NRC urges U.S. nuclear plants be checked for leaks

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

Index:



NRC urges U.S. nuclear plants be checked for leaks

U.S. Likely to Move N.M. Plutonium

Senator Questions Nuclear Plant Cleanup

Lyle Borst, 89, Nuclear Physicist Who Worked on A-Bomb Project, Dies

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



NRC urges U.S. nuclear plants be checked for leaks



WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

Friday urged operators of U.S. nuclear power plants with pressurized 

water reactors to further inspect the top of their reactors for 

possible cracks and leaks.



The NRC said it issued the bulletin in response to cracked and 

leaking nozzles found at several reactors and significant corrosion 

discovered in the reactor vessel head at the Davis-Besse nuclear 

power plant in Oak Harbor, Ohio.



Instead of relying only on visual inspections to find any problems, 

the agency said reactor operators should also use ultrasound, 

electric currents and liquid dyes to check for cracking and corrosion 

in a reactor's metal head.



"Inspection programs that primarily rely on visual examinations may 

need to be supplemented," the NRC said in a statement.



The NRC asked plant operators to file their future inspection plans 

with the agency within 30 days.



During a scheduled refueling outage at the Davis-Besse plant last 

February, the plant's engineers found boric acid had leaked at the 

base of several of the control rod nozzles that penetrate the 

reactor. The plant has been shut down since then.



Boric acid is used in the primary coolant bath surrounding uranium 

rods in the reactor core.



At one of the nozzles, the acid had eaten all the way through the 

vessel head, which was 6 inches (15-cm) thick. The vessel head is a 

massive piece of carbon steel 17 feet (5.2 meters) wide that is 

bolted down on top of the reactor to prevent any radioactive material 

from escaping.



The corrosion was so severe that a stainless steel liner 3/8-inch (1 

cm) thick inside the reactor was the only barrier left between the 

reactor core, which operates under enormous pressure, and the metal 

shroud surrounding the reactor vessel.



The 25-year-old Davis-Besse plant is owned by FirstEnergy Corp. 

<FE.N>



Of the 103 nuclear reactors operating in 34 states, 69 facilities are 

of the pressurized-water type.



With a pressurized reactor, water is kept in the reactor under high 

pressure so it does not boil. The heated water flows from the reactor 

through pipes to a nearby steam generator. The pipes are surrounded 

by a second water supply that boils and produces steam to spin the 

turbine generator and produce electricity.



The water then returns to the reactor, where it is reheated and sent 

back to the steam generator in a continuos loop.



Agency staff will meet at NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland on 

Aug. 23 with the Nuclear Energy Institute and power plant operators 

to discuss the new inspection guidelines. The meeting is open to the 

public.

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



U.S. Likely to Move N.M. Plutonium



WASHINGTON Aug 12 (AP) - Pending a final environmental review, the 

Energy Department is expected to move as much as several tons of 

plutonium and weapons-grade uranium from a federal research 

laboratory in New Mexico to Nevada because of security concerns, 

according to documents.



In a department memo, John C. Browne, director of the Los Alamos 

National Laboratory, called the proposed move ``the best overall 

decision to meet the post-September 11th challenges for the long-term 

security of nuclear activities.''



An Energy Department spokesman, Bryan Wilkes, said that while no 

final decision has been made, moving the material to the Nevada Test 

Site is the preferred option being studied to increase security. The 

environmental study is being reviewed, he said.



Several tons of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, which could be 

used to make an atomic bomb, are kept at Technical Area-18 at the Los 

Alamos lab in New Mexico where critics have said it cannot be 

adequately protected.



``There is no doubt that that facility was at high risk. They simply 

could not defend it,'' said Pete Stockton, an analyst for the Project 

on Government Oversight, a private watchdog group that Sunday 

released a copy of the Browne memo and other documents involving the 

expected move.



Built in the 1940s, Technical Area-18 is located at the bottom of a 

steep canyon, where the high ground and an adjacent highway makes the 

site difficult to defend.



In repeated security exercises, troops have been unable to protect 

the material. In a 1997 exercise, Army Special Forces posing as 

attackers wheeled away a garden cart full of props representing the 

nuclear material. In another test, attackers obtained access to the 

facility where they could detonated an explosion, had they been 

terrorists.



Had actual material been stolen it would have been enough to make 

several weapons, said Stockton, who three years ago chaired a DOE 

team that recommended to then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson that 

the material be moved. Richardson ordered the environmental studies 

into moving the material.



Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a frequent critic of security at federal 

weapons facilities, urged the department to complete the move as 

quickly as possible and safeguard the material from potential 

terrorists.



POGO, which has criticized DOE security of nuclear weapons material, 

obtained a draft press release from the National Nuclear Security 

Administration, an agency within the DOE, that indicated that plans 

are going forward to move the material to Nevada with a decision 

anticipated next month.



Everett H. Beckner, deputy NNSA administrator, has given his approval 

to begin design activities and other steps to implement the move, 

according to a memo obtained by POGO.



The material is part of a research project in which scientists 

examine how electronic components of nuclear weapons respond to 

small, short-lived nuclear detonations.



On the Net:



Project on Government Oversight: http://www.pogo.org



National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov



Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov

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



Senator Questions Nuclear Plant Cleanup 

 

Washington Aug 10 (Washington Post) A Senate Republican yesterday 

demanded extensive records of the Department of Energy's dealings 

with contractor Lockheed Martin Corp., questioning whether "cozy 

relations" were impeding a government probe of alleged fraud and 

environmental abuse at the agency's Paducah, Ky., uranium plant.



Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the ranking Republican on the Senate 

Finance Committee, was the second senior lawmaker in as many days to 

publicly question the department's handling of the cleanup at 

Paducah, a nuclear-fuel plant that became the focus of a federal 

probe three years ago this month.



Although the department has acknowledged extensive environmental 

damage at the Kentucky plant -- and even issued an apology to workers 

-- it has not decided whether former plant operator Lockheed Martin 

should be held financially responsible. A Justice Department decision 

on whether to join a whistle-blower lawsuit against Lockheed has been 

delayed for more than two years, in part because the department has 

withheld its opinion on the merits of the case.



The lawsuit alleges that Energy Department contractors misled workers 

and the government about environmental contamination at the plant, 

built in 1952 to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs.



"I am troubled by the possibility that there may be a subtle effort 

underway at the Energy Department to slow or even sideline" the 

government's intervention in the case, Grassley wrote in a letter to 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.



Too often, he wrote, "I have seen agencies place a premium on cozy 

relationships with their contractors . . . over and above the need to 

protect taxpayers." Grassley asked Abraham to turn over three years' 

worth of documents and memos between Energy officials and Lockheed.



Similar concerns were raised in a letter Thursday by Rep. Henry A. 

Waxman (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform 

Committee. Waxman noted ties between Lockheed and the Bush 

administration -- Vice President Cheney's wife, Lynne V. Cheney, is a 

former Lockheed board member -- as well as the contractor's 

reputation for lobbying and political giving.



"If a corporation has indeed caused this terrible harm at Paducah, it 

would be outrageous to force the public to pay the bills three times 

over -- first for contract fees, second in suffering the harm and 

third for the cleanup," Waxman wrote.



The Energy Department yesterday promised to review the lawmakers' 

concerns. "We are carefully considering all points raised and seeking 

the views of all parties," department spokesman Joe Davis said.



Lockheed Martin has declined to talk about the specifics of the 

whistle-blower case, but spokeswoman Meghan Mariman said 

yesterday that the company has cooperated fully with government 

investigators. "We believe the case has no merit," she said.



The apparent ambivalence over the whistle-blower case stands in sharp 

contrast with the department's decisive steps in launching a 

$1.3 billion cleanup and assisting ailing workers.



On Thursday, Abraham announced changes intended to make it easier for 

workers to qualify for payments. "Employees of DOE 

contractors have performed important work for their country," Abraham 

said in announcing the rule changes. "Even though they may 

have worked for a government contractor, these dedicated individuals 

are our workers, and we are going to take care of them."

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



Lyle Borst, 89, Nuclear Physicist Who Worked on A-Bomb Project, Dies



New York Auh 12 (NY Times) Dr. Lyle B. Borst, a nuclear physicist who 

helped build Brookhaven National Laboratory's nuclear 

reactor and was an early member of the Manhattan Project, died on 

July 30 at his home in Williamsville, N.Y. He was 89.



In 1950, Dr. Borst led the construction of the Brookhaven Graphite 

Research Reactor, which was the largest and most powerful 

reactor in the country and the first to be built solely for research 

and other peacetime uses of atomic energy.



Within the first nine months of operating the reactor, Dr. Borst 

announced that it had produced a new type of radioactive iodine, 

which is used in treating thyroid cancer.



In 1952, based on studies of new types of atomic nuclei created in 

the reactor, Dr. Borst helped explain the mystery behind giant 

stars, known as supernovae, that burst with the energy of billions of 

atomic bombs and flare for several years with the brilliance of 

several million suns.



Dr. Borst found that beryllium 7, an isotope of beryllium that does 

not occur naturally on earth, is formed in supernovae by the fusion 

of two helium nuclei. The fusion takes place after the star has used 

up its hydrogen supply. This reaction absorbs huge quantities of 

energy, causing the star to collapse in the greatest cosmic explosion 

known.



Dr. Borst was also a senior physicist at the Clinton Laboratories in 

Oak Ridge, Tenn., where he worked on the Manhattan Project.



After atomic bombs were dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 

Dr. Borst, concerned that atomic energy should be 

internationally regulated, helped organize a group of about 1,300 

scientists who had worked on the bomb project and wanted to keep 

atomic energy under civilian control, rather than military control, 

to prevent a worldwide competitive armaments race.



Speaking in support of an atomic energy control bill in front of 

Congress in 1945, Dr. Borst said he helped start the Federation of 

Atomic Scientists "to create a realization of the dangers that this 

nation and all civilization will face if the tremendous destructive 

potential of nuclear energy is misused." 



On a trip to Greece in 1961, Dr. Borst discovered that a "Manhattan 

District Project" in Sparta made steel in large quantities as early 

as 650 B.C.



Based on specimens he obtained from archaeologists, he theorized that 

steel was the secret weapon of the Spartans and that it 

was the reason for their military successes against enemies having 

only soft iron or bronze weapons. Having such a weapon at that 

time, Dr. Borst said in a 1961 article in The New York Times, was 

almost the military equivalent of having an atomic bomb.



Born in Chicago on Nov. 24, 1912, Lyle Benjamin Borst earned 

bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Illinois and a 

doctorate at the University of Chicago.



In 1942, Dr. Borst was a research associate at the metallurgical 

laboratory in Chicago, where Dr. Enrico Fermi conducted the first 

self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. 



He became a professor of physics at the University of Utah in the 

early 50's and helped design the university's small nuclear reactor. 

Dr. Borst taught at New York University and the State University of 

New York at Buffalo, and was a member of the National Board of the 

American Civil Liberties Union.



He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Ruth Barbara Mayer Borst; two 

sons, John Benjamin, of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Stephen, of 

North Brookfield, Mass.; a daughter, Frances Elizabeth Wright of 

Albany; and seven grandchildren.



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

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/