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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 US: TVA ready to explain restart plan to NRC
2 These N. Korean Reactors Light Up Danger Signals
3 Plagued by delays, U.S.-led nuclear power project in North Korea
4 Koreas agree to revive talks*
5 Cut-price nuclear plant a terror target, say Greens
NUCLEAR REACTORS
6 US: NRC's Davis-Besse flip-flop
7 US: Davis-Besse: Leaking nozzles
8 US: Events in Davis-Besse reactor inspection postponement
9 Ukrainian nuclear reactor shut down for major repairs
10 US: Cooper at a turning point: Make big changes or shut down
11 US: Cooper Nuclear fights for survival
NUCLEAR SAFETY
12 US: U.S. Searches for Missing Material
13 US: Local company fined for unreported use of radioactive materials
14 US: City mulls pursuing nuclear zone aid
15 US: Is Missing Material Radioactive?
16 US: New details on latest leukemia victim in northern Nevada*
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
17 US: Byron nuclear waste may find new home*
18 US: Goshute, Envirocare N-waste debates merging
19 US: UP takes 'selective' look at possible nuke waste routes*
20 US: Unwelcome plutonium may already be in S.C.
21 US: Editorial: Another report tells of danger at Yucca
22 US: Dry storage urged for Plymouth waste
23 US: No way to contain the waste
24 US: Yucca Mountain: A pragmatic solution to storing nuclear waste
25 US: New storage urged for Pilgrim waste
26 US: Nevada voices: What is the single most important issue facing Ne
27 US: Planned NFS Erwin Operation Would Release ?Small Amounts? Of
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
28 Atomic plans returned to Japan
29 WAR AND REMEMBRANCE /Hiroshima, Mon Horreur /The day the sun rose tw
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
30 Lawrence Livermore sees peaceful protest
31 U.S. rewards nuclear scientists
32 Investigators say Berkeley scientist altered data to create new
OTHER NUCLEAR
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 TVA ready to explain restart plan to NRC
By Dennis Sherer
Staff Writer
August 4, 2002
Tennessee Valley Authority officials do not expect a meeting
Wednesday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to delay efforts
to restart the Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant.
Members of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory staff will meet in Atlanta
on Wednesday with Tennessee Valley Authority officials. The
meeting begins at 10 a.m. EDT in the NRC's Region II office. It
is open to the public.
Ken Clark, a spokesman for the NRC's Atlanta office, said the
agency wants to meet with TVA to learn more about its plans to
restart the reactor, which has not produced electricity since
being shut down in 1985 because of safety concerns.
Clark said the meeting is unusual because no other utilities in
the Southeast have attempted to restart a reactor that has been
idle for 17 years.
"I wouldn't call it routine merely because restarts like this are
unusual. This is not an everyday occurrence," he said.
Browns Ferry spokesman Craig Beasley said if anything, the
meeting with NRC officials will expedite TVA's efforts to restart
Unit 1.
"We are going to give them an overview of our restart plan. The
NRC will use that information to plan its inspections as part of
its oversight of the program," Beasley said. "The meeting
Wednesday will help things run much more smoothly as we progress
with the restart."
TVA officials contend the utility will need the electricity from
the reactor to meet expected growth in the Valley region. They
estimate it will cost the utility $1.77 billion to return the
reactor to production.
Because no one has ever attempted such a project, Clark said the
NRC wants to hear details about how TVA plans to prepare the
reactor for service.
"We will discuss what they are going to do and how they are going
to do it," he said.
Clark expects that much of the piping and wiring for the reactor
will have to be replaced. Also, new technology that has been
developed since the shutdown will have to be installed.
All three reactors at the nuclear plant near Athens were shut
down in 1985 because of growing concern about the safety of using
nuclear energy to produce electricity.
Unit 2 returned to service in 1991, with Unit 3 being turned back
on in 1996.
TVA officials estimate it will take five years to prepare Unit 1
for the restart.
They expect 2,400 construction workers to be needed for the
project.
About 100 permanent jobs will be created by the restart.
Many of the jobs are expected to be filled by Shoals residents.
Shoals elected officials and labor leaders tout the restart
project as a catalyst for shoring up the slumping economy.
However, some eastern Tennessee environmentalists complain that
the restart will produce additional nuclear waste and say it is
dangerous to restart a reactor that has not been used for so many
years.
TVA officials contend it is safe to return Unit 1 to service.
The environmentalists also contend the project is likely to lead
to higher utility bills for Valley residents and businesses.
TVA announced last week it had hired Charles River Associates
Inc. of Boston, an economic, financial and management consulting
agency, to help it search for alternative financing for the
project.
"We haven't signed a contract with Charles River Associates, but
they have been hired, and we are working on a contract," TVA
spokesman John Moulton said.
TVA has awarded initial labor and supplies contracts to bring
Unit 1 back into service, but the authority has not finalized how
it will pay for the work.
TVA directors want to pay for the Browns Ferry project without
inflating TVA's $25 billion debt and are searching for proposals
from outside investors.
"Obtaining alternative financing is a key component of TVA's
effort to restart Unit 1 at Browns Ferry,'' said Charles
Trabandt, Charles River vice president.
Instead of spending money to bring an aging reactor out of
retirement, Stephen Smith, executive director of the Knoxville,
Tenn.-based Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said the utility
should be promoting conservation of electrical power by
customers.
Smith contends TVA would not need the power from Unit 1 if it
would do a better job promoting energy conservation.
Clark said he expects Wednesday's meeting to be the first of many
between the NRC and TVA to discuss the Browns Ferry project.
Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or
dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com [dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com] .
[http://www.johnsoncont.com]
Copyright © 2002 TimesDaily | Privacy Statement
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2 These N. Korean Reactors Light Up Danger Signals
(washingtonpost.com)
By Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski
Sunday, August 4, 2002; Page B02
Next Wednesday, at a coastal construction site in North Korea,
diplomats from the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea and
North Korea will watch from a reviewing stand as South Korean
builders pour the first concrete for the foundations of two large
U.S.-type nuclear power reactors. We promised the North these
reactors, known as light-water reactors or LWRs, in 1994 in
exchange for the shutdown of the country's small plutonium
production operation based on their own home-built reactors.
The diplomats are going to the pouring to celebrate the belief
that this exchange puts more distance between the North Korean
regime and nuclear weapons, perhaps even putting such weapons out
of North Korea's reach. The North's home-built reactors were an
easy source for bomb plutonium, but the LWRs, our State
Department keeps saying, are "proliferation-resistant." Sounds
almost too good to be true. Alas, it is.
Comparing reactors of the same size, we'd rather see countries
build LWRs (whose name derives from their use of ordinary water
for cooling). Reactors of the type North Korea copied, unlike
LWRs, are continually refueled, creating constant opportunities
for diverting fuel to weapons programs. To take fuel out of an
LWR, you need to shut down the entire thing, and it's harder to
do that surreptitiously or frequently.
But the LWRs come in large sizes and make lots of plutonium, too.
The ones we're supplying to North Korea can make more than all
the home-built reactors they would replace. These technical
points are important and apply to similar reactors in other
countries as well. Consider the parallel case of the LWRs Russia
is building for Iran. The State Department thinks the reactor
project could help the Iranians make bombs. Here its instinct is
right. But because the State Department is caught up in its
"proliferation-resistant" description of the LWRs for North
Korea, it can't explain why reactors of the same type are threats
in Iran. The Russians have seized on the inconsistency in the
U.S. approach to defend their own project. The confusion isn't
just at State. The latest comprehensive report from the Carnegie
Endowment Non-Proliferation Project describes the Russian LWRs as
"particularly unsuitable" for producing bomb plutonium.
In truth, LWRs could be used to produce dozens of bombs' worth of
weapons-grade plutonium in both North Korea and Iran. This is
true of all LWRs -- a depressing fact U.S. policymakers have
managed to block out. Over the past three decades, the purveyors
of the plants and diplomats looking for a neat fix for
proliferation concerns have come up with a web of rationales for
why the LWRs are not a security worry. We now have to cut through
this tangle to get at the facts on which to base sensible policy.
The basic technical information has been available for years in
official reports, including those of the national laboratories,
Congress and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it
tells us several important things.
LWRs can produce large amounts of "weapons-grade" plutonium,
the kind ideally suited for bombs. The ability to make bombs with
the plutonium LWRs generally produce -- known as "reactor-grade"
plutonium -- has been debated for 25 years. (Despite the
designation, such plutonium can, with the right know-how, be used
to make nuclear bombs.) What has been widely ignored is that LWRs
also produce lots of what is generally accepted to be
"weapons-grade" plutonium. It all depends on how long you let the
fuel sit in the reactor. The less time the fuel stays, the more
suitable the plutonium is for bombs. According to a Livermore
weapons laboratory report written about the LWRs for North Korea,
after the first scheduled refueling, about 15 months after
initial start-up, a standard LWR will contain about 300 kilograms
of near-weapons-grade material. That's dozens of bombs' worth.
What nation needs more?
Extracting plutonium from spent LWR fuel rods by chemical
reprocessing is no longer the obstacle it once was. A 1977 Oak
Ridge Laboratory internal report, widely distributed at the time,
details how this might be done quickly and cheaply, at least by
nations that know what they are doing. After years of training
and experience, North Korea and Iran would qualify. Pyongyang
already has a reprocessing plant and would need only an
additional unit at the front end to cut up the long LWR fuel rods
into small pieces, which could then be placed in dissolution
tanks. American diplomats who defend the suitability of the LWRs
for North Korea have seized on Pyongyang's lack of such a
front-end cutter as a reason for us to feel secure. Because a
commercial fuel "chopper" is a complex, prohibitively expensive
item that few countries possess or are willing to sell, obtaining
one is supposed to be an insurmountable hurdle for the North. But
the reprocessing experts at Oak Ridge, who were designing a
cheap, easy-to-hide facility for making plutonium for bombs, said
they could use less sophisticated, readily available parts.
Instead of the costly chopper, they required only one
"metal-cutting saw, abrasive disk" for cutting under water. No
big deal.
Altogether, the Oak Ridge engineers estimated that from the first
diverted LWR spent-fuel assembly to production of plutonium metal
for bombs would be only a matter of weeks. Their little plant is
designed to then turn out a bomb's worth a day from typical LWR
fuel. Sticking to our example using only near-weapons-grade
plutonium, there would be enough for, say, a couple of dozen
bombs in a couple of months. That's a pretty fast path to a
fairly large arsenal.
We can no longer assume that the threat of detection will deter
would-be bomb makers from cannibalizing LWRs' spent fuel. The
last refuge of proponents of the LWRs-are-proliferation-resistant
view is that would-be bomb makers couldn't do all this without
getting caught. The theory is that no aspiring nuclear power
would risk the wrath of the world's major powers. But it's hard
to sustain this view after Iraq's and North Korea's Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) violations, their stiff-arming of
IAEA inspectors and the slow reaction of the world powers.
Suppose North Korea or Iran had illicit LWR reprocessing labs
ready to go before they extracted spent fuel from their LWRs. The
IAEA assumes that from the first production of plutonium metal to
the first bomb might be a matter of weeks. Amassing an arsenal of
dozens of bombs could take a few months or less. That's a lot
less time than it took to respond to Iraqi and North Korean NPT
violations -- and in the latter case we thought Pyongyang had
already separated more than a bomb's worth of plutonium. Knowing
this, bomb makers might figure that they could make lots of
weapons before facing any severe reaction. And would they be
wrong to expect that with bombs in hand, they would get more
respect?
These points should wake us up to the dangers of the LWRs. These
power reactors have their place, but they are too dangerous to be
in countries with appetites for nuclear weapons and few other
ways to acquire them. They don't belong in North Korea -- at
least under the present closed regime -- and they don't belong in
Iran until things there change, too. In upcoming talks with
Russia and North Korea, we should spell out the dangers of LWR
fuel. We also must take the dangers into account in considering
future LWR deals and in reevaluating the safeguards system that
applies to all of them.
It is too late to cancel the diplomatic ceremony around the
pouring of the concrete for the LWRs in North Korea. But it would
help if the diplomats there muted their enthusiasm and treated
the occasion as one for reflection rather than celebration.
Victor Gilinsky, a Washington-based energy consultant, was on the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Presidents Ford, Carter and
Reagan. Henry Sokolski, executive director of the
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, is author of "Best of
Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons
Proliferation" (Praeger).
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
*****************************************************************
3 Plagued by delays, U.S.-led nuclear power project in North Korea
takes another step forward
Sunday, August 04, 2002
AP World Politics
By PAUL SHIN, Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea - This week, workers in North Korea will pour
concrete in a ceremony signaling a new phase in the construction
of a U.S.-led nuclear power project that has endured repeated
delays.
Political tension and financial problems have beset the dlrs 4.6
billion project, prompting protests from North Korea. Some U.S.
critics have said the project should be scrapped because of the
North's refusal to allow outside inspections of its homemade
nuclear facilities.
But a U.S.-led consortium, the Korean Peninsula Energy
Development Organization, hopes North Korea's recent efforts to
resume dialogue with its traditional foes will help the project
move forward.
Weeks after a deadly naval clash on June 29, the communist North
said it was open to talks with South Korea.
Officials of the two sides met in the North over the weekend and
agreed to restart high-level talks, reviving the stalled
reconciliation process. Also, U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell and North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun met at a
regional security forum in Brunei last week and both spoke in
favor of dialogue.
"That meeting is having a positive effect on the prospect of
defusing a looming security crisis next year as well as the
reactor project itself," said Chang Sun-sup, the chief South
Korean delegate to the consortium.
Chang said he hoped the concrete-pouring ceremony on Tuesday at
Kumho in North Korea's northeastern coastal region will assure
North Koreans that the project is moving ahead.
Construction, which began in 1997, has been hampered by military
and political tension and funding problems. Work so far has been
restricted to ground leveling and excavation, but concrete will
be laid this week for a building that will house a reactor.
About 150 U.S., Japanese, South Korean and European Union
diplomats and journalists will attend the event. In 1993, North
Korea shocked the world by quitting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty amid suspicions that it was developing nuclear weapons.
After a crisis that many observers say brought the Korean
peninsula to the brink of war, the North reversed its decision
and signed a deal with the United States under which it froze its
nuclear program in exchange for two Western-developed light-water
reactors. The impoverished North needs the reactors to alleviate
its energy shortages.
The deal called for the completion of the reactors next year,
though that date has been pushed back by several years. The
agreement also requires North Korea to allow outside inspections
of its nuclear facilities before key reactor components are
delivered.
The consortium, whose members also include South Korea, Japan and
the European Union, demands that inspection must start in 2003 at
the latest because a key component the first reactor vessel
is slated to be delivered that year.
The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency is backing the
consortium's demand, saying that such inspections usually take
three to four years. Citing project delays, the North has not
agreed.
At issue is how much plutonium North Korea extracted before the
1994 freeze of its suspected nuclear weapons program. The North
says the amount was negligible, but the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency suspects it might have stockpiled enough plutonium to make
one or two atomic bombs.
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press.
*****************************************************************
4 Koreas agree to revive talks*
United Press International
Published 8/4/2002 8:11 AM
SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- North and South Korea Sunday
agreed to revive stalled reconciliation talks and announced
Cabinet-level discussions to be held in Seoul Aug. 12-14.
The talks are expected to focus on economic and military
cooperation, a plan to reconnect a cross-border railway line,
family reunions and North Korea's participation in September's
Asian Games to be held in the Southern city of Pusan, a joint
statement said.
The two sides agreed to the talks at a three-day meeting in North
Korea's Diamond Mountain Resort. The Cabinet-level talks would be
the first since President Bush said North Korea was part of an
"axis of evil" with Iraq and Iran. The last Cabinet-level
meeting, the sixth since 2000, was held last November.
Sunday's announcement comes amid a flurry of recent diplomatic
overtures communist-run North Korea has made to its southern
neighbor and the United States.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell met with his
North Korean counterpart on the sidelines of the Association of
South East Asian Nations regional forum meeting in Brunei.
Late last month, Pyongyang expressed regret over June's naval
clash with the South in which four South Korean sailors were
killed. About 30 North Korean sailors were believed to have been
killed or injured.
Pyongyang also said it was ready for unconditional talks with
both Washington and Seoul.
North and South Korea were divided in 1945. A 1953 armistice
ended the three-year war between the two countries.
Copyright © 2002 United Press International
*Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All rights
*****************************************************************
5 Cut-price nuclear plant a terror target, say Greens
Scotsman.com
Sat 3 Aug 2002
/Hamish Macdonell Scottish Political Editor/
BRITISH Energy is considering replacing two of Scotland?s ageing
nuclear power stations with cheaper models which could be
vulnerable to attack by terrorists, the Green Party warned
yesterday.
They claimed that attempts to cut costs by buying cheaper
reactors now for Hunterston B power station in Ayrshire and
Torness in East Lothian could lead to catastrophe in the future.
British Energy is considering options for the Hunterston B plant,
due to close in the next ten years. One option is a new power
station built around a Westinghouse AP1000 reactor.
However, the Greens published a report by the Dutch government
which concluded that the Westinghouse AP1000 did not meet the
country?s nuclear safety standards.
Robin Harper, the leader of the Scottish Green Party, said: "It
is simply outrageous that any consideration could be given to
siting these cut-price, prefabricated reactors in Scotland when
so many concerns have been voiced regarding their design and
safety standards. "
A British Energy spokesman said: "There are stringent safety
regulations for nuclear power stations , and they must be
approved by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate."
BNFL Westinghouse denied the design of the AP1000 was flawed and
said it was safer than other nuclear reactors.
A spokesman for the energy minister, Brian Wilson, said talk of
new reactors at Hunterston or Torness was premature. He added:
"We are not aware of any detailed plans to build any new nuclear
reactors anywhere."
©2002 scotsman.com | contact
Back To Top <#top>
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6 NRC's Davis-Besse flip-flop
The Plain Dealer
Ohio News
08/04/02
John Mangels and John Funk Plain Dealer Reporters
Oak Harbor, Ohio -
Top Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials last fall were nearly
certain that parts of the reactor lid at the Davis-Besse nuclear
power plant near Toledo were cracked and leaking.
If there were coolant leaks in this major barrier between
the highly radioactive reactor core and the environment, the
plant would be in violation of its operating license. By its own
regulations, the NRC would have to order the reactor's immediate
shutdown.
The NRC had good reason to think there were leaks in the
lid. Operators of 10 similar reactors had recently found cracks
in tubelike nozzles that penetrate the massive lids. And
Davis-Besse's nozzles had not been thoroughly inspected for signs
of leaking coolant in five years.
The agency drafted a shutdown order, its first in 15
years, and prepared to issue it to FirstEnergy Corp.,
Davis-Besse's owner, by Nov. 28. The NRC's executive director
approved it and informed the agency's governing board. A
communications officer wrote a news release.
But the day the order was to go into effect, the NRC
backed down and allowed the plant to run 75 days longer. A review
of thousands of pages of NRC and FirstEnergy documents obtained
by The Plain Dealer shows the agency acquiesced even though its
senior staff disagreed with FirstEnergy's estimate of how fast
the cracks might grow. And it was skeptical of the material the
company used to bolster its argument to continue running.
The documents show the Davis-Besse decision was at odds
with four of the agency's five key safety guidelines for making
decisions. And they reveal the agency abandoned the argument that
overwhelming circumstantial evidence of nozzles leaking at
Davis-Besse was enough to shut the plant down, as spelled out in
the order.
How could this have happened?
The NRC was caught up in a "Catch-22" of its own making: Having
devalued its own circumstantial evidence, the only way the agency
could now justify shutting down Davis-Besse was if it had
definitive proof that the reactor nozzles were cracked and
leaking. But the only way to gather such evidence was by ordering
a shutdown.
Now unwilling to idle the reactor immediately, the NRC
reasoned that it could accept a higher than normal risk that the
lid would rupture and cause a severe accident because the plant's
containment building and safety systems could handle the
consequences without unduly endangering the public.
The decision turned out to be doubly bad. Not only were
there multiple cracks in the reactor nozzles at Davis-Besse, as
the NRC suspected, but one also had leaked undetected for at
least six years - exactly what FirstEnergy had insisted could
never happen, because its inspectors would have caught it.
Worse, the escaping coolant had eaten a large hole in the
reactor lid. Had a thin stainless-steel liner not prevented the
lid from rupturing, it probably would have been the worst
American nuclear accident since Three-Mile Island, critics say.
The NRC's inspector general and its criminal
investigations arm are each probing the deferral decision. One is
looking for agency mistakes, the other for any evidence that
FirstEnergy intentionally misled the NRC.
The documents show a staff that was convinced by a
growing body of evidence that allowing Davis-Besse to continue to
operate was unsafe. The documents also reveal that FirstEnergy
campaigned vigorously - and to the highest levels of the NRC - to
derail a costly early shutdown.
The agency's eventual willingness not just to listen to
alternatives to the Dec. 31 shutdown, but to help the company
formulate those options, suggests to some critics that the NRC
lost sight of its mission to ensure the public's safety.
"Given the evidence and the [NRC's] level of concern
about this plant, if they're not able to shut it down, when would
they ever be able to shut one down," said David Lochbaum, a
nuclear engineer with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"We see this tsunami of staff concerns building a case
for shutdown that essentially evaporated," said Paul Gunter,
director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service's
reactor watchdog project. "Safety was compromised by a regulator
wanting more but accepting far less. The American public and the
Congress should be extremely alarmed by this regulatory
malpractice."
One congressman is.
"I get chills when I think about the implications" of the
NRC's Davis-Besse decision, said U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of
Cleveland. "Even when the NRC conducted detailed, scientific
assessments which specifically cited serious defects in the
nozzles, the reports were ignored."
Kucinich, the ranking Democrat on the House committee
that oversees the NRC, said he would demand Senate and House
hearings on the issue.
"This isn't only about Davis-Besse," he said. "There is a
clear danger to the health and welfare of millions of Americans."
NRC Chairman Richard Meserve, head of the five-member
board that sets agency policy, declined through a spokesman to
comment.
In a letter dated June 28, Meserve addressed issues
raised by U.S. Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Edward Markey of
Massachusetts. Meserve said that NRC management determined that
the agency staff's original justification for shutting down
Davis-Besse by Dec. 31 "could not be sustained" because the staff
lacked proof that the plant's nozzles were leaking in violation
of its license.
Although the documents show the NRC staff was uneasy with
aspects of their bosses' decision, they ultimately concurred, and
in hindsight say it was the right call.
"We can argue this, but this agency does not take
precipitous action to shut down a nuclear plant because we have a
suspicion of something without enough evidence to warrant it,"
said Brian Sheron, who, as an associate director in the NRC's
office of nuclear reactor regulation, helped lead the staff
evaluation of Davis-Besse. "If we were in the same situation
again, we'd probably make the same decision" to allow them to
operate until Feb. 16.
Vulnerable nozzles
The 69 steel-alloy nozzles, or tubes, that pierce the lids of
reactors at Davis-Besse and similar nuclear plants are crucial to
the reactors' operation. The 5-foot-long nozzles are points of
entry for control rods whose insertion slows down the nuclear
reaction in the reactor's core.
While allowing the rods to move in and out, the nozzles
also must act as a barrier to prevent the corrosive,
high-pressure coolant inside the reactor from escaping. The
nozzles' circular, half-inch-thick walls are made to withstand
the radioactivity, 605-degree heat, and more than one
ton-per-square-inch pressure in the reactor's core.
Cracks in the nozzles are not a new issue; the NRC and
the nuclear industry have known for more than a decade that the
metal the tubes are made of is vulnerable to the wrenching
stresses of reactor operation.
Before 2001, the nozzle cracks that had been found were
small, up-and-down, or axial, flaws that weren't considered an
immediate safety threat. There was some concern that, given
enough time, the cracks might spread far enough to weaken an
entire nozzle and create a situation in which the reactor's
pressure could pop a nozzle from the lid like a giant champagne
cork, damaging control rods and sending a geyser of thousands of
gallons of coolant upward.
But the NRC's thinking was that any such crack would leak
coolant onto the reactor's lid early enough, and in a large
enough amount, that inspectors would spot it long before such an
accident was likely. The agency notified reactor operators in
1997 to be extra-vigilant for such leaks because they are a
violation of a company's license to operate and require immediate
shutdown for repairs.
Everything changed in the early months of 2001, when
workers found a new and more dangerous kind of nozzle-cracking at
two South Carolina reactors.
These slits were bigger than before, and spread
horizontally around the outside diameter of the nozzles,
weakening more of the metal than the vertical cracks had, and
heightening the threat of nozzle ejection. Worse, these so-called
circumferential cracks had allowed only a small amount of coolant
to seep out, raising doubts about how quickly they would be
noticed.
With the new findings, the NRC was worried that nozzle
cracks could be happening more often and growing faster than
previously thought. On Aug. 3, 2001, the agency took the unusual
step of issuing a bulletin to all utilities with
pressurized-water reactors like Davis-Besse.
The information-seeking bulletin asked companies whose
reactors had run as long and as hot as the South Carolina ones -
and who had not done recent, thorough nozzle checks - to provide
reasons why they should be allowed to run past Dec. 31 without
inspecting.
Davis-Besse was in this high-risk category. On Sept. 4,
the plant's owner, FirstEnergy, responded to the NRC's bulletin.
The company didn't intend to shut down and inspect by Dec. 31, it
told the agency; inspections in 1998 and 2000 had shown no signs
of nozzle leakage, and if the reactor had cracks, FirstEnergy's
estimates were that it would be years before they became a
problem. FirstEnergy said it would inspect Davis-Besse during its
regularly scheduled refueling shutdown in April 2002.
FirstEnergy had other, as yet unstated, reasons for not
wanting to halt early. An extra shutdown to inspect the nozzles
would expose workers to more radiation than if the inspections
and refueling were combined, a concern the agency generally
shared. And an unscheduled shutdown would force the company to
scramble to arrange for personnel to do the specialized work.
According to an NRC document, FirstEnergy estimated the cost of a
21- to 24-day shutdown for nozzle inspections at $35 million.
But the company's reassurances that Davis-Besse was safe
to operate until April weren't good enough, the NRC staff told
FirstEnergy officials Sept. 28 in a phone call. The agency was
open to new information, but at the same time it began drafting
an order to compel a shutdown.
Initial versions of the order, written in October, called
for the company to idle the reactor immediately - as required by
its operating license - to protect public safety.
With the intent of dealing reasonably with FirstEnergy
and several other utilities that were reluctant to perform the
unscheduled nozzle inspections, the NRC rewrote its order. The
revision set a Dec. 31 deadline, giving reactor operators time to
prepare.
"We can justify today to shut these plants down," wrote
John Zwolinski, the NRC's director of licensing project
management. "However, we are exercising discretion. It would
clearly be punitive to immediately shut a plant down and they sit
there for a month waiting to obtain the correct inspection
equipment, etc."
Looking out for the economic interests of nuclear plant
operators shouldn't be a concern of the agency charged with
overseeing them, say critics Lochbaum and Gunter. "You're not
allowed to use economic considerations to justify safety," said
Lochbaum. Added Gunter: "The NRC adopted the role of encourager
of regulations rather than enforcer of regulations."
Some senior staffers predicted the agency's generosity
with the shutdown date would get it into trouble. By giving the
plants more time, and arbitrarily setting a Dec. 31 deadline
instead of immediate closure, the NRC would open the door to
challenges from utilities to run longer.
"If we state that Dec. 31, 2001, is acceptable, then we
will get into an argument regarding the basis for concluding that
. . . 90 days later is not acceptable for Davis-Besse, and that
becomes a no-win situation for us," Allen Hiser of the NRC's
engineering division wrote in an e-mail.
Lochbaum and Gunter call this decision the NRC's
fundamental mistake. "Once the NRC proposed Dec. 31 as the
shutdown date without a technical basis for that date being
critical, they were completely unable to defend that position,"
Lochbaum said. "The NRC was unable to force anyone to do
anything."
Basic differences
The NRC's struggle with FirstEnergy played out throughout the
autumn. The agency and the utility met in person or via
teleconference or exchanged written information more than 25
times from September to December.
The two sides remained far apart on the basic issues.
FirstEnergy contended it was not a high-risk plant; the
government said it was, based on its age, operating temperature,
and the poor quality of its recent reactor lid inspections. They
also disagreed about how fast a crack would grow and when it
would lead to an accident.
The company believed a crack would take four years to
destroy a nozzle; the NRC calculated 18 months. And because the
entire industry had little experience with the phenomena, neither
side could marshal hard facts.
The inspection results were especially problematic.
The company insisted its 1996, 1998 and 2000 examinations
of the reactor lid proved that the nozzles were not leaking and
therefore not cracked.
But the NRC staff had reviewed the same records and had
profound doubts about FirstEnergy's conclusions.
The four nozzles at the very top of the lid were obscured
by insulation and a layer of dried chemicals from coolant leaks
elsewhere. Since the company had not cleaned away the buildup in
several years, the agency argued, the residue would mask evidence
of any nozzle leaks.
The NRC learned in mid-November that an inspection of a
similar reactor in South Carolina had turned up dangerous
circular cracking in one of the same uppermost nozzle locations
that Davis-Besse hadn't closely checked.
FirstEnergy persisted on the inspection issue and offered
to fly to agency headquarters in Rockville, Md., with videotapes
of its three previous inspections and to "walk through" them with
the NRC staff.
"We will be severely criticized if we don't keep the
communication channels open," deputy nuclear regulatory research
director Jack Strosnider e-mailed a colleague. "I don't think we
can say no."
The NRC staff accepted the offer. But the same week
FirstEnergy officials were touting the tapes to Strosnider and
colleagues, its executives had to admit under questioning by an
independent NRC advisory panel that the 1998 and 2000 tapes were
inadequate to identify nozzle leaks.
"In many cases, some of the [nozzles], you couldn't even
get a good view of," FirstEnergy engineering manager David Geisen
told the panel. "So what it really comes down to [is] the best
video we have on this goes all the way back to 1996."
Even after viewing the tapes, the NRC staff remained
convinced that shutting down Davis-Besse by Dec. 31 was
necessary.
In pressing its case, FirstEnergy didn't limit its
efforts to the NRC staff, and it didn't work alone. On Oct. 11,
soon after the staff revealed its concerns about Davis-Besse,
four FirstEnergy executives showed up at NRC headquarters to
brief aides to the agency's governing board. With them was Roy
Lessy Jr., a veteran nuclear utilities lawyer, a partner in the
nation's 10th-largest law firm, and former deputy chief counsel
for the NRC.
Lessy didn't speak during the session, but his presence showed
the company's intent to play hardball, Gunter said. According to
a meeting summary, the First Energy executives requested
"additional dialogue" before the agency shut their plant down.
They complained that the NRC staff wasn't giving the company the
technical data upon which they were basing the Dec. 31 shutdown
decision, as due pro cess required.
"The [FirstEnergy] manage ment stated their intent to
take whatever action is necessary," the NRC summary noted.
The statement wasn't meant as a threat, just a message
that the company was entitled to see the NRC's methodology, said
spokes man Richard Wilkins. "We wanted to analyze it to see if
there were any problems. The burden of proof was on the NRC."
Actually, the company didn't have a formal plan to appeal if the
agency ordered an early shut down, a FirstEnergy spokesman said
last week. But the NRC didn't know that.
The day after the Oct. 11 meet ing, Darrell Roberts, the
techni cal assistant to NRC Chairman Meserve, asked staffers in
an e- mail, "Are we encouraging the di alogue between
[FirstEnergy] and the staff in efforts to resolve the noted
discrepancies between their assumptions and ours be fore we take
an action?"
In an unsigned response, the staff replied that since
inspectors at Davis-Besse's sister plants who had looked for
nozzle cracks had found them, "the staff is unaware of
information that would change the staff's view on the scope and
timing of the next in spection" by Dec. 31. But they promised the
chairman's office they would continue to listen to what
FirstEnergy had to say.
Less than a week later, Guy Campbell, at the time vice
presi dent of FirstEnergy's nuclear di vision, phoned the head of
the NRC's reactor regulation office to ask for the staff's
calculations on how fast nozzle cracks might grow. Campbell said
the work sheets were important to First Energy's argument for
staying open.
On Nov. 5, as the NRC staff readied the information FirstEn ergy
was seeking, an assistant to NRC Commissioner Jeffrey Mer rifield
inquired, "Will the staff provide [FirstEnergy] with time to
review the staff's technical as sessment for potential errors or
misunderstandings?"
Shutdown nears
After yet another meeting three days later between the NRC staff
and FirstEnergy officials, Campbell stopped Jack Stros nider,
deputy director of the of fice of nuclear regulatory re search.
While arguing against the early shutdown, Campbell seemed to
acknowledge the very reason it was necessary.
Campbell "pressured me to un derstand why Davis-Besse
wasn't good to operate until April," Strosnider wrote in an
e-mail, re counting their conversation. "I told him that based on
the oper ating experience, there is a high likelihood that they
have leaks he agreed."
By mid-November, documents show, FirstEnergy was running out of
arguments and the NRC staff was finalizing the shutdown order.
All but one of the other utilities that had balked at shut ting
down by year's end had com plied. And more cracked nozzles were
being discovered.
In discussions on Nov. 14 and 15, NRC staff members told
FirstEnergy they still intended to order a shutdown for
inspection and suggested that the only way for the company to
operate until April was to prove some how that Davis-Besse "is
unique or can be distinguished from the inspection results from
the other high-susceptible facilities."
As FirstEnergy was working to come up with a way around
the shutdown order, the NRC brass was reviving concerns about how
enforceable the Dec. 31 date was. Sam Collins, head of the
agency's reactor regulation division, had approved the order's
final draft, and it was two days away from being executed when,
on Nov. 26, questions came down from the NRC's governing board.
"The staff's basis for the order is not entirely clear to
me," said Commissioner Merrifield's tech nical assistant, Brian
McCabe, in an e-mail to the executive direc tor's office. "The
Commission could be called upon to articulate the basis for the
[Davis-Besse] or der to stakeholders."
The staff's answer was the same as it had been throughout
the fall: Nozzles at similar plants were cracked and leaking, and
there remained a "high likeli hood" that Davis-Besse had the same
problem. "The safety issue is the driving force for the pro posed
DB order," the response said.
But the next day, when First Energy offered a compromise plan
with a Feb. 16 shutdown date, NRC staff and managers quickly went
along. By Nov. 28, the deal was struck.
"I would love to have seen the plant shut down by Dec.
31," the agency's Sheron said later. "Did I have a basis to do
it? We have to be able to present hard evidence of imminent
safety and health dangers to the public. I didn't have any. I had
a suspicion, a concern. I had to temper that with information."
And what was nuclear watch dog Gunter's take?
"FirstEnergy called the NRC's bluff."
All along, because of the basic uncertainties of the
Davis-Besse situation, the NRC had weighed its decision of
whether to let the plant continue to run against five key safety
guidelines. Those guidelines were supposed to en sure that any
heightened risk from delaying the nozzle inspec tions wouldn't
pose an undue threat to the public.
FirstEnergy's original intent to operate until April 1
failed four of the five guidelines. By the NRC's own analysis,
never made public, the last-minute compro mise still failed four
of the five guidelines even though it took into account the
extra safety measures Davis-Besse pledged to take to curtail the
risk entailed by running until Feb. 16.
The NRC staff learned that some of those measures weren't as
risk-reducing as FirstEnergy portrayed them to be.
Lowering the reactor's operat ing temperature by 7
degrees from December to February to slow the rate of crack
growth was supposed to drop by 16 percent the risk that a nozzle
would rup ture and damage the core. But the agency's analysis
showed that, over only two months, the effect of the temperature
drop was negligible.
And the "dedicated" operator FirstEnergy said would operate vital
emergency coolant pumps in the event of a nozzle-rupturing
accident turned out to be a rotat ing group of workers without re
actor-operating licenses who also had other duties outside the re
actor control room.
"I can't imagine that this would result in a significant in
crease in safety," NRC risk anal yst Gareth Parry concluded nine
days after the agency's deal with FirstEnergy was finalized.
To accept FirstEnergy's prem ise, the NRC would have to
be lieve that unlicensed workers "who may have been working at
McDonald's last month" made the plant safer than trained re actor
operators, Lochbaum said. "It would be laughable if the stakes
were not so high."
But by the time those concerns surfaced, the deal was
done.
© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
© 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
7 Davis-Besse: Leaking nozzles
The Plain Dealer
Ohio News
08/04/02
Documents tracking how federal regulators dealt with possible
leaks at FirstEnergy's Davis-Besse nuclear plant show:
The NRC staff was nearly sure nozzles in the reactor's lid were
cracked, leaking and a potential hazard.
Recent inspections were unreliable for disproving leaks.
Davis-Besse's sister plants had cracked nozzles.
FirstEnergy resisted NRC's Dec. 31, 2001, inspection deadline,
preferring to run until April 1.
Against its own guidelines, the NRC agreed to let the reactor run
to Feb. 16 - with what were found to be cracked nozzles.
© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
© 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
8 Events in Davis-Besse reactor inspection postponement
The Plain Dealer
Ohio News
08/04/02
November 2000-April 2001: Cracked and leaking reactor lid nozzles
found at four nuclear plants in South Carolina and Arkansas. The
cracks in South Carolina are a type not seen before.
Aug. 3, 2001: Nuclear Regulatory Commission issues a bulletin to
all pressurized-water reactor operators warning that the nozzle
cracks pose new safety concerns. NRC asks high-risk plants,
including Davis-Besse, to inspect nozzles by Dec. 31, 2001, or
justify reasons for wanting later inspections.
Sept. 4, 2001: Davis-Besse owner FirstEnergy notifies NRC it
intends to run the reactor until April 1, 2002. The company says
past inspections showed no leakage signs, and it estimates that
any nozzle cracks would take several more years to reach critical
size.
Sept. 28, 2001: NRC tells FirstEnergy the company has given
insufficient reasons to delay nozzle inspection three months past
the NRC deadline, and that Davis-Besse should shut down by Dec.
31.
October 2001: Although still giving FirstEnergy chances to argue
its case, the NRC staff begins preparing an order requiring
Davis-Besse to shut down. Early drafts of the document demand an
immediate halt to reactor operations, but by Oct. 31 the agency
decides to give the plant until Dec. 31.
Oct. 11, 2001: FirstEnergy officials and their lawyer meet with
representatives of the NRC's five-member governing board. The
company insists Davis-Besse is safe to run until April and says
it will "take whatever action is necessary" to obtain the
technical basis on which NRC staff is basing its shutdown
decision. Throughout October, FirstEnergy gives NRC staff
additional technical information of its own to support its case.
Nov. 8, 2001: FirstEnergy officials meet with NRC staff to
re-review past nozzle inspection results and to get NRC's take on
crack growth rates. NRC's position remains that safety concerns
preclude operating past Dec. 31. After the meetings, according to
an NRC staffer, FirstEnergy executive Guy Campbell agrees with
NRC that there is a high probability of leaking nozzles at the
plant.
Nov. 9, 2001: In a meeting with the NRC's reactor safeguards
advisory panel, FirstEnergy officials acknowledge that videotapes
of 1998 and 2000 nozzle inspections likely are inadequate to spot
evidence of nozzle leaks.
Nov. 14, 2001: NRC staff reiterates to FirstEnergy officials
during a teleconference that Davis-Besse probably has multiple
nozzle cracks, and that the company's additional evidence to the
contrary is not enough to persuade the agency that a delayed
shutdown is OK.
Nov. 21, 2001: NRC Executive Director William Travers informs the
agency's board of the staff's intent to issue the Davis-Besse
shutdown order within five working days.
Nov. 27, 2001: FirstEnergy proposes compromise shutdown date of
Feb. 16, 2002, and promises to take other actions to reduce the
risk of continued operation.
Dec. 4, 2001: NRC formally accepts the Feb. 16 compromise, even
though the decision fails most of the agency's five key
principles of decision-making.
December 2001: Later in the month, after NRC approves
Davis-Besse's delayed shutdown, staffers learn that some of the
extra actions FirstEnergy pledged to take would not significantly
reduce the risk of operating the reactor with cracked nozzles.
Feb. 16, 2002: Davis-Besse reactor shuts down for normal
refueling and inspection of the nozzles. Workers discover 24
cracks in five nozzles, including 10 cracks that were leaking.
March 6, 2002: While repairing one of the cracked nozzles,
workers accidentally discover that leaking boric acid has eaten a
5-by-7-inch hole through the 6½-inch-thick reactor lid.
FirstEnergy later estimates that the nozzle in question had begun
cracking in 1990 and had begun leaking between 1994 and 1996.
© 2002 The Plain Dealer. Used with permission.
© 2002 cleveland.com. All Rights Reserved.
*****************************************************************
9 Ukrainian nuclear reactor shut down for major repairs
Sunday, August 04, 2002
AP World Politics
KIEV, Ukraine - Operators shut down a reactor at the Zaporizhia
nuclear power station early Sunday for major repairs, news
reports said.
The generator at reactor No. 5 stopped functioning early
Saturday, but nuclear regulatory officials said the reactor was
stabilized within two hours, according to the Interfax news
agency. There were no reports of radiation leaks or other
problems.
Meanwhile, reactor No. 2 at the same power station is also
undergoing repairs. In May, flaws in the operating system in
reactor No. 2 caused it to shut down automatically, but officials
said no breaches in radioactivity limits or safety protocols
occurred.
The Zaporizhia plant, which operates six pressurized water
reactors, is Europe's largest atomic power facility.
Ukraine was site of world's worst nuclear accident in 1986, when
a reactor at the Chernobyl plant exploded, spewing radiation over
Europe. Chernobyl was closed down for good in 2000, but
disassembly works continue. (tv/jai)
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press.
*****************************************************************
10 Cooper at a turning point: Make big changes or shut down
Omaha.com
Published Saturday
August 3, 2002
*BY NANCY GAARDER*
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Report on the Cooper Nuclear Power Station
BROWNVILLE, Neb. - Tucked among the cornfields of southeast
Nebraska, Cooper Nuclear Station, with its future uncertain, has
the potential to affect pocketbooks statewide.
Mike Tackett, operations supervisor at the Cooper Nuclear Station
near Brownville, Neb., uses a simulator to demonstrate safety
procedures to visitors during a plant tour last month.
The Nebraska Public Power District, Cooper's owner, supplies
electricity to 91 of the state's 93 counties, and the success or
failure of Cooper will show up on countless electric bills. (The
Lincoln and Omaha areas are served by their own electric
utilities.)
Decisions earlier this week - settling hundreds of millions of
dollars in legal and financial disagreements with Cooper's
partners and contracting with a private firm to run the plant -
make the future clearer, but far from* *certain.
For Cooper to stay open, it will have to overcome problems that
have persisted for most of a decade.
Costs that are running about 18 percent above the nuclear
industry's average have been a drag on consumers' bills and have
alienated Cooper's partners. If NPPD can turn Cooper around, it
stands to gain millions of dollars. If it can't, it stands to
lose millions.
The problems confronting Cooper are myriad: Federal regulators
have ranked Cooper as one of the poorest performing plants in the
country, although they hasten to add that it is operating safely.
Constant churn among upper management has made it difficult for
the plant to chart a solid course. And an inability to do the job
right the first time has pushed costs up so much that Cooper's
power is no longer competitively priced.
"It's a complicated situation," said longtime board member
Darrell Nelson of Oconto, "and everyone wants a simple answer."
NIMBY fan wrote: I don't like living near nuke plants, and should
a accident happen you don't know who to believe, the plant says
one thing, the NRC sez another, and the gov't sez something else,
case in point 3- mile Island, everyone said something differant.
Omaha World-Herald: Midlands
*****************************************************************
11 Cooper Nuclear fights for survival
Omaha.com
Published Saturday August 3, 2002
*BY NANCY GAARDER*
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Report on the Cooper Nuclear Power Station
BROWNVILLE, Neb. - It was only a test.
But if the drill at Cooper Nuclear Station had been real, people
living nearby could have been exposed to radiation because crews
did not recognize the deteriorating condition of the reactor's
core.
Federal inspectors pointed out the 2000 mistake, and the drill
was run about eight months later. Again, the same error.
The fact that workers made the same mistake twice is the kind of
thing that has landed Cooper in hot water with federal
regulators. At other nuclear plants, the error might have been
made once but not twice, said Elmo Collins of the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission.
For nearly a decade, Cooper has been unable to shed itself of
problems. A revolving door of senior managers has made that
nearly impossible. Costs have gone up. Lawsuits have crippled
planning.
This week brought the first good news in a long time. Old
lawsuits, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, were settled
among the plant's three partners. Those suits also threatened any
new partners. The Nebraska Public Power District's partnership
with Lincoln Electric System and MidAmerican Energy Co., which
has been the basis for running Cooper for nearly 30 years, was
dissolved.
Cooper, which had been at risk of closing in 2004, has been left
to stand or fall on its own.
"Now we can make our decisions simply on the basis of what Cooper
costs and what's good for our customers," said NPPD board member
Larry Kuncl, a former nuclear executive at NPPD. "We're committed
to making Cooper an economical resource. But if we can't do that,
if Cooper can't compete, then shutdown is still a possibility."
New management, in place about 10 months, has been asked to turn
the NPPD-owned plant around in two to three years. Among the
problems it must overcome:
Poor performance - The inability to solve problems has given
Cooper the lowest grade a nuclear plant can have and still
operate. Problems range from simple human error to inadequate
engineering. Federal regulators say safety is not at issue.
Management - Excessive turnover and other managerial problems
have undermined efforts to improve the plant.
Money - NPPD cannot afford to operate Cooper if it cannot find
new buyers for power that will become surplus in 2004, when
MidAmerican Energy's contract for power from the plant ends. To
attract buyers, Cooper will have to cut costs or sell power at a
loss.
Other costly choices are closing the plant or selling it. Any of
this could affect rates.
*Low marks from the NRC*
Fred Petersen has a lot of sympathy for the folks running Cooper
Nuclear Station. He can remember the days when Cooper was one of
the top-rated nuclear plants in the country. He also can remember
when his plant, Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, was on the ropes.
"So many things are cyclical," said Petersen, head of the Omaha
Public Power District. "Cooper is going through a bad stage and
they're having problems. It hasn't been that long that they were
one of the top-ranked plants in the country. There is no question
in my mind that they can do that again."
In 1988, federal regulators placed Fort Calhoun* *on what was
then the NRC's watch list of troubled plants.
"We made a decision we were going to get off that list, and we
were off it in a year," Petersen said. "It was very difficult,
but I know it can be done."
Problems with emergency preparedness is what has gotten Cooper
Nuclear Station in trouble with federal regulators.
The NRC has launched the most thorough inspection it can
undertake. It says Cooper has management problems across the
plant. "We're very concerned," said Collins, NRC regional deputy
director for reactor projects. "Cooper has had difficulty getting
their arms around things and moving on."
But federal regulators and others are quick to say the plant is
safe. There's a large cushion between its low grade and an F.
"It is not an indication the plant is unsafe to operate. It's
just indicating the safety margins have eroded," said Breck
Henderson, NRC spokesman.
Scott DeRosier, who has worked seven years at Cooper, has no
worries about safety. DeRosier, his wife and four children live
about 13 miles from Cooper. "I don't think I'd work there if it
wasn't safe," he said.
Most likely, the NRC inspection will lead to costly changes,
rather than a shutdown.
Asked if he felt good about the way the review was going, Michael
Coyle, Cooper's site vice president, said: "I don't know if
'feeling good' is the way I would describe it. We've made
progress, but there is an awful long way to go. We can't be
thinking there is going to be a quick solution to this. This is
going to take some time."
*Four managers in six years *
Coyle and David Wilson can tick off reasons Cooper is struggling:
Excessive turnover in management. An inability to solve problems.
An insular attitude toward the industry. A lack of engagement
from senior management. Poor communication with federal
regulators.
Coyle and Wilson were brought in last year from an outside firm
to help run the plant. The two work for Nuclear Management Co., a
nonprofit company that soon may take over Cooper's operating
license.
Turnover can be seen in the parade of plant managers. In the past
six years, Cooper has had four.
DeRosier, a reactor operator, has seen that churn first hand.
"Every time you get a new one, a new set of priorities happens
and the organization has to change," he said. "It's been kind of
hard from manager to manager to stay on top of what really needed
to be done."
Cooper's problems should not be seen as an indictment of the
general work force, said Wilson, vice president for nuclear
energy. "This is as good a work force as any top-performing plant
in the country," he said.
Bill Mayben, NPPD chief executive officer, attributed some of the
turnover to Cooper's relatively isolated location. It has been
difficult to hire and keep qualified people. Also, it has been
hard to find good jobs for the career-minded spouses of Cooper
employees.
Years of uncertainty over a plant's future can undermine its
focus. That NPPD hasn't committed to keeping Cooper open for the
long term has some significance, said a former nuclear executive
for NPPD.
"You have to be absolutely dedicated to running a nuclear plant
to the highest standards," said John Swailes, NPPD's former vice
president of nuclear who now works for the U.S. Department of
Energy in Hanford, Wash. "A corporation that is having difficulty
deciding whether to run it or not is one that has not made up its
mind to run it to the highest standards."
An inability to solve problems is universally cited as one of
Cooper's chief shortcomings.
"We think we've got problems corrected," said NPPD board member
Gary Thompson, "when in fact, we really haven't done what's
necessary."
Some of that may be due to the loss of most of the engineering
department in the 1990s when the staff was moved from Columbus to
Brownville. About 80 percent of the 81 engineers who were asked
to move either quit or changed jobs within NPPD. Even though the
engineers were replaced, their institutional knowledge couldn't
be.
Mayben and others say moving the engineering department was the
right decision, but he describes it as a "major contributor" to
Cooper's problems.
An underlying problem, Coyle and Wilson said, has been that
senior management at NPPD didn't stay connected enough to the
plant, relying instead on the nuclear station's executives.
"A significant factor in why (other plants) have been more
successful," Coyle said, "is that their senior management has
been more engaged in the day-to-day operations."
That lack of engagement, they said, has changed "dramatically."
Management also had allowed the plant to become too isolated from
the rest of the industry.
"What that means," Coyle said, "is that as the rest of the
industry continues to improve in performance, then Cooper
station's performance began to lag."
To bring Cooper into the industry fold, NPPD's board this week
authorized negotiations to transfer the plant's operating license
to Coyle's firm. As proposed, NPPD would retain ownership of the
plant and control of the budget.
A number of people hope that Nuclear Management can help in a
number of ways, including Cooper's apparently rocky relationship
with the NRC.
"We have not done as good a job as I think we could," Mayben
said.
Coyle described the interaction that he found between Cooper and
the NRC when he arrived last year as "not very healthy."
"The regulators were really frustrated," he said, "with trying to
really understand what was going on at Cooper."
*Why Cooper's costs are so high *
A cash cow.
That could be Cooper's future.
Thursday, NPPD cut a $58 million check and paid off Cooper's
original $500 million debt. That action alone will immediately
lower Cooper's costs. And, for seemingly pennies on the dollar,
the plant could be upgraded to produce possibly 15 percent more
electricity, which could bring in millions of dollars.
For some time, though, Cooper has been anything but affordable.
A three-year rolling average indicates that Cooper's costs have
run about 18 percent more than the typical U.S. nuclear plant,
said Mayben. Cooper's rolling average for the years 1998-2000 was
$23.60 per megawatt hour, compared with an industry average of
$20. Fort Calhoun's cost was $22.20.
If Cooper can get its costs down to the industry average, Mayben
said, NPPD would be better off running it than building a
coal-fired plant.
Cooper costs more for several reasons:
The plant's maintenance outages take longer than average, which
means that Cooper is not only not making money for NPPD, it is
costing the utility money. The plant's refueling outage in 2001
lasted 59.5 days - more than the 42 days planned, and well above
the industry average of 37 days.
Those extra days cost NPPD millions of dollars in lost revenue.
And because the outage didn't go as smoothly as desired, NPPD
spent millions more than it had planned.
Cooper is off line or running at reduced power at more than twice
the industry average. In 2001, the average capacity factor, a
measure of productivity, was 90.7 percent for the industry.
Cooper operated at 76.4 percent.
Cooper has more employees than it would need if it were running
properly, say NPPD executives, although layoffs aren't being
contemplated as a way of cutting costs. Cooper needs its staff,
Wilson said, to build up good standing with the NRC.
Resolving troubles with federal regulators has cost at least $4
million already and will cost substantially more.
And a plan to keep employees from leaving the plant will cost at
least $25 million.
Reducing the plant's down time is the key to making Cooper
financially more competitive, NPPD officials said. And that is
essential, Mayben said, if Cooper is going to find buyers for its
electricity in 2004 when its contract with MidAmerican expires.
The market is promising, Mayben said. More than 20 utilities have
expressed a credible interest in buying power from Cooper, he
said. Those bids have come in lower than Cooper's current
production costs, but Mayben says they are within the plant's
reach. Until then, NPPD will use money from its reserves to help
carry Cooper.
*The trouble with closing *
It's the bogeyman lurking in the closet.
If costs can't be cut, Cooper could be closed. But closing a
nuclear plant isn't as simple or cheap as flipping a switch.
First, NPPD would have to find somewhere else to get the
electricity. A coal-fired plant to replace Cooper is estimated to
cost $900 million. That investment could boost rates.
Closing Cooper and buying replacement power from another utility
is another option, but that would mean NPPD relying on someone
else for as much as one-third of its power - something the
utility traditionally has shied away from.
And because the reactor building is radioactive and there is
currently no permanent home for spent fuel, shutting down the
plant raises the costly question of decommissioning it. No one
really knows how much that could cost, although estimates are
$400 million to $600 million.
The longer NPPD can keep Cooper open, the more time it has to
save money toward decommissioning. More importantly, the fund's
$300 million balance would have time to build up substantially
more interest.
If NPPD has to take action that increases rates, that would eat
into the state's competitiveness on the price of electricity.
Cheap electricity - Nebraska's wholesale rates are about 15
percent below the regional average - have been a selling point
for economic development.
Those who live nearest to Cooper have been watching the plant's
problems with unease. Should the plant shut down, the area's
economy would be devastated. Cooper provides among the highest
paying jobs in southeast Nebraska.
Ernie Goss, a Creighton University professor hired to analyze the
plant's impact, said it has an effect that ripples across the
state's economy. Goss estimates that closing the plant could cost
the state $700 million and possibly 3,800 full-time jobs.
The real test for Cooper, Mayben said, is going to be based on
its bottom line to NPPD.
"Where I find real heart is that the people at Cooper are
committed to making it work well. Cooper is a good station, it's
got good people working there and it can be good for NPPD."
Omaha World-Herald: Midlands
*****************************************************************
12 U.S. Searches for Missing Material
Las Vegas SUN
August 03, 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT- Federal agents are searching for a shipment of possibly
radioactive material unaccounted for after crossing the
U.S.-Canadian border at either Port Huron or Detroit in May.
Government inspectors first became aware of the missing shipment
about a week after it crossed the border, in early June,
officials said Friday.
Sensors to detect material at the border showed positive readings
when checked days after the truck apparently passed, the Detroit
Free Press reported Saturday.
White House officials said they were taking the missing shipment
seriously, but pointed out the material could have been for a
legitimate purpose, such as construction or medical supplies.
They also said sensors could have shown a false positive reading.
"There is no intelligence information that indicates this is
related to terrorism," said White House Office for Homeland
Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "We have no credible
intelligence that indicates al Qaeda or any other terrorist
organization has smuggled radioactive material into the country."
Department of Energy nuclear emergency support teams have been
searching Michigan and the northern Midwest, officials said.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
13 Local company fined for unreported use of radioactive materials
on ship
SignOnSanDiego.com
Navy vessel's welds were being checked
By Dana Wilkie COPLEY NEWS SERVICE August 2, 2002
Federal regulators have fined a San Diego company $6,000 for
failing to tell them it was using radioactive materials on a Navy
ship based here.
The company, Decisive Testing Inc., used a powerful and
potentially dangerous radionuclide to make sure the welding on
ships was sound. But the company did not notify the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission or pay the required $1,200 fee to conduct
the work.
The president of Decisive Testing, an industrial radiography
company that has operated in San Diego for 32 years, said his
company was aware of the NRC requirements. President Michael May
said an associate intended to tell authorities about the work
after it was performed, which the NRC does not allow.
Decisive Testing examines the integrity of the welding in
everything from golf clubs to airplanes. Between January and
March 2001, the company was inspecting welds on the
Constellation, an aircraft carrier that was at Pacific Ship
Repair & Fabrication Inc.
Decisive Testing uses iridium-192, a highly radioactive material
in the form of a hard pellet, to take a "picture" of a weld. The
iridium is encased in stainless steel. When the picture is taken,
the iridium is exposed, much as a shutter opens to expose film in
a camera. And much as an X-ray can reveal cracks in a bone, this
process can detect flaws in a weld.
The iridium can be harmful, or even deadly, if exposed for too
long outside its casing. The person conducting the test typically
takes the picture from as far away as 25 feet, using elongated
equipment.
Mark Shaffer, chief of the nuclear materials inspection branch
for the Texas-based NRC office that governs the West, said the
NRC insists on monitoring such work because several things can go
wrong: People might walk too close to the radiation, for
instance, or the operator may unknowingly leave the radioactive
pellet exposed long after the image is taken something he said
happens more often than his office would like.
"If they (leave the radiation) out for a day and someone's
standing right next to it, then you're talking about lethal doses
of radiation," said Shaffer, whose office ordered the fine in
early June. "If they do everything correctly and follow our
regulations, it's highly unlikely there would be a problem."
Regulators discovered the lapse during a surprise inspection of
Decisive Testing's offices in August 2001. "Without proper
notification, the NRC cannot conduct inspections . . . to assure
that (companies) . . . are conducting their activities safely,"
according to the NRC order imposing the fine.
Shaffer said a review of the company's work on the Constellation
indicated that safety precautions were followed and that no one
was exposed to radiation.
On a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being the most severe, Decisive
Testing's violation was considered a 3 by the NRC.
May is trying to convince the NRC that the $6,000 fine the
maximum imposed for such a violation should be lower because
his company has no history of serious or repeat violations. So
far, the NRC has rejected his arguments.
"We admit the individual had done this," May said. "What we're
saying is (the NRC considers) mitigating circumstances (and)
normally makes reductions for these reasons off the maximum fine.
They failed to do so."
May has appealed the NRC decision to a panel of NRC judges that
will hear his case. A hearing date has not been set.
© Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
*****************************************************************
14 City mulls pursuing nuclear zone aid
Boston Globe Online: Print it!
HAVERHILL
Designation may help in emergency readiness
By John Laidler, Globe Correspondent, 8/4/2002
The city is exploring whether to try to include a section of
Haverhill in a federally designated emergency planning zone for
communities within a 10-mile radius of the Seabrook nuclear
plant.
But Haverhill Emergency Management Director James G. Michitson
said he has decided against pursuing the inclusion of all of the
city in the zone in light of the cumbersome steps that would
require.
Under federal law, state governments are required to help
communities that lie within a 10-mile radius of a nuclear power
plant develop and implement plans for responding to a plant
emergency. Massachusetts provides that assistance to six
communities recognized as falling within 10 miles of the Seabrook
plant: Amesbury, Merrimac, Newbury, Newburyport, Salisbury, and
West Newbury.
About a two-square-mile section of north Haverhill, encompassing
the Rocks Village neighborhood, falls within the 10 mile radius
of Seabrook. But when the ''Emergency Planning Zone'' was
established for Seabrook prior to the plant's opening in 1990,
city officials apparently opted not to have that area included in
the designated area, according to Peter Judge, public information
officer for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA).
As a result, Haverhill does not receive any of the assistance
that the agency provides to the six participating communities.
That assistance includes the preparation and updating of
evacuation plans and participation in regular drills. The state
is also committed to providing buses to evacuate children and
other residents of a community in the zone should there be a
plant emergency.
Responding to recent concerns from residents about their safety
in the event of a terrorist-related incident at Seabrook,
Mitchitson recently investigated the idea of having all of
Haverhill, which encompasses 36 square miles, included in the
emergency planning zone.
''I've been getting a lot of telephone calls from citizens
wanting to know why we weren't included'' in the zone, ''and `do
you think we should be?''' he said.
But Mitchitson said he decided against pursuing the idea after
learning from a state emergency management official about the
cumbersome process that would be involved in including Haverhill
in the designated zone. He said he also concluded that the city's
own emergency plans were adequate to provide for the safety of
Haverhill citizens in the event of an incident at the plant.
Judge said to have the entire city included in the zone,
Haverhill would need approval from federal officials, starting
with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and probably the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And he said there are no instances
in which a community mostly outside a 10-mile radius was included
entirely in an emergency planning zone.
But he said Haverhill could apply to his agency to have the
section of the city that is within the 10-mile radius, or an
approximate area, included in the emergency zone.
Because the area is within 10 miles of the plant, including it in
the zone would be a much simpler process. He said if Haverhill
expressed interest, his office would sit down with city officials
''and see how we could make this work.''
Michitson, who was previously unaware of that possibility, said,
''I will definitely look and see if it's at all possible that the
Rocks Village area could be included in the evacuation zone.'' He
said even though the city has its own emergency plans,
''participating in their drills might keep us more aware of
what's happening.''
He said before making any formal request to the state, he would
confer with Mayor John J. Guerin Jr. and seek the input of
residents in that neighborhood. Sandra Gavutis, director of C-10
Research and Education Foundation, a Newburyport nonprofit group
that addresses health and safety issues related to the Seabrook
plant, said she supports the inclusion of all or part of
Haverhill in the emergency planning zone.
''We all know that radiation has no boundaries. If the prevailing
winds are blowing that way, certainly the city of Haverhill is at
risk,'' she said. Gavutis said that since last Sept. 11, her
office has received ''thousands of calls'' from residents from
around the region concerned about the potential of a
terrorist-related radiation release from the plant.
Alan Griffith, spokesman for Seabrook Station, said that like all
of the nation's nuclear plants, Seabrook has been on a high level
of alert since Sept. 11. He said the plant has taken a number of
steps to tighten security, such as adding security patrols and
expanding its security perimeter.
Griffith said the plant works with state, local and federal
officials on emergency response plans, but is not involved in
decisions about which communties are included in the emergency
zones.
This story ran on page N1 of the Boston Globe on 8/4/2002. ©
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
15 Is Missing Material Radioactive?
CBS News |
| August 3, 2002 17:52:51
[http://www.cbsnews.com]
(CBS/AP)
(AP) Federal agents are searching for a shipment of possibly
radioactive material unaccounted for since it crossed the
U.S.-Canadian border at either Port Huron or Detroit in May.
Government inspectors first became aware of the missing shipment
about a week after it crossed the border, in early June,
officials said Friday.
Sensors to detect material at the border showed positive readings
when checked days after the truck apparently passed, the Detroit
Free Press reported Saturday.
White House officials said they were taking the missing shipment
seriously, but pointed out the material could have been for a
legitimate purpose, such as construction or medical supplies.
They also said sensors could have shown a false positive reading.
"There is no intelligence information that indicates this is
related to terrorism," said White House Office for Homeland
Security spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "We have no credible
intelligence that indicates al Qaeda or any other terrorist
organization has smuggled radioactive material into the country."
Department of Energy nuclear emergency support teams have been
searching Michigan and the northern Midwest, officials said. ©
MMII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
©MMII, CBS Worldwide Inc, All Rights Reserved.
[http://www.cbsnews.com]
*****************************************************************
16 New details on latest leukemia victim in northern Nevada*
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
August 4, 2002
ASSOCIATED PRESS
8/2/2002 09:40 pm
The 16th victim of a baffling leukemia epidemic in northern
Nevada is a 2 1/2-year-old boy in a military family once
stationed at the Fallon Naval Air Station, officials said Friday.
The state Health Division, in releasing new details of the case
first confirmed July 28, also said the boy?s family lived in Navy
base housing while in Fallon.
The family will be interviewed as part of an ongoing probe into
the Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia cluster, state Epidemiologist
Randall Todd said, adding that results of testing by federal
agencies should be released in late summer or early fall.
Health officials have said that given an average rate of about
three childhood cases per 100,000 children, they?d normally
expect to see about one case every five years in the Fallon area,
which has a population of 26,000.
Of the confirmed childhood leukemia victims linked to Fallon
since 1997, two have died. Adam Jernee, 10, and Stephanie Sands,
21, died in 2001.
Scientists have been testing for potential environmental
contaminants since September 2001. Part of the probe involved a
jet fuel pipeline that serves Fallon NAS, where the Navy?s Top
Gun flight training is conducted.
In May, two federal agencies investigating the cancer cluster
ruled the pipeline out as a public health hazard. But scientists
from the University of Arizona continue to investigate jet fuel
as a possible cause of the leukemia.
In June, university researchers took core samples from trees
around Fallon. They also have taken tree samples in Sierra Vista,
Ariz., where seven children have been diagnosed with leukemia.
Like Fallon, Sierra Vista is home to a military airfield.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency?s National Health and
Environmental Effects Research Branch is due to begin a study in
August to determine whether long-term exposure to arsenic-tainted
drinking water has affected the health of Fallon-area residents.
Arsenic in the municipal water supply also has been tested at
about 100 parts per billion, well above the nationwide acceptable
arsenic standard of 10 ppb.
Fallon is due to begin treating its water for arsenic in 2003.
© Copyright Reno Gazette-Journal , a Gannett Co. Inc.
*****************************************************************
17 Byron nuclear waste may find new home*
By Tyler Vincent, The Journal-Standard August 04, 2002
Approval of Nevada site would allow transfer of spent fuel from
temporary storage at Illinois facility*
BYRON - About 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Nye County,
Nev., lies Yucca Mountain.
Unlike the isolated mountain ranges and desert that surround it,
Yucca has earned a growing notoriety in the past two decades as
the site for which the United States government has spent $4
billion researching the feasibility of permanently storing
nuclear waste from power plants from across the nation.
With the recent signing of legislation by President Bush clearing
the way, Yucca Mountain is slated to be open to the first
shipments of radioactive waste - license and court action pending
- in 2010.
Among the plants that may be feeding waste into the Nevada
mountain facility are the Byron Generating Plant, operated by
Exelon Corp., the parent company of northern Illinois electricity
provider Commonwealth Edison.
Don Kirchoffner, vice president of corporate communications for
Exelon, said the company operates the largest nuclear
power-generating fleet in the nation, and the third largest in
the world, with 17 nuclear reactors and 10 nuclear sites. These
include facilities near Clinton, Iowa and the Quad Cities,
Dresden and LaSalle in Illinois.
"(Yucca Mountain) means a lot to us, but it also means a lot to
the industry," Kirchoffner said. "You have to solve the problem
of nuclear waste. When you consider the need for a diverse fuel
mix and environmental issues such as global warming, nuclear
(energy) takes on an even further important role."
Bob Kartheiser, communications director for the Byron plant, said
while the details regarding the shipment of waste at the Byron to
Yucca Mountain will not be worked out for another five years,
"Three out of every four containers (of waste generated in Byron)
will be taken out by rail."
According to a story that appeared in the Las Vegas Sun, Energy
Secretary Spencer Abraham next year plans to unveil a "National
Transportation Plan" that will spur a national discussion about
specific waste routes and emergency planning. Rail routes from
Byron and other sites to the east passing through northwest
Illinois on their way to Yucca Mountain are among the
possibilities. Kartheiser said Yucca Mountain is slated to take
about 175 shipments of nuclear waste per year, or about one
shipment every other day.
*Growing national need*
According to the U.S. Department of Energy's official web page on
Yucca Mountain, the idea of storing nuclear waste there has its
origins in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. That piece of
legislation was designed to find a national "repository for the
disposal of high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuel,
to establish a program of research, development, and
demonstration regarding the disposal of high-level radioactive
waste and spent nuclear fuel, and for other purposes."
Once the mountain opens, waste will be delivered to the site
until 2110, when permanent closure will begin, leading up to the
complete repository closure in 2116.
"We have enough room (at Byron) to last until 2011," Kartheiser
said. Should Yucca Mountain not be open by then, he added, Exelon
officials will have to develop other options.
"What sites are doing now is, they are putting (waste) in
concrete containers," Kartheiser said. "They're in a steel case,
but they have concrete containers."
These containers are stored on-site until another site can be
found for the permanent disposal of the waste.
The type of waste that will come out of the Byron facility comes
from what are called fuel assemblies. Fuel assemblies are devices
12-feet high and nine-inches wide. Each assembly contains 264
rods and each rod contains 288 uranium fuel pellets.
Currently, spent fuel assemblies from both Byron reactors - which
Kartheiser said totals 1,610 containers or 685 metric tons of
waste accumulated since 1985 - are placed in an underwater
facility called the Spent Fuel Pool. The reason for the
containers being stored in this underwater facility is because
water is a good shield against radiation, Kartheiser said.
/©The Journal-Standard 2002/
*****************************************************************
18 Goshute, Envirocare N-waste debates merging
[deseretnews.com]
Sunday, August 4, 2002
By Amy Joi Bryson
Deseret News staff writer
Two distinctly different wars raging in Utah on the issue of
nuclear waste and its storage have started to merge at least
according to some of the soldiers.
On one front is the proposal to put a $3.1 billion nuclear
storage facility on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation
southwest of Salt Lake City.
Another battle pits anti-waste storage foes against the
Goliath Envirocare the state's current largest collector of
radioactive waste.
This week, Utah had its hands slapped by a federal judge
who told leaders to stop passing unconstitutional laws intended
to block the Skull Valley proposal.
Bolstered by that decision, Envirocare pulled out its guns
Friday in the other battle that over the constitutionality of
Utah's citizen initiative process.
Citing the federal ruling as the cause that gives them
more steam, Envirocare jumped into the legal fray over the ballot
process, urging the Utah Supreme Court to rule on the
constitutionality of an act they say targets them and would put
them out of business.
The anti-waste foes with an eye Envirocare says is
looking right at them have been trying to get the Radioactive
Waste Restrictions Act on the ballot before voters this fall.
That act, if approved, would substantially increase taxes
on any of the low level radioactive waste stored by Envirocare
and prohibit the nastier stuff from coming here at all.
The group collected more than 95,000 signatures across
Utah meeting the state's requirement that at least 77,000
residents sign the petition for ballot placement. However, it
failed to meet the second requirement, which mandates those
signatures must represent at least 10 percent of the registered
voters in at least 20 of Utah's 29 counties.
By law, the initiative came up short.
That two-pronged requirement to get an issue on the ballot
before voters is being challenged in Utah's Supreme Court by
initiative backers.
Late last month, the high court ruled it wants to hear
arguments over the constitutionality of the state's initiative
law resurrecting the prospect that the Radioactive Waste
Restrictions Act could very well wind up before voters after all.
After the federal ruling on Skull Valley, Envirocare urged
the court to decide if the act itself is unconstitutional, rather
than simply examining the ballot process.
Their argument: The federal court decision ought to make
it clear any efforts to interfere with nuclear storage efforts
are on shaky constitutional ground.
"This week's decision by the federal court should put any
lingering questions about the (Radioactive Waste Restrictions
Act) to rest. The initiative is blatantly unconstitutional under
both state and federal law on several grounds," Envirocare's
attorney, Jim Holtkamp said.
Holtkamp said the court should decide "all constitutional
questions" regarding the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act.
But, the attorney on the other team's side says any
decision like that would be premature and derail the process.
Although the Radioactive Waste Restrictions Act may be the
welcome beneficiary if the Utah Supreme Court happens to strike
down the state's initiative process the judges are not being
asked to rule on the merits of the RWRA.
"We don't believe this is procedurally appropriate at this
time," said Deno Himonas, an attorney representing RWRA backers.
"This is akin to asking the court to enjoin the
Legislature from voting on a bill because somebody perceives that
bill to be unconstitutional."
Himonas says the central argument is the flawed state law
governing what it takes to get a ballot issue before the voters.
"As it is presently written, the initiative statute is
unconstitutional," Himonas said. "It is kind of odd to ask the
courts to rule on the constitutionality of things that are not
yet part of the body of law."
Besides, he added, "We obviously believe the (act) is
constitutional and will pass constitutional muster."
E-MAIL: amyjoi@desnews.com [amyjoi@desnews.com]
© 2002 Deseret News Publishing Company
*****************************************************************
19 UP takes 'selective' look at possible nuke waste routes*
By HENRY BREAN, Managing Editor August 02, 2002
*August 2, 2002*
The story goes something like this: A few weeks ago, an official
from the Union Pacific Railroad visited Pahrump to check out the
topography and the availability of land here. What he wanted to
know was whether the valley could be used for a rail spur that
would connect existing track with what may become Union Pacific's
next big stop - Yucca Mountain.
The question is, did such a visit take place?
The answer: It could have, according to Mike Furtney, spokesman
for the railroad's western region.
Furtney said Union Pacific officials have been traveling to
numerous areas throughout Nevada lately as part of the railroad's
cursory look at possible routes for trains loaded with high-level
radioactive waste. He did not know if Pahrump was among the areas
visited recently, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was.
The visits are not surveys, official or otherwise. Furtney even
hesitated to refer to them as tours. Railroad officials are just
taking a "selective" look at Nevada so they will have a point or
reference when - or if - federal officials begin discussing the
transportation of nuclear waste to Nevada.
With votes in both houses of Congress and the stroke of the
president's pen last week, Yucca Mountain was chosen as the
permanent repository site for 77,000 tons of high-level waste
from 131 sites across the country. How the waste will get to the
Nye County site, roughly 20 miles from both Beatty and Amargosa
Valley, remains to be seen.
To date, Furtney said he knows of no request from the U.S.
Department of Energy for Union Pacific to begin looking at
potential rail routes. It's safe to assume, however, that such a
request may be made eventually, he said.
"As you know, there has already been an enormous amount of
discussion" about transporting waste to Yucca Mountain, "and
there will be a lot more discussion before a decision is made,"
said Furtney. "Anything in the universe is possible."
The closest Union Pacific presently comes to Pahrump is the line
that runs through Las Vegas. There has been talk previously of
running a spur from the existing tracks at Jean to Pahrump via
Sandy Valley, and then on to the repository from here. Another
scenario involves shipping waste via existing tracks to Caliente,
off-loading it onto heavy-haul trucks and driving it across the
Nevada Test Site to Yucca Mountain.
If federal officials opt for a transportation plan that involves
building more railroad tracks, it won't be cheap. Furtney said he
understands that it can cost as much as $1 million a mile to
build a new rail line, and that's over flat terrain and on land
already owned by the railroad.
Furtney said Union Pacific would need at least four years of lead
time to develop a network of rail lines to Yucca Mountain,
assuming federal officials decide to ship the waste by train.
"There's a possibility it won't be rail all the way (to the
repository)," Furtney said.
z Whatever happens isn't likely to happen soon. The U.S.
Department of Energy still must secure a repository license from
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and fight off lawsuits from the
state and other opponents of the project. The earliest that waste
shipments are expected to begin is 2010, and even that projection
is widely considered unrealistic.
Union Pacific owns 33,000 miles of track across the United
States, including 1,100 miles in Nevada.
/©Pahrump Valley Times 2002/
*****************************************************************
20 Unwelcome plutonium may already be in S.C.
Charlotte Observer | 08/03/2002 |
[http://www.charlotte.com]
Posted on Sat, Aug. 03, 2002 [story:PUB_DESC]
JENNIFER TALHELM
Staff Writer
The U.S. Department of Energy has begun shipping weapons-grade
plutonium from Colorado to the Savannah River Site near Aiken,
S.C., according to a Colorado official.
That almost certainly means at least one shipment of plutonium
has already arrived in South Carolina, said Sean Conway, a
spokesman for Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.
"Generally, the policy of the DOE is not to even acknowledge
shipments until they've arrived," Conway said.
Allard, a big backer of plans to close the Energy Department's
heavily polluted Rocky Flats nuclear plant near Denver, was
briefed about the shipments Friday morning by federal officials,
Conway said.
"To our pleasant surprise, we were informed that the shipments
had begun," Conway said.
The department said earlier this summer that the shipments,
vigorously opposed by S.C. Gov. Jim Hodges, could begin by June
22. But for security reasons, the department doesn't reveal when
it ships radioactive materials.
By the end of 2003, the department plans to move six metric tons
of plutonium to SRS, 160 miles southwest of Charlotte. The plan
was nearly the subject of a showdown in South Carolina in June
when Hodges vowed to lie down in the middle of the road to block
the shipments.
Hodges fears the plutonium will be stored in the state
indefinitely and wants the federal government to agree to a date
the substance will be removed.
The governor sued earlier this year, saying the department should
have halted shipments until it completed environmental studies
Hodges said weren't done. U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie
threw out the case, saying any delay would harm plans to close
Rocky Flats by 2006.
Hodges appealed to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and is
waiting for a three-judge panel to reach a conclusion.
Officials in the governor's office said Friday they hadn't heard
the shipments had begun.
"We don't expect to be told, and we haven't been told," said Hank
Stallworth, the governor's adviser on environmental issues. "The
governor's opposed to it, and he will continue to fight. We
haven't heard anything from the 4th Circuit, and depending on
what we hear, we'll proceed."
Currie's move June 18 effectively opened the door for the Energy
Department to begin shipping plutonium unimpeded to South
Carolina.
In all, 34 metric tons of plutonium will be sent to SRS. There,
the department plans to turn it into mixed-oxide fuel, which will
be used in Duke Power's Charlotte-area nuclear reactors.
U.S. Rep. Lindsey Graham, R-Seneca, also was not informed of the
shipments, said his legislative director, Aleix Jarvis.
"The Department of Energy had announced their intention to ship,
and the court cleared the way to ship," Jarvis said. "We wouldn't
be surprised if they had begun."
Experts have said the plutonium headed for SRS will be moved in
heavily guarded caravans along undisclosed routes.
Environmentalists and anti-nuclear proliferation groups fear the
shipments are risky. The trucks could be hijacked by terrorists,
the groups say, or they could get in an accident and expose
people to plutonium.
A government analysis says the risks from plutonium in the hands
of terrorists have been exaggerated, however.
Charlotte.com
*****************************************************************
21 Editorial: Another report tells of danger at Yucca
Las Vegas SUN
August 02, 2002
Yucca Mountain is not getting any safer as more scientific
papers are published. It's an attractive subject for scientists,
whose research is stimulated by the federal government's vision
of Yucca as the burial ground for the nation's high-level nuclear
waste. Previous papers have documented groundwater contamination
and earthquake risk. Now we're hearing more information about the
danger posed by volcanoes.
In a July report, scientists with the American Geophysical Union
wrote about the seven dormant volcanoes within 27 miles of Yucca.
If they were to erupt, lava could fill Yucca's tunnels and burial
vaults within hours, the scientists wrote. If eruptions take
place within the next 10,000 years -- the minimum time the waste
would need to become harmless -- radioactive waste could reach
the surface after the lava's intense heat cracked the canisters
containing it. The report says the chances of this are remote --
the last eruption was 80,000 years ago. Yet, there is a chance.
The report is one more reminder that those who insist the
mountain will be safe for such concentrated storage of Earth's
most dangerous substance are wrong -- dead wrong.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
22 Dry storage urged for Plymouth waste
Boston Globe Online: Print it!
DUXBURY
Official says 'spent fuel' OK as is
By Emily Shartin, Globe Staff Correspondent, 8/4/2002
Worried that the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth may
present a tempting - and potentially devastating - terrorist
target, a group of residents is calling for a new method of
storing old fuel that it believes would be less vulnerable to an
attack.
Pilgrim's ''spent fuel'' - nuclear rods that no longer produce
enough energy to sustain a reaction - are stored in a protected
pool of water at the Manomet plant. Led by activist Mary Lampert,
a group of Duxbury residents would like the system replaced by a
dry storage method, which involves placing rods in containers and
partially burying them in the ground. The residents are
circulating a petition calling for the installation of dry
storage at Pilgrim, which they estimate could cost from $40
million to $60 million.
But local and federal officials do not believe the current
storage method is dangerous. David Tarantino, a spokesman for
Entergy (the company that owns the plant), says the pool is
protected by about 8 feet of concrete and steel and is safe. Dry
storage is sometimes used at nuclear power plants when the pools
become full, but not for safety reasons.
''It's just not necessary at Pilgrim station,'' Tarantino said.
Neither Tarantino nor a spokeswoman for the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission could say how much a dry storage installation might
cost. Both said stations with dry storage systems still need
pools where rods can cool down before they are packed into the
containers.
Pilgrim stores about 2,000 bundles of rods, Tarantino said, each
measuring 12 feet in length. Eventually, the station intends to
begin transporting spent fuel to the Yucca Mountain site in
Nevada, which was recently approved as a nationwide repository
for radioactive waste. If the fuel is not transported to Nevada,
Pilgrim might need to install dry storage as its pool fills up,
Tarantino said.
But a handful of Duxbury residents who attended a meeting Tuesday
are still worried about the Pilgrim plant's vulnerability if, for
example, a plane were to crash into it. Andre Martecchini, a
Duxbury selectman, said he hopes to educate more residents about
the plant without being an alarmist.
''Most people, I don't think, really understand why the plant is
vulnerable,'' Martecchini said.
Lampert argues that the plant's spent fuel rods could release 10
times more radioactivity than the reactor, and believes that
alone should convince federal officials to pay for a dry storage
system.
''Somehow that should ring a bell to find the money to do this,''
she said.
Emily Shartin can be reached by e-mail at eshartin@globe.com [
eshartin@globe.com] .
This story ran on page N1 of the Boston Globe on 8/4/2002. ©
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
23 No way to contain the waste
CON / Yucca Mountain /
[http://www.sfgate.com]
Rebecca Solnit [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com]
August 4, 2002 -->
The country sits up and pays attention when there are rumors that
al Qaeda may detonate a dirty nuclear bomb here, made out of a
few pounds of nuclear waste. But how many Americans know anything
at all about Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada, the proposed
destination for most of the nation's high-level nuclear waste --
77,000 tons of the deadly stuff?
Now that the U.S. Senate has voted in favor of this proposal, it
marks the first step in a long process whereby the waste may
ultimately be shipped through 43 states, within half a mile of 50
million Americans -- barring a victory for one of the dozen or so
lawsuits recently filed.
The question is not whether there will be accidents, but how many
and how severe they will be. The state of Nevada's own estimate
is 90 to 590 accidents, but whether they will be in
little-populated areas or in big cities such as Sacramento,
Denver or Portland cannot be predicted. Estimates of deaths from
cancer -- should a terrorist incident or accident produce a
worst-case scenario in a populated place -- go as high as 4,300.
That's for one incident, not 590 of them. The Chernobyl nbuclear
plant accident in 1986 demonstrates that there is no such thing
as adequate cleanup once the stuff is released.
When the waste gets to Yucca Mountain, it will be placed in an
earthquake- prone mountain with a recent history of volcanic
activity. Many independent geologists consider the proposed dump
not just a gamble but almost a certain route to contamination of
the water table over the hundreds of years that the waste remains
most radioactive.
Pro-dump advocates say that Yucca Mountain is remote, but it's
near the California border, the Colorado River and the biggest
tourist destination in the country, Las Vegas. In worst-case
scenarios, the mountain goes critical because of design flaws or
becomes a terrorist target -- and in that case, no one in the
Northern Hemisphere may be far enough away.
The original plan for a national nuclear waste dump was to begin
with a study of several sites and then selection of the most
scientifically sound location. But the other two states with
sites under review -- Washington and Texas -- exercised their
political clout to be dropped from consideration. In the end,
only one site -- Nevada's -- was studied, making a farce of the
original goal of comparison and selection of the most suitable.
The rules were changed again and again to keep Yucca Mountain an
option. Originally, the mountain was supposed to contain the
waste, but Yucca Mountain cannot reliably do that for the 10,000
years such containment requires. So the proposal was changed to
make the disposal casks themselves provide the containment. The
mountain was selected for its aridity, but research demonstrates
that water percolates through its fractured rock and will oxidize
the containers. The solution? Umbrella-like "drip shields" atop
the waste casks.
Furthermore, the Environmental Protection Agency had to write
special standards -- not so far removed from exemptions --
because the release of carbon-14 from the waste dump would exceed
the agency's own standards. And the Department of Energy's own
"suitability guidelines" require that groundwater from such a
site could not travel faster than a given rate, but that rate was
rewritten to keep Yucca Mountain in the running as the dump site.
Yucca Mountain has been promoted across the nation by the nuclear
power industry as the safest, "not-in-my-backyard" initiative.
Those who live near nuclear power plants have been led to believe
that the Yucca Mountain site will rid their areas of the
radioactive risk posed by the old waste. In fact, removing the
old nuclear waste from the power plants will only allow the
operators to keep producing waste. This means that the whole
nuclear cycle continues, and far more Americans will have nuclear
waste in their backyards during the decades that the stuff is
shipped across country by truck and train.
What the nuclear industry doesn't want you to know is that if
Yucca Mountain doesn't open, the future of nuclear power is in
trouble. As one activist said, "They'll literally choke to death
on their own waste."
Anti-nuclear activists would like to see the waste stay where it
is for the time being. The stuff will be less radioactive and
safer to transport in a few or several decades, and by then,
scientists may develop a more sensible means of disposing of
77,000 tons of the deadliest matter on Earth.
"Safe" has always been just a hopeful ideal for material that
remains radioactive for up to a quarter of a million years. A
bomb in your living room isn't safe because it hasn't detonated
yet. Putting these tons of radioactive garbage in a mountain
doesn't make them safe now or in the future.
Las Vegas is full of gamblers with bumper stickers that say "I'm
spending my children's inheritance." The bumpers of the trucks
that will carry tens of thousands of loads of nuclear waste to
Yucca Mountain should read, "We're gambling with the inheritance
of our children and grandchildren and countless generations after
them."
Rebecca Solnit is a San Francisco writer and activist who sits on
the board of Citizen Alert, the Nevada organization fighting the
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page D - 5
*****************************************************************
24 Yucca Mountain: A pragmatic solution to storing nuclear waste
PRO / Yucca Mountain /
BORDER=0> [http://www.sfgate.com]
Stuart Rojstaczer [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com]
Sunday, August 4, 2002 -->
Imagine that you proposed marriage and your beloved replied yes,
but on one condition: The marriage would have to be guaranteed
free of problems on Earth and in the world beyond. Even a fool in
love would see the impossibility of wedding bells given this
hurdle.
Last month, the U.S. Senate voted on an issue where the
conditions for approval ostensibly required maintenance-free
bliss for an eternity: storage of nuclear waste inside Nevada's
Yucca Mountain. The waste, composed primarily of spent fuel rods
from commercial nuclear power plants, needs, at a minimum, to be
isolated for 10,000 years, by which time many of the dangerous
radionuclides it contains will have decayed.
The senators realized what everyone in the business of nuclear
waste storage knows: No one can guarantee safe storage of this
material anywhere on Earth over the time span required. This is
admittedly depressing. We have created dangerous materials, yet
we cannot fully ensure their safety. But we cannot throw our
hands up and do nothing. We as a society need to store this
material as safely as possible.
Thankfully, the Senate was not looking for guarantees of
perfection in its decision to approve storage of nuclear waste at
Yucca Mountain. In its approval, the Senate used something not
often seen in political circles: plain old common sense. The
Senate decided that the advantages of storing waste in a
centralized facility outweigh the disadvantages. And the
disadvantages are considerable: Currently, spent nuclear fuel
rods are stored on-site at power plants. These facilities were
never intended to hold this waste for as long as they have. Draw
a 30-mile radius around each of these 70-plus storage facilities
and you've encircled a large percentage of the nation's
population, including portions of the New York, Philadelphia,
Chicago, and Los-Angeles/San Diego metropolitan areas.
But the battle about where to store waste did not end on the
Senate floor last month. Over the next several years,
environmental groups and the state of Nevada will file lawsuits
to block storage at the Yucxca Mountain site. The U. S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission must provide final approval subject to the
exposure guidelines established by the EPA. If the NRC and the
courts try to apply the standard of guaranteed safety for a
virtual eternity, then Yucca Mountain will undoubtedly fail to be
approved. Hopefully, future regulatory and legal decisions will
be as pragmatic as the one made by Congress.
Yucca Mountain is not a perfect place to store waste. But there
is no perfect place. It's inevitable that problems will occur no
matter where the waste is stored. The most likely problem at
Yucca Mountain is groundwater contamination. Sometime over the
long life of the facility, rainwater will corrode the waste
canisters and dissolve radionuclides. The radioactive water will
reach the water table and contaminate nearby and perhaps distant
water supplies.
When will this contamination occur? Will the concentration of the
dissolved radionuclides be dangerous to our descendants?
Unfortunately, science cannot answer these questions. Predicting
the fate of groundwater contamination over time spans of
thousands to tens of thousands of years is a lot like trying to
predict the weather several years in advance.
If a perfect solution is impossible, what should be our criteria
for a rational choice for storing radioactive waste? While we
cannot predict the state of the world 10,000 years from now, at a
minimum, we need to expect that we can keep this waste out of
harm's way for a few centuries.
This is where Yucca Mountain comes in. Many have noted its
imperfections, but given that billions of dollars have been spent
on investigating this site, it's inevitable that flaws would be
found. None of them has been a showstopper.
The facility will be in contact with more rainwater than
originally thought, but the amount of water is a fraction of that
found in most of the United States. There are
earthquake-producing faults in the region, but the possibility
that these earthquakes will impinge on the security of the
facility is remote. Volcanoes have erupted in geologic time, but
none are active today.
Some have claimed that transporting the wastes to Yucca Mountain
is a "mobile Chernobyl" waiting to happen. This notion is a
canard. Unlike liquid and gaseous toxic chemicals, routinely
transported in railroad tank cars through the towns and cities of
our country, the spent fuel rods are metallic solids that will be
moved in crash-hardened railroad cars.
Moving beyond the flaws, there are obvious advantages. Yucca
Mountain is 90 miles away from a major population center. It
adjoins the existing high security Nevada Test Site, and can be
protected from terrorists. The mountain is stable, assuring that
we will be able to monitor, and if necessary retrieve, the waste
for decades to a century after its emplacement.
Yucca Mountain is, in fact, a compromise between a centralized
surface storage facility advocated by some and an irretrievable
geologic disposal at great depth preferred by others. This is a
unique facility and there will likely be problems that come to
light perhaps only decades into its operation. The design of the
Yucca Mountain site allows for continuous monitoring and
maintenance; should we store waste there, we need to be vigilant
about both.
Many have argued that we should not use Yucca Mountain and wait
in the hope that some day a technological solution will arise
that guarantees eternal safe storage of waste. This is wishful
thinking. We have been looking for magic pills to solve the waste
problem for 50 years. None have been forthcoming.
Decades of science and politics have led this country to Yucca
Mountain. Science and engineering have provided partial
assurances as to the safety of this site. Additional research and
time will not, however, yield a guaranteed solution. In an
imperfect world, Yucca Mountain is a reasonable answer.
Stuart Rojstaczer is a professor at Duke University and visiting
scholar at Stanford University. He has worked on issues of water
supply and contamination, primarily in the West, for more than 20
years.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page D - 5
*****************************************************************
25 New storage urged for Pilgrim waste
Boston Globe Online: Print it!
By Emily Shartin, Globe Staff Correspondent, 8/4/2002
Worried that the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth may
present a tempting - and potentially devastating - terrorist
target, a group of residents is calling for a new method of
storing old fuel that it believes would be less vulnerable to an
attack.
Pilgrim's ''spent fuel'' - nuclear rods that no longer produce
enough energy to sustain a reaction - are stored in a protected
pool of water at the Manomet plant. Led by activist Mary Lampert,
a group of Duxbury residents would like the system replaced by a
dry storage method, which involves placing rods in containers and
partially burying them in the ground. The residents are
circulating a petition calling for the installation of dry
storage at Pilgrim, which they estimate could cost from $40
million to $60 million.
But local and federal officials do not believe the current
storage method is dangerous. David Tarantino, a spokesman for
Entergy (the company that owns the plant), says the pool is
protected by about 8 feet of concrete and steel and is safe. Dry
storage is sometimes used at nuclear power plants when the pools
become full, but not for safety reasons.
''It's just not necessary at Pilgrim station,'' Tarantino said.
Neither Tarantino nor a spokeswoman for the US Nuclear Regulatory
Commission could say how much a dry storage installation might
cost. Both said stations with dry storage systems still need
pools where rods can cool down before they are put in the
containers.
Pilgrim stores about 2,000 bundles of rods, Tarantino said, each
measuring 12 feet in length. Eventually, the station intends to
begin transporting spent fuel to the Yucca Mountain site in
Nevada, recently approved as a nationwide repository for
radioactive waste. If the fuel is not transported to Nevada,
Pilgrim might need to install dry storage as its pool fills up,
Tarantino said.
But a handful of Duxbury residents who attended a meeting Tuesday
are still worried about the Pilgrim plant's vulnerability if, for
example, a plane were to crash into it. Andre Martecchini, a
Duxbury selectman, said he hopes to educate more residents about
the plant without being an alarmist.
''Most people, I don't think, really understand why the plant is
vulnerable,'' Martecchini said.
Lampert argues that the plant's spent fuel rods could release 10
times more radioactivity than the reactor, and believes that
alone should convince federal officials to pay for a dry storage
system.
''Somehow that should ring a bell to find the money to do this,''
she said. Emily Shartin can be reached by e-mail at
eshartin@globe.com [ eshartin@globe.com] .
This story ran on page S1 of the Boston Globe on 8/4/2002. ©
Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
*****************************************************************
26 Nevada voices: What is the single most important issue facing Nevada?*
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
RGJ.com August Giveaways
August 4, 2002
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
8/3/2002 10:26 pm
?Putting nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, but I don?t think
fighting it will get us anywhere. I think it?s a done deal but it
would be nice not to have it here.?
/Kerri Verhey, 33, housewife and former accountant from Reno/
?The loss of revenue in gaming because we?re losing it to (Indian
gaming in) California. I still think it?s our main source of
income and there?s just a ripple effect. You?re talking about
restaurateurs, suppliers, just the whole economy.?
/Mindy Sipin, 45, blackjack dealer at the Eldorado Hotel-Casino/
?Yucca Mountain. It?s inevitable, but I think it?s an opportunity
for Nevada to reap some benefits instead of relying on tourism
and gambling. Maybe we could sell storage space and charge the
other states or the companies for storing it here.?
/Lance Barney, 50, owner of Lance Barney Surveying in Fernley/
?Our statistics are very high concerning suicide rates for the
elderly and teens, but the state spends the least amount of money
for the elderly and teens. We also still have the highest divorce
rate, so I think family issues are the most important.?
/Karen Shubinski, 43, owner of Faces by Karen/
*****************************************************************
27 Planned NFS Erwin Operation Would Release ?Small Amounts? Of
Radioactive Items, NRC Says *
*125 West Summer Street - Greeneville, TN - (423) 798-0545*
By: /By BILL JONES/Staff Writer/
Source:/ The Greeneville Sun /
08-03-2002
An ?environmental assessment? issued by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) on July 9 indicates that a proposed new
operation at Erwin-based Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc., will result
in the release of ?small amounts? of both chemicals and
radioactive materials to the atmosphere.
The environmental assessment indicates that the NRC expects ?no
significant impact,? from approval of a request for amendments to
Nuclear Fuel Services?s ?materials license? to allow construction
and operation of a uranyl nitrate storage building on the NFS
site in Erwin, and to increase the amount of Uranium 235 that can
be stored there.
The requested license amendments, according to the environmental
assessment, are part of preparations by NFS eventually to
implement a Blended Low-Enrichment Uranium (BLEU) project.
NFS had announced earlier plans to turn 33 metric tons of
bomb-grade uranium into fuel for Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)
reactors at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant in Athens, Ala.
The BLEU Project is part of a Department of Energy program to
reduce stockpiles of surplus high-enriched uranium through reuse
of low-enriched uranium, thus converting weapons grade material
to a form unsuitable for nuclear weapons and addressing a nuclear
proliferation concern.
Because the BLEU Project supports the production of nuclear
generated electric power for public use, NFS will have to comply
with a more stringent public dose constraint. To address the
change, NFS has submitted revised dose assessment methods for NRC
review.
NFS is located about a half-mile southwest of Erwin corporate
limits, and lies near the Nolichucky River, the source of
drinking water for those residing in and around Greeneville and
Jonesborough.
Counties within the NFS ?Region of Influence,? according to the
NRC, include: Carter, Sullivan, Unicoi, and Washington. NFS
employs 52 residents from Carter County; 44 from Sullivan; 252
from Unicoi, and 264 from Washington County.
Radioactive Material Releases
If the BLEU project is implemented, the environmental assessment
indicates that the amount of uranium and thorium NFS now released
at the Erwin facility will increase about four or five times
current levels. The amount of plutonium and americium now vented
also would increase, the assessment says.
According to the NRC, hydrogen and nitrogen oxide emissions are
expected to nearly double with the addition of the proposed
Blended Low-Enriched Uranium Complex, or BLEU Complex.
This would put NFS in a position to exceed the amount of
effluents it is licensed to emit under its current air pollution
permit, and has prompted the company to seek a modification of
its permit for the main stack.
The modified permit had not been issued at the time of the
environmental assessment.
NFS plans to construct and operate three buildings as part of the
BLEU Project. Those include an Oxide Conversion Building,
Effluent Processing Building, and relocation of down-blending
operations within the NFS protected area in a BLEU Preparation
Facility.
The company will need NRC approval for three amendments to its
Special Nuclear Material license in order to carry out the
project.
According to NRC, substantial increases for uranium, thorium and
plutonium, attributable to the BLEU Preparation Facility, will be
sent to NFS?s wastewater treatment facility and discharged to the
Nolichucky River.
Storm-water runoff from the BLEU Complex will be independent of
runoff from the NFS protected area and will be regulated under a
separate stormwater discharge permit, which also had not been
issued at the time of the report.
The primary path for stormwater runoff is planned to be northwest
across the BLEU Complex and into culverts that empty into Martin
Creek. Uranium, thorium, and plutonium isotopes, and
Technetium-99 will be discharged to the sewer.
NFS has said it will discharge an estimated 6,300 gallons per day
of water to the sewer containing non-radiological constituents
such as arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury,
ammonia nitrate, fluoride, chloride, selenium, silver and other
materials.
The estimates do not include domestic wastewater volume,
considered to be about 10,000 gallons per day.
About 6 percent of the proposed 4.5-acre BLEU Complex
construction site contains soil with radionuclide concentrations
above background levels, or those naturally occurring. During
construction of the BLEU Complex, NFS said it will control the
contaminated dust by ?wet suppression,? or saturating it with
water, to ensure that workers do not receive excess exposures.
Operation of the BLEU Project is expected to produce radioactive,
mixed waste, nonradioactive hazardous and nonradioactive
nonhazardous wastes, according to the NRC.
The NRC found, however, that the added emissions of radionuclides
and non-radiological contaminants to air, water and soil ?pose no
significant impact to human health or the environment and do not
warrant the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement.?
Short Time To Seek Hearing
The NRC has given the public only until Aug. 9 (30 days from July
9) to request a hearing on the proposed NFS license amendment.
Requests for a hearing must be filed with the office of the
Secretary, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, either by:
? delivering a request to the Docketing and Service Branch of the
Office of the Secretary, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville
Pike, Rockville, MD 20852; and
? by mail or telegram addressed to the Secretary, U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission, Washington, D.C. 20555, Attention:
Docketing and Service Branch However, according to the NRC
requests for hearings on the proposed license amendment also must
be served, by delivering it personally, or by mail, to:
? the applicant, Nuclear Fuel Service, 1205 Banner Hill Road,
Erwin, TN 37650-9718; and
? the NRC staff, by delivery to the Executive Director for
Operations, One White Flint North, 11555 Rockville Pike,
Rockville, MD 20852, or
? by mail addressed to the Executive Director for Operations,
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC 20555.
Hearing Request Requirements
Requests that hearings be held on the license amendment request,
according to the NRC environmental assessment, must include:
? ?The interest of the requester (of the hearing) in the (NRC)
proceeding (on NFS);
? ?How that interest may be affected by the results of the
proceeding (granting amendments to NFS? materials license);
? ?The requester's areas of concern about the licensing activity
that is the subject matter of the proceeding, and
? ?The circumstances establishing that the request for a hearing
is timely ... .?
The request for a hearing ?also must set forth the specific
aspect, or aspects, of the subject matter of the proceeding as to
which petitioner wishes a hearing.?
Safety Evaluation Promised
The NRC promises that a separate safety evaluation, which will be
the basis for the approval or denial of NFS?s application to
build a uranyal nitrate storage building and to increase the
plant?s ?Uranium 235? possession limit, will be conducted.
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2002 Greene County Fair
© 2002 East Tennessee Network - R.A.I.D. (Regionalized Access Internet
*****************************************************************
28 Atomic plans returned to Japan
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific |
Saturday, 3 August, 2002,
Japan is the only country to suffer a nuclear attack
Documents hidden since World War II showing Japan's plans for an
atomic bomb have been returned to the country, according to a
newspaper report.
The widow of the Japanese scientist who had spirited the
documents out of the country after the war has given them to a
Tokyo research institute, the Asahi daily says.
The 23-page dossier shows the Japanese army's plans for a
relatively weak atomic bomb - blueprints that were ordered
destroyed just before Japan's surrender in 1945.
The documents were instead secretly given to chemist Kazuo
Kuroda, who then left for the United States and died there last
year.
[A mushroom cloud rises over Nagasaki on 9 Aug, 1945]
Japan surrendered six days after Nagasaki
The documents, the newspaper says, could be a valuable addition
to the study of Japan's wartime history.
They show how far Japan got in trying to build nuclear weapons of
its own before the United States dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people
in August 1945 and forcing a surrender.
Weaker weapon
Kuroda, who was a professor emeritus at the University of
Arkansas before his death in 2001, kept the documents secret for
more than half a century.
His widow has sent the documents to the Riken scientific research
institute just north of Tokyo where Kuroda worked as a young man,
the Asahi newspaper reported.
A photograph published in the newspaper shows diagrams and
drawings of a bomb, together with text written by a military
officer who interviewed the scientist at the head of the atomic
bomb development team.
But the newspaper says experts who have examined the documents do
not believe the bomb would have been very powerful.
*****************************************************************
29 WAR AND REMEMBRANCE /Hiroshima, Mon Horreur /The day the sun rose twice
Helen Schary Motro [chronfeedback@sfchronicle.com]
Sunday, August 4, 2002 -->
Horrors often begin on what look like the best of days. As the jets streaked
through the bluest of skies, a brilliant sun shone into the airplane windows
upon the doomed passengers of Sept. 11. Fifty-seven years earlier, another
morning explosion marked humanity's trial run at destroying itself.
Sunrise had already come to Hiroshima at 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945, but the
fireball overhead was so blinding that the date became known as the day the
sun rose twice.
The significance of the world's first nuclear bomb does not lie in the
magnitude of its casualties. Actually, the number of victims from one single
night of intensive conventional American bombing on Tokyo equaled the 200,000
who would eventually perish from Hiroshima's explosion.
But its agony lived on. The insidious effects of radiation gnawed away at
blood, eyesight and nerves for decades. Thousands were afflicted with leukemia
or maimed for life. Survivors were terrified every time their children had a
nosebleed. Each blood count struck terror.
Victims too often became pariahs. Although the Japanese government has
declared there is no evidence that A-bombs cause genetic defects, controversy
still simmers. Second-generation Hiroshima children continue to face
discrimination when it comes to getting married; it is feared the bomb still
lurks in their genes.
Today, Hiroshima's population is over a million. The daily newspapers report
the standings of its baseball team in the national Japanese leagues.
But it can never be a normal city.
Peace Memorial Park stands at the center of the town, dominated by a skeletal
dome. On display is a Buddha whose stone face was melted by the bomb. Visitors
see the shadow of a man printed by the extreme heat into the stone step where
he had been sitting.
It was hard to win an atrocity contest in the 20th century. Contenders in the
crowded lineup included the wildly successful Nazi genocide, the Armenian
eradication at Turkish hands -- and the carbon copies which cropped up in
Cambodia and Rwanda. Lungs were burned out by nerve gas in the Argonne Forest
during World War I, and the same thing happened 75 years later to the Kurds in
Iraq.
What are the true numbers of those who perished in the Soviet gulag? In the
generals' campaigns in Argentina? The ink is still wet on massacres unearthed
in the Balkans.
Yet they only amplify an honored tradition. People have banded together to
create collective murder machines long before the Trojan War. War stories, war
games, war movies are a never-fail draw.
But the events of Aug. 6, 1945, started a unique new chapter. Since "Little
Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima and "Fat Man" on Nagasaki three days later, each
of us lives with the curse that humanity's time on Earth is no longer assured.
In 24 hours we could make our world as free of human life as Jupiter. The log
written by the captain of the American bomber plane contained one simple
sentence: "My God, what have we done?"
Most people alive today have grown up with the possibility of nuclear
annihilation. Paradoxically, as nuclear capability spreads, nervousness about
it seems to decrease. Hiroshima's mayor sadly calls it a lowering of
humanity's threshold.
Sept. 11 abruptly brought us back to people's limitless enthusiasm for
eradicating others of our species. And whether they resort to suicide missions
on commercial airlines, the ingenious dissemination of dread disease or
turning chemicals into mass poison, the specter of Hiroshima lurks as the
ultimate horror.
Meanwhile, as every year, the city of Hiroshima readies itself for the
anniversary. It should be memorialized worldwide. Remembering the grotesque
morning on which human beings made the sun rise twice may galvanize a
collective resolve to never broach that abyss again.
Helen Schary Motro, an American attorney and writer living in Israel, is a
columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
©2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page D - 2
*****************************************************************
30 Lawrence Livermore sees peaceful protest
Tri-Valley Herald
http://www.trivalleyherald.com/]
Sunday, August 04, 2002 - 2:54:07 AM MST
Over 200 rally against nuclear role, 54 arrested
By JOSH RICHMAN
STAFF WRITER
LIVERMORE -- Fifty-four people were arrested Saturday at the
gates of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory during a
peaceful protest of the lab's role in developing and maintaining
the nation's nuclear arsenal.
At least 200 more protesters cheered as some among them stepped
up in small groups and knelt or stood calmly while police clad in
riot gear warned them, then took them in wrist-locks and walked
them away to be cited.
"For us this is a matter of conscience, to make a state -ment
with our bodies that the activities of this laboratory are not
enhancing security -- they're making us less secure," said Phil
Klasky, 48, of San Francisco, moments before stepping forward to
be arrested.
"Stop the bomb where it starts" was slogan of the day's actions,
which started hours earlier with a protest rally downtown in
Carnegie Park.
More than 350 people gathered to hear music, share in- formation
and speak out against the Bush administration's nuclear policies.
Peter Ferenbach, executive director of Berkeley-based California
Peace Action, said the day's events were about "opposing the
holocaust we can all see coming" as the laboratory, at the Bush
administration's order, develops a new generation of nuclear
bombs more easily deployed as first-strike weapons.
"The members of the California congressional delegation need to
hear from us like they've never heard from us before," he told
the crowd, vowing his organization will help "to launch a
campaign of escalating pressure" against nuclear proliferation.
"The Bush administration is leading us toward unspeakable
horrors. Preparations are under way right down the street."
Former Oakland City Council member and mayoral candidate Wilson
Riles, who helped emcee the rally, said these weapons of mass
destruction have been created, tested and used in all Americans'
names: "We are the responsible ones."
Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal
Foundation in Oakland, told the crowd, "It's time to throw away
the idea of national security, and it's time to talk about human
security," every world citizen's right to live in peace and free
of fear. The rally moved midafternoon to Lawrence Livermore's
main south gate; some protesters marched the three miles, some
drove.
There, amid drumbeats, chanting and cheers, they faced a row of
helmeted California Highway Patrol officers. Those wishing to
risk arrest were allowed to pass between the CHP officers in
small groups, then halted before a row of Alameda County
Sheriff's deputies and University of California protective
services officers. After they refused to disperse, an officer led
each protester through the gate to be booked for blocking a
public roadway.
"The whole world is watching," other protesters chanted during
the arrests. Lab spokesman David Schwoegler called the rally a
"publicity stunt."
"People on both sides of this fence would like to see a world
where nuclear weapons are never used," he said, adding that while
the protesters believe the path to that world is through total
disarmament, the scientists of Lawrence Livermore believe it's
attainable through deterrence.
"They (the scientists) believe they're doing more for world peace
and reduction of the nuclear arsenal than anyone on the other
side of the fence," Schwoegler said. "The Soviet Union is no
more, and that's not because of people carrying signs."
©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
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31 U.S. rewards nuclear scientists
Tri-Valley Herald
[http://www.trivalleyherald.com/]
Sunday, August 04, 2002 - 2:54:06 AM MST
Patriotic ceremony lets Sandia staff know they are appreciated
By IAN HOFFMAN
LIVERMORE -- To the strains of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the
USA," the scenic majesty of a nation -- golden Alaskan sunrises
to the Minnesota lakes to hazy Tennessee hills -- unfolded on a
giant screen, interspersed with images of bald eagles, Stars and
Stripes, and U.S. soldiers, both at war and burying their dead.
At the bidding of Sandia National Laboratories nuclear weapons
chief Tom Hunter, a roomful of career weaponeers rose and
self-consciously murmured their way through the national anthem.
The absence of vocal vigor hardly marked a lack of emo- tion --
several dabbed at their eyes when the lights came up. Here at
Sandia, where people perform the hands-on engineering work of
maintaining the world's most sophisticated nuclear arsenal,
patriotism is never in short supply.
Since Sept. 11, however, patriotism among weaponeers has assumed
a new, inward fervor, redirected with official encouragement from
a monolithic but defunct Soviet enemy to the elusive attackers of
Americans at home.
Last week, a senior government nuclear weapons executive hailed
that patriotism repeatedly in a rare ceremony for awarding
"excellence" in weapons work.
David Crandall, deputy administrator of the National Nuclear
Security Administration, which oversees the nation's nuclear
weapons laboratories, told Sandians of a young acquaintance who
had worked in a World Trade Center tower and now suffers
survivor's guilt.
"It's the people who live who make the ultimate contributions,"
Crandall assured Sandia's engineers, technologists, chemists and
physicists. "You're the people who make the contributions that
make the nation strong.
"And there's no less patriotism in that than in giving one's life
for their country ... You are our heroes. We want you to
understand that you are highly valued, what you do is highly
valued."
The menace of the Communist Soviet Union that originally drew
many Sandia weaponeers to their jobs -- and defined the bombs
they engineered -- is nearly gone.
Its collapse and the limited horizons of weapons advances without
testing have diminished the attraction of fresh, young talent,
making the federal government anxious to communicate appreciation
for its aging weaponeers and keep them on board.
In the mid-1990s, government weapons executives dusted off the
"nuclear weapons awards of excellence" and began doling them out,
more than 100 a year. Weapons scientists are uniquely barred from
the professional rewards of reporting on their work in public.
They publish in classified journals and secret government
reports, but otherwise they rarely get recognition.
To hear Sandians, they were pleased to get their awards and stand
with Crandall and lab executives for photographs, but all the
pomp was hardly necessary.
"The real award is knowing that people who do this kind of work
are fundamentally patriots to the core -- even if you don't get a
ceremony," said Steven L. Robinson, a materials scientist whose
team won an award for measuring and modeling radiation effects on
U.S. nuclear warheads.
"I think 9-11 just brought things so much closer to home," said
veteran engineer Al Baker, who led studies driving toward an
improved nuclear earth penetrator.
Mechanical engineer Jack O'Connor's team performs work so
sensitive that he must be careful what he reveals to other
Sandians. He almost never discusses it in public.
The very name of his team -- the W80 Plastics and Materials
Implementation Team -- is meaningless code. "Plastics" had
nothing to do with it. The team found new, fairly inexpensive
ways to keep unauthorized persons from detonating the
thermonuclear warheads inside cruise missiles launched by U.S.
Air Force and Navy aircraft.
Such "use control" or "use denial" information, designed to
ensure only the president and his constitutional successors can
authorize a nuclear attack, is among the government's most prized
nuclear secrets.
O'Connor will not discuss it, of course, but scientists and
engineers have thought of many ways to prevent unauthorized
detonations, including encryption-based Permissive Action Links
or PALs that reportedly can lock down or disable a weapon if
someone feeds in the wrong codes for operating it.
O'Connor's team worked to integrate new ideas economically, then
had to check with weapons physicists at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory to be sure the new schemes would not
interfere with the reliability of the weapon.
"To me, this job is really exciting. It's something I can think
about all the time. And all the people on the team are the same
way. We all care about the problem very much," O'Connor said.
"In my mind, there are people who would try to steal one of these
devices and try to detonate one in an American city, and that
would be unthinkable. How do you put a value on that?"
©1999-2002 by MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers
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32 Investigators say Berkeley scientist altered data to create new
element
Saturday, August 3, 2002
(08-03) 10:53 PDT BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) --
An investigation by four high-level scientists into the alleged
fabrication of two new elements has determined a well-respected
nuclear researcher was the sole person capable of the fraud.
Victor Ninov was the only scientist in the prestigious Lawrence
Berkeley Laboratory research group who had access to the original
data, and he announced a discovery in 1999 that proved false, the
investigators said.
"There is clear evidence to conclude that Dr. Ninov has engaged
in misconduct in scientific research by carrying out this
fabrication," wrote the four scientists, among them a former
Berkeley lab director and physicist Rochus Vogt of the California
Institute of Technology.
The investigators, however, also called it "incredible" that
research team members failed to double-check Ninov's claim they
had discovered a new element.
That negligence exposed "disturbing weaknesses in the operations
and dynamics" of the team, including a lack of the "continuous
vigilance" that is essential "to ensure (scientific) integrity,"
the review said.
The review, released Friday, was among three initiated by the lab
since the scandal unfolded. Ninov was fired in April as a result
of the findings, but has maintained his innocence.
"At no time did I knowingly engage in any form of
misrepresentation of data or scientific misconduct," Ninov wrote
in a letter to the lab's final review committee. "I stand by the
integrity of my research."
Scientific misconduct is extremely rare in the high-intensity
world of physics said Donald Kennedy, president of Stanford
University and editor of the journal Science.
The discovery of two new element, named 118 for the number of
protons in its nucleus, thrilled scientists around the world but
prompted suspicion when researchers in Germany, Japan and even
Berkeley could not replicate the results.
The lab team withdrew the findings in 2001.
[Buy The San Francisco Chronicle]
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