[ RadSafe ] Alliant unit says Duane Arnold nuke sale planned

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Alliant unit says Duane Arnold nuke sale planned
INTERVIEW - U.S. nuclear power industry ready for renaissance
Small Alaska village eyeing nuclear power
Radioactive waste ban a step away from final legislative approval
Funding Being Scaled Back for Yucca Mtn.
New US Nuclear Development Could Begin Without Yucca-Execs
Tokyo Electric shuts down Niigata reactor after steam leak
False alarm causes evacuation at former uranium plant
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Alliant unit says Duane Arnold nuke sale planned

NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Alliant Energy Corp. unit Interstate 
Power and Light said on Thursday that it and two minority stake 
holders would sell the Duane Arnold Energy Center nuclear power plant 
through an auction process.

The Cedar Rapids, Iowa company had already said in December that it 
planned to sell its 70 percent stake in the plant, which was shut 
down last year a couple of times for repairs. The plant is operated 
by a third party called The Nuclear Management Company.

It said on Thursday that Central Iowa Power Cooperative, which owns 
20 percent of the plant, and Corn Belt Power Cooperative, which owns 
10 percent, had also agreed to sell their stakes and be part of the 
auction process.

The 583-megawatt nuclear generating facility is located near Palo, 
Iowa.

The companies hope to have a sale agreement by June 30, 2005, and 
will then seek regulatory approvals. Concentric Energy Advisors will 
serve as the auction manager and financial advisor for the sale.
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INTERVIEW - U.S. nuclear power industry ready for renaissance

NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The U.S. nuclear power industry is on the 
cusp of a major rebirth, Frank "Skip" Bowman, the new president and 
chief executive-elect of the Washington-based Nuclear Energy 
Institute, an industry association, said on Thursday.

Bowman was in New York this week to update Wall Street on 
developments and trends in nuclear energy in the United States, which 
has traditionally struggled with public opinion due to concerns over 
plant safety and disposal of radioactive waste.

"Public opinion of nuclear power is now at an all-time high," Bowman 
said in an interview. "There is a strong national interest in air 
quality and energy independence.... Nuclear power is the only power 
source of scale that is clean, cheap and can help us reduce our 
reliance on foreign sources of energy."

The institute says the last decade has seen steady improvements in 
safety, reliability and output from the 103 operating nuclear units 
in the United States, representing about 20 percent of the nation's 
generating capacity.

At the same time, the federal government has made progress in its 
efforts to build a permanent disposal facility in Nevada for used 
nuclear fuel, and the industry is starting to look at building new 
reactors.

Nuclear plant output in 2004 rose about 3 percent from the previous 
year to 786.5 billon kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to NEI 
estimates, due in part to an increase in average capacity factor to 
over 90 percent. Ten years ago, the capacity factor for all units was 
just 75 percent.

IMPROVING PUBLIC OPINION

Public opinion has grown more favorable to nuclear power in the past 
20 years. According to an independent survey conducted for the trade 
association in April 2004, 65 percent of Americans favor using 
nuclear energy to make electricity, compared with just 49 percent in 
favor in 1983.

A majority of the public, 64 percent, also supports the construction 
of new nuclear plants, with support highest in the South (68 percent) 
and lowest in the Northeast (55 percent), the institute said.

Growing electricity demand, energy costs and concerns about energy 
security and the environment have focused public and government 
attention on the new nuclear plants.

In his State of the Union address on Wednesday night, President Bush 
said the nation needs "more (energy) production here at home, 
including safe, clean nuclear energy."

The industry is taking steps to get approval from the U.S. Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission for the next generation of nuclear reactors.

Three energy companies -- Exelon Corp. , Dominion Resources Inc. and 
Entergy Corp. -- expect to receive early site permits from the 
commission in 2006, allowing them to build new reactors in the 
future.

Bowman said a new reactor could be under construction by 2008 and in 
commercial operation by 2012, at an estimated capital cost of $1.5 
billion to $2 billion or $1,400 per kilowatt.

"The costs should decline to $1 billion to $1.2 billion or $1,000 to 
$1,200 per kilowatt by the time the third or fourth reactor is 
built," Bowman said. He added that power production costs from 
nuclear energy were some of the cheapest from any source.

On another front, the federal government is slowly moving forward on 
long-delayed underground repository for used nuclear fuel built at 
Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The NEI expects the U.S. Energy Department to file a license 
application for the repository with the NRC in 2005.
-----------------

Small Alaska village eyeing nuclear power

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Fed up with the hassles of 
importing expensive diesel fuel, residents of one interior Alaska 
village are trying to install a miniature nuclear reactor that 
advocates say could be a model for clean energy production in remote 
sites.

Officials in Galena, an Athabascan Indian village on the Yukon River, 
are pursuing an offer from Toshiba Corp. <6502.T> to install an 
experimental reactor that would heat and light the town.

The 700 residents of the village, 275 miles (440 km) west of 
Fairbanks, say they have to cope with electricity bills that are 
three times the national average.

The reactor would be free and require no attendance, Toshiba says. 
Galena would pay for only the operating costs, according to news 
reports.

Galena officials met with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 
Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. If the commission approves the plan, 
the reactor would be the first new one permitted in the United States 
since the early 1980s, according to an Alaska Public Radio Network 
report on Thursday.

Energy to power electricity is important to Galena. Winter 
temperatures can dip below minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 51 
Celsius). Daylight is scarce because of the short days during the 
winter.

Galena is powered by generators burning diesel that is barged in 
during the Yukon River's ice-free months. That is costly and carries 
its own environmental risks because diesel can spill.

Tribal officials from around the region and environmentalists say 
they are suspicious of the nuclear proposal.

"Why is Toshiba doing this, giving it away for free, trying to foist 
this experimental technology on rural Alaska when they can't even 
license this in Japan?" said Pam Miller, program manager for Alaska 
Community Action on Toxics, an Anchorage-based environmental group.
----------------

Radioactive waste ban a step away from final legislative approval

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Utah Legislature is one step away from 
banning the disposal of hotter classes of low-level radioactive 
wastes, capping an agreement with the new owners of Envirocare of 
Utah.

The bill, which Gov. Jon Huntsman promises to sign, is a largely 
symbolic measure that clears up any inconsistency in Utah's fierce 
opposition in a different arena to the disposal of spent nuclear fuel 
rods at the Skull Valley Indian reservation.

Nuclear fuel rods are thousands of times more radioactive than the so-
called class A wastes Envirocare takes or the class B and C wastes 
the company might have taken if they weren't being banned.

Envirocare takes mostly contaminated soil and building debris - 
concrete rubble and steel - from decommissioned nuclear power and 
weapons plants, said Tye Rogers, a chemical engineer and the 
company's vice president of compliance and permitting.

Envirocare would have taken the same kind of wastes, but with 
slightly more radioactivity, until it yielded to opposition from 
Huntsman and other political leaders. The Utah Division of 
Environmental Quality had issued Envirocare a permit to take hotter 
wastes, but that permit was subject to approval from the governor and 
Legislature.

The storage of B and C wastes has been hotly debated in the 
Legislature for years, but it never would have been more than a tiny 
addition to Envirocare's business, said Bette Arial, the company's 
director of legislative and community affairs.

Envirocare sought the permit only because its competitors in the 
industry had earned similar permits to take class B and C wastes, she 
said.

Envirocare must safeguard class A wastes for a century, when they 
lose enough radioactivity to be rendered harmless, Rogers said. It 
takes class B wastes 300 years and class C wastes 500 years to 
dissipate their slightly higher levels of radioactivity.

Spent fuel rods, by contrast, remain highly radioactive for tens of 
thousands of years. The Department of Energy is trying to open a 
permanent storage site at Yucca Mountain, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 
miles northwest of Las Vegas, for the nation's spent nuclear fuel.

The Skull Valley Band, meantime, is seeking federal approval to open 
a "temporary" way station for up to 44,000 tons of spent nuclear 
fuel, 45 miles west of Salt Lake City. The spent fuel would come from 
nuclear power plants around the nation that are running out of 
storage space of their own.

Utah's political leaders are unified in their opposition to the Skull 
Valley dump, now before the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency, which is 
expected to make a decision within months.

Sen. Curtis Bramble's bill not only bans class B and C waste from 
coming to Utah, it prevents the state's representative on a regional 
compact committee from considering or seeking contracts that could 
bring waste here.

The bill also addresses other areas of waste storage and management, 
including fees paid to the state by storage companies, and expands 
the roles of state agencies that oversee the industry.
----------------

Funding Being Scaled Back for Yucca Mtn.

WASHINGTON (AP - President Bush will scale back spending for a 
proposed Nevada nuclear waste dump when he announces his new budget 
next week, reflecting delays in the program because of an adverse 
court decision, congressional and industry sources said Friday.

Bush's proposed budget to be unveiled Monday will include about $650 
million for the Yucca Mountain waste project, about half of what once 
was envisioned for the fiscal year beginning next October, according 
to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because details have 
not been announced.

The reduced spending reflects ongoing problems the administration has 
encountered since Bush and Congress gave the project a green light in 
2002. A federal court threw the project off schedule last year when 
it rejected proposed radiation safety standards for the waste dump. 
New standards are being developed.

"The need for Yucca Mountain still exists," said Energy Department 
spokesman Joe Davis. "The budget figure will show what we believe we 
can responsibly spend in moving the program forward, particularly in 
the areas of licensing and work on our (waste) transportation 
program."

Davis declined to be more specific.

Last year the administration sought $880 million for the Yucca 
program and hoped to submit a formal license application for the 
facility to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by December. Largely 
because of a budget error of the administration's own making, 
Congress provided only $577 million.

Incoming Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said recently he hoped the 
license application could be forwarded late this year.

Construction of the waste facility has been a top priority of the 
White House and the nuclear industry. It had been expected to be 
completed and accepting high-level nuclear waste - defense waste and 
used reactor fuel rods building up at power plants around country - 
by 2010. But officials have acknowledged that schedule will not be 
met.

"The important thing is we're moving ahead making progress on the 
mountain," said John Kane, senior vice president for congressional 
affairs for the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade group. The project 
"traditionally has had ups and downs," Kane said, calling the latest 
developments no different.

Yucca Mountain, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 miles northwest of Las 
Vegas, was first considered as a place for the nation's central 
repository for high-level nuclear waste 27 years ago. The government 
initially promised the industry it would begin accepting its waste 
for long-term disposal by 1998.

The program received a significant setback last summer when an 
appeals court said the radiation safety standards for the underground 
facility violated congressional intent because it failed to take into 
account National Academy of Sciences recommendations.

The Environmental Protection Agency is working up new standards that 
supporters of the Yucca project hope will pass court muster. Those 
activities have been complicated by the recent departure of EPA 
Administrator Mike Leavitt, who has taken over the Department of 
Health and Human Services.

Nevada officials also have not given up their fight to block the 
project.

Once the project comes before the NRC for licensing, the state plans 
to argue that the Energy Department has not shown that Yucca Mountain 
is the safest and best place to bury wastes that will remain highly 
radioactive for tens of thousands of years.

Opponents also have criticized the Energy Department for failing to 
develop a clear transportation plan for moving the 70,000 tons of 
used commercial reactor fuel and defense waste to Yucca Mountain if 
the dump were to be built.

Reflecting a growing unease among some in the industry about a slip 
in the Yucca Mountain schedule, there has been more talk recently 
about building a temporary above-ground storage facility for waste. 
Nevada officials strongly object to such a move, arguing the 
temporary site will essentially become permanent if the Yucca project 
is not built.
------------------

New US Nuclear Development Could Begin Without Yucca-Execs

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The U.S. nuclear industry could move to build a 
new reactor before a federal depository for used fuel begins 
operating, company executives said Thursday.

A central storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada was to have 
opened in 1998 but now isn't expected to begin receiving deliveries 
for at least another five years.

"I don't see the fact that Yucca is not in operation as an impediment 
by itself," Joe Colvin, the departing chief executive of the Nuclear 
Energy Institute, said at the policy group's annual Wall Street 
briefing.

Nuclear plants store their used fuel rods on site. Developing the 
controversial Nevada facility, to eliminate concerns about the risks 
of radioactive waste in local communities, has been considered a 
prerequisite to new reactor development.

But companies could continue their quests to build, provided the 
industry continues to show progress in resolving the spent-fuel 
dilemma, Ruth Shaw, president of Duke Energy Corp.'s (DUK) utility 
unit, and Christopher Crane, Exelon Corp.'s (EXC) chief nuclear 
officer, said separately.

"You need to have progress toward a long-term solution," Shaw said.

Duke and Exelon, the biggest U.S. nuclear operator, are members of a 
consortium exploring new reactor development.

The New York Times reported Monday that the nuclear industry was 
backing away from its position that Yucca be in service before new 
reactors are developed and considering alternatives to that storage 
plan.

U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who opposes storage at Yucca, said 
she'll continue to push for federal funding to allow plant owners to 
continue holding their spent fuel.

Still, eliminating the uncertainties surrounding the licensing and 
financing of new reactors remains a more pressing short-term issue 
than spent fuel storage, Colvin said.
-----------------

Tokyo Electric shuts down Niigata reactor after steam leak

NIIGATA, Japan, Feb. 5 (Kyodo) - Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday 
manually shut down one of its reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa 
nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture after a steam leak was 
detected in one of its buildings, company officials said.

Tokyo Electric said no one was hurt in the incident and there was no 
radioactive leakage.

The leak was found by a Tokyo Electric employee during a regular 
patrol at around 10:30 a.m. The employee discovered that the steam 
was coming out of a pipe on the second basement level of a building 
housing turbines.

The amount of steam was minimal, according to the Tokyo Electric and 
the Niigata prefectural government.

The pipe is designed to drain moisture from the main steam pipe that 
is used to send steam coming out of a nuclear reactor into the 
turbines.

The pipe made of low-alloy steel measures 6 centimeters in external 
diameter and is 8.7 millimeters thick when it is brand new.

Tokyo Electric plans to peel off the heat insulation material from 
the pipe to investigate the level of wear and tear and to find out 
where the steam had leaked from. Officials from the Nuclear and 
Industrial Safety Agency are expected to participate in the 
investigation.

Environmental monitors placed around the nuclear plant showed no 
abnormality, according to the prefecture.
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False alarm causes evacuation at former uranium plant

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) - About 600 workers dismantling Oak Ridge's 
former uranium-enrichment plant were evacuated Thursday when an 
equipment malfunction triggered a false radiation alert, officials 
said.

The alarm went off about 6:50 a.m. EST at the mile-long, U-shaped K-
25 building. Workers emptied the building for about two hours, then 
returned to their posts around 8:30 a.m.

Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs Co., the government's 
environmental manager in Oak Ridge, said officials are evaluating 
what caused the instrument problem.

The alarms are positioned around the facility to detect radiation 
associated with so-called criticality accidents, involving an 
uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction.

K-25 was the nation's first gaseous diffusion plant, built during 
World War II to enrich uranium for atomic bombs and later for nuclear 
reactors. Uranium operations ended in the 1980s, but decommissioning 
has only recently begun. Most of the contaminated facility will be 
demolished and buried as waste.

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

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