***************************************************************** 03/18/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.70 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Suit Seeks to Revoke Nuclear Plants' Permits 2 Vermont Yankee will auction off nuclear reactor 3 Firm wants to bid again on Vt. Yankee 4 A new look at nuclear power 5 NKorea Warns U.S. on Reactor Deal 6 Cash-poor Russia lobbies for nuclear waste 7 Russia wants aid on nuclear plant 8 Mounting IOUs to miners causing anger, frustration 9 N-Waste: How Hot Is Too Hot? 10 Laredos receive border award 11 Waiting for compensation 12 No-Nuke Activist Faces Radioactive Facts NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Argonne-West completes processing of EBR-II coolant 2 US wanted India to detonate N-bomb in 1964: Dixit 3 Review finds laser project advancing within budget 4 Report: Ministry Cost Russia Billions 5 Kursk may remain in Barents Sea 6 Vanunu parole hopes dashed 7 RAB members left out of the loop on aerial inspections 8 Protesters urge peace in space at meeting ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Suit Seeks to Revoke Nuclear Plants' Permits New York Daily News Online | News and Views | City Beat | Sunday, March 18, 2001 By DEBBIE TUMA Special to The News lawsuit filed against the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection last week seeks to revoke Millstone Nuclear Station's Clean Water Act discharge permit. The suit was filed by several Long Island and Connecticut environmental groups, including Standing For Truth About Radiation of East Hampton, the North Fork Environmental Council, and the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone. One individual, state Assemblyman Fred Thiele (R-Sag Harbor), also joined in the lawsuit. The suit alleges that the Clean Water Act permit for the Millstone plants expired in 1997; it is illegal to transfer an expired permit to a new owner, and that the permit should be revoked because of criminal conduct in the dumping of nuclear waste into Long Island Sound. It also alleges that the emergency authorizations that have been issued by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection are illegal and nontransferable. Michelle Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, said her agency could not comment while litigation is pending. Peter Hyde, a spokesman at Millstone Power Station, also would not comment. The Millstone plants, in Waterford, are in the process of being sold to Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, which is headquartered in Richmond, Va. The environmental groups claim that while Millstone 1 is shut down permanently, Millstone 2 and 3 have been dumping 2 billion gallons a day of radioactive wastewater into Long Island Sound, and that this water contains byproducts of the fission process and toxic chemicals that damage the marine environment. Nancy Burton, an attorney for the Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone, accused the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection of "dragging its feet" while Millstone has operated with an expired permit, and harmful discharges into the Sound continue. Scott Cullen, an attorney for Standing For Truth About Radiation, said, "Their state has been allowing them to operate under an emergency authorization, but I think this is a blatant violation of the Clean Water Act, and what they're doing is discharging toxic chemicals, like hydrozine, into our waters where we fish and swim." A press statement distributed by his group accused Millstone "of being the largest polluter of the Sound, with water discharges the equivalent to a toxic lake the size of Manhattan, and nearly 4,000 feet deep, being put into the Sound." Bill Smith, president of FISH Unlimited, a fishing conservation group of Shelter Island, said the radioactive releases at Millstone have killed off much of the area's winter flounder stock, which either died in the cooling waters or got sucked into the plant's operating system. Two Connecticut fisherman have also filed a lawsuit against Millstone Power Station for allegedly damaging the fish stocks and hurting their business. Thiele said he also joined the lawsuit out of a concern for Long Island and New York State's marine environment. "We have so far invested about $200 million in tax dollars to clean up the Sound, earmarked from the State Clean Water/Clean Air Bond," he said. "It is counterproductive to permit these environmentally damaging impacts from Millstone to continue." He said the Connecticut Superior Court should declare the Millstone permit expired, shut down the plants and prevent any effort to transfer the expired permit. ***************************************************************** 2 Vermont Yankee will auction off nuclear reactor The Times Argus Online - By Susan Smallheer RUTLAND HERALD BRATTLEBORO - Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. announced Friday that it would auction off its Vernon reactor to the highest bidder this summer, saying that selling the plant still made more sense than keeping it. Yankee's board of directors met via a telephone conference call Friday and decided on the auction option, according to Brian Cosgrove, Yankee's director of public affairs. "The auction has the potential to realize the most value for the plant," Cosgrove said. The decision came after Vermont Yankee and its Vermont utility owners did an about-face two months ago and asked that a $40 million offer from AmerGen Energy Co. be dismissed to allow them to test the rapidly improving market for nuclear power reactors. Cosgrove said Yankee had finished its updated economic viability study, which the Public Service Board ordered be completed before a sale, and it showed that "the advantages of selling vs. 'own and operate' are significantly positive." The announcement of the auction was expected, but the timing of the decision was called "curious" by Sen. Cheryl Rivers, D-Windsor, chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, which is holding hearings on Yankee legislation. Rivers said Cosgrove had told her committee only Wednesday that it would be a month before the economic feasibility study was completed. "It distresses me that just the day before yesterday Vermont Yankee sent somebody up here to tell us, at best, inaccurate, or blatantly misleading, information," Rivers said. Cosgrove confirmed Friday night that he had told Rivers' committee that the report wouldn't be ready for a month. "I didn't know," he said. William Sherman, the state nuclear engineer with the Department of Public Service, said he wasn't surprised at the auction announcement, since it had been discussed as an option for months. He said that in the month that the Public Service Board had ordered the analysis, Yankee engineers and financial people had been hard at work on it. He said he hadn't seen the analysis, but that he expected it would be released after the auction was completed and it went for state approval. "They are serious about selling the plant and they want to take advantage of the market," Sherman said. Sherman said he expected not just the four already-announced nuclear utilities to bid - AmerGen Energy Co., Entergy Nuclear, Dominion Resources and Constellation Nuclear - but Duke Power of North Carolina as well. Cosgrove also said the company also had another potential bidder come forward in the past couple of weeks: Nuclear Management Co., which operates five nuclear reactors in the Midwest. Friday's decision left Yankee sale opponents raising questions. Mark Sinclair of the Conservation Law Foundation, who has supported an auction in the past, said he was concerned about the terms of the auction. And, he said, he didn't believe that a thorough financial and economic analysis could have been completed in the four weeks since the PSB had dismissed AmerGen's second offer and ordered the analysis. "A lot more is involved than just the highest price," Sinclair said. "The terms of the sale have to be in the public interest, it can't just benefit shareholders." James Dumont, the attorney for the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution and the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, said his group opposed an auction since it meant loss of control. "It means a big out-of-state utility will buy Yankee, take its profits out of state, as well as the power, leaving Vermont with the problem of its nuclear waste," Dumont said. Cosgrove said the plant hoped to hold the auction by late June or early July and that Yankee was talking with "nuclear auctioneers" about conducting the sale. The process and the parameters of the sale are still being discussed, he said. Times Argus 540 North Main Street, P.O. Box 707 Barre, Vermont 05641 Tel (802) 479-0191 Fax (802) 479-4032 Email ***************************************************************** 3 Firm wants to bid again on Vt. Yankee *March 17, 2001* BRATTLEBORO, Vt. (AP) -- A Pennsylvania company that has seen two offers to buy the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant rejected said it would like to enter another bid. A spokesman for the AmerGen Energy Co. said the company was still interested in bidding on Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. But William Jones said that would happen only if the timing were right. "If there's an auction, we'll be interested, but not if it means another 18 months," Jones said. Thursday marked the formal rejection by the state Public Service Board of AmerGen's second offer for Vermont Yankee. Jones said Yankee would have to finish the auction by the end of June to be attractive to AmerGen, and that the auction would have to be truly open. Meanwhile, Public Service Commissioner Christine Salambier said that the state would remain officially neutral on the issue of whether the owners of Vermont Yankee should sell the plant. That's despite a suggestion from Sen. Cheryl Rivers, D-Windsor, that Vermont ratepayers would benefit from the department taking a stand. Salambier told members of the Senate Finance Committee Wednesday that on "theoretical" issues such as whether Yankee should be sold, it would remain silent, but on a specific offer -- such as the two from AmerGen -- it would make its position known. Salambier told members that the Public Service Department supported a bill introduced by Rivers that calls for any owner of Vermont Yankee to obtain a state certificate of public good if it wants to extend its federal operating license beyond 2012. Rivers, who is chairwoman of the Senate Finance Committee, said after the hearing Wednesday that Salambier's department should exercise its authority as Vermont's utility advocate and decide whether it was in the best interests of Vermont ratepayers whether Yankee was sold, regardless of any specific offer. "I want to make sure we don't end up with less oversight of Vermont Yankee and less benefit for Vermont ratepayers," Rivers said. Brian Cosgrove, spokesman for Vermont Yankee, called the two bills currently before the Senate "poison pills" that would prevent Vermont Yankee from being sold -- if the board of directors reaffirms its 1999 decision to sell the 540-megawatt reactor. Jones said AmerGen Energy Company would want the auction that Vermont Yankee now is talking about conducting to be completed by the end of June. A second, improved offer from AmerGen was rejected by the Public Service Board last month. NewsChoice.com ***************************************************************** 4 A new look at nuclear power New Jersey Online: Express-Times 03/18/01 By BILL CAHIR The Express-Times WASHINGTON, D.C. - Scott Fuhrman of Newport, Pa., wears a hard hat to work. But he’s not a bricklayer or a construction foreman. He’s got a collection of security badges around his neck and a microphone for a two-way radio pinned to his shoulder. Like a beat cop. He appears to come from a volatile blue-collar profession that requires people to change jobs often. But Fuhrman hasn’t looked for work in 23 years. Fuhrman, 46, operates nuclear reactor equipment at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. He serves as the eyes, ears and hands of engineers in the facility’s control room. Anything the people in charge can’t do from the central nervous system, they send Fuhrman out to do instead. It may sound like hazardous work. But Fuhrman goes happily to the task, still following the pro-nuclear job advice a close friend gave to him a generation ago. "He told me it’s an incredible place to work," Fuhrman said. "It’s nice and clean, and there’s lots of money … Three Mile Island’s been very good to me. Although, the way the industry is going, be flexible. If you’re not willing to change, you’re not going to make it." The TMI legacy There are 103 functioning commercial plants in the United States, including one at Three Mile Island, which is licensed to continue producing power through 2014. The March 28, 1979, accident, which put a scare into people throughout the United States, only knocked out only one of two functioning reactors at the facility. The remaining plant, shut down between 1979 and 1984, now puts out 880 megawatts per day, enough to fully light 880 football stadiums for the duration of a nighttime game. The enormous generator, driven by enormous steam pipes, hums along at a high pitch. Workers have put in six million injury-free hours at Three Mile Island since October 1996. The sparkling clean steam generator facility at Three Mile Island is "a striking contrast to what you would see at a coal-fired plant," said David Carl, a spokesman for Exelon Corporation, which purchased the facility last year. "It’s really a reflection of our desire to be a world-class nuclear operator." Two stripped cooling towers at Three Mile Island, now available for student tours, serve as reminders of the potential for accidents. The 1979 incident-half of the reactor’s core, what one engineer called 20 tons of molten uranium, spilled to the floor of the main pressure chamber, but never escaped the reactor’s main containment vessel of concrete and steel-halted the growth of the nuclear industry in the United States. A second look at nukes Time, perhaps, can heal even that searing wound. It seems the power-generating industry, and perhaps the public at large, is ready to take a second look at the splitting of the atom. The environmental movement remain hostile towards fission reactors. Its members sound alarm bells about the potential for Chernobyl-style accidents, describe the alleged dangers of nuclear waste, and claim cancer rates increase around nuclear plants. The nuclear power industry balks at each of these complaints. The landscape underneath the green lobby has shifted dramatically: u Scientists have strengthened their warnings about the link between the fossil fuel exhausts and global warming. u The nation’s new president has talked about the need for a comprehensive national energy policy. u Rolling blackouts have incited anger in the nation’s most populous state. u And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has warned lawmakers that the country’s growing demand for alternate current, and the industry’s seeming inability to keep up, "is a significant problem that this country is going to have to address." Could it be that nuclear power’s hour of rebirth has come? "We have seen in the last few years that nuclear power is no longer a dirty word, and nuclear power is becoming more acceptable, due to the fact that the plants have performed very well in a time of tight supply," said Jack Skolds, chief of the nuclear program at Exelon, which owns Three Mile Island and 16 other commercial nuclear facilities. "From an emissions standpoint, nuclear plants are very good for the environment … There is great opportunity right now that nuclear power will see a renaissance of sorts." A company formed through the merger of PECO Energy Company and Unicom Corporation, Exelon is trying to buy more nuclear reactors for its arsenal. It is testing a new reactor model in South Africa, the pebble bed reactor, which Exelon claims is safer and even more efficient. The company, and its subsidiary called AmerGen, hopes one day to bring that advanced model to the United States, perhaps building new facilities at existing sites. "I wouldn’t go as far as to specify a state where we would like to build a plant," Skolds said. But he claimed his company has made "a commitment to the technology." Safe, clean and efficient Nuclear power plants, according to their proponents, are statistically safer and cleaner than natural gas or coal-powered plants. They produce no greenhouse gases to speed global warming. The Nuclear Energy Institute of Washington, D.C., claims functioning reactors prevented the emission of a substantial amount of two air pollutants - 82.2 million tons of sulfur dioxide, and 37 million tons of nitrogen dioxide - between 1973 and 1997. Once built, nuclear facilities are more efficient than their fossil fuel rivals, producing more electricity, at lower cost, per kilowatt-hour. And nuclear power is the cheapest source in the country, according to James Lake, president of the American Nuclear Society. Lake said a fission plant can produce electricity at 1.83 cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 2.07 cents for coal plants, 3.18 cents for oil facilities, and 3.52 cents for natural gas plants. And the cost of natural gas now is skyrocketing. "Once you get a nuclear plant built, you can operate it pretty cheaply," Lake said. By any objective measure, nuclear power hums along as an ordinary part of American life. Commercial reactors provide more than a fifth of the electricity consumed by homeowners and businesses each year. Nine operating reactors in Pennsylvania produced 35 percent of the state’s power in 1998. Reactors run 84 vessels in the U.S. Navy. The U.S. Energy Department funds nuclear research at five federally affiliated laboratories and 28 universities around the country. The Pennsylvania State University maintains a research reactor in State College. Meanwhile, patients around the world accept the use of nuclear medicine as a routine part of the effort to diagnose and treat disease. Nuclear politics The question now is whether the general public and elected officials like President George W. Bush will turn to fission, and not to fossil fuels alone, to satisfy an expanding population’s desire for power. "This country needs to figure out an energy policy … and I’m going to do the politically incorrect thing and tell you the answer’s going to be nuclear power," Scott McNealy, chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems, recently told the National Press Club. "I have not yet heard anybody utter the phrase ‘nuclear power’ in California yet. But in terms of environmental and cost and competitiveness and all the rest of it, I just don’t see any other solution." The 43rd president already has signaled his interest in fission. During the 2000 campaign, he proposed to spend $1 billion over 10 years "to help efficient utilities purchase nuclear plants (and) streamline the re-licensing process for hydroelectric projects." Bush appointed Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, to his transition team for energy issues. He also tapped former Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham, a supporter of the effort to store nuclear waste at a disputed mountain reserve in Nevada, to become Energy Secretary. The Senate confirmed Abraham without delay. Lawmakers are speeding ahead of Bush and Abraham to promote nuclear power. U.S. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, plans to introduce an energy bill that would expand some existing federal subsidies for the industry. He would authorize $60 million in nuclear research projects and renew a program offering federally subsidized liability insurance to companies owning nuclear plants. Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group in Washington D.C., blasts Murkowski’s bill as one more form of corporate welfare. It claims the nuclear industry has received $66 billion in federal subsidies over the past 45 years. Murkowski is not the only one sponsoring pro-nuclear legislation. U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., this month introduced a bill backing $240 million in nuclear research and training efforts. Their bill would dedicate $15.7 million to undergraduate and graduate programs over the next five years. The New Mexico lawmakers, patrons of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, want to help the nuclear industry thrive by training more people to work in it. There has been so far no overt sign of favor or change from the anti-nuclear attitude expressed by the environmental movement in the United States. The nuclear waste debate The Sierra Club, in a position dating to 1986, urges federal authorities to decommission all fission plants in the country and restore the sites to their previous environmental condition. The group last year opposed a bill authorizing the transport of spent nuclear fuel from commercial plants to Yucca Mountain, Nev., site of a proposed national repository for spent radioactive fuel. "Nuclear waste is one of the most serious problems we have to deal with in this country," said Ann Mesnikoff, Washington representative for the Sierra Club’s global warming and energy program. "I don’t think you’ll find an environmental organization that will support new nuclear power. Solar and wind, yes." Greenpeace International remains hostile towards fission, favoring greater conservation and use of renewable resources. The group dismisses industry’s talk about reducing the emission greenhouse gases with nuclear plants, claiming cars, not power plants, constitute the real global warming threat. Greenpeace also opposes the utilities’ efforts to lengthen for 20 years the operating licenses for existing plants, which were initially approved for 40 years of operation. "People really need to be afraid of this," said Damon Moglen, coordinator of the group’s plutonium campaigns. Nuclear engineers scoff at Moglen’s drum-beating. Although nuclear reactors initially were licensed for 40 years, there is no reason, they say, that with proper maintenance and attention to safety procedures, that existing nuclear plants can’t continue operating for another 20 or 40 years. Forrest Remick, a retired Penn State professor of nuclear engineering and former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, explained that nuclear plants initially were licensed for 40 years out of concern for their economic viability over time - not for safety reasons. Engineers believed the reactors they were designing in the 1950s and 1960s would not be as cost-efficient as future models. Part of the nation’s nuclear renaissance, Remick claimed, is the power industry’s ever-tighter embrace of existing facilities. "They’re quite economically competitive now, and they’re really quite safe," Remick said. The Chernobyl factor The Nuclear Energy Institute, which lobbies federal lawmakers for the fission industry, claims a Chernobyl-style nuclear catastrophe cannot happen in the United States. It notes that nuclear fuel pellets are sealed inside special metal rods made to contain fission products. Fuel rods are contained within a steel reactor vessel. That vessel and safety and steam generation equipment are enclosed in a reinforced steel and concrete structure with walls are three to four feet thick, according to NEI. "A substantial radiation leak could not occur in the United States," the institute claims, offering an assurance that environmentalists regard as highly suspect. Fear of multi-megaton explosions hardly matches ordinary neighborhood hostility towards spent nuclear fuel, the bogeyman of the nuclear industry. Nevada residents there fear car and truck accidents involving waste that one day may be transported on Las Vegas area highways to Yucca Mountain. Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Murkowski already has pushed the Bush administration to resolve the Nevada conflict so that commercial and military producers of 77,000 tons of radioactive waste have a place to permanently store the material. President Clinton last year vetoed a bill aimed at settling the matter, and the Senate failed to override. U.S. Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, opposes completion of the Yucca Mountain site, and he has been meeting with Senate lawmakers one-to-one to press his cause. Las Vegas papers are stoking local opposition, carrying stories about the potential for nuclear waste traffic accidents and the remote possibility of cancer deaths. "Nobody wants this waste," Murkowski reflected last month. "We have seen the members of this committee laying down their political lives to ensure that it did not come, as an example, to the State of Nevada. It is a highly politicized issue. If you throw it up in the air, it is going to come down somewhere. Nobody wants it." Nuclear facilities now store their waste on-site, waiting for the federal government to resolve the congressional spat about storing spent fuel in Nevada. Three Mile Island is no exception. James Stubbs of Elizabethtown, a graduate of the Navy’s nuclear submarine program and now a control room supervisor at Three Mile Island, says he isn’t holding his breath for more public support. "It’s wishful thinking," Stubbs said. "All I’ve done is heard about it. I haven’t seen anything substantial." Abraham told the energy panel that he is aware of the need to solve the waste storage problem for commercial facilities and for the Navy, which, for now, sends spent nuclear fuel via rail from select port cities to an Energy Department laboratory in southeastern Idaho. Consumers in Pennsylvania and other states with nuclear facilities have been paying a fee on their electricity bills to help finance the storage of nuclear waste. That money, $17.6 billion, is languishing while the Nevada controversy continues. Pennsylvania ratepayers have contributed $1.4 billion to the fund. Power companies are suing the federal government to force it to use the money for its intended purpose. The big question Although nuclear power remains inherently controversial, most plants boast of about their safety records. There has never been a nuclear accident-related fatality in the United States, not in the Navy, not at any commercial facility. The 1986 disaster at Chernobyl, a catastrophe that helped speed the breakup of the Soviet Union, has provoked the closing of four similar reactors in what is now the Ukraine. Lake declared the Chernobyl design inherently unsafe and said it must be abandoned. Associate director of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, where the Navy stores its spent fuel, Lake added that he ardently hopes for a nuclear renaissance. Safety issues for nuclear waste can be solved, Lake said, especially if American engineers start to recycle as much nuclear fuel, like their peers in Europe and Japan. The United States, for now, opposes the recycling of spent fuel because it produces weapons-grade plutonium. President Jimmy Carter, himself a former nuclear engineer from the Navy, opposed recycling of spent fuel during the Cold War. Lake claimed environmentalists have refused to entertain the idea that nuclear power might have some redeeming qualities, such as an ability to generate power without producing environmentally harmful greenhouse gases. He claimed fission had a legitimate role to play in the clean-air movement. "They turn us down time after time," Lake said. "There are clear clean air benefits. The problem is nuclear waste … If they’re really interested in the environment, as I am, they should be working with the nuclear industry to improve the technology, so that it can play a meaningful role in providing clean, cheap and safe electricity." Remick, the Penn State professor, claimed environmentalists are playing a political game. They insist there is no safe way to store nuclear waste, he said, to undermine public support for nuclear power. With industry embracing the technology, however, he predicted the green movement would not succeed in forever stalling growth in the American nuclear industry. "I strongly believe that it’s inevitable in this country," Remick said. "We have to have more nuclear power. The question is when." © 2001 The Express Times. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 5 NKorea Warns U.S. on Reactor Deal Sunday March 18 8:31 AM ET TOKYO (AP) - North Korea ( - )'s state-run media on Sunday warned President Bush ( - ) he risks drastically worsening relations if the United States reconsiders a Clinton-era deal to help build nuclear reactors. Such a move would lead North Korea to ``take up an extreme hardline stance,'' the broadcast on Radio Pyongyang said. It was monitored in Tokyo by the Radiopress News Agency. Radio Pyongyang said it was reacting to reports that Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had recommended Bush cancel the deal. The U.S. newsletter Defense News reported that Helms made the recommendation to the president in a letter sent March 9. Under the 1994 agreement, the United States agreed to supply nuclear reactors for electricity generation in exchange for the country halting its suspected nuclear weapons program. North Korea has threatened to pull out the nuclear pact to protest President Bush's tougher stance toward Pyongyang. ``We're in a position where we'll have to respond to war with war,'' said the report broadcast by Radio Pyongyang. Earlier this month, Bush met with South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung ( - ) and expressed skepticism with regard to North Korea's intentions. He said any deal in which the North agrees to limit its missiles must include ways to check for cheating. That prompted a furious response from North Korea, which accused Washington of trying to ``isolate and stifle'' the North. Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 6 Cash-poor Russia lobbies for nuclear waste Copyright © 2001 The Seattle Times Company Nation & World : Sunday, March 18, 2001 By Susan B. Glasser The Washington Post ** MUSLYUMOVO, Russia - As a Red Army draftee in the 1950s, Nikolai Gidenko helped build a dam on the Techa River, sometimes immersed in water up to his knees. What Gidenko didn't know then was that the Techa River was a nuclear-waste dump, a river of radioactivity carrying contamination from the top-secret nuclear facility nearby. Today, Gidenko receives 200 rubles a month - less than $8 - as compensation for the radiation to which he was exposed. In his village of 4,500 people are six cemeteries, five already full. Which makes it all the more surprising when Gidenko unhesitatingly answers yes when asked if he favors the latest plan of Russia's cash-poor leaders: creating a haven for the world's nuclear leftovers. In exchange for what the government estimates could be a $21 billion windfall, the Russians intend to open their doors to more than 20,000 tons of spent fuel from foreign nuclear reactors for storage and possible reprocessing. Some likely will end up in Gidenko's back yard. Nationwide, the proposal has spurred the biggest grass-roots opposition movement in Russia's 10 years of democracy. But this region of the Ural Mountains almost 1,000 miles east of Moscow, which environmentalists call "the most polluted place on Earth," has more radioactive waste than 20 Chernobyls. And here, local leaders are lobbying for their share of the radioactive paycheck. "I am in favor of importing the nuclear waste," Gidenko said last week in his wooden cottage, the temperature outside 20 degrees below zero. "They will reprocess it into fuel, and it will be cheaper for the population. They claim that electricity will be free." With the apparent support of President Vladimir Putin, the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, gave preliminary approval in December to the nuclear imports. More than 90 percent of the lawmakers voted for it, despite polls showing more than 90 percent of Russians against it. "They have dollar signs in their eyes," said activist Natalya Mironova, who belongs to an environmental movement that gathered an unprecedented 2 1/2 million signatures for a national referendum to block the foreign waste - only to see the Central Election Commission invalidate just enough signatures to throw it off the ballot. To opponents, the fight is a morality tale about a country whose leaders are so cynical they would mortgage their land's health for some ready cash. It's also a political puzzle: In the increasingly authoritarian politics of the Putin era, no one is sure whether, or how, public pressure can influence the small group of policy-makers that will decide the matter. Experts on both sides of the debate agree that Russia's stated reason for getting into the nuclear-waste business is legitimate: Nearly 60 years into the Atomic Age, Russia has a huge stockpile of nuclear waste from its own reactors and insufficient money to handle it. Even without importing waste, some experts say, Russia's storage facility near Krasnoyarsk could be full in a few years. Several nuclear specialists argued that the importing plan might not be as bad as the alternative: a nuclear-waste-storage crisis and no resources to deal with it. "Our problem is we have no money," said Nikolai Ponomarev-Stepnoi, deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute, the leading Russian state nuclear-research facility on Moscow's outskirts. Taking in spent fuel from abroad is the only commercially sensible solution, he said But numerous logistical and diplomatic problems confront Russia's entry into this business. Most significant is whether Russia intends to store the fuel, or recycle it for nuclear-power stations. The United States opposes reprocessing spent fuel because the process extracts plutonium that could be used in nuclear weapons. As much as 70 percent of the world's spent nuclear fuel originated in U.S.-designed reactors, so even though it sits at nuclear-power plants from Asia to Western Europe, the contracts give final say to the United States on where it ends up. If Washington, D.C., doesn't approve, Russia's $21 billion dream will go unrealized. In Russia, however, the Atomic Energy Ministry has talked almost exclusively about reprocessing, not storing, the spent fuel. In Moscow, critics say the Atomic Energy Ministry's plan is to use the foreign funds not for storage, or even to clean up existing environmental disaster zones, but to finance nuclear empire-building. Already, the ministry has announced plans to finish 10 new nuclear reactors. "The atomic ministry is acquiring the power it had in Soviet days, when it was an empire inside the empire, untouchable by anyone," said Alexei Yablokov, a founder of Russia's modern environmental movement. "But in reality, the ministry lacks money to finance its grand plans. To get the money, they will have to store this nuclear waste. Of course, it's very difficult for them to explain to people that we are taking for storage everybody's waste. So they pretend they will be reprocessing it and gaining valuable resources." The government's nuclear-safety commission has feuded with the ministry in hopes of blocking the foreign-waste proposal. Such policy nuances are lost here in the Urals, where nuclear pork-barrel politics has taken hold in anticipation that Mayak, the secret nuclear facility up the river from the tainted village of Muslyumovo, will be the recipient of foreign spent fuel. In the capital, Chelyabinsk, a government-run newspaper proclaimed that "billions of dollars for the region" await. Two hours north of Chelyabinsk, in the closed city of Ozersk, the same argument is being made to the 10,000-plus workers at the Mayak nuclear plant, Russia's most important nuclear facility. Mayak houses the country's only factory for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel but is equipped to work only with fuel from Soviet-built reactors. Accepting spent fuel from other countries will require a major upgrade Mayak cannot afford. "They say, `It is necessary to do this. Then everyone will live here like in a fairy tale,' " said Ozersk sociologist Nadezhda Kutepova. Her father came here to clean up a 1957 explosion that was the second-largest nuclear accident in history; he died 20 years later of colon cancer. Among Ozersk's more than 80,000 residents, she said, nostalgia flourishes for Soviet times, when the dangers of working at the nuclear plant were accompanied by higher wages, unrationed food and such luxuries as candy. "In Ozersk, people think those golden times will return," she said. "No one is thinking about the ecological damage; no one is thinking about nuclear weapons. We are only interested in our wages." In a rare interview, Mayak General Director Vitaly Sadovnikov portrayed the proposal as a matter of economic survival. "Mayak is definitely interested in such an activity, as any enterprise is interested in work," he said. Mayak's nuclear catastrophes - the 1949-56 dumping in the Techa River, the 1957 explosion and a 1967 cloud of radioactive dust from a nuclear waste-filled lake - have exposed more than 450,000 people to dangerously high levels of radiation, according to scientists who have studied them. The environmental disasters were a state secret until the waning days of communism. Sadovnikov insists safety is no longer an issue at Mayak. Even among Mayak's relatively privileged workers, 64 percent of 700 Ozersk residents said they were against the proposal in a survey Kutepova conducted last fall. "But they will not speak up," she said. "There is a code of silence. `Yes, my father died. Yes, my relatives are ill. But I'll be paid my wages and I'll be silent.' " Ramses Faizullin, 16, decided not to be silent. He lives in one of the villages near Mayak that was relocated from the banks of the Techa years before he was born. Even so, Ramses was born with radiation disease; his head is abnormally large and he coughs incessantly. He was hospitalized three times last year. In December, Ramses wrote to Putin and the State Duma, pleading with them to block the plan. "I do not want to have children like myself," he wrote. "We have suffered our fill from this radiation as it is; every week, they bury somebody in our village." 2001 The Seattle Times Company ***************************************************************** 7 Russia wants aid on nuclear plant [The Japan Times Online] Sunday, March 18, 2001 Gas-cooled reactor aimed at disposing of weapons-grade plutonium BRUSSELS (Kyodo) Russia has asked Japan to contribute to the construction of a nuclear reactor in Russia to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium removed from its nuclear arsenal, officials and diplomats have said. Evgeniy Adamov, Russian nuclear energy minister, sent a letter to the Japanese government in the fall requesting Japan's cooperation in the project, one of the sources said Friday. "The project could (cost) a huge amount. It (the letter) was a virtual request for financial support" though it did not mention a specific figure, one of the diplomats said. The U.S.-proposed project aims to build a high temperature gas-cooled reactor in Russia to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium, the sources said. The design stage of the project, in which Russia, the United States and France are participating along with a Japanese power company, started in 1999. The high temperature gas-cooled reactor can efficiently dispose of plutonium but is estimated to cost more than $700 million, one official said. In light of the country's economic problems, it is assumed the project might not be realized if Russia is unable to raise enough money to build the reactor, the officials said. Japan's own economic slump has made it reluctant to finance the project, the sources said, adding that Tokyo may assist by providing data collected at its own high temperature engineering test reactor. The reactor, located in Ibaraki Prefecture, first attained criticality in 1998. It is one of the few high temperature gas-cooled reactors in the world in operation. Russia is meanwhile seeking to provide mixed oxide nuclear fuel made from weapons-grade plutonium to Japan and some European nations, environmental group Greenpeace International said. According to a recent Russian government document obtained by Greenpeace, Moscow is considering providing its MOX fuel for electricity production in nuclear power plants owned by "Western utilities, in particular Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium and Japan." "I have never seen such an open and clear statement (from the Russian government) saying we have this plan, we do not have money, so let's take money from foreigners," Tobias Muenchmeyer of the environmental group said of the document. Russia and the U.S. agreed in June to each dispose of 34 tons of weapons-grade plutonium extracted from dismantled nuclear missiles. The leaders of the Group of Eight major countries called the agreement a "critical milestone" at their summit in Okinawa in July. Apart from Russia's high temperature gas-cooled reactor project, they also committed themselves to "develop an international financing plan for plutonium management and disposition based on a detailed project plan" for the next summit, due to be held in Italy in July. Nuclear aid decried MOSCOW (Kyodo) Japan on Friday expressed its opposition to a Russian commitment to help Iran build a nuclear power plant. Yuji Miyamoto, director general for arms control and scientific affairs at the Foreign Ministry, said he raised the issue during a bilateral meeting on nuclear energy and told the Russian side that "the international community is greatly concerned" about Iran's nuclear policy. Russia made the commitment to support Iran's nuclear power program during Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami's visit to Moscow earlier this week. Miyamoto said he also conveyed Japan's concern over Russia's commitment to help India develop nuclear energy, noting that India has not ratified the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. Russia in return told Japan that the Russian government is interested in helping Japan reprocess its used nuclear fuel. Miyamoto said he told the Russians that the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel is a matter to be decided upon by the private operators of nuclear plants in Japan. The Japan Times: Mar. 18, 2001 ***************************************************************** 8 Mounting IOUs to miners causing anger, frustration Special to The Daily Times *March 17, 2001* WASHINGTON - U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici Friday expressed his "anger and frustration" with the federal government's handling of a program to compensate miners and others who suffer radiation-related illnesses from their Cold War-era work, and asked the Justice Department to hold a town meeting in New Mexico to address the concerns of these miners. Domenici issued the town meeting request in a letter to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. In addition to suggesting a Justice Department meeting in Grants, Domenici also asked for the status on all pending Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Trust Fund claims, as well as list of the number and names of all IOUs issued to approved claimants. "I know that you inherited this problem, but this provides an excellent opportunity for us to redress the neglect of the previous administration," Domenici wrote Ashcroft. "The uranium miners, many of whom were New Mexicans, sacrificed their lives to build our nuclear arsenal. Yet, despite this enormous sacrifice, the Justice Department has not been attentive to their rights and requests. This is a terrible miscarriage of justice." "I have been told that in many instances, the Justice Department has not even returned their phone calls. More important, in some cases it has taken an exceedingly long time for these men to have their claims approved. This is simply unconscionable," Domenici wrote. Congress in 1990 enacted the Domenici-authored law establishing the RECA Trust Fund to provide fair and swift compensation for the uranium miners, federal workers, and downwinders who had contracted debilitating and too-often deadly radiation-related diseases. Administered by the Department of Justice, the RECA Trust Fund ran out of money in May and has been unable to pay approved claims. The department has been issuing IOUs for these approved claims. The $10.8 million in FY2001 funding will be used to pay some of the claims approved in FY2000. But this funding is only about half of the estimated funding needed by the Justice Department to pay all claims approved last year. Furthermore, a projected $71 million will be needed to pay the RECA claims expected to be approved for FY 2001. This estimate reflects the expansion of the program last year. Earlier this month, Domenici introduced two bills aimed at correcting the problem. The first bill, titled the Paul Hicks Memorial Act, S.448, would make all future payments for approved claims mandatory and not subject to White House budget requests or annual congressional appropriations. The second bill, S.449, seeks $84 million in emergency supplemental appropriations to pay those claims that have already been approved as well as the projected number of approved claims for FY 2001. Both bills are co-sponsored by Sen.Orrin Hatch, R-Utah., and both have been referred to the Senate Appropriations Committee. The late Paul Hicks of Grants was a former uranium miner who served as president of the New Mexico Uranium Miners Council. He was noted for championing the rights of miners of the Navajo Nation, Acoma Pueblo, Grants, Dove Creek, and Grand Junction, Colo. EDITOR'S NOTE: Domenici's office provided this article. ***************************************************************** 9 N-Waste: How Hot Is Too Hot? The Salt Lake Tribune -- March 18, 2001* BY JUDY FAHYS (c) 2001, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE To most people, radioactive waste is radioactive waste, something to be feared and avoided, be it fallout from a nuclear bomb or stray medical X-rays. It's not that simple, though, in the Utah Capitol, where there has been a mighty struggle lately to distinguish "high-level" radioactive waste from its "low-level" kin. Policymakers are determined to ban the high-level waste. But they have reserved judgment on low-level waste, which has been trucked to a state-sanctioned landfill for more than a decade. "It's clear that people don't make the distinction," said Gov. Mike Leavitt, "and that's a problem." Why? Because some worry that Utah's policy of accepting low-level waste might undercut its fight against the other kind, that Utah might as well post "Welcome Waste!" signs in the west desert. The implication has been noticed far beyond the state's borders. "It does sound hypocritical that they would open their arms to one and block another," said Diane D'Arrigo, a Washington, D.C., anti-nuclear activist. To understand the dilemma, it's worth looking at the two proposals that triggered this intense debate. Both deal with radioactive waste generated outside Utah, most of it from commercial nuclear power plants in the East, Midwest and California. Both place the waste on land most Americans would consider a desert wasteland but that Utahns in the densely populated Wasatch Front would call a next-door neighbor. Both have supporters who insist their project is safe and poses little or no danger to humans or the environment. Both have opponents who dispute those safety claims and say outsiders have no right to dump the pernicious stuff in Utah, which doesn't even have a nuclear power plant. Hot and Hotter: Technically, high-level and low-level wastes are different. High-level waste is exclusively run-down nuclear fuel that is considered deadly for at least 10,000 years -- twice as long as recorded human history -- to anyone directly exposed to it. Low-level waste is only contaminated with radioactivity. The most radioactive of this waste, which includes discarded power-plant cleaning supplies and medical and research rubbish, is deemed safe to humans after 100 to 500 years. Private Fuel Storage LLC, a consortium of eight utility companies, wants to store the spent nuclear fuel in steel-and-concrete casks on a gravel pad in the West Desert. Its facility would be large enough to hold all the spent fuel produced during the nation's three-decade history of commercial nuclear power. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to decide next spring whether to grant PFS a 20-year license, with a possible 20-year extension, to stow the waste on the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation, about 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, until a permanent disposal site is built. (The only such site under consideration, Yucca Mountain near Las Vegas, also is embroiled in political and technical controversy.) In contrast, Envirocare of Utah already has a landfill about 80 miles west of Salt Lake City for low-level waste. The company is seeking the state's permission to expand its business line to include "hotter" radioactive wastes, which are hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times more radioactive than the waste the company already handles but which are considered innocuous after 500 years. Observers across the political spectrum might disagree about the two projects, but they do agree that people everywhere tend to blur the distinctions between them. Making Their Case: Envirocare President Charles Judd was part of a big, high-powered lobbying team that worked feverishly during the 2001 Legislature to help lawmakers grasp the difference between the two proposals. "Anytime those are confused, that's a problem for us," said Judd. "It's an obstacle and one we have to address." Environmental lobbyist Jason Groenewold also found confusion among lawmakers when he was trying to persuade them to oppose both projects. "The state can't afford to roll out the red carpet for one nuclear waste proposal and build a brick wall in front of another," he said. For PFS and Envirocare, the outcome is critical to their balance sheets. PFS estimates its project will be worth $3 billion, helping the destitute Goshute tribe and Tooele County, which would get up to $300 million from the project. Meanwhile, the consortium's member utilities are running out of space for spent fuel and may be forced to shut down some of their 18 operating nuclear plants if they cannot find new storage soon. Envirocare, which pumps about $5 million a year into Tooele County government, has brought 400 jobs to the area. If the state does not grant approval for the hotter waste, it may wither away altogether, company officials say. In a way, radioactive waste is a money issue for Utah decision-makers, too. They enjoy generous campaign support from the industry. Envirocare and its officers have donated $90,000 to statehouse political candidates in the past two elections. Since 1993, the company has pumped some $36,000 into Leavitt's campaigns alone. The company had every reason to curry favor with lawmakers: Its application to expand its business line probably will land in the next year on the desks of Leavitt and state lawmakers. Their approval is one of the necessary steps facing that permit application. Some observers believe it will be tough for Utah policymakers to ignore politics when they decide on Envirocare's permit, regardless of how different the waste might be. The Politics: Nevada certainly has had to grapple with the issue. Like Utah, Nevada and its people have a legacy of being used as the nation's nuclear waste laboratory. Like Utah, it's trying to beat back a proposal supported by the rest of the nation to dump high-level nuclear waste in the desert. And like Utah, that state allows operation of a low-level waste landfill, one at the federal government's Nevada Test Site. "The fact that it [low-level disposal] is happening makes it easier for the people back East and the politicians to force the Yucca Mountain site on us," pointed out Joe Stroin of the Nevada governor's nuclear waste opposition office. "It really is a political problem." Even Leavitt concedes the point. "That's a legitimate concern," he said. "I want to get into the [Envirocare] permitting process before I weigh in on that." Blocking the high-level waste is a pet project for the governor. He signed bills last week to ban nuclear fuel in Utah, impose heavy taxes on companies that do business with high-level waste purveyors, and spend $1.1 million to mount the state's defense against them. And he knows his opponents are formidable. They include companies serving about 20 million electric customers eager to get rid of the spent waste from their neighborhoods. They include the huge contingent in Congress representing populated states served by the consortium. And they include an energy-crunch mentality that sees nuclear plants as a nonpolluting power source. Even PFS sees Envirocare's expansion request as an unavoidable political issue. Already the high-level/low-level debate has fractured the state's united front against PFS. Last month a high-profile, bipartisan group, Citizens Against Radioactive Waste in Utah, lost some of its most influential directors over the matter. When the directors board voted to expand the group's mission to opposing Envirocare's permit, nearly all of the directors affiliated with Utah's powerful Republican majority quit, including former U.S. Sen. Jake Garn and former Gov. Norm Bangerter. Jim McConkie, a Democrat who had organized the group to fight high-level waste, said it would be "hypocritical" to support Envirocare waste while opposing PFS's. © Copyright 2001, The Salt Lake Tribune All material found on ***************************************************************** 10 Laredos receive border award BY ERIC ROSENBERG Hearst Newspapers WASHINGTON - Two cities that straddle the U.S-Mexico border were honored by a key business group Wednesday for promoting cross-border commerce and cooperation. The U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce presented its first annual border achievement award to Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Hispanic Caucus, and Al Zapanta, president of the chamber, delivered the award Wednesday night during a conference on cross-border issues. Mayors Elizabeth Flores of Laredo and Horacio Garza Garza of Nuevo Laredo were on hand to receive the award - an inscribed silver tray - on behalf of their respective cities. "What we are trying to do with the award is to recognize cities, counties or states that really exemplify border cooperation. We feel that the two Laredos are the best there is," Zapanta said. Zapanta cited the cities' "long history of cooperation" on issues such as firefighting, law enforcement, international bridge policy, waterfront revitalization, flood preparation and joint city planning. Flores said she was honored by the distinction, and that the cities work as a team despite the problems of being in different nations. "I see my area and Nuevo Laredo as one region. We have to work together, yet because they are in a different country with different laws and regulations, it's very hard to work together," Flores said. "That's why we are being recognized - because we have been able to overcome those obstacles." Laredo, a city of more than 176,000 residents, is located on the north bank of the Rio Grande across from its sister city, Nuevo Laredo, which has a population of 220,000. Laredo officials call their city the "Gateway to Mexico," because it is a crossing point for about 50 percent of all trade that flows between the two nations. The U.S. city has four international bridges into Mexico, while a fifth currently is planned to accommodate the increased traffic. Bridge traffic nearly doubled between 1987 and 1995. Commerce has continued to grow since then because of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, a trade bloc linking Canada, Mexico and the United States. Three of the border crossings are between Laredo and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas at Nuevo Laredo, and one is with the Mexican State of Nuevo Leon at Colombia. ***************************************************************** 11 Waiting for compensation Denver Rocky Mountain News: Opinion Stein's View The issue: The money to pay disabled uranium miners has run out Our view: Congress promised to pay, and it should The letters come from the federal government, to disabled and dying people in need. Yes, they say to uranium miners and others connected with the industry whose work brought them disability and early death, yes, we accept your claim and you are owed compensation. But we don't have the money to pay you. "When Congress provides additional funds, we will contact you to commence the payment process," they say, concluding, "Thank you for your understanding." Talk about adding insult to injury. As *News *reporter M.E. Sprengelmeyer reported the other day, this sad tale has its roots decades ago, when the combined demands of a thriving nuclear power industry and a Cold-War nuclear weapons buildup boosted the uranium-mining industry. But as the bill in death and disease came due in time, Congress in 1990 passed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to compensate miners, participants in nuclear tests and people downwind from tests if they suffered from diseases likely to have been caused by radiation. The money can go to certain surviving family members, if the victim has died. More recently Congress added mill workers and ore transporters to the eligible list, as part of a package that raised the compensation, covered more ailments, reduced lawyers' fees and eased eligibility restrictions. What Congress didn't do was appropriate the money. As the wrangling over the 2001 budget ran up to and beyond the deadline, small programs like RECA were caught in the machinery. It received just $10.8 million. The Justice Department, which oversees the program, estimates that it would need $93 million to pay the claims that will be approved in 2001. Meanwhile, people with approved claims that can't be paid -- 275 of them -- have their letters, and nothing else. Another 1,800 applicants have claims pending. On the scale of the federal budget, $2 trillion proposed to Congress by President Bush, the $93 million RECA needs is round-off error. And it is not a new program, or an open-ended entitlement. How many people may eventually be eligible isn't known, because some may become ill who aren't now, but the number is definitely limited to those who were exposed decades ago. Nobody is going to go out now and deliberately breathe uranium-ore dust so they can get sick and collect in 30 or 40 years. In the short term, Congress should appropriate the money for this year. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., have introduced legislation asking for $84 million in emergency appropriations. Colorado Rep. Scott McInnis, 3rd District Republican, will introduce a similar measure in the House. Democratic Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado's 2nd District has expressed his support. Further, having accepted that there is a public obligation to compensate these people, Congress should make the payments an entitlement, so that people can be paid what they have been promised while they are still here on earth to make use of it. March 17, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 12 No-Nuke Activist Faces Radioactive Facts Sunday, March 18, 2001 By DANA PARSONS It's a scary phrase from what seems like a bygone era, but which suddenly is a lot more current. Nuclear waste dump site. Those of us not well-versed in nuclear-power lingo tend to recoil when hearing the words. Not in my backyard? How about not in my state? How about the dark side of the moon? With that in mind, the saving grace down through the years had always been that we tended to associate nuclear dump sites with places like New Jersey or remote, barren locales. Uh, would you believe the beaches of Southern California? The California Coastal Commission, whose objections just last week prompted a developer to scrap a San Clemente project, turned around and said yes to building a storage facility at the 34-year-old San Onofre power plant south of the city. The two projects are unrelated, but one can only chuckle at their juxtaposition in the same week. No to houses and commercial development; yes to nuclear waste. Commission members were quick to say their jurisdiction in such matters is limited but that the panel needed to sign off on the storage facility requested by Southern California Edison, which operates the plant. Edison officials said they need the facility for long-term storage of the plant's used-up uranium rods--something the federal government once promised but never delivered. San Onofre plant officials say the storage facility will be safer than the temporary cooling ponds now in use. As has always been the case with nuclear power, we laypeople have to take their word for that. That was much easier to do before Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. Those power-plant disasters helped shape a generation's aversion to nuclear power and essentially put a stop to building more nuclear facilities in the United States. That's the way it should stay, says longtime anti-nuclear activist Marion Pack of Norco. And yet, she knows that doesn't quite address the matter at hand: what to do with the radioactive fuel rods. I can hear Pack's frustration crackling over the phone line as she talks about that. "I'm not saying cooling ponds are the best place for them," she says. "There's no good place for them, and I find it unconscionable that we continue to generate more of it when we don't know what we're going to do with what we have." I'm going to assume nuclear-waste storage is not an area of expertise for Coastal Commission members. Pack knows that too, which only makes her more frustrated. The commission's action is simply a reaction to the fact that the federal government hasn't created any long-term storage facilities for nuclear waste. So Pack finds herself in an odd position. It's not that the new storage facility is horrible. After all, expended rods can't cool off in the ocean. "They have to stay somewhere," she says. "I don't want to advocate for their hasty removal, either. It's the dilemma we've created for ourselves when we decided to use nuclear fuel. There is no good way to store spent nuclear fuel rods." For those of us who thought these discussions were a thing of the past, we may have to bone up on our nuclear-power jargon because the state's electricity crisis has people talking nuclear again. Advocates convinced of its safety know they'll have to do a better job this time around selling it to the public. Pack fears the state's crisis might create a more receptive audience. "We've had a nuclear waste site on the beach ever since San Onofre went into operation, in reality," she says, a reference to the temporary cooling ponds. But to her way of thinking, when you play with nuclear, you're playing with fire. "I think people should be a little more aware," she says, "of what's sitting down at the southern border of the county." Dana Parsons' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times' Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com. Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Argonne-West completes processing of EBR-II coolant Argonne news releases SCOVILLE, Idaho (March 9, 2001) -- Scientists and technicians at the U. S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory-West site completed processing of all reactor sodium coolant located on the laboratory site, Argonne-West announced today. This work included sodium coolant from Experimental Breeder Reactor Two ( EBR-II), which was shut down in 1994, and from the Fermi reactor in Detroit, which has been stored at Argonne-West since 1984. This action achieves a milestone established by the Site Treatment Plan, an agreement between the State of Idaho and DOE regarding hazardous waste management at the site. “The Department of Energy is very proud of this significant accomplishment,” said Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham. “This helps demonstrate that DOE nuclear laboratories have the technology and expertise to place nuclear facilities that have completed their missions in a safe and environmentally responsible condition.” This sodium was treated in the Sodium Processing Facility, which was specially designed for this purpose on the Argonne-West site 35 miles west of Idaho Falls. The facility exposes sodium to moisture in a controlled environment, forming sodium hydroxide. The sodium hydroxide is pumped into 70-gallon drums to solidify into concrete-like material. When filled, each drum weighs about 1,000 pounds. Drums are being shipped to the Radioactive Waste Management Complex (RWMC) on the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) for permanent disposal. The RWMC is a licensed repository for low-level radioactive waste. The Argonne approach represents an important improvement in how radioactive sodium is treated and disposed. In some countries, the sodium is converted into a wet slurry that is dumped into the ocean or other bodies of water. “We finished seven weeks ahead of schedule and within budget,” said Paul Henslee, the Argonne project manager in charge of EBR-II plant closure activities. “Our people have done a great job.” “EBR-II served the nation well for more than 30 years,” said Argonne-West Manager John Sackett, “but it’s good to complete this work to know it has been done well and safely, and to get ready to move on to new challenges.” Molten sodium metal has been used to cool some nuclear reactors because it is such an efficient heat transfer medium. Sodium is also commonly used in several industrial applications. In its elemental form, however, its chemical reactions with air or water sometimes can be violent. The sodium coolant removed from EBR-II is also slightly radioactive from its years in the reactor. Argonne has processed this coolant into sodium hydroxide, which is chemically stable and appropriate for permanent disposal - - improving on conventional disposal. EBR-II operated successfully from 1964 until the 1994 decision to suspend advanced reactor research in the United States. Operation of EBR-II resulted in several significant scientific contributions, including demonstrations that nuclear reactors can be designed to use the natural properties of materials rather than engineered systems to prevent overheating and meltdown. During its 30 years of operation as a test reactor, EBR-II reliably produced 20 megawatts of electricity, enough to power a city of 10,000 people -- a town about the size of Blackfoot, Idaho. Argonne National Laboratoryand the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratoryare the lead laboratories for DOE’s nuclear reactor research program. As DOE lead laboratories, Argonne and INEEL are currently building on the experience and heritage of EBR-II, its predecessor EBR-I, which produced the first usable electricity from nuclear power, and several other significant nuclear reactor achievements to develop the framework for the next generation of nuclear power plants - the Generation IV nuclear power systems. America’s first national laboratory, Argonne, is operated by theUniversity of Chicago as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratory system. The EBR-II deactivation project is managed by the department’s Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. For more information, please contact Paul Pugmire (208/533-7331 or paul.pugmire@anlw.anl.gov) at Argonne. ***************************************************************** 2 US wanted India to detonate N-bomb in 1964: Dixit 18 March 2001 : The Times of India The Times of India News Service MUMBAI: Former foreign secretary J.N. Dixit has disclosed that the US wanted India to detonate a nuclear bomb prior to the Chinese N-test in 1964. Delivering a lecture on `India in World Affairs - Nehru Revisited', organised by the Nehru Centre here on Saturday, Dixit said that the suggestion was made by former US secretary of state Dean Rusk to former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Rusk reportedly told Nehru, "We will be supportive of your action." ``But, Mr Nehru opposed the spread of N-weapons and rejected the American proposal,'' he said. However, years later he gave the go-ahead for the reprocessing of plutonium which led to the development of N-weapons. According to Mr Dixit, China will exercise greater caution in dealing with India since this country had N-weapons and was in possession of intermediate range ballistic missiles. ``We must attain higher capability both in terms of troops deployment and our reach, keeping in view our security interests,'' he said. Mr Dixit, who was the foreign secretary between December 1991 and January 1994, recalled that former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao had planned to test N-weapons on two occasions during his tenure. ``But, the decision was deferred because the nuclear scientists wanted to develop a hydrogen bomb,'' he said. Referring to Mr Nehru's foreign policy, he said he aimed for good relations with Pakistan despite all the antagonism. But Pakistan's defence ties with the U.S., along with Pakistan's military collaboration with China, came as a hurdle to Nehru's plans of having good relationship with Pakistan. ``The signing of the Indus Water Treaty was the only foreign policy achievement of Mr Nehru with regards to Pakistan,'' he stated. According to him the strategic environment turned critical because of the Pak-Chinese defence link. He said he did not foresee any normal relations with Pakistan until they (Pakistan) were ``exhausted''. According to him, goodwill missions and lighting of candles on the Indo-Pak border have proved ineffective. ``The candles which we light are blown off by them,'' he said. Touching upon general issues relating to Mr Nehru's foreign policy, he described him as its architect. Mr Nehru believed that global peace could not be achieved through confrontation. ``The aim of India's foreign policy was to democratise international relations with a focus on public opinion,'' he stated. ``Mr Nehru believed that India had an operational role to eradicate imperialism and it had to support liberation struggles.'' Mr Nehru pulled India away from Cold War politics which eventually led to the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement. He said Mr Nehru was the first to recognise China under the leadership of Mao Tse Tung and backed China's entry to the U.N. ``However, the Indo-Chinese border dispute disappointed Mr Nehru,'' he added. ***************************************************************** 3 Review finds laser project advancing within budget Lab's nuclear weapons research program on track for 2008 *March 17, 2001* By Glenn Roberts Jr. STAFF WRITER LIVERMORE -- A massive laser project at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is keeping pace with an expected $1 billion cost overrun, a federally mandated progress report has concluded. Livermore Lab officials said Friday the review in February found the National Ignition Facility laser project "has made significant progress in all areas reviewed and is meeting its planned milestones within budget." The "Defense Programs Status Review of NIF" was organized by the Energy Department as a six-month follow-up to an August review. NIF is a nuclear weapons research tool that is expected to blast tiny radioactive fuel targets with 192 ultra-violet laser beams to produce nuclear weapons explosions and effects to scale. Technical and management problems derailed the project from its original cost and schedule -- NIF is an estimated $1 billion over budget and six years behind schedule, with completion expected in 2008. Federal officials estimate that the project's total cost is between $3.5 billion to $4 billion. Susan Houghton, a Livermore Lab spokeswoman, said, "We feel that the (review) session went very well ... and we believe that NIF is going forward as planned." John Belluardo, a spokesman for the Energy Department regional office in Oakland, said the review team's report is in draft form and is not yet available to the public. "It will be submitted (to Congress) in the beginning of April," he said. Congress ordered the follow-up review in order to determine whether the project is meeting its new cost and schedule goals. Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental organization, and Livermore-based Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, a nuclear watchdog group, filed a lawsuit alleging that the August review violated federal openness laws. Energy Department and lab officials say the August review was an external review, though the lawsuit argues that most of the review team's members were employed by the department and its labs, and all of the team's proceedings were closed to the public. Members of the February review team studied a dollar-tracking system that has been implemented on NIF and commented on lab projections for the operating costs of NIF, the Friday lab announcement stated. "Reviewers agreed that the operations cost model was reasonable and recommended continued updating as cost estimates mature." Also on Friday, Livermore Lab officials announced that Brig. Gen. Thomas F Gioconda, acting deputy administrator for Defense Programs, authorized a transfer of $15 million from the 2007 and 2008 NIF budget years to the 2003 budget year. *****************************************************************