Poland handles nuclear fuel shipment for Temelin

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Note: I will be away until Dec 10. If I am able to, I will try and distribute the nuclear 

news during this time.



Index:



Poland handles nuclear fuel shipment for Temelin

Ireland tells court Sellafield terrorist risk

Japanese Gov't to urge utilities to ensure nuclear plant safety

Utah battles proposed nuclear dump

Mie town votes against urging firm build nuclear plant

Japanese Public confidence in nuclear power shaken

Federal Guards for Nuke Plants Sought

Russia ships nuclear reactor shell to Iran

FERC meets on LNG plant restart security

Britain's High Court rejects suit against MOX fuel plant

Chubu Electric to remove all fuel from leaky Hamaoka reactor

Many Respond to Teeth Donor Study

Man Faces Charges on Nuclear Exports

======================================



Poland handles nuclear fuel shipment for Temelin

  

WARSAW, Nov 20 (Reuters) - Poland handled a second shipment on Tuesday of 

nuclear fuel bound for the Czech Republic's controversial Temelin power plant, the 

National Atomic Energy Agency said. 



The shipment was unloaded in the Baltic port of Szczecin, on the German border, in 

the morning and moved by rail under tight security through western Poland. 



"The second shipment of nuclear fuel bound for Temelin is currently moving by rail 

towards the Czech border and it should leave Poland before tomorrow," deputy 

agency head Witold Lada told Reuters. 



He said the shipment would be the last to be carried this year by Polish Railways 

under a licence granted by the agency, but did not rule out a possibility of more 

shipments next year. 



Poland handled the first U.S. shipment of 23 tonnes of uranium oxide rods in April, 

also shipping the nuclear fuel to CEZ-owned Temelin by rail. 



The shipment, which was kept secret, triggered protests days later by anti-nuclear 

activists. 



Temelin -- a Soviet-designed plant in the southern Czech Republic -- has been 

fiercely opposed by neighbouring Austria which demands closure of the plant over 

safety concerns. 

------------------



Ireland tells court Sellafield terrorist risk

  

HAMBURG, Nov 19 (Reuters) -  Ireland claimed on Monday a nuclear fuel plant at 

Sellafield in northern England could pollute the Irish Sea that separates the two 

countries and be liable to terrorist attack. 



The claims were made at the start of a two-day hearing at the Hamburg-based 

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. 



Ireland wants the tribunal, a United Nations body, to issue injunctions to prevent the 

start of operations at the mixed oxide (MOX) fuel plant and to stop ships transporting 

nuclear material to and from it pending arbitration. 



Tribunal spokeswoman Julia Pope said a judgment would be announced by 

December 9. 



The Irish government legal action in Hamburg is based on what it says are 

contraventions by Britain of the 1982 United Nations Law of the Sea Convention 

(LOSC). 



"Ireland considers that the process of authorisation of the MOX plant has been badly 

flawed and is inconsistent with the LOSC," Ireland's submission to the court said. 



"The manufacture of MOX fuel at Sellafield involves significant risks for the Irish Sea. 

Such manufacture will inevitably lead to some discharges of radioactive substances 

into the marine environment, via direct discharges and through the atmosphere," it 

said. 



"Manufacture is also vulnerable to accident and the MOX plant can only serve to 

increase the attractiveness of subjecting Sellafield to terrorist attack," it added. 



Following the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities, Britain and other European 

countries imposed no-fly zones over nuclear plants. France installed surface-to-air 

missiles at a reprocessing plant at Cap la Hague. In early November, Britain 

scrambled two fighter jets over Sellafield, following an alert which turned out to be a 

false alarm. 



BRITAIN REJECTS ARGUMENTS 



In a response also released by the tribunal, Britain asked for the application to be 

dismissed. 



"It is a condition of jurisdiction that the parties should first have exchanged views with 

the aim of settling the dispute by negotiation. Ireland has, however, declined the 

United Kingdom's invitation to do so," the British response said. 



The United Kingdom does not plan any action in the near or long term which will 

damage Ireland's rights under the law of the sea convention "or cause serious harm 

to the marine environment," it added. 



"Instead of adducing cogent evidence of a threat to the marine environment arising 

specifically from the operation of the MOX plant, Ireland relies on general assertions 

of dangers arising in connection with the nuclear industry or nuclear reprocessing or 

the practice of transporting radioactive materials or plutonium by sea," the British 

reply said. 



Britain's decision in September to approve the start of operations at the MOX 

reprocessing plant provoked protest in Ireland, which has long complained about 

nuclear pollution from Sellafield, located in Cumbria, northwest England, on the coast 

of the Irish Sea. 



In a previous development, Britain's High Court said last Thursday the British 

government had acted lawfully when giving the September approval to the plant's 

operator, state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL). 



BNFL said the British court's decision paved the way to start making MOX -- a mix of 

uranium oxides and plutonium -- at the 470 million pound ($675 million) plant around 

December 20 this year. 

------------------



Japanese Gov't to urge utilities to ensure nuclear plant safety



TOKYO, Nov. 19 (Kyodo) - The government will urge power companies to ensure the 

safety of nuclear power plants as part of its efforts to seek public support for its pro-

nuclear energy policy, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Monday at a 

news conference. 



The top government spokesman was commenting on a Mie Prefecture town's 

rejection of a proposal to host a nuclear power plant in a referendum Sunday. 



''The government will urge power companies to ensure safety and publicize that 

safety in order to seek a deeper understanding among the public and their 

cooperation,'' Fukuda said, adding, ''We will continue that effort.'' 



Residents of Miyama overwhelmingly voted against the idea of having a power 

company build a nuclear power plant in the region in the first such plebiscite to be 

held with no pending construction plans at stake. 



The vote followed rejections in two plebiscites on nuclear power projects -- one in 

1996 and another in May this year -- both held in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of 

Japan coast. 



Economy, Trade and Industry Vice Minister Katsusada Hirose separately 

acknowledged the difficulties faced by the central government in its pursuit of nuclear 

power and stalled nuclear fuel cycle policies following the spate of rejections. 



''I feel the national energy policy issue of nuclear power generation and local people's 

concerns hardly have a common ground,'' Hirose said. 



The top bureaucrat of the ministry in charge of energy policy also conceded that the 

delayed reporting by Chubu Electric Power Co. of a water leakage at its nuclear 

reactor in the town of Hamaoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, would further undermine the 

government effort to win public understanding of its nuclear policy. 



The delay ''itself does not constitute a breach of law, but countermeasures need to 

be taken as swiftly as possible for the sake of citizens' and national understanding,'' 

Hirose said. 



Chubu Electric said Nov. 10 that small amounts of radioactive water have been 

leaking at least since the day before, when it detected the trouble, following a steam 

leak incident there Nov. 7 that involved radioactive material. 

-----------------



Utah battles proposed nuclear dump

  

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 18 (Reuters) - The State of Utah is battling a group of 

energy companies that plans to build a dumping ground for radioactive nuclear waste 

on an American Indian reservation about an hour's drive from Salt Lake City. 



The fight is but the latest skirmish in the continuing dilemma of where to stash the 

thousands of tonnes of waste fuel piling up at the nation's 103 atomic reactors. 



Despite 20 years of scientific and environmental studies, a final decision has yet to 

be made on whether to build a permanent federal underground storage site at Yucca 

Mountain in the Nevada desert about 90 miles (144 km) from Las Vegas. 



The Utah project -- Private Fuel Storage LLC, led by utility holding company Xcel 

Energy <XEL.N> of Minneapolis -- aims to store up to 40,000 metric tonnes of waste 

fuel for up to 20 years on 820 leased acres of reservation land belonging to the Skull 

Valley Band of Goshute Indians. 



The plan also carries a 20-year extension. 



Waste fuel, packed in 175-tonne steel and concrete canisters called dry casks, would 

be shipped by rail from nuclear power plants to Utah, to sit on thick concrete above-

ground pads until Congress approved Yucca Mountain for permanent storage. 



Utah officials, led by Governor Mike Leavitt, insist Xcel and other utilities should keep 

their waste fuel at home. 



Utah has no nuclear power stations of its own and has even passed legislation 

banning in-state nuclear waste storage. 



KEEP OUT 



"Skull Valley is a legal and environmental farce," said Monte Stewart, appointed by 

Leavitt in May as lead attorney to keep the waste out of Utah. 



Stewart said the 1982 federal Nuclear Waste Policy Act bars private waste storage 

outside nuclear power plants. 



But Indian reservations, because of their special status as semi-sovereign land, 

might be able to skirt the federal law. 



"American Indians control their lands, so utilities can exploit that and try to avoid the 

democratic process. The utilities go to tribes because they know the states are going 

to fight them. They only have to deal with the tribe," Larry Jensen, Utah's deputy 

attorney general, said. 



The Utah project is the latest bid to store waste fuel on an American Indian 

reservation. In the 1990s a group of 33 utilities explored a dump on a Mescalero 

Apache reservation in New Mexico, but the project was never built. 



The Goshute Indians would get lease revenues from the dump which could fund 

housing, healthcare and education at the Skull Valley Reservation, Sue Martin, a 

spokeswoman for the project, said. 



Nuclear power opponents say transport accidents and leaks or other damage in 

storing highly radioactive waste fuel pose a huge environmental risk. 



Supporters of the Utah project argue that cask storage has been proven safe in the 

United States and at overseas nuclear plants. 



"Private Fuel Storage is an excellent alternative fuel management strategy until 

Yucca Mountain is developed," said Rod McCullum, a senior project manager at the 

Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington-based nuclear trade group. 



LOSING SPACE 



Nuclear plants, which supply a fifth of the nation's electricity, are running out of waste 

storage room in fuel pools and many are shifting to dry casks, McCullum said. 



About 44,000 tons of spent fuel rods now are stored in U.S. fuel pools and casks -- 

enough to cover a football field 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep -- and reactors produce 

another 2,000 tons each year. 



Xcel is pushing the Utah project because waste storage at its twin-reactor Prairie 

Island nuclear plant in Minnesota is filling up. 



The Minnesota legislature capped storage at the plant at 17 casks while the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission approved 48, said Scott Northard, Xcel's director of nuclear 

asset management. 



The utility has not challenged the state's storage cap but said this week it was 

working on a back-up plan to buy electricity from other generators if a lack of waste 

storage space forced it to shut Prairie Island before the plant's operating licenses 

expire in 2013 and 2014. 



The way things are going, Prairie Island would reach its waste storage limit in 2007, 

Northard said. 

------------------



Mie town votes against urging firm build nuclear plant

  

MIYAMA, Japan, Nov. 18 (Kyodo) - Residents of a small town in the western Japan 

prefecture of Mie on Sunday voted against the idea of having a power company build 

a nuclear power plant in the region in the first such plebiscite to be held with no 

pending construction plans at stake. 



The result of the vote has rendered it unlikely that the town of Miyama will host such 

a plant as a local government ordinance requires the town mayor to respect the 

wishes of the majority of voters casting valid ballots. 



Voters showed a keen interest in the legally non-binding plebiscite, the third held in 

Japan on nuclear power plants. Turnout came to 88.64% in the town with 8,748 

eligible voters. 



Although there is no specific nuclear power plant at stake, the Miyama vote could 

signal a setback for the central government's pro-nuclear policy, since it follows 

rejections in the two previous plebiscites on nuclear power projects -- one in 1996 

and another in May this year -- both held in Niigata Prefecture on the Sea of Japan 

coast. 



An official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry had said earlier the result 

of the vote would not have a direct bearing on nuclear policy, since Miyama is not 

even a candidate site for construction. 



Unlike the previous two plebiscites, the latest vote was proposed by nuclear 

advocates, namely local businesses who want local utility Chubu Electric Power Co. 

to build a nuclear power plant, hoping it would galvanize the slowing local economy 

centering on fishery and forestry. 



Opponents, meanwhile, drew public attention to the potential dangers of such a 

power plant in the wake of accidents at the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station run by 

Chubu Electric, based in Nagoya. 



The pipe rupture and water leakage at Chubu Electric's Hamaoka station in Shizuoka 

Prefecture took place just days before the campaign for the plebiscite began 

Tuesday. 



Chubu Electric first announced a plan to build a nuclear power plant with three 

candidate sites in Mie Prefecture back in 1963, which included a site in Miyama. 



In the face of strong opposition from Miyama residents, however, Chubu Electric 

eventually focused on a site bordering Kisei and Nanto towns. But the nuclear project 

generated animosity between residents of the two towns, with a majority in Kisei 

wanting it and a majority in Nanto rejecting it. 



In February last year, Mie Gov. Masayasu Kitagawa entirely canceled the project, 

citing a lack of consensus among local residents. Chubu Electric also subsequently 

gave up on the project. 



In February this year, members of the Miyama town's chamber of commerce and 

industry as well as others submitted a petition, representing 64% of the local 

residents, to the local assembly to lobby for the construction of the plant in the town. 



The move, however, was immediately followed by opponents filing their own petition 

against a nuclear power plant to the town assembly, which subsequently set up a 

special panel to examine both petitions. 



Following nearly six months of deliberation, the panel recommended that the 

residents' opinions be heard about the project, prompting the assembly to enact in 

late September an ordinance to hold the plebiscite. 



In August 1996, in the first plebiscite on the construction of a nuclear power plant in 

Japan, involving Tohoku Electric Power Co., the town of Maki in Niigata Prefecture 

dealt a blow to the central government's nuclear power policy as a majority voted 

against it. 



In May this year, a majority of voters in the town of Kariwa, also in Niigata Prefecture, 

opposed Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s plan to use recycled nuclear fuel containing 

plutonium at a local nuclear plant. 

------------------



Japanese Public confidence in nuclear power shaken

  

TOKYO, Nov. 17 (Kyodo) - By: Takashi Miura Public confidence in nuclear power 

has been shaken amid a series of recent accidents at a nuclear reactor in the town of 

Hamaoka in Shizuuoka Prefecture in the heart of earthquake-prone central Japan. 



One female resident recalled how during an earthquake she was about to rush out of 

her house ''but the possibility of a radioactive leak flitted through my mind.'' The town 

had been hit by a quake measuring 4 on the Japanese scale of 7. 



''I learned about the accidents through news reports. The administration was too late 

getting in touch with us residents,'' she said. 



A carbon steel pipe in the emergency cooling system at the No. 1 reactor operated 

by Chubu Electric Power Co. ruptured Nov. 7, resulting in the leakage of steam and 

some radioactive material. 



Two days later, a radiation water leakage was detected in a pressure vessel at the 

same reactor. 



''This is serious trouble,'' said Kenkichi Hirose, a senior official of the Nuclear and 

Industrial Safety Agency under the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry who 

visited the site. 



But even 10 days after the first accident the causes still remain unknown. 



Destruction power experts said enormous pressure, more than 10- times the usual 

amount, may have been applied to the carbon steel pipe before it ruptured. 



The pipe is usually filled with steam with a pressure of 70 kilograms per 1 square 

centimeter, but if the experts are correct, a pressure of more than 700 kg was 

applied to the pipe. 



''We have never seen a crack like this,'' said all the engineers at Chubu Electric 

Power and Toshiba Corp. which manufactured the pipe. 



Emerging as one of the causes of the rupture is a ''water hammer phenomenon'' -- a 

drastic change in pressure. The pressure change directly hits part of the pipe where 

it bends 90 degrees. 



The rupture in the pipe occurred in the L-shaped part. The pipe used to be straight 

but it was changed to an L-shape around 1993 and 1994 -- a change requiring no 

authorization from the state. 



''It's up to operators how to connect pipes. The design isn't drawn up to guarantee 

that no pipe will crack,'' said Kazuhiko Motobu, chief nuclear power generation safety 

inspector at the agency, a statement that conflicts with the public's understanding. 



''The No. 1 reactor at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant is one of the most dangerous 

ones,'' said Jun Tateno, a professor of Chuo University and a former researcher at 

the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. 



He said the rate of operation at the No. 1 reactor had been 59% until 1997, the 

second lowest following the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power 

plant in northeastern Japan. Accidents and trouble at the No. 1 reactor in the 

Hamaoka facility have forced it to close down 40 times, for long periods. 



The No. 1 reactor reached a critical point for the first time in 1974. ''It is an old-

generation reactor having a materials problem. The leakage occurred because of 

damage in the bottom of the pressure vessel. 



It is also problematic that the reactor is located where major quakes most likely 

occur,'' Tateno said. 



The agency, which was established in January under an administrative 

reorganization, said it sent inspectors soon after the first accident and set up an 

investigative task force three days after the accident. 



The Science and Technology Agency, now defunct, was under fire for not quickly 

responding to Japan's worst nuclear accident two years ago. 



On Sept. 30, 1999, a self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction occurred at a 

uranium processing plant in the village of Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, 120 

kilometers northeast of Tokyo, killing two people and exposing more than 600 others 

to radiation. 



Scientific experts said the response to the accidents this time will serve as a test of 

the nation's new nuclear energy safety administration. 

--------------------



Federal Guards for Nuke Plants Sought

  

WASHINGTON (AP) - Two Democratic senators plan to introduce legislation after 

the Thanksgiving congressional recess to federalize security guards at the country's 

nuclear power plants. 



``We can no longer leave the security at our nation's nuclear power plants to 

chance,'' said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who along with Sen. Harry Reid, 

D-Nev., were drafting the legislation. 



Reid, who is assistant Senate majority leader and chairman of the subcommittee with 

jurisdiction over nuclear issues, noted that Congress just agreed to federalize 

passenger and baggage screeners at airports. 



``It's time we focus the same energy to improve safety at nuclear power plants,'' said 

Reid. 



GOP conservatives in the House had opposed making the airport workers federal 

employees, and may also object to federalizing guards at nuclear plants. 



Private guards hired by the plant operators now handle security at the 103 nuclear 

reactors in 31 states. Although they carry weapons, they have no police power. 



Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the private security forces at many of the plants 

have been augmented by local or state police and in at least seven states by 

National Guard troops. 

-------------------



Russia ships nuclear reactor shell to Iran

  

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Russia began shipping the shell of a 

nuclear reactor to Iran on Friday under a deal that has enraged Washington. 



Moscow signed a $1 billion contract with Tehran to build a nuclear power station at 

Bushehr in 1995, but the project was slow to get off the ground, in part because of 

intense U.S. pressure on Russia to renege on the deal. 



Iran features on Washington's list of "rogue states" that sponsor terrorism, and it has 

urged Moscow not to transfer nuclear technology to Tehran. 



Russia has repeatedly said the contract was for civilian use and complied with its 

international obligations. 



But U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker on Friday repeated allegations 

that the plant has military applications. 



"We believe that Iran uses Bushehr as a cover for obtaining sensitive technologies to 

advance its nuclear weapons program. We think Iran's clandestine effort to acquire 

weapons-grade material and related production capabilities poses a threat," he told 

reporters in Washington. 



A train carrying the body of the reactor shell rolled out of the Izhorskiye Zavody plant 

in St. Petersburg and was loaded onto a ship bound for Iran, the office of St. 

Petersburg governor Vladimir Yakovlev said. 



Russian television showed a crowd of workers burst into cheering and applause as 

the train left the factory. It said the Bushehr order was the company's biggest in 10 

years. 



Experts from the plant will travel to Iran to help install the reactor shell, which is due 

to arrive in Bushehr in a month. 



Itar-Tass news agency quoted an Atomic Energy Ministry official as saying the 

reactor was due for completion by the end of 2003. 



Russia has blamed "technical difficulties" for delays to the contract. Iran's President 

Mohammad Khatami visited Izhorskiye Zavody in March to monitor progress. 



Moscow has received a tentative order from Tehran for another reactor, also to be 

built at Bushehr, and detailed negotiations are due to start in December. 



Officials have said Moscow is considering a separate order for a twin-reactor power 

station in another part of Iran. 



Washington has warned Russia it could be hit by sanctions over its nuclear 

cooperation with Iran. That threat could pour cold water on Russia-U.S. ties that have 

warmed considerably since Moscow backed President Bush's "war on terrorism" 

after the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on U.S. landmarks. 

-------------------



FERC meets on LNG plant restart security

  

WASHINGTON(Reuters) - Federal energy market regulators met Friday with state 

and local officials to discuss national security concerns connected with restarting a 

liquefied natural gas plant near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant in southern 

Maryland. 



The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hosted the conference to reconsider its 

decision last month to approve the request of Tulsa, Oklahoma-based energy 

company Williams Cos. Inc. to reopen and expand the company's Cove Point 

liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant. 



FERC gave its approval for restarting the plant despite concerns that the facility 

could be subject to sabotage that would threaten a nearby nuclear plant owned by 

Baltimore utility Constellation Energy Group. 



An LNG facility in Boston had been closed by state officials following the Sept. 11 

attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Officials feared an LNG tanker 

entering Boston harbor could be subject to sabotage, causing massive damage. 



The agency is now having second thoughts about its decision on the Cove Point 

facility. 



FERC said it would be "in the public interest to reconsider" the agency's reactivation 

decision and "take further evidence with respect to national security implications" 

connected with restarting the plant. 



The conference was closed to the public, and the agency will not release the names 

of the participants at the meeting or their comments, a FERC spokeswoman said on 

Friday. 



"In view of the nature of the national security issues to be explored, the conference 

will not be open to the pubic," FERC said in a prior notice of the meeting. 



Democratic Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland had demanded that FERC reconsider 

its approval order from last month. 



"You must carefully consider the fact that the Cove Point facility is within 3.5 miles of 

the Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant and the ships that carry liquefied natural gas (to 

Cove Point) from Algeria or other countries will be under foreign flag with foreign 

crews," Mikulski said in a letter to FERC chairman Patrick Wood. "What were you 

thinking?" she added. 



Maryland government officials took part in the meeting. 



Washington Gas, whose customers are served by the Cove Point pipeline, said that 

in light of the Sept. 11 attacks communication procedures should be improved 

between the LNG plant and state and federal authorities in case there is a threat. 



In FERC's approval order last month, the Cove Point facility was required to establish 

a direct independent communication link with staff at the Calvert Cliffs power plant, 

and have a backup plan. 



Williams wants to resume LNG shipments to the Cove Point plant during the second 

quarter of 2002. The company also plans to build a fifth storage tank at the site that 

could hold up to 2.5 billion cubic feet of gas. 



The Cove Point plant, built in 1974, was bought by Williams last year from Columbia 

Energy Group, now a unit of Indiana-based utility holding company NiSource Inc.. 

The plant stopped importing natural gas in the early 1980s, but reopened as a 

natural gas storage site about 10 years later. 



LNG is kept at ultra-cold temperatures and compressed for transport aboard special 

tankers. 



It begins as natural gas in a vapor form. The manufacturing process cools the gas to 

minus-259 degrees Fahrenheit, changing the gas into a liquid and shrinking it to less 

than 1/600th of its original size. 



LNG, which is odorless and colorless, is then loaded into tankers and shipped to 

markets where it is converted back into dry gas for electric power generation or 

another use as a fuel source. 



LNG facilities are also located in Massachusetts, Louisiana and Georgia. 

-----------------



Britain's High Court rejects suit against MOX fuel plant

  

LONDON, Nov. 15 (Kyodo) - Britain's High Court rejected Thursday a suit by 

environmental groups seeking cancellation of the government's decision to allow 

state-owned British Nuclear Fuels PLC (BNFL) to start operating a nuclear fuel 

reprocessing plant in northern England. 



Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth claimed that the plant's operations would 

damage the environment and that plutonium in the plutonium-uranium mixed oxide 

(MOX) fuel would become a terrorist target. 



The High Court, however, judged that the government acted lawfully in making the 

Oct. 3 decision to give permission to BNFL to start making reactor fuel at the 

Sellafield MOX plant. 



Meanwhile, the Irish government also lodged a request last Friday for a provisional 

injunction with the international sea laws court to prevent the start of operations at 

the plant. 



In the request filed with the Hamburg-based International Tribunal for the Law of the 

Sea, Ireland called for an immediate suspension of London's permission given to 

BNFL for the plant. Court proceedings will start next Monday. 



BNFL plans to start operations around Dec. 20. 

-------------------



Chubu Electric to remove all fuel from leaky Hamaoka reactor

  

NAGOYA, Nov. 15 (Kyodo) - Chubu Electric Power Co. said Thursday it will remove 

all fuel from a reactor at its Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station in Shizuoka Prefecture 

to investigate a water leak in it, an unusual step that may keep the reactor off-line for 

a longer time. 



The fuel will be removed after a pressure vessel is opened Friday to pinpoint the 

leak, the Nagoya-based utility said. 



The company also said operation data indicate water could have started leaking from 

the 54,000-kilowatt No. 1 boiling-water reactor around July or August, when it was in 

operation. The reactor was manually shut down Nov. 7 after a steam leak was 

detected. 



The Hamaoka Nuclear Power Station has four boiling-water reactors that generate a 

total of about 3,617,000 kilowatts of energy. Chubu Electric said Tuesday it was 

planning to shut down the No. 2 reactor until Wednesday at the earliest to carry out 

the inspection. 



The third reactor is currently undergoing a regular inspection and the fourth is 

running, according to the firm. 



According to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, fuel from pressure 

vessels is removed once every three to four years as part of regular checks. But the 

procedure extends the typical 40-50 day inspection period by around 30 days. 



The steam leak occurred following a rupture in a pipe in the emergency cooling 

system. While looking into that, investigators found water leaking around a control 

rod driving unit below the reactor. 



An increase in the amount of water was observed from July through September in a 

local cooler, which is used to store water coming out of the pressure vessel, 

according to the utility. 



But there were no changes in radiation levels and Chubu Electric concluded the 

increase was a phenomenon peculiar to summer and did not represent an 

abnormality. It did not look into the possibility of water leakage while the reactor was 

in operation. 

------------------



Many Respond to Teeth Donor Study

  

ST. LOUIS (AP) - Scientists in New York said they are overwhelmed by the response 

from adults who once donated their baby teeth for a survey about radioactive fallout 

from nuclear bomb tests and now wish to participate in a follow-up survey. 



Close to 1,000 people have called or e-mailed the scientists since the St. Louis Post-

Dispatch published a story Nov. 9 about a new study trying to determine whether 

teeth donors developed cancer and other health problems years later as a result of 

the fallout. 



``We're all very stunned by this,'' said Joseph Mangano, national coordinator with the 

Radiation and Public Health Project. 



The study began after 85,000 teeth were found in an old bunker at Washington 

University where they'd been stored since the 1970s. The teeth were part of the St. 

Louis Baby Tooth Survey, in which thousands of children from the region sent their 

teeth to science instead of the tooth fairy. 



The study called for anyone born and living in St. Louis from the late 1940s through 

the 1960s - especially if they believe they submitted teeth - to contact his group. If 

matched with any of the baby teeth, the person would be mailed a health 

questionnaire. 



The original project helped scientists determine that children were absorbing 

radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb tests. It received international attention and 

helped to persuade the United States to adopt a 1963 treaty banning atmospheric 

bomb tests. 

----------------



Man Faces Charges on Nuclear Exports

  

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man who eluded authorities for 16 years was back in a U.S. 

courtroom to face charges of illegally exporting nuclear weapons triggers to Israel. 



The brief hearing Monday was the first court appearance for Richard Kelly Smyth 

since he and his wife fled before his 1985 pretrial hearing. He was arrested in Spain 

in July and extradited to the United States on Friday. 



Smyth, 72, was charged in a 30-count indictment with illegally exporting about 

$60,000 worth of krytrons - two-inch triggering devices that can be used in nuclear 

weapons. 



Krytrons can't be exported without a license or written approval from the State 

Department. Smyth, who had been president of Milco International Inc., is accused of 

preparing false documentation for the export of roughly 800 of the tubelike devices, 

which authorities say were sent abroad in 15 shipments between January 1980 and 

December 1982. 



During Monday's hearing, Smyth told U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin he 

understood the charges against him. He was ordered to return to court for another 

hearing next Monday. 



His attorney, James Riddet, declined comment. 



Smyth, who faces up to 105 years in jail, pleaded innocent in 1985 before fleeing 

while free on $100,000 bail. Although he had surrendered his passport, he managed 

to leave the United States for Spain, where he and his wife had lived in the same 

Malaga apartment since the mid-1980s. 



``We weren't going to have him go to jail for 105 years,'' his wife, Emilie, said 

Monday.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandy Perle				Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100   

Director, Technical			Extension 2306

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service	Fax:(714) 668-3149 	           

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.		E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue  	E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com   

Costa Mesa, CA 92626                    



Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/scperle

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com





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