[ RadSafe ] Pilgrim nuclear plant's risks, benefits debated

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Pilgrim nuclear plant's risks, benefits debated
With Apologies, Nuclear Power Gets a Second Look 
Nuclear plant faces action after worker contaminated
Russia committed to Iran nuclear plant launch
Siberian city poses nuclear black-market threat     
Britian University students to be screened amid nuclear fears
Nuclear power may get boost - Power providers want federal backing
Downwinders mark nuclear test day
=================================

Pilgrim nuclear plant's risks, benefits debated

Boston Globe Jan 28 - At a public forum Wednesday in Plymouth, 
critics told federal regulators that the Pilgrim nuclear power plant 
poses health and safety risks that must be considered in deciding 
whether to let the plant operate an additional 20 years. Supporters 
emphasized what they called the important role Pilgrim plays in 
meeting the region's energy needs.  

Beyond security concerns, critics of relicensing also contended that 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 's environmental impact study 
minimizes the health risks of radioactive releases from the plant.

A draft of the study -- prepared by NRC professional staff and 
reviewed by a private consultant -- concluded that environmental 
impacts from Pilgrim were minimal, and that replacing Pilgrim's 
energy by alternate means such as coal-burning electric generations 
would be much worse for the environment.

The study said the only impacts that rose to the level of "moderate" 
were on winter flounder and rainbow smelt. It also said warm water 
released by Pilgrim's cooling system would have a "small to moderate" 
effect on other maritime species.  

Pine duBois of the Kingston-based Jones River Watershed Association 
said local fisheries were in "severe decline" and that Pilgrim needs 
to modify its water intake structure to reduce the number of 
flounder, smelt, and other fish it kills. DuBois also said the 
plant's "continued daily discharge of superheated water" is causing a 
general rise in the bay's temperature and needs attention. "We can't 
delay that attention."  

But Ben Morgan , a Chatham fish hatchery owner, backed a mitigation 
effort by Pilgrim. He said an ongoing program to release hatchery-
spawned flounder into the bay is succeeding in replacing lost winter 
flounder.

Supporters of relicensing praised Pilgrim's "clean, low-cost reliable 
energy," in the words of Joyce McMahon , spokeswoman for the 
Massachusetts Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance , and 
contended that Pilgrim's continued operation was necessary to meet 
the region's growing energy needs.

Peter Forman , president of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce and a 
former state legislator, described Pilgrim "as an economic pillar for 
the South Shore" in a statement released by McMahon. Forman said that 
without Pilgrim, the high cost of energy would discourage investment 
in the region.

Supporters also praised Pilgrim's safety record.

Arthur Gast , a former member of the Plymouth Nuclear Matters 
Committee , said Pilgrim operates "quietly and safely" and has 
regularly received NRC's highest safety rating in annual safety 
reviews.

But Rebecca Chin of Duxbury's Nuclear Matters Advisory Committee , a 
town-appointed panel, said NRC staff "mischaracterized" a study of 
increased cancer incidences in Southeast Massachusetts published by 
the state Department of Public Health in 1990 . Chin said more recent 
studies established the increased risks of an aging population's 
susceptibility to radiation.

In its environmental impact statement, NRC staff cited the 
conclusions of a peer review board that evaluated the state's cancer 
study and concluded there was no causal relationship between Pilgrim 
and area cancer rates.

NRC staff said they will accept written comments from the public on 
the environmental study e-mailed to PilgrimEIS at nrc.gov until Feb. 28. 
The final report is due in July .

The NRC will be in Plymouth again Tuesday to present the results of a 
safety inspection of Pilgrim. The public meeting takes place at 6:30 
p.m. at the Hilton Garden Inn at 4 Home Depot Drive , off Long Pond 
Road .
---------------

With Apologies, Nuclear Power Gets a Second Look 

Virginia May/Associated Press Jan 28 - FEW subjects seem less suited 
to the intoxicating air of the World Economic Forum´s annual 
conference than nuclear energy. Aging, expensive, unpopular, and 
still vulnerable to catastrophic accidents, it is the antithesis of 
the kinds of cutting-edge solutions that beguile the wealthy and well 
intentioned, who gather each winter in this Alpine ski resort.  

And yet nuclear energy is suddenly back on the agenda - and not just 
here. Spurred on by politicians interested in energy independence and 

scientists who specialize in the field of climate change, Germany is 
reconsidering a commitment to shut down its nuclear power plants. 
France, Europe´s leading nuclear power producer, is increasing its 
investment, as is Finland.

At a time when industrialized countries are wrestling with how to 
curb carbon dioxide emissions, nuclear energy has one indisputable 
advantage: unlike coal, oil, natural gas, or even biological fuels, 
it emits no carbon dioxide. That virtue, in the view of advocates, is 
enough to offset its well-documented shortcomings.

"It has put nuclear back into the mix," said Daniel C. Esty, director 
of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. 
"We´re seeing a new balancing of the costs and benefits."

But being in the mix does not mean nuclear energy will shove aside 
fossil fuels any time soon. In a way, the revival of interest in 
nuclear power illustrates the lack of palatable choices to combat 
global warming.

Renewable energy, while growing steadily, has limitations. Windmills 
don´t turn when the wind isn´t blowing; solar power and geothermal 
energy are not yet economical enough; hydroelectric dams can be 
disruptive themselves. 

That leaves nuclear power as a "clean" alternative to fossil fuels. 
It already generates one-sixth of the world´s electricity, but it 
fell out of favor in the West two decades ago after the Chernobyl and 

Three Mile Island accidents. The previous German government, in fact, 
pledged to shut down its last nuclear power station by 2022. 

But now Germany has also committed to deep reductions in carbon 
dioxide emissions in the next decade, and its new chancellor, Angela 
Merkel, rekindled the debate over nuclear energy by saying, "We 
should consider what consequences it will have if we shut off our 
nuclear power plants."

That comment was a reference to Europe´s increasing vulnerability as 
an importer of foreign fossil fuels. Just as the United States 
worries about disruptions in the supply of Middle East oil, Europe 
worries about Russia´s penchant for using its gas and oil pipelines 
as a political weapon. 

In a recent report, Deutsche Bank declared that Germany´s energy 
policy was untenable. "Far from reducing carbon emissions and 
securing future energy supplies," it concluded, "current policies 
would increase both emissions and Germany´s dependence on foreign gas 
imports."

Even in the United States, which has not ordered cuts in carbon 
dioxide emissions, there are more voices in favor of building nuclear 
plants. "The question is, how do we produce enough electricity?" said 

James E. Rogers, the chief executive of Duke Energy Corporation, a 
major energy supplier. "We need to put our money on nuclear." 

Critics point out that nuclear reactors are astronomically expensive, 
and take a decade or more to build, even if environmental groups fail 
to block construction altogether. 

Given the entrenched opposition in parts of Western Europe and 
America, some experts say that if the world does turn to nuclear 
power, most of the new plants will be in China, India and other 
developing countries. 

They also point out that the issue of security cuts both ways. 
Building more plants may reduce a country´s reliance on imported oil 
and gas, but it also creates more targets for terrorist attacks. And 
there is the nuclear fuel cycle: North Korea and other countries are 
already suspected of diverting enriched uranium to try to make 
nuclear weapons. Those dangers would only multiply with an increase 
in the global demand for nuclear power. 

John P. Holdren, the director of the Woods Hole Research Center, said 
that if current economic predictions held, nuclear energy would have 
to generate one-third of the world´s electricity by 2100 to curb the 
rise in carbon dioxide emissions. That would require a tenfold 
increase in the number of plants, to more than 3,000.

To manage such a risk, Mr. Holdren said, the world would need a 
radically new regime for policing nuclear technology. One option 
would be international supervision of all nuclear plants. But is that 
realistic? Could all countries be treated equally?

Right now, the United Nations is demanding that Iran suspend its 
enrichment of uranium, to forestall the possibility that it might be 
used for a weapons program. It would be, at the least, awkward for 
European countries to plunge back into nuclear energy at the same 
time that European diplomats are demanding that the Iranians scale 
back their nuclear ambitions.

With so many downsides, even advocates acknowledge that nuclear power 
should play only a partial role in the energy mix - and then only for 
an interim period, until it is replaced by newer technologies.

Of course, there is another alternative: energy efficiency. But under 
the snow-capped peaks of Davos, the idea of simply turning down the 
thermostat has not yet caught on.
-------------------

Nuclear plant faces action after worker contaminated

Sunday Herald Jan 28 - THE DOUNREAY nuclear complex is facing legal 
action for failing to store radioactive waste safely after an 
incident in which a worker was contaminated with plutonium.  

The government's Nuclear Installations Inspectorate(NII)hasservedtwo 
improvement notices on the plant's operator, the UK Atomic Energy 
Authority (UKAEA), obliging it to remedy the problem. Inspectors are 
also considering sending a report to the procurator fiscal.

A worker was found to have accidentally inhaled plutonium while 
decommissioninganoldfuel-processing laboratoryonJanuary 12 last year. 

Subsequentinvestigationsuncovered half a dozen contaminated lead 
bricks left on a shelf nearby.

According to one of the notices issued by the NII, the bricks were 
stored "withoutadequate levels of containment". They also lacked 
"adequate means of physicalprotection"and"anyidentification by means 
of marking or labelling".

The other legal notice alleges that inadequate safety records were 
kept. Dounreay has been given until April 6 to comply with both 
notices and could be fined if it fails to do so.

According to Dounreay's spokesman, Colin Punler, the plan had been to 
reuse the bricks but the project for which they were intended had 
been shelved. "We have very good procedures for dealing with items 
with significant amounts of radioactivity," he said.

"But this revealed gaps in the way we dealt with items with small 
amounts of radioactivity. We are now fixing those gaps and confident 
of complying with the requirements laid down by the regulator."

News of the latest legal action comes after it was confirmed that 
Dounreay is to be prosecuted for allowing hundreds of thousands of 
radioactive particles to leak into the sea and on to local beaches 
before 1984. The UKAEA has been cited to appear in court in Wick on 
February 6.

Meanwhile, theSundayHerald revealed last week that decommissioning 
work at Dounreay was threatened with delaysandjob losses because of a 
government financial crisis. The plant could suffer major cuts in its 
budget for 2007-08 because of losses made by the Nuclear 
Decommissioning Authority, the state agency that funds Dounreay.
---------------

Russia committed to Iran nuclear plant launch

TEHRAN (AFP) - Visiting Russian security chief Igor Ivanov said that 
Moscow is committed to launching Iran's first nuclear power plant on 
schedule in September, the official IRNA news agency reported. 
 
"Russia is determined and serious in fulfilling its obligation to 
finish Bushehr plant on the scheduled date," Ivanov was quoted as 
saying Sunday after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr 
Mottaki.

In September 2006, Russia and Iran signed an agreement setting 
September this year as the deadline for the launch of the Russian-
built Bushehr nuclear power station which lies on the Gulf coast in 
southwestern Iran.

The plant will actually produce electricity from November 2007, and 
the nuclear fuel for the plant is to be delivered no later than 
March.

Ivanov, the Russian Security Council secretary, is also due to meet 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and national security chief and 
top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

He is expected to hold a press conference with his Iranian 
counterpart later.

Russia supports Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology but voted 
for a UN Security Council resolution in December that imposes 
sanctions on Tehran over its repeated refusal to freeze uranium 
enrichment.
----------------

Siberian city poses nuclear black-market threat       

MOSCOW (AP) Jan 28 -- Novosibirsk is located in the depths of 
Siberia, but despite the remoteness it's one of Russia's main areas 
for nuclear activity and a cause of concern for those worried about 
nuclear materials falling into terrorists' hands.
 
The concerns about Russia's third-largest city rose to the forefront 
last week after officials in the former Soviet republic of Georgia 
announced the arrest of a Russian for allegedly trying to sell 
weapons-grade uranium to an undercover agent.

The man, who was arrested last year, initially told his interrogators 
the uranium came from Novosibirsk, 1,600 miles east of Moscow, 
Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told The 
Associated Press on Saturday. He later recanted his statement, but 
Georgian authorities sent a letter to Russia's Federal Security 
Service inquiring about the possible link to Novosibirsk, Utiashvili 
said. The agency declined to comment Saturday.

A top Russian science official has said the sample of the alleged 
contraband uranium provided by Georgia was too small for analysis 
that could determine its origin.

The episode appeared to cast doubt on Russia's ability to halt the 
black-market trade in nuclear materials and renewed concern about 
security at Russia's array of nuclear facilities.

The Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant is one of Russia's main 
facilities for producing enriched uranium both for use in nuclear 
reactors and in the higher concentration that could be used to make 
an atomic bomb.

In addition, highly enriched uranium has been shipped into 
Novosibirsk in recent years from former Soviet bloc countries, 
including Poland and Romania. Under a program backed by the 
International Atomic Energy Agency, the uranium is to be blended down 
into lower concentrations.

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration funded a program to 
improve security at the Novosibirsk plant as part of a wider 
initiative to boost security at facilities throughout Russia. The 
NNSA says the Novosibirsk plant completed its upgrade in late 2004.

However, security apparently was lax in Novosibirsk for years before 
that. In 2002, the head of the agency that was then responsible for 
security at nuclear facilities admitted that weapons-grade nuclear 
material had disappeared from Russian facilities.

"Most often, these instances are connected with factories preparing 
fuel" including Novosibirsk's, the official, Yuri Vishnyevsky, said 
at the time.

Novosibirsk was also the site of the 1997 arrest of two men who 
officials said intended to smuggle some 11 pounds of enriched uranium 
to Pakistan or China. That uranium reportedly was stolen from a plant 
in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Security at Russia's nuclear facilities was seen as deteriorating 
rapidly in the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
when economic hardships made black-market activities increasingly 
widespread and as political chaos left official lines of command and 
supervision shaky.

The U.S.-based organization Nuclear Threat Initiative said in a 
report last year that Russia remains the prime country of concern for 
contraband nuclear material.

"Russia has the world's largest stockpiles of both nuclear weapons 
and the materials to make them, scattered among hundreds of buildings 
and bunkers at scores of sites. Over the past 15 years security for 
those stockpiles has improved from poor to moderate, but there remain 
immense threats those security systems must confront," the NTI said.
------------------

Britian University students to be screened amid nuclear fears

BRITAIN may force foreign postgraduates studying nuclear physics or 
biochemistry to undergo tough new security checks amid fears they 
could use their knowledge to make nuclear weapons.

Students from outside the European Union face screening, regardless 
of their home country, under a government plan revealed in The 
Observer newspaper.

An unnamed Foreign Office source said students' visa applications 
would be blocked if they were thought to be risky following security 
checks into why they were coming to Britain and what they studied 
before.

"We do not want students who come to the UK to gain knowledge going 
home and using it as part of a nuclear weapons program," the official 
told the paper.

"Overseas students from outside the EU who are pursuing courses will 
have to go through proper security vetting to check their 
credentials."

Subjects to be targeted include physics, metallurgy, microbiology, 
biophysics and electrical, chemical and mechanical engineering in an 
overhaul of the present voluntary vetting scheme, where some 
universities agree to report students who arouse suspicion.

Association of Heads of University Administration chairman David 
Allen welcomed the proposal but warned British Universities could 
lose students to other countries as a result.

"We don't want students to go to the US or Australia while they are 
waiting to hear from the UK," he told the Research Fortnight 
newspaper. 
--------------

Nuclear power may get boost - Power providers want federal backing

WASHINGTON - The Dallas Morning News Jan 28 - To kick-start the U.S. 
nuclear power industry, the federal government is preparing to spend 
billions of dollars to prove a point to Wall Street.  

Proponents of nuclear power are banking on federal support to show 
investors that revamped licensing procedures and new technology won't 
result in mammoth cost overruns that defined the last era of nuclear 
plant construction.

Whether that support materializes may make the difference between a 
future of growth or stagnation for nuclear power, which now provides 
20 percent of the U.S. electricity supply.

Energy companies have announced their interest in building as many as 
30 new reactors, including at least six in Texas.

Dallas-based TXU Corp. alone says it may construct six new reactors 
at three sites.

But most energy executives remain cautious publicly about their 
prospects. Bond agencies have already warned that companies taking on 
the multibillion-dollar risk of a new plant could put their credit 
ratings at risk. Investors generally are interested in shorter-term 
projects.

Even the strongest supporters of nuclear power agree that the 
industry's goals hinge on the government's financial support to show 
that new plants can get built on time and on budget.

"The industry has been dormant for so many years," said Keith McCoy, 
vice presi dent of resources and environmental policy at the National 

Association of Manufacturers. "In order to move nuclear energy back 
to a level of where we should be, you're going to need some 
incentives."

Once promoted as a limitless source of low-cost electricity, nuclear 
plants would be derided as boondoggles on the backs of taxpayers and 
consumers.

Numerous plants went off schedule and over budget. TXU's Comanche 
Peak power plant took two decades to build. Its original estimate: 
less than $1 billion. The final: $11 billion.

Dozens of nuclear construction projects were canceled in the 1970s 
and 1980s. No new reactors have been ordered since before the 1979 
meltdown at Three Mile Island that raised government scrutiny and 
scared off much of the public.

But as other nations moved forward with new construction, U.S. 
lawmakers reawakened to the idea of new plants. Environmental 
concerns throughout the 1990s helped give the industry new momentum.

Soaring oil and gas prices in recent years, along with worries about 
global warming, have allowed the nuclear industry to market itself as 
a stable source of emissions-free power.

The federal government has already committed $6 billion in tax 
credits for the first companies to build new plants. The Department 
of Energy has also promised $260 million to offset plant design and 
application costs with NuStart, a consortium of nuclear operators 
aiming to build new plants.

Critics and supporters agree that two of the most critical issues 
have yet to be resolved.

Storing the radioactive waste produced at nuclear plants has shown 
few signs of resolution, as Nevada lawmakers block development of the 

Yucca Mountain Repository. Spent fuel remains at nuclear reactor 
sites across the country.

"The industry and investors need to see progress on waste," said 
Christine Tezak, a policy analyst at Stanford Group Co. in 
Washington.

With Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada as the new Senate majority leader, "we 
may need to adjust our definition of progress."

Companies are also waiting to see how the Bush administration 
proposes to fund the $2 billion in loan guarantees that the 2005 
energy bill has authorized.
---------------

Downwinders mark nuclear test day

Idaho Statesman Jan 28 - On Friday afternoon, Tona Henderson and J 
Truman wandered through the rows of the Emmett cemetery, stopping at 
one headstone: that of Paul Cooper, an Army veteran who died in 1978 
from leukemia he said was caused by exposure to radiation from 
nuclear tests. 

Then Henderson turned and looked a few rows down and found another 
familiar name:  Sheri Garmon, her friend and fellow activist who 
brought national attention to the plight of Idaho's downwinders 
before succumbing to cancer herself in September 2005. 

"She wouldn't have necessarily been dead if we had listened to what 
Paul Cooper had said in 1977," a tearful Henderson said. 

On Saturday, she and dozens of other Idaho downwinders gathered at 
the Idaho Historical Museum to share their stories and to try to make 

sure the past's lessons aren't forgotten as the U.S. government 
pushes to test new weapons at the Nevada Test Site.

The conference of downwinders marked the 56th anniversary of nuclear 
testing at the Nevada Test Site, whose fallout has been linked to 
cancer and other illnesses in thousands of Americans living downwind 
of the site.

Twenty-one counties in Utah, Nevada and Arizona are covered by the 
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which makes cancer 
victims and their survivors from those counties eligible for $50,000 
in "compassionate payments."

Four Idaho counties were among the top five counties in the country 
for fallout from radioactive iodine-131, according to a 1997 National 

Cancer Institute study. Iodine-131 can cause thyroid cancer. 

The 50 people who gathered Saturday also came to voice their 
opposition to the Divine Strake test - what many fear is the 
beginning of another round of nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. 
The U.S. government wants to test a 700-ton underground explosive 
later this year that would reportedly be able to destroy underground 
military compounds. 

But activists fear Divine Strake could send fallout still lingering 
at the site back into the air. 

"We are not going to allow another generation of us to be created," 
Truman said.

A public meeting in Boise about Divine Strake is set for today.

On Saturday, Gov. Butch Otter issued a proclamation designating 
Saturday as Downwinders Day of Remembrance.

Those attending Saturday's event said they are hopeful they will see 
support for their cause from local and state officials.

Boise's Charlie Smith, an activist for awareness about the 
environmental causes of cancer, funded the conference. Her son 
Trevor, 17, was diagnosed with a medulablastoma brain tumor on Nov. 
15, 2002 when the family was living in McCall. 

Through her own research, Smith is convinced that her son's cancer 
could have been caused by cyanide mining or even fallout from the 
Hanford Site nuclear reactors.




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 

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Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/