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Meeting on troubled nuclear plant pushed back a week
Index:
Meeting on troubled nuclear plant pushed back a week
NJ Agency Asks NRC To Order Hope Creek Pump Replacement
'Atom School' Stars in First Israeli Reactor Video
EPA says it removed radioactive capsule from defunct company site
=========================================
Meeting on troubled nuclear plant pushed back a week
KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. (AP) - The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission
has delayed a meeting to discuss whether a nuclear power plant in
Salem County is safe enough to start up again.
The meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday, but has been pushed
back to Jan. 12 because the commission has not finished a report on
one problem at the Hope Creek plant, said Neil Sheehan, a spokesman
for the NRC's regional office.
The Hope Creek plant, one of three on Artificial Island in Lower
Alloways Creek, was shut down after a steam leak on Oct. 10.
But activists and several government officials, including New Jersey
Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell, say the
plant's owner, Public Service Energy Group, should also replace a
recirculation pump at the reactor before restarting.
PSEG says the pump is safe enough to operate and that it will replace
the part the next time the plant has a regularly scheduled shutdown
for refueling and maintenance.
The NRC has not ordered PSEG to keep Hope Creek shut down, but the
energy company has agreed not to restart until it gets an OK from the
agency.
The Jan. 12 meeting will be held in Swedesboro.
----------------
NJ Agency Asks NRC To Order Hope Creek Pump Replacement
NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should
require Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PEG) to replace a
massive pump at its Hope Creek reactor before allowing the unit to
restart from a nearly three-month outage, according to New Jersey's
top environmental regulator.
The replacement of the recirculating water pump, which vibrates
excessively and whistles like a freight train, would help ease
concerns that PSEG hasn't made safety its top priority at the
southern New Jersey plant, New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell wrote to NRC Chairman Nils
Diaz Wednesday.
"We believe that the damaged pump should be replaced before Hope
Creek can restart," Campbell wrote. "If the NRC regulations are
written in such a manner that replacement of this pump shaft is
outside the scope of the NRC's regulatory authority, the Commission
should use its extra-regulatory authority to compel the licensee to
replace the recirculation pump shaft."
PSEG has said the shaft that turns the pump appears to be bowed but
that it can run safely until workers replace it during Hope Creek's
next refueling outage in spring 2006.
Nuclear watchdogs say PSEG should replace the pump now to prevent a
serious accident.
The NRC hasn't formally required PSEG to seek permission to restart
Hope Creek, which has been shut since Oct. 10. But the company agreed
to hold a public meeting before returning the unit to service.
That meeting had been scheduled for Wednesday but the NRC pushed it
back to Jan. 12, saying it needs more time to evaluate data PSEG has
provided on the pump.
The NRC will also present the findings of its investigation into the
Hope Creek's unexpected October shutdown. The unit shut about three
weeks before it was scheduled to begin a refueling outage due to a
steam pipe break.
Exelon Corp. (EXC), the country's largest nuclear operator, agreed
last month to purchase PSEG for $12 billion in stock plus the
assumption of $14 billion in debt. The agreement calls for Exelon to
begin operating Hope Creek and the two- unit Salem plant, which is
located on the same site and which Exelon and PSEG co- own, on Jan.
17.
Exelon's chief executive said last month that the company agrees that
Hope Creek's recirculating water pump can continue running until the
unit's next refueling outage.
-------------
'Atom School' Stars in First Israeli Reactor Video
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel has released the first video footage of
its Dimona nuclear plant, a television station said on Monday, in an
apparent attempt to promote a positive image of what experts believe
to be an atomic bomb factory.
The first published images of Dimona, snapped secretly by technician
turned activist Mordechai Vanunu in the 1980s, led experts to
conclude that the Jewish state had nuclear bombs.
Channel 10 television said its tape of the plant, to be aired on
Friday, showed technicians in various non-military activities --
mingling on the lawn, inspecting lab equipment and lecturing at an
"atomic school" for disadvantaged youths.
The privately owned station did not say how it obtained the footage,
but noted that it had been cleared by military censors who had for
decades banned journalists from the desert site.
"A lot has been written and said about Dimona, almost all of it
negative and critical," a senior Channel 10 staffer said on condition
of anonymity.
"We were happy to discover that there are positive things there too --
such as high- schoolers learning in the most secretive place in the
country."
Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
Keen to ward off regional foes while avoiding an arms race, Israel
maintains a "strategic ambiguity" over a nuclear arsenal assumed to
be the world's sixth-largest, neither confirming nor denying it
exists.
Vanunu was jailed for treason after he gave the pictures and a tell-
all interview to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986. When he
was released last year, Channel 10 drew fire from the defense
establishment by broadcasting a computer- generated simulation of the
Dimona reactor based on Vanunu's revelations.
Ahead of a visit to Israel by U.N. nuclear watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei
last July, the country's Atomic Energy Commission launched a Web site
calling Dimona a research plant dedicated to "expanding and deepening
basic knowledge of nuclear science."
ElBaradei has been pressing Israel to enter talks on regional
disarmament, but it rules out any change in its nuclear policy before
there is peace with its neighbors.
Israeli officials have also been keen to draw the world's attention
to the nuclear program of arch-foe Iran. Tehran denies having hostile
designs, and accuses Israel -- believed to be the region's only
nuclear power -- of double standards.
---------------
EPA says it removed radioactive capsule from defunct company site
GREENWICH, N.Y. (AP) - A radioactive capsule has been removed from a
paper- making machine at a now defunct paper company's site in
upstate New York, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported.
The Krypton-85 capsule, used to monitor paper film thickness for
quality control, was found by the EPA inside a crated machine in its
ongoing Superfund assessment of the 27-acre former Stevens & Thompson
Paper Co. site in Greenwich, 33 miles north of Albany.
Krypton-85 is a radioactive gas with a half-life of 10 years. It was
removed by capsule manufacturer Honeywell, "eliminating a potential
threat to the community," Acting EPA Regional Administrator Kathleen
Callahan said.
The site, now under new ownership, overlooks the Battenkill River.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Sandy Perle
Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Global Dosimetry Solutions, Inc.
2652 McGaw Avenue
Irvine, CA 92614
Tel: (949) 296-2306 / (888) 437-1714 Extension 2306
Fax:(949) 296-1144
Global Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com/
Personal Website: http://sandy-travels.com/
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