[ RadSafe ] Three Rivers, Millstone offering 16 scholarships for nuclear, mechanical or electrical engineering

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Three Rivers, Millstone offering 16 scholarships for nuclear and more 
Savannah facts put fears at ease
N.Korea seeks oil for halting nuclear reactor: media
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Three Rivers, Millstone offering 16 scholarships for nuclear, mechanical or
electrical engineering

Three Rivers Community College and Millstone Station are offering 16 full
scholarships for nuclear, mechanical or electrical engineering technology
degree programs. 
The scholarships cover tuition, books and fees for a two-year associate
degree program, starting the fall 2007 semester. 

Deadline for scholarship application for students entering the 2007 fall
semester is Feb. 15. For information, call Professor James Sherrard, nuclear
program chairman and scholarship program coordinator, at 885-2393. For
scholarship application forms, call admissions at 383-5260 or view the
college Web site at www.trcc.commnet.edu/EngTechScholarships.htm.
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Savannah facts put fears at ease

NEWPORT NEWS Feb 4 -- It wasn't long ago the U.S. Maritime Administration
termed the nuclear merchant ship Savannah a potential hazard to the Newport
News area.

In a 2003 document, the agency said that the long-retired vessel, then
docked at the James River Reserve Fleet, could attract terrorists.

The Maritime Administration "can no longer maintain the remnants of the
ship's nuclear reactor," said the statement, still posted on the agency's
Web site Friday. "These remnants must be disposed of in the near term to
reduce the high vulnerability of the ship to terrorist action."

The statement - taken from a budget request asking for money to remove the
Savannah's reactor system - talked about the "radioactive materials ... that
are vulnerable." It warned about how easy it was to access the ship and the
need to "reduce the environmental threat that a terrorist action poses
(i.e., a radiological release to the James River and Newport News area)."

Now, however, the agency, also called MARAD, has a different take.

ALL IS SAFE

It contends all is safe with the NS Savannah, the nation's first
nuclear-powered merchant ship.

It has been moved to Pier 23, a dock off 23rd Street in downtown Newport
News, a stone's throw from a public shore.

The vessel arrived back recently after a five-month maintenance stint at
Colonna's Shipyard in Norfolk.

Yes, precautions need to be taken, MARAD says.

And yes, the nuclear power plant still needs be removed, but there's no
danger to Newport News or the region, MARAD now asserts.

The typical radiation dose received by someone standing inside the reactor's
containment vessel for an hour would be about the same as an X-ray at the
doctor or sunbathing for an hour, MARAD officials say.

Somewhat higher doses are likely in a few spots, they say, with those marked
off with yellow tape.

"I've been here for 14 years, and I'm not glowing," quipped Danny Harris, an
electrician for MARAD who helps maintain the Savannah and other ships in the
Reserve Fleet, also known as the ghost fleet.

He made his comments while standing just outside the ship's reactor room,
which is outfitted with locks, an alarm system and a danger sign.

A JOINT VENTURE

The 596-foot, 22,000-ton Savannah, completed in 1962, was a joint venture
between the Maritime Administration and the Atomic Energy Commission under
President Dwight Eisenhower, designed to demonstrate the peaceful use of
nuclear ship propulsion.

The Savannah's nuclear fuel - its biggest source of radiation - was removed
after the ship left service in the early 1970s. But there are radioactive
remnants left over, such as in the piping systems and water in the sealed
reactor system.

After years of disuse, the Savannah must have its reactor removed before it
can either be scrapped or turned into a museum.

Erhard Koehler, the senior technical advisor in charge of the Savannah for
MARAD, said the agency had been guarded in its 2003 estimate of the ship's
radiological threat.

MARAD came up with that prediction, he said, using 1976 radiation numbers as
a base and calculating how much radioactivity could be left given the
various isotopes involved and how long they would take to decay.

Tests done in early 2005, Koehler said, showed the ship's radiation was less
than half the earlier estimate.

The 168,000 curies of radioactivity the ship had in 1976 has decayed to
about 4,800, rather than the expected 11,000, he said.

"We have historically erred on the side of caution," he said. "It protects
the health and safety of the public if you estimate that there's more than
there actually is."

Even if Savannah's radioactivity numbers rates came in at the predicted
numbers, there still would not have been a radiological threat to the
Newport News environment or the James River, Koehler asserts.

So why the dire warnings on the Web site?

BUDGET REQUEST

MARAD's statement regarding the Savannah's terrorist and environment threat
originated in a budget request that was eventually submitted to Congress in
early 2004, asking for $2 million to begin removing the nuclear reactor.

MARAD denies it deliberately hyped the terrorist and radiological threat in
order to get the money. "MARAD was very up front in its deliberation and in
assessing the facility," Koehler said. "We did not exaggerate it."

Julie Nelson, MARAD's deputy administrator who visited the ship last week,
did say "we needed to remind Congress that the ship was in our fleet and
that we need appropriate funds to take care of it."

In the post-Sept. 11, 2001 environment, she said, "we were being very
critical" about where the nuclear facilities were.

With nuclear power, the term "no risk" is hardly ever used.

"If you could release all the radioactivity on the ship, it would not result
in harm to the environment," Koehler said as he walked the ship last week.

But, he added, it would be a "tremendous disruption" to life in Hampton
Roads - because of all the regulatory agencies that would need to come in,
take loads of measurements, and determine the proper course of action.

CONTROVERSIAL ISSUE

In some ports around the world - some Japanese harbors, for instance -
mooring a nuclear ship has become a controversial issue.

In Newport News, nuclear ships are a common sight.

Nuclear-powered Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are built and docked
frequently at the nearby Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard - not to
mention those parked nearby at Norfolk Naval Station.

There are typically more nuclear ships docked in Hampton Roads at any given
time than at most any other port in the world.

As for the Savannah, deputy Newport News city manager Neil Morgan said he
wasn't worried.

"Whenever you have a nuclear reactor, it's reasonable to ask the question,
'Is it safe?' " he said.

But, he said, "I would think that that would not be a very efficient way to
cause trouble. Of the range of things that a terrorist might do, I don't
think that would be a very likely scenario. You're not just going to roll a
hand grenade out there and cause any damage."

He points out that the Savannah was parked in the ghost fleet since the
early 1990s with no incident.

Before that, it was in Charleston, S.C., as a floating museum.

As for the security of the ship, there's an adjacent MARAD ship, the Gopher
State, that's manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

That lookout is supposed to keep an eye on the Savannah, too.

There's also a temporary guard on duty on the Savannah, though that person
will be replaced with an alarm system.

To gain access to the city dock where the Savannah and two other MARAD ships
are parked, visitors must show IDs to a guard at a steel gate.

Inside the Savannah, the reactor room and the storage room with the reactor
plant's diagrams and plans are kept locked, though Koehler maintains they'd
be useless for someone wanting to get nuclear technology.

"They don't need to come to the Savannah to get that," he said, since lots
of nuclear reactor technology has been public in the academic world for
decades.

SAFETY MEASURE

Perhaps the biggest safety measure is the design of the vessel and its
reactor area.

It has 2 feet of concrete, 3 inches of redwood and an inch of steel and
another wall around the reactor itself.

"In the event of a collision broadside to the reactor compartment, the
ramming ship would have to penetrate 17 feet of stiffened ship structure and
the reactor containment vessel before reaching the reactor plant," according
to a 1950s design document from the New York Shipbuilding Corp., the company
that built the ship.

"The probability of dangerous release of radioactivity through collision is
considered negligible," the document added. "Because large ships proceed at
relatively low speeds in harbors, no collision of sufficient severity to
damage the reactor compartment can take place in any harbor."

Koehler pointed out a visual indication of how much radiation designers
expected would be emanating from the reactor compartment even when the ship
was carrying nuclear fuel.

"The reactor compartment is here," Koehler said, touching the wall on the
left-hand side of a passageway he was walking down.

"And who lives here?" he asked, pointing to a set of cabins across the
hallway. "The passengers. And the deck below, surrounding the reactor
compartment? The crew."
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N.Korea seeks oil for halting nuclear reactor: media 

TOKYO (Reuters) Feb 4 - North Korea's top nuclear envoy has told former U.S.
officials that Pyongyang wants more than half a million tonnes of fuel oil a
year in return for suspending its atomic reactor, a Japanese daily said on
Sunday. 

Shutting down North Korea's sole operating reactor is expected to be a key
negotiating point when six-country discussions on ending the North's nuclear
weapons programme resume in Beijing on Thursday, analysts said.
The Asahi Shimbun said North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan had
set out Pyongyang's position when he met former State Department official
Joel Witt and nuclear expert David Albright in the North Korean capital last
week.
The demand would exceed the energy assistance received by the impoverished
communist state under an 1994 deal with Washington, which collapsed when the
current nuclear crisis began in 2002.
Kim and other North Korean officials said the country would halt the
operation of its reactor at Yongbyon if it obtained energy assistance
equivalent to more than 500,000 tonnes of fuel oil a year, the Asahi said,
quoting the two Americans.

North Korean officials also demanded that Washington lift its financial
sanctions against the country as well as removing North Korea from the list
of "terrorism-sponsoring" nations, it said.
Kim was likely to have made the demands to U.S. counterpart Christopher Hill
at unprecedented meetings the two men held in Berlin last month, but might
have decided to reiterate them to seek concessions when the six-party talks
resume, Asahi said.

OPTIMISM

Hill said he had not seen the reports on the oil aid, but he wanted to see
tangible steps at the Beijing talks to start North Korea on the path toward
ending its atomic ambitions.
"The ultimate task for us is to complete denuclearisation, not just to begin
denuclearisation," Hill told reporters before a dinner meeting with 

South Korea's foreign minister and chief envoy to the six-way talks.
Hill, who has said he is going to Beijing with a degree of optimism, told
Reuters on Saturday he has been in communication indirectly with the North's
nuclear envoy over the past few weeks via Pyongyang's mission to the 
Top of Form

United Nations in New York.
Pyongyang typically publishes demands in its official media before sessions
of the talks between the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United
States, but it has not done so ahead of this week's session.
However, it did fire a verbal shot at Washington on Sunday.
"The U.S. tramples down other countries by military force as they have
differing ideology and system and do not obey it," its KCNA news agency
reported.
North Korea has said it will not scrap its nuclear weapons programme until
the United States ends a crackdown on firms it suspects of aiding Pyongyang
in illicit activities.
Talks in Beijing between U.S. 
Top of Form

Treasury Department and North Korean officials seeking to resolve the
financial standoff, which led a Macau bank to freeze $24 million in North
Korean funds, ended last Wednesday with no sign of a breakthrough.

----------------------------------------------------------------
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 
Tel: (949) 419-1000 Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144

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