[ RadSafe ] [Nuclear News] FPL's nuclear plans could spark fight

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

FPL's nuclear plans could spark fight
Regulators may vote Tuesday on nuclear plant sale 
Chernobyl to get $505m metal cover to stop radiation
Sinuplasty radiation exposure deemed safe  
Report faults managers at detection site
Scientists using radiation to prod nature into producing better crops
Da Lat nuclear reactor now burns low-enriched uranium
Firm's Rockville site to handle contract on nuclear-plant analysis
IAEA to help Dhaka build nuclear power plant
----------------------------------------------------

FPL's nuclear plans could spark fight

Florida Power & Light plans to dramatically expand nuclear power 
output at Turkey Point -- a project some environmentalists fear would 
destroy hundreds of acres of wetlands and consume too much of the 
area's already dwindling water supply.

The utility on Monday asked the Florida Public Service Commission for 
permission to overhaul and increase generating capacity for two 
existing reactors at the South Miami-Dade County site, as well as two 
others in St. Lucie County, by 2012.

FPL also announced it intends to seek approval to add two new nuclear 
units at Turkey Point by 2025. If approved, that would make the power 
complex on the mangrove coastline of Biscayne Bay among the first 
sites in the country with four operating reactors.

''That would be one of the largest ones,'' said Ken Clark, regional 
spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Atlanta.

FPL President Armando Olivera said the expansion is necessary to 
address the state's growing demand for electricity, while also 
helping to meet Gov. Charlie Crist's goals for reducing power-plant 
pollution linked to global warming.

''We've been generating safe, reliable nuclear power for 35 years,'' 
Olivera said in a news release. ``This proposal can help supply 
additional affordable new energy to Floridians without producing 
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists have 
determined can contribute to climate change.''

The PSC filing made formal what has been expected since late last 
year, when FPL executives began discussing Turkey Point, the state's 
first and oldest nuclear plant, as a leading candidate for major 
expansion.

The hunt for a new nuclear site intensified in June when the PSC 
rejected a 1,900-megawatt coal-burning plant in Glades County near 
Lake Okeechobee. Environmentalists mounted a major campaign against 
it, charging the pollution could harm Everglades wildlife and air 
quality and exacerbate global warming. Crist, who is campaigning to 
reduce statewide greenhouse emissions, also expressed concerns.

Mark Oncavage, a Miami Sierra Club activist, said the utility 
shouldn't expect smooth sailing by touting nuclear power as a 
''green'' alternative to coal.

''I think there is going to be quite a fight,'' he said.

Environmentalists, echoed by the managers of Biscayne National Park, 
already have questioned site plans FPL has filed with Miami-Dade 
County, saying the expansion would destroy hundreds of acres of 
coastal wetlands and affect South Florida's tight supply of fresh 
water. With the reactors powering steam-driven electrical turbines, 
Turkey Point ranks among Miami-Dade's largest water users.

''That's one of the biggest problems I see,'' Oncavage said. ``There 
is not enough water to build it.''

There also could be heightened concerns from terrorist attacks, 
accidents, hurricanes and growing stockpiles of potentially lethal 
radioactive waste.

FPL, like most nuclear operators, already is running out of room for 
spent fuel rods. With a long-planned federal dump under a Nevada 
mountain mired in controversy, the utility intends in the next few 
years to start moving the most depleted radioactive fuel into 
concrete ''dry storage'' casks on each site.

FPL spokesman Tom Veenstra said state and federal regulators would 
address all safety and security issues before approving any new 
reactors, a process that could take more than a decade, and the 
utility was discussing water and wetlands impacts with county 
regulators.

But he stressed that FPL had a solid safety record, elaborate 
security and had already withstood a direct hit from Category 5 
Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

''We build and design nuclear plants just for that,'' Veenstra said.

The company has said it needs to produce about 28 percent more energy 
over the next decade to serve a growing population. Turkey Point's 
twin reactors now produce enough power for 450,000 homes.

The nuclear expansion, if approved, would come in two phases. First, 
FPL hopes to coax 100 more megawatts from existing generators by 
2012. FPL says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved more 
than 100 similar ''uprates'' since the 1970s, including at both 
Turkey Point and St. Lucie.

By 2020, FPL would hope to have two more powerful ''third-
generation'' reactors online, putting out about 3,000 megawatts -- 
more than twice the energy produced today.

The new reactors would add to the growing uranium-powered energy wave 
in the United States, which hasn't approved a new plant since 1973. 
The NRC expects to get applications from at least 21 utilities by 
2009 to build 32 new reactors nationwide by 2020.

In Florida, Progress Energy is pursuing a nuclear facility in Levy 
County and is about a year ahead in the process.
---------------

Regulators may vote Tuesday on nuclear plant sale 

Commissioners propose changes to improve deal

A vote on the sale of Point Beach Nuclear Power Plant could come 
Tuesday after state regulators debated the transaction Monday for 
more than two hours.

Hearing On Tuesday 
The Public Service Commission will meet at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday to 
consider the Point Beach case. The meeting can be heard on the web. 

The three members of the Public Service Commission proposed changes 
they said would make the deal better.

The commissioners ended their deliberations so they could review 
suggestions each of them offered. 

The commission will resume deliberations this morning.

We Energies has agreed to sell the two-reactor nuclear plant to FPL 
Energy of Juno Beach, Fla., for $1 billion.

Selling the power plant could lead to better performance than the 
plant has seen in recent years under Nuclear Management Co., PSC 
Chairman Dan Ebert said. 

In addition, selling it could relieve We Energies customers of risks 
linked to the nuclear plant because customers wouldn't be responsible 
for buying more expensive power during periods when Point Beach is 
out of service, he said.

Commissioners agreed they would like to see We Energies and its 
customers retain the financial benefits Point Beach would reap if the 
U.S. government moves to reduce emissions linked to global warming.

Unlike power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, nuclear plants do 
not release any carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. 

Carbon dioxide is the leading greenhouse gas, and coal-fired power 
plants are a leading source of the gas.

Citing testimony by the energy efficiency advocacy group E4 Inc., 
Ebert said the value of Point Beach generating electricity without 
carbon dioxide emissions could be worth $24 million to $240 million a 
year.

As it stands now, We Energies and FPL would split the green credits 
50-50. 

In testimony to the commission, FPL and We Energies argued against 
changing the terms of the deal, saying that doing so would reopen the 
entire transaction to renegotiation by the utilities.

But the commissioners said they believe the United States will 
regulate greenhouse gas emissions at some point.

Commissioner Lauren Azar proposed that We Energies gets all the green 
credits tied to Point Beach, while Ebert proposed that We Energies 
receives all the credits but that any credits from expanding the 
output of Point Beach should be split.

If FPL decides not to proceed with buying Point Beach because of that 
change, Azar said, "that tells me that these credits are gold."

E4 had contended that green credits were not being fully accounted 
for. 

"Considering the very real value of green credits now and in the 
future, their forfeiture and the loss of Point Beach, a zero 
emissions asset, must be accounted for," said E4 Executive Director 
Kathryn Sachs.
--------------

Chernobyl to get $505m metal cover to stop radiation

Ukraine is to cover the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor with a 
vast metal shelter in a long overdue operation designed to prevent 
the further leak of deadly radiation. Officials in Kiev yesterday 
said they had hired a French firm to replace the crumbling concrete 
sarcophagus that has stood at Chernobyl since 1986 - when it was the 
scene of the world's worst ever nuclear disaster.
The new shelter is an arch-shaped metal structure 105m (345ft) tall 
and 150m (490ft) long. It will enclose the sarcophagus hastily put up 
after the accident. That precarious structure has been leaking 
radiation for more than a decade.

"I am convinced that today, possibly for the first time, we can 
frankly tell the national and international community that the answer 
to the problem of sheltering the Chernobyl nuclear plant has been 
found," President Viktor Yushchenko said, according to his 
presidential website.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has funded the 
$505m deal with a French construction firm, Novarka. The plan is to 
eventually dismantle the sarcophagus and the exploded reactor inside 
the new shelter.

According to official estimates, the reactor still contains about 95% 
of the original nuclear fuel from the plant. There are fears that if 
the sarcophagus collapses another cloud of lethal radioactive dust 
could escape.

Chernobyl's reactor No 4 exploded on April 26, 1986, spewing 
radiation over a large swath of the former Soviet Union and much of 
northern Europe. An area roughly half the size of Italy was 
contaminated, forcing the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of 
people.

Anton Usov, a spokesman for the European Bank for Reconstruction and 
Development, said it will take about 1½ years to design the shelter 
and another four to build it. Officials also signed a $200m contract 
with the US firm Holtec International to build a storage facility for 
spent nuclear fuel from the plant's three other reactors, which kept 
operating until the station was shut down in 2000.

"The successful implementation of the project depends not only on the 
progress of the construction work, but also on the continued 
commitment of both the Ukrainian authorities and the international 
community," the European bank's president, Jean Lemierre, said in a 
statement.

Within the first two months after the disaster, 31 people died from 
illnesses caused by radioactivity. But there is no consensus over the 
subsequent death toll. A 2005 report from the UN health agency 
estimated that about 9,300 people will die from cancers caused by 
Chernobyl's radiation. Some groups, such as Greenpeace, insist the 
toll could be 10 times higher.

Some 200,000 residents were evacuated from Ukraine alone.
------------------

Sinuplasty radiation exposure deemed safe  
 
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 A U.S. study found that the amount of radiation 
the eye lens is exposed to during balloon sinuplasty is safe. 

Balloon catheter dilation of the sinuses, known as balloon 
sinuplasty, continues to gain acceptance as an emerging technique for 
treating chronic sinusitis, explained Dr. Rakesh K. Chandra, of the 
University of Tennessee, in Memphis. 

The findings, presented at the American Academy of 
Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery Foundation's annual meeting & 
OTO EXPO in Washington, show that the lens of the eye can withstand 
up to approximately 29 minutes of the fluoroscopic guidance necessary 
for the procedure. 

The authors used mathematical modeling based on previously published 
data to measure the radiation dose. However, Chandra said while this 
study indicates the level of radiation exposure is safe, further 
research is needed to corroborate these results in actual balloon 
sinuplasty.
-------------------

Report faults managers at detection site

WASHINGTON - After $30 million in taxpayer spending, work on a 
government project developing high-tech sensors to detect radiation 
at ports or border crossings is mired in mismanagement with no clear 
way forward, a federal audit said Monday. 

The project, slated for completion last February, is being built at 
the Energy Department's Nevada Test Site, a huge outdoor testing 
facility in the Nevada desert. It is 68 percent done. No work has 
been done on it since August 2006, after the money ran out.

The Homeland Security Department's original price tag for the project 
was $33 million. As much as $10.5 million more is needed to finish 
the job, said the audit by the Energy Department's inspector general.

"Even if an effective fix is implemented, completion of the project 
will have been significantly delayed and the cost will have 
substantially exceeded original estimates," said the audit.

"More importantly, the delay may impact the nation's testing 
capability to detect nuclear and radioactive materials in a variety 
of circumstances," it said.

At issue is a project called the Radiological/Nuclear Countermeasures 
Test and Evaluation Complex, which is supposed to develop next-
generation sensors to detect radioactive or nuclear materials. The 
devices would one day be used for purposes such as keeping weapons 
from entering the country at airports or seaports.

Under an interagency agreement, the Homeland Security Department is 
handling the project with the Nevada Site Office of the Energy 
Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Auditors found poor coordination between NNSA's Nevada Site Office 
and Homeland Security. The agencies did not formally define their 
respective responsibilities until May 2006, more than two years after 
the original contractor, Bechtel Nevada, started work on the project.

The degree of miscommunication was so great that Nevada Site Office 
officials told auditors that Homeland Security was managing the 
project - while Homeland Security officials claimed Nevada Site 
Office personnel wouldn't let them talk to Bechtel.

The report also criticized oversight of Bechtel. The company didn't 
stay on schedule, but the Nevada Site Office accepted Bechtel's 
assurances despite signs of problems.

In July of last year Bechtel was replaced as the contractor by 
National Security Technologies LLC, and since then project managers 
have performed several reviews and identified weaknesses, the audit 
said in its one note of praise.

In a written response, Michael C. Kane, the NNSA's associate 
administrator for management and administration, said NNSA agreed 
with the report and would work to improve matters.

A spokesman for the Homeland Security Department didn't immediately 
return a call for comment, and Bechtel spokeswoman Brenda Thompson 
said the company was reviewing the audit.
---------------

UN scientists using radiation to prod nature into producing better 
crops

VIENNA (International Hearald Tribune): Pierre Lagoda pulled a small 
container from his pocket and spilled the contents onto his desk. 
Four tiny dice rolled to a stop.

"That's what nature does," Lagoda said. The random results of the 
dice, he explained, illustrate how spontaneous mutations create the 
genetic diversity that drives evolution and selective breeding.

He rolled the dice again. This time, he was mimicking what he and his 
colleagues have been doing quietly around the globe for more than a 
half-century - using radiation to scramble the genetic material in 
crops, a process that has produced useful mutants like red 
grapefruit, disease-resistant cocoa and premium barley for Scotch 
whiskey.

"I'm not doing anything different from what nature does," he said. 
"I'm not using anything that was not in the genetic material itself."

Lagoda, the head of plant breeding and genetics at the International 
Atomic Energy Agency, prides himself on being a good salesman. It can 
be a tough act, however, given wide public fears about the dangers of 
radiation and the risks of genetically manipulated food. His work 
combines both fields but has nonetheless managed to thrive.

Today in Health & Science
Free of breast cancer, but weighing a mastectomy because of genetic 
testsThree 500-year-old Inca children are given a new 'home'Moray 
eels: The predator that always bites twice
 The process leaves no residual radiation or other obvious marks of 
human intervention. It simply creates offspring that exhibit new 
characteristics.

Though poorly known, radiation breeding has produced thousands of 
useful mutants and a sizable fraction of the world's crops, Lagoda 
said, including varieties of rice, wheat, barley, pears, peas, 
cotton, peppermint, sunflowers, peanuts, grapefruit, sesame, bananas, 
cassava and sorghum.

The mutations can improve yield, quality, taste, size and resistance 
to disease and can help plants adapt to diverse climates and 
conditions.

Lagoda takes pains to distinguish the little-known radiation work 
from the contentious field of genetically modified crops. That 
practice can splice foreign genetic material into plants, creating 
exotic varieties grown widely in the United States but often feared 
and rejected in Europe. By contrast, radiation breeding has made few 
enemies.

"Spontaneous mutations are the motor of evolution," Lagoda said in 
his office. "We are mimicking nature in this. We're concentrating 
time and space for the breeder so he can do the job in his lifetime.

"We concentrate how often mutants appear - going through 10,000 to 1 
million - to select just the right one."

Radiation breeding is widely used in the developing world, due 
largely to the efforts of the atomic agency, an arm of the United 
Nations in Vienna. Beneficiaries have included Bangladesh, Brazil, 
China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, 
Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand and Vietnam.

Plant scientists say radiation breeding could play an important role 
in the future. By promoting crop flexibility, it could help feed 
billions of added mouths despite shrinking land and water, rising oil 
and fertilizer costs, increasing soil exhaustion, growing resistance 
of insects to pesticides and looming climate change. Globally, food 
prices are already rising fast.

"It's not going to solve the world food crisis," said J. Neil Rutger, 
former director of the Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center in 
Stuttgart, Arkansas. "But it will help."

Though the method was discovered some 80 years ago in the United 
States, it is now used mostly overseas, with Asia and Europe the 
leading regions.
-----------------

Da Lat nuclear reactor now burns low-enriched uranium 
 
US Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak and Dr. Bui Van Quyen, 
chief representative in the south of the Ministry of Science and 
Technology at the announcement ceremony.
 
VietNamNet Bridge - The Vietnam Institute of Atomic Energy has 
completed a project to replace highly-enriched uranium in the Da Lat 
nuclear reactor with low-enriched uranium. 

The project was implemented within a multilateral framework between 
Vietnam, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the US and Russia. 

Specifically, in March 2007, the National Nuclear Security 
Administration (NNSA) under the US Department of Energy signed a deal 
with the Vietnam Institute of Atomic Energy in Washington. Under the 
deal, the Da Lat nuclear reactor would transfer from using high-
enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium.

Russia´s JSC TVEL company, the Vietnam Institute of Atomic Energy, 
and the Service Centre under the NNSA signed a contract on producing 
and supplying low-enriched uranium for the Da Lat nuclear reactor. 
Accordingly, low-enriched uranium for the reactor in Da Lat is 
provided by Russia´s TVEL company under an order placed by the NNSA. 
This company also provides low-enriched uranium for the VR-1 reactor 
of the Czech Republic in Prague and the nuclear reactor at Libya´s 
Tajoura nuclear research centre.

At the same time, a contract was signed among the International 
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Russia´s SOSNY Company and the Vietnam 
Institute of Atomic Energy on bringing unused high-enriched uranium 
bars from the Da Lat nuclear reactor (also provided by Russia before) 
to Russia.

Those contracts are the completion of commitments in the Vietnam-US 
Joint Statement released during US President George Bush´s visit to 
Vietnam in November 2006.

At the announcement ceremony of the completion of this project, US 
Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak and Dr. Bui Van Quyen, chief 
representative in the south of the Ministry of Science and 
Technology, praised the successful cooperation of the two sides in 
this special project, which has turned the Da Lat nuclear reactor 
from burning high-enriched uranium with 36% of U-235 to burning low-
enriched uranium of less than 205 U-235.

The NNSA said that it provided around $2.4 million for this project. 
It also supported the upgrade of Da Lat nuclear reactor and other 
agencies of Vietnam that use radioactive substances.

Under the witness of the IAEA, the volume of high-enriched uranium at 
the Da Lat nuclear reactor was exported to Russia safely.

According to NNSA, Da Lat is the 50th nuclear reactor in the world 
that has completed the upgrade. So far, around 500kg of high-enriched 
uranium has been transported to Russia.

Through this event, Vietnam confirms its goal of using nuclear power 
for peaceful purposes.

The country´s sole nuclear reactor in the Da Lat Nuclear Institute in 
Central Highlands Lam Dong province has a capacity of 500 kW. It is 
used for training and research purposes.

Vietnam is currently a member of the IAEA and many other 
international nuclear organisations like RCA, FNCA. The country has 
also signed many bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements with 
Russia, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Bulgaria and Canada.
------------

Firm's Rockville site to handle contract on nuclear-plant analysis

Information Systems Laboratories won a five-year $34 million contract 
from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to review applications 
submitted by utility companies to build nuclear power plants.
The San Diego-based company said the work will be performed at its 
nuclear systems analysis division in Rockville.
 
The contract was awarded to handle the workload from an increasing 
number of companies applying for site and construction approval to 
build power plants.

ISL will review applications to build a pressurized water reactor, 
called AP1000, designed by Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Co. 
Westinghouse technology is the basis for about half of the world's 
operating nuclear plants, including 60 percent of those in the U.S.

As part of the contract, ISL will take stock of the potential 
environmental impacts, including site hazards, protection from 
radiation.

The company will lead a team of 11 subcontractors including Fairfax-
based ICF International Inc., Eden Prairie, Minn.-based CNS Inc. and 
Boulder, Col.-based RockSol Consulting Group Inc.
-------------

IAEA to help Dhaka build nuclear power plant

Dhaka, Sept 18 (PTI) The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
has assured Bangladesh of providing assistance in setting up a 
nuclear power plant to aid Dhaka meet its growing power demand, a 
report said here today.

The assurance came when energy adviser of the interim government 
Tapan Chowdhury called on deputy Director General and head of nuclear 
energy of International Nuclear Energy Authority Yuri Sokolov in 
Vienna yesterday, the private UNB news agency reported.

Chowdhury requested the international nuclear power watchdog to 
provide support for preparatory works and convince donors to provide 
assistance for the Rooppur Power Plant in northwestern Pabna, it 
said.

IAEA gave Dhaka a "green light" to explore nuclear power for 
electricity generation installing a proposed nuclear energy-run power 
plant in northwestern Pabna two months ago.

Bangladesh earlier this month sought Russian cooperation in exploring 
nuclear power to meet its growing energy demand while foreign adviser 
of the interim government Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury visited Moscow.

Earlier reports said South Korea was willing to extend support to 
develop the plan undertaken during the pre-independence Pakistan 
period.

Bangladesh is now faced with severe power crisis forcing authorities 
to ration electricity supply affecting industry as well as public 
life amid scorching summer sun.

Officials said against an estimated demand for at least 5,000 
megawatts at peak time they struggle to produce 3,600 megawatts while 
experts said despite increased budgetary sanctions they saw no 
overnight solution to the problem.

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