Japan's govt appeals against fast-breeder ruling

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

Index:



Japan's govt appeals against fast-breeder ruling

France to pitch for experimental fusion power plant

N. Korea moves nuclear fuel rods: N.Y. Times

Britain says al Qaeda aimed to build nuclear bomb

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



Japan's govt appeals against fast-breeder ruling



TOKYO, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Japan's government, keen to promote its 

ambitious nuclear power programme, said on Friday it had appealed 

against a court ruling that could prevent the country restarting a 

controversial fast-breeder nuclear reactor.



On Monday, the Nagoya High Court in central Japan handed down what 

anti-nuclear campaigners described as an "epoch-making" ruling that 

would effectively block any resumption of operations at the prototype 

Monju reactor.



The plant, a fast-breeder reactor designed to produce more nuclear 

fuel than it consumes, has been shut since December 1995 after a 

massive leak of liquid sodium.



Shortly before lodging the appeal with the supreme court, Trade 

Minister Takeo Hiranuma, who is in charge of the country's energy 

policy, took issue with Monday's ruling.



"We believe appropriate safety inspections have been conducted at 

Monju and we can never accept the ruling," Hiranuma told reporters.



Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said later the government had to 

work to get the public behind its nuclear energy policy.



"We can't win understanding for our nuclear power policy unless we 

pay particular attention to safety...We need to make more efforts to 

win understanding," Koizumi told reporters.



Monday's ruling shocked the government, which had in December 

approved construction work to renovate the reactor.



The rare legal victory for Japanese anti-nuclear power campaigners 

could undermine its efforts to build more reactors.



A group of 32 plaintiffs, mainly people living near Monju, located in 

Fukui Prefecture, 400 km (250 miles) west of Tokyo, want the reactor 

to be permanently shut down, claiming that faulty safety assessments 

had led to the 1995 accident.



In handing down the ruling on Monday, Judge Kazuo Kawasaki said there 

were flaws in the safety assessments needed to prevent accidents such 

as the leakage of radioactive material.



JAPAN'S AMBITIONS AT RISK



Anti-nuclear activists denounced the government's decision to appeal 

against the ruling.



"It is absolute nonsense," said Masako Sawai at the Citizens Nuclear 

Information Centre, the biggest anti-nuclear group in Japan. "It is 

outrageous that the government made the final appeal to force the 

dangerous facility on the local citizens without acknowledging its 

mistakes."



Resource-poor Japan relies on nuclear power for about 34 percent of 

its electricity output and plans to raise that to 40 percent by 2012.



Monju had been a cornerstone of that energy policy.



The government has spent 780 billion yen ($6.56 billion) on the 

project, including 580 billion yen to build the reactor.



Fast-breeder reactors were conceived in the 1960s with the aim of 

extending the resources of uranium fuel, but technical difficulties 

have beset the plants and caused many countries that embraced the 

concept to abandon their costly programmes.



The Monju leak, which sparked a fire, plus other accidents at nuclear 

facilities, including a 1999 accident at a nuclear fuel reprocessing 

facility in which two workers died, have increased public mistrust in 

the nuclear industry in Japan.



The industry was hit by further problems last September, when Japan's 

largest power utility, Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501.T), began 

shutting down reactors for special safety checks after revelations of 

lapses during previous inspections.

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



France to pitch for experimental fusion power plant



PARIS, Jan 31 (Reuters) - France said on Friday it will put forward a 

plan to build a giant experimental thermonuclear power plant on its 

turf as part of an international project to develop a clean and new 

energy source.



Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin saidFrance would offer a site in 

Cadarache, just north of Marseille, for the ITER (International 

Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) research project to build the 

fusion power plant worth $30 billion.



France's bid to house the plant comes a day after President George W. 

Bush said the United States would join the ITER project, which is 

aimed at harnessing the power of fusion -- the energy source that 

powers the sun.



Britain, other European Union countries, Russia, China, Japan and 

Canada are already working together on the project, which is distinct 

from ordinary fission reactors as it aims to produce a clean and safe 

source of energy using fusion.



"If we succeed, this is the solution to all our problems and we'll no 

longer need to go to war in Iraq," a source close to the project 

said, adding that it would be conducted over 40-50 years.



Bush said on Thursday he hoped safe, renewable fusion energy could be 

commercially available by the middle of the century.



France is one of the few countries to have shifted away from oil for 

its energy needs. The world's second-largest nuclear power producer 

after the United States, it has the highest concentration of nuclear 

power production, which covers 80 percent of its output.



Fusion occurs in the sun when the intense heat and pressure within 

the sun's core cause light atoms to collide and fuse together. This 

creates heavier atoms and releases energy.

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



N. Korea moves nuclear fuel rods: N.Y. Times



NEW YORK, Jan. 31 (Kyodo) - U.S. spy satellites detected what appear 

to be trucks moving North Korea's stockpile of 8,000 nuclear fuel 

rods out of storage in Yongbyon, the New York Times reported Friday.



Quoting unnamed U.S. officials, the newspaper said the move prompted 

fears within the U.S. administration that ''North Korea is preparing 

to produce roughly a half dozen nuclear weapons.''



The move, if true, poses a serious concern to the entire world, 

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic 

Energy Agency, said. ElBaradei said North Korea has the capacity to 

extract a great deal of plutonium in six months.



Experts say between four and five nuclear bombs can be produced from 

plutonium extracted from 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.



In Washington, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said such 

steps will further isolate North Korea from the international 

community. Fleischer declined to confirm the New York Times report on 

grounds of intelligence.



In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said he is aware that 

Japanese authorities confirmed the existence of ''such things'' with 

''considerable credibility.''



The satellites detected extensive activity at the Yongbyon nuclear 

complex throughout January with some trucks pulling up to the 

building housing the storage pond, the New York Times said.



''Workers were transporting the rods to another site, either to get 

them out of sight, or to move them to a reprocessing plant,'' the 

newspaper said.



The paper said analysts also concluded informally that Pyongyang 

could begin producing bomb-grade plutonium by the end of March, 

considering ''the movement of the rods, combined with other activity 

that now appears to be under way at the Yongbyon complex.''



Although North Korea has so far denied reprocessing spent nuclear 

fuel rods to extract plutonium, ''The North Koreans made no real 

effort to hide this from us,'' a senior U.S. official was quoted as 

saying.



''There's still a debate about exactly what we are seeing and how 

provocative it is,'' he said.



Some administration officials believe North Korea is hoping to set 

off a crisis to extract concessions from Washington, the report said.

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



Britain says al Qaeda aimed to build nuclear bomb



LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The British government confirmed on Friday 

it had released evidence it says proves Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda 

network tried to develop a nuclear weapon in the late 1990s.



"The evidence speaks for itself," a Foreign Office spokesman said 

when asked to comment on a report by the BBC, which said the 

government had shown it documents proving al Qaeda tried to build a 

so-called dirty bomb.



"It provides proof of substantial earlier expert opinion that al 

Qaeda was interested in developing and using nuclear weapons," the 

spokesman told Reuters.



In its main television news bulletin on Thursday night, The BBC said 

the government had provided it with previously undisclosed material 

on al Qaeda operations, gathered by intelligence agents in 

Afghanistan.



The agents infiltrated al Qaeda training camps in the late 1990s and 

reported back to London that bin Laden had acquired radioactive 

isotopes, the BBC said.



It cited British officials saying al Qaeda tried to develop a dirty 

bomb at a nuclear laboratory in the Afghan city of Herat. The 

documents included al Qaeda training manuals which detail how to use 

dirty bombs to maximum effect.



Dirty bombs use conventional explosives to scatter radioactive 

material.



The Foreign Office declined to comment on the details of the report 

or on why the government had decided to provide the BBC with the 

information.



Britain is in the forefront of Washington's self-declared war on 

terror and aided the United States in its military campaign to stamp 

out al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2001-02.



The government of Prime Minister Tony Blair is also backing a U.S.-

led bid to make Iraq comply with United Nations resolutions on 

disarmament. As part of that campaign, Blair has alleged links 

between Iraq and al Qaeda.



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

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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