***************************************************************** 02/12/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.39 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Another Yucca probe ordered 2 AEC chief welcomes Russia's offer on nuclear reactors 3 Team Arrives at Nuclear Plant 4 IAEA Inspects Disputed Czech Nuclear Power Plant 5 UK: AEEU strikes hit Dounreay facility 6 Workers strike at nuclear plant 7 Russia’s risky nuclear waste business 8 Ex-TRW chief joins consultants 9 Seeking the Holy Grail For Nuclear Power 10 Think nuclear 11 Nuclear power in its last hurrah 12 Amendment of Atomic Energy Act to permit joint ventures for 13 'Nuclear plants can withstand quake' NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Politicians arrested at nuclear protest 2 Sean Connery backs sub blockade 3 Ukraine Says Won't Build Nuclear Weapons With Russia 4 Prosecutor General blocks legal reform 5 INEEL behind schedule in shipping waste 6 SNS director expected to be named by March ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Another Yucca probe ordered February 12, 2001 By Mary Manning Another investigation was requested today into the Energy Department's management of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository after an anonymous letter warned that the project is on the brink of failure. The six-page letter, which appears to have been written by a Yucca Mountain insider, was sent to DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman late last week, as well as Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and others on Capitol Hill. Reporters were given copies Friday. Friedman has a team of agents in Las Vegas investigating allegations of bias in favor of Yucca Mountain on the part of the DOE and its former chief contractor on the project, TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc. This morning, Berkley asked the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to look into the letter's allegations of "gross mismanagement" at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. She described the accusations as "alarming" in a one-page letter to Comptroller General David Walker, who runs the GAO. "Among the allegations," Berkley wrote, "are the lack of oversight in relation to the continually escalating lifetime costs for storing nuclear waste at the mountain, unnecessary travel abroad by senior-level managers, lack of experience and technical background of those in charge of the project and an adversarial relationship between managers of the project and the Technical Waste Review Board." In an interview this morning, Berkley said the allegations, particularly those involving travel abuse, can be investigated by the GAO with little effort. "This letter has allegations of financial impropriety that the GAO normally would investigate," Berkley said. "The person who wrote this letter seems to have an intimate knowledge of what is transpiring at the Yucca Mountain Project." Reid said he planned to ask the inspector general today to broaden the inquiry into alleged bias at Yucca Mountain in the wake of the allegations contained in the letter. "It shows waste, fraud and abuse," Reid said. "The DOE seems to be following the policy of 'Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.' " The inspector general's investigation was launched last month after the Sun had reported that the DOE appeared to be collaborating with the nuclear industry to win approval for Yucca Mountain. Federal laws prohibit the DOE from taking sides in the site-selection process. Of the accusations in the letter, Reid said he is particularly concerned about talk that the DOE can't get along with the federal Technical Waste Review Board, an agency created by Congress to provide advice on the progress of the nation's nuclear waste storage program. "That compromises the fairness of the entire process," Reid said. Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects, the state's watchdog over Yucca Mountain, said the rift with the technical review board is telling. "That's a pretty clear indication that the DOE has its mind made up about Yucca Mountain and is trying to move the project forward," he said. Loux, who also received a copy of the letter last week, said he sees it as more evidence that "this thing is crumbling from within." Spokeswomen for the DOE, GAO and inspector general declined comment this morning. The letter discusses other problems, such as the soaring costs of burying 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain and the failure of Lake Barrett, an eight-year veteran of the DOE's program, to manage the program effectively. Barrett became acting director of the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management after Ivan Itkin resigned under the new Bush administration. Barrett's office has spent more than $6.5 billion on nuclear waste management in 19 years, more than half of that on scientific studies at Yucca Mountain. Over the past three administrations, Barrett has periodically assumed the role of acting director for DOE's nuclear waste management program. Before joining the DOE, he was an engineer with General Dynamics and Bechtel Power Corp., as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- the agency that must license a repository. Bechtel-SAIC, a Nevada company formed to bid on the Yucca Mountain contract, takes over management of the DOE's project today. Bechtel-SAIC was awarded the five-year, $3.1 billion contract in November. The anonymous letter said the official projected costs of Yucca Mountain have soared from $36 billion in 1995 to $58 billion today. And an independent internal estimate has revealed the real costs may be more than $62 billion and rising. "That is incredible," the letter said, pointing to the problems being created by the ongoing dispute between the DOE and the technical review board. "The program, encouraged and led by Lake Barrett, has engaged in what can only be termed a running battle with the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board for the last eight years," the letter said. "This monumental miscalculation -- that the board was not going to be a player in the site suitability recommendation process -- may eventually lead to the failure of the program." Additional costs of complying with the review board's recommendations for monitoring the safety of Yucca Mountain and dealing with potential damages from pending lawsuits could drive the projects costs to $75 billion, the letter said. The DOE's Public Affairs Office in Washington denied a request to interview Barrett. "The author of the letter recognizes Barrett as the bureaucrat behind the scenes," said Kevin Kamps of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Washington-based watchdog group. "He's been the guy behind Ivan Itkin. He knows what's going on." The nuclear industry denied knowing anything about the letter or who wrote it. "We have no idea who the author might be," the Nuclear Energy Institute's Steve Kerekes said. Yucca Mountain is the only site under study by the federal government to dispose of both commercial reactor and nuclear weapons wastes. The repository was supposed to open in 1998, but lengthy scientific studies at the site and a veto threat by President Clinton to stop temporary storage in Nevada delayed the opening until at least 2010. The technical review board has serious concerns about the DOE's scientific work at Yucca Mountain. The anonymous letter included an internal board memo in which the agency's executive director, Bill Barnard, expressed personal concerns that the DOE's plan for Yucca Mountain was confusing and ill-defined. "Without a well-defined plan for creating a technically defensible process for the secretary to select a repository design concept, it appears that DOE may be trying to sell 'a pig in a poke,' " Barnard wrote. "Unfortunately, people do not have sufficient trust in DOE to accept this approach." Barnard said today that he did not know who wrote the anonymous letter. Bob Alvarez, a staffer under former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, said the letter points out common examples of alleged mismanagement at the DOE. "Typical of a large DOE project, and that includes Yucca Mountain, contractors are virtually given a blank check and there's no oversight," Alvarez said. "The whole civilian radioactive waste office needs a total management analysis and review," Alvarez said, noting that the GAO and the National Academy of Sciences have been critical of DOE's top management in recent years. In 1998 the GAO reviewed DOE's programs around the country and found that up to 85 percent of its projects failed in the last 20 years because of cost overruns. "Essentially, it becomes a large gravy train for the system," Alvarez said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 AEC chief welcomes Russia's offer on nuclear reactors The Hindu on indiaserver.com : Monday, February 12, 2001 TARAPUR, FEB. 11. The Atomic Energy Commission Chairman, Dr. Anil Kakodkar, has welcomed the Russian proposal for four more 1000 MW nuclear reactors for Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu. There were provisions in the MoU signed with Russia for getting the four reactors in addition to the two units for Koodankulam site, but ``lot of work needs to be done in this regard,'' he said. The project report for the two units was ready and construction would begin by June, he said at a press conference here. Describing the demand made by the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, to double up the nuclear power generation target for the year 2020 to 40,000 MW as a modest one, Mr. Kakodkar said ``but the country has to first generate the kind of money required.'' Talking about the low enriched fuel for the Tarapur Atomic Power Station, he said the Chinese supply would continue and efforts were on to procure from other countries also. The Nuclear Power Corporation CMD, Mr. V.K. Chaturvedi, said they were upgrading the TAPS 1 and 2 to maintain safety as stipulated by international regulatory body. Asked if any change of design was required for the future nuclear plants to withstand earthquakes, Mr. Kakodkar said there was no need to change the design as the NPCIL's standard would take care of seismic potential after a study of seismic history of the region. - PTI Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 3 Team Arrives at Nuclear Plant February 12, 2001 ASSOCIATED PRESS PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- An international inspection team arrived at a troubled nuclear power plant in the Czech Republic on Monday as activists staged a protest rally outside the reactor. A team of 14 experts, led by officials from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, were to conduct a three-week inspection of training programs and staffing at the Temelin nuclear power plant. About 30 Czech activists blocked the main entrance to the plant Monday, the CTK news agency reported. The protest ended after an hour, but activists said "further and longer actions" could not be ruled out. Activists in neighboring Austria said protests of the Soviet-era plant would resume this weekend. The 2,000-megawatt plant, 30 miles from the Austrian border, has been a source of friction between the countries for the past year. Construction of the Soviet-designed plant began in 1980. The technology was upgraded by the U.S. firm Westinghouse in the 1990s. The plant was shut down Jan. 18 after a series of malfunctions amid protests from ecological activists. It was due to reopen this week, but plant spokesman Milan Nebesar said it would likely not start up again until next Tuesday because of repair delays. The inspection visit to Temelin had been planned since mid-2000 and won't focus on any matters related to the plant's technical design, International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman David Kyd said from Vienna. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 IAEA Inspects Disputed Czech Nuclear Power Plant Central Europe Online Daily News - VIENNA, Feb 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The IAEA nuclear watchdog body on Monday began a two-week inspection of the disputed Czech nuclear power plant at Temelin, which has sparked fierce tensions with neighboring Austria, a spokesman said. But the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission will not examine technical glitches that have plagued the the Soviet-built plant since it started up last October, he said. The reactor is currently not working as engineers work to fix one of the problems. "We are looking at operating procedures, not hardware," said spokesman David Kyd, adding that the IAEA mission includes about a dozen inspectors including U.S., French, Russian and British experts. The inspection, scheduled to last until March 1, will also be watched by three observers, including an Austrian. "We though that it would strengthen the credibility of the exercise for an Austrian to be there," he told AFP. Fiercely anti-nuclear Austria -- which rejected atomic power in a 1978 referendum -- last year threatened to stall Prague's EU membership talks over the Temelin plant, barely 60 kilometers (35 miles) from its border. Anti-nuclear protestors staged blockades along the Austro-Czech border before and after it was started up last October, and have threatened to renew them if no progress is made in implementing a December accord on checking the safety and environmental impact of the plant. But meanwhile a series of glitches continued, leading to the shutdown of the reactor on January 17. The shutdown was initially scheduled to last three weeks, but a spokesman said Sunday it was extended, until about February 20. The current IAEA mission was planned last year, before the dispute came to a head in October, Kyd said. Another inspection of hardware at the plant is planned for October, he said. The IAEA insists its inspectors will not get involved in the politics surrounding the plant. "For us it's just another power plant. Of course they're aware of the political tension that this has generated, but this will not modify how they carry out their work at all," said Kyd. Anti-nuclear protestors say they are still discussing the possibility of renewing the border blockades. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* News Headlines Top Stories Business News XXX + Runaway Croat General Issues Surrender Terms 13 Feb 2001 16:49 GMT + Embattled Hungarian Party Denies Plans to Quit Coalition 13 Feb 2001 16:49 GMT + Yugoslav Leader Suggests Joint Patrols in Buffer Zone 13 Feb 2001 16:49 GMT + Czech Leader's Condition Better, Stays in Hospital 13 Feb 2001 16:27 GMT + Bosnian Serb Premier Leaves for U.S. 13 Feb 2001 14:26 GMT © 1995-2001 European Internet Network Inc. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 5 UK: AEEU strikes hit Dounreay facility The Scotsman Online - Scotland's best selling quality national newspaper 14 FEBRUARY 2001 SCOTLAND'S NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ON THE PICKETS will be on duty outside the Dounreay nuclear plant this morning for the first time in 25 years as more than 100 of its staff take strike action over a pay dispute. A crunch meeting between officials of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) management failed to avert action which will see a series of two-day stoppages at the Caithness complex. The AEEU members are seeking a five per cent pay increase, while the company has offered three per cent, a rise which has been accepted by 95 per cent of its workforce. Danny Carrigan, the union’s spokesman, said: "The strike is going ahead. The company offered three per cent which was rejected by our members. They are angry they did not get a better offer but also at the way they have been treated over the years." ***************************************************************** 6 Workers strike at nuclear plant BBC News | SCOTLAND | Monday, 12 February, 2001, 12:07 GMT [Dounreay Nuclear Plant] More than 100 workers have gone on strike at Dounreay More than 100 maintenance technicians at the Dounreay nuclear plant have gone on strike in protest at pay and conditions. The members of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU), have staged a two-day walkout after rejecting a 3% pay increase from the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) last month. The union is hoping the action will persuade the authority to reconsider its claim for a 5% pay increase. Management at the plant and union representatives maintain that the industrial action will not compromise safety procedures. Management and the union say safety will not be compromised The craftsmen, plant operators and engineers plan a series of one-day stoppages each Monday until a revised pay deal is tabled. The remaining workforce of more than 2,000 at Dounreay has already accepted the 3% pay deal, which the AEEU members rejected. Danny Carrigan, Scottish secretary of the AEEU, said the staff had rejected the deal because they had been falling behind outside contractors doing the same jobs on the plant over a number of years. "We are standing by waiting for talks," said Mr Carrigan. "The workers believe that they have fallen behind with a series of low pay increases over the years. "Their job security is under threat as well and there is a feeling that enough is enough and that is why they have taken this action." Search BBC News Online ***************************************************************** 7 Russia’s risky nuclear waste business ‘No one is thinking about the ecological damage; no one is thinking about nuclear weapons. We are only interested in our wages.’ — NADEZHDA KUTEPOVA Sociologist in Ozersk, Russia WHAT GIDENKO didn’t know then was that the Techa River was a nuclear waste dump, a river of radioactivity more polluted than 20 Chernobyls. Today, Gidenko receives 200 rubles a month — less than $8 — as compensation for the radiation from the top-secret nuclear facility down the road that he was exposed to. In his dying village of 4,500 people, there are six cemeteries, five of them already full. Which makes it all the more surprising when Gidenko answers with an unhesitating yes when asked if he favors the latest plan of Russia’s cash-poor leaders: creating a haven for the world’s nuclear leftovers. In exchange for what the government estimates could be a $21 billion windfall, the Russians intend to open their doors to more than 20,000 tons of spent fuel from foreign nuclear reactors for storage and possible reprocessing. Some of it is likely to end up in Gidenko’s back yard. Nationwide, the proposal has spurred the biggest grass-roots opposition movement in Russia’s 10 years of democracy. But here in this region of the Ural Mountains almost 1,000 miles east of Moscow that environmentalists have dubbed “the most polluted place on earth,” local leaders are lobbying heavily to make sure they receive their share of the radioactive paycheck. “I am in favor of importing the nuclear waste,” Gidenko said last week in his wooden cottage as the temperature outside hit 20 degrees below zero. “They will reprocess it into fuel, and it will be cheaper for the population. They claim that electricity will be free.” As Russia ventures into nuclear capitalism, Gidenko is not the only one dreaming of the benefits that foreign waste will bring. With the apparent support of President Vladimir Putin, the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, gave preliminary approval to the nuclear imports in December. Despite public opinion polls that show more than 90 percent of Russians oppose the plan, more than 90 percent of the deputies voted for it. “They have dollar signs in their eyes,” said activist Natalya Mironova, who belongs to an environmental movement that gathered an unprecedented 2.5 million signatures for a national referendum to block the foreign waste, only to see the Central Election Commission invalidate just enough signatures to throw it off the ballot. To opponents of the plan like her, the fight is a morality tale about a country whose leaders are so cynical they would mortgage their land’s health for some ready cash. It is also a political puzzle of sorts: In the increasingly authoritarian politics of the Putin era, no one is sure whether, or how, public pressure can influence the small group of policymakers that will decide the matter. At the same time, experts on both sides of the debate agree that Russia’s stated reason for getting into the nuclear-waste business is legitimate: Nearly 60 years into the Atomic Age, Russia has found itself with a huge stockpile of nuclear waste from its own reactors and insufficient funds to handle it. Even without importing waste, some experts say Russia’s current storage facility near Krasnoyarsk could be full in a few years. On the scale of environmental outrages in this already polluted country, several nuclear specialists argued, adding foreign spent fuel to that stockpile might not be as bad as the alternative: a nuclear waste storage crisis and no resources to deal with it. “Our problem is we have no money,” said Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi, deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, the leading Russian nuclear research facility on the outskirts of Moscow where tons of nuclear waste sit in containers awaiting a permanent home. There are, however, numerous logistic — and diplomatic — problems with Russia’s entry into this business. Most significant among them is whether Russia intends to recycle the fuel for use in nuclear power stations or simply store it. The United States is adamantly opposed to reprocessing spent fuel because the process extracts plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. As much as 70 percent of the world’s spent nuclear fuel originated in U.S.-designed reactors, so even though it sits at nuclear power plants from Asia to Western Europe, the contracts give the U.S. final say on where it ends up. If Washington doesn’t approve, Russia’s $21 billion dream will go unrealized. Inside Russia, however, the Atomic Energy Ministry and its backers have talked almost exclusively about reprocessing the spent fuel, and not about storing it. “The Russians seem completely blind to this issue,” said a former top Clinton administration official who handled the talks. Even so, the official said, U.S. policymakers have been sharply divided, with the Energy Department looking on Russia’s import scheme favorably and the State Department insisting that it is “crazy to take more nuclear matter into a country still unable to deal with nuclear waste it already has.” Added the official, “The storage crisis is real. The only question is whether Russia should be the site.” In Moscow, critics say the atomic ministry’s plan is to use the foreign funds not for storage, nor even to clean up existing environmental disaster zones like the one in Muslyumovo, but to finance a campaign of nuclear empire-building. Already, the ministry has announced plans to finish 10 new nuclear reactors over the next decade — without specifying where the funds will come from. “The atomic ministry is acquiring the power it had in Soviet days, when it was an empire inside the empire, untouchable by anyone,” said Alexei Yablokov, a founder of Russia’s modern-day environmental movement. “But in reality, the ministry lacks money to finance its grand plans. In order to get the money, they will have to store this nuclear waste. Of course, it’s very difficult for them to explain to people that we are taking for storage everybody’s waste. So they pretend they will be reprocessing it and gaining valuable resources.” The government’s nuclear safety commission has publicly feuded with the ministry in hopes of blocking the foreign-waste proposal. “They use the seemingly noble explanation that Russia is unable to resolve our situation with nuclear wastes without receiving this money. We don’t mind this in principle. But the true object is to use these funds from the import of spent fuel from abroad to continue developing nuclear energy,” said Andrei Kislov, head of the commission’s department of nuclear fuel cycle enterprises. Such policy nuances are lost here in the Urals, where nuclear pork-barrel politics have taken hold in anticipation that Mayak, the secret nuclear facility up the river from the tainted village of Muslyumovo, will be the recipient of the foreign spent fuel. Indeed, a paycheck that may never come has already been spent hundreds of times over in the course of this public relations campaign. In the local capital of Chelyabinsk, a government-run newspaper proclaimed recently that “billions of dollars for the region” await only State Duma approval. The article even divvied up the area’s supposed winnings: $3.8 billion for “ecological rehabilitation projects,” $2.6 billion for modernizing the Mayak complex, and $3.6 billion for “the region’s needs.” By this accounting, the government would spend $10 billion of the $21 billion windfall here — a highly unrealistic scenario. But that doesn’t stop Chelyabinsk Deputy Gov. Gennady Podtyosov from reeling off a list of still more specific benefits for his region. In an interview, he offered up a dizzying array of ways to spend the foreign proceeds: rehabilitating the land, building housing for evacuees from the Techa River area, building hospitals and schools, paving roads and laying gas pipes. “The government is being forced to resort to this extreme measure,” Podtyosov said. “We want people to realize it’s being done for us, it’s being done to improve our life.” “They say, ‘It is necessary to do this. Then everyone will live here like in a fairy tale,’ ” said Nadezhda Kutepova, a sociologist in Ozersk. Her father came here to clean up a 1957 explosion that was the second-largest nuclear accident in history; he died 20 years later of colon cancer. Inside the city of more than 80,000 residents, she said, nostalgia flourishes for Soviet times, when the dangers of working at the nuclear plant were accompanied by higher wages, unrationed food and such luxuries as candy. In the poor neighboring villages, they had a name for the Mayak workers: “chocoladniki.” “In Ozersk, people think those golden times will return,” she said. “No one is thinking about the ecological damage; no one is thinking about nuclear weapons. We are only interested in our wages.” ‘I do not want to have children like myself. We have suffered our fill from this radiation as it is; every week, they bury somebody in our village.’ — RAMSES FAIZULLIN 16-year-old born with radiation disease In a rare interview, Mayak General Director Vitaly Sadovnikov portrayed the proposal as a matter of economic survival for his underemployed plant. “Mayak is definitely interested in such an activity, as any enterprise is interested in work,” he said. Over the years, Mayak’s nuclear catastrophes — the 1949 to 1956 dumping in the Techa River, the 1957 explosion, and a 1967 cloud of radioactive dust from a nuclear waste-filled lake — have exposed more than 1 million people to dangerously high levels of radiation. The environmental disasters were a state secret until the waning days of Communism, but today Sadovnikov insists that safety is no longer an issue at his plant. Instead, he spoke only of “certain errors” and “certain consequences of the previous work of Mayak.” Critics of the proposal to import spent nuclear fuel, he said, are guilty of “radiophobia.” But there are indications of such radiophobia even among Mayak’s relatively privileged workers. In a survey Kutepova conducted of 700 Ozersk residents last fall, 64 percent said they were against the proposal. “But they will not speak up,” she said. “There is a code of silence. Yes, my father died. Yes, my relatives are ill. But I’ll be paid my wages and I’ll be silent.” Ramses Faizullin decided not to be silent. The 16-year-old lives in one of the villages near Mayak that was relocated — all 750 people — from the banks of the Techa River years before he was born. Even so, Faizullin was born with radiation disease; his head is abnormally large and he coughs incessantly. Three times last year he was so sick he had to check into the hospital. His mother says she didn’t even know the word “radiation” until after he was born. “They think that there are fools here,” Faizullin said. “They treat us as if we don’t understand anything.” In December, Faizullin wrote a letter to Putin and the State Duma pleading with them to block the import of spent fuel. “I do not want to have children like myself,” he wrote. “We have suffered our fill from this radiation as it is; every week, they bury somebody in our village.” *© 2001 The Washington Post Company* ***************************************************************** 8 Ex-TRW chief joins consultants February 12, 2001 By Mary Manning George Dials, executive director of the former Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project contractor TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc., has joined Science &Engineering Associates Inc. of Albuquerque, N.M. Science &Engineering is a consulting firm that works with the federal government and on commercial projects, spokesman Kevin Bovee said. When Dials joins the company March 1, he will be executive vice president, a member of the board and president of Quest Technology Inc., an subsidiary in Las Vegas. Dials was chief of TRW, which until this week was the major Energy Department contractor managing work at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Yucca is the only site under study by the government as a high-level nuclear waste repository. Bechtel-SAIC became the manager of the repository project today. TRW and its subcontractors are under a Energy Department's inspector general's investigation for possible conflict of interest with the nuclear industry over a two-page memo written to DOE reviewers on how to sell the Yucca Mountain project to Congress. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 9 Seeking the Holy Grail For Nuclear Power Monday, Feb. 12, 2001. Page 12 By Charles Digges and Barnaby Thompson ST. PETERSBURG — Government plans to import and reprocess spent nuclear fuel have caused something of a stir in recent months. As the Nuclear Power Ministry claims potential revenues of billions of dollars, its critics have loudly voiced their concerns on safety issues, financial viability and nuclear accidents in the past. Meanwhile, Russia and the United States are set to implement another billion-dollar agreement to develop special fuel using weapons-grade plutonium and burn it in existing nuclear reactors. At first glance, the two projects seem to contradict one another. Reprocessing the imported spent nuclear fuel will give Russia uranium, liquid waste and plutonium. Yet the agreement with the United States appears predicated on nonproliferation — reducing the world's stocks of plutonium. But interviews with experts and government officials here and in America show that Russia has a long-term vision: the acquisition — at Western expense — of an infrastructure that would allow Russia to abandon traditional uranium energy sources in favor of a more dangerous, but potentially inexhaustible, supply of plutonium fuel. In other words, Russia is in pursuit of something that has always eluded the nuclear world: a closed-cycle, self-perpetuating nuclear energy system based on plutonium. All it needs is the cash. And both the above plans fit into that scheme. Left Hand, Right Hand With the plutonium disposition agreement signed last summer by President Vladimir Putin and then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Department of Energy, or DOE, is seeking to reduce surplus weapons-grade plutonium in both countries by destroying 34 tons in the United States and 34 tons in Russia. (Former President Boris Yeltsin said in 1997 that Russia has about 50 tons of surplus weapons-grade plutonium stored in dismantled warheads, about half of the total surplus in the world.) While this agreement was being thrashed out, Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov was campaigning vociferously for a pet project he has been discussing for several years — the paid import of nuclear waste from other countries for disposal and reprocessing in Russia. So confident was Adamov that the State Duma would support him, he struck a deal in December with a nuclear power plant in Bulgaria to import a shipment of nuclear waste from the plant, before the law allowing Russia to accept such imports had even cleared its first reading. It passed that first reading a few days later, and it is expected to fare just as well at its final reading this month. In a country that cannot keep up with its own mounting nuclear waste, however, such a program sounded to many activists like madness. Environmentalists demanded the question be put to a nationwide referendum, and collected 2.5 million signatures — well above the required 2 million — on a petition to get the process going. The Central Elections Commission, however, disqualified 800,000 of the signatures over what appeared to be minor technicalities. In several instances, signatures were disqualified because the signatories used "incorrect" abbreviations for their addresses, for example. Adamov, meanwhile, has managed to shout down any critics in government by showing the bottom line: Russia's cash-strapped nuclear industry could make $21 billion over the next 10 to 15 years by charging other nations a fee for taking nuclear waste off their hands. The money would go on increasing the country's nuclear industry, upping its share of energy production from the current 14 percent to 30 percent in 2030, improving salaries and living conditions for nuclear workers, and providing for programs to clean up the various leaks and spills that have blighted Russia's reputation in this field. Leningrad region's Sosnovy Bor nuclear power plant is one of many facilities raising environmental concerns. In interviews, the DOE said it has no argument with Russia's import plans. According to officials there, the imports would have "no connection" with the DOE's project because, among other reasons, they would do little to enhance Russia's weapons-grade plutonium stocks once reprocessed. Officials pointed out that the United States has dibs on 94 percent of spent nuclear fuel worldwide — it either possesses it outright, or has consent rights to it in other countries. Adamov can't get his hands on a significant amount of spent fuel without U.S. say-so. Nonetheless, the DOE's stance makes it clear that Washington will not stand in Adamov's way. The DOE's job, as it sees it, is to dispose of the agreed-upon 68 tons of weapons plutonium over the next 25 years. Whatever happens to the Russian imports is the business of Russia. Connecting Trains and MOX Whether or not the DOE acknowledges it, however, its own plutonium-disposition plan — when enacted in the context of the Nuclear Power Ministry's waste-import program — may set the stage for a situation in which Russia not only doesn't deplete its plutonium base, but is given the basic tools by Western countries to increase its plutonium stock infinitely, and virtually for free. The centerpiece of the DOE's plutonium disposition plan, the department's web site says, is the production of a mixed-oxide nuclear fuel, or MOX, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide. This fuel would then be burned, on the Russian side, in retrofitted VVER-1000 type reactors, a standard nuclear-power block known as a light-water reactor. Russia has seven of these reactors, which were designed to use uranium, not MOX fuel. In early January, however, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research released a report that raised a number of technical and security problems with MOX. First, while MOX reactors exist in a number of European countries, they use commercial, reactor-grade plutonium, rather than weapons-grade. (Both categories can be used to make a nuclear bomb, although the yield with reactor-grade material is much less predictable.) A test to see whether weapons-grade plutonium can be used in MOX fuel is about to start at the Chalk River laboratories in Canada. Initial results will be available in four years. If successful, plans to convert Russian light-water reactors to burn MOX will likely go ahead. The IEER report was highly critical of the concept, saying MOX experiments in Japan and Europe during the 1980s found light-water reactors increase plutonium isotopes, effectively making the plutonium unfit for repeated use as fuel. This method of destroying the plutonium was selected by the Nuclear Power Ministry and its DOE counterparts, said the DOE's Laura Holgate, who brokered the disposition accord, because the Russian side steadfastly refused to consider immobilization — that is, burial of fuel in special ceramic chambers. "I've sat across the negotiating table from [the Nuclear Power Ministry], and they consider plutonium to be a viable resource," said Holgate in a telephone interview from Washington last week. "The only way they will agree to get rid of it is by burning it in a reactor. If plutonium disposition is to be a reality with the Russians, immobilization is out of the question." To take the MOX route and burn the plutonium, Russia needs approximately $1.7 billion to convert its reactors and to build, or transport from elsewhere, a plant to fabricate MOX fuel. Though more costly than immobilization, it will at least meet the disposition goal. Not-So-Hidden Agenda The MOX agreement has been hailed as a route to a safer world, an aid to disarmament, a barrier to "loose nukes," as well as a way of generating more electricity in Russia and thus fulfilling Adamov's stated plans. But experts say that these issues are a sideshow to the real plan. If Russia gets a MOX fuel production facility, it will have made serious inroads into securing a self-perpetuating, plutonium-based economy. "The U.S. Department of Energy's MOX-producing plans would create a plutonium economy for Russia and stand the plutonium economy of the world on its head," said Edwin Lyman, scientific director of the Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington-based nuclear energy watchdog organization. Lyman said further that Holgate's assertion that Russia won't capitulate to an immobilization plan is "a smoke screen." "Western countries [participating in the plutonium disposition plan] see it as a business deal — with a veneer of social responsibility." The MOX plan would give Russia a MOX production plant for free, probably by dismantling an unfinished one from Hanau in Germany and rebuilding it here. Regardless of whether or not Russia's light-water reactors are converted, the country could earn money by exporting MOX fuel. Importing spent fuel is a further source of money, at the same time, as its reprocessing would produce more plutonium. In short, Russia would get the cash, the technology and the fuel, without spending a ruble. All this leads in one direction, analysts say: the construction of a new generation of Russian breeder reactors. "This has been the philosophy [of Russian nuclear agencies] going back to the Soviet Union," said Adrian Collings, an industry expert with the London-based Uranium Institute, a nonprofit, nongovernmental nuclear forum. Breeder Reactors Breeder reactors were built to answer the problem of what to do when supplies of uranium ran out. In short, they are designed to create more fuel than they consume by converting a nonfissile isotope of uranium into fissile plutonium, which can then be used as fuel. However, as the IEER report states, the idea never really worked because breeder reactors proved tricky and expensive to run. At the same time, the price of uranium steadily declined, making the reprocessing of spent fuel to extract plutonium uneconomical by comparison. Nuclear Power Minister Yevgeny Adamov With a ready stock of military plutonium, however, the breeder reactor could run on MOX fuel — technically a far better means than converted light-water reactors. As MOX fuel passes through a light-water reactor, its energy supply is reduced. This doesn't happen with the breeder. In fact, a breeder reactor can actually increase the purity of the plutonium during the reaction process. Nothing about breeder reactors is written into the U.S.-Russia agreement on MOX fuel. But as stated above, in order to build a closed plutonium economy, Russia needs — aside from the Western-funded MOX-fabrication facility — breeders, and the cash with which to build them. The latter, recalling Adamov's spent-fuel import program, could already be taken care of. According to the IEER report, the cost of Russia's only existing breeder reactor, the BN-600 located at the Mayak reprocessing facility, in the Chelyabinsk region, would be $918 million if translated into today's terms. Should Adamov's plans reach fruition, Russia would feasibly have the money to build several breeders. Nuclear Power Ministry spokesman Yury Bespalko said in a recent telephone interview from Moscow that Russia has had a so-called BREST breeder reactor on the drawing board for some years. This reactor is designed to create plutonium on a one-to-one ratio, which would make it, for lack of a better term, a perpetual-motion machine. Bespalko would provide no further details, and Lyman was skeptical that the Russians could get the reactor to work. But Collings at the Uranium Institute said that the Russians were well versed in breeder technology, describing the BN-600 reactor as "highly successful." "Russia has enormous nuclear-research capabilities at the laboratory level," he said. Few Obstacles One voice of dissent, published on the Norwegian environmental group Bellona's web site, came from Alexei Yablokov, a former Yeltsin environmental adviser, who said the Russians would be unlikely to attempt a breeder economy, opting instead for cheaper fresh uranium and a host of new light-water reactors. And a DOE official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the United States would refuse any technical cooperation on any breeder programs in Russia as long as Russia continued supporting the development of a nuclear energy program in Iran. Other alternatives available to the United States, said the official, were to pressure Russia's potential waste disposal client states — like Switzerland, Taiwan, South Korea and Eastern European states such as Bulgaria — into not letting go of their spent fuel. But when the MOX plan is through, that still leaves Russia 16 tons of weapons-grade plutonium declared surplus, another 30 tons of separated commercial plutonium stored at Mayak, plus waste disposal contracts that may exist without U.S. knowledge, said NCI's executive director Richard Rosenthal. Summing up their objections to the DOE's plutonium-disposition plan, Arjun Makhijani, the author of the critical IEER report, wrote: "The net result will be that the first military plutonium will be used in the MOX plant, decreasing the military plutonium stock, while commercial reprocessing increases the commercial plutonium stock. "Then the military-origin MOX spent fuel can be reprocessed while already separated commercial plutonium is fabricated into MOX fuel. In the meantime, more breeder reactors would be built. All but the last element would be financed with Western money. "This seems to be the plan that [the Nuclear Power Ministry] is banking on." SRC="http://www.themoscowtimes.com ***************************************************************** 10 Think nuclear *February 11, 2001* I WAS glad to read in the Tribune that nuclear power is being given a fresh look as a long-term solution to our energy needs. Up until now, effective use of nuclear power has been scuttled in our state by a small but very committed group of opponents. Well-meaning as those opponents may be, it is now clear that the drastic steps taken to curtail the use of nuclear power in our state -- such as shutting down Rancho Seco near Sacramento -- were myopic, wasteful and naive. If Rancho Seco were up and running right now, we would not be held hostage to out-of-state energy providers or as reliant on older-technology plants that require frequent shutdowns for maintenance. When you consider the effects on the environment from other energy sources such as coal (air pollution) and hydroelectric (damming, not enough water for fish) it does not make sense to ignore the use of nuclear power as part of a solution to long-term energy needs. As reported in the article, France gets 75 percent of their electricity from their nuclear power plants. How can a sophisticated country like France be that wrong about nuclear energy? Meanwhile, here we are at the epicenter of the high-tech revolution seriously discussing switch-grass as an alternative to coal. Let's move beyond the irrational fear stoked by the nuclear opponents and move forward with building new plants to help secure our long-term energy needs. Michael Rich Alameda Don't single out Latinas IN RESPONSE to the article, Jan. 25, "Study: high dropout rate for Latinas." As Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." This quote comes to mind when I look at this report and the resulting comments. One can see the dangers of taking the results of this study out of its larger educational context. Emma Chavez Roos Executive Director Educational Coalition for Hispanics in Oakland Oakland Trib ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear power in its last hurrah The Taipei Times Online: 2001-02-12 Monday, February 12th, 2001 By Christopher MacDonald Just a generation ago, populations all over the world were prepared to give governments the benefit of the doubt regarding nuclear energy. They accepted, more or less, what the scientists and industrialists and bureaucrats and politicians told them about the wondrous, clean, low-cost energy resource that would lead them into a bright, unpolluted future with almost inexhaustible supplies of power. Opponents were dismissed as cranks, hippies and subversives. Revelations But in due course, all that changed. In the US, it changed with Three Mile Island; in Europe with Chernobyl. It has changed recently in Japan with revelations of nuclear blunders that have been covered up over the decades, and it's changing now in Taiwan. It changed as the numbers of those who fell victim to radiation spills and experiments began to mount up. It changed once it became apparent to government, to big business, and to the banks and insurers who underwrite the power industry, that the supposed economic benefits were non-existent once the true costs of building, running and decommissioning nuclear plants were factored in -- not to mention the impossibility of making the lethally contaminated leftovers disappear. Coming into the light So long as you keep people in the dark about what's at stake, it's relatively easy to persuade them that nuclear energy is the only guarantee of a future power supply, and by extension of national stability and prosperity. But once the topic becomes the focus of national debate, illuminated by the massed spotlights of media interest and public concern, there's only one way for the tide to turn -- against nuclear energy. There never has been an example of more discussion and awareness translating into more public support for nuclear energy, and there's no reason why Taiwan should be the first exception. `Not our fault' Taipower (¥x¹q) and the ruling establishment have long been comfortable with consumers' lack of interest in the topic of energy production. For years the state utility has brooded over its monopoly, resisting modernization, obstructing the development of sustainable energy policies and responding to complaints about unreliable electricity supply by throwing up its hands and wailing: "It's not our fault -- we need more nuclear power plants!" State of neglect Meanwhile, national energy policy has been allowed to fall into a shocking state of neglect. As shown by the extraordinary island wide blackout of July 1999 (triggered by the failure of a single pylon) and the frequent outages that still shut down production at Hsinchu Science-based Park (·s¦Ë¤u·~¶é°Ï), the Energizer Bunny of Taiwan's high-tech industrial miracle is powered by a piece of rusty old clockwork. The whole sector needs a radical shake-up: new blood and new ideas, plus integrated policies for reduced consumption, increased efficiency, and diversified power production. What it doesn't need is another facility drawing on the most dangerous, discredited energy source known to man. Turning point In the future, when people look back on this critical moment -- the turning point for nuclear energy in Taiwan -- it is possible that they will remember above all the historic session of the Legislative Yuan on Jan. 31, when 135 of Taiwan's finest voted to resuscitate the island's moribund nuclear energy program. That gloriously blinkered decision was the last, sad hurrah of Taiwan's nuclear-industrial complex, and will probably turn out to have been the opposition parties' last bungled chance of rescuing their reputations in time for upcoming elections. By concentrating on the nuclear power issue at the expense of everything else, exploiting it to foment what they would like to believe is a popular backlash against a weak government, the opposition alliance has well and truly shot itself in the foot -- full-bore, double-barrel. Perhaps they can't quite bring themselves to look at the bloodied stump dangling below their knee. But eventually they'll have to. And when the pain kicks in, when they realize how venal they appear in the eyes of much of the electorate, there are going to be some extraordinary contortions -- as parties and lawmakers scramble to disassociate themselves from both the pro-nuclear vote and the impending electoral debacle. A monument to `entrenched interests' The residents of Kungliao should know that history is on their side; it's the opposition legislators who will be the big losers. I would like to suggest, therefore, that the residents commemorate this triumph by erecting a splendid monument, in black and gold, to those valiant defenders of entrenched interests, the 135 relics of the ancient regime who were so obsessed with face and immediate political gain that they completely and utterly missed the tide of the times. Every one of them deserves to have their name carved in stone at the site of the plant, so that they may be linked in perpetuity with the monolithic remains of nuclear energy in Taiwan. We already know that a nuclear power plant will never again be commissioned for these shores, and we can be 90 percent certain that the Kungliao plant, even if completed, will never be used. The coming elections will see to that. Instead, the plant will stand as one of the last great follies of the KMT era, a multibillion dollar monument to the "face" of Lien Chan(³s¾Ô) and the "edifice complex" of his party. Let's hope that as a result of this costly blunder, all political groupings in Taiwan will learn to put the public interest first -- even when it contradicts their own grandiose image of themselves. *Christopher MacDonald is a freelance writer based in Taipei.* This story has been viewed 396 times. URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/02/12/story/0000073354] Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 12 Amendment of Atomic Energy Act to permit joint ventures for nuclear power on anvil -- Chaturvedi Monday, February 12, 2001 TARAPUR, FEB 11: Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government of India on Saturday set the ball rolling for taking India into the forefront of nuclear power producing nations by calling for doubling of the targets set for the year 2020, from the present projection of 20,000 Mwe to 40,000 Mwe. Kalam was addressing a packed audience of the workers, nuclear engineers and scientists of not only the Tarapur plants, but also invitees drawn from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPC) and the various units f the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) in the presence of their respective chiefs, Dr Vijay Kumar Chaturvedi and Dr Anil Kakodkar, who is also chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) on the occasion of the celebrations of ``Thirty Years of Commercial Operation of Tarapur Units 1 and 2. Dr Kalam's call virtually endorsed the DAE-NPC strategy for achieving the projected targets and provided added impetus to the nuclear power programme.Kalam's thesis went along the vision he has been projecting in recent times. A steep rise in the per capita consumption of electricity is key to the transition of India from a developing country to a developed country within 20 years. This thesis was also propounded by the late DAE secretary R Chidambaram, who was conspicuous by his absence, especially when banners greeting Chidambaram fluttered along with those greeting Kalam and Kakodkar. Dr Chaturvedi explained the strategy to achieve the targets. 4000 to 4,320 Mwe of power is sought to be produced via the pressurised heavy water reactor route (PHWR), a technology that India is now completely comfortable with and has completely indeginised. Another 8,000 Mwe is sought to be produced as a stop gap additional mobilisation via the pressurised water reactor route (PWR) in collaboration with Russia by setting up at least 8 units of 1000 Mwe capacity at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu. Around 2,700 Mwe already exists and the rest of the power is expected to be obtained via the fast breeder reactor (FBR) route, currently coming up at Kalpakkam at the outskirts of Chennai. At Rs 5 crore per Mwe, the NPC would need Rs 100,000 crore to fulfill its stated target, and now with Kalam's call, the NPC is looking at an investment figure of Rs 200,000 crore to be invested within a span of 20 years. So where is the money going to come from? Chaturvedi explained that by the year 2000 the country would need around 2,15,000 Mwe and the country has to find money to produce that much energy from whatever source, whether hydel, thermal, alternative or nuclear. The question was how much would national policy would grant the nuclear component of that share. The NPC chief also said that by the year 2007, once the NPC produces power to the tune of 7 to 8 thousand Mwe, the NPC would be in a position to add 1000 Mwe every year from its own funds. Speaking exclusively to the *The Indian Express*, Chaturvedi revealed that Dr Kakodkar, in priniciple agreed that this could be possible only if joint ventures are undertaken and public equity tapped. To this end, the DAE is now forwarding proposals to the government to amend the Atomic Energy Actto make this possible. Dr Chaturvedi also revealed that there is a new zeal and interest in nuclear power displayed by the state electricity boards being fed in particular by the northern grid. Chaturvedi said that talks are already underway with the Punjab and the Haryana SEBs to work out the equity in investment for installing a series of 220 Mwe PHWRs feeding nuclear power to the northern grid. Chaturvedi said by 2011, the debt equity ratio would rise to 7:3 from the current 2:1. Such measures would make it possible to add 2000 Mwe instead of the current target of 1000 Mwe, since the PHWRs were now totally indegenised and the private sector is geared to produce the turbines and callandrias to the capacity of even 1000 Mwe. There is no difficulty insofar as technology and infratructure went, the only problem was to solve the nitty gritty of investment needs and for the present, at leat till 2010, there is no alternative except for the government to come up with seed investment funds. It is in this context, Dr Kalam's call to double DAE-NPC power targets has set hearts racing in the nuclear power sector. Keeping in mind, his close relations with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, the nuclear establishment led by Dr Anil Kakodkar now hopes to convince the government of the economic viability of nuclear power set at just Rs 5 per unit even in the next decade from the present around Rs 3 per unit -- particularly in the wake of the Enron imbroglio, whose power in effect now costs as much as Rs. 7. Copyright © 2001 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd. ***************************************************************** 13 'Nuclear plants can withstand quake' The Hindu on indiaserver.com : Monday, February 12, 2001 By Our Staff Reporter MADURAI, FEB. 11. All the 14 nuclear power reactors in the country have inbuilt protection mechanism to withstand high seismic activities, according to Dr. S.K. Malhotra, Head of the publicity division of the Department of Atomic Energy, Mumbai. Talking to presspersons here today, Mr. Malhotra said the Kakrupar Atomic Power Plant near Surat had not been affected due to the earthquakes and rather it kept working to full capacity. Since the nuclear plants were already subjected to `operating basis earthquake' and `safe shutdown earthquake' and were housed in strong containment building, there was no cause for fear. The guidelines of the International Atomic Energy Agency had been fully complied with, he said. Also, the commissioning of the nuclear plant was being done only after determining the seismo-tectonic map of the plant, to ascertain the possible impact due to vibrations and shock waves. The nuclear plants were also being constantly monitored by the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. The current installed capacity was 2,720 MW and production of nuclear energy should be enhanced to more than 9,000 MW for the country to attain self-sufficiency in the power sector. Mr. Malhotra said 35 per cent of Japan's energy was obtained from the nuclear power plants though the country was in a high seismic zone, which only meant that the power reactors would not cause harm if commissioned with effective safeguards. Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Politicians arrested at nuclear protest BBC News | SCOTLAND | The BBC's Andrew Cassell Monday, 12 February, 2001, 23:37 GMT Police attempt to keep protesters away from the gate Politicians and church ministers were among 379 people arrested during a protest at the home of Britain's Trident nuclear submarine fleet. Labour MP George Galloway, Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan and Green Party MEP Caroline Lucas were arrested during the demonstration at Faslane. Mr Galloway, the MP for Glasgow Kelvin and Scottish Socialist Party Leader and Glasgow MSP Mr Sheridan shouted defiance as police removed them from the protest. Fifteen churchmen were also arrested as demonstrators launched the biggest anti-nuclear protest seen in Scotland since the early 1960s. A spokesman for Strathclyde Police said it arrested 195 women and 178 men, mainly on breach of the peace charges, while military police arrested a further six people. By Monday night almost all those arrested had been released. They will still be the subject of reports to the Procurator Fiscal. Mr Sheridan served five days of a 14-day jail sentence for non-payment of a fine in relation to a demonstration last February. The latest demonstration, which was designed to close the base for the day, began at 0700GMT and was organised by anti-nuclear weapons group Trident Ploughshares and Scottish CND. Banners of support A number of protesters formed a human chain at the north gate entrance to the base at Helensburgh and they were cheered on by crowds on either side of the main gate who waved banners of support. Before being led away by police, Mr Sheridan, said: "The world is against nuclear weapons and today proves that the time for talking is over and demonstrations throughout the world should start against nuclear weapons." Mr Galloway said: "We are worried about how to pay for care of the elderly and reducing class sizes in schools. "However, we are spending millions on weapons of mass destruction that will never be used." Some of the estimated 500 demonstrators unfurled banners at the base, including a red flag and a depiction of a child maimed by nuclear weapons. Protesters banged on drums, while others chanted slogans. Police used power tools to cut through tubing which protesters had used to tie themselves together. They also had to dismantle the costume of a woman dressed as a silver nuclear missile before they could arrest her. Author Alasdair Gray, who joined CND in 1958, called on MSPs to take action against the presence of nuclear weapons in Scotland. He said: "Scotland now has her own parliament and hopefully this may lead to something being done about nuclear weapons." Depth of feeling Mr Sheridan's wife Gail defended her husband's actions and said: "I have taken the mince out and I will have it ready as he should be home for his tea. "I am very proud of him and I know he will continue to protest unless these evil weapons are taken away from us." Scottish National Party MSP Linda Fabiani said the demonstration showed the depth of feeling against nuclear weapons. A spokeswoman for Faslane said staff were still managing to get into work despite the protest. She said: "We knew this was going to happen so we made sure we got people onto the site before it started. "We are managing to get people in and out although both entrances are booked so access is very difficult. "Non essential staff have been advised to stay at home or work from home." Faslane is home to the four-strong Trident submarine fleet. Each vessel has 16 missile tubes and the weapons are said to be accurate to within 100 yards. Hundreds have been arrested in previous protests over several years. Trident Ploughshares predicted that up to 1,000 activists would be present from countries across Europe. The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend Andrew McLellan, joined the action and took part in an ecumenical service at the protest site. Mr McLellan said: "I am here to demonstrate the Church of Scotland's long-standing opposition to nuclear weapons in general and Trident in particular. "I am very impressed with the atmosphere and both the police and the protesters have been both cordial and courteous. "I am not going to be arrested but some of my best friends have been." The protesters received a message of support from Sir Sean Connery. Search BBC News Online ***************************************************************** 2 Sean Connery backs sub blockade CNN.com - - February 12, 2001 Connery could not attend the protest but felt it was a "just cause" EDINBURGH, Scotland -- Anti-nuclear protestors, backed by James Bond star Sean Connery, tried to bring Britain's main Trident nuclear submarine plant to a standstill on Monday. Demonstrators blocked the entrance of the plant, taking direct action against nuclear installations and equipment involved at the Trident system. Sean Connery, who could not attend the demonstration at the Faslane base in person, gave his backing for the Trident Ploughshares campaign. Connery told former Scottish National Party head Alex Salmond: "I cannot be with you in person because of filming commitments. But be assured that I am with you in spirit and give you best wishes for your demonstration and your just cause." Organisers of the protest, which began at dawn, hope that hundreds of supporters from across Britain and Europe will unite for the demonstrations. Strathclyde police said they had arrested 40 men and 19 women out of a group of around 200 protesters at base's north gate. Some protestors had strapped themselves at the top of large scaffolding tripods to make it more difficult to remove them. The naval base on the west coast of Scotland is home to four of Britain's nuclear submarines, which Ploughshares argue are illegal because they cannot distinguish between military and civilian targets. At a similar protest last year, more than 180 people including nuns and Japanese monks were arrested. Reuters contributed to this report. ***************************************************************** 3 Ukraine Says Won't Build Nuclear Weapons With Russia Russia Today - KIEV, Feb 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A senior Ukrainian official said Sunday that his and country and Russia were not planning on building nuclear weapons together, undermining remarks made by a junior minister in the defense ministry. "Neither Russia nor Ukraine is currently thinking about jointly making nuclear warhead carriers," the head of the government's commission in charge of military manufacturing, Volodimir Gorbulin, told the UT-1 television channel. That contrasted with a remark by a junior defense minister Friday who said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma would discuss the joint construction of intercontinental ballistic missiles when they hold a 24-hour summit in Kiev late Sunday. The minister suggested the missiles could be used to carry nuclear warheads. Monday, Putin and Kuchma are to visit a factory that, in Soviet times, used to be one of the biggest missile factories in the world. It now builds trams and satellite launcher rockets. Ukraine renounced the use of nuclear weapons after winning independence in 1991 and all its nuclear missiles -- estimated at some 1,500 -- were transported to Russia in 1996. *((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)* ***************************************************************** 4 Prosecutor General blocks legal reform Environmental Rights This section covers issues related to the rights of individuals and green groups to work with environmental problems in Russia. The violation of this right is becoming a regular practice in modern Russia. Here you will also find all the news related to the Nikitin case and his final victory in the Supreme Court on April 17, 2000. For the second time in a few weeks an attempt at reforming the outdated Russian Criminal Procedure Code is blocked. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-02-12 15:02 In December 2000 the Duma passed a law proposal in order to shorten the time a person can be held in pre-trial detention from 18 to 12 months. According to St. Petersburg Times, the reform would have reduced the Russian prison population with more than 200,000, of which most are charged with petty crimes. The decrease would first and foremost have taken place in overcrowded jails, where tuberculosis and other diseases are rampant. "Dangerous consequences" XXX However, on the eve of the handling of the proposal in the Federation Council (the upper house of the parliament), Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov sent a letter to the speaker of the Federation Council, Yegor Stroyev, urging him to block the bill's passage. Moreover, Ustinov's deputy Sabir Kekhlerov came to the Council to lobby against the bill in person, claiming that it was "fraught with dangerous consequences for society". Last September Kekhlerov appeared for the prosecution in its attempt on getting the Supreme Court Presidium to cancel the acquittal of environmentalist Aleksandr Nikitin. Then he came out on the loosing side, but apparently he had more success this time. A spokesman of the Prosecutor General's Office also pointed out that the bill would have led to the release of 350 individuals charged with murder, rape or banditism. Alexander Urmanov, aide to Pavel Krasheninnikov, chairman of the Duma's legislative committee, characterised these arguments as "very deceitful", since the limits on detention would not have affected persons arrested before the new legislation had entered into force. Human right violation XXX The bill is the second piece of legislation aimed at reforming the Soviet-era Criminal Procedure Code, that has been blocked in a couple of weeks, because of interference from the Prosecutor General. The first would have required arrests, imprisonments and searches to be sanctioned by a court. Consequently, a Russian prosecutor can still put anyone he wants behind bars, no court can control his judgement, and the person in question can be held under appalling conditions for months and even years before the case is brought to trial. This state of the law is obviously a blatant violation of the Russian Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights and a number of other human rights treaties signed by Russia. According to Urmanov the Duma will probably not try to pass the bill again: "Nobody likes to fight". Thus, the rule of law in Russia, which presence was saluted after the acquittal of Nikitin, seems to vanish in the distance - at least for the time being. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 5 INEEL behind schedule in shipping waste IdahoStatesman.com Monday, February 12, 2001 Official says lab still has chance to get caught up XXX The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory is struggling to meet one of its next major deadlines for shipping thousands of drums of nuclear waste out of the state. The shipments have lagged behind schedule so far, and although managers have a plan for making up those losses, they say it will be difficult. "On a scale of 1 to 10, it's a 12," said Dennis Murphy, Bechtel's quality assurance program manager on the project. Reasons for the schedule slip vary, but include government permit uncertainties, delays in receiving testing equipment, trucks socked in by snow and overly optimistic estimates of how many drums of waste would qualify to go to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico. "Some of the prior planning had assumed a lot of good things would happen all at the same time. It just hasn't worked out that way," said Site Project Manager Thomas Monk. In roughly the last year and a half, the INEEL has shipped about 250 cubic meters of radioactive waste to the permanent repository in New Mexico. By the end of next year, it must ship 2,850 cubic meters more to meet its court-enforceable settlement agreement with the state of Idaho. "We have said that we will not know until the April-through-June time frame whether or not this is a horse that's going to come in real close to first," Monk said, referring to the odds of meeting the deadline. "We know there is a real chance of meeting it. If we did not believe there's a reasonable chance of making it, we would have come forward by now." The site has fallen further behind schedule since the fiscal year started in October. The INEEL was supposed to make 35 shipments; it has made only 19. It was not until last week, after adding an extra night shift to process waste, that the INEEL pushed enough barrels through the complicated testing system to meet its own internal targets. Managers plan to add more shipments this summer to make up for lost time, which would enable them to ship the agreed-upon 3,100 cubic meters of waste by the end of 2002. They also intend to add another graveyard shift within the next month, which means that workers will process waste around the clock seven days a week. The site is buying duplicate X-ray machines, and managers have sent out bids for a private company to bring in mobile radiological equipment, which would boost the numbers of barrels that can be analyzed. Part of the problem is that the Stored Waste Examination Pilot Plant -- the experimental facility built in the 1980s where waste is tested -- was not designed to handle waste on a production scale. That problem will be solved when the much-larger Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project comes online in a few years. ***************************************************************** 6 SNS director expected to be named by March Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 12:17 p.m. on Monday, February 12, 2001 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff The search for a new executive director for the $1.4 billion Spallation Neutron Source project continues with the list of potential candidates being narrowed and then expanded. Bill Madia, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, this morning described the search as a difficult process. "I'm spending a lot of time of this," he said. So far, Madia said he has had initial interviews with more than 15 people for the SNS position. Some of those candidates have warranted second interviews, and Madia said he could confirm that four scientists are being viewed as possible "leading candidates" for the position. Those include: Thom Mason + Jay Marx, who directs the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. + Satoshi Ozaki, director of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. + Andrew Taylor, who directs the ISIS Facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England. However, Madia said he expects a couple of these people to withdraw from the candidate list soon due to personal reasons, including children and spousal employment. Madia also said, "There have been a few other highly qualified recent additions to the list." The new candidates have not gone through an initial interview, but one person was expected to be interviewed today. At this time, Madia said he could not release the names of the new contenders. Madia said he hopes to hire the new SNS chief by the beginning of March. The new executive director will replace David Moncton, who in January announced he was stepping down from his SNS duties. Moncton, who came to Oak Ridge in February 1999 to prepare the SNS for construction, decided to quit splitting his time between his SNS duties and his job at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, choosing to return full-time to the latter. He said his decision will allow him to spend more time with his family and resume his research at Argonne. The impending appointment of a new executive director for the SNS isn't the only change for the project. SNS will soon be integrated back into the lab, thus resulting in a change of sorts regarding to whom the SNS director will report. Currently, the head of the SNS project reports to Madia in his role as chief executive officer of UT-Battelle, which manages the lab for the Department of Energy. But when the integration occurs, the SNS executive director will report to Madia as the lab director. SNS' initial independence from ORNL was due to the fact that the Department of Energy contract to manage the lab was up for grabs, according to Madia. Madia said neither the reorganization of the SNS nor the imminent loss of Moncton as director should have any impact on the future of the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2006. To design and construct the SNS, a partnership was organized among six national laboratories -- Argonne, Brookhaven in New York, Jefferson in Virginia, Lawrence Berkeley in California, Los Alamos in New Mexico and ORNL. The SNS, located on Chestnut Ridge between Oak Ridge National Lab and the Y-12 National Security Complex, will consist of a linear accelerator that will produce proton beams that scatter neutrons by bombarding a liquid mercury target. Neutron scattering research has been responsible for improvements in jets, credit cards, pocket calculators, compact discs, computer disks, shatterproof windshields, satellite information for weather forecasts and stronger, lighter plastics. Neutrons have also been used to determine how bones mineralize during development and how they decay during osteoporosis. Congress appropriated $278 million for the current fiscal year to begin construction of SNS while the budget request for fiscal year 2002 is expected to be $291 million. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************