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Ontario to revive six nuclear reactors by 2004
NOTE: I will be at the Health Physics Society Meeting and then out of the country
(Feb 15 - March 11). There will be no news distributions during this time unless I find
some good internet connections.
Index:
Ontario to revive six nuclear reactors by 2004
NRC Public Comment Period Opens For San Onofre Unit 1 Fuel Storage Design
US government plans stricter nuclear plant security
Russia to supply 2 reactors for India: Tass
Sick Ex-Nuclear Workers Await Aid
=========================================
Ontario to revive six nuclear reactors by 2004
NEW YORK, Feb 12 (Reuters) - While U.S. critics of nuclear power cite heightened
security risks following Sept. 11 as yet another reason to shut reactors, Canadian
energy companies are rushing to revive their own aging reactors.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission in November ordered heightened security
measures at Canadian plants. While Canadians are also concerned about nuclear
waste and safety, they believe nuclear power's benefits outweigh its drawbacks.
Nuclear plants are seen as relatively inexpensive and cleaner than coal or gas-fired
plants, whose emissions are blamed for acid rain and global warming.
Over the next two years, two Ontario companies -- Ontario Power Generation (OPG)
and Bruce Power -- plan to restart six reactors idled between late 1997 and 1998 for
costly upgrades to boost performance and safety.
The rush to add more generation as Ontario prepares to launch power market
competition on May 1 has given new urgency to returning the idled reactors to
service.
Together, the six units can produce enough electricity for about 3.5 million homes, or
roughly 12 percent of the province's overall power generation.
OPG, the provincially-owned power generating company, is repowering four units at
its Pickering "A" nuclear station at a cost of about C$1.5 billion, a move that will
restore 2,000 megawatts (MW) of generation.
Ontario Hydro, OPG's predecessor, shut the Pickering station's four "A" reactors,
which entered service in 1971, to focus on improving the performance of the station's
newer "B" reactors, which have a capacity of 2,120 megawatts.
OPG said it expects the first Pickering "A" reactor to return to service during the third
quarter of 2002, with the remaining units returning to the grid one every six months,
company spokesman Ted Gruetzner told Reuters.
The Pickering station is about 24 miles (40 km) east of Toronto on the shores of
Lake Ontario.
Meanwhile, Bruce Power expects to restart two of the four idled reactors at its Bruce
"A" nuclear station by the summer of 2003 at a cost of about $C340 million, adding
1,500 MW to the 3,160 MW station on Lake Michigan.
Bruce Power, which entered a long-term lease with OPG to operate the Bruce
station, is a subsidiary of energy giant British Energy Plc <BGY.L> (82.5 percent),
Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corp. <CCO.TO> of Saskatchewan (15
percent) and the two biggest employee unions at the station.
COUNTING THE NUCLEAR ADVANTAGE
After weighing the cost of building new natural gas-fired power plants, OPG decided
repowering the old Pickering units would be a cheaper and cleaner way to meet
Ontario's energy needs.
It would also avoid having to buy power from existing Canadian and U.S. coal-fired
plants, OPG President and Chief Executive Ron Osborne said in a speech last
month.
OPG's nuclear stations have low operating costs, said Osborne, which will help keep
power prices competitive as Ontario prepares to open its electric market to
competition on May 1.
Power from a new gas-fired cogeneration plant, which would produce electricity and
process steam for industrial use, would cost about C$45 per megawatt hour. A
combined cycle gas turbine would produce power at a cost of about C$50.
One megawatt hour provides enough electricity to power about 1,000 homes for 60
minutes.
In comparison, power from Pickering A would cost just over $30 per megawatt hour,
including the investment OPG is making to return the station to service, he said.
"The bottom line is that Pickering A power, together with Bruce A power being
restored by British Energy, remains the most economic source of large-scale
generation in the province," Osborne said.
-----------------
NRC Public Comment Period Opens For San Onofre Unit 1 Fuel Storage Design
SAN CLEMENTE, Feb. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Officials at the San Onofre Nuclear
Generating Station (SONGS) announced today that the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission (NRC) is now accepting public comment on the design proposed for the
SONGS Unit 1 temporary used nuclear fuel storage system (commonly known as
"dry cask storage"). The public comment period began yesterday and continues
through April 29.
Members of the public wishing to file comments about the proposed dry cask storage
facility are invited to follow the process outlined in the Federal Register Notice (Vol.
67, No. 28, pages 6203-6205). This notice can be accessed online at
http://www.gpo.gov/su-docs/aces/aces140.html .
The NRC will review all public comments in conjunction with its technical review of
the storage system design as proposed by Transnuclear West Inc. The NRC review
has been underway since the Unit 1 application was filed on Sept. 29, 2000.
If approved, SONGS officials will use this dry cask storage system design to
permanently package and temporarily store the Unit 1 used nuclear fuel in
preparation for its final disposal at a storage site approved by the U.S. Department of
Energy. Unit 1, the first of three nuclear reactors built and operated at SONGS, was
retired from service in 1992.
An Edison International (NYSE: EIX) company, Southern California Edison is one of
the nation's largest electric utilities, serving a population of more than 11 million via
4.3 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within central,
coastal and Southern California. For more information on the California electricity
market, see www.sce.com .
------------------
US government plans stricter nuclear plant security
WASHINGTON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - The U.S. government is expected to soon order
the nation's 103 nuclear power plants to improve security against potential attacks
like the hijacked planes flown into the World Trade Center, an industry group said on
Tuesday.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will soon notify power plant operators to
upgrade security related to employees, training and physical barriers around plants,
said the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's main lobbying group.
For security reasons, the regulatory agency is not expected to disclose specific
modifications, the trade group said in a statement.
Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network have been blamed for the Sept. 11
hijacked plane attacks that felled the World Trade Center and punched a hole in the
Pentagon.
U.S. officials are concerned the network could be plotting a second airline attack, this
time on a nuclear power plant.
"The required security refinements come in the general areas of personnel, training
and additional physical safety barriers," the group said. A spokesman declined to
elaborate on the kinds of added security to be ordered by the government.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had no immediate comment.
Nuclear safety and activist groups have urged the Bush administration to adopt
stricter measures, such as military guards at nuclear power plants and rigorous
employee screening. They say nuclear plants are vulnerable to a Boeing 767 strike
at full speed, even with concrete walls over four feet thick.
"Our sense today is that these plants are sitting ducks," said Paul Leventhal,
president of watchdog group Nuclear Control Institute.
Last week, Tom Ridge, director of the White House Homeland Security office, said
U.S. security agencies were considering "bricks and mortar adjustments" to the
nation's 103 nuclear power plants to guard against a possible airline attack.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission placed all U.S. plants on heightened alert
immediately after the September attacks and began reviewing its security guidelines.
Current NRC guidelines do not require nuclear plants to prepare for an airplane
threat, and instead focus on scenarios involving ground attacks.
Ralph Beedle, the industry group's chief nuclear officer, said U.S. plants already
have tight security.
"The nuclear energy industry continues to do everything we can to improve security
preparedness at the nation's nuclear plants," Beedle said.
----------------------
Russia to supply 2 reactors for India: Tass
MOSCOW, Feb. 12 (Kyodo) - Russia will supply two nuclear reactors to India within
the next five years for a new nuclear power station to be built in southern India, the
Russian news agency Itar-Tass said Tuesday.
A contract for the $1.5 billion deal was signed in Moscow on Tuesday between Indian
and Russian officials.
Tass said Russian experts will supervise construction of the two pressured water
reactors at the nuclear power station to be built in Kudankulam.
The two Russian reactors, each with a 1,000 megawatts capacity, would be the
largest to be operated in India.
According to Tass, the Kudankulam nuclear power plant would be commissioned
within five and a half years.
-------------------
Sick Ex-Nuclear Workers Await Aid
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Steelworker Stephen Kaurich remembers those mysterious
shipments to his mill in the two years after World War II, the strange metal bars he
and his crew were told to roll down to a smaller, more usable size.
The shipments arrived hidden under the floorboards of boxcars, and once workers
began rolling them through the steel mill's machinery, they noticed the bars did not
cool like the materials they were used to shaping.
When the work was finished, the factory was washed down with acids, and the
boxcars left as mysteriously as they came.
``They didn't tell us they were uranium bars,'' Kaurich said.
Now an 80-year-old colon cancer survivor, Kaurich is convinced his illness was
caused by exposure to radiation. He is among tens of thousands of sickened nuclear
weapons workers and survivors expected to seek federal compensation for having
contributed to the nation's Cold War buildup of atomic weapons.
But six months after workers and their families could begin applying for the $150,000
lump sums, many applicants are still waiting, with older workers wondering if they will
live long enough to see a payout.
``Nothing yet,'' said Kaurich, who filed last year and was not asked for medical
records on his 1974 surgery until last month. ``Most of the guys are all dead. They
should have done something about it a long time ago.''
Program director Pete Turcic said the process for approving claims can be long and
asked applicants to be patient. Of 18,980 claims filed in the first six months, 1,228
cases have been paid out and 74 denied, he said.
An additional 2,216 cases have been recommended for approval, and 629 have
been recommended for denial.
``I understand people are concerned, but we are committed to processing claims as
rapidly as possible,'' Turcic said.
Two years ago, Congress approved the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program to provide $150,000, plus medical benefits, for living workers
who got sick. Survivors of the dead can apply for the lump sum.
The program, administered by the Labor Department, is intended to compensate
workers who became ill after being exposed to cancer-causing radiation or silica and
beryllium, two metals that can cause lung disease, while working on dangerous
weapons materials, often without knowing it.
Officials are anticipating 80,000 claims in the first two years of the program, with the
vast majority being cancer patients.
The Energy Department has to verify the person was employed at certain
installations when dangerous materials were handled. Then the Department of
Health and Human Services has to determine whether his or her illness was caused
by the work.
The program covers 318 facilities in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico
and the Marshall Islands, with the highest number of sites in New York (38) and Ohio
(35). The list includes the University of California at Berkeley, the Great Lakes
Carbon Corp. in Chicago, the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in New Jersey and a
Bethlehem Steel operation in Lackawanna, N.Y.
Kaurich worked at the Vulcan Crucible Steel Co. in Aliquippa, 20 miles northwest of
Pittsburgh.
Kaurich said many of the workers died long before the compensation program
began. He said eight men in his crew of 10 are already gone.
``I'm lucky,'' Kaurich said.
The workers knew the shipments were odd but gave them little thought. Kaurich said
he later learned that the uranium was sent to a nuclear plant in Washington state,
where it was used to produce plutonium for bombs.
Dorothy Baron filed an application in October for her stepfather, Nick Arbutina, a
steelworker who worked at the Vulcan plant from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.
He died of leukemia in 1984.
Baron, 71, said she has run into obstacles because the hospital where Arbutina died
no longer has his medical records. Baron said she is mainly concerned for her 89-
year-old mother, who lost her first husband to a fire in 1937.
``She got nothing then because Social Security was just coming out,'' Baron said.
``It'd be nice if she could get something now.''
On the Net:
Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program at
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/advocacy/
Labor Department: http://www.dol.gov
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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://sandy-travels.com
ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com
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