***************************************************************** 01/07/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.6 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Risk of Stored Nuclear Waste Is Greater Than Statistics Suggest 2 TOSHIBA, HITACHI, GE AGREE ON DEVELOPING LOW-COST REACTOR 3 Utah Must Coordinate Its Nuclear Waste Battle 4 Three Arrested for Stealing Radioactive Metals in Chernobyl 5 'Hot' Waste Plan Cools Off 6 Opinion: Ashley: Nuclear power: One answer to high gas prices 7 ABCNEWS.com : Nuclear Power Plant in Md. to Reopen 8 Exotic Element Could Fuel Nuclear Fission For Spacecraft 9 Record-Setting Nuclear Power Plants Ready To Shoulder Winter Electricity 10 Nuclear Energy Developments-December 2000 NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Nuclear Energy Industry Responds to President-elect Bush's 2 Aussie base had N-arms 3 YUGOSLAV EXPERTS INSIST DEPLETED URANIUM LEFT BY NATO TROOPS POSES 4 Tests reveal weapons dust danger to British soldiers 5 Munition valued for tank busting Munition valued for tank busting 6 Radiation risk known for years 7 British safety claims wilt as uranium panic grips Nato 8 Health alert over uranium shells fired on UK ranges 9 Thousands of uranium shells fired on UK soil 10 Uranium shells were tested in the UK, MoD admits 11 Portuguese Probe Kosovo Depleted Uranium Sites 12 GALWAY COMPANY TO BUILD NUKE TEST TOOL 13 Eavesdropping on Doomed Sub 14 Stuck Away in a Lonely Outpost With an Awesome Responsibility ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Risk of Stored Nuclear Waste Is Greater Than Statistics Suggest SUNDAY, January 7, 2001 BY STEVE NELSON Professor Gary Sandquist wrote a very enlightening article on risks we face each day [Dec. 3]. He made two very important points. First, there are risks associated with living that cannot be avoided. Second, such risks can often be quantified. Examining risk is important because it allows both the public and public officials to make informed decisions about which risks to accept and which risks to reduce or eliminate. The ultimate point of Professor Sandquist's article, however, seems to be that merely driving to and from Tooele County poses a greater risk than the Private Fuel Storage [PFS] proposal to store spent nuclear fuel rods in Skull Valley. He may be correct. But does this mean Utah should take this waste? Let me offer some additional perspectives that I think the public ought to consider. I teach an environmental geology course to undergraduates and define hazard as the odds that some undesirable event will occur [i.e., an earthquake or toxic chemical spill]. Risk is the hazard multiplied by the consequences of the hazard. This seemingly abstract concept of risk is easily illustrated. Let's imagine that the odds for the average individual of getting into an auto accident are one in 10 every year. Given that an auto accident occurs, what is the chance of dying? Auto accidents can include everything from violent head-on collisions to the common fender bender. If we assume that the chance of dying in an accident is one in 100, my hypothetical yearly risk of death is one in 1000. Usually, however, risk is much more difficult, and uncertain, to calculate. Professor Sandquist presents some figures about a hypothetical earthquake on the Wasatch Fault in the Salt Lake Valley that illustrates a very important idea. The risk of dying in a major earthquake for residents near the fault was cited, as was a separate risk due to hypothetical dam failures in Parleys Canyon. But this does not represent all forms of earthquake risk. For example, seismologists tell us that large earthquakes occur at depths of six to eight miles and the Wasatch Fault slopes to the west in the subsurface. Therefore, the zone of greatest ground shaking may occur several miles to the west of the fault in the center of the valley. Also, soft sediment there may amplify ground shaking. For earthquakes there are multiple sources of risk, and estimating risk accurately is highly dependent on how you approach the problem. This is also true for nuclear waste. Yucca Mountain, the intended permanent repository for spent nuclear fuel rods, has several young volcanoes within 30 miles of the site. DOE scientists have estimated that the odds in any year of a new volcano erupting through a repository are about one in 50 million, a factor of 10. These are small odds with a large uncertainty. What are the consequences of such an eruption should one occur? This is a very difficult question to answer and could range from benign to extremely severe. There are two points to be made here. The first is that true hazards and risks are often poorly known. The other is that some hazards are very unlikely to occur, but may have dire consequences if they do. A Tribune editorial (Dec. 10) provides an excellent example of this by quoting a PFS figure that the odds of a stray missile or aircraft from the Utah Test and Training Range striking spent fuel in Skull Valley is less than one in 1 million. The Tribune correctly infers that the consequences could be severe, but is incorrect in the length of time of 10,000 years the material remains a hazard. For example, Neptunium 237, an important radioactive constituent of spent fuel, has a half life of greater than 2 million years! As another extreme example, the odds may be very small that a terrorist will someday set off a large explosive device among spent fuel rods in Skull Valley. And even if nobody were killed outright, how would one clean up the dispersed deadly material? In a full examination of the PFS proposal, we must not merely dismiss improbable accidents if the consequences of the events are dire. There are a number of other important considerations when weighing risk. The public, rightly so, does not view all risks the same. Overeating or driving on the freeway may involve more risk than nuclear facilities. However, there is a difference between a risk taken voluntarily (i.e., driving) vs. a risk imposed on an unwilling public (i.e., PFS). The NRC has issued its Safety Evaluation Report for PFS. This document forms the basis for regulatory decisions about the safety of the site. Are the citizens of Utah aware that they have no standing to comment on the content of this document and have their concerns answered by the NRC? The nation's nuclear utilities are breathing down the necks of Congress and the DOE to get rid of their spent fuel. Storage in Skull Valley would provide relief and removal of the pressure could jeopardize the repository program. If I were a congressman from another state, I'd wonder why I should continue to support further work at Yucca Mountain if waste is happily sitting in the Utah desert. This is not idle speculation. Congress threatened in 1995 to shut down the repository program. Will waste in Skull Valley ever leave? Who will pay for its care 100 years from now? Even if we assume the "risk" is low, there are a whole host of other political and social reasons to oppose high-level waste in Skull Valley. _________ Steve Nelson is a professor in the department of geology at Brigham Young University. The Salt Lake Tribune. ***************************************************************** 2 TOSHIBA, HITACHI, GE AGREE ON DEVELOPING LOW-COST REACTOR TOKYO JAN. 7 KYODO - Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and General Electric Co. (GE) of the United States have agreed to jointly develop a high-power nuclear reactor that would require only half the development costs needed for conventional nuclear reactors, company sources said Sunday. Toshiba and Hitachi, both based in Tokyo, and GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, will share design data and split work for the development of an improved version of an advanced boiling water reactor, the sources said. The total cost for the reactor, to generate 1.7 million kilowatts, 30% more than a conventional nuclear reactor, will be between 25 billion yen and 30 billion yen, the sources said. The price should remain competitive against thermal power generation plants using petroleum even if crude oil prices fall to below $20 per barrel, the sources said. The companies are hoping to win contracts from power companies despite the increasingly negative stance toward nuclear power not only in Europe and the United States but also in Taiwan, which last year decided to terminate the construction of a fourth nuclear power station, the sources said. The three companies have been working together in the nuclear power facility business, establishing last year a joint holding company for development and manufacturing of fuels for nuclear power stations. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 3 Utah Must Coordinate Its Nuclear Waste Battle The Salt Lake Tribune-- SUNDAY, January 7, 2001 BY KEVAN CRAWFORD Gov. Mike Leavitt recently allocated $50,000 of state emergency funds to open a state office to coordinate opposition to the proposed above-ground storage facility for spent fuel elements from nuclear power reactors outside Utah. Leavitt stated that he will propose to the next legislative session another $1 million for ongoing operation of the office. Also, the Utah Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) recently published a booklet outlining the opposition to the facility. Without a written plan or substantial funding until now, the opposition has fallen short of success in every category of activity. Gains could be made with a few legal and legislative actions proposed which have a fair chance for mild success in slowing down the project's progress and protecting the interests of Utahns. After procrastination and disorder, the greatest weakness of the opposition is the lack of scientific competence and experience. For example, from the DEQ publication one gets the distinct impression that state employees know very little about the licensing phases in the lifetime of a nuclear facility since nothing was mentioned about separate site, construction, and operating licensing procedures. Nevertheless, successful opposition will require grass-roots support greater than what has been demonstrated. The Utah news media would be required to seek out truth for dissemination. Utahns would be required to listen, read and understand the issues. The record of routine failures of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would be required to be exposed to the public. A public information effort to educate and motivate opposition would be subject to the critique of professionals who have the potential to increase grass-roots support for the facility. However, a public education campaign based on eyewitness accounts to numerous serious regulatory violations by an NRC licensee as well as the deliberate failure of the NRC to correct most of those violations and its own procedures could demonstrate a chronic disregard for public safety, inflame public opposition and be completely indefensible by the NRC and its license applicant. It is extremely important that the state office to coordinate opposition be at least partially staffed with scientifically competent and technically experience people. _________ Kevan Crawford, Ph.D., is a professor of engineering at the University of Utah and has been the director of three nuclear research facilities since 1981. ***************************************************************** 4 Three Arrested for Stealing Radioactive Metals in Chernobyl Russia Today - KIEV, Jan 6, 2001--(Agence France Presse) Three men were arrested after attempting to steal radioactive metals from a restricted zone of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Ukranian police said Friday. The three men stole the metal from an impounded train that had served in clean-up operations following the April 1986 disaster that followed an explosion in Chernobyl's fourth reactor. Police said the metals contained radioactive levels far in excess of safety norms. The burglars hoped to sell the materials for around 2,200 dollars (2,300 euros) to rail firms. They face up to five years in jail for possession of radioactive materials, police said. ((C) 2001 AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE) ***************************************************************** 5 'Hot' Waste Plan Cools Off SUNDAY, January 7, 2001 BY SHIA KAPOS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Envirocare of Utah, which operates a radioactive- waste landfill in remote Tooele County, had decided not to ask the Legislature and governor this year for permission to bring "hotter" wastes to Utah. "We're just not going to pursue the legislative approval this session," Envirocare President Charles Judd said Saturday. "It got to be a timing issue." Envirocare is trying to be licensed to dispose of so-called "class B" and "class C" wastes, which are significantly more radioactive than the waste Envirocare currently handles. To get such a license, the company first must gain a number of administrative and legislative approvals. "Timing" became an issue when it was clear the public-comment period for a tentative approval from the Utah Division of Radiation Control would not be completed until the first of March, after the Legislature adjourned. Envirocare had believed this year's Legislature could consider a bill to approve the class B & C waste permit simultaneously with the regulatory review. But "legislators seemed concerned about that, " said Judd. "So we thought it would be appropriate to hold off." Judd said his company will take its proposal to the 2002 Legislature instead. The decision drew praise from Envirocare's opponents. "There's a process. And that process should run its course," said Marilyn Welles, a Salt Lake County environmental activist. Envirocare's decision not to go to the Legislature comes after a public hearing last week in which most of the more than 100 people in attendance denounced the company's plan. A new public-opinion poll released last week also showed overwhelming public opposition to the Envirocare proposal. Company officials and others believe much of the opposition is due to confusion between Envirocare's proposal and an unrelated plan being pursued by the Goshute Indians, who want to store spent nuclear fuel rods on their reservation in Skull Valley, about 40 miles southwest of Envirocare's landfill. Spent nuclear fuel is a "high-level" radioactive waste, significantly more radioactive than class B & C wastes, which are in the "low-level" category of nuclear waste. "There are a lot of differences between the two proposals," said Judd. "But we don't think people are aware or know the differences. . . . And that's what we're going to try and clarify." Envirocare currently is permitted to process and dispose of class A wastes, another type of low-level waste, which primarily consist of contaminated soils from uranium mills and atomic- weapons sites from around the country. The B and C wastes it is seeking to dispose of are radioactive materials from nuclear-power plants, research labs and hospitals--and are hundreds of times more radioactive than the A wastes. A large percentage of the class B and C wastes would come from sources that were planning to send their waste to South Carolina, which last year restricted the amount of radioactive waste going to its disposal site in Barnwell. Envirocare's decision not to go forward this year in its application process may mean the company will have to make some cutbacks, including layoffs, according to Judd. "The market we're in is on the downhill side, " he said. Envirocare, with annual gross revenues between $70 million and $80 million in recent years, considers a class B and C license necessary for its continued viability. The company is not the only one vying for the B and C wastes. Waste Control Specialists has requested permission from the Texas Legislature to dispose of low-level radioactive wastes at its site near the New Mexico border. So far it has been unsuccessful. Texas lawmakers meet this month, but even if they approve Waste Control Specialists' proposal, the company would need to submit a license application that would take another six to 18 months to process. If it could have had its way, Envirocare would have already been in the market by then. To date, its plan had received the required approval from the Tooele County Commission. And Bill Sinclair, director of the Division of Radiation Control, last week gave a tentative OK to technical and safety aspects of the plan. After the public comment period on Sinclair's action, all Envirocare needed was the blessing of the Utah Legislature and a nod from Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who has vigorously opposed the Goshute proposal but has not taken a stand on the Envirocare proposal. _________ Tribune reporter Brent Israelsen contributed to this story. ***************************************************************** 6 Opinion: Ashley: Nuclear power: One answer to high gas prices AMARILLO GLOBE -->Web posted SUNDAY, JANUARY 7, 2001 2:50 a.m. CT BY RAY ASHLEY Guest Column Two recent articles, a Dec. 11 guest column by David P. Lowery, "Kyoto Protocol: public policy that harms the public," and Globe-News Business Editor Greg Rohloff's Dec. 17 piece, "Bush's strings to energy industry might be pulled," deserve comment. Both correctly point out that the price of natural gas is increasing to levels that are and will continue to seriously affect our electricity bills. Lowery writes that our nation has embarked on international clean air agreements that are, in effect, responses to exaggerated airborne pollution risks. According to Lowery, concern for the poor, harder hit than others by the recent increases in the price of electricity, has led thousands of Jewish, Roman Catholic and Protestant leaders to sign the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship, and that "(the dilemma facing the poor) would only be exacerbated by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change." Further adding to the price of electricity will be the demand effect of supplying gas-fired power plants in 2001. According to recent estimates published by Financial Times Energy, Inc., these plants will generate 82 percent more electricity than in 2000. Given the law of supply and demand, much of the United States can only look forward to even higher priced electricity. Rohloff, in addressing the impact of higher natural gas prices, quotes Southwestern Public Service spokesman Bill Crenshaw, who stated, "Coal is a significantly less expensive fuel (than natural gas)," and hopes that the Bush administration will support increased coal use. But Crenshaw adds a caveat: Coal must be used together with new technologies to make it "cleaner than in the past"; i.e., in order to meet new effluent regulations. All this notwithstanding, the Texas Energy Plan calls for a study to determine what fuel sources can be used to replace the state's current heavy dependence on coal for the production of electricity. Rohloff even points to the use of wind energy-driven turbines to produce electricity. I have visited a number of such wind farms and have been consistently amazed at the large number of idle units. Both authors failed to mention another option: nuclear power. There have been many claims that nuclear power plants cause high cancer incidence rates (clusters) in certain outlying plant areas. However, no claims have withstood the test of peer review or made it successfully through the courts. Further, media sensationalism and the cries of anti-nuclear advocates have led much of the general public to believe that U.S. nuclear power plants are unsafe. They cite Chernobyl (a plant whose reactor design is not even used in the United States) and Three Mile Island, where a meltdown did not produce a China Syndrome or release unacceptable amounts of radioactivity when compared to federal limits. Why wasn't the TMI release similar to that from Chernobyl? Mainly because U.S. plants are designed to include a high pressure resistant, low leak rate containment that requires periodic testing to verify its performance capability. In the former Soviet Union, many of the early nuclear power plants, like Chernobyl, were not required to include a containment structure. If Chernobyl had had such a structure, the radioactivity release would have been greatly reduced. Also, nuclear power plants do not emit the type of effluents that contribute to atmospheric pollution. In fact, the prestigious European Nuclear Council recently issued a statement that nuclear power should be seen as a key player in tackling both global warming and acid rain. And, as I wrote in an Aug. 31 letter to the editor, "Nuclear power has shown, even in today's deregulated electric generation industry, that its generation costs are competitive with other sources." The bottom line then is that our legislators, both state and federal, as well as the general public, should not overlook the benefits to be derived from the use of nuclear power-generated electricity. Let us limit the use of coal and natural gas to beneficial processes for which there are no alternatives. Ray Ashley of Amarillo is a registered nuclear engineer. ***************************************************************** 7 ABCNEWS.com : Nuclear Power Plant in Md. to Reopen January 6, 2001 A New Lease on Life One Nuclear Power Plant in Md. to Reopen, Others May Follow By Jim Sciutto LUSBY, Maryland, Jan. 6 - Skyrocketing electricity demand has given the once-faltering nuclear industry a new lease on life. STORY HIGHLIGHTS A couple of years ago, plants couldn' t find buyers. Now, they're at the center of bidding wars. "What's happened to nuclear power is that people need power from any source now," says Kit Konolige, of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "So if you have a nuclear plant that runs, somebody wants to run it." And run it with record output. Nationally, nuclear power generation has grown by 25 percent since 1990. "The U.S. is the leader in the world right now," says Marvin Fertel of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "We've had three years of record-breaking performance, and I expect we're probably gonna have another three to five years of record-breaking performance with our existing plants." NRC Allowing for Output Boosts Just a few years ago, energy analysts were saying nuclear power could be on its way out because plants were simply too expensive to run. Now, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has allowed more than half of the nation's 103 reactors to boost output. And a third have applied to renew their licenses for another 20 years. Last year, a plant in Maryland became the first in the country, ever, to renew its license. Since then, three other reactors have also had their licenses extended. At the same time, nationwide the market value of nuclear reactors has risen tenfold. That's because nuclear plants are making billions in profits with production costs lower than any other power source, even coal. But opponents say regulators have been too accommodating to the industry, allegedly charging consumers too much for the power and loosening safety standards. "It puts a chill down your spine when you see the lax attitude that is taken by many utilities," says James Riccio of Public Citizen. "They've become complacent." Still, some analysts now say more reactors could be built, a prospect that not long ago would have seemed very unlikely. [I] [?] [?] ABCNEWS Keyword ABCNEWS The Web ***************************************************************** 8 Exotic Element Could Fuel Nuclear Fission For Spacecraft [I]After a 200 million kilometer journey in space, a cargo mission nears its rendezvous with the planet Mars. These images were produced for NASA by John Frassanito and Associates. Technical concepts for NASA's Exploration Office, Johnson Space Center (JSC). Beer-Sheva - Jan. 6, 2001 Scientists at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have shown that an unusual nuclear fuel could speed space vehicles from Earth to Mars in as little as two weeks. Standard chemical propulsion used in existing spacecraft currently takes from between eight to ten months to make the same trip. Calculations supporting this conclusion were reported in this month's issue of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A (455: 442-451, 2000) by Prof. Yigal Ronen, of BGU's Department of Nuclear Engineering and graduate student Eugene Shwagerous. In the article, the researchers demonstrate that the fairly rare nuclear material americium-242m (Am-242m) can maintain sustained nuclear fission as an extremely thin metallic film, less than a thousandth of a millimeter thick. In this form, the extremely high-energy, high-temperature fission products can escape the fuel elements and be used for propulsion in space. Obtaining fission-fragments is not possible with the better- known uranium-235 and plutonium-239 nuclear fuels: they require large fuel rods, which absorb fission products. Ronen became interested in nuclear reactors for space vehicles some 15 years ago at a conference dedicated to this subject. Speaker-after- speaker stressed that whatever the approach, the mass (weight) of the reactor had to be as light as possible for efficient space travel. At a more recent meeting, Prof. Carlo Rubbia of CERN (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1984) brought up the novel concept of utilizing the highly energetic fragments produced by nuclear fission to heat a gas; the extremely high temperatures produced would enable faster interplanetary travel. To meet the challenge of a light nuclear reactor, Ronen examined one element of reactor design, the nuclear fuel itself. He found at the time that of the known fission fuels, Am-242m is the front- runner, requiring only 1 percent of the mass (or weight) of uranium or plutonium to reach its critical state. The recent study examined various theoretical structures for positioning Am-242m metal and control materials for space reactors. He determined that this fuel could indeed sustain fission in the form of thin films that release high-energy fission products. Moreover, he showed how these fission products could be used themselves as a propellant, or to heat a gas for propulsion, or to fuel a special generator that produces electricity. "There are still many hurtles to overcome before americium-242m can be used in space," Ronen says. "There is the problem of producing the fuel in large enough quantities from plutonium-241 and americium- 241, which requires several steps and is expensive. But the material is already available in fairly small amounts. In addition, actual reactor design, refueling, heat removal, and safety provisions for manned vehicles have not yet been examined. "However, I am sure that americium-242m will eventually be implemented for space travel, as it is the only proven material whose fission products can be made available for high speed propulsion. Indeed, Carlo Rubbia has also recognized that this is the most probable fuel that will be getting us to Mars and back. I think that we are now far enough advanced to interest international space programs in taking a closer look at americium-based space vehicles." Related Links [I] [*]TECH SPACE [I] London - Dec. 7, 2000 If you thought warp drive was weird, try jolt propulsion. A juddering magnet has inspired a scientist at the US Department of Energy to investigate a bizarre new way of propelling a spacecraft. SPACE.WIRE ***************************************************************** 9 Record-Setting Nuclear Power Plants Ready To Shoulder Winter Electricity Demands Nuclear Energy Institute December 2000 KEY FACTS Amid the duress of winter, nuclear power plants continue record electricity generation and are easing the demand on fossil fuels to provide electricity. Nuclear energy's role in America's electricity supply and distribution system is second only to coal meeting, 20 percent of our electricity needs and increasing the reliability of regional and national power grids. Two key indicators-electricity generation and plant capacity factors-clearly demonstrate that the nation's 103 nuclear power plants are producing electricity more abundantly and efficiently than ever. Through August, (the last month for which official figures are available), nuclear plants generated 509 billion-kilowatt hours (bkwh), 5.7 percent above the record-setting pace of 1999. Through September, the industry's average capacity factor-a key measure of efficiency that expresses the amount of electricity produced by reactors as a percentage of the maximum output achievable if all reactors operated at full power around the clock-exceeded 90 percent. This figure is nearly four percentage points higher than the same nine-month period in 1999 and a staggering 23 percentage points higher than a decade ago. Nuclear power plants are unique in their ability to generate power during extreme weather conditions. This is especially critical in the winter through periods of severe cold temperatures when fuel supplies to fossil-fired plants are disrupted or coal piles freeze. Plant uprates, shorter, well-planned refueling outages, and improved maintenance programs that reduce the number of unplanned plant outages are among the key reasons that nuclear power plants are better able to meet the challenge of higher electricity demand during the winter. HOW NUCLEAR PLANTS GENERATE MORE ELECTRICITY Electric utility companies have found that producing more electricity at nuclear power plants by modifying hardware or procedures is a safe, economical approach to meeting a portion of their customers' growing electricity needs. These improvements to plants-called uprates-are possible because of the extremely large safety margins in reactor designs and the advent of sophisticated engineering tools and industry databases during the 1980s. Uprates may be performed only after in-depth engineering analyses by plant staffs, which are reviewed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to assure that high safety levels will be maintained. Between 1988 and 1999, 57 reactors underwent 71 uprates that added a total of 2,200 megawatts of new generating capacity to the electricity supply system. These uprates supplied the grid with the electricity equivalent to the output of two large power plants. Utilities have uprated their nuclear power plants by: ’ ’installing new, more efficient turbines to generate more electricity ’from steam produced by the reactor; ’increasing the enrichment of the uranium fuel in the reactor to ’increase its efficiency; ’installing more accurate digital controls and instrumentation to ’enable plant operators to safely operate reactors with greater ’accuracy; ’increasing the capacity or efficiency of plant cooling systems; ’and ’modifying plant systems to produce steam more efficiently. Nuclear power plants also are producing more electricity by optimizing the amount of time between scheduled refuelings. Nearly all nuclear plants operate around the clock for 18 to 24 months between refuelings, far longer than the typical 12-month cycles of the 1970s and 1980s. This advancement in operational efficiency adds to the "energy punch" that comes from uranium fuel. For example, one uranium pellet is equivalent to the energy provided by 1,780 pounds of coal, 149 gallons of oil or 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas. Increased efficiency and improved management have dramatically reduced the duration of scheduled maintenance and refueling outages, from an average of 100 days in 1990 to 41.5 days in 1999. Planning for an outage is a comprehensive, long-term process that begins up to two years in advance. Electric utilities coordinate closely with the operators of their regional power transmission grids to schedule outages when electricity demand is lowest, typically in spring or fall. Outages are shortened by drawing on decades of plant operating experience as well as advanced engineering and scientific analyses. Extensive industry databases and new maintenance techniques help operators reduce outage durations by forecasting the need to proactively service or replace key systems and components. Operators use this information to plan outage work only on the systems and components that need to be maintained or replaced, thus avoiding unnecessary work that can delay a plant's return to operation. New analytical tools also are helping operators to reduce outage periods by pinpointing the plant systems and components that can be inspected, tested and serviced while the reactor is operating. This "on-line" maintenance eliminates the need to perform such tasks during outages. Plant operators also share the best administrative practices and scheduling techniques to reduce outage times. GENERATING ELECTRICITY MORE RELIABLY Along with electricity output, nuclear power plant reliability has increased dramatically. The industry's median unplanned capability loss factor-the maximum amount of electricity a plant does not supply due to unplanned shutdowns or extended maintenance and refueling outages-was just two percent in 1999, well below 8.1 percent in 1980. The increase in reliability across the nuclear power industry reflects the priority placed on maintaining and operating plant equipment to high standards. Nuclear plant operators draw on many of the same analytical tools and databases to build reliability that they use to increase electricity generation. These include plant operating histories maintained by utility companies; equipment-failure and "lessons learned" databases at the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations; a power plant reliability database operated by the North American Electric Reliability Council; and the NRC's Licensee Event Reports system. As some nuclear plants implement special "hot weather procedures, " a part of preparations for higher summer electricity demand, they also apply "cold weather procedures" to deal with winter's challenges. These procedures may include forming employee teams to review areas of plant operations such as ventilation and cooling-water systems and electrical switchyard equipment-that could be challenged by winter operations in subzero temperatures, snow and ice. Teams may recommend additional or more detailed inspections of plant systems, a higher level of equipment monitoring and data collection, or additional preventive maintenance work on key systems timed for winter operations. Electric utilities also develop computer models that predict the flows and volumes of rivers and lakes that supply water for cooling. These models provide plant managers with early warnings of conditions, such as frozen bodies of water that can affect plant operations. To help minimize the length of unplanned outages in the winter, utilities proactively develop contingency plans with specific service and repair procedures designed to return plants to service quickly and safely. A FIRM FOUNDATION FOR WINTER ELECTRICITY SUPPLY U.S. nuclear power plants entered this winter season-and its expected high electricity and heating demand-from a strong foundation of increased power production, efficiency and reliability. Following up on the record electricity generation in the first half of 2000, by year's end the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts nuclear-generated electricity to reach almost 760 bkwh- a four percent increase over the 728 bkwh the industry produced in 1999 and a 12 percent increase in the past two years. This and other performance gains at nuclear power plants in 31 states will enable the industry to provide the electricity needed for essential services, businesses and heating during periods of extreme cold, heavy snow and freezing rain. Copyright c 2000 Nuclear Energy Institute. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 10 Nuclear Energy Developments-December 2000 Nuclear Energy Institute December 2000 Here is a recap of some of the significant developments that occurred this year within the U.S. nuclear energy industry. INVESTMENTS IN NUCLEAR ENERGY DEC. 12—CONSTELLATION ENERGY GROUP and the owners of the two NINE MILE POINT nuclear power plants in western New York announce that Constellation Nuclear will buy 100 percent of Unit 1 and 82 percent of Unit 2. The total purchase price, including fuel, is $815 million. The deal marks Constellation's first acquisition of a nuclear power station in the newly competitive electricity marketplace. DEC. 8—The Vermont Public Service Board opens the door to a possible auction for the VERMONT YANKEE power plant. The board announces it will allow ENTERGY CORP. to submit a bid for the 550-megawatt reactor that AMERGEN ENERGY CO. agreed to buy in October 1999. Responding to state concerns about the value of the original deal, AmerGen had increased its purchase price for the plant to $93.8 million from $23.5 million. DOMINION ENERGY INC. only days earlier informed Vermont regulators of its desire to bid for the plant within the framework of an open auction. NOV. 30—CAROLINA POWER & LIGHT ENERGY completes its acquisition of FLORIDA PROGRESS CORP., forming a new company named PROGRESS ENERGY INC. The new company includes CP&L's four reactors in North Carolina and South Carolina and FPC's CRYSTAL RIVER 3 nuclear power plant. NOV. 21—ENTERGY CORP. and the NEW YORK POWER AUTHORITY close the sale of NYPA's two nuclear power plants: INDIAN POINT UNIT 3 in Westchester County, N.Y., and the JAMES A. FITZPATRICK plant in western New York to Entergy Nuclear. The NYPA purchase is the largest yet by Entergy in its nuclear energy growth strategy. NOV. 9—CONSOLIDATED EDISON and ENTERGY CORP. agree to the purchase by Entergy of Con Edison's INDIAN POINT 1&2 nuclear power plants in Westchester County, N.Y. The agreement calls for Entergy to pay Con Edison $502 million for the two nuclear units, three natural gas-fired turbines and other assets. OCT. 20—UNICOM CORP. and PECO ENERGY CO. complete their merger to form EXELON CORP. one day after receiving approval to do so from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The merger creates one of the nation's largest electric utilities. Exelon becomes the country's largest nuclear operating company with 17 reactors providing enough electricity for more than 16 million people. OCT. 2—The U.S. CONGRESS gives final approval to the fiscal 2001 appropriations bill for energy and water programs. The broad- based bill includes $7.5 million for a new NUCLEAR ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES program—the third new nuclear energy research project in as many years. The bill also provides $35 million for innovative research in nuclear science, technology and engineering, and $5 million to help the agency work with industry on improving operating reactors (part of DOE's Clean Energy Initiative). SEPT. 14—The Nuclear Energy Institute convenes the first meeting of a newly created TASK FORCE ON NEW NUCLEAR PLANT DEPLOYMENT. NEI PRESIDENT AND CEO JOE COLVIN later tells reporters that task force members, including several major utilities and reactor vendors, are exploring the necessary conditions for new construction and will produce a "business plan" to chart a course for multiple reactor orders within the next several years. AUG. 29—PECO ENERGY CO. announces that it is investing in new nuclear technology being developed in South Africa. The company has purchased a share in the PEBBLE BED MODULAR REACTOR project being developed by ESKOM, South Africa's government-owned electric utility. Project partners expect over the next 18 months to complete a detailed feasibility study and an environmental impact statement that will the reactor's technical and economic potential. AUG. 8—GPU INC. and AMERGEN ENERGY CO. announce they have completed the sale of GPU's OYSTER CREEK reactor in central New Jersey for $10 million. AmerGen is a joint venture between PECO ENERGY CO. and BRITISH ENERGY of Edinburgh, Scotland. AUG. 8-NUCLEAR MANAGEMENT CO. formally assumes operating authority of seven nuclear reactors at five sites. The reactors are located in IOWA, MINNESOTA and WISCONSIN. AUG. 7—DOMINION RESOURCES INC. and NORTHEAST UTILITIES announce that Dominion will purchase the three-unit MILLSTONE power station for $1.3 billion. Millstone provides nearly 50 percent of Connecticut's electricity. The deal is Dominion's first nuclear power plant acquisition in the competitive marketplace. JULY 31—FPL GROUP INC. and ENTERGY CORP. announce they have agreed to combine in a merger of equals, creating the largest power company in the nation. The combined company would be the nation's second-largest nuclear power generator with more than 10,000 megawatts from 12 reactors in six states. MARCH 20-25—CHINA should choose U.S. nuclear power plant technology for a portion of its future electricity generation, U.S. industry and government officials told Chinese leaders in Beijing during a week of meetings at the INTERNATIONAL NUCLEAR INDUSTRY EXHIBITION 2000. A bilateral trade agreement for commercial nuclear power plant technology signed during the 1998 U.S.-China Summit has opened the world's fastest-growing economy to the world's preeminent nuclear power plant designs. MARCH 2—SENATE ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN FRANK MURKOWSKI criticizes the Energy Department's fiscal 2001 budget request for its disproportionate R&D funding for "renewable" energy sources ($452 million) versus the $40 million requested for nuclear energy. Nuclear energy produces 20 percent of all U.S. electricity; renewables produce only 2 percent. NUCLEAR PLANT LICENSE RENEWAL SEPT. 11—FLORIDA POWER & LIGHT submits a license renewal application to the NRC for its two-reactor TURKEY POINT power station south of Miami. Beyond the five reactors that received license extensions earlier in the year (see below), the Turkey Point filing increases to five the number of reactors for which formal license renewal applications are pending. The other applications are for Edwin Hatch 1&2 in southern Georgia and Arkansas Nuclear One Unit 1 in Russellville, Ark. At year's end, the owners of an additional 28 reactors have notified the NRC of plans to file similar applications by 2004. MAY 23—A new era in the nation's nuclear energy history continues to take shape as the NRC approves the renewal of operating licenses for three reactors at DUKE POWER'S OCONEE power station in South Carolina. The approval makes Oconee the second nuclear power plant in the country to have its operating licenses renewed. MARCH 23—For the first time in history, the NRC approves the renewal of operating licenses for a commercial nuclear power plant. The 20-year license extension is for two reactors at the CALVERT CLIFFS plant that CONSTELLATION NUCLEAR GROUP operates on the Chesapeake Bay, 45 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. Original nuclear plant licenses are issued for a 40-year operating period. NUCLEAR PLANT SAFETY AND PERFORMANCE OCTOBER—The UNITED NATIONS SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE ON THE EFFECTS OF ATOMIC RADIATION (UNSCEAR) issues a report from international experts showing that average annual exposures from nuclear power plants are 0.02 millirem, or one twelve-thousandth of natural background (240 millirem). Passengers on round-trip airline flights from New York to Los Angeles receive about five millirem. AUG. 31—Through August, (the last month for which official figures are available), U.S. nuclear power plants generated 509 billion- kilowatt hours, 5.7 PERCENT ABOVE THE RECORD-SETTING PRODUCTION PACE of 1999. MAY 8—An independent, three-member review team informs the NRC that U.S. uranium processing and fuel fabrication plants are operating safely. The special assessment of safety practices at U.S. nuclear fuel facilities was undertaken after the September 1999 Tokaimura, Japan, radiation accident at a fuel fabrication facility. Engineering and procedural safeguards that would prevent a criticality incident, such as the one at Tokaimura, are in place at the nine nuclear fuel facilities operating in Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington. APRIL 2—The NRC implements a NEW NUCLEAR POWER PLANT OVERSIGHT PROCESS designed to better focus agency and industry resources on issues most critical to power plant safety. The new process puts greater emphasis on objective, measurable criteria with less reliance on subjective evaluations of plant performance. The Union of Concerned Scientists is among the groups that have endorsed the move to a more objective oversight system. MARCH 30—The Energy Information Administration reports that U.S. nuclear power plants in 1999 generated a record amount of electricity— 727.9 BILLION KILOWATT-HOURS. This was an increase of 8 percent over 1998's net electricity generation and 53 billion kilowatt-hours more than the previous production record set in 1996. MARCH 17—The nuclear energy industry releases 1999 SAFETY AND OPERATING PERFORMANCE INDICATOR RESULTS for U.S. plants compiled by the London-based World Association of Nuclear Operators. The indicators show that safety performance remained at record-high levels. GARY LEIDICH, OF NUCLEAR POWER OPERATIONS, said: "The impressive 1999 WANO performance indicator results for U.S. plants cap the best decade of performance in the industry." ENVIRONMENT NOV. 13-24—Use of nuclear energy as a tool to help the world reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a major topic of debate at the INTERNATIONAL GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE TALKS (COP-6) held in The Netherlands. U.S. negotiators boast throughout the stalemated talks that the nation is "de-coupling" economic growth and emissions growth-an argument predicated on U.S. reliance on nuclear energy as the leading source of emission-free electricity generation. OCT. 31—The federal ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION issues a global climate change report stating, "The relatively moderate increase in estimated [U.S.] greenhouse gas emissions in 1999 [0.8 percent higher than 1998] is attributable primarily to warmer-than- normal winter weather and to an INCREASE IN ELECTRICITY GENERATION FROM NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS." JULY 25—Testifying before Congress' House Science Committee, PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR, HISTORIAN AND JOURNALIST RICHARD RHODES touts the environmental benefits of nuclear energy. "Shocking as the statement may sound after all the years of misrepresentation, nuclear power is demonstrably the greatest form of large-scale energy generation at hand…The U.S. nuclear power industry, by improving capacity and performance alone, has already made the largest contribution of any American industry to meeting the U.S. Kyoto commitment to limiting CO2 releases into the atmosphere." JAN. 25—The ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION issues an environmental report showing growing U.S. reliance on nuclear energy as a tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report, "VOLUNTARY REPORTING OF GREENHOUSE GASES 1998," shows that nearly half of the emissions reductions reported to the government by U.S. businesses and other organizations resulted directly from the strong performance posted in 1998 by nuclear power plants. NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE DEC. 7—USEC INC. files an unfair trade practices case alleging that foreign competitors sold low-enriched uranium on the U.S. market at below production costs. USEC also claims that EURODIF S.A. and URENCO LTD. received an unfair trade advantage because of government subsidies in their domestic markets. Both companies disputed the allegations filed with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission. A decision is expected in late 2001. JULY 26—The INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION (ITC) rules that revocation of the anti-dumping suspension agreement with Russia likely would lead to a continuation—or recurrence—of uranium dumping on the U.S. market. Continued trade restrictions will result from the finding that unrestricted uranium sales would significantly harm the U.S. market. In related action, the ITC terminates an anti- dumping suspension agreement with UZBEKISTAN, as well as an anti- dumping duty order that had imposed tariffs on uranium imports from the UKRAINE. JUNE 7—SOUTH CAROLINA GOV. JIM HODGES signs legislation allowing the state to join with CONNECTICUT and NEW JERSEY to form the Atlantic Compact for low-level radioactive waste disposal. The legislation allows South Carolina to gradually limit access to the BARNWELL disposal facility, leaving it open only to compact members after 2008. MAY 2—The U.S. SENATE comes within a vote of overriding President Clinton's veto of S.1287, the NUCLEAR WASTE POLICY AMENDMENTS ACT OF 2000. The used fuel management legislation was designed to help the government meet its statutory obligation to begin disposing of used fuel from commercial nuclear power plants by Jan. 31, 1998— a deadline the government has missed. Copyright c 2000 Nuclear Energy Institute. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear Energy Industry Responds to President-elect Bush's Selection of Spencer Abraham as Energy Secretary Nuclear Energy Institute WASHINGTON, D.C., JANUARY 2, 2001—President-elect Bush today announced that former Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham has been nominated to be Secretary of Energy. The following is the statement of John Kane, vice president of governmental affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, in response to today's announcement: "Nuclear power is our nation's largest source of emission-free electricity. Based on his past support, we are hopeful that Sen. Abraham will continue to recognize nuclear power's vital role in meeting America's energy needs as well as our clean air goals. Similarly, the industry hopes that he will advance policies that will strengthen nuclear power as a key component of the U.S. energy portfolio. "Sen. Abraham assumes the nation's top energy position at a critical juncture. America's present energy appetite, due in large part to its digitally boosted economy, is at an all-time high and will expand even more in the future. At the same time, the country must continue to meet ambitious environmental goals. The industry looks forward to working with Sen. Abraham to maximize nuclear energy's contributions to achieving the nation's clean air goals and advancing its economic well-being and national security interests. Copyright c 2000 Nuclear Energy Institute. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 2 Aussie base had N-arms news.com.au - 07jan01 AUSTRALIA prepared one of its overseas airforce bases to launch a nuclear attack on behalf of Britain during the Cold War, according to a new report. During the 1960s the British Government asked Australia to upgrade its Butterworth base in Malaya to handle nuclear weapons. Britain was storing the weapons in Singapore without the knowledge of the newly-independent Malaysian Government which then controlled the island city. The claim is made in a new report of the Chicago-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists on the activities of Britain in storing its nuclear arsenal around the world without telling the countries where the weapons were kept. "Special equipment to handle nuclear weapons had been deployed to Butterworth, a Royal Australian Air Force base in Malaya," the report said. ©News Limited ***************************************************************** 3 YUGOSLAV EXPERTS INSIST DEPLETED URANIUM LEFT BY NATO TROOPS POSES DANGER Vancouver Sun - International A SCIENTIST AT VINCA INSTITUTE FOR NUCLEAR PHYSICS NEAR BELGRADE MEASURES RADIOACTIVITY OF BULLETS MADE OF DEPLETED URANIUM WITH DOSEMETER. (AP/MIKICA PETROVIC) KATARINA KRATOVAC VINCA, Yugoslavia (AP) - Snezana Pavlovic's gloved hand opens a jar filled with a soil sample from just outside of Kosovo. Immediately, the Geiger counter in her other hand bleeps, throbbing faster and faster. Pavlovic is among the top Yugoslav scientists convinced that the dirt offers proof that NATO contaminated Kosovo with toxic levels of depleted uranium during its bombing campaign in 1999 - no matter what the Pentagon may say. "Just because people can't see it and it's difficult to detect doesn't mean the depleted uranium is not a killer," Pavlovic said. Yugoslav authorities have charged that the NATO alliance contaminated large swaths of southwestern Kosovo during the 78-day bombing campaign. Their data was widely dismissed, however, because it was seen as part of a concerted propaganda effort by former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's regime. Now a new, pro-democracy government is in place, and state scientists and Yugoslav army experts are eager to present their data once more. Hoping to show legitimate science backs their claims, they opened the country's sole nuclear laboratory for a rare tour Friday. NATO admits it targeted Yugoslav army positions in the bombing campaign last year using ammunition containing depleted uranium, an extremely dense metal used against armoured vehicles because of its high penetrating power. But the United States, which used the ammunition in the Gulf War as well, has denied any link between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium. Depleted uranium, the spent fuel of nuclear reactors, is 40 per cent less radioactive than uranium in its natural state. Its use came under renewed scrutiny in recent days, after Italy noted about 30 cases of serious illness involving soldiers who served in missions in Kosovo or Bosnia. Twelve of them developed cancer, and five have died. Four French soldiers who served in the Balkans are being treated for leukemia. A number of European countries have begun screening Balkan veterans. Scientists at the Vinca nuclear laboratory, eight kilometres from Belgrade, say the examination is long overdue. Since the first days of NATO's 1999 bombing, Pavlovic's team has been busy testing samples at the institute, a sealed-off and guarded compound of a dozen buildings spread over a hectare. Many medical experts are skeptical that the depleted uranium caused cancer and other illnesses reported by veterans. They say depleted uranium vaporizes instantly and a person would have to be very close to an explosion and be there within seconds to be affected. But others argue that not all the depleted uranium vaporizes immediately and radioactive derivatives can linger in the air for months. The head of a UN environmental task force said Friday that remnants of ordnance containing depleted uranium are littering the ground in Kosovo. "It was surprising to find remnants of DU (depleted uranium) ammunition just lying on the ground," nearly 1½ years after NATO's bombing campaign, said Pekka Haavisto, head of the UN Environment Program's depleted uranium assessment team. In November, the team of UN scientists toured 11 sites in Kosovo targeted by ammunition containing depleted uranium. They collected hundreds of water, soil and vegetation samples. At eight of those sites, team members found slightly higher levels of radiation, or pieces of ammunition, Haavisto said. Five of the sites visited were in the Italian-patrolled sector of the province, while six were in the German-patrolled sector. The uranium now is concentrated along a belt of land stretching from just outside of Kosovo's southwestern city of Prizren, along a route connecting the towns of Djakovica and Decani to the north. The metal will filter into ground water and ultimately move into the food chain, said Col. Milan Zaric, a Yugoslav military expert on radioactivity. Zaric points out that while withdrawing from Kosovo, Yugoslav troops left behind tanks and armoured vehicles destroyed by NATO ammunition containing depleted uranium. Ethnic Albanian children posed for cameras amid leftover ordnance. "Because NATO used this ammunition, it has a moral duty to clean up the sites in the peace mission that followed the war, however costly such a procedure is," Pavlovic says. ***************************************************************** 4 Tests reveal weapons dust danger to British soldiers Observer | PETER BEAUMONT, FOREIGN AFFAIRS EDITOR AND EMMA DALY IN MADRID SUNDAY JANUARY 7, 2001 THE OBSERVER Radioactive dust from depleted uranium weapons remains in the atmosphere at potentially dangerous levels for up to a decade after their use. Research by British expert Dr Chris Busby emerged as Italy's military watchdog officially linked the leukemia deaths of five Italian peacekeepers who served in Kosovo to exposure to the heavy metal. The results of tests by Dr Busby on Gulf War battlefields contradicts advice produced by British, American and Nato defence chiefs who insist that the radioactive dust quickly disperses to safe levels, posing 'negligible risk'. Busby's research will fuel the rapidly escalating international controversy over links between depleted uranium ammunition - used by US forces in both Bosnia and Kosovo - and claims that it has caused fatal cancers in peacekeepers who served there. According to Dr Busby, air samples taken from Iraqi Gulf War battlefields last year, where more than 300,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition were used, show levels of irradiated particles in the atmosphere ten times higher than the neighbouring city of Basra and 20 times higher than Baghdad. Iraq has long alleged that depleted uranium is responsible for abnormally high levels of childhood leukemia and birth defects following the Gulf War. Concern over the safety of depleted uranium was reignited last month when Italy announced an investigation into 30 cases of illness involving soldiers who served in the region. Five have died from leukemia. Belgium, Spain and Portugal have also reported suspicious deaths. The European Union has announced that it will debate the safety of depleted uranium weapons on Tuesday, further increasing pressure on Britain's Ministry of Defence which is now almost entirely isolated within Europe in resisting calls to test its Balkan veterans. Ex-Royal Engineer Kevin Rudland has emerged as the first British case of Balkans Syndrome, claiming that he suffered a series of debilitating health problems after serving in Bosnia. Dr Busby's claims follow the disclosure on Friday of the first results of a UN survey of uranium contamination in Kosovo. The study identified contamination at eight out of 11 sites it visited a year and a half after the end of the bombing campaign. Despite repeated claims by the Pentagon and the MoD that debris from depleted uranium poses little risk except to those close to the immediate aftermath of their use, The Observer has established that UN civilian workers in Kosovo have been explicitly warned about the potential health risks from contamination. Guardian Unlimited c Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 5 Munition valued for tank busting Munition valued for tank busting The Age: LONDON Monday 8 January 2001 Depleted uranium is a radioactive heavy metal left over when the radioactive isotope uranium-235 is taken from naturally occurring uranium to fuel nuclear power stations and build nuclear bombs. This cheap and plentiful by-product is almost twice as dense as lead. It is valued for its ability to punch through armored vehicles. A report by the US Army environmental policy institute said that depleted uranium had both chemical and radiological toxicity. It concluded that on the battlefield there were many hazards, against which the risk from depleted uranium was small. The risk is greatest from ingesting depleted uranium or inhaling particles. It poses a great threat to the kidneys, where high concentrations can lead to organ failure. There is also a radiological hazard that can cause DNA damage and thus, in theory, lead to cancer. The amount in the shells is about 200,000 times less than the radium in instrument dials of Soviet tanks used by Iraq and 30 million times less than the americium in smoke detectors. The links between cancer and depleted uranium were tenuous, said Michael Clark, of the National Radiological Protection Board. Cancer normally takes years to develop. Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 6 Radiation risk known for years The Age: By MICHAEL SMITH LONDON Monday 8 January 2001 Britain's Ministry of Defence has admitted that it had known for 10 years that there were health risks from the depleted uranium ammunition used during the Gulf War and the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. Politicians and representatives of soldiers around Europe called for investigations into what they claim to be links between use of the radioactive metal and illnesses, including leukaemia. Despite a number of British soldiers who served in the Balkans appearing to have symptoms similar to those of the so-called Gulf War syndrome, the Defence Ministry said there was no cause for concern. The admission that defence chiefs were aware of risks involved in the use of depleted uranium came after the Telegraph obtained a copy of regulations issued to German troops in Kosovo warning of a potential long-term hazard. The document told soldiers not to approach any locations or equipment that had been hit with depleted uranium (DU) ammunition "except for life-saving purposes and/or measures indispensable to the mission accomplishment". Ammunition or other contaminated material should not be touched. "It must be assumed that not only the interior but also the surrounding area of an armored vehicle destroyed by DU ammunition is contaminated, " the document said. "There is a potential health hazard in the form of DU exposure stemming from ammunition parts and destroyed DU-contaminated vehicles. Long- term hazards may also result from drinking water and soil contamination." NATO and the European Union have launched separate investigations into the effects of depleted uranium amid concern over a number of suspicious deaths and illnesses among soldiers from France, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Portugal after their return from the Balkans. General Carlo Cabagiosu, the Italian commander of KFOR, the NATO- backed force that polices Kosovo, said at the weekend that it was still not known whether there was a link to depleted uranium. "There has been a lot of scientific research to establish a direct link between this and soldiers with cancer," General Cabagiosu said. "But the statistics have to be examined to see if this has to be taken seriously." The Ministry of Defence said it was waiting for the results of a United Nations Environment Program investigation in Kosovo and an independent study by the Royal Society. "At present we see no cause for concern," a ministry spokesman said. "From everything we know about depleted uranium, we have no reason to believe there is any significant risk to UK personnel." Asked about the German regulations, the spokesman said the ministry had issued similar instructions to British troops. "That is just a sensible precaution," he said. "Our understanding of the levels of radioactivity is that they are so low that they pose only minimal risk to health." However, the Berlin-based Tageszeitung said on Saturday an interim report by the UN environmental team showed higher levels of radioactivity than expected in areas where depleted uranium was used. Tageszeitung said the team called for all 112 sites to be closed off after finding considerable concentrations of uranium dust in eight of 12 bomb craters studied. Copyright © The Age Company Ltd 2001. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 7 British safety claims wilt as uranium panic grips Nato Observer | New research threatens to undermine MoD denial of the dangers of Balkans Syndrome. Foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont investigates PETER BEAUMONT SUNDAY JANUARY 7, 2001 THE OBSERVER Commandant Frank Cop is an angry man and a formidable opponent. A soldier in the Belgian army for 30 years, his career was cut short by illness two months after returning from duty as a peace monitor with the UN and the EU during the Bosnian war. In five years, says Cop, aged 50, he has been beset by a series of devastating ailments. He suffers headaches and muscle aches, debilitating lethargy and skin complaints so serious he finds it uncomfortable to bathe. Blood tests recorded abnormally high levels of white cells. Invalided out of the armed forces on a reduced pension, Cop embarked on a one-man campaign on behalf of Belgian veterans of the Balkans: victims, he claims, of a mysterious 'Balkans Syndrome', similar in its symptoms to the Gulf war Syndrome claimed by veterans of the war against Iraq. Cop is convinced he knows what has made him ill. He believes he was contaminated by the highly toxic residue from the three tonnes of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition fired by US aircraft against the Serbs during the Bosnian war. Last week Cop - one of the first peacekeepers to claim he was suffering from Balkans Syndrome - found himself at the centre of one of Nato's biggest peacetime crises, a scandal gripping the armed forces of a dozen European countries, as military chiefs across a continent ordered urgent checks on the health of soldiers allegedly exposed to depleted uranium in the Balkans. A week after the announcement by the Italian Defence Ministry that it was investigating the deaths from leukaemia of six of its Kosovo peacekeepers for links to depleted uranium, scores of former Balkans peacekeepers - from Hull to Lisbon - are now claiming they are suffering from unexplained ailments, as the media from Rome to Berlin has daily turned up new cases of peacekeepers who died from cancers after returning from the Balkans. In Britain two former peacekeepers have come forward, including former Royal Engineer Kevin Rudland, who believes he was contaminated servicing tank guns while based in the Bosnian Serb town of Banja Luka. His symptoms are ones that Cop would recognise immediately, most prominent among them chronic fatigue. 'After I became ill in August 1996 I was referred to the military medical services,' Cop said last week. 'My white blood cell count was three times what it should be. The military doctors said I was ill, but they did not know what from. 'That is when I began investigating for myself. I got in contact with a German doctor who had been studying the effects of depleted uranium in the Gulf and he told me American forces had used depleted uranium ammunition during the Bosnian war. The Americans denied it. Now they admit it's true.' In seven days the safety of the depleted uranium ammunition has become an international controversy, attracting competing charges of a US cover-up over the danger the ammunition poses and dangerous claims of 'scaremongering'. After a decade of inconclusive research had mostly ruled out any link between depleted uranium ammunition and cancers - and counter-claims alleging that it had caused thousands of cancers among Iraqi children - investigations into the health implications are suddenly under way in Belgium, Italy, France and Turkey; in Finland, Sweden, Portugal and Spain. Among those who have demanded an investigation are Italy's Prime Minister Giuliano Amato who has called for a US moratorium on the use of depleted uranium shells - rejected by the Pentagon - and EU Commission President Romano Prodi who called for the banning of the ammunition if even the slightest risk was identified. In response, Nato's Secretary-General Lord Robertson has promised the Italians to provide information on its use of the ammunition in the Balkans. Nato too will also discuss its safety at this week's meeting of Ministers. It is a scandal that threatens to take high profile victims. In Portugal the strength of feeling is so strong that it threatens to overshadow the presidential elections after the media reported claims that a Portuguese peacekeeper in Kosovo had died from ammunition poisoning. As more alleged victims emerged in Portugal, a heated emergency parliamentary debate saw MPs angrily calling for the withdrawal of Portuguese troops from the region, accusing the government of withholding information from them after the military claimed the soldier had died from septicaemia. In Kosovo, the claims have sparked a panic over fears among moderate Kosovar leaders that the scandal may lead to the withdrawal of peacekeeping contingents. In Britain, almost alone, the Ministry of Defence remains unmoved by the sense of panic gripping its European allies. The MoD's radiation and health experts, in step with the Pentagon, insist debris of depleted uranium poses little risk to the health of servicemen. They will read new research, they say, with interest and an open mind, but reject any calls for their own health screening of Balkan peacekeepers. Their hopes that the row might defuse, however, were shattered on Friday with the announcement by a UN Environment Programme task force that it had found evidence of 'radioactive contamination' at eight of 11 sites tested in Kosovo that were struck by depleted uranium ammunition during the war in 1999. It is a disclosure, however, that still does not answer a question that has become the centre of heated scientific debate - whether the reassurances of the British and American defence chiefs over the safety of depleted uranium can be sustained. Or whether they have seriously underestimated its danger. One organisation, at least is unconvinced, by their reassurances. On Friday the UN High Commissioner for Refugees confirmed its policy was to warn all staff travelling to Kosovo - and pregnant women in particular - of the potential risks of exposure to debris from depleted uranium still in the province. The answer to the question of whether depleted uranium ammunition is really safe may not lie in the bomb craters of Kosovo and Serbia. Instead, some experts believe, it is likely to be found in an area of barren Iraqi desert near the border with Kuwait, a place littered with remains of the last great land battle of the twentieth century - Operation Desert Storm. It was here that depleted uranium ammunition was used for the first time - more than 30 metric tonnes - 300,000 rounds in all. It is a landscape still dotted with the ruins of Iraqi tanks blasted with the ammunition, the rents in their armour still emitting tell- tale signs of low-level radiation. Significantly this battlefield represents an unintentional experiment - a decade in the making - over what happens to depleted uranium debris in the environment and how it affects the health of local populations. The most serious of those effects, the Iraqi authorities have long claimed, has been a sharp rise in childhood leukaemias and birth defects. And it was to here that British low-level radiation specialist Dr Chris Busby travelled three months ago to perform a radiological survey for an Arab television station. What Busby discovered surprised him. Soil samples - confiscated by the Iraqi authorities - showed lower levels of contamination than he expected. But his air samples revealed levels of ionising radiation in the atmosphere around the battlefield 10 times higher than in the neighbouring city of Basra and 20 times higher than in Baghdad. If his samples are correct, then US and British military claims that microscopic breathable particles of depleted uranium quickly disperse might not be true. It is this that is at the centre of the present controversy. What is accepted by all sides is that when depleted uranium ammunition - used in bullets for its hardness and penetrating power - hits its target, it also explodes and burns at temperatures of up to 10,000 C forming a smoke or 'aerosol' of suspended particles composed of three toxic and radioactive compounds of uranium. But, according to US and British defence experts, the only risk is to those in the vicinity of the battlefield in the immediate aftermath of the attack who breathe in concentrations of the aerosol of compounds. The risk, they claim decreases, as the aerosol disperses to levels of risk below that acceptable within the civil nuclear industry. According to these calculations there should be no contamination of Iraq's air and little risk. Busby, however, believes that the MoD's experts have got it wrong on two counts: on the way that charged, contaminated particles remain in the environment and - more seriously - over their risk models which he claims are outdated and underestimate the health impact by up to 1,000-fold, a claim he made in a paper to the Royal Society's Depleted Uranium working group last year. Busby is not alone in believing the MoD may have got it wrong. Professor Malcolm Hooper, a member of the British Legion's Gulf War Illnesses Inter-Parliamentary group, also believes the advice given by health experts of the British and US military is dangerously out of date. 'New research suggests the risk threshold from inhaled particles is much, much lower than previously assumed,' he said. Hooper points to research suggesting that genetic mutation to irradiated cell tissue takes place in a more pernicious way than previously assumed, with 35 per cent of cells neighbouring a single irradiated one showing evidence of damage. The most controversial piece of research, however, has been undertaken in Newfoundland, Canada, where scientists at the International Uranium Centre tested the urine of British, US and Canadian Gulf war veterans, as well as that of Iraqi veterans and civilians, using for the first time Thermal Ionising Mass Spectrometry. They detected traces of depleted uranium in their urine. The Ministry of Defence is sceptical about the work of both Busby and the International Uranium Centre, led by Professor Asaf Durakovic and Dr Patricia Horan, pointing instead to a US study by the Baltimore Veteran Affairs department of 33 American veterans who survived so- called 'friendly fire' incidents involving depleted uranium ammunition. 'These people have considerable amounts of depleted uranium in their bodies in the form of shrapnel, and excrete high levels of uranium in their urine,' said an MoD source. 'Significantly none of them of has shown significant problems, nor have their children.' Frank Cop and the other victims are not going to be convinced. žAdditional reporting by Emma Daly in Madrid and Eduardo Goncalves in Lisbon Guardian Unlimited c Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 8 Health alert over uranium shells fired on UK ranges ISSUE 2053 Sunday 7 JANUARY 2001 BY MACER HALL AND CHRISTINA LAMB ’[I][*]Thousands of uranium shells fired on UK soil DEPLETED uranium ammunition linked to serious illness among Gulf war and Balkans veterans has been routinely used at training ranges in Britain, The Telegraph has learned. Last night the Ministry of Defence was urged to investigate the levels of radioactive contamination at a number of live firing areas following concern that the health of military personnel and local civilians could be at risk. screen troops who served in the Balkans after a number of European revealed by The Telegraph last week. Shells fired by the United States' A10 "tankbusting" aircraft are tipped with depleted uranium. Similar weapons are in the armoury of Britain's Challenger tanks. Depleted uranium is only mildly radioactive but on impact it burns off in a spray of fine dust which some scientists believe can cause cancer. Nato and the US has denied any risk. Last night, the MoD admitted that it had tested DU weapons at two ranges, at Eskmeals, Cumbria, and the Solway Firth in Scotland, over the past 10 years. They have also been fired at a tank testing range at Lulworth, Dorset, a senior Army officer told The Telegraph. screening soldiers who served in the Balkans and demanding an international investigation into so-called "Balkan syndrome". The Italian National Observatory for the Protection of Military Personnel said yesterday that it had found a direct connection between the deaths of six soldiers who served in the Balkans and Nato's use of DU ammunition, the first official study to do so. American A10 aircraft fired 31,000 DU rounds during Nato's campaign to eject the Yugoslav army from Kosovo in 1999. Another 10,000 were fired in Bosnia in 1994-5. A team of United Nations scientists visited 11 out of 112 Nato bombing sites in Kosovo and found radiation at eight of them as well as parts of DU shells lying around in villages where they could be picked up by children. The number of deaths of soldiers has caused outrage across Europe, with ministers claiming that they were not fully informed of the risks by Nato officials before agreeing to take part in the Kosovo campaign. This could threaten future participation. In addition to the six Italians who have died of leukaemia, another 30 are ill. Belgium has had five deaths, Portugal two, Spain two, and France and Holland have several seriously ill. Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission, has suggested that the weapons be banned. The MoD said that it knew of no cases of leukaemia linked to contact with DU ammunition and had no plans to screen soldiers. It said that out of the 50,000 who served in the Balkans, there was a statistical chance of six or seven contracting leukaemia and there was no evidence of more than the average number of illnesses. A spokesman said test firing "is a lawful activity and international obligations are fulfilled by doing so". of Balkan veterans in Balkans exposed to depleted uranium up ***************************************************************** 9 Thousands of uranium shells fired on UK soil ISSUE 2053 Sunday 7 JANUARY 2001 BY MACER HALL, CHRISTINA LAMB, DAVID BAMBER AND LORRAINE FRASER THE map on the right shows firing ranges in Britain where depleted uranium ammunition has been used in tests and training. Thousands of shells, designed to pierce the toughest armour, have been fired at Eskmeals, Cumbria, in the Solway Firth and at Lulworth, Dorset. [I] The Ministry of Defence says that regular tests for radioactivity are carried out at its ranges and show "no significant health risk". Last night, however, there were calls for an investigation into the potential dangers to civilians and service personnel amid fears that towns and villages near ranges could be at risk, along with members of the public who had access to them when they are not in use. The National Gulf War Veterans' Association, which campaigns for servicemen who claim to have contracted illnesses in the conflict, said the testing of depleted uranium weapons in Britain was a serious health risk. Terry Gooding, an association spokesman, said: "Depleted uranium is not just an issue for servicemen; it is a matter for civilians as well. It being tested virtually on people's doorsteps." Use of depleted uranium weapons is far more widespread in the American armed forces than in Britain's, although the Army's Challenger tank can use them. More than 100 American A10 "tankbuster" aircraft, which fired the 30mm shells that are at the centre of health fears, were based in Britain until the early 1990s. The US Air Force denies training with the ammunition in Britain. Peter Kilfoyle, a former Labour defence minister, said: "I would loathe to think that depleted uranium shells are being used in the British countryside. We urgently need more research into their effects and it would be wrong to continue using them in Britain until we are sure they are safe." Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said: "The MoD should be investigating both the use of depleted uranium shells overseas and on training ranges in the UK. We don't know how big the risk is. That's why we need the research done." MoD records show that 1,421 depleted uranium shells have been fired from the Kirkcudbright range into the Solway Firth since 1995. Alasdair Morgan, Scottish National Party MP for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, said: "The shelling should stop and those shells already fired should be removed." A spokesman for the National Radiological Protection Board, which monitors potential dangers, said there was no risk from unexploded weapons, although dust from detonated munitions could be a problem. He said: "If it is true that depleted uranium weapons have been used, suitable precautions are required to protect service personnel or the public. Aid workers and service personnel going to Kosovo should take precautions, and that would certainly apply if the weapons had been used in the UK." Soldiers in the field are advised to wear protection such as masks when handling the remains of vehicles and equipment destroyed by depleted uranium weapons. According to the NRPB, depleted uranium can be hazardous in two ways - it is a toxic chemical and it is radioactive. Soluble forms can be absorbed through breathing or ingestion and this can cause kidney problems as the metal accumulates. In areas contaminated by insoluble uranium, the risk comes from disturbing the contamination and inhaling the dust that can be deposited in the lungs and "over a long period could be a contributory cause of lung cancer". Dr John Harrison, an adviser to Nato on radiation medicine, said the major risk from depleted uranium was its effects on the kidneys. He said: "The actual amount of radiation in depleted uranium is quite small. That is why it is used in a whole variety of things: as shielding in X-ray machines, as ballast in aircraft, and as heavy weight in yacht keels.". Last night, it emerged that defence ministers will be called before a Commons committee to explain what they are doing about the effects of depleted uranium. Bruce George, Labour chairman of the defence select committee, said: "The MoD has got to come up with a statement to reassure servicemen and their families. The Government has got to say what its analysis of the situation is, what it is doing and what it proposes to do." ***************************************************************** 10 Uranium shells were tested in the UK, MoD admits Independent By Jo Dillon 7 January 2001 The Ministry of Defence confirmed today that uranium-tipped shells which have been linked to cancer in veterans of the Balkan conflicts have been used on firing ranges in the UK. Use of the weapons on ranges at Eskmeals, Cumbria, and Solway Firth in Scotland since 1990 has been monitored by the Health and Safety Executive, which has found no evidence of risk to troops, civilians or wildlife, said an MoD spokeswoman. And Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence, is to be called before a Commons committee to answer questions about the use of depleted uranium in Kosovo, Bosnia and during the Gulf War. Servicemen from a number of European countries have developed cancer that could be linked to exposure to uranium-tipped ammunition. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on Friday said it had found traces of radiation at eight sites in Kosovo hit by Nato shells, which were also used by American forces in Bosnia and the Gulf War. Bruce George, Labour chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said that a Ministry of Defence investigation into the health impact of the ammunition was a matter of urgency. Mr George's committee meets on Wednesday, when it is expected to issue an invitation to Mr Hoon and his ministers to give evidence on the issue as soon as possible. Portugal called on Kosovo veterans to undergo health screening after one of its soldiers was diagnosed with cancer. Italy has already begun an investigation after six deaths and 30 cases of serious illnesses, while France said four Balkans veterans were being treated for leukaemia. But the MoD today insisted any risks to personnel were minimal. ***************************************************************** 11 Portuguese Probe Kosovo Depleted Uranium Sites SUNDAY JANUARY 7 9:13 AM ET By Bardh Krasniqi KLINA, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - A scientific team from Portugal arrived in Kosovo Saturday to examine depleted uranium sites suspected of causing ``Balkan Syndrome'' illness among soldiers who have served in the province. A crew of four from the Department of Radioactivity Protection went immediately to the Klina area in western Kosovo with Portuguese peacekeepers who work in the region. There, the team checked the ground for radiation with Geiger counter- style machines and took soil samples in plastic bags. ``So far we have not found meaningful contamination, but the work is still far from the end,'' Fernando Carvalho, team leader, told Reuters Television. ``We are monitoring the contamination of the environment from radioactivity due to the use of depleted uranium bomb shells.'' from several European countries in the last week over claims depleted uranium used in its weapons had caused death or illness among Balkan peacekeepers--the so-called ``Balkan Syndrome.'' Portuguese Kosovo veteran Hugo Paulino died in March last year from a type of encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain, which his father has since maintained was brought on by exposure to depleted uranium. Portugal's armed forces say there was no connection between Paulino's death and his serving in Kosovo. Another soldier, Rui Miguel Alpalhao, has contracted leukemia since returning from Kosovo, but told Reuters he was unsure if his illness was linked to exposure to debris from spent munitions containing uranium. In Lisbon, Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said Sunday Portuguese troops would continue their peacekeeping missions in Kosovo unless investigations showed their health to be at risk. ``I think any hasty action right now would be very negative,'' Guterres told TSF radio. ``We continue with our initial action. We trust in the sense of responsibility of the armed forces. ``But, evidently, we will know how to act in their defense if and when that may be necessary,'' he added. Several destroyed Serb Army tanks remain in the area around Klina, left behind when Serb forces left Kosovo in June 1999. The tanks were apparently hit by depleted uranium shells fired by NATO aircraft during the alliance bombing campaign against Yugoslav forces in the spring of 1999. NATO says the ammunition, which it also used in bombing campaigns against Serb forces in Bosnia in 1994-5, posed a ''negligible hazard.'' Reuters. ***************************************************************** 12 GALWAY COMPANY TO BUILD NUKE TEST TOOL Ireland on Sunday BY: DARA DEFAOITE ANTI-NUCLEAR campaigners are furious that a Galway-based company is to build the world's most powerful computer to test nuclear weapons for the US Department of Energy. A supercomputer is to be built by Compaq in Ballybrit, Co. Galway, for the US government's national laboratory at Los Alamos, Mexico, where nuclear testing has been carried out since the 1940s. Anti-nuclear and human rights campaigners have described the company's announcement as "a gross disregard for Ireland's neutral identity". According to Compaq, the supercomputer, which has a memory 15,000 times the size of an average home-computer, will "assess and certify the safety, security and reliability of nuclear weapons". indication "This is a further indication of the way in which we are sliding into the arms manufacturing sector and ignoring our constitutional stance as a neutral nation," said Joe Murray of human rights organisation Action from Ireland (AfrI). The supercomputer, which will be 40 times faster than the national's laboratory's current system is already being developed at a cost of £200million. Compaq told Ireland on Sunday, that "what is being built at Ballybrit is a general purpose computer and not designed for any specific end use". However, the company is aware that the supercomputer is to be used to test the vast nuclear stockpiles in the US. However, the company's new technology means that nuclear weapons do not need to be tested underground through explosion but can now be tested by computer simulation instead. Mark Gantly, director of engineering at Compaq, says: "There are existing nuclear stockpiles which can't be instantly illuminated so there is a serious concern as to how you guarantee their safety over time. The preferred technique is to test them by computer rather than live testing." This argument has not appeased Irish human right's campaigners who see the development of the device in Ireland as a compromise of the country's neutrality in exchange for lucrative foreign and trade policies. All material c Ireland on Sunday Ltd. No material may be used in ***************************************************************** 13 Eavesdropping on Doomed Sub inScight - 6 January 2001: A bit of "forensic seismology" has revealed details of the Kursk tragedy that otherwise would have remained state secrets. Seismologists last summer picked up not only the death throes of the Russian submarine but also a smaller precursor boom--suggesting that by the time of the big explosion, the sub's fate may have already been sealed. On 12 August, the fatal day, an odd seismic signal was picked up at monitoring stations all around the southern Barents Sea, where the sub sank. Soon after seismologist Terry Wallace of the University of Arizona in Tucson heard of the accident, he and his colleagues decided to investigate. They used techniques for monitoring nuclear testing to determine that the signal had come from an explosion, not an earthquake. The hefty blast was equivalent to between 3 and 7 tons of TNT--two or three times the size of the Oklahoma City truck bombing. And it had happened at the very spot where the Kursk went down. Wallace also noticed a much smaller explosion--at about 50 to 100 kilograms, about the size of the detonation of a torpedo--preceding the main event by 136 seconds. Apparently, it was this explosion that sank the sub. The sub was already near the bottom by the time the main explosion went off, he says, because analysis of the seismic signal from the resulting gas bubble indicates near-bottom pressures. Together, the two signals provide further evidence against the notion that the Kursk suffered an underwater collision. Speculation in the media has been that the Russians were experimenting with an exotic propellant for their high-speed torpedoes when disaster struck. The seismologists continue to pick up noises from the vicinity--apparently from depth charges the Russian Navy has reportedly been dropping to discourage rubberneckers. The Kursk analyses are "another example of the tremendous and continually improving capability to detect and identify small seismic events, " says Gregory van der Vink of the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) in Washington, D.C. Such capability is vital for enforcement of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Would-be violators, he says, should note that the Kursk explosion was tiny compared to even small nuclear blasts. --RICHARD KERR ***************************************************************** 14 Stuck Away in a Lonely Outpost With an Awesome Responsibility SUNDAY, January 7, 2001 BY JOHN DIEDRICH KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE NEW RAYMER, Colo.--Air Force Lt. Joe Roth's office is 75 feet underground, a cramped capsule nested in another capsule that the 27-year-old officer likens to "a yolk inside an egg." Drivers passing by might not even notice this bunker and the house above it on a barren field in Weld County. But below the farmland formerly used for wheat is a control center where Roth monitors some of the most powerful weapons in the world--U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles. He and his partner, Capt. J.D. Moore, can unleash their fury in minutes, if so ordered by the president. The 10 Minuteman III nuclear missiles they watch can carry three warheads, each with up to 15 times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb. "It's an awesome responsibility," Roth said. "If things got so perilous, our responsibility would be to do that job." With 10 years since the Soviet Union's collapse, assurances by President Clinton that nuclear missiles are no longer aimed at us and headlines proclaiming U.S. missile silos are being destroyed, many Americans might assume nuclear weapons have been scrapped or at least taken off alert. They would be wrong. It is true that U.S. and Russian missiles are aimed at the ocean. But they can be redirected in seconds to land- based targets. The United States has cut its intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal nearly in half, yet 550 missiles with up to 2,000 warheads still stand ready for launch from silos in five northern Plains states. Forty-nine Minuteman missiles are in northeastern Colorado alone. The United States maintains two types of missiles -- 10-warhead Peacekeepers and three-warhead Minutemen--and the nation spends about $380 million a year to keep them on alert. Post-Cold War cuts of nuclear missiles are still progressing. The United States and Russia are considering a treaty that would eliminate America's 50 Peacekeeper missiles and cut the number of warheads in the Minuteman III from three to one. In fact, workers at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyo., are already removing warheads from the Minuteman IIIs, officials said. As of two weeks ago, 111 of the 150 Minuteman IIIs under Warren's control, including those in Colorado, had been converted to single warheads. It may sound as if drastic cuts are being made, but the Pentagon isn't scrapping its missile force. Far from it. The military, in fact, is spending $2.35 billion to give the Minuteman III the biggest makeover in two decades. The United States might have fewer missiles, but the ones that remain will be better. Critics blast the idea of keeping missiles on what they call "hair-trigger alert," because the Soviet threat is gone. They fear decisions would have to be made so quickly that a mistaken launch is possible. "It is going to war by checklist. There is no scope for rational thought and deliberate leadership," said Bruce Blair, a former missileer who is a nuclear expert at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Air Force officials, however, say the system is full of safeguards, but the missiles must be kept on alert to deter other countries from attacking the United States. Russia, for instance, still has missiles on alert. "Who is to say in 10 years that we won't be in a situation where we need this system?" said Lt. Col. Matt Durham, with Colorado Springs-based Air Force Space Command, which is responsible for the missiles' readiness. So until ordered to do otherwise, Roth, Moore and other missileers will stand watch over America's nuclear missiles, every minute of every day, just as their predecessors have done for more than 40 years. Inside a locked safe just a few feet away from where they sit is a key that could launch the missiles and change the world. No nuclear missile has ever been fired except for testing, and the men and women on alert in Colorado and elsewhere say they hope one is never fired in anger. But if ordered, they say they are ready to punch in the codes, unlock the key, put it in the console and turn all switches to "launch." "If it came down to that, I am sure we would have justification for what we were doing," Moore said. "I would have done what I have decided is right." The first missileers, dressed in white jumpsuits and facing a menacing Soviet presence, went on alert in 1960 when the United States activated a squadron of Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles at Warren. The Minuteman system developed a short time later. Today, missileer duty remains much the same. Roth and Moore are on missile alert about eight times a month. Each time, the pair drives the 100 miles from Warren to their post: a remote ranch house surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence with armed Air Force guards. Roth and Moore said they became missileers because they believed their duty was keeping the United States safe. "I am doing what is right for me and right for my country," said Moore, a 28-year-old San Diego native who worked his first alert of a four-year tour in August. Previously, he was in a satellite unit at Schriever Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs. His new job requires he comply with strict rules. Moore, Roth and other missileers can only take medicines approved by Air Force doctors, making some cough syrups, cold formulas and herbal products off-limits, even when they are on vacation. They are automatically taken off missileer duty if they go under the care of a civilian doctor. A death in the family, divorce or just a bad attitude also could lead to being yanked. "Any dip in reliability is enough not to send someone to the missile field," said Lt. Col. Ed Fienga, Roth and Moore's com- mander. "It's an unwritten contract with the American people that we will put only reliable people in charge of nuclear weapons and check that reliability every day." Above the bunker where Moore and Roth serve their alert, security forces, a chef and facility manager live and work from a house with television, a pool table and couches. But with Air Force pictures and commanders' photos on the wall, it doesn't feel quite like home. As they started an alert earlier this month, Moore and Roth flashed identification to the guards outside the house, said hello to those on duty above ground and then rode a cagelike elevator down to the control center, where they were to begin a 24- hour shift. On its way down, their elevator passed a mural of a bloodthirsty beast with bright teeth, glow-in-the-dark eyes and a missile launch key in one claw. After the short ride down, the men passed through two 8-ton doors before getting to the capsule that would be their home and office for the next day. The work capsule hangs on chains from another capsule and is on hydraulic shocks to protect it in case of nuclear attack or earthquake. Crews call it the "Tylenol capsule." The first order of business during alerts is to take over from the departing crew. Roth, who has logged 150 alerts in two years, laughed when he recalled how in the movie "War Games, " the departing missile crews high-fived the incoming officers and tossed them the launch keys. Reality is a lot more detailed and time-consuming: The crew going off-duty needs to bring its counterparts up to speed on what happened in the past 24 hours. That includes everything from missile maintenance glitches to alerts triggered by the silos' security systems, which are sensitive enough to be tripped by a rabbit, a tumbleweed or the plains' persistent winds. The silos also have underground sensors, which can detect earthquakes 1,000 miles away. After a half-hour or so, the other crew was gone, and Roth and Moore settled in and began studying the computer screens before them, which showed the status of 10 Minuteman III missiles under their watch. An hour or so into an alert, crews typically change into comfortable clothes--sweatpants, T-shirts and athletic shoes. For the next six hours, one "racks" out in a bed on the far end of the capsule, behind a curtain, while the other keeps watch on the computer screens. Then they switch places. Besides monitoring missiles, the person left awake can read, study work or school books or watch satellite TV or a video. The capsules look very much as they did when they were first built, with a few exceptions: Carpet covers the metal floor, the ashtrays are gone and some of the crew members are women. The televisions and beds are new, too. Years ago, crews worked eight-hour shifts, sleeping in the house above ground during the time they were off. Moore and Roth remembered their first alert as daunting, given all the procedures. But soon the drill became routine, which worries them. "Sometimes not much happens and you get complacent, like 'I've seen that 100 times.' That's a problem," Moore said. "If you don't keep focused on where you are sitting and what you are sitting in front of, with the hum overhead you might get lulled into a relaxed state, and then something happens and your adrenaline shoots up." Commanders want to make the shift bearable but don't want to allow too many niceties. For instance, there is no Internet connection. "It's true we don't launch a missile every day and we want to give our crews things to do, but it's a fine line, " Fienga said. "We don't want to build in distractions." Roth and Moore said they rarely think about whether they could launch missiles. Mostly their job is focused on the day- to-day tasks of monitoring them. But the question came up for Moore. "Initially, I had reservations and doubts about whether I would be capable" of launching, he said, worried a mistake could be made. But after several months of missileer training, he developed faith in a system he and the others now see as airtight against accidental launch. "I can tell my mother and grandmother back home, 'Don't worry, it's going to happen the right way. There isn't going to be a mistake,' " he said. That's reassuring to residents in New Raymer --population 120--who have lived with the missiles for four decades. These days, the missiles draw little attention. Karen Kester, a New Raymer native who owns the Pawnee Station Restaurant, recalled that a man once stopped on the road a few hundred yards from a silo to make a cell phone call. He looked up to find security forces standing by his car window, guns drawn. He had stopped too close to the silo for Air Force comfort. "It's kind of scary," said Jenny Templeton, who works for Kester. "You just know to stay away." ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************