***************************************************************** 02/09/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.37 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Leavitt's N-waste limits bill is introduced by senator 2 Energy Bill Focuses on Domestic Production 3 USEC: Meltdown 4 More study needed on depleted uranium rounds 5 Expert disagrees with team over Yucca Mountain 6 SA gets federal nuclear guarantee 7 Hill won't rule out two radioactive dumps for SA 8 Fed Govt plans Commonwealth dump 9 Claims ANSTO downplayed nuclear incident 10 TEPCO to freeze plans for 12 power stations _ 11 TEPCO not to freeze new nuclear power projects: Hiranuma 12 TEPCO to postpone start of new operations 13 NUCLEAR WASTE BURIAL: Energy panel chief to begin work on bill 14 TEPCO freezes construction on power plants_ 15 Taiwan's nuclear fight is all about votes 16 Taipower asks GE to complete nuclear reactor 17 Did Chen violate DPP charter? 18 Don't sacrifice our environment 19 SELLAFIELD STRIKE AVERTED AT LAST MINUTE 20 ANGER AT NEW POST 21 BNFL TOLD TO SPEED UP WASTE PROCESS 22 Russia as nuclear garbageman? 23 N-PLANT SUSPENSIONS 24 Nuclear Power: A Tainted Future? _ 25 Austrians warn of new Temelin N-plant border block_ 26 Bulgaria to start new nuclear waste processing unit_ 27 Defections Hit Group Opposing N-Waste_ 28 In Plea Deal, Ex-Regulator Admits Guilt 29 Bill aims to stop nuclear waste storage NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Plutonium is still found at areas surrounding Test Site 2 Tank burped, and Hanford feels relieved 3 Hanford's 'burping tank' off federal watch list 4 Fluor Hanford fills key executive posts 5 Energy boss: Nuke weapons need work 6 Bush To Review Nuclear Arsenal 7 Nuclear safety authority admits all info not available 8 Australia's N-bomb plan 9 Udall urges compensation for state's downwinders__ 10 Report: No unusual radioactivity in air, water 11 Matheson seeks replenishment of Downwinder fund ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Leavitt's N-waste limits bill is introduced by senator [deseretnews.com] Friday, February 09, 2001 Companies wanting to store nuclear waste in Utah would have to pay the state as much as $150 billion before entering the state, under a bill released Thursday. The bill also would prohibit cities or counties from providing water or electrical services to any high-level nuclear waste repository. Sen. Terry Spencer, R-Layton, sponsored the bill, which was drafted by Gov. Mike Leavitt's office. It's a back-up plan, Spencer has said, if the federal government overlooks Utah's policy that it doesn't want any high-level nuclear waste in Utah. Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of out-of-state utility companies, is seeking federal approval to build a repository that would store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel rods on the Goshute Indian Reservation, about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. It has prompted a major outcry from Utah officials and citizens groups. In response to the state's opposition, PFS has released a 36-page report that rebuts statements made by opponents. The report, "Responses to Questions about the Operation of the Private Fuel Storage Facility, A report to the Citizens of Utah," is available on the Web site: www.privatefuelstorage.com. © 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company ***************************************************************** 2 Energy Bill Focuses on Domestic Production washingtonpost.com: By Eric Pianin and Peter Behr Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, February 9, 2001; Page A20 Opening a debate over energy policy, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will unveil legislation next week to dramatically boost domestic energy production and permit oil and gas drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge. The bill, authored by Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), contains many of President Bush's policy goals as well as billions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives for energy exploration and conservation that are not part of the tax bill Bush sent to Congress yesterday. It will focus on increasing funding for "clean coal" technology, revitalizing the nuclear power industry and finding new sources of oil and natural gas -- including a proposal opposed by environmentalists and many members of Congress for drilling in the Arctic wildlife refuge. The Murkowski legislation will be the opening salvo in what promises to be a major debate this year pitting those who favor increasing domestic energy production and others who fear it will come at the expense of environmental protection. The debate is being spurred by California's power shortages and growing concern among Republicans and Democrats that the country is headed toward an energy crisis. During the campaign, Bush charged that the Clinton administration had failed to develop a comprehensive energy policy to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. While members of both parties agree something must be done, Democrats and environmental groups say that Bush and the Republicans are putting too much emphasis on oil and gas production at the expense of conservation and development of alternative fuels. Murkowski said this week he discussed his proposal with Vice President Cheney, head of a presidential task force on energy, and that there was general agreement "we have an energy crisis in this country" that necessitates increased domestic production. The bill likely will be merged with the broad energy proposals being discussed by the White House task force. That plan should be ready in six to eight weeks, Cheney told senators recently. "This isn't going to be the bill that ultimately will be debated on the floor," Murkowski said. "It's designed to initiate the discussion." Murkowski added: "What we intend to do is concentrate on increasing the supply of conventional energy -- clean coal, nuclear, gas and oil. We want to see an expanded use of alternative fuels and renewables. But we don't think we can conserve our way out of an energy crisis." Philip E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, complained that Murkowski and the Bush administration are trying to "drill their way" out of the energy crisis, when a more balanced approach is required that includes incentives for energy conservation and development of cleaner-burning energy sources. The Natural Resources Defense Council released a national energy proposal this week that calls for increased reliance on natural gas and development of alternative energy sources, while reducing dependence on oil and coal. Democrats say they have no immediate plans for countering Murkowski's bill and instead will offer a series of short-term solutions for coping with the nation's energy needs. Those include expanding the availability of federal heating and air conditioning assistance to low-income families and some businesses. "Frankly, [the Murkowski bill] tries to deal with so many different aspects of the energy situation that it's hard to get your arms around it," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "We would need some real serious studies to see which of the proposals contained in this bill really merit serious consideration." Environmental leaders said that proposals for drilling in the Alaska wildlife refuge would do nothing to address the short-term problems of rising gasoline and home heating prices and would have only a minor impact on reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The U.S. Geological Survey concluded that the area likely holds about 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil, or less than what the nation uses in six months. In addition to the soaring wholesale fuel prices in California, natural gas wellhead prices around the country have been three to four times above year-ago levels for most of the winter and may remain high entering next winter. Gasoline supplies going into the summer travel season will be below normal, the Energy Information Administration projects, threatening a repeat of last year's gyrating pump prices. Many Democrats in Congress and some Republican governors in the Northwest are calling for price caps to limit electricity prices and restrict record profits flowing to energy companies. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), who chairs the House Energy and Commerce energy and air quality subcommittee, told reporters yesterday he will oppose any move to control energy prices. "I won't vote for it," he said. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 3 USEC: Meltdown Government Executive Magazine - 2/1/01 Meltdown [GovExec.com] _February 1, 2001_ By Matthew Weinstock mweinstock@govexec.com _Three years after it was privatized, the U.S. Enrichment Corporation may be on the brink of failure._ [i] t was hailed as the hallmark of government reinvention: The Clinton administration took the little known U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a wholly owned government corporation, and in 1997 flipped it to the private sector in hopes of saving taxpayers money and finding a more efficient way of doing business. The business model had been successful when Conrail was sold for $1.6 billion in 1987. Why then, privatization proponents argued, couldn’t the same be done with USEC? After all, the federal government had little reason to be involved in the uranium enrichment business. But the two privatizations have taken different paths. Conrail was fairly successful, restoring a viable freight rail system to the Northeast. Norfolk Southern Corp. and CSX Corp. bought and broke up Conrail in June 1999, ending its 23 years of monopoly. USEC’s tenure has been far more tumultuous in a much shorter period. During the past two years, USEC’s profits have fallen by a third, its stock price has dropped more than 70 percent, it plans to close down one of its two uranium enrichment plants and it has gone back to the government for financial aid. Three years after privatizing USEC, policy-makers are wondering what went wrong, while company officials are desperately trying to right the ship. Meanwhile, critics stand on the sidelines shouting, “We told you so.” USEC provides enriched uranium to fuel nuclear power plants. Since its customers are private sector companies, a government-to-business relationship did not make sense in the eyes of reinvention experts, who believed the exchange would be better handled in a business-to-business environment. Former Rep. Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., then-chairman of the House Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, summed up the case for privatization during a February 1995 hearing: “This is a classic example of the federal government operating a business which would be run better—and more cost-efficiently—by the private sector.” But Schaefer was leery of making a mistake. “The task before this subcommittee is to ensure that American taxpayers receive a maximum return on their investment in the assets and technology of the corporation,” he said. “Clearly, it is important that we ensure the long-term survivability of this new corporation in the private sector. It is crucial that the U.S. retain uranium enrichment capabilities, whether in the private or public sectors. I do not want to see the government forced back into this business because the USEC could not stand on its own two feet.” Unfortunately, critics of privatization argue, that is exactly the situation now facing policy-makers. Since being sold in 1998, USEC has failed to set the financial markets on fire. It is doing just the opposite. The facts are indisputable: + USEC’s stock price dropped from a high of $14 per share at the initial public offering in July 1998 to $4.37as of Jan. 2, 2001. + Profits fell more than $100 million, from $346.6 million in fiscal 1999 to $233.6 million in fiscal 2000. + USEC’s near dominance in global and domestic markets is threatened by an aggressive group of competitors. + Its investment rating last summer was downgraded to junk-bond status. + The company is shutting down its operations at one of its two production plants, forcing the Energy Department to pony up $630 million to keep the plant open. + Company officials in 1999 asked Congress for $200 million to help pay the costs of a vital national security program USEC is charged with carrying out. + A number of angry stockholders are suing the company claiming they bought into the IPO based on misleading information from USEC officials. + A September 2000 report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission suggests that USEC could be headed toward a complete meltdown by the end of the decade. _‘Megatons to Megawatts’_ Were this simply the story of turning a government agency into a private company, it would just be a case study for public policy classes. But, as with most things in Washington, nothing is simple. USEC is the nation’s only domestic producer of enriched uranium. Beyond providing fuel to 73 percent of North American nuclear power plants and 36 percent of the world’s nuclear power plants, USEC also acts as the government’s executive agent in a national security deal with Russia: USEC buys uranium that has been removed from Russian nuclear warheads and diluted in strength. Struck in the early 1990s, the deal keeps Russia’s weapons-grade uranium from falling into the hands of rogue nations. USEC’s financial troubles have national security experts worried about the future. Thomas Neff, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and one of the men credited with coming up with the idea for the U.S.-Russian “Megatons to Megawatts” deal, says it is unlikely that USEC can fulfill its national security role if its economic slide continues. Even high-ranking Russian officials have their doubts. “I have some concerns regarding the situation with the USEC company,” Yevgeny Adamov, minister of nuclear energy for the Russian Federation, said during a July 24 speech to the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. “Some time has passed since the USEC privatization, and we fear that the current status of the company can complicate further implementation of [the agreement]. On the one hand, we are worried that this economically ineffective company may be tempted to blame the agreement for its own losses. We do not understand why the agreement in this particular case shall compensate the USEC for its low economic efficiency.” If USEC cannot fulfill its obligation to buy Russian uranium, policy-makers will have to make a tough decision. They can find another company to act as executive agent or hand off the responsibility to the Energy Department. Doing the latter would cost taxpayers billions and require several members of Congress and former executive branch officials to admit that they erred in the first place. Or, policy-makers can decide to subsidize USEC. Indeed, Congress almost came to that point in the fall of 1999 when company officials asked Congress for $200 million to help pay for uranium purchases from Russia. USEC even threatened to withdraw as executive agent. Members of Congress and the Clinton administration were irate. According to a former Energy Department official, the administration started talking about the possibility of pulling the plug on USEC’s role in the Russian deal. By December 1999, USEC retreated from its threat. Removing USEC from the Megatons-to-Megawatts agreement presents challenges to domestic energy supply too. Nearly 50 percent of USEC’s annuals sales of low enriched uranium come from Russia. Without that supply, many of USEC’s customers could be forced to turn to foreign uranium producers. USEC’s threat to withdraw as executive agent also raises questions about the government’s ability to find a new executive agent. A December General Accounting Office report, “Nuclear Nonproliferation: Implications of the U.S. Purchase of Russian Highly Enriched Uranium” (GAO-01-148) criticizes the Clinton administration for not adequately monitoring USEC activities, a job given to the Enrichment Oversight Committee. President Clinton created the committee by executive order in 1998 and staffed it with top officials from the National Security Council and the Energy and State departments. GAO found that the committee has failed to fulfill all of its legislative responsibilities. Most importantly, the committee is required to develop a plan for replacing USEC should the company no longer be able to carry out its national security obligations. “However, the committee had no procedures when USEC considered resigning as executive agent in 1999 and continues to lack a contingency plan, should USEC need to be replaced in the future,” GAO found. “Furthermore, the committee is only beginning to conduct the required analysis of the impact of the agreement on the domestic nuclear fuel industry.” _ USEC’s story shows what can go wrong when public and private sector interests intersect. In turning a national security program over to the private sector, policy-makers put USEC’s fiduciary obligations in direct competition with its role as an agent of the federal government, says Ronald Moe, a specialist in government organization and management at the Congressional Research Service. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a USEC official puts some of the blame for the company’s financial instability on Congress and the Clinton administration. When privatization legislation was moving through Congress in 1997, lawmakers saddled USEC with restrictions that would hamper nearly any private sector company. For instance, the legislation prohibited USEC from laying off more than 500 workers in the first two fiscal years of operation. The company also had to keep its two aging production plants open through Jan. 1, 2005. Those plants happen to be located in states that were considered up for grabs in the 2000 presidential elections—Kentucky and Ohio. Further, there is a three-year prohibition on the sale of more than 10 percent of the voting stock to a single entity. These restrictions left USEC vulnerable to fierce global competition, plummeting prices and overcapacity. “Even before privatization, the U.S. government uranium enrichment enterprise faced increasing global competition,” says Charles Yulish, USEC vice president for corporate communications. “Until the 1970s, the U.S. government had 100 percent of the world market. When it could no longer meet growing worldwide demand, other nations developed their own commercial enrichment operations. The U.S. faced three new rivals [Uranco, a British-Dutch consortium; Eurodif S.A., which is controlled by the French government; and Russia’s Tenex] that were increasingly selling aggressively in the global market—including the United States. Those competitors have the advantage of newer enrichment technology and we believe they have been violating trade laws requiring fair pricing. They have been dumping uranium to gain market share in the United States, materially damaging the U.S. enrichment industry.” Additionally, oversupply in the market has depressed prices. USEC has seen prices drop from more than $100 for a unit of its product in 1998 to about $80 for a unit now. Yet production costs have not come down. Critics charge that USEC is partially responsible for the oversupply. The company in the late 1990s started selling off a portion of its reserves, which had been transferred from the Energy Department during privatization. Nonetheless, the statutory restrictions make it impossible for the company to respond to a changing marketplace, USEC officials argue. _Path to Privatization_ It should come as no surprise that USEC is at the center of a debate over how, when and whether the federal government should engage in privatization. Despite support from Democrats and Republicans, USEC has found itself mired in conflict at every step along the path to privatization. Uranium enrichment privatization traces its roots as far back as the Nixon administration. In November 1969, President Nixon asked the Atomic Energy Commission to operate its uranium enrichment facilities as a separate organization “in a manner which approaches more closely a commercial enterprise.” Nixon’s goal was to eventually sell the operations to the private sector, according to a Nov. 10, 1969, White House press release. It wasn’t until 1992 that Congress finally took up the privatization question as part of the Energy Policy Act. The law turned USEC into a government corporation and set the wheels in motion for an outright sale. As a government corporation, USEC was required to act like a business. It had to make a profit and was no longer supported by tax dollars. In fact, it had to pay dividends to the U.S. Treasury, which it did to the tune of $30 million in 1993, $55 million in 1994 and $120 million in both 1995 and 1996. The 1992 law also required USEC’s board of directors, all presidential appointees at the time, to develop a privatization plan and submit it to Congress and the President. As USEC was studying privatization, the Clinton administration in 1993 struck the historic deal with Russia to buy 500 metric tons of uranium. The 20-year deal was worth $12 billion. The privatization plan was finished in 1995. It called for a dual track, recommending that the board simultaneously pursue a negotiated sale and a stock offering. Doing so would meet one of the main criteria of the energy policy law: ensure that the government got the best possible price. Many high-profile bidders were rumored to be interested in purchasing USEC, including Westinghouse, Lockheed Martin and General Atomics. The plan called for a sale or public offering to be completed by March 1996. After several delays, it was determined that selling stock would maximize returns. In 1996, Congress passed the USEC Privatization Act and in July 1998, the Treasury Department authorized the sale of 100 million shares of stock, netting $1.9 billion. _A Question of Ethics_ How the board reached its decision is at the center of the USEC controversy. Minutes of all the board meetings were kept confidential until after privatization. They were not made public until 1999 after labor unions sued to gain access. The unions feared that privatization would threaten jobs since company officials, beholden to stockholders, would look for ways to cut costs. In a strange twist, one of the unions that sued—and today stands as a chief critic of privatization—was once a proponent of the idea. The Paper, Allied Industrial, Chemical &Energy Workers Union, in 1996 teamed with Pleiades Group, a New York-based consortium headed by former Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher, to buy USEC from the government. Union officials claim Pleiades had a far more viable privatization plan. Only when it became clear that an IPO was the favored route, however, did the unions mount an aggressive campaign to halt privatization. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Ohio, says that shroud of secrecy allowed company insiders to exert considerable influence on the sales process in order to win an IPO, which was in their self-interest. If another company had acquired USEC, it could have put its own people in charge. USEC officials were better off under the IPO scenario, says Richard Miller, a policy analyst for OCAW. Not only could the USEC board stay in power, but members could benefit financially. That’s just what happened. William Timbers, president and chief executive officer, for instance, made $325,000 as head of USEC when it was a government corporation. His annual salary jumped to $600,000 as head of the private company. In 1999, he received a $600,000 bonus and stock options valued at more than $1 million. “I have always had a suspicion that there were people who were motivated by self-enrichment,” says Strickland, whose congressional district includes USEC’s Ohio plant. “Do conflict-of-interest rules mean anything to someone like [Timbers], whose salary was $325,000 from a public entity, and after being involved in the process, goes up to $2 million or so? What can be more of a conflict of interest than that?” he asks. Federal ethics standards bar government employees from participating in decisions that affect their personal finances, but William Rainer, USEC’s chairman at the time, granted Timbers a waiver so he could take part in the debate over how to take the corporation private. USEC officials declined to comment on salary increases after the IPO. According to a former Clinton administration official, a determining factor in conducting an IPO was a pledge by USEC executives to continue work on a laser-based uranium enrichment technology known as Atomic Vapor Laser Isotope Separation (AVLIS). The Energy Department had spent nearly $2 billion testing the technology. At the time of privatization, USEC officials said AVLIS would improve efficiencies at the Ohio and Kentucky production plants, and reduce energy costs as well. At a June 3, 1998 board meeting, Timbers said, “every day that privatization is delayed is a delay of deployment of AVLIS.” He assured the board that AVLIS would be in the company’s future despite the fact that competitors discounted the technology, saying it was not commercially viable. USEC killed AVLIS shortly after privatization. The move stunned administration officials. Former Energy Secretary William Richardson, writing USEC officials in late 1999, said he was “surprised that this [suspension] decision would take place so soon after privatization. . . . I understood that USEC considered AVLIS as an asset for its future viability.” In explaining the decision, Timbers told the House Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee last April that the rate of return on investments in AVLIS failed to make it commercially viable. Stopping work on AVLIS left USEC with no immediate plans to update technology at its aging Ohio and Kentucky facilities. Shutting down AVLIS also set off warning lights at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is charged with certifying USEC’s operations. “We figured there were going to be some difficulties,” says Robert Pierson, division director of fuel cycle, safety and safeguards at NRC. “We could see that the stock was declining in value. We could see they were having trouble paying dividends. As early as [summer 1999], we started monitoring them. Clearly, one should understand that if the flagship technology is canceled, it could have a detrimental effect on the long-term status of the company.” During the past year, the company has invested in a new laser technology still years away from being tested in a real-world environment. _Tough Decisions_ Having fallen on hard times, USEC officials are now faced with making some tough economic decisions. In June 1999, the board of directors authorized a buy-back of 10 million shares of stock through June 2001. Last February, the board expanded that by 20 million shares through the same period. A chain reaction of negative news followed the buyback expansion. Wall Street analysts downgraded the company’s stock to junk-bond status. Once that happened, the NRC was required by law to launch a full-scale investigation into USEC’s finances. Copies of the final report, kept confidential, were delivered to members of Congress and national security advisers in September. The report, obtained by Government Executive, shows that unless drastic steps are taken, USEC’s costs will continue to rise and cash flow will continue to fall. The company could reach total meltdown within five years. Slipping to junk-bond status also triggered a provision in the 1996 privatization law allowing USEC to close one of its production plants before 2005. The company plans to shut down operations at the Ohio plant by June. Doing so will cut USEC’s fixed production costs by $55 million in 2002. “Given our Russian purchases, slackened worldwide demand and other factors, including very aggressive sales and dumping by our competitors, our two enrichment plants are operating at only about 25 percent of capacity,” says USEC’s Yulish. “Faced with those factors, in order to better compete, we made the tough decision in June to consolidate all of our production at our enrichment plant in Kentucky and cease enrichment at our Ohio plant in June 2001.” During the presidential campaign, the Clinton administration said it would ante up $630 million to keep the Ohio plant open and save 1,200 union jobs. The money is in a trust fund left over from USEC’s public offering. Its intended purpose is to pay for expenses associated with privatization; a former Clinton administration official says those expenses include the plant closure. But Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., former chairman of the House Commerce Committee, thought otherwise. Last October, he wrote to Richardson questioning the legality of the move. During the presidential election campaign, George W. Bush said he, too, wanted to keep the Ohio plant operational. The plant will be kept on what is called “cold standby,” meaning it could be brought up to full operation without a major ramp-up. It could also be reengineered to accommodate a new laser-enrichment technology the Energy Department is testing. _Watch the Money_ While acknowledging that USEC has not met its shareholders’ expectations, former Clinton administration and USEC officials refuse to say they were wrong. They point out that USEC still is in business and still is carrying out its role as executive agent of the deal with Russia. They note that USEC recently renegotiated the deal to ensure that prices for its uranium ebb and flow with market conditions. (The original contract locked USEC into a nonnegotiable premium price.) Additionally, USEC reported in December that it was ahead of schedule in implementing the 20-year deal to buy the enriched Russian uranium. “As Deep Throat said, ‘To understand this you have to keep your eye on the money.’ While this is a national security undertaking, the simple fact remains that someone has to pay Russia for this material,” says Yulish. “The government did not opt to use $8 billion of taxpayer money. They opted instead to go the commercial route and to have an executive agent buy the enriched uranium and sell it to utility customers to fuel their nuclear power plants. USEC has been proud to be the executive agent of the “Megatons to Megawatts” program since its inception nearly seven years ago, even though the market price declines for enriched uranium have made it unprofitable for the past few years.” A former Treasury Department official adds that the true measure of the success of the privatization is whether USEC is fulfilling its obligation as executive agent of the deal with Russia, not how it is performing on Wall Street. Still, MIT physicist Neff points out that in July, the three-year restriction on any single entity buying more than 10 percent of USEC voting shares expires. “When that happens, someone can come in and buy shares and liquidate the company. Do we really want the [Russian deal] tied up in liquidation?” says Neff. “They will be liquidated if nobody acts. That’s a dangerous proposition. The U.S. should not let it get to that point.” ***************************************************************** 4 More study needed on depleted uranium rounds _Date: 02/08/01 22:00_ Depleted uranium in armor-piercing ammunition used by U.S. and British forces in Kosovo has attracted attention in Europe, primarily in Italy, where several former soldiers have died of leukemia. Although more study is needed, it would appear that the concerns could be overblown. First some explanation: Depleted uranium is what's left over after the production of enriched uranium. It is radioactive but less so than natural uranium. That's why it's called "depleted." This uranium is poisonous in the way lead and other heavy metals are poisonous. Ill effects are triggered by ingestion, not by mere proximity. Explosions created by depleted uranium projectiles can create particles, and if inhaled in significant doses, the particles would be harmful. In 1999, two scientists, Steve Fetter and Frank von Hippel, reviewed the available studies on depleted uranium for an article in *Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*. Their conclusion: "The health risks associated with radiation from exposures to depleted uranium are ... so low as to be statistically undetectable ...." The one exception they noted involved soldiers experiencing radiation doses from *embedded* fragments. In addition, the Pentagon recently announced that some ammunition used in Kosovo may contain traces of plutonium and other radioactive substances. If so, then the substances involved are hardly "depleted." In that case, the pivotal question is what quantities were involved. For now, NATO says a recent study showed no increase in disease or death rates among soldiers deployed to the Balkans compared with other soldiers. Another study issued last March -- by the General Accounting Office -- also found no connection between cancer or kidney disorders and depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing ammunition because it's twice as dense as lead and highly effective in penetrating heavily armored vehicles; instead of flattening on impact, it actually sharpens as it slashes through armor plating. The result is lower casualties for U.S. units -- something that should be kept in mind in weighing the costs and benefits of any given weapon. That said, the Pentagon should recognize that continued use of depleted uranium may exact certain political costs, and with that in mind, Washington should pursue alternatives such as tungsten-based ammunition. Tungsten is much more costly, but some analysts believe it's equally effective against the armored vehicles currently used by potential adversaries. Research should proceed both on alternative ammunition and on the effects of depleted uranium battlefield residue. But for now, those demanding an immediate ban on depleted uranium ammunition haven't offered a convincing case. content © 2001 _*The Kansas City Star*_ ***************************************************************** 5 Expert disagrees with team over Yucca Mountain [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Friday, February 09, 2001 Whether dump site would be exposed to hot water debated _By KEITH ROGERS _ REVIEW-JOURNAL _ _While a team of geologists agreed Thursday that hot water existed in Yucca Mountain more than 4 million years ago, one member was still at odds over what data from a $1.4 million study mean and their significance in deciding whether to bury nuclear waste there. Yuri Dublyansky of the Russian Academy of Sciences Siberian Branch, who represented Nevada on the team, said he is not as convinced as federal scientists are that the temperatures indicated by tiny bubbles inside minerals in the mountain stem from its cooling some 6 million years after nearby subsurface volcanic activity reheated its interior. He said he thinks the evidence indicates thermal groundwater shot upward in the mountain, and if that happens again after nuclear waste is put there, the proposed repository could be flooded and potentially deadly radioactive materials carried off. "My personal opinion is you can take the data ... and come to the conclusion this cannot have resulted without having (thermal) water flowing inside," Dublyansky said at a briefing late Thursday to announce the team's results. He sided with his colleague, state geological consultant Jerry Szymanski, who contends the site is flawed and is being pursued by the Department of Energy to relieve the federal government of billions of dollars in liability to the nuclear power industry. The pair argue the mountain clearly is not a safe place to store nuclear waste. The volcanic-rock ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied to entomb the nation's high-level nuclear waste, mostly metal rods containing spent fuel pellets from commercial power reactors. The ridge, scientists agree, was formed by hot ash that showered down from volcanic eruptions nearly 13 million years ago. Then, roughly 11 million years ago, the mountain was reheated by below-ground volcanic activity from nearby Timber Mountain. From that time, based on fluids trapped in Yucca Mountain's calcite minerals, the majority of the team members -- especially geochemist Joseph Whelan of the U.S. Geological Survey's Denver office -- think the minerals took 6 million years to cool to the point that temperatures were between 113 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Out of 155 mineral samples that were analyzed, about half, 78, contained "fluid inclusion" records indicating elevated temperatures. "The data provide no evidence for the presence of these fluids with elevated temperatures at the Yucca Mountain site during the past 2 million years," according to a statement from Jean Cline, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas associate professor who led the two-year study. Cline and Whelan think the elevated temperatures do not stem from hot groundwater moving inside the mountain. "I don't think Yucca Mountain was a hydrothermal system," Cline said after the briefing. She said that "something had to cause those elevated temperatures, but our study didn't address that." She said earlier that "there is no compelling evidence that says, 'Yes it's that story,' or 'No, it's not that story.' But it's not consistent with hydrothermal origin." At a November conference of geologists in Reno, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission scientist, Bret Leslie, spelled out the issue in a paper. "If flooding of the repository by warm groundwater has at least one chance in 10,000 of occurring over 10,000 years, then the performance assessment" would need to estimate radiation doses to people near the repository, Leslie wrote. Szymanski, a former Energy Department geologist who fostered the upwelling thermal-water theory more than two decades ago, thinks the evidence means the chances of a sudden, hot-water event recurring are great enough to disqualify the site for nuclear waste disposal. "My understanding of what professor Cline stated is that she does not take a position with regard to the upwelling water hypothesis," Szymanski said after the briefing at UNLV. "She had clarified her previous conclusion that the passage of water with elevated temperature happened prior to 1.9 million years ago. She now says she does not know if this is true or not. "With these statements it is my personal opinion Yucca Mountain cannot be licensed as a permanent repository," Szymanski said. He said he thinks the Department of Energy has squandered $8 billion studying a flawed site, and the federal government faces a $100 billion liability for failing to provide storage of spent fuel outside of reactor sites. Despite the U.S. Geological Survey scientists' insistence the minerals were formed by rainwater that percolated from Yucca Mountain's surface, Szymanski and Dublyansky hold to their claim that minerals were formed by hot water from within and that the mountain did not take 6 million years to cool. "That mountain was cold 100,000 years after eruptions," Szymanski told the team. http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Feb-09-Fri-2001/news/15412477.html ***************************************************************** 6 SA gets federal nuclear guarantee From AAP 09feb01 17:10 (AEDT) SOUTH Australia's vehement opposition to a medium-level nuclear waste dump was vindicated by a federal guarantee not to build the facility next to a low-level dump, SA Premier John Olsen said today. Mr Olsen welcomed assurances by the Federal Government that a medium-level dump would not be co-located with a low-level facility likely to be established near Woomera in the state's far north. While the SA Opposition said today the federal guarantee could not be believed, Mr Olsen said it was a step in the right direction. "I certainly welcome the decision of the Commonwealth not to co-locate," Mr Olsen told reporters here today. "It has been suggested in the past they had an agenda to do so. "We (the state government) have been very clear in our opposition to an intermediate high level repository in South Australia. "I'm just delighted that the federal government seems to have taken notice." Federal Industry Minister Nick Minchin said yesterday the low and medium level waste dumps would not be co-located but did not rule out both being in SA. Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill has the final approval on the government's preferred site for the low level facility near Woomera. Senator Hill today denied the federal government was smoothing the nuclear issue in an election year. "If we have said it (co-location) is ruled out, it's ruled out," Senator Hill told reporters in Adelaide today. "I presume that Nick feels there would be greater community confidence in not co-locating the facilities and so the decision has been made." Senator Hill said the medium-level facility would be located in the "best location in Australia" but would not comment on the likelihood of SA hosting a second nuclear waste dump. SA Opposition environment spokesman John Hill today accused the federal government of trying to "defuse nuclear dumps as a major election issue". "I don't think too many South Australians believe Senator Minchin's statement," Mr Hill said today. "I think this will be greeted with the cynicism it deserves." Mr Hill said an eight-year national search for possible nuclear waste dump sites found 18 locations, all in SA. "When the final five sites were chosen, it was on the understanding that co-location of the two dumps would go ahead," he said in a statement. "So what is Senator Minchin saying - that after the next state and federal elections, SA may end up with two nuclear waste dumps, one low level and one medium level?" The Australian Daily Telegraph Sunday Telegraph Herald ***************************************************************** 7 Hill won't rule out two radioactive dumps for SA ABC News - Federal Environment Minister Robert Hill has refused to rule out the possibility that South Australia will house two radioactive waste dumps. But he has echoed comments made by Federal Resources Minister Nick Minchin that there will not be any co-location of low and higher level radioactive waste near Woomera. A search is now underway to create the intermediate dump on Commonwealth land. Senator Hill says his main concern remains the approval process for the low-level radioactive dump which has been narrowed to a site near Woomera. "The first process to locate preferred sites for a low level repository has been undertaken, and sites have been identified and we're now commencing the environmental assessment of those sites," he said. "Further down the track there'll be the intermediate level issue, separate totally... and being dealt with separately." Senator Hill says there is no point in drawing any conclusions. "This will be a Commonwealth facility for Commonwealth waste and as with the low level one, I think it should located in what objectively turns out to be the best location in Australia," he said. ***************************************************************** 8 Fed Govt plans Commonwealth dump ABC News - 09/02/01 : The Federal Government has announced it will create an intermediate level nuclear waste dump on Commonwealth land, because of a lack of co-operation from the states. Industry Minister Nick Minchin says he will begin the search for a national dump to house Australia's existing intermediate level waste from the Lucas Heights generator, and other commonwealth facilities. He says the dump will not be co-located with the low level dump he announced for the Woomera area in South Australia's far north a fortnight ago, despite that option being preferred by a state and federal committee in 1997. He says states will have to either build their own repository for intermediate radioactive waste, or negotiate with the Commonwealth for access to the national facility. A decision on the site is not expected until late next year. © 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 9 Claims ANSTO downplayed nuclear incident ABC News - 09/02/01 : An employee at Sydney's nuclear research reactor was flown to Melbourne last year to undergo medical tests after being exposed to radiation. The incident happened in May when the woman was preparing a radioactive leach sample when it crumbled in her hands. Tests later revealed the woman suffered no contamination. The operators of the Lucas Heights reactor, ANSTO, did report the incident to its regulatory body, however local councillor Ken McDonell says details of the accident should have been made more widely available. "It should have been included in their own annual report," Mr McDonell said. "But in their view it wasn't seen to be of sufficient severity" he said. "If you've got to fly one of your workers off to Melbourne to be tested it would seem to me that in the eyes of workers it would be a fairly severe incident." © 2000 Australian Broadcasting Corporation ***************************************************************** 10 TEPCO to freeze plans for 12 power stations _ Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Thursday it would freeze its plan to construct new power plants for the next three to five years, as demand for electric power remained sluggish due to the economic slowdown. While noting the need for the company to further streamline its operations against the backdrop of deregulatory trends within the industry, TEPCO plans to freeze the construction projects covering 27 plants at 12 power stations, including four nuclear power plants. The output of the plants, whose construction will be frozen, would have totaled 18.7 million kilowatts, TEPCO said. Even if the construction of these plants is frozen, TEPCO said, it would be able to meet an increase in power demand for the time being, adding that there was no danger of the nation facing a power crisis like the one currently faced by California. Should the construction of the planned nuclear plants be frozen, however, it would affect the nation's overall energy policy of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide, making it likely that the construction of planned nuclear plants will not be included among the targeted plants, according to industry sources. The nation's electric power companies have drawn up power development programs designed to meet a likely need to increase power output over the next 10 years. The highest demand for power recorded by TEPCO was for 59.4 million kilowatts in July 1996. Subsequent demand has failed to reach the same level during the peak season of summer. Meantime, construction of thermal power plants in Yokohama and Chiba was completed, helping the company boost its power output capacity by about 5 million kilowatts from fiscal 1997 to fiscal 2000. Should the company go ahead with its power plant construction program as planned, it may be burdened with excessive power-output capacity, thus losing market competitiveness, TEPCO said. TEPCO estimates the growth in power demand over the next 10 years to be lower than 2 percent per year--a record low. Its planned investment on plant and equipment is expected to be lower than 1 trillion yen for fiscal 2001, marking the first time in 22 years that its capital investment has fallen short of the 1 trillion yen level. As a result, heavy machinery manufacturers is likely to have less business from TEPCO. Since July 1996, demand for power has been sluggish among business enterprises and households amid the economic slowdown. It is also attributable to marked changes in the structure of power demand, according to industry officials. Over the past four years, the use of air-cooling units with gas and power generation plants owned and run by non-power-sector companies has become popular. Such companies have generated a combined output of power equal to that generated by two 1 million kilowatt-class power stations. Copyright 2001 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 11 _TEPCO not to freeze new nuclear power projects: Hiranuma _ _TOKYO Feb. 9 Kyodo - _Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has assured the government it will proceed with its new nuclear power plant projects as scheduled despite postponing other plants, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma said Friday. Hiranuma told a news conference that Japan's largest power company told his ministry that its plan to freeze the construction of new power plants by three to five years will not cover nuclear power projects. TEPCO said Thursday it will reexamine its plan to build 27 new plants at 12 power stations, including four nuclear power reactors in Fukushima and Aomori prefectures, as demand for electric power is slack. The company said it will identify the projects to be frozen in a power supply program for fiscal 2001 to be released in late March, but avoided giving a clear answer to a question over whether nuclear power projects will be affected. Apart from TEPCO's plan to build four new nuclear reactors, other electric power suppliers are aiming to construct an additional nine nuclear power reactors by 2010. While throwing his weight behind TEPCO's suspension plan, Hiranuma said electric power must be supplied in a stable manner. A coal-fired thermal power station in Ibaraki Prefecture and a hydroelectric power plant in Yamanashi Prefecture are among the projects to be frozen. The power supplier said it will freeze some projects for more than five years but two liquefied natural gas power stations -- one in Tokyo and one in Chiba Prefecture -- will be completed in the summer and go into operation as scheduled. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 12 _TEPCO to postpone start of new operations _ _TOKYO Feb. 8 Kyodo - _Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Thursday it will postpone the launch of new electric supply operations by three to five years as demand for electric power remains sluggish. Some 10 projects at coal-fired thermal power stations and hydroelectric power plants may be suspended under the company's reformed electric power supply plan, which will be announced at the end of March, TEPCO said. Nuclear power plants will also be subject to possible suspension, while two liquefied natural gas power stations in Tokyo and Chiba prefectures will be operated as initially planned. TEPCO also said it will cut the average annual capital investment to below 1 trillion yen from fiscal 2001 to fiscal 2003. Capital investment by the electric power firm will slip below the crucial line for the first time since fiscal 1979. 2000 Kyodo News (c) Established 1945. ***************************************************************** 13 NUCLEAR WASTE BURIAL: Energy panel chief to begin work on bill [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Friday, February 09, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Congressman to defer to president on content of legislation _By STEVE TETREAULT _ DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU _ __WASHINGTON -- _The chairman of a House energy panel said Thursday that Congress will start working within two months on a new bill to speed nuclear waste burial in Nevada but he will defer to President Bush on what the legislation will look like. With a fellow Republican and fellow Texan in the White House, Rep. Joe Barton said he is eager to tackle energy bills that have eluded Congress in recent years. He is chairman of the House energy and power subcommittee that has a broad jurisdiction on power generation issues. Among issues that have frustrated Barton is the failure to pass legislation that would speed the disposal of radioactive waste accumulating at more than 100 power plants. The Energy Department is fighting more than a dozen lawsuits by utilities charging it breached a contract calling for the waste to be removed by January 1998. "My guess is, we'll put in a bill within about two months," Barton said on nuclear waste during a meeting with reporters. "It should be one of the first bills we put on the president's desk." Barton said he told Vice President Dick Cheney at a recent meeting he would wait for a signal from the White House on how a nuclear waste bill should be structured. "I could put in a bill next week, but I'm not going to," he said. "I told Cheney I wouldn't put together a specific bill until the administration has had a chance to take a look at the bill the president vetoed last year." Cheney is heading a Bush task force forming energy policy for the new administration. So far the administration has given no clue how it might proceed on nuclear waste. In letters and comments during the fall's presidential campaign, Bush and Cheney said a Bush administration would oppose putting a temporary repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, while work continues there on a permanent burial site. Cheney also said the administration would favor the Environmental Protection Agency setting radiation release standards for a Nevada repository, as opposed to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has proposed less stringent standards. Both issues were controversial parts of nuclear waste bills considered in the 106th Congress. President Clinton ended up vetoing a bill that called for a repository to be opened as early as 2007 and for the NRC to set radiation standards. Since the Energy Department is facing potentially billions of dollars in liability payments to utilities, Barton said pursuing a temporary repository "would seem to be the thing to do." But, he said, "in terms of do you absolutely without qualification have to have one, the answer is no," he said, since a permanent repository might be opened and accepting waste within a decade. "That's something the president is going to have to make a decision on," he said. "If he decides he wants an interim storage facility, we'll do it." This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Feb-09-Fri-2001/news/15412583.html ***************************************************************** 14 TEPCO freezes construction on power plants_ asahi.com news *The utility is suspending work following lower-than-expected electricity demand.* Asahi Shimbun February 9, 2001 Saying the country has too many electric power facilities, Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said Thursday it will freeze construction work on new plants for up to five years or more from the fiscal year starting April 1. Officials said the decision will not affect the operations of two liquefied natural gas power facilities scheduled to start this summer in Tokyo and Chiba. In response to TEPCO's announcement, Takeo Hiranuma, minister of economy, trade and industry, said today that nuclear power plants would not be included in the freeze of plant construction projects. Concern about an oversupply of electric facilities stems from the fact that demand for electricity during the peak summer season has not surged for the past four years. Other electric power companies in Japan are likely to follow suit as competition intensifies with further liberalization of the industry, analysts said. TEPCO currently has plans for 14 new power plants in nine locations, but officials said it will also ask Electric Power Development Co. to freeze construction of all but one. The plants were scheduled to sell the electricity generated at the plants to Tokyo Electric. TEPCO said the freeze in some cases may exceed five years and that a final decision on each project will be made by the end of March. It said the freeze in principle would cover four nuclear power plants scheduled for construction in Aomori and Fukushima prefectures. Those plants were scheduled to begin operations after 2006. However, there still remains a possibility that construction of the nuclear power plants could be exempted from the freeze because Tokyo Electric would face a backlash from those prefectures after spending years fighting to stop them being built in their backyard. Freezing construction of the nuclear power plants would also jeopardize the central government's commitment to cutting greenhouse gases. The Fukushima prefectural government issued a statement Thursday calling on the central government and Tokyo Electric to seek the understanding of the public and the people of Fukushima. The statement said the central government should adopt a comprehensive review of energy policy, including the nuclear fuel recycling program, with an eye toward future supply and demand for electric power. Copyright 2001 Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No ***************************************************************** 15 Taiwan's nuclear fight is all about votes + Talks began, then ended, this week on resuming construction of a power plant on hold since October. _ _By William Ide Special to The Christian Science Monitor _ When President Chen Shui-bian likened the movie "The Perfect Storm" to Taiwan's heated debate over the construction of a nuclear power plant, he wasn't showing off a knack for hyperbole. For more than three months, the government has been entangled in a vicious battle that ostensibly centers on the construction of the island's fourth nuclear power plant - a US$5.5 billion, 2,700 megawatt plant that is one-third finished. But as the political fight wages on, it has become apparent that it is really not about electrical, but electoral, needs. Mr. Chen's government and the opposition-led legislature tried to enter negotiations last week, but by Tuesday they had broken down. An opposition alliance ordered the government again to first resume construction, saying that it would not negotiate until work resumed. Political analysts say that the only sign of clear skies on the horizon are legislative elections at year's end, which could level the now uneven political playing field. Calculations are based on hopes for gaining more seats, not resolving the crisis, says Hsu Szu-chien, a professor of comparative politics at National Chengchi University. "Each side is betting on that big game - this has more to do with politics than the issue itself." The Kuomintang (KMT), which lost to Chen in last year's presidential elections, ending more than 50 years of one-party rule, has long argued that without the plant, Taiwan's economy will collapse. It recently added that without the plant, the semiconductor industry would see more blackouts than ever. Others claim that companies have reportedly begun moving operations to China because of the fight. Chen's government sees things differently. It says that independent power producers will make up for at least 93 percent of the plant's output. It also argues that since Taiwan is already struggling to find a place to bury nuclear waste, a fourth plant is out of the question. The government has assured the public that for the next seven years, Taiwan will not lack any electrical power. While neighbors like Japan and China plan to continue building nuclear power plants, Taiwan has begun looking more earnestly into alternative energy. Such polar views have made it difficult for either side to give any ground. The KMT holds a majority in the legislature, which is a major obstacle here, because the current Constitution does not state clearly whether the government is a functioning parliamentary or presidential system. Not only that, but Chen was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote last March. The all-out political war began when the government made its first major policy decision to halt construction of the power plant. Lawmakers, especially the KMT's, were furious, mounting a signature drive to recall the president. Premier Chang Chun-hsiung, who announced the plant cancellation, was labeled persona non grata and barred from the legislature. It wasn't until late January, when Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices ordered both sides to negotiate, that there was some hope the debate would be resolved. But "we are still going in circles," says Philip Yang, a political science professor at National Taiwan University. Hsu, the political scientist, agrees, saying that Taiwan is still learning how to "see compromise as a necessary part of democracy." He adds: "In politics, you have to compromise, but that's not part of Chinese culture. It's not seen as a good thing." Eric Lin, an independent lawmaker's assistant, says that "in the end, the public and democracy have to pay the price for such instability." Such a fight was bound to happen sooner or later. Chen's antinuclear DPP has long been opposed to the plant, while the KMT has done everything in its power to make sure the project is completed, in some cases disregarding public opinion. Nearly two weeks ago, protests against the plant outside of the legislature included one man who set himself aflame. Says Joseph Wu, a professor at National Chengchi University, "What lies ahead is a long period of confrontation." ***************************************************************** 16 Taipower asks GE to complete nuclear reactor The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-09 _Friday, February 9th, 2001_ UNFINISHED BUSINESS: Following a suggestion from General Electric that a reactor be completed, Tawan Power gave the go-ahead to put the final touches on the generator _By Richard Dobson_ STAFF REPORTER The Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, ¥x¹q) has given the green light for US-based General Electric Co to resume work on one of two nearly completed reactors for the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|). On orders from the Cabinet, Taipower instructed GE to suspend work on a US$1.8 billion contract to build two 1,350-megawatt advanced boiling water reactors when the government announced it would ax the project in October. After more than three months of suspension, GE recently advised state-run Taipower that the No. 1 reactor should be completed, as it is already 95 percent finished. Completing the reactor would allow GE's subcontractors to move onto other projects, a Taipower spokesman said. "If the reactor is completed, it can be removed from the special construction frame upon which it is being built," the spokesman said. "If the reactor remains on the frame, GE's subcontractors can't begin work on any new projects." Construction of the main parts of the two reactors is being carried out in Japan by GE's subcontractors in the project, Hitachi and Toshiba, while separately Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is building the steam turbines and generators. US engineering firm Stone and Webster is also involved in the project. Regardless of whether the project is resumed or not, Taiwan Power is contractually committed to purchasing the reactors and turbines from GE. "To refuse purchase at this stage would violate conditions set out in the contract, thereby allowing GE to seek compensation," the Taipower spokesman said. The advice from GE to finish work on the No. 1 reactor was passed on by Taipower to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which gave its approval earlier this week. Work on the No. 2 reactor, which is around 80 percent complete, will remain halted, Taipower said. Local media have long speculated that GE and the US government have exerted pressure on Taiwan's government to complete the plant -- a rumor roundly denied by all parties. Executives from GE Taiwan were unavailable when sought for comment yesterday. This story has been viewed 347 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-09 February 9th, 2001_ _By Wu Yi-ju_ Has President Chen Shui-bian (³¯¤ô«ó) violated the DPP party charter by agreeing to resumption of construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|)? The fact that this question has been raised shows how obsessed people are with the plant. All issues have become as polarized as black and white, simplified into "true or false" questions. One can only be for or against the power plant. Compromises, gray areas, or any third possible answers are out of the question. The DPP charter contains many articles with which Chen must comply in addition to the article on nuclear energy. Chen's previous opposition to construction of the plant could arguably be deemed as breaching such articles, so why hasn't anyone made that point? It is not, indeed, the only point that could be made to demonstrate the absurdity of the question. Article 2 states that "a democratic free country should ... be established in accordance with the free will of a majority of the people..." As polls uniformly indicate that most people, not to mention a legislative majority, support plant construction, had Chen continued to oppose construction, he would have been acting against the will of the majority. The same article also states that the government must govern in accordance with the law. As the Council of Grand Justices has ruled that the construction halt was "procedurally flawed," refusal to resume construction would not be "governing in accordance with the law." Chen would have been in breach of the DPP charter. Article 3 mandates the pursuit of economic growth and the promotion of employment opportunities. As the halt to construction has devastated our economy, Chen would be in breach of the DPP charter if he continued to block construction. The article on nuclear energy mandates "opposition to newly constructed nuclear power generators, active exploration of substitute energy, and closure of all existing nuclear power plants within a period of time." Com-mon sense dictates that successful exploration of substitute energy must come first. But Taiwan has failed miserably in that regard so far. The harsh reality is that we badly need electricity for virtually every aspect of our daily life. The DPP has promised an adequate supply of substitute energy for only the next five to six years. Most people are not convinced, however, and businesses need to plan decades ahead. In addition, most of the private power plants (supposedly our main substitute energy source) are not up and running due to protests led by local government heads, most of whom are DPP members. Shouldn't Chen be doing something about ensuring we have such alternatives first before scrapping the new plant? Otherwise, he would not be acting in compliance with the charter. The article also talks of closing existing nuclear power plants. Chen would be complying with the charter by first closing the first three nuclear power plants, as they pose more security risks and produce more types of pollution than the fourth plant. People should stop focusing their entire consciousness on the single issue of the plant. The pros and cons of nuclear energy are much more complex. It is unfair and shallow to judge people as supporters of nuclear energy, and traitors of the DPP, the Taiwanese, or mankind generally for that matter, just because they support construction of the plant. How can anyone say that Chen has betrayed the DPP when "a nuclear-free homeland" is now the general consensus? Last but not least, as president, Chen is leader of this country before he is a DPP member. His duty to all of us, not that to the DPP, comes first. *Wu Yi-ju is an attorney.* This story has been viewed 479 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 18 Don't sacrifice our environment The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-09 , February 9th, 2001_ _By Sue Lin ªL¯À­s_ Concerns are growing that the government -- worried the scrapping of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (®Ö¥|) might worsen the industrial exodus and trigger a domino effect on investment in Taiwan -- might let the controversial Pinnan Industrial Complex (ÀØ«n¶}µo®×) project be approved by the Executive Yuan. These concerns have been raised because it appears that politicians may to trying to manipulate the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process for the project, which threatens Taiwan's only remaining unpolluted wetland and habitat for the black-faced spoonbill. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA, Àô«O¸p) hurriedly approved the Pinnan Industrial Complex (ÀØ«n¶}µo®×)project in December 1999. Two EIA review meetings on the project scheduled for last year, however, were postponed because of disputes over environmental issues and a "reprimand" issued by the Control Yuan. On Jan. 3, the Council for Economic Planning and Development decided to cancel NT$24 billion in loans for the Yieh Loong steel plant (êM¶©¿ûÅK¼t), which is part of the Pinnan project. But then, on Jan. 12, the EPA again called for a review meeting. That meeting ended without any conclusion, but it did not allay concerns about political pressure. The Pinnan project's EIA has been Taiwan's most controversial EIA report ever. Pinnan's environmental impact include the threat to the ecology of the Chiku wetlands (¤CªÑÀã¦a) and black-faced spoonbills, the large volume of CO2 emissions (totaling 20.55 million tonnes), accelerated erosion of the shoreline and the disappearance of sandbars. Also, given southern Taiwan's serious water shortage, the project may steal water supplies from the Tainan Science-based Industrial Park and residential users. What's more, the location of the project seriously conflicts with Tainan County's rich fisheries and tourism resources. The project may also have a detrimental impact on the Tainan industrial park as a regional development, as highly polluting industries are incompatible with high-tech industries. Because of chronic water shortages in southern Taiwan, no initial water supply plan was included in the Pinnan complex project, whose daily water demand would be 194,000 tonnes. The Water Resources Bureau (¤ô¸ê§½) can only supply 80,000 tons of water for the project up to 2006. After that date, the bureau can't guarantee supplies because of the uncertainties besetting the development of water resources in the south. Will the Meinung Dam (¬ü¿@¤ô®w) project become another sacrifice at that time? The black-faced spoonbill is already listed as an endangered species in the Ramsar list of Wetlands of International Importance. In May 1999, more than 100 representatives from around the world appealed for the protection of the spoonbills during the Conference of the Parties to the Ramsar Convention held in Costa Rica. The years of effort Taiwan has put into preservation will go down the drain if the development of the Pinnan project destroys the birds' habitat, and its international image will suffer. Since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, cutting CO2 emissions has become a primary task in controlling the greenhouse effect. Pinnan will emit an estimated 20.55 million tonnes of CO2 per year. If we add emissions from the Sixth (¤»»´) and Eighth (¤K»´) Naphtha Crackers, the project will account for 35 percent of Taiwan's overall CO2 emissions, and more than 60 percent of emissions by all industrial sectors. This will crowd out the CO2 emission quotas of other sectors in the future, triggering vicious competition for quotas. The EPA and related agencies should carefully evaluate the after effects of the project. Even though the Sixth Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, held in the Hague in last November, ended without reaching any consensus, participating countries still called for attention to global warming and cooperation to reduce CO2 emissions. Can't we make a timely and appropriate response to this international trend? In addition, three of the 10 major topics initially listed for review -- site alternatives, industrial harbor alternatives and the preservation of black-faced spoonbills -- have been ignored in the review meetings. The developers did not provide adequate information on project site and harbor alternatives. They also left out the possibility of using offshore islands as project sites, saying that the islands are not economically viable and could not be completed on schedule. Is saving development costs and enriching a few conglomerates more important than protecting Taiwan's only unpolluted wetland and habitat for the black-faced spoonbill? Should we ignore the rich fisheries and tourism resources of southern Taiwan? Where is social justice to be found if the fisheries industry developed over many generations is terminated for the sake of an industrial project? This country's political and economic activities have always favored northern Taiwan at the expense of the south. Is this to be the case with environmental protection too? If we sacrifice the environment for the short-term profits of a few companies, how can we even talk about social justice -- let alone balanced, sustainable development? According to the 1998 National Energy Conference, energy-intensive industries should primarily be aimed at fulfilling domestic demand and not at export. Future industrial structure will have to stress balanced overall development and give priority to industries that offer high added value, consume less energy and have strong economic linkage effects. In 1998, Taiwan's industrial sectors accounted for 58 percent of the country's total energy consumption, and 57 percent of its CO2 emissions. The petrochemical and steel industries took up 30 percent of the total energy consumption but only made up around 5 percent of GDP. At a time when Taiwan is working to adhere to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and to move toward sustainable development, we should not continue to rely on energy-intensive and highly polluting industries such as the petrochemical and steel industries. Such reliance will delay the upgrading of industry as well as the establishment of a knowledge-based economy. I hope the policy-making bodies will conduct a careful and all-round evaluation of this development project that will cause a massive impact. I call on the EPA and the EIA review committee to do the following: _1._ Ask the developers to provide more information on and detailed evaluations of alternative sites, port alternatives and conservation of the spoonbills. _2._ Consider, as an alternative plan, expanding the sixth cracker's harbor and moving the seventh cracker and steel plants to the Mailiao (³Á¼d) offshore industrial zone. This will create a concentration of highly polluting industries on offshore islands, thus reducing environmental and social costs. It will also increase the economic benefits of the sixth cracker's harbor. _3._ The project should undergo a "policy" EIA to demonstrate the legitimacy of EIA laws and the credibility of the EIA system. _4._ The industrial harbor plan should also be put into the EIA process as soon as possible. It would be irresponsible for the government to approve the project and leave the industrial harbor hanging in the air. _5._ The members of the EIA review committee should strictly scrutinize the project. Otherwise, it may have an irreversible impact on the the Chiku wetlands' ecology and the fisheries industry. 6. The EPA should require developers to submit a written commitment to take full responsibility for the project's ecological risks as well as the lives and properties of area residents. Land for the project should only be leased, not sold outright, so that developers cannot play fast and loose on land speculation in the name of industrial development. I hope that the government, despite the pressure created by political changes over the past eight months, will demonstrate determination and conscience in facing up to the serious problems of the Pinnan project. I hope that the environmental issues surrounding the project will not be sacrificed to the political row that has broken out over the power plant. Policies on the Pinnan project will be a touchstone for the government's determination and drive in leading Taiwan toward sustainable development. *Sue Lin is a professor in the department of environmental engineering at National Cheng Kung University. * Translated by Francis Huang This story has been viewed 226 times. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 19 SELLAFIELD STRIKE AVERTED AT LAST MINUTE The Whitehaven News Thursday, February 08, 2001 HUNDREDS of Sellafield contractors held back on wildcat strike action at the last minute yesterday - sparing BNFL embarrassment while the latest emergency exercise was taking place. Nuclear inspectors were at the site where construction workers were in cabins and seething at not getting their full pay. The men, who are furious about losing their daily bonuses when emergency exercises are staged, were ready to hold an all-out strike. It would have closed down the construction site, disrupted the emergency exercise and embarrassed both BNFL and contract companies in front of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. At the last minute, following a show of hands, contractors decided to heed union advice not to take unofficial action, and instead attempt to have their grievance settled by negotiation. Union official Grant Cattanach said: "Unless we get a negotiated settlement, things are going to sour and sour until the men are left with no choice but to take industrial action which is in nobody's interests. "All they want is fairness because none of the thousands of BNFL employees lose any money when these exercises take place." During the emergency exercises, which are held four or five times a year and usually involve a simulated release of radioactivity, contractors lose up to £12 apiece because they have to stay in cabins until given the all-clear. Anger flared among men when they were offered a cover-all, £8 a man in lieu of losing bonus pay during several previous exercises. The offer has been overwhelmingly rejected and more talks are expected to take place shortly at the next meeting of the project joint council, made up of construction site companies and union representatives. Mr Cattanach said: "The offer is seen as derisory and we are looking for an improvement. "Everybody else gets paid, so why should the lads on the construction site lose money? "These exercises started out as two a year, now they've gone up to four or five and can go on as long as four hours. "It means the men have to stay put in their cabins until the exercises are declared over and it isn't right they should lose so much money." Although the site's 'blue book' agreement rules out the bonus payment, Mr Cattanach said: "This was designed for a one-off exercise not a whole series of them in the course of a year." One construction site shop steward said: "We fully accept the need for emergency exercises, they are in the interests of safety, but they should not be at our cost." BNFL said yesterday that Sellafield held two formal exercise demonstrations a year and four to six others involving communications and roll calls to make sure everyone was properly trained. ***************************************************************** 20 ANGER AT NEW POST The Whitehaven News Thursday, February 08, 2001 CND campaigner Peter Hain is the new Labour energy minister responsible for the nuclear industry. His appointment to the Department of Trade and Industry has been slammed by the Tory party, including Copeland's prospective parliamentary candidate, Mike Graham. Mr Graham said: "It is surely a retrograde step for Sellafield and Copeland. Peter Hain is well-known for his anti-nuclear views. As well as his long-term and current membership of CND he is also an opponent of civil nuclear energy. "It is important for Sellafield and for West Cumbria that Mr Hain clearly states he will not effect any change in policy with regard to nuclear power. "I call upon him to resign his membership of CND, whose current website states that it campaigns against the transport of nuclear materials, the reprocessing of spent fuel in the Thorp and B205 Sellafield plants, the manufacture of MOX fuels and other radioactive materials." Mr Hain said he is 100 per cent behind his government's energy policy which, he accepts, includes a nuclear energy element. l Mr Hain's appointment came in the Cabinet reshuffle following Peter Mandelson's resignation. ***************************************************************** 21 BNFL TOLD TO SPEED UP WASTE PROCESS The Whitehaven News Thursday, February 08, 2001 THE Government's safety watchdog has put the squeeze on BNFL over its stocks of high-level radio-active waste at Sellafield. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has warned it is prepared to halt one of the site's most vital functions - Thorp reprocessing - if BNFL fails to reduce its potentially dangerous liquid waste stocks within a certain time limit. Water-cooled tanks hold the waste which BNFL has to convert into glass blocks for safer storage. The HSE insists the glassification process is speeded up in order to reduce the liquid quantities and has issued BNFL with a legal order to meet targets. Director of nuclear safety Laurence Williams said: "We will not hesitate to use our regulatory powers to halt Thorp reprocessing should that be necessary, in order to keep BNFL within the specification. "We will closely review BNFL's strategy every two years in the light of the prevailing circumstances, such as changes to BNFL's business plans and reprocessing contracts, and further advances in technology, to identify any further reasonably practicable reductions." BNFL said the liquor was produced by both the Magnox and Thorp reprocessing plants and blended to ensure vitrification efficiency and minimise the solid waste produced. The company said it was committed to reducing the waste stocks. The head of waste management services at Sellafield, Phil Hallington, said: "Difficulties during the early years of the vitrification plant have been ironed out and the throughput has increased in recent years. "Our commitment to meeting these requirements is underlined by the investment of £320 million in a new vitrification facility which is expected to come on stream during this year." ***************************************************************** 22 Russia as nuclear garbageman? The Christian Science Monitor (tm) Electronic + On Feb. 22, Duma considers plan to allow import of radioactive waste for profit, as public objects. _ _By Fred Weir Special to The Christian Science Monitor _ It's a dirty job, but the country could get rich doing it, say supporters of a draft law that could turn Russia into the world's biggest importer of nuclear waste. It's a catastrophe in the making, counter environmentalists and other critics, who say the idea of taking in other countries' radioactive garbage is just a scheme to turn a quick profit and could lead to nuclear accidents. At issue is legislation, facing a second reading in the Duma on Feb. 22, that would legalize the import of spent fuel from foreign nuclear reactors to be treated and stored in Russian facilities. The proposal appears to be on the fast track to approval, after passing its first reading in December by 319 to 38 votes. Bills require three readings in the Duma, the lower house, before being taken up by the Federation Council. The Ministry of Atomic Energy, known as MinAtom, claims the plan could reap $21 billion over the next decade, vault Russia into first place in the burgeoning global nuclear-services industry, and provide cash to clean up radioactive hot spots - ecological disaster zones from the Soviet era. "Our aim is to make Russia competitive in one of the most lucrative high- tech industries," says Yury Bespalko, spokesman for MinAtom, a vast empire that controls Russia's 29 civilian atomic power reactors, most nuclear-related scientific work and also many aspects of military research and weapons production. "We have the technology and the necessary facilities, but we need fresh sources of income." Mr. Bespalko says he expects the legislation to be passed and importation to begin before year's end. MinAtom has recently sold Russian atomic power stations to Iran and India, and is eagerly eyeing the Chinese market, where plans call for building up to 20 nuclear power stations at a cost of $50 billion in coming decades. "Russia must be able to provide the full service to prospective customers in this highly competitive field, including storage and reprocessing of spent fuel," says Alexander Kosarikov, a Duma deputy with the pro-Kremlin Unity party. "And why not? Russian nuclear products are reliable, safe, popular and comparatively cheap." Grass-roots opposition Environmental critics of the proposed law tell a very different story. They say the Kremlin has used political pressure and outright chicanery to bulldoze the law through, despite widespread popular opposition. Last year, in one of Russia's first-ever mass grass-roots advocacy campaigns, a coalition of ecological groups gathered 2.5 million signatures on a petition calling for a public referendum on the proposal. Under Russian law, a vote must be held if 2 million citizens demand it. Ecologists cried foul when the Central Election Commission rejected the petition, claiming 700,000 of the signatures were invalid and allowing the groups no time to gather more. The proposal, says Igor Farafontov, a nuclear expert with Greenpeace-Russia, "is being rammed through without political due process, and with no consideration of the environmental or even economic consequences that will follow in its wake. The only goal of this scheme is to make money to keep MinAtom alive. And that's bad, because MinAtom is a dangerous, ramshackle, and incompetent organization that should be closed down." Russia already has vast amounts of its own radioactive waste, which critics say cannot be safely transported, processed, or stored. At present, Russia has just one plant for processing nuclear fuel, the 40-year-old Mayak station near Chelyabinsk in the Urals. MinAtom says profits from foreign deals would enable it to complete a modern new facility in Siberia that could handle up to 1,500 tons of spent fuel a year. "Processing nuclear fuel generates huge quantities of new waste products, and there is no place to store them," says Vladimir Slivak, director of the antinuclear program at the Social-Ecological Council, a Russian environmental group. "All the infrastructure would have to be modernized and rebuilt to make this a secure project, but that would cost far more than it's worth." Russia's dilapidated transport network is a key source of concern. "Russia's rail lines are in terrible shape; its roads are worse," says Anatoly Greshnevikov, deputy head of the Duma's Ecology Committee. "We have no secure vehicles, containers, or systems for transporting this stuff. And we cannot afford to build them." Another worry is that the draft law contains no provisions for financial compensation if there are accidents. Hidden motives? Some analysts warn that profits from MinAtom's civilian business may go into the development of a new range of ultra-modern Russian nuclear weapons. They point to the rise of former KGB hawks in the Kremlin and Moscow's determination to regain its superpower status in the face of US intentions to build an antimissile defense shield. "The gist of the (MinAtom) plan - to make the West pay for a new generation of nukes that may eventually be used against it - has clearly captured the imagination of the Russian elite," military expert Pavel Felgenhauer wrote in the English-language Moscow Times newspaper last month. ***************************************************************** 23 N-PLANT SUSPENSIONS The Whitehaven News Thursday, February 08, 2001 SUSPENSIONS have been handed out to three Sellafield workers for putting offensive material on the nuclear site's e-mail system. The three BNFL employees faced disciplinary proceedings for e-mail "abuse" and while the company would not disclose the outcome of the hearing it announced that no one had been dismissed. However, it is understood that the trio, all industrial workers, were given 10 days suspension without pay. Officials of the unions involved have also declined to comment but the punishments have been accepted as "fair and reasonable" especially as other employees have been sacked recently for non-compliance offences. Six other workers employed by Sellafield contract and agency firms have also been disciplined for circulating similar offensive e-mail material.Like BNFL, the companies concerned have not disclosed the action taken, but there have not been any sackings. Some of the employees have been "put on probation" for up to two years and had pay docked. ***************************************************************** 24 _Nuclear Power: A Tainted Future? _ The St. Petersburg Times - Top Story (Nuclear Power: A Tainted Future? ) [The St. Petersburg Times Logo] _#643, Friday, February 9, 2001_ By Charles Digges and Barnaby Thompson __ STAFF WRITERS _ A little over six years ago, Norwegian environmental activist Tomas Nilsen recalls standing on the Russian-Finnish border, trying to halt the passage of a cargo train loaded with Finnish nuclear waste into Russia. The train, as he described it in a telephone interview from the Oslo offices of the environmental group Bellona, differed little in appearance from a standard, rundown cargo train - except for the heavy presence of armed Finnish military guards who were along for the ride. Nilsen's group - positioned on the Finnish side - was arrested almost immediately. After the train trundled through customs, his colleagues on the Russian side said the guard gave way to a much, much smaller group. "While we could get nowhere near the train in Finland, the security in Russia was far more lax." As a result of the outcry surrounding the existence of such shipments, the Finnish parliament passed a law forbidding the export of its nuclear waste to foreign countries for disposal ever again. The State Duma also outlawed such imports shortly after. But an aggressive campaign by Russia's Nuclear Minister Yevgeny Ada mov to repeal that law - amid popular, though little governmental, protest - looks set to succeed later this month. Adamov has recast waste imports as a money spinner that would net Russia's beleaguered nuclear sector $21 billion over the next 10 years. He has also said such a sum could be used to revamp old reactors, build new ones, and clean up contaminated areas. But some experts have speculated this money will be used for other purposes - from the development of a highly controversial plutonium-based civilian nuclear economy, to military applications that could eventually be brought to bear on Chechen rebels. In short, the host of dangers to Russia that could be caused by a few waste imports are almost immeasurable, according to authorities both outside and within the Russian nuclear industry. TRAINS OF WASTE Strikingly, Gosatomnadzor, Russia's own nuclear regulatory body, has opposed the waste-import bill ever since its inception. The agency's opposition, however, has meant as little to the Nuclear Power Ministry, or Minatom, as the outcry of the general public, characterized by the ministry as too ill informed to understand the technical aspects of the nuclear industry "Minatom has furnished us with hardly any information whatsoever," said one Gosatomnadzor official charged with reviewing the import bill. "We have asked for documents time and time again," said the official, who requested anonoymity, in a telephone interview Thursday. "They have sent us next to nothing, and what they do send is entirely unreasonable. They have no idea what routes the waste will follow, or how it will be transported - they have, in short, no sense of what is involved." Comments posted on the Bellona Web site (www.bellona.no) from Gos atom nadzor's head, Yury Vishnevsky, were even more dispirited. In his view, any of the proceeds garnered from the imports would be "either eaten up or stolen." Nevertheless, the regulatory agency did prepare a small number of vaguely worded amendments, published on its own Web site, that will be submitted with the import law for the final reading. But the amendments clearly boil down to a set of simple customs regulations. To whit: Russia has the right to turn back any shipment Gosatomnadzor inspectors deem to be too dangerous to be transported, or which pose a threat to Russia's environment. According to Igor Kudrik, a nuclear-industry expert at Bellona, the agency's status has been gutted, in a war of economics versus safety. Nilsen said the most pressing dangers in transporting nuclear waste are presented by derailments or collisions. Any mishap would require large-scale and extremely expensive cleanup operations "All soil in the affected area would have to be dug up and disposed of as nuclear waste," said Nilsen. "These trains will also be traveling through some of the most populated areas of Russia, so a spill could displace thousands of people." THE PLUTONIUM FACTOR If what some experts foresee in Ada mov's import plans hold true, the price Minatom plans to charge for importing, and storing or reprocessing spent fuel - which yields plutonium, uranium, and liquid waste - could be one small part of an ambitious whole: the creation of a plutonium-based energy economy. Experts say this has been a preoccupation of the Russian nuclear industry since the 1950s. All that Russia needs for this is the money to develop a generation of special reactors called breeders - which, in brief, produce more plutonium than is fed to them - and the facilities to fabricate a special mixed-oxide fuel, or MOX. Under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Russia will be getting a MOX-fabrication plant as part of a very different plan that is meant to *reduce* the amount of surplus weapons-grade plutonium Russia now holds. If the MOX fuel is burned in a retrofitted VVER-1000 reactor - Russia has seven of these - the plutonium is gradually rendered inert. A roughly similar program will be followed in the United States. If, however, MOX is run through a breeder, the plutonium becomes purer. Presently, Russia has one breeder reactor that, at today's rates, cost $918 million to build. If Adamov's $21 billion waste-import plan reaches fruition, Russia would have the resources to build several breeders, plus a MOX plant to feed them with. WORLDWIDE DANGERS The public-relations image of MOX fuel took a hammering in 1999, when a shipment of the material to Japan - now the world's foremost purchaser of MOX - from Britain raised an international outcry. The supplier, the Sellafield nuclear power station operated by British Nuclear Fuels Limited, was found to have falsified quality-control data on the fuel, and although two armed ships eventually delivered the tainted MOX to Japan, the British and Japanese governments agreed to send the fuel back to Britain. At present, it is still sitting in Japan. (Ironically, Japan became interested in MOX after an accident at its Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor following a sodium coolant leak in 1995.) Taking surplus weapons-grade plutonium and burning it as MOX in Russia's VVER-1000 reactors is central to the U.S.-Russia agreement. But according to Edwin Lyman, science director of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute, those reactors are not up to the job. "VVER-1000 reactors have problems processing the uranium fuel they were intended to use," he said in a recent telephone interview. For a variety of technical reasons, burning MOX in such a reactor is much more difficult to control, "and the margin of error ... is extremely narrow." "It is a documented fact that Russia observes some of the worst standards of up-keep on its reactors imaginable," said Richard Rosenthal, the NCI's executive director. He added that any accident resulting from MOX use in a VVER-1000 would increase the risk of cancer in the affected area by 25 percent more than what the Chernobyl disaster managed. "Putting plutonium into a VVER-1000 is a terrible idea." While the DOE may shrug off such dangers, there is one aspect of the deal with Russia that is strangely missing: As of yet, no one is accepting liability should something go wrong. According to the DOE's Laura Holgate, who brokered the plan, these questions will be addressed at a Group of Eight meeting this summer in Genoa, Italy. But it has been a major sticking-point so far. THE TERRORIST THREAT Other factors worrying observers of Adamov's import plan involve the vulnerability to terrorists of a train laden with nuclear waste. Though much of the waste shipped is virtually useless for the purposes of building a large nuclear device, Lyman underscored that "one can make a so-called 'dirty' nuclear bomb out of spent fuel." Such fears have been a preoccupation of Western nuclear disposition organizations since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. "It takes a ball of plutonium the size of an orange to make a bomb more powerful than the one that destroyed Nagasaki," said Rosenthal. He added that trains carrying any of the nuclear material, be it spent fuel or MOX, would have to be guarded with "military force." It is a familiar stance. For a few years from 1992 onward, the Western press was full of reports of the possible smuggling of fissile and other radioactive (but not necessarily weapons-usable) material. One notable report was an investigation carried out by the Frontline program from U.S. Public Broadcasting Service in November 1996, which detailed some of the biggest scares to that date. On Nov. 23, 1995, a reporter for NTV claimed to have received a tip-off from Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev, and uncovered a package containing cesium-137 buried under some leaves in Izmailovsky Park in northeast Moscow. . On Dec. 14, 1994, 2.7 kilograms of uranium-235 was seized by police in Prague. According to the Frontline investigation, the supplier of the material, an Eduard Baranov from Obninsk, had been involved in a number of similar smuggling incidents of "loose nuke" material. . Another Frontline report in 1999 revealed how U.S. agents were offered a chance to by small nuclear devices from two Lithuanians, who allegedly had links to a mysterious scientific institute in St. Petersburg, as well as to then Defense Minister Pavel Grachev. But a DOE source who requested anonymity said that for all the fear that Russia's nuclear arsenal would slowly fall into the hands of the highest rogue state bidder, "not one bomb has been lost." The source added that the MOX would be transported in the U.S. program via the same transportation infrastructure that kept nuclear arms on the move. "I would assume that the Russians have a similar infrastructure," the source said. But Bellona's Nilsen pointed out that such internal infrastructures are hard to locate because they run on secret schedules. "This will not be so with international shipments," he said. "Protesters can get scheduling information and protest, pointing out those ships or trains that contain waste." MILITARY USES Another theory as to why Russia wants to import spent nuclear fuel was put forward by Moscow-based defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, in a column he wrote for The St. Petersburg Times on Jan. 9. "In April 1999, the Security Council (President Vladimir Putin was the secretary of the Security Council at that time) ordered the Nuclear Power Ministry to speed up the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including so-called 'penetrators,'" Felgenhauer wrote. "These weapons are designed to burrow down tens of meters underground before exploding. The Security Council also ordered the development of a new generation of very low-yield tactical, battlefield nuclear weapons. "Immediately after Putin announced the Security Council decision, Adamov began to clamor for foreign nuclear waste and a bill was introduced in the Duma." This theory was confirmed by Paul Beaver, a spokesman for Jane's, the highly respected defense, aerospace and transportation information group, in an interview from London on Wednesday. "The British have a penetrator called Broach, which is being looked at by the French and the Americans," he said, "[but] it's one piece of technology the Russians are short of." "In order to build a penetrator, you need depleted uranium, which means you need spent nuclear fuel. The Russians also need this for their anti-tank weapons - and it's also used in cruise missiles and guided bombs." "One of the reasons they are so interested is because of the problems they have had hitting targets effectively in Chechnya." If so, Felgenhauer noted, the irony is rich. All the West's financial help - selling spent fuel, and helping Russia with the MOX deal - will be used to build nuclear weapons that could be used against it. _[Copyright] copyright The St. Petersburg Times 2001_ ***************************************************************** 25 _Austrians warn of new Temelin N-plant border block_ _PRAGUE - Austrian environmentalists said on Thursday would renew their blockade of border crossings with the Czech Republic next week in protest against a nuclear power plant near the Austrian border that Vienna says is unsafe._ The move threatens to re-ignite a bitter diplomatic row which has marred relations between the two countries. The CTK news agency quoted Josef Puhringer, spokesman for the Upper Austria Initiative for Nuclear Safety, as saying the blockade would run from February 16 at 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) until February 18 at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT). Puhringer, who spoke to CTK in the Czech town of Ceske Budejovice, did not say which of the border crossings would be blocked. The two countries have eight official crossings. Czech government spokesman Libor Roucek he had been informed of the move, but that the government had no immediate response. Fiercely anti-nuclear Austria says the Soviet-designed Temelin station, built some 50 km (30 miles) from the Austrian border and which began operating last October, is unsafe. It has threatened to block Prague's bid to join the European Union unless its demands for full safety inspections are met. Demonstrators have blocked the border several times in protest. The Czechs say the plant, which has been upgraded with Western control systems, is safe. In December, Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman and Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel agreed another safety inspection would be carried out as long as the blockades were not re-imposed. But the protesters said earlier this week they would consider renewing the blockades if the Czechs did not produce a plan for an environmental impact assessment of the station. A number of incidents have heightened Austria's concerns. Most recently, testing operations at the plant were stopped in mid-January over a problem with steam pipes in the plant's secondary, non-nuclear circuit. Plant owner CEZ has said it hopes to renew testing on February 20 once the problem is repaired. Temelin has one operating 981-megawatt reactor and one under construction. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 26 _Bulgaria to start new nuclear waste processing unit_ _SOFIA - Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant said on Wednesday it would start operating a new unit for reprocessing and conditioning low and intermediate level radioactive waste this week._ The long-delayed $30 million project, to be opened officially on Friday, would process solid waste generated by Kozloduy's four 440-megawatt and two 1,000-megawatt water pressurised reactors of Soviet-design, an official said. Part of the equipment has been supplied by US Westinghouse, which signed a $12 million contract for designing the waste processing facility in 1991. Some 100,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste, including outfits, filters and materials used in the construction of the plant, are expected to be reprocessed in the next few years. The Kozloduy plant plans to start reprocessing liquid nuclear waste and operating a storage facility for the conditioned waste by year-end, said a plant's statement. The plant also starts operating this week an upgraded and enlarged storage for spent nuclear fuel after undergoing seismic studies, plant officials said. The Kozloduy plant produced almost half of the country's power last year hitting a record high annual output of 18 billion kilowatt hours against 15.8 billion in 1999. Bulgaria has pledged to the European Union to close two smaller and older reactors in 2002, earlier than planned, and is negotiating when to close the other two 440 MW units. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 27 _Defections Hit Group Opposing N-Waste_ ** *_Friday_, February 9, 2001* _BY JUDY FAHYS THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE_ The environmental group Citizens Against Radioactive Waste has lost some of its highest-profile leaders over a decision to expand the group's mission beyond opposition to bringing high-level nuclear waste to the Goshute Reservation. Former U.S. Sen. Jake Garn, Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan, former Gov. Norm Bangerter and state Sen. Carlene Walker opted to step down from the board. That leaves former presidential aide Steve Studdert as the sole big-name Republican on an executive board jammed with well-known Democrats. "They are going to lessen their impact," said Walker, R-Cottonwood Heights. "What is most pressing and most urgent is keeping the high-level nuclear waste off the Goshute Reservation." The resignations follow a decision by a majority of board members to begin fighting a separate issue -- Envirocare of Utah's plan to begin accepting "hotter" low-level radioactive waste at its 640-acre Tooele County landfill, about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Founding board member Jim McConkie said the natural link between the two issues prompted the board to expand its mission. "It's hypocritical," said McConkie. "It's a distinction without a difference." Envirocare has been working for more than a year to obtain a state permit to begin accepting what is called "Class B and C" waste that includes contaminated cleanup materials and reactor rubbish from nuclear power plants, as well as waste from research institutions and hospitals. The B and C wastes are hundreds -- and sometimes thousands -- of times more radioactive than the Class A wastes Envirocare has been disposing for more than a decade. All the waste proposed for Envirocare is considered "low-level," compared to the "high-level" waste proposed for the Skull Valley Band Goshute Indian Reservation, also in Tooele County. The high-level waste includes spent nuclear fuel that remains dangerously radioactive for 10,000 years or more. The Goshute proposal, led by a consortium of eight utility companies, is under review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The state government and many of its Republican Party leaders are fighting that proposal as a danger to the public's health and safety. The Envirocare proposal needs the approval of the governor and the Legislature. While public sentiment seems to run strongly against the new permit, opposition has been slow to form on Capitol Hill, where many have accepted campaign donations from the company totaling about $90,000. Gov. Mike Leavitt disagreed with the citizens group that it is "hypocritical" to support the Envirocare proposal while opposing the Goshute one. "What is stored at Envirocare is not even comparable with the high-level fuel rods," he said, adding that the company was an asset to the state "in a lot of different ways." Leavitt also said his comments did not pertain to Envirocare's B and C proposal. The governor is behind the blue-ribbon panel, as well as the creation of a new state office focused entirely on fighting the high-level nuclear storage site. McConkie disagreed with the notion that his group's clout might be diminished with the defections. "We did not think we would lose political support by turning our attention" toward opposing Envirocare's permit. New members of the citizen's board include Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Ed Firmage. _________ Tribune reporter Dan Harrie contributed to this story. y ***************************************************************** 28 In Plea Deal, Ex-Regulator Admits Guilt , February 9, 2001* _BY BRENT ISRAELSEN THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE_ A former state regulator who received about $600,000 in cash, gold and real estate from radioactive-waste magnate Khosrow Semnani pleaded guilty Thursday to federal charges of mail fraud and tax evasion. Larry F. Anderson -- who once oversaw the licensing of Semnani's company, Envirocare of Utah -- admitted to two counts of a six-count grand jury indictment. In exchange for his guilty pleas, the U.S. attorney's office agreed to drop the remaining four counts, one of which was for extortion. Without a court finding of extortion, Semnani, who has maintained Anderson coerced the payments, is not officially a victim in the financial scandal that has plagued Envirocare for more than four years. "There was no extortion," said Anderson's attorney, Jerry Mooney, after a hearing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell. U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner, who attended the hearing, acknowledged the extortion charge would be difficult to prove. "There's a dispute over what exactly existed there," Warner said. "That's why this case was settled." But Semnani's attorney, Rod Snow, said he believes Anderson's guilty pleas are a vindication for Semnani. "It's our view that Khosrow is still the victim of extortion. That's the charge the government presented to the grand jury and that's what [the grand jury] returned. There's always give and take in a plea bargain to get the case resolved." Mooney described the Anderson-Semnani relationship as a business deal that Anderson simply "did not approach in the correct fashion." Anderson, who was the state's director of radiation control from 1980 to 1993, maintains he is the brains behind Envirocare, whose radioactive-waste landfill in Tooele County, has earned Semnani "hundreds of millions of dollars," Mooney said. Anderson claims Semnani and he had a deal in which Semnani would pay him 5 percent of all Envirocare revenues. Mooney said Anderson got into trouble by not properly disclosing his dealings with Semnani to his supervisors -- or to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. According to a statement Anderson signed and filed with the court Thursday, Semnani between 1987 and early 1995 gave Anderson cash, a Park City condominium, gold coins and funds transferred into a Swiss bank account. These items were estimated between $550,000 and $600,000 in value. By February 1995, the payments stopped, prompting Anderson to send Semnani a letter that month, claiming Semnani owed him more than $7.6 million. Semnani refused to pay and Anderson later that year filed a bizarre lawsuit to recover the money. That lawsuit -- which basically asked the court to enforce a patently illegal business deal -- first brought the Anderson-Semnani relationship to public light and led to an FBI investigation a few months later. By pleading guilty to mail fraud, Anderson admits his financial dealing with Semnani deprived Utah citizens of their right to "honest services performed free of deceit, bias, self enrichment and self dealing." In pleading guilty to the tax-evasion charge, Anderson admitted that he failed to disclose to the IRS two $50,000 payments that Semnani deposited in 1991 into a Swiss bank account held by Anderson. Anderson also admitted he falsely told the IRS in 1992, 1993 and 1994 that he was not a signatory to any foreign bank account. Though Anderson faces up to 10 years in prison and a $500,000 fine, the plea agreement calls for a relatively light sentence, apparently in deference to the 64-year-old's frail health. Federal prosecutors are asking Campbell to order Anderson to serve 12 months at a federal prison camp at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas. The government is not seeking a fine, but requires Anderson to forfeit assets that he acquired with his ill-gotten money. Those assets include equity in Anderson's townhouse in Mesquite, Nev., a golf club membership, a golf cart and a certificate of deposit in a Mesquite credit union. The plea agreement also requires Anderson to reimburse the IRS for unpaid taxes. Campbell said she is inclined to accept the plea agreement, but will study it for 90 days. She has set a May 15 hearing to announce her decision. If Campbell rejects the agreement, Anderson could withdraw his guilty pleas and the case would go to trial. For his part in the scandal, Semnani in 1998 pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax charge for failing to tell the IRS about his payments to Anderson. He served no jail time but paid a $100,000 fine and agreed to cooperate fully with the IRS and FBI in their investigation of Anderson. "Mr. Semnani is pleased to have this chapter in his life closed. He's already moved on," said Snow. Envirocare, meanwhile, has survived a flood of news media attention and a litany of lawsuits from competitors. It also has weathered several reviews by state and federal regulatory agencies. Since 1995, Envirocare's revenues have averaged about $72 million a year. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on Utah OnLine is ***************************************************************** 29 Bill aims to stop nuclear waste storage _w w w . s t a n d a r d . n e t_ Idea from Davis County lawmaker to discourage, 'tax them to death' *Friday, February 09, 2001* By CHARLES F. TRENTELMAN Standard-Examiner staff SALT LAKE CITY -- A Davis County senator plans to introduce a bill in the Legislature today that he says will "make the hair stand up on the necks" of a company trying to store high level nuclear waste in Utah. Sen. Terry Spencer, R-Layton, said Thursday that his idea is simple: "Tax them to death." The bill is specifically aimed at Private Fuel Storage, which is negotiating to build and run a storage facility in Utah's west desert to store high level nuclear waste. Spencer and Sen. John Valentine, R- Orem, the senate Majority Whip, have been working to come up with some sort of legislation to stop them. Spencer said he thinks his bill will do it. First, it simply forbids building the facility. However, Spencer said, federal law may take precedence over state law and the facility could get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In that case, he told his fellow republican Senators Thursday in a caucus, "We tax it to death." That would include taking 75 percent of all the money taken in by the company. Called a "Gross Receipts Tax," it would come off the top, before even salaries of the workers or other costs were paid. It would require a bond to pay for potential damages of up to $150 billion. That would have to be deposited in cash with the state before permission to operate could be granted. The company would have to pay a fee equal to the amount of workers' compensation paid in the state multiplied by the number of casks of nuclear waste brought into the state. The bill also forbids counties or cities from providing normal municipal facilities to any nuclear storage facility. Finally, Spencer said the bill would make every person who works for the company personally responsible if there is an accident with the nuclear waste. "No shield, no protection," he said. Employees could lose "their houses, their stock portfolios, everything, are all at issue, from the chairman of the board down to the mail clerk, and every one of the share holders. "They have no shield." he said. Spencer said he is quite aware that his bill hits the company with much higher taxes than any other company in the state. That's the point, he said. This is not a business the state is trying to attract. "I have been working on this for the last nine months. We've been refining the language and making sure it's Constitutional," he said. "I want the hair to stand up on the back of their necks when they see $150 billion. That's $150 billion in cash, in a Utah bank." Sue Martin, a spokeswoman for Private Fuel Storage, said Thursday she hadn't seen the bill's language, but wasn't surprised by the provisions. "It's clear that what they want to do is stop this project," she said. "What we are going through, with the state's full participation, is a legally established federal process for licensing such a facility." She said she is certain that Utah can't prohibit Private Fuel Storage from getting a federal license to operate. "It's clear that federal law preempts state law," she said. As to the taxes and other fees, she said "I think it's clear that this and other legislation that the state has already passed is going to have to be clarified in court as to wether it's Constitutional or not, and my guess at this point is that it's not." Spencer said he is confident the bill will pass Constitutional muster. It has "almost unanimous support in both houses" of the Legislature, he said. "The governor is standing shoulder to shoulder with me on this issue." If Private Fuel Storage goes to court, he said, "They'll lose. We have the right to set the tax rate." If the company complains that it is being singled out, he said it is, but not for any reason that is protected by law, such as race, religion or gender. He said he has two partner bills to go along with the main one One would provide $1.6 million bill to hire outside legal help to fight the company. The second is a $2 million economic development bill to help the Goshute Indians, since that is the reason they want to bring the nuclear waste facility to their land. "We're saying "Here's another way to get some money, here's another way to develop,'" he said. The bill was to be introduced on the senate floor today. It will be assigned to the senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, which Spencer chairs. Martin said she thinks Spencer's bill is really jumping the gun. The state still has no scientific evidence that the waste facility that is proposed will endanger the health and safety of Utahns, she said. "That's what the process is still about. We are still a year away from a decision," she said. In a related issue, House Republicans were to have been briefed Thursday on a proposal to apply up to $100 million in taxes annually on low-level nuclear waste being buried in Utah, primarily in Tooele County commercial landfills. If implemented, the tax would have been on also so-called "A" wastes, including those generated in Utah. But House Majority Leader Kevin Garn, R-Layton, said the bulk of such low-level nuclear waste comes from U.S. Energy Department sites in other states. However, a consultant hired by the Legislature to study the highly controversial taxation issue resigned suddenly Thursday. Garn said the consultant "asked that his information not be made public. We've decided not to make any further comment." Garn did say the issue almost certainly would come up again Feb.13, in the next Republican lunch caucus. The state charges a fee on low-level nuclear waste, such as radioactive tailings, waste from hospital nuclear medicine programs and waste from closed federal weapons production sites. But the fee only covers regulatory costs, and the wastes have never been taxed. *Reporter Ralph Wakley contributed to this story. You can reach reporter Charles Trentelman by calling 625-4232 or e-mailing ctrentelman@standard.net.* ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Plutonium is still found at areas surrounding Test Site February 09, 2001 _By Mary Manning _ LAS VEGAS SUN As they have been for decades, trace amounts of plutonium were detected in the air surrounding the Nevada Test Site in the most recent monitoring by the Environmental Protection Agency. Six monitors surround the Test Site, in Amargosa Valley, Goldfield and Tonopah northwest of Las Vegas, Rachel and Alamo northeast of Las Vegas and in Las Vegas itself. The Test Site is 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The United States triggered more than 1,000 above- and below-ground nuclear weapons tests there between 1951 and 1992. Scientists with the EPA say the trace amounts of airborne plutonium probably originated from the fallout that drifted around the world in the 1950s and '60s, when above-ground nuclear weapons experiments were conducted at the Test Site. Plutonium has a radioactive half-life of 24,500 years, meaning that half of the radiation remains active after that period of time. Its radiation is not dangerous unless inhaled or ingested into the body, where it can cause cancers of the lung, bone or other organs. The air-monitoring results were mentioned in the Department of Energy's annual report for 1999, the latest edition available. Assisting with the report were the EPA and the Desert Research Institute. The EPA's Radiation and Indoor Environments National Laboratory is responsible for collecting air samples from the six monitors. "It's the same thing we've been seeing for years and years," lab director Jed Harrison said of the plutonium captured in the monitors' filters that was detailed in the 1999 report. David Shafer of the Desert Research Institute, an independent research facility of the University of Nevada System, also said the results are consistent with previous readings. The report is available at local libraries and at government agencies. It is also available on the DOE website at nv.doe.gov. Ground water outside the site was also analyzed from 23 wells and springs. No radioactivity was detected above natural levels. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Tank burped, and Hanford feels relieved _Dangerous buildup of explosive gas is averted in radioactive waste container _ *Friday, February 9, 2001* _By LINDA ASHTON_ THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- The notorious "burping" tank at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation has been declared cured of its potentially explosive hydrogen gas emission problems, the U.S. Department of Energy said yesterday. Tank SY-101 was removed last month from a congressional watch list of the most dangerous tanks that hold highly radioactive waste at the central Washington reservation. "I'm glad to see a creative solution to this serious and long-standing problem and glad to cross this extremely dangerous tank off the watch list," said U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who wrote the federal law creating the list. "Now, we need to finish the job, and make sure all the tanks threatening the Columbia River and our citizens downstream are made permanently secure." Tank SY-101, built in 1977, is one of 177 underground tanks in the 200 Area of Hanford that hold nearly 54 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from four decades of plutonium production. In 1990, 60 Hanford tanks were on the list. Today, there are 24. In the late 1980s, the mix of deadly waste in the 1.2 million gallon SY-101 tank began building up and releasing hydrogen gas in huge "burps" every 100 days or so. On two or three occasions, the quantities were so large -- as much as 10,000 cubic feet in 5 minutes -- they exceeded safety limits for flammability for eight hours at a time. "If there had been an ignition source, we might not be talking today," said Craig Groendyke, flammable gas project manager for DOE's Office of River Protection. In 1993, a mixer pump was installed in the tank, to stir the waste and keep the gases from building up. But the solution created new problems. By 1998, the surface level of the waste in the tank was beginning to rise, as gas bubbles became trapped in a thick crust floating in the liquid, raising concerns that it could spill over the inner containment walls. "The surface level rise was not anticipated. We hadn't seen that phenomenon," Groendyke said. In December 1999, Hanford crews began transferring some waste from the tank and diluting it with water, dissolving the gas-retaining solids. About 520,000 gallons of waste were removed from the tank and 434,000 gallons of water were added. The waste was then stirred again with the mixer pump. "At that point, we're there," Groendyke said. "We modified the chemistry of the tank so there were insufficient solids to retain gas." The tank still generates gas, which is vented. But no problems have surfaced since the last mixing, April 1. The gas is not usually radioactive, Groendyke said, but a filtering system would capture any radioactive particles. "The outfall of this was a great deal of knowledge about the gas retention mechanism," Groendyke said. "For tanks that are borderline, a lower hazard level than SY-101, we know water dilution will solve our problems." Tanks cannot be removed from the watch list until DOE determines that the safety problem is resolved. A Tanks Advisory Panel made up of university and industry specialists in hazardous waste, radioactive materials and waste management review the documentation. The remaining 24 Hanford tanks on the list are all there because of flammable gas hazards, but they are expected to be removed by Sept. 30. SY-101 had the most concentrated waste of the Hanford tanks, consequently the worst problems. The removal of SY-101 from the watch list means that Hanford can now use the tank for additional waste. It currently has capacity for about 120,000 gallons more. SY-101 is one of the newer 28 double-wall tanks, which DOE and its contractor CH2M Hill are using for interim storage by pumping liquid waste out of 149 leak-prone, older, single-shell tanks. At least 1 million gallons of highly toxic and radioactive waste in 67 of old single-wall tanks have leaked, some reaching groundwater and threatening the Columbia River. Eventually, about 10 percent of the 54 million gallons of waste is to be treated at a vitrification plant -- still in the design phase -- and turned into glass logs for long-term storage. ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 3 Hanford's 'burping tank' off federal watch list This story was published Fri, Feb 9, 2001 _By John Stang_ _Herald staff writer_ Hanford's most famous radioactive waste tank is no longer on a federal watch list, and the remaining 24 tanks on that list are supposed to be removed by Sept. 30. Tank SY-101 -- the notorious "burping tank" -- formally came off Hanford's flammable gas watch list in January, the Department of Energy's Office of River Protection and contractor CH2M Hill Hanford Group announced Thursday. Tanks on the watch list require extra monitoring and longer-term study. Actually, CH2M Hill had removed enough wastes from the tank almost a year ago to fix its long-running hydrogen gas problems. But several months of observations and follow-up studies were needed before the tank could be formally removed from the list, said Richard Raymond, a senior vice president at CH2M Hill. Tank SY-101 has been Hanford's most troublesome underground waste tank. In the late 1980s, Hanford's experts noticed volatile hydrogen gas would build up near the bottom of the almost filled 1.12-million-gallon, double-shell tank. Every few weeks, a huge amount of gas would "burp" up to the waste's surface. That hydrogen burp increased the danger of flames or an explosion erupting in the tank and spurting through its vents. In 1993, Hanford installed a giant mixer pump in the tank to constantly churn the wastes to prevent big hydrogen bubbles from forming. But the churning caused another major problem by creating tiny microbubbles of gas to get caught in the waste's surface crust. That caused the crust to thicken, moving the waste's surface level higher and higher. And that increased the chances of a leak occurring or of wastes seeping into the gap between the double-shell tank's inner and outer walls. Ultimately, Hanford pumped out about 520,000 gallons of waste out of Tank SY-101, and added about 434,000 gallons of water to dilute the remaining wastes. So today, Tank SY-101 holds almost 900,000 gallons of diluted waste with no crust on top of it, Raymond said. When Tank SY-101 left the flammable gas watch list in January, that left 24 tanks remaining. When U.S Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was a congressman, he legislated special Hanford watch lists in the early 1990s to mark the waste tanks that might pose extra dangers from gases or potentially volatile chemicals in them. Sixty tanks were put on the so-called Wyden watch lists. In the past several years, tanks with potential dangers from organic chemicals, ferrocyanide and spontaneous heating up were removed because those problems were either fixed, or proven not to exist. The remaining 24 tanks are listed because of suspicions they have flammable gas build-ups -- although to a much lesser extent than Tank SY-101. DOE and CH2M Hill have studied those tanks, expecting to have reports and recommendations ready in the near future, said Craig Groendyke, the Office of River Protection's flammable gas project manager. He tentatively expects those tanks to be removed from the Wyden list without Hanford having to take extra remedial measures. "We believe we have enough objective data and evidence to show (the 24 tanks) are not as hazardous as we once thought they were," Groendyke said. Under the Tri-Party Agreement, DOE has a legal deadline of Sept. 30 to remove all tanks from the Wyden list. In a DOE news release, Wyden said he is "glad to cross this extremely dangerous tank (SY-101) tanks off the watch list. ... Now, we need to finish the job." Hanford has 53 million gallons of wastes in 177 tanks. The site is moving all pumpable liquids from the 149 older, more leak-prone, single-shell tanks to 28 newer and safer double-shell tanks. Twenty-five double-shell tanks are in the 200 East Area where they are to hold wastes for eventual conversion into glass. Three other double-shell tanks are clustered in the SY Tank Farm in the 200 West Area. Double-shell Tank SY-102 is the jump-off point to move waste from the 200 West Area to the 200 East Area. Now that it is off the watch lost, the neighboring Tank SY-101 can received wastes from the 200 West Area's single-shell tanks to eventually send to Tank SY-102 and then the 200 East Area. Of the 24 flammable gas tanks, five are double-shell tanks -- four in the 200 East Area and the fifth being the three-quarters-filled Tank SY-103. Watch list tanks are not allowed to receive wastes. When it leaves the watch list, SY-103 can also be a feeder tank to Tank SY-102. _Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed._ ***************************************************************** 4 Fluor Hanford fills key executive posts This story was published Thu, Feb 8, 2001 _By the Herald staff_ Fluor Hanford has filled several key executive positions as a result of its new Hanford cleanup contract with the Department of Energy's Richland operations office. The new appointees are John D. Wood, vice president of the new Hanford Site Operations organization; Tom Harper, who has been promoted to vice president of Central Plateau Planning and Integration; Norman G. Powell, vice president of business systems; Larry Loguin, head of the new project operations center; and Janice D. Williams, senior director of quality assurance. Wood is responsible for managing site infrastructure, analytical services, emergency preparedness, safeguards and security and information resource management. He oversees activities performed by subcontractors DynCorp Tri-Cities Services and Lockheed Martin Services Inc. He came to Richland from Fluor Federal Services in Greenville, S.C., where he was vice president of East Coast operations. Harper takes responsibility for a new program that manages the Central Plateau, where Hanford waste will be consolidated. He will oversee strategic initiatives, accelerated closure and breakthrough initiatives. He also will continue to represent Fluor in its outreach programs to the community, which include playing a role in efforts to diversify the local economy. Powell is responsible for Fluor Hanford's human resources operations, finance, prime contracts, budget and procurement and contracts. He has worked for Fluor Corp. for more than 20 years and has been involved in some of the company's biggest projects, including Aramco, Chevron, Shell, Tenneco and Marathon. His most recent post was senior director of management services for Fluor Daniel in Houston. Olguin will head up the new Project Operations Center, which will support the Fluor Project Hanford Team. It will contain the company's engineering, construction, project management, project controls and estimating activities. Olguin began at the Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant in 1976 and had two Fluor assignments before returning again in 1996 for the Project Hanford Management Contract. He will continue as the chief engineer for the spent nuclear fuel project, which involves removing radioactive fuel from the K Basins. Williams is responsible for meeting Fluor's commitment to quality in the performance of its cleanup activities. She was previously the senior director for environment and regulation. She has worked at Hanford since 1989. Since then, she has worked in several aspects of the site cleanup, including vadose zone and ground water, waste management, tank waste and spent nuclear fuel. _Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 5 Energy boss: Nuke weapons need work Friday, February 9, 2001 WASHINGTON - Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham warned yesterday that the country's aging nuclear production facilities and laboratories need a major overhaul to ensure the performance of U.S. weapons. Abraham told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he has "great concern" about the condition of several nuclear facilities. "The Department of Energy has allowed its nuclear weapons production plants to degrade over time, leaving a tremendous backlog of deferred maintenance and modernization," he said. "The deterioration of existing facilities is a very serious threat to the Energy Department's mission readiness." The Energy Department spends $4.5 billion on a nuclear stockpile program that maintains the reliability and safety of the nation's 6,000 deployed bombs and warheads. Much of the equipment and many buildings at the nuclear weapons facilities date to the 1940s and 1950s, making them difficult and expensive to maintain, he said. Abraham declined to name specific sites that are in danger. But a report by the Energy Department's Office of Inspector General last September found crumbling buildings and postponed maintenance at the nuclear weapons production facilities in Amarillo, Texas; Kansas City, Mo.; and Oak Ridge, Tenn. The report said those problems and others plaguing America's nuclear weapons plants could cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $8 billion to fix. Abraham also said American security could be threatened by failing nuclear facilities in Russia. He said the collapse of the Russian economy has resulted a huge reduction in funds for that country's nuclear production plants and weapons facilities. "We need to work with the Russians to help them maintain their production facilities so they can avoid any further degradation to those plants," he said. comments@staff.philly.com * [ ] [ ] ©2000 KnightRidder.com ***************************************************************** 6 Bush To Review Nuclear Arsenal Las Vegas SUN: February 09, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) -- In directing the Pentagon to consider further cuts in nuclear weapons, President Bush is testing military leaders' views that reductions beyond those already planned would undermine their ability to deter war. Bush said Friday he is ordering Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to conduct a "top-to-bottom" review of the military - its strategy, missions, modernization priorities and other aspects. Included in the review is a look at how much further the nuclear arsenal could prudently be reduced, officials said. The president also affirmed that he would not ask Congress for an "early supplemental," or an add-on to the current $297 billion Pentagon budget. That leaves open the possibility -- considered a high probability by many in the Pentagon -- that he will seek a supplemental in the spring or summer. Bush said he would talk about defense spending issues next week when he travels to military bases. He specifically mentioned his campaign promise to spend an extra $1 billion on military pay raises. Three House Democrats influential on defense issues sent a letter to Bush on Friday urging him to reconsider his decision not to immediately fill the $7 billion spending gap the joint chiefs of staff have identified. "We believe that addressing these glaring needs immediately should be a top priority and must be included in your budget before we can responsibly consider trillion-dollar tax cuts," said the letter. It was signed by Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee; Rep. Norman Dicks of Washington, a member of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel, and Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. The United States has about 7,000 strategic nuclear weapons. Under the START II agreement with Russia, that number will fall to between 3,000 and 3,500. In 1997, President Clinton and President Boris Yeltsin agreed in principle that a follow-on treaty should drop the numbers to 2,000 to 2,500. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to go even lower, to 1,500 warheads. In their latest assessment, last year, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended against going below 2,000, on grounds that it would make the existing nuclear targeting plan untenable and undermine the bomber force. Echoing the view of the military chiefs, former Defense Secretary William Cohen said last May, as the chiefs were completing their review, that going below 2,000 warheads would trap the military in a "tyranny of numbers." "You could find yourself in a situation where you're forced to 'use it or lose it,' which is something we don't want to be in position to do," Cohen said. "It may force you to change your strategy as far as targeting not strategic assets but humans, which we don't want to do." Under current law, the president cannot reduce nuclear warheads below the 6,000 level called for in the Reagan-Gorbachev era START I treaty until the Pentagon has done an analysis of nuclear weapons requirements, an assessment known as a "nuclear posture review." That is set to begin this spring. It is separate from the internal study Rumsfeld has undertaken. Bush has said repeatedly that he believes the United States can unilaterally reduce its nuclear force, although he has not said by how much. His emphasis has been on unilateral cuts -- not waiting for Russia to agree to make comparable reductions, since its economic pinch already is eroding its nuclear force. In a Jan. 14 New York Times interview, Bush said when asked directly how low he believed the nuclear force could go, "That's what we are going to find out." On Jan. 26 he told reporters at the White House he intended to reduce nuclear weapons "commensurate with our ability to keep the peace." Shrinking the nuclear arsenal could help Bush win allied support for his national missile defense plan. It also would save money, a goal Rumsfeld has acknowledged will help the administration pay for its defense priorities. Rumsfeld has been even less specific about nuclear cuts than Bush. On Feb. 3 Rumsfeld was asked if he believed there was room to make deep cuts. "I would be reluctant to start prejudging, I mean, the world has changed," he said. "It is a different world, we know that." At his Senate confirmation hearing, Rumsfeld said, "I don't know whether we can reduce or not." On this and other defense issues facing the Bush administration, Rumsfeld has called on a wide variety of people to perform a thorough but rapid assessment. Aides said he is fielding advice from officials inside the Pentagon as well as experts at private think tanks, academic institutions and businesses. Among the issues he is examining is missile defense. Bush wants a plan for proceeding with a system that would defend not only the United States but also its allies from attacks by ballistic missiles. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday that the review being done by Rumsfeld will give him time to work the diplomatic side of the missile defense issue. "The first thing we really have to do is give Secretary Rumsfeld a chance to get his team in place, and to make an assessment of the various technologies that are out there, to look at the work that has been done in recent years, and to come up with a concept," Powell told a news conference. Pentagon: http://www.defenselink.mil State Department: http://www.state.gov All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear safety authority admits all info not available Age Breaking News Source: SMH|Published: Friday February 9, 2:01 PM The national nuclear safety body admits residents near the site of a new nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights won't be privy to all information on the proposal. Chief executive John Loy has told an inquiry into the reactor that trade secrets and security issues prevented the body, ARPANSA, from releasing all details. Dr Loy, who heads the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority, says the community will be given access to enough information for it to contribute to a comprehensive public consultation process. Last month Dr Loy released his safety plan of action for the proposed reactor, that's on track to be built from 2002. Argentinian company INVAP has been contracted to build the $280 million reactor, to replace the existing one at Lucas Heights in southern Sydney. Environmentalists, community groups and Sutherland Shire Council have voiced concerns over INVAP's safety record in recent months, arguing the company has a deplorable history in the proliferation of nuclear weapons. _AAP_ Copyright © 2000 The Age Company Ltd. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 8 Australia's N-bomb plan news.com.au - By CAMERON STEWART and LOUISE MILLIGAN THE creation of the Snowy Mountains scheme and the Australian National University were part of secret plans by Australia to build an atomic bomb during the 1940s and 50s, according to a controversial book to be released next week. Australia's Bid For The Atomic Bomb, by University of Newcastle academic Wayne Reynolds, also argues that the Australian government agreed to allow British nuclear tests at Maralinga because it believed they would lead to Australia acquiring the bomb. The book, based on recently declassified documents in four continents, seeks to debunk the notion that Australia was merely a passive observer of the nuclear race during the Cold War. It claims that successive Australian governments, from Curtin to Menzies, aggressively pursued the knowledge and technology required to build a bomb, and that Australia's efforts were stymied only by the US, which eventually cut Canberra off from allied assistance. Reynolds argues that the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme was originally intended to host inland nuclear power stations that could give Australia the capability to build the bomb: "The Snowy Mountains scheme was never a vast irrigation project, it was undertaken with nuclear power in mind to drive the industrialisation of Australia and provide weapons to neutralise the fear of the time -- the so-called yellow peril." The book reveals comments made in 1949 by minister for works and housing Nelson Lemmon, who said the Snowy Mountains scheme was "an endeavour to ensure that Australia does not lag in the race to develop atomic power", and that "the power will be used for defence purposes". Reynolds argues that the decision to establish the ANU and its Research School of Physical Sciences under Marcus Oliphant was driven primarily by a desire that Australia take a leading role in developing atomic energy. Canberra sought to develop this atomic capability in tandem with Britain, although the closeness of the co-operation between them angered the US, which did not want to see the proliferation of atomic secrets, even to close allies such as Australia. Reynolds argues Menzies's decision in 1955 to allow British testing at Maralinga was made in the full expectation that Australia would get the bomb. "Far from being the product of his (Menzies's) desire to please Englishmen, Maralinga was justified in terms of long-term assumptions about Australia's major regional role in empire defence," he writes. The book also claims the decision in 1955 to build a research reactor at Lucas Heights was based largely on the need for Australia to preserve an atomic weapons option. It reveals archival papers quoting supply minister Howard Beale as saying the plan to build a reactor was aimed at the large-scale production of power and plutonium, and that the commonwealth would retain control in order "to produce plutonium for military purposes". Reynolds also reveals the British were deeply concerned that the 1954 Petrov affair could compromise nuclear secrets and derail atomic co-operation with Australia. Canberra's attempts to acquire the bomb foundered in 1957, when the US and Britain renewed close atomic co-operation and decided to exclude third parties such as Australia. Melbourne University arts faculty dean Stuart Macintyre said Reynolds's book was based on substantial archival research. "It goes beyond earlier accounts of Australian strategy during the period and presents a quite different perspective on domestic politics and the literature of Australian intelligence," he said. ***************************************************************** 9 Udall urges compensation for state's downwinders__ *February 08, 2001* _By Chris Rasmussen Staff writer_ WASHINGTON - Uranium miners and victims of _nuclear_ testing in the 1950s are receiving IOUs instead of compensation from the federal government, a situation that has sparked outrage among Four Corners area legislators. Tom Udall, D-N.M., Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Jim Matheson, D-Utah, wrote a letter urging President Bush to include adequate funds in his 2001 supplemental appropriations for the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA. Last year, President Clinton and Congress failed to provide enough funding for RECA in the budget. The more than $231 million was $19 million less than what was needed. Hundreds of those who rely on the money were hit hard, said Jay Truman, founder and director of the Downwinders, a Cold War victims advocacy group. "They're giving claimants IOUs, some of which are actually dying holding this IOU," he said. Of the 3,530 people compensated by the program, many of whom live in the Four Corners area, 221 have not received payment. In New Mexico, 24 people out of 425 have received nothing from the government. RECA is not an entitlement program and must be funded on a yearly basis. Since the act was passed in 1990, the program has always been underfunded, said Tom Nagle, chief of staff for Tom Udall. "It's never had enough money," he said. "We're going to try and fix the problem." In July, the scope of the program was increased when Clinton signed into law the 2000 RECA amendments. The amendments, co-sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., expanded the list of compensable diseases and made above-ground and open-pit miners, millers and transport workers eligible. Chris Rasmussen can be reached at: chrisr@daily-times.com *****************************************************************