[ RadSafe ] [nuclear news] Finnish watchdog okays Fortum plan to extend life of Loviisa nuclear plant

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Finnish watchdog okays Fortum plan to extend life of Loviisa NPP
Secrecy at Nuclear Agency Is Criticized by Lawmakers 
South Africa: Nuclear Regulator 'Not Hampered'
North Anna Nuclear Reacter Shut Down
Clean coal may rule out nuclear power: Turnbull
Polish prime minister postpones Lithuania nuclear plant visit 
Ottawa says no plans to sell nuclear agency stake
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Finnish watchdog okays Fortum plan to extend life of Loviisa nuclear 
plant  
 
HELSINKI (Thomson Financial) - Finland's Radiation and Nuclear Safety 
Authority (STUK) said it has given the nod to Fortum's plan to extend 
the operating life of its two nuclear reactors in Loviisa.

The utility still requires government approval to extend the life of 
Loviisa unit 1 until 2027 and unit 2 until 2030.

The current operating licence for the two reactors expires at the end 
of this year. 
----------------

Secrecy at Nuclear Agency Is Criticized by Lawmakers 

WASHINGTON, July 5 - A factory that makes uranium fuel for nuclear 
reactors had a spill so bad it kept the plant closed for seven months 
last year and became one of only three events in all of 2006 serious 
enough for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include in an annual 
report to Congress.

After an investigation, the commission changed the terms of the 
factory´s license and said the public had 20 days to request a 
hearing on the changes.

But no member of the public ever did. In fact, no member of the 
public could find out about the changes. The document describing 
them, including the notice of hearing rights for anyone who felt 
adversely affected, was stamped "official use only," meaning that it 
was not publicly accessible. 

"Official use only" is a category below "Secret." Documents in that 
category are not technically classified but are kept from the public.

The agency would not even have told Congress which factory was 
involved were it not for the efforts of Gregory B. Jaczko, one of the 
five commissioners. Mr. Jaczko identified the company, Nuclear Fuel 
Services of Erwin, Tenn., in a memorandum that became part of the 
public record. His memorandum said other public documents would allow 
an informed person to deduce that the factory belonged to Nuclear 
Fuel Services. 

Such secrecy by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is now coming under 
attack by influential members of Congress. These lawmakers argue that 
the agency is withholding numerous documents about nuclear facilities 
in the name of national security, but that many withheld documents 
are not sensitive. The lawmakers say the agency must rebalance its 
penchant for secrecy with the public´s right to participate in the 
licensing process and its right to know about potential hazards.

Additional details of the 2006 event are coming to light now because 
of a letter sent Tuesday to the nuclear agency by the House Energy 
and Commerce Committee. The committee chairman, Representative John 
D. Dingell, and the chairman of the oversight subcommittee, 
Representative Bart Stupak, both Democrats of Michigan, say the 
commission "went far beyond" the need to protect security information 
by keeping documents about Nuclear Fuel Services, a private company, 
from the public. 

The agency, the congressmen said, "has removed hundreds of otherwise 
innocuous documents relating to the N.F.S. plant from public view." 

Mr. Jaczko, in a telephone interview, said, "Ultimately, we regulate 
on behalf of the public, and it´s important for them to have a role." 
He said he thought other information about Nuclear Fuel Services that 
should be public had been marked "official use only." 

With a resurgence of nuclear plant construction expected after a 30-
year hiatus, agency officials say frequently that they are trying to 
strike a balance between winning public confidence by regulating 
openly and protecting sensitive information. A commission spokesman, 
Scott Burnell, said the "official use only" designation was under 
review. 

As laid out by the commission´s report to Congress and other sources, 
the event at the Nuclear Fuel Service factory was discovered when a 
supervisor saw a yellow liquid dribbling under a door and into a 
hallway. Workers had previously described a yellow liquid in a "glove 
box," a sealed container with gloves built into the sides to allow a 
technician to manipulate objects inside, but managers had decided it 
was ordinary uranium.

In fact, it was highly enriched uranium that had been declared 
surplus from the weapons inventory of the Energy Department and sent 
to the plant to be diluted to a strength appropriate for a civilian 
reactor. 

In a puddle, the uranium is not particularly hazardous, but if it 
formed a more spherical shape, the commission says, it could become a 
"critical mass," a quantity and shape of nuclear fuel sufficient to 
sustain a chain reaction, in this case outside a reactor. 

According to the letter sent by the lawmakers, the puddle, containing 
about nine gallons, reached to within four feet of an elevator pit. 
Had it flowed into the pit and reached a depth of several inches, it 
would have been in a shape that might have supported a chain 
reaction. The letter from the congressmen says the agency´s report 
suggests "that it was merely a matter of luck that a criticality 
accident did not occur." 

If the material had gone critical, "it is likely that at least one 
worker would have received an exposure high enough to cause acute 
health effects or death," the commission said. 

A company spokesman, Tony Treadway, said the elevator was better 
described as a dumbwaiter.

Generally, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does describe nuclear 
incidents and changes in licenses. But in 2004, according to the 
committee´s letter, the Office of Naval Reactors, part of the Energy 
Department, reached an agreement with the commission that any 
correspondence with Nuclear Fuel Services would be marked "official 
use only." The plant makes submarine fuel. 

The memorandum that declared such correspondence to be "official use 
only" was itself designated "official use only."
----------------

South Africa: Nuclear Regulator 'Not Hampered'

Johannesburg - THE National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) has been 
allocated R17,4m this year to enable it to perform its oversight 
role, the minerals and energy department said yesterday.

The department's acting deputy director-general of electricity and 
nuclear, Tseliso Maqubela, said the money was allocated annually 
based on the nuclear regulator's strategic plan.
 
His comments follow a report by wire news agency Sapa published in 
Business Day yesterday quoting the NNR's nuclear technology and waste 
programme manager, Thiagan Pather, as saying the NNR's oversight role 
was hampered by the lack of resources and expertise required to track 
nuclear sources.

Maqubela said the NNR had a net surplus of R3,8bn last year.

The nuclear regulator exercises safety regulatory control over the 
entire lifecycle of nuclear installations and vessels propelled by or 
containing radio- active material.

Yesterday's report quoted Pather as saying that although there were 
no major safety concerns about nuclear waste management in SA, "what 
we've had is one or two instances where these sources have ended up, 
for example, in a scrapyard where you do not know who the owner is". 
Pather said this could only happen when someone had "lost control" of 
a source-tracking process. He said that the regulator needed to 
liaise with the government departments to help refine their tracking 
systems for nuclear sources.

In an effort to bolster the capacity of the nuclear regulator, the 
treasury said in February that the budget of the NNR would increase 
to R24m a year in the next two years.

About R3m had be allocated to implement the radioactive waste 
management policy, which the minerals and energy department said 
would be finalised this year. The money would enable the nuclear 
regulator to monitor nuclear activities and develop safety standards 
for the protection of people, property and the environment against 
nuclear damage.

Industry analysts said increased funding for economic regulators was 
always welcomed as this enabled them to perform their duties 
efficiently.

Often companies in the related field have more financial muscle than 
their industry watchdogs, making it difficult for such authorities to 
tackle offenders head on.

The government this year allocated an extra R1,2bn for the 
construction of fuel plants for the pebble bed modular reactor 
project, which is expected to be operational by 2011. The NNR's call 
for tight control of nuclear sources, some of which may contain 
radioactive material, follows similar calls by rail utility Spoornet 
last month that cable theft be classified as sabotage.

Spoornet said the rampant theft of copper cable in SA not only 
disrupted its operations but also affected the transportation of 
exports and imports, which in turn hurt the country's reputation.

Last year the company spent R5,5m to reinstall stolen cables.

Fixed-line operator Telkom said it spent at least R100m a year to 
protect its telecommunications equipment from cable thieves.
----------------

North Anna Nuclear Reacter Shut Down
 
LOUISA, Va. (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is investigating 
an unplanned shutdown of a nuclear reactor at the North Anna Power 
Station in Louisa County.

According to the NRC, one of the plant's two reactors shut down 
Friday when an electrical circuit malfunctioned. The agency says 
safety systems worked as designed and there were NO injuries or 
abnormal release of radioactivity into the environment.

The NRC says the shutdown was of "low safety significance." 
Nevertheless, a three-person inspection team is reviewing what 
happened, how Dominion Virginia Power responded and how the problems 
might have affected other systems.

Dominion nuclear operations spokesman Richard Zuercher declined to 
say when the reactor will be back in service. He says the appropriate 
circuit boards have been replaced.

The company says the temporary loss of generating capacity won't 
affect customers.
--------------------

Clean coal may rule out nuclear power: Turnbull

The federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull says Australia may 
never need a nuclear power plant, if the development of clean coal 
technology is successful.

At a conference in Sydney for business economists, Mr Turnbull spoke 
about the financial challenges posed by climate change.

He says a move to nuclear power may be unnecessary if clean coal 
works out to be cheaper in the long run.

"If clean coal is going to be cost effective in Australia, it may be 
that when a utility is looking at low emission options, clean coal 
will be cheaper than nuclear energy," he said.

"In that case, there may be no nuclear power stations in Australia at 
all."
----------------

Polish prime minister postpones Lithuania nuclear plant visit 

WARSAW (Thomson Financial) - Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski 
today postponed a visit to Lithuania, where he had been due to sign a 
declaration on the joint construction of a new nuclear power station 
in the Baltic country. 

Kaczynski's conservative government is currently struggling with a 
strike by nurses and hospital doctors who are seeking wage hikes. The 
protestors have set up a tent village outside Kaczynski's office and 
gained widespread public support for their demands. 

Kaczynski, Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas and their 
opposite numbers from Estonia and Latvia had been due to sign a 
declaration on the construction of the new power station, which is 
seen as a key means to reduce the region's reliance on energy 
supplies from Russia. 

Lithuania's existing Soviet-era nuclear power plant at Ignalina, near 
the border with Belarus, is similar to the reactor which caused the 
Chernobyl disaster in 1986. 

It is due to be shut down by 2010, under a pledge Lithuania made 
during its talks on membership of the European Union, which it joined 
in 2004. 

The Baltic states, which were part of the Soviet Union until 1991, 
are still linked to Russia's power grid, while Poland also depends 
heavily on Russian energy. The new nuclear power plant is expected to 
start operations in 2015. 

Last week, the Lithuanian parliament passed a law paving the way for 
the creation of a consortium bringing together private and state-
owned energy firms from the four countries involved in the nuclear 
project.
------------------

Ottawa says no plans to sell nuclear agency stake

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian government denied on Friday that it 
is negotiating the sale of a large stake in state-owned Atomic Energy 
of Canada Ltd., as reported by a Toronto newspaper. 
 
The Toronto Star said on Friday that Natural Resources Minister Gary 
Lunn has been leading privatization discussions with General Electric 
Co. It quoted a source close to GE as saying the company is confident 
that this is a "done deal."

"There are no formal negotiations underway with anyone," Kathleen 
Olson, spokeswoman for Lunn, told Reuters.

GE officials declined to comment on the report.

Olson said Lunn meets frequently with stakeholders in the energy 
industry and that the Conservative government, like previous 
governments, often receives expressions of interest by private 
companies that are eyeing the nuclear agency.

But asked whether a sale was in the works, she said, "absolutely 
not."

The newspaper said a 49 percent stake in the Atomic Energy of Canada 
could be worth about C$300 million ($285 million). It said an 
agreement would give GE access to CANDU reactor technology, used in 
22 nuclear reactors across Canada over the past four decades.

One source said the government's preference is to maintain a 51-
percent stake in the CANDU business.

The newspaper said the government is keen to firm up the partnership 
by the end of the year so that the province of Ontario, home to most 
of Canada's nuclear reactors, has a chance to consider the new 
arrangement in advance of any decision to build new reactors.

The newspaper said Lunn has also held talks with France's state-owned 
Areva Group nuclear company, and quoted Areva Canada president Armand 
Laferrere as saying that Areva is interested in a partnership with 
AECL that could include part ownership.

-----------------------------------------
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/