Sweden says its nuclear waste may be terror hazard

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

Index:



Sweden says its nuclear waste may be terror hazard

World dilemma: how to store nuclear waste - CNN

Japan Minister Plans Push for Nuclear Fusion Plant

NRC to meet with FirstEnergy on Davis-Besse work

PG&E plans $706 mln overhaul at Calif. nuke plant

U.S. Nuke Labs' Security Facing Review

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



Sweden says its nuclear waste may be terror hazard



STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sweden, home to 11 nuclear power reactors, 

should tighten security measures to prevent nuclear waste being 

stolen for terror purposes, a government research agency said Monday.



After the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, the risk of 

guerrillas getting hold of material to make a "dirty bomb" has 

increased, the Swedish Defense Research Agency said in a report 

commissioned by the national Nuclear Power Inspectorate.



A dirty bomb is an explosive device to which radioactive material has 

been attached to increase destruction.



Sweden's current safety rules, aimed at protecting people from 

radiation, were not were tight enough to stop the theft of 

radioactive materials, a team of researchers at the agency said.



"Sweden should introduce stricter requirements for the physical 

protection of...radioactive materials," the researchers said in a 

summary of their report published in the inspectorate's quarterly 

publication Nucleus.



The September 11 and subsequent terror attacks showed that risk of 

exposure to radiation was no longer a sufficient deterrent to 

guerrillas trying to acquire radioactive materials, the agency said.



Spent nuclear fuel and other atomic waste are currently stored at two 

separate sites in Sweden. The country's border controls lack 

equipment for the detection of hazardous radioactive materials, the 

agency said.

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



World dilemma: how to store nuclear waste - CNN



Dec 30 (CNN) Since the start of the nuclear era, highly radioactive 

waste has been crossing continents and oceans in search of a secure 

and final resting place.



Nearly all countries produce nuclear waste, some types of which can 

remain radioactive for thousands of years, but they cannot agree on 

the best way to store it.



At present highly radioactive waste is put into interim storage where 

it has to sit for 30-40 years for its radioactivity and heat 

production to decline. It is still hazardous and should be stored 

somewhere permanently.



In many countries it is unclear who will pay for the cost divided 

over hundreds, even hundreds of thousands of years. Utilities could 

end up with a bigger bill than expected.



Most high-level waste, the most dangerous kind, is spent fuel from 

the over 400 nuclear power reactors in more than 30 countries. The 

dismantling of nuclear weapons adds to the pile.



Even nuclear-free states produce waste from industry, hospitals 

providing radiation therapy, and research centers.



Experts say technology exists for secure underground deposits which 

could last millions of years. Most countries plan to seal the highly 

hazardous waste in containers and store it 500-1,000 meters (1,640-

3,280 feet) underground.



Sceptics say it could be safe for decades or even centuries, but at 

some point it would be bound to leak or be attacked by terrorists.



"If there isn't a responsible solution to deal with nuclear waste, it 

may be better to keep it above ground for a while longer when we are 

looking for technology that is safer," said Martina Krueger, who 

works for the environmental organization Greenpeace in Sweden.



Some politicians have demanded that the repositories are built so 

that future generations can open them and eliminate the waste with 

the help of new technology.



Others say that would also leave the deposits vulnerable to potential 

social chaos thousands of years down the line.



If waste is safe in interim storage, why not keep it there?



"Sure it's safe...but what we have to communicate are the trade-

offs," said Thomas Sanders from Sandia National Laboratories, owned 

by the U.S. government.



Some nuclear plants are already running into the limits of their 

storage capacity. And since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the 

United States attention has turned to individual plants and whether 

these can be protected from terrorist attacks.



European Union countries plan to build repositories by around 2020, 

but some have not even started considering sites. In 2001 Finland 

became the first and so far only EU state to decide on a site for a 

final storage.



The United States plans to deposit waste from its 103 nuclear plants 

beneath the Yucca Mountain in Nevada. The site should open in 2010, 

but faces local protests and legal hurdles.



Critics say big central repositories would again increase the risk of 

accidents or theft because the nuclear waste has to be transported to 

them from each plant.



In many cases it is unclear for how long nuclear waste is the 

liability of the firm causing it, and when the state takes over.



This makes it tough for utilities to calculate the cost, especially 

if the repositories are built in such a way that they have to be 

guarded for security reasons.



"It is difficult to give precise costs because France hasn't decided 

on a strategy on long-term waste management," said Yves le Bars, 

chairman of ANDRA, the national radioactive waste management agency 

in France, the EU's biggest nuclear power.



"We say it will take between 15 to 25 billion euros to build a 

repository, operate it and close it for the existing facilities," he 

said. This would cover high-level waste from France's 58 nuclear 

plants, assuming fuel would be reprocessed.



Finding a location for a dump is one of the biggest hurdles.



In South Korea, the state tried for years to find a county willing to 

host a repository for low and intermediate level waste. Finally this 

year, Buan county applied for the deposit and suggested Wi-do island 

as a host.



The island has 1,000 inhabitants, most of them fishermen.



"They decided to accept the repository because the government is 

paying a tremendous financial package," said Myung Jae Song, general 

manager at the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company, the world's 

fifth largest producer of nuclear power.



Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency 

(IAEA), suggested in early December that countries should consider 

shared storage, even though no state should be forced to deal with 

another's atomic waste.



At Eurajoki, site of Finland's final repository, people were upset by 

the idea that their town could one day start importing foreign waste, 

said local politician Altti Lucander.



"It causes confusion and may lead to there being no acceptance for 

national deposits," Lucander said.

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



Japan Minister Plans Push for Nuclear Fusion Plant



TOKYO Jan 6  (Reuters) - Japan's science minister plans to visit 

Russia and China next week to try to win backing for Tokyo's bid to 

host an experimental nuclear fusion program, a ministry spokesman 

said Tuesday.



The campaigning tour, which may start on January 14 and which would 

include South Korea, is the latest move in a tug-of-war between the 

European Union and Japan, both of which are bidding for the 

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).



The European Union is backing Cadarache in southern France, while 

Tokyo is pushing Rokkasho, a remote fishing village in northern Japan 

as its proposed site for the world's first attempt at generating 

energy in the same way as the sun.



At a meeting in Washington on December 20, the six members of the 

ITER joint venture failed to reach agreement, with the United States 

and South Korea backing Japan, while Russia and China favored France.



Media have suggested the deadlock over the multi-billion dollar 

project reflected Washington's displeasure over France's opposition 

to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.



The six countries are set to meet again next month.



France has proposed a compromise whereby the reactor would be in 

Cadarache, but data analysis could take place elsewhere.



Nuclear fusion has been touted as a solution to the world's energy 

problems, as it would be low in pollution and would theoretically use 

seawater as fuel.



Fusion involves sticking atoms together, as opposed to today's 

nuclear reactors and weapons, which produce energy by blowing atoms 

apart.



Fifty years of research, however, have failed to produce a 

commercially viable fusion reactor.

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



NRC to meet with FirstEnergy on Davis-Besse work



SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 29 (Reuters) - A U.S. Nuclear Regulatory 

Commission panel tracking utility FirstEnergy Corp.'s steps to 

restart its troubled Davis-Besse nuclear power station will meet with 

company officials on Monday to review actions to improve safety work 

at the plant.



The meeting, to be held in Oak Harbor, Ohio, had been planned to 

examine the possible startup of Davis-Besse, but the NRC on Dec. 19 

said it was deferring that discussion.



The 925 megawatt Davis-Besse plant was shut for extensive repairs in 

February 2002 when it was discovered that boric acid had eaten nearly 

all the way through the reactor vessel's carbon steel lid in several 

places.



FirstEnergy, based in Akron, Ohio, has done extensive work to repair 

the plant and to get it ready for a restart, but the utility has 

missed repeated targets for a startup, which must be cleared by the 

NRC.



Through Sept. 30, the company had spent $532 million repairing the 

plant and buying replacement power on the energy market to close the 

supply gap created by the shutdown.



Jan Strasma, a spokesman for the NRC, said the meeting Monday night 

will review FirstEnergy's response to the NRC's concerns about 

"safety culture" and the work of operators in the Davis-Besse control 

room.



At a meeting Dec. 19, NRC inspectors presented results of two 

inspections that found certain work plans were inadequate, operators 

were not aware of the status of plant equipment, work control 

appeared disorganized, and operators were not following procedures.



"Until we hear what (FirstEnergy) has to say and do further 

inspections on safety culture and operating performance, we can't 

tell when we will be ready for a restart meeting," Strasma said.



Gary Leidich, head of FirstEnergy's nuclear operations, said on a 

conference call last week that he hoped to schedule a meeting with 

the NRC in mid-January.

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



PG&E plans $706 mln overhaul at Calif. nuke plant



LOS ANGELES, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Pacific Gas & Electric said on Monday 

it will ask California regulators later this month to approve a $706 

million project to replace steam generators at the company's Diablo 

Canyon nuclear power plant.



A spokesman for the utility said that, under the proposed schedule, 

steam generators in Unit 2 would be replaced in 2008 and those in 

Unit 1 in 2009.



Both units have a generating capacity of around 1,100 megawatts, or 

enough power for around one million homes. Each unit has four steam 

generators.



Late last month, the San Francisco-based utility made a filing 

seeking the approval of the U.S. bankruptcy court.



The utility -- a unit of PG&E Corp. , which ran out of money in April 

2001 at the height of the Californian energy crisis -- is expected to 

emerge from bankruptcy during the first quarter of this year.



The Diablo Canyon nuclear power station is located on the central 

California coast. Unit 1 began commercial operation in 1985 and Unit 

2 the following year.



The spokesman said work on the steam generators would be done during 

regularly scheduled refueling outages.



No estimate for the length of the outages was available although 

similar work at Unit 2 of the Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona 

late last year took around two and a half months.

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



U.S. Nuke Labs' Security Facing Review



WASHINGTON (Jan. 3) - Worries about missing keys and other security 

lapses at some of the nation's top-secret nuclear weapons labs have 

prompted the federal agency that maintains the U.S. nuclear weapons 

stockpile to review locks, keys and procedures at facilities 

nationwide.



The Energy Department's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security 

Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons programs within the 

department, is sending a team of inspectors to launch the security 

review in February. The action follows NNSA initiatives last summer, 

after some in Congress complained about specific security breaches at 

several facilities.



"We have completed a complexwide inventory of locks and keys. The 

idea now is not to go over (again) every lock and key, but to sit 

down and review with folks the controls that were put in place last 

summer," Bryan Wilkes, an agency spokesman, said Friday. "We want to 

make sure security violations, whether they're large or small, don't 

happen again."



In July, the NNSA announced new plans to reinforce safeguards with 

added security experts, more frequent surveillance, a review of past 

studies and investigations and creation of a commission and separate 

panel for more long-range planning.



The NNSA is responsible for maintaining the U.S. nuclear weapons 

stockpile, for promoting international nuclear nonproliferation and 

for providing nuclear propulsion systems for the Navy's submarines 

and aircraft carriers.



Wilkes said the most recent case of missing keys involves NNSA's 

plant for processing weapons-grade uranium in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Last 

summer, he said, the facility reported missing "a little under 250" 

keys, but that "none of them were for any sensitive areas."



He said most "were to janitorial areas or to file cabinets; simple 

things that people lose keys to every day."



"A small portion of that - under 40 - went to people's offices or to 

a conference room where you can have classified information for up to 

an hour," Wilkes said. "It was limited to two buildings, and those 

buildings were completely re-keyed."



A set of master keys went missing for several days at Sandia National 

Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., and an electronic key card was 

gone for six weeks before top managers were informed at the Lawrence 

Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. A set of keys to 

perimeter gates and office doors also was lost at Livermore and went 

unreported for three weeks.



Sandia is expecting a review. Chris Miller, a spokesman for Sandia, 

said Friday the lab was advised a couple of weeks ago "that DOE 

probably was going to be visiting early in the new year just to look 

at security again. There are always ongoing looks at security."



The inventory also is being conducted at other NNSA offices, plants 

and nuclear research labs in Missouri, Nevada, New York, 

Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas.



On the Net:



National Nuclear Security Administration: http://www.nnsa.doe.gov



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

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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