[ RadSafe ] [nuclear news] Exelon Nuclear started looking at Matagorda County ‘months and months ago’

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Exelon Nuclear started looking at Matagorda County `months ago'
Reconsidering nuclear power
Tennessee Radiation levels in landfill raise group's concern
Radiation from health scans causes concern
Thailand Nuclear plants must wait for changes to law
Activists demand full details of German nuclear plant fire 
India to participate in global nuclear fusion plan
South African Official says nuclear waste site safe  
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Exelon Nuclear started looking at Matagorda County `months and months 
ago´

Victoria Advocate Jul 5 - It was announced on June 28 that Exelon 
Nuclear, an electric utility company, plans on filing a federal 
license application in order to build and operate a nuclear power 
plant on one of two sites in the region. 

The company´s first choice would be in Matagorda County, roughly 10 
miles south of Collegeport, and be housed on 1,250 acres. The power 
company´s second choice would be an 11,500-acre site 20 miles south 
of Victoria, in Victoria County. "We understand we´re in competition 
with the Victoria site, but I think we´ve got a great fit. We know 
what it´s like to have a nuclear facility," said Mitch Thames, 
president of the Bay City Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture, who 
added: "When you spend $25 million to get a permit, it makes sense 
they would identify two sites."

Thames said it would still be a year before Exelon Nuclear finishes 
the application process, which - like NRG Energy´s current bid to 
build and operate two new nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project 
site - often involves completing a room full of paperwork. "They 
anticipate getting the building and operating license permit by Nov. 
of ´08," he said, before adding, "Then the (U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission) has their timeline."

Thames said initially he was notified by the governor´s office in 
Austin that an unnamed company was interested in building in 
Matagorda County. It wasn´t until much later that he learned that it 
was Exleon Nuclear. 

"A lot of this started months and months ago," Thames said. "I think 
there were 68 counties that were in the running. They´re the ones 
that met the objectives. And then we were contacted for site visits 
and the rest, they say, is history."

He said the Matagorda site was especially attractive to Exelon 
Nuclear because of the power grid that´s already in place from when 
STP built Unit1 and Unit 2 in the 80s.

"Just like (STP´s proposed) Unit 3 and Unit 4, they´re looking for 
access to their grid, which is all of those power lines that leave 
the power plant," Thames said. "(Exelon) has easy access to their 
grid. You have water. We have rail, and most of that´s for the 
construction phases. But more importantly, you have an environment of 
citizens that are welcoming to nuclear power."

The project is expected to cost an estimated $6 billion dollars to 
build and include two new reactors. However, unlike STP´s two 
reactors that are already operational, private financiers would fund 
the construction of Exelon Energy´s new plant, relieving citizens of 
the tax burden. 

While Thames is looking forward to the nuclear facility coming to 
Matagorda County, he admits there are still many issues to be 
resolved
"There´s a big gap between picking the site and building the site," 
he said. "There´s a lot of off ramps, so I´m not putting my bets on 
the line just yet. I still got my money in my hand."
----------------

Reconsidering nuclear power

Proponents turn to alternative form of energy despite ban on 
constructing new reactors

DIABLO CANYON Jul 4  -- The nuclear power plant nestled on the cliffs 
of Central California's scenic coast has for decades been a remnant 
of our energy past, rife with memories of protests and lingering 
security concerns.
That is changing.

As California grapples with global warming, energy-industry leaders, 
environmentalists and policymakers are subtly -- but significantly -- 
starting to shift their thinking about the controversial power 
source.

"Nuclear power has to be part of the solution," Stanford University 
President John Hennessy said at an alternative-energy gathering in 
Sunnyvale this spring. "Can we really understand the notion of risk? 
Nuclear plants versus carbon emissions -- which will kill and has 
killed more people?"

The audience applauded.

Unlike natural gas and coal, nuclear energy does not produce 
greenhouse gas and is becoming an alternative-energy dark horse.

In California, however, with its strong environmental stance and a 31-
year-old ban on construction of new reactors, nuclear power faces 
immense political and practical hurdles.

Last week, the state's energy commission reviewed new ways to handle 
the radioactive waste produced by nuclear energy -- the biggest legal 
obstacle to building new plants in California. One possible option 
could be to reprocess, or recycle, the waste.

Moving ahead

Other states -- where nuclear energy isn't as controversial -- are 
moving more quickly. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
expects applications for as many as 28 new nuclear reactors during 
the next two years.

That construction boom is spurred by a growing demand for 
electricity, volatile natural gas prices, concerns about global 
climate change and federal subsidies. There are 104 operating nuclear 
reactors in the United States producing about 20 percent of the 
country's electricity. The last one opened in 1996.

Dennis Spurgeon, the Bush administration's senior nuclear technology 
official, said new plants could be running by 2015.

"It's not a pipe dream. It's happening," said Spurgeon, whose 
experience in energy dates to the Ford administration. "The existing 
reactors are very safe. The new ones are even better."

And although many planned nuclear plants have never been built 
because of the high construction costs and lengthy review processes, 
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes there's enough momentum 
that some of the expected plant applications will result in 
construction.

"This time, we are taking it very seriously," said David McIntyre, 
the commission's public affairs officer. "Our agency has been 
reorganized to prepare for these applications coming in. We're hiring 
people right and left. Congress has given us a budget increase."

Even some environmentalists are willing to consider nuclear energy.

"We think global warming is such a tremendous planetary problem that 
we're not going to refuse to look at it," said Karen Douglas, 
director of the California climate initiative of Environmental 
Defense. However, the group does not support an expansion of nuclear-
power capacity until issues such as safety, security, waste and 
nuclear-weapons proliferation are resolved, she said.

Critics such as the Natural Resource Defense Council's Ralph 
Cavanagh, who has staunchly defended the California moratorium, said 
talk of a nuclear revival is "as predictable as the spring." 

He said there are still concerns about waste disposal, the lingering 
threat of nuclear proliferation and the high costs of building 
plants.

"The nuclear renaissance tends to be built around idle talk by people 
with vague ideas around economic development," Cavanagh said.

Other opponents, including Julie Enszer of the Nuclear Policy 
Research Institute, also raise concerns about the safety of nuclear 
waste. Americans are still worried about the potential for accidental 
exposure to radioactive nuclear waste, she said.

"People in the U.S. are still opposed to nuclear power," said Enszer, 
"and that hasn't really abated since the partial meltdown of Three 
Mile Island" in Pennsylvania in 1979. Since then, California in 
particular has led the nation in the anti-nuclear movement, she said.

"People around the country look to Californians to carry that 
mantle," she said.

State's perspective

As the nation enters a new nuclear era, the California Environmental 
Protection Agency's Dan Skopec said climate change provides the 
perfect opportunity to revisit the power source.

"We need to have a debate on nuclear," said Skopec, who was appointed 
undersecretary for the agency by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In California, one of nine states with laws that hinder nuclear-power-
plant construction, about 13 percent of California's energy comes 
from two operating nuclear plants, PG&E's Diablo Canyon and Southern 
California Edison's San Onofre Generating Station.

There are two separate pushes for more.

A group of Fresno businessmen formed the Fresno Nuclear Energy Group, 
which plans to introduce a statewide ballot measure next year seeking 
to override California law and allow voters to decide whether they 
want a $4 billion nuclear plant in that area.

"If your goals are going to be cheap energy to keep the economy 
rolling and to stop global warming and provide clean energy, the 
available options at this point in time are very few," John Hutson, 
president and chief executive of the group.

If approved, the plant could be built in four years, he said.

Patrick Moore, a founder of Greenpeace who has infuriated many in the 
environmental community because of his stance for nuclear power, said 
he is "very supportive" of the Fresno strategy.

"If it isn't done, California will never meet its (carbon dioxide) 
objective in a million years," Moore said.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, proposed a bill this year that 
would lift California's statewide construction ban. The bill died in 
committee, but DeVore said he'll bring it back year after year.

"When ratepayers have blackouts and brownouts and they see their 
residential energy costs spike through the roof, eventually they will 
call for a real solution," DeVore said.

Until now, California has been able to rely on low-cost coal to 
provide about 16 percent of its energy. But this year, state 
regulators effectively banned coal because they ordered utilities to 
buy power that is as clean as that produced by the latest generation 
of natural-gas-fired turbines. Coal is not.

The state needs to find replacement power but faces tough choices. 
Natural gas is cheap but produces carbon dioxide. Renewable sources 
such as wind and solar produce no carbon but are expensive and 
unreliable.

That leaves nuclear energy.

Wind, now the cheapest of renewable energies, is expected to cost 6.8 
cents per kilowatt-hour by 2020, according to the Federal Energy 
Information Administration. Natural gas, by comparison, would cost 
5.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. Nuclear energy would cost 6.1 cents per 
kilowatt-hour. All the figures include the cost of plant 
construction.

Advocates argue that not including construction costs, nuclear power 
is the cheapest option of all. The California Energy Commission's 
most recent estimates put nuclear power's current cost at 1.4 cents 
to 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Industry view

>From the outside looking in, the prospect of California trying to cut 
carbon without more nuclear power seems idyllic at best and 
impossible at worst, according to business and political leaders 
nationwide.

"We don't believe that conservation and renewables combined will be 
sufficient to meet demand in our market for an extended period of 
time," said Brad Peck, spokesman for the Columbia Generating Station, 
a nuclear plant in Washington state that feeds a small amount of 
power to Northern California. "You simply can't conserve yourself 
into prosperity."

The leader of PG&E Corp., the parent company of Northern California's 
largest utility, agrees. "We need all of the options to meet this 
huge challenge and, therefore, nuclear ought to be on the table," 
said Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Peter Darbee.

The utility doesn't plan to push for a new nuclear-energy plant in 
California, he said, but it will purchase power from out of state.

Tom King, chief executive of PG&E's utility unit, Pacific Gas & 
Electric, said the company doesn't want to force nuclear reactors on 
its customers until the public's perception of nuclear energy 
changes.

"We think it's important that we take the time to educate people ... 
before we put a stake in the ground and say we need nuclear," King 
said.

Diablo Canyon

At PG&E's Diablo Canyon, those efforts are in full swing.

During a recent tour for MediaNews, an engineer and the 
communications director repeatedly noted safety and security 
measures. There are metal detectors and guards searching bags before 
employees enter the plant. A military-style police force with 
automatic weapons makes rounds in the spent-fuel area. And the plant 
itself is a fortress, protected by rolling landscape on one side and 
a rock barrier on the other.

Public tours stopped after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"The industry initially for a long time wasn't interested in 
necessarily educating the public," said Pete Resler, Diablo Canyon's 
communications director. He wants to change that.

Resler's renewed interest in winning over the public also could be 
attributed to a looming deadline for his plant.

Diablo Canyon may have to shut down by 2010 if it doesn't win 
approval for more storage space. The plant provides 2,300 megawatts 
of electricity, enough to power about 2 million homes.

Nuclear waste

Diablo Canyon illustrates nuclear power's biggest challenge: 
radioactive waste. Radiation exposure, such as the kind that can be 
caused by nuclear waste, increases the risk of health problems, 
including cancer.

Although nuclear power produces a relatively small amount of waste -- 
Diablo Canyon's 22 years of waste would fill a pool about the size of 
a basketball court -- dealing with it raises big concerns.

Most nuclear reactors store waste on site in cooling pools or storage 
cylinders that prevent radiation leakage. Eventually, the plants will 
run out of storage room.

The federal government approved Nevada's Yucca Mountain as a long-
term storage site, but it has faced opposition from Nevadans and some 
environmental groups who contend that it could not safely store the 
waste for thousands of years. It is now unclear when or whether the 
storage facility -- the only spent-fuel storage space approved by 
Congress -- will open.

As an additional option, a growing number of industry advocates are 
offering the idea of recycling the waste, arguing that reprocessing 
or recycling could cut the volume of waste by allowing about 94 
percent of the spent fuel to be reused.

France, which gets 75 percent of its energy from nuclear power, has a 
successful recycling operation, and the United States is studying the 
option. Spurgeon said the United States could open a reprocessing 
facility sometime after 2020.

Opponents say reprocessing would encourage nuclear proliferation, but 
nuclear supporters such as UC Berkeley nuclear engineering professor 
Per Peterson said such concerns need to be re-evaluated.

"The whole logic of abstaining from a technology so that others would 
not pick it up no longer makes sense," Peterson said.

Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu, the director of Lawrence Berkeley 
Laboratory, echoes the desire to rethink nuclear. He reasons that 
despite the fears and concerns about the energy source, nuclear power 
must be considered because it does not produce greenhouse gas during 
generation. Anything, he said, would be better than carbon-spewing 
coal plants.

And what of the people who don't want to consider nuclear energy in 
the hope that less-controversial solutions like renewable energy and 
conservation will be enough?

"If you start thinking like that, then you doom yourself," Chu said.
-----------------

Radiation levels in landfill raise group's concern
Offices, stores have levels higher than Rutherford site, officials 
say

A lot of folks in Rutherford County were alarmed when they found out 
that some of the debris dumped at a local landfill had low levels of 
radiation.

But there are other places in Middle Tennessee where you can find 
just as much radiation, if not more, than in the materials that can 
be dumped at Middle Point Landfill.
 
The state Capitol, for one place. Maybe even your own kitchen, if you 
have a granite countertop.

That's according to spot checks in downtown Nashville last week with 
a machine that measures radiation.

Radioactivity at high levels can cause injury or death, but radiation 
exists virtually everywhere in nature, often in low amounts referred 
to as "background" levels.

"The presumption is most people would not consider them a significant 
risk," said Ronald Price, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center 
physicist.

That doesn't relieve the fears of many people in Rutherford County, 
like Kathleen Ferris. The co-founder of Citizens to End Nuclear 
Dumping in Tennessee said she knows there's radiation everywhere but 
worries that people might be made ill from additional amounts, no 
matter how small, from the landfill.

"Nobody knows what the tipping point is, and it may not be the same 
for every person," said the retired college professor of English 
literature, author and photographer.

Capitol has radiation

Roger Fenner, a state health physics consultant, watched the gauge on 
his hand-held radiation monitor Thursday as he walked through the 
state Capitol.

The red line jumped on the loaf-of-bread-sized apparatus as he moved 
to the center of the main floor, the level that includes the visitor 
counter and the governor's office.

"There's just a little bit of something" the machine was picking up, 
said Fenner, who works for the radiological health division of the 
Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The reading showed a possible yearly dose of about 61 millirems, 61 
times what's permitted in the type of materials at issue at the 
landfill.

To get that much radiation, the person would have to stand on that 
spot year-round.

"None of these readings would be unhealthy," Fenner said.

He walked over to the information desk, where Jennifer Watts was 
working, and the red line dropped to a level comparable to about 26 
millirems a year, an average background reading.

"Oh, good," Watts said with a smile. "I sit here a lot."

Accusations reported

The controversy in Rutherford County over the landfill started in 
May, when a national nuclear watchdog group put out a report accusing 
the nuclear industry of bypassing safeguards as it funnels debris 
with low levels of radioactivity to landfills.

Private firms take leftovers, though not the "hot" cores, when old 
nuclear plants, for instance, are closed.

Workers separate items with "low-level" radioactivity to send to 
facilities that can handle it, and others with small amounts or no 
radioactivity to ship to Middle Point and four other Tennessee 
landfills licensed in a state program.

Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation officials say 
that the 10-year-old program gives them more oversight of the 
materials that might end up anyway in landfills under less strict 
federal guidelines and that it includes requirements to keep out 
dangerous materials.

The state legislature last month imposed a temporary halt to 
additional radioactive materials coming into the BFI Middle Point 
landfill, which is owned by the private Allied Waste.

It went into effect June 28, when Gov. Phil Bredesen signed it.

Also last week, the Rutherford County Commission approved spending up 
to $20,000 to do testing for contamination, including well and river 
water and liquid that gathers in the landfill liner.

Elsewhere in the Capitol office complex, outside the office of state 
Rep. John Hood of Murfreesboro, the monitor indicated about a 45-
millirem exposure potential over a year.

The brick on a church on nearby Church Street was double that.

Along Union Street and Fifth Avenue North, the red line jumped to 
more than three times the amount, to about 150 millirems, when Fenner 
stood by an office building with granite walls.

The level rose again at a home building supply store, when Fenner put 
the monitor near granite slabs being sold for countertops and, next, 
bags of fertilizer rich in potassium, which has a bit of 
radioactivity.
--------------

Radiation from health scans causes concern
Increasing use stirs cancer fears

(Editor's note: This story has been changed since it was first 
published. The previous version incorrectly stated that Magnetic 
Resonance Imaging uses radiation.)

Seattlepi.com  Jul 4 - Cheryl Smith's cancer went into remission 
after her mastectomy two years ago, but she travels from Port Angeles 
to Seattle annually so doctors at Virginia Mason Medical Center can 
scan her to check for a relapse.

Last month, she had her second CT scan, four years after she was 
diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. She said the radiation 
exposure from the scan is hardly a major concern for her. 

"I think about it once in a while," said Smith, 58, but she noted 
that people flying around the world regularly receive relatively high 
levels of natural radiation 40,000 feet closer to the sun.

But Smith's CT scan subjected her to nearly 300 times the radiation 
she would have received on a roundtrip, coast-to-coast flight, 
according to data from the American College of Radiology.

Americans are being exposed by scans to record amounts of ionizing 
radiation, the most energetic and potentially hazardous form of 
radiation. Some researchers are concerned not only that the 
procedures are being overused, but also that patients may have no 
idea how much radiation they are receiving. Some physicians are 
worried that increased radiation exposure could lead to higher cancer 
rates.

"A CT scan of the chest will give you about the same radiation dose 
to the breast tissue as 10 to 20 mammograms," said Dr. Fred Mettler 
Jr., professor emeritus of radiology at the University of New Mexico 
and representative to the United Nations for nuclear radiation 
effects. 

"Most women don't have a clue," he said. "Most people would get up 
and leave if they knew that."

Mettler is the principal investigator for the National Council on 
Radiation Protection's report on sources and magnitude of radiation 
exposure in the United States. Funded by the Nuclear Regulatory 
Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, the report is 
expected to be published early next year. 

Most radiation exposure previously came from natural background 
radiation. While advances in radiology have radically transformed 
medical practice and allow pinpoint diagnostics and treatment, they 
also have meant that more people are getting more radiation. 

Clinical imaging exams in the United States are largely responsible 
for the per capita dose of ionizing radiation increasing almost 600 
percent from 1980 to 2006, concludes the new report.

Though CT scans make up only 12 percent of all medical radiation 
procedures, they deliver 46 percent of the total dose of radiation 
exposure in the United States, Mettler said. 

The report found that the number of CT scans jumped from 3 million in 
1980 to 62 million in 2006. Mettler called the increase "staggering." 
He said that amounts to about one CT scan a year for every five 
people in the United States.

No one is saying that CT scans should be eliminated. However, 
researchers such as Mettler believe the Food and Drug Administration 
should take a more active role, and that patients need to be better 
informed about radiation doses. 

Despite their high radiation, diagnostic radiation machines are not 
regulated by the FDA. Only mammogram facilities must be periodically 
accredited by the American College of Radiology to qualify for 
Medicare funding.

Other countries do have regulations. The United Kingdom requires 
hospitals to carry out periodic dose audits to show that the mean 
radiation doses for the entire hospital do not exceed national 
reference levels.

"The Europeans are ahead of us in this area in measuring dose and 
making people more aware of what the risks are," said Dr. Brent 
Stewart, a professor of radiology at the University of Washington. 
"The American College of Radiation is taking a very progressive 
stance in implementing these ideas of dose consciousness. We need to 
do more to raise the consciousness of referring physicians."

The radiology department at Virginia Mason employs precautions when 
it comes to CT scans, checking if the patient has had a CT scan at 
another hospital within 24 hours and sometimes questioning the size 
of the requested scan. Radiology technologists also give women 70 and 
younger a breast shield that deflects a percentage of low-dose 
radiation known to linger in breast tissue.

"We generally don't use CT scans unless there is a life-threatening 
condition," said Giao Nguyen, an emergency room doctor at Virginia 
Mason. 

"When you image a patient, you're trying to answer a question," said 
Dr. Marie Lee, a radiologist at Virginia Mason. "You want to be sure 
that the question you're asking can be answered by the radiation." 

Lee compared the images produced by a CT scan as akin to looking at a 
detailed anatomy textbook, but cautioned that radiation in larger 
amounts can have complications that may lead to cancer. 

Stewart said that the University of Washington Medical Center and 
Harborview Medical Center are trying to implement an electronic order 
entry system that would allow physicians access to radiology 
guidelines and show how frequently patients are receiving radiation.

Stewart offered patients some advice.

"The patient, as a good consumer, ought to know as much as possible 
and ask as many questions as they need to be satisfied," he said. 

Like driving on the highway, he said, using medical radiation 
involves risk. 

Radiologists are still studying the correlations between medical 
radiation and cancer rates. A 2004 study in The Lancet surveying data 
from 1991 to 1996 suggested that medical radiation accounts for only 
1 percent of American cancer cases, but a May 2007 report from the 
American College of Radiation stated that most radiation-induced 
cancers can take 10 to 20 years to occur.

Stewart said there is still some debate about the carcinogenic effect 
of medical radiation. 

"At this point, we don't know for certain whether small doses of 
radiation like chest X-rays are injurious to a person overall," 
Stewart said.

But Mettler wants more safety precautions in place. Radiation doses 
for the same procedure can vary in the hands of different 
practitioners by as much as a factor of 10, reports the FDA. He would 
like to see the FDA actively involved in pressuring manufacturers to 
use lower radiation doses that still produce good images.

"There's a huge amount of pressure to order these things, but people 
just don't know how much radiation there is," he said.

SCANS

CT, or Computed Tomography, scans take a series of X-ray slices of an 
area of concern. A computer combines the slices to form a 
multidimensional view. Dyes, each highlighting separate soft tissues 
in the body, such as blood vessels or the colon, show up in shades of 
gray on the resulting CT image. 
Carrie Richardson, a radiation technologist at Virginia Mason Medical 
Center, said the denser areas are grayer: "The overall density of a 
healthy organ should be all the same tone." If an organ appears to be 
different hues, physicians may order a biopsy. 

Magnetic Resonance Imaging also captures images of patients using non-
ionizing radio waves. But MRIs require more time than CT scans, 
provide less detail and cannot portray motion as well.
----------------

Thailand Nuclear plants must wait for changes to law
2004 law restricts atomic energy usage

Bangkok Post Jul 6 - The government needs to amend a law regarding 
nuclear energy development to cover power production or Thailand 
cannot build any nuclear power plants in the future. Only small-scale 
activities without military applications, such as medical treatment 
and food preservation, are allowed to use nuclear energy under the 
country's Atomic Energy for Peace Act 2004, according to Kamol 
Takabut, director of the mechanical engineering division at the 
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat). 

''Therefore, the scope of activities must be revised to cover nuclear 
power plants, too,'' said Dr Kamol, who is one of 10 experts in 
nuclear technology in Thailand. 

According to Dr Kamol, the Energy Ministry set up a committee to 
study nuclear power plant implementation in April. The body is 
scheduled to submit a master plan for nuclear power plants in 
October. 

Contents of the master plan will include proposals for relevant laws 
and regulations, a regulatory body, safety measures, public-relations 
plans, a community engagement programme and recommendations on the 
appropriate technology for nuclear power plants. 

''If the new government approves the master plan, Thailand will have 
two nuclear power plants with electricity generating capacity of 
1,000 megawatts each in the next 13 years,'' said Dr Kamol. 

According to the 15-year Power Development Plan drawn up by the 
Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO), nuclear power would 
contribute 5% of the overall energy supply in Thailand by 2020, and 
increase to 9% the next year with supply capacity of 4,000 megawatts.

''Appropriate technology is whatever that gets acceptance from the 
government and local communities,'' said Dr Kamol. 

The committee will offer an opportunity to any company that wants to 
make nuclear technology presentations. 

Toshiba has already presented its boiling water reactor (BWR) 
technology, followed by Mitsubishi with proposals for a pressurised 
water reactor (PWR). Currently, the committee has appointments to 
meet Areva of France for a PWR presentation in September. After that 
it will meet GE for a BWR demonstration and a Russian company 
offering PWR technology. 

Investment costs for building a nuclear power plant total US$2,000 
per kilowatt, so Thailand roughly would need $8 billion to build two 
nuclear power plants by 2021, noted Dr Kamol. 

''We'll know about sources of funds only when the government puts the 
construction of nuclear power plants up for bidding,'' said Dr Kamol.

Nuclear power plants should be located adjacent to beaches. The 
committee says places with huge potential include Ao Phai in Chon 
Buri; Ban Bangberd, Ban Lamthaen and Ban Lamyang in Prachuap Khiri 
Khan; Ban Thongching in Chumphon; and Ban Klongmuang in Phuket. 

Nevertheless, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the 
world's centre of co-operation in the nuclear field, does not allow 
atomic plants in densely populated areas so those venues would not be 
selected, said Dr Kamol. 

Despite the fact that the master plan has bot been approved yet, the 
committee must work on public relations immediately in order to 
educate local people about the importance of nuclear power plants. 

Dr Kamol noted that the Japanese government began sending officials 
to villages up to 20 years before nuclear plants were built. 

Egat is now recruiting 10 engineers to join its nuclear engineering 
division this year. The division will require 36 officials in 2010, 
according to an IAEA recommendation. 

The 439 nuclear power plants currently operating in 33 countries 
around the world have a combined electricity generating capacity of 
385,505 megawatts. In addition, 36 plants with a combined capacity of 
71,460 megawatts are under construction.
----------------

Activists demand full details of German nuclear plant fire 

KIEL, Germany (AFP) - Environmentalists on Wednesday blasted an 
energy company for failing to reveal the full extent of a fire last 
week at a German nuclear power plant. 
 
The German branch of Friends of the Earth, BUND, demanded from 
European energy group Vattenfall "full transparency in the 
investigation of the causes of the fire and possible dangers."

A company spokesman dismissed the criticism, saying it had provided 
quick and comprehensive information on the accident to the 
authorities.

The blaze began last Thursday at the Kruemmel power plant in 
Geesthacht, 30 kilometres (20 miles) southeast of northern city of 
Hamburg, and came amid a fresh national debate about nuclear energy 
and global warming.

The fire led to problems at the plant's nuclear reactor, the 
Schleswig-Holstein state social affairs ministry, which is 
responsible for the region's power plants, said in a statement 
released Thursday.

Local police had reported last week that the fire, which started when 
coolant in a large electric power transformer substation ignited due 
to a short circuit, had been isolated from the atomic reactor.

However experts investigating the incident found "several unusual 
things when the reactor was shut down" including evidence of damage 
related to the fire. But they said there was no radiation leak.

Separately, another nuclear power plant in Schleswig-Holstein, 
Brunsbuettel, was temporarily shut down last Thursday about two hours 
before the Kruemmel fire because its capacity was overloaded. It 
reopened Sunday.

BUND demanded the immediate closure of both plants.

Germany has begun a long-term phase-out of its nuclear energy 
programme and expects to mothball its last plant around 2020.

The plan was approved by the previous Social Democrat and Green 
government, but Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives argue that 
abandoning nuclear energy would seriously undermine the country's 
chances of slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Union has set a goal of a 20-percent cut in greenhouse 
gas emissions by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, but Germany is 
aiming for a cut of up to 40 percent.
-------------

India to participate in global nuclear fusion plan 

New Delhi, July 5 (Hindu Business Line) - The Government has approved 
India´s bid to be part of an International Thermonuclear Experimental 
Reactor (ITER) project, which is aimed at demonstrating the 
feasibility of controlled nuclear fusion as a source of energy 
generation. The Union Cabinet on Thursday cleared India´s 
participation in the project and sanctioned an amount of Rs 2,500 
crore, an official release said. 

The Institute of Plasma Research has been authorised to constitute a 
board with the powers required for effective implementation of the 
project, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Mr P.R 
Dasmunshi, said after the Cabinet meeting. "Considering India´s large 
energy needs in future, our gaining technological capability in 
fusion energy will be of considerable long-term benefit," Mr 
Dasmunshi said. 

He said the participation in the project would allow India to advance 
its technological capability in fusion energy. The cost of the ITER 
reactor, to be built at Cadarache in southern France, is estimated at 
EUR5 billion and operating it over 20 years would cost another EUR5 
billion. The reactor is scheduled to be completed by 2018. 

While the European Union will contribute half the cost of the 
project, the rest is to be divided equally among the other six 
partners. Besides India, the partner countries are China, Japan, 
Russia, South Korea and the US. 

The ITER project aims to see whether it is practicable to use nuclear 
fusion to produce electricity in a safe and environmentally friendly 
way. Nuclear fusion is a process in which atomic nuclei are fused 
together under controlled conditions, releasing tremendous amounts of 
energy. The process is viewed as being far more efficient and cleaner 
than nuclear fission, which is currently used in commercial nuclear 
power plants. 

India has been trying to lower its dependence on conventional fuels 
to generate electricity by developing nuclear power projects and by 
tapping renewable sources to bridge the gap between demand and supply 
for power.
--------------

South African Official says nuclear waste site safe 

South Africa Jul 5 - The Vaalputs disposal site in Namaqualand for 
low- and medium-level nuclear waste is recognised internationally as 
a safe facility, says a senior Nuclear Energy Corporation of SA 
official, Piet Bredell. 

And Vaalputs also had a "huge capacity" that would easily cope with 
this type of waste from the government's planned nuclear power 
expansion programme, he said.

Bredell, who is responsible for all nuclear fuel cycle activities at 
Necsa, was answering questions on Wednesday during a poorly attended 
interactive public forum at an international workshop on nuclear 
waste held at the Waterfront.

'We want to set standards and assist all countries to try to meet 
those standards' 
About 100 delegates from 30 countries are attending this week's 
workshop, which aims to develop a common framework for the safe 
management and disposal of nuclear waste.

"We want to set standards and assist all countries to try to meet 
those standards," explained Phil Metcalf of the International Atomic 
Energy Agency (IAEA), a UN body based in Vienna which organised the 
workshop.

Keenan van Wyk of the local environmental organisation Earthlife 
Africa, which is strongly opposed to the expansion of nuclear power, 
was critical of the apparently limited number of invitations to the 
public to take part in the panel discussion. 

The poor people of Namaqualand, who were most affected by the 
Vaalputs disposal site, and those from Atlantis near Koeberg nuclear 
power station, could not afford to travel to join the discussion, he 
said.

"It's the people in those communities who need to come here to ask 
questions. There's not a full representation of the public here, so 
how can we get a response from the public?" he asked.

'It's the people in those communities who need to come here to ask 
questions' 
Asked by a journalist whether Vaalputs was safe, Bredell responded: 
"The answer to that question is a very resounding 'Yes'."

He pointed out that it was licensed by the national Nuclear Regulator 
- South Africa's statutory authority responsible for exercising 
regulatory control over the safety of nuclear installations, 
radioactive waste, irradiated nuclear fuel, and the mining and 
processing of radioactive ores and minerals.

In addition, the IAEA had been invited to do a peer review of 
Vaalputs facility.

If Eskom built new nuclear power plants, the low- and intermediate-
level waste from these plants would also go to Vaalputs in terms of 
the government's 2005 policy and strategy on nuclear energy, Bredell 
added.

Also responding to a question, Didier Louvat, the head of radioactive 
waste safety at the IAEA, confirmed that, "strictly speaking", there 
were no licensed geological repositories for high-level nuclear waste 
anywhere in the world at present. 

"There are several reasons for this. Firstly, wrongly, at the 
inception of the nuclear programmes in the late 1940s and 1950s, 
nobody thought of a waste solution. Maybe this is a big mistake."

A substantial amount of research was going into establishing whether 
deep geological formations were suitable repositories for high-level 
waste, by France, Sweden, Finland, the US and, "with a lot of speed 
and energy", China.

"I don't know who will be first. I believe it will be a major 
breakthrough," he said.

Pointing out that the nuclear programme of his home country, France, 
had started when he was 10, Louvat said: "At least now there is 
recognition from our generation that we cannot pass this (dealing 
with high-level nuclear waste) on to the next generation - we have to 
do something."

In response to another question, Louvat said the biggest current 
concerns of the IAEA were waste from various nuclear weapons 
programmes, the "very, very serious" problem of radiation from the 
uranium industry in the former USSR, and the behaviour of newcomers 
with no mining experience in the revived uranium industry - 
particularly in other parts of Africa. 
-----------------------------------------
Sander C. Perle
President
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/