ANALYSIS - EC may force British nuclear reactor shutdowns

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

Index:



ANALYSIS - EC may force British nuclear reactor shutdowns

Court dismisses seafood firm's lawsuit against JCO

Senator Wants More Security at Nuke Labs

Nuclear waste found in UK salmon -Greenpeace

Gov't panel OKs safety of planned nuke reactor in Hokkaido

Iraqis Suffer From Radiation Symptoms

Ibaraki test nuclear reactor shut down after water leak

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



ANALYSIS - EC may force British nuclear reactor shutdowns



LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Britain may have to shut some nuclear 

power stations to win European Commission clearance for a state-

backed revamp of the loss-making industry, according to industry 

sources and experts.



Such a ruling by the Commission could raise the depressed price of 

electricity in Britain's oversupplied wholesale market, damp down 

protests from rival producers who call the plan anti-competitive, and 

please anti-nuclear campaigners.



But it may raise the cost of the plan itself -- a complex 

restructuring of privatised nuclear generator British Energy Plc



that was pushed to the brink of insolvency last year by the same 

depressed power prices.



"Shutdowns will have to be on the agenda," said a senior UK power 

industry executive. "They are not part of the (government's 

restructuring) package, but that could be a negotiating position. It 

may have taken the view that if it offered one shutdown, the 

Commission would ask for two."



The Commission has cleared initial emergency state aid for British 

Energy on the grounds of nuclear safety and security of supply.



But a probe into the restructuring itself is expected to start within 

weeks. Competition issues will be in the forefront, particularly 

after a draft energy law in May that included terms designed to 

ensure that nuclear firms cannot distort markets with funds that 

should be earmarked for decommissioning.



"The Commission's restructuring guidelines envisage capacity 

reduction as a means of compensating for a distortion of competition 

caused by state aid -- so it's clearly one of the things you would 

expect them to look at during the course of their investigation," 

said Brian Sher, European competition lawyer with international law 

firm Latham & Watkins.



A source close to the Commission confirmed that it would consider 

whether Britain needs to act to protect competition, but said talk of 

shutdowns was premature.



"Such a quid pro quo is the last stage of the analysis," the source 

said.



British Energy said earlier in June that it expected no decision from 

the Commission until summer 2004, and that other complications could 

still derail the delicately structured plan.



TAXPAYER PAIN



British Energy won its emergency state loan last year as prices 

dropped below its production costs. A proposed long-term 

restructuring plan lodged with the Commission in March wipes out most 

of its shareholders' investment and makes private-sector creditors 

take some pain too.



But taxpayers will pay far more over time to make it a solvent 

private sector business again.



The main planks of the plan are a dramatic cut in the price the firm 

pays state-owned loss-making British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) for 

fuel reprocessing, and the transfer of 5.2 billion pounds ($8.64 

billion) of clean-up liabilities to the state. The moves shift an 

extra 200 million pounds a year of costs onto the taxpayer over the 

next decade, and an unknown amount thereafter.



British Energy says its own costs would fall by six or seven pounds 

per megawatt hour to about 15-16 pounds -- making its reactors viable 

at prevailing prices.



Most other UK power firms are protected from the 40 percent drop in 

wholesale prices since 1998 by their retail energy divisions, where 

prices and margins remain relatively high.



But some pure generators, such as AES Drax, which runs Britain's 

biggest power station, are in trouble. The heavily indebted owner of 

the 4,000 megawatt Drax coal-fired plant near Leeds in northern 

England is itself near insolvency.



It is taking legal action against the nuclear bailout on the grounds 

that it distorts the power market, and has joined anti-nuclear 

campaign groups in a call for reactor shutdowns.



"ECONOMICALLY INSANE"



British Energy said closures would be against the public interest.



"It would be economically insane to shut down a nuclear plant," said 

Finance Director Keith Lough. "If you shut them early, you're 

shutting the lowest marginal-cost plant in the system and 

accelerating decommissioning costs."



British Energy's eight nuclear stations and BNFL's six amount to 

about a quarter of UK power capacity. Most are due to close anyway 

over the next two decades. Analysts say Dungeness in southeast 

England, where both firms have reactors, is the most likely early 

closure site.

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



Court dismisses seafood firm's lawsuit against JCO



MITO, Japan, June 24 (Kyodo) - The Mito District Court on Tuesday 

dismissed an Ibaraki Prefecture seafood company's lawsuit against JCO 

Co., the operator of the uranium processing plant where Japan's worst 

nuclear accident occurred in September 1999.



Seafood processing firm Kajima Suisan had demanded that JCO, a 

subsidiary of Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., pay 37 million yen in 

compensation because consumers shunned the prefecture's products, 

fearing they had been contaminated with radiation.



It was the first ruling given over a damages claim arising from the 

Sept. 30, 1999 incident at the JCO facility in the village of 

Tokaimura in the prefecture, about 120 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, 

in which plant workers triggered a nuclear fission chain reaction.



There are seven other similar cases over damages arising from the 

incident.



Presiding Judge Koichiro Matsumoto said in handing down the ruling, 

''There is no sufficient evidence to acknowledge that there actually 

were damages.''



''The firm had made no efforts to resell the products and 

unthinkingly incinerated them,'' the judge said.



Matsumoto ordered the firm to return 9.18 million yen JCO had already 

paid in compensation.



According to the plaintiff, after the incident occurred, Kajima 

Suisan's business partners refused its products, including frozen 

shrimp and crab they had ordered.



Kajima Suisan insisted that it was forced to incinerate the products, 

which resulted in the company losing 37 million yen.



But JCO argued that it had checked the incinerator and concluded that 

Kajima Suisan had not incinerated such a large amount of product. JCO 

then demanded the firm return the money it had already paid in 

compensation.



JCO representatives said they are glad the court acknowledged their 

point of view.



The accident occurred when JCO workers poured an excessive amount of 

uranium into a mixing tank. Three workers were exposed to extremely 

high doses of radiation and two of them later died.



The illegal procedure exposed more than 600 people to radiation.

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



Senator Wants More Security at Nuke Labs



WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Charles Grassley is demanding the Energy 

Department strengthen its security at the nation's nuclear weapons 

labs, citing an incident in which a van, stolen from a classified 

area of a New Mexico lab, slammed through a fence.



``The labs are in harm's way,'' the Iowa Republican wrote to Energy 

Secretary Spencer Abraham. ``There is plenty of loud thunder. 

Lightning will surely follow. The labs are in danger of getting 

zapped.''



The letter, sent Friday, was prompted by a report from former U.S. 

Attorney Norman Bay, who was hired to investigate allegations of 

security breaches raised by two investigators at Sandia National 

Laboratories in Albuquerque and further allegations that the two 

faced retaliation by superiors.



Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, called Bay's 

report a whitewash. Among its faults, Grassley said, were its failure 

to consider potential security implications from a set of master keys 

that were missing for three years and the theft of the van.



The van was stolen from a classified area of the lab and crashed 

through Sandia's perimeter fences at 5 a.m. in a ``high-risk'' exit 

maneuver, Grassley said. It was found a 1 1/2 days later in a 

department store parking lot.



By itself, it could be treated as another stolen vehicle, Grassley 

said. But investigators ignored that a computer containing classified 

information disappeared at the same time the van was stolen, and the 

communications and alarm system was disabled at the time.



``When taken together, ... these security failures add up to a red 

warning flag,'' he wrote.



The Bay Report, which runs roughly 140 pages, deals with numerous 

personnel problems, which discouraged the lab from releasing it, said 

Sandia spokesman Chris Miller, but it is just one part of a larger 

security effort by the lab and the National Nuclear Security 

Administration.



``I think Sandia is pursuing a process to correct any lax security. 

It is one of the highest priorities here at the labs, and we're 

certainly not trying to withhold anything from Sen. Grassley,'' he 

said.



The lab is currently in the process of replacing locks throughout the 

lab, largely in response to objections that Grassley previously made, 

and expects to have them all changed by the end of the month, Miller 

said.



Anson Franklin, spokesman for the security administration, said the 

problems that Grassley mentioned in his letter have surfaced in the 

past and been investigated thoroughly.



NNSA, the Energy Department's inspector general and the department's 

Office of Independent Oversight are reviewing the Bay Report ``to see 

if there is further action warranted by the department,'' Franklin 

said.



Grassley and the chief of the National Nuclear Security 

Administration, Linton Brooks, are to testify Tuesday before the 

House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and 

International Relations. The General Accounting Office, the 

investigative arm of Congress, also will release a study of NNSA's 

security management.

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



Nuclear waste found in UK salmon -Greenpeace



LONDON, June 23 (Reuters) - Tests on Scottish salmon have found 

traces of radioactive waste from Britain's controversial nuclear 

reprocessing plant at Sellafield, environmental group Greenpeace said 

on Monday.



The research, conducted by the University of Southampton, found low 

levels of the radioactive isotope technetium-99, a by-product of 

reprocessing nuclear fuel, in some salmon collected from six British 

supermarkets.



"We don't want to alarm people. This isn't a threat to health but it 

shouldn't be there," said Jean McSorley, a spokeswoman for 

Greenpeace, which commissioned the research.



David Santillo, senior scientist at Greenpeace, said the finding was 

significant because the salmon was farmed in Scotland, several 

hundred miles north of Sellafield, and would often have been fed fish 

from the south Atlantic and Pacific oceans, not from the Irish Sea.



Previous research has found traces of technetium-99 in lobsters and 

other shellfish in the North and Irish seas.



"We were surprised to find it, to be honest. But it's certainly 

there," Santillo said. "It's getting there via a pathway that we 

don't fully understand at this point."



Santillo said the isotope could only have come from Sellafield. "This 

(Sellafield) is the only source of T-99 in that part of the world."



Technetium-99 produced at Sellafield is stored in tanks and regularly 

dumped in the Irish Sea, said a spokeswoman for the Department for 

the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.



Sellafield is allowed to release 90 terabecquerels (TBq) of 

technetium-99 into the Irish Sea a year but will have to cut this to 

10 TBq by 2006.



Britain's food watchdog, the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said it was 

not worried by the report.



"Even at the maximum concentrations found by Greenpeace, a person 

would have to eat 700 portions of salmon a day for a year to reach 

the annual permitted European Union radiation dose," said the FSA's 

director of food safety, Dr Andrew Wadge



"This means consumers have no need to be alarmed. Low levels of 

technetium-99 are found routinely in lobster, shellfish and other 

fish from waters around Sellafield.



"We have been conducting our own survey into levels in salmon and our 

initial results show there is no cause for concern."



Earlier this month Ireland launched a fresh bid to force Britain to 

shut down Sellafield by taking its concerns about pollution from the 

plant to an international arbitration tribunal in the Hague.

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



Gov't panel OKs safety of planned nuke reactor in Hokkaido



TOKYO, June 23 (Kyodo) - A government panel on nuclear safety 

concluded Monday that a nuclear reactor planned by Hokkaido Electric 

Power Co. in the village of Tomari, western Hokkaido, will be safe.



This is the first government safety assessment on a reactor 

construction plan since the government gave approval to the No. 2 

reactor at the Shiga nuclear power plant of Hokuriku Electric Power 

Co. in 1999.



The Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan under the Cabinet office 

submitted to Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo Hiranuma a 

report concluding that the planned No.3 pressurized-water reactor 

will operate safely. The submission of the report completes the 

safety assessment process by the government.



Meanwhile, the Atomic Energy Commission, another panel under the 

Cabinet Office and which conducts a separate safety assessment from 

the standpoint of peaceful use of the facility, is also expected to 

give the green light to the construction plan on Tuesday.



The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is then likely to approve 

the project probably in early July.



Hokkaido Electric Power plans to begin the construction in November 

with an eye to start operating it in December in 2009. The reactor is 

expected to produce up to 912,000 kilowatts.

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



Iraqis Suffer From Radiation Symptoms



AL-MADA'IN, Iraq (AP) - Dozens of people are showing up every day at 

a hospital near a defunct Iraqi nuclear plant, suffering from rashes, 

bloody noses and other symptoms of radiation poisoning, doctors said 

Saturday.



The Tuwaitha nuclear facility, 12 miles south of Baghdad, was left 

unguarded after Iraqi troops fled the area on the eve of the war. It 

is thought to have contained hundreds of tons of natural uranium and 

nearly two tons of low-enriched uranium, which could be used to make 

nuclear weapons



U.S. troops didn't secure the area until April 7. By then, looters 

from surrounding villages had stripped it of much of its contents, 

including uranium storage barrels they later used to hold drinking 

water.



People suffering from symptoms of radiation sickness started showing 

up at the hospital closest to the nuclear site as early as two months 

ago, two doctors interviewed by The Associated Press said Saturday. 

Their numbers have since grown considerably.



``Some 30 to 40 patients suffering from bloody diarrhea visit our 

hospital every day, probably due to their exposure to nuclear 

radiation,'' said Bassim Abbud, a physician at the Mada'in General 

Hospital, about 9 miles from the Tuwaitha nuclear facility.



The International Atomic Energy Agency sent a team to Iraq earlier 

this month to see if any of the uranium was missing, fearing it had 

been stolen in the chaos of the war. The experts found most of the 

uranium on or near the site, diplomats said Friday.



Plastic bags containing the uranium were found on the ground where 

the looters emptied out the barrels and some bags apparently spilled, 

the diplomats said from Vienna,where the U.N. agency is based.



The mission - whose scope was restricted by the U.S.-led interim 

administration of Iraq - was not allowed to give medical exams to 

Iraqis reported to have been sickened by contact with the materials, 

the diplomats said.



But two doctors at the closest hospital to Tuwaitha said suspicions 

of radiation poisoning were aroused as early as April 16, when 13-

year-old Iltifat Risan came to the hospital with a severely bleeding 

nose.



Dr. Jaafar Naseer said he diagnosed symptoms of radiation. He said 

Iltifat had used a blue plastic barrel that her brother had brought 

from the facility for washing clothes.



``We gave her treatment for her symptoms,'' and sent her to a larger 

hospital in Baghdad for further treatment.



A week later, another patient, Hassan Oda, a 35-year-old electrician 

came to the hospital with white spots on his skin after installing a 

generator which he had stolen from the Tuwaitha.



``If we had a medical survey in the whole region, we would have many 

similar cases,'' Naseer said.



Abbud, who has been treating more recent cases, said the soaring 

temperatures of summer could explain some of the diarrhea complaints. 

But it was unlikely to be the cause this time, since the standard 

tests for parasites administered to diarrhea patients proved 

negative.



``Some people were subjected to radiation after emptying the 

barrels,'' Abbud said, resulting in skin problems, respiratory 

ailments and bloody noses. ``We have no particular measures to take. 

We just diagnose them and send them to Baghdad hospitals.''



He said after people were warned against using the contaminated 

equipment, some of the barrels were collected at a secondary girls 

school, where they remained while the girls returned to school for 

their final exams. U.S. military experts involved in the cleanup 

offered to buy back the barrels at $3 each.



``Symptoms may appear after months or years. Radiation can have 

genetic effects and could result in cancer tumors,'' he said. 	   

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



Ibaraki test nuclear reactor shut down after water leak



MITO, Japan, June 21 (Kyodo) - The Japan Atomic Energy Research 

Institute manually shut down a material testing nuclear reactor in 

Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture late Friday after potentially irradiated 

water leaked from an irradiation test facility, officials said.



The leakage, which occurred inside a water circulation control 

facility, began around 10 p.m. and lasted for about three hours, 

spilling 1.2 tons of water, the officials said.



According to a report filed with the education ministry and the 

Ibaraki prefectural government, Japan Atomic Energy Research 

Institute said the water may contain a small amount of radioactive 

material, but it did not spill outside the facility and none of the 

institute's employees were exposed to radiation.



The Japan Material Testing Reactor, which has a heat output 

equivalent to 50,000 kilowatts, is used to produce isotopes and to 

carry out radiation experiments on various types of material.



The water circulation facility from which the leakage occurred 

controls the flow of water to keep materials inside the reactor at a 

certain temperature.



Engineers at Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute say they have yet 

to pinpoint the exact location of the leakage, and the cause of the 

leakage is not immediately known.



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

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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