this safety milestone.” The SWPF Employee Safety Committee will recognize this achievement with an official celebration on September 20, 2007. In 2004, the Department of Energy (DOE) selected Parsons to design, construct, commission, and operate the SWPF for one year. The SWPF is the cornerstone of DOE plans for treatment and disposal of 31 million gallons of radioactive salt wastes stored in large underground tanks at the Savannah River Site. Construction of the facility is scheduled to commence this fall. Source: www.parsons.com/about/press_rm/projects/pr0708f.asp ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************