***************************************************************** 04/11/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.90 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Two nuke measures opposed 2 Nuclear activists seek pill distribution for residents 3 Every turtle death at nuclear plant is a reason for alarm 4 Cuts would affect energy research 5 Reviving units an option, TVA says 6 Palo Verde accident postpones refueling 7 Calif. nuclear power seen unscathed by energy crisis 8 Officials seek money from power plant 9 Permit Sought To Recycle Radioactives 10 Fukushima's Nuke Fuel Cycle Assessment Committee to be Set Up in May 11 PAEC plans to build big power plant 12 Nuclear Waste Arrives in France 13 German nuclear activists disrupt train to France 14 German nuclear train nears end 15 Call to shut Sellafield despite new report 16 New man at the Greenpeace helm aims to balance policy and piracy 17 *UN CLEARS UP MOST QUESTIONS ON IRAQI NUKES NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Scientist says DOE fuels fear 2 Plutonium storage made simple 3 Energy Department Unveils Budget Request 4 A Step Backward on Nuclear Cooperation 5 Russia's Nuclear and Missile Complex 6 State troubled by lack of funding for Hanford clean-up 7 Kursk recovery gets go-ahead 8 Bush budget cuts Hanford cleanup 9 Proposed budget cuts may affect INEEL cleanup money 10 Funding held flat for cleanup at Piketon 11 Bush budget fully funds SNS at ORNL 12 Report: From waste to wilderness 13 Several attest to K-25 water contamination ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Two nuke measures opposed April 11, 2001 By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- A parade of witnesses told a legislative committee Tuesday that proposals on the transportation and storage of nuclear waste in Nevada would signal a weakening of the state's opposition to Yucca Mountain. Solicitor General Tony Clark urged the Senate Transportation Committee to reject both Senate Bill 361 and Senate Joint Resolution 10. If they passed, "we would be sending the wrong message to Congress and the nuclear power industry that Nevada is willing to accept radioactive materials as long as certain conditions are met," Clark said. Private citizens and Clark, who represented the Attorney General's Office, Clark County, Citizen Alert and the Office of Nuclear Projects, testified against the acts. Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the only site being studied as the nation's high-level nuclear waste dump. If the authorizing legislation is approved by Congress and signed by the president, the dump would play host to 77,000 tons of spent radioactive fuel rods from utilities and military waste. Witnesses on Tuesday pointed out that Nevada already has a law prohibiting the burial of nuclear waste in the state. And the Legislature approved a resolution this session telling Congress it disapproves of any effort to locate the repository at Yucca Mountain. Sen. Ray Shaffer, D-North Las Vegas, introduced SB361 last month to require transportation of any nuclear waste be at least 10 miles away from any city or town whose population is more than 3,000. In addition, the repository must have a continuous monitoring system to make sure the containers do not leak, and any member of the public would be able to view the monitoring device and container through a website on the Internet. Shaffer said citizens were worried about the transportation of this material through urban areas, and his bill would allow the public to "see what is happening" at the burial grounds. The bill sets a limit on the public's exposure to radioactive materials to 4 millirems per year, a level slightly below what would be received from a normal X-ray. His bill takes effect only if Congress decides to name Yucca Mountain as the site for the repository, Shaffer said.The resolution, also introduced by Shaffer, urges Congress to require certain safety precautions in the transportation and storage of nuclear waste if the dump is located at Yucca Mountain. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Nuclear activists seek pill distribution for residents Wednesday, April 11, 2001 By DAVID A. VALLETTE GREENFIELD — A campaign is under way to get potassium iodide pills to all households within 10 miles of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant, including those in seven Massachusetts towns in Franklin County. At a Statehouse hearing yesterday held by the state Legislature's Joint Committee on Energy, a coalition of nuclear activists and others asked for distribution of the pills, which will be provided at no cost by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, for health protection. Currently, only emergency workers and employees of power plants have access to the iodide pills which ward off thyroid diseases, including cancer, upon exposure to radioactive iodine that can be released during nuclear plant accidents. While the federal commission will provide the pills, determinations about their distribution have been left to the states, and to date, the Massachusetts Department of Health has made no move to get the pills to residents, citing a liability issue and dubious need. "It can cause adverse reactions," said Robert Hallisey of the department's Radiation Control Program. But members of the coalition testified yesterday that the pills have a proven track record when taken in a timely manner. One instance cited has been the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Russia. Pills were given to residents in nearby Poland, but none were available in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. While the incidence of thyroid cancer stayed level among Polish children, it soared 200 times the norm in the other three countries, according to data cited by the federal commission in December. Matthew Wilson, spokesman for Toxics Action Center, a member of the coalition, said yesterday he thinks state health officials are being swayed by the nuclear industry. "The nuclear industry is against it because it is an admission that accidents happen," he contended. The bill calling for distribution was filed for the coalition by state Rep. Vincent Pedone, D-Worcester. Deborah B. Katz of Rowe, spokeswoman for the Citizens Awareness Network, also a member of the coalition, said the pills should be made available and immediately accessible. The state senators who together represent the seven towns — Stanley C. Rosenberg for Bernardston, Colrain, Gill, Greenfield and Leyden, and Stephen M. Brewer for Northfield and Warwick — both said yesterday they will await the report of the energy committee before taking a position on the distribution of the pills. © 2001 UNION-NEWS. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 3 Every turtle death at nuclear plant is a reason for alarm Letters to the Editors © St. Petersburg Times, published April 11, 2001 Editor: Re: Turtles flocking to nuclear facility, April 4 Citrus Times: Florida Power spokesman Mac Harris accuses the Nuclear Information and Resource Service and others who oppose the environmental damage caused by nuclear reactors of being "really an anti-nuclear group." Absolutely. What does Mr. Harris imagine "anti- nuclear" groups do, and why does he think they exist? The answer is to draw to public attention the lethal effects of nuclear power on the environment, on human health and safety and, in the case of Crystal River, on sea turtles. By its very nature, anti-nuclear work is inevitably about protecting the environment. It is precisely because nuclear power poses such high risks to the public and the environment that groups like NIRS and our own are engaged in studies like Licensed to Kill. It is the reason we espouse cleaner, cheaper and, above all, safer energy alternatives. The Kemp's Ridley is the most severely endangered species of sea turtle in the world. The effects of capture at a nuclear plant on this species cannot be blithely dismissed as unimportant. Every death, like the one at Crystal River last month, has a cumulative impact on an already fragile population. In Licensed to Kill we quoted FPC's own response when the National Marine Fisheries Service suggested that the utility attempt to discover why its reactors were capturing large quantities of sea turtles. NMFS recommended conducting tissue sampling of the captured Kemps and that FPC work on a design for diversionary structures to keep sea turtles away from the plant. FPC's response was "the sampling of Kemp's Ridleys is unnecessary" while providing no explanation for this theory. FPC avoided the deterrent research as well, simply stating it was "not likely an effective means of reducing sea turtle takes." FPC has, by its own omission, never bothered to find out what is. The utility's plan to lobby for more sea turtle kill allowances is yet another case in point. -- Linda Gunter, communications director, Safe Energy Communication Council, Washington, D.C. author, Licensed to Kill Altering nature while wasting tax dollars ***************************************************************** 4 Cuts would affect energy research HoustonChronicle.com *April 9, 2001, 9:40PM* By DAPHNE RETTER Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- President Bush proposed Monday cutting the Energy Department's renewable energy research program by one-third next year while pumping $150 million into developing a cleaner-burning coal. In a detailed budget proposal submitted to Congress, the president calls for the agency to spend about $100 million less in 2002 while searching for ways to deal with what his administration characterizes as an impending energy crisis. In a signal that he expects a dramatic shift in the the department's priorities, Bush calls for a healthy cut in what the agency spends helping the nation's oil and gas industries with research and development. Bush's spending plan also outlines a plan to revisit the prospect of increasing the role of nuclear power in U.S. energy policy. "The taxpayers sent us here to weed out the waste and to address growing problems of energy supply," said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "The weeding begins with this budget." Abraham said the $19.2 billion proposed for the agency is essentially the same being spent this year when one-time expenses -- such as last year's brush fire at Los Alamos, N.M. -- are removed from the equation. The secretary said the spending proposal reflects necessary changes in energy programs, many of which are outdated or inefficient. "This budget acts as a prudent transition between what was left to us by the previous administration and where we will be headed in the budgets for 2003 and beyond," Abraham said. Environmental groups called the cuts in energy research another assault on the environment by the Republican administration. David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, said the proposed cuts will hurt consumers in a time when they cannot afford it. "Faced with sky-high heating bills, increased gasoline prices and new prospects for electricity shortages, the nation needs to invest more heavily in energy efficiency, which remains the cheapest, quickest and cleanest way to lessen energy problems and extend energy supplies." Nemtzow said. Most of the cuts were taken from research and development of renewable resources. Programs that examine alternative energy sources such as solar or wind power would drop from $373 million this year to $276 million in 2002. Abraham said programs that are being cut have done nothing so far to overcome the nation's increasing energy woes. "Continuing and expanding programs that have been in place as we drifted to the brink of an energy crisis does not appear to be a wiser course of action," Abraham said. Bush's budget suggests that some spending on solar, wind and hydroelectric power could be restored in 2004 with money earned from oil leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if Congress allows drilling there. So far, the House and Senate have snubbed the suggestion. The president's budget proposal calls for spending $2 billion over the next 10 years to resurrect the Clean Coal Power Initiative -- a program that went unfunded for most of the last decade. Abraham called the $150 million being proposed for 2001 "a down payment" on the program aimed at developing coal that is less environmentally harmful when burned to produce electricity. The coal initiative would match industry research dollars to accelerate the development of technology to "economically meet environmental standards." One government watchdog group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, warned that the Energy Department is "putting all their eggs in the coal basket. "The best energy policy has as much diversity as you would want for your stock portfolio," said Keith Ashdown, the group's communications director. The 50 percent cut in the research and development subsidies for the oil and gas industry is part of a ground-up overhaul of the agency, Abraham said. The restructuring is designed to eliminate programs that already have met their goals or do not produce enough benefit to justify their costs. The department's proposal would increase funding for nuclear energy, which currently provides almost 20 percent of the nation's electricity. The government has not issued a license to build a nuclear power plant in two decades. The use of nuclear power as an alternative energy sources was endorsed over the weekend by Vice President Dick Cheney, who characterized it as less environmentally harmful than existing power plants that burn fossil fuels. ***************************************************************** 5 Reviving units an option, TVA says This story appeared in The Times Free Press on Wednesday, April 11, 2001 By Dave Flessner *Business Editor* The Tennessee Valley Authority may reactivate some of its mothballed nuclear reactors for extra power in the future, TVA Director Skila Harris said Tuesday. But Ms. Harris said construction or repair work will not resume at any of TVA's four idled or unfinished nuclear units until the utility determines it won't push up TVA's relative cost of power. Furthermore, the TVA director said utilities eventually must have a permanent storage dump for their radioactive nuclear wastes. "I think the nuclear industry has a real opportunity now, not only because of changing public attitudes but also because the economics look different," Ms. Harris said in an interview with the editors of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. "When it makes good business sense for TVA, then I think it is a very viable option." Soaring natural gas prices and stricter environmental requirements for coal have pushed up utility costs at a time of rising energy demand. By contrast, nuclear power plants are powered by cheaper uranium fuel and don't have the air pollution or global warming problem of fossil fuels. Ms. Harris said TVA is well positioned with a mix of generating capacity from coal, nuclear, hydro and natural gas. But the nuclear power industry is still struggling to find a permanent home for the highly radioactive wastes it generates. "For nuclear power to truly be viable in the long term, we're going to have to deal with the nuclear waste issue," TVA Chairman Craven Crowell said in a recent interview. Congress directed the Department of Energy in 1982 to find a site to bury spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive wastes. DOE has identified Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the preferred site, and tests continue at the site on storage methods. Ms. Harris, a former DOE official who visited Yucca Mountain just last week, said the Nevada location is the most tested and proven site for storing the nuclear wastes. "We are so far along on the road toward permanent storage at Yucca Mountain," she said. "The issues are no longer technical; they are political." In the meantime, however, TVA continues to store its spent nuclear fuel on site. The utility generates 81 tons of used fuel each year and in 2004 will begin storing nuclear wastes in above-ground, concrete containers with steel-inner canisters. Some object to storing nuclear wastes at nuclear plants. But Ms. Harris said the storage casts are safe and the biggest issue about nuclear wastes is what happens thousands of years from now. "It makes no sense to make these sites on the Tennessee River where we get our drinking water the nuclear dumps of our region," said Dr. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, an anti-nuclear group. Ms. Harris and fellow Director Glenn McCullough, who will assume control of TVA on Monday when TVA Chairman Craven Crowell retires, may decide in the next year whether to begin work to restart TVA's oldest nuclear reactor. Browns Ferry Unit 1 has been idle since safety concerns were raised in 1985. Ms. Harris said she has confidence in TVA's nuclear staff to be able to restart the Browns Ferry unit within budget. Preliminary studies suggest the Unit 1 reactor would cost more than $1 billion to repair and restart. TVA wants to add more generating capacity to meet its rising load, but Ms. Harris said one of the utility's goals is also to continue to reduce its $26 billion debt. "We want to make sure our costs continue to be lower relative to other utilities in the market," she said. *E-mail Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com* Email this story to a friend | To print this article use print button at top Chattanooga Times Free Press on the World Wide Web, and the ***************************************************************** 6 Palo Verde accident postpones refueling Outage expected to go into May Max Jarman The Arizona Republic Apr. 11, 2001 A refueling accident at Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station will keep one of its three reactors out of commission into late May when Valley energy demand usually spikes. Jim McDonald, a spokesman for the plant's manager, Arizona Public Service Co., said a control rod was "banged" April 5 during extraction and will have to be replaced. An inspection of other rods turned up more elements that needed replacing. "We could have gone forward until the next refueling, but made a conservative decision to do the repairs now to ensure reliability for the summer," McDonald said. Barring the loss of another generator, or an unseasonably warm May, McDonald said APS, which owns 30 percent on the plant, would have no problem meeting its customers' demand for electricity. The Salt River Project, an 18 percent owner, also was optimistic the extended outage would not cause supply problems. As a result of the repairs, the fueling outage that began March 31 will take an estimated 50 days, instead of 35. That means APS and other Palo Verde owners will likely have to dig into their pockets to buy high-priced wholesale power to meet demand or cut back their own lucrative power sales activities. "It will cost us money," McDonald said. The damaged Palo Verde unit produces 1,270 megawatts of electricity, enough to light 500,000 homes. Combined, the three units, 50 miles west of downtown Phoenix, satisfy about one-third of APS' average daily demand for power and about 20 percent of SRP's. Copyright 2001, azcentral.com. All rights reserved. USA Today| ***************************************************************** 7 Calif. nuclear power seen unscathed by energy crisis [Reuters] Tuesday April 10, 7:54 pm Eastern Time SAN FRANCISCO, April 10 (Reuters) - California's energy crisis and the bankruptcy of its biggest utility have not compromised the safety or value of the state's giant nuclear power plants, federal officials said on Tuesday. ``Really, not a lot has changed since January when the financial pressures first began to show themselves,'' Ellis Merschoff, western regional administrator for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said in a telephone interview. Merschoff was speaking to Reuters from San Luis Obispo after briefing local media there following an NRC inspection of the nearby Diablo Canyon nuclear power facility. The NRC, headquartered in Washington D.C., is responsible for ensuring the safe use of radioactive material in power generation, medicine and science, and conducts rigorous inspections of all nuclear power plants nationwide. The giant Diablo Canyon power station, whose two reactors generate 2,200 megawatts, is owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the utility subsidiary of San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. (NYSE:PCG - news). Pacific Gas and Electric filed for bankruptcy protection Friday after running up a debt of $9 billion buying electricity for customers in the state's volatile wholesale power market. California's 1996 deregulation law blocks investor-owned utilities from billing retail customers for the full cost of wholesale power, which has jumped tenfold over the past 10 months on soaring demand and a severe supply shortage. Merschoff said the NRC sent a letter to California Gov. Gray Davis shortly after hearing of PG&E's bankruptcy to ``reassure the governor that an independent set of eyes was watching the nuclear facilities'' and would beef up inspections, if necessary. California has two more reactors at the San Onofre station in San Clemente. The San Onofre units, with a total generating capacity of 2,170 megawatts, are operated by Southern California Edison, the utility subsidiary of Rosemead, Calif.-based Edison International (NYSE:EIX - news). Southern California Edison, like PG&E, is also struggling to stay afloat in a sea of debt, though a deal struck Monday with Gov. Davis in which the state agreed to buy the utility's share of the power grid for $2.76 billion will likely give it enough cash to fend off bankruptcy. The Diablo Canyon and San Onofre nuclear plants together generate enough electricity to serve about four million homes. Merschoff said recent NRC visits to the two plants convinced inspectors that the two troubled utilities still have enough money to ensure the continued safe operation of the reactors. ``Nuclear power plants are extremely valuable assets to the utilities and the state of California,'' he said. Maintaining those plants' financially and operationally will be critical to California over the next few months as the state scrambles to find precious megawatts for its overstrained grid. With four days of rolling blackouts already behind it this winter and dire warnings from state energy officials of more to come, California will need to keep every available power plant on line to minimize outages this summer, when electricity demand for air conditioning soars to its annual peak. Nuclear power accounts for about 16 percent of all electricity used by California's 34 million residents. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy ***************************************************************** 8 Officials seek money from power plant Godley request: Want new water system after last year's oil spill HERALD NEWS STAFF GODLEY — Godley officials, contending an oil spill last June from the Braidwood Nuclear Power Station is an accident waiting to happen again, have asked the owners of the plant for at least $1 million. Most of the money would be used to finance a new public water system to replace private wells in the village. Exelon, the new corporate entity in charge of the Braidwood plant after a merger last year, contends it has repaired the problem and is not willing to put up money beyond what it already pays in local taxes. During heavy rains on June 25, about 3,000 gallons of oil escaped from a drainage system at the station and flowed into a ditch that runs through Godley. Plant officials said they believed they recovered nearly all of the oil before it got to Godley. With spring rains coming, however, some Godley officials believe a spill could happen again at the nuclear plant. "There's no way they can avoid it," said Joe Cosgrove, administrator for the Godley Park District and manager for a water district created to build a future public water supply. "We know that, and they know that." Cosgrove said Godley officials have continued to meet with Exelon representatives in the past year, but are contemplating lawsuits against the company. Not everyone in the village, however, is in agreement about what Exelon should do. "I don't care about the money," said Village President R.A. Willis. But Willis, too, believes oil is left over from last year's spill, and Exelon should be forced to do more cleanup. One of the main concerns, Cosgrove said, is that oil spills before the one that happened last year could have contaminated soil in the area and pose a hazard to shallow wells now used in Godley for drinking water. "We have a concern about draining contaminants into an industrial ditch that is 50 feet from private wells," he said. Water samples taken by health officials last year did not show evidence that the oil spill had contaminated the local wells. Exelon contends that there is no lingering threat to the local water supply. "We're convinced that we got it all," said Jim von Suskil, site vice president for the Braidwood station. Von Suskil said there were four oil spills at the station since 1990. But the spill last June was the only one in which any oil escaped past the borders of the nuclear plant, he said. Exelon has improved the drainage system that was unable to handle the spill last June, and the company has set up a maintenance program to ensure it doesn't happen again, von Suskil said. That program includes more frequent cleaning of the oil-separator system designed to keep oil out of the drainage ditch. Exelon also will clean vegetation out of the ditch more frequently to try to prevent water from backing up and overloading the drainage system. While Exelon is not willing to make a financial contribution to a future water system, von Suskil noted the plant does pay about $25 million in taxes that are spread into local communities. He also said Exelon is willing to lend its engineering expertise to help design a new water system. "We think those resources are considerable," von Suskil said. "We can provide some guidance along the way." ***************************************************************** 9 Permit Sought To Recycle Radioactives The Salt Lake Tribune -- April 11, 2001* THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A uranium mill in southeastern Utah may soon be accepting 17,750 tons of radioactive, lead-contaminated sludge. International Uranium Corp. has petitioned the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to recycle the sludge from the Molycorp site in Mountain Pass, Calif. The company wants to extract small traces of uranium left over from five decades of bastnasite ore processing. Environmentalists say the amount of uranium is too small -- less than one-fifth of 1 percent -- to justify shipping the hazardous material. "We don't know what's in that stuff," said Ken Sleight of the Glen Canyon Group, a newly formed chapter of the Sierra Club. "It is amazing they can bring that stuff in our neighborhood without a public hearing." International Uranium has legally skirted state regulations on the disposal and transportation of such wastes under provisions in federal law that give the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, not the state, primacy in determining how the wastes are managed. The NRC has granted International Uranium's earlier requests to dispose of mill tailings, saying recycling is exempt from state regulation. Utah regulators fought those earlier NRC decisions and lost. This time, the regulators are not openly opposing the International Uranium proposal. "We have learned there are times when it is appropriate to question amendment requests," said Bill Sinclair, director of the Utah Division of Radiation Control. "If we contested every one of them, we would be broke." The state's decision not to formally intervene has prompted the Sierra Club to petition the NRC for a hearing on the application. The company said the transportation of the waste on Interstate 15, across Interstate 70 and down U.S. 191 to Blanding is safe. The trucks' contents are all wrapped in heavy plastic that prevents leakage or contamination, the company said. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 10 Fukushima's Nuke Fuel Cycle Assessment Committee to be Set Up in May CNIC cnic.jca.apc.org Citizens' Nuclear Information Center Wednesday, 11 April 2001 CNIC On 9 April, 2001, Fukushima Governor Eisaku Sato announced that he will set up an assessment committee in May 2001 to review thePrefecture's energy policy. The Governor stated that the current state of nuclear fuel cycle would be assessed and that he hopes to have the cycle analyzed from multiple angles including economic and safety aspects. The assessment process will "basically be open to the public" and outside experts will be invited to participate in the review which will mainly be conducted by Prefectural officials. The Governor stated that the assessment will including reviewing theconcept of regional development, which up until now has often been associated with government subsidies attached to large public projects such as construction of power plants, dams, ports, and so on. In Japan it is rare that a Governor would challenge national policies, and he isunder intense pressure to lift the postponement on burning MOX fuel at Fukushima I-3 (see related articles). The Governor has refused to meet with the president of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the owner of Fukushima I-3. When asked about meeting him, the Governor went only as far as commenting that he wouldprovide the president an explanation on the reason for postponing the MOX program "if there is an occasion in the future." However, though at an administrative level, Fukushima prefecture did give an official explanation to Niigata prefecture, site of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 3 which is next in line with plans to burn MOX, on the 9th on reasons for the postponement. On 11 April, it was reported that TEPCO had given up on the planned loading of MOX fuel at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 3 during this month because of local opposition to the plan. The 28 assemblies of MOX fuel were recently transported from Europe to Niigata prefecture for Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 3 and were to be loaded in the plant during itsperiodic inspection which is to begin on the 17th and completed on 13 July, 2001. In its plan for the coming periodic inspection to besubmitted to the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) soon, TEPCO will apply for loading uranium fuel instead of MOX. TEPCO contends that though its basic policy for now is to load uranium fuel, it will load MOX as soon as local understanding is obtained. However, Niigata governor is against making his prefecture the first one to burn MOX. 3F Kotobuki Bldg., 1-58-15 Higashi-nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo 164-0003 Japan Tel: 81-3-5330-9520; Fax: 81-3-5330-9530 http://www.cnic.or.jp/
cnic-jp@po.iijnet.or.jp (C) Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (CNIC) ***************************************************************** 11 PAEC plans to build big power plant -DAWN - National; 10 April, 2001 By Our Reporter ISLAMABAD April 9: The Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) is weighing options whether to build a 600 to 900 megawatt new power plant or copy the recently commissioned 323 megawatt Chashma plant. The bigger plants, PAEC bosses believe, will be producing cheaper electricity as compared to 323MW plant. Dr Ishfaq Ahmad, the former PAEC chairman had recently announced that a third nuclear power plant with 100 per cent indigenous expertise and resources would be established in the country. Chairman PAEC Parvez Butt told DAWN here on Monday that the PAEC has initiated a study to examine and decide about the size of the third plant as both the options have their own advantages and disadvantages. "Pakistan should not wait for another 30 years to have another power plant," the ex-chairman had said while inaugurating the Chashma power plant recently. The 137 megawatt Karachi nuclear power plant (KANUPP) and the recently inaugurated 323 megawatt power plant CHASHNUPP at Chashma are operating successfully. "If we go for a larger unit, then it would mean establishing 600 megawatts or 900 megawatts. Both sizes are world standard nuclear power plants and are very economical in terms of per megawatt power generation," explained Mr Butt who assumed the office of the chairmanship three days ago. "In case we opt for a copy of the 323 megawatt Chashma power plant then it would be very easy for us in terms of its operation and maintenance," Mr Butt observed. The PAEC is operating the Chashma power plant at an average plant factor of 70 per cent that is capable of supplying 1,840 million kilowatts per hour of electricity to Wapda on an annual basis. The contract for the establishment of Chashma was signed between the PAEC and China national nuclear corporation on Dec 31, 1991. It had achieved first criticality on May 3, 2000 and was connected to the national grid on June 13, 2000. After performance tests, the plant was handed over to the PAEC on September 25, 2000 and has since been supplying electricity to Wapda. © The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2001 ***************************************************************** 12 Nuclear Waste Arrives in France April 11, 2001 VALOGNES, France- A train packed with 24 tons of German nuclear waste arrived in northern France on Wednesday, encountering only small protests a day after hundreds of activists were arrested for protesting the shipments in Germany. The shipment to a reprocessing plant is the first of its kind in three years. Transport of nuclear waste from Germany to France was suspended in 1998 when radiation was found to be leaking from a container. Some 150 riot police stood by as the train pulled into the station at Valognes, where the waste was to be inspected before being transported by truck to the plant in La Hague, about 25 miles away. A dozen Greenpeace activists blocked the train in the northern city of Caen, and four protesters chained themselves to the tracks. Police quickly removed them. Before dawn, as the train rumbled through the western Paris suburb of Yvelines, some 50 protesters blocked its path and caused an hour-long delay, LCI television reported. The train, carrying five containers of radioactive waste, set out Tuesday from Woerth, in western Germany. The small protests in France contrasted with those in Germany, where 2,000 police guarded one of the nuclear plants, at Philippsburg in Baden-Wuerttemberg state, and arrested hundreds of protesters. Near the border crossing, several activists chained themselves to the rail, delaying the train by an hour. Germany has traditionally sent spent nuclear fuel from its power plants to France for reprocessing under contracts that oblige it to take back the resultant waste. Protesters say the shipments are unsafe and want Germany's nuclear plants shut down quickly. They aim to make the transports so expensive that the government and power companies will be forced to halt them. The German government last year struck a deal to scrap the country's 19 nuclear plants, but the shutdown could still take over 20 years. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 13 German nuclear activists disrupt train to France - 4/10/2001 - ENN.com [Three rail cars carrying nuclear waste are pushed out of the nuclear power plant of Philippsburg near Karlsruhe in the German state of Baden Wuerttemberg Tuesday.] Three rail cars carrying nuclear waste are pushed out of the nuclear power plant of Philippsburg near Karlsruhe in the German state of Baden Wuerttemberg Tuesday. German anti-nuclear activists disrupted a shipment of spent nuclear fuel to France on Tuesday by chaining themselves to the rails near a nuclear power plant in the southern state of Bavaria. Police said four Greenpeace activists who chained themselves to the tracks near Sennfeld and four others hanging from ropes from a pedestrian bridge were delaying the transport of the first waste Germany was sending to France for reprocessing in four years. Police said they were using special welding equipment to free the demonstrators. "It will probably take a while for us to clear the tracks," a spokesman said. Six demonstrators have been taken into custody, police said. Protesters were trying to stop a container carrying nuclear waste from a power plant in Bavaria that began its journey to a waste reprocessing center in France. The container was first transported by truck and accompanied by a police escort from the Grafenrheinfeld power plant to a rail station in Gochsheim. Several hundred anti-nuclear activists stood by at the train station where the container was transferred to the rails amid a police presence of hundreds of German police. But they were unable to stop the demonstrators in the nearby town of Sennfeld. Three further containers carrying spent nuclear fuel from the Philipsburg power plant in Baden-Wuerttemberg and another container from the Biblis plant in Hesse were due to join the rail transport in Woerth in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate before it heads for the French reprocessing plant in La Hague. Authorities said the Philipsburg and Biblis plants had nearly exhausted their temporary storage capacity and would be forced to shut down soon if the waste was not removed. Anti-nuclear demonstrators had clashed with police two weeks ago when Germany took back the first cargo of reprocessed waste from France since the German government banned the shipments in 1998 over concerns about radioactive leaks and huge anti-nuclear protests. Authorities employed 20,000 police costing the state around $50 million to protect the shipment on its way from France back to a storage facility in the northern German town of Gorleben. Protesters briefly halted the train by chaining themselves to the tracks. German anti-nuclear activists have announced they will try to block the train coming from Philippsburg in southwestern Germany before it crosses into France on Tuesday evening. The train carrying nuclear waste from Germany to a reprocessing plant in northern France this week will pass through the suburbs of Paris, French anti-nuclear groups said. The train, due to traverse France in the early hours of Wednesday, will pass through Bobigny, a suburb so close to the capital that it is on the Paris metro network, they said. Copyright 2001, Reuters ***************************************************************** 14 German nuclear train nears end BBC News | EUROPE | Wednesday, 11 April, 2001, 16:05 GMT 17:05 Anti-nuclear protests have dogged the train A consignment of nuclear fuel from Germany has completed its rail journey through France, despite protests along the way. The consignment of spent fuel rods has arrived at the town of Valognes in north-western France and will complete the final 40km (25 miles) to the reprocessing plant at La Hague by road. The five-car train, which is carrying spent nuclear fuel rods from three German reactors, has been dogged by protests. German police say 160 people were arrested. The shipment is the first to be sent from German nuclear plants to France in three years and follows a decision in 1998 to suspend such shipments after the discovery of high radiation levels during the handling of waste containers. Disrupted Earlier on Monday, the nuclear train was briefly delayed by anti-nuclear protesters. The French news agency AFP reported that about 40 protesters held up the train at the Conflans Fin d'Oise station to the west of Paris, just after dawn. They set fire to crates piled on the tracks, but dispersed peacefully after about 40 minutes. [Protestors clash with German police] Police and protesters clash near Philippsburg The French protesters said in a statement that they opposed "once again that France should take on the role as the world's nuclear waste bin", French news agency AFP reported. Around 100 of the German arrests came amid clashes with police near the Philippsburg nuclear power station. Other activists were detained in Bavaria. Last month, a train bringing nuclear waste back from the same plant in France was delayed by up to 24 hours as protesters chained themselves to the rails. [Nuclear fuel convoy] The final cost of policing the last operation was put at $50m The latest protest actions come two weeks after thousands of protesters held up six containers of nuclear waste which were being returned from France following reprocessing. Protesters had hoped to repeat their earlier success, when it took 30,000 police officers across Germany to clear a path for the shipment. Policing them cost more than $50m, and embarrassed the governing Red-Green coalition which is committed to ending nuclear power within 30 years. Warning Some environmentalists say this is not fast enough, and have vowed to continue their protests until reprocessing abroad is halted. The nuclear fuel rods began their journey in three German states - Bavaria, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Hessen. Their final destination is the Cogema reprocessing plant at La Hague. ***************************************************************** 15 Call to shut Sellafield despite new report ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND Wednesday, April 11, 2001 By Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor The campaign against the Sellafield reprocessing plant is warranted despite a study which dismissed any link between the plant and Down's syndrome births in Dundalk, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII) has stated. The institute was commenting yesterday on a report that showed there could be no connection between the cluster of Down's cases and a serious fire at the then Windscale nuclear reactor in 1957. The study examined why six women who had been students at a Dundalk school in 1957 all later gave birth to Down's babies. Irish epidemiologist Dr Geoffrey Dean published his findings last December in the *Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine*. While acknowledging the cluster was unusual, he said radioactive contamination from the fire could not have been a factor. Three of the six students had left the school some months before the fire, Dr Dean reported. The Government should continue its efforts to have Sellafield closed, according to RPII chief executive Dr Tom O'Flaherty. "Ireland's objections to Sellafield are solidly based," he said. They are based on ongoing pollution but also the risk of a major accident at the plant. "These objections are not undermined because the suggestion of a link with the Down's syndrome cluster in Dundalk has been disproved." ***************************************************************** 16 New man at the Greenpeace helm aims to balance policy and piracy Independent In his first interview, the former Foreign Office diplomat insists direct action remains the way forward By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor 11 April 2001 Can you successfully run Greenpeace, the most swashbuckling of all the environmental pressure groups, if you're a policy wonk by nature rather than a pirate? The British branch of the organisation is about to find out. At its head from this week is Stephen Tindale, one of the most influential figures in British environmental policy-making of the past decade, and a key behind-the-scenes architect of New Labour's green strategies. In government, he was special adviser to the Environment minister Michael Meacher; before that, in opposition, he did the same job for Chris Smith when he was shadow Secretary of State for the Environment in the mid-Nineties. In between, he has knitted his brows in three separate green think-tanks: thinking is Mr Tindale's speciality. But action, often spectacular action, rather than thinking, is what has defined Greenpeace in the 30 years in which it has gone from a small anti-nuclear protest group in Vancouver to a global green organisation able to challenge multinational companies and even national governments. Chimneys climbed, pipes blocked, oil platforms hijacked, banners hung, ships occupied and, unforgettably, the figure in the small inflatable boat getting between the whale harpooner and the whale ­ these are the images that have been the group's stock-in-trade and have won it worldwide support. Is this all now to change for Greenpeace UK with a policy specialist in charge? Mr Tindale shakes his head. "People have said to me, 'It must be a change of direction for Greenpeace to have someone like you', and my answer is, 'It's a change of direction for me, not for Greenpeace'." While he freely admits that his own experience of confrontation is strictly limited ­ he spent a day in a Brussels jail after a protest at Nato headquarters ­ direct action is on the agenda as much as it ever was, he says, although he declines to specify where or when. Thirty-eight years old, married to a BBC producer and with a young daughter, his background at first seems unconventional for a green campaigner: public school (The Leys School, Cambridge) and Oxford, followed by the Foreign Office (Third Secretary in Islamabad). But he has been a radical since his teens, and while a diplomat was ­ openly ­ a member of both CND and the Labour Party. If MI5 wants to build a file on him, it can look at the one it already has. He left the Foreign Office in 1989 to join the environment movement as assistant air pollution campaigner at Friends of the Earth, and remembers the starkness of the culture shock with a grin. "I left the Foreign Office on Friday in a suit and on Monday morning I was sitting cross-legged and barefoot in a meeting chaired by Jonathon Porritt on the roof of the Friends of the Earth building." Eventually he became a key Labour adviser, via the Fabian Society, the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Green Alliance. He has been with Greenpeace for a year since leaving Michael Meacher (and upsetting some of his former colleagues by publicly berating Tony Blair's personal support for nuclear reprocessing and genetically modified crops). He joined as chief policy adviser, but now the Greenpeace board has decided he is the right person to take over as executive director from the previous incumbent, Lord Melchett. Peter Melchett, as he is universally known, became a national figure last year when he led a raid on a field of GM crops in Norfolk and was subsequently acquitted, with 28 others, by a jury at Norwich Crown Court. But Lord Melchett is not the only action man potentially casting a shadow as the new boss takes up the reins. Thirteen days ago Greenpeace's most charismatic figure, its former international chairman, David McTaggart, was killed in a car crash in Italy, and the widespread tributes to the 69-year-old Canadian emphasised how the organisation's very temper had been set by his remarkable acts of derring-do, such as sailing his boat single-handedly into France's Pacific nuclear test zone and being assaulted by French commandos. He was hard, forceful, peppery, salty, said the tributes: he had the soul of a pirate. "I never met David McTaggart and I regret that because he was clearly an exceptional human being," says Mr Tindale. "But I'm not in that mould. I'm not someone who shouts a lot. I'm more of a quiet revolutionary than a pirate." He insists that non-violent direct action is the core of what Greenpeace stands for. "The reason I came here was because I had come to understand the limits of policy-making, and the limits of argument. It's actually about power. "The reason change is not happening often is not because people don't know a better way, not because solutions don't exist, but it's because there are very powerful vested interests who do extremely well out of business as usual, who are standing in the way of change. And Greenpeace understands that and that's why confrontation and direct action are at the heart of what we do. The essential difference Greenpeace makes is to confront abuses of nature and try to stop them." But as befits his policy background he stresses that Greenpeace tries to offer thought-out alternative solutions as well as confrontations in any issue, from "greenfreeze" technology, which can replace CFCs in fridges, to the whole gamut of renewable energy. He takes over the British organisation at an optimistic time: both income (£9m) and membership (just under 200,000) are rising after a substantial dip in each in the middle of the past decade. Greenpeace has also been boosted internationally by a series of recent victories, not least saving a big part of the temperate rainforest of British Columbia from logging. How would he want to be judged at the end of his term? "My aim is to get to the stage in five years' time when everyone recognises Greenpeace immediately as a fearless confronter of wrongs," says the action man, "but at the same time an enthusiastic and innovative presenter of solutions," the policy analyst adds. ***************************************************************** 17 *UN CLEARS UP MOST QUESTIONS ON IRAQI NUKES Middle East Newsline - Area News - Updated Daily WASHINGTON [MENL] -- The United Nations has cleared up the lion's share of questions regarding whether Iraq is maintaining a secret nuclear program. A UN report said, however, that the resolution of the few remaining questions requires the return of inspectors to Iraq. The report said that without the return of the inspectors the UN cannot determine whether Iraq has eliminated weapons of mass destruction. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency sent inspectors in January to examine an Iraqi installation. The IAEA verified that nuclear material in Iraq is being subject to safeguards. But IAEA director-general Mohammed El Baradei said the visit could not verify whether Iraq continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Scientist says DOE fuels fear *Consultant says agency raises undue concerns in way it reports health risks of shipping nuclear material * *Web posted Wednesday, April 11, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* The U.S. Department of Energy should consider changing the way it reports the potential health risks of shipping radioactive material, a consultant said Tuesday. The department's use of ``latent cancer fatalities'' raises unnecessary fears among the public, said Ruth Weiner, senior environmental scientist for Jason Associates Corp. and a member of the American Nuclear Society's board of directors. ``This has, in my estimation, done nothing but fuel fear and mistrust,'' Dr. Weiner told about 50 people gathered in Aiken's Newberry Hall for a breakfast. The event was sponsored by the pro-nuclear group Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness. ``If we reported these things as doses, then it seems to me that at best the members of the public who don't have a vested interest in seeing the nuclear industry collapse would recognize that this is not `mobile Chernobyl,''' she said. But a nuclear watchdog said later that use of the measure was valid and accepted by leading scientific authorities. ``A fact is that radiation exposure can cause cancer,'' said Ed Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, during a telephone interview from Washington. ``To try to dispute that in any way is ridiculous. The risk may be low, but you can't deny it's there.'' Thousands of shipments of radioactive waste and spent nuclear-reactor fuels will be made along U.S. highways in coming years as the nation attempts to consolidate its wastes in underground vaults. Although many residents along the shipping routes have raised concerns about the planned shipments, proponents have said that the health risks are low. For example, someone exposed to every one of about 50,000 planned shipments to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada would receive a dose of only 50 millirem over 24 years, Dr. Weiner said. That is about one-seventh of the annual dose that people receive from natural radiation, Dr. Weiner said. But the Energy Department converts such statistics into ``latent cancer fatalities,'' an expression of the number of cancer deaths that could be caused by radiation exposures. Those estimates also are low - the National Research Council has estimated that shipping 3,300 tons of spent fuel annually would result in one cancer death every 2,300 years - but just the mention of cancer is enough to instill fear in the public, Dr. Weiner said. ``There is no scientific basis for this conversion factor,'' Dr. Weiner said. ``One of the things that fuels public fear is the use of a simple multiplying factor.'' Reach Brandon Haddockat (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com. All contents © 1996 - 2001 *The Augusta Chronicle*. All rights ***************************************************************** 2 Plutonium storage made simple 24-hour Service for Engineers and Industry From , 10 April 2001, in Chemical &Process Solid-state chemists at the Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory have discovered a new reaction process that may prove to be a solution to the problems involved with the storage of actinide metals such as plutonium and uranium. Kent Abney, Anthony Lupinetti and Ed Garcia have been looking at methods of reacting actinide elements with stable elements. The goal is the creation of uranium, thorium and plutonium compounds that are environmentally friendly and harder to use in weapons. It has long been known that plutonium and boron, a solid semi-metal or metalloid - meaning it is an intermediary element, sharing some of the properties of metals as well as non-metals - could be combined to create a very stable and insoluble compound, plutonium boride. However, until now, to get the two elements to mix, something they don't do easily, they would have to be melted at very high temperature, cooled, then ground into a powder, then mixed and melted again. Sometimes this process would have to be done over and over to achieve proper mixing. Abney and Lupinetti, however, have developed a reactive process that takes place at more easily attainable temperatures, between 400 and 800 degrees centigrade. What's more, it doesn't involve the grind. 'We're using reactive compounds to overcome the problems of working these very complex reactions that involve double-decomposition, or the double-breakdown of compounds into simpler compounds or elements,' said Lupinetti. 'By combining actinide metal halides, like uranium tetra- and tri-chlorides with molecular boron precursors like magnesium diboride or calcium hexaboride, we've been able to do reactions at much lower temperatures, in the 500-800 degrees centigrade range.' The end result of a uranium tetra-chloride reaction with magnesium-diboride yields uranium boride mixed with a magnesium chloride. The latter is easily washed away, leaving behind the uranium-boride, a compound that is stable and insoluble. In addition, actinides mixed with boron, which readily absorbs neutrons, are not easily converted to their pure form, making them harder to use in weapons. Abney and Lupinetti are now exploring ways to use readily available compounds to get the actinide-boron reactive temperatures even lower using unique materials like lithium chloride and potassium chloride as solvents. These melt at temperatures around 350 degrees centigrade when mixed in equal amounts. The researchers believe that a scaling-up of the processes should not pose an insurmountable roadblock to full implementation, once the reactive systems are proven and refined. Copyright Centaur Communications Ltd. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 3 Energy Department Unveils Budget Request EarthVision Environmental News* WASHINGTON, April 10, 2001 - The US Department of Energy (DOE) has unveiled its Fiscal Year 2002 budget of $19.2 billion, which Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham called an "important first step and prudent transition setting a course toward comprehensive change and reform as the department looks to the future." Secretary Abraham also noted that his department completed the budget request, which usually takes six months, in just nine weeks. The request, says Abraham, reflects a commitment by the Bush Administration to moderate discretionary spending while continuing to meet critical challenges in national security, energy, science and environmental quality. "We will find new sources of energy, we will lead the way in environmental protection, we will perform research that will improve human health and the environment, and we will fulfill our responsibilities to face security challenges in the post Cold War era," said Abraham in his description of the proposal. "We had a choice when we came into office. We could simply move forward with the previous administration's priorities, or we could initiate new policies and approaches that would begin the transition to a different vision reflecting our priorities of rebuilding and reforming our programs," he continued. "Thoughtful critiques, both inside and outside the Department, convinced us that a status quo budget, while it might be the safe road to take, in some cases, would simply perpetuate mistakes and waste money by locking us into programs we might wish to adjust in later budgets." Funding priorities for the Fiscal Year 2002 center on four programs: 1. National Security ($7.2 billion, an increase of $180 million, or 2.6 percent above FY2001) - The total funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), is $6.8 billion, an increase of $136 million (two percent) over FY 2001. Within this total, funding has been shifted to weapons activities to increase support for the near-and long-term needs of the department's nuclear weapons stockpile. In addition to the NNSA programs, $395.1 million, an increase of $44.4 million or 12.7 percent, would go to five other national security programs - Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Independent Oversight and Performance Assurance, Security and Emergency Operations, and Worker and Community Transition. 2. Energy Resources, ($2.3 billion, a decrease of $196 million, or 7.9 percent below FY2001) - Of the proposed funding, the Clean Coal Power Initiative is a new effort that looks to develop clean coal technology. The request provides new funding, $150 million in federal matching funds. This funding will seek the development of a consortium of coal companies, utilities, and generating equipment vendors to direct coal research toward the most important problems facing the entire industry. Funding for this initiative totals more than $2 billion over ten years, and will require industry to share the cost of the research work, with the industry share increasing as technologies approach commercial states. Weatherization Assistance would also increase by $1.4 billion over 10 years in the new budget. The department has also requested $273 million, nearly double the FY2001 enacted level, for Weatherization Assistance grants to provide heating assistance to nearly 123,000 low-income families. 3. Environmental Quality ($6.5 billion, a $246 million decrease, or 3.6 percent below FY2001) - This year's Environmental Management budget of $5.9 billion fulfills commitments to major closure sites, promotes important safety and environmental projects involving treatment and disposal of nuclear materials, and supports the winterization and cold standby of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. The budget supports design of a new Waste Treatment and Immobilization Facility at Hanford, Washington, for highly radioactive waste and, the continued operation of the Defense Waste Processing Facility for highly radioactive waste and stabilization of at-risk nuclear materials at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. With this budget the department retains its capability to receive transuranic waste for permanent disposal at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico; continue the movement of spent fuel to safe, dry storage at the Hanford, Washington, and Idaho sites; and continue constructing the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant at Idaho; and accelerate cleanup activities at Portsmouth, Ohio. 4. Science and Technology ($3.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent over FY2001) - In this area, the budget calls for $19.5 million to support the next phase of research in the Human Genome Program, while $443 million is earmarked for biological and environmental research, and $166 million for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. A total of $445 million is requested for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management to focus on continuing a transition from predominately investigative science at Yucca Mountain (the proposed permanent repository for nuclear waste) to engineering and design to support the preparation of a license application for submittal to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, if the site is determined to be scientifically suitable. The budget also includes $140 million for the Office of Environment, Safety and Health. EarthVision Stories ***************************************************************** 4 A Step Backward on Nuclear Cooperation The New York Times April 11, 2001 By MICHAEL McFAUL CHICAGO — President Bush and his new foreign policy team have announced that they plan to undertake a full review of all aspects of American policy toward Russia on matters like economic assistance, NATO expansion and missile defense. There must be a new agenda, we are told, because the old approach of cooperation and engagement pursued by the Clinton administration has been ineffective. In hinting at the tone of their new policy, Bush administration officials have promised a realist approach, which would presumably include greater attention to Russia's international conduct and less to reforms within Russia. Reviews are necessary and rethinking of policies prudent. But why, before the review is completed, has the administration already announced plans to cut cooperative nonproliferation programs between the United States and Russia? Perhaps, after a thorough reassessment, the Bush team could make the case that the cooperative programs that we now sponsor in Russia and other former Soviet republics do not serve American national security interests. Until such a case can be made, however, the proposal to cut these programs by $100 million, or more than 10 percent, from current financing levels is bad policy and worse as symbolism. True realism on the part of the Bush foreign policy team would mean increasing, not decreasing, the size of these efforts. Even two decades ago, it would have been unthinkable for Country A to pay Country B to destroy its weapons. But that is precisely what American-Russian nonproliferation programs have achieved in the past several years. With the end of the cold war, Russian leaders — committed to greater cooperation with the West — allowed the United States to pursue our national security interests by new, nontraditional means. In 1991, the idea that we could pay the Russians to deactivate nuclear delivery systems, enhance the storage and security of nuclear materials and keep their nuclear scientists employed was radical. It showed real leadership that George H. W. Bush, who was then the president, embraced this new approach as part of a national security strategy. A decade later, cooperative threat reduction is widely accepted. A bipartisan review commission headed by former Senator Howard Baker fully endorses the idea, and Democrats and Republicans vote year after year to finance these programs. And President Vladimir Putin and the Russian army continue to participate willingly in them. Indeed, Mr. Putin's recent firing of the conservative head of the Ministry of Atomic Energy suggests that he might be prepared to go even further to restructure the Russian nuclear complex. Promoting nonproliferation programs in Russia, of course, directly benefits American national security. The fewer delivery systems of nuclear weapons there are in Russia, the better; the more securely and safely stored are those nuclear materials, the better. If the Bush administration is prepared to spend tens of billions of dollars on missile defense systems to protect Americans against potential threats in the future, it cannot justify cutting the already modest budget for nonproliferation programs that help diminish a real threat in existence today. These programs are also crucial to maintaining open channels between the United States and Russia at a time when other opportunities for cooperation are disappearing. Without question, Mr. Putin's negative activities in other areas — whether stifling the independent press or trading weapons with Iran — will make it more difficult to have meaningful and positive relations. In fact, cuts in some assistance programs to the Russian state (though not to Russian civil society, as in programs that support the development of an independent press) may be appropriate. But reducing nonproliferation programs as a reaction to objectionable Russian behavior in other areas makes no sense and is contrary to American security interests. Ten years after the Soviet Union's collapse, it is remarkable that the decaying Russian state has not allowed more weapons of mass destruction out of Russia and that there have not been more accidents with nuclear materials. Yet, these threats to American security must not be underestimated. We should in fact be accelerating aid to dismantle this threat, not reversing course. At a time when there appear to be growing strategic conflicts between the United States and Russia, we cannot afford to undercut the one area where there is agreement and cooperation. *Michael McFaul is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an assistant professor at Stanford University.* ***************************************************************** 5 Russia's Nuclear and Missile Complex The Human Factor in Proliferation Valentin Tikhonov, for the Non-Proliferation Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Paperback, 126 pp. Pub Date: April 2001 Order a Free Copy (To be mailed mid-April) Table of Contents Introduction (Download PDF format) PART I: The Study (Download PDF format) PART II: The Surveys --Nuclear Cities (Download PDF format) --Missle Cities (Download PDF format) About the Report A new study commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace provides the first detailed statistical glimpse inside the Russian nuclear and missile complexes. Authored by noted Russian social scientist Valentin Tikhonov, the report provides the results of extensive surveys performed in five Russian nuclear cities and three Russian missile enterprises, and paints the most complete picture yet available of the living and working conditions of Russia’s weapons experts. The results suggest an increasingly difficult situation, and illustrate the high potential that a significant percentage of Russia’s weapons experts might sell their services to would-be proliferators. Cities surveyed for this report include the nuclear cities of Sarov, Snezhinsk, Seversk, Zarechniy, and Trekgorniy and the missile enterprises located in Miass, Votkinsk, and Korolev. The report includes hundreds of statistics and facts on the working conditions of Russian nuclear and missile experts. Findings in the nuclear cities include: + More than 62% of employees earn less than $50 per month. + 58% of experts are forced to take 2nd jobs to earn money. + 89% of experts report a decline in living conditions since 1992. + 14% of experts would like to work outside of Russia. + 6% express interest in moving "any place at all." + One respondent stated "What does it matter, the main thing is that I should be paid money; after all, I will be working, not robbing or killing." Findings in the missile enterprises include: + Between 40% -55% believe their salary is 2 to 3 times below what they should be paid. + 28% of surveyed experts are forced to take 2nd jobs to earn money. + 67% report a slight or severe decline in economic conditions since 1992 + 25% of those surveyed would like to emigrate to another country and + 21% said they would work in the military complex of another country 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036 202-483-7600 Fax: 202-483-1840 ***************************************************************** 6 State troubled by lack of funding for Hanford clean-up The Seattle Times: Local News : Wednesday, April 11, 2001 By Linda Ashton The Associated Press ** YAKIMA - Washington state is dissatisfied with the amount of federal money budgeted for cleaning up deadly tank waste at the Hanford nuclear reservation and is threatening to sue if key project deadlines are missed. The proposed 2002 budget for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection, which manages the tank farms, is $814.5 million, up from $757 million this year, said Cheryl Reid, a spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's Office. But she said $1.1 billion is needed in 2002 to fully fund the contract with Bechtel-Washington, which is to design and build a glassification plant to treat 10 percent of the nearly 54 million gallons of highly radioactive waste in the tanks. "If approved," Washington Attorney General Christine Gregoire said, "this budget could leave the state with no choice but to engage in lengthy and expensive litigation over DOE's missed cleanup deadlines." Joe Davis, an Energy Department spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham considers cleaning up Hanford tank waste a "critical need." Consequently, he said, extra money was added to the Office of River Protection budget this year. But Reid said the proposed extra funding is not only insufficient but came from other parts of the Energy Department budget for Hanford. Overall, the Richland operations budget, which includes everything at Hanford except the Office of River Protection, would lose money, from $698.2 million budgeted this year to $584.2 million budgeted for 2002. "The impacts of the Bush budget priorities are unconscionable, as nuclear contamination spreads into the Columbia River," said Gerald Pollet, director of Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group in Seattle. "Hanford cleanup funding needs $121 million more next year than this year." Under the 1989 Tri-Party Agreement - the pact among the Energy Department, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state that sets goals and deadlines for cleanup projects - construction of the glassification plant was to begin by July 31. The Energy Department has already said construction won't begin until July 31, 2002, because last year's firing of the original contractor, when cost estimates skyrocketed, has delayed the project. "I am troubled the administration does not seem to understand its obligation to meet its contract commitments by building the vitrification plant to safely process the ... highly radioactive waste that is now leaking into groundwater at Hanford," Gregoire said. Sixty-seven of the 177 underground tanks have leaked more than 1 million gallons over the years, contaminating groundwater and threatening the Columbia. All the leakers were old, single-shell tanks. The Energy Department and its contractors are pumping liquid from the 149 single-shell tanks into new, larger, double-wall tanks. Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 7 Kursk recovery gets go-ahead BBC News | EUROPE | Wednesday, 11 April, 2001, An operation to lift the sunken Russian nuclear submarine is expected to go ahead in August or September. The chairman of the lower house of parliament's defence committee, Andrei Nikolayev, has said all the financial problems have now been settled. He was referring to negotiations between Russian officials and a Brussels-based group, the Kursk Foundation, which is trying to find the eighty million dollars needed for the operation. Moscow is expected to provide about a third of the salvage costs. Last August, the Kursk sank in the Barents Sea with the loss of all one-hundred-and-eighteen crew. Mr Nikolayev also reaffirmed Russia's denial that the submarine had been carrying nuclear weapons when it went down. An international agreement to begin the salvage operation is expected to be signed tomorrow Thursday . *From the newsroom of the BBC World Service* ***************************************************************** 8 Bush budget cuts Hanford cleanup The Spokesman-Review.com - April 10, 2001 Katherine Pfleger - Associated Press WASHINGTON _ President Bush's proposed 2002 budget, unveiled Monday, meant good news for some issues close to the Northwest, including salmon protection and pipeline safety. But buried in the 2,500-page outline was bad news for Hanford Nuclear Reservation cleanup and the Export-Import Bank. Bush released his budget on the first day of a two-week congressional recess. He's hoping to convince lawmakers, when they return, to begin adhering to the deep spending cuts he wants in order to make room for a $1.6 trillion tax cut. In the Northwest, Bush proposed cutting cleanup efforts at Hanford -- from $1.45 billion in 2001 to roughly $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2002, which starts Oct. 1. The reservation, established in 1943 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build an atomic bomb, has the country's highest concentration of radioactive waste. Fourteen lawmakers from Washington and Oregon recently asked congressional appropriators for much more -- about $1.8 billion -- to meet certain cleanup milestones. "Washington state's Republican delegation ought to be embarrassed to be Republicans given this dramatic cut," said Todd Webster, spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "The communities and the families around the Hanford area sacrificed their land and their water to win the Cold War and World War II." Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., said in a statement that Bush's budget overall sets a solid course, but the dramatic cut in Hanford funding "shows a fundamental lack of understanding" of the government's "legal, contractual and moral cleanup obligations." Budget authority for the Export-Import Bank -- which guarantees loans to foreign companies that buy U.S. products and services -- was also cut about 25 percent. Boeing, the largest user of the Ex-Im Bank, received $3.3 billion in financing last year. About 70 percent of the company's commercial airplanes are sold overseas. Company officials are talking with the White House and lawmakers to encourage restoration of the funding. "It is not a subsidy. It is not a grant. It is a loan guarantee," Boeing spokesman Rick Fuller said. But in the positive column, money for salmon recovery efforts increased about 20 percent at the Fish and Wildlife Service -- up $3.5 million from $14.7 million in 2001, according to agency tallies. At the National Marine Fisheries Service, funding held at 2001 levels -- $184 million, according to an agency official. Pipeline safety could also get a 15 percent boost, from $47 million in 2001 to $54 million in 2002. The funding goes to the Research and Special Programs Administration, which regulates 2 million miles of natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines. Murray and other state lawmakers have been lobbying for better regulation and funding for pipeline safety since June 1999, when gasoline from a pipeline rupture in Bellingham ignited in a fireball along a city park stream, killing three people. But she is pushing for $64 million in 2002. Also in the budget: •Absent from the Army Corps of Engineers budget was funding for an effort to deepen certain portions of the Columbia River between Portland and the Pacific. The administration instead asked for $13 million to maintain the existing conditions. •A $600 million cut -- from $1.9 billion to $1.3 billion -- for the Forest Service's wildland fire management efforts. The Department of Interior budget also proposes a $319 million decrease for wildfire money, to $658 million in 2002. That money, Republicans have said, could be made up with emergency spending measures later in the year, if the fire season is as bad as predicted. •As promised in the budget draft released in February, Project Impact -- a $25 million disaster preparedness program -- will be eliminated. ***************************************************************** 9 Proposed budget cuts may affect INEEL cleanup money IdahoStatesman.com April 11, 2001 The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- President Bush has proposed slashing money for the kind of Energy Department operations carried out at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, raising questions about waste cleanup. Bush's budget for the year that begins in October would cut Energy Department support 3 percent from $19.8 billion this year to $19.2 billion. It reduces environmental cleanup nationally by $354 million, and that could translate into an 18 percent decline in support for cleanup at INEEL. Members of the all-Republican congressional delegation fear the president's spending levels could jeopardize federal compliance with deadlines in the 1995 court-enforced waste cleanup agreement between Idaho and the federal government. They have already joined forces with others in Congress to counter the Bush proposal. The administration did not immediately release financial breakdowns for individual laboratories, making it difficult for officials to assess specific impacts. But Bechtel BWXT Idaho, which runs INEEL for the government, had announced an early retirement program to trim 1,200 employees in anticipation of the budget reductions. The INEEL is the region's largest employer at more than 8,200. The Senate Nuclear Cleanup Caucus, which includes Idaho Republicans Mike Crapo and Larry Craig, managed to add $1 billion to the Energy Department cleanup budget during debate on the congressional budget resolution last week. If supported by the House, that would give congressional budget writers room to accommodate needs at INEEL and other sites, they said. The Bush budget does divert some general environmental cleanup money to other environmental priorities like satisfying the 1995 commitments to move waste out of Idaho, including construction of the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Plant to process and package plutonium-contaminated waste at INEEL. But there were indications that some parts of Idaho's cleanup budget would be reduced from $437 million to $355 million. The congressional delegation estimates that to meet looming deadlines under the 1995 deal the INEEL needs a 10 percent budget increase. "There will be changes within the president's recommended budget ... because ultimately it's up to Congress," Rep. Mike Simpson said. "We're going to have to fight for funding for the environmental management budget just like everybody is going to fight for everything else." Crapo said Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has been briefed in detail on the needs of environmental cleanup since the Bush budget was put together. "I believe the secretary knows the critical importance of this and will get the necessary dollars to Idaho." In other areas, the president has proposed a 10 percent increase for work at Argonne National Laboratory-West at INEEL, but he wants to cut support for the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative -- one of INEEL's major operations -- from $35 million to $18 million. The Clinton administration doubled that budget last year. Current work will continue under the Bush scheme, but no new grants will be awarded until an energy task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney assesses the program. The budget request does maintain $4 million to assess new reactor designs, part of an international effort to develop a fourth generation of nuclear reactors. ***************************************************************** 10 Funding held flat for cleanup at Piketon *Wednesday, April 11, 2001* Jonathan Riskind *Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief* WASHINGTON -- Southern Ohio's uranium-enrichment plant ceases operations in June, but President Bush's proposed budget does not include an increase in cleanup funding. The proposed 2002 budget released Monday makes good on Bush's promise of $125 million to begin putting the plant on standby mode after the Piketon facility is shut down by USEC, a privatized federal corporation. Rep. Ted Strickland, D-Lucasville, said he is pleased with the $125 million, but is seeking more money for both a long-term commitment to the standby operation and for cleanup efforts. "The $125 million in the budget provides some short-term relief,'' Strickland said. "However, we in southern Ohio have not forgotten that we received a $630 million commitment that included (an advanced- technology project) at Piketon to secure the long-term future of the plant.'' After nearly 50 years of producing weapons-grade enriched uranium and commercial material for use as nuclear power plant fuel, the site must undergo years of costly cleanup. Precise cleanup funding for the Piketon plant in the Bush budget was not clear yesterday, Capitol Hill staffers said. It also was unclear how many cleanup and standby-operation jobs would be available after the 1,700-worker plant ceases enrichment operations. But Bush's budget appears to propose about $76 million for cleanup at the Piketon plant, roughly the same as this year. Strickland said he is disappointed there isn't a "significant'' increase in cleanup funding. However, many such sites are facing cutbacks under the Bush budget. The closed Mound nuclear site near Dayton, for example, would receive $70.9 million, down from $90.5 million this year. The overall national budget for cleanup efforts is slashed by the Bush budget. A fund designated for uranium facilities such as Portsmouth, for example, is cut to $363 million in 2002 from $393 million this year. Another cleanup budget pot, a former defense facilities closure fund, is cut to $1.05 billion from $1.08 billion. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said the administration is reviewing the cleanup program and considering ways to improve its efficiency. Abraham said the department's "environmental management mission assessment (is) to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used to achieve the overriding goals of a safer and speedier cleanup of our DOE weapons sites.'' Strickland and other lawmakers are expected to push for increased cleanup funding nationwide. Meanwhile, the president's budget requests $153 million for a compensation program to aid Cold War- era nuclear workers sickened by radiation in the workplace. That amount -- $136 million for the Labor Department and $17 million for the Energy Department -- is up from the $60 million approved this year to get the program, due to start July 31, off the ground. The budget largely places the program, which could benefit hundreds of workers at Piketon and other Ohio nuclear sites, under the auspices of the Labor Department. But it appears that no final decision has been made about whether the department will operate the program, which Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has said would be better run by the Justice Department. jriskind@dispatch.com Copyright © 2001, The Columbus Dispatch ***************************************************************** 11 Bush budget fully funds SNS at ORNL Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:10 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff A fiscal year 2002 budget request of $19.2 billion for the Department of Energy and a review of the agency's environmental management programs were both announced by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Monday. And though some numbers in the request are down from the current fiscal year, the proposed budget does include full funding -- $291.4 million -- for the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The budget request reflects "major DOE reform," Abraham said on Monday. He provided a synopsis of the request during a telephone briefing with reporters. "Make no mistake, change is coming," he warned. "Few stones will go unturned." DOE's request was included in the FY 2002 budget that President Bush delivered to Congress on Monday. According to Abraham, funding priorities for the DOE FY 2002 request include: * National security -- $7.2 billion, an increase of $180 million, or 2.6 percent above FY 2001. * Energy resources -- $2.3 billion, a decrease of $196 million, or 7.9 percent below FY 2001. * Science and technology -- $3.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent over FY 2001. * Environmental quality -- $6.5 billion, a $246 million decrease, or 3.6 percent below FY 2001. Included in the environmental quality request is $5.9 billion for environmental management, with Oak Ridge's slice down to around $244.1 million. The environmental management program is responsible for the cleanup of 113 sites that taken together encompass an area of more two million acres -- equal to the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. At the beginning of FY 2001, DOE had completed active cleanup at 71 of these sites. However, Abraham said the remaining cleanup will take some 70 years at a cost of $300 billion. "That is not good enough," he said. "And I share the frustration of those living near these sites." So, Abraham announced Monday that he will direct his department to conduct a comprehensive review of its environmental management program in order to make sure taxpayer dollars are spent effectively. Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee, said Monday that her organization is concerned about cuts in funding. The Local Oversight Committee provides advice to local, state and federal officials regarding DOE environmental management decisions. "DOE has a moral and legal responsibility to clean this up," Gawarecki said. For the most part, according to U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., the FY 2002 budget request is good news for Oak Ridge. The senator issued a statement Monday afternoon highlighting some of the budget figures for Oak Ridge DOE activities. Thompson said the budget includes $10 million for construction of a new Mouse House at ORNL and funding for two modernization projects at the Y-12 National Security Complex: a highly-enriched-uranium storage facility and a special materials complex. Additional funding for infrastructure upgrades at Y-12 may also be available as a result of funds added to the Senate's FY 2002 budget resolution by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., last week. DOE officials locally and in Washington, D.C., declined to discuss specific details regarding how Oak Ridge activities will be affected by the FY 2002 budget request. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 12 Report: From waste to wilderness Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:14 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Nuclear waste sites could be converted into ecologically sound wilderness areas and save billions of tax dollars in the process. That's a proposal made in a recently released report from Robert Nelson, senior fellow in environmental studies of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, non-partisan public policy group. Nelson argues that spending billions of dollars on environmental cleanup is not necessarily good for the environment. For example, his report states the $2 billion cleanup of oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez ended up doing significant damage to the shoreline in Alaska's Prince William Sound. In a phone interview Monday afternoon, Nelson pointed out that these areas also have an ecological importance, serving as a home to endangered species and other wildlife and plants. Though Nelson said his report has gone through a two-year gestation process, its release comes at a time when the future of the Department of Energy's environmental management program is in question. Nelson said it's likely the report has fallen into the hands of DOE officials and the Bush administration. "It (the report) reflects an attitude in the current administration about environmental management issues," said Susan Gawarecki, executive director of the Oak Ridge Reservation Local Oversight Committee. The group provides advice to local, state and federal officials regarding DOE environmental management decisions. Gawarecki said she thinks Nelson's proposal is not realistic. "I have seen the problems out there," she said. "It's got to be dealt with." And, as for Nelson questioning spending $6 billion a year on cleanup activities, Gawarecki said that figure can be justified. "It's not like going out with a shovel, digging it up and putting it in your local landfill," she said. "The types of waste being dealt with drive up the cost of cleanup." Seth Kirshenberg, executive director of Energy Communities Alliance, agreed with Gawarecki that the report is lacking in an understanding of the cleanup process. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the alliance is an organization of local governments that are adjacent to or impacted by DOE activities. Nelson, also a professor at the University of Maryland, has more than 18 years of experience with the Department of Interior. His report is available at www.cei.org/ All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 13 Several attest to K-25 water contamination Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:13 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff Ralph Hutson said from 1979 to 1986 he drank water earmarked for firefighting while he worked at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site. A construction foreman told him the reason was that the water lines and firefighting water lines were cross-connected. J.D. Hunter, who worked for K-25's fire department from 1973 to 1994, said several other firemen he worked with are very sick, possibly because of the water they used fighting fires. Officials said people can give information relating to K-25 water contamination confidentially by calling (865) 481-8290 or (781) 646-5770. See story for more information. Both men shared their stories during a public meeting Monday night at the Garden Plaza hotel. The meeting was hosted by a team of engineers and officials in health-related fields who are conducting an investigation of historical water contamination at K-25. More than 30 people who worked at K-25 or live in this area attended the meeting to provide the team with information that could assist in the investigation. They were also given a brief overview of the project. Team members said there are two important questions they will attempt to answer: "Was the water contaminated?" and "Were workers exposed?" Several people attending the meeting said the answer to both questions is "yes." "There's no question in our mind that the water and that site are contaminated," said Harry Williams, president of Coalition for a Healthy Environment. The coalition serves as a support and research group pertaining to the illnesses of workers at Department of Energy facilities and the citizens of Oak Ridge and the surrounding areas. Williams also warned that his group and others will watch the investigation closely because of the Department of Energy's involvement. The federal agency is funding the "independent" investigation. "We are going to be very suspicious," Williams said. The historical water examination is a continuation of tests conducted in August after employees voiced concern about contaminated water at K-25. Those tests indicated the site's current drinking water is safe to consume. The current project is expected to be completed by August 2002. It will involve investigating and assessing K-25's drinking water and steam systems and the potential for exposure through any possible route due to cross-connections or via other means from other utility systems including firefighting water, recirculating cooling water, storm drains and sanitary sewers. A Community Input Team has been established to provide stakeholder representation for the latest project. Sherrie Farver, a sick worker and member of the team, made a vocal plea to community members to provide information about K-25 if it could help the investigation. Information can be conveyed to the investigating team by calling the project hot line at (865) 481-8290. Facts can also be provided to the team through Suzanne Conway of Terra Graphics Environmental Engineering at (865) 300-9855 or Richard Bird, a physician and member of the investigating team, at (781) 646-5770. Terra Graphics is one of the companies participating in the investigation. Those seeking to provide information confidentially are encouraged to contact Bird or the hotline. ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. 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