Nuclear waste reprocessing cost estimated at 22 tril. yen+

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

Index:



Nuclear waste reprocessing cost estimated at 22 tril. yen

UN wants Russia, Middle East to monitor nuke waste

Slovak utility SE negotiating debt bailout-source

Congress mostly backs Bush on nuke weapons, waste

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Nuclear waste reprocessing cost estimated at 22 tril. yen



TOKYO, Nov. 5 (Kyodo) - The electric power industry estimates the 

costs involved in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and disposing of 

the resultant radioactive waste at 21.7 trillion yen for the next 

several decades, electric power industry officials said Wednesday.



Of the total, 5.83 trillion yen will be incurred when overseas 

nuclear reprocessing facilities return radioactive waste remaining 

after they reprocess spent nuclear fuel, the officials said.



The 5.83 trillion yen figure was reported by electric power industry 

representatives Wednesday to a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee 

for Natural Resources and Energy, a panel advising the minister of 

economy, trade and industry, they said.



When members of the subcommittee meet next Tuesday, the industry 

plans to report on the estimated operating costs of a reprocessing 

factory in the village of Rokkasho, Aomori Prefecture, due to start 

operations in July 2005.



The reprocessing factory is widely expected in industry circles to 

operate for about four decades.



Including the operating costs likely to be incurred by the Rokkasho 

plant, the total expense involved in reprocessing spent nuclear fuel 

and disposing of radioactive waste "is expected to amount to some 

21.7 trillion yen," an industry official said.



At present, every 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by a 

nuclear power plant is said to cost 5.9 yen. Based on the 21.7 

trillion yen figure, this will rise by less than 0.5 yen per 1 kwh.



Breaking down the 5.83 trillion yen figure, the costs involved in 

transporting and storing radioactive waste sent back to Japan from 

British and French reprocessing plants, where some of Japan's spent 

nuclear fuel is reprocessed, will come to 880 billion yen, according 

to an industry estimate reported to the subcommittee.



Separately, the cost involved in temporarily storing spent nuclear 

fuel from power plants prior to being brought to the Rokkasho 

reprocessing facility will come to 1.96 trillion yen.



The expenses involved in disposing of radioactive waste discharged 

from uranium enrichment plants will come to 244 billion yen, 

according to the industry estimate.



In addition, transportation and disposal of highly radioactive waste 

within Japan will cost 2.75 trillion yen, the estimate shows.

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



UN wants Russia, Middle East to monitor nuke waste



VIENNA, Austria (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear agency is lobbying 

Russia, Middle East countries and others to join a pact to keep tabs 

on spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste.  



"It is...disappointing that more countries have not ratified the 

convention," Tomihiro Taniguchi, head of the International Atomic 

Energy Agency's (IAEA) department of nuclear safety and security, 

told a conference on the pact Monday.



He said the pact was especially important in the context of 

globalization of "nuclear technology and concerns over safety, 

security and proliferation."



Thirty-three states have ratified the Joint Convention on the Safety 

of Spent Fuel Management and on the Safety of Radioactive Waste 

Management that came into force two years ago.



But most signatories are European states which are not considered 

proliferation threats. Missing from the list are Russia, which 

experts consider the main source of lost radioactive sources, much of 

Latin America and the entire Middle East and Africa.



The spent fuel and radioactive waste management convention covers all 

kinds of isotopes -- from radioactive materials used in medicine to 

spent nuclear reactor fuel that can yield bomb-grade uranium or 

plutonium.



In addition to fears that countries like Iran, North Korea and pre-

war Iraq have tried to develop nuclear weapons, there are concerns 

that terrorist groups might attempt to use radioactive material in so-

called dirty bombs -- explosives laced with radiation aimed mostly at 

spreading panic.



After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the IAEA has 

repeatedly said the world needs to create a "cradle to grave" system 

to track nuclear and radioactive materials to stop them falling into 

the hands of terrorists or rogue states.



"There are very few countries who know where all their radioactive 

sources are," Gordon Linsley, head of waste safety at the IAEA, said 

at the opening of the two-week meeting on the pact.



Linsley said there was no single event that had sparked the desire 

for this treaty, the goal of which is to "achieve and maintain a high 

level of safety worldwide" for these materials. But he said there 

were a number of events that showed how dangerous it is to live in a 

world where authorities lose track of radioactive materials.



One such incident was in December 2001 when two containers of deadly 

strontium-90 were found by woodcutters in a remote forest in the 

former Soviet republic of Georgia.



A recent European Union study estimated up to 70 radioactive sources 

disappear from regulatory control annually and last year the U.S. 

Nuclear Regulatory Commission said U.S. companies had lost some 1,500 

radioactive sources since 1996 and more than half were never 

recovered.

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



Slovak utility SE negotiating debt bailout-source



BRATISLAVA, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Dominant Slovak power producer 

Slovenske Elektrarne (SE) is pressing the government to bail out part 

of its $1.5 billion dollar debt pile ahead of privatisation, a source 

familiar with the deal said on Thursday.



The government is struggling to unload at least 49 percent and 

management control in the state-owned firm to a foreign investor by 

the end of 2006.



But the deal is fraught with complications tied to SE's nuclear 

assets, for which there has been little interest, and its debt load 

is also seen as a burden.



Last week, Economy Minister Pavol Rusko said SE's eventual buyer 

would have to take over the company's debt as part of the sale, but a 

source familiar with negotiations said SE was pushing for the state 

to absorb a large part of the obligations.



"SE is negotiating a deal in which a part of the debt would be 

assumed by the government to reduce its exposure to stranded costs," 

said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.



The talks are focusing on whether the government will take over the 

debt now covered by state guarantees, the source said. SE estimates 

that debt at around 30 billion crowns ($830.8 million).



SE is also currently in talks to restructure its bank loans. In a 

first phase, it aims to refinance some 500 million euro ($572 

million) worth of loans with a new consolidated loan from a 

consortium of up to 11 banks and a euro bond issue.



A second phase would then deal with the 30 billion crowns, in state 

guaranteed loans if it is not bailed out.



The state's adviser on the sale, Peter Mitka from 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, refused to comment on a potential bail out, 

but said "if this was approved by the government, it would certainly 

help enhance SE's value during the privatisation."



COMPLICATIONS



The government originally launched the sale in summer of 2002, but 

low interest in Slovakia's two nuclear plants caused the sale to 

stagnate before the tender was reopened last month. New potential 

bidders have until Friday to express interest.



Bankers have said SE, which has an 85 percent domestic market share 

in production, could be worth anything from zero to 300 million 

euros, and a buyer could even demand cash to take it off the 

government's hands.



But industry insiders say the final value of the deal will depend on 

still unknown factors, including the results of the debt 

restructuring, a potential bailout, and whether firms will bid for 

the company as a whole, or SE's nuclear and conventional assets must 

be split into separate entities.



SE also has tens of billions of crowns in stranded costs -- which 

compare the value of a firm's assets in regulated and open markets -- 

that potential buyers may balk at taking over without state 

compensation.



Czech utility CEZ and Russian Inter RAO UES -- a subsidiary of 

Unified Energy System also 40 percent owned by state nuclear power 

concern Rosenergoatom -- have now thrown their hats in the ring in 

the new round, and both have told Reuters they could bid for SE's 

nuclear assets.



Slovak media and industry insiders say American AES will also be a 

newcomer, while German E.ON, Italy's Enel, British International 

Power, Austrian Verbund, and Belgian Electrabel have reconfirmed they 

may take part, although none have shown interest in SE's nuclear 

facilities.



The sale is expected to be concluded by the end of the year if the 

government can sell SE as a whole, and by mid-2005 if it must be 

split. SE's 2002 capacity was 6,881 megawatts. It produced 27,445 

gigawatts of electricity.

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



Congress mostly backs Bush on nuke weapons, waste



WASHINGTON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives and 

Senate negotiators on Wednesday agreed to give President George W. 

Bush money to study new types of nuclear weapons, as critics warned 

the move could spark a new nuclear arms race.  



The funds were approved as part of a $27.3 billion bill for energy 

and water programs next year which also includes spending for a 

controversial nuclear waste dump in the Nevada desert that opponents 

have vowed to block.



Both chambers are expected to clear the spending bill soon and sent 

to Bush to sign into law.



The bill would give Bush half of the $15 million he had sought to 

develop an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead for use against deeply 

buried bunkers and all of the $6 million he wanted to research small, 

low-yield nuclear weapons.



Critics argued that small nuclear weapons are dangerous because 

policy-makers may see them as a usable adjunct to conventional arms, 

heightening risks of nuclear escalation.



"This is just a horrible message to send to the rest of the world," 

said North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan.



The House initially cut almost all of the funds for the programs. But 

most were restored at the Senate's insistence.



"We have compromised rather substantially," said New Mexico 

Republican Sen. Pete Domenici.



Congress is scrambling to finish its overdue budget work before it 

adjourns for the year, and the House was due later on Wednesday to 

clear the latest in series of stopgap measures to keep the federal 

government open until Nov. 21.



The spending bill would also provide $580 million for the 

controversial Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004, 

around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 

million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.



The plan aims to site the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste 

repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas and is bitterly 

opposed by the state of Nevada, whose senators have generally 

succeeded in capping its funding in past years.



While Congress has given final approval for the project, scheduled to 

open in 2010 and hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste, the 

state has launched multiple lawsuits seeking to block it on safety 

grounds.



The spending bill would commit around $11 million next year to a 

proposed new factory to make the plutonium "pits" at the heart of 

U.S. nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility manufacturing the 

nuclear triggers closed in 1989.



It also contains nearly $25 million to fund an effort to cut the time 

it would take to again begin testing U.S. nuclear weapons from three 

years to two years. The United States has observed a nuclear test 

moratorium since 1992.



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

Sandy Perle

Vice President, Technical Operations

Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.

3300 Hyland Avenue

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100  Extension 2306

Fax:(714) 668-3149



E-Mail: sperle@globaldosimetry.com

E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net



Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/

Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.globaldosimetry.com/



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