***************************************************************** 04/15/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.93 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 LETTERS: Nuke waste transport 2 Casing around Chernobyl reactor could collapse 3 Tantalum diggers warned of lung-cancer risk 4 'Nuclear power plant would not affect villagers' 5 Temelin's Troubles Quite Common 6 Utah seeks alternatives as Moab cleanup of uranium tailing stalls 7 Ukraine scientist to speak at Risk meeting 8 Looking behind the energy 'crisis' 9 Time for nukes? 10 Nuclear revival good news for Cameco 11 Danish prime minister wants Swedish reactor closed down 12 Expert predicts possible Chernobyl disaster 13 International conference on Chernobyl to be held in Kiev 14 Chernobyl to be discussed 15 Visit of Chernobyl victims marks start of UAE-Ukraine cooperation 16 Panel urged to warn other states of nuke transport dangers NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Nuclear research laser wins $69 million in federal funding 2 New Law to Protect Workers' Health 3 Pantex might store more nuclear batteries 4 Bill designed to help Kelly AFB nuclear workers 5 INEEL may ship more waste with less money 6 FFTF gathers crucial support 7 Livermore lab laser funding gets major boost 8 Senator says Chao reversed position, agreed to run benefits program 9 ORNL work timetable pushed up 10 EPA reports spending $3.75 million at Newport site 11 DEPLETED URANIUM – MoD DEVELOPS PLANS FOR APPROPRIATE SCREENING 12 Former French prime minister reveals loophole in NATO. 13 Egypt still bothered by Israeli nukes 14 U.S. Studies Developing New Nuclear Bomb 15 Forces study 'an insult,' MP charges 16 Aldermaston woman tells secrets of our super-bomb secrets 17 Future of RECA still up in the air ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 LETTERS: Nuke waste transport [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Sunday, April 15, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal DOE's foremost goal is protect public health, environment To the editor: The U.S. Department of Energy's Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office takes exception to Las Vegas City Attorney Brad Jerbic's report to the State Commission on Nuclear Projects, as reported in the Review-Journal's April 4 article, "Nuclear Waste: City officials vow to fight dump." Mr. Jerbic appears to have selectively interpreted statements from a study by Urban Environmental Research, LLC. While Mr. Jerbic represents the study's statistics as if the pictures it paints are certain to happen, the authors of those same statistics concede their research cannot predict actual impacts. In addition, the fundamental premise of the study Mr. Jerbic cites is flawed in that it suggests that by comparing two opinion surveys of what might happen, one could provide a "comprehensive view of the potential effects of shipping nuclear waste on Clark County property." In the United States, 30 years of experience in shipping spent nuclear fuel has produced a long record of safe transportation of radioactive materials. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Transportation will regulate all shipments to the Yucca Mountain site if it is developed as a repository. Nevada residents can be confident that prior to initiation of any shipments to a repository that: -- The transportation casks to be used will be certified by the NRC and will be able to withstand extreme accident conditions. -- DOT regulations will dictate the highway routes we are allowed to use. -- Rail and highway routes that avoid the Southern Nevada metropolitan area are feasible. -- Emergency response providers along the transportation routes will be trained and equipped to deal with any incident involving our shipments that might occur. In short, our foremost goal is to protect public health and the environment. We commit that if the Yucca Mountain site is designated as a repository, we will ensure that shipments will meet stringent regulatory requirements for protecting public health and the environment. ALLEN BENSON NORTH LAS VEGAS The writer is director of institutional affairs for the Department of Energy's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Office. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Apr-15-Sun-2001/opinion/15854398.html ***************************************************************** 2 Casing around Chernobyl reactor could collapse Age Breaking News Source: AFP|Published: Saturday April 14, 10:33 AM MUNICH, Germany, April 13 AFP - The stone casing entombing Chernobyl nuclear power reactor is in danger of imminent collapse, a former director of security services has warned. Quoted in the upcoming issue of the German weekly Focus, Valentine Kupny said "the covering around the reactor could collapse at any moment". "The sarcophagus is so porous that radioactivity escapes each day," he said. "We don't even have the ability to measure the amount. If we could see the radioactivity there would be a cloud of smoke above the sarcophagus." "What would happen (if the cover collapsed) would depend on the wind," Kupny said, but added that it was unlikely that radioactivity would reach the West again. The number four reactor at Chernobyl exploded on April 26, 1986, contaminating three-quarters of Europe in the world's worst civilian nuclear accident. Koupny was sacked from the centre last month for "violation of duty", according to a Chernobyl spokesman. But Focus said his dismissal came shortly after he had been interviewed by the author of its article. The covering, which was quickly built around the reactor the day after the explosion, is covered with cracks. Kupny said he did not know exactly what was happening inside the reactor nor how the 160 tonnes of radioactive magma inside reacted to rainwater, Focus reported. "In September 1996 we recorded the last atomic chain reaction," Kupny said. "But it is very possible that something is happening now. We don't know." The last of the four reactors at Chernobyl was closed definitively last December. Copyright © 2000 The Age Company Ltd. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 3 Tantalum diggers warned of lung-cancer risk April 14, 2001 PENANG: Tantalum prospectors have been warned that digging for the radioactive material in tunnels will increase their likelihood of getting lung cancer. Atomic Energy Licensing Board director-general Dr Syed Abdul Malik Syed Zain said that the concentration of radioactive gases such as radon and thoron was high in tunnels. "The prospectors should not risk their health for short-term monetary gains,'' he said in an interview. Dr Syed Malik said the gases, when inhaled, would break down to form nucleotides which expose the body to ionic radiation that could cause untold damage to cells. On Wednesday, three illegal diggers were buried alive when a tunnel they dug to prospect for tantalum under a car showroom in Taman Selat collapsed at about 7pm. On Nov 7 last year, a *roti canai* seller died after being buried alive when a tunnel he dug to prospect for tantalum in Jalan Pantai collapsed. Dr Syed Malik said he had advised the prospectors "but they seem to be blinded my the financial prospects as they claim they can earn up to RM600 a day.'' "Perhaps they don't see the urgency as the symptoms may appear only after five or 10 years. Exposure to radiation may last many generations as it can cause gene mutation and mutated genes can be passed from one generation to another,'' he said. Dr Syed Malik said the board needed more clout to play a more effective role in protecting the public from such activities. 1995-2001 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd (Co No 10894-D) ***************************************************************** 4 'Nuclear power plant would not affect villagers' 14 April 2001 : The Times of India CHANDIGARH: Though the residents of two dozen villages of Patran sub-division of Patiala district are agitated over the Punjab government's decision to set up a nuclear plant there, fearing it would be hazardous, Sohal maintained that the apprehensions were baseless and people were just misguided. Sohal said there was a nuclear power plant at Narora in Uttar Pradesh which is densely populated, so there was no need for people to worry. He said there would be six stage checks at the plant and there was no question of leakage. He said it was the duty of the PSEB to allay apprehensions and said the Board would conduct more tours of people in the villages to other nuclear plants in the country to let them have the first-hand information. Sohal said that the Board would ensure that the plant is located in such a way that no village is uprooted. However, he was not sure of the mode of disposal of the nuclear wastes. He said these details would be worked out by the Nuclear Power Corporation and there was no need to worry. He cautioned that if people continued to oppose, other states would try to get the project and Punjab would be the loser. ***************************************************************** 5 Temelin's Troubles Quite Common Foreign Experts Say Temelin's Troubles Quite Common PRAGUE, Apr 14, 2001 -- (CTK - Czech News Agency) The views of foreign experts concerning the nuclear power plant in Temelin differ but they nevertheless coincide on that the problems of Temelin's turbine are not unusual, CTK's foreign correspondents have found out. Turbine vibrations may occur in the start-up of power plants, experts from the Foratom European Atomic Forum said. They do not see any problem in the combination of Russian technology and American control systems. They say these have been well tested, are compatible, and have been used elsewhere (the Russian model has been used in Finland, for example). The problem is not in the nuclear part of the reactor. The problem is that Skoda has never before produced such a large turbine and therefore could not have tested it, David Kyd of Foratom said. British expert Gordon Hughes, director of the research center for systems safety said the Temelin power plant does not pose an increased health risk for the population. At the same time, he has not ruled out that because of an outdated design it will not be operating well in the future. The problems that have occurred in Temelin, like those with the turbine or the oil leak, are not uncommon and should not give rise to concern. Their frequency nevertheless suggests that they may occur again in the future. The large number of mechanical failures witnessed since the launch of the start-up process suggests that Temelin's design is not perfectly in order, Hughes said. Mechanical problems which are characteristic of Soviet-type power plants cannot be removed with advanced western technology. This technology may bring the quality of the control system to western standards but cannot improve the mechanical operation of the power plant, Hughes said. Ludger Mohrbach, of the German technical association of operators of large power plants in Essen considers Temelin a plant meeting internationally recognized criteria and regulations. However, there are reservations about the Czech plant from the point of view of the very strict German regulations. The turbine complications are common problems having nothing to do with nuclear technology. Mohrbach said the equipment of Temelin with control systems supplied by Westinghouse meets the minimum generally accepted world standards. The turbine in the first block was shut down on April 2 due to a leak in piping. Reactor output will start to be raised again after Easter. Temelin was launched last October but has since had to be shut down about ten times for various failures. *((c) 2001 CTK - Czech News Agency)* ***************************************************************** 6 Utah seeks alternatives as Moab cleanup of uranium tailing stalls [The Arizona Republic] Associated Press April 13, 2001 07:48:00 MOAB, Utah - Angry at the holdup in stabilizing a uranium tailings pile along the Colorado River in southeastern Utah, the state is threatening to find someone else to do the job. However, the trustee in charge of the work says it cannot go ahead until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service signs off on it. "We are to the point we cannot wait any longer," Bill Sinclair, director of the state Division of Radiation Control, told The Salt Lake Tribune. "My patience is wearing thin." PricewaterhouseCoopers is the trustee for bankrupt Atlas Corp., the party responsible for containing the 130-acre uranium waste heap that has been contaminating the river near Moab. The trustee abandoned work on the site three months ago, saying it had run out of money. Since then, it has balked because of bureaucratic snags. Pricewaterhouse officials met this week in Washington with officials of the U.S. Interior Department, the parent agency of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The trustee wants reassurance it will not be sued by one government agency for carrying out a stabilization plan approved by three other government agencies. "We are still getting mixed messages from Fish and Wildlife," said Jim Langley, project director for PricewaterhouseCoopers. "They are very good at nodding their heads and saying, 'We don't think that's a problem,' but they are not very good at saying, 'You don't have a problem.' " Since FWS withdrew its support for the Atlas work in February, Pricewaterhouse has feared running afoul of the federal Endangered Species Act and becoming liable for fines of up to $25,000. The other federal agencies do not understand the delay and have lined up in the past month behind a new timetable that would finish the stabilization in two months. The work basically involves drying the tailings, the waste byproduct of nearly three decades of uranium processing, and covering the pile with dirt. The U.S. Department of Energy is to take over the site next fall and determine the best long-term solution. That work is expected to cost between $100 million and $300 million and to take more than a decade. FWS is involved because both the contamination and the proposed remedies may impact five species under its protection: the Colorado pike minnow, the razorback sucker, the humpback chub and boneytail, all fish species, and the southwestern willow flycatcher, a bird. Last week the agency assured the other government agencies involved that the trustees are free to go forward with the work as planned. ***************************************************************** 7 Ukraine scientist to speak at Risk meeting Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 3:24 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2001 The next meeting of the East Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis will be held Monday, April 16, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Social Room of the Oak Ridge Civic Center. The speaker will be Zoya Ulberg, director of the Institute of Biocolloidal Chemistry, Academy of Sciences of the Ukraine. Her topic will be "Experience in the remediation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident" and will cover the natural, medical, social and financial consequences of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. Ulberg holds a doctorate of sciences in chemistry from Kiev Polytechnic Institute. She is a lecturer as well as an author and has written over 250 scientific papers on colloidal and microorganisms and particles of minerals and metals and diffusionphoresis -- the movement of colloid particles in a field of electrolyte concentration gradient. The public is invited. For more information, contact Sylvia Talmage at 576-7758 or Fay Martin, 482-2969. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 8 Looking behind the energy 'crisis' [Staten Island Live] 04/13/01 BOULDER, Colo. -- Here at the annual World Affairs Conference at the University of Colorado, the assorted experts from around the globe may sometimes be wrong, but they are rarely in doubt. This lends a happy, "But the emperor isn't wearing any clothes," simplicity to much of the discussion. Shibboleths are ignored, obligatory bows to those who are only partially informed are skipped entirely, and folks get right down to the lick-log. Thus, Harvey Wasserman, a longtime leader of the anti-nuclear movement, cutting to the chase: "Anyone who advocates nuclear power as a solution to our energy problems should be shut up in a padded cell." Wasserman can, of course, discuss the details of nuclear plant design, risk, insurance, regulation, waste disposal, etc., ad nauseum. It's just that he'd rather not waste his time on the obvious. One session I attended here not expecting to learn much new (but it's always nice to have your prejudices confirmed) was titled "Our Fake Energy Crisis: What Really Happened in California." The aforementioned Wasserman waded in with a will, describing the dastardly tale of ruthless utility companies determined to unload the "stranded costs" of their monumental folly in building nuclear plants -- $20 billion worth in California's case -- on the ratepayers. Given that utility lobbyists literally wrote the California deregulation bill, it's quite a reach to blame it on anyone else. This is a familiar tale to those who have read beyond the basic coverage of the California situation. Wasserman tells the story well, with a fine contempt for the greed and stupidity behind it all and for the politicians now seeking cover. But he presents a media mystery that has me stumped -- one of those cases of the media overlooking the obvious so completely that one is bereft of a handy explanation. Some parts of California are not suffering from power problems of any kind. In Los Angeles and Sacramento, the lights are still on and the rates have not doubled or tripled. As it happens, the people of Los Angeles and Sacramento own their own power plants. This glaringly obvious fact has for some reason escaped media attention, except in California. The history of how utility ownership and regulation came about is crucial to this story. Wasserman quoted a 19th-century mayor of Cleveland, Tom Johnson, who said, "If we don't control the electric utilities, they will control us." As is often the case with business and government regulation, it was the utilities themselves that asked for regulation, knowing full well that they could easily dominate state public utility commissions. "Regulation" evolved so that utilities were permitted to make 15 percent on invested capital -- a tidy sum. This lasted until the early 1990s, when wholesale prices fell, tempting the utilities into deregulation. They dumped the stranded nuke costs on the ratepayers and made a promise in exchange -- no rate increases -- which they promptly broke when wholesale prices went up. Ask the people of San Diego. The performance of the suppliers in this case -- Enron, Reliant, etc. -- is already the subject of public inquiry. But the California utility companies were meanwhile shipping the recovered nuke costs to their parent companies. ("We're still checking the DNA on those parents," said Wasserman.) And then, in a truly sublime move, the major California utility gave its executives huge bonuses just before it went into bankruptcy. Wasserman's suggested solution is that Californians should simply get themselves out of the grid by setting up municipally owned power companies. In rural areas, this can be done by counties or electric co-ops. He believes that what held the old system together for so long was not government regulation, which was always blatantly subject to manipulation by the utilities (as anyone who has ever covered a PUC can tell you), but rather the tension between the for-profits and the municipals. In the current issue of Business Week, the cover story is on Exxon Mobil's plan to take advantage of the "energy crisis." This would normally be funny, given that Exxon is in the oil business and (as most people outside the Oval Office are aware), the oil business has nothing to do with electricity. However, Exxon's acquisition of Mobil, which is rich in natural gas, unleashes a corporate behemoth of unprecedented size. Exxon also has a corporate culture that would give nightmares to "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap of business fame. Here are some interesting facts from the Rocky Mountain Institute: The cheapest source of new electricity is efficiency; the next cheapest is burning soft coal, which is a gross polluter; and the next cheapest after that is wind power -- 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Her column appears regularly on the editorial pages of the Advance. ***************************************************************** 9 Time for nukes? The reactor at Three Mile Island melted down in 1979, throwing a chill that is still cooling the nuclear industry. [Should global warming and electricity woes spark a renewal of nuclear power?] Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration. California's cooling, globe's warming POSTED 13 APR 2001 Remember nuclear power? Forty years ago, it was hyped as [Four cooling towers symbolize the nuclear industry. Cooling is needed to reuse water that makes steam.] "too cheap to meter," and more than 400 nuclear electric generators were built around the world. Then, in 1979, despite assurances from experts, Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant melted down. Nuclear electricity became "too expensive to sell," and the industry began a long slide. Plant orders were cancelled. Some plants closed. Major operators went bankrupt. Peddling reactors became about as exciting as selling sugared soda at a diabetics convention. What a difference a couple of decades makes! Today, even as the Bush Administration belittles global warming, the prospects of a worldwide warm-up may make nuclear power seem sweet by comparison. [New York Times headline reads: U.S. Aides see a risk of meltdown at Pennsylvania nuclear plant; more radioactive gas is released] California provides another reason to consider power from the once-shunned atom. If the state can't survive winter without rolling blackouts, we can only imagine what will happen come air-conditioning time. Even the most fervid California-basher knows West Coast trends eventually reach the "real" America, and whether the shortage reflects bungled deregulation, reluctance to pay market prices, soaring population, rapid economic growth or simple greed, California has no corner on triggers for an electricity crisis. Options, anyone? [A woman addresses the crowd, in front of a sign saying 'Danger: radiation in the city.'] When it comes to electricity, the options are limited. Gas is expensive. Oil is unavailable. Coal pollutes like the dickens. Conservation is, well, so '80s, and renewable sources are likely to remain minor-league players, even in the unlikely event that the government devotes serious funding to them. Is it time to dust off nuclear? Nuclear fission power -- in which atoms are split apart -- now supplies 20 percent of U.S. electricity. 1999 was a record year for output, as operators streamline their processes to wring more power from the same equipment. (Wonder about conditions at your local reactor?) Still, nuclear power's many critics ask why, if nukes are so cheap, no plant has been ordered in the United States since the late 1970s. Critics also argue that there's no proven way to contain the unstable radioactive isotopes that come from reactors, and that these isotopes can make nuclear bombs. They also worry that reactor accidents could contaminate large areas of the landscape. Three Mile Island proved that reactors can melt down. Can anyone design a melt-down proof reactor? [Chain reactions make energy -- and problems.] Spin, turbine, spin [atom image] Like fossil-fuel powered generators, nuclear power plants use thermal energy to turn turbines to generate electricity. The energy comes from a fission reaction: A neutron emitted by a uranium nucleus strikes another uranium nucleus, which emits more neutrons and heat as it fissions (breaks apart). If the new neutrons strike other nuclei, a chain reaction is taking place. [The containment structure holds the reactor vessel and steam generator. The turbine and condenser, which turns the steam back into water, are in a separate building.] The atoms get split in the reactor vessel. The primary loop (red) moves heat from the core to the steam generator. The secondary loop (blue) drives the turbine to make electricity. Chain reactions are the source of nuclear energy, whether in hydrogen bombs or reactors that power toaster ovens or electric Barcaloungers. In addition to making scads of heat, nuclear fission reactors make radioactive byproducts, including plutonium, a precious element if you're in the nuclear-weapons biz. (If spent fuel were reprocessed -- a controversial suggestion we don't have room to explore -- plutonium could also be used to power reactors.) Nuclear reactors convert lightly-radioactive uranium fuel into isotopes that decay rapidly and release lots of radiation. You could almost hold reactor fuel in your hand, but you'd be nuts to do that after a fuel rod has been through a nuclear plant. Fission reactions make a prodigious amount of heat from tiny amounts of fuel. Normally, this heat makes steam to drive the generating turbine. If the heat is not removed fast enough, the reactor fuel can get hot and melt down, destroying the vessel around it and possibly releasing radiation to the environment. [Neutrons are made by fission, and they stimulate fission, creating the chain reaction.] A chain reaction occurs when neutrons from a fission strike another uranium nucleus and create another fission. Courtesy University of Missouri-Rolla Student Chapter of the American Nuclear Society A meltdown leaves a pile of highly radioactive sludge that's tougher to tidy than a teenager's room. Coulda been worse [atom image] The meltdown at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania in 1979 released relatively little radiation. According to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, only about 15 curies of radioactive iodine 131 -- a primary culprit at the later disaster at Chernobyl -- was released -- although millions of curies were in the plant beforehand. The accident was caused by design errors that were compounded "drastically" -- as the NRCput it -- by human error. After a valve released cooling water from the core, pumps began automatically replacing it -- until the operators shut the pumps down. Eventually, although about half the fuel melted, it did not destroy the containment, averting a "China syndrome" accident. Far worse was the fire and explosion that scourged Chernobyl and its surroundings, killing 31 immediately and an unknown number over the long term. Western reactor designs, we are told, make a Chernobyl rerun almost impossible. And nuclear plants have redundant safety measures, including emergency core cooling plumbing that pumps water into the core in an emergency. And while multiple safety measures seem reassuring, the plants' very complexity opens the door to accidents like the one at TMI, which follow unforeseeable paths. Leaving meltdown town [atom image] Why not design a reactor that could keep its cool without emergency core-cooling equipment, thus sidestepping many key objections to nuclear power? Such "passively safe" designs, which rely on reliable forces like gravity, are a focus as the nuclear industry struggles back to its feet. The three passive-safe reactor designs that have won NRC approval all heed the "simple is smart" credo. For example, the 600 million-watt AP 600, built by Westinghouse, omits lots of plumbing. James Winters, the project's engineering manager, wrote that the design incorporates "60 percent fewer valves, 75 percent less piping, 80 percent less control cable, 35 percent fewer pumps..." (see "The AP 600... " in the bibliography). The plant is designed so gravity and convection, rather than electric pumps, will supply cooling water during an accident. Most valves in the safety system, he wrote, "fail safe," requiring power to stay in their normal, closed position. When the light go out, they "open into their safety alignment." Indeed, Winters writes, the reactor could cool itself, using on-site water, without any electricity and with the operator playing blackjack in Vegas. Make it simple! [atom image] Nuclear engineers are angling for even greater simplicity. One example is the proposed multi-application light water reactor now being developed at the federal Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The idea is to eliminate unnecessary junk, tuck as many necessary parts as possible into the containment vessel, and never add fuel. Call it the disposable reactor. Kinda like this disposable car. Simplicity is bliss, says Jose Reyes, a professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University, who has worked on the reactor. "We got rid of quite a few components that might be susceptible to failure." Instead of a complicated emergency core cooling system, the reactor would sit under a pond of water that would absorb excess heat and prevent a meltdown in an emergency, Reyes says. Another troublesome component that's absent is a steam generator, which normally uses heat from the core to make steam for the turbine. Brittle steam generators have caused hyper-expensive repair programs in existing reactors. Each reactor is a module that fits on a railcar, allowing factory construction rather than site-building. Two modules would be ganged to generate 100 million watts of electricity. That's minuscule compared to the large reactors built 30 years ago, which produce about 1,000 megawatts. But smaller units can go on line much faster. A test model, scheduled to be built this summer, will be heated by electricity rather than nuclear fuel. If it works, the plan is to build a real reactor -- assuming that anybody wants to buy one, that is. Pebbles! Some big money says you need a PBMR. A huh? Spin, turbine, spin [atom image] Like fossil-fuel powered generators, nuclear power plants use thermal energy to turn turbines to generate electricity. The energy comes from a fission reaction: A neutron emitted by a uranium nucleus strikes another uranium nucleus, which emits more neutrons and heat as it fissions (breaks apart). If the new neutrons strike other nuclei, a chain reaction is taking place. [The containment structure holds the reactor vessel and steam generator. The turbine and condenser, which turns the steam back into water, are in a separate building.] The atoms get split in the reactor vessel. The primary loop (red) moves heat from the core to the steam generator. The secondary loop (blue) drives the turbine to make electricity. Courtesy Chain reactions are the source of nuclear energy, whether in hydrogen bombs or reactors that power toaster ovens or . In addition to making scads of heat, nuclear fission reactors make radioactive byproducts, including plutonium, a precious element if you're in the nuclear-weapons biz. (If spent fuel were reprocessed -- a controversial suggestion we don't have room to explore -- plutonium could also be used to power reactors.) Nuclear reactors convert lightly-radioactive uranium fuel into isotopes that decay rapidly and release lots of radiation. You could almost hold reactor fuel in your hand, but you'd be nuts to do that after a fuel rod has been through a nuclear plant. Fission reactions make a prodigious amount of heat from tiny amounts of fuel. Normally, this heat makes steam to drive the generating turbine. If the heat is not removed fast enough, the reactor fuel can get hot and melt down, destroying the vessel around it and possibly releasing radiation to the environment. [Neutrons are made by fission, and they stimulate fission, creating the chain reaction.] A chain reaction occurs when neutrons from a fission strike another uranium nucleus and create another fission. Courtesy A meltdown leaves a pile of highly radioactive sludge that's tougher to tidy than a teenager's room. Coulda been worse [atom image] The meltdown at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania in 1979 released relatively little radiation. According to the U.S. , only about 15 curies of radioactive iodine 131 -- a primary culprit at the later disaster at Chernobyl -- was released -- although millions of curies were in the plant beforehand. The accident was caused by design errors that were compounded "drastically" -- as the put it -- by human error. After a valve released cooling water from the core, pumps began automatically replacing it -- until the operators shut the pumps down. Eventually, although about half the fuel melted, it did not destroy the containment, averting a "" accident. Far worse was the fire and explosion that scourged Chernobyl and its surroundings, killing 31 immediately and an unknown number over the long term. Western reactor designs, we are told, make a Chernobyl rerun almost impossible. And nuclear plants have redundant safety measures, including emergency core cooling plumbing that pumps water into the core in an emergency. And while multiple safety measures seem reassuring, the plants' very complexity opens the door to accidents like the one at TMI, which follow unforeseeable paths. Leaving meltdown town [atom image] Why not design a reactor that could keep its cool without emergency core-cooling equipment, thus sidestepping many key objections to nuclear power? Such "passively safe" designs, which rely on reliable forces like gravity, are a focus as the nuclear industry struggles back to its feet. The three passive-safe reactor designs that have won NRC approval all heed the "simple is smart" credo. For example, the 600 million-watt AP 600, built by Westinghouse, omits lots of plumbing. James Winters, the project's engineering manager, wrote that the design incorporates "60 percent fewer valves, 75 percent less piping, 80 percent less control cable, 35 percent fewer pumps..." (see "The AP 600... " in the bibliography). The plant is designed so gravity and convection, rather than electric pumps, will supply cooling water during an accident. Most valves in the safety system, he wrote, "fail safe," requiring power to stay in their normal, closed position. When the light go out, they "open into their safety alignment." Indeed, Winters writes, the reactor could cool itself, using on-site water, without any electricity and with the operator playing blackjack in Vegas. Make it simple! [atom image] Nuclear engineers are angling for even greater simplicity. One example is the proposed multi-application light water reactor now being developed at the federal Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The idea is to eliminate unnecessary junk, tuck as many necessary parts as possible into the containment vessel, and never add fuel. Call it the disposable reactor. Kinda like this . Simplicity is bliss, says Jose Reyes, a professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University, who has worked on the reactor. "We got rid of quite a few components that might be susceptible to failure." Instead of a complicated emergency core cooling system, the reactor would sit under a pond of water that would absorb excess heat and prevent a meltdown in an emergency, Reyes says. Another troublesome component that's absent is a steam generator, which normally uses heat from the core to make steam for the turbine. Brittle steam generators have caused hyper-expensive repair programs in existing reactors. Each reactor is a module that fits on a railcar, allowing factory construction rather than site-building. Two modules would be ganged to generate 100 million watts of electricity. That's minuscule compared to the large reactors built 30 years ago, which produce about 1,000 megawatts. But smaller units can go on line much faster. A test model, scheduled to be built this summer, will be heated by electricity rather than nuclear fuel. If it works, the plan is to build a real reactor -- assuming that anybody wants to buy one, that is. Pebbles! Some big money says you need a PBMR. A huh? These spheres contain uranium inside heat-resistant coatings. Courtesy Eskom. A road paved with pebbles [atom image] The pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) is designed to skirt some of the biggest headaches of nuclear power: Pausing to refuel (which takes on average, about 40 days). Complex piping. And melting down. But the design does not address every objection to nuclear, and it raises some problems while solving others. [A stack of black spheres with a tennis ball for comparison.] Small pebble bed reactors ran in Germany in the 1970s, and China has recently started one. A larger version is now being designed by South Africa's state utility, with investments from British Nuclear Fuels, owner of the reactor maker Westinghouse, and Exelon Corp., the largest U.S. operator of power reactors. A decision on construction is expected this fall. The design uses a bunch of related advances that appear -- on paper -- to produce a small reactor that can be built cheaply and operated safely. Instead of the typical rod-shaped fuel, the fuel is formed into "pebbles" about the size of a pool ball. Each pebble is made of grains of uranium sheathed in heat-resistant graphite and silicon carbide. The 100 million-watt reactor is supposed to use 310,000 fuel pebbles. The pebbles confer a number of advantages: They are supposed to survive temperatures of 1650 ° Celsius, far hotter than the worst foreseeable accident. The pebbles would be stacked inside the reactor, so older ones would be removed from the bottom as new ones were added on top. Benefit: No need to stop the reactor for gas -- or new fuel. The downward-moving pebbles would allow more complete fission. Ralph Bennett, who works on pebble bed design as director of advanced nuclear energy at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, says that outside rods in a conventional reactor receive fewer neutrons and "burn" less completely than inside rods. (We say "burn," but the fuel does not oxidize. Instead, a uranium atom absorbs a neutron from the splitting of a nearby atom and fissions, releasing more neutrons and heat.) Uniform irradiation improves efficiency. It's a mod, mod, mod reactor [atom image] The South Africans aim to build 100 million-watt pebble bed reactors that fit on a railroad car. Unlike the one-of-a-kind reactors built decades ago, these could be cranked out on an assembly line, making them more like factory-built Fords than existing reactors, which resemble hand-built Ferraris -- with price tags to match. Moving heat from the core to the generating turbine with helium rather than boiling water is a key simplifying step, says Bennett. "You don't have all those different regimens of heat transfer, all the accident scenarios become much easier to analyze." Although boiling-water carries more heat, gas is simpler, Bennett stresses, since it never becomes liquid in the reactor. Cool under the collar [atom image] The biggest advantage of pebble-bed, according to its boosters, is that you'd never have to worry about overheating. The fuel is sheathed in materials tested for high-temperature work, giving a "very large margin" between normal operating temperature and fuel-damaging temperature, says Bennett. "Even in a postulated accident, you'd have a large margin. It takes a very long time, weeks, before extra cooling would be needed." Even if the helium disappeared, air would cool the reactor -- so we are assured, preventing a meltdown that could damage the reactor or irradiate the environment. The reactor will not use plumbing for emergency cooling. This plumbing is complicated to design and test and, according to the engineers' "less-is-more" attitude, if you don't need it, you can pitch it out and forget about testing it. Caution: Flammable [atom image] Is the reactor safe? Perhaps, but "safety" is never absolute. Unexpected things seem to happen if you run enough reactors long enough, and "improvements" may trade one hazard for another. Take the graphite that pebble-bed reactors use instead of water to slow neutrons. Graphite adds mass, slowing heat-up in an emergency and giving operators more time to respond. But graphite burns, and water doesn't. As University of Wisconsin-Madison nuclear engineer Michael Corradini observes, "Nothing is totally foolproof. You're trading the problem with air oxidation to the problem of overheating with water." (Remember: air is the emergency coolant if the helium disappears.) The pebble-bed design contains a lot of graphite, and not just in the fuel, says David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The design, he says, raises "at least a question of a graphite fire, as at Windscale (Great Britain) in 1957 and at Chernobyl in 1986." And while the pebble-bed reactor will store spent fuel temporarily, it would only exacerbate the persistent inability to store radioactive waste safely and in a politically acceptable manner. Radwaste is just one reason for the nuclear willies Unsafe at any price [atom image] New, "passively safe" reactor designs are unlikely to convert the staunchest opponents of nuclear power, who still say it's too expensive and too dangerous. We can't get into every detail in the argument over the wisdom of nuclear power, but the fact that some utilities are interested in buying reactors does not necessarily make them safe or sane. [The destroyed reactor in an industrial wasteland. The unit is surrounded by black walls intended to shield radiation.] Chernobyl: aftermath of the explosion and meltdown. Thirty-one firefighters died trying to control the blaze in Unit 4. Courtesy International Nuclear Safety Program, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Critics like David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists, point to a questionable safety record for nuclear, particularly to the enforcement of regulations. "If the regulations were consistently enforced, I'd be out of a job." Part of his job is to scour public records of safety lapses in the industry. Each year, he says, there "are more than 1,000 violations of technical specifications and regulatory requirements" at nuclear generators. That's disturbing, he writes, because risk assessments assume that reactors meet specifications. On the bright side, Lochbaum says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Reactor Oversight Process, inaugurated in 2000, gives a more current picture of safety problems. Invisible. Always dangerous? [atom image] Ever since Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895, radiation has been mysterious, possessed with fearsome powers to "see" invisible bones, cause cancer and lay waste to cities in milliseconds. [Geological disposal is accepted -- by experts. The public continues to doubt...] Granted: being invisible and scary does not make radiation automatically dangerous. But even counting the nuclear death toll is extremely difficult. Few people have died making nuclear power and bombs -- but cancer deaths among former uranium workershave never been counted comprehensively. Want more on health and radiation? In the final analysis, nuclear power should be judged not in a vacuum but by comparison to other ways of getting the benefits of electricity. Is nuclear indeed more dangerous than coal, which, by one count, causes 20,000 excess deathseach year, globally? Perhaps not. Is it more dangerous than energy efficiency and wind power? Perhaps so. Make waste, not haste [atom image] One clear requirement for a flourishing of nuclear power is a solution to the endless debate over storing the highly radioactive fuel remaining from nuclear reactors. Radwasteis a lot more radioactive than uranium fuel, and still controversial. Opponents in Germany recently obstructed nuclear waste caravans, and shipments of plutonium-bearing waste to Japan for reprocessing are still the subject of dispute. U.S. nuclear utilities, which now store radioactive waste at more than 70 locations, are impatiently awaiting the opening of the underground repository they have been funding for decades. But more than 20 years after the federal government began investigating Yucca Mountainin Nevada, it's still not decided whether to open the site. [Road sign with atomic symbol points way to TMI.] In 1979, Three Mile Island symbolized fears over nuclear power. How much have times changed? Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration While nuclear engineer Michael Corradini says all studies indicate that storage will be safe at Yucca Mountain," politics, as much as any scientific analysis, may determine the outcome in Nevada. "The real issue now," he says, "is that the federal government has sat on the back end of the fuel cycle for 10 years, has not gone forward with what legislation said in 1980: 'Open a repository.'" Economics, obviously, plays a key role in energy decisions. As the nuclear industry touts the falling price of its power, critics note some of the role reduction comes from the relicensing of reactors that were designed and licensed for 40 years. By operating for another 20 years, utilities can slash costs. The numbers debate [atom image] As the nuclear industry celebrates a record year for power generation, energy conservation expert Amory Lovinsof the Rocky Mountain Institutestill considers it an economic disaster. "Nuclear has suffered the greatest collapse of any enterprise in the industrial history of the world." The industry, he writes, has less than 10 percent of the lowest capacity predicted just 25 years ago by the International Atomic Energy Agency. "No one has made money selling reactors. U.S. investments exceeding a trillion dollars are delivering only about as much energy as biofuels" like waste wood and ethanol. Lovins, who has long maintained that efficiency is the cheapest source of "energy services," says even poorly designed residential energy-saving programs can save a kilowatt-hour for just 2 cents -- about the lowest price cited for nuclear electricity. Nuclear Lazarus? [atom image] Will nuclear make a comeback? They don't pay us Why Filers enough to answer that question, but the current combination of good operating records, a thirst for electricity, and worries about global warming, make nuclear's prospects seem brighter than any time since Three Mile Island melted down. "I'd be willing to bet that in one or two years somebody will order a nuclear power plant," says Corradini. "The utilities are trying to decide which one has the guts enough to do it." In the last analysis, ordering new reactors will rest more on economics than on public sentiment, says Lochbaum. "There are 433 nuclear reactors in the world, and the public fear did not arise after the last one was built. There was the same fear during much of the construction. That fear has been overcome in the past, and if the economics were right, it will be overcome in the future." React to the reactor story by reading our radioactive bibliography. ***************************************************************** 10 Nuclear revival good news for Cameco April 12, 2001 Nuclear revival good news for Cameco Uranium supplier benefiting from electricity shortage David Steinhart Financial Post Nuclear energy is back on investors' radar screens and that has helped breathe life back into shares of Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp., the world's largest uranium supplier. "I think the [negative] stigma attached to nuclear power is going, if not yet gone," said Gregory Barnes, an analyst with Canaccord Capital Corp. in Toronto. "There is a new energy framework being developed in the U.S. and it's believed nuclear power will be part of that new policy." This week, Cameco's stock (CCO/ TSE) reached $38.35, more than twice its 52-week low of $16 of a year ago. The shares closed yesterday at $37.95, up 95¢. The company is a supplier and major stakeholder in Ontario's Bruce Power, which has announced plans to restart a nuclear reactor. Cameco holds 15% of Bruce and analysts said the deal fitted Cameco's strategy of taking advantage of attractive opportunities to leverage its uranium expertise in the nuclear fuels cycle through vertical integration. As well, Mr. Barnes said Cameco is benefiting from the energy crisis in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. "It's getting worse out there and Cameco is the largest uranium supplier with the lowest cost," he said. One year ago, analysts liked the company's stock, giving it a valuation of $35 a share. Analysts declared it a good time to buy while all the negatives were in the share price and the spot price of uranium was well below the industry cost curve. A year later, the fundamentals continue to be in place. "This company is very sound, with a strong balance sheet," Mr. Barnes said. Cameco has estimated earnings per share through the rest of this year of 79¢, pricing the stock at about 48 times forward earnings. In January, Cameco increased reserves at its McArthur River mine in northern Saskatchewan by 50%. The firm said its share of proven and probable reserves would rise to 275 million pounds at 21% uranium, from 178 million pounds at an average grade of 17%. Production at McArthur began a little over two years ago, employing 400 people at a cost of $420-million. However, Cameco continues to fight environmentalists. Early last year, activists demanded greater safety measures be enforced at a Kyrgyzstan gold mine, jointly owned by Cameco, following a chemical spill at the site, the third in the mine's three-year history. On May 20, 1998, a truck accident dumped two tonnes of deadly sodium cyanide into a local river system. Two months later, a leaky valve on a container truck spilled about 70 litres of nitric acid. The company admitted that although the mines are built to North American standards, they can always be improved. Last October, Cameco said it was investing heavily to become part owner of the Bruce Power Partnership, a deal largely driven by the chance to become the exclusive fuel supplier to one of Canada's largest nuclear power facilities. Cameco paid up to $100-million for its stake in Bruce Power, which controls the Bruce A and B nuclear power plants on the shores of Lake Huron in Ontario. The deal paired Cameco with British Energy PLC, a leading player in Britain's nuclear industry. BE also owns half of a U.S. partnership that has bought three reactors south of the border. Last July, BE signed a deal with Ontario Power Generation Inc., the successor to Ontario Hydro, to take over the Bruce facilities in a deal worth up to $3.5-billion over 43 years. This came just one month before Cameco extended the shutdown of its Rabbit Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan, closing its processing mill for at least a year. Weaker uranium prices forced the shutdown, the company said at the time. The move followed a previous decision to suspend mining at Rabbit Lake from 1999 through this year . At the time of the mill shutdown, the company reported second-quarter profits fell to $25-million from $35-million, based mainly on lower uranium and gold prices. CAMECO CORP.: CEO: Bernard Michel Ticker: CCO Listed: Toronto Stock Exchange Head office: 2121-11 Street W. Saskatoon, Sask. S7M 1J3 Tel: (306) 956-6400 www.cameco.com *dsteinhart@nationalpost.com* ***************************************************************** 11 Danish prime minister wants Swedish reactor closed down [M2 Communications Ltd.] Story Filed: Friday, April 13, 2001 7:52 AM EST Apr 13, 2001 (NORDIC BUSINESS REPORT via COMTEX) -- Sweden should close the nuclear reactor Barseback 2 before the end of 2003, according to the Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Rasmussen has reportedly decided to put some pressure on Goran Persson, the Swedish prime minister, to make Sweden keep to the decision to close the reactor. In a letter to the Swedish prime minister, Nyrup Rasmussen apparently writes that he sees the Swedish commitment to close the reactor as a promise. The letter was prompted by recent doubts regarding the closure, according to CNN Denmark. Comments on this story may be sent to nbr.feedback@nordicbusinessreport.com Copyright 1998-2001 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD ***************************************************************** 12 Expert predicts possible Chernobyl disaster KPnews.com -- News about Ukraine Category: NATION 13 Apr 2001 Compiled by KPnews staff KYIV, Apr. 13 - In an interview to the German Fokus journal, the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant Shelter facility director Valentyn Kupny said that the notorious Chernobyl power station is under threat of another disaster, Deutsche Welle reported. According to Kupny, the sarcophagus erected over the ruined power-generating unit may collapse any day. He also said that the concrete shelter's cracks are continuously spewing radiation into the environment. Kupny drew attention to the fact that experts are still unaware of what is going on inside the sarcophagus. In 1986, one of the reactors of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe, marking the tragedy as the world’s worst nuclear accident. Chernobyl was officially shut down last December. Ukrainian officials thought the move to shut down the station’s last functioning reactor for good would generate promised funding from international donor organizations to pay for the completion of two other reactors to compensate for the power lost with Chernobyl’s closure. © 2000 SputnikMedia.net ***************************************************************** 13 International conference on Chernobyl to be held in Kiev [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Friday, April 13, 2001 4:52 AM EST KIEV, Apr 13, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Representatives of 17 countries and a number of international organisations will attend a conference, whose subject will be "Fifteen years after the Chernobyl catastrophe. Experience of overcoming its consequences," due to be held in Kiev on April 17-20. Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma is expected to address the conference, a spokesman for the Ukrainian ministry for emergencies and elimination of Chernobyl consequences told Tass on Friday. Delegates from Russia and Belarus will make reports about the consequences of the explosion of the power unit at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) 15 years after the catastrophe. The conference will be addressed as well by representatives of a number of international organisations, specifically, the European Union, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Organisation and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The main problems to be discussed at the conference include the putting of the Chernobyl NPP out of operation, the problem of the Entombment facility, the effect of the Chernobyl catastrophe on the natural environment, as well as medical, social and economic consequences of the accident. By Raisa Stetsyura ***************************************************************** 14 Chernobyl to be discussed [Geoff Hausman] By Paul Choiniere Published on 4/15/2001 New London — On April 26, 1986, operators at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, unit 4, were doing an unauthorized safety experiment to determine whether the reactor could continue operating if the primary power supply to the plant was lost. What followed was history's worst nuclear accident. A series of operator mistakes at Chernobyl caused a loss of coolant. Exacerbated by plant design flaws, these mistakes led to an uncontrollable power surge that blew the 400,000-pound cover off the reactor, followed by a subsequent explosion that exposed the reactor core to the environment. Saturday, two nuclear safety experts will discuss the Chernobyl accident, its consequences and its long-term effects on the nuclear industry. The symposium will be presented at 10 a.m. at the Science Center of Eastern Connecticut, 33 Gallows Lane. All the reactors at Chernobyl were recently shut down. They are located in the Ukraine, part of the Soviet Union at the time of the accident. But Chernobyl-style plants, which do not have the protective containment buildings used in this country and most of the world, continue to operate in Russia, said Richard Miller, an operations and project engineer at Sonalyst Inc. in Waterford. He is one of symposium speakers. Miller has guided more than 10 projects by the International Nuclear Safety Program, aimed at improving the safety of reactor plant operations in former Soviet Union and Eastern Block countries. The projects utilize modern U.S. technology and practices as a guide to improving nuclear operations in those countries. Also speaking will be David Odland, vice president and general manager of Shore Road Associates Inc., an engineering and management and consulting firm. Odland has also participated in several projects involving the transfer of U.S. training technology overseas. Odland has visited operating nuclear plants in Eastern Europe, including Chernobyl. The Chernobyl accident was directly responsible for 31 deaths and contaminated large areas of Belarus, Ukraine and Russia. The accident is also believed to be responsible for dramatic increases in thyroid cancers, particularly in children, in a 10,800-square-mile area that is home to 830,000 people. An increase in birth defects is also believed by some health experts to be tied to the accident. Miller said next Saturday's discussion will include a detailed account of the accident, the historic efforts taken by some at the plant to control it, and descriptions what life has been like in the region around Chernobyl since the accident. Time will be allotted for questions. Tickets to the event are available by reservation for $12 for science center members, $17 for non-members. Students tickets are $8 with a student identification card. Call 442-0391 for more information. © 1998-2001 The Day Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 15 Visit of Chernobyl victims marks start of UAE-Ukraine cooperation Abu Dhabi | By Manar Zabara | 13/04/01 Liudmyla Kuchma. ©Gulf News The UAE is hosting 60 children from the Ukraine, most of them from the area devastated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. They were brought to the UAE by Liudmyla Kuchma, wife of Ukraine President Leonid Kuchma. The Ukrainian First Lady, who is also chairperson of the Ukrainian Charitable Organisation for Hope and Good, is on her first official visit to the UAE. Since her arrival this week she has met Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, wife of President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan and Chairperson of the UAE Women's Federation. Mrs Kuchma praised the Abu Dhabi rehabilitation centre. "I was very much impressed by this centre. The children are well educated, they receive the best treatment and they have an opportunity to choose the profession they want to work in," she said. "I appreciate the assistance of the UAE Red Crescent Society which has financed the stay of the Chernobyl children in the UAE," she said. "I came with children from the Chernobyl area and other Ukrainian orphans. They are staying here for convalescence. It is a good opportunity to show them such a wonderful country like the UAE," she said. She estimated that more than a million children were affected by the Chernobyl disaster. "It is hard to say an exact figure because it is a continuous process and new generations are still suffering from the disaster," she said. The charitable Foundation of Hope and Good "is a social, non-government organisation with volunteer members. It offers aid to suffering children." Mrs Kuchma said the organisation played a major role in providing financial assistance to child victims of the flood which hit the Zakarpatia region in western Ukraine. Despite modern technology and the move towards globalisation, Ukrainian children are still deprived of many aspects of modern education. "We are in the 21st century, but we don't have a lot of computers for children," she said. She considered her first visit fruitful and a start for future cooperation. "Cooperation between the two countries started on the first day of my visit to the UAE. There is understanding with every person I meet here. Sheikha Fatima was very helpful," she said. She praised the contribution of Sheikh Zayed for his interest in humanitarian problems worldwide. "Sheikh Zayed is a very wise leader who pays a lot of attention to humanitarian efforts. I hope that cooperation between the two countries will last for years and everyone I have met I have invited to come and visit Ukraine," she said. "I consider my visit to the UAE very productive, although it is my first visit here. I hope we will have joint efforts in terms of humanitarian and cultural activities," she said. © Al Nisr Publishing LLC - Gulf News Online ***************************************************************** 16 Panel urged to warn other states of nuke transport dangers April 13, 2001 By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU CARSON CITY -- Alerting the citizens across the nation to the dangers of transporting nuclear waste through their cities is the key to stopping designation of Yucca Mountain as the site for burial of high level radioactive materials, witnesses told the Senate Transportation Committee Thursday. It is vital that others living outside Nevada realize how this transportation "places thousands of people in harm's way throughout the country," Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said. The failure of the Department of Energy to conduct an environmental impact statement on the transportation routes means that people in 43 states and hundreds of cities are unaware of the threats "posed by thousands of shipments of deadly nuclear waste, should the proposed repository become a reality," Del Papa said. The DOE should hold public hearings in other states on the transportation routes, Sen. Jon Porter, R-Henderson, said, adding that once the citizens in those states see how these nuclear shipments will affect their economy, health and safety, "it will create an uproar that stops the process." A host of other public officials, including Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams and representatives for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., testified in support of Senate Joint Resolution 11, which calls on Congress to order federal agencies to conduct the environmental transportation studies before any decision is made on Yucca Mountain. Goodman said it was "frightening" to think what could happen if a truck jackknifed on U.S. 95 going through Las Vegas. A spill, even a small one of the nuclear materials, could affect a 42-square mile area. He noted the federal government told the public the above-ground nuclear testing was safe and now many citizens are suffering from cancer and other ailments due to this radiation. Williams said a proposed route through Southern Nevada would pass 37 schools, hospitals, long-term care facilities, child care centers, hotels and the special events center.There would be significant impact on the citizens of Nevada, she said. Sen. Ray Shaffer, D-North Las Vegas, said he endorses the resolution. But he complained that many of the witnesses that supported the Porter resolution opposed bills and resolutions by him and Committee Chairman Sen. Bill O'Donnell, R-Las Vegas. Their bills and resolutions urged the government to select routes outside of urban areas in Las Vegas and suggested safety measures to be taken. Critics said these resolutions send a message to Congress that Nevada would be willing to accept the waste, as long as certain conditions are met. Shaffer said those who testified against his and O'Donnell's bills were "hypocritical in my book." He said his and O'Donnell's bill were also aimed at protecting the public. Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, said he was also confused that some of the resolutions were unacceptable while others gained widespread support. He said the man on the street must also be confused since the resolutions of Shaffer and O'Donnell pushed safety issues. But Porter and others said this resolution SJR11 was to get the federal government to obey its own law that requires these transportation studies before any site is selected. The DOE, Porter said wants to study the routes after a site selection is made. "That is unacceptable and irresponsible," he said. "The federal government is violating its own law." Bob Loux, director of the state Office of Nuclear Projects, said these proposed public hearings in cities outside Nevada would "energize the citizens." He said it was the "key to our opposition and the key to success" in stopping the waste from coming to Nevada. The committee did not take action on the resolution. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear research laser wins $69 million in federal funding Livermore lab will get funding that was held up in last fiscal year *April 14, 2001* FROM STAFF REPORTS LIVERMORE -- The massive laser project at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will get an extra $69.1 million that was withheld last year by Congress pending completion of a checklist intended to ensure the project is meeting cost and schedule guidelines. Bernard Pleau, a spokesman for the Energy Department's nuclear security agency, confirmed Friday the money is being released by the department's Office of the Comptroller. Energy Department officials released a report to Congress this week to certify the National Ignition Facility project is meeting cost and schedule goals. The report included a recommendation on how to proceed with the project, established that scientific milestones have been met, included a study of alternatives to construction of the full project and validated a cost-schedule control system. The report also concluded that, based on project reviews, NIF is meeting cost and schedule goals. But missing from the list of items submitted to Congress was a five-year budget plan for the Energy Department's nuclear weapons maintenance, refurbishment and reliability program, called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. That study will be completed following a president-ordered national security review. A nuclear weapons research tool, NIF is intended to simulate thermonuclear explosions and weapons effects on a tiny scale by blasting BB-size radioactive pellets with 192 laser beams. Technical and management problems have caused an estimated $1.1 billion cost overrun and a six-year delay, prompting Congress to place stipulations on its budget. The NIF is now expected to cost between $3.5 billion and $4 billion. ***************************************************************** 2 New Law to Protect Workers' Health [Xinhua News Agency] Story Filed: Friday, April 13, 2001 8:29 AM EST BEIJING, Apr 13, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- China is now formulating a new law on prevention and cure of occupational diseases to protect workers' health, according to an official with the Ministry of Health. The official said that China currently lacks legislation to cover occupational health hazards. The draft now under examination by China's top legislature focuses on major illnesses including silicosis and other ailments caused by handling toxic or radioactive materials. According to the draft law, before a factory can be constructed, the design and plans for the work environment will be assessed and must conform to the national standard. Workers are entitled to have physical examinations periodically. The rise in cases of occupational disease can be attributed to China's low economic level and also to the drastic change in the country's employment system, the official said. Most managers of private and small factories often ignore the importance of a healthy work environment. Copyright 2001 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY ***************************************************************** 3 Pantex might store more nuclear batteries By JIM McBRIDE Globe-News Courts Writer The Pantex Plant and eight other Energy Department sites may become future storage depots for nuclear batteries from a sensitive Alaskan monitoring outpost. The Air Force plans to remove 10 radioisotope thermoelectric generators, called RTGs, from Burnt Mountain Alaska, a remote seismic post in northern Alaska, officials said. The Air Force is replacing the batteries with diesel-powered and solar-powered generators and must find suitable storage for the RTGs that are recycled or disposed. The Burnt Mountain site where the batteries are located is a key U.S. monitoring post that uses seismic sensors to monitor nuclear weapons tests in other countries. "It's part of a network used to monitor international arms treaty compliance," said Master Sgt. John Dorgren, an Air Force spokesman from Alaska's Eielson Air Force Base. The devices contain strontium 90, a low-level radioactive isotope that breaks down over time and produces electrical power. Similar RTGs are used to power some spacecraft and run electrical components in nuclear warheads. Some of the batteries are about 2 feet wide by 3 feet tall - about the size of a garbage can - and weigh between 1 to 2 tons each. Other RTG's range in height from 16 to 68 inches and can weigh between 800 and 8,000 pounds. The RTGs contain shielding to prevent nuclear materials from leaking, said Tom Welch, a DOE spokesman in Washington. Pantex now stores similar RTGs from nuclear weapons until they are shipped to another site in Ohio for processing. Under federal law, the DOE and the Air Force must evaluate the environmental impact of transferring batteries to other sites for temporary or long-term storage. The review, called an environmental assessment, also will consider choosing a long-term storage site for up to 40 more RTGs. The assessment will consider the impacts of leaving the batteries in Alaska; transferring them to the DOE for storage pending reuse or recycling; and transferring them to DOE for storage until disposal. Other potential storage locations include the Hanford Site in Washington; Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory; the Kansas City Plant in Missouri; Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico; the Nevada Test Site in Nevada; the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee; Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico; and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The sites were chosen as potential storage locations because they now store low-level radioactive waste and will remain open through 2015. www.amarillonet.com ***************************************************************** 4 Bill designed to help Kelly AFB nuclear workers HoustonChronicle.com *April 13, 2001, 10:40AM* Associated Press SAN ANTONIO -- Evidence that workers at Kelly Air Force Base handled beryllium has prompted a San Antonio lawmaker to craft a bill that would help Defense Department workers receive compensation if they become ill from exposure to nuclear materials. The measure, proposed by U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez, aims to set up an occupational illness program similar to the one already in place for Energy Department workers or contractors who handled radioactive materials. The Energy Department has listed the former Medina Base in San Antonio as one of 317 sites where workers would be eligible for compensation. Gonzalez, D-San Antonio, told the San Antonio Express-News for its Friday editions that he believes the numbers of workers at Kelly exposed to the deadly metal beryllium could surpass those at Medina. He said only about 60 people from the San Antonio area have called a toll-free hot line set up by the Energy Department about the program, noting that most of the calls were from military workers looking for information. "We need to take that into consideration -- that there's a real need out there," he said at a briefing with local health, military and community officials. "Where do we direct them and what do we tell them to do?" Gonzalez's plan would help cover the medical expenses of workers who contract berylliosis, a potentially fatal disease of the lungs, or certain cancers linked to radiation. A columnist at the Express-News obtained papers from Kelly officials that reveal the existence of a "Beryllium Room" at the base, which was used for the machining of hatch covers made of the metal. "The machining involved drilling two holes that were approximately one-tenth-inch in diameter in each cover," the paper said. Kate Kimpan, a senior policy adviser in the Energy Department's Office of Environment, Safety and Health, said that drilling would create dust that, if inhaled, could cause berylliosis ***************************************************************** 5 INEEL may ship more waste with less money IdahoStatesman.com Saturday, April 14, 2001 Bush's plan has less money to move nuclear waste The Associated Press IDAHO FALLS -- The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory would lose $115 million next year under the president's proposed Energy Department budget, which could jeopardize a court agreement to move nuclear waste out of the state. But the department plans to nearly double nuclear-waste shipments to a New Mexico repository next fiscal year, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said. The biggest drain at the INEEL would come in cleanup programs. But there are a host of smaller activities that would lose significant funding under the new budget estimates. Geothermal energy development would be cut by 70 percent. Biological and environmental research would lose 38 percent. The lab's share of nuclear energy program funds would only be cut by 5 percent, although grants established for nuclear research would dry up. Conservation programs, including ways to make industries and cars more efficient and less polluting, also would lose out. Bechtel BWXT Idaho already announced plans to trim 1,200 jobs, or about 20 percent of its work force. That assumed that future budgets would be flat -- not declining. Kathleen Trever, director of the state INEEL oversight program, said the state and lab officials are studying the numbers. It seems almost certain the funding is insufficient for the site's cleanup obligations, both in the 1995 nuclear waste settlement agreement with Idaho and under Superfund commitments. There are inconsistencies between what the department pledges to do next year and the funding it has allocated in Idaho, Trever said. For instance, the budget says moving spent nuclear fuel into dry storage and increasing shipments from Idaho to a permanent New Mexico repository are priorities; the administration reduced cleanup funds by $86 million. But the shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad will increase to 14 per week despite the budget reductions, agency officials said after Abraham delivered his budget message Monday. "This budget contemplates nearly doubling our shipments of transuranic waste from sites distributed across the country to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, including a level of shipments from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory that will fulfill our important commitments to that state," Abraham said. The INEEL also must start making additional investments now to meet future deadlines, such as a treatment plant to get liquid radioactive waste out of the underground storage tanks, Trever said. Site officials already said they lack the research money for cleaning up pits and trenches where nuclear waste was dumped for years. "Some of the statements from the Department of Energy about how they're going to do things more efficiently don't match up with cutting environmental science and technology funds," Trever said. The Bush budget would cut the research money to develop better and cheaper environmental cleanup technologies from $64 million to $45 million, a decrease of 30 percent. U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's spokesman, Mike Tracy, said all presidential budgets are starting points. Idaho's delegation will work to get funding restored. Craig, Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Mike Simpson are members of a new nuclear-waste cleanup caucus of lawmakers with Energy sites in their districts. ***************************************************************** 6 FFTF gathers crucial support This story was published 4/14/2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer The Department of Energy's nuclear technology capabilities have been in "a near free-fall" as reactors and other facilities have been shut down and research dollars have diminished, according to a report prepared for the government. "The loss of irreplaceable assets such as the High Flux Beam Reactor at Brookhaven National Laboratory and, potentially, the Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford has severely eroded the nation's nuclear science and technology capabilities," said a report of the executive committee of DOE's Nuclear Energy Research Advisory Committee, or NERAC. The nation now has no operating nuclear facilities capable of satisfactorily meeting some needs, such as some testing of nuclear fuels and fast flux material irradiation, the report said. In the early 1980s, DOE was spending more than $500 million for nuclear technology research and development. However, that dropped to almost zero in 1998 before increasing to about $50 million now. "This is clearly far less than is needed," the report said. Supporters of restarting FFTF for nonmilitary uses are using the report and new letters of support from industry and researchers to convince the Bush administration to take a fresh look at the reactor. The Clinton administration decided in its final days that the dormant Hanford reactor, one of DOE's largest and most modern, should permanently be shut down. FFTF supporters have proposed restarting the reactor to produce isotopes for government, medicine and industry and to do research for nuclear power plants. "We strongly suggest that you review that decision because of its strong negative impact on life-saving medical treatments," wrote a vice president of DuPont Pharmaceuticals Co. in an April 4 letter to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Developing drugs that would use medical isotopes is expensive and time-consuming, and the pharmaceutical industry must be assured the large quantities of medical isotopes needed for treatment will be available, according to DuPont. FFTF is the only U.S. facility capable of producing enough high-quality isotopes to allow for their use in treating cancer in new ways or other diseases such as arthritis, according to DuPont. "We see this FFTF decision as having profound adverse impacts on the private sector's interest in initiating new (research and development) and continuing to develop life-saving treatments for cancer and other ills through the use of radioisotopes," the letter said. The director of surgical research at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, Dr. Eugene Woltering, wrote the secretary that his research team has been unable to find the isotopes it needs for research on new ways of diagnosing and treating cancer. "We are aware, however, that the Fast Flux Test Facility near Richland Š has the physical properties to produce the amounts and quality of isotopes that we need, namely high-specific activity iodine 131 and high-purity indium 114," Woltering wrote. "We have, for many years, anxiously awaited the availability of medical isotopes from FFTF, which has been on stand-by." Another firm, J.S. Shepherd & Associates of San Fernando, Calif., told the secretary it depends upon cobalt 60 from Canada but that the supply has greatly diminished over the past year. The company provides irradiation sources for sterilization of food and medical products. "(Shepherd) would like in the future to be able to rely on the FFTF as a major supplier of at least 5 million curies of this isotope on an annual basis," wrote J.L. Shepherd, president of the company. Now, the United States imports 90 percent of the medical isotopes it uses, most for diagnostic procedures. One in three hospital patients has a nuclear medicine test that uses medical isotopes. In addition, the use of medical isotopes for treating disease has grown 28 percent from 1999 to 2000, according to a Frost & Sullivan marketing report. Among supporters is U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., who has asked Abraham to take another year to consider the Hanford reactor's future. "Secretary Abraham will be working with Congressman Doc Hastings on the issue of FFTF and discussing the congressman's concerns," said DOE spokesman Joe Davis Friday in Washington, D.C. Abraham also plans to visit as many DOE sites as possible in the next few months, although no schedule has been made, Davis said. Supporters of FFTF plan to gather at 12:15 p.m. Monday at Group Health Cooperative, 1009 N. Center Parkway, Kennewick, to sign a resolution asking Abraham to spend the next year reconsidering FFTF's fate. Leaders of science, medicine, labor, business and government are expected to sign the document, organizers said. The event has been arranged by Citizens for Medical Isotopes and a coalition of local governments and other groups led by Benton County that support a restart of the reactor. n Reporter Annette Cary can be reached at 582-1533 or via e-mail at acary@tri-cityherald.com. Copyright 2000 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 7 Livermore lab laser funding gets major boost ContraCostaTimes.com April 14, 2001, in the Contra Costa Newspapers * Government agency wants to release money for controversial project despite earlier concerns about lax management By Peter Felsenfeld TIMES STAFF WRITER U.S. Department of Energy officials have their way, the National Ignition Facility will soon receive $69 million held back from this year's budget, even though a recent report recommending funding fell short of congressional requirements. "The money will be released through the Department of Energy Comptroller's Office in the next couple of days," said National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman Bernie Pleau. The process, however might not be so simple. Before approving full funding for the massive laser project under construction at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, Congress demanded a certification report from Air Force Gen. John Gordon affirming NIF had overcome serious managerial problems. Released last week, the report fulfilled conditions pertaining to cost, time schedule and project design. It did not, however, include a five-year budget plan for the nation's stockpile stewardship program; one mission of that program is developing methods to test nuclear weapons without exploding them. The congressional act requiring the certification states simply that "... $69 million shall be available only upon a certification by the administrator of the (National Nuclear Security Administration) ... ", but gives no direction about how to evaluate an incomplete report. NIF critics believe the money should remain withheld until Congress comes back and representatives have time to review the certification. Most legislators have left Washington for their spring recess. "It's outrageous that the DOE should take it upon themselves to release the money without complying with the certification requirements," specifically the lack of a budget plan, said Christopher Paine, a senior researcher for the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC, along with Livermore-based Tri-Valley CARES, filed a lawsuit that succeeded in placing stringent restrictions on how the DOE could use reviews intended to bolster the certification.* Peter Felsenfeld covers the national labs. Reach him at 925-847-2184 or pfelsenfeld@cctimes.com. y ***************************************************************** 8 Senator says Chao reversed position, agreed to run benefits program Posted at 5:31 a.m. EDT Friday, April 13, 2001 BY KATHERINE RIZZO *Associated Press Writer * WASHINGTON -- Labor Secretary Elaine Chao changed her mind and is willing to take charge of distributing compensation to nuclear weapons workers disabled or killed by Cold War-era exposure, a spokesman for Sen. George Voinovich said. Chao, however, is seeking an extension on a July 31 deadline for getting the program started, Scott Milburn, the senator's press secretary, said Thursday. She also wants some changes in how rejected claims would be appealed, he said. Labor Department officials spent much of Thursday on the phone with senators and Senate aides trying to build support for the proposed changes. Officially, the department was not discussing those efforts. ``No decision has yet been made,'' said department spokesman Stuart Roy. ``The options include keeping it at Labor and moving the program to another agency.'' Congress gave the Labor Department $60.4 million to initiate the new entitlement program, reasoning it was well-prepared because Labor already runs three worker compensation programs. Chao had insisted her department lacked the resources needed to set up the program and said the Justice Department was better equipped. Lawmakers who worked hardest to get the program enacted quickly told the White House they opposed moving it. Ten House members introduced a bill to force the Labor Department to run the program for workers who became ill from being exposed to uranium dust, beryllium particles or lung-clogging silica. Nuclear workers in Paducah, Ky., also turned their union hall into an impromptu phone bank. They repeatedly contacted the offices of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., urging him to persuade Chao to run the program. McConnell is married to Chao. The new program offers lifetime medical care and $150,000 to ailing workers who were employed in the nuclear weapons complex, at factories that worked for the Energy Department, or at nuclear test sites in Alaska and Nevada. By law, the government should be prepared to accept benefit applications on July 31. The new program is limited to those with radiation-related cancer, silicosis or chronic beryllium disease. Eligibility rules for some workers have been set by law, and the Labor Department must work out qualification guidelines for the rest. About 600,000 people worked in the weapons complex during the Cold War. The Energy Department initially estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 people might be eligible for compensation, but there's a lot of uncertainty about that number because of decades of poor recordkeeping. For instance, after former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant employee Joe Harding died, his bones were found to contain 1,700 to 34,000 times the expected concentration of uranium Yet while he lived, Harding was denied compensation because official records showed he was exposed to small levels of radiation. Harding also suffered from sores that wouldn't heal and sproutings of fingernail- and toenail-like growths on his palms, the bottoms of his feet, and his kneecaps, knuckles, wrists and elbows. The testimony of his widow, Clara Harding, helped build support for compensation. The Energy Department preliminarily identified 317 sites in 37 states where exposed workers might qualify for benefits. A toll-free number set up by that department to field requests has logged more than 19,000 calls. ------ The toll-free information line is 1-877-447-9756. ------ On the Net: Text of compensation law and preliminary list of sites prepared by Department of Energy: http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/index.html AP-CS-04-13-01 0233EDT ***************************************************************** 9 ORNL work timetable pushed up Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 3:07 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2001 by Donna Smith Oak Ridger staff Action taken by the state Building Commission Thursday is expected to push up the start of modernization work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory by one and a half to two years. ORNL spokesman Billy Stair said the commission gave its OK Thursday to using $8 million previously approved by the state Legislature to construction of a facility to house the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences and the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies. Another $2 million is needed, Stair said. But the $8 million will allow officials to proceed immediately with design work and construction on the 45,000-square-foot building. Construction could begin in December or January, he said, a year and a half to two years earlier than had been expected for the modernization construction. "Today was enormously significant," he said. The building will house one of the largest non-classified computers in the world, he said. The Joint Institute will be used by both the University of Tennessee and ORNL. The $8 million was originally slated for the planned Joint Institute for Neutron Sciences, which will be adjacent to the Spallation Neutron Source. However, Stair explained, because construction of this facility could possibly cause some delay in the construction of the SNS, the request was made to have the money switched to the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences/Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies and delay building the neutron sciences facility. State leaders have committed to constructing four buildings in the ORNL modernization project at a cost of approximately $26 million. Stair said in addition to the buildings for computational sciences, neutron sciences and advanced studies, the fourth building will focus on biological sciences. The estimated $200 million ORNL modernization project includes the construction of 11 major facilities and the renovation of several others over the next five years. The project will include a new Mouse House for genetic research, chemistry facilities and a storage center for bomb-grade uranium. The project is expected to produce approximately 1,000 construction jobs over the next five years. When the project is completed in 2006, UT-Battelle officials indicate they will have deactivated and closed around 1.8 million square feet of outdated space and added 600,000 square feet of modern, energy-efficient buildings. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 10 EPA reports spending $3.75 million at Newport site Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 3:23 p.m. on Friday, April 13, 2001 NEWPORT, Tenn. (AP) -- The Environmental Protection Agency says it has spent roughly $3.75 million in the past year in its cleanup efforts of the Flura Corp. Superfund site. The EPA took over the Flura site last April after years of disputes, including allegations of improper storage of hazardous wastes. The 29 1/2-acre site was strewn with approximately 2,200 chemicals, some in decaying containers that appeared to be leaking. "We're trying to do this as inexpensively as possible," EPA spokesman Dean Ullock told a town hall-style meeting Thursday night. "But we're not going to cut any corners." He and other officials said many of the canisters and barrels that have been found are unlabeled. "The past year has allowed us the opportunity to know what we are up against," Ullock said. "Now we have to figure out how to make (it) go away." Flura Corp. manufactured specialty gases for industrial uses as well as chemical weapons for the U.S. Army, according to the company's owner, Dr. Edward Tyczkowski. Residents of the Rock Hill community near the Flura facility have complained to the EPA and state health officials of respiratory problems and other ailments that they blame on chemicals at the site. All Contents.©Copyright *The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 11 DEPLETED URANIUM – MoD DEVELOPS PLANS FOR APPROPRIATE SCREENING Ministry of Defence Posted at: 16:31 11/04/2001 Category: Depleted Uranium The MoD today moves a step closer to developing an appropriate voluntary screening programme for personnel who have served in areas where DU has been used. It is publishing firm proposals in the form of a second consultative document. The proposals have been developed in light of expert advice received after the initial consultation document was issued in February. The second phase of the MoD’s consultative process sets out four main proposals, which includes a plan to offer urine testing to assess past exposure to DU. The tests will be made available on demand to servicemen and MoD employees who served in the Gulf or the Balkans, and who are concerned about possible exposure to DU. The results of the test will be used in a study to find out if DU has harmed the health of those personnel. The other three proposals are: an oversight board which would give veterans a stake in the process of developing an effective and validated screening programme; assessment of the need for a permanent mass testing programme once the results of the urine tests and study are available; biological monitoring for those assessed at risk from DU exposure whilst on current and future operations. Dr. Lewis Moonie, Minister for Veterans, welcomed the proposals, saying: “This second phase of consultation underlines again our commitment to addressing the issues openly. We are using the best scientific and medical advice and techniques that are available to develop an appropriate test to address the concerns of our people and their families.” © Crown Copyright 2000 ***************************************************************** 12 Former French prime minister reveals loophole in NATO. By Lucy Komisar [2redarrow.gif - 0.1 K] By LUCY KOMISAR Earth Times News Service* [d.gif] EAUVILLE, France--Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard has revealed for the first time a secret clause in the 1947 treaty that created NATO which permitted the British government to take a military response outside the NATO umbrella. He said the French learned of the clause only 15 years later. He said this was the reason for the French decision in 1966 to withdraw from the military command of NATO and to establish its own nuclear force. Rocard spoke April 1 in Deauville at Forum-21, the inaugural meeting of an annual conference on international affairs organized by two Americans, lawyer Paul Weinstein and journalist Abby Quinn Hirsch, and attend by 250 people from the worlds of business, science, culture and foreign policy, ranging from Louise Arbour, former judge of the international Rwanda-Yugoslavia genocide trials, to former astronaut Rusty Schweickart. Most were Americans and French. Rocard said the decision to build French nuclear arms and the years of irritations between France and its Allies had roots in the origins of NATO when Washington would not accord France the same deal it had made with the British. He explained, "After 15 years, we learned of a secret clause that would permit Britain on a phone call from the prime minister to the US president to say, 'The vital interests of Britain are threatened. You don't consider it this way. I shall shoot'." He said, "There was no problem for Americans to give the British military secrets needed to carry out this independent military action. France thought it should have the same possibility." But, he said, "France was infested with a terrifically important Communist party [that was] Stalinist." He said the U.S. attempt to forbid France from getting these secrets succeeded in creating France as a nuclear power. He explained, "De Gaulle, through the lack of a secret clause, was pushed to make a decision to be able to shoot with no military control of NATO. The strategy was the same. We can't reply exclusively and automatically on an American response." Rocard said, "When DeGaulle took the decision to withdraw all French troops from the peacetime military command of the Allies, it was a fantastic shout. In the rest of Europe, it was considered treason." He said that during those years of parliamentary debate in Europe, the doctrine was "Let's cultivate the American friendship and denounce the French dissidents." He noted, "Our British friends spent 40 years denouncing this undisciplined threat." Rocard said this hurt the confidence and the solidarity of alliance, which was the real protection of Europe. The Americans later had second thoughts about what they had done. Rocard said, "Henry Kissinger told me one day, six months after I ceased to be prime minister, 'I think we Americans made a great mistake. De Gaulle was right. No American president would shoot nuclear weapons to defend anything else but the population of his own territory. The fact you had to get out of it was understandable.' " Kissinger told him that if the Americans had understood that situation, they would have developed structures inside NATO that diminished the misunderstanding and would have organized a more confident alliance. The results continue to this day, Rocard said. "When the cold war was finished, after the Soviet empire imploded, we asked for a reorganization in NATO," he said. "President Chirac said we want the southern command of NATO for a European admiral. It would be an Italian. The Italian government was furious at being compromised." He said the reason harked back to the old sense that Americans would not want to get involved automatically in European conflicts. He said, "That was neither silly nor illegitimate nor unexplainable." The mistake, he said, was that "the admiral who commands the southern sector of NATO commands the Sixth Fleet in the nuclear chain of command. So it was an enormous mistake to do that. It created a terrible mess. All the other governments including the British, the Portuguese, the Italians, said 'You can't do anything with those French; they don't understand the need for our good relations with America.' France was accused of wanting to get rid of the American guarantee." France did not return to participation in NATO's military wing until 1995, when it agreed to join peace-keeping operations in Bosnia. It is still the only NATO member that does not belong to the Nuclear Planning Group. Rocard declared, "In the last half century, France created a situation where national security is a thing you can't talk about with other Europeans. The condition for creating a foreign policy in Europe is to get over those misunderstandings." Copyright © 2000 The Earth Times All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 13 Egypt still bothered by Israeli nukes Haaretz Daily Newspaper - English Internet Edition *Friday, April 13, 2001* *By Aluf Benn* Bilateral relations between Israel and Egypt have focused in recent months on ways of minimizing the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation and of renewing the peace process. Cairo has taken a step back on an issue which was foremost on its agenda, during the peak of the peace process: its demand that an end be put to Israel's nuclear program. However, the Egyptians have not forgotten their stance on the issue, and they raise their demands at every opportunity, generally in international forums on security and weapons inspection. A new Egyptian plan for regional security was published this month. It aims to eliminate weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, and like its predecessors revolves around the closing of the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona. The plan's author is "Mr. Arms Control" in the Cairo administration, Nabil Fahmi, one of Egypt's most senior diplomats. He heads an advisory committee on disarmament for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and currently represents his country in Washington. The Fahmi plan was published by UNIDIR (the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research Unit), in an issue which dealt with the Middle East. In it, he recommends that the countries in the region agree to three types of confidence-building measures (CBMs): diplomatic, legal, and technical. The diplomatic CBMs would included declarations by the region's states and international organizations that the Middle East is an area free of weapons of mass destruction. All sides would also declare their commitment to the universality of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). They would also declare they will make no use of any type of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological or nuclear). Legal obligations, as part of the confidence-building measures, include the participation in the NPT and the opening of nuclear facilities to international inspection. This is directed toward Israel, the sole country in the region that has not signed the NPT and goes to great lengths to prevent inspections of the Dimona site. According to the document, the technical CBM's will "contribute to the physical security of the states," through exchanges of military information, mutual exchanges of observers during military exercises, the minimizing of troop deployments along borders. Fahmi writes that, "Many such steps have already been implemented in force disengagement agreements and peace agreements between Israel and the Arab States." He says the confidence-building measures, including arms control, will deal with all forms of arming in the region and will eventual result in a "continuous and energetic process," of regional disarmament. Fahmi notes in his report that the Middle East is one of the few regions in the world "that has not seen the development of a meaningful arms control proces" and still remains "at the forefront in terms of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." He warns that if the current nuclear weapons and missile development plans continue without any inspection, the unavoidable result will be that the countries in the area will reevaluate their defense policies. Some will accelerate the existing development projects, and others will revive "sleeper" projects. This is an indirect reference to Egypt. Fahmi is well known to Israel. He headed Egypt's delegation in regional arms control talks, frozen in 1995 because of disagreements between Egypt and Israel. His Israeli counterpart was David Ivry, who like Fahmi, today represents his country in Washington. In his report, Fahmi is very critical of Israel's "long corridor" approach to confidence-building measures, in which tiny steps are taken. Israel has argued in the past that a general peace is necessary prior to serious discussions on arms control. Fahmi disagrees with this approach, and notes that the United States and the former Soviet Union reached a series of agreements on arms control during the Cold War, without there ever being a peace accord. The Egyptian ambassador finally says that Israel's approach is not acceptable because no state will agree to a regional arms control process that is designed solely based on the needs of a single state. By this, Fahmi criticizes the U.S. stance in support of Israel's demand on setting the agenda for arms control talks. He also suggests that the failure of the United States to gain regional, Arab support, for its sanctions against Iraq stems from its continuous support of Israel's attitude regarding its own nuclear program. © copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved Arafat ***************************************************************** 14 U.S. Studies Developing New Nuclear Bomb washingtonpost.com: By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 15, 2001; Page A02 The Defense Department is studying whether to develop a new, low-yield nuclear weapon with an earth-penetrating nose cone that could knock out hardened or deeply buried targets such as leadership bunkers and command centers, according to administration and congressional sources. Such a weapon has long been sought by nuclear weapons scientists and some military strategists, including key members of the Bush administration, as a way of reaching targets that are hidden deep underground without incurring huge collateral damage. Advocates also say that by developing such smaller nuclear weapons, the United States could safely reduce its current stockpile of 6,000 much more powerful warheads. Interest in low-yield weapons has been rising with concern that Iraq's Saddam Hussein could hide his biological and chemical arsenals in underground bunkers. Another hardened target that has drawn attention is Russia's long-term construction of a nuclear war command center under Yamental mountain. One senior adviser to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the Iraqi leader would not be deterred by current U.S. nuclear weapons "because he knows a U.S. president would not drop a 100-kiloton bomb on Baghdad" and destroy the entire city and its population to reach his weapons of mass destruction. The prospect that the Pentagon would recommend that the Bush administration develop a new, low-yield nuclear weapon has become the focus of attention for groups committed to traditional arms control. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) plans to release a report this week that argues "that adding low-yield warheads to the world's nuclear inventory simply makes their eventual use more likely." A report on the Pentagon study is to be sent to Congress in July. Seven years ago, Congress barred research and development of a low-yield precision-guided nuclear weapon, out of concern that it would blur the line between conventional and nuclear weapons. But an amendment last year to the defense authorization bill by Sens. John W. Warner (R-Va.) and Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) required the Pentagon to study how to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets. The Defense Department was specifically asked to determine what weapons might be needed, including low-yield nuclear devices. The Energy Department, which controls the nuclear labs, is assisting the Pentagon. The July report is due at the same time a review of U.S. strategic nuclear deterrence policy, ordered by Rumsfeld, could be completed. That study deals with offensive and defensive systems, nuclear as well as conventional, administration sources said. In a paper presented last month, Paul Robinson, head of Sandia Nuclear Laboratories, said he believed "low-yield weapons with highly accurate delivery systems" would be desirable "for deterrence in the non-Russian world." Robinson, however, said the devices could help decision-makers "contemplate the destruction of some buried or hidden targets while being mindful of the need to minimize collateral damage." Stephen M. Younger, chief of nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, suggested in a paper last summer that accurate, low-yield nuclear weapons could be better suited to attacking buried, concrete bunkers and mobile missiles than today's U.S. arsenal of silo-busting weapons that each have the explosive power of 30 Hiroshima bombs. To destroy moderately hard targets, such as missile silos, Younger urged the development of low-yield weapons to be placed on highly accurate missiles. A new, five-kiloton warhead -- with less than half the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb -- would vaporize a 30-foot-thick silo door if it were delivered by a precise missile, he wrote. A new nuclear bomb has not been developed in the United States since the 1980s, and nuclear testing was halted in 1992. Each year the Energy Department spends about $4.5 billion in its stockpile stewardship program that keeps warheads safe and secure. Tiny elements of nuclear materials are exploded in "sub-critical" tests, which are allowed under the testing moratorium because they do not create a nuclear chain reaction. Because many tested U.S. weapon designs exist from the period before the moratorium, one senior U.S. weapons scientist said recently that a low-yield weapon could be developed without testing. He added that with information developed on earth penetration for the Pershing II intermediate-range missile in the 1980s and the B-61 more recently, "we could build [a low-yield earth penetrator] tomorrow; it is not hard to do." Critics say such a weapon would not be able to penetrate deep enough to keep radioactive debris from getting into the atmosphere. The FAS study, by Princeton University theoretical physicist Robert W. Nelson, argues that "in order to be fully contained, nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site must be buried at a depth of 650 feet for a five-kiloton explosive." Based on that analysis, Nelson concludes: "This mission does not appear possible, without causing massive radioactive contamination. No American president would elect to use nuclear weapons in this situation -- unless another country had already used nuclear weapons against us." The government nuclear weapons scientist said a one-kiloton warhead would have to dig down only 175 feet for its radioactive material to remain contained. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 15 Forces study 'an insult,' MP charges National - Ottawa Citizen Online Sunday 15 April 2001 Risk posed by depleted uranium sugar-coated by DND: Alliance Mike Blanchfield The Ottawa Citizen The military has "insulted" the intelligence of members of the Commons defence committee by unnecessarily sugar-coating the potential health risks of radioactive-depleted uranium, a Canadian Alliance MP says. Peter Goldring, the Alliance's veterans affairs critic, says a recent presentation by Canadian Forces Col. Ken Scott before the committee did not provide a balanced view of the possible health risks associated with depleted uranium, the radioactive substance that was used in anti-tank missiles used in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. Mr. Goldring said when he attended a committee meeting last month he hoped Col. Scott, the Forces director of health policy, could offer convincing testimony that the substance poses no risk. "His entire presentation was on the safety of depleted uranium, how it was no more radioactive than natural uranium around us," Mr. Goldring said in an interview. "In my mind, it was rather insulting. It was treating us like school children, when obviously depleted uranium is not the same as the earth and the sky around us." The unexplained cancer deaths of about two dozen NATO peacekeepers sparked controversy in Europe earlier this year when it was suggested that radiation from exploded missiles, tipped with depleted uranium, might be a serious health hazard to peacekeepers who have served in the Balkans. Some Gulf War veterans have also raised questions about whether the substance is responsible for some of the mysterious symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome. About 40,000 depleted uranium rounds were fired during bombing campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. No scientific link has been established between cancer and depleted uranium, a position to which NATO and the Canadian government strictly adhere. However, NATO has said further study of the issue is appropriate given the level of concern. Some physicians and researchers maintain that despite the absence of a firm scientific link, a connection between the substance and cancer can't definitively be ruled out. Mr. Goldring said the Forces are bending over backward not to publicly acknowledge that other opinion. Mr. Goldring added that it was inappropriate for Col. Scott to seek changes to a report by Royal Military College scientists who were asked to review the massive body of literature surrounding depleted uranium. In memos recently obtained by the Citizen, Col. Scott tells the scientists to tone down "unnecessarily inflammatory" language to keep from inciting "special interest" groups, "naive" readers or the media. "Any conscientious scientist would not be trying to be an alarmist. They would be trying to reflect what their real concerns are," said Mr. Goldring. One of the lead scientists who contributed to the paper said he didn't feel Col. Scott's suggestions were inappropriate and that some of his suggested changes in wording were incorporated into the report's final draft. None of Col. Scott's suggestions affected the content of the paper, said William Andrews, a nuclear engineer at RMC. Mr. Andrews said he did not feel "gagged" or that his academic freedom was threatened in any way. He said Col. Scott was probably concerned how the general public would interpret the report. "I guess in one sense he was right that people would read it, and unless the diction was very careful people would read into it what they wanted. "This stuff can be acquired through Access to Information, and read by people who don't have the same background ... Col. Scott has a very sensitive and important job to do, and I'm not in a hurry to trade with him. I think he was concerned we might be causing him some grief further down the road." [UP] Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive, a CanWest company. All ***************************************************************** 16 Aldermaston woman tells secrets of our super-bomb secrets Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search It was 1955 and four British scientists suddenly had the power to start, or deflect, World War III. Now their full story has been told, reports Kamal Ahmed Kamal Ahmed Observer Sunday April 15, 2001 On a scrap of blue paper, unsigned but in the distinctive handwriting of one of Britain's leading scientists, four words reveal one of the most momentous events in the country's history. 'Looks just about OK.' The note was written by William Penney, director of the atomic research centre at Aldermaston. He was writing about Britain's secret post-war project: the development of the hydrogen bomb, a weapon with the ability to destroy whole cities and millions of people in a flash of searing heat and light. Penney had just worked out how to make the weapon detonate successfully. It was September 1955. The note, and the remarkable story of Britain's nuclear weapons project, is revealed in the first officially sanctioned history of the 'superbomb project'. The book, which had to be given clearance by the Cabinet Office because the details it contains are so sensitive, has taken nearly 10 years to produce and is written by Lorna Arnold, a former departmental record officer with the Atomic Energy Authority. She was given special access to the closed files at Aldermaston which will not be handed to the Public Records Office for decades to come. The book, Britain and the H-Bomb , to be published this week, reveals that the four men behind Britain's nuclear deterrent believed they were ambassadors for world peace, despite inventing one of the most destructive weapons known to man. Penney, along with physicists Keith Roberts and Brian Taylor, and William Cook, the deputy director of Aldermaston, thought that the full horror of the H-bomb was such that it would never be used. 'William Penney and William Cook had seen the appalling effects of years of conventional war,' Arnold said yesterday from her home in Oxford, where she has now retired. 'They believed that this weapon would mean the end of world wars.' Arnold said she hoped the book would redress the balance of earlier histories of nuclear development which put America at the forefront. Although Robert Oppenheimer, the American scientist who ran the Los Alamos nuclear development project during the Second World War, is recognised across the globe, the names of Penney, Roberts, Taylor and Cook are unknown outside the rarefied world of nuclear science. 'None of them ever publicised their role or wrote memoirs - they had a great belief that they were simply part of a larger effort,' Arnold said. 'But they were dealing with one of the most complicated and difficult scientific challenges, and they were successful.' Arnold, who is now 85, said the book became a 'labour of love', She began work at the Atomic Energy Authority in the 1950s, an era when the future of nuclear science held out the twin possibilities of total destruction or limitless electrical energy. At that time the nuclear industry was employing 27,000 people. The book shows how the men who researched the H-bomb were at the forefront of theoretical science and often had to rely as much on their imagination as their practical knowledge. John Dolphin, who was head of the 'project committee' at Aldermaston, admitted his 'complete ignorance' of physics, yet he 'produced elegant drawings of strange "thermonuclear" devices - perhaps his own ingenious ideas,' Arnold writes. As they grappled with what is widely believed to be the most significant discovery of the twentieth century - the process of nuclear fusion - the scientists often lost heart. At a meeting in December 1955 the main scientists met to pull together their ideas. 'Does anyone know how it is done?' Cook said. There was an 'embarrassed silence', Arnold says, before revealing that the moral dilemmas and problems with resources faced by the scientists almost led to the breakdown of the whole project. Such was the exasperation at the slow progress and complicated nature of the work, Cook sent out worried instructions to his staff to 'keep it simple, stupid!'. 'The plain fact is that weapons work is unpopular and nobody wants to do it,' Penney wrote in a memo in 1954 in which he admitted to being 'terribly depressed'. He continued: 'If I have to run with just the same people that I have had for the last year or two we are going to make a mess. Even the programme which is definite is above the present capacity of the establishment to bear.' The project was shrouded in the utmost secrecy because of fears that both the US and Russia, which were developing their own H-bombs, would seek to exclude Britain from the superpower league that was rapidly developing. The Government kept as much as much as possible from the public after concerns were raised that mass marches by the nascent Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament could derail the research. Arnold said that many of the most important and sensitive documents were destroyed by Aldermaston during a 'reorganisation' in the 1960s. The book reveals the huge tensions being created by the Cold War. In 1954 a committee under the command of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the leading military body in Britain, said they considered that the US could 'deliberately precipitate war with the USSR in the near future'. Any conflict would lead to the 'total destruction' of the UK, which they believed was Russia's primary target - just nine years after the two countries had been allies against Nazi Germany. In the same year Penney, who was put under intense pressure to 'get results', wrote a report for Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, in which he revealed the destructive capacity of the weapon. 'He described the effects of a five-megaton "true" H-bomb dropped on London,' Arnold writes. 'It would produce a fireball two miles across and a crater three-quarters of a mile wide and 150 feet deep. The Admiralty Citadel (Whitehall's emergency nerve centre) would be crushed at a distance of one mile, houses would be wrecked three miles away and badly damaged at seven miles; within a radius of two miles all habitations would catch fire.' kamal.ahmed@observer.co.uk [UP] ***************************************************************** 17 Future of RECA still up in the air *April 12, 2001* By Chris Rasmussen/Staff writer FARMINGTON - Victims of radiation exposure are moving closer to guaranteed federal compensation as Congress decides the future of the financially troubled Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. RECA, which provides uranium miners and victims of nuclear testing in the 1950s with compensation for medical complications resulting from their exposure to radiation, was the focus of a budget resolution sponsored by Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. The resolution, which passed the Senate April 6, would give the annually underfunded program entitlement status while providing it with $710 million for the next 10 years. Since its inception in 1990, RECA has been funded on an annual basis, which has led to chronic shortfalls. In 2000, President Clinton and Congress underfunded the program by $19 million, and victims suffered as a result. Two hundred and twenty-one people, out of 3,530 who were supposed to receive compensation were instead left holding government IOUs this year. In New Mexico, 24 people out of 425 hold IOUs. Some legislators feel many of the problems with RECA stem from the Justice Department. In the long term,the program would be better off if Congress were to take it away from the Department of Justice, said U.S. Rep. Tom Udall D-N.M. "Compensation needs to be a mandatory issue and not deal with an appropriations committee every year," he said. "Plus, the Department of Justice has been hyper-technical with eligibility issues and has put up roadblocks to families' needs. The Department of Labor would be more sympathetic to the victims' needs because they run compensation programs already." Moving the program, however, shouldn't even be on legislators minds while victims holding IOUs are dying, said Lori Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Western States RECA Reform Coalition "Now is not the time," she said. "The bigger issue is the IOUs. We want the IOUs paid." Goodman said she supports the Senate budget resolution, but noted that it is only a blueprint to make up funding shortfalls in the RECA and not binding. Domenici has not always agreed with the way the Justice Department has administered RECA, but he does not currently support moving the program to Labor or any other department, said Domenici spokesman Chris Gallegos. "He has concerns with the way the Department of Justice has run RECA, but he has not gone so far as to say the department should be divested of the program," he said. "His primary concern is making sure the government fulfills its obligation." Senator Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., feels RECA must be solvent before Congress makes any major change, said Bingaman spokeswoman Jude McCartin. "Clearly the Justice Department has not done a good job administering RECA," she said. "We are soliciting opinion on whether to move the program." Bingaman, who, like Domenici, has worked on reforming RECA, feels that Labor would be a logical choice for RECA, McCartin said. "They have the infrastructure to administer the program," she said. The last year has seen Congress make major changes to the RECA. In July, the scope of the program was increased when Clinton signed into law the 2000 RECA amendments. The amendments, co-sponsored by Senators Orin Hatch, R-Utah, and Bingaman, expanded the list of compensable diseases to new cancers, including leukemia, thyroid and brain cancer, as well as certain non-cancerous diseases, like pulmonary fibrosis. Above-ground and open-pit miners, millers and transport workers were made eligible. Chris Rasmussen can be reached at: chrisr@daily-times.com *****************************************************************