METI wants more reactors restarted

[Sandy, Perle]

Index:



METI wants more reactors restarted

TEPCO reactivates 3rd reactor after falsification scandal

Operators complete repairs at shut South Texas nuke

White House points at CIA over Iraq uranium charge

Israeli sees Iran nuclear arms capability by 2006

Nuclear material in transit vulnerable to attack

Satellite microwave radar finds buried objects

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



METI wants more reactors restarted



TOKYO, July 11 (Kyodo) - Industry minister Takeo Hiranuma on Friday 

welcomed the approval the previous day from Fukushima Gov. Eisaku 

Sato for restarting a nuclear reactor of Tokyo Electric Power Co. 

(TEPCO), but said the government wants more of the reactors shut down 

because of a defect cover-up scandal reactivated.



''It was good development to decide to restart the No. 6 reactor at 

the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, but we are still in a severe 

situation in terms of power supply even if the reactor is 

restarted,'' Hiranuma said.



Hiranuma, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), 

said at a news conference after a cabinet meeting that the ministry 

will make further efforts to avert power cuts in the Kanto region 

centering on the Tokyo metropolitan area.



''We will try to confirm the safety of reactors so that we will be 

able to restart them as much as possible,'' he said.



According to Hiranuma, TEPCO plans to start reactivating the No. 6 

reactor in Fukushima Prefecture at around 6 p.m. Friday.



He said the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a branch of METI, 

will send an official to the power plant to monitor the reactivating 

procedure and ensure the safety of the facility.



The reactor will be the third to resume operations after the shutdown 

of all of TEPCO's 17 reactors by the end of April following 

revelations last August that the utility had falsified safety 

reports.

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



TEPCO reactivates 3rd reactor after falsification scandal



FUKUSHIMA, Japan, July 11 (Kyodo) - Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) 

on Friday reactivated the third of its 17 nuclear reactors shut down 

following revelations last year that it falsified safety reports.



TEPCO said it plans to resume transmitting electricity to the Tokyo 

area on Sunday from the No. 6 reactor in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear 

power plant.



The 1,100-megawatt boiling-water reactor was reactivated after a 

lapse of three months following safety checks. Fukushima Gov. Eisaku 

Sato backed the reactivation.



It followed the reactivation of the No. 6 and 7 reactors in the 

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata Prefecture in May and 

June.



Following the revelations in August 2002 that TEPCO falsified safety 

reports, the utility shut down all 17 of its nuclear reactors -- 

seven in Niigata Prefecture and 10 in Fukushima Prefecture -- for 

safety checks in a bid to regain public trust.

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



Operators complete repairs at shut South Texas nuke



NEW YORK, July 11 (Reuters) - Although repairs to a leaky reactor 

vessel have been completed, the giant South Texas 1 nuclear power 

plant is unlikely to restart before late summer , a plant spokesman 

said Friday.



The twin unit, 2,500 megawatt South Texas nuclear plant near Bay 

City, Texas, provides enough power to run over a million homes.



Unit 1, rated at 1,250 MW, has been shut since late March when 

routine refueling turned up boric acid deposits on the bottom of the 

reactor vessel, indicating leaks.



STP Nuclear Operating Co. spokesman Edward Conaway said plant 

engineers had finished repairs and were completing a report for the 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission prior to a July 17 meeting at the 

agency's headquarters in Rockville, Maryland.



Conaway said further information on the report would not be available 

until after it had been reviewed by the NRC. The plant cannot restart 

until the NRC is satisfied it is safe.



STP Nuclear Operating Co. runs the plant for a consortium of owners 

who share output from the plant in proportion to their ownership 

interest.



Owners include CenterPoint Energy's <CNP.N> Texas Genco Holdings Inc. 

<TGN.N> (30.8 percent), Austin Energy, the City of Austin (16 

percent), AEP's <AEP.N> AEP Texas Central Co. (25.2 percent) and City 

Public Service of San Antonio (28 percent.)



The South Texas plant is one of 69 pressurized water reactors active 

in the U.S. A total of 103 nuclear units are in operation across the 

country, providing about 20 percent of the nation's power supply.

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



White House points at CIA over Iraq uranium charge



ENTEBBE, Uganda, July 11 (Reuters) - The White House pointed the 

finger at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency on Friday over a false 

accusation that Iraq tried to buy African uranium.



President George W. Bush said his charge Iraq tried to buy nuclear 

material from Africa was approved by his "intelligence services," and 

U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the specific 

wording was approved by the CIA.



But Rice said the White House "absolutely" had confidence in CIA 

Director George Tenet, saying he had served "very well."



The White House acknowledged this week it had been a mistake to say 

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had been trying to get African uranium 

because documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger 

proved to have been forged.



Bush repeated he had been right to go to war against Saddam, but 

declined to answer a reporter's question as to how the erroneous 

statement made it into his State of the Union address in January.



"I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence 

services," Bush said in Uganda, where he was meeting President Yoweri 

Museveni as part of a five-nation African tour.



"It speaks in detail to the American people of the dangers posed by 

the Saddam Hussein regime. My government took the appropriate 

response to those dangers," he told reporters.



CIA APPROVED WORDING



Reflecting an attempt by the White House to defend Bush against 

criticism that he misled the public, Rice earlier held a lengthy 

session with reporters on the uranium issue, saying the CIA approved 

the address in advance.



"The CIA cleared the speech in its entirety... If the CIA Director of 

Central Intelligence had said, 'take this out of the speech', then it 

would have been done," Rice told reporters flying to Uganda from 

South Africa on Air Force One with Bush.



Critics have accused the Bush administration of a campaign to mislead 

the public by hyping a weapons of mass destruction threat posed by 

Iraq.



U.S. television network CBS reported on Thursday the White House had 

ignored a request by the CIA to remove the accusation from Bush's 

address.



But Rice said the specific reference to African uranium had been 

scrutinised by the CIA.



"There was even some discussion on that specific sentence, so that it 

reflected better what the CIA thought and the speech was cleared," 

Rice said.



"Some specifics about amount and place were taken out...with the 

change in that sentence, the speech was cleared."



Rice said Tenet had been a "terrific DCI (Director of Central 

Intelligence)."



"I am really not blaming anybody," she told reporters.



Rice said although Bush's statement about the uranium had cited 

British intelligence, the "underlying intelligence" for the British 

document was in the official U.S. National Intelligence Estimate.



She said the U.S. State Department's intelligence agency had 

expressed reservations about the uranium information in a separate 

footnote to the document, but that the larger intelligence conclusion 

was that there was reason to believe Iraq was trying to obtain 

uranium in Africa.



Rice said no one had expressed any doubts to Bush about the 

information underlying the National Intelligence Estimate, a report 

that has input from the 13 U.S. spy agencies and includes consensus 

and dissenting opinions.

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



Israeli sees Iran nuclear arms capability by 2006



ROME, July 11 (Reuters) - Israel warned on Friday that it sees Iran 

having a nuclear weapon capability by 2006 that could threaten the 

stability of the entire world.



"We are facing the threat from Iran. Iran has a radical regime that 

will have the capability to hold a nuclear weapon in 2006," Israeli 

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said at a press conference in Rome 

with his Italian counterpart.



"And in 2006 we may have an even more radical regime (in Iran) than 

we have now. This fact, I think, threatens the stability of Europe, 

Russia, the Middle East and the entire world," he said.



Israel has backed U.S. concerns over Iran's nuclear programme, 

calling for closer scrutiny of Tehran's plans.



Washington accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons. Tehran 

vehemently denies this, insisting its atomic programme is entirely 

peaceful and solely for the generation of electricity.



The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA), has been pressing Iran to agree to more rigorous, snap 

inspections of its nuclear facilities.



Although Iran has signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), 

it has so far refused to allow tougher checks, insisting sanctions 

denying it access to nuclear technology must be lifted first.



Israel which is believed to hold some 200 nuclear warheads declines 

to discuss its nuclear activities. It has not signed the NPT or 

opened its nuclear facilities to the IAEA.



Shalom addressed the issue of Iran's nuclear programme after meeting 

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini. Italy currently heads the 

rotating European Union presidency.

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



Nuclear material in transit vulnerable to attack



VIENNA (Reuters) - Despite stepped-up security after Sept. 11, 2001, 

countries remain ill-prepared to deal with attacks on nuclear 

materials in transit, participants at a United Nations conference 

said.



The U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency says radioactive 

materials ranging from harmless medical supplies to weapons-grade 

plutonium account for less than 2 percent of all goods transported by 

land, 10 percent by air and 1 percent by sea.



But the volumes are still huge. The cargo carrier DHL boasts on a 

company brochure that it transports five tons of radioactive material 

per week on 113 aircraft to 40 destinations around the globe.



While acknowledging there was reason for some concern about the 

security risks of transporting nuclear materials, IAEA chief Mohamed 

ElBaradei told a weeklong conference on the issue that international 

regulations and industry practice have "an excellent safety record."

"Over several decades of transporting radioactive material, there has 

not been an in-transit accident with serious human health, economic 

or environmental consequences," he said.



But John H. Large, a consultant on nuclear issues hired by the 

environmental group Greenpeace, said current emergency plans would 

only work for "unintelligent accidents."



"What they haven't prepared for is an intelligent terrorist attack 

where they know the vulnerabilities of your emergency plan," Large 

told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.



For example, he said it would be easy to take a rocket-propelled 

grenade and shoot it at a standard transport vehicle loaded with 

radioactive fuel. The result could be disastrous for the local 

population.



"If you're going to ship nuclear materials from one place to another, 

you have to go through populated areas," Large said. "You have to 

bring the risk to population."



An IAEA official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the 

Sept. 11 attacks on the United States made clear there was "room for 

improvement" in tackling the threat of an attack or hijacking of 

nuclear material in transit.



Despite the wake-up call on Sept. 11, governments and the shipping 

industry have done little to improve the situation.

"There've been a lot of nice words, but not much has been done," said 

Large.

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



Satellite microwave radar finds buried objects



LONDON, July 9 (Reuters) - Microwave radar from satellites could be 

used to find buried archaeological treasures, underground buildings 

and even mass graves.



Scientists at Ben Gurion University in Israel have shown that such 

radar can see below the surface of dry ground and locate objects 

under tons of sand.



"Buried objects can be detected from airborne systems," Dan Blumberg, 

a researcher at the university, told New Scientist magazine on 

Wednesday.



He and his colleague Julian Daniels provided proof of the theory by 

burying squares of aluminium at varying depths in the Negev desert 

and using radar sensing from an aircraft to detect them.



The researchers said their findings suggest that ancient river routes 

lie under centuries of sand in the Sahara desert which could explain 

desert oases.



"Mapping river channels buried in sandy areas can improve our 

understanding of the geological and climatic history of the region," 

Daniels said.



The researchers are planning more studies with the longest possible 

microwave length which is called P-band to find objects buried deeper 

in the sand. So far they have delved only 40 centimetres (16 inches).



But they said the technique only works in very dry areas, about 15 

percent of the Earth's surface, because liquid can absorb the 

radiation.



"Blumberg hopes that as well as archaeological remains, the method 

will in time be used to find fossils and geological structures," the 

magazine said, adding that it could show underground buildings, pipes 

and mass graves.



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

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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