NucNews - August 28, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR -------- australia Australian uranium: feedstock for proliferation Jim Green, Green Left Weekly, posted August 28, 2005 http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/640/640p12.htm The good news is that we don't know for sure that exported Australian uranium has been used in nuclear weapons programs since the late 1940s. The bad news is that we don't know it hasn't. The regime designed to attempt to prevent military misuse of Australian obligated-nuclear material (AONM) — mainly uranium and its by-products such as plutonium produced in nuclear power stations — has the following elements: * Uranium exports are subject to Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) audits. Consignment weights are recorded and passed on to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). * All recipient countries must be signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the AONM must be subject to IAEA safeguards inspections. * In addition to IAEA safeguards, bilateral agreements must be in place between Australia and uranium customer countries. The basic elements of this system were put in place in 1977 by then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser's Coalition government. But within months, the system was being watered down. As Mike Rann, now the premier of South Australia, noted in his 1982 anti-uranium mining book, Uranium: Play It Safe: “Again and again, it has been demonstrated here and overseas that when problems over safeguards prove difficult, commercial considerations will come first.” A detailed critique of the safeguarding of AONM is provided by retired diplomat Professor Richard Broinowski in his 2003 book Fact or Fission? The Truth About Australia's Nuclear Ambitions. Broinowski details how the 1977 safeguards system was gradually weakened, and he discusses current problems: “Terms such as ‘fungibility' and ‘equivalence' are used by Australian nuclear officials to explain the fact that Australian uranium cannot be identified once it leaves Australian shores and enters the commercial international nuclear fuel cycle. Instead, it becomes a book-keeping entry. This is meant to ensure that somewhere in the complex international fuel cycle system, in some country, and in some form, an equivalent amount of material is not being used to make nuclear weapons. But the accounting method is tenuous, and subject to distortion or abuse... “Despite assurances of the Safeguards Office to the contrary, it is not credible that none of this material has been lost through accounting errors, illegally diverted, or otherwise mishandled without detection...” To take the case of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, accounting depends on estimates of the quantity of plutonium and other radionuclides contained in the spent fuel, and the accounting is further complicated by the inevitability that some material will be stuck in the reprocessing apparatus. So-called Material Unaccounted For (MUF) is commonplace. As ASNO concedes: “Every year inventory reports involving bulk material will include a component of MUF.” ASNO also claims that “to date, reported MUF involving AONM has been explained to ASNO's satisfaction”. However, ASNO refuses to supply details of unaccounted AONM. Certainly there have been incidents of large-scale MUF in Australia's uranium customer countries such as Britain and Japan. Moreover, ASNO has not established a track record as an honest, independent regulator. It is pro-nuclear industry bureaucracy that routinely peddles pro-nuclear propaganda. A further difficulty safeguarding AONM is its quantity, the variety of its forms, and the variety of locations and circumstances in which it is held. ASNO provides the following information on AONM held overseas — totalling over 100,000 tonnes — in its 2003-04 annual report: * Natural uranium: 20,262 tonnes (Canada, Euratom, Japan, South Korea and the US). * Uranium in enrichment plants: 8025 tonnes (Euratom, Japan and the US). * Depleted uranium: 67,823 tonnes (Euratom, Japan and the US). * Low enriched uranium 9056 tonnes (Canada, Euratom, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, Mexico and the US). * Irradiated plutonium: 78 tonnes (Canada, Euratom, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and the US). * Separated plutonium: 0.6 tonnes (Euratom and Japan). A further problem with uranium exports is that even if the uranium (or derivatives such as plutonium) is not used directly in military programs, it potentially frees up uranium from other sources — primarily domestically mined uranium ore — for use in military programs. The industry-funded Uranium Information Centre states: “Australia's position as a major uranium exporter is influential in the ongoing development of international safeguards and other non-proliferation measures, through membership of the IAEA Board of Governors, participation in international expert groups and its safeguards research program in support of the IAEA.” However, successive Australian governments have used whatever influence they enjoy in support of flawed policies which undermine non-proliferation and disarmament objectives. The policies are largely driven by the commercial interests of the Australian uranium export industry and also by the military alliance between Australia and the nuclear-armed United States. As Broinowski notes: “Australian diplomats may argue with their American colleagues at the margins, for example, over the desirability of the US ratifying the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, or interpretation of the fissile materials cut-off treaty. But what really shapes their position is the unstated but well-understood Australian government policy that its great protector — the US — should never forfeit its overwhelming superiority over all other nations in nuclear weaponry.” Bilateral agreements The Uranium Information Centre states: “A further concern is that countries may develop various sensitive nuclear fuel cycle facilities and research reactors under full safeguards and then subsequently opt out of the NPT. Bilateral agreements such as insisted upon by Australia and Canada for sale of uranium address this by including fallback provisions, but many countries are outside the scope of these agreements.” However, it is unlikely that any country willing to pull out of the NPT would be concerned about abrogating its responsibilities under a bilateral agreement. Bilateral agreements negotiated between the Australian government and uranium customer countries are not really any more stringent than the generic “peaceful use” provisions required by all uranium exporters. Australia insists on prior consent to enrich uranium beyond 20% uranium-235 (because highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear bombs similar to the one used by the US to destroy Hiroshima in 1945). But no country has requested permission to enrich uranium imported from Australia beyond 20%. Australian bilateral agreements also require prior consent to reprocess spent fuel, since that means the separation of weapons-useable plutonium. But permission to reprocess has never been refused, even when this has led to the stockpiling of weapons-useable plutonium. At least 600 kilograms of “unirradiated” Australian-obligated plutonium is stockpiled in Japan and Europe. About 80 tonnes of Australian-obligated “irradiated” plutonium is contained in spent fuel held at many locations around the world. A mere 10 kg is sufficient for a plutonium fission weapon of similar explosive yield to that which destroyed Nagasaki in 1945. It is frequently claimed that the “stringent” conditions placed on AONM encourage a strengthening of non-proliferation measures generally, and that the more uranium exported from Australia the better because it means that a significant proportion of the world's uranium trade is covered by Australia's “stringent” conditions. However, by permitting the stockpiling of plutonium the Australian government is not “raising the bar” but setting a poor example and encouraging other uranium exporters to adopt or persist with equally irresponsible policies. The Australian government does not have the authority to directly prohibit plutonium stockpiling, but it does have the authority to refuse international transfers and reprocessing of AONM and it could therefore put an end to the stockpiling of Australian-obligated plutonium. ASNO claims that it “monitors the quantities of Australian-obligated separated plutonium held under relevant agreements. If these quantities appear excessive relative to normal requirements the matter would be raised with the government concerned. To date it has not been necessary to do so.” It is difficult to comment on Australian-obligated plutonium stockpiles in Europe since successive governments have refused to detail which countries hold how much plutonium. But in at least some European countries holding Australian-obligated plutonium, the amount must be excessive in relation to civil uses since hardly any countries are engaged in plutonium breeder research programs, and the use of plutonium in mixed oxide fuel is also limited. Japan is fast becoming drunk on plutonium. As at the end of 2003, Japan's holdings of unirradiated plutonium amounted to 5.4 tonnes, in addition to 35.2 tonnes of civil unirradiated plutonium held overseas and 105 tonnes of plutonium in spent fuel at reactor sites and reprocessing plants. Japan's plutonium stockpile, which includes Australian-obligated plutonium, is grossly excessive in relation to its limited use of plutonium in civil power and research programs. 'Impeccable credentials' According to ASNO's John Carlson, “One of the features of Australian policy ... is very careful selection of our treaty partners. We have concluded bilateral arrangements only with countries whose credentials are impeccable in this area”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Australia sells uranium to a number of countries with poor nuclear credentials, including the US, which is breaching its NPT disarmament commitment in many ways: refusing to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty; making a mockery of the proposed fissile material cut-off treaty by blocking any inspection or verification measures; engaging in research on new generations of nuclear weapons; suggesting that it might begin nuclear weapons testing again; resuming the production of tritium for use in nuclear weapons, and using a “civil” power reactor to produce the tritium; acknowledging in the Pentagon's nuclear posture review that it intends to maintain its nuclear arsenal “forever”; embarking on nuclear co-operation with India (a non-NPT country); threatening first-use nuclear strikes; and developing a nuclear hit-list of seven countries, all of them NPT member-countries except North Korea, and five of them non-nuclear weapons states. The disgraceful role of the US, and its manifold breaches of its NPT obligations, are ignored by Canberra. Successive Australian governments claim that the US is in compliance with its NPT obligations because of Washington's claimed reduction in the number of nuclear weapons it possesses. But even that solitary achievement is largely a function of creative accounting “worthy of Enron”, according to the US Natural Resources Defense Council. France and Britain are also customers for Australian uranium and, like the US, neither country has the slightest intention of fulfilling its NPT disarmament obligations. As IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei noted in a 2004 speech: “There are some who have continued to dangle a cigarette from their mouth and tell everybody else not to smoke.” Australian uranium and Asia Japan, a major customer for Australian uranium, has developed a nuclear “threshold” or “breakout” capability — it could produce nuclear weapons within months of a decision to do so, relying heavily on facilities, materials and expertise from its civilian nuclear program. An obvious source of fissile material for a weapons program in Japan would be its stockpile of plutonium, including Australian-obligated plutonium. In April 2002, the then-leader of Japan's Liberal Party, Ichiro Ozawa, said Tokyo should consider building nuclear weapons to counter China and suggested a source of fissile material: “It would be so easy for us to produce nuclear warheads; we have plutonium at nuclear power plants in Japan, enough to make several thousand such warheads.” Japan's plutonium program increases regional tensions and proliferation risks. Diplomatic cables in 1993 and 1994 from US ambassadors in Tokyo described Japan's accumulation of plutonium as “massive” and questioned the rationale for the stockpiling of so much plutonium since it appeared to be economically unjustified. A March 1993 diplomatic cable from US Ambassador Michael Armacost to US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act, posed these questions: “Can Japan expect that if it embarks on a massive plutonium recycling program that Korea and other nations would not press ahead with reprocessing programs? Would not the perception of Japan's being awash in plutonium and possessing leading edge rocket technology create anxiety in the region?” Broinowski poses questions that the Australian government won't — and in some cases can't — answer: “How much AONM sold over the years to Japan has gone missing? How much of it now exists as weapons-grade uranium or plutonium ready to be put into Japanese nuclear weapons if the government decides to make them?” Australian consent to the separation of Australian-obligated plutonium and its stockpiling in Japan should be withdrawn on non-proliferation grounds. That consent should also be withdrawn on the basis of the unacceptable safety record of Japan's plutonium/reprocessing program over the past decade. South Korea is another major customer for Australian uranium with less than impeccable credentials. In 2004, South Korea disclosed information about a range of activities that violated its NPT commitments — uranium enrichment from 1979-81, the separation of small quantities of plutonium in 1982, uranium enrichment experiments in 2000 and the production of depleted uranium munitions from 1983-87. Australia has supplied South Korea with uranium since 1986. It is not known — and may never be known — whether Australian-obligated nuclear materials were used in any of South Korea's illegal research. South Korea has acknowledged using both indigenous and imported nuclear materials in the tests, but denies that any AONM was used. Canberra is now negotiating a bilateral treaty with China to permit uranium sales. China is a nuclear weapons state with no intention of fulfilling its NPT disarmament obligations, and it refuses to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty. Furthermore, under its current highly repressive and anti-worker regime, it is difficult to imagine a Chinese nuclear industry worker feeling free to publicly raise safety, security or proliferation concerns. Following the recent US decision to engage in nuclear industry cooperation with India, two Australian government ministers are now arguing for uranium sales to India. But India is one of just four countries outside the NPT/IAEA regime. Australian uranium sales to India would clearly weaken the NPT. [Jim Green is a nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.] -------- depleted uranium Radioactive Poisoning of Middle East August 28, 2005 Uruknet http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m15147&l=i&size=1&hd=0 The use of uranium-enriched munitions in the theater of war in the Middle East and Afghanistan is one of the more sadistic sides of the US imperialism, on par with the barbaric and terroristic nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In this regard, our collective has in the past been among those raising the alarms on this issue, in particular in an Open Letter to Mr. Nader. Of course the most eloquent and perhaps the best qualified advocate against the use of uranium-enriched munitions is Leuren Moret, a geoscientist who quit working at the Livermore National Laboratory, so that she could courageously and tirelessly blow the whistle on this most noxious of weaponry being deployed by the US imperialists in their wars, starting in 1991 in the first Gulf War, then in the Balkans, and now again in Iraq and Afghanistan. The clinical evidence of the dreadful effects of DU (’depleted’ uranium) is incontrovertible. For a latest entry, please read this article, Radioactive Wounds of War, by the honorable Dave Lindorff, found on In These Times. http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2298/ -------- iran Iran seeks nuclear negotiations with U.N. watchdog 8/28/2005 10:24 AM (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-08-28-iraniaeatalks_x.htm TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Sunday rejected what it termed conditional negotiations with Europe over Tehran's nuclear program and said it wanted instead to have talks with the U.N.'s international nuclear watchdog agency. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said any future nuclear negotiations would not include the United States, which contends Iran wants to build atomic weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely to produce electricity. "Since Europe has demanded conditional negotiations, Iran will not accept that and negotiations won't be held," Asefi told reporters. "We are interested in negotiations and working with the International Atomic Energy Agency, as our partner." Earlier this week Britain's Foreign Office said there was "no basis for negotiations with Iran until they respond" to an IAEA resolution adopted earlier this month that calls on Iran to suspend uranium reprocessing activities at its Isfahan plant. The EU countries called off a negotiating session scheduled for Aug. 31 because of the resumption of work there. Asefi said Iran supported negotiations with all countries but activities at Isfahan would never stop. On Wednesday, Iran had said it was preparing new nuclear proposal that was intended for use in talks with Europe. Asefi said it still would be issued within 45 days and was designed boost Iran's right to have the full nuclear fuel cycle. Ali Larijani, Tehran's top nuclear negotiator, said Friday that Iran would not negotiate away its right to enrich uranium and shrugged off threats of possible U.N. action, which could include sanctions. A day earlier he had called on more countries to joint the three European negotiators, France, Britain and Germany. The three countries, negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union, sought to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program in return for economic incentives, a proposal Iran has rejected. At the same time, Iran reactivated uranium conversion at its Isfahan nuclear facility, a precursor to uranium enrichment. Enrichment is one of the final stages in the nuclear fuel process which Iran froze last November in conjunction with its negotiations with the Europeans. The enrichment process can produce either the fuel needed for a reactor or material used in creating a nuclear bomb. ---- Iran bids to open out nuclear talks beyond Europe 28/08/2005 12h37 (AFP) http://www.afp.com/russian/news/stories/050828123713.m4xhhrcx.html TEHRAN - Iran does not consider Britain, France and Germany to be the sole negotiating partners on its nuclear programme and believes the process should be opened out beyond Europe. "We will continue negotiating with them, but on the other hand we will not restrict our negotiations to being with just these three countries," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said of the so-called EU-3. Britain, France and Germany have been engaged in close to two years of tough talks with the Islamic republic but Asefi said that Iran has now also been talking with countries such as Japan, Malaysia and South Africa. "We want to have negotiations with other countries, it is up to the Europeans not to remove themselves from the negotiations," he said, accusing the EU-3 of refusing to recognise Iran's right to the nuclear fuel cycle. Countries from the Non-Aligned Movement -- notably South Africa and Malaysia -- have been more sympathetic to Iran's effort to possess nuclear fuel facilities. "The Europeans did not live up to commitments. If the European cannot live up to their commitments, we will negotiate with other countries as is our right," he added. According to Asefi, Iran's "main negotiating partner is the International Atomic Energy Agency" -- the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog -- and said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had been informed of this. Iran is unhappy with the EU-3 after they demanded a total halt to fuel cycle work in exchange for a package of trade, security and technology incentives. Iran maintains such work for peaceful purposes is a right of any signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Iran has rejected the deal, and in protest resumed uranium conversion activities, the first step in making enriched uranium which is fuel for power reactors but can also be the raw material for atom bombs. The resumption of this work, which Iran had suspended last November to start talks with the EU, has scuttled the negotiations and could lead to Iran being brought before the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions. The IAEA is due to issue a new report on Iran on September 3, and Iran has been emboldened by agency conclusions that highly enriched uranium (HEU) particles found in Iran were from imported equipment and not from Iran's own activities. But the report will also however cover suspicious on Iranian work with plutonium, another atom bomb material. "We expect the report on September 3 to clarify the remaining, minute issues because our cooperation has clarified a lot of ambiguities," Asefi insisted. "I don't think Iran's case can be referred to the UN Security Council. If they want to make our case a security issue, it will cost the Europeans more than it will cost Iran," he warned. Asefi also revealed further details on promised proposals from Iran's new hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which he suggested would be released within the next six weeks. "They will enshrine Iran's right to have the fuel cycle. It will also have objective guarantees" that Iran will not seek nuclear weapons, Asefi said. "It will say the main negotiating partner will be the IAEA. It will make sure the other parties will not resort to pretexts. This proposal is a way out of the current situation. I think around two years of negotiations (with the Europeans) is enough." The EU-3 have already reacted to Iran's challenge, with France insisting Friday that the EU-3 have been working in conjunction with their 22 other EU partners as well as the IAEA's full 35-nation board of governors. The US State Department on Thursday said Iran was trying to "change the subject from what the real issue is, and that is their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons." -------- mideast Egypt not to sign nuclear treaty Sunday August 28, 2005 News International, Pakistan http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/aug2005-daily/28-08-2005/world/w3.htm CAIRO: Egypt’s foreign minister on Saturday turned down a request from the world’s nuclear watchdog to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, saying Israel should first join a separate agreement calling for a halt to the spread of atomic bombs. The refusal by Israel, which is believed to possess hundreds of nuclear warheads, to join the United Nations’ Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has also made the Middle East more insecure, Ahmed Aboul Gheit was quoted by Egypt’s semi-official Middle East News Agency as saying. "Egypt’s ratification of the (test ban) treaty is linked to the extent of developments that may occur in regional and international circumstances, including the possibility that Israel may join the NPT,’’ MENA quoted the minister as saying. Aboul Gheit’s comments came in a letter to Tibor Toth, the new executive secretary of the commission, which oversees the test ban treaty; know as the CTBT, which bans the development and testing of nuclear arms. Egypt runs small-scale nuclear programmes for medical and research purposes and has previously denied that it is trying to develop a nuclear weapons programme. All Middle Eastern counties are signatories to the NPT except for Israel, which is believed to have commenced its nuclear programme in the 1950s, but has never denied nor confirmed the widely held view that it possesses atomic bombs. Under the NPT, states without atomic arms pledged not to develop them, and five with the weapons _ the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China _ undertook to eventually eliminate their arsenals. The non-weapons states, meanwhile, were guaranteed access to peaceful nuclear technology. Arab states complain that Israel’s possession of atomic weapons is a threat to Middle Eastern stability and have demanded the international community do more to force the Jewish state to relinquish its nuclear arms. -------- pakistan Pakistan mulls action on Indo-US nuclear deal Aug. 28, 2005 India Daily http://www.indiadaily.com/breaking_news/43744.asp Pakistan has said it has not yet decided how to tackle the recent India-US deal to cooperate on the civilian nuclear energy. "One option would be to oppose the deal and ask the US not to implement it. The other approach would be to ask them not to make it India-specific so that any country that fulfils the criterion for receiving such cooperation should receive it," Pakistan's Ambassador to the US Jehangir Karamat said. Pakistan was seeking to further enhance its defence cooperation with the US and had asked for 100 F-16 aircraft from Washington, he was quoted as saying at a meeting of the Washington Policy Analysis Group by media reports today. The US, he said, was delivering two aircraft in December while the regular delivery would start in 2007. -------- russia Nuclear reactor re-activated at Novovoronezh power plant 28.08.2005, 23.46 (Itar-Tass) http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=2358092&PageNum=0 NOVOVORONEZH, Voronezh region, August 28 - Nuclear reactor of Power Unit Five of the Novoronezh power plant went into operation Sunday after more than a year of outage due to works to eliminate defects in it, Viktor Boldyrev, the director of the power unit said. "The reactor's activation was completed as scheduled," he said. Power Unit Five was shut in June 2004 for regular preventive maintenance, but technicians found cracks in joints of several nipples that ensure nuclear safety. Expers said the cracks had appeared due to manufacturing defects and big operation loads over a period of about 25 years. "A decision was taken then to replace all the 109 nipples and not only the ones where the cracks had been found," Boldyrev said. "Not a single country in the world has ever seen repair works [at nucler plants] on such a massive scale," he indicated. This power unit of the Novovoronezh plant has a water-cooled water-moderated reactor and it was commissioned in May 1980. It was the first reactor of that type in nuclear machine-building. The intial techology of nipple assembling was changed later, and cracks did not appear at reactors built in subsequent years. At this moment, the plant has two operating units with the output of 417,000 KW each, and Power Unit Five will join them soon. Radiation background at the plant and around it is within the norm. -------- security Security upgrade planned for reactors More officers could be hired to guard next generation of power plants By SEAN ADKINS York, PA Daily Record/Sunday News Sunday, August 28, 2005 http://ydr.com/story/main/82484/ The nation’s new generation of nuclear reactors will likely include thicker walls and may be built underground to offer more protection from potential airborne threats, according to one industry expert. “What was not envisioned was what we saw on 9/11,” said David Lochbaum, a nuclear power expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Suicide bombers were not thought of when the first plants were built. That’s not the case now.” In late September, NuStart Energy Development LLC will file with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission two applications for two combined construction and operating licenses. The NRC requires those approved permits to break ground and operate a nuclear reactor. NuStart Energy will identify two existing power plants to house each of the new reactors. Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Lusby, Md., is one of six sites under review by NuStart Energy to possibly land a roughly $2 billion reactor. NuStart Energy’s application to the NRC will include a detailed section on security enhancements designed to protect the new reactor from potential external and internal sabotage. Security measures listed to protect the new reactors meet all the upgraded criteria required by the NRC. Dick Dubiel said the chances of someone or something being able to breach a 3-foot thick concrete containment wall, the current protective curtain that surrounds a reactor, is slim. Dubiel is a co-owner of Woodstock, Ga.-based Millennium Services Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. “I could envision someone driving into a plant and blowing up a transformer,” he said. “But that would only cause some power loss.” Much like its existing counterparts, new reactors would be built with spent-fuel pools equipped with racks that resemble the utensil holders in dishwashing machine. Those racks would store the reactor’s stockpile of 12-foot depleted uranium rods. Chances are the pools built alongside new reactors would be larger than those at current plants, Lochbaum said. In the past, pools were designed with the industry belief that a permanent repository — such as that proposed for Yucca Mountain in Nevada — would already have been in place, he said. Now, with NRC approval of Yucca Mountain still uncertain, nuclear plant engineers have decided to enlarge a reactor’s pool so that more waste may be stored on site. Dubiel said he does not believe that someone would be able to steal spent fuel from a nuclear reactor, old or new, without alerting security. Large equipment and robust measures designed to protect a person from radiation contamination would be needed for such an act, he said. “I don’t see nuke plants as a security risk to outside environment,” Dubiel said. “And certainly not to a terrorist who wants to steal spent fuel.” Private security firms, such as Wackenhut Nuclear Services, would most likely hire additional officers to guard the new reactors — the earliest of which could be operational by 2014. Wackenhut officers guard both Three Mile Island in Dauphin County and Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. “New nuclear reactors are the right way to go,” said Shawn Kirven, vice president of nuclear operations for Wackenhut Nuclear Services. “We will be looking to provide our services.” Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the commission established new ground rules for nuclear plant security. Many existing plants now have in place 25-foot guard towers equipped with gun portholes and have installed “delay fencing” designed to create greater standoff distances from a plant. Delay fencing is a combination of regular fencing, razor wire and concrete barricades that circle the protected area of the plant. That area includes the reactors. Kirven said his understanding is that the new reactors would require the same number of officers as existing sites. Marilyn Kray, president of NuStart Energy and a vice president at Exelon Generation in Philadelphia, said the design of the new reactors would most likely call for a smaller footprint, or property size. In that case, fewer guards might be called to protect the reactor. “A smaller piece of property might not need as many officers,” Kirven said.Reach Sean Adkins at 771-2047 or sadkins@ydr.com. -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- alaska Closure threatens Galena nuclear plan By R.A. DILLON, Staff Writer Sunday, August 28, 2005 http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~3030455,00.html A decision by the federal base closure commission to stop Air Force operations in Galena has put the Yukon River village's dream of going nuclear in doubt. Galena officials have been working for two years to put a nuclear power plant in the village of 700 as a test case for providing cheap electricity to rural communities. But Thursday, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted unanimously to shut down the Galena Airport Forward Operation Location as part of a Pentagon plan to save $48 billion over the next 20 years, potentially robbing the City of Galena of its biggest power customer. The Air Force buys 60 percent of the 8.5 million kilowatts of electricity produced annually by the city. Removing that demand raises the question of whether there's a need to operate a 10-megawatt nuclear power plant. City Manager Marvin Yoder thinks there is. When the Air Force reduced its presence in Galena in the early 1990s, Yoder and other local officials developed a plan to fill the empty military buildings with high school students from across the state. The Project Education Residential School leases a dining hall, dormitory, classrooms, gymnasium and auto mechanics shop on the base and provides 35 full-time jobs in the community. Last year, the program served 85 predominantly Alaska Native high school students from 43 communities. City and tribal officials want to expand the school to 400 students and think they can use more of the military buildings to accomplish that plan. Increasing the size of the school would fill holes in the job market and power usage left empty from the Air Force's withdraw. "We're going to take over as much of the base as possible," said Peter Captain Sr., first chief of the Louden Tribal Council. "We're not just going to let them mothball it and go away." Expanding the boarding school would make power use in the community about what it is with the Air Force, Yoder said. "If we have a redevelopment plan in place, most of the electricity load is going to continue," he said. "If we can't put a plan together, then the nuclear plant is in jeopardy." Galena, like most rural Alaska communities, relies on burning $2.55-a-gallon diesel oil to produce electricity. The diesel oil has to be towed to the village 350 miles by barge, contributing to electricity prices of 33 cents a kilowatt hour. Yoder said installing a small nuclear power plant could reduce the cost of electricity to 10 cents a kilowatt hour. The national average is 8.71 cents. The city is involved in discussions with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about licensing a plant being developed by Toshiba Corp. But Yoder said it will take at least until 2010 just to know if the plan is feasible. Galena's neighbors on the Yukon River have raised concerns over the possibility of putting a nuclear power plant next to North America's fourth-largest river drainage basin. Rob Rosenfeld, director of the Yukon River Intertribal Watershed Council, said tribal leaders passed two resolutions at the council's annual meeting in Dawson City, Yukon, in August against the use of radioactive material in the area. Yoder said the opposition is premature. "We're going to work to answer all of the questions and my hope is that everyone will reserve judgment until that work is completed," he said. Yoder wants to bring together community members, tribal officials and state and federal representatives for a planning meeting set for Oct. 13-15 to come up with a detailed redevelopment plan. "We want to make sure all the stakeholders in the community are involved," he said. Staff writer R.A. Dillon can be reached at 459-7503 or rdillon@newsminer.com . -------- washington N-plant construction lull worries industry The U.S. Department of Energy plans to slow construction at its nuclear-waste treatment plant at Hanford following a new seismic study that found the federal government had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake could have on the plant. By Shannon Dininny Sunday, August 28, 2005 The Associated Press http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002454724_hanfordwoes28m.html?syndication=rss&source=seattletimes.xml&items=129 RICHLAND — Amid blowing dust and miles of sagebrush, giant construction cranes sat still one recent day at the Hanford nuclear reservation — silent sentinels over the government's largest construction project. The goal is to build a one-of-a-kind plant to treat highly radioactive waste left from Cold War-era nuclear-weapons production. Achievement is a long way off. Once completed, the plant will be massive — 12 stories tall and the size of four football fields. Its problems have been large, as well. The U.S. Department of Energy, which manages the site, has encountered endless problems since the contract was awarded in 1998. Billions of taxpayer dollars already have been spent, yet the project is only about 30 percent complete. Now, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) plans to slow construction following a new seismic study that found the federal government had underestimated the impact a severe earthquake could have on the plant. Agency officials have repeatedly refused to say how much the price tag — already at $5.8 billion — will rise, or when the plant may open as a result. Regardless, industry insiders contend problems with the Hanford plant come with repercussions far beyond rural Washington. "This plant is the world's largest and most expensive environmental-remediation project, and there's a lot of focus and attention in Congress on DOE's ability to manage this project," said Tom Carpenter, nuclear-oversight program director for the Government Accountability Project, a whistle-blower group critical of the Energy Department. "If this project were to fail, I think Congress would finally recognize this is the wrong agency to manage these types of projects," Carpenter said. The waste-treatment plant has long been considered the cornerstone of cleanup at the highly contaminated Hanford site, which was created in the 1940s as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Using a process called vitrification, the plant will turn decades-old radioactive waste into glasslike logs for permanent disposal in a nuclear-waste repository. The waste, about 53 million gallons, is brewing in 177 aging underground tanks at Hanford. Nearly 150 of the tanks have a single-wall construction, and some are known to have leaked into an aquifer, threatening groundwater and the Columbia River, which is less than 10 miles away. Many tanks have outlived their design life, which makes retrieval of the waste a top priority. "Without the 'vit' plant, we don't clean up Hanford," said Jay Manning, director of the state Department of Ecology. "The problem is going to get worse. It's not going to get better. The plant is the critical step that has to happen." The operating deadline already has been pushed back three times from the original deadline of 1999. The Energy Department has levied fines against and withheld part of the fee for contractor Bechtel National over safety concerns. A watchdog group released a report last year concluding that the plant has a 50 percent chance of a chemical or radiological accident — a report the Energy Department disputed. Critics argue the current slowdown could have been avoided if the federal government had conducted a more thorough seismic review. In addition, the plant is being designed as it is being built — the design is about 75 percent complete — a method that has proven costly. The price tag on the plant has grown from $4.3 billion to the current $5.8 billion, and Energy Department officials have said the cost will grow at least an additional 10 percent due to the seismic issue and other construction problems. Congress has estimated the new cost could be as high as $10 billion — a number closer to the $15.2 billion estimate former contractor BNFL Inc. proposed in 2000. The Energy Department fired the company shortly thereafter, pushing the operating deadline from 2007 to 2011. The latest slowdown leaves state officials believing the problem is more about money than safety. This is the fourth try for the plant, Manning said, and every time the cost goes up, the federal government decides to go back to the drawing board and revisit the approach. Manning said he understands that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman does not want to have to go to Congress twice to explain the rising cost of the plant. Giving elected officials another chance to question the viability of the project is dangerous, he said. "What we really have heartburn with is stopping construction or even significantly slowing it down," Manning said. "This would be a colossal waste of taxpayer money if we were to change course dramatically or abandon this plant entirely. It would be the absolute worst thing we could do." Abandoning the waste-treatment plant is not an option, said Joonhong Ahn, associate professor of nuclear engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. The waste needs to be removed and treated for long-term storage, and the process needs to happen at Hanford because of the large volume and high radioactivity of the waste, he said. "DOE's hand is full," he said. Energy Department officials have said they remain committed to the plant. Mistakes may have been made, but only a review can determine that, and a slowdown will allow the design process to get further ahead of construction, said Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell. "Stopping the construction is only going to cost money, so I don't think that's a credible criticism of what's going on," Sell said. "The dollars matter, but we are not going to build an unsafe plant." -------- MILITARY -------- iraq Abu Ghraib jail release fails to swing Sunnis behind constitution Ali Rifat, Baghdad and Tom Walker August 28, 2005 UK Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1753522,00.html THE head of the Iraqi parliament, Hajim al-Hassani, announced yesterday that the majority Shi’ite and Kurdish factions had agreed on the wording of a new “compromise constitution” which they believed had been amended sufficiently to appease the Sunni minority. However, Sunni politicians submitted counterproposals, in a move that threatens to prolong Iraq’s political deadlock. Their intransigence raises the possibility that the document will be rejected in a national referendum on October 15. That would constitute a serious setback to Iraq’s development as an independent state, hampering American and British plans for the withdrawal of troops next year. Having consistently missed deadlines for the constitution’s final draft for the past two weeks, the Shi’ite and Kurdish negotiators appeared to ride roughshod over their Sunni rivals. The Sunnis fear that the new constitution will prepare the way for a federal Iraq, in which the oil wealth will be carved up between the Kurdish-dominated north and the Shi’ite south. They are also angry that former members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Ba’ath party would be barred from taking public office again. Having largely boycotted the January elections, the Sunnis, who make up 20% of the population, have just 17 of 271 seats in parliament. Their only chance of blocking the constitution is in the referendum. Desperate to keep the political process on track, the American military authorities made further attempts to mollify the Sunnis yesterday by announcing the release of 1,000 detainees — most of them former Ba’ath party members — from Abu Ghraib prison. President George W Bush is so concerned about the collapse of the political process that he telephoned Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, one of the main Shi’ite leaders, last week, imploring him to try to keep the Sunnis involved. The “compromise” being offered to the Sunnis appeared to be a fudge, leaving the question of the country’s federal structure until after elections scheduled for December. The question of political participation by former Ba’athists would also be left until after the assembly had been formed. “A parliamentary agreement has been reached between the Kurdish coalition and the [Shi’ite] alliance on accepting the suggestions of the forces that did not take part in the elections and it will be announced tomorrow,” said al- Hassani, himself a Sunni Arab. Ali al-Dabbagh, a Shi’ite member of the panel drafting the constitution, said that if parliament approved the text, 5m copies would be handed out to Iraqis within days. However, Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni negotiator, dispelled any optimism by describing the Shi’ite-Kurdish compromise as heralding a “terrifying and dark future awaiting Iraq”. A “no” vote in the referendum in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces would be sufficient to kill the constitution. Sunnis form the majority in four central provinces. Although the Kurdish population appears to be solidly behind the constitution, believing it will help them to gain increased autonomy, there are still doubters among Shi’ites. They have rallied behind Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric who believes that many of the poor around Baghdad will be marginalised in a federal Iraq. ---- More journalists killed in Iraq than Vietnam - RSF 28 Aug 2005 15:49:10 GMT Source: Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28219813.htm PARIS, Aug 28 (Reuters) - More journalists have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March 2003 than during the 20 years of conflict in Vietnam, media rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said on Sunday. Since U.S. forces and its allies launched their campaign in Iraq on March 20, 2003, 66 journalists and their assistants have been killed, RSF said. The latest casualty was a Reuters Television soundman who was shot dead in Baghdad on Sunday while a cameraman with him was wounded and then detained by U.S. soldiers. The death toll in Iraq compares with a total of 63 journalists in Vietnam, but which was over a period of 20 years from 1955 to 1975, the Paris-based organisation that campaigns to protect journalists said on its Web site. During the fighting in the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995, 49 journalists were killed doing their job, while 57 journalists and 20 media assistants were killed during a civil war in Algeria from 1993 to 1996. RSF listed Iraq as the world's most dangerous place for journalists. In addition to those killed, 22 have been kidnapped. All but one was released. Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was executed by his captors. The media was targeted from the first days of the fighting, when cameraman Paul Moran, of the Australian TV network ABC, was killed by a car bomb on March 22, 2003, it added. Two other journalists have been missing since March 2003 and August 2004.