[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
U.S. lacks coordinated strategy on nuclear smuggling: report
Index:
U.S. lacks coordinated strategy on nuclear smuggling: report
Bomb Material Missing From Tbilisi
Japanese Gov't affiliate provided info on nuke plant opponents
Chernobyl suspected in rise in UK child deaths
Nuclear Plant Owners Delayed Upgrade
First Nuclear Waste Transportation Accident Analysis
======================================
U.S. lacks coordinated strategy on nuclear smuggling: report
WASHINGTON, June 26 (Kyodo) - By: Todd Miller Poor coordination among
six U.S. federal agencies tasked with preventing nuclear materials
from being smuggled out of countries of the former Soviet Union could
be increasing U.S. vulnerability to attack by nuclear weapons or
dirty bombs, according to a report released Wednesday.
''U.S. assistance is not effectively coordinated and lacks an overall
government-wide plan to guide it,'' according to the General
Accounting (GAO) report on nuclear nonproliferation, which was
requested by Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, the ranking Republican on the
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. The GAO is the
investigative arm of Congress.
''The Department of Energy is installing equipment at border sites in
Russia and the Department of Defense is installing equipment in
another country that is 'better able' to detect weapons-usable
nuclear material, while the State Department has installed 'less
sophisticated' radiation monitors in other countries,'' said the
report.
''Consequently, some countries' border crossings are more vulnerable
to nuclear smuggling than others,'' it said.
There is no single agency leading or coordinating the effort to
effectively establish funding priorities and thoroughly assess
recipient country requirements, it said.
The GAO report cited 181 incidents since 1992 of attempts to smuggle
nuclear material that were foiled at borders.
In the same 10-year period, the six U.S. government agencies spent
$86 million on radiation detection equipment and personnel training
in 30 countries of the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern
Europe.
The six agencies that work to prevent the spread of nuclear material
are the departments of Energy, State and Defense, the U.S. Customs
service, the Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
While U.S. assistance is generally helping countries combat nuclear
and other radioactive material smuggling, the report said serious
problems associated with installing and maintaining radiation
detection equipment have undermined U.S. efforts.
The report said effective follow-up measures must replace the current
drop-and-run approach if the countries are to make effective use of
the equipment.
In many cases, recipient countries are left with the responsibility
of alerting the U.S. of equipment failures, meaning if country
officials did not systematically report problems, malfunctioning
equipment can go unrepaired for extended periods of time, the report
said.
Other examples of the system's weaknesses cited in the report include
an incident involving Lithuania, in which portal monitors to detect
radiation were stored in the U.S. embassy basement for two years
because the State Department and the Lithuanians disagreed over the
cost of a power source for the equipment.
The report also said about half of the pedestrian monitors provided
to one country in the former Soviet Union were never installed or are
not operational.
In addition to technical and communications problems, corruption was
also cited as a major problem. In one example given in the report, a
border guard agreed turned off the monitor in exchange for alcohol.
The State Department also spent $900,000 to supply several countries
with vans equipped with radiation detection equipment, but the van in
one country was rarely used due to the frigid weather conditions, it
said.
When the Soviet Union collapsed a decade ago, it possessed about
30,000 nuclear weapons and over 600 metric tons of weapons-useable
material, the report says.
Several cases of illicit trafficking in nuclear material in Germany
and the Czech Republic in the early 1990s underscored the
proliferation threat posed by the destabilization of the region after
the Soviet Union's demise.
Russia alone shares almost 20,000 kilometers of borders with 14
countries, including North Korea, and is also in close geographical
proximity to Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, said Sen. Roberts in his
report.
------------------
Bomb Material Missing From Tbilisi
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - International nuclear inspectors, already
troubled by the disappearance of bomb-grade uranium from an ex-Soviet
institute, want answers to an even more disturbing question: Has any
equipment that makes such material disappeared as well?
The facts lie beyond easy reach, on the overgrown grounds of the
abandoned facility in rebel-held Abkhazia, a breakaway province of
this post-Soviet republic run by separatists as a de facto
independent state since 1993.
Sometime after insurgents captured the Abkhazian capital, Sukhumi,
driving Georgian scientists from the institute, its cache of highly
enriched uranium - the stuff of nuclear bombs - vanished.
A 1993 inventory showed 655 grams (1.4 pounds) of the material at the
site, the Sukhumi I. Vekua Institute of Physics and Technology.
American nonproliferation specialists say Georgian sources report it
may actually have totaled 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds).
It would probably take many times more than that to build a bomb. But
the uranium dioxide pellets are of the highest grade - enriched to
over 90 percent of the fissionable isotope U-235 - and it's the only
known case of missing bomb uranium in the world, according to data
maintained by California's Monterey Institute of International
Studies.
Georgian authorities say they have no clue whether illicit
traffickers, well-intentioned scientists or others took the material.
``There are many people who would be interested in it,'' the minister
of Georgian state security, Valerian Khaburdzania, said in an
interview here in the Georgian capital, 210 miles southeast of the
Black Sea coastal city of Sukhumi.
``It would have been easy for them to take it out by a ship coming in
from Turkey, or from Ukraine. It's an uncontrolled area.''
Scientists of Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry, regaining brief access
to the institute in 1997, later quietly informed Monterey
nonproliferation experts that the uranium was missing from its
bunker. In May 2001, an International Atomic Energy Agency mission,
finally allowed to visit Sukhumi, also found no highly enriched
uranium, said Kenji Murakami, safeguards division director, in a
telephone interview last week from the Atomic Energy Agency
headquarters in Vienna.
The IAEA mission was dispatched at Georgia's request and under U.N.
auspices to inspect the security of cesium and other radioactive
materials still at the institute. Security there was ``far from
acceptable,'' said an IAEA source, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
The Sukhumi complex's work historically focused on enriching uranium
to the high levels needed for bombs, and the U.N. agency, responsible
for guarding against the spread of nuclear weapons, wants to learn
what equipment was housed there and whether it is still there, the
source said.
But the 2001 mission had neither the experts nor legal authority to
conduct such an investigation. Even if it had easy access to
Abkhazia, the IAEA still wouldn't have full international legitimacy
for conducting an inspection; that would come only when the Georgian
Parliament ratifies an international agreement granting the IAEA
deeper access to nuclear programs.
The institute's history calls for such an investigation, the IAEA
official said. ``It needs a more extensive inspection'' but, he said,
``it needs a legal instrument.''
Said another agency official, spokesman Mark Gwozdecky, ``We're
concerned about the situation in any non-nuclear-weapon state and the
possibility they have equipment or material that could be involved in
the development of nuclear weapons.''
In the 1940s and 1950s, with the aid of physicists from conquered
Germany, Sukhumi scientists developed gaseous-diffusion and gas-
centrifuge technologies, processes in which uranium isotopes are
separated and enriched sufficiently to produce an atomic explosion.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russian scientists at the
institute withdrew to Russia, Georgia became independent, and ethnic
Abkhazians rebelled. The last 200 scientists and technicians fled to
Tbilisi in 1993.
Isolated Abkhazia, in an uneasy truce with Georgia, has no
international recognition and access from Georgia is severely
restricted.
For Iraq and other would-be nuclear powers, enrichment technology is
a major stumbling block. Even 40-year-old centrifuges or other
enrichment equipment, if available at Sukhumi, could benefit a state
or group with nuclear ambitions, said physicist David Albright of
Washington's Institute for Science and International Policy.
``Anything helps. They certainly would look for what they could learn
there at Sukhumi. Proliferation has always happened through slow
acquisition of equipment to build a program,'' said Albright, who
helped stifle Iraq's plans as an IAEA inspector in the 1990s.
The Sukhumi institute eventually branched out to other fields. Its
equipment inventory remains unknown to the IAEA, but institute staff
may have worked on enrichment technology until the end. Ukrainian
officials have disclosed that scientists who fled Sukhumi helped
Ukraine develop its own centrifuge-enrichment technology in the
1990s.
``The secrecy was so deep at Sukhumi. Nobody talked to each other
about what was going on,'' said Valter Kashia, a space systems
engineer who heads a Sukhumi institute-in-exile in Tbilisi.
Kashia said the secrecy might account for reports that the highly
enriched uranium at Sukhumi amounted to more than indicated in the
1993 inventory. ``The Russians there might have been up to other
things.''
Georgian scholar Tamara Pataraia, a nonproliferation specialist, said
scientists in Tbilisi don't know what technology may have been stored
at Sukhumi's top-secret sites. ``It seems very urgent to get a clear
answer. Is equipment still at Sukhumi or not?''
In 1998, the U.S. Energy Department and other agencies organized the
transfer of 4.3 kilograms (9.5 pounds) of enriched uranium from
Georgia's other nuclear institute, in Tbilisi, to safekeeping in
Scotland. But an Energy Department spokeswoman, Lisa Cutler, citing
Abkhazia's inaccessibility, said last week she was unaware of any
U.S. plans relating to Sukhumi.
------------------
Japanese Gov't affiliate provided info on nuke plant opponents
TOKYO, June 27 (Kyodo) - An affiliate of the Natural Resources and
Energy Agency provided local governments in 15 prefectures across
Japan hosting nuclear power plants with annual lists of clients who
opposed the plants or who turned down government benefits linked to
them, sources close to the case said Thursday.
The sources said the Center for Development of Power Supply Regions
received the lists from utilities firms, including Chugoku Electric
Power Co. and Tokyo Electric Power Co.
Chugoku Electric Power's fiscal 2001 list identified 10 cases, and
said of one that the client was not against receiving such benefits
due to the client's political orientation over nuclear power plants,
the sources said.
The sources said Tokyo Electric Power's fiscal 2000 list on Ibaraki
Prefecture identified two clients who refused to accept government
benefits while Miyagi Prefecture received from Tohoku Electric Power
Co. a list of reasons given by a client for refusing to accept such
benefits, the sources said.
The benefits are state subsidies paid to local governments hosting
nuclear power plants and come in the form of discounts on utilities
fees for households and companies.
------------------
Chernobyl suspected in rise in UK child deaths
LONDON, June 26 (Reuters) - Deaths and deformities caused by the
fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the world worst civil
nuclear accident, may have extended beyond the Ukraine, Russia and
Belarus, British scientists suspect.
They said the cloud of radioactivity it sent over Europe could have
increased infant deaths and birth defects in England and Wales in the
three years afterwards.
John Urquhart, a researcher based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in north
eastern England, estimated that at least 200 more children than
normal died during those three years.
"We've probably been too complacent about the health effects from
Chernobyl in western Europe," he told New Scientist magazine on
Wednesday.
Urquhart calculated that in England and Wales the fallout may have
caused more than 600 extra cases of Down's Syndrome, spina bifida,
cleft palate and other abnormalities in these years.
After studying deaths and birth defects in children born in 15 health
regions of England and Wales between 1983 and 1992, he found that
most of the increased deaths and deformities occurred in just five
regions, spread throughout the two countries.
"Death rates fell every year except for 1986, with the extra deaths
mostly occurring in four of the five same regions. The odds that
the overlap occurred by chance are 1 in 200," according to the
magazine.
Urquhart presented his findings to a conference on low-level
radiation in Dublin.
------------------
Nuclear Plant Owners Delayed Upgrade
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - Operators of a nuclear power plant waited more
than a decade to add larger inspection holes in a metal
platform that could have revealed corrosion that nearly ate through a
6-inch steel cap over the reactor.
Bigger inspection holes should have been added years ago, said
Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Corp., which owns
the Davis-Besse plant in Oak Harbor. But he said that the poor view
for inspections alone did not lead to the corrosion problems.
A Davis-Besse worker discovered boric acid deposits on the reactor
head in March 1990 and asked that plant engineers install
bigger inspection holes to get a better look at the deposits,
according to company documents reviewed by The (Toledo) Blade.
FirstEnergy officials discussed the idea but didn't follow through
until February, when the plant was shut down for refueling, Wilkins
said Wednesday.
In March, inspectors discovered that acid had nearly eaten through
the 6-inch thick steel cap that covers the reactor vessel on the
plant near Toledo along Lake Erie.
It was the most extensive corrosion ever found on a U.S. nuclear
reactor and led to a nationwide review of all other similar plants.
Reviews found no damage in other plants but revealed a need for more
inspections.
FirstEnergy is now investigating why it was delayed, Wilkins said.
At one point, Davis-Besse operators cited a $250,000 price tag as a
factor for the delay, The Blade reported Wednesday. But
Wilkins said, ``It wasn't simply a money issue.''
Davis-Besse has added 10 new inspections holes to a metal service
platform that are a foot wide and allow a better view of the
reactor.
Views from the original 18 inspection ports were blocked by 69
control rod nozzles that protrude from the reactor head and a layer
of
metal insulation that shields the platform from the reactor's 600-
degree temperature.
Had the plant had bigger inspection holes previously, workers could
have more closely inspected the reactor, however that would not
have guaranteed that they would have found the corroded spots,
Stephen Sands, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission project manager
for Davis-Besse, said Wednesday.
FirstEnergy plans to replace the reactor head with a $55 million
unused head from Consumer Energy's never-completed nuclear
plant in Midland, Mich. The company plans to reopen the plant at the
end of the year.
-------------------
First Nuclear Waste Transportation Accident Analysis for 20 Major
U.S. Cities To be Released Thursday
WASHINGTON, June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The Department of Energy (DOE)
says transportation accidents are inevitable if the nation
ships thousands of shipments of lethal radioactive waste through many
of America's largest cities en route to the proposed nuclear
dump at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Though it has modeled the results of
a generic accident releasing radiation, the government has
not provided people along routes with health impact information about
potential releases in their communities.
On Thursday, June 27, the Environmental Working Group will publish,
"What If? An Analysis of Potential Nuclear Waste Accidents
for 20 Major US Cities."
Drawing on the federal government's data and its premier
transportation accident models, this Web-based report will assess
radiation exposure zones and health impacts arising from a moderately
severe transportation accident in 20 U.S. cities. In the
models, such an accident cracks the seal of a container carrying high-
level radioactive waste of the type proposed for shipment to
the Nevada repository.
EWG will present detailed maps and accident assessments for each
metro area at the briefing and unveil the new Web-based
findings, which will be available to the public at
http://www.mapscience.org immediately after the briefing is finished.
The "What If?" briefing will be held:
Thursday, June 27/ 12:30 p.m.
National Press Club/Lisagor Room
The cities featured in the report are:
Atlanta Milwaukee
Charlotte Minneapolis
Chicago New Haven
Denver Phoenix
Des Moines Pittsburgh
Jacksonville Portsmouth, NH
Kansas City St. Louis
Lansing Salt Lake City
Los Angeles Washington, DC
Miami Wilmington, DE
-------------------------------------------------
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
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To unsubscribe,
send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the text "unsubscribe
radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail, with no subject line.
You can view the Radsafe archives at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/