Croatia, Slovenia in shared power plant dispute

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

Index:



Croatia, Slovenia in shared power plant dispute

Los Alamos Scientists Test Nuke Detector

Entergy faces legal claims for hazardous exposure

A dirty bomb may not kill, but it sure would hurt

Shinto priest opposed to nuke plant in Yamaguchi sacked

IAEA says Iran uranium plant nearly completed

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



Croatia, Slovenia in shared power plant dispute



ZAGREB, March 17 (Reuters) - Croatia said on Monday it will ask 

neigbouring Slovenia for $56 million compensation for undistributed 

electricity from the jointly-owned Krsko nuclear power plant in the 

last eight months.



Croatia and Slovenia jointly built Krsko while they were federal 

units in the former Yugoslavia in 1980s.



"We will ask for compensation of $56 million for the period between 

June 30, 2002, and March 1, 2003. Also, we will demand between $5-6 

million for every month of undistributed electricity from now on," a 

Croatian power board HEP source told Reuters.



The dispute between the two neigbouring countries over Krsko broke 

out in 1998 when Slovenian power monopoly Eles stopped distributing 

electricity to HEP because of unpaid bills. It also moved to freeze 

Croatia out by nationalising the power plant in July 1998.



The two countries reached an agreement last year to renew joint 

management of the plant which Croatian parliament ratified to come 

into force from June 30, 2002. Slovenia's parliament ratified it only 

this month.



The agreement also proposes the sharing of future decommissioning 

costs and the disposal of nuclear waste.



"Now, HEP should enter the Krsko power plant management board and 

revise all the relevant documents related to how the plant operated 

in the last few years. It will take some time, but it should not stop 

the distribution of the electricity," the source, who asked not to be 

named, said.



However, it is still unclear when distribution will restart, the 

source added.



Croatia on Friday threatened to start an arbitration procedure unless 

it fully rejoins Krsko's management within the next 60 days.



Slovenian environment minister Janez Kopac told Croatian daily 

Jutarnji list on Sunday that Slovenia would prefer Croatia to sell 

its stake.



Croatia has considered that option in the past, but the two sides 

failed to agree on the price. Croatia said it wanted $717.5 million 

for its stake while Slovenia insisted it should not pay more than 

roughly $150 million.

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



Los Alamos Scientists Test Nuke Detector



Nuclear weapons hidden inside shipping containers or trucks could be 

detected by using tiny subatomic particles that shower the Earth from 

the sky, federal scientists suggest.



The high-energy particles, called muons, scatter in a highly 

predictable pattern when they strike dense materials like uranium or 

the lead used in heavy shielding, and that scattering could be picked 

up by a special detector, the scientists said.



The researchers, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, 

present successful results from small-scale testing in Thursday's 

issue of the journal Nature.



The main drawback for such detectors is that they are slow, making 

them impractical for use in high-volume situations. X-ray detectors 

can scan large trucks in seconds; the muon detector would take 

minutes, the researchers said.



``You have only so many muons, and you can't exactly go out and get 

more,'' said Ralph James, associate director of the Brookhaven 

National Laboratory.



But the researchers are hopeful that the concept can be improved upon 

so that in the future, large detectors could screen shipping 

containers at coastal ports or trucks traveling through border 

checkpoints.



``It surprised us that it worked so well,'' said William C. 

Priedhorsky, chief scientist for international security at Los 

Alamos.



``You can build a muon detector out of argon gas and extruded 

aluminum and stainless steel wire, so you don't need something that's 

obviously high-cost,'' Priedhorsky said.



The device could be laid out as a platform that trucks could drive 

onto for testing, or even a kind of conveyor belt for large shipping 

containers, the researchers say.



James said existing X-ray scanners with adjustable high-energy 

intensity would remain more reliable for quick testing, but the muon 

detector could be useful for situations where X-ray machines are 

unavailable or impractical - such as scanning a suspicious container 

at a remote site without any power supply.



George Greene, a Brookhaven researcher who independently proposed the 

idea at the same time the Los Alamos researchers began their work, 

said using computers could speed up a muon detection system.



Andrew Karam, a University of Rochester researcher and expert on 

``dirty bombs,'' said a muon detector could reveal the heavy lead 

shielding needed to transport or store a dirty bomb. Such weapons use 

conventional explosives to spread radioactive particles.



``As it is now, it would make a great screening tool for specific 

objects. But if they can find a way to scale it up to do it more 

quickly, it could be very valuable,'' Karam said.



On the Net:



Nature magazine: http://www.nature.com

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



Entergy faces legal claims for hazardous exposure



NEW YORK, March 19 (Reuters) - Entergy Corp. <ETR.N>, the No. 2 U.S. 

provider of nuclear power, said on Wednesday it has more than 3,000 

legal claims pending from former employees seeking damages for 

alleged exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials.



The New Orleans company said in its annual report that three of its 

electric utility units -- Entergy Gulf States, Entergy Louisiana, and 

Entergy New Orleans -- are named in the claims, which were filed 

primarily by former contractor employees that worked for the units 

between 1950 and 1980.



The suits have been filed in federal and state courts in both Texas 

and Louisiana, where Entergy said judges and juries "have 

demonstrated a willingness to grant large verdicts" to plaintiffs, 

therefore posing "significant business risk."



Other defendants are also named in the suits.



The company has set aside reserves to cover any potential 

liabilities, which it expects will not be material to its financial 

position or results from operations.



Including defense costs, the company said it has already resolved 

more than 3,000 claims since 1992 for a total of less than $13 

million.



The company was not immediately available for comment on further 

details of the claims.

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



A dirty bomb may not kill, but it sure would hurt



VIENNA, (Reuters) - After Sept. 11, 2001, nuclear experts realized 

the danger of handling deadly radioactive material would not deter 

suicidal maniacs who could hijack a plane and ram it into a 

skyscraper.



They asked what would happen if al Qaeda got one of the world's 

thousands of lost radioactive sources, attached an explosive like 

dynamite and exploded it in a major urban center.



Britain said in January it had evidence that al Qaeda, widely thought 

to be behind the attack that toppled New York City's World Trade 

Center, had tried to develop such a bomb in the 1990s.



Wolfgang Weiss, head of radiation hygiene at Germany's Federal Office 

for Radiation Protection, prepared a hypothetical case study to show 

what would happen if a radiation dispersal device -- popularly known 

as a dirty bomb -- exploded in Munich.



The results, based on an imaginary bomb made with weapons-grade 

plutonium placed in Munich's Olympic Stadium, were superficially 

reassuring: There would probably be no deaths and the number of 

severely contaminated victims would be small.



"According to the calculations I did, the radiological impact would 

be very limited, though the wider impact to society would be large," 

Weiss told Reuters during the first global conference on dirty bombs.



Severe contamination would likely occur at the center of the 

explosion in the stadium, which has a capacity of almost 70,000. He 

said that at three miles from the stadium, radiation levels would 

drop by a factor of 100, resulting in only mild exposure levels. 	   



DANGEROUS, BUT NOT DEADLY



Disregarding damage from the explosion itself, Weiss said exposure 

for someone near the bomb "would require emergency medical treatment, 

but it would not lead to death."



If the radioactive material was cesium, a common easy-to-disperse 

radioactive powder used in medicine and agriculture, victims would be 

exposed to quite low levels.



"These models tell us that you wouldn't have to evacuate a huge city. 

You would concentrate on an area of a few kilometers," from the 

explosion, Weiss said.



But the bomb would cause panic, and it would be crucial for political 

leaders to behave calmly, to speak honestly and in clear, easy-to-

understand language about the attack.



"It's not primarily a radiological problem which we'd face; it's a 

psychological problem and a problem that has to do with trust in a 

society in their leaders," he said.



Failure to handle the situation properly could turn a manageable 

crisis, which emergency response teams should be capable of managing, 

into a disaster.



But Weiss said specific case scenarios were not a good basis for 

preparing a government on how to respond to an attack.



"You have to be ready to be flexible, ready for everything. Reality 

is always different," Weiss said. "Before the events in New York on 

September 11, nobody thought it was possible."



Dirty bombs hit the headlines in May 2002, when U.S. authorities 

captured Jose Padilla, an American al Qaeda operative, in Chicago and 

prevented a dirty bomb attack.



But there has never been a dirty bomb attack, so scientists and 

policymakers still have no actual case to examine.



This is why Weiss and others look closely at a tragedy in southern 

Brazil considered to be the benchmark dirty bomb scenario. This case 

shows that while the number of deaths may be low, the long-term 

effects of such an attack could be severe. 	   



GOIANIA: THE DIRTY-BOMB BENCHMARK



On September 13, 1987, two men in Goiania, Brazil were looking for 

scrap metal at a partly demolished medical clinic.



They found a radiation therapy machine containing a small canister of 

highly radioactive cesium powder. Unaware of what it was, they sold 

it to a junkyard dealer, who took the canister apart.



Within two weeks, local children discovered the glowing blue powder. 

Some even used it as body paint.



This quickly led to a catastrophe that was second only to the 1986 

accident at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. A total of 249 people were 

exposed, 10 were seriously injured and four died.



The long-term socio-economic effects were devastating. Goiania 

suffered a 20 percent drop in gross domestic product, which took five 

years to return to normal levels.



Tourism in the tropical town dropped to zero and Goiania found itself 

the victim of economic discrimination, as demand for food and other 

products from the area plummeted.



"Imagine it would happen here in Vienna," Weiss said. "The city would 

never be the same." 	   



TRAFFICKING IN RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS



"We need to take into account Murphy's Law -- whatever can go wrong, 

will go wrong eventually," said Chris Schmitzer of the Health Physics 

Division from Austria's ARC research laboratories in Seibersdorf, 

referring to the possibility of a dirty bomb attack.



According to the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency, there have 

been more than 280 confirmed cases of illicit trafficking in 

radioactive materials since 1993, though the agency suspects the 

actual number may be much higher.



Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. International Atomic Energy 

Agency (IAEA), said the threat of a dirty bomb attack was real and 

urged speedy improvements in the security of radioactive sources and 

border controls to keep them out of the hands of terrorists.



"The fact that you haven't seen (a dirty bomb attack) yet doesn't 

mean one isn't imminent," ElBaradei said.



Cesium, which ravaged Goiania, is one of many deadly radioactive 

sources that have fallen out of regulatory control through loss or 

theft across the former Soviet Union, the world's hotspot for illicit 

trafficking in radioactive material.



"Our database of cases of smuggling gives an indication that there is 

a market and there is an effort to obtain radioactive sources, and 

the obvious question is why," ElBaradei said.

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



Shinto priest opposed to nuke plant in Yamaguchi sacked



YAMAGUCHI, Japan, March 17 (Kyodo) - An organization overseeing 

Shinto shrines in Yamaguchi Prefecture said Monday it has sacked a 

priest who opposed the sale of shrine land for the construction of a 

Chugoku Electric Power Co. nuclear power plant.



Haruhiko Hayashi, head priest of the Hachimangu shrine, opposes the 

sale of land in the town of Kaminoseki for the plant, and was fired 

Sunday.



The organization said Hayashi ''refused to talk with his congregation 

and failed to conduct rituals sufficiently. We have therefore judged 

him to have failed to perform his duties as a priest.''



A senior official of the organization denied the dismissal was 

related to the stalled land sale, but the move could herald renewed 

action to build the plant.



Hayashi maintains that a nuclear power plant ''poses a risk to 

humankind.'' Many members of his congregation have favored the 

nuclear project.



People in the congregation demanded talks with Hayashi to discuss the 

issue, but he declined. He has not appeared in public lately, citing 

worries about his personal safety.



In October 2000, congregation members submitted a request for his 

dismissal to the Shinto organization, and it referred the matter to 

the Association of Shinto Shrines, a national Shinto body in Tokyo, 

in March 2001.



The association sent Hayashi a letter dated March 7, urging him to 

hold talks with his congregation on the issue. Hayashi refused, 

calling it ''unfair coercion.''



The shrine owns about 10 hectares of wooded land. Chugoku Electric 

plans to build a nuclear reactor on part of it.

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



IAEA says Iran uranium plant nearly completed



VIENNA, March 17 (Reuters) - The chief of the U.N's nuclear watchdog 

said on Monday Iran has nearly completed the uranium enrichment plant 

at the centre of U.S. accusations that Tehran wants to develop 

nuclear weapons and was working on another.



International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei did 

not respond to repeated U.S. accusations that Iran's nuclear 

programme was intended to develop the capacity to build nuclear 

weapons in the text of his comments prepared for the board after an 

inspection trip to Iran last month.



"My colleagues and I were able to visit a number of facilities -- 

including a gas centrifuge enrichment pilot plant at Natanz that is 

nearly ready for operation, and a much larger enrichment facility 

still under construction at the same site," ElBaradei told the 

agency's board.



The same technology used to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel can 

be used to make the highly-enriched material required for a nuclear 

bomb, although Iran has said it only intends to make reactor fuel.



U.S. President George W. Bush named Iran as a member of an "axis of 

evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea, who the United States accuse of 

seeking to develop or harbour nuclear, chemical or biological 

weapons.



The claims have appeared amid Washington's preparations to go to war 

against Iraq over U.S. allegations that Baghdad has weapons of mass 

destruction.



ElBaradei reiterated his call to Iran to help dispel doubts about its 

nuclear ambitions by signing up to the IAEA's "Additional Protocol" 

which would allow inspectors freer access to Iran's nuclear sites 

with little prior warning.



Iran has unveiled details of an ambitious nuclear energy programme, 

from mining uranium ore to managing the spent fuel from atomic 

reactors.



The Islamic Republic has said it wants to be generating 6,000 MW of 

electricity from atomic power plants by 2022 to meet the growing 

energy demand of its 65 million population.



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

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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