UK says may dump more n-waste in Irish Sea after '06

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@cox.net>]

Index:



UK says may dump more n-waste in Irish Sea after '06

Nuclear reactor shut down at Fukui power plant after fire

N. Korea Says It Will Revive Nuke Plant

Gaping hole in British Energy nuclear cleanup fund

TEPCO to suspend operations at 16 nuke reactors for inspection

Brazil opens uranium enrichment plant

NRC may cite TXU's Texas nuke following water leak

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



UK says may dump more n-waste in Irish Sea after '06



LONDON, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday it might have to 

dump radioactive pollution stockpiled at its Sellafield nuclear 

reprocessing plant into the Irish Sea after 2006 as tanks storing the 

waste age and may become unsafe.



Environment Minister Michael Meacher said the government was 

researching ways to store the waste permanently onland but if this 

was not successful, then the radioactive liquid technetium-99 kept in 

offshore tanks may be dumped in the sea.



"If the tanks can't take it beyond 2006, then we might have to look 

at an alternative solution... to discharge (their contents) into the 

Irish Sea quickly," Meacher told a news conference.



The tanks, built in the 1950s and 1960s at the Sellafield site in 

Cumbria in northwest England, do not meet modern standards and have 

already exceeded their expected lifetimes, said the government.



Ireland and Norway oppose the Sellafield plant and in June Dublin 

asked an international court in The Hague for access to information 

about the plant's viability which Britain says is commercially 

sensitive.



Norway has called on Britain to halt radioactive emissions from 

Sellafield, traces of which have been found as far away as the Artic 

Barents Sea.



But in the short term, Meacher said Sellafield, owned by state-run 

British Nuclear Fuels, will slash technetium-99 emissions into the 

sea by 2006 in response to complaints from Norway and Ireland about 

the pollution.



Sellafield is allowed to release up to 90 terabecquerels (TBq) of 

technetium-99 into the Irish Sea but will have to cut this to 10 TBq 

by 2006.



"We are accepting the Energy Agency's proposals (to cut the 

discharges) but we want to go further," Meacher said.



Meacher said the discharge of technetium-99 into the Irish Sea could 

be halted altogether if research into storing the waste in the tanks 

permanently onshore is successful.



Sellafield will start in March processing newly produced technetium-

99 into glass blocks suitable for long-term storage onland.



This technology cannot be used on waste already stockpiled in 

Sellafield's tanks which hold about 200 TBq of technetium-99.



Britain first established nuclear facilities at Sellafield, formerly 

called Windscale, in the 1940s and the world's first commercial 

nuclear power station was opened there in 1956.



Research has shown lobsters and other shellfish in the North and 

Irish Seas have traces of technetium-99.



Britain admits the waste has been found in lobsters but says there is 

no evidence it has accumulated in fish.

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



Nuclear reactor shut down at Fukui power plant after fire



OBAMA, Japan, Dec. 12 (Kyodo) - A nuclear reactor at Tsuruga Nuclear 

Power Station in Fukui Prefecture was shut down Thursday night after 

a fire broke out from a turbine cover, station operator Japan Atomic 

Power Co. said.



There appears to have been no leak of radiation.



The fire broke out from a heat insulating cover on the No. 2 

reactor's high-pressure turbine at around 7:30 p.m. at the plant in 

Tsuruga city.



It was temporarily extinguished but another fire broke out, prompting 

officials to manually shut down the reactor at 9 p.m. The fire 

appears to have been contained, the company said.

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



N. Korea Says It Will Revive Nuke Plant



SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - Renewing fears of a nuclear crisis on the 

Korean Peninsula, North Korea said Thursday it will reactivate a 

nuclear power plant that U.S. officials suspect was being used to 

develop weapons.



The North said it had no choice after the U.S.-led decision last 

month to suspend annual oil shipments of 500,000 tons. The 

announcement also came shortly after a ship carrying North Korean 

Scud missiles to Yemen was intercepted in the Arabian Sea. After 

hours of awkward negotiations, U.S. officials let the shipment go.



It wasn't clear whether the interception influenced the decision. 

After the interception, an editorial in the North's official 

newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said: ``It is necessary to heighten 

vigilance against the U.S. strategy for world supremacy and 'anti-

terrorism war.'''



``We can only speculate that yesterday's incident and North Korea's 

electricity shortage in the winter propelled North Korea to make a 

response,'' said Kim Sung-han of the state-run Institute of Foreign 

Affairs and National Security in Seoul.



A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said his country would 

revive the old, Soviet-designed reactor and resume construction of 

other nuclear facilities to supply desperately needed power. KCNA, 

the North's state-run news agency, quoted the spokesman but did not 

name him.



``Our principled stand is that the nuclear crisis on the Korean 

Peninsula should be resolved peacefully,'' the spokesman said. ``It's 

totally up to the United States whether we will freeze our nuclear 

facilities again.''



The nuclear program was suspended under a 1994 deal with Washington, 

averting a possible war on the Korean Peninsula. Experts say North 

Korea could quickly extract enough plutonium from its old facilities 

to make several nuclear weapons.



The decision to suspend oil shipments, which were a key provision of 

the 1994 deal, was designed to pressure North Korea to give up a more 

recent nuclear program based on uranium enrichment.



The United States says the uranium-based program violated a nuclear 

arms control clause in the 1994 pact.



``Our country faced an immediate problem in electricity generation 

because the United States has virtually abandoned its obligations,'' 

the North Korean spokesman was quoted as saying in comments that were 

monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.



Although the spokesman left open the possibility of dialogue to solve 

the standoff, American and South Korean officials have long feared 

that North Korea might reactivate its plutonium-based nuclear 

program.



South Korean President Kim Dae-jung has sought to reconcile with 

North Korea. His government urged North Korea to reverse its 

decision.



``The government expresses deep regret and concern that the North 

Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman's statement could create tension on 

the Korean Peninsula,'' Seok Dong-yun, a South Korean Foreign 

Ministry spokesman, said in a statement.



U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said he believes North 

Korea already has one or two nuclear weapons.



Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said China remained 

committed to a Korean peninsula without any nuclear threat, but said 

China remained committed to helping its neighbor.



``China has given North Korea assistance in its difficulties. It will 

continue to do so,'' Liu said.



Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was in China for 

talks, said Thursday that China shares American concern about North 

Korea's nuclear program and is expected to urge ``different 

behavior'' on its isolated, secretive ally.



U.S. officials say North Korea told them in October that it had a 

secret program to enrich uranium to make nuclear weapons. The Bush 

administration has vowed to try to solve the problem through 

diplomacy.



Under the 1994 pact, North Korea agreed to freeze the plutonium 

program in return for two modern, light-water reactors built by a 

U.S.-led consortium. North Korea often complained about delays in 

construction of the reactors, which are several years behind 

schedule.



North Korea had a 5-megawatt plutonium reactor and two bigger 

reactors, with capacities of 50 megawatts and 200 megawatts 

respectively, under construction when it signed the 1994 agreement 

with the United States.



About 8,000 plutonium fuel rods were separated from the frozen 5-

megawatt reactor and sealed for permanent disposal. Experts say North 

Korean scientists could quickly reprocess the spent fuel rods into 

weapons-grade plutonium. Inspectors are monitoring the rods.



At the height of the confrontation over North Korea's plutonium-based 

program in 1994, a North Korean negotiator threatened to turn Seoul 

into ``a sea of fire.'' Fearing war, residents of the South rushed to 

stores to stock up on food and other supplies.

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



Gaping hole in British Energy nuclear cleanup fund



LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Nuclear power firm British Energy revealed 

the full extent of its financial troubles on Thursday with a six-

month loss and a radioactive hole in the clean-up fund that is set to 

become the UK taxpayer's responsibility.



The provider of more than a fifth of Britain's electricity, surviving 

on a government bail-out while a rescue plan is hammered out, said it 

made a pre-tax loss of 337 million pounds ($532 million) in the six 

months to September 30.



The loss ballooned from 15 million pounds a year ago and included 213 

million pounds of exceptional costs.



Among these were a 103-million-pound writedown to reflect a slump in 

the value of its decommissioning fund to 332 million pounds as a 

result of poorly performing investment markets.



British Energy ran into trouble this year after deregulation in the 

UK power industry exposed overcapacity, forcing electricity prices 

down to a point where its production costs are now higher than market 

prices.



Its liabilities fund is designed to cover potential discounted costs 

of 5.2 billion pounds. It is set to run for decades after reactors 

close in a fuel and site clean-up project that will last until 2084 

under current estimates.



Proposals unveiled in November aimed at relaunching British Energy as 

a going concern put these liabilities firmly at the feet of the 

British taxpayer -- on top of an estimated 150 to 200 million pounds 

a year bill for running costs.



Sixty-five percent of cash generated by the business must go to the 

fund -- but with cashflow negative at present, the whole burden falls 

on the state.



"GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD"



Rebel legislators from Britain's governing Labour Party took the 

fresh opportunity to slam the bailout, which comes on top of a multi-

billion pound support package for the creaking UK rail industry and 

an ever growing state bill for other public service problems once 

considered better off run privately.



"Ministers should stop throwing good money after bad," said Bill 

Eyers, Chair of the Socialist Environmental Resources Association 

(SEAR). "Most of British Energy's future liabilities are not 

inevitable but avoidable... Its reactors should be closed down as 

soon as it is practical to do so."



Environmental campaign group Greenpeace has launched a legal campaign 

to stop the bailout, which they say depresses market prices for 

fledgling renewable energy producers trying to enter it, and should 

be blocked under EU law.



INVESTORS HURT TOO



The restructuring plan has also left investors severely out of pocket 

seven years after privatisation.



Shareholders, whose one-time blue chip investment has slid 97 percent 

so far this year, were told there would be no dividend payout this 

time around.



More than 200,000 of the company's shareholders are private investors 

encouraged to take part in the privatisations of the 1990s who may 

now never see a dividend again.



Bondholders and other creditors owed 1.2 billion pounds now expect to 

get less than 30 pence in the pound back in a debt-for-equity swap 

that will leave them as the main shareholders.



New Chairman Adrian Montague, who took over from Robin Jeffrey last 

month, was careful not to build too much optimism about the future of 

the company.



"I take up the position of chairman at a bleak point in our company's 

fortunes," he said and went on to describe the "terrible damage" to 

the company that power market changes have produced.



He also warned creditors, who formed a committee earlier this week to 

represent their interests, that they had little choice but to back 

the state-sanctioned restructuring.



"If they do not or if the restructuring cannot proceed for some other 

reason, the company is likely to have to seek the protection of 

administration," he said.



"The next few months will be decisive."

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



TEPCO to suspend operations at 16 nuke reactors for inspection



TOKYO, Dec. 12 (Kyodo) - Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) plans to 

suspend operations at 16 of its 17 nuclear reactors by the end of 

March 2003 for inspections, company officials said Thursday.



The move follows revelations that the nation's largest utility 

falsified reports on defects at its nuclear facilities.



The plan was submitted to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency of 

the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry earlier in the day, the 

officials said.



Of the 17 reactors, nine are already out of service, and TEPCO is 

expected to stop operating another seven by the end of March.



The remaining one, No. 6 reactor at TEPCO's Fukushima No. 1 power 

station, is also likely to have operations suspended on April 

15, putting all 17 reactors out of service, the officials said.



If the nine reactors now out of service cannot have operations 

resumed as quickly as scheduled, TEPCO's supplementary power 

generation capacity will fall to zero by March, the officials said.



TEPCO may borrow 900,000 kilowatts of electricity from Kansai 

Electric Power Co. in an emergency situation, but will also urge 

corporate and individual customers to save energy, they said.



In August, it was revealed that during the 1980s and 1990s TEPCO 

falsified safety reports and covered up defects found during 

safety checks at the Fukushima No. 1 and No. 2 nuclear power 

stations, and at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station in 

Niigata Prefecture.

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



Brazil opens uranium enrichment plant



RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Brazil on Wednesday opened 

a new uranium enrichment plant that allows the country 

with the world's sixth-largest reserves of the metal to produce fuel 

for its nuclear power plant or for export.



The Brazilian Nuclear Institute, which represents the nuclear energy 

lobby, said in a statement the facility would make Latin 

America's largest nation the world's eighth country possessing the 

enrichment technology.



"The enrichment used to be done abroad, but with this plant, some 95 

percent of all the process will be domestic from next year," 

added a spokeswoman for the institute. She did not provide the exact 

date when the output would start next year.



The plant in the town of Resende in Rio de Janeiro state cost some 

$140 million and should save the country about $13 million a 

year.



Brazil has two nuclear power reactors, which account for about 6 

percent of all power consumed in the country, and the Institute is 

lobbying to complete the construction of a third reactor. In 

comparison, France's 58 nuclear power plants produce twice as much 

power as the whole of Brazil.



The reactors of the Angra nuclear power complex are located on the 

wooded shore of a picturesque bay between Rio de Janeiro and 

Sao Paulo. Environmentalists allege the reactors are not safe enough 

and condemn the expansion plans.



Some government officials and federal power holding Eletrobras 

<ELET6.SA>, whose Eletronuclear unit is responsible for Angra, say 

nuclear energy is safe, cheap and should be used more, especially 

with the new technology now in place.

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



NRC may cite TXU's Texas nuke following water leak



NEW YORK, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

will decide within 30 days whether to cite a TXU Corp. 

<TXU.N> unit for an apparent safety violation at a Texas nuclear 

power unit, the agency and TXU said Wednesday.



The apparent violation involves a leaking steam generator tube at the 

1,150 megawatt Comanche Peak 1 plant in Glen Rose, Texas.



The unit is currently shut for electrical work following a refueling 

and repair outage to fix the leak, and is expected to return to 

service 

within a few days.



On Tuesday, the NRC presented their preliminary results of a special 

inspection done after the leak, NRC public affairs officer Roger 

Hannah told Reuters.



"We came to the conclusion that in three instances there were 

indications during previous testing that were missed by the analyst 

looking at this particular problem. In one case, the one that lead to 

the leak, there was an apparent violation," Hannah said, adding 

that in the other two cases, there were no violations.



"We're still doing the risk analysis and we won't know for sure what 

our actions will be as an agency until we complete that risk 

analysis," he added.



"The bottom line is, from a safety standpoint, (TXU) took 

conservative action and shut the plant down when they saw this small 

leak. 

There was no detectable radiation released in the environment," 

Hannah said.



The NRC also said it had not classified its preliminary finding into 

one of its four-color codes for safety violations.



The findings range in severity from green to white, yellow or red for 

the most serious violations.



In a pressurized water reactor, like the Comanche Peak unit, steam 

generators are used to heat water into steam which is then 

used to turn turbine-generators and make electricity.



The steam generators contain thousands of tubes which circulate 

heated water from the reactor vessel. The water from the reactor 

contains some radioactivity and a leak or rupture in a tube allows 

leakage from the reactor, or primary side, to the turbine-generator, 

or secondary side, of the plant.



The unit was taken out of service for its scheduled autumn refueling 

a few days early to fix the tube leak.



TXU Energy spokesman David Beshear said in response to the findings 

the company has already retrained their analysts to look for 

this particular kind of problem.



"The (levels) were well below the computer model threshold and the 

human threshold, but yes, we think the analyst should have 

caught the problem also," Beshear said.



The reactor vessel heads at the plant have also been inspected and no 

problems were found, Beshear said previously, adding there 

was no plans to replace the heads.



Recently, reactor vessel heads at pressurized water reactors have 

come under scrutiny after severe corrosion was discovered earlier 

this year at FirstEnergy's <FE.N> Davis Besse nuclear power plant in 

Ohio.



The Comanche Peak station also consists of the adjacent 1,150 MW Unit 

2, which continued to run at full power on Wednesday, the NRC said in 

its reactor status 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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