***************************************************************** 05/17/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.121 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Nevada officials wary of waste alternatives 2 The badder side of Bush 3 Bush campaigns for more energy sources 4 A Glance at the Bush Energy Plan 5 Nuclear Waste: Do We Know What to Do With It? 6 More Nuclear Power Means More Risk 7 Bush proposes "safe expansion" of nuclear energy 8 Is There an Energy Crisis? 9 Nuclear, fossil fuels at heart of Bush plan / SWEETENER: $6.3 10 Bush readies to go nuclear despite foes 11 Nuclear Power Allies Fired Up Over Future 12 Debate on Nuclear Power Heats Up 13 Cheney's wishful thinking 14 America should applaud a proposed return to nuclear power 15 Reid won't block Bush nomination 16 Palo Verde: Nuke Burden Now Top Power Producer 17 Discoverer of nuclear fission 18 Environmental Case for Nuclear Power (The) 19 Worldwide Exercise in Nuclear Emergency Management 20 SA nuclear waste under control 21 Plebiscite on MOX fuel due May 27 22 N.Korea Says May End Reactor Deal, Cites U.S. Delay 23 Sizewell closure adds to BE's woe 24 54 Countries to Take Part in Nuclear Emergency Exercise 25 Activists Protesting Russian Waste Imports Disrupt Nuclear Meeting 26 Lithuania power plant clean-up 27 British Energy sets sights on expansion into North America 28 Reprocessing Contracts Safe: BNFL Boss 29 New Boss at Windscale 30 Study of the CRIIRAD to the accesses of the power station of Saint-Alban 31 Reaction to Bush's Energy Report 32 Sunken boat may have carried nuclear waste 33 Letter from Bob Loux, Exec. Dir., Nuclear Waste Agency to Lake 34 Cheney Keeping Low Profile 35 More study into cleaner waste urged 36 ENERGY REPORT: Bush invokes '70s crisis NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Lethal bio-weapons within reach 2 Senate Bill Would Raise Downwinders' Benefits 3 Hatch-Domenici bill would guarantee compensation for radiation victims 4 Cleanup too slow, DOE pick says 5 HAB has had it with DOE delays 6 State doesn't agree to DOE cleanup delay 7 The camera of Ed Westcott: Oak Ridge history like none other 8 Here are some new ideas from knowledgeable scientists who are 9 US cuts back on Russian nuclear items 10 Veterans call for info on Montebello nuclear tests 11 $500,000 more sought for cancer probe 12 Iowa briefing on contamination survey of workers **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nevada officials wary of waste alternatives Today: May 17, 2001 at 11:12:26 PDT By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- President Bush today unveiled his sweeping new national energy policy, which included recommendations for developing nuclear waste treatment technologies, including transmutation and reprocessing. However, those technologies do not erase the need to bury waste permanently at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the 163-page document said. "While this approach does not obviate the need for geologic disposal of nuclear waste, it could significantly optimize the use of a geologic repository," the eight-chapter report said. Nevada lawmakers appreciated the plan's mention of waste treatment alternatives, but said the strategy doesn't go far enough to scrap the Yucca proposal. If Congress could support developing technologies that treat waste to make it less toxic, or to recycle, that would at least delay plans to ship waste from reactor storage areas to Yucca Mountain as early as 2010, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said. "What this does for us is it maybe delays (Yucca) for another 30 or 40 years," Ensign said. "If we get people to go along with accelerator technologies, that means they have to advocate on-site, dry-cask storage." Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Bush could end up rethinking Yucca Mountain. "We're certainly excited about the idea that the administration is showing an interest in new technology," Gibbons said. "I think we've now got the door open." Nevada lawmakers are wary of the plan's proposal to increase nuclear power because that would mean more waste. "If they need support on nuclear power, they won't get it from Nevada if they don't come up with an option to Yucca Mountain," Ensign said. "At least not from this senator." Still, Nevada's Republican lawmakers generally praised Bush for creating a comprehensive energy plan. "The reality is we have to increase supply and become less dependent on foreign oil," Ensign said. "There are no quick fixes." But Democrats had scathing reaction to the Bush plan. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Bush's commitment to Yucca signaled a "disaster for Nevada." She said his mentions of treating or recycling waste were throw-away "ornaments" in the plan. "What they are saying is 'We're going to dump all the waste at Yucca Mountain and then maybe we'll dabble a little in researching these other technologies,' " Berkley said. In general, Berkley harshly criticized the Bush plan for encouraging drilling on "pristine" lands and lacking "serious" tax credits and research money for renewable energies like wind, solar and geothermal energy. "Nevada should be the epicenter for that type of research in this nation," Berkley said. The energy plan calls for 1,300 to 1,900 new plants to be built in the next 20 years. It does not specify how many should be nuclear. The nation's 103 nuclear reactors produce 20 percent of America's electricity. The report said that much has changed since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, which raised public anxiety over nuclear power and increased regulations on power plants. No plants have been ordered since 1973. Since then, safer plant designs have been approved and safety technology has advanced, the report said. The strategy proposes to increase production by: * Making current nuclear plants more efficient. * Making it easier for aging plants to renew their licences. * Expediting licensing procedures for new plants. * Adding new reactors on sites where reactors already exist. * Developing a permanent waste repository. The Department of Energy has invested 14 years of research and $7 billion studying Yucca Mountain, the only site under consideration to be a national burial ground for 77,000 tons of waste. Yucca would be the first repository of its kind. "The administration will continue to study the science to determine whether to proceed with the consideration of this site as the location for the repository," the report said. "No waste will be sent to any location until the (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) determines it to be safe." Earlier this month Vice President Dick Cheney agreed to meet for a 15-minute discussion with Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who asked Cheney to consider options to Yucca Mountain. Whether a consequence of the meeting, Bush officials seem ready to consider transmutation and reprocessing to help clear the way for a new era of nuclear power plants. Transmutation is an expensive and undeveloped technology that involves breaking waste down into a less harmful form through a process of bombarding it with neutrons. Although the report recommends the United States should develop "fuel treatment technologies that are cleaner, more efficient, less waste-intensive and more proliferation-resistant," Bush's budget did not include money for transmutation research. Bush also recommends reviewing a national policy that bans reprocessing waste, most of which is in solid form -- bundles of 14-foot rods full of radioactive uranium pellets. That involves hauling the waste to reprocessing plants where it would be recycled into new fuel. France, Britain and Japan reprocess waste. Reprocessing, or "recycling," involves recovering plutonium, a key component of atom bombs. President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s was worried the plutonium could fall into the wrong hands and effectively banned reprocessing. Carter's decision left nuclear waste piling up at nuclear reactors. The report does not direct more specific direction or make budgeting recommendations for developing transmutation or reprocessing. The nuclear energy industry strongly backs developing Yucca as a permanent dump for its waste. But industry officials are open to transmutation and reprocessing, a spokeswoman said today. "Any type of technology that would beneifit the continued use of nuclear technologies, not just nuclear power, is a good thing," Nuclear Energy Institute spokeswoman Thelma Wiggins said. But Yucca "is still needed." Environmental groups oppose most of Bush's plans, including reprocessing and the Yucca plan. "Reading between the lines, we can see that the administration intends to put its weight behind opening Yucca Mountain," Public Citizen's Lisa Gue said. Cheney this week told the Associated Press, "The Yucca Mountain is the one that's most, that's farthest along and most advanced ... It's been drawn out for a long time, and if we want to promote the use of nuclear energy, then clearly we've got to address the waste question and get it resolved." Environmentalists, taxpayer groups and leading Democrats have been quick to criticize the energy plan, drafted by a Cheney task force. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has led some Democratic criticism. Earlier this week he told the Los Angeles Times it was a "recipe for disaster." Cheney was a "stalwart advocate" of subsidies and tax incentives for energy companies during his days in Congress, said Taxpayers for Common Sense, a U.S. budget watchdog group that analyzed his voting record. "The Vice President has never found a giveaway to big energy that he didn't like," said Cena Swisher, the organization's director. Cheney in an interview this week denied giving too much consideration to energy industry recommendations. Environmentalists will spend more money battling the energy plan than they have ever spent because so much is at stake, National Environmental Trust president Phil Clapp said this week. "What they are assembling is an all-out attack on environmental protections," Clapp said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 The badder side of Bush LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: OPINION: COLUMN: Steve Sebelius Thursday, May 17, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal If you look past the energy crisis; the FBI's fumbling of yet another high-profile investigation; the tense standoff with China; the CIA-assisted assassination of a missionary and her baby who were mistaken for drug mules; and the United States getting itself kicked out of the United Nation's human-rights committee, George W. Bush's first 100 days as president has gone pretty smoothly. Oh, sure, none of those things are Bush's fault. But what about the stuff that is? Consider the quandary that the Republican Party now faces, as seen by Edwin Chen of the Los Angeles Times: Bush is focusing so much on long-term, legacy-building initiatives, he's leaving the party with few issues to campaign on in 2002, when the paper-thin majorities in the Senate and House could throw control back to the Democrats, a repeat of Bill Clinton's fate in 1994. This might make Bush seem like a statesman, someone willing to rise above the petty politics and headline-grabbing, short-term fixes that characterized his predecessor ... someone who is a true leader. But that neglects to consider the fact that almost all of Bush's long-term projects are, well, wrong. The list includes Social Security reform, which Bush proposes to accomplish by allowing you to invest a small portion of your Social Security tax money (which you'd still be forced to pay) in the stock market, where it would happily prop up our economy until a.) you retire; or b.) a stock market crash forces you to postpone retirement for, say, 50 years. Then there's missile defense, in which the same military that mistook the Chinese embassy in Belgrade for a legitimate military target will aim to shoot down incoming missiles in the vast expanse of space. Tests thus far have been discouraging, but nothing helps an economy like war, and the inevitable arms race triggered by Bush's plan will sure be a boost for defense contractors. And that's not to mention some of Bush's other ideas, like funneling taxpayer dollars to religious organizations that provide social services, touting vouchers as a means of educational reform, and a national energy plan that Nevadans should read with a good deal of skepticism when it comes to getting rid of nuclear waste. But at least Nevadans will get tax cuts, which is a good thing, right? Not necessarily. According to an analysis by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, Bush's budgets will call for sending fewer federal dollars to the Silver State than would otherwise have come our way, had the rate of spending growth remained the same. Overall in Nevada, Bush's budget calls for spending $50 million less in federal discretionary funding in fiscal year 2002, and $121 million less in fiscal year 2011, the institute says. Spending reductions by 2002 include Environmental Protection Agency drinking water funds, highway aid, Head Start, Pell Grants, vocational education funds, community development block grants, class-size reduction and school renovation money, low-income housing funds and social services money. (Bush proposes to spend more, however, on things like special education, drug-free schools and communities grants and child care development block grants.) But the fruits of all these reductions (besides putting more needy people at risk) is more money in our pockets, right? There is some upside, isn't there? Well, the Democrats had a funny thing to say about that the other day, in one of those silly message-of-the-day things that, for once, was right on target. See, the tax cut is coming at the same time as rising energy prices, at the gas pumps and in your monthly utility bills. "The president's answer to outlandish fuel costs?" the Democratic strategists write. "Just sign your check over to his big energy buddies!!" Too harsh? Well, let's take a look at Bush's own words, from a news conference: "The best way to make sure that people are able to deal with high energy prices is to cut taxes, is to give people more of their own money so they can meet the bills, so they can meet the high energy prices." And just think: Bush has more than 1,200 days to go. Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist. His column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at 383-0283 or by e-mail at Steve_Sebelius@lasvegas.com. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001 ***************************************************************** 3 Bush campaigns for more energy sources RGJ.com - *By RON FOURNIER* ASSOCIATED PRESS Thursday May 17th, 2001 WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush, saying America has neglected its energy problems too long, launched a campaign Wednesday for more nuclear reactors, oil refineries, gas pipelines and electrical grids. He promised to ensure that “nobody in America gets illegally overcharged” for energy. Democrats said his plan, due Thursday, would endanger the environment and do nothing to lower prices now. With even some Republicans demanding quicker fixes, presidential advisers for the first time were offering short-term relief from high energy bills. “We’re going to solve this problem,” Bush said, previewing a report he said would be an honest, hard look at the reasons for the nation’s energy shortages. “This isn’t just a report that’s going to gather dust.” Under pressure to provide voters hope of lower energy prices, the president said in a picture-taking session with his Cabinet that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will monitor electric rates and the Federal Trade Commission will watch gasoline rates in case consumers are overcharged. But the president acknowledged he was simply restating the agencies’ missions, not ordering a formal inquiry. Indeed, he answered “none whatsoever” when asked if there was evidence that the gasoline industry is gouging consumers. Earlier, his press secretary argued that simply releasing the report might curb gasoline prices because the promise of future supplies would drive down prices among investors who speculate on oil trends. On Capitol Hill, Vice President Dick Cheney, the plan’s architect, met privately with rank-and-file House Republicans, attempting to ease fears that Americans will punish GOP candidates in 2002 elections. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said he hoped to get the energy package approved and ready for Bush’s signature by July 4. He conceded, however, that some recommendations, such as expanded drilling on federal land and taking private land for power lines, “will be hotly debated” by Congress. Republicans in Congress and at the White House are increasingly concerned that voters will blame them for energy shortages and rising prices. Bush and Cheney, the administration’s energy pointman, are especially vulnerable to criticism because they made fortunes in the oil business. “The president has no program for the short term, telling people they are on their own,” said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. “At a time when consumers are paying record prices, at a moment when energy companies are making record profits, we have an obligation to the American people to address their concerns.” The half-inch thick report, complete with glossy pictures and pie charts, contains 105 recommendations — some of which will go to Congress and others that will be carried out by executive order. The White House rhetoric is focused on poll-tested conservation initiatives, with aides noting that 42 of the recommendations offer incentives for people and businesses to curb their fuel demands. But the president’s focus is on strategies to make the United States less reliant on foreign oil and less susceptible to aging electrical transmission systems. He wants to ease restrictions on oil and gas development on public lands and open 8 percent of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Regulations covering new electrical power plants would be slashed, and the federal government would be allowed to seize private property for transmission lines. Tax breaks would go to companies running nuclear plants, and those firms would face fewer regulations. “It’s going to be pretty hard to blame Republicans for a problem that’s been evolving for 20 years or more, maybe 30 or 40 years,” Lott said. The White House is worried, just the same. Press secretary Ari Fleischer, who previously had maintained that there are no short-term answers to the nation’s energy woes, said the report’s promises of future supplies would drive down prices among investors who speculate on short-term oil price trends. “The president’s proposal will help in the short term,” Fleischer said. “For the first time in years, focusing on a comprehensive solution, the president is confident that markets will see that more supply is on the way, conservation is starting to be emphasized, and the combination of more conservation and greater supplies has an effect on markets. And as those markets are affected, it has a ripple effect that benefits consumers, benefits the economy and helps to lower prices.” House Democrats have already released their own energy blueprint that urges the government to hold down price increases for electric power while sparing environmentally sensitive areas from oil and gas exploration. Bush opposes price controls, saying they would exacerbate the problem in the long run. Some Republican lawmakers are proposing short-term solutions such as reducing the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax and offering more conservation incentives. For a second day, Cheney tried Wednesday to calm GOP lawmakers voicing dissent in private Capitol Hill meetings. Bush plans to travel to Iowa and Minnesota, two key states during presidential campaigns, to promote his plan Thursday and will discuss hydroelectric power in Pennsylvania on Friday. The White House is releasing a state-by-state analysis of the program’s impact on Thursday. Environmental groups plan rallies and critical newspaper ads in each of the cities Bush visits. ©2001 Reno Gazette-Journal ***************************************************************** 4 A Glance at the Bush Energy Plan May 16, 2001 Some recommendations included in President Bush's energy task force report: Production: -Ease restrictions on oil and gas development on public lands. -Open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling. -Ease permit process for refinery expansion and construction. -Speed license procedures for hydroelectric dams and geothermal plants. -Order agencies to expedite permits for energy-related projects. Power Plants: -Streamline approval process for siting power plants. -Give government authority to take property through eminent domain for power lines. -Provide tax breaks for developing clean coal technologies. -Ease regulatory barriers, including clean air rules, to make plants more efficient. Nuclear: -Adjust regulations to speed relicensing of reactors and licensing of new plants. -Pursue a national nuclear waste repository, despite controversy surrounding the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. The only site being considered, Yucca Mountain is not singled out in the report. -Give tax breaks for purchase of nuclear plants. -Reauthorize law that limits industry liability from a nuclear accident. -Consider reviving technology that allows spent fuel from nuclear reactors to be re-used to produce electricity. The technology was abandoned in 1970s because it was consider a proliferation risk. Renewable Energy: -Provide tax credits to encourage development of energy plants that use organic waste, or biomass. -Continue tax credits for wind energy generation. -Give tax credit of 15 percent for homeowners who purchase solar panels. -Study whether to require automobiles to meet higher fuel efficiency standards. -Propose $5 billion in new spending, most of which goes to tax credits for renewable energy and conservation projects. -Enact legislation to expand existing alternative fuels tax incentives to include landfills that capture methane gas emissions for electricity generation. Conservation: -Give tax credit for purchase of high-mileage, hybrid gas-electric vehicles. -Provide tax benefits and regulatory relief for co-generation plants that produce both heat and electricity -Expand federal Energy Star program to include not only businesses but schools, homes and hospitals. Other: -Spur U.S. participation in Caspian Sea oil and gas development. -Step up diplomatic efforts to expand oil production in Latin America, Asia and Caspian Sea nations such as Azerbaijan. -Review whether to increase flexibility in the web of regional "boutique" gasoline blends that industry says contributes to supply shortages and price spikes, while maintaining clean-air standards. -Order agencies to consider the impact on energy supplies when writing regulations. -Use royalties from drilling on public lands to help fund low-income energy assistant programs. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Nuclear Waste: Do We Know What to Do With It? ABCNEWS.com Shoot It in Space or Bury It? Yucca Worries: Water, Volcanoes, Shakes But the energy-packed pellets that are the radioactive remains of nuclear power generation pose an enormous problem for nuclear energy plants that weren't originally designed to store them. So far the 103 operating nuclear reactors in the United States have generated an estimated 45,000 tons of waste that is expected to remain radioactive for more than 200,000 years. And right now, the waste, which emits radioactive particles that can eat away at human tissue and organs, is being stored in tanks or concrete and steel bunkers at sites that were only meant to contain the waste for perhaps decades, not centuries. "Spent fuel is now stored in pools and dry casks," says Rodney Ewing, a professor in nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. "Today it's safe. But it's certainly not a long-term solution." Shoot It into Space or Bury It? Some argue the lack of a permanent, safe storage site for nuclear waste is reason enough to oppose proposals in President Bush's energy plan, unveiled today, to speed licensing of new nuclear power plants and extend the operating licenses of existing plants. As Allison Macfarlane, a geologist and senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, "Until we can figure out what to do with the waste, we shouldn't make any more of it." But those who tout the economic and environmental benefits of nuclear energy argue a safe, permanent storage site has already been found and only politics has prevented its opening. Others point to changing methods of nuclear power generation that could ultimately reduce waste production (see sidebar below). Some have proposed rocketing nuclear waste into space where it could linger and eventually decay beyond Earth's orbit. But that idea has since been dismissed as prohibitively expensive and dangerous (imagine a Challenger-like disaster on a craft containing nuclear waste). Others are working on ways to convert nuclear waste into less-harmful materials using a process called transmutation. But that technology, which would attempt to accelerate particles into the atoms of radioactive material, remains unfeasible. The best solution, most agree, is to contain nuclear waste deep in the ground. The logic is this: containers underground are like submarines in deep water. As a boat on the water's surface is tossed around by stormy waves, a submarine is barely disturbed. Likewise, nuclear waste underground is less likely to be disturbed and then leak. But, as many scientists point out, there are factors such as volcanoes and earthquakes that could disrupt even deep underground holdings. According to legislation passed in 1987, the federal government should have begun operating a permanent underground storage site by 1998 at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Tunnels burrowed 600 feet below the mountain's surface would host about 70,000 tons of waste. After nearly two decades of research and federal spending of nearly $6.7 billion, the department of energy released an summary report for public review this May that concluded while uncertainties remained, the repository would be safer than current options. "The science strongly supports that the site is suitable," Joe F. Colvin, chief executive officer of the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington, D.C., said recently about the report. "We expect the decision process, based on scientific facts, to move forward in an expeditious manner." Still, scientists and citizens — especially those based in Nevada argue the mountain location is not safe enough. Yucca Worries: Water, Volcanoes, Shakes Judy Treichel, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force, a non-profit public advocacy group opposed to the Yucca plan, argues the ground around the Yucca site is too active. Nevada ranks third in the country for seismic activity and M.I.T.'s Macfarlane points out there are three volcanic cones located within 10 miles of Yucca Mountain. She says if one should erupt (an event that geologists have estimated is unlikely), "it would spew nuclear material all over the place." Water is another big worry. Nevada geologist Steve Frishman and others have found that water seeps through the mountain much faster than researchers originally thought. If water can reach the cask-contained waste, Treichel argues, then it can also carry the radiation to groundwater supplies. Finally, some scientists have questioned the durability of the material that would contain the nuclear waste. According to the plan as it's now written, the canisters would be built from a nickel alloy. Although studies show the material to be strong, there are no long-term studies on its performance. "In Sweden they use a copper canister — and we have very long-term data on copper's durability," says Ewing. "This material they want to use appears to be strong, but we have no way of knowing if it will break down, say, 500 years from now." In fact, Ewing has questioned the whole approach that DOE scientists have taken in assessing the safety of the Yucca site. He argues that since so much of the evaluation has been based on estimations, an accurate conclusion about whether the mountain location would be safe is impossible. It would be better, he says, to locate other possible sites and then compare them. "The Yucca site may be adequate," he says, "but it's difficult, even impossible to say that now with confidence." Re-Using Waste to Reduce Waste May 16 If we can recycle plastic, aluminum and paper, why not nuclear waste? In fact, some scientists have recommended for years that U.S. plants begin recycling the remaining uranium and plutonium found in spent fuel. France, Britain, Japan and Russia now recycle their nuclear waste, but U.S. companies have not, partly because a ban was placed on the practice in the late 1970s due to fears that the resulting material could fall into the wrong hands. One year's spent fuel from a large reactor could be converted make some 30 nuclear bombs, and experts fear material released by reprocessing is easier to manipulate for sinister means. The ban has since been lifted, but lack of infrastructure for the process makes it expensive and less tempting to nuclear power companies, says Dale Klein, a professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. Still, estimates show reprocessing could reduce the amount of nuclear waste produced in this country by up to two-thirds. And the resulting waste would have a shorter period of radioactivity. Whether or not the Yucca site is approved (and most think an approval by the Bush administration is likely), where to put waste now will remain an issue since the Yucca location could not open until 2010. One solution is to open a central temporary, above-ground holding site where workers could monitor the nation's waste until a permanent site is ready. Klein has recommended that the Department of Energy build such an interim site. But, even if a temporary holding location were built, it would still be wise, he says, to consider recycling to reduce the nation's waste output. "If Yucca mountain does not prove viable and the process for finding a permanent storage site is delayed again," says Klein, "then I don't think we'll have much choice other than reprocessing." ***************************************************************** 6 More Nuclear Power Means More Risk May 17, 2001 By PAUL L. LEVENTHAL [W] ASHINGTON — Despite all the talk about nuclear power as the environmentally clean response to electricity shortages and global warming, many Americans are understandably wary. The Bush administration's energy task force announces its report today, and President Bush would do well to note the public's concerns about the combination of human fallibility and mechanical failure that can set off catastrophic accidents at nuclear plants and about the link between nuclear waste and nuclear weapons. The nuclear industry's safety and security claims are often misleading. Its spokesmen still insist that the Three Mile Island accident demonstrated that the core of a light water reactor is far more resistant to a meltdown than had been previously thought. They don't acknowledge that the core at the Three Mile Island plant was within hours of an uncontrolled melt — with Chernobyl-like consequences — when a new shift supervisor came on duty in a panicked control room and finally figured out that thousands of gallons of cooling water had poured undetected from a valve that was stuck open. Advanced designs for presumably safer light water reactors and simpler pebble-bed reactors still have not made it off the drawing boards. Though the nuclear industry claims it is being crippled by overregulation, its powerful friends on Capitol Hill have threatened budget cuts to make the Nuclear Regulatory Commission compliant. The N.R.C. has begun a process of granting life extension to America's aging supply of 104 power reactors, for example, despite a rash of forced shutdowns due to equipment failures caused by aging. There have been at least eight such shutdowns over the past 16 months, according to an analysis of N.R.C. data by the Union of Concerned Scientists. And the agency has decided not to take enforcement action against weak security at nuclear plants: guards at half the nation's nuclear power plants have failed to repel mock attackers in N.R.C.-supervised exercises that test the protection of reactor safety systems against sabotage. Instead, it is in the process of weakening the rules of the "game" used in the mock attacks. A push for nuclear power, which Mr. Bush supports, isn't the way to meet America's urgent energy needs. New plants could not be brought on line quickly enough to offset present electricity shortages, which many experts believe are caused primarily by lack of capacity for transmission, not production. Nor could using nuclear plants make a big dent in global warming. Two-thirds of the emissions of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas, are from transportation or other sources not related to power generation. And worldwide, it would take 3,000 nuclear plants — a tenfold increase — to replace all coal plants; yet that increase would reduce carbon emissions by only 20 percent, while enormously expanding risks that materials from nuclear power plants would be applied to making weapons. And since reserves of uranium ore are limited, millions of kilograms of plutonium, equivalent to hundreds of thousands of bombs, would have to be separated from wastes each year to help fuel so many reactors in the future. There are better alternatives. Energy efficiency measures, like using the best available existing technology for air conditioning, lighting and electric motors, could offset the need to build any new nuclear plants. Renewable energy sources and other alternative energy systems, including hydrogen recovered from fossil fuels after removing carbon, could provide new, clean ways to generate power. A rapid expansion of nuclear power would compound the existing dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation. International inspections of nuclear facilities provide uncertain protection; Iran, for example, has pledged to put the reactors it will build under inspection but is still suspected of using civilian nuclear power as a cover for a nascent nuclear weapons program. George Perkovich, in his book "India's Nuclear Bomb," reports that a bomb tested by India in 1998 was made from the grade of plutonium produced in its 10 uninspected power reactors. Is it reasonable to assume that millions of kilograms of plutonium, separated from reactor wastes, can be kept secure, down to amounts of less than eight kilograms, which is all that is needed for an atomic bomb that terrorists and radical states could make? This is the ultimate question requiring an answer before nuclear power is looked to as the solution to climate and energy worries. *Paul L. Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, was codirector of the Senate investigation of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident.* ***************************************************************** 7 Bush proposes "safe expansion" of nuclear energy Today: May 17, 2001 at 11:45:49 PDT RENO, Nev. (AP) - President Bush's energy plan calls for the "safe expansion" of nuclear energy by establishing a national repository for nuclear waste but it does not specify whether it should be built at Yucca Mountain. Nuclear power is a "clean and unlimited source of energy," Bush said Thursday in unveiling the ambitious program in St. Paul, Minn. "Many Americans may not realize that nuclear power already provides one-fifth of this nation's electricity, safely and without air pollution. But the last American nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973," the president said. In contrast, France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, he said. "By renewing and expanding existing nuclear facilities, we can generate tens of thousands of megawatts of electricity at a reasonable cost without pumping a gram of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere," Bush said. "New reactor designs are even safer and more economical than the reactors we possess today. And my energy plan directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the best science to move expeditiously to find a safe and permanent repository for nuclear waste," he said. Nevada lawmakers were reviewing the 163-page report prepared by a White House energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. The strategy calls on the federal government to provide for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It notes that nuclear waste currently is being stored at local plant sites. "The DOE is over a decade behind schedule for accepting nuclear waste from utilities, but has made progress toward characterization of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site," the report said. "Construction of an exploratory studies facility has been completed, a viability assessment was published, and recently scientists placed their extensive research about Yucca Mountain on the record for public scrutiny. However, key regulatory standards to protect public health and the environment at the repository have not been issued." Cheney said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week that while no site was favored, the Nevada site was the "farthest along and most advanced... "It's been drawn out for a long time and if we want to promote the use of nuclear energy then clearly we've got to address the waste question and get it resolved." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 8 Is There an Energy Crisis? ABCNEWS.com : [Oill Refinery] The state of the U.S. energy supply has become a major political issue. But experts and politicians dispute whether or not there's a "crisis." (PhotoDisc) Is There an Energy Crisis? White House Says Yes; Observers Disagree *By Peter Dizikes* [ABCNEWS.com] That's not what you're hearing from the White House. Since taking office in January, President Bush has repeatedly said the United States is in the midst of an "energy crisis." --> And Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham warned of one last month, adding , "The failure to meet this challenge will threaten our nation's economic prosperity, compromise our national security and literally alter the way we live our lives." Coming from such high sources, "crisis" talk represents strong language indeed, evoking images of the country's last dire energy shortage, in the 1970s. Then, the oil embargo by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries led to seemingly endless lines for motorists at the gasoline pump, and contributed to the recession and rampant inflation that plagued the decade. But are Bush, Abraham and Vice President Dick Cheney — the head of the administration's energy task force, which is rolling out a sweeping policy proposal in early May — using the term to justify new policies favoring the administration's backers in the energy industry? That's what some critics charge. Troubles Abound Certainly there is no shortage of troubling signs for American consumers. Clickable State-by-State Energy Map Gas prices could reach more than $2 per gallon in the Midwest for the second straight summer, and California continues to be hit by unprecedented power woes that will force rolling blackouts in the months to come. On the East Coast, a warm summer could mean more air conditioning and a sharp spike in utility bills. Additionally, the price of crude oil has also risen sharply in the last two years, from around $10 a barrel to a peak of $37. The current rate has settled at about $26 per barrel, and home heating costs have risen as well. But many energy analysts, while willing to apply the term to California, say the nation as a whole is not in the throes of a crisis. They note that oil imports continue unabated and say the current price problems come from shortcomings in the transmission of energy to companies and consumers. 'We Have No Crisis' "I don't think I would use the term 'crisis,'" says Bob Ebel, director of the Energy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "That may have been used to capture the public's attention. But we don't really have a supply shortage. What we have is an infrastructure that is already operating at 100 percent, and our inventories are very, very low." Ebel added: "If we had another outbreak of war in the Middle East which led to a severe and sudden decline in oil supply, then we would have a crisis." "We have no crisis," says John Lichtblau, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation, a non-profit group in New York. "There is an energy crisis in the West Coast, but that's entirely a domestic crisis. In fact it's a regional crisis, and it has nothing to do with the petroleum markets." "In my way of looking at it, a crisis implies a sudden event you have to deal with, whereas we have long-term infrastructure problems," adds Guy Caruso, executive director of the Strategic Energy Initiative at CSIS. "We're operating so close to the margin in terms of capacity in a number of areas, including refining, transmission, and pipelines, that it wouldn't take a big disruption to cause a short-term crisis." David Doniger, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, and a former Clinton-era official, takes a similar view. "To say there's an overall energy crisis, that's hype." Do You Think the U.S. Energy Supply Is in Peril? Then and Now But if there is no energy crisis in the United States, what are the differences between now and the last ones in the 1970s? For one thing, even though OPEC prices have gone up in recent years, the United States is not as dependent on the Middle East as a source of imported oil as it was then. According to energy department statistics, 70 percent of U.S. oil imports in 1977 came from OPEC countries, compared to 46 percent in 2000. And the country does not use oil as an across-the-board source of energy the way it used to. Oil has been replaced as a source of electric power and is used less in manufacturing than it was in the past. --> Currently, about 50 percent of electric power plants are fired using coal, with about 30 percent using natural gas and 20 percent relying on nuclear power. Analysts also say the current shortages in supply are cyclical in nature. A glut of oil production lowered prices in the late 1990s. In turn, that meant energy companies, facing lower returns, invested less capital in exploration — which has led to less oil and gas currently on the market. What Can Be Done? The United States has certainly not insulated itself from further disruptions to its energy supply, both the White House and its critics agree . But they disagree about the measures that should be taken: The administration wants to increase the supply of energy, while others want to reduce demand. The White House wants to see domestic drilling increased in order to to lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil — even if it means undertaking controversial exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Americans would be misled if they thought that we can conserve our way to energy independence," said Abraham last month. "The growth of our energy usage over the next 20 years can be moderated, but it cannot be reversed. And that means we're going to have to have more supply to meet that increasing demand." But Doniger disagrees, saying the Clinton administration provided effective incentives for companies to manufacture environmentally-friendly appliances, among other products. "The [Bush] policy is being tilted very heavily toward supply and away from efforts to tamp down the demand, which can be done without sacrifice," says Doniger. The Bush administration is currently reviewing those policies and other efficiency regulations, with its decision likely to be announced when Cheney's task force releases its report. Still, the administration's stances so far represent a vast change from the days when former president Jimmy Carter wore a cardigan in the White House to encourage Americans to use less heat. And Ebel points out that the recent oil shortages have all had political causes at bottom. "There was a severe disruption in the oil supply in 1973," says Ebel, referring to the OPEC embargo, "and in 1979 the Iranian revolution took a lot of oil off the market." Those two events, along with the Persian Gulf war of 1991, represent the three most notable constrictions of the oil supply to the United States. "We don't have the infrastructure to move natural gas," he added at a White House event later the same day. "And we need to have an active exploration program." "If the OPEC countries make the decisions that they're making, I think it just calls upon America to say we're going to start doing the things here at home … so we don't have to be so dependent on the rest of the world," said Abraham on March 25.--> ***************************************************************** 9 Nuclear, fossil fuels at heart of Bush plan / SWEETENER: $6.3 billion in tax credits for solar and renewable power SWEETENER: $6.3 billion in tax credits for solar and renewable power Thursday, May 17, 2001 ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm Washington -- The Bush administration, warning that the nation faces its most serious energy crisis since the 1973 oil embargo, last night released highlights of a long-awaited national energy plan that relies on increasing supplies of energy. As expected, the plan proposes to increase production of fossil fuels and nuclear power, in many cases by easing regulatory barriers, while sweetening the deal with $6.3 billion in new tax credits for "green energy" fuels such as solar and biomass. While declaring that years of "neglect" have created the problem, the administration's report on the plan insists that technology, not austerity, offers a way out. "Our prosperity and way of life are sustained by energy use," the report says. Speaking briefly to reporters, President Bush called the plan "a very optimistic look at America," but one that is "tough, in that it lays out the problems." The 163-page plan cites California's blackouts in its second paragraph, saying they "demonstrate the problem of neglecting energy supply." But as to immediate remedies, the plan says, "unfortunately, there are no short-term solutions to long-term neglect." "We're going to solve this problem," Bush said early yesterday before the report's release. "This isn't just a report that's going to gather dust." Reacting to charges that he is offering no immediate relief on gasoline prices and is captive to the energy industry, Bush also promised that his administration would "make sure that nobody in American gets illegally overcharged" for gasoline and that federal electricity regulators would monitor prices "to make sure they are fair and reasonable." Bush also said he has worked with California officials to expedite power plant permitting and is "deeply concerned" about the state. "The quicker supply gets on, the easier it's going to be for the consumers in the state of California," Bush said. White House officials said Bush will issue two executive orders next week that would direct federal agencies to speed permitting of energy facilities and require studies of the energy impact of regulatory actions. As the administration has said in interviews and statements the past month, the report focuses on increasing supplies of traditional fossil fuels and nuclear power, with a heavy stress on updating the nation's electricity grid and other energy infrastructure. A senior administration described the grid as a relic of the 1950s that balkanizes the country into isolated power islands, preventing transmission from areas of ample supply to areas of shortages. In an attempt to mitigate rising gasoline prices, the report also orders an Environmental Protection Agency review of "boutique" gasoline formulas that various states require to control air pollution. The aim is to standardize fuel blends so that regions are less dependent on single refineries. In a pre-emptive strike, Democrats attacked the plan as ineffective hours before the highlights were released. "The president seems almost totally indifferent" to California's blackouts, said House minority leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. The report calls for easing regulations that inhibit new electricity transmission lines and gas pipelines, including calling for federal condemnation of private property to build power lines. It stresses increased use of coal as the nation's "most abundant fuel source" and recommends revisiting nuclear power, encouraging expansion of existing plants and easier licensing for new nuclear technologies. DRILLING ON PUBLIC LANDS And it calls for a thorough review of all public lands to open areas for potential oil and gas exploration, including a recommendation that 8 percent of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be opened to oil and gas exploration. Administration officials said there are no plans to challenge the current moratoriums on new oil leasing off the coasts of California or Florida. But the policy also makes a pitch for renewable fuels and conservation. The report calls for applying new technologies to conservation, including a $4 billion tax credit for hybrid automobiles that run on both gasoline and electricity, including fuel cells. It would expand tax credits for biomass, and create a 15 percent tax credit, up to $2,000, for consumers who install solar energy panels in their homes. Yet while renewables "provide hope for America's future," the report says, they currently meet just 2 percent of U.S. energy needs. "The day they fulfill the bulk of our needs is still years away," the report said. "Until that day comes, we must continue meeting the nation's energy requirements by the means available to us." The plan also insists that technology can help Americans have more energy and a cleaner environment at the same time. Americans want to conserve energy, the report says, but the "best way of meeting this goal is to increase energy efficiency by applying new technology." FUEL-EFFICIENCY STANDARDS The plan dodges any recommendation on raising auto fuel-efficiency standards, a glaring omission for environmentalists. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D- Calif., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, want higher standards for light trucks, including SUVs, saying that could cut oil imports by 10 percent. However, a senior administration official also said that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has been directed to revisit proposed cuts in research into solar, wind, biomass and other renewable fuels. Abraham slashed the programs in Bush's budget, and the official said much of that spending may be restored. Bush plans to showcase the full report in a speech in St. Paul, Minn. today, at a high-tech utility using efficient new "heat and power" systems and biomass fuels as a backdrop. Of the plan's 105 recommendations, the administration touts 42 of them as encouraging alternative fuels, conservation and environmental protection, while saying 35 focus on increasing energy supply and modernizing the transmission infrastructure. SUPPORT FOR RENEWABLES A new USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll showed why the administration has been suddenly stressing renewables. Taken last week, the poll showed 91 percent support for investments in solar, wind and other renewable sources, and more than 80 percent support for mandating new energy efficiency standards in appliances, buildings and cars. Twenty items in the report, including the unpopular proposal to drill in the Arctic refuge, require congressional action. Senate majority leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he would like to have a comprehensive energy bill passed by July 4. Bush energy plan Among recommendations in President Bush's energy plan: Production: Ease restrictions on oil and gas development on public lands; open a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to drilling; ease permit process for refinery expansion and construction. Power plants: Give government authority to take property through eminent domain for power lines; ease regulatory barriers, including clean air rules, to make plants more efficient. Other areas: Give tax breaks for purchase of nuclear plants; continue tax credits for wind energy generation. Conservation: Give tax credit for purchase of high-mileage, hybrid gas- electric vehicles. Source: Associated Press Blackout alerts Want energy updates delivered to your inbox? You will receive free e-mail reports on days when rolling blackouts are likely and when blackouts have begun, including the numbers of affected PG service blocks. Sign up at www. sfgate.com/newsletters. *E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at .* ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A - 1 ***************************************************************** 10 Bush readies to go nuclear despite foes *May 17, 2001* BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST * In the days preceding today's unveiling of his energy program, President Bush found himself in a peculiar situation. His attempted revival of nuclear-generated electricity to combat a national power shortage is backed by his old enemies in the labor movement and hampered by bureaucrats in his own government as well as Republican allies in Nevada. On Monday afternoon, representatives of 22 labor unions--backers of Al Gore against Bush last year--went to the White House to be briefed on nuclear power and other energy policies that they like. Seven blocks away at the Environmental Protection Agency, Clinton holdovers were pushing regulations to undermine the new president's position. And across the continent in Las Vegas, Bush political allies readied an anti-nuclear campaign. Going nuclear isn't easy, even during an energy crisis. Since hysteria was spawned in 1979 by the Three Mile Island nuclear incident at Harrisburg, Pa., and Jane Fonda's anti-nuclear film "The China Syndrome," 103 plants providing 20 percent of the nation's power have operated without trouble. Still, not one new reactor has been licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Disposing of nuclear waste from reactors has been a major obstacle. A proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., a former weapons testing site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been blocked by environmentalists and Nevada politicians backed by the gambling industry. That was enough for President Bill Clinton to stop Yucca Mountain, but his successor sees nuclear as a clean, safe alternative power source that no longer can be sacrificed at the altar of environmental correctness. The energy report by Vice President Dick Cheney's task force released today calls for both speedier NRC licensing and an approach to Yucca Mountain on the basis of science rather than politics. Based on science, the Energy Department said the repository probably wouldn't release radiation for 10,000 years. Nuclear support is building more than two decades after Three Mile Island. A Gallup Poll last week showed 48 percent support for using nuclear power, with 44 percent opposed. Environmentalist Sen. John Kerry, a prospect for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, still resists opening Yucca Mountain but said April 27: "I will not dismiss the potential for technology to solve the existing problems with nuclear power." A possible rival, Sen. Joe Lieberman, said April 29 that nuclear power "should be part of a balanced option." Nuclear got another boost two weeks ago. A secret visitor to the White House was Martin J. Maddaloni, president of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices--the plumbers and pipe fitters union. Building nuclear plants would mean jobs for his members, and he made clear that his was one union that would be very grateful. Maddaloni was among the labor leaders brought into the White House Monday to meet with Cheney. Included was Teamsters President James P. Hoffa. Not many of his members would get jobs from new nuclear power plants, but he told me: "We're for it. America has been scared off this idea." The National Academy of Sciences last year said there was no scientific basis for the EPA's suggestion that stored nuclear waste would poison the groundwater in Nevada. But in what one administration official called "my worst nightmare," the EPA's Clinton holdovers this week were trying to talk Administrator Christie Whitman into approving a groundwater radiation standard for Yucca Mountain. Former New Jersey Gov. Whitman is alone, surrounded by officials hostile to her administration. Not coincidentally, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate Democratic whip and a fierce foe of Yucca Mountain, has frozen confirmation of Bush's EPA nominations. Nevada Republicans are just as hostile. GOP Gov. Kenny Guinn is pushing for at least $10 million ($5 million from the state government) to fund a nationwide media campaign against transporting waste to his state. Advising Guinn in the anti-nuclear crusade is Sig Rogich, the Las Vegas publicist who was a close adviser to the elder George Bush and a financial supporter of his son. Casino owners who think that nuclear waste even 90 miles away might scare off gamblers are more than disinterested observers. Daily Southtown Pioneer Press Post-Tribune Star Newspapers Suburban Copyright 2000, Digital Chicago Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear Power Allies Fired Up Over Future Thursday, May 17, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By H. Josef Hebert *The Associated Press* WASHINGTON — Nuclear power is making a comeback two decades after the Three Mile Island reactor accident. Soaring natural gas prices, concerns about climate change and fear that California blackouts will spread have made electricity from the atom more attractive, though critics still worry about safety and what to do with radioactive waste. For the first time in decades, there is serious talk about building a new nuclear power plant in the United States. At least one utility has suggested it may submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission within a few years. This stirring of interest for a new reactor "would have been unthinkable even a year ago," says the commission chairman, Richard Meserve, who has directed a task force to examine how to handle a new license application. Not since 1973 has an American utility sought to license and gone on to open a new nuclear power plant. Only a few years ago, industry analysts predicted scores of electric power reactors would be shuttered under the economic pressures of electricity deregulation. Instead, the country's 103 commercial reactors are churning out power at unprecedented efficiency, safety indictors have improved steadily, reactors put up for sale are attracting eager bidders, and the line of applications for 20-year license renewals is growing. Owners of nearly half of the operating plants already have said they will seek extensions when their permits expire. So far, two extensions have been granted. Nuclear power was stunned almost into submission 22 years ago by the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown near Harrisburg, Pa., and was pummeled further a few years later by the Russian disaster at Chernobyl. Since then, it has struggled to keep itself on life support while designers worked on what they maintain are safer reactor designs. Now it has caught the attention of the Bush administration as the White House maps out a broad energy blueprint to present to Congress. Vice President Dick Cheney, who heads the president's energy task force, has been touting nuclear power as essential to America's energy needs. At least some of the 65 new power plants that need to be built annually to meet future electricity demand "ought to be nuclear," he told an interviewer recently. "It's the only way to deal with the question of global warming," Cheney argues, a theme pushed by the nuclear industry for several years. Without a serious accident in years, nuclear power also is gaining acceptance at the grass roots. Half the people queried in a new Associated Press poll support using reactors to produce electricity, compared with 45 percent two years ago. And 56 percent of the supporters say they would not mind a nuclear plant within 10 miles of their home. Three in 10 opposed nuclear power; the remainder said they were unsure. What's behind the turnaround? A combination of factors, energy analysts, regulators and utility executives say, including: * The environment. Growing concerns about climate change and the cost of reducing air pollution from coal-burning power plants have made nuclear more attractive to utilities. Reactors emit neither greenhouse gases nor smog-causing chemicals. * Economics. Reactors have increased their electricity production by 25 percent over the past decade through efficiencies. Operating costs have steadily declined to where nuclear-generated electricity is competitive with power from natural gas-fired plants and is not far behind coal in costs. * Safety. While long-term uncertainties about nuclear waste remain, reactors have been free of major accidents and the number of safety-related power plant disruptions has dropped dramatically. In addition, power woes in the West have highlighted the need for new generating plants, even prompting some people in the Northwest and California to take a new look at mothballed and unfinished plants. The owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant have suddenly been besieged by companies wanting to buy their 27-year-old reactor. At least nine reactors have been sold in the past two years, many at prices much higher than earlier fire sales. "We are aggressively competing for additional nuclear units wherever they are for sale," says Randy Hutchinson, senior vice president at Entergy Nuclear Inc., a subsidiary of New Orleans-based Entergy Corp., which has bought three reactors in the Northeast and is closing deals on two more. At the same time the industry is consolidating. The number of companies owning nuclear plants has been reduced by half to about two dozen. Eventually there may be fewer than eight, says Hutchinson. Still, industry critics and even some utility executives remain wary. "Nuclear power poses an unacceptable threat to humans and the environment," says Anna Aurilio of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. She argues that older reactors are deteriorating and that no clear solution has been found for disposing reactor wastes that remain dangerous to health and the environment for tens of thousands of years. Any long-term revival will depend on resolving lingering uncertainties, says John Holdren, a Harvard professor of environmental science and former chairman of the White House science and technology advisory panel in the Clinton administration. "Basically the issues are cost, safety, radioactive waste and nuclear proliferation," Holdren says. If any one of those factors shifts against the industry, nuclear power may again be doomed, he says. ***************************************************************** 12 Debate on Nuclear Power Heats Up VOANews.com - *Rob Sivak* *Washington* *17 May 2001 03:21 UTC* As demand for electricity in the United States continues to grow and fuel costs skyrocket, large areas of the Western United States are facing critical shortages of electric power. The crisis has led the Bush Administration, as part of the new energy policy it unveiled, to call for expanded use of nuclear power. That call has revived a national debate. The American public's confidence in nuclear power was badly shaken 20 years ago by the accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island reactor, and again by the disastrous Chernobyl melt-down in then-Soviet Ukraine. But with today's energy crunch, nuclear power is suddenly looking more attractive. Like an echo of its promising debut in the 1950s, nuclear power is being hailed as a source of safe, cheap, and clean electricity. Scott Peterson, a spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the Washington-based industry trade group, said nuclear energy technology has improved dramatically: "I think we've made tremendous strides as an industry over the past twenty years in terms of improving safety," Mr. Peterson. "We've set very stringent safety goals and we've actually exceeded those in many cases over the last ten years." In fact, there have been no major accidents in recent years at the 100 or more U.S. plants that generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity. And Scott Peterson said that over the past decade, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved several new power plant designs that further reduce the risks of nuclear energy:"The advanced reactors take advantage of new technologies and modular construction," Mr. Peterson pointed out. "Instead of having to rely on motor driven valves and pumps, we now store cooling water above the reactor so that if we need it in there very quickly, we can open just one valve and let it flow down, so it gets there quickly and easier. One of the technologies that U.S. companies are looking at now is a totally new reactor technology where the fuel in the reactor will not get hot enough to melt. So we are making strides that we believe will result in both safer technology and help also increase public confidence in these technologies." But critics of nuclear power are not persuaded by the industry's claim of technological improvement. Anna Aurilio is an engineer-turned-activist who works on nuclear power issues for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit environmental organization: "Nuclear power is unacceptable," Ms. Aurilio said. "It's uneconomic, it's unreliable, and it generates long-lived radioactive wastes for which there are no sound solutions. The industry has a long history of under-estimating its costs. In fact on average, the Department of Energy has found that nuclear power plants were three times as expensive to build as the industry had proposed. This is an industry that has garnered more than 60 percent of the federal energy research and development subsidies. And it is unacceptable. There is no way to deal with the waste. It's still unsafe, and it is an unacceptable source of power for the future." Critics of nuclear energy say they will oppose any move to rush new power plants into construction. They are urging the Bush Administration to invest more heavily in safer renewable energy sources like solar, wind, geothermal, and fuel cell technology, and to encourage greater conservation of power produced by conventional plants. But Scott Peterson of the Nuclear Energy Institute said concern about the air pollution caused by coal and gas-fired power plants is winning friends for nuclear power among environmental groups: "We think that given the new set of Clean Air Act restrictions that will come into effect in 2002, and the carbon reductions that are so important worldwide, that nuclear energy is going to be an essential part not only of our energy policy but of our environmental policy." Scott Peterson said today's pre-approved reactor designs and faster site licensing procedures mean a new generation of nuclear power plants can come on line quickly. Within the next three or four years, he said, nuclear plants could be generating more than a quarter of America's electric power. ***************************************************************** 13 Cheney's wishful thinking A BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL OR A proposal ostensibly written by hard-headed realists, the Bush-Cheney plan for energy independence is shockingly impractical. The notion that it would be feasible politically or economically - never mind environmentally - to site 1,300 new power plants and 38,000 miles of new gas pipelines through the American landscape is wildly optimistic. It's the kind of thinking President Bush and Vice President Cheney deride as dreamy-eyed when it comes from environmentalists. In interviews and leaks about the plan - to be unveiled officially today - Cheney and his associates call for subsidies to massively increase the domestic supply of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear power with only incidental investments in conservation and efficiency. This is not surprising given the ties Bush and Cheney maintain to the resource-extraction industry. But the plan has it backward: Government should be making massive investments in fuel efficiency for cars, buildings, and appliances and supplementing *that *with energy exploration. Voters oppose the Bush administration's environmental policies by margins of 6 to 1, and that's before any actual drilling in protected federal lands. Cheney says it is unrealistic to try reducing energy prices by ''jawboning'' OPEC ministers or lifting the 18.4 cent per gallon federal gasoline tax. He is right on both counts. How, then, to explain the blind faith in nuclear power when no one has yet solved its central problem: disposing of the highly radioactive waste? It's not just the nuts-and-berries crowd who are prepared to do battle with the administration's plan. Already, conservative politicians in western states are glowering over the prospect of Big Brother government seizing private lands by eminent domain in order to string 55,000 miles of transmission lines through the mountains. In an interview this week with the Associated Press, Cheney said of the plan: ''We're trying to address the fundamental underlying causes of the problems and not respond to the political quick fix because we don't think that's what we get paid to do.'' But the fundamental truth is that the United States does not have enough oil to affect prices meaningfully. According to the US Geological Survey, the country's current reserves and all prospective discoveries over the next 30 years amount to about 130 billion barrels of oil. The rest of the world has over 2,256 billion barrels. By contrast, we consume 7 billion barrels of oil a year while the rest of the world consumes 20 billion. Obviously, the strategy that gives us the best chance to control our own destiny is managing consumption. A serious plan for energy independence would focus the nation on the promise of efficiency, renewable resources, and proven technologies. Anything else is an ambitious fantasy. This story ran on page 12 of the Boston Globe on 5/17/2001. © Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company. [ | Easy-print version ] ***************************************************************** 14 America should applaud a proposed return to nuclear power The Times MAY 17 2001 With rolling black-outs and power cuts lasting up to 20 hours a week, California faces a grim summer. Across America fuel prices are now at a record level, energy consumption is rising fast and consumers are paying record prices for electricity. But in California things are especially difficult: the flawed attempt to deregulate the electricity market five years ago has made it uneconomic for the big power companies to increase output or build new power stations, and the intervention of Gray Davis, the Governor, has only distorted the market. With America’s most populous state running out of juice, President Bush suddenly finds himself in the same position as President Carter, facing a national energy crisis within weeks of taking office. His energy plan is to be published today. But the details are already widely known. He will give strong encouragement to the exploitation of coal, oil and gas reserves, tax breaks for technology that reduces pollution, an easing of regulatory barriers to encourage the building of up to 1,900 power stations, the streamlining of approval for new power lines and gas pipelines and, controversially, the opening of vast tracts of federal land in the Rocky Mountains and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. But the most striking feature of the plan, with international as well as domestic implications, is the return to nuclear energy. Mr Bush is seeking a renewal of legislation shielding nuclear companies from unlimited liability for accidents. He is calling for an increase in the percentage of nuclear-generated electricity. And he will recommend higher spending on technologies to deal with nuclear waste disposal. All this, he hopes, will lift the shadow that has hung over the nuclear power industry since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, and will encourage investment in new plants. At present 103 nuclear power plants produce about 20 per cent of America’s energy, but no new plant has been built since the near-meltdown in Pennsylvania. Nuclear power has long been a main target of environmental campaigners, in Europe as well as America. The past 20 years have seemed to reinforce their case: the Chernobyl accident was compounded by fears that a similar disaster could occur in any of the antiquated Soviet graphite-cooled reactors, revelations that leaks and mishaps from Windscale/Sellafield were far worse than originally reported, campaigns against reprocessing in Germany and Japan and alarming data on nuclear hazards from sunken Russian submarines and leaking waste storage tanks. The green case is poor. Nuclear power is the cleanest form of mass energy generation, producing no greenhouse gases. Costs are falling as reactor design and waste disposal technology improve. And dependency on non-renewable fossil fuels is reduced. German business is already regretting the Government’s hasty commitment to eliminate all nuclear energy; France has wisely kept its options, and its many plants, open. Mr Bush’s energy plan has come under attack from environmentalists. They can rightly point to his indifference to conservation, of both fuel and nature. But with the inexorable build-up of carbon emissions, all should applaud his embrace of nuclear power. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided ***************************************************************** 15 Reid won't block Bush nomination Today: May 17, 2001 at 10:52:02 PDT By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., today softened his stance on blocking President Bush's federal appointments to the Environmental Protection Agency. After a private conversation with EPA administrator Christie Whitman, Reid agreed not to a lead an effort today to block Linda Fisher, whose nomination to be Whitman's top deputy was pending in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee today, Reid spokesman David Cherry said. Reid is the top Democrat on the 19-member committee, evenly divided with Republicans and Democrats. The committee must approve Bush nominees to several agencies, including EPA and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Reid had threatened to block the appointments over an issue tied to the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. The EPA under President Clinton in January recommended a strict limit on the amount of radiation that could be released from waste permanently stored at Yucca, which Reid backed. But Bush is still reviewing the limit and has not made it an official rule. Reid said: No radiation limit, no nominees. But Reid today agreed not to attempt to block Fisher because Whitman "agrees with me and has assured me that she will do everything she can to get the EPA standard for Yucca Mountain published," the senator said in a written statement. Reid said he would still try to block other nominees when their appointments come to the full Senate for a vote, unless Bush approves the EPA radiation limit. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 Palo Verde: Nuke Burden Now Top Power Producer Thursday, May 17, 2001 Albuquerque Journal--> By Rosalie Rayburn *Journal Staff Writer* The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station once was considered a corporate albatross around the neck of New Mexico's largest power company. But today it is PNM's most valuable workhorse. The giant electricity plant west of Phoenix — of which Public Service Company of New Mexico owns 10.2 percent — has been the country's most consistent and prolific power producer for nearly a decade. The plant's three units ran 92.7 percent of the time last year, a level few gas or coal plants can ever achieve. "This was the ninth straight year as the No. 1 power producer in the country," said Sheri Foote, spokeswoman for Arizona Public Service company, which operates the plant. Foote's excitement is shared by industry analysts. "What's happened quietly in the last five to 10 years is that they're (nuclear plants) generating more power and running very efficiently," said Jim Owen, spokesman for the trade group Edison Electric Institute. Technological improvements have cut the time nuclear plants have to shut down for refueling from an average of 101 days to 39 days, said Mitch Singer, spokesman for the trade group Nuclear Energy Institute. "The improved performance is equivalent to adding 23 new plants," Singer said. In terms of operating costs, nuclear electricity generation has long been less expensive than natural gas and competitive with coal. But when the high cost of constructing nuclear plants was factored in, they were less cost-competitive than natural gas. Now that natural gas prices are double or triple what they were just two years ago, nuclear power generation is attracting renewed attention. "People in Washington are really taking a fresh new look at the role nuclear power plays in our current generation mix," said Owen. He said Palo Verde was a perfect example of an efficiently running nuclear plant. The cost of producing electricity at Palo Verde is 1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour. When construction costs are added in, it comes to 3.02 cents per kilowatt-hour, said PNM spokeswoman Julie Grey. With gas at present prices, the operating cost at gas-fired plants is about 3.7 cents per kwh. Coal is still the cheapest fuel, with operating costs of 1.0 to 1.5 cents per kwh, said NEI's Singer. Neither estimate includes construction and maintenance costs. "If gas prices stay high, other technologies become attractive," said Bob Bellemare, vice president of utility services for Scientech, a research and consulting company that tracks the electrical industry. Nuclear generation "offers forward market stability," said Singer, because uranium is plentiful and the price stable. Changing times When PNM committed $1 billion to join other Southwestern utilities in building the massive Palo Verde plant in the late 1970s, state regulators decided not to let PNM recoup all of its costs from ratepayers. That led PNM to sell power not only to New Mexico customers, but on the wholesale market as well, said Terry Horn, PNM's vice president and treasurer. Units 1 and 2 of Palo Verde became operational in 1986, Unit 3 in 1988. Output from the plant was supposed to meet expected growth in demand from new industries and population. But neither reached projections. The new plant only contributed to an excess of generating capacity in the Southwest, and wholesale power prices remained depressed for many years. "Initially, power was sold at a loss. We had to write down about $400 million of the cost of building the plant," said PNM's Grey. The impact forced PNM to suspend dividend payments to its shareholders for seven years. In an effort to reduce costs, PNM entered a sale lease-back agreement on Palo Verde Units 1 and 2 that was included in rates. The agreement cut the eventual cost to ratepayers by $286 million, Horn said, but PNM will be paying the $66 million-a-year note until 2016. At that time the plant will belong, not to PNM, but to the financial institutions that hold the leases. "Between now and then, PNM will have to decide about repurchasing," said Horn. And suddenly, that appears much more attractive. The reason: Power supplies in the Southwest are tight, and Palo Verde has allowed PNM to become a player in an increasingly lucrative market. "Palo Verde is a major trading hub for the Southwest. It's allowed PNM to become a small but effective trader in the growing Western wholesale market," said Eddy Padilla, PNM's senior vice president of bulk power marketing. PNM's revenues from sales into the wholesale market jumped 310 percent to $410.7 million in the first quarter of this year compared to $100.3 million in the same period last year. 22 percent A recent report from the Energy Information Administration showed that the country's 103 nuclear reactors are providing about 22 percent of the nation's electricity. About 16 percent is produced by gas-fired plants. Nearly 96 percent of all new power plants projects currently being discussed are natural gas-fired, said PNM President and CEO Jeff Sterba on Wednesday. He, too, thinks that nuclear power deserves another look. "I think nuclear has a future. I think it's re-established its credibility. The main problem is disposal of waste, and the federal government has an obligation to do that," said Sterba. Sterba says Palo Verde is a valuable part of PNM's mix of generating fuels but PNM doesn't have any plans at present to build further nuclear facilities. It has been 25 years since a nuclear plant has been approved. The accident at Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., in 1979 left a long shadow. But there are numerous signs that the tide is changing. In March 2000 the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted the first-ever renewal of a nuclear power plant's operating license. The 20-year extension went to the 1,700-megawatt Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland. On a political level, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., in March introduced a bill that would increase spending by $406 million to support nuclear energy initiatives. The bill, called the Nuclear Energy Assurance Act, has five components: * Support nuclear energy production; * Encourage new plant construction; * Ensure a level playing field for nuclear power; * Create waste solutions; and * Improve Nuclear Regulatory Commission nuclear regulations. "Nuclear energy is not the end-all, be-all of our energy needs. In fact there is no single silver bullet. ... Our job is to objectively weigh the risk and benefits of this energy source and take action to tap into that power," Domenici said in a statement March 7. PNM has no plans at present to build or buy any more nuclear generating capacity. However, the utility will have a 550-megawatt share in a Kansas nuclear-powered generating station when its planned merger with Western Resources gets regulatory approval in late 2001 or early 2002. Copyright Albuquerque Journal ***************************************************************** 17 Discoverer of nuclear fission The Hindu on indiaserver.com : Thursday, May 17, 2001 OTTO HAHN was born on March 8, 1879 in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany. His father worked as a glazier and wished him to become an architect, for which vocation he studied till 1897. When he was 18, like the legendary chemist Kekule (1829-96), he switched over the chemistry, after attending a series of lectures in Chemistry at the university. He entered Marburg University in 1897 to study under Professor Theodor Zincke. He carried out research on the bromine derivatives of `iso- eugenol', which won him the doctorate (1901). Hahn became in 1902 assistant to Zincke to obtain a footing in the German chemical industry which was his goal. However, events took a quite different turn in 1904. Zincke was informed of a vacancy for a chemist in a firm, which however required command of a foreign language. He suggested Hahn and also obtained a place for him in William Ramsay's laboratory at the University College. So Hahn left for London in September 1904. It was in this way that he lauded in the new subject of radio chemistry, to which he was to make outstanding contributions. Entry into radio chemistry Handing his young German assistant a dish containing 100 grams of barium salt, Ramsay asked him to extract the few milligrams of radium in it, employing the fractional crystallisation method of Marie Curie (1867- 1934) Hahn, by training an organic chemist, was unfamiliar with this field; but Ramsay observed that Hahn would approach the problem without preconceived ideas. Hahn followed the prescribed separation technique and found himself the discoverer of a new element which was named `radio thorium'. This work changed the direction of Hahn's career. Ramsay quickly perceived such research talent would be wasted in industry. So he secured for Hahn a post in Emil Fischer's Chemical Institute at the University of Berlin. But Hahn wished to attain mastery over radio-activity and proceeded to Montreal in September 1905 to work under Rutherford, the leader in the field. Rutherford had, however, a a low opinion of the work coming from Ramsay's laboratory. Radiothorium had been characterized as a compound of ``Th-x and stupidity''. Hahn soon convinced the skeptics in Rutherford's laboratory of the reality of his substance and again exhibited his talent by discovering radio-actinium. After spending an year in Canada, Hahn returned to the University of Berlin in the fall of 1906, becoming a professor in 1910. He became director of Emil Fischer institute in 1928. In Berlin he found himself in an elitist group - Meitner, Nevnst, Warburg, Max von Lane, James Franck, Hertz. Lise Meitner (1878- 1968) was the most important physicist, who came in 1907 to do theoretical work and also pursue some studies in experimental radioactivity. This was the beginning of a collaboration with her, that lasted 30 years. Hahn contributed his skills from chemistry, Meitner hers from physics. With the method of `radioactive recoil' that Hahn pioneered in 1909, he and Meitner found a few more radioelements.In 1912 Hahn was made head of a department of radio activity in the newly started Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. The group made striking theoretical advances in radio chemistry: placement of the radio elements in appropriate boxes of the periodic table; concept of `isotropy', namely inseparable radio- elements were not only similar but chemically identical. By the early 1920's almost all the radio elements were known; Hahn now turned towards applications of his speciality. Radio chemistry was transformed into nuclear chemistry with the events of the 1930's: Chadwick's discovery of the neutron, the Joliot-Curie discovery of artificial radio-activity, and the application by Fermi of neutron bombardment to produce additional radioactive materials. It was difficult enough to explain how uranium changed to radium, as no alpha particles were observed. Nuclear fission But, towards the end of 1938, Hahn could scarcely believe in a transmutation from uranium to barium. He sent this finding to Meitner who had fled to Stockholm to escape the Nazis. With Otto Frisch (1904-79), she correctly interpreted the result as a splitting of the uranium nucleus and gave it the name `fission'. Hahn was little concerned with the energy released in fission and played no part in the German atomic bomb project during World War II. When the Emily Fischer chemical institute (University of Berlin) was destroyed in an air raid, he moved his equipment to Southern Germany and resumed his work. With other nuclear scientists he was arrested in the spring of 1945 and interned in England. To his profound dismay, he heard of the application of his discovery when nuclear weapons were detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Rebirth of german science On his release, he returned to Germany in early 1946, and accepted leadership of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, which was renamed the Max Planck Society at the instance of the occupation authorities. He played a major role in reestablishing not only the society's research institutes but the post-war German science. Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1944) and was honoured by many universities and international societies. His name is commemorated in: the Hahn-Meitner Institute for Nuclear Research, Berlin; the Otto Hahn Institute for Chemistry, Mairiz and West Germany's first nuclear vessel, the Otto Hahn. His declining years were beset by domestic calamities: his only son died in a car accident in 1960, and he had to take care of his grandson and his invalid wife. Hahn worked ceaselessly in the cause of nuclear disarmament being responsible for the 1955 ``Mainan Declaration'' of Nobel laureates. Also he was one of the 18 German scientists who protested publicly any German acquisition of nuclear arms.( The Dictionary of Scientific Biography Vol. VI). R.Parthasarathy Copyrights © 2001 The Hindu & indiaserver.com, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Environmental Case for Nuclear Power (The) Morris, Robert C. ISBN: 1557787808, Paper, 208 pages Notes, Index, Illustrations, Tables Price: $16.95 “I am impressed the author’s approach and analysis of energy, and in particular, nuclear energy.... The author successfully gives a complete overview on the topic of energy. This book should be read by decision makers on the political and industrial level, and most of the educated laymen will find the new approach of reevaluating the importance of nuclear power for the future well-being of mankind fascinating, instructive and often thrilling.”—Michael J. Higatsberger, Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, Austria Authoritative— “Authoritative and filled with facts, it should dispel irrational fears...”—S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., President, Science and Environmental Policy Project, Fairfax, VA A side of the energy story not previously provided— “[This book contains] an interesting idea not expressed in most environmental books.... There is a distinct need to provide a side of the energy story that up to this point has not been provided. [It] should provide some lively discussion in the environmental sciences...arguments are well-weighted and convincing.”—Donald W. Humphreys, Ph.D., Professor, Environmental Engineering and Coordinator of the Program, Temple University Everyone needs to hear its message— “This is a story which must reach everyone if we are to avoid the disaster described.”—Clyde Dilley, Ph.D., former Professor of Mathematics, University of Toledo “This book covers material that all citizens in this country need to understand. Indeed, the very survival of our way of life, and for many even life itself, depends on understanding the realities of our energy situation. The information and conclusions in this book make it an ideal reference source for use by serious students, as well as the general public.”—Walter Raczynski, M.S., Science Department Chairman, Addison Trail High School, Addison, Illinois Without the use of massive amounts of energy, modern civilization ceases to exist. Today, there are only two technologies capable of meeting this need: burn the fossil fuels, or use nuclear power plants. During the 20th Century, air pollution produced by the fossil fuels killed over five million Americans. Our reliance on oil from the Middle East forced us into the recessions of 1973 and 1979, and led to the 1991 war with Iraq. Further, our unwise use of fossil fuels contributes significantly to two of our worst environmental problems—acid rain and global warming. By contrast, Western-built nuclear power has never been responsible for even one death in the public sector. It’s increased use would diminish the specter of recessions and war, would lessen our trade deficit, and decrease the threat of acid rain and global warming. So, why aren’t we building any nuclear power plants? Since 1974, anti-nuclear power activists have prevented the construction of nuclear power plants in the U.S. with a succession of horror stories about a catastrophic accident which, in our forty years, has never happened. *The Environmental Case for Nuclear Power* compares the facts regarding the use of the fossil fuels and nuclear power. Nuclear power emerges as being so clearly superior that one can only wonder why the superstition that nuclear power plants are too problematic to use persists. When the established records of the fossil fuels and nuclear power are examined regarding waste disposal, environmental impact, economic impact, the risks run, and the accidents which have actually occurred, nuclear power is clearly superior. This is not just the author’s opinion; but is also the opinion of almost one million scientists and medical doctors who have gone on record as favoring the use of nuclear power. Table of Contents Preface Chapter 1: The Fossil Fuels Chapter 2: Found: A Substance with 2.7 Million Times More Energy Per Pound than Coal! Chapter 3: The “Unsolvable Problem” of Waste Removal Chapter 4: Air Pollution: Twentieth Century Scourge Chapter 5: The Environmental Effects of Using the Fossil Fuels and Nuclear Power Chapter 6: Risky Business Chapter 7: What the Record Shows About Accidents Chapter 8: What Are the Alternatives? Addresses of Television Networks Notes Recommended Reading Index ROBERT C. MORRIS received his Ph.D. in Science Education and is a retired Chemistry teacher, Educational Consultant and former Chairman of the Science Department for Illinois High School District 88. Morris is a recipient of the American Chemical Society Award for outstanding work in chemical education, received honorable mention in the National Science Teachers Association’s program to select the U.S. science teacher of the year, and was a four-time recipient of National Science Foundation grants. Copyright © 2001 Paragon House. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 19 Worldwide Exercise in Nuclear Emergency Management - Press Release 01/11 International Atomic Energy Agency 54 Countries and 5 International Organizations Join in a Worldwide Exercise in Nuclear Emergency Management *Vienna, 16 May 2001* -- As part of ongoing international collaboration to deal with possible nuclear emergencies, on 22-23 May 2001, an extensive international nuclear emergency exercise will be carried out based on a French national exercise at the Gravelines nuclear power plant located in the north of France, near the Belgian border. The Gravelines site is home to six pressurized water reactors, each providing 910 MW(e) of electrical power. This exercise will involve a simulated incident at a fictitious unit on this site with the possibility of an environmental impact. Participants may have to decide on measures to protect the public based on actual weather conditions at the time of the exercise. The exercise is jointly sponsored and co-ordinated by five international organizations, European Commission (EC), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), World Health Organization (WHO) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The 54 countries participating worldwide will follow their own actual national emergency response plans and procedures, using their own emergency response centres, and will share information and co-ordinate response activities. The main objectives of the exercise are to test existing national and international procedures and arrangements for responding to a nuclear emergency, co-ordinate the release of information, and assess the effectiveness of advisory and decision making mechanisms. The IAEA has specific responsibilities under two international conventions related to emergencies involving ionizing radiation -- the Convention on Early Notification of a Nuclear Accident and the Convention on Assistance in the Case of a Nuclear Accident or Radiological Emergency. These two conventions are the prime legal instruments that establish an international framework to facilitate the exchange of information and the prompt provision of assistance in the event of an emergency. During the JINEX 1 exercise, the IAEA, 54 participating Member States and the participating International Organizations with response functions will test the procedures and plans in place to facilitate and co-ordinate information exchange, as well as the use of new technology that allows more rapid communication between parties. Following the exercise, each participating organization will undertake an evaluation in order to further improve emergency preparedness. ***************************************************************** 20 SA nuclear waste under control 16/05/2001 21:04 - (SA) Parliament - A nuclear waste management policy for South Africa should be finalised within the current financial year, MPs were told on Wednesday. The newly-appointed chief director for nuclear matters in the Department of Minerals and Energy Affairs, Tseliso Maqubela, said a multi-sectoral team had completed a draft policy last year. This, as well as another document, were available for initial comment. He was responding to concerns raised by MPs during a presentation by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) and the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR). The presentation included the issue of handling and storing nuclear waste in South Africa. Schalk de Waal of the NNR said there was currently no crisis on the management of nuclear waste. The Vaalputs storage site in the Northern Cape, which was currently only used for storing low-level nuclear waste, would also be examined for storing high-level waste, De Waal said. High-level waste was currently mainly being stored at Koeberg nuclear power station outside Cape Town. Earlier, the acting chief executive officer of Necsa, Mputuni Damane, told the committee that Vaalputs would always be used as a storage site for low-level waste. No deep geological site had yet been identified in South Africa for storing high-level nuclear waste, he said. African National Congress MP Prof Ismael Mohamed asked when the high-level waste storage ponds at Koeberg would be full. As the meeting had already run over its scheduled time, it was agreed that this and other questions asked late in the meeting, would be answered in writing. Damane said that should Eskom's mooted Pebble Bed Modular Reactor project be given the go-ahead by Cabinet, an estimated 90 000 jobs would be created locally. The project would also make a R7.7bn contribution to South Africa's gross domestic product over 10 years. A feasibility study and environmental impact study were currently underway. ***************************************************************** 21 Plebiscite on MOX fuel due May 27 [The Japan Times Online] NIIGATA (Kyodo) The village of Kariwa, Niigata Prefecture, announced Thursday it will hold a plebiscite May 27 over a plan to use plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel at a local nuclear plant. The plebiscite will be the first to be held by a local government over the use of MOX fuel at a nuclear plant. The result may have a significant impact on utilities and the state's nuclear power policy. Residents will be asked if they approve, oppose or have reservations about Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plans to introduce the so-called pluthermal process at the No. 3 reactor of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. The pluthermal process entails using MOX fuel to power a thermal reactor. The fuel is made by mixing uranium with plutonium chemically extracted from spent nuclear fuel. The pluthermal process, involving commonly used light-water reactors, has been placed at the center of Japan's use of plutonium since a sodium coolant leak and fire shut down the Monju prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture, in December 1995. Utilities including Tepco and Osaka-based Kansai Electric Power Co. plan to begin the process by 2010 at 16 to 18 reactors. The plan, however, was marred in 1999 after British Nuclear Fuels PLC falsified data on fuel manufactured for shipment to Japan. The quality-assurance data on a consignment of MOX fuel was intended for use in the Takahama nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture. Kariwa residents can cast ballots from Thursday through May 26 if they are not able to vote on the plebiscite date, a village election management committee said. As of Wednesday, there were 4,092 eligible voters in the village, the committee said. Village Mayor Hiroo Shinada in late April gave the plebiscite the green light after the local assembly passed an ordinance April 18 calling for the move. In March 1999, the assembly rejected a petition calling for a plebiscite on the issue. Last December, however, the assembly passed a similar bill submitted by assembly members, but Shinada vetoed it and ordered the assembly to vote again. The bill was rejected in January. The ordinance finally was passed by the assembly April 18 after a group of village residents and assembly members filed an official petition with Shinada on March 29 asking that the village establish an ordinance to allow the plebiscite. The Japan Times: May 18, 2001 ***************************************************************** 22 N.Korea Says May End Reactor Deal, Cites U.S. Delay May 16 11:41 PM ET SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea (news - web sites) has threatened to pull out of a 1994 deal with the United Sates that froze its nuclear program, saying Washington was not living up to its end of the bargain and demanding compensation. But South Korean (news - web sites) officials described the threat as a negotiating tactic ahead of expected talks with the United States, as the Bush administration wraps up a comprehensive review of policy toward the communist totalitarian state. North Korea agreed in 1994 to shut down a Soviet-era graphite moderated reactor, which Washington had suspected was developing weapons, in exchange for two light-water reactors (LWR) to be built by a U.S. led international consortium. The reactors were targeted for completion by 2003 but contractual issues and political tensions have delayed the completion date by several years. North Korea, suffering from chronic energy shortages that have shut much of its industry, wants the United States to compensate it for the delays. ``If the U.S. goes without compensation, it would possibly create the situation where we have to re-operate the graphite-moderated reactors,'' the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a report monitored in Seoul on Thursday. ``If the U.S side fails to meet its obligation to the provision of LWR project and tries to evade its responsibility to make due compensation for our electricity loss, it will only compel us to go our own way,'' KCNA said. U.S. officials, most recently Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on a visit to Seoul last week, have said the United States has no intention of abandoning the agreement, but wants to improve verification. North Korea has made similar threats over the last several months without acting upon them. A South Korean government official, quoted by the South's semi-official Yonhap news agency, said the North was raising the issue of compensation ``to pressure'' Washington as ``the U.S. is soon to begin talks with the North after the U.S. policy review toward North Korea is completed.'' Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said on Monday the Bush administration saw engagement with North Korea as important. ``Where we are not, is ready to engage yet, because we're conducting our policy review,'' Powell told CNN in an interview. North Korean test-fired a missile in August 1998 and is often cited in Washington as a reason for building a new, expensive missile defense system. ``We understand the importance of engaging, in due course, at the appropriate time with North Korea,'' Powell said. Armitage visited Asia last week to try to build support for President Bush (news - web sites)'s vision of a missile interceptor system opposed by Moscow and Beijing. ``When our policy review is finished and we have a good understanding of what monitoring and verification regime would be necessary to make sure we know what the North Koreans might or may not be doing, then we'll re-engage,'' Powell said. North Korea in 1999 agreed to suspend further missile tests while it was in talks on improving ties with Washington. But those talks under the administration of President Bill Clinton were suspended after Bush took office and announced a comprehensive review of North Korean policy. Powell took a hard line toward North Korea, saying the United States had no choice but to view Pyongyang as a threat because of its conventional forces and its weapons of mass destruction. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 23 Sizewell closure adds to BE's woe Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Special report: Britain's nuclear industry David Gow and Paul Brown Thursday May 17, 2001 The Guardian The woes of British Energy, whose pre-tax profits collapsed last year from Ł241m to just Ł10m, mounted yesterday with the closure of its most modern nuclear power station, Sizewell B. It is the first time Sizewell B, a pressurised water reactor opened only in 1995 and the jewel in the crown among BE's eight stations, has been closed down - by a leak of boric acid through a corroded metal seal. Its earnings squeezed last year by unplanned closures (outages) or fuel restrictions at three plants and falling wholesale prices, BE is already warning that it could make a loss this year - "conceivable but unlikely," according to chief executive Peter Hollins. Sizewell B, built for Ł2.5bn and with 1200MW capacity, was closed on Friday but, according to Robin Jeffrey, BE's incoming chairman, could reopen "in a couple of weeks". The outage was, according to health and safety executive experts, planned because there had been a non-dangerous leak for some time. But the HSE said this was the second coolant incident at Sizewell, with the first only minor because it happened during a routine shutdown. "In this case the reactor had to be shut down because of a coolant leak during operation. We are investigating the cause of the corrosion and BE will have to make a safety case to us. We will have to be satisfied with this before we give them permission to restart the reactor." Experts indicated the closure could last at least a month, blowing BE's plans for record output of 70TWh this year off course. One tera watt hour or a thousand million kilowatt hours is the equivalent of the annual average consumption of electricity by 250,000 homes Mr Jeffrey and Mr Hollins admitted the group faced "just as challenging year as last year" but hoped that problems would be offset by cost-savings, with Ł63m of a planned Ł150m already achieved, and increased earnings in the US. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 24 54 Countries to Take Part in Nuclear Emergency Exercise Environment News Service: VIENNA, Austria, May 16, 2001 (ENS) - As part of ongoing international collaboration to deal with possible nuclear emergencies, on May 22 and 23 an extensive international nuclear emergency exercise will be carried out in France. The activities will be based on a French national exercise at the Gravelines nuclear power plant located in the north of France, close to the Belgian border near Dunkirk. The Gravelines site has six pressurized water reactors, each providing 910 megawatts of electrical power. [reactor] Webcam shot inside one of four reactors at the French Cattenom nuclear power plant. (Photo courtesy Electricite de France) The exercise will involve a simulated incident at a fictitious unit on this site with the possibility of an environmental impact. Participants may have to decide on measures to protect the public based on actual weather conditions at the time of the exercise. Third in an ongoing annual series, the Gravelines exercise is jointly sponsored and coordinated by five international organizations, the European Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency, the World Health Organization, and World Meteorological Organization. The 54 countries participating worldwide will follow their own actual national emergency response plans and procedures, using their own emergency response centres, and will share information and co-ordinate response activities. The main objectives of the exercise are to test existing national and international procedures and arrangements for responding to a nuclear emergency, co-ordinate the release of information, and assess the effectiveness of advisory and decision making mechanisms. Following the exercise, each participating organization will undertake an evaluation in order to further improve emergency preparedness. A total of 438 nuclear power plants were operating around the world at the end of 2000, two more than the previous year. Together they have a total net installed generating capacity of 351 gigawatts of power, according to data just released by the International Atomic Energy Agency. A specialized agency within the United Nations system, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) serves as the world's central intergovernmental forum for scientific and technical cooperation in the nuclear field. [reactor] Brazil's newest nuclear power plant, Angra 2, was connected to the grid on July 21, 2000. Angra 3 is scheduled for completion in 2006. (Photo courtesy Electronuclear) During 2000, six new nuclear power plants representing 3,056 megawatts net electric capacity were connected to the power grids of the world - one in Brazil, one in the Czech Republic, three in India and one in Pakistan. Construction of three new nuclear reactors started in 2000 - one in China and two in Japan, bringing the total number of nuclear reactors reported as being under construction to 31. In 2000, Chernobyl 3 in Ukraine was declared permanently shut down. This was a companion reactor to Chernobyl 4 which was responsible for the world's worst nuclear accident when an explosion and fire April 26, 1986 destroyed the facility and spread radioactivity across much of Europe. Nuclear power provides about 16 percent of global electricity, with about 83 percent of nuclear capacity concentrated in industrialized countries. The 10 countries with the highest reliance on nuclear power in 2000 were: France, 76.4 percent; Lithuania, 73.7 percent; Belgium, 56.8 percent; Slovak Republic, 53.4 percent; Ukraine, 47.3 percent; Bulgaria, 45 percent; Hungary, 42.2 percent; Republic of Korea, 40.7 percent; Sweden, 39 percent and Switzerland, 38.2 percent. In total, 17 countries relied upon nuclear power plants to supply at least a quarter of their total electricity needs. [reactor] Watts Bar Unit I, the newest nuclear plant in the United States. (Photo courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission) In North America, where 118 reactors supply about 20 percent of electricity in the United States and 12 percent in Canada, the number of operating reactors has declined slightly. The United States has 103 operating nuclear power reactors at 65 sites. The newest is the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Unit I which began commercial operations in May 1996. In Western Europe, with 150 reactors, overall capacity is likely to remain at or near existing levels in the coming years, the IAEA predicts. In Central/Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States, with 68 reactors, a few partially built plants are likely to be completed, while aging units are being shut down. Only in the Middle East, Far East and South Asia, with a total of 94 reactors at present, are there clear plans for expanding nuclear power, particularly in China, India, the Republic of Korea and Japan. The International Atomic Energy Agency Power Reactor Information System database of nuclear power plants worldwide is online at: http://www.iaea.org/programmes/a2/ ***************************************************************** 25 Activists Protesting Russian Waste Imports Disrupt Nuclear Meeting Environment News Service: DRESDEN, Germany, May 16, 2001 (ENS) - The opening day of the Annual Meeting on Nuclear Technology 2001 at the Kulturpalast in Dresden was disrupted Tuesday by several hundred German and Russian anti-nuclear activists protesting Russian plans to import nuclear waste. The protests of the three day meeting are continuing today. Nuclear power in Russia tops the list of topics being discussed at the meeting which is organized by the German Atomic Forum in collaboration with the German Nuclear Technology Society. The annual event attract the international nuclear industry including German, Russian, British, French and other companies. [Kulturpalast] Nuclear Technology 2001 delegates are gathered at Dresden's Kulturpalast. (Photo courtesy Kulturpalast) Protests, organized by the Russian anti-nuclear organization EcoDefense!, Greenpeace Germany and the German group Anti-Atom Network of Saxony, were targeted at disrupting the opening of the meeting. Activists believe closed door negotiations aimed at the dumping of international nuclear waste in Russia will be taking place here. Several activists climbed the roof of the Kulturpalast to display banners reading, "No nuclear waste to Russia!" and "Conference of nuclear mafia." Others blocked doors of the Palace making what the activists called "a noisy drums party" to greet arriving nuclear officials. In the evening, about 50 activists disrupted the cultural tour through Dresden offered to the participants of Nuclear Technology 2001 by organizers. The tour was cancelled shortly after it began, and participants were advised to return to their hotel. Russia will build six new nuclear power units by 2010, Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Yurievich Rumyantsev announced Tuesday at a roundtable debate on energy industry problems in the Russian parliament, known as the State Duma. A group of officials from the Russian Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom) attended the Dresden meeting hoping to conclude agreements on the commercial import of nuclear waste to Russia. According to Minatom statements, the agency believes Russia can make up to US$20 billion by importing nuclear waste during next decade. The Duma has not yet passed the final resolution needed to change Russian law to allow the import of nuclear waste, but two preliminary resolutions have been approved by the deputies. [protest] German protesters gather Tuesday at the rail line on which the Castor casks containing spent nuclear fuel are traveling to France. (Photo courtesy Indymedia Germany) A parallel demonstration is taking place in Germany against the transport of spent nuclear fuel from German nuclear reactors to Cogema, the French state owned nuclear reprocessing facility at La Hague. The transports started again this year after a three year pause due to safety concerns. "There will be a strong resistance across the country if German companies want to dump their waste in Russia," said Carsten Enders of EcoDefense! Dresden at a press conference today. "Germany should not solve its waste problems this way, with the help of Russia. Protests will be continued until nuclear officials leave the city." "Minatom must understand it's better to give up plans to import nuclear waste from Germany or any other country," said Vladimir Slivyak, council member for EcoDefense! in Russia. "Making an international dump site for nuclear waste in Russia is a crime against the nature and next generations of Russians and may result in new accidents larger than Chernobyl," Slivyak warned. © Environment News Service ***************************************************************** 26 Lithuania power plant clean-up FT.com | News and Analysis | World Article By Rafael Behr Published: May 16 2001 19:24GMT | Last Updated: May 16 2001 20:17GMT Lithuania's giant Ignalina nuclear power plant was the scene of a clean-up operation after an accident on Monday resulted in the spillage of contaminated waste. The news of the safety lapse, small on the scale of nuclear accidents, will nonetheless be unwelcome to the Lithuanian government which hopes to negotiate a more flexible timetable for the plant's closure as required for Lithuania's planned entry into the European Union. Ignalina was the last Soviet-era construction to use the RBMK-type reactors with a central design flaw that resulted in the world's worst nuclear accident 15 years ago in Chernobyl. Under current plans the first of Ignalina's two active reactors is to be closed by 2004, and a decision then made on the date for closure of the second reactor. The European Commission has indicated that it would like to see the second reactor closed by 2009, but the Lithuanian government believes this date is negotiable. Last month Eugenijus Gentvilas, the Economy Minister who has ultimate responsibility for Ignalina, told a local news service that Ignalina could run until 2012 or 2015. "Lithuania has its own arguments for not closing the second block in 2009, the year that has been suggested to us, and seeking the postponement of this term", Mr Gentvilas was quoted as saying. Ignalina provides Lithuania with at least 70 per cent of its electricity, making it the world's second most nuclear-dependent country after France. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) administers a fund for international donors to help finance the cost of decommissioning Ignalina, estimated variously between $900m and $2.3bn. Lithuania hopes to catch up with the 'first wave' of candidate countries for membership of the EU, with a target date of accession in 2004, but Ignalina will dominate forthcoming negotiations on the energy chapter of the 'acquis communautaire', the body of EU law to be adopted by new members. A spokesman for the economy ministry said yesterday that the latest incident was not related to the reactors themselves. According to safety officials at Ignalina, the incident ranks as a 1 on the international scale of nuclear safety, where the Chernobyl disaster marks the maximum 7. ***************************************************************** 27 British Energy sets sights on expansion into North America Independent News Embattled nuclear generator looks across the Atlantic as falling prices and rising costs wipe out UK profits By Michael Harrison, Business Editor 17 May 2001 British Energy yesterday set its sights firmly on further expansion in the North American nuclear market after warning that conditions in the UK would remain tough for at least the next year. As if to emphasise the difficulties the nuclear generator is experiencing at home, its Sizewell B reactor on the Suffolk coast was unexpectedly shut down because of an acid leak and will be out of action for several days. Reporting a collapse in profits from Ł241m to just Ł10m last year, Peter Hollins, BE's chief executive, cautioned that the next 12 months would be equally challenging. "We cannot rule out the possibility of a loss this year," he said, adding that it was "conceivable but unlikely." The reasons BE is having such a tough time are well-rehearsed. Prices have come under severe pressure because of increased competition and excess capacity in the generation market, where BE is now by far the biggest player with a 21 per cent market share. But at the same time, its nuclear fuel costs are continuing to shoot up, largely a result of the index-linked reprocessing contracts it is tied into at British Nuclear Fuels' Sellafield plant. To add to the company's woes, its biggest single customer, Scottish Power, is demanding price reductions and has gone to court in an attempt to tear up the agreement under which the Scots are required to take half their electricity from BE's reactors. As Peter Atherton, energy analyst at Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, notes: "They're having to run very fast to stand still on profitability." A Ł150m cost-cutting plan has been put into action and earlier this week the company announced a further 400 job losses. But BE knows that in an industry such as nuclear power where safety is paramount it cannot simply slash and burn its way back to profitability. In the absence of a sustained rise in wholesale electricity prices, it will, therefore, be a long hard slog. Last year BE was hit by the double whammy of lower prices, which wiped Ł270m off its profitability and lower-than-expected output because of unplanned shutdowns at two of its eight nuclear reactors. Although it hopes for record output this year and a pick up in prices this coming winter, 2001 has started out worse than the *annus horribilis* that last year proved. BE expects prices to be down by a further 10 per cent in the first six months. Scant surprise, then, that much of yesterday's results presentation for analysts was devoted to an examination of the group's prospects in North America where suddenly the phrase on everyone's lips is "nuclear renaissance". Following the election of US president, George Bush, nuclear energy has captured the Zeitgeist. They even talk openly on Capitol Hill about the prospect of building new nuclear stations for the first time in more than a generation. BE is well positioned to tap the potential in North America. It already owns three nuclear reactors in the US, including Three Mile Island, through a 50:50 joint venture called AmerGen and last week it completed the takeover of Bruce Power in Canada giving it a further six reactors. In the space of 12 months, BE has increased its generating capacity by 80 per cent to almost 17,000 megawatts and nearly a third of that is in North America. The company's chairman designate Robin Jeffrey, who has been responsible for its rapid expansion on the other side of Atlantic, says that by 2003-04, the North American operations could be generating Ł150m in pre-tax profits. "There has been a real transformation in American attitudes towards nuclear power in the three years I have been out there," he says. "More recently the Californian energy crisis has created an awareness that you can run out of electricity." BE bought its foothold in the US nuclear market very cheaply. Its 50 per cent stake in AmerGen cost just Ł45m and gives it 1,150 megawatts of power. Sizewell B, which generates exactly the same amount of electricity, cost Ł2.5bn to build two decades ago. The Bruce deal in Canada is similarly attractive, giving BE an 80 per cent interest in 4,700 megawatts of power for an upfront investment of Ł140m. But those kind of deals will not be repeated. Mr Jeffrey says that reactor prices have risen 10-fold since AmerGen began buying up second hand plants three years ago. A number of other reactors are on the market including Vermont Yankee and Seabrook on the East Coast and Mr Jeffrey says: "We are sharpening our pencils and looking at the kind of returns we need before we bid." But ultimately, BE knows that its number one priority is to fix its UK business. In an effort to reduce its nuclear dependence, it has bought the Eggborough coal fired station in the UK. It is also taking part in a scheme to build offshore wind farms as part of the Government's drive to increase the share of the market taken by renewables to 10 per cent. Little progress has been made in the discussions with BNFL despite the arrival of a new chief executive in the shape of Norman Askew. A quarter of BE's total operating costs are accounted for by the contracts with Sellafield. It pays BNFL Ł300m a year and makes annual provisions in its accounts of Ł140m against future reprocessing costs but Michael Kirwan, BE's finance director reckons that sum could be reduced by Ł80m a year if it was able to switch to storage rather than reprocessing of its spent fuel. Mr Hollins meets Mr Askew regularly and never misses the opportunity to remind him that BNFL is in danger of killing the goose that lays the golden egg unless it agrees to cut its prices. Waste management or "back-end" costs are one of the prime reasons why nuclear power remains uncompetitive. Only when its costs come down or the true costs of fossil-fuel generation are reflected in the prices the consumer pays, will it be possible to start thinking about the next generation of UK reactors. As Mr Jeffrey says: "There is still a big bridge to cross before we can make the business case." Also from the News Analysis section Online gaming is console giants' next battleground Merrill resurrects talk of giant banking deal with HSBC An office with all the services, but where's the convenience? Investors braced for wave of share issues as telecom debt matures Pensions adjust to the grim reality of a market downturn + BelfastTelegraph + LAM Online + FirstDown.co.uk + London ***************************************************************** 28 Reprocessing Contracts Safe: BNFL Boss The Whitehaven News Thursday, May 17, 2001 Lucrative contracts which underpin the future of Thorp and thousands of the longer-term jobs at Sellafield are safe, says BNFL's top boss Norman Askew. The man brought into rescue the state-owned company after Sellafield's Mox fuel data falsification scandal yesterday dismissed fears that Thorp's major customers were ready to pull the plug on Ł6 billion worth of reprocessing orders. In an exclusive interview with The Whitehaven News, BNFL's new chief executive said he wanted to be positive and declared: "The contracts are robust and safe - this is the bottom line." All week shock waves have gone through the West Cumbrian community and the Sellafield workforce following the leaking of "secret" documents suggesting that the major overseas customers are on the verge of losing complete confidence in BNFL and were threatening to abandon existing contracts without which Thorp would have to close. Norman Askew said that big new contracts won for Mox fuel in the last 10 days "gave the lie" to claims that Thorp would be ditched by every single one of its overseas customers. "Some of these customers are one and the same, so to say they are losing complete confidence in us and threatening to pull out of their reprocessing contracts doesn't quite make sense," he declared. "No contracts have been cancelled, they are robust and will remain in place. Significant new orders have recently been placed for Mox which spring from the baseload (first 10 year) contracts for Thorp reprocessing and shipments of fuel have resumed from Germany and Holland along with letters of support for new business," the chief executive pointed out. Mr Askew admitted, however, that BNFL was guilty of under performance. He went on: "Things have been put in place over the last 12 months to improve our performance and there's a lot still to be done. We just can't afford to be complacent. Basically, I am giving a reassuring message because we have started to regain customer confidence and win new orders but it is not reassuring enough to say 'don't worry'. "While I believe the contracts are safe, we can't sit back and rely on that alone - it would be folly. "We all knew from the shock of last year that things had to change and people in this company have been doing a terrific job tackling the problems. Many other businesses would not have come through what we have, but things are still fragile and we are only as good as last week's performance. We must continue to improve to fully regain the confidence of our customers." Thorp was profitable and viable, insisted the chief executive, but he admitted there were no new orders imminent to fill the plant's spare capacity. Asked whether he was worried about the present situation, Mr Askew said: "My job is to worry. Our performance must make people want to do business with us." BNFL admit there are outstanding issues with customers but is optimistic these will be resolved in the next few weeks. ***************************************************************** 29 New Boss at Windscale The Whitehaven News Thursday, May 17, 2001 THE Windscale side of the Sellafield site has a new head-of-site to direct two of Britain's biggest nuclear dismantling projects. Peter Mann starts with the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority on June 1 and takes charge of the Windscale AGR and Pile One projects. Peter 48, a chartered electrical engineer, latterly he has managed the decommissioning of the magnox reactor site at Hunterston on the Ayrshire coast. l The AGR (golf ball) was Britain's first experimental advanced gas-cooled reactor and the task is to show that it can be decommissioned safely with minimum risk to the environment. Windscale Pile One caught fire, releasing radioactivity, in 1957 while producing plutonium for the weapons programme and has not operated since. ***************************************************************** 30 Study of the CRIIRAD to the accesses of the power station of Saint-Alban (Isčre) GRENOBLE, May 16 (AFP) - a study carried out by the CRIIRAD (Commission of independent search and information on the radioactivity) in the neighbourhoods of the nuclear thermal power station of Saint-Alban (Isčre) reveals several anomalies which are however not ascribable at EDF. Made public Wednesday evening, this study of a cost of 90.000 F (13.720 EUR) was financed by the general consulting of Isčre and association for information rhodanienne on energy (Surface). It was carried out from July 2000 by the scientists of the CRIIRAD, laboratory private, which analyzed sediments and plants watery since the factory site of Feyzin (the Rhone) until the downstream of the nuclear thermal power station of Saint-Alban. The study made it possible to discover a uranium 238 excess in the sediments of the Rhone close to the site of Saint-Clair of the Rhone, where functioned a workshop of phosphoric acid between 1976 and 1992 pertaining to the company Rhodia Chimie. The ore imported on barges contained uranium which one finds the traces today. The study also discovered downstream and upstream of the power station of the iodine 131 detected in the watery plants. According to Bruno Chareyron, engineer in nuclear physics with the CRIIRAD, this iodine 131 probably comes " from the services of nuclear medicine of the Lyons agglomeration ". On the Seine-Normandy basin, the CRIIRAD already showed such a contamination of the aquatic environment by patients with whom one made scintiscannings or anti-cancer processing, and whose urine is slightly radioactive. " to confirm that, we would need to make taking away in the sewers of the hospitals ", estimated Mr. Chareyron. Finally of small cobalt 58 and cesium 137 amounts, rejected by the power station were detected, according to the study of the private laboratory. The CRIIRAD regrets not having been able to measure, for reasons of cost, the concentrations out of carbon-14, tritium and nickel 63, which " constitute the principal radio operator rejected nuclides ". The CRIIRAD observes that their environmental impact " is insufficiently controlled by EDF, the quantities of carbon-14 rejected into the environment by the power stations being measured by EDF only recently ". " That shows that EDF has still progress to make as regards transparency ", affirms Mr. Chareyron. According to Marc Ottogalli, president of Surface, " power station respects standards, but that wants not to say that it pollutes not, because when it is known that the current rejections of the power station are 50 times lower than the standards, it wonders whether the standards are not much too tolerant ". ***************************************************************** 31 Reaction to Bush's Energy Report Today: May 17, 2001 at 11:45:20 PDT Reactions to President Bush's national energy report: "It's slick. It's full of pretty colored pictures. It really looks like the Exxon Mobil annual report, and maybe that's really what it is." - House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. --- "The president's plan strikes the right balance by successfully boosting conservation, implementing renewable fuels and 21st century technologies and ensuring safe exploration." - House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. --- "This lengthy document will not provide one more kilowatt to California this summer, prevent one less minute of blackouts or keep one less dollar from being transferred from California into the hands of the Texas-based energy producers." Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. --- "The president's broad-reaching and comprehensive energy strategy shows there is no silver bullet that can solve all energy problems. We must deploy every weapon in our arsenal including increased production and the development of renewable sources of energy." - Walt Bussells, chairman of the Large Public Power Council, whose membership includes 20 of the nation's largest community owned and operated electric systems. --- "The Bush administration's energy policy is a series of misguided proposals that will be destructive for birds, wildlife and their habitat. By emphasizing supply and production, the policy encourages the destruction of the last wild places in America." - National Audubon Society President John Flicker. --- "We applaud the president and vice president for their leadership and the comprehensive nature of their national energy strategy recommendations. ... The United States needs additional energy production, as well as increased conservation and energy efficiency." - The American Petroleum Institute. --- "We're concerned their plan offers no solutions to the short term. It's a page from our past. The Bush-Cheney plan basically ignores conservation. It ducks tough issues like global warming. We need action." - Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. --- "It is apparent that the Bush administration is giving energy efficiency its due." -Michael E. Baroody, executive vice president, National Association of Manufacturers. --- "Global warming is the byproduct of decades of irresponsible coal and oil use. Mr. Bush's energy scam marks the third strike against him on convincing the world he takes global warming seriously," Kert Davies, Greenpeace Global Warming and Energy Campaign Coordinator. --- "My view is that we need to do most of what we're going to do legislatively this summer. ... There will never be a better time to start solving this eight years of neglect than right now."- Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. -- All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Sunken boat may have carried nuclear waste Haaretz Daily Newspaper - English Internet Edition May 17, 2001* *By Zafrir Rinat* *Ha'aretz Correspondent* Toxic waste that probably contained radioactive materials from the U.S. Sixth Fleet was dumped off the coast of Haifa almost four years ago, an expert in sea salvage operations has revealed. Uzi Keren yesterday testified to the Shamgar Commission investigating naval exercises in the highly polluted Kishon River, surprising the panel's members with the tangent which he went off on. Keren explained that he wanted to draw public attention to the dumping and hoped that his testimony would prompt an investigation. Keren told the panel of a barge filled with toxic waste products which sank 600 meters from the Haifa Port. He uncovered details of the event when he prepared a tender for the Clal insurance agency to salvage the vessel, and discovered that the boat contained hazardous waste from ships in the Sixth Fleet. Among those vessels in the fleet are aircraft carriers powered by nuclear reactors. The bid failed and the barge was finally removed in November 1997. Keren presented the panel with documents signed by a nautical engineering expert who verified the matter with government sources on Keren's behalf. The expert said that the vessel was carrying four drums filled with waste products. Keren went on to say that according to one of his sources, there was a high probability that one of the containers was leaking poisonous waste into the sea. According to the data passed on to him by experts, Keren concluded that the barge was not suitable for disposing of such waste. The Environment Ministry yesterday denied Keren's claims and said that the vessel was not carrying waste from the Sixth Fleet, but was authorized to carry waste for Haifa Chemicals. It did confirm that the barge sank and was salvaged a short time afterward. Ministry director-general Yitzhak Goren said that the Sixth Fleet had in the past asked the ministry's permission to transfer toxic waste to the Ramat Hovev dump, but was turned-down. He said that the only waste dumped in the sea by the Sixth Fleet is standard, sanitary waste while more hazardous materials are returned to the U.S. for treatment. The Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces refused to comment on the affair, saying that it had nothing to do with them. © copyright 2001 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 33 Letter from Bob Loux, Exec. Dir., Nuclear Waste Agency to Lake barrett, Acting Dir., OCRWM responding to letter of May 4, 2001 KENNY C. GUINN *Governor* STATE OF NEVADA [State Seal] OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR AGENCY FOR NUCLEAR PROJECTS 1802 N. Carson Street, Suite 252 Carson City, Nevada 89701 Telephone: (775) 687-3744 • Fax: (775) 687-5277 E-mail: nwpo@govmail.state.nv.us ROBERT R. LOUX *Executive Director* May 15, 2001 Lake Barrett, Acting Director Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Department of Energy Washington, DC 20585 Dear Mr. Barrett: This letter responds to your letter dated May 4, 2001, sent to Governor Guinn as well as to Governors and Legislatures in other states. The letter stated that that the Department of Energy has initiated the public comment period on the Secretary of Energy's consideration of a possible recommendation of the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada to the President for development as a spent fuel and high-level nuclear waste geologic repository. In that letter you indicated that sometime this summer the Department will announce the dates, locations and times for public hearings on the possible recommendation, and will also announce the date for the end of the public comment period. As discussed below, requiring public comment and hearings to take place now-prior to release of the Final EIS and publication of the final regulations governing the site-would fail to satisfy the requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) and other applicable federal laws. The Department's accompanying proposed federal register notice ("Yucca Mountain Science and Engineering Report; Site Recommendation Consideration and Request for Comment") describes, in "B. Site Recommendation Process", its view of the statutory requirements contained for this process in section 114(a)(1) of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). These requirements include conducting public hearings to inform the residents of the area under consideration, and receiving their comments regarding the possible recommendation of the site. In section "C. Information for the Public Comment Process" on page 9, the Department describes three sets of regulations applicable to the site that have not proceeded beyond the proposal stage. These regulations, respectively, are the proposed Environmental Protection Agency public health and safety standards for a spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste repository at Yucca Mountain; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's proposed licensing requirements for that repository; and the Department's proposed site suitability guidelines. Despite the Department's recognition that these regulations are not final, the proposed notice cryptically concludes that "[t]he currently proposed regulations provide a reasonable basis for the consideration of a possible site recommendation." In our view, this conclusion is neither reasonable nor in accordance with the requirements of the NWPA and other laws. This conclusion puts the residents of the area in the compromised position of receiving information about the Secretarial consideration of the site and providing comments on the same, without ever being informed of the final regulatory framework governing that consideration. In addition, it puts the Secretary in the position of making an arbitrary decision about the consideration of the site due to the lack of radiation protection regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, and the lack of site suitability guidelines from the Department for the Yucca Mountain site. Prematurely calling for comments and holding hearings under these preliminary circumstances would fail to honor the Secretary's duties under NWPA section 114(a) to inform the residents of the area and receive their comments; and base any site recommendation on the full record of information prescribed in the statute. Doing so would also compromise wellestablished norms of administrative procedure. While the Department apparently assumes that that all regulations will be finalized as proposed, limiting public comment on a possible Secretarial action to a time when it is based only upon draft rules would not satisfy the requirements of the federal Administrative Procedure Act. The Department has also impermissibly deferred the analysis of potential qualifying and disqualifying conditions from the site suitability guidelines to the environmental impact statement, avoiding timely analysis of such critical issues as transportation and socio-economics, and thereby violating the requirements of section 112(a) of the NWPA. The final environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain site, along with the final versions of applicable regulatory standards (Environmental Protection Agency standards, Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing requirements, and Department site suitability guidelines) must be in place in order for the public and others to understand the basis for the Secretarial consideration, and for public hearings to take place. Without the final EIS and these key elements of the regulatory scheme, the Department is asking the public to comment upon an inchoate proposal supported only by proposed regulations and preliminary environmental review. For the foregoing reasons, this office requests that the public hearings and public comment period required by section 114(a)(1) of the NWPA, as amended, be postponed until the Department has issued a final environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain site; and until applicable regulations (including the health and safety standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency for the Yucca Mountain site, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's proposed licensing requirements for that repository, and the Department's proposed site suitability guidelines required by section 112(a) of the Act) have been issued in final form. I look forward to your prompt and specific response to this request. Please confirm that your response reflects the Department's final determination on how it will proceed with respect to the hearings, comments and timing of the release of the final environmental impact statement. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, --/s/-- Robert R. Loux Executive Director cc: Governor Guinn Nevada Congressional Delegation Commission on Nuclear Projects Affected Units of Local Government State of Nevada Office of the Governor Agency for Nuclear Projects 1802 North Carson Suite 252 Carson City, NV 89701 (775) 687-3744 voice (775) 687-5277 fax nwpo@govmail.state.nv.use-mail ***************************************************************** 34 Cheney Keeping Low Profile Today: May 17, 2001 at 9:10:25 PDT WASHINGTON- While President Bush was in Minnesota on Thursday unveiling his plan to address the nation's energy problems, the architect of that plan - Vice President Dick Cheney - was keeping a low profile at the White House. Cheney was dropping by a White House gathering of the U.S.-Pan Asian Chamber of Commerce, and planned to spend some time working in his office, said Cheney spokeswoman Juleanna Glover Weiss. The vice president did have some energy policy-related duties. He was holding a conference call about the energy plan later Thursday with chief executives from high-tech firms, Weiss said. Cheney leaves Washington next week to spend a few days at his home in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and will give the commencement address at the Air Force Academy on May 30. Cheney headed a panel that spent three months examining the nation's energy problems and crafting the policy that Bush announced Thursday. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 35 More study into cleaner waste urged LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: ENERGY REPORT: Bush invokes '70s crisis Thursday, May 17, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT © 2001 DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- President Bush's long-awaited national energy strategy says the government should stay on course to evaluate nuclear waste burial in Nevada but also examine longer-term technologies that could reduce the quantity and toxicity of radioactive material that would be stored there, according to excerpts. Set to be unveiled today, the report makes no detailed pronouncements about ongoing work at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It repeats a Bush campaign pledge that decisions about a Nevada repository will be based on "best science." "The administration will continue to study the science to determine whether to proceed" at Yucca Mountain, says a report excerpt obtained Wednesday and confirmed later by a senior Bush administration official. Decisions on whether to recommend the site for waste burial are expected late this year. At a briefing Wednesday night, the administration official said recommendations on nuclear waste disposal are "all consistent with campaign promises" made by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney last year in Nevada. "When we were going about putting together recommendations, of course we kept those campaign promises in mind," the official said, although they were not specifically discussed among members of the task force that formed the Bush energy plan. The briefer could not be quoted by name as part of White House ground rules for the discussion. Besides promising that science, not politics, will guide its decisions on whether to bury nuclear waste in Nevada, the Bush campaign said it would oppose efforts to establish a temporary repository in the state. Cheney also said last fall that the Environmental Protection Agency should set radiation health standards for a repository. Sections of the report examined Wednesday note only that the standards have not yet been issued. Bush was scheduled to unveil the energy plan today in St. Paul, Minn. The strategy was recommended to the president by a task force headed by Cheney. It will call for policies -- some needing approval by Congress -- that boost production of oil, natural gas and coal, encourage conservation and provide incentives for development of alternative fuels. It will include a controversial recommendation that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge be tapped for energy exploration. The strategy also calls for the expansion of nuclear energy as a major component of the nation's energy mix. One hundred three nuclear plants now supply about 20 percent of U.S. electricity, the second-largest source of power after coal. The report encourages the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to "facilitate" efforts by utilities to expand power generation by uprating and relicensing nuclear power plants. It also urges the NRC to "ensure that safety and environmental protection are high priorities" as it prepares to evaluate applications for advanced-technology nuclear reactors. The task force noted that while no plans currently exist to build new nuclear power plants, nuclear energy faces a "more favorable environment" fueled by "safe, standardized plant designs; an improved licensing process, effective safety oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; the advent of new technologies and uncertain volatile natural gas prices." Additionally, the strategy recommends new attention be paid to spent fuel reprocessing and transmutation, a process that transforms waste into compressed and less toxic matter. The government currently supports transmutation research, although some scientists say it could be a decade or more before it can be fully developed. The Bush official said the report calls for the government "to review the policy of reprocessing." The process, in which uranium and plutonium are extracted from spent fuel rods and remade into reactor fuel, is not practiced in the United States. U.S. policy set by President Carter in the 1970s opposes reprocessing out of fear that the recycling of plutonium could lead to the spread of nuclear weapons. The Bush energy strategy says a repository would be needed even if waste alternatives pan out. "There is growing interest in new technology known as accelerator transmutation, which could be used in combination with reprocessing to reduce the quantity and toxicity of nuclear waste," it states. "While this approach does not obviate the need for geologic disposal of nuclear waste, it could significantly optimize the use of a geologic repository," the report states. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 36 ENERGY REPORT: Bush invokes '70s crisis LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., holds a gallon of milk Wednesday on Capitol Hill to argue that if dairy prices rose at the same pace as energy rates in his state, the gallon would sell for $200. Photo by Associated Press President Bush, second from right, discusses his energy policy at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday in Washington. Photo by Associated Press Thursday, May 17, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Shortage called worst since days of gas lines REVIEW-JOURNAL WIRE SERVICES WASHINGTON -- President Bush, in his much-awaited energy plan, will warn today that the United States faces "the most serious energy shortage since the oil embargo of the 1970s." He will order federal agencies to dismantle regulatory barriers that slow gas, electrical, coal and nuclear power production and propose opening federal lands for oil drilling. "A fundamental imbalance between supply and demand defines our nation's energy crisis," says the report, a portion of which was released Wednesday night by the White House. "This imbalance, if allowed to continue, will inevitably undermine our economy, our standard of living and our national security." While Bush compared today's problems to the 1970s, energy experts have noted that there are plenty of supplies of crude oil and gasoline. In the 1970s, a disruption of oil imports caused long gas lines and fuel rationing. To sell his plan, Bush must navigate among hundreds of issue groups, governors and local officials with competing concerns. Even before it was released, Democrats said the policy would endanger the environment and do nothing to lower prices. Some Republicans demanded quick fixes not found in the report, fearing the public will blame them in 2002 congressional elections if energy prices soar. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are especially vulnerable to criticism because they made fortunes in the oil business. Feeling the heat, Bush promised on Wednesday that federal regulators will ensure that "nobody in America gets illegally overcharged" for energy. The 163-page plan is ambitious. It seeks to boost energy production across the board while also promoting conservation and energy efficiency. Many of Bush's proposals would require easing or dropping existing federal regulations, but his plan goes no further than to ask agencies to consider doing so. On Wednesday Bush urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate complaints of price gouging on gasoline and said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will monitor electricity rates, especially in California. He ruled out setting price controls, as many Democrats have urged. The new energy policy, which Bush intends to unveil today during a visit to St. Paul, Minn., avoids some of the most controversial issues by calling for additional review by various federal agencies. For example, Bush directs administration officials to consider permitting oil exploration in areas that are now off limits, including parts of the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf Coast, without specifically advocating the change. Bush also calls for another look at efforts to reprocess nuclear fuels and at clean air restrictions on coal-fired electric generating plants. "I think it's important that people recognize that we can both produce adequate supplies of energy and protect the environment," Cheney, who headed the task force that produced the plan, told CNN on Wednesday night. Viewing energy production and environmental quality as adversaries, Cheney added, "no longer makes sense given the state of our modern technology." Environmentalists said the policy changes could significantly weaken federal environmental protections. "The president is trying to spread a thin veil of energy efficiency to hide a cesspool of polluter giveaways," said Dan Becker, energy program chief for the Sierra Club in Washington. Key elements of the Bush plan include: • A goal of at least 1,300 new electric generating plants in the next two decades. • Streamlined regulations to encourage greater use of nuclear power. • A proposal to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the power to force citizens to sell their property to the government to expedite construction of electric transmission lines. • A plan to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration. • About $10 billion worth of energy-related tax credits during the next 10 years to encourage alternative-fuel vehicles, solar power and increased use of nuclear power. • About $2 billion over 10 years for "clean coal" technology and fuels made from animal waste and plants. Democrats and environmentalists went on the warpath even before the plan was released, casting Bush and Cheney as tools of the energy industry. "President Bush and Vice President Cheney have proven once again that they are the administration of, by and for the big oil and gas industry," charged Democratic Party Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Environmental groups worry that many of the policy reviews ordered by Bush will lead to more smog and other pollution. Environmentalists are particularly concerned about the possibility that the administration will ease Clean Air Act restrictions on older coal-fired power plants. The regulation requires those plants, if they expand, to meet higher air pollution standards. "If the administration tries to weaken the Clean Air Act, they will have produced an energy plan that actually contributes to over 15,000 deaths a year in the United States because of pollution from dirty electric power plants," said Phil Clapp, president of the Washington-based National Environmental Trust. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said he hoped to get the energy package approved and ready for Bush's signature by July 4. He conceded, however, that some recommendations, such as expanded drilling on federal land and taking private land for power lines, "will be hotly debated" by Congress. As if to make Lott's point, House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said, "The president has no program for the short term, telling people they are on their own. At a time when consumers are paying record prices, at a moment when energy companies are making record profits, we have an obligation to the American people to address their concerns." webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Lethal bio-weapons within reach -DAWN - International; 18 May, 2001 PARIS, May 17: Genetic engineers already have it within their grasp to devise a lethal bio-weapon for terrorists and rogue states, the British science publication Nature warns this week. Small changes in the DNA of well-known bacteria and viruses could turn these agents into mass killers, the prestigious journal says in an article to appear in Thursday's issue. "Making subtle genetic alterations to existing pathogens to increase their virulence or durability in the environment, or to make them harder to detect or to treat with drugs, is within the limits of today's technology," Nature says. "With the decoding of a pathogen's entire genome now commonplace, and transgenic techniques advancing all the time, some researchers believe that the sinister potential of biology can no longer be ignored." Biowarfare - use of germs or viruses such as anthrax or smallpox - has long been a scenario considered by military strategists. However, the risk has increased thanks to advances in knowledge about how genes work; new techniques for moving pieces of DNA around; and the relative ease, compared with the past, with which a rogue organisation could build or hire a lab to build such a weapon. Scientists interviewed by Nature ruled out, for the time being, the ability to build new, artificial agents from a set of component parts. A far simpler way would be to tweak the performance of an existing bacteria to make it more resistant to antibiotics, they said. The genetic sequences of bacteria such as tuberculosis, cholera, leprosy and the plague are already in the public domain - as is that of a food poisoning bug, Staphylococcus aureus, that is already becoming resistant to antibiotics. By identifying the genes from Staphylococcus aureus that make the bug resistant, and inserting them into the other bacteria, a scientist could make a killer for which there would be scant defence. A scientist in the US, Willem Stemmer, chief scientist with Maxygen, a California pharmaceutical research firm, used one of these techniques to explore how resistance genes work, Nature reports. He created a strain of the common intestinal bug Escherichia coli that was 32,000 times more resistant to the antibiotic cefotaxime than conventional strains. Stemmer destroyed the super bug in response to concerns from the American Society for Microbiology about potential misuse. In a case published in January, a pair of Australian scientists, Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw accidentally created an astonishingly virulent strain of mouse pox, a cousin of small pox, among laboratory mice. The scientists realised that if similar genetic manipulation was carried out on smallpox, an unstoppable killer could be unleashed. They decided to publish their findings to draw attention to the potential misuse of biotechnology. "It's time for biologists to begin asking what means we have to keep the technology from being used in subverted ways," said Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew Meselson, who has repeatedly spoken out on the dangers of biowarfare.-AFP © The DAWN Group ***************************************************************** 2 Senate Bill Would Raise Downwinders' Benefits The Salt Lake Tribune -- May 17, 2001* THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- Victims of Cold War nuclear weapons development programs would be guaranteed $150,000 and medical benefits under legislation introduced Wednesday. The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would patch holes in existing laws meant to compensate people exposed to radiation by fallout from nuclear tests, known as downwinders, or through mining uranium. Lack of money has left dozens of sick and dying uranium miners and downwinders holding IOUs from the government. Hatch and Domenici are proposing increasing benefits for fallout victims by $100,000 to bring them to the level of miners and other nuclear weapons workers whose compensation was boosted to $150,000 last year. "It seems blatantly unfair for the federal government to provide a richer level of benefits to its own employees than for innocent civilians who happened to live downwind from a test site," Hatch said in a statement. The legislation also would cover medical bills for fallout victims, which can dwarf the monetary compensation, said Preston Truman, director of the group Downwinders. "That medical stuff is a godsend to all of us," Truman said, although he is skeptical about the bill's chances for passage. "I'll have to see it get passed before I believe it." The bill also protects the compensation from Congress' annual budget battles by declaring it an entitlement. "Our goal now is to make the program for the miners mandatory," Domenici said. "We're going to get it done. " It would cost $71 million to pay anticipated Radiation Exposure Compensation Act claims next year and $650 million over the next decade. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 3 Hatch-Domenici bill would guarantee compensation for radiation victims sacbee: Cal Report By Robert Gehrke Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) -- Victims of Cold War nuclear weapons programs would be guaranteed $150,000 and medical benefits under legislation introduced Wednesday by two powerful senators. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would patch holes in the existing law meant to compensate people exposed to radiation either through uranium mining or by fallout from nuclear tests, known as downwinders. A funding shortfall has left dozens of sick and dying uranium miners and downwinders holding IOUs from the government. Hatch and Domenici are proposing increasing the benefits for fallout victims by $100,000, bringing them to the level of miners and other nuclear weapons workers whose compensation was boosted to $150,000 last year. "It seems blatantly unfair for the federal government to provide a richer level of benefits to its own employees than for innocent civilians who happened to live downwind from a test site," Hatch said in a statement. It would also cover doctors bills for fallout victims, which can dwarf the monetary compensation, said J. Truman, of the group Downwinders. "That medical stuff is a godsend to all of us," he said, although he is skeptical about the bill's chances for passage. "I'll have to see it get passed before I believe it." And the legislation would make the compensation an entitlement, protecting it from Congress' annual budget battles. "Our goal now is to make the program for the miners mandatory," Domenici said. "We're going to get it done, whether it's this way or another way, we're going to get it done." It would cost about $71 million to pay anticipated Radiation Exposure Compensation Act claims next year and $650 million over the next decade. The Bush administration included $97 million in its budget for next year and $710 million over 11 years, and also proposed making the payments an entitlement. That money wouldn't be available until the next fiscal year begins in October, and several members of Congress are pushing for $84 million in immediate funding for the program. Congress passed RECA in 1990 to make lump-sum payments to the miners and downwinders suffering from a variety of ailments as a result of their radiation exposure. Many of the mines were in the Four Corners area where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet, and many of the miners were Navajo Indians from the area. The downwinders lived in southern Nevada and Utah and northern Arizona, where fallout from nuclear weapons tests near Las Vegas eventually settled. The program was expanded in 2000 to cover more workers and more illnesses, but Congress didn't appropriate enough money to cover the additional claimants. Last summer, the Justice Department, which administers the RECA program, began issuing IOUs to those qualifying for payments. Many have died while awaiting payment. Last week, several groups representing Navajo miners filed a lawsuit, asking a judge to force the Justice Department to speed claims to those awaiting payment and enact rules implementing the broadened program. The Justice Department has approved 3,637 claims, mostly for former miners, and has awarded more than $270 million. The Hatch-Domenici bill would also make some technical changes, restoring benefits to some claimants who were accidentally dropped from the program last year and capping attorneys fees at 2 percent. On the Net: Justice Department's Radiation Exposure Compensation Program: http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/index.htm ***************************************************************** 4 Cleanup too slow, DOE pick says This story was published Thu, May 17, 2001 By Les Blumenthal Herald Washington, D.C., bureau WASHINGTON -- President Bush's choice to head environmental programs at the Department of Energy told a Senate committee Wednesday that she's impatient with "70-year schedules and mind-boggling budgets" to clean up the Hanford reservation and other federal nuclear production sites. "The challenge of this program is great, but it does not mean taking three generations to see results," Jessie Hill Roberson said during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "I do not want to leave this for my daughter's children to figure out. We can and we must do better." Roberson, who managed the cleanup at the department's Rocky Flats sites in Colorado, is a member of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. The independent board oversees cleanup and other issues at DOE sites. If confirmed as assistant secretary for environmental management, Roberson will head the top-to-bottom review of the department's cleanup programs promised by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. "Cleaning up this complex will mean tough decisions," she said. "To be effective, the assistant secretary needs to step up to the plate and take on hard questions. I recognize fully that hard decisions like these will not please everyone. Nonetheless, decisions must be made and carried out." Roberson also promised to have an open-door policy when it comes to Congress, the states, local officials and the public. "Nothing I do will be a surprise to you or to other DOE stakeholders," she said. "Openness, accessibility and accountability are core values for me, personally. They are critical to the success of our effort, especially when the time comes to make the tough decisions." Roberson appeared before the committee with a handful of other White House nominees, including two for openings on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. She was questioned only briefly by U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a member of the committee, said she would submit written questions about Hanford to Roberson. Roberson graduated from the University of Tennessee with a degree in nuclear engineering and has worked in the private sector, at Georgia Power, as well as the public sector, including a stint as manager of the department's Savannah River site. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 5 HAB has had it with DOE delays This story was published Thu, May 17, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer Will the state ever take legal action against the Department of Energy's delays in meeting major cleanup deadlines? That was the lament from the Hanford Advisory Board on Wednesday as members flayed DOE for inadequate budgets and further delays. The state has snarled at DOE for inadequate funding of legally mandated cleanup work and growled as DOE tried to delay legal deadlines. And another deadline went on the endangered list Wednesday. One DOE budget scenario would further delay completion of Hanford's waste glassification plant, pushing it from 2011 to 2015. Members of two HAB committees complained at a budget briefing that DOE headquarters in Washington, D.C., ignored the state with impunity despite state Attorney General Christine Gregoire's order that her staff research a possible lawsuit. The suit would claim DOE has violated waste glassification deadlines in the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford cleanup. "I think the (Bush) administration doesn't care about the Tri-Party Agreement. They don't care about being sued. They don't believe (Washington's Department of) Ecology will take any action," said HAB member Jeff Luke, representing Hanford's nonunion workers. HAB member Paige Knight, representing Hanford Watch, told Joy Turner of the Ecology Department, "You've got to go and say (to DOE), 'You guys are out of your minds.' ... Delays lead to needing more money later on. We're getting the same old crap, maybe for the fifth time." Knight was referring to other glassification delays over the past 12 years. Cheryl Reid, a state attorney general's spokeswoman, said legal research is under way on a lawsuit over budget shortfalls and delays. "We don't want to go into court without knowing exactly what we're arguing. It'll be complex litigation," Reid said. Reid speculated the state might wait until July to sue, giving DOE a chance to increase Hanford's budget to meet obligations. And July is the legal deadline to begin construction of the glassification plant. That would give the state a concrete legal plank for the suit, she said. HAB members are angered DOE wants to cut Hanford's budget to $1.4 billion in 2002 from $1.456 billion in 2001 when the Tri-Party Agreement requires at least $1.87 billion in 2002. That plan includes $500 million for the glassification project in 2002 when DOE's own figures say $690 million is needed. "All of us as Hanford Advisory Board members are flabbergasted by (DOE Secretary Spencer Abraham) saying DOE doesn't need more money and can still meet compliance," said HAB member Pam Brown, representing Richland. Abraham recently told a Senate committee that DOE's $5.9 billion national cleanup budget request for 2002 -- including Hanford's $1.4 billion -- meets the legal obligations. Meanwhile, DOE's Office of River Protection is scheduled to turn in 2003 budget scenarios to DOE headquarters today. One scenario would keep Hanford's 2003 tank farms budget level with the same $814 million DOE wants for 2002 -- $500 million for glassification and $314 million for other tank work. Another scenario calls for the Office of River Protection to recover all of its 2002 shortfall in 2003, translating to a $1.461 billion tank budget in 2003. Ron Naventi, head of Bechtel National's glassification team, said if DOE keeps that project's annual budget at $500 million throughout the Bechtel contract, the project's completion would move back four years to 2015. Also, a $500 million 2002 budget means Bechtel could break ground and barely meet an unofficial, but universally accepted, target to start construction in 2002. But little actual construction would happen that year, he said. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 6 State doesn't agree to DOE cleanup delay This story was published Thu, May 17, 2001 By John Stang Herald staff writer The state rejected Wednesday the Department of Energy's request to delay some legal deadlines in Hanford's top-priority waste glassification project. Hanford's legally locked-in master plan is to build plants to convert the site's 53 million gallons of radioactive tank wastes into glass. Two weeks ago, DOE sent a letter to the state requesting changes in the Tri-Party Agreement, the legal pact that governs Hanford's cleanup, including glassification. The Tri-Party Agreement includes calling for the glassification plants' construction to begin this July 31, the first experimental glass to be produced by Dec. 31, 2007, and testing to be done by Dec. 31, 2009. But a year ago, DOE fired its glassification contractor, BNFL Inc. In December, DOE hired Bechtel to design, build and test the plant. The changeover made the July 2001 construction start unreachable. All sides unofficially have agreed to try for a 2002 construction start. DOE asked the state to renegotiate some Tri-Party Agreement deadlines, with the federal agency wanting to: -- Replace the July 2001 construction start-up deadline with a yet-undetermined date with the idea that hot testing would still start by the Dec. 31, 2007 deadline. -- Move the completion of testing from Dec. 31, 2009, to April 30, 2011. -- Replace the yet-undetermined interim milestones with keeping a general eye on progress consistent with meeting the 2007 hot commissioning. Wednesday, Mike Wilson, the state's nuclear waste program manager, sent a letter to DOE that said the state won't renegotiate those deadlines. Wilson's letter blamed DOE for BNFL-to-Bechtel changeover leading to the current time crunch. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 7 The camera of Ed Westcott: Oak Ridge history like none other Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 1:09 p.m. on Thursday, May 17, 2001 Ed Westcott may have been The Oak Ridger's first paid employee, if only a part-timer, free-lancer. In the fall of 1948, as Alfred G. and Julia G. Hill signed the agreement to establish an independent daily newspaper in the then still totally federally owned and federally operated community, they wanted progress pictures taken as work began on transforming what had been a GI laundry building on East Tyrone Road into what would be The Ridger's first office and printing plant. Who would take the pictures? Ed Westcott, of course, by then fully established as Oak Ridge's premier local cameraman. He was a full-time employee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission but permitted to do free-lance work on the side and thus he was hired to, first, take photos of the building in its original state and then further periodic photos as the reconversion -- by Rentenbach Engineering Co. of Knoxville -- proceeded. And then Ed was there, but this time on official business for the USAEC, to photograph The Ridger's historic first press run on Jan. 20, 1949. Subsequently, and especially in The Ridger's earliest years, hundreds of Ed Westcott photos would appear in The Ridger, for none of which we paid him a penny nor most times even gave him a credit line. These were, of course, further official AEC photographs which the AEC's public information office would make available to us without charge. In his own personal gallery at the Children's Museum, Oak Ridge's No. 1 photographer stands behind his best-known work, the V-J Day celebration in Jackson Square as World War II ended in August 1945. *-- Photo by Mike DuBose.* (We were not a very picture-oriented newspaper at that time. We had no staff photographer and, without an engraving facility, we had to mail photos off to have plates made by an engraver in Johnson City. At best, it took us two or three days to get the engraving back and onto our press.) Ed, with his cameras -- from the standard newsman's Speed Graphic that he holds in the picture at the Children's Museum to the much smaller and more sophisticated cameras of today -- has been Oak Ridge's Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White. While much of his work has been related to operations at the nuclear production plants and laboratories here and throughout the nation, at least equal parts have been devoted to capturing life in the community of Oak Ridge, and especially in the early years. The Children's Museum gallery features Westcott shots -- lighting, focus, composition always precise, aesthetic -- of early housing, community meetings, sports, recreation, special events and, most of all, people -- early Oak Ridgers the memory of many of whom now deceased is preserved by Ed's camera work. Ed's "War Ends" photo is now featured on this billboard erected by the Oak Ridge Convention and Visitors Bureau just south of the Lake City exit on Interstate 75. *-- Photo by Mike DuBose.* One of my personal favorites of the hundreds of prints stamped on the back "Photo by J.E. Westcott" shows hundreds of students spilling down the long hillside stairway into Jackson Square from the original Oak Ridge High School perched on the knoll off Kentucky Avenue overlooking Blankenship Field. This scene, repeated each late afternoon during the school year and which Ed knew instinctively was worth preserving photographically, played a role in the establishment of The Oak Ridger also. Alfred Hill often told of seeing that student exodus on one of his exploratory visits to Oak Ridge and thinking, as he watched that horde of enthusiastic young people, that this was a lively community with a healthy future. Ed will be formally honored at the Civic Center Saturday at noon as a feature of Mayfest. And if indeed, as the Chinese proverb says, "One picture is worth more than ten thousand words," then James Edward Westcott has written as well as photographed the history of Oak Ridge like none other. -- RDS * * * Correction: Jim Duff has been manager of Oak Ridge Memorial Park since 1964, not 1946 as incorrectly -- and incomprehensibly -- stated here a week ago, incomprehensibly because the Memorial Park wasn't established until 1955. Sorry. -- RDS *Richard D. Smyser is founding editor of The Oak Ridger. You can reach him by e-mail at rdsandmps@aol.com* All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 8 Here are some new ideas from knowledgeable scientists who are very realistic about the modern realities of nuclear power vs Intel and Sun CEOs Propose Nuclear PlantsHere is some ammunition for them Dr. Bill Wattenburg KGO Radio 810AM "The Open Line to the West Coast Show" ABC San Francisco Consultant, Lawrence Livermore National laboratory www.drbill.org February 22, 2001 *Here are some new ideas from knowledgeable scientists who are very realistic about the modern realities of nuclear power vs. all other alternatives.* + Western States Must Build More Hydroelectric and Nuclear Power Plants to Stop Being Blackmailed by Out of State Natural Gas Suppliers. + The Auburn Dam Must be Completed. + Nuclear Plants Can be Built Near Hydro Reservoirs for the Ultimate Safety Factor That Guarantees no Nuclear Accidents. + California and Nevada Should Build Several Nuclear Power Plants at the Former Nevada Test Site that Would Make Both States Energy Independent. + Ironically, Burning Fossil Fuels is Putting 2000 tons of Radioactivity in the Air We Breath Every Year and Producing our Most Toxic Waste Sites (). + Natural Gas Supplies are being Depleted, Pipelines Overloaded. All States Will be Blackmailed for Higher Prices as Populations Increase. The recent energy crisis in California is a wake up call. There will be continued crises and rate increases so long as we are totally dependent on outside suppliers for natural gas. All western states will suffer the same fate as supplies of natural gas are depleted. We are in this trap because our whole country has been forced to burn non-renewable fossil fuels, gas, oil and coal, for most of our power since environmental hysteria stopped the building of hydro and nuclear power plants in the U.S. And yet, our hydro and nuclear plants have been supplying more than thirty percent of our power, silently, reliably, for the last forty years with none of our money being paid to outside power suppliers. California and its neighboring western states must build and share more hydro and nuclear power plants that will give us all some energy independence. It is foolish for our political leaders to give up the only bargaining chip that we can use to force natural gas suppliers to keep their prices reasonable. Hydro and nuclear plants don't need their natural gas at all. These suppliers will lose a major captive market if we build more hydro and nuclear plants. There is only one way that they'll offer long term contracts for greater supplies of natural gas—and that is when they realize California is going to build its own power plants that don't need them—forever. The governor and the legislature must immediately investigate our options for building and sharing more hydroelectric and modern nuclear plants on the many sites that could be used in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and Mexico. The governors of these states must appoint a blue-ribbon commission of our most knowledgeable scientists, lay people, and business people to look at reality, to find the truth and tell it to the public and the press. More hydroelectric and nuclear power plants would protect us against economic blackmail by the suppliers of natural gas and cleanup our air. These plants don't need an energy source from anyone but nature itself. For decades our hydroelectric and nuclear plants have been producing pollution free energy for California at a fraction of the cost we are now paying for non-renewal, air polluting energy from burning fossil fuels. The new natural gas fired power plants being built will make us even more dependent on the out of state energy suppliers who are blackmailing California now. We are playing right into their hands. Certainly, we need to build more power plants of any sort for the short term, but California must protect itself for the long term. Unfortunately, our political leaders have not even mentioned this possibility for California to become more energy independent and stable. Our leaders are intimidated by self-proclaimed environmentalist groups. Anyone who even dares call for a new study of hydroelectric or nuclear power plants is immediately labeled as an anti-environmentalist. Many in the press routinely publish all scare stores about nuclear plants on the front page. The truth has long been smothered by hysteria propagated by self-serving nuclear fear mongers, in the same way that scientific frauds terrified the world over the non-existent Y2K disaster. A scientific report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory at the end of this article () will show you the enormous environmental damage that has been done to this country and the world by the so-called environmentalists who forced us to use only fossil fuels. Did you know that you have been breathing a thousand times more radioactivity in the air—every year—then could ever come from all of our nuclear power plants? It is ironic that those who claimed to be environmentalists in attacking hydro and nuclear power have in fact done enormous damage to the environment and the air we breath. Now the gullible public is also paying ten times more for the dirty power we were forced to use than we would be paying had we increased our supply of clean hydro and nuclear power with inexhaustible energy supplies. Desirable Sites for New Nuclear Plants The states of California, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, and the nation of Mexico could build many modern nuclear plants on any number of remote, uninhabited sites in a way that would give all these areas energy independence and enormous savings for their economies. Vast uninhabited high-plains areas exist in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon that are appropriate sites for new nuclear plants. These sites are close to existing power transmission lines that feed power to the western states. The Herlong Weapons Storage Depot in Lassen County, Northern California, is a large area that was used to store material that is thousands of times more dangerous than any imaginable threat from a nuclear Power plant. The Nevada Nuclear Test Site, for instance, is a vast area that is off limits to development forever. Over 500 underground nuclear weapons tests at NTS created hundreds of times more nuclear material than all the nuclear power plant waste now stored in this country or that could be generated in the next several hundred years. This nuclear material is safely buried thousands of feet under the ground. A nuclear power complex at NTS could supply inexpensive, reliable power forever to the burgeoning Nevada economy as well as hook up to the major power transmission lines that feed California and Arizona. Thousand of new jobs and billions of dollars of permanent income would be created in Nevada. Nuclear Plants Below Hydro Reservoirs Nuclear plants can be built below existing hydroelectric dams such that the cooling water flowing through the nuclear plants warms the uncommonly cold water coming from the hydro reservoirs. Environmentalists complain that hydro reservoirs keep the downstream river waters too cold for the fish. We have spent hundreds of millions to alleviate this problem (see the forebay at Oroville Dam where hundreds of millions were spent to warm the water before it re-enters the Feather River). Why not solve two problems at once and gain the energy we need by putting nuclear plants below the hydro reservoirs. This gives us two sources of power and helps restore the ecology of the downstream rivers. New nuclear plants built below existing or new hydro plants can share the power transmission lines and many other facilities needed by both. The massive amount of water in the reservoir above can be released immediately to provide the ultimate safety factor for any possible overheating of the nuclear core. The entire plant can be immersed in water. All concerns about an earthquake damaging the nuclear plant go away because any hydro dam will collapse long before the nuclear plant will be damaged. This was demonstrated in the recent massive earthquake in India. Two large nuclear plants on the earthquake fault were not damaged. Nuclear plants installed below hydro dams easily can be installed such that the massive release of water from the hydro reservoir would drown the nuclear plant below with no release of the nuclear material that is entirely contained within the sealed nuclear reactor core. Modern nuclear plants approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission already have this added safety feature. Any possible overheating of the nuclear core triggers automatic release of an emergency reservoir of water to cool the core in a manner that operators can not disable, as happened in the Three Mile Island accident. The scare stories about dangers from earthquakes were put to the test recently by the massive earthquake in India. Two of the world's largest nuclear plants are located almost on the fault zone that experienced one of the biggest jolts of this century. The plants suffered no serious damage. This was expected because billions of dollars were invested in the construction to guarantee the integrity of the plants. We build nuclear plants in the U.S. the same way—like Diablo Canyon. Fears of earthquake damage have been grossly exaggerated. A great deal of the expense of a nuclear plant goes into massively strong structures to protect against earthquakes and contain any radioactivity released inside. These buildings are stronger than our missile silos designed to withstand the blast of nuclear weapons nearby which produce shocks must greater than any imaginable earthquake. The U.S. has been building nuclear plants for the rest of the world for the last twenty years. The designs are the safest and most modern in the world. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has indicated that it will give swifter approval to new nuclear plant designs that have additional safety features and performance upgrades that have been developed from forty years of operational experience with nuclear plants throughout the world. There are several nuclear plant sites in the state that are now unused. These were approved for nuclear plants long ago. They certainly should be approved in reasonable time for new plants or upgrades of the existing plants. The Rancho Seco nuclear plant owned by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) was shut down because of a combination of operational problems and community sentiment. But it was fully operational and could have been improved rather than shut down. Now SMUD is saddled with the enormous expense of de-commissioning a nuclear plant that is no longer producing income. SMUD should be more than happy to let the state or another utility take over the plant and either upgrade it or build a new one on the site. This could be done within two years. There is a site near Eureka that has an abandoned nuclear plant. Why Continue to be Blackmailed by Natural Gas Suppliers? The gas pipelines into California are running at full capacity. New power plants being built will use even more of the dwindling supplies of natural gas. This will leave homeowners and businesses with even less. We can expect prices to increase again. Even this supposedly clean natural gas is a major contributor to air pollution in the state. New hydro and nuclear plants are the only safeguard that California and its neighboring states will not be blackmailed again in the near future by natural gas producers. What good does it do to build new natural gas power plants when we have to buy the gas from the same outside suppliers who are robbing us now for the electricity they generate with their gas? They will do it again with certainty as our population and economy grow. Gas supplies are already in short supply. It will get worse rather than better as the nation's energy demands grow. And we will be back where we are now—paying five to ten times more for energy than it costs to generate power with new hydro and nuclear plants. Just the threat that California will build several new nuclear plants that perform as well as Diablo Canyon will strike fear in the outside power producers who will lose their ten billion dollar market for selling high-priced power and natural gas to California. We should do more than threaten. We should build some hydroelectric and nuclear plants as soon as possible. There are only two sources of clean, inexhaustible power available to California within the next few years. These are more hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants. They have silently and reliably supplied 25% of California's power for decades. They are the cheapest sources of clean, guaranteed power that require no expensive fuel from outside energy suppliers. They throw no pollution into our air. The biggest threat to the outside power suppliers that are blackmailing us now are new power plants that need neither the electricity they generate nor the natural gas they sell. Only two things can give us this edge: more hydroelectric plants or more nuclear plants. We can not build enough new hydro plants to generate another 20,000 megawatts within the next ten years. (A typical major dam with hydro turbines produces maybe 1000 megawatts. We do not have the rivers and reservoir sites to build 20 more). But we should build those that we can. The Auburn Dam on the American River has been delayed for decades. Millions have been spent on the design and preliminary work. It must be completed as soon as possible. However, several nuclear plants could be up and running within three years if we cut through the senseless red tape and fraudulent environmental claims and hysteria. Fortunately, citizens now hurt in the pocketbook are getting sobered very quickly about the realities of the economy and safety of nuclear plants as compared to the promises of cheap natural gas that the so-called environmentalists gave us. Objections and legal actions by those who call themselves environmentalists have stopped the building of both hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants for the last twenty years. These objections—and the public hysteria that they have caused at times—must now be compared to the real damage to our environment and economy by continuing to be burn enormous quantities of highly polluting and increasingly expensive fossil fuels for the energy California needs. Experts in the power business tell us that solar, wind, geothermal and all other alternative sources of power will not be able to supply more than 3 to 5 % of our total power needs in California within the next ten years. There are very real technical and economic reasons way these alternative energy sources supply less than 1% of our power today. (How do we cover 10,000 square miles with solar panels or wind mills? Then what do we do when the sun is not shinning and the wind is not blowing?) The great hydroelectric projects in the west fueled our economy and provided water storage for agriculture and urban centers. For more than forty years, over a hundred nuclear power plants in the nation have given us the only major source of no-polluting power that can not be held hostage to foreign supplies of oil and natural gas. The reservoirs of hydroelectric dams create an explosion of animal life and provide bountiful recreation facilities for our people. We have paid billions of dollars to provide means for fish to pass by the dams on their way to spawning upstream. The dams give us needed water storage and flood control. But these advantages are seldom mentioned by the environmental hysteria cult that objects to any use of our natural resources for the benefit of mankind—a group that is also an important species on this planet. Burning Coal and Fossil Fuels Puts 2000 Tons of Radioactivity in the Air Every Year. Read this report from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory on coal burning power plants: Being forced to burn coal and fossil fuels for most of our power in the U.S. and the world has poisoned the environment and puts more than 2000 tons of radioactivity materials in the air we breath every year. This is a thousand times more radioactivity in the environment than could ever be released by nuclear power plants if we callously dumped all nuclear waste on the ground somewhere. The millions of tons of open ash piles and slag heaps at coal plants are the most toxic sites in the world containing tens of thousands of tons of radioactive uranium and thorium. The self-proclaimed environmental organizations don't dare acknowledge what they have forced on the world. On KGO Radio I warned our listeners, both Governor Wilson and Governor Davis, and the legislature many times over the last three years that utility rates would skyrocket if they didn't stop the forced sale of power plants owned by the utilities and the people of this state. Now, they will only do the difficult things that will solve this problem when you, the voters, tell them in a fashion that will make them listen. You must tell them you will not vote for them again—that you will support movements to recall them if necessary. And, you will not forget before the next election. Otherwise, you will be paying an extra $2,000 to $4,000 a year for many more years. You can locate your representatives in Sacramento and write them an email very easily. Go the website . There you will find links to all your elected representatives in Sacramento and Washington by simply entering your zip code. Then you can send them a email with a click of the mouse. Copy anything above you might agree with, but it is always better to use your own words. Copyright © 2001 Dr. Bill Wattenburg ***************************************************************** 9 US cuts back on Russian nuclear items WASHINGTON Despite growing concerns about nuclear terrorism, the Bush administration wants to slash $101m from a programme designed to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, a top US official acknowledged. The announcement of the cutback came as US congressional investigators discovered that despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to help Russia protect its nuclear stockpile from potential terrorists, less than a third of it can now be considered safe. "At that level, it should be apparent and obvious that we will have to curtail efforts in several areas and potentially lose momentum in some," retired Air Force general John Gordon, head of the nonproliferation programme at the energy department, told the Senate subcommittee on emerging threats. The cut will reduce the US nonproliferation budget in fiscal 2002 to nearly $774m, according to Gordon. The proposed cutback comes after the US government admitted the US faces a "real threat" that nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction could be used against it in a terrorist attack. Besides trying to secure "loose nukes," the nonproliferation programme, launched in the wake of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union by then-Senator Sam Nunn and still serving Senator Richard Lugar, also helps former Soviet weapons scientists reorient their work toward peaceful projects. However, data released at the hearing by Gary Jones, a senior expert with the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, showed US attempts to secure 603 tons of Russian weapon-grade nuclear materials had been only marginally successful. After spending $601m on the project, the US government can now report that only 32% of that stockpile could be considered safe, according to Jones. US nuclear security experts have "not been allowed access to what Russia considers sensitive sites that contain several hundred metric tons of material," said Jones. Efforts to lure about 370 Russian scientists away from defence work have also largely come to naught. Sapa-AFP. ***************************************************************** 10 Veterans call for info on Montebello nuclear tests theage.com.au, Breaking News Source: AAP|Published: Thursday May 17, 8:33 AM Veterans involved in nuclear testing on the Montebello Islands hope the release of information on Maralinga tests will lead to greater knowledge of their situation. Ex-Service Atomic Survivors Association president Max Kimber today called on the Australian and British governments to release information about the testing that took place on the islands, off the north-west coast of Western Australia. The British government conducted three nuclear tests on the Montebello Islands between 1952 and 1956. Mr Kimber said the British government's admission it used Australian soldiers for trials at Maralinga, in South Australia, vindicated his claims soldiers were used as guinea pigs at the Montebello Islands. "We have been completely hoodwinked and used by these governments and (they) never recognised the service that we gave," he told ABC Radio. "A group of scientists went on the island and I followed them around with a bag and as they recovered samples they placed them in the bag that I was carrying. "They were dressed in white suits and boots and hoods, and I walked around in a pair of sandals, shorts and a t-shirt." Mr Kimber has cancer and many of the other ex-servicemen involved are also ill. Copyright © 2001 The Age Company Ltd. Any unauthorised use, ***************************************************************** 11 $500,000 more sought for cancer probe Today: May 17, 2001 at 10:48:37 PDT By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN Nevada officials have asked Gov. Kenny Guinn for an additional $500,000 to investigate the cause of 14 reported cases of childhood leukemia in Fallon. State officials also are meeting today with federal health investigators in Washington, D.C., to discuss the situation. State health officials in about a month expect to have a plan to intensify the ongoing investigation of 13 reported cases of acute lymphocytic leukemia and one case of acute myeloid leukemia, state epidemiologist Dr. Randy Todd said. Nevada officials and representatives with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta last month met with families in Fallon, 60 miles east of Reno. The CDC and the state are accelerate the research schedule and plan to expand the probe this summer. The $500,000 requested by the state Health Division would fund further environmental and patient testing, community education and public information efforts, Todd said. The state has spent $100,000 to test wells, provide family counseling services and conduct the initial investigation, he said. "We have not been hampered in any way because of a lack of money," Todd said. Assemblywoman Marcia de Braga, D-Fallon, has asked the Legislature for up to $1 million for the state investigation. Contaminated water may not be to blame, researchers say. "There is some emerging evidence that water is not a pathway for whatever is causing the leukemias," Todd said. Although the analysis of all private wells used by about half the families affected by leukemia has not been completed, there is no indication that jet fuel, known as JP-8 and used at Fallon Naval Air Station, is in the ground water, Todd said. The CDC and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry are preparing to sample air, soil and even dust, Todd said. The jet fuel, possible radioactive contamination, pesticides and viruses are all being investigated in the search for a possible link, he said. Guinn's Chief of Staff, Marybel Batjer, said she plans to meet with federal health officials and Nevada's congressional delegation today. State Health Officer Dr. Mary Guinan and Batjer plan to talk to Bush administration officials and Nevada's congressional delegation in an attempt to garner additional federal support toward expanding the investigation, Batjer said. The governor has supported the state's efforts in the Nevada Legislature for "some type of appropriation," which would become available July 1, Batjer said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Iowa briefing on contamination survey of workers May 16, 2001 Health experts from the University of Iowa will brief a Burlington-area community advisory board Thursday on the status of their survey of former nuclear workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant. The advisory board is composed of area health experts, former plant workers and supervisors and members of the community. Among the topics to be addressed are a planned public meeting in Burlington later this summer by Labor Department officials to discuss a nuclear-workers compensation package approved by Congress last year. The legislation, signed by former President Clinton, allocates up to $150,000 for former nuclear-weapons workers, or their survivors, who suffered health problems because of their exposure to hazardous materials. Recent disclosures have revealed that many former IAAP employees, while working for the Atomic Energy Commission, handled such radioactive materials as plutonium, enriched uranium, radium and tritium. One of the goals of the University of Iowa survey is to determine whether former workers’ illnesses may be related to the radioactive materials. Other topics for the Middletown meeting include updates and reviews of beryllium testing of former workers, medical screening plans and a health and job history questionnaire. www.armytimes.com ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************