NucNews - November 30, 2005 -------- NUCLEAR Atomic hypocrisy Neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line on Iran's nuclear programme Tony Benn Wednesday November 30, 2005 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1653668,00.html Britain has played a leading role in the negotiations with Iran about its nuclear programme and the risk that it might lead to the development of an atomic bomb, and may well seek to take the matter to the UN security council. Given that the prime minister himself is determined to upgrade Trident and appears to be committed to a new series of nuclear power stations, his position as the defender of the non-proliferation treaty is not very credible, and if we are to understand the depth of western hypocrisy on this question we should look back at the history, which has been conveniently forgotten. Thirty years ago, on January 7 1976, as secretary of state for energy I went for a long discussion with the Shah in his palace in Tehran, and much of the time was spent discussing the plans he had to develop a major nuclear-power programme in Iran. I had been well briefed on his proposals by Dr Akbar Etemad of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, who had told me that he intended to build a 24 megawatt capacity by 1994, which was bigger than the programme Britain itself had at that time, and he expressed an interest in the centrifuges that are essential for reprocessing, while assuring me that he was anxious to avoid nuclear proliferation. My diary covering my talk to the Shah about the sources of his nuclear technology reveals that he told me that he was "getting it from the French and the Germans and might even get it from the Soviets - and why not?" It was only a year later that Dr Walter Marshall of the Atomic Energy Authority, my own adviser, announced that he was also the Shah's adviser on nuclear policy, and had prepared a scheme under which the Shah would order the Westinghouse pressurised-water reactor (PWR) if Britain would do the same, and that Iran was prepared to put up the money - a plan that I was determined to fight. It was actually being suggested as part of this deal that Iran would become a 50% owner of our nuclear industry for the purpose of building the PWRs. Marshall had, without any authority from me, apparently suggested that Britain abandon our advanced gas cooled reactors and order up to 20 PWRs, and I formed the impression that he took the view, as many in the nuclear industry did, that proliferation was inevitable and there was not much you could do about it. Indeed he almost said as much. For all these reasons I was totally opposed to this whole idea, and what was most worrying to me was the virtual certainty that it would lead to nuclear proliferation and the development of atomic weapons by Iran. It was never approved. Sir Jack Rampton, my permanent secretary, who seemed to be as keen as Marshall on the adoption of the PWR, and who was directly consulted by the prime minister, was clearly pressing this approach, and Jim Callaghan himself wanted me to go along with it. At a cabinet committee meeting held on May 4 1977, Jim, while expressing his concern about nuclear proliferation, argued that we should not reject the Iranian approach since he thought that either the Germans or the French would take it up. An added complication arose when it turned out that since nuclear power was, under Euratom, seen by the Foreign Office as being within the legal competence of the European commission, the British government might be unable to take its own view. Most astonishing of all, in the light of the present discussions, is that the problem of Iran developing such a huge nuclear capacity caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help. There could hardly be a clearer example of double standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear armoury, which is itself a breach of the non-proliferation treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, were recently awarded the Nobel peace prize for their work on non-proliferation, but since that treaty provided that the nuclear-weapons states should negotiate their own disarmament agreement, which has not happened, it is clear that for them the NPT does not matter. Now there is a proposal to report Iran to the UN and ElBaradei could find himself in the same position as was Hans Blix, the Iraq arms inspector who was used by Washington for its own purposes, with the US seeking a UN resolution to condemn Iran and then, if that fails, acting unilaterally using force, as in Iraq. If the problems now being discussed can be dealt with in a practical way through the IAEA, there is a real chance of an agreed solution, and that is what we should be demanding since neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line. As I am strongly opposed to nuclear weapons and civil nuclear power, these comments should not be taken as endorsing what Iran is doing; but Britain's past nuclear links with Iran should encourage us to be very cautious and oppose those whose arguments could be presented as justifying a case for war, which cannot be justified. · Tony Benn was the secretary of state for energy from 1975-79 tony@tbenn.fsnet.co.uk -------- africa Cape power cuts 'not Koeberg's fault' Helmo Preuss | Johannesburg, South Africa Globe & Mail 30 Nov 2005 11:21 http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=258093&area=%2fbreaking_news%2fbreaking_news__national%2f The electricity supply to consumers in the Western Cape was interrupted twice in November -- but the Koeberg nuclear power station was not the cause of the supply interruptions, the Department of Public Enterprises said on Wednesday. The region was without power on both occasions after a reactor unit at Koeberg was shut down as a normal safety precaution, said the department, which is responsible for state-owned electricity utility Eskom. "On both occasions, Koeberg reacted exactly as it was designed to do to ensure maximum operating safety. While any incident that results in the consumer being inconvenienced in any way is regrettable, these particular incidents can neither be attributed to Koeberg being a nuclear station nor unsafe in its operation. "In fact, until this series of events, Koeberg was Eskom's most reliable power station," the department said. The last time that a Koeberg unit tripped from the transmission network was in 2003, while the last time that both of Koeberg's reactors were shut down was in October 2001. The supply interruption on November 11 resulted from a switch-gear trip during a procedure necessary to return Koeberg's unit one to service, and occurred outside Koeberg on the transmission grid. The grid disturbance resulting from this switch-gear trip caused the second unit to shut down and the station to go into safe operation mode. The November 16 supply interruption was caused by a veld fire, a problem that has long plagued electric transmission systems in South Africa. A runaway fire on a farm in the Wellington area beneath a transmission line caused the line to trip. Once again, unit two tripped and Koeberg went into safe operation mode. "Not only is Koeberg safe and reliable by comparison with non-nuclear stations, but is also safe when compared with other nuclear stations internationally. Koeberg is currently in the top quartile of performers using the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations [Inpo] index as a benchmark," the department said. Inpo is an American organisation of nuclear-plant operators whose mission it is to promote the highest levels of safety and reliability. This means that Koeberg has performed better than more than three-quarters of the United States's power stations, which are among the best run in the world. Last year, Koeberg was the runner-up in Electricite de France's annual nuclear safety awards in the category of nuclear safety. This is a competition for French-built pressurised water reactors, and includes nuclear plants in France, China and Belgium. Until November's incidents, Koeberg was this year's forerunner. "Unfortunately, as hard as engineers may work to continuously improve system reliability, no electricity system is fool-proof and we will be reminded of this from time to time by incidents not only in our own country, but [also] around the world," the department said. The modifications currently being implemented during the refuelling outage and others to be implemented in future will improve its operating safety still further. Koeberg has been the backbone of power supply to the Western Cape for a generation and, until such time as new base-load generating capacity is built in the Cape, it will continue to be so. The 2003 blackouts in Europe, Asia and North America highlighted the urgent need for more electricity-generation capacity. Coal is not the answer, given environmental concerns about carbon-dioxide emissions. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has forecast a threefold rise in nuclear power globally to one trillion watts by 2050, a move that will reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by about 1,8-billion tonnes annually. At the end of 2002, there were 441 nuclear power plants operating in 30 countries, representing a total capacity of 359 gigawatts, more than 10 000 reactor-years of operating experience, 16% of global electricity generation and 7% of global primary energy use. The Swiss in 2003 voted not to scrap nuclear power after the government argued it would be premature to shut down a cheap energy source that met 40% of the country's power needs. -------- australia Australia Urged to Reconsider Nuclear Alternative Story by Paul Marriott REUTERS AUSTRALIA: November 30, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33734/newsDate/30-Nov-2005/story.htm SYDNEY - Senior members of Australia's government are pushing for a debate on a home-grown nuclear power industry in a country that digs up and exports a sizeable chunk of the world's uranium but has long shunned nuclear energy. A push to replace ageing coal-fired power plants with nuclear facilities to secure long-term electricity supply and meet ambitious carbon emissions targets has gathered momentum with two ministers putting forward a formal proposal for a study into the sector. Australia relies on vast reserves of cheap coal to generate 80 percent of its energy, but also has high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and risked international condemnation by refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement on global warming. Fossil fuel generation is still forecast at 70 percent by 2020. But having already overturned the 1980s "three mines" policy which limited the number of uranium pits -- Australia is home to over one third of global reserves -- there are signs a former pariah is moving up the list of potential energy alternatives. "The coal lobby remains powerful but it could be that Australia has too many eggs in a single basket," said Ian van Altena of the University of Newcastle. "Arguments about carbon emissions are making all kinds of people consider nuclear who said no in the past. I'd say the mood is slowly changing." Two Federal government ministers this week asked the Prime Minister to consider home-grown nuclear power in light of environmental concerns and a booming uranium industry that saw the value of exports rise 30 percent in fiscal 2005. "We can't responsibly dig 30 percent of the world's uranium out of the ground, export it overseas, and allow some 440 reactors to operate and expand in other parts of the world and not seriously consider this as an option for ourselves," Education Minister Brendan Nelson told the Nine Network. Prime Minister John Howard recently said nuclear should be included in the debate on energy options, while the Treasurer has led a group of cabinet ministers in saying such decisions should be left to market forces, provided safeguards are in place. It represents a big shift since a series of decisions in the 1970s which shelved plans for nuclear reactors in Australia. Victoria and New South Wales states still have 1980s legislation which outlaws the construction or operation of nuclear reactors. GLOBAL GROWTH "If we're considering what generating plant is suitable to be operating in 30-40 years in a greenhouse-constrained world, there's a strong argument for diversifying and including nuclear in the mix for every country with concentrated electricity demand," said Ian Hore-Lacy of the Uranium Information Centre. Nuclear energy was enjoying a global renaissance, with 25 new reactors under construction to supplement those on-line in 30 nations, producing 16 percent of world electricity, he said. Britain is reviewing plans for a new generation of nuclear plants to improve declining self-sufficiency and avoid the embarrassment of missing self-imposed greenhouse gas targets. China and India are quadrupling nuclear capacity by 2020, and established players such as Japan and South Korea could follow Britain's lead in reviewing their ageing infrastructure. But environmentalists still loudly oppose nuclear power, while recognising the need to reduce emissions in the face of Australian energy growth of 2 percent annually until 2030. "It's too slow, too costly, too dirty and too risky," said Dave Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation. "We reject it as a credible or sustainable solution for climate change when real renewable alternatives already exist." Sweeney pointed to the decades required to establish costly nuclear facilities at a time when quick emissions cuts are needed, and noted the emissions-intensive uranium mining process and the problems of dealing with radioactive waste materials. Hore-Lacy said nuclear power was operationally cheaper than coal and gas and required no more capital investment than new coal plants. Australia exports uranium -- now selling at over $30 per pound -- to 36 countries holding bilateral safeguard agreements for use of material. Formal talks are expected shortly on allowing uranium exports to China. ---- World Watches Britain for Nuclear Energy Steer Story by Jeremy Lovell REUTERS UK: November 30, 2005 http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/33731/newsDate/30-Nov-2005/story.htm LONDON - Any decision by Britain to build a new generation of nuclear power plants to replace old stock could accelerate a new global nuclear age, analysts said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a major energy review on Tuesday which many believe is a smokescreen to hide a decision he has already taken to favour nuclear power. Environmentalists have deplored the fact nuclear power is back on the British agenda while industry leaders have welcomed it. But they agree that many countries will be watching the outcome of the British review next year. "If Britain goes nuclear, it will stir up in other countries the same type of industry-led lobbying that we have seen here," said Roger Higman at Friends of the Earth environment group. "You can just see the Italian, German, Spanish industries suddenly waking up and saying: 'let's go nuclear too.'" The United States is expected to sign for its first new nuclear power plant within a year, Finland is 4 years away from opening a new power station and China has plans to build some 30 new reactors over the next 15 years. Germany's new government has made positive noises about nuclear energy, Australia is being pushed to reconsider its anti-nuclear stance but Sweden is accelerating its phase-out. "The most likely first step after a British decision in favour would be a revision of some of the phase-out policies in countries like Sweden and Belgium," said Malcolm Grimston at the Royal Institute for International Affairs think-tank. "If it turns out that the industry is able to deliver, then even with the gas price at half current levels, nuclear starts to look extremely economic," he told Reuters. ENERGY SECURITY The energy review is being driven by the need under the Kyoto climate change protocol to slash carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels, along with surging energy prices and energy security. "Europe is getting extremely worried about its energy dependency -- expected to rise to 70 percent in 2030 -- and nuclear is a hedge against becoming totally dependent on Middle Eastern and Russian gas," said Grimston. Britain, which gets about 21 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, will have to start switching plants off over the next decade as they reach the already-extended end of their operational lives. As they drop out, they will leave a hole that will either have to be plugged by carbon-free sources such as new nuclear or wind and wave power, or risk the lights going out. To the outrage of the green lobby, Blair is convinced that renewables -- which supply just 3 percent of British power -- have no chance of filling that gap alone. Richard Green at Birmingham University's department of energy research thinks neither nuclear power nor renewables hold all the answers. "Nuclear and renewables fulfil different roles. Nuclear has very high capital costs but low running costs. It would make no sense to only run a nuclear station half the year," he said. "Renewables like wind and waves, on the other hand, are not good at meeting peak demand so you have to build far more capacity that you actually may need at any one time." Apart from costs, nuclear power poses two other distinct problems -- disposing of dangerous waste and proliferation. But for Grimston, neither is an obstacle. "The Finns are digging their repository at the moment, so by the time Britain is ready to take its decision we will have pretty close to a worked example in Finland of how the waste can be done. That would be an enormous step forward," he said. ---- Medical experts challenge nuclear myths Kathy Newnam, Darwin From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/651/651p6.htm At a November 23 public forum, 50 people heard three Medical Association for the Prevention of War members challenge the myth that the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney is necessary on medical grounds. Dr Peter Tait told the meeting that it was waste from the Lucas Heights reactor that is behind the federal Coalition government’s push for a nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory. He said that $350 million has already been spent building the replacement reactor at Lucas Heights, “but they can’t switch it on if they don’t have anywhere to put the waste”. According to Associate Professor Lou Irving, it is possible to assure treatments that use radioactive isotopes without a nuclear reactor because cyclotrons can be used to produce the isotopes. He also described new medical technology that does not require radioactive isotopes and that is “at least as accurate”. Irving pointed out that Australia already imports 20% of its medical isotopes and, even without the development of alternative technology, could fill its requirement through imports, as do other countries including New Zealand and the UK. “We don’t need 200 reactors to produce the world’s isotopes”, he said. Irving dismissed the argument that a new reactor is necessary for medical research purposes, stating that Australia could be at the “cutting edge” of research into new technology. According to Tait, the money spent building the new Lucas Height reactor would have been better spent on building cyclotrons and developing new medical technology that does not require radioactive isotopes. He noted that at $3 million, the cost of building a cyclotron is relatively low and can produce medical isotopes without creating the high-level radioactive waste created by a reactor. Dr Bill Williams talked about the principles of waste management, the first of which is waste reduction. We have to “turn off the tap, or at least turn it down”, he said. Williams noted that the reprocessing of the highly radioactive spent fuel rods from the reactor (which currently takes place in France) extracts plutonium that can be used in nuclear power and nuclear weapons production. Williams pointed out other waste management principles that are being ignored at Lucas Heights, including, “Don’t cart it around if you don’t have to”. Tait said, “In 100 years we will have better ways of dealing with this stuff” and argued in favour of above-ground storage, where the waste is retrievable and everybody knows about it, rather than the “out of sight, out of mind” waste dump proposal. Above-ground storage also allows for constant monitoring for security and leaks. Williams warned that the proposed waste dump could be the “thin edge of the wedge” because the nuclear industry faces a global problem of what to do with its high-level waste. He speculated that it may be in the back of the minds of “cowboy entrepreneurs” and governments to allow high-level waste into Australia. Peter Robertson from the Environment Centre NT told the forum that the campaign against the dump is growing across the territory, with groups established in Katherine, Alice Springs and Darwin. He urged people to get involved, noting that it will be a long-term campaign because the government’s research and licensing processes for the dump are scheduled to take at least six years. For more information, visit . -------- europe GERMANY: Protesters delay nuclear waste train Diet Simon, Bonn From Green Left Weekly, November 30, 2005. http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/651/651p18b.htm While both major parties making up German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new “grand coalition” government — the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats — are committed, on paper, to the gradual closing down of the country's 17 nuclear power stations, the problem of disposing of nuclear waste is becoming more acute. Experts have been saying for 20 years that the proposed final repository for the waste at the village of Gorleben, in northern Germany, is highly unsuitable because it is in contact with ground water, which would become radioactive. The previous federal government, a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Greens, suspended exploration of a Gorleben salt deposit and promised to search for alternative sites. This didn’t happen. With every new load of waste going into a light-construction storage hall in Gorleben, protesters against the waste dump argue that pressure grows to ultimately put that waste into the leaking salt mine. They point out that the government is unwilling to spend money on exploring alternatives, and that Merkel is under pressure from the industry to deliver on her election promise to keep nuclear power stations going longer than the industry agreed with the previous government, which was a total closure by 2020. Every year around 50 million euros is spent in Germany to police the transport, by rail and road, of German nuclear waste from a reprocessing plant in France to Gorleben. The radioactive waste containers, carrying up to 170 tonnes of treated nuclear waste, pass through the central railway stations of cities where hundreds of thousands of people live. For the waste transportation operation, the government mobilises 15,500 police from all over the country to escort the waste convoy. On November 22, pro-environment protesters attempted to block the path of the train, with its 12 containers of processed nuclear waste. One of the protest leaders, Susanne Kamien of the Wendland Farmers Emergency Group, told BBC World News that protesters had delayed the train for around 11 hours on its journey from the La Hague reprocessing plant in north-western France. The protesters said they had succeeded in sending a clear message to Merkel. “If they simply carry on making nuclear waste, there will continue to be resistance here”, said Jochen Stay from the coalition of anti-nuclear activists. During the last such shipment to Germany in November 2004, a protester was killed when he was sucked under a train in the eastern French city of Nancy. ---- Merkel says will kick-start energy debate next year Wednesday 30 November 2005, 7:41am EST (Reuters) http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL30635709&imageid=2005-11-30T112625Z_01_BER902D_RTRIDSP_2_GERMANY-MERKEL.jpg&cap=Images%20of%20German%20Chancellor%20Angela%20Merkel%20are%20broadcast%20on%20television%20scre FRANKFURT, Nov 30 - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday she would convene a meeting of energy producers, consumers and policymakers early next year to resolve the country's conflicting economic and environmental objectives. "I will host a national energy summit with all stakeholders at the start of the year," she said in a prepared speech to parliament, her first major appearance there after taking up office last Tuesday. "A reliable energy supply at acceptable prices is of paramount importance for Germany's competitiveness and future performance." Merkel is faced with irate energy consumers who have seen several gas and power price increases over the past 18 months which are set to continue next year. The price increases have hurt consumer confidence and already brought plant closures in the aluminium industry. Utilities blame the rise on high taxes and fees as well as expensive oil, gas and newly launched carbon emissions rights. Merkel, a former environment minister and a physicist by training, must hold together a coalition government made up of conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD). The leading parties differed on the future use of nuclear energy but agreed there should be a wide mix of energy sources, she said on Wednesday. She said she would try to help energy-intensive industries stem the burden of CO2-related costs from 2008. She also said she would maintain a costly system of promoting renewable energy but make it more efficient by 2007. The leading parties' policies continue to clash over the planned phase out of nuclear plants, which the SPD wants to stick with while conservatives want them to stay open longer. Analysts say Germany cannot meet climate targets if it gives up nuclear energy and replaces it with highly CO2-emitting coal plants while gas-to-power generation remains too expensive due to its close link with the oil price. Merkel also said the government would promote innovation in the industry and raise energy research budgets. -------- india India in quandary over US-Iran conflict By Vilani Peiris and Keith Jones 30 November 2005 http://deshcalling.blogspot.com/2005/12/us-faces-charges-of-hypocrisy-and.html Iran and the India-US nuclear deal According to the Hindu, Indian officials were “happy and relieved” that a frontal collision between the US-EU and Iran was avoided at the most recent IAEA meeting. Undoubtedly this is a true. India’s attitude toward the confrontation between Iran and the US-EU is an important element in a major conflict that has erupted within India’s political and economic elite over the extent of India’s geo-political and military ties with the US, a country which during the Cold War was firmly aligned with its traditional arch-rival, Pakistan, and which repeatedly tried to bully India into serving US geo-political interests. In particular, there is disagreement over whether India should accept the Bush administration’s offer of help in transforming India into a world power—an offer which is clearly motivated by Washington’s calculation it can use India as a strategic counterweight to China in Asia. Much of the dispute over the extent of India-US ties has focused around the US’s offer to press for India to be accorded a special, indeed unique, status within the world nuclear regulatory regime. The UPA government views this agreement, which was sealed during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s July visit to the US, as a major coup, since it makes India a de facto member of the Big Five nuclear-weapon states and would give it access to the civilian nuclear technology of the US and other NPT signatories. Others, however, have warned that the US is seeking to ensnare India in a complex of military and technology agreements, so as to gain leverage over India’s foreign policy. This faction of India’s elite, for whom the Left Front is an articulate spokesmen, advocates that India aggressively pursue US investment and trade, but otherwise remain true to India’s traditional policy of “non-alignment.” India, this faction argues, can best pursue its own “national interests”—that is its predatory, great-power ambitions—if it keeps its distance from the US. India’s vote against Iran at the September 24 IAEA meeting confirmed the worst fears of this faction. In a major break from India’s historic diplomatic/geo-political posture, the UPA government voted in favor with the US and EU-3, while Russia, China and prominent member-states of the Non-Aligned Movement abstained, on a motion that accused Iran of “non-compliance” with the NPT and threatened to refer the issue to the UN Security Council for punitive action. Adding insult to injury, while India cast its lot with the US, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, whose governments are notorious for toadying to Washington, abstained. In the run-up to the vote, prominent US politicians made clear that the IAEA vote would be a test case to determine whether India merited US support in becoming a great power. In other words, the US’s continued support for the nuclear deal hammered out in July was contingent on India doing Washington’s bidding against Iran. The UPA government has angrily denied that US pressure had any influence over its IAEA vote. “Our positions in international fora are invariably determined by our independent assessments which are consistent with our policy pronouncements and anchored in our larger national interest,” declared India’s Ambassador to the UN, Ronen Sen. But the government’s claims have been repeatedly undermined by the statements of US politicians and Bush administration officials. The US Ambassador to India, David C. Mulford, spoke out in protest earlier this month when the soon-to be ex-foreign minister of India, Natwar Singh, said he would counsel the government to vote at the coming IAEA meeting against referring the Iran issue to the Security Council. India, said Mulford, “had expressed its assessment of its national interest” at the September 24 meeting and “we expect India to assess its national interest and vote accordingly” at the coming meeting. By and large India’s corporate media was supportive of India’s vote at the September 24 meeting. Typical was an editorial in the Indian Express titled “Sign of Maturity.” It began, “In deciding to vote in favour of the European resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency on Saturday and demanding that Iran comply with its nuclear obligations, the government has signaled a new maturity in India’s foreign policy. In one stroke, India has told the world that it will follow its own interests in deciding on global issues. India is saying it is not a mere protestor in the international debates on non-proliferation; that it means what it says when claiming to be a responsible nuclear weapon power. On the multilateral front, India’s vote will now have to be earned. It cannot be expected to come automatically as part of third world ‘groupthink’. All to the good.” But the voices questioning or outright opposing India’s position at the IAEA and the US-India nuclear deal have grown in number and alacrity in recent weeks, as the US has attached further demands to its nuclear offer. These include that New Delhi place much of its civilian nuclear program under international supervision before the US Congress will make the legislative changes needed to permit civilian nuclear-power technology transfers to India. FULL TEXT – http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/ind-n30.shtml RELATED SUBJECT – Iran's gas vital for India's economic growth http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0511299892171705.htm Iran, IAEA and India: Looking through Security Interests http://www.ipcs.org/whatsNewArticle1.jsp?action=showView&kValue=1903&status=article&mod=b India exploring contours for tech transfers in defence: Saran http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1560761,001301790000.htm ‘US needs proof of India’s N-separation’ http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83030 Separate civil, military N-facilities, India told http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051201/main6.htm Separate civil, nuclear facilities, says Burton http://www.hindu.com/2005/12/01/stories/2005120107421200.htm India, US can walk energy coop. path together: US Cong. http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=177247&cat=India Indo-US Nuclear Deal: A New Strategic Partnership http://www.ipcs.org/whatsNewArticle1.jsp?action=showView&kValue=1909&status=article&mod=b From Poorhouse to Powerhouse http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,387701,00.html -------- iran Iran to Resume Nuclear Talks With EU By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 30, 5:26 PM ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_re_mi_ea/turkey_iran_nuclear_1 ANKARA, Turkey - Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that nuclear talks with the European Union would resume within the next two weeks. But Manouchehr Mottaki said discussions with the United States, which recently authorized its ambassador to Iraq to meet with Iranian officials, were out of the question. The U.S. State Department said Monday that Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad could meet with Iran over a narrow range of regional issues such as the Iran-Iraq border. The U.S. has not had regular diplomatic relations with Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution. France, Germany and Britain have been negotiating for the EU over Iran's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its partners fear is intended to manufacture nuclear weapons. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes. It restarted uranium conversion — a step toward enrichment — in August, causing the three EU countries to break off talks with Tehran intended to ease tension over the nuclear activities. A venue for renewed discussions has not been decided but senior Iranian and EU officials will be meeting shortly to determine the agenda, Mottaki said at a joint news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. "Negotiations between EU and Iran will begin within two weeks," he said. Responding to a question about Khalilzad's permission to meet with Iranian officials, Mottaki said reports of the approval were "rumors." "Negotiating with the United States is not on our agenda," he said, speaking through an interpreter. Earlier this month, diplomats in Vienna said that senior French, British and German officials would make a last-ditch effort to convince Tehran to accept a compromise on its nuclear program. The United States wants the country hauled before the U.N. Security Council for violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In an interview with Turkey's private NTV television earlier Wednesday, Mottaki said that his country was against nuclear weapons but determined to "claim its rights through negotiations" for peaceful use of nuclear technology. "We have no tendency of moving toward nuclear weapons," Mottaki said. "It is our right to benefit from nuclear energy." Turkey, a NATO member neighboring Iran, said it regards the presence of nuclear weapons and their proliferation as a serious security threat. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked controversy last month by saying that Israel should be "wiped off the map." Israel and Turkey, a predominantly Muslim but secular country, have close defense ties. Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize the Jewish state. Mottaki said Iran had concerns about Israel's alleged nuclear activities. Israel neither confirms nor denies its nuclear status, but is considered to be the only nation in the region with nuclear weapons. Experts say Israel continues to produce atomic weapons and already has more than 200 warheads, as well as the capability to quickly build more. "There is uneasiness in Middle Eastern countries over nuclear warheads by the Zionist regime in the Palestinian lands," Mottaki told NTV television. Speaking to reporters, Mottaki said Iran believed that U.S. and other troops should withdraw from neighboring Iraq after political structures in the country were strengthened. "Iraq's people will determine their future and the foreign forces will be able to withdraw at the end of the process," he said. "Or secondly, terrorism and instability will continue." "We have from the onset chosen the first option," he said. Mottaki has more meetings scheduled with Turkish officials Thursday. Turkey has in the past accused Iran of fueling radical Islam in Turkey and sheltering Islamic extremists. Mottaki served as ambassador to Turkey between 1985-89 and came under severe criticism from the Turkish media for his close relations with the country's Islamic movement. ---- Atomic Hypocrisy: Neither Bush Nor Blair is in a Position to Take a High Moral Line On Iran's Nuclear Program by Tony Benn 30 November 2005 http://deshcalling.blogspot.com/2005/12/us-faces-charges-of-hypocrisy-and.html Britain has played a leading role in the negotiations with Iran about its nuclear program and the risk that it might lead to the development of an atomic bomb, and may well seek to take the matter to the UN security council. Given that the prime minister himself is determined to upgrade Trident and appears to be committed to a new series of nuclear power stations, his position as the defender of the non-proliferation treaty is not very credible, and if we are to understand the depth of western hypocrisy on this question we should look back at the history, which has been conveniently forgotten. Thirty years ago, on January 7 1976, as secretary of state for energy I went for a long discussion with the Shah in his palace in Tehran, and much of the time was spent discussing the plans he had to develop a major nuclear-power program in Iran. I had been well briefed on his proposals by Dr Akbar Etemad of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, who had told me that he intended to build a 24 megawatt capacity by 1994, which was bigger than the program Britain itself had at that time, and he expressed an interest in the centrifuges that are essential for reprocessing, while assuring me that he was anxious to avoid nuclear proliferation. My diary covering my talk to the Shah about the sources of his nuclear technology reveals that he told me that he was "getting it from the French and the Germans and might even get it from the Soviets - and why not?" It was only a year later that Dr Walter Marshall of the Atomic Energy Authority, my own adviser, announced that he was also the Shah's adviser on nuclear policy, and had prepared a scheme under which the Shah would order the Westinghouse pressurised-water reactor (PWR) if Britain would do the same, and that Iran was prepared to put up the money - a plan that I was determined to fight. It was actually being suggested as part of this deal that Iran would become a 50% owner of our nuclear industry for the purpose of building the PWRs. Marshall had, without any authority from me, apparently suggested that Britain abandon our advanced gas cooled reactors and order up to 20 PWRs, and I formed the impression that he took the view, as many in the nuclear industry did, that proliferation was inevitable and there was not much you could do about it. Indeed he almost said as much. For all these reasons I was totally opposed to this whole idea, and what was most worrying to me was the virtual certainty that it would lead to nuclear proliferation and the development of atomic weapons by Iran. It was never approved. Sir Jack Rampton, my permanent secretary, who seemed to be as keen as Marshall on the adoption of the PWR, and who was directly consulted by the prime minister, was clearly pressing this approach, and Jim Callaghan himself wanted me to go along with it. At a cabinet committee meeting held on May 4 1977, Jim, while expressing his concern about nuclear proliferation, argued that we should not reject the Iranian approach since he thought that either the Germans or the French would take it up. An added complication arose when it turned out that since nuclear power was, under Euratom, seen by the Foreign Office as being within the legal competence of the European commission, the British government might be unable to take its own view. Most astonishing of all, in the light of the present discussions, is that the problem of Iran developing such a huge nuclear capacity caused no problems for the Americans because, at that time, the Shah was seen as a strong ally, and had indeed been put on the throne with American help. There could hardly be a clearer example of double standards than this, and it fits in with the arming of Saddam to attack Iran after the Shah had been toppled, and the complete silence over Israel's huge nuclear armoury, which is itself a breach of the non-proliferation treaty. The International Atomic Energy Agency and its chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, were recently awarded the Nobel peace prize for their work on non-proliferation, but since that treaty provided that the nuclear-weapons states should negotiate their own disarmament agreement, which has not happened, it is clear that for them the NPT does not matter. Now there is a proposal to report Iran to the UN and ElBaradei could find himself in the same position as was Hans Blix, the Iraq arms inspector who was used by Washington for its own purposes, with the US seeking a UN resolution to condemn Iran and then, if that fails, acting unilaterally using force, as in Iraq. If the problems now being discussed can be dealt with in a practical way through the IAEA, there is a real chance of an agreed solution, and that is what we should be demanding since neither Bush nor Blair is in a position to take a high moral line. As I am strongly opposed to nuclear weapons and civil nuclear power, these comments should not be taken as endorsing what Iran is doing; but Britain's past nuclear links with Iran should encourage us to be very cautious and oppose those whose arguments could be presented as justifying a case for war, which cannot be justified. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/ 1130-24.htm RELATED ARTICLES – Britain and Israel batting for Washington in the propaganda war against Iran http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/23359 Moscow and Washington confront over Iran's nuclear program http://english.pravda.ru/world/20/91/366/16549_Iran.html EXCLUSIVE: Iranian Nuclear Engineers Secretly Reveal - Nukes in 3-5 Years http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1419&cid=2&sid=4 US threatens "more radical" approach toward Iran http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/01/content_3861674.htm US seeks concerted action on Iran http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/3A3EFEE0-4E64-45B6-B25E-1AB805B24298.htm EU, Iran struggling to restart talks: diplomats http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051130215937.mzr3imsf.html Iran says nuclear talks set to resume http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-11-30T213853Z_01_YUE075207_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAN-EU-TALKS.xml&archived=False Iran to start talks with EU in two weeks http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/01/content_3860178.htm Iran strongly criticizes PGCC secretary-general's accusations http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-22/0511292424162445.htm US & Iran's Nuclear Ambitions http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2005/iran-051130-voa01.htm Asefi: Talks with US not on Iran agenda http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2005/iran-051130-irna01.htm State's Burns & Iran's Foreign, Domestic Policies http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/2005/iran-051130-usia01.htm SEE ALSO – Iran denies plans for Iraq cooperation with US http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2005-daily/01-12-2005/world/w8.htm The quest for nukes: What we know today http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-051130roadtowar2,0,842846.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed The quest for nukes: What the administration said http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0511300152nov30,0,4990862.story?coll=chi-newsopinion-hed Political Islam vs. Democracy http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=39971 India tests cruise missile http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/01/top10.htm The Giant's Daughter http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/23371 Iran, Lanka to explore oil and gas deal http://www.dailynews.lk/2005/12/01/news01.htm Chinese arms may hit trade-transit, India to tell Nepal http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20051129102851&Page=H&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=0&3491.shtml Nepal seeking to get foreign military supply http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-12/01/content_3862019.htm India, Nepal and the Voice of Reason: The United States of America http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=1421&cid=6&sid=80 Bhutan accuses China of intrusion http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1312032.cms India welcomes China’s interest in Saarc http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/01/top17.htm China's 'Observer' Status: Implications for SAARC http://www.ipcs.org/whatsNewArticle1.jsp?action=showView&kValue=1904&status=article&mod=b Chief takes Army out of right to information law: Defence Ministry told Army comply until we decide on exemption but Chief issues order saying no need http://indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=83053 United States Seeks Security Council Briefing on Burma http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2005/11/mil-051130-usia03.htm -------- israel Israel Better than ever By Reuven Pedatzur Wed., November 30, 2005 Haaretz http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/651687.html If we accept the analysis of the researchers at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, it appears Israel's strategic standing has never been better. The Middle East Strategic Balance report, published by the center last week, can engender a feeling of great satisfaction. The qualitative military gap between Israel and its neighbors has widened and Israel's deterrent power has grown. In fact, Israel is no longer in real danger. The threat of terror still exists, but it is not existential; the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service have managed to rein it in to a great extent. The future may contain an Iranian nuclear threat, but it will apparently be quite some time before it comes to the fore. Syria has been weakened and is now isolated, center director Zvi Shtauber writes in the introduction to the report. Relations with Egypt have improved over the past year. A strategic agreement has been signed between the two countries under which Egypt will supply Israel with a respectable amount of natural gas. Egypt has also accepted a position of mediator between Israel and the Palestinians. The peace agreement with Jordan is very stable; Israel and Jordan have become strategic allies and security cooperation is important to both countries. The conquest of Iraq erased the long-time threat from the "eastern front." The disengagement has ushered in a period of grace for Israel in its relations with Europe. "The European countries have begun over this year to show greater understanding of Israel's policies. They have begun to weigh more positively the role of the European Union in promoting an arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians," according to the report. The strategic relations between Israel and the United States are better than ever; not only is the Bush administration not really pressuring Israel to move ahead with the agreement with the Palestinians, it has actually given Israel a free hand when it comes to fighting terror. Developments in the Palestinian Authority have also contributed to the improvement in the security situation. The death of Yasser Arafat and the succession of Mahmoud Abbas symbolize the beginning of a new and better era. In addition, the winds of progress, though moderate at this stage, are blowing in the Middle East, carrying the hope of continued democratization in the region. Democratic regimes are likely to push for the completion of the process of coming to terms with Israel's existence. With regard to Iran, its declarations and acts show it is determined to obtain nuclear weapons. Israel has chosen at this point to keep a low profile, and has agreed to leave the matter to the Europeans, who are trying to reach an accord with the Iranian regime on the cessation of its nuclear program. However, even if these attempts fail, a rather long time will pass before the Iranians have nuclear weapons, and an even longer time will pass until it can develop a bomb that it can place on the head of a ballistic missile. If Iran does obtain nuclear weapons, a deterrent balance is likely to develop between it and Israel that will neutralize the treat. So, if our situation is so good, why does Israel continue to invest so heavily in security - much more than any of its neighbors? The Jaffee Center does not ask this question, but it is begged by the data it presents. In absolute terms, Israel's spending on security is three times that of Egypt, more than six times that of Syria, more than 12 times that of Jordan and twice that of Iran. Not to mention security spending as part of the GDP, which is about five times that of Egypt and three times that of Iran. The combination of clear military superiority, based among other things on preferable military equipment, both in quality and quantity, and a much-improved geostrategic status should lead to a decision to significantly cut security spending and create a new security concept that costs much less than the present one. Unfortunately, these two things are not happening. The defense minister should have a good look at the report so as to recall what he certainly knows well. There is quite a significant source of money that can solve a great many of the problems of poverty that are keeping us awake at night. -------- korea New US Envoy to South Korea Skeptical on North Korea's Nuclear Stance By Kurt Achin, Seoul 30 November 2005 Voice of America http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-11-30-voa13.cfm Washington's new ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow has expressed skepticism about North Korea's commitment to ending its nuclear weapons program. In one of his first public statements, Mr. Vershbow said the communist state stands to gain significantly from dismantling the program but he is doubtful whether Pyongyang will drop its unrealistic demands of the United States. Speaking to South Korea's American Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, newly confirmed U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said it will soon be apparent whether North Korean leaders are serious about implementing nuclear disarmament pledges they made in September. "If they are, we [the United States] are prepared to move forward on other aspects of the September 19 joint statements - including discussion of a permanent peace regime for the Korean peninsula," he said. In joint statements at the end of six-party talks in September, North Korea agreed in principle to end its nuclear weapons programs. In exchange, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the United States promised eventual diplomatic and financial incentives - including a possible treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which was halted only by an armistice. However there has been no progress since on the steps or timetable for disarmament. North Korea complicated the process when it made a new demand on September 20 for a light-water nuclear reactor for energy production. The other nations in six-party talks agree this is unacceptable until North Korea complies with its non-proliferation commitments. Ambassador Vershbow questioned the North's motives for seeking another nuclear facility. "We have our doubts as to whether light-water reactors are the most rational solution to North Korea's energy needs," he said. South Korea has issued a standing offer to address the North's severe energy shortages by providing electricity after Pyongyang disarms. There have been five rounds of six-nation disarmament talks since 1993. The next round has yet to be scheduled. -------- security Fisk U gets $1.2M grant to establish radiation detection laboratory By Vandana Atreya, vatreya@nashvillecitypaper.com November 30, 2005 Nashville, TN, City Paper http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=9&screen=news&news_id=46222 The Department of Physics at Fisk University has received a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to establish a radiation detection laboratory. The physics department won the competitive grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration. Physics Professor Arnold Burger, who is leading the effort, said the biggest chunk of the grant would go towards upgrading their laboratory and investigating new materials that compose weapons of mass destruction. “Our main area of focus will be nuclear proliferation detection,” he said. “We will fabricate crystals that are used in nuclear detectors.” Graduate student Helen Jackson said she chose the field because of the challenge. “It is extremely demanding but so important,” she said. “One nuclear weapon could wipe out a small country. There is a big rush worldwide to build portable, room temperature detectors which can be used to check violations of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and make the world a safer place.” Currently Burger’s team is working on new as well as previously developed crystals. Unlike the older models which needed refrigeration, the new detectors will be hand-held and usable at room temperature. They will be used by defense and intelligence agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency, U.S. Customs Service, the Transportation Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. According to Burger, Fisk has been active in the field for the past 20 years. His team has worked with nuclear-detection crystals in the past. Several companies will send his lab their existing devices for re-evaluation or upgrades. Burger’s team consists of 12 researchers, half of whom are full-time. -------- space Iran buying satellite know-how By Ali Akbar Dareini ASSOCIATED PRESS November 30, 2005 http://www.washtimes.com/world/20051129-094302-9313r.htm TEHRAN -- Iran's space agency is trying to snap up technology from abroad as fast as possible for its satellite program, fearing the West will seek to impose restrictions like those put on the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has major ambitions in space, looking to show off its technological abilities, monitor its neighborhood -- where the United States has hundreds of thousands of troops -- and establish itself as a regional superpower. Others -- particularly Israel, whose existence is opposed by the hard-line Islamist regime in Iran -- are concerned about the program's military applications. Iran's Shahab-3 missile, with a range of 1,240 miles, already can reach Israel as well as U.S. forces across the Middle East. Iran says it only wants to be able to put its own satellites in space to monitor natural disasters in the earthquake-prone nation and improve its telecommunications. It makes similar peaceful claims for its atomic program, but Washington and others suspect the real aim of that work is to acquire nuclear weapons and have sought to clamp down on Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran worries its space program will be targeted, too. "The moment they feel Iran has made a breakthrough, they will impose restrictions more than those they have imposed on Iran's nuclear program," said one space official, Mohammed Reza Movaseghinia. Iran joined the space club last month when it launched its first small satellite, the Sina-1, aboard a Russian rocket. That orbiter was Russian-made, but Iran built its second satellite, the Mesbah, with help from the Italian company Carlo Gavazzi Space. Mesbah is due to be carried into space by a Russian rocket in about two months. The two satellites will give Iran a limited capability to monitor the entire Middle East. Iran's next goal is to launch a satellite with one of its own rockets. Iranian officials say they are developing a Shahab-4 missile that could lift a satellite into orbit, but have not given details on when it will be ready. Under its 20-year plan, Iran aims to become a technological powerhouse of western Asia and a regional superpower by 2025. Aerospace faculties have mushroomed at Iranian universities in recent years, and Iranian technicians are being trained in Italy, Russia and China on how to design and build satellites. The government has allocated $500 million on space projects for the next five years, Communication Minister Mohammed Soleimani said last week. Russia, which has helped the Iranians with their nuclear program, appears to be the main partner in transferring space technology to Iran. In January, Iran signed a $132 million deal with a Russian firm to build and launch a telecommunications satellite within the next two years. Iran also has signed agreements to launch a joint satellite with China and Thailand. -------- u.n. UN-Managed Nuclear Inspection Protocol Strengthens Wednesday, 30 November 2005, 10:07 am Press Release: United Nations http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0511/S00542.htm Pace Picks Up For Signing Of UN-Managed Nuclear Inspection Protocol With Belarus and Malaysia signing a protocol that allows more effective nuclear inspections in their countries, 106 States have signed the important verification tool, with 16 signing this year alone, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the United Nations. "On the whole, 2005 has been a good year in terms of States concluding comprehensive safeguards agreements and additional protocols," IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said. "However, it is important that we continue and accelerate this trend." The additional protocol must become the universal standard for verifying nuclear non-proliferation commitments, Dr. ElBaradei recently reaffirmed, noting that the expanded access provided by the additional protocol "had proven its worth". The Model Additional Protocol was agreed upon in 1997 to strengthen the IAEA safeguards system, based on the wake-up call caused by the discovery of Iraq's pre-1991 nuclear weapons programme. Once in force, such protocols provide IAEA inspectors with better tools to ensure that States have no undeclared nuclear material or activities that should have been reported to the Agency. -------- u.s. nuc weapons Re: THE NUCLEAR TABOO by Verna Gehring, November 30, 2005 University of Maryland School of Public Affairs http://www.puaf.umd.edu/IPPP/Summer00/nuclear_taboo.htm Nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse. --Sophocles, Antigone More than a half century has passed since the first and last use of nuclear weapons in warfare. Thomas C. Schelling suggests that over the years a convention has arisen, one which provides strong evidence that nuclear weapons are under a "curse." Schelling is hopeful that, because the nuclear arsenal is perceived as unique—in some way different from conventional weapons--a "nuclear taboo" has taken root over the decades and can remain secure. It is remarkable that nuclear weapons have not been used for so long. But is it true that there exists a taboo on their use? Taboos may be as old as humankind itself, but some taboos are less enduring than others. It is not clear that avoidance of the use of nuclear weapons has risen to the level of a taboo or that refraining from nuclear warfare can withstand the challenges of the coming decades. Local Taboos vs. Universal Taboos One reason to doubt the existence of a "nuclear taboo" is that it is unclear how strong the prohibition against the use of nuclear weapons actually is. Most taboos reflect local values and serve practical ends. Forbidden forms of dress or kinds of food, for example, tend to be specific to a particular place or culture. Often one can find sensible practical reasons for the prohibitions these taboos impose—to reduce the possibility of food poisoning, or to discriminate easily between sexes, for instance. Such local, culturally particular taboos also help identify and knit together the social fabric of a kin, clan, or country, distinguishing one group from all others and providing identity through exclusion. Local taboos tend to erode over time until they become quaint vestiges of a culture’s social history. The most striking example of the ephemeral nature of this sort of taboo comes from the case of Captain Cook, whose outrageous behavior occasioned importing the Polynesian word taboo (or, among variations, tapu) into the European languages. According to one account, while in Hawaii Cook and his men dismantled several rails of a temple to use as fuel. This so appalled their hosts that they pronounced Cook, his crew, and their actions "tapu." Although the actions of Cook and his men violated local custom, one could reasonably suppose that they were unaware that their behavior was disrespectful. Further, today we can only speculate about precisely what transgression Cook and his men were guilty of (although one could presume that the violation was the desecration of a holy place). Not all taboos are local, however. Some seem stronger, are applied more uniformly, and are less open to revision. While dress or dietary taboos may be local and mutable, other taboos--those against incest, public elimination of bodily waste, and disrespect or neglect of a human corpse, for example--seem more universal and less likely to be abandoned. As with culturally particular taboos, these more generally accepted taboos also tend to have a practical dimension. Prohibitions against incest, public elimination, and thoughtless treatment of corpses all contribute to the physical health of a community. But these more universally accepted taboos knit the fabric not just of a local community, of a kin or clan, but of humanity itself. Human beings are not to commit incest, relieve themselves indiscriminately in front of other people (as other animals do among themselves), or ignore or molest a human corpse. Culturally specific taboos contribute to the identity of an individual as a member of a group, but the generalized taboo unites the individual to the entire human family and helps define humanity. These more universally recognized taboos seem self-evident and depend for their authority on individuals not thinking in detail about them. We are discouraged from considering whether a particular taboo is sensible, or whether it is outmoded. We certainly are not to imagine whether the forbidden practice may be satisfying or pleasurable. People follow ordinary social proscriptions because they have thought about the inconvenient, embarrassing, or costly consequences of breaking them. But it would seem bizarre for someone to claim that he adheres to an incest taboo, for example, only after deep reflection on the consequences of its violation, or following thoughtful consideration of its gratifying aspects. The strength of taboos depends not on considered reflection, but on revulsion. Unlike weaker, local taboos, then, a universal taboo forbids the performance of a particular action and also restricts full consideration of the prohibition generally. If nuclear warfare is under a "curse," as Professor Schelling suggests, then one hopes the prohibition expresses a strong, more universally recognized taboo rather than the weak, local variety. The Nuclear Taboo and its Doubters The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represents the first and last uses of atomic weapons. Does this provide credible evidence of a prohibition that now rises to the level of a "nuclear taboo?" Obviously, this initial use did not violate any sort of longstanding taboo against atomic weapons and, consequently, one cannot find—nor would one expect to find at the time—widespread condemnation of President Truman or others responsible for those acts. Condemnation has arisen in subsequent decades. One might say that we have no satisfying answer to the speculation that the prohibition against nuclear warfare has risen to the level of a taboo. Certainly, conventional weapons have improved over this past half century and the means to victory via the disabling of the opposition are far more effective. Paul Nitze, for one, has argued that "smart" conventional weapons can now achieve many of the military purposes that only a nuclear warhead could have achieved twenty years ago. Further, advances in satellite surveillance technology has made fighting a nuclear war more difficult, since they lessen the element of surprise and the possibility of a timely return strike. Perhaps the increasing effectiveness of conventional weapons has allowed us to avoid the desperate consideration of nuclear use. If attitudes are better measured by actions not words, then nuclear policy makers have accepted no taboo on nuclear warfare. In toto, nuclear policies address the questions of deterrence, how it works and what makes it effective, and how to prepare for its failure. Since the 1950s, American strategists have worried not just about ensuring command and control of their nuclear arsenals, but about ensuring that the United States preserves its ability to retaliate after a nuclear attack. The resulting series of policies led President Eisenhower to lament, in his 1961 farewell address, that the United States had become a "military-industrial complex." The doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD, which relied not just on restraint but also on perfect control of the nuclear arsenal by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.) was developed in the 1960s, as was the first serious effort (undertaken by President Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara) to answer the question "How much is enough?" in building a nuclear arsenal. A decade later Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger explored the notion of "flexible" responses in nuclear warfare, and the administrations of Nixon, Reagan, and Carter developed "selected nuclear operations," which included the possibility of waging regional wars. Finally, policymakers also exploit the purposes the possession of nuclear arms can serve. For example, political science professor Peter Beckman and his colleagues argue that the possession of nuclear signals declares one’s status as a player on the world stage. Brandishing nuclear weapons also signals that one’s vital interests have been engaged, or that one is resolute and cannot be driven from one’s position. Finally, nuclear powers threaten use of their arsenal as bargaining chips and as a means to bolster alliances. As Professor Schelling points out, nuclear policies have been crafted from pragmatic considerations. Granted, ordinary citizens do treat nuclear weapons as taboo, which reflects their emotional revulsion at their indiscriminately destructive power. However, Cold War policy planners adopted the language that described nuclear weapons as "different"—separate from the "conventional" arsenal—but not because nuclear use was taboo, as the ordinary citizen might accept. Instead, policy makers recognized that, in the scenario they feared most--the crisis of a military confrontation pitting NATO allies against the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact--crossing the threshold to employ nuclear weapons would secure NATO’s goals in war, but with catastrophic results. Since in this scenario even the "winner" loses, policy makers concluded that it was better not to step onto the "nuclear escalator" in the first place. Consequently, they rejected the option of first use. Ordinary citizens may well consider nuclear weapons taboo, their "no use" stance resulting from their emotional revulsion at the prospect of nuclear warfare. But policy makers do not operate on this emotional plane. Mutual intimidation explains all the effects we now associate with those of a "nuclear taboo." The ban against nuclear warfare is based on a calculated reasoning of the costs and benefits of nuclear warfare, and at present this rational calculus has not tipped in favor of lifting the ban. The Sanctification of Hiroshima and Nagasaki If this is true, then it seems hope that a "nuclear taboo" belongs to the class of strong, widely held taboos must be abandoned. The nuclear taboo seems merely a weak prohibition based on pragmatic considerations. But does this mean that no other reasons—reasons based on principle rather than on pragmatics--have shaped and help secure the restraint against the use of nuclear weapons? Professor Schelling asks why we should not consider "conventional" the nuclear bomb of no greater power than ordnance in current use. One answer he gives is of the form, "If you have to ask that question you wouldn’t understand the answer," suggesting an emotional or intuitive attitude stands apart from—and is as adequate as-- any rational, analytic response one would expect from a nuclear strategist. In this intuitive acceptance of nuclear weapons as "unconventional" or "different," Professor Schelling looks for an ethical justification for the refraining from nuclear warfare, which would warrant his optimism for a continued ban. Schelling cites Alvin M. Weinberg’s 1985 editorial, written on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 1941, Weinberg had joined the University of Chicago team whose work led to the eventual extraction of the plutonium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Weinberg sees a "gradual sanctification of Hiroshima" following the nuclear destruction of the cities. He believes that the passage of forty years has elevated those events to the "status of a profoundly mystical event," and Weinberg concludes that, "although I cannot prove it…the sanctification of Hiroshima is one of the most hopeful developments of the nuclear era." Weinberg is right that the events at Hiroshima and Nagasaki have taken on greater significance with the passage of time and have even achieved a form of sanctification. Making holy, appreciating the value of something not properly valued before, memorializing—these are among the elements involved in sanctification. The reason the only use of atomic weapons in warfare must be a sanctified event has everything to do with the notion of a nuclear taboo. Most understand the notion of a nuclear taboo as tantamount to agreement that nuclear warfare is prohibited. But this need not be the case. Not all taboos, whether culturally specific or more universally held--concern actions or objects that are strictly prohibited. Some actions and objects under taboo are permitted expression and use, but only in extraordinary circumstances and with a conscious--perhaps even ritualized or stylized--manner of treatment. South Sea Islanders possessed this additional sense of taboo, using the word to describe an object or practice that is "devoted," dedicated to a special purpose. This second understanding of a taboo commonly applies to religious practices and objects. A chalice, scroll, a fragment of black stone are used only in specific, ritualized ways by an initiated group. This small group represents the human community as it takes part in a larger (usually understood as divine) power. There is good reason to believe that atomic weapons are taboo in this second sense. That is, some taboos restrict actions and objects for devoted use, and which mindfully reflect generally shared human values. If this is so, then the "curse" of nuclear warfare could be understood an example of a widely held (possibly universal) taboo. Reflection on the unprecedented nuclear events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have allowed us to appreciate the overwhelming power loosed over a population and a place. No one has succeeded better than John Hersey in chronicling the destruction of Hiroshima--which began with an ordinary, "cool and pleasant morning," with "no sound of planes" until the "noiseless flash"--and in showing the finality of an act done with so little understanding of its full consequences. Generations’ long reflection on the release of such vast power without full regard to the consequences has led to the respectful memorialization of all that perished and a proper awe of the destructive capability of atomic weapons. Hersey’s respect was evident in 1946. Part of the sanctification of the events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki also may express a reaffirmation of values people want to believe all human beings share but which this particular event seemed at the time—at least momentarily--to have been tossed aside. Fifty years’ reflection and restriction on the use of atomic weapons allows a measure of optimism because it seems important values have been reaffirmed, and the dedication to them strengthened. The Nuclear Missile Defense Program One recent strategic debate supports this notion of a taboo as the "devoted" use of power, but at the same time signals the end of the long-term stability the two Cold War superpowers crafted by their nuclear standoff. This past July, the United States unsuccessfully tested a device that was to augur the eventual success of a $60 billion Nuclear Missile Defense Program (NMD). The U.S. argues that the intent of its program—which relies on the coordinated efforts of a network of satellite sensors, radar-tracking devices, and missile interceptors-- is to defend the continental U.S. from attack by Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear warheads. The U.S. has argued that its program is "limited." Its defensive weapon arsenal would number one hundred when the program is completed--according to recent estimates, in the year 2005. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot and National Security Advisor "Sandy" Berger, among other negotiators, have argued strenuously, particularly to other nuclear powers, that the proposed program is not directed at them. Instead, the Clinton Administration insists, the defense program is designed to thwart those "states of concern" (the term "rogue states" is out of fashion) such as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, which have increased the range of their ICBM missiles. These reassurances have not soothed the nuclear powers. China suggests that a nuclear missile defense program will necessitate expansion of its nuclear weapons program and the possible arming of its ICBMs with multiple nuclear warheads. China also darkly hints that it might be driven to share its nuclear weapons technology with others who ally themselves more closely with Chinese interests. Russia also strongly opposes the U.S. pursuit of a Nuclear Missile Defense program. It argues, moreover, that the U.S. plan would destabilize mutual deterrence and undermine security. The U.S. and Russia have been working toward ratification of a second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START II), leading to an eventual START III agreement, which would further reduce arms to approximately twenty percent of the number held at the height of the Cold War buildup. Russia maintains that, were the U.S. to undertake plans for a Missile Defense Program, Russia would abandon START II negotiations. Without it, the possibility of a START III agreement perishes, and a new arms race could begin. Of course, conversations among the nuclear powers concerning the possibility of a Nuclear Missile Defense system are affected by considerations of self-interest and the search for strategic advantage. Russia and China worry that successful defensive measures devalue their own nuclear arsenals and upset the balance of power established by MAD. The claim that the Nuclear Missile Defense system is "defensive" also has been contested. The U.S. insists that its interceptors would be deployed only in response to a first strike, while opposing powers point out that the program’s capabilities easily can be put to offensive use. One final worry underlies the protests against the U.S. Nuclear Missile Defense program. If it is true that the nuclear powers have accepted the "devoted" status of nuclear arms developed over the decades, then defensive measures such as the Nuclear Missile Defense program would erode the "nuclear taboo." Initiatives such as the Nuclear Missile Defense program take the attitude that nuclear superpowers, terrorists, and autocrats are to be treated alike. A defensive program designed to respond in the same way to an accidental launch by Russia as it would the launch of a crude device by a madman or an autocrat simply trivializes the awesome gravity of nuclear power. Such a program also seems to signal that the U.S. has resigned itself to a future in which bad actors do not accept the "devoted" nature of nuclear weapons. Finally, the U.S. itself seems willing to relax its efforts to maintain a "nuclear taboo," which was shaped over the decades as superpowers created their tense standoffs. Conclusion The weight of fifty years’ avoidance of nuclear warfare provides good evidence that a "nuclear taboo" has indeed arisen and taken root. But it is not a taboo that prohibits use of nuclear means because atomic weapons are evil, because the possibility of nuclear warfare is inconceivable, or because the authority that decides on their deployment surely must be mad. The "nuclear taboo" exists today because possessors of atomic weapons—and their general populations--condemn those who would consider their use on any but the most extreme occasion. Those wary of the United Nuclear Missile Defense Program may believe that it is the latest example of a policy that accepts nuclear devices as part of any nation’s "conventional" arsenal and their acquisition the ambition of any madman. Critics also worry that, in initiating a nuclear missile defense program, the U.S. will simply invite all comers—who likely will have little to lose and a reputation to gain--to develop their power and maybe one day take their best shot. The "nuclear taboo" depends for its longevity on respect, restraint and, most importantly, reflection. These days, there is much to think and talk about--the nuclear programs of states of concern, the tests conducted by India and Pakistan, and how the next president will approach the U.S. nuclear missile defense initiative. Much has changed in the world since the time that two nuclear superpowers maintained the tense stability that allowed the decades to pass and optimism in a "nuclear taboo" to grow. Verna V. Gehring Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy School of Public Affairs University of Maryland vgehring@umd.edu -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- california Diablo Canyon gets OK to pack pools a little tighter Temporary racks will be installed in the plant's spent-fuel pools in case an aboveground storage facility is delayed By David Sneed The San Luis Obispo Tribune Wed, Nov. 30, 2005 http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/13289897.htm Operators of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant have received authorization from federal regulators to use temporary storage racks in the plant's spent-fuel pools. The racks will be installed in the plant's spent-fuel pools in October and will be used to create additional storage space, plant spokesman Jeff Lewis said. The racks will create storage for 154 more assemblies per reactor unit. The main purpose of the racks is to create more storage space in case completion of an aboveground storage facility at the plant is delayed. The first dry casks for the aboveground facility are scheduled to be loaded in November 2007. "We always want to make sure we have a backup plan," Lewis said. "We need to make sure we have these racks available." Critics of nuclear power oppose use of the racks because they add fuel to pools that already contain more fuel than plant designers originally intended. Densely packing fuel in the pools increases the likelihood that radioactive spent fuel could catch fire if the pools were drained in an accident or terrorist attack, the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace said in filings with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Industry and NRC officials say the spent-fuel pools remain safe even though they are more tightly loaded than intended. Once the temporary racks are installed, they will be loaded with spent fuel that is already in the pools. This will create more room in the permanent storage racks as they reach their storage capacity. The temporary racks will be used to store older spent fuel while newer spent fuel will go into the permanent racks. About a third of a reactor's fuel is removed during each refueling shutdown. The spent assemblies will stay in the temporary racks until plant operators are ready to load the dry casks late in 2007. The temporary racks will then be unloaded and removed from the pools, Lewis said. The federal permit allowing PG&E to install temporary storage racks for nuclear waste at Diablo Canyon: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/multimedia/sanluisobispo/archive/NRCpermit.pdf -------- connecticut Millstone's Neighbors Say Power Plant Is Here To Stay Most are resigned to news of NRC license extensions By KARIN CROMPTON The Day Staff Writer, East Lyme/Salem Published on 11/30/2005 http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=74d40b53-d4c3-4304-9812-4298fbfd1a67 A day after Millstone Power Station won renewal of its licenses to operate two nuclear reactors, the reaction among many neighbors within sight of the power plant was a collective shrug of the shoulders. Some said they don't like the plant but can do nothing about it. Others called Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, the plant owner, a good neighbor. To some, the extra 25 years the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted Monday — giving Millstone license to operate Unit 2 until 2035 and Unit 3 until 2045 — just means more of what they've grown accustomed to. “I won't be around, because I'll be 105 years old,” said Thomas Edison Staplins, whose house sits at the end of Marlin Road, a hundred yards or so through the woods to Millstone's entrance road. Staplins said he has lived there since 1958. The glaring white lights of the Millstone guards' shack glowed through tree branches in Staplins' back yard Tuesday evening. He sat at his kitchen table with his wife, Rae “Jean” Staplins. “I love it here,” Jean said. The couple finds the incidence of cancer on this and a neighboring street perplexing, however. Thomas Staplins ticked off a list, gesturing to houses across the way: his own pre-cancerous nodule, Jean's colon cancer and her sister's colon cancer, a neighbor's prostate cancer, Thomas' brother's breast cancer, a man up the street who died of cancer, and two more on the next street who died of the disease. Asked if he has considered moving, Staplins stiffened. “Hell, no,” he thundered. “Let them move.” Staplins said he has no beef with Millstone, only that he'd like the company to mow the perimeter of the field that borders his property — for security reasons — and he thinks the business should go through reviews every 10 years, rather than be awarded such a lengthy extension. “I don't particularly like them having the power plant there, but let's not knock the fact that we need the power,” he said. In the Pleasure Beach section of Waterford, Gunshot Road borders a wood lot that belongs to Millstone. The lights of the power plant's red and white smokestack blink above the tree line. Bob and Carol Eggleton and their neighbors across the street, Bob and Carol Hanson, call Millstone a good neighbor that constantly monitors the area as well as the local osprey population. They have another neighbor on this street, they said, who is a high-level Millstone employee. They said they consider that a statement about the safety of living where they do. Carol Eggleton said she is reassured by the helicopters patrolling above, and by the Coast Guard vessels that monitor Niantic Bay. Bob Hanson used to work as an instrument technician with Northeast Utilities, Millstone's owner before Dominion. It was a half-mile walk through the woods to work. But since Sept. 11, 2001, he and his wife said, no one can walk through there anymore. Hanson said since Millstone now has its license renewals, it should “pick up some of the tax burden” it is contesting in court. Millstone is the town's largest property taxpayer, but Dominion is arguing in the state Court of Tax and Administrative Appeals that the town appraised the value of the power station too high, at $1.3 billion in the first tax year after Dominion bought it. Dominion has sued the town, claiming that the 2002 fair market value and accompanying assessment were excessive and that the nuclear reactor complex is really worth $854 million. Linda Reublin, who lives in Little Falls, N.J., said she has been coming to Niantic for 45 years. Reublin said she hasn't followed the re-licensing process but does have concerns about the steam that sometimes billows from the plant. She questions whether the company is forthright in its information about emissions or accidents. Gay Reichart, of Niantic, sometimes looks out her window and notices that “the stars are moving again.” To her, the helicopters that circle the Niantic Bay area are “scary.” Reichart has come to this house on Shore Road, just up from the Niantic Bay Yacht Club, since 1939. Once a summer resident, she now lives here year-round. Reichart recalled the time, nearly 40 years ago, when proponents of the power plant sent out artists' renderings of what it would look like: trees and shrubbery lined the shore, masking the building. There was just one power plant. Reichart, sitting in a living room with a row of windows overlooking the bay, laughed and turned to look across the water at the clearly visible nuclear power complex, its lights blinking in the twilight. The power plant was supposed to last for 25 years, she said. “I think they're here to stay,” she said. The license renewal, she said, was a foregone conclusion. “I think it's going to happen whether I oppose it or not until they find some other method to keep us in fuels,” she said. -------- new mexico LOS ALAMOS Plutonium could be missing from lab 600-plus pounds unaccounted for, activist group says Keay Davidson, San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer Wednesday, November 30, 2005 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/30/BAGGQFVT7J1.DTL Enough plutonium to make dozens of nuclear bombs hasn't been accounted for at the UC-run Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and may be missing, an activist group says in a new report. There is no evidence that the weapons-grade plutonium has been stolen or diverted for illegal purposes, the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research said. However, the amount of unaccounted-for plutonium -- more than 600 pounds, and possibly several times that -- is so great that it raises "a vast security issue," the group said in a report to be made public today. The institute, which is based in Takoma Park, Md., says it compared data from five publicly available reports and documents issued by the U.S. Energy Department and Los Alamos from 1996 to 2004 and found inconsistencies in them. It says the records aren't clear on what the lab did with the plutonium, a byproduct of nuclear bomb research at Los Alamos. A spokesman for UC, which manages the national laboratories at Los Alamos and Livermore for the Energy Department, did not address the report's specifics but said the New Mexico lab tracks nuclear material "to a minute quantity." The report says there are several possible explanations for what happened to the plutonium. They include: -- It was discarded in unsafe amounts in landfills at the Los Alamos lab. It is legal to discard weapons-grade plutonium in landfills, one of which is 40 feet deep, as long as the substance is sufficiently diluted. However, if a landfill holds too much plutonium, the material can eventually contaminate the environment -- for example by leeching into groundwater or being absorbed by the roots of plants -- study co-author Arjun Makhijani said in an interview. -- It was shipped to an Energy Department burial site in a New Mexico salt mine, without accurate records of such shipments being kept. -- It was stolen or otherwise shipped off site for unknown reasons. "If it has left the site, then it obviously has the most grievous security implications," Makhijani said. "I cannot say that it has left the site, but the government has the responsibility to ensure that it has not. "And the University (of California) obviously has a responsibility in this. It should be a grave embarrassment for the university to be sitting on numbers like this and discrepancies like this, and not have resolved them." UC spokesman Chris Harrington said Los Alamos "does an annual inventory of special nuclear materials which is overseen by (the Energy Department). These inventories have been occurring for 20-plus years. Special nuclear materials are carefully tracked to a minute quantity." The report concludes that at least 661 pounds of plutonium generated at the lab over the last half-century is not accounted for. The atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 contained about 13 pounds of plutonium. "The security implications . . . are extremely serious, since less than 2 percent of the lowest unaccounted-for plutonium is enough to make one nuclear bomb," the report said. The problem of plutonium accounting began worrying lab critics in the mid-1990s, when Energy Department officials released lab records as part of the Clinton administration's openness initiative. Critics found they had trouble determining exactly what the lab was doing with the plutonium waste that is generated during the manufacture of spherical plutonium "pits," the fissile triggers of nuclear bombs. Makhijani said he and colleagues from two other activist groups hoped the problem would be resolved in August 2004, when they sent a letter of complaint to then-Los Alamos Director G. Peter Nanos. Nanos was trying to reform lab operations after highly publicized scandals over UC management of Los Alamos. Nanos and lab officials did not respond, though, and nine months later Nanos left for a different job. Makhijani said he and associates had decided to make their report public to dramatize federal officials' failure to resolve the puzzle of the missing plutonium. Makhijani received his engineering doctorate at UC Berkeley with specialization in plasma physics and nuclear fusion. The institute is funded by sources including the Ford Foundation and San Francisco's Ploughshares Fund. UC has joined Bechtel National and other industrial partners in a bid to retain its contract to run Los Alamos, in a competition against a consortium consisting of Lockheed-Martin, the University of Texas, several New Mexico universities and various industrial partners. Makhijani says he isn't taking sides in the competition but that he would prefer the weapons labs be run by industrial contractors rather than universities. The reason, he said, is that university connections to the weapons labs tend to lead to restraints on free inquiry and speech within the universities. E-mail the author at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com. -------- north carolina Nuclear power's dirty secret New federal research shows that there's no safe level of exposure to routine radiation coming out of nuclear power plants. Why aren't regulators taking that into account as utilities begin a campaign to restart the industry? B Y S U E S T U R G I S November 30, 2005 Raleigh-Durham Independent Weekly C O V E R F E A T U R E http://indyweek.com/durham/current/cover.html We the people of North Carolina and other states across the nation face a decision that will affect not only our own well-being and that of our children, but the well-being of countless future generations. Our choice is whether to allow utilities to meet our energy needs by building new nuclear power plants that routinely emit long-lived radioactive pollution to our already-contaminated environment. The decision comes as a federal science panel has found that there is no safe level of radiation exposure--a fact not accounted for in current nuclear plant regulations. Courtesy Of Progress Energy Progress Energy’s Shearon Harris nuclear power plant in southwestern Wake County, alongside Harris Lake Companies around the United States are pushing to expand nuclear capacity for the first time in more than 30 years, since the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster in 1979. In one of the more ambitious plans, Progress Energy of Raleigh said earlier this year that it would apply for licenses from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build as many as four new reactors at two sites, one in the Carolinas and another in Florida. The company, which is also seeking more coal-fired plants, expects to pick its nuclear locations by early next year, according to spokesperson Julie Hans. Progress now operates five reactor units in three states: one at the Shearon Harris plant 16 miles southwest of Raleigh; two at the Brunswick plant near Southport, N.C.; one at the H.B. Robinson plant outside Hartsville, S.C.; and another at its plant in Crystal River, Fla. Duke Energy of Charlotte also wants more nukes. The company recently confirmed that it's readying paperwork to build two reactors at a site still to be announced. Duke currently operates three nuclear facilities: the McGuire plant 14 miles north of Charlotte on Lake Norman; Oconee in Seneca, S.C.; and Catawba on Lake Wylie in York, S.C. In addition, Richmond, Va.-based Dominion Corp., which serves northeastern North Carolina, has requested a permit for new construction at its nuke plant in Mineral, Va. Duke is interested in more coal plants as well. Elsewhere, Entergy Corp. wants to expand its nuclear operations in Port Gibson, Miss.; the Tennessee Valley Authority plans to enlarge a plant near Scottsboro, Ala.; and Exelon Corp. of Chicago wants to grow its nuclear facility near Clinton, Ill. The companies are positioning themselves to take advantage of the energy bill President Bush signed into law in August that gives nuclear operators tax credits, loan guarantees, insurance against regulatory delays, and liability protections in case of disaster--a total of about $13 billion in taxpayer subsidies, according to an estimate by Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group. To that end, the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's major trade association, recently launched an $8 million public-relations campaign to remove "all major legislative and regulatory impediments to a nuclear renaissance," PR Week reports. In its drive to expand, however, the industry is not talking about the risks of nuclear power--including mounting evidence for health problems from even low levels of radiation such as those emitted by normally operating reactors. Even some nuclear watchdogs shy away from talking about routine emissions. Jim Warren of the Durham-based N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network calls the issue a "hard sell" that doesn't "score very big" with the public. His group focuses instead on the risks of catastrophic radiation releases from system failures, noting that Shearon Harris has experienced at least 12 cooling system failures and leaks since 2003 as well as numerous fire safety violations. In addition, the facility stores highly radioactive spent fuel in cooling pools located near the plant; a loss of water to the pools could spark a nuclear fire that would render a large swath of the state uninhabitable. But even if potential disasters don't come to pass, nuclear plants are still polluting our environment with radiation through routine releases--and building more would only increase emissions. And there's more evidence than ever before that even very small amounts of radiation are harmful to human health. The National Academy of Sciences--a federal advisory body made up of the nation's most distinguished scholars--released a report earlier this year that found no safe threshold for radiation exposure, with even the smallest dose increasing cancer risk. But the federal government has not revamped nuclear plant regulations to reflect the NAS findings. And even under the existing regulations based on outdated science, 12 people are expected to die as a direct result of the normal operation of each commercial nuclear reactor during each 20-year license period. Furthermore, that calculation assumes the exposed person is a healthy adult male, even though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated radiation's effects on children and fetuses are about three and 10 times as severe, respectively, than the same dose to an adult. Photo By Derek Anderson UNC-CH epidemiologist Dr. Steven Wing: "One of the first things I learned was sometimes officials say things that turn out not to be true." "Our government makes standards that are supposedly to protect people, but in fact the standards enable industry to kill a certain number of people," says biologist Mary Olson of the Asheville, N.C. office of the nonprofit Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "They're basically bag limits on the population." *** The nuclear industry likes to promote itself as a clean source of energy, and that message is a key theme in its current PR offensive. Announcing Progress Energy's expansion plans earlier this month, for example, Chairman and CEO Bob McGehee said nuclear power might be the best option to provide "emissions-free energy." And industry leaders like McGehee have successfully persuaded not only the public but also political leaders of nuclear energy's inherent cleanliness. "Of all our nation's energy sources, only nuclear power plants can generate massive amounts of electricity without emitting an ounce of air pollution or greenhouse gases," President Bush said in an August speech at Sandia National Laboratories, a government-owned nuclear facility in Albuquerque, N.M. It's true that reactors don't emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide as do facilities burning fossil fuels (although that doesn't make them a good solution to climate change, since they're about the slowest option to deploy and cost far more than other alternatives such as wind power and cogeneration, as Rocky Mountain Institute Director Amory Lovins detailed in a talk last month in Chapel Hill). But it's not true that nuclear plants are emissions-free. In fact, they routinely release radioactivity through leaks in the fuel rods, pipes, tanks and valves, according to NIRS. They also routinely release contaminated water in order to limit the presence of radioactive and corrosive chemicals that damage reactor parts. Entering the outside environment through plants' stacks and water discharge pipes, the radioactive pollution includes more than 100 different chemicals produced only in reactors and atomic bombs--substances including cesium-137, iodine-131, strontium-90 and tritium, an isotope of helium. By breathing radiation-contaminated air, drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food, humans ingest these chemicals. They in turn release fast-moving subatomic particles into our bodies that smash into and break molecules, leading to cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations. Some of these substances seek out specific targets. Radioactive iodine, for example, aims for the thyroid. Strontium mimics calcium and goes for the bones. Tritium behaves like water, dispersing throughout the body and entering cells where it can disrupt DNA. "The thing about radiation is that you can't see it and you can't smell it, so when the nuclear industry says they do not pollute, people can't provide evidence through their senses to challenge that," says Olson, who suffered health problems after being accidentally exposed to radiation while working in a medical school laboratory. "Yet all nuclear power reactors release radioactivity to the air and to the water." Illustration By V.C. Rogers *** The Shearon Harris plant in southwestern Wake County is no exception. The reactor is located on and cooled by water from Harris Lake, a popular fishing and boating spot and part of Harris Lake County Park. Created by damming a tributary of the Cape Fear River, a drinking source for downstream communities, the lake's water is contaminated with tritium from the plant, and its sediment and aquatic vegetation are contaminated with gamma radiation from the facility, according to the plant's 2004 Radiological Environmental Operating Amended Report recently submitted to the NRC. Tritium and gamma radiation can cause cancer and genetic mutations. Under NRC regulations companies monitor their own releases, and Progress last year found average Harris Lake tritium levels at 4,200 picocuries per liter, with a high concentration of 6,820 picocuries per liter. While that's below the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's limit for drinking water of 20,000 picocuries per liter and 30,000 picocuries per liter for surface water, it's hundreds of times greater than average global tritium background levels in surface water, which the U.S. Department of Energy estimates at about 25 picocuries per liter. (Progress maintains that local background levels are much higher--about 300 picocuries per liter--based on its testing upstream of the Harris plant.) Tritium, which has a half-life of 12.3 years, can build up over time and seep into groundwater; indeed, one of the company's groundwater monitoring sites near the plant has registered tritium levels as high as 613 picocuries per liter. The company tries to minimize the lake's tritium levels by releasing liquid waste during periods of high rainfall, but its efforts are complicated by the fact that the region is currently suffering from an extended drought. Fortunately, Progress detected no tritium 17 miles downstream in Lillington, the first public drinking water location below the plant's discharge spillway. And it minimizes the threat to public health posed by the gamma-contaminated sediment and aquatic vegetation, noting that the sediment "is not easily accessible" and the vegetation "is not an ingestion pathway." However, the lake is stocked with fish, including bottom feeders such as catfish. Self-monitoring found no reactor-related gamma activity in the fish sampled, but fish tritium levels are assumed equal to the lake's levels. Progress calculated the total annual body dose of tritium to the maximum exposed individual--an adult eating 21 kilograms of the lake's fish--at .009 millirems, which is far lower than the allowable limit of 100 millirems. "All of our generating plants are well within limits determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the state of North Carolina," says Progress spokesperson Hans. And it's true that when we talk about routine emissions, we're talking about relatively small amounts of radiation. The average annual effective radiation dose to people living within 31 miles of a nuclear reactor from all radionuclides released is .5 millirems for pressurized water reactors like Harris and McGuire and 1 millirem for boiling water reactors like Brunswick, according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. But these emissions are coming from three nuclear facilities across North Carolina and another 19 throughout the Southeast, 104 reactors in the United States and 441 others around the world. And that comes on top of the lingering radiation from atomic bomb fallout as well as the 240 millirems of natural background radiation each of us typically receives each year. "We know the level of radiation that is naturally occurring causes cancer," Olson says. "And so every single addition to it causes even more cancer." Courtesy Of Progress Energy The view from a remote camera looking down into the nuclear reactor core at the Shearon Harris plant. *** Meanwhile, a growing body of research suggests that exposure to any amount of radiation--even at levels far below the U.S. government's allowable limits--can make us sick. In June, the National Academy of Science's National Research Council released the latest in a series of reports on health risks from radiation exposure, titled Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation-VII (BEIR-VII). It found that the preponderance of scientific evidence shows that exposure to radiation at even barely detectable doses can cause DNA damage that leads to cancers. "The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," says Richard Monson, a Harvard epidemiologist and chair of the research committee. "The health risks--particularly the development of solid cancers in organs--rise proportionally with exposure." The findings were a vindication for Joseph Mangano, a controversial researcher who's long sounded the alarm about the hazards of low-level radiation. An N.C. State grad with a master's in public health from UNC-Chapel Hill, Mangano works with the New York-based nonprofit Radiation and Public Health Project, which documents evidence for a connection between low-level radiation and health problems such as infant mortality and cancer. Over the years the group has focused a great deal of attention on routine emissions from nuclear power plants, and the current push to build more reactors worries Mangano and his colleagues. "We're very concerned that these efforts are taking place without a thorough consideration of the health effects," he says. "These harmful chemicals are getting out of reactors and getting into our bodies. What are the health risks?" Mangano's work leads him to suspect those risks could include higher rates of childhood cancer and infant mortality. In a study published in the February 2003 issue of the journal Archives of Environmental Health, he and his colleagues used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics to examine childhood cancer incidence and mortality in 49 counties situated mostly or completely within 30 miles of nuclear facilities in the eastern United States from 1988 to 1997. They found a pattern of increased childhood cancer incidence in the nuclear zones, with a cancer incidence for children under 10 that was 12.4 percent greater in nuclear counties than the United States as a whole. In another study published in the same journal a year earlier, Mangano and colleagues documented a drop in infant deaths and childhood cancers in areas downwind of eight nuclear plants that closed. Infant mortality rates fell during the first two years after closing in each of the eight areas 30 miles downwind of the plants, for a total decline of 17.4 percent. That compares to a decline for other counties in the same states of just 6.7 percent. And in the states that operated comprehensive cancer registries at the time the reactors closed, the incidence of newly diagnosed cancers in children under age 5 fell by 25 percent, differing significantly from the overall U.S. rate, which remained steady. Courtesy Of Progress Energy One of four waste-storage pools at Shearon Harris. Mangano points to similar patterns near Shearon Harris, where sharp rises in infant mortality and childhood cancer occurred downwind following the reactor's start-up on Jan. 3, 1987. (Nuclear plant emissions tend to follow what's been described as a "bathtub curve": high as the reactor starts up, dropping and leveling off, then rising as the reactor ages.) From 1986 to 1987, the infant mortality rate jumped 19.5 percent in Wake County and 22.9 percent in Durham County at the same time it fell 1.1 percent in other North Carolina counties (excluding Wake and Durham) and 2.6 percent nationwide. He also compared childhood cancer death rates for the 1979-1987 period to the 1988-2002 period in Wake and Durham, finding rates rose 47.8 percent and 97.8 percent respectively while declining 31.4 percent in other North Carolina counties and 28 percent nationwide. Mangano and his colleagues are not the only researchers to raise red flags about the health impacts of normally operating nuclear plants. While some studies have found no connection between nuclear operations and health problems, others have documented elevated childhood cancer rates near nuclear facilities in Canada, France, Germany and the former Soviet Union. Researchers found a rise in multiple myeloma mortality near a nuclear power plant in Spain. And a study by Massachusetts Department of Public Health officials published in the Archives of Environmental Health in 1996 found an increase in leukemia among adults living near that state's Pilgrim nuclear plant, with the relative risk increasing 400 percent among those with the greatest exposure to the plant's emissions. Progress, however, does not put any stock in Mangano's findings. "In terms of this specific study, it would be impossible to form an informed opinion based on the fact that no statistical or meaningful data is documented to support any conclusion," says spokesperson Hans, who accuses Mangano of harboring an agenda to incite fear in the public. Indeed, the nuclear industry has been highly critical of the RPHP's work. The NEI devotes a section of its Web site ( www.nei.org ) to rebutting the findings of project founders Ernest Sternglass, a professor emeritus of radiological physics at the University of Pittsburgh, and Jay Gould, a statistician and former EPA science advisor who died recently. Ignoring the National Academy findings that there are no safe levels, the NEI claims that allegations linking low-level radiation to health effects have been discredited. But mainstream epidemiologists have also faulted Mangano's work for failing to include exposure information. And even some nuclear foes are critical of the RPHP. Olson, for example, says the group's researchers too often have confused correlation with causation. Nevertheless, she believes their findings deserve further investigation, since statistical and temporal correlations point to areas where more research and regulatory action could be needed. "People call me a troublemaker and junk scientist," Mangano acknowledges. "But I ask, What proof do they have that these permissible levels of radiation are in fact harmless?" *** Photo By Derek Anderson A fisherman from New Hill pulls a crappie from Harris Lake within sight of the cooling tower of the Shearon Harris nuclear power plant, which uses water from the lake to cool the reactor. Even members of the scientific establishment can find themselves tarred as purveyors of "junk" for producing research that sullies the nuclear industry's clean image, as UNC-Chapel Hill epidemiologist Dr. Steven Wing has discovered. In the early 1990s, Wing was asked to provide epidemiological evidence for the 2,000 plaintiffs who sued the operator of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Harrisburg, Pa. after the facility's partial meltdown in March 1979. He had previously studied cancer mortality at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, finding that workers exposed to on-the-job radiation at levels far less than Department of Energy standards were dying from leukemia at higher rates than their counterparts in the general public. Wing was wary of becoming involved in the TMI case because he knew mainstream scientists considered allegations of high radiation doses there "a product of radiation phobia or efforts to extort money from a blameless industry," as he wrote in a 2003 monograph published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. But, touched by the plaintiffs' humanity and having experienced official attempts to suppress damning evidence firsthand, he agreed to examine data for the case. "One of the things I learned was sometimes officials say things that turn out not to be true," Wing says of his work at Oak Ridge, where radiation records he sought were withheld for two years. "It's not necessarily because people are trying to make up a story, but sometimes it's because they don't want to know." Wing and his colleagues subsequently documented among people living near TMI symptoms consistent with acutely high levels of radiation exposure--skin rashes, hair loss, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, even pet deaths. Those symptoms indicate exposures of 50 rems or higher, far more than the 100 millirems the NRC estimates was the maximum dose at the site's edge. The researchers also found lung cancer and leukemia rates two to 10 times higher downwind of TMI. But the presiding judge in the case dismissed the research on a technicality and then ruled there wasn't enough evidence to proceed. To this day, the nuclear industry refuses to acknowledge Wing's findings or the experiences of injured residents. The NRC's official TMI fact sheet released last year says the incident "led to no deaths or injuries to plants workers or members of the nearby community." It does not mention that TMI's owners and builders have paid at least $14 million in out-of-court settlements, with one of the largest to the family of a child born with the genetic disorder Down's syndrome, as documented by the Harrisburg-based watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert. Meanwhile, Wing has become the target of ridicule and derision by nuclear power's defenders. They include Steven Milloy, a conservative Cato Institute scholar and former corporate lobbyist whose JunkScience.com Web site accuses Wing of seeking fame over truth. Wing's experiences have led him to take a broader look at nuclear power's health effects, transcending a narrow focus on whether this level of radiation can be tied to that disease or death. Nuclear power, Wing observes, places control of energy supplies in the hands of a very small group of people--a technological elite. Furthermore, it breeds secrecy because of the need to keep the technology from falling into the wrong hands and being used to make nuclear or radiological weapons. As Wing sees it, nuclear power is simply incompatible with democracy. "People don't think of democracy in terms of health, but it has a lot of health implications," he says. "Historically health has come about not by having access to doctors so much as by having good nutrition and good housing and safe jobs and adequate education and clean water and clean air. And those things come about when people have control over their lives." Indeed, nuclear regulators recently limited citizens' opportunity to participate in the reactor licensing process. Under the old system, a nuclear utility had to apply for a construction license and then seek a separate operating license after completing the plant, giving the public two chances to weigh in with concerns. But now the NRC grants a single license prior to construction. Nevertheless, as the licensing process moves forward, people in North Carolina and elsewhere across the country will still get a chance to weigh in on utilities' choice to build more nuclear reactors. And make no mistake about it--nuclear power is a choice, not a necessity. The choice is between spending $13 billion for more polluting nuclear power plants or aggressively pursuing energy conservation along with cleaner, more economically efficient sources of power such as solar, wind and biomass. "The question is what additional exposures do we want to live with by choosing to produce electricity in nuclear reactors?" Wing asks. "What additional risks do we want to leave for literally hundreds of generations in the future?" More Cover Features in This Issue: * Atomic alternatives ---- Atomic alternatives Utility companies justify their push for more polluting nuclear and coal-fired plants by arguing that such operations are necessary to meet anticipated future demand from customers. For example, Progress Energy says its forecasts show it will need an additional 2,500 megawatts of generation by 2016. B Y S U E S T U R G I S November 30, 2005 Raleigh-Durham Independent Weekly C O V E R F E A T U R E http://indyweek.com/durham/current/cover2.html The company hopes to satisfy some of that demand by promoting conservation. To that end, its latest issue of Carolina Life, a newsletter accompanying customers' bills, offers common-sense tips to save energy, such as turning off lights and appliances when not in use, adjusting thermostats and insulating homes to avoid heat waste. However, Progress maintains that the bulk of its customers' anticipated energy needs must come from the traditional generation sources of nuclear and coal. "Unfortunately, the technology for renewables like wind and solar are not advanced enough to generate large amounts of energy in a state like North Carolina," says company spokesperson Julie Hans. But the N.C. Waste Awareness and Reduction Network of Durham challenges those claims. Executive Director Jim Warren points to other countries' achievements in switching to renewable energy. Germany, for instance, has made dramatic advances in solar and wind power since 1990, and its policymakers have committed to transition completely to renewable sources. Japan is pursuing solar power with such zeal that the technology's costs dropped 72 percent from 1994 to 2004. And Denmark's embrace of wind and cogeneration leveled that nation's energy demand between 1990 and 2000 while its economy grew. Warren also notes that Progress and Duke Energy are actively fighting the transition to renewables. The two utilities together spent more than $23 million on federal and state campaigns and lobbyists from 2001 to 2004 to promote their agenda, which has often opposed the development of alternative energy sources. For example, state Rep. Pricey Harrison (D-Guilford) this year introduced legislation to create a renewable energy portfolio standard for the state that would require 10 percent of the state's electricity to come from environmentally friendly energy sources such as wind. But Progress and Duke have opposed the legislation, which lawmakers are expected to take up again during next year's short session. The utilities are not even doing all they can to promote efficiency. Since the 1980s, Progress and Duke have reduced programs to level out peak demand, Warren notes. They also continue to promote all-electric homes and block efforts to allow independent generators of renewable energy to feed extra electricity back to the grid, as most other states permit. Fortunately, North Carolina has many efforts underway to develop and promote healthier, more environmentally sustainable energy: # Biomass. A number of projects in North Carolina are investigating methods for converting waste products such as wood residue, hog excrement and landfill gas to energy. For details, visit the N.C. State Energy Office's Web site at www.energync.net/programs/renewable/biomass.html. # Conservation. The N.C. State Energy Office offers conservation tips for residences, businesses, schools and governments at www.energync.net. N.C. WARN has also undertaken a power reduction campaign and offers tips on reducing energy usage at www.ncwarn.org/PowerReduction. # Green Power. NC GreenPower is a statewide program that encourages the development of renewable energy resources through consumers' voluntary funding of green power purchases by electric utilities in North Carolina. It's on the Web at www.ncgreenpower.org. # Solar. The N.C. Solar Center serves as a clearinghouse for solar and other renewable energy programs for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. For more information, visit www.ncsc.ncsu.edu. The N.C. Sustainable Energy Association also offers resources on solar and other renewable energy sources at www.ncsustainableenergy.org. # Wind. The Energy Center at Appalachian State University in Boone is a leader in advancing wind technology. For details, visit the N.C. Wind Energy site at www.wind.appstate.edu. -------- rhode island U-RI nuclear facility may treat brain tumors By:GALEN McGOVERN 11/30/2005 Narragansett Times http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15660407&BRD=1714&PAG=461&dept_id=73829&rfi=6 Narragansett - People may be treated for brain tumors within the next five years at the nuclear reactor of Rhode Island Nuclear Science Center (RINSC) located at the University of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay Campus. That's right. Some of the cutting edge research at RINSC involves killing grade three and four brain tumors, according to Dr. John Leith. Brain tumors are some of the nastiest cancers around that "kill people without treatment within a year. You can operate, but it doesn't do any good," said Leith, who is retired from Brown University and now works part-time on brain tumors. The problem is that "by the time you find a brain tumor, the cells have dispersed" and Leith is working on methods to kill the dispersed cells and track where they are going. Leith's research relies heavily on the radioactive element Gadilinium as well as radiation from the reactor. Injected Gadilinium kills the cancer cells with radiation and stops the migration of the new cells. Through a combination of injections and irradiation, patients may beat the cancer or extend their lives up to eight years. Tehan and Leith are hoping within the next 5 years to treat people at RINSC after they fulfill FDA protocols, which is a lengthy process. Leith will soon test the treatment out on rats after injecting tumor cells into their brains. "If we could solve this one, the other cancers would be a piece of cake," said Tehan. Another researcher at the Center, Dr. Carl Ott, has already designed a patient treatment room to be housed in a room at the base of the reactor. The room will have a "window" that opens up to the reactor. Some of the other research at RINSC includes stem cell research, ozone depletion studies, and even methods to detect weapons of mass destruction. Dr. Alfred Hanson develops underwater chemical sensors that measure sources of radioactivity such as weapons, in addition to nutrients and trace metals. Scientists at RINSC also routinely analyze biomedical samples on equipment that costs $500,000 per machine. The reactor is owned and operated by the Rhode Island Atomic Energy Commission, regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Rhode Island Department of Health, and is used by University of New Hampshire, Brown University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among others, as well as private companies. The reactor has been running daily since 1962 without incident and operates at only 125 degrees Fahrenheit. Water boils at 212 degrees. At 2 megawatts it hardly compares to a nuclear power plant that generates 800 to 1000 megawatts. The fuel elements for the reactor are contained in a pool of water 30 feet deep, with eight to 10 foot concrete walls. The fission of elements and resulting beta particles produce a blue glow that emanates through the water. The reactor building itself has thick concrete walls and is built atop an old World War I fort. There are brick ceilings in the basement and a gun mount is clearly visible. Recent heightened security measures have curtailed public access to the but private tours may be available. "We still do about one tour a week," Tehan said. -------- utah Legislators Reject Encouraging Nuclear Power in Utah November 30th, 2005 @ 7:40am (AP) http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=133807 SALT LAKE CITY -- Legislators have rejected an amendment that would have encouraged development of nuclear power in Utah. During a joint meeting of two legislative interim committees on Tuesday, Rep. Bradley Daw, R-Orem, recommended adding language to an energy bill that would encourage Utah to develop nuclear power to generate electricity. "At our own peril of overconsuming oil and other resources, we should not ignore nuclear energy," Daw said. "There are several countries that have been very successful in productive nuclear programs." Daw said he had toured a nuclear facility at Diablo Canyon, Calif., and "found it to be an amazing facility. We should look very closely in this state at promoting nuclear energy." The Diablo Canyon Power Plant is owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and provides power to 1.6 million California homes, about 20 percent of PG&E's total customer base, according to a company Web site. Utah's governors, legislatures and congressional delegations have been battling the Goshutes' proposal to host on their Skull Valley reservation a temporary storage facility for spent nuclear-reactor rods. One of the arguments opponents of the proposal has used is that the state does not use nuclear power and should not have to be a repository for the waste created by nuclear power plants in other states. Rep. Ralph Becker, D-Salt Lake, said Utah had taken a strong position against having the state serve as a repository for high-level radioactive waste. "We are devoting a lot of resources to try to prevent that from happening," Becker said. "The signal that is sent by singling out nuclear energy I don't think is something that would get lost on the rest of the country. "For us to be promoting nuclear energy, particularly more than other resources in this state, I think sends a very strong signal that contradicts the position we've taken as it relates to high-level radioactive waste," he said. But Rep. Michael E. Noel, R-Kanab, said that Utah's position was simply that the state should not become a depository for nuclear waste that is produced in another state. "I'm not sure the state has taken a position on taking care of our own waste," Noel said. "I'm not sure that by saying we promote the development of nuclear energy in our state would any way lessen the statement that the state has made on the storage of nuclear waste here." Sen. Beverly Ann Evans, R-Altamont, expressed concern over adding the language without having public input. "A public policy decision like that, I think, needs to have much more study," Evans said. "That's one that has a lot of implications and a lot of strong feelings that need to be discussed in a public forum." An alternative amendment promoting the "development of cost-effective energy resources, both renewable and nonrenewable" was included in the bill that was passed by the Natural Resources, Agriculture, and Environment Interim Committee and the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee. -------- MILITARY -------- israel / palestine ‘Oil spot’ replaces ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy By Peter Spiegel, Defence Correspondent Published: November 30 2005 21:08 Financial Times http://news.ft.com/cms/s/11bdee9c-61e5-11da-8470-0000779e2340.html As Bush administration rhetoric has turned towards preparing the American public for a reduction in US forces in Iraq, the US military has been gradually – almost imperceptibly – changing its on-the-ground tactics to prepare for a smaller footprint after the December 15 elections. According to civilian and military officials involved in Iraqi planning, US and coalition forces have begun backing off so-called “search and destroy” tactics that have killed large numbers of insurgents only to allow them to reoccupy urban havens. Although such operations are likely to continue through this month’s elections in order to keep the Sunni-based insurgency off balance, people familiar with the changing tactics said the military was moving towards a post-election “clear, hold and build” counter-insurgency plan based largely on the lessons learned from the failures of the anti-Vietcong campaign during the Vietnam war. Under such tactics – credited to Vietnam veteran and counter insurgency expert Andrew Krepinevich, who has advised Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Baghdad, on military issues – coalition and Iraqi forces will concentrate on securing and holding urban areas and gradually expanding their area of influence, a process called an “oil-spot” strategy. In briefings to the US military’s joint staff and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s office, Mr Krepinevich, who has been highly critical of the lack of a country-wide counter-insurgency plan, has argued that through embedding US forces in Iraqi units and relying more heavily on those Iraqi units as the core of the “oil-spot”, the Pentagon should be able to rely on 120,000 troops, or 17,000 fewer than previous levels. “Classical counter-guerrilla operations like Malaysia are small unit, not big, Westmoreland-style attrition,” said a senior Pentagon official, referring to William Westmoreland, the general who commanded US forces in Vietnam. “Andrew Krepinevich, who people said is critical [of Pentagon planning], said you don’t need more US troops in Iraq, you need more Iraqi troops, which happens to be our policy as well.” Several US commanders, however, have argued that Mr Krepinevich’s views, while compelling, are only a repeat of strategies already implemented by coalition forces. Brig Gen Mark Kimmitt, the deputy director for plans at US Central Command, said there were “a lot of people arguing about the oil-spot strategy”, but insisted that the current practice of bringing Iraqi forces in to secure and stabilise urban areas after US raids illustrated that coalition commanders had already shifted away from “search and destroy” tactics. “We don’t want to say, okay, Krepinevich you’re right: let’s all pull back into cantons and start over,” Brig Gen Kimmitt said. “The coalition forces are providing a thin protective shield, to some extent, over the country at large. It’s not perfect, but what it then allows is to set the condition for the Iraqi forces to be the oil spot. The