Energy Bill May Ease Uranium Restrictions

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

Index:



Energy Bill May Ease Uranium Restrictions

Japan - Police agency head inspects security of nuclear power plant

Pakistan protests U.S. sanctions on nuclear firm

Plutonium gap is from computation error: Japan

Bush Names New Chairman of Nuclear Panel

Damage lingers from low-dose X-rays -German study

Framatome ANP Submits Tender to Build a New Nuclear Unit in Finland

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



Energy Bill May Ease Uranium Restrictions



WASHINGTON (AP) - A provision in draft energy legislation would ease 

restrictions on the export of highly enriched uranium, raising 

concerns among nuclear nonproliferation groups that it might make it 

easier for terrorists to get the material.



The language in the House bill would rescind strict conditions that 

were imposed by Congress in 1992 on the export of weapons-grade 

uranium for use as ``targets'' in the making of radioisotopes for 

medical purposes.



The export restrictions were enacted to try to get manufacturers to 

shift away from using weapons-grade uranium for research reactors or 

for making medical isotopes - a goal, they say, that is even more 

critical today than it was a decade ago.



An easing of the restrictions ``needlessly undermines an important 

nonproliferation law and increases the risk of terrorists acquiring 

nuclear weapons,'' said Edwin Lyman, president of the Nuclear Control 

Institute, a private nonproliferation advocacy group.



The language to change the uranium export requirements was put into a 

draft energy bill, being considered this week by the House Energy and 

Commerce Committee, by Rep. Richard Burr, R-N.C., according to Lyman.



The committee on Wednesday cleared the nuclear section of the bill 

without making any changes to Burr's provision and committee members 

did not discuss the issue.



Burr said the rule changes are needed to assure continued reliable 

supplies of medical isotopes, saying the 1992 restrictions jeopardize 

such supplies. He disputed claims that it would reduce safeguards for 

weapons-grade uranium. The changes applies to shipments that go to 

countries and manufacturers ``who already are subject to stringent 

nonproliferation requirements,'' said Burr in a statement.



The nuclear medical industry has been lobbying members of Congress to 

ease the 1992 requirements, put into the law by Sen. Charles Schumer, 

D-N.Y. The lobbyists have argued that the restrictions jeopardize the 

future supply of important nuclear isotopes for use in U.S. hospitals 

and research facilities.



Under the Schumer provision, medical isotope manufacturers must agree 

to move away from using highly enriched uranium - which can be used 

in a nuclear bomb - and commit to using low-enriched uranium, if they 

are to continue getting uranium shipments from the United States.



In one letter sent to lawmakers, an official of the American College 

of Nuclear Physicians complained about the ``unintended effect'' the 

decade-old Schumer provision was having on ``the reliable supply of 

medical radionuclides'' and the need to revise it.



The 1992 provision ``does not recognize the substantial technical, 

regulatory and economic obstacles'' in requiring isotope manufactures 

to shift from highly enriched to low-enriched uranium, Carol Marcus, 

president of the group's California chapter, recently wrote in a 

letter to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.



Like the House, the Senate also is expected to consider the uranium 

export issue when it begins consideration of energy legislation in 

the coming weeks.



Lyman disputed the claim that the availability of medical isotopes 

would be at risk. Despite the Schumer provisions, ``no foreign 

isotope producer has been denied a request for U.S. exports of highly 

enriched uranium'' as long as the company agrees to cooperate in the 

eventual conversion to low-enriched uranium, said Lyman.



Allan Kuperman, an analyst at the Nuclear Control Institute, added 

that without the leverage provided by the Schumer provision, foreign 

isotope producers - in Canada, the Netherlands and Belgium - likely 

would abandon efforts to convert to the safer low-enriched 

``targets.''



A uranium target is a device in the reactor that is irradiated during 

the fission process to, in turn, produce the medical isotopes.



There has been growing concern in recent years over the safeguarding 

of highly enriched uranium, not only at facilities producing medical 

isotopes, but also at research reactors in more than 50 countries.



Matthew Bunn, a researcher at Harvard University, said that many of 

these research reactors have only minimum security. He and other 

nonproliferation advocates have argued that it is even more 

imperative today in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist 

attacks on New York City and Washington to try to reduce the amount 

of highly enriched uranium being used around the world.



``Congress should be working to facilitate conversion of all isotope 

producers that remain dependent on bomb-grade uranium, not enacting 

measures to discourage them'' to convert, said Lyman.

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



Japan - Police agency head inspects security of nuclear power plant



KASHIWAZAKI, Japan, April 2 (Kyodo) - National Police Agency chief 

Hidehiko Sato on Wednesday inspected a team of police officers tasked 

with security at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station in 

Niigata Prefecture.



Since the outbreak of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Niigata 

prefectural police officers armed with rifles and submachine guns 

have patrolled inside the power station's compound around the clock.



''The nuclear power station is the largest in the country with seven 

reactors. I have great expectations for all of you,'' Sato told about 

70 police officers lined up in front of No. 4 reactor of the power 

station run by Tokyo Electric Power Co.



After visiting the power station, Sato inspected the port of entry in 

the city of Niigata for the North Korean passenger-cargo ship Man 

Gyong Bong-92, which police allege was involved in espionage.



The Niigata police briefed Sato on their security procedures at the 

port when the North Korean ship enters.



Tokyo police alleged in January that a former North Korean agent 

living in Japan had received espionage orders while aboard the 

vessel.

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



Pakistan protests U.S. sanctions on nuclear firm



ISLAMABAD, April 2 (Reuters) - Pakistan said on Wednesday it had 

protested against the imposition of U.S. commercial sanctions on a 

firm involved in its nuclear programme.



Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told parliament's upper 

house Washington had told Islamabad several days ago of its decision 

to impose curbs on Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) for allegedly 

arranging the transfer of nuclear-capable missiles from North Korea 

to Pakistan.



He said President Pervez Musharraf and U.S. Secretary of State Colin 

Powell had also discussed the matter by phone.



"The President duly protested...we have expressed our disappointment 

with the U.S. government in no uncertain terms," Kasuri told the 

Senate.



Under the sanctions imposed last week, the United States will not 

enter into contracts or issue licences to KRL and the company will 

not be authorised to export to the United States.



KRL was once headed by nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, revered 

by many in Pakistan as the father of the country's nuclear bomb.



A report in Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun said on Wednesday that 

North Korea shipped 10 Scud-B ballistic missiles to Pakistan in 

February in what could have been part of a deal to pay for nuclear 

technology from Islamabad.



Pakistan, which conducted its first nuclear tests in 1998, has 

repeatedly denied reports of any nuclear or missile-related 

cooperation with North Korea.



"The (KRL) project and our entire nuclear programme and missile 

programmes are indigenous," Kasuri said. "We have reached a certain 

level so that our nuclear and missile programmes are self-

sustaining."

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



Plutonium gap is from computation error: Japan



TOKYO, April 1 (Kyodo) - The gap in the amount of plutonium extracted 

at the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, Ibaraki 

Prefecture and the projected amount was 59 kilograms, not 206 kg as 

initially thought, the Japanese government said Tuesday in a final 

report on the discrepancy.



The education and science ministry, the government agency in charge 

of Japan's nuclear energy program, said the discrepancy was the 

result of computation error and ruled out fears of nuclear 

proliferation.



''There is no fear that plutonium was removed and taken outside; 

there is also no fear that plutonium was lost,'' the ministry said in 

presenting its latest findings to the Atomic Energy Commission.



In January, government scientists said there should have been 206 kg 

more plutonium extracted at the Tokaimura plant, which processed 

1,003 tons of spent nuclear fuel since 1977 and extracted 6.9 tons of 

plutonium.



The ministry emphasized that the gap was caused by computation error, 

pointing to technical difficulties in estimating the amount of 

plutonium that would be generated after uranium is consumed in 

nuclear reactors.



The ministry said the Japanese government has sent the revised 

figures to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Vienna-

based U.N. nuclear agency has endorsed its findings.



According to the education ministry, 106 kg of the 206 kg ''missing'' 

plutonium were later found to have been mixed with high-level 

radioactive liquid waste and were either stored inside the Tokaimura 

facility or stored after it was solidified into glass.



The ministry said 29 kg of the unaccounted plutonium was made up of 

short-life isotopes and degraded during storage.



The report said another 12 kg of the plutonium was probably stuck in 

fuel tubes that were disposed apart from nuclear waste liquid, 

leaving the amount of still-unaccounted plutonium at 59 kg.

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



Bush Names New Chairman of Nuclear Panel



WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush will designate Nils J. Diaz as the 

new chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, replacing Richard 

Meserve, the White House announced Monday.



Diaz, a nuclear engineer, has been on the five-member commission 

since 1996. Prior to that he was a professor of nuclear engineering 

science at the University of Florida and director of a consortium 

involved in missile defense programs.



Meserve announced in December that he would leave the commission at 

the end of March, more than a year before his term expires, to become 

president of the Carnegie Institution, a prominent research center in 

Washington.



While new commissioners must be confirmed by the Senate, a chairman 

can be designated without Senate action.

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



Damage lingers from low-dose X-rays -German study



WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - Low doses of X-rays such as those 

patients receive in the dentist's chair may do more long-lasting 

damage than higher doses, German scientists reported on Monday in a 

study that turns common wisdom on its head.



Their findings, based on experiment with cell cultures, will have to 

be duplicated by other labs and then repeated in living animals 

before doctors can offer guidance on the effects of low-dose X-rays 

on humans.



The team, led by Markus Lobrich at the Universitat des Saarlandes, 

said its reasearch suggests that doses of X-rays generally considered 

harmless may in fact do long-lasting damage.



But they said they had developed a test that would help doctors look 

for genetic damage in people exposed to low doses of X-rays, such as 

cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy, patients getting X-rays and 

professionals working with X-ray equipment.



Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 

Lobrich's team said they exposed human cell cultures to varying X-ray 

doses in the laboratory.



To their surprise, they found that damage from low radiation levels 

lingered days to weeks longer than damage caused by more powerful 

levels.



Ionizing radiation like the kind produced by X-rays and some nuclear 

breakdown products can cause leukemia and other cancers. The 

radiation can cause breaks in DNA that go across both strands of its 

double helix structure.



Scientists had assumed that the body moves to repair these breaks at 

the same rate, no matter what the dose of radiation.



But Lobrich's team found this may not be true. It could be, they 

propose, that the body simply does not recognize lower levels of 

damage and does not move to repair it.



When these damaged cells divide and multiply, the unrepaired damage 

multiplies along with them, they suggested.

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



Framatome ANP Submits Its Tender to Build a New Nuclear Unit in 

Finland



PARIS, March 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Framatome ANP, an AREVA and Siemens 

company, has today submitted its tender to Teollisuuden Voima Oy 

(TVO) for the fifth Finnish nuclear power plant.  Framatome ANP is 

offering two reactor types: the EPR, a Pressurized Water Reactor 

(PWR) and the SWR 1000, a Boiling Water Reactor (BWR).



Energy plays a vital role in the Finnish economy and welfare.  Since 

Finland's own energy resources are very limited, the country imports 

more than 70% of its energy.  Electricity consumption has grown 

steadily and is forecast to rise by 25% by 2015.  Electricity supply 

is based on diverse sources, and the share of nuclear accounts for 

27%.  This increasing dependency on electricity imports has led the 

Finnish Parliament to ratify the construction of a fifth nuclear 

power unit, based on the view that the nuclear option is the best 

alternative in terms of cost-effectiveness, security of electricity 

supply, and environment and climate compatibility within the 

framework of the Kyoto Protocol.



"With EPR and SWR 1000, we have two reactors that represent the 

internationally most advanced reactor technology in terms of 

operating economy and safety.  We are confident in the leading edge 

solutions that we are proposing to TVO," said Vincent Maurel, 

President and CEO of Framatome ANP.



The EPR and SWR 1000 were developed by Framatome ANP with the 

involvement of European nuclear power plant operators, research 

institutes and safety authorities on the basis of proven light water 

reactor technology.  Both fulfill the European Utility Requirements 

on future nuclear power plants and meet European electricity 

companies' expectations.



The EPR evolved from optimization of the design features of the 

French N4 and the German Konvoi technology.  Its electricity output 

is at the upper edge of the range specified in TVO's call for bids.  

The SWR 1000 is a development based on Siemens design with a capacity 

in the middle of the range and builds upon proven German BWR 

technology.



The EPR and SWR 1000 represent further progress in plant safety, 

above and beyond the high safety level already achieved with light 

water reactors operating today.  On the one hand, the measures to 

prevent accidents have been further improved.  On the other hand, 

even in the unlikely case of an event leading to core damage the 

consequences would be limited to the reactor building, with no impact 

on the environment and the population.  The safety assessment, which 

TVO had commissioned with the Finnish licensing authority STUK, 

concluded that the two reactor designs can meet the Finnish licensing 

requirements.



The EPR and SWR 1000 are highly competitive reactors.  Both plant 

designs can attain power generation costs that rival those of fossil-

fired power plants.



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

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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