***************************************************************** 10/15/07 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 15.242 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** Send News Stories to news@energy-net.org with title on subject line and first line of body NUCLEAR POLICY 1 US: Huffington Post: Harry Shearer: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the T NUCLEAR REACTORS 2 cooltech.iafrica.com: features Nuclear reactors for sale 3 RosBusinessConsulting: Investment boom ahead for nuclear industry 4 Navhind Times: Ramana highlights ill-effects of nuclear technology 5 US: APP.COM: Submission fails to list '82 cleanup at reactor 6 US: Seacoastonline.com: Case made for nuclear energy 7 US: NRC: South Texas Project Application for New Reactors Available 8 China Daily: Nuclear power is the 'way forward' 9 SABJ: Nuclear Regulatory Commission awards SwRI a $123 million advis 10 US: NRC: NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabili 11 US: Reuters: APS Ariz Palo Verde 2 reactor back at full power 12 US: Reuters: Dominion Kewuanee reactor exits outage, up to 93 pct 13 US: Reuters: Dominion Va. N Anna 1 reactor starts to exit refuel | 14 US: Reuters: Entergy shuts N.Y. FitzPatrick reactor due algae | 15 US: Reuters: Exelon Pa. Peach Bottom 3 reactor exits refuel 16 Guardian Unlimited: GDF Suez to invest in UK nuclear power stations 17 US: Reuters: PSEG N.J. Hope Creek reactor shut 18 US: Reuters: PPL Pa. Susquehanna 1 reactor shut 19 US: Reuters: FPL Fla. Turkey Pt 3 reactor starts to exit refuel 20 US: Knoxville News Sentinel: Bechtel wins TVA contract for Watts Bar 21 Baltic Times: Piebalgs insists on Ignalina shutdown 22 RussiaToday: Foreign firms to partially equip Russian nuclear plants 23 Telegraph: UK can't afford cold feet over nuclear power - 24 www.bbj.hu: Brussels pushes atomic safety amid pro-nuclear talk 25 WNN: Nuclear Management Company to be reincorporated 26 The Hindu: One unit of power to be generated from Koodankulam 27 Czech Business Weekly: Experts see nuclear power as a future option NUCLEAR SECURITY 28 RIA Novosti: Expert questions effectiveness of nuclear deterrence st 29 IAEA: Global Security: The Need for a New Beginning 30 US: Reuters: US Senate panel seen backing 7-yr terror insurance | 31 UPI: Walker's World: Inflating Russian reality 32 US: UPI: 3 ports start 100-percent cargo scanning NUCLEAR SAFETY 33 BBC NEWS: Inquiry into N-test veterans case NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 34 US: Tri-City Herald: VX nerve agent next target at Umatilla Chemical 35 US: PEACOCK REPORT (TPR): Liquid Nuclear Waste Plant Slated for New 36 Canada: BBC: Open house on Nuclear waste 37 US: Buffalo News: Opinion: Clean up the landfill PEACE 38 [NYTr] The day the Cold War threatened to go nuclear 39 RIA Novosti: Wiesbaden hosts Russian-German summit consultations 40 US: AFP: US touts 'excellent record' on complying with disarmament o 41 New York Times: U.S. Frustrated by Putin's Grip on Power - US DEPT. OF ENERGY 42 DOE: German University Wins Architecture Contest in the 43 Knoxville News Sentinel: Nuclear landfill capacity concerns official 44 Knoxville News Sentinel: Oak Ridge reindustrialization: Is Hall's DO ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 Huffington Post: Harry Shearer: Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time - Harry Shearer| BIO | I'M A FAN OF THIS BLOGGER Posted October 14, 2007 | 08:35 PM (EST) Read More: Atomic Age, Atoms for Peace, General Electric, iran, Nuclear Weapons, syria, Yucca Mountain, Breaking Politics News I was but a babe when the Atomic Age began -- babe in the infant sense, babe -- and a mere tot when the decision was made to tame the mighty atom. Viewed from this distance, Atoms for Peace (as the taming project was called) seems impossibly wrongheaded, an invitation to mischief, suspicions of mischief and mischievous suspicions of mischief. Atoms for Peace, announced with grandiose fanfare by President Eisenhower, was the launching of the civilian nuclear-power industry. No longer was the split atom to be the symbol only of hideous warfare on a scale unimaginable to humans before Hiroshima; now our smiling atomic friend was to power the all-electric homes of our future, a cheerful accomplice to nothing more threatening than Westinghouse and General Electric. Better yet, countries that cowered in fear of our nuclear might would soon become happy customers of our nuclear bounty. Flash forward half a century, and both Iran and, more recently, Syria stand as testimony to the lunatic flaw in that strategy. If the same technology, embodied in the same infrastructure, can be used either (or both) for peace and war, one's ability to detect preparations for war is seriously, if not fatally, compromised. And a country which intends nothing more than the ego boost (and power boost) of a civilian nuke plant may not mind a bit of vagueness about whether the centrifuge array can enrich to greater than three percent, the way Saddam didn't mind a bit of vagueness about his capabilities, just to keep the nasty neighbors in check. When the vagueness proves to be, or can be used to seem, truly threatening, as we learned in 2003, it can be too late for all concerned. How much easier this current moment would have been if nukes were weapons of war, period. Of course, then we wouldn't be looking at a nearly $60 billion bill for the country's only high-level nuclear waste disposal facility, Yucca Mountain, years away from opening, and only a couple of decades from closing, having reached its storage capacity. Then, while the Mountain only has to protect its contents for the next several thousand years (warning signs are to be erected in less than a dozen current human languages -- save your dictionaries, folks), our mid-century quest will be for the next storage site, and the next. But how much easier life on the world stage would be, as well. Indonesia wouldn't at this very moment be contemplating nuclear plants near the site of active volcanoes, and A.Q. Khan might be far better known (and perhaps even prosecuted) as a lunatic rogue threat to world peace, having sold or given nuclear knowhow and technology to, among others, Libya, North Korea and Iran, from his position as the father of Pakistan's A-bomb. Atoms for Peace allowed everything to be fudged. We just need a clean source of electricity, the plant-builders say. They're hiding their true intentions, the war-mongers say. And we, trapped in the great middle, can just say, "Thanks a lot, Ike. Next life, try promoting Heroin for Peace." * Copyright © 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. | ***************************************************************** 2 cooltech.iafrica.com: features Nuclear reactors for sale Carole Landry Mon, 15 Oct 2007 On a strip of France's Channel coast, cranes, trucks and cement silos are hard at work preparing the world's most powerful nuclear reactor and showcase of French atomic savoir-faire. In two months, workers in Flamanville will pour the first concrete for the third-generation EPR, or European Pressurised Reactor, touted as the safest and cleanest addition to France's network of 58 nuclear reactors. With more than 80 percent of its electricity generated by nuclear plants, France sees itself as a model for successfully putting the atom at work toward producing carbon-free and relatively cheap power. More than two decades after Chernobyl shook the world's faith in nuclear power, France is vying to lead a worldwide revival of the nuclear industry as worries about global warming and rising energy prices have brought fission back in fashion. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has described nuclear power as the "energy of the future", stood up at the United Nations last month and delivered what was tantamount to a sales pitch for French nuclear technology. "France is willing to help any country which wants to acquire civilian nuclear power. An energy source for the future should not be the preserve of western countries and out of reach of eastern countries," Sarkozy declared. Music to the ears Such promotion at the top world body is music to the ears of France's nuclear conglomerate Areva which builds reactors, mines uranium and provides fuel as well as utilities giant Electricite de France, which operates France's nuclear plants. "We have been running nuclear power plants for 30 years in France and there have been no major incident," said Goulven Graillat, the head of industrial strategy at EDF. "If a country chooses the EPR, it is getting the sum of EDF's experience running its 58 reactors," said Graillat. "We have 4000 engineers working on designs — that's our strength." When Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited France this month, he asked for a tour of a nuclear plant at Nogent-sur-Seine and later received an offer of help from Sarkozy to build the communist country's first reactor. Vietnam, along with Morocco, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina and the United Arab Emirates are on the list of prospective new buyers of French-designed nuclear reactors, said Arthur de Montalembert, vice president for international affairs and marketing at Areva. Areva is preparing for big business in the United States where it has partnered with Constellation Energy to build some of the 15 planned new reactors, in China, which wants to put 40 new reactors on-line by 2020 and in South Africa. It is building a third-generation EPR in Finland, upgrading a German-designed reactor in Brazil and is actively seeking a stake in reviving Britain's outdated nuclear infrastructure in a venture with EDF. India — which like China is seeking to tap into new energy sources to feed its dynamic economy — is also on the list of prospective new markets where "dozens of reactors" could dot the landscape in the coming years, said Montalembert. "We are obviously on the frontlines to try to win over markets in these countries," he said. Not for nuclear proliferation Montalembert dismissed fears that any new buyer could put his nuclear reactor to work producing material for a bomb, emphasising that a whole separate gamut of enrichment technology would be needed for such a venture. "Of course we are not going to build a reactor just anywhere," said Montalembert during an interview at Areva headquarters in Paris. "We are looking at countries that have the capacity to host this type of reactor, that have a nuclear safety authority that is able to regulate its operation and abide by international regulations in terms of non-proliferation." France's decision to make nuclear energy its main source of electricity dates back to 1973 when the Middle East oil shock sent prices soaring and forced the government to seek alternate sources. It now exports about 15 percent of nuclear-generated electricity to neighbouring countries. 'The next Concorde' When it comes on line in 2012, the Flamanville EPR will produce 36 percent more power than its older sisters and boast added security features such as a double haul that EDF maintains could resist a terrorist attack. But in his home less than five kilometres from the new plant, anti-nuclear activist Didier Anger says talk of France leading a worldwide comeback of the atom is nothing but hype. "The EPR could very well be the next Concorde," he said of the technology, comparing it to the supersonic jet that was mothballed in 2003 after 34 years in the skies. A disastrous crash and high-maintenance costs brought the Concorde to its end. A former Green euro-MP now active for the group "Sortir du nucleaire" (End Nuclear Power), Anger noted that France had yet to resolve the issue of the long-term storage of nuclear waste. A law adopted last year set 2015 as the deadline for deciding what to do with processed waste. But Anger admitted that he and like-minded colleagues are a "minority" in Normandy, which draws its economic lifeline as much from the nuclear industry as it does from cows whose milk is made into the gourmet Camembert cheese. Other than the Flamanville power plant, a nuclear waste processing site at La Hague and the Cherbourg naval dockyard — where nuclear submarines, the pride of the French navy, were built — are major employers in the region. "Everyone knows what nuclear power is about and they have no apprehensions," said Philippe Leigne, the manager of the construction site at Flamanville. "Everyone knows someone who works in the industry." Leigne said he spares no effort to meet with local politicians and community leaders to discuss his work — an approach that seeks to dispel the image of the nuclear industry as cloaked in military secrecy. "No one would necessarily want a reactor in their backyard," said EDF's Graillat. "But in the interest of the country's energy needs and of the planet, it's not an unreasonable proposition to look at a renewal of nuclear energy." AFP Copyright © 2002-2007 iafrica.com, a division of Primedia Online* - ***************************************************************** 3 RosBusinessConsulting: Investment boom ahead for nuclear industry RBC, 15.10.2007, Moscow 14:04:24.Russia's nuclear industry should be ready for investment growth which is planned to soar by a factor of 7-8 within the next two years, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a meeting in Podolsk today. He reiterated that the federal target program for nuclear industry development makes a provision of an RUR18bn (approx. USD722m) investment until 2015, RUR10bn (approx. USD401m) of which has already been put to use. The program will secure RUR51bn (approx. USD 2.046bn) for 2008, while investment in the nuclear industry is expected to reach RUR90bn (approx. USD3.61) in 2009, which could create issues concerning effecient use of the funds. Ivanov stressed that Russia's nuclear industry had enough funds to construct two power units per year or more. However, the industry has yet to solve problems relating to mass production of nuclear power equipment and staff concerns. All rights reserved. © 1995 - 2007 RosBusinessConsulting. ***************************************************************** 4 Navhind Times: Ramana highlights ill-effects of nuclear technology on the Web: Goa NT Staff Reporter Panaji, Oct 14 Dr M V Ramana, fellow of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Environment and Development, Bangalore, going into the bad effects of nuclear technology, said that nuclear power is costlier than other sources of power and added that generation of nuclear power is susceptible to catastrophic accidents like in the Chernobyl fiasco. He further said that nuclear power generation produces radioactive waste which is hazardous to human health and that nuclear power is closely linked to weapons of mass destruction. Dr M V Ramana who was in Goa to attend a conference on nuclear energy was addressing a joint press conference with Mr Christopher Fonseca of the All India Trade Union Congress. Both are also members of the national co-ordination committee of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP). Dr Ramana said that nuclear reactors have proven to be more costly to build than coal or gas-based power plants of the same capacity. Heavy water used in reactors, is very expensive to produce and each reactor requires several hundred tons of that substance. Because of these capital costs, even though fuelling expenses are lower in nuclear reactors, on the whole nuclear electricity is more expensive than thermal power. Dr Ramana said imported reactors will be even more expensive. The current costs of light water reactors that might be imported from the US or France if the present nuclear deal goes through is about $ 2000 to $ 3000 per kilowatt of capacity. That is the “overnight construction cost” or the cost without including interest charges, he said. Thus, a 1000-megawatt reactor would cost $ 2 or $ 3 billion or Rs 8,000-12,000 crores as per the current dollar exchange rates. Since the reactor construction could take five or six years at the very minimum, there would be substantial interest charges that would accrue, he said. Just the capital cost of the reactor would cause the tariff to be above Rs 4 or Rs 5 per unit of electricity. Like the Enron power plant, this will also be unaffordable to the consumer, Dr Ramana said. He said nuclear reactors are also susceptible to catastrophic accidents like the one in Chernobyl due to which around 34,000 cancer deaths have occurred and will occur over the next few decades. He also said that nuclear power is closely linked to nuclear weapons. Though countries initially vow to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, they change their stand and later produce nuclear weapons, Dr Ramana said. He said other countries having nuclear energy and weapons, is not a justification for India going in for nuclear energy and weapons. He however said the CNDP is for the global disarmament of nuclear weapons. When asked what is the alternative to nuclear energy, Dr Ramana said energy should be based on a broad range of renewable and non-renewable sources and may vary as local conditions permit. He said while coal is the cheapest source of energy, other sources include gas and hydropower. He debunked the theory that nuclear energy is the answer to climate change. Talking about the Indo-US nuclear deal, Dr Ramana said it is not really a deal but a quid pro quo. The US wants India as a strategic ally as the Bush administration is interested in the old fashioned balance of power to check the growing influence of China in the region. “It’s not really a deal about nuclear energy but about strategic interests of the US,” Dr Ramana said. Monday, October 15, 2007 © Copyright Navhind Papers & Publications Ltd. All rights reserved Contact Information best viewed in IE-5 NS-4.5 at ***************************************************************** 5 APP.COM: Submission fails to list '82 cleanup at reactor | Asbury Park Press Online Monday, October 15, 2007 DEP wants more monitoring wells BY TODD B. BATES ENVIRONMENTAL WRITER Post Comment AmerGen Energy Co., which runs the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey, submitted an industry questionnaire to nuclear regulators last year saying plant operations have not required any cleanups of radioactivity in soil or ground water. Not so. In a letter to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this year, David Lochbaum of the Union of Concerned Scientists cited a 1982 Oyster Creek report on a release of radioactive liquid and excavation of contaminated soil. But Oyster Creek spokeswoman Leslie Cifelli said Friday that "it's not like we didn't report that" when it happened, the information in the questionnaire was "taken out of context," and "there were no ongoing remediation efforts that were reportable." Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Protection asked an Exelon Generation official in May for information on past radioactive releases at Oyster Creek and to consider installing more monitoring wells. Exelon owns AmerGen. The DEP had not received a response as of Friday, but it does not believe there is any current groundwater contamination at the plant involving tritium, according to an e-mail from DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura. A number of nuclear plants have discovered ground water contaminated with tritium, a mildly radioactive form of hydrogen, in the past few years. And the industry has launched a voluntary groundwater protection initiative aimed at enhancing public trust. All available information shows no threat to the public from the recent unintended tritium releases at nuclear plants, according to the NRC Web site. Oyster Creek is not on the list. And it has been a "zero liquid discharge facility" for more than 10 years, according to a May 29 DEP letter. The NRC is reviewing the tritium release incidents "to ensure nuclear plant operators have taken appropriate action and to determine what, if any, changes are needed to the agency's rules and regulations," the NRC Web site says. Tritium occurs naturally and when nuclear power plants are operated, the Web site says. Water with tritium and other radioactive substances is "normally released from nuclear plants under controlled, monitored conditions the NRC mandates to protect public health and safety," according to the Web site. The industry's initiative is aimed partly at preventing "migration of even very low levels of radioactive material off plant sites" and quantifying "impacts on the eventual decommissioning of facilities," according to a 2006 Nuclear Energy Institute statement on the Web. Oyster Creek, which opened in 1969, wants the NRC to approve a 20-year license renewal, keeping the plant open until 2029. Its current license is to expire in April 2009. Oyster Creek generates 636 megawatts of electricity, enough for 600,000 homes. The NRC is expected to make its license renewal decision in January. Tests and remediation According to a study released in September 2006, tritium and other radioactive substances were not detected in ground water or surface water samples taken at the Oyster Creek plant. One duplicate sample taken from a monitoring well contained a trace of tritium slightly above the detection limit. But the average of the initial and duplicate samples is less than the detection limit, according to the study, conducted by a consultant to Exelon Generation Company LLC. The detection limit is 100 times lower than the federal drinking water standard. Based on the results, "tritium is not migrating off the (Oyster Creek) property at detectable concentrations," and "there are no known active releases into the ground water" at the plant, the study says. In a July 2006 letter to an NRC official, AmerGen officials attached a questionnaire as part of the industry groundwater protection initiative. One query is as follows: "Briefly describe any remediation efforts undertaken or planned to reduce or eliminate levels of radioactivity resulting from plant operations in soil or ground water on-site or off-site." The response: "There have been no station events requiring remediation efforts at the Oyster Creek Station." Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, sent an April letter to Luis A. Reyes, the NRC's executive director of operations, citing the 1982 release and cleanup. Responding to Lochbaum, an Exelon Nuclear executive wrote that "Exelon/AmerGen's response to the question was intended as an update to information previously disclosed in detail to the NRC" and the DEP's Bureau of Nuclear Engineering. As spelled out in the consultant's 2006 report, "no spills were identified at Oyster Creek that currently impact ground water," the executive's letter says. A 1983 NRC report, cited by Lochbaum in a July letter to the NRC, discusses 13 events that involved the release of radioactivity at Oyster Creek. In some respects, what has happened is in the past, Lochbaum said. "The industry is doing things to better police the future," he said. Under the industry initiative, members of the Nuclear Energy Institute that are running or decommissioning a nuclear plant were required to develop and implement a groundwater protection program by July 31, 2006, according to an initiative document on the NRC Web site. Exelon "did more than most did," Lochbaum said. "They dug a lot of wells better . . . and took a lot of surveys" at all Exelon plants. "It looks like with these audits, it may not remain on the front-burner, but it won't be taken off the stove altogether, which is good news," he said. Seeking clarification Meanwhile, the DEP wants information on historic releases at Oyster Creek and has asked AmerGen to consider installing more monitoring wells, including ones near residential areas, according to the May 29 letter from a DEP official to an Exelon Generation official. "We are in the process of looking at that letter and digesting it and responding when appropriate," said Cifelli, the Oyster Creek spokeswoman. Elevated tritium results were reported in several on-site wells in annual monitoring reports for 1989 and 1990, yet the consultant's report does not mention any of the results, the DEP letter says. However, the "DEP does not believe that there is any tritium groundwater contamination at Oyster Creek currently," according to the e-mail from Makatura. The agency "continues to obtain split samples of groundwater wells on a semi-annual basis" at the plant, the e-mail says. One incident occurred at the plant since the May letter, according to Makatura's e-mail. Oyster Creek was automatically shut down on July 17 after a pump quit working. Steam with a harmless amount of tritium was released, AmerGen and NRC officials have said. No tritium was detected off-site, Makatura's e-mail says. CARE TO COMMENT?: Visit our Web site, www.app.com, and click on this story to join in the online conversation about this topic in Story Chat. This story includes material from Asbury Park Press archives. OYSTER CREEK GROUNDWATER MONITORING The Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey has a number of groundwater monitoring wells, but the state Department of Environmental Protection has asked an Exelon Generation official to consider installing more wells. Here is information on Oyster Creek's wells: The plant has a groundwater monitoring network that was installed in 1983 to detect "any radiological contaminants in the ground water beneath the facility that could be attributable to leaks or spills from plant systems, structures or components." There are 15 wells in the three aquifers of concern. Samples, taken periodically from those wells, have been analyzed for tritium, gamma-emitting radionuclides and strontium-89/90. An additional 88 monitoring wells at the site also are available for sampling. On-site and off-site drinking water supplies are routinely monitored for tritium and gamma-emitting radionuclides. One of the on-site potable water wells and two municipal water systems are monitored monthly. Sources: 2006 "Voluntary Data Collection Questionnaire" for Oyster Creek; 2007 state Department of Environmental Protection letter to an Exelon Generation official Copyright © 2007 Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Seacoastonline.com: Case made for nuclear energy Ex-EPA head: It must be part of energy mix By Shir Haberman shaberman@seacoastonline.com October 15, 2007 6:00 AM PORTSMOUTH — Thirty-five to 40 new nuclear power plants need to be built soon or the country will not have enough energy to supply commercial, industrial and residential needs by 2030, says Christine Todd Whitman, former New Jersey governor and former director of the Environmental Protection Agency. Whitman is now co-chairman of the CASEnergy Coalition, a large grass-roots coalition that unites unlikely allies across the business, environmental, academic, consumer and labor community to support nuclear energy. CASEnergy believes nuclear energy can improve energy security, ensure clean air quality, and enhance the quality of life and economic well-being of all Americans, according to its Web site, www.cleansafeenergy.org. "Nuclear is one of the options we need to look at," Whitman said during a telephone interview with the Herald. The inability of the federal government to fulfill the promise it made to the nuclear industry to open a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada can be solved, Whitman said. "The waste issue is not a science issue, it's a political issue," she said. "Those concerns (about seismic and water leakage at the proposed repository) can be addressed." Another answer to the waste problem is for the United States to begin recycling nuclear fuel, a process Whitman contends will ease the burden on Yucca Mountain and produce reusable nuclear fuel from spent fuel rods. She brushed aside concerns that a byproduct of recycling is weapons-grade plutonium and that creating more of this substance creates the risk of some of it getting into the hands of international terrorists groups. "I have been told there are ways of rendering (the plutonium) unfit for nuclear weapons," said Whitman, while admitting she had no knowledge of how that would be done. "It would cost more, but I think it is a worthwhile cost." Whitman also had no specific information on just how those new nuclear plants would be configured or their size in terms of megawatts of electricity produced. She said that to her knowledge, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now looking at three designs that could be approved. Whitman said her purpose in contacting the media is to begin the debate on the nuclear issue. "This is not a partisan issue, it is not a political issue, it's a policy issue. ... Nuclear alone won't get us to where we need to be, but we won't get there without it." Copyright © 2007 Seacoast Media Group. The Seacoast Media Group ***************************************************************** 7 NRC: South Texas Project Application for New Reactors Available on NRC Website News Release - 2007-134 - 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 today made available the public version of a combined license (COL) application for two new reactors at the South Texas Project site near Bay City, Texas. The applicants, NRG Energy and South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company, submitted the application and associated information Sept. 24. The application, minus proprietary or security-related details, is available on the NRC Web site here: http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/col.html . NRG’s COL application seeks approval to build and operate two Advanced Boiling Water Reactors (ABWR) at the site, approximately 12 miles southwest of Bay City. The ABWR is a 1,300 MWe design the NRC certified in 1997, and is currently in use overseas. NRC news releases are available through a free listserv 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. Monday, October 15, 2007 ***************************************************************** 8 China Daily: Nuclear power is the 'way forward' By Li Xiaokun (China Daily) Updated: 2007-10-16 07:10 SHANGHAI: The growth of nuclear power in China and India over the next two decades will outpace other countries, a senior International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) official said Monday. "China has developed quite fast in the nuclear power industry in the past 20 years," said Yury Sokolov, IAEA's deputy director-general and head of the department of nuclear energy. "In China, in India, you have very definite plans for increasing the nuclear capacity six to 10 times for 20 years, this is really fast growth. "The growth of the world is not so fast." Sokolov said he remained positive about the future of nuclear power. "Now nuclear power exists in 30 countries," he said. "And 30 to 40 other countries have expressed their willingness to explore nuclear power." He made the remarks on the sidelines of an IAEA symposium on nuclear power plant management, which opened on Monday. China started nuclear power operations in 1991, when Qinshan-I, a 300-megawatt (MW) presurized-water reactor unit, independently developed by China, plugged into the grid. China has fast-tracked development of nuclear power in recent years with a target to take its nuclear power capacity from about 9,000 MW in 2007 to 40,000 MW by 2020, according to China's long-term development plan for the nuclear power industry. The Indian Department of Atomic Energy also had plans to increase the country's installed nuclear power capacity, expected to reach 20,000 MW by 2020. Some Chinese experts said nuclear power was the best choice for China to satisfy its thirst for clean power amid pressure to sustain economic growth. "The needs for energy consumption as well as for environmental protection are both pressed," Zheng Mingguan, vice-president of Shanghai Nuclear Engineering Research and Design Institute, said. "Nuclear power is the most suitable choice to meet both needs." Sun Libin, a scholar with the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University, said: "Other forms of new energy, such as wind power and solar power, carry energy density much lower than nuclear power, and are unable to meet the tremendous power demand in China". ***************************************************************** 9 SABJ: Nuclear Regulatory Commission awards SwRI a $123 million advisory contract - San Antonio Business Journal: Monday, October 15, 2007 - 5:04 PM CDT The Nuclear Regulatory Commission renewed its contract with Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) for another five years. Through this contract extension, SwRI will continue operating the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses for the government. The contract is worth $123 million over the five-year period. The center provides technical assistance to Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff by conducting pre-licensing and licensing reviews of a potential geologic repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev. This particular site has been studied for the past 20 years and is slated to become the first geologic repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is an independent agency of the federal government and is the licensing authority for the proposed nuclear waste site. The U.S. Department of Energy plans to submit a license application to the commission by June 30, 2008. If the commission authorizes construction of the nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain, the Energy Department could begin receiving waste by 2017. Originally established in October 1987, the Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses exists to provide independent assessments for the planned nuclear waste repository. © 2007 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its ***************************************************************** 10 NRC: NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods for Digital Systems''; Draft Report for Comment FR Doc E7-20301 [Federal Register: October 15, 2007 (Volume 72, Number 198)] [Notices] [Page 58338-58339] From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr15oc07-75] NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Notice of availability for public comment. SUMMARY: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is conducting research to support development of regulatory guidance for using risk information related to digital systems in the licensing actions of nuclear power plants (NPPs). The objective of this research is to identify and develop methods, analytical tools, and regulatory guidance to support (1) Using information on the risks of digital systems in NPP licensing decisions, and (2) including models of digital systems into NPP probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs). In support of this research, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is working on the use of traditional [[Page 58339]] methods to develop and quantitatively assess reliability models of digital systems. As part of this work, BNL will apply two selected traditional methods to two benchmark digital systems. The initial tasks in the BNL project, including preparatory work for developing the reliability models of the first benchmark system, are addressed in draft NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods for Digital Systems.'' This notice announces the availability of the draft NUREG/CR for public comment. DATES: Please submit comments on NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods for Digital Systems,'' by November 14, 2007. Comments received after this date will be considered if practical to do so, but the NRC staff is able to ensure consideration only for those comments received on or before this date. ADDRESSES: NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods for Digital Systems,'' is available for inspection and copying for a fee at the NRC's Public Document Room (PDR), Public File Area O-1F21, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. Publicly available documents created or received at the NRC after November 1, 1999, are available electronically at the NRC's Electronic Reading Room at http://www.nrc.gov/NRC/ADAMS/index.html. From this site, the public can gain entry into the NRC's Agencywide Document Access and Management System (ADAMS), which provides text and image files of the NRC's public documents. The ADAMS Accession Numbers for NUREG/CR-XXXX, ``Approaches for Using Traditional Probabilistic Risk Assessment Methods for Digital Systems,'' are ML072690235 (main report) and ML072690238 (appendices). If you do not have access to ADAMS or if there are problems in accessing the documents located in ADAMS, contact the NRC PDR Reference staff at 1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov. This document will also be posted on the NRC's public Web site at: http://www.nrc.gov/about-nrc/regulatory/research/digital/tech-reference.html#one . Please submit comments to Chief, Rulemaking, Directives and Editing Branch, Division of Administrative Services, Office of Administration, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001. You may also deliver comments to 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD, between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Federal workdays, or by e-mail to: nrcrep@nrc.gov. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Alan Kuritzky, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555-0001, telephone (301) 415-6255, e-mail: ask1@nrc.gov. Dated at Rockville, Maryland, this 9th day of October, 2007. For the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Christiana Lui, Director, Division of Risk Analysis, Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research. [FR Doc. E7-20301 Filed 10-12-07; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 7590-01-P ***************************************************************** 11 Reuters: APS Ariz Palo Verde 2 reactor back at full power Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:14am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Arizona Public Service's shut the 1,314-megawatt Unit 2 at the Palo Verde nuclear power station in Arizona returned to service and ramped up to full power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The company shut the unit on Oct. 6. The 3,872 MW Palo Verde station is located in Wintersburg in Maricopa County about 50 miles west of Phoenix. There are three units at the station: the 1,311 MW Unit 1, the 1,314 Unit 2 and 1,247 MW Unit 3, which entered service in 1986, 1986 and 1988, respectively. The company shut Unit 3 by Sept. 29 for a refueling outage. It will likely return in mid December. Unit 1 continued to operate at full power. During the outage, the company will replace the unit's two steam generators and three low-pressure turbines in addition to the usual refueling activities. Each steam generator is about 72 feet high, 17 feet in diameter and weighs about 800 tons, the company said. Unit 1 last shut for refueling from April 2-May 15, 2006. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle. The company could not say how much the project would cost but noted that after this work the power output of Unit 3 should be the same as Units 1 and 2. Continued... ***************************************************************** 12 Reuters: Dominion Kewuanee reactor exits outage, up to 93 pct Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:09am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Dominion Resources Inc's (D.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 556-megawatt Kewaunee nuclear power station in Wisconsin exited an outage and ramped up to 93 percent power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The company shut the unit on Oct. 4 to replace the hydrogen coolers on the main generator. The Kewaunee station, which entered service in 1974, is located in Kewaunee in Kewaunee County about 30 miles from Green Bay, Wisconsin. Separately, Dominion said it plans to file for a 20-year extension of the plant's original 40-year operating license with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the second quarter of 2008. It usually takes the NRC about 22 months to make a decision on a license renewal without a hearing and about 30 months with a hearing. One MW powers about 800 homes in Wisconsin. Dominion, of Richmond, Virginia, owns and operates about 28,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity and natural gas to customers in 11 states. © Reuters2007All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 13 Reuters: Dominion Va. N Anna 1 reactor starts to exit refuel | Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:44am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Dominion Resources Inc's (D.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 924-megawatt Unit 1 at the North Anna nuclear power station in Virginia started to exit a refueling outage and ramped up to 1 percent power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The company shut the unit on Sept. 9 for the refuel. The unit last shut for refueling from March 12 to April 11, 2006. The unit is on an 18-month refueling cycle. The 1,834 MW North Anna station is located in Mineral in Louisa County, about 50 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia. There are two units at the station, the 924 MW Unit 1 and the 910 MW Unit 2, which entered service in 1978 and 1980. Unit 2 continued to operate at full power. One MW powers about 700 homes in Virginia. The NRC in 2003 renewed the plant's original 40-year operating licenses for another 20 years until 2038 and 2040. The NRC is currently reviewing an early site permit application that Dominion filed in 2003 for the possible construction of new reactors at North Anna. The NRC expects to make a decision on the early site permit in 2007 or 2008. The company also expects to submit an application with the NRC for a construction and operating license in 2007 or 2008 to build a new unit at North Anna. The company has already signed a contract with General Electric to secure components for an Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) at the site. Continued... ***************************************************************** 14 Reuters: Entergy shuts N.Y. FitzPatrick reactor due algae | Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:12pm EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp (ETR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) shut the 852-megawatt FitzPatrick nuclear power station in New York on Oct. 14 due to an influx of algae in the cooling water intake, a spokeswoman for the plant said Monday. She could not say when the unit would likely return to service due to competitive reasons. Electricity traders guessed the unit would return within a week. Power plants like FitzPatrick use water from a lake to cool the steam used to drive the turbine back into water, among other things. FitzPatrick is located on the shores of Lake Ontario. On Friday, the unit was operating at full power. The FitzPatrick station, which entered service in 1976, is located in Scriba in Oswego County about 90 miles east of Rochester, New York. One MW powers about 800 homes in New York. Entergy in August 2006 filed for a 20-year extension of the unit's original 40-year operating license. It usually takes the NRC about 22 months (May 2008) to make a decision on a license renewal without a hearing and about 30 months (Jan 2009) with a hearing. Entergy owns and operates about 30,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes power to 2.6 million customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. © Reuters2007All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 15 Reuters: Exelon Pa. Peach Bottom 3 reactor exits refuel Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:27am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Exelon Corp's (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 1,112-megawatt Unit 3 at the Peach Bottom nuclear power station in Pennsylvania started to exit a refueling outage and ramped up to 16 percent power by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The company shut the unit on Sept. 23 for the refueling. The unit last shut for refueling from Sept 20 to Oct 17, 2005. The unit is on a 24-month refueling cycle. The 2,224 MW Peach Bottom station, which entered service in 1974, is located in Peach Bottom in York County about 75 miles southwest of Philadelphia. There are two 1,112 MW Units 2 and 3 at the station. Unit 2 continued to operate at full power. One MW powers about 800 homes in Pennsylvania. Separately, the NRC in 2003 renewed the plant's original 40-year operating licenses for both units for another 20 years until 2033 and 2034. Exelon Nuclear, a unit of Exelon's unregulated Exelon Generation Co LLC subsidiary, operates the station for its owners: Exelon (50 percent) and Public Service Enterprise Group Inc (PEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) (50 percent). Exelon, of Chicago, owns and operates more than 38,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity (5.4 million) and natural gas (480,000) to customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. PSEG, of Newark, New Jersey, owns and operates more than 20,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity and natural gas to customers in North America and other parts of the world. © Reuters2007All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 16 Guardian Unlimited: GDF Suez to invest in UK nuclear power stations David Gow in Brussels Monday October 15, 2007 GDF Suez, the new French energy powerhouse, is planning to invest in new-generation nuclear power stations in Britain under a capital programme unveiled today to spend up to €10bn (Ł7bn) a year on expanding the group's business. It is understood that GDF Suez has already held exploratory talks with British Energy, the UK's biggest nuclear generator which provides around a fifth of Britain's power, and is the latest continental energy group after EDF, Eon, RWE and others, to signal its willingness to take part in the expected nuclear renaissance. A government consultation process on building new-generation atomic plants ended on October 10, with ministers now expected to give the go-ahead by the end of this year for up to 10 new reactors to be constructed on brownfield sites - where plants linked to the grid already exist or are being decommissioned. Announcing GDF Suez's post-merger operational and financial objectives, Gérard Mestrallet, chief executive, said the group would decide next year or in 2009 whether to take part in building one or more EPR reactors "in countries where that would be possible and desirable". "We are in a period of thinking and analysing. We have not yet taken a decision," he said. But insiders said the new group would take part. It is already involved in the first EPR being built by French operator Areva and Germany's Siemens in Finland and in the second at Flamanville on the French side of the channel. The new group, which expects to complete its merger early next year, said its priority would be growth in Europe. It aimed to capture 20percent of France's electricity customers by virtually doubling its generating capacity to 10GW (gigawatts) by 2013 compared with 5.6GW now. It also plans to build capacity elsewhere in Europe and internationally up to 90GW from 47GW now. The group, which is floating off 65% of Suez's environment business, said it planned for pre-tax profits of €17bn by 2010 and would raise the dividend by 10 to 15% a year by then - when more than half of earnings would be distributed to shareholders. Amid accusations that the merger, brokered by President Nicolas Sarkozy, would renationalise Suez, the state will have seven out of the 10 GDF seats on the 23-strong board. But insiders pointed out that at least a third of seats would be held by independent directors and these would chair the five key committees: audit, nominations, compensation, ethics/environment and strategy. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007 ***************************************************************** 17 Reuters: PSEG N.J. Hope Creek reactor shut Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:18am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Public Service Enterprise Group Inc's (PEG.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 1,061-megawatt Hope Creek reactor in New Jersey shut by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. On Friday, the unit was operating at 87 percent power. Electricity traders said it was coasting down for a planned month-long refueling and maintenance outage expected to start in mid October. The unit last shut for refueling from April 7-May 9, 2006. It is on an 18-month refueling cycle. The 3,403 MW Salem/Hope Creek station is located along the Delaware River in Salem about 40 miles south of Philadelphia. There are three reactors at the station, the 1,174 MW Salem 1, the 1,130 MW Salem 2 and the 1,061 MW Hope Creek, along with the 38 MW Salem 3 oil-fired turbine. One MW powers about 800 homes in New Jersey. PSEG owns all of Hope Creek and about 57 percent of Salem. Exelon owns the remaining 43 percent of Salem. PSEG told the NRC it planned to file for a 20-year extension of the original 40-year operating licenses for Hope Creek and both Salem units in September 2009. Exelon Corp (EXC.N: Quote, Profile, Research), of Chicago, owns and operates more than 38,000 MW of generating capacity, markets energy commodities, and transmits and distributes electricity (5.4 million) and natural gas (480,000) to customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania. Continued... Most Popular on Reuters 1. Interpol identifies pedophile suspect as Canadian 2. Russia's Putin emerges from Iran plot 'like a hero' 3. Gates says all options on table for Iran 4. Drivers kick up stink about "WC" car plates 5. Family beaten as YouTube party descends into chaos 6. Most complete new giant dinosaur found in Patagonia 7. Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years 8. Most complete new giant dinosaur found in Patagonia | Video 9. Led Zeppelin to sell music online 10. Great news! They're stealing our books! Most Popular Articles RSS Feed   1. Muslim 'Barbie' doll 2. The Update: Putin's trip is on 3. New dinosaur fossil discovered 4. World's biggest airliner approaches 5. 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Reuters journalists are subject to the Reuters Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests. ***************************************************************** 18 Reuters: PPL Pa. Susquehanna 1 reactor shut Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:40am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - PPL Corp's (PPL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 1,135-megawatt Unit 1 at the Susquehanna nuclear power station in Pennsylvania shut by early Monday, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. On Friday, the unit was operating at full power. Electricity traders guessed the company shut the unit for a planned month-long refueling outage, expected to start in mid October. The unit last shut for refueling from March 4-April 14, 2006. The unit is on a 24-month refueling cycle. The 2,245 MW Susquehanna station is located in Berwick in Columbia County about 125 miles northwest of Philadelphia. There are two units, the 1,135 MW Unit 1 and the 1,140 MW Unit 2, at the station, which entered service in 1983 and 1985. Unit 2 continued to operate at full power. In 2006, PPL asked the NRC for permission to modify the turbines and generators to increase the plant's power output by 205 MW. The company has said it does not expect the NRC to make a decision on the request until at least the autumn of 2007. Separately, PPL in September 2006 filed for a 20-year extension of the units' original 40-year operating licenses. It usually takes the NRC about 22 months (July 2008) to make a decision on a license renewal without a hearing and about 30 months (March 2009) with a hearing. One MW powers about 800 homes in Pennsylvania. Continued... ***************************************************************** 19 Reuters: FPL Fla. Turkey Pt 3 reactor starts to exit refuel Mon Oct 15, 2007 9:00am EDT NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - FPL Group Inc's (FPL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 693-megawatt Turkey Point 3 nuclear power unit in Florida started to exit a refueling outage and ramped up to 3 percent power, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in a report. The company shut the unit on Sept. 2 for the refueling. The unit last shut for refueling from March 5-April 11, 2006. The unit is on an 18-month refueling cycle. The 2,196 MW Turkey Point station is located in Florida City in Miami-Dade County, about 25 miles south of Miami. There are several units at Turkey Point: the 398 MW oil/natural gas-fired Unit 1, the 400 MW oil/gas-fired Unit 2, two 693 MW nuclear units, 3 and 4, the 1,150 MW combined-cycle gas-fired Unit 5, and a handful of 2 MW and 3 MW oil-fired turbines. Unit 1 entered service in 1967, Unit 2 in 1968, Unit 3 in 1972, Unit 4 in 1973, and Unit 5 in 2007. Unit 4 continued to operate at full power. The NRC in 2002 approved a 20-year license extension of the original 40-year operating license for both nuclear units at Turkey Point until 2032 and 2033. In addition, FPL notified the NRC of its intent to submit a license application (likely in 2009) to build a new nuclear plant in Florida. The company has identified Turkey Point as a potential site for the new reactor. The company however has not made a final decision to build the new reactor. Continued... ***************************************************************** 20 Knoxville News Sentinel: Bechtel wins TVA contract for Watts Bar nuclear plant work By Andrew Eder (Contact) Originally published 02:12 p.m., October 15, 2007 Bechtel Power Corp. has won a contract worth up to $1 billion to lead engineering, procurement and construction work at TVA’s unfinished Unit 2 reactor at Watts Bar Nuclear Plant. San Francisco-based Bechtel, the nation’s largest engineering firm, beat out a competing proposal from The Shaw Group Inc. According to TVA, five firms were invited to bid on the contract. Bechtel was the lead contractor on a $20 million cost and scheduling study that found the plant could be finished in five years at a cost of $2.49 billion. TVA’s board relied on the study’s results in approving the completion of Watts Bar at its Aug. 1 meeting. TVA previously told the News Sentinel that up to 300 contract engineers working on the Watts Bar project will move into the largely vacant TVA East Tower in downtown Knoxville by the end of the year. Bechtel has posted dozens of job openings on its Web site for nuclear engineers in the Knoxville area. “Today’s announcement is the conclusion of a comprehensive and rigorous competitive-bidding process involving the nation’s best power-engineering and construction firms,” TVA President and CEO Tom Kilgore said in a statement. “With oversight by TVA, Bechtel will be responsible for completing the engineering design, procuring equipment and materials and finishing the physical construction of Watts Bar Unit 2.” More details online and in Tuesday’s News Sentinel. Business writer Andrew Eder may be reached at 865-342-6318. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 21 Baltic Times: Piebalgs insists on Ignalina shutdown News from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania Oct 15, 2007 From wire reportsVILNIUS -- European commissioner for energy Andris Piebalgs has urged Lithuania not to even think about continuing the operation of the Ignalina nuclear power plant. Lithuania's Economy Minister Vytas Navickas had earlier hinted that the European Union might allow Lithuania to continue operating the Ignalina nuclear power plant through 2009, until a new nuclear plant is built. Navickas appealed to the fact that once the plant is shut down, the prices of electrical energy will go up by 40 percent and 75 percent of Lithuania's energy sector will depend on natural gas from Russia. Lithuania has undertaken to decommission the nuclear power plant in Ignalina in 2009 and, together with the Baltic countries and Poland, is planning to build a new nuclear power plant, which will be put into production around the year 2015. That leaves a gap of at least six years – and likely longer - in which Lithuania will face an energy crunch. "I cannot understand the arguments of the [economy] minister,” responded Piebalgs. “The plant must be shut down as scheduled, as this is provided for in Lithuania's accession agreement. “Besides, there is a mechanism to compensate the decommissioning in place. The grant will be lost unless the obligations are met. And finally, the decommissioning date is no surprise for Lithuania," Piebalgs told the Kauno Diena. "Do not waste time on empty discussions," he warned. The European commissioner also urged Lithuania to make haste in implementing the project on construction of a new nuclear power plant to replace the current facility. "By the time of elections next year, the government must make a lot of important decisions on this matter," the commissioner said. Piebalgs is positive that the matters of building the new power plant and the so called “power bridge” linking the grids of Lithuania and Poland should not be "mixed together." "The bridge primarily has a heavy political significance, as if the Baltic countries do not have one, they will not be connected to the EU's common energy market. Commerce here comes second," the commissioner said. He refused to be drawn on whether he felt Poland or Lithuania was more at fault for the failure to get a commitment signed at last week’s Vilnius Energy Conference. Piebalgs also said that he would ask Russia's Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko in Moscow next week whether the Druzhba pipeline into Lithuania would ever be reopened. "I simply want to know, as so far Russia has not officially informed either us or Lithuania about the destiny of the oil pipeline," the European commissioner said. developed by Julius Nalivaiko ***************************************************************** 22 RussiaToday: Foreign firms to partially equip Russian nuclear plants Atom symbol October 15, 2007, 17:48 Foreign firms to partially equip Russian nuclear plants First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergey Ivanov, says Russia is ready to buy some nuclear equipment from overseas companies. Announcing an increase in Government spending on atomic power, Mr Ivanov says it makes sense to work with overseas suppliers. However, he insisted the the bulk of Russia's nuclear parts would come from homegrown firms. Speaking at a production facility in Moscow Region, Mr Ivanov said the government would continue to keep tight control of the nuclear industry. “Russia's nuclear power industry is willing to co-operate with its foreign partners but only if we keep the majority of shares and production on our soil, and control the market itself. This would keep foreign companies from independently selling equipment to nuclear power stations here in Russia,” said Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister. He added that boosting nuclear energy was a priority for the country, and that some generating facilities could be placed overseas. “We're also considering increasing production. That's why I'm not ruling out in the future some production facilities being placed abroad,” he said. Copyright © Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti" 2007, all rights reserved ***************************************************************** 23 Telegraph: UK can't afford cold feet over nuclear power - By Philip Johnston Last Updated: 12:01am BST 15/10/2007 The most important decision facing Gordon Brown is not how robustly he should defend Britain's "red lines" at the EU summit in Lisbon, nor whether to have a referendum on the treaty, nor even whether to attend the rugby World Cup final and cheer on England. It is a far more crucial question: when will Britain reinstate its nuclear power programme? When I was young, we had few concerns about energy supplies. We knew coal and oil and gas would run out, though not in our lifetimes; and for future generations there was nuclear fission, a source of heat and light that would last us until the great power plant in the sky was extinguished. Then, for reasons that were never very clear but had something to do with the apparent lack of safety (which led to a moratorium after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986) and the seemingly intractable problems of disposing of the waste, British energy policy was flipped on its head and nuclear was taken out of the equation. All power stations were to be decommissioned and the country was to have a non-nuclear future. This distrust of nuclear power coincided with the Labour Party's support for unilateral nuclear disarmament and the two became confused. But things turned complicated for the environmentalists when scientists began to identify man-made carbon emissions as a cause of global warming. The attractions of nuclear as a "clean" power source became obvious. So, the opponents of nuclear switched tack. They focused on its expense. People who were against the workings of the market in almost other every walk of life became experts on the relative costs of supplying different forms of energy. They have a point. It will be expensive. Energy bills will rise – but they are going to in any case if the Middle East remains so unstable. Unlikely though it sounds, the Government insists that there will be no public subsidy for a future nuclear generation and that all risks will be loaded on the private sector and to prices. Yet big subsidies are being paid out for wind and tidal power schemes that make negligible contributions to our energy needs. But this is not simply about markets. It is also about security of supply. Are we really proposing to let future generations become reliant upon oil supplies from the Gulf, or gas from Qatar, or from a Russia that is quite prepared, as the Ukrainians will testify, to use energy as an instrument of foreign policy; or nuclear-generated electricity from France for that matter? Complacency engendered by our North Sea reserves has left us dangerously exposed. Eighty per cent of our energy is currently home-produced, yet, a dozen years from now, we will be importing almost all our gas and half our oil. There are few more important issues facing the country; so it was with oddly little fanfare that, a few days ago, the Government completed its public "consultation" about whether to proceed with a new nuclear power programme. I place the word consultation in inverted commas because it involved just 1,000 people in various parts of the country, some of whom have subsequently complained about a one-sided presentation of the issues suggesting that the Government has already made up its mind to proceed, as indeed it has. John Hutton, the Business Secretary, told MPs last week that "we are aware of the importance of getting on with the matter, and are determined to do that". Well, he had better get a move on because time is getting short. Ministers signalled four years ago that they were ready to revive the nuclear programme, so why the wait? They are not entirely to blame for the dithering since it was the courts that ordered the recent trawl of opinion after a successful legal challenge by environmentalists, who said the Government was in breach of its own obligations to consult. Notwithstanding that, progress has been glacial in its speed. It has been apparent for years that a decision was needed and that the Government, encumbered by all its anti-nuclear baggage, was moving agonisingly slowly in the direction of reinstituting a nuclear programme. It should have moved matters along far faster. Budget cuts and a loss of revenue from the closed Thorp reprocessing plant have delayed the clearance of the ageing Magnox sites, which would be the obvious locations for the new generation nuclear reactors. If they need to be built on the sites of existing coal and gas stations, there will be fierce – and lengthy – planning battles and severe delays. Let's face it, this country's recent record in planning and fulfilling major infrastructure projects is poor, as is testified by Crossrail and the Channel Tunnel fast link. A revived nuclear programme does not mean stopping the search for economic renewable energy sources or efficient ways of producing it, such as the combined heat and power systems that we were being told 20 years ago would be on stream by now. And, yes, the waste issue remains unresolved. The energy debate is confusing for many of us. Last week, a judge said Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, contained factual errors and two days later he was awarded the Nobel prize. One group of scientists insists we are all doomed unless we change our ways; another group, albeit a smaller one, challenges the apocalyptic prognosis of the others. Again, when I was young we were being assured that the next great climatic event would be another ice age. Would global warming not cancel that out? On this subject, more than any other, most people of my acquaintance are confused and uncertain whom to believe. But despite the evident difficulties, nuclear power seems an option that we cannot spurn. For too long now, British governments have been in thrall to a green lobby that managed deliberately to concatenate opposition to nuclear weapons with hostility to nuclear power. It takes 10 years to build a new nuclear plant, and much of the intellectual infrastructure that kept the industry going in the past is being broken up; so it is imperative that Mr Hutton is as good as his word in the Commons last week – and gets on with it. © Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2007. | Terms ***************************************************************** 24 www.bbj.hu: Brussels pushes atomic safety amid pro-nuclear talk 15 Oct 2007 bbj.hu The European Commission is making a concerted push for harmonizing nuclear safety requirements across the European Union, saying that nuclear energy is here to stay. EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs made the comments after the first meeting of an experts group on nuclear safety and waste management. The experts group is made up of senior officials from the 27 member states’ national regulatory or nuclear safety authorities and is to advise the EU executive on how to progressively develop EU rules in nuclear safety and waste management. „Nuclear energy is in Europe and it is here to stay,” Piebalgs said, adding that it should be under the condition of „high safety standards and sound management.” „It is up to each member state to decide whether to have nuclear power or not. But the question of nuclear safety and waste management concerns everybody,” he added. Nuclear energy currently counts for over 30% of electricity use and around 15% of total energy consumption across the 27 member bloc, according to the commission. Pro-nuclear commission? Piebalgs’ predecessor Loyola de Palacio proposed in November 2002 rules for the management of nuclear safety and nuclear waste across the EU, following safety risks at the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK. However, Ms de Palacio’s plan met huge opposition from both anti-and pro-nuclear states with France and the UK saying it was purely a national matter. But the current commission is arguing increasingly openly in favor of nuclear energy. Last week, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso called on EU states to consider greater use of nuclear energy in order to avoid increasing dependence on oil and gas imports and to improve the bloc’s energy security. „Member states cannot avoid the question of nuclear energy. There needs to be a total and frank debate regarding this problem”, commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said at a high-level conference on energy in Madrid. In addition, competition commissioner Neelie Kroes, who also took part in the conference, said she was personally „completely in favor of nuclear power”. (euobserver) ***************************************************************** 25 WNN: Nuclear Management Company to be reincorporated 15 October 2007 Nuclear Management Company (NMC) is to be re-incorporated into Xcel Energy, one of its founders and sole remaining member. Separately, Xcel is due for a $116 million payout over nuclear fuel storage costs. Monticello (Image: NMC) NMC was set up in 1999 to take on the specialist task of operating nuclear power plants owned by Northern State Power Company's (NSP's) Minnesota and Wisconsin branches as well as those of some other electricity generators, such as Wisconsin Energies (We Energies). NMC formerly operated the Point Beach nuclear power plant for We Energies, but this was sold in October to Florida Power and Light, which took over the operating licence, the role and all the NMC staff that carried out the work. Point Beach was We Energies' only nuclear power plant and so the company ceased to be a member of NMC once the plant was sold. This, combined with the fact that NSP is now an Xcel subsidiary and some other corporate changes meant that Xcel was the only remaining member of NMC. Executives then decided to reintegrate the businesses. David Wilks, President of Xcel's energy supply unit said he believed reintegrating nuclear operations would provide "best value for money" and would "strengthen overall operations." For the time being NMC will continue to operate Xcel's Monticello and Prairie Island nuclear plants, but work is underway at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to have the operating licence transferred into NSP's name. Once this occurs, expected in 2008, NMC employees will become Xcel Energy employees. Little effect on staff is forecast. Fuel storage In a separate development, Xcel is due to receive $116 million after the successful conclusion of legal action to recoup expenses for storage of used nuclear fuel. Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the US Department of Energy was meant to have taken title to used nuclear fuel from all US nuclear power plants and managed its safe storage and eventual disposal. Like all other nuclear power generators in the USA, Xcel had paid 0.1 cents for each kWh of power generated to pay for this. However, DoE facilities for used nuclear fuel storage were not ready by the 1998 deadline and Xcel's subsidiaries had to pay for improved used fuel storage at Monticello and Prairie Island. A recent ruling said that Xcel should be refunded $43.1 million paid for additional storage, $48.7 million spent in complying with additional mandates and $24.7 million of other expenses. Virtually every US nuclear power generator has or is expected to go through similar legal action. The DoE's permanent disposal facility for used nuclear fuel job at Yucca Mountain is scheduled to begin operation in 2017. Further information Nuclear Management Company Xcel Energy Nuclear Regulatory Commission WNN: FPL completes purchase of Point Beach ***************************************************************** 26 The Hindu: One unit of power to be generated from Koodankulam project to cost Rs. 2 to 2.50 Tuesday, Oct 16, 2007 — Photo: A. Shaikmohideen. ELECTRICITY: A view of the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project. TIRUNELVELI: The unit cost of power to be generated from the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project will be “highly competitive,” Chairman and Managing Director of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited S.K. Jain has said. “One unit of electricity to be generated from the KKNPP will cost between Rs. 2 and Rs. 2.50 as per the present norms applicable to the NPCIL’s nuclear power stations,” Mr. Jain told The Hindu after heading the Indian team in the 19th Joint Coordination Committee meeting with a 30-member Russian delegation, who discussed the progress of the project on Saturday . Leading Russian firm, Atomstroyexport, which is executing inter-governmental agreements on the construction of nuclear power reactors abroad provides drafts, supplies equipment and materials and trains personnel for the the KKNPP, while the construction and installation activities are carried out by the Indian side. When work on the KKNPP, launched in March 2002, was progressing, it was thought that unit cost of the electricity would be around Rs. 3. However, it was then hinted that the NPCIL would work on the possibility of bringing it down considerably. “I can assure you that this cost will not certainly exceed Rs. 2.50,” Mr. Jain said. Admitting that there “were some delay” in the progress of the work, the chairman said the first unit of the KKNPP would be completed by December 2008 and the second reactor six months later. The NPCIL, which is currently operating 17 reactors across the country, is about to complete the work on three more. Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. ***************************************************************** 27 Czech Business Weekly: Experts see nuclear power as a future option Tue, October 16, 2007 Home Page Contact Us Subscribe By: Marcel Bodnár, 15. 10. 2007, More by this author After nuclear accidents in 1979 at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, U.S., and at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, the nuclear energy sector was thrown into 20 years of limbo. Now it seems to be heading toward a resurrection. In Finland, where 28 percent of electricity is supplied by nuclear power plants, a new reactor called Olkiluoto 3 is being built—the first new European nuclear project in over a decade. Construction of the plant, begun after its approval in 2002, should be completed in 2009. “We need a lot of energy in Finland. We have a cold climate, long distances and an energy-intensive industry,” Mikko Elo, former prime minister of Finland, told broadcaster BBC. And nuclear expansion is not just happening in Europe. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said that although the country currently has no nuclear plant, nuclear power is inevitable. New plant in the Czech Republic? The Czech Republic is carefully watching the developing trend toward nuclear power, and has a number of proponents for expanding nuclear energy resources. Václav Pačes, chairman of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (AVČR) said at an energy seminar in Brno, South Moravia, that the country should start to think about a new nuclear source for electric energy. Later, however, he softened his statement. “I proposed that a debate should be opened about which types of power plants the Czech Republic should build to replace the plants that are ending their production expectancy,” he told CBW. Others in the field express a more adamant point of view. “We have to take this step [of adding nuclear capacity],” said Josef Fiřt, chairman of Energy Regulation Office (ERÚ). Many Czech energy sector experts agree that although the Czech Republic is one of the few European Union countries with a current surplus of electricity, this situation will not last long. Currently, the country consumes 70 terrawatt hours per year, and has the capacity to produce 80 TWh. “So far we have a surplus [of electricity], but the consumption is gradually growing while sources of coal are diminishing,” said Pavel Leidermann, an analyst from EGÚ, a company that monitors the Czech energy market. However, building a new nuclear plant runs counter to the government program. The junior ruling coalition partner Greens (SZ) are strongly opposed to nuclear expansion, and this puts nuclear expansion on hold until the Greens either change their policy or leave the government, analysts say. According to Pačes, building a third facility like those already operating in Temelín, South Bohemia, and Dukovany, South Moravia, is just one option. Another option is to build a new block in Temelín, where—due to a 1990 government decision—only two of the four originally planned blocks were built. A third option, when considering nuclear energy sources, is to wait until new types of nuclear technologies are further developed. One type of reactor the country could use is the fast neutron reactor (FNR), which uses nuclear fuel more efficiently. “We could then diversify [the plants] in the country, instead of building one big colossus [facility],” Pačes said. According to a study by the Australian Uranium Association, 20 mostly experimental FNRs have been operating worldwide since the 1950s. But despite their efficiency the reactors have high operating costs and other problems. Further development of the technology is necessary before FNRs become an attractive option. France’s Superphénix FNR, capable of producing 1,242 MW, was launched in 1976 but shut down in 1997 in part due to its operating costs, as well as a series of operating problems resulting from its experimental design. Compatibility concerns in existing plants Almost 30 percent of Czech electricity production comes from the nuclear plants at Dukovany and Temelín. Construction of both facilities started during the communist era, and mostly Czechoslovak and Soviet technologies were used. Dukovany was planned by Czech company Energoprojekt Praha on a Soviet design and Temelín was planned by Soviet company Atomenergoproekt. The main technology supplier for both was Czech company Škoda Praha. However, now in both nuclear plants, a combination of American, Soviet and Czech technologies are being used. Energy technology company Westinghouse Electric Corporation delivered a fallback safety system to Dukovany, and fuel and a digital control system to Temelín. Some experts raised concerns that American technologies might not work properly in plants modeled on Soviet designs. According to Petr Spilka, spokesman for the Dukovany plant, the fallback system had to be examined and modified by Czech nuclear experts to make it fully compatible, but it functions without problems. Marek Sviták, spokesman for Temelín, also said the hybrid design caused no problems. “The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has made more than 20 inspections of Temelín, where they—among other things—evaluated the compatibility of the Soviet design with the implementation of modern Western technologies,” he said. According to the evaluations, the combinations in some cases led to a significant improvement in safety levels. “The combination of technologies is a common practice in many areas; the nuclear industry is not an exception. And our actual operating experience confirms the expert findings of IAEA,” Sviták added. Other examples of technological combinations can be found all over Europe and demonstrate that it is not problematic. Finish nuclear plant Lovisa works with VVER 440-style Soviet reactors, but are controlled by systems delivered from Germany-based electronics company Siemens. This system is also used in the VVER 440 reactors in Mochovce, west Slovakia. Another example of combined technology is British plant Sizewell B, whose controlling system was planned for and built by French engineering group Cegelec, but was replaced by a product from Westinghouse. “Operators of nuclear plants in Western countries often replace their suppliers due to technological and economic issues,” Sviták said. Other sources also possible As Pačes, Fiřt and Leidermann suggested, electricity sources in the Czech Republic are reaching their existing capacities, and there soon will be a need for new power plants if the country is to remain energy self-sufficient. But nuclear power is not the only option. Altogether only 4 percent of electricity is produced via hydroelectric and wind-powered plants in the Czech Republic. According to an EU directive, the country has to increase the ratio of renewable sources in electricity production to 8 percent by 2010. EGÚ suggests that the best development option is wind-powered plants, which now produce only 0.03 percent of the electricity in the Czech Republic, or about 50 megawatts per year. In eight years, it should be 1057 megawatts, which, as EGÚ states, is the maximum capacity in the Czech Republic due to weather conditions. Nuclear plants in the Czech Republic Dukovany The Dukovany, South Moravia, nuclear plant was started during the communist era in 1974. However, changes in the design delayed the actual start of the construction, which finally got underway in 1978. The first block of the plant was put into operation in 1985. During the next two years, another three blocks were finished, and the plant became fully functional in 1987. The plant was built according to the best technology then available, with the potential to extend its operation lifespan to 40 years. Modernization work is being done gradually. The cost of construction at the time was estimated at Kčs 24 billion, and according to Petr Spilka, spokesman for the Dukovany nuclear plant, it is impossible to estimate the cost in terms of the current Czech crown. The construction was financed by internal sources of power producer ČEZ, with a loan from Státní Banka Československá (currently Komerční Banka), and from the state budget. Each partner contributed one-third of the total value. The plant is located near Dukovany, about 30 kilometers southeast of Třebíč. TemelínIn 1980, while the nuclear plant at Dukovany was already underway, the government approved building another one in Temelín, South Bohemia, about 25 kilometers from České Budějovice. In 1985, company Energoprojekt Praha developed the plans, and construction subsequently started in 1987. In 1990, after the fall of communism, the Czechoslovak government decided to build just two of the four planned blocks. Their construction was finished in 2000. In 2002, test operation of first block was started. The plant’s two blocks have been fully functioning since 2003. According to Petr Spilka, spokesman for Temelín, the construction cost Kč 98.7 billion, but similar to Dukovany, it is hard to estimate the costs of the construction in current prices. It was financed mostly by financial sources from ČEZ, with some funds from the state budget. The government money was used mainly to build an infrastructure and to move citizens from the villages located too close to the plant. ©2004 - 2007 Stanford, a. s. with all rights reserved. webmaster@cbw.cz www.profit.cz | www.bookoflists.cz | www.skoleni-konference.cz | www.podnikatelskesetkani.cz ***************************************************************** 28 RIA Novosti: Expert questions effectiveness of nuclear deterrence strategy 18:26 | 15/ 10/ 2007 MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - Nuclear deterrence as a key to international stability is becoming irrelevant, but Russia cannot afford to abandon it just yet, the director of a Russian think tank said Monday. "In the past several years, I have not once seen nuclear deterrence work," said Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute of Strategic Assessments. He said nuclear deterrence exists on paper, but it has not stopped anyone or anything. "Nuclear weapons were unable to stop a single internal conflict, be it in Chechnya or Daghestan, and did not prevent states leaving the Soviet Union: They just went ahead and left it," he said. He said the concept of deterrence is dubious, and the time has come to decide which strategy should replace it. But he said Russia will not abandon nuclear deterrence in the foreseeable future and the Russian leadership has already reaffirmed its commitment to building and maintaining a strong nuclear deterrent. "Our military have come to the conclusion that they cannot guarantee the performance of combat missions against a 21st century army," he said. Konovalov said that Russia does not possess advanced precision-guided weapons or a global positioning system to aim and guide these weapons accurately enough. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last year that developing Russia's strategic forces is the main priority on the national defense agenda. "Maintaining a strategic balance will mean that our strategic deterrent forces should be able to guarantee the neutralization of any potential aggressor, no matter what modern weapons systems he possesses," the president said. The theory of nuclear deterrence was developed and used throughout the Cold War up to current times. The military strategy, which is part of U.S. foreign policy, was based on the credible threat of retaliation to stop enemy attacks. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 29 IAEA: Global Security: The Need for a New Beginning Statements of the Director General 5 October | New Delhi Hindustan Times Leadership Summit Global Security: The Need for a New Beginning by Mohamed ElBaradei , Director General The search for security remains the overriding concern for many peoples and nations. But the definition of what constitutes security, and the strategies for attaining it, vary greatly. For billions of people, the quest is to ‘secure’ basic needs: food, water, shelter and health care — in other words, freedom from want. For others, it is to ‘secure’ other fundamental human rights: freedom of expression, freedom from oppression, freedom from fear. Even among States, security has different definitions. For some, it is the achievement of economic or military parity or superiority, for others the projection of power and influence, and for still others the resolution of grievances and disputes. The Challenges Regardless of which aspect of security we consider, the current global picture is one of failure on many fronts. If we look at the quest to secure basic needs, we are struck by the persistent inequity in the global distribution of wealth. The contrasts are stark. One fifth of the world’s population lives in countries where people see nothing extravagant about spending $2 per day on an ice cream. By comparison, the poorest one fifth — including 300 million here in India — make do with less than $1 per day as their entire income. US President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” US President Franklin Roosevelt once said, “The test of progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”If we look at the quest for other fundamental human rights, the picture is also grim in many regions, with problems ranging from religious intolerance and the lack of political freedom to systematic oppression and torture. Perhaps the most severe critique of our global progress in this area is reflected in our uneven approach to the sanctity of human life. For example: the recent collapse of a coal mine in the United States, trapping six miners, kept Western audiences riveted to their television screens for weeks, and the unhappy ending brought an understandable outpouring of grief and sympathy. But where was the proportionate share of attention as, for example, the ethnic killings and mass displacement of civilians began to unfold four years ago in Darfur? Despite 200 000 deaths and up to 4 million people in urgent need of international humanitarian assistance, it has taken years to generate sufficient concern and funding to support effective international intervention. Why should we grieve more for some lives than for others? If we look at the security of nation-States, our record is also poor, particularly as reflected in regional conflicts that have been allowed to fester for decades. In the Middle East, for example, the subjection of the Palestinian people to 40 years of occupation has led to increasing polarization and militancy in the Arab and Muslim world. These and other conflicts could be solved. Consider the recent positive steps in Northern Ireland, where once bitter enemies, who until recently were given to labeling each other as ‘terrorists’, are now mutually engaged in a democratic power-sharing arrangement. To bring such conflicts to resolution requires more than intermittent effort on the part of the international community; it requires committed, sustained diplomacy. But the investment is clearly worth it. Too often, dialogue — the first tool of diplomacy — is perceived as a reward for good behaviour, rather than as a means to change behaviour and reconcile differences. The lesson should be obvious by now, especially when working across cultural divides: respect breeds respect; confrontation begets confrontation. Pressure without negotiation is like a pressure cooker without a relief valve. Against this backdrop of global insecurities, we should not be surprised that the effort to curtail nuclear threats is still a work in progress. Consider the events of just the past few years. The war in Iraq over suspicions that nuclear and other weapons programmes had been revived. North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT and subsequent test of a nuclear weapon. Libya’s relinquishment of a fledgling nuclear weapons programme. The discovery of A. Q. Khan’s illicit nuclear procurement and distribution network. The still ongoing investigation of Iran’s clandestine nuclear programme. And not least, a surge in the sophistication of extremist networks — underscoring the potential for nuclear and radiological terrorism. Add to this the 27 000 nuclear warheads that still exist in the arsenals of nine countries, and the fact that some of these weapons are deployed on hair trigger alert – meaning that the leaders of these countries have only 15 to 30 minutes to decide on the authenticity of a nuclear attack and whether to launch a counterattack. But what is disconcerting is that some of these countries continue to repeat two inherently contradictory mantras: first, that it is important for them to continue to rely on nuclear weapons for their security; and second, that no one else should have them. “Do as I say, not as I do.” As the President of the International Crisis Group and former Australian Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, recently stated: “Nobody likes double standards, and there are few areas of international public policy where they are more obvious than in the weapons states’ indifference to what the rest of the world regards as their commitments under [the NPT]” — referring to their commitment to nuclear disarmament. While India has never joined the NPT, and therefore has not made the same legal commitments, it shares responsibility in terms of the urgent need for leadership on nuclear disarmament. In fact, next month it will be 50 years since Prime Minister Nehru made an impassioned appeal, here in New Delhi, for a worldwide end to nuclear testing and the elimination of all nuclear weapons arsenals, in order to “save humanity from the ultimate disaster”. The Crossroads Clearly, we face an array of urgent and diverse challenges. Yet whichever definition of security we use, there are a number of commonalities. The first commonality is that these security threats are all interconnected. Poverty is frequently coupled with human rights abuses and a lack of good governance — which results in a deep sense of injustice, anger and humiliation. This in turn provides an ideal environment for breeding violence of all types, including extremism, civil strife and interstate wars. And it is in regions of longstanding conflict where countries are most frequently driven to increase their standing or seek greater security through the pursuit of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. India is a country in which, despite persistent and widespread poverty, there has been comparatively less conflict and extremism. This is clearly attributable to the strong and sustained democracy that has been a hallmark of Indian society for the past six decades. The sustained economic growth of recent years has given hope that the political freedoms enjoyed by the Indian people can be coupled with economic prosperity for all. Second, these are all ‘threats without borders’. They cannot be solved by any one country; by their nature, they demand global responses and multinational cooperation. Taking together all these aspects of global security, it should be clear that our society is at a crossroads. If we hope to achieve progress, it is time for a new beginning. The Opportunities What is to be done? Complex as these insecurities may be, there are nonetheless obvious steps that could be taken to address them. We must share the wealth of the planet more equitably — recognizing that poverty, too, is a weapon of mass destruction. We must invest in more advanced science and technology to meet development needs — seeking to do more than create more wealth for the wealthy. Investments in technology are invariably profit driven; more emphasis, therefore, should be placed on innovation to address problems of hunger and disease. And we must engage in the sustained diplomacy necessary to resolve longstanding conflicts. If we begin to alleviate problems of poverty and hunger, we will also be able to generate momentum for good governance. When basic human needs are met, the environment is created for citizens to turn their attention to achieving political and social freedoms. Democracy is an evolutionary process; however, it must begin from within, and it must be nurtured and supported, regardless of whether the particular leader is a political friend or foe, and regardless of the outcome of a given election. The international community must also deal with symptoms of insecurity at the State level, including nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. On the nuclear front, we must enhance further the security of existing stocks of nuclear and radiological material, and tighten controls over sensitive nuclear operations that produce such material. The IAEA must receive the support it needs to carry out effective, independent verification of States’ non-proliferation commitments. World leaders must be persuaded to acknowledge the inextricable linkage between non-proliferation and disarmament — and therefore the critical need for accelerated efforts towards a nuclear-weapons-free world. The proliferation challenges of recent years — and the near-total impasse in international efforts to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation and arms control regime — have made it clear that the current system is not sustainable: it needs to be strengthened, and it needs to be universal. At the end of the day, we will only succeed if we have the foresight to develop an alternative system of collective security. A system in which no country could rely or would need to rely on nuclear weapons for its security. A system with effective global mechanisms for conflict resolution. A system in which security is not perceived as a zero sum game, but rather a system that is equitable, inclusive and effective. And above all, a system that places human security at its centre. Conclusion During the 15 minutes it has taken me to deliver this speech, more than 200 of our fellow human beings have died of starvation — most of them children under the age of five. An additional 125 have died of waterborne diseases. Another 85 have died from HIV/AIDS. Most of these deaths could have been avoided by a more rational and humane distribution of resources. In this same short time interval, five new inventions have received a patent. More than 23 000 cell phones have been purchased worldwide. About 1300 new automobiles have been produced. And governments have spent another $30 million on armaments — approximately ten times the amount provided, during the same time period, as development assistance for the poor. All just during the past 15 minutes. This is our world. It is our great privilege to live in an age where we are witnessing incredible advances in science and technology — with discovery and innovation at an accelerated pace in areas like nanotechnology, bioengineering and information technology. But it is also our great shame to tolerate, in parallel, a set of primitive ethical and social values hailing back to the caveman, always in search of a bigger club with which to protect our privileges and settle our differences. As human beings, we have great potential. Why does one individual turn out to be a Mother Teresa, and another a suicide bomber? It is mostly a matter of how we are treated, and how we choose to treat others. Ultimately, the human family is the master of its own destiny. It is time for an adjustment of our mindset, and a change in our values. It is time for a new beginning. 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: ***************************************************************** 30 Reuters: US Senate panel seen backing 7-yr terror insurance | Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:09pm EDT By Kevin Drawbaugh WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate panel is expected on Wednesday to back extending the government's terrorism insurance program for seven years, shorter than an extension approved last month by the House of Representatives, sources familiar with the matter said on Monday. The Senate Banking Committee is also expected to reject two expansions of the program endorsed by the House -- adding group life insurance coverage; and mandating nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological attack coverage, the sources said. But under a deal between senior committee members and the White House, the banking panel will follow the House's lead and vote to broaden Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) coverage to domestic terrorism, as well as foreign. The post-9/11 TRIA program makes the federal government the insurer of last resort for terrorist attack damages too big for private insurers to handle. Originally passed as a stop-gap measure in 2002, it will expire on Dec. 31 unless extended. The House of Representatives voted on Sept. 19 to extend TRIA through 2017, defying a White House veto threat. The Senate committee said in a statement on Monday it will meet Wednesday to take action on TRIA and on flood insurance. Insurers and real estate developers are watching developments closely. The sources said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, and ranking Republican Richard Shelby, of Alabama, had reached an agreement on TRIA. "This agreement is a positive step toward reaching a sustainable solution that will protect our economy," said Brendan Reilly, senior vice president of government relations at the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association. Insurers and business interests are pushing hard for renewal, backed by Democrats and big-city Republicans. Supporters argue the private sector is showing few signs of being able to write adequate terrorism coverage and that a federal backstop is needed for economic security. President George W. Bush threatened to veto the House's TRIA bill, saying it would make TRIA virtually permanent and that the program impedes growth of private sector insurance. Some Republicans have criticized the House bill as potentially too costly and an insurance industry subsidy. The House bill would extend TRIA and add group life insurance to it; broaden coverage to domestic terrorism, as well as foreign; and mandate nuclear, biological, chemical and radiological attack coverage under certain conditions. It would also change the damage levels triggering TRIA, which both backers and opponents agreed has helped stabilize property insurance markets since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. In a related issue, the Senate Banking Committee said it will also take action on reforming federal flood insurance The House voted in September to overhaul the almost 40-year-old National Flood Insurance Program. The House bill would expand the flood program to cover wind damage. Insurers are lobbying hard to block a wind expansion of the program, arguing it would crowd them out of a viable business. Major insurers closely monitoring congressional reform efforts include Allstate Corp (ALL.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Travelers Cos Inc (TRV.N: Quote, Profile, Research), Nationwide Insurance and State Farm. (Additional reporting by John Poirier) ***************************************************************** 31 UPI: Walker's World: Inflating Russian reality United Press International - International Security - Published: 15, 2007 at 10:54 AM By MARTIN WALKER UPI Editor Emeritus MILAN, Italy, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- When the American secretaries of state and defense went to Moscow to see Russian President Vladimir Putin last week, they did not talk about the one topic on the minds of most ordinary Russians: the soaring cost of food. Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates talked about Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the prospects of persuading Russia to join the United States and its European allies in imposing much tougher sanctions against Iran through the United Nations. Putin replied coolly that he had seen “no evidence” that Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon. They talked about U.S. plans to build an advanced early-warning radar system and a base for missiles that could shoot down Iranian missiles in the future, and Putin made it clear he was against it. His counteroffer, of the use of an existing Russian radar base much closer to Iran in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, has already been examined and dismissed by U.S. military experts as inadequate and unsuitable. They talked about Russia’s plan to withdraw from the 1989 Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, one of the keystone agreements that ended the Cold War with its strict limits on the number of troops and weapons that could be stationed in the states along the old border between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. They touched on the issue of Putin’s political future and on human rights. Rice held a meeting with Russian human-rights activists, and she later commented she thought too much power was being centralized inside the Kremlin. In short, with the exception of some brief exchanges on cooperation in anti-terrorist measures, it was very much like a summit in the grim old days of the Soviet Union. The air was thick with mutual suspicion and mistrust, with Russian generals muttering darkly offstage about U.S. policies “bringing nuclear war closer.” Clearly, despite President Bush’s claim after their first meting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in 2001 that he had “looked into Putin’s soul” and found a fellow believer and a diplomatic partner, the Bush administration has not handled the Russian relationship at all well. Perhaps it was impossible all along, given Putin’s KGB background, his deep Russian patriotism and his determination to return Russia to its old great-power status. And Putin never made any secret of his firm opposition to a unipolar world dominated by the sole U.S. superpower. He also made it clear from the beginning that he wanted to restore order to Boris Yeltsin’s anarchic Russia in the traditional way, by re-establishing a strong state system based in the Kremlin and pursuing the Kremlin’s vision of the national interest. This meant, as Putin quickly demonstrated, ruthlessly asserting state control over the new rich oligarchs who had profited hugely from the privatization of Russia’s natural resources in the Yeltsin years. It also meant Russia’s firm opposition to key Bush policies like walking out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and enlarging NATO to include the old Warsaw Pact states and former Soviet republics like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. None of this was going to be easy for the Bush administration to swallow. And the surging growth of China and India sent demand for oil soaring, just as Bush’s war on Iraq drove up the oil price and the botched post-war occupation provoked an insurgency that crippled Iraq’s oil production. To Putin’s benefit, the oil price kept rising ever higher and Russia became steadily richer, and able to afford to pay the pensions and wage increases that kept Putin popular, and also to afford to modernize the strategic missiles and weaponry and keep the generals happy. The Russian defense budget has grown at double-digit rates for the last five years, albeit from a very low base. New investment has gone into the development of new strategic weapons, specifically the Topol-M, designed to defeat U.S. strategic defense systems, and the S-400 anti-missile system. Defense outlays for 2007 are at a post-Soviet high of $32.4 billion, rising 23 percent in the past year and four times expenditures of 2001. This year’s Russian budget spread the bonanza. The minimum wage was raised 15 percent along with salaries for state employees and military pay and pensions. Another $6.4 billion extra spending was devoted to health and to encouraging a higher birth-rate policies, and there was $3 billion extra for education (up 66 percent), for innovative schools and teacher bonuses. Internet connections were promised for all schools. Housing got an extra $17 billion, up 30 percent, with loans for new construction, a state agency to provide mortgages and subsidies for young families. There was an extra $1.7 billion for a new Agricultural Bank and subsidies for loan repayments to farmers, and still $100 billion left over to be put into a national investment fund. But now, with all the foreign investment money and petrodollars flowing in, Russians are noticing the first signs of a worm in this apple. What ordinary Russians are talking about is inflation, which the state agencies now fear will top 10 percent this year. Some food prices are up 30 percent, and a new poll by the Public Opinion group found 68 percent of Russians saying there were more and more foods they could not afford to buy. Sadly, that was not an issue that came up in the American talks with Putin. It should have done, not because this suggests a coming weakness in Russia’s hitherto strong negotiating position, but because this is the direct result of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. The Russian central bank is pouring liquidity into the market daily to fend off a credit crunch that would really jeopardize the Russian economy and Putin’s legacy. And remember the crash of the ruble in 1998, which sent tremors around the global financial system. Another ruble crisis, when the world is already grappling with liquidity problems and a plunging dollar, is the last thing the global economy now needs. Since the U.S. secretaries of state and defense got so little from their meetings with Putin, perhaps it is time to send Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who understands that one key way in which the Cold War is over is that Russia is now an integral part of the global economic system. And in safeguarding that, Bush and Putin have almost everything in common. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 32 UPI: 3 ports start 100-percent cargo scanning United Press International - International Security - Published: 15, 2007 at 2:47 PM WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Ports in Britain, Pakistan and Honduras have become the first to implement radiation screening of 100 percent of U.S.-bound cargo containers. Southampton Container Terminals in Britain, Port Qasim in Pakistan -- both of which are managed by Dubai Ports World -- and Puerto Cortez in Honduras are the first seaports to meet the requirements of last year’s SAFE Port Act, said U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a statement Monday. “Preventing a nuclear weapon or dirty bomb attack has to be one of our highest priorities,” said Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Jayson Ahern. “This initiative advances a comprehensive strategy to secure the global supply chain and substantially limits the potential for terrorist threats.” About $60 million in U.S. funds was used to install scanning systems at the ports and a communications infrastructure that will transmit the scanning data back to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center for analysis. Four additional ports are also scheduled to begin scanning shortly, though only on a limited basis, said the statement: Singapore’s Brani terminal; the Gamman terminal at Busan in Korea; Hong Kong’s Modern Terminal and Salalah in Oman. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration had “partnered with these ports because they pose different challenges and provide diverse environments in which to evaluate various options” for container scanning, said the statement. Customs and Border Protection noted the role of the Department of State in providing diplomatic assistance to negotiate the necessary bilateral agreements for the program to go ahead. “The U.S. Government is committed to working with our foreign partners, to include trade and industry, to implement 100 percent scanning in a logical and practical manner that does not adversely affect global trade,” concluded the statement. © Copyright United Press International. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 33 BBC NEWS: Inquiry into N-test veterans case Last Updated: Monday, 15 October 2007, 11:39 GMT 12:39 UK Christmas Island - the area was used for nuclear testing A parliamentary inquiry has begun into British nuclear tests in the South Pacific in the 1950s, which veterans say led to genetic defects. Veterans claim they were not given proper protection during the Christmas Island testing programme and their families have become ill as a result. The inquiry will hear from scientists on the impact of the radiation and from the veterans themselves. 'Tremendous heat' A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said previous independent reports have concluded there is no evidence to back up the veterans' claims. "The UK government recognises its obligations to veterans of the UK nuclear tests," she said. "In particular, they have since 1983 commissioned three reports from the independent National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) on possible adverse health effects of participation in these tests." She added the MoD would consider the inquiry's report after it is submitted to parliament. The nuclear devices were tested on Christmas Island, off the east coast of Australia, in the 1950s. Of the 700 veterans in the middle of legal proceedings, 400 are from the UK and 300 are Commonwealth colleagues from New Zealand and Fiji. They claim there is a higher incidence of cancer, deformities and skin problems among the group and their families as a result. Archie Ross was an instrument fitter with RAF Transport Command when he witnessed one of the bombs. Scientific evidence He told BBC Radio Five Live: "When the actual bomb went off, you didn't hear any noise. It was just a great white flash. "You got your eyes covered with your hands, and the whole of the inside of your body lit up to the point where even through your hands and your eyelids, you could see the structure of your bones inside your hands. Servicemen claim they were not given adequate protection "At the same time, a tremendous heat built up, to the point where you thought, I can't take this, and just about that point it eased and then cooled down again." Conservative MP John Baron and Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson will chair the two-day inquiry. "The aim is to throw light on the issue," said Mr Baron. "There has been some strong scientific evidence published recently which suggests that the veterans have a case. "We're going to call upon that scientific evidence to come and talk to us. We're also going to talk to the veterans. We did invite the MoD, but they refused to turn-up." The MoD spokeswoman added that it was not appropriate for them to be involved in the inquiry due to the legal proceedings. * BBC Copyright Notice ***************************************************************** 34 Tri-City Herald: VX nerve agent next target at Umatilla Chemical Depot Published Monday, October 15th, 2007 JEANNINE KORANDA HERALD OREGON BUREAU HERMISTON -- The Umatilla Chemical Depot could begin its next phase of chemical weapons destruction in early November and start destroying VX nerve agent-filled munitions. Since the incinerator destroyed the last of the depot's GB sarin-filled projectiles in July, the facility has been getting ready to handle a new type of nerve agent. Workers at the depot and incinerator are eager to resume burning the weapons, officials said. "They feel that what they are doing is so important," Hamrick said. That process has included repairs and modifications to equipment that has worn down over three years of burning sarin nerve agent, adding agent monitors and retraining the work force. "We've have been rehearsing safe and secure munitions movement using simulated munitions in preparation for the beginning of the VX Campaign," said Depot commander Lt. Col. Bob Stein. "Even though we've processed 92,000 (sarin-filled) rockets, we want to make sure everyone is on top of their game when we start again," said Doug Hamrick, project manager at the depot for Washington Group International, which built the incinerator and is operating it for the Army. As they did with sarin, crews at the depot incinerator will begin by destroying the site's 14,519 M55 rockets filled with VX. Because the rockets still contain explosives and propellant, they are considered the most dangerous of the remaining stockpile, said Don Barclay, depot site project manager. That means the rockets could explode, vaporize the nerve agent and send a deadly plume off the base. When the sarin-filled M55 rockets were destroyed, it dramatically reduced the potential risk to the public from an accidental release, Barclay said. Both VX and sarin attack the central nervous system and can cause seizures, paralysis and even death in extreme cases. While the agents cause the same reactions, sarin is considered more dangerous to the public because it evaporates at the rate of water, while VX -- a clear, oily and scentless liquid -- evaporates more like vegetable oil, according to the Army. Its primary danger is through skin contact. With the VX rockets there is also the potential for more rocket fires. As the incinerator was destroying the sarin-filled rockets, 15 caught fire. In each case the rockets' sarin had already been drained out. The fires all occurred in one of two heavily reinforced rooms designed to withstand explosions and no nerve agent escaped the rooms. The VX rockets stored at the Umatilla Chemical Depot still have the same propellant as their sarin counterparts. "I think the best approach is to be prepared for the same frequency of rocket fires," Barclay said. When the incinerator restarts, crews will also resume burning agent-contaminated secondary waste such as the protective suits workers wear when working in a toxic environment, Barclay said. Currently, the depot is storing waste contaminated by sarin and will soon have VX-contaminated items, which include protective suits and wooden pallets. Barclay hopes to have waste contaminated with both agents gone by the time the VX munitions are destroyed in about 1 1/2 years. Destroying the rockets is expected to take about four months, he said. The Oregon site also has 32,313 155mm projectiles, 3,752 8-inch projectiles, 11,685 mines and 156 spray tanks and a singe one ton container stored in its VX cache. When the VX-filled weapons are gone, the site will go through a final change over and begin destroying its 2,635 one-ton containers of mustard blister agent. © 2007 Tri-City Herald, Associated Press & Other Wire Services ***************************************************************** 35 PEACOCK REPORT (TPR): Liquid Nuclear Waste Plant Slated for New Mexico Hundreds of Millions in Contracts Expected for Pentagon Project October 15, 2007 Nearly 10 million liters of radioactive liquid will be processed annually at a new waste-treatment facility that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) intends to build in Los Alamos County, New Mexico, according to a planning document that The Peacock Report located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database. Construction of the new facility, which is slated to begin in the spring of 2009 and be completed by December 2010, has an estimated cost of $40-$65 million, the Sources Sought notice says. This subcontracting action is connected to a larger endeavor involving the creation of a new nuclear facility for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). The goal at this stage is to assess the "availability and adequacy of potential business sources" capable of constructing facilities that handle liquid nuclear waste. The document, dated Oct. 10, describes the projected new treatment plant as containing: [A] basement, main floor, and mezzanine with an overall footprint of 120-ft by 90ft. The basement level is 90-ft by 90-ft and is partially below grade. The basement level includes reaction tanks, waste packaging, influent storage tanks, chemical receipt and storage, and exterior drum storage. [emphasis added] The main level includes the change rooms (showers, lockers, storage), access control, equipment room, control room, briefing room, and process equipment. The building ventilation system exhaust includes high-efficiency particulate air filter assemblies and the facility design incorporates safety significant structures, systems and components. NNSA anticipates releasing a more detailed Request for Proposals in the fall of 2008, with the subsequent awarding of contracts in the winter of 2009. October 15, 2007 | Permalink ***************************************************************** 36 Canada: BBC: Open house on Nuclear waste Bayshore Broadcasting Corporation News for Monday, October 15th, 2007 Written by Ken Hashizume Ontario Power Generation is inviting the public to a series of open houses. The first open house goes tonight from 4 until 8 at the Best Western Governors Inn in Kincardine. This is part of an environmental assessment of the proposed Deep Geological Repository for low and intermediate level waste near the Bruce site in Tiverton. OPG Spokesperson Marie Wilson says they are encouraging people in Kincardine and in neighbouring municipalities to come to these open houses. She says there will be experts at every open house who will provide information on the project and answer any questions the public may have. Wilson says OPG just completed the first year of a five-year geo-scientific site characterization plan to determine if the Bruce site is a suitable location for the DGR. Other open houses are scheduled for Ripley tomorrow at the Ripley Huron Community Centre, at the Hartley House in Walkerton on Wednesday , and Thursday they'll be at the Plex in Port Elgin. They will continue next week with open houses in Owen Sound at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre on the 23rd, at the Chesley Fire Hall on the 24th, and the Wiarton and District Community Centre on the 26th. All open houses run from 4 P.M. to 8 P.M. This site is part of the Bayshore Broadcasting family of radio stations Mix 106 | 560 CFOS | Country 93 | 98 the Beach | Bayshore Broadcasting © 2006 Bayshore Broadcasting Corp. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 37 Buffalo News: Opinion: Clean up the landfill Tonawanda’s Manhattan Project site must be purged of contamination Updated: 10/15/07 6:53 AM Residents living near a Tonawanda landfill that was once the site of the Army’s Manhattan Project decades ago want the area cleaned up. Plain and simple. Because of bureaucratic red tape that has the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jockeying back and forth over acceptable levels of contamination, it is up to Congress to unravel the tangled mess. Decades ago, Linde Air Products Co. had enriched uranium for use in the atomic bomb under a contract with the Army’s Manhattan Project. The landfill is located between Military Road and Two Mile Creek and bordered on the other side by the Youngmann Highway and Hackett Drive. Back then, information regarding toxic dump sites and its effects wasn’t handy and, kids being kids, neighborhood children played and swam on the landfill. Unthinkable now, given the amount of information that is disseminated these days about landfills. Or, at least one would think. The inertia surrounding any real efforts to clean up the site in the 21st century is probably even more unthinkable. The DEC conducted a simple walk-over test of select properties on Hackett Drive, the Riverview Elementary School and on Wadsworth Court that showed no radioactive elements in the soil. The walk-over tested the soil to only a 2- to 3-inch depth, but community members insist there is radioactive waste behind residents’ home, sometimes as close as 50 feet beyond their property lines. And that’s what the DEC is commenting on, the waste between the landfill and residents’ property lines. The DEC has said that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers needs to remove that waste before the agency can move forward with capping and closing the landfill. To further confuse matters, in 1992 the Department of Energy concluded that, based on its own testing, the radioactive waste was above the guidelines for remediation. Five short years and a turnover of responsibility later, the Army Corps determined that the levels are just below their guidelines. Sounding a lot like, “Who’s on first?” As County Legislator Michele M. Iannello said, no level is acceptable; we’re talking about human lives. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter has already been in contact with residents and elected leaders, and has written a letter to the Army Corps asking for an extension of the public comment period, which occurred. Slaughter has also asked the Army Corps to reexamine its data and check the residential area to ensure no migration of dangerous material. While bureaucracies entangle residents in red tape, nothing gets done. Residents sat through meetings in the 1990s when the Department of Energy claimed everything would be taken care of, and some of those same people have come to meetings with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where they’re being told that the levels are below the guidelines for remediation. The Army Corps has maintained that the risk behind residents’ homes is acceptable but, as Davis put it, in this day and age why subject anyone to additional risk of contracting cancer? Residents are trying not to become statistics. The public review for the Tonawanda landfill expires today. Next, the Army Corps will formulate responses to letters from residents and politicians based on their proposed plan. This should take a year before a record of decision on what to do with the radioactive waste and landfill. Ultimately, the Corps is guided by rules that are set in place not only by its own higher-ups but by Congress, which can require removal of nuclear waste from the landfill. Letters are being drafted to members of the local delegation with a simple message: Let’s get the nuclear waste out of these residents’ back yards. It seems like a good idea. Copyright 1999 - 2007 - The Buffalo News copyright-protected ***************************************************************** 38 [NYTr] The day the Cold War threatened to go nuclear Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:12:27 -0500 (CDT) Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit Russia Today - Oct 15, 2007 http://www.russiatoday.ru/features/news/15547 The day the Cold War threatened to go nuclear Forty-five years ago the world seemed to be on the verge of nuclear holocaust. In October 1962 President Kennedy got word from U.S. intelligence that the Soviet Union had placed missiles on the island of Cuba. The events have come to define political brinkmanship. For two weeks the world held its breath b the nuclear threat suddenly seemed real. But for the powers involved it all started earlier. Cuba was recovering from revolution. From 1961 Soviet aid gave it an economic boost, refuelling national pride among Cubans. Even after the U.S. sponsored attack on the Bay of Pigs the same year they felt ready for anything, even war. bOn the school bus we were always singing songs with revolutionary messages. There was a sense of romanticism. The kind of mood where we felt we were prepared to resist any aggression,b Omar Gudinez, a Cuban artist, recalled. But among the Cold War superpowers Cuba was a cause for growing concern. The U.S. was desperate to overthrow Fidel Castro, driven by its horror of the far left. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev saw a fellow socialist state under threat and wanted to protect it. This combined with U.S. arms expansion b the Jupiter missiles recently deployed on the Turkish border with the Soviet Union and Americabs tenfold nuclear advantage over its greatest rival b meant that the Soviet authorities felt cornered. Philip Brenner, Professor of International Relations from the American University thinks they surmised that what the United States really wanted to do was to launch a first strike, an offensive attack. bItbs the worst kind of signal to send to an opposing side because it frightens them in a way that they maybe are they going to react irrationallyb, Mr Brenner noted. Mr Khrushchev could have warned John F. Kennedy he wished to give missiles to Cuba b but he chose not to. Sergo Mikoyan, the son of Anastas Mikoyan, Khrushchevbs Deputy Prime Minister and envoy in Cuba at the time, sees this as his most controversial step. bThe decision to place the missiles was a mistake because it was doomed to failure. No American president could allow it, especially when it was done through deception,b Sergo Mikoyan from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations believes. With the Soviet missiles came troops. Forty-two thousand soldiers were a force of wartime potential. Even these soldiers were kept in the dark until the last minute. Aleksandr Voropaev, conscript in Cuba in 1962, recalls how he woke up in the morning and saw the sun was at the stern of the boat b so he realised they were going west. bOnly when we passed Gibraltar, only then did they tell us we were going to Cuba to defend the Cuban revolution,b he said. U2 reconnaissance flights pinpointed the missiles on October 14. Kennedy declared a naval quarantine on Cuba eight days later. On October 24, two Soviet ships approached the blockade, but at the last moment turned back. In the words of U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, they blinked. Fearing Armageddon more than humiliation, the sides moved towards public compromise. Missiles would be removed if the U.S. guaranteed it would not invade Cuba. Privately the U.S. also agreed to recall its Jupiters from Turkey. But amid the superpower wrangling, the voice of Cuba went unheard. Fidel Castro was furious at how little he was consulted about the missiles, reportedly once telling Nikita Khrushchev to buse bem or lose bemb. When they were eventually removed, Cuba lost faith in the Soviet leader. Castro felt he had been deceived. Philip Brenner thinks that Cuba didnbt want missiles, but what it did want was a Soviet military guarantee. bAnd by taking missiles it injected itself into a superpower confrontation. It became automatically the front line of a nuclear war,b he said. Cuba was the frontline, but now b a globally-feared political hotspot. bAfter the crisis Cubabs international prestige grew somehow. It may be small b but because of it the world nearly collapsed and this gave it significance,b believes Sergo Mikoyan. Just as compromises were being reached, Deputy Prime Minister Anastas Mikoyanbs wife died. He was not sent home from Cuba to bury her bsuch was the scale of the emergency. Forty-five years on, disputes over the nuclear question continue between Russia and the United States. But around the world people remember the fortnight they cancelled all their plans, waiting for the ultimate disaster to strike. Copyright B) Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "TV-Novosti" 2007, all rights reserved * ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us Our main website: http://www.blythe.org List Archives: http://blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/ Subscribe: http://blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ================================================================= ***************************************************************** 39 RIA Novosti: Wiesbaden hosts Russian-German summit consultations 14:26 | 15/ 10/ 2007 WIESBADEN (Germany), October 15 (RIA Novosti) - Russian and German leaders met Monday for the start of the ninth consultations which will focus on U.S. missile defense plans in Europe, Iran's nuclear program and the status of Kosovo. President Vladimir Putin arrived in Germany Sunday for his fifth meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, presiding over the Group of Eight industrialized nations, this year. Thirteen Russian ministers and officials, and 11 from the German side are also expected to attend. The negotiations to highlight U.S. plans to deploy elements of its missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, which Washington says will help counter possible threats from Iran or North Korea. Moscow has opposed the move, saying it jeopardized Russia's security. Germany has cautiously called for an open dialogue on missile defense, saying these plans should not undermine mutual trust in Europe. Another issue likely to come under discussion is Iran and its controversial nuclear program. Both Russia and Germany are among the six negotiators on Iran, which also include France, Britain, the United States and China. Western nations, including Germany, have sought to impose tougher sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which they suspect of pursuing a secret weapons program, while Russia has resisted additional sanctions. Russia is building Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr. The status of the predominately Albanian province of Kosovo is another bone of contention between Russia and the West, including Germany. Kosovo has been seeking independence from Serbia, and the West has supported the move, but Russia, a strong Serbian ally, has opposed an independent status for the province, saying it would set a dangerous precedent. Russian presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko said earlier that trade between Russia and Germany increased 13.5% to $22.7 billion in the first half of 2007, with German investment in the Russian economy exceeding $2 billion in the same period. RIA Novosti ***************************************************************** 40 AFP: US touts 'excellent record' on complying with disarmament obligations - Mon Oct 15, 6:46 PM ET UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - Top US disarmament officials briefed a UN General Assembly panel here Monday on Washington's efforts to sharply reduce its nuclear stockpile in line with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). "By the time we are done in 2012, we will have reduced the US stockpile, the operationally deployed warheads by 80 percent and the total stockpile will be reduced to one quarter of what it was at the end of the Cold War," said Thomas D'Agostino, a senior Department of Energy (DOE) official. "We doubled the amount of spending on dismantlement and in the last year that's led to a 150 percent increase in the amount of warheads that we were planning on dismantling previously," d'Agostino, the administrator of the US National Nuclear Security Administration at DOE, told reporters. He said this would mean that by 2012, the United States would be left with between 1,700 and 2,200 operationally deployed warheads plus additional warheads that will be kept in reserve but whose number is classified. The United States and the four other declared nuclear weapons states -- Russia, Britain, France and China -- have been accused by non-nuclear weapons states of not doing enough to cut their arsenals. The five nuclear weapons states have also been taken to task for refusing to accept the same permanent safeguards on their civilian nuclear reactors required of non-nuclear signatories by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "We are making the case that the United States has gone the full measure in complying with Article Six of the NPT. We have done more than our share," William Tobey, the deputy administrator for defense nuclear non-proliferation at DOE, said here. "We want to make clear our excellent record in complying with the treaty and we would expect other states to do so as well," he added. Article Six of the NPT calls on the five nuclear "haves" to move toward "the objective of complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons as an ultimate objective." The two DOE officials spoke to reporters after giving a closed-door briefing to the Assembly's disarmament committee. D'Agostino said President George W. Bush's administration determined that a stockpile of between 1700 and 2200 warheads was "the minimum necessary to maintain our deterrent" and "to provide the right type of security for the United States" and its allies. In an oblique reference to Iran, which is suspected of trying to build nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian nuclear program, Tobey said Washington wanted non-nuclear weapons states to submit to additional safeguards to ensure that their access to nuclear technology is not used for military purposes. Iran has refused to bow to UN Security Council demands that it halt its sensitive nuclear fuel work, including uranium enrichment, arguing that it has the right to conduct enrichment as a signatory of the NPT. Tehran has rejected Western charges that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability, saying its nuclear program is solely aimed at generating electricity. But the United States and Israel have not ruled out military action, if necessary, to prevent the Islamic Republic from building nuclear arms. Copyright © 2007 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The ***************************************************************** 41 New York Times: U.S. Frustrated by Putin's Grip on Power - Torsten Silz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia arriving in Frankfurt on Sunday, before talks with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel. By STEVEN LEE MYERS Published: October 15, 2007 MOSCOW, Oct. 14 — At the gathering of leaders of the Group of 8 industrialized nations in Germany this year, President Bush turned to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and remarked that the two of them had outlasted most of their old colleagues from the group’s annual meetings, American officials recalled. Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi, Gerhard Schröder and Tony Blair had left or were leaving. “Next year,” Mr. Putin replied, “it will be only you.” Mr. Putin’s response, for a time, persuaded the Bush administration that he would keep his word and step down as Russia’s president when his term ends next year, several months before Mr. Bush’s own presidency ends in January 2009. Now, though, Mr. Putin’s plans are far from clear, and as a result, the administration’s hopes that Russia would move toward a freer, more democratic society have substantially diminished. Mr. Putin’s surprise suggestion last month that he might yet remain in power — possibly as a newly empowered prime minister, possibly as the eminence atop the “party of power” — has left the White House stumped. The administration is uncertain how to deal with a man who has consolidated power almost exclusively in his own hands, even as Mr. Bush continues to call Mr. Putin “my friend.” That is why a certain discomfort regarding Mr. Putin’s future hovered over two days of talks here attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. “If you don’t have countervailing institutions, then the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development,” Ms. Rice said Saturday, raising concerns about the state of Russia’s judiciary, legislative branch and news media, but declining to criticize Mr. Putin by name. When asked by reporters more than once and by a human rights advocate in a meeting at Spaso House, the American ambassador’s residence, she declined to discuss who might lead Russia, formally or informally, come next year and what that outcome might mean. At a news conference with the Americans and their Russian counterparts, the question elicited a smile from Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and guffaws from uniformed members of the general staff sitting in the audience, as if asking it were audacious. “There’s a lot of speculation about who’s going to be president, whether President Putin is going to take any of a number of jobs or no job at all,” Ms. Rice said later, “and I just think speculating on that is not going to help.” Such comments reflect another reality: the powerlessness of the United States when it comes to prodding Russia in a more democratic direction, barely six years after Mr. Putin’s willingness to reach out to Mr. Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, seemed to herald a new era of cooperation. Mr. Bush, a believer in the personal bonds of diplomacy, said he had seen in Mr. Putin’s eyes a trusted democratic ally in the effort to curb terrorism. Instead, on Mr. Bush’s watch, Russia has slid toward a more authoritarian system that seems to differ with the United States on more issues than not. The administration’s occasional scoldings have accomplished little except to harden anti-American views at the Kremlin and in the state news media. (A swaggering Mr. Putin opened the discussions on Friday with a sarcastic harangue over the American plans for missile defense.) Along the way, promoting democracy in Russia has largely faded from the administration’s agenda, overtaken by a clear-eyed, pragmatic effort to defuse the disputes over missile defense, the future of the two countries’ strategic nuclear forces and the array of conventional forces in Europe. Those issues, along with Iran’s nuclear programs, dominated the discussions here. A senior official who traveled here, speaking on the condition of anonymity because diplomacy was involved, said what Mr. Putin’s next steps might be was not a topic in any of the meetings. Tanya Lokshina, the chairwoman of a Russian human rights organization, the Demos Center for Information and Research, was among those who met with Ms. Rice on Saturday. She said that given the focus on security matters, the meeting with rights campaigners had been mostly symbolic. She contended that the United States had “lost the high moral ground,” and thus should join with European countries to make it clear to Mr. Putin that a drift further away from democracy was unacceptable diplomatically. “The American voice alone doesn’t work anymore,” she said after the meeting. “The Russians are not influenced by it.” She said Ms. Rice had bristled at the criticism, replying sharply, “We never lost the high moral ground.” There is a growing sense in the White House that with Mr. Putin’s accretion of power, his ability to dictate his own successor or to remain the country’s ruler in some capacity is unavoidable at this point. Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, said last week that he could imagine Mr. Bush turning to his friend and saying, “You really would be better off, Vladimir, if you really moved a little bit toward democracy.” But he went on to say that he did not expect a change. In fact, senior administration officials find it hard to imagine that Mr. Putin would step aside and leave the trappings of office to a successor, even a weakened one, let alone the power he has concentrated in the presidency. Could Russia conceivably be represented at the next Group of 8 meeting, or any other important meeting, by someone who is nominally the head of state, but not the country’s real leader? Whatever Mr. Putin’s ultimate plan, the Bush administration effectively has no choice but to deal with him until the succession plays itself out. Ms. Rice said she did not think that the uncertainty of the process would prevent progress on the disputes at the center of these latest talks. She also said, when asked, that she had not misjudged Mr. Putin back in 2001 when Mr. Bush first met him. “I certainly always read him as somebody who was going to do what he thought was in the best interest of his nation and was going to be, in a sense, transparent about that,” Ms. Rice said. “Where there have been differences, I think it’s because I think we read those interests differently.” More Articles in International » Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company ***************************************************************** 42 DOE: German University Wins Architecture Contest in the Department of Energy’s Third Solar Decathlon October 15, 2007 University of Maryland and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid teams are take second and third place WASHINGTON, DC – The German Technische Universität Darmstadt today took an early lead in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Decathlon by winning the architecture contest – the first of ten contests - receiving 193.25 points out of a possible 200 points. The Solar Decathlon is a competition where 20 university-led teams from across the United States, and from Canada, Germany, and Spain, are competing to design, build and operate the most attractive, functional, and energy efficient solar-powered home. Following close behind the winning team from Germany, the University of Maryland finished in second place with 189.5 points, and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid finished in third place, with 187.5 points. “Winning one of the most challenging contests in the Solar Decathlon is a major feat,” Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Andy Karsner said. “Perfecting structural stability with the creative use of space is crucial to quality architecture for solar-powered homes, and I congratulate the three winning teams for bringing out a competitive spirit that challenges our next generation to think in new ways about how we use and produce energy.” A jury of esteemed architects from industry and academia, including the American Institute of Architects, toured and judged homes for the Architecture contest. The jury evaluated the following three factors: * Commodity –Ease of entry into the house and circulation among the public and private areas; architectural strategy used to accommodate the technologies required to run the house; and generosity and sufficiency of space in the house * Delight – Surprises, unusual use of ordinary materials, or use of extraordinary materials * Firmness – The house’s strength, suitability and appropriateness of materials in the building The ten contests that make up the Solar Decathlon measure many aspects of a home’s performance and appearance. A perfect total score for all ten contests in the Solar Decathlon is 1,200 points. And of the 10 contests, architecture is worth up to 200 points, followed by Engineering and Market Viability, which are each worth up to 150 points and are scored subjectively. The other seven contests, each worth up to 100 points, measure performance and award points daily through the competition on: Lighting, Communications, Comfort Zone, Appliances, Hot Water, Energy Balance, and Getting Around. The Communications contest, worth 100 points, will be announced tomorrow, October 16, at 10:00AM on the National Mall in the solar village. The Solar Decathlon’s overall winner will be announced at 2:00PM on Friday, October 19, 2007. The Solar Decathlon’s homes are zero-energy, yield zero carbon, and include the latest high-tech solutions and money-saving benefits to consumers, without sacrificing comfort, convenience, and aesthetics. Each house must also produce enough “extra” energy to power an electric vehicle. Many of the solar power and building technologies showcased on the National Mall are currently available for purchase and use. Teams have worked for more than two years designing, building and testing their homes – the Solar Decathlon is the culmination of that work. The Solar Decathlon complements President Bush’s Solar America Initiative, which seeks to make solar energy cost-competitive with conventional forms of electricity by 2015. The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring this year’s Solar Decathlon, along with its National Renewable Energy Laboratory; the American Institute of Architects; the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers; the National Association of Homebuilders; the U.S. Green Building Council; and private-sector sponsors BP and Sprint. This year, more than 100,000 people are expected to tour the solar village. Held on the National Mall in Washington, DC, DOE’s Solar Decathlon is open to the public through Saturday, October 20, 2007. The houses are open for tours each day from 11:00AM to 3:00PM, except on Wednesday, October 17, 2007, when they will be closed for competition purposes. For full event information, current standings, and high-resolution photos, visit the Solar Decathlon website. Media contact(s): Kevin Brosnahan, (202) 586-4940 U.S. Department of Energy | 1000 Independence Ave., SW | Washington, DC 20585 1-800-dial-DOE | f/202-586-4403 ***************************************************************** 43 Knoxville News Sentinel: Nuclear landfill capacity concerns officials As Oak Ridge waste grows, facility faces time and space issues By Frank Munger (Contact) Monday, October 15, 2007 Bechtel Jacobs Co. A side-loader hauls waste from the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) across one of three bridges constructed as part of a 7.2-mile haul road between ETTP and the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) in Bear Creek Valley. The bridges span the Oak Ridge Turnpike (Hwy. 58), Highway 95, and Bear Creek. Bechtel Jacobs Co. A 2004 photograph shows waste from East Tennessee Technology Park being disposed and contoured in the Environmental Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) in Bear Creek Valley. OAK RIDGE — About 570,000 tons of waste have been trucked to the government’s nuclear landfill since it opened in May 2002. That’s a lot, of course, but there’s much more to come. At least double that amount is expected between now and 2016, when the facility is tentatively scheduled for closure. A key question raised during the landfill’s early planning stages has yet to be answered: Will it be big enough to accommodate the waste generated by Oak Ridge cleanup projects? Another question may be just as important: Will it stay open long enough to receive all those wastes? “I think it’s crucial to the cleanup of Oak Ridge,” said Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee, which reviews environmental activities for local governments. “No way they could afford the cleanup if they had to ship everything out west (to disposal sites in Nevada and Utah), which is the other alternative.” Known formally as the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, the landfill was built to safely house the massive volume of toxic and radioactive waste generated by post-Cold War cleanup activities at the U.S. Department of Energy operations. It’s located on a 120-acre site west of the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Bear Creek Valley. The facility has been expanded a couple of times already under terms of the agreement DOE signed with environmental regulators, and another upgrade is planned for 2009-10, which would bring the total capacity to 1.7 million cubic yards of waste. That’s the maximum permitted under the original Record of Decision, and anything above that amount would require a newly negotiated agreement. About 446,000 cubic yards of space have already been used at the landfill. Nobody knows exactly how much waste will be generated in years ahead because some proposed projects haven’t been approved or funded — including the Integrated Facilities Disposition Program, which would dismantle more than 200 old buildings at Y-12 and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Bechtel Jacobs Co., DOE’s cleanup manager, is currently focusing its efforts on the demolition of old uranium-enrichment facilities in Oak Ridge. The biggest of them is the original K-25 plant — a mile-long, U-shaped structure that was built in World War II and contains deposits of enriched uranium and hazardous elements of all kinds. In recent years, thousands of truckloads have been sent from the former K-25 site to the nuclear landfill. The project traffic was so great that DOE spent millions of dollars on a special haul road so that waste trucks wouldn’t clog public highways in the area. Between now and the end of March 2008, about 800 truckloads of wastes will be shipped to the landfill via that road, according to a recent estimate by Bechtel Jacobs. That doesn’t include wastes coming from other sources, including the Witherspoon cleanup project in South Knoxville. John Owsley, the state’s environmental oversight chief in Oak Ridge, said he believes the existing agreement, which caps the landfill at 1.7 million cubic yards of waste, will provide enough room if DOE and its contractors properly manage the wastes. DOE spokesman John Shewairy said it’s too early to say whether another expansion may be necessary. It’s important to segregate uncontaminated rubble and other sanitary wastes so they don’t bloat the volume shipped to the landfill designated for Superfund projects, Owsley said. The state has identified some operational concerns, including radioactive material too hot to qualify for disposal there, “but nothing out of the ordinary for a facility that large,” Owsley said. DOE has acknowledged that contractors at K-25 sent some materials to the landfill by mistake, he said. The disposal facility was engineered with multiple systems to protect the environment. Some of DOE’s major cleanup projects, including the demolition of K-25, have been delayed because of technical and safety issues. Others have been postponed because of budget problems. That raises concerns that the schedule for closing the landfill might not mesh with the revised completion date for cleanup projects. If DOE’s Oak Ridge landfill were closed before cleanups were complete, it would be 100 times more expensive to dispose of wastes at commercial sites and might jeopardize the cleanup projects, Gawarecki said. “You would have some serious consequences.” Owsley said the state is more concerned with properly disposing of cleanup waste than enforcing a timeline for shutting down the landfill. But, he said, any decision to expand the landfill or extend its operational lifetime would be influenced by how diligently DOE is handling the job. “There is not a deadline for closure, but it was anticipated there’d be 14 years of operation,” the state official said. That was to coincide with completion of an accelerated cleanup plan, he said. Under an earlier agreement with the state, the Department of Energy puts $1 million a year into a “perpetual care fund” that will be used to monitor operations in the future after the landfill has been capped and closed. Based on a financial report earlier this year, DOE had contributed $7 million to the fund so far, and the investments had accrued another $923,681. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 44 Knoxville News Sentinel: Oak Ridge reindustrialization: Is Hall's DOE legacy a success? By Frank Munger (Contact) Monday, October 15, 2007 Jim Hall, former manager of the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge operations, was in attendance the other day at a federal lawn party celebrating DOE’s 60th anniversary in the Atomic City. It’s a bit unusual to see Hall in Oak Ridge these days, even though he works out of Washington Group’s Oak Ridge office and holds the same position he’s held for quite a few years — regional vice president. Considering that most of his time is spent doing business development in the United Kingdom, his “region” must be a pretty large one. Hall is a lawyer by training, but during his lengthy tenure with DOE he filled many management roles and worked on some of the agency’s biggest projects — ranging from uranium enrichment to basic science to storage of emergency oil supplies. He was even put in charge of closing out the Superconducting Super Collider in Texas after Congress pulled the plug on the multibillion-dollar science project. As manager of DOE’s Oak Ridge office from 1995 to 1999, Hall was faced with tough decisions in the early post-Cold War period. The federal agency was trying to adjust to a new era, downsize the nuclear weapons complex and cope with demands from longtime host communities (such as Oak Ridge) concerned about an economic collapse. Hall and his management team came up with a deal that required the winner of an environmental cleanup contract to do economic development in the Oak Ridge area. The winner of that contract, Bechtel Jacobs, ultimately helped generate about $670 million in new non-DOE payroll over the five-year period (the contractual commitment was $427 million), and that work may have helped create as many as 5,000 new jobs. Some folks, including myself, questioned the propriety of tying local economic development to a big federal contract. It seemed almost preposterous to think that the best company to clean up nuclear pollution would also be the right company to light a fire under the local economy. It was clearly a way of extorting companies to help the government meet needs or obligations. But it got done and some of the positive impacts were lasting. Whether it was the right thing to do may be kind of moot at this point. Hall also was the father of Oak Ridge “reindustrialization.” The program was designed to convert surplus government facilities to private uses, leverage the transition to help pay for nuclear cleanup costs, and establish an economic base that would survive — even if the Department of Energy greatly reduced its presence in East Tennessee. Reindustrialization had its critics and detractors, and in many ways the verdict is still out on its success. “I don’t think it’s met the initial promise,” said Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Local Oversight Committee, which reviews federal activities for local governments. “What has happened is that many of the potentially reusable buildings have been torn down instead of being cleaned up and reused.” Hall said he thinks the overall program has achieved many of its goals, even if reindustrialization hasn’t evolved exactly as planned. Early on, DOE reached an agreement with BNFL, the U.S. subsidiary of British Nuclear Fuels, to strip the processing equipment from three gigantic uranium-enrichment facilities — K-29, K-31 and K-33 — and decontaminate the remaining structures. The plan was for BNFL to be compensated, in part, by taking ownership of precious metals mined from the site — particularly the tons of nickel. And then the big buildings could be leased or sold to big businesses with manufacturing on their mind. The BNFL deal went haywire, however, when then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson ruled that any metals coming from DOE nuclear sites couldn’t be recycled and sold on the commercial market. BNFL said it lost money, oodles of money, because of unforeseen problems, although the British company later reached a never-fully-revealed financial settlement with the U.S. government. “The nickel thing was unfortunate, but they (BNFL) did the job,” Hall said. “For the Department of Energy, it worked out very, very well.” Vast tons of equipment were removed from site and shipped west for disposal in Utah and Nevada. The three buildings were decontaminated over a period of seven years, but two of them — K-31 and K-33 — are still empty, and the third one was torn down because industrial reuse was out of the question. Asked if finding tenants for old nuclear facilities has proved more difficult than expected, Hall said, “We never thought it was going to be easy.” Although there hasn’t been a home run in locating a big industry at the former K-25 plant, a number of smaller businesses have found their niche at what’s now called Heritage Center. Lawrence Young, president of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee, the nonprofit entity that’s supposed to facilitate the economic program, said there are about 18-20 companies with about 275 employees. Is that successful? “It depends on how you measure success,” Young said. There has been quite a bit of turnover at the site, and one of the low points was when a former tenant was cited in a court case for laundering money as part of a scheme to bilk money from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Young said he’s more optimistic now than he was a couple of months ago. That’s because of the recent sale of three buildings at the site to a private real-estate company, which bodes well for the future, he said. “That was a watershed moment,” Young said. “That was the day we were able to say, this is no longer just a DOE/CROET activity. This is truly private sector.” In addition to the private jobs, the program helped assure that deteriorated buildings got demolished and that cleanup, landscaping and maintenance work got done at the former uranium-processing plant, he said. If not for reindustrialization, the sprawling site might still look like a Pittsburgh steel mill from the 1970s, and it’s doubtful that developers would have invested millions of dollars in the nearby residential community Rarity Ridge, Young said. Hall, who’s on the board of directors at Heritage Center, said he’s proud of what’s been accomplished. “I think it’s moving along, pretty much according to schedule,” he said. “There obviously are companies seeing commercial possibilities out there. That’s encouraging.” Senior writer Frank Munger covers the Department of Energy operations in Oak Ridge. He may be reached at munger@knews.com or 865-342-6329. © 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************