NRC Chairman Rejects Ohio Plant Criticism

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

Index:



NRC Chairman Rejects Ohio Plant Criticism

FirstEnergy sticks to nuclear plant restart target

Emergency Plans at N.Y. Plant Inadequate

Russia agrees key step towards atomic clean-up

U.N. asks Brazil to clarify on nuclear research

Swedish industry lobby warns of energy crunch

NRC orders tighter access to U.S. nuclear plants

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



NRC Chairman Rejects Ohio Plant Criticism



TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman 

rejected criticism from the agency's inspector general over the 

handling of problems at a nuclear power plant where acid ate nearly 

all the way through a reactor's steel cap.



In a memo posted Thursday on the agency's web site, Richard Meserve 

said Inspector General Hubert T. Bell's criticism was ``unjustified, 

unfair, and misleading.''



NRC staffers had recommended a shutdown in December 2001 at the Davis-

Besse plant east of Toledo for safety inspections. But NRC higher-ups 

gave the plant's operator, FirstEnergy Corp., an extra 1 1/2 months 

to shut down.



Bell's report last week said commission officials put profits ahead 

of safety.



In March, while the plant was closed, investigators found that boric 

acid had nearly eaten through a 6-inch steel cap on the reactor 

vessel. The plant has been closed since then.



Meserve said Bell's report served ``only to deflect attention from 

the real safety issue raised by the Davis-Besse episode, the 

unexpected head corrosion.''



Meserve said that the delay was driven by safety concerns, and that 

NRC staff agreed unanimously that it would not put the public at 

risk.

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



FirstEnergy sticks to nuclear plant restart target



SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - FirstEnergy Corp. <FE.N> said 

Friday it still aims to restart its crippled Davis-Besse nuclear 

power plant in Ohio by March 31 and does not see an internal spat 

about the plant at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission delaying 

timing of the start.



A dispute at the NRC over an internal report that criticized the 

commission's decision to let Davis-Besse operate past a Dec. 31, 

2001, deadline to inspect for possible cracks in the reactor vessel 

head "should not affect the timing for restarting," said Richard 

Wilkins, a FirstEnergy spokesman.



The NRC agreed, with commission spokesman Jan Strasma saying "there 

should be no bearing on the restart process for Davis-Besse."



FirstEnergy, based in Akron, Ohio, was forced to shut Davis-Besse in 

February 2002 when it found boric acid leaking through cracks in the 

reactor head had eaten a hole nearly all the way through the 

reactor's 6-inch thick steel lid.



The 925-megawatt plant provides enough electricity for nearly a 

million homes on the Midwest power grid.



NRC Chairman Richard Meserve this week sharply criticized a Davis-

Besse report prepared by the commission's Office of Inspector 

General, an internal watchdog group.



Meserve's letter to Inspector General Hubert Bell and his rebuttal of 

the report was posted on the NRC web site Friday.



The NRC chief, who is leaving the NRC one year early at the end of 

March to head the Carnegie Institution in Washington, called the 

report "unjustified, unfair and misleading," especially a conclusion 

that the NRC's decision to let Davis-Besse to continue to operate was 

a financial concession to FirstEnergy.



"The report serves only to deflect attention from the real safety 

issue raised by the Davis-Besse episode, the unexpected (reactor 

vessel) head corrosion," Meserve wrote.



The bill for the Davis-Besse repair work, including a new reactor 

vessel head and the cost of replacement power, is expected to cost 

FirstEnergy more than $300 million.



For restarting the plant, FirstEnergy must tell the NRC when it is 

ready to reopen and restore generation to the regional power grid.



The commission, which has been closely reviewing all the repair work 

at Davis-Besse, will make the final call on when the plant can start 

up, but Strasma said "we don't expect a lengthy review process, 

perhaps a couple of weeks."



NRC officials have been meeting monthly with FirstEnergy, and the 

next meeting is Tuesday, Jan. 14, in Port Clinton, Ohio, including a 

session open to the public.

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



Emergency Plans at N.Y. Plant Inadequate



WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) - Emergency plans for the Indian Point 

nuclear power plant fail to address the threat of a terrorist attack, 

and do not adequately protect the densely populated New York 

metropolitan area from a release of radiation, an independent study 

concludes.



Evacuation plans for the plant, situated 35 from midtown Manhattan, 

are inadequate to ``protect the people from an unacceptable dose of 

radiation,'' according to the report delivered Friday to Gov. George 

Pataki.



Among other problems, ``the plans do not consider the possible 

additional ramifications of a terrorist-caused release,'' the report 

said. ``Simply stated, the world has recently changed. What was once 

considered sufficient may now be in need of further revision.''



The study was done by James Lee Witt Associates, a consulting firm 

headed by a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. 

Pataki hired Witt last summer to review emergency planning for New 

York state's nuclear plants, starting with Indian Point.



Since the attack on New York City in 2001, fear of terrorism at 

Indian Point has turned emergency planning, especially the adequacy 

of the evacuation plan, into a major issue in the lower Hudson 

Valley. Dozens of politicians, from members of Congress to school 

board members, have called for a shutdown of the two reactors there, 

but Pataki has not.



The report does not call for a shutdown. But it says that because of 

Indian Point's location in a major metropolitan area, the approach 

toward safety there should not be the same as for other plants.



An estimated 11.8 million people live within 50 miles of Indian 

Point, far more than around any of the nation's other nuclear plants. 

There are 256,000 suburbanites within 10 miles of the nuclear 

station, which is in the Westchester County village of Buchanan.



Sen. Hillary Clinton, among others, has suggested that the 50-mile 

radius, rather than the traditional 10-mile zone, be used for 

emergency planning at Indian Point. The Witt report says planning 

should take into account that people well beyond the 10-mile zone 

would leave the area in the event of a radiation release.



Upon the release of the report, Pataki called on FEMA and the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission to ``take a hard look at the standards used to 

certify these emergency plans and determine if they are strong enough 

to meet the post-Sept. 11 reality.''



Alex Matthiessen, who leads the environmental organization 

Riverkeeper, said that Pataki instead ought to demand that the Bush 

administration and the NRC shut down the plant.



The 500-page study is critical of emergency regulations from FEMA and 

the NRC and says existing plans ``are built on compliance with 

regulations, rather than a strategy that leads to structures and 

systems to protect from radiation exposure.''



FEMA spokesman Mike Beeman said the agency was reviewing the report 

and had no immediate comment.



Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the NRC, pointed out that most of the 

recommendations apply to FEMA, but said the commission would 

``continue to work with the state, county and local governments to 

try to improve the plan.''



Jim Steets, a spokesman for Indian Point owner Entergy Corp., said 

the company is focusing on ``enhancing safety and security at Indian 

Point, to prevent ever having to implement the plan in the first 

place.''



``But we recognize the post-Sept. 11 world may necessitate making 

additional changes to the plan,'' he said.

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



Russia agrees key step towards atomic clean-up



BORISOGLEBSK, Russia, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Russia made a key concession 

to encourage an international clean-up of Soviet-era atomic waste on 

Friday by agreeing to scrap taxes on imports of specialised 

equipment, Norway said.



"We are facing a breakthrough in the talks," Norwegian Prime Minister 

Kjell Magne Bondevik said after meeting Russian Prime Minister 

Mikhail Kasyanov at a newly built Russian-Norwegian border station at 

Borisoglebsk in temperatures of -28 Celsius.



"The decisive outstanding issue of taxes and duties, value added tax, 

on equipment sent by donors... for use in Russia is now solved," he 

said of negotiations on a so-called Multilateral Nuclear 

Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation.



"This will mean a great deal for atomic safety and a nuclear clean-

up," he told reporters. International efforts to help Moscow clean up 

ageing nuclear submarines, weapons, reactors and atomic waste have 

stalled over Russian demands that donors pay taxes on specialised 

imports.



The Kola peninsula in northwest Russia, site of the once mighty 

Soviet Northern Fleet, has the highest concentration of nuclear 

weapons and waste in the world. It has about 90 ageing nuclear 

submarines, a total of 300 small nuclear reactors and thousands of 

spent nuclear fuel elements.



Two Norwegian electricity generators once stood at the Russian border 

for months because of a dispute over taxation on the donations. 

French suppliers of robots to withdraw spent fuel elements from a 

vessel in Murmansk were asked to pay a 50 percent tax on the value of 

the gifts.



Kasyanov did not say when Russia might formally sign a deal lifting 

taxation. "We are going to launch a new project on nuclear control, 

environmental issues are very vital here," he said. "This will be one 

of the priorities for the years to come."



ARCTIC COOPERATION



Kasyanov and Bondevik were speaking during two days of celebrations 

from Friday to mark 10 years of cooperation on the Arctic tip of 

nothern Europe since the ending of the Cold War along with prime 

ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland.



Thomas Nilsen, at Norwegian environmental group Bellona, welcomed the 

apparent breakthrough. "Russian signature of the agreement would 

clear the way to big investments by the European Union and other 

nations in helping atomic safety," he told Reuters.



"But I'd wait to break out the champagne until Russia actually 

signs," he added.



Norway and Russia also agreed to examine cooperation in developing 

oil and gas in the Arctic despite worries by environmentalists and 

fishermen that it might damage the fragile ecology of the region.



"We want to welcome the other country's energy companies to our own 

continental shelves," Bondevik said.



Kasyanov said that the two did not discuss any possible demands by 

OPEC for the two big non-OPEC producers to raise output to help 

dampen prices. Russia and Norway, both outside OPEC and the number 

two and three world oil exporters behind Saudi Arabia, are pumping at 

capacity.



The so-called Barents cooperation between Russia and the Nordic 

nations was set up a decade ago to rebuild trading ties across the 

Arctic interrupted in the Soviet era.



Crossings at the Russian-Norwegian border have surged to about 

125,000 people per year from only a few hundred during the Cold War. 

One in four marriages in the northern Norwegian county of Finnmark 

involves a Russian citizen.

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



U.N. asks Brazil to clarify on nuclear research



BRASILIA, Brazil, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency 

has informally asked Brazil to clarify whether its new science 

minister has suggested the country should have the capacity to 

produce nuclear weapons, Brazil's foreign ministry said on Friday.



The International Atomic Energy Agency made the request during a 

meeting with Brazil's ambassador in Vienna, where the agency is 

based, a foreign ministry spokesman said.



The request came after comments by the science minister raised 

concern among international observers that the government of Brazil's 

new president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, wanted nuclear weapons.



"Brazil is a country at peace... but we need to be prepared, 

including technologically," Lula's science and technology minister, 

Roberto Amaral, told the Brazilian service of the BBC on Sunday.



"We can't renounce any form of scientific knowledge, be it the 

genome, DNA or nuclear fission," the minister said.



Lula, Brazil's first president elected from a left-wing party, took 

office last week.



The foreign ministry spokesman said Brazil's ambassador to Vienna, 

Roberto Abdenur, had reiterated to the IAEA statements made by 

government officials this week that Brazil's nuclear research is 

purely for peaceful ends.



ADVANCED NUCLEAR RESEARCH



Brazil's 1988 constitution forbids the development of nuclear weapons 

and Brazil has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.



Wilson Rodrigues, the president of the Brazilian Institute of Nuclear 

Quality, which monitors Brazil's two nuclear energy plants, said 

Amaral's statements were misunderstood.



"This moment of tension between North Korea and the United States, 

the possibility of imminent conflict in Iraq...has highlighted the 

perception of people on this issue," Rodrigues told Reuters. "A 

phrase taken out of context can give the wrong impression."



Brazil and neighboring Argentina agreed to halt programs to develop 

nuclear weapons in the late 1980s after both countries returned to 

democratic rule after years of dictatorship and buried long-held 

regional rivalry.



Still, Brazil has the most advanced nuclear research in Latin America 

and has the greatest military capability in the region. The country 

is home to the world's sixth-biggest uranium reserves and it 

possesses the uranium enrichment technology for nuclear power 

reactors.



Brazil would need at least five years to develop a nuclear bomb, said 

an expert on Brazil's nuclear know-how who asked not to be 

identified.

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



Swedish industry lobby warns of energy crunch



STOCKHOLM, Jan 10 (Reuters) - Swedish industry will face a power 

deficit over the coming years that threatens to hamper economic 

growth and reduce the competitive edge of key sectors, an industry 

spokesman warned on Friday.



Hakan Murby from SKGS, a lobby representing energy-intensive sectors 

such as the forest, metal and chemical industries, said an additional 

25 terawatt hours (TWh) of power will be needed over the next decade 

to sustain growth. That capacity, he said, can only be met by 

expanding production of atomic power.



Currently, Sweden produces 150 TWh of electricity yearly, but cold 

winter weather following a dry summer has strained capacity and 

raised electricity bills in the Nordic region.



"We are worried our competitive advantage will be lost. In the long 

run nuclear power is the only way we can secure our energy needs," 

Murby told Reuters on the sidelines of a news conference.



Spot prices on the Nordic power bourse Nord Pool have hit record 

highs this winter, with the average December price of 544.34 

Norwegian crowns per megawatt hour, almost five times the May 2002 

average and almost three times the average for December a year 

earlier.



Rising energy prices have prompted some firms to halt production. On 

Thursday pulp maker Rottneros said it had shut down 20 percent of its 

capacity due to rising spot prices.



The energy crunch has fanned the discussion in Sweden on whether to 

close down Barseback 2, a nuclear power reactor in southern Sweden. 

The planned shutdown is part of a 1980 Swedish referendum decision to 

replace nuclear energy, which currently accounts for half of Swedish 

production, with renewable sources.



The Barseback plant is part of energy group Ringhals AB, which is 74 

percent owned by state power company Vattenfall AB and 26 percent by 

Sydkraft AB. Sydkraft is controlled by German energy group E.ON 

Energie.



Murby said the decision to scrap the 600 megawatt Barseback 2 by the 

end of 2003 should be reversed and that Barseback 1, taken off line 

in 1999, should be restarted.



Barseback 2 produced 3.9 TWh of energy last year, approximately 2.6 

percent of Swedish production. Its annual capacity is approximately 

4.6 TWh.



POLITICAL MINEFIELD



Nuclear power is a political minefield in Sweden and the debate is 

coloured by the Barseback facility's proximity to Copenhagen, the 

capital of neighbouring Denmark where nuclear power is prohibited.



Sweden's Social Democrat government, whose voters are split over 

nuclear power, is expected to decide whether to close down Barseback 

2 in February or March this year.



"We are assuming that Barseback 2 is kept on line. In addition, we 

want the (Swedish) government to open the path to investment in 

increased production in the existing nuclear plants in Sweden," Murby 

said.



Annual production at existing atomic plants could be boosted by 8-10 

TWh, filling some of the expected deficit in coming years, he said.



Ideally, Sweden should follow neighbouring Finland, which recently 

announced it will build the first new nuclear power plant in Western 

Europe for over a decade, Murby said.



"Politicaly it may be difficult to move in the direction of investing 

in new plants for the foreseeable future but as public debate over 

carbon dioxide emissions targets increases, that may change," he 

said.

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



NRC orders tighter access to U.S. nuclear plants



SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 9 (Reuters) - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission has ordered operators of the nation's 103 power reactors 

to tighten security screening of anyone seeking access to the plants, 

including new employees and contractors.



The formal order, announced Wednesday and effective immediately, is 

part of the commission's program to beef up security at commercial 

nuclear plants in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York 

City and the Pentagon.



Some U.S. lawmakers and activist groups are concerned that a Sept. 11-

type attack against a nuclear power plant could spread deadly 

radioactive materials for miles.



Since the attacks, the nuclear power industry has worked to enhance 

plant security in several ways, among them more employee training 

programs, hiring more guards, increasing security coordination with 

law enforcement agencies, extending security boundaries and adding 

more barriers around plants.



The new measures are aimed at individuals who do not already have 

"unescorted access authorization" to enter nuclear facilities, said 

Sue Gagner, a spokeswoman for the NRC.



These include new employees and contract workers brought in mainly 

for refueling and other maintenance work, said Ann Mary Carley, 

spokeswoman for Exelon Nuclear, a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corp. 

and the nation's largest operator of atomic reactors.



Exelon Nuclear runs 17 reactors at 10 plants in Illinois, 

Pennsylvania and New Jersey.



Nuclear Management Co., based in Hudson, Wisconsin, said visitor 

access to its six nuclear plant sites in four Midwest states has been 

tightly restricted since the Sept. 11 attacks.



"The chief focus of the new order is mainly plant employees and 

contractors," said Maureen Brown, spokeswoman for Nuclear Management.



The screening also will restrict temporary access to a plant and 

"reverify background investigation criteria" for individuals who have 

unescorted access, the NRC said.



The NRC's order also included other security steps but they were kept 

confidential.



The NRC said plant operators must submit a schedule for full 

compliance within 20 days or tell the commission if they cannot 

comply.



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

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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