[ RadSafe ] Groups sue to shut down Idaho nuclear reactor

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Groups sue to shut down Idaho nuclear reactor
Canada pushes nuclear power to get at oil sands
Putin promises India more nuclear power
Uranium an unsettling reminder of nuclear material on black market
Belarus to Go Nuclear 21 Years After Chernobyl
Nuclear energy's French connection
Five charged over nuclear protest  
(AEHI) Seeks to Purchase Operating Nuclear Plant in the U.S.
Officials: No harmful radiation at Piketon site
==================================

Groups sue to shut down Idaho nuclear reactor

BOISE, Idaho Idaho Press Tribune Jan 25 - - Two nuclear watchdog 
groups have sued the U.S. Department of Energy in federal court to 
shut down a nuclear reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory and 
force the agency to conduct an environmental review before trying to 
extend the reactor's life.  

The Advanced Test Reactor is one of three materials test reactors 
built at the 890-square-mile complex headquartered in Idaho Falls. 
Built in 1967, the reactor bombards materials with neutrons to speed 
the effects of radiation and reveal weaknesses that might develop in 
materials over time.

Last year, the Energy Department launched a 10-year, $200 million 
program to extend the life of the reactor to 2040. The decision 
followed a proposal to consolidate U.S. production of plutonium-238 
for NASA and national security agencies in the 250-megawatt reactor.
Plutonium-238 is not used in nuclear weapons. But because of the heat 
it generates during a lengthy decay period, the highly toxic material 
is used as a long-lasting power supply for deep-space satellites and 
in surveillance devices that are placed underwater or on land.

The 40-year-old reactor is already well past its design life, and any 
program to extend its use will generate significant quantities of 
radioactive waste, much of which has no identified path for disposal, 
according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in 
Idaho.

"Absent major safety upgrades and very significant expenditures, 
extending the ATR's operation poses unacceptable risks to the 
residents of southeastern Idaho and western Wyoming and endangers two 
of the nation's most cherished national parks, Yellowstone National 
Park and Grand Teton National Park," the lawsuit said.
The complex sits about 90 miles west of Jackson, Wyo., which is just 
south of the two national parks.

The lawsuit was filed by nonprofit Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free of 
Jackson, Wyo. and its executive director, Mary Woollen; nonprofit 
Environmental Defense Institute of Troy; Aberdeen resident Debra 
Stansell; and John Peavey of Carey, a former Idaho senator for 21 
years.

Energy Department officials refused to discuss the lawsuit or the 
program to extend the reactor's life.
"The reactor has contributed significantly to the development of the 
Navy's nuclear fleet, as well as safely producing medical and 
industrial isotopes," spokesman Tim Jackson said in a statement. "The 
department intends to assure that ATR continues to operate safely now 
and in the future."

Beginning in 2003 and concluding in 2006, several teams reviewed the 
reactor and found that while its current condition and staff were 
sufficient to support safe near-term operations, the viability of 
long-term operations was in doubt. A March 2006 report on the plan 
also detailed a 115,000-hour backlog of deferred maintenance and 
engineering, at an estimated cost of $5 million.

The report, prepared for the Energy Department, was released to The 
Associated Press by the Yellowstone watchdog group, which obtained it 
through an information request.
However, the reactor was shut down for three months last fall for a 
scheduled maintenance outage as part of the extension program. 
Maintenance activities included replacement and refurbishment of more 
than 350 parts and more than 200 technical safety inspections, among 
other things.

Mark Sullivan, a Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free lawyer, said the 
facility should immediately be shut down until federal officials can 
assure residents it is safe. In the meantime, he said, the Energy 
Department must conduct an environmental assessment and at least 
consider the alternatives to extending the reactor's life.

"You have to address the 40 years of inadequate safety requirements," 
Sullivan said. "But we feel before the government enacts that 
program, they should at least weigh their alternatives. In fact, 
they're required to."
------------------

Canada pushes nuclear power to get at oil sands

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada may need to turn to nuclear energy to get 
heavy crude out of the ground at its vast oil sands deposits if it 
doesn't want to add seriously to the problem of greenhouse gases, 
Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn said on Thursday. 
 
"We shouldn't be afraid to look at all forms of clean energy, and if 
it can dramatically reduce greenhouse gases -- ... it has that 
potential -- we should be open to it," Lunn told Reuters.

The decision to use nuclear power at the oil sands will ultimately 
not be made by the federal government, but Ottawa can encourage a 
certain direction, and it also has the power to regulate greenhouse 
gas emissions, which are blamed for climate change.

Lunn said discussions are already taking place with the oil industry 
and the province of Alberta, where the oil sands are located, and 
that he would meet with the province's energy minister soon.

The issue is a hot topic in Alberta, where the oil industry is 
looking to cut the use of the large volumes of natural gas used to 
power the separation of oil from sand. The use of nuclear power as an 
alternative has been rejected several times over the years.

A privately held company, Energy Alberta, is pitching the concept of 
building a nuclear power plant near Fort McMurray, Alberta, where the 
industry is concentrated, and has said it could have a proposal 
within the next few months.

One method of extracting the tar-like bitumen from the oil sands is 
to inject steam into the ground to make it flow more easily. 
Currently, industry burns relatively clean natural gas to make the 
steam needed to get the gooey crude.

This is a process one oil economist has likened to using gold to make 
lead, using up supplies that can be used in the chemical industry or 
for heating homes, and in any case emitting greenhouse gases.

Nuclear energy does not produce emissions of greenhouse gases such as 
carbon dioxide, though many environmentalists and other critics 
oppose its use because of the danger posed by the plants' radioactive 
waste, which must be stored.

"Listen, you believe in reducing greenhouse gases or you don't; you 
believe in climate change, and if you do, you should be taking a hard 
look (at nuclear energy for the oil sands)," Lunn said.

"There's no question that, absolutely, it's worth getting very 
serious about looking at the options and saying what would be the 
impacts, and that's what we're doing."

Shell Canada Ltd. Chief Executive Clive Mather told Reuters on 
Wednesday he was not ready to buy into the nuclear concept yet. His 
company has disclosed long-term plans to boost oil sands production 
to 770,000 barrels a day.

Shell is already one of the country's largest oil sands developers.

"At the moment, our on-site cogeneration facilities have proved to be 
very efficient and very reliable and very competitive in price. But 
we are watching the nuclear brief because it may offer over time an 
economic advantage," Mather said. He cautioned nuclear waste 
containment remains an issue.

Canada's minority Conservative government says it will be impossible 
to meet the emission targets laid down by the        Kyoto protocol 
on climate change, partly because of rising emissions in the booming 
oil industry.

But it is under heavy pressure from the opposition to do what it can 
to limit those emissions.
----------------

Putin promises India more nuclear power
 
NEW DELHI (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin promised energy-
hungry India nuclear reactors and power plants after arriving on a 
mission to rejuvenate ties with Moscow's former Cold War ally. 
 
But at a meeting with Indian business leaders, Putin heard 
expressions of disappointment over the slow growth of bilateral trade 
and frustration at difficulties in cracking the Russian market.

India, which is racing to secure new sources of fuel to sustain its 
booming economy, welcomed Russian moves to help "in the expansion of 
our nuclear sector," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said after a 
signing ceremony.

"We appreciate Russian support," Singh said after the two countries 
inked a memorandum of understanding in which Russia promised four 
more nuclear reactors for a flagship nuclear plant it is building in 
Kudankulam in southern Tamil Nadu -- a state that already has two 
1,000-megawatt Russian reactors.

The symbolic highlight of Putin's two-day visit will be Friday, when 
he is guest of honour at India's Republic Day celebrations -- 
designed to show a close friendship even as New Delhi grows closer to 
the United States and other Western governments.

Putin, on his fourth visit to India since becoming president, also 
promised to co-operate in building atomic energy stations "at new 
locations in the Indian republic."

The passage last year of a landmark US-Indian deal allowing New Delhi 
access to civilian nuclear technology after decades of isolation has 
unleashed an international race to supply the Indian civilian nuclear 
energy market.

Western nations have also been jostling for a slice of India's 
lucrative civilian nuclear energy market, although any contracts with 
india still must await approval by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers 
Group, which regulates the global nuclear energy trade.

Outside of nuclear and military cooperation -- which brought a 250-
million-dollar contract Wednesday for the joint production of fighter 
jet engines -- India's business elite painted a less than rosy 
picture of relations with Russia.

"We have to seek an answer to the question why, despite strong 
political ties between two time-tested friends, bilateral trade and 
business ties remain low," Habil Khorakiwala, president of Indian 
business association FICCI, said.

Addressing Putin during a meeting with other Indian and Russian 
businessmen, Khorakiwala said it was "time to put words into practice 
and transform the willingness into actual cooperation."

Minutes after Putin said bilateral trade ties had jumped an estimated 
20 percent in 2006 to reach 3.8 billion dollars, Khorakiwala put the 
number at just 2.75 billion.

Indian businessmen have long complained of difficulties in receiving 
Russian visas, which Russia has tied to alleged problems with illegal 
Indian immigration, an Indian government official told AFP.

Still, Thursday brought agreement between India's state-run Oil and 
Natural Gas Corp and Russian state oil giant Rosneft to jointly bid 
for exploration and refining projects in India, Russia and other 
countries.

ONGC and Rosneft will build on their existing partnership in Russia's 
vast Sakhalin-1 oil and gas field, the two companies said in a joint 
statement.

The two sides also signed a 250-million-dollar deal for a Russian-
built hydroelectric power station in northern Uttar Pradesh, as well 
as a joint venture to produce titanium products in eastern Orissa.

Moscow and New Delhi were allies throughout the Cold War, agreeing to 
billions of dollars' worth of arms deals, but the ground has shifted 
as India has turned to the US and other Western countries for arms 
and investment.

Putin has said he hoped the countries would triple bilateral trade to 
10 billion dollars per year by 2010.
----------------

Offer of uranium an unsettling reminder of nuclear material on black 
market  

WASHINGTON - It was one of the most serious cases of smuggling of 
nuclear material in recent years: A Russian man, authorities allege, 
tried to sell a small amount of nuclear-bomb grade uranium in a 
plastic bag in his jacket pocket.
The buy that took place last summer, it turned out, was a setup by 
Republic of Georgia authorities, with the help of the CIA. Their 
quiet sting operation - neither U.S. nor Georgian officials have 
publicized it - is an unsettling reminder about the possibility of 
terrorists acquiring nuclear bomb-making material on the black 
market.

No evidence suggests this particular case was terrorist-related.

"Given the serious consequences of the detonation of an improvised 
nuclear explosive device, even small numbers of incidents involving 
HEU (highly enriched uranium) or plutonium are of very high concern," 
said Melissa Fleming of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy 
Agency.

Details of the investigation, which also involved the FBI and Energy 
Department, were provided to The Associated Press by U.S. officials 
and Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili.

Authorities say they do not know how the man acquired the nuclear 
material or if his claims of access to much larger quantities were 
true. He and three Georgian accomplices are in Georgian custody and 
not cooperating with investigators.

Meanwhile, Russian authorities have confirmed that weapons-grade 
uranium was confiscated from a Russian citizen in neighboring 
Georgia, but claim the ex-Soviet republic has not cooperated with 
Moscow while investigating the incident, the Interfax news agency 
reported Thursday.

According to Interfax, an unnamed source at Russia's nuclear agency, 
Rosatom, said the Russian was detained in December 2005, while a 
Georgian Interior Ministry official, Shota Utiashvili, said Thursday 
that he was detained in February 2006. Utiashvili identified the man 
as Oleg Khinsagov, a resident of Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia, a 
Russian region that borders Georgia.

There was no immediate response to requests for comment lodged with 
Rosatom, the Federal Security Service and the Interior Ministry prior 
to the Interfax report. Following the report, Rosatom spokesman Ivan 
Dybov said the agency would not comment.

Merabishvili said Georgian attempts to trace the nuclear material 
since the arrest and confirm whether the man indeed had access to 
larger quantities have foundered from a lack of cooperation from 
Russia.

Merabishvili said he was revealing the story out of frustration with 
Russia's response and the need to illustrate the dangers of a 
breakdown in security cooperation in the region.

Interfax also cited an unidentified source at Rosatom as saying 
Georgian authorities had given Russia too small a sample to determine 
its origin and had refused to provide other information.

Russia has tense relations with Georgia, like Russia a former Soviet 
republic. Georgia has been troubled by Russia's support for 
separatists in two breakaway Georgian border regions, Abkhazia and 
South Ossetia.

The sting was set up after Georgian authorities uncovered extensive 
smuggling networks while investigating criminal groups operating in 
the breakaway republics, Merabishvili said.

"When we sent buyers, the channels through Abkhazia and South Ossetia 
began to expand, and we started seeing a huge flow of materials," he 
said. "Sometimes it was low-grade enriched materials, but this was 
the first instance of highly enriched material."

According to his account, during an investigation in South Ossetia, a 
Georgian undercover agent posing as a rich foreign buyer made contact 
with the Russian seller in North Ossetia, which is part of Russia.

After the Russian offered to sell the sample, the agent rebuffed 
requests that the transaction occur in North Ossetia, insisting the 
Russian come to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

At a meeting in Tbilisi, the man pulled out from his pocket a plastic 
bag containing the material.

"He was offering this as the first stage in a deal and said he had 
other pieces, Merabishvili said. "We don't know if that was true."

Uranium is more or less harmless to carry around because, like 
plutonium and polonium, it is an alpha-emitting radioactive material 
that does not penetrate the skin. Such materials are dangerous only 
if ingested.

The radioactive emissions of highly enriched uranium are so low that 
radiation detectors often fail to pick them up if they are contained 
in a simple lead container. While it is not normally handled 
casually, research laboratories do not use the same precautions in 
handling highly enriched uranium that they use with other radioactive 
materials.

The man was arrested and sentenced to eight to 10 years in prison on 
smuggling charges. His accomplices were sentenced on lesser charges.

Russian authorities took a sample of the material but failed to offer 
any assistance despite requests for help from the Georgians, 
Merabishvili said.

"We were ready to provide all the information, but unfortunately no 
one arrived from Russia, not even to interview this person," 
Merabishvili said. "It is surprising because it is in Russian 
interests to secure these materials. There are terrorist 
organizations in Russia who would pay huge amounts of money for 
this."

The Georgians asked for U.S. assistance. Agents from the FBI and the 
Energy Department took the material back to the United States, where 
it was tested by the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security 
Administration.

"The material was analyzed by agency nuclear experts and confirmed to 
be highly enriched uranium," said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the 
agency.

Fleming, of the IAEA, said the agency was aware of the Tbilisi 
seizure and was expecting formal notification from Georgia soon.

The CIA would not comment on the case, and the FBI confirmed its 
involvement in the investigation but nothing more.

Merabishvili, who was visiting Washington this week, said he did not 
have some details of the investigation, including the exact date the 
arrest was made or the full name of the suspect. Further efforts to 
clarify with the Georgian Embassy were not successful.

None of the U.S. officials would confirm the weight of the seizure or 
its quality, but Merabishvili said it was about 3.5 ounces of uranium 
enriched by more than 90%.

Uranium enriched at 90% is weapons grade.

A nuclear bomb of a design similar to the one exploded over Hiroshima 
in 1945 would require about 110 pounds of uranium enriched at over 
90%, according to Matthew Bunn, a senior research associate who 
focuses on nuclear theft and terrorism at Harvard University's 
Kennedy School of Government. Bunn said that a more sophisticated 
implosion type nuclear bomb would require 33 to 40 pounds.

According to an IAEA database, there have been 16 previous confirmed 
cases in which either highly enriched uranium or plutonium have been 
recovered by authorities since 1993.

In most cases the recoveries have involved smaller quantities than 
the Tbilisi case. But in 1994, 6 pounds of highly enriched uranium 
intended for sale were seized by police in the Czech Republic. In 
2003, Georgian border guards using detection devices provided by the 
United States caught an Armenian man with about 5 ounces of HEU, 
according to the State Department.

Fleming said examples of stolen or missing bomb-grade nuclear 
material, including highly enriched uranium and plutonium, are rare 
and troubling.

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of the 
Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, 
said that lacking help from Russia, the CIA may be looking to other 
allies to help identify who has access to lost nuclear material.

"Russian cooperation in answering these questions is critical, but it 
has not been forthcoming," he said. "One way to identify who is 
active in trading these materials is to conduct sting operations."
----------------

Belarus to Go Nuclear 21 Years After Chernobyl

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- Belarus, hardest hit by the Chernobyl nuclear 
accident that released 400 times the radiation of the Hiroshima bomb, 
will expedite its nuclear power program as President Alexander 
Lukashenko seeks alternatives to Russian fuel. 

Lukashenko demanded the country's top officials work without pause to 
offset the $3.5 billion Belarus will lose this year in energy 
subsidies from neighboring Russia. Alternative power and energy 
efficiency will be key to plugging the gap, Lukashenko said on a 
visit to OAO Naftan, the country's biggest oil refinery. 

``There's no time for a warm-up,'' Lukashenko said in comments posted 
on his Web site. The president ``noted the necessity to make 
construction of nuclear power plants in Belarus more active,'' the 
site said. 

Belarus has clashed with Russia on energy supplies twice in the last 
month after the Kremlin sought to make relations with its neighbor 
more business-like. The sides reached an agreement to maintain 
natural gas supplies two minutes before Jan. 1, only to begin the 
battle anew over oil transit fees. 

Lukashenko demanded Russia pay taxes on its crude shipments to 
central Europe, which provoked a shut-off of the main Druzhba 
pipeline and a three-day standoff during which deliveries to central 
European refineries were disrupted. 

Market Prices 

A new Russian policy toward Belarus, which it had subsidized by as 
much as $6 billion via sales of oil and gas at below-market prices, 
leaves the eastern neighbor anxious for its ``national safety and 
integrity,'' Lukashenko said. 

A faulty safety test at a Chernobyl reactor in northern Ukraine on 
April 26, 1986, triggered the world's biggest atomic disaster, 
releasing 6.7 tons of radioactive material in the form of a cloud 
over neighboring countries and as far as Scandinavian and West 
European countries. 

Reports on how many people will be eventually affected by the 
accident range from 4,000 to more than 10 times that. Ian Fairlie, a 
radiation scientist, estimated that of the millions of people 
possibly exposed to Chernobyl's radioactive throw-out, between 30,000 
and 60,000 may die. The figures come from a report called The Other 
Report on Chernobyl, financed by the Green Party of the European 
Parliament and published in June 2006. 

Belarus plans to begin generating electricity from its first post-
Chernobyl reactor in 2012, and add a second in 2015, in a plan 
estimated to cost $3 billion, said Yaroslav Romanchuk, president of 
the Mizes scientific research center in Minsk, capital of Belarus. 

``The idea is a sound one: To secure independent, long-term energy 
supplies,'' Romanchuk said by telephone from Minsk. 

The project may hit a snag due to a lack of cash, he added. ``Atomic 
energy is a grand project that can happen only when there is money 
available,'' Romanchuk said.
----------------

Nuclear energy's French connection

MSNBC Jan 25 - Ambitious Areva is second to none at American-style 
power politics A protester plays dead during an October demonstration 
against Areva's plans to build one of its new reactors at Flamanville 
in northern France. Areva hopes to build similar plants in the United 
States through its Unistar venture with Constellation Energy.   

With help from the allies it funds in Congress and legions of highly 
paid lobbyists, the U.S. nuclear power industry won billions of 
dollars in tax breaks and subsidies for its promised "renaissance." 
But the biggest winner of all could be a French firm that most 
Americans have never heard of. 

That´s because Areva, an atomic energy giant owned by the French 
government, appears to be better positioned than any of its 
competitors to benefit from growth in the U.S. nuclear industry and 
increased federal spending on it. 

With 59,000 employees, facilities in 40 countries, operations in more 
than 100 and revenue of more than $6.6 billion in the first half of 
the current fiscal year, the firm brags in its annual report that it 
is "the only group to be active in every stage of the nuclear cycle," 
referring to divisions that cover everything from uranium mining to 
reactor construction to handling waste. 

Areva´s U.S. operations already employ 5,000 people and generate $2 
billion in revenue, but the company is hoping to add to that total. 
One of its largest potential sources of business here would be the 
sale and operation of a U.S. version of its new "evolutionary power 
reactor" now under construction in Finland. And as the world´s main 
player in the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel, Areva could profit 
substantially from the Bush administration´s Global Nuclear Energy 
Partnership. 

"Our U.S. facilities and people will contribute significantly to 
Areva´s international business and, as with all international 
companies, that growth prospect is important to Areva," the company 
said in a statement in response to questions from MSNBC.com. 

Areva, which fields an impressive stable of lobbyists in Washington, 
had strong ties to President Bush´s energy transition team before the 
administration took office. 

Energy task force members land jobs
Later, after the Bush administration hammered out its energy policy 
in a series of private meetings of a task force led by Vice President 
Dick Cheney, the company gave top posts to two senior members of the 
group - former Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and the task force's 
executive director. When the task force´s work passed through 
Congress and was signed by President Bush as the Energy Policy Act of 
2005, it contained $13 billion in government subsidies for the 
nuclear power industry. 
 
Areva told MSNBC.com that neither it "nor any associates participated 
in any task force work" and that it "did not request any effort to be 
made on its behalf" by its associates on the transition team. Abraham 
concurred: "I am personally unaware of any efforts or contacts by 
Areva or its predecessor companies to me or the task force in 
general." 

"Areva is a great company with good people who are visionary and who 
adhere to the highest ethical standards," Abraham told MSNBC.com in a 
written response to questions about his work for the firm. 

The firm makes no secret of its ambitions to continue the rapid 
growth it has experienced under its charismatic and capable CEO Anne 
Lauvergeon. 

Led by `Atomic Anne´
Called "Atomic Anne" by the French press, the 47-year-old Lauvergeon 
in recent years become one of the world´s most powerful evangelists 
for nuclear power, championing it as the answer to global warming. 
Her success in delivering that message has made her one of the 
highest-profile businesswomen on the planet, as evidenced by her move 
from No. 53 on Forbes Magazine´s 2004 list of the "100 Most Powerful 
Women" in the world to No. 8 last year. 
 
Lauvergeon´s training as a physicist, and experience in government - 
she served as an aide to the late French President Francois 
Mitterrand - and industry helped her consolidate France's nuclear 
interests with breathtaking speed after she was appointed in 1999 as 
CEO of Cogema, France´s state-owned nuclear fuel reprocessing and 
services company. By 2001, Lauvergeon had merged Cogema with 
Framatome, France´s nuclear-engineering and uranium-mining company, 
to create Areva. 

France long ago established its prowess in the nuclear field. While 
the expansion of the use of nuclear energy stalled in the U.S. in the 
1970s and ´80s, France forged ahead and achieved global domination of 
several key sectors of the industry. Today, France gets nearly 80 
percent of its electricity from nuclear power while the United States 
is far down the list at 20 percent. In its latest annual report, 
Areva claims to be the world leader in construction and servicing of 
nuclear reactors, with 30 percent of the market; fuel reprocessing, 
80 percent; and spent fuel treatment, 70 percent. It also controls 
large shares of the world's uranium mining and enrichment operations. 
The company´s stated goal is to "capture one-third of the world 
market by 2010" across all sectors of the industry. 

While Areva sees potential for growth in Europe and Asia, its most 
recent annual report is peppered with references to new opportunities 
in the United States. The 2005 energy bill, which lavished subsidies 
and tax credits on the nuclear industry, is mentioned frequently. 
Areva created Unistar, a joint venture with the U.S. firm 
Constellation Energy to sell and operate new reactors in the United 
States, soon after the passage of the energy bill, and its sponsors 
claimed the creation of the new firm was a direct result of the 
legislation.
--------------------

Five charged over nuclear protest  
 
AWE is the headquarters of Britain's nuclear development programme 
Five people have been charged and three cautioned over a protest 
outside a nuclear weapons factory. 
On Tuesday, eight protesters chained themselves together on the A340 
outside the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) site at Aldermaston, 
Berkshire. 

Campaigners are angry over plans to develop a replacement for 
Trident, the UK's nuclear defence system. 

Three men and two women, all from Scotland, were charged with 
wilfully obstructing a highway. 

The people, aged between 19 and 32, will appear before magistrates in 
Newbury on 1 February. 

Two men, aged 20 and 26, and a 37-year-old woman received adult 
cautions.
------------------

Alternate Energy Holdings (AEHI) Seeks to Purchase Operating Nuclear 
Plant in the U.S.

ROANOKE, VA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 01/25/07 -- Alternate Energy Holdings 
(PINKSHEETS: AEHI) announced its active intentions to purchase an 
operating nuclear plant, located within the United States, for 
optimization and additional nuclear construction. The company is 
contacting nuclear plant owners directly at this time to initiate 
negotiations and is willing to pay upwards of one billion dollars for 
a deregulated site. After assuming ownership, AEHI intends to 
optimize the plant's performance to generate immediate profit and, 
under the provisions of the 2005 Energy Bill, begin construction of 
an additional nuclear unit on the site within two years. President 
and CEO Don Gillispie states, "We think many of the nuclear plants 
sold over the past several years were priced below their actual 
market value considering, among other things, the demand for clean 
energy to reduce CO2 emissions. Excluding a shrinking contribution 
from hydro and small additions by wind and solar, nuclear stands 
alone as the only CO2 free, cost competitive, large scale power 
source available to address global warming."
----------------

Officials: No harmful radiation at Piketon site

Residents still are asking for more information

Central Ohio.com Jan 25 - Radiation is indeed present in and around 
the Piketon uranium enrichment plant site, but the state 
Environmental Protection Agency said there's not enough of it to do 
any harm.  

"The Ohio EPA concluded that the radiation source was Probably 
uranium and not radon," said Timothy Christman, professional engineer 
with the EPA. "Uranium sources include coal, soil and the uranium 
enrichment process."
   
At a public meeting Wednesday night at Piketon High School, EPA 
officials released results of tests which concluded although there is 
a presence of radioactive material, the levels are low enough to meet 
safety standards, Christman said. 

"The levels are extremely low," Christman said. "Black shale in Ohio 
also contains uranium and that's naturally occurring."
It's impossible to completely eradicate radiation sources since they 
are present in the natural environment, Christman said.

"Radiation comes from the sun, you'll get more radiation exposure 
traveling in the airplane," he said. "The radiation you'd get living 
here is lower than what you'd get from visiting the dentist's 
office."

Although the Department of Energy has spent more than $1 billion to 
clean up the plant site, it still continues to slowly leak 
contaminants from it southern point. Deep water "plumes," or wells 
beneath the ground, contain contaminants carried through Gallia sand 
and gravel. Barriers stopped the flow of other contaminated plumes on 
the site, but the south end continues to leak, said Groundwater 
Specialist Doug Snyder, a geologist with the Ohio EPA.

"We've put a clay barrier in to contain the leak, because water 
doesn't travel very well through the clay," Snyder said. "But some 
contaminants have migrated to the west of that barrier."

The leak moves slowly, however, giving scientists more time to 
contain it.

"For the water to travel from here to the back of the room (about 40 
feet) it would take months, possibly years," Snyder said. "We do have 
a little bit of radioactivity in that south plume, but we have time 
to contain it."

Neighbors of the Piketon plant said no levels of radioactivity in or 
near their properties can be safe.

"They've all acknowledged that there is radioactivity present, but 
they haven't answered why we have a high reading," said Vina Colley, 
who said she worked at the plant for five years. "When I worked there 
we cleaned uranium contaminated cells and we dumped it all down the 
drain. I got sick, and I've had three tumors."

The EPA acknowledges there was nuclear waste handled on the site and 
possibly was not disposed of properly. When operations began at the 
plant in the 1950s, laws regarding handling of nuclear waste were non-
existent, said Maria Galanti, site coordinator for the EPA.

"This site had poor management practices," Galanti said. "All the 
facilities like this had poor practices, but this plant poses some of 
the most serious technical problems from a clean-up standpoint."

Many people present at the meeting also had concerns about the future 
of the site, many of which the EPA was unable to answer.

"We can't really speak or speculate on decisions regarding the future 
of the plant," Mary McCarron, a spokesperson for the EPA. "Many of 
these questions should be directed to the DOE."

The future of the site has been the subject of controversy. A 
proposal by the Southern Ohio Nuclear Integration Cooperative for use 
of the plant as a site for recycled nuclear waste products have been 
met with a heated response from some residents, who said having such 
a site jeopardizes their health and safety.

The Department of Energy plans to discuss the future of the site at a 
private meeting scheduled for March 8.

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/