***************************************************************** 12/19/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.299 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Nuclear Power Industry's Prospects Look Dim 2 Reactor gets a physical before return to full-time job 3 The politics of pollution 4 I'll Cut the Fence, You Grab the Plutonium 5 Caribbean leaders object to nuclear shipment - 6 Armed officers now guard nuclear plants 7 UK govt gives consent to BNFL for plutonium commissioning at 8 Udall, Allard push through Flats refuge bill 9 Sellafield emissions: No promises from the British 10 Britain's Minister of Environment to Discuss Nuclear Waste Issues 11 Munters lands order for dehumidification of nuclear reactors 12 HOT SPOT CANCER CLUSTERS PROMPT FEAR 13 Slovenia, Croatia sign Krsko nuclear plant agreement 14 Lithuania gets EU aid for decommissioning of nuclear plant 15 Russia plans big investment in nuclear industry 16 Britain's Minister of Environment to Discuss Nuclear Waste Issues 17 National science panel hears about staging nuclear dump project 18 Nuclear Reactor to Be Shut Down 19 Critics say plant design has risks 20 Norway demands UK nuclear rethink 21 N.K. officials observing nuke plants 22 Nevada Challenges Revised Yucca Mountain Guidelines 23 UK: Axing planning inquiries a disaster, say Greens 24 U.S.-RUSSIA TEAM TACKLES RADWASTE DISPOSAL 25 Opinion: Letters HOW SAFE IS INDIAN POINT? 26 Letter: Where's proof that Yucca is safety threat? 27 Letter: Nuclear PR drive launched 28 Editorial: Beef up security at nuke plants 29 Nuclear industry studies role in Yucca suit 30 Letter: Nuke transport is terror threat 31 Editorial: Nevada is pursuing fairness 32 The 10,000-Year Warranty 33 Unsafe at Any Price by Erik Baard 34 State slices $4.5 million in FPL fees 35 Pollution linked to childhood leukemia 36 Inspectors to oversee crew at nuclear plant 37 Chernobyl orphan inspires a Waterford factory 38 Labour to seize powers over planning 39 Editorial : Aomori MOX fuel plant plan opportunity to rethink policy 40 Commission reviews Cooper nuclear plant's response to June fire 41 Hidden dangers of the Greenpeace invasion 42 MPs patrolling plant 43 Why the Executive must act on Sellafield 44 New plea to stop plant at Sellafield 45 Nuclear threat site online 46 Toxic dangers 47 Russia to revive atomic power 48 Thorium site is declared clean 49 Court finds NPPD at fault against two utilities 50 Scholarship focus is nuclear energy 51 NRC Suspends License of Pennsylvania Medical Firm NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Proceed with Caution - Nukes Ahead, US Warns India (with a 2 AFGHAN WAR SYNDROME TO COME?: DU APPARANTLY USED IN AFGHANISTAN 3 More eligible for nuclear compensation 4 IGNITING A FUSION FACE OFF 5 NIF: A massive science project 6 Second Treason Trial for Journalist 7 Pasko's Final Plea 8 South Korea Releases Nukes Report 9 Officials Back Low-Yield Nuke Strike 10 North Korea Stockpiles Plutonium 11 Nuclear weapons may be best way to destroy weapons in underground 12 Hanford contractor loses millions in fees 13 Experts fear crude radioactive device as potential terror weapon 14 Hanford: Hazardous Haste **************************************************************** **************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Nuclear Power Industry's Prospects Look Dim Brett Lieberman , The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa. Knight Ridder/Tribune ( December 19, 2001 ) Dec. 19--WASHINGTON--For the first time since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, the nuclear power industry began this year with hope that its recovery would begin. The industry found the new Bush administration supportive of building a generation of reactors at a time when soaring energy prices, particularly in California, were turning around public opinion. It also found industry leaders such as Exelon Nuclear, operator of TMI and 16 other reactors, ready to propose new plants as early as next year. Then came Sept. 11. The terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Somerset County and persistent questions from lawmakers, watchdog groups and residents about plants' security against terrorist assaults or ability to withstand an airliner crash have led to a new round of questions about the industry's viability. Industry and regulatory officials maintain that plants are being operated far more efficiently and safely than they were just a decade ago and that they are more secure than many Americans would believe based on the complaints of a few critics. "Not much has changed for us," insisted Melanie White, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main lobbying group. "What certain people are saying about the nuclear industry ... they've always been against nuclear power," she said, adding that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry are continuing a top-to-bottom review of security needs that was initiated after the attacks. Yet even prominent industry leaders acknowledge that Sept. 11 and the calls for posting National Guard troops, anti-aircraft batteries and closing plants may have reshaped the debate. "Sept. 11 has definitely changed a lot of people's thinking about security," said Jack Skolds, chief operating officer of Chicago-based Exelon, the nation's largest operator of nuclear plants. "Sept. 11 added a new variable into the mix into determining whether nuclear plants can be safe and economical ... going forward," Skolds said in a telephone interview. "It's a legitimate question for the nuclear power industry as well as other industries out there." Nuclear power operators have spent millions of dollars on security for overtime, more personnel and equipment since the attacks. Because of the industry and public attention, as well as steps taken to strengthen security in other parts of the economy, such as at airports, Skolds and other industry representatives believe the nation's 103 operating reactors are more secure than they were on Sept. 10. That may be one reason why many industry leaders remain upbeat about prospects for a new generation of reactors. Last week, Corbin McNeill, co-chief executive officer of Exelon, told a Chicago conference that his company is on track to apply with the NRC by 2003 or 2004 to license a new "pebble bed modular reactor" it has been developing in South Africa. The smaller and cheaper reactors would produce only 120 megawatts to 150 megawatts, but industry researchers claim they are much safer. The last plant to come online was Watts Bar in Tennessee. A construction permit was issued in 1973, but it did not begin operating until May 1996. Meanwhile, the unfinished Unit 2 section of Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire was scrapped in the 1980s because of financing problems after its sister reactor cost nearly $5 billion. Since the TMI accident, growth in the nuclear power industry has primarily been overseas, including Japan, France, South Africa and Germany. But that could be changing. The German parliament approved a plan Friday that would close its country's 19 nuclear plants within 20 years. Key to selling the public and regulators on new plants will be shifting the focus from security to the need for more electricity and the benefits of nuclear power versus coal, natural gas, imported oil or other alternatives. "I think the industry is still generally upbeat," said Gail Marcus, president of the American Nuclear Society and principal deputy director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy, Science and Technology. "The need for energy is still there and the ... alternatives still aren't there." Seeking to bolster support among lawmakers and the Bush administration, the nuclear-related companies and individuals contributed nearly $4 million to political parties and candidates this year through Dec. 1. Nearly three-quarters of the money went to Republicans, including $30,000 in soft money that Exelon gave the Republican National Committee in October, according to an analysis for The Patriot-News by the Center for Responsive Politics. The contributions came as Congress worked to reauthorize the Price-Anderson Act, which limits liability in the event of a catastrophic accident. Marcus and other nuclear proponents cited polls in October for the Nuclear Energy Institute that showed 66 percent of Americans support nuclear power to lessen the nation's dependence on foreign energy sources. The favorable ratings are the highest since the early 1980s. "People saw the California [energy] crisis and recognized the greenhouse emissions problem and now people are seeing the energy security problem and they realize we've got to have options," she said. However, a Gallup Poll in November showed public support has slipped in the last six months, with Americans opposing nuclear expansion 52 percent to 42 percent. "I would think it would be a very difficult sell, next to impossible" at the moment, said Peter Bradford, a former NRC commissioner who served during the TMI accident. "The events of Sept. 11 will require fundamental reassessment of several aspects of nuclear regulation in this country. Such reassessment can only increase cost and controversy, the fundamental causes of nuclear power's fall from favor in the 1970s and 1980s." Operating improvements and increased efficiencies have reduced the cost of nuclear power production considerably since the early 1990s. Yet if major structural or security changes are needed, the costs could rise. States have spent $58 million for security around nuclear plants since Sept. 11, according to a National Governors Association report. "They really have no choice," said John Thomasian, director of National Governors Association's Center for Best Practices. "These expenditures are right up there with health care. You just don't have a choice." To see more of The Patriot-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.patriot-news.com (c) 2001, The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 2 Reactor gets a physical before return to full-time job By Frank Munger The High Flux Isotope Reactor at Oak Ridge underwent low-power testing late last week and may actually have achieved full power over the weekend, but it'll be February or March before science experiments resume at the research reactor. "We're proceeding very slowly and cautiously," said Ed Lee, the reactor manager at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. On Thursday, Dec. 13, reactor workers began low-power "physics testing" -- a startup phase known as Mode 3. "That's the first testing you do to make sure everything is back together and works as expected," Lee said. The reactor was shut down for more than a year undergoing maintenance, repairs and a series of upgrades. The overhaul -- including installation of a new beryllium reflector -- cost about $40 million. After doing tests at the lowest possible power, the reactor operators will increase the power gradually and test some of the automated systems before cranking it up to full power (75 megawatts). Lee said the plan is then to run the High Flux Isotope Reactor at full power for the remainder of a fuel cycle, until about the second week in January. "We'll do shielding measurements and take measurements all around the new installations, and we'll be making some isotopes in the core," he said. After concluding the first operating cycle, the ORNL reactor will be down for five to eight weeks to prepare the instrumentation for neutron-scattering experiments. Scientists will use the high concentration of neutrons to explore the structure and properties of materials. That's the principal mission at the High Flux Isotope Reactor, although there's a plan afoot to use the reactor to produce plutonium-239 for space-bound power generators in the years ahead. * * * There was much hoopla at the recent groundbreaking for Oak Ridge National Laboratory's new Mouse House, which will be home to thousands of mutated mice for experiments and be an important part of the lab's expanding role in genetics research. The national laboratory's current budget includes $11.4 million for the project, and that's expected to be enough to complete construction of the long-awaited facility. Liane Russell, one of ORNL's most honored researchers, said she'll miss the "old place" -- where she and her husband, William Russell, did mouse experiments for decades. The transition won't be easy, and research will have to be scaled back for a while as a new mouse population is brought to life from frozen sperm and embryos, she said. The new Mouse House is named for the Russells, and Liane Russell seemed a bit stunned that it's actually becoming a reality after years of hopeful plans that didn't get funded. "We started on this new facility in the early '90s. I think our original estimate was like $96 million," she said. "And everybody said, 'No way.' So then we thought we were really great and whittled it down to $30 million. We thought it would really fly, and then everybody lost interest. But I hope we can make it for $11.4 million." UT-Battelle, which took over management of the Oak Ridge laboratory last year, made the Mouse House one of its top priorities. ORNL Director Bill Madia said the need for a modern facility became additionally obvious to the new team on the first night they assumed the management contract -- April 1, 2000. In the middle of the night, part of a brick wall at the 56-year-old Mouse House collapsed. "That inspired us," Madia said. Copyright 2001 The Knoxville News-Sentinel Co. ***************************************************************** 3 The politics of pollution [The Huntsville Times] Southern utilities under fire for dirtying air give heavily to senators setting energy policy 12/18/01 By JOHN ANDERSON Times Political Editor anderson@htimes.com WASHINGTON - With a national energy policy under development and a major new air pollution debate set for Congress next year, America's utility companies are painting the nation's capital a cheery green. But it isn't the green of environmental awareness they're tossing around, although they say they like that color, too. It's the green of campaign money. Lots of it. Nearly $400,000 this year alone from the Atlanta-based Southern Co., whose subsidiaries include Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Mississippi Power, Gulf Power and Southern Nuclear companies. The increase in campaign giving comes at a critical time. The Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly about to ask Congress to cap the amount of three major pollutants an industry can release into the air. They include sulfur dioxide, which is blamed for acid rain; nitrous oxide, blamed for ozone and fine particle pollution; and mercury, which is a poison. A competing bill already introduced by Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., would make deeper reductions in all three, and demand those reductions more quickly. It also would limit a fourth emission: carbon dioxide. Much of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution comes from utilities' coal-burning power plants. At the same time, EPA Administrator Christine Whitman is considering whether to continue the controversial lawsuit her agency filed under President Clinton accusing Southern Co. and seven other utilities of improperly repairing older coal-burning plants. The EPA filed a separate administrative order against the Tennessee Valley Authority making the same allegation. EPA contends the Clean Air Act prohibits utilities from making major repairs to extend the life of old plants, which don't burn coal as cleanly as newer, more technically advanced plants. Alabama Power provides electricity to all of Alabama outside the extreme northern region, including Huntsville, served by TVA. Alabama Power's coal-fired generation plants are major factors in the pollution challenges facing Birmingham and Mobile. A lot at stake Laura Gillig, a Southern Co. spokeswoman, explained Southern's congressional largesse with a simple statement of fact: There's a lot at stake. "We don't apologize for working hard to be engaged and to be involved in our nation's energy polic(ies) . . . that affect our customers, our shareholders and our employees," Gillig said. "We'll continue to do that." Environmentalists see the contributions and Southern Co.'s extensive lobbying efforts differently. "This is one of the most blatant examples of an attempt to use raw political muscle ever," said attorney Jeff Gleason of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, Va. Gleason commented on the fact that utilities including Southern Co. have hired Haley Barbour, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Kathleen McGinty, former chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and an adviser to Democrat Al Gore's presidential campaign. Not only is the regulated industry lobbying against regulation, Gleason said, but the defendants in the federal lawsuits are "lobbying the White House trying to do an end run around the law." Closer to home, Southern Co., its subsidiaries and its employees contributed $23,950 to Sen. Jeff Sessions' campaign the first six months of 2001, according to an analysis of the utility's campaign contributions. That easily made Sessions, R-Mobile, the utility's top recipient in the Senate. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, came in second with $15,500 to his campaign fund and a PAC he controls, according to the analysis by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a Washington-based consumer advocacy organization. Sessions runs for re-election next year. Shelby's term ends in 2004. The five senators getting the most contributions from Southern Co. PACs and executives the first half of this year all have roles in determining energy policy, according to the interest group. Three of the five, including Shelby, sit on Senate committees that directly deal with energy and clean-air legislation. Two of the five, again including Shelby, are members of the Appropriations Committee, the panel that considers almost all discretionary federal spending each year. Contributions by Southern Co. PACs to congressional candidates and other federal-campaign-related groups the first six months of this year jumped more than 78 percent from what they gave the first six months of 1999, the first reporting period for the 2000 elections, according to the interest group. More giving than big oil That $293,000 that Southern and its affiliated PACs contributed was more than the amount contributed by PACs of Chevron, BP Amoco, Enron and Exxon combined the first six months of 2001. Southern Co. executives gave another $51,450 to congressional incumbents and candidates. The Southern Co. executives contributed almost half that amount, $22,950, to Sessions alone during a huge Sessions fund-raiser in Birmingham hosted by President Bush, according to the interest group's report. The consumer group noted that the contributions from the Southern Co. executives came just two months after Sessions introduced a bill giving the nuclear industry tax breaks for new nuclear plants. Most of Shelby's 2001 contributions from Southern Co. also came from the utility's executives. The EPA lawsuit has generated congressional accusations that EPA changed air pollution rules without giving the utilities a chance to comply or even respond. Among the most critical in Congress were Shelby, Sessions and Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Huntsville, another recipient of Southern Co. campaign donations. In a recent interview, Cramer, whose 5th Congressional District is served by TVA, called the EPA lawsuit "very unreasonable." Not only would it prevent TVA from continuing to generate much-needed electricity at its coal-burning plants, Cramer said, it would also prevent the utility from installing new equipment that releases less air pollution. "EPA should not be allowed to get away with it," Cramer said. "What we've hammered them on is you don't have to have a hostile relationship with industry." The agency should instead attempt to negotiate with the utilities and the cities they serve, he said. Two of TVA's coal-burning plants are in North Alabama - Widows Creek near Scottsboro and Colbert near Tuscumbia. Cramer said he doesn't believe either poses an environmental hazard to area residents. Through a spokesman, Sessions refused an interview request until EPA releases its air pollution review, but said campaign contributions don't affect his positions. Attempts to interview Shelby were also unsuccessful. However, both senators' offices cited a joint letter to EPA Administrator Whitman and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham criticizing the EPA suit. In the Sept. 28 letter, the two senators accused EPA of suddenly ditching a 20-year-long interpretation that utilities can make routine maintenance, repair and replacement to coal-burning plant equipment without triggering so-called New Source Review. New Source Review is the regulatory process by which EPA determines if work done at a plant was so far-reaching it essentially created a "new source" of pollution that didn't exist in the original plant. If it did, that new source must meet new, tougher existing emissions controls. "As a result of this reinterpretation, any project that increases availability or efficiency would trigger" New Source Review, Shelby and Sessions wrote, including "even installation of pollution-control equipment." Largesse not new Southern Co.'s largesse to Alabama's senators is not new. During the 1999-2000 election cycle, Southern Co. and subsidiaries gave $10,000 each to Shelby and Sessions, according to the Public Interest Research Group report. That tied Sessions and Shelby for second place among all senators or senatorial candidates who got money from Southern Co. those two years. The utility giant also gave Cramer $10,000 during the 1999-2000 campaign, according to the interest group's analysis, even though Southern Co. doesn't serve his 5th District. In all, Southern Co. and its subsidiaries gave $10,000 each to 14 House members during 1999-2000, placing them all in a tie for the company's favorite House recipients. Almost half of those House members, six, represent Alabama districts. So what does Southern Co. hope to gain by giving all that money to federal campaigns? Gillig, the utility spokeswoman, said Southern wants input. "We are and continue to be actively involved in these matters that affect us," she said, "and you'll find it's not that much different from any other company." Southern Co. doesn't rank among the top 50 national companies whose PACs give to federal campaigns, Gillig said. Gillig said federal law requires PAC contributions to come from members of whatever group the PAC represents, in this case Southern Co. employees. The PAC giving "is not a Southern Co.-dictated program and not something that originates from Southern Co.," she said. Gillig attributed any jump in company PAC contributions the first six months of this year to a change of administrations and resulting new federal appointments. We just take the money that our employees contribute. It varies from year to year," she said. It's not just campaign money that Southern Co. uses to get congressional access. The utility and its subsidiaries are also a big presence during the presidential nominating conventions every four years. For instance, Alabama Power paid for a fancy brunch for Alabama delegates, including Cramer and Earl Hilliard, D-Birmingham, the day before the 2000 Democratic Convention began in Los Angeles. (Alabama reporters also attended.) Also attending the convention was George Harris, a member of the Birmingham-based law firm of Bradley Arant Rose & White, which lobbies Congress for Southern Co. Southern Co. also puts a lot of money into lobbying members of Congress, the interest group report found. $4.2M spent in 1999 The utility and its affiliates spent $4.26 million in 1999 for federal lobbying activities, which included money for 14 in-house lobbyists and 11 outside lobbying firms. Besides national figures Barbour and McGinty, Southern and its affiliates also hired Alabama-connected lobbyists, including R.G. Flippo and Associates, former Rep. Ronnie Flippo's lobbying firm; Cauthen and Associates of Montgomery; and Balch and Bingham, a top Birmingham law firm. Southern's spending on lobbying in 1999 easily topped such spending among the nation's other utilities, the interest group report said. The bottom line of all the Southern Co. contributions? "Southern Co. is buying influence at an astonishing rate when compared with other energy companies," said Becky Stanfield, who edited the Public Interest Research Group report. "Even by today's cynical standards, this is pretty alarming." © The Huntsville Times. Used with permission. ***************************************************************** 4 I'll Cut the Fence, You Grab the Plutonium The Village Voice: by Geoffrey Gray Week of December 19 - 25, 2001 villagevoice.com exclusive For all the difficulty protecting nuclear reactors, safeguarding nuclear weapons facilities has proved no easier. According to a newly released study by the watchdog Project on Government Oversight, "terrorists" making mock attacks on labs and munitions plants were able to breach security at least 50 percent of the time, even making off once with the goods in a garden cart from Home Depot. The drills, conducted by the Department of Energy, featured U.S. Special Forces as the enemies. POGO got access to the startling results with the assistance of a dozen whistle-blowers who took part in the exercises. In one 1997 episode at Los Alamos, a nuclear lab on the floor of a desert canyon in New Mexico, U.S. Special Forces were able to "steal" enough weapons-grade uranium for multiple nuclear warheads. At Rocky Flats, a major Cold War weapons-production site outside Denver, federal security overseers easily entered a high-security area with a pistol hidden in a coffee can. In another exercise there, Navy SEALs were able to breach the facility by cutting a hole in a chain-link fence. They climbed through, stole a significant amount of plutonium, and ducked back out. For future drills, Rocky Flats management set new guidelines: SEALs couldn't leave through the fence, but had to climb the guard tower and rope the plutonium over the fence. Instead, the SEALs brought a lacrosse stick, stole the material, then winged it over the fence to allies on the other side. "The Department of Energy has been too unwilling to deal with its own failure for too long," says Danielle Brian, POGO's executive director. "They never really believed there would be a threat, and they never believed terrorists would be sophisticated. Now we've seen what we're dealing with—and you don't have to be that sophisticated to access these materials." The report also details the complexes' failure to protect against truck bombs, simulated theft of nuclear secrets, attacks during transport of weapons-grade material, and, at Los Alamos, mock adversaries intent on constructing an "Improvised Nuclear Device"—a quickie bomb. One problem, the authors note, is that the protective forces at these sites are privately contracted—"fancy rent-a-cops," one expert calls them. POGO recommends positioning small SWAT teams inside the complexes, then consolidating the nuclear materials at more secure facilities, like the underground Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and the brand-new, but unused, Device Assembly Facility in Nevada. These proposals have been on the DOE's table and should be in place by now, the group says, but charges that the budget-plagued department has suffered from poor leadership and has ignored—then hidden—the embarrassing test results. A spokesperson from the DOE's National Nuclear Security division did not return phone calls for comment. "In a bureaucracy, shit rolls downhill," says Peter Stockton, a special assistant to former secretary of energy Bill Richardson, and a paid consultant to this report. "We spend $3 billion on securing these places, and the American people expect and believe they are secure. To think that [theft or sabotage] will never happen is horseshit. Nobody thought a rubber boat could sink a warship, and nobody thought two damn planes could sink the World Trade Center." ***************************************************************** 5 Caribbean leaders object to nuclear shipment - December 18, 2001 CNN.com - GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) -- Caribbean leaders complained that nuclear waste cargo on a ship believed to be passing through the region Tuesday puts islanders at physical risk and could ruin the important tourism industry if there were an accident. "The region should not be exposed to the serious risk of having hazardous nuclear waste transshipped through its waters," the 14-member Caribbean Community said in a written statement, referring to the practice as a "threat to the lives of the Caribbean region." British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. and French company Cogema conduct the shipments. Cogema spokesman Charles Hufnagel said the radioactive material is hardened into glass and sealed in multiple layers of containers that meet strict safety standards. "Contrary to the frightening scenarios promoted by opponents to nuclear energy, the concept of this transport ... makes it extremely secure," Hufnagel said. The Pacific Sandpiper left the French port of Cherbourg on December 5 bound for Mutsu-Ogawara, Japan, 575 kilometers (355 miles) northeast of Tokyo. Cogema said it is expected to arrive there between February 15 and 28. The ship was estimated to be in or near the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico on Tuesday, Greenpeace said. The companies usually do not give exact locations for their shipments because of security concerns. About several times a year, the companies bring spent nuclear fuel from Japan to Europe, where it is recycled to recover the reusable uranium and plutonium that is in the fuel, and it is sent back to Japan. Environmental groups have often protested the nuclear shipments, saying an accident would create an ecological disaster. The companies have also said they package the fuel according to strict safety standards and have never had an accident. They said they often go through the Caribbean because it is the shortest route. Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 6 Armed officers now guard nuclear plants canada.com » Hamilton » Local News » StoryWednesday » December 19 » 2001 TORONTO -- Armed police officers are now a permanent presence at two of Ontario Power Generation's three nuclear power plants. A multi-million-dollar contract was signed with Durham Region police Tuesday to formalize their presence at the stations. Officers have been providing around-the-clock security at the Pickering and Darlington nuclear stations since mid-September. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, all nuclear plants in Canada have been required to boost security. In October, Canada's plants were ordered to have armed security guards on duty and barriers to protect against vehicles. Ontario Power Generation's third power plant is the Bruce station near Owen Sound, Ont. © Copyright 2001 CanWest Interactive and The Canadian Press ***************************************************************** 7 UK govt gives consent to BNFL for plutonium commissioning at Sellafield plant Ananova - The Health and Safety Executive has given consent to British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (NFL) for plutonium commissioning of the MOX plant at Sellafield. This stage will result in the use of plutonium for the fabrication of MOX fuel in this facility for the first time. During the commissioning period HSE will require BNFL to demonstrate that the plant meets its full design safety intent particularly with respect to doses to the workforce. Following the commissioning phase, BNFL will be required to obtain a further consent to commence full operations. © AFX News Story filed: 16:35 Wednesday 19th December 2001 ***************************************************************** 8 Udall, Allard push through Flats refuge bill Rocky Mountain News: Politics By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer Bipartisan cooperation spearheaded by two Colorado lawmakers helped secure wildlife refuge status for the defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver. U.S. Rep. Mark Udall of Boulder is a Democrat in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives, while Colorado U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard is a Republican in a Democratic-controlled Senate. Together, they managed to tack the Rocky Flats provision onto a defense spending bill when it passed through a committee that resolved differences between House and Senate versions of the measure. The irony was not lost Monday at Rocky Flats, where Udall and Allard addressed a combination news conference and victory rally. "The reason our speeches were effective is because they were short," Udall said. The bill has passed both houses and awaits President Bush's signature. The measure assures that Rocky Flats will become a wildlife refuge when it closes at the end of 2006. Allard and Udall said the legislation calls for Rocky Flats to be cleaned up to the same level that would occur if the ground were to be used by humans. Some area officials had feared refuge status would mean more radioactivity could be left behind. December 18, 2001 2001 © The E.W. Scripps Co. ***************************************************************** 9 Sellafield emissions: No promises from the British The Norway Post - Doorway to Norway 18. Desember 2001 Environmental Minister Boerge Brende received no promises from his British counterpart when the two discussed the emissions from the Sellafield nuclear repossession plant on Monday. Brende had asked for the meeting in a new attempt to convince the British authorities to stop the emissions of nuclear pollutants from the Sellafield plant. After the talks, Brende said that a clarification will be made shortly as to whether or not the British government will continue to allow the emissions of the radioactive Tecnetium 96 into the sea. The British claim that the emissions are well below the international danger levels, and say that cleaning will be too expensive. Norway on the other hand claims that the radioactive pollution is irreversible, and that it is better to be safe than sorry. Traces of Technetium has been found along the coasts of the North Sea Basin and the Irish Sea, and Norway and the other Nordic countries, as well as Ireland, have strongly protested against the emissions from Sellafield. (NRK) Rolleiv Solholm ***************************************************************** 10 Britain's Minister of Environment to Discuss Nuclear Waste Issues Tim Webb , Sunday Business, London Knight Ridder/Tribune ( December 18, 2001 ) Dec. 16--Environment minister Michael Meacher is expected to face criticism tomorrow when he defends the government's policy on dealing with nuclear waste to a House of Lords select committee. The nuclear industry, environmental groups and peers have already attacked Meacher after his department announced in September a seven-year policy consultation period before deciding on a strategy. They say the length of time set aside for consultation is unnecessary and will only delay a decision. His evidence follows earlier submissions to the select committee from nuclear operators BNFL and British Energy and, in a separate meeting, environmental groups. More than 10,000 tonnes of radioactive waste are currently stored in the UK with no view as to how -- or where -- to store it permanently. It is estimated that another 500,000 tonnes will be produced this century, even if no new nuclear plants are built and reprocessing of spent fuel ends when the existing plants are decommissioned. Most low-level nuclear waste is currently stored at Drigg near the Sellafield site in Cumbria, which is expected to be full by about 2050. But with Britain's fleet of reactors earmarked for decommissioning within 50 years, storage facilities several times Drigg's capacity will be needed for the resulting waste and contaminated materials. Successive governments and the nuclear industry have been slow to appreciate the timebomb represented by the unsolved problem of how to store and make safe material which will remain radioactive and potentially harmful for hundreds of thousands of years. When Britain's civil and military nuclear industries were born at the start of the Cold War, little thought was given to how to deal with the spent nuclear fuel -- and materials which came into contact with it -- produced by what was hailed at the time as the energy of the future. In 1975, the Labour government began the process which led to the application for the construction of an underground depository for long-term storage at Sellafield. But in 1997 this was defeated when planning permission for the construction of a laboratory to test the geology of the site for the bunker was turned down. Since then, little progress has been made, despite repeated warnings from the nuclear industry that further delays could compromise safety and make interim -- and permanent -- storage more expensive. The operator of the Sellafield site, state-run BNFL, still supports the plans for the so-called Nirex depository. A spokesman said: "Our long-term strategy is for a Nirex depository to be built where the waste will stay for hundreds of years. "A lot of financial planning by the industry has been based on that. But we can't rely on that any more, even though we strongly believe it's the right thing to do -- it's out of our hands at the moment." In BNFL's submission to the Lords' environment select committee, the nuclear operator criticised the seven-year delay which it says is "implicit in the proposed consultation". It goes on: "BNFL believes that the proposed timetable is too protracted from a short-term waste-management perspective and will generate continuing uncertainty over the appropriate direction for waste management." More worrying for the industry -- and communities living close to sites where the waste is currently stored -- is the suggestion of conflict between government agencies. The submission says the approach between the Environment Agency and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate can be conflicting, with disagreements over the safe limit of exposure to radioactivity. Both agree that whatever method is decided upon to store the waste, when it is brought out of existing storage casks there will be radioactive emissions into the atmosphere. It says: "The fundamental difficulty is that there is an inappropriate and inconsistent framework for the regulation of the nuclear industry which requires the industry to understand and navigate between the potentially conflicting regulatory requirements." It also criticises the lack of "joined-up government" on the issue. UKAEA, the state-run body that oversees some of the decommissioning work, has also voiced concern over the uncertainty the delay is creating. Last month, a separate House of Lords select committee, on science and technology, personally criticised Meacher -- whom it met in the weeks after the consultation period was announced -- for his apparent slowness to act. "The minister gave us little sense of urgency about the need to make an immediate and effective start in devising the required strategy," its report says, "let alone the decades-long task of implementing it." Later it says: "We feel too much is being made of gaps in current knowledge as an excuse for inaction. We therefore encourage the minister in his intention to think again about the best way of delivering this essential, but hitherto rather neglected, policy for the ultimate disposal of radioactive waste. "It remains unclear to us why the consultation paper has taken so long to appear. Indeed, there seems to be nothing in it that could not have been written two years ago." It adds that the next general election could disrupt the timetable for implementing any policy, with any resulting legislation pencilled in for 2007. The consultation process announced by Meacher's department ends in March, when it will issue a report on its findings. The next four years -- "stages two and three" -- will see public consultation through "opinion polls, the internet, workshops, citizens' juries, consensus conferences and stakeholder dialogues". But the department cautions that the seven-year plan to form a policy for the long-term storage of nuclear waste could take longer to resolve. To see more of Sunday Business, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.sundaybusiness.co.uk UKpound preceding a numeral refers to the United Kingdom's pound sterling. (c) 2001, Sunday Business, London. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. ***************************************************************** 11 Munters lands order for dehumidification of nuclear reactors bitWeb CONTACT2001-12-19 09:28 Munters Box 430 191 24 SOLLENTUNA SE Tel +46 (0)8 626 63 00 Fax +46 (0)8 754 68 96 info@munters.se www.munters.com Munters lands order for dehumidification of nuclear reactors Ontario Power Generation (OPG), one of North America's largest power producers, has purchased 12 customized dehumidification systems from Munters for removing heavy water from the reactor buildings of the Pickering Nuclear Power Station. Heavy water is a valuable commodity for the Candu nuclear reactors designed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL). Munters vapor recovery systems remove heavy water vapor from the air, and condens... ***************************************************************** 12 HOT SPOT CANCER CLUSTERS PROMPT FEAR The Scotsman - United Kingdom; Dec 18, 2001 BY NICK DRAINEY CONCERNS have been expressed that cancer spots exist across the country. The huge BP oil refinery at Grangemouth has long been of concern to nearby residents and with the addition of fears that chemicals are also spreading across the area from Kilroot power station near Belfast, the region has been dubbed a "death corridor" by environmental campaigners. The nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in Cumbria is considered a dangerous place to live near. Protesters claim that radiation pumped into the air and Irish Sea is cause of cancer in the surrounding area. The presence of radon particles in the granite of Devon and Cornwall is also thought to put residents at risk of cancer. Although it occurs naturally, radon is blamed for one in 20 cases of lung cancer in the UK. The radon hotspots in Scotland are Helmsdale in Sutherland and parts of Aberdeenshire. Other potential cancer hot-spots include electricity cables, mobile phone masts and traffic fumes, all thought to be major carcinogens. ***************************************************************** 13 Slovenia, Croatia sign Krsko nuclear plant agreement BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 19, 2001 [Announcer] We begin the programme in Krsko, where just over an hour ago the Slovene and Croatian representatives signed the interstate agreement on ownership and status of the Krsko nuclear power plant. [Reporter] The two [Slovene and Croatian] ministers [of the environment and urban planning Janez] Kopac and [of economic affairs Goranko] Fizulic signed at 1145 [1045 gmt], in the presence of the [Slovene and Croatian] prime ministers, [Janez] Drnovsek and [Ivica] Racan, the state agreement which determines that both sides own the nuclear power plant in equal parts and also that each side has the right to half of the electricity from Krsko. According to this agreement, the radioactive waste is to remain in Krsko for the life-span of the power plant, i.e. until 2023, and if in the meantime the two sides do not find a joint solution, Croatia is supposed to take away half of its waste within two years. This is the part of the agreement which the Posavje residents are mostly contesting, since they are claiming that this means for Slovenia permanent and not temporary disposal. The agreement will come into effect once it is ratified by the Slovene parliament and by the Croatian Assembly... Source: Radio Slovenia, Ljubljana, in Slovene 1200 gmt 19 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 14 Lithuania gets EU aid for decommissioning of nuclear plant BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 18, 2001 Vilnius, 18 December: The European Union has granted Lithuania 55m euros (198m litas) for the closure of its Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday [18 December]. According to the report, Finance Minister Dalia Grybauskaite and the head of the European Commission delegation in Lithuania, Ambassador Michael Graham, signed a financial memorandum on Tuesday on special support for the decommissioning of the Ignalina nuclear plant and a programme of other measures related to the closure... Lithuania has decided to close the first out of two Chernobyl-type [high power pressure-tube] units at Ignalina before 2005, with the EU pressing it to cease operations of the second one by 2009. The two power units generate about 70 per cent of Lithuania's electricity. International donors have so far allocated approximately 200m euros for the closure of power unit one. Source: BNS news agency, Tallinn, in English 0946 gmt 18 Dec /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 15 Russia plans big investment in nuclear industry BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 18, 2001 Text of report in English by Russian news agency Interfax Moscow, 18 December: Next year Russia intends to invest R23.5bn in the advancement of its nuclear power engineering on condition that electricity tariffs do not grow more than 35 per cent, as the Russian government decided earlier. The figures were disclosed to the press by Atomic Energy Minister Aleksandr Rumyantsev after a Tuesday [18 December] cabinet meeting that discussed the investment programme of the Rosenergoatom generating company. He named as the most important investment projects in 2002 the modernization of the first power unit at the Kursk power station and also the Kalinin plant in Tver Region that is to be commissioned in 2003. Installation and decoration operations at the Kalinin station should be speeded up, Rumyantsev said. Source: Interfax news agency, Moscow, in English 1208 gmt 18 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter ***************************************************************** 16 Britain's Minister of Environment to Discuss Nuclear Waste Issues Tim Webb , Sunday Business, London Knight Ridder/Tribune ( December 18, 2001 ) Dec. 16--Environment minister Michael Meacher is expected to face criticism tomorrow when he defends the government's policy on dealing with nuclear waste to a House of Lords select committee. The nuclear industry, environmental groups and peers have already attacked Meacher after his department announced in September a seven-year policy consultation period before deciding on a strategy. They say the length of time set aside for consultation is unnecessary and will only delay a decision. His evidence follows earlier submissions to the select committee from nuclear operators BNFL and British Energy and, in a separate meeting, environmental groups. More than 10,000 tonnes of radioactive waste are currently stored in the UK with no view as to how -- or where -- to store it permanently. It is estimated that another 500,000 tonnes will be produced this century, even if no new nuclear plants are built and reprocessing of spent fuel ends when the existing plants are decommissioned. Most low-level nuclear waste is currently stored at Drigg near the Sellafield site in Cumbria, which is expected to be full by about 2050. But with Britain's fleet of reactors earmarked for decommissioning within 50 years, storage facilities several times Drigg's capacity will be needed for the resulting waste and contaminated materials. Successive governments and the nuclear industry have been slow to appreciate the timebomb represented by the unsolved problem of how to store and make safe material which will remain radioactive and potentially harmful for hundreds of thousands of years. When Britain's civil and military nuclear industries were born at the start of the Cold War, little thought was given to how to deal with the spent nuclear fuel -- and materials which came into contact with it -- produced by what was hailed at the time as the energy of the future. In 1975, the Labour government began the process which led to the application for the construction of an underground depository for long-term storage at Sellafield. But in 1997 this was defeated when planning permission for the construction of a laboratory to test the geology of the site for the bunker was turned down. Since then, little progress has been made, despite repeated warnings from the nuclear industry that further delays could compromise safety and make interim -- and permanent -- storage more expensive. The operator of the Sellafield site, state-run BNFL, still supports the plans for the so-called Nirex depository. A spokesman said: "Our long-term strategy is for a Nirex depository to be built where the waste will stay for hundreds of years. "A lot of financial planning by the industry has been based on that. But we can't rely on that any more, even though we strongly believe it's the right thing to do -- it's out of our hands at the moment." In BNFL's submission to the Lords' environment select committee, the nuclear operator criticised the seven-year delay which it says is "implicit in the proposed consultation". It goes on: "BNFL believes that the proposed timetable is too protracted from a short-term waste-management perspective and will generate continuing uncertainty over the appropriate direction for waste management." More worrying for the industry -- and communities living close to sites where the waste is currently stored -- is the suggestion of conflict between government agencies. The submission says the approach between the Environment Agency and the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate can be conflicting, with disagreements over the safe limit of exposure to radioactivity. Both agree that whatever method is decided upon to store the waste, when it is brought out of existing storage casks there will be radioactive emissions into the atmosphere. It says: "The fundamental difficulty is that there is an inappropriate and inconsistent framework for the regulation of the nuclear industry which requires the industry to understand and navigate between the potentially conflicting regulatory requirements." It also criticises the lack of "joined-up government" on the issue. UKAEA, the state-run body that oversees some of the decommissioning work, has also voiced concern over the uncertainty the delay is creating. Last month, a separate House of Lords select committee, on science and technology, personally criticised Meacher -- whom it met in the weeks after the consultation period was announced -- for his apparent slowness to act. "The minister gave us little sense of urgency about the need to make an immediate and effective start in devising the required strategy," its report says, "let alone the decades-long task of implementing it." Later it says: "We feel too much is being made of gaps in current knowledge as an excuse for inaction. We therefore encourage the minister in his intention to think again about the best way of delivering this essential, but hitherto rather neglected, policy for the ultimate disposal of radioactive waste. "It remains unclear to us why the consultation paper has taken so long to appear. Indeed, there seems to be nothing in it that could not have been written two years ago." It adds that the next general election could disrupt the timetable for implementing any policy, with any resulting legislation pencilled in for 2007. The consultation process announced by Meacher's department ends in March, when it will issue a report on its findings. The next four years -- "stages two and three" -- will see public consultation through "opinion polls, the internet, workshops, citizens' juries, consensus conferences and stakeholder dialogues". But the department cautions that the seven-year plan to form a policy for the long-term storage of nuclear waste could take longer to resolve. http://www.sundaybusiness.co.uk (c) 2001, Sunday Business, London. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune ***************************************************************** 17 National science panel hears about staging nuclear dump project Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada officials and scientists told a National Academy of Sciences committee that a staged approach to designing, building and operating a nuclear waste repository in the state is unacceptable. "Our message is it is not appropriate to this project," said Steve Frishman, a geologist and consultant to the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency, which is working to stop the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Frishman on Monday told the 15-member Committee on Principles and Operational Strategies for Staged Repository Systems, meeting in Las Vegas, that building the Yucca Mountain project in phases would create loopholes and hide safety concerns. But proponents said a staged approach would increase safety, flexibility and design in a repository - letting them apply cutting-edge technology and fix problems as they develop. The panel of independent scientists, chaired by physicist Charles McCombie, a dual citizen of Switzerland and the United Kingdom, includes experts on a range of topics, including social science. McCombie said a staged approach means looking at a program in "digestive lumps." "You have to be willing to learn along the way," he said, adding that flexibility includes the ability to stop disposal and retrieve the waste if problems arise. Frishman said the flexible-design, staged approach would be like "making it up as you go along." 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, the academy's operating agency, will make recommendations on design and operations of a staged geologic repository based on the panel's final report - due late next year. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is due this winter to recommend to President Bush whether Yucca Mountain is suitable for entombing 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel. The radioactive material is currently stored in casks at more than 103 commercial, industrial and military sites around the nation. Frishman presented a statement by state Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux, who said a staged approach at the Energy Department's proposed Yucca Mountain repository would leave safety concerns unresolved while nuclear waste is hauled to Yucca Mountain. Nevada elected officials and the business community are united against the proposal. A decision whether a 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." Energy Department scientist William Boyle told the panel a flexible design can make for a safer repository. Boyle said the Energy Department has been criticized because the proposed repository depends in part on metal waste containers designed to resist corrosion. He said Japan is pursuing a similar nuclear waste disposal strategy. Officials say the $58 billion repository the Energy Department wants to open in 2010 at the western edge of the Nevada Test Site would rely on natural and man-made barriers to contain radioactivity. "I don't know if anybody is considering a repository with just geology," Boyle said. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 18 Nuclear Reactor to Be Shut Down Las Vegas SUN Today: December 19, 2001 at 12:45:21 PST YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) - The Energy Department decided Wednesday that an experimental nuclear reactor at the Hanford reservation will be shut down permanently. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said restarting the Fast Flux Test Facility would be impractical. The plant has been idled since 1992. Though more than 20 years old, the 400-megawatt plant is the Energy Department's newest reactor. It was designed to research advanced forms of nuclear fuel for breeder reactors, which produce as much or more plutonium fuel than they consume. However, the government scrapped its breeder reactor program in the 1980s after deciding it had misjudged the nation's electricity needs. The nuclear fuel was removed from the plant's core, though the cooling system had been maintained in case of a restart. Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson ordered the plant decommissioned. The order was rescinded by the Bush administration, which studied the possibility of letting private interests use the plant to research medical isotopes. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 19 Critics say plant design has risks [charlotte.com] Posted at 10:01 p.m. EST Tuesday, December 18, 2001 Critics say plant design has risks NRC panel hears dispute over McGuire plant near Charlotte By BRUCE HENDERSON A Nuclear Regulatory Commission panel on Tuesday questioned differing assessments of the risks of a key structure at the McGuire nuclear plant north of Charlotte. Duke Power wants to extend the operating licenses of McGuire and its sister Catawba plant on Lake Wylie by about 20 years. An Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is meeting in Charlotte to hear claims from two groups who want the NRC to deny the extensions. For the board to agree to a full hearing on any of the claims, it has to find a "genuine dispute" of fact. Questions from the three-judge panel suggested they might have found such a dispute in the design of McGuire and Catawba. The plants are among a handful that use unusual structures to contain radioactive steam that could escape during a reactor accident. The structures can be smaller and weaker under pressure than most because they rely on ice beds to condense escaping steam into water. Even so, the NRC says, the ice-condenser plants are within safety guidelines. A government study last year found that, in one dire if unlikely scenario, McGuire's containment is more likely to fail than other plants because it was more prone to power losses. In the pretend scenario, the power plant loses electric power, disabling components that control a buildup of hydrogen. The hydrogen explodes. The Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which opposes extending the plant licenses, says the study by Sandia National Laboratories places the likelihood of failure at McGuire five times higher than Duke's own analysis. Duke and NRC staff say the Sandia study is irrelevant to license renewal. The study was based on 10-year-old data that doesn't account for improvements to McGuire's backup power, diesel generators, Duke says. The licensing board will decide by late January whether to grant a hearing to Blue Ridge or to the Nuclear Information and Research Service, which also opposes the extensions. The meeting continues today. Bruce Henderson: (704) 358-5051; bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com [bhenderson@charlotteobserver.com] . ***************************************************************** 20 Norway demands UK nuclear rethink BBC News | SCI/TECH | 19 December, 2001, Norway fears its marine resources may be damaged by Sellafield's radioactivity By Alex Kirby BBC News Online environment correspondent Norway is appealing to the United Kingdom to halt radioactive discharges from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant. The Norwegian Environment Minister, speaking after visiting Sellafield, told BBC News Online he felt very uncomfortable about the plant. He said he would be writing to the UK Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, urging her to prohibit further discharges. Otherwise, Norway would consider what legal remedies were available to it. The minister, Borge Brende, visited Sellafield in northwest England on 18 December, the day after meeting his Irish counterpart, Joe Jacob, in Dublin. Ireland has already begun proceedings against the UK over Sellafield's discharges. "We're focusing on Sellafield's discharges of technetium-99 and on the level of radioactivity going into the Irish Sea," he said. "It remains a contaminant for a very long time, and I am very concerned about Britain's plans to allow these discharge levels to continue unchanged up until 2006. Rising levels feared "We're now finding technetium-99 in seaweed along Norway's west coast, and in Svalbard, in the high Arctic. "Yet on our border with Russia, there's almost none. My officials say it must come from Sellafield." Sellafield's discharges have fallen Mr Brende said the plant's owners and operators, British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), wanted to store the technetium until they could treat it. But he said British health authorities advised against storage on health and safety grounds. "If it's not safe to store it, we can't help asking whether it's safe to discharge it," Mr Brende said. "This autumn we found 600 becquerels of radioactivity in the seaweed - and 400 in lobsters. There's no guarantee those levels won't have reached the EU safety level of 1,250 becquerels by 2006. "There's no health risk at the moment. But we think there is cause for concern. "I've met Mrs Beckett twice in the past two months, and there's been no real movement by the British. Veiled warning "I want her to know that all we're asking for is for BNFL to store this material and treat it, and that's a reasonable request. "Obviously we're concerned about the potential for nuclear proliferation and for terrorism that somewhere like Sellafield presents. Who isn't? No mistaking some Irish feelings "But the technetium is our main concern. If the UK decides to discharge into the Irish Sea material it could store and treat, we'll be looking at what we can do in law. "Mrs Beckett is due to decide on the new technetium discharge levels early in 2002. I'm writing to her, asking her to think again. "I've now been to Sellafield, and it's clearer to me that there are alternatives to discharging the stuff. No discussion "The best Christmas present Mrs Beckett could give the Nordic people would be to think again about this." Technetium-99 is a health hazard only if it enters the body, where it can be carcinogenic. Mrs Beckett's officials say she was unable to discuss the Environment Agency's proposed decision on technetium-99 discharges from Sellafield with Mr Brende "for legal reasons". They add: "She did, however, assure Mr Brende that Norway's concerns would be fully taken into account." ***************************************************************** 21 N.K. officials observing nuke plants welcome to Korea Herald!!_National http://www.koreaherald.com A group of 20 North Korean government officials arrived in South Korea on Sunday for two weeks to observe the South's nuclear power plants, officials here said yesterday. Kim Hui-mun, a minister-level administrator who serves as director of the North's General Bureau for the Light-Water Reactor Project, is leading the visitors. It is the first time for North Korean officials to visit Seoul since the inter-Korean ministerial talks were held in mid-September. In November, a group of North Korean officials toured nuclear power plants in Sweden and Spain. The North Korean delegation includes officials responsible for the ongoing construction of two light-water reactors, which are being built by the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international consortium, KEDO officials said. "The North Koreans are scheduled to look at nuclear power stations which have light-water reactors and plants that are producing parts to be used in the North Korean reactor construction," a KEDO official said. The delegation will visit nuclear power plants in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province, and Gori, near Busan. Both have the same type of reactors as the ones to be provided to the North, he said. In 1994, North Korea and the United States worked out an agreement, in which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its suspected plutonium production program. In return, Washington promised to replace the North's graphite-moderated reactors with the twin light-water reactors, which are less effective in producing weapons-grade material. Under a follow-up agreement between Pyongyang and KEDO, about 290 North Korean engineers and officials are scheduled to participate in training programs in the South during the second half of next year, KEDO officials said. The officials said the North Korean visitors do not want their visit to be interpreted as a positive sign from the North regarding the current lull in inter-Korean relations. With the $4.6-billion North Korean reactor project running behind schedule, Pyongyang and Washington have also been at odds over the North's call for U.S. compensation and Washington's demand that the North allow U.N. experts to inspect its nuclear programs. In the 1994 agreement, North Korea promised to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to begin an inspection of its nuclear program when a "significant portion" of the reactor construction is completed. The inspection is supposed to end before the key components of the reactors are delivered to North Korea. (jihoho@koreaherald.co.kr) By Kim Ji-ho Staff reporter 2001.12.18 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 Nevada Challenges Revised Yucca Mountain Guidelines Environment News Service: By Cat Lazaroff CARSON CITY, Nevada, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - The state of Nevada sued the Department of Energy on Monday to block approval of a controversial permanent repository for nuclear wastes at Yucca Mountain. The state charges that the agency has changed its own rules in order to declare the Yucca Mountain site suitable for nuclear storage. [Yucca Mtn] Yucca Mountain (Three photo courtesy Department of Energy) Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa announced Monday that the state is challenging the Yucca Mountain Siting Guidelines that became effective on December 14. The new guidelines eliminate the requirement that the rock formations surrounding the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain be able to prevent the release of radioactivity into the environment. Instead, the rules allow the Department of Energy (DOE) to use a combination of natural rock barriers and advanced storage containers to meet strict standards limiting radiation releases to the air and groundwater. "The very basis of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is to geologically isolate high level radioactive waste from the human and natural environment," said Governor Guinn. "Although Congress amended the Act in 1987 to characterize Yucca Mountain only, Congress retained the critical provisions requiring geological isolation." [Guinn] Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn (Photo courtesy Office of the Governor) "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," added Guinn. The proposed high level nuclear waste facility, intended to permanently store the nation's spent nuclear fuel and other dangerous wastes, has been troubled by a series of setbacks. The repository, located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be designed to safely hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years or more. The DOE began studying the Yucca Mountain site in 1982, and has so far spent $8 billion researching the site's suitability. Nevada has repeatedly challenged the proposed repository, denying water permits for the facility and suing to overturn the radiation standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The new DOE standards may have been introduced in an attempt to keep the Yucca Mountain project on schedule, or even in the running. A recent report by the General Accounting Office notes that contractor Bechtel SAIC has warned that the DOE cannot meet its schedule for Yucca Mountain construction, given the number of scientific and engineering issues yet to be resolved at the site. [test] Technicians use sound waves to probe the rock within Yucca Mountain for its ability to hold radioactive waste without emissions into the environment. "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," said Governor Guinn. "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." The Nuclear Waste Policy Act requires the Secretary of Energy to end its consideration of a site if the site is deemed unsuitable. In 1984, the DOE published the original site suitability guidelines, which have been changed during the past four months. The Nevada suit charges that the DOE's original site suitability guidelines proved that Yucca Mountain is an unsuitable site to contain the nation's most toxic waste. Besides failing the original geologic isolation criteria, which have now been revised, the proposed storage site cannot meet the health and safety standards set by the EPA, said Del Papa. [tunnel] Deep inside Yucca Mountain, scientists conduct tests to determine whether radioactivity could leak from the planned repository "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." Last week, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham paid a surprise visit to Nevada to attend the last planned public hearing regarding the planned repository. At the meeting on December 12, Abraham said he has not yet decided whether to recommended Yucca Mountain - now the only site under consideration - as the location of the nation's only planned permanent high level nuclear waste repository. "I have not made a decision on Yucca Mountain, and any decision I make will be made on a thorough and comprehensive review," Abraham said. "At the end of the day I want the people of Nevada to know that we will not move forward unless I believe we can meet the strict (radiation exposure) standards." Critics said the hearing was packed with supporters of the Yucca Mountain project, and presented a skewed picture of public feelings about the site. Many of Nevada's top officials, who have appeared at previous hearings, were unable to attend last Wednesday's meeting when given last minute notice of Abraham's visit. [Berkley] Representative Shelley Berkley chided Secretary Abraham for his belated visit to a Yucca Mountain hearing (Photo courtesy Office of the Representative) "The administration is being disingenuous to the people of Southern Nevada if they claim tonight that they are taking this process seriously," said Nevada Representative Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, in a prepared statement. "In reality, this was a [public relations] stunt designed to silence the people of our state." Abraham had been invited to a September 5 hearing in Las Vegas, which was attended by 500 people - most opposed to the Yucca Mountain project. "This fight transcends party affiliations, transcends socio-economic class, race or gender and galvanizes all Nevadans from every corner of the state in opposition," said Governor Guinn at the September 5 hearing. "We in Nevada will not stand for it." Email the Environment Editor [news@ens-news.com] ***************************************************************** 23 UK: Axing planning inquiries a disaster, say Greens Guardian Unlimited | Archive Search John Vidal Society Tuesday December 18, 2001 Lawyers for Friends of the Earth and other environment groups were last night studying government proposals which would end the present public inquiry system. The proposals would allow opencast mines, nuclear power stations, chemical plants, quarries, major roads, airports and port developments to be approved by parliament. They were described by a Friends of the Earth spokesman as "a disaster" for citizen rights and for the environment. Under the proposals, an inspector will not be able to recommend whether a major project goes ahead or not. The decision will be left to parliament and any local inquiry will "take as read the principle of, need for and location" of projects. The proposals were welcomed yesterday by industry, which has been lobbying for an end to public inquiries, claiming they are costly and time-consuming. Lord Falconer, minister of state at the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, said: "These procedures will potentially chop years off the lengthy planning process, but without damaging communities' right to object." [UP] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 24 U.S.-RUSSIA TEAM TACKLES RADWASTE DISPOSAL Environment News Service: AmeriScan: December 18, 2001 AmeriScan: December 18, 2001 BOISE, Idaho, December 18, 2001 (ENS) - A collaboration of U.S. and Russian scientists and engineers claim to have developed a new process to separate much of the radioactive material from nuclear wastes, making treating and transporting the wastes safer and cheaper. The technique reduces the volume of high level wastes at least twentyfold. Each gallon shrinks to less than a cup, and disposal costs fall as well. "The idea is to segregate out this very small amount of radioactive material and concentrate this element of the waste into the smallest volume possible," said Scott Herbst, a chemical engineer at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). Herbst and a team of scientists from the INEEL and Khlopin Radium Institute in Russia have received an $800,000, three year grant from DOE's Environmental Management Science Program to study and improve their technique. The Universal Extraction, or UNEX, process is the first demonstrated technology of its kind capable of removing multiple radioactive elements from high level nuclear waste in one step. Even a tiny amount of radioactive elements can turn large volumes of waste into "high level radioactive waste," which is subject to rigorous and expensive storage standards. Such waste is a byproduct of nuclear energy and weapons development and contains a mixture of radioactive fission products, such as strontium-90 and cesium-137, long lived radioactive elements such as plutonium and americium, and hazardous and toxic materials. Separating most of the radioactive elements from the other materials can shrink the volume of high level waste, reduce the total disposal cost and minimize potential harm to the people and environment surrounding it. In the past, it has been difficult to remove more than one radioactive element at a time. The most common process requires three separate steps: one solution removes cesium-137, the next takes out a group of similar elements called the actinide elements, and the last removes strontium-90. Sending waste through three different steps is time consuming and expensive. At the moment, most countries do not go to the trouble and expense of separating out radioactive elements. Instead, they take the entire volume of high level waste, solidify it into a glass, and bury it whole in large stainless steel canisters for long term storage. In 1994, a few INEEL scientists traveled to Russia to exchange the technologies each country had developed for nuclear waste cleanup. They came up with an extractant that works better than any of the original extractants alone, removing radioactive strontium, cesium and the actinides all at once. "We're combining three separate operations into one," said Herbst. "I'm mesmerized that we've even been able to get this thing to work. It flies in the face of what everyone has attempted to do before." [news@ens-news.com] 2001. All Rights Reserved. [http://www.hartcons.com/] ***************************************************************** 25 Opinion: Letters HOW SAFE IS INDIAN POINT? NYPOST.COM Post December 19, 2001 -- Gov. Pataki should fire Public Security Director James Kallstrom for suggesting that terrorists test out security at Indian Point ("The Truth About Indian Point," Editorial, Dec. 16)." Kallstrom said, "I could tell you that security's robust enough. Let 'em try. That may be one way to flush them out." This statement was totally irresponsible, even if it was said in a mocking way. No elected official or top appointee should be "daring" terrorists to take action that could have catastrophic consequences in our area. Paul Feiner Scarsdale Someone should tell the anti-nuke crowd demanding the Indian Point reactor be shut down that the risk of radioactive material seeping past multiple barriers from a terrorist attack is small compared to the real health risks posed by air pollution from fossil fuels. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission study found that if the United States used nuclear power to the extent that France does - it provides 80 percent of that country's electricity - it could achieve the goals of the Kyoto treaty, which calls for a 10 percent reduction of U.S. emissions below 1990 levels. We should not allow panic, politics or political correctness to curtail the safe use of nuclear power. Daniel Sobieski Chicago, Ill. Chernobyl is today surrounded by 50 miles of uninhabitable, radioactive land. All of New York City lies within a 50-mile radius of the Indian Point reactor plant, which has failed to repel mock terrorist attacks or to manage staged re-creations of the events at Three Mile Island. A terrorist attack on Indian Point could leave 20 million people jobless and homeless. Kallstrom told reporters that he has "bigger fish to fry." What exactly is bigger than nuclear Armageddon? Catherine Johnson Irvington Kudos to The Post for printing the facts about Indian Point. Unlike the Westchester and Rockland newspapers, you told the truth without putting more fear into people's lives. Jim Collier Wappingers Falls [http://pqarchiver.nypost.com/nypost/] ***************************************************************** 26 Letter: Where's proof that Yucca is safety threat? Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 Regarding your Dec. 16 editorial, "Stealth is par for the course": Your editorial position on the Yucca Mountain repository is well known to your readers within Nevada and to some of us who follow the project from afar. But some of the opinions given can really stretch credibility. For example, you wrote: "The reality is that the energy secretary couldn't care less about the threat posed to the health and safety of Nevadans by high-level nuclear waste." How do you know whether he "couldn't care less?" To say nothing of the arguable premise that the repository poses a threat to the public health and safety of people in Nevada or elsewhere. What information in the Yucca Mountain Preliminary Site Suitability Evaluation can you cite as your contention that there is a threat? If you or anyone else can prove during the license application review, that will be conducted by the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission, that such a threat to health and safely is above regulatory radiation or other standards, then the license does not get issued. BRIAN O' CONNELL Washington, D.C. Editor's note: The writer is director of the Nuclear Waste Program Office for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. The group wants President Bush to reach a decision on Yucca Mountain's suitability as soon as possible. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 Letter: Nuclear PR drive launched Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 In case anybody has been a bit preoccupied and hasn't noticed the cheerful PR campaign starting to bubble up about how safe and cheap and environmentally friendly nuclear energy is, for the record, nuclear energy is not safe, cheap or friendly. If we quit subsidizing this industry with taxpayer money, it would very likely not be able to stay in business five more minutes. Plus, there is that aggravating little problem of where to put all that deadly, poisonous used fuel for the next 250,000 years. It seems a lot of people think we should just sacrifice the state of Nevada -- but what about Las Vegas? Maybe those guys from Enron who got out with all their fortunes intact after screwing their employees, the state of California and the rest of the country, could just buy Las Vegas and dig the city up and move it someplace else. You could put the nuclear waste in the hole that was left, and then I am sure there wouldn't be enough people left to raise much of a fuss. BERKELEY B. STEWART Whittier, Calif. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 28 Editorial: Beef up security at nuke plants Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 Questions about the safety of nuclear power plants have increased since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In mock terrorist attacks, which were conducted prior to the destruction of the World Trade Center, security guards at nuclear power plants failed to adequately defend the plants about half the time -- an appalling failure rate. Now a nuclear safety group has collected information that shows the mock attacks themselves aren't as realistic and difficult as they should be. The New York Times reported Monday that, based on information collected by the California-based Committee to Bridge the Gap, these mock terrorist attacks involve just three intruders and one insider at the plant. In contrast, the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings involved 19 terrorists who operated in four disciplined teams. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's regulations require a minimum of five guards at the nuclear power plants, a figure that the commission believes is enough to overwhelm attackers. The NRC believes that the threat of an attack involving a larger number of people is "not credible." But Sept. 11 obviously has turned upside down the NRC's concept of what is "credible." The Times also reports that the NRC regulations that establish the parameters for the mock attacks are shortsighted in another way. The regulations say that the attackers would have light weapons, a four-wheel drive vehicle and assistance from an insider at the plant. But the scenario doesn't account for protection against attacks by air or by water. That is disturbing because many of the nuclear power plants are located in unrestricted air space and by oceans and rivers. Members of Congress understandably have grown concerned, and last month some of them sponsored legislation that would require beefed-up security at the power plants, including a more realistic assessment of the potential terrorism threats. The legislation, introduced by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the majority whip, and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and James Jeffords, I-Vt., also would federalize the security workers at nuclear power plants, much as was done with airport security personnel. Nuclear power plant operators will scrimp on safety if they can get away with it, just like the airline industry had done for years. But this situation can't be allowed to continue. Congress should pass legislation that places a premium on protecting nuclear power plants so that nearby residents aren't placed in harm's way. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 29 Nuclear industry studies role in Yucca suit Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 Nevada officials sue DOE over rules switch By Benjamin Grove < [grove@lasvegassun.com] > WASHINGTON -- The nuclear industry may intervene in a lawsuit filed Monday by Nevada officials against the Energy Department. The suit alleges the department has implemented new rules for Yucca Mountain that rely too heavily on man-made metal alloy containers to isolate nuclear waste from humans instead of relying "primarily" on the mountain's rock as originally planned. The rules took effect Friday. That's a policy switch that came when scientists, over the years, realized that natural features of the mountain cannot adequately isolate waste, Nevada officials said. They doubt metal containers could protect waste for long, especially from water moving through Yucca tunnels, where the it would be stored. "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," Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa said. The suit asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to review the new rules. Meanwhile, officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading nuclear industry lobby group, are considering whether to intervene to state their case for the Yucca repository, spokesman Mitch Singer said. NEI officials are reviewing the suit and likely will decide in early January, he said. Federal law requires that Yucca-related lawsuits, which normally could take a year or more to resolve, be expedited. Still, a timetable for the suit is uncertain, lawyers said. Nevada officials expect the federal government will file a motion to dismiss the suit, said Joe Egan, a Washington-area lawyer hired by Nevada for the suit. The lawsuit asserts that since Congress first wrote Yucca-related legislation in the early 1980s, federal law has stressed that natural geologic features should protect waste from elements such as water, weather, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. "Engineered barriers" would merely provide added protection, the lawsuit said. " ... No form of man-made or engineered barrier or container, based on known technology, is capable of serving as a reliable and safe permanent repository for such wastes for such periods," it said. Energy Department officials stress that they would rely on both the geologic features of Yucca Mountain and sophisticated man-made systems, which include alloy containers designed to last 10,000 years, plus titanium "drip shields." "We're not relying on one more than the other," department spokesman Joe Davis said. "They work hand in hand." Energy officials said that under the direction of the National Academy of Sciences, department officials merely updated siting guidelines to match new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency and Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- rules that take into account a "total system performance." Scientific advancements have led to better waste containers since 1984, when the department was first developing repository guidelines, Energy lawyer Lee Liberman Otis said in letter sent Friday to Gov. Kenny Guinn. Guinn had asked the department delay the effective date of the new rules, but it denied the request. The letter states that federal law mandates a "multiple-barrier system" that includes engineered barriers. But Nevada officials say the letter missed the point. "Our argument is that you can't ignore the geology, and that is what they're doing," Egan said. "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," Guinn said in a statement. The lawsuit is just one part of a strategy Nevada officials are using to delay and hopefully kill the Yucca repository. Despite their efforts, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected in the coming weeks to recommend Yucca to President Bush as the nation's nuclear waste repository. Bush then could recommend it to Congress, where it would meet Nevada opposition. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said only naturally occurring material that has been around for thousands of years, such as rock, should be considered as a viable material to isolate waste for 10,000 years. "To me, engineered barriers are something you should not consider in designing a nuclear waste repository," Gibbons said. "Man has never built anything to last 10,000 years." The new rules are a "sham," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. "They (Energy Department officils) are playing games here that are extremely transparent," Berkley said. "They can't comply with the law, so they want to change the law with rulemaking." Meanwhile, Energy officials in Las Vegas were explaining that they don't have all the answers on whether Yucca Mountain will work as a national waste burial ground. A continued step-by-step approach to further study is necessary, they said. Water seeping through fractures in Yucca's rock is "the No. 1" concern for the Energy Department to study, according to William Boyle, a department license and regulatory adviser. It doesn't know how much water is inside the mountain or how fast it moves through the repository site. There is no final repository design, Boyle said. The department has not calculated which combination of underground tunnels, metal containers and drip shields would best keep water away from the waste, Boyle said. "We need to go out there and see if what we thought was there is there," Boyle said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 30 Letter: Nuke transport is terror threat [Las Vegas SUN] Today: December 19, 2001 at 8:43:47 PST The Department of Energy has asked a National Academy of Sciences panel to investigate building a nuclear waste repository in stages while not broadening its investigation to consider alternative solutions. The DOE has failed, after a 14-year study and spending $8 billion to prove, scientifically, that Yucca Mountain is suitable or that its geology will protect the environment. What is the answer to 289 deficiencies in the DOE scientific data and the General Accounting Office, ACNW-NRC-8-13-2001 report and the finding of deficiencies in peer review studies? Read paragraph one and change the rules! Where is the realization in the name of anti-terrorism and homeland security after the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001? Instead we have the twisted logic and cynical and hypocritical statements by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nuclear power producers, their institute and lobby and ex-politicians that it is necessary to transport nuclear waste through 43 states over three decades. This is an anti-terrorist strategy? This will protect us and future generations? You can never close the dry cask storage or cooling pools at the 103 operating nuclear reactors because they are needed for future waste storage. If the nuclear waste is left where it is or moved there will still be 103 targets, the plants themselves. Transporting the waste creates over 1,000 attractive terrorist targets for three decades. I forgot to mention that some of our politicians, in Congress and the Bush administration, are allowing this charade to continue. Anti-terrorism and homeland security demand an end to this charade. FRANK PERNA All contents © 1996 - 2001 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. ***************************************************************** 31 Editorial: Nevada is pursuing fairness Las Vegas SUN Today: December 19, 2001 at 8:43:47 PST On Monday the state of Nevada filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy, a bid to stop the federal government from building a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The 1982 Nuclear Policy Waste Act mandates that the DOE rely principally on Yucca Mountain's natural geology to make a determination whether it's safe to bury nuclear waste there. But the state's lawsuit contends that a new DOE regulation sidesteps the 1982 law by ignoring problems with Yucca Mountain's geology. Instead, the state notes, the department will make its suitability decision based heavily on the metal canisters that are supposed to contain the nuclear waste for thousands of years. The DOE contends that it simply is using new technologies to design the best repository possible, but that is a disingenuous argument. What really has happened over time is that the DOE has discovered that there are a host of geologic problems with Yucca Mountain -- and the department is just trying to find a way to "engineer" around them. The biggest hurdle the DOE currently faces is the discovery of water inside Yucca Mountain, specifically how fast that deep, hot ground water is moving beneath the mountain. The warmer water could corrode buried metal containers, a situation that could result in nuclear waste-contaminated water escaping from Yucca Mountain and exposing residents to dangerously high levels of radiation. In response, the DOE is trying to sell the public on what it says are corrosion-resistant casks and panels that they say would redirect dripping water away from the canisters. But state officials have pointed out that even these new technologies still aren't foolproof and can corrode over time. As the Sun's Mary Manning noted in a story Tuesday about a National Academy of Sciences' Las Vegas meeting on the Yucca Mountain Project, it's not just state officials questioning the DOE's work -- independent scientists have concerns as well. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is the agency that ultimately will decide whether the DOE will get a license to build a repository, has said it has 293 unresolved technical issues, including how fast water flows to the mountain and how much volcanic activity there is at Yucca Mountain. It also isn't reassuring that the DOE recently said it wants to build a repository in stages at Yucca Mountain, which it says would give the department the ability to identify any flaws in the project and correct them early on in the construction. More likely the case would be that the department, based on its track record, would take advantage of the situation so that it could avoid addressing safety concerns while nuclear waste is shipped to Nevada, creating a fait accompli. The state's residents have been dismayed by the DOE's failure to acknowledge the fact that Yucca Mountain is a terrible place to store man's deadliest waste. The DOE's arrogance actually has strengthened the unity of the state in its opposition, which includes elected officials, citizens groups and the business community. Just last week the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce joined chambers from Las Vegas and Henderson in withdrawing its membership from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce after the parent organization came out in support of Yucca Mountain. The struggle against the federal government isn't easy, and even the lawsuit is an uphill battle in light of the fact that the body that wrote the law -- Congress -- has been anything but fair in drafting nuclear waste storage legislation. But hope remains that Nevadans ultimately will emerge victorious in their fight against the federal government, which is seeking to fit a square peg in a round hole. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 32 The 10,000-Year Warranty December 19, 2001 Talk about itE-mail storyPrint If diamonds are forever, deadly radioactive nuclear waste cannot be far behind. For this reason, the Bush administration is wrong to rush approval of a high-level nuclear waste depository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Congress has stipulated that the dump must keep radioactivity from leaking into the air or ground water supplies for at least 10,000 years. There is no certainty that Yucca Mountain will fulfill that goal. There are at least two reasons for the administration's impatience. First, it is concerned--appropriately--about the security of the used fuel rods that are being stored at 72 nuclear plants throughout the United States. In theory, terrorists could easily steal used fuel rods for fabrication of a radioactivity weapon. But even if Yucca Mountain is accelerated, it will be at least several years before plants can begin moving rods there. Secondly, the administration is promoting a revival of nuclear power for generation of electricity as a "major component of our national energy policy." By congressional decree, no new nuclear plants can be licensed until a permanent waste disposal site is certified. It may be that new-generation reactors will prove safer than the old ones, possibly reducing the risk of accidents and terrorist assault to acceptable levels. But it's uncertain the American public is ready to accept that premise, or that the need for new electric power plants is that urgent. In November, the Department of Energy changed the rules for approving Yucca Mountain by declaring it was no longer necessary to prove that the natural geology of the mountain alone was sufficient to contain radioactivity. Rather, the test could be met by a combination of advanced storage containers and the barrier of the mountain rock. Energy officials claimed the new rule complies with rigorous environmental standards set by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. Nevada officials argued that the administration merely is lowering the bar to win quicker approval of the site over Nevada's adamant opposition. Nevada has sued to stop the rule. We support that effort. Now, the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigatory arm, is urging that the Yucca Mountain decision be postponed until hundreds of outstanding issues are resolved by technical and scientific experts. The GAO draft report quoted the Energy Department's own private contractor as saying the compilation of the needed research and cost estimates will take years to complete. The administration wants to open the depository by 2010. The government has spent $8 billion studying Yucca Mountain over the past 20 years. Recent studies have indicated that earthquake faults and areas of loose rock might even facilitate the leakage of radioactivity into the atmosphere or aquifers. There's no question the nation needs a nuclear disposal site. But it must be safe--almost forever. For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times ***************************************************************** 33 Unsafe at Any Price by Erik Baard The Village Voice: Week of December 19 - 25, 2001 If Terrorists Take Down Nuclear Plants, You Pay—By the Hundreds of Billions Unsafe at Any Price by Erik Baard Even as the human tragedy of two jets smashing into the World Trade Center tore at the hearts of energy traders, their minds were turned to two things: the oil and the nukes, both seeming suddenly more vulnerable than ever to hostile forces from abroad. For the foreseeable future, America's energy policies will remain wedged between Iraq and an irradiated place. But while soldiers might be asked to die protecting fuel supplies beneath the feet of despots, it's civilians who'll suffer the immediate death or homelessness, lingering cancers, and future birth defects if terrorists smash into any of our 103 active nuclear reactors. This scenario feels very real—and it's very costly. Indeed, the September 11 hijackers used the Hudson River as a path to New York City, flying over the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Locals in Westchester County demonstrating for the plant's immediate closure can see the problem clearly enough. They know the burden of protecting facilities like that from what had been unthinkable now falls on them, the rate payers and taxpayers who foot the bill for sustaining the industry. Without their help, nuclear power might sink into obsolescence in a competitive power market, observers say. Nuclear proponent Alan Blinder, an economist with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, concedes that likelihood but notes "sometimes salmon swim upstream." Blinder has reason for optimism. Electricity deregulation was expected to sound a death knell for nuclear power, but the industry eked out a renaissance of sorts through better management, consolidation into fleets run by a handful of more capable operators, and a government-mandated bailout—by ratepayers—of capital costs. Another significant government boost comes through insurance. The Price-Anderson Act, enacted in 1957 and now up for renewal, limits the industry's financial liability for accidents, either in a reactor or research facility, in storage, or in transit. The House has already passed it, and the Senate is due to pick it up in 2002. Under Price-Anderson, utilities carry the maximum private insurance of $200 million per reactor. If damage exceeds that coverage, other industry players chip in up to $83.9 million for each reactor they run. If those hundreds of millions aren't enough, it's up to you. As of August 1998, catastrophe scenarios predicted taxpayers would have to pony up $9.43 billion as the reinsurer—the insurer of insurance companies. And that's just the start of it. Nuclear operators have long understood the dangers. A 1982 Argonne National Laboratory report found protections against airplane collisions highly suspect, and they aren't much better now. "If you postulate the risk of a jumbo jet full of fuel," International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman David Kyd said in a September 17 speech, "it is clear that [commercial reactor] design was not conceived to withstand such an impact." The inability of the industry to protect and insure itself has drawn critics, among them Congressman Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, who has confronted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over the issue. In addition to the Argonne report, Markey has cited expert opinions that waste pools on-site are still radioactive and far less shielded, and that cooling systems might also be vulnerable, making safe shutdown in the event of an attack problematic. "In light of the current risk, we cannot afford a 'business as usual' mentality," he told the Voice in a written statement. "We need a top-to-bottom reorganization of our nuclear security efforts to beef up our defenses against terrorist attacks." He recently challenged the NRC to show any improvements to address the concerns. After 40 years, Markey argued, the industry shouldn't rely on federal help for insurance. When he suggested that perhaps reactor owners could get private insurance based on their safe operations and rigorous security, unless the market was sending a message about the state of that industry, "the entire Energy and Commerce Committee broke into hysterics," recalls an aide. A senate energy committee staff member tells the Voice nuclear power remains politically viable because not only does the Bush administration favor it, but plants tend to be situated in Northern Democratic strongholds. More broadly, though, big power plants of any type are falling out of favor. "September 11 changed a lot of thinking about what we can reasonably protect," the staffer notes. Big power plants make big targets. That goes for coal and hydroelectric generators, as well as nuclear. Distributed generation—a strategy that calls for microturbines, fuel cells, and solar panels—would be safer, if the technology ever catches up. For now, these alternatives can't replace centralized sources and would need massive amounts of research funding or government subsidies to stimulate a market. That leaves advocates for nuclear power free to cast their opponents in terms that smack of the Taliban. "I suspect the people who issue the scares about nuclear plants and oppose their construction are really opposed to electricity and our modern society as a whole," Tom Randall, director of the John P. McGovern, M.D., Center for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs, told the National Review in October. But insurance companies soberly confirm Markey's doubts. "Over time, 125,000 people are expected to die or get cancer from the Chernobyl accident, as compared with 3500 from the September 11 attacks," says Dr. Robert Hartwig, chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, a trade association. "So if September 11 cost $40 billion, imagine that amplified by a factor of at least 35. The costs that would come out of a nuclear event or successful terrorist attack far exceed the claims-paying ability of all insurance companies in the world combined." Just the "remote chance of a singular high-severity event" rules out fully privatized insurance for nuke plants, he concludes. And don't go looking to your homeowner's insurance for help if you live downwind of a reactor—read the fine print. "In nearly every insurance policy there are nuclear exclusions and acts-of-war exclusions," Hartwig adds. Gretchen Schaefer, spokeswoman for the American Insurance Association, agrees Price-Anderson is destined for extension, because "I can't imagine any insurer out there willing to take on the risk." Already, reinsurers are sending out a wave of nonrenewal notices on contracts that expire at the start of 2002, Schaefer says. For businesses that might become targets of terrorism—think skyscrapers and shopping malls—the idea of using Uncle Sam as a backstop looks more and more attractive. Companies across the board want to form pools specifically to cover terrorism losses, she says, and in the end the federal government is going to have to become the "reinsurer of last resort." Just months ago, those whispering of desire for new reactors were gaining greater voice in Washington, thanks to high oil prices. Then the pinch at the pump began loosening just when it seemed suburbia might realize the truly patriotic response would be to turn that American flag-festooned SUV into a backyard shed. But more, at least cheaper, oil won't provide an easy out for the United States. Washington can't blow smoke in the face of its allies for the war on terrorism. By replacing coal, nukes might cut greenhouse emissions enough to gain goodwill internationally. At present, nuclear power plants generate 700 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year, or 20 percent of U.S. needs, or two-thirds of the nation's emissions-free output. We'll need even more of that juice as we wean ourselves off gasoline with electric cars, or turn toward fuel cells powered by hydrogen, the production of which requires copious electricity. Nukes, bolstered by new technology and steady market forces, are coming back. "An obvious major alternative . . . is nuclear power," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told a Rice University gathering on energy policy two months after the attacks. "Its share of electricity production in the United States increased from less than 5 percent in 1973 to 20 percent about a decade ago and has since maintained that share. Given the steps that have been taken over the years to make nuclear energy safer and the obvious environmental advantages it has in terms of reducing emissions, the time may have come to consider whether we can overcome the impediments to tapping its potential more fully." Then Greenspan added monumental caveats, acknowledging a few flakes in a blizzard of ifs. "Up front, of course, are the concerns of making plants safe from terrorist attacks. More difficult is the challenge of finding an acceptable way to store spent fuel and radioactive waste. If this problem can be resolved and if some of the long-deferred research and development efforts to make nuclear power more economical were to bear fruit, the potential for this source of energy could doubtless be much enlarged." Greenspan doesn't factor in public opinion, but the pro-nuke Blinder anticipates it may be a major factor in the bottom line. "Additional security costs are obvious," he said. "If serious efforts to expand nuclear energy are made, I imagine there will be high legal costs as well." The Nuclear Energy Institute is still bullish on its prospects. The group emphasizes the flip side of a world awash with radicals—"In a volatile world, you'd damn well better have reliable energy supplies," says spokesman Steve Kerekes. A report from the lobbying group foresees by 2020 "the addition of 50,000 megawatts of electricity to the U.S. power supply from new nuclear plants and an additional 10,000 megawatts from improvements to existing nuclear plants." But even before September 11, bringing a new plant on-line was projected to take five years, "much as we'd like a faster timeline," says Kerekes. During the delay, he says, engineers could work on "some enhanced design elements to safeguard the reactor." A presidential study to determine how companies and the federal government might protect nukes is under way, Kerekes says. No-fly zones have been established around reactors. Senator Hillary Clinton has joined senators Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman and Representative Markey in proposing that sodium iodide be distributed to communities surrounding power plants to protect against radiation poisoning in the event of an attack. They're also asking that security at plants be federalized, to prevent attacks or the theft of radioactive material that could be used for dirty bombs. Markey asked President Bush to assign National Guard troops in the meantime, but hasn't gotten a response. Some proposals are startlingly simple and require great faith, like one to construct cages that would block or shred incoming planes. Officials at Exelon, the largest reactor operator in the United States, think the public holds overblown fears about reactor vulnerability. "You would be amazed how many people are calling for antiaircraft," says spokesman Craig Nesbit. "The notion of having antiaircraft missiles aimed at commercial airlines' planes is not a comforting thought for me." While no one can guarantee that a brutal assault won't breach a reactor wall, he's confident "nothing built by man is stronger than these containment structures. It's almost inconceivable to me that [a September 11-style attack] would be successful." And making that assault is tougher than ever, advocates say. Aiming a plane at a low-lying reactor is hard—the high profile people see is the cooling tower—and now fighter planes scramble when anything in the air looks suspicious. Small planes have been escorted down, and even a medevac helicopter was grounded when it suddenly changed course. Nor are airline passengers the patsies they once were, Nesbit notes. When word spread of the ongoing attacks, people on Flight 93 took on the terrorists and brought the plane down from within. Not everyone in Washington is comforted. Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader, has wanted reactors shut long before September 11. "Nuclear power is dangerous and unsafe and unclean and uneconomical, and it was on September 10," asserts Hugh Jackson, a policy analyst with the group. The worst may be yet to come, he fears, as spent fuel from decommissioned plants gets shipped to a central storage facility—Yucca Mountain in Nevada is the prime candidate. One of the state's senators, Harry Reid, is the powerful majority whip. Capitol Hill sources say Reid might run interference on Price-Anderson. He's been growling about the Yucca plan, noting the seismic activity in the area. To say nothing of getting the material there safely. With the NRC admitting that highly radioactive spent fuel rods sometimes go missing, as at Connecticut's Millstone plant, that's a lot of time on the open road. ***************************************************************** 34 State slices $4.5 million in FPL fees Wednesday, December 19 Palm Beach Post Staff Reports Tuesday, December 18, 2001 The state Public Service Commission has cut the amount Florida Power &Light can collect annually from customers for decommissioning its two nuclear plants by $4.5 million. The PSC, which approved the change Monday, reviews decommissioning costs every five years. The amount FPL may collect will drop to $79.5 million from $84 million. The money is set aside to cover the cost of taking the plants off line when their licenses expire. Licenses for Turkey Point's two nuclear units near Homestead are scheduled to expire in 2012 and 2013. The two units in St. Lucie County will expire in 2016 and 2023. FPL is seeking to extend those licenses by 20 years. The effect of the cut on rates will not be known until the PSC completes its rate review next year. Florida Public Utilities buys gas outfit WEST PALM BEACH -- Florida Public Utilities Co. has bought the operating assets of Atlantic Utilities from Austin, Texas-based Southern Union Co. in a cash deal. Terms were not disclosed. Atlantic Utilities, based in New Smyrna Beach, operates South Florida Natural Gas and Atlantic Gas Corp. The company distributes natural and propane gas to more than 6,200 customers. It also has operations in Lauderhill and Dunnellon. Florida Public Utilities Chief Executive Jack English said the deal gives the company a presence in Broward and Marion counties and expands its service area into eastern Volusia County. Florida Public Utilities (Amex: FPU, $16.50) provides natural and propane gas service. Copyright © 2001, The Palm Beach Post. All rights ***************************************************************** 35 Pollution linked to childhood leukemia Wednesday, December 19, 2001 By MAIA DAVIS and BOB GROVES Staff Writers DOVER TOWNSHIP -- Confirming what many residents of this Ocean County town long suspected, state and federal scientists announced Tuesday they had found a link between exposure to certain water and air pollution and some childhood cancers. Scientists stopped short of declaring that pollution caused the Toms River cancer cluster, named after a section of this town. "Chance remains a possible explanation for some or all of these findings," said the principal investigator, Dr. Jerald Fagliano of the state Department of Health and Senior Services. But officials said the study, part of a six-year investigation that cost more than $10 million, is one of the most thorough probes ever done linking environmental pollution to cancer in children. The study found that young girls whose mothers, while pregnant, lived near a former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant and may have been exposed to its air pollution were 19 times more likely to get leukemia than other girls in the township. Girls whose mothers drank tap water from a particular contaminated public well were six times more likely to get leukemia, the study found. State officials said the study found no connection between pollution and other types of cancer. New Jersey began its investigation after finding that between 1979 and 1995, 90 of the town's children developed cancer, a significantly higher rate than the rest of Ocean County or the state. Since then, 28 more children in the township have been diagnosed with cancer, said Linda Gillick, the mother of a cancer victim who helped spearhead the call for a government investigation. Of the 118 children, 16 have died, she said. State officials couldn't confirm how many had died. The town's children had particularly high rates of leukemia and cancers of the brain and central nervous systems, which are usually rare. The research left many questions unanswered, including: What accounted for the high rates of cancers of the brain and nervous system and why is there a stronger link between pollution and leukemia in girls than in boys? But Gillick said she was "not dissatisfied" with the findings. Gillick, whose 22-year-old son, Michael, suffers from neuroblastoma, a central nervous system cancer, said state and federal officials put their best efforts into the study. She echoed scientists in saying that more studies need to be done on the possible connection between pollution and cancer. "I have grandchildren now in this town and I want them protected," she said. Soon after the release of the report Tuesday, leukemia patient Eric Kaari, 26, said he suspected something was wrong in Toms River years ago while being treated at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. "When the nurses ask you where you're from, you say, 'You might not have heard of it, it's a small town, Toms River, New Jersey.' They say, 'Oh, you're from there, too?' " he said. Jan Schlichtmann, the Massachusetts attorney helping the Toms River families, said the study proves parents' contention that pollutants caused their children's cancer. "The numbers tell a very dark story," he said. "We have to acknowledge that chemicals -- even in tiny amounts -- can profoundly influence public health. "This study . . . will have vast implications for how this country deals with toxic waste," he said. Juan Reyes, of the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which conducted the study with the state, said scientists know little about the causes of childhood cancer. "We do know there's been a 30 percent increase in childhood cancer over the last three decades," he said. The nation has also seen a 40 percent increase in brain and central nervous system cancers in the past three decades. He said the federal government is studying the possible cause of this rise in four states with high rates of these cancers -- New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. State officials stressed that measures have been taken to stem pollution in Dover Township. The former Ciga-Geigy dye manufacturing plant, which caused both air and water pollution, has been shut down and is a federal Superfund site. The name of the company has been changed to Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. The Parkway Well, linked to a high rate of leukemia, has new treatment systems to remove chemicals from the water. It is one of a number of public wells in the town. The Parkway Well was contaminated after Union Carbide Corp. illegally dumped 4,500 drums of chemical waste at nearby Reich Farm in 1971. An underground plume of chemicals flowed from the farm, which is also a Superfund site, to the well. Besides the Parkway Well and air pollution from Ciba, investigators also examined other potential sources of pollution, including a second contaminated well, a nuclear power plant, and private wells. The study found that: Boys and girls in areas with private wells were more likely to have leukemia, though the overall number of these cases was small. Girls who lived within one half-mile of the Ciba pipeline had a higher incidence of leukemia. Girls under 20 were six times more likely to develop leukemia if their pregnant mothers regularly drank tap water from the Parkway Well from 1982 to 1996. When they shortened the time frame to 1984 to 1996, the likelihood of girls developing leukemia increased to 15 times above other girls. Girls under 5 were 19 times more likely to get leukemia if their mothers lived near the Ciba plant, exposing them to air pollution while they were pregnant. The study showed no links between cancer and the other potential sources of pollution. Scientists did the study with sophisticated computer models that have attracted interest around the world, Reyes said. The models estimated, for example, how much tap water from polluted wells flowed into each household studied during every month from 1962 to 1996. Computers also figured how much air pollution spread from the Ciba plant over the same period. Investigators compared birth records showing year and place of birth of children who developed cancer with others in the town who stayed healthy. They also interviewed parents of 199 township children, including 40 who had cancer. Last week, Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., Union Carbide, and United Water-Toms River, which bought the public water system serving most of the township from Toms River Water Co. in 1994, agreed to confidential cash settlements with 69 families with stricken children. They admitted no responsibility. Rich Henning, a spokesman for United Water, said the company was reviewing the study, but maintains it is not at fault. "We do not believe the study concludes that there's an association between our water and childhood cancer," he said. "The study certainly doesn't point out any conclusive evidence." Donna Jakubowski, a spokewoman for Ciba Specialty Chemicals, said she had seen only a preliminary summary of the study. But she said that "the bulk of the report should be interpreted cautiously." "There was a considerable level of uncertainty in their modeling" of air pollutant data, Jakubowski said. Union Carbide Corp., which has taken responsibility for the Reich Farm, has long denied responsibility for the illnesses. For some parents in Toms River, the report was a disappointment after so many years spent waiting for answers. Bruce Anderson, whose son, Micheal, developed a rare form of leukemia at age 10, believes the research should have been more extensive. "With the amount of money they spent on it, they could have done a more thorough job," he said. Michael Anderson, now 20, is still receiving treatment for effects from three years of chemotherapy. "You're never out of the woods with this" disease, the father said. Last week's settlements also offered little comfort. "I'd give all the money back to get [Michael's] health back," he said. Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 36 Inspectors to oversee crew at nuclear plant PoughkeepsieJournal.com - Wednesday, December 19, 2001 By Mary Beth Pfeiffer Poughkeepsie Journal Government inspectors will be stationed round-the-clock at Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant in Westchester County until technicians prove they can safely operate the generating station, according to officials of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The highly unusual move, which came after four of seven control room crews failed recent qualifying tests, raises additional questions about the safety of the 500-megawatt nuclear power plant, located 30 miles south of Poughkeepsie. The plant, which has the NRC's lowest rating of any nuclear station in the country, is the only one currently subjected to such intense government scrutiny. ''It's not a routine matter,'' said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the commission, which oversees the nation's 103 nuclear power plants. ''We take this very seriously,'' said James Steets, a spokesman for Entergy Corp., which owns and operates Indian Points 2 and 3, located in Buchanan on the Hudson River. Three of the four failing crews have been retrained and have passed new tests, he said, adding that a fourth crew was ''reconstituted'' with new and old members. Terror spotlights needs Questions about Indian Point's safety and security have been raised since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, which highlighted the potential vulnerability of such nuclear facilities. ''It's a concern for anybody living in this valley and this general area,'' said Margaret White, a Town of Poughkeepsie resident, noting ''the worst case scenario'' if jets had crashed into the plant instead of the World Trade Center. Indian Point 2 is the only plant in the country to get NRC's "multiple/repetitive degraded" rating, meaning it has been cited for key failures in several categories. The rating is one step short of being shut down. While operating safety at the plant is at issue, state officials are attempting to reassure area residents that the plant is secure from attack. New York State Office of Public Security Director James Kallstrom released an FBI analysis of plant security last week, which reinforced his belief, he said, that security is ''robust.'' ''However,'' he added, ''we have advanced a series of recommendations to bolster the overall security in light of the events of Sept. 11.'' These include more frequent security drills and better coordination with area police in the event of an emergency; Entergy agreed to adopt a ''majority'' of them, he said. To critics like the Hudson Riverkeeper and Nuclear Control Institute, a Washington group that advocates increased nuclear oversight, the report was an indicator that security is wanting. The groups filed a petition with the NRC in November calling for immediate shutdown of the plant. "Despite Kallstrom's conclusion that 'local residents should rest easy,''' said Riverkeeper Executive Director Alex Matthiessen, ''Indian Point today is inadequately defended against a terrorist attack." Entergy's Steets disputed that and said Riverkeeper has long sought the plant's closure. ''These plants are very durable plants, built to protect the community from anything that could happen in the reactor,'' he said. Closing them would mean the loss of $350 million annually to the economy and 1,000 megawatts of electricity, he said. That's enough to power two million homes. Robert Ostrander, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Sue Kelly, R-Katonah, who requested the NRC presence, said a shutdown is ''premature.'' ''The good news is the plant is getting more attention than ever from the state and federal government,'' he said. Inspectors will stay a while NRC's Sheehan said government inspectors would remain at the plant through the weekend and possibly longer. They will monitor each crew for three 12-hour shifts and will leave only when they are convinced they are competent to operate the plant. The NRC's action is based on qualifying tests administered by Entergy as part of government mandates to annually test and recertify operators. Two of the four, five-member crews were cited for ''competency failures'' related to untimely responses to simulated emergencies, NRC documents show. The two other crews experienced ''critical task failures'' they failed to meet challenges presented by the test. In addition to crew failures, 10 of 44 individuals failed. In an analysis of the test results, NRC's report states: ''This issue is more than minor because greater than 20 percent of the crews failed and the conditions found reflected the potential inability of the crew to take appropriate safety-related actions.'' The New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. bought Indian Point 2 in September from Consolidated Edison; it had earlier bought its sister plant, Indian Point 3, which gets the NRC's highest rating. ''This is a situation we inherited,'' said Steets. David Lochbaum, an engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former Indian Point consultant, said the worst nuclear power plant accidents -- Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, Pa., and Chernobyl in the Ukraine -- were caused by poor operator performance. Indian Point's last accident was in February 2000, when a steam generator tube ruptured, spilling radioactive coolant into a closed system and resulting in the plant's current rating. Copyright © 2001, Poughkeepsie Journal. ***************************************************************** 37 Chernobyl orphan inspires a Waterford factory ireland.com - The Irish Times - IRELAND Wednesday, December 19, 2001 A blind girl living in an orphanage near Chernobyl has proved to be an inspirational figure for staff and management at a Waterford factory. Eight-year-old Zarina Lysenkova lives in the Vasilivichi orphanage close to the Chernobyl exclusion zone with 140 other children whose eyesight and health have been impaired by fallout from the nuclear disaster. She is one of the children who have been "adopted" by staff at the Bausch & Lomb contact lens manufacturing plant, who set up "Vision for Vasilivichi" in 1995 and since then have raised £150,000 in deductions from their pay packets. The project enabled Zarina, who was born prematurely and is almost totally blind, to spend a summer holiday in Ireland with other children from the orphanage. Among the activities was a visit to a summer camp at Dunhill, Co Waterford, where the children painted pictures. Mr Tom Bolger, one of the Vision group organisers, said a colleague came across a painting by Zarina "and was touched by the fact that the little girl was interested in creating something that she herself would never see". She is able to distinguish between light and darkness. "Zarina's spirit and determination is so typical of the children of Vasilivichi," he said. "We liked the painting and decided that it should not be left in a folder somewhere." Bausch & Lomb Waterford, which employs 1,750 people, decided to use the painting on its corporate Christmas cards this year. It also printed extra cards, without the company's greeting, which the Vision group is selling to colleagues and friends, with the proceeds going towards ongoing improvement works at the orphanage. The project has paid for medical treatment, built showers and toilets at the orphanage and brought children to Waterford for summer holidays each year. It has been boosted by donations from other organisations such as the World Mercy Fund and won a Bausch & Lomb global award for the Waterford workers. [http://www.ireland.com ***************************************************************** 38 Labour to seize powers over planning news.telegraph.co.uk - By Charles Clover, Environment Editor (Filed: 18/12/2001) NUCLEAR waste dumps, power stations, airports and trunk roads could be built in future without residents having the right to object to them in principle at a public inquiry. The plans, published by the Government yesterday, are intended to streamline the planning system for large infrastructure projects. Industry welcomed them, but conservation groups described as them as "completely unacceptable". Homes in the shadow of Ferrybridge Power Station, West Yorkshire The plans would mean that major projects could, for the first time, be subject to a whipped vote in both Houses of Parliament by members who were not well versed in the details of the developments. There would be a temptation for ruling parties to approve unpopular developments in opposition constituencies. The proposals also further reduce the role of county councils, which are to have their planning powers taken away under Green Paper proposals published last week. Tony Blair called for the latest proposals to try to banish the impression that Britain was slow and indecisive in approving major infrastructure developments, compared with countries such as France. For example, it took eight years for Terminal Five at Heathrow to be approved, despite neither party in power during that time being against it in principle. The consultation paper published by Lord Falconer, Mr Blair's confidant and planning minister, proposes that in future ministers would first decide whether a scheme fitted the criteria to be considered under the new fast-track planning procedures. A minister would make a statement proposing the development, at which point detailed plans would be published. Objectors would have 42 days to send comments. There would then be a parliamentary stage, the form of which is up to both Houses to decide but which could be a committee or a commission. At the end of that stage, the project would be approved or rejected in principle. If approved, a local inquiry would be held. But this would take as read the need for the project and would not examine it in principle. Although inquiry inspectors would not be able to reject a development, the proposals say that local inquiries might identify problems "that cannot simply be rectified through imposition of conditions . . . and cast doubt on the wisdom of proceeding with the project proposed". In such cases, the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions would make a decision on the basis of the planning inspector's report. The proposals, on which there will be a consultation lasting until March 22 next year, will require primary legislation. If this were included in next autumn's Queen's Speech, they could come into effect in 2004. The Government said it would be "sparing" in its use of powers to circumvent the public inquiry process. Launching the document Major Infrastructure Projects: delivering a fundamental change, Lord Falconer said the new procedures would chop years off the lengthy and cumbersome planning process without damaging communities' rights to object. There was "a clear business case" for moving decisions on major projects to Parliament. "There is no connection between the length of time it takes to reach a conclusion and the quality of that outcome. Faster decisions are not necessarily worse decisions." Digby Jones, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said: "It is right that decisions about schemes of national economic importance are taken by national government. "Our planning process is the best friend that the economies of France and Germany have." But the scale of the exemptions from existing public inquiry procedures, including open-cast mines, quarries and chemical plants, shocked conservation groups. They said that the removal of objectors' rights was potentially a violation of human rights and environmental law. Hugh Ellis, planning campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "The Government has completely caved in to industry. These plans are a nightmare for local democracy and the environment." Teresa May, the Conservatives' planning spokesman, said the proposals gave "enormous power" to the Secretary of State. She said: "These proposals are even worse than I thought. They cut off criticism from local communities and stifle debate in Parliament. They mean that major schemes could be approved in the Commons in an hour and a half on a whipped vote." © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited ***************************************************************** 39 Editorial : Aomori MOX fuel plant plan opportunity to rethink policy asahi.com : ENGLISH Japan Nuclear Fuel Service Co., jointly owned by electric utilities, wants to build a plant to produce mixed-oxide (MOX) fuels at Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, and has sought approval from the prefecture. The prefecture has agreed to consider the proposal and issue a decision by next spring. Japan Nuclear Fuel Service Co. hopes to finish the plant to have it in operation during 2009 at an estimated cost of 120 billion yen. The MOX facility would be adjacent to a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant now under construction in Rokkasho. The facility would make MOX fuels from plutonium separated from spent fuel rods at the reprocessing plant, which itself is to be ready for operation in 2005. MOX fuels would be used in what is called the plutonium-thermal project, in which traditional light-water reactors are driven by MOX. The nation's nuclear power plants turn out about 900 tons of spent fuel material each year. The planned MOX plant, together with the reprocessing facility, could handle 800 tons of spent fuels annually, making it unnecessary to turn to British and French companies for reprocessing and MOX production. But construction of MOX fuel plant would commit Japan to full use of plutonium in its nuclear fuel cycle. The nation's present effort to recover and recycle plutonium created in reactors raises serious questions about the merits of staking the nation's whole nuclear energy future on such direction. Japan's nuclear fuel cycle, to build fast-breeder reactors that burn plutonium extracted from other spent nuclear fuels, is stalled. Monju, the prototype fast-breeder reactor, has been idle since December 1995, when it was shut down after a sodium coolant leak, and there is no prospect of reactivation or eventual commercial application. The government and the electric power utilities demonstrate a dubious commitment to the fuel cycle program when they insist upon full reprocessing of all spent nuclear fuels and self-sufficiency in MOX fuels. The cost to reprocess spent fuel rods and manufacture MOX fuels in Japan would be much higher than what is now paid to foreign contractors. The higher costs, plus the more than 2 trillion yen to be spent on the reprocessing plant, would be a heavy burden on the nation's public coffers. We do not oppose the so-called pluthermal project. Japan already has 30 tons of plutonium extracted at reprocessing plants in Britain and France. The pluthermal method is a viable option to reduce the amount of plutonium-which can also be refined into material for nuclear weapons-as long as safety standards are assured and the local residents agree. But that is not a sound enough reason to build a MOX fabrication plant to promote the pluthermal initiative. Arguing that the pluthermal approach should be promoted because the new plant would generate a large amount of MOX fuel would amount to mistaking the means for the end. At this juncture, what is needed is a fundamental review of the plan for both the reprocessing facility and the MOX fuel production facility. Japan is the only nation prepared to start producing plutonium on a large scale. A number of experts have expressed skepticism about the the operation and size of the reprocessing plant. The question is what should be done with the huge amount of radioactive waste regularly produced by nuclear reactors. The University of Tokyo and Harvard University have conducted a joint study on this issue and recommended a sharp increase in the number of facilities to store spent fuel rods for 30 to 50 years before reprocessing or disposing of them. This is a worthy idea. Such facilities would cost less to build and the delay would provide time to carefully consider what to do with the spent radioactive fuels and plutonium. Japan's nuclear power policy has been progressing only from force of habit. This seems to be a good opportunity to break from the past and to begin Japan's nuclear future. (The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 18) (12/19) [Copyright Asahi Shimbun. All rights reserved. No reproduction ***************************************************************** 40 Commission reviews Cooper nuclear plant's response to June fire Omaha.com December 19, 2001 BY NANCY GAARDER WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will decide within the next 90 days how seriously it believes the Cooper Nuclear Station violated safety guidelines when an electrical fire occurred there in June. The fire prompted the plant to go on alert status because it had the potential to affect safety equipment. Among the reasons the NRC is reviewing the incident: Backup power to the plant's emergency response center didn't fully kick on, and the plant missed several deadlines. Officials from Nebraska Public Power District traveled to the regional NRC headquarters Tuesday in Arlington, Texas, to explain the company's actions. "We wanted to share our perspective with the NRC about what we think happened," said Marcia Cady, spokeswoman for the Nebraska Public Power District, which owns the plant. Here's what happened at the nuclear plant near Brownville, Neb., on June 25th, according to the NRC: Fire broke out in a transformer at 4:33 a.m., and one of the reactor's recirculation pumps shut down. The plant's power output dropped to less than 70 percent. The fire was extinguished at 4:49 a.m. A few minutes later, at 4:55 a.m., the plant went on "alert" status, because of the potential for damage to safety equipment. Alert is the second-least-serious level of four alert levels. No safety equipment was affected, and the alert was lifted at 9:08 a.m. Among the deadlines that the plant missed, according to the NRC: Notifying local authorities within 15 minutes. The deadline was missed by 10 minutes. Getting emergency facilities operating within an hour. The deadline was missed by 37 minutes. Starting up the technical-support center within an hour. The deadline was missed by 13 minutes. "These are relatively minor problems," said Breck Henderson, spokesman for the NRC in Texas. "These are the kinds of shortcomings you like to find so that you can get them all squared away to make sure that everything is working when you need it." The NRC is considering whether to issue a "white" finding on the plant, which is the second-lowest level of concern. The plant has had white findings before and one yellow finding, which is more serious, Henderson said. ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 41 Hidden dangers of the Greenpeace invasion - smh.com.au - Letters Wednesday, December 19, 2001 When Greenpeace invaded ANSTO's nuclear reactor, it stopped more than 800 people from working. When asked why it was doing this, it said that nuclear activity was not natural. Many things are natural. Death, cancer, a heart attack, and starvation caused by inadequate technology or not enough energy. At ANSTO we are working to fight nature. Better drugs, better materials to make better technology or cheaper energy. All of this may come from our work. And this does not take into account the positive contributions that ANSTO makes in nuclear medicine and technology. Many benefits lie in the future and Greenpeace wants to destroy this future because of its perceptions of the dangers. Greenpeace has the right to have any opinion but why can't it respect my right to work for the future? Why doesn't it discuss its concerns with ANSTO through the many channels that ANSTO has opened to the community? Why does it act like thugs - invading my office and my laboratory to stop me from working for a better future? Laurie Aldridge, Woonona, December 17. If the greenies think the reactor is so dangerous, why don't they stay away from it? Wouldn't climbing all over the buildings indicate that it is quite safe? Maybe one day, it will save the life of one of these cretins. Ken Thompson, Lithgow, December 18. The nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights seems to be a free-for-all as far as security is concerned. I thought that the security upgrade for last year's Olympic Games might have continued, especially after the events of September 11. Apparently not for the 46 protesters charged with trespass today. Is it a PR issue that forces the management of Lucas Heights not to keep protesters out? Or is the security really that bad that just about anyone can breach the security of this sensitive facility? One day a real terrorist will go along with the various protest groups that show up at Lucas Heights and attach a real bomb to the building. As for Greenpeace, it should think about its security as well. Does it vet the people that it takes on these missions? It's time to move the reactor to the desert, run a huge electric fence around it. Also have the german shepherd guard dog welcome committee on the other side of the fence with a big sign saying, "Always feeding time here." John F. Walker, Roseville, December 17. Spokesmen for Lucas Heights claim appropriate security measures were used against the Greenpeace protesters at the facility because it was a peaceful protest. That may be so, but how would they discern a terrorist group dressed up as 40 Greenpeace protesters? By their Middle Eastern appearance? They all looked like uranium drums to me. I'm not advocating an over-reaction, but how many machine-guns, grenades and other weapons could such a suit conceal? Christopher J. Woods, Mt Victoria, December 18. So the easy and spectacular breaching of security at a nuclear reactor in a residential area is, for purely political reasons, deemed not to require increased security ("Security fallout after nuclear protest," Herald, December 18), while, for equally political reasons, pathetic attempts by harmless unfortunates to even touch our shores trigger the deployment of all available military, diplomatic, legal and economic resources. And this is meant to make us feel secure? D. Midalia, Bronte, December 18. Searching for truth in the Middle East Amin Saikal claims that Ariel Sharon, the elected Prime Minister of Israel, "has chosen the path of confrontation ... so that he can justify an Israeli military takeover of the autonomous Palestinian areas" (Herald, December 18). By contrast, Yasser Arafat, who has refused to submit to elections due almost two years ago, was not responsible for fomenting the past 15 months of bloodshed through anti-Israeli incitement in the media and tacit support for "martyrdom". The Oslo process granted Palestinian autonomy in return for guaranteed security for Israel. As the Palestinians clearly are not willing to fulfil their obligations, they forfeit their right to autonomy. Quid pro quo. Adam Levy, Bellevue Hill, December 18. Professor Amin Saikal regards the suicide bombing of adolescents and teenagers as a legitimate form of political retaliation against perceived oppression. In civil societies, legitimate political protest is directed against the responsible oppressing authority. It is the indiscriminate killing of unarmed and helpless civilians which characterises terrorism, and which, regardless of motivation or provocation, makes it unacceptable. Peter Arnold, Edgecliff, December 18. Thank God I'm an atheist! I cannot be blamed for the spate of wars destroying this planet. It is high time religious leaders accepted some blame for the behaviour of their moronic followers. Graeme E. Woodley says God should intervene (Letters, December 17). However, a constructed nonentity can do little. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Pope, the head rabbi, the chief mullah and the pooh bahs of the rest of the motley crew of hypocrites should sit down and hold an Earth summit to sort out a peace plan. Peace on Earth will not come even if Christmas is held over the next month of Sundays. Education of the masses and knowledge about power imbalances and greed in religions offer the only solution to world peace. Martin J. Cochrane, Croydon, December 17. I presume that we are, correctly, meant to loathe the mentality of violence and revenge that dominates the bikie world (Herald, December 18) where an act of violence traditionally results in retaliatory acts of greater violence. Sound like anything else that is going on in the world at the moment? Jim Dixon, Kingsford, December 18. A wing and a prayer Someone should point out to Qantas execs there is something inherently unnerving about having an entire aircraft maintenance division not entirely focused on the job at hand. Richard Andersen, Beverly Hills, December 18. Give me a home among the gum trees I am so tired of being told that we backwards-looking suburban yokels are resisting the glorious medium-density vision ("The time to let go of the quarter-acre block is now", Herald, December 18). When will the pro-development lobby bother to come and look at the treeless red boxes being dumped on us? They will then be hard-pressed to justify the 6x3 townhouses on a quarter acre. There is not a lot of the stylish, critically acclaimed buildings of the inner city - we are still in a world of neo (Tuscan, Federation, Georgian). As neighbours of development, we (and our council) should have a right of veto. Obviously the buyers will be happy with their purchase. So, please, lay off the spurious statistics. Nick de Guingand, Caringbah, December 18. A question for Rodney Jensen: if the Federal Government is actively encouraging young families to build and own their own home, why should those of us living in established suburbs have to endure medium-density development? Adam Johnston, Davidson, December 18. Drugs and reality So, Tony Trimingham is at it again with motherhood statements (Letters, December 17). Motherhood, remember, is not always good - hence, we have DOCS. Likewise "every death is regrettable" is questionable. I can think of a few favourites: Hitler, Stalin, Frau and Dr Goebbels, Vlad the Impaler, etc. Mr Trimingham and I agree privately about this: we should legalise drugs to break the nexus between drugs and crime, distribute pure supplies of known potency and pour our resources into rehabilitation for those who are ready to quit. Where we differ is that, in that process, when an overdose occurs it is the equivalent of human error: say, walking out into heavy traffic without warning. The user, I think, deserves the fruits of his stupidity. The nanny society has no role protecting people from voluntary assumption of risk. Primarily, breaking the nexus between drug use and crime has the best potential to keep people alive long enough to decide to quit. The principal problem with the injecting room is that it does nothing to break this nexus and gives weak-willed and/or mendacious politicians the opportunity to sell snake oil as a cure for the problem. Malcolm Duncan, Potts Point, December 17. Naughty Noddy Soon we will only be able to buy unexpurgated copies of Enid Blyton's books in adult bookshops or have them sent to us by mail in plain brown wrappers. Peter Russell, Wentworth Falls, December 18. Take your medicine I am amazed at the way the doctors are jumping up and down screaming over their increase in insurance premiums. It seems that they think that we, the public, have to pay for their insurance. I am a solicitor. I have just joined a small legal firm and I am astounded by the enormous premiums we have to pay. However, we haven't bleated and requested the public pay our premiums. We've accepted that they are part of our expenses, they are part of our overheads. We have also not asked the Government to bring in legislation to put a "cap" on suing solicitors. The doctors of NSW have successfully persuaded the minister to put a "cap" on suing doctors. I think the medical profession ought to look at themselves and realise they have responsibilities, not only to themselves but to the public. D.B. Baird, The Cascades, December 13. A trifle wobbly I enjoyed Dan Meijer's joke (Letters, December 18) but was concerned to see it included in reference to the gelatine heresy, popular in the 1960s, which states trifles contain jelly. This heresy may be traced back to the sudden conversion of housewives to packet trifle mix in about 1964. These packet mixes not only contained jelly crystals but also coloured sprinkles. It is thought that the trifle mixes first appeared in America, where many cults originate, in 1956. I understand that in some remote areas there are still believers who put jelly in a trifle. But hopefully they will see the light and recant. Don Cook, Avoca Beach, December 18. Now I remember? Good to see Margaret Butler correcting her list of the Great Lakes (Letters, December 18). In a former life - when I was at school in western Canada (due north of Oregon!) - the mnemonic taught to us for the Great Lakes was HOMES. Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. And now that I am an Australian, I find it still works for me. Sandy Forbes, Red Hill (ACT), December 18. Try Sydney Morning Herald's Seldom Confused Editor's Office. Otherwise, poor little Lake St Clair will never achieve greatness. Bill Kierath, Bathurst, December 18. After 60 years, I recall another mnemonic, "My Kind Old Grandfather Cultivates Lucerne" for the Victorian rivers running into the Murray River, Mitta Mitta, Kiewa, Ovens, Goulburn, Campaspe and Loddon all in correct order. Rote teaching might be old hat but it does stick in the memory. Norman Williams, Warrimoo, December 17. Pam Nardi (Letters, December 18) could have learnt the planets with My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, or even My Very Expensive Mercedes Just Smashed Up Near Parramatta. Tom Donnellan, West Pennant Hills, December 18. A university meddle for Doctor who? My congratulations to Cathy Freeman. Academic recognition at last. How about some sporting recognition for us academics? I've got a couple of university degrees and at least one graduate diploma (another one coming soon), first-class honours, university medal, etc. Could I please have my name submitted for an honorary Olympic gold medal? Something difficult would be nice - how about the modern pentathlon, kayaking or even water polo? (No synchronised swimming, please.) Paul Kerr, Denistone East, December 18. Cathy Freeman is not a "doctor", she's an "honorary doctor", and like all the other thousands of "honorary docs", she (and they) ought not run around calling herself "Dr Cathy". Without wishing to detract from her sporting abilities, Freeman's doctoral status owes more to cheap PR for the university involved than any deep fundamental contribution to human knowledge that genuine doctorates are awarded for, and by such stunts are lessened. Robert Mort, Byron Bay, December 18. Letters to The Sydney Morning Herald Snail: GPO Box 3771 Sydney 2001 Fax: 61 2 9282 3492 Email: letters@smh.fairfax.com.au [letters@smh.fairfax.com.au] (No email attachments, please) All letters to the Herald should carry the sender's home address and day and evening phone numbers for verification. Ideally, letters will be a maximum 200 words and may be edited with consultation. Letter writers who would like receipt of their letters acknowledged should send a stamped self-addressed envelope. Letter writers please note that letters published in this newspaper may be republished in other forms. ***************************************************************** 42 MPs patrolling plant The Hawk Eye Newspaper http://archive.thehawkeye.com] December 18, 2001 Iowa Time: 9:33 PM By Dennis J. Carroll The Hawk Eye MIDDLETOWN -- Military police units from reserve posts in Missouri rolled into the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant Monday to beef up security. The plant's commander, Lt. Col. Yolanda Dennis-Lowman, said the armed soldiers, who will patrol the plant grounds, will live in barracks that have recently been erected inside the gates. Dennis-Lowman declined to discuss how many troops are involved, but said it will represent the highest number of active military personnel based at the plant in the facility's 60-year history. "There has never been more than a handful of military personnel here," she said. Most plant managers and staff are civilians. Unconfirmed reports have put the number of MP soldiers at about 50. The new troops are from activated reserve units at Hannibal and Moberly, Mo., Dennis-Lowman said. Dennis-Lowman said the buildup is part of stepped-up security in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. She said there have been no specific threats directed at IAAP. However, in the weeks after the attacks the FBI investigated reports that a suspicious Mideastern man requested maps and photos of the plant from the Des Moines County auditor's office. Plant officials have declined to discuss the specifics of the added security measures, but new barriers and higher fences now surround parts of the plant, including the administrative offices, and admission to the compound has been severely restricted, including a ban on hunting and fishing on the 19,000-acre compound. [http://www.thehawkeye.com/columns/index.html] The Hawk Eye 800 S. Main St., Burlington Iowa 52601 319-754-8461 Front Desk · 319-754-6824 FAX · 1-800-397-1708 Toll Free ***************************************************************** 43 Why the Executive must act on Sellafield Belfast Telegraph Digital Tuesday, 18 December 2001 By Eddie McGrady MP THE interim findings of the Tribunal of the International Law of the Sea on Monday, December 3, in Hamburg have marked a positive stage in the deliberations to prevent the commissioning of the Sellafield Mixed Oxide plant. An interim order was published by the tribunal whereby the British and Irish Governments are required to co-operate and consult on a range of measures within the next couple of weeks and to report back to the president of the tribunal. This interim order also prescribes that the president has the power to request further reports and information, after that date, if he so wishes in respect of the Sellafield MOX plant. This interim order fully vindicates the position of the Irish Government in bringing such a legal action against the British Government to prevent the commissioning of the Mixed Oxide plant. International legal opinion has now been brought to bear on the Sellafield plant, and further declarations could be made later in the month following the submission of information from both Governments. Evidence exists which demonstrated that the Mixed Oxide plant should not have been commissioned. According to many groups who have undertaken significant research into this issue, there is no economic justification for the commissioning of this plant. Whenever the British Government gave the go-ahead for the licensing of the Mixed Oxide plant at Sellafield, low grade civil service advice was taken from within the Department of Trade and Industry and the Exchequer, and the public purse was the main driver. This false economics case is contrary to the information from eminent scientists who belong to the Oxford Research Group who have consistently argued that there is no economic justification for the plant. This viewpoint is also supported by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Nuclear Free Local Authorities. A couple of weeks ago one of Sellafield's main customers told a Parliamentary select committee that it wants to end the reprocessing contracts with British Nuclear Fuels because it is too costly. British Energy told MPs that it "has never re-used any of the material produced because it would be uneconomic to do so, this is likely to remain the case in the short to medium term". According to British Energy, reprocessing fuel is an unnecessary and expensive exercise that it cannot afford. British Energy further stated that there is "no technical case for reprocessing". Apparently British Nuclear Fuels Ltd threatened bankruptcy earlier this year unless the Government commissioned the Mixed Oxide plant. Not only did the Government defy prevailing economic evidence whenever it commissioned this plant, but it acted against the financial public interest. The Irish Government also believed that there was no economic justification for the Mixed Oxide plant. It believed that the British Government had "bowed to spurious economic arguments by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd in favour of the MOX plant and has ignored or rejected the real and genuine concerns about the plant expressed by over 2,000 respondents to the consultation process, including Ireland". There is no doubt that the level of radioactive discharges will increase into the Irish Sea as a result of the commissioning of this MOX plant. Away back in 1985, a House of Commons Environment Select Committee report stated that Sellafield pumped a quarter of a tonne of highly radioactive plutonium into the Irish Sea. How much more has gone into the Irish Sea since 1985 on a day by day, month my month, year by bear basis? In fact, a leaked British Nuclear Fuels Ltd document of June this year indicated that radioactive discharges from Sellafield will increase over the next three years, either two-fold or four-fold, peaking in time for the next meeting of the Environment Ministers at the OSPAR North Atlantic Convention in 2003. The increased discharges fly in the face of the commitments made at the 1998 OSPAR Conference in Portugal when the UK undertook to reduce radioactive discharges to zero by 2020. The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland stated in its last report that discharges of radioactive waste into the Irish Sea from Sellafield continue to be the dominant source of contamination. This institute referred to the remobilisation from sediments of historic discharges which make an important contribution to the levels of radioactivity in the seawater of the western Irish Sea. What will be the levels of concentrations in the Irish Sea of radionuclides whenever the Mixed Oxide plant has been licensed and is fully operational? The British/Irish Council and the North/South Ministerial Council need to continue discussions on Sellafield, commission studies into the impact of further reprocessing on the marine and land environment; the impact of the continued discharges of radioactive discharges into the Irish Sea and the commissioning of the MOX plant. Following their meetings of last week they need as a matter of urgency to ensure that the concerns of the people who reside on this side of the Irish Sea are reflected - these residents want the closure and proper decommissioning of the plant. Sound arguments which now exist into the economic viability of the plant at Sellafield should be allowed to prevail. There is no doubt that the commissioning of the MOX plant, if allowed to go ahead, will effectively perpetuate nuclear reprocessing activities at Sellafield, and add to the level of radioactive discharges to the marine environment. It will increase the volume of worldwide shipments of nuclear fuels with the obvious additional volume of traffic through the Irish Sea. European countries, notably the Nordic Countries and Iceland, need to redouble their pressure on the British Government through the European Union and OSPAR. The International Energy Agency and the WISE Group of Scientists based in Paris need to re-emphasise the real difficulties with commissioning the Mixed Oxide plant. The Northern Ireland Executive and in particular the Department of the Environment must take concerted action to ensure that Sellafield is run down, properly decommissioned, thus leading to eventual closure. It must now represent the interests of their residents who have continually demanded those actions. The Northern Ireland Executive's actions will thus be judged in this campaign. >> View our fast download Text-Only Edition << © Copyright 2001 Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 44 New plea to stop plant at Sellafield Belfast Telegraph Digital 18 December 2001 THE Irish government has 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 Dublin 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 the Irish government received support from Norway in their efforts to force the total closure of Sellafield. In Dublin 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." An Irish bid to stop the MOX commissioning was rejected this month by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. >> View our fast download Text-Only Edition << © Copyright 2001 Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Ltd. ***************************************************************** 45 Nuclear threat site online Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ajc.com WEDNESDAY • December 19, 2001 Maurice Tamman - Staff Sam Nunn and Ted Turner launched a new Web site Tuesday intended to educate the public about the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Philanthropist Turner and Nunn, the former Democratic senator from Georgia, created a charitable organization called the Nuclear Threat Initiative last January. The new site features information about NTI and provides a daily snapshot of news about nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. It also includes a research library of material on preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and even has an extensive Russian language section. "NTI has developed a one-of-a-kind resource for people who want to learn a little --- or a lot --- about these global security threats," said Nunn. "We want to arm people with the facts so that these issues can be debated and understood far beyond the small circle of policy makers and experts who work on them and who deserve broad public support." Nunn and Turner, founder of CNN, co-chair the Nuclear Threat Initiative. The organization's goals are to reduce the threat of weapons of mass destruction and to educate the public about the dangers and solutions. "If we are to reduce the threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, we need to raise public awareness and to inspire leadership and cooperation throughout the world," Turner said. "The NTI Web site is a powerful tool for getting this message out to the world." > ON THE WEB: Nuclear Threat Initiative: www.nti.org/ © 2001 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ***************************************************************** 46 Toxic dangers [charlotte.com] Published Tuesday, December 18, 2001 EDITORIALS Old security measures won't do after September 11 Even allowing for the author's point of view, the report is sobering. It says that security measures at U.S. nuclear reactors are configured only for modest challenges. Nonetheless, it says, security crews at nearly half the reactors have scored poorly on drills. The report was written by Daniel Hirsch, president of a California nuclear safety group called Bridge the Gap. It is scheduled for publication in the January issue of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Mr. Hirsch has argued that federal nuclear security regulations were obsolete long before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. His group has tried repeatedly to get standards tightened. The rules presume an attack by three intruders with one confederate inside. The attackers are presumed to have light weapons and a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Regulations require a minimum of five guards on duty - in other words, one more than the presumed number of attackers. That's it. No provision is made for other kinds of weapons, other modes of assault, other numbers or organization of intruders. Federal authorities say they are conducting a "top to bottom review" of nuclear security measures. Let us very much hope so. Sept. 11 showed vividly that old assumptions are no longer enough, and that our own way of life can be turned against us if we don't take proper care. Post-September reviews of policy and practice in the chemical industry, for example, spotlighted unsettling information. A 1999 federal report had called security levels "fair to very poor." And problems remain in the sheer quantity of toxic materials stored on some sites, along with methods of shipping them. Some of the chemicals handled in plants around the country have the capacity to match the 1984 disaster in Bhopal, India, where a leak from a Union Carbide plant killed 2,000 people and injured tens of thousands more. A single accident at one of nearly 50 chemical plants between Baton Rouge and New Orleans could endanger 10,000 to 1 million people, according to "worst-case" scenarios that companies must file with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The danger of chemical shipments through populated areas was vividly illustrated last July. A train derailment and fire paralyzed Baltimore for five days, as hydrochloric acid and other toxic substances burned off or seeped into storm drains. Experts say terrorists could put common industrial chemicals to a wide variety of awful uses. A security breach at a nuclear plant could produce true havoc. Voices in Congress are calling for a new look at security practices across American industry, for new assumptions about the possibilities of risk, and for strong new measures of protection. Their call is urgent. ***************************************************************** 47 Russia to revive atomic power [charlotte.com] Published Tuesday, December 18, 2001 Declaring `post-Chernobyl renaissance' Russia to revive atomic power MOSCOW -- 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 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 Rostov. associated press ***************************************************************** 48 Thorium site is declared clean Tuesday, December 18, 2001 By JOHN CHADWICK Staff Writer WAYNE -- Thirty years after W.R. Grace &Co. closed its Wayne chemical plant, the property has been cleansed of radioactive waste, officials announced Monday. Contractors have removed nearly 100,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with carcinogens such as thorium, radium, uranium, and eight other metals in a cleanup that took 16 years and cost $130 million. "I'm here to tell you that Wayne is thorium-free," said Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who held a news conference in a construction trailer on the former Grace site. The 6.5 acres, surrounded by leafy neighborhoods and woodland, has been this suburb's most troubling and longest-lasting environmental headache. Officials are now talking about turning the former industrial site into a park. "No one ever thought this would be accomplished," Mayor Judy Orson said. "It has been a major health concern for a lot of people for a long, long time." The plant dates to 1948, when the surroundings were farmland, and environmental standards for handling waste were minimal. A lawyer for Grace said the company was adhering to government regulations when it buried thorium throughout the Fifties and Sixties. "The regulations actually specified you dig a trench," said Anthony Marchetta, a Florham Park attorney representing Grace. "In this day and age, you would say, 'What?' " Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers, which supervised the project over the last four years, said the property has been cleaned to residential standards. The groundwater must be monitored for five years before the land can be developed. Project manager Allen Roos said workers discovered tainted soil as deep as 19 feet and as shallow as 7 feet. "It was a gray, pasty material," he said. "You could tell when you hit a vein of it." Roos said a much larger thorium cleanup in Maywood isn't expected to be finished until 2008. Grace settled a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice by agreeing to pay $32 million of the $130 million cleanup cost. The company didn't have to pay the full cost because it was operating under government permits that allowed it to discharge thorium. The property is owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, but Pascrell and Orson suggested the township will seek to obtain the tract. Grace operated the plant from 1956 to 1971, producing a cleaning compound for eyeglasses, and gas lanterns. Thorium, the most prevalent contaminant, was a byproduct of the manufacturing process. Before Grace, a company called Rare Earths operated the plant. In addition to its commercial products, Grace also produced thorium oxide for the government. "The government was researching thorium as nuclear fuel and its possible use for atomic weapons," Marchetta said. "Some of the material [buried in the ground] was actually the thorium oxide, which as a practical matter, the government decided it didn't need any more of." The tract was declared a federal Superfund site in 1984. But the cleanup stalled for years until picking up steam in 1997. Pascrell, who took office in January of that year, said he made the project a priority. In another key change, the responsibility for the cleanup was moved from the Energy Department to the corps. Besides removing soil, the contractors also set up a water treatment plant to purify the groundwater to drinking water standards before shipping it to another treatment plant in Gloucester County. Staff Writer John Chadwick's e-mail address is [chadwick@northjersey.com] Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc. ***************************************************************** 49 Court finds NPPD at fault against two utilities Omaha.com December 19, 2001 LINCOLN (AP) - The Nebraska Public Power District wrongly denied the Lincoln Electric System and an Iowa utility access to its records from the Cooper Nuclear Station, the State Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday. The court ruled in a case stemming from a 1995 lawsuit that Lincoln Electric filed charging the power district with breaching its contract to provide electricity from the plant. Lincoln Electric claimed it lost money because the state's largest electric utility failed to properly operate the nuclear plant, which sits along the Missouri River in the southeast corner of the state. Lincoln Electric has contracted to receive 12.5 percent of the plant's electricity since it opened in 1974, but was forced to go elsewhere during an outage from May 25, 1994, to Feb. 21, 1995. That, plus a 56-day refueling outage at the plant in 1993, cost it millions of dollars, Lincoln Electric said. The Appeals Court said Tuesday that the power district wrongly began denying Lincoln Electric and MidAmerican Energy Co. of Des Moines - which also contracted to buy electricity from Cooper - access to the plant and its records after the lawsuit was filed. "From the beginning of Cooper's operation in 1974 until the mid-1990s, it appears that LES' and MEC's access to Cooper's operating and financial records and reports in addition to LES' and MEC's access to Cooper itself were not contested issues," wrote Judge Theodore Carlson. But after the lawsuit was filed, "NPPD's reaction ... was to tighten access to the plant," Carlson wrote. Lincoln Electric spokeswoman Shelley Sahling hailed the ruling. "We have important decisions to make regarding our generating resources," she said, "and evaluating Cooper Nuclear is key to those decisions." A lawyer for the Nebraska Public Power District, William Lamson Jr., did not return telephone calls to his office seeking comment. A jury that heard the case ordered the power district to pay Lincoln Electric nearly $10 million, but the Nebraska Court of Appeals overturned the verdict and sent the case back for a new trial, saying evidence did not clearly show that the power district was guilty of mismanagement. A second jury decided that the power district did not owe Lincoln Electric any monetary damages stemming from alleged mismanagement at the power plant. Lincoln Electric was denied in its request for a new trial, and that decision also is pending before the Court of Appeals. ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 50 Scholarship focus is nuclear energy Omaha.com December 19, 2001 LINCOLN (AP) - The Kinman-Oldfield Family Foundation will award a $2,000 scholarship to a Nebraska student who does a film, radio documentary, speech or presentation about the positive uses of nuclear energy. The Brigadier General Paul Tibbets Jr. Award is presented annually. Tibbets is the lone survivor of the American bomb crews that dropped atomic bombs on Japan in World War II. The foundation was started by retired Air Force Col. Barney Oldfield and his late wife, Vada Kinman Oldfield. Oldfield, 92, grew up near Tecumseh and now lives in Southern California. The Oldfields have given to or established about 40 scholarship funds and programs through the University of Nebraska Foundation. ©2001 Omaha World-Herald. All rights reserved. Copyright | Terms ***************************************************************** 51 NRC Suspends License of Pennsylvania Medical Firm NRC: Press Release Region I - 2001 - 71 - U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs, Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406 Public Affairs Web Site No. 01-071 December 18, 2001 CONTACT: Diane Screnci (610) 337-5330/ e-mail: dps@nrc.gov [opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331/ e-mail: nas@nrc.gov [nas@nrc.gov] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has suspended the license of an Easton, Pa., medical company that provides nuclear medicine services for diagnostic purposes. An Order was issued Friday to Advanced Medical Imaging and Nuclear Services. The Order directed the company to place all NRC-licensed material into secured storage and to suspend all NRC-licensed activities. The Order also requires that the company maintain all records related to licensed material in their original form and bars the company from ordering, purchasing, receiving or transferring NRC-licensed material. The NRC's Region I office conducted an initial inspection of the firm's facility at 3729 Easton-Nazareth Highway on November 30. The aim of the inspection was to review activities authorized by an NRC license issued to the company on February 16 of this year. During the inspection, the NRC determined that since at least June, the firm had been conducting activities without an Authorized User (of nuclear materials) or Radiation Safety Officer, as required by its NRC license. After these violations were found, the NRC issued a confirmatory action letter on December 3, which documented the company's commitment to immediately place all NRC-licensed nuclear materials in its possession in secure storage and cease all licensed activities until it had hired an NRC-approved Authorized User (AU) and Radiation Safety Officer (RSO), which would need NRC approval in the form of a license amendment. In addition, the new RSO would evaluate the company's radiation safety program to ensure it was in full compliance with NRC requirements before resuming use of NRC- licensed material. On December 11, the NRC issued a license amendment, reflecting a new authorized user and new radiation safety officer. However, the NRC subsequently found that after the issuance of the license amendment, materials were ordered and used by an individual who had not received the required instructions from, and who was not under the supervision of, an authorized user physician, despite the commitments made by the firm in the confirmatory action letter to ensure full compliance with NRC requirements before resuming operations. In the Order, Carl J. Paperiello, Deputy Executive Director for Materials Research and State Programs, said, "The NRC must be able to rely on the Licensee and its employees to comply with NRC requirements. It is important that licensed material be used by, or under the supervision of, an AU, and that radiation safety aspects of the Licensee's program are being performed in accordance with approved procedures and regulatory requirements, as verified by a RSO. In this regard, it appears that the Licensee has repeatedly failed to comply with NRC requirements, as indicated herein. These actions by the Licensee have raised serious doubt as to whether the Licensee can be relied upon in the future to comply with NRC requirements." The Order is effective immediately. Advanced Medical Imaging, and anyone adversely affected by the Order, may request a hearing within 20 days of the date of the Order. The company must respond to the Order within 20 days. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Proceed with Caution - Nukes Ahead, US Warns India (with a Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 11:43:43 -0600 (CST) Proceed with Caution - Nukes Ahead, US Warns India (with a wink) Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit "Proceed with Caution, Nukes Ahead!" US Warns India (with a wink) [So, will the Pakistani dictatorship live to spend its $200 million payoff for abandoning its Taliban allies under US pressure? ] The Times of India - Dec 18, 2001 US TO INDIA: BEWARE, NUKES AHEAD by Chidanand Rajghatta, Times News Network WASHINGTON, Dec 18--The United States is advising New Delhi to proceed with caution - as against the earlier counsel of restraint - in punishing Pakistan for its relentless patronage of terrorism against India. The subtle but significant change in the lexicon - from restraint to caution - stems from fears that an Indian strike could spiral into a nuclear exchange. Washington's main concern, unstated but implied, is that any Indian action could provoke Pakistan into using nuclear weapons. Although every war-gaming scenario by U.S experts sees Pakistan being decimated in an Indian retaliation, the administration does not want either side to even consider the unthinkable. There are also suggestions that since the U.S itself is keen to "circumscribe" the Pakistani nuclear program given its latent threat to American interests, it would be a poor call on India's part to provoke its use. Washington's preferred route to resolve the tense stand-off is for India to share the evidence it has of the Pakistani role with the Musharraf regime, forcing it to act, and consider any retaliatory strikes only if it does not comply. Secretary of State Colin Powell spelt out the administration line in an NBC interview in which he acknowledged "the Indian government clearly has the legitimate right of self-defence," but added "Washington was encouraging both sides to share information with each other and to come together in this campaign against terrorism." Powell, himself a former general who is now patron-in-chief of Musharraf within the Bush establishment, believes the military ruler is capable of doing U.S and India's bidding i.e defanging the terrorist network that both believe are equally dangerous for Pakistan itself. Washington also believes that the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI is infested with rogue elements who might be defying the Musharraf regime to keep up the pressure on India. Powell pointed out in the interview that Musharraf had immediately condemned the attacks. He also revealed that Musharraf had said "he is taking action against the two organizations that have been tentatively identified as terrorist organizations and might have been responsible for this," - something that must be news to New Delhi. Virtually pleading Musharraf's case, Powell said Prime Minister Vajpayee had "made it clear that he was allowing some time to pass in order to get a reaction from the Pakistani government," and "the Pakistani government is taking some steps now." But as far as India is concerned, the initial response from the Musharraf regime has not been propitious. Musharraf has declined to act against the two groups without adequate proof and belligerently threatened a forceful response to an Indian strike against terrorist camps. Pakistan's official spokesman has also naively asserted that Pakistan has never been a base for terrorist activity, a claim that is liable to be met with disbelieving smirks in every corridor of power from Washington to even Beijing. Such disclaimers carry little credibility in the US, fed on a rich diet of unconvincing denials and fanciful conspiracy theories in the Islamic world - from the refusal to believe an Egypt Air pilot crashed his own airliner, to pointing to Jews for the World Trade Center catastrophe, to routinely alleging that Indian forces perpetrate atrocities on their own people to blame terrorists. The question before officials here is what is the threshold of proof required to force Musharraf to act decisively against terrorism. Indian diplomats say besides the rapidly unfolding results of the ongoing investigation into the parliament attack, there is voluminous evidence to show that leaders of the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have publicly advocated and initiated terrorism against India, not just in Jammu and Kashmir but even in the Indian heartland. Unfortunately for the Pakistani establishment which failed to act against these fundamentalist leaders, their public rantings of death and destruction were also aimed at the United States, besides, of course, Israel. "I don't see how he cannot act against the outfits. There is too much on public record," one official said. Powell's remarks also indicated that despite brazening it out with India to present a tough domestic phase, Musharraf is being made to do the U.S bidding. At the same time, the official said the US will also publicly increase pressure on Islamabad to act against terrorists and their mentors, including outlawing Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. The ban could come within the next few days, and although it will be largely symbolic in nature, it will send a tough message from Washington and force the Pakistan government to act against the outfits. India has repeatedly cautioned the Bush administration that Pakistan is an unreliable partner and liable to act as a "policeman by day and thief by night." Although the Indian warning has been borne out by incidents like the now-established Pakistani support to the Taliban well after September 11, the U.S, publicly at least, has preferred to recognise Pakistan's cooperation. But there is an increasing awareness here that almost every major terrorist attack on India has turned out to be dress rehearsal for similar attacks on the United States. For all its perceived indifference and apathy to India's trouble with terrorism, Washington is acting against Pakistan out of its self-interest. ================================================================= 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 ================================================================= nytcov-12.18.01-07:24:30-30624 ***************************************************************** 2 AFGHAN WAR SYNDROME TO COME?: DU APPARANTLY USED IN AFGHANISTAN Date: Wed, 19 Dec 2001 21:00:36 -0500 http://baltimorechronicle.com/duranium_dec01.shtml CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER: Central Asia Concern Grows that U.S. Has Used Depleted Uranium by Dr. Ali Ahmed Rind ------------------------------------------------ ------------------ -------------- Let there be light!" said God, and there was light! "Let there be blood!" says man, and there's a sea! Italy, France and Portugal have asked NATO to institute a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium in its armaments until more studies are done. Canada stopped using its own DU weapons two years ago. Yet the Pentagon won't admit DU is harmful. As U.S. and NATO forces continue pounding Afghanistan with cruise missiles and smart bombs, people acquainted with the aftermaths of two recent previous wars fought by the U.S. fear, following the Gulf and Balkan war syndromes, the "Afghan War Syndrome." This condition is marked by a state of vague aliments and carcinomas, and is linked with the usage of Depleted Uranium (DU) as part of missiles, projectiles and bombs in battlefield. As a result of the current conflicts, people of Afghanistan who had been dying of starvation up till now are likely to savor a more modern mode of death: death owing to radioactive materials pulverized over barren mountains and harsh plains in modern world' s war on terrorism. And the fear is that Afghan people will not be alone to go through it. The wind and rivers could take DU across the borders, making it likely that people in Pakistan and other neighboring countries will also be exposed to this health hazard. What Is Depleted Uranium? Depleted uranium is the super weapon of the '90s. It is not a weapon itself, but is a heavy metal used in the production of armaments. DU is a rather benign-sounding name for uranium-238, the trace elements left behind when the fissionable material is extracted from uranium-235 for use in nuclear reactors and weapons. For decades, this refuse was a radioactive nuisance, piling up at plutonium processing plants. By the late 1980s there was nearly a billion tons of this material-called tailings-left over in U.S. dumps. Then Pentagon weapons designers came up with a use for the tailings: they could be molded into bullets and bombs. The material was free, and there was plenty at hand. Depleted Uranium is 1.7 times denser than lead, and this means that it can form the core of a shell that will easily penetrate the steel armor of tanks and other military vehicles. It is triumph of military technology. At high speed, it slices through tanks like a hot knife through butter. Some flying bombs (A-10s and possibly some Tomahawks, etc.), are made of DU metal. DU is a concern, however, because it is a byproduct of the process that is used to make nuclear power fuel or nuclear weapons. Although 'depleted' of its powerfully radioactive component, DU does still contain minute traces of radioactivity. The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, has tripled in the last five years. When a hardened missile strikes a target and explodes, around 70% of the DU burns and oxidizes, bursting into minute particles that can be inhaled or ingested as dust. This can be harmful not only because of the residual radioactivity of the DU, which possibly could lead to cancer, but also because uranium itself, as a heavy metal, is toxic and can lead to kidney failure and other health problems. DU is toxic only if the dust is inhaled or ingested, or if DU-contaminated shrapnel enters the body. The inhaled lethal dust sticks to the fibers of the lungs and eventually begins to wreak havoc on the body: tumors, hemorrhages, ravaged immune systems, leukemias. Un-oxidized DU metal-in downed aircraft and in unexploded ammunition, rockets, bombs and missiles-rusts away into a very fine black dust. This dust, too, spreads around through the air, water and via people, animals and mobile objects that move over it. Staying in a contaminated area is risky because one never knows how one might ingest a particle of DU oxide, and one particle is all one needs to become sick. The radioactive and toxic DU-oxides don't disintegrate. They are practically permanent. DU has a half-life of more than 4 billion years, approximately the age of the Earth. It means thousand of acres of land in the Balkans, Kuwait and southern Iraq have been contaminated forever. If our apprehension about the current war is correct, the Afghan terrain will suffer the same fate. DU Stockpiling Is Spreading The stockpiling of DU weapons is spreading. More than 20 countries now have DU in their arsenals, including Pakistan. A few months back, among the exhibits at IDEX 2001 (see: http://idex.janes.com/), held in Karachi, was a model of the new 125mm armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) projectile with depleted uranium (DU) long-rod penetration, which is being developed by the Pakistani National Development Complex (NDC) for use with T-80UD tanks. Gulf War Syndrome The amount of DU used in the Gulf War was approximately 100 times greater than the amount used in Kosovo. In all, about 970,000 30mm rounds with DU expended in Gulf War against Iraq, for a total of over 300 tons Roughly half of the DU fired in the Gulf War was shot in Kuwait, to oust Iraqi occupation troops. Months of bombing of Iraq by U.S. and British planes and cruise missiles during the Gulf War has left behind an even more deadly and insidious legacy: tons of shell casings, bullets and bomb fragments laced with depleted uranium. As allied bombing was intense in part of southern Iraq, an epidemic of carcinomas has erupted in that area. At present, the desert dust carries death all around southern Iraq. The Legacy of DU in Iraq Although downplayed by the U.S. administration and Western media, Iraqi physicians have been reporting sharp increases in cancers such as lymphomas and leukemia in Southern Iraq, as well as an increase in birth defects. Since 1990, the incidence of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than 600 percent. One Iraqi oncologist who studied cases of rising leukemia among southern Iraqi populations calls conditions in southern Iraq "another Hiroshima." Most of the leukemia and cancer victims aren't soldiers. They are civilians. And many of them are children. According to mortality figures compiled by UNICEF, as many as 180 children are dying every day in Iraq. Because of the U.N.-sponsored embargo, Iraqi hospitals are short of drugs and equipment to face the endemic. Children are dying in their mothers' laps without food and pills. Iraqi physicians call it "the white death"-leukemia. The Victors Suffer, Too Depleted uranium poses a threat to the victor as well as to the vanquished. Gulf War veterans, plagued by a variety of illnesses, have been found to have traces of uranium in their blood, feces, urine and semen. The number of Gulf War vets who were in contact with radioactive tanks or breathed contaminated dust could be in ten of thousands. The shadows of that war still haunt them. The world came to know about Gulf War Syndrome-a variety of mysterious ailments-when U.S. and allied soldiers returned to their home countries. With the exception of the U.S. defense establishment, everyone believes that this condition is a direct outcome of using DU in conflict. The Balkan Syndrome In 1999 alone, NATO planes fired approximately 10 tons of DU in former Yugoslavia, about 3% of what was used in Iraq. The A-10, used in close combat support, was overwhelmingly the source. Now fears of a "Balkan Syndrome" are raging across Europe. Medical teams in the region have already detected cancer clusters near the bomb sites. The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, has tripled in the last five years. A U.N. report found evidence of radioactivity at eight of 11 sites tested in Kosovo that were struck by NATO ammunition made with depleted uranium. There is concern about civilians who stray too close to the lingering dust at the sites of crushed tanks. It's not just the assailed Serbs who are ill and dying, but NATO and U.N. peacekeepers in the region. Eight Italian soldiers who served in the region under NATO's banner during the past one and a half years have died of leukemia. Five Belgians, two Dutch, two Spaniards, a Portuguese and a Czech are also viewed as victims of DU. Consequently, Italy has asked NATO to institute a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium in its armaments until more studies are done. France and Portugal have added their voice to Italy's. France has launched an inquiry into the effects of DU on their soldiers in Kosovo, and Portugal withdrew its soldiers from Kosovo. The Portuguese Defense Minister went public by declaring that Portuguese soldiers were not going to become "uranium meat" by taking further part in this military expedition. In the meantime, Canada stopped using its own DU weapons two years ago, and has taken steps to deal with sick veterans, offering to pay for soldiers to be tested for DU exposure at independent American centers. However, Ottawa, like Washington, has so far rejected calls for a ban on weapons made from DU. The U.S. Defense Department doesn't want to admit that DU is harmful because they don't want the liability. The Pentagon has shuffled through a variety of rationales and excuses. First, the Defense Department shrugged off concerns about DU as wild conspiracy theories by peace activists, environmentalists and Iraqi propagandists. When the U.S.'s NATO allies demanded that the U.S. disclose the chemical and metallic properties of its munitions, the Pentagon refused. It has also refused to order the testing of U.S. soldiers stationed in the Gulf and the Balkans. Gandhi once wrote that morality is contraband in war. But the world should disagree with him by stirring international consciousness in favor of morality and ethos in all forms of war. Chemical weapons are banned by international agreement. Antipersonnel land mines are on their way out. DU rounds should go the same route. They may be military wonders. But they're ethical horrors that the world should get rid of, and the sooner the better. ***************************************************************** 3 More eligible for nuclear compensation This story was published Tue, Dec 18, 2001 By Annette Cary Herald staff writer Many more families of former Hanford workers may apply for $150,000 in federal compensation under a law awaiting the president's signature. "The thousands of families that Congress had in mind when it created the program will now be eligible for help," said Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao in a prepared statement. The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program offers $150,000 for workers and former workers who had cancer caused by radiation or lung disease caused by beryllium or silica from the nation's nuclear defense programs. However, until now, in most cases either the worker or a spouse had to be living to collect compensation. On Friday, Congress approved expanding the program to compensate the adult children of Hanford workers, if neither the worker nor a spouse is still living to collect the benefit. The president is expected to sign it this week. Until the new legislation was passed, only the children who were young enough to be dependents of a Hanford worker at the time of his or her death -- usually under 18 or students under 23 -- were eligible for compensation. That excluded the families of many Hanford workers, particularly those who worked at Hanford during World War II. Many who came to the desert to produce the first plutonium for weapons use were too old to sign up for combat during the war or had already served in the military. Because of their ages, many of Hanford's earliest workers have died. That was the case for Karma Yourdan's father. He arrived at Hanford in 1943, after serving as a Marine, and got a job as a security officer. He worked his way up to chemical operator, remaining at the site until he retired. "My dad got irradiated twice," Yourdan said. She suspects that led to his bladder cancer and then the bone cancer diagnosed shortly before his death at age 85. But because both her father and mother are dead, Yourdan and her siblings have not been able to apply for the program. "To me, it's not acknowledging these people," she said. "They took the risks. If not for them, we might never have won the war." She also suspects that workers were most likely to be exposed to radiation during the earliest years of the nation's nuclear program when less was known about nuclear science. When the Labor Department held four meetings in Richland in June, the definition of survivor was an issue. Because of the long latency period of cancer, many of the people who attended the meetings were adults when their parents died. Several said the money was less an issue than the government's thanks and acknowledgment that their parents potentially risked their lives to help win WWII and the Cold War. One woman, who knew that as an adult she wasn't eligible for the program, attended a meeting to describe to Labor officials the many trips she made to a Seattle hospital with her suffering father, who eventually died of cancer. The Labor Department had expected more applications from former Hanford workers than have been filed in the program's first 412 months. The Kennewick resource center for the program, one of 10 in the nation, has had 670 claims filed. Nationally, more than 14,500 claims have been filed. Yourdan and others think the low number of applications is partly because of the exclusion of families without a surviving worker or spouse. Employees at the Kennewick resource center are expecting an increased number of claims under the new law, said Eunice Godfrey, center manager. For an appointment, call 783-1500. The Kennewick center has already started helping some families file claims for adult children in anticipation the law would pass, she said. Most claims are for cancer. Families need to provide as much of the deceased worker's employment history as they can remember and are responsible for finding medical or autopsy records that show a diagnosis of cancer and, if possible, other medical details. The center can give guidance on finding those records. Then, government guidelines will be used to decide if there's at least a 50 percent chance the radiation exposure caused the cancer. If a spouse survives the deceased worker, the spouse gets the entire $150,000. If only adult children survive, they would split the $150,000. For those who are still living, the program also covers medical expenses related to the illness if they're eligible for compensation. Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 4 Albuquerque Tribune Online IGNITING A FUSION FACE OFF TAGS BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS AS SHOWN --> Criticisms of the National Ignition Facility - a multibillion-dollar fusion energy venture with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - are becoming louder and more frequent as time and money are expended By Lawrence Spohn [lspohn@abqtrib.com] Tribune Reporter LIVERMORE, Calif. - It's "Big Science," but scientific critics of the $4.2 billion National Ignition Facility are legion from coast to coast, including many in New Mexico, where it casts a giant shadow. Laser-charged feud The $4.2 billion National Ignition Facility is a complex machine that scientists hope to use to produce tiny blasts of fusion energy, the power source of the sun, stars and nuclear bombs. What: Fundamentally, the NIF is an enormous laser that uses special chemically-doped glass and unique crystals to generate powerful beams of light energy. How: That energy is to be focused by 192 individual laser beams into a target chamber and onto a BB-sized pellet containing radioactive hydrogen, which, when super-compressed and heated, is supposed to ignite, yielding fusion energy. Where: NIF is being built at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with assistance from New Mexico's Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories. They are the nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories operated by the Department of Energy. Why: Government officials say NIF is the core instrument of the nation's multi-billion-dollar nuclear-science-based Stockpile Stewardship and Maintenance Program. Program scientists aim to maintain the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear arsenal without nuclear testing, using the advanced experimental tools of nuclear blast simulators such as NIF and supercomputer simulations of bomb blasts based on past real bomb test data and the new simulations. Issue: Various critics, including scientists in New Mexico, say NIF is too costly, won't work as promised and can't achieve ignition. The NIF nuclear-bomb simulator is a huge target. But the barbs fired at it - including some self-inflicted - have been deflected by a protective shield of national security that critics contend isn't earned or warranted. It's still under intense siege, and in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the anti-NIF assault seeks new life. Opponents argue that the project - which, they say, is already consuming billions of dollars needed for more compelling nuclear weapons programs and science projects, including some in New Mexico - should be canceled to fund the new and greater-priority anti-terrorism defense measures. To date, however, even unflattering economic analyses and suggestions of favorable NIF political deals have been unable to deal the reeling project a knockout blow. Here, southeast of San Francisco in a broad valley beneath the rolling coastal hills, the complex NIF is being built behind the security fence at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation's three nuclear weapons labs. Started in 1997, NIF is a giant laser that is to simulate nuclear weapons blasts in the laboratory. Its ultimate goal: fusion energy ignition - a tiny burst of the type of energy that powers nuclear blast furnaces such as the sun, stars and thermonuclear weapons. Livermore expects NIF to cost about $3.5 billion to complete, but independent government investigators says it will be at least $4.2 billion. NIF is the nation's biggest science project. It is to be the world's biggest, most powerful laser. It also is to be the world's biggest optical instrument, dwarfing even astronomy's latest monster telescopes. And NIF easily is the U.S. nuclear weapons program's biggest star. However, depending on the critic, NIF also is at least $1.4 billion over budget, six years behind schedule, going to be an ignition dud and next to useless in its touted mission of maintaining the nation's aging nuclear arsenal. Physicist and budget analyst Robert Civiak says Congress has rewarded Livermore exaggeration, if not misconduct, about the project's prospects with more money for NIF and, through political arrangement, the entire nuclear weapons program. Retired from the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Civiak last spring did a detailed cost assessment of NIF that contends there are "$1.5 billion in hidden (NIF) costs" and that the project will cost $5 billion or more just to build. He sees NIF as a symptom of an ailing nuclear weapons program that is operating in the shadows, drawing more and more money from Congressional patrons to do less and less work on a shrinking arsenal. "A rising tide lifts all boats, and there's a lot of new money pouring into that program," says Civiak. "It's gross, and NIF is the poster child of waste and abuse in that program." Critics contend NIF is virtually off the public's radar screen and still draws congressional support despite: Years of scientific controversy, including detailed critiques in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature and Science. Court cases that successfully challenged official reports and review panels favoring NIF as biased. Failure warnings from many scientists, including several in New Mexico, who believe NIF is the wrong project at the wrong time. Worries at Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico that NIF's escalating costs will be at the expense of their budgets or erosion of the nation's basic nuclear weapons stewardship programs. Recommendations by both New Mexico labs that favored a "NIF-Light," one of several alternatives that would significantly reduce the laser's size, scope and funding. Stinging critiques by analysts for nuclear watchdog groups and individual scientists that contend Livermore has oversold NIF on unwarranted optimism, not firm science or technical merit. And a glaring Livermore management fiasco that two years ago sent the project into a tailspin, when the lab acknowledged rumors of NIF cost overruns, schedule delays, design errors and poor management. NIF overseer George Miller, a Livermore Lab associate director, admits the lab made mistakes but says they were well-intentioned errors in judgment by scientists trying to be both project managers and engineers. Citing as one example of reform the hiring of an external contractor, Jacobs Engineering, to do the laser beam path and power installation, Miller insists the troubled laser is "back on track." Though many opponents roll their eyes at this suggestion and say that NIF not only isn't back on track but is likely to wreck, Miller's confidence is unshaken in the project, whose management he assumed after the budget and schedule revelations. He says firmly that NIF's underlying and long-suspect glass laser technology is achievable at the giant scale, that "there is no question it will work." Opponents say the project's performance to date and Livermore's history do not instill confidence. They had hoped to persuade Congress this year to reduce NIF's funding, scale it back dramatically and force an unbiased NIF review. But both the House and the Senate funded DOE's request, appropriating $245 million to continue NIF construction, plus another $7 million for NIF target and diagnostic research. Marylia Kelly, director of the Livermore citizen watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs, says that for the last two years Livermore and DOE circled its wagons by instituting superficial management reforms and winning approval from new committees stacked with favorable scientists. The result, says retired Livermore Lab laser scientist Ray Kidder, is that "the propaganda machine did its work" reselling a "slick" NIF campaign rooted in the misconception that it is vital to ensuring that U.S. warheads remain safe and reliable. Kidder, who is largely credited with starting Livermore's military laser program nearly 30 years ago, still has access to the lab but not NIF. He says those doors closed on him after he published his own concerns about it. "They don't want any more bad news," he says, ". . . and now they've set things up in terms of milestones, so they have a lot of wiggle room." Kidder says the new NIF strategy is to "go steady, go slow, and make sure we keep getting that money." He and others contend that NIF and its proponents are hiding under a mantle of national security that to many weapons scientists is preposterous. To these and a persistent storm of other NIF criticisms, Miller says the project will meet its new budget and schedule, will achieve its original goals, including fusion energy ignition, and remains vital to maintaining the nation's nuclear weapons arsenal. "NIF's purpose is to help maintain the current stockpile by providing experimental evidence that small changes, which result from aging or refurbishment, do not exceed the performance margins of weapons as they were designed," he explains. Miller insists NIF will provide a unique capability to the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship program. The complex, multi-lab program is aimed at maintaining the safety and reliability of the nation's arsenal without further underground nuclear weapons test explosions. Miller compares the care of the nation's aging nuclear weapons to building a new car, parking it in a garage for decades and expecting it to start right up when you need it. He says for nuclear weapons to perform in this rigorous environment, scientists and engineers will have to monitor hundreds of components and materials, and NIF will provide experimental help in this complex effort. Not true, insist Kidder and a number of weapons, laser and fusion energy scientists. "They always say that," chides Chris Paine, a nuclear weapons analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But they never give you a single, concrete way in which NIF is going to make any weapon safer or more reliable." Like Kidder, Paine looks beyond NIF's superlatives and sees a dark and deceptive reality: NIF is no longer just DOE's latest problem child but a national disgrace that cries out for tough Congressional scolding and discipline. Critics say NIF actually threatens the very arsenal it is being created to tend; could compromise U.S. nuclear weapons credibility; will fuel global nuclear nonproliferation; and tarnishes the integrity of American science and fusion research specifically. "It is going to be a failure, but it will be a 20-year failure; and it will be too late to fix then. They will waste the people's money and compromise national security," warns Los Alamos fusion physicist Leo Mascheroni, NIF's most vocal and longstanding critic. A 15-year advocate of an alternative fusion energy laser that has scientific support within Los Alamos Lab, Mascheroni charges NIF is but the latest in a five-decade history of unfulfilled fusion energy promises. He fears that when NIF fails, Congress will shut the door permanently on research that is vital to solving the emerging global energy crisis. He says NIF remains saddled with technical headaches, is too puny to reach fusion energy ignition, has virtually no role in keeping the nuclear arsenal reliable and safe, and likely will force the United States to return to nuclear weapons testing in violation of the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Across the country, fusion laser physicist Stephen Bodner says: "NIF is like the canary in the coal mine, and it's warning us that we are in trouble, that we are on the wrong track, but those in charge aren't listening." Bodner, also a die-hard NIF critic, is retired from the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Pittsboro, N.C. He and Paine co-wrote an article in the British science journal Nature last fall that argued NIF is an example of failed scientific peer review. Scientists at all three labs say a conspiracy to protect NIF at all costs has contributed to severely compromising peer review among the secretive labs. Citing a cascade of NIF technical problems, Bodner and Paine write in Nature that Livermore nevertheless was allowed to "fast-track" the project and that "advocates became captives of their own rhetoric, and dissenting voices were ignored." "Whether they (NIF proponents) are right or wrong on NIF is not the issue anymore," Bodner now says. "It is their (Livermore's) unbridled optimism that is dangerous. Those people should not be in charge of our nuclear weapons." Although Miller emphatically denies it, Bodner contends DOE's response to NIF's cost overruns and schedule delays is a "technical pass" that officially lowers the project's objectives and virtually eliminates any chance it had of fusion ignition. For nuclear weapons critic Greg Mello, of the Los Alamos Study Group in Santa Fe, the issue has become succinctly simple: The nation no longer can afford the giant laser. The Sept. 11 terrorist assaults should push NIF indefinitely to the back burner, Mello says, affording Congress and the country a renewed opportunity to re-evaluate the floundering project within the context of honest peer review and its true value to the nation's security. "The U.S. is going to have to make some investments in genuine security - I mean in terms of our real infrastructure, not hypothetical nuclear weapons machines," he says, referring to the new, vital and broad concern for homeland security. "And these things are going to be expensive," he says, arguing for a new "NIF reality check." Among those who think the end of the Cold War should mean a decline in nuclear weapons emphasis, Mello sees NIF as the project that is keeping Livermore Lab afloat. The last of the big three weapons labs to be created, Livermore was established in 1952. Often, it has captured headlines with innovative technical approaches outside of the traditional scientific box. Several critics, however, say Livermore has acquired a storied reputation for exaggerating and pushing the practical applications of science - from recent "Star Wars" weaponry to exotic fusion energy machines, including NIF, that have not lived up to billing. While Livermore officials defend their frontier scientific vision, Bodner says bluntly that it has acquired the reputation of "the lab that promises deliverables, but delivers promises." Paine, Mascheroni and Kidder, in one way or another, say Livermore's unbridled NIF optimism borders on scientific deception aimed at preserving the lab in an era of dwindling nuclear weapons acceptance and a shrinking U.S. nuclear complex. Here at the lab and in the community at large, there were shudders at the recent proposal by President George W. Bush to include nuclear weapons facilities in a new round of military base closures. "Without NIF, Livermore is nothing," says Mascheroni. "It has virtually no nuclear weapons mission. Eighty percent of the (warhead) designs were Los Alamos', and only a few of the remaining weapons in the stockpile are Livermore's." Kidder says the problem became so obvious that DOE recently shifted responsibility for one of the Los Alamos weapon designs to Livermore "to kind of keep things balanced." "Shades of Galvin," Kidder says, referring to the official Galvin Commission report last decade that suggested downsizing the nuclear weapons complex. Among the possibilities: consolidating the three nuclear weapons labs into just the two in New Mexico. "Scared the hell out of Livermore," Kidder says, explaining "what everybody here knows: The truth is, Livermore is vulnerable without NIF." DOE sees NIF as the "cornerstone" of the stewardship effort to ensure warheads are reliable and safe. DOE officials did not respond to repeated requests for interviews. The first director of the new National Nuclear Security Administration, retired Air Force General John Gordon, told Congress last spring that the project is "a vital element of the stockpile stewardship program." He testified that it will allow the nuclear weapons labs, among other things, to "study issues that affect aging and refurbishment of the stockpile." Kidder believes otherwise and says there are plenty of scientists who agree. He described Gordon's and Miller's NIF stockpile claims as the equivalent of garbage, adding, "And the weapons people know it." © The Albuquerque Tribune. ***************************************************************** 5 NIF: A massive science project Albuquerque Tribune Online TAGS BETWEEN PARAGRAPHS AS SHOWN --> Despite profuse criticism from watchdogs, scientists and weaponeers, the Department of Energy is resting much of its nuclear weapons stewardship on a fusion energy laser, the National Ignition Facility at Livermore National Laboratory By Lawrence Spohn LIVERMORE, Calif. - There's one thing everyone agrees on about the controversial National Ignition Facility fusion laser: It's huge. "It's a project of numbers, really big numbers," says Mark Newton, lead engineer for power conversion for the $4.2 billion NIF, which is to be the world's biggest laser and the nation's premier nuclear-bomb-blast simulator. In a basement lab near the NIF construction site here at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Newton supervises the checking and testing of the massive power equipment that is essential to energizing NIF's complex glass laser. But in recent years, Newton says, he has spent almost as much time in Albuquerque - at Sandia National Laboratories - as he has at Livermore, shuttling back and forth, because "Sandia has had the lead role in this power conversion problem." Officials point out that, while NIF is being built at Livermore, east of San Francisco, substantial parts of its architecture and functions are being addressed at Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico. Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia are the nation's three nuclear weapons laboratories, each having roughly a $1 billion annual budget, all owned and operated by the U.S. Department of Energy. The labs share in the development, funding and use of machines, such as NIF, that DOE and the weapons labs say are crucial to the nation's science-based nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship and Maintenance Program. At Los Alamos, scientists are struggling to develop tiny, precise spheres filled with radioactive hydrogen, to be super-heated and compressed at the core of the NIF target chamber. Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, Sandia had been developing and refining pulse-power systems to drive its own accelerators for decades, and Livermore has tapped Sandia's world-class pulse-power technology expertise to drive NIF. Pulse-power technology stores enormous amounts of electrical energy in huge capacitors, then releases and directs it in a single, precisely timed pulse to a specific point, target or purpose. It can enable a number of so-called "directed energy" beams, such as lasers, particles or other forms of radiation. "They have the expertise in pulse power, and most of the (NIF power) development has taken place at Sandia, and they've just shipped it to us here," Newton says. He points to a ceiling-high electrical "power conditioning module" that stores electrical energy and provides it in form the NIF laser needs. Developed at Sandia and modified at Livermore, it is being tested for 16 hours continuously each day, Newton says. "This is just one of 192 power conditioning modules that will be on NIF," Newton explains, as he walks along the steel case of the module that is the size of a small office. That's because NIF is to have 192 separate laser beam lines, each needing a power module to boost the laser's energy. Newton says the testing aims to uncover any problems before contracts for mass construction of the modules are awarded. The competition for the contracts is between a California unit of the Raytheon company and Ktech Corporation, an Albuquerque company that has been the lead contractor in Sandia's pulse-power operations - including for its highly-acclaimed Z accelerator. "Z," as it is fondly called at Sandia, is the world leader in X-ray energy output. Its recent successes have some experts wondering whether the Z technology, which is powerful yet cost-effective, is a challenger to NIF as potentially the nation's top nuclear weapons blast simulator and fusion energy machine. Meanwhile, back in Livermore, Newton says the NIF power system must instantly dump vast amounts of energy into a series of flash lamps that will illuminate the special NIF laser glass amplifying the laser beams. He says that during the last three years, Sandia developed four different versions of the power system, and Livermore developed a fifth based on "everything we learned from Sandia." That prototype has been undergoing testing for about a year, Newton says. It delivers a jolt to the flash tubes every 15 minutes, the equivalent of a NIF experiment or "shot." "When we finish (this testing), it'll be about the equivalent of 30 years, or about 20,000 shots," he says, calling that the estimated equivalent of "a NIF." There is debate about NIF's experimental capabilities - partly because of the uncertain question of potential damage and replacement for optical components - but experimenters are expected to conduct a few hundred shots per year. Each module contains 24 heavy, steel-encased capacitors - battery-like electrical storage devices that make each module a 30,000-pound brute. In a corridor outside the flash-lamp test mockup, Newton opens a rectangular box inside which are long tubes that look a bit like commercial fluorescent bulbs. "These are the flash-lamps," he says. Power modules send 25,000 volts into the gas-filled lamps, whose flashes boost the laser beam energy as it flies through. "There are 40 lamps flashed per module," Newtown says, "or about 8,000 total of these flash-lamps on NIF." Monster crystals In another lab across the Livermore complex, the heart of this mighty instrument is being grown in clear, chemical vats. "We plant a little seed crystal and then grow it," says Ruth Hawley-Fedder, group leader for NIF crystal production. Here, a spinning platform inside a clear tank of potassium diphosphate solution holds a beautifully symmetrical, clear crystal about the size of a softball. The platform gently rotates, first one way, then in reverse. "This is an 8-day-old crystal," she says, explaining that the chemical bath out of which the crystal is growing is meticulously maintained not only for the perfect chemical solution but also for "just-right" temperatures that favor crystal growth. After about two months of spinning, the seed becomes a 700-pound, pyramidlike crystal about the size of a small refrigerator. Out of these giant, shimmering, diamondlike blocks, the vital NIF laser optics are cut into thin sheets that are polished and coated. Needing to furnish sufficient quantities of crystals for the 192 beam lines on NIF, the lab has been busy producing dozens of these slabs, about 16 inches square and about a half-inch thick. They are ready, stored in the NIF Optics Processing Laboratory near the NIF construction project itself. Ultimately, they will be transported to the Optics Assembly Building and installed in the various beam lines under construction in the NIF laser hall. Critical to the "final optics assembly," recently redesigned at the target chamber, the crystals are part of the last optical train that is to convert NIF's infrared light into the ultraviolet light required to perfectly implode the fusion-energy gas pellet. The light is to be funneled into a tiny gold canister at the core of the target chamber, where it is to bounce off the insides of the canister and generate the intense energy needed to compress and heat the BB-sized pellet of hydrogen to fusion ignition. Hawley-Fedder says that, before Livermore Lab perfected the new process, it took 22 months to create such mammoth crystals. "This is one of the big (NIF) success stories," she says. Unlike other aspects of the project, which have pushed the project some six years behind schedule, crystal growers are "far ahead of where we thought we needed to be," she says. Craig R. Wuest, assistant NIF project manager, says the crystal technology is one example of technological advances Livermore has made that are making NIF a reality. On the flip side, critics argue that NIF was supposed to be on the verge of conducting experiments in nuclear weapons science, but instead has become an experiment itself, with the outcome still in doubt and cash register still ringing. Among their contentions: Much of the project's costly glass and crystal will be damaged if NIF is fired at the energies required to do useful nuclear weapons physics experiments. Associate Lab Director George Miller, who oversees NIF, says this is not a fair characterization, in that NIF is a one-of-a-kind, complex instrument. Wuest says, "If you ask us to solve every problem before you start the project, you'd never start." Designer glass In addition to the advances in crystal growth and power conditioning, Livermore officials say the lab has also has achieved breakthroughs in large-aperture optical switches, stable high-gain laser pre-amplifiers, motor-controlled deformable mirrors and a special glass mass-production process that is fast, less expensive and reliable. Lab officials acknowledge they still are working on a vital technical breakthrough to produce "long-life, final-stage optics." Critics - focusing on severe glass and optical damage problems reported on NIF's predecessor, the Nova glass laser, and on alleged incomplete or inconclusive experiments on Beamlet, the NIF prototype beam line - do not believe Livermore's claims. But lab officials say two different companies are producing the special, chemically doped pink glass needed for NIF, using a process that continuously melts and pours the glass to prevent imperfections that produce damage under the intense heat of the laser. "It meets our specifications (for purity)," Miller says, noting that much of the glass NIF will need has already been produced and warehoused either by Schott Glass Technologies in Duryea, Pa., or by Hoya Optics of Fremont, Calif., a U.S. subsidiary of a huge Japanese optics company. Miller acknowledges that production at Hoya was temporarily halted when some Japanese officials questioned Hoya's involvement in NIF. But Miller says Hoya resumed production after addressing challenges by Japanese officials. Among the challengers were political leaders in nuclear-sensitive Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who said a Japanese company should not be enabling future U.S. nuclear weapons. Livermore and DOE officials acknowledge that a key NIF attribute is attracting new and young scientists to become weaponeers, but they say that NIF's role is to ensure a safe and reliable existing warhead stockpile. And Miller says that, even if some glass or optics damage does occur in NIF experiments, the lab has calculated that it will only increase operational costs by about 10 percent or a maximum of $15 million per year. That reasoning and calculation are challenged by critics, including retired laser fusion physicist Stephen Bodner of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Particularly given Livermore's dismal NIF expense history and its incomplete pre-construction testing, Bodner says such a claim "needs to be viewed skeptically. If it (glass or optical damage) requires complete replacement after 20 full-power shots, then the numbers don't add up," warning that such a scenario could mean "more like $500 million per year in extra glass costs." Glass handlers If so, there is going to be plenty of work for Jim Fair and his fellow workers. Fair, a chemical engineer in the Livermore Lab's Optics Processing Laboratory, says the lab is staffed with a very sophisticated team of glass handlers, technicians and analysts. The lab is responsible for the final preparation of "the beam line, or big optics for NIF," he explains. Outfitted in the now-familiar bunny suit of electronics and optical manufacturing plants, with only his eyes visible, Fair explains that, in the clean-room atmosphere of this optics lab, workers handle, clean, inspect, analyze and coat NIF glass and crystal slabs using a number of unique tools. One of these is the "universal lifting tool," a unique precision lifter and mover of the fragile sheets of glass. "The heaviest piece is about 100 pounds," he says. The laboratory has precision instruments to measure the exact specifications of the glass and crystal and to scan for imperfections that would affect NIF's performance and cost. "It's been a challenge to work on these large optics," he says, noting that Livermore not only had to invent the technologies to produce the glass but also the tools to work with it. "Before this, there was no manufacturing capability to work on optics this large." He says that "the first shot on NIF will require about 7,500 pieces of laser glass." He says the facility is prepared to replace about 10 percent of those during each year of operation because of failure or experimental damage. Pointing to a tiny, almost circular blemish in a sheet of glass at one end of the lab, Fair says it was laser damage caused during experiments on the Beamlet prototype laser. About 13 people work in the facility now, Fair says, but "it ultimately will ramp up to 18 to 20 workers." TODAY'S BYLINE: Spohn is The Tribune's senior science writer and deputy editorial page editor. © The Albuquerque Tribune. ***************************************************************** 6 washingtonpost.com: Second Treason Trial for Journalist By Anatoly Medetsky Associated Press Writer Wednesday, December 19, 2001; 4:25 AM VLADIVOSTOK, Russia –– In his final address to the court hearing the second treason trial against him, Russian military journalist Grigory Pasko said he was critical of his country but had not betrayed it. Pasko is charged with high treason in the form of espionage for divulging state secrets on the combat-readiness of Russia's Pacific Fleet to Japanese media. He was acquitted of the treason charges in 1999, but found guilty on lesser charges of abuse of office. Seeking a full acquittal, Pasko appealed the verdict, as did prosecutors. The Supreme Court in Moscow sent the case back for trial by a different judge. The court has recessed until Dec. 25 when it is expected to hand down a verdict. Pasko and his supporters maintain the charges are retribution for his reports of alleged environmental abuses by the navy, which included dumping radioactive waste into the sea. "I preferred to criticize my motherland, but not deceive it" by failing to report on the abuses, he said, according to a copy of the speech he delivered Tuesday in the closed-door trial. "This criminal case was born of a dislike for the truth." Pasko said that the Federal Security Service, or FSB, which investigated his case, was suspicious of his contacts with Japanese journalists – as if the agency were stuck in the era of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. "The FSB, as in 1937, regarded my contacts with foreigners as espionage," he said, referring to the peak year of Soviet purges and spy mania. The prosecution last week demanded nine years in a maximum-security prison for Pasko, maintaining that his alleged treason was aggravated by the fact that Russia still has not signed a peace treaty with Japan after World War II, a defense lawyer said. Still, the sentence is three years lower than the minimal punishment for high treason. According to the lawyer, Anatoly Pyshkin, the prosecutor said a shorter sentence would be appropriate because Pasko had not done any harm to national security and has two minor children. Prosecutor Alexander Kondakov also dropped five charges from the initial 10-count indictment, Pyshkin said. © 2001 The Associated Press ***************************************************************** 7 Pasko's Final Plea ALLNEWS.RU: NEWS: Pasko's Final Plea Updated 18.12.2001 at 19:10:20 Gregory Pasko, a military journalist accused of spying for Japan, made a finale plea during a closed court hearing on Thursday. In his 4-minute speech Pasko stated again that he was innocent, RIA Novosti news agency reported. According to Interfax news agency, the final verdict will be announced on December 25. Pasko who reported allegations that the Russian navy had mishandled the nuclear waste it generated, threatening an ecological catastrophe, is accused of passing classified documents on the combat-readiness of the Russian Pacific fleet to Japanese media. Pasko was arrested on November 20, 1998 at the airport of Vladivostok, after his arrival from Japan. Russia's fleet intelligence service accused him of espionage, saying he had divulged information about the combat readiness of Russia's Pacific Fleet to the Japanese television station NHK. The court struck down espionage charges against Pasko and went on to convict Pasko on a charge of "office power abuse". Pasko was freed under an amnesty for prisoners convicted for minor crimes in 1999. The military prosecutors demanded to reverse this sentence and to reopen the case against Pasko with the charge of espionage. At the same time the Pasko's defence also appealed the court decision but in this case they demanded a full acquittal of their client, saying he was absolutely innocent. The case was sent to the Military Collegium of the Russian Supreme Court, which ordered the retrial. Pasko and his lawyers said the treason charges were retribution for his reporting on alleged environmental abuses by the Russian navy, including dumping of radioactive waste in the Sea of Japan. A Russian prosecutor has demanded nine years in jail for the military journalist. The prosecutor also demanded that Pasko should be stripped of his military title of second rank captain and his awards for military service. Email: info@allnews.ru Copyright © 2001 Lenta.Ru ***************************************************************** 8 South Korea Releases Nukes Report Las Vegas SUN December 18, 2001 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. ***************************************************************** 9 Officials Back Low-Yield Nuke Strike Las Vegas SUN Today: December 19, 2001 at 2:45:08 PST WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense officials are considering the possibility of developing a low-yield nuclear device that would be able to destroy deeply buried stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. Such a move would require Congress to lift a 1994 ban on designing new nuclear warheads. In a report to Congress, the Defense Department argues that conventional weapons, while effective for many underground enemy targets, would be unable to destroy the most deeply protected facilities containing biological or chemical agents. In recent years there has been a growing unease that terror groups or unfriendly, newly nuclear-capable states may be hiding weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, in deep underground facilities. In the report sent to Congress in October, the Defense Department said a low-yield, less than five-kiloton, nuclear warhead coupled with new technology that allows bombs to penetrate deep underground before exploding could prove effective in destroying biological and chemical agents. Although not formally engaged in developing a new warhead design, nuclear scientists "have completed initial studies on how existing nuclear weapons can be modified" for use to destroy deeply buried targets containing chemical or biological weapons, the report said. Studies include "synergies of nuclear weapons yield, penetration, accuracy and tactics," it said. Conventional weapons cannot destroy the most deeply buried chemical and biological holding facilities, the report concludes, but a low-yield nuclear device could do the job. It notes that the current nuclear arsenal was "not designed with this mission in mind." The report was submitted in response to a congressional directive that the Pentagon report what it was doing to develop ways to attack stores of chemical and biological weapons and also contains updates on a number of programs involving conventional weapons. The report shows the Bush administration views a nuclear strike as "an intrinsic part" of dealing with deeply entombed enemy targets and "is essentially doing all the preparation" for a future full-scale research and development program for a new mini-nuclear warhead, said Martin Butcher, director of security programs at the Physicians for Social Responsibility. This kind of warhead is "the dirtiest kind of all. It's highly radioactive," said Butcher, whose group has been a leading voice in the nuclear nonproliferation debate. Development of such a bomb would send the wrong signals and would add to the risk of nuclear proliferation, he said. A low-yield nuclear weapon generally is considered to be no more than five kilotons. By comparison, the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II were about 15 kilotons each. The report sent to key committees in Congress by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in October provides a general outline of U.S. capabilities for dealing with what defense officials believe is a growing gap in U.S. military response. The House International Relations Committee is pressing for renewed U.N. inspections in Iraq on the belief that it has rebuilt its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs since President Saddam Hussein's government stopped allowing inspections in 1998. Notes and diagrams found in houses vacated by al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan also point to an effort to create weapons of mass destruction. The report said enhancements expected to be completed by 2005 to an array of conventional weapons, including laser-guided bombs and cruise missiles, should be able to destroy most underground facilities. But it maintains such weapons cannot penetrate the deepest facilities. The report acknowledges that any decision to proceed with a nuclear device for attacking underground targets would be considered within the administration's broader plans for the nuclear stockpile and overall nuclear weapons policy. It said a joint nuclear-planning board already has been established to examine the use of nuclear weapons as bunker-busters. The idea of using low-yield nuclear warheads to attack deeply buried enemy targets has been discussed for years. It was the subject of a classified study concluded in 1997 and has been frequently discussed by nuclear weapons scientists at the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. The essence of the report sent to Congress was reported Tuesday by The Albuquerque Journal. A copy was distributed by Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, based in Santa Fe, on its Web site. The report had been requested by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and was part of this year's defense authorization legislation. On the Net: Nuclear Watch of New Mexico: www.nukewatch.org All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 10 North Korea Stockpiles Plutonium [NewsMax.com] Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001 SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has stockpiled enough plutonium to build at least one atomic bomb but is still several years from producing nuclear weapons because of "rudimentary" technology, South Korea's Defense Ministry said Tuesday. In a report on North Korea's weapons of mass destruction, the ministry estimated the communist country extracted 22 to 26 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from its Soviet-designed graphite-moderated reactors before shutting them down under a 1994 deal with the United States. North Korea conducted more than 70 nuclear-related tests of high explosives between 1983 and 1998, the report said. Those tests were a process needed before fabricating a high-explosive device or detonator, and there were problems in the post-1993 tests acquiring parts of the detonator, the report said. "North Korea may have a capability of putting together a crude nuclear explosion device," the ministry report said. "But its technology is believed to be still in a rudimentary stage and it will take the North at least several years to turn the system into a weapon." U.S. Blackmailed Under the 1994 agreed framework, North Korea pledged to freeze its Soviet-designed reactors, in return for a U.S. promise to provide 1,000-megawatt light-water models that make it more difficult to extract weapons-grade plutonium. The ministry report is considered as confirmation of widespread suspicions North Korea might have extracted weapons-grade plutonium before freezing its nuclear program. The nuclear accord obliges North Korea to open its atomic facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency before the light-water reactor equipment is installed. The U.N. nuclear watchdog recently said it wanted wider inspections, complaining of little progress in its effort to verify North Korea's past nuclear activities. But Pyongyang has rejected international demand to allow inspections, sparking a new round of tension with the United States. President Bush has urged North Korea to allow inspections of its weapons programs, including nuclear and biological arms, warning "consequences" if the country refused. North Korean nuclear officials and engineers are traveling to South Korea to observe the country's nuclear facilities under a training protocol signed between North Korea and a U.S.-led international consortium, which is building light-water reactors in the North. In November, North Koreans toured nuclear facilities in Sweden and Spain. Hunger and poverty are widespread in the communist dictatorship, and the country receives U.S. aid even though the regime often rants against America. Copyright © 2001 United Press International ***************************************************************** 11 Nuclear weapons may be best way to destroy weapons in underground stockpiles, Defense officials say The Nando Times: Updated: December 18, 2001 9:19 Copyright © 2001 AP Online By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press WASHINGTON (December 18, 2001 9:19 p.m. EST) - The best way to destroy underground stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons may be through a low-yield nuclear strike, Defense officials said in a report to Congress. The report concludes that it would be impossible for conventional weapons to destroy the most deeply buried facilities of a terrorist group or hostile state that contain chemical or biological weapons and that a low-yield nuclear device could do the job. But the United States has no "bunker-busting" nuclear warhead that can penetrate deep enough and with enough accuracy to destroy such an enemy stockpile. And since 1994, the government has been barred by Congress from development any new nuclear warhead. Despite the ban, the report shows that the administration views a nuclear strike as "an intrinsic part" of dealing with deeply entombed enemy targets and "is essentially doing all the preparation" for a future full-scale research and development program for a new mini-nuclear warhead, said Martin Butcher, director of security programs at the Physicians for Social Responsibility. This kind of warhead, even at low yields, is "the dirtiest kind of all. It's highly radioactive," said Butcher, whose group has been a leading voice in the nuclear nonproliferation debate. It sends "the wrong signals" and will add to the risk of nuclear proliferation. The report sent to key committees in Congress by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in October provides a general outline of U.S. capabilities for dealing with what defense officials believe is a growing gap in U.S. military response: The ability to attack deeply buried, hardened enemy targets that are suspected of housing weapons of mass destruction. The House International Relations Committee has called for renewed U.N. inspections in Iraqi on the belief that it has rebuilt its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs since Saddam Hussein stopped allowing inspections in 1998. Notes and diagrams found in houses vacated by al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan also point to an effort to create weapons of mass destruction. The report said that enhancements expected to be completed by 2005 to an array of conventional weapons, including today's laser-guided bombs and cruise missiles, should be able to destroy most underground facilities. But it maintains that such weapons will not be able to penetrate the most deeply buried facilities. Defense officials and nuclear scientists "have completed initial studies on how existing nuclear weapons can be modified to defeat those (deeply buried targets) that cannot be held at risk with conventional high-explosive weapons," the report said. It acknowledges that any decision to proceed with a nuclear device for attacking underground targets would be considered part of the administration's broader plans for the nuclear stockpile and overall nuclear weapons policy. But it said that a joint nuclear planning board has been established to examine the use of nuclear weapons as bunker busters. The idea of using low-yield nuclear warheads to attack deeply buried enemy targets has been discussed for years. It was the subject of a classified study concluded in 1997 and has been frequently discussed by nuclear weapons scientists at the Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories. But Butcher said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax scare, and the U.S. war on terrorism in Afghanistan have brought the issue of chemical and biological weapons, and how to respond to them, into much greater prominence. And "it clearly brings into much higher relief" the debate over whether to develop and use a tactical nuclear weapon in response to terrorism, said Butcher. If one were used, he added, the radioactive fallout and political fallout "would be very bad indeed." The essence of the report sent to Congress was first reported Tuesday by The Albuquerque Journal. A copy of the report was distributed by Nuclear Watch of New Mexico, based in Santa Fe, on its web site. The report had been requested by Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Wayne Allard, R-Colo., and was part of this year's defense authorization legislation. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media ***************************************************************** 12 Hanford contractor loses millions in fees Wednesday, December 19, 2001 By LINDA ASHTON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YAKIMA -- The contractor that manages 177 underground tanks filled with highly radioactive waste at Hanford Nuclear Reservation will lose at least $3.4 million this year for performance problems. CH2M Hill Hanford Group could have received a maximum payment of almost $19.8 million. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of River Protection said yesterday that it was withholding $2 million for failure to meet certain environmental, safety and health standards and another $1.4 million for missed deadlines and related performance issues. "While the severity of the problems could have resulted in a larger reduction of fees, I was encouraged by the corrective actions you began late in the fiscal year and progress demonstrated as a result of those actions," Harry Boston, River Protection's manager, said in a letter to CH2M Hill. Fran DeLozier, president and general manager of CH2M Hill Hanford Group, said she was disappointed and somewhat surprised by the decision. "Clearly Dr. Boston and the Department of Energy had a level of expectation ... that we didn't understand," she said. "Had I ever thought we were below minimum acceptable level, I would have taken action." CH2M Hill was dunned $2 million for not adequately planning for and observing the necessary safety precautions for working at the tank farms, and then being slow to fix the problems once they were identified, said Erik Olds, a spokesman for the Office of River Protection. Some improvements being made include faster investigating and reporting on any safety problems at the tanks and the use of a centralized reporting and data-collection system that helps identify recurring problems. Hanford's tank farms hold more than 53 million gallons of lethal radioactive waste left over from processing plutonium for nuclear weapons. Some of the tanks have leaked more than 1 million gallons over the years, contaminating the soil and ground water and threatening the Columbia River. DeLozier said work at the tank farms is safer than ever. The number of reportable incidences of contamination has declined by 70 percent and not a single employee has exceeded the acceptable level of exposure to radiation this year. "That's due to changes in process and how we work," she said. CH2M Hill, based in Denver, also lost another $1.4 million for failing to begin pumping out one of the tanks by the deadline and some performance issues, Olds said. DeLozier said CH2M Hill made significant progress this year with the removal of the last 24 of 60 tanks from a federal watch list of dangerous tanks with the potential to explode. In his letter to CH2M Hill, Boston also said he was holding in abeyance another $7.1 million while the Energy Department determines if the work was accomplished as specified. That probably will be decided early next year. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer] 101 Elliott Ave. W. Seattle, WA 98119 (206) 448-8000 ©1999-2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer ***************************************************************** 13 Experts fear crude radioactive device as potential terror weapon NC News Wire [newsobserver.com, Raleigh, NC] WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2001 AP Science Writer It's the nuclear equivalent of boxcutters. No atom-splitting required. It's called a "dirty bomb," assembled from TNT and radioactive material. Elite scientific SWAT teams stand ready for larger nuclear attacks, but their plans, conceived during the Cold War and refined before Sept. 11, were not made to guard against a small bomb in a backpack or a truck. To address such a terrorist threat, experts say, more needs to be done --from tighter security at hospitals and labs handling radioactive ingredients to better sensors and tracking at U.S. ports and borders. "It's a particularly worrisome threat," said Bruce G. Blair, president of the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank. "It's less hypothetical than them acquiring a regular nuclear bomb." Federal authorities say Osama bin Laden has tried several times since at least 1992 to obtain components of nuclear weapons. In October, he was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper as saying, "We have the weapons as a deterrent." Documents seized in terrorist safe houses in Afghanistan showed instructions on how to make various devices. Unlike the devastation caused by a nuclear weapon -- which might kill 100,000 in lower Manhattan -- damage by a conventional bomb used to scatter radioactive dust would be limited to a few square blocks, according to the congressionally chartered National Council on Radiation Protection. Those uninjured by the blast but near enough to absorb or swallow the dust or otherwise be exposed to the radioactivity would face an increased risk of premature cancers and other diseases. Mostly, though, a dirty bomb "would create a nuclear panic," said Amy Sands of the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. "There is a psychological dimension related to anything nuclear," she said, "and terrorists would be exploiting that fear." Materials that might be used in a dirty bomb -- such as plutonium, enriched uranium or cesium 137 -- emit radioactive particles that don't easily penetrate the body. They are weaker than the radioactive particles that come from fuel rods in a nuclear plant. In the event of a dirty bomb explosion, many people would be safe by staying indoors with the ventilation system turned off until investigators had given the all-clear. Blair said that if law enforcement had a warning about a dirty bomb, "it could be 10 times easier to find than a nuclear weapon because it won't be shielded as well." And it wouldn't be hard for nuclear emergency teams to disarm a dirty bomb, a simple explosive with a detonator. However, Blair said, "Intelligence is key. If they are out there looking randomly, they stand a pretty slim chance of picking up a well-smuggled device." The Department of Energy's Nuclear Emergency Search Teams -- 1,000 members strong -- are trained to find and disable nuclear devices. Normally, NEST remains on standby at national labs and two federal locations in Nevada and Washington, D.C. Typically, they sweep targets enticing to terrorists such as the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999. DOE declined to discuss whether NEST is routinely monitoring places like Lower Manhattan for radioactive materials, or if it will be deployed at events like the Super Bowl in New Orleans or the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. If a small radioactive bomb were detonated, NEST forces would descend, as well as specially trained teams from the military, the Environmental Protection Agency, law enforcement and trauma hospitals. People would be tested for radioactive exposure. Medical treatment for those exposed would be limited: blood transfusions, antibiotics and hormones would be given to stimulate damaged immune systems. In most cases, the radiation council says, people's fears would be far greater than the actual danger, and first-responders should carry monitoring devices to immediately determine the extent of contamination. "A radiological assessment or decontamination should never take precedence over dealing immediately with life-threatening initial injuries such as shock, compound fractures and bleeding wounds," the NCRP stresses in a new report, "Management of Terrorist Events Involving Radioactive Material." Council president Charles Meinhold said radioactive particles would spread beyond the actual blast area. But the limited release is something that public safety agencies are trained to contain and clean up. Since Sept. 11, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been concerned about an airplane attack on a nuclear plant. With that in mind, it reversed a long-standing policy and allocated $800,000 to buy millions of potassium iodide, or KI, pills. KI protects against thyroid cancer that might result that might result from radiation exposure in a nuclear explosion or reactor meltdown. But the pills would be useless against the most likely forms of dirty bombs that would use weaker radioactive materials and don't rely on atomic fission that produces radioactive iodine. Those are materials that would be easier for terrorists to obtain. Two million hospitals, labs, factories -- even some food-processing plants -- using lower-grade radioactive materials go virtually unguarded. Since 1986, the NRC has recorded over 1,700 instances in which radioactive materials have been lost or stolen. In 1998, 19 vials of cesium-137 disappeared from a Greensboro, N.C., hospital. Internationally, there is a thriving black market in radioactive substances. In November, authorities in Istanbul arrested two men for trying to sell enriched uranium suitable for use in a nuclear weapon for $750,000. The men said they bought it from an unidentified Russian. "They were barely aware of what they were selling. They only knew it was a very expensive substance and wanted to make money," a Turkish police official said. In the past eight years, the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna has documented 376 examples of illicit sales of nuclear wastes and radioactive materials, including 175 in former Soviet territories. Moscow alone has more than 1,000 radioactive dumps, experts said. "Nuclear waste there is simply not guarded with any seriousness," Blair said. "They just try to hide the stuff." In 1993, operatives for bin Laden in Sudan tried and failed to buy enriched uranium produced in South Africa on the black market. In the United States, customs officials are on the lookout for efforts to smuggle radioactive materials. They use handheld sensors to scan thousands of vehicles and cargo containers daily. But few are searched intensively. "We need to get a much better handle on the vulnerability of our ports," said Sands, formerly with the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. "We need better sensors and better tracking. We need to close down that option." Dirty bombs are not entirely new. Iraq tested a crude radiological device in 1987, according to frequently cited intelligence reports In 1995, Islamic rebels from Chechnya buried -- but did not detonate -- a 30-pound box of cesium 137 and dynamite near the entrance of a busy Moscow park. Nor would its effects be entirely unanticipated. One of the most recent examples of radiation exposure comes not from an attack, but an unfortunate incident in Goiania, Brazil. In 1987, scraphunters pried open a canister of cesium-137 from an abandoned clinic. For fun, adults and children in a poor neighborhood rubbed the luminous blue powder on their bodies. Within days, four people died and 244 became ill. More than 34,000 residents were tested. Cleanup workers leveled 85 homes. Information on cancer rates in Goiania since then were unavailable. © Copyright 2001, The News & Observer. ***************************************************************** 14 Hanford: Hazardous Haste Fall 2001 Energy - [The Planet Header] Fall 2001 - Energy Hazardous Haste by Kate Koch The Hanford Nuclear Waste site located in southeastern Washington is home to 210 acres of land contaminated with nuclear waste. (Chris Fuller) The announcement of the National Energy Policy came with a series of cheers from the nuclear power industry and a collective “boo” from environmentalists. The policy is the Bush administration’s recommendation for the future of electricity generation in the United States. It stresses continued use of fossil fuels but also hails nuclear power as a “clean energy source” and suggests recommissioning old reactors and finishing partially completed reactors in the existing infrastructure. WNP-1, a partially completed nuclear reactor located on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, could be Washington state’s newest contribution to nuclear power generation. Citing rising construction costs and a shrinking demand for nuclear power, the government halted construction on WNP-1 in the 1980s. Energy Northwest, the publicly owned utility planning to complete WNP-1, estimates it will cost $4.2 billion to finish. Some people, however, question the wisdom of any nuclear-energy generation at Hanford. “You have a large site with some of the largest volumes of radioactive material buried underground,” said Robert Alvarez, senior policy analyst with the Institute for Policy Studies in Takoma, Md. Alvarez worked as the senior policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy from 1993 to 1999 and has written several articles about nuclear waste’s human health and environmental effects. He said nuclear waste produced at a nuclear energy generation facility is not exactly the same as waste at the Hanford site, but said “they’re all equally hazardous.” “The amount of contaminated liquid dumped at Hanford is roughly equal to a lake the size of Manhattan, 120 feet deep,” Alvarez said. “They used the site as a giant contamination sponge.” The federal government purchased land for the Hanford site in 1943 to produce plutonium for the Manhattan Project, a secret nuclear-weapons development project during World War II. Most of the plant was built in the following three years. In his memoirs, Gen. Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, wrote “not until later would all concerned grow accustomed to the idea that, while normally haste makes waste, in this case haste was essential.” The government’s haste created nearly 900 nuclear-waste sites spread across 210 square miles of Hanford, including 177 buried nuclear waste tanks. Alvarez said 149 of those 1 million-gallon tanks are leaking. Contamination from Hanford leaked into the Columbia River and can be found all over the West Coast, from the Baja peninsula to Alaska, Alvarez said. In 1989 the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Washington state Department of Ecology signed the Tri-Party Agreement as a commitment to clean up Hanford. A joint U.S. Congressional committee approved $1.8 billion for 2002 to continue the Hanford cleanup. The budget is $418 million more than Bush proposed and $362 million more than the 2001 budget. Much of the money will pay to encase radioactive material in glass, a process called vitrification. The Department of Ecology gave the Department of Energy until 2007 to begin full-scale vitrification on-site. The Department of Energy, however, has already failed to comply with the Department of Ecology’s July 2001 deadline to begin building the vitrification plant at Hanford. The state is fining the Department of Energy $10,000 every week until it implements a catch-up plan to meet the 2007 deadline for full-scale vitrification. “Whether the Hanford site will ever be completely cleaned up is unknown,” said David Mears, senior assistant attorney general for the Department of Ecology. In addition to its nuclear waste problem, a deadly chemical agent associated with plutonium production at Hanford threatens Columbia River salmon populations. “Hexavalent chromium is in the salmon beds,” Alvarez said. Both plutonium-producing and electricity-producing reactors used hexavalent chromium as an anti-corrosive agent in nuclear cooling towers. During its early years, the Hanford plutonium plant used Columbia River water in its cooling towers, contaminating it with hexavalent chromium before returning it into the river untreated, Alvarez said. When salmon eggs laid in contaminated beds hatch, the fry remain in the area for a few weeks. During their stay they absorb the chromium and become lethargic, which causes breathing problems and ultimately suffocation. Although the National Energy Policy claims nuclear energy production is clean, stating “nuclear power has none of the emissions associated with coal and gas powered plants,” the policy makes little mention of the waste nuclear power leaves behind. The plan states, “an important challenge to the use of nuclear energy is the issue of safe and timely long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel.” However, it offers no solution to this waste problem. In Hanford’s case, the nuclear waste problem needs a solution. Although most of the waste at Hanford was hastily created some, like Alvarez, still wonder how wise it is to ascribe to a new plan supporting nuclear energy. 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