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NUCLEAR POLICY
1 Russia-Iraq Deal Could Irk U.S.
2 *Residents to seek redress over Tokai nuclear accident*
3 US: Pre-Hearing Conference Scheduled on IP2 License Amendment Reques
4 A Nuclear Power Fissure
5 Civic group sues government to stop construction at nuclear
6 US: Public lecture offers look at LIGO project
NUCLEAR REACTORS
7 More woes for BE as Dungeness reactors to close
8 ROSENERGOATOM PLANS TO SIGN AGREEMENT ON BUILDING FLOATING NPP IN
9 Czech nuclear power plant reconnected to power grid
NUCLEAR SAFETY
10 AU: Veterans warn of Gulf War syndrome risk
11 US: No easy money for nuclear-weapons workers' ills
12 US: No easy money for nuclear-weapons workers' ills
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
13 Plutonium ships avoid SA waters
14 LES short list fails to appear
15 Clean-up ordered after nuclear leaks
16 US: Nuke Waste May Be Inviting Target
17 US: Location of plutonium is unknown
18 US: SRS shipments will accelerate
19 US: AU: New doubts on uranium mine safety
20 US: Florida running out of disposal sites for nuclear waste*
21 US: NFS? effect on local environment concerns local actress Overall
22 US: LES won't make public 'short list' for enrichment facility
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
23 [sunflower] The Sunflower July 2002 (No. 62)
24 Report: Israel's F-16s equipped to carry nuclear weapons
25 Anti-Nuke Film Battles Film Board
26 AU: How a scared little country became a nuclear wannabe
27 Russia: It Sank — 2002
28 Middleast: Pushing the doomsday button
US DEPT. OF ENERGY
29 DOE wants B Reactor in Reach plan
30 Hanford accelerates timetable to close 7 tanks
OTHER NUCLEAR
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FULL NEWS STORIES
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1 Russia-Iraq Deal Could Irk U.S.
Las Vegas SUN:
August 18, 2002 By JIM HEINTZ ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW- Iraq and Russia are close to signing a $40 billion
economic cooperation plan, Iraq's ambassador said Saturday, a
deal that could put Moscow at odds with the United States as it
considers a military attack against Baghdad.
The statement by Ambassador Abbas Khalaf came amid indications
that Russia, despite its strong support for the post-Sept. 11
antiterrorism coalition, is maintaining or improving ties with
Iran and North Korea, which together with Iraq are the countries
President Bush has labeled the "axis of evil."
Washington is trying to rally support for a possible invasion of
Iraq, which the United States accuses of supporting terrorism and
of rebuilding its banned weapons of mass destruction program, but
many U.S. allies are resisting the push.
German and U.S. officials confirmed Saturday that the U.S.
ambassador to Berlin, Dan Coats, had questioned German officials
about Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to attacking
Iraq, an indication that Schroeder has irked Washington. Russia,
a longtime ally of Iraq, has forcefully warned against a possible
U.S. invasion.
Many opponents argue that an invasion cannot be justified without
firm proof that the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is
developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
The chief United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told The
Associated Press that he can't say with certainty whether Iraq
has such weapons. "If we knew - if we had real evidence that they
have weapons of mass destruction - we would bring it to the
Security Council," he said.
Blix spoke while waiting for Iraq's response to a letter from
Secretary-General Kofi Annan urging the country to allow the
return of weapons inspectors, who left in December 1998.
The pending Russia-Iraq economic deal is likely to be seen by
Washington as another blow to its efforts to marshal backing for
an attack. On Saturday, White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan
said only "We're confident that Russia understands its
obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions and
that they'll abide by them."
Sanctions imposed by the Security Council after Iraq's 1990
invasion of Kuwait cannot be lifted until U.N. inspectors certify
that its biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons have been
destroyed along with the long-range missiles to deliver them.
Moscow has supported lifting the U.N. sanctions, hoping that
would allow Baghdad to start paying off its $7 billion Soviet-era
debt and help expand trade. The Russian Foreign Ministry said
Saturday it had no comment on reports of an imminent economic
cooperation agreement.
The agreement, which envisions new cooperation in the fields of
oil, irrigation, agriculture, transportation, railroads and
electrical energy, will most likely be signed in Baghdad in the
beginning of September, Khalaf told The Associated Press.
Khalaf emphasized that the new cooperation deal, which is to
include new projects as well as the modernization of some
Soviet-built infrastructure, would not violate the sanctions.
In the current standoff with the United States, Iraq is counting
on Russia to use its leverage in the U.N. Security Council and
other diplomatic channels to deprive Washington of international
support for a military operation, Khalaf said.
"First of all we need moral, political and diplomatic support.
Because Iraq knows how to defend itself," he said. "The main
thing for us is that American aggression does not go through the
U.N. Security Council and that America does not receive a U.N.
mandate. ... Let America act (alone) as an aggressor. It will be
condemned from all sides."
Khalaf said he saw no contradiction between Russia's friendship
with Iraq and its ties with Washington, which have strengthened
since the Sept. 11 attacks. "We see friendship among various
countries and civilized peoples of the world as a positive step.
Any enmity brings harm to a country," he said.
Under Putin, Russian foreign policy has sought to create a
network of alliances to counterbalance alleged U.S. domination of
international affairs. Although Putin has moved Russia closer to
West - including increasing contacts with NATO and not raising
objections to U.S. forces in Georgia and in former Soviet Central
Asia - he also has pursued relations with countries that are
anathema to the United States.
Last month, Russia announced a 10-year plan for nuclear
cooperation with Iran. Under the plan, Russia would build five
reactors in addition to the one currently under construction at
Bushehr, Iran. Washington fears such cooperation could help Iran
develop nuclear weapons.
This week, the Kremlin announced that North Korean leader Kim
Jong Il will visit Russia later in August for the second summer
in a row.
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
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2 *Residents to seek redress over Tokai nuclear accident*
Tuesday, August 20, 2002 **
Three residents of the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, home
to Japan's worst nuclear accident, said Monday they will seek
compensation for health hazards from the operator of the uranium
processing plant and its parent company.
The plaintiffs said they will probably file the suit against
Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. and plant operator JCO Co. at the
beginning of September, with the Mito District Court. The three
are Shoichi Oizumi, 74, owner of an auto parts company; his
62-year-old wife, Keiko; and a mailman in his 30s who wishes to
remain anonymous.
It will be the first lawsuit filed by residents claiming to have
suffered health damage from the deadly accident.
On Sept. 30, 1999, a nuclear fission chain reaction occurred at
the uranium processing plant, 120 km northeast of Tokyo after
three JCO workers sidestepped safe operating procedures and used
metal buckets to pour an excessive amount of uranium into a
mixing tank.
Two of the plant workers later died from radiation sickness and
more than 600 people were exposed to radiation.
Oizumi and his wife were in their factory just 120 meters west of
the JCO plant when the accident occurred, exposing them to
radiation, they said.
Oizumi suffered skin damage and his wife was hospitalized for a
gastric ulcer shortly after the accident. She also suffered
posttraumatic stress disorder, they said.
The mailman, who was in the area at the time of the accident,
suffered stomach problems, Oizumi said.
In February 2000, the trio formed a roughly 100-strong victims'
group that has been negotiating with JCO over damages, they said.
On July 22, JCO refused to compensate any villagers for health
hazards, saying it cannot see any causal relationship between
their health problems and the radiation, Oizumi said. The three
then decided to independently file the suit.
The company based its stance on a governmental finding in
November 1999 that the radiation leak caused hardly any effect on
local residents' health.
"We do not want people to forget about the incident or settle
without getting anything," Oizumi said. "We hope to deal with the
issue as a group."
JCO has paid 15 billion yen in compensation to farmers for damage
to their business as consumers boycotted produce from the area.
It also paid 50,000 yen to each resident living within 350 meters
of the accident site and 30,000 yen each to residents living
outside the 350-meter zone. JCO termed the payouts "consolation
money."
*The Japan Times: Aug. 20, 2002* (C) All rights reserved
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3 Pre-Hearing Conference Scheduled on IP2 License Amendment Request
NRC: Press Release Region I - 2002 - 52 -
U.S. NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Office of Public Affairs,
Region I 475 Allendale Road, King of Prussia, Pa. 19406
www.nrc.gov
No. I-02-052 August 19, 2002 CONTACT: Diane
Screnci (610) 337-5330 Neil A. Sheehan (610) 337-5331 E-mail:
opa1@nrc.gov [opa1@nrc.gov]
A Nuclear Regulatory Commission Atomic Safety and Licensing
Board will hold a pre-hearing conference on Tuesday, August 27 in
Rye Brook, N.Y., in a proceeding involving an application to
amend the license of the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant in
Buchanan, N.Y. Entergy Nuclear Indian Point 2, which operates the
reactor, has requested a license amendment for a one-time
five-year extension of the period within which to conduct the
containment integrated leak rate test. It would normally be
required every ten years.
Riverkeeper, Inc., submitted a petition to intervene on March 18,
2002. Because Riverkeeper did not meet the deadline (September
21, 2001) for filing a petition for leave to intervene, the
Licensing Board will be considering whether there was good cause
for the late filing, along with the other legal issues involved:
Riverkeeper's legal standing to participate and the admissibility
of its contentions.
The conference is open to public observation. It will be held at
the Hilton Rye Town, 699 Westchester Ave., in Rye Brook. It is
scheduled from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. The Licensing Board
consists of three administrative judges: a lawyer, Chairman,
Michael C. Farrar, and two scientist members, Dr. Richard F. Cole
and Dr. Charles N. Kelber.
The license amendment was granted by the NRC staff on August 5.
NRC regulations allow the issuance of amendments that the staff
believes involve no significant hazards considerations prior to
the conduct, but subject to the outcome of, any associated
hearings. Consistent with the agency's normal practices, the
amendment was issued at the completion of the NRC staff's review
of the licensee's amendment request. If the Board grants a
hearing, and then decides in favor of the petitioners, the
amendment could be revoked. In that event, the licensee would be
required to perform the test within the time frame established
pursuant to the decision.
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4 A Nuclear Power Fissure
(washingtonpost.com)
USEC's Plans for Advanced Plant, Pacts With Russia Cause a Split
in Energy Industry
By Kenneth Bredemeier Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August
19, 2002; Page E01
No electric utility in the United States has ordered construction
of a new nuclear power plant in more than two decades. Yet these
are heady days for Nick Timbers, president and chief executive of
USEC Inc., the nation's only supplier of enriched uranium fuel
for commercial nuclear plants.
Carved out of the federal government, when it was known as the
U.S. Enrichment Corp., and turned into a public company four
years ago, USEC has struggled financially in its infancy while
competing against foreign, government-supported companies.
Nonetheless, it has gained the biggest foothold in the world
enrichment market, all the while using Cold War-era technology to
manufacture about half of the enriched uranium it sells to the
owners of the world's 433 reactors.
Now, however, the occasionally blunt Timbers thinks that in a
matter of months, USEC has achieved, through a variety of
decisions and agreements, a stability that bodes well for his
company's future. Longtime acerbic critics of USEC's operations
remain skeptical of that viewpoint, but Timbers dismisses them as
foes "fighting yesterday's battles," academics and energy
industry analysts who never wanted the federal government to spin
off USEC in the first place.
Earlier this year, in a pair of rulings sought by USEC, the
Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission
decided that two of USEC's three competitors in the enrichment
business, Eurodif, a French government-owned company, and Urenco,
a consortium of British, Dutch and German government and
corporate entities, had unfairly dumped their products at cheaper
prices in the U.S. market. As a result, Eurodif has now been
forced to pay an extra 53.5 percent duty and Urenco 3.7 percent.
Then, a few weeks ago, USEC signed two agreements it considers
crucial. One of them was with the Russian government-owned
enrichment company Tenex for a market-based pricing plan starting
in January that could save USEC millions of dollars in the next
12 years as USEC continues to buy nuclear fuel reprocessed from
Russian nuclear warheads under a 20-year U.S.-Russian "Megatons
to Megawatts" pact that already has converted bomb-grade material
capable of making 6,000 nuclear warheads into commercial nuclear
reactor fuel. About half of the nuclear fuel USEC sells to 50 or
60 utilities here and abroad comes from the decommissioned
Russian warheads.
In the other agreement, USEC and the Energy Department committed
to work together to develop an advanced centrifuge uranium
enrichment plant by the end of this decade and have it
operational by 2010 or 2011 to replace the antiquated,
50-year-old gaseous diffusion technology USEC now uses at its
Paducah, Ky., plant.
William H. "Nick" Timbers, the graying, roundish-faced USEC
leader, waxes poetic at the recent turn of events for USEC,
seemingly convinced that nothing but good fortune awaits the
firm.
"All these things that have happened are an extraordinary story,"
Timbers said.
Under the current, fixed-price arrangement with the Russian
government running through the end of 2002 to buy their
bomb-grade material, Timbers said, "we were paying them more than
we could sell it for. The deal became uneconomical. We
renegotiated with the Russians for values that float with the
marketplace.
"This is one of the key building blocks of this company, putting
it on a solid financial and operating basis," Timbers said
recently at the company's Bethesda headquarters. "This was an
essential resolution, a very significant accomplishment."
Timbers declined to predict how much the company would save under
the deal, but USEC agreed to pay the Russian government the $8
billion originally guaranteed under the 20-year plan to dismantle
the nuclear warheads and turn them into fuel for electricity
generation.
"Promises made, promises kept," Timbers said, referring to the $8
billion figure. "The way it was going, probably we were on a path
to paying more than that."
He said the pact with the Energy Department was "part and parcel
of creating a solid platform. We believe it will be the most
efficient technology in the world."
Given the contentious nature of USEC's existence -- whether it
should be privatized out of the government; the closing of its
production facilities at a plant in Piketon, Ohio; the drop in
the price of its shares from $14 at its inception to its current
$7 value -- it is not surprising that many of the firm's critics
continue to think that Timbers's view of the company's prospects
is wildly overstated. Also, previous attempts to update USEC's
production methods have not panned out.
Some critics say they think the Russian deal will fall apart.
Others suggest that the company may not survive in the long term,
that it will not be able to find the money to build its
enrichment plant. Moreover, some critics think a Urenco-led
consortium, including three large U.S. nuclear power utilities,
that is in the early stages of seeking approval to build an
enrichment plant in the United States will upstage the USEC
effort and open sooner.
Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate at the Managing the
Atom project at Harvard University, said of the new Russian
agreements, "They're good for the company, but are they good
enough?"
Bunn said USEC still "is the highest-cost producer [of enriched
uranium] in an oversupplied market. It's not a comfortable
position to be in."
Jeff Combs, president of UX Consulting Co., an Atlanta
nuclear-fuel consulting firm, said that "as a company, they do
the lobbying very well [to secure favorable contracting
provisions]. They describe themselves as a global energy company,
but they're actually a global lobbying firm. Their technology is
sort of antiquated."
He questioned whether USEC will be to raise the estimated $1.5
billion necessary to build the enrichment plant. He said that if
one new enrichment plant is built in the United States, he would
bet on the success of the Urenco-led group known as the LES
Partnership.
Peter Lenny, president of Urenco's U.S. marketing operation, said
that the Urenco partnership, which includes such energy industry
heavyweights as Duke Energy, Entergy Corp., Exelon Corp.,
Westinghouse Electric Co. and Cameco Corp., a Canadian uranium
mining firm, hopes to send its application for the plant to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2002, win approval by
mid-2004 and open it by the end of 2006, years before a new USEC
plant would be running.
Timbers said his firm's technology will prove superior in the
long run. "I'm more concerned what we do, not others," he said.
"We're very confident the USEC centrifuge will be the most
efficient in the world."
As for the capital needed, Timbers said: "I believe there will be
the financial resources for the company, possibly new investors.
The finances have not been determined yet."
Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio), in whose district USEC once
operated the Piketon plant and still maintains a large clean-up
force of workers, scoffed at the notion: "Where's USEC going to
get the resources to deploy a new technology . . . unless the
federal government bails them out? I think they'll come to Uncle
Sam for it. If they fork it over again, what did we accomplish by
privatization?"
One longtime critic of USEC's operation is Thomas Neff, a senior
researcher at Center for International Studies at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who in a New York Times
op-ed article first publicly suggested the use of the
decommissioned Russian warheads as commercial nuclear fuel.
Although Timbers declined to discuss fuel prices under the new
deal with the Russians, Neff said that the country will receive
$440 million next year compared to $500 million this year.
Neff predicted the Russians will become so disenchanted with the
deal that they will back out of it. "My sense is that the
Russians can't live with that," Neff said. "They're already
complaining."
USEC has grown so annoyed at Neff's critiques of the company that
it has prepared a list of his predictions that it says have been
proven wrong over the years.
Timbers said: "I don't see that other companies get the flock of
critics we do. His predictions are inaccurate, misleading and
sometimes very malicious. It's a classic example of someone
fighting yesterday's battles," in this case the 1990s fight over
whether the company should have been privatized. "I hope we can
break this chain of cynicism that we've had for years."
James Schlesinger, a secretary of energy during the Carter
administration who now serves on a USEC strategic advisory
council, said that "given the agreement with the Russians,
[USEC's prospects] are good."
He said he sees no reason why the deal with the Russians would
fall apart, saying, "It's backed by the American government and
the Russian government."
Ernest J. Moniz, an undersecretary of energy during the Clinton
administration and a new member of the USEC council, agreed about
the Russian deal, saying, "Right now it's as stabilized as it's
ever been." And because USEC's stock dipped below $5 a share in
2000 and now has recovered to Friday's close at $7.53, Timbers
likes to note that in the past two years, counting both share
appreciation and dividends, investors in the firm have had a
total return of 125 percent, well ahead of the performance of the
declining market in that period.
Stock analyst Scott Sprinzen of Standard & Poor's Corp. in New
York takes a more neutral view of USEC. "It seems like things
have stabilized with the company after a period of deterioration
since the initial public offering," he said. "Its financial
performance had been sliding.
"But their earnings are still just fair and they face some major
challenges, particularly in their future production," Sprinzen
said. "What's the capital cost for the new technology?"
But those concerns are for days and weeks down the road, leaving
Timbers to reach a simple conclusion: "The agreements we've
reached are good for this company, good for this country's energy
independence."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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5 Civic group sues government to stop construction at nuclear
plants in Ukraine
AP World Politics
Aug 19, 9:54 AM ET
KIEV, Ukraine - A civic group has filed suit against the
Ukrainian government to stop construction of two reactors at the
Rivne and Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plants, calling the projects
illegal.
Public Control, a non-governmental, environmental organization
sued the government in a Kiev district court demanding a halt to
the reactors' construction, according to news reports Monday. The
group claims that the State Nuclear Regulatory Committee broke
the law by not conducting adequate public hearings before
providing a license to the state nuclear company Energoatom to
construct the new reactors.
A judge agreed on Friday to hear Public Control's case after the
same court denied a lawsuit by six representatives of an
environmental group against Energoatom, claiming completion of
the reactors posed an ecological threat to the country.
Ukrainian law requires the court to order construction to stop
pending review of the group's petition and a decision. Court
officials could not confirm whether a stop order would be issued.
Energoatom denied Monday that it had received any court order to
stop construction resulting from the lawsuit.
Soviet-designed reactors are currently operating at Rivne and
Khmelnytskyi and the disputed new reactors are about 85%
complete. Ukraine negotiated to build the new reactors to
compensate for the electricity lost when the Chernobyl nuclear
power plant was closed in 2000.
Currently, Ukraine operates four nuclear power plants with 13
reactors, nine of which are now working. The reactors are
frequently shut down for malfunctions or scheduled repairs.
Reactor No. 3 at the Yuzhna atomic power plant reduced its
capacity by 50 percent Monday to repair a circulation pump that
stopped after a short-circuit. Also, the No. 3 reactor at the
Rivne atomic power plant was shut down 24 hours late Saturday to
repair a pipe defect.
Ukraine was the site of world's worst nuclear catastrophe in 1986
when a nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded and caught fire,
sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
(ms/tv/ji)
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press.
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6 Public lecture offers look at LIGO project
This story was published Fri, Aug 16, 2002
"You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not
only of sight and sound, but of the mind. A journey into a
wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a
signpost up ahead. Your next stop: The Twilight Zone."
-- Rod Serling By John Stang Herald staff writer Look around you.
Everything you see has length, width and depth. The three
dimensions as we know them.
But maybe ... theoretically ... what you see is more
multidimensional than you think.
Tucked away in narrow crevices of our existence could be a fourth
dimension, a fifth dimension and possibly a 10th dimension.
Right now, scientists are hunting for those extra dimensions.
And one of them, physics professor Eric Adelberger of the
University of Washington, will tell Mid-Columbians for free about
that search at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at the Battelle Auditorium in
Richland.
This is Hanford's LIGO operation's annual science lecture for the
public.
"What we try to do (with the lectures) is go after the big
picture things, the big questions in modern science," said Fred
Raab, director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory at Hanford.
The LIGO is an academic operation that plans to try to capture
and analyze gravity waves from deep outer space.
The search for extra dimensions is a recent new path that
scientists have taken in trying to figure out how our
subatomic-size and universe-size existence fit together in some
grand cosmic plan of the physics of Nature.
A major wild card in hunting for and deciphering that master plan
is gravity.
"The biggest problems in physics is connecting gravity to
everything else," Adelberger said.
That's because gravity as we know it is extremely weak.
Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces of the universe,
along with electromagnetism and two types of attractions found
among subatomic particles called the "strong force" and the "weak
force."
Gravity is overwhelmingly weaker than any of the other three
forces, which puzzles physicists.
Adelberger cited an example of gravity's wimpiness.
Hold a refrigerator magnet above a nail. The nail rises against
the gravitational pull of the entire Earth to stick to the tiny
magnet.
A predominant theory in physics contends that gravity should
exert the same force as the other three fundamental forces.
The question is: Where is all that extra gravitational pull
going?
A theoretical possibility is extra dimensions -- whatever they
look like. Current theories speculate that about 10 dimensions
could exist, including the three we know of. These theories do
not count time as the fourth dimension, although it is often
listed as such.
This search is only a few years old. It is spearheaded by Nima
Arkani-Hamed, a physicist the University of California Berkeley.
Adelberger listened to a 1999 lecture by Arkani-Hamed, inspiring
him to start his own search patterned after the Berkeley
physicist's hunt.
Their basic premise is that everyone has measured gravity over
long distances to come up with the bafflingly weak forces.
But Arkani-Hamed, Adelberger and others are trying to measure
gravity at super-duper short distances under the theory that they
will find gravitational attractions immensely greater than
predicted by Sir Isaac Newton's law of universal gravitation.
Such a theoretically greater attraction mathematically would
support the concept of extra dimensions, Adelberger said.
Adelberger's lab has been able to measure the gravitational
attraction between tiny objects that are 0.2 millimeters apart.
That's 0.008 inches, or the width of two to three human hairs.
So far, those gravitational figures still fit Newton's formula.
That means any potential excessive attraction would have to be
found at distances less than 0.2 millimeters.
So how do you measure the force of gravity at such itsy-bitsy
distances?
Actually, Adelberger's tests are similar to other two
Hanford-related gravity research projects.
A University of California at Irvine venture is set up in an
underground former missile bunker at the base of Hanford's
Rattlesnake Ridge. It is trying to fine-tune the numerical value
of the Gravitational Constant, the only constant figure in the
formula for Newton's law of universal gravitation.
Another University of Washington venture plans to set up in the
same bunker.
It speculates the universe has another fundamental force beyond
the four already known and is trying to find it.
The hypothesis describes that possible new force as sort of a
second cousin to gravity. Each of these searches nullify as many
outside forces as possible by putting equipment inside of
temperature-controlled vacuum chambers that also are protected
against vibrations and even against unwanted extra gravitational
influences.
Each experiment has a stringlike vertical filament that slowly
twists back and forth, with scientists analyzing the twisting.
Each experiment uses different gravitational influences to affect
those twists.
So if Adelberger, Arkani-Hamed or someone else find one or more
extra dimensions, what will they look like? And why can such a
new dimensions only be spotted in such an ultra-narrow domain?
So far, advanced theoretical math is the only way to describe any
extra dimensions.
But Adelberger offered this example on why extra dimensions might
be spotted through ultra-narrow windows.
Imagine a long, thin, straight wire.
To a human, that wire is pretty much one-dimensional, with only
its length easily visible.
But a tiny bug, like a gnat, would look at that same wire and see
its width and height, as well as its length -- our three standard
dimensions.
So what happens if someone finds a new dimension, or two, or
seven?
"It's hard to say what the practical use would be," Adelberger
said. "But the intellectual consequences would be huge. It would
help us understand all the forces in nature."
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This
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7 More woes for BE as Dungeness reactors to close
Scotsman.com
*Monday, 19th August 2002*
/ANDREW TURPIN/
aturpin@scotsman.com
BRITISH Energy, the embattled nuclear power generator, is closing
both its reactors at Dungeness for maintenance, adding to its
long list of problems as bid speculation rises .
The group has already seen its share price devastated following
the unscheduled closure last week of its 600 megawatt Torness
power station in Scotland because of technical problems, and it
may now come under further pressure.
British Energy said yesterday it had already closed one of the
two 550 megawatt reactors at Dungeness in Kent more than a week
ago for planned maintenance, while the other will close from
today for refuelling.
A spokesman for British Energy said: "It must be emphasised that
these outages [stoppages] at Dungeness are scheduled and have
been planned for a long time."
Although these closures had long been built into British Energy?s
business plan for this year, unlike the Torness shutdown, they
will not help investor sentiment surrounding the group.
Its biggest problem has been sharp falls of 30 per cent or more
in UK wholesale electricity prices over the past couple of years.
The shares are expected to come under further pressure this
morning, having fallen to just 61.5p on Friday from as high as
336p in September last year. The shares slumped 35 per cent last
week alone.
British Energy, which has eight UK nuclear plants, two of them in
Scotland, was floated by the government in 1996 at 203p, and hit
a high of 730p in early 1999.
Some analysts now think that, although the likelihood of an
immediate bid for British Energy is low, it is increasingly being
seen as a possible target for the likes of US groups such as
Energy, Constellation, Dominion and Florida Power & Light, as
well as expansive German nuclear operator RWE .
This bid speculation has mounted not least because of the
perceived value of the group?s recently acquired nuclear
generation assets in Canada, where it has the 82.4 per cent owned
Bruce Power complex in Ontario, and in the US, where it is part
of a 50-50 joint venture which now owns three nuclear plants.
These businesses are valued at around £1.3 billion, more than
three times British Energy?s current market value of just £404
million.
Last week, British Energy chief executive Robin Jeffrey declined
to absolutely rule out the possibility that the group might be
sold, saying it had to explore all options.
©2002 scotsman.com
*****************************************************************
8 ROSENERGOATOM PLANS TO SIGN AGREEMENT ON BUILDING FLOATING NPP IN
Interfax:
August 18, 2002 5:07pm
CHINA
The Rosenergoatom company plans to sign a framework agreement
with China on the construction of a low-capacity floating nuclear
power plant with a KLT-40S reactor in the country, the company's
press service told Interfax.
"A Rosenergoatom delegation led by the company's deputy executive
director Alexander Polushkin has been sent for talks on the
project to china," a press service official said.
He specified that the planned cooperation between Rosenergoatom
and China needs to obtain approval at the government level.
The floating nuclear power plant will include a power generating
unit and two KLT-40S reactors that would generate and transfer
electric power to a transformer substation. Other components
include hydro- engineering equipment that would protect the
facilities from natural and other impacts and provide
communications with the coast. The nuclear power plant will also
include of coastal facilities and equipment that would receive,
transfer and distribute electric power among consumers.
Rosenergoatom will design the floating nuclear power plant, while
the Malaya Energetika company will oversee the construction.
Earlier reports indicate that the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry
planned to build the first floating nuclear power plant in the
Russian town of Severodvinsk. However, this project was
suspended.
Currently, Russia is building the Tianwan nuclear power plant in
China. The finished project will operate two power generating
units with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts. The project's
cost is estimated at $3 billion.
Copyright © 2002 Interfax News Agency. Source: Financial Times
Information Limited.
*****************************************************************
9 Czech nuclear power plant reconnected to power grid
AP World Politics
Sun Aug 18, 5:14 AM ET
PRAGUE, Czech Republic - The troubled nuclear power plant in
Temelin near the Austrian border was reconnected to the country's
power grid and is working at full capacity, an official said
Sunday.
Spokesman Vaclav Brom said that the plant's first unit was
reconnected to the power grid on Saturday night after a one-day
outage caused by a minor leak of steam in its non-nuclear part.
The plant, located just 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of the
Austrian border, has been a source of friction between the two
countries.
While critics in Austria claim the plant is unsafe and demand
that it be shut down, Czech authorities insist the plant poses no
safety risks.
Tests in the first unit of the 2,000-megawatt plant — based on
Russian design and upgraded with U.S. technology — started in
November 2000. But testing has been plagued by frequent
non-nuclear malfunctions.
In June, the first unit entered the last stage of tests and
should be ready for commercial use in 18 months.
Brom said that tests are also proceeding in the second unit of
the plant, where the reactor is now running at 12 percent of its
capacity.
(nr/vg)
Copyright © 2002 The Associated Press.
*****************************************************************
10 AU: Veterans warn of Gulf War syndrome risk
theage.com.au -
Date: August 18 2002
By Brendan Nicholson Political Correspondent
More than a decade after the Gulf War, sick veterans of that
conflict don't want Australian troops sent back there to fight a
war that might involve chemical weapons.
The chairman of the steering committee of the Australian Gulf War
Veterans Association, David Watts, told The Sunday Age he did not
want to see other young service personnel suffer.
"I think it's very irresponsible of the government to start
talking about sending people over for another go when they
haven't really looked after the people who went in the first
place," Mr Watts said.
Mr Watts said many Gulf War veterans felt that they'd been
abandoned since returning to civilian life. Of the 1865 who
served in the Gulf, a significant proportion suffered health
problems, he said.
They were awaiting the results of a comprehensive health study
being carried out by staff at Monash University which they hoped
would reveal whether their illness was related to service in the
Gulf.
The research team is expected to report to the government later
this year.
More than 300 Gulf War veterans have claimed disability pensions
or other financial benefits as a result of illness believed to be
related to their service.
Mr Watts was a 21-year-old able seaman aboard the destroyer HMAS
Brisbane when he was sent to the Gulf in 1991. He was discharged
in 1997. He said: "A lot of guys are sick from their service
there.
"They are much worse off for doing their bit for the country.
That's got to change."
Hundreds of thousands of Gulf veterans from the forces of the
United States-led coalition countries fear they have been left
with a collection of illnesses that has become known as Gulf War
syndrome, with symptoms including severe headaches, nausea,
muscular pain, joint swelling, depression and memory loss. Other
common ailments include chronic diarrhoea, lethargy, skin
irritations and digestive problems.
Some believe the illnesses may have been caused by the injections
given to ward off chemical weapons. One drug used was
pyridostigmine bromide which was designed to reduce the effects
of chemical warfare agents on the nervous system.
US scientists are investigating the possibility that a vaccine
booster called Squalene may have been given to US and British
military personnel.
Overseas studies have also revealed significant levels of
post-traumatic stress disorder among veterans.
Naval personnel who spent little time ashore were exposed to
clouds of vapour from burning oil wells which hung over the whole
region.
Veterans may also have been exposed to depleted uranium, a
byproduct of the uranium-enrichment process. It is only slightly
radioactive and is used in armour and anti-tank shells because it
is extremely dense - nearly twice as heavy as lead - which gives
it a greater striking power.
The main health threat comes from its chemical properties rather
than from radioactivity. But some reports say the depleted
uranium can be contaminated with tiny amounts of plutonium, which
can cause cancer if lodged in the body.
As a toxic heavy metal, depleted uranium may cause kidney
problems and can be swallowed or inhaled as particles are
dispersed by fires or when shells hit armour plating.
[TheAge Home | Text-only index [http://www.theage.com.au/text/] ]
*****************************************************************
11 No easy money for nuclear-weapons workers' ills
Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/19/2002 |
[http://www.philly.com]
Families of the deceased or injured must show that they are
eligible for compensation. Many haven't even heard about it.
By Tom Avril Inquirer Staff Writer
Daniel Timmerman died of cancer in 1977, after working for 19
years at a West Chester company that did secret government
experiments with uranium and beryllium.
If his children can show he got sick from his job, a new federal
program will pay them $150,000.
But until a reporter called, they didn't even know about the
program.
Lack of information is just one of the many obstacles confronting
people such as the Timmermans. Their father, a former plant
manager, was one of more than 600,000 men and women who have
worked in the nation's nuclear-weapons programs since World War
II - workers who are now eligible for compensation if they
contracted certain illnesses as a result.
But which employees from about 330 sites - 53 in Pennsylvania and
New Jersey - qualify for the money under the Energy Employees
Occupational Illness Compensation Program? Did they get sick from
radiation on the job or from something else? And how do their
families pierce the veil of secrecy surrounding the atomic labs
and factories?
"It was government, and it was top security," said Jean Timmerman
Swisher, one of Timmerman's three children. "Those things were
not being discussed."
The compensation program, enacted in 2000 after the government
spent years denying workers' claims, has shed new light on the
broad-scale weapons buildup that took place across the country
during World War II and the Cold War years that followed.
Although most of the well-known early work was done at sites such
as Los Alamos, N.M.; Chicago; and Oak Ridge, Tenn., federal
records suggest that the mid-Atlantic states were abuzz with
sensitive undertakings as well.
At the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, 5,000 pounds of enriched
uranium were produced in 48-foot-tall thermal-diffusion columns
and sent to Oak Ridge in 1944 and 1945, some of it used in an
atomic bomb.
No one living in South Philadelphia was the wiser, even when two
workers were killed in an accident at the yard on Sept. 2, 1944.
A short newspaper article the next day cryptically referred only
to an "explosion."
Across the river in Deepwater, Salem County, the DuPont Chambers
Works developed methods for refining uranium, sending the fruits
of the effort to the secret Manhattan Project reactor at the
University of Chicago.
Today, many of the sites have been torn down. Companies have gone
out of business or have been absorbed by mergers. Records have
been lost, if they ever were kept in detail. In some cases,
workers were not told of the risks.
And those who can remember such things are dying off - not that
they ever said much while they were alive.
Swisher recalled that her father said very little about his work
at Aeroprojects, a company that pioneered the technique of
ultrasonic welding.
Daniel Timmerman was not a scientist but worked among them,
saying little more than that he "worked around more danged
doctors, and none of them could put a bandage on," she recalled.
After he retired in 1972, he contracted esophageal cancer and
died in 1977. Near the end, he couldn't swallow food.
Informed of the new compensation program, Swisher said she and
her two siblings would certainly apply.
Whether they and thousands of others will succeed is another
story.
To date, 1,137 claims have been filed by nuclear workers in
Pennsylvania or their families; 135 have been accepted and 59
denied. The rest are pending.
Workers at New Jersey sites or their families have filed 193
claims, of which none has been accepted and nine have been
denied.
Covered illnesses include most forms of cancer, as well as
chronic lung disease caused by exposure to beryllium or silica.
For those who have died, their surviving spouses or children are
eligible for the money. In addition to the $150,000, the program
pays any future medical bills related to the worker's illness.
Cancer victims who worked at a handful of sites are automatically
eligible for the funds because the radiation exposure there was
so high. (None of these locations is in Pennsylvania or New
Jersey.)
Those with chronic beryllium disease - a sometimes-fatal
affliction that can leave victims short of breath after the
slightest exertion - also have had an easy time of getting their
money.
That is because the test for the disease, developed by Milton
Rossman at the University of Pennsylvania, is straightforward,
and because there is only one way to get it: exposure to
beryllium - a light, heat-resistant metal used in nuclear
reactions.
Among those to get money so far is Alfred Matusick, 70, whose
congressman, Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D., Pa.), co-sponsored the
legislation. Matusick worked at a beryllium processing plant in
Hazleton, Luzerne County, from 1957 to 1981.
These days, he is strapped to oxygen tanks and takes steroids to
help himself breathe.
"As time goes on, it keeps getting worse," Matusick said. "If I
walk a little bit, I'm gasping for air, or if I move my arms too
much. In other words, I can't do nothing."
The government has a harder time figuring out whether to pay
workers with cancer, as often there are insufficient records of
individuals' radiation exposure. Specialists at the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) perform what
is known as a dose reconstruction.
This involves looking at things such as the site history and the
number of days the employee worked there.
Even once the dose is calculated, there is still no scientific
way for the agency to prove that a person's cancer was caused by
radiation exposure and not by something else.
As required by the law, the agency developed a complex
statistical model so the U.S. Department of Labor can determine
whether a given case of cancer is likely to have been caused by
radiation on the job. If the likelihood is above 50 percent, the
money is awarded.
Scientists have engaged in heated debate about the model,
however, as it is based on limited data. The largest source of
data on cancer and radiation exposure comes from studies of
survivors of the bombs the United States dropped on Japan.
Experts disagree on whether cancer data associated with one large
radiation exposure can be applied to the cases of workers who
received lower exposures over a long period of time. Worker
advocates and some scientists argue that the dangers to workers
are being underestimated.
"Data are sparse in this area, and yet we're trying to do the
best with what we've got," said David Sundin, deputy director of
the NIOSH Office of Compensation Analysis and Support.
Then there is the issue of whether people even learn of the
program to begin with. The government has set up 10 information
centers around the country. None is in this area, although public
meetings have been held in the Reading and Pittsburgh areas. The
Department of Energy also has asked its contractors to notify
employees by letter.
Large companies such as DuPont have done so. But other companies,
such as Aeroprojects, no longer exist.
Now that she knows about the program, Jean Swisher said, she will
give it a shot.
"The worst they can tell me," she said, "is no."
Contact Tom Avril at 215-854-2430 or tavril@phillynews.com
[tavril@phillynews.com] .
*****************************************************************
12 No easy money for nuclear-weapons workers' ills
Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer
Mon Aug 19, 7:36 AM ET
By Tom Avril, Inquirer Staff Writer
Daniel Timmerman died of cancer in 1977, after working for 19
years at a West Chester company that did secret government
experiments with uranium and beryllium.
If his children can show he got sick from his job, a new federal
program will pay them $150,000.
But until a reporter called, they didn't even know about the
program. Lack of information is just one of the many obstacles
confronting people such as the Timmermans. Their father, a former
plant manager, was one of more than 600,000 men and women who
have worked in the nation's nuclear-weapons programs since World
War II - workers who are now eligible for compensation if they
contracted certain illnesses as a result.
Copyright © 2002 Philadelphia Daily News and Inquirer
*****************************************************************
13 Plutonium ships avoid SA waters
[http://www.news24.com]
South Africa
18/08/2002 21:54 - (SA)
Greenpeace in high-sea protest
Johannesburg - A cargo of potentially dangerous plutonium has
been driven away from South African waters after the Greenpeace
ship MV Esperanza set sail from Cape Town to track and monitor
the shipment.
In a media statement on Sunday, Greenpeace said the ships
carrying the plutonium have significantly altered course and were
running into the "Roaring Forties" to avoid meeting the
Greenpeace vessel.
Given the deadly nature of the cargo, Greenpeace has undertaken
not to interfere with the passage or navigation of the vessels.
The international environmental organisation said it sought "only
to bear witness to this abuse of the high seas."
The two ships, the Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal, are
transporting plutonium bought by a Japanese nuclear reactor from
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), and subsequently rejected.
The Pintail and the Teal have already gone to great lengths to
avoid facing public and political pressure. Their departure from
Japan on July 4 was marked by Greenpeace protests they have been
met with stiff opposition since.
"It is hardly surprising that they are ashamed and want to hide
from public scrutiny," said Tom Clements of Greenpeace aboard the
Esperanza.
"The nuclear industry is a danger to us all. It is completely
unsustainable, both environmentally and economically," he said.
"Heads of government at the Earth Summit must reject continued
use and subsidies for dirty energy like nuclear fuel, oil, gas
and coal. This one shipment alone is costing $100m, money that
could be invested in clean, renewable energy, instead of being
wasted on a dangerous and discredited nuclear industry," Clements
added.
On Saturday the Pacific Island Forum issued their strongest
statement to date raising their concerns about nuclear shipments
and demanded the shipping states, in this case Britain and Japan,
accept full liability in the case of accident and also give full
notification of routes.
Greenpeace said that BNFL, which owns the cargo and the ships,
had refused to publish environmental impact assessments or notify
countries en route countries. They have also breached the
Exclusive Economic Zones of many states en route, despite demands
they stay outside.
The 78-member African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of
countries signed a strongly worded statement against the shipment
last month. As South Africa is part of the ACP, and as host
nation of the Earth Summit, Greenpeace calls on South Africa to
take the lead and join other governments in demanding a ban on
nuclear shipments.
"The weapons-grade plutonium on board could make 50 nuclear
bombs. BNFL would like to see 100 more shipments like it in the
next ten years," warned Clements.
"Not only are they posing an environmental risk by crossing the
world's oceans with such a hazardous waste, but they are also
guilty of nuclear proliferation on a frightening scale," he
added.
*****************************************************************
14 LES short list fails to appear
Story published in the Johnson City Press:
8/17/2002.
Erwin Bureau
UNICOI ? Reports that Louisiana Energy Services Consortium might
provide a short list of sites by the end of the week have not
panned out.
According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Urenco
officials in Washington, there was no news about the LES sites as
of Friday afternoon. Urenco is the main company of the consortium
involved in the search to purchase land for a proposed $1.1
billion dollar uranium enrichment facility.
Local interest in the LES plant surfaced in June after the Unicoi
County Economic Development Board released information about a
unidentified consortium of companies interested in a
100-acre-plus parcel of property in Unicoi, known as the "Tinker
Road Project.?
A letter of support from the Unicoi County School Board on June
27, identified LES as the company interested in the local
property. After the board?s letter surfaced, State Rep. Zane
Whitson, Jr., who is also the Unicoi County Economic Development
board director, locally confirmed LES was looking at the property
along with other sites nationally.
LES, Urenco and the NRC last met on Aug. 6, to discuss policies
for the proposed plant. At that meeting, a time frame for
developing the short list was said to be mid-August, with a
possible site named by the end of the month.
NRC officials said Friday the short list has not been provided to
them. Rumors about the final site selection now being pushed to
mid-September are, NRC officials say, just that ? rumors.
© 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press All Rights
*****************************************************************
15 Clean-up ordered after nuclear leaks
Scotsman.com
*Sunday, 18th August 2002*
/ANDREW PORTER AND TIM WEBB/
RADIATION from one of Sellafield?s most notorious waste dumps has
been leaking off the site, an unpublished document has revealed.
It has forced the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to order
British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL), which owns and runs the
reprocessing plant in Cumbria, to clean out the whole area or
build a brand new building around the existing structure to
contain any radiation.
Radiation levels at the ?B30? nuclear fuel storage pond are so
high that employees need face masks to go near it. The pond
itself is a mass of sludge and corroded nuclear fuel in various
states.
As many as 10,000 fuel rods are thought to be in the open pond,
the internal document explains.
But skips of waste near the pond have been toppling into it,
creating more of a hazard. The inspectorate has the power to shut
down the site but instead has ordered BNFL to carry on monitoring
to determine how much waste is escaping.
It has given it a deadline to decide whether to build a new
structure or clean out the existing one.
The inspectorate says some of the radiation is leaking into "the
general environment," but adds that there is not yet a risk to
public health. But it represents a problem for BNFL, which will
have to decide whether to entomb the site or clean it up. Any
major clean up would run into millions of pounds.
The government has launched a three-month consultation process to
tighten up security for the nuclear industry against the risk of
terrorist attack or sabotage.
One proposal in the unpublished document is to introduce direct
regulation of the transport of nuclear material, which has so far
been overseen by site operators who cannot effectively regulate
it.
Some nuclear facilities or sites where nuclear material is held,
such as science laboratories, will also be brought under the new
single regulatory regime for the first time.
Some 40 transport companies will be affected by the new
regulations, to be made under the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and
Security Act 2001, which will cost each company an initial
£185,000 to implement and and £115,000 per year after.
©2002 scotsman.com
*****************************************************************
21 NFS? effect on local environment concerns local actress Overall
Story published in the Johnson City Press: 8/17/2002.
By Chris Garland Erwin Bureau
ERWIN ? Local actress Park Overall has made public her request to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to hold a hearing on permit
change issues with Nuclear Fuel Services.
Overall said in an interview from her Hollywood, Calif., home
that she was contacted by concerned local citizens two weeks
before she filed the request through her attorney.
?The people of Erwin came to me and we got it in under the wire
on August 8,? she said. ?It was not very hard to get
environmental groups to sign; they are all very concerned.?
Overall said she owns a 15-acre farm in Greene County, and the
Nolichucky River runs along the property.
In addition to her individual declaration, Overall has provided
the NRC with declarations by the following organizations: Oak
Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, Tennessee Environmental
Council, the State of Franklin Group of the Sierra Club and
Friends of the Nolichucky River Valley.
NFS is seeking the change to include operations of a Tennessee
Valley Authority project announced in March that will
?down-blend? highly enriched uranium left over from the Cold War
for nuclear-power reactors. If the license is amended, NFS will
be allowed to build new storage buildings and house more uranium
at their site here.
The request is specific in asking for a hearing on environmental
issues concerning NFS material license SNM-124. The NRC printed
the public notice in the Federal Register on July 9, which said
the request must be filed within 30 days of the notice?s
publication.
?We did that,? Overall said. ?We are following the correct
procedures for our request that will now be reviewed and taken to
the Atomic Safety Board.?
NRC officials said last week that Overall?s request was received
before their deadline.
Petitioners are requesting, if a hearing is granted, that all
meetings and hearings concerning the declarations be conducted
locally and in the evening so most working people can attend.
They also wish to have representation at the meetings.
Although Overall did not provide full declarations of each
petitioner to the /Johnson City Press/, reference to her
declaration is made in the overview. It states, ?Park Overall,
whose declaration is attached as Exhibit 1, lives on the banks of
the Nolichucky River into which the NFS-Erwin plant discharges
its chemical and radioactive effluent. While she does not swim or
raft in the river now because it is highly sedimented, she would
like to do so in the future if the sedimentation is cleaned up.
?However, she will not be able to do so if levels of chemical and
radioactive effluent from the NFS-Erwin facility are unacceptably
high. In addition, she is concerned that the municipal drinking
water supply for the town where she lives, Afton, Tennessee, will
become contaminated by chemical and radioactive effluent from the
NFS-Erwin plant,? the document said.
Overall?s request said that should the hearing result in the
denial of a license amendment, the NRC may impose conditions on
the issuance of the license. Petitioners are hoping to make
changes to the application to better protect their interests with
the request.
Other similar hearing requests have been made by others to the
NRC. Those requests are being looked at to see if they met the
deadline and are in order for consideration by the Atomic Safety
Board.
/(Contact Chris Garland at cgarland@johnsoncitypress.com
)./
© 2001-02 Johnson City Press and Associated Press All Rights
*****************************************************************
22 LES won't make public 'short list' for enrichment facility
Elizabethton Star - Online Edition
By Kathy Helms-Hughes STAR STAFF khughes@starhq.com
Louisiana Energy Services will not make public its "short
list" of potential sites for a $1.1 billion uranium enrichment
facility, but will announce the final site selected by Sept. 15,
Peter Lenny of Urenco said Friday.
LES, a consortium made up of Urenco, Fluor-Daniel and
affiliates of Exelon, Entergy and Duke utility companies, is in
the process of setting up an office in Washington, D.C.,
according to Nan Kilkeary, who has been named public relations
officer for LES. Westinghouse Electric Co., and Cameco Corp. of
Ontario, Canada, also are negotiating partnership status,
Kilkeary said.
LES was expected to announce its short list last week -- a
list which is believed to include locations in Unicoi County,
Lynchburg, Va., and Wilmington, N.C.
However, Lenny said, "I think there is some misinterpretation
of what we intend to announce. We probably will have a disclosure
to the NRC of our short list but that will be made available to
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The actual announcement will
only be made with respect to the final site, and that will take
place sometime between now and Sept. 15."
Rod Krich of Exelon told the STAR, "We can't just come out
with it. We have to coordinate with a lot of different entities
-- the local people and so on -- so we need to put that plan in
place, which we are working on. Then we would notify all of the
proper agencies, including the NRC, and at the same time go
public."
Krich said the announcement will come from George Dials, who
recently was named president of LES. Dials holds degrees from
both West Point and MIT and has held senior positions in the
nuclear industry in both the government and private sectors.
Dials was executive director of the former Yucca Mountain nuclear
waste project contractor TRW Environmental Safety Systems Inc.
Kilkeary said various regulatory agencies need to be informed
before the final LES site is announced. "But at any rate, we
don't want to set people's expectations in an unreasonable way,
so we're just going to announce the finals. We'd like it to be
earlier rather than later, but it's a very technical process. It
isn't just, 'Oh, gee, this is a nice town, I think we'll come
here' -- we have a lot of criteria to evaluate against."
Kilkeary also said that despite local opposition to locating
the enrichment plant in Unicoi, "We find there are more people
who want the facility than don't."
Urenco's Lenny said opposition to the LES facility in Unicoi
is "unfortunate. I can understand why people have an interest in
this, but you really need to get the facts, and it takes time to
do these things, unfortunately.
"We have to handle this in a very controlled and very
objective manner. If people pick up rumors that an area is being
considered simply because they have heard that somebody has
talked to some official about some interest in getting some data
on an area -- unfortunately, I guess, this happens sometimes.
People start putting two and two together and coming up with
eight.
"I'd love to be able to say something, but we are constrained
by the process that we're in, and we just can't say anything.
It's sort of 'damned if you do, and damned if you don't' on this
kind of thing."
Exelon's Krich also expressed dismay at the situation in
Unicoi, which has pitted Citizens for the Preservation of Valley
Beautiful against some town officials.
"I feel badly that people should get so worked up without
having any real information to go on," Krich said.
Copyright © 1996 - 2002 Elizabethton Newspapers, Inc. Direct
questions or comments to webmas [webmaster@starhq.com]
ter@starhq.com [webmaster@starhq.com] Elizabethton Newspapers,
Inc., 300 Sycamore Street Elizabethton, Tennessee 37643 -
423.542.4151
*****************************************************************
23 [sunflower] The Sunflower July 2002 (No. 62)
Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 18:14:39 -0500 (CDT)
The Sunflower Online monthly newsletter of the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation July 2002 (No. 62)
The Sunflower is a monthly e-newsletter providing educational
information on nuclear weapons abolition and other issues relating
to global security. Back issues are available at
http://www.wagingpeace.org/sf/backissues.html
I N T H I S I S S U E
PERSPECTIVE MISSILES & MISSILE DEFENSE NUCLEAR SOUTH ASIA NUCLEAR
TERRORISM NUCLEAR MATTERS NUCLEAR WASTE NUCLEAR INSANITY NUCLEAR
ENERGY ACTION RESOURCES
************ PERSPECTIVE ************ Unusual Courage from 31
Members of Congress By David Krieger
Thirty-one courageous members of Congress, led by Rep. Dennis
Kucinich (D-OH), are challenging the president's unilateral withdrawal
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. These representatives
deserve our appreciation for taking action to prevent Mr. Bush from
trampling on the Constitution in his continuing effort to undermine
international law and expand US military domination.
This is a critical challenge to the abuse of presidential authority.
A lot is riding on it. If the president can unilaterally void our
laws, which ones will be the next to go? Perhaps the first and
fourth amendments? If your congressional representative is not one
of the 31 parties to this lawsuit, he or she should be asked why
not and urged to join the lawsuit and support it in the Congress.
Not a single US Senator has joined this lawsuit. Sen. Russell
Feingold (D-WI) initially indicated his intention to join the
lawsuit, but then backed off when his request to receive pro bono
legal services was not approved by the Senate Ethics Committee.
All US Senators should also be urged to join in this challenge.
The ABM Treaty required a two-thirds vote of the Senate in 1972
for ratification to enter into force and to become US law. Now the
100 members of the Senate appear content to sit on the sidelines
as the president unilaterally nullifies the law they made.
Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), a plaintiff in the lawsuit, recently
wrote:
"The ABM Treaty is the cornerstone of international arms control.
Now that more countries have nuclear weapons, international treaties
are even more important. International cooperation is the way to
peace and international security; not increased military build-up.
Over the past 30 years, the ABM Treaty has been a vital link to
working with the international community and it is more important
than ever that we not turn our back on it."
Meanwhile, at Fort Greely, Alaska, the Bush administration has
broken ground on six underground missile interceptor silos, is
spending more than $7 billion on missile defense this year, and
continues to move ahead with its plans to weaponize outer space in
order to protect US interests and investments throughout the world.
Meanwhile, the Russians have withdrawn their ratification of the
START II Treaty in response to the US withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty.
This opens the door for the Russians to use multiple independently
targeted warheads (MIRVs) on their missiles.
Meanwhile, the leaders of India and Pakistan, following the example
of US leaders, act as though nuclear deterrence will prevent a
nuclear war between them as they confront each other over Kashmir.
Thank you, Representatives Kucinich and Woolsey and your colleagues
in this lawsuit for demonstrating unusual courage at a difficult
time.
************************** MISSILES & MISSILE DEFENSE
**************************
US Seeks Partners for Missile Defense Cooperation
The US announced a new push to enlist other countries in its missile
defense plans. Head of the Missile Defense Agency Lt. Gen.
Ronald Kadish stated, "Now that the ABM Treaty is no longer operative
for us, we can now discuss with our allies and friends what might
be possible in terms of participation in the program." According
to Kadish, the US will offer different types of participation "to
accommodate the different needs of our allies."
Israel, Japan, Italy and Germany are already US partners on
short-range or medium-range missile defense programs. Russia is
also a partner on an observation satellite (RAMOS program) that
could play a role in cueing interceptors in the event of a missile
attack.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President George Bush also
agreed at their May summit meeting in Moscow to explore possibilities
for cooperation in missile defenses. (sources: AP, 20 June 2002;
Reuters, 20 June 2002)
US to Merge Space and Strategic Commands
On 25 June, the Pentagon announced that it is planning to merge
the US Space Command with the US Strategic Command (Strat Com) of
offensive bombers and missiles. The Space Command, currently
located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is responsible for overseeing
military satellites and ground sensors. The Strat Com oversees
the US arsenal of nuclear missiles which can be fired from submarines,
long-range bombers or underground silos.
According to Pentagon officials, combining the two Commands would
fit into President Bush's planned doctrine of allowing pre-emptive
strikes against states and groups seeking to develop weapons of
mass destruction. One defense official who did not want to be
identified, stated, "I know it sounds like an esoteric corporate
merger, but it's important in the post-September world to marry
warning and response."
The new command, that is yet to be named, will likely be headed by
Admiral James Ellis, the current head of Strat Com and based at
Offutt air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska.
(source: Reuters, 25 June 2002)
Pentagon To Keep Missile Defense Plans Secret
Lt. Gen. Ronald Kadish, director of the Missile Defense Agency,
announced on 25 June that the Pentagon plans to keep secret an
increasing amount of information about development of a missile
defense system. Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) responded
to the announcement stating, "The sole reason for classifying this
kind of basic information is to squelch criticism about the missile
defense programs." Kadish defended the secrecy plans as necessary
to ensure that US adversaries do not learn how to defeat the system.
(source: AP, 25 June 2002)
Navy Conducts Missile Defense Test
On 14 June, the US Navy announced that it conducted what it considers
the second successful test of a sea-based missile defense system.
An Aries ballistic missile was fired from the Pacific Missile Range
Facility at Barking Sands, Kauai. Six minutes later, it was shot
down 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean by a SM-3 interceptor missile
launched from the USS Lake Erie, a Navy cruiser equipped with an
Aegis radar system. The test was intended to demonstrate that a
missile guided by the Aegis radar system can knock down a medium-
or long-range missile under controlled conditions.
(source: AFP, 14 June 2002)
********************* NUCLEAR SOUTH ASIA *********************
Pakistani President Claims Nuclear Weapons Stopped India from
Attacking
As tensions have decreased between India and Pakistan, Pakistani
President General Pervez Musharraf stated that his country's
possession of nuclear weapons stopped India from attacking or
launching a limited war during the recent stand-off. Musharraf
also defended conducting three controversial missile tests during
the height of the confrontation, arguing that Pakistan felt compelled
to show India it wasn't bluffing.
On 24 June, Musharraf said that Pakistan developed nuclear and
missile capabilities to achieve a "strategic balance" with India,
not to attack it. Musharraf stated, "Our nuclear and missile
potential is defensive in nature and is a deterrence. [Pakistan]
has no offensive designs against anybody." He also said that
Pakistan is trying to use its nuclear technology for industrial
and agricultural development as well as power generation.
(source: BBC World Service, 18 June; AP, 24 June 2002)
India's Principle Presidential Candidate Says Nuclear Deterrent
Averted War
A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who developed India's missile program and played
a key role in making it a nuclear power, stated on 19 June that
the nuclear arsenals of India and Pakistan are what have prevented
a fourth war between the two countries. After being nominated for
president by the governing coalition and main opposition party,
Kalam defended India's decision to join the nuclear club, arguing
that his country has been repeatedly invaded by foreign powers for
centuries because of its weak military. India's presidential
election will be held on 15 July, but Kalam is assured to be the
next president as his only opponent holds less than 10 percent of
the vote.
(source: AP, 19 June 2002)
Khetolai Questions Indian Government Assurances
In Khetolai, a village of 1,500 inhabitants located just two miles
from the security fence that surrounds Pokharan military range,
cows have given birth to several blind and diseased calves since
India carried out five nuclear tests there in May 1998. Villagers
are asking themselves whether or not they should believe government
assurances that no radioactivity was released during the tests.
Ranjeeta Ramji, a father of 12, is one Indian farmer whose herd
has produced blind calves with tumors since the tests, none of
which survived more than one year. Ramji stated, "We have contacted
the authorities, but no one has come to see. These cows are our
bread and butter. There is so little water here that we can't grow
crops so they're our livelihood."
Villagers in Khetolai have mixed feelings about India having nuclear
weapons. Mooli Devi, the woman head of the village stated, "It is
good for the country, but for the people around here, it isn't."
None of the villagers were evacuated when India carried out its
nuclear tests. Instead, soldiers came and told them to stay outside
of their homes. People in Khetolai only found out what the military
was doing when they heard reports of the nuclear tests on the radio.
According to Devi, villagers did receive compensation of $100-$200
to repair cracks caused by the tests in the walls of their sandstone
homes and water cisterns. However, the villagers had to spend much
more money out of their own pockets.
At the time of the tests, many villagers complained of itchy skin
and vomiting, ailments that doctors in the area recorded as caused
by the summer heat. Bhagirath Ram says, "We never got proper
check-ups.
It's a very proud thing to have a nuclear bomb. But if you think
of the people of this village, we should have gotten better medical
examinations." The Indian government insists there was no health
risk to the villagers and that they received routine check-ups.
(source: Reuters, 16 June 2002)
******************* NUCLEAR TERRORISM *******************
Rising Nuclear Smuggling Risk
According to the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative
branch of Congress, the vulnerability of the US to attacks using
nuclear weapons or "dirty bombs" is worsened by its own poorly
funded, ill-coordinated efforts to stop the smuggling of radioactive
materials. A report made available on 26 June entitled, "US Efforts
to Help Other Countries Combat Nuclear Smuggling Need Strengthened
Coordination and Planning," concludes that illicit trafficking in
or smuggling of nuclear and other radioactive materials occurs
worldwide and has reportedly increased in recent years. The report
includes information on 181 nuclear smuggling incidents as well as
US government assistance programs.
Investigators said that the US has spent some $90 million on efforts
that include providing more than 30 countries with radiation
detection equipment, but it has not installed the same gear at US
border crossings. While the assistance that the US is providing
to other countries is helping to stop the smuggling of radioactive
materials, investigators found widespread problems with equipment.
Also, the GAO stated that there is widespread corruption among
border crossing guards and customs officials. According to Senator
Pat Roberts (R-Kansas) who ordered the investigation, the White
House Office of Homeland Security and the National Security Council
have assembled a working group on nuclear smuggling. Roberts
stated, "This comes right in the midst of the reorganization of
the Office of Homeland Security, and it points out one of the
primary concerns in regard to intelligence threats and what could
happen."
The full report is available on the GAO's website at http://www.gao.gov/.
Potassium Iodide Pills Distributed to US Residents Near Nuclear
Power Plants
In May, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission began offering potassium
iodide pills to the 33 states with nuclear reactors as a precaution
in the event of a terror attack on a power plant. In early June,
President Bush signed a bioterrorism bill that requires potassium
iodide to be available to all residents living near nuclear power
plants. Across the US, people living within ten miles of nuclear
power plants have begun receiving the pills. Thus far, 13 states
have accepted the pills and they are already being distributed in
California, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Vermont.
Potassium iodide offers limited protection against thyroid cancer,
a common result of radiation exposure, by flooding the thyroid
gland with harmless iodine, thus blocking the absorption of
radioactive iodine. The pills do not protect against any other
type of radiation and no other part of the body.
New York resident Rose-Marie Menes stated, "We shouldn't be doing
this. We are standing in line hoping to save our children's lives,
when what should happen is the plant should be closed."
(sources: AP, 8 June 2002; Reuters, 18 June 2002; AP, 19 June
2002)
US Military Stocking Up on Potassium Iodide Pills
At the urging of the Bush administration, military commanders are
quietly stocking up on anti-radiation pills and making plans to
give them to US troops should they be exposed to radioactive fallout
from an attack or accident. According to potassium iodide suppliers,
shipments to the military have increased in recent months amid
fears of war between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan, and
new terror threats against American targets including nuclear power
plants.
In the memorandum, dated 19 November 2001, William Winkenwerder,
assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, directed Army,
Navy and Air Force commanders to assess the risk to troops and to
develop "implementation plans on the use of potassium iodide."
Winkenwerder stated, "The US military overseas, their families, US
civilian workers and contractors may be at risk from hostile actions
and other events against nuclear power plants resulting in radioactive
iodine release." Winkenwerder also provided the secretaries of the
Army, Navy and Air Force with guidance on how the tablets should
be administered and put the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research
Institute in charge of reviewing the plans. (source:
Reuters, 30 June 2002)
National Academy of Sciences Recommends Tightened Control of Nuclear
Materials
The National Academy of Sciences released a study on 24 June urging
the US government to tighten control of nuclear materials, assure
production of medicine to repel biological attacks, improve
transportation security and act to protect energy distribution
systems. The report entitled, "Making the Nation Safer: The Role
of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism," recommends,
among other suggestions, that the government take immediate action
to develop improved methods to protect and account for nuclear
weapons and other nuclear materials. The full report is available
online at http://www.national-academies.org/.
IAEA: Radioactive Materials for Dirty Bombs Easy to Find
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned on 25 June
that radioactive materials needed to create a "dirty bomb" could
be found in almost every country and more than 100 countries have
inadequate controls to prevent their theft. Mohamed ElBaradei,
director general of the IAEA, stated, "What is needed is cradle-to-grave
control of powerful radioactive sources to protect them against
terrorism or theft."
ElBaradei announced an IAEA-led US-Russian mission to track down
nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union such as portable field
generators and agricultural powder. The IAEA will place priority
on recovering large quantities of cesium-137, a radioactive powder
used by the former Soviet Union to keep grain from rotting and a
small amount of which would be deadly if used in a "dirty bomb."
While countries that belonged to the former Soviet Union may pose
the greatest risk, they are not alone in their failure to keep
track of nuclear material. According to the IAEA, "Even the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission reports that US companies have lost
nearly 1,500 radioactive sources within the country since 1996,
and more than half were never recovered." A European Union study
estimates that up to 70 radioactive sources every year are orphaned
in the EU.
(source: Reuters, 25 June 2002)
******************* NUCLEAR MATTERS *******************
Israel Has Acquired Nuke-Capable Submarines
According to former Pentagon and State Department officials, Israel
has acquired three diesel submarines that it is arming with newly
designed cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.
confirmed that his country purchased the three diesel submarines
from Germany, but would not comment on whether they are being
outfitted with nuclear weapons. Israel has a long-standing policy
of neither confirming nor denying it possesses nuclear weapons.
Deadly Arsenals, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace in June 2002, reports that Israel is indeed attempting to
arm its diesel submarines with nuclear cruise missiles.
Published reports going back to 1998 describe Israel's acquisition
of diesel submarines and testing of cruise missiles. The book
states that Israel "is believed to have deployed" 100 Jericho
short-range and medium range missiles that are nuclear capable.
Israel also has nuclear bombs that could be delivered from the
US-made F16 fighter jets and US-built Harpoon missiles that could
be launched from plane or ship.
Israel's nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles were tested
in May 2000 and may have a range of more than 900 miles. With
three submarines, Israel could deploy one nuclear-armed submarine
at sea at all times. For more information on Deadly Arsenals, or
to order a copy, visit:
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/DeadlyArsenals.asp?from=pubdate
Does Japan Have A Secret Nuclear Weapons Program?
Yasuo Fukuda, an influential Chief Cabinet Secretary, recently made
remarks that Japan is not legally prohibited from having nuclear
weapons. The assertion raised serious concerns that Japan may be
shifting its long-standing nuclear policy and that Japan may one
day use its plutonium stockpiles at nuclear power plants to make
nuclear weapons.
Japan has vigorously pursued perfecting its plutonium fuel cycle
program, including large scale reprocessing and restarting the
Monju fast breeder reactor (FBR). Under the current program, Japan
is supposed to accumulate 450 tons of plutonium. Sensitive nuclear
technologies have been illegally transferred from the US nuclear
laboratories to Japan to separate weapons grade plutonium from
spent fuel of FBRs.
Japan is also developing the H2 rocket which non-proliferation
experts consider comparable to an ICBM. Furthermore, the Japanese
government collaborates with the US in the research and development
of (Theater) Missile Defense system.
Tom Clements, a former Executive Director of the Washington-based
Nuclear Control Institute, stated, "Because of Japan's plutonium
program, it's certainly our understanding and belief that Japan
does have the ability to build nuclear weapons in short order, and
Japan is basically a latent nuclear weapon state."
Although Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said his cabinet will
maintain Japan's three non-nuclear principles, another government
official speaking on the condition of anonymity said that in the
face of calls to amend the Constitution, the amendment of the
non-nuclear principles is also likely. Satomi Oba, Director of
Plutonium Action Hiroshima, responded, "The Prime Minister's denial
of Japan's reconsideration of its long-established three non-nuclear
principles is not enough to prevent Japan from becoming a nuclear
weapons state.
It is critical to demand that the Japanese government change its
nuclear policy, including abandoning its dangerous plutonium program,
stopping the restart of the Monju FBR, and never starting operation
of the Rokkashomura reprocessing plant."
(sources: AP, 25 June 2002; "Prime Minister Cannot Wipe Away
Japan's Secret Weapons Program," by Satomi Oba, 3 June 2002)
Scientists Suspect Chernobyl In UK Child Death Increases
British scientists suspect that deaths and deformities caused by
the 1986 Chernobyl disaster may have extended beyond the Ukraine,
Russia and Belarus. According to the scientists, the cloud of
radioactivity from the world's worst nuclear accident could have
increased infant deaths and birth defects in England and Wales in
the three years that followed. John Urquhart, a researcher based
in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, estimated that at least 200 more children
than normal died during those three years. He also calculated that
the fallout may have caused more than 600 additional cases of Down
Syndrome, spina bifida, cleft palate and other abnormalities.
After studying deaths and birth defects in children born in 15
health regions of England and Wales between 1983 and 1992, Urquhart
found that most of the deaths and deformities occurred in just five
regions spread throughout the two countries. Urquhart stated,
"We've probably been too complacent about the health effects from
Chernobyl in Western Europe." Urquhart's findings were presented
to a conference on low-level radiation that took place in June in
Dublin.
(source: Reuters, 26 June 2002)
9th US Circuit Court of Appeals Revives Hanford Radiation Cases
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals revived two lawsuits on 18 June
filed by thousands who claimed they were sickened by radiation
releases from the Hanford nuclear weapons complex. The 9th US
Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a federal trial court in Washington
state to reconsider the claims that were dismissed in part in 1998.
In one lawsuit, a judge dismissed 4,500 plaintiffs saying scientific
evidence of radiation injury was too complex for a jury to determine.
The suit was filed in 1990 after the US government admitted to
secret radiation releases from 1945 to the early 1960s that could
have harmed anyone living downwind from Hanford nuclear site where
plutonium was made for 40 years for the nation's nuclear arsenal.
In the second lawsuit with 1,000 plaintiffs, a judge dismissed all
the claims except those from people who had certain types of cancer
and from those who could show that exposure to radioactive emissions
put them at great risk for those cancers.
The appeals panel ruled that the lower court needed to consider
whether there was proof that exposure to radiation at the level
alleged by the plaintiffs could cause illness in the general
population. The appeals panel also rejected contentions from five
former Hanford contractors--E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., General
Electric Co., UNC Nuclear Industries, Atlantic Richfield co. and
Rockwell International Corp.--that residents should have to show
they were exposed to so much Hanford radiation that it more than
doubled the risk of harm. Roy Haber, a lawyer representing about
600 plaintiffs, stated, "It's a great victory for the people who
have suffered from the last 50 years as a result of enormous
radiation releases from Hanford."
(source: AP, 18 June 2002)
US Conducts 17th Subcritical Nuclear Test
After several technical delays, scientists from Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory carried out a subcritical nuclear test, code-named
"Oboe 9," at the Nevada Test Site on 7 June. According to a
statement from the National Nuclear Security Administration, "Data
from monitoring instruments confirmed that the experiment was
subcritical, that is, no self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction
occurred." The Nevada-based Shundahai Network denounced the tests
stating, "These tests continue to violate the spirit of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and
the World court's ruling on the illegality of preparing for nuclear
war.
It is also a continued violation of the Treaty of Ruby Valley signed
with the Western Shoshone Nation." For more information about US
subcritical nuclear testing, visit
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/articles/2002/020305ongsubcrittesting.htm.
Radioactive Berries Seized in Moscow Markets
Yelena Ter-Markirosova, a spokeswoman for Radon, Moscow's
radiation-monitoring agency, announced on 28 June that nearly 1,500
pounds of berries from an area heavily hit by the 1986 Chernobyl
nuclear disaster have been seized since 18 June from Moscow markets
because of radioactive contamination. The bilberries, akin to
blueberries, were found to have 14 times the acceptable levels of
cesium.
(source: AP, 28 June 2002)
Nevada Rejects Mushroom Cloud License Plates
Amid controversy over the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca
Mountain, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles rejected a license
plate design featuring an atomic mushroom cloud. Nevada DMV director
Ginna Lewis said on 5 June that because of state efforts to stop
the nuclear waste dump plans and the fear of new terrorist attacks
following 11 September, the new plates would be inappropriate.
State lawmakers approved the special plates in 2001 to commemorate
the state's nuclear history and to raise funds for the Nevada Test
Site Historical Foundation. (source: AP, 8 June 2002)
*************** NUCLEAR WASTE ***************
Russia to Build Nuclear Waste Facility in Novaya Zemlya
Valery Lebedev, Russia's deputy nuclear power minister, announced
on 21 June his country will build a nuclear waste dump facility.
Lebedev said a nuclear waste site is critical to dismantle 190
decommissioned nuclear-power submarines. Russian officials have
said that nuclear fuel has been removed from only 97 submarines.
All of the other submarines have been docked with nuclear fuel
onboard for as long as 15 years due to shortage of funding to build
dismantling and storage facilities. The entire dismantling effort
is estimated to cost $2.5-$3 billion. Sites under consideration
include the southern tip of the Arctic Novaya Zemlya archipelago
and three alternative sites on mainland Russia including a site in
the Archangelsk region, one near Murmansk and one in the central
part of the Kola Peninsula.
(source: AP, 21 June 2002, AP; 1 July 2002)
Earthquake at Yucca Mountain
An earthquake in the Nevada desert on 14 June reinforced concerns
about the plan for a national nuclear waste dump site at Yucca
Mountain. According to the US geological survey, the earthquake
had a magnitude of 4.4. Representative Shelley Berkey (D-Nevada)
stated, "If anyone ever wondered about the wisdom of locating an
underground radioactive dump site on an active fault line, this
shows why." Senate Majority Whip Harry M. Reid (D-Nevada) said,
"There is no need to rush to build a nuclear repository when there
are so many unanswered questions about its safety and security."
In 1992, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake caused tens of thousands of
dollars of damage to Department of Energy facilities at Yucca
Mountain. According to state officials, more than 600 earthquakes
greater than magnitude 2.5 have been recorded at Yucca Mountain in
the past two decades.
In related news, three Western mayors urged their counterparts
attending the US Conference of Mayors on 15 June to oppose the
nuclear waste repository, arguing that shipping radioactive waste
to the site would threaten the entire country.
(sources: AP, 14 June 2002; AP, 15 June 2002)
How close are YOU to proposed Yucca high level nuke waste transportation
routes & the closest nuke reactor? Find out at http://www.mapscience.org
******************* NUCLEAR INSANITY *******************
UK Plans Nuclear Expansion
The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) is investing more than $3 billion
in a project that will enable the country to produce a new generation
of nuclear weapons. According to officials, the MoD is planning
a huge expansion for the existing nuclear weapons establishment in
Aldermaston, Berkshire. The expansion would provide scientists
with the capability to design and produce mini-nukes or nuclear
warheads for cruise missiles, if the government gave the go-ahead.
The MoD justifies the expansion saying that Britain's 1998 strategic
defense review says that the country needs the capability to produce
a successor to the Trident nuclear missile system.
The plans were approved without parliamentary debate, sparking fury
among members of parliament. The expansion will create the most
state-of-the-art nuclear weapons complex in Europe that includes:
a hydrodynamic research facility to help design and develop nuclear
weapons, a supercomputer to simulate the effects of atomic devices,
and a factory to produce tritium.
The Aldermaston plan coincides with an apparent shift in Britain's
nuclear policy. Following the US lead, Defense Secretary Geoff
Hoon has made a series of statements indicating that the UK wants
to develop a range of tactical nuclear devices that could be used
pre-emptively against non-nuclear states or terrorist groups.
Evidence reveals that there is also increased cooperation between
the US and the UK on nuclear weapons and policy. UK visits to the
Nevada nuclear test site rose from nine in 1999 to 40 in 2001, with
an additional 182 meetings between the two countries. The US and
the UK now have 16 joint working groups on weaponry issues, including
nuclear warhead physics, nuclear counter-terrorism technology and
nuclear weapon code development.
(sources: The Guardian, 15 June 2002; The Guardian, 18 June 2002)
Privatized Uranium Enrichment Company Gets New Deal
The Bush administration has announced a deal with the US Enrichment
Corporation (USEC), the nation's only uranium enrichment company,
to build a new high-tech uranium enrichment plant in either Kentucky
or Ohio within a decade. The new plant would replace the company's
50-year-old facility in Paducah, Kentucky.
The new deal is a highly profitable arrangement for USEC, particularly
because of its recently troubled financial record.
Since it was privatized in 1998, USEC's credit rating has slid to
junk-bond level and its stock prices cut in half. The company also
faced criticism in 2001 when it ceased enrichment activities at an
Ohio plant, which eliminated some 500 jobs.
Until 1998, the US Department of Energy ran the uranium enrichment
plant at Paducah, but the government privatized its enrichment
activities, leading to the formation of USEC in a $1.9 billion
stock deal. Through the "Megatons to Megawatts" program, USEC buys
enriched uranium from dismantled Soviet bombs and sells the fuel
to US utility companies, which accounts for about half the enriched
uranium used by US nuclear plants.
USEC has pushed for unrealistically low prices from the Russians
and asked for US government subsidies because it has no desire to
see the US market flooded with uranium from abroad. Earlier this
year, USEC signed an agreement with its Russian counterpart allowing
it to purchase Russian fuel at a lower price than it had previously
paid.
Annually, Russia receives about $500 million for the program, which
has destroyed some 5,600 warheads. However, USEC has only purchased
141 metric tons of the 500 tons of weapons-grade uranium which it
is committed to purchasing. Some estimate the amount of high
enriched uranium still in Russia is equivalent to 26,000 warheads.
Many people believe that privatization was a mistake and question
the wisdom of placing the future of a key US-Russian agreement in
the hands of a company motivated by profit. USEC's customers, the
utilities, argue that one way to solve the problem is to form a
new company that would buy uranium directly from Russia and sell
it to the utilities at a price lower than USEC offers, cutting out
the middleman. The utilities argue that this would benefit US
consumers while at the same time speed up the removal of uranium
from Russia.
(sources: AP, 18 June 2002; "Nukes for Sale," Joseph E. Stiglitz,
10 May 2002)
**************** NUCLEAR ENERGY ****************
Scientists Find Fault Line At Australian Nuclear Reactor Site
Scientists found a fault line during a routine examination at an
excavation site in Sydney, Australia for a nuclear reactor.
Although environmentalists and residents living nearby protested
the reactor's construction due to safety concerns, the $168 million
reactor was approved in April. (source: AP, 20 June 2002)
Security Checks Stopped At Civil Nuclear Facilities in the UK
According to a report released on 16 June, standard security checks
have not been carried out at several nuclear power facilities in
the UK because of staff shortages. The Office of Civil Nuclear
Security (OCNS), which is responsible for regulating security
arrangements at the country's civil nuclear sites, said it carried
out full inspections at only nine of the country's 31 nuclear
facilities in 2001. According to OCNS, some inspections were
suspended after staff were diverted from routine work in the
aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks in the US. The
report also said that OCNS has lost experienced security staff to
the private sector and the organization is finding it difficult to
recruit replacements. (source: AP, 16 June 2002)
******* ACTION *******
The Sunflower
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Campaign to Build the Rongelap Peace Museum in the Marshall Islands
On 1 March 2002, the Mirar in Eaan Committee (the Committee to
build Rongelap Peace Museum in the Marshall Islands) released an
appeal calling for support of the Rongelap Peace Museum. The museum
is an attempt to record, remember and make known the damage of US
nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. It will help bring public
attention to many unknown sufferings and contribute to the relief
of the sufferers. The museum will thus encourage people to work
for a nuclear-weapons-free Pacific and a nuclear-weapons-free
future.
Ground breaking for the museum will begin in August 2003. The
museum inauguration is scheduled for 1 March 2004, the 50th
Anniversary of the "Bravo" Test. The museum will be located in
Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Please send a donation
to support this extremely important project. It is preferred that
contributions be transferred to the bank account of the project
at: Bank of Marshall Islands, P.O. Box J, Majuro, Marshall Islands
96960, Tel:
692-625-3662; Savings account number: 881-72-2006-7, Routing Number:
121405212. Donations can also be sent to Mirar in Eaan Committee
(People from the North), P.O. Box 350, Majuro, Marshall Islands
96960. Tel: 692-625-4306 Email: Mirarineaan@yahoo.com.
UC Nuclear Free
In June, Dr. Armin Tenner, Chair of the International Network of
Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (INES), also
wrote an open letter to the UC Community. In his letter written
on behalf of INES, Dr. Tenner urged the University of California
to sever its relationship with the nuclear weapons laboratories.
He also urged scientists and engineers to use their abilities to
solve international problems and establish a culture of peace.
The UC Nuclear Free Campaign builds on the long history of community
mobilization around the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation is seeking alliances with individuals and
organizations sharing a similar vision, particularly individuals
interested in joining, starting, or funding a chapter. To become
involved, please contact Michael Coffey at the Foundation's offices
or by email at youth@napf.org or visit
http://www.wagingpeace.org/secure/startachapter.html. For more
information on the UC Campaign, please visit http://www.ucnuclearfree.org
Urgent Call
In response to the US Nuclear Posture Review, the Bush Administration's
opposition to most arms control agreements, and on-going forms of
nuclear proliferation, Randy Forsberg, Jonathan Schell and David
Cortright have released the Urgent Call to End the Nuclear Danger.
The purpose of the Call is to provide a rallying point for all
those who are deeply concerned that, after receding slowly but
surely for many years, the danger of nuclear war is now increasing
again. To learn more about the Urgent Call and add your name,
please visit http://www.UrgentCall.org.
************ RESOURCES ************
Visit the ever-evolving website of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
at Http://www.wagingpeace.org
Moving Beyond Missile Defense is a joint project of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation and the International Network of Engineers
and Scientists Against Proliferation. Visit the MBMD website at
http://www.mbmd.org.
Take a journey through the Nuclear Age. Visit the Nuclear Files
at Http://www.nuclearfiles.org
A four-page briefing paper, "Multilateral Treaties are Fundamental
Tools for Protecting Global Security; U.S. Faces Choice of Bolstering
These Regimes or Allowing Their Erosion," is now available at
http://www.lcnp.org/pubs/RuleofLawbriefing.htm and
http://www.ieer.org/reports/treaties/factsht.html
"Radiation Risk to Low Fluences of Particles May Be Greater Than
We Thought," a radiation study conducted by Columbia University is
available online at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/25/14410
"Sharing the Planet," a manifesto produced by Pugwash, calls for
international order to become sustainable and is available online
at: http://www.sharingtheplanet.org
Mapscience.org allows visitors to enter their addresses and view
a map showing proximity to routes the US government would likely
use to transport nuclear waste to the Yucca Mountain repository.
It also shows proximity to the nearest nuclear power plant.
http://www.mapscience.org
********** EDITORS ********** Carah Ong David Krieger
-- Carah Lynn Ong Director of Research and Publications
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation PMB 121, 1187 Coast Village Road,
Suite 1 Santa Barbara, California 93108-2794 USA
*****************************************************************
24 Report: Israel's F-16s equipped to carry nuclear weapons
Wednesday, August 21, 2002 Elul 13, 5762 Israel Time: 09:01 (GMT+3)
Back Home
By Amnon Barzilai
Israel's fleet of F-16s, the backbone of the air force, are the
most likely candidates to carry Israeli nuclear weapons says
Nuclear Notebook, the newsletter published by the Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists, in its upcoming September-October issue.
"It is generally accepted by friend and foe alike that Israel has
been a nuclear state for several decades," says the three-page
newsletter devoted to Israeli nuclear forces. It also notes that
Israel's "declaratory policy" states "Israel will not be the
first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East."
In 2001, says the report, the Pentagon omitted Israel from a
published assessment on nuclear proliferation, but a 1991 U.S.
Strategic Air Command report "lists Israel, India, and Pakistan
as `de facto' nuclear weapon states."
That 11-year-old report said at the time that Israel had between
75 and 200 weapons, including bombs, missile-mounted warheads and
apparently also some tactical, non-strategic nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Notebook is written by Robert Norris, William Arkin, Hans
Kristensen, and Joshua Handler.
The newsletter says a small group of pilots have been trained for
nuclear strikes, which would be launched from one or two bases,
or possibly dispersed across several. It cites Tel Nof as one
base equipped to load planes with nuclear weapons, and says the
most likely squadrons to carry such weapons into action are the
111, 115, 116 at the Nevatim Air Force base southeast of Be'er
Sheva, and squadrons 140 and 253 at the Ramon base on the Negev
plateau.
Other squadrons named in the report as possible nuclear strike
forces are the 109, 110, and 117 at Ramat David, and the 101,
105, and 144 at Hazor.
According to the newsletter, the IDF received a 25-plane squadron
of F-15 Ra'am's (Thunder) in 1998, with ranges of some 4,450
kilometers, and capable of carrying 4.5 tons of fuel and 11 tons
of munitions.
F-15 Eagles are earmarked by the U.S. for nuclear missions. The
newsletter says it is not known if Israel has modified the F-15s
it received for nuclear capability.
According to Nuclear Notebook, Israel has ground missile
capabilities for nuclear warheads.
The Jericho, developed with France, can carry up to 750 kilograms
over a 235-500 km range, with a one-kilometer degree of accuracy.
The Jerichos are meant to be mission ready within two hours, and
can be launched from either stationary positions or from mobile
launchers. They can be fired at the rate of four-eight an hour.
In a series of tests in the 1980s, Jericho II missiles achieved
ranges of 1,450 km, says the newsletter, and by 1997, it goes,
there were 50 Jerichos at the Zechariya missile base, about 45 km
southeast of Tel Aviv in the Judean mountains, where, according
to satellite image analysis, the Jerichos are stored in caves.
The newsletter notes that the Ofek 5 spy satellite, weighing 300
kg, was launched with a Shavit, and it gives the Shavit a range
of up to 7,000 km, depending on the weight of its payload.
As for Israel's naval forces, the newsletter says three Israeli
Dolphin-class submarines, the Dolphin, Tekumah, and Leviathan,
are all equipped with cruise missile capability.
© Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved
*****************************************************************
25 Anti-Nuke Film Battles Film Board
Las Vegas SUN:
August 18, 2002 By BETH DUFF-BROWN ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOMBAY, India- An anti-war film that depicts the euphoria after
India's first successful nuclear tests and the horror of Sept. 11
has been deemed too provocative for Indian eyes.
Just weeks after nuclear-armed India and Pakistan pulled back
from the threat of war, the film censor board has demanded that
veteran documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan make 21 cuts to
"War and Peace" because of scenes that "may have the effect of
desensitizing or dehumanizing people."
Critics charge that the board's decision is part of an effort to
muzzle Indian media that challenge the ruling coalition led by
Hindu nationalists. Patwardhan says the cuts would ruin the
three-hour film, which ends with silent scenes of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks.
In an interview at his Bombay apartment Saturday, Patwardhan said
he will appeal the cuts to the Appellate Tribunal in New Delhi on
Monday. He expects to win, as he has each time the board has
challenged his other social and political documentaries.
"The cuts that they asked for are so ridiculous that they won't
hold up in court," Patwardhan said. "But if these cuts do make
it, it will be the end of freedom of expression in the Indian
media."
"War and Peace" is about India's celebrations after successful
nuclear tests in May 1998. There are chest-thumping scenes of
Hindus praising Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the
secret tests near the western desert town of Pokhran, with
fireworks, rallies and cheers of "Atom Bomb Vajpayee," and
"Pokhran has ignited every atom of manhood.'"
The film is also about the consequences of nuclear bombs and the
power of the Hindu fundamentalist forces steering Vajpayee's
Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP-led coalition won re-election in
1999, aided by the national jubilation over joining the club of
nuclear nations.
The Central Board of Film Certification demanded the cuts, even
after "War and Peace" won top honors at the state-run Bombay
International Film Festival in February.
Among the ordered cuts are: Footage of independence leader
Mohandas K. Gandhi minutes before he was gunned down by
Hindu-nationalist Nathuram Godse in 1948; visuals of Hindus
cutting their hands with razors to sign their names in blood on
messages of congratulations for the nuclear tests; all scenes
with Vajpayee and other political leaders; and a sequence that
has leaders of Hinduism's lower Dalit caste, known as
"untouchables," lamenting that the nuclear tests were conducted
on Buddha's birthday. Many Dalits have converted to Buddhism as a
means to escape Hinduism's caste discrimination.
Censor board chairman Arvind Trivedi, an actor and former
Hindu-nationalist member of Parliament, did not return calls for
comment. Trivedi recently told other journalists that he has not
seen the film and denies the board's decision was based on
politics or pressure.
Patwardhan, 52, who graduated from Brandeis University in Boston,
says if he wins the appeal, the film would open to Indian
audiences.
Mahesh Bhatt, one of India's most respected filmmakers, called
the censor board's demands "shameful."
"It is appalling that the land that deifies Gandhi makes it so
difficult for a man like Patwardhan, who articulates the same
values that Gandhi dreamed for India," Bhatt said in a telephone
interview. "The sanity of his film, it just undermines the war
hysteria that they've whipped up."
Patwardhan said the film's message is that nuclear weapons are
not a deterrent to war, as promoted by the nuclear nations.
It has been argued, however, that were it not for the nuclear
arsenals of India and Pakistan, the longtime South Asian rivals
might have launched a fourth war in June, when their war rhetoric
peaked.
India blamed Islamabad's spy agency and Pakistan-based Islamic
militants for deadly assaults on the Indian Parliament in
December and an Indian army base in May. The claims and
subsequent denials by Pakistan nearly provoked war, with
Islamabad suggesting it would use nuclear weapons if it learned
India was preparing to do the same. International pressure,
prompted by fears of the world's first nuclear war, persuaded the
neighbors to back down, though they're still on a war footing. A
million troops remain on alert along their frontier.
"The film challenges the macho notion that India needs nuclear
bombs," said Patwardhan. "What happened on Sept. 11 proved that
you don't need nuclear weapons, all you need are boxcutters."
In the final scene of the film, Patwardhan quotes Gandhi as
silent footage shows the jets slamming into New York's World
Trade Center, victims staggering, police officers collapsing.
"If there is a victor left, the very victory will be a living
death for the nation that emerges victorious," Gandhi said a
half-century ago. "There is no escape from the impending doom,
save through a bold and unconditional acceptance of the
nonviolent method with all its glorious implications."
The last film directed by Bhatt was "Zakhm," or "Wound," based on
memories of growing up with a Muslim mother and Hindu father. To
get the film released, Bhatt had to digitally alter a scene about
the destruction of the 16th-century Babri Mosque by Hindu
fundamentalists in 1992, turning their saffron arm bands to gray.
"This is how you falsify reality," Bhatt said. "The problem in
India is not the Islamic fundamentalists. It's the Hindu
fundamentalists, who will destroy India in the end."
All contents copyright 2002 Las Vegas SUN, Inc.
*****************************************************************
26 AU: How a scared little country became a nuclear wannabe
smh.com.au -
Date: August 17 2002
By Tony Stephens
As the Howard Government revs up the rhetoric about a war against
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction, a new documentary reveals
how Australian governments pushed for two decades to have their
own nuclear weapons.
The documentary claims the proposed nuclear power station at
Jervis Bay was not designed primarily to produce energy for
domestic consumption, but as the centrepiece in a secret plan to
fortress Australia with a nuclear arsenal.
A co-producer of the documentary, Peter Butt, said yesterday that
Fortress Australia was a "story of a country fearful of its
enemies and mistrustful of its allies that set out to buy, and
ultimately construct, its own nuclear weapons".
He said: "With war against Iraq now likely, it's timely to
confront our own sordid past, when we were once a frightened
little country heading down exactly the same path, without
considering the consequences."
Andrew Ross, a military analyst with the Australian Defence
Studies Centre at the University of NSW, said that the notion of
Fortress Australia should be put in the context of the Cold War,
instability in Asia and Australia acting as part of the old
British Empire. But it was true that "Australian military
strategists were planning to be able to fight a nuclear war in
South-East Asia in the 1960s".
The former United Nations weapons inspector Richard Butler drew
another parallel: "Prime Minister Menzies had lied to Australia
about the Vietnam War, but we had asked to be invited to join,
just as the Howard Government is asking to be in a war against
Iraq. Then Sir John Gorton, pushed by Sir Philip Baxter,
Australia's Dr Strangelove, sought a nuclear option. Now the
Howard Government wants to spend billions on new strike
aircraft."
Sir Philip, head of the Atomic Energy Commission, predicted 30
years ago that Australia would be a lifeboat after a nuclear war
around the turn of the century. Most of the northern hemisphere
would be uninhabitable and Australians would have to fight off an
invasion by armed refugees. He urged that "the most sophisticated
and effective weapons that man could devise" be adopted.
Fortress Australia, to be screened on ABC on Thursday, draws on
previously secret documents and rare film, including some bizarre
footage taken in 1963 of a simulated nuclear test in North
Queensland.
Wayne Reynolds, of Newcastle University, wrote last year in
Australia's Bid for the Atom Bomb that Australia had hoped to
secure nuclear weapons through the United States or Britain, but
the big powers agreed to limit their proliferation. Dr Reynolds
said "Australia's Manhattan Program" would have resulted in an
Australian reactor producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The documentary reveals Baxter wanted Britain to fund a nuclear
reactor close to the Mary Kathleen uranium mine, in north-west
Queensland. In 1965, Menzies asked the Atomic Energy Commission
to advise on the cost of producing nuclear weapons. Baxter
thought 30 could be produced in a year.
In 1966, the prime minister, Harold Holt, thought Australia
should be as nuclear self-sufficient as possible. In 1967, Baxter
sought to restrict uranium sales to Britain so that Australia
could produce its own bombs.
Gorton was sworn in as Britain was withdrawing from Asia. He
refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty in 1968 and
pushed for the power station at Jervis Bay.
Dr Ross, an assistant to cabinet secretary Sir John Bunting in
1971, said: "We couldn't work out why the government wanted a
power station in Jervis Bay. It didn't make sense as an energy
source."
After succeeding Gorton as prime minister, Billy McMahon scrapped
the station. Australia signed the treaty. By the mid-1980s, it
was a leader in the nuclear disarmament campaign.
[SMH Home | [http://www.smh.com.au/text/] ]
*****************************************************************
27 Russia: It Sank — 2002
Background information and news about the numerous accidents and
incidents that involve the nuclear vessels in the Northern Fleet.
The Kursk accident investigation is completed. But the results
only state basically that the submarine sank... somehow.
An Oscar-II submarine is ready for launch at Sevmash shipyard
in Severodvinsk.
Photo: Sevmash
Igor Kudrik, 2002-08-19 00:33
"It sank," Russia's President Vladimir Putin said when asked by
Larry King on CNN Live what happened to the Kursk. The same
answer was basically given by Vladimir Ustinov, the Prosecutor
General of the Russian Federation, at the press conference on
July 26th after the Kursk accident investigation had been
completed.
"It sank as a result of torpedo explosion," Ustinov said,
detailing to some extent the answer of his President. The
criminal case launched on the fact of the accident. Nobody is
found to be responsible.
Two years ago, on August 12th, Russia's Oscar-II class submarine,
the Kursk, hit the seabed in the Barents Sea and took with it 118
sailors. The accident happened during the last day of Northern
Fleet's military training, which had started two days before, on
August 10th.
The Kursk left the pier in Vidyaevo base at the Kola Peninsula at
09:00 in the morning on August 10th. The trip was to be short and
regular — just a training in the Barents Sea. 22 torpedoes were
onboard the submarine with warheads and two so-called practice
torpedoes tipped with no explosives. One of the practice
torpedoes — 65-76A — was the to become the cause for the whole
disaster, as the official investigation concluded.
Having assumed the region assigned, the Kursk sent a radio
message on August 12th. This report was the last communication
between the operation centre of the Northern Fleet and the Kursk.
Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, at that time Commander of the Northern
Fleet, said this contact took place at 8:51 Moscow time.
At 11:28:26.5 Moscow time an explosion, or rather a seismic
event, was detected onboard surface vessels of the Northern Fleet
which took part in the exercise and onboard American submarine,
spying on the training. But the small distortion on the radar
screens faded quickly away. The acoustics officers onboard the
surface vessels got used to the weird noises of the sea. Right
then they were focusing of the torpedo attack as there were in
the area where they could become prey to the Kursk.
Gennady Lyachin, the Kursk Commander, was ready to perform the
attack. The submarine was at the periscope depth, practice
torpedo 65-76A was loaded into the forth torpedo tube. Hydrogen
peroxide contained in a tank inside the torpedo was slowly
finding its way out, a chemical processes started trigging off
the first explosion. The torpedo exploded in its middle part
tearing away the outward and inward torpedo tube hatches and
damaging second torpedo tube (Kursk has six torpedo tubes in
total in the bow part).
The cause for the torpedo explosion did not have a proper
explanation in the investigation results. The investigation has
not established if the torpedo was malfunctioning before being
loaded into the Kursk. The theories on this matter, never
confirmed officially, varied from a story of a torpedo being
dropped during loading, to the telling that a submarine crew
usually has to pay extra to the torpedo responsible unit to
ensure that they get a good functioning piece of weapon. One
thing is for sure and is admitted by the Northern Fleet — the
cranes are in bad shape and such accidents as torpedo being lost
during loading can occur. Another thing is that practice
torpedoes are reusable. Once being fired, a practice torpedo
surfaces later and both the submarine, which launched it, and a
special ship, called torpedo-catcher, have to chase the surfaced
torpedoes to return them to the base. If a torpedo is lost, those
responsible are severely punished. Such practice also increases
the chances of a torpedo malfunctioning.
Fire started immediately in the torpedo section and water flooded
in through the to destroyed hatches. Although the bulkheads
between the first and second compartments remained intact, the
explosion wave stunned everybody in the commander post located in
the second compartment, the official version follows, and that
explains why nobody made an attempt to blow the ballast tanks to
surface the Kursk — a natural pattern of behaviour when such
things occur on board a submarine. But such explanation sounds
weak as the ventilation system (ventilation hatches were open),
connecting the compartments does not have the diameter, which
would let the sudden increase of pressure in the second
compartment. Thus the question remains open: Why no attempt to
surface the submarine had been made during those approximately
2.5 minutes between the two explosions.
At 11:30 and 44.5 seconds the surface ships of the Northern Fleet
detect the second 'seismic event' much more powerful than the
first one. Still, according to official investigation, nobody
pays attention to that. The ships, including the newest nuclear
powered cruiser Peter the Great, just continue to cross the area
of the Kursk responsibility.
The second explosion, or rather a chain of minor consecutive
explosions, devastates completely the bow part of the submarine,
including the first, the second and the third compartments. It
also damages the forth, the fifth and the fifth-extra
compartments, killing everyone, who was there, in a matter of
seconds. The explosion stops at the bulkhead separating the sixth
compartment — the reactors compartment. The submarine hits the
seabed at the depth of 110 to 112 meters.
The surface ships, amazed to a certain extent, that nobody
attacked them, continue its way further away from the Kursk area.
As then Chief of the Staff of the Northern Fleet, Mikhail Motsak,
explained later there were cases when a captain of a submarine
fails to carry out an attack and continues to hide without coming
out for communication even when the training is over. It seems
that the commanders of the Northern Fleet tried to reassure
themselves by such stories from the past not daring to think
about the worst scenario. In various interviews both Motsak,
Admiral Popov, and Russian Navy Commander Vladimir Kuroedov named
different time frames for the expected attack by the Kursk,
varying from 11:00 to 18:00 and from 11:00 to 23:00.
The rescue operation
www.kursk.strana.ru
But there is a reason to believe Alexander Teslenko, head of the
rescue service of the Northern Fleet, who gave the most honest
interview ever published in Northern Fleet's newspaper Na Strazhe
Zapolyarya, or Guarding the North.
According to him the Kursk submarine was to attack a group of
surface vessels from 11:30 to 18:00 Moscow time using practice
torpedoes. No report of the attack being carried out was received
from the Kursk, however. According to the schedule, the submarine
was to surface and report that it was leaving its area of
exercise at 23:00 Moscow time on August 12th.
But the understanding that something went wrong with the Kursk
came before 23:00. The rescue operations chief was called in at
17:00.
Rescue service of the Northern Fleet operates one tugboat, two
vessels, submarine rescue vessel Mikhail Rudnitsky and rescue
vessel Altay. The Northern Fleet has also three submersibles:
AS-34 (Briz) first in class built in 1986, AS-32, AS-36 (Bester)
first in class built in 1994.
Without waiting for the report to come at 23:00, the captain of
Rudnitsky received orders to have one hour readiness and was fit
to leave the base at 22:20. Altay was in one-hour readiness by
that time.
The tugboat was near Kildin Island and was sent to the area of
the exercise at 18:31 and arrived at the place at 22:30.
The Kursk did not take contact at 23:00. Teslenko arrived onboard
Rudnitsky and the vessel left Severomorsk, the home base of the
Northern Fleet, in the night from August 12th to August 13th.
At 08:39, Rudnitsky reached the boarder of the exercise field cut
for the Kursk and started searching for the submarine.
At 12:05, Rudnitsky anchored and began to monitor the area for
radio signals from the Kursk. The vessel also tried to establish
verbal radio contact with the Kursk crew.
At 15:30, the vessel started preparation of AS-34 (Briz)
submersible. While doing so, Rudnitsky moved to the most likely
point of the Kursk location. At 16:15, AS-34 was put on water. At
16:20, the automatic acoustic station onboard the Kursk responded
to the probe sent from Rudnitsky. At 17:48, AS-34 caught the
radio contact as well and started to approach. The signal coming
from the Kursk was not too spread to establish the precise
location of the submarine.
At 18:32, AS-34 had to surface having suffered an emergency. The
submersible likely collided with a steering wing of the Kursk
while being underwater. After AS-34 had surfaced and was lifted
onboard, Rudnitsky was capable of finding the precise
co-ordinates of the submarine and moved to that area. The
location of the Kursk was established in 6 hours and 27 minutes
after the search party had dispatched, according the Teslenko.
From August 13th to August 14th, from 22:40 and until 01:05,
another submersible, AS-32, was sent several times down to the
Kursk, but it failed to establish even a visual contact with the
submarine.
At 04:00 on August 14th, the batteries ran out at AS-34. The
regular loading time is 13-14 hours. But they were recharged
hastily and the submersible was down at the Kursk from 04:55 and
until 07:48. The submersible tried to mate with the rescue hatch
in the stern of the Kursk but did not succeed.
On August 14th, at 16:00, another submersible was brought to the
area of the accident AS-36 (Bester). The submersible had to be
placed on a floating crane tugged to the area because AS-36?s
mother ship, Herman Titov, was taken out of operation in 1994.
But due to the worsened weather, the rescuers failed to put the
submersible on water — the crane was not designed to work
offshore. The crane was than tugged to the nearest bay —
Porchnikha — to unload the submersible in the quiet water. The
submersible was then towed back to the area of the Kursk accident
having being damaged on its way in the rough sea.
AS-36 dived again but suffered an accident when one of the
valves, which regulates the trim, developed a leakage. The
submersible had to rest on the seabed for a while and then to go
up in emergency. The submersible almost sank when it was on the
surface, but one of the cranes managed to grab it. AS-36 was
eventually taken onboard and repaired. It dived several times
after but failed to dock on the Kursk?s rescue hatch.
The floating crane was incapable of working in the sea gale;
while Rudnitsky, which was reconstructed to carry AS-34
submersible from a lumber carrier, could not provide safe loading
and unloading of the submersible. AS-34 swinging wildly when
raised from water was hitting the board of the ship and received
damages. According to Teslenko, echo sounder, sonar and other
equipment were damaged as a result of the collisions during
loading and unloading.
Teslenko said that all in all Briz and Bester made 14 attempts to
dock with the Kursk. None of them was successful.
Norwegian divers opened the rescue hatch in the stern of the
submarine on August 21th — one day after they arrived. The
submarine?s compartments were flooded with water by that time.
Officials
Rear Admiral Mikail Motsak had been insisting in the collision
theory until he was fired.
Victor Khabarov
The first official report that there was an accident with the
Kursk came on August 14th. A press release from the Russian Navy
said that a submarine during an exercise went to seabed in the
Barents Sea. It was absolutely unclear whether it was a part of
the exercise or an accident.
Naval officials started to come up with the theories the next day
after they received the first surveillance results from
submersibles on August 15th. Admiral Kuroedov was the most
persistent proponent of the theory that the Kursk collided with a
foreign submarine. Ilya Klebanov, then a deputy prime minister,
who was appointed by President Putin from Sochi — a city on the
Black Sea — to head the governmental Kursk inquiry commission,
was also from the 'collision-with-foreign-submarine' club.
When a proper video of the Kursk arrived in a week or so after
the accident Kuroedov could be remembered pointing his finger on
a TV screen and exclaiming: "There, there you can see a trace of
the collision."
The collision theory had been populating the heads of the Russian
admirals and other officials until December 1st 2001. By that
time the Kursk had been lifted and the Russian prosecutor
general, Vladimir Ustinov, presented President Putin with the
results of the accident investigation. At that day Putin signed a
decree, removing from their positions Vaycheslav Popov, the
Commander of the Northern Fleet, Mikhail Motsak, the Chief of
Staff of the Northern Fleet and a number of other high ranking
officers. The sacking had officially no link to the Kursk
accident itself, but for other violations in the preparation of
the military training and the activity of the Northern Fleet.
Ironically, but Mikhail Motsak, who headed the Kursk lifting
operation, and was said to aim at the chair of the Commander of
the Northern Fleet was fired as well. Admiral Motsak, somehow,
did not catch where the wind blows and gave an interview prior to
his sacking explaining how the Kursk was sunken by an alien
submarine.
Admiral Kuroedov, who made the most ridiculous statements during
the rescue operation and was also the believer into the collision
theory rather then into the chaos, which ruled in various
services of the Russian Navy that resulted into the Kursk
disaster, somehow, avoided the punishment. He was in fact the one
who made the lists for President Putin with the names of those to
sack. It seems that he was making the list in a great hurry. The
rumours say that some officers in the lists were not even in the
Navy by that time and the others were later restored in their
positions as there were protests in the Northern Fleet against
such drastic measures towards evidently unrelated to the whole
Kursk-story persons.
After having been sacked, Vyacheslav Popov became a
representative of Murmansk County in the Federation Council, the
upper chamber of the Russian parliament. Mikhail Motsak got his
job in the office of Victor Cherkesov, the governor of North-West
Russia, a former KGB officer infamous for notorious persecution
of dissidents in the Soviet times.
The ninth compartment
photo: Mammoet
Once being a powerful cruse missile nuclear submarine, the Kursk
was turned into a wreck in a matter of minutes. The senior
officers in sixth and eighth compartments, among them Dmitry
Kolesnikov and Rashid Aryapov, took the remaining crew — 23
submariners — into the ninth compartment. The ninth compartment
is designed as a rescue section and can theoretically accommodate
the whole crew of the Kursk. The stern rescue hatch is located in
that compartment as well. The survivors collected diving suits,
breathing equipment, gas masks, air-generation capsules from all
the stern compartments of the submarine and brought all that
equipment to the ninth compartment and sealed it off, although
the water continued to leak in through the ventilation system.
The investigation says that the crew lived for a maximum of eight
hours after the second explosion. People in the compartment died
after being exposed to carbon monoxide. The fire, according to
the conclusions, was started by submariners themselves, when they
tried to open one of the air-generation capsules, which are easy
to inflame.
Although it stands in the note found on the Kursk, which was
written by Dmitry Kolesnikov, that they would try to escape
through the rescue hatch — no actual attempts were made during
the eight-hours of entrapment. The crew had all the diving
equipment and was trained to surface from a depth of 100 meters.
In the worst-case scenario, they could try to take a free dive,
although no training is given for such scenarios. The
investigation has concluded, however, that even the ladder to the
hatch leading to the compression chamber and further to the
outside, was not put into its place resting where it should be
during a normal operation. Why the crew made no rescue attempts?
Were there other notes found which would prove that the crew was
alive for more than eight hours?
These questions remain unanswered. Anyway, the theory that the
eight hours were the time the crew stayed alive fit just well the
assumption that nobody was to blame for failing the rescue
operation and letting those people die. Vyacheslav Popov gives no
interviews about the Kursk these days. Sometimes, he answers that
when the time is ripe, he will reveal the truth. The official
'torpedo explosion' version Popov called rubbish.
Regardless of whether the official theory is true, or lies — one
major problem is still there. The rescue service of the Northern
Fleet is still in shambles as the rest of the Northern Fleet and
what was called by the official investigation 'an unpredictable
accident' has its roots in the current situation. And as long as
this situation is there, no one can give a guarantee that no more
Kursk stories could start unfolding again.
Publisher: Bellona Foundation [bellona@bellona.no] , President:
Frederic Hauge [frederic@bellona.no] Information: info@bellona.no
[info@bellona.no] , Technical contact: webmaster@bellona.no
[webmaster@bellona.no] Telephone: +47 23 23 46 00 Telefax: +47 22
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28 Middleast: Pushing the doomsday button
Jordan Times (Opinion Section)
Editorial:
IT IS comprehensible that Israel would like to push the US into
war with Iraq and do so sooner rather than later. From the
Israeli perspective, war with Iraq would serve its immediate
interests. As long as Iraq is viewed as or suspected of having
weapons of mass destruction, Israel will always feel threatened.
That's why Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been advising
US President George Bush that postponing the strike against Iraq
would only allow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein more time to
develop an atom bomb.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres has been echoing the same
warning lately. In an interview with CNN on Friday, Peres said
that attacking Iraq is certainly dangerous but not attacking it
would be even more dangerous because the additional time would be
exploited by the Iraqi leadership to develop nuclear weapons. The
Israeli foreign minister also expressed the view that the stance
of the Iraqi president would only change to the worse with time.
Most Israelis appear to agree.
This doomsday projection would make war against Iraq all the more
palatable for the Israelis, and they seem to be preparing
themselves for the inevitable.
But sober people must pause and reflect. They must consider what
such cries for war would mean for the entire region and its
peoples. If Iraq indeed possesses various forms of weapons of
mass destruction, then no matter what sort of war preparations
Israel makes for an attack against Iraq, there is no doubt that
an exchange of fire of such weapons between Israel and Iraq would
take a heavy toll on Israelis and non-Israelis alike. There are
more rational methods to deal with the alleged Iraqi threats than
launching an all-out war certain to be so devastating that few
innocent people would be spared.
The warmongers in the world need to be stopped and stopped fast.
As His Majesty King Abdullah said during his address to the
country on Thursday, there is still something that Iraq can and
should do to avert war. On balance it would be in the better
interest of the country to comply fully with the UN demands for
free and unfettered inspection of Iraq. There is a price that
Iraq can and should pay no matter how painful it is in order to
avert a war that aims to destroy its very existence as a country
and people. It is complete cooperation with the UN system so that
all warmongers would lose all pretexts or excuses to destroy an
important Arab country.
Monday, August 19, 2002
Jordan Times
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29 DOE wants B Reactor in Reach plan
This story was published Thu, Aug 15, 2002
By Mike Lee Herald staff writer
The Department of Energy agrees that Hanford's B Reactor and
other historic sites along the Columbia River should be
incorporated into planning for the Hanford Reach National
Monument.
That news, made public Wednesday, came as a response to concerns
raised after the agency said in April that preservation of the
historic reactor for public use was not a priority given the
demands and costs of river corridor cleanup.
"We think it is very important that the Hanford Reach National
Monument has significant content to recognize the Manhattan
Project and Cold War, where the contribution and sacrifices
Hanford workers and local citizens made helped end World War II
and the Cold War," Keith Klein, DOE's Richland office manager,
said in an Aug. 8 letter to the monument's citizens advisory
committee.
"These efforts and results greatly impacted the history of the
world," he said.
B Reactor was the world's first production-scale nuclear reactor,
and it produced plutonium for the world's first atomic bomb and
the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki to effectively end World War II.
Klein's letter did not address the costs of preserving B Reactor,
but his comments are seen as an important development in the
preservation effort. He also said other significant sites such as
the Bruggeman warehouse and the Hanford High School building also
should be included in the monument planning efforts.
"I hope we are able to find a way to have a community approach
for these unique historic assets," said Klein, who already made
it clear in April that public-use options of B Reactor could be
viable if money can be found to support preservation.
Monument lands come within about 100 yards of B Reactor but do
not include it. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is
expected eventually to add selected cleaned-up Hanford lands to
the monument.
Jim Watts, chairman of the monument committee, called Klein's
correspondence "a very positive response" and said it bodes well
for museum-building sentiment that runs deep in the Tri-Cities.
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This
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30 Hanford accelerates timetable to close 7 tanks
This story was published Fri, Aug 16, 2002
By John Stang Herald staff writer
Hanford officials are aiming to permanently close seven
underground radioactive waste tanks between 2004 and 2011.
On Thursday, Washington's Department of Ecology signed an
agreement to tentatively lock those closures into the Tri-Party
Agreement, the legal pact governing Hanford's cleanup. The
Department of Energy signed the agreement Wednesday.
A 45-day public comment period is to begin in late September.
After that, the changes can be formally adopted.
Under the agreement, DOE would begin "closing" its first Hanford
tank in 2004, 10 years ahead of schedule. The new schedule calls
for seven single-shell tanks to be closed by 2011, and 60 to 140
single-shell tanks to be closed by 2018 -- six years ahead of
schedule.
"We intend to beat those milestones, not just meet them, but beat
them," Roy Schepens, manager of DOE's Office of River Protection,
told the Hanford Advisory Board's tank waste committee Thursday.
However, Hanford officials acknowledged the upper target of 140
tanks by 2018 is extremely optimistic.
Suzanne Dahl, the state Ecology Department's tank waste disposal
project manager, called the agreement "a really good change
package."
However, the state and DOE have not agreed yet on what "closing"
a tank means. It will entail removing all the wastes from the
tank and somehow permanently sealing it.
Discussions on tank closure are scheduled to run from late 2002
to early 2004. Dahl said "closure" might be slightly different on
a tank-to-tank basis.
The plan is part of DOE's nationwide plan to accelerate nuclear
cleanup. Hanford has149 single-shell tanks and 28 newer and safer
double-shell tanks that hold a total of 53 million gallons of
highly radioactive wastes.
Those wastes are to be treated at a waste glassification plant
now under construction that is to gradually go on line between
2007 and 2011.
The first tank to be closed will be Tank C-106 in the 200 East
Area. This used to be the tank whose wastes kept spontaneously
heating up, which meant cooling water had to be constantly added.
Most of this tank's wastes were pumped out to cure the problem.
Tank C-106 still has 3,000 gallons of sludge left in it, along
with 30,000 gallons of liquids.
The other six single-shell tanks to be closed by 2011 are the
next-most-hazardous in central Hanford. Five are in the 200 West
Area's S Tank Farm, and the sixth is Tank C-104, a neighbor of
Tank C-106.
The new timetable means DOE expects to close 53 to 133 tanks
between 2011 and 2018 -- a drastically faster pace than the seven
tanks between 2004 and 2011.
Reasons for the slower initial pace are a current lack of space
in the double-shell tanks and initial inexperience in closing
single-shell tanks.
The new glassification plant will draw wastes from the
double-shell tanks, which will receive wastes from the
single-shell tanks. But single-shell wastes are expected to be
about three times what the double-shell tanks can hold, and those
tanks already are almost full.
That will require a complicated juggling act to create space for
wastes from the single-shell tanks. It will be even more
complicated because the differing chemistries of the wastes will
have to be carefully accounted for.
"We'll have to be running a well-orchestrated dance," said Joe
Cruz, an engineer with the Office of River Protection.
Copyright 2002 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This
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