[ RadSafe ] Court will not hear nuclear plant threat case

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Court will not hear nuclear plant threat case 
Nuclear plants getting warmer reactions 
AZ nuclear plant operator asks regulators not to lower safety rating
Protection Against Lethal, Whole-Body Radiation
Firm gets OK to test radiation drug
Radiation: more than 100 test positive
Iran to build 10 nuclear plants 
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Court will not hear nuclear plant threat case 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday to decide whether a potential terrorist attack must be considered as part of a U.S. government agency's environmental review of a nuclear power plant's expansion plans. Without comment, the justices declined to hear an appeal by PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. unit arguing a lower court should not have required the environmental impact review of potential sabotage from a terrorist attack.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce business group supported the company's appeal and said Congress never intended for the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 to address issues of national security or threat assessments.  

As part of its expansion plans at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo, California, Pacific Gas & Electric seeks to construct and operate spent-fuel storage capacity.

A U.S. appeals court ruled last year that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission violated federal environmental law by failing to undertake the review. The NRC had said the possibility of a terrorist attack was so remote and speculative that no environmental review was needed.

The Bush administration told the Supreme Court the appeals court ruling was wrong, but said the justices did not have to decide the case. The administration said it is unclear at this time how burdensome the ruling will turn out to be.

The lawsuit challenging the NRC's decision to authorize the license for the facility was brought by the Sierra Club and a group called the San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace.
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Nuclear plants getting warmer reactions 

WASHINGTON The Dallas Morning News  – The U.S. nuclear power industry is planning for a renaissance, drawing up its first applications to build nuclear plants since the 1970s. 

Just a decade ago, many energy executives didn't think nuclear power had much of a future. Strict regulations had led to costly downtime for reactors. The public showed little interest in betting billions on new plants. 
 
DEAN HOLLINGSWORTH/DMN Instead of fading away, the industry launched a revival, using a friendlier political climate to spur a regulatory overhaul. 

Rules that had led to lengthy investigations and plant shutdowns became less restrictive. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission started embracing industry efforts to create alternative, less costly regulations. 

Today, the turnaround is nearly complete. The electricity output of the nation's remaining 103 reactors is at or near record highs. 

Power providers banking on getting a hand from Uncle Sam 
Republicans and Democrats – and a growing number of environmentalists – are embracing nuclear power as a critical response to global warming and reliance on unstable oil suppliers. And Wall Street is slowly warming up to the idea of new construction. 

The change in direction came in large part by reshaping a regulatory environment that often meant the difference between a profit and loss – and whether a plant could afford to operate. 

Some industry critics say the regulatory changes have lowered safety standards, increasing the risk to the public. 

Lessons from past accidents and near-misses, they say, are being written off. 

"It's a must for this industry to lower its costs in an increasingly competitive electricity market," said Paul Gunter of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a nonprofit group that opposes nuclear power. "That comes at a cost to public safety, health and security." 

The industry slowly won over key lawmakers and regulators in the 1990s by making the case that many of the prescriptive rules created earlier for a nascent industry imposed heavy burdens without much of a safety benefit. 

Central to the effort was reassessing the risk of accidents and breakdowns based on a plant's history and industry experience, rather than trying to protect against an unlikely "perfect storm" scenario. 

"You can focus on what really matters and get some cost reductions at the same time," said Tony Pietrangelo, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade group. 

The effort helped to improve the industry's overall operational performance dramatically. 

Unplanned reactor shutdowns for six months or more dropped from more than 120 reactor months in 1997 to 10 months or less for most of this decade, according to NRC figures. 

Better performance 
Sharp drops in refueling times and offline maintenance sent capacity factors – a measure of a plant's efficiency – from 71 percent in 1997 to more than 90 percent today, government data show. And the average cost of producing a kilowatt-hour of nuclear power fell 28 percent to 1.72 cents in 2005 from 2.38 cents in 1997. 

The performance won nuclear plants credibility as a reliable source of power, setting the stage for new construction. 

More than 30 new reactors are under consideration nationwide. 

Dallas-based TXU Corp. has said it's interested in building as many as six new reactors, likely to include an expansion of its Comanche Peak plant southwest of Dallas. 

Nuclear developers are betting on a new generation of technology to avoid past licensing and construction delays. They're also counting on a more accommodating regulatory environment. 

Critics of nuclear power warn that the bullish environment could end with a single accident. An accident in 1979 at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., led to a public backlash and widespread cancellations of new projects. 

A scare 
They cite one of the most recent close calls, in 2002, when workers at the Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio found a football-size hole in the nuclear reactor vessel head caused by a boric acid leak. If the hole had opened up, it could've caused a meltdown. 

The NRC's inspector general later found that the agency's staff had accepted a request from the plant operator, FirstEnergy Corp., to continue operating to avoid financial losses from a shutdown. 

Watchdog groups say that's part of the risk that comes from relaxing requirements. 

"The NRC is trusting the plant owners more and more to get it right," said David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and safety expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Davis-Besse and some of the others show what happens when that trust is misplaced." 

Industry officials criticized FirstEnergy and maintained that it wasn't representative of conditions at other reactors. They say that safety has only improved under the newer approach of allocating resources based on risk. 

Lawmakers and other government officials who support nuclear power have pushed to ease the regulatory burden since the early 1990s. The first Bush administration and the Clinton administration supported plans to cut regulations across the government. 

The industry regained congressional support as environmental concerns grew; by the end of the decade, leading lawmakers were threatening to slash the NRC's budget if it didn't ease its grip on the industry. 

By the late 1990s, the industry was proposing regulatory changes and in many cases attaching figures of cost savings, part of the "risk-informed" approach of focusing on what's probable rather than simply possible. 

For instance, revamping the regulations for emergency core cooling systems in a reactor could save $3 million per unit, according to one Nuclear Energy Institute estimate. 

Jim Riccio, a nuclear policy analyst for Greenpeace, which opposes nuclear power, calls the overhaul over the last decade a "regulatory retreat" in the face of industry pressure. 

'Stop signs' 
Mr. Riccio said the industry's efforts to deregulate technical specifications – rules for equipment operations and testing at a plant – led the NRC to remove 40 percent of the "stop signs" that would force a plant to shut down. 

"The public is going to be exposed to more risk, while the industry is exposed to less regulation," he said. 

The NRC and industry faced a barrage of criticism throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Nuclear plant owners accused the agency of using vague guidelines, imposing unreasonable requirements or meddling beyond their scope. The NRC took heat from lawmakers and the public for not always enforcing the rules it created. 

Some of the decades-long battles, such as how to protect against fires inside a plant, are still being resolved today. 

A 1975 incident at Alabama's Browns Ferry nuclear facility exposed how nuclear plants are vulnerable to fire. A worker using a candle set cables ablaze, with a fire that burned for seven hours and shorted out the plant's backup safety systems. 

Regulations 
In the years that followed, the NRC created regulations requiring protection of at least one set of equipment needed to shut down a plant safely. Dozens of plants failed to comply with the requirements. Some utilities used fire barriers that turned out to be faulty. Many sought exemptions from the NRC to use manual actions – a worker physically pulling breakers during a fire, for instance. 

The industry argued that the rules were applied regardless of the chance of a fire in a particular location, and sought a new standard – being implemented today – based on the likely risk of ignition of a piece of equipment at a particular plant. 

The new standard, which 41 plants say they plan to adopt, is "the best thing that's happened to fire protection," said Alex Marion, the Nuclear Energy Institute's executive director for nuclear operations and engineering. 

Nuclear reactors that accept the new system would be given a pass for not being compliant with the original rules. NRC and industry officials say it's a common-sense approach to solving a longstanding problem. 

Changing focus 
"You try to shift the focus ... to what's really important to safety as opposed to your compliance requirements," said Sunil Weerakkody, chief of the NRC's fire-protection branch. 

Mr. Gunter, of the nuclear watchdog group NIRS, said the reliance on probabilities should not be a primary protection "particularly in a post-9/11 world." 

"These are all backdoor approaches ... rather than state-of-the-art fire-protection features," he said. 

TXU was among the companies cited for fire-safety violations, receiving notice of noncompliance in 1998. A TXU spokesman says the company is now in compliance – without signing on to the new rule – and had no fire-safety violations in the NRC's last inspection there in 2005. 

Reactivating activists 
Even as many companies are looking toward the next round of plants, the regulatory overhaul is starting to draw attention from activists from the last era. 

Among the NRC's new rules is one that allows nuclear operators to reclassify safety-related parts. The move would allow existing plants to purchase less-expensive commercial-grade parts instead of the nuclear-grade materials that were previously required. 

Three senior engineers inside the NRC protested the rule, saying it could not provide adequate assurances of protecting public safety. But the changes were ultimately passed over their objections. 

For Steve Comley, a nuclear activist now living in Florida, the new standards – that plants could voluntarily adopt – draw parallels to the problem of substandard and counterfeit parts in nuclear power plants in the 1980s. 

At the time, 72 out of the nation's 113 licensed reactors were found to have parts such as fasteners, valves and circuit breakers that did not conform to their safety specifications. Some were provided by counterfeit suppliers that later faced criminal charges. 

The industry says the parts were replaced. But Mr. Comley says the issue lost attention in the late 1990s and never received the full inspection that was promised. 

"They haven't proved the plants are safe," said Mr. Comley, whose group, We the People, drew attention to the counterfeit parts issue. "They don't want to know. If that isn't putting safety second to the profits of the industry, I don't know what is." 

Mr. Comley has spent the last year gathering dozens of letters of support from activists around the country in a bid for a congressional investigation of nuclear plants' parts and the NRC's new regulatory stance.
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Arizona nuclear plant operator asks regulators not to lower safety rating

PHOENIX Mohave Daily News AP - The operator of the nation's largest nuclear power plant complex will plead with federal regulators Tuesday to reconsider a negative safety finding that if upheld would move the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station into the worst performance category.  

Arizona Public Service will appear before regulators in Texas and try to show that an emergency backup generator that was inoperative for 18 days and unreliable for 40 days last year was only a minor risk. Emergency generators at nuclear reactors are critically important because they provide electricity to pumps, valves and control rooms if the main electrical supply fails.

If the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determines that is anything greater than a minor safety issue, the triple-reactor plant would be bumped into the commission's most stringent reactor performance category. That would trigger even more stringent oversight by regulators, who already have stepped up inspections following two years of failures and problems at the plant west of Phoenix.

 
The failed generator was partnered with a second that remained operational. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC, requires two sources of backup power for each reactor, a common approach with virtually all safety systems at nuclear plants. Arizona Public Service, or APS, said it will present technical arguments at the hearing that it hopes will show that the failure wasn't a serious safety issue.

Jim McDonald, a spokesman for APS, downplayed the significance of any safety downgrade on how the plant is operated, or on costs for APS or the consortium of companies in four states that own the plant.

‘‘We know that we have issues at Palo Verde that need to be resolved. We know that there are a lot of human issues that need to be improved upon,'' McDonald said. ‘‘Obviously we would prefer to stay out of category 4 - but that work's going to get done either way.''

Last month, the NRC backed away from a similar safety downgrade after a hearing with APS officials. That review was prompted by inspectors' discovery in September that heat exchangers that cool emergency equipment and spent fuel storage areas had been fouled by years of plant technicians using an improper chemical mix.

The chemical residue on the heat exchangers lowered their efficiency, but had a very low risk of triggering a serious failure in a crisis, regulators determined. Nonetheless, they called the problem ‘‘particularly egregious'' because it went undetected for years, and another example of repeated problems at Palo Verde since 2004.

David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer for the watchdog group Union of Concerned Scientists, said regulators should step in and increase oversight at Palo Verde.

‘‘This latest event, coupled with the event from the year before, shows that the company isn't finding problems. They're waiting on the NRC or for them to self-reveal, which isn't the way it is supposed to work,'' Lochbaum said. ‘‘The company is not finding hardly anything - they're relying on outside forces to find them.''

Palo Verde has been on the regulatory hot seat since 2004, when NRC inspectors found that APS had drained a large pipe designed to flood the reactors with water in an emergency years earlier without informing them. Since then, a series of problems has occurred, and APS fired or transferred a dozen supervisors and line workers earlier this year in response to NRC concerns.

The company hired a new chief nuclear engineer earlier this month. Randy Edington, 53, will become a senior vice president and chief nuclear officer of the state's largest utility on Jan. 25.

The hearing wasn't expected to generate an immediate ruling. Federal regulators were expected to make a final decision on the safety downgrade in several weeks. If Palo Verde is downgraded, it will become the third plant in the nation on the list, out of 103 plants.
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Novel Compound Affords Protection Against Lethal, Whole-Body Radiation Even When Administered Hours After Exposure!

Radiology / Nuclear Medicine News - 16 Jan RxBio, Inc., announces that its lead product, RX100, protects against lethal, whole-body radiation when administered before, during, or up to several hours after exposure. Animal studies convincingly demonstrate that RX100 can prevent death if given before or during lethal radiation exposure or rescue life if administered within six hours of lethal, whole-body radiation exposure.  

According to Gabor Tigyi M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Physiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center: "RX100 is unique among radioprotectants. It is an analog of an endogenous, prosurvival molecule that is metabolically stabilized which boosts natural mechanisms that promote and sustain cell survival while inhibiting the cascade leading to programmed cell death. While other agents shut down essential cellular-signaling mechanisms involved in radiation-induced cellular injury, tend to lack specificity, and may deliver unacceptable toxicities, RX100 is a specific activator of natural, nontoxic, protective mechanisms of cell survival."

RX100 is a small molecule (molecular weight <500) that is stable at room temperature, has an excellent shelf life and can be formulated for a wide range of patient types-from infants to the elderly.

"This product appears unique as a radioprotectant in that it can be administered orally or by subcutaneous injection before, during, or up to six hours after exposure to lethal, whole-body radiation," stated RxBio Chairman and CEO Dr. W. Shannon McCool.

In addition, Rx100 is a potent protector of the gut -- from radiation, chemotherapy, and other toxic substances. Among other things, it prevents the disintegration of the mucosal barrier -- thus, preventing diarrhea and overwhelming bacterial infections, potentially severe side effects from such exposures.

Several agencies of the Federal Government have expressed interest in this promising new compound and its unique approach and mechanism.
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Firm gets OK to test radiation drug

Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal - Jan 12 - Federal regulators approved Humanetics Corp.'s plans to start clinical trials for its drug used to combat acute radiation sickness.  

The Eden Prairie-based company's drug, BIO 300, would be used to treat people who have been exposed to radiation as a result of a nuclear blast or "dirty bomb" terrorist attack.
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Radiation: more than 100 test positive

Almost one in five of those tested for the radioactive substance which killed a former Russian spy have shown signs of contamination.

Urine samples were taken from nearly 600 people who feared they may have been caught up in the scare and of those 120 tested positive with only 13 deemed to have any type of risk to health.

Professor Pat Troop, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: "There are just over 100 people who had evidence that they were in contact with this radiation polonium-210."

She said tests were still being carried out on a number of foreign nationals who may also have been contaminated.

The HPA is working with 48 different countries and has identified 450 people who may have been affected worldwide.

Former spy Alexander Litvinenko visited a number of venues in central London on the day that he fell ill including the Millennium Hotel, the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly and an Italian restaurant in Mayfair.

The 43-year-old died in London's University College Hospital in November.

Prof Troop said the amount of contamination in his body was "many thousands of times greater" than anyone else who had tested positive for polonium-210.
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Iran to build 10 nuclear plants 

TEHRAN, Jan. 16 Iran says it needs 10 nuclear power plants to keep up with electricity demand, marking a new step in an international row over its uranium enrichment program.

Gholam Hossein Elham, a spokesman for the Iranian government, said Monday the country will need more than the 3,000 centrifuges used to produce the nuclear fuel.

Iran needs an electricity supply of 10,000 megawatts by nuclear energy, and in order to supply that, we need 10 nuclear plants, Elham said. Elham said all of Tehran's nuclear work will be done with International Atomic Energy Agency supervision, the state-run Fars News Agency reports.

Iran faces sanctions by the U.N. Security Council over its decision to continue enriching uranium -- a process to make both nuclear fuel and nuclear weapons, depending on the extent of the enrichment.

Tehran says it only wants to make nuclear energy and claims the sovereign right to do so as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

A Russian company is building a nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran, which would be Iran's first. 

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Sandy Perle 
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations 
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc. 
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