***************************************************************** 12/18/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.298 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 RUSSIA MOVES TO REVIVE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY 2 US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines 3 Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland 4 New Suit Filed Against U.S. About Nuclear Waste Dump 5 US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines 6 Arrival of nuclear waste from Bulgaria raises protests in 7 Russia to raise investment in nuclear energy sector 8 Russia set to build floating nuclear power stations 9 Russia on target to raise nuclear energy output this year 10 Bulgarian nuclear plant chief warns against early decommissioning 11 Norway joins Irish effort to shut down Sellafield 12 Kazakh national nuclear company increases uranium production 13 Russian security service finds security breach at nuclear power 14 Crisis looming in nuclear medicine 15 Russia to build four nuclear generating sets within next eight 16 Students asked not to ignore nuclear science 17 Delivery of iodine pills by next spring, says minister 18 Last-ditch bid to stop MOX nuclear plant from opening 19 Bulgaria N-plant gets ready to close old reactors 20 FG slams Taoiseach's failure on Sellafield 21 New plea to halt Sellafield 22 N. Korea Techs Study S. Korea Reactors 23 Urgent Need to MOve Forward With Nuclear Waste Disposal 24 Urenco Responds To Dept. of Commerce Determinations on LEU 25 Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste 26 South Korea Releases Nukes Report 27 German renewable energy groups slam econ min report 28 Nevada sues Energy Department 29 LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Nevada sues Energy Department 30 German Nuclear Phase Out Law Approved 31 More concerns raised over Yucca ground water 32 Audit Chamber says Russia facing nuclear-waste crisis - 33 Crisis looming in nuclear medicine 34 EU leaders commit to nuclear power monitoring 35 Nuclear Waste-Heat to Warm Finnish Vineyard 36 Georgia citizens win right to challenge reactor fuel factory - 37 Norway gives Ireland strong support 38 South Korea Releases Nukes Report 39 Nevada files challenge to revised Yucca Mountain Guidelines 40 Nuclear fears to be forum topic 41 Berkley Applauds Nevada's Yucca Mountain Lawsuit 42 Department of Energy Denies Nevada's Request To Stay Yucca Mountain Site 43 Ireland: Jacob seeks facts on Sellafield shutdown 44 Upgrades complete, TMI back in service 45 Nuclear protest fuels safety review 46 Westinghouse Expands Nuclear Services Capability in France; 47 Leaf going nuclear in GBP2.5m contract NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks 2 Defence demands full acquittal 3 Verdict falls on December 25 4 Russian TV visits once-secret nuclear facility Mayak in the Urals 5 US experts arrive at Russian nuclear facility 6 Russian Duma Defence Committee head concerned about Chinese 7 20 N Korean officials arrive in South - 8 Flats is vulnerable, watchdog group says 9 Two Legs Good, Four Legs Better? 10 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks 11 Rocky Flats refuge bill praised 12 Formal Talks on Nuclear Cuts to Begin Next Month 13 Implanted Depleted Uranium Fragments Cause Soft Tissue Sarcomas 14 Iran 'working on nuclear arms' 15 Phony issue - Recycling ban won't stand scrutiny 16 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks 17 Early Argonne Reactor Lit the Way for Worldwide Nuclear Industry ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 RUSSIA MOVES TO REVIVE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 01:23:42 -0500 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal MOTHERSALERT HOME PAGE: HTTP://WWW.MOTHERSALERT.ORG HTTP://WWW.MOTHERSALERT.ORG/MOREINFO.HTML 1. Russia Moves To Revive Their Nuke Industry 2. N-Korean Technicians Study S-Korean Reactors 3. NPPs Poorly Prepared For Terrorist Attacks Watchdog Group Says http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-R ussia-Nuclear.html December 17, 2001 Russia to Build Nuclear Reactors By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 1:58 p.m. ET MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia will build at least four nuclear reactors at home and others in China, Iran, India and ex-Soviet republics as part of an ambitious plan to revive the atomic industry after the Chernobyl disaster, the nation's top nuclear power official said Monday. ``Russia's nuclear power industry is now coming through what can be called the post-Chernobyl renaissance,'' Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said at a news conference. A reactor at the Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, at that time a part of the Soviet Union, exploded in 1986, contaminating a huge area and sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe. The world's worst nuclear accident is believed to have killed some 8,000 people in the explosion and aftermath. The catastrophe long stalled plans to build new nuclear reactors. But nuclear fears have gradually faded, and blackouts and electricity shortages in the post-Soviet turmoil have raised interest in building new power plants. In March, Russia launched its first nuclear reactor since the Chernobyl catastrophe, at the southern Rostov plant. Rostov's 1,000-megawatt reactor is of the VVER-1000 type using pressurized water to cool its fuel rods instead of the less-stable graphite used in RBMK reactors such as the one that exploded at Chernobyl. International industry trade groups and environmental watchdogs acknowledge the VVER-1000 model is the safest of Russia's reactors, but they say it is less reliable than modern Western counterparts. Next year, Russia will launch another nuclear reactor near the western city of Kursk, this one of the modernized RBMK type, Rumyantsev said. In 2003, Russia will put into service another VVER-type reactor at the Kalinin plant, and will launch a second reactor of that type in Rostov in 2005. In 2009 a new fast-neutron reactor will be launched at the northern Beloyarsk plant, Rumyantsev said. The nuclear ministry is considering plans to complete another two nuclear reactors in Ukraine, unfinished since Soviet times, and another one in the ex-Soviet republic of Kazakstan, Rumyantsev said. The ministry has also signed contracts to build nuclear power plants in China, India and Iran. The United States has long pushed Moscow to abandon its $800 million deal with Tehran, voicing concern that Iran could use the technology to develop nuclear weapons. Moscow has dismissed the U.S. warnings, saying that the reactor at Bushehr can be used only for civilian purposes and will be under international control. Rumyantsev said the Bushehr reactor would be finished by 2005 and reaffirmed that the project posed no risks for nuclear weapons proliferation. ``It fully corresponds to all requirements of the international law and Russia's international obligations,'' he said. On other issues, Rumyantsev said: -- Russia remains unable to reach an agreement with the European Union nations willing to provide aid for dismantling Russia's decommissioned nuclear submarines. Russia can't accept the EU's demand that Russia accept full legal responsibility for all nuclear risks, offer more breaks and give Western officials unlimited access to all dismantling sites; -- Despite much-publicized plans to accept spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing and storage, Russia has so far failed to wedge itself into the market dominated by Britain and France. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-K oreas-Nuclear-Plant.html December 17, 2001 N. Korea Techs Study S. Korea Reactors By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 7:11 a.m. ET SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Twenty North Korean nuclear experts began a two-week tour of South Korean nuclear power plants on Monday -- a visit that comes while Pyongyang has stepped up its anti-U.S., anti-South Korean rhetoric. The visit is part of a U.S. agreement to build nuclear power plants and train workers in the North. But it coincides with North Korean statements attacking the United States for demanding inspections of its suspected nuclear program, among other issues. Officials said the North Koreans, led by Kim Hui-moon, a Cabinet-level official, flew to Seoul from Beijing on Sunday and were taken by car on Monday to the east coast village of Ulchin, where four French-built nuclear reactors are operating. They were the first North Koreans to visit South Korea since official dialogue between the two Koreas was halted in mid-November amid a breakdown in Cabinet-level talks. ``They are here for education and training,'' said Lim Ui-do, a South Korean official assigned to the U.S.-led international consortium that is building two modern nuclear power plants in North Korea. The two Western-designed reactors are a reward for the communist regime's freeze of its suspected nuclear weapons program under a 1994 accord with the United States. As part of the accord, the American-led Korean Peninsula Energy Development Program is required to train hundreds of North Koreans who will operate the two reactors. Consortium officials say that the completion of the two reactors in North Korea, originally set for 2003, will have to be delayed for several years because of funding and other problems. The 20 North Koreans were the first to be sent to South Korea for training. By the end of next year, 290 more North Koreans are scheduled to be trained at South Korean facilities, officials said. When finished, the U.S.-designed light-water reactors will replace the North's Soviet-designed, graphite-moderated reactors, which experts say produce greater amounts of weapons-grade plutonium. The Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945. Today, they share the world's most heavily armed border. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The war ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, and the North and South are still technically at war. On Sunday, North Korea said it was not afraid to go to war with the United States, accusing Washington of trying to make it the next target after Afghanistan in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2002/jf02/jf02hi rsch.html http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/17/national/17SECU. html December 17, 2001 DOMESTIC SECURITY Nuclear Sites Ill-Prepared for Attacks, Group Says By MATTHEW L. WALD The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Thomas Friedman on Terrorism presents six of Mr. Friedman's Op-Ed columns on the threat of terrorism facing the U.S. prior to the attacks of Sept. 11. Read now for just $4.95. ASHINGTON, Dec. 16 - The security drills created by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ensure that reactor security guards can repel terrorists involve mock attacks by only three intruders, assisted by one confederate inside the plant, according to a nuclear safety group. Even against such limited challenges, crews at nearly half the reactors have scored poorly on the drills, according to documents assembled by the group, the Committee to Bridge the Gap, based in California. In an article in the January issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (http://www.thebulletin.org), Daniel Hirsch, the president of Bridge the Gap, contends that the drills are unrealistic, especially in light of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, which involved 19 hijackers operating in four well-coordinated teams. "The N.R.C. and the industry seem to be stuck in a time warp of a quarter of a century ago, and are simply hoping that the problem goes away," Mr. Hirsch said. He called for upgrading the level of assumed threat that is the basis for designing protections of nuclear power plants. Federal regulations call for plants to be prepared to deal with "a determined violent external assault, attack by stealth or deceptive actions of several persons." The attackers are to be assumed to have light weapons, a four-wheel-drive vehicle and help from a knowledgeable accomplice in the plant. But the regulations do not call for protections against attackers with aircraft or boats, even though many plants are on lakes, rivers or seashores or are in zones where flying is not tightly restricted. The regulations require a minimum of five guards on duty at plants - enough to outnumber the attackers, by their calculations. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's documents call this a matter of "conservatism," and the agency has said that the threat of a larger attack is "not credible." Commission officials have said that the meaning of "several" attackers in their regulations is secret, but a 1976 policy paper identifies it as three. The number was made public in a 1982 decision about licensing the Pacific Gas and Electric Company's Diablo Canyon reactors. At the regulatory commission, William M. Beecher, the director of public affairs, said he could not confirm that the number was three. "We cannot discuss safeguards information," Mr. Beecher said. "Regardless of what's in the public record, I can't break security." In 1977, the regulatory commission found that "on the basis of intelligence and other relevant information available to the N.R.C., there are no known groups in this country having the combination of motivation, skill and resources to attack either a fuel facility or a nuclear power reactor." At the time, the agency said it would review the issue in the future. Mr. Hirsch said the current regulations were obsolete long before Sept. 11. He cited an attack planned by the radical environmental group Earth First in 1986 against the three- reactor Palo Verde nuclear complex, in Arizona. The group tried to cut power lines leading to the plant. Had it succeeded, instruments controlling the reactors could have lost power. Mr. Hirsch's group has tried repeatedly to get the commission to toughen its security standards. The agency did tighten its rule setting safeguards against truck bombs in 1993. That was a reaction to the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center's parking garage and an incident in which a former mental patient sped past the guard shack at the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania and crashed his station wagon into the plant. Mr. Hirsch said the commission had taken its action extremely late, ignoring a previous series of huge truck bomb attacks abroad. But Mr. Beecher said that the commission was conducting a "top to bottom review" of security and that many states had called out state troopers or the National Guard to help secure the reactors. ***************************************************************** 2 US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 06:03:08 -0600 (CST) US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines USA: December 18, 2001 WASHINGTON - The U.S. Energy Department said last week it had denied a request from Nevada state officials to delay adoption of site suitability guidelines for study of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste depository. Yucca Mountain - located in the Nevada desert - is being investigated by the U.S government as a possible dumping ground for tons or radioactive waste. The revised guidelines took effect last week. Governor Kenny Guinn and state Attorney General Sue Del Papa asked for a stay pending the outcome of a lawsuit the state intended to file. Nevada says the guidelines were changed improperly. In a letter to Guinn and Del Papa, the Energy Department said it had dealt with Nevada's concerns earlier. It said the guidelines were revised "because both the science and the law relevant to the project have developed significantly" since the guidelines were first proposed in 1984. Under the revised guidelines, the Energy Department said it would evaluate the performance of all aspects of the repository, both engineered and natural, an approach it said was suggested by a National Academy of Sciences study. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE ***************************************************************** 3 Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 11:16:32 -0600 (CST) Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit source - "Dawn" The irish Times - 18 November 2001 Brit Nuke Plant Fought in Ireland by Jim Dee GREENORE, Ireland - People might think 3-year-old Lauren Mullen lives in paradise with the rustic Cooley Mountains a stone's throw away and the majestic Mourne Mountains stretching above the far shore of pristine Carlingford Lough. But one thing is missing: her father, Alan. He died of cancer two years ago, and now the controversial British nuclear power plant that Alan's wife and many others believe caused his death is expanding - a move that has infuriated Ireland. ``Lauren had just turned a year old when he died. So she has no memories of him at all,'' said Anne Mullen. ``His wee children were left with just a picture on the wall.'' Alan Mullen died on his 42nd birthday after spending the last months of his life doggedly campaigning against Sellafield in the local media. ``My eldest boy is still brokenhearted,'' said Anne. ``He keeps saying, `Why my daddy?' What Patrick doesn't realize is that there are loads of other children in Louth without their daddies as well through cancer.'' Thirteen people die each month of cancer among County Louth's 90,000 inhabitants, a high rate anti-Sellafield campaigners attribute to the plant's ongoing, low-level waste emissions. ``Sellafield is like a hidden airborne killer,'' Anne said. In 1957, a year after British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. opened Sellafield under the name ``Windscale,'' the Cumbria-based plant had its first accident, spewing a radioactive cloud over a swath of northern England - and, many here believe, Ireland, too. The mid-1980s name change to ``Sellafield'' was a futile attempt to escape the stigma of the accident. Just last month, BNFL's Sellafield safety record was slammed in a European parliament report, the latest of many condemnations over the years. So, after Britain's announcement last month that Sellafield would open a new plant for reprocessing used plutonium and uranium from as far away as Japan, Ireland went ballistic, especially upon hearing more radioactive waste will be discharged into the Irish Sea. ``It is not acceptable that the Irish Sea is used as a kitchen sink by the nuclear industry,'' fumed Prime Minister Bertie Ahern. ``We demand that Sellafield is shut.'' When Britain yawned at Ahern's fury, his government took Britain to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in an attempt prevent the plant meeting its anticipated Dec. 20 start-up date. Arguments will be heard this month. In Drogheda, Irish Sen. Fergus O'Dowd of the Fine Gael party said he recently walked to the Sellafield complex unchallenged from a nearby beach, demonstrating how insecure the site is. ``The fear of nuclear terrorism now is so real that I think the risks are too high,'' he insisted. ``The Irish people want the place closed.'' O'Dowd cited an October article in New Scientist magazine stating that a terrorist attack on Sellafield would release radioactivity 44 times higher than 1986's Chernobyl nuclear accident. ``If an airplane goes into it - by accident or design - you'd have a very significant release of radioactive material around Sellafield, and if the wind was blowing the right way, the east coast of Ireland as well,'' he said. ``We're only 100 miles away.'' In Dundalk, County Louth Sinn Fein councilor Arthur Morgan, a friend of Alan Mullen's, said Louth's cancer rate is 13 percent above the national average. ``And everybody in County Louth attributes this to Sellafield,'' he said. Morgan said shortly after the 1957 Windscale accident, Ireland tried to build a nuclear plant in County Wexford, but the idea was nixed due to public protests. No nuke plants have ever been built in Ireland. ``That's one of the ironies: The Irish people have rejected nuclear power. And yet we are forced to endure a continuous leak into the sea and air of radioactive nuclear material from Sellafield,'' he said. ``It seems this country is still being treated as insignificant by the British government,'' he added. ``The health of our people isn't a worry for the British government. I find that very disturbing.'' ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytire-12.17.01-22:39:29-26401 ***************************************************************** 4 New Suit Filed Against U.S. About Nuclear Waste Dump December 18, 2001 By MATTHEW L. WALD WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 — The State of Nevada filed suit today in its continuing effort to prevent the federal government from establishing a nuclear waste burial site at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles from Las Vegas. The suit argues that under a new rule the Energy Department plans to disregard the site's geology and make its decision based on the metal canisters that would hold the waste. In evaluating the Yucca Mountain site, the department has found that water, which could spread the radioactive materials, moves faster through the mountain than previously believed. But the department also says it has gained confidence in the ability of "engineered features" like containers to hold the waste, as opposed to natural geology. In the suit filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Nevada, which has fought against the choice of Yucca Mountain since Congress named it the primary site in 1987, argued that federal law required the choice be based on its geology. Once the focus shifts to man-made packaging to isolate the waste, the suit contends, the suit contended, the Energy Department could approve permanent storage "at virtually any physical site in the United States." A lawyer for the state, Joseph R. Egan, suggested the basement of the Energy Department headquarters in Washington as a potential site. "Congress wanted the assurance of geologic isolation for the simple reason that we're fallible as human beings," Mr. Egan said. "We can't have any assurance that what we design is going to be perfect." In tests carried out by Nevada on the alloy that the Energy Department plans to use for waste canisters, he said, some combinations of water and heat created corrosion through the metal in less than a year. In a letter to Nevada officials, the Energy Department said that a National Academy of Sciences study called for evaluating the natural features of Yucca Mountain and the "engineered," or man-made parts, together as a system and that the 1992 Energy Policy Act directed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to focus on the whole system. Under a complicated scheme, the E.P.A. has issued standards that a repository would have to meet. The Energy Department is supposed to apply for a license to open the site from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the agency that regulates reactors; the regulatory commission is supposed to use the E.P.A. rules to make the decision on a license. The new Energy Department rule was published in the Federal Register on Nov. 14 and took effect a month later. The energy secretary, Spencer Abraham, could recommend Yucca Mountain's use to President Bush in the next few months, in which case the showdown would move to Congress. The suit, though, provides another avenue for Nevada to try to block the dump. Nevada is already suing over an environmental agency rule that to win a license, the repository must be capable of retaining the wastes for 10,000 years. The Energy Department believes that peak releases would come after that period; Nevada wants the period extended to 100,000 years or more. The department was supposed to start accepting waste from 125 nuclear plants in January 1998, but Yucca Mountain will not be ready for at least a decade. The project has suffered two recent setbacks. This month, the General Accounting Office, the auditing arm of Congress, said the Energy Department was not ready to make a decision, because many technical studies were unfinished. Secretary Abraham disagreed, saying the report had been "assembled to support a predetermined conclusion." And the law firm helping to prepare an application for the dump's license, Winston & Strawn, withdrew because of a conflict of interest. The firm had been simulatenously lobbying for the nuclear industry. But Joseph Davis, a spokesman for the department, said the firm's withdrawal would not cause any delay, because the license application was still in the future. If the Energy Department recommends the site to Mr. Bush, Congress could step in to block it. A majority picked Yucca Mountain in 1987 as the prime site for investigation, but Nevada's senior senator, Harry Reid, is now the deputy majority leader and might be able to block the choice. Pressure is building from the utilities for the Energy Department to make good on its contract to take the wastes. The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have focused interest on the safety of the old fuel stored at reactors, which is highly radioactive and outside the containment buildings. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information ***************************************************************** 5 US won't delay Nevada waste site guidelines WASHINGTON - The U.S. Energy Department said last week it had denied a request from Nevada state officials to delay adoption of site suitability guidelines for study of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste depository. Yucca Mountain - located in the Nevada desert - is being investigated by the U.S government as a possible dumping ground for tons or radioactive waste. The revised guidelines took effect last week. Governor Kenny Guinn and state Attorney General Sue Del Papa asked for a stay pending the outcome of a lawsuit the state intended to file. Nevada says the guidelines were changed improperly. In a letter to Guinn and Del Papa, the Energy Department said it had dealt with Nevada's concerns earlier. It said the guidelines were revised "because both the science and the law relevant to the project have developed significantly" since the guidelines were first proposed in 1984. Under the revised guidelines, the Energy Department said it would evaluate the performance of all aspects of the repository, both engineered and natural, an approach it said was suggested by a National Academy of Sciences study. Story Date: 18/12/2001 © Reuters News Service 2001 ***************************************************************** 6 Arrival of nuclear waste from Bulgaria raises protests in Russian Siberia BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 18, 2001 [Presenter Anna Fedotova] Russia has signed no contracts for the recycling of used nuclear waste from foreign nuclear power plants Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev said today [17 December]. According to him the stiff competition on the nuclear fuel recycling market will make this process very long and painstaking. At the moment, the waste is brought to Russia under the contracts signed by the former Soviet Union. All the transport operations are carried out secretly, and no reports about routes and timing are released, he said. Protest actions were held in many cities, but they gave no results. Now signatures under the demand to hold a local referendum are being collected in Krasnoyarsk [Siberia]. [Correspondent] While the law on the recycling of the used nuclear fuel in Russia was debated in Moscow, the first shipment of such fuel arrived in Krasnoyarsk. This has raised a ground swell of emotions in Krasnoyarsk Territory. The Krasnoyarsk branch of the Union of the Right Forces has begun collecting signatures under the demand to hold a local referendum against the recycling of the used nuclear fuel. The signatures will be collected until 20 December. The referendum may take place in the spring [2002] after all the preparations are completed. [Passage omitted: Krasnoyarsk residents comment on the issue.] In the meantime, 40 t of used nuclear fuel have been unloaded at the chemical plant in the town of Zheleznogorsk. You can see how the railway carriage is being opened and a container with the fuel is being taken out. This is the first shipment arriving to the plant from abroad. Specialists say that they have been getting ready for this for 11 years. [Viktor Bespalov, captioned as deputy chief of the shop for the transportation and storing of nuclear wastes] The Bulgarian fuel is absolutely identical to the Russian one because their nuclear power plant was built by specialists from the former Soviet Union. According to various international contracts, we supply fuel to them and take away their used fuel. [Correspondent] In theory, the used nuclear fuel is a good raw material for extracting uranium. However, the chemical plant is not able to process it at the moment. The construction of the fuel regenerating plant, which had begun before the Perestroika, was frozen seven years ago. So the fuel will simply be stockpiled in Zheleznogorsk. Under the agreement, Krasnoyarsk Territory will keep 25 per cent of the sum paid for the storing of the fuel, and Zheleznogorsk will receive 25 per cent of those 25 per cent. [Vasiliy Zhydkov, captioned as general director of the plant] This money will go to social and environmental projects in the zone affected by the defence activities of the chemical plant [as received]. Of course, the town of Zheleznogorsk, the Yenisey river's area and the plant's territory are mostly affected. [Correspondent] The Territory's authorities realize that the storing and recycling of the used nuclear fuel could become a good business. However, the administration shares the environmental concern of the residents. [Krasnoyarsk Region governor Aleksandr Lebed] If a referendum is held, and I want to emphasize it, the decision is adopted according to law, then we have the Constitution which says that the people are the supreme authority in our country. We shall say 'yes sir' and implement the will of the people. [Passage omitted: on plans to hold more referendums in Chelyabinsk and Tomsk Regions.] [Video shows: the activists collecting signatures, Krasnoyarsk residents, footage of the plant in Zheleznogorsk] Source: Ren TV, Moscow, in Russian 1600 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 7 Russia to raise investment in nuclear energy sector BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Moscow, 17 December: The investment policy for the nuclear energy sector envisions [provides for] an increase in the production of electricity by nuclear power plants from 138bn to 160bn kilowatt-hours in 2004, sources in the Russian Ministry for Atomic Energy told Interfax. The cabinet will discuss this investment programme on Tuesday [18 December]. Ministry experts view an increase in the share of nuclear power plants in Russia's fuel balance as among the priority targets of the investment programme. By 2010, the annual production of energy by nuclear plants will equal the level produced by burning 67bn cubic metres of gas. Nuclear power plants currently generate up to 15 per cent of the country's electricity... The investment programme envisions [provides for] the implementation of 123 large investment projects by 2010. In 2002, investment projects are to be implemented at 90 atomic energy sites. Among the targets of the investment programme, according to ministry experts, is enhancing the safety standards of the operating nuclear plants, and the construction of new power units. A total of R33.71bn is to be put into the atomic energy sector in 2002. The main share of the resources is to be made available from extrabudgetary sources. One of the ministry's first plans is to complete the construction and launch of four power generating units at the Kalinin, Kursk, Rostov and Balakovo nuclear power plants. The programme also envisions [provides for] drawing up technical documents for the construction of new power generating units and nuclear power plants. The ministry's investment programme envisions [provides for] spending on the decommissioning of ten power generating units at the Novovoronezhskaya, Beloyarsk, Bilibino and Kursk nuclear power plants. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1534 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 8 Russia set to build floating nuclear power stations BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Moscow, 17 December: Russia's first floating nuclear power station will be built in Severodvinsk, Archangel Region, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev told a news conference today. However, he did not disclose the deadline for the implementation of the project. According to the minister, the nuclear power station in Severodvinsk will be a pilot project to be followed by the construction of other such stations. "We will be able to tow them along the Northern Sea Route to other regions," he said. The minister said the construction of floating nuclear power stations "is a programme that is quite justified from the economic point of view" because one such unit may cost about R3bn. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1500 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 9 Russia on target to raise nuclear energy output this year BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 17 December: Nuclear power plants run by Russia's Rosenergoatom agency plan to bring their total electricity output to 130bn kilowatt-hours shortly and thereby reach last year's level, a senior Rosenergoatom official has said. "Russian nuclear plants have again confirmed their reliability in the generation of electricity. At the same time, (Rosenergoatom) expects to implement its plans for an annual electricity output of 137bn kilowatt-hours of electricity before the end of the year," Rosenergoatom spokesman Andrey Polous told Interfax. Russia's 10 nuclear power plants comprise 30 generating units. Last year, they increased their output 9 per cent. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1351 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 10 Bulgarian nuclear plant chief warns against early decommissioning of reactors BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report in English by Bulgarian news agency BTA web site Vratsa, 17 December: The early decommissioning of the 440-MW Units 1 and 2 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant in the winter of 2002 would be ill-timed and dangerous, Executive Director Yordan Kostadinov told journalists. The management has prepared a request to the regulatory body, the Committee on the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes, to initiate an international meeting with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the European Commission. The decommissioning of the two nuclear reactors in the winter may cause major technological problems and impede electricity production. It will not make much difference to anyone if decommissioning is put off for a few months, provided that safe operation is guaranteed, Kostadinov said... Bulgaria and the European Commission agreed in November 1999 on the decommissioning of Units 1 and 2 by 2003. Source: BTA web site, Sofia, in English 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 11 Norway joins Irish effort to shut down Sellafield online.ie : News The Irish Examiner 18 Dec 2001 By Fionnán Sheahan IRELAND and Norway will share legal information on Sellafield in their separate efforts to shut down the nuclear reprocessing facility. The Norwegian government is considering taking legal action to stop radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea. Norway's Environment Minister Borge Brenda said in Dublin yesterday he believes discharges from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant are responsible for an increase in radioactivity off Norway's west coast. Following a meeting with Nuclear Safety Minister Joe Jacob, Minister Brenda pledged Norway's support to Ireland's campaign to stop operations at Sellafield. Irish authorities were not officially told of the recent shutdown of certain reactors at Sellafield, Minister Jacob said, adding the lack of trust among Irish people was increasing. Norway fears increased radioactivity will in turn affect their key commodity of fish stocks. Radioactivity in fish stocks was within safe levels, Minister Brenda said, but warned action must be taken now before the situation became more serious. He cited the example of lobsters, which are registering increased levels of radioactivity. Welcoming the Norwegian involvement in the campaign, Minister Jacob said the government would share background knowledge, analysis and strategies adopted in legal challenges to date. He said: "As marine nations we share a common sense of responsibility towards our seas. Consumers are increasingly and justifiably demanding uncontaminated food from uncontaminated sources. "Radioactive pollution of the seas caused by complexes such as Sellafield is the last thing fishing nations such as Ireland and Norway can tolerate," Mr Jacobs added. Nordic countries have always been supportive of Ireland's stance and opposition to Sellafield, Minister Jacob said. In the past two years, the issue has also been discussed with government ministers from Iceland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. "Akin with Norway's position, the Danish position broadly mirrors our own," Minister Jacob said. Following the meeting, Minister Brenda travelled to London to meet with British Environment Minister Margaret Beckett and was also visiting the Sellafield plant. The controversial MOX unit at Sellafield is still scheduled to be commissioned on Thursday and yesterday the Irish government sent its latest submission on Sellafield to the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea in Hamburg. ***************************************************************** 12 Kazakh national nuclear company increases uranium production BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 The Kazakh national nuclear company, Kazatomprom, is on course to increase its annual extraction of uranium by 15 per cent this year, company president Askar Kasabekov has said in an interview with the Kazakh newspaper, Panorama. The company's share of world uranium production is currently 5 per cent, which is due to reach 7 per cent in 2005. Three new uranium mines, Karamurun South, Moinkum South and Akdala, were opened this year. Kazatomprom has developed new uranium fuel pellets with erbium oxide absorber, thus securing additional orders from Russia, and is now looking for customers in the West. Increased production, combined with ever lower costs, means the company was making a profit even when uranium prices slumped in December 2000, Kasabekov said. In 2000, Kazatomprom's exports totalled nearly 17.5bn tenge, of which the CIS states accounted for 3,754m and the rest of the world, for 13,711m tenge. The company paid 2.4bn tenge to the treasury in tax and other payments, 60 per cent more than in 1999. By 2005, the figure will have reached 3.7bn. Kazatomprom's subsidiary, the UMZ public company, is now increasing beryllium production after signing contracts with US company Brush Wellman and Japan's Marubeni. The company now has orders up to 2010 and is building a new production line to increase its capacity. "By the end of 2003, Kazakhstan will be producing more beryllium than the USSR did at the best of times, with all production geared to the consumer market and destined for export," Kasabekov said. UMZ is also trying to increase tantalum production, for which is has many potential orders. To this end, it is developing the Verkhne-Irgizskoye deposit in Kazakhstan and also exploring the possibility of setting up joint ventures in Russia and Africa. At the moment Kazatomprom exports all its output but it may turn to domestic markets, both with some of its products and with its know-how. Kasabekov said in the interview that Kazatomprom was conscious of environmental issues. It is currently involved in a major project to prevent pollution of the waters of the Irtysh basin with toxic and radioactive metals. Starting from next year, the company will need to raise 15-20m dollars in "soft ecological loans" for this purpose. It also intends to invite "a respected international organization" to carry out an ecological audit of its operations, Kasabekov said. Source: Panorama, Almaty, in Russian 14 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 13 Russian security service finds security breach at nuclear power plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 After Russian security service discovered serious security breach in one of the nuclear power plants, Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev saved his job by complaining about shortage of money in the sector, Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported on 14 December. The paper pointed out that, at the same time, the ministry has spent 160m dollars on a luxury ski resort in an area with restricted access and entered into a contract through an offshore intermediary to process spent nuclear fuel from Bulgaria at prices below commercial. The following is the text of report by Russian newspaper on 14 December, subheadings are as published: The Ministry of Atomic Energy in the middle of a scandal Here is information to ponder: roughly a month and a half ago, the FSS [Federal Security Service] conducted exercises where among many other things, a security inspection was conducted at Russia's strategic installations. According to some information, in one of the NPPs [nuclear power plants] in the Central Federal District, the Chekists managed to get to the holy of holies, the reactor room, without any special problems. A fierce scandal broke out! On 10 November, the head of the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy Aleksandr Rumyantsev was called on the carpet by the president. In principle many of those who by nature of their activity were aware of the sensational FSS operation were certain that Rumyantsev would in fact leave the Kremlin as a former minister. But in the president's office, events started to unfold in a surprising way. According to the Nezavisimaya Gazeta version, the events in Putin's office developed like this. Rumyantsev could certainly have lost his job that day. What saved him was that he had been appointed a minister just six months before. Having received his portion of harsh recriminations and given his oath, together with the FSS, to increase the security of Russian NPPs, Aleksandr Rumyantsev complained of a shortage of money in the sector. The plants, he said, which provide about 15 per cent of all the electricity in the country are state unitary enterprises and consequently do not have the right to engage in commercial activity on their own. So if the NPPs could just be privatized at least in part... [newspaper's ellipses] In the 2002 budget, R9bn have been allocated for atomic programmes. In principle the sum is small by state standards - 30m dollars. It is something else that is strange here - one of the country's richest departments which by definition is required not to take from the treasury but to benefit it is asking for money. For its entire life, the Ministry of Atomic Energy has been considered an extremely well-off institution which is clearly not on the government dole. And until recently that was confirmed. Among its property is not only, for example, Konversbank, to which Rumyantsev is now prepared to throw out enormous amounts of money, but as certain mass media write, the luxurious downhill ski resort of Zavyalikha, which sprawls impressively in Chelyabinsk Oblast. A first-class place! There are eight nice trails 2-3 kilometres long, contemporary and very expensive lifts, and night lighting... [newspaper's ellipses] According to our newspaper's information, 160m dollars was spent to build the resort. Compare that with what the Ministry of Atomic Energy is asking from the budget. Actually that amount of money is not enough to heat the complex! Is it perhaps that the Ministry of Atomic Energy simply made a long-term investment - it built the super resort which in the future will attract crowds of sportsmen and bring the Ministry nice profits? Nothing of the sort! Zavyalikha is not just located in Chelyabinsk Oblast, but in a Closed Administrative-Territorial Formation (CATF), which a simple mortal simply cannot get into it. Only with the special authorization of the organs. There is no use of even dreaming of any tourists here... Although actually the CATF is sometimes used by appointment - sometimes stockholders meetings of a subordinate bank are held there, in order to ensure a quorum, most likely. And that is called not having money? There may be two possibilities for the reason the Ministry of Atomic Energy has such an expensive and clearly unprofitable complex. Perhaps Rumyantsev hopes that Vladimir Putin, a big fan of the sport of downhill skiing, will visit these places. Possibility No 2 is: the Ministry's economic status is by no means as dismal as they are trying to make the Kremlin believe. And there are also two justifications for keeping Konversbank: the first is simply because they feel like it. Or... The time has also come to recall the laws which make it possible to import and process spent nuclear fuel in Russia. The new edition of the laws on importing spent nuclear fuel was adopted by the Duma on 1 June 2001. On 7 July Rumyantsev was asked: "Aleksandr Yuryevich, are there already certain talks with foreign partners underway on the topic of importing spent nuclear fuel to Russia?" Rumyantsev answered: "No, they have not even begun yet..." And five days later: "The first spent assemblies might appear in our country from the world market at the earliest in three or four years." Did They Remember the Dates and Time Periods? In late November a train which was carrying 41 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) slowly crossed Russia's border. The point of departure was the Bulgarian NPP Kozloduy. The destination was the Ministry of Atomic Energy's Zheleznogorsk (former Krasnoyarsk-18) Mining-Chemical Combine. But certainly that does not happen! Any businessman will confirm that it could not take just three months from the moment of the start of negotiations to the moment the contract starts to be executed! Does that mean that Rumyantsev was lying when he spoke of the three or four years which Russia supposedly has to prepare to accept SNF? And that at the moment when the minister was discoursing in front of the television cameras on the idea that no one would simply give us the market for processing SNF, we would still have to fight for it, cars with radiated fuel were actually already standing at the border? And right before the train arrived in our country, the head of Russian Gosatomnadzor [Russian Federal Oversight of Nuclear and Radiation Security] Vishnevskiy once again said that the conditions for processing SNF were not appropriate at the Zheleznogorsk Combine and would not be for another 20 years. Then where was the train from Bulgaria taking the waste? However, the riddles do not end there. Here is what Ministry of Atomic Energy specialists said in trying to convince the deputies to adopt the law on SNF. This business is very profitable. The profit norm here is extremely high: roughly 1,500 dollars for each kilogram of processed fuel. In the world today, there are 200,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel. We can apply to accept 10 per cent of the total world amount for processing... [newspaper's ellipses] If we process this fuel and return the radioactive waste to the owner, the prices will be roughly 600-800 dollars a kilogram. And if we process and recover it ourselves, it will be roughly 1,500 dollars. So the average price is roughly 1,000 dollars per kilogram. Multiply 20,000 tonnes by 1,000, and you get 20 billion. Only later did it in fact become clear that first, the sum must be divided at least by two. According to the official finding of the Kurchatov Institute (incidentally, it was specifically here that Rumyantsev was the director before coming to the Ministry of Atomic Energy and he simply had to know these conclusions), expenditures for fulfilling the programme for working with SNF come to R10.5bn. Second, let us compare the prices named by Rumyantsev with those which the Kurchatov Institute gave. Thus: - processing of SNF with the return - from 600 to 1,000 dollars. - processing without the return - 1,200-2,000 dollars. There is a small difference, right? The English, for example, who also process spent nuclear fuel, take at least 1,600 dollars per kilogram. But then why was the SNF from Bulgaria, which we must process and bury, estimated to be 800 dollars a kilogram, which is lower than any conceivable limit. If we multiply the at-least 200 dollars which we fail to get by 41,000 kilograms, we get more than 8m dollars, which disappeared somewhere. And if not 200, but 800 or more, as is the custom on the world market? An altogether different sum comes out. And that is just from one place! But how many Kozloduy are there on the planet? It is a regular mother lode And the last feature: the fulfilment of the contract with Kozloduy went through a certain firm Energy Invest & Trade Corporation, which is registered in the Virgin Islands and has a main office in Liechtenstein. It is unlikely that anyone will answer what its real role in the deal and the percentage it got for being the intermediary were. Liechtenstein and the Virgin Islands are too far from both Bulgaria and Russia not to produce such questions. Perhaps that is why the Ministry of Atomic Energy so insistently wants to keep Konversbank under its control, so that no one but it has information on the deals involving SNF. This article may make people not only in the Ministry of Atomic Energy itself angry (it traditionally takes criticism against it poorly), but also a number of bureaucrats and businessmen who are involved in the atomic business; indeed there was a reason that the well known Deputy Ilyukhin was talking about the recent increase in influence on the atomic sector by Alfa-Grupp. That in itself is not so bad - at least their names will become even more apparent. But even that is not the point. The point is something else - you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. You cannot publicly name certain prices and mean altogether different ones. You cannot import nuclear waste under the pretext of processing to storage facilities that are not yet completed. You cannot call yourself a brilliant statesman and try to privatize nuclear power plants, thereby defending the most important and "specialized" atomic asset - Konversbank, and spending colossal amounts of money for a downhill ski resort. In Russian all this is called untargeted expenditure of state money and confirms that Minister Rumyantsev, whose style of leadership can be characterized in brief as "on the edge," is not an appropriate person for the post; and today the Ministry of Atomic Energy is in fact associated only with dividing up atomic resources among the oligarchs, who in replacing one another incidentally change ministers as well... [newspaper's ellipses] You cannot complain of poverty while sitting on enormous assets. (The list of things you cannot do could go on forever.) All of this seems somehow dirty. Source: Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 14 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 14 Crisis looming in nuclear medicine Problems delay plant that will make supplies Dec. 17, 02:48 EDT Peter Calamai SCIENCE REPORTER SAFETY FIRST: Shown are the core components, including rods, of the new reactor at Chalk River. OTTAWA — A new Canadian plant designed to produce almost two-thirds of the world's supply of life-saving medical isotopes is already two years behind schedule and still plagued by safety issues that have caused the delay. Failure to get the plant operating in time could choke the flow of radioactive materials used in dozens of medical procedures, including tracking the spread of breast cancer, bombarding prostate cancer with radioactive seeds and treating Grave's disease (hyperthyroidism). Radioactive materials are also used to test the function of the heart and other organs. The $160-million isotope facility is being built at Chalk River, Ont., for MDS Nordion, a private company, by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a federal crown agency. It is supposed to replace the federally owned NRU research reactor at Chalk River which began operating in 1957 and is already years past its planned retirement. The aging NRU reactor and a creaking processing plant currently produce 60 per cent of the world's supply of medical isotopes, including molybdenum-99 used in four out of five nuclear medicine procedures. MDS Nordion president John Morrison says that even stepped-up production by isotope facilities in other countries would cover no more than 70 per cent of world needs if the NRU reactor broke down. "And that could be as low as 30 per cent if any of the isotope facilities in France, Holland and Japan had problems, as they have before," Morrison told a recent hearing by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Morrison urged the federal nuclear watchdog to let work resume quickly on starting up the replacement isotope plant. `I don't think anyone comes off looking very good' The plant has been idled for the last 16 months over problems with the emergency safety shutdown systems in the plant's twin nuclear reactors. A nuclear safety commission spokeswoman said yesterday that a decision about conditions for restarting the plant would be announced within three weeks. In addition to the engineering problems at the facility, officials of AECL and the commission have been feuding over the safety standards applied to the project. Commission officials called the design "inherently weak," which infuriated the AECL experts. The novel safety system in the MAPLE reactors consists of two separate sets of rods that are supposed to drop automatically into the radioactive core to stop a runaway chain reaction. Both sets of rods repeatedly jammed during tests because of small particles of grit left behind by slipshod work. AECL initially concealed the safety problems in April 2000 from the nuclear safety commission for almost three months. The federal crown agency then fought public disclosure of an internal report that identified major management failures and poor quality work as the underlying causes of the safety problems. Further investigation revealed the nuclear regulatory agency had approved the faulty design of the emergency shutdown system after only a cursory examination in 1996 and with no detailed record in writing. The plant has been idled for the last 16 months "I don't think anyone comes off looking very good," environmentalist Ole Hendrickson of Pembroke told the safety commission. "Haste has made waste in this case." Hendrickson noted highly enriched bomb-grade uranium is used for the target that is bombarded by the reactors to produce the isotopes. The reactors are fuelled with low-enriched uranium. The key question before the licensing hearing is the conditions for starting up the isotope plant. AECL wants the green light to recommence testing of the first reactor and begin loading fuel into the second. But staff at the regulatory agency asked the five commissioners to let officials have the final word on whether AECL could proceed, based on promised action about a few lingering concerns over safety and improvements to management procedures. "We want to satisfy ourselves that everything is okay before allowing it to go ahead," said John Power, in charge of licensing new production and research facilities. An isotope shortage would hit hard in North America where MDS Nordion supplies more than 5,000 hospitals with radioactive materials used for diagnosis and treatment. More than 34,000 patient-procedures are performed around the world every day using medical isotopes produced at the Chalk River facility. The isotopes lose their radioactive punch in as little as 66 hours and must be shipped daily to users. Legal Notice:- Copyright 1996-2001. Toronto Star Newspapers ***************************************************************** 15 Russia to build four nuclear generating sets within next eight years BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Moscow, 17 December: Within the next eight years, Russia is planning to put into operation at least four new generating sets at the Kalinin nuclear power station (2003), Volgodonsk nuclear power station (2005), Kursk nuclear power station (2002) and Beloyarsk nuclear power station (2009), Russian Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev told a news conference today. Reactors of the VVER-1000 type (water-moderated water-cooled reactor) will be put into operation at the Kalinin and Volgodonsk nuclear power stations, an RBMK (uranium graphite channel-type reactor, similar to the Chernobyl-type reactor) at the Kursk nuclear power station, and a BN-800 (fast-neutron cycle) reactor at the Beloyarsk nuclear power station. The minister said all generating sets had been modernized to meet modern safety standards. Aleksandr Rumyantsev believes that "post-Chernobyl renaissance" can now be observed in Russia's nuclear power engineering sector. He expressed the hope that, in several years time, the volume of electricity generated by nuclear power stations will double following an increase in the generating capacities of these stations, to go up from 15 per cent (of the country's total electricity output on average) to 30 per cent. The minister said new types of cooling agents and fuel for nuclear power stations were being designed, and this would make it possible to built more reliable and efficient stations. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 1505 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 16 Students asked not to ignore nuclear science The Times of India; Dec 18, 2001 VARANASI: Noted scientist and Rajya Sabha MP Raja Ramanna regretted that the nuclear science education had been ignored in the information and technology era. Delivering lecture on ‘role of science in nation-building’ at the central library of Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith here on Saturday, he asked students not to rush towards information technology. He said that students were more interested in the IT field as it offered a good job opportunity to them. But they should know that the nuclear science studies would prove more beneficial to them in the long run. Ramanna said that it was unfortunate that despite having a strong force of doctors in the country the Union government was unable to provide proper medical service to the people residing in remote areas. He said he was not against the information technology but students should not ignore the nuclear science education. The seminar which was jointly organised by the Centre for Alternative Policy and Centre for Alternative Media was chaired by Deepak Mullick. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** 17 Delivery of iodine pills by next spring, says minister Irish Newspapers - Date: Tue December 18th 01 THE long-awaited iodine pills to protect people from radioactive fallout will be ready for delivery to every household in Ireland next spring, Defence Minister Michael Smith said yesterday. Over 10 million tablets are to be distributed to homes, together with a booklet explaining how people should react in the event of an emergency. The minister has said the pills should be kept safe for use only in the event of fallout entering Irish skies as a result of a major nuclear event, such as a successful terrorist attack on the Sellafield plant in England. However, he stressed that a full intelligence assessment across Europe has shown there is "no credible threat to Ireland or to Sellafield". Iodine tablets are very helpful in reducing the intake of radioactive material. The supply of the pills is one of a number of recommendations to Cabinet made by the The Government's Emergency Planning Task Force, which was set up in the wake of the September 11. In an interim briefing to Cabinet last week, the task force also recommended the establishment of a no-fly zone around the chemical manufacturing centre at Ringaskiddy in Co Cork. If introduced, it will be illegal for all pilots to fly across the zone, with penalties ranging from a fine to loss of a flying licence. Alan O'Keeffe © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 18 Last-ditch bid to stop MOX nuclear plant from opening Irish Newspapers - Date: Tue December 18th 01 THE Government has launched a last ditch legal bid to try to halt the opening of the controversial MOX nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield on Thursday. The move comes after it emerged that several reactors were closed at the nuclear facility without the Irish Government being informed in line with stated agreements. Junior Minister Joe Jacob said the Government presented what he called "its substantive case" against MOX to the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea yesterday. The tribunal's 21 judges who claimed jurisdiction in the case ruled earlier this month that the UK must share information with Ireland about the £475m plant. But Mr Jacob, the minister with responsibility for nuclear safety, told a press conference that it had not been evident there had been a major improvement in the level of co-operation from the UK authorities. He said neither the Government nor the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland had been informed about the closure of the reactors which was reported in weekend newspapers and that protests would be made accordingly. "Our lack of trust grows all the time quite frankly," he said. "I think there's a moral obligation on the UK authorities not to proceed with MOX until these legal issues are concluded," he said. "We are embarked on a well prepared, long-term legal strategy. We are fully resolved to proceed with that strategy," he said. The international tribunal declined to give the Government an injunction preventing the plant, which will create nuclear fuel from plutonium and repreprocessed waste from the adjoining Thorp plant, becoming operational. But Mr Jacob said they had got enough encouragement from the hearing to proceed further with its case before the tribunal which he said was the most "expeditious route". The Irish Government's stance won the backing of the Norwegian government whose Environment Minister Mr Borge Brenda met with Deputy Jacob in Dublin yesterday. Mr Brenda pledged his goverment's full moral and political support to the Irish Government's fight against Sellafield and the opening of MOX. He said the Norwegian government was also looking at legal moves to prevent radioactive emissions in the sea from Sellafield which he said were unnecessary. The Norwegian minister said that if Ireland did not win its case at the tribunal it would not be because the country did not have a good case. Fine Gael has accused Taoiseach Bertie Ahern of letting the British Government "off the hook" over Sellafield, writes Karl Brophy. Party Environmental spokesperson Deirdre Clune said that the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland will not be visiting the controversial plant despite an open invitation from British Nuclear Fuels. "The Taoiseach has confirmed in a letter to Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan that the RPII will not meet with BNFL until the January 14 next and that meeting will take place in Dublin and not Sellafield as previously envisaged," said Ms Clune. "The Taoiseach also stated in his letter that 'a visit to Sellafield will follow if considered useful by the RPII'." She described this approach as "lax". "This is an extraordinary turn of events, considering the Taoiseach has made great play of the the fact that he is putting pressure at the highest levels to have Sellafield closed down," she said. Fine Gael is now demanding to know why an invitation from BNFL to visit the plant, issued on November 3, has not been taken up. Bernie O'Toole © Copyright Unison ***************************************************************** 19 Bulgaria N-plant gets ready to close old reactors SOFIA - Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear power plant, seen as thorny issue in the country's entry talks with the European Union, said it had launched preparations to close its two oldest 440-megawatt reactors by end-2002. The plant is also modernising another two 440 MW reactors to convince the EU that they could be closed later than the Union's deadline of 2006, Kozloduy's Executive Director Yordan Kostadinov told Reuters. Last year, Sofia bowed to EU's pressure and agreed to shut down the two older reactors before 2003. But Bulgaria, which is the main power exporter in the Balkans, faces tough talks with the EU next year on the earlier closure of the other two reactors as it seeks to run them to 2008 and 2010. Their operational life is until 2010 and 2012. "The decommissioning of the two (older) reactors will be carried out not later than end-2002 as agreed with the European Commission," Kostadinov said in written answers to Reuters' questions. "We have already launched organisational and technical preparations for the closure. We will take into account all safety requirements and the effect of a simultaneous closure of the two reactors in the middle of the winter." The Soviet-designed 3,760 MW plant has another two 1,000 MW recators and supplies some 44 percent of Bulgaria's power. Kostadinov said the decommissioning of the two old reactors and their preparation for a safe storage would take five years. The storage and the destruction will take another 35 years. He said the money needed for full closure and destruction amounted to some 75 percent of the funds needed to build a new reactor but he did not mention any figure. Some 100 million euros ($90.17 million) were raised by an internationally backed fund set up by the European Commission in 1999, to support the decommissioning process. Bulgaria opened the energy chapter in its pre-accession talks with the EU in November and hopes to close it in 2003. Story by Anna Mudeva Story Date: 17/12/2001 © Reuters News Service 2001 ***************************************************************** 20 FG slams Taoiseach's failure on Sellafield online.ie : News online.ie 17 Dec 2001 Fine Gael has sharply criticised the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, after he revealed that Irish nuclear experts will not inspect the Sellafield plant in Britain until January at the earliest. Mr Ahern confirmed today that a meeting between Ireland's Radiological Protection Institute and British Nuclear Fuels, the company which owns Sellafield, has been delayed until January 14. An inspection cannot be conducted until after that meeting, he said. British Nuclear Fuels invited Ireland to inspect its plant at Sellafield six weeks ago after the Irish Government expressed concerns about the possible fallout from a terrorist attack on its radioactive storage tanks As well as revealing that the meeting between Irish and British authorities has been delayed, Mr Ahern also revealed that it will take place in Dublin, not in Sellafield, as was originally planned. This has angered Fine Gael, whose environmental spokeswoman, Deirdre Clune, said the Taoiseach should have insisted that the Radiological Protection Institute visit Sellafield at the earliest possible opportunity. "To settle for this offer is not good enough," she said. "It's a fob-off as far as I'm concerned. The Taoiseach has been fobbed off and this Government has been fobbed off by the British authorities." Ms Clune went on to accuse the Taoiseach of being two-faced. "This is an extraordinary turn of events considering the Taoiseach has made a great play of the fact that he is putting pressure at the highest levels to have Sellafield closed down," she said. "The Taoiseach must confirm, first of all, why the invitation issued by BNFL on November 3 to visit the plant was not followed through immediately. Secondly, why is the meeting of January 14 taking place in Dublin and not in Sellafield so that the RPII can inspect the plant for itself." ***************************************************************** 21 New plea to halt Sellafield online.ie : News online.ie 17 Dec 2001 The Government today issued an eleventh-hour plea to Britain to halt this week's scheduled commissioning of the mixed-oxide plant at the Sellafield nuclear waste reprocessing complex. Joe Jacob, the minister with responsibility for nuclear safety, made the appeal after demanding full clarification from the British authorities about the shutdown of a number of reactors at Sellafield in recent days. Also today Ireland received support from Norway in their efforts to force the total closure of Sellafield. In talks with Mr Jacob, Norwegian Environment Minister Borge Brenda said his government believed the discharges from the Cumbrian plant were responsible for an increase in radioactivity off the coast of Norway. He said: "We are giving Ireland full support on this." After his discussions with Mr Jacob, Mr Brenda was leaving on a visit to Britain with an itinerary that included a trip to Sellafield. Mr Jacob said: "I am again calling on Britain not to proceed and commission MOX, pending legal actions that are under way." About weekend reports of precautionary reactor closedowns at the controversial complex, the minister claimed: "We were not advised of that in line with stated agreements. "We are protesting about than, and this clearly justifies our government's determination to have Sellafield closed. "It also serves to underpin the importance of the legal actions and avenues being currently pursued by us." The Government's bid to stop the MOX commissioning was rejected earlier this month by the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. But the body requested Britain to detail plans on how it intended to monitor the risks and effects of the MOX operation on the environment. Part of the Government's case against Sellafield at the tribunal was based on the possibility of terrorist strikes on the plant in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. ***************************************************************** 22 N. Korea Techs Study S. Korea Reactors Las Vegas SUN December 17, 2001 SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Twenty North Korean nuclear experts began a two-week tour of South Korean nuclear power plants on Monday - a visit that comes while Pyongyang has stepped up its anti-U.S., anti-South Korean rhetoric. The visit is part of a U.S. agreement to build nuclear power plants and train workers in the North. But it coincides with North Korean statements attacking the United States for demanding inspections of its suspected nuclear program, among other issues. Officials said the North Koreans, led by Kim Hui-moon, a Cabinet-level official, flew to Seoul from Beijing on Sunday and were taken by car on Monday to the east coast village of Ulchin, where four French-built nuclear reactors are operating. They were the first North Koreans to visit South Korea since official dialogue between the two Koreas was halted in mid-November amid a breakdown in Cabinet-level talks. "They are here for education and training," said Lim Ui-do, a South Korean official assigned to the U.S.-led international consortium that is building two modern nuclear power plants in North Korea. The two Western-designed reactors are a reward for the communist regime's freeze of its suspected nuclear weapons program under a 1994 accord with the United States. As part of the accord, the American-led Korean Peninsula Energy Development Program is required to train hundreds of North Koreans who will operate the two reactors. Consortium officials say that the completion of the two reactors in North Korea, originally set for 2003, will have to be delayed for several years because of funding and other problems. The 20 North Koreans were the first to be sent to South Korea for training. By the end of next year, 290 more North Koreans are scheduled to be trained at South Korean facilities, officials said. When finished, the U.S.-designed light-water reactors will replace the North's Soviet-designed, graphite-moderated reactors, which experts say produce greater amounts of weapons-grade plutonium. The Korean Peninsula was divided in 1945. Today, they share the world's most heavily armed border. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War. The war ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, and the North and South are still technically at war. On Sunday, North Korea said it was not afraid to go to war with the United States, accusing Washington of trying to make it the next target after Afghanistan in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 23 Urgent Need to MOve Forward With Nuclear Waste Disposal 17 Dec 17:49 Contact: Martez Norris of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, 952-431-1676 News Advisory: WHAT: News conference WHEN: 12 p.m. Wednesday, December 19, 2001 WHERE: Murrow Room National Press Club The Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition (NWSC) is meeting with the Department of Energy Secretary, Spencer Abraham, on Wednesday, December 19 at 10:30 a.m. The NWSC plans to urge the Secretary to move forward with the high-level nuclear waste disposal program and make positive recommendations to the President to site Yucca Mountain within the next 30 days. The NWSC lauds the Secretary for his efforts to move forward with the program after years of delay and inaction. The nation's ratepayers expect positive action from the Secretary. However, for more than 20 years, the nuclear waste disposal program has been a political pawn. Scientific evidence in the DOE Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation Report, and subsequent scientific documents, clearly demonstrate that Yucca Mountain, the most studied land in the history of mankind, is suitable as the nation's permanent repository. "Sound science" should prevail over biased reports or misinformation. Since 1983, the nation's ratepayers have paid more than $19 billion, including interest, into the Nuclear Waste Fund, for the DOE to obtain a license, construct, operate and monitor a repository for high-level nuclear waste from commercial power plants across the nation. Since 1987, the DOE has spent approximately $7 billion to characterize a geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. The 1982 NWPA, amended in 1987, and subsequent contracts the DOE signed with each electric utility, specified that the DOE had a contractual and statutory obligation to remove waste from civilian nuclear power plants by January 31, 1998. The DOE is authorized and obligated to do so. It has not happened. The mission of the NWSC is to pursue administrative and congressional actions; assist with legal remedies on behalf of ratepayers; secure a centralized, interim storage facility to high-level nuclear waste; and ensure timely development of a cost-effective, safe, and environmentally "sound science" repository for permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste. The NWSC is comprised of state regulators, state attorneys general, nuclear electric utilities and associate members. The diverse membership of the NWSC includes participants from 43 organizations in 25 states. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 24 Urenco Responds To Dept. of Commerce Determinations on LEU 17 Dec 16:30 Urenco Responds To U.S. Department Of Commerce Final Determinations On Low Enriched Uranium To: National Desk Contact: Maurice Lenders for Urenco, 44 1628 486941 MARLOW, England, Dec. 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is Urenco's response to the U.S. Department of Commerce's final determinations on anti-dumping and countervailing duty for imports of low enriched uranium (LEU) from Germany, The Netherlands, the United Kingdom: The U.S. Department of Commerce on Friday, Dec. 14 made public its final determination that imports of LEU from the Urenco Group would not be subject to an anti-dumping duty. The DOC also determined that imports of LEU from Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom would be subject to a countervailing duty rate of 2.26 percent. This determination arises out of investigations initiated by USEC in December 2000 when USEC sought countervailing duties at a rate in excess of 20 percent and anti-dumping duties at rates between 15 and 21 percent. Reacting to the final determination, Klaus Messer, chief executive of Urenco, said, "We have always sought to compete fairly in all world markets, including the U.S. We are pleased that the Department of Commerce confirmed that Urenco is not dumping with imports from our three countries. Regarding the countervailing duty assessment, we shall study the Department's determination and consider our options to appeal. Meanwhile, we will continue our efforts to persuade the U.S. International Trade Commission that our imports have not injured, and do not threaten, the U.S. enrichment industry." Dr. Messer also stated, "we are pleased that Urenco's position has been actively supported by the governments of Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, as well as by the European Commission. They share our view that these cases never should have been accepted by the Department of Commerce. Urenco provides services, not goods, and the international trade laws do not apply to services." Dr. Messer explained that "Urenco's centrifuge technology has allowed it to utilize the world's most efficient and economic enrichment process to stay well ahead of its competitors." He stressed that "it is this technology -- not government grants made many years ago -- that has fueled Urenco's competitiveness and consistent profitability." In contrast, USEC has succeeded to the largest, government-owned enrichment enterprise. That enterprise was, and remains, the world's largest supplier of enrichment services. To support its privatization, USEC was given a huge uranium stockpile, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of technology development, nominal rent for its plants which remain government-owned, government protection from past liabilities, and much more. "This case," Dr. Messer stated, "is about a competitor trying to protect itself from competition with the best technology. We are determined to bring the benefits of our world class centrifuge enrichment technology to our U.S. customers." For earlier press releases and briefing notes on this issue, visit Urenco's Web site at http://www.urenco.com [http://www.urenco.com] . For further comment contact: Maurice Lenders, 44 1628 486941 Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 25 Nevada Sues Feds Over Nuke Waste Las Vegas SUN Today: December 18, 2001 at 3:15:19 PST LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada has sued the Energy Department, its latest salvo in an ongoing campaign to block a possible federal government move to bury the nation's radioactive waste 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The suit, filed Monday in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, challenges the Energy Department's criteria for deciding whether radioactive waste can safely be buried at Yucca Mountain. The state wants the court to stop the project before Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham decides whether to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable place to bury spent nuclear waste, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency. "The DOE is changing the rules about how they assess whether Yucca Mountain is suitable or not," Loux said. "We believe the new rules are not in compliance with the law." The lawsuit charges that the Energy Department has constructed a new plan that relies on engineered barriers such as corrosion-resistant casks - rather than the geology of Yucca Mountain - to contain the intense radioactivity at the site. But Joe Davis, Energy Department spokesman, said the agency reshaped its guidelines to take advantage of emerging technology. Davis said he had not seen the lawsuit. Abraham said last week he has not made a decision on whether to recommend to President Bush that the volcanic ridge be used for storing 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years or more. Congress has asked for a decision by Feb. 28. Abraham's aides have said he intends to make a recommendation this winter. Nevada state and federal lawmakers strongly oppose the project and are fighting it on political, environmental, public relations and legal fronts. Last month, the state asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to decide whether Nevada can block the federal government from getting the water needed to develop the project in the arid desert. A three-judge circuit court panel had ordered the case heard by a U.S. District Court judge in Las Vegas. It has not decided on the Nevada request for a full hearing. The mountain, at the western edge of the vast Nevada Test Site, is the only place under study. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 26 South Korea Releases Nukes Report Las Vegas SUN Today: December 18, 2001 at 4:20:15 PST SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea will need "at least several years" to complete its first nuclear weapons, although the communist state has extracted enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear bombs, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry revealed its estimates of North Korea's nuclear capabilities in a 225-page report on weapons of mass destruction, which was published Tuesday. Earlier this month, President Bush threatened unspecified "consequences" if Iraq and North Korea produce weapons of mass destruction. In its report, the South Korean Defense Ministry said "available intelligence" led it to believe that North Korea extracted 22 to 26 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from its Soviet-designed nuclear reactors before shutting them down under a 1994 deal with the United States. North Korea also conducted at least 70 nuclear-related tests of high explosives between 1983 and 1993, the report said. It continued the tests until 1998, but has apparently had difficulties acquiring components necessary to make their devices dependable, it said. "North Korea may have a capability of putting together a crude nuclear explosion device," the report said. "But its technology is believed to be still in a rudimentary stage. "Even if it has manufactured an explosion device, it will be still low in dependability and it will take the North at least several years to turn the system into a weapon," it said. The South Korean ministry's estimates largely confirmed widespread assessments in the United States. In 1999, a study for the U.S. Congress said there was "significant evidence that (North Korea's) undeclared nuclear weapons development activities continue" That study said the efforts included moves to acquire technology for enriching uranium and nuclear-related tests of explosives. Under the 1994 accord, a U.S.-led international consortium is building two light-water reactors worth $4.6 billion in North Korea. In exchange, the North agreed to halt use of reactors suspected of producing plutonium. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations, wants to examine the North's nuclear history before the freeze. On Sunday, North Korea reiterated that it felt no need to allow nuclear inspections or to resume talks on curbing its ballistic missile capabilities. North Korea alarmed the region by firing a long-range missile in 1998 that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. Congressional experts believe that North Korea has produced, deployed and exported missiles to Iran and Pakistan. The North reportedly has a more powerful missile that experts say could reach Hawaii or Alaska. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 German renewable energy groups slam econ min report FRANKFURT - German renewable energy associations criticised Economics Minister Werner Mueller's recent report that described the promotion of green energy sources as an economic burden. Germany targets a 25-percent cut in CO2 on 1990 levels by 2005, and as part of that goal it introduced a renewable energy law (EEG) last year to enable such power producers to add a surcharge to electricity they feed into the grid. Germany aims to double the share of renewables in the national energy mix by 2010. "According to Mueller's report, climate protection measures, such as the use of renewables, will lead to a big burden on the economy and to incalculable risks for German firms, but the opposite is the case," renewables and solar groups BEE and UVS said in a statement. "The renewables sector - solar, wind, hydro and biomass - had a turnover last year of 12.6 billion marks and created 120,000 jobs," they added. Germany is the world leader in wind energy use, with almost 7,000 megawatts of installed capacity. The sector had a turnover in 2000 of five billion marks, up 22 percent on 1999. Wind capacity is expected to triple in the next few years, while the solar sector forecasts double-digit growth annually. "Technology export opportunities are at risk if the significance of renewable energy is underestimated in its own country," the associations said. The additional costs of renewables according to the EEG total just 0.3 pfennigs/kilowatt hour (pf/kWh), they added, and will amount to 0.38 pf/kWh in 2010 if the 12 percent target share in the total national energy mix is reached. They said the cost of supporting renewables totalled 2.3 billion marks last year, which contrasts with the 100 billion marks that supported the nuclear industry. Mueller omitted these nuclear costs in his report, they said, as well as the external costs of conventional fuels, which the European Union estimates at five eurocents/kWh. BEE and UVS added that energy companies had abused the EEG as a excuse to increase electricity prices by an average of 1-1.5 pf/kWh in 2000, amounting to a total four billion mark burden to the economy and consumers. "Mueller protects neither the government, nor the economy, nor consumers from this abuse of the law. If he were to use his authority, then climate protection and the support of the economy would not be in opposition," they said. Story Date: 17/12/2001 © Reuters News Service 2001 ***************************************************************** 28 Nevada sues Energy Department LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Panel airs repository complaints Tuesday, December 18, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal State officials, scientists warn against nuclear project's staged approach By KEITH ROGERS REVIEW-JOURNAL A National Academy of Sciences committee heard from Nevada officials and scientists Monday about the pitfalls of taking a staged approach to designing, building and operating a nuclear waste repository. "Our message is it is not appropriate to this project," geologist Steve Frishman, a full-time consultant for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, told the academy's 15-member Committee on Principles and Operational Strategies for Staged Repository Systems. He said the method allows too many loopholes and hides real safety concerns involved with entombing waste in the volcanic-rock ridge at Yucca Mountain. But proponents of a staged approach say flexibility and design in operation of a repository allows them to fix problems as they develop, and steer the project on a safer course. The panel of independent scientists, chaired by physicist Charles McCombie, a dual citizen of Switzerland and the United Kingdom, consists of experts on a range of topics, including social science. A staged approach, McCombie explained, "means you look at the program in digestive lumps. You have to be willing to learn along the way." He said that flexibility includes the ability to stop disposal and retrieve the waste if safety problems arise. However, Frishman said the flexible-design, staged approach would be like "making it up as you go along." Applying that strategy to licensing and constructing a repository would be like building a house in which a builder gets a permit and builds a door before the walls are constructed and the ceiling and the basement have been designed, Frishman said. The panel was assembled this year at the request and expense of the Energy Department to examine a flexible, step-by-step approach to disposing of radioactive waste in the United States and abroad. The National Research Council, which is the operating agency of the academy, will make recommendations on the design and operational strategies for a staged geologic repository based on a final report from the committee expected late next year. Frishman presented a statement by Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux, who said such an approach to the proposed Yucca Mountain repository would allow nuclear waste to be hauled to the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, while concerns about the site's safety are unresolved. Besides overruling the state's strong opposition to the project, a decision this winter by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to proceed with constructing a repository at Yucca Mountain would be based on licensing rules and standards tailored to fit the site "even at a time when site characterization is substantially incomplete and the uncertainty of safety ranges over orders of magnitude," Loux's statement read. A decision on whether the site is safe should "be made up front and is not to be dependent on new information," Frishman said. "Changing the rules doesn't make Yucca Mountain any better." One Energy Department scientist, William Boyle, told the panel that a flexible design can make for a safer repository. "One point to remember is we're looking at the performance of the entire system, natural and engineered barriers." Boyle said the Energy Department has been criticized because the proposed repository depends in part on metal waste containers designed to resist corrosion, similar to the nuclear waste disposal strategy being pursued by Japan. "The concept that it's just the geology, I don't know if anybody is considering a repository with just geology," Boyle said. Linda Lehman, a hydrologist from Minnesota who consults for the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, said federal scientists have not shown they have a good understanding of how surface water flows through the mountain, particularly at its southern end where data is lacking. Susi Snyder of the anti-nuclear Shundahai Network said outside the meeting that the staged approach to siting and building a repository "blinds you to the big picture" and allows loopholes for the Energy Department to not find factors that would disqualify the site. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 29 LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL: NEWS: Nevada sues Energy Department "What the DOE is doing is akin to starting a football game with one set of rules only to change them at halftime when it realizes it's losing." REP. SHELLEY BERKLEY, D-NEV. Read the document State of Nevada v. United State Department of Energy, Spencer Abraham, Secretary (PDF) COURT CASES Nevada's legal challenge to the Yucca Mountain site guidelines is the third issue involving the nuclear waste project that is now before the courts. The other two are: -- On June 27, the state and environmental groups filed suit against radiation standards the Environmental Protection Agency set for a repository, charging they were not protective enough. On the same issue, the Nuclear Energy Institute sued the EPA on June 6, saying portions of the standards were redundant and not based on sound science. Those lawsuits are pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. -- On March 2, 2000, the Energy Department sued the state of Nevada over the denial of water permits to build and operate a repository at Yucca Mountain. That case is before U.S. District Court in Las Vegas after a question of court jurisdiction was appealed and won by DOE. -- REVIEW-JOURNAL Tuesday, December 18, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The state of Nevada filed a lawsuit Monday to halt the Yucca Mountain Project, challenging Energy Department ground rules for judging whether the site is suitable for nuclear waste storage. The lawsuit says the guidelines are contrary to what Congress intended, and that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham should be prevented from making recommendations on Yucca Mountain until they are reviewed by the courts. Filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the lawsuit is the second filed by Nevada since the summer challenging aspects of the project. State officials said more legal appeals are being prepared as they try to derail the proposed burial of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department has defended the site guidelines as within the law, based on sound science and on the recommendations of experts. The department might request an expedited ruling which could otherwise take months, according to one attorney watching the case. Abraham is expected to make a repository recommendation sometime this winter. The Nevada lawsuit says that the Energy Department revised Yucca Mountain site guidelines after scientists began to conclude the natural features of the mountain might not work as a primary barrier preventing radioactivity from escaping into the environment from decaying pellets of spent nuclear fuel. The DOE should have stopped the Yucca Mountain program at that point, the state contends, citing a section of the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act that "geologic considerations shall be the primary criteria for selection of sites." Instead, the lawsuit says, DOE formed new guidelines allowing radioactivity containment by man-made "engineered barriers" to count in the repository's performance. Scientists envision storing waste in corrosion-resistant containers and shielding the containers from elements that might hasten their decay. The revamped site rules were proposed in December 1996 and finalized Friday. "The fundamental principle of geologic isolation is being undermined by DOE's siting guidelines in an attempt to make Yucca Mountain work, despite Yucca Mountain's blatant geologic deficiencies," Gov. Kenny Guinn said. "What the DOE is doing is akin to starting a football game with one set of rules only to change them at halftime when it realizes it's losing," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. "This is absolutely the proper course of action," Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said of the state's challenge. On Friday, DOE General Counsel Lee Liberman Otis told Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa in a letter that the site guidelines were appropriate measures for Yucca Mountain, developed on recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences and directives from the Nuclear Regulatory Com- mission. "DOE changed its guidelines because both the science and the law relevant to this project have developed significantly," since the early 1980s, Otis wrote. "Our letter pretty much speaks for itself," DOE spokesman Joseph Davis said Monday. "It's a matter for the courts to figure out." The Energy Department and nuclear industry officials who support Yucca Mountain development say the combination of natural barriers and engineered features will couple to make a repository safe and effective. "The mountain itself performs very well," Marvin Fertel, a vice president at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said at a briefing last week. As for the engineered barriers, "The law requires the repository to be safe. It would seem awful stupid to take away things that make it safe," he said. Institute officials had not seen the lawsuit Monday and would not comment until they had, a spokeswoman said. webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - ***************************************************************** 30 German Nuclear Phase Out Law Approved Environment News Service: BERLIN, Germany, December 17, 2001 (ENS) - Germany's controversial plan to abolish nuclear power passed its last major legislative hurdle on Friday with approval in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament. The Bundesrat, the upper house in which Germany's states are represented, has still to scrutinize the law but has no power of veto. Center-right opposition parties again pledged to reverse the law if they win next year's general election. The ruling coalition of Social Democrats and Greens led by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the so called Red/Green coalition, has worked towards the phase out since it took power in 1998. [reactor] Siemens Boiling Water Reactor at Gundremmingen (Photo courtesy Siemens) One of the coalition government's signature environmental policies, the nuclear phase out has been driven by the Greens, with tortuous negotiations resulting in a deal with the nuclear industry in June. The German government and leading energy companies on June 11 signed a formal agreement to phase out nuclear power. At the core of the agreement is a limit on the amount of power that can be produced by each of Germany's existing nuclear plants. The draft law approved by the Bundestag Friday provides legislative backing for the June agreement, under which reactors can each operate for up to 32 years and generate a set amount of electricity. Output quotas can be transferred from older to newer plant but not vice versa. Based on an average 32 year life for each reactor, Germany's newest nuclear power plant will have to close around 2021. [Trittin] German Environment Minister Juergen Trittin (Photo courtesy IISD/Linkages [http://iisd.ca/linkages] ) The draft law includes a ban on new nuclear power stations. From from July 1, 2005, spent nuclear fuel reprocessing would be prohibited and transport of nuclear materials to and from reprocessing plants also banned. Power stations are to be subject to more stringent safety checks. Environment Minister Juergen Trittin, a Green, welcomed the vote as marking the end of "disastrous" old energy policies, but opposition party environment spokesperson Klaus Lippold warned that he was "rejoicing too soon." Environmental groups complained that nuclear power station operating permits should have been immediately withdrawn after the September 11 terrorist plane strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They warn that the German government is ignoring the threat of terrorist attack. Latest opinion polls predict another victory for Chancellor Schroeder and his nuclear phase out policies in the next national election scheduled for autumn 2002. {Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk [envdaily@ends.co.uk] } ***************************************************************** 31 More concerns raised over Yucca ground water Today: December 18, 2001 at 8:49:08 PST By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN A Nevada consultant has raised new doubts regarding how fast deep ground water is moving beneath Yucca Mountain, the only site proposed to house 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Information presented Monday by hydrologist Linda Lehman has prompted an independent National Academy of Sciences review panel to ask the Department of Energy about its plans to further study ground water underneath the desert between the mountain and U.S. 95, where Nye County plans to develop an industrial park. If contaminated water escapes from a repository at Yucca Mountain, residents and the environment could be exposed to dangerous radiation levels. The DOE, by regulation, must design a site that will keep nuclear waste intact for 10,000 years. Lehman presented the findings of two years of research Monday night that showed the possibility of hot water in faults deep beneath Yucca Mountain. Evidence of water was discovered by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and by Nye County drilling crews, Lehman said. Water reaching the repository site could corrode buried metal containers, releasing radioactive waste, Lehman said. The warmer water, while it was found more than 1,000 feet beneath the proposed repository, could pose a danger to buried waste because it appears to flow along three known earthquake faults, Lehman said. Two of the faults, the Ghost Dance and the Sundance, run through the repository site, she said. The temperature of the warmer water, which is at least 10,000 years old, is between 123 degrees and 140 degrees Fahrenheit, Lehman said. Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The state, which opposes a Yucca Mountain repository, has "no confidence" in the DOE's estimate as to how the ground water behaves, Lehman said. "I, too, am concerned about a large area with no information," Leonard Konikow, a USGS hydrologist and panel member, said of the area at Yucca Mountain. He asked Lehman how long it may take to find the source and volume of the water. "I think it's a long-term commitment just to find out what's going on," she said. How fast is the water moving? Konikow asked. "That's the $64,000 question," Lehman replied. The DOE does not believe that water will move out of a Yucca repository for at least 10,000 years, federal scientists said. "We have a lot of data that backs up our (computer) models," said Mark Peters, Yucca coordinator at the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The DOE must respond to the state's water analysis, William Boyle, licensing and regulatory adviser for Yucca Mountain, said. This is not the first time independent scientists have questioned the DOE's lack of information about the mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it has 293 unresolved technical issues ranging from how fast water flows to the amount of volcanic activity at the mountain. Another panel, the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, has raised doubts about the DOE's overall analysis for designing a permanent repository. The DOE is also asking the academy's 14-member panel for its opinion on building a nuclear waste repository in stages so flaws in the project could be identified and answered at an early point in construction. Although DOE officials expected to recommend the site to President Bush by the end of the year, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said last week he has not made a decision on whether to recommend Yucca and has no deadline for such a decision. All contents © 1996 - 2001 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 Audit Chamber says Russia facing nuclear-waste crisis - 12/17/2001 - ENN.com Monday, December 17, 2001 By Associated Press MOSCOW--Russia is facing a crisis in the storage and disposal of nuclear waste, the country's Audit Chamber said Friday. Over the past 50 years, Russia has accumulated waste with a combined radioactivity of more than 6 billion curies that it does not have the capacity to store and dispose of, the parliamentary watchdog said in a press release. That is about 120 times the radiation released in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, it said. The Audit Chamber said the country's system of nuclear storage facilities was on the verge of collapse due to a lack of government attention, funding and legislation. "Most of the storage facilities are nearly full, and the equipment is in need of urgent modernization and repair," the chamber said. It said a 1996-2000 government program for nuclear waste disposal received only 10.7 percent of the necessary funding. The Audit Chamber will send a report of its investigation to both houses of parliament, the Cabinet, the Nuclear Energy Ministry and the Finance Ministry, it said. Copyright 2001, Associated Press All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 33 Crisis looming in nuclear medicine Problems delay plant that will make supplies [Thestar.com] Dec. 17, 02:48 EDT Peter Calamai SCIENCE REPORTER Photo courtesy MDS Nordion SAFETY FIRST: Shown are the core components, including rods, of the new reactor at Chalk River. OTTAWA — A new Canadian plant designed to produce almost two-thirds of the world's supply of life-saving medical isotopes is already two years behind schedule and still plagued by safety issues that have caused the delay. Failure to get the plant operating in time could choke the flow of radioactive materials used in dozens of medical procedures, including tracking the spread of breast cancer, bombarding prostate cancer with radioactive seeds and treating Grave's disease (hyperthyroidism). Radioactive materials are also used to test the function of the heart and other organs. The $160-million isotope facility is being built at Chalk River, Ont., for MDS Nordion, a private company, by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), a federal crown agency. It is supposed to replace the federally owned NRU research reactor at Chalk River which began operating in 1957 and is already years past its planned retirement. The aging NRU reactor and a creaking processing plant currently produce 60 per cent of the world's supply of medical isotopes, including molybdenum-99 used in four out of five nuclear medicine procedures. MDS Nordion president John Morrison says that even stepped-up production by isotope facilities in other countries would cover no more than 70 per cent of world needs if the NRU reactor broke down. "And that could be as low as 30 per cent if any of the isotope facilities in France, Holland and Japan had problems, as they have before," Morrison told a recent hearing by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Morrison urged the federal nuclear watchdog to let work resume quickly on starting up the replacement isotope plant. `I don't think anyone comes off looking very good' The plant has been idled for the last 16 months over problems with the emergency safety shutdown systems in the plant's twin nuclear reactors. A nuclear safety commission spokeswoman said yesterday that a decision about conditions for restarting the plant would be announced within three weeks. In addition to the engineering problems at the facility, officials of AECL and the commission have been feuding over the safety standards applied to the project. Commission officials called the design "inherently weak," which infuriated the AECL experts. The novel safety system in the MAPLE reactors consists of two separate sets of rods that are supposed to drop automatically into the radioactive core to stop a runaway chain reaction. Both sets of rods repeatedly jammed during tests because of small particles of grit left behind by slipshod work. AECL initially concealed the safety problems in April 2000 from the nuclear safety commission for almost three months. The federal crown agency then fought public disclosure of an internal report that identified major management failures and poor quality work as the underlying causes of the safety problems. Further investigation revealed the nuclear regulatory agency had approved the faulty design of the emergency shutdown system after only a cursory examination in 1996 and with no detailed record in writing. The plant has been idled for the last 16 months "I don't think anyone comes off looking very good," environmentalist Ole Hendrickson of Pembroke told the safety commission. "Haste has made waste in this case." Hendrickson noted highly enriched bomb-grade uranium is used for the target that is bombarded by the reactors to produce the isotopes. The reactors are fuelled with low-enriched uranium. The key question before the licensing hearing is the conditions for starting up the isotope plant. AECL wants the green light to recommence testing of the first reactor and begin loading fuel into the second. But staff at the regulatory agency asked the five commissioners to let officials have the final word on whether AECL could proceed, based on promised action about a few lingering concerns over safety and improvements to management procedures. "We want to satisfy ourselves that everything is okay before allowing it to go ahead," said John Power, in charge of licensing new production and research facilities. An isotope shortage would hit hard in North America where MDS Nordion supplies more than 5,000 hospitals with radioactive materials used for diagnosis and treatment. More than 34,000 patient-procedures are performed around the world every day using medical isotopes produced at the Chalk River facility. The isotopes lose their radioactive punch in as little as 66 hours and must be shipped daily to users. any material from www.thestar.com ***************************************************************** 34 EU leaders commit to nuclear power monitoring BRUSSELS - European Union leaders committed themselves on the weekend to swapping information on nuclear safety in a move which could smooth EU enlargement to eastern European states operating ageing Russian reactors. "The European Council is committed to a high level of nuclear safety throughout the Union. It stresses the need to monitor safety and security of nuclear power stations," leaders said in conclusions to a two-day summit meeting. "It asks for regular reports from member states' atomic energy experts who will maintain close contact with the European Commission," the statement added. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel described the declaration as an important first and a triumph for Vienna, which has attacked a decision by the neighbouring Czech Republic to start a reactor at Temelin near the two countries' border. Bulgaria and Lithuania also operate reactors similar to one which exploded in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, in the world's worst ever civil nuclear accident. Ireland, which is in dispute with the United Kingdom over a reprocessing plant at Sellafield in north western England, also welcomed the conclusions, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said. Schuessel noted the decision was taken in the shadow of the Brussels Atomium - an atom shaped monument to the nuclear age built in 1958 for the city's world fair. Diplomats said France, Europe's biggest user of nuclear power, fought to tone down earlier drafts of the conclusions which called on the EU executive European Commission to propose common nuclear safety standards. Story Date: 17/12/2001 © Reuters News Service 2001 ***************************************************************** 35 Nuclear Waste-Heat to Warm Finnish Vineyard Science - Reuters Monday December 17 11:08 AM ET HELSINKI (Reuters) - Grapes will soon ripen for wine production in frosty Finland thanks to warm water from a nuclear reactor cooling system, an official said on Monday. Reijo Sundell, environmental protection chief at power group Teollisuuden Voima (TVO), said the group had buried plastic cooling-water pipes beneath a field near the nuclear plant to keep the soil thawed year-round. Above ground, 140 vines were planted earlier this year, with the first real harvest expected in 2003 and a targeted yield of close to 6,600 pounds of grapes, Sundell said. ``I suppose about half of that will become juice,'' he said, but added that the energy group had not yet decided who would turn the blue Latvian Zilga grapes into wine. He said this summer's harvest would probably be too small to amount to much. ``We'll probably just be able to get tasters.'' The grapes planted near the Olkiluoto power station on the country's west coast are a resilient species that can withstand temperatures of minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The vineyard is part of research into uses of warm water created as a by-product of energy production and follows a project where TVO tripled the growth of crayfish by incubating them in the warm water. The nuclear-warmed water will also be used to help grow watermelons, ginseng root, garlic and other vegetables that do not naturally survive outdoors in Finland, Sundell said. ***************************************************************** 36 Georgia citizens win right to challenge reactor fuel factory - Monday, December 17, 2001 By Environmental News Network Buildings on the Savannah River Site The request of a Decatur, Georgia citizens group to legally oppose the construction of a proposed reactor fuel factory on the banks of the Savannah River in South Carolina has been approved by the federal agency responsible for the U.S. nuclear industry. An Atomic Safety and Licensing Board of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has awarded Georgians Against Nuclear Energy (GANE) the right to a public evidentiary hearing to investigate unresolved issues concerning a controversial proposal to manufacture reactor fuel from weapons grade plutonium. The order, issued on Dec. 6, granted a petition filed last summer by the Georgia citizens group. At issue is a proposal to build a factory to manufacture a new type of reactor fuel from weapons grade plutonium at a U.S. Department of Energy Savannah River nuclear weapons facility near Augusta, Georgia. If built, this would be the first full scale, commercial facility to make fuel from mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (MOX) in the United States. The MOX fuel to be manufactured at the plant would be burned at four commercial reactors owned by Duke Power in North and South Carolina. In February, a "Construction Authorization Request" was submitted to the regulatory commission by Duke Cogema Stone & Webster (DCS), an international nuclear consortium that includes the U.S. subsidiary of the French state owned nuclear reprocessing company Cogema. Chief among GANE's concerns that the design and operation of the proposed MOX factory will be inadequate to protect against acts of terrorism and insider sabotage, or to keep the plutonium secure from theft. GANE will be allowed to press its contention that seeks preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement that addresses the potential impacts of a successful terrorist attack. "DCS has made no attempt to address the potential consequences of malevolent acts such as terrorism and insider sabotage," says Glenn Carroll, coordinator of GANE's intervention. GANE is concerned that the the facility will not protect the public from excessive radiation doses, that there is inadequate provision for high-level nuclear waste storage, that the seismic analysis for earthquake risk is poorly prepared, and that the environmental review lacks a cost/benefit analysis. Duke Cogema Stone & Webster must obtain a license from the NRC before it can build or operate the proposed MOX facility. Under federal law, third parties may intervene in the permitting process and request a public hearing by submitting "contentions" that describe their concerns about whether public health and safety and the environment will be protected under the proposed permit. The NRC Board found that eight of GANE's 13 contentions meet the agency¹s rigorous pleading standards. In a hearing currently scheduled to begin in October 2002, GANE will be allowed to litigate a range of criticisms of the application. "The proposed design fails to meet international standards which require physical protection of nuclear material to be taken into consideration in the early stages of facility design," said GANE's technical advisor, Dr. Edwin Lyman. Dr. Lyman is scientific director of Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a Washington, DC-based organization which specializes in problems of nuclear proliferation. In its decision, the NRC Board scolded DCS and the NRC technical staff for trying to downplay the importance of the issue, calling it "axiomatic" that weapons grade material control and accounting and physical protection systems are "most important systems and systems of first rank." Even after the events of Sept. 11, DCS and the NRC's technical staff continued to insist that terrorist attacks are not foreseeable and there is no need to examine the issue. The NRC Board sided with GANE, stating that "it can no longer be argued that terrorist attacks of heretofore unimagined scope and sophistication against previously unimaginable targets are not reasonably foreseeable." GANE and NCI have also jointly filed a Petition to Suspend the MOX proceeding with the NRC Commissioners asking them to stop the MOX review process while the NRC rethinks its regulations concerning nuclear security in response to the September tragedies. The controversial proposal to construct a MOX factory had its origin in a Russia-U.S. non-proliferation agreement to dispose of surplus weapons grade plutonium. GANE opposes MOX manufacture and advocates immobilizing plutonium in a glass matrix made from 35,000,000 gallons of high-level liquid waste which threaten an aquifer recharge area beneath the Savannah River Site. The Savannah River Site, owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, covers more than 310 square miles and borders 27 miles of the Savannah River in southwestern South Carolina on the Georgia border. Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network ***************************************************************** 37 Norway gives Ireland strong support ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND Tuesday, December 18, 2001 The Government's campaign to curb Sellafield's operations has been supported strongly by the Norwegian government, which warned that Irish Sea radioactive discharges threaten its fish stocks, writes Mark Hennessy The Minister of State for Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacob, yesterday met the Norwegian Minister for the Environment, Mr Borge Brenda. Later, Mr Brenda met in London with the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Mrs Margaret Beckett, and the Minister for the Environment, Mr Michael Meacher. The Government will today make a submission to the Hamburg-based International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea as part of its attempt to prevent Sellafield's MOX plant coming into operation. The tribunal refused to give an injunction earlier this month, but it then demanded that the UK and Ireland exchange information about the risks associated with MOX's operation. Legal advisers from both sides met last week in Dublin Castle, said Mr Jacob. "It has not been evident to us that there has been a major improvement in that co-operation, but that is as much as I will say about that pending the ITLOS submission," he said . The tribunal has the power to reverse its decision to allow the MOX plant to come into commission on Thursday, though there is no evidence yet that it is prepared to do so. Mr Brenda said Sellafield's discharges into the Irish Sea drift to the Norwegian coast, when they should instead be stored safely. The levels of some radioactive elements were increasing, he warned, though fish stocks levels were still just one-third of those allowed by the EU. "It is a growing problem in Norway that it is developing in the wrong direction," said Mr Brenda, who visited the British Nuclear Fuels installation late yesterday. Ireland put forward "a strong case" to the tribunal, he went on. "If Ireland doesn't win, it is not because it does not have a good case, but rather that international environmental law is not as strong as it should be." The Government has still not been officially informed about last week's closure of a number of British nuclear reactors, following a safety scare. "We were not advised in accordance with agreements. The incident just adds to what we have come to expect. It adds to the lack of credence that can be had in what the British authorities say," Mr Jacob said. The Norwegian support is a boost for the Government, particularly since Mr Brenda announced that Oslo is ready to begin to prepare its own legal challenge. "As marine nations we share a common sense of responsibility towards our seas. Consumers are increasingly and justifiably demanding uncontaminated food from uncontaminated sources. "Radioactive pollution of the seas caused by complexes such as the monster that is Sellafield, which in our view have no economic justification whatsoever, is the last thing fishing nations such as Ireland and Norway can tolerate," said Mr Jacob. Britain and Ireland had met a deadline to submit reports outlining consultations they had held on the MOX plant, a spokesman for the Hamburg-based Tribunal said yesterday. - (Reuters) [http://www.ireland.com/mediainfo/index.htm] ***************************************************************** 38 South Korea Releases Nukes Report World - Associated Press Tuesday December 18 6:34 AM ET By SANG-HUN CHOE, Associated Press Writer SEOUL, South Korea will need ``at least several years'' to complete its first nuclear weapons, although the communist state has extracted enough plutonium to build one or two nuclear bombs, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The ministry revealed its estimates of North Korea's nuclear capabilities in a 225-page report on weapons of mass destruction, which was published Tuesday. Earlier this month, President Bush (news [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22President%20Bush%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - web sites [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/search/search?p=G eorge+W.+Bush] ) threatened unspecified ``consequences'' if Iraq and North Korea produce weapons of mass destruction. In its report, the South Korean Defense Ministry said ``available intelligence'' led it to believe that North Korea extracted 22 to 26 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from its Soviet-designed nuclear reactors before shutting them down under a 1994 deal with the United States. North Korea also conducted at least 70 nuclear-related tests of high explosives between 1983 and 1993, the report said. It continued the tests until 1998, but has apparently had difficulties acquiring components necessary to make their devices dependable, it said. ``North Korea may have a capability of putting together a crude nuclear explosion device,'' the report said. ``But its technology is believed to be still in a rudimentary stage. ``Even if it has manufactured an explosion device, it will be still low in dependability and it will take the North at least several years to turn the system into a weapon,'' it said. The South Korean ministry's estimates largely confirmed widespread assessments in the United States. In 1999, a study for the U.S. Congress said there was ``significant evidence that (North Korea's) undeclared nuclear weapons development activities continue'' That study said the efforts included moves to acquire technology for enriching uranium and nuclear-related tests of explosives. Under the 1994 accord, a U.S.-led international consortium is building two light-water reactors worth $4.6 billion in North Korea. In exchange, the North agreed to halt use of reactors suspected of producing plutonium. The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, an arm of the United Nations (news [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22United%20Nations%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - web sites [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Unit ed%20Nations&cs=nw] ), wants to examine the North's nuclear history before the freeze. On Sunday, North Korea reiterated that it felt no need to allow nuclear inspections or to resume talks on curbing its ballistic missile capabilities. North Korea alarmed the region by firing a long-range missile in 1998 that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. Congressional experts believe that North Korea has produced, deployed and exported missiles to Iran and Pakistan. The North reportedly has a more powerful missile that experts say could reach Hawaii or Alaska. Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Nevada files challenge to revised Yucca Mountain Guidelines Governor Kenny Guinn FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: December 17, 2001 CONTACT: Greg Bortolin PHONE: 775-684-5670 FAX: 775-684-7198 CARSON CITY – Governor Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa announced today the State of Nevada is filing suit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the Yucca Mountain Siting Guidelines that became effective on December 14, 2001. In a letter faxed to Guinn and Del Papa on December 14, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham refused to forego application of the guidelines, which indicates he will proceed towards a Yucca Mountain site recommendation. The petition for judicial review filed by the Nevada Attorney General´s Office on behalf of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects challenges the Department of Energy´s issuance of final site suitability rules. The new siting guidelines change the criteria for evaluating the suitability of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. “In light of the fact the General Accounting Office has stated that the Yucca Mountain Project should be indefinitely postponed based on the views expressed by Bechtel SAIC, a private contactor for the Department of Energy, it is irresponsible and irrational for the Yucca Mountain project to move forward at this time,” Gov. Guinn said. “There are also issues surrounding the security and public health risks associated with the transporting of deadly nuclear waste across the United States that must first be addressed.” According to the GAO study, Bechtel SAIC is credited with stating that DOE cannot possibly meet its aggressive schedule for Yucca Mountain given the myriad of outstanding scientific and engineering issues yet to be resolved. Gov. Guinn said, “The very basis of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is to geologically isolate high-level radioactive waste from the human and natural environment. Although Congress amended the Act in 1987 to characterize Yucca Mountain only, Congress retained the critical provisions requiring geological isolation. The fundamental principle of geologic isolation is being undermined by DOE´s siting guidelines in an attempt to make Yucca Mountain work, despite Yucca Mountain´s blatant geologic deficiencies.” The Act requires the Secretary of Energy to terminate all site characterization activities if the site is determined unsuitable. In 1984 the DOE published the original site suitability guidelines, which have been changed during the past four months. DOE´s original site suitability guidelines proved that Yucca Mountain is an unsuitable site to contain the nation´s most toxic waste. In addition to failing the original geologic isolation criteria, the proposed repository cannot meet the applicable health and safety standards promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency. “DOE´s new siting guidelines permit DOE to rely ‘primarily´ not on geologic considerations, as required by law, but on engineered waste packages that could be placed virtually anywhere,” Del Papa said. “It is for these reasons that the State of Nevada is obligated to move forward with this challenge to protect the health and safety of our citizens.” ### ***************************************************************** 40 Nuclear fears to be forum topic [St. Petersburg Times Online: Citrus County news ] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chief hopes to allay fears about terrorists and the Florida Power plant. By ALEX LEARY, Times Staff Writer © St. Petersburg Times published December 18, 2001 CRYSTAL RIVER -- The head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will be in town next month to address concerns about terrorism and the safety of Florida Power's nuclear plant. The town-meeting forum with Nils Diaz, a former University of Florida professor, has been scheduled for Jan. 17 at Crystal River City Hall, 123 NW U.S. 19. Mayor Ron Kitchen, who announced the meeting Monday, said the commissioner wants to allay fears about the threat to the nuclear plant, which has been on high alert since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In an telephone interview from his St. Petersburg home, Diaz said he would visit several power plants in the coming weeks. Diaz, who spent 30 years in Gainesville, said he had a particular interest in Crystal River because he has lived nearby for most of his life. "I think I might be able to help residents feel better about where they live and what the federal government is capable of and what we have done to ensure that public safety is protected." Nuclear plants, he said, are hardened facilities with "multiple layers" of defense against an accident. He raised doubts about whether a rogue plane could damage the reactor containment building and said even if it did, safety backups could help prevent the release of radioactive material. Diaz said he was concerned that the impact of a nuclear accident stemming from terrorism was overstated in a November article in the St. Petersburg Times. The report, which laid out a worst-case scenario involving severe structural damage, the melting of uranium fuel and failure of all safety systems, cited a 1982 study commissioned by the NRC in which Crystal River was named. Conducted by Sandia National Laboratories, the study estimated that a nuclear catastrophe in Crystal River could cause 1,160 cancer deaths within one year of exposure, 6,630 injuries and $53-billion in damage, according to the Washington Post. The estimates for the nation's nuclear sites far exceeded previous worst-case scenarios acknowledged by the NRC and set off a debate about the methodology of the computer model used, CRAC2. Diaz noted the age of the study, but conceded that the investigation has not been replicated. He said the study was to determine whether power plants should be built near major airports and was not a comprehensive look at the health effects. "It might not be true," he said. He said the government has updated information on the threat to public safety but said he would wait until the Jan. 17 forum to elaborate, in part because he was leaving for Miami on Monday afternoon. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the NRC has urged the nation's 103 nuclear reactors to be on high security alert. Florida Power has added additional security guards at its Crystal River energy complex and installed concrete barriers. The Coast Guard recently established no-trespassing zones in the coastal waters near the plant. The company drew some criticism when it rejected help from the National Guard, but officials said the measures already in place were adequate. Next month's meeting is not the first time Diaz has publicly addressed nuclear terrorism. During a talk at the University of Florida on Nov. 17, he said nuclear plants are better secured than any industrial facility. Fears about radiation and cancer, he told the audience, have been hyped. Some nuclear watchdog groups have been critical of the NRC's actions in recent weeks, suggesting it is too close to the industry. "They are going into full battle mode," said Tyson Slocum, research director for Public Citizen, a group that is critical of the nuclear industry. "The NRC all along has been a pretty open advocate of nuclear power, which is kind of an unusual position for a regulatory body to have." From the Times ***************************************************************** 41 Berkley Applauds Nevada's Yucca Mountain Lawsuit Congresswoman Shelley Berkley - Legislation: Press Releases 2001 December 17, 2001 -- (Las Vegas, NV) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (NV-01) said today that she strongly supports the State of Nevada's lawsuit against the Department of Energy's (DOE) Yucca Mountain Site Suitability Guidelines. The lawsuit argues that the DOE has promulgated regulations that allow for man-made or engineered barriers to be the primary method of waste containment even though the Nuclear Waste Policy Act clearly mandates that waste containment must be achieved utilizing a site's natural geological barriers. "This lawsuit encapsulates everything that we have been saying about the Yucca Mountain process since its inception, namely that sound science has been completely trumped by politics," Representative Berkley said. "Yucca Mountain has failed as a geological site, but instead of acknowledging this fact and coming up with real long term solutions to the nuclear waste problem, the DOE has relied on support from the nuclear industry and pro-nuclear Members of Congress to cover up the project's weaknesses. What the DOE is doing is akin to starting a football game with one set of rules only to change them at halftime when it realizes it's losing. This lawsuit will hopefully bring them back to earth." The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 requires the DOE to issue guidelines for a repository site that are consistent with scientists' and Congress' belief that nuclear waste is best secured by natural geological features. It has long been understood by the DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that waste containment must be accomplished using primarily natural barriers. Because of numerous geological failings of the Yucca Mountain site, including significant groundwater movement and seismic activity, the DOE determined that Yucca Mountain is not suitable for the permanent geological storage of nuclear waste. To ensure that Yucca Mountain would not be eliminated by its own criteria, the DOE issued new guidelines, effective December 14, 2001, that allow for man-made barriers to be the primary method of waste isolation. Berkley concluded, "For far too long DOE officials have ignored the concerns of the people of Nevada, as well as sound science. And now it is trying to ignore the law. The DOE has become tyrannical when it comes to Yucca Mountain, and the courts need to put them in their place. While the nuclear industry and the DOE believe they have carte blanche to violate Nevada by dumping their nuclear waste in our state, the law says otherwise. The DOE refuses to listen to anyone who disagrees with their obsession with the Yucca Mountain Project. I hope the court will force them to reverse their course." ***************************************************************** 42 Department of Energy Denies Nevada's Request To Stay Yucca Mountain Site Suitability Guidelines News Releases For Immediate Release: Friday, December 14, 2001 News Media Contact: Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Washington - The U.S. Department of Energy today released the following letter to Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn and State Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa denying the State of Nevada's request to stay the December 14, 2001 effective date of the Department's revised Yucca Mountain site suitability guidelines (10 CFR part 963) under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). The text of the letter follows: The Honorable Kenny C. Guinn, Governor The Honorable Frankie Sue Del Papa, Attorney General One Hundred One North Carson Street Carson City, Nevada 89701 Dear Governor Guinn and Attorney General Del Papa: The Secretary has asked me to respond to your December 10, 2001, letter in which you request a stay of the December 14, 2001, effective date of the Department's revised Yucca Mountain site suitability guidelines (10 CFR part 963) under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) pending the outcome of a lawsuit that you plan to file. Your letter reiterates arguments that Nevada and others raised in comments on the proposed guidelines. The Department responded to these arguments in detail in the Supplementary Information portion of the notice of final rulemaking (66 Fed. Reg. 57298, November 14, 2001). I will not repeat the various points made there in detail. In brief, however, they are as follows. + Nevada objects to the new suitability criteria in part because they are different from the old criteria and suggests that the only reason DOE could have for modifying them now is to address problems Yucca Mountain might have in meeting the prior criteria. Response: DOE changed its Guidelines because both the science and the law relevant to this project have developed significantly since DOE first promulgated its Guidelines in 1984. On the scientific front, pursuant to Congress's directive in the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPACT), in August 1995, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a report entitled Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards. In that report, the NAS concluded that it would be preferable to devise standards for regulation of a repository at Yucca Mountain that evaluated the performance of a repository taking into account all aspects of the repository, both engineered and natural, rather than evaluating different subsystems. This was because even if each subsystem performed well on its own, different subsystems could interfere with each other and cause defective performance of the repository as a whole. Moreover, partly in response to the NAS study (as well as in response to Congress's directive in EPACT), the EPA and the NRC changed their rules for licensing repositories to focus on total system performance. See 40 CFR part 197 (new EPA rules); 10 CFR part 63 (new NRC rules). The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) makes clear that there is a close link between the judgment that the Secretary must make about the suitability of a site for development as a repository and the potential licensability of a repository located at that site. Thus, once the EPA and the NRC changed their rules, it would have been improper for DOE to retain its old rules, which comported with the old NRC licensing requirements and approach but were out of step with NRC's current thinking. + Nevada believes that the NRC concurred in DOE's old rules on the basis of certain provisos that the new rules do not satisfy. Response: The NRC has concurred in DOE's new rules as well (66 Fed. Reg. 54303, October 26, 2001). + Nevada objects to the fact that the new Guidelines allow DOE to consider both natural and engineered barriers in determining suitability, arguing that the NWPA intended the Secretary to focus on natural barriers exclusively in making his suitability determination. Response: Section 121 of the NWPA directs the NRC to provide for the use of a multiple barrier system in the design of a repository. The NRC has implemented this directive by requiring DOE to show at licensing that the natural and engineered barriers will work in combination to enhance repository performance. Thus the operation of both sets of barriers is relevant under the regulatory framework for licensing. Given the link between suitability and licensing, it is entirely appropriate for DOE's suitability Guidelines to direct the Secretary's attention to both kinds of barriers in making a suitability determination. For these reasons the Secretary does not believe a stay of the suitability regulations is warranted and has asked me to inform you that your request for a stay of the effective date of the site suitability Guidelines is denied. Sincerely, /s/ Lee Liberman Otis General Counsel --DOE- R-01-213 OCRWM [http://www.rw.doe.gov] | YMP Home [http://www.ymp.gov] | Search [http://www.ymp.gov/search/index.htm] | About [http://www.ymp.gov/about/index.htm] | What's New [http://www.ymp.gov/new/index.htm] | Timeline [http://www.ymp.gov/timeline/index.htm] Money [http://www.ymp.gov/money/index.htm] | Learn [http://www.ymp.gov/learn/index.htm] | Tour [http://www.ymp.gov/tour/index.htm] | EIS [http://www.ymp.gov/timeline/eis/index.htm] | Library [http://www.ymp.gov/reference/index.htm] | Links [http://www.ymp.gov/links/index.htm] | Index [http://www.ymp.gov/index/site_map.htm] | Privacy [http://www.ymp.gov/disclaimer.htm] | Contact [http://www.ymp.gov/new/contact.htm] ***************************************************************** 43 Ireland: Jacob seeks facts on Sellafield shutdown Irish Times; Dec 17, 2001 The Government is to seek 'full clarification' regarding the latest shutdown of nuclear reactors at Sellafield. The Minister of State with responsibility for nuclear safety, Mr Joe Jacob, has instructed his officials to seek the clarification after six UK reactors, four of them in the Sellafield complex, were shut down last week. The State's nuclear watchdog, the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland (RPII), has expressed concern it was not informed of the development. British Nuclear Fuels says the reactors, which were shut down on December 9th, will not return to service until the New Year at the earliest. The company insisted yesterday there was 'absolutely no risk' to the public. According to Mr Jacob, the incident 'clearly justified' the Government's determination to have Sellafield shut down. 'It also serves to underpin the importance of the legal actions and avenues being pursued by the Government,' he said. The problem stems from an safety alert which occurred last October at the Chapelcross reactor on the west coast of Scotland. This prompted an investigation of all similar nuclear plants by BNFL and Britain's Nuclear Installation Inspectorate, which in turn resulted in this month's decision to shut down six more reactors for detailed inspection. Dr Tom O'Flaherty, chief executive of the RPII, said any incident involving the control rods in a nuclear reactor was 'a serious event'. However, on the information available, he believed there were no immediate danger to the public. Dr O'Flaherty said the institute would be following up the incident with the British authorities. He expressed surprise that it had not been informed of the matter, as normally happens. A BNFL spokesperson said the RPII had not been informed because the shutdown was 'not an incident' and had 'no safety implications as such'. All the affected stations belong to the first generation of nuclear power plants built in the late 1950s and 1960s. At Chapelcross, a problem arose with the rods which control the heat in the reactor. A rod failed to drop cleanly because the covering metal charge plate was out of alignment. The incident lead to fears about the safety of the reactors after four decades of intensive use. BNFL was unable to say when the affected reactors would start up again, explaining this would depend on the view taken by the Nuclear Installation Inspectorate. The Government is campaigning for the closure of the MOX nuclear reprocessing plant on the Sellafield site. However, earlier this month, a UN court rejected Ireland's attempt to halt the opening of the plant. ***************************************************************** 44 Upgrades complete, TMI back in service LancasterOnline.com Monday, December 17 By John Spidaliere More efficient, more powerful and crack free, Three Mile Island returned to service earlier this month after a 58-day shutdown. Workers at TMI fired up Unit 1 on Dec. 6, after a scheduled refueling and maintenance outage that lasted more than two months. During the outage, plant workers fixed cracked reactor heads and performed other maintenance on the plant. "We did extensive work to upgrade the equipment and material condition of TMI during the outage," said Mark Warner, TMI site vice president. "We are committed to keeping the plant in excellent working condition and to safely generate electricity for our region." Topping the list was the repair of hairline cracks in the reactor heads, caused by stress and corrosion inside the reactor. High temperatures and pressure trigger this common problem, explained Dave Carl, spokesman for AmerGen Energy Company, which owns TMI. In August, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nation's 103 nuclear facilities, suggested circular cracks around the reactor head could pose a safety concern. Neatly stacked control rods pass through the nozzles on top of the reactor. The rods regulate the intensity of the nuclear reaction taking place inside the reactor core. Cracks in the nozzle head could become a "potential significant" safety concern, said the NRC bulletin. The NRC suggested that 13 nuclear facilities, including TMI, inspect and repair any damaged reactor heads. The NRC does not believe the cracks pose a radiation threat. The greater consequence is a loss of revenue for AmerGen as the plant sat idle. Repairs were successfully completed at TMI during the outage, said Carl. In addition to the reactor head repairs, workers inspected the inside of the reactor core, installed a new turbine, replace the main and auxiliary transformers and made repairs to both steam generators. The new turbine will increase the plant's production by 5 percent, said Carl, from 880 megawatts to 925 megawatts per hour. That's enough energy to power 900,000 homes. Refueling and maintenance are scheduled at least every two years. Nuclear plants produce about 15 percent of the nation's electricity. The energy produced by TMI is used in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. On Oct. 17, a rumor of a possible terrorist attack put the plant security on high alert. The threat, later determined to be a hoax, touched off a national debate about the security of the nation's nuclear plant. TMI was the site of the nation's worst commercial nuclear accident in 1979, when a portion of the reactor's core melted. AmerGen owns Exelon Nuclear which operates both the TMI and Peach Bottom nuclear facilities. ©2001 Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. ***************************************************************** 45 Nuclear protest fuels safety review The West Australian + December 18, 2001 By Rebecca Rose and Wade O'Leary SYDNEY AUTHORITIES have been forced to review security at Australia's only nuclear reactor after Greenpeace protesters stormed the site to prove how easily it could be overrun by terrorists. More than 40 unarmed protesters - most dressed in cumbersome fake nuclear waste barrels - swamped guards at the Lucas Heights facility early yesterday by running through the front gates. Others used ladders to climb the fence. New South Wales police took more than 30 minutes to send one patrol car in response to the security breach. Back-up police arrived another 30 minutes later. By that time, protesters had the run of the site, scaling the nuclear reactor itself as well as its radio tower to unfurl anti-nuclear banners. One man chained himself to the top and another defied a "no-fly zone" to hang-glide over the area. The Lucas Heights nuclear reactor has been identified as a potential terrorist target in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States. But concerns it was unsafe were rejected by authorities at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Police took more than four hours to round up the interlopers as 250 reactor workers were left stranded outside. "We wanted to show that this facility is unsafe," Greenpeace spokesman Stephen Campbell said. ANSTO spokeswoman Helen Garner conceded that security would have to be reviewed after the incident but said regulations at the reactor already met international guidelines. "They did not breach parts of the facility to which we would not want them to gain access," Professor Garner said. Federal Science Minister Peter McGuaran labelled the security breach a meaningless stunt. He said protesters were threatening the nuclear medicine industry which saved lives. "The protective services knew that they were demonstrators," he said. "If they were armed terrorists or saboteurs, their reaction would have been very different." The security, safety and design at Lucas Heights was questioned at an industry forum in Sydney yesterday. A group of ANSTO scientists faced a grilling from US physicist Robert Budnitz after presenting their case for the proposed new reactor at Lucas Heights. The presentation contained the assertion "no credible external event has the potential to affect the safety of the reactor facility", which drew a derisive response. -with AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS © 2001 West Australian Newspapers Limited All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 46 Westinghouse Expands Nuclear Services Capability in France; Announces Acquisition, Divestiture to Focus Solely on Nuclear Market PR Newswire - USA; Dec 17, 2001 PITTSBURGH, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Westinghouse Electric Company, wholly owned by BNFL plc of the United Kingdom, today announced that it has strengthened its ability to serve the French commercial nuclear power market by acquiring a controlling interest in Logitest SA, a nuclear non-destructive testing company based in Ulis. Concurrently, Westinghouse announced that it has sold the non-nuclear portions of its Barras Provence operations to Cybernetix Industrie SA. William P. Poirier, with 27 years of Westinghouse experience as an engineering and field services manager, will relocate from Pittsburgh to Paris to lead the company's expanded French operations. Terms of the agreements, which are effective immediately, were not announced. Mr. Poirier said, however, that the moves are consistent with the company's strategy of expanding its ability to serve the worldwide commercial nuclear power industry. "Westinghouse is singularly committed to the nuclear power industry, so it makes good sense to divest our non-nuclear French assets to a company, Cybernetix, that is well known and highly regarded in industries such as telerobotics and remote tooling," he said. "Similarly, the addition of Logitest complements our already strong nuclear capabilities in Europe and will supplement the range of human and technical expertise that we can apply to both the French market and others throughout the world." He pointed out that Logitest is one of only three companies now qualified to conduct steam generator inspections in France. Mr. Poirier said that the former Logitest operations acquired by Westinghouse would remain in Ulis and that Gilbert Tomasino would be appointed to lead that operation. He also emphasized that the nuclear services segment of the Barras Provence operation in Manosque will remain a vital part of the company's French-based operations under the continued direction of Francis Lepee. With headquarters in Monroeville, Pa., near Pittsburgh, Westinghouse offers a wide range of nuclear plant products and services to utilities throughout the world, including fuel, spent fuel management, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control, and advanced nuclear plant designs. Westinghouse supplied the world's first pressurized water reactor commercial nuclear power plant in 1957 and has designed the world's largest installed base of operating nuclear power plants. BNFL is a leading specialist in nuclear technology and a global supplier of nuclear fuel, products and services. Currently, about a third of BNFL's sales comes from the Westinghouse Electric business, which manufactures fuel and services nuclear reactors around the world; a quarter comes from the recycling of UK and overseas customers' fuel; a further quarter of sales comes from operating the UK's Magnox power stations. The remainder of BNFL's business is in waste management and decommissioning, which is expected to grow significantly in the years ahead. http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X28792397 /CONTACT: Vaughn Gilbert of Westinghouse Electric Company, +1-412-374-3896, or gilberhv@Westinghouse.com/ 14:00 EST World Reporter All Material ***************************************************************** 47 Leaf going nuclear in GBP2.5m contract Belfast Telegraph; Dec 17, 2001 ELECTRONICS company Leaf Technologies has won a GBP2.5m contract to supply a top nuclear research project in Geneva. The business is set to expand its Mallusk operation to provide electronic modules to the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, part of the CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) scheme. Announcing what is believed to be the first contract of its kind for an Ulster company, Trade Minister Sir Reg Empey hailed it as a huge breakthrough. He said: "Leaf's success is proof that CERN business is not the preserve of large multi-national enterprises." Funded by 20 countries, CERN undertakes leading-edge studies in the peaceful application of nuclear technology. Its scientists were responsible for developing the World Wide Web for Internet communications. Leaf, a family-run company employing 200 people, will develop sophisticated circuit boards for the high precision controls of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It is planned to use this for a research project that in the past has discovered alpha and beta rays now used in medical imaging. Fred Sloan, chief executive of Leaf Technologies, said: "The CERN contract is the most significant in a series of new orders that we have won recently and will result in significant employment opportunities." 2001 Copyright Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd. All rights World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks Las Vegas SUN Today: December 18, 2001 at 5:45:26 PST BRUSSELS, Belgium- Russia still believes the United States was mistaken to withdraw from a treaty banning most anti-missile defenses, but it wants to press ahead with plans to radically cut both nations' offensive nuclear arms, the Russian defense minister said. The two countries will begin talks next month on how and when to make new cuts in their strategic nuclear arms, despite continued disagreement over the U.S. pullout from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, said after a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In January, the two countries will begin technical discussions on both the levels and a timetable for those cuts, Ivanov said. President Bush has proposed cutting U.S. nuclear warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200, from the current 6,000. Russia says it will bring its warheads down to between 1,500 and 2,200. Bush announced last week that the United States will pull out in six months from the 1972 treaty so it can test and build a missile defense system to protect against terrorists and rogue nations. Russia was not surprised by the move - after months of negotiations trying to prevent it - and has no fears for its own security, Ivanov said, echoing comments made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, Russia worries America's decision could prompt other nations to decide they, too, can pull out of any international agreements they don't like, the Russian defense minister said. Other countries might think, "logically, that if one country won't abide, why should we?" Ivanov said. Nevertheless, he said the two nations are closer than ever, cooperating in the fight against terrorism and other issues at an "unprecedented" level. He told reporters who asked about the U.S. decision on the ABM treaty that the issue never came up during his talks with Rumsfeld, which will continue Tuesday. Earlier, Rumsfeld said the two nations must focus on "transparency and predictability, which both countries recognize ... as important for our respective populations to feel comfortable as we make that dramatic change." He called Monday's talks "excellent." Russia has apparently accepted the U.S. move because it believes the size of its nuclear arsenal means the American plans for a missile defense will not weaken its security. China, which also had tried to persuade Bush not to scrap the treaty, remains worried, however, that a U.S. missile defense system would ruin the deterrent value of its smaller arsenal. Assistant Secretary of State Avis Bohlen, at a meeting Monday with Chinese officials in Beijing, told them the Bush administration plans a limited missile defense system not directed against China, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. "We felt the discussions were productive. Both sides indicated they're ready to continue their dialogue on these issues," Boucher said. Bush had tried to strike a deal with Putin to allow the United States to expand testing for a missile defense system without ending the treaty. But Russia, which can't afford a national missile defense, has said it views the ABM pact as the basis of all nuclear-reduction treaties. In a statement aimed at backing up the assertion that Russia faces no threat from America's decision, Ivanov said before his meeting with Rumsfeld that his country had plans to develop its Strategic Missile Forces "which were drafted long before" the U.S. decision. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Defence demands full acquittal The Pasko Case Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. A confident defence-team gave its closing speech in the Pasko-case today. - There is no crime and thus, the Court has no other option than to acquit Pasko, was its message. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-12-17 16:54 Today's session started with a row between the prosecutor and the defence. Its subject was whether the defence should be allowed to give its closing speech in open court or not. Behind closed doors Prosecutor Aleksandr Kondakov argued that state secrets could be disclosed since the defence was going to refer to decree 055:96 of the Ministry of Defence. Not only the content, but also the very existence of the said decree, is considered to be state secrets, said Kondakov. The defence pointed out that the existence of the decree, which is the basis for the charges against Pasko, is well known and said that it would not disclose any of its content. Still, the Court ruled in the prosecutor's favour. Decree 055:96 is a secret normative act. On November 6, 2001 the Russian Supreme Court declared it as "illegal and invalid" since it had not been registered in accordance with Russian law. For formal reasons the Court's verdict is limited to 10 provisions of the decree, but the grounds of the judgment also apply to its remaining 700 provisions. Nevertheless, the prosecutor still insists to use the decree. Charges destroyed The defence demanded a full acquittal. -- No crime has taken place, said Ivan Pavlov, and pointed to the fact that the prosecutor himself has reduced the charges against Pasko for having handed over state secrets to the Japanese side to almost nothing. -- By taking this step, Kondakov has destroyed most of his case, said Pavlov in an interview with NTV. The closing speech of the defence may have given the charges their final coup de grâce. In addition to the prosecution's use of the illegal decree 055:96 as the normative basis for the charges, the defence focused on the fact that it is not even close to prove that Pasko collected the disputed information of the case with the intention to transfer it to Japan. Moreover, none of it contains state secrets according to the prevailing legislation. Thus, the conditions for convicting Pasko for espionage under article 275 of the Penal Code are clearly not present, concluded the defence. It also pointed out that most of the 'evidence' had been illegally collected, so that it in any case should be disqualified according to Article 50 (2) of the Russian Constitution. The end is near On December 18, Pasko will state his last words to the Court. Its three judges are also expected to schedule the date for the announcement of the verdict. ***** Grigory Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1997 and charged with espionage on behalf of the Japanese TV-channel NHK. He was acquitted in July 1999, but convicted of 'abuse of official authority' and freed under an amnesty. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed, but so did the prosecution, insisting he was a spy. On November 21, 2000 the Supreme Court sent the case back for a re-trial at the Pacific Fleet Court. The re-trial started on July 11, 2001. It may be concluded some time between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 3 Verdict falls on December 25 Gregory Pasko, an investigative journalist who worked for the Pacific Fleet's newspaper, was arrested on 20 November 1997 by the FSB and charged with high treason for his writing about the nuclear safety issues in the Russian Pacific Fleet. Grigory Pasko stated his last words to the Pacific Fleet Court today. The Court's verdict will be announced on December 25. Jon Gauslaa, 2001-12-18 15:42 It was an emotional moment in the Pacific Fleet courthouse today, when Grigory Pasko stated his last words to the Court. The total lie In a four-minute speech Pasko gave his thoughts on how the case against him could start. -- One of the reasons is the lie that exists in all spheres of our state, he said. Most issues have double standards, and this total lie goes through all state structures. Our security services do not deal will issues that is related to the real security of the state. In stead they spend their efforts on chasing imaginary spies. Such a state does not need honest and critical journalists. It needs pleasers and scoundrels, and not only among journalists, but also among the employees of the state like investigators, prosecutors and judges, Pasko continued. He also made it clear that he had acted within the limits of the law, and appealed the Court to base its ruling on the law and common sense. - There is an absolute absence of proofs against me, he said. Verdict to fall on December 25 The Court was then adjourned, after having stated that its verdict will be pronounced on December 25. Grigory Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1997 and charged with espionage on behalf of the Japanese TV-channel NHK. He was acquitted in July 1999, but convicted of 'abuse of official authority' and freed under an amnesty. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed, but so did the prosecution, insisting he was a spy. On November 21, 2000 the Supreme Court sent the case back for a re-trial at the Pacific Fleet Court. The re-trial started on July 11, 2001. Publisher: Bellona Foundation, President: Frederic Hauge Information: info@bellona.no, Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22 38 38 62 * P.O.Box 2141 Grunerlokka, 0505 Oslo, Norway ***************************************************************** 4 Russian TV visits once-secret nuclear facility Mayak in the Urals BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 [Presenter] So far Russia doesn't have even one contract for the reprocessing of foreign spent nuclear fuel. This was reported today by Aleksandr Rumyantsev, the head of the Atomic Energy Ministry... While disputes continue in society about the merits of such deals, Russian specialists are reprocessing motherland spent nuclear fuel and have no doubts that their work is of use. Here's a report by Viktor Kuzmin from the closed-regime Mayak facility in Chelyabinsk Region: [Correspondent] This red building was built at the end of the 1940s, one of the first industrial buildings of the secret facility that received the name Mayak... People at Mayak now prefer not to recall facts that are 40 years old. They maintain here that they have learnt to think about safety in a half-century of work with radioactive elements. In this workshop there are 2,200 cells and 870, or one-third of them, are filled with canisters that already contain vitrified nuclear waste. They will stay here for six to seven years until the containers cool down. There is spent fuel from nuclear submarines and from nuclear power stations in the cylinders. Waste from the 1990s is currently being reprocessed at the enterprise... Nuclear waste is turned into glass at the Mayak plant. A unique piece of apparatus, which employees have nicknamed the stove, is the only one in Russia. In scientific language the unit creates a matrix that holds on to radioactive elements. In such a state waste can be stored for several centuries... Such stoves exist in France and in England. People at Mayak call these European countries their main competitors. Waste nuclear fuel has been transported to the Urals since 1972 and it has been reprocessed for 25 years. For this very purpose an entire factory codenamed RT-1 was built at Mayak... [Yevgeniy Ryzhkov, worker] In 2000 we did not transport in even one tonne of irradiated fuel for storage at the plant, while our eternal competitors - France and Great Britain - last year, in 2000, transported in 3,000 tonnes to their factories belonging to the firms (?Kazhema) and BNFL... Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 1900 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 5 US experts arrive at Russian nuclear facility BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS Krasnoyarsk, 17 December, correspondent Yuriy Khots: American and Russian experts are discussing the security of nuclear materials at the [Krasnoyarsk] chemical plant [Krasnoyarsk-26 nuclear facility in Zheleznogorsk], the plant's chief engineer Yuriy Revenko told ITAR-TASS. The current visit is just another step in bilateral cooperation on the security of the nuclear facility, where a nuclear reactor is used for producing weapons-grade plutonium, Revenko said. Several years ago the USA supplied the combine with special security equipment. After the events of 11 September [terrorist attacks in New York and Washington] both sides felt the need to enhance the security of the nuclear plant itself and the plutonium storage facilities. The US delegation came to Krasnoyarsk to discuss the funding of additional protection measures, Revenko said. Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0612 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 6 Russian Duma Defence Committee head concerned about Chinese nuclear arms BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 17, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 17 December: The Chinese leadership might revise its programme of developing strategic nuclear forces in the wake of the US administration's decision to abandon the 1972 ABM Treaty, State Duma Defence Committee Chairman Aleksey Arbatov said on Monday [17 December]. China possesses 20 units of strategic nuclear arms, Arbatov said, citing expert information. "China can increase this amount to 1,000 over a short period of time," he said. Russia cannot be content with such a turn of events in China, he said. If China boosts its nuclear arsenal, a chain reaction will follow including India and Pakistan, he said. Russia should not cooperate with China in the strategic arms sphere, he said. "Otherwise, it may pose a threat to Russia's national security," he said. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1519 gmt 17 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 7 20 N Korean officials arrive in South - Japan Today Japan News - News - Tuesday, December 18, 2001 at 09:30 JST SEOUL Twenty North Korean officials involved in building light-water reactors in the North arrived in South Korea on Sunday for a two-week visit to make observation tour to the South's nuclear reactor facilities, a South Korean official said Monday. The North Korean delegation, headed by Kim Hee Mun, a ministerial-level official, was scheduled to visit nuclear reactors in Ulchin, North Kyongsang Province on Monday, said the official from the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). (Kyodo News) ***************************************************************** 8 Flats is vulnerable, watchdog group says Denver Post.com Energy Dept. rejects report's claim of lax security By Mike Soraghan [msoraghan@denverpost.com] Denver Post Washington Bureau --> Monday, December 17, 2001 - WASHINGTON - When a team of "terrorists" set out to steal plutonium from Rocky Flats, their secret weapon was a lacrosse stick. Testing the mothballed nuclear bomb plant's security in 1997, the special government operations team was told it had to escape without cutting a hole in the plant's outer fence and would have to hoist the plutonium over it. They went to a Denver-area sporting goods store and bought lacrosse sticks. The team sneaked into the plant disguised as construction workers, waited for a shift change and raided the vault where the "plutonium" was kept. Then, amid a laser-tag gun battle, one member of the team sprinted to the outer fence and lobbed four hockey-puck sized chunks of plutonium over the fence with the lacrosse stick. "It was funny when you think about a bunch of guys running around with lacrosse sticks," said a member of the team who participated in the 1997 exercise. "But it's pretty scary when you can just throw it over the fence." The ingenuity and determination of the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the mail system has raised new questions of how prepared the country's nuclear sites are for terrorist attacks. Those fears are heightened by reports of Osama bin Laden's intense interest in obtaining a nuclear weapon. And a recent report by a government watchdog group claims that despite assurances from Rocky Flats managers that the plant is secure, it remains vulnerable to a nuclear attack. "I simply wouldn't be confident that they could withstand an attack," said Peter Stockton, a former congressional investigator and assistant to former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson who authored the report. "The word around the department is Rocky Flats has been the most recalcitrant of all the sites in terms of upgrading security." The lacrosse stick episode highlights one of the report's key allegations: that the Energy Department "dumbs down" its tests at nuclear plants so its security contractors can pass muster. The report says Energy officials put unrealistic restrictions on the mock terrorists, such as saying real terrorists wouldn't be able to cut a hole in the outer fence. "Yet even with the scales tipped in their direction, protective forces still lose over 50 percent of the time," the report states. Energy officials say the Washington-based watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, is biased and flat wrong, and that Rocky Flats is secure. They say the group ignored evidence that made the incidents sound less sinister, and that the report is a compilation of already-discredited allegations by malcontents within the department. "We are disappointed that a so-called independent government oversight organization would be so biased that it blatantly misrepresents and distorts facts about security," said Pat Etchart, spokesman for department management at Rocky Flats. He emphasized that no plutonium or nuclear secrets have ever been stolen from the plant. He said the amount of plutonium has decreased substantially in recent years at the plant, and has been consolidated from seven buildings to one. Despite the furious dismissal by Energy officials of POGO's findings, they've raised enough concerns that the House's National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee has begun a review of efforts to protect nuclear weapons facilities. Subcommittee chairman Chris Shays, R-Conn., intends to hold a hearing after the investigation is completed in February or March. "We cannot allow security weaknesses to persist," Shays said. Rocky Flats manufactured plutonium "triggers" for nuclear bombs until 1989. The Energy Department has contracted out the cleanup of the plant, and security is handled by a private subcontractor, Wackenhut; the department spends about $40 million a year on security. Security at Rocky Flats has been an issue for some time. In 1996, the department gave its contractors a "marginal" rating for security. In 1997, The Denver Post reported that a security officer there warned federal investigators that terrorists could steal plutonium to make a nuclear bomb. But since 1996, Etchart said, security has been bolstered and has received top ratings every year. He said POGO's report is a compilation of old reports and whistleblower allegations, which were investigated and rejected. However, the report does include allegations of new security lapses. Among them: In July 1999, a team sent by then-Energy Secretary Richardson found that security forces were not posting additional guards when plutonium was moved out of its vault, as is required. The security team found that a steel cable strong enough to stop a truck bomb had been attached to the wrong fence - the outside fence, which has no alarms. The problem was noted in 1996, but was not fixed until the team pointed it out in 1999. Etchart said that items such as the cable are only one of many controls at the plant. In March 2000, another security team found that in mock attacks, security forces at the plant sprayed gunfire at testers and bystanders evacuating the buildings, violating rules on deadly force. Plant officials say the "victims" dressed as participants and disregarded the orders of security police officers. In 1988, a Navy SEAL team was again able to enter the plant through the fence in a test, "steal" enough plutonium to make multiple nuclear weapons, and escape back through the fence. But after that, Rocky Flats management changed the test so that the attack team couldn't go back through the fence, but had to climb a guard tower and rope the plutonium over the fence. The report states that a SEAL commander said he would no longer do tests at Rocky Flats because they're unrealistic. All contents Copyright 2001 The Denver Post or other copyright ***************************************************************** 9 Two Legs Good, Four Legs Better? Monday, Dec. 17, 2001. Page 10 By Matt Bivens WASHINGTON -- Many unkind things have been said of the Russian Nuclear Power Ministry's business scheme to adopt the world's radioactive waste. But for proper perspective, consider what Minatom's counterpart in the United States has been up to. That would be the so-called U.S. Department of Energy. It's really, of course, the U.S. Department of Making Nuclear Weapons -- and, these days, the U.S. Department of Scratching Its Head Trying to Figure Out How to Pay for Tidying Up Afterward. From Tennessee and South Carolina to Idaho and Washington state, the department is pondering what's collectively the most expensive environmental cleanup in world history -- rivaled only by the similar mess in Russia. How to afford it all? One way: feed "slightly" radioactive scrap into the steel mills for recycling. It would then add slight radioactivity to everything from spoons to sports cars to children's braces (two-thirds of the metal coming out of U.S. steel mills is recycled) but what the hey, it'll save a few bucks. Needless to say, no one other than the department really likes this proposal. Another example of Department of Energy cost-cutting can be found at Rocky Flats, Colorado, 26 kilometers outside of Denver. Rocky Flats is where the department for nearly 50 years manufactured plutonium "pits" -- modest-looking spheres that would fit in the palm of one's hand (if one were stupid), and which constitute the explosive core of nuclear weapons. A half-century of often-rushed work has spread plutonium across the site. The plan now is to scoop up radioactive soil and contain it somehow, before time and runoff carry it into the water supply and food chain. But how much soil-scooping is enough? Past practice has been to clean sufficiently to satisfy computer models that look at future generations who might farm the land -- not because we'd like them to farm there, but because we don't want our grandchildren to be accidentally poisoned. Plutonium will be around for 24,000 years, and institutional memories tend to fail after just a few decades. The department, however, has been flirting with a new standard: declare Rocky Flats a wildlife preserve -- an idea that has support all on its own in the rapidly developing Denver environs -- and then clean to satisfy models suggesting future generations will be, say, wildlife preserve workers. Since park rangers will only be briefly on the land, not living on it and farming it, this theoretical approach could allow more plutonium to be left behind. Arjun Makhijani, director of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, says there has even been talk that a little radiation makes a better nature preserve; as the Chernobyl region has shown, where people fear to tread, animals are king. This Enron-esque approach to clean-up accounting has scientists and activists like Makhijani concerned. "At Johnston Atoll in the Pacific [the site of nuclear weapons tests], the soil was cleaned to a level of 17 picocuries per gram. The initial [DOE] proposal for Rocky Flats was [to leave behind radiation levels] almost 40 times as high," Makhijani told a thinly attended press conference in Washington last week. In the face of public opposition, the department has been reviewing the idea of a wildlife preserve for three-antlered deer. It should offer its latest in a long line of grudging clean-up proposals early next year. Matt Bivens, a former editor of The Moscow Times, is a Washington-based fellow of The Nation Institute [www.thenation.com [http://www.thenation.com] ]. [http://www.moscowtimes.ru ***************************************************************** 10 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks Las Vegas SUN Today: December 18, 2001 at 5:45:26 PST BRUSSELS, Belgium- Russia still believes the United States was mistaken to withdraw from a treaty banning most anti-missile defenses, but it wants to press ahead with plans to radically cut both nations' offensive nuclear arms, the Russian defense minister said. The two countries will begin talks next month on how and when to make new cuts in their strategic nuclear arms, despite continued disagreement over the U.S. pullout from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, said after a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In January, the two countries will begin technical discussions on both the levels and a timetable for those cuts, Ivanov said. President Bush has proposed cutting U.S. nuclear warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200, from the current 6,000. Russia says it will bring its warheads down to between 1,500 and 2,200. Bush announced last week that the United States will pull out in six months from the 1972 treaty so it can test and build a missile defense system to protect against terrorists and rogue nations. Russia was not surprised by the move - after months of negotiations trying to prevent it - and has no fears for its own security, Ivanov said, echoing comments made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Instead, Russia worries America's decision could prompt other nations to decide they, too, can pull out of any international agreements they don't like, the Russian defense minister said. Other countries might think, "logically, that if one country won't abide, why should we?" Ivanov said. Nevertheless, he said the two nations are closer than ever, cooperating in the fight against terrorism and other issues at an "unprecedented" level. He told reporters who asked about the U.S. decision on the ABM treaty that the issue never came up during his talks with Rumsfeld, which will continue Tuesday. Earlier, Rumsfeld said the two nations must focus on "transparency and predictability, which both countries recognize ... as important for our respective populations to feel comfortable as we make that dramatic change." He called Monday's talks "excellent." Russia has apparently accepted the U.S. move because it believes the size of its nuclear arsenal means the American plans for a missile defense will not weaken its security. China, which also had tried to persuade Bush not to scrap the treaty, remains worried, however, that a U.S. missile defense system would ruin the deterrent value of its smaller arsenal. Assistant Secretary of State Avis Bohlen, at a meeting Monday with Chinese officials in Beijing, told them the Bush administration plans a limited missile defense system not directed against China, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. "We felt the discussions were productive. Both sides indicated they're ready to continue their dialogue on these issues," Boucher said. Bush had tried to strike a deal with Putin to allow the United States to expand testing for a missile defense system without ending the treaty. But Russia, which can't afford a national missile defense, has said it views the ABM pact as the basis of all nuclear-reduction treaties. In a statement aimed at backing up the assertion that Russia faces no threat from America's decision, Ivanov said before his meeting with Rumsfeld that his country had plans to develop its Strategic Missile Forces "which were drafted long before" the U.S. decision. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 11 Rocky Flats refuge bill praised [www.TheDailyCamera.com] By Sandra Fish [fishs@thedailycamera.com] Camera Staff Writer ROCKY FLATS — Prairie falcons, hawks, northern leopard frogs and Preble's jumping mice will roam the 6,000-acre range of a former nuclear weapons plant more freely in five years. Two Colorado congressmen Monday declared the creation of the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge a victory for bipartisanship, open space and a thorough cleanup of the site. About 60 people, from local elected officials to federal bureaucrats to environmental group representatives, attended the gathering. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Boulder, and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Loveland, said they didn't expect their refuge bill to make it through Congress in less than a year. But both houses approved adding the measure to a Department of Defense bill late last week. President Bush is expected to sign the bill in the coming week. The measure creating the refuge requires the following: A minimum cleanup level for the former nuclear weapons plant to a standard between residential and commercial requirements. Preservation of the Lindsay Ranch homestead on the property. Reservation of 25 acres on the northwest corner to expand the National Wind Technology Center. Transportation right of way along Indiana Street on the plant's eastern boundary for a larger north-south thoroughfare. The Department of Energy will be liable for long-term cleanup obligations, although the property will be turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Rocky Flats, eight miles south of Boulder, produced nuclear weapons triggers for 40 years until it was closed in 1989 near the end of the Cold War. The government is spending an estimated $7 billion to remove radioactive waste and materials from the site; a cleanup is expected to conclude in December 2006. Boulder County Commissioner Paul Danish invoked President John F. Kennedy's characterization of the Cold War as a "twilight struggle" in commending Allard and Udall. "Much of it was fought in the moral twilight," Danish said. "A facility that has been in the twilight is finally emerging into the sunlight." The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center issued a statement criticizing the agreement for "leaving plutonium in the environment at Rocky Flats as the price for getting open space." But Udall and Allard said that isn't correct. "The bill, in my opinion, actually strengthens the cleanup," Udall said. "We've gone further than what we really intended," Allard said. "We've got some minimum standards in there." Boulder City Councilwoman Lisa Morzel said she is satisfied that the cleanup will be adequate. "One of the things we'll be looking at is surface water quality," she said. "I could not support this if I were not absolutely confident that this is not going to be something 99 percent of people would support." Contact Sandra Fish [fishs@thedailycamera.com] at (303) 473-1356 or fishs@thedailycamera.com. Copyright 2001 The Daily Camera. All rights reserved. Any ***************************************************************** 12 Formal Talks on Nuclear Cuts to Begin Next Month (washingtonpost.com) Rumsfeld, Russian Counterpart Stress Cooperation Despite U.S. Move to Quit ABM Treaty m] • Brookings Institution Senior Fellow [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/world/world_daalder050201.ht m] discussed the argument against President Bush's missile defense plan. • Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis Senior Defense Analyst [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/world/world_tanks050201.htm] discussed the argument in favor of President Bush's missile defense plan. • National security analyst [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/00/world/cordesman050300.htm] discussed the possibilities of a national ballistic missile defense system. • Reporter [http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/zforum/00/graham1211.htm] discussed his Post magazine article on a failed test of the national missile defense system. By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 18, 2001; Page A24 BRUSSELS, Dec. 17 -- Putting differences over the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty behind them, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced today that both countries would begin formal talks in January on steep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons. The two defense leaders, here for NATO talks starting Tuesday, traded warm remarks at a joint news conference and stressed cooperation on a variety of issues after meeting for the first time since President Bush announced his decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. Pressed by reporters on the ABM issue, Ivanov expressed disappointment in Bush's decision, calling it a "mistake" that could have global repercussions. "Russia is not concerned or afraid regarding its military security," he said. "But we are very much concerned how other countries will behave and whether they will comply or not to any international agreement -- thinking logically, if one country doesn't comply, why should we?" In his opening statement, Ivanov said nothing about the treaty and noted later that it did not come up in the closed-door discussions. During the news conference, he stressed that Moscow remained committed to "reliable and predictable" security relations with Washington. He said his government's highest priority in the talks beginning next month is to nail down commitments both sides have made to slash their 6,000-warhead arsenals by about two-thirds. "Both levels of reductions and the time frame of those reductions will be discussed, as well as the issues of verification and transparency," he said. Rumsfeld was equally optimistic. "One way to characterize what's happened in the United States-Russian relationship," he said, "is the way President Bush did -- that we're moving from 'mutual assured destruction' to mutual assured cooperation." Bush's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty six months from now came after months of failed negotiating aimed at fashioning a compromise that would have enabled the Bush administration to pursue its ambitious program for testing and deploying a national missile defense shield, which the treaty prohibits. Calling the treaty a "relic" of the Cold War, Rumsfeld and other senior administration officials hoped to convince their Russian counterparts that mutual withdrawal from the pact was in the best interests of both nations. But Russian officials made clear they had no intention of abandoning the treaty, the cornerstone of security relations between the two countries for three decades. The treaty was negotiated by Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev in 1972 to prohibit nationwide defenses against long-range missiles and thereby curb each side's efforts to build more and more missiles to overwhelm those defenses. Bush administration critics say scrapping the treaty and pursuing national missile defenses could lead to a new arms race. Rumsfeld, during a swing through Central Asia before arriving here, argued that discussions aimed at scrapping the treaty have produced precisely the opposite effect, bringing new U.S.-Russia understanding on the need to reduce weapons. Indeed, as Bush announced his decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed that the two powers reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals to between 1,500 and 2,200 warheads. Putin's numbers overlapped with a proposal Bush put forth last month to reduce the U.S. arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads. After talking today for two hours about these cuts and other issues, Ivanov and Rumsfeld promised to continue discussions Tuesday at NATO headquarters here, when defense ministers from NATO's 19 member nations begin two days of formal meetings. Ivanov will represent Russia in separate talks with NATO countries aimed at pursuing ways to further Moscow's participation in alliance affairs. Rumsfeld went out of his way today to endorse the idea, denying recent news reports that he and other Pentagon officials had tried to scuttle a framework for greater Russian participation called "NATO at 20." "Some weeks and months ago I sat down with the minister in Moscow and, without prompting, proposed some ways Russia and NATO might cooperate more fully," Rumsfeld said. He and Ivanov agreed that the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan was going well, but that it was far from over, with pockets of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters hidden throughout the country. © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 13 Implanted Depleted Uranium Fragments Cause Soft Tissue Sarcomas in the Muscles of Rats Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 110, Number 1, January 2001 Implanted Depleted Uranium Fragments Cause Soft Tissue Sarcomas in the Muscles of Rats Fletcher F. Hahn, Raymond A. Guilmette, and Mark D. Hoover Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA [http://ehis.niehs.nih.gov/docs/admin/newest.html] Abstract In this study, we determined the carcinogenicity of depleted uranium (DU) metal fragments containing 0.75% titanium in muscle tissues of rats. The results have important implications for the medical management of Gulf War veterans who were wounded with DU fragments and who retain fragments in their soft tissues. We compared the tissue reactions in rats to the carcinogenicity of a tantalum metal (Ta), as a negative foreign-body control, and to a colloidal suspension of radioactive thorium dioxide (232Th), Thorotrast, as a positive radioactive control. DU was surgically implanted in the thigh muscles of male Wistar rats as four squares (2.5 [times symbol] 2.5 [times symbol] 1.5 mm or 5.0 [times symbol] 5.0 [times symbol] 1.5 mm) or four pellets (2.0 [times symbol] 1.0 mm diameter) per rat. Ta was similarly implanted as four squares (5.0 [times symbol] 5.0 [times symbol] 1.1 mm) per rat. Thorotrast was injected at two sites in the thigh muscles of each rat. Control rats had only a surgical implantation procedure. Each treatment group included 50 rats. A connective tissue capsule formed around the metal implants, but not around the Thorotrast. Radiographs demonstrated corrosion of the DU implants shortly after implantation. At later times, rarifactions in the radiographic profiles correlated with proliferative tissue responses. After lifetime observation, the incidence of soft tissue sarcomas increased significantly around the 5.0 [times symbol] 5.0 mm squares of DU and the positive control, Thorotrast. A slightly increased incidence occurred in rats implanted with the 2.5 [times symbol] 2.5 mm DU squares and with 5.0 [times symbol] 5.0 mm squares of Ta. No tumors were seen in rats with 2.0 [times symbol] 1.0 mm diameter DU pellets or in the surgical controls. These results indicate that DU fragments of sufficient size cause localized proliferative reactions and soft tissue sarcomas that can be detected with radiography in the muscles of rats. Key words: bioassay, carcinogenesis, depleted uranium, Gulf War, rats, sarcomas, soft tissues, tantalum, Thorotrast. Environ Health Perspect 110:51-59 (2002). [Online 15 December 2001] [http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/110p51-59hahn/abstract.html] Address correspondence to F.F. Hahn, Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, 2425 Ridgecrest Drive SE, Albuquerque, NM 87108 USA. Telephone: (505) 348-9428. Fax: (505) 348-4980. E-mail: [fhahn@lrri.org] We thank G. Brand, Durham, NH, for his helpful suggestions in experimental design of the study, D. Lundgren for his organizational help in initiating the study, and J. Kubatko for his help with the statistical analyses. Research was sponsored by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, MIPR No. KVFM5529 with the U.S. DOE, under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC04-96AL76406. Opinions, interpretations, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the U.S. Army. Received 2 November 2000; accepted 28 June 2001. Last Updated: December 15, 2001 ***************************************************************** 14 Iran 'working on nuclear arms' Financial Review - Dec 18 Yoav Appel, AP In a rare public speech, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency said Iran was continuing its attempt to develop nuclear and other non-conventional weapons, but was also sending occasional hints that it could some day reconcile with Israel. Mossad chief Mr Ephraim Halevy offered his assessment at a public conference on security in Tel Aviv on Sunday local time. "There are Iranians in high-standing positions of influence that are saying that if there is an Israeli-Palestinian agreement ... Iran will not stand in the way of that agreement," Mr Halevy said. "There are even covert messages of the possibility of reconciliation" emanating from Iran. "These are lone chords at the moment, and they are in no way joining to form a melody," Mr Halevy added. However, he also stressed that Iran was attempting to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as expanding its long-range missile program. Iran and Israel have been bitter enemies for years, with Iran providing support for the militant Islamic group Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hezbollah fought for years against Israeli troops in south Lebanon. Israel pulled its forces out of Lebanon last year, but Hezbollah still wages sporadic attacks over a disputed patch of territory on the border. Meanwhile, Mr Halevy described the US-led campaign against international terrorism as an unprecedented development because of its focus on an organisation - Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network - rather than a sovereign state. The campaign could eventually lead some countries, such as Iran and Syria, to end their support of radical groups accused of carrying out terrorism, Mr Halevy said. He said that after the war in Afghanistan, international pressure could mount on Syrian President Bashar Assad to "bite the bullet" and crack down on radical groups in his country. The British-born Mr Halevy is only the second Mossad chief to be identified by name. Until recent years, Israel's military censor prohibited publication of the Mossad chief's name or photograph. Mr Halevy spoke at a security conference in December of last year in what was billed as the first ever public speech by the head of Mossad. ***************************************************************** 15 Phony issue - Recycling ban won't stand scrutiny [http://www.paducahsun.com/] The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Tuesday, December 18, 2001 The facts may be catching up with the phony controversy over the recycling of scrap metal from federal nuclear facilities such as the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Bush administration officials are considering whether to lift the politically inspired suspension of a Department of Energy program that cleaned up scrap metal and sent it off for recycling. The ban was imposed in the summer of 2000 by then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. Tennessee Congressman Zach Wamp called the ban "nonsense" and said it was designed to "pander ... to key constituencies." Those constituencies were organized labor, which wanted to protect the U.S. steel industry from competition, and environmentalists who fear and loathe any activity with the word "nuclear" connected to it. Richardson pandered virtually nonstop during the 2000 presidential campaign, in an effort to boost the chances of his political ally, former Vice President Al Gore. The recycling ban was an unusually cynical ploy. Richardson said it was necessary to protect consumers from exposure to contaminated materials. But DOE officials had previously described recycling as a safe and fiscally sound way to get rid of troublesome scrap made of materials such as nickel, stainless steel and copper. The Paducah plant has about 60,000 tons of scrap metal, including 9,700 tons of contaminated nickel. If DOE proceeded with plans to recycle the nickel in Paducah, the project would create at least 40 jobs and generate $10 million in sales. Nevertheless, Richardson preferred to play along with environmentalists who raised overwrought and scientifically unfounded concerns about contaminated metal ending up in children's braces. In all likelihood, metal from the recycling program would never get close to children's teeth. A group that is working to ease the impact of job losses at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant has proposed limiting the sale of decontaminated nickel to manufacturers whose products do not come into direct contact with consumers. Under this plan, the nickel might end up in military aircraft landing gear or automobile parts, but definitely not in braces. Regardless of how they're used, the decontaminated nickel and other recycled metals will pose no serious health threat. The Wall Street Journal pointed out last year that, under DOE's old standards, radiation exposure levels from recycled metals were below the "average salt-substitute found in your local grocery store." A company that is bidding to recycle the contaminated nickel reportedly has developed a process that reduces radiation below background levels. That would mean nickel mined from the ground would have a higher radiation level than the recycled DOE product. If Richardson's standard of "no detectable contamination from departmental activities" remains in place, DOE may never remove and recycle nickel and other slightly contaminated metals from federal nuclear facilities. A number of studies have found low-level radiation isn't harmful to humans. Richardson's standard for the DOE program isn't reasonable or scientifically sound. It's difficult to see how burying this material or leaving it to rust on the grounds of the plants protects public safety or helps the environment. The sensible and environmentally prudent course is to remove metals that are only slightly contaminated, subject them to high-tech decontamination and then reuse them. This should become clear to Bush administration officials as they re-examine the purely political policies of the Richardson energy department. ***************************************************************** 16 Russia Prepares for Nuclear Talks World - Associated Press Tuesday December 18 8:43 AM ET By SALLY BUZBEE, Associated Press Writer BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Russia still believes the United States was mistaken to withdraw from a treaty banning most anti-missile defenses, but it wants to press ahead with plans to radically cut both nations' offensive nuclear arms, the Russian defense minister said. The two countries will begin talks next month on how and when to make new cuts in their strategic nuclear arms, despite continued disagreement over the U.S. pullout from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, Russia's defense minister, Sergei Ivanov, said after a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. In January, the two countries will begin technical discussions on both the levels and a timetable for those cuts, Ivanov said. President Bush has proposed cutting U.S. nuclear warheads by about two-thirds, to between 1,700 and 2,200, from the current 6,000. Russia says it will bring its warheads down to between 1,500 and 2,200. Bush announced last week that the United States will pull out in six months from the 1972 treaty so it can test and build a missile defense system to protect against terrorists and rogue nations. Russia was not surprised by the move - after months of negotiations trying to prevent it - and has no fears for its own security, Ivanov said, echoing comments made earlier by Russian President Vladimir Putin (news [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news? p=%22Vladimir%20Putin%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw] - web sites [http://rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=Vlad imir%20Putin&cs=nw] ). Instead, Russia worries America's decision could prompt other nations to decide they, too, can pull out of any international agreements they don't like, the Russian defense minister said. Other countries might think, ``logically, that if one country won't abide, why should we?'' Ivanov said. Nevertheless, he said the two nations are closer than ever, cooperating in the fight against terrorism and other issues at an ``unprecedented'' level. He told reporters who asked about the U.S. decision on the ABM treaty that the issue never came up during his talks with Rumsfeld, which will continue Tuesday. Earlier, Rumsfeld said the two nations must focus on ``transparency and predictability, which both countries recognize ... as important for our respective populations to feel comfortable as we make that dramatic change.'' He called Monday's talks ``excellent.'' Russia has apparently accepted the U.S. move because it believes the size of its nuclear arsenal means the American plans for a missile defense will not weaken its security. China, which also had tried to persuade Bush not to scrap the treaty, remains worried, however, that a U.S. missile defense system would ruin the deterrent value of its smaller arsenal. Assistant Secretary of State Avis Bohlen, at a meeting Monday with Chinese officials in Beijing, told them the Bush administration plans a limited missile defense system not directed against China, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. ``We felt the discussions were productive. Both sides indicated they're ready to continue their dialogue on these issues,'' Boucher said. Bush had tried to strike a deal with Putin to allow the United States to expand testing for a missile defense system without ending the treaty. But Russia, which can't afford a national missile defense, has said it views the ABM pact as the basis of all nuclear-reduction treaties. In a statement aimed at backing up the assertion that Russia faces no threat from America's decision, Ivanov said before his meeting with Rumsfeld that his country had plans to develop its Strategic Missile Forces ``which were drafted long before'' the U.S. decision. Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 17 Early Argonne Reactor Lit the Way for Worldwide Nuclear Industry PR Newswire - USA; Dec 17, 2001 SCOVILLE, Idaho, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Fifty years ago this week, on Dec. 20, 1951, a nuclear reactor produced useful electricity for the first time. It was more than enough to power a simple string of four light bulbs, and the 16 scientists and engineers from Argonne recorded their historic achievement by chalking their names on the wall beside the generator. The reactor was Experimental Breeder Reactor 1 (EBR-I), housed in a small building that today still sits alone on a wind-swept plain in southeastern Idaho. Designed and operated by Argonne and built by Bechtel Group, Inc., EBR-1 spawned a huge international industry that now plays a major role in meeting the world's energy needs. Today, more than 100 nuclear power plants provide 20 percent of the electricity consumed in the United States. More than 435 reactors provide some 17 percent of the world's electricity, and about 65 more plants are under construction around the world. During its 15-year career, EBR-1 was the site of many historical firsts, and retired Argonne scientist Kirby Whitham was an integral part of several of them. On that raw Dec. day in 1951, scientists and technicians readied for the first test of the power-generating system. "We got the reactor critical, which was a rather slow process," Whitham said. "Generating steam for the first time was a problem, because we hadn't done it before. Technicians were running everywhere, measuring temperatures and so on. "It took quite a while to get the turbine up to speed, then we had to load the generator. The generator put out 440 volts, so we used four light bulbs wired in series." When the bulbs lit up, "we didn't clap our hands or anything," Whitham said. "We were just glad it worked." Walter Zinn, the first director of Argonne National Laboratory, brought out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the achievement. "Everyone had a cup," Whitham said, "but there was lots of work to do -- checking oil pressures and other things we weren't used to doing." The day after EBR-1 generated the world's first nuclear electricity, its output was boosted to 100 kilowatts, enough to power all of its own electrical equipment. This process didn't go as smoothly as the previous day's activities. The generator had to be manually synchronized with the outside power line, Whitham said, which required a deft touch with a knob while watching a meter spin. "On the first try, heaven and earth came together. We blew all the fuses," he said with a chuckle. After the problem was resolved, EBR-I was able to provide all its own electricity. EBR-I's primary experimental mission was to develop and test the concept of the breeder reactor -- a vision pursued by Enrico Fermi and his colleague, Zinn, who led the team that built EBR-I. The idea behind the breeder is to maximize the useful energy that can be extracted from natural uranium. Inside a nuclear reactor, uranium-238 -- the common form of the metal which cannot be used for fuel -- can capture neutrons released during fission and transform into plutonium-239. This man-made element can fuel reactors, so breeding makes it possible to use virtually 100 percent of the energy in natural uranium. Today's commercial reactors use less than 1 percent. EBR-I provided the first proof that breeding is possible: On June 4, 1953, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission announced that EBR-I had become the world's first reactor to demonstrate the breeding of plutonium from uranium. In 1962, EBR-I became the world's first reactor to produce electricity with a plutonium core. For the next year, the reactor provided valuable data on breeding in a plutonium-fueled reactor and helped to improve scientists' understanding of the behavior of plutonium in an operating reactor. On Dec. 30, 1963, its scientific mission complete, EBR-I was officially shut down. On Aug. 26, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson presided over ceremonies that designated the retired reactor a Registered Historical National Monument. Before 15,000 witnesses, he said, "We have come to a place today where hope was born that man would do more with his discovery [of atomic fission] than unleash destruction in its wake." The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Argonne is operated by the University of Chicago as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's national laboratory system. Contributions sought to preserve EBR-1 Save America's Treasures of the National Trust for Historic Preservation is seeking contributions to preserve Experimental Breeder Reactor-I (EBR-I). The organization hopes to match a $320,000 federal matching grant to restore the National Historic Landmark and to educate the American people about the birth of the Atomic Age and the harnessing of nuclear energy for electricity. The primary goal is to restore and maintain EBR-I, located near Idaho Falls, Idaho, as a museum and to develop exhibits on the history of nuclear power. To reach a national and international audience, the project will produce a film about EBR-I and the next 50 years of nuclear power. The film will be available through public broadcasting stations, at EBR-I and other museums of science and history, and possibly over the Internet. Donors will be recognized in press releases and public announcements, on commemorative plaques at EBR-I, and as part of the film's credits, as appropriate. Contributions are tax-deductible. Checks should be made to "National Trust/SAT" with the designation "Atomic Age" in the lower left-hand corner, and sent to Cindy Kelly, Save America's Treasures, National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1785 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C., 20036. For further information, call 202-686-4069 or e-mail cindykelly@erols.com . http://tbutton.prnewswire.com/prn/11690X61234710 /CONTACT: Paul Pugmire of Argonne National Laboratory, +1-208-533-7331/ 17:47 EST World Reporter All Material Subject to ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************