[ RadSafe ] [Nuclear News] Czech government dismisses Austrian criticism over nuclear plant

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Czech government dismisses Austrian criticism over nuclear plant
Russia's first nuclear power reactor goes into operation in China
Owners warn of tremors at nuclear waste dump site
Ireland's Ryan welcomes nuclear energy debate
DOE releases design requirements for nuclear transport canisters 
Bush to visit Browns Ferry nuclear plant 
Few support nuclear power: Australian poll
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Czech government dismisses Austrian criticism over nuclear plant

Vienna- The Czech government dismissed Austrian reservations about 
the fulfilment of the Melk agreement on the Czech nuclear power plant 
Temelin in a diplomatic note for Austrian Chancellor Alfred 
Gusenbauer sent. 
 
The Czech position, passed to Gusenbauer by Czech ambassador Jan 
Koukal, repeats that the objectives arising from the Melk agreement 
have been fulfilled. 

The note, signed by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek and Foreign 
Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, says that the Czech position was based 
on the principle that "chosen technical solutions for the 
construction of nuclear power plants can differ, while it cannot be 
absolutely said that some of them were less safe." 

"It has turned out in the global horizon that continuous work on 
improvement of technical standards is the only criterion of quality. 
The Czech authorities have been conducting this work in their most 
vested interest," the diplomatic note said. 

The Czech note reacts to the letter sent to Topolanek by Gusenbauer 
and Austrian Environment Minister Josef Proell on June 4. 

In it, Austria called on the Czech government to conduct talks about 
the questions relating to Temelin's safety that are still open. The 
sending of the letter was recommended to the Austrian government by a 
commission of legal experts who were considering lodging an 
international complaint against the Czech Republic. 

The commission arrived at the conclusion that the lawsuit was all but 
impossible. 

The Czech note informs the Austrian government that in reaction to an 
Austrian expert report, the Czech government asked Czech experts to 
draw up their own report that would be made available to Vienna. 

"Both documents can be used for debates in the existing inter-
parliamentary working group," the Czech note said. 

The Czech government voices the belief that is not acting contrary 
to, but in the spirit of the Melk process. 

The Czech Republic says it has fulfilled all tasks agreed on in the 
Austrian town of Melk. 

Austrian activists say Temelin, situated some 60 km away from 
Austria, is not safe and that the Czech Republic breaches agreements 
on the plant the two countries have reached.
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Russia's first nuclear power reactor goes into operation in China
 
BEIJING (AFP) - Russia's first nuclear reactor in China has finally 
gone into commercial operation after numerous delays and a second 
will begin production by year's end, Russian officials said Tuesday. 
 
"The Tianwan nuclear power plant is a very big Russian-Chinese 
project," Ivan Kamenskikh, vice head of the Federal Atomic Energy 
Agency of Russia, told journalists via video phone from Moscow.

"Our first reactor has gone into operation, we can't say it happened 
very quickly, but on the other hand, it didn't take a very long time 
either. Experts from both nations have overcome a lot of technical 
issues."

The two nations agreed to build the 3.3-billion-dollar pressurised 
water nuclear plant in eastern China's Jiangsu province in 1997.

The second phase of the project, also to include two 1,000 megawatt 
reactors, is currently under discussion, Kamenskikh said.

The number one nuclear reactor at the plant, the 10th to go into 
commercial operation in China, formally went online on June 2, while 
the number two reactor is currently undergoing test operations.

China plans to have up to 40 gigawatts of installed nuclear power by 
2020, meaning that it will need to build around 30 more 1,000 
megawatt reactors in the world's fastest-paced nuclear power buildup.

China has joined several other nations in seeking to further develop 
nuclear power, including India, Russia and the United States, partly 
due to the concerns of global warming, but also to offset its 
dependency on coal.

Western nations like France, the United States and Canada, have 
competed with Russia for China's nuclear power market, while the 
nation is also developing its own indigenous industry.

"We hope that we can get the go-ahead on the third and fourth 
reactors (at Tianwan) and start up a new phase of cooperation," 
Kamenskikh said.

"As far as China's plans to install 40 gigawatts, I think our 
competitiveness is strong, we have succeeded at Tianwan ... so of 
course we hope to get involved in other projects in China."

Sergey Shmatko, president of AtomStroyExport, Russia's exporter of 
nuclear power plants, the Russian side would supply uranium for the 
two reactors and a similar arrangement would be negotiated for the 
next two reactors.

"Russia's advantage is that as we build nuclear power plants, we also 
ensure the supply of nuclear fuel," he said.

"If we can secure the third and fourth reactors, we will also seek to 
reach a deal on the supply of nuclear fuel."

The price of uranium has jumped dramatically in recent years as 
Russia, the United States, China and India all announced long-term 
nuclear energy that look to greatly boost the demand for nuclear 
fuel.

Joint design plans by Russian and Chinese experts for the next two 
reactors are to be completed by the end of the year, he said.

Shmatko also said Russia was pondering working with China to develop 
nuclear power plants abroad.

"If we can reach an agreement on the third and fourth reactors, we 
will begin to research the possibility of cooperating with China to 
build nuclear power plants in third countries," Shmatko said. 

Egypt has already expressed an interest in both Russian and Chinese 
nuclear power plants and is seen as a possible recipient of such 
joint cooperation. 

"The first and second reactors at Tianwan will enter commercial 
operation by the end of the year. This is a very big step and 
provides a very good and important basis for future cooperation," Luo 
Jianhang, the Russia representative of the China National Nuclear 
Corp, said. 

"We still have a lot of work to do, but from what we have done we 
have a bright future."
----------------

Owners warn of tremors at nuclear waste dump site

TREMORS have twice been felt in a proposed Northern Territory site 
for a nuclear waste dump site, according to Aboriginal owners.

"The last one registered 2.5 on the Richter scale," traditional owner 
and Warramunga-Warlmanpa woman Dianne Stokes from the Muckaty Land 
Trust told a meeting of non-government organisations in Melbourne on 
Monday night.

Two weeks ago, the other members of the trust - with the backing of 
the Northern Land Council - secretly negotiated a deal under which 
the Federal Government would pay $12 million to use the 2241-square-
kilometre Muckaty Station as Australia's first national nuclear waste 
dump.

Ms Stokes, an elected spokeswoman for the Warramunga and Warlmanpa 
tribes, said the deal was made by just one of the 16 family groupings 
represented on the trust.

The Northern Land Council failed to listen to the other families, she 
said.

Ms Stokes, a mother of six, was one of four traditional owners of 
four proposed nuclear waste sites in the Northern Territory who spoke 
at a public meeting at Melbourne's Trade Hall Council on Monday 
night.

"I came here with all my spirits from my ancestors to keep my country 
alive," she said.

Ms Stokes, who lives just half an hour's drive from the site of a 
proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty, said it would kill the area 
environmentally and culturally.

The surrounding country was a source of bush tucker and a place of 
burials in both the ground and trees, which were home to ancestral 
spirits, she said.

Priscilla Williams, a member of the Hart Range community, the site of 
another proposed dump, said the community closest to Muckaty Station 
had a primary school that got its water from a river which ran around 
the proposed site.

While the Federal Government had insisted there had never been an 
accident with a nuclear waste dump anywhere, "we're worried about 
what will happen if our water gets poisoned because we get it from 
under the ground", Ms Williams said.

The delegation briefed the Wilderness Society and called on state 
premiers to oppose a national nuclear waste dump.
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Ireland's Ryan welcomes nuclear energy debate

The new Minister for Communications, Energy & Natural Resources, 
Eamon Ryan, has said he would welcome a debate about nuclear energy 
in Ireland.

Speaking at his first public engagement, Minister Ryan said he did 
not believe nuclear power would be the answer to Ireland's future 
energy needs but he did believe a public debate on the issue would be 
helpful.

The minister was responding to questions about last night's RTÉ 
documentary, 'Future Shock: End of the Oil Age', which examined 
possible scenarios in the event of a future energy crisis.
-----------------


DOE releases design requirements for nuclear transport canisters 

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department announced design requirements 
Tuesday for canisters to transport radioactive waste to Nevada and 
store it in the planned Yucca Mountain national nuclear dump. 

The agency envisions vendors competing to produce canisters dubbed 
"TAD"s - short for transportation, aging and disposal - between 15 
1/2 feet and 17 1/2 feet long and weighing a maximum of 54.25 tons 
each. 

Some 7,500 of the TAD canisters would be needed to fill the dump to 
its proposed 77,000-ton capacity. They would be shipped by rail from 
commercial reactor sites in some 39 states. 

It's the latest announcement by the Energy Department in planning for 
the troubled Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas. The project has been delayed by scientific controversies, 
money shortages, and opposition from Nevada officials including Sen. 
Harry Reid, D-Nev., now the Senate majority leader. 

Originally targeted to open in 1998, the best-case opening date for 
Yucca Mountain is now 2017. It would be the nation's first federal 
nuclear waste dump and would receive some 50,000 tons of radioactive 
waste already piled up at power plants around the country. 

Earlier plans had called for transporting waste to handling 
facilities at the desert site, then putting it into different 
containers for underground storage. The TAD concept emerged in 
October 2005 and the Energy Department will now invite vendors to 
come up with designs. 

"This was somewhat of a difficult birthing within the program," said 
Christopher A. Kouts, director of the waste management office at the 
Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management. 

"We did quite a bit of homework and hopefully we've developed a 
specification that will meet our needs," he told a meeting of the 
Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste. 

Kouts declined to say how much a TAD might cost, saying that would be 
part of the procurement process with vendors. He anticipates having 
canisters available to utilities in four or five years. 

Yucca Mountain can't open until the Nuclear Regulatory Commission 
grants the Energy Department a license. The department plans to 
submit its license application a year from now and incorporate the 
TAD approach even if individual designs from vendors aren't ready. 

Many nuclear utilities are in litigation with the Energy Department 
because the department was contractually obligated to begin accepting 
their radioactive waste beginning in 1998. The federal agency will 
seek to modify some utility contracts to include their acquisition of 
the transport canisters, Kouts said. 

The canisters could be used to store waste at reactor sites before 
transport to Yucca Mountain, or could be taken directly there. 

The canisters would hold spent fuel rods from commercial nuclear 
reactors and could accommodate different types of fuel rod 
assemblies, either 21 pressurized water reactor assemblies or 44 
boiling water reactor assemblies.
----------------

Bush to visit Browns Ferry nuclear plant 

President George W. Bush will tour the recently restarted Browns 
Ferry Nuclear Plant Unit 1 reactor Thursday in Limestone County, his 
White House press office confirmed Monday.

"At 1:15 p.m. the president will tour Unit 1 and then deliver remarks 
on the nation´s energy initiative," said the spokesman.

The president is in North Alabama to attend a 5:05 p.m. Friends of 
Jeff Sessions meeting.

Tennessee Valley Authority spokesman Terry Johnson said the 
president´s security detail has been making extensive preparations 
for the trip, including making some areas of the site inaccessible to 
employees while the president and his entourage are in the area.

"We´re just pleased the president is to visit us in appreciation of 
the work that we´ve done in restarting Unit 1," Johnson said. 
"Another thing, we appreciate our employees and contract partners for 
the their work and dedication on the project and congratulate them on 
the successful restart of Unit 1.

As of Monday morning, all three units were operating at 100 percent 
power, Johnson said.
------------------

Few support nuclear power: Australian poll
 
Few Australians support nuclear power and clean coal as the best 
technologies to combat climate change, a survey shows. 

The research by left-wing think tank The Australia Institute 
discovered only 19 per cent preferred the Federal Government´s focus 
on those energy sources. 

Seventy-four per cent favoured a greenhouse strategy based mainly on 
energy efficiency and renewable energy. Among coalition voters, 60 
per cent supported renewable energy and 35 per cent nuclear power or 
clean coal. The poll also found 77 per cent preferred to get their 
electricity from a renewable power source, while 8 per cent favoured 
nuclear power and one per cent coal. 

Solar energy was the most popular of the renewable resources - chosen 
by 50 per cent of respondents. The online survey had 1034 
respondents. 

"This survey proves there is overwhelming support for a greenhouse 
strategy that gives greater prominence to energy efficiency and 
renewable energy," institute deputy director Andrew Macintosh said.

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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/