[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Sweden nuclear phase-out report delayed, talks go on
Index:
Sweden nuclear phase-out report delayed, talks go on
Pentagon: Uranium Didn't Harm N.Y. Unit
Japan Nuclear Fuel President Sasaki to resign
UK's Sellafield nuclear plant to cut discharges
UN uses atomic technology to fight malaria mosquito
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweden nuclear phase-out report delayed, talks go on
STOCKHOLM, April 29 (Reuters) - A report on whether Sweden should
stick to plans to phase out its nuclear power stations has been
delayed as government and industry have failed to agree on the future
of the electricity sector, officials said on Thursday.
A government-appointed commission was due to hand the report to the
industry minister on Friday but it has been delayed, probably until
next week, while talks continue.
It will include recommendations on the future of the 600-megawatt
Barseback unit 2, which Industry Minister Leif Pagrotsky has said
should be shut down in 2004 as part of a plan to exit nuclear power
by the end of the decade.
Sweden has said closing Barseback 2 depends on expanding the green
power sector but efforts to boost renewable energy have been slow and
green electricity cannot fill the gap that would be left by the shut-
down.
The government's negotiator Bo Bylund, who heads the commission, told
the minister on Thursday he needed more time to produce his report.
"The negotiations continue about changes in the energy system which
also concern the second reactor at Barseback. I am going to shortly
announce the results of my work," Bylund said.
Lars Andersson, an official on Bylund's negotiating team, who
originally said the report would be released on Friday, was unable to
say when it would be published.
Martin May, spokesman for state power company Vattenfall VATN.UL
which operates Barseback, noted there had been a Swedish radio report
which said the government aimed to close Barseback 2 in a year or
two.
"That has not been confirmed by the government or by us," May said.
Swedish radio said the government negotiator had proposed that the
second reactor in Barseback close in either 2005 or 2006 and that two
other reactors at the plant also be given closing dates.
"I will not comment on this report," said Swedish government official
Lars Andersson.
Swedes voted in a 1980 referendum to phase out the country's atomic
plants by 2010, but so far Sweden has only closed one reactor, the
Barseback unit 1 in 1999.
A political decision to close more nuclear plants has been repeatedly
postponed and industry generally resists the idea.
Sweden has 11 power-producing nuclear reactors at four installations,
which generate about half the country's annual output of over 140
terawatt hours of electricity.
------------------
Pentagon: Uranium Didn't Harm N.Y. Unit
WASHINGTON (AP) - Members of a National Guard military police unit
who said they fell ill after exposure to depleted uranium in Iraq did
not have abnormal levels of the metal, Pentagon officials said
Thursday.
The results did not reassure at least one of the soldiers.
Members of the 442nd Military Police Company, based in Orangeburg,
N.Y., had complained of headaches, soreness and insomnia. A private
test this month indicated that four of them had unhealthy levels of
uranium in their urine.
Further tests by the military showed that depleted uranium exposure
did not cause the ailments, the Pentagon said.
"Those people all had normal levels of uranium in their urine," said
Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, deputy director of the Deployment Health
Support Directorate.
Depleted uranium is the hard, heavy metal created as a byproduct of
enriching uranium for nuclear reactor fuel or weapons material. It is
about 40 percent less radioactive than natural uranium, Kilpatrick
said.
The U.S. military uses the metal in rounds fired by M1 Abrams tanks
and A-10 attack jets to penetrate tank armor - a practice that has
been criticized for causing unnecessary risks to soldiers and
civilians.
"As long as this is exterior to your body, you're not at any risk and
the potential of internalizing it from the environment is extremely
small," Kilpatrick said.
Most studies have indicated that depleted uranium exposure will not
harm soldiers. But a 2002 study by Britain's Royal Society said
soldiers who ingest or inhale enough depleted uranium could suffer
kidney damage. The report cautioned its results were inconclusive and
recommended a long-term study of soldiers exposed to the metal.
About 1,000 soldiers returning from Iraq have been tested for
exposure to the metal. Of those, three showed unhealthy levels in
urine samples. All three had fragments embedded in their bodies,
Kilpatrick said.
Soldiers must choose to take a test for depleted uranium. All members
of the 442nd will be able to take one if they ask, Kilpatrick said.
Twenty-seven members of the unit have been tested so far.
One company member, Sgt. Ray Ramos, said the latest results did not
reassure him. He has suffered from migraine headaches, breathing
problems and pain in his elbows since returning from Iraq in
September.
An earlier test suggested depleted uranium may have been partially
responsible for his pain. He said he will pursue a third test from an
independent doctor to compare the results.
"When I become ill, or possibly become ill later on, I want to have
things in place," said Ramos, 41, of New York City.
The Pentagon is monitoring a group of 70 veterans from the first Gulf
War who have pieces of depleted uranium embedded in their bodies.
Kilpatrick said none of them has shown health problems related to
depleted uranium.
Charles Sheehan-Miles, executive director of the Nuclear Policy
Research Institute and a Gulf War veteran, said the military should
test all soldiers returning from Iraq to determine whether fears
about the metal are valid.
----------------------
Japan Nuclear Fuel President Sasaki to resign
AOMORI, Japan, April 30 (Kyodo) - Masashi Sasaki, president of Japan
Nuclear Fuel Ltd., a spent nuclear fuel storage and reprocessing
firm, said Friday he will resign in June now that he has fulfilled
his duty of returning the operations of its reprocessing factory to
normal.
Sasaki told a news conference, "I have lived up to my duty of
returning the (reprocessing) factory to a state at which spent
nuclear fuel can be transported into it."
On Wednesday, Aomori Gov. Shingo Mimura approved the restart of the
transportation of spent nuclear fuel to the factory in Rokkasho,
Aomori Prefecture. "The day of April 28 marked a key stage in my
professional life," he said.
The delivery of spent nuclear fuel to the factory had been suspended
due to a series of leaks of water since 2001 at one of spent fuel
storage pools.
On Feb. 1, 2002, the firm said the leaks occurred because the pool's
stainless steel sheet had developed cracks due to an inappropriate
manner of welding.
Sasaki said he will give up his post after a shareholders' general
meeting in late June. His successor has not yet been picked.
But Sasaki denied suggestions he is resigning to take the blame for
the welding problem, calling attention to the fact that he is set to
serve out his four-year term as president.
Sasaki, a former senior executive at Tokyo Electric Power Co., one of
the major shareholders at Japan Nuclear Fuel, assumed the presidency
at the nuclear fuel storage company in January 2001.
-------------------
UK's Sellafield nuclear plant to cut discharges
LONDON, April 21 (Reuters) - A new treatment system now operating at
Britain's Sellafield nuclear power plant will dramatically cut the
amount of radioactive waste being released into the Irish Sea,
operator British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) said on Wednesday.
BNFL said discharges of technetium-99 (Tc-99) would be reduced by 90
percent as part of a two billion pound ($3.54 billion) waste
treatment project, helping the plant address international concern
about the effect on marine life.
"It's something our international neighbours will be very pleased
about. For many years we have been looking for means of taking it out
of our discharge stream," a BNFL spokeswoman said.
"We can effectively remove most of the key radioactive material
through various processing plants but this particular one has always
been a bit problematic."
Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik hailed the cut as "an
important victory for Norway."
"The end to the radioactive discharges will mean clean seafood
supplies for all of us in the years to come," he told a news
conference in Oslo.
Norway has found traces of Tc-99 from Sellafield in everything from
lobsters to shellfish along its coasts and Nordic nations say the
impact on marine life has not been properly documented.
Britain insists the level of exposure to humans from the plant is
within legal limits and says the Tc-99 cuts would equate to about 10
percent of the radiation exposure from all liquid discharges.
"Although there is no evidence that the discharge of Tc-99 into the
sea at its current discharge limit is harmful to man or the
environment, it has prompted some concern, particularly in
Scandinavia, because Tc-99 can be detected at very low levels in
coastal waters and in certain shellfish and seaweed," Britain's
environment minister Elliot Morley said.
Ireland and environmental groups have repeatedly called for the
closure of Sellafield, located on England's northwest coast, claiming
it pollutes the Irish Sea with radioactive waste.
Last month the European Union told Britain to clean up the plant,
ordering full safety inspections and giving a June 1 deadline for the
UK government to produce an action plan.
------------------
UN uses atomic technology to fight malaria mosquito
SEIBERSDORF, Austria, April 24 (Reuters) - The United Nations is
harnessing nuclear technology to try to eradicate the mosquitoes
whose bite transmits malaria, a deadly disease devastating the
African continent.
Sunday is Africa Malaria Day, when governments will focus attention
on a disease which kills millions of Africans a year, most of them
children, and costs the continent at least $12 billion in lost gross
domestic product.
Bart Knols, a Dutch entomologist at the U.N. International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), estimates there are "three to five hundred
million cases of malaria every year on a world-wide scale, 90 percent
of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa."
"Sub-Saharan Africa also suffers the major burden... of mortality,"
he told Reuters during a tour of the IAEA's entomology laboratories.
One African child dies of malaria every 20 seconds. People in poor,
remote villages are usually unable to get treatment and so Knols's
research aims to nip the problem in the bud by destroying the
mosquito that transmits the malaria parasite.
The IAEA is best known for its inspections of countries like Iran and
Iraq who are suspected of building atomic weapons. But the agency has
already used its expertise to wipe out the dreaded tsetse fly, which
can transmit fatal sleeping sickness, from the island of Zanzibar.
NUKING MOSQUITOES
The Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) is a simple idea. Scientists breed
insects and expose the males to enough radiation to render them
sterile. The males are then released into the environment to breed
with the females, whose eggs are unfertilised and never hatch.
"The whole idea or concept is that the population would actually
start to crash and eventually may actually lead to eradication of the
insect, and therefore eradication of the disease and less malaria,"
said Knols, who has personally suffered nine bouts of malaria through
working with mosquitoes.
Alan Robinson, the entomologist in charge of the IAEA's entomology
unit, said the $4 million project was still in its infancy. He
described it as a "high-risk project" with many hurdles to overcome
before it is ready for field trials.
Over the next five years, they need to reach a point where they can
produce a million sterile male insects a day.
The males they breed must be robust enough to survive when released
from planes into the environment and tough enough to compete with
fertile males during mating. The females, the ones which bite humans,
only mate once in their two-week lives.
Knols and Robinson point out that in the 1970s, El Salvador
successfully used the SIT to eradicate the malaria mosquito from part
of the country.
"They brought that insect into the lab, started producing it in large
numbers, sterilised it and then released it in a small area... about
15 square kilometers, and successfully induced 100 percent sterility
in the population," Knols said.
Afterwards, they started a much larger project in which they were
producing a million male insects a day. But when civil war broke out
the project ended.
"We think we can do a better job than they did in El Salvador," said
Robinson.
He said the technique of sterilisation could not be used all over
Africa and would have to be combined with other population control
techniques to eradicate the malaria pest.
"But there's no alternative to irradiation for the sterile insect
technique. It's a very clean technique," he said, adding that there
was no risk of contamination. "The insects are not radioactive when
they're released."
------------------------------------
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/
************************************************************************
You are currently subscribed to the Radsafe mailing list. To
unsubscribe, send an e-mail to Majordomo@list.vanderbilt.edu Put the
text "unsubscribe radsafe" (no quote marks) in the body of the e-mail,
with no subject line. You can view the Radsafe archives at
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/radsafe/