[ RadSafe ] Foes blast nuclear plant, NRC

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Foes blast nuclear plant, NRC
Waste disposal at Yucca Mountain unsafe
Lawmakers to consider bill for building new nuclear plant
Jordan seeks nuclear power for peaceful means
Radiation release, false data prompt Hanford safety review
Dirt near nuclear plant not dangerous
===========================

Foes blast nuclear plant, NRC

BERKELEY Asbury Park Press - Jan 21 - George Cox doesn't see the 
relicensing of the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant as a local issue. 
 
Rather, the township resident sees the concerns many have about the 
plant and other nuclear facilities -- such as safety and security 
from terrorism -- as issues that could potentially affect the entire 
globe.

"We're all in the same boat," Cox said. "The whole planet could be 
affected by this."

Cox was one of more than 50 people who turned out Saturday morning to 
hear a discussion by three activists who oppose the relicensing. The 
forum, held at the Ocean County Library's Berkeley branch, was 
sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Ocean County. The 
organization's leaders have also taken a stand against extending the 
plant's operations.

The speakers raised many of the issues that opponents of the plant 
have cited, such as the contention that the plant is no longer safe 
due to corrosion of its radiation barrier and other factors and that 
it is ill-prepared for a terrorist attack. But they also said there 
are problems in the relicensing process itself.

For instance, Paul Gunter, who directs the reactor watchdog project 
of the Nuclear Information and Resources Service, accused the federal 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission of being too sympathetic to the nuclear 
industry to objectively evaluate plant safety.

"The issue of lack of federal regulatory oversight, not just at 
Oyster Creek but as a national issue, is as compelling as the 
deterioration of containment at Oyster Creek," Gunter told the 
audience.

Corrosion of the drywell liner -- or radiation barrier -- has been 
one of the most scrutinized issues of the relicensing application. 
Portions of the liner have been found to be significantly thinner 
than when the plant was constructed in the late 1960s, which 
opponents of the plant have argued poses an unacceptable safety risk.

Richard Webster, an attorney with the Rutgers Environmental Law 
Clinic who is representing renewal opponents from the Shore area, 
also said on Saturday that Oyster Creek's design is fundamentally 
unsafe. As the first commercial nuclear plant in the nation, the 
plant was built at a time when there was still much to be learned 
about nuclear power and that the federal government no longer allows 
plants of Oyster Creek's design to be constructed, Webster said.

"You can be in favor of nuclear power and still want to see Oyster 
Creek closed down," he said.

AmerGen officials weren't invited to the forum. However, the company 
maintains that the plant operates safely and can continue to do for 
another 20 years.

Rachelle Benson, a plant spokeswoman, said $1.2 billion in upgrades 
have been made to the plant since it was built.

"Oyster Creek is safe," she said. "If we weren't safe, we wouldn't 
continue to operate."
------------------

Waste disposal at Yucca Mountain unsafe

Myrtle Beach On-line Jan 21 - The Jan. 6 opinion piece by State Sen. 
William Mescher, "Nuclear energy could ease power concerns," is just 
plain wrong when it states that the reason the federal government's 
Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository program for spent nuclear 
fuel is on the brink of collapse is a NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) 
reaction on the part of the state of Nevada. In fact, it is Yucca 
Mountain's intrinsic and unfixable flaws and the federal government's 
shoddy and politically motivated science that have left the nation 
and Nevada with a site that is incapable of isolating deadly 
radioactive waste for the long time period necessary.  

Another fact Mescher missed is the reality that Yucca Mountain is not 
needed for the so-called nuclear renaissance. Spent fuel is perfectly 
safe and secure at existing and new power plants, with improved dry 
storage technologies making such storage even safer and more 
economical.

It is certainly much safer than having tens of thousands of shipments 
of deadly radioactive waste traversing the nation's highways and 
railroads over a period of three decades or more to an unsafe 
disposal site in Nevada.

If NIMBY is, in fact, at work in this regard, the irrational push by 
commercial nuclear utility companies to get spent fuel out of their 
backyards and into an unsuitable and unsafe site in Nevada is a prime 
example.
--------------

Lawmakers to consider bill for building new nuclear plant

Topeka Lawrence Journal World Jan 21 - As the state tries to chart an 
energy course, Kansas lawmakers will consider a measure aimed at 
providing incentives to build a nuclear power plant.  

The legislation - HB 2038 - is one of numerous proposals in the 
hopper on energy issues, which has become a major topic for the 2007 
Legislature.

A public hearing on the measure is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday 
before the House Energy and Utilities Committee.

State Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, a member of the committee, said 
there are no plans currently to build a nuclear plant in Kansas.

The bill, he said, "is a recognition that as we look at energy 
independence for the state, nuclear, renewable energy and coal all 
have a place," Sloan said.

He added that for the first time in years, "there are noises 
nationally of restarting this nation´s nuclear program."

Driving that in part is the rising cost of fossil fuels and the 
health implications of building new plants powered by climate 
changing sources, such as coal. State officials currently are 
reviewing a request to build three 700-megawatt coal-fired plants in 
western Kansas.

The legislation would exempt from property taxes any new nuclear 
generation or new facility at the Wolf Creek nuclear plant near 
Burlington.

The owners of Wolf Creek, which started operating in 1985, have 
recently applied for a 20-year extension of its operating license, 
but say there are no plans to build additional capacity there.

"We are not looking at any kind of expansion at Wolf Creek," said 
Gina Penzig, a spokeswoman for Westar Energy, which owns 47 percent 
of the plant. "The capital costs are just too large for a utility our 
size."

An extension of the plant´s license would extend the facility´s use 
from 2025 to 2045.

Sloan said if nuclear energy becomes economically and politically 
feasible, then the legislation would help lay the groundwork for an 
effort to expand nuclear power.

While many countries have increased dependence on nuclear power, 
nuclear energy development practically halted in the United States 
because of the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant in 
Pennsylvania and the problem of where to store high-level nuclear 
waste.

Wolf Creek officials have said the plant site has enough space to 
store its waste through 2025, and hope that by then the federal 
government will have approved a national storage site. However, a 
proposed nuclear waste site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been 
stalled for years by environmental groups and Nevada officials.

Bill Griffith, president of the Kansas chapter of the Sierra Club, 
said the group is adamantly opposed to nuclear energy.

He said the expense of nuclear power and the unresolved issue of a 
permanent storage site make it untenable.

"So much can be done with efficiency and renewables," Griffith said. 
"We have just barely touched energy efficiency and wind. Why even 
talk about nuclear?"

It is said that nuclear power is emission-free. The truth is very 
different.

In the US, where much of the world's uranium is enriched, including 
Australia's, the enrichment facility at Paducah, Kentucky, requires 
the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which 
emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for 
50per cent of global warming.

Also, this enrichment facility and another at Portsmouth, Ohio, 
release from leaky pipes 93per cent of the chlorofluorocarbon gas 
emitted yearly in the US. The production and release of CFC gas is 
now banned internationally by the Montreal Protocol because it is the 
main culprit responsible for stratospheric ozone depletion. But CFC 
is also a global warmer, 10,000 to 20,000 times more potent than 
carbon dioxide.

In fact, the nuclear fuel cycle utilises large quantities of fossil 
fuel at all of its stages - the mining and milling of uranium, the 
construction of the nuclear reactor and cooling towers, robotic 
decommissioning of the intensely radioactive reactor at the end of 
its 20 to 40-year operating lifetime, and transportation and long-
term storage of massive quantities of radioactive waste.

In summary, nuclear power produces, according to a 2004 study by Jan 
Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith, only three times fewer 
greenhouse gases than modern natural-gas power stations.

Contrary to the nuclear industry's propaganda, nuclear power is 
therefore not green and it is certainly not clean. Nuclear reactors 
consistently release millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into 
the air and water each year. These releases are unregulated because 
the nuclear industry considers these particular radioactive elements 
to be biologically inconsequential. This is not so.

These unregulated isotopes include the noble gases krypton, xenon and 
argon, which are fat-soluble and if inhaled by persons living near a 
nuclear reactor, are absorbed through the lungs, migrating to the 
fatty tissues of the body, including the abdominal fat pad and upper 
thighs, near the reproductive organs. These radioactive elements, 
which emit high-energy gamma radiation, can mutate the genes in the 
eggs and sperm and cause genetic disease.

Tritium, another biologically significant gas, is also routinely 
emitted from nuclear reactors. Tritium is composed of three atoms of 
hydrogen, which combine with oxygen, forming radioactive water, which 
is absorbed through the skin, lungs and digestive system. It is 
incorporated into the DNA molecule, where it is mutagenic.

The dire subject of massive quantities of radioactive waste accruing 
at the 442 nuclear reactors across the world is also rarely, if ever, 
addressed by the nuclear industry. Each typical 1000-megawatt nuclear 
reactor manufactures 33tonnes of thermally hot, intensely radioactive 
waste per year.
-----------------

Jordan seeks nuclear power for peaceful means

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Jordan wants to develop nuclear power for peaceful 
means, King Abdullah II said in an interview. 
 
"The Egyptians are looking for a nuclear program. The GCC (Gulf 
Cooperation Council) are looking at one, and we are actually looking 
at nuclear power for peaceful and energy purposes. We've been 
discussing it with the West," he told Israel's Haaretz daily 
newspaper.

"I personally believe that any country that has a nuclear program 
should conform to international regulations and should have 
international regulatory bodies that check to make sure that any 
nuclear program moves in the right direction," he told the liberal 
daily.

"The rules have changed on the nuclear subject throughout the whole 
region. Where I think Jordan was saying, 'we'd like to have a nuclear-
free zone in the area,' after this summer, everybody's going for 
nuclear programs," the Jordanian king said.

Israel is considered the sole, albeit undeclared, nuclear power in 
the region. But following        Iran's development of a nuclear 
project, several Arab countries have announced their desire to 
acquire nuclear technology.
---------------

Radiation release, false data prompt Hanford safety review

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) Jan 19  - A radiation leak just days after the 
discovery that an employee had falsified records halted some cleanup 
efforts at the Hanford nuclear reservation so workers could take a 
"safety break."

The safety review Wednesday affected about 1,000 employees and 
subcontractors of Washington Closure Hanford, which is cleaning up 
contaminated areas near former reactor sites along the Columbia 
River.

Workers returned to their jobs Thursday, Washington Closure spokesman 
Todd Nelson said.

On Tuesday, radioactive tritium contamination was found to have 
spread outside a tent where radiological work was being performed 
near the closed B and C reactors on the nuclear reservation's north 
side.

The levels of contamination were too low to require reporting and 
were not believed to have affected worker health, Nelson said.

It is too early to say whether the U.S. Department of Energy will 
fine the company, Nelson said Thursday.

"They're going to have to say," he said. "We're taking aggressive 
action to get work going and make sure it doesn't happen again."

DOE spokeswoman Colleen French did not immediately return a call for 
comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.

Washington Closure and Energy Department officials were working on a 
decontamination plan for the tritium, an isotope of hydrogen that 
spreads easily because it binds with oxygen.

The spread of tritium and the problem with landfill compacting 
records discovered last week "make us concerned about the conduct of 
operations," said Nick Ceto, Hanford project manager for the 
Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates the cleanup project.

EPA will discuss its concerns with DOE and Washington Closure 
officials, he said.

Tritium, which is used in hydrogen bombs, was produced at Hanford 
reactors from 1949-1952 until its production was moved elsewhere.

The leak occurred after workers tapped a small canister Friday that 
was among debris retrieved from a burial ground that held waste from 
Hanford's B Reactor and nearby buildings. They discovered tritium gas 
inside.

Work inside the radiological tent was halted Monday after tritium 
contamination was found. Additional tests found the contamination had 
been tracked outside the tent.

Washington Closure has about 700 workers and its subcontractors have 
about 300. The company is in charge of cleaning 761 waste sites and 
burial grounds contaminated by radioactive and chemical wastes.

The radiation contamination comes on the heels of the discovery last 
Friday that a subcontractor employee had falsified records at a low-
level radioactive waste landfill.

S.M. Stoller, which operates the landfill, said that one employee had 
been recording compaction test data even though he had not performed 
the test at times over the past year.

The test ensures that compacting of waste is adequate so that 
contents won't settle and possibly affect the integrity of an 
engineered cap that will cover the landfill.

The Energy Department's primary concern has been working with 
Washington Closure to ensure employees are safe and the environment 
is protected, French told the Tri-City Herald on Wednesday.

The agency is looking at the circumstances surrounding the tritium 
contamination, she said.

"While this is tough work, worker safety is the department's priority 
and any action or process breakdown that calls that into question is 
simply unacceptable," she said. "That's what we'll be looking at as 
we continue to gather facts and examine the causes." 
---------------

Dirt near nuclear plant not dangerous

PADUCAH Lexington Hearald Leader Jan 21- The dirt and rubble piles in 
the creeks and ditches around the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant are 
not contaminated by radiation that could endanger the public, 
according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Surveyors from the federal department inspected more than 30 miles 
around the plant and, in most cases, found no contamination above 
natural radiation in the soil, said Bill Murphie, manager of the 
Energy Department's project office overseeing the nuclear plants in 
Paducah and Piketon, Ohio.

"None of these piles have shown any evidence of levels of potential 
contamination unacceptable to and threatening the public," Murphie 
said.

The investigation, done with state and federal environmental 
regulators, grew out of a discovery in November of seven mounds of 
low-level radioactive dirt east of the plant in the West Kentucky 
Wildlife Area.

Those mounds had the highest radioactivity levels of any found, but 
were essentially harmless, Murphie said.

"If you sat there on the dirt continuously for three days, your dose 
(exposure) would be equivalent to a dental X-ray," he said.

The dirt piles also had traces of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. 
PCBs and radiation are common contaminants of the uranium enrichment 
plant. Before they were banned, PCBs were in oily insulators for the 
plant's massive electrical system.

The search has found 100 dirt piles and 50 mounds of concrete rubble 
around the plant or in the surrounding wildlife area, Murphie said.

Much of the dirt is believed to have come from dredging Little and 
Big Bayou creeks 20 to 30 years ago, and some of the rubble piles 
came from old plant construction work, he said.

"In most cases, no contamination was found," he said. "There were a 
few detectable levels above background (natural radiation).

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 cox.net 

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