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Japan Nuke operator suspects stress corrosion cracking at plant
Index:
Japan Nuke operator suspects stress corrosion cracking at plant
New Greenpeace challenge to British Energy rescue
Iran Mines Uranium, Plans Nuclear Plant
Russian Cabinet OKs Halting Plutonium
=====================================
Japan Nuke operator suspects stress corrosion cracking at plant
OBAMA, Japan, Feb. 12 (Kyodo) - Kansai Electric Power Co. said
Wednesday it suspects a fracture on one of its measurement tubes at a
nuclear power reactor in the town of Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, may
be a case of stress corrosion cracking.
The operator said the crack, about 32 millimeters long and less than
1 mm deep, was found on one of the 50 measurement tubes at the bottom
of the No. 1 reactor at its Takahama plant during a regular checkup.
If the fracture was a case of stress corrosion cracking, it would
mark the first time in the world for a crack to be caused by the
combination of tensile stress and a corrosive environment on a
measurement tube at a pressurized light-water reactor, the operator
said.
Kansai Electric Power said the finding will not affect the 826,000-
kilowatt reactor's operations, and that it will restart the reactor
Thursday as scheduled. The reactor is to begin commercial operations
in mid-March after undergoing adjustments, it said.
The operator reported the case to the Nuclear and Industrial Safety
Agency, an affiliate of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry,
and the Fukui prefectural government.
------------------
New Greenpeace challenge to British Energy rescue
LONDON, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Greenpeace said on Wednesday it will
launch a fresh legal challenge to the UK government's rescue of
crippled nuclear generator British Energy, the country's biggest
power producer.
British Energy is surviving on a 650-million pounds ($1.05 billion)
state loan, granted late last year after plunging UK power prices in
Britain's cut-throat energy market forced it to the brink of
insolvency in September.
Greenpeace, which wants the plug pulled on all British Energy's
nuclear plants and has unsuccessfully challenged the loan in the UK
courts, said it would seek annulment in the European Court of the
European Commission's recent decision to approve the state aid.
"The European Commission has approved a loan to British Energy which
is unfairly distorting the UK electricity market," said Greenpeace's
nuclear campaigner Jim Footner in a statement.
"Their reasoning is based on a misunderstanding of the facts and does
not take into account the alternatives to this massive bail out of
nuclear power."
Neither British Energy nor the UK's Department of Trade and Industry,
which is steering the rescue attempt, could immediately be reached
for comment.
British Energy"s shares were up three percent at 6.8 pence.
Wednesday's move came before the expected agreement on Friday by
British Energy bondholders on the first steps towards restructuring
the company.
British Energy needs 50 percent of its bondholders to sign standstill
agreements by Friday, allowing the firm to suspend principal
repayments due in March and keeping it out of administration.
The nuclear giant won some breathing space last week when it sold a
chunk of its output over the next four years to UK utility Centrica
in a deal analysts said was worth at least 600 million pounds.
But industry sources said the fixed prices set in contract were below
current market levels.
Earlier this week British Energy paid off its discredited former
executive chairman Robin Jeffrey at reduced terms.
Jeffrey quit last year after management blunders contributed to the
company's crisis.
--------------------
Iran Mines Uranium, Plans Nuclear Plant
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran said Monday it has started mining uranium
for the first time and will soon open a facility to process the ore
into fuel, vowing to move ahead with a nuclear program it says is
solely for electrical production.
The project would give Iran, which Washington accuses of seeking to
develop nuclear weapons, independent access to fissile material. In
building its first power plant, to be completed later this year, Iran
is relying on Russia for its nuclear fuel.
Mines near Ardakan, in central Iran, have begun extracting uranium
from underground reserves, said Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the head of
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, according to the official Islamic
Republic News Agency.
The United States has ``grave concerns that Iran is using its
supposedly peaceful nuclear program ... as a pretext for advancing a
nuclear weapons program,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
said in Washington.
President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday announced the discovery of the
reserves, near the central city of Yazd, and said Iran was setting up
production facilities ``to make use of advanced nuclear technology
for peaceful purposes.''
Iran insists it is following international regulations and that all
its facilities are open to inspectors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog
agency. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday it has
been aware for several years of Iran's plans to mine and process
uranium.
``This comes as no surprise to us, as we have been aware of this
uranium exploration project for several years now,'' Melissa Fleming,
spokeswoman for the Vienna-based IAEA said. She added that an IAEA
team visited the mine in question in 1992.
IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei is to lead a team to Iran on Feb. 22-23
to conduct inspections at two nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak,
in central Iran, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said Monday.
Washington says those two facilities are part of a secret Iranian
nuclear weapons program. President Bush has grouped Iran along with
Iraq and North Korea as part of an ``axis of evil'' seeking to
develop weapons of mass destruction.
Iran is building its first nuclear power plant at the southern port
of Bushehr with Russian help. The United States has tried to dissuade
Russia from assisting the project for a 1,000-megawatt reactor.
To allay U.S. fears that the fuel it is providing the Bushehr plant
could be used for a weapons program, Russia agreed with Iran last
year to take back the spent fuel rods from the plant.
Aghazadeh said that deal still held for Bushehr. But he said Iran
hoped ``in the not so distant future'' to ``complete the fuel
cycle,'' meaning to have full facilities to produce and process fuel.
However, Boucher told reporters that ``Iran's admission that it's
been mining uranium when Russia has agreed to provide all the uranium
fuel for the lifetime of the Bushehr reactor raises serious questions
about Iran's supposedly peaceful nuclear program.''
An Iranian opposition group has raised alarm about the two sites.
``Exploiting the current crisis in the region, the mullahs' regime
has stepped up its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,'' Alireza
Jafarzadeh said, a spokesman for The National Council of Resistance
of Iran.
A plant for processing the mined uranium ore into fuel will be
completed ``in the near future'' in Isfahan, in central Iran,
Aghazadeh said. The next stage would be to complete a facility for
encasing the material into fuel pellets used in a reactor, he said.
Aghazadeh said the Isfahan factory would meet the fuel needs required
for a previously unannounced facility in nearby Kashan. No further
details were available on the Kashan plant, including what its
purpose would be, and Iranian officials have not previously commented
on it.
U.S. officials have said that Iran's lack of fissile material -
either enriched uranium or plutonium - was a key stumbling block for
its goals of either producing or acquiring nuclear weapons.
--------------------
Russian Cabinet OKs Halting Plutonium
MOSCOW (AP) - The Russian Cabinet has approved a plan to halt
production of weapons-grade plutonium with U.S. financial support.
Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed an order that envisions that
two nuclear reactors in the Siberian city of Seversk will cease
plutonium production by the end of 2005, a statement said. The
complex was known as Tomsk-7 during Soviet times.
The third reactor in another major nuclear weapons center -
Zheleznogorsk, or Krasnoyarsk-26 in the Soviet era - is to stop
producing plutonium by the end of 2006.
Russia has dragged its feet on the implementation of a 1997 agreement
with the United States to end plutonium production because of
differences over the promised U.S. financial contribution to the
project.
The military reactors also provide electricity and heat for their
cities, and the United States has promised to share the costs of
building replacement power facilities.
-------------------------------------------------
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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