Lawsuit seeks hearing on nuke plant terror threat

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

Index:



Lawsuit seeks hearing on nuke plant terror threat

Top Ontario Power execs fired after damning report

Bruce Power approved to restart idled Ontario nuke

Germany says will set conditions on China plant

Nuclear-powered spacecraft to explore Jupiter's moons

French power strike cuts 1,600 MW production-union

A-bomb survivors group to protest Enola Gay display in U.S.

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



Lawsuit seeks hearing on nuke plant terror threat



LOS ANGELES, Dec 11 (Reuters) - A coalition including environmental 

groups and local officials intends to file a lawsuit seeking to force 

public hearings about the threat of a terrorist attack at the Diablo 

Canyon nuclear power plant in central California, a lawyer said on 

Thursday.  



The coalition, which includes the Sierra Club and San Luis Obispo 

County Supervisor Peg Pinard, said in a statement that the Nuclear 

Regulatory Commission should hold hearings before allowing utility 

Pacific Gas & Electric to increase nuclear waste storage at the site.



"The NRC should be required to hold full hearings on the adequacy of 

security measures for the Diablo Canyon site to protect against a 

terrorist attack," the statement said.



Diane Curran, an attorney for the group, told Reuters that the 

lawsuit had been sent to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San 

Francisco and was expected to be lodged on Friday.



Decisions by government agencies such as the NRC cannot be challenged 

in District Court and so the lawsuit will go straight to the U.S. 

Court of Appeals, Curran said.



"The NRC hasn't excluded everyone (from discussions)," Curran said. 

"They have included the industry. It's just the people who live 

nearby, the state and local governments responsible for implementing 

emergency plans, they have excluded."



NRC spokeswoman Sue Gagner said the government agency had taken 

security very seriously since the September 11, 2001, attack on the 

U.S. and required nuclear plant licensees to take several measures 

including increasing patrols.



"It would not be appropriate to discuss all the security measures at 

nuclear plants because that would help a terrorist," she said.



Gagner said she could not comment on the lawsuit since the agency has 

not yet seen it.



The Diablo Canyon plant, in San Luis Obispo County on the central 

California coast, is owned and operated by utility Pacific Gas & 

Electric, a unit of San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. .



The plant has the capacity to produce 2,200 megawatts of electricity, 

enough power for around two million homes.

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



Top Ontario Power execs fired after damning report



TORONTO, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Ontario's new Liberal government fired the 

three top executives at the province's power utility on Thursday 

after an embarrassing report revealed mismanagement and massive cost 

overruns at a key nuclear plant.



Ontario Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said he had asked for and 

accepted the resignations of Ontario Power Generation chairman Bill 

Farlinger, chief executive Ron Osborne, and chief operating officer 

Graham Brown. All three were appointed by the previous Conservative 

government.



Richard Dicerni, who currently serves as OPG's executive vice-

president and corporate secretary, has been appointed interim CEO.



The shake-up came after an independent report on the refurbishment of 

the Pickering A nuclear plant east of Toronto on Lake Ontario, one of 

the world's biggest nuclear facilities, found clear evidence of 

mismanagement.



The refurbishment project was launched under the Ontario's previous 

Conservative government. The Conservatives lost to the Liberals in 

the Oct. 2 provincial election.



"Given the size of the investment and the importance of the project, 

the government as sole OPG shareholder, the board, and senior 

management of OPG should have exercised greater oversight over the 

project's economics and execution and responded more quickly to 

emerging problems," the report said.



Analysts, however, said the resignations were not as big an issue as 

getting the nuclear station back in service to offset the threat of 

shortages at peak demand period.



"Pickering was the uncertainty and still is the uncertainty," said 

Genevieve Lavallee, an analyst at Dominion Bond Rating Service. "Its 

future still has to be decided."



The four nuclear units at the Pickering A station were closed in 

December 1997. In 1999, the board of OPG, under the watch of the 

Conservative government, decided to refurbish and restart all four 

units.



The utility had estimated the project would cost C$1.1 billion ($846 

million), and all four units would be operational by December 2002, 

the report said.



By the end of September 2003, only one unit had returned to service, 

at a cost of C$1.25 billion -- triple the original estimate for just 

that one unit and two years behind schedule, the report said.



The three remaining units are still not back in service.



"The contents of this report are, in the words of the panel, 

alarming," Duncan said.



Tom Adams, executive director of electricity watchdog group Energy 

Probe, said axing the three top executives was a positive move.



"If you look at the board and senior management team of OPG, not a 

single one of them has completed a university level degree in 

anything related to nuclear operations," Adams said.



Jan Carr, an electricity consultant with Barker Dunn & Rossi, said it 

is "probably insufficient to merely accept the resignations and think 

that will lead anywhere.



"Some other changes are advisable to get Pickering back in service on 

a reasonable schedule."



Energy Minister Duncan said the government was reviewing the 

recommendations of the report in detail.



The Liberals swept to power in October after an election in which the 

Conservatives were accused of being unable to decide on an energy 

policy.



The Conservatives committed themselves to deregulating Ontario's 

large electricity sector, but consumer anger at the resulting jump in 

prices prompted them to freeze consumer and small-business power 

rates late last year.

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



Bruce Power approved to restart idled Ontario nuke

 

TORONTO, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Bruce Power said on Friday it received 

approval from Canadian regulators to restart its Bruce A unit 3 

nuclear reactor and should have it reconnected to Ontario's power 

grid later this month.



The nuclear power plant operator said safety and operating tests will 

begin shortly, and the reactor is expected to pump about 750 

megawatts of electricity into the grid of Canada's most populous 

province once it's reconnected.



The approval, granted by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, 

comes after the restart of the Bruce A unit 4 reactor in October. At 

the time, the unit 3 reactor was expected to restart in November.



Both units, located on the shores of Lake Huron about 250 kilometers 

(155 miles) northwest of Toronto, have undergone a long repair and 

upgrade program and were originally expected back in service by June.



The reactors were mothballed in 1998 after they were found to be 

operating at minimum safety levels by provincial utility Ontario 

Hydro.



Bruce Power was purchased in February from money losing parent 

British Energy Plc by a consortium of firms led by Saskatoon, 

Saskatchewan-based uranium miner Cameco Corp. 



Cameco, TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. and the Ontario Municipal 

Employees Retirement System each own a 31.6 percent stake in Bruce. 

The Power Workers' Union and the Society of Energy Professionals own 

the remaining 5.2 percent.

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



Germany says will set conditions on China plant



BERLIN, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Germany will only approve the controversial 

sale of a nuclear plant to China if Beijing allows international 

checks to ensure it is not used for military ends, a senior member of 

the ruling Social Democrats said on Tuesday.  



Franz Muentefering, head of the parliamentary party, said in an 

internal memo seen by Reuters the sale would only be allowed if there 

were assurances "that the plant is placed under IAEA (International 

Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards and is not used for military 

purposes under any circumstances."



Plans to allow the sale have been fiercely criticised by Chancellor 

Gerhard Schroeder's Green coalition partners and some of his own 

Social Democrats, just as the government heads to a showdown with the 

opposition over a key package of welfare reforms.



The plant, built by industrial group Siemens AG in Hanau near 

Frankfurt, was mothballed in 1995 without ever going into service.



It is due to be sold to China in a deal estimated at 50 million euros 

($61.29 million).



Critics of the sale say the plant, designed to reprocess plutonium to 

make so-called mixed-oxide, or MOX fuel rods for nuclear power 

stations, could be used to manufacture atomic weapons. They also say 

the export smacks of hypocrisy, since Berlin is committed to phasing 

out nuclear power on German soil.



The government says the plant cannot produce weapons grade plutonium 

and business daily Handelsblatt quoted a senior U.S. official as 

saying Washington was not worried by the deal.



"The Hanau plant does not have the capacity to produce new 

plutonium," Handelsblatt quoted the official as saying in an extract 

from an article issued on Tuesday ahead of publication.



But he said the United States expected Germany to comply with 

internationally agreed controls on exports of nuclear material, 

including so-called "dual use" items that can be used for both 

civilian and military purposes.



Schroeder, who announced the deal during his recent visit to China, 

said at the weekend that the government had no legal grounds to ban 

the sale, given that the Chinese had guaranteed the plant would not 

be used for military purposes.



With vital negotiations with the opposition starting on Wednesday and 

the government holding only a slim majority in parliament, the row 

comes at a difficult time for Schroeder.



But even opponents of the deal said it was not enough to threaten the 

coalition. While atomic power is an emotional issue for many Greens, 

much of the discontent among Social Democrats was due to the manner 

in which the Chancellor announced the deal, without consulting the 

party.

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



Nuclear-powered spacecraft to explore Jupiter's moons



CNN - NASA plans to dispatch a hulking nuclear-powered spacecraft to 

determine whether three of Jupiter's icy, planet-sized moons have the 

potential to harbor life.



The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, or Jimo, would spend monthlong stints 

circling the moons Callisto, Europa and Ganymede, which are believed 

to have vast oceans tucked beneath thick covers of ice.



The unmanned craft, far larger and more powerful than any other sent 

to explore the outer solar system, would spend years studying the 

moons' makeup, geologic history and potential for sustaining life, as 

well as Jupiter itself.



Besides water, the moons appear to contain two other ingredients 

necessary for life: energy and the right chemicals. Along with Mars, 

they are considered the most likely places to have extraterrestrial 

life within our solar system.



"We don't know if life is there. But this mission will allow to ask 

that question with some pretty sound tools," said Christopher McKay 

of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research 

Center.



Jimo won't launch until at least 2011. On Monday, scientists at the 

fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union briefed reporters on 

the mission's progress.



The spacecraft would be the first in a series of robotic NASA probes 

that rely on uranium-fueled fission reactors to generate large 

amounts of electricity. While probes such as Galileo and Cassini have 

made do with hundreds of watts of electricity, Jimo might have 

thousands of watts to power its thrusters and instruments, said 

Torrence Johnson of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.



The reactor conceivably could produce enough electricity to power 

several U.S. homes. That could provide Jimo a hundredfold boost over 

previous missions in the amount of data it would be able to beam back 

to Earth.



Jimo would carry high-resolution cameras and other instruments, 

including radar and lasers to map the thickness and elevation of the 

ice that envelops each moon.



Scientists are keen to study the Jovian system because of its 

complexity. The planet and its stable of moons represent, in many 

ways, a miniature solar system.



"These are worlds in their own right," said Ron Greeley, of Arizona 

State University, Tempe.



The spacecraft is envisioned as being 60 to 100 feet in length. Early 

conceptions place its nuclear reactor at the end of a boom to shield 

the scientific instruments from radiation.



Jimo also would bristle with fins to dissipate the intense heat from 

its reactor.



NASA is expected to begin stepping up use of nuclear power in its 

exploration of the solar system, including Mars. There, it could 

power rovers capable of roaming the planet for years at a time.

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



French power strike cuts 1,600 MW production-union



PARIS, Dec 11 (Reuters) - The French CGT trade union said on Thursday 

a strike by power workers had cut a total of 1,600 megawatts (MW) of 

production capacity at two of Electricite de France 's EDF.UL nuclear 

power stations.



A spokesman for the CGT, the largest union in EDF, said the cuts, 

about 2.5 percent of France's total installed nuclear capacity of 

62,520 MW, were not expected to deepen in the strike that ends at 

midnight.



The strike reduced production at two plants in southeast France, 

Bugey, where output was cut by 1,000 MW and Tricastin, which lost 600 

MW, he said.



"(The reduction) does not appear to be developing," the spokesman 

said.



The CGT union had threatened to cut EDF's nuclear, coal and oil-fired 

generation by half and hydropower output by 30 percent in Thursday's 

strike to protest against government plans to privatise EDF and state 

gas utility Gaz de France.



"It is not the CGT's wish to cause blackouts and punish consumers. 

The output cuts are just to demonstrate that we could (cause 

blackouts) if we have to," said another CGT official at a press 

conference.



The influential union called a series of strikes in May and June that 

rocked the European power markets with concerns over cuts in supplies 

from the region's top power supplier. The maximum cuts achieved, on 

May 13, were 12,000 MW.



The CGT, along with the second largest union, the CFDT, said in a 

press conference they were planning to join efforts for a harder-

hitting strike around January 20, that could involve cuts in 

generation output but was not targeting blackouts.



The two unions, which together account for 72 percent of EDF and GDF 

workers, met with other unions on Monday but failed to recruit the 

three others, especially the CGC, that does not oppose the 

privatisation.



The third largest union FO has said it will organise its own separate 

strike for January. It supports the anti-privatisation movement but 

unlike the CGT and CFDT, wants the two utilities be merged and is 

demanding more disruptive industrial action, said a CFDT official.



"It is not our aim to cause severe power cuts ... that's against 

public service, which we are trying to protect," said the CFDT 

official.



The unions say the provision of gas and electricity is an essential 

service to the public, but which is endangered by the privatisation.

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



A-bomb survivors group to protest Enola Gay display in U.S.



HIROSHIMA, Dec. 11 (Kyodo) - People representing survivors of the 

atomic bombing in Hiroshima left Thursday for Washington to protest 

an upcoming exhibition featuring the Enola Gay, the plane that 

dropped the bomb, and will deliver messages calling for the 

abandonment of nuclear weapons.



The display opens Monday at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space 

Museum in Washington with an information panel that only states the 

plane dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima -- 

without referring to about 140,000 people who died by the end of 1945 

or the thousands of others who suffered from radiation sickness after 

the bombing.



"I believe there is somebody in the United States who can feel the 

same as we do. We want to tell what happened in Hiroshima after the 

Enola Gay flew over it and convey the truth of our sufferings from 

the bombing," Sunao Tsuboi said before his departure.



The Hiroshima Council Against A- and H-Bombs (Hiroshima Gensuikin), a 

group of survivors of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 

1945, said it sent two members including Tsuboi, 78, accompanied by 

an interpreter.



They are hoping to hand the museum's director, retired Gen. Jack 

Dailey, a message of protest from Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, 

and will speak against nuclear weapons at churches and schools. They 

plan to return home on Dec. 18.



Meanwhile, a Hiroshima group helping to organize the trip said 

Wednesday it has received e-mails critical of their attempt. An e-

mail written in English said, "If you are looking to blame anyone for 

the inevitable destruction of your cities then start with the 

Japanese imperial family that led your nation into such folly."



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

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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