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                    NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS
 
 1  Amory Lovins on Energy Security
 2  Lawmakers to Vote on Nuclear Power Subsidy With Virtually No 
 3  Who Pays for Nuclear Power?     
 4  For Radiation, How Much Is Too Much?
 5  Rupture caused water leak at nuclear plant - 
 6  Nuclear plant emergency drill held - 
 7  Greens challenge Cabinet on nuclear waste exports
 8  Fear, loathing and paper airplanes at Yucca Mountain forum
 9  Move radioactive waste underground, lords urge 
10  Judges urged to block Sellafield reprocessing plant
11  Charles Kennedy: Fourteen more nuclear plants? No thanks
12  NATIONAL NEWS: Taxpayer to bear BNFL's liabilities 
13  Nuclear Solutions Makes $50 Million Announcement 
14  Economics minister Muller angers greens (Der 
15  Czechs are ready to rebuild Temelin nuclear plant in a swap - 
16  Greens challenge Cabinet on nuclear waste exports
17  Czech Republic's Temelin nuclear plant to refire problem reactor 
18  Ukrainian reactor stopped for refuelling, maintenance 
19  Sellafield go-ahead challenged
20  Henderson chamber to vote on quitting national group
21  PRICE-ANDERSON ACT: House vote set on nuclear plant liability support
22  Five Nevada governors share views on nuke waste, what it takes to be good leader
23  2 CENTS: Railroading Nevada
24  IAEA Daily Press Review     Date 2001-11-27 Number 226   
25  Group protests Vermont Yankee sale secrecy 
26  Iron-loving bacteria can learn to consume uranium - 
27  NRC Staff to Hold Regulatory Conference with Virginia Power
28  Judging Yucca Mountain
29  PACE vote backs terms - 
30  Civilian Nuclear Industries Under Siege Of New Concerns
31  Ireland Steps Up Campaign Against British Nuclear Plant
32  Revived fears about radiation 
33  Monitoring Chernobyl's Radioactive Floods
34  Team of Experts Concludes Review of Safety Issues at Temelin - 
35  NRC Seeks Comments on Draft Supplement to Environmental Statement 
36  Judges urged to block Sellafield reprocessing plant 
37  Small fire breaks out, burns itself out, at Maine Yankee 
38  NRC, Company to Discuss Cleanup Plan for Greenville, Pa., Site
39  Nuclear waste issue fuels talk for five Nevada governors

                    NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS
 
 1  Program offers aid to energy workers 
 2  FBI begs Wen Ho's wife for missing nuclear tapes     
 3  Anti-terror work revitalizes Los Alamos
 4  Fugitive in Court for Nuclear Parts Deal
 5  Nuclear threat will not die if Indian held Kashmir issue not resolved: 
 6  LHC fix Nov 28 Hearing set for Nuke Scientists Case  
 7  Article: Depleted uranium at issue in war
 8  Russian nuclear submarine commander commits suicide 
 9  Russian military deny suicide of nuclear submarine officer 
10  US helicopter in India nuclear dispute
11  'Fingers off the nuke buttons'
12  Robots inspect Y-12 building
13  Exporter of nuclear triggers to Israel pleads innocent
14  Terrorist-Nuke-Worker, 2nd Writethru
15  DOE funds CROET with $26M to date 
16  Secretary Abraham Visits Russia; Meets with IAEA to Better 
17  American President applies pressure to Pyongyang over weapons
18  Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientists

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****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Amory Lovins on Energy Security
 
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 17:57:57 -0800

 
Message-ID: <003501c176d0$319c8160$ec484740@ns.ames.net>

Grist Magazine
20 Nov 2001


Put This in Your Pipeline and Smoke It
Domestic oil and gas is not the ticket to U.S. energy security

By Amory and L. Hunter Lovins

America's fragile domestic infrastructure threatens her energy security
at
least as much as dependence on oil from the Middle East. Replacing oil
from
that region with even more vulnerable domestic systems would therefore
decrease energy security.

Extraordinarily concentrated energy flows invite and reward devastating
attack. In our 1982 Pentagon study Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for
National Security, we found that a handful of people could shut down
three-quarters of the oil and gas supplies to the Eastern states (without
leaving Louisiana), cut the power to any major city, or kill millions by
crashing an airplane into a nuclear power plant. All of that remains true
today. Expanding such centralized and vulnerable energy systems would
threaten our national security.

Fundamentally, energy security is less about foreign vs. domestic
sources,
or a shortage of giant energy facilities, than about the basic
architecture
of the energy infrastructure. A system is secure not because it's
American
or big, but because it's designed to make large-scale failures impossible
and local failures benign. Energy security starts with using less energy
far
more efficiently to do the same tasks. Then it gets that energy from
sources
that are inherently invulnerable because they're dispersed, diverse, and
increasingly renewable.

This strategy doesn't cost more; indeed, it's already winning in the
marketplace. For example, central power stations, no matter how well
engineered, can't supply really cheap and reliable electricity. The power
lines that deliver the electricity cost more than the generators, and
cause
almost all power failures. Onsite and neighborhood micropower is cheaper,
eliminates grid losses and glitches, and harnesses waste heat -- so savvy
investors favor it.

Fuels Paradise

Of course, oil from the Middle East is a problem. Getting oil from the
unstable Persian Gulf leaves America less secure and yoked to
unattractive
regimes. Although only 22 percent of oil imports come from the Gulf
(three-fifths come from the Western Hemisphere), decreasing that
dependence
is wise. But this requires investing in the fastest and cheapest energy
system, so we buy the most solution with every year and every dollar
spent.
We don't need just another crude-oil source, but an inherently secure
supply
chain delivering fuel safely all the way to the customer.

Energy efficiency is the rapid-deployment energy resource. Compared to
1975,
America used 40 percent less energy and 49 percent less oil last year to
produce each dollar of gross domestic product. Those savings are now the
nation's largest "source" of energy -- five times domestic oil output.
Most
were achieved in just six years, from 1979 to 1985, when GDP grew 16
percent, total oil use fell 15 percent, and Gulf imports fell 87 percent.
Maintaining that pace could have eliminated all Gulf imports after 1985.

Modern efficiency technologies can put another $300 billion a year back
in
Americans' pockets. A light-vehicle fleet that was just 2.7 miles per
gallon
more efficient would eliminate Gulf imports. Saving energy is the fastest
way to blunt OPEC's market power, beat down prices, and expand the share
of
energy supply from invulnerable sources. And national security would
benefit
from improvements in fuel-efficiency in another respect: The Defense
Science
Board, an influential advisor to the Defense secretary, recently
identified
billions of dollars of military fuel-saving opportunities.

Then there are new ways to supply fuel that are secure, fast, and
competitive. Done right, abundant farm, forest, and even urban wastes can
yield clean liquid fuels while protecting topsoil, farmers, rural
culture,
climate, and prosperity. Producing such biofuels locally bypasses
vulnerable
pipelines and provides more jobs. Another attractive innovation is fuel
cells that use natural gas or renewable energy. (Manhattan's Conde-Nast
Building outperformed its rivals by saving half its energy and
incorporating
the two most reliable known power sources -- fuel cells and solar cells
--
all at no extra cost.) Together, these proven alternatives can displace
oil
promptly, securely, profitably -- and, in time, completely.

The 800-mile-long Chapstik

In contrast, such options as drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic
National
Wildlife Refuge decrease security. If the refuge held economically
recoverable oil (unlikely and in any case a decade away, according to the
official data), then delivering that oil by its only route, the
Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System, would undercut the anti-terrorist goals of
the Defense Authorization Act. It would make the pipeline the fattest
energy-terrorist target in the country -- akin, writes Bill McKibben, to
pinning a "Kick Me" sign on Uncle Sam's backside.

The pipeline would carry a domestic energy source all right, but it's
frighteningly insecure. It's mostly aboveground, accessible to attackers,
and can become impossible to repair in winter. If pumping stations or key
facilities at either end were disabled, 9 million barrels of hot oil
could
congeal in one winter week into an 800-mile-long Chapstik. The Army, U.S.
General Accounting Office, and Senate Judiciary Committee found the
pipeline
indefensible. On Oct. 4, a drunk shut it down for 60 hours with one rifle
shot. It had previously been sabotaged, shot at on over 50 occasions, and
incompetently bombed twice. A disgruntled engineer's more sophisticated
plot
to blow up three critical points with 14 bombs, then profit from oil
futures
trading, was thwarted by luck two years ago. He was an amiable bungler
compared with the Sept. 11 attackers, whose Algerian colleagues have just
threatened to blow up a major gas pipeline to Southern Europe. On the
weekend of Oct. 26, Midwest police detained, and later released, six
suspicious Middle Eastern men who had photographs of the pipeline.

Both Gulf oil and the vulnerable, rapidly aging Trans-Alaska Pipeline
imperil national energy security. Both should be replaced with faster,
cheaper, inherently secure energy efficiency and a distributed domestic
supply system. That is how to design an energy system that terrorists
can't
shut off -- and a durable foundation for an America that would no longer
be
a fragile power.

For further details, please visit the Rocky Mountain Institute's library
of
articles on energy and energy security. An earlier version of this piece
was
published on TomPaine.com.

 - - - - - - - - -

Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins are co-founders of Rocky Mountain
Institute, an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that fosters the
efficient and restorative use of resources to create a more secure,
prosperous, and life-sustaining world. They are longtime consultants to
major oil companies and the Departments of Energy and Defense.

*****************************************************************
 2  Lawmakers to Vote on Nuclear Power Subsidy With Virtually No 
Debate Price-Anderson Act Being Rammed Through the House; Act 
Promotes New Reactors, Subsidizes Nuclear Industry in Event of 
Accident or Terrorist Attack

Nov. 26, 2001

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. House of Representatives should not 
vote on the Price-Anderson Act – which establishes a subsidy for 
the nuclear industry – as scheduled Tuesday because lawmakers 
will have no opportunity to amend it and virtually no time to 
debate it, Public Citizen said today. The act allows the nuclear 
power industry to operate with only a sliver of private-sector 
insurance coverage relative to the enormous costs that would be 
incurred in the event of an accident at a commercial reactor. The 
act establishes a taxpayer-backed insurance regime for nuclear 
power plants that limits the liability of nuclear operators in 
the event of an accident and reduces the amount of insurance they 
are required to carry on operating reactors. Those limits are far 
below the potential cost of an accident, so taxpayers could pay 
billions of dollars if a meltdown occurs or a reactor is attacked 
by terrorists. Such taxpayer support reduces the incentive for 
the nuclear industry to increase security.

H.R. 2983 would reauthorize the act, which was first passed in 
1957 and has been reauthorized throughout the years. The law is 
scheduled to expire next year, but nuclear industry proponents 
contend it must be extended now to cover a new generation of 
nuclear power plants or those plants won’t be built.

The House leadership has placed H.R. 2983 on the suspension 
calendar, a legislative device normally reserved for 
non-controversial measures virtually certain to pass, such as 
bills to name post offices and courthouses or resolutions 
expressing congressional support for holidays. By considering the 
bill under a suspension of the rules, House members are not 
allowed to amend it, and just 20 minutes of debate are permitted 
per side.

"This country needs to have a broad, deep discussion about its 
energy future," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen’s 
Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "Yet the leadership 
in the House of Representatives is pretending that national 
energy policy is no more important than naming a courthouse."

To be lifted from the suspension calendar, 145 members of the 
House would have to vote to return H.R. 2983 to the normal 
legislative process, where the merits of promoting nuclear power 
could be debated and amendments could be introduced.

A full debate on the wisdom of the United States encouraging more 
nuclear plants – which could be terrorist targets – is 
particularly important after Sept. 11. Since that time, the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission has announced a comprehensive 
review of security safeguards at nuclear plants, National Guard 
troops have been summoned to bolster security at several plants, 
and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.) 
have announced they intend to introduce legislation to federalize 
security forces at nuclear power plants.

Citing security concerns, a coalition of citizens and political 
and civic leaders in New York have petitioned for the closing of 
the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which is located only about 
25 miles from New York City. And associates of Osama bin Laden 
have been quoted in media reports about the desire to attack a 
nuclear power plant in the United States. Should a plant be 
attacked, radiation could spread widely, killing countless 
numbers of people, making more people sick and rendering whole 
cities uninhabitable.

Even before Sept. 11, the White House sparked vigorous debate and 
protest by proposing a far-reaching energy program loaded with 
subsidies for industries close to the administration, including 
the nuclear power industry. The Senate is expected to take up 
that controversial legislation early next year.

But in the House, Hauter said, heightened interest in energy 
policy, heightened concern for security at nuclear plants and 
heightened awareness of the relationship between the two don’t 
appear important enough to warrant democratic debate.

"If House members vote to build new nuclear power plants — and 
make no mistake, that’s what Price-Anderson reauthorization is 
all about — with virtually no debate, they are depriving the 
nation of exactly the type of vigorous democratic discussion 
we’ve asked our military forces to defend," Hauter said.
*****************************************************************
 3  Who Pays for Nuclear Power?     
       
by Matt Bivens  

Congress is pondering ways to shore up security and safety at the 
nation's nuclear power plants, from stockpiling medicines for 
radiation poisioning to expanding emergency evacuation plans. But 
the dark horse coming up fast is something else: an 
industry-favored piece of legislation that, in the unfortunate 
event of a nuclear catastrophe, makes damn sure that someone else 
foots the cost. 

When it comes to improving security, the industry's critics are 
active. Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey has introduced a 
bill in the House to create potassium iodide stockpiles near 
nuclear power plants. Potassium iodide was administered in 1986 
to Soviet children who were near the Chernobyl disaster, and is 
credited with preventing thousands of thyroid cancers among them. 
"Potassium iodide is to radiation exposure what Cipro is to 
anthrax," Markey said in a statement. 

New York Senator Hillary Clinton also has called for potassium 
iodide stockpiles, along with a plan to evacuate New York City 
should anything--terrorist-sponsored or otherwise--go wrong at 
the Indian Point nuclear power plant, just 40 miles up the Hudson 
River from Manhattan. 

Clinton and her Democratic colleague from Nevada, Harry Reid, 
also favor legislation to federalize nuclear plant security, a la 
the airports. But talk is cheap, and the action will start 
Tuesday, November 27, on the House Floor. Louisiana Republican 
Billy Tauzin has scheduled a vote on HR 2983, a bill to renew the 
Price-Anderson Act, a 1950s-era insurance subsidy for the nuclear 
power industry that expires next summer. Tauzin's Commerce 
Committee tentatively approved the bill in a debate-free 
Halloween-day voice vote; on Tuesday, the bill will come before 
the full House for an up-down vote, under rules limiting debate 
and prohibiting amendments. 

"Well, now isn't this just like the nuclear industry and its 
allies, bringing us a real turkey for Thanksgiving?" complains a 
statement by Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy group. 
"Attaching a controversial piece of legislation to unrelated 
legislation, just after a major national holiday, without debate, 
about limiting industry liability on hundreds of nuclear reactors 
after the September 11th tragedy?" 

Insurers are pros at assessing risk; when the federal government 
started talking up civilian nuclear power plants in the 1950s, 
insurers assessed the risks and ran for cover. Enter the 1957 
Price-Anderson act, which today limits the nuclear industry's 
collective liability for any mishaps to a ballpark of about $12 
billion. For comparison, estimates of the costs of Chernobyl run 
to about thirty times that; while a 1982 study by the Sandia 
National Laboratories suggested the cost of a major US nuclear 
accident would run to more than forty times the industry's 
current liability cap (in today's dollars). That's to say nothing 
of the human costs in immediate deaths and long-term cancers. 

What happens if HR 2983 is voted down, and Price-Anderson not 
renewed? Most likely, no new nuclear power plants would be built. 
As even Vice President Dick Cheney has conceded, without 
Price-Anderson's security, "Nobody's going to invest in nuclear 
power." Voting down HR 2983 would in particular drive a stake 
through the heart of projects like the new-fangled Pebble Bed 
Modular Reactor--a most terrorist-friendly power plant, because 
its designs don't include a concrete containment building around 
the reactor. 

But with or without HR 2983, existing nuclear plants keep their 
insurance breaks--and, no doubt, industry spokespeople will 
continue to boast that taxpayer-subsidized nuclear power is 
"cheap." Congress could, of course, revoke those protections, and 
force the industry to buy its own insurance--i.e., to pay its own 
way. But no one in Congress is seriouly discussing such radical 
free-market shock therapy. 

thenation.com 

© 2001 The Nation Company
*****************************************************************
 4  For Radiation, How Much Is Too Much?
       
November 27, 2001

By GINA KOLATA

People are constantly exposed to radiation from natural sources — 
from cosmic rays, radon seeping out of the earth and radioactive 
substances in soil, water, food and even from potassium in the 
human body itself.

In their efforts to protect Americans from the hazards of 
radiation, federal agencies have found themselves in a quandary. 
People are constantly exposed to radiation from natural sources — 
from cosmic rays, radon seeping out of the earth and radioactive 
substances in soil, water, food and even from potassium in the 
human body itself. Compared with this radiation, the amounts 
coming from human efforts like nuclear plants are, relatively, 
minuscule. So, the question is, How closely must this radiation 
be regulated?

Up to now, regulators have typically acted as if every bit of 
excess exposure is potentially hazardous. But some scientists 
question this assumption.

The issue is becoming increasingly pressing as more than 100 
nuclear power plants are being relicensed so they can continue to 
operate. At the same time, the country faces a growing 
predicament of what to do with nuclear waste from power plants 
and weapons sites.

"The issue rages because we are regulating doses that are lower 
than the natural background of radiation," said Dr. Arthur Upton. 
A radiation expert and former director of the National Cancer 
Institute, Dr. Upton is a professor of environmental and 
community medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of 
New Jersey. In a report last year on radiation standards, the 
General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, 
said: "The standards administered by E.P.A. and N.R.C. to protect 
the public from low-level radiation exposure do not have a 
conclusive scientific basis, despite decades of research."

The situation is further confused, experts say, because 
regulatory standards are a hodgepodge.

The Environmental Protection Agency advocates a standard for all 
radiation exposure from a single source or site at 15 millirem a 
year, with no more than 4 coming from ground water. A standard 
chest X-ray, in comparison, gives about 10 millirem to the chest, 
which is equivalent to 1 or 2 millirem to the whole body. The 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission sets its acceptable level of 
radiation exposure from any one source at 25 millirem a year. In 
contrast, the natural level of background radiation in the United 
States, on average, is about 350 millirem a year, and in some 
areas of the country it is many times higher than that.

In New York, for example, people absorb about 100 millirem of 
radiation each year from cosmic rays alone, said Dr. John Boice 
Jr., a radiation expert, who is the scientific director of the 
International Epidemiology Institute in Rockville, Md. In Denver, 
exposure from cosmic rays averages 200 millirem a year, he said, 
and natural variation in radiation exposure is many times the 
amounts of radiation that are being disputed by regulatory 
agencies.

"We eat, breathe and drink low levels of radiation," Dr. Boice 
said. At the same time, said Dr. Fred Mettler, chairman of the 
radiology department at the University of New Mexico medical 
school, major medical sources of radiation, like CAT scanners, 
have fallen outside the purview of any regulatory agency.

"A whole lot of places aren't regulated at all," Dr. Mettler 
said. "It's a bit of a nightmare."

"When you look at the exposure of the population from radiation, 
about two-thirds is due to natural background and about 15 
percent is due to your friendly doctors and chiropractors," Dr. 
Mettler said. "Everything else is, to tell you the truth, very 
minimal. Less than a couple of percent is from all the nuclear 
reactors and all the research industry."

But, asked Dr. John Evans, a risk analyst at the Harvard School 
of Public Health, Why should the level of background radiation 
matter to the question of how much additional risk from 
human-generated sources is acceptable? "Why isn't the more 
relevant question, How much of this risk can be mitigated at what 
cost to you?" he asked. The quandary over how to set radiation 
levels does not result from a lack of research or analysis, 
scientists say. 

"Radiation's effects on people have been studied for over a 
century," Dr. Mettler said. "There's a vast literature. There are 
probably more studies on the harmful effects of radiation than 
for any other toxic or noxious agents in the environment."

And as scientists studied radiation, committees to evaluate the 
data proliferated.

"We have national and international standing committees that 
periodically review the world's literature on ionizing 
radiation," said Dr. Boice, who is a member of many such groups. 
"At the International Committee on Radiological Protection, we 
just celebrated our 75th anniversary and we meet two or three 
times a year."

Then, he said, there is the United Nations Scientific Committee 
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. "That started in 1955," Dr. 
Boice said. "We meet every year in Vienna and we publish 
volumes." In the United States, the Environmental Protection 
Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National 
Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements wrestle with the 
radiation standards question, and the National Academy of 
Sciences has been called upon periodically since the 1950's to 
weigh in with its committee, called the Biological Effects of 
Ionizing Radiation committee. The Department of Energy and the 
National Institutes of Health conduct extensive research.

The science has grown rapidly. In 1980, Dr. Boice set up the 
radiation epidemiology section at the National Cancer Institute 
with just a handful of researchers. Now, he said, while he moved 
on to form the International Epidemiology Institute, which 
conducts research for industry and the government, the cancer 
institute's radiation department is no longer a section, it is a 
branch, and one of the largest branches there, with hundreds of 
scientists.

"A lot of people say, `Gee, we don't know a lot about the risks 
of radiation,' " Dr. Boice said. "I say: `We know a whole lot. 
We've studied populations all over the world since the turn of 
the last century. We know what happens at high doses. We know 
what happens at medical doses. And we know that at low doses the 
risks are low. The controversy is just how low are they. Are they 
really low or are they really, really low?' "

As with other toxic substances in the environment, the stricter 
the standards, the more it costs to meet them.

The G.A.O. report last year, which had the subtitle "Scientific 
Basis Inconclusive, and E.P.A. and N.R.C. Disagreement 
Continues," gave some examples of the costs of complying with 
standards setting different levels of radiation. The cost of 
cleaning soil around reactors and nuclear weapons facilities 
could range from thousands of dollars to more than $100 million, 
depending on whether the standard was an exposure of 15 or 25 
millirem a year, the report said. 

The report said that for groundwater, the cost of going from the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's limits of 25 millirem a year to 
the level that the Environmental Protection Agency wants could be 
billions of dollars.

Scientists usually rely on a mathematical model in estimating 
radiation risk. The most widely used model is known as the 
linear-nonthreshold dose-response model. It assumes that there is 
no safe dose of radiation and that the risk of getting cancer or 
genetic damage increases along with radiation exposure.

"For better or worse, that is our model," said Stephen Page, the 
director of the environmental agency's office of radiation and 
indoor air. And with that model, he said, "the E.P.A. has tried 
to be as protective as possible." The agency, he added, uses that 
model to make sure the risk from radiation is within the 
allowable range from toxic chemicals, 1 in 10,000 to 1 in a 
million chance of developing cancer.

Some say that the linear model is the best way to estimate 
radiation risk, but others say that there is, in fact, a 
threshold below which radiation poses no hazard to health. And 
still others say that low doses of radiation are actually 
beneficial.

The linear hypothesis had its origin in 1927, when the geneticist 
Dr. H. J. Muller published a paper on his work eliciting gene 
mutations in fruit flies by bombarding them with radiation from 
X-rays. In a paper published in the journal Science, Dr. Muller 
showed that the number of mutations in fruit flies was 
proportional to the dose of X-rays that had struck the insects.

"He said: `Aha! There's a linear relationship,' " said Dr. Dade 
W. Moeller, a radiation expert and professor emeritus at Harvard 
who runs a consulting company, Dade Moeller & Associates in New 
Bern, N.C. Yet, Dr. Moeller points out, those studies by Dr. 
Muller used very high doses of radiation, and he elicited gene 
mutations, not cancer. But the idea that radiation's effects were 
directly proportional to its dose caught hold and soon was being 
used to predict cancer cases. The difficulty was in demonstrating 
it. The risks of getting cancer from exposure to radiation 
increase with dose. But since a third of all people get cancer 
anyway, at some time in their lives, the problem is to find 
evidence that low doses of radiation cause cancers that would not 
have otherwise occurred. Even for people exposed to large 
radiation doses, like the 80,000 to 90,000 survivors of the 
atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it has been 
hard to find excess cancers.

"They were exposed in 1945 and nearly half are still alive," Dr. 
Moeller said. 

Dr. Mettler said the latest data show that 12,000 of these atomic 
bomb survivors had died from cancer. He said the number of excess 
cancers in the group is about 700. Those data, Dr. Mettler said, 
show that there is a small risk of cancer with an exposure of 
tens of thousands of millirem of radiation.

"There's a group that says that if you can't see it, it doesn't 
exist," Dr. Mettler said. "Then there's another group that says, 
`That's nice, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.' " 

Now, some scientists even say low radiation doses may be 
beneficial. They theorize that these doses protect against cancer 
by activating cells' natural defense mechanisms. As evidence, 
they cite studies, like one in Canada of tuberculosis patients 
who had multiple chest X-rays and one of nuclear workers in the 
United States. The tuberculosis patients, some analyses said, had 
fewer cases of breast cancer than would be expected and the 
nuclear workers had a lower mortality rate than would be 
expected.

Dr. Boice said these studies were flawed by statistical pitfalls, 
and when a committee of the National Council on Radiation 
Protection and Measurement evaluated this and other studies on 
beneficial effects, it was not convinced. The group, headed by 
Dr. Upton of New Jersey, wrote that the data "do not exclude" the 
hypothesis. But, it added, "the prevailing evidence has generally 
been interpreted as insufficient to support this view."

In the meantime, the regulatory agencies are at a stalemate, 
continuing to disagree on radiation standards. And the committee 
reports and committee meetings on radiation standards go on. A 
recent report, issued in June by the National Council on 
Radiation Protection and Risks, is 287 pages long and devoted 
entirely to evaluating the linear-nonthreshold model. It explains 
that the council "has sought to leave no significant aspect of 
the subject unaddressed."

Its conclusion?

For lack of a better model, it recommends keeping the linear one. 
"There is not conclusive evidence on which to reject" the model, 
the report says, adding that "it may never be possible to prove 
or disprove the validity of the linear nonthreshold assumption."

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
*****************************************************************
 5  Rupture caused water leak at nuclear plant - 

Japan Today Japan News - News - 


Tuesday, November 27, 2001 at 09:30 JST

NAGOYA &#8212; 

A 2-centimeter rupture on a welded part was the cause of the 
leakage of radioactive water from a pressure vessel at a nuclear 
reactor in the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station in Shizuoka 
Prefecture in early November, Chubu Electric Power Co, operator 
of the plant, said Monday.

The Nagoya-based power company found the rupture in a 
tube that attaches one of the 89 control rod driving units to the 
bottom of the vessel, a Chubu Electric Power spokesman said. 




(Kyodo News)


*****************************************************************
 6  Nuclear plant emergency drill held - 

Japan Today Japan News - News - 


Monday, November 26, 2001 at 18:00 JST


SAGA 

Local governments in Saga Prefecture in southwestern Japan on 
Monday conducted an emergency drill on the assumption that an 
accident had occurred at a nuclear power plant in the area.


In the drill, a hypothetical coolant-pump malfunction shuts down 
the No. 1 reactor at Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Genkai plant in 
the town of Genkai, Saga Prefecture, and a minute amount of 
radio-active substances escapes the building. 




(Kyodo News)

*****************************************************************
 7  Greens challenge Cabinet on nuclear waste exports

The Taipei Times Online: 

POLICY WANTED: Environmentalists are attempting to force the Chen 
administration to explicitly state that Taiwan will not export 
radioactive materials to Russia

By Chiu Yu-Tzu

STAFF REPORTER

Members of the Green Party yesterday criticized the Cabinet's 
reluctance to face controversy over Taiwan's attempt to export 
nuclear waste to Russia.

The party said that at the very least, an official government 
announcement about its attitude on the issue should have been 
released.

Kao Cheng-yan (°ª¦¨ª¢), the party's legislative candidate in 
Taipei City's southern district, yesterday was slated to meet 
with Chiou I-jen (ªô¸q¤¯), the Cabinet's secretary-general, 
seeking a government clarification of its position on the issue 
of exporting nuclear waste to Russia. The practice was legalized 
earlier this year and, in fact, Russia encourages the practice as 
a source of much needed revenue to support its ailing nuclear 
energy sector.

Chiou was unexpectedly unavailable so Kao instead met with 
Chiou's secretary. Kao said that a clearly expressed policy on 
the issue was important.

He said the Green party hoped the Cabinet would try to end the 
notoriety Taiwan's attempt to export its nuclear waste to Russia 
has attracted. Green Party Taiwan spokesperson Lai Fen-lan 
(¿àªâÄõ), said yesterday that anti-nuclear activists are 
extremely disappointed by the Cabinet's reluctant response to the 
issue. There was also dismay that the issue had given Taiwan a 
bad name overseas.

In early November, members of the Green Party, accompanied by 
activists from Russia, Japan and South Korea, visited several 
government agencies, including the Atomic Energy Council, the 
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

At that time, activists asked for an official statement from the 
government, to clarify that Taiwan would not ship nuclear waste 
overseas.

However, all of these government agencies said they were unaware 
of Taipower's intention to export radioactive waste. Meanwhile, 
Taipower said no negotiations were taking place between the 
company and Russia.

On Nov. 12, Russian activists held a press conference in Moscow 
condemning the Taiwanese government's vague position. 
Anti-nuclear activists have yet to receive a clear response from 
the Taiwanese governement.

Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Ecodefense, said last week that 
the problem faced by Taiwan and Russia was that the nuclear power 
industry poses a serious threat to democracy.

In Russia, Slivyak said, over 90 percent of people expressed 
opposition to the import of nuclear waste, but were ignored by 
the government.

"Problems that the nuclear industry poses to the world are 
similar in many countries. It's very important that activists in 
different countries exchange their experience in combating these 
problems," Slivyak said.

Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists in a number of countries that 
have nuclear power plants or nuclear material processing 
facilities are working together to exert renewed pressure on 
their respective governments to reconsider problems caused by 
poor nuclear waste management.

Ban Hideyuki, co-director of the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear 
Information Center, paid visits to several governmental agencies 
in Taiwan in early November but was disappointed by what he said 
was government reluctance to take any steps on the matter.

Hideyuki is organizing an international meeting in Japan with 
activists from around the world, including members of Taiwan's 
Green Citizens' Action Alliance. At the meeting, which is 
scheduled for this Friday, activists pllan to discuss 
nuclear-related issues, including radioactive waste management.

"We have made it clear several times before that people can't 
manage radioactive waste appropriately, in particular spent 
nuclear fuel with high levels of radioactivity," Hideyuki said.

*****************************************************************
 8  Fear, loathing and paper airplanes at Yucca Mountain forum

Las Vegas City Life

Panelist Craig Walton, a UNLV professor, has analyzed 
environmental justice issues in the Yucca Mountain project.

By Heidi Walters

After all the time, money and political anguish spent on the 
Department of Energy's proposal to bury high-level nuclear waste 
inside Yucca Mountain, it's hardly surprising that meetings on 
the matter have mutated into the bizarre. 

In last week's public forum and panel discussion at UNLV, 
"Judging Yucca Mountain: Nevada Speaks," for instance, while the 
usual audience members reacted to the speakers' presentations 
with a mix of rational inquiry, i ntelligent commentary, directed 
(and random) anger, and rightful despair, a couple of women began 
loudly folding paper airplanes out of their programs.

Crunkle crunkle crunkle went the woman's hands behind me, 
seemingly forever. Maybe she was trying to configure the shape of 
a nuclear waste storage cask, not an airplane, as Nevada Agency 
for Nuclear Projects' transportation consultant Bob Halstead 
showed diagrams of the casks and discussed poten tial 
transportation impacts . A few minutes later, a woman across the 
room took up the task: crunkle crunkle crunkle. 

After one speaker's presentation there were boos, echoing like 
dull phantoms within the louder applause. 

And then there was the ubiquitous town polemic - well, a few of 
them, really, but we'll talk about Tom McGowan first - who kept 
approaching the mic out of turn to interrupt the proce edings. 

"I took two buse s and walked six blocks to get here, and we only 
get one minute" to speak! he said in disgust, tossing his papers 
on the floor and leaving them. "The 'godforsaken' DOE gives us 
more than one minute!"

Actually, since the hearings on the site characterization phase 
are over, the DOE's obligation to officially listen to the public 
on the matter has ceased for the time being. However, Congress 
may still be listening, which is why forums such as these are 
still relevant and im portant.

McGowan was only rivaled in crankiness by a man who first spit 
out that he couldn't understand a word of what Kristin 
Shrader-Frechette, a member of the National Academy of 
Scientists, had just said in her science and risk analysis 
presentation. Shrader-Frechette questioned the credibility of the 
DOE's science and laid out the innumerable occasions in which 
scientists, including the DOE's, had found significant 
uncertainties in the siting science performed at Yucca. 

"So what's really happening now," she said, "is politicians and 
managers are ignoring the best scientific advice, even of their 
own" agencies. Plus, she said, none of the DOE's work on Yucca 
Mountain has been published in peer review journals. And, 
amazingly, none of the numerous discoveries of risks - such as 
from terrorism, transportation accidents, and so on - "have had 
any effect on the DOE."

"That alone challenges their credibility," she said.

But the polemic said he questioned the soundness of 
Shrader-Frechette's science, by gawd, and as for the dangers of 
radiation, well, so what? "I can show you cadavers all over the 
place!" he said in exasperation.

It seemed only normal, then, when Nevada Assemblyman Bob Price 
stood up in the back of the room and said: "As we all know, a 
very large and respected and well-known company has d eveloped a 
product" that could effectively "protect those casks. Why hasn't 
the DOE proposed to use this?"

Silence.

Then Price delivered the punch line. "It's duct tape!" he 
answered, pointing as if to say "Gotcha!" and then laughing "Ha 
ha ha!"

What was this, "Prairie Home Companion" meets "Twin Peaks"?

But don't think the bizarre outbursts diminished the overriding 
seriousness of the meet ing's topic. 

There were many in the audience who looked stressed and ready to 
burst into tears of outrage. They could see that, despite the 
deeply flawed and ethically challenged science that has gone into 
the siting process for Yucca, despite the very real risks of 
transportation and terrorism and leaks and earthquakes and 
inadvertent intrusions, and despite the economic danger to 
Southern Nevada's economy posed by the stigma of a nuclear waste 
dump (as pointed out by Dr. Pau l Slovic), politics and nuclear 
industry persuasion continue to point to a mountain grave in 
far-off Nevada as a fine place for all that toxic waste.

And in a few soft-spoken words, audience member Eddy-Gilbert 
Herch brought the issue - risk from nuclear radiation - down to a 
very personal and shocking level. When he was a kid, growing up 
in Indian Springs in the 1960s (adjacent to the Nevada Test 
Site), he and his friends used to play in Lake Mead all the time. 
Later, "w ithin the same two-year period, all of my friends [and 
I] developed lymphoma. So I'm not a big fan of nuclear. Imagine a 
pain so bad you're always on the verge of blacking out. Imagine a 
pain so bad you can't black out because it keeps you awake. I 
have had bones in both legs replaced. If anyone wants to know 
what cancer feels like, come see me."

Finally, on a practical and even hopeful note, panelist Steve 
Frishma n, technical policy coordinator for Nevada's Nuclear 
Waste Project Office, said in answer to the question, "Why 
doesn't Nevada sue the DOE?" that the state is doing exactly 
that, now that 15 years of study have concluded and the DOE is 
"at the point of making decisions."

"Within 30 days we will be suing them," he said.

With that, everyone picked up their paper projects and left the 
auditorium.

Las Vegas City Life<
*****************************************************************
 9  Move radioactive waste underground, lords urge 

Irish Newspapers - 

Tue November 27th 01

BRITAIN'S thousands of tons of radioactive waste stored in water 
at ground level should be moved underground as soon as possible 
to reduce the risk of terrorist attack, an all-party House of 
Lords committee has advised. 

The Lords' Science and Technology Committee also lambastes 
successive British governments for failing to draw up a policy 
for dealing with nuclear waste.

The peers say that even though Britain has been producing nuclear 
waste for 50 years it still does not know what to do with it. 

Any eventual policy will have to find a way of "managing 
radioactive waste safely over many millennia", the report warns. 

Committee chairman Lord Oxburgh, rector of Imperial College 
London and a former government-appointed director of the nuclear 
waste agency NIREX, described the problem as "urgent" and made 
all the worse by the increased awareness of terrorism. 

Lord Oxburgh, who is also president of the Geological Society, 
said terrorist threats now make underground storage the "one 
remaining realistic option". 

"Our 1999 report found that, of the many methods for managing 
radioactive waste that had been suggested and studied world wide, 
only deep geological storage and indefinite storage at or near 
ground level were still being advocated.

"The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC of September 
11, 2001 not only override any remaining arguments for long-term 
storage of nuclear waste at or near ground level but also 
reinforce the recommendations in our 1999 report for early and 
deliberate progress on the one remaining realistic option of deep 
geological storage," said the report. 

Until that can be accomplished present surface stores of 
radioactive material should quickly be made less vulnerable. "It 
is current practice for spent fuel to be stored under water at 
the surface for some tens of years until it has reached a state 
that allows it to be processed for final disposal or re-use. 
There are many tons of hazardous material in such surface stores 
and we welcomed (government) assurance(s) that security 
arrangements had been overhauled in the light of the events of 11 
September. 

"Nevertheless, although we accept that these stores are secure 
against plausible traditional peace-time threats, we believe that 
they remain vulnerable to terrorist attack," the lords warn.

Environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth will 
today ask the Appeal Court in London for an eleventh hour halt to 
the controversial Sellafield MOX which is due to start operations 
on December 20.

The appeal follows the High Court ruling earlier this month that 
threw out Greenpeaces objections that MOX flies in the face of 
economic sense.

© Copyright Unison
*****************************************************************
 10  Judges urged to block Sellafield reprocessing plant

Ananova - 

11/27

Environmental groups are urging judges to block the opening of a 
nuclear reprocessing plant.

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace want the Court of Appeal to 
stop the MOX plant at Sellafield from opening.

They are trying to overturn a High Court ruling that the 
Government made no error of law in giving it the go-ahead.

The objectors argue that the Secretary of State for the 
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State 
for Health, took a "distorted" view last month.

The Ministers decided that allowing the introduction of MOX was 
"economically justified" under European Union law.

Under EU Directive 96/29/Euratom, national governments are 
required to ensure that the economic, social and other benefits 
of new processes which create exposure to ionizing radiation 
outweigh any detriment to health before they give the go-ahead.

Environmental groups fear the Sellafield scheme could lead to 
pollution, and also become a target for terrorists or theft of 
nuclear materials. They claim that the Government's decision that 
the MOX plant was "economically justified" was based on distorted 
figures and that £470 million construction costs for the plant 
were "ignored and disregarded" in assessing its benefits.

If all relevant costs were taken into account the scheme would 
show an overall financial loss, it is claimed.

The current hearing, expected to last around a day and a half, 
began with the arguments of the environmental groups being 
presented by Lord Lester QC.

Copyright © 2001 Ananova Ltd 
*****************************************************************
 11  Charles Kennedy: Fourteen more nuclear plants? No thanks

© 2001 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
The Government's commitment to nuclear energy makes no sense

25 November 2001

Britain, it appears, is about to see another hugely expensive 
phase of nuclear power generation. According to leaked 
information, the Government is proposing to commission 14 new 
nuclear reactors, while simultaneously writing off the £34bn cost 
of decommissioning and cleaning up the existing plants.

These proposals have trickled out just before the publication of 
the Government's long-awaited energy review. And they have 
followed hard on the heels of the official announcement that the 
dangerous and uneconomic Sellafield mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear 
fuel plant will be allowed to go ahead.

All this was slipped out – like a whole variety of other 
controversial announcements – presumably in the hope that 
criticism would be muted while political discourse is suspended 
in the face of the terrorist threat. In the wake of the 11 
September outrages, the Prime Minister very properly condemned Jo 
Moore's controversial email about "burying" bad news. But some in 
his administration are apparently so addicted to spin that they 
can't break the habit.

There are two linked issues here, revealing not just cynicism in 
the timing of announcements, but ineptitude as well. Where is the 
"joined-up thinking" in the Government revealing three major new 
policies that effectively commit us to a nuclear future – without 
debate – just two months before it has promised to publish the 
first ever comprehensive review of the UK's energy needs?

Sadly, we have seen such incoherence in the Government's approach 
before. New Labour has run through four different energy 
ministers, with three different energy policies, and two energy 
reviews in four years. Many of the renewable energy schemes that 
they promoted when they first came to power are now mothballed 
because the Utilities Act has imposed almost impossible barriers 
for the generators to overcome. Across the country highly 
efficient combined heat and power (CHP) schemes that right now 
should be cutting carbon emissions by three million tons a year 
are standing idle – taxed and regulated to death. We can't afford 
such incompetence. How Britain meets its energy needs over the 
next few decades will decide whether we can reconcile our 
perfectly reasonable wish to expand and prosper with a 
sustainable environment. These are two, often conflicting, 
requirements that need to be resolved and we should be making 
informed choices through public debate, without the obfuscation 
of spin and leaks.

I want to see a future where Britain is a world leader, 
generating ideas that deliver a sustainable planet to our 
children and our children's children. We won't achieve that 
without a sustainable society at home, and the key to that lies 
in developing the right sources of energy. Those supplies must be 
secure and they must be economic. Nuclear power is a throwback. 
It is neither secure, sustainable nor economic.

It's hard to believe the Government could be serious about 
building 14 new reactors. Side-stepping the security questions 
about such facilities following the terrorist attacks in America 
– and temporarily ignoring the fact that no one knows what to do 
with the waste these plants would generate – there is the very 
real difficulty that they just don't make economic sense. If you 
query that, just ask yourself why, if they are capable of making 
money, the banks and finance houses aren't clamouring to support 
such projects. In fact, these institutions sensibly prefer to 
concentrate on smaller, cheaper generators powered by gas or 
renewable sources. Private enterprise has shunned nuclear 
reactors all over the world; in the United States, for example, 
not a single one has been ordered for nearly a quarter of a 
century.

Add to this the cost of unloading the multi-billion-pound price 
of nuclear decommissioning on to the taxpayer – which those who 
are arguing for a new generation of nuclear power ignore so that 
they can rewrite their commercial case totally detached from the 
real costs – and the economic absurdities mount. I would also 
suggest that a decision to subsidise any energy source by £34bn 
needs rather more public discussion than we've seen so far.

There is no case for building 14 more nuclear power stations. 
There is no case for building even one more. Instead nuclear 
energy must be phased out. We cannot, unfortunately, simply close 
down Britain's existing reactors; that would cause too much 
disruption to the country's energy supplies. But, as they come to 
the end of their safe operating lives, they must not be replaced 
with a new generation. For this is not so much a technology whose 
time is past, as one whose time never really came.

The decision to go ahead with the MOX plant at Sellafield is even 
more incomprehensible. Just three days after the 11 September 
attacks, the Prime Minister warned the House of Commons that 
terrorists would use nuclear weapons if they could and called for 
the trade in the technology and capability for those weapons to 
be "exposed, disrupted, and stamped out".

Yet his government almost immediately pushed through approval for 
starting up this plant. The Royal Society and leading US weapons 
designers say that it would be possible for a terrorist group to 
extract the plutonium from the mixed oxide fuel and use it for 
bomb-making.

Why are we taking this risk? The plant will never be economic. 
Not even British Nuclear Fuels, the nationalised industry which 
owns Sellafield, pretends that it will ever recover the £500m it 
cost to build and to maintain the MOX plant while approval to 
start it was sought. The best estimate of a recent study, 
commissioned by ministers, is that it might get back about a 
third of this over its lifetime.

But even this is wildly optimistic. To recover its running costs 
the plant will have to work at 40 per cent capacity; at the 
moment it has firm contracts for about a quarter of this. The 
lack of enthusiasm is scarcely surprising since its product will 
be much more costly than ordinary nuclear fuel, while there is 
reported to be 60 tons of plutonium already stored at Sellafield 
with no legitimate users in sight.

In place of this ridiculous obsession with long-outdated 
technology, the Liberal Democrats have answers to the questions 
posed by sustainability. We plan to expand the growth of 
renewable energy sources beyond the Government's target of 10 per 
cent saved from UK-based energy sources by 2010 – with a 1 per 
cent year-by-year growth of renewable power generation for 
decades to come. This would bring us sustainability for just a 
small fraction of the cost of more nuclear power. We have 
submitted evidence to the energy review to that effect – though 
it would now appear that its recommendations have been sunk 
before they have even been printed.

There are successful precedents. In countries such as Denmark, 
which has struck out boldly and created a renewable energy 
industry for its domestic market, the benefits are being reaped. 
The Danes are profiting by selling their technology and expertise 
abroad. We should be out there, too.

There are, of course, endless pressures on government; siren 
voices with seductive, but sometimes fatal, messages. The nuclear 
lobby is one. Labour should resist those voices, just as it 
should resist its inclinations to spin. Instead, it should have 
faith in its own energy review. Then it should set about laying 
strong foundations for a serious, sustainable energy policy for 
the 21st century, rather than lurching backwards to the 
discredited policies of the 20th.

The Rt Hon Charles Kennedy MP is leader of the Liberal Democrats 

*****************************************************************
 12  NATIONAL NEWS: Taxpayer to bear BNFL's liabilities 

Financial Times; Nov 27, 2001

By MATTHEW JONES and ROBERT SHRIMSLEY

Billions of pounds of British Nuclear Fuels liabilities will be 
left with the taxpayer in a move that clears the way for partial 
privatisation of the company.

The plan to create a government-owned Liabilities Management 
Authority to oversee about Pounds 43bn of liabilities from BNFL 
and the UK Atomic Energy Authority is expected to be unveiled by 
the Department of Trade and Industry in the next few days.

The announcement was originally expected in a statement to 
parliament tomorrow but a heavy Commons workload means that it 
may not be confirmed for a few more days.

Bankers believe that the transfer of liabilities is vital to any 
future sale of BNFL, but government officials have stressed that 
this is not the primary consideration for the move, and that BNFL 
is still unlikely to be privatised before 2004.

"The most important thing in ministers' minds is doing the right 
thing in terms of environmental and safety concerns," said one 
official.

The Liabilities Management Authority is expected to employ only 
200 people but will sub-contract management of decommissioning on 
a competitive basis - an approach similar to that used at the 
Atomic Weapons Research Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire, 
which is run by a public-private consortium. The move could save 
taxpayers millions of pounds a year but it could also threaten to 
undermine an important part of British Nuclear Fuels' business by 
making it compete for clean-up contracts.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which spends about Pounds 190m a 
year on cleaning up nuclear sites such as Dounreay in northern 
Scotland, has cut costs by a third in the past six years using 
competitive tendering.

Some of its activities are outsourced to companies such as 
Framatome of France and Nukem, a German-owned atomic specialist, 
as well as UK companies such as WS Atkins and Babtie Group.

In contrast, BNFL's own nuclear decommissioning unit carries out 
about half of its UK clean-up activities and the other half is 
done using non-competitively tendered partnerships. The company 
last year made an underlying loss before tax and exceptionals of 
Pounds 210m. BNFL's decommissioning business accounted for about 
8 per cent of turnover and is one of the areas the company is 
most keen to grow.

The announcement comes as the government is facing criticism for 
"wasting valuable time" over the management of radioactive waste 
by proposing a five-year consultation into the process. The Lords 
science and technology committee last month said the consultation 
document on the issue was "vacuous" and did not provide enough 
information to "yield meaningful re-sponses".

BNFL and British Energy last night told the Department for the 
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee on nuclear waste 
that the consultation was "unduly long" and required more 
leadership from ministers.

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-1998
*****************************************************************
 13  Nuclear Solutions Makes $50 Million Announcement 

Business Wire; Nov 27, 2001

MERIDIAN, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 27, 2001--Nuclear 
Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB:NSOL) announced today the signing of a 
Letter of Intent for a $50 million (USD) Developmental License 
Agreement with The Photodeactivation and Transmutation Institute 
of Europe, Ltd., for NSOL's electron accelerator-based 
photodisintegration process for remediation of nuclear waste and 
the safe generation of electricity. The Letter of Intent details 
a two-part license agreement. 

Part One will constitute a developmental license. Part Two will 
constitute a use license. In addition to the $50 million License 
Fee, NSOL will be paid, per installation, (a) an Accelerator 
Driven System fee; (b) electric generation/cogeneration fees; (c) 
an annual license renewal fee; and (d) fees for nuclear material 
storage, handling and processing.

NSOL and The Photodeactivation and Transmutation Institute of 
Europe, Ltd. will finalize the formal terms and conditions of the 
agreement within the next 45 days. This press release may be 
deemed to contain forward-looking statement that could affect the 
financial condition and results of operations of the company and 
its subsidiaries. Further information on potential factors that 
could affect financial conditions, results of operations, and 
expansion projects of the company are included in filings with 
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. Nuclear Solutions, Inc. (NSOL) is pioneering the application 
of photonuclear physics for the treatment of nuclear waste and 
the safe, efficient generation of electricity. Development of 
this patented and patent-pending technology could result in the 
elimination of nuclear waste and a new generation of nuclear 
reactors that are able to burn their own waste.

The application of photonuclear physics to nuclear waste is 
called Photodeactivation (a term coined by the inventor, Dr. Paul 
M. Brown). Photodeactivation involves the irradiation of specific 
radioactive isotopes to force the emission of a neutron, thereby 
producing an isotope of reduced atomic mass. These resultant 
isotopes are characteristically either not radioactive or 
radioactive with a short half-life.

NSOL's technology works on the laboratory scale, and preliminary 
computer simulations suggest that this technology will also work 
on the industrial scale. NSOL is taking the steps necessary for 
commercialization of the technology. As for most of the advanced 
nuclear technologies developed today, computer simulation is one 
of the most important and necessary steps. NSOL will use and 
improve a series of nuclear simulation codes. The new set of 
simulation codes will allow the NSOL research and development 
team to design, test, improve, and develop experiments and 
commercial facilities through computer modeling.

NSOL plans to capitalize on its patent and patent-pending 
technology by forming strategy alliances and joint ventures with 
well-established leaders in the nuclear industry. Continued 
revenue streams are expected through licensing of the technology 
with both upfront fees and ongoing royalties. 2. NSOL's 
technology, the HYPERCOM(TM) ADS process, is an electron 
accelerator-based photodisintegration process, incorporating the 
most recent advances in the photo-nuclear industry.

3. The technology could be developed into new applications for 
remediation of nuclear waste. Industrially, it would operate at a 
sub-critical level, so the heat produced by the process could 
also be used to generate electricity in a safe and 
environmentally benign manner.

CONTACT: Nuclear Solutions, Inc. Dr. Paul M. Brown, 208/846-7868 
brown@nuclearsolutions.com www.nuclearsolutions.com

09:02 EST NOVEMBER 27, 2001 World Reporter All Material Subject 
*****************************************************************
 14  Economics minister Muller angers greens (Der 

Wirtschaftsminister proviziert die Grunen) Frankfurter Allgemeine 
Zeitung - Germany; Nov 27, 2001

Germany's Green party, which forms part of the ruling coalition, 
describes the energy report by economic affairs minister Werner 
Muller (independent) as 'tendentious' and scientifically 
unsustainable. The main bone of contention is Dr Muller's opinion 
that one cannot aim both for a withdrawal from nuclear power and 
for a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 40 per cent 
between 1990 and 2020. He cites the costs for the targeted carbon 
dioxide reductions at around DM500bn.

Dr Muller believes that, as carbon dioxide is produced in the 
burning of oil, gas and coal, such a policy would damage Germany 
as an economic base and the German coal industry. Although this 
is not a government report on which a vote must be taken, it is 
felt that unnecessary provocation should have been avoided. One 
sentence, stating that only that which would be brought about by 
market forces would be carried out in the withdrawal from nuclear 
power, has been removed from the report.

Abstracted from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
*****************************************************************
 15  Czechs are ready to rebuild Temelin nuclear plant in a swap - 
press 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 27, 2001


Text of report in English by Czech news agency CTK

Prague, 27 November: 

Foreign Minister Jan Kavan and Austrian Environment Minister 
Wilhelm Molterer are negotiating a barter deal in which Austria 
would agree with closing the energy chapter within the Czech-EU 
talks and the Czechs would in exchange partially rebuild Temelin, 
the daily Lidove noviny writes today.

After a 10-year Czech-Austrian fight over the nuclear power plant 
in Temelin, southern Bohemia, a political agreement acceptable to 
both sides is beginning to take shape, the daily writes.

Kavan and Molterer are negotiating the possibility of Temelin's 
partial rebuilding on the basis of Austrian demands and the 
Austrian government would in exchange agree with closing the 
energy chapter within the Czech Republic's EU negotiations by 11 
December at the latest, the paper says. "Intensive negotiations 
are being held and the result is expected soon," the paper quotes 
Gregor Schusterschitz from the Austrian Embassy in Prague as 
saying.

"We are negotiating a compromise between Austrian and our demands 
on all levels and on the level of minsters in particular," 
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ales Pospisil is quoted as saying. 
However, he refused to elaborate on the content of the agreement 
which is being prepared until the talks finished.

The chairwoman of the National Nuclear Safety Authority (SUBJ), 
Dana Drabova, said that the current negotiations involve 
rebuilding Temelin to comply with most of the seven Austrian 
safety requirements, the paper writes.

"Some of them (the requirements) are identical with the 
recommendations by the International Agency for Atomic Energy. 
Regardless of criticism, the CEZ (energy company which operates 
Temelin) would most probably implement part of the 
recommendations," she is quoted as saying.

Austria's main demands include the separation of water and steam 
piping by a special wall, carrying out new quality tests of 
safety valves and tests of the pressure vessel resistance, the 
daily says.

The CEZ and Austrian Temelin opponents, however, do not agree on 
the way the demands should be implemented.

The CEZ and SUBJ expect Temelin would be gradually rebuilt and 
additional tests carried out while the plant is in full 
operation. Austrians insist on a temporary shut-down of the 
reactor, the paper writes.

"The operation has to be halted and only after safety 
improvements are made can the reactor be started up again," Upper 
Austrian commissioner for nuclear issues, Radko Pavlovec is 
quoted as saying.

The costs of the proposed changes are another unresolved issue. 
According to Pavlovec, meeting all Austrian requirements would 
cost from 5 to 10bn korunas. This could spark a discussion 
whether closing Temelin would not be a better solution, the daily 
concludes, adding the CEZ management assert it has not calculated 
the costs connected to Temelin's rebuilding to date...

(One dollar equals 37.56 korunas)

Source: CTK news agency, Prague, in English 0759 gmt 27 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter
*****************************************************************
 16  Greens challenge Cabinet on nuclear waste exports

The Taipei Times Online: 2001-11-27
 
 POLICY WANTED: Environmentalists are attempting to force the 
Chen administration to explicitly state that Taiwan will not 
export radioactive materials to Russia

 By Chiu Yu-Tzu STAFF REPORTER

 Members of the Green Party yesterday criticized the Cabinet's 
reluctance to face controversy over Taiwan's attempt to export 
nuclear waste to Russia.

 The party said that at the very least, an official government 
announcement about its attitude on the issue should have been 
released.

 Kao Cheng-yan (°ª¦¨ª¢), the party's legislative candidate in 
Taipei City's southern district, yesterday was slated to meet 
with Chiou I-jen (ªô¸q¤¯), the Cabinet's secretary-general, 
seeking a government clarification of its position on the issue 
of exporting nuclear waste to Russia. The practice was legalized 
earlier this year and, in fact, Russia encourages the practice as 
a source of much needed revenue to support its ailing nuclear 
energy sector.

 Chiou was unexpectedly unavailable so Kao instead met with 
Chiou's secretary.

 Kao said that a clearly expressed policy on the issue was 
important.

 He said the Green party hoped the Cabinet would try to end the 
notoriety Taiwan's attempt to export its nuclear waste to Russia 
has attracted.

 Green Party Taiwan spokesperson Lai Fen-lan (¿àªâÄõ), said 
yesterday that anti-nuclear activists are extremely disappointed 
by the Cabinet's reluctant response to the issue. There was also 
dismay that the issue had given Taiwan a bad name overseas.

 In early November, members of the Green Party, accompanied by 
activists from Russia, Japan and South Korea, visited several 
government agencies, including the Atomic Energy Council, the 
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

 At that time, activists asked for an official statement from the 
government, to clarify that Taiwan would not ship nuclear waste 
overseas.

 However, all of these government agencies said they were unaware 
of Taipower's intention to export radioactive waste. Meanwhile, 
Taipower said no negotiations were taking place between the 
company and Russia.

 On Nov. 12, Russian activists held a press conference in Moscow 
condemning the Taiwanese government's vague position. 
Anti-nuclear activists have yet to receive a clear response from 
the Taiwanese governement.

 Vladimir Slivyak, co-chairman for Ecodefense, said last week 
that the problem faced by Taiwan and Russia was that the nuclear 
power industry poses a serious threat to democracy.

 In Russia, Slivyak said, over 90 percent of people expressed 
opposition to the import of nuclear waste, but were ignored by 
the government.

 "Problems that the nuclear industry poses to the world are 
similar in many countries. It's very important that activists in 
different countries exchange their experience in combating these 
problems," Slivyak said.

 Meanwhile, anti-nuclear activists in a number of countries that 
have nuclear power plants or nuclear material processing 
facilities are working together to exert renewed pressure on 
their respective governments to reconsider problems caused by 
poor nuclear waste management.

 Ban Hideyuki, co-director of the Tokyo-based Citizens' Nuclear 
Information Center, paid visits to several governmental agencies 
in Taiwan in early November but was disappointed by what he said 
was government reluctance to take any steps on the matter.

 Hideyuki is organizing an international meeting in Japan with 
activists from around the world, including members of Taiwan's 
Green Citizens' Action Alliance.

 At the meeting, which is scheduled for this Friday, activists 
pllan to discuss nuclear-related issues, including radioactive 
waste management.

 "We have made it clear several times before that people can't 
manage radioactive waste appropriately, in particular spent 
nuclear fuel with high levels of radioactivity," Hideyuki said.

This story has been viewed 147 times.
 
URL=[http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/11/27/story/0000113293] 

Copyright © 1999-2001 The Taipei Times. All rights reserved. 
*****************************************************************
 17  Czech Republic's Temelin nuclear plant to refire problem reactor 
Wednesday 

AFX Europe; Nov 26, 2001


PRAGUE (AFX) - A reactor at the Czech Republic's Temelin nuclear 
power plant which has been plagued by a stream of technical 
problems, is to be refired on Wednesday, spokesman for the plant 
Milan Nebesar said.

Reactor number one at the Soviet-designed plant was shut down at 
the end of October after a leak was discovered in the cooling 
system.

The 1,000-megawatt reactor will be reconnected to the country's 
power supply on Friday so that safety tests on it can continue, 
Nebesar said.

Nebesar said the reactor will run at 75-pct capacity in the 
coming test phase.

jma/jad

World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
*****************************************************************
 18  Ukrainian reactor stopped for refuelling, maintenance 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 26, 2001


Text of report by Ukrainian news agency UNIAN

Kiev, 26 November: 

The No 3 generating set at the Rivne nuclear power plant was 
stopped for scheduled repairs at 0040 today [2240 on 25 
November], UNIAN learnt at the information centre of the State 
Committee for Nuclear Regulation. Fresh fuel will be loaded into 
the reactor during the maintenance, which is planned to be 
finished by 6 February 2002.

As of today, 11 out of 13 nuclear generating sets are operational 
in Ukraine. Planned repairs are under way at the No 3 reactor of 
the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. The loading of fresh 
nuclear fuel was completed there yesterday. Spent fuel from the 
reactor is being loaded into transportation containers and will 
be sent to Russia. 

According to the schedule of the Enerhoatom state nuclear 
generating company, the reactor is to be restarted by 16 
December.

Source: UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0742 gmt 26 Nov 01 
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter 
*****************************************************************
 19  Sellafield go-ahead challenged

BBC News | ENGLAND | 

Tuesday, 27 November, 2001, 

The plant will mix plutonium with uranium oxide

Environmental campaigners have returned to court to try to 
prevent the opening of the mixed oxide (Mox) reprocessing plant 
at Sellafield in Cumbria. The Court of Appeal has been asked by 
Friends of the Earth (FoE) and Greenpeace to overturn a High 
Court ruling that the government made "no error of law" when it 
gave the go-ahead for the plant. 

The objectors argue that the government took a distorted view 
last month when it decided allowing the introduction of Mox was 
economically justified. Representing the campigners, Lord Lester 
QC said: "The secretaries of state have accepted that if they 
have failed to take into account relevant costs, then the 
decision cannot stand." 

Costs questioned 

The protesters claim that £470m construction costs for the plant 
were ignored and disregarded when the government made its 
assessment. They say that if all relevant costs were taken into 
account the scheme would show an overall financial loss. 

Under EU Directive 96/29/Euratom, national governments are 
required to ensure that the economic, social and other benefits 
of new processes which create exposure to ionizing radiation 
outweigh any detriment to health before they give the go-ahead. 

Environmentalists fear the Sellafield scheme could lead to 
pollution and also become a target for terrorists. 
	 		 			
Sellafield has been the target of protesters 
		 		 		  
The hearing is expected to last about a day and a half. 

The Irish Government, which is also opposed to the Sellafield 
plan, has legal representation in court with a watching brief. 

Lord Lester said the issue before the court was whether capital 
costs inherent in the new reprocessing procedure were legally 
relevant, and, if so, did they cease to be relevant if already 
incurred at the time the economic justification question was 
posed. 

"The appellants' challenge is not to the economic benefits taken 
into account by the secretaries of state, but to the costs left 
out of account," he said. 

Further challenges 

British officials argue that the Mox plant will lessen security 
dangers by reducing plutonium stockpiles. 

The Irish Government has launched its own legal challenge to the 
Mox decision, going to the United Nation's International Tribunal 
for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg for arbitration. 

A decision is expected from the Hamburg tribunal on 9 December. 
The Norwegian Government is also understood to be considering 
legal action over the issue. Campaigners argue that sea pollution 
from Sellafield is the cause of above average cancer rates in 
some parts of the east of Ireland. 

The Irish government has also taken out advertisements in British 
newspapers calling for Sellafield to be closed.             

*****************************************************************
 20  Henderson chamber to vote on quitting national group

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 

The Henderson Chamber of Commerce plans to decide next week 
whether to withdraw from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has 
given its support to a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca 
Mountain. 

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce withdrew from the national 
group in protest Nov. 19. The Henderson chamber's governing board 
will vote Dec. 6 whether to follow suit. 

The U.S. Chamber, which is an influential voice in Washington, 
D.C., on business issues, developed its stand on nuclear waste 
and then announced that an energy coalition of hundreds of 
business groups was going to lobby for a waste repository at 
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

Las Vegas Chamber officials were not given a chance for input and 
learned of the U.S. Chamber's pro-repository stance in an e-mail 
Oct. 23, said Kami Dempsey, government affairs director.
 
For comment or questions, please email webmaster@lvrj.com
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2001
*****************************************************************
 21  PRICE-ANDERSON ACT: House vote set on nuclear plant liability support

Tuesday, November 27, 2001
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
Law commits government to pay damage claims above $9.5 billion 
after accidents 

DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU 


WASHINGTON -- The House is scheduled to vote today on renewing a 
44-year-old law that gives the nuclear power industry the 
government's help with disaster liability. 

Supporters view the Price-Anderson Act as crucial for growth in 
the nuclear power industry. Without government involvement, they 
say, utilities wanting to build new nuclear plants won't be able 
to obtain private insurance. 

Critics call the act a government subsidy that reduces the 
nuclear power industry's costs to insure itself against the risk 
of catastrophic meltdowns and other accidents. 

Nevada lawmakers have opposed reauthorizing the Price-Anderson 
Act, generally because they figure nuclear power expansion means 
more nuclear waste and more pressure to develop a repository at 
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. 

But the act has been renewed three times since it was enacted in 
1957 to bolster what then was a fledgling nuclear power industry. 

The bill requires nuclear plant operators to contribute to a 
liability insurance pool that would release up to $9.5 billion 
for accidents at commercial power plants. Damage claims above 
that amount would be paid by the government after approval by 
Congress. 

Nuclear power critics say more debate about expanding the nuclear 
power industry is needed and that the Price-Anderson renewal is 
being rammed through the House. 

The legislation will be brought to the House floor under a 
process that limits debate and prohibits amendments. In return 
for the speedy consideration, sponsors must gain a two-thirds 
vote for passage. 

The suspension process "is usually reserved for non-controversial 
bills, like renaming post office and federal buildings," said 
Jill Lancelot, legislative director for Taxpayers for Common 
Sense, a watchdog group. "There is nothing more controversial 
than limiting liability protection for a politically powerful 
industry at the expense of taxpayers." 

The Price-Anderson Act was renewed by Congress in 1988 and 
expires Aug. 1, 2002. When the House voted on the legislation 
June 30, 1987, the vote for renewal was 396-17. 

The Energy and Commerce Committee approved the 15-year Price 
Anderson extension by voice vote Oct. 31. The committee's 
chairman, Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., sought the fast-track vote 
after reaching compromises with Democrats. 

The Senate has yet to act on Price-Anderson, although an 
extension of the law may become part of a broader energy bill 
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., is preparing for Democratic leaders.
 
webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 
*****************************************************************
 22  Five Nevada governors share views on nuke waste, what it takes to be good leader

Tuesday, November 27, 2001
 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal 
 
By JANE ANN MORRISON 
REVIEW-JOURNAL 

Anyone fantasizing that five Nevada governors -- three Democrats, 
two Republicans -- would fuss and feud over the nuclear waste 
issue came away disappointed Monday after a prestigious 
gubernatorial panel discussion. 

Although Gov. Kenny Guinn and former governors Bob Miller, 
Richard Bryan and Mike O'Callaghan disagreed with Robert List's 
position that the state should negotiate for benefits in exchange 
for accepting nuclear waste, no one criticized List for becoming 
a lobbyist for the nuclear waste industry. 

A 90-minute discussion among Guinn and four of his predecessors 
was polite, and even when they disagreed, it was tempered by 
gentle laughter. 

Miller said even though he and the others differed with List, he 
didn't want to suggest that List didn't have valid reasons for 
taking his position. 

The governors, who have held the state's top job for the past 30 
years, came together at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas at 
the invitation of one of the university's public administration 
students -- Clark County Sheriff Jerry Keller. Their discussion 
is expected to be televised at a later date. 

Despite efforts by public television moderator Mitch Fox to nudge 
Guinn into revealing his thoughts on "a better way" to craft tax 
policy, Guinn declined, saying he didn't want to influence a new 
task force on tax policy. 

None of the others nibbled when Fox gave them a chance to tell 
Guinn what to do to increase state revenues. "I don't think any 
of us want to encroach upon the prerogative of Governor Guinn," 
Bryan said. 

It was not a spill-your-guts-to-Oprah event. 

The governors talked about the crises they faced during their 
terms, the state's finances from 1971 to present and even what it 
takes to be a good governor. 

Democrat O'Callaghan -- 1971 to 1979 -- said he learned it was 
necessary to listen to others for their good ideas. 

Republican List -- 1979 to 1983 -- said it took a good heart and 
respect for small counties as well as big population centers and 
the ability to admit mistakes. 

Democrat Bryan -- 1983 to 1989 -- said it takes a sense of vision 
and an understanding of how politics works. "Be honest with 
constituents about shortcomings and mistakes made." 

Democrat Miller -- 1989 to 1999 -- said a governor has to "be 
willing to make decisions every day ... and has got to be willing 
to admit mistakes. When you are wrong, admit you are wrong." 

Republican Guinn, whose term started in 1999, said a good 
governor is one who "cares for people, for those less fortunate 
than you. If you want to be governor to help yourself, you will 
fail." 

For those stretching their memories to recall when any of the 
governors admitted their mistakes, Miller explained afterward to 
the Review-Journal: "We were admitting them to our wives." 

Applause interrupted the discussion during the nuclear waste 
discussion. 

List had said that in his opinion, the likelihood that Yucca 
Mountain will be chosen for a high-level nuclear waste repository 
"is very very high, and there's a strong chance in the next 
several months Nevada will be designated." 

Bryan and Miller forcefully explained why they don't believe in 
negotiating for benefits. Doing so would speed up any likelihood 
that Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would be 
chosen for the storage of the nation's nuclear waste, they said. 

Guinn explained that if Nevada is designated for nuclear waste, 
the law allows the governor to veto the action, even though that 
veto can be overridden by a simple majority vote in Congress. 
"I'm the only governor who could veto the president of the United 
States," he said, winning applause. 

Meanwhile, Miller said he's counting on the political strength of 
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. -- the Senate's assistant majority leader 
-- to stop the waste from coming to his home state of Nevada. 
"He's not going to let it go through on his watch," Miller said. 

List said he believes Yucca Mountain will be declared safe for 
nuclear waste storage. "There will come a day when Nevadans can 
ask for a lot of things," he told the audience of about 80 
people. 

Bryan said he believes there will be scientific and technological 
challenges to the safety of high-level nuclear waste storage. 
"The fastest way to guarantee it will come here is to start 
talking about accepting benefits." 

Guinn also anticipates delay through litigation. With a $5.5 
million fund to hire good attorneys, he said, "We'll fight the 
issue. That's not to say we'll win (the lawsuits), but we'll 
fight."
 

webmaster@lvrj.com Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 
*****************************************************************
 23  2 CENTS: Railroading Nevada

Las Vegas Business Press
 
Tuesday, November 27, 2001   
 
The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has made a habit of blustery 
diatribes regarding its size and political juice. On its Web 
site, the Chamber, which claims 6,000 members, regards itself as 
"the most influential "Voice of Business' in the Las Vegas Valley 
and the State of Nevada."

Clearly, nothing happens in Southern Nevada without the chamber 
knowing about it. Unless, of course, it's tons of nuclear waste 
steam rolling toward Yucca Mountain.

The local chamber woke up recently to find out that the U.S. 
Chamber - the local chamber is a member, by the way - had sold 
them down the river in a decision to support the Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste dump.

Local officials were quick to point out - what choice did they 
have at that point - that they were not consulted or even 
notified regarding the decision. 

Hey, to be fair, Vegas chamber officials never claimed to have an 
influential national voice, but with all the television ads and 
glitzy events they hold, one would have thought they would at 
least get a sniff of such a major decision by the national 
organization.

Instead, the U.S. Chamber decided to launch a lobbying effort 
urging an "expeditious and swift decision" in approving the use 
of Yucca Mountain - 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas - as a dump 
for the nation's nuclear junk.

Well, that's a kick in the pants, not only for the mighty 
chamber, but Southern Nevada.

In response, the local group's government affairs director told 
local reporters, "We're just really disappointed."

Chamber leaders went on to cancel its membership in the national 
organization. I'm sure the U.S. chamber is quaking in its 
collective boots.

Let's see, pile our nuclear waste in Nevada, safely away from our 
homes, at the risk of upsetting little ol Las Vegas. I'm sure the 
pained deliberations lasted about 30 seconds.

Beyond the rather bizarre display by the local chamber, it 
illustrates an uncomfortable trend that Nevada will probably see 
a lot more of in the coming months as the Yucca Mountain debate 
heats up nationally.

Sure, burying this dangerous junk in a mountain for a theoretical 
period of 10,000 years doesn't seem to make much sense, 
particularly when Nevada Test Site officials can show you the 
sorry state of containment casks buried just 40 years ago.

Sure, a disturbing number of scientists with nothing to lose or 
gain have raised serious questions about the science behind the 
facility.

Sure, there's an awful lot of moisture in a mountain selected 
because it was supposed to be dry.

The sad fact is the project is moving along because everyone in 
every other state - virtually all of which have more political 
clout than Nevada - want it here because they don't want it in 
their own state. On a political scale, that's an easy one.

The problem is exaggerated by the national perception of what Las 
Vegas really is. Economic development officials continue to point 
out that the biggest obstacle they face in luring companies here 
is image. 

Las Vegas was in the spotlight on a recent weekend when Lennox 
Lewis battled for a heavyweight boxing title at Mandalay Bay. 
Britney Spears performed a live concert at MGM Grand. And rock 
heavyweight U2 performed at the Thomas &Mack Center. Las Vegas 
was everywhere, but none of it screamed business.

While it's a great place to party - and park your nuclear waste - 
no one really wants to take Las Vegas seriously.

Kevin Rademacher is managing editor of the Business Press. He can 
be reached at 871-6780 or by e-mail at .">kevrad1@lvpress.com.

Local News 2 CENTS: Railroading Nevada Scuttlebutt EDITORIAL: 
Bailouts to all, and to all a good night FROM CARSON CITY: 
Regulation in an unregulated climate GUEST OPINION: Residential 
growth drives commercial boom 

  Copyright 2001 Las Vegas Business Press   
*****************************************************************
 24  IAEA Daily Press Review     Date 2001-11-27 Number 226   

  1. Non-proliferation
 Russian Minister of Atomic Energy to hold talks in Moscow with 
US Energy Secretary on 29 November. 

Media Resources: (R - 26/11) Russian Federation; United States of 
America 

  2. Illicit trafficking
 US Customs Service, in an effort to bolster the nation's 
defenses against smuggled biological or nuclear weapons, is to 
propose a major overhaul in its dealings with importers, 
rewarding companies that beef up their security systems. 72-year 
old engineer from the Los Angeles area pleads not guilty to 
charges of illegally shipping nuclear triggering devices to 
Israel.
 
Media Resources: (R, WP - 27/11) Israel; United States of America 

  3. Terrorism
 US President warns Iraq and DPRK about consequences of producing 
weapons of mass destruction intended for terrorist use. US 
Attorney-General warns the country's natural gas industry to take 
extra precautions against terrorist attacks. 

 Media Resources: (DAW; FT; G; IHT - 27/11) Dem. P.R. of Korea; 
Iraq; Pakistan; Spain; United States of America 

  4. Incidents
 A 2-centimeter rupture on a welded part was the cause of a 
radioactive water leakage from a pressure vessel at a nuclear 
reactor in Hamaoka NPP in early November. 

Media Resources: (R - 26/11) Japan 

  5. Nuclear power
 Temelin's reactor no.1 to be restarted for testing on Wednesday. 
More on Irish resistance to the commissioning of MOX plant at 
Sellafield. Billions of pounds of British Nuclear Fuels 
liabilities will be left with the UK taxpayer in a move that 
clears the way for partial privatization of the company. Russia 
and India to begin negotiations documentation for the Kudankulam 
NPP project. 

Media Resources: (FT; R - 26/11) Czech Republic; India; Ireland; 
Russian Federation; United Kingdom 

  6. Nuclear safety
 Local governments in Saga Prefecture in southwestern Japan 
conduct an emergency drill postulating an accident at a NPP in 
the area. Russian Federation discusses transfer of nuclear 
materials by rail and declares them as safe. 

Media Resources: (FT, R - 26/11) Japan; Russian Federation

  7. Radiation, health
 Article on various sources of radiation and its hazardous 
effects. Article on exposure to UV radiation caused by sunlight. 
German scientists show that certain chemicals can stop the 
destruction of skin cells and speed the natural repair processes 
in DNA.
 
Media Resources: (FT; NYT; R - 27/11) Australia; France; Germany; 
Russian Federation; United Kingdom; United States of America 

  8. UN
 UN report says sewage levels officially classed as acceptable 
are making people ill. US President renews         American 
pressure on Saddam Hussein to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq. 

Media Resources: (BBC; CNN - 25/11, 26/11) Iraq; UN; United 
States of America
 
  9. Miscellaneous
 US President condemns the announcement made by a US research 
company that it has cloned the first human      embryo and urges 
US Congress to ban the technology. Political and religious 
leaders around the world condemn        cloning research. Pill 
which could reduce the progress of a deadly form of cancer called 
chronic myeloid         leukaemia (CML) launched in the UK. 
Milton Shaw, nuclear reactor designer, dies of cancer at 80. 
"China Nuclear  Academy 2001 Science Meeting" held to explore 
means of furthering nuclear technology. 

Media Resources: (BBC; CNN; FT; IHT; R - 26/11, 27/11) China; 
Russian Federation; United Kingdom; United States of    America; 
WORLDWIDE 

*****************************************************************
 25    Group protests Vermont Yankee sale secrecy 

By Associated Press, 11/26/2001 12:37 

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) Groups trying to intervene in the proposed 
sale of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant are continuing to 
protest the secrecy sought by the plant's owners. 

The Conservation Law Foundation told the Public Service Board in 
papers filed last week that Vermont Yankee's attempts to keep it 
from reviewing details surrounding the plant's auction could hurt 
ratepayers. 

''CLF would be denied a meaningful opportunity to contradict, 
rebut and otherwise introduce countervailing evidence into the 
record regarding whether the Entergy bid is the best possible 
result for Vermont ratepayers,'' wrote Mark Sinclair, a senior 
attorney with the group. 

Sinclair was a leading voice a year ago in pushing for a utility 
auction of Yankee, saying that would be the best way to determine 
the true value of the reactor. 

This summer's auction of the plant brought the $180 million offer 
from Entergy Nuclear Corp. of Jackson, Miss. An offer from 
AmerGen Energy Co. that was expected to net Vermont Yankee's 
owners about $10 million was rejected by the board earlier this 
year. 

Vermont Yankee wants to keep the information on the auction 
secret, including information about how many utility companies 
prepared bids for Yankee, as well as any of the financial 
information that was included in the bids. 

Such information is frequently kept from the public that 
ultimately pays the utilities' bills. What's different about the 
current request is that Vermont Yankee also wants to keep the 
information secret from groups that have been granted party 
status legal standing to participate in the case by the board. 
The Public Service Board has yet to decide how much information 
about the auction should be kept secret, but Vermont Yankee, 
along with Central Vermont Public Service Corp. and Green 
Mountain Power Corp., its two largest Vermont stockholders, have 
joined in asking for secrecy. 

The utilities have argued that if the information was made public 
it would have an adverse effect on any other nuclear auctions in 
the country, and could have a negative impact on Vermont Yankees 
sale as well, in the event that the Entergy sale does not go 
through. 

Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams said Monday the plant 
had no objection to the Department of Public Service seeing the 
information. 

''The fact is the more parties that have the bidding information 
the more likely it is to be disclosed,'' Williams said. ''And we 
agree that there needs to be an independent review and we feel 
the Department of Public Service, as a representative of 
ratepayers, can fully serve that function.'' 
*****************************************************************
 26  Iron-loving bacteria can learn to consume uranium - 

11/26/2001 - ENN.com
 
 Monday, November 26, 2001 By Environmental News Network 

For more than 50 years the United States has used nuclear energy 
for power generation and for military purposes, resulting in the 
creation of a network of facilities engaged in research, 
development, production, and testing of nuclear materials. Now, 
the nation must deal with radioactive materials generated by 
these facilities that contaminate about 40 million tons of soil 
and debris, enough to fill 17 professional sports stadiums. 

One researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia thinks she 
has found a type of bacteria that can be modified to clean up 
uranium contamination. Biochemistry professor Judy Wall has been 
working with the bacteria known for creating the rotten egg smell 
of stagnant water with the goal of harnessing them to help 
remediate sites contaminated with radioactivity. 

The radioactive contamination extends to 1.7 trillion gallons of 
groundwater in 5,700 distinct plumes, about four times the amount 
of water that Americans consume daily. 

With the end of the Cold War threat in the early 1990s and the 
shutdown of all U.S. nuclear weapons production reactors, the 
Department of Energy (DOE) has shifted its emphasis to 
remediation, decommissioning, and decontamination of the immense 
volumes of contaminated water, sediments, and over 7,000 
structures spread over 2,810 square miles. The DOE must 
characterize, treat, and dispose of hazardous and radioactive 
waste at more than 120 sites in 36 states and territories. 

Wall believes she may have an answer, at least for the 
remediation of uranium contamination. For the past four years, 
she has studied one species of bacteria, Desulfovibrio 
desulfuricans, with the goal of determining its potential for 
bioremediation of sites contaminated by uranium spills. 
Bioremediation is the use of living organisms to reduce or 
eliminate environmental hazards from toxic chemicals or other 
wastes. 

Wall says her "bug" may be able to clean up sites contaminated by 
uranium spills from mining, processing and nuclear power plant 
accidents. "This particular bacterium is found virtually 
everywhere," Wall said. "What makes it unique and a potential 
remediator for uranium is how it makes its energy. It doesn't 
create its energy through photosynthesis like plants or by 
burning oxygen like animals. Instead, it makes energy by pushing, 
or adding, electrons onto other compounds." 

Wall believes this electron transport system could be used for 
bioremediation. By pushing electrons onto the very soluble but 
dangerous Uranium VI, a more neutral form -- Uranium IV -- is 
created. 

This form is not soluble and can be more easily contained and 
filtered from contaminated water. Despite its miniscule size, the 
bacterium contains between 3,000 and 4,000 genes in its DNA. The 
idea is to identify the genes believed to be involved in 
controlling the electron flow. 

Through such methods as creating mutant genes in the DNA, Wall 
hopes to decipher the code governing the bacterium's electron 
transport system. The result could be the release of a bacterium 
with a reduced appetite for sulfur or iron -- and a huge hunger 
for uranium. 

Currently, Wall is working with researchers at the Los Alamos 
National Laboratory in New Mexico to understand the proteins that 
deliver the electrons to Uranium VI. The researchers have 
identified at least one protein in the process, and in the 
future, they hope to learn how to increase the bacterium's 
affinity for uranium and increase its efficiency as a 
bioremediator. 

"Once we've determined the genetic pathway, we can begin to 
examine other factors that might affect the bacterium's use in 
bioremediation," Wall said. "We'll need to identify competitors 
for the electrons, such as other heavy metals, isolate 
environmental factors that could stop the transport system and 
determine methods to encourage growth of these helpful bacteria." 

"If we can use the bacteria occurring naturally at a site, we can 
reduce the level of disturbance to the environment during 
cleanup," she said. Wall believes that bioremediation should 
provide a cost savings, a prediction of interest to the DOE which 
funds Wall's research as part of the department's Natural and 
Accelerated Bioremediation Research program. 

The DOE has spent more than $23 billion up to 1995 on the 
cataloging and preliminary characterization of radioactive 
contamination. Budget projections for these activities just for 
the next 10 years exceed $60 billion. 

Copyright 2001, Environmental News Network

*****************************************************************
 27  NRC Staff to Hold Regulatory Conference with Virginia Power
 
 Press Release Region II - 2001 - 47 - 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION II
61 Forsyth Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30303
 Web Site: http://www.nrc.gov   

  No. II-01-047     November 26, 2001   

  CONTACT:     Ken Clark (404)562-4416/e-mail:  [kmc2@nrc.gov] 
Roger D. Hannah (404)562-4417/e-mail:  [rdh1@nrc.gov]   

 The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will hold a 
regulatory conference with officials of Virginia Power, operator 
of the Surry nuclear power plant near Surry, Virginia, this 
Friday (November 30). The discussion will focus on an inspection 
finding with a preliminary determination of "yellow" involving 
the emergency diesel generators at the plant. The meeting, which 
is open to public observation, will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the 
NRC Region II offices located on the 24th floor at 61 Forsyth 
Street in Atlanta, Georgia. NRC officials will be available after 
the meeting to answer any questions.
 
The NRC will discuss with Virginia Power an inspection finding 
with a preliminary determination of "yellow," meaning it may have 
substantial safety significance. The finding was identified in an 
inspection ending in late September and involves failed 
components in an emergency diesel generator which is shared by 
the two units at the plant. The inspection finding appears to 
have substantial safety significance because the components may 
have caused the generator to fail if it had been required to 
operate for an extended period to mitigate accident scenarios 
involving the loss of offsite power.
 
Using the agency's significance determination process, NRC 
officials classify certain conditions at nuclear power plants as 
being one of four colors which delineate increasing levels of 
safety significance, beginning with green and progressing to 
white, yellow or red.
 
Two apparent violations, one involving the failure to promptly 
identify and correct the problem and the other involving the 
failure to comply with the plant's Technical Specifications, are 
related to this preliminary finding and are being considered for 
enforcement action. No decision on the violations, any 
enforcement action, or the final significance determination of 
the inspection finding will be made at the conference. Those 
decisions will be made later by NRC officials.
 
*****************************************************************
 28    Judging Yucca Mountain

Panelists lay out legal blueprint for killing nuke waste dump

By Damon Hodge (damon.hodge@vegas.com [damon.hodge@vegas.com] )   
  

Violence at hockey games became so routine that someone, in a fit 
of wisdom, coined a classic line about going to a fight and 
seeing a hockey game break out. 

Flare-ups at public meetings on the proposed Yucca Mountain 
nuclear waste repository have inspired that same feeling. At a 
Sept. 5 meeting, Mayor Oscar Goodman vowed to arrest any truck 
driver who dared tote radioactive refuse through his town. 

Surprisingly, the latest forum on the issue--the result of 
another federal extension on public comment--lacked the same 
fire. In fact, the feel at "Judging Yucca: Nevada Speaks," held 
last Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, was staid. 
That might have been due to the fact that there were less than 
100 attendants; more likely, it was because Department of Energy 
suits kept such a low profile--none of them were panelists and 
they left before the three-hour forum ended. 

Just as well. The DOE would have had a hard time debating the six 
speakers, who laid out less emotional, but stronger legal 
arguments against the proposed nuclear waste dump. 

Dr. Craig Walton, program coordinator for UNLV's Institute for 
Ethics and Policy Studies, said the DOE is violating provisions 
of the 1996 Nuclear Waste Policy Act that call for permanent 
isolation of waste--the DOE has a 10,000-year threshold--and for 
federal officials to seek consensus with the Nevada governor. 

"The process is legally defective and morally illegitimate," said 
Walton, who also questions whether Congress can force a lethal 
risk, such as nuclear waste, upon a non-consenting minority. 

Then, using the government's own data, Dr. Kristin 
Shrader-Frechette presented excerpts from reports by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency and the National Academy of 
Sciences critical of DOE studies that claim the mountain is 
suitable for waste storage. Even the Nuclear Waste Technical 
Review Board, an independent government agency that provides 
scientific and technical oversight of the waste disposal, chided 
DOE studies, says Schrader-Frachette. 

"You don't have to go to Greenpeace or the Sierra Club to get 
critical assessments of DOE science," says Schrader-Frachette, a 
Notre Dame University philosophy and biological sciences 
professor. "The government has them." 

Steve Frishman, technical policy coordinator for the Nevada 
Nuclear Waste Project Office, contends that the decision to put 
nuclear waste in Nevada is political, and has always been. Nine 
sites were initially tabbed for a dump. Congress winnowed the 
number to three. Politicians in Texas and Washington vehemently 
opposed a dump their states, Frishman says, leaving politically 
insignificant Nevada as the "winner." 

By law, the DOE was supposed to begin shipping high-level nuclear 
waste to a national repository by 1998. 

But Yucca Mountain was the worst site to begin with, argues Bob 
Halstead, an expert on energy and environmental policy. He 
criticized the DOE studies as inadequate, especially for failing 
to evaluate terrorism--Nevada asked for this in 1999--and 
downplaying waste transportation issues. 

"If you live west of Nebraska, you might as well live in Nevada," 
Halstead said, speaking to the danger that the waste represents 
for all western states. 

The DOE has also failed to follow up on its own 1985 report 
noting the negative impact the dump would have on state tourism, 
says Oregon University professor Dr. Paul Slovik, president of 
Decision Research. 

And an accident on scale with the Baltimore tunnel fire on July 
18, where 1,465-degree temperatures compromised casks holding 
tripropylene, could wreak immense havoc, claims Dr. Marvin 
Resnikoff, director for risk assessment for New York-based 
Radioactive Waste Management Associates. 

"There could be anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000 latent cancer 
casualties," Resnikoff said, "and $13.7 billion in health costs." 

It wasn't the most exciting meeting. But it's likely the one that 
may one day provide the greatest legal ammo against Yucca 
Mountain.

[http://www.lasvegasweekly.com] [ border=]   
  
*****************************************************************
 29  PACE vote backs terms - 

The Paducah Sun
Paducah, Kentucky
Tuesday, November 27, 2001

By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
 
Relieved at getting a new, short-term contract in place, 
officials of the U.S. Enrichment Corp.'s largest union say they 
will refocus on economic issues to try to keep the Paducah plant 
— the nation's sole remaining uranium enrichment facility — 
running. 

"This union has been very aggressive and very upfront, not only 
with USEC but with our Kentucky delegation, on where we stand on 
the issues," said Leon Owens, vice president of Local 5-550 of 
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) Workers 
International. "Our willingness to work to keep this plant 
running is not going to change." 

In record-heavy voting all day Monday, PACE members by a narrow, 
undisclosed margin ratified an 18-month contract recommended by 
all members of the union bargaining committee. The contract 
formalizes a tentative agreement reached at 1 a.m. Nov. 20 after 
17 hours of talks. Bargaining had been contentious since the 
union soundly rejected a previous proposal in August. 

The contract is retroactive to July 31, when the old, five-year 
pact expired, and lasts until Jan. 31, 2003. USEC had wanted an 
agreement two months shorter, but the union insisted it not 
expire in November to avoid the chance of another 
pre-Thanksgiving bargaining marathon. 

Provisions include: 

--Continuing a 4 percent pay raise, effective under a temporary 
agreement reached Aug. 29, until next July 31. A 3.4 percent 
increase will then last the duration. 

--Increasing the union’s part of the insurance cost, called a 
co-pay, from 9 percent to 10 percent. Local President Donna 
Steele said USEC, which had wanted to raise the amount to 12 
percent, finally agreed to 10 percent, eliminating a major hurdle 
in protracted negotiations. The company also backed away from 
substantial increases in overall insurance costs, which was a key 
in getting the contract approved, she said. 

--Raising from $18 to $50 the amount added monthly to pension 
payouts. Pension was another big bargaining issue because workers 
were unhappy that their company-paid retirement wasn’t keeping 
pace with the soaring cost of health care. Although USEC 
officials refused to give a percentage increase, they did agree 
to raise the monthly supplement, Steele said. 

Before the last-minute deal, union leaders and management were 
poised for the first strike in 22 years at the plant. The union 
had been working under a temporary no-strike/layoff agreement 
since Aug. 29. 

Steele said Monday's turnout — 90 percent to 95 percent of the 
664 union members working at the plant — was the heaviest she had 
seen in 17 years with the union. She said many workers were 
willing to strike and their main concern was the future of the 
plant. 

"I thank God we got a contract," Steele said. "I think most of us 
are pleased we resolved this matter." 

USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said, "We're pleased we 
reached the agreement and look forward to working closely with 
the PACE union as we continue to maintain our high safety and 
reliability standards, and work toward greater plant 
efficiencies." 

After the August impasse, the company stopped trying to tie the 
contract to continued success in importing enriched uranium from 
Russia. USEC says blending the cheaper Russian material with 
higher-cost uranium enriched here helps hold down costs and keep 
the plant viable. Although the union agreed with the importance 
of the Russian deal, it staunchly opposed having it as part of 
the contract. 

Owens said last week, and again Monday, that the State Department 
will allow USEC to continue another year as sole agent for the 
Russian uranium. Stuckle would not confirm that, but said USEC 
has been told it can start negotiating a new contract with Russia 
for potentially lower prices. 

"Some of our people are in Russia as we speak starting 
discussions with the Russians," she said. 

Another big issue for the union is supporting USEC in a bid to 
convert thousands of depleted uranium hexafluoride cylinders at 
the plant into safer material. Owens said that work is expected 
to create 150 to 200 PACE jobs. A consortium involving USEC is 
one of three finalists for the project. The Energy Department, 
which had planned to award a contract in October, now is expected 
to name the winner in December, Owens and Stuckle said. 

The next milestone for the union is officers' election Dec. 10 
and 11. Steele, who has been leading the local since President 
David Fuller retired earlier this fall, said she will run for 
re-election as vice president, a post she has held for many 
years. Owens will run for president, opposed by Tim Cooper, 
operations committeeman, and Jim Key, environmental, safety and 
health representative. 
*****************************************************************
 30  Civilian Nuclear Industries Under Siege Of New Concerns

+   [http://www.terradaily.com] Civilian Nuclear Industries Under 
Siege Of New Concerns
 
A part of the newly designed nuclear reactor for the Iranian 
power station Busher leaves by train the plant 'Izhorkiye zavodi' 
in Kolpino, on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, 16 November 2001. 
AFP/EPA photo by Nikita Infantyev

 Dublin (AFP) Nov 18, 2001

 Ireland is to launch a new legal bid aimed at blocking Britain's 
decision to proceed with a controversial MOX nuclear recycling 
plant, a government spokesman said on Sunday.

 Attorney General Michael McDowell will lead a team of lawyers in 
Germany on Monday that will ask the Hamburg-based UN Tribunal for 
the Law of the Sea to order an immediate suspension of the 
controversial 470-million-pound (670-million-dollar) development 
at Sellafield on Britain's west coast.

 The move is being made ahead of the convening of an 
international arbitration tribunal under the 1982 UN Convention 
for a full hearing of Ireland's case.

 Both Britain and Ireland are signatories of the convention.

 Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern has been pressing for the 
closure of the entire Sellafield complex, and the decision to 
expand it without consulting Dublin has angered ministers.

 Ahern has described Sellafield as a "surviving dinosaur of a 
defunct military-industrial complex" and said it was the single 
most serious threat to the Irish environment.

 "We will be seeking a suspension of the commissioning of the MOX 
plant on December 20," a spokesman for the public enterprise 
ministry said on Sunday.

 "The purpose of the legal action is to prevent the operation of 
the MOX plant and the international movements of radioactive 
materials in and around the Irish Sea that will be associated 
with it," he added. 

The government is taking the legal proceedings on the grounds 
that Britain has "violated numerous provisions" of the UN 
Convention on the Law of the Sea.

 "The government considers that the UK has failed to co-operate 
with Ireland by withholding information on the MOX plant and has 
failed to carry out a proper environmental assessment of the 
plant and associated transportation of radioactive materials," 
the spokesman said.

 "By permitting new discharges of radioactive materials into the 
Irish Sea it has also violated its obligations to protect the 
marine environment." Last week, Greenpeace and Friends of the 
Earth failed to get the mixed plutonium and uranium oxide plant 
go-ahead declared unlawful at the High Court in London.

 Japanese town votes against nuclear plant

 Meanwhile on the opposite side of the world a tiny Japanese town 
Sunday voted overwhelmingly against inviting an electric company 
to build a nuclear plant there in a rare step of calling a poll 
even before a building proposal is made, reports said.

 Some 67 percent of votes cast by residents of Miyama, some 300 
kilometres (185 miles) west of Tokyo, were against the plan.

 The votes against totaled 5,215 while those for numbered 2,512, 
Kyodo news agency said. Voters showed a keen interest in the 
legally non-binding plebiscite, the third held in Japan on 
nuclear power plants with some 89 percent of the town's 8,748 
eligible voters casting their ballots.

 As the result of the vote came out, mayor Tatsuo Shiotani told a 
news conference there would be no campaign to invite a power 
company to build a nuclear plant in the town, Kyodo reported.

 "Debate in the town on nuclear power has come to an end," he 
said.

 It is the third municipal in Japan to vote on a nuclear power 
plant but the first to vote even before a power company has made 
a formal proposal. 

"We took the first step to decide the future of Miyama today. We 
have done what we should do," Kenichi Furuhashi, the 
representative of an opponents' group told a television network 
earlier Sunday.

 Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc., which serves the seaside town 
with a population of 10,292, "has nothing to do with today's 
voting," said another town official.

 "There was a proposal from the company some four decades ago, 
but it was dashed due to enormous protest," he said.

 But recently, the local chamber of commerce and industry had 
tried to resurrect the plan.

 The chamber and promoters filed a petition with the local 
assembly calling for the construction, leading other residents to 
file a counter petition.

 Proponents wanted the plant for economic reasons, the official 
said. "For one reason ... the town's population is declining," he 
said alluding to expectations that the project might create jobs.

 The result of the vote is legally non-binding, but the town's 
18-member assembly "will take into account in decision making the 
residents' will" as expressed Sunday, he said.

 Chubu Electric Power, based in the central Japan city of Nagoya, 
was hit by two accidents this month.

 A steel pipe at a nuclear reactor cracked and leaked radioactive 
steam in a pressure-injection system in Hamaoka, 180 kilometers 
(110 miles) southwest of Tokyo, on November 7, according to Chubu 
Electric.

 The 540,000-kilowatt reactor leaked radioactive water during an 
inspection two days later.

 None of the radioactive material had escaped from the facility, 
the power company said.

 Japan's worst nuclear accident occurred at a uranium processing 
plant in the village of Tokaimura, 120 kilometres (75 miles) 
northeast of Tokyo on September 30, 1999.

 Three workers at the Tokaimura plant set off a critical reaction 
when they poured too much uranium into a precipitation tank, 
using steel buckets instead of mechanical methods.

 The accident exposed more than 400 residents to radiation in 
what was the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl in 
1986. Two of the workers later died.

 Russia ships nuclear reactor parts to Iran

 In separate developments, a Russian equipment producer Friday 
shipped a key component of a nuclear reactor to Iran, under a 
deal which has angered the United States, the ITAR-TASS news 
agency reported.

 The Izhorskiye Zavody company, based in Saint Petersburg, sent 
the shell of a reactor to Bushehr, where Iran plans to build a 
water-cooled nuclear power station, the company's officials said.

 An Iranian nuclear energy ministry official, who was present at 
the ceremony at the Russian plant to bid the reactor shell a safe 
journey, said Tehran hoped for continued bilateral cooperation in 
"key industries".

 The Russian company has already built 20 reactor assembly kits 
for power stations in Russia, Ukraine and Bulgaria and is about 
to complete the manufacture of equipment for two units of China's 
Tian Wan nuclear plant. Russia's cooperation with Iran has 
alarmed Washington which considers Iran to be a "rogue state" and 
fears that Moscow might supply Tehran with nuclear, biological or 
chemical arms.

 "We believe Iran uses Bushehr as a cover for obtaining sensitive 
technologies to advance its nuclear weapons program, as we have 
said in the past," State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

 However, Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month 
vehemently denied charges that Moscow might violate its 
obligations on nuclear non-proliferation.

 Most of the material to be used in the first tranche of the 
nuclear project at Bushehr, in western Iran, will be delivered at 
the start of 2002, the Russian atomic energy ministry announced 
last month.

 Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, during a visit to Moscow 
last March, expressed concern at mounting delays in the 
construction of the Bushehr power plant, ordered in January 1994 
after the German constructor Siemens withdrew in the face of US 
pressure. Washington and Jerusalem fear the Russian-Iranian 
nuclear cooperation could enable Tehran to acquire the technology 
needed to build nuclear weapons, an accusation that Russia 
dismisses.

 All rights reserved. © 2000 Agence France-Presse. Sections of 
the information

 [http://www.terradaily.com/] Monitoring Chernobyl's Radioactive 
Floods Gothenburg - Oct. 25, 2000 Chernobyl is a nuclear hot 
spot. Radioactive dust covers the area around the nuclear plant 
which exploded in 1986, and debris from the clean-up is isolated 
in earthen bunkers. The contamination still spreads, however, 
carried by water toward the nearby Pripyat and Dnieper rivers.
         
*****************************************************************
 31  Ireland Steps Up Campaign Against British Nuclear Plant

+  CIVIL NUCLEAR<br> [http://www.terradaily.com] Ireland Steps Up 
Campaign Against British Nuclear Plant
 
 London (AFP) Nov 24, 2001

 Ireland issued a strong renewed call to Britain to close down 
the Sellafield nuclear waste retreatment plant on Saturday, 
running a large ad in a prominent British newspaper.

 "Close Sellafield!" read the ad in Saturday's issue of The 
Times. "Sellafield poses an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to 
our environment."

 The advertisement was signed by 110 members of Prime Minister 
Bertie Ahern's Fianna Fail party.

 "My party is the largest in Ireland, and we want to bring home 
to people in Britain how strongly we in Ireland feel about the 
danger posed to the entire population of these islands by the 
current operations at Sellafield and in particular by the 
proposed new MOX operation," Ahern said in a statement.

 He was referring to the mixed plutonium and uranium oxide (MOX) 
plant at Sellafield completed in 1996, which has been marred by 
financial concerns, court challenges and scandals since 1999 
which have stalled its production schedule.

 "We will campaign ceaselessly to prevent the opening of the MOX 
plant and to shut Sellafield - for all our sakes," Ahern said.

 Ireland has been pressing for the closure of the Sellafield 
complex for years, arguing that plant -- located in northwestern 
England, not far from Ireland -- poses environmental dangers.

 Ahern has called the plant a "surviving dinosaur of a defunct 
military-industrial complex" that posed the single most serious 
threat to the Irish environment.

 Ireland fears the 1950s-era plant pollutes the Irish Sea and may 
be a target for a terrorist attack.

 The country brought its complaints before a UN maritime tribunal 
last week in a bid to block Britain's plans to expand the plant 
and make operational the MOX, on which work is set to begin 
December 20.
 
Technician Jakub Tyfa in the operational room of the troubled 
Czech Temelin nuclear power plant as the staff at the plant's 
first reactor started the fission reaction again 12 August 2001. 
Operational tests began in November 2000 but the plant had to be 
shut down on 24 April 2001 after a series of malfunctions occured 
in the main turbine generator. AFP/EPA Photo by David Veis
 

 Meanwhile, on the other side of Europe Austria's ruling 
coalition is struggling to contain an embarrassing cross border 
row over a glitch-plagued Czech nuclear plant, amid far-right 
Freedom Party threats to veto Prague's EU entry over the issue.

 Opposition leaders on Friday tabled a parliamentary motion 
calling for early elections, claiming the two-party ruling 
coalition was fatally split over the Temelin nuclear power plant 
in southern Bohemia.

 "We are convinced that this government has comprehensively shown 
its inability to act, and that Austria should be rid of it," said 
Social Democrat head Alfred Gusenbauer.

 Both ruling parties rushed to dismiss the opposition claim as 
wishful thinking and said they would stay in power until the next 
scheduled election in 2003.

 Few analysts expect the row to break up the coalition, but it 
has clouded the country's political scene for weeks, and it is 
unclear how it will be resolved.

 The Freedom Party, whose entry into power last year sparked 
unprecedented EU sanctions, is bluntly insisting Czech 
authorities shut down the Soviet-built Temelin plant.

 "We want Temelin shut down," said far-right Vice-Chancellor 
Susanne Riess-Passer, who took over from controversial politician 
Joerg Haider as party leader shortly after he struck a 
power-sharing deal with conservatives.

 "The Freedom Party is ready, if the Czechs do not act, to 
maintain our veto including on the ratification of EU 
membership," she added.

 The far-right has also defied its coalition partners by 
organizing a non-binding referendum in January over the issue. "A 
large popular vote will not be able to be ignored," said 
Riess-Passer.

 Haider has even demanded a full-blown national referendum on 
Temelin if the January questionnaire is backed by over 800,000 
Austrians, or 10 percent of the population.

 The Soviet-designed plant at Temelin, barely 50 kilometres (30 
miles) from the Austrian border, had been fiercely contested even 
before it was first powered up in October last year.

 Ecological protestors have staged repeated border blockades to 
protest the plant, with wide public backing in a country where 
nuclear power is a fiercely emotive issue. Austria voted against 
atomic energy in a 1978 referendum.

 Last December Vienna and Prague signed an accord, brokered by EU 
enlargement commissioner Guenter Verheugen, letting Temelin start 
commercial operation on condition it was given a clean bill of 
health by inspectors.

 But while the inspections took place, the plant itself has 
suffered a seemingly unending series of technical problems, 
although none of them affect the nuclear reactors.

 Conservative Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel is seeking to play 
down splits over the issue.

 The row, which has been simmering for months, has come to a head 
because Prague is set to close the energy "chapter" of EU 
negotiations by the end of the year.

 Schuessel has himself in the past threatened to block the energy 
chapter talks if there was no progress on Temelin.

 But told by Verheugen that time was running out, he has eased 
off from confrontational language over the issue and clearly 
distanced himself from his far-right coalition partner's threats.

 "We don't want to blackmail anyone, we are just trying very 
firmly to seek the highest possible security standards," he said, 
calling the political row "unnecessary."

 Schuessel's economy minister Martin Bartenstein said 
categorically the government would not veto the Czech's accession 
to the EU.

 "A veto would land our country in a state of isolation such as 
it has never known before," he warned in the latest issue of the 
weekly magazine News.

 UPDATE:

 Reactor restarted at glitch-troubled Czech plant

 PRAGUE, Nov 26 (AFP) - A reactor at the Czech Republic's 
controversial Temelin nuclear power plant, which has been plagued 
by a stream of technical problems, is to be refired this week, a 
spokesman for the plant announced on Monday.

 Reactor number one at the Soviet-designed plant was shut down at 
the end of October after a leak was discovered in the cooling 
system.

 The 1,000-megawatt reactor will be started up on Wednesday. Two 
days later it will be reconnected to the country's power supply 
so that safety tests on it can continue, said plant spokesman 
Milan Nebesar.

 Reactor 1 was first fired up in October 2000 to undergo a series 
of safety tests. At each successful phase of testing, the power 
output is increased. The reactor must function correctly at 
100-percent capacity before it can start commercial operation.

 Nebesar said the reactor would run at 75-percent capacity in the 
coming test phase.

 The reactor was shut down last month after a device designed to 
keep water in the plant's auxiliary cooling system below 60 
degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) was found not to be 
air-tight.

 Repairing the fault, which was detected by a camera surveillance 
system installed inside the reactor, meant the reactor had to be 
cooled to 39 degrees Celsius, Nebesar said.

 Checks and maintenance were also carried out while the reactor 
was out of action, particularly on turbine in the 
power-generating circuit, he added. The turbine has been affected 
by a series of problems this year, including vibrations in the 
power-generating circuit which damaged its rotor blades.

 The Temelin plant, which is located in southern Bohemia, just 60 
kilometres (38 miles) from the Austrian border, has encountered 
numerous technical difficulties since it was fired up last year.

 It has also run into fierce opposition from Austria which voted 
against nuclear energy in a 1978 referendum.

 An Austrian regional official suggested last week that his 
country's citizens should buy the plant so they could close it 
down for good. The plant, which is due to be fully operational by 
2002, comprises two 1,000-megawatt Soviet-designed VVER reactors, 
each equipped with security and monitoring systems supplied by 
the US firm Westinghouse. Reactor two is not yet operational.

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[ ] SPACEWAR<br> [http://www.spacewar.com] France Beefs Up 
Missile Defence At Nuclear Reprocessing Plant

 La Hague (AFP) Nov 20, 2001

 The French air force said on Tuesday it had stepped up defence 
at the country's international nuclear reprocessing plant, 
placing a third battery of ground-to-air missiles near the site 
at La Hague.

  SPACE.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 32  Revived fears about radiation 

(11/27/2001)
 
[Science & Technology] 

Published Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001, in the San Jose Mercury News 

 As scares continue, Americans turn their attention to other 
potential attacks and protection against a nuclear threat

 BY  [gchui@sjmercury.com] AND  [bfeder@sjmercury.com] 

Mercury News 

The fear that terrorists might set off a nuclear bomb or spread 
radioactive material through a city has revived a decades-old 
American worry: How can we protect ourselves from a radioactive 
attack?

 In the 1950s and early 1960s, the answer seemed clear. The 
government handed out plans for building and stocking fallout 
shelters, and students practiced ``duck and cover'' drills in 
anticipation of nuclear war between the United States and the 
Soviet Union.

 But while Americans built some 200,000 fallout shelters in their 
back yards, the drive to prepare for a nuclear war quickly faded 
-- in part because of the expense involved, in part because of 
the seeming futility of trying to survive nuclear annihilation.

 Now reports that suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his 
Al-Qaida network may plan to build a nuclear weapon -- or, worse, 
already have one in hand -- have forced the issue back into the 
spotlight. The weapons they might be capable of detonating are 
likely far smaller than those of the Cold War era, but still have 
the potential for spreading havoc and fear.

 Analysts have been quietly warning for years that the nuclear 
threat persists in the form of thousands of nuclear weapons and 
tons of radioactive materials that could fall into the hands of 
terrorists or a rogue nation with no scruples about using them.

 Some experts offer words of comfort in the face of such 
scenarios, saying the United States is far better prepared to 
deal with a nuclear problem than it is an all-out bioterror 
attack. But all agree the issue should get renewed attention -- 
quickly.

 ``I think what's happened after Sept. 11 is these threats have 
all become much more real,'' said Kevin O'Neill, deputy director 
of the Institute for Science and International Security, a think 
tank in Washington, D.C.

 ``The willingness of terrorists to kill thousands of people, 
which for many years has been an issue of academic debate -- I 
think that debate has been settled, so really all bets are off in 
terms of what they might use.'' The breakup of the Soviet Union 
and end of the Cold War caused many people to breathe a sigh of 
relief and shake off any worries they had about the threat of 
nuclear weapons. Today's disaster preparedness brochures barely 
mention radioactive hazards, if they address them at all.
 
Likely attack scenarios

 There are a number of ways terrorists could carry out a 
radiological attack, according to a report released last month by 
the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements. 
It's an organization chartered by Congress in 1964 to provide 
advice on radiation protection issues.

 The most destructive but least likely scenario has a terrorist 
group stealing or manufacturing a nuclear weapon. Any homemade 
bomb would probably be crude and have the explosive power of 
fewer than 10,000 tons of TNT, the report said. For comparison, 
the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II 
was the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT.

 Even so, such a bomb would send out a powerful blast of air that 
shatters windows and sends shards of glass flying at high speeds. 
It would also produce a fireball, reaching temperatures of tens 
of millions of degrees, that incinerates objects and burns people 
over long distances. And it would loft material high into the 
atmosphere, which would settle over a wide area as radioactive 
fallout.

 Another possibility: Terrorists set off a ``dirty bomb,'' a 
conventional explosive laced with radioactive material. Or they 
could accomplish much the same thing by crashing a plane into a 
nuclear power plant or nuclear waste pond, scattering and perhaps 
burning its radioactive contents.

 In a third scenario, terrorists put a source of radiation in a 
place where a lot of people go by, or scatter it by dribbling it 
off the back of a bicycle or injecting it into a ventilation 
system.

 ``Something like that, unless you were very lucky or looking for 
it, you might not understand that the source was there until 
people started getting sick,'' O'Neill said.
 
Detecting radiation

 Some experts think the people most likely to respond to the 
scene of a terrorist attack should be equipped with small, 
hand-held radiation detectors.

 They should be installed in firetrucks and police cars ``just 
like the radio, the lights and all the other stuff,'' said John 
W. Poston, a radiation safety expert at Texas A University and 
chairman of the committee that wrote the radiation protection 
report.

 The detectors could pick up radiation attacks that aren't 
obvious.

 And they would also tell emergency crews how much danger they 
were facing on the scene of an attack, Poston said. He noted that 
of the 31 people killed by radiation in the worst nuclear 
accident in history -- the 1986 explosion and fire at the 
Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine -- 29 were firefighters.

 This type of simple detector is already available, Poston said. 
``It could be made in your garage,'' he added. ``We were hoping 
to entice one or more companies to make these things,'' which 
might cost $50 to $100 each.

 If terrorists did detonate a dirty bomb, hospitals would be 
confronted with patients both injured in the blast and exposed to 
radiation. Some might be temporarily or permanently blinded from 
viewing an explosion.

 Health workers would confront some unusual circumstances: Most 
would know how to safely dispose of radioactive clothing, but 
what about radioactive blood or body wastes? Radioactive metals 
or other materials embedded in wounds would have to be handled 
with care to avoid exposing doctors and nurses.

 The National Council on Radiation Protection recommended that 
health workers wash victims with tepid water and perhaps a mild 
detergent. Patients would undergo radiation surveys: Doctors 
would take nasal swabs to check for inhaled radioactive material 
and check metal objects like jewelry or belt buckles for 
accumulated radiation.

 In the early stages of radiation sickness, patients show 
symptoms such as nausea and vomiting, hair loss or cataracts. 
More severe radiation poisoning can cause infection, internal 
bleeding, fluid loss, diarrhea, reduced appetite and weight loss.

 ``The greatest concern is to make sure physicians are 
comfortable enough to deal with radioactive contamination so they 
can treat the traumatic injuries,'' said Dr. Jerrold Bushberg, a 
radiologist who directs the health physics program at the 
University of California-Davis.

 The health effects of radiation depend on the dose and on which 
organs are exposed. Radiation can enter the body through the skin 
or a wound, by breathing radioactive gases or aerosols, or by 
eating contaminated foods or liquids.

 Radiation can damage DNA, the genetic material within cells, 
causing mutations that can lead to cancer decades down the road. 
The death of bone marrow stem cells can hamper the production of 
new blood cells, leading to infection or tissue death.
 
Preparing for attack

 Dr. Fred Mettler, chairman of radiology and nuclear medicine at 
the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, has studied the 
nation's level of preparation for terrorist nuclear attack and 
helped to write the radiation protection report.

 ``The readiness is going to be a lot better a year from now than 
it is right now, but the capability to handle a radiologic 
incident is better than any chemical or biological incident,'' 
Mettler said. ``Nobody's got an anthrax meter, but everybody's 
got a Geiger counter. The whole thing would be assessed very fast 
and located very quickly. You wouldn't stand around waiting for 
someone to develop symptoms.''

 Hospitals near nuclear power plants, such as the San Onofre 
facility outside San Diego, are required to hold regular drills 
and keep specialized decontamination supplies and medications on 
hand in the event of a nuclear accident. The same is true for 
hospitals along routes where nuclear materials are transported.

 If you include the nation's hospitals with nuclear medicine 
departments, Mettler said, ``there really are 3,000 hospitals 
where somebody would have a clue if someone said `radiation.' ''

 The California Department of Health Services has two teams of a 
dozen health physicists on call -- one for Southern California, 
the other for Northern California -- to respond to any releases 
of radioactive material, spokeswoman Lea Brooks said. In 
addition, medical advances are improving survival rates after 
radiation exposure. Doctors have learned from mistakes made at 
Chernobyl and in other nuclear disasters.

 For example, bone marrow transplants, once thought to help 
contaminated patients, have been discredited as a therapy, 
Bushberg said. Effective only in patients whose bone marrow had 
been almost destroyed, the transplants were often performed on 
patients who didn't need them. Perfect bone marrow matches were 
difficult to locate. Some patients died because their bodies 
rejected the transplants.

 Instead, physicians now rely on a class of drugs called 
interleukins to help stimulate the production of bone marrow stem 
cells.

 Doctors would also use drugs intended to protect people from the 
harmful side effects of radiation cancer therapy, such as Ethyol. 
Another treatment, Trentol, helps strengthen red blood cells so 
they can survive the journey through blood vessels shrunken by 
radiation exposure.

 Health workers might also give potassium iodide, a form of 
iodine, to keep patients' thyroid glands from absorbing the 
radioactive iodine that is produced in some nuclear blasts.

 Some have worried that Americans might hoard potassium iodide 
like they did the antibiotic Cipro in the recent anthrax scare. 
Mettler said that while potassium iodide might cause thyroid 
dysfunction or rashes if people take too much of it, its effects 
aren't life-threatening. In contrast, Cipro is a powerful 
antibiotic that can cause fatal allergic reactions.

 The report from the National Council on Radiation Protection 
cautions that because radioactive iodine is not present in all 
blasts, giving potassium iodide to large numbers of people may 
prove worthless. Still, federal officials are taking steps to 
stockpile potassium iodide in the event of an attack.
 
Long-term risks

 Researchers for decades have studied the long-term health 
effects of radiation, examining thousands of survivors of the 
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Chernobyl blasts.

 ``Basically, what it comes down to is cancer risk,'' Mettler 
said. ``You can get some kinds but not others. The point is, the 
risk of cancer from radiation is pretty low compared to the 
spontaneous risk'' of cancer in the general population.

 For example, among 86,000 survivors of the Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki bombings who were studied from 1950 to 1990, there were 
only 334 more cancer deaths from tumors and 87 more deaths from 
leukemia and other blood-cell cancers than ordinarily would have 
been expected in a population that size.

 Children, however, are more likely to develop cancer as adults 
than people exposed to radiation when they are older, Mettler 
said.

 More attention is also needed, experts say, to the psychological 
impact of a radiation incident. Even a small release, not enough 
to affect human health, could send people pouring into hospitals 
and demanding testing and treatment, as they did during the 
recent anthrax scare.

 And the scars of a radiological attack could run deep. Imagine 
the agony of firefighters ordered not to enter an area where 
people are obviously in need of help, for fear they would be 
killed by dangerous levels of radioactivity; of parents worried 
about the health of their children, and of people from all walks 
of life who would worry, for decades afterward, if they were at 
increased risk for cancer.

 Even after the contamination was cleaned up, the stigma could 
linger for people in the affected area.

 ``What we learned at Chernobyl is that getting accurate 
information to people quickly is what's important,'' Mettler 
said. ``In Chernobyl, there were as many psychological problems 
in the `clean' villages as there were in the `dirty' ones. People 
just didn't trust the government saying the villages were 
clean.''
 
Renewed interest

 No one, so far, is recommending a return to the days of the 
fallout shelter boom, which had Americans heatedly debating such 
questions as whether it was OK to shoot neighbors who tried to 
force their way into the family shelter during a nuclear attack.

 But there does seem to be resurgence of interest in creating 
reinforced ``safe rooms'' within homes -- ``not as protection 
against all-out nuclear war, but as protection against gas or 
germ attacks or the nuke in the suitcase,'' said Kenneth D. Rose, 
a historian at California State University-Chico and author of

``One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American 
Culture.''

 In 1959, at the height of the Cold War, a 31-page booklet from 
the Office of Civil Defense and Mobilization showed how to build 
a family fallout shelter and stock it with two weeks' worth of 
supplies. Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency Web site 
on disaster response contains one brief mention of the danger of 
radioactive materials, under a section on chemical emergencies.

 The same guidelines apply to both: People should evacuate the 
area of an attack if told to do so by authorities. If they can't 
get away, they should

``shelter in place'' by going indoors, sealing all windows and 
vents and turning off fans and heating or cooling systems.

 ``Nobody's recommending that people go out and dig bomb shelters 
in the back yard because of the minute percentage of a chance 
that kind of threat would be released,'' said Dallas Jones, 
director of the California Office of Emergency Services. 

In a state where the risk of a devastating earthquake probably 
exceeds that of a nuclear attack, he said, ``it's a common-sense 
kind of approach.''
 
Contact Glennda Chui at  [gchui@sjmercury.com] . Contact Barbara 
Feder at [bfeder@sjmercury.com] .
 
  © 2001 The Mercury News. 

*****************************************************************
 33  Monitoring Chernobyl's Radioactive Floods

+  TERRADAILY<br> [http://www.terradaily.com/]

23 October 2000 High water in the neighbourhood of Chernobyl, 
April 1999 (courtesy Alexey Ischuk of ECOMM)  

 Gothenburg - Oct. 25, 2000

 Chernobyl is a nuclear hot spot. Radioactive dust covers the 
area around the nuclear plant which exploded in 1986, and debris 
from the clean-up is isolated in earthen bunkers. The 
contamination still spreads, however, carried by water toward the 
nearby Pripyat and Dnieper rivers.

 Presenting their results at the ERS - Envisat Symposium, 
organised by the Europan Space Agency (ESA) in Gothenburg, 
Ukrainian scientists explained how they are using ESA satellite 
images to monitor flooding which threatens the 10 million people 
living in the Dnieper basin with radioactive contamination.

 The area around Chernobyl is regularly threatened by Spring 
floods, as the snows of the winter melt and water rushes through 
hundreds of tributaries towards the two great rivers. In the 
years after the disaster, Ukrainian scientists developed a 
hydrographic model of the area around the damaged plant, which 
provided some warning of impending flooding.

 As Alexey Ischuk of ECOMM in Kiev explains, "There have been 
large changes in the hydrological system over the years, through 
deforestation on slopes and man-made alterations to riverbeds. 
These changes will change the speed and depth of the flooding 
significantly."

 The radioactive no-go area around Chernobyl established in 1986 
was expanded in 1997 to encompass about 2500 sq. km, and it is 
estimated that this zone contains over 21 million Curies of 
radiation. "The main way the radioactivity is carried out of the 
zone is by underground water and by surface washing into the 
Pripyat riverbed and further to the Dnieper," explains Ischuk.

 "But it is estimated that the underground water will take 50 
years to reach the river, while the pollution from flooded areas 
and the isolated reservoirs can be washed into the river in a few 
days as the floods recede. That's why an evaluation of the flood 
areas using remote sensing data and GIS is the most important 
problem facing Chernobyl zone researchers."

 In early April 1999, the Pripyat River reached unexpectedly high 
levels, bursting its banks and inundating over 10 sq. km. around 
the Chernobyl plant. ECOMM and INFOCenter Chernobyl had modelled 
the expected flooding, and identified the most dangerous place, 
where overflow of a dam containing contaminated waste would carry 
radiation directly into the Pripyat.

 To validate their modelling, the Ukrainian team turned to ESA. 
ESA's ERS-2 satellite, launched in 1995, gathers remote sensing 
data on global scale. The satellite, as well as its successor 
Envisat, which is due for launch in mid-2001, carries a Synthetic 
Aperture Radar (SAR) among other instruments. ERS-2 had obtained 
a SAR image of the area on 5 April.

 SAR images show flooded areas very clearly, since the 
distinctive "signature" of reflection from water is very 
different from land and vegetation. Comparing the actual flooded 
areas visible in the SAR image with the predictions of their 
hydrographic model, Ischuk and the team were able to refine their 
model, and make predictions of the amount of radiation released 
by the floods.

 According to Ischuk, further work is still needed -- for 
example, to derive a higher resolution digital elevation model of 
the basin using SAR interferometry techniques. Even so, he says, 
"We have improved our models considerably, and using the radar 
images has been a very important addition to the methods and 
techniques we can use to help understand, and eventually solve, 
this very difficult problem."

 Related Links

 ERS-Envisat Symposium [http://www.esa.int/sympo2000/] ERS 
Homepage [http://earth.esa.int/l2/2/ersnewhome] SpaceDaily 
[http://www.spacedaily.com/] Search SpaceDaily 
[http://www.spacedaily.com/search/search.cgi] Subscribe To 
SpaceDaily Express [http://www.spacedaily.com/subscribe.html] 

[ ] TERRADAILY<br> [http://www.terradaily.com/] Disaster 
Management Can Have Space Support In One Call Paris - Oct. 29, 
2000

 As from 1 November countries where a natural or technological 
disaster has occurred will be able to enlist emergency support 
from the space facilities of the European Space Agency (ESA), the 
Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES, France) and the 
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) by simply calling a confidential 
telephone number.
         
  SPACE.WIRE
*****************************************************************
 34  Team of Experts Concludes Review of Safety Issues at Temelin - 

Press Release 01/25
 
Vienna, 27 November 2001 -- At the request of the Czech 
Government, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
assembled a team of national experts from Bulgaria, France, 
Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, with an observer from 
Austria, to review safety issues at the Temelin power plant that 
were identified in 1996 as relevant to reactors of the generic 
Temelin design (WWER-1000/320 type).
 
Following a detailed on-site review from 18 to 23 November 2001, 
the experts concluded that most identified issues had been 
addressed and resolved. Work is continuing on the few remaining 
issues. These issues, however, are not judged by them to be 
significant and would not from the experts' standpoint preclude 
the safe operation of the Temelin nuclear power plant.
 
The final report of the team of experts will be available to the 
Czech Government in one month's time.
   
*****************************************************************
 35  NRC Seeks Comments on Draft Supplement to Environmental Statement 
on Decommissioning of Nuclear Facilities
 
Region IV -- 2001- 51 - 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION IV
611 Ryan Plaza Drive, Suite 400, Arlington TX 76011   

  No. IV-01-051     November 27, 2001   

CONTACT:   Breck Henderson
 Phone: 817-860-8128
 Cellular: 817-917-1227
 e-mail: bwh@nrc.gov [bwh@nrc.gov] 

 The U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is seeking public 
comments on its draft Supplement 1 to the "Final Generic 
Environmental Impact Statement on Decommissioning of Nuclear 
Facilities, NUREG-0586." The agency will hold a public meeting in 
San Francisco on December 4 to discuss the document. The meeting 
will be in the Argent Hotel, 50 Third St., San Francisco, from 
7-10 p.m.
 
At the meeting, the contents of the draft Supplement to the GEIS 
will be presented and interested parties will be given an 
opportunity to provide comments. Additionally, NRC staff will 
host informal discussions one hour prior to the start of each 
session. No comments on the draft Supplement to the GEIS will be 
accepted during the informal discussions.
 
Persons planning to attend or present oral comments at the 
meeting should contact Dino Scaletti at 1-800-368-5642, extension 
1104, or by e-mail at dgeis@nrc.gov [ dgeis@nrc.gov] . Members of 
the public may also register to speak at the meeting within 15 
minutes of the start. Individual oral comments may be limited by 
the time available, depending upon the number of persons who 
register. 

The Supplement was prepared because of technological advances in 
decommissioning operations, experience gained with shut down 
plants, and changes made to the NRC regulations since the GEIS 
was first published. It is a stand-alone document to be used to 
evaluate environmental impacts during decommissioning, which 
could lead to termination of the NRC license. 

The draft Supplement finds that of the environmental issues 
assessed, most of the impacts are generic and small. 

The draft report is available electronically through the NRC's 
Public Electronic Reading Room at www.nrc.gov as an Agencywide 
Document Access and Management Systems (ADAMS) document and can 
also be viewed at the NRC's Public Document Room, One White Flint 
North, 11555 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland. For help in 
accessing ADAMS, contact the NRC Public Document Room staff at 
1-800-397-4209, 301-415-4737, or by e-mail to pdr@nrc.gov [ 
pdr@nrc.gov] .
 
*****************************************************************
 36  Judges urged to block Sellafield reprocessing plant 

Ananova - 

	
Environmental groups are urging judges to block the opening of a 
nuclear reprocessing plant.
 
Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace want the Court of Appeal to 
stop the MOX plant at Sellafield from opening.
 
They are trying to overturn a High Court ruling that the 
Government made no error of law in giving it the go-ahead.
 
The objectors argue that the Secretary of State for the 
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Secretary of State 
for Health, took a "distorted" view last month.
 
The Ministers decided that allowing the introduction of MOX was 
"economically justified" under European Union law.
 
Under EU Directive 96/29/Euratom, national governments are 
required to ensure that the economic, social and other benefits 
of new processes which create exposure to ionizing radiation 
outweigh any detriment to health before they give the go-ahead.
 
Environmental groups fear the Sellafield scheme could lead to 
pollution, and also become a target for terrorists or theft of 
nuclear materials.
 
They claim that the Government's decision that the MOX plant was 
"economically justified" was based on distorted figures and that 
£470 million construction costs for the plant were "ignored and 
disregarded" in assessing its benefits.
 
If all relevant costs were taken into account the scheme would 
show an overall financial loss, it is claimed.
 
The current hearing, expected to last around a day and a half, 
began with the arguments of the environmental groups being 
presented by Lord Lester QC.
 
Story filed: 12:08 Tuesday 27th November 2001 CHECK FOR MORE ON: 
+ Politics + Courts + Pollution + Environment + Nuclear power + 
UK ADD THESE SUBJECTS TO YOUR NEWS: Pollution INTERACTIVE: + 
E-mail this story to a friend


Copyright © 2001 Ananova Ltd Terms and 
*****************************************************************
 37    Small fire breaks out, burns itself out, at Maine Yankee 

By Associated Press, 11/26/2001 21:19 

WISCASSET, Maine (AP) A small fire broke out in an abandoned 
chemistry lab at Maine Yankee on Monday. 

The cause of the electrical fire remains under investigation. The 
fire, which extinguished itself, did not spread to other areas of 
the shuttered nuclear power plant or other rooms in the building, 
according to John Merry, first assistant chief of the Wiscasset 
fire department. 

Maine Yankee spokesman Eric Howes said the room was being used to 
evaporate mop water. He said state environmental regulations 
don't allow Maine Yankee to simply pour the wastewater down the 
drain and that evaporating the water is the best way to dispose 
of it. 

An electric heater was being used on two 55-gallon drums of 
wastewater when the fire broke out shortly before 6 p.m. Merry 
said the power pack supplying the heater may have sparked the 
fire. 

Merry said there were only a few small areas with flames in the 
room when firefighters arrived and that the fire burned itself 
out after the supply of electricity stopped flowing. 

Howes said five employees suffered minor smoke exposure and were 
seen by rescue personnel who were called as a precaution. 

The plant is about halfway through the decommissioning process. 
*****************************************************************
 38  NRC, Company to Discuss Cleanup Plan for Greenville, Pa., Site
 
 Press Release - Region I - 2001-049 - 

UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION
OFFICE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, REGION I
475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406   

  No. I-I-01-065     November 26, 2001   

  CONTACT:     Diane Screnci (610)337-5330/ e-mail:  
[opa3@nrc.gov] Neil A. Sheehan (610)337-5331/e-mail:  
[nas@nrc.gov]   

 Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff will meet with 
representatives of Whittaker Corp. on Tuesday, November 27, to 
discuss a decommissioning plan for a radioactively contaminated 
site the company owns in Greenville, Pa. The meeting is scheduled 
to begin at 10 a.m. in the Public Meeting Room at the NRC Region 
I office in King of Prussia, Pa. It will be open to the public 
for observation. NRC staff will be available afterwards to answer 
questions from interested members of the public.
 
Last year, Whittaker submitted to the NRC its decommissioning 
plan for the site, where the major contaminant is thorium. The 
company hopes to clean up the property so it can be used for 
other purposes. The process is expected to take many years.
 
During the meeting, there will be a discussion of ways to 
streamline the NRC's review of the plan.
*****************************************************************
 39  Nuclear waste issue fuels talk for five Nevada governors
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
Today: November 27, 2001 at 13:10:45 PST 
 
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Five men who have held the state's top job for 
the past 30 years are not unanimous in their opposition of a 
federal government proposal to bury the nation's nuclear waste 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas. However, their panel discussion 
Monday at UNLV on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump 
remained polite. 

Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, and former Democratic governors 
Bob Miller, Richard Bryan and Mike O'Callaghan disagreed with 
former governor Robert List's stance that Nevada should negotiate 
for benefits in exchange for accepting the dump. 

"There will come a day when Nevadans can ask for a lot of 
things," said List, a Republican who was governor from 1979 to 
1983. He is now a lobbyist for the nuclear waste industry. 

Bryan, who has spoken at rallies against the proposed Yucca 
Mountain repository, said the state should challenge the 
project's scientific and technical underpinnings. 

"The fastest way to guarantee it will come here is to start 
talking about accepting benefits," said Bryan, who was governor 
from 1983 to 1989 and a two-term senator for Nevada. 

Guinn, whose term started in 1999, pledged that with a $5.5 
million state war chest, he'll take the fight to the courts if 
necessary. "That's not to say we'll win, but we'll fight," he 
said. 

Miller, governor from 1989 to 1999, said he's counting on the 
political strength of assistant majority leader Sen. Harry Reid, 
D-Nev., to stop the project. 

The 90-minute panel discussion, hosted by the UNLV Department of 
Public Administration, was tempered by laughter and punctuated by 
applause during the nuclear waste discussion. It drew about 80 
people and is expected to be televised at a date to be 
determined. 

List called it likely that Yucca Mountain will be chosen in the 
next several months for a radioactive waste repository. It is the 
only site in the nation under study. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to make a 
recommendation to President Bush this winter whether the volcanic 
ridge on the western edge of the Nevada Test Site is suitable to 
store the nation's 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. 

Guinn said that if Bush gives the project the go-ahead, the 
Nevada governor can oppose it and send the matter to Congress, 
where a majority vote would be needed to approve it. 

Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
*****************************************************************
                     NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES
*****************************************************************
 1 Program offers aid to energy workers 

Journalstar.com: Nebraska

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2001 

BY KEVIN ABOUREZK Lincoln Journal Star 

U.S. Department of Labor representatives spoke to nuclear weapons 
workers and their survivors Monday about what benefits they might 
be eligible for under a federal act. 

For more information about the Energy Employees Occupational 
Illness Compensation Program Act or claims forms, go to: 
www.dol.gov. You can also call the Labor Department at 
1-866-888-3322. 


The two widows spoke slowly, sharing tragic, similar details of 
their lives. 

Both had husbands who worked at the Hallam Nuclear Power 
Facility. Both men died abruptly from cancer. "My husband died 
within two months of being diagnosed with colon cancer," said 
Marcia Philippi of Beatrice. 

"My husband died within three months," said Marge Etherton of 
Lincoln. 

The women came together briefly Monday to hear U.S. Department of 
Labor representatives explain the benefits they might be eligible 
for under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation 
Program Act. About 10 people attended the presentation at the 
Federal Building in Lincoln. 

The federal act went into effect July 31. It provides $150,000 in 
lump-sum compensation, as well as related medical expenses, to 
workers who are seriously ill because they were exposed to 
beryllium, silica or radiation while working for the Department 
of Energy, its contractors or subcontractors in the nuclear 
weapons industry. 

It also provides benefits to some survivors and $50,000 in 
lump-sum payments and medical expenses to some uranium workers. 

Between 15,000 and 20,000 claims have been filed with the Labor 
Department, which has paid out $21 million in benefits. "This is 
the extent of what we can do to make it right," claims examiner 
Susan Atwood told those who attended the presentation. "It 
doesn't even begin to replace what you've lost." 

The only Nebraska site confirmed to be a location where 
Department of Energy employees could have become ill was the 
Hallam Nuclear Power Facility, about 20 miles south of Lincoln, 
she said. 

"At some point in time, it must have had something to do with 
development of nuclear weapons," Atwood said. The Hallam site 
closed as a nuclear plant in 1971 and now serves as a coal plant. 

To qualify for compensation, workers or their survivors must 
provide the Labor Department with the worker's employment history 
and medical records showing evidence of a covered disease. The 
only diseases covered by the act are cancer caused by radiation, 
chronic beryllium disease and chronic silicosis. 

During the presentation, Etherton asked Atwood how survivors 
would find medical and employment records from 30 or 40 years 
ago. While she agreed such records might not still exist, Atwood 
said survivors should file claims anyway. 

"Tell us everything you know that you can remember," she said. 
Philippi, whose husband died in 1990 at the age of 46, has many 
memories of her husband's death. 

"I remember a lot because I didn't want him working there in the 
first place," she said, "but he wouldn't listen to me." 

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 473-7237 or kabourezk@journalstar.com. 
 
Copyright © 2001, Lincoln Journal Star. All rights reserved.
*****************************************************************
 2  FBI begs Wen Ho's wife for missing nuclear tapes     

NOVEMBER 27 2001  
       
Violating plea bargain, Lee stiffs feds, forcing them to turn to 
spouse for help 

By Paul Sperry © 2001 WorldNetDaily.com 

WASHINGTON -- Former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee has broken his 
plea agreement by failing to help FBI agents recover classified 
computer tapes he stole from Los Alamos National Laboratory. But 
instead of refiling dropped charges against him, federal 
prosecutors are pumping his wife for clues to the missing tapes, 
WorldNetDaily has learned. U.S. attorneys have granted Sylvia 
Lee, who also worked at Los Alamos, limited immunity from 
prosecution in exchange for information about the tapes. 

But China-born Lee, once a Chinese spy suspect herself, maintains 
she told federal prosecutors and FBI agents in an Aug. 7 meeting 
that she hasn't seen the tapes, which contain vital nuclear 
secrets. "They asking me, do I see those tapes," she said in a 
deposition taken last month by Judicial Watch Inc. General 
Counsel Larry Klayman. "I say I never." 

"The government is still looking for the tapes that Dr. Lee 
hasn't accounted for?" Klayman asked. 

"Yes," Lee replied. 

      Wen Ho Lee

The sworn deposition was part of a defamation suit filed by Notra 
Trulock, the former Energy Department counterintelligence chief 
who originally put Lee on a list of Chinese spy suspects who 
might have provided the communist state with design secrets of 
the Trident missile's nuclear warhead, the W-88, the most 
powerful modern weapon in the U.S. strategic arsenal. Trulock 
takes issue with Lee's public claims that he was motivated by 
racism in singling Lee out for investigation. 

Lee was caught downloading from a secret lab computer network 
so-called legacy codes covering the entire history of the U.S. 
nuclear-weapons program – including large volumes of bomb-testing 
data used in developing nuclear weapons through computer 
simulations. The codes are considered extremely valuable to 
China. He then copied them onto 10 portable computer tapes. 

 Six of them are still missing. 

Lee was released Sept. 13, 2000, after nine months in solitary 
confinement, on his guilty plea to a single felony count of 
mishandling classified information. He acknowledged copying 
secrets onto tapes and removing them from Los Alamos. 

The U.S. government dropped 58 other charges – including injuring 
the U.S., aiding a foreign nation and violating the Atomic Energy 
Act, which could have brought a life sentence – and gave him 
immunity from prosecution provided that he tell authorities what 
he did with the tapes and cooperate in ongoing espionage 
investigations. 

But despite intensive debriefing by the FBI, Lee has not 
disclosed what he did with the tapes or why he made them. The 
tapes remain missing. Under the terms of his plea deal, Lee 
agreed to disclose such information within one year, or face new 
charges and possibly more jail time. That year expired Sept. 13, 
a milestone that was lost in the fury over the terrorist attacks. 

Instead of putting the screws to Lee – who is busy suing the 
government for privacy invasion – prosecutors have massaged his 
wife for information. 

Terms of the immunity deal with Sylvia Lee are not known. Klayman 
asked for a copy of the immunity letter, but so far has not 
received it from the Justice Department or Lee's attorney, Brian 
Sun, says Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. 

Calls to the Justice Department and FBI were not immediately 
returned. Last year's plea bargain shocked many U.S. intelligence 
officials, because it let Lee out of jail without first obtaining 
solid leads on the whereabouts of the missing tapes – which, if 
in the wrong hands, including those of Islamic terrorists, could 
gravely harm national security. 

The deal also turned loose a key suspect in the Chinese espionage 
investigation. With sympathetic coverage from the Washington 
Post, Lee has been, for all practical purposes, exonerated – at 
least in the eyes of the national media, if not the public. 

"Still to this day, we have no one held accountable for transfers 
of nuclear secrets to China," Fitton lamented. "And now we're 
begging Wen Ho Lee's wife for information – further proving not 
only the incompetence of the federal government, but the ongoing 
cover-up of their incompetence." 

Paul Sperry is Washington bureau chief for WorldNetDaily. 

        
Lee was caught downloading from a secret lab computer network 
so-called legacy codes covering the entire history of the U.S. 
nuclear-weapons program. The codes are considered extremely 
valuable to China. He then copied them onto 10 portable computer 
tapes. 

        
They asking me, do I see those tapes. I say I never. 

--Wen Ho Lee's wife Sylvia, to Judicial Watch General Counsel 
Larry Klayman


© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. 
*****************************************************************
 3  Chicago Tribune: Anti-terror work revitalizes Los Alamoshttp://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/whatsnew.htm 

From the Chicago Tribune 
Anti-terror work revitalizes Los Alamos
Weapons lab staff pushing mission 'against bad guys'
By Robert L. Kaiser
Tribune staff writer

November 26, 2001

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- This is a place where the mundane and the unthinkable are 
hopelessly tangled, where scientists who get $10 haircuts at lunchtime design 
devastating weapons in the afternoon, and men spending retirement in the craggy 
mountains remember working on the Manhattan Project.

Los Alamos National Laboratory, birthplace of the atomic bomb, still gives some 
around here the creeps. But in a twist brought about by the specter of 
terrorism, many workers in the mysterious, low-slung buildings and metal 
trailers are working overtime trying to save the world from weapons of mass 
destruction. And the nuclear age that Los Alamos helped usher in nearly 60 years 
ago occasionally comes back to haunt employees such as Terry Hawkins, whose job 
sometimes requires him to imagine what alleged terror mastermind Osama bin Laden 
might do next.

"We sit around and think of these very bad things, and we dare not tell 
anybody," said Hawkins, director of the Non-proliferation and International 
Security division at the lab.

"It's quite a burden to live in that world."

New relevance, urgency

What happened Sept. 11 has altered the tenor and rhythm of days at Los Alamos, 
reinvigorating a symbol from history books that many Americans might have ceased 
to consider or might think of only as that ominous place where scientists dream 
up dark technology. Even veteran scientists, engineers and technicians at Los 
Alamos say they feel rejuvenated by the stepped-up relevance and urgency of 
their jobs, a feeling recently fueled by bin Laden's claim to have devastating 
weapons of his own.

"We know our mission now has a renewed sense of urgency," said Gil Garduno, 30, 
a nuclear-weapons engineer who wears jeans and hiking boots to work. "It brings 
it back to life how important it is."

Hawkins said, "I think all our people generally understand that we're in a race 
against the bad guys."

In addition to Hawkins' division, where hundreds of employees work to detect, 
deter and defuse everything from nuclear to cyberterrorism, Los Alamos houses 
the world's most comprehensive anthrax database--one that has 1,200 strains, 
according to Peter Lyons, science adviser for Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

The lab also has computers that can simulate and predict the effects of a 
terrorist attack on the nation's infrastructure. The program stands to get an 
extra $20 million from the new anti-terrorism act.

While none of these programs is new--the labs have long been involved in more 
than nuclear research, building databases on everything from AIDS to the 
flu--many have been accelerated, emphasized or redirected since Sept. 11.

The lab wants to build a research unit where scientists would work with live 
infectious agents such as plague, anthrax and tuberculosis, a proposal that has 
been received less than enthusiastically by those who think it is enough to have 
plutonium in their back yard.

The new, more secure unit would be the only such lab in the Department of 
Energy's complex and could give Los Alamos an even bigger role in the nation's 
burgeoning fight against bioterrorism.

"Maybe with all this there will be more money flowing into Los Alamos," said 
Ernest Lujan, whose barbershop Los Alamos employees flood at lunchtime.

So far the benefit to Los Alamos has been an increase in morale. Workers 
throughout the lab have come to view old jobs in a new light and to attack them 
with new energy.

`They really buckle down'

Hawkins works with U.S. intelligence to develop, redirect and expedite 
technology that might help save lives. Since Sept. 11 he often is at the lab 
from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and then takes work home that he must keep secret even 
from his wife. He often works weekends.

"People in this division are working longer hours under higher pressure," said 
Juan Baldonado, a veteran mechanical technician in space sciences, which among 
other things has developed surveillance satellites. "People who work at the lab 
really like their jobs, and when there's a real need for something like this, 
they really buckle down.

"It's about like the military: Hey, we have a real purpose now."

The emerging image of Los Alamos as a valuable asset in the war on terrorism has 
failed to impress detractors, who hold the lab in contempt because of how much 
federal money it gets and what it is perceived to represent.

"I would say the people here are quite a bit less swept up in the vicissitudes 
of the moment than you might expect," said Greg Mello, head of the Los Alamos 
Study Group and a frequent critic of the lab.

"I think there is a little more acceptance of things military probably right 
now," he said. "But there's really quite a bit of skepticism about the political 
uses of Sept. 11. And there's a lot less to the lab's touted accomplishments 
than meets the eye. It's been hard to recruit good people to make weapons of 
mass destruction for a long time."

The uneasy relationship northern New Mexicans have with the lab began in the 
early 1940s, when a top-secret collaboration of some of science's brightest 
minds led to the development of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 and gave birth to the town of Los Alamos.

Even today Los Alamos is home to one of the highest concentrations of PhDs on 
the planet, scientists who not only developed atomic weaponry but also have in 
recent years pioneered research into AIDS, genetics and other fields. The 
complex covers some 43 square miles and employs roughly 7,000 researchers and 
support personnel.

The city itself has a population of about 11,000 people, most of whom work for 
the national laboratory or for businesses that directly support the facility.

On the outskirts, in a house with a breathtaking view of the Rio Grande cutting 
through a mountain canyon, lives 81-year-old vintner John Balagna, a retired 
chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project and who now makes a wine he labels 
"La Bomba."

"We had a lot of smart people here during World War II," Balagna said. "In two 
years we went from nothing to nuclear weapons. But there weren't any secrets; it 
was just fact. Anyone with scientific knowledge and smarts was going to figure 
it out eventually."

Familiar feeling

Betty Lou Stein, 76, remembers the fear of moving to Los Alamos in 1948, when 
her husband joined the lab's security team. "My mother was frantic," she said. 
"She told me, `My God, you're living on top of a time bomb.'"

Almost 60 years later, Stein is ill at ease once again over living in Los 
Alamos.

"We're upset because of what happened Sept. 11," she said. "We don't know that 
Los Alamos won't be a target. The day the attack happened, I said to my husband, 
`Oh my God, are we going to get it?'"

At Ernie's Barber Shop, the mood has mellowed since the attacks, and the Los 
Alamos employees who keep the chairs warm at lunchtime are taking the threat of 
terrorism in stride.

"I'm noticing more of a presence of guards at in the lab, but I don't think 
anybody is really fearful that Los Alamos will be a target," Garduno said, 
taking a mirror from Lujan to check his haircut.

"Looks good, thanks," Garduno told the barber.

Then he headed back to work at the lab.


Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune 


Improved archives! 
Searching Chicagotribune.com archives back to 1985 is cheaper and easier than 
ever. New prices for multiple articles can bring your cost as low as 30 cents an 
article: http://chicagotribune.com/archives 
*****************************************************************
 4  Fugitive in Court for Nuclear Parts Deal

washingtonpost.com: 

Reuters Tuesday, November 27, 2001; Page A10 

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 26 -- A 72-year-old engineer from the Los 
Angeles area who has been on the run for the last 16 years 
pleaded not guilty today to charges of illegally shipping nuclear 
triggering devices to Israel.

"I'm not guilty," Richard Kelly Smyth told U.S. District Judge 
Pamela Ann Rymer in a hearing in Los Angeles.

Smyth faces 15 counts of violating the Arms Export Control Act 
and 15 counts of making false statements to the U.S. government. 
If convicted, he could face life in prison. Rymer, assigned to 
the original case in the 1980s, set trial for Jan. 15.

Smyth, a former Air Force and NATO adviser, disappeared from the 
United States in 1985 three weeks after pleading not guilty to 
charges that he exported 800 devices that could be used as 
nuclear triggers, worth about $60,000, to Heli Trading Corp. in 
Israel. 

Sixteen years later, he was arrested last July in Malaga, Spain, 
after filling out a bank application. He was extradited to the 
United States last week and is being held without bail.

In addition to the charges from the original indictment, Smyth 
could be charged with fleeing the United States, prosecutors 
said.

At a Dec. 17 hearing, Rymer will have to determine whether to 
admit statements made by Smyth's defense attorney, James Riddet, 
to the media in 1985 in which he allegedly acknowledged Smyth 
shipped the triggers without a license. Prosecutors maintain that 
Riddet could be a potential witness because of those statements, 
said Tom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney.

Riddet told reporters today that prosecutors are asking Smyth to 
choose between admitting to some charges or giving up the right 
to his chosen counsel. "It seems apparent that the government now 
feels they have a weak case," he said. The devices Smyth is 
accused of exporting are called krytrons. Invented in 1934 for 
use in high-speed photography, krytrons are small glass bulbs 
that have many applications, from laser photocopying machines to 
strobe lighting to nuclear weapons. Because they can be used to 
trigger nuclear bombs, U.S. law forbids their sale overseas 
without a permit.

At the time of the indictment, Smyth was president of an export 
and engineering business based in Huntington Beach about 40 miles 
south of Los Angeles. He is accused of illegally sending the 
krytrons to Israel between 1980 and 1982 without proper 
permitting. Smyth has not "made any assertions as to their 
intended use," Mrozek said.

Israel has maintained that the krytrons were not intended for 
nuclear weapons use. It returned "a substantial number" of them 
after Smyth's indictment, Mrozek said.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company 
*****************************************************************
 5  Nuclear threat will not die if Indian held Kashmir issue not resolved: 

Sardar Sikandar 

Updated on 2001-11-27 11:28:07
             
ISLAMABAD, November 27 (PNS): Prime Minister Azad Jammu Kashmir 
Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan Monday warned of a nuclear conflict in 
the region if the burning Indian held Kashmir issue was not 
solved saying Western countries have assured their full support 
for the Indian held Kashmir cause. 

Addressing a news conference after his recent foreign tour of the 
United States and United Kingdom, the Prime Minister said, "I 
have told the people I met that there are chances of a dangerous 
conflict in the region if the Indian held Kashmir issue is not 
solved". 

"The meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Organisations of Islamic 
Countries (OIC) and United States General Assembly have been 
quite fruitful though they have mainly focussed on Afghanistan. 
The Kashmir issue was discussed in both the meetings and a line 
drawn between terrorists and freedom fighters", he said. 

"I met the OIC Secretary General and he assured all support for 
the Kashmir cause. He is also due to visit Pakistan within the 
next few days and I have also invited him to visit Muzaffarabad. 
Hopefully he will tour the AJK capital", he maintained. 

"I have told the members of the British Parliament that Kashmiris 
are fighting for self determination and their struggle cannot be 
termed a terrorist activity", he said. 

"The Kashmiris have been fighting for self determination since 
1931. It was after 1947 that they were given two choice either to 
accede to Pakistan or with India", he said. 

The AJK Premier said, "the Kashmiri community in UK and the US 
have expressed their support for the policies of (President) 
General Pervez Musharraf who they think has taken wise decisions 
(regarding the fight against terrorism)". 

Khan was harsh on the Pakistan diplomats who he said were doing 
nothing. "They do not even have the time to receive Pakistani 
dignitaries", he said. 

He added, "Indian diplomats have full time to demonstrate their 
policies and dub Kashmiris as terrorists". 

To a question he said the European Union supports the Kashmir 
cause and hopefully the issue would be resolved soon. 

"After the imposition of POTO in Kashmir, the rights of the 
people have been further usurped", he said. 

"US has not a very good record (as far as support to Pakistan is 
concerned) and we must not expect goods from them. however 51% of 
the Americans support our freedom struggle", he contended. 

Khan criticised the "elements' who exploited the Mangla Dam issue 
saying he had been in contact with the Kashmiris in US and UK and 
also knows policy of the people back home. 

"They want to sacrifice if it is in the interest of the country 
(Pakistan)", he said. 

"People have also raised the acting Prime Minister issue which is 
not even mentioned in the constitution", he said. 

The Prime Minister claimed that he enjoyed the confidence of all 
the Muslim Conference legislatures. 

He also announced a relief package of waiving Rs 1 per kilogram 
on flour rates for Ramadan. "This will cost Rs 10 million and the 
AJK government will bear the loss to facilitate the people", the 
Prime Minister said. 

Khan said he wants to see a local bodies system in AJK which is a 
mixture of the newly introduced system in Pakistan and the old 
one. "I also want to include some points from the Pakistani 
system", he said. 

*****************************************************************
 6  LHC fix Nov 28 Hearing set for Nuke Scientists Case  

LAHORE, November 27 (PNS): 

A judge of Lahore High Court Justice Khalil Ramdey on Monday 
fixed Nov 28 for hearing in a reference for the release of 
nuclear scientist Dr Sultan Basheeruddin Mehmood. Muhammad Ismail 
Qureshi Advocate filed the application on the behalf of Dr 
Basheeruddin's 85-year-old mother Fazilat Bibi. The judge in a 
brief proceeding in his chamber told the lawyers that the court 
would hear in the case on Tuesday (Today) as the court time was 
over. 

The lawyers requested the judge to extend the date for one day, 
as they were not free on Tuesday. The judge however fixed Nov 28 
as the next date for hearing in the case. 

The application says Dr. Basheeruddin was appointed as the first 
Director for Nuclear Project of Pakistan and he was awarded with 
"Sitara-e-Imtiaz" by the President of Pakistan but he was retired 
by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for having differences. 

The application further says that Dr. Basheeruddin and his 
colleague Dr. Abdul Majid are national asset of Pakistan but the 
government could hand over them to the US in false and baseless 
charges of having links with Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. The 
application however requested the court to declare the arrest of 
the scientists as illegal and issued orders for their release. 
*****************************************************************
 7  Article: Depleted uranium at issue in war

UPI News 

Monday, 26 November 2001 17:17 (ET)

      By United Press International

TAMPA, Fla., Nov. 26 (UPI) -- There are conflicting reports about 
whether the United States has used depleted uranium projectiles 
in Afghanistan as well continued questions about their potential 
effect on health.

Sources told United Press International Nov. 15 that ever since 
it opened its bombing strikes on Oct. 7, the United States has 
been using depleted uranium munitions against Taliban targets.

However, Maj. Brad Lowell, of the Central Command in Tampa, Fla. 
later told UPI, “Depleted uranium weapons have not been deployed 
in the Afghan theater.”

When depleted uranium was used in U.S.-led air strikes in Kosovo, 
and prior to that in attacks on Iraq, it caused a storm of 
controversy over the short-and long-term side effects.

While Lowell denied DU weapons were used in Afghanistan, he 
reiterated the military’s assertion depleted uranium is safe. He 
said an Army technical advisor “told me that depleted uranium is 
used in lots of things, including digital wristwatches.”

Depleted uranium is a waste product that comes from the 
enrichment of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. 
Natural uranium is a slightly radioactive metal found in rocks, 
soils, rivers and seawater. It is mainly made up of two isotopes 
or forms of uranium, Uranium-235 and Uranium-238, in the 
proportion of about 0.7 percent and 99.3 percent, respectively. 
Nuclear reactors require U235 to produce energy so the natural 
uranium must be enriched to get the U235 by removing a large part 
of the U238. Uranium-238 then becomes DU.

DU is an extremely heavy, dense material that provides an extra 
punch when loaded in weapons and makes shielding more effective.

A RAND report from 1999 indicated use of depleted uranium 
projectiles in combat causes no immediate or long-term health 
hazards to soldiers or civilians who come in contact with the 
weapons or their residue. In addition to researching the 
long-term effects of natural uranium on workers in the uranium 
industry, the RAND review reported on the findings of the 
Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center, which is tracking the 
cases of 33 Desert Storm veterans who came in contact with DU 
during the Gulf War more than 10 years ago.

According to the RAND review, this “cohort of individuals, about 
half of whom have embedded fragments, represents a group who 
received the highest levels of exposure to DU during the Gulf 
War.

“Although many of these veterans have health problems related to 
their injuries in the Gulf War, and those with embedded fragments 
have elevated urine uranium levels, researchers to date report 
neither adverse renal effects attributable to chemical toxicity 
of DU nor any adverse health effects as they relate to DU 
radiation,” the report said.

John Capalinotto, a spokesperson for the International Action 
Center, a worldwide group that wants to ban the use of depleted 
uranium weapons, told UPI, “DU weapons pose a danger to both 
soldiers and the environment.” Capalinotto, based in New York, 
said studies in “Iraq after the Gulf War suggest an increase in 
childhood cancers,” which he attributed to depleted uranium 
exposure. He said the “inherent cruelty and death-dealing effect” 
of the weapons violate international law.

Earlier this year NATO and the World Health Organization 
investigated claims exposure to the depleted uranium rounds 
increased the risk for leukemia and other cancers. In a report 
released last spring, WHO investigators concluded, “scientific 
and medical studies have not established a link between DU 
exposure and the onset of cancers, congenital abnormalities or 
serious toxic chemical effects on organs.” But WHO also stated it 
relied on military data and that “some scientists would like to 
see a larger body of independently -- i.e. non-military -- funded 
studies to confirm the current viewpoint.”

Depleted uranium coated shells have been part of the U.S. arsenal 
since 1991. Reports claim the United States and its allies fired 
about 315 tons of DU during the Persian Gulf War and more than 
30,000 rounds during the Kosovo conflict. Additionally, the 
United States fired more than 10,000 depleted uranium rounds 
during air engagements over Bosnia in 1994 and 1995. DU offers 
improved defense when used as armor shielding and enhanced power 
when used in armor penetrating munitions. Along with the United 
States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, 
Pakistan, Thailand, Israel, and France are developing or already 
possess weapons systems that make use of DU.

According to the Federation of American Scientists: “DU is ideal 
for use in armor penetrators. These solid metal projectiles have 
the speed, mass and physical properties to perform exceptionally 
well against armored targets. “DU provides a substantial 
performance advantage, well above competing materials allowing DU 
penetrators to defeat an armored target at a significantly 
greater distance,” FAS said.

It is the impact of the penetrators on armored targets that 
causes activists the greatest health concerns. Capalinotto said 
depleted uranium is dangerous when it explodes because it causes 
small amounts of still radioactive uranium to become aerosolized. 
Soldiers and civilians can then breathe in these dangerous 
particles, he said.

When a DU penetrator hits a solid object and burns, radioactive 
U-238 is released into the air in tiny particles called 
particulates, which can be blown by the wind or carried over 
water for miles. “Originally it was thought that up to 70 percent 
of the DU round may be aerosolized upon impact of a DU penetrator 
on its target or in fires in which DU burns. However, based on 
more refined testing, the percentage of the original material to 
aerosolize is now known to range from 10 to 35 percent with a 
maximum of 70 percent,” the RAND report said. The report also 
said DU has been found useful in medicine as radiation shields, 
in aviation as counterweights, in aerospace for satellite 
ballast, and in petroleum exploration in drilling equipment, 
along with military applications.

In terms of environmental risk, the WHO report stated that DU 
shells buried in the ground “are unlikely to decompose quickly 
and hence, their addition to the natural environmental abundance 
of total uranium in soil will be small.”

(Reported by Peggy Peck in Cleveland and Malcolm Visser in 
Washington.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
*****************************************************************
 8  Russian nuclear submarine commander commits suicide 



BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 27, 2001


A captain on Russia's Omsk nuclear submarine in the flotilla, 
Pacific Fleet Kamchatka, has committed suicide, Russian NTV 
reported on Tuesday.


The TV said the 33-year-old captain was one of the submarine 
combat group commanders.


"Late at night, after his shift was over, he shot himself in the 
head with his pistol," the TV said.


Source: NTV, Moscow, in Russian 0500 gmt 27 Nov 01


/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.


World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright
*****************************************************************
 9  Russian military deny suicide of nuclear submarine officer 

BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Nov 27, 2001


A Russian military spokesman on Tuesday denied reports that a 
captain on a nuclear submarine in the Pacific Fleet had committed 
suicide, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reported.

"The report of an incident aboard the Omsk nuclear submarine is 
wrong," the press spokesman for the Russian forces in the 
northeast, Aleksandr Plesetskiy, was quoted as saying. "None of 
the submariners serving aboard the vessel has attempted suicide," 
he added.

ITAR-TASS said that the regional Federal Security Service, the 
Kamchatka Region police department and the 
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy military garrison prosecutor's office 
had likewise failed to confirm the reported suicide. Russian NTV 
reported earlier in the day that a 33-year-old captain on the 
Omsk had committed suicide by shooting himself in the head at 
night after the end of his shift.

The NTV report, which cited Interfax news agency, said that 
criminal proceedings had been formally opened following the 
alleged suicide.

Source: ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow, in Russian 0955 gmt 27 Nov 
01 /BBC Monitoring/ © BBC. World Reporter
*****************************************************************
 10  US helicopter in India nuclear dispute

BBC News | SOUTH ASIA | 

Tuesday, 27 November, 2001, 

The USS John Young is docked at Madras

A fresh controversy over the presence of an American warship has 
broken out in the southern Indian city of Madras. 

A helicopter from the USS John Young, which is docked at Madras, 
was seen hovering over a nuclear installation near the city. 

The local unit of the Communist Party had already demanded that 
the US warship should be asked to leave the Madras port 
immediately. 

The USS John Young - a destroyer from the US Seventh Fleet - 
arrived at the Madras port on Monday for refuelling and 
restocking and is expected to leave in a couple of days. 

A Sea Hawk helicopter belonging to the ship hovered for about two 
hours near the Kalpakkam nuclear power plant on the eastern side 
of the port. 

Indian support 

Indian aviation authorities say no permission had been granted 
for the flight either by the air force or naval authorities. 

However, the captain of the US vessel, Geoffrey Pack, told 
journalists that the ship had not violated any regulations. 

He declined to disclose the purpose of the helicopter flight. 
Soon after the attack on the United States in September India 
offered its wholehearted support to the Amercan war on terrorism. 

It also offered logistical help to the US campaign but ruled out 
any military assistance. 

Opposition groups in India have been critical of the government's 
unqualified support for Washington although their protests have 
been muted.                 

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 11  'Fingers off the nuke buttons'

27/11/2001 11:29  - (SA)                         

New Delhi - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto on Monday 
urged arch rivals India and Pakistan to de-escalate tensions 
between them, saying their nuclear arms race had left South Asia 
on the verge of "doom and disaster". 

India and Pakistan conducted tit-for-tat nuclear weapons tests in 
1998 and have engaged during the past few months in a heated war 
of words over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. 

"Our part of the world has been teetering on the verge of doom 
and disaster too often," said Bhutto. 

"We (India and Pakistan) have been at each other's throats. We 
have fought four wars. Troops on both sides continue to fire at 
each other and we have nuclear bombs too. 

"A push on the button can end life before we realise what was 
done in desperation. We owe it our children to build a world free 
of the threat of nuclear annihilation," she said. 

Bhutto, 48, who is on a private visit to India, was addressing a 
business conference organised by India's industry lobby group, 
the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). 

In her speech, she welcomed the steps taken by Indian Prime 
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to make peace in the subcontinent. 
"Hope for peace was rekindled under the leadership of Prime 
Minister Vajpayee," said Bhutto. 

'Prevent foreign interference' 

"The Indian government announced a unilateral ceasefire in 
Kashmir and met with the militant groups. These were important 
steps taken. They required vision and strength," she added. 

The government announced a unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir in 
November last year, which was called off earlier this year. On 
Saturday, Vajpayee said he was prepared to meet Pakistani 
President President Pervez Musharraf on the sidelines of a South 
Asian summit in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu in January. 

It would be the first meeting since a bilateral summit in July, 
which broke down over the issue of Kashmir. 

India and Pakistan, who are part of the US-led coalition against 
terrorism, have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over 
Kashmir. The countries came dangerously close to a fourth war in 
1999 when Indian and Pakistani troops fought for six weeks at 
Kargil in Kashmir. 

Bhutto also said it was "important" to keep foreign Islamic 
militant groups from "interfering" in Kashmir. India accuses 
Pakistan of pushing militants into Kashmir to fight Indian rule, 
a charge which Islamabad denies. "I make a distinction between 
the indigenous Kashmiri struggle for self-determination and 
attempts of some non-Kashmiri groups to hijack the movement," she 
said. 

Moral responsibility 

"When I was in power in Islamabad, I had ensured that no outsider 
interfered in the Kashmir affair. For example, the 
Lashkar-e-Taiba which has links with the al-Qaeda, that is 
largely not Kashmiri, were kept out." 

The al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden is the prime suspect for 
the September 11 attacks on the United States. Lashkar is one of 
the most powerful foreign militant groups operating in Kashmir. 

General Musharraf seized power from Pakistan's 
democratically-elected government in a bloodless military coup in 
October 1999. Bhutto also said India and the United States had a 
major role to play in the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. 

"India is the world's largest democracy and the US is the world's 
most powerful one. They have a moral responsibility to see that 
democracy is restored in Pakistan," she said. 

Bhutto said she had "fruitful discussions" on Sunday with 
Vajpayee, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and the country's main 
opposition Congress Party leader Sonai Gandhi. 

Bhutto became the first woman to head the government of an 
Islamic state when she was sworn as Pakistan's premier in 1988. - 
Sapa/AFP 

About News24 -                          

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 12  Robots inspect Y-12 building

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 11:53 a.m. on Tuesday, November 27, 2001

As for Building 9206, the need for sampling it was first 
identified back in 1998, but work on the project didn't begin 
until this October. The spaces that needed sampling were too 
small for humans to enter, and technology and funding issues 
impaired the use of the robots until recently.

 The robots doing the analysis are typically used for standard 
sewer surveillance and had to be modified with extra equipment in 
order to survey the underground ductwork.

 Once all the data have been gathered concerning the ductwork, 
the results will be reviewed by analytical chemists to determine 
the different materials present.

 The sampling work is part of a larger project to "deactivate" 
Building 9206. However, Bill Wilburn, a spokesman for Y-12, says 
there are currently no plans to tear down the building.
 

 COST OF CLEANLINESS: Energy Communities Alliance is reporting 
that the Department of Energy's fiscal year 2003 cleanup budget 
is expected to be less than what was approved in this year's 
energy and water appropriations bill. The alliance is a 
collection of local governments that are adjacent to or impacted 
by DOE activities.

 Rumors are already circulating -- from Washington, D.C., to Oak 
Ridge -- that cuts could be made in order to promote the better, 
faster and cheaper cleanup efforts that Energy Secretary Spencer 
Abraham has said he wants to see implemented.
 
 NOMINATION: President Bush announced earlier this month that he 
intends to nominate Beverly Cook to be assistant secretary of 
energy for Environment, Safety and Health. Cook has served as 
manager of DOE's Idaho Operations Office since June 1999.

 From 1991 to 1999, she served with the Office of Nuclear Energy, 
first as the director of Space and National Security Programs, 
then as associate director of Disposition Technologies and then 
as principal deputy director of the Office of Nuclear Energy. 
Cook was a supervisory engineer at the Division of Plant Systems 
and Components for the Defense Nuclear Safety Board and from 1975 
to 1990, she held a variety of positions at the EG Idaho National 
Engineering Laboratory.
 
 RECOGNIZED: Thom Mason, associate laboratory director of the 
Spallation Neutron Source, has been elected a fellow of the 
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Mason was 
cited for "distinguished contributions to condensed matter 
physics using neutron scattering and for leadership in the 
development of neutron scattering sources and instrumentation."
 
 HELPING OUT: Y-12 made $200 donations to 10 local organizations 
with money resulting from the resale of aluminum beverage cans 
collected at the plant through a recycling program.

 Organizations receiving the money were Faith Haven Domestic 
Violence Shelter, New Hope Men's Recovery Center, New Heart 
Society, Marlow Volunteer Fire Department, Youth Service Inc., 
Friends of Tennessee Infant Parent Service, Disabled American 
Veterans, Knoxville Stand Down for Homeless Veterans, Dunn 
Diversified Industries and Knox Area Rescue Ministry.

 Paul Parson is the science and technology reporter for The Oak 
Ridger.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
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 13  Exporter of nuclear triggers to Israel pleads innocent

  [The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition]     

  13 Kislev 5762 21:51Tuesday November 27, 2001   

 By The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES - A man accused 16 years ago of illegally exporting 
potential nuclear triggers to Israel pleaded innocent yesterday 
in federal court. 

Richard Henry Smyth, 72, a former electronics supplier, faces a 
30-count indictment involving the alleged export of about $60,000 
worth of krytrons, 5 centimeter triggering devices that can be 
used in nuclear weapons. 

Smyth was being held without bail. His trial was set for January 
15. 

Smyth, the former president of Milco International Inc. of 
Huntington Beach, had been awaiting trial on the charges in 1985 
when he fled the United States for Spain. 

He was extradited from Spain earlier this month. 

Krytrons cannot be exported without a license or written approval 
from the State Department. 

Smyth was accused of 15 counts of illegal shipments and 15 counts 
of preparing false documentation for the export of roughly 800 of 
the tubelike devices. Authorities said they were sent to Heli 
Corp. in Israel between January 1980 and December 1982.
 
   &copy; 1995-2001, The Jerusalem Post
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 14  Terrorist-Nuke-Worker, 2nd Writethru
 
Nuke engineer fired after Sept 11 accepts AECL offer of return to work 

STEPHEN THORNE

OTTAWA (CP) - A Canadian nuclear engineer fired after the Sept. 
11 terrorist attacks has dropped his lawsuit against Atomic 
Energy of Canada Ltd. and is returning to work this week. But 
while Mohammed Attiah has accepted a full-time job at the Chalk 
River, Ont., nuclear facility, he will pursue legal action 
against the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 
Attiah and his counsel said Monday. 

"I am going back to work tentatively Thursday," Attiah said. "I 
am very satisfied with the way things have turned out. My family 
is happy." Attiah was fired Sept. 21, minutes after he was 
questioned by RCMP and intelligence agents. 

The 54-year-old Canadian citizen and Muslim who emigrated from 
Egypt 27 years ago, was told he was a security threat. He has 
since been exonerated, said his counsel, Harry Kopyto. 

"We settled all outstanding matters now against AECL only," 
Kopyto said in an interview. "He's going to try to get on with 
his work life." 

As part of Monday's agreement, AECL agreed to award Attiah legal 
costs as well as benefits and pay for the period he was 
unemployed, said Kopyto. 

"Yes, he's accepted the job," said AECL spokeswoman Louise 
Duhamel. "We made him a letter of offer. We're happy to have him 
as an employee. "For us, the matter is resolved." 

She declined to provide further details, calling it "a private 
matter between AECL and an employee." 

Kopyto called the deal "a major step in eradicating the anguish 
that he experienced in the last two months. 

"However, we do feel that the main culprits behind his 
termination were the RCMP and CSIS," he said. 

Attiah will pursue a lawsuit and human rights complaint against 
the two agencies, claiming damage to his reputation and punitive 
damages. Kopyto said it is a matter of principle so that no one 
else is victimized by racial stereotyping. 

"There's got to be some evidence besides the fact that he fits a 
profile, and there was not." 

Attiah, a father of four has a master's degree in engineering and 
previously worked for Ontario Hydro. He has no criminal record. 

He has said agents questioned him for 90 minutes about his 
religion, people he'd met, places he'd been. 

When he returned to work afterwards, an AECL security officer 
told him he was a security threat. His pass was seized and he was 
ordered to leave the research facility forever. 

Attiah said Monday there were no undue conditions attached to the 
offer of a permanent contract with AECL, where he had been 
working on a temporary basis before he was fired. 

His new contract requires that he not talk about his job, an 
order that applies to all AECL employees, he said. His counsel 
said last week the gag order was specific to Attiah. 

© The Canadian Press, 2001
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 15  DOE funds CROET with $26M to date 

Oak Ridger Online --> 

Story last updated at 11:01 a.m. on Tuesday, November 27, 2001

by Paul Parson 
Oak Ridger staff 

The Department of Energy began providing funding for the 
Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee in fiscal year 
1996. Since that time, CROET has received a little more than $26 
million from the federal agency, officials say.

 CROET is an economic development organization whose purpose is 
to assist the private sector in creating jobs and accelerating 
cleanup in the region by using the underutilized land, 
facilities, equipment and personnel available on DOE's Oak Ridge 
Reservation.

 One of the things the funding has been credited with is the 
creation of 2,407 jobs in the 15 counties located in East 
Tennessee, according to representatives from DOE and CROET. In a 
breakdown of the jobs created, CROET indicated 317 of those 
positions were associated with new business development grants; 
274 pertained to CROET's reindustrialization efforts, and 388 
were connected to improvements at the David B. Jones Industrial 
Park in Anderson County.

 However, Steven Wyatt, a DOE spokesman, says the 2,407 jobs do 
not include people working on cleanup projects at the Oak Ridge 
K-25 site for BNFL Inc. and other companies. Wyatt also said the 
money being spent to accomplish DOE's mission at K-25 is not 
included in the $26,007,000 that it has provided to CROET.

 Lawrence Young, CROET's president and chief executive officer, 
says the strategic plan the organization adopted last year aims 
to make CROET more self-sufficient instead of having it depend on 
DOE grant money for continued viability.

All Contents ©Copyright The Oak Ridger 
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 16  Secretary Abraham Visits Russia; Meets with IAEA to Better 
Protect Nuclear Materials

energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release

RELEASE DATE: November 27, 2001                                                 [Print Friendly Version]
 
Caspian Is First Privately-owned Pipeline Through Russia; Will 
Enhance World Energy Security   

WASHINGTON, DC -- During his first visit to Russia, U.S. 
Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham and a team of Energy 
Department officials represented the United States in events to 
highlight the completion and opening of the Caspian Pipeline 
Consortium (CPC) pipeline facility. The opening ceremonies were 
held in Novorossiysk, Russia. While in Russia Secretary Abraham 
will meet with the Minister of Atomic Energy Alexander Rumyanstev 
and other government officials to discuss accelerating and 
enhancing cooperative and international nonproliferation and 
materials security and accountability efforts. 

"The opening of the Caspian Pipeline marks a new day in the long 
history of Russian-American relations; a day of progress and a 
day of hope," Secretary Abraham said. "Eight companies from six 
different countries showed they could work for a common goal, to 
transcend the difficulties of the past and bring the world the 
energy it needs." 

"This pipeline will strengthen international energy security by 
adding more than a million barrels of oil a day to global supply, 
and by creating new jobs and billions of dollars in revenue," 
Secretary Abraham said. "Greater energy security through a more 
diverse supply of oil for global markets -- these are key 
elements of President Bush's National Energy Policy. The CPC 
pipeline is a clear example of that policy in action, in an 
international setting." 

The CPC pipeline and related facilities are the largest joint 
investment to date in Russia, and required an investment of about 
$2.5 billion by eight companies -- including Chevron, Texaco and 
ExxonMobil. The pipeline enhances energy security by making 
available more crude oil from the Caspian Sea and enhancing 
diversification of energy supplies. It also provides a direct 
link from Kazakhstan's Tengiz oil field to the Black Sea and on 
to western markets. Cooperation was essential among the 
governments of Russia, Kazakhstan and Oman in order to achieve 
the goal of a completed pipeline. 

As a follow up from an earlier meeting of Presidents Bush and 
Putin, Secretary Abraham will stop in Vienna to meet with 
International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) Director General 
El-Baradei, and speak to the IAEA Board of Governors on Friday 
Nov. 30. In his remarks the Secretary will emphasize the 
importance of efforts to enhance the IAEA's role in strengthening 
international standards for the protection and accounting of 
nuclear materials. 

Media Contact: Jill Schroeder, 202/586-4940 Drew Malcomb, 
202/586-5806 Release No. R-01-199 
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 17  American President applies pressure to Pyongyang over weapons

Radio Australia News - 27/11/01: 

President George W. Bush has called on North Korea to permit 
foreign inspectors to verify that it is not producing weapons of 
mass destruction, and warned Pyongyang to halt foreign missile 
sales.

His statement was prompted by reporters asking whether he is 
extending his war on terrorism to states previously believed by 
the United States to be engaged in developing such arms. 

Mr Bush says he has held discussions with North Korea in which he 
made it very clear that normal relations between the two 
countries relies on North Korea revealing its weapons 
development.

Under a 1994 US-North Korea deal, an international consortium is 
providing two light water reactors to the North in exchange for 
the communist country freezing its suspected nuclear weapons 
development plans. 

But under the the deal, Pyongyang is only required to admit 
inspectors when a significant portion of the project as defined 
in the agreement is completed. Owing to delays, groundbreaking on 
the reactors started only in September. (27/11/01, 13:50:40 AEST) 

[http://www.abc.net.au/ra] This service includes material from 
Pacnews, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters which is 
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 18   Pakistan Detains Nuclear Scientists
 
Las Vegas SUN
 
Today: November 27, 2001 at 6:40:21 PST 
 
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Two retired Pakistani nuclear 
scientists suspected of having ties to suspected terrorist Osama 
bin Laden were detained again for questioning, a spokesman for 
the military-led government said Tuesday. Sultan Bashir-ud-Din 
Mehmood and Abdul Majid were first taken into custody Oct. 23. 
Authorities said last week that they had been released. 

On Tuesday, Gen. Rashid Quereshi said the scientists were brought 
in for further interrogation but declined to say why. No charges 
have been filed, officials said. 

The two men worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission until 
retiring in 1999. Both subsequently made frequent trips to 
Afghanistan and met bin Laden on two occasions, government 
officials have said. 

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Monday that authorities 
suspected the men of having links within Afghanistan. He did not 
elaborate, but said the two were not tied to Pakistan's atomic 
weapons program. 

The scientists have said they visited Afghanistan on behalf of a 
charity organization that helped farmers and students. They deny 
passing nuclear secrets to Afghanistan's now-retreating Taliban 
regime or to bin Laden. 

Officials in Pakistan, which conducted its first underground 
nuclear bomb tests in 1998, say there is nothing to suggest they 
revealed nuclear secrets to anyone in Afghanistan. 

All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
    
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NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this 
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who 
have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for 
non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more 
information go to: 
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml> 
    
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