Australia approves new nuclear research reactor

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

Note: I'll be in Wash. DC, April 6 - 11, so news distributions may be 



limited.



Index:



Australia approves new nuclear research reactor

N.M. Discusses 'West Wing' Scene

NRC Blasts Nuclear Plant Vigilance

NRC agrees to 20 pct power increase for Ill. nuke

Lithuania finds part of stolen nuclear container

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



Australia approves new nuclear research reactor

  

CANBERRA, April 5 (Reuters) - Australia has given Argentine state 

firm INVAP SE the green light to build a controversial research-only 

nuclear reactor to replace the country's ageing Sydney reactor, the 

government said on Friday. 



Environmentalists have vowed to block the A$300 million (US$159 

million) project, saying Australia's 44-year-old Lucas Heights 

reactor should not be replaced, even by a reactor which only produces 



radioisotopes for medical use. 



Australia has no other nuclear reactors besides the Lucas Heights 

research facility. Green groups and residents of the south Sydney 

suburb where it is located say replacing the ageing reactor is the 

last thing Australia should be doing given post-September 11 security 



concerns. 



But the nation's nuclear watchdog, the Australian Radiation 

Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), said the new reactor, 



to be completed by 2005, was designed to withstand even a direct 

aircraft attack. 



"I'm satisfied that even in the unlikely event that such an attack 

were attempted, that the probability of the attack being successful 

is now very small indeed," ARPANSA said in a statement. 



Science Minister Peter McGauran dismissed environmental concerns 

about the project, saying the need for a reliable source of isotopes -



- used in more than 440,000 nuclear medicine procedures in Australia 

last year -- was paramount. 



"The government had a clear choice between saving lives and providing 



for more ground-breaking scientific and industrial research, or 

succumbing to minority groups and their protest actions," McGauran 

said in a statement. 



Radioisotopes are artificially-produced chemical elements used in 

physical and biological research or medical therapy. 



Green groups and Sydney residents have long argued there is no safe 

way to dispose of nuclear waste, even in its reprocessed form, and 

that Lucas Heights has become the de facto nuclear waste dump of 

Australia. 



The government has not yet decided where it will dispose of the 

medium and low-level nuclear waste from the reactor, but said a 

decision would be made before the reactor comes on line in 2005. 



Last August, Australia and Argentina signed a nuclear energy treaty 

paving the way for Australian nuclear waste to be shipped and 

processed in the South American country. 



The reprocessed waste would eventually be returned to Australia for 

permanent storage. 



In the past Australia has sent spent fuel to France for reprocessing 

by state-owned nuclear reprocessing company Cogema, but activists 

including Greenpeace have protested against it, saying shipping spent 



fuel is dangerous. 



McGauran also shrugged off questions about the viability of INVAP 

after a fellow minister told the Senate last month the Argentine 

technology firm had received a A$10.5 million ($5.6 million) bailout 

from the Buenos Aires government. 



INVAP is owned by Rio Negro province and its board is controlled by 

Argentina's National Atomic Energy Commission. Its main work is 

related to space exploration and nuclear construction and research in 



places like Argentina, Peru, Algeria, Cuba and Egypt. 

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



N.M. Discusses 'West Wing' Scene

  

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - This just in: Martin Sheen is not president. 



Just in case New Mexico television viewers were wondering, the state 

Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department wanted them to know 



that an episode of ``The West Wing'' scheduled to air Wednesday night 



is fictional. 



The NBC drama series about life in the White House was to feature a 

story line about a crash of a heavy rig bearing uranium fuel rods in 

a remote Idaho tunnel. 



``The scenario described is completely fictional,'' the department 

said in a news release issued Tuesday, later adding, ``New Mexico has 



no tunnels.'' Neither, it added, does Idaho. 



In fact, New Mexico does have a tunnel on U.S. 82 between Alamogordo 

and Cloudcroft. 



Anne Clark, the department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant coordinator, 



said Wednesday that the news release should have said New Mexico has 

no tunnels on roads designated for vehicles hauling radioactive and 

other hazardous materials. 



Diane Kinderwater, spokeswoman for Gov. Gary Johnson, approved the 

release, issued on the governor's letterhead. 



``We're not trying to offend anybody's intelligence but they see 

vignettes and think that it could happen,'' Kinderwater said. ``Why 

not try to give correct information?'' 



Kinderwater said the idea for the release came from state Energy, 

Minerals and Natural Resources Secretary Betty Rivera. 



The release was prepared by Clark, who said Wednesday the issue 

portrayed on the show is ``going to be hot on people's minds because 

of Sept. 11.'' 



``We want to assure people that this is not a possible scenario and 

we're prepared for anything that could happen in terms of an accident 



or some kind of security issue,'' she said. 



WIPP, which opened in March 1999 near Carlsbad, is a federal 

underground storage facility for plutonium-contaminated waste from 

defense work. It does not store nuclear fuel rods from civilian power 



plants. 



``As officials of the state, they (Rivera and Clark) felt this was 

the time to let the public know that they don't have anything to fear 



from anything on the program,'' Kinderwater said. ``Sometimes the 

power of television is very strong. They're just trying to be 

responsible.'' 



Maria Stasi of Warner Bros. Television Publicity said no one was 

available Tuesday evening to comment. A ``West Wing'' publicist also 

did not return a phone call late Tuesday. 



On the Net: 



The West Wing Web site: http://www.nbc.com/The-West-Wing/index.html 

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



NRC Blasts Nuclear Plant Vigilance

  

OAK HARBOR, Ohio (AP) - An acid leak that ate through a steel cap 

over a nuclear plant's reactor vessel should have been spotted as 

long as four years ago, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

report released Friday. 



Inspectors said there were many opportunities for the operator of the 



Davis-Besse plant to find the problem, which wasn't discovered until 

the plant was shut down in February for refueling. 



``It should have been recognized,'' said NRC spokesman Jan Strasma. 



The NRC said the damage did not pose a safety threat but did order 

operators of all 69 pressurized water reactors in the United States 

to submit information on the structural integrity of their plant's 

reactor head. 



The NRC said it was the most extensive corrosion ever found on top of 



a U.S. nuclear plant reactor. Inspectors spotted a second cavity two 

weeks later. 



Plant employees found leaking boric acid created a 6-inch hole in the 



steel cap near a cracked control rod nozzle. The hole was stopped by 

a steel layer impervious to the acid. 



Significant corrosion began at least four years ago, according to 

preliminary findings of an NRC inspection. Inspectors said it was 

caused by cracked control rod nozzles. 



FirstEnergy Corp., which operates the plant, said it was not 

surprised by the findings and that its own investigators came to the 

same conclusion, said company spokesman Richard Wilkins. 



The plant had visual inspections over the years, but corrosion was 

overlooked because plant staff and management for years did not 

realize the significance of boric acid deposits on top of the vessel 

head, according to FirstEnergy's findings. 



The company said similar corrosion can be found or avoided at similar 



plants if engineers know how to look for it. 



The acid is a byproduct of the nuclear fission process inside the 

reactor. The reactor has 69 control rods. The nozzles are vertical 

tubes that house the rods, which absorb excess neutrons in the 

reactor core. 



The damage to the reactor's steel cap will keep the plant shut down 

until at least June. 



The plant is along Lake Erie and about 25 miles east of Toledo. 

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



NRC agrees to 20 pct power increase for Ill. nuke

  

NEW YORK, April 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

(NRC) said Thursday it had approved a request by AmerGen Energy Co. 

to increase the generating capacity of the Clinton nuclear power 

station in Illinois by about 20 percent, or about 186 megawatts. 



The power increase at the plant, near Clinton, Illinois, will boost 

the generating capacity of the reactor to about 1,116 megawatts, the 

NRC said in a statement. 



AmerGen plans to implement the power increase in two phases beginning 



this spring, the NRC said. 



The NRC said the plant's power output could be safely increased 

primarily by using new fuel in the core and making certain plant 

modifications. 



The Clinton nuclear unit was shut earlier this week, according to the 



NRC's daily power reactor status report. The plant shut for its 

spring refueling and maintenance and is expected to resume power 

production near May 7. 



AmerGen is a joint venture of Exelon Corp <EXC.N> of Chicago and 

British Energy PLC <BGY.L> of the UK. 



Separately, the NRC said Thursday it had also approved an application 



from Entergy Corp. <ETR.N> to increase the generating capacity of the 



Waterford 3 nuclear unit in Louisiana by 1.5 percent, or about 16 

megawatts. 



The power increase at Waterford 3 will bring the reactor generating 

capacity to about 1,169 megawatts. 



Entergy plans to implement the power increase during the current 

spring maintenance and refueling outage, the NRC said. 



Waterford 3 is located about 20 miles west of New Orleans, Louisiana. 





One megawatt is roughly enough to power 1,000 average homes. 

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



Lithuania finds part of stolen nuclear container

  

VILNIUS, April 4 (Reuters) - Lithuanian officials said on Thursday 

they had found part of a uranium fuel container stolen from the 

country's Ignalina nuclear plant a decade ago, but the uranium it 

once contained was missing. 



Some 34 radioactive zinc tubes, which once held uranium and formed 

part of a fuel cassette, were found Wednesday buried in a small 

forest 10 kilometres (six miles) from the plant, senior prosecutor 

for the Vilnius region Ramutis Jancevicius told Reuters. 



"Specialists are still examining the object, but at this point they 

doubt it contains uranium. In any case, this is a very significant 

find," he said. 



In 1992, while control of the Soviet-built plant was being 

transferred from Russian to Lithuanian authorities, several workers 

stole one of the fuel cassettes that power the plant. 



"To date we have found roughly two-thirds of the stolen materials," 

Jancevicus said. He said most suspects had already been convicted but 



a Russian citizen was still being sought. 



In March, police discovered 20 kilograms (45 lb) of the stolen 

uranium in a field in Lithuania's Anyksciai district. 



Altogether, some 80 kilograms of the uranium have been found in 

Lithuania in recent years and more in neighbouring Belarus, according 



to local press reports. 



Jancevicius said he doubted radioactive materials still unlocated 

posed a hazard. "But we can and must find all of it, down to the last 



milligram, as a matter of principle," he added. 



Ignalina was built during the 1980s to the same design as Ukraine's 

ill-fated Chernobyl, site of the world's worst civilian nuclear 

accident in 1986. 



Citing safety risks, the European Union has demanded its closure in 

2009 as a condition for Lithuanian EU membership. 



Lithuania has pledged to close the first reactor by 2005, but has yet 



to commit to a date for shutting the second unit. 







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

Sandy Perle

Director, Technical

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net

E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com

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



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