***************************************************************** 09/13/02 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 10.234 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POLICY 1 A complete waste of energy 2 Japan: Niigata scraps TEPCO pluthermal project 3 US: Price Anderson renewal 4 UK OP: Nuclear answer in British Energy 5 UK: What happens when government uses a privatised company for 6 US: Plutonium plant lawsuit to stay in federal court 7 US: Nuclear power law to live on 8 US: Laws push California to forefront on renewable energy 9 MITI turned blind eye on TEPCO 10 Iraq unable to get nuke materials, experts say 11 US: Nuke insurance plan set for renewal 12 Irish antinuclear activists set sail to intercept British ships - 13 US: Energy NW OKs new roles for top staff NUCLEAR REACTORS 14 Australia to put reactor on fault line 15 *Bruce Power fails to satisfy commission* 16 US: Telephone Access for Sept. 18 Davis-Besse Meeting 17 US: Dominion to replace cracked covers at two nuclear plants 18 Greenpeace bid to halt Lucas Heights construction fails 19 AU: Uncertainty over Lucas Heights reactor 20 Canada: Bruce Power fails to satisfy commission NUCLEAR SAFETY 21 US: Children born near nuke power plants have high strontium-90 22 US: NRC Proposes $3,000 Civil Penalty Against Puerto Rico Company fo 23 US: Round Two of K-I tablet distribution* 24 US: Mid-Columbia steps up security 25 Japan agency exposes nuclear safety breaches 26 Germ war scientists spread nuclear 'virus' 27 US: Gulf War Veterans Demand Iraq War Hearings 28 US: Radiation From Ship Not Nuclear 29 Gulf War syndrome 'not in the mind' 30 UK: 'Millions exposed' in 1960s experiments 31 200 Soviet nukes lost in Ukraine 32 US: Small step Pentagon finally acknowledgesnuclear production at 33 US: Office of Compensation Analysis and Support / NIOSH 34 Japan agency exposes nuclear safety breaches 35 US: Money transferred for flyover 36 US: Denied State Labor and Industry's Worker Compensation 37 US: Baby teeth studies reveal childhood radiation exposure - 38 US: Armed against nuclear terror 39 US: Government names contractor to determine radiation levels of 40 Radioactive gas released in tests NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE 41 US: Diablo Canyon, 45 miles from VAFB -nuke waste storage over 42 US: Nuclear-fuel route through city possible* 43 US: NRC questions 'troublesome omissions' on NFS project 44 US: Judge rejects lawsuit by dissident members of Skull Valley band 45 US: Dissident Goshutes' Suit Dismissed 46 Greenpeace target nuclear waste ships 47 Q &A: Nuclear fuel voyage 48 US: Libya wins Central African resource deal 49 US: Your Turn: Yucca Mountain is far from a done deal 50 Foreign Nuclear Experts Debate Russia's Future on the SNF Market 51 US: Cleanup of radioactive soil 30 percent complete at Dix 52 US: Editorial: Heavy dose of wishful thinking 53 US: Public can meet with NRC officials on Yucca 54 US: OP: N-waste storage is safe* NUCLEAR WEAPONS 55 The last emperor 56 India cool to Koizumi's call to curb nukes 57 Experts argue over evidence of Saddam's nuclear threat 58 US: Editorial: It?s time for Bush to make his case 59 Iraq Evidence Questioned; Recent Revelations Not New 60 Chinese Nuclear Forces to Grow, 61 SA to sign nuclear protocol 62 PRESSURING IRAQ: Making case against Hussein 63 Iraq rejects arms inspections US DEPT. OF ENERGY 64 Hanford moves 1st T Plant fuel 65 WorldNews: DOE Stops Lab Director Appointment 66 DOE Stops Lab Director Appointment* 67 SRS vies for new nuclear facility 68 Opinion - David Coffey: It's time to go nuclear 69 FFTF backers press for meetings OTHER NUCLEAR 70 Officials: Radiation From Nature ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** FULL NEWS STORIES ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** 1 A complete waste of energy [Guardian Unlimited] Rather than bail out Britain's chief nuclear generator with £410m, the government should close it down James Buchan Friday September 13, 2002 The Guardian [http://www.guardian.co.uk] Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission. For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity. Yet there remain in this country people who passionately believe that this obsolete, dangerous and wasteful industry should be maintained at public expense for a third generation. Last week the chief British nuclear generator, British Energy, persuaded the government to provide £410m in cash to save it from insolvency and allow it to continue. The battles that raged over nuclear power in the 1980s and 1990s are memories. The facts of the case are not in dispute. British Energy, which owns eight nuclear stations in England and Scotland ranging in age from seven to 26 years and has investments in reactors in North America, last year reported a loss of £518m. Despite the loss, it paid dividends to its shareholders. The British stations have always been troublesome and at least two reactors are out of commission because of problems with their cooling systems. They cannot generate electricity to cover everyday expenses. To survive, British Energy needs higher electricity prices, or cash from the government. Either way the public pays. The management's business plan, which included buying a coal-fired station far above its economic value, has been a failure. British Energy employs as many people - about 5,000 - as a medium-sized high street retailer. All these people, even senior management, could find work elsewhere in the engineering sector. Because British Energy's predecessor abandoned British technology for an off-the-peg US system for Sizewell B in Suffolk, there is not much British nuclear expertise to preserve or promote. The stock market values the UK business of British Energy, including the station at Sizewell B which cost over £1bn to build between 1988 and 1995, at nothing or less than nothing. In reality, British nuclear power stations are machines for destroying money. So why on earth has the government given British Energy cash to keep it going? After all, Railtrack was put into administration when it provides a service that nobody else can at present deliver. The over-supplied UK electricity sector can do without British Energy. By rescuing the weakest and least flexible company in the industry, the government prevents the market adjusting and penalises every other generator and the public. Since many of the other generators are US-owned, expect lawsuits. Ministers say that unless the stations continue generating there won't be enough money to deal with the highly radioactive spent fuel and take down the contaminated stations at the end of their lives. The argument, deployed by the British nuclear industry when it was clear that it could never be profitable, boils down to this: you lot are going to have to spend billions of pounds to clear up after us, so why not let us make you some money on the way? British Energy has estimated that the total cost of treating the spent reactor fuel, dismantling the reactors at the end of their lives and making the sites habitable will be some £14bn over the next half-century. These costs, it says, amount to about £5bn in today's money. It insists it will earn these sums during the lives of the reactors up to about 2030. Yet it is losing money, and will continue to lose money, so long the UK market has too much electricity, which could be a long, long time. On the other hand, if the stations are closed now, we will save the cost of making and disposing of 30 years of fuel, and drastically reduce the future cost of the clean-up. According to British Energy, a provision of £3bn, invested at a return of just 3% a year, will earn enough to meet all the costs incurred up to now. Think of it: no more demands for cash, no attempts to extend the lives of old stations, no hope of building a new one. In permitting the building of Sizewell B, the Tory governments of the 1980s and 1990s displayed an ignorance and frivolity that is almost unequalled. Yet even the Tory ministers recognised that Sizewell B was the industry's last throw. It has failed. All UK nuclear power stations should be shut down without delay. If the government is determined to spend £410m of our money, it should place it in a trust fund for dismantling the stations. Invested anywhere other than the nuclear power industry - even in agriculture, dammit - it will compound to meet decommissioning costs. Or they can be paid off from taxing a British public that will be far better off than if the nuclear industry were allowed to continue. James Buchan has written on nuclear power since the 1970s and is author of Frozen Desire: An Inquiry into the Meaning of Money (Picador) james.buchan@ukgateway.net [james.buchan@ukgateway.net] Useful links British Energy [http://www.british-energy.com/] Department of trade and industry [http://www.dti.gov.uk/] British Nuclear Fuels Ltd [http://www.bnfl.co.uk/website.nsf/default.htm] Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament [http://www.cnduk.org/] HSE nuclear glossary [http://www.hse.gov.uk/nsd/ilrwglos.htm] UK atomic energy authority [http://www.ukaea.org.uk/] National Radiological Protection Board [http://www.nrpb.org.uk/] World Nuclear Association [http://www.uilondon.org/] Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 2 Japan: Niigata scraps TEPCO pluthermal project Friday, September 13, 2002 at 09:30 JST NIIGATA ? Niigata Gov Ikuo Hirayama said Thursday that he has scrapped a plan for a Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) pluthermal power-generation project in the prefecture over a scandal in which the company covered up damage at its nuclear plants. The governor said TEPCO's falsification of records of cracks on its nuclear power reactor shrouds has damaged the credibility of the power company, which operates the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant on the Sea of Japan coast. (Kyodo News) Japan Today Discussion ***************************************************************** 3 Price Anderson renewal Committee Reaches Pipeline Agreement Las Vegas SUN September 12, 2002 By MATTHEW DALY ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON- House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Thursday on a plan to increase inspection requirements for the nation's aging pipeline network. The compromise clears the way for the pipeline safety provision to be included in a broad energy bill, although major disagreements remain over other parts of the energy package. It's final approval by Congress remains in doubt as Congress races toward adjournment this fall. Pipeline safety advocates have pushed for a bill regulating the nation's 2.2 million miles of pipeline since a 1999 explosion killed three people in Bellingham, Wash. An August 2000 explosion killed 12 people in Carlsbad, N.M., and two more people were killed in pipeline accidents last year. The agreement reached Thursday would require pipeline inspections at least once in the next 10 years and every seven years after that. Some pipelines in "high consequence" areas near large population centers would be inspected more frequently. The House and Senate negotiators also agreed on extending a 1954 law that limits the financial liability of nuclear power plant operators in event of a major accident. Attempts by Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., to include a series of measures aimed at increasing nuclear power plant security were defeated. Among the proposals was one to improved tracking and background checks on people who transport nucler material and another that would have required the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up its revamping of security requirements for reactors sites. The House defeated the Markey proposals after Senate negotiators argued the security measures were best dealt with as part of a Homeland Security bill. The 1954 law limits industry liability to $9.5 billion in any nuclear accident with the government picking up the tab costs above that. The pipeline agreement would increase fines for companies that violate safety laws, improve operator qualifications and provide whistleblower protections for employees who report problems. It also would allow state oversight of pipelines and authorize $100 million for research and development to improve pipe quality, materials inspection and security. At least $6 million would be set aside for local emergency responders to train and prepare for pipeline accidents. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., hailed the agreement and said Congress should push to ensure that inspections are done on a timely basis. "My priority is to see that the government works with industry to see that inspections and repairs are made quickly so we might never again see a tragedy like we had in Eddy County a few years ago," said Domenici. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., whose district includes Bellingham, said he was pleased Congress finally appeared ready to approve new pipeline safety requirements. "Year after year, pipeline safety improvements have been shot down by Congress. Finally, public interest is prevailing," he said. The House approved a pipeline safety bill in July, while the Senate approved a similar measure last year. Negotiators still must work out a host of other issues on the complicated energy bill before final votes are taken. -- All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 4 UK OP: Nuclear answer in British Energy This is Money /by Anthony Hilton, Evening Standard/ AGAINST the odds, the collapse of British Energy, the nuclear power generator, could turn out to be good news for the nuclear lobby. The Government has given the company a lifeline of two weeks' credit. Between now and 27 September it has to work out whether to seek a lasting viable solution for the business or settle for a short-term embarrassing and expensive bailout. Its problem is that a stable solution for the company is inseparable from the decision on whether the Government wants nuclear electricity at all. And it has been trying to avoid asking, let alone answering, that question since it came to power five years ago. If British Energy is to be salvaged and a viable long-term solution put in place, the nuclear issue cannot be fudged. The company produces a fifth of our electricity, which means that short term it has to be kept going, even if in the medium term the reactors could be switched off and we could buy more (nuclear generated) power from France - a solution probably too daft even for this Government. That rules out immediate closure. Letting things drift should not really be an option because it would mean a succession of bailouts and a long-term drain on the taxpayer. Inevitably, a host of further claims from bondholders and anyone else who thinks they have a chance would also come to the surface. So they - Government and industry - have two weeks to work out how to devise a rescue that makes economic sense and will stand the test of time. Some elements are easy. The company can be exempted from the greenhouse gas levy; its business rates bill can be reduced, and its contract with the State-owned British Nuclear Fuels for the reprocessing of spent fuel can be eased a bit. These three things would go a long way towards eliminating the loss, but - and this is the crucial point - they would not take it all out. The company would still be bleeding money and still heading for bankruptcy. So there needs to be something more to deliver the extra revenue that will restore the company to profit. Other generators avoid the pain of low wholesale prices because they do not pass the low cost on to their retail customers. This means they make higher retail profits which they use to offset their losses at the wholesale level. British Energy has no retail customers so it needs some other long-term contracts to do a similar job, giving it customers who will pay a price at which it can make a profit. It stands to reason that it will not get any such contracts unless it is given a lever with which to persuade electricity retailers to buy from it at above the spot market price. The tools for this already exist in the Kyoto accords to control greenhouse gas emissions. For example, If the Government were to say in its energy review to be published next year that by 2015 20% of electricity had to come from non-carbon sources and that nuclear was acceptable, customers would sign up because the low running costs of nuclear make it much cheaper than wind farms. The latter are guaranteed a price of £30 a unit against British Energy's production cost of around £20, and the current wholesale price of £16. One further problem exists. There needs to be a promise of security of supply if the contracts are to be attractive, but British Energy's plants are ageing - and security of supply in effect requires a promise to build new nuclear plants to replace the present lot as they reach retirement. This, of course, is exactly the clear commitment to nuclear power that the industry has long sought and Government has tried to avoid. But such a pledge could make the difference between the company having a bankable asset or bankruptcy. © Associated Newspapers Ltd., 13 September 2002 Terms and This Is London ***************************************************************** 5 UK: What happens when government uses a privatised company for political ends* Economist.com Economist.com ADVANCED SEARCH * Nuclear industry* *Fallout* Sep 12th 2002 From The Economist print edition BRITAIN'S electricity industry operates under a bracing regime. Energy shall be cheap, reliable, and from diverse, preferably renewable, sources. Generating companies must invest in new technology; neither their profits nor their losses are to be politically embarrassing. Investors interested in this thrilling prospect should please form an orderly queue. This week's £410m ($635m) government rescue of British Energy, the country's privatised nuclear power generator, was the inevitable result of the government's ill-formed energy policy. Only three weeks after saying, in mid-August, that it was ?not faced with an immediate credit crisis'', and despite £615m available for borrowing, managers asked the government for a bailout. Alamy *Used nuclear industry, several careless owners* The immediate cause of the crunch was management failure. British Energy's share price plunged after a flurry of bad news about financial and technical hiccups. But even if British Energy's bosses were the best in the business, they would still have suffered from an energy market rigged against them. The government cares chiefly about cheap power, which is popular with voters and businesses. Privatisation and liberalisation in the 1990s made the industry more efficient, revealing a lot of spare capacity?around 25% of peak winter demand. Rejigging the market rules last year pushed down prices further. The current wholesale price is £16 per megawatt hour, about £3 too little for the company to make a profit. That reflects the complicated legacy of privatisation and energy policy, which, in recent times, has encouraged the building of cheap gas-fired power stations, while leaving the nuclear industry with heavy extra costs. ?This structure could only survive if the electricity price stayed up. But the oil price has trebled; the gas price almost doubled, and the price of electricity has virtually halved,'' notes Dieter Helm, an Oxford-based energy consultant. ** British Energy's burdens are indeed heavy. Whereas competitors that burn gas, oil and coal get off the environmental hook lightly, the nuclear industry must pay £200m annually for its waste to be reprocessed, expensively, at Sellafield, the state-owned nuclear dustbin. That avoids finding a long-term dump to store it in, which would be unpopular, and keeps Sellafield's owner, British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL), afloat. Storing the old fuel, which is what nuclear power industries in most other countries do (see table), would be a great deal cheaper. One of the triggers for the collapse was the failure of British Energy's increasingly desperate attempts to negotiate a much cheaper deal on waste with BNFL. A second oddity is that British Energy has to pay the government's special tax aimed at reducing CO_2 emissions, even though it emits no carbon. The government justifies this curious imposition by arguing that the tax is designed to encourage renewable energy rather than to penalise the carbon-producers. It costs British Energy £80m annually. There are other handicaps too. Nuclear power stations pay higher rates (local taxes) than their conventional counterparts. And they also have to provide for huge future decommissioning costs. The government's short-term loan has now given managers and politicians a couple of weeks to try to sort out the mess. The bravest thing to do would be to let the company go bankrupt. Shareholders and bondholders would suffer, and the assets would go to whoever was willing to pay for them. But that course sounds risky to politicians. Although there is little real likelihood of even a flicker in the electricity supply in the next few years, alarmist headlines?and public worry?would be unwelcome, even if ungrounded. Arguments are raging about both principles and practicalities. The government, which has promised to publish a new energy policy later this year, is divided. A pro-nuclear lobby, mainly in the energy ministry, wants to prop up or even expand the industry?arguing, for example, that it is the most practical way of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. The antis think Britain's whole nuclear adventure has been an expensive mistake and that the industry should be run down as quickly and smoothly as possible. If British Energy is to be kept afloat, the government will have to lighten the political burden on the company. It will probably get a better deal on waste and taxes, and plans to release it from its historic liabilities, such as the cost of decommissioning old and clunky nuclear power stations, will probably be speeded up. The government may also give it a management contract?worth perhaps £20m a year?to run Britain's elderly Magnox nuclear power stations, which currently belong to BNFL. For its part British Energy is hurriedly selling off its overseas assets, in America and Canada, where it is short of the cash needed to satisfy regulators. After that its top managers should start booking lunches with headhunters: the government is peeved by the nasty surprise, and particularly by the company's decision to pay its shareholders a hefty dividend in May, only months before it came begging for taxpayers' money. Nuclear power in Britain Sep 12th 2002 ***************************************************************** 6 Plutonium plant lawsuit to stay in federal court This story was published Thu, Sep 12, 2002 By John Stang Herald staff writer A lawsuit filed by 11 former Plutonium Finishing Plant workers will remain in federal court, U.S. District Judge Ed Shea ruled Wednesday. But their potential exposure to radiation in Hanford's 1997 chemical explosion won't be an issue in the litigation, he ruled. Eleven current and former Hanford employees are suing Fluor Hanford, some subcontractors, the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, Kadlec Medical Center and some doctors over numerous mistakes made before and after a chemical tank exploded May 14, 1997. The accident exposed the workers to chemical fumes. The workers say many still suffer chronic lung and throat problems, recurring skin blisters, blood abnormalities, some forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other ailments. They filed suit in 2000 alleging Fluor and the others negligently allowed the explosion to occur, botched the emergency response, falsely said a key check for radiation exposure was completed when it wasn't, and delayed follow-up medical checks. Most of these charges fall under state law, but the potential exposure to a certain amount of radiation pushed the litigation into federal court. In April, the contractors and Kadlec asked Shea to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming there isn't enough evidence that each worker absorbed 5 rem of radiation. Five rem is Hanford's annual absorption limit for a person, and it's also the threshold in the federal Price-Anderson Act that pushes a case into federal court. Shea ruled there was not have enough evidence to prove the workers were exposed to a level high enough to trigger the Price-Anderson Act. However, Shea said there were other legal reasons to keep the case at the federal level. Earlier, the state fined the Department of Energy, Fluor and a subcontractor $110,000 for safety violations that caused the explosion. And DOE fined Fluor $28,500 for the botched emergency response. The explosion led to an overhaul of Hanford's chemical management and emergency procedures. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 7 Nuclear power law to live on Yucca Mountain Friday, September 13, 2002 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal Deal extends insurance measure by 15 years By STEVE TETREAULT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- The law that limits the financial liability of power plant operators and government contractors involved in catastrophic nuclear accidents would be extended 15 years under a deal reached Thursday in Congress. The agreement extends the Price Anderson Act, passed in 1957 to encourage insurance companies to do business with the then-fledgling nuclear power industry. The law has been reauthorized three times since, and industry officials have said the act remains important to nuclear power growth. The law created a shared-insurance system and caps on what companies would pay after a meltdown or other accident. Critics characterize the law as a subsidy for nuclear power. "Reauthorization of the Price Anderson Act increases nuclear risks by encouraging the construction of new reactors," said Wenonah Hauter, a Public Citizen official. A House-Senate conference committee approved the 15-year extension as part of an energy bill that supporters hope to pass through Congress by the end of the year. The extension continues the practice of shielding Energy Department contractors from liability for nuclear accidents at DOE facilities. Supporters of the practice argue the protections attract quality contractors. Critics complain it shields even companies accused of willful wrongdoing. Congressional officials said the contractor protections would cover accidents at a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and accidents that might occur during the transport of waste to the Nevada site. Nevada lawmakers have opposed the nuclear insurance law because they think it will encourage construction of more nuclear power plants and lead to more nuclear waste for the Yucca Mountain site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., tried to alter the law but failed to gain backing. During negotiations Thursday, a half-dozen efforts to add safety amendments to the Price Anderson Act were defeated. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., proposed safeguards including a requirement for federal background checks of truck drivers hauling spent fuel and other nuclear source materials. House negotiators killed the amendments after senators said nuclear safety issues should be considered as part of a homeland security bill. The act requires nuclear plant operators to take out the maximum private insurance available, about $200 million, plus contribute to a liability pool that would release up to $10 billion for accidents at commercial plants. Damage claims above that amount would be paid by the government after approval by Congress. One change increases the amount of money plant operators would be required to contribute to the pool, from $63 million to $94 million for each of their reactors. Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2002 ***************************************************************** 8 Laws push California to forefront on renewable energy SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Special Reports > California's Power Crisis -- By Don Thompson ASSOCIATED PRESS September 12, 2002 SACRAMENTO  California adopted the nation's most ambitious renewable energy goals Thursday, when Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill requiring that 20 percent of utilities' electricity be produced from renewable sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal, by 2017. A measure pending in Congress proposes a national standard of 10 percent, said the author, Sen. Byron Sher, D-Stanford. "We're going for twice that," Sher said. "We think this will be a national model." The measure was among new laws that environmental groups said will push California to the forefront on clean energy and coastal protection. Another bill is intended to help California find a burial site for low-level nuclear waste, as it is obligated under a four-state compact. Renewable energy providers have had problems finding a ready market, Sher said. While he said 20 percent by 2017 is "ambitious," Sher predicted the state's two largest utilities  Pacific Gas and Electric, and Southern California Edison  will beat or come close to meeting his original goal of providing a fifth of their energy from renewable sources by 2010. The two utilities already get between 10 percent and 12 percent of their total sales from renewable energy, Sher said. He agreed to the later deadline because the state's third-largest utility, San Diego Gas & Electric, said it needs until 2017 to comply. The bill requires utilities to boost their renewable energy use by 1 percent a year until they meet that goal. A companion bill Davis signed Thursday lets funds raised by a public goods charge on electricity offset the higher cost of that energy. There will be no additional cost to consumers from extending that existing fee by five years, until 2012, Sher said. Environmental groups and officials in Davis' administration hailed the standards as a way to cut California's dependence on fossil fuels and imports after last year's price spikes forced by a supply shortage. They also will help cut pollution and "greenhouse" gases. "California really is leading the way to figuring out how to get those things done when we're floundering at the national and the international level as well," said Ann Notthoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council, referring to the recent development summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. A third bill will jump-start California's stalled efforts to meet its obligation to Arizona, North and South Dakota to create a burial site for low-level nuclear waste from all four states, said the bill's author, Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek. It specifically rules out burying the waste in trenches in Ward Valley, which environmental groups feared would contaminate the Colorado River. It also sets criteria for a suitable site. "It lets us get off dead center by saying Ward Valley is dead. ... I think we wasted 15 years because of the fatal flaws contained in Ward Valley," Keeley said. Because of the specific standards, "we won't make that mistake again." Two other bills will help safeguard California's coast from oil spills, officials said. Davis signed the measures as his administration is in fights in Congress and the courts over offshore drilling licenses. One requires oil tankers to report the type of oil, the amount, the ship's path and its emissions along the coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The second increases by a penny a barrel the fee California charges to fund its oil spill prevention, response and preparedness programs. A third coastal protection bill will increase public accessways to California's prized beaches. "California's coastline belongs to the people, and this bill will help keep it that way," Davis said in signing the bill. On the Net: Read SB1078, SB1038, AB2214, SB849, AB2038 and SB1962 at www.sen.ca.gov [http://www.sen.ca.gov] About the Union-Tribune | Contact the Union-Tribune © Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. ***************************************************************** 9 MITI turned blind eye on TEPCO [Daily Yomiuri On-Line] Yomiuri Shimbun Tokyo Electric Power Co. repaired cracks that it found in the core structure of the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture in 1989 without receiving official approval, apparently with the acquiescence of the former International Trade and Industry Ministry, a source close to the company said Thursday. It is the first time that the government has been allegedly linked to the series of scandals involving TEPCO. According to the source, TEPCO made an oral report to the ministry on the cracks it had discovered and suggested a new method of repairing them. A ministry official said that as the method was new, it would require several years to be approved, the sources said, but the ministry did not instruct the company to apply for such approval. TEPCO apparently took the ministry official's comment as tacit approval, and repaired the cracks using the new method, he said, adding that the ministry failed to check how the cracks had been repaired. TEPCO, which was found to have falsified records of inspections at its nuclear power plants, discovered the situation regarding the cracks during an in-house investigation, the source said. The Economy, Trade and International Ministry's Nuclear Industrial Safety Agency also learned of this incident during an inspection of TEPCO this month. This is one of 29 cases of falsified records that a former employee of General Electric Co. unveiled, initiating the series of the scandals involving TEPCO. According to the source, the cracks were discovered by General Electric International Inc. (GEII), which TEPCO had outsourced to check one of the reactors at the No. 1 Fukushima nuclear power plant. GEII, the Japan unit of General Electric of the United States, found six cracks on a steam dryer, which is used to reduce liquid contained in steam produced in the core structure of the reactor, according to the source. Three of the cracks were found on apart of the dryer that returns the liquid to the reactor and the other three on the weld of a cover, the source said. GEII advised TEPCO that the cracks could be repaired by welding in water, a method usually applied in the United States, he said. But when TEPCO reported the cracks and the repair method to the former International Trade and Industry Ministry, its supervising body at the time, the ministry official reportedly said the method had not been approved in Japan. The official was quoted as saying: "If you apply for special approval, you will probably get it. But it would have to be carefully discussed by a panel for safety and other reasons, so it would take several years for the approval to come through." TEPCO took this comment as advice that it should use the new method to repair the cracks without getting formal approval, and asked GEII to weld three of the cracks in water, the source said. The source said the part with the other three cracks was removed since this was not considered problematic. Records were kept only of this part, he said. Copyright 2002 The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 10 Iraq unable to get nuke materials, experts say KRT Wire | 09/12/2002 | [http://www.sunherald.com] By JONATHAN S. LANDAY Knight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - President Bush said Thursday that Iraq could make a nuclear bomb within a year after getting enriched uranium or plutonium. But Saddam Hussein has been unable to get that nuclear fuel for more than a decade. There are two ways for him to get these fissile materials: purchasing them from the black market or making them himself. U.S. officials and independent experts said he had had no luck at either. Despite "trying like the dickens," said a senior U.S. official, Iraqi front companies are not believed to have succeeded in buying any significant quantities of highly enriched uranium or plutonium on the international black market. "It's hard, because there is not much of it out there and there are a lot of people trying to prevent bad people from getting it," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Moreover, there is no evidence that Iraqi engineers have succeeded in rebuilding the country's fissile materials-production facilities, some of which were destroyed by U.S. bombs in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and others by U.N. inspectors afterward, U.S. officials and experts said. In fact, Bush's charge Thursday that Iraq has attempted to buy high-strength aluminum tubes for enriching uranium indicates that the country has only begun the years of work needed to reach production. The tubes would be used to build high-speed centrifuges, and it would take considerable time to build them, link them in large networks and operate them long enough to obtain sufficient quantities of bomb-grade material. Bush said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly that the world could not wait for certainty about Iraq's nuclear plans. "The first time that we may be completely certain he (Saddam) has nuclear weapons is when he, God forbids, uses one," the president said in making his case for action on Iraq. Most U.S. officials and independent experts agree that Iraq is trying to rebuild its nuclear weapons program. But they say that after nearly four years without U.N. weapons inspections, it's nearly impossible to say with certainty how much progress Baghdad has made. Iraq embarked on a massive nuclear-weapons program after Israeli jet fighters destroyed its Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, eliminating it as a source of plutonium that could fuel a nuclear weapon. Experts inside and outside the U.S. government said that by the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq's program was much further along than had been thought by the U.S. intelligence community or the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body that ensures that the world's civilian nuclear plants are not used to produce weapons. Iraqi scientists and technicians secretly overcame most of the substantial hurdles of designing a nuclear weapon and were progressing toward building an implosion-type device. In such a device, a jacket of conventional explosives is used to compress a mass of plutonium or highly enriched uranium until it explodes in a nuclear detonation. According to materials that IAEA inspectors gathered, Iraqi scientists developed key non-nuclear components for such a bomb. These components included a complex firing system and the conventional explosives that would be required to compress plutonium or highly enriched uranium. That work was enhanced by know-how that Iraqi experts obtained at a U.S. government seminar in 1989, according to Khidir Hamza, a former director of Iraq's nuclear program who wrote a book about it after he defected in 1994. Iraqi scientists also were pursuing a number of processes to obtain the fuel for a nuclear weapon, concentrating on separating uranium 235 - the form required for a nuclear weapon - from other uranium isotopes. After its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq launched a crash program to obtain uranium 235 by separating it chemically from highly enriched uranium that had been illegally diverted from two IAEA-policed research reactors. U.S. bombs badly damaged Iraq's chemical separation plant. After the war, IAEA inspectors who were charged with dismantling Iraq's nuclear program removed the highly enriched uranium from the two research reactors. The IAEA contends that by the time U.N. inspections ended in 1998 it had uncovered and destroyed virtually all of Iraq's nuclear weapons facilities. But it also says that only a resumption of the inspections can verify whether Iraq has resumed its pursuit of a nuclear bomb. Bush told the U.N. that Iraq did not turn over to IAEA inspectors "important information about its nuclear program, weapons design, procurement logs, equipment data and accounting of nuclear materials and documentation of foreign assistance." ***************************************************************** 11 Nuke insurance plan set for renewal Las Vegas SUN: Today: September 13, 2002 at 11:16:57 PDT By Benjamin Grove WASHINGTON -- Congress is poised to renew a 45-year-old plan that makes the government -- meaning taxpayers -- liable for nuclear plant cleanup if a catastrophic accident costs more than $10 billion. At issue is the Price-Anderson Act, first passed in 1957 as a government incentive to encourage construction of nuclear plants. The legislation sets up a pooled insurance plan: In an accident, the owner of the nuclear reactor would pay no more than $200 million. After that owners of the nation's other 105 nuclear reactors (three are not operating) would each chip in about $94 million. That would raise a total of nearly $10 billion. The government would be liable for costs beyond that. A nuclear accident could cost as much as $300 billion in cleanup, nuclear critics say. But that estimate is grossly inflated, industry officials say. In the industry's history, nuclear plants have paid only about $180 million to clean up their own accidents, including at Three Mile Island, and taxpayers have not had to pay a dime, industry officials say. The act has been renewed three times since 1957, and a joint House-Senate panel on Thursday agreed to renew it again for another 15 years. The act is part of a comprehensive energy bill that lawmakers hope to pass in the coming weeks. If the act is not renewed, the pooled insurance plan would remain in effect for existing reactors. But any new plants would not have been covered. New plant operators would be forced to find private insurance. No insurance company would insure a nuclear plant, industry officials say, so they consider Price-Anderson key to the industry's future. No new plants have been constructed in the United States since the 1970s, but industry leaders aim to construct more in the next decade. Price-Anderson also covers Energy Department contractors who work at government nuclear facilities. Contractors might quit without the insurance protection, act advocates say. Nevada officials generally oppose the act because they do not support expanding nuclear power in America as long as the government plans to dump nuclear reactor waste at Yucca Mountain. Attempts by Majority Whip Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to thwart the bill failed, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. Critics of Price-Anderson call it a taxpayer subsidy of the industry. "Their industry wouldn't even exist without the government supporting it," said Wenonah Hauter, of consumer and environmental watchdog group Public Citizen. Nuclear industry officials say Price-Anderson helps pave the way for new plants in America. All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Irish antinuclear activists set sail to intercept British ships - 9/13/2002 - ENN.com Irish antinuclear activists set sail to intercept British ships Friday, September 13, 2002 By Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press DUBLIN, Ireland — Irish antinuclear activists led by Greenpeace's flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, left port Thursday to intercept two armed British vessels carrying a cargo of rejected nuclear fuel toward the Irish Sea. The protesters, aboard about 10 vessels, said they wouldn't try to board or block the two ships operated by British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (BNFL), which runs the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant on England's northwest coast. BNFL said the two ships would stay away from Irish waters, which extend 12 miles (19 kms) off the coast. All major Irish parties for decades have appealed for Britain to shut Sellafield, one of the world's few facilities for recycling nuclear waste, about 150 miles (250 kms) northeast of Dublin. Scientists agree that radiation levels are low in the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland. But since the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, politicians here have increasingly worried that Sellafield or its nuclear shipments could became a target. Antinuclear sentiment has been flaring in Ireland in the buildup to the expected arrival within the next week of the two British Nuclear Fuels ships, which are carrying about five tons of fuel pellets made from reclaimed uranium and plutonium. A Japanese nuclear plant rejected the pellets and ordered them shipped back to Britain after BNFL admitted its Sellafield staff fabricated safety checks on its 1999 production. Greenpeace campaigner Shaun Birnie said their protest would gather more antinuclear vessels from Wales and Scotland before trying to locate the two ships, the Pacific Pintail and Pacific Teal, possibly as soon as Sunday. As of Thursday the two BNFL ships were still sailing north off the Portuguese island of Madeira. Birnie said protesters from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales would demonstrate a "united voice from all the nations of the Irish Sea that this should be the last plutonium transport by BNFL." The Greenpeace-led mission received backing from Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who visited the Rainbow Warrior on Wednesday, and the largest opposition party, Fine Gael. "I stand by my assertion that if Sellafield were hit by terrorists, then death would be the least we had to fear," Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said Thursday aboard the Rainbow Warrior before it departed Dublin's River Liffey for the Irish Sea. He also visited the ship last week. Referring to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union, he said Irish people were determined "to see that Ireland doesn't become another Belarus, and that our children don't become the new Chernobyl children." Ahern's government has already ordered the tiny Irish navy and air corps to monitor the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal to ensure neither sinks or is seized by terrorists. British Nuclear Fuels insists its double-hulled ships are among the sturdiest boats afloat and, armed with small-caliber cannons and armed officers from Britain's Nuclear Energy Authority, would make difficult targets for pirates. The company insists its cargo, which includes low-grade plutonium, couldn't be used by terrorists or a renegade state to make a nuclear bomb. Mixed-oxide fuel is made by reprocessing spent uranium fuel rods from nuclear plants. The Sellafield plant separates the rods' plutonium radioactive waste from the remaining unused uranium. Recycled uranium and plutonium is made into ceramic pellets that can be used again in a nuclear power plant. British Nuclear Fuels says one fingernail-sized pellet could generate as much energy as a ton of coal. Ireland is heavily dependent on burning fossil fuels and highly polluting peat for its energy needs. Copyright 2002, Associated Press All Rights Reserved ***************************************************************** 13 Energy NW OKs new roles for top staff This story was published Tue, Sep 10, 2002 By the Herald staff Energy Northwest has reorganized its senior management team, creating four new categories of vice president and two new assistants to Vic Parrish, chief executive officer. Parrish said the reorganization better differentiates between the nuclear and business sides of the agency and was timed to coincide with the departure of Greg Smith, former vice president for generation. Dale Atkinson, formerly engineering manager, is the new vice president for technical services. In his new role, he will oversee construction and maintenance, engineering, information services, performance and regulatory affairs. Jack Baker, formerly vice president for resource development, is now vice president for energy and business services, as well as the company's official public information officer. He has been with the organization 20 years and will oversee communications and industry affairs as well as operations and maintenance services and program development. Al Mouncer, who has been with Energy Northwest 22 years, is now vice president for corporate services as well as chief financial officer and general counsel. He oversees administrative services, corporate training and leadership, finance, human resources, internal services, internal auditing, legal services, nuclear safety issues, procurement and treasury services. He was previously vice president and general counsel. Rod Webring was named vice president for nuclear generation. He has been with the company 26 years and was previously vice president for operations support and public information. In his new role, he will serve as plant manager for the Columbia Generation Station nuclear power plant and will be responsible for all work directly connected to it. Jerry Kucera, previously vice president for administrative services and chief financial officer, was will serve as assistant to the CEO, with responsibility for special projects. He has been with Energy Northwest 28 years. Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 14 Australia to put reactor on fault line Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | David Fickling, Sydney Friday September 13, 2002 The Australian government has approved the building of a research reactor on an existing nuclear site in suburban Sydney, even though it lies on two seismic fault lines. The country's nuclear safety body, Ansto, reported yesterday that the fault lines posed no risks. The last serious earth movements occurred between 5m and 13m years ago. Opponents of the scheme said they would continue their campaign because no proper plans for dealing with the waste material were in place and the reactor would pose a risk to the surrounding community. A court ruling on a Greenpeace application to stop work on the project is expected tomorrow. The reactor, which will produce nuclear material for scientific and medical research, not power, is intended to replace the existing reactor at Lucas Heights by 2005. It will be Australia's only reactor. At a cost of A$320m (£114m), it is said to be the most expensive scientific project in Australian history. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002 ***************************************************************** 15 *Bruce Power fails to satisfy commission* Emergency 'shutdown' money in question STEVEN CHASE and PAUL WALDIE Friday, September 13, 2002 OTTAWA and TORONTO -- *Bruce Power LP *failed to convince the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission yesterday that it still has access to $222-million in emergency "shutdown money" from parent British Energy if needed. Jim Blyth, director of power reactor regulation at the CNSC, told the commission that he still isn't assured the British Energy guarantee can be drawn on if necessary. The shutdown money is a requirement under Bruce Power's licence. "I don't have anything I can take to the bank," he told the commission. "I do not believe we have definitive information to the effect that in the highly unlikely event that these funds were needed, they are available today," Mr. Blyth told the commission. Bruce Power's future has been thrown into turmoil as a result of financial troubles at British Energy, which owns 82.4 per cent of the Ontario company. Bruce Power runs eight nuclear reactors and British Energy provides several key financial commitments including Bruce Power's chief executive officer Duncan Hawthorne told the commission yesterday that the company is doing its best to ensure the emergency commitment remains in place. However, he received a rough ride from commissioners on the guarantee. "If today you . . . needed $222-million, is that money available from British Energy?" CNSC commisioner Alan Graham asked Mr. Hawthorne. Mr. Hawthorne said British Energy is still obliged to cover that guarantee but wasn't clear on where the cash would come from. "I know I am not providing a clear answer to this because you are asking me to foresee a situation . . . where you are asking me to burn the house down to see if the fire brigade turn up," Mr. Hawthorne said. He suggested the British government might step in to cover it. Earlier this week, the British government provided British Energy with £410-million ($1-billion) in emergency funding to meet its needs for this month. The government and the utility are now working on a long-term restructuring that could result in British Energy filing for bankruptcy protection. "It's my full expectation that if we require that, then they [British Energy] have to access those funds from the appropriate source -- that source may in fact be the U.K. government," Mr. Hawthorne said. However, he later added that he cannot speak for the British government. Mr. Hawthorne said the company is looking at getting assurances to cover the guarantee from the U.K. government, or using other means such as establishing its own credit rating so it could borrow money more freely if necessary, or taking out more comprehensive insurance to cover the guarantee. Mr. Graham said he still isn't satisfied with the state of things. "I think we've got a little bit of work to do within CNSC to make sure those guarantees are in place . . . if, God forbid, they are ever needed, but today I wouldn't hold my breath on it," Mr. Graham said. Mr. Hawthorne said Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has the option of taking back the nuclear plants if British Energy were to become insolvent under a "nightmare scenario" he hopes doesn't occur. Bruce Power leased the reactors from OPG last year and it still owes $225-million on the deal. The company will also pay OPG up to $160-million this year in annual lease fees. "If the guarantor, British Energy, were to go into insolvency, then the landlord, in the form of OPG, have a number of courses of action, including recovery of the assets," he told the commission. John Earl, a spokesman for OPG, confirmed the agency has security provisions under the lease. "As any landlord we have appropriate safety measures in place in the lease to cover any kind of financial concerns." CNSC staff could not say how much time Bruce Power has to shore up the guarantee question.