[ RadSafe ] Bush Will Consider Venezuela Reactor

Tue Nov 8 09:49:25 CST 2005

Index:

Bush Will Consider Venezuela Reactor
Sea-Based Windmills Could Blunt Criticisms
=============================

Bush Will Consider Venezuela Reactor

WASHINGTON (Nov. 2) - Despite tense relations with Venezuela, 
President Bush says it might be OK for the South American nation to 
have a nuclear reactor for peaceful energy uses.

Bush acknowledged he had not heard about Venezuela's request for a 
reactor when asked about it Tuesday in an interview with Latin 
American reporters in advance of his five-day trip to the region. But 
he didn't reject the idea, even though he has had numerous disputes 
with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

As Chavez, Bush and leaders from 32 other nations in the Western 
Hemisphere prepare to gather Friday at the Summit of the Americans in 
Argentina, the Venezuelan leader is trying to boost his profile by 
putting his disputes with the United States at center stage.

On Tuesday, Chavez said he would bring to the summit a message that 
the United States' "capitalist, imperialist model" was responsible 
for exploiting developing economies and ruining the global 
environment. He also warned he might share Venezuela's U.S.-made F-16 
fighters with Cuba and China, accusing the United States of making it 
difficult for his country to obtain spare parts for the planes, which 
Venezuela originally purchased in 1983.

Chavez has said his government was preparing for a possible U.S. 
invasion aimed at taking over Venezuela's oil fields, an allegation 
that U.S. officials have denied. He also has denounced the U.S.-led 
war in Iraq and said world leaders should consider moving the United 
Nations headquarters out of the United States.

Chavez recently said he is interested in working with Iran to explore 
peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Chavez has insisted Iran has the 
right to develop nuclear energy despite opposition from the U.S. 
government, which fears Tehran may be developing a nuclear weapons 
program.

Venezuela has asked for technical help from Argentina to develop 
nuclear energy. Bush said he would be curious to know what Argentine 
President Nestor Kirchner has to say about the idea.

Kirchner and Chavez share left-leaning politics and have built close 
ties. Bush said he hopes Kirchner will agree with his position that 
international oversight of any nuclear development is important and 
noted that Venezuela already is an energy rich nation as one of the 
world's top oil producers.

"I guess if I were a taxpayer in Venezuela, I would wonder about the 
energy supply that Venezuela has," Bush said. "But maybe it makes 
sense. I haven't really studied the proposal."

Fred Jones, a spokesman for the National Security Council at the 
White House, later said that any nuclear cooperation with Venezuela 
would have to be in accordance with international obligations and 
safeguards set by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency. "We 
have worked closely with Argentina to fight nonproliferation and look 
forward to continuing to do so in the future," Jones said.

Bush's trip to Argentina, Brazil and Panama follows what has been one 
of the worst week's of his presidency. One of his top advisers was 
indicted, he had to replace his widely criticized Supreme Court 
nominee, and U.S. military deaths in Iraq passed the 2,000 mark.

Bush even made light of the issue of reporter-source relationships 
that has been at the center of the investigation into who in his 
administration was responsible for leaking the name of a covert CIA 
operative to the media. The investigation led to Friday's perjury and 
obstruction of charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice 
President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

When an Argentine reporter said sources told him that Kirchner 
planned to ask Bush for help reaching a new financial agreement on 
its debts with the International Monetary Fund, Bush expressed mock 
surprise that government officials can act as secret-leaking sources.

"I'm not going to ask you who they are, of course," Bush said, 
drawing laughter from the U.S. contingent in the room. "Inside joke 
here, for my team."

He went on to say that he would listen to any request that Kirchner 
makes in their private meeting, but the populist leader elected after 
Argentina's 2002 economic collapse appears "plenty capable of dealing 
with the IMF directly" without the United States as a "middleman."

The agenda at the Summit of the Americas centers on poverty 
reduction, with Bush promoting increased trade and the creation of 
other economic opportunities as the best solutions.

But Bush acknowledged that he has been unable to accomplish what was 
once one of his highest trade priorities - the creation of a Free 
Trade Area of the Americas that remove tariffs and or barriers on all 
goods among every country in the Western Hemisphere except Cuba.

The talks have been at an impasse for months, with co-chairs Brazil 
and the United States remaining far apart on a number of issues, 
including U.S. protections for American farmers and Brazil's laws 
covering the protection of intellectual property rights.
------------------

Sea-Based Windmills Could Blunt Criticisms

OSLO (Nov. 2) - A novel windmill floating on the high seas is likely 
to generate electricity from 2007 in a shift from land-based turbines 
often denounced as eyesores, Norwegian energy group Norsk Hydro said 
on Wednesday.

Out of sight over the horizon, parks of non-polluting windmills could 
eventually supply power to coastal cities or to offshore oil and gas 
platforms anywhere from the North Sea to the Gulf of Mexico.

Hydro said it aimed to go ahead with a project to build a prototype --
 an upright steel and concrete tube about 660 feet high with 264 feet 
jutting above the water and rotor blades 198 feet long -- after 
successful laboratory tests.

Some nations have parks of windmills that stand in shallow waters 
offshore but none have windmills far from land. Hydro said that it 
had been measuring wind conditions over 30 years of North Sea 
drilling.

"The results are promising," Alexandra Bech Gjoerv, head of New 
Energy at Hydro, told Reuters of a three-year research program. 
"We're very hopeful that we can be first in the world to set up a 
floating windmill at sea."

She said rivals in nations from Japan to the United States were also 
working on designing similar windmills.

Hydro, Norway's number two oil producer behind Statoil, aims to 
deploy a prototype at sea in 2007, likely to cost about 150 million 
Norwegian crowns.

Norway is the world's third largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia 
and Russia.

The floating windmills would be tethered at three points to the 
seabed to keep them stable. Bech Gjoerv said that there were likely 
to be fewer objections to windmills offshore.

"On land there are objections partly to visual pollution, partly 
problems with birds and other environmental issues like laying cables 
through the countryside," she said. Birds are sometimes killed by 
flying into windmill blades.

Bech Gjoerv said electricity from offshore windmills was likely to 
cost more than electricity from fossil fuels, nuclear or big 
hydropower plants. Maintenance costs could be higher.

WINDIER AT SEA

"Initially we want to compete with windmills on land. It's a lot more 
windy out at sea -- installation costs will be higher but the 
production will be higher," she said.

Each 5-megawatt windmill would be capable of generating about 22 
gigawatt hours a year. That would be enough to supply electricity to 
about 1,000 typical Norwegian homes.

If the concept works, Hydro envisages parks of perhaps 200 windmills, 
in waters 200-700 metres deep that could supply power to 200,000 
households in a nation of 4.5 million people.

"We're using a tested platform concept, windmill technology that's 
well known and an anchoring system that is known. It's a radical 
adaptation of the technology," Bech Gjoerv said.

Many countries are trying to shift to cleaner energies like wind or 
solar power to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon 
dioxide from fossil fuels burned in power stations, cars and 
factories.

The scientific panel that advises the United Nations says that rising 
temperatures could trigger more floods, storms, spread deserts and 
drive thousands of species to extinction.

-------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614 

Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714  Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
E-Mail: sandyfl at earthlink.net 

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/ 
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/ 