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Iran to build more nuke power plants-atomic chief
Note: I will be out of the country Sept. 20 - 29 and there will be no
news distributions during this time, depending on phone/internet
connections.
Index:
Iran to build more nuke power plants-atomic chief
UK should not rescue B.Energy-green group
Work Begins on Hanford Cleanup
Two Nuclear Cargo Ships in Britain
Hitachi asked to falsify report on TEPCO's nuke plant
=================================
Iran to build more nuke power plants-atomic chief
TEHRAN, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Iran intends to go ahead and build more
nuclear power plants despite U.S. accusations the Islamic Republic is
pursuing weapons of mass destruction, newspapers on Wednesday quoted
its atomic energy chief as saying.
The new projects would be in addition to a nuclear plant at Bushehr
on the Gulf coast being built with Russian help, a project that has
infuriated Washington, which says Iran is part of an "axis of evil"
alongside Iraq and North Korea.
"Iran has a long-term plan to build more nuclear power plants to
expand its capacity by 6,000 MW by the next two decades," the Iran
newspaper quoted the head of Iran's Atomic Enery Organisation,
Gholamreza Aghazadeh as saying.
Russia approved plans in July to construct up to six more nuclear
power reactors and expand conventional power stations in the Islamic
Republic. Iran, the second biggest oil producer in OPEC and with the
second biggest gas reserves in the world, says the nuclear plant is
for purely civilian power generation.
"Iran has always condemned access to weapons of mass destruction on
the part of any country," Aghazadeh said on Monday in a speech at the
annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in
Vienna.
"Iran has always emphasised the full implementation of the Nuclear
Non-Prolifration Treaty by all IAEA members and criticised those
countries which have refused to join it," he said.
Aghazadeh welcomed cooperation by other countries in building nuclear
reactors in Iran and called for greater IAEA participation to ensure
plant safety.
The United States has heaped criticism on the Bushehr plans despite
Russian assurances to Washington that its cooperation with Tehran
would not lead to nuclear proliferation problems.
Iran says Bushehr will be subject to strict monitoring by the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
----------------
UK should not rescue B.Energy-green group
LONDON, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Britain should not offer any more help to
crisis-hit nuclear generator British Energy and must wind the firm
up, SERA, an environmental group with links to the ruling Labour
Party said on Wednesday.
"The government should offer no bailout for British Energy but
instead force the company into administration," Bill Eyre, chairman
of SERA, the Socialist Environment and Resources Association, whose
membership includes over 100 Labour members of parliament and four
ministers, said in a statement.
"There should be no handout for a lame duck business."
Last week the government gave British Energy, the country's largest
generator, a 410 million pound ($631.5 million) temporary loan after
the firm warned it was facing insolvency because of low UK power
prices.
The emergency funding runs out on September 27 and the government has
yet to decide whether to continue funding the company, which was
privatised in 1996, or send it into administration.
SERA, said the loan should be repaid immediately with the company
sent into administration and its nuclear power stations overseas
sold.
Its eight nuclear plants in the UK, which probably could not be sold
because of because of huge decommissioning and waste management
liabilities, should be transferred to the new nuclear Liabilities
Management Authority which is being set up.
SERA said the government's energy policy, due to be detailed in a
white paper early next year, should focus on phasing out nuclear
power quickly and boost investment in renewable power and energy
efficiency measures.
"We believe it is in the best interests of the taxpayer to phase out
nuclear power rapidly as to do otherwise would lead to mounting
economic losses that would ultimately fall to the public to pay,"
said Eyres.
Earlier on Wednesday, Dieter Helm, a top academic and an influence in
government, said UK consumers should be forced to buy nuclear power
to rescue British Energy and support the struggling nuclear sector.
Helm argued nuclear power should be supported by similar rules to
those which help green energy by providing a guaranteed market for
renewable power producers.
British Energy shares continued their relentless slide on Wednesday,
down another 25 percent to 9-1/2 pence. The stock has lost around 90
percent of its value since September 6 when the company said it faced
insolvency and begged the government for help.
Shareholders fear their investment will be wiped out if British
Energy is allowed to collapse.
The company's bond due 2006 was bid at 40 percent of face value and
the 2003 bond at 42 percent. Both were up around five points after
Tuesday's savage drop, triggered by another downgrade of British
Energy's credit rating.
-----------------
Work Begins on Hanford Cleanup
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - In a scrubby sagebrush desert not far from the
Columbia River, lethal leftovers from the Cold War era are finally
about to be cleaned up.
After a decade of fits and starts, construction has begun on a $4
billion waste treatment complex at the Hanford nuclear reservation,
the biggest environmental cleanup project in the country.
Environmental advocates say it's none too soon. At least 67 of
Hanford's 177 underground tanks, some of them decrepit and well past
their intended service lives, have leaked more than 1 million gallons
of radioactive brew into the soil.
The waste has contaminated the aquifer, and the tanks are just seven
miles from the Columbia River, which borders Hanford.
``There's a lot at stake,'' said John Britton, a spokesman for
Bechtel National, which was hired to rescue the stranded project last
year after the previous contractor's cost estimates doubled to $15.2
billion.
State regulators have squabbled with the Energy Department over the
project since the early 1990s, when the department scuttled a plan to
turn some of the waste into grout and bury it in sealed containers.
The agencies later argued over missed deadlines and uncertain federal
budgets, until a kind of detente was achieved.
``Right now our focus is on getting the thing built,'' said Sheryl
Hutchison, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology.
The new plant will turn radioactive waste from plutonium production
into more manageable glass cylinders. The process, called
vitrification, mixes radioactive waste with glass-forming materials,
then melts them at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to make a molten glass
that is poured into canisters for long-term storage.
The most radioactive glass will end up at some kind of national
repository, likely Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where it will take
10,000 years to decay. The less radioactive waste will be buried in
trenches in the 560-square-mile reservation here.
But exactly how much of the nearly 54 million gallons of radioactive
waste will be turned into glass is still being debated within the
Energy Department. The Bush administration wants the agency to study
less expensive but still effective ways to treat low-activity
radioactive waste.
``There's a lot of concern they'll not empty those tanks,'' Hutchison
said.
Another source of concern is an Energy Department plan to reclassify
some highly radioactive residual waste at several sites, including
Hanford, which could mean it would be left in the tanks. The Natural
Resources Defense Council and two Indian tribes are suing the Energy
Department in federal court in Idaho over the plan.
Roy Schepens, the new manager for the Energy Department's Office of
River Protection, which is overseeing the project, wouldn't comment
on the litigation.
But he said he's considering a number of alternatives for low-
activity waste, including a technology that uses superheated steam to
treat waste and turn it into a cat litter-like substance, and bulk
vitrification, where waste is turned into glass in an existing
container rather than transferred to one later.
Any such plans would have to be approved by state regulators.
For now, the focus is on constructing the plant. In 2005, the plant
should be ready for non-radioactive testing and in 2007, ``hot''
testing is scheduled to begin.
Crews at a test facility will use safe, simulated waste to find the
best way to remove the radioactive mix of liquid, salt cake and
sludge from the tanks.
Plutonium was made at the site for more than 40 years for the
nation's nuclear arsenal, including the bomb that was dropped on
Nagasaki during World War II.
Hutchison said the Energy Department and its contractors are making
good progress on the cleanup, which is being closely
watched.
The legal decree governing cleanup at Hanford sets a goal of
retrieving 99 percent of the waste from the tanks, or as much as is
technically feasible, and treating the waste by 2028.
``I intend to beat the 2028 date,'' Schepens said.
On the Net:
Bechtel River Protection Project: http://www.waste2glass.com
DOE Office of River Protection: http://www.hanford.gov/orp
State Department of Ecology: http://www.ecy.wa.gov
-----------------
Two Nuclear Cargo Ships in Britain
LONDON (AP) - Two ships loaded with radioactive plutonium completed
their Japan-to-Britain journey Tuesday, pulling into a
northwestern English port trailed by environmental protesters' boats.
The Pacific Pintail and the Pacific Teal steamed into Barrow-in-
Furness, near the Sellafield nuclear complex, accompanied by armed
police boats. Police helicopters hovered overhead.
Workers then unloaded the nuclear cargo onto trains for the short
trip to Sellafield.
The British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. vessels left Japan on July 4 with a
load of Sellafield-produced fuel that had been rejected by a
Japanese nuclear plant. Managers at Sellafield, which recycles
nuclear waste into usable fuel pellets, admitted their staff
fabricated
safety checks on the fuel's manufacture in 1999.
Environmental groups have protested the freighters' journey, saying
the voyage was too dangerous and the radioactive cargo not
secure from possible attack. Greenpeace said the ships carried enough
plutonium to make 50 nuclear bombs.
British Nuclear Fuels disputed the claims, maintaining the shipment
was safe.
-------------------
Hitachi asked to falsify report on TEPCO's nuke plant
TOKYO, Sept. 18 (Kyodo) - Hitachi Ltd. was asked to falsify a report
to cover up cracks in a neutron-measuring device at the No. 4
reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s (TEPCO) No. 1 nuclear plant in
Fukushima Prefecture when it conducted checkups in 1992,
Hitachi officials said Wednesday.
The electric machinery maker falsified the report at the request of
TEPCO and handed it to the utility firm, the officials said.
This is one of the 16 cover-ups of defects at nuclear plants, which
TEPCO admitted were inappropriate in a report of in-house
investigations released Tuesday.
This is also the first revelation of false reports prepared by a
company other than General Electric International Inc., the Japan
unit of
General Electric Co. of the United States, to which TEPCO had
outsourced regular inspections.
Hitachi is expected to severely punish those who were involved in the
falsified report, the officials said.
According to the officials, Hitachi found cracks in one of the
neutron-measuring devices and reported it to TEPCO.
But TEPCO asked Hitachi to falsify the report to cover this up,
saying it was unlikely safety would immediately be jeopardized even
though the nuclear reactor was kept running.
''This should not have happened,'' a Hitachi official said in
reference to the false report.
-------------------------------------------------
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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