UK nuclear liability fund gets go-ahead

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

Index:



UK nuclear liability fund gets go-ahead

Germany Nuke Waste Shipment Delayed

Firms ask court to dismiss suit over Tokaimura nuke accident

UK nuclear workers exposed to radiation

NRC OKs output hike for Carolina Power nuke plant

Bosnian Radiation Blamed on NATO

U.S. fears groups may get radiation devices-report

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



UK nuclear liability fund gets go-ahead



LONDON, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday it would go 

ahead with plans to put its 48 billion pounds of state nuclear clean-

up liabilities into a special fund, a move that could open the way 

for a new round of nuclear privatisation.



The plan is designed to bundle together the future costs of 

decommissioning and cleaning up nuclear plants and to make sure the 

state meets those costs.



It came as a surprise to some commentators, who had expected the 

government to avoid the issue of nuclear industry reform in the wake 

of recent events.



In September, British Energy Plc, a nuclear power firm privatised in 

1996, was forced to crawl back under the state umbrella for a 

government loan to stop it going bust.



The British Energy crisis prompted protests from groups opposed to 

nuclear power and a widespread debate over the future of economic and 

environmental policy in the energy sector.



"Draft legislation will be published on the management of nuclear 

liabilities," Britain's Queen Elizabeth told parliament in a speech 

setting out Prime Minister Tony Blair's legislative programme for the 

next 12 months.



The plan to set up the Liabilities Management Authority (LMA) was 

first proposed a year ago. It is designed to assume the 

decommissioning and other costs of state-owned British Nuclear Fuels 

Ltd (BNFL), and a smaller set of liabilities of the UK Atomic Energy 

Authority (UKAEA). Together these amount to about 48 billion pounds 

($76.22 billion).



BNFL runs the UK's older and more costly Magnox nuclear power 

stations that were not privatised with British Energy, and the 

Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in northwest England.



UKAEA manages the decommissioning of reactors and other radioactive 

facilities. It is responsible for the Dounreay plant in Scotland, 

where 20 workers were exposed to radioactive particles this week.



Analysts and critics see the LMA scheme as likely to help BNFL with 

its plans to join the private sector, making the business more 

attractive to investors by keeping the liabilities with the taxpayer.



Some industry sources have suggested the LMA could end up as the 

vehicle for a rehabilitation of British Energy itself -- taking on 

the privatised firm's liabilities as well and leaving a restructured 

company that has more investor appeal.



The draft bill, which may be held up by lengthy consultation before 

being taken forward for legislation, sets out goals to clean up the 

"nuclear legacy" safely and cost effectively, according to a 

Department of Trade and Industry document accompanying the Queen's 

speech.



Commercial contracts will remain with BNFL and will be unchanged by 

the proposals.



BNFL Chief Executive Norman Askew, who hopes to get the company 

privatised within the next three or four years, welcomed the plan, 

though he said he had initially hoped it might happen sooner.



"It's good news," he said. "Initially the intention was to get this 

in place by April 2004. That probably has slipped six months, but in 

the scheme of things that's not fatal."



Anti-nuclear group Greenpeace, which has been campaigning for British 

Energy to be put into administration, said the move raised the 

spectre of new nuclear plants being built.



"The new nuclear liability legislation will pass the industry's huge 

clean-up cost on to the taxpayer and so clear the way for dangerous 

new plants across the country," said a Greenpeace spokesman.



"People living near the sites earmarked for new nuclear stations 

should today be worried. All this when we have huge untapped reserves 

of renewable energy in this country."

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



Germany Nuke Waste Shipment Delayed



DANNENBERG, Germany Nov 13 (AP) - Anti-nuclear protesters delayed the 

progress of a shipment of nuclear waste on Wednesday, forcing the 

trainload of containers to a halt several times with small blockades 

along its route to a dump in northern Germany.



The train stopped for the fourth time since crossing into Germany as 

it neared the northern town of Lueneburg while police cleared away 

people who had blocked the tracks a few miles ahead. Police said 27 

people were detained after they occupied tracks used by high-speed 

trains, forcing one train into an emergency stop.



The waste shipment was stopped earlier for about two hours south of 

the city of Bremen by two protesters who chained themselves to the 

track and had to be cut free by police - the same tactic two men used 

to hold up the train for an hour Tuesday night in the western city of 

Mannheim.



Before that, another group of about 12 protesters forced a 1 1/2-hour 

delay by occupying the tracks as others set fire to tires nearby.



The train, carrying 1,320 tons of waste, left a reprocessing plant at 

La Hague in western France Monday. With 12 containers, it is the 

biggest shipment yet to the facility at Gorleben.



The French leg of 870-mile journey was largely incident-free, but 

hundreds of activists and local farmers have been protesting since 

the weekend in the region around the dump site at Gorleben, a focus 

of Germany's anti-nuclear movement since the dump got the go-ahead 

from the local government in 1977.



The waste was due to arrive later Wednesday at a rail terminal in the 

town of Dannenberg, where the containers will be loaded on trucks for 

the 12-mile trip to an above-ground shed near Gorleben, about 75 

miles southeast of Hamburg.



Authorities have sealed the terminal and banned demonstrations within 

50 yards of either side of the final stretch of the route.



In the town of Hitzacker, just short of Dannenberg, about 200 people 

gathered at the railroad station, which was closed off by metal 

barricades topped with a coil of barbed wire, ahead of the train's 

arrival.



The shipment is the first to the site since last November, when 

demonstrators defied some 17,500 police and staged sit-down protests 

along the route through Germany. An estimated 10,000-15,000 officers 

are in place for the latest transport.



Waste shipments to Gorleben resumed in March last year following a 

three-year break. The previous German government had suspended 

shipments after radioactive leakage was discovered in some 

containers.



Spent fuel from Germany's 19 nuclear power plants is sent to France 

and Britain for reprocessing under contracts that oblige Germany to 

take back the waste.



Last year, the government and power companies signed an agreement to 

phase out nuclear power within about 20 years. Activists hope that 

protesting waste shipments will force a quicker shutdown.

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



Firms ask court to dismiss suit over Tokaimura nuke accident



MITO, Japan, Nov. 13 (Kyodo) - Two companies being sued by an Ibaraki 

Prefecture couple for endangering their health as a result of Japan's 

worst nuclear accident in September 1999 asked the Mito District 

Court Wednesday to dismiss the case.



In the first hearing of the case, JCO Co., a nuclear processing firm, 

and its parent company Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. asked for dismissal 

of the damages suit filed by Shoichi Oizumi, 74, and his 63-year-old 

wife Keiko.



The Oizumis, who live in Hitachi, Ibaraki Prefecture, are the first 

local residents to sue the two Tokyo-based companies over radiation 

exposure caused by the nuclear accident, which took place at JCO's 

plant in Tokaimura in the prefecture.



According to the suit, they are claiming 57 million yen in 

compensation because the husband suffered from eczema and the wife 

was hospitalized for gastric ulcers following the accident.



Keiko was also diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress 

disorder.



The two were at their auto-parts company located about 120 meters 

west of the JCO plant.



On Sept. 30, 1999, a nuclear fission chain reaction occurred at the 

uranium processing plant, 120 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, when 

workers using buckets poured too much of the uranium solution into a 

processing tank, bypassing some of the required safety steps.



Two of the plant workers later died from radiation sickness and more 

than 600 people were exposed to radiation as a result of the 

accident.

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



UK nuclear workers exposed to radiation



LONDON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Twenty workers at a nuclear reprocessing 

plant in Scotland were exposed to radioactive particles on Tuesday 

but risks to them appeared low or non existent, Britain's nuclear 

decommissioning body said.



Two of the 20 workers at the Dounreay plant in Caithness, northern 

Scotland, had radioactive dust on their skin and had it scrubbed off, 

a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) said.



The other 18 had the particles on their shoes and faced "no immediate 

health risk," the UKAEA spokesman said.



He said Dounreay deals with around 10 incidents a year when 

radioactive particles are found on workers' skin and have to be 

scrubbed off, the spokesman said.



"It's not an unusual situation in an industry where you're handling 

radioactive materials all the time," the spokesman said. "There has 

been no release to the environment, there is no evidence anyone has 

inhaled or ingested radioactive particles."



The plant has been sealed off and an investigation has begun, the 

UKAEA said.

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



NRC OKs output hike for Carolina Power nuke plant



WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said 

on Tuesday it approved a request by Carolina Power & Light Company to 

increase the generating capacity of its H.B. Robinson Unit 2 nuclear 

power plant by 1.7 percent, or 12 megawatts.



The generating capacity of the plant, located near Hartsville, South 

Carolina, will increase immediately to 695 megawatts of 

electricity. Carolina Power is a subsidiary of Progress Energy 

<PGN.N>.



The NRC said it approved the ramp up in generating capacity after 

reviewing the plant's operations, including nuclear steam supply 

systems, instrumentation and control systems, electrical systems, 

accident calculations, radiological consequences, operations 

and technical specification changes.



"The NRC staff determined that the licensee could safely increase the 

power output of the reactor primarily through increased 

feedwater flow measurement accuracy," the agency said.

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



Bosnian Radiation Blamed on NATO



SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina Nov 12 (AP) - U.N. experts said Monday 

they found three radioactive hotspots in Bosnia resulting 

from ammunition containing depleted uranium used during NATO 

airstrikes in 1995.



The tests found radiation at two sites in the Sarajevo suburb of 

Hadzici and one in Han Pijesak, in the Bosnian Serb republic, 

according to preliminary results released by the United Nations 

Environmental Program.



During its 1995 bombings of Serb positions around Sarajevo, NATO used 

munitions containing depleted uranium, a slightly 

radioactive heavy metal that is used to pierce armor. The Bosnian 

government said some 10,800 rounds with the material were fired 

in its territory.



Once lodged in the soil, the munitions can pollute the environment 

and create an up to 100-fold increase in uranium levels in 

groundwater, according to the U.N. Environmental Program.



``We are concerned about the situation at the Hadzici tank repair 

facility and the Han Pijesak barracks,'' said Pekka Haavisto, the 

chairman of the U.N. agency's task force.



In Sarajevo, the U.N. team detected depleted uranium-related 

materials and dust inside buildings that are now used by private 

businesses. At the site in the Bosnian Serb republic, the 

contaminated area is used as a storage facility by army troops.



The areas where radiation is detected should not be used until the 

sites are decontaminated, Haavisto said.



The international experts were invited by the Bosnian government to 

investigate concerns that depleted uranium could harm 

residents and international peacekeepers.



The U.N. team advised the Bosnian government to start decontaminating 

the three sites and educating people about potential 

hazards.



Apart from this team, a medical sub-team composed of experts from the 

World Health Organization and the U.S. Army, visited 

several hospitals in Bosnia, collecting medical data and statistics. 

A full report was to be published by UNEP in March 2003.

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



U.S. fears groups may get radiation devices-report



WASHINGTON, Nov 11 (Reuters) - The Bush administration is concerned 

that devices used in the former Soviet Union to measure 

the effects of radiation on plants may fall into the hands of terror 

groups that could use the material to make so-called dirty bombs, 

The Washington Post reported on Monday.



U.S. and international nuclear experts are searching the former 

Soviet republics for the lead-shielded canister devices that 

contained 

radioactive cesium 137 in the form of pellets or a fine powder, the 

newspaper said.



Some of the tests the devices were used for were to determine farming 

conditions after a nuclear attack.



The total number of experimental devices put in the countryside by 

Soviet scientists during the 1970s range from 100 to 1,000, an 

official from the International Atomic Energy Agency told the Post. 

Only nine of the devices have been found so far.



A few ounces of cesium 137 put into a conventional explosive would 

make a "dirty bomb" that could contaminate a large area with 

radiation. A computer simulation showed a "dirty bomb" attack on New 

York City with about 1.75 ounces (50 grams) of cesium could spread 

radioactive fallout over 60 city blocks, the paper said.



Victims nearest the blast would be the initial casualties, but the 

relocation of people and businesses and the cleanup could cost tens 

of billions of dollars, the paper said.



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

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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