NucNews - August 10, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- accidents and safety Radioactive sludge from St. Lucie nuclear plant a health risk, attorney says By Jill Barton The Associated Press Posted August 10 2005, 5:22 PM EDT http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-0810nuclearsludge,0,6029769.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines WEST PALM BEACH -- Thousands of gallons of radioactive sludge was shipped daily from the St. Lucie nuclear plant to undocumented locations in the late 1970s, creating a cancer risk for the community, according to an attorney who's suing the plant operator. Attorney Nancy La Vista said she can prove that errors in handling nuclear waste by Florida Power & Light caused the brain cancer of at least two children. She represents the parents of 11-year-old Zachary Finestone, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in March 2000, and Ashton Lowe, who had brain cancer when he died at age 13 in May 2001. The trials in the civil lawsuits could begin early next year. State health officials previously reviewed a potential cluster of childhood cancers in St. Lucie County, where both boys had lived, after discovering 29 cases of brain and central nervous system cancer from 1981 to 1997. Health Department officials tested soil, air and water for 500 chemicals at the homes of the affected children and their pregnant mothers, but they found no pattern. But La Vista points to other tests that showed unusually high levels of radioactive strontium in the boys' baby teeth, and blames Florida Power & Light releases from 1977 to 1982. FPL said it mistakenly shipped radioactive wastes to farmland about 10 miles west of the St. Lucie nuclear plant on two occasions. Those incidents were reported when FPL discovered the problem in 1982, a decade before the boys were born, said FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott. The utility immediately cleaned up the site at Glades Cutoff Road, removing six inches of soil from a contaminated 20-foot by 30-foot area. The radioactive material was shipped to a nuclear waste depository in Barnwell, S.C, according to court documents. Scott said tests by state and federal authorities show no health threat at the site or in the surrounding air, soil or water. ``It's a very sad situation when families are dealing with cancer, but there's absolutely no validity to the claim that it has anything to do with the plant,'' Scott said. The farmland is in the northwest corner of St. Lucie County, about 125 miles north of Miami and a few miles north of Port St. Lucie, which in recent years has become one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. La Vista said the problems at the farm can be traced back to 1977 and were discovered in 1982 when workers learned of a plumbing mix up. Workers believed a sink at the plant drained to a tank designated for radioactive waste and used it to clean highly radioactive items. But it instead went into the nuclear plant's sewage disposal system. The potentially radioactive sewage went into a septic tank, where it was pumped out at least daily and taken to the Fort Pierce Sewage Treatment from 1977 to 1980, according to documents. The misunderstanding was attributed to ``essentially 100 percent turnover'' in staff, according to documents obtained in the lawsuit. La Vista said no records exist detailing the handling or monitoring of the nuclear waste hauled to the municipal facility. She says the frequent shipments likely sent radioactive material into the air, water and ground. But Scott said that tests conducted after 1980 would have revealed contamination that had built up in previous years and showed no health risks. ``There would have been no radioactive material in the liquid itself,'' she said. ``If there had been any problems whatsoever at any time during the operation of the plant, it would have been detected by the Florida Department of Health Bureau of Radiation Control.'' La Vista said she expects to prove to a jury that FPL exceeded the allowable releases of nuclear waste and contaminated parts of St. Lucie County. ``We believe the cancer cluster is partially related to the nuclear waste. Our cancer experts say these children were exposed to radiation,'' she said. ``The community needs to be concerned.'' -------- africa Team to probe Necsa employee's death announced August 10, 2005, 17:15 SABC News http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/general/0,2172,110085,00.html A team of five specialists is to investigate the death of an employee and allegations of unsafe practices at the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa). The team will be led by radiation scientist Mogwera Khoathane, who was appointed by the Necsa board to conduct the investigations. He interviewed and selected the team of five who are to compile a report to be presented to the board once investigations are completed. The team is to probe allegations made against the occupational health and safety practices of Necsa and events leading to the death of employee Victor Motha at the Pelindaba nuclear reactor near Tshwane. Khoathane in a statement today described the team as "highly qualified and experienced individuals, who are duly aware of the technical and administrative requirements for safety, health and environment and would be able to demonstrate their commitment". The team members are: Annanda How, an internationally registered ISO auditor and trainer for quality and environmental management systems; Shaun Guy, a radiation protection and radioactive waste management expert; Mokgothu Brian Nkonoane, a practising attorney with experience in personal injury claims and litigation matters; Monde Ntwasa, a molecular biologist; and Barney de Villiers, an occupational health expert. - Sapa -------- asia IAEA calls for more attention on nuclear safety 2005-08-10 22:45:13 (Xinhuanet) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/10/content_3336865.htm BEIJING, Aug. 10 -- Nuclear energy will be increasingly important in the new century but safety should come first, Tomihiro Taniguchi, Deputy Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told the 18th International Conference on Structural Mechanics in Reactor Technology (SMiRT 18), being held in Beijing. "Despite the safe operation of Nuclear Power Plants (NPP), the public is still concerned bout nuclear safety. Terrorism in recent years has also aroused vast awareness of safety in nuclear usage," Taniguchi said. "Asia and the pacific area are vibrant in developing nuclear technology and are supposed to give a boost to the safe use of nuclear power worldwide," said Taniguchi. Asia has seen rapid growth in energy technology and it is currently the only area where nuclear power enjoys a bright future. China is in great need of nuclear energy and has included it into its national electricity development program, said Li Ganjie, head of the China National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA)at the conference. Currently, China has nine nuclear power units in operation, with a combined installment capacity of 6.7 million kilowatts, accounting for 1.7 percent of the country's total installment capacity. By 2020, China's installed nuclear power capacity will rise to 40 million kilowatts, accounting for 4 percent of the national total. "No incidents have taken place in all NPPs in China and no harmful impacts on the environment were reported in the past few years," said Wang Jun, vice-director with national nuclear safety administration. "But we also face challenges in supervision since the types of the reactors as well as the standards vary widely." The NNSA will take measures to minimize hazards such as enhancing the surveillance and evaluation of safe operation, and promoting international nuclear cooperation. It's the first time Beijing has hosted the biannual SMiRT since it was launched 34 years ago. The five-day Beijing SMiRT, scheduled to end of Friday, has attracted 252 representatives from 27 countries. -------- australia Australia, China to Begin Formal Uranium Talks REUTERS AUSTRALIA: August 10, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31991/story.htm CANBERRA - Australia plans to begin formal talks on a pact to allow China to buy uranium for its growing energy needs, while ensuring the mineral is not used to build weapons, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said on Tuesday. The formal negotiations come after nine months of informal, exploratory talks on a possible safeguards agreement -- ensuring the safe use and disposal of uranium and its by-products -- to allow Australia to export uranium to China. A spokesman for Downer said a date had not yet been set for the first round of discussions. "China is the world's second-largest energy consumer and has a high projected growth in electricity demand. China's plans to meet this demand include a four-fold increase in nuclear energy production by 2020," Downer said in a statement. Australia, which has about 40 percent of the world's uranium but only mines a fraction of the metal, restricts exports to 36 countries that have signed a bilateral nuclear safeguards deal. "Opening up this export opportunity with China is consistent with the growing trade and economic relationship between our two countries, and Australia's position as a secure supplier of energy resources," Downer said. Australian Industry and Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said last month he hoped a deal could be reached within a year, but government sources said a pact could be agreed by Christmas. Macfarlane announced last week that the country's remote Northern Territory would be opened up to new uranium mining, allowing Australia to exploit strong demand for the fuel used in most of the world's nuclear power plants. Australia exported 7,765 tonnes of uranium in 2004 worth more than A$410 million ($308 million). Australia is the world's number two exporter of uranium after Canada. Uranium prices have more than tripled in the past five years to record highs, in step with higher oil prices, as nuclear energy emerges as an alternative source to fossil fuels. Australia has three uranium mines, which are owned by BHP Billiton Ltd./Plc, Rio Tinto Ltd./Plc and General Atomics of the United States. ($US1=A$1.32) -------- britain Nuke train fears over rusty viaduct Published on 10/08/2005 NW Evening Mail, UK http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=271211 NUCLEAR safety fears have been raised over the state of the rail link between Barrow and Sellafield. The condition of Foxfield Viaduct has prompted concerns from local councillors about trains carrying nuclear fuel to the West Cumbrian plant. The line is used to carry spent nuclear fuel from power stations in Britain to Sellafield for reprocessing. It also carries passenger trains six days a week. Jos Curwen, who represents nearby Broughton at South Lakeland District Council, told the Evening Mail he had raised the issue with Stephen Byers during his time as Secretary of State for Transport. He also highlighted the point at a recent public inquiry into the detrunking of the A595. Cllr Curwen said: “Safety should be of paramount importance whatever they’re carrying over it, but they’re carrying these loads of nuclear fuel." A spokesperson for Direct Rail Services, the agency contracted by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to transport nuclear flasks between power stations and Sellafield, said: “We work very closely with Network Rail and it is their responsibility to keep the line at the appropriate level.” A spokesperson for Network Rail said the last detailed inspection of the viaduct took place in November 2000, with the next one due at the end of next year. An annual visual inspection was carried out in October 2004, with the next one expected this autumn. There are no current temporary or emergency speed restrictions on the viaduct, and no weight limit for trains passing over it. -------- business Thar's Uranium in Them Thar Hills By Jeff Rice 02:00 AM Aug. 10, 2005 PT Wired http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,68422,00.html Would-be uranium miners are dusting off their Geiger counters. A worldwide shortage of uranium is pumping up prices and has led to a rush for mining claims in the western United States. More than 15,000 new claims have been filed in uranium-rich states in the last year, up from just a few the year before. "This year alone we've received about 6,000," said Pam Stilles at the Bureau of Land Management's office in Cheyenne, Wyoming. "It's happened overnight." Wyoming, which has some of the biggest uranium deposits in the United States, hadn't seen more than 100 new mining claims over the last 10 years combined. But now claim offices are jumping across the region. Utah and Colorado, two big players in the market, have gone from virtually no new claims for years, according to the BLM, to a combined 8,500 and rising in uranium-rich counties in 2005. The U.S. uranium industry was all but dead in early 2001 when the price of yellowcake tumbled to a low of $7.25 a pound. Demand for new power plants was stagnant, and Russia had dumped hundreds of tons of Cold War stock onto the global market for quick cash, creating a uranium surplus. Mines closed throughout the West, and the Atomic Age seemed like a historical footnote, gone the way of Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission. Conditions have changed dramatically over the past few years. Countries like China and India have begun renewed drives to build nuclear power plants. China expects to build 27 plants by 2020, and India is planning up to 24, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association. Even the United States is pushing for more reactors, adding several billion dollars in incentives for nuclear plants as part of the new energy bill recently passed by Congress and awaiting the president's signature. Meanwhile, as active mining has decreased, uranium surpluses have gradually dwindled. Estimates differ, but analysts and some trade groups like the World Nuclear Association say demand from the world's 435 nuclear power plants is running at about double the market supply. Prices seem to reflect that. In the past four years, the price of uranium has more than quadrupled, now hovering at around $30 a pound. Mining companies are starting to see dollar signs. "The future looks much more rosy," said Christine Atkinson, vice president of International Nuclear, a consulting company in Golden, Colorado. Analysts are cautioning, however, against talk of a new uranium boom. Staking claims, they say, is a far cry from actual mining. "A lot of it is speculation," said Atkinson. "Heck, you might as well put $100 down on a claim. But there's a long, long way between staking a claim and supplying fuel for a nuclear power plant." Other countries can still mine uranium more cheaply, and environmental and political considerations come into play. This year, the Navajo Nation, a major supplier of uranium in the 1940s and '50s, announced it would ban mining and milling on tribal lands. The Nation's Diné Natural Protection Act states that "certain substances in the Earth (doo nal yee dah) that are harmful to the people should not be disturbed, and that the people now know that uranium is one such substance...." Don Hancock, of the Southwest Research and Information Center based in New Mexico, has been watching the recent claim rush with interest. His group, a nonprofit that has been involved with uranium issues since 1971, has been critical of the industry's environmental record. "Our position is, we've still got thousands of abandoned uranium mines that still haven't been reclaimed. Let's resolve the cleanup problems first," before creating new mines, he said. Russia is also a wild card. The country is sitting on hundreds of tons of surplus uranium from years of Cold War hording for weapons. If Russia chooses to once again dump supplies on the market, it could cause prices to drop significantly, said MIT professor Ernest Moniz, a former undersecretary of energy in the Clinton administration. If the Russians sold their supply for use in nuclear power plants, it would be "a classic swords into plowshares situation," Moniz said, "great for everyone but the plowshare makers." So far, the uranium industry is just testing the waters. Despite the great increase in mining claims, the number of actual working mines remains roughly what it has been. Until that changes, said Stilles of the BLM, "it's mostly a boom time for surveyors and consultants." -------- iran Miscues set up nuclear crisis Aug 10, 2005 By Kaveh L Afrasiabi http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GH10Ak05.html SAN FRANCISCO - Iran's resumption of uranium-processing activities and the EU-US warning of sanctions in response to Iran's rejection of the latest European proposal have set the stage for a full-scale international crisis engulfing the United Nations at a time the world organization can ill-afford the entanglement of this crisis. Already, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in a recent interview of a Security Council deadlock, given the potential Russia and China veto of any proposed Western sanctions against Iran. This would paralyze the UN at a sensitive time when the burning issues of UN reform could easily be made more complicated as a result of confluence with the Iran crisis. Annan's latest statement, calling on Iran to show "nuclear restraint", should be heeded by the Iranian policymakers as they need to seriously explore the idea of self-restraint, even in the absence of external or internal limits to their nuclear program, whereby, for example, Iran would refrain from fuel fabrication, at least for a while, even after rescinding the suspension of its enrichment programs. And even if the Security Council does adopt sanctions, "the implementation of economic sanctions against Iran is not such an easy thing", to quote Annan, given the rather poor history of UN-imposed sanctions. But the main worry is less the long-term effect of sanctions and more the immediate prospect of a showdown at the Security Council, where the complaining party, namely, the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)and its backers in Western capitals, have the burden of establishing that Iran is in material breach of its obligations toward the non-proliferation regime. Certainly, the US and its European allies can cite the past history of the Islamic Republic of Iran in concealing some of its nuclear activities and in it resuming nuclear fuel-related activities not in line with the Iran-EU Paris Agreement of November, 2004. But, by the same token, Iran's hand is stoked with the optimism that the more recent past - that is, the past two years of steady cooperation with the IAEA, culminating in the satisfactory resolution of most if not all the outstanding issues of material concern by the atomic agency, such as the foreign sources of contamination by HEU (highly enriched uranium) - can somehow trump the more distant past rife with lack of transparency and full cooperation with the IAEA. Indeed, as the US and the EU-3 (France, Britain and Germany) meet IAEA officials to chart a map of action in response to Iran's enrichment activities, deemed as perfectly legal from the Iranian prism, the question arises as to the grounds on which the UN could penalize Iran for engaging in a legal activity? This, in fact, forms the nub of the Iranian defense, in light of the IAEA chief's admission, in an interview with Der Spiegel, dated February 21, that "we at the IAEA lack conclusive evidence. We have yet to see a smoking gun that would convict Tehran. I can make assumptions about intentions, but I cannot verify intentions, just facts." And what exactly are the disputed facts on the table? Mohammad ElBaradei in the same interview stated, "I am certainly proud of what we have accomplished in Iran. Eighteen months ago the country was more of a black hole for us." Rightly so, as the IAEA has conducted numerous comprehensive inspections, some on short notice, since October 2003, the time when Iran pledged to increase its cooperation with the IAEA. Hence, in light of Iran's fulfillment of its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations and the legality of its uranium conversion program currently pursued under full IAEA monitoring, one wonders why the EU-3 are so adamant about referring Iran to the Security Council and risking their rather lucrative trade relations with Iran? Have they really thought through the various, multiple side effects of their threats? Probably not. The IAEA's governing board, meeting in emergency session to discuss the Iran issue, has a recent record of (a) acknowledging "good progress" in terms of Iran's "voluntary confidence-building measures" and (b) deferring to the director general reporting "if and when he deems it necessary" to raise concerns about Iran. Yet, currently the EU-3 and the White House have seemingly decided to supplant the IAEA's director general and impose a harsh IAEA agenda vis-a-vis Iran. But for the most part this would not wash, as seen from the vantage point of international treaty obligations of IAEA member states, including Iran. The new Iranian policy has not emerged in a vacuum; rather it can best be accounted for by a constructivist approach that would interpret the policy changes as an outgrowth of evolution in the country's identity and the need for creative policy adjustments thereto. Iran is concerned by the unreasonable demand of the EU-3 that it should make a "binding commitment" to forego its "inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear technology, including the centrifuge enrichment program allowed by article IV of the NPT, in exchange for guarantee of a foreign supply of nuclear fuel and certain other economic and security incentives. Concerning the latter, the latest European proposal is a giant step backward compared to the Paris Agreement, which stipulated that Europe would provide "firm commitments" on economic, nuclear and security issues pending Iran's "objective guarantees" regarding its nuclear program. The new proposal, named "Framework for a Long-Term Agreement", bypasses both issues deemed central in the Paris Agreement, by giving broadly vague and insufficiently firm "incentives" tantamount to pseudo-incentives. A close scrutiny of this proposal is called for, deconstructing its legal basis: The proposal, items 2(e) and 14, repeatedly pays lip-service to Article IV of the NPT as well as to "rules of international law" and, yet, explicitly requests Iran to exclude fuel-cycle related activity from the purview of its nuclear program. Aside from the fact that all the three European states are themselves fully engaged in nuclear fuel production, and two of them, namely France and Britain, are also procuring nuclear fuel for the international market, the other interesting fact is that the EU-3's demand does not even conform with the IAEA's own demand that Iran suspends its enrichment activities as a temporary "confidence-building" measure. The same sentiment was reflected in the Paris Agreement, and yet the new proposal openly seeks to make permanent a transitional arrangement, irrespective of Iran's offer of objective guarantees and the IAEA experts' own admission that Iran's low-grade enrichment can be verified. Also, the EU-3 proposal, item 36(c), calls on Iran to allow, pursuant to the Additional Protocol, the IAEA "inspectors to visit any site or interview any person they deem relevant to their monitoring of nuclear activity in Iran". This goes beyond the scope of the Additional Protocol, which expands the right of access to IAEA inspectors without, however, making this a limitless right as demanded by the EU-3. Thus the million-dollar question: why shouldn't Iran pursue its fuel fabrication when it has the technology, when it costs less, when it is environmentally more safe, and when it can be tightly monitored by the IAEA, through its inspectors, surveillance cameras, etc? The EU-3 proposal (item 25) deals with nuclear fuel for Iran by outsiders. It reads: Any fuel provided would be under normal market conditions and commercial contracts and subject to proliferation-proof arrangements being agreed for safety, transport and security of the fuel, including the return of all spent fuel. Unfortunately, until now the US and the EU-3 have failed to seriously consider the viability of similar proliferation-proof arrangements for Iran's home production of nuclear fuel, whereas what is needed is a rational framework for verification and safeguard that would put to rest the existing worries of a potential diversion to military purposes. Such a framework can be set up and the IAEA officials this author has talked to have invariably been on the side of an objectively verifiable system to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. A major problem with the Iran-EU nuclear talks since 2003 has been the conflation of nuclear and economic and security issues, whereas what is needed, as aptly put by an Iranian official in a recent interview, is to disentangle the nuclear issue from these other issues, eg terrorism, Iran's accession to the World Trade Organization, drug trafficking, and so on, which are complicating the picture. What is needed is a straightforward discussion of purely nuclear issues, centered on objective guarantees, without any suggestion that somehow Iran can be persuaded to trade it nuclear fuel rights for some (vague) incentives. One such incentive is Europe's pledge of support for Iran's role in regional security, which is totally meaningless without an explicit American endorsement. But Iran-US relations at the moment are too hostile and too distrusting to allow for such a crucial development in the near future. Consequently, it is hardly surprising that the Bush administration's support of the European initiative has remained at the abstract level, without touching the specifics. In conclusion, tackling this crisis requires much more prudent European diplomacy than reflected in their latest proposal evincing the latent inclination toward the use of coercive, hard power with sanctions and other related punishment under the guise of a framework for cooperation. More appropriately, this is a framework for diplomatic nihilism, sinking the ship of an independent European diplomacy in the sea of American unilateralism. Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-authored "Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume X11, issue 1, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. ---- Iran agrees to talk about nuclear plans By Anne Penketh, Diplomatic Editor Published: 10 August 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article304883.ece Iran has pulled back from the brink in a crisis with the West, after the Iranian President offered a fresh negotiating initiative to three European countries to end a nuclear standoff. The last-ditch offer from the hardline new President came as the board of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was debating how to respond to Iran's defiance of Britain, France and Germany. Iran's resumption of work at a nuclear plant with the stated intention of converting uranium - a first step towards the possible production of a nuclear weapon - prompted the three European countries to call the emergency meeting. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking after a telephone call with Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, said: "I have new initiatives and proposals which I will present after my government takes office." But he also said his country had done nothing illegal by reopening the facility at Isfahan on Monday. Iran's chief delegate to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna stressed that his country would not reverse its decision to resume its nuclear activities. Even before Mr Ahmadinejad's intervention, the 35 board members of the IAEA had been preparing to issue only a warning to Iran, and were unlikely to recommend referral to the UN Security Council at this stage. The IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the board would "request Iran to reconsider its decision to unravel part of the suspension", under which Tehran had voluntarily suspended uranium conversion in November, while the talks continued. The IAEA board is expected to conclude its meeting today or tomorrow. President George Bush reacted to the initiative by saying it was a " positive development" that Iran wanted to return to the talks, as he reiterated concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions. In Washington, the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the Iranian government of being " notably unhelpful" by failing to stop weapons crossing the border into Iraq. President Ahmadinejad moved to defuse the crisis when both Iran and the Europeans were looking for a dignified way out, as both sides have an interest in continuing the negotiations. Before the board meeting, Russia - which is supplying Iran with a light-water reactor - urged Tehran to stop uranium conversion work, while France appealed to the Iranian authorities to keep talking to the EU. Diplomats said that by reopening the Isfahan facility, Iran was still at the start of a long chain of activities, and there was still room for negotiation. The country has frozen 95 per cent of its uranium enrichment capability by keeping its plant at Natanz mothballed. Yet the US and Europe remain suspicious that Iran, which has huge oil and gas reserves, may be bent on developing an atomic weapons programme. The Iranians concealed their nuclear programme from the IAEA for 18 years, prompting the Europeans to seek cast-iron guarantees that any agreement on the nuclear fuel cycle could not be diverted towards building a weapon. An Iranian dissident who helped uncover Iran's covert programme in 2002 said yesterday that Iran had manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges capable of enriching uranium to weapons grade. The dissident, Alireza Jafarzadeh, said the centrifuges, which had not been declared to the IAEA, were ready to be installed at Natanz, 300 miles south of Tehran. An IAEA spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said the agency was taking the allegation seriously and would investigate "should we find anything credible contained within it" . Inflammatory claims tend to surface at sensitive times such as IAEA board meetings, and are often not borne out by investigation. EU diplomats voiced concern that Mr Ahmadinejad would adopt a tougher stance on Iran's nuclear programme than the former reformist government of Mohammad Khatami. But there had also been speculation that Iran would use Mr Ahmadinejad's inauguration last week as an opportunity to defuse the crisis with the EU which had deepened in recent weeks amid mounting Iranian impatience with the pace of negotiations. After ignoring deadlines last week, the EU submitted a package of economic and security incentives to Iran on Friday. But Mr Ahmadinejad told Mr Annan the EU proposal was "an insult to the Iranian nation". Western powers are rewriting rule book What's at stake in the crisis with Iran? More than it might seem at first glance. This crisis between the West and Iran over its nuclear activities could be resolved, but if you look at the bigger picture, it appears that the Americans and their key allies such as Britain are trying to rewrite the nuclear rule book. In other words, following the collapse of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review in May, they are acting unilaterally to prevent non-nuclear powers from even developing nuclear energy domestically. How are the nuclear powers doing this? In the case of North Korea, which pulled out of the NPT in 2003, the Americans told Pyongyang during six-party talks - which were suspended last weekend - that the North Koreans no longer had the right to a "safe" , light-water plant to produce electricity. The Clinton administration had signed a deal with North Korea in 1994, under which a US-led consortium was to build two light-water reactors in return for Pyongyang mothballing its suspected nuclear weapons programme. This offer is no longer on the table from the Bush administration. In the case of Iran, Britain, France and Germany are offering help in developing Iranian nuclear energy, while recognising Tehran's treaty rights. But there is a big condition attached: that the nuclear fuel is supplied by another country and that all spent fuel is returned to that country. How is that strategy being received? Not too well. Iran is an NPT member which asserts its right to the peaceful development of nuclear energy, as stated in the treaty. It has uranium mines and does not see why it should have to import fuel which would then be reprocessed outside the country in order to reassure the West about its nuclear intentions. It has rejected the Europeans' offer. North Korea, which boasts that it has developed a nuclear weapon already, insists that the talks it is holding with the US and four other countries will not go anywhere until its right to peaceful nuclear power programmes is recognised. The UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is happy for the Americans and Europeans to negotiate solutions with states because it is not in the IAEA's interest to have uranium enriched all over the place. Why should countries like Iran play along? Because strategically, it would end their isolation on the world stage, they would be able to join bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and co-operate with Western partners. So the Iranians, the North Koreans and others would stand to gain political and economic benefits. But they must also consider the situation from a geo-strategic point of view, and that is where Iran and North Korea have so far been prepared to turn their back on the international economic benefits in return for spending billions on what they see as their national interest. So one crisis is likely to lead to another over the fundamental issue of the right to what non-nuclear states say is a peaceful nuclear programme. ---- Defiant Iran removes seals at nuclear plant TEHRAN (AFP) Aug 10, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050810191259.m3ovih19.html Iran on Wednesday upped the stakes in the crisis over its nuclear programme, removing seals on a key plant as the EU put forward a resolution to the UN watchdog calling for a halt to Tehran's atomic activities. Iran broke the seals placed by International Atomic Energy Agencyinspectors on the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan, giving the facility full operational capacity after Iran ended a nine-month shutdown there on Monday. "We have removed the seals, the Isfahan conversion facility is fully operational," the deputy head of Iran's atomic energy agency Mohammad Saidi told AFP. "It is happening under the supervision of the Agency." The IAEA board will meet Thursday at 1300 GMT to consider a resolution put forward by Britain, France and Germany calling on Iran to stop the sensitive nuclear fuel work, a spokesman said. The move is the latest challenge by Iran to the European Union and the United States, which have expressed serious concern about its resumption of conversion and angry rejection of a proposed EU deal on its nuclear programme. US Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Washington hoped the IAEA meeting would "send Iran a strong message". But he would not say whether governors of the 35-member agency were ready to adopt a tough resolution. "That's what we're working toward." According to a draft of the EU resolution, Iran should re-establish "full suspension of all enrichment-related activities including the production of feed material, including through tests or production at the Uranium Conversion Facility." But in an indication of the difficulty of pushing the resolution through, a meeting was cancelled Wednesday as non-aligned states led by Malaysia opposed the draft as it risked causing a backlash from Tehran, diplomats said. Crucially, the resolution does not call for Iran to be referred to the UN Security Council for resuming the nuclear work, a move that could lead to Tehran facing punishing international sanctions. China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said such action would not be "helpful". The IAEA has been investigating Iran's nuclear programme for more than two years and although it has criticised the Islamic republic for failing to declare certain activities, it has not found any evidence it is developing the bomb. At Isfahan, uranium ore, or yellowcake, is turned into gas, which is then used to make enriched uranium, the final product of which is fuel for nuclear power plants or, in highly refined form, the explosive core of atom bombs. Iranian workers removed the seals themselves under the supervision of the IAEA, which has placed surveillance cameras at the plant. Iran had suspended uranium conversion and enrichment in November as a goodwill gesture ahead of the EU talks aimed at staving off Security Council intervention. Iran emphasises that its right to the nuclear fuel cycle is legally enshrined under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and it has infringed no international rules by resuming the activities. The United States accuses Tehran of seeking to manufacture a nuclear weapon, a charge vehemently denied by Iran, but Washington points to Iran's past failure to transparently report nuclear activities as grounds for suspicion. New President Mahmood Ahmadinejad has described the EU offer of nuclear cooperation as an "insult." But while Ahmadinejad's comments published on Tuesday appeared to confirm Western fears he will adopt a tough line on the nuclear issue, he also emphasised he was leaving the door open for more talks with the Europeans. This apparent willingness to continue the talks process was welcomed by Germany, with government spokesman Bela Anda saying negotiations were the only "reasonable way to a constructive resolution of this issue". Ahmadinejad has yet to appoint a new government but one of the candidates for the post of foreign minister -- parliamentary foreign affairs committee head Aleaddine Boroujerdi -- made clear there was no going back on the move. The best guarantee that Iran's nuclear programme is peaceful was the "infallible watching of the IAEA cameras," he said. "I hope that the Europeans will also accept this reality." He added that the regime has still not made any decision on restarting Iran's uranium enrichment plant in the city of Natanz. Enrichment remains suspended but officials emphasise this is only temporary. ---- US condemns Iran's breaking of UN seals on nuclear plant VIENNA (AFP) Aug 10, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050810160638.e2jxeouw.html The United States condemned Iran's breaking of UN seals Wednesday to bring online a key nuclear fuel plant, calling it a sign of Tehran's disregard for the international community. "Today's breaking of seals is yet another sign of Iran's disregard for international concerns," Matt Boland, spokesman for the US mission to international organizations in Vienna, told AFP. Iran on Monday took the first steps to break a suspension of nuclear fuel cycle work, which it had begun in November to start talks with the European Union on getting trade and other benefits in return for guarantees it was not making atomic weapons. Iranian technicians on Wednesday removed seals placed by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at a uranium conversion plant in Isfahan, 400 kilometres (250 miles) south of Tehran, allowing the facility to return to full capacity and raising the stakes in a standoff with the international community. The United States accuses Tehran of covertly developing nuclear weapons, a charge vehemently denied by Iran which says its atomic program is a peaceful effort to generate electricity. Boland said the United States "strongly" supports the European Union's effort through talks with Tehran "to convince Iran to stop its dangerous activities." "We urge Iran to give serious consideration to the EU's proposals," for the Islamic Republic to suspend all nuclear fuel cycle work in order to guarantee it will not make atomic weapons, Boland said. Iran's removal of the seals comes as the European Union tries to win approval at a emergency IAEA meeting in Vienna for a draft resolution calling on Iran to reverse its decision to push ahead with the nuclear fuel work. Conversion turns uranium ore or yellowcake into a feed gas for making enriched uranium, which can be the fuel for reactors or the explosive core of atomic bombs. Iran points out that its right to the nuclear fuel cycle is legally enshrined under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and that it has infringed no international rules by resuming uranium conversion. ---- EU introduces motion at IAEA calling on Iran to stop nuclear fuel work VIENNA (AFP) Aug 10, 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050810191709.f8hl9otl.html Britain, France and Germany proposed a resolution at the UN atomic agency Wednesday calling on Iran to stop nuclear fuel work that has raised fears Tehran intends to make atomic weapons, an agency spokesman said. The draft resolution does not, however, call for the matter to be taken to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, according to a copy of the text obtained by AFP. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors will meet Thursday at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT) in Vienna to consider the resolution, spokesman Peter Rickwood told AFP. "A resolution has been tabled and we're notifying members of the board of a meeting at 3:00 pm tomorrow," Rickwood said. The European trio is trying to break a deadlock at the IAEA over pressing Iran to stop fuel activities it resumed after suspending them for nine months as part of nuclear talks with the European Union. The resolution, which has been opposed by non-aligned states on the IAEA board, "urges Iran to re-establish full suspension of all enrichment-related activities including the production of feed material, including through tests of production at the Uranium Conversion Facility" in Isfahan, according to a copy of the text obtained by AFP. Iran Wednesday removed IAEA seals at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, allowing the plant to return to full capacity, officials in Tehran said. Conversion makes the uranium gas that is the feed material for producing enriched uranium which can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also the raw material for atom bombs. At the same time in Vienna, the IAEA's board of governors cancelled a planned formal meeting Wednesday to give time for private talks among diplomats. A diplomat close to the IAEA said non-aligned nations "do not want a resolution on Iran", fearing this could isolate Tehran and cause a backlash. In amendments submitted to the European trio, the IAEA's non-aligned delegation crossed out all passages in the text that held Iran to its suspension. But, the diplomat said, Western countries, with Russian and Chinese backing, "feel the credibility of the board is at stake because Iran has ignored so many of the board's resolutions," including ones last September and November calling on Iran not to make nuclear fuel, which powers civilian reactors but can also be used to make atom bombs. The diplomat said EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany, as well as the United States, want to see the resolution adopted this week and then for there to be another IAEA board meeting in early September to call for Iran to be brought before the Security Council for possible sanctions if it is still making nuclear fuel. The United States charges that Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons. The draft resolution calls for IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei "to provide a comprehensive report on the implementation of Iran's NPT safeguards agreement" by September 3, in a filing that would set the stage for a board meeting. "Because we are being relatively moderate now (in not calling immediately for Security Council referral), it does not mean the situation has not deteriorated," an EU diplomat said. A diplomat from one of the European trio states said the non-aligned ended a meeting on the draft resolution Wednesday evening "in disarray" and without coming back to the Europeans to give their reactions. EU diplomats expressed confidence that the draft would be adopted by the IAEA's board Thursday. -------- korea S. Korea should be mediator during recess of six-party nuclear talks: Roh 2005-08-10 19:24:15 (Xinhuanet) http://news.xinh uanet.com/english/2005-08/10/content_3335926.htm SEOUL, Aug. 10 -- South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Wednesday said that South Korea should act as a mediator during the recess of the six-party nuclear talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula. At a luncheon meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon, South Korea's chief negotiator to the six-party nuclear talks, Roh asked the South Korean delegation to "actively play a role in resolving key differences during the recess", according toRoh's spokesman Kim Man-soo. "Nonetheless, the six-party talks made progress in that the participating countries agreed to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," the spokesperson said in a briefing on the outcome of the luncheon meeting at the presidential office. The six-party talks were also fruitful in that the delegations from Pyongyang and Washington held frequent one-on-one meetings under the six-way format to produce substantial progress, the spokesman said. Roh expressed his appreciation for the efforts of the Seoul delegation, saying "not a small result was achieved despite the fact the talks failed to produce a joint statement due mainly to difference on the peaceful use of nuclear energy." China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the United States, Russia, South Korea, Japan resumed the fourth roundof six-party nuclear talks in Beijing on July 26. Last Sunday, the six nations decided to enter recess for some three weeks before reopening the fourth round of the talks in the week begins on Aug. 29. The two main parties - the US and the DPRK - have differences over whether the DPRK can reserve right over nuclear peaceful utilization. -------- security Energy law aims to improve N-plant security August 10, 2005 Atlantic City Press http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/ocean/081005NUCLEARREGS.cfm The national energy bill signed this week by President Bush contains provisions long sought by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to enhance security at nuclear power plants, including the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in Lacey Township. Included in the new law is authorization for security guards to use more powerful weapons and more extensive background checks for personnel with access to nuclear materials or sensitive information, according to the NRC. Under this legislation, the NRC will for the first time have authority over additional radioactive materials, including certain sources of radium-226 and materials produced in accelerators rather than in reactors. The energy bill also contains specific security-related requirements that to a large degree address measures already initiated by the NRC in a bulletin sent out July 18, to all licensees. The bulletin called for an internal review of procedures regarding security-related events and emergency preparedness, including terrorist attacks, according to NRC officials. The changes are not significant but are "prudent," officials said in announcing the requests for the updated plans. Among the changes required: # lowering the amount of time to contact the NRC from 60 minutes to 15 minutes; # creating a backup command center in case the first is rendered useless during an emergency; # updating current plans with more preparation and training for security events, such as an assault; # re-evaluating emergency responses to problems, such as fires, that might start should a plane try to penetrate a reactor's containment building and crash on site. The NRC is currently reviewing Oyster Creek's application for a license renewal. Oyster Creek spokesman Pete Resler said that the plant is putting together the internal review required by the NRC and expects to have it ready by the Aug. 18 deadline. He said that many of the changes required are small and the plant will implement and add necessary enhancements in a timely manner. He added that the NRC has continually updated its required security measures based on ever-evolving new information and intelligence accumulated since Sept 11, 2001, about the nature of terrorist strikes. "Oyster Creek has increased its security force by more than 100 percent since 9/11. It has spent millions of dollars to improve security at the plant," he said. The paramilitary forces guarding the plant are among the best-trained private security forces in the nation, he added. Oyster Creek's ability to accommodate these new measures will not factor into the NRC's decision whether or not to grant a new license to the plant. As it stands now, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission looks at two areas when deciding whether to grant a renewal: a plant's future effect on the environment and how it could manage age-related degradation, according to the NRC. Regulators have said that other areas related to safety and security, including evacuation plans and the possibility of a terrorist attack, are reviewed regularly and should not be part of the renewal process. The Ocean County freeholders supported legislation at their meeting last week that would broaden the license renewal criteria for reactors to include a review of the evacuation plan for the plant and other security-related measures. The freeholders joined Rep. Jim Saxton, R-N.J., and Sen. Jon S. Corzine, D-N.J., in supporting similar legislation already introduced in the U.S House and Senate respectively. The bills would also put Oyster Creek under additional scrutiny from the National Academy of Sciences, an independent advisory group. The group would submit its review to the NRC and would add to the existing criteria for renewal such factors as health risks, vulnerability to a terrorist attack and the facility's evacuation plan. Also outlined in the bills are stricter guidelines with regards to anticipating population increases in surrounding areas, the ability to store nuclear waste and the effect of a nuclear accident To e-mail Nicoletta Kotsianas at The Press: NKotsianas@pressofac.com -------- treaties Bush Looks to Cut State Dept. Arms Control Offices Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1346242 The Bush administration is in the process of quietly eliminating most State Department arms control offices by phasing out senior positions and merging personnel and functions with nonproliferation and other units. This according to a report by the Global Security Newswire. The move appears to reflect a shift by the administration away from decades of promoting international arms control agreements. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- connecticut Shays To Look At Millstone Security Anti-Nuclear Group Calls For Barriers At Water Intakes By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS Staff Writer August 10, 2005 Hartford Courant http://fox61.trb.com/news/local/hc-millstone0810.artaug10,0,365674.story?coll=hc-headlines-local WATERFORD -- U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4th District, has agreed to look into the concerns of an anti-nuclear group calling for a security barrier for the Millstone Nuclear power plant to protect it against terrorist attacks. Shays, chairman of the House subcommittee on national security, told The Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone this week that he will hold hearings on nuclear plant security nationwide. In advance of the hearings, said Shays, the U.S. Government Accountability Office is investigating the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's handling of post-9/11 nuclear plant security. Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, after sending representatives to observe the plant, offered Dominion Nuclear Connecticut Inc., at no cost, a $1 million security barrier. But Dominion, which would have had to pay the cost to maintain the barrier, refused the offer, said a Homeland Security spokesman, because the company and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were satisfied plant security was adequate. On Tuesday, the coalition sponsored a boat trip to focus on the three concrete water intakes on Long Island Sound, two of which pump water into the Unit Two and Unit Three reactors to provide cooling. (Unit One is permanently closed down.) Without cooling, said Paul Blanch, a nuclear safety engineer formerly employed at Millstone, it "will increase the probability of a meltdown of these reactors within hours," a catastrophic event. Not only is the water a critical plant coolant, said Blanch, it allows operation of the plant generator, another essential ingredient for safe operations. The barrier, protecting the three water inlets, would help stop an attack and serve as a deterrent, he said, as similar barriers do at the Naval Submarine Base in Groton. Immediately after terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, said Blanch, the NRC installed jersey security barriers around its headquarters building in Rockville, Md. "I guess the NRC thinks its building is more important than a nuclear power plant," Blanch said. Blanch, formerly a whistle-blower against Northeast Utilities' operations at Millstone, said a high-speed "cigarette boat loaded with explosives" and manned by terrorists could relatively easily blow up one of the plant's water intakes. Nationwide, of the 103 nuclear plants in use, only the Indian Point reactor on the Hudson River in New York state has similarly exposed intake pipes, Blanch said. "We looked at the possibility of installing a barrier, and after conducting the appropriate studies, found that we have adequate security safeguards in place," said Peter Hyde, a spokesman for Dominion Nuclear. "We vehemently disagree with the claim that damage to the intake structures would lead directly to a `meltdown' at Millstone. We have alternate means to provide cooling to the reactor cores." "Even if the flow of water through the intake structure was interrupted, the plant would implement emergency and abnormal operating procedures to mitigate the event and ensure safety," said Neil Sheehan, an NRC spokesman. In October 2004, "the NRC staff completed a comprehensive review of the Millstone physical security plan, which was changed [a year earlier] to implement NRC security orders, and judged it to be acceptable," NRC Chairman Nils J. Diaz said earlier. For security reasons, neither Dominion nor the NRC would say how the intakes are secured from terrorists. There are manned plant video cameras focused on the water, but Blanch said even with a half-hour notice of a terrorist explosives boat, it would be unlikely authorities could stop it in time. -------- florida Attorney: Decades-old nuclear sludge poses community health risk By JILL BARTON Associated Press Writer Last modified: August 10, 2005 4:36PM http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050810/APF/508100984 WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Thousands of gallons of radioactive sludge was shipped daily from the St. Lucie nuclear plant to undocumented locations in the late 1970s, creating a cancer risk for the community, according to an attorney who's suing the plant operator. Attorney Nancy La Vista said she can prove that errors in handling nuclear waste by Florida Power & Light caused the brain cancer of at least two children. She represents the parents of 11-year-old Zachary Finestone, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in March 2000, and Ashton Lowe, who had brain cancer when he died at age 13 in May 2001. The trials in the civil lawsuits could begin early next year. State health officials previously reviewed a potential cluster of childhood cancers in St. Lucie County, where both boys had lived, after discovering 29 cases of brain and central nervous system cancer from 1981 to 1997. Health Department officials tested soil, air and water for 500 chemicals at the homes of the affected children and their pregnant mothers, but they found no pattern. But La Vista points to other tests that showed unusually high levels of radioactive strontium in the boys' baby teeth, and blames Florida Power & Light releases from 1977 to 1982. FPL said it mistakenly shipped radioactive wastes to farmland about 10 miles west of the St. Lucie nuclear plant on two occasions. Those incidents were reported when FPL discovered the problem in 1982, a decade before the boys were born, said FPL spokeswoman Rachel Scott. The utility immediately cleaned up the site at Glades Cutoff Road, removing six inches of soil from a contaminated 20-foot by 30-foot area. The radioactive material was shipped to a nuclear waste depository in Barnwell, S.C, according to court documents. Scott said tests by state and federal authorities show no health threat at the site or in the surrounding air, soil or water. "It's a very sad situation when families are dealing with cancer, but there's absolutely no validity to the claim that it has anything to do with the plant," Scott said. The farmland is in the northwest corner of St. Lucie County, about 125 miles north of Miami and a few miles north of Port St. Lucie, which in recent years has become one of the fastest growing cities in the nation. La Vista said the problems at the farm can be traced back to 1977 and were discovered in 1982 when workers learned of a plumbing mix up. Workers believed a sink at the plant drained to a tank designated for radioactive waste and used it to clean highly radioactive items. But it instead went into the nuclear plant's sewage disposal system. The potentially radioactive sewage went into a septic tank, where it was pumped out at least daily and taken to the Fort Pierce Sewage Treatment from 1977 to 1980, according to documents. The misunderstanding was attributed to "essentially 100 percent turnover" in staff, according to documents obtained in the lawsuit. La Vista said no records exist detailing the handling or monitoring of the nuclear waste hauled to the municipal facility. She says the frequent shipments likely sent radioactive material into the air, water and ground. But Scott said that tests conducted after 1980 would have revealed contamination that had built up in previous years and showed no health risks. "There would have been no radioactive material in the liquid itself," she said. "If there had been any problems whatsoever at any time during the operation of the plant, it would have been detected by the Florida Department of Health Bureau of Radiation Control." La Vista said she expects to prove to a jury that FPL exceeded the allowable releases of nuclear waste and contaminated parts of St. Lucie County. "We believe the cancer cluster is partially related to the nuclear waste. Our cancer experts say these children were exposed to radiation," she said. "The community needs to be concerned." -------- nevada EPA proposal gives Yucca a boost Nevada officials vow to challenge radiation standard By Benjamin Grove and Suzanne Struglinski LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU August 10, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/aug/10/519185187.html?"yucca%20mountain" WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency gave Yucca Mountain a burst of momentum on Tuesday when it issued a revised radiation-release rule that Nevada officials say is dangerously lax. Energy Department officials said the proposed nuclear waste repository could meet the standard and they hope the new rule will help put the beleaguered project back on track. But Nevada officials vow to again take the fight over radiation standards to court. "If this bogus new standard, or anything close to it, ends up being adopted by EPA, Nevada will sue them again," Attorney General Brian Sandoval said. The proposed new standard actually offers future generations less protection from radiation than the old one and does not mesh with a federal court's requirement for a new standard, Nevada officials and Yucca critics said. Gov. Kenny Guinn called it "junk science at its worst." "I can't imagine how they could have done anything to make themselves more vulnerable in the court of law as well as the court of science," Guinn said. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed regulations that limit the amount of radiation that could be safely emitted from the proposed underground repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The agency in 2001 established a 15-millirem radiation exposure limit for up to 10,000 years, which means a person living in the immediate vicinity of Yucca could receive that much radiation in a year -- roughly equivalent to a chest X-ray. But delivering a major setback to Yucca last year, a federal court threw out that standard, saying it was not "based upon and consistent with" recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences, as Congress required. The court said the academy rejected 10,000 years "as a proper benchmark but EPA used it anyway." The academy said the standard should go out to the "peak dose," when the radiation levels would be at their highest. This could occur about 100,000 years or more into the future. That left two courses of action for Yucca to proceed: Congress could allow the agency to create a standard outside of what the academy wanted, or the EPA could revise the standard to bring it in line with the academy's recommendation. The agency proposed a "two-tiered" rule Tuesday. One tier maintains the 15-millirem standard for up to 10,000 years, and the other limits exposure to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years. The rule is not final. It will go through a 60-day public comment period before a finished rule is published and implemented by the agency. Energy Department officials seemed content with the standard. "The department believes this is a standard that can be met," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said. "This is a positive step in the process." The radiation standard is important because the Energy Department must prove that Yucca can meet the standard in order to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC ultimately will determine whether Yucca can meet the standard, and whether Yucca can be licensed as a safe repository site. The next step now for the department is to submit a license application, which it aims to do early next year. The NRC could take up to four years to review and approve the license before construction could begin. Yucca is not expected to begin accepting waste until 2012 at the earliest. Nevada cannot challenge the new standard in court until it becomes final, but state officials will use the time to prepare a challenge, Nevada senior deputy attorney general Marta Adams said. "It's amazing how much this deviates from what the NAS requires," Adams said. Among the complaints of Yucca critics and Nevada officials is that the EPA is proposing a more lax standard at the time when the repository's radiation levels would be at their highest -- after 10,000 years. Nevada believes the waste storage containers and other man-made elements will fail by that time and the rock will not offer enough protection to contain radiation. Joe Egan, a lawyer who handles Yucca issues for the state, said the EPA gave no justification for a standard that increases 23-fold between 10,000 and 10,001 years, except that the performance of the repository is uncertain. "What does that have to do with how much radiation a human should get?" Egan said. "They fit the rule to meet the repository." Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, said EPA officials had carefully reviewed the federal court ruling and were "quite confident" that their new standard would hold up in court if Nevada officials challenge it. As part of its deliberations, the EPA considered current levels of background radiation in a number of major U.S. cities, he said. Currently, U.S. citizens receive various levels of "background" radiation from a number of sources, mostly natural sources, depending on where they live and their lifestyles. People can receive radiation from natural sources that include the sun, soil, rocks, even food and other people. Radon gas is a common source of radiation often found in homes. People also get doses from man-made sources such as X-rays. A chest X-ray emits about 10 millirem of radiation and a mammogram about 30 millirem, Holmstead said. People receive about 350 millirem a year on average, Holmstead said. People living in the high-elevation city of Denver receive about 700 millirem of radiation a year, Holmstead said. In part relying on that statistic, the EPA deemed it "acceptable" for a person living near Yucca to receive roughly 350 millirem in background radiation, plus an additional 350 millirem from Yucca, Holmstead said. Egan said this means the federal government is saying Nevadans can get twice the background levels of radiation than the rest of the country. Holmstead said the EPA had avoided trying to set a radiation standard beyond 10,000 years in its first attempt in 2001 because it was so difficult to set standards that far into the future. The EPA spent seven years researching and developing the standard released in 2001. It took just over a year to release a revised standard. Devising a new 1 million-year standard was "a real scientific challenge," but the EPA issued it in order to respond to the court's direction, he said. "The time frame we're dealing with here is really unprecedented," Holmstead said. When pressed on how the public could have confidence in the standard, Holmstead said, "We do the best job we can based on all the science we have." The radiation standard's 10,000-year compliance period would begin when Yucca is filled to capacity, currently set at 77,000 tons, and sealed, which could be roughly 50 years after it begins collecting waste. A 60-day public comment period begins immediately. There will be two public comment hearings in Nevada and one in Washington, Holmstead said. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had asked for three hearings in Nevada and a 180-day comment period. Some nuclear power industry officials, as well as state officials in states with nuclear waste piling up at power plants, were initially pleased with the EPA standard. "On the surface, it gives the DOE the opportunity to move on with the license application," said Martez Norris, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, another coalition of state government agencies and nuclear utilities. "It's a very positive sign." Energy Department officials likely will not be surprised or troubled by the 350-millirem standard, said Charles Pray, Maine state nuclear safety advisor and a former Energy Department official. Department officials all along have anticipated that they might have to meet a two-tiered standard, said Pray, who is also co-chairman of the Yucca Mountain Task Force, a coalition of state regulatory agencies and nuclear industry officials advocating for Yucca. "I think the science and the technology are there" for Yucca to meet the post-10,000-year standard, Pray said. Brian O'Connell, director of the nuclear waste program at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, agreed Yucca should be able to meet the 350-millirem standard. "It looks comfortable for compliance," O'Connell said. "I'm glad it's not 15 millirem for a million years." But Guinn and Sandoval argued that the standard suggests that it is acceptable for Nevadans to receive twice a normal radiation dosage. "For the first time ever in the world, it seeks to establish the level of 'natural background radiation' received by Americans as a tolerable threshold for additional radiation from man-made sources," they said in a news release. Sandoval said, "In a snub to the scientific community and a federal appeals court in Washington, the EPA today issued a proposed standard for the licensing that is 100 times more lenient than what the government permits for releases from nuclear power plants." The two Republican state officials said Nevadans could suffer 100 more times radiation exposure than what the federal government now permits for residents living near nuclear power plants. They said it is "by far the most lenient radiation protection standard proposed for any nuclear waste disposal project in the world." Reaction from Nevada's congressional delegation was swift and shrill. "I am appalled at the complete arrogance of the EPA in announcing these standards," Ensign said. "We've been down this road before. The federal appeals court already determined that the 10,000-year standard violated the law. This new standard is no better, and the EPA has provided no scientific basis for the 350 millirem figure." "I am astounded that the EPA actually put those recommendations on paper," Reid said. "What the agency released today is nothing more than voodoo science and arbitrary numbers." The post-10,000-year standard is not grounded in science, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "EPA has an obligation to protect public safety today, tomorrow, and in a million years," Gibbons said. "Yet, the EPA thought it would be OK to increase its radiation standard from 15 millirem to 350 millirem -- a 23-fold increase when the clock hits 10,000 years and 1 day simply because we don't know what the future holds." Gibbons noted the contrast in the EPA previously arguing for a very low standard for arsenic in drinking water because scientists do not know what level of arsenic is safe. "They have failed us," Gibbons said of the EPA, during an appearance on Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channel 19. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., asked, "Where's the proof that an additional 350 millirem per year of radiation won't have a negative impact on a human being? That contravenes 50 years of radiation science." Reid and Berkley also alleged that the EPA had issued its standard as part of a Bush administration effort to jump start the stalled Yucca program. So did Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, noted that the Energy Department in 1999 told Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a congressionally mandated watchdog group, that the maximum dose from Yucca would be 200 to 300 millirem per year several hundred thousand years into the future. That's conveniently just under the 350-millirem level, Makhijani noted. "The dose limit seems designed to protect the industry's interest in a bad site, rather than public health," said Makhijani, who supports geologic disposal of nuclear waste, but believes Yucca is a bad site. "This is one more example of what I have called the 'double-standard standard.' When Yucca Mountain cannot meet the rules, the federal agencies change the rules to fit Yucca Mountain." A 350-millirem level is still dangerous, Makhijani said. He said a person exposed to 350 millirem per year every year for 70 years would run a 1-in-40 chance of getting cancer. He called the EPA standard the worst single action the agency has taken since he began analyzing the agency nearly 25 years ago. ---- Editorial: A miracle -- overnight August 10, 2005 LAS VEGAS SUN http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/aug/10/519184494.html?"yucca%20mountain" The Environmental Protection Agency spent just a little more than a year in revising its radiation standard for Yucca Mountain. This short period of time is ridiculously inadequate for such a life-and-death determination. Yucca Mountain, in a desert area 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is where Congress and President Bush have chosen to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste. Construction on underground tunnels and burial vaults is under way by the Energy Department, which hopes to have a license to operate the repository by at least 2015. The original radiation standard was a proposed maximum amount of radiation that would be allowed to escape from the repository each year over a period of 10,000 years. The standard was created by calculating how well the waste would be protected from the outer environment once it was buried under the mountain's thick rock in man-made casks. A federal court, basing its decision on a recommendation by the National Academy of Sciences, ruled last year that the proposed daily maximum amount of escaping radiation should be in place far longer than 10,000 years. On Tuesday the EPA came out with its revision. The new standard retains the proposed maximum Yucca-related exposure for 10,000 years, which is 15 millirems per person per year (a single chest X-ray is 10 millirems). But in an effort to comply with the court order, the EPA announced that it was adding another proposed radiation standard for the next 990,000 years. During this period, the standard would be 350 millirems per person per year. The EPA says this second standard is equivalent to the natural and man-made radiation that people absorb each day. This second standard also requires the Energy Department to study what could happen to Yucca Mountain over 1 million years in terms of destructive events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, climactic changes and corrosion of the mountain and the man-made structures that would contain the waste. In announcing the new standard, the EPA was affirmative in its belief that it could be achieved. "It is an unprecedented scientific challenge to develop proposed standards today that will protect the next 25,000 generations of Americans," said Jeffrey Holmstead, the EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation. "EPA met this challenge by using the best available scientific approaches and has issued a standard that will protect public health for a million years." Well, pardon our skepticism. The EPA has been around now for 35 years and in all that time hasn't even learned how to protect the public from dirty air and water. So how could it learn, in just over a year, how to protect the public from Yucca Mountain's radiation for an extra 990,000 years? And how can it expect the Energy Department to protect people in the distant future from cataclysmic events affecting the mountain? We hope the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which will rule on the new radiation standard, comes around to sharing our skepticism. ---- US EPA Proposes Yucca Mountain Nuclear Exposure Limits Story by Chris Baltimore REUTERS USA: August 10, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/31988/story.htm WASHINGTON - The Bush administration Tuesday proposed limiting radiation from a proposed nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert for 1 million years to satisfy a court order that threatened to derail the project. The plan means that people living close to the site, about 90 miles (150 km) northwest of Las Vegas, would be exposed to no more radiation than residents elsewhere in the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency said. The EPA proposal would put the project to build a massive underground storage depot beneath Yucca Mountain back on track. Last year, a federal appeals court said the Bush administration wrongly ignored a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences to ensure safety from leaks for well beyond 10,000 years. Radioactive releases could peak in an estimated 300,000 years and the administration must assure safeguards on that scale, it said. The EPA said its proposal would set a maximum annual radiation dose of 15 millirem for the first 10,000 years of the project -- twice as long as recorded human history to date. The agency proposed a separate 350 millirem limit based on natural background radiation for the following period stretching to 1 million years. "It is an unprecedented scientific challenge to develop proposed standards today that will protect the next 25,000 generations of Americans," said EPA assistant administrator Jeffrey Holmstead. Nevada state officials, who oppose the project, said the million-year standard is too lax compared to protections required for repositories planned in Sweden, Germany and France. The 350 millirem limit indicates that Yucca Mountain will rely almost entirely on containment from metal waste casks rather than the mountain's geology, said Robert Loux at the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "We always thought the site was bad but it appears to be worse than even we thought it was," Loux said. Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, has repeatedly tried to block the project and may challenge the proposed radiation limits, Loux said. The Energy Department had planned to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by the end of 2004 for a permit, but has indefinitely delayed that plan. The administration hoped to open the site in 2010. However, recent delays call into question the timetable for the plan to store 77,000 tons (70,000 metric tons) of waste from 103 US nuclear power reactors. The Energy Department will also have to weigh the impact of possible earthquakes, volcanic activity and climate change on the facility, the EPA said. ---- EPA proposal gives Yucca a boost Nevada officials vow to challenge radiation standard By Benjamin Grove and Suzanne Struglinski LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON BUREAU August 10, 2005 http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-gov/2005/aug/10/519185187.html WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency gave Yucca Mountain a burst of momentum on Tuesday when it issued a revised radiation-release rule that Nevada officials say is dangerously lax. Energy Department officials said the proposed nuclear waste repository could meet the standard and they hope the new rule will help put the beleaguered project back on track. But Nevada officials vow to again take the fight over radiation standards to court. "If this bogus new standard, or anything close to it, ends up being adopted by EPA, Nevada will sue them again," Attorney General Brian Sandoval said. The proposed new standard actually offers future generations less protection from radiation than the old one and does not mesh with a federal court's requirement for a new standard, Nevada officials and Yucca critics said. Gov. Kenny Guinn called it "junk science at its worst." "I can't imagine how they could have done anything to make themselves more vulnerable in the court of law as well as the court of science," Guinn said. The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed regulations that limit the amount of radiation that could be safely emitted from the proposed underground repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The agency in 2001 established a 15-millirem radiation exposure limit for up to 10,000 years, which means a person living in the immediate vicinity of Yucca could receive that much radiation in a year -- roughly equivalent to a chest X-ray. But delivering a major setback to Yucca last year, a federal court threw out that standard, saying it was not "based upon and consistent with" recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences, as Congress required. The court said the academy rejected 10,000 years "as a proper benchmark but EPA used it anyway." The academy said the standard should go out to the "peak dose," when the radiation levels would be at their highest. This could occur about 100,000 years or more into the future. That left two courses of action for Yucca to proceed: Congress could allow the agency to create a standard outside of what the academy wanted, or the EPA could revise the standard to bring it in line with the academy's recommendation. The agency proposed a "two-tiered" rule Tuesday. One tier maintains the 15-millirem standard for up to 10,000 years, and the other limits exposure to 350 millirem per year for 10,000 to 1 million years. The rule is not final. It will go through a 60-day public comment period before a finished rule is published and implemented by the agency. Energy Department officials seemed content with the standard. "The department believes this is a standard that can be met," Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens said. "This is a positive step in the process." The radiation standard is important because the Energy Department must prove that Yucca can meet the standard in order to obtain a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC ultimately will determine whether Yucca can meet the standard, and whether Yucca can be licensed as a safe repository site. The next step now for the department is to submit a license application, which it aims to do early next year. The NRC could take up to four years to review and approve the license before construction could begin. Yucca is not expected to begin accepting waste until 2012 at the earliest. Nevada cannot challenge the new standard in court until it becomes final, but state officials will use the time to prepare a challenge, Nevada senior deputy attorney general Marta Adams said. "It's amazing how much this deviates from what the NAS requires," Adams said. Among the complaints of Yucca critics and Nevada officials is that the EPA is proposing a more lax standard at the time when the repository's radiation levels would be at their highest -- after 10,000 years. Nevada believes the waste storage containers and other man-made elements will fail by that time and the rock will not offer enough protection to contain radiation. Joe Egan, a lawyer who handles Yucca issues for the state, said the EPA gave no justification for a standard that increases 23-fold between 10,000 and 10,001 years, except that the performance of the repository is uncertain. "What does that have to do with how much radiation a human should get?" Egan said. "They fit the rule to meet the repository." Jeffrey Holmstead, EPA's assistant administrator for air and radiation, said EPA officials had carefully reviewed the federal court ruling and were "quite confident" that their new standard would hold up in court if Nevada officials challenge it. As part of its deliberations, the EPA considered current levels of background radiation in a number of major U.S. cities, he said. Currently, U.S. citizens receive various levels of "background" radiation from a number of sources, mostly natural sources, depending on where they live and their lifestyles. People can receive radiation from natural sources that include the sun, soil, rocks, even food and other people. Radon gas is a common source of radiation often found in homes. People also get doses from man-made sources such as X-rays. A chest X-ray emits about 10 millirem of radiation and a mammogram about 30 millirem, Holmstead said. People receive about 350 millirem a year on average, Holmstead said. People living in the high-elevation city of Denver receive about 700 millirem of radiation a year, Holmstead said. In part relying on that statistic, the EPA deemed it "acceptable" for a person living near Yucca to receive roughly 350 millirem in background radiation, plus an additional 350 millirem from Yucca, Holmstead said. Egan said this means the federal government is saying Nevadans can get twice the background levels of radiation than the rest of the country. Holmstead said the EPA had avoided trying to set a radiation standard beyond 10,000 years in its first attempt in 2001 because it was so difficult to set standards that far into the future. The EPA spent seven years researching and developing the standard released in 2001. It took just over a year to release a revised standard. Devising a new 1 million-year standard was "a real scientific challenge," but the EPA issued it in order to respond to the court's direction, he said. "The time frame we're dealing with here is really unprecedented," Holmstead said. When pressed on how the public could have confidence in the standard, Holmstead said, "We do the best job we can based on all the science we have." The radiation standard's 10,000-year compliance period would begin when Yucca is filled to capacity, currently set at 77,000 tons, and sealed, which could be roughly 50 years after it begins collecting waste. A 60-day public comment period begins immediately. There will be two public comment hearings in Nevada and one in Washington, Holmstead said. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., had asked for three hearings in Nevada and a 180-day comment period. Some nuclear power industry officials, as well as state officials in states with nuclear waste piling up at power plants, were initially pleased with the EPA standard. "On the surface, it gives the DOE the opportunity to move on with the license application," said Martez Norris, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, another coalition of state government agencies and nuclear utilities. "It's a very positive sign." Energy Department officials likely will not be surprised or troubled by the 350-millirem standard, said Charles Pray, Maine state nuclear safety advisor and a former Energy Department official. Department officials all along have anticipated that they might have to meet a two-tiered standard, said Pray, who is also co-chairman of the Yucca Mountain Task Force, a coalition of state regulatory agencies and nuclear industry officials advocating for Yucca. "I think the science and the technology are there" for Yucca to meet the post-10,000-year standard, Pray said. Brian O'Connell, director of the nuclear waste program at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, agreed Yucca should be able to meet the 350-millirem standard. "It looks comfortable for compliance," O'Connell said. "I'm glad it's not 15 millirem for a million years." But Guinn and Sandoval argued that the standard suggests that it is acceptable for Nevadans to receive twice a normal radiation dosage. "For the first time ever in the world, it seeks to establish the level of 'natural background radiation' received by Americans as a tolerable threshold for additional radiation from man-made sources," they said in a news release. Sandoval said, "In a snub to the scientific community and a federal appeals court in Washington, the EPA today issued a proposed standard for the licensing that is 100 times more lenient than what the government permits for releases from nuclear power plants." The two Republican state officials said Nevadans could suffer 100 more times radiation exposure than what the federal government now permits for residents living near nuclear power plants. They said it is "by far the most lenient radiation protection standard proposed for any nuclear waste disposal project in the world." Reaction from Nevada's congressional delegation was swift and shrill. "I am appalled at the complete arrogance of the EPA in announcing these standards," Ensign said. "We've been down this road before. The federal appeals court already determined that the 10,000-year standard violated the law. This new standard is no better, and the EPA has provided no scientific basis for the 350 millirem figure." "I am astounded that the EPA actually put those recommendations on paper," Reid said. "What the agency released today is nothing more than voodoo science and arbitrary numbers." The post-10,000-year standard is not grounded in science, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said. "EPA has an obligation to protect public safety today, tomorrow, and in a million years," Gibbons said. "Yet, the EPA thought it would be OK to increase its radiation standard from 15 millirem to 350 millirem -- a 23-fold increase when the clock hits 10,000 years and 1 day simply because we don't know what the future holds." Gibbons noted the contrast in the EPA previously arguing for a very low standard for arsenic in drinking water because scientists do not know what level of arsenic is safe. "They have failed us," Gibbons said of the EPA, during an appearance on Las Vegas ONE, Cox cable channel 19. Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., asked, "Where's the proof that an additional 350 millirem per year of radiation won't have a negative impact on a human being? That contravenes 50 years of radiation science." Reid and Berkley also alleged that the EPA had issued its standard as part of a Bush administration effort to jump start the stalled Yucca program. So did Arjun Makhijani, president of the Maryland-based Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, noted that the Energy Department in 1999 told Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, a congressionally mandated watchdog group, that the maximum dose from Yucca would be 200 to 300 millirem per year several hundred thousand years into the future. That's conveniently just under the 350-millirem level, Makhijani noted. "The dose limit seems designed to protect the industry's interest in a bad site, rather than public health," said Makhijani, who supports geologic disposal of nuclear waste, but believes Yucca is a bad site. "This is one more example of what I have called the 'double-standard standard.' When Yucca Mountain cannot meet the rules, the federal agencies change the rules to fit Yucca Mountain." A 350-millirem level is still dangerous, Makhijani said. He said a person exposed to 350 millirem per year every year for 70 years would run a 1-in-40 chance of getting cancer. He called the EPA standard the worst single action the agency has taken since he began analyzing the agency nearly 25 years ago. -------- vermont Think about nuclear energy in a rational manner Published: Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Burlington Free Press http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050810/OPINION/508100326/1006&theme Lately we have been subjected to a number of rants against nuclear energy, and it appears that we should now look at the subject in a more rational and dispassionate manner. We have been told, "In the 1970s, based on false promises, Vermont legislators chose Vermont Yankee over a hydro project that would have provided electricity at a fraction of the price paid for Vermont Yankee power. ..." When I was studying electrical engineering at the University of Vermont in the 1950s, it was well known that almost all of the potential hydro-electric energy sources in Vermont had already been developed. Is it really possible that 500 megawatts of new developable hydro power appeared in the next 20 years? Just where and what is this "hydro project" that our legislators rejected? And if nuclear power is so expensive, why is it that whenever Vermont Yankee shuts down for refueling, our electric bills contain a surcharge because our suppliers have to buy more expensive replacement energy? We have also been told "the nuclear industry has saddled the nation with radioactive waste that will have to be stored for tens of thousands of years. ..." When we have shaken off the institutional paranoia about things nuclear that a number or well-organized anti-nuclear groups have so assiduously promoted, we will realize that these "nuclear wastes" are a very valuable resource, which can be processed into fuel for future power reactors, as well a providing a vast array of isotopes not found in nature which are extremely valuable in such fields as biochemical and medical research. Until we do so we must store them, of course. But it is important to note that that storage is not a technical or engineering problem -- it is purely a political problem, and had it not been for the lobbying of the Vermont Public Interest Group and a large number of its clones, the federal government would have long since kept its promise to provide a storage site, if not Yucca Mountain, then an equally acceptable one. We have also been told that the nuclear industry has received nearly $150 billion in taxpayer subsidies since World War II, and that "Wind beats nuclear hands-down on cost and solar power costs are dropping fast." Why then are there calls for massive tax incentives for wind power? Is one man's "tax incentive" another man's "subsidy"? And looking into various catalogs I find solar panels priced at about ten times the cost per installed peak kilowatt as the accepted cost per peak kilowatt for conventional (oil, gas, coal) generating plants. Wind and solar will be important components of Vermont's energy supply, but until an economically feasible method of storing large amounts of energy when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining for use when they are not, wind and solar cannot become part of our base-load power supply, which must be reliably present 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. The only proven large scale energy storage method we have today is pumped storage, which involves building lakes at different elevations separated by a dam with pumping and generation capacity. Except in very scarce localities where existing landforms are favorable it is very expensive which means that it raises the price of energy to the consumer. The only way that we can make Vermont energy-independent in the near future is to establish a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant to reuse Vermont Yankee's spent fuel and to build a pair of 1000-mw nuclear power plants to use its product (one should be in northwestern Vermont where the preponderance of energy demand resides). For more details on the reprocessing of nuclear fuels, the reader is referred to an article of that name in the December 1976 (yes that is correct -- 1976) edition of Scientific American, pages 30-41, a publication that is very clear and readable. And as for the claim that nuclear energy is not "green," which I take to mean that it somehow degrades the environment, it is evident that it produces no air or water pollution or greenhouse gases. Nuclear has a forty year safety record superior to any other form of electric generation, and does not depend on foreign sources of oil or gas. Also it will, in the future, be essential to the transition to a hydrogen transportation economy (automobiles and trucks running on hydrogen rather than gasoline or diesel fuel), since electricity is needed to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. Jim Burbo lives in Grand Isle Respond to this story in a Letter to the Editor http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/letters.shtml ---- Nuclear watchdog asks PSB chief to step aside By KRISTI CECCAROSSI Brattleboro Reformer Staff Wednesday, August 10, 2005 http://www.reformer.com/Stories/0,1413,102~8860~3003495,00.html MONTPELIER -- A nuclear watchdog group wants the chairman of the state's Public Service Board to recuse himself from upcoming hearings over whether Vermont Yankee can setup on-site radioactive waste storage. The New England Coalition says Chairman Jim Volz has publicly testified in favor of the nuclear power plant's so-called dry cask storage plan while serving in his previous job. Volz was appointed to the Public Service Board this March by Gov. James Douglas. Before that, Volz headed the Public Advocacy Division of the Department of Public Service. He worked specifically on energy issues. As soon as today, Volz could announce whether or not he will grant the coalition's request. At 1:30 p.m., in the capital, the Public Service Board, or a representative of the board, will meet to set the schedule for hearings on the dry cask proposal. The board is a three-member, quasi-judicial panel. It will decide if installing the steel and concrete containers to hold high-level nuclear waste at the Vernon plant is in the best interest of the state. The case could take up to a year, or possibly longer. It was Volz, not the anti-nuclear group, who first raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest. In a letter dated July 20, he disclosed his work on the issue in his previous job to all parties in the case. Volz worked at the state's Department of Public Service from 1985 until his appointment to the Public Service Board. "While at the department, I was involved in general discussions with department staff concerning dry cask storage," he wrote. "To the best of my recollection ... I neither was involved in any discussions concerning specific dry storage at Vermont Yankee, nor gained knowledge of any facts concerning the dry cask storage proposal." Volz asked parties to respond by Aug. 3 if they objected to his participation in the case. "It is entirely counter-intuitive to allow that even with an extreme hands-off management style, a director of a division with just six attorneys would not ... have acquired a general knowledge how a key and well-publicized issue was being handled within the department," wrote Ray Shadis, technical adviser for the New England Coalition, in his response to Volz's letter. Neither Volz nor any representative of the Public Service Board would comment this week on the coalition's request. This is not the first time the dry cask proposal will circulate in Montpelier. It dominated discussions during the last legislative session. Lawmakers punctuated debate in June with a bill allowing Vermont Yankee officials to apply to the Public Service Board for permission to construct the storage containers. Throughout the legislative session, Gov. Douglas supported the storage. So did the Department of Public Service -- with Jim Volz often lobbying in favor of it on the department's behalf, says Shadis. And the dry cask issue was not the only one where Volz, representing the Department of Public Service, backed Vermont Yankee. In last year's Public Service Board case on whether to allow Vermont Yankee to pursue a 20 percent boost in its power output, Volz advocated for it. He also lobbied against requests from nuclear watchdogs that the state demand Vermont Yankee conduct an independent safety review. "His department was Entergy's advocate through and through," Shadis said. Nuclear waste at the plant is currently stored in a 40-feet deep pool in the reactor building. It will reportedly be filled to capacity by 2008 or 2007, if the Vermont Yankee wins federal approval to increase power by 20 percent. The casks will be used to store the older -- less "hot" -- fuel assemblies stored in the pool, making way for newer ones that will be taken from the reactor's core. New England Coalition does not oppose dry cask storage but wants to insure that the project is done in the safest way possible. -------- washington Olympia nears label of nuclear-free zone BY KATHERINE TAM August 10, 2005 THE OLYMPIAN http://159.54.227.3/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20050810&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=508100347&SectionCat=&Template=printart OLYMPIA -- The capital city likely will become a nuclear-free zone in one week. A majority of the City Council said Tuesday that they plan to back a proposed ordinance that bans anything related to the development, production or disposal of nuclear weapons from Olympia. Under that same ordinance, the city also would try not to do business with companies that make nuclear weapons or their components. Companies would sign an affidavit certifying that they're not involved in nuclear weaponry. "Cities have the most to lose," said City Councilman TJ Johnson, who proposed the ordinance. "As both a capital and port city, Olympia is especially vulnerable. What good does it do to take important local actions for sustainability if we're always 15 minutes away from the end of civilization as we know it?" Some council members raised questions about whether the proposed law opens the city up to potentially costly liability. "I have to be concerned: This is more than a symbolic thing," Mayor Mark Foutch said. "This may not be a popular decision, but it's a conscientious one." "We've been telling the public for years we will eliminate services, that we can't do new stuff, and this is one that could cost us in liability," he said. Council members did not add international peace matters to their campaign material when they asked the public to vote them into office, Foutch said. "I don't think the public had any warning we would go in this direction." The ordinance reaches the council for a formal vote next week. Five council members -- Matthew Green, Joe Hyer, Johnson, Curt Pavola and Laura Ware -- said Tuesday that they will vote in favor. Councilman Doug Mah said he has not decided yet. Residences respond During the 11/2-hour public hearing Tuesday, nearly 40 residents urged the council to pass the ordinance. Some likened nuclear weapons to "a portable holocaust" that kill people, hurt the environment and leave communities economically devastated. They asked the council to lay aside legal and economic concerns and take a moral stand. "We do have enormous power in our own backyard," resident Peter Harris said. "It would have a domino effect, cascading across the country, making it impossible for nuclear weapons to move through our great lands." "We're not No. 1, we're No. 4,000-and-something," said Larry Mosqueda, who was referring to the more than 4,500 nuclear-free zones that exist in 23 countries. "I suggest we get with the program and do this officially because the federal government is quite behind the times." Nobody spoke out against the proposed ordinance. The idea of declaring Olympia nuclear-free has been bandied about before. In February, Olympia passed a resolution calling for a worldwide end to nuclear weapons by 2020. In May, Johnson served as the council representative at the international nonproliferation review conference at the United Nations in New York. He proposed the ordinance the next month. The city does business with 32 companies that make the components used in nuclear weapons, according to a list compiled by and borrowed from the city of Arcata, Calif. These companies supply cars and other major items to the city. Under the ordinance, the city still would do business with companies that don't sign the affidavit if there isn't a reasonable alternative. But officials would announce the company's name at a public council meeting and write a letter asking the company to stop producing nuclear weapons or their components. Officials would take the companies at their word when they sign the affidavit because they lack the staff and expertise to monitor whether companies are telling the truth. They'll depend on watchdog groups to raise those questions. Lying about being involved in nuclear weapons would be an infraction punishable by fines. The ordinance does not affect nuclear medicine or fissionable materials used in smoke detectors, light-emitting watches and clocks. It does not deal with depleted uranium, which is a concern among some peace activists who worry about lung damage and cancer from military equipment being shipped into the Port of Olympia. It would apply to cargo coming in and out of the port because ships traveling through Budd Inlet enter the city limits. It would not apply to the USS Olympia, the nuclear-powered submarine that was at the center of a fiery debate last year, unless it carries nuclear weapons. -------- MILITARY -------- china China Grows More Wary Over Rash Of Protests Cell Phones, Internet Spread The Word, Magnify Fallout By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, August 10, 2005; A11 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/09/AR2005080901323_pf.html BEIJING, Aug. 9 -- Facing a steady rhythm of violent protests, the Chinese government is showing increased concern about stability, using caution in putting down riots around the country but warning people that violence will not be tolerated. The fallout from a series of demonstrations has been magnified recently because of loosened restrictions on news reporting and increased use of cell phones and the Internet, even by villagers in remote areas, according to government-connected researchers and peasants involved in the protests. Although Communist Party censors try to stifle reporting on the unrest, they said, word of the incidents is transmitted at a speed previously unknown in China. As they are more widely publicized, the violent protests have become a major issue for President Hu Jintao's government. According to Chinese academics with ties to the government, senior officials early on realized that such violence could undermine the country's economic growth -- and perhaps the party's monopoly on power -- if it continues to grow and spread. As a result, calls for stability and social harmony have become the watchwords in speeches by Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao. Reflecting the leaders' concern, the People's Daily, the main party newspaper, declared in a front-page editorial July 28 that any attempt to use protests to correct social injustices that arise as China moves toward a market economy would be "punished in accordance with the law." The editorial was also broadcast on state television and relayed by the official New China News Agency, underlying the importance officials attached to the warning. "Resolving any such problems must be done in line with law and maintenance of stability," the editorial said. "The solution of any problems must rely on the party, the government, the law, the policies and the system." Public Security Minister Zhou Yongkang said last month that the number of what he called "mass incidents" was rising fast across China, according to an official who heard Zhou speak at a closed meeting. Zhou said that 3.76 million Chinese took part in 74,000 such protests last year, which he characterized as a dramatic increase. Perhaps more worrisome, Zhou continued, is a "noticeable" trend toward organized unrest, rather than the spontaneous outbursts that traditionally have led to violent clashes between citizens and police. The minister added, however, that most protests erupt over specific economic issues rather than political demands, suggesting they are not coordinated or directed at bringing down the one-party system that has been in place in China since 1949. Rural protesters have recently cited farmland seizures by local governments working with developers, or pollution of fields and irrigation sources by locally licensed factories or mines as the reasons for their uprisings. Other protests have erupted over clashes between factory managers and the millions of youths who leave their villages to work in assembly plants in big city suburbs. Provincial, municipal and county governments have often proven unable to handle these complaints because local officials, eager for economic growth in partnership with businessmen, regard the aggrieved people as obstacles to success. Kang Xiaoguang, a Tsinghua University professor and political specialist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted that the protesters' lack of national coordination or broad political goals is an indication the government can probably bring the riots under control. Hu and Wen, he said, regard the unrest as a major problem but inevitable, the fruit of economic disparities caused by reforms over the past 25 years. As a result, Kang added, they want to rein in the poorly regulated capitalism that, in many respects, has replaced socialism and have gone out of their way to demonstrate concern for the underdogs in China's hybrid system. As far as is known, even the most violent protesters have been armed only with farming tools in the spate of unrest over the last several years. Similarly, police responding to riots have generally been equipped only with clubs, staffs and tear gas. There have been no reports of firearms being used. However, officials told a party newspaper in Guangxi province last week that police found arms, ammunition and explosives in a raid Thursday against villagers who refused to heed orders to stop illegal mining. The villagers had already clashed once with police in late June, the Reuters news service reported. Seeking to get ahead of the protests, Zhou has urged Chinese security officials to study what causes riots and try to resolve problems before they get to the stage of violence. Beijing, the capital, already has set up such a committee, officials reported, as part of its effort to prepare for the Olympic Games in 2008. "Short-term methods, such as this emergency committee system, and long-term methods, such as an early-warning system [about social discontent], should be combined to solve the problem," said Deng Weizhi, a Shanghai University sociologist and member of the People's Political Consultative Conference, a government advisory body. Deng, who was at a meeting of the conference addressed by Zhou recently, said the minister showed concern about instances in which police must react violently to bring protests under control. This was particularly true, he said, when police broke up a protest in Beijing in April by People's Liberation Army veterans demanding better retirement benefits. Another protest by disgruntled PLA veterans was held last week in Beijing as the army marked its 78th anniversary, witnesses said, and police intervened to break it up by hauling away a number of demonstrators. In a sign of the swift movement of protest news, one of the organizers sent a short cell phone message to a Chinese journalist Tuesday saying he was about to be arrested for his part in the demonstration. Similarly, a peasant protest leader from Zhejiang province, whose grimy fingernails and weathered skin attested to a life on the farm, remarked matter-of-factly in a conversation last week that he became aware of other protests after surfing the Web. -------- latin america Chavez heats up anti-U.S. rhetoric 8/10/2005 1:34 PM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-09-venezuela-us_x.htm CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez lashed out at one of his favorite targets, declaring that if U.S. forces were to invade the South American country they would be soundly defeated. Chavez has repeatedly leveled such accusations despite strong American denials that it is considering military action against Venezuela, one of its key oil suppliers and a close ally of Cuba. But Chavez again took aim late Monday, telling a students from across the globe that the U.S. should be aware of the consequences of such an action. "If someday they get the crazy idea of coming to invade us, we'll make them bite the dust defending the freedom of our land," Chavez said to applause. He spoke during the opening ceremony of a world youth festival bringing together 15,000 students from dozens of countries, convening under the slogan "Against Imperialism and War," officials said. The World Festival of Students and Youth has been held intermittently for more than 50 years. Most host countries were aligned with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, including Romania, Poland and the former East Germany. More than 300 students from the United States shouted out their disapproval of President Bush, chanting "Get out Bush!" The Venezuelan leader said "socialism is the only path," and told the students the collective goal is to "save a world threatened by the voracity of U.S. imperialism." -------- us Four Star General Fired For Organizing Coup Against Neo-Cons? Reporter suggests Byrnes discovered plan to turn nuke exercise into staged terror attack Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones August 10, 2005 Uruknet; PrisonPlanet.com http://www.uruknet.info?p=14516 The incoming address of this article is : http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2005/100805fourstargeneral.htm Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones | August 10 2005 The head of Fort Monroe's Training and Doctrine Command, four star general Kevin P. Byrnes, was fired Tuesday apparently for sexual misconduct according to official sources. Other sources however have offered a different explanation for Byrnes' dismissal which ties in with the Bush administration's unpopular plan to attack Iran and the staged nuclear attack in the US which would provide the pretext to do so. According to reporter Greg Szymanski, anonymous military sources said that Brynes was the leader of a faction that was preparing to instigate a coup against the neo-con hawks in an attempt to prevent further global conflict. Indications are that, much like popular opinion amongst the general public, half the military oppose the neo-con's agenda and half support it. Further revelations were imparted by journalist Leland Lehrman who appeared today on The Alex Jones Show. Lehrman's army sources, including a former Captain in intelligence, became outraged when they learned that the official story behind 9/11 was impossible. They told Lehrman that the imminent Northcom nuclear terror exercise based in Charleston, S.C, where a nuclear warhead is smuggled off a ship and detonated, was originally intended to 'go live' - as in the drill would be used as the cover for a real false flag staged attack. This website has relentlessly discussed similar style drills which took place on the morning of 9/11 and on the morning of 7/7 in London. "Speculation exists that he had potentially discovered the fact that it was gonna go live and that he was trying to put a stop to it or also speculation indicates that he may be part of a military coup designed to prevent the ridiculous idea of doing a nuclear war with Iran, " said Lehrman. Lehrman said that other sources had told him all army leave had been cancelled from September 7th onwards, opening the possibility for war to be declared within that time frame. Northcom officials also admitted to Lehrman that CNN had been using its situation room as a studio. Earlier this week, Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has developed its first ever war plans for operations within the continental United States, in which terrorist attacks would be used as the justification for imposing martial law on cities, regions or the entire country. American Conservative Magazine recently reported that Dick Cheney had given orders to immediately invade Iran after the next terror attack in the US, even if there was no evidence Iran was involved. Government and media mouthpieces have been fearmongering for weeks about how a nuclear attack within the US is imminent. Now would be the most opportune time for the Globalists to stage a major attack, as it would head off any potential indictments against the Bush administration for their involvement in illegally outing CIA agent Valerie Plame. While rumors circulating about indictments having already taken place against Bush and Cheney should rightly be treated very carefully, the fact that there is an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter is something that's admitted and shouldn't be viewed as speculation. -------- POLICE / PRISONERS / COURTS / JUSTICE -------- police 5 Die in Taser Police Shootings Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 Democracy Now! Headlines http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/10/1346242 Five people have died in California and Arizona over the past week after being shot by police with Taser stun guns. This brings the total number of people killed in the United States by stun guns to at least 147. In one case Arizona police shot a man outside a convenient car because he refused to get out of a car that was not his. After police tried to remove him from the car, they shot him in the arm and leg with a Taser. After he was taken to the hospital, he had a seizure and died. -------- terrorism Terror Tape Shows Attack Preparations Wednesday, August 10, 2005 Fox News http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,163633,00.html DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The Arabic television network Al-Arabiya aired a videotape purportedly by Al Qaeda (search) that shows terrorists training for attacks on the United States and on coalition troops in the mountains of Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence officials said they believe the tape is authentic. The two-hour tape, which Al-Arabiya (search) described as a documentary and ran over the weekend, bears the name of Al Sahab productions – the production company used by Al Qaeda for numerous other videos. In the tape, terrorists are seen in classroom settings, planning attacks, building bombs and training for ambushes. It’s subtitled in Arabic but carries interviews in English, French, Pashtu, Urdu and Arabic spoken with Yemeni, Saudi and Iraqi accents. English-speaking members address people in the West directly. A British- or Australian-accented man wearing a black robe, AK-47 and military-style vest, warns Westerners of "the lies of Blair and Bush." "The Muslim world is not your backyard," he yells. "The honorable sons of Islam will not let you kill our sons. It is time for us to be equals. As you kill, you will be killed. As you bomb, you will be bombed." U.S. intelligence officials said the tape is the latest in a long list of efforts to recruit and promote for Al Qaeda on the Web and over the airwaves. An Al-Arabiya official said the network received the tape last week but he would not say how or where it was delivered. A British member of Parliament blasted Al Arabiya for keeping its sources quiet, especially after London was targeted by terrorists twice recently – on July 7, when four bombs exploded on the city’s subways and a bus, killing 56 people; and again on July 21, when another series of four bombs failed to detonate. Al Qaeda did not take responsibility for the attacks. “This has nothing to do with Islam,” Lord John Taylor (search), told FOX News. “They’re not martyrs. They’re murderers.” The three-part video, titled "The War of the Oppressed People," depicts what appears to be a few months in the lives of a group of fighters in wilderness camps in the Afghan mountains. The men cook tea over campfires and kneel in prayer under the open skies, then duck into a makeshift classroom where an instructor outlines the coming "Operation to Defeat the Crucifix" against U.S. and allied forces. In one scene, the tape claims Al Qaeda was responsible for shooting down a U.S. Chinook helicopter, killing all 16 American troops on board. The tape features an appearance by top-ranking Al Qaeda member Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, as well as shots of a U.S. Air Force A-10 jet making bombing runs on a mountainside, and a close-up of a U.S. soldier quivering face down on the ground. Al-Iraqi, speaking with a scarf hiding his face, says the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have created "two fronts" for recruiting terrorists to the cause of Usama bin Laden (search) and Taliban leader Mullah Omar (search). "Now all the world is united behind Mullah Omar and Sheik Usama," he says. The program includes interviews with bearded fighters claiming they are avenging the killing of Muslims by the U.S., Britain, Israel and India. "If this is terrorism and fundamentalism, then OK, we are terrorists and fundamentalists," a Pakistani man who identifies himself as Bilal says in Urdu. One grisly segment shows a dead soldier lying face up, his bearded face caked in blood. The soldier, perhaps an Afghani, is dressed in green camouflage fatigues with a red shoulder patch. The insurgents display his rifle, an American M-16. In another scene, a group of bombmakers slices white bricks of plastic explosive, packing them into cooking oil cans along with heavy steel bolts and gobs of glue. Green-hued night footage shows the men digging holes at the roadside and planting the bombs. Later, shaky footage follows a blue SUV as it travels along a remote dirt road. Text on the bottom of the screen says the car is carrying the head of security for Afghanistan's Kunar province. Without warning the vehicle is ripped apart in a giant fireball. The attack appears to depict the June 28 roadside bombing that killed a district police chief and two other officers. Yet another scene pans across a cache of captured U.S. gear, including a laptop, an M-16, military radios, a global positioning satellite display and the Department of Defense ID card of slain Navy SEAL Danny Phillip Dietz Jr. Dietz, 25, of Littleton, Colo., was killed June 28 after his four-man reconnaissance team came under attack in Kunar province. The Chinook helicopter was downed and the 16 troops killed as the craft was on its way to aid Dietz, killing all aboard. An insurgent is shown going through the laptop's hard drive, zooming in on a U.S. military document marked "For Official Use Only" and a map of Kabul marked with the locations of the U.S. and British embassies. Terrorism experts said the video served several purposes – namely to build membership in Al Qaeda and to create a degree of fear among Westerners. “It shows the intention of Al Qaeda to continue their campaign in the West or at least to recruit western Muslims,” analyst Peter Neumann told FOX News. “The purpose of the video is to radicalize people and convince them they must join the fight right now.” CIA veteran Bob Baer, author of the book “See No Evil,” said the situation was becoming chaotic. “It’s Islam against the West. It’s the worst possible direction this could be going in – us vs. them,” he said. FOX News' Bret Baier and The Associated Press contributed to this report. -------- ACTIVISTS Colonel accused of defacing cars with pro-Bush stickers Posted 8/10/2005 9:33 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-08-10-bush-vandalism_x.htm DENVER — An Air Force Reserve colonel could face criminal charges for allegedly vandalizing cars at Denver International Airport bearing pro-Bush bumper stickers. Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, director of operations for reserve forces at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, is believed responsible for defacing at least 10 parked vehicles between December and June, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said Tuesday. A bait car left by a police detective was also defaced and the detective tracked down Fecteau, who turned himself in Friday. He was released on bond. A message left for a man of the same name in Colorado Springs wasn't immediately returned. Jackson said Fecteau is suspected of blacking out the Bush bumper stickers and then spray painting an expletive and the president's name on the vehicles. Fecteau supervises 11 full-time and 30 part-time reservists at the institute, which is part of the Space Warfare Center at Schriever Air Force Base, said base spokesman Staff Sgt. Donald Branum. The bait vehicle was equipped with a camera that captured an image of the suspect and his car. Then a detective was able to find footage from a camera monitoring cars leaving the parking lot and traced Fecteau using the car's license plate, Jackson said. Police have referred the case to prosecutors, who are considering filing criminal charges, he said. ----