[ RadSafe ] Charlotte-based Duke Power considering building new nuclear plant

[Sandy Perle]

Index:

Charlotte-based Duke Power considering building new nuclear plant
Protesters Rally At Dominion Va. Power Plant Hearing
Safety lapses halt cleanup at former nuclear site
Austrian court rules against Slovak nuclear plant
U.S. gives initial OK to China nuclear plant loans
Solution leakage at reprocessing plant caused by corrosion-prone
Japan Cabinet approves bill to punish those who leak nuclear info
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Charlotte-based Duke Power considering building new nuclear plant

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - Duke Power Co. is considering whether to build 
a new nuclear power plant somewhere in the Carolinas, according to 
the utility's top nuclear officer.

The Charlotte-based company has long maintained it needs to add new 
plants over the next decade to serve the region's growing population 
and industry. The increased output will likely come through a 
combination of coal, natural gas and possibly nuclear plants, Duke 
Power's Brew Barron said at a nuclear energy conference in 
Washington.

"It is not a commitment to build," Barron said Wednesday. "It is a 
commitment to maintain new nuclear capacity as a meaningful option 
for our customers."

If Duke decides to build a nuclear plant, it could be a decade before 
one would go on line. The application process is lengthy, involving 
years of scrutiny from nuclear regulators on the engineering, safety 
and environmental plans of a proposed plant.

Duke Power hasn't applied for such a license. It is "in the initial 
stages of planning the preparation" of a license application and 
looking at costs, Barron said.

Duke Power has three nuclear plants in the Carolinas, one on Lake 
Norman and a second on Lake Wylie in the Charlotte area and another 
in Seneca, S.C.

Nuclear power may be making a comeback as the stigma of the Chernobyl 
and Three Mile Island accidents has faded. Cheaper than natural gas, 
nuclear power doesn't create greenhouse emissions.

Environmentalists said there is a lot of potential danger of nuclear 
plants' fuel, as well as concerns about where waste can be stored.

Nuclear-plant projects in Virginia, Louisiana and Illinois are in the 
very early stages of applying for licenses. The last U.S. nuclear 
plant to come online was in Tennessee in 1996.
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Protesters Rally At Dominion Va. Power Plant Hearing

MINERAL, Va. (AP)--Hundreds of people showed up for a public hearing 
about whether Dominion Virginia Power should be allowed to build new 
nuclear reactors at its North Anna Power Station.

Some protesters rallied before the hearing, which was held in Louisa 
County by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Dominion (D) is asking the NRC for an early site permit that would 
give the company up to 20 years to decide whether to build one or 
more additional nuclear reactors on the site. The North Anna plant 
has two reactors.

The NRC held the hearing to get public comments on a preliminary 
environmental impact statement, in which agency staffers said that 
environmental issues would not prohibit the issuing of a permit.

Opponents say the lake environment is at risk and that health and 
safety concerns have been dismissed. Some speakers said the NRC has 
not addressed the threat of a terrorist attack on the plant.

Dominion has maintained that its plant is safe and that new reactors 
would not pose health risks to people or to the environment.
----------------------

Safety lapses halt cleanup at former nuclear site

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - Two workers at a former nuclear site in western 
New York were exposed to higher doses of radiation than allowed under 
the site's own guidelines in one of three recent safety lapses that 
have led to a suspension of cleanup work there.

The employees required no medical treatment following the Jan. 19 
exposure and no radiation was released into the environment, 
officials at the West Valley Demonstration Project said.

But site managers made the decision to halt work in order to re-
examine operations.

"When we have the slightest glitch, we stop, we review it and we say 
how do we do it better?" West Valley spokesman Terry Dunford said 
Friday.

West Valley, about 35 miles south of Buffalo, was the site of the 
country's first commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing plant from 1966 
to 1972. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 
and U.S. Department of Energy are partners in the ongoing 
decontamination and decommissioning of the site.

An independent report sought by West Valley Nuclear Services Co., the 
site contractor, indicated the overexposed workers received doses of 
315 and 169 millirems of radiation. That compares to the 360 
millirems that the average American absorbs in a year from things 
like X-rays and the sun.

The exposure was roughly two to three times West Valley's self-
imposed limit of 100 millirems per day but did not exceed federal DOE 
standards, Dunford said.

The incident occurred inside a maintenance room while the workers, 
who were wearing protective clothing, emptied waste into metal 
containers.

The other two safety lapses, Jan. 4 and Jan. 10, involved sparks from 
a remote saw igniting first, wood chips on the floor and secondly, a 
polyester sling that was inadvertently cut.

The 56-page report faulted managers for failing to adequately 
evaluate radiological hazards and implement safety controls.

"The (assessment) team wishes to emphasize that this was concluded 
not to be a programmatic shortcoming, but rather an implementation 
failure," the report said.

The report also noted a heavy emphasis by management on work 
schedules in recent months, and "a greater reliance on the skill of 
the workers and their supervisors in ensuring worker protection."

Dunford said West Valley Nuclear Services had made "management 
changes" as a result of the exposure incident. He declined to 
elaborate.

Paul Piciulo, NYSERDA's director at the site, said three safety 
lapses in a short period of time were concerning. The agency has in 
the past voiced concern about a DOE-driven acceleration of work at 
West Valley.

"You've got to be careful that people keep their eye on the work and 
the safety. Things may take time," Piciulo said. "You don't want to 
see things be rushed just for the sake of meeting some artificial 
deadline."

Peter Cooney, the chief steward for the International Association of 
Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represents one of the 
overexposed workers, told The Buffalo News he has warned management 
that the emphasis on speeding the work was putting the site's solid 
safety record at risk.

It was unknown Friday when work would resume. Dunford said the 
downtime had been used to reinforce and retrain employees on safety 
protocols.

Two similar worker exposures occurred in 2002 and 2003, with neither 
worker requiring medical attention.
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Austrian court rules against Slovak nuclear plant

VIENNA, Feb 17 (Reuters) - An Austrian court has set a precedent for 
Europe by ruling that a foreign nuclear plant poses a health hazard 
that must be corrected, the Green party said on Thursday.

"The ruling shows impressively that people can defend themselves 
successfully against a nuclear power plant in a neighbouring state," 
Eva Glawischnig, the party's deputy leader and one of the two 
plaintiffs, said in a statement.

A Vienna district court found Slovakia's Mochovce power plant, 
northeast of Bratislava and about 150 km (90 miles) from Vienna, did 
not meet international safety standards and posed a risk to the 
health of the plaintiffs, who both live in Vienna.

Judge Hannelore Weber ruled against the plant's owner, Slovak state 
power firm Slovenske Elektrarne (SE), saying it had to reduce the 
risk of an accident that could cause a radiation leak and damage the 
plaintiffs' health.

The plant's owner said it would appeal.

"The nuclear power plant at Mochovce meets all Slovakia's legislative 
requirements as well as international safety standards," it added.

The opposition Greens said the court made the ruling earlier this 
month. Glawischnig held a news conference on the case on Thursday 
where copies of the ruling were handed out.

The party added that as Slovakia is a member state of the European 
Union, the ruling was binding across the border.

The Greens said the ruling was "unique in Europe."

"This is the first time a court has established that a nuclear power 
plant across the border creates a threat to life and health," the 
party said.

The ruling said there was no danger if the power station functioned 
normally, but said several aspects did not reach Western safety 
standards, such as its lack of protection against plane crashes, and 
pipes placed too close together.

"Due to the respondent's inability to prove that international 
standards were observed in the construction and operation of the 
Mochovce nuclear power plant, one can assume that there is an 
increased risk of accidents," the judge ruled.

She ruled SE should "take suitable precautions to prevent nuisances 
(in Vienna, originating at the plant)," adding that the choice of 
precautions was up to SE.
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U.S. gives initial OK to China nuclear plant loans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Export-Import Bank has given 
preliminary approval for up to $5 billion in direct loans and 
guarantees to help British-owned Westinghouse Electric Co. and other 
U.S. suppliers win contracts to build four nuclear power plants in 
China, the bank said Friday.

China wants to build the plants to meet increased power demand in a 
heavily industrialized region.

"Aggressive competition is expected from companies from other 
countries, along with the support of their respective governments," 
the bank said in a statement.

The U.S. Ex-Im Bank board of directors approved a preliminary 
commitment request from Westinghouse to support exports to construct 
the power plants at two China sites.

Westinghouse is pursuing contracts with China and will submit bids to 
its government by Feb. 28, a company spokesman said.

No new nuclear plants have been ordered by U.S. utilities since the 
partial meltdown of the reactor core at the Three Mile Island plant 
in Pennsylvania in 1979.

But China could build more than 20 nuclear plants over the next 15 
years to fill widespread growth in demand for electricity, according 
to Westinghouse.

Other U.S. companies participating in the project include Bechtel 
Power Corp., the bank said.

The bank said its award is nonbinding, and its board will decide 
whether the deal qualifies for support when Westinghouse submits its 
final application.

Westinghouse, now owned by state-owned British nuclear firm BNFL Plc, 
has developed reactors used in about half of all plants worldwide, 
including South Korea and Japan.
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Solution leakage at reprocessing plant caused by corrosion-prone

AOMORI, Japan, Feb. 19 (Kyodo) - The leakage of nitric acid solution 
on Wednesday at a nuclear fuel-reprocessing plant of Japan Nuclear 
Fuel Ltd. in Aomori Prefecture was caused by the corrosion of a cap 
which was used to seal a pipe at a temporary testing facility, 
sources familiar with the accident said Friday.

The cap was made of carbon steel, which is easily decayed by nitric 
acid solution, the sources said.

The workers who installed the cap did not think that it would be 
corroded by nitric acid solution, one of the sources said.

At the JNF plant in the village of Rokkasho, officials at the plant 
found Wednesday evening that about 150 liters of nitric acid solution 
had leaked from the pipe.

The solution did not contain any radioactive substance, and no one 
was hurt in the incident, according to JNF.

The facility promptly shut down its uranium testing after finding the 
leakage but soon resumed it.

JNF began an initial test run of the plant with depleted uranium last 
December to check the operation of equipment and devices, and is 
expected to conduct an active test using spent nuclear fuel in 
December this year.
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Japan Cabinet approves bill to punish those who leak nuclear info

TOKYO, Feb. 18 (Kyodo) - The Cabinet endorsed on Friday a bill 
revising the reactor management law to punish people who leak 
confidential information on nuclear facilities, government officials 
said.

The government intends to submit to the Diet the bill aimed at 
preventing attacks on nuclear facilities during the ongoing 
parliamentary session, with the hope that the revised law would take 
effect in January 2006.

The revisions would require anyone who has present or past links to 
nuclear facilities -- including facility employees, security guards, 
maintenance workers, and employees of companies engaged in the 
facilities' planning or construction -- to maintain confidentiality 
about the facilities.

Violators may face penalties of up to one year in prison or a 1 
million yen fine, in line with the National Public Service Law, which 
subjects state employees who leak information to penalties of up to 
one year in prison.

The envisaged revisions to the law also include installing "nuclear 
materials protection inspectors" to examine nuclear facilities' 
readiness to protect nuclear materials in the event of an attack, the 
officials said.

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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) 296-1902 

E-Mail: sperle at dosimetry.com
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